It was in the town of Stackley that he had been born. And it was here, too, that Mr Anderson would die.
He had never been a particularly expressive child. Shy, his parents and teachers had called him. Weird, crazy, had been the preferred titles given by his peers right through secondary school. Up until that blissful point where people had simply stopped caring. There was only so much ridicule you could pull out of a small spectacled kid.
He had passed into adulthood, in much a similar way as that in which he had traversed the past two decades: living life in the shadows. He knew this was the only way he could continue to live undetected in society. The less attention he drew his way the less chance he would slip and let someone see how he felt. By now he knew how to suppress his instincts, mask his little abnormalities. Anything which was different enough to raise suspicion.
The first time he had killed was when he knew for sure. It was only a cat, admittedly, but he had felt something at that moment, the moment when it had stiffened momentarily and then fallen limp as a ragdoll in his child’s hands. It had been warm and soft. A bitingly cold winters day and this little pocket of warmth, his neighbour’s tabby, had seemed to him so comfortingly warm and soft. He liked that about living things. But what he liked more, more than the warmness and the softness, was how he felt when he was entirely in control over their little lives. There one minute, gone the next. As soon as he chose. He had known as soon as he had felt the cat’s body heat leaving through his hands, never to return, that he would kill again. He also knew, as soon as his neighbours came knocking the day later asking if his mother had seen their dear Timothy, that he could never let anyone know.
It was this feeling of secrecy, of caution, that had ensured he had remained undetected as of yet. He was able to live in the town where he had been born, working a normal 9-5 job in a coroner’s office and laboratory. Over the past decade he had progressed from the strangling of the neighbourhood’s cats to systematically and efficiently carry out four different murders. He was a calculating killer. He knew exactly what to do. He would plan months in advance so that everything went smoothly, and everything was clean.
But two days ago, on August the 20th, he had made a mistake. His victim had been a truly pathetic specimen of a man. Not that Mr Anderson ever felt any guilt, but if he had for any of his other targets, he would have felt nothing for this one. Steve Acram was the name. Mr Anderson had done his research. In great depth. Taking great care to ensure he was the right one, just as a chef takes care which ingredients to pick. But when Mr Anderson had arrived at his house, picked the lock, set up the plastic sheeting inside the hallway and waited until Steve arrived home, things had begun to go wrong.
Steve had been out for another night of drinking away whatever money he hadn’t already lost on the horses. On the way home, the scrawny and unkempt looking man had drawn the attention of a couple walking back through town from dinner at Carlino’s. Seeing Steve in such a state, Mr and Mrs Abell had intervened just in time to pull him out of the path of an oncoming car where he had staggered in his drunken gait which had earned him the nickname “seasick Steve”. The couple had then proceeded to escort him home, firmly denying his intoxicated accusations and brushing off his crude insults. How good of them, thought Mr Anderson in retrospect, how upstanding and dignified, to take a poor man home and make sure he was in safe. As it transpired, the couple had led Steve to his front door, ensured he was safely deposited inside his dimly lit hallway, before proceeding back down the garden path and onto the road. But it was not before they had shut the garden gate that they heard the faint sound of a man, screaming. Mr Abel had been concerned, wishing to investigate the noise. But his wife, already dismayed at their late homecoming, had persuaded him that Steve had probably passed out on the floor from the drink. The noise, after all, was not dissimilar to the shouts and laughter that had announced Steve’s presence on the street long before the couple had seen him.
The couple had proceeded along the road in the direction of their home, with one brief glance back towards the unlit front windows of Steve’s house. And it was at that point that the light of the half-moon had glinted off Mr Anderson’s wire-rimmed spectacles as he peered through the front window and had shone directly into the face of Mrs Abell.
This was how Mr Anderson found himself walking through the streets of Stackley, late at night, once more with his bag in the direction of the Abell house. He was not feeling his usual calm self about tonight. He was unhappy that he had not had enough time to plan. Just that one mistake with Steve had led to him now having to carry out three killings in as many days. He had never taken such a risk before.
Mr Anderson hurried on past the church through the deserted graveyard. The half-moon had been hidden for the past couple of hours, but now, as he crossed onto the corner of Warrenden Street and headed down the left-hand side of the road, it broke out from behind a wispy bank of clouds. A watchful observer, it shone down on Mr Anderson as he walked up past the children’s playground and took the last turning left onto Cross Close. Just one more block and he would reach the house of the Abells. Despite how late it was, the warmth of the street-lights and the cool fresh light from the moon illuminated the street very well. Added to the light were the bright LED twin beams from a low modified hatchback that came skidding around the corner at the end of the street. Mr Anderson had hoped that nobody would be about at this hour and turned his head down and into the collar of his grey trench coat so as to hide his face from the approaching vehicle.
But before the car reached him, Mr Anderson was distracted by a shout to his left. From a dark alleyway between number 52 and 53 Cross Close emerged a familiar figure. The figure shouted his name again, angrily, his voice joining the guttural groans of the approaching hatchback to create quite a menacing undertone. Mr Anderson, despite his better nature, took a couple of steps backwards to the edge of the curb. The man, for Mr Anderson could now easily tell that it was a man approaching from the alleyway, strode forwards, dug a hand deep into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade which he deftly flicked open. It was the practised move that a schoolboy learns to pull with his eyes closed so as to impress his friends. Somehow, in this situation, the smoothness of the action only made the whole scene feel more surreal to Mr Anderson. So shocked was he to find this man approaching that he was left standing stunned on the curb for a split second, before he realised the gravity of the situation.
The cold moonlight glinted of the pristine blade of the knife, jolting Mr Anderson into action. He turned to run, stepping into the road. There was a squeal of brakes, followed by a cry. A dull thud complimented by crunching noises and a rattle resounded throughout Cross Close. Mr Anderson’s body slowly slid off the slightly dented bonnet of the car, and fell, limp as a ragdoll. The figure pocketed the switchblade and retreated into the darkness of the alleyway.
Youth Strike For Climate