“Would you relax? They caught him.”
“I don’t think they have the right guy.”
“Why not?”
“This guy isn’t just a predator, he’s a showman. This thing isn’t just art, it’s theater to him.”
“So, you’re a profiler now? Reading a bunch of slasher novels doesn’t make you an expert.”
“Whatever.”
The place was doubly crowded today after three weeks of fear and paranoia. The center of campus and city social life, and now the location of two very public murders. The first one everyone thought was a suicide at first. The body just fell from the sky, injuring a couple of people in the process. It was obvious quickly that the poor sod had been dead long before his remains had been tossed into the revelry.
Then two weeks passed with nothing. People gradually slipped back into routine. Friday night, same time, same place, he shows up. This time his victim is very much alive. The crowd watches live murder from just enough distance to be able to do nothing about it. The riot afterwards left two more dead. A girl was trampled and a young man was shot by a gun carrying civilian trying to play hero. Over thirty people were injured. Considering the size of the crowd and the number of guns it’s a miracle it wasn’t worse. This earns him a name. The Director.
A week passed and the cops got a tip. They found some evidence they didn’t talk about and made an arrest. When another week went by, the third beat in the rhythm the killer had set, and when nothing happened the city let out its collective breath and resumed life as usual. The party returned the next weekend. And because the people of the city are who they are, rather than a pall being over everything, there was a frenzy. The crowd was bigger, louder, and drunker. Especially as it approached eight p.m. Dusk and the killer’s chosen hour.
“We should leave.” She bundles the baby in his stroller. It’s past his bedtime and the manic behavior of the crowd has infected him. He is not a happy camper. His tiny brown fists are waving and his cry can be heard even in the controlled chaos.
“I wanna stay until 8.”
“If you think it’s over, why are we here?”
“I do think it’s over. It’s just, I want to be sure. Besides, if you don’t think it’s over why did you come?”
“In the killer’s audience is the second safest place to be right now.”
He turned to look at her, “What’s the safest?”
Before she could answer the screaming started. They both looked. There was a woman on the rooftop of a building next to the plaza. The old train station before they stupidly moved it to the edge of town. I mean, who does that? Obviously a train should drop passengers in the center of the city. A collective gasp from the crowd centered her scrambling thoughts. The woman had a baby. She didn’t hesitate. Shoving the stroller handles into her husband’s hands she pushed to the front of the crowds until she was standing in the cleared space a mob always seemed to make on tv.
The building was not tall, three stories at most, and she could clearly see the woman’s face. The woman was young, barely in her twenties, at most. Fair skin and dark, wavy hair the young woman would have been pretty if her features hadn’t been so twisted. She couldn’t clarify the emotion. Terror? Rage? Some perverse combination of both? Right now it didn’t matter. In a voice that slid under the noise of the crowd and crawled into the woman’s, the girl’s, ears she said, “Hurt that baby and I will kill you. I’ll do it with my teeth. I will chew through skin and flesh and your warm blood will pool in my mouth as you die.”
The girl went rigid, then threw the baby off of the building. Leaping she managed to catch it. It was a toy. A doll. One of the super realistic animatronic ones. “Just a doll,” she called out holding it aloft. The explosion threw her to the ground.
She hadn’t expected bombs. It seemed such a blunt choice for a previously elegant killer. At least her husband and child were alright. Better than she was though the paramedics told her that it was a miracle she wasn’t more damaged. They’d suggested she go to the hospital, but hadn’t pushed it. The place would be overwhelmed as it was. She hadn’t seen them yet, her husband and child. Just talked to them on the phone. They’d reassured each other over and over again and decided to meet by the fountain before making the trek back to the car.
She walked through a shambling crowd dusted in debris and speckled with blood. Eyes were mostly large and blank. That’s why she noticed him. White guy, kinda cute in a frat boy way. He came out of the darkness holding something fresh and green. As ash covered as the rest this guy’s eyes weren’t blank. They positively sparkled.
“I saw what you did,” he said. Almost whispered. “I saw you.”
The ringing in her head grew louder and pounded in rhythm to the pain. Instinctively she knew not to touch his offering. “Who are you?”
“What are you?” He returned, thrusting the herbs towards her. She punched his wrist causing him to release his bundle. The other hand slashed out, scratching him across the cheek. He backed away his hand to his face, then turned and ran. His flesh and blood were warm under her nails. She contemplated it for a minute then got out her phone and called Joey. The cops would be overwhelmed but Joey would pick up once he saw it was her. They had him.
There’s another bit when they’ve arrested the Director and his wife. A young, pale woman she fears her husband as humanity once feared the old gods. They are both handcuffed in the back of a police van being transported when the killer husband frees himself and takes out the driver. There are no other people- it is a dream so it doesn’t have to make sense. Anyway, the Director is about to leave when he realizes he can’t just leave his wife behind. He frees her and offers his hand. As she takes it she doesn’t know to feel elated or doomed. Then I wake up.