Your Mid-Week Update for 10/28/20

I have decided that I am not going to let Heather’s death or my possible impending doom deter me from celebrating my favourite holiday. I want to be able to hang bodies in some stranger’s front yard and record their screams as my lullaby.

I’m just kidding. I’m dark, just not that kind of dark. I generally fall asleep to the sound of my husband snoring, and occasionally some white noise. The swinging dead bodies is real though – and they definitely scream.

When I was young, I always assumed that horror movies just had bare-breasted women screaming for the sake of the drama but I can tell you from years of experience: people do actually scream when they see a dead body. Full body, trembling shrieks. I will admit, hearing it and knowing I’m the cause of such an intense emotion, does fill me with no short amount of pleasure. It’s the closest I’m going to get screaming fans of my work; I might as well enjoy it.

Which brings me to my latest hobby: ancient serial killers.

I’ve always knows that so long as there were people in the world to murder, there were murderers to act out those deeds, but I have never taken the time to actually look into who those people were. It’s actually quite fascinating.

A favourite of mine is this guy from Greek mythology (I think his name was Sinestro – no, that’s a Green Lantern villain…whatever). He would meet a man on the road and then when they branched off, he’d circle around and catch the man by surprise, leading him deep into the woods. There, he had pulled two trees to the ground so their trunks were bent inwards, and he tied the man’s arms to one tree and his legs to the other. Then, he released the bent trees so they flung apart, the man was cleaved in half.

How. Cool. Is that?

I have no idea how I would work the mechanics in modern times but isn’t that so cool? I want to try it but I don’t know where I’d find bendy tress this time of year.

The other thing you discover in these ancient and medieval tales, is how sexist everyone was. All the time. And I’m well aware that a lot of ancient mythology is tainted by the western overrun of Christianity and Christian views of women were less than stellar. Are less than stellar. But the amount of stories I found about women who poisoned their husbands for money and power…it’s hardly news. Or the women who jump from husband to husband because they can’t make up their minds. I read about a woman tried for witchcraft who escaped persecution, so they arrested her son and her best friend instead. The friend was burnt at the stake in her place while her son was given a list of good deeds to perform and when he couldn’t, he was flogged and sent home.

There is a part of me that is so grateful for all the women who burnt at the stake or were painted as floozies throughout history because they paved the way for me and other women to live our lives a little better.

It’s still really shitty, all the things they went through just to get here. And here isn’t particularly great either.

I guess all I can hope is that when it’s Casey’s turn to take up the long-held tradition, the world will be a little better for her.

Maybe by then, there’ll be more bendy trees so I can eviscerate a man with the help of mother nature.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 10/21/20

Did you know that there are types of serial killers? Of course you did; you haven’t been following me for this long, and not picked up some general knowledge about murderous statistics. I find those numbers fascinating because I demand to defy the odds.

Also my dress is squeaking as I lean against the desk. It’s very distracting.

Quick rant: I never learned how to type properly. It drives me nuts. I learned cursive, and I learned to type on my mother’s typewriter like a fucking nerd, and then when computers became mainstream (oh my god), there were typing classes but the curriculum at my school didn’t implement it until it was too late.

Obviously, I can type, but that way that you’re supposed to type (with you hands and wrists at a certain angle and your feet flat on the ground, and the asdf;lkj bullshit) has never made it into my brain. Things would be so much easier if I could type with all my fingers in a proper manner.

Anyways.

Types of serial killers.

For those who don’t know, there are four classifications of serial killers (serial killers being defined as three or more murders committed by the same person or persons over a significant period of time):

Thrill-seekers, mission oriented, visionary, and control.

There’s also Black Widow, Spree, and Lust (and a few others I can’t remember right now and I’m too lazy to look up) but those can fit into the four main categories if you try hard enough.

Basically, thrill-seekers do it for the attention, mission oriented have an end goal, visionaries have lost their marbles, and controllers do it for fun.

Guess which category I fit into.

That’s right, none of them. Did you not read my earlier statement about defying the odds?

The reason I’ve survived as long as I have is because I don’t fit any statistic. You can’t track me on a map. Anyone who knows of my life is either dead or an accomplice. Or both.

Except for her. The unnamed woman. The bane of my existence. What the fuck am I supposed to do about her? I can’t find her; I have no idea where to even start looking. As long as she’s out there, I have no way of knowing how much she knows or what she plans to do with that information. It just sits in the back of my mind, this terrifying reminder that my family and I are not safe.

Do you remember what happened the last time I went crazy?

Things suck right now. The world is awful. I need this consistency – this security – and that woman (whoever she is) is threatening my way of life.

There aren’t a lot of things I can control right now.

But I can sure as hell find a way to get her out of my head. It’s the same way I get rid of all my problems: Daniel, Charlotte, Andrew, all the others.

I hunt them down and destroy them. I remove them from existence slowly and painfully. I take pleasure in watching the light leave their eyes whenever possible (even if I didn’t kill Andrew myself, he’s dead because of me).

I protect the family I built through blood and tears no matter what.

I have to find her. And add her to the collection.

I won’t give in to the madness.

I can’t.

Not again.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 10/14/20

I have been reluctant to confront Heather all week. Obviously. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. This woman was my secretary, and then my accomplice, and then my friend, and then my traitor. I had no idea what to say to her. If I’m being perfectly honest, part of me didn’t want to know if I was right about her.

I thought I’d finally found someone who could be my friend. Not my lover, not a victim, not a charge; just a friend. And she was that to me, except I can’t trust her anymore. She became a liability the minute she answered the door for that woman.

A woman I can’t find because Heather killed my only lead. I can’t trust that she did it to protect me. Because what if she didn’t? What if she did it for herself – to keep me from finding out worse things about her. Was her husband’s death an accident or did she luck out and make friends with a serial killer?

I can’t ask her anymore.

Heather’s dead.

I didn’t even do it.

Casey – my terrifying angel – she got up from the table at Sunday breakfast, grabbed the still sizzling frying pan and beat Heather to death with it. Right at the kitchen table. Stabbed her neck into the table for good measure.

I thought I would feel differently when I saw the life leave her eyes. She stared at me as she died, her face so calm but twisted in pain. I think, at the end, she understood why it was happening. I thought I’d feel worse about chopping her body into pieces, cutting off her ears and burning her fingertips and lips. We turned her burial into a family outing, visiting all the major parks in the area and scattering bits of her body around.

One final goodbye.

I expected to feel bad.

I’m just numb.

With a bit of relief, I suppose. Towards the end she just became trouble for us. I wanted to keep her safe because she was my friend. Now I’ll never know if I was hers.

Do you know why Casey killed her?

She had offered to make an apology breakfast for the family, and she burnt the eggs.

That was all.

I guess that was the final straw for her. After everything Heather did to us, she also ruined breakfast. It was a petty reason to kill her but I don’t blame Casey. I blame myself for letting Heather get so close. I’m not meant to have friends or a proper family. I get to fall in love once and hold it close. I get to raise children that aren’t mine and watch them leave me. But I don’t get to have relationships that keep me sane. I don’t get to trust.

Eventually, even the ones you love will betray you.

They’ll expose you to danger to protect their own self-interest and leave you vulnerable, then take away your one chance to stop it.

And then they’ll died and leave you alone with no fucking idea what to do next.  

I thought I wouldn’t cry over her death.

I was wrong about a lot of things.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Weel Update for 10/07/20

Guess who’s home?

Fuck.

After Heather killed our lead, we didn’t have a lot of options so we had to turn back for the time being. We’re so close to finding this woman, I just know it, and then Heather had to get over excited. I have no other explanation for it. She just lost control. Clearly, she was paying attention when she was sexily commanding me to break bones and remove toenails with vinegar pliers because she knew exactly where to hit him.

At least she helped me hide the body.

I don’t know that that’s a bonus because we wouldn’t have had a body to dismember and bury in the first place. Maybe. I was planning on killing him but I had the patience to wait until after we got what we needed. Now because of her, the trail is cold and the woman is in the wind.

This mystery woman is a threat to my family, to my entire way of life and Heather

I had a nightmare about her. In my dream Heather was this succubus creature with fangs and pointy ears, and we were in this cave/dungeon-type place with a big stone altar in the middle. James was lying on the altar and he was covered in blood but I couldn’t tell where he was bleeding from. And when I tried to move – to get to him, to save him – my feet wouldn’t move. There was something pulling on my wrists, keeping me in place, but there wasn’t actually anything there. I kept calling out to Heather to let me free or save him or do something. And then she looked at him, and then she walked right up to me. I could smell her breath (it was, like, sewer water and burnt flesh) and she whispered in my ear “nothing lasts.” And then she dug her fangs into my shoulder and I woke up.

I don’t have a lot of nightmares.

I AM the nightmare.

But even after all this time, after travelling with her, after coming home and hugging Casey and kissing James, I’m afraid of her. But I don’t know why.

If I don’t trust someone – especially if someone knows my secret – I kill them. I slice their throat and pull out their teeth and burn their fingerprints and ears and throw their remains in the ocean. I’ve done it before to people less deserving than her.

Except technically, her only crime was betraying me, and she confessed. She helped me track down the people who were blackmailing her. It’s just that…ever since I watched her bludgeon the investigator – our one lead to finding the woman who went to some much trouble to get to me – I’ve had this voice in the back of my head shouting “she’s not who she pretends to be”. Maybe she wasn’t helping me. Maybe I went on this entire fucking trip to help her. Did I let myself get taken by this woman? Someone I actually called my friend? Am I being paranoid and she simply made a mistake?

In the end, does it really matter why?

I think I have to kill Heather.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe