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‘Hate’ is not strong enough a word for what I feel toward Jeffrey Woods. I loath him. I despise him.
Every time I close my eyes I see his laughing face. He thinks he is untouchable. And he almost is. For over a decade he has escaped impossible odds of capture. He has evaded the police and the federal forces and everyone else who could overpower him with guns and brute force. Most of America lives in fear of him.
But me. I do not fear him. I am going to be the one to kill him.
Time and time again I have drawn close. Have been a hairs width from slitting his throat; From putting a bullet through his head. And he escapes. Like a cockroach he slips away, still living. Why Lady Luck has the back of him I could never guess.
For too long Jeffrey Woods, or Jeff the Killer as the media calls him, has been free to torture and kill as he wished. The police are helpless to stop him. Were helpless to stop him as he slaughtered my family like animals. The sadness that onced wracked my body like physical pain, like the bleach and fire that Jeff had tortured me with all those years ago had passed and was replaced with a burning desire to see him hurt. To make him feel the pain that he has caused me and so many other people. Men, women, children. All ages, all races.
Their only crime was existing in his peripheral vision.
And for over a decade I had been tracking him across the United States. Following the trail of blood and ruin he leaves in his wake. He doesn’t even bother to hide the murders. It’s like he’s taunting me. I can almost hear his disgusting, gravelly voice whispering those three words.
But I am close now. I can feel it. Maybe closer than I have ever been before. For the first time in what feels like years I had gotten wind of him. I had tracked him here. To this small town in a remote, forgotten part of America.
Crime was next to nonexistent here. The people here didn't even lock their doors at night. It is a sweet little town, where people think nothing bad could possibly happen.
There are no clouds. A pale crescent moon shines overhead; bathing the house before me in cool silver light. Trees are scattered around the yard, casting parts of it in long sloping shadows. Thick gusts of wind send the tree branches reeling. Somewhere, a swingset squeaks as it is pushed this way and that at the whims of the weather. A tricycle lies abandoned in the grass not ten feet to my left.
A child lives here. I will not let him hurt a child. Not again.
I creep slowly forward, sticking to the shadow as much as I can. My breath bounces off the inside on my mask, making my face wet and warm. I pause in the sloping shadows of a tree. My gloved hand resting against the trunk.
It’s silent. But he’s here. I can almost smell the foul stench he carries with him. Like his sins have manifested themselves as an actual physical thing. It makes me want to vomit. But there is no time for that. If I waste even a second I might miss him.
So I wait, tense and poised. In reminiscence of a fox.
A movement from the shadows disrupts the calm of the night.
A black and white blur darts forward, in a heartbeat he opens a window and slips inside. Heart leaping in my throat I scramble forward, smashing the window in my haste to follow.
I am in the living room. It is too dark to make out anything other then the outlines of the chairs and television. Heavy footfalls sound overhead.
“Shit. What was that?” a man’s voice echoes down the landing.
“Come back to bed, Sam. Please? Let’s just leave it alone,” this voice was female.
“It’s pretty windy out there. I think a branch or something must have blown off and broke a window. “
“Oh, god. Please, we can fix it in the morning? I have such a bad feeling. Please just come back to bed,” the woman says, desparation creeping into her voice.
“Zhara, this is the safest town in the state. No one’s robbing us. I’ll just be a few minutes,” his voice draws closer as heavy footfalls sound on carpeted stair.
I swear under my breath as I hurry through the open door and to a shadowy alcove under the staircase. Why couldn’t they have stayed together? Jeff could be upstairs already or lying in wait down here to kill the man. I pull my pistol from the belt around my waist and hold it in my hand. Finger stroking the trigger absentmindedly as I scan the hall.
When the man reaching the bottom of the stairs he turns and walks across the hall to enter the living room, flicking on the light switch. The golden glow sends a shaft of light into the hall. With the man’s back turned I speed up the stairs. The first room I look in is a bathroom.
The second room, from what I can see in the dim light, belongs to a child. Toys and figurines lay scattered across the hardwood floor, and shiny posters line the walls. I creep to the bed and gently shake him awake.
His eyes widen and breaths quicken when he sees my masked face. I gently shush him.
“Listen to me,” I say softly, “There is a monster in this house. You need to hide.”
“You look like a monster, though,” he says in a voice louder than I would like.
“No. I’m the one who hunts monsters. Hurry,” taking his hand, I lead him to the closet, sitting him down among the shirts and soft garments. I shut the door.
I can only hope that it will be enough.
A faint, strangled cry ripples through the house.
“Zhara?” Someone sprints up the stairs.
I creep out of the boys room and into the hall, chasing after the black outline of the man.
I enter a dimly lit bedroom. A single bedside lamp illuminates the man holding the woman to his chest. His choked sobs are the only thing breaking the heavy silence. I watch as his wife’s head lolls back. Illuminating crimson blood dripping from the slits in her mouth and throat.
He’s here.
The man spots me, his red rimmed eye shine with tears of mourning and rage,“You sick freak. You killed her, you sick freak. Oh God, Zhara,” his voice breaks off.
The white blur comes behind the man, seemingly from nowhere at all. His kitchen knife raised, poised to strike.
My bullet only grazes his shoulder, but it was enough to make him stumble backward. His grinning skull-like face snapping to look at me. His eyes shines in recognition as he takes in my mask.
He kicks the man to the ground and turns to face me, holding a hand to the growing red stain on his hoodie.
“You dumb whore,” he growls, “I made you as beautiful as me and now you won’t leave me alone. First you, now Nina,” he only mutters that last bit, but I hear him anyway.
I don’t care what he has to say. I shoot at him again. The recoil making me stumble back.
He dodges completely this time. Running across the floor he throws himself at me before I have the chance to shoot again. My pistol flies from my hand as I smash onto the floor with him on top of me. His knees jut into my ribs. His knife flashes as it arcs toward my face.
My hands shoot out and grabs his wrist, muscles shaking from the force of holding his arm in place. He thrusts almost all his body weight onto it and I just manage to shove it to the side as it shoots down into the floor, holding fast to the wood panels.
I shove him off of me and scramble to my feet. Jeff’s foot shoots out and slams into my knee sending me tumbling to the floor.
My fingers snake across the ground before wrapping around the hot barrel of my gun just as Jeff rips his knife from the floor.
I rise to my feet, the muzzle pointing up at Jeff’s face. The moment my finger squeezes the trigger seems to freeze. That single snapshot engraved in my mind like it is carved there by Jeff’s hand.
We stand almost face to face. Jeff’s disgusting, leathery skin shines in the lamp light. The slits in the corners of his mouth look infected. His eyes red and bloodshot, the blue irises on mine. Long, matted black hair frames his face and he stinks of sweat and blood. It makes me want to gag behind my mask.
How could he ever think of himself as beautiful?
His punch sends me reeling as the shot rings out. I am thrown to the side. My head smacking against the wall. Stars twinkle at the edges of my vision. I blink, trying to shake off the dizziness.
“Fuck you, you crazy bitch.”
His voice is muffled. Through my blurred vision, I watch as he cocks his head, as if listening to something I cannot hear. He puts a hand to the growing red stain on his upper thigh as he hurriedly limps out of the room, not even bothering with me.
I stumble to my feet, trying to follow him but my shaking legs send me crashing back to the floor.
The curtains blow gently in the wind. The night is no longer silent, the man’s sobs in the corner and the faint sound of sirens slowly grows more prominent in the distance.
I want to scream. I want to yell obscenities to the wind. I thought I could kill him, but I failed so badly. He didn’t even bother taking the time to kill me.
I hope the bullet wounds get infected. And he dies a slow and painful death in a gutter somewhere. I hope he thinks of me in his final agonizing moments of existence.
I hope he knows that he can never escape me. I will never stop looking. I will never stop until his body lies cold before me. No matter how many years it will take. No matter how many times I fail.
Jeff the Killer will die.