Diary of a Teenage Stalker

Entry Nine

June 12th

My face is all over the news, my deeds depicted on every street of every city in the US, my name is lit up in the crimson colored lights of the blood thirsty media. It’s so nice that they care again. For a while I faded from public opinion, people stopped remembering what I had done. Bigger and badder people came about doing bigger and badder things, and I waited, biding my time.

It’s a little poetic if you think about. When you stop watching the snake that’s when it comes up from behind and sinks its teeth into your ankle. Or it convinces you to eat the forbidden fruit in God’s great garden, which every metaphor you’d prefer. I personally like the second, it shows how humanity makes the same mistakes. Over and over again. And they’re surprised when events take an unexpected twist. They’re surprised when someone gives in to the “hate”. Into the insanity. But we’re all a little insane. I’m just not trying to hide it.

You’re probably wondering what I did to earn myself my own little national spotlight. But “what” isn’t quite as important as “why”. Why. Why? Why, would I work so hard to keep myself hidden, only to draw everyone’s attention back to myself after a couple months of silence? But the real question is, why did the police stop looking in the first place? There’s a simple answer really. Because the same old story turns into just that, old. It gets boring, people stop caring, especially when there’s no one out there to grieve aside from a couple who lost their only son to a tragic accident.

So I rewrote the story, threw in a little plot twist, rekindled the dying embers of what had once been a decent sized flame. And now it’s an inferno.

I moved to the Big City, wouldn’t you like to know which one, and started staying in old, run-down motels at the outskirts, where every other building has boarded up windows and a door off of its hinges. No one cares there, or asks questions about you, especially not if you pay a little extra. I get the cash off of the people I kill, call it my own little business, and I make enough to get by. No one cares if one or two people from the wrong end of society show up dead in an alley one day. The cops blame it on gangs, promise there will be an end to the violence and then the news anchors turn to happier topics of sneezing puppies and foreign affairs.

But as I said, I decided that I wanted to take my spotlight back. The people love to hear about it anyway, they love to be afraid. Oh sure they’ll gasp and moan “How horrible” or “just awful” but they don’t stop reading the stories, they don’t switch stations when the name comes up, instead they all look over and watch in a sort of amazed shock. It’s like being a movie star, everyone knows your name, everyone knows your face, in fact you’re one of the most popular people in the world. The sweet rewards of infamy.

Anyway, let’s get down to business, I’m sure you’re just dying to know, because as I’ve recently pointed out, everyone’s dying to know. You’re no different, you’re human too.

So, there’s this one single father with two children, living halfway between just enough to make it by and a comfortable life. Respectable, clean, the type of man whose death would draw attention. The kind of man who would actually have others caring, because he’s just a normal man. But the plan wasn’t to kill him. You see every Tuesday and Thursday he works late, staying out until 10:00 sometimes 11:00 at night, and that leaves the babysitter to put the children to bed.

She doesn’t lock the back door at night.

She probably doesn’t even think of it. What do they have to steal? That’s how she justifies it in her mind. Who would hurt kids?

It was late at night when I snuck into the house, almost pitch black outside because the sky was covered in a thick layer of clouds. The babysitter was drifting off in her chair, while both children were asleep on the couch, the tv was still blaring in the background.

I hadn’t planned on killing the babysitter. I’m not sure I had truly planned on killing anyone that night, but when she screamed, she sounded so much like you. She even looked a little bit like you, she had the same eyes, the same horror in them too. So I couldn’t resist. I pulled the trigger of my gun, the echoing bang split the night, and the screaming faded into a pitiful choking as she collapsed, falling off the chair and onto the floor. The noise woke the children up immediately, but they seemed too startled to scream, too shocked.  

One of them, the boy, couldn’t have been any older than four. However the girl seemed to be about seven or eight. It would have been such a shame for them to face the harshness of this world. At least that’s what I thought. They were still so young and innocent, so full of hope. Isn’t it better to die that way? Then filled with misery and pain?

Don’t worry, I didn’t kill the children.

At least directly, I didn’t attempt to.

I knew I didn’t have much time. The neighbors would have called the police already and they’d be on their way. I should have cut and run at that moment, maybe put a pair of bullets into their skulls, but I didn’t. You don’t make it anywhere in the world without taking a few risks, so I stayed a little longer. I put duct tape over their mouths and taped their wrists together and behind their backs. Then I brought them into the bathroom, used the duct tape to tie them to the handle bar sticking out from the wall and turned the water on, scalding hot. They were crying the entire time, tears streaming down their cheeks, screams muffled by the tape across their lips. I thought about staying longer, I guess I wanted to know what the smell of burning flesh was like, but I wasn’t about to risk any more.

 So I left them there, going out the way I had come in, as though nothing at all had happened.

The next day I heard about myself on national news. They called it a strange and horrifying story, but that’s what I had been going for. So, mission accomplished.

The children survived their burns, turns out the girl had managed to peel the duct tape off on her own and she got her brother out of the tub as well. Unfortunately it kept the story from being as horrific as it should have been. Two Children Boiled Alive in Their Own Bathtub, that was the headline I was going for. But, don’t get me wrong, I was glad that they lived. Someone had to tell the police what I looked like. Someone had to confirm that I was back in action.

And much worse than before.

You see, the first times, all of it was born of pure, raw emotion. All out of anger, hate, love and pity, but it’s not about that anymore. Now it’s a game, now it’s fun. It’s a race to the top, see who can stay in the limelight the longest. So things are going to get crazy, they’re going to get bloody, and they’re going to get messy. And you better believe I’m taking home the prize.

Good night. Sweet Dreams.

Always with Love,

Josh