"Do you have an appointment?"

The girl stopped walking towards the office door and stared blankly at the secretary.

"What?"

The secretary looked impatient. "Do you have an appointment? With Mr. Franks?"

The girl looked confused and distracted as she shifted her gaze from the secretary, to the door and back again. "Um... no?" Her left hand was inside her purse, but the arm muscles shifted like she was clenching something in there.

"Then I'm sorry. I can't let you bother Mr. Franks without an appointment."

Hot anger flashed in her eyes and she looked like she was about to say something. Apparently thinking the better of it, she turned and stalked out of the office.

'Weird,' the secretary thought to herself as she sighed and looked at the clock. 'Oh, only two hours until five o'clock. Thank the gods.'


The moon cast her light down on the sleeping city. Sorry, no, wrong story. Try again.

The lights of the city, which was never entirely asleep, were bright enough that the moon's contribution made very little difference. Our girl walked briskly down a street, hand still in her purse. Her hair was very carefully done up at the back, and her purple dress barely covered her body. This outfit, along with the blood red lipstick she was wearing, made her look like a street-walker.

She didn't mind. In fact, that was her plan. She smiled softly and whistled a tune.


The secretary had gone home, and there was no-one to keep her from her goal.

Him.


He looked up when she came in, and smiled. He was, she assumed, expecting 'company'.

"Hello, Al," she said softly.

"How do you know my name?" he queried. He glanced at his door, with the name-plate on it, telling everyone that this office belonged to Al Franks, and his face cleared.

The streetlights spilled in the window as he came towards her, taking off his tie.

She turned and shut the door, eyes dark with excitement. Turning back, she smiled with her lips, but not her eyes. "Do you remember me?"

He stopped advancing, confusion settling in his eyes to stay.

"No, I can see you don't," she continued, removing her left hand from her purse, and with it, a knife.

Fear had now moved in with confusion. "Sh-should I?"

Her smile grew, revealing pointy white teeth. "Let me tell you a story. Sit down." She pointed with her knife at a chair.

He sat down obediently while she severed the phone cord and locked the door.

"Move a body part and lose it," she told him, eyes full of deadly promise.

He stiffened and told his body not to shake.

"Okay, now you probably want to know why I'm going to kill you."

He blinked.

"Oh yes, I *am* going to kill you, but, don't worry, I'll tell you my reason first... part of it."

She sat down on another chair and looked hard into Al's eyes.

"Three years ago, your company was buying out a family business called Don's Electricity Company. It had been in the family for, oh, years and years. Sure, it had a stupid name, and, yeah, it wasn't making much money, but that family loved it, and so when they realized they had to sell it, they were heartbroken.

"There was a girl in that family, a young thing, pretty, happy. She was about 13, full of promise. After you bought the company, you befriended her family. They were never much for grudges. You promised to pay for the girl's schooling."

Recognition joined fear and confusion moved away.

"You remember now, don't you?"

He nodded shakily.

"But I haven't told you the rest of the story. And you want to hear it, don't you?"

He eyed the knife nervously and nodded again.

"That girl had potential as a story teller, a writer. People enjoyed hearing her stories. Are you enjoying this one?"

He nodded a third time and started to speak. "I-"

"No! Don't say anything. Nothing you say can undo what you did. Say any more and I will make your death even more painful then it should be."

His eyelid twitched, but he didn't try to speak.

"So let's finish this epic, shall we? One day you invited the girl over. For dinner, you said, and drinks. Her family encouraged her, and she, young as she was, felt excitement because she had a secret crush on your second son. 

"Do you remember? Do you remember her look of surprise as you locked the door to your study behind you, locking her in with you? And then, the horror dawning in her eyes as you ripped her clothes off, ruthlessly hitting her when she screamed for help?

"But no-one came. And do you even remember the pain on her face as you plunged into her? Taking her virginity, taking it against her consent? She was only 14 at the time. Her birthday had been the week before, remember? Do you? I doubt it. How many other young girls have you deflowered? How many more would you, if I didn't kill you tonight?"

She stood up and started pacing. "The girl walked home, her dress torn. It had been bought specially for the occasion, did you know that? Her family didn't want to believe her, but they did in the end. There was nothing they could do, so they sent her to live with her aunt, across town. She still has nightmares, you know, of how it felt when you plunged into her." With that, she pressed her knife into his stomach, matching her thrusts with her memory of those he had made into her. He made a choking sound which sounded so like the one she had made two years before, and she was moved by the irony of it. Her face looked bright with an agonizing ecstasy. When he stopped convulsing and slid to the floor, she felt for his pulse. Feeling none, she backed away from the corpse, his blood, as red as her lipstick, redder, on her hands. She moaned and stared at it. It looked so much like the red she'd had between her thighs that fateful evening. She reached down and wiped her hands between her legs.

"You killed my soul that night," she told the corpse. "You killed everything I had. Now I've killed you. And, you know what? That doesn't change anything. I thought that maybe, maybe if I killed you, made you pay, then my pain would go away. But now you're dead and I still hurt." She put her hands on her abdomen. "I still hurt here. I thought that once this was over, when you were lying on the floor in front of me, your blood on my hands and on my knife, aware, fully aware of why I did it, that I would be able to look at life and see the good things again. That I'd be able to look at you and feel nothing, neither anger nor fear. To be empty. That's what I wanted."

She looked up at the ceiling as a single tear rolled down her cheek. She caught it on her finger and looked wonderingly at it. "Did you know I haven't cried since That Night? I used to cry all the time, for no reason, and then when I finally had a reason, I couldn't. I always thought that it was odd. I still do."

She was shaking as she put the knife down on her desk.

"They won't catch me, you know." She held up her hands. "It looks like I'm not wearing gloves, but I am. A friend made them for me. But, no, I don't haven't friends. Not any more. Let's call him an associate. So they won't catch me. At least, in theory. I almost wish they would, but I do have one reason for living."

She knelt down by the corpse and looked carefully at it. His face looked so much nicer now, less greedy. "There is one bit of the story that I didn't tell you. I don't mind saying it now. While I was recovering from what you did to me, I discovered that I was pregnant. I had your child. A boy. I called him Richard. He's a little over a year now. He is why I don't want to be caught, why I won't be caught."

She stood. "I still hurt," she said, "but I will live. I'll get over it. My aunt is taking Richard and me away from this city. I told her there were too many memories here. It's true, you know, but going away won't help me. No matter where I go, those memories will follow me. And so, for now, until Judgement day, goodbye."

She unlocked the door and walked out of it.

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This is copywritten to me. Ugh...