He slowly pushes open the door of the bar and like a shadow slips quietly inside. No one notices him. No one ever does. Although quite large he blends in like a snake in the grass. Tuesday night, the bar is nearly empty. It’s how he likes it. He’s been coming here for years now, almost every night only disappearing on Fridays and Saturdays or whenever the bar is full.

  Nobody knows who he is, nobody ever asks. He keeps his head down and never speaks. The barman knows the man’s order so there is no need for any exchange of words. Always the same drink. Always the same corner. A creature of habit this man. He moves over to his table in the corner. His movements always slow and precise. He sits where he can watch everyone without he, himself being watched. He decided long ago that people weren’t to be trusted. He had trusted so many people during his life. And all of them, all of them had failed him. The only person who had ever cared about him was long gone. For a while he sits silently in his corner slowly sipping his beer and carefully watching people with his hollow dark brown eyes. Studying them with a mixture of contempt and judgement.

  Nobody pays him any attention. His face, although set hard in the same angry but troubled expression, looks worn and weathered, like granite rock carved by wind and rain for thousands of centuries or a barren land shaped and formed by many wars. His eyes are hollow and empty of hope and all things good. If you look closely enough there is a hint of sadness. His eyes are so dark his pupils are almost invisible. There is almost nothing there. His mane of messy, unwashed, soot black hair hides most of his face from view. His clothes somehow don’t fit his face, for he wears an old suit without a tie and although unironed it is the type one might wear to a formal occasion such as a wedding or a funeral. The shoes are scruffy and dusty and look as if they haven’t been shined in years.

  A newspaper lies on the seat beside him where someone has left it. He picks it up and begins to read. The edge of his lips curl up in a slightly malicious smile as he realises he’s made the front page. He reads the heading: ‘Serial Killer Strikes Again!’ He scratches the prickly stubble on the side of his chin and sits back slowly, watching, waiting.

  The bar door opens and a young woman walks in. Her soft honey-coloured hair falls just below her shoulders. Her movements are swift but graceful like a gymnast or a gazelle. And he is the lion.

  She takes one look around the room before moving over to the bar. She sits down on one of the stools while the barman takes her order. She is wearing a little black halter-neck dress that leaves her whole back open for display and little to the imagination. On her feet are a pair of black stilettos held on by a single strap around the ankle and one just above her toes. She scans the room one more time. Her intelligent grey-green eyes take in almost every detail. As she sips her drink it seems to him that she is aware of almost every movement in the room. He’s been watching her for the last two nights. Tonight he will make his move. His eyes have taken on a new gleam ever since she entered the room. He follows her movements like a hungry lion watching a gazelle. Stalking her. This is all he lives for now. The thrill of the hunt. The kill.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  It had started as a way to avenge his dead wife. She would have never worn clothes like this woman. To tempt men. She had not deserved to be murdered. This woman did. As his kills increased it became more like an addiction.

  As he watches, the woman at the bar glances at a tiny golden watch on her small wrist and gets up ready to leave, her glass half finished. She crosses the bar and walks out the door into the clear, summer night. He waits a few seconds before getting up and following her. No one notices them leave. They are too wrapped up in their own business to care.

  He follows at a distance. She doesn’t look back even once. Brave, this woman is to be walking alone so late at night. Foolish too. He stalks her like a shadow, waiting to swallow her whole. The street is devoid of any and all civilisation and the moon although full has just slipped behind the only dark clouds in the sky. Further down the street the woman turns down a side alleyway. ‘Perfect’ he thinks, and giving no hesitation he follows her around the corner. The alleyway he walks into has a dead end. The woman has disappeared. He looks around for her and takes a few steps forward unsure of where she has gone. Too late he realises he’s gone too far as he feels a silent shape drop down behind him and hears the familiar click of a gun being armed.

  “Don’t move,” her voice commands in a loud whisper behind him.

  Then “drop it” she adds referring to the knife he had pulled into his hand when he entered the alley. He does as he is told. A feeling of relief spreads over him as he realizes that it is over. It is not a feeling he would have predicted having as a pair of cold handcuffs are slid over his large wrists. And as he is led away, towards a police car that has just pulled up in the street and hears the police sirens from far off distant place inside his head, he realizes a part of him had never wanted to do this but that he was somehow unable to stop. That all he had ever wanted was his wife back. Why he had ever thought that committing these horrendous crimes would somehow bring her back was beyond all compression. He had lost control long ago. But it was over now.

  It was over.