Another night, another murder.
That was what the killer thought as he drove around the streets of San Francisco. The fact that he drove an RV was a little on the nose, but if it meant the difference between replicating his previous run-in with the Black family, he was willing to let it slide. Anyway, it wasn’t like this city didn’t have thousands of RVs. He had done his research before the purchase. Paying in cash, of course.
Where the night offered little more than a bitter chill, the killer demanded more. He was making the rounds, searching high and low for his next victim. It wasn’t set in stone that he had to be of a Chance family. In fact, if the pattern remained similar, he could do whatever he pleased. As long as Mason got the point. His little cop buddy, too, but it was Mason he really wanted. He had done the most damage that night.
They killed you. Just kill them and have it done.
“Shut up,” he told himself, as if it were that simple. But it managed to silence his inner thoughts all the same. His head was getting too crowded with all these thoughts. All the years in the making, all the ideas he’d come up with to make the investigator suffer, and now the time had come. It was like Christmas had come early.
The killer ploughed on through the night, a long range of hills rolling past the RV’s window to his left. Lights from other drivers drove an invisible spike through his head. The pain was surreal. He avoided it by taking the next left onto a dark, winding road. The RV coughed and wheezed as it crawled up the steep hill, choking like it was about to die.
That was when he saw it.
Ahead of him, two lean figures stood in the dark. Their faces were cloaked by the night, but the large backpacks and jutted-out thumbs spoke volumes. It was a pair of hitchhikers asking for a ride. It made the killer think back to his previous spree. So long ago, yet the memory was so vivid. She had been a defenseless little lady, and she had let him take the kid so easily. But these weren’t children. They could take the pain.
The killer pulled over to the side of the road and pushed the button to let the window roll down. Then, using his most friendly and welcoming expression, he waved to the hitchers and beckoned them over. They came like lambs to the slaughter.
“Howdy, strangers. Need a ride?”
“You betcha,” the male hitcher said. His voice was young and barely broken. Maybe eighteen years old or so. Slightly nervous but otherwise oblivious to the fact they were both going to die tonight.
“Hop in.”
The killer watched his grateful expression. He waited patiently while his victims circled the front of the vehicle and opened the large door on the other side. The cab shook as they both climbed in. The young woman introduced herself, but the killer didn’t hear it. He was too distracted by the boy saying his name was Tommy.
Irony is sweet, the killer thought, and then drove toward seclusion.