Victim #8

She was running, her breath and chest so heavy that her entire body pulsed with every pump from her heart. She could feel the stream of blood sliding down her abdomen and side from her butchered mastected breast. She barely got a tourniquet around her chest using her shirt, just enough to allow her to keep moving, while the other breast fell exposed to the misty rain.

It was dark, and the trees covered the area. Her car was still parked by the lake, but she can’t go there, it’s not safe yet, he could still be there – he could be anywhere. Her phone must have fallen out of her jean pocket in the chaos. This is what he wanted, the chase, the thrill, he set this up just for her.

The lightheadedness started to set in just as she paused briefly to breathe and lean against a tree, and without warning she fell to the ground. She crawled towards a bush to try to conceal herself. She could hear his footsteps getting closer, the crackling of sticks and leaves under the weight of each step he took.

***

Finally, she thought, a man who cares about books more than a boat… definitely swiping right on this one! They were already a match, and he sent the first message. With each passing message she liked him more and more, it also didn’t hurt that his chiseled jawline, dark hair, and blue eyes gave her chills. She imagined the restraint she would need once they met, and began down the rabbit hole of imagining what it would be like to love, or even lust again.

After a carefully deliberated vetting, she let her guard down, and agreed to go out. A picture-perfect evening planned with dinner, dancing, and desert went amazing, he was charming and funny, educated but yet mysterious. When they walked back to their own cars to go their separate ways, he made a joking suggestion about not wanting the night to end, and how peaceful it would be to sit on the swing at his dock. She hesitated, she didn’t want to seem easy. She started to say no, but instead decided that it sounded to peaceful to turn down, and promised herself she wouldn’t let things go all the way.

She followed closely behind him, heading toward his house on the lake. She called her roommate to tell her not to wait for her, and then rolled her windows down and turned up the radio.

When she got to the lake, she pulled in right behind him near a quiet dock with an old hanging swing, only the moon lighting the night. She couldn’t see his house, but she assumed it was further down the road, or had a private path through the trees. It didn’t bother her too much, she was already twitterpated and didn’t want to dampen the mood with silly questions.

They sat next to each other on the swing, it was old and creaked a little, but they didn’t seem phased. It started out as talking at first, but then the kissing began. He was an amazing kisser she thought, unlike most of the guys she’s dated who were sloppy and gross. She let her mind get caught up in the moment and didn’t even realize he was unhooking her bra. She decided not to stop him yet, a little touching would be alright.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she took in the moment as a light mist of rain started to fall, and remained oblivious to the hunting knife in his hand. He grabbed her D-cup breast, squeezing as he quickly sliced the bottom half with a honed blade, leaving it only partially attached to her chest. She screamed with a mixture of terror and excruciating pain, and fell to the dock. She crawled, but was too uncoordinated in her state of panic that she couldn’t get to her feet. He pinned her arms down with his knees and began finishing the removal while she squirmed and screamed louder.

Continuing to squirm, scream, and kick she finally got a hand free enough to push him with all her strength, but it wasn’t enough to get him off. “What the fuck!” she cried. “You fucking monster!”

He chuckled while she fought back, then stood back to his feet, holding her breast in his hand, leaving her an opportunity to run. She stumbled to her feet as fast as possible and headed into the woods, trying to get far away from him. She looked behind her, but he wasn’t there, so she continued to run but blood was pouring from her chest. She stopped and in an awkward fashion, tried her best to tourniquet her shirt around chest to put pressure in the now gaping hole before continuing to get away.

***

She could feel his breath as he got down on the ground where she had tried to hide, turning her body and forcing her to face him. That face she once saw as handsome and dreamy, was now terrifying. She felt a deep pitted nausea come over her, as she slowly dragged her legs towards her chest in the best attempt she could muster to get into the fetal position. She dazed in and out of consciousness as she tried to make her mind think of anything other than his slimy, bloody fingers now grazing from her cheek down her body to her navel.

He then sat on her chest, closing his thighs in on her arms as he forced her face sideways and pulled the hunting knife back from its holster. She struggled to breathe from his weight, but quickly found the air to scream in extreme horror as blood spued out from where her left ear used to be. She knew it wouldn’t matter how loud she screamed, no one would hear, and because of that he didn’t even attempt to keep her quiet. She went miles without seeing a house on the way there, and no one was coming to her rescue. It may have been the blood loss, the exhaustion, the weight of this monster, or just giving up, but her body eventually laxed and her consciousness turned off.

When she woke, she wasn’t in the woods, she was back by the lake. It was too dark to see, but she could hear gentle motion from the water against the dock. She was still bleeding, and she could hear her blood as it fell into the water too. She could feel the dock planks on her face, and as she gained awareness, she realized that her body lay face down on the dock, with each arm and leg tied to dock posts, fully spread apart and completely unclothed. She tried to speak, but her voice failed her, it was like her voice was swollen shut. “What has he done” she thought in horror, as her mind then went to wondering what was in store for her next. She tried to jerk her arms loose, but the ropes were so tight she could feel them burrowing into her skin.

“Not so fast” he said calmly, catching her off guard. He was there, looming above her, waiting for her to wake up for this part.

He started at the back of her neck with his knife cutting into her skin. It was a different kind of knife than before, it was smaller, more precise. Agonizing pain came over her, but not even a whimper could ecaspe. The pain consumed her as she felt blood pour from her skin, eventually falling into the water through the slats of the dock. The pain was pure torture as he sliced through her skin and all the way down her back. It was slow, and methodical. He then sliced through the skin from the top of the cut, down the tops of each shoulder, and from the bottom of the cut, down to her hips. Like skinning a pig, he peeled her skin flaps apart, and put the pieces to her sides, using a stapler to hold it in place. Five into each side made her shudder every time she heard him pull the trigger from the staple gun. She could feel him smiling through the process, as if he had created a morbid piece of art.

Tears continued to pour down her cheek and she started to hyperventilate, she couldn’t breathe. Her throat was still swollen, unable to speak and her body was in too much distress to move. She was exhausted and drained from the significant loss of blood, and she fell unconscious again.

***

Two days later, when she was reported missing, a street cop stumbled upon the gory sight after tracking her phone’s last known location. By this time, birds had pecked away their way through to eat away at the muscle, tissue, and organs. There wasn’t much left, and he had never encountered such a terrifying sight. The pain this woman endured was unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

Eventually, a detective from the FBI arrived, and while you can never get used to seeing such a horrific image, it didn’t shake her, she knew what to expect. This was his calling card, leaving his victims in such a fashion, always tied to a dock, always with the skin of their back opened, and always with a missing breast. The only thing different was the ear, there’s always one random missing part that has changed with each victim. At the scene he left everything, his clothes, his ID, his car, and his blue contacts. With all of these items, you’d think he would be easy to find, but he isn’t. He will just change his entire appearance again and his identity, then he’ll start over in another place, near another secluded lake, after his next victim swipes right. The detective got back into her car, tears slowly pouring down her cheek as she let out a sigh and wrote down in a small black notebook, the name of his victim #8.

***

“Oh look!” she said to her best friend as she showed off his profile picture as they sat outside drinking frappes at the local Starbucks. “Do you think I should swipe right?”