This used to be a serial killer’s home. It’s been abandoned ever since he died 100 years ago but I decided to sneak in through the kitchen window.

They say the killer cut off little pieces of his victims right here in the kitchen and ate those pieces while he tortured them. He targeted mean rich kids, starting with the ones who bullied him when he was in high school. Those bullies made his life hell – They beat him, mocked him, stole from him, they even sodomized him.

But he got even with every single one of them. But he didn’t stop there. He kept going until he killed himself in the living room while watching TV, which is where I am right now. They say he was watching the weather when he shot himself. When the weatherman said it was going to snow again, he pulled the trigger.

I go upstairs to his bedroom. He actually had a pretty normal family life – Two kids, a dog, a lovely wife. Naturally they all moved out when they found out that he’d killed over 50 people. His first kill was after the birth of his first child. He was very involved in his kids’ school, he made sure his kids didn’t go through what he did.

I look out the bedroom window. Being here makes me feel a little guilty. I never bullied anyone, but I did watch a kid get bullied every day at school and did nothing to stop it. It was a long time ago and I wonder how that kid turned out. Should I have stood up for him? I stayed out of it because I thought I would’ve gotten bullied too.

I’m about to leave the bedroom when I notice that the bedroom door is shut. Strange, I don’t remember shutting it when I came in. I try to open it, but it’s locked. Okay. I think I’m going to panic now. After some effort I manage to open the bedroom window. But I’m on the second floor and it’s a long way down. There is a tree that I might be able to jump to and then I could climb down it.

And now I can hear knocks on the bedroom door. Great. That’s just great. I have no intention of staying to find out what’s behind that door. I prepare to jump out the window. I carefully get on the window ledge and bend my knees. I jump and reach for the tree branch.

Oh no, I missed it by a few inches. I’m falling.

And that’s when I wake up.

It takes me a few seconds to realize that it was all bad dream. I’m not falling. I’m under my blanket, safe and sound.

I take off my blanket and slowly realize that I’m not in my bedroom. I’m in the serial killer’s bedroom.

Writer: Rohan Parekh

Part 1

Nobody knows who killed the girl next door. It certainly wasn’t me, I had a crush on her for years. Of course I never told her how I felt, I was too shy back then. All the boys in the neighborhood liked her. She had a bright smile, wore cute dresses, and always went several miles out of her way to help people. I just can’t imagine anyone splitting her head with an axe.

Her brother was a soldier and by the time he came home from the war, Lucy had hit puberty and was attracting a lot of attention. Whenever Lucy attracted the wrong kind of attention, her brother would intervene. This one guy followed her home for weeks until her brother broke his legs. He handled a lot of guys that made trouble for her. But there were so many guys, so maybe one of them got to her.

Lucy had a jealous friend named Stacey. But every time Stacey liked a boy, that boy would always end up liking Lucy. Lucy tried to set Stacey up with other boys, but it never worked out. As time went on, Stacey grew bitter. One day Stacey hit Lucy with a car. Lucy was cycling around the neighborhood and Stacey was just learning how to drive. Stacey claimed it was an accident. A week later Lucy was murdered.

You could argue that I killed Lucy because I was the last one to see her. Her parents weren’t home, and she was helping me with my homework. After she finished tutoring me, I left her house. About 30 seconds after leaving I heard Lucy scream, so I rushed back to her house. When I saw her body, I called the cops.

The murder weapon, a giant axe which was left at the crime scene, was far too heavy for me to lift. There were no signs of breaking and entering, so nobody knows when or how the murderer got into the house.

Even though it’s been 10 years since Lucy died, sometimes I see her in my dreams, especially if I’ve had a bad day at work.

In my dreams she tells me to never give up.

Final Part

Sometimes when you screw up because you don’t listen to your mother, you’ll have to listen to her say, “I told you so.” Well, I really should’ve listened to mine when she told me not to talk to strangers. But sometimes I did talk to people when I was bored on the long bus ride to school. I remember talking to a middle-aged man 10 years ago before Lucy’s death.

The conversation started out normally, I talked about my favorite subjects at school and he told me what he missed about his schooldays. We both agreed that the food at the school cafeteria could be a lot better. But then things got uncomfortable. He started ranting about how much he hated blonds and how his father had left his mother for a blond woman when he was very young. His mother died of a broken heart a year after his father left.

While I felt sorry for him and his mother, I had to open my big mouth and tell him that not all blonds are bad. I told him about my beautiful blond friend named Lucy who was one of the kindest people I’d ever met. I told him about how she volunteered at the local animal shelter and how she read to the blind on weekends. But the man simply smiled and told me that I was too young to understand.

Why am I thinking about this encounter now? Because I just saw that man on the news a few minutes ago. He’s a serial killer nicknamed the ‘Blond Butcher’ and he’s killed one blond person a year for the last 10 years. Every year on his mother’s birthday he’d kill a blond person. A dead blonde was the best birthday gift for his mom.

He killed 10 blondes before getting caught. His first victim was Lucy. Aside from her, the other victims were kidnapped, murdered, dismembered, and hidden.

If I hadn’t told him about Lucy, then she would still be alive.

They say the Blond Butcher will get the death penalty. I certainly hope so.

Writer: Rohan