Page 8 of Serial Killer Games

And then the fuckersmilesat me. An unhinged smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, the sort of smile you see right before Hannibal Lecter bites your face off.

Tinkle fucking tinkle.

I don’t smile back. I hit my quota early today.

He’s gone by the time I finish for the day. I board the elevator and lodge myself in the corner behind a pair of Spencer & Sterns accountants. That wall of bodies blocks me from view when he steps in at the ninth floor and turns to face the doors. What a pleasure. What adelight. So much Jake Ripper in one day. I creep forward until I stand just slightly behind and to one side, close enough to inhale that signature bouquet of social isolation overlaid with the lighter, cloying notes of bleach for wiping away DNA and fingerprints.

Except…he doesn’t smell like that. His mask is too good, after all. He smells pleasantly mannish—like clean hair and soap and something else, something inviting and red-blooded that would make a woman lean her face right into his shoulder seconds before he reached up and wrapped his hands around her throat.

He raises his chin to watch the numbers—9, 8, 7—and I raise my chin to watch him, the neat outline of his head, the contours of his shoulders. His head is angled so that I can see the world through one lens of his glasses, distorted and strange. He turns slightly to let someone off at Four, and I notice a patch of stubble that he missed, right over an artery in his neck. I could take care of it myself, quickly, gently,whisking the razor over that tender skin between heartbeats. Maybe I’d be careless, and a ruby of blood would form.

Our greasy reflection comes together as the elevator doors close, and when I look, I can see his eyes were on me first.

I work it out in my head on the drive home. He knew I was there behind him, as I leaned into his space and studied his haircut, his shave, and breathed in his smell—

He was breathing inmysmell. He knew I was there because he recognized the scent of my perfume.

Three things occur to me. First,he’sbeen watchingme. I made the mistake of drawing his attention. A couple of jokes in an elevator and now he’s like a pale, fluttering night bug that glimpses a flash of light and won’t go away. Or maybe a mosquito that’s sniffed blood and circles around lazily, waiting for its opportunity.

Second, a crooked little part of melikesthat he’s been watching me. My life’s come to a pretty pass when I’m lonely enough to be flattered by the attention of a man who wants to carve my face from my skull and wear it.

And finally, this is bad. Nobody is supposed to notice me.

5

Hostile Work Environment

Jake

I’ve been at Spencer &Sterns for one month. I could be yanked suddenly by my temp agency and placed somewhere new, but for the time being I’m here with Dolores in our little annex, our little cell, our little funny farm.

It’s November now, and we are clenched in the white-knuckled death grip of Christmas season hysteria. Holiday music wafts like a bad smell over the elevator sound system, and twining vines of green and silver tinsel metastasize around railings and doorways. Not in our private sanctuary, though. An hour after the decorations go up, Dolores emerges from her office and Grinches the annex from the freckled ceiling tiles down to the shit brindle brown carpet, shoving everything into a big black garbage bag.

“Where’s your Christmas spirit?” I ask her, and she ignores me. She’s been ignoring me all week, ever since my comment about going to HR, and I miss her little acts of guerrilla terrorism. She returns to her office and flicks on a podcast, andthe now familiar tinkle of a jingle starts. A jaunty waltz across the minor keys of a xylophone, and—

“Hellooooo, Killjoys and Murderheads! That’s Bex—”

“And that’s Aya—”

“And this—

“—isMurderers at Work!”

“Where we pretend to find lessons about society in grisly true crime stories!”

“Um, where we pretend to be appalled and not morbidly fascinated—”

“How’s this:Murderers at Work, the barometer of an indifferent society’s decay.”

“Can I get that on a mug?”

“Maybe on a Christmas mug with little snowmen and shit, because this episode ofMurderersis guaranteed to put the festive spirit in the cold, empty void where your heart used to be. But first…Bex?”

“Tickets to our live event in Las Vegas are selling out! So get your shit together and buy some!”

“Do it! It’s Las Vegas, guys!”

“Aaaaand on with the show. Today we’re going to talk about…”

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