He'd been watching these ones for a while, like a farmer tending fruit, waiting for it to ripen. And now they had.
He sat in his car, staring up at the small duplex at the end of the cul-de-sac. Figures moved across the windows, shadows flashing against the lights peering into the late afternoon. Morning, evening, night—he didn't care. Daylight didn't scare him. The eyes of others didn't alarm him. He would get what he wanted with or without witnesses.
And so far, everything had gone so smoothly.
This time, though, he was facing an entirely new challenge. Two protagonists instead of one. Double the price, double the trouble, double the reward. He had big plans for this one... The first tales had been short stories, but this would be his magnum opus. It required particular planning, particular execution. Every storyteller was known best for one piece of work.
He leaned over and pushed open the car door, remaining seated for the moment while adjusting the gloves on his hands. The vehicle was a rental, of course. He'd been more than careful.
He looked back in the direction of the duplex, watching as a thin figure moved across the front window, the glare of a TV smearing the glass. The sister, then. She was bone-thin, with curly brown hair. She wouldn't be the problem. No... It was the football player he had to look out for.
He massaged the corner of his jaw, wincing at the bruise forming there. The farmer had been a wild one—had fought and bucked like a bronco.
But Jack was dead. The giant lived.
These people didn't deserve their happy endings.
Hansel and Gretel would be next, and no amount of shrewd thinking or breadcrumbs in the woods would save them. He scowled in the dark, feeling old, putrid thoughts rising within. Happy endings didn't exist. Not really.
And those precious few who were allowed them, even they couldn't be permitted. Romance, friends, children, success, careers... it all boiled down to the way the story was told. The difference between a happy ending and a tragedy was simply where one put the period.
He'd learned that, hadn't he? At a very, very young age. He'd only had one friend locked in that attic. A friend in the form of a book. A dusty, worn, rough fairy tale book.
He reached over into the back seat, lifting the folded protective cloth covering and pulling the rectangular item into the front seat. He placed it on the passenger seat, and slowly unfolded it.
The green, dusty edge of a worn leather-bound storybook. He just stared at the familiar edge, tracing his fingers over the rough material. The texture brought memories back. His eyes widened, but he was no longer seeing inside his car, no longer looking towards the duplex.
All he could see now was fate.
His fate.
He could see the spiders climbing through their cobwebs. Could hear the moan of the wind against the shingles. Could feel his small, bony arms trembling as he shivered, freezing in that attic. Could hear the laughter below. Could feel his fingers straining, scraping, desperately scrabbling against the latch to the attack door.
Locked, though.
Always locked. And he'd been left upstairs. Left with his little book in the freezing attic with the spiders and the cockroaches and the stench of mothballs.
And the fear.
So much fear.
It had been a contradiction of realities, reading such stories while sitting in such a horrible place. He'd believed for years in happy endings. Had believed someone might come along and save him from that witch's house.
But no one came. No one saved him. He'd simply suffered. He'd cried out for help, cried out to God, cried out for the woman who'd locked him there. The witch herself.
But nothing changed. Things only worsened as he grew older.
“You're uglier now,” he remembered her saying. “And you're getting fatty fat.”
He frowned at the memory, his fingers still brushing the edge of the book. He could remember begging her to let him out of the attic. He remembered the way his bones had strained against his skin. He hadn't been fat nor ugly—he'd simply been older. He knew that now. But his mother had resented him for growing up. Had resented his childish features fading.
And while he'd tried to hide in children's stories, she'd hidden her child in the attic.
He'd survived, though it was a close thing. But something had died in that attic. The belief in happy endings, the belief that things would all work out for good in the end. The difference between a tragedy and a happy ending was simply the placement of the period.
And now he knew, with bone-deep certainty, that no one had a happy ending in store. He simply ushered them, far faster, into the inevitability of life. He gave them the gift of inciting labor prematurely.
He lifted his fingers from the book, his skin tingling as he did. He was surprised to find moisture in his eyes, and he reached up, wiping faintly at his cheeks, tracing the droplets of tears.
Then, chest pounding, he pushed open his car door, and stepped out into the catcalling night, beneath the wink of the moon and whistle of the wind.
He wasn't a monster, of course. He frowned, checking his gloves, adjusting them, and straightening his shoulders. He wouldn't hunt children—perish the thought. No, no, children had to grow up themselves, had to learn the stakes of reality. At least children, like him, had a chance of enlightenment.
These two, inside the duplex, a boy and a girl, had recently turned eighteen. The year of transformation. Crossing the threshold, the boundary, the final nail in the coffin of happy endings. They moved from hope to despair, life to death—they just didn't know it yet.
Eighteen was a good year to choose. Plus, missing children were much harder to hide. Adults got all up in a tizzy over missing kids. At least, some did. Other times, no one seemed to notice at all.
He scowled in the night, but then began stalking forward, hands flexed at his side as he neared the house, watching the shadows through the glass. The same rail-thin girl with springy hair moved past the blinds in the other direction now. Her head was glowing, and it took him a second to realize she had a phone pressed to her cheek and was prancing about the front room in her pajamas.
The woman shared an apartment with her twin brother. He'd already scoped the space out. The two of them were enrolled in a nearby university, which, of course, was where he'd gotten their information. Accessing a student website portal was the easiest thing he could think of.
He glanced back towards his car, clicking the locks and frowning before approaching the home. He circled around the back, stepping in the shadows cast by a large hedge and the eastern facing wall. Brickwork, or at least faux brickwork presented an unyielding form.
He checked the latch of the window into the bathroom. The same latch he'd shattered the previous night. And still, it remained broken.
He allowed himself a faint smile at a job well done.
The big bad wolf had arrived on the page. Fee-fi-fo, he smelled the blood of Hansel and Gretel just within these walls. He liked playing with his food, too. That was most the fun. A man had to find some way to amuse himself in this rotten world.
And so, with a faint grunt, and an askance glance back over his shoulder towards the street, he shoved his gloved hands against the glass, lifting them. He could feel the slick surface, even beneath his thin gloves. He'd always had very sensitive fingers. No callouses—he'd never worked as a laborer a day in his life.
A faint trail of dust descended around the window now that he'd opened it. He massaged at his neck, wincing against a crick.
He was moving at a quick pace now. Three dead already. Two in one this time. But slowing down wasn't an option. He had plans, big plans for the others. He was only just getting started.
He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply through his nostrils. Then, he slipped through the window, landing inside the bathroom, and rolling his shoulders.
He was in.
And no one had seen him. No one had heard him.
This was his superpower of course. Characters of all sorts existed in the pages of stories. They always had some gift, some ability. His mother, the witch, had locked him upstairs. No one had heard him scream. No one had seen him suffer.
It didn't matter what time of day—he'd been avoided, ignored.
He'd once, even, thought he was invisible.
Now, he knew better.
He was simply undetectable. Unseen, unheard, unnoticed, a culmination of all things neglectful. For his chosen life of work, of enjoyment, this was an immense gift.
He waited a moment, standing in the bathroom and listening for the voices on the other side of the door. He could still hear the faint prattle of Gretel speaking on her phone. But Hansel wasn't speaking. He'd seen the large jock arrive, of course. But the young fellow often retired to his room for a session in front of his computer on some of the more objectionable websites.
People in this generation simply didn't read enough. Then again, he knew Hansel and Gretel. Knew how their story ended. He didn't know what it might feel to discover a candy house in the woods... His little book of prophecies, the stories he knew beforehand, gave him ample time to change the ending.
He tutted to himself, and pushed the bathroom door open, allowing it to swing into the hall. He glanced at the mirror on the door, using it to watch the living room. Gretel was still moving, gesticulating wildly with one hand, her brown curls bouncing. She hadn't noticed the motion.
He'd go after Hansel first. The real threat.
He wet his lips briefly, grinning now, sensing the familiar rush of adrenaline as excitement bruited through his blood stream. Then, he stepped into the hall.
No screams. No shouts. As luck would have it, Gretel was facing the complete wrong direction. Neglected, ignored, unnoticed. Just like always. He didn't crouch, didn't tiptoe, just strode confidently down the hall in the direction of the bedrooms.
He reached the brother's door. A sign on it read Warning. Toxic Waste. He grinned at the sign. At least the fellow was self-aware. He was toxic and a waste of space. All of them were. No happy endings for this home.
He twisted the door handle and pushed into the room.
The big guy was sitting in an equally large desk chair, facing a computer with a comforter over his waist, his eyes glazed, his hand near his belt. Figures were performing unmentionable acts on the screen.
Again, Hansel was too enamored with his pictures, too distracted by the thick earphones on his head, he didn't look back. Didn't even notice the arrival of his fate.
The man paused, glancing around the room, noticing a stack of comic books and a couple of posters of comic book characters above the bed. He paused next to the closet door, behind the seated twin. The man's stinky football kit lay on the ground. Toxic waste indeed. The helmet sat on top of the discarded clothing.
The man bent over, picked up the helmet, hefted it.
Only then, did Hansel realize someone was in his room.
“Shit,” he snapped, turning sharply, and looking over his shoulder. His hand moved quickly too, both, in fact. One clicking the computer screen off, the other rising to his chest as if he'd simply been scratching an itch. “Penelope, you rat! I told you to knock before—”
He went quiet suddenly, eyes bugging as he stared at the strange man in his bedroom.
This, even more than the pain, was his favorite part. He could smell the fear. The confusion, then a decision towards terror. He wiggled his gloved fingers.
“Hello,” he said in a conversational tone. “How are you?”
“Do—do I know you?” the large teenager asked, his voice deep, but also cracking at times.
“No, no, not yet. I'm going to spend some time with you and your sister, though. I'm going to hurt both of you.”
The big man's eyes bugged. He sneered in a casual sort of way as if reacting to a poorly timed joke from a friend. “You Penny's friend?” he asked.
The man frowned at the thick-headed youth. Sometimes, words just didn't work. So, he hefted the helmet and tested just how thick that skull really was. He slammed the metal into the side of Hansel's skull. Once, twice. Blood flecked the computer screen. A third blow, and Hansel didn't even have time to react, to shout—nothing.
Now, he just lay slumped, half sprawled over his chair, bleeding from his forehead.
The man stood there, panting from the quick exertion, still holding the helmet. His muscles twitched, strained beneath his clothing.
That's when he heard the sharp intake of breath. The sudden pause, then the scream.
He turned slowly, in no desire to rush any of this. Gretel was standing in the door, her phone no longer in hand suggesting she'd ended the call already. But her brown eyes in her dark, smooth skin were the size of quarters. Her mouth hung open, and she just stared at the man in her brother's bedroom.
“Hello Gretel,” he murmured, nodding politely at her. He pointed at her brother. “You're next.”
She just stared at him, gaping, then spun on her heel, reacting quicker than her brother had, but with far more fear. She sprinted down the hall, towards the front door.
He gave her a second to take the lead. He liked it when they ran.
“Ready or not,” he called down the hall, his voice echoing. “Here I come!”
Then, bloody football helmet still clutched in one hand, he also broke into a sprint, grinning so widely, he thought he must look like a jack-o-lantern.