WARNING!
This is a very disturbing short story. It is nothing like anything else you have seen on my page. It is the sort of thing Edgar Allen Poe would write. Feel free to continue, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Jarrod looked in the mirror. A young man looked back. A handsome face, he thought, although his bloodshot eyes ruined the effect. Once again, he would have to make it through an entire day with those morons at the office without having slept even an hour. He'd make it. He had done it before plenty of times. Before leaving the sink, he checked it over carefully for any trace of the blood he had washed off his hands only a couple of hours before. Frowning, he rummaged beneath the sink to find a bottle of disinfectant which he then applied methodically over the entire sink, top to bottom, and then to the floor, walls, and every fixture within three feet of the sink. As always, he was thorough far beyond what he thought necessary. It was how he never got caught.
Jarrod left his apartment at a brisk walk, not more than a minute behind schedule. He decided to stop by the newsstand more out of habit than any hope that he might be in the paper. He was sure it would be days before his latest victim was even missed.
"Halfway Killer Strikes Again!"
Jarrod could only stop and stare in horror. Surely not! How could they have found her so quickly?! What if she was still alive somehow? What if she gave the police his description? No! It couldn't possibly be! He fumbled in his pockets for the correct change, hands shaking so hard that he spilled coins all over the sidewalk. He bent to pick up the coins, sure that every pair of eyes on the street must be staring at him, wondering, suspecting, but when he looked around, no one seemed to be paying him any attention at all. He took the paper and skimmed the details of the article, trying to stop his hands from trembling as he read. This one had been found many miles from his latest killing - the body found was badly decomposed. This was one of his from weeks before. He breathed. Of course it wasn't her. If the victim had lived, that would surely have been part of the headline, especially since all of the others had not.
That was Jarrod's trademark - leaving his victims alive but dying miles from civilization. It had earned him the nickname "Halfway Killer". He even pointed them in the right direction before he left them, so that his victims were always found where they had collapsed crawling through the underbrush towards help. One had made it over a mile, but he had always made sure to leave them much farther out than that.
Jarrod smiled. He felt lightheaded. They couldn't catch him. No one could. He was too thorough . . . too perfect. He barely contained an unseemly giggle. He danced, nearly flew into the subway terminal. He felt powerful. He was in control. He wanted to shout out to the crowd, "Better guard your daughters and wives with care! I'm the Halfway Killer, and I can snatch them away any time I please! No one can stop me!!" He wanted to shout it in the same way he often wanted to leave taunting clues for those investigating his murders. His caution restrained him. Even his current state of mind couldn't overcome the natural caution that permeated everything he did.
Jarrod spent his morning at the office in a blur of activity. He knew that every task he completed had been done perfectly and quickly. He secretly believed that every killing he performed added the life energies of his victims to his own, allowing him to work at a superhuman pace for days after the killing was over.
Jarrod decided to take an early lunch in order to be ready for an eleven-thirty appointment, and so at about eleven, he left the office to have a sandwich at the deli across the street. As he sat down to eat, he pulled out the newspaper he had bought at the newsstand. He wanted to read more about himself as he ate. Along with the main article divulging the details of his killing, there was a side article by a famous criminal psychologist outlining his most probable psychological profile. Interesting, he thought. He read in wonder, and then in dismay. The writer had nailed just about every factor that led to him becoming the killer he was. Could they use this to find him? He doubted it, but one couldn't be too cautious. Perhaps he should consciously change his behavior to throw them off the scent.
Jarrod was still reading the article when he started across the street on his way back to the office. He was halfway across when he suddenly remembered his appointment. He stopped. Was it after eleven-thirty? Was he late? He looked at his watch.
Jarrod didn't move. Something about the numbers transfixed him. They held him. He felt somehow like his name was being called from a great distance. He stood and stared at his watch, ignoring everything around him - the swoosh of traffic, the hum of voices from the people on the sidewalk, the ringing of the bell on the door of the deli every time someone went in or out, the terrified shouts of warning . . . The trance left him as suddenly as it had come. Someone was shouting, "Watch out!" He turned to see a semi truck careening out of its lane and into the turn lane where he was standing. He started to move, but too late. The corner of the truck impacted with the whole side of his body, and everything went black.
Jarrod awoke to the steady beat of his heart monitor and the rhythmic hiss of a breathing machine. He lay there for a moment trying to remember what had happened. He could see that both of his legs were in casts, and his greatest efforts to move produced only a slight change in position. It wasn't long before a nurse came by.
"Oh! Awake now, I see. We were beginning to think you might not come around. You've been out almost half a day. You're probably wondering what happened to you. The driver of that semi that hit you had a seizure behind the wheel. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since you're awake, we can probably remove the breathing machine now."
She carefully pulled the tube out of Jarrod's throat.
Jarrod couldn't breathe. Like a fish out of water, he mouthed the air in a futile attempt to draw some into his suddenly burning lungs.
"Oh my! You may have some spinal injuries we didn't know about," she said, replacing the breathing tube, "It may be a while before you can breathe on your own. The doctor will be in tomorrow to give you a full rundown on your condition. Just get some rest for now." She left him to contemplate his unlucky fate.
A few minutes later, Jarrod heard movement in the hall. He heard footsteps and the squeak of wheels as a patient was wheeled past his room. As the prostrate figure passed his doorway, he momentarily met her eyes, and for one terrifying moment, he recognized his latest victim, still alive, and knew that she recognized him too. He heard his heart monitor double its pace. How could she be alive? How was this possible? He was through! There was absolutely nothing he could do to help himself.
Once they had her settled in the room next to Jarrod's, the nurse caught the orderly's arm outside Jarrod's door: "What happened to that poor girl?"
"She crawled into somebody's campsite way out in the middle of nowhere, nearly dead. Pure luck she found them. They're pretty sure it's the work of the Halfway Killer. The only thing is, she's been delirious since they found her - hasn't said a word. The police would love to be able to question her and figure out who is doing this to these girls. The doctor said to make absolutely sure that her IV stays in, or she'll be dead in minutes. It took them hours just to get her stabilized enough to come here."
They continued talking as they walked down the hall, but Jarrod had heard enough. Somehow, he knew he had to finish what he had started. He knew that all he had to do was go over to the next room and pull out her IV, but he couldn't even sit up, much less go anywhere. He racked his mind. There must be a way. Somehow, he would get out of this mess.
From her room, Jarrod heard movement. Something fell. He listened. He heard more movement - a dragging, shuffling sound. It was coming from the hallway now. Slowly, painfully, his latest victim dragged herself into his room. He was elated. She had done his job for him! In her effort to get to him, she had lost her IV drip. Some of her wounds had reopened, and she was bleeding on the floor. He knew it wouldn't be long, and she couldn't be much threat as weak as she was. Besides, she didn't seem to have the strength to come any farther. She looked at something over his head and smiled. She found the strength somehow to come closer.
Jarrod looked up. The only thing he saw that she might have been looking at was a digital clock.
Jarrod frowned. What was so familiar about that? He didn't have time to reflect on it. She had reached his bedside. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, still looking at him, still smiling. Her hand reached out and rested on a switch among the machinery at his side. He looked. His breathing machine! He tried to shout, but couldn't. All he could manage was to feebly shake his head "no". Her eyes lit up. She nodded "yes". She fingered the switch casually, watching, letting the horror sink in.
*click*
Jarrod couldn't breathe. He mouthed the air. He thrashed feebly. He saw her pull herself up beside him. Her face hovered inches above his own, lips slack, eyes wide. She seemed almost to be drinking his pain and terror. His vision slowly closed. Everything became blurry. He heard his heart monitor beeping frantically. Consciousness faded.
*click*
With a hiss, Jarrod's breathing machine started up again. Blessed relief! The burning in his lungs subsided. His vision cleared. He looked over to see her still looking at him, still smiling with that awful hunger, still with her finger on the switch. He realized then what was happening. She was toying with him, torturing him as he had tortured her. Surely, she must be close to collapsing without that IV drip. He looked at the clock.
How could that be? How could it still be eleven thirty four? He didn't have time to contemplate it.
*click*
Once again the closing blackness. Once again the hungry face over him, tasting his pain. Once again Jarrod nearly lost consciousness to the sound of his wildly beeping heart monitor.
*click*
Jarrod's cycle of pain and terror continued for what seemed like hours, punctuated by the clicks, both dreaded and longed for. Yet the red numbers on the clock never changed.
Finally, after one of the longed for clicks revived Jarrod, he looked over to see his tormentor, not looking hungry, but looking surprised. She was feeling the consequences of having disregarded her IV drip. She sank to the floor, dead, but not without one last
*click*
Jarrod realized that his time was short. He thrashed weakly. He reached out. He rolled a little and reached out again. His fingertips brushed the switch. With one last effort, he lunged, only to slip off the edge of the bed onto the floor. His broken legs in their casts attached to the bed's frame kept him from falling all the way. The lower half of his body couldn't leave the bed. He was too weak to even raise his arm, much less climb back in bed and try to reach the switch again. It was too far above him where he lay now. He knew that he was going to die. He looked back at the clock.
As Jarrod's vision closed in around the clock's display, the numbers seemed to get brighter. Brighter and brighter until his eyes screamed with pain, yet he could not close them. As he lay there in agony, looking up at the digital clock - upside down from his perspective, he suddenly read it correctly.
And so it was, that as Jarrod's soul was torn screaming from his body, it left with full knowledge as to exactly where it was headed, and the clock finally changed.
-J.R. Willett