Chapter 9

9

The Sandman

One week ago …

The Loop was the perfect place to pick up a woman. Everyone was transient, looking for a party and a quick hookup. The streets were packed most evenings with young, twenty-and-thirty-something socialites, who made up most of the demographic. Loud, obnoxious girls who stumbled along from place to place, getting more intoxicated by the hour. Insolent bitches in their fuck-me clothes. Even in the winter months, they frequented the bars in slinky skirts and crop tops, or skimpy dresses that showed off their bodies.

Little whores craving attention.

And stupid, too.

Had they watched the news, they might’ve known not to parade around like drunken vermin, practically begging to be snatched up by a cunning predator. In the last year, three girls had gone missing from Chicago, their bodies discarded miles away, eyeballs removed and filled with sand, a signature that gave the killer his moniker: The Sandman.

A name that’d grown on him.

He sat at a small round table, where heaters kept the forty-degree chill off him, as he waited for the perfect subject. Most of the girls sported small breasts and tiny waists—practically birds without any real meat.

No, he liked the curves best, and big sloppy breasts that bounced when they moved. Made him hard just thinking about a woman lying sprawled out before him, eyes rolled back into her head.

Teeth gritting, he squeezed the napkin in his hand, willing away the disgust creeping up his throat at the visual.

A busty blonde squeezed through a crowd, not even sparing him a glance as she passed his table. Strange how human beings, the highest functioning organisms on the planet, with all their acute means of perception and cognizance, could be so blind to what lay in their periphery. The woman didn’t seem to have any idea that she’d seen him before, just two nights back, in fact, when he’d followed her into a restaurant, where she met up with friends for dinner. She’d offered no more than a passing glance on her way to the loudest table there. Perhaps she had no idea that he’d watched her at work all week long, passed her on the street, as she hustled to grab a coffee before her staff meeting. That he’d witnessed her taking home a stranger from the bar the weekend before and fucking him in the backseat of his SUV before they’d even arrived.

She didn’t seem to recall seeing the terrifying entity everyone called The Sandman, watching her every move for nearly two weeks. Because surely, if she had, she wouldn’t have ventured out on the one-month anniversary of his previous kill. Unfortunately, the police wouldn’t yet be privy to such a pattern, since the one before last had been dumped three months earlier. The one before that?

Six.

No, she was as flagrantly obtuse as the rest of them. Nothing but a filthy young sow, whose only purpose in life was to breed more of her kind. As if he’d sit by and allow such a thing.

The Sandman lifted his glass from the table, using the balled up napkins to wipe where condensation had gathered. He tossed the used napkin into the overflowing trash bin on his way to where she stood checking her watch.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, setting his glass on the bar beside her.

A quick once-over, and she feigned the kind of smile that set his teeth on edge. The kind that told others around them she was just being polite for face. He clearly wasn’t her type, evident in the brawny rich men she’d often let fuck her like a bitch in heat.

That was the beauty of masks. Essentially, everyone wore them. All of them hiding what truly lay beneath all that makeup and mannerisms. If each person could be seen for what they were, she’d be just as ugly as he was.

“No, thank you. I’m just waiting for some friends.” She didn’t even bother to mention she’d seen him around. Why would she? Women like her only saw what they wanted to see. Everything else merely served as a prop. Nothing but background noise to their perfect little existence.

Of course she wasn’t interested—whores like her only went for the beefy and dim-witted, the ignorant twits who got every piece of ass at The Loop because they spent most of their lives building their biceps instead of their brains. The ones who flaunted their money like a calling card for the equally rich and haughty.

The Sandman gave a nod and lifted his drink, grabbing another napkin to wipe the condensation left there.

His eye twitched with the thunderstorm of anger rolling through him, while he made his way toward the exit, tossing the glass and another balled up napkin into the trash. Not that he’d expected her to say anything different.

Dirty sluts rarely went for the highly-educated, much more worldly men.

Hands balling into tight fists, The Sandman made his way through the tightly woven crowd, knocking into a shoulder as he passed a group standing around.

A woman’s cranberry colored drink splashed over the glass and she scowled back at him. “Hey! Watch where you’re going!”

Like the response of a robot, her words spun him around, and his eyes locked on her short auburn trusses, neatly pulled back into a stunted ponytail. As he took a moment to assess her features, a larger male blocked his view.

“’The fuck you looking at, man?” Standing nearly a foot taller, the other male towered over The Sandman, and just like that, his interest in the woman waned. He turned back along his path, out of the bar, and down the street to the parking garage, where the blonde had parked earlier.

Where she parked every week, at around the same time, when she came out to have drinks with friends.

Slumped in the driver’s seat of his own vehicle, he kept his eyes on the fancy Lexus sedan parked across from him. Hours passed, and he watched others come and go. He checked his watch. She’d be leaving soon, possibly with another man.

He’d taken that into account, as well.

Nabbing a leather case from beside him, he exited his vehicle, and looking around the dimly lit garage, so as not to be taken by surprise, he made his way to the Lexus. With gloved hands, he slipped a small piece of paper onto the windshield of the vehicle.

On the car door keypad, he punched the code he’d watched her use a few times, when she’d mindlessly locked her keys inside, and crouched low in the backseat.

Waiting.

It wasn’t long before the first sounds of her familiar voice reached his ears where he lay across the rear foot well.

“I’m good. Catch you guys next week! Randy, don’t let that bitch drive. Way too many grapefruit crushes!”

A male responded with something incoherent, his voice growing distant.

The thump of her wipers told him she’d pulled the note from the windshield. Through the driver’s window, he could see her looking around the garage, as if she might catch a glimpse of who’d left it. With the paper held to her face, he could see her eyes move back and forth, reading his proposition, and a smile stretched across his face when her brows pinched together. The note fluttered out of her hand, and she bent forward, the scratch of the door telling him her hands were unsteady, likely trembling, as she tried to fit the key.

Her hands slid over the keypad, instead, and the vehicle lock popped. Discarding her bag on the seat beside her, she fell into the driver’s seat, the sound of her shaky breaths only goading his excitement. A strong, berry scent filled the car, gagging him where he lay. Floral scents were one thing, but sweet smells sickened him.

Shaky hands fumbled over the steering wheel to the ignition, in a futile attempt to start the car. To get away. Almost laughable, but he remained silent as he sat up and plunged the needle into her neck, watching her wide eyes droop with sleepiness while the tranquilizer took over. Gently cupping the side of her head, he lowered her across the console and stared down at her.

Blue eyes shifted back and forth, and warm pants of breath fanned his cheek.

If she could talk, she’d tell him sorry, for how she’d treated him earlier. She’d beg for her life and to be spared out of mercy. She might even give him the answer to his question, unflinchingly choosing to fuck him.

But it was too late for all that. He already knew what mask he’d make her wear. How he’d tuck her hair inside of it, just so. The color crimson he’d paint on her lips.

She would be his doll, his plaything, to do with as he wished. She’d never reject him again.

He’d make her virtuous and obedient. Gracious as a flower.

His Queen of the Night flower.

And in the morning, she would wilt away.

Just like the others.