The Gardener

She’s the one, Curtis Edwards thought in his head. It was a hot summer day, and the humidity was thick enough to choke you. Curtis was outside of his cousin’s house fixing her car. He got extremely irritated that morning when he got the call from his cousin telling him her car wouldn’t start. Blending in was a big concern of his, and he supposed helping his cousin out is what other friendly family members would do. He was always self-conscious about the way he behaved; had to be sure he was behaving the way any other twenty-four year old would. He was after all, like no other twenty-four year old. There was some purpose he felt he needed to fulfill, but he didn’t have the slightest inclination on what that might be. Maybe that was why he found that he grew disinterested with a job quickly after starting. It wasn’t such a bad thing; as a result of having many different types of jobs, he had lots of different skill sets. Lucky for his cousin he had spent a summer working for a mechanic.

He caught a whiff of some sweet slightly acidic smell and turned around and saw the blonde from across the street. He didn’t know how he had smelled her from across the street but he would later attribute it to destiny. Now as he stood watching the blonde, he was glad he had answered his phone.

It had been a few weeks since the last one died. The last girl was some prostitute that he picked up downtown on a whim. Although she was a little on the skinny side, she was beautiful otherwise. He had no choice but to pick her up, he heard on the news this morning that her name was Crystal. She had piercing emerald eyes that had always seemed to be restless, never resting on a single point for long. Her hair was a dirty blonde tangle that fell to her shoulders. Her looks were not what made him pick her up. He was outraged by the flesh circus that she was a part of. Dozens of women willing to do anything for money, it made him sick.

He picked her up and took her somewhere dark, and immediately she was all over him whispering dirty promises in his ear as she was undoing his pants. He knocked her out easily enough with a paper weight he kept in his car just in case, and took her to his basement.

He hated his basement, the mildewed walls always seemed to be mocking him with its stern cinderblock surface, and the drain in the concrete floor always seemed to be laughing at him. Why can’t you figure it out? They always seemed to ask. Each and every girl he took down there was a means of self discovery. He knew he had to kill those beautiful whores, the ones who flaunt their pretty faces, and pretty skin and pretty nails. The way he saw it if a woman paraded her body around like a piece of meat for sale, then he could take them and do with them as he sees fit.

He smiled as memories of Crystals screams came back to him. Crystal’s death was incidental; Curtis was still trying to find the method that felt right to him. His smile deepened and it pushed his cheeks to where they were touching his glasses. Although the basement reeked of embarrassment, shame, and mildew, and although the accusing walls and drain seemed to always be staring at him, it was full of a lot of good memories. Like how it felt when he flayed the pretty skin off of Crystals face, and how her warm blood felt as it gushed out from its meaty fortress.

“She’s the one,” he repeated quietly enough so that the crabgrass would be the only witness to his testimony.

His jaw hung slack as he watched the girl across the street emerge from the old house. Her icy blonde hair hung past her shoulders and her tanned skin was working its way out off a faded green bathrobe. As she bent down to get her paper even more was put on display and he could make out a portion of her red panties. She looked up at him, squinting her eyes to block out the harsh rays of the sun. Her temporarily impaired sight worked to his advantage, and he was able to get his head back under the hood of his sister’s car before he thought she could get a good look at him.

Even with his head buried in the engine of his cousin’s piece of shit car he was still picturing her flawless face; and what he would do to it. She was easily more beautiful than the ones before her. After a good amount of time fantasizing about what he was going to do to her, he heard the bang of a screen door across the street.