The Purging of Bridges Valley

Chapter 10

*Warning: This contains graphic content.*

Jonathan Howell lay next to his wife Crystal and listened to her snoring. Her sharp gasps followed by a long, drawn out vibration coming from her nose kept him from sleep every single night. She shifted next to him and momentarily ceased her snoring, only for it to return with a vengeance seconds later. Sometimes he was sure she stopped breathing periodically and in those moments he too held his breath hoping that she would not regain hers. Annoyed, he sat up and quietly slipped out of bed, his pallid nakedness hidden by the absolute darkness of the room. He snatched a pillow before he left his slumbering hulk of a wife and padded out into the hall.

Downstairs, he booted the old desktop computer and sat, still nude, in the chair before it. Even waiting for it to load, his member was stiffening. This was a necessity for him-- he hardly could keep an erection for his wife nowadays. He had much darker appetites to sate.

It was Craigslist. He'd been using it for about six years now. Before he met his wife, he'd hooked up with many different women using it. Random strangers all of them, he enjoyed delving into sexual depravity as an anonymous nobody. He liked to think himself a predator of sorts, stalking his prey. He'd met Crystal using this same tactic.

Jon pulled up the website and began the hunt, which in his opinion was always the best part because of the building anticipation. He loved the internet for these things because he could cherry-pick his targets at his leisure.

Sifting through ad upon ad, he clicked through a hundred at least. His parameters were simple-- there had to be at least one picture, a brief description indicating the subject would be available to meet, and they had to live at least an hour away from Bridges Valley. The last part was crucial.

Finally he found one-- a young, slightly overweight blonde with sparkling eyes. She posed in front of a mirror, partially obscured by the flash of her phone. She wore a pink half-tank top and jean shorts, her meticulously curled hair framing her generous breasts. Jon had no real preference what they looked like as long as they were at least semi-decent looking. The appearance wouldn't matter in the long run anyway.

For as long as he could remember, the thought of death had aroused him. His pornography preferences always leaned to the rough and aggressive and grew exponentially to obscure fetishes as he matured from childhood. From ages nineteen to twenty six he participated in extreme BDSM and experimented with pain, but he learned early on that it was inflicting the pain that really got him going. It wasn't until he turned thirty-seven that he met his first Craigslist hookup in an old Motel 6 two hours south of Bridges Valley in the city of Beacon. That's when he ventured into dangerous territory.

The encounter had started normal at first. He and his first victim had engaged in various acts that most would probably deem taboo. Before long, Jon grew bored of it all. The consensual nature of the sex left him wanting more. And thus he pushed the limit for the very first time by strangling his partner. She hadn't resisted all that much. In fact she seemed to rather enjoy it at first. It was only when he continued to apply more pressure that the woman-- Ashley, her name might have been-- realized he was past the fantasy and meant to truly take her life. And so he had. He had strangled her to death and it had been the most arousing, exhilarating experience up until that point in his life. The thrill of it had then become an obsession-- something he continually chased in hopes of fulfilling that incessant need.

How he had gotten to this point was obvious, but it was a long and slow process. He'd killed five more times over six years, each time picking his prey using Craigslist, making certain that these girls were insecure loners too embarrassed of the act they were participating in to tell anyone their whereabouts.