Chapter 1
Did she spot me? The stalker wasn’t sure but couldn’t take any chances. When Beth made a right, he continued straight and drove home.
After parking the car on the side of the road, he slid out shoving his keys into his pocket. He trudged his way through the shadows down the cracked-filled sidewalk. Old rundown three-story brick structures lined the avenue and the only street lamps working were the ones flickering. Taking hold of a railing, he pulled himself up the steps to the entryway of his decrepit apartment building. He flung open the door and tramped inside disgusted at himself for being so careless. He slapped the side of his head. I shouldn’t have gotten that close.
The bent-over man limped up to the second floor and hobbled down the long, dingy hallway. The stained, ripped carpet stunk of mildew. He heard a baby crying in one apartment and the brawling of a man and a woman in another.
Approaching his residence, the man pulled the keys out of his pocket and unlocked three locks. He made his way through the filthy studio that smelled like cigar smoke to another secured door. Once unlocked, he entered a tiny room with a twin bed and a small nightstand. The area had served as closet space, but now it provided a place for his deviant needs.
The man reached into his pocket, pulled out a switchblade and tossed it onto the unmade bed. A cockroach scurried up the wall and darted behind a picture. Not an ordinary wall hanging like you’d expect to see in the homes of normal people. Instead, it revealed the core of this man’s sick and perverted life.
Photographs of blood-splattered faces covered the wall displaying images of his victims posed like statues. He had taken some pictures before their horrifying deaths, the rest after. The dead women looked similar with their blood-smeared blonde hair and blue eyes still propped open.
Theodore James Collins, born in 1985 to Edward and Grace Collins in Mason City, Iowa, came out screaming like an ordinary newborn. But he wasn’t by any means normal. Born with a spinal deformity causing a grotesque hunch back was only part of his abnormality. Also cursed with a cleft palate, he had a hair lip up to his nose making him appear as if he wore a fixed sneer. The moment his parents laid eyes on the infant they found him loathsome and repulsive.
Once home, his parents left the disfigured baby alone in the crib. Cuddling wasn’t an option. Many times, he wore the same diaper for hours on end. Through his toddler years and beyond, the boy never bonded with one human.
Four years later, Theodore’s mother gave birth to another baby. The beautiful girl grew up to be her daddy’s princess and her mother’s pride and joy. To make room for her, his parents moved his bedroom to a spider infested corner in the basement. The young boy spent his days searching for bugs. He would put them in jars and take pleasure when pulling them apart, torturing them a little at a time until they died. He imagined the insects were his parents who, in the meantime, went about their lives as if they had no son.
The flawless daughter grew into a gorgeous child with thick blonde hair and baby blue eyes that sparkled like gemstones. At the young age of ten, she’d already won many beauty contests.
Her beauty on the inside was far from appealing though. Spoiled beyond rotten didn’t come close to describing the girl. His sister was no better than the ones who gave birth to Theodore. She treated him with abominable contempt, even refusing to be in the same room with him.
The sixteenth year of Theodore’s miserable life, he murdered his family while they slept. He stabbed them repeatedly in the chest but took extra time with his sister by also slashing her face beyond recognition.
Theodore spent the next twenty years in a mental asylum. Because of his good behavior, the mental hospital personnel requested an appeal to return him to the general population. It got approved as long as he completed a rehabilitation program. He followed through with flying colors, and the courts released him into the mainstream. It proved to be a horrible mistake. It wasn’t long before he started his killing spree of women resembling his sister.
A year later Theodore moved to Minnesota with a former patient, George Wilcox. George had taken over his deceased uncle’s black sedan along with a little cash. Like Theodore, he had no family. George talked him into going on this trip, which didn’t take much convincing. Halfway to Minneapolis, Theodore murdered George. He buried his body, took over his car and identity and headed for Minnesota.
A busy restaurant in Minneapolis employed him as a dishwasher and nobody there gave George Wilcox, Theodore’s alias, the time of day. They left him alone just as he liked it.
Six women died in Minneapolis by his hand, and now his focus was on the unsuspecting Beth. He’d watched her for over a month. However, his plan to kill her had become complicated since her break-up with the ex. Now she temporally stayed at a motel. He preferred to kill women in their homes as he did his family. Well, he could wait.
Theodore shuffled to the canvas-covered wall of raw images and focused on the picture of Beth sitting on a park bench. He ran his finger over her face and hissed, “Soon. Very soon.”
