“Hello,” he called out as he entered the caves. He liked it in here; it protected him from the weather; it provided enough warmth during the winter months, and yet, somehow remained cool during the summer. It wasn’t fancy, but to him, this was the kind of place that could be a home.
There was no response to his greeting.
Not that he had been expecting one.
The cave was large, and he walked a good thirty feet until he reached the small area down the back that he had marked off with metal bars running from floor to roof, spaced about half a hand’s width apart.
Behind the bars was a woman. He didn’t know her name—nor did he care to. He didn’t know her age either, but she looked to be around fifty or so. She had a ring on the third finger of her left hand, indicating that she was married. She might also have children and grandchildren, but none of that was his concern.
She was here for one reason and one reason only.
He had abducted her a couple of hours ago, bringing her out here and stashing her safely away while he went back to the scene to watch and see if anyone had noticed his activities yet. The library had been quiet—no signs of cops—so he assumed that meant that, as of right now, no one was aware that this woman was missing.
Not that it mattered if anyone had known the woman was gone. It wasn’t like anyone was going to think to hike through the woods for an hour and then go into a random cave.
He chuckled at the stupidity of law enforcement.
They were so stupid; they were never going to catch him; he was invincible. Once he got what he wanted, he would disappear into the middle of nowhere and finally live the life he longed for—living off the land, no other humans to deal with.
Just him and nature.
He cocked his head as he looked through the bars at the woman behind them. She was huddled in a back corner. Her face was wet, her eyes red and puffy. She had been crying. He hated tears. They always felt like a way to try to manipulate those around you into doing what you wanted.
But he couldn’t be manipulated.
He didn’t care about tears. He didn’t care about this woman’s fear or sorrow as she surely realized that she was soon to end her journey on this earth.
All he cared about was getting what he wanted.
To that end, he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door to the cage, stepping inside. The woman whimpered and shrunk away from him, and he found himself getting annoyed.
Everyone thought that they could ignore him.
That they could just disregard him like he was nothing.
He was sick of that.
He was a person too.
He had feelings.
Emotions.
Desires.
Needs.
Right now, the need pulsing through him was a lust for blood. He needed to see it; he needed to smell it; he needed to feel it.
With a roar, he pounced on his helpless prey.
He let the beast inside him take over and time descended into a void of nothingness that was filled only with blood and screams.
2
April 16th
* * *
9:08 A.M.
* * *
“Who found her?” Detective Dante Delamarre asked as he walked to the scene of the newest murder in the case that had consumed him ever since he took it on almost a month ago.
He was obsessive.
No point in denying it.
When he took on a new case, it consumed him. He didn’t do anything but eat, sleep, and work like his life depended on it.
Because, in a way, it did.
Dante worked homicide and usually took the darkest of the dark cases. More often than not, he and his partner worked serial or spree killer cases.
For him that was a double-edged sword. While he hated death and the destruction and devastation it caused to those left behind, he loved gathering the clues, putting them together, and solving things. To him it was a puzzle, and while the consequences were life altering for those the killer would target, this was his life. Being a cop was as important to him as breathing.
“A couple walking their dog before they went to work,” his partner Detective Milla Lindsay replied. “They’re over there; we can talk to them when we finish here.”
They could talk to the couple who’d found the body, but Dante already knew it wasn’t going to do any good.
They wouldn’t have seen anything.
This killer was too good to make a mistake like that.
“Look at these marks,” he said, crouching down beside the body of fifty-two-year-old Kim Johnson.
“They look like claw marks,” Milla said, standing behind him.
“Just like the others,” he said thoughtfully. His brain was running one hundred percent of the time. There was never a waking moment when he wasn’t contemplating one of his cases—the shower, while eating, driving, chores. Even in sleep, sometimes moments of clarity would come to him, waking him up and sending him straight back to work.
“Do you think maybe we aren’t even looking for a killer?” Milla asked. His partner was thirty-two, a couple years younger than him. She was a pretty woman, with long silky black hair and dark blue eyes that appeared violet. She was peppy and bubbly, and if you talked to her, you would probably expect her to be a preschool teacher or an artist or something fun. You’d never peg her for a cop—a homicide cop, no less. Milla was the light to his dark, and although he liked to think he didn’t have friends, he begrudgingly admitted that he and his partner were friends, and that if he didn’t have her to balance him out, he would probably plunge into the abyss of darkness that he perpetually hovered at the edge of.
But pessimist that he was, he was already preparing himself for the announcement that Milla and her husband of almost a year were expecting their first baby and she’d be off on maternity leave, probably never to return. Who could have kids and work this job without eventually combusting?
He really needed a life—a life outside of this job—but he didn’t see that happening anytime soon.
“What if we’re looking for, like, a bear or something?” Milla was asking.
“Do those look like bear claws to you?” he asked, pointing to a line of marks down what was left of Kim Johnson’s right leg.
“No,” Milla said, like she wished she was giving a different answer.
“We’re not looking for a bear or for any other animal. We’re looking for a man, a man who wants to pretend he’s an animal.” The workings of the human mind were an interesting thing, and having seen the darker side of humanity, he knew the mind could be a veritable cesspool of evil. Did this killer they were looking for think he was an animal? Or wish that he were one? Was that an important part of what he was doing and why he was doing it?
“So he has to have something that he uses to mimic these teeth and claw marks,” Milla said. “You know what it reminds me of?”
“No. What?”
“The Beast.”
“What beast?”
“You know, from Beauty and the Beast. That’s what I think of when I see these marks.”
He had heard of the movie but had never seen it, so he couldn’t form a mental picture based on some Disney movie, but the word “beast” did make him conjure up an image in his mind. One of a man, long hair, big beard, wild eyes, wearing fake teeth—probably specially made—and gloves with metal claws attached.