He's following me. I know it. I feel it. And if my instincts are wrong -- which they've yet to be -- the man is right around the corner. I brave a glance back and see nothing. This doesn't give me any comfort, because I'm sure he's still around somewhere.
I'd heard the sounds of his footsteps right after I'd left the grocery store. I know what he sounds like -- this isn't the first time he's stalked me, after all. I wasn't scared before, but I can't face the possibility of an attack without seeing her again. She's waiting for me back home.
I inch toward a wall nearby and bend down. My eyes closed, the senses in my ears erupt as the sounds of feet meeting the pavement ring through the ground. As do the thumps in my heart beating hard against my chest.
I don't stop for the possibility of him finding me here. Seeing an open marketplace, I gratefully enter to find it packed even at this time of night.
In here, I push through the crowd to find its center, certain I'll lose him in the throngs of people rushing from all sides.
Their faces cross in a blur, but I feel so very exposed standing here, as if waiting for a pair of hands to grab me any moment.
I recall the last time I'd seen his face up close. He'd been full of murderous intent even then.
I remember how determined he was to take me and her. How I had to run for my life so she and I could get away. I don't know how, but if he's found me, he's even more relentless than before.
The thinning crowd serves as a reminder that no one's come for me, so he might have lost my trail.
Relieved, I move over to the counter and purchase a bottle of water. It hasn't trickled down my throat two seconds before I see him.
He's bounding toward me through the crowd. A glint protruding from his sleeve tells me it's a knife in his hand. He'd been waiting this whole time to get me in the clear.
I splash the contents of the bottle in his direction. He raises his arms on instinct, but gives away the weapon in his palm. I hear a woman's shriek as she witnesses this, but slip out the door without stopping to see further.
I thunder across the road with my house in mind. I have to be certain she's still there, if the man hasn't gotten to her already. Flashes of our last confrontation race through my mind as my feet move further.
He was monstrous in his rage, an anger I'd never seen and hoped to see again. Those eyes alone could have carved a hole straight through me. My arms had flailed around with the knife to protect myself, giving him that gash on the cheek that was now resting on his face as a scar.
He's been relentless in his pursuit for her; I wondered in that moment if I could get out alive. It was only through determination that we'd escaped him, or perhaps a little luck as well.
His hands had clawed for any part of me he could find; he could've ripped me apart if he'd succeeded.
Those hands had been moving through the air with insane ferocity, a force a human only with murder on his mind could have conjured.
The room door had burst open with nothing but brute strength; his hands tore through the wood and ripped it apart.
These memories overwhelm me and I collapse on the wall off the pavement. At times, I wonder if it's been worth it, whether I should keep fighting or run away forever.
I pick myself up, attempting to stem the rapid breaths escaping my lungs with burning pause. It takes me a few seconds to see that I've run into dark surroundings. The vicinity is nearly cloaked in shadow.
The burning in my chest is accompanied by the sinking of trepidation. That anything can happen and nobody would know,
The thought of seeing her again holds me fast. I'm determined to reach home. I will not give up, nor can he find me. With this, I'm filled with the same kind of determination I had that night, a sense of peace.
A loud bang reaches my ears from behind. In the distance, a gunshot has been set off. I hear the sounds of screams and bolting footsteps.
Another sound accompanies the night. As if something light is rolling around the ground toward me. I glance to the alley as the sound grows. I see something roll from the shadows and reach my feet.
An empty water bottle.
It's the same bottle I'd thrown at him.
All the blood rushes to my head as the fear crashes back once again.
From the darkness, I hear a rumbling sound. What a prey hears before its predator prepares to pounce. Nothing else appears from the blackness of the alley except for the rustling of the wind. It disturbs my senses, making me wonder if there was ever anything there.
The haunting comprehension dawns on me. It's not the wind I've been hearing. It's the sound of a person's breath reaching my ears.
Those growls magnify to deafening levels as I slowly turn to face him again. Those eyes look down at me, so murderously red.
He raises his hand and crashes it against my face, lifting me off my feet into the pavement. I feel him grasp around my neck, pull me up and slam me against the alley wall.
His other hand holds a knife I can tell he very much wants to gouge me with.
He brings it right next to my eye and breathes words into my face. I take my chance and shove the hand with the knife into his own shoulder.
He screams in pain and lets go. I take a swing at his face, but he blocks my attack, pulls the knife out of his shoulder and slashes my forearm.
My scream is even louder than his, and I see the knife slash the air again as another searing pain erupts in the side of my face.
He bellows more words at me. I feel another hard thud against my skull that sends me to the ground.
Just then, the cries of other people reach me and my eyes fly open.
I spot two men in the distance. I yell with everything I have for them to help me. My desperation is such that they summon the courage to face my attacker.
The men jump for the arm holding the knife and the three struggle before he's able to fling them away. The knife's fallen out of his grasp, and I take my chance.
He has a second's note of comprehension in his features when he sees the knife in my hand stab him in the chest. His eyes look up at me once more, as if still hoping to reach and claw my face off.
Several more onlookers start to close in as the men who'd come to my defense stir feebly nearby. I glance at my attacker twitching by my feet in a small pool of blood, before taking off into the night.
My arms and face burn with the cuts he's made on them, but I ignore it as I burst back home. I unlock the door that leads to the basement, and, to my relief, see her on the bed as I'd left her.
I slowly walk over and run a tender hand on her face. Her head flops toward me -- I must have turned her too hard.
Her cold, still, dead eyes look back.
Her eyes stare at me but see nothing. But I still remember when they still had life behind them. I fail to suppress a smile as the memory of her last gasp returns.
She'd been so beautiful at that moment. The second I'd taken that knife and driven it into her heart. Her eyes had flown open as her final sleep had been shattered. But she could do nothing but look back at my face as I saw the life drain out of her body.
Oh, such beauty.
To look at those eyes that had gone through so many years of existence, only to be extinguished with one swift motion of my blade.
To have me be the final thing she'd see. To see my face in those eyes.
Oh, how I crave to do it again.
I was so close to following my latest prey. They were right there. I needed only a couple minutes more to see where they lived when I saw him.
The woman who I look at now was so loved by her husband.
After all, why else would he follow me so relentlessly? His pursuit of revenge is something I didn't anticipate.
I remember when I'd driven the knife into his wife, and how he'd woken up even from her feeble stir.
How he'd lunged at me for taking his wife's life right next to him. How I'd barely managed to escape with her body.
How the man had broken into tears when he'd realized I'd gotten away with her.
He came so close to capturing me tonight. I recall his bellows of "where's my wife!?" just a few minutes ago. The desperation to see her, even if she is gone. Even if all he can find of her is this corpse before me.
It's too bad those people swarmed us, or I could have brought the husband's body back here too. There's something poetic about them being reunited in death.
"Till death do us part" would certainly never have been more ironic.
---------------
The man had become known as the "Sleeping Beauty Killer."
His M.O. involved stalking a married couple, breaking into their home, and murdering the wife in her sleep with her spouse asleep in the same bed.
He also made sure to keep his victim in bed until her body became cold. He would then steal the corpse.
His last victim's husband witnessed the murder of his wife, and began chasing the Sleeping Beauty Killer to seek revenge.
The husband survived his stab wound in the alley, although it would be two more years until he finally caught the Sleeping Beauty Killer and murdered him.
The killer's body was left in public with a note left by the husband. He claimed he would change his identity and start a new life now that he'd brought justice for his deceased wife.
The husband's current whereabouts have never been found.
The exact number of victims of the Sleeping Beauty Killer remains unknown.