Covered In Crimson

Who They Were

Blood. There’s so much blood. It creates a path that you follow. Why is there so much blood in your house? Is that... is that a handprint? .... A bloody handprint? ... Is that a body? Whose body? Your mother’s body? No, no please stop screaming; it’s quite alright, I promise you. You see, I’m not really here to comfort you. I’m really just hiding a knife behind my back. It’s already stained crimson after I stabbed your mother. And now I can do the same to you. Stop screaming; it can’t honestly hurt that bad. It can’t hurt as bad as it did when you betrayed me. You knew that he was hurting me, yet you did nothing to help me. That’s alright though. Before he started hurting me, he taught me ways to get even. This is my favorite. You don’t have a pulse anymore do you? Good. Let me get the gasoline and a match. I hate the smoke, but fire does well to cover my tracks. You never had a chance, darling. You didn’t help me, so I hurt you. Goodbye. I hope you enjoy the afterlife.

I stalk out of the back door. The flames are crackling, and neighbors will call the fire department soon. Not to worry, I can be far from here by then. I’ve made it a hobby of mine. Killing people. Some people would consider me to be a psychopath, but I don’t worry about them. If they bother me too much, I have no issues with adding them to the list of my kills. I’ve been tracking down my peers from high school. I’ve been killing them. Don’t worry about it, I’m very careful with this line of work. Some have mysteriously tripped into pools, others have died in fires, a few have committed suicide, plenty have randomly ran with a non-existent boyfriend or even just disappeared. My ideas never seem to end. When it comes to revenge like this, I’m cautious while reckless at the same time. I’ve always been talented at covering my tracks.

-------------------------------------------------------

        “Today is April fifteenth. I will have my first session with Scarlett Fay, homicidal psychopath. Twenty-two innocent lives have been lost due to her. I want to find out why.

“Hello, Scarlett. How are you feeling?”

Silence.

“I am Doctor Lytelve, and I was hoping to ask you a few questions. Would that be alright, Scarlett?”

The girl’s eyes’ narrow dangerously. The man was talking down to her, as if she were a child. She didn’t like that. Scarlett didn’t like it at all. She was angry. Angry that she’d been caught. Angry that her revenge wasn’t complete. Angry that the stupid man was talking to her.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Scarlett told the man.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. But there are some important things to talk about. Scarlett, do you understand why you’re here?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“I realize that. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know that killing people is against the law. And I killed people. I killed lots of people. But they deserved it.”

“You truly believe that? Why are you so angry at them, Scarlett? They used to be your classmates, back in high school. What did they do that made you want to kill them?”

“They deserve what they got. All of them deserve it. It’s their own fault, not mine.”

Five Years Earlier

A fifteen year old girl trudged up the stairs in her high school, making her way to class. The large bruise on her upper thigh was throbbing, but she ignored the sharp sting as well as she could. Loud chattering surrounded her, but it didn’t meet her ears. Her dark hair covered  the earbuds. Music hid her from her misery. The problem was that she didn’t hear the boys rushing up from behind her to dump ice-cold water over her too-big hoody and skinny jeans. The music didn’t, however, disguise the snickering of surrounding high schoolers. Humiliated, the girl ran the other direction, barely managing to keep the tears from streaming out of her bright green eyes.