Darkest Places

6 / THREE /

She stumbled back, pulling herself from my weapon. Her eye remained in its socket, but gave me a satisfying slurping sound as it disengaged from its intruder. The woman, I should have perhaps asked her name, fell first to her knees and then face forward to the ground. I took a wad of tissue from my jeans pocket and removed the screw, replacing the rubber tip. Then I walked home, the pain in my back, somehow, a little easier.

I was still smiling as I closed my front door behind me.

One.

I felt as if an entire life of anticipation had culminated in that night, releasing a long held breath. I was shocked at how swift, how easy it had been. I wouldn't take that to mean it would always be so, of course. It entirely depended on the situation.

I needed sleep. The relief of finally doing it had released pent up tension and left a vacuum that only exhaustion had the energy to fill. First, I had other things to attend to.

I threw the bloodied tissue into the toilet and used some more to wipe away the remnants of gore still clinging. Flushing the toilet, I held the screw in the flow of water, rinsing it. Once the water had abated, I placed it carefully in the kitchen sink, then poured bleach over it, running the tap just enough to cover the metal.

Then I slept. Fourteen hours straight.

I woke refreshed, yawning and stretching to rid myself of the last dregs of sleep. I climbed out of bed, made myself a coffee and turned on the television. I would often watch whatever was on when the TV came to life. I didn't mind what it was, there being no particular genre or celebrity that would garner my attention. After twenty or so minutes, the nonsensical housing auction programme finished and the news came on. I watched with interest, but without trepidation. I only wanted to see if the woman had been discovered and what the police were thinking.

She had been. The newsreader spoke about the horrific death of an, as yet, unnamed female. I wouldn't have called it 'horrific'. 'Tragic', maybe, but horrific implied horror, and I didn't think that was involved. It had been an almost casual encounter, albeit one that resulted in the woman's death. An inquiry had been launched and the public were being urged to...

I switched off, both literally and mentally. I'd done what I had to. I would dispose of the screw later as I was out, then I'd just be a hobbling man with a stick who didn't quite look old enough to be so.

I planned six days, then six weeks and six months between my next ones. It seemed right. It gave me the time to keep track of news reports, and the time spans between each meant there was little chance of the deaths being connected. The fifth could be done at a random period after that, once I'd fulfilled the initial criteria, then the final one would be on the eve of my thirty seventh birthday.

There had to be more. One was such a solitary number and a whole year was plenty to get the rest in.

Two was as easy as One.

As I didn't want to reuse my method of dispatching the woman, and risk leaving any traces that night lead to me, I had to think of other ways. I'd pictured many, but few were practical, not in the real world. I wasn't going to use a firearm. I had no access to poisons or acid. I was not overly muscular and my strength was average. This could have limited my choices, but it didn't.

An elderly woman, mid eighties at my guess, lived across town. I'd seen her in the supermarket on numerous occasions, as she used to live near me and had always shopped there so didn't want to change after so many years. For me it was convenience. For her, habit. We were on nodding terms, which she took to mean she could tell me lots of details about herself and her life that I didn't want to know. Except two.

Peanuts and speed.

She would always rush everywhere, so was far removed from a traditional elderly 'Sunday driver'. She was also highly allergic. Once before, she'd almost died from its effects. She was extremely careful, yet far too trusting. I offered to help her with her shopping and she accepted happily. It was a simple matter to expose her to the dust from the bottom of a packet I'd eaten. I then left her car at a quiet intersection and let her drive off. I neither saw nor heard her crash, but I knew it had happened. The news broadcasts mentioned her very briefly after the story of a cat that had fought off multiple attempts to rescue it from a tree.

Three and four were a father and a late teenage son, the unfortunate victims of a gas explosion in their home. Faulty piping was to blame. Again, it was barely newsworthy. It didn't need to be. All that mattered was the fact they hadn't escaped the explosion. The old dear hadn't survived the car crash and, if she had, the anaphylactic shock was severe enough to take her.

I was ahead of schedule, the need for a random time slot being removed, so decided I should make a specific point. The final victims should mean something. I didn't believe in signs, but was I being given a helping hand so the completion of my task could be significant?

I didn't have to put too much thought into it. I knew who I would choose.

Finding people in this age of social media addiction and the rampant broadcasting of personal data was a simple matter. They hadn't moved far away and, in fact, I'd been no more than a twenty minute drive from their address for most of my life.

When, almost a year later, I knocked on the door, my mother's face didn't react at the sight of her son. To me, she looked just as I remembered, with barely any aging from the picture I held in my mind. I'd changed dramatically, with my blond hair darkening to brown and grey creeping in. I no longer wore glasses, either. I doubted, however, even if I looked exactly the same, she still wouldn't have recognised me. She didn't put too much effort, back then, in looking directly at me for my appearance to register. It didn't phase me. I'd expected this.

"Yes?" she said, tersely.

She looked tired and stressed. Her hair wasuntidy, as if it had been swept up in a hurry and was waiting for her to have ago at finishing the job. There was an old food stain on her crumpled t-shirt,one of indeterminable colour and origin, and she wore jogging bottoms. Builtfor comfort, not speed. There was a fading bruise above her right eye.