The itch was bothering her again.
She’d first felt it that night, just as she’d fallen to sleep’s clutches. She’d tried to ignore it, as Spork had convinced her to take a long weekend from work, as they tried everything they could to distract her. It wasn’t until she felt the itch while back at work that she realized she couldn’t just keep ignoring it.
So she scratched it, idly at first. Looking through local news, seeing if any of the people caught for various crimes was the one she’d met in the alley that fateful night. She wasn’t sure why she thought that would help. Maybe seeing him arrested, on his way to years in jail would have been enough to scratch the itch for good. Maybe not. It didn’t matter, because after almost a week of searching there was no progress, no satisfying closure.
It did fade, though. Scratched just enough that she could put it out of her mind to focus on work, her side projects, on hanging out with Spork. They still walked her to and from work every day, cracking jokes the whole time in a blatant effort to keep her mind off what had happened. What they thought had happened, at least. The burden would have been lighter if the truth was what they believed. What she’d told them. What she’d lied about.
She’d begun to enjoy their walks, the casual comfort that Spork brought to her mornings and evenings. She joked back, and they excitedly listened to her explain her day even if they professed they didn’t understand a damn thing she was talking about. She’d all but forgotten about the itch, sunk so deep under her skin that the discomfort would never see the light of day.
Until one cloudy day, that is. They were near the alley where she’d been ‘rebooted’, as she’d taken to calling it, as they had every day. She told herself that it was just the quickest way to go, even if the rational part of her knew she was a horrible liar. It was a reminder that she wasn’t going crazy, that it had actually happened, that she’d been dead one second and alive the next.
Spork had been in the middle of a story about how they’d seen an entire bachelorette party making out at a bar (Trust me Mar, I saw it with my own two eyes) when someone bumped into them. Spork aggressively completed the shoulder check, good-natured grin twisting into a slight snarl as they growled out a quick ‘Hey! Watch it.’ before continuing on their path, snarl lingering for a moment as the patter of footsteps running away echoed their way. Just as quickly as it appeared, their snarl switched back to a smirk, as casual as slipping off a pair of gloves.
“Damn, guess I scared him off. You see, Mari? People would pay good money for this kind of scary dog privilege.” They’d snarked, barely waiting for her response before shifting back to their story, where now apparently at least three of the girls were topless and no less than sixteen jars of apple butter had somehow gotten involved.
But Mari wasn’t listening. She’d been staring at the man’s face as he’d gone to bite back at Spork. He’d looked at her like he’d seen a ghost. And in a way, she supposed he had. His face appeared in her nightmares, when her subconscious decided to be particularly cruel. His face lurked in the shadows when she was half-awake, jolting her when she let her guard down. His face had been the last thing she’d seen before her world had been filled with static and she’d stood next to her own corpse.
But as he ran off, presumably terrified, she hadn’t continued to stare, to track him until he disappeared from view. Instead, Mari had been staring at the brown leather wallet that had been dropped onto the asphalt when he’d collided with Spork. She’d scooped it up in a flash, tucking it into her pocket where it burned like a hot coal. She managed to restrain herself until Spork had dropped her off at work, where she immediately locked herself in a bathroom stall and rifled through it, ignoring cash and credit in search of a single piece of plastic.
The itch was back.
Spork, in their infinite helpfulness, had become more of a hindrance. Their insistence on escorting her had extended to any other excursions, and she couldn’t exactly sneak out of their apartment. The space was small enough that the absence of one would be immediately apparent to the other, and that would lead to questions Mari wasn’t sure she’d be able to answer.
She wasn’t sure she could answer them, even to herself. She knew this was a step in getting even, but wasn’t sure where the steps would lead, if she even truly wanted to get even, if this was just her way of coping; an elaborate fantasy being played out in real time despite her knowing better.
In the end, she’d taken some time off work. Spork walked her to the building like usual, she went in and grabbed a coffee before leaving out the side door, heading toward the address on the driver’s license. She was always back before work got out for the day, using her keycard to come in the back way before greeting Spork in the lobby.
She found everything she could: the location of cameras (there were none), the shifts of the lobby attendant (there was none), where his unit was located, and even the model of lock on the doors. She’d also discovered his habit of playing loud, thumping music at all hours of the day.
While she gathered information during the day, she tinkered during the night. Mari wasn’t quite sure what she was putting together, only vaguely aware of it containing electrical components and bits of exposed metal. It wasn’t until she’d tightened the last screw that she realized she’d essentially made a taser on a stick connected to a car battery. Why she’d made it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to admit. But it had been made, and Mari couldn’t deny that the idea of using it would be darkly satisfying, pain received for pain given.
She just needed a cover. Once her time off had started giving diminishing returns, Mari had returned to work. She’d been just in time for an evening work outing, intended to build trust and camaraderie between the team members. Or so they’d said. Mari had declined, citing pre-existing plans that unfortunately conflicted with the outing. She’d told Spork about it that evening, and they’d been excited for her. They’d stopped walking her back to work a few days earlier, and although they offered to go with her to the event, they made no push to accompany her.
She’d just meant to shock him. She’d slipped in behind another tenant, climbed up to the fifth floor. The loud beat of the music had hidden the sound of her approach, of her shimming the lock open, of the door quietly opening and shutting, of him screaming as he saw the ghost of the girl he murdered jab an electrical apparatus into his side and send energy coursing through his body.
She couldn’t have known about his heart condition, about how a sudden, painful shock could end up stopping his heart in its tracks. He fell to the floor, body spasming uncontrollably. Before she realized what was happening and could attempt to do anything, he was dead. Panic began to flush through Mari as she realized just what she’d done. She tamped it down, refusing to let it claw up through her throat and break her down. Not again.
She’d packed everything back up into her backpack, leaving the apartment as quickly as possible, sure to flip the lock before shutting the door behind her. She stopped at the nearby construction site, filling her backpack with bricks before continuing to the nearest bridge. One backpack lighter, Mari slowly made her way home, mind abuzz with what she’d done. She’d just meant to scare him, to hurt him, to get back some semblance of the safety he’d taken from her. And instead she’d taken his life as payment for his crime.
Mari wasn’t sure if she felt bad about it. Instead she felt…disappointed? In herself? It wasn’t disappointment that she’d killed someone, no, but that she hadn’t been as efficient as she could have been. Some part of her balked at the reaction, while the rest considered it. It had been simple work, sure, but there were places she could have improved, where she could improve, given the opportunity. Mari shook it off, a morbid thought that deserved as much attention as a single ripple in a pond. She turned back towards home and began to invent a story of her night out for Spork.
It had started as a morbid curiosity. It truly had. Mari had always been interested in the more seedy part of the internet, in the so-called Dark Web, and eventually she’d decided to indulge her curiosity and do a bit of internet spelunking. She’d just so happened to find herself looking at hitman listings, targets that people around the world wanted dead and were more than willing to pay for it. There were even some located in Pittsburgh. Mari hesitated for a moment, wondering if she were standing at the edge of some cliff, if she were teetering over some decision that would have far-reaching consequences, ones that she just couldn’t see yet.
She clicked on one. It was just curiosity, after all.
Mari ran down the alley, heart pounding in her chest as the gunshot echoed in her ears. She’d dropped it by the body, but she didn’t care enough to go back for it. The gloves she was wearing were hopefully enough to keep it from being linked to her.
Once out of the alley, she ripped off the mask and gloves she’d been wearing along with the zip-up hoodie she’d stolen from Spork in an attempt to mask her figure. Both were stuffed into a backpack she’d stashed nearby, quickly walking away from the scene of her crime. A couple of blocks and she was at a bus stop. A few minutes, and she was nestled in the relative safety of a bus, whisking her away from the crime scene faster than she could go on her own two feet.
Mari’s heart hadn’t stopped pounding. The adrenaline still coursed through her veins, and what had once been panic was now triumph, excitement. Not that she’d killed another person, but that she’d done it. She’d planned another one, and while it’d had its flaws, she’d gotten away. It wouldn’t be traced back to her. All she had to do was contact the client and let him know the job had been done. The money was a nice bonus, but already Mari was going over the night in her head, analyzing what she’d done correctly, and what could be improved.
She’d taken several jobs now. Spork had grown used to her disappearing in the evenings, although Mari had tried to keep it limited to just once per week. But sometimes the extra challenge of a quick turnaround called to her, and she just couldn’t resist it. Each one had pushed her a little more, had honed her analytical mind into a sharper blade, had added new tools and strategies to her ever-growing arsenal. And amidst all the nights of slipping past Spork with some excuse, all the sneaking around, the lives ended and jobs completed, one question rose above the rest as Mari slipped through the door.
What excitement would she find tonight?
