Charlie nodded. Why wouldn't she leave him alone?
She stood there for an excruciatingly long moment, as if waiting for him to continue their conversation. He had nothing to say. Finally she left.
* * *
Charlie sat in his basement, staring at the empty table. He'd disposed of the dead woman in what he liked to call the Body Pond four days ago. She should still be alive and thrashing around in front of him. He had no idea how he was going to make it all the way to September 24th, the day he was allowed to stalk his next victim. He'd go insane.
She really shouldn't count. If they died in less than twenty-four hours it shouldn't count. Otherwise it wasn't fair. Just not fair.
He closed his eyes and lightly rapped his head against the basement wall. This wasn't about fairness. This was about being careful. He'd go hunting every week if he knew he wouldn't get caught, but after claiming his first victim three years ago in what had been the greatest single moment of his life, he'd promised himself that he wouldn't get greedy. Wouldn't get sloppy. One kill every other month.
The schedule had always worked out well. It gave him something to look forward to. But after getting ripped off so badly this time, he wasn't sure he could wait for the next one, especially because he rarely found somebody the first night of a hunt. It usually took a couple of days of searching to find a suitable victim where there'd be no witnesses and little chance of injury. Sometimes it took more than a week.
He couldn't break the rules. He'd created them for a reason.
Yet...if he thought about this logically, which was more dangerous? Seeking another victim sooner than planned, or waiting until he was so desperate and frantic that he made a mistake? If he went now, he'd still be in top mental and physical form. In a few weeks, he might be like one of those twitching junkies he sometimes killed.
Yes, waiting was far more dangerous. He'd have to be a complete fool to wait. And since he hadn't been caught in three years, Charlie Stanlon knew he was no fool.
He'd begin the new hunt tonight.
* * *
As Charlie walked down the sidewalk, his heart raced with excitement yet he was also sick to his stomach with dread. As always, he knew that this could be the one that went bad. He could end up in jail, or lying on the street with a knife in his belly, or strapped to a metal table in somebody
He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a matching gray shirt, specifically chosen to be nondescript. The clothing was hotter than he'd prefer during the summer, even at night. But though Charlie wasn't obese, he was a couple dozen pounds overweight, and he figured he'd be more memorable to possible witnesses in shorts.
It wasn't a good evening. Too many people hanging out in groups. There was one potential: a middle-aged woman huddled on the bench at a bus stop, trying in vain to light a cigarette butt that had no tobacco left. Charlie watched her for a few minutes, then decided that she could be carrying a can of pepper spray. He had to get up early for work tomorrow, so he quit around ten-thirty, went home, and went to bed.
The next hunt began much better. She wasn't attractive, at least not at the moment, but she was young. Sixteen or seventeen. She looked scared.
For several minutes, he stood thirty feet away and watched her dig through the garbage bin behind the crappy restaurant, working up his courage to approach her. Finally he did so, keeping his pace casual, trying to be as quiet as possible.
The girl gasped and spun around to face him. She dropped a Styrofoam container and looked almost embarrassed. Her eyes darted back and forth, as if trying to decide where to run.
'Hi,' Charlie said, trying to sound friendly. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'
'I wasn't stealing anything.'
'I don't care.' That didn't come out right. 'I mean, I don't care if you were. I don't work here. Did you run away from home?'
The girl nodded. She still looked like she was about to flee. If she did, Charlie would just let her go--you couldn't be cautious enough when you were sprinting after a potential victim.
She wasn't a good choice. If she was a new runaway, then somebody was probably looking for her. Charlie preferred to prey upon people who wouldn't be missed right away, if at all. Too risky to take a girl away from parents that cared about her.
Still, he
'Do you have anywhere to go?'
'I'm fine.'
Charlie thought carefully about what he was going to say. Though he said the same thing almost every time and had even written it down, he occasionally got the words wrong and scared the woman off. 'I'd offer to let you sleep on my couch, but I'm crammed into a really small apartment and I barely have room to turn around as it is. I can't give you any money--nothing personal, it's just the way I am after getting burned a few times. Drug users, you know.'
The girl stared at him. Charlie cleared his throat.
'Anyway, I can't do any of that, but I'd be happy to buy you something to eat.'
He waited expectantly. He considered offering a friendly smile, but that wasn't something that had worked out well for him in the past. Charlie wasn't sure why. He'd practiced his smile in the mirror and it seemed pleasant enough.
The girl shook her head. 'I...I don't think I can.'
'Why not?'
'I just can't. I'm sorry.'
She stepped back. Charlie grabbed her wrist.
Oh, no. Why had he done that? He never did that kind of thing. He always got them back to the car before laying a hand on them. This was sloppy. This was horrible.
He realized that he was squeezing way too hard and let go of her. 'I'm just trying to be nice,' he said.
She ran.
Charlie took a step forward, then stopped himself. He couldn't chase her out where people might see. That was ridiculous. He'd screwed this one up and couldn't salvage it, so it was time to go home. That was his rule: if a hunt was close but didn't work, he quit for the night.
The rules were what kept him out of jail. Kept him alive.
God, he wanted to chase her. Chase her down, drag her back to where they'd been standing, and bash her head against the rusty metal side of the trash bin. Not hard enough to kill her--hard enough that she knew he wasn't playing around, hard enough that she knew he was controlling her fate, hard enough that she knew there was a lot more pain on the way.
There didn't seem to be anybody else around. The whole area was quiet.
If she was reduced to digging scraps out of the garbage, she probably didn't have much energy. He could catch her quickly. She wouldn't put up much of a struggle. He could handle the situation in less than a minute. Nobody would see.
No. Terrible idea.
'You can't win 'em all,' he whispered.
The hunt was over. Charlie walked back to his car and drove home.
- 2 -
Charlie stared at the TV for about three hours, not really watching it.
