A Study In Pink: Anabel's Story

NOTE: Before you begin reading, I need you to put yourself inside the mind of Anabel. Imagine the unremorseful, sing song voice of a killer who is telling their story, reliving their crimes as if it were yesterday and getting pleasure from it. Imagine the twisted smile, the psychotic laugh. Note that this is written in the third person, even though he/she is telling the story. Keep in mind that Anabel is a psychopath, so she is not speaking in perfect structure or form.

(Allow me if you will, indulge me for just a few, while I tell you of my story, while I sing you my sick, sad song. Terrytown thought I was gone but in reality I had moved on. Only to be found by something more powerful than myself. It was an end to the means, I mean, nothing lasts forever. Now I sit, alone as ever, here in limbo. The Afterlife, it isn't so grand. Listen to me, one more time, before they take me below. This is my final testament, the final word of a serial killer...)

Once upon a time, there was a boy named James
James wanted to be like all the other boys but couldn't
His mother was a whore, dragged men in and out
Beat James whenever he would scream and shout
His father was a deadbeat, disappeared before his birth
And so the poor little boy was left to fend for himself

Years went by and it was apparent James was different
Filled with hate and rage, rejected by his so called clan
He had a taste for blood, a scorned son's revenge
She would be his first victim, mommy dearest, at the tender age of ten
No one knew them as friends, so it took a while to find
James soaked in his mother's blood, her head upon a broomstick, so he could see her eyes.

The police said they would help him, someone must have broken in
Must have been a "john" or a vagabond, couldn't have been her little man
Went home with an officer, had a decent life, became a man
With badge in hand, he became one of them, tried to suppress the darkness within
Married the preacher's daughter, was happy until she began to sin
Then it happened, the switch was flipped, James glanced around, eyes glowing red

Poor Mrs. Alastair and her lover, found by her detective husband, bludgeoned to death
Heads propped upon a broomstick, must have been the killer from his childhood, James proclaimed
The MO was the same, just a different house with different players, breaking and entering, overkill
There was a killer on the loose, the newspaper boys screamed, lock your doors, hide your children
A horse, covered in Mrs. Alastair's blood, found by the river bed, near the body, who was missing her head
The Headless Horseman, as he became known, had struck again.
Now more feared than the Ripper himself, creeping into houses of women of ill repute.

Beating them until they begged for mercy, grinning as he pinned their eyes with needles
He wanted them to see his face, wanted them to know that someone knew what they had done
Stitched their lips so they couldn't make a sound, then "off with their head," he laughed out loud
He was the vigilante, the righter of the wrongs, kept their heads as trophies, the perfect company
Sometimes James would talk to them and occasionally they would answer back, dancing upon their sticks
They were his special friends.....

The detectives for each case began to put two and two together, how James Alastair always seemed to appear.
He knew more about the crimes than anyone investigating, enough to begin to raise suspicion.
James knew his time was almost up, it was time to get out, tossed a dead hobo inside.
The mirror in the bathroom, surely it must be lying, with the hair and makeup, he saw his mother's face.
Cracking the glass, he grabbed what little he had. Got a horse from the barn and lit the house on fire.
Thus Anabel Sumner was born.

James Alastair was no more, his colleagues pulled his "body" from the carnage.
They weren't all that surprised, pulling charred head after head from the basement
There was always something different about James, they just couldn't figure it.

(Death, it was more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. The impaling didn't hurt. I felt my demons leave my body as I fell of my horse. But I always thought death was beautiful. It ridded the world of its trash. But the beauty was short lived and now it is time that I pay for all of my sins. The people I tried to vanquish are here waiting for me. Now I must face them for all eternity!)