Your Mid-Week Update for 11/04/20

 Well…

And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.

I have, however, come to the conclusion that I am going to continue committing murder regardless of whether some random woman who cannot be found in watching me. I wondered the other day if maybe Heather had been the mystery woman and that was why she was so quick to kill the PI before he revealed her identity. Perhaps she had some vendetta against me (even though she’s the one who killed her husband and I only helped clean up the body and it wasn’t until later that she learned why I didn’t freak out upon seeing a corpse in her living room) and decided to track me down and hurt me. So she stole my journals, had people figure out where I went, and then called me to fully infiltrate my life.

And then I remembered that while my life does have it’s outlandish and dramatic moments, I do exist in some form of reality where supervillains and soap opera plots are not commonplace, and thus, my theory was likely incorrect.

So there is still some woman out there who knows more than she should about me and my family but the decision I made this weekend (after discussing it with James and Casey, of course, as they were significantly involved) that we’re going to continue with business as usual and deal with the consequences as they present themselves. Knowing my stalker isn’t with an official organization does bring me some ease. It’s a lot easier to kill a civilian with a grudge than it is to murder a federal agent and pray no one notices them missing.

To celebrate our decision, the three of us went out on Halloween night to find a few corpses to create.

Is it considered “creation” is you’re taking away in order to turn it into something else? Grammar is not my friend (is that even a Grammar question? Good lord!).

The point I’m trying to make is that we went out to kill a few people because it’s Halloween and we’re all about celebrating the holidays in my house. We went looking for adults who were either partying or causing mischief as they should have known better. Children trick or treating is a little different as they are young and impressionable and if I could get their parents away from them, I might consider it but it was easier to go after drunk adults who went outside a house party to pee in a bush.

The bush wasn’t even in the right backyard. This man went two houses over, walked into a stranger’s front yard, and peed in their bush. He had to get his throat slashed and his penis removed. It was a public service.

Casey picked out a young woman we found stumbling out of a club that was filled with people. How, I have no idea because I thought there were regulations in place. We followed her for several blocks until she was well into the poorly lit downtown underbelly and I let Casey hop out and do her thing. She came back completely clean except for a drop of blood on her chin so I was very proud of her clean up skills. I also made a joke about her being a vampire and she looked me dead in the eyes and told me “it would make sense, wouldn’t it.” She fits into our family dynamic so well.

Beyond that, we’re all adjusting to life as we know it, trying to find a sense of normalcy amidst the chaos of the year. I have a job interview at a bank later this week so I’m hopeful that we truly can find our balance. I think we’ve earned it, don’t you?

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 10/28/20

I have decided that I am not going to let Heather’s death or my possible impending doom deter me from celebrating my favourite holiday. I want to be able to hang bodies in some stranger’s front yard and record their screams as my lullaby.

I’m just kidding. I’m dark, just not that kind of dark. I generally fall asleep to the sound of my husband snoring, and occasionally some white noise. The swinging dead bodies is real though – and they definitely scream.

When I was young, I always assumed that horror movies just had bare-breasted women screaming for the sake of the drama but I can tell you from years of experience: people do actually scream when they see a dead body. Full body, trembling shrieks. I will admit, hearing it and knowing I’m the cause of such an intense emotion, does fill me with no short amount of pleasure. It’s the closest I’m going to get screaming fans of my work; I might as well enjoy it.

Which brings me to my latest hobby: ancient serial killers.

I’ve always knows that so long as there were people in the world to murder, there were murderers to act out those deeds, but I have never taken the time to actually look into who those people were. It’s actually quite fascinating.

A favourite of mine is this guy from Greek mythology (I think his name was Sinestro – no, that’s a Green Lantern villain…whatever). He would meet a man on the road and then when they branched off, he’d circle around and catch the man by surprise, leading him deep into the woods. There, he had pulled two trees to the ground so their trunks were bent inwards, and he tied the man’s arms to one tree and his legs to the other. Then, he released the bent trees so they flung apart, the man was cleaved in half.

How. Cool. Is that?

I have no idea how I would work the mechanics in modern times but isn’t that so cool? I want to try it but I don’t know where I’d find bendy tress this time of year.

The other thing you discover in these ancient and medieval tales, is how sexist everyone was. All the time. And I’m well aware that a lot of ancient mythology is tainted by the western overrun of Christianity and Christian views of women were less than stellar. Are less than stellar. But the amount of stories I found about women who poisoned their husbands for money and power…it’s hardly news. Or the women who jump from husband to husband because they can’t make up their minds. I read about a woman tried for witchcraft who escaped persecution, so they arrested her son and her best friend instead. The friend was burnt at the stake in her place while her son was given a list of good deeds to perform and when he couldn’t, he was flogged and sent home.

There is a part of me that is so grateful for all the women who burnt at the stake or were painted as floozies throughout history because they paved the way for me and other women to live our lives a little better.

It’s still really shitty, all the things they went through just to get here. And here isn’t particularly great either.

I guess all I can hope is that when it’s Casey’s turn to take up the long-held tradition, the world will be a little better for her.

Maybe by then, there’ll be more bendy trees so I can eviscerate a man with the help of mother nature.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 10/21/20

Did you know that there are types of serial killers? Of course you did; you haven’t been following me for this long, and not picked up some general knowledge about murderous statistics. I find those numbers fascinating because I demand to defy the odds.

Also my dress is squeaking as I lean against the desk. It’s very distracting.

Quick rant: I never learned how to type properly. It drives me nuts. I learned cursive, and I learned to type on my mother’s typewriter like a fucking nerd, and then when computers became mainstream (oh my god), there were typing classes but the curriculum at my school didn’t implement it until it was too late.

Obviously, I can type, but that way that you’re supposed to type (with you hands and wrists at a certain angle and your feet flat on the ground, and the asdf;lkj bullshit) has never made it into my brain. Things would be so much easier if I could type with all my fingers in a proper manner.

Anyways.

Types of serial killers.

For those who don’t know, there are four classifications of serial killers (serial killers being defined as three or more murders committed by the same person or persons over a significant period of time):

Thrill-seekers, mission oriented, visionary, and control.

There’s also Black Widow, Spree, and Lust (and a few others I can’t remember right now and I’m too lazy to look up) but those can fit into the four main categories if you try hard enough.

Basically, thrill-seekers do it for the attention, mission oriented have an end goal, visionaries have lost their marbles, and controllers do it for fun.

Guess which category I fit into.

That’s right, none of them. Did you not read my earlier statement about defying the odds?

The reason I’ve survived as long as I have is because I don’t fit any statistic. You can’t track me on a map. Anyone who knows of my life is either dead or an accomplice. Or both.

Except for her. The unnamed woman. The bane of my existence. What the fuck am I supposed to do about her? I can’t find her; I have no idea where to even start looking. As long as she’s out there, I have no way of knowing how much she knows or what she plans to do with that information. It just sits in the back of my mind, this terrifying reminder that my family and I are not safe.

Do you remember what happened the last time I went crazy?

Things suck right now. The world is awful. I need this consistency – this security – and that woman (whoever she is) is threatening my way of life.

There aren’t a lot of things I can control right now.

But I can sure as hell find a way to get her out of my head. It’s the same way I get rid of all my problems: Daniel, Charlotte, Andrew, all the others.

I hunt them down and destroy them. I remove them from existence slowly and painfully. I take pleasure in watching the light leave their eyes whenever possible (even if I didn’t kill Andrew myself, he’s dead because of me).

I protect the family I built through blood and tears no matter what.

I have to find her. And add her to the collection.

I won’t give in to the madness.

I can’t.

Not again.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 10/14/20

I have been reluctant to confront Heather all week. Obviously. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. This woman was my secretary, and then my accomplice, and then my friend, and then my traitor. I had no idea what to say to her. If I’m being perfectly honest, part of me didn’t want to know if I was right about her.

I thought I’d finally found someone who could be my friend. Not my lover, not a victim, not a charge; just a friend. And she was that to me, except I can’t trust her anymore. She became a liability the minute she answered the door for that woman.

A woman I can’t find because Heather killed my only lead. I can’t trust that she did it to protect me. Because what if she didn’t? What if she did it for herself – to keep me from finding out worse things about her. Was her husband’s death an accident or did she luck out and make friends with a serial killer?

I can’t ask her anymore.

Heather’s dead.

I didn’t even do it.

Casey – my terrifying angel – she got up from the table at Sunday breakfast, grabbed the still sizzling frying pan and beat Heather to death with it. Right at the kitchen table. Stabbed her neck into the table for good measure.

I thought I would feel differently when I saw the life leave her eyes. She stared at me as she died, her face so calm but twisted in pain. I think, at the end, she understood why it was happening. I thought I’d feel worse about chopping her body into pieces, cutting off her ears and burning her fingertips and lips. We turned her burial into a family outing, visiting all the major parks in the area and scattering bits of her body around.

One final goodbye.

I expected to feel bad.

I’m just numb.

With a bit of relief, I suppose. Towards the end she just became trouble for us. I wanted to keep her safe because she was my friend. Now I’ll never know if I was hers.

Do you know why Casey killed her?

She had offered to make an apology breakfast for the family, and she burnt the eggs.

That was all.

I guess that was the final straw for her. After everything Heather did to us, she also ruined breakfast. It was a petty reason to kill her but I don’t blame Casey. I blame myself for letting Heather get so close. I’m not meant to have friends or a proper family. I get to fall in love once and hold it close. I get to raise children that aren’t mine and watch them leave me. But I don’t get to have relationships that keep me sane. I don’t get to trust.

Eventually, even the ones you love will betray you.

They’ll expose you to danger to protect their own self-interest and leave you vulnerable, then take away your one chance to stop it.

And then they’ll died and leave you alone with no fucking idea what to do next.  

I thought I wouldn’t cry over her death.

I was wrong about a lot of things.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Weel Update for 10/07/20

Guess who’s home?

Fuck.

After Heather killed our lead, we didn’t have a lot of options so we had to turn back for the time being. We’re so close to finding this woman, I just know it, and then Heather had to get over excited. I have no other explanation for it. She just lost control. Clearly, she was paying attention when she was sexily commanding me to break bones and remove toenails with vinegar pliers because she knew exactly where to hit him.

At least she helped me hide the body.

I don’t know that that’s a bonus because we wouldn’t have had a body to dismember and bury in the first place. Maybe. I was planning on killing him but I had the patience to wait until after we got what we needed. Now because of her, the trail is cold and the woman is in the wind.

This mystery woman is a threat to my family, to my entire way of life and Heather

I had a nightmare about her. In my dream Heather was this succubus creature with fangs and pointy ears, and we were in this cave/dungeon-type place with a big stone altar in the middle. James was lying on the altar and he was covered in blood but I couldn’t tell where he was bleeding from. And when I tried to move – to get to him, to save him – my feet wouldn’t move. There was something pulling on my wrists, keeping me in place, but there wasn’t actually anything there. I kept calling out to Heather to let me free or save him or do something. And then she looked at him, and then she walked right up to me. I could smell her breath (it was, like, sewer water and burnt flesh) and she whispered in my ear “nothing lasts.” And then she dug her fangs into my shoulder and I woke up.

I don’t have a lot of nightmares.

I AM the nightmare.

But even after all this time, after travelling with her, after coming home and hugging Casey and kissing James, I’m afraid of her. But I don’t know why.

If I don’t trust someone – especially if someone knows my secret – I kill them. I slice their throat and pull out their teeth and burn their fingerprints and ears and throw their remains in the ocean. I’ve done it before to people less deserving than her.

Except technically, her only crime was betraying me, and she confessed. She helped me track down the people who were blackmailing her. It’s just that…ever since I watched her bludgeon the investigator – our one lead to finding the woman who went to some much trouble to get to me – I’ve had this voice in the back of my head shouting “she’s not who she pretends to be”. Maybe she wasn’t helping me. Maybe I went on this entire fucking trip to help her. Did I let myself get taken by this woman? Someone I actually called my friend? Am I being paranoid and she simply made a mistake?

In the end, does it really matter why?

I think I have to kill Heather.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 09/30/20

 As we head into Halloween season (because in Western society, commercial holidays tend to last for about a month each), I want to remind you, dear readers, to be safe and environmentally conscious.

We’re not going to be discussing the current disaster that is my life and instead, I’ll pass on some advice about my favourite holiday. That sounds fun for both of us.

I feel like I’ve talked about the freaks that like to use Halloween as an excuse to be assholes and mutilate people and blame it on society. The creepy clowns and the serial killers who murder for the attention and the fuckboys (fuck boys? Is that one word or two?) who think that terrifying young women is considered a prank. They’re freaks because they don’t understand the holiday and they’re looking for a scapegoat for their shitty behavior.

Now, there is a difference between Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, Saimhain, all that shit. I don’t know a ton about the origins or the rituals involved, but I do know how to exploit the commercialization of a religious holiday – second, of course, to Corporate America. Maybe equal.

How is that different from the clowns and the attention-seekers and the fuck-boys?

Cause I’m a woman.

But also because I’m not a holiday serial killer. As much as I love My Bloody Valentine and Black Christmas, murder is not seasonal for me. I have to adapt to the different environments throughout the year. Thus, I am better.

The problem with me, though, is that you are never safe. There are no rules to surviving an interaction with me. There are, however, rules to surviving a Halloween massacre/serial killer. Unfortunately, they are sexistly aimed towards women so I’m going to rant about that shit another time. All I’ll say is: don’t walk alone, don’t trust strangers, always check your drink, always keep your chainsaws in the hall closet (if you get that reference, please let me know).

The other part we’re going to talk about is reducing your carbon footprint when it comes to decorating and celebrating the spooky season. This may sound obvious but I’m going to say it anyways.

Go. Natural.

Use real pumpkin and candles. Is it messy? Hell yes. So is life. It’s a metaphor.

Make your costume that you wear to fool the demons. Will you look like shit? Absolutely. But the demons will appreciate the effort.

Decorate your yard with real skeletons. Go to your graveyard – always shop local – or just make your own.

The urge to skin a body and hang it from a tree with the inhuman skill of the killers in Scream, is so strong right now.

But we’re not talking about my real like right now. We are talking about things that are within my control and thus, I’m telling you to hang bodies from your front yard.

Because everybody loves arts and crafts.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 09/23/20

The probably with being on the road is having shitty access to wifi. And being stuck in a car with Heather for so long. The woman snores.

Oh yes, we’re still travelling. I’ve left my husband and…Casey behind to live their normal lives and hold down the fort while I traverse the country trying to find the people who want my family dead. Because it’s become very clear that whoever approached Heather (and made her betray me – I still haven’t forgotten about that) was definitely not FBI. The private investigation service led us to a woman with very cute nails. I couldn’t bring myself to ply them off. Until I remembered that they were only this nice because she made money by blackmailing people I care about. So I had no problem breaking her fingers. And her toes. And burning flower patters with cigarettes onto the open wounds.

What? I’m an artist after all.

She confessed that she was hired by another firm which was why she used an outdated card, hoping it wouldn’t get back to her boss that she was moonlighting. That firm had a head office in Italy for some reason, but we found a local branch a few days’ drive. We figured an international investigation service was sketchy as fuck, so we paid a stranger on Craig’s List to pretend to be a potential client so we could scope them out ahead of time.

Seriously, the invention of Craig’s List revolutionized the murder game. If I wanted, I could pay my victims to come to me (and then keep the money because…obviously). Like Door Dash but for Bodies.

It is very much like prostitution, I realize, except my way is better off illegal.

Anyways. Now Heather and I are sitting in a pay-by-the-hour motel room, draining a body because we got all the information we needed from our Craig’s List guy and we can’t exactly have witnesses.

Oh right.

That wasn’t the murder that didn’t go the right way. The one I was going to tell you about last week but my internet crapped out before I could finish writing.

We got a hold of one of the investigators that hired our woman who threatened Heather. He was very nice and told us that they were being paid very well by a woman who wanted to find me. They couldn’t, so they outsourced to the woman who found Heather, who found me. We are so close to the end of this thread. All we needed to do, was find out who that woman was.

And then Heather – fucking Heather – killed him before he could give us a name.

What. The actual. Fuck.

I always wanted a partner in this. That’s part of the reason I love James. I want someone to be in it with me. But not Heather. Not like this. She. She got off on telling me how to kill someone (we know this, and we were dealing with those emotions) but watching her take a burning iron to a man’s eye and then bludgeon him to death without batting an eye.

I should have loved it.

Instead, it scared me. How long has she been able to do that? Was she faking the whole time? When she killed her husband, I believed he deserved it and it was an accident. Was it really?

When I was helping her dump the body, I asked her what happened and she just told me that something took over. That she lost control. But it wasn’t like before, when I could see the fear and shock in her eyes, the fear and remorse ever as she watched with amusement. She didn’t like how much she enjoyed watching me kill. Or at least that’s what I thought that look meant.

Maybe I’ve been wrong about Heather.

I’m almost scared to find out what happens when we finally do figure out who’s behind this whole thing. Who wants me so badly, they’ll jump through all these hoops?

And why am I more afraid of the woman I’m travelling with?

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 09/16/20

 Sometimes, murders just don’t turn out the way you want them to.

Your Mid-Week Update for 09/09/20

 I hate autumn. It’s cold like winter, without the snow. It’s gross like spring without the rain. It’s nothing like summer, they just sleep together. It’s an absolutely useless season.

Sure, it’s pretty. And Halloween is my favourite holiday for obvious reasons.

But I’d be perfectly happy with Halloween being a trudge through the snow or a backyard barbeque affair. It’s not the weather that makes it spooky, it’s the fact that I get to hang bodies from trees and people think they’re decorations for a whole month.

Thank god for capitalism.

Halloween is a month away, though, so right now autumn is a useless season. I can’t even pretend to bundle up in a sweater and a mug of apple cider and stare wistfully out the window as the leaves fall, because I’m still on the road trying to track down the people who are threatening my family.

It’s like last summer. Except it’s cold. And I have to share a rental van with Heather.

Why is it that I can never catch a break? It seems like every year, there’s some new crisis or tragedy that affects me and my family. This is nothing compared to…everything we’ve been through. But I’m just tired of it all. I want to find these people. I want to find these people, kill them, and get on with my life.

Why can’t I just murder in peace?

I’ve been thinking about what to do with Heather. On one hand, she betrayed my trust in the worst way. On the other hand, she had, what she thought, were good intentions and she is still my best friend.

Strong relationships are based on trust and forgiveness. What happens when you only have one of the two?

Now I have to share a car with her as we try to track down these people.

We found the address to the private investigation firm and got there easily enough. Except it was an address to an abandoned warehouse. No PIs have ever worked there for five years. It was easy enough to track down their new location but it was a few days’ drive. We got to their new location and from the lobby, Heather was able to identify a photo of the woman who threatened her but she’s currently “out on assignment”. A few missing fingernails got me the information of what her assignment was, which has led us even further from home.

I do not want to be chasing this woman around the country. I want to be with my family. I want to get back to the life we had before.

Before what? I don’t know. So much has happened.

I miss the days when it was me, and James, and Sandra and Jason (ignorant as ever). We were happy that way. And now it’s gone and it’s never coming back. Missing it doesn’t mean I can’t move forward.

Because I have to.

There’s no way back.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 09/02/20

The only good thing about the past few weeks is that I finally have my journals back. I burned every single one of them because this was so much easier when I didn’t have a family to think about. Everything was easier when I didn’t have a family. Not that I regret having these two in my life.

Heather, I could do without at the moment.

She’s not dead yet, for those who were wondering. I kept her in the basement for a few days until I decided I would rather have her alive to fix the mess she made, instead of making her a new mess.

The two of us are going to find the people who tried to blackmail her into betraying my family and very nicely ask them why. Before I behead them with a butter knife.

I haven’t tried it yet, so I’m very excited to see how many cuts it takes to get to the center.

So while I’m dulling my knives, Casey is going back to school on Monday, and James will be back at work tomorrow. There was only so long I could hide everyone where I knew they’d be safe. Soon or later, someone would come looking for those two. Me? No one will miss me.

So, Heather and I are off this afternoon.

I called the number she’d been reporting to (anonymously, of course, come on!) and got the answering machine for a private investigation company about a day’s drive from here. Now, it could be a very strange coincidence, but I’ve only ever had one encounter with a private investigator and I’m pretty sure I slaughtered him and his wife. Whoever these people are, it may have nothing to do with them, but it’s certainly stirring up old, unwanted memories.

If the Westburns are somehow trying to screw me over from the grave, I will be both impressed and thoroughly pissed off.

But right now, I need to shower and pack so we can grab some ridiculously unhealthy gas station food before my 28-hour road trip with my former best friend.

Kill me now.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe