It’s a bad one.
He looks around his office, a knuckle jabbed against his temple, trying to will the pain away.
Does anyone notice? They must. His neck muscles are tight enough to strum, he’s drenched in sweat, and he can’t control the trembling.
He’s never experienced pain this intense. Not even his injury hurt this much. It’s as if his head is in a vise, being slowly tightened until his eyes are ready to pop out. The pills he took earlier aren’t doing a damn thing.
Maybe his wife is right. He should see a doctor. But the idea terrifies him. What if the doctor finds something seriously wrong? What if he needs surgery? He’d rather deal with the pain than let some quack poke around in his brain.
“You okay?”
A coworker. Female. Plain-looking, heavy hips, short brown hair in a spiky Peter Pan style.
“Headache.” He manages a sickly grin.
“Do you need some aspirin?”
He decides to kill her.
“Yeah, thanks.”
She walks to her desk. He imagines her, kneeling on the floor in his plastic room. She’s crying, of course. Maybe he’s taken a belt to her first, to loosen her up. Leaving marks on this one will be okay. Since she works with him, he can’t allow her body to be discovered.
“Tylenol?” she calls over the cubicle wall.
“Fine.”
How should she die? Her haircut inspires him. He will draw his knife across her forehead, pull back the skin to expose the bone. Work a finger in there, then two and three.
Skin stretches. His hands are large, but he should be able to get his entire hand between her skull and her scalp.
“Like a warm, wet glove,” he says, shivering.
“What’s like a glove?”
She’s holding out the Tylenol bottle, one eyebrow raised.
“I want to thank you for this.”
“No problem. I used to get migraines. I would have killed somebody to take the pain away.”
Me too.
“You know, Sally, we’ve worked in the same building for a few years now, and I don’t know anything about you.”
She smiles. Her front teeth are crooked. He can picture her mouth stretched open, screaming and bloody, as he practices some amateur dentistry with a ball-peen hammer.
“I’m married, with two kids, Amanda and Jenna. Amanda is eight and Jenna just turned five.”
He forces a grin, his hopes shattered. Who would have guessed an ugly thing like her had a family? He doubts he’ll be able to get her alone, and even if he manages, she’ll be missed.
“How about you? Married?”
“Yes. No kids, though. My wife is a model, and she doesn’t want to ruin her body. You know, hips spreading, stretch marks, saggy tits.”
Ugly Sally’s smile slips a degree.
“Yeah, well, it happens. But I think it’s worth it.”
“Look, I gotta get back to work. Thanks for the Tylenol.”
“No problem. TOSAP.”
He inwardly cringes at the slogan. “Yeah. TOSAP.”
Ugly Sally waddles away, and he works the cap off the bottle and dry-swallows six Tylenol. The throbbing, which abated slightly during his murder-fantasies, comes back harder than ever.
He needs to kill somebody. As soon as possible.
The pain-relieving properties of murder were discovered by him at a young age, when he was in his third foster home. Ironically, he’d been removed from his previous home for being neglected – the couple who had taken him in had also taken in eight other children, for the monthly check from the government. They would blow it all on drugs and let the children go without food. Well-meaning Social Services had whisked him away from the neglect, and handed him over to a psychotic alcoholic instead.
After a particularly nasty beating with a car antenna, he and his younger foster brother were locked in a closet.
He’d really been hurting. But along with the pain was a sense of helplessness, of frustration.
He took that frustration out on his foster brother, in the dark, muffled confines of the closet. The more he hurt the smaller boy, the more his own pain went away.
His new foster father went to jail for the murder.
When the headaches began, he knew just how to deal with them.
After four clicks of the mouse, his monitor fills with eligibles.
He finds a girl, one who lives just a few blocks away. Address seems to be current. He calls, using his cell.
A woman answers, her voice deep and throaty.
Perfect.