by T5
The snow in Stockholm made the visual range only a few yards, and the lonely call girl at the street corner was thinking of going home, when a car stopped in front of her. A man inside motioned her to come to the car window.
The street was empty except for a few kids throwing snowballs at street signs. She hesitated but soon reconsidered. She needed the money. The window opened as she bent down to see who it was.
A young man in his early twenties smiled and asked, "Are you looking for work?"
She shrugged. "Do you have any to offer?"
"Sure. Jump in," he replied by opening the door for her. She climbed inside.
The young man's flat was luxurious and almost spotless. They began with a shower and soon ended up in the bedroom. Never before had she encountered such an eager young man, and so young. Usually she only got the bored, middle-aged wife-cheaters. So the night was not so bad as it usually was.
Her thoughts went to her two lost kids, taken from her a few months back when they discovered her profession.
Suddenly, a burning sensation could be felt in her lower abdomen. She looked down, and the man had just stuck a knife inside her. Too surprised to scream, she just looked at him. His eyes were aflame with murderous intent, and he struck her again, this time in her right lung.
The pain made her unable to scream, so she tried to roll away, but he impaled her again and again, taking great joy and time.
Her last thoughts seemed rather silly: at least she died in a clean bed.
The cab stopped at the red light. Pearls of sweat on his forehead irritated his eyes. This time it had been too close. She screamed too much, and the neighbors called the police. They arrived way too fast, and he had barely had time to get away through the back window and down the fire escape.
He must be more careful in the future. Maybe cutting the tongue will make it more agreeable.
The cab started again and ever so slowly (to his mind) found the address he had asked the driver to take him to.
Ignoring the cab driver's question if he wanted change, he rushed up the stairs of a rather scruffy-looking apartment building.
He walked down into the cellar and opened the adjoining apartment house's door and slipped out through the back door, then walked a few blocks to his real house.
As he opened the door to his apartment, he could sense that someone was inside it. With no lights on, he could not see anyone, at least in the hall. Maybe someone was in the kitchen.
Slowly he entered and closed the door behind him. In his right hand, he held his trusty Italian butterfly knife. The sense of someone being in the apartment grew and grew, until he could almost taste it. He dared not switch on the light in the chance that he could alert the intruder to his presence.
Something moved in the darkness, a form without a form, something familiar from his dreams... those dreams of violence and inhuman lusts that he just had to experience for real.
The dark shape loomed over him and whispered with a voice like two grinding mountains, "Hello, Conrad. Welcome home."
His screams never reached the outside of his apartment.