He was sure he’d been in a more awkward situation before…He just couldn’t remember when.
They were in a café down the street from campus, she sipping her coffee, he letting the iced confection he’d ordered melt as he stared at her in bewilderment. The light, natural blush on her cheeks deepened to an adorable pink under his gaze.
She…wants to DATE me?!
Penni cleared her throat. “I mean, I understand if you’re not interested. You practically have all the girls in the city falling over themselves to be near you…”
Well, yes, she had a point; nearly every girl he’d ever known on a first name basis (and some he didn’t even know at all) had wanted to date him…But only because he was a pretty face that happened to be on a sports team and get good grades. He was a status symbol to them, not a boyfriend. He often compared himself to the purse-bound Chihuahuas that were used as accessories and not pets. They only proved his logic that people in general, especially women, were not worth wasting time on unless that time was spent making them scream and beg for mercy that he had no intention of giving.
But Penni…
Looking at her now, face to face, she seemed genuine. She had nothing to gain--her friends were not the type to admire others based on who they dated, her grades were good, and she was better at tennis than he probably ever would be.
And he had nothing to lose from saying yes.
Except your sanity! If you date her, then it’s no bringing her home, no straying from her, and no more Ending; the life you and Reno have worked so hard to maintain will come crashing down on top of you…Be reasonable, Cypher!
But I AM being reasonable! She could be just what I need! This could be the chance I was waiting for to redeem myself! Besides, even if I say no…I’ve talked to her now. If something were to happen to her, I’d be right at the top of the suspects list. She was already risky because she was on the team with me; now it’s impossible.
He finally took a sip of the iced coffee. It was good and melted now, but it was still refreshingly cool. It helped him get his mind back on track.
“Penni…” He took another sip, then smiled. Not a crazy-face one, a regular one. “You know I’m crazy, right?”
She smiled back, the curve of her lips playful and sweet. “Define normal.”
For a second, he was taken aback--he hadn’t expected a response like that. Then, for the first time in a long time, he laughed like a normal person. “Well, it seems we’ll get along just fine then.”
Her blush deepened a fraction. “Thank you for giving me a chance. This is going to sound silly, but…I mean, you’re everything I could’ve ever asked for in a potential date: You’re in the top percentile of your classes, you’re great looking, you’re funny, kind, and you’ve got a mean backhand. You always have.” She looked away quickly, and her face went from pink to red. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve watching you or anything, but…” she continued swiftly, “Well, we did go to the same high school, and I did notice you…I don’t blame you if you never noticed me, I wasn’t the kind who stuck out. I only just recently got the courage to say something.”
Cypher’s head was swimming…and it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. She’d really liked him for that long? It was kind of heady to think about. But now that the subject was brought up…maybe he should impress her a bit. He just had to be careful to not say too much.
“I did notice you…You wore reading glasses freshman year. You never got to be on the tennis team until junior year. You always wore your hair tied back, which should be the eighth deadly sin in your case”--that got a little grin out of her--“and you wore purple a lot. I thought you were the shy, reserved type who didn’t like talking all that much who wouldn’t be all that interested in dating.”
She returned her gaze to him. “For the most part I wasn’t…because I had my sights set on you.”
That statement caused a stirring in his loins that he forced back. He had to add this--expression of hidden desires for him--to his long list of turn-ons. He mentally ranked it below helplessness and above submissiveness and continued. “So…how about a date next Friday? Dinner and a movie sound good?”
“As long as it’s not French food.”
A smirk. He hated French, too. “Japanese?”
“If you let me pay my share. I hate it when people spend money on me.”
“But then it wouldn’t be a date--it’d be an outing.”
Her brow furrowed in thought. “Hmm…I guess I could let you pay for the movie.”
He chuckled. He could get used to this, especially with her--she seemed the perfect one to joke around like this with. “A compromise has been reached, then.”
She smiled sweetly (it suited her face perfectly) and reached out to shake his hand. “It’s a deal, then. Next Friday, Japanese food and a movie to be determined on the night of said date.”
He shook her petite hand, the muscles in it strong from all those years of gripping a tennis racket. As they shook hands, he let his mind wander.
This is so…
Crazy?
No. Normal. And I think I like it. I’m sure Reno will appreciate me giving up Ending--he never wanted me doing it anyway, and it endangered us both.
GIVING UP?! You’re just gonna stop!? Cypher, you killed two people last night for virtually no reason; you’ll be attacking random women in broad daylight before long! You CAN’T stop--you not only want to stalk, kidnap, bind, gag, torture, rape, kill, and mutilate, you need to do those things! You’re a monster, remember?!
Even the worst monsters can be tamed.
We’ll see, Cypher, we’ll see…
* * *
NononoNoNoNoNONONONONONONO!!!
His body wasn’t responding to his commands. It seemed as if that other half of him, the psycho half, was in control. He watched himself do things as if he was watching a movie filmed entirely on steady-cam.
Cypher saw himself pick up the duffel bag that contained his ‘kit’, and he ignored his own protests.
You need this, Cypher. It has to be done.
NO! THIS IS MY BODY! YOU’RE JUST A SICKNESS, A PARASITE!
No, Cypher, can’t you see? Don’t you realize that I am you? I’m not a separate consciousness--it would just be easier for you to think I was. That’s actually what scares you the most, isn’t it: the idea that you and I are one and the same? Just let go, Cypher. If you want to think of me as someone else, go ahead, but quit fighting what you know has to happen.
He was walking down the street now, down an all-too-familiar path toward Penni’s house.
Please, please stop…
Stop begging.
Cypher tried with every last ounce of his energy to stop himself, but couldn’t. Maybe his body, and in some twisted way his mind, needed this after all. But that did little to comfort him, and he continued to fight himself until he was in her bedroom.
This was the second time he stood over her sleeping form. But tonight, the door and window were locked and barricaded with her dressers, which had been a real pain to move without making enough noise to wake her. He felt his own resolve to not do this weakening--she looked so enticing, laying there splayed out under a bed sheet. He reached into his pocket and retrieved his knife. A flick of the wrist flipped it open, blade gleaming dangerously. He had sharpened this baby right before leaving the house, and he knew it would cut through flesh like a warm knife through butter (he couldn’t find a better analogy).
She moaned a little in her sleep, and squirmed into a better position. He managed to get a simple command through--he closed his eyes and looked away, but it was too late.
…I don’t want this…
Your tight pants say otherwise. Look at yourself--you want this so badly that you’re shaking with anticipation!
He forced himself to look again, but managed to somehow keep himself frozen in place, knife in hand, still standing over her. He watched her chest rise and fall steadily in her sleep, her lips slightly parted. She looked for all the world like a sleeping angel…so very different from most of the others.
A thought hit him: she was innocent. 100% pure. She, unlike the majority of those who came before her, in the whole month and a half he’d shadowed her had never done anything to indicate that she belonged to the class of women who deserved to be eradicated. She never broke a heart, never said a mean word, never spread her legs for the fist Tom, Dick, or Harry that come looking (she seemed to be completely virginal, in fact), she was always kind and helpful…she even talked to him like a human being and not an object to be won over.
He was shaking, not from anticipation but from something he couldn’t name. Suddenly, he felt something hot and wet roll down his cheek--a tear; he’d been unaware he was tearing up.
…I can’t do this. I won’t do this. Not to her. Not to anyone else. Not ever again.
The other part of him was screaming for blood…But for the first time since puberty, it did not voice it’s opinion. He was the half in complete control now.
Another flick of the wrist closed the knife, and he slipped it back into his pocket. He quietly returned her furniture to its’ rightful places, unlocked the door and window, grabbed his duffel bag, and prepared to exit before the other part of him could regain control. He opened the window and set the bag on the roof, but before climbing out himself, there was something he had to do. He crossed the room back to her bed, bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“I’ll take care of you…” he breathed. “You’re the one that saved me. You showed me the light.” He gave her another quick peck, this time on the cheek.
He felt the animal within him stirring, so he quickly returned to the window and climbed out onto the roof. In one swift motion, closed her window, grabbed his bag, and leaped from the roof. Upon landing, he broke into a run.
* * *
The campus was dark and deserted--on a Friday night, what did he expect?--save for one building, the medical center.
He casually strolled in the center’s door like he had an appointment, forcing his lungs, screaming from the run, to function on their regular pace. He got tired stares from the nurses working the desk; they were probably worried that he was some nut who’d come to blow up the clinic. With the way he was sure his hair looked, carrying a black duffel bag, and coming at this obscene hour, he didn’t blame them.
“I’m just here to see Dr. Calvin,” he told them.
He’d seen the name on the sign outside, and hoped it was the right one; if they asked him to empty his bag, he was doomed. They merely pointed down a mostly dark hallway and returned to their business.
Cypher breathed a sigh of relief and headed in the direction of their point. As he walked down the hall, he read the nameplates next to the doorways. The last room in the hall was the only one with light coming from beneath the door, and luckily, it was the one he needed.
Dr. Cynthia Calvin, head of the Department of Psychiatry.
He gathered his courage and knocked. There was no response, so he knocked again, all the while trying to think of a way he was going to explain this.
After a few more moments of knocking, which had really become urgent banging, an older but still pretty blond answered. Her hair was just beginning to show signs of gray, and she made no effort to cover it up.
“Yes?” She sounded annoyed, and looked it, too.
“…I need help.” Lame, but true.
“Could you come back when the clinic is open, Mr…?”
“Koichi. Cypher Koichi. And no, I can’t. It’s urgent.”
“How urgent?”
He did not want to play this game with her. He was about to say something when she interrupted, “You look terrible.” She must’ve actually looked at him.
“I ran here,” he explained.
She seemed intrigued. “…Come in.”
Dr. Calvin stepped out of the way, allowing him to enter. He did so, and he heard her shut the door behind him. He looked around, and saw a psychiatrist’s office straight out of the movies--her organized desk, her shelf of books with huge titles, and even the infamous ‘couch’.
“So, what is it you need help with so urgently that you ran here?”
He sighed heavily and ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. He chose his words carefully and proceeded cautiously. “I’m…sick. Ill. At least, I know I have to be.”
She looked at him encouragingly, and indicated that she wished for him to sit on the couch. He obliged, and she returned to her desk.
But he hesitated. “…Everything I say to you is private, right? As in, you can’t tell anyone?”
“Basically, that’s privilege in a nut shell, unless by not saying something I’m helping you continue a crime.”
He considered his words again. “…What about past crimes?”
“Some people tell, but I’m not one of them. I believe it creates a better, more trusting environment for my clients.”
He watched her warily, looking for any sign that she wasn’t being truthful. Seeing none, he continued. “I sometimes have these thoughts, these feelings…And I act on them”
“What kind of thoughts? What is it that you do?”
“Terrible things…awful things. I do things to people that no human being should ever have to suffer through.”
To make his point, he unzipped his duffel bag and emptied its contents onto the floor: ropes, scissors, clothespins, latex gloves, condoms, a roll of duct tape, a crowbar, needles, a lighter, strips of cloth. He removed the knife from his pocket and added it to the pile of grim tools.
She stared from the pile of things to him and back to the pile. “Young man…What is it that you do, exactly?”
“You want detail?”
“…Yes.” She sounded as if she might regret saying that.
“Read any newspaper, watch any news broadcast.”
She looked shocked. “Mr. Koichi, are you…Are you telling me you’re--”
He cut her off. “I’m a monster…I’ve killed 56 people over the last two years, and I almost killed someone else tonight. But I stopped myself. I want to stop forever and be a normal person again.” He looked up at her with utter defeat in his eyes. “Everyone knows me as this good kid, a perfect person. And that’s right--I really am that person. However, I’m also this beast that preys on women, stalking and torturing and killing innocent people…” He licked his lips and said, “…I am the Paradise Ripper.”
-Fin
