Bella's Serial Killer

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Bella’s haphazard lifestyle was the reason she was still alive. She didn’t know it, but her serial killer was a very punctual, precise man with a strict routine. He spotted her some nine months ago, running across heathland. It was 8.56am on a Monday morning. Next Monday she appeared at 8.30am, the Monday after at 9.03am. 

Her serial killer noted these times in a little book and came up with an average. Not that ten minutes here or there really made much difference, but he liked things to be neat and tidy, as little room for error as possible. It was one of the reasons his career had been so successful and his work remained ‘unsolved’. On the fourth Monday she didn’t appear. On his way to the shops one Wednesday morning two months later, there she was. It was 10am. That screwed his average entirely.

At first it annoyed him, but then it tantalised him. Cat and mouse. So, undeterred, he returned to his watching place every Monday between 8.29am and 9.05am. One Monday she arrived at 9.10am, so he let her run by. 

Four months later she arrive at the heath at 8.46am on a Monday morning. Her serial killer sat up in his car, eyes wide, checking the clock twice more to be sure. Today was the day. He set down his packet of breakfast doughnuts, reached for his bag of tools and got out of the car.

Bella had got faster over the time he’d been watching her. He realised she might reach the trees before he could get there, so he picked up his pace, aiming for a particular tree behind which he had often fantasised about accosting her. He had never waited this long for a kill, his mouth filled with saliva, his pores with sweat, his heart beat faster as he hauled himself towards the trees.

Bella entered the woods moments later to find her serial killer having a heart attack. She had signed up for CPR class just weeks before, but got the time muddled so arrived just as it was finishing. She felt terrible for not being able to save the man’s life and was sure the last thing he said before he died was ‘touché’.


by Audrey Miles


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