CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The theater was a cavern of whispers and shadows, smothered in an expectant hush. The killer sat among the murmuring crowd, a spectator cloaked in the dim lighting. Faces around him were etched with sorrow, eyes glistening as subdued conversations brushed his ears.

He picked up on some of those conversations. News of the two dead actresses was quickly making its way among the theater community. Some people were questioning the thought behind continuing with performances in the wake of such tragedy, while others thought it was the right thing to do—something of a tribute to the fallen actresses.

He sneered at their naivety. How blind and stupid were these people? How heartless and immoral?

He heard fragments of dialogue, snippets of grief and absorbed them.

"She would have wanted us here," a woman whispered to her companion, clutching a playbill like a lifeline.

"To celebrate her life, her passion for the stage."

"Ah, but the show must go on, yes?"

It made him sick to his stomach. His grip tightened on the armrest of his seat, knuckles whitening. It was a grotesque charade, he thought, a mockery of the purity of death he had delivered. These people didn't understand the artistry behind his actions, the necessity of his mission. They thought the true art was what was communicated on the stage, but his work was the truest form of art he could imagine—the purest.

As the minutes passed, a breathless tension swelled within the auditorium. It was almost time for the show to begin. He shifted in his seat, anticipation coiling in his stomach like a restless serpent. His focus narrowed to the stage as the house lights dimmed further, plunging the theater into the twilight of expectancy.

Then, the curtains rose.

The stage bloomed into view, a meticulously crafted realm separate from reality. It was an intricate set—a Victorian drawing room rich in detail, from the delicate china perched on the mantelpiece to the heavy drapes that framed tall windows. The audience exhaled as one, and the performance began.

According to the playbill in his hand and the marketing he had read before purchasing his ticket, this was to be a small production—only four cast members and a total time of fifty minutes. And though he had actually come to appreciate these smaller productions, there was only one reason he was here tonight.

And there she was, stepping out onto the stage in an elegant costume and her bright, mischievous eyes: Rebecca Clarke.

She emerged from the wings, a vision of malevolence swathed in dark velvet. Her character was a villainous specter, threading through the narrative with a dangerous grace that belied the horrors she would unfold. His gaze latched onto her every movement with an unsettling intensity.

It almost made him sad. Almost. She was very good and quite beautiful. She had that easy and effortless look of glamour from the 1970s. It was such a shame that she was wicked, that she had true darkness in her heart.

It was a shame he was going to have to kill her.

Rebecca moved across the stage, her voice a silken menace that ensnared the audience. He watched, unblinking, as she wove her duplicitous web, entrapping her fellow characters in a dance of deceit. His fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against his thigh, the beat a discordant echo of his accelerating pulse. He started to sweat, to imagine what it would be like to watch those gorgeous eyes widen in horror as she realized what was to come.

There was something about Rebecca, something that transcended the footlights and the painted backdrops. She wasn't merely acting; she was conjuring truth from fiction, breathing life into wickedness. And it was this—this blurring of lines—that he found intolerable.

The play unfolded, each scene a step closer to the inexorable climax, and his fixation on Rebecca only intensified. What the others saw as a mere portrayal, he saw as an affront—an affront that demanded retribution. As the final act drew near, his thoughts churned with the dark undercurrents of his purpose. He could see what was coming, knew it was on the way. He could feel it brimming not only from the stage but in the anticipation of those in the crowd.

As time trickled past, the audience remained oblivious to the tempest brewing in one corner of the room. He could see the strings of the puppet show; they glinted in the stage light, invisible to all but him. The minutes stretched into half an hour, shadows playing across his vision, mirroring the darkness swelling inside him.

His hands clenched tighter around the armrests hard enough to ache as the plot wove toward its inevitable end. Rebecca's character prowled the stage, her eyes reflecting the stage lights like those of a predator in the night. His own breaths came in shallow, ragged pulls, his focus sharpening to a razor's edge as the final scene unfurled before him.

And then it happened—the moment the play had been building towards. The scene was set with ominous lighting that cast long, foreboding shadows across the stage. A false night that belied the true darkness about to be unleashed. The lover, unsuspecting, turned his back to Rebecca's character, speaking lines heavy with dramatic irony. Rebecca's face was a mask of feigned devotion, contorting into a grimace of concealed rage as her hand found the brick along the floor.

He watched, transfixed, as Rebecca raised the brick high above her head—her movements deliberate, almost ceremonial. His heart thrummed against his ribcage, pounding in time with the impending doom. With a brutal swiftness, the brick descended, meeting the actor's head with a sickening thud—a sound too real, echoing through the silent auditorium. Once, twice, thrice, the brick rose and fell, each impact a grotesque symphony. Brutal. Sickening. Splashes of crimson stained her hands, contrasting sharply against the pale skin, painting a picture so visceral that a moan of despair nearly escaped him.

The lights were pointed at it. Every eye was drawn to it. The stage had been set for this heinous murder and…well, what was the reaction of the deviants all around him?

Thunderous applause erupted within the dimly lit theater, a cacophony that reverberated off the walls and pounded into his ears. The audience was alive with appreciation, their hands coming together in a fervor that matched the intensity of the final scene. But as they rose from their seats, their faces alight with awe, he remained still, disgust coiling in his gut. How could they not see? Their clapping was an affront—a celebration of the murder he had just witnessed.

His fingers twitched, itching to silence the clatter, to make them understand the sanctity of death they so ignorantly applauded. It would be easy, so terribly easy, to let the darkness within him loose upon this unsuspecting crowd. But no. His purpose was singular, his mission clear. The rage simmering within him funneled into a laser-sharp focus on one person alone: Rebecca Clarke.

The final curtain call beckoned the performers back to the stage, and there she was, Rebecca, bowing with a flourish, her eyes shining and her hands still slick with blood.

He could take no more of it. He ran out of the row and back to the lobby. He then made sprint to the bathroom where he barely made it into a stall before he threw up.

His thoughts churned as his obsession with Rebecca tightened its grip around his mind. She had stood there, in the spotlight, a celebration of death, sin, and murder.

What the hell had this society come to? Was the applause and celebration of murder now the norm? How had he missed it? How had things come to this?

It was perverse, intolerable.

When he was done throwing up, he got back to his feet and walked to the sinks. He rinsed out his mouth and looked himself over in the mirror. He looked pale, sickened by what he'd just seen.

Rebecca would be next. She was a murderer, just like Emily and Sarah before her. Not only that, but she chose to bring her sins to the spotlight, to let others watch. She was an influencer, feeding the sick minds of the masses.

She must be stopped, her charade ended. And he would be the one to close the curtain on her final act.