Collection of Thrillers

Just Like Everybody Else

I don't have emotions like everyone else, I think I'm a psychopath or something. I don't feel for people and honestly I think the world would be a much more interesting place if nobody else felt anything either. Obviously though everyone else does feel and that means that logically I should feel too, so every morning I practice key emotions and expressions in the mirror and put on a mask of someone this world considers normal.

I drive myself to school not caring about the others on the road or the people crossing the street and in the parking lot I brace myself and prep myself to blend into the crowd. I smile and wave, say good morning to my classmates, apologize for bumping into someone. I go through the motions knowing that if I slip up I would possibly get my freedom take from me.

Honestly it would be so boring if I got locked up. Everyday filled with repetitive actions and people who feel too much and act much to rashly. Although this school is probably just as boring, everybody acting exactly the same, girls cry over cheating boyfriends, freshmen cower over the hulking and angry jocks, teachers sneaking sips of alcohol between classes to forget about how much they hate their idiotic students. Everyone feeling too much. Wouldn't it just be better to not feel at all. For everyone to be just like me. Filling their heads with knowledge, experimenting with each other and wondering how exactly everyone else ticks.

I think the only plus side to the whole feeling thing other people have is that their just so easy to manipulate. It does help that I am what people usually consider attractive. I once convinced a girl I was in love with her and got to experience a lot of firsts and study her body in full detail. I do wish she was dead right about now though. She fell in love too hard and now her feelings are just getting in the way. She clings and clings and feels and feels and I just need her to leave me alone so I can move one to me next person. I just don't know how to rid myself of her in a way that would be socially acceptable.

So I make my way to my locker and there she stands, a grin that would make any normal person shudder plastered on her face. She greets me cheerily and I fake excitement to see her. I do the traditional boyfriend thing of placing my arm lazily around her shoulder as we make our way too class. Her short skirt bouncing, her bleach blonde hair brushing against my arm, her shrill voice all annoy me.

Through the day I go about my usual routine. Teacher's pet, social butterfly, class clown, all things that make a person likable, acceptable, desirable. Blending in with just the right amount of standing out. Studying people's social cues and mannerisms and assimilating them into my own false personality.

During lunch my "friends" bring by a new girl. I study her. Green eyes (rare at this school), long bright naturally orange hair (even rarer), freckles scattered across her face like paint splatter (not so rare but rarely visible), long legs, long arms, long fingers, thin (almost skeletal). I admire her through her thin dress. Rib cage, collar bones, hip bones, small breasts, the fabric of her dress clings to all her high points.

I flash her a smile that I've practiced in the mirror a million times, a smile I adopted from movie star interviews and charismatic talk show hosts that I spent studying the summer before starting high school. She smiles back shyly. I've been told I'm the most attractive of my group so that might be putting her off a bit. She slides in next to me after a bit of pressuring. It's nice to have something new to look at. I was getting bored of the usual girls here.

I draw her in with me charisma, I make her laugh, I make her blush. I place my hand gently on her thigh. Out of the corner of my eye I see my "girlfriend" and the clear anger plastered on her face as she quickly turns out of the room. I place my hand between the girl's shoulder blades, I feel her breath beneath my hands, she's colder to the touch than I imagined.

I invite her to my place after school.

We pull into my driveway and a familiar car sits there before us. Even more familiar bleach blonde hair sits on my doorstep. She stands, her face stained with tears, makeup wiped off in most places, freckles that I've only seen a few times peek through her own mask. I plea for her to listen, I guide the girls inside. This is getting to be a bit much for me, stupid girls with stupid feelings. I guide the girls to the kitchen and my false hospitality pours them some glasses of water. The new girl tries to apologize and excuse herself. I am curious to know what she feels like so I beg her to stay. My false care asks my "girlfriend" to understand that we are just friends, that I was only going to answer her questions about the school and the people who go there.

She grows increasingly angrier and at some point she pulls a knife from the drawer in a movement that seemed all too natural and fluid. The new girl screams and begs and I give up my false personality as I watch my "girlfriend" drive the knife into the new girls stomach. Her body crumpled to the ground as my "girlfriend" burst out into a maniacal laughter. Her face warped into something new something I'd never seen before and suddenly I was intrigued again. I pulled her close and placed my lips on her. She whispered the names of all the other girls she'd killed in the name of love and I whispered all the names of the people I'd studied and as she cut up the new girl I admired her parts and disposed of them carefully and completely. Later I study my girlfriend in a way I never had before, not in secret but with her fully knowing what I was and I fully knowing what she was.

We continued our lives, wearing our masks in public and showing ourselves in private. She killed and I disposed. Girls upon girls filling the sinkhole that sat on the edge of town. Grown men getting called into questioning about all the missing girls because nobody would suspect a couple of high school kids.

Eventually I got bored of this too so her body ended up in the sinkhole too and I put on a face of grief and got pity from the people around me. Honestly feelings are so annoying.