May 10th
After all this time I’ve finally reached my prophesied glory, my beautiful future, and completed my apotheosis. Months of planning, weekends spent in my workshop and reading on the history of my craft and the human body, everything is in place.
I’ll spare you, my future readers, of the intricacies behind my work, for surely if you read this the police have found everything else. You will know the mechanisms of my invention, the way I went about my work, the masterful creation of each scene that has haunted this city. There is nothing left to say there, nothing left to reveal to you except for why it has been done and does that even need said?
The wolf does not justify himself to the deer, and so I shall not justify myself to you people of this city. What shall you even call me I wonder? The Wolf of Richmond? The Hunter? God, the names I will earn.
I have no illusions of getting away with my art, I will not be a shadow passing over this land but a stain that you will never get rid of. This city shall fear me, and never again shall its name be free of the reputation I carve upon it.
May 15th
The police of this city are incompetent. FIVE DAYS! FIVE DAYS AND NO NEWS? What are they even doing? Has no one noticed the smell yet, no one gone to check upon a respected member of her community? At this rate I’m tempted to call upon them myself and let them know of the canvas I decorated in their name.
Not a problem, I won’t let it be.
I wished to be a silent stalker, but some of the greatest artists have made their name known, and hiding was not a part of my plan either way.
May 16th
There was no murder.
I went to her apartment once more, opened a still unlocked door, and the apartment was clean as ever. No word of her in the news, just that she’s missing, but how could it be just that? I tore her to shreds, that apartment should not have been as clean as it was, and I don’t know what happened. All night I’ve paced the floor considering it, searching her name, and all I can figure is it was a test.
A new target I’ll need to create, a new art piece make, and this time ensure nothing gets in the way.
June 16th
I took my time finding a new target, took my time making sure that she was the right one this time for what I needed. Single mother, a child, THIS was going to be the art piece that I needed, this wouldn’t be ignored and swabbed under the rug. No one was ever going to be able to act like this crime didn’t happen, make me wonder what happened.
Signing off, and see you soon.
June 23rd
It was like it never happened.
No missing report even this time, no alert, not a fucking thing.
The house was clean, everything was clean and no one’s even wondering what happened. What the fuck is wrong with this city? A wolf runs free among your streets and no one even bothers to notice? I come here ready to give you a story, give you a stain you would never be free of, and this is how you thank me? I should move away and give a city that deserves my attention this show instead.
July 16th
I still haunt the Richmond streets, I still have five months on my lease and I do feel a strange affection for this city as a whole. Maybe it has twice rejected me, but maybe that is a sign? Maybe it was even protecting me, if you wish to believe a city is capable of such things.
It is three murders to get the coveted title of serial killer, with spacing between them, and so with this fourth I will be a legend when found. I know where to get my target, the place it shall happen, and a death in a park? Why, nobody will be able to deny my greatness then, and the residents will not walk past that point again without thinking it might be me hiding in the trees.
I’ve made a good choice too, the city granted me that vision as well. Pocahontas Park is not in the city as I wished to limit myself, but it is sparse enough for me to work outside and for no one to hear me. I can even stay nearby, stay in my car, make sure that the scene is found in the morning and that no one will ever doubt who I am.
This will be my triumph, Richmond, no matter how hard you try.
A dull tapping snapped him awake, half a snore completing even as plain man nearly knocked his head on the glass and looked up. The younger man looking down at him with a thin smile and brown undercut leaning down as asked, “hey, you doing alright there?”
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I fell asleep? The plain man scolded himself, trying to hide his anger as he put down the window of his car. The younger man cringing in disgust at the smell, but what did he know? There was no reason to be so rude even as he answered, “just fell asleep, everything okay?”
“Oh, nothing wrong,” the younger man chuckled as he flipped a card from his pocket with a shrug, “Park Ranger Lyon, some folks here, they just heard some screams last night and we were looking into it.”
They found it.
“Can’t say I heard anything, I was pretty out of it last night,” and the plain man failed to give a comforting laugh, “aren’t there some camp grounds that way? No one saw anything?”
A long pause, the ranger looking like he was considering it as he looked off towards the grounds, towards that isolated plot three bodies could now be found. His smile gone, neck tense, before he finally declared, “no, we didn’t find anything, you know? Checked all the grounds, some people heard the screams too but it’s the darnedest thing we can’t find anything out of sorts.”
The plain man clenched his jaw hard enough he thought he might have cracked a tooth as he tried to hide his reaction. Tried not to scream, yell, as HOW DID YOU NOT FUCKING FIND THEM? crossed his mind.
Tried to keep his reaction plain until the ranger slapped the roof of his car and said, “well, you should get on your way. Sleeping on the roads isn’t allowed down here, but I’ll let you off if you promise to watch yourself, okay?”
“Right,” the plain man responded, a smile forced across his lips, “I’ll be on my way.”
**
He kept his calm all the way back to his building, only breaking as he finally climbed out and let out a final scream of, “FUCK!” and kicked the battered creation hard as he could. Kicked and kicked and cursed until a new dent had formed in the side, and people were stopping on the sidewalk to stare him down.
Not a care left in him as he forced open his trunk and took the old dufflebag out, clanking with its metal inside, and shut again so the entire frame shook. Eyes forced forward on his march inside, slamming the door hard enough to crack the frame and only three steps up before he heard his landlord yell up, “hey what the fuck’s wrong with you!?”
The old man was half-out of his own room by the entrance, gesturing to the door in sheer confusion rather than anger, “hey, I’m fucking charging you for that! You don’t come into my building, and destroy my shit, you hear me?!”
“You better fucking watch yourself, or I swear to God I will kill you!” the plain man snapped back, falling over himself to run down the stairs trying to point down at the landlord, “you do not understand the fucking night I have had, do you fucking understand me!”
“Yeah, I fucking hear you, and I’m sending the bill to you soon as it comes in,” the landlord gave a snorting reply, “and don’t forget I gave you a fucking notice for the smell either! I will fucking evict you if this keeps up, I don’t fucking care if you’re paying your rent on time, you understand me now?”
And he left it at that, slamming his door in the plain man’s face and leaving him to prepare a half dozen curses and screams at the door. Too tempted to break it down and kill the landlord next, consequences be damned, make the call himself and wait in the blood so no one could ever deny what he did.
A small spark of something resembling reason stopping him as he finally stormed back upstairs and into his own apartment. The rotting stench of old meat and blood filling the air as he pushed a few empty pizza boxes off a table and dropped his dufflebag there. Opening it long enough to confirm he was right, the kills were real, the tools were used, and remove the bag of meat he’d gathered and bring it to the fridge with the rest.
It wasn’t fair.
He dropped to the kitchen floor, curled up holding his knees close to his chest, burrowing a hole into his walls with glaring eyes. Head low as he tried figuring out how this could be happening, why this was happening, and who would want to do this. He had killed people, he had made his legend known, and this was how they were repaying his work? Ignoring it?
Someone had to be hiding it, had to be trying to ruin HIM, and he was going to figure out who it was. Next time, there wasn’t going to be any doubt, and he was going to make his kill and he was going to wait there and kill whoever was doing this. They had to be stalking him, they had to be looking at him, they had to KNOW he was about to kill someone.
He wasn’t going to wait this time, not let them notice him and then go into hiding, he had to do it now. Spontaneity was an artist’ dream, wasn’t it? Tonight he was going to go out and he was going to kill the first person he saw, and then he was going to kill whoever came for it next.
**
He was in the bathroom when he heard his door open and close, washing the sleep from his face when he heard it over the sound of the city and flies. Quiet, but not quiet enough to hide it as he stormed out and screamed, “hey! You’re not allowed in here without notice, I know my fucking rights!”
The main room dark, two beams of light from the city coming in from the room’s windows, but a figure visible by the door. A darkened silhouette leaning there with their arms crossed who said, “you know, my boss thinks I should just ignore you, can you believe that?”
“Hey, you’re that fucking park ranger…” the plain man started, reaching to the kitchen counter nearby and pulling a steak knife out.
The knife held in front of him not seeming to make the ranger even hesitate as he continued, “I mean, faking wolf killings? We had to investigate, make sure it wasn’t one of us, but we caught on pretty fast. It’s getting really tiring now though and, well, boss thinks if we just let you get found it’ll be for the best, right? I mean, they might investigate the murder scenes never being found, but we can work with that, make it look like you hid the bodies, I hear they’re all dumped into similar parts of some park here or there, but… well, that doesn’t set right with me.”
“So, it was you,” the plain man muttered, stepping forward a few steps, breath quickening as he tried to figure out what to do, “you’re the one hiding the bodies? What’s your fucking problem, man, you some sort of pervert?”
“Oh, what’s my problem?” the ranger muttered, actually laughing a little at that, “well, my problem is I don’t really like mauling people, hate the taste of blood, terrible werewolf I know. You killed a kid though, man. You killed two kids, and really I don’t want to risk there being a third on my watch, not after I caught you red handed at a scene. I mean, you left I’d have to investigate this on my own, might not find you, but you waited there didn’t you? So I decided to take a night off and make sure this didn’t become a problem.”
For everything else that was said, one word was sticking with the plain man as he asked through a nervous chuckle, “did you say werewolf?”
“Terrible one, I’ll admit, blood makes me throw up if I get too much of it in my mouth,” the ranger answered like nothing was strange about it, opening the door as he half-stepped into the hall, “luckily, Samuel is very used to the taste of blood, and was willing to help even if we don’t get along all that well. Just how pediatric nurses are when kids are in trouble.”
The door closed shut, and the plain man stood stock still, heart racing, breath heaving, until the silence was finally broken. A dull voice behind the plain man spoke up, a coiled anger under each word as it declared, “So you’re the one who likes werewolves this much?”
He turned, in the dark corner of his apartment to eyes staring back at him with a yellow glow, wolves eyes. The cracking of bones and creaking of floorboards filling the empty apartment, and a final scream to break the night.
One final body to never be found.
