Like Father, Like Son - 15

“Why?” the woman screamed, her voice thick with pain.

“Because you’re like all the other bitches who think they’re better than they ought to be.” Declan drew the blade of the knife across her stomach again, the cut forming an ‘X’ as it crossed the first one. Blood flowed down her naked legs, pooling on the floor beneath her feet.

He stepped back to examine his handiwork, his eyes glittering with hate.

“You’re insane,” she moaned.

“Not really. According to the studies I’m not insane. I know right from wrong. I hide my victims so I won’t be caught. I’m legally sane, thus I am sane. I’m not a loner, far from it, all myths to the contrary. I like people, I like playing with them. I like playing with you.”

He grinned, closing in on her again, weaving his knife in front of her face. She flinched back weakly.

“Eyes, ears, nose, throat, which to start with, which to end with.” He drew the blade lightly down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “Silly blonde bitches, always talking, always looking down on everyone as if they were worthless, stupid, well you get the picture.”

She screamed one last time when he cut out her tongue.

“Now you can’t talk.” Slowly he began removing other parts of her body, telling her what she wouldn’t be able to do as a result. She didn’t hear him. She was dead by then.

When he’d finished he moved away. “Someday mother, it will be you hanging here, keeping company with the others. When I’ve perfected my skills.”

He picked up his tools and left the mineshaft, shivering in the cold night air as he went to rinse the blood from them and his body in the stream. Then he returned, dressed, and left, walking the mile down through the dark forest to where he had hidden his car.

He arrived home to find Nicky sitting on the steps to his apartment building.