For this week's fridayflash, I'm doing something a bit different and outside of the genre I usually do for #fridayflash. Maria A. Kelly wrote a fantastic story called Telescope Moment and created a truly frightening character. With her permission, I've explored that character a bit further. Please read her story, Telescope Moment, if you have not.

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Breathe. Pan across. Adjust focus.

No telescope separated him from Ms. 610 this time. Just his eyes.

He shivered from the smell of her bathwater as he stood in the bathroom doorway. 

Ms. 610 finally made the fatal error. When she left for work, she forgot to lock her door. He slipped in minutes before she got home, and waited quietly in the closet.

He'd watched long enough to know her routine. Come home, turn on soft music, run a bath.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in the bathtub. His stomach fluttered with butterflies and his body shivered with anticipation.

Inhale. Exhale.

He stepped from the darkness and into the bathroom. He carried the syringe of sedative in his right hand and injected it into her neck in a single, practiced movement.

He reached down and tenderly cradled her head as she opened her eyes and looked up at him in shock. Moments later, Ms. 610 fell into his hands. 

Right. Where. She. Belonged.

***

"You can call me Mr. Slivers," he said from the foot of her bed as she stirred and tested the bindings constructed from the silver duct tape.

He squirmed. He could smell the sweet lavender soap from her bath as it dried on her body. The veins on her hands bulged and the skin turned red. The duct tape inhibited her bloodflow.

Ms. 610 moaned under the homemade gag he'd stuffed in her mouth. He smiled, a cruel expression. He enjoyed the terror in her eyes as she choked on the cloth.

"That's my underwear in your mouth," Slivers droned.

She moaned again and stuggled against the bindings that held her in place.

His voice, cold and monotonous, lifted in the darkness at the foot of her bed again. "None of my girls have broken the duct tape yet. But feel free to keep trying. I like when they struggle."

His hands, gloved in black latex, opened garbage bags one at a time.

"I like to use as many things from the household as I can. It keeps my travel light. It's a shame, you've only got 13 gallon bags. I'm used to working with 33 gallon bags."

He shrugged and stepped around to look down into her terror-filled eyes.

"You know the ones I mean, right? The ones that you put leaves in after you rake them into piles? The bags that they decorate with the god-awful jack-o-lantern faces around Halloween."

Ms. 610 struggled against the duct tape again and tried to spit the gag out of her mouth.

"Shh," Slivers droned. He caressed her face and continued. "I usually use a knife to do it. But you're just too pretty."

He reached down to his pants and adjusted himself into a more comfortable position. 

His latex-gloved hands wrapped around the girls throat and squeezed. Ms. 610 writhed under his grip and fought to break free. 

He moaned aloud. "Yes, just like that," Mr. Slivers whispered down at her. He thrust his hips against the air.

She strained her wrists against the duct tape and released a muffled scream through the underwear stuffed into her mouth.

"It's okay, darling. You remind me of my first." He leaned down over her and kissed the air above her forehead. He thrust his hips again against the air and grunted.

His eyes widened as he found release.

Ms. 610 found release.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and capillaries burst in her cheeks and eyes, flushing her face with a beautiful rosy complexion.

He shook and shuddered over her. His breath caught in his throat and he clamped his hands tight around her breathless neck as the final washes of pleasure rolled through him.

He leaned back and looked down at her.

So peaceful.

He adjusted his pants and felt the sticky mess left over from his release. He looked down at the tiny garbage bags with disdain as he pulled his knife and saw from his bag.

He had work to do. Smaller bags meant smaller pieces.