Chapter 3: I Will Know

By: Akkiko

By fire light that night, Zelda and Kelly played baseball. Kelly held the bat with her tiny hands barely fitting around it. "Alright, I`m ready Zelda!"

Zelda made a production of throwing the ball and Kelly swung at it. The ball bounced off the top of the bat and went hurtling back into the dence woods. Kelly looked in apology at Zelda, who smiled. "It`s alright Kelly, I`ll get it, just give me the flashlight." Kelly handed her the flashlight and Zelda began to walk but stopped and turned slightly. She needed to think for a while about everything that was happening. "Hey Kelly, go to bed alright, I need to think for a while." Kelly nodded and climbed into the tent and zipped it up.

Zelda crushed through the small thicket of tree`s and bushes but didn`t see the baseball anywhere. She took a few steps forward and tripped suddenly on a tree root that seemed to appear out of nowhere. She fell foreward and hit her head hard against a tree. Specks appeared in her vision but she bliked them away and leaned against the tree trunk. Something hit her hand suddenly and sent her flashlight bouncing off into the brush. She heard glass shatter and knew it had broken. It was pitch dark and although her eyes strained she couldn`t see anything. The fact that her vision had dimmed from the fall didn`t help that matter. She pushed against the tree trunk and tried to stand up but her legs wouldn`t obey her command. She decided to try to crawl.

She knew this was a bad idea when she heard a twig snap behind her. Through the blanket of darkness she strained her eyes but they wouldn`t see anthing. She began to breath faster as she felt the stiff paper of a photograph brush her nose. "Who`s there?"

She felt a hand creep over her mouth and clamp her lips shut. Her eyes opened wider as she was pulled to her feet and a sharp pain shot up her leg. She felt the warm tickle of breath across her ear. "A secret admirer." The voice was husky and threatning. Her body finally obeyed her commands and she began to kick and punch, but heard nothing more than a laugh in return. An arm clamped over her amrs and pinned them to her side then a leg wrapped around her feet and held them. As she gasped in surprise the hand was replaced with a hankerchief and she was shoved forward. When she dug her heels into the ground, she was picked up and tossed over a musclear shoulder.

Light flooded her eyes suddenly as she was tossed into a tent on a cot. As soon as her eyes adjusted and the shock drained away she ripped the hankerchief from her mouth and was abut to scram but the man in front of her dressed in black pounced on her and clamped his hand once again over her mouth. "Not a word Zelda!" She relaxed slightly, or tried to. His eyes were all she could see. They were light blue, but looked unatrual for some reason. He sat on her stomech and sqeezed the air from her lungs by putting pressure on her chest. As she slowly began to fade away he leaned down, inches away from ehr face. "I meant it when I said you were mine. If you tell anyone about our meeting little Kelly will suffer horrably, and Zelda," his eyes narrowed at her slightly, "I will know. Nothing`s sacred." She began to gasp for breath and small specks appeared in her vision then darkness began to cloud her eyes. She knew it now, she was going to die.

Flowers and soft things carressing her face and body which was in pain. Her eyelids fluttered open and she saw a white room with oak furniture. When she sat up, she realized she was covered in black rose petals. Their scent was like a lullabye, letting her know everything would be fine. She loved black roses. They were mysteriouse and beautiful. She gave her head a slight shake and sent the small petals flying about the room. That was when she smelled medicine, and the smell of too many cleaning solutions. She was in a hospitle. She looked around her room and saw a vase of black roses with a small card in them. They were close enough to reach and so she picked the card up and opened it, curiouse to find out who it was from.

Zelda,
I`m so sorry that I hurt you, it won`t happen again I promise. You have a fire in your eyes that I feel needs to be controlled, I suppose I took it a little too far. I do watch you, and I love you very much. Please don`t be afraid of me, I won`t hurt you again - unless you give me reason to.

She began to tremble wildly and she heard her heart monitor speed up as her arm flailed against her will and dashed the vase to the floor. A nurse came in and gasped as she looked around the room that moments ago had been swept clean. Now there was small black petals over everything and glass shards mixed with water covering the floor. "Where did all this come from?"

Zelda was too scared to answer. She simply stared forward and rocked back and forth as hars as she could. "He`s going to kill me."

The nurse dashed to her bed side and gripped her shoulders, trying but failing to make eye contact. "Hon it`s alright, calm down. You have a concussion, do you remember anything?"

Zelda shook her head with ehr eyes wide in terror. "He`s going to kill me!" She dropped the card and the smell of blak roses hit her. Now it was no longer a lullabye, but a toxic smell, a poison that would kill her. The scent of her enimy. She threw the card and began to thrash her limbs to get the petals off her bed. The nurse paged for help and soon she was restrained by four men and a nurse. She began to scream and writh against the hands that held her down even though she knew they were too strong.

She felt a prick in her arm and the world began to slow, everyone moved in slow motion until she began to move in slow motion and finally she stopped moving all together. Her mucsles relaxed and gradually stopped trembling. The hands were slowly removed and th card was picked up by the nurse. She rea it with a pale and tence face. "Call the police! Get them over here now!" As the men dashed out of the room the nurse turned to her and stroked her head lightly. "It`ll be alright, we`ll get you some help."

The policeman stared at her with a slight smile as her eyes flickered open. She was in a new room, now with leather restraints around her wrists and ankles. "How do you feel Zelda?"

She looked up at him from her bed and tried to sit up but he shook his head and ordered her in a firm voice not to try to move too much. She relaxed into the softness of the bed and stared at him tiredly. "I`m in pain."

He smiled again softly. "Yes I thought you would be. You have a concussion and several bruises on you, not to mention a minor sprain in your ankle. I was called here because you kept saying a man was going to kill you and the nurse found a rather threatning note on your bed with the rose petals. I was wondering if you know who this is and if you have seen him face to face."

Zelda stared at him dumbly but finally her voice came to her, even though it was little more than a squeak. "He said he would kill Kelly if I talked."

The policeman nodded with a smile. "Well, then I`ll tell you what I know. We have searched your house and the surrounding area. We found a shrine to you and pictures of you and your family. We also found a small tent. He`s been watching you for a while, since you moved here at least." She remained silent, not trusting herself to speak. He held ut a picture of a man with bright blue eyes and long black hair. "This is the black rose killer as he calls himself. He stalks women he likes for weeks, months, maybe even years. He makes it so that they appear crazy. We found putty on your walls and so no doupt the wall was plastered with pictures, right?" She nodded nervousely as her heart monitor indicated her heart rate going up. "And you thought you had imagined them, that`s why you didn`t call us right?" She nodded again and he continued. "He sends them to the hospitle a few tmes, the last time almost killing them and then he rapes and kills them when they come out. Normally though he keeps them alive as a sort of plaything for a few weeks. The difference with this case is that he never indicates he knows they are in the hospitle. He has never sent roses before." He leaned forward now and stared at her. "We think that he wants to keep you alive a lot longer and so we would like you to call us if anything suspisouse happens."

He handed her his card and she glared ta him as she crumbled it up with her restrained hand. "You`re hoping he`ll kidnap me and I`ll lead you to him. Police are supposed to protect people. I`m taking the fifth, so get out of my room and I`ll handle him."

The police officer frowned at her. "This is obstructing justice, you know that don`t you?"

She frowed even deeper and her eyes darkened. "No it isn`t, because I don`t know anything. You`ll know when it`s time."

He frowned even more. "Look we can protect you if he comes after you....."

"But not my family," she interupted. "I`m not going to call you, for the sake of my sister and parents. I`ll play along for now." The officer sighed finally and walked out of the room making a point to slam the door.

She stared at the cieling with feelings of dread washing over her. She had to be smarter than this guy, and she knew she could be. She had an above avridge IQ and she knew the way the insane mind worked. She just had to try.

When she finally got out of the hospitle a week or so later she got back to her routine. She had to find out who this guy was before she could do anything to him. She wasn`t buying what the police said about the black rose killer. It made no sence. Why go after her? She knew she was beautiful in a mysteriouse way, but why her? Also she had researched on this man. His victoms were normally between twenty years old to thirty. Maybe he was looking for someoen younger, but why change his style now?


"Zelda, you here or there?" She looekd up to see Dante standing over her. He smiled and set his eyes twinkling. "What`s wrong?"

In front of her was a computer with a search running on it. Vaugly, she remembered typing in "Black Rose Killer" on the school librery computer. She forsed a smile on her face and looked at him. "Nothing, I`m just being stalked by a phyco who landed me in the hospitle."

She realized what she had said a little too late and looked at him with a frown as he sat down, loking concerned. "You`re kidding me. Well, what has he done?"

She looked up as the librery door opened and Tylor walked in. She leaned forward as tears ran down her face. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and waited patiantly as she spoke to him. "He sent me pictures of myself and my family in the mail, he beat me up and threatened me and my sister, then at the hospitle he sent me black roses and put the petals all over me!"

Dante leaned forward with sympothy and hugged her close after sighing in anger. "It`s alright Zelda, he won`t hurt you, I`ll protect you the best I can." He smiled slightly and pulled ehr away. "You find out who he is and he`ll be so mulled up that the police won`t even know who he is!" She smiled slightly as the school bell rang.

It was a weekend again and her sister asked her if she could go camping. Her parents said they wouldn`t allow it because now they knew about the stalker and she was grounded for mouthing off to a policeman trying to help her. She finally tucked Kelly into bed and told her a bedtime story. This time it was about a woman who had been stalked for a while by a man. She took enough and finally killed him. After Kelly had fallen asleep Zelda went into her own room and fell asleep.

Zelda was running thorugh the woods at top speed as she expertly twisted through the blanket of trees. "Run run Zelda!" She looekd over her shoulder to see the shadow chasing after her and then she hit something hard. She turned and looekd in front of her to see him. His unatrual blue eyes shown through his mask. "You want to know who I am don`t you?" He ripped the mask off and revealed that he was a monster with bright blue eyes. His skin looked like it was melting off of him as he spoke, leaving only his eyes in tact.

Zelda flinched awake and gasped as she saw the dark figure standing over her. Before a scream could rip her lips apart he had a drugged cloth pressed to her mouth and nose. In her struggling to escape the cloth, she inhaled sharply. As she began to calm down he removed the cloth and brushed a few strands of hair out of her face. "Shh, it`s alright Zelda, you`ll still be alive, but you have to be punished." Her eyelids drooped as the world around her went dark and she dove into ablivian.