Roseanne
One Year Later
The need.
It starts like an itch. Irritation beneath my skin. Nothing I do releases the constant whisper of it in my flesh. It crawls into my mind and doesn't let go.
It becomes pain.
The longer I deny it, the more it drags me into the abyss.
I must stop it. I'll do anything.
And there's only one thing that works.
Killing.
"I need to get my shit together," I mutter as I glare at my burner phone for the fiftieth time today. We have been messaging each other for about a year. Short conversations here and there, from serial killers roaming the country to how incompetent cops and the whole justice system are in general. There were times she felt comfortable enough to share things about herself like what she had for breakfast or that she was born intersex-which I find surprising only because I've never met someone like her. I'm not going to lie, I find that so interesting too-, she has zero boundaries, if you ask me.
My thumb slides over the smooth glass as I scroll through my short text exchange with the sole contact.
Butcher, it says beneath the photo I chose for Lisa's profile-a single, steaming sausage on the end of a barbecue fork.
I decide not to unpack the various reasons I chose that picture and resort to visualizing myself stabbing her in the dick she's so smug about with the fork instead.
I bet it's such a pretty dick too. Just like the rest of her.
"Jesus Christ. I need help," I hiss.
The man on my stainless steel table interrupts my busy mind as he fights the restraints that bind his wrists and ankles, his head and torso, his thighs and arms. A tight gag traps his pleas in his gaping, fish-like mouth. Maybe it's overkill to strap him down so thoroughly. It's not like he's going anywhere. But the thrashing of flesh on steel irritates me, stoking the itch into a biting torment like talons that scrape at my gray matter.
I turn away, phone in hand as I scroll back through the handful of messages Lisa and I have exchanged in the last year since the day we met and agreed to this admittedly crazy competition. Maybe there's something I've missed in our limited conversations over the last twelve months? Is there an indication of how this game is supposed to play out? Some way I could be better prepared? I have no fucking clue, but it's giving me an epic headache.
Wandering to the sink, I take a bottle of ibuprofen from the shelf and set my phone on the counter as I tap two pills into my gloved hand, reviewing our text messages from earlier in the week, even though I could probably recite them from memory.
Butcher: I'll text you the details on Saturday.
Me: How do I know you're not just going to get a head start to win this round?
Butcher: I guess you'll have to just trust me...
Me: That sounds dumb.
Butcher: And fun! *Gasp* you do know how to have fun, right...?
Me: Shut your face.
Butcher: My PRETTY face, you mean?
Me: ...ugh.
Butcher: Saturday! Keep your phone handy!
And I have done exactly that. I've kept my phone clutched in my grip for most of the day, and it's now 8:12pm. The tick of the huge wall clock, which is truthfully only mounted on the wall facing the table to further torture my victims, is now torturing me. Every tick vibrates through my skull. Every second scorches my veins with a pulse of need.
