The Conformer, The Failure, and The Victor

Trigger warning: mention of sexual assault, death

Rigor mortis had already set in by the time the officers arrived at her house. The old woman was frozen in a rocking chair, covered in bodily fluids and old, stained blankets. The cheap dentures she wore had fallen out and landed on the uncleaned carpet, catching dirt and debris along the way.

"Heart attack?" Deputy Rojas asked. Sheriff Walker didn't speak, only a slight nod. He knew Mrs. Trent.

"Someone should've been taking care of her, Rojas. I thought someone was, I would've sent someone if I knew she was alone."

"Don't blame yourself, sir. I'll take a look upstairs to see if I can find anyone."

Rojas started up the stairs of the old house as Walker continued to look at her body. The stairs groaned as she stepped on each one as if they had gone untouched for years, but the upstairs had clearly been lived in recently, as the bathroom sink was still on. Her heavy boots rumbled against the tile floor as she went to turn it off, but hesitated. Something in her gut told her not to touch anything. Even though it wasn’t a crime scene, she slipped on her rubber gloves and used them to turn off the sink. As she stepped into the first room on the left, she immediately thanked that gut feeling.

“Sheriff! You need to see this, now!” Rojas yelled.

Walker trudged up the stairs and came into the doorway, “What?” he asked, slightly out of breath. She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to, as he already saw the condition of the room. The faded lilac purple wall was covered in dried blood splatters that also tainted the previously pink bed covers on the ground. The carpeted ground was covered in shards of broken glass that came from the open window on the left side of the room. Rojas made her way around the room to the bedside desk. A small picture frame of a young woman and Mrs. Trent laid face down on the floor by the desk. She couldn’t have been more than 23. 

Rojas sighed, taking the picture frame and putting it back on the desk in an upright position, which contrasted from the chaotic mess on the rest of the desk, “What do you think happened?” She asked. He looked around the room and surveyed the situation, “I think we won’t find her. It’s probably been at least 2 days, just by looking at the blood, and if she was kidnapped, we already missed the first 24 hours to find her. She could be in another state for all we know. Right now, we just need to figure out her name.”

Rojas puzzled, “Do you think it could've been murder?”

Walker picked up a small stuffed animal that had so much blood on it, he could not see the original color, “No, this isn’t enough blood for stabbing and too much blood for strangulation. I think it was a kidnapping.”

The two immediately began a full search of the room, overturning everything in their wake. After a few hours of searching, the room was in a much further state of disarray compared to when they found it. They sat on the floor staring at the only item that gave them a clue at what happened. An unfinished drawing of a cactus with spots of blood.

“Alright, Rojas,” Sheriff Walker looked up at the young officer, “This is your first experience with a felony offense. The most important thing right now is to find out who this girl is. Tell me what you’ve gotten from this room.”

“Kidnapping. I think a man broke in through the window, assuming she would be asleep, but as you can see,” Rojas pointed to the unfinished sketch of a faded cactus that had a harsh pencil mark going across it, “She was clearly awake. There was a struggle, and some of this blood is probably his. She’s probably a good fighter, smart too. The fight likely went on for about 5 minutes, and then he knocked her out, washed off his hands, carried her downstairs through the door, and drove her away.”

“He went downstairs? Why not go through the window from where he came to avoid getting caught by someone in the house?”

“He did his research beforehand. He knew Mrs. Trent wouldn’t be able to do anything to defend the woman, and going through the window would be inconvenient. Usually, he wouldn’t do this to avoid any further DNA evidence, but because he already left so much behind, it didn’t matter.”

“Usually? Do you think he’s done this before?”

“Absolutely. But you won’t find any DNA evidence matches in the system. He's usually quick, efficient, and done in a minute. This one, however, caught him by surprise. I bet that most of the girls he takes are small, skinny, and easy to overpower. He underestimated her, which hasn’t happened before. He'll probably keep her longer than he usually does, so we have more time to find her. We should ask the neighbors if they saw anything suspicious the night before.” Rojas quickly rose and left the old house.

She had grown accustomed to the cold cement floor by now. Her bare legs had stuck to them hours ago, but the feeling of it scratching against her thighs when she moved sent shivers down her spine, “What time is it?”

He looked at his watch, “9:56 pm.”

“Do you think anyone has checked on Mrs. Trent yet? I know that Abigail calls almost every day, she has to have gotten worried by now and called the police. I just don’t want her to starve. Can I just call her?”

“You are talking too much. I don’t want you to talk anymore.”

She glanced back down at a spider by her leg.

“Are you angry with me?” She asked.

He stared at her. He thought about killing her again. Maybe this time he would bash her brains in, and watch her blood splatter and drip down the wall. But he just cleaned the floor.

“No.”

He wasn’t lying, but she thought he was. The circulation in her hands was getting cut off again. He knew that he tied the knots too tight, but only to see if she would do anything to acknowledge it. She didn’t. She didn’t even kick at him when he walked closer to her. She didn’t even move.

“She's dead, isn't she?”

He stopped walking and squatted in front of her, “You already know the answer. Why are you asking?”

She started crying again. But this time she wasn’t crying in pain, but in the realization that even if he decided to keep her alive, she was dead in everyone else’s memories. Even if she escaped, she would have nowhere to go.

“You are thinking about killing yourself?”

Surprised, she nodded hesitantly and he rested himself on the ground in front of her, “Did you sleep last night?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t.” She clenched the rope with her hands and felt the rough texture of it with the broken nail on her thumb.

“You’re lying.”

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

It was strange to him, most of the time, his victims wouldn’t stop begging for their lives until he killed them after a day. But this one gave up after a few hours. It made her more interesting, but less valuable once he realized why.

“Are you always like this?”

“Like what?”

He laughed, “What do you mean ‘like what’? Suicidal, dear. Are you always so suicidal?”

“I’m not suicidal.” 

“Okay then. Have you always had a death wish?”

She looked irritated, “I don’t have a death wish. I just want to know why you haven’t killed me yet.”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Because I want to stop sitting here and waiting for it. I know you will kill me eventually.” The spider crawled onto her leg.

He pondered for a moment, “Isn’t that what life is? Sitting around and waiting for it?”

He stepped on her leg, killing the spider. He knew she had been watching it most of this time. He was going to get a paper towel to clean it up but changed his mind. He was bored of her. He reached over to a small box, took out a pair of scissors, and cut off a chunk of her hair. She was very puzzled and could not see very well through her tear-filled eyes. It seemed that he was putting her hair in a small plastic bag. He picked up a sharpie and looked at her.

“Charlotte, was it?”

She told him her name, which was nowhere near Charlotte.

“Right.” He wrote the name down on the bag and left it on the floor. He untied the knot that bound her hands and stood up.

“So, dear. How would you like to die?”

-

Sheriff Walker and Deputy Rojas found the young woman’s body about 20 miles outside of her home. She had been sexually assaulted before her death, just like the other 18 bodies in the same place. They were shoved in an old shed in the middle of nowhere like unwanted garbage.

Rojas was more disturbed than angry. She had never seen such a scene, not even on TV. The poor young woman had been tortured and then shot in the head as if he was just done with her. 19 girls, 19 lives, 19 real souls that will never return, that will never be able to feel or love anymore. And he had no remorse, no empathy. 

“What a monster,” she mumbled to herself.

Walker sighed, “There will be no shortage of those, Rojas.” He paused, almost as if he was doubting his decision to go into law enforcement. He touched the young woman’s frigid, stiff hands, and rubbed his thumb over the severe rope burn on her wrists. Her wide-open, glossed-over eyes held fear and pain in them. Memories, too, memories that vanished the moment she was killed. Now, she was just a body. An old decaying dead body. Everything was gone in a split second. And he probably didn’t even remember her name. What a monster.

He knew they found the dumpsite. He knew that they found the girl. He knew they would never find out her name. He knew that people called him a monster, but he took it as a compliment. They live in a world with only three types of people. The Conformer, the Failure, and the Victor. It was the Failures that call him a monster, only because they cannot catch him, and the Conformers that closely followed, constantly watching to see who they should mimic next. He was a Victor because he wouldn’t lose. He couldn’t lose now, even if they caught him, even if they killed him, they could never bring back the dead. Only the Victors knew that life is the most powerful weapon of all. 

But one question remained that he would continue to ask himself for a long time: Was the girl a Failure or a Victor?

He approached a small house made with chipped and rotting wood. The door was closed, but likely not locked, as she lived in a house in the middle of nowhere. But the window was much more fun to go through. He broke the only one in the house and held out his gun. She awoke in sleepy confusion, looking around to find a strange man standing over her. She screamed, pulling the covers over her head as if they would protect her. He smiled. He liked the Conformers.

“Those things aren’t bulletproof, dear.”