the place had been set. the place: a basement of a school deep in downtown New Orleans. candles lit the area just enough to see the darkness with glimpses of movement here and there. the girl woke from a haze of drug induced sleep. of what kind is unimportant. what is important is her reaction the situation she's awakened to.

in the poorly lit distance not so far away, the gleam of something metal caught her eye. as she slowly slips from her sleep, she tries to move but quickly finds her hands are bound behind her back and her feet tied to the legs of the chair she's sitting in. she wants to scream, but it's muffled by something stuffed in her mouth, and held there with tape. probably duct tape, but she can't tell. all she knows is her noises are barely that, and mostly inside her own head.

the dank smell of mildew filled her nostrils as her breath became more panicked. her heart started to race, and now footsteps. heavy. a hand reaches out of the darkness and picks up whatever metal object was reflecting light, she couldn't make it out just yet. that was the least of her concerns, but would soon become the greatest.

whoever was with her made sure to stay in the dark as he walked around back of the woman. she tried to follow the sound with her eyes, but soon found that she could not move her head. rivers began flowing down her face as she came into consciousness fully and realized exactly what was going on. she would not make it out of this alive.

a hand comes out of the darkness and, slowly, fingertips caress the woman's cheeks.

"This'll all be over soon. Don't be afraid."

danny's voice was darker, it was as if all humanity had left him. his tone is more animalistic and brooding. on the back of her neck, she could feel the cold touch of steel grazing her skin. a small trickle of blood seeped from her body. it hurt her, but not too much... yet. she began to tremble.

"Calm down, Lucy. I'll be gentle, I promise."

a lie. he had never been gentle before and he wasn't about to start now.

his hand slid from her cheek down around her neck. his hand closed on her throat and her oxygen was cut off. she struggled to no avail. on the verge of passing out, danny loosened his grip and the woman took a deep breath, again filling her lungs with that sweet, sweet air. she's crying now. again, he tightens his hand on her throat and this time there would be no release. she slipped into unconsciousness again, then nothing. her end, though, was only the beginning.

with the scalpal danny had in his hand, he carved Lucy into the back of the woman's neck. this is where the real fun starts.

he walks around in front of her, looking into her frozen eyes, so full of fear. how he loved that sight. he ran the blade down the front of the woman's shirt, slicing it open but nothing more. he sliced the arms and pulled the shirt from behind her. next, he snapped the straps of her bra and cut the front and pulled it from her. he took a step back, grinning.

"Beautiful."

and she was... in life.

danny went to work and with a surgeon's precision sliced open her abdomen, spilling her entrails into her lap. he started with her intestine, as they were in his way the most. cleanly, he cut them from her and tossed them in a pail beside the chair. next, her liver came out, and so on down the line until the woman was but a shell. he cut the skin from her belly, making her torso, from ribcage to hip, a box more or less, with one end open.

danny lit a candle and set it inside her and illuminated the cavity where her vital organs once occupied. he walks back to the table, where he had kept his scalpal, and got another tool. bolt cutters. these were for removing the woman's ribs. he lay them in her bloodsoaked lap.

carefully... why carefully isn't known, but danny was being careful... carefully, he made an outline in the woman's skin. a complete square from the opening in her abdomen up to her shoulders, across her chest, and back down, and slowly he peeled the skin from her body. this, too, went into the bucket beside the chair.

he sat the scalpal down as he picked up the bolt cutters.

"This, Lucy, is gonna hurt a lot."

she wasn't alive.

starting, obviously, at the bottom, danny works his way up her left side breaking bone after bone with the blades of the bolt cutters and they fall into her lap. then the right side. once they are all no longer a part of his victim, danny puts them into the bucket. exposed now are her lungs, heart, and other miscellanious bodyparts held within the chest. these, though, were soon removed the same as her abdomen. they, too, ended up in that bucket.

now her torso was a gaping hole with three walls. the candle lit it pretty good.

danny threw the bolt cutters aside, they would no longer be needed. back to the table, this time he gets a large spoon, the edges sharpened all around it save the handle. with it, he scraped out the meats in the woman's throat and tossed them into that same bucket. it was beginning to overflow, but there wasn't much more to be put in it.

shoving the spoon further up her throat, danny made his way into the skull cavity and removed, again carefully so not to mess anything up, the woman's brain... into the bucket chunk after chunk. and now her skull was empty.

the spoon soon found itself laying beside the bolt cutters, and danny took to the scalpal again, cutting her eyes out. danny stepped back and looked at his work. the candle lit her up like a jack-o-lantern.

"Beautiful."

he blew out the candle and carried the woman, still bound in her seat, up the stairs and sat her in the hallway just inside the school doors. after lighting a new candle and putting it where the other had been, danny left through the back door, arming the school alarm as he left. all his tools he left. the bucket, he left. his backpack, he left. he was gone...

-------------------

*Somehow, the game had changed. The 'Lucy Killer' had left a human jack-o-lantern in the entryway of the George Washington Junior High. It was him, all right. He was back to planning, being systematic. He had entered the school after the custodians went home, and left before the breakfast employees showed up. The girl had been a college student, majoring in art history. Her name was Becca Valentine. Once she'd been vibrant and full of life, now lumpy bloody guts peppered the basement floor where she'd been hollowed out like a pumpkin. It turned Claire's stomach. It was only by sheer force of will that she was able to keep down what little breakfast she'd eaten. If Becca had been raped, it would have been difficult to tell in her ravaged condition. There was no semen found, no bloated condom discovered. Somehow, Claire knew that she hadn't been raped. It wasn't about sex anymore. The killer was trying to fulfill some sick twisted fantasy for a person either real or imaginary, called Lucy. If she could just figure out who Lucy was, it might be the clue she needed to crack the case wide open.

All the evidence had been bagged up and sent back to HQ, so Annie could search for evidence. Hopefully, she would have something by now. Claire pulled her cell phone from her pocket, dialing Annie's number.*

~Yeah?~ *Claire could hear rock-n-roll music blaring in the background.*

Annie, it's Claire. Did you find anything?

~Well, his prints are all over everything. Unfortunately, they aren't in the system.~

Well, that's great. Anything else?

~I found out that the candle he put inside her is a special brand of all-natural candle.~

Really, that sounds helpful. *Claire felt better, maybe this would turn out to be a lead.*

~It would have been helpful six months ago, now they're selling at Wal-Mart.~ *Claire sighed heavily, it didn't look like she was going to get any clues out of this death either.*

Anything else?

~He choked her to death. The trachea's crushed and she's got petrichial hemmoraging in her eyes. All the blade work was done postmortem.~

Thanks, Annie. *Click. That was different too. He'd enjoyed inflicting pain on his victims until they died from it. What was different now? There had to be something different...*

----

*In order to pull off this killing so neatly and so quickly after the first one, he had to have been in New Orleans for a week at least. He was probably dissatisfied with the quality of the first kill.*

~Claire, you should see this.~ *Tim walked into the room and handed Claire a newspaper. The title read "Hallway Horror" and showed a lovely picture of Becca's desecrated corpse. The caption underneath lamented the inability of the FBI to put this psycho behind bars, mentioning Claire personally.*

Ah, shit. The press is having a field day with this. *By tomorrow morning, every paper in the tri-state area would feature an article on the 'Lucy Killer'. Of course, that meant that her boss would get pissed that no progress had been made. Claire could stall him for now, but if something didn't crack soon, she'd be in serious trouble.*

Tim, when you hear the name Lucy, what do you think?

*He paused for a moment before answering. ~Me? I think of 'I love Lucy.'~

Well, this nutjob loves Lucy, that's for sure. Somehow I don't think Lucy Ricardo's the target of his affection. Anything else?

~That girl in the Peanuts strip who's always stealing the football?~

*She sighed, rolled up the newspaper, and hit Tim in the back of the head.* Thanks for the help. Remind me not to ask you for any more. *It wasn't Tim's fault, really. He was new to the land of serial killers. He'd only been out of training for a couple years. Claire started to pace back and forth.* There has to be something I'm missing. What is it?

~*~Back~*~