Chapter Nine: The Spider

Does Philosophy need to be updated to the modern world? TheMapThinker.com does.

Hating mornings doesn’t help. You still have to get out of bed.

Gotta answer the question though. How does a killer think of themselves? And …

Serial killers. Are they addicted to killing? Don’t want that to happen. Sure as hell don’t want to go through life having to resist the urge to kill people. If you train the way a serial killer trains do you become one yourself?

Still you have to train somehow.

Freezing and not going through with it the first time is not an option. It would lose everything. Plus probably go to jail for the attempt. No. No. No.

Got to train. Got to think of the target as an IT.

How do killers think of themselves?

This is a problem. It can be solved. You solve that problem by killing IT.

No. Don’t want to think of yourself as a killer. A solver, but that sounds kind of stupid. Avenger? There is nothing to avenge. Nothing has happened yet. Your job is to keep it that way. Stop it from happening.

You didn’t choose your job, your job chose you, but it is still your job.

Stopper? No. That sounds like a cork in a Champaign bottle.

Keeper? That sounds just plain stupid.

“I am the solution.” How does that sound?

The Solution had better start solving something. Mastering the art.

A lot of serial killers go after those who are least likely to be missed or sought after. By killing prostitutes, transients, drug addicts, they can go for years without anyone realizing a serial killer is even operating. Perhaps that should be the place to start.

No, not start. The first human to kill, the practice target to make sure you don’t screw up on the real deal. Even serial killers don’t start with humans they start with…

What?

Never killed anything before. Not a bug. Not a spider. Hate spiders. Tell the truth, spiders are scary. Killing a spider is scary.

Damn. Like you are not afraid to kill a person? Like you are not afraid that you’ll do it and then get caught? Like you are not afraid you’ll botch it up and go to jail without having done it? Like you are not afraid you’ll chicken out and not do it at all and just let your life be ruined? Other’s lives too.

Yeah. Okay, scared. Admit it. Need a drink. Can’t drink: need a clear head. Practice. Need to practice murder.

How? Bombers during the war caused havoc that killed innocent women and children, but they felt no guilt because they were removed from the chaos. They pressed a button. They did not see the faces of the people they killed. Kind of like a computer game, maybe even less personal.

There is a daddy-long-legs in the garage. Everyone says it is a harmless spider, but it is still a spider. There is also an ice scraper in the garage, has about a three-foot handle. Is that far enough away?

Okay, get up your nerve. You are The Solution and the only solution is to kill it. Go to the garage: Open the door: Turn on the light.

Yep, there is the spider in the corner. Just where it was last time.

Now the ice scraper, hanging on the wall, just where it was last time.

Here I stand, in the middle of the room, just where I stood last time.

Hating the spider.

Fearing the spider.

Believing the spider knows I am looking at it.

Believing the spider knows I am afraid of it.

But not tonight.

Tonight I get my hand, both hands, on the ice scraper, I force myself to yank it off the wall. There is a lead pipe in my chest that wants to weld me to the ground and keep me from moving. I know it is my fear. My unreasonable fear. The fear that wants to suck the life out of me just as that spider would if it were big enough.

It wants to.

I know it wants to.

It wiggled in its web. It turned to look at me, I know it did. It is watching me.

It wants to know what I am doing.

I stare at the spider.

The spider stares at me.

If I can’t kill a spider how can I kill a human being? I must kill the spider. I must: I must. I have to kill the spider.

I will kill the spider.

I am the Solution. The solution is to kill IT.

Remember, It is not a spider, It is not a human being. It is an It and I must kill It.

I charge the spider holding the ice scraper with both hands in front of me.

“Die, It, die.”

Tags: Aliases, Brenda, Chiatovich, Crime, Davenport, Fear, Freeway Killers, homewrecker, Murder, Mystery, Novel, Serial killer, Serial Murder, Spider