Chris Carter - I Am Death

Hunter nodded his agreement, but allowed Garcia to continue without interrupting him.

‘Just look at this.’ Garcia returned to the picture board, unpinned the copy of the killer’s second note and brought it to his desk. ‘At the beginning of this new note he makes several references to his previous one.’ Garcia indicated each line on both notes as he mentioned them. ‘“Best of the best”, “So-called expert”, “Bring justice to the victims”, “See only what you want to see” and “Look into my eyes and find out what I have become”. The difference here is, on the previous note all of that sounded like an open invitation to the LAPD, or the FBI, or a special task force, or whoever. But not this time. This time all of those challenges are aimed at a specific subject.’ Garcia’s eyebrows lifted as he nodded at his partner. ‘You, my friend. Whether you like it or not, he’s bringing this fight to you.’

So far, Garcia’s assessment of the note had been right on the money with Hunter’s. Hunter wasn’t chasing this killer alone, and he was sure that the killer knew that full well. Nevertheless, this time the killer had made every single challenge personal to Hunter, not to a task force, or the LAPD, or the FBI, or even the UV Unit. The killer had, once again, been very careful when phrasing his written work to leave as little doubt as possible.

‘But I don’t think that this is “personal” personal.’ Garcia used his fingers to draw quotation marks in the air.

Hunter questioned by narrowing his eyes a touch.

‘What I mean is, I don’t think that this guy’s got a personal grudge against you,’ Garcia clarified. ‘I don’t think that this is someone you put away in the past, or someone related to anyone you put away in the past. I’m even willing to bet that your paths have never crossed before, Robert.’

‘Because if that were the case,’ Hunter agreed, ‘he would’ve made it personal on the first or second note. Why wait until now? And the second note wouldn’t have been sent to the mayor. It would’ve been sent directly to me.’

‘Exactly,’ Garcia accepted. ‘The way I see it, he would’ve brought this fight to the doorstep of whoever became lead investigator in this case. We were just the unlucky ones.’

Hunter made a face. ‘Aren’t we always?’

‘But now that he has a counterpart, he not only reiterates the challenges of the second note, he goes beyond it. He bullies.’ Once again, Garcia indicated on the note:

How’s that going for you so far, Detective Hunter?

Are we having fun yet, or am I moving too fast for you?

Are you still keeping count, or are the bodies piling up too quickly?

. . will you see only what you want to see, or will you prove me wrong, Detective Hunter?

‘And then he threatens,’ Garcia added.

Because you haven’t seen anything yet. I am just getting started.

‘After the threats,’ Garcia continued, ‘he feels the need to explain the reason why he’s doing what he’s doing. Though it all sounds like bullshit to me.’

‘Delusions of grandeur,’ Hunter commented. ‘You know how most sociopaths are blinded by them. And because some truly believe that they are better, superior to everyone else, they also believe that whatever it is they’re doing can’t be understood by us mere human beings unless it’s explained. And even then, they still don’t expect us to fully understand the reasons behind their actions, or the complexity of their geniuses.’ Hunter shrugged. ‘How could we, when our intellect could never measure up?’

Garcia chuckled, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. ‘So this crackpot truly believes that he’s creating history?’

‘Or, as he put it, rewriting it?’

‘Yeah, but rewriting whose history?’

Hunter turned and faced the picture board. ‘I don’t know. His own, maybe.’

‘And what the hell is this crap at the end?’ Garcia said, bringing Hunter’s attention back to the new note. ‘Is this his attempt at being funny? Let me give you a clue as to who I am, and that clue is in the name — “DEATH”. Yeah, hilarious.’

Hunter wasn’t really sure what the killer meant by that, but he had a hunch that, whatever it was, it wasn’t meant as a joke.

The stairwell that led down to the underpass reminded Alison of one of those old, black and white B-movies. The ones that weren’t supposed to be scary, but were. Her footsteps echoed loudly against the concrete risers and all of a sudden she was painfully aware that she was alone, in a badly lit and isolated underpass.

Alison Atkins had missed her bus stop. She had done three double shifts at Donny’s in just as many days, and when she’d boarded the bus almost an hour ago she’d felt the same sort of exhaustion one feels after a long and debilitating illness. She’d sat alone at the back of the bus, as she usually did. Ten minutes into the forty-minute trip to where she lived, Alison had decided to rest her head against the window, just for a moment, so she could close her tired eyes. But it was OK, because she reopened them only five minutes later — or so she thought.

As she sat up and looked out the window, she was overcome by an uncomfortable feeling. The feeling that she was in a place she didn’t belong. She quickly rubbed the blur of tiredness from her eyes, turned her head around and looked out the window across the aisle from where she was sitting.

No, she didn’t recognize any of it.

She craned her neck and looked at the digital display toward the front of the bus.

She had definitely missed her stop.

‘Shit!’ she said between clenched teeth, quickly getting to her feet and pressing the ‘stop’ button.

A minute later, the bus pulled up to the next stop on its route.

Three passengers jumped out with her — two women, counting Alison, and a middle-aged man. The man, who appeared to be in a hurry, quickly headed west. The other woman, who looked to be about the same age as Alison, went north.

Alison paused and looked around. This was an ugly part of town. A part of town that she would never visit during the day, never mind at night.

She checked her watch — five minutes past one in the morning. Her bus route wasn’t part of the ‘Owl Service’ that ran 24/7 in LA — but she knew that her route ran all the way up to two a.m. Alison crossed the road and began walking to the bus stop on the other side. She reached into her bag, but as she rummaged around for her purse, she felt a pit begin to materialize in her stomach.

No purse.

She stopped walking, pulled her bag open with both hands and began fumbling inside it again, this time a little more desperately.

Nothing.

‘Oh no, no, no, no, no,’ Alison cried out, almost sticking her whole head inside her bag to look for it. Lipstick, foundation powder, makeup brush, loose change, cellphone, a pen and house keys.

Her purse was gone.

‘Oh, fuck!’

She knew she’d had it with her when she boarded the bus because she kept her TAP card in it.

While she slept at the back of the bus, she’d of course never noticed the hooded eighteen-year-old kid who had first sat across the aisle from her, before stealthily moving over to her side once he’d noticed how deeply asleep she was. When he left the bus, his pocket was a little heavier, and Alison’s bag a little lighter.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

In today’s double shift she had made a total of two hundred and twelve dollars in tips.

The pit in her stomach had now turned into a well.

She desperately needed that money to pay her bills.

Alison looked around one more time. The bus stops on both sides of the road were empty, and the streets looked almost deserted. She didn’t know the area but she didn’t like it one bit. She felt vulnerable.