Obsessed

by Alex Carver

answering a few questions, do you mind if we ask you about the attack on you?”

  “There isn’t much I can tell you,” Kirsty told him. “I was walking up the path to my front door when someone grabbed me from behind.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  Kirsty shook her head, slowly, because moving her head quickly hurt and made her dizzy. “I didn’t see him, he was behind me, and it was dark.”

  Leroy looked disappointed. “What happened after you were grabbed?”

  “I struggled with the guy who grabbed me and we fell over. He lost his grip on me when I landed on top of him, and I scrambled away, calling for help. He tackled me before I got very far and I hit my face on the ground. I kicked out at him and he let me go again. When I got to my feet I ran for the door.

  “I remember getting to the door, and I remember my hands shaking as I tried to get the key in the lock. Before I could, he had me again. He hit my head against the door, twice.” She sounded more shocked by that, than by the fact that she had been attacked. “I don’t remember much after that. I think I heard someone calling out, but I might have imagined it.”

  “You didn’t imagine it,” Holly assured her friend. “Someone did call out.”

  “You seem to know something about this, Miss.” Leroy turned to Holly, who was yawning in the chair she had positioned near the head of Kirsty’s bed. “Would you mind telling us what you know?”

  “I think I need a coffee first, I’m not awake enough to concentrate. I’ll be back in a minute.” Holly got to her feet and tiredly wandered off in search of a vending machine. It didn’t take her long to find one and then she was back, sipping from a gently steaming polystyrene cup. “Okay, now I feel a little more awake, what is it you want to know?”

  “Whatever you’re able to tell us about the attack on your friend,” Constable Habib replied.

  “Not much,” Holly admitted. “I got woken up when I heard Kirsty call for help. My room’s at the back of the house, and I’m a heavy sleeper, so I don’t know how long she was calling for before it penetrated. When I finally did hear Kirsty, I crawled out of bed and went to the front of the house to find out what was going on. Looking out of Julia’s window, she’s our other housemate, I saw someone in the front garden. I couldn’t really see much, but I could tell it wasn’t Kirsty.

  “Since I couldn’t see any sign of Kirsty, when I was positive I’d heard her, and I didn’t like what I could see of the figure outside, I ran back to my bedroom to grab my phone. I was just calling you guys on my way down the stairs when I heard someone calling out – a guy, it was definitely a guy’s voice; I’m not positive what he said but it sounded something like ‘get the fuck off’. When I got downstairs and out the front door, Kirsty was on the ground, and there was two guys fighting a few feet away.

  “One of them looked over when I opened the front door, but I couldn’t see his face, it was too dark. The other guy hit him while he wasn’t looking. The one who got hit stumbled back, then turned and ran out of the garden; the second guy ran after him, and that was the last I saw of them. If I’m honest, I didn’t even think about them after that, I was too worried about Kirsty. When I checked on her she was still breathing, but I was worried about the blood on her face.

  “It wasn’t long after that when you guys arrived, and so did the ambulance. And now we’re here. I don’t suppose any of that is very helpful to you, is it.”

  “That’s hard to say, Miss. We’ll file a report and pass everything on. I imagine a detective will visit you tomorrow, or I should say later today, to take a more detailed statement,” Leroy told her. “Don’t worry, we’ll catch the person who attacked you,” he assured Kirsty.

  Looking around furtively, the darkly-dressed figure left the street. His eyes darted everywhere as he walked up the path to a house that was virtually identical to the more than two dozen others on either side of the street. Instead of ringing the bell when he reached the front door, he turned away and followed the path around to the side gate.

  He was not a tall man, so he had to stand on tiptoe to reach over the gate and lift the catch. The hinges creaked as he swung the gate open and he cringed at the noise, though he didn’t stop, nor did he turn back.

  Walking quickly down the path at the side of the house he made his way to the back, where he did stop when he reached the kitchen door. Despite his concern for the noise made by the creaking hinges on the gate, he didn’t react at all as he took out a large kitchen knife from his jacket pocket and smashed it noisily through the window in the door. Knocking out the remainder of the glass with the point of the knife blade, He reached through and groped around for a moment until he found the catch, then he swung the door open so he could walk into the kitchen.

  Even with the moon out, there was little light for him to see by, and after just three paces he bumped into the table. Since his eyesight wasn’t the best, even in daylight, he groped his way around the table, knocking over one of the chairs in the process. The chair fell to the floor with a loud clatter he was sure would have disturbed everyone in the house, not that he expected there was all that many people home, and as he walked along the passage he heard hurried footsteps as someone came to investigate.

  Tightening his grip on the knife, he stopped before he could be seen by whoever was approaching, and with the knife at the ready He waited, and waited.

  It seemed like he was waiting forever, though it was really no more than thirty seconds, before the footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs. When they did, He moved. His victim had no time to react, or to make any move to defend himself, as he was pushed against the wall.

  He saw his victim’s eyes widen in pain as he stabbed him in the stomach, but the hand he had over his mouth kept his cry from being audible. Pulling the knife out, He stabbed again and again.

  By the time he stopped, he had stabbed the man more than half a dozen times and there was blood on the wall, and the carpet, and all over his clothes.

  Breathing heavily, He stepped away from his victim and let him fall to the floor, where he continued to bleed. He made no attempt to check that his victim was dead, he didn’t care, he just stepped away and started up the stairs to the bedrooms. As he ascended, his pace unhurried, he held the knife at his side, the blood that coated its blade dripping to the carpet to form a trail that revealed where he had been and where he was going.

  He had been to the house before so he knew where to go, and when he reached the top of the stairs he turned to his left. In just a few steps he reached the main bedroom; the door was ajar and he pushed it wide before stepping through and into the bedroom. The young woman he was after was cowering naked on the bed, her mobile phone in one hand and the quilt clutched to her chest with the other to cover herself as she stared fearfully at the doorway. She gave a little scream when he came through the door.

  “What are you doing here?” Julia demanded when He moved further into the room and his face became visible in the light from the lamp. He was someone she had not expected to see ever again, let alone in a bedroom. “Where’s Gary?” He moved slowly closer and she saw the bloodstained knife in his hand. “What have you done?” she asked, a note of panic in her voice.

  He didn’t say anything as he stalked across the room, he just enjoyed the fear that was written on her face. As Julia tried to scramble off the bed and escape, he raised the bloody knife and darted to his left to block her; when she reversed direction, he did the same so he could cut her off again.

  While Julia, the bedclothes abandoned and her nakedness forgotten, looked all around for a way to escape, He took the initiative. Jumping onto the bed, He ignored her screams as he stabbed the knife down viciously; the blade caught in the arm she raised instinctively to protect herself and he had to wrench it free so he could attack her again. The knife penetrated Julia’s chest that time, but he didn’t stop there. In a frenzy that contrasted with the expressionless mask on his face, He stabbed her again and again, paying no heed to the blo
od that spurted and then fell to soak through the quilt to the mattress.

  He didn’t stop his attack until his arm began to ache and it was almost too much of an effort for him to lift the knife.

  Looking down at the body at his feet, He saw that he had stabbed Julia so many times it was almost impossible to count the number of individual wounds. He felt no remorse over what he had done as he stared down at what had, only a short time before, been an attractive young woman. As far as he was concerned, she deserved it.

  “Are you sure the police haven’t found out anything about my attack, and Julia’s murder?” Kirsty asked.

  “I’ve told you everything the police told me,” Holly said. Unlike her friend, who was looking all around her as if she expected to be attacked again at any moment, she walked straight up to the front door. She didn’t spare the shadowed front garden even a single glance. “Don’t worry; whoever attacked you isn’t going to come back. It was probably just a random thing; he grabbed the first girl that came along, and you were just unlucky enough to be the first girl.”

  “He didn’t attack me at random,” Kirsty said insistently. “Even the police agree with me. He was waiting behind the hedge; he was waiting for someone who lives at this house. That could only