Chapter 13
The parking garage was risky, but it was her best option. Jenny made note of where each of the cameras were and was careful to walk between them without appearing to try. Her bag held her tools and she’d surveyed the location she wanted.
The outermost stairwell was sparsely used, far from any of the cameras, and its door was thick enough to muffle most sound. Jenny cautiously went inside the vertical concrete tunnel. She waited in the shadows for twenty minutes.
Light footsteps echoed on the steel stairs. Jenny had her gloves on, and her hair tucked into her baseball cap. She held her metal flashlight near her chest. The woman was right on time and alone. Jenny snuck behind her as she reached for the heavy door.
THUNK.
The killer struck her prey with the electric torch, tied the victim’s hands behind her back, and stretched the silver tape across her lips. Jenny felt elation as she dragged the confused woman down to the bottom of the stairs. Luckily this blow hadn’t knocked her target unconscious like the last one.
Her prey flailed and begged with her wide eyes. No one else would be in these stairs until the security patrolled in nearly an hour. Jenny felt her heart pounding with anticipation as she took out her knife.
She ran the tip of the blade along the crying woman’s cheek, down her neck, past her shoulder, and to the inside of her arm. The predator made a small cut and watched the blood ooze from the wound. Jenny was hypnotized by the small red orbs emerging from beneath the skin.
The victim flopped around making the tiny gash splash all over the cold stone floor. Jenny knelt on the girl’s ankles to hold her in place. She leaned down to make another incision inside each of her thighs. The blood pooled up under the bound woman.
Jenny admired the patterns in the sanguine fluid as it leaked from her victim’s head and limbs; it was like seeing images in clouds on a beautiful day. The murderer knew she had limited time, but she needed to raise the ante.
Jenny made two parallel cuts on the woman’s arm, then a third connecting them. She pulled at the derma until a strip of skin was flapping. Her prey screamed through the duct tape; it came out as a high-pitched groan. A shiver of enjoyment drove the killer to frenzy.
She ripped the loose skin and slashed the thrashing victim’s throat. Crimson spurted and soaked Jenny’s clothes. The predator stepped back and watched her quarry take each breath until there was no air left. Jenny began to remove her soiled clothes and wipe her arms clean with baby wipes.
The murderer put on the attire she had stowed in her knapsack and placed her ruined clothes into a plastic shopping bag. Jenny meticulously checked for anything to commemorate the conquest. Nothing. She cursed and decided to up the thrill once more: she stole a plain silver ring from the corpse’s finger.
She doused the body in bleach from her plastic water bottle and emerged three levels up in fresh clothes and shoes. Carrying the evidence—wrapped in plastic—in the bag on her back, Jenny left the garage unseen and unnoticed. She spent another hour disposing of her bloody outfit in various eatery dumpsters under mounds of rotten food.
Another successful night on the prowl, Jenny went to bed with pleasant thoughts and a song in her heart. She slept like a cat in the sun. The killer dreamed of the time she could take when she was finally a homeowner. Figment curled up with his human and she hugged the cat in her repose.