Killer

Hello, my name is Jack Craven. I am really a very typical high school junior. I turn 17 in a few months. I worry about grades and college and girls. I like to dress nicely (I'm the type who mostly wears black). I get picked on by some kids and get along with some others. I play video games, watch television, read. I do my homework and get good grades, not great but good. However, I do have one thing that differentiates me from some other kids my age. I like to kill people.

It started at the beginning of the school year. You know, lots of pressure, got to do well to get into college, who are you taking to the dance, got finish all this homework. It is a very stressful period in anybody's life. Some people handle it better than others, and I certainly did not handle it well.

"You should get a hobby." This piece of advice came from one of my best friends. Her name was Allison, she was always there to help me out in my time of need and she gave good advice. The trouble was that finding a hobby for me was not too easy. I got stage fright, so I couldn't do theatre, I wasn't really interested in the school clubs, and I didn't have any real trade or interest. Fortunately, the answer just came to me on my way home one day.

I should note here that my parents ask me to carry a gun at all times. I live in a more urban environment and they worry about me. I've managed to keep it hidden during school hours, so I never got in trouble for it. Anyway, on my way home one day, I was spotted by this homeless guy. He came up and started asking for change. I kept walking. These guys are like cats, feed them one day, and they always come back. However, this guy was persistent. He grabbed me and started to get nastier. He went for my throat. In the heat of the moment, I pulled out the gun and just unloaded. Three shots went into the chest, one into the leg, and the last one lodged into his skull just above the right eyeball.

I recovered quickly from the shock. I took a closer look at the body. Once the initial shock passed I realized that I was calm. More than just that, I was calmer than I had ever been in my life. Any worries about college or girls or anything just faded away, like a bad dream. I looked over the body and, carefully, pulled out the bullets. I knew that the police could match them to the gun and then I would be in trouble. When I got home, I was fortunate enough to find the place empty. I went upstairs, took a nice long shower (washed away all the blood) and washed my clothes. That night, I slept better than I ever had before.

Killing quickly became the hobby Allison told me to get. Naturally, I kept it secret. Most people don't understand the fine art of being a serial killer. I would stake out my target first. Find nice homeless men and women and stalk them. I would watch what corners they took at what days and which soup kitchens they stopped by and when. I would then decide how. The gun was a nice easy way to do it, and I would continue to use it. However, I liked to keep it varied.

I took a liking to knives. I loved how many places you could stab or slash to get a good enough blood flow to bleed them out. However, knives are risky. If any part of the knife gets stuck in the body, or they pick up your fingerprints on the body when you were holding him/her down, your toast. I began to use knives only on special victims or during special occasions.

Poisons became my most frequent method. I would grab some chemicals from the chem lab labeled toxic. I would look them up when I got home. I would find out how quickly they killed the victim and any other side effects they might have. Then, I would take a sample with a syringe, find the target, and inject him/her quickly as I walked past. Nobody noticed, it happened to fast, and I got off easy.

Naturally, the police found out about my little system. I would start reading about the "merciless, Homeless Killer" and his many victims. It made me feel important to read about my adventures in the paper. I wanted to keep up that level of importance, I wanted to really make a difference. In order to do that, I would have to find real people to kill.

No one cares about homeless people. You could kill a dozen of them in one day and nobody would give a crap. So I decided to go after something everyone cares about. Kids! Not little kids, of course. I didn't want to see the creepy eyes of some Billy or Sally after I just slashed their throat. But, high schoolers, they were up for grabs. Like, say the guy who shoved me into lockers and beat me up everyday. I cracked his skull open with hammer, and it ends up on page 3 of the paper. Or, say the head cheerleader who liked to keep her fellow cheerleaders in line by making them feel fat, or ugly, or whatever. I snipe her from off a rooftop and it becomes big news. Always kids I knew, and only people who tried to make themselves better than everyone else. And then I got sloppy.

It was sometime in March. Allison comes up to me and says we need to talk. I was confused but went with her anyway. It was just after school, and she took me to a nice secluded spot. At first I thought she was going to kiss me or confess her love or something. Instead, I ended up looking into the face of Byron. Byron was a big senior who had a taste for freshmen. I knew for a fact that Byron had taken many a freshman girl (and a couple of boys) out, gotten them drunk, and fucked them good and long in the ass. This was why I had slit his throat in a back alley. Now he was looking back at me from the front page of the paper, the slit in his throat wide open like a demented grin. Allison held up the paper and looked at me. I played dumb.

"So?"

"Your knife made this cut!" She replied "The swiss army knife I gave you for your 16th birthday!!! It makes the same unique jagged edges to its cuts that are on his neck!!!"

She was right. Now I saw it. The edges were unique, and she recognized them easily. I said nothing. I didn't have to. She started to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

"To call the Police!"

Now, I obviously couldn't allow that to happen. I chased after her. As I did so I pulled out the same gun my parents gave me. "Allison!" She turned at the sound of her name. I took aim and fired. It was a shot that would have made William Tell proud. It slip right through the ribs in the upper left hand side of her chest and shot straight through her heart. However, I didn't have time to be proud. I wrenched the bullet out of the wall it had landed in with a pair of tweezers. I cleaned up my foot prints in the blood and some I had left behind in dirt. Then I left. I could see the next headline. "Killer Breaks Girl's Heart with 8 Caliber Bullet".

However, Allison wasn't the only one to have noticed something about the Byron case. I had left a hair behind. I don't know how but I had left behind a hair on Byron's corpse and not noticed. But the police did. It didn't take too long to find the DNA of the hair and match it with mine. A few days after the Allison killing, I found the police at school. One guy in a brown jacket approached me.

"Good day, officer" I said innocently.

He wasn't about to have it. He said he was investigating the recent killings. He said he would like to talk to me. He said he would like to talk to me NOW! I panicked and ran as fast as my feet could carry me. He called to two of the officers near by, and then it became a chase. I ran into town and hid in a back alley. One of the officers came by. I picked up a board, it had a bit of jagged glass sticking out of it. I picked it up and lodged the business end of the glass in his neck. I heard footsteps coming fast and hid in the alley again. This time I pulled out the syringe I had intended to use on some football player. I heard him coming down the alley. I rushed him. I could've had him, I could've gotten away. Instead, I tripped and landed on my own syringe. If I hadn't been blacking out, I might've noticed that I had stabbed myself in the exact same spot I had shot Allison. Instead I passed out.

I was "fortunate" that the cop brought me to the hospital. I didn't die, but I ended up paralyzed from the neck down. I can talk and shake my head a bit. But I can't feed myself, clothe myself or even go to the bathroom by myself. Instead I am kept in a prison for the disabled. An orderly has to carry me around in a wheelchair. He ignores whatever I say and takes me around the same five rooms frequently. I have to wear some diaper he changes. Well, that's my story. I had a fling and paid the price. I'd like to say I learned some lesson, and it is this. Never leave anything behind.