Today was no exception. It was right around the end of the term and the highway was full of young people in jeans, most of them with suitcases or duffel bags in tow. There were more boys than girls on the road, and what girls he saw were accompanied, either by other girls or by boys. He slowed once at the sight of two girls. He had never done two at once outside of fantasy, and his pulse quickened at the thought, but he knew the risk was far too great. One of them would stand a very good chance of getting away, and if that happened he would be in trouble.
Still, he braked the car almost to a stop just to let himself get a good look at them. They were both blondes, both clad in jeans and sneakers and school sweatshirts, both round-faced and pug-nosed and plump. And both gave him the finger when, just as they rose to approach the Lincoln, he bore down on the gas pedal and sped away.
He smiled at their reflection in the rearview mirror. He wondered if they were sisters and decided they probably were. He had slowed down to look at them in the expectation that it would fuel his fantasy, and indeed it did. He saw himself with the two of them, making one watch while he did the other, letting her know just what was coming, and then finishing her off.
Oh, nice.
He kept driving, slowing down again at the sight of a woman alone, speeding up angrily when a second glance revealed a slim boy with long hair.
A couple miles farther he found her.
She was perfect. Jeans, UM sweatshirt, Birkenstock sandals on dirty feet. Long dark brown hair in a pony tail secured by a rubber band. An oval face. Pale blue eyes, a short straight nose, pale thin lips, even teeth. Unplucked eyebrows, unpolished nails. No makeup, no lipstick.
Narrow waist, slim hips, nice little ass. Hard to tell about the breasts because the sweatshirt was baggy.
Time would tell.
She had to struggle to get the duffel bag into the backseat. Then she climbed in front, propping her large handbag on her lap, reaching over to fasten her seat belt across her body. She said, “Are you going as far as Kirksville? I live in Edina, that’s down the road from Kirksville.”
“Well, I can run you all the way to Kirksville.”
“Oh, that’s great,” she said. “This is a great car, too. This a Lincoln?” He said it was. “I guess they’re nicer than Cadillacs, aren’t they?” He said it was probably a toss-up. “I’m getting a car in the fall. They didn’t want me to have one my first year, like it’d be too distracting? Like if I had a car I wouldn’t go to my classes, but if I didn’t have a car I’d have to study out of boredom? But, you know, that’s how parents think, isn’t it?”
She chatted and he made conversation, not really paying any mind to the words she spoke. She was just right and he was going to do her and the excitement was absolutely wonderful. On the one hand he wanted to drive forever, putting off the act indefinitely, prolonging the tantalizing feeling that gripped him now. And, at the same time, he wanted to stop the car that instant, to kill her oh God yes before another moment went by.
He waited, and a third impulse came. He had the thought of letting her go, of driving her all the way to Kirksville, even turning there and taking her straight to her home in Edina, and of never touching her, never doing her the slightest injury. She would hop out of the car and drag her duffel bag up the driveway to her house, never knowing how close she had come to death.
He had that urge some of the time. Every now and then he acted on it. Every now and then he would open his hand and release the helpless bird that fluttered within, watching benevolently as she flew away. He entertained the thought, then dismissed it. No, not this one. This bird would not be doing any more flying.
A mile down the road, he braked smoothly and turned onto a gravel road heading east.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s construction up ahead,” he told her.
“I didn’t see a sign.”
“I don’t think there was one. I came down this way this morning and everything was all snarled up. We’ll cut over to the next road going north and miss all that traffic.”
Her eyes were wary. She thought it was going to be okay, she still felt pretty safe, but it had at least occurred to her that it might not be, and it was giving her something to think about.
He slowed, turned left onto a narrower road.
She said, “Are you sure this is a road? It’s just a dirt road, I think it’s just a farm road—”
“It goes through.”
She was fumbling in her purse, and some instinct warned him. He slammed the brake pedal to the floor. She was propelled forward against her seat belt. He held the wheel with his left hand and swung his right, backhanding her full force across the mouth. She cried out.
He took the bag from her lap. Just below the top layer of articles he found a canister of Chemical Mace. She cringed when he displayed it.
“I wasn’t going to do anything,” she said. “I swear I wasn’t.”
He looked at her.
“I just got scared and I wanted to hold it,” she said. “I got frightened, I… please don’t hurt me.”
“Be quiet.”
“I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
“Be quiet. And sit still.”
It was, as she had guessed, just a farm road. It would probably be safe for the next few minutes. But it would be safer still off the road, and he had her cowed now, she wouldn’t try anything. Off the road, screened from sight by shrubbery, there would be no need to hurry.
He got the car where he wanted it and cut the ignition. She was calmer now, and a little more sure of herself. “I’ll do anything you want,” she said. “Honest, anything. Just so you don’t hurt me.”
He nodded. “What’s your name?”
“Bethany.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Take off your clothes, Bethany.”
“Here? Or should I get out of the car first?”
“Stay in the car. You’ll have to unhook your seat belt first, though.”
“Oh, right.”
She kicked off the sandals, opened her jeans and raised her hips up off the leather seat to squirm out of them. He took them from her, tossed them into the backseat. She took off the sweatshirt next, and then the T-shirt under it. No bra, and her tits were bigger than he would have guessed, milky white and very nice.
“Very nice,” he said aloud.
She colored, and hesitated, and he said, “Yes, Bethany, the panties too,” and she took those off and he flipped them into the back.
He had been wearing a suit jacket. He got out of it and tossed it in back with the clothes she’d removed. He filled his hands with her flesh. She was, he noticed, not terribly clean about her person. She had a discernible body odor, along with the very palpable smell of her fear.
He made her lie down on the front seat, and he laid his body on top of hers, pressing her down onto the seat. He could feel the heat of her loins through his trousers, he could feel her tits through his shirt, and he took her face in his hands and looked at her sweet young face.
“Just don’t hurt me,” she said.
“Oh, Bethany,” he said. “Oh, you poor darling, it’s no fun if I don’t hurt you.”
He watched her face as she took in what he’d said, and it was lovely, just lovely, and he didn’t want to put her through any more and couldn’t stand any more himself. So he placed the heel of his right hand under her chin, his fingertips just grazing her lip, and he cupped her forehead with his left hand, and he pushed up on her chin and back on her forehead and snapped her neck.
#57.
The first woman he killed, the black prostitute in the downtown motel, had been dispatched in a manner that was unplanned, impulsive, and extremely hazardous. He had left traces of his presence that a police laboratory could have found. And, although the pleasure had been unprecedented in his experience, it had been managed in such a manner as to make the aftermath uncomfortable and awkward.