The way the woman’s body jerked when the boiling water hit it. The way the steam poured up off the water, clouding her in a sort of veil. The way the chunks of her skin had melted away from the bone. The sounds of her agonized screams were unlike anything he had ever heard before. They reminded him of Hell. Surely, that must be what eternal torment sounded like.
He began to hum the rhymes.
Images of the killings played through his mind. He enjoyed reminiscing, reliving the thrill of the kills. Some nights he dreamed about them. It was always a disappointment to wake and realize that it was over.
Maybe he was ready to find his next victim.
He didn’t quite know why the nursery rhymes were so important to him. He just knew that they were. He knew when he saw those people that they had to die.
While he was in the moment, he was on such a high. Like he was riding on a comet across the sparkling night sky. He felt so good, so invincible, so confident that what he was doing was the right thing. But after it was over, something felt different. He was no longer so happy and invigorated. Instead, he felt sad.
He didn’t like looking at their faces.
It always seemed that although their bodies were dead their eyes remained alive.
Staring at him.
Staringintohim.
Like they could see right down inside his soul. Like they knew why he killed. Like they knew all his secrets, even the ones hidden from himself, and if he wasn’t careful, they would crawl deep down inside him and rip those secrets out, exposing them for the world to see.
He couldn’t look at those eyes.
He had to cover them up.
He couldn’t let them destroy him.
So, he had covered their faces. If the eyes couldn’t see him, they couldn’t get inside him.
It seemed to work. He couldn’t feel them inside him, and he was pretty sure that if those eyes had entered him, he would know about it.
Hopefully, he had appeased the souls of the people whose lives he had stolen by making sure their bodies had been found quickly. He had taken great care to transport the teapot lady’s body to a location where he believed someone would stumble upon it.
He also thought he might have taken care to ensure that he didn’t leave any of himself on the body. What did they call that again? Taking forensic countermeasures? He thought he might have heard someone say that. It seemed like the smart thing to do. What was the point in killing if you were just going to get caught? That seemed stupid, and he wasn't a stupid guy.
Possibly crazy but still smart.
Could someone be both?
It was quite a conundrum.Hewas quite a conundrum, even to himself.
Did he like killing?
Yes, he thought he did.
Did he know why he killed?
No.
Were these nursery rhyme murders his first?
He honestly didn’t know.
Perhaps he had been killing for years. Was that something you could block out?
What nursery rhyme would be next?
He hoped it would come to him at the correct time.