The Mad and the MacAbre

lapped up the water in no time, although Charlie had to keep tilting the cup, since it wasn't really designed for a dog.

Not a bad day at all. And they really didn't need to drive so far to do it again. He was sure he could find an equally nice dog park in his area. If he wasn't planning to kidnap anybody, there was no reason to be discrete.

He'd resume the hunt tomorrow. If he felt like it.

* * *

That evening, Charlie sat on the couch, watching television. Kutter lay on his lap, snoring softly.

There was a knock at the door.

Kutter immediately woke up, jumped off the couch, and ran toward the front door, barking. 'All right, all right, calm down,' Charlie said, even though he was a bit panicked himself. Nobody ever came to his door at nine-thirty at night. Hardly anybody ever came to his door, period.

He peeked through the peephole. It was a young blonde. She didn't look like a cop.

Charlie opened the door. The young woman, who probably wasn't even twenty-one, smiled brightly at him.

'Hi,' she said. 'I'm Patti, and I'm trying to pay my way through college. It's pretty expensive these days, as I'm sure you know.'

Charlie didn't respond. She sounded even more rehearsed than he did.

'So I'd like to offer you the chance to purchase subscriptions to your favorite magazines at a greatly discounted price.' She crouched down and petted Kutter. 'Aw, what a cutie! What's her name?'

'His name. Kutter.'

'Awwwwwww.' She scratched Kutter's chin, until he rolled over and she rubbed his belly.

Charlie glanced outside. Nobody around.

He grabbed the girl by the hair and yanked her inside. He slammed his hand over her mouth, kicked the door shut, and dragged her into the kitchen where he kept the bottle of chloroform.

* * *

Well, that was impulsive.

Charlie leaned against the basement wall, staring at the blonde who was now strapped to the metal table, still unconscious. He should've been cackling with glee; she was, without a doubt, the finest victim he'd ever claimed. If he believed in fate or a higher power, he would have called her a heavenly gift. But she wasn't--her presence at his door was a coincidence, and her presence in his basement was the result of acting without thinking.

He'd wanted to let her go as soon as he got her into the kitchen. Unfortunately, this wasn't like accidentally stepping on her foot or spilling soda on her blouse. He couldn't just apologize and send her on her way. She had to die.

But that was a good thing, right?

Somebody would definitely come looking for her. The disappearances of young cute college students didn't typically go unnoticed. And though she was dumb enough to go knocking on the doors of strangers after dark, she probably wasn't dumb enough to do it without telling anybody where she was going, so the search would probably begin soon.

He had to get rid of her. The question was, how much time did he have? A day? A couple of hours?

Under other circumstances, a couple of hours with a victim would barely seem worth the effort. But tonight, it sounded like paradise.

Did he have even that long? What if she lived at home, and his house was her last scheduled visit before she was late for dinner? The cops could be one or two houses down already, doing a methodical search.

Would they suspect him, though? Would they suspect that the guy with the cute dog was a killer?

Yeah, probably. Charlie still had to admit that he was kind of creepy.

'What should I do?' he asked Kutter, who lay on the cement floor, chewing on a piece of rawhide. He didn't like having Kutter down here, as if the dog might think less of him for what he'd done, but he knew that if he kept the basement door closed, Kutter would just stand outside of it and bark. Loud barking in his home was not a good thing at this moment.

The smartest course of action would be to quickly end her life and dispose of the body...but freebie victim or not, it seemed like a waste. If this was divine intervention, which it wasn't, was it a good idea not to make the most of his gift?

'Now you're just trying to rationalize it,' he said out loud. Kutter looked away from his rawhide for a moment as if Charlie was speaking to him. 'Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.'

He needed to slit her throat, soak up as much pleasure as he could from the act, and then get rid of her. Dump her in the Body Pond.

Or...?

He could take her someplace else. Someplace far away. Someplace where he could take as much time as he wanted.

His emergency shelter?

He owned a crappy little cabin deep in the sticks, about a five-hour drive away, left to him when his second set of foster parents died. He'd only visited it a couple of times, and had stocked it with canned food, bottled water, and other emergency supplies. His plan was that if he ever did screw things up badly enough that the police found out about his murders, he could hide out there for quite a long time.

The cabin was miserable, though. He'd only go live there as an absolute last resort.

And it wasn't soundproofed. His assumption was that if he ever had to flee from the police, he'd probably quit killing women for a while. Deep in the sticks or not, he couldn't have a live victim out there, so the cabin idea was out. He'd deal with her here.

Charlie walked over to the table and ran his fingers through her hair. She was absolutely beautiful.

Killing her seemed like...a crime.

What a bizarre way to feel.

He'd been given the gift of a lifetime (admittedly, a high-risk gift that could easily land him in prison) and he just didn't really want to kill her. He sort of wished he'd asked her to go get coffee instead.

The whole situation reminded him of when he'd gone to a buffet restaurant, and he'd eaten until he was full and didn't want to eat anymore. As he was walking toward the exit, he'd noticed that they put out strawberry cheesecake. He didn't much feel like eating dessert after his huge meal, but he knew that he loved strawberry cheesecake and would have pounced upon the opportunity to have some if he weren't so full, and he'd felt compelled to eat it anyway.

Would killing the girl make him just as sick to his stomach as the cheesecake?

Maybe this wasn't a good example. He could go for some strawberry cheesecake right now, actually. The point was that dragging the young woman into his house was a decision based more on what he'd wanted in the past than what he wanted now.

If only he could undo it.

'You can't change what's in the past,' he said. He'd be fine. Quite honestly, he was probably just still riding high on the adrenaline from playing with Kutter all afternoon--in the morning, he'd be absolutely delighted to have a beautiful college student to slice.

Yeah. That was it. Also, he was just nervous. One cut with the razor and he'd probably be energized with the desire to kill.

Maybe he'd use the drill instead.

No, no, the razor. Keep it simple.

He selected his smallest razor from the shelf, and then held it above the unconscious girl's stomach. He'd awaken her with smelling salts before he began the process, but he should figure out his plan of action first. 'Where to cut...where to cut...?'

He dropped the razor in surprise as the phone rang.

He quickly picked it back up--it had broken the skin on her stomach a bit--and set it on the metal table as he hurried upstairs. Kutter followed him, and he told the dog to shush up as he opened the door to the basement and