THE KEY KILLER

Supposed to be a normal Monday evening, Zoe does what she always does after a nerve-straining day at work.

She paints.

The sun disappears behind the trees, just as she finishes washing out her brushes and returns to observe the unfinished portrait in the dim candlelight thoughtfully.

The dreams accompanying her restless sleep have become more vivid over the passing weeks. So has the dissatisfaction with herself for the choices she has made. Guilt gnaws sadistically on her spine at any hour of the day.

Not wanting to waste another depressing thought about it she skims over the bookshelf, choosing a rather heavy lecture, and sits on the chair by the table. The monotonic movement feels heavy and somehow pointless to the young woman. It proves increasingly difficult to look past the self-loathe and continue on as if everything is still the same.

But nothing is anymore.

A deep sigh escapes her, before she places her failed attempt at entertainment on the rustic wood, next to the self-made candle.

Sooner or later she will have to face her fears. But not tonight, her alarm will ring in a few hours. Every day she comes up with new, lousy excuses, one more desperate than the other, in an effort to avoid the clawing demons buried inside.

Just as she attempts to lift herself out of the chair her attention catches by a large shadow in the corner of her eye.

A shadow that has not been there before.

Like a deer in headlights, her body freezes mid-air.

A manly figure stands in the frame, the small kitchen light behind only illuminating the outline of its disguise.

Her visions have warned her. And she has ignored them in spite, knowing fully well they have never misled her before.

The neighbour’s property is far away. So is any attentive ear that could catch the cries for help waiting eagerly to escape her throat. The woman doesn’t even bother to consider screaming. That’s what she gets for choosing isolation. She will have to get through this by herself. Just like everything else.

With a newfound acceptance for the predicament she is in, she falls back onto the chair, feeling surprisingly empty.

The tall figure moves without a sound. Stalking out of the shadows, it oozes of danger. The light reflects within the metallic mask, blinding her momentarily before she faces away in defeat.

Who wants to live forever, anyway?

Her lidded eyes take on the colour of the moon as they gaze absent-mindedly into the hot flame beside her. When they shift back to the stilled human form they are nothing but two glowing lumps of coal, burning meaningfully with the fire carried within.

She isn’t afraid of death. Neither is she afraid of him.

Her fears go deeper than that.

Hidden from view, a smirk appears behind the raven metal. The only reaction visible to her is the controlled curling of the glove by his side, capturing the air between.

What is he thinking of?

It is her who ends the appropriate silence.

“Who are you?”

There’s no need to ask. She knows who he is.

“I am who you see.”

Distrust evident in her face, she listens intently to the disfigured words reaching her through the distorter inside his mask.

The alien sound seems to fit right into the macabre scene playing out around her. For all she knows, she might as well be talking to an entirely different species.

Any detail which could identify this man is concealed. Every inch of skin and hair has been carefully covered in the shades of the night.

Nobody before has lived to tell what the key killer is like. Nobody probably ever will.

But what she grasps now, is a chance. A chance to fully and truly see. Maybe even the possibility to understand. Something, anything, to explain the cruel state this creature’s mind must be in.

The key killer seeks revenge for social ridicule which has been ignited by daringly satiric journalism, written with her ever obedient mind and hands.

The young woman can’t blame him for it. Not for her own inability to stand up to her superior, even when she knew it would have been the right thing to do.

Instead, she has chosen the comfort of a stable income over the values of her soul. Readers before justice. In the end, everyone will get what they deserve.

He is here for that now.

The dark thought humours the twisted woman more than it probably should.

“Do you hide from all your victims,” the words escape her before she can hold them back, “or just the special few?”

Somehow, her sarcasm has returned. Being in the proximity of someone who executes such vile acts of torture seems to ease her guilt. A bit.

The key killer takes a casual step towards the unfinished painting waiting atop the splattered easel, turning his back on her in the process.

“Just the special few.”

The distorter crackles unnaturally as his gloved index carves gently through the drying paint, seemingly tracing a tender memory.

“What is your name?” she asks as her long fingers play disinterested with the orange flame of the candle, resulting in softly dancing shadows on the table below and the wall beside.

“Haven’t you already gifted me one?”

Her editor has, yeah.

The key killer’s head turns lazily over his shoulder, as if in honest curiosity. She cannot see but feels his cold gaze on her heated skin for the briefest of moments.

“Your earlier work has been fantastic, I must admit. Especially the religious satire, sated with your raw, factual honesty, has impressed me.”

Cautiously, the unwelcome intruder moves towards the young journalist.

Remaining quiet, she shifts her attention back to the bright light of the candle, stops her play and returns both hands into her lap.

“But lately, your delivery has disappointed. Didn’t stop you from gaining popularity though, did it, Miss Stromgard...?”

His mechanic voice trails off at the end, but to her surprise, he does not seem tense as he stops his large body just short from her wooden chair. The folded pair of clammy hands within her lap a dead giveaway for what she is expecting to happen.

“Such a waste.”

Anxious grey eyes shoot up at his detached words. Yet, the way he looks at her feels intimate. Too intimate.

Something in his black leather glove catches her attention. Something which has not been there before. It reflects the hues of the candlelight like the mask has done before. Her throat dries up as she studies the key killer’s infamous accessory with morbid fascination. The small scalpel for which she has mocked him plenty for the world to read.

‘A coward’s tool, slightly larger than it’s handler’s own balls. Can we judge a lonely man for wanting to feel something big and powerful between his wrinkled fingers for once? I guess we can.’

Oh, how she has loathed writing that part, taking hours to find the right formulation and wording, and it still has sounded like a disaster. The killer isn’t wrong in stating that she has lost her journalistic edge.

The woman has always prided herself on the accuracy of her independent reporting, the untainted truth she has blessed her readers with. Up until the moment when her editor Steve has called her into his office, ordering her to focus her satire away from her usual, mainly political taunts and entirely onto a newly-emerged serial killer who has been gaining increasing attention through ungodly acts of self-proclaimed justice.

She has seen the unblurred and unmodified images of the victims when she has studied his case in order to get her creative juices flowing. Any human being able to commit such horrid and blood-curling murders must surely be a long-gone psychopath, secretly longing for the relief of the electric chair.

At least, that’s what her bosses’ boss has made her write after Steve has returned the first draft of her column with obvious disdain for what her mind has been able to produce without their guidance.

Let’s just say, the men above have not appreciated her personal and honest interpretation of the key killer’s actions. Quite the opposite.

“What’s done is done.”

Her soft voice seems far away when she speaks, the killer shifting balance with the sounding acceptance of her impending fate. Sweaty hands wipe themselves on the cotton of her brown skirt before she lifts herself into a standing position. Her eyes transfixed on the ‘coward’s tool’ inside his hand, knowing full well that the only coward wide and far is undeniably her.

The air inside her home is growing hot and uncomfortable the longer she waits until she decides to ask the question, which drives continuously through her otherwise numb mind.

“Where?”

The key killer observes her for another moment, before slowly stepping aside and motioning towards the wide-open door leading into her small home office.

Of course, he wants her there. Where her sins have taken form.

Without hesitation she glides past him, leaving a considerate distance between their bodies, and steps into the room which she has been dreading to enter for weeks. Despite the silence, she cannot hear him following but assumes him close behind.

Ready for the sweet promise of death, she turns to face her judge, only to find that there is nobody there. Heartbeat quickening, her legs carry her back into the living room. Nothing seems out of place.

Her previously abandoned book still waits with open pages for the return of its reader whilst the candle dances wildly in a stream of cold air. The soft ends of her ponytail caress her upper back, gifting her with a layer of goosebumps, as she turns her head towards the source of the draft.

Facing the tree line of the dark forest, the window stands wide open. All that remains of her nightly visitor are the carvings in her drying paint, spelling four letters.

One simple promise.

‘SOON’

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