As a boy, one of his favorite pastimes was to sit out on the back porch and watch their cat stalk around the yard. It was particularly interesting whenever it came upon a bird or, on one occasion, a squirrel. He'd watched that cat spend up to fifteen minutes stalking a bird, toying with it until it finally pounced on it, tearing out its neck and sending its little feathers into the air.
He thought of that cat now, as he watched the woman arrive home from yet another night at work-a place of employment where she stood up on a stage and pandered her flesh. Like that cat from his childhood, he had been stalking her. He'd nixed the idea of taking her at her workplace; the security was tight and even under the murky glare of the early morning streetlights, there was too much of a chance of getting caught. Instead, he'd waited in the parking lot of her apartment complex.
He parked directly in front of the stairs on the far right side of the complex, as those were the ones she used to go to her apartment on the second floor. Then, after three o'clock, he'd climbed those stairs and waited on the landing between the first and second flight of stairs. It was poorly lit and dead quiet at this time of the night. Still, as a decoy, he had an old cell phone that he would quickly place to his ear and pretend to talk into if someone happened to pass him.
He'd followed her for two nights now and knew that she'd get home sometime between three and four in the morning. On both of the occasions where he had followed her and parked on the opposite side of the street, he had only seen one person use those stairs between three and four in the morning, and they had been clearly drunk.
Standing on the landing, he had seen her car pull up and he now watched as she got out. Even dressed in street clothes, she seemed to flaunt her legs. And what had she been doing all night? Showing those legs, making men yearn.
She approached the stairwell and he brought the phone to his ear. A few more steps and she'd be right in front of him. He felt his calf muscles tightening, waiting to spring, and he once again thought of his childhood cat.
Hearing the light sounds of her footfalls below, he started pretending to talk. He spoke quietly but not in a conspiratorial way. He thought he might even give her a smile when she showed up.
And then she was there, coming up around the landing, heading for the second flight of stairs. She glanced at him, saw that he was occupied and looked harmless, and gave him a little nod. He nodded back, smiling.
When her back was to him, he acted quickly.
His right hand went into his jacket pocket, pulling out a rag that he had soaked in chloroform seconds before getting out of the car. He used his other arm to wrap around her neck, dragging her backwards and off of her feet. She was only able to let out a tiny little yelp of surprise before the rag was pressed against her mouth.
She struggled immediately, biting down and somehow managing to dig into his pinky. Her bite was hard and he was sure she had bitten clean through his finger at first. He pulled back for just a moment, but it was enough for her to get away from him, wrenching away from the grip he had applied around her neck with the crook of his left arm.
She started up the stairs and let out a whimper. This whimper, he knew, would evolve into a scream in no time. He dove forward, reaching out and grabbing that silken bare leg. The stairs struck him in the chest and stomach, knocking the wind from him, but he was still able to pull hard at her leg. With a desperate little cry, she went falling to the ground. There was a shuddering crack as her face struck the stairs.
She went limp and he instantly crawled up the stairs to get a closer look. She'd struck her temple on the stair. Surprisingly, there was no blood, but even in the weak light, he could tell that a knot was already starting to form.
Moving quickly, he put the cloth back into his pocket, finding that she had gnawed into his pinky pretty good. He then picked her up and found that there was no sturdiness in her legs. She had been knocked out cold.
But he'd dealt with this before, too. He picked her up from the side the knot was forming on and leaned all of her weight on that side. He then dragged her down the stairs with one arm around her waist, her feet dragging uselessly behind her. With his other hand, he brought the dead phone up to his other ear just in case they passed someone in the fifteen feet or so that separated them from his car. He had his lines prepared just in case that happened: I don't know what to tell you, man. She's drunk-like passed out drunk. I figured it was best to take her back to her house.
But the late hour didn't necessitate that bit of acting. The stairs and the parking lot were absolutely dead. He got her into his car without incident, never seeing anyone.
He cranked his car and pulled out of the parking lot, heading east.
Ten minutes later, as her head knocked softly against the passenger window, she muttered something that he could not understand.
He reached over and patted her hand.
"It's okay," he said. "It's all going to be okay."