I looked at the picture on the bulletin board, holding back a small smile. The “Missing” Picture I was looking at was featuring a small young girl, she was in pigtails in the picture, and she was wearing a small blue summer dress. I pulled my hood up closer to my face, and turned to walk away. My breath came out in clouds of mist as I walked down the almost deserted street. I had known the girl in the picture, all too well in fact. I was surprised they hadn’t found the body yet. It wasn’t like I cared too much about my bodies being found. I remembered exactly where I had dumped her body. It rolled down the ditch into the frozen, muddy pond, like the rag doll she was playing with the day before I killed her.

I closed my eyes replaying the moment of 8 year old Allison’s death in my head. I could almost smell the blood spilling out of the stab wound in her stomach. I made my heart pound, and my mind race. I opened my eyes, tonight was the night. I had waited to long, keeping a low profile and finding my next victim. Tonight was the night I would kill again.

I turned left towards the elementary school that 13 year old Miranda went to. She would be leaving soon; first she would stop at the park and talk to her friends. I sat down on the swing at the very park she would meet her friends. I smiled as the school bell rang, I could already feel the adrenaline. I could see her now leaving through the front door, laughing and giggling with a small group of girls. I turned away as they walked towards the park.

I always wondered what it was about teenaged girls that made we want to kill them. Maybe it was the way they acted so tough. That was why I had picked Miranda. I watched her in a fist fight a week ago across the street from this very park. Long story short she kicked the other girls’ ass. My mouth watered at the thought of taking her down a notch.

I sat on the swing for about an hour. Miranda and her friend kept a safe distance from me. Finally the moment came when Miranda’s friends turned to leave. Miranda turned the other way, towards her house. Her friend would never hear her scream. I got up once she was across the street, in the spot I had watched a week ago. I followed behind her, keeping far enough behind as not to attract attention to myself.

I stopped short when she did something I hadn’t anticipated. She turned right into an ally. She must be taking some kind of short cut. Once I recovered I continued to follow her, slightly quickening my pace; a young girl in a dark ally, all alone with no one to hear her cry out for help. This was going to be so much easier then I thought it would be a little voice in the back of my mind whispered; almost too easy. I ignored it; this was the perfect place to kill someone. I finally caught up to her, she was wearing a cute little black coat with huge silver buttons, faded skinny jeans, and her light brown hair was done up in a long ponytail that traveled down her back. She looked so helpless, just the way I liked them.

“Hey!” I yelled, I jogged up to her and pretended to be out of breath. She looked over her shoulder and stopped. “Do you know how to get to the hospital from here?” I asked. She nodded slowly. I stuck my hand into my pocket, and ran my fingers up and down the cold blade of my knife. I was so close.

“Why are you panting?” She asked. I frowned. Something made me nervous about the way she talked. “Um, well I have been trying to catch up with you this whole time.” I said I made a move to bring my knife out. I took a step closer. She held her ground.

“But you have been following me this whole time; you didn’t need to catch up with me, your not even trying to get to the hospital.” She said, a smile playing on her lips. I stopped short. What was going on? She was supposed to be my victim, this was my game and she wasn’t playing it right! Time to make my move; I yanked my knife out of my pocket, and held it above my head getting ready to swing.

I screamed as I felt the horrible pain of a blade piercing my stomach. Blood squirted out and splattered onto the cement, I fell to my knees. Miranda was looking down at me smirking. The knife she had stabbed me with was almost exactly like the one I was planning to kill her with. She pulled the blade out of my stomach; I moaned and slumped onto the ground. I lay on the ground as the pain ate me alive. Blood slowly seeped out of my stomach until I was lying in a pool of it. Black outlined my vision, as my victim walked away still holding the bloody blade in her hand. She hummed a small tune and left me here in the deserted ally. “Help.” I croaked. No one answered, no one had heard. After all this was the perfect place to kill someone. I closed my eyes.

***


I pushed open the heavy school door. “Hey, Miranda are we all going to hang out at the park again tonight?” Kat asked me. I smiled.

“Yeah, for sure,” I said, “Maybe Andrew will be there again!” I joked, Kat blushed. We headed for the park. Kat made a face as we came close. I raised my eye brows. She pointed to the swing set. There sitting on the swing was a man, he had his hood pulled up over his face.

“Who is that creeper? What kind of dude randomly hangs out at kids parks?” She whispered, and headed to the other side of the park. I said nothing, even though I knew exactly who he was. He was the man that watched my fight with Amanda, he was the man who murdered Allison, and he was my next victim.