By Shaun Barrett
Derek McLaughlin may seem normal, but he's not. Derek McLaughlin is a deranged psychopath; A serial killer that leaves a large trail of blood from one place to the next. Derek is nimble at bringing death to this world yet he has never once come close to being seized for his murderous capers towards the innocent. Derek needs to connive before committing the act of slaying his victims. I mean, here and there he may have had to kill someone abruptly but the satisfaction is demised. His murders are a methodical plan from point A to B. He is living in a new home that is small and doesn't contain much inside, since it's a short-term stay for him anyway. Frustration is burrowing within him because he is ready to kill again but has not found the right victims to fulfill this urge he has.
On a Saturday morning, Derek is sitting in his living room smoking cigarettes and watching television, flipping through the channels. Derek casually gets up and peeks thru the blinds. And then, a maniacal smirk consumes his face. He sees a group of young college girls grabbing boxes out of a box truck.
He puts on clean clothes and sprays on some cologne to get rid of the cigarette stench. He then places his pack of smokes in his pocket, just in case it works in his favor with the girls. You see, Derek has a certain way with women. He dresses very well, and you can find him in his current style of fashion wearing a collared shirt under his sweater and pressed shorts or pants depending on the occasion.
Derek leaves his home and begins to walk across the street to the young college beauties. He immediately makes eye contact with one of the girls and they both simultaneously smile at one another. He extends his hand to shake hers.
"Hello I'm Derek."
It's funny because that's definitely not his name. This psycho has had so many different names and appearances it's hard to really know which was originally his own. Right now he could be described as a tall white male with brown hair. His exact age is difficult to pin point because of his young physique, but Derek is in his mid-thirties.
The girl astatically replies "Hi I'm, Jen!"
She is a very pretty girl with long brown hair that's up in a ponytail. Derek becomes more interested in her and asks if he could assist her in carry more things inside. Jen takes him up on his offer and the two of them begin to talk while carrying boxes in to the house. Jen explains to Derek that she is a senior at the local college and that she and her two friends from school moved out of the dorms and into a house for their last year. When inside, Derek is introduced to Jen's two friends, Lori and Becky, who are also very attractive girls with athletic bodies. This is a perfect array of women for Derek, each of them distinctly beautiful from one another. They happen to each have prominently different hair color. Jen has brown hair, Lori black, and Becky blonde.
Derek pulls a story out of thin air about him being a teacher's assistant at another local college in the area. Becky begins to put a cigarette in her mouth and lights it up in the kitchen. Derek reaches into his pocket for his until Jen says
"Gross Becky, I hope you don't think you'll be smoking in this house. Go outside!"
Becky replies "Ok! Chill out, Jen! I'll go outside...Just so you know people will be smoking in here tonight during the party."
"No they won't, they will have to smoke outside too, and you better tell them that."
Becky walks out side with her lit cigarette. Jen asks Derek if he smokes.
"I use too, but it's a horrible habit."
Derek tells Jen this because he wants to impress her. Jen is his target and has become point A in his new plan.
After all the boxes and furniture are brought into the house, Jen invites Derek to come over to the girl's house party that evening. Derek acts hesitant but really knows he should and tells Jen that he will be over later.
Derek returns home and closes his front door. He lights up a cigarette with a sinister smile. The wheels are now in motion for his next massacre. He pulls out a small box in his desk draw. In the box is small squirrel he caught in the neighborhood. The small defenseless animal is weak and tied up with zip ties. As he tortures the squirrel, he talks out loud to himself with such jubilation. Derek is his own best friend; he doesn't need anyone.
An abrupt knock at the door startles Derek. It is very rare for anything to scare this monster. He hopes its not Jen. Quickly, he hides his tiny furry victim and grabs air freshener to get rid of the smoke smell.
When he opens the door he is relieved. A beautiful woman Derek has never seen before stands at his door and says "Hi, sorry to bother you. I live up the street and was wondering if you have any sugar I could use."
As quick as possible, Derek says "Sure!" and grabs the sugar and walks outside.
"Here you go, keep it. I have plenty."
The woman is very thankful and the two of them continue to talk. She introduces herself as Dorothy. Derek says
"I'm Ben, nice to meet you."
Not only does he give her a fake name but a new fake occupation. Dorothy explains that she is a nurse and her husband is a surgeon at the local hospital. She tells Derek that her husband is at work now with the car and there was no sugar for her coffee.
"Well anytime your husband isn't home and you need some sugar, I'm your guy!"
They both laugh and smile. Dorothy invites Derek back to her house for a cup of coffee. He is not hesitant to take her up on the offer and they both walk back to Dorothy's.
Everything happens so quickly when they get back to the house. Derek lays on Dorothy's bed. He grabs a ventriloquist dummy on the side of the bed and starts moving the mouth up and down. There is a new voice in the other room.
"Hi honey, I'm home."
Derek realizes its Dorothy's husband. He quickly crawls out the window. Walking back to his house, he begins to contemplate if he should return to kill Dorothy and her husband. He looks across the street to see that Jen's house party has already started by now.
Dorothy made Derek completely forget about the party. He is worried that he might ruin his plan. The feeling of being at a crossroad is literally the visual in front of him. Instead of returning to his house, he goes right to Jen's house.
The party is very crowded. There are at least ten college students on the front lawn holding red cups filled with beer. Derek politely walks through the crowd as they all give him a smug look.
Inside it is more consumed and the unfriendly stares continue. He finally finds Jen upstairs. She is over by the beer-pong table talking to someone. She walks up Derek greeting him with a smile and a hug.
"I didn't think you would show up."
"Sorry I'm late. I had some things suddenly come up."
The two of them continue to talk. Derek feels positive that he is right where he should be. Derek is accidently pushed over by a frat guy playfully chasing a girl around the party. Derek falls right into the beer-pong table. All the cups spill on to the floor. The ping pong balls bounce all over. Derek gets up and is very apologetic to everyone playing.
His apology does not go over well. He is surrounded by three frat guys that were playing. The biggest one, Joey, grabs hold of Derek's polo and starts screaming close to his face.
"Who the hell are you?!
Everyone is watching and Derek hates all this attention. He wants to grip his fingernails into Joey's throat, but he knows he can't right now. Derek plays the part and timidly says. "I'm Derek, sorry I fell into the table. Somebody knoc...."
"Why are you here, geezer?! Your ruining the party!"
"Let go Joey, he is my friend. I invited him." Jen yells out.
Joey soon backs down and the party gets back too normal. Derek tells Jen he thinks its best he leaves the party. He suggests that maybe they could go for a walk tomorrow. Jen lights up, it is obvious that she likes Derek. They hug and he sneaks out without Joey or his friends even noticing. He doesn't want to deal with an altercation outside because he is afraid he will actually kill someone.
Back at home behind closed doors Derek begins to unleash. For hours he destroys everything in his apartment. This is all new to Derek. He never has all these social issues and distractions before plotting a murder.
Derek goes outside to bring some broken things to the road. He is shirtless revealing all the creepy tattoos that cover his body. A burning cigarette calms his nerves. The party is over and he is confident Jen won't be outside to see him like this.
Down the street, he notices something. In front of Dorothy's house, Derek sees her husband staring at him. It's too dark and far to see the expression on the husband's face. Derek obnoxiously waves at the husband and surprisingly receives a slow wave back. Derek walks back inside and falls asleep in his destruction.
The next day Derek and Jen are walking around the neighborhood. They soon walk past a frat house. Joey and his friends from the party are outside playing beer pong. They all make eye contact and Joey yells out
"Better not knock over this table! This my house! I don't have to be so nice here!" Everyone at the frat house keeps yelling, heckling, and laughing at the two of them.
Derek and Jen keep walking. He feels really happy at this moment. This is because he realizes Jen cares more about him then Joey and his friends. He is even more happy because now he knows where Joey lives.
Later that night at the frat house there is a little party with just frat members and guys being initiated. Two members step outside to smoke a joint together. As they are getting high they start to notice someone walking their way. Derek speed walks toward them wearing a tight rubber suit with just a slit in the face revealing his menacing eyes. Tightly gripped in his hands are two sharp machetes. Before the two stoned frat guys can move, Derek cuts them to pieces.
The psycho bursts into the house. His rubber costume emulates that of a ninja and so do his machete skills. Quickly and fiercely Derek shreds through the party slicing one after the next. Not one person makes it out the house alive. A new plan, a different plan. Derek is feeling satisfaction. The satisfaction increases immensely when he sees his last victim in the corner. You guessed it, it's Joey. Derek now pulls off his tight rubber mask, revealing his face. Joey is terrified. His mouth is about to open to apologize to Derek, and beg for his life.
Derek does not even give him a chance to speak. He swings the blades rapidly cutting his body up as if Joey fell on top of a moving helicopter. Joey's body becomes almost unrecognizable, with just his head left somewhat intact and not shredded to pieces. Once Derek is done, he vanishes from the bloodbath.
Jen is at home watching television with her friends. The phone rings and she excitingly picks it up.
"Hi Derek!"
"Hey Jen, what are you up to?"
"Not much just watching TNT with the girls. Want to come over?"
"Ok sure, but could you come here first? I want to tell you something."
"Ok sure, I'll be over in a minute."
Lori and Becky over hear Jen on the phone, and then they start talking as if they didn't hear anything. Jen hangs up the phone. She blushes and smiles, telling the girls to shut up.
Jen is glowing as she walks across the street. Derek walks outside his house before she arrives at the door. They walk across the street together and he begins expressing to Jen that he really likes her a lot and she tells him she feels the same. The two kiss for the first time outside his door step. Derek invites Jen into his house. When she is walking in she feels like she is on cloud nine but soon realizes that she is in hell. Horror consumes her face as she sees Joey's decapitated head on the kitchen counter. Before she can even scream Derek punches her in the face, knocking her unconscious.
Jen's friends are comfortable back at the house. When the door opens up they are expecting to see Jen's happy face. Instead they see Derek with a lead pipe. They are scared but confused and surprised too. The confusion goes away as Derek forcefully handcuffs them. He closes their mouth with thick duct tape and then he pulls in Jen's unconscious tied up body.
A short time has passed and Jen wakes up. She and the three girls are covered in masking tape and their bodies are propped up on their knees and taped down to the floor. All they can move is their heads. Becky and Lori can't scream because of the tape that covers their mouths. Piercing screams start to escape out of Jen's mouth.
Derek hears the screams as he is drinking coffee and reading a comic book in the kitchen. He walks out into the living room and smacks a piece of tape across Jen's mouth.
"I'm so glad you woke up Jen. Now we can play."
Derek walks out into the kitchen. He grabs a boom box radio and places it on the floor next to the girls. He turns it on and it starts playing a song loudly. Derek then leaves the room again. The girls sit there taped up looking at one another with tears swelling in their eyes. Through the loud music, you start to hear another loud noise. All the girl's hearts race. Derek walks back in the room with chainsaw. He immediately penetrates Becky's face with the moving chainsaw blade. Blood splatters all over everything.
Derek then starts to taunt Lori with the chainsaw. He pulls her tape off so he can hear the screams. Jen is having an adrenaline rush. She can feel her fingers piercing through the tape in the back. She keeps moving, feeling the tape become weaker. She is envisioning breaking out the tape and grabbing hold of the chainsaw.
Derek then begins to slaughter Lori with the chainsaw. Jen is more terrified now but she doesn't stop moving and trying to break through the tape. He pulls the tape from Jen's mouth in hopes of more screaming from her, but she does not scream at all. Disappointed, he asks
"Are you scared?"
Jen doesn't say anything. She just looks at him with anger instead of fear and that makes him so mad.
"Are you scared!?!?!"
He still does not get a response. Jen keeps squirming, she feels movement in her arms. The music is still blasting out the speaker and the chainsaw is off. Jen is about to scream as she breaks through the tape, but it's too late. Derek pushes into her face hard with the chain saw. Blood splatters all over him. The music and the chainsaw stop. Jen and her friends are dead. It is quiet and all you hear are low sounds of relief exiting out of Derek's mouth.
It's over, he has made it to point B. The satisfied psycho ended this escapade with a bigger body count then what he had originally planned for. Derek is about to go home now at this point. Out the window he notices that the cops are driving up the road. The massacre at the frat house has been discovered. He dashes to the back but when he gets to the kitchen he stops. A person wearing a mask and hood stands in his way. He is startled from this unexpected person. The mystery masked being pulls out a syringe and jabs it into Derek's neck. Derek pushes his way through. He makes it out into the back yard but blacks out almost immediately.
Derek's eyes open up slowly. He is so groggy and nauseous. When his eyes are fully open, he realizes that he is locked into a guillotine, and naked. The walls are made of grey stone. Only a small window shines a small amount of sun light. Derek can see that he is in someone's basement. He screams for help but all he hears back are the echoes of his own voice.
A door opens and Derek stops yelling. The masked person that drugged Derek and brought him to this basement appears from the shadows of the doorway. The mysterious individual takes off their mask, which by the way resembles that of a ventriloquist dummy. When the dummy mask is removed, it is revealed to Derek that this mysterious person is Dorothy's husband. Derek begins to plea.
"Listen Mr., I'm sorry I slept with your wife. Honestly I didn't even know Dorothy was married."
"Well that's a lie, Ben." the husband replies in a familiar voice.
Dorothy's husband takes off his glasses and pulls off his fake mustache.
"I told you all about my husband, Ben. The truth is, that my husband is as fake as your name."
Dorothy starts doing the voice impression of a man.
"Hi honey, I'm home!"
Derek now knows that Dorothy, or what appeared to be Dorothy's husband, is even crazier than him. Derek is in shock of this person that stands before him. She grabs hold of a cart on wheels. On the cart there are many syringes and surgical tools. She begins injecting Derek with the shots. He becomes numb, but still awake.
"Somebody help!! Please help me!!"
"No one is going to hear you, Ben. It's just me and you down here."
Dorothy starts doing various other voice impressions.
"And me, and me, and don't forget me."
Derek cries and screams.
"Please let me go! Please, I've done terrible things and I'm sorry! Just let me out of here and I'll change my ways! I'll confess to the police! Please, please don't do this, please!"
"The police are gone, they already questioned me about your murders. I'm actually really impressed by your work. I never get to kill multiple people at once. I usually just bring them down here one at a time."
Derek cries
"Don't kill me, please don't kill me."
"Don't worry Ben...I won't."
Dorothy pulls out an electric saw and starts to cut off Derek's arm as he screams in terror and pain.
Time has passed. Dorothy is in her house dressed in a suit with a matching color fedora on her head. She goes into a closet and pulls out an old VHS camera. The closet is stocked from floor to ceiling with videotapes.
Dorothy closes her blinds and sets up her camera on a tripod as well as a cheap light kit. Dorothy presses the record button and then runs to the seat in front of the lights and camera. Next to her seat is Derek's blood covered boom box. She turns it on by her feet and a song starts to play. The song is a happy instrumental that almost sounds like a nursery rhyme. She smiles and nods her head to the melody for about a minute then reaches down to turn it off.
In a strange voice Dorothy begins to talk to the camera.
"Hello boys and girls, welcome to the show! I'd like to introduce to you our new friend in the neighborhood, Ben!"
Dorothy reaches down to grab a large dummy to place on her lap. The dummy is wearing the same suit and hat that she is wearing. However, this is no dummy, its Derek McLaughlin. She has surgically removed all his limbs, leaving him to be just a head and torso. Dorothy keeps him highly medicated, so that he always stays in a comatose state. He does not even have the strength to open his own mouth.
She grabs his jaw and makes Derek talk.
"Hey everyone, I'm Ben!"
"Hi Ben! What do you want to do today?"
"I want to have fun!"
"Me too Ben, me too."