Spenser Alexander

Reading Writing Short Stories

Conventional short story

Ms. Wilson-Scott

Period 4

                                 SERIAL KILLERS ARE PEOPLE TOO

               Despite the fact he knew this particular patch of forest like the back of his blood and gore stained hand and could navigate its depths in total darkness at four in the morning. Josh still thought hauling a body from the trunk of his green Prius- he enjoyed being eco-friendly and he thought it sort of down played the fact he was completely bat shit crazy- and dragging the dead weight of said body up a goddamned hill was such a pain.

              The guy he just killed, or murdered take your pick, and, consequently, the guy he was currently dragging by thin bony ankles down an overgrown forest path was named Larry, or more specifically, Coffee Guy Larry.

Larry, Josh could admit, was actually a pretty cool guy.

He worked as the Coffee Guy at the office where Josh worked, supplying the drinks and snacks in the break room. Josh himself worked as a website analyst, running diagnostics for the image board he and some friends created in college as a final project in their computer class. 

                  Josh sighed and ducked under a low hanging branch, leaves dusting his dark hair, finding a good replacement for Larry would be such a pain. No one seriously knew how to make mint tea like Larry did.

 The poor bastard just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and, thus, had taken a hatchet to the back of the neck.

              It’d been around twelve and Larry had just finished restocking the break room and getting ready to leave when Josh had just happened to mistake him for that one janitor who kept rearranging his desk, like he wouldn’t notice.

Josh could sheepishly admit only after lugging Larry’s body out to his car that he may have made a tiny mistake on that one.

He didn’t even know how he managed to mistake flame haired Coffee Guy Larry for the brunette janitor he was gunning, or hatcheting, for.

Josh nearly tripped over a root.

Maybe he needed glasses? 

                                                                     * * *

            Josh had been born Joshua Danale Paters. He lived with his parents and two older sisters in a heavily wooded area of the Oakland Hills. One of their neighbors had dogs that barked at even the tiniest amount of movement, especially at night.

            Josh rather liked his neighbor, an older lady who raised large show dogs, and her tiny white mutt, Soupé.

His mother, however, did not; she was also very blatant with this dislike.

“I can’t stand those damn dogs!” His mother, Elizabeth, was a high ranking accountant for a successful banking firm and thus when she returned home, usually hours late, she was always aggravated and tense. The neighbors barking dogs did nothing to help her mood.

Josh thought himself to be a good boy but he also felt he wasn’t really helping his mother relax when she returned from work.

His father always pulled her to the couch, hugged her to his chest and massaged her scalp.

His older sisters cooked her favorite meal twice a week.

Josh only threw his toys to the floor and raced to open the front door when he heard her car pull into the drive. He felt this service, clearly, wasn’t enough.

Josh was seven when he overheard his mother and father talking about the neighbors’ dogs on his way past their bedroom door on the way to the bathroom.

“Babe,” his father never used people’s given names; Josh would later adopt this habit at the age of nine in an effort to seem manlier. “Her dogs are a problem.”

 Josh knew what ‘her’ they were talking about; he could vaguely hear one of the old lady’s dogs whining even now.

 “Maybe we should call and report her as disturbing the peace, or something.”

Josh could hear, through the door, the soft whisper of his mother shifting under thick covers.

 “Nik.” His fathers name was Nikolos and his mother only called him Nik when she wanted him to shut up. “All I want is for those dogs to shut the hell up. I wouldn’t even care if the damn things turned up dead, I’d probably be the happiest person alive. A good night’s sleep before work, I’d cry tears of joy.”

Josh heard more shifting, probably his father, but tuned out the rest of their conversation; completely distracted by the feeling of giddiness flowing through him.

Josh knew what would make his mother happy now.

And as he crept back to his room, bathroom forgotten, he decided, killing the nice lady’s dogs would make his mother happy and he rather liked making his mother happy. She bought him toys, she shared secrets with him.

He may have liked his neighbor but his mother was more important.

Now, nearly eighteen years later, who knew that dragging bodies through forests gave you so much time to think of the little things that have happened in your life?

                                                                    * * *

Josh thought of himself as being a pretty educated serial killer.

He planned ahead for all his kills, to a degree; figuring out his victims day to day schedule, habits, and mapping out where in Tilden he would ditch the body.

This was something he learned to do after a poacher hunting deer in a pretty remote area of the Oakland Hills nearly shot him in the head.

Josh, obviously, had gotten the hell out of there.

It was only as he sat quaking behind the worn wheel of his beat up Toyota pick up truck that he remembered he left the bloodied body of Salvatori, his eldest sister Salus’s ex-boyfriend, lying in the middle of a well used hiking trail.

Josh was paranoid and on edge for days, thinking everyone suddenly knew that he was a murderer, that anyone who came to his house- knocked on the front door or rang the door bell- was the Oakland PD ready to clap him in irons and drag him off to the gallows.

His imagination was his worst enemy.

Josh was beyond thankful when Salvatori’s body was discovered nearly three weeks later, much to the chagrin of two horrified hikers. He was thankful the poacher had some sort of twisted sense of self preservation.

Josh had been seventeen at the time.

Now, at the tender age of twenty-five, it had just so happened that he managed to kill the one person who knew how to make the best Mint Tea in the entire universe.

Josh felt like kicking a tree.

The one time he wanted to kill someone for his own personal, psychotic, reasons; the one time, he managed to fuck up royally.

Josh clicked his tongue, seeming to finally notice the brightening sky and the rising cacophony of birdcalls- Yellow Rumped Warbler and the Sky Lark-, hurried on.

He had initially chosen a clearing, only a tiny patch of dirt between a few trees actually, further in the forest to dump the body of his true target.

And if he had accidentally killed anyone other than Larry he would have still used it, would have washed his hands of the mishap and probably would have gone after a co-workers stock broker to put himself at ease, but Larry was honestly a nice guy.

Larry was the epitome of nice guys.

He stopped.

Dumping Larry beside a well used jogging and hiking path would at least give Josh a slight consolation and Larry a swift discovery.

Josh carefully rolled Larry down into a ditch beside the path he trekked to, following him down moments later. He carefully positioned Larry’s body, picking leaves out of his dirtied and bloodied hair and pulling his clothes into some sort of order, before pausing.

Josh paused and sat back, leaning against the ditches incline; ignoring the slide of dirt and tiny rocks into his jeans. He gazed around and spotted a clump of scraggly, but pretty, red flowers entangled with some brush. Reaching in a pulling some of them loose he shook off the dirt clumped to the roots and placed them on Larry’s chest.

He nodded, turned, clambered out of the ditch and begins the trek back to his car.

It was only as he sat behind the wheel of his Pruis, driving home, that he realized the brush surrounding those flowers was Poison Oak.

                                                                   * * *

Josh lay awake, but exhausted on his bed, right arm wrapped and covered in balm.

He’d gotten home a couple hours ago; washed the dried blood from his hands, cleaned up his arm and tried to get a couple hours rest before he had to go into work at nine.

He’d gotten about two hours of sleep before his arm woke him up, itchy and an angry red, forcing him from his warm covers.

Josh rolled out of bed; rubbing at his blood shot eyes, and stumbled towards the bathroom for a quick shower before heading out.

He dressed in dark jeans and a long sleeved white shirt under a dark blue t-shirt before grabbing his keys and wallet and trudging out to his car.

The drive to work had been silent, just him, his thoughts and the strange sound his wheels made on the uneven asphalt.

Maybe he should go see his mother?

Josh sighed and ran a hand through his hair, calming his racing heart before pulling into his buildings parking lot.

                                                               * * * 

Hours later, he was sitting at his desk, rearranging his things when the police walked into the office.

A rather bored looking police officer raised his hand to catch everyone’s attention.

  “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” every thing seemed to slow down. “We’d like to inform you all of the death of one Larry Mactanea.”

The office was dead silent for a moment before erupting into cries of shock, confusion, and disbelief.

The police officer silenced the office once more. “We’ll be conducting a routine investigation and be questioning a few people of interest.”

Josh thought of the burning in his arm and adopted a look of acute sadness. He may have felt bad about killing Larry but that didn’t mean he wanted to go to jail for killing the guy.

He would play the part of the grieving office buddy, look shaken up; the innocent coworker who remembered Larry as the office nice guy, the person you went to for a favor.

Tears misted in his eyes and he waited until a coworker put their arm around his shoulders in comfort before crossing his arms on his desk and hiding his face, and a wince, in their dark folds.

Josh smirked.

Maybe he would go see his mother.