THE SERIAL KILLER IN ME

PROLOGUE

“I just wanted to see how it felt to shoot Grandma.”—Edmund Kemper

2004

“Make sure you come back early, brat,” the woman that called herself my mother said to me. I often wondered how a mother could send her fourteen-year-old son to buy her drugs. It started when I was six years old. Well, that’s what happens when you have a drug addict as your mother.

I left the apartment, going towards the staircase at the end of the hallway. My ears picked up a creaking sound as I was about to descend the staircase.

When I turned to make sure the sound wasn’t coming from our apartment, “Where are you going sweetheart?” Miss Diamond, who lived in the apartment across ours, asked.

“Mama sent me,” I replied.

She nodded and went back into her apartment. Miss Diamond always brought men over for late night rendezvous. However, I didn’t mind; she took care of me and fed me when mama didn’t. I liked her.

I didn’t go to school often like other kids and for that reason the social worker made mama pay a fine and attend parenting classes.

Mama was furious; she didn’t want anyone telling her how to raise her kid. It gave mama more reasons to hate me. However, I didn’t care because Miss Diamond taught me and she said I was very smart for my age.

As I left the building, I took the back-alley because it was shorter. I wanted to be home on time so that mama wouldn’t yell at me.

The moon had taken the place of the sun; the once bright sky had been overshadowed by absolute darkness. For that reason alone, taking the alley was a terrifying idea, but I had no choice.

Insects chirped and cats meowed from different corners of the alley. The atmosphere, humid and sticky. It reeked like soiled diapers. Trash piles were everywhere, scattered around dumpsters like fallen leaves around trees. It crunched under my feet, or was it a roach? I wouldn’t look to find out. Dogs were rooting through the garbage bins at every corner.

I continued on, humming one of my favorite songs so I could calm my nerves and also choosing to ignore the stares and sounds of the animals.

Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Goosebumps appeared all over my body, and I fidgeted. I held my breath. My heart raced and my palms became sweaty.

The money mama gave me was in my hands. With the speed of light, I hid it in my underwear just in case it was a thief. I didn’t want mama to beat me for not getting her drugs.

My walking speed slowed, I was more or less tiptoeing. A few steps forward, a muffled sound came into my ear. The dumpster behind me was converted to my refuge. I stretched my head a little to see where the sound was coming from.

On that very day in the month of April, I saw something that changed my life forever. I found my calling.

“I remember there was actually a sexual thrill…you hear that little pop and pull their heads off and hold their heads up by the hair. Whipping their heads off, their body sitting there. That’d get me off.”—Edmund Kemper