(CW: rape, gore, violence against women and children)
Markus Brightwater was not a serial killer. He planned to fix that. When Markus was fourteen years old he decided that his existence would be dedicated to snuffing out the lives of others.
At age fifteen, he bludgeoned a middle schooler over the head with a brick and pushed his still-warm corpse into a half-frozen drainage pond. At eighteen, he more cautiously strangled, gutted, and then raped a young woman at her campsite in the Poconos. He still had a lock of her hair.
Two kills was enough to make Markus a murderer, and he had hoped, a notably bloodthirsty one. But three was the benchmark. To join the ranks of his gods, Kemper, Popkov, Gacy, Little, he needed to take one more life. One more. He thought about it for a while. This one was special. A milestone to be remembered. A standard to be set.
His first kill, the boy, Ray Whiting, was a crime of opportunity, and a sloppy one at that. He was lucky to get away with it. His second, Darcy Allbrooks, was certainly more well planned, but to Markus, he felt like an amateur in the act. His hands wouldn’t cease their incessant trembling and he could barely stay hard, let alone finish.
Number three had to be different. Brutal. Horrifying. Something to sit firmly in the minds of his admirers for their entire lives, a truly unforgettable crime.
Erika Nilsen’s teeth chattered as she made her way into her rental home. She clutched a small white paper bag between her lips and unlocked the door with her left hand. Her right arm, which was wrapped snugly in a dark purple cast, thumped with pain. The displaced break would take a few months to heal, and after 5 days of agony she gave in and filled her painkiller prescription.
Her rental, in which she had recently become the sole inhabitant of, was a small 2 bedroom home above a garage. She began up the steps but stopped a third of the way up. Tinnitus. Again. Or something close to it. Her ears panged as the sound of her own respiration became unbearably loud. She leaned against the wall and waited for the barrage to end. Her doctor was insistent that these spells, however common they had become, could not be due to the injury. He believed it was either entirely unrelated, or a symptom of trauma due to the attack. He recommended a “good therapist.” Erika didn’t believe such a thing existed.
She made it up the stairs and to her kitchen sink. Filling a glass of water with one arm was tedious. Then the pill bottle.
“Fuck me.” She felt her voice crack. The pill bottle had a safety cap. She tried to pinch the bottle between her free fingers and depress the lid with her left hand, but she didn’t have the strength. Then she tried her teeth. Then she pinched the bottle between her knees. She cried. Throwing the bottle against the wall didn’t help. When she put the pill bottle in a salad bowl and began to saw at it with a steak knife, an eager cut sliced open the tip of her pointer on her right hand which braced the bottle.
Her own yelp was so deafeningly loud it sent her into the cabinets behind her. She crumpled into a pile on the tile floor and grabbed her fingertip. The blood had already run down into her cast. She squeezed her eyes shut as the sound of her own flowing blood and exasperated gasps smothered her thoughts like quicksand. She wrapped a dish towel tightly around her cut, wandered to her bed, laid down, and fell into a lonesome state of unconsciousness.
Markus watched her house for a while. At ten o’clock, it had been three hours since a light had been switched or a shadow had been cast. She was a responsible girl, he knew that. Asleep by nine on some nights. He found this ever-so endearing about the black haired girl he knew not the name of. She looked like an Alice, or maybe a Sara, no H. He wanted to ask her.
Picking her lock was simple. Sneaking into her room was even easier. She was tired. She didn’t stir when he pocketed her phone and made way to her kitchen. This time, Markus felt cool. His hands were steady, his palms dry. He was going to relish the night.
He sat his Jansport bag onto the countertop and retrieved the bottle of red wine he had bought weeks before. He stuck it in Erika’s freezer. Then he diced the eggplant, the squash, the zucchini. Erika had a wide, somewhat deep pan Markus thought would work nicely. Thankfully she had some olive oil too, the one ingredient he had forgotten. “Deconstructed ratatouille.” Just like his venomous bitch of a mother used to make. He decided he would wait for his dinner guest to awaken before he added the sauce and stuck it in the oven.
Erika rose to a pungent smell. The allicin in the air burnt her nose into a crinkle. Thumping pain in her right forearm drummed her from awake to alert. Her heart stung as she became chillingly aware of an alien presence in her home. A ray of yellow light shone through the bottom of her bedroom door. She reached for her phone. Gone. She rifled through her covers to no avail.
A metallic clang echoed from the kitchen. Pots and pans? That ruled out her old roommate, Georgia, who subsisted entirely off of takeout. She returned her key anyway. Erika scanned the room for something, anything to defend herself with. Her bedside lamp was too unwieldy. A book? Her nightstand? She settled on the pink salt lamp that glowed dully on a windowsill. She yanked the cord from the wall and clutched the pink rock closely with her clammy hand. She tucked it under her arm as she turned the doorknob. She wanted to cry.
Ballroom music played quietly from her kitchen. She could see a figure, a tall, thin man with moppy hair, running a knife under sinkwater while he bounced his shoulders to the music. Erika fought to keep her breaths quiet. She shifted the lamp between her hands. He was tall, but if she lifted the lamp over her head, she could slam it into the back of his head and get away. She took a half stop toward the man. Her feet felt heavy. Then another. She lifted the lamp overhead. Another step. Almost there. Her knees felt weak.
“Rise and shine!” Markus smiled wide at Erika. She yelped at the lamp clattered across the floor, toward Markus’ feet.
“Won’t be needing that anyhow.” He kicked the lamp across the room. “I hope you’re hungry. You’re not allergic to tomatoes are you? I noticed, no ketchup in the fridge.”
Erika’s lips curled downward. “P-please… no…” She shook her head. Her eyes never left the long knife, her knife, in the man’s right hand.
Markus looked at the knife. “Oh, this?” He scoffed. “Relax. Look.” He dropped the knife in the sink. “See? Sit down, please.” He motioned to the small kitchen table. Erika shook her head.
“Alice…” Markus sounded disappointed. “Oh! That’s the name I gave you. Was I right?” Erika said nothing. “What’s your name sweetheart?” He took a few steps closer. He took a strand of hair from each side of Erika’s face between his fingertips. “Is it Sara?”
Erika sprinted toward the stairs. She made it about halfway when Markus grabbed a fistful of her hair and whipped her into the hardwood. The back of her head cracked hard against the floor and her head felt like it was filled with cotton. Her eyes watered. Markus dragged her by her broken arm back toward the kitchen. She was too dazed to fight back as he duct taped her good wrist to her casted arm.
“I wanted this to be nice.” Markus crouched in front of her. “I was cooking for you. A guest in your home, cooking for you, and you treat me this way!?” His face shook with venomous fervor. He cocked an arm back with his fist balled and Erika winced. He shook his head and returned to the counter. He poured the jar of marinara over the pan of vegetables and put it all in the oven. “I’m not gonna let your attitude ruin a nice meal.”
Markus stomped to the sink and retrieved the knife. Erika began to scream and pushed herself against the cabinet behind her. Markus grabbed her ankle and she kicked at him with her free leg.
“You are making this harder than it has to be!” He knelt on one leg and trapped the other under his arm. “Not a lot of meat on here.” He plunged the knife into Erika’s calf. Not much resistance was met as the knife penetrated out of the other side. Markus sliced away a hunk of flesh. Black blood pooled onto the kitchen floor. Erika cried. The sound of her flesh being carved became deafening, and the flowing blood roared in her ears. The music playing from Markus’ phone was maddening. Iron and acid assaulted her nose.
“Why? What are you doing to me?” Erika begged, adrenaline straining her words into wails. Markus picked the blob of meat off of the floor and dropped it into a frying pan. He set the heat to high.
“Alice. I just want to kill you. Maybe fuck you.” Markus explained as he salted the sizzling meat. “But that’s nothing special. People are killed every day. Murderers rot in jail, nobody knows their names. But with this.” He motioned from her bleeding leg to the pan. “With this, I am IMMORTAL.” He flipped the meat with a pair of tongs.
Erika was losing consciousness. Markus looked at the timer on the oven and sighed. The meat was gonna be done long before the ratatouille. If Alice wasn’t so fucking hysterical, his plan may have gone more smoothly. “So, I’m gonna eat you. I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna rape you. I’m gonna do it all over again to another girl. And I’m gonna live forever.”
Erika didn’t respond. Her head hung to her shoulder, her shoulder length hair cloaking her pale face. Markus plopped the thick piece of seared calf onto a cutting board. He cut it in half. Still rare. That was fine. He trimmed off a golf ball-sized hunk and brought it to his lips. Crunching it between his teeth yielded a mouthful of blood. It was fatty, almost gluey. He gagged and pursed his lips. He spat it into the sink and gagged again. Vomit erupted from his stomach. A nervous appetite rendered only viscous bile. He coughed and shuddered, wiping tears from his eyes. He turned off the oven and grabbed the pan of half-cooked vegetables, burning himself.
A roar of frustration escaped Markus. He took half of the meat from the cutting board and squatted in front of Erika. She looked lifeless. Pulse check. Still beating. Markus took a handful of Erika’s hair and pulled her head upright. He pushed the bloody hunk against her lips. “Eat.” He smashed it against her face. “Fucking eat it!” He slapped her cheek. “Wake up! And! Eat!”
Erika’s spine arched hard as she sucked air. A deathly shriek broke from her jaws and her limbs flailed. Markus was startled to his feet. Erika screamed again. Short breaths punctuated endless howling. Her left hand pulled at the edge of her cast.
“Shut up!” Markus demanded, a now invisible presence in a room he previously dominated. Erika’s cast began to break. Her eyes, once brown and soft, appeared sharp and bronze. Tears streaked her face as the hard cast broke away. A sickly black bruise surrounded a stitched wound, a series of jagged punctures stained with blood and peeling skin. A nasty bite mark. Markus cringed at the infected, noxious smell.
“Shut up!” He said again, Erika’s wails becoming more incessant, more deafening. “Shut up!” He took the kitchen knife from the counter, straddled her, and hammered the blade into her chest. Again. Again. Again. Thirty times. Forty times. Erika laid still. Markus climbed off of her. “Stupid bitch! Fucking ruined it!” He kicked her lifeless body. He wanted to fuck her now. He wondered if he could get over the smell of her wound.
He’d wrap it with something so he wouldn’t have to look at it. He went into Erika’s room and found a black t-shirt to tie around her arm. He decided he’d drag her to the bedroom and rape her there. He squeezed himself through his jeans. He wouldn’t let it be like last time.
Back in the kitchen, she was gone. The girl he stabbed until his shoulder burned. Gone. Just a pool of blood. Streaks across the tile. Markus followed them into the living room. The lights were off but she had nowhere to hide. He paced around the room and froze as he turned back to the doorway. Perched on the ceiling above the doorway, was a shape. Small and dark. Black hair cascading from its head down toward the floor. It growled through pained breaths. Her bloodied white shirt. “Alice.” Markus said. “How… let’s talk.”
Dagger shaped ears lifted from Erika’s head. Her claws dug firmly into the ceiling. Her wounds closed. Her legs, now digitigrade, whole. She dropped to the floor on all fours. She growled. She screamed. She howled. Her small legs launched her toward her prey.
Markus jumped aside and grabbed the monster’s hair. He used her momentum to swing her by the hair, into the wall. She rolled back to all fours. The light from the kitchen illuminated her small frame. Her body was covered in short, black fur. Her eyes flamed gold, and her face was recognizably delicate beneath a hairless snout. Fangs gleamed in the light.
She charged again, Markus fleeing in vain. She pounced onto his back, slamming her clawed hands into Markus’ back, her small frame generating supernatural power. Ribs snapped. Strips of flesh torn away. Markus cried out and rolled onto his back. The carpet stung against freshly carved gashes.
The wolf mounted him again, seemingly even more animal now than the last time he had gotten a good look. He could hear her bones popping and tendons stretching. She slammed her claws into his arms as he guarded his face and neck. Her fingers slid beneath the flesh on his stomach and ripped it away like the cover of a rainsoaked paperback. Markus’ screams were growing weak and girlish.
Erika tore through his abdominals with her fangs and greedily slurped at his sweet intestines. Wolfish moans of base satisfaction gurgled through the wet pool of Markus’ stomach cavity. Every gulp added to her form, brought her further from humanity. His screams became whimpers and then gasps. His organs were devoured before he could die.
She ate his heart. His lungs. His flesh. His bones. Markus Brightwater was completely and utterly devoured. His grave was the stomach of a behemoth wolf.
The flames danced across Erika’s soft brown eyes as her bloodied carpet immolated. She held both hands to the warmth of the fire and then pressed them to her cheeks. Relief from the bitter sting of the night air. She didn’t remember much of the night before, but she understood. Her teeth looked different the next morning. Her hair was clean. Her wounds, gone without a trace. Old scars were healed.
From then on, when night would fall, and cloak the world in impenetrable darkness, a strength would possess Erika. The taste of blood would intoxicate her spirit, and liberate her from nightmares.