Dr. Waters stepped cautiously down the staircase that led from his master bedroom down to the main floor of his house. His wife, Adele, had heard a noise and asked him to go and investigate. He did not really know why he was indulging her like this. They had a state of the art security system that was automatically armed every night at nine and it was well after midnight. He had not heard anything at all, but she was a lighter sleeper and insisted she had heard a noise come from downstairs.
He did not really know why he moved with any caution at all. He had firm faith in the security system to keep any intruders out. If he had believed for one minute that some criminal was down below with mal-intent, he would have never dared to make this voyage to find them. He was not a hero or a thrill seeker. He was a man of the mind. Violence was not his forte. He would have rather picked up the phone and called the police if he was doing this for any other reason than to satisfy his wife's nervousness.
Perhaps he could get a late snack while he was down there anyway. He lost his small sense of trepidation as he thought about this and journeyed much more freely to the foot of the stairs. In order to still have a minor sense of being the brave protector of the house, he did look around casually on his way to the kitchen. Nothing seemed to be out of place, and he boldly went into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He would let Adele know that she was safe after he satisfied his hunger.
It did not take him long to polish off his sandwich, which consisted of pastrami on rye bread with a few slices of pepper jack cheese for an extra little kick. Waters was about to head back up the steps, but he thought perhaps he really ought to make a more thorough inspection of the downstairs. Knowing Adele, she would ask him about each and every room before she was satisfied with their overall security. He had never been a good liar, so if he told her that he had been in a room and had not, she would surely call him out on it and make him return to investigating.
He left the kitchen and went into the living room. Nothing was even slightly amiss in this room. Every last couch pillow was neatly in place and the coasters sat perfectly stacked on the coffee table. The novel he had been reading about genetic engineering gone wrong on a family man still sat in the rocking chair where he had left it. If he had not been tired, he might have returned to it and read another chapter. He found the mental state of the protagonist to be fascinating.
Forcing himself to move on from this new temptation, he moved into the room that Adele called his playroom. He preferred to call it his study, but he had to admit that she might have had a point. While the room did have a desk and several books on psychology, the main feature for him had always been the world war two action figurines and buildings that he liked to collect. From time to time, he would take them off his shelves that lined the room and place them out on the floor in simulations of battles that actually took place. Waters had always known that this would look to others like a little boy playing war, but he loved history and this war in particular.
The day earlier he had simulated one of his favorite battles, the storming of Normandy, but afterward he had cleaned up and placed every vehicle, soldier, bunker, and building back in its proper place. Waters was anal about not leaving a mess behind him when he was finished. It was simply slovenly to leave items all over the floor like that. What kind of professional in the field of mental medicine would allow himself to behave in such a way?
When he stepped into the room to do a quick look at the study, however, he immediately noticed that something was terribly out of place. There were figurines all over the floor in a mock battle that he had not set up. Adele never messed with these things and they did not have any children or grandchildren that could have disturbed his study. He turned the light on and was stunned to see British soldiers engaging in running lines into German bunkers. All of the German soldiers inside the bunker were lying on the ground as if they had been killed by what was in the lines.
He knew that this portrayed the action of pumping hydrogen sulfide into the bunkers to subdue and kill the Germans, but he had never set up such a scenario. He did not know who had managed to get past his security alarm and set this up, but, for the first time since coming down the stairs, he truly believed that he and Adele were not the only people in the house. Waters reached for the phone on his desk in order to call the police. Just like in the thriller movies that Adele liked to watch, however, the line was dead.
Without a second thought, the once brave protector of the house turned and fled for the stairs. He wanted to get up to Adele and let her know that they needed to get out of the house immediately. His eyes were wide with panic as he reached the steps and ascended them two at a time. Any and all thoughts of bravery were as foreign to him as thoughts of flying to the moon using his arms as wings. Mentally he was aware of the fact that his mad flight was not very stealthy and would surely draw the attention of the intruder, but his intellectual side was severely outmatched by the human tendency to act on impulse when in danger.
Waters ran through the open doorway to his bedroom and came face to face with his greatest failure. He had thought it had been his greatest achievement until this very moment. The boy he had known as Jimmy, and then Wraith, and then back to Jimmy had grown into a man and was standing at the foot of the bed holding a knife that dripped crimson blood onto the Persian carpet. The breath halted in Waters' throat and his racing heartbeat came to a nearly crashing halt. While he had been eating and exploring the downstairs, his old patient had been up here carving on Adele.
"Hello stupid." Wraith said with an evil grin on his face as he stepped aside to let Dr. Waters see his handiwork. "As you can see, your wife and I have been having one hell of a time. How was your sandwich?"
Dr. Waters stood transfixed as he stared down at the blood soaked sheets he only recently been lying in when Adele had asked him to go investigate. The covers were thrown back to reveal her naked and ravaged body. She had been wearing a night gown that had been cut off of her and tossed aside. Her panties had been ripped off and piled on top. Adele's eyes were wide with a look of terror, but they could no longer see anything. Wraith had gutted her from her navel to her sternum and from side to side, peeling her open and exposing her insides.
Amazingly enough, Wraith did not appear to have a drop of blood on him. Even the gloves he wore looked to be spotless. The only thing other than the sheets and the floor that had her blood on it was the knife that had been use to do the deed. Waters could not bear to look anymore and he sank to the floor in desperation and horror. He knew that his end was coming too. The little boy had promised that he would kill him someday and it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that the day had come. His mind screamed at him to run, but his body would not cooperate. He just sat there in submissive stillness, waiting for the stroke of the knife.
Wraith studied his former doctor for a long time, but did not bring the knife down on him. Waters began to feel incredibly unsettled. He did not know why he was not being ripped apart like his wife. After all, he was the reason this man had come here tonight, not Adele. She had only been a victim because she had the misfortune to be married to the doctor that had tried to cure this man of his mental illness. Finally, Wraith stepped closer and knelt down by the doctor. While he still held the knife in his hand, it was not pointing in Waters' direction at all.
"You are not crying." Wraith said, with a slightly questioning tone.
"No." Waters was amazed to find that he could actually speak.
"Why not?" Wraith cocked his head to the side as if he was an animal trying to understand human behavior. The small part of Waters' mind that could still reason found this to be appropriate. Wraith was not a human; he was an animal, a vicious predator that stalked mankind.
"I am waiting." Was all he could say.
"Waiting for what?" Wraith asked, raising his knife after a short pause. "For this?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Wraith asked in amusement.
"Because you came here to kill me." Waters responded. He felt like he was in a trance or deep under water. His mind kept screaming at him to run or strike out at Wraith, but he could do nothing but sit there in total submission and wait for the inevitable.
"Yes I am." Wraith said. "But I do not intend to do so with a knife. Don't get me wrong, I love knives. They are so much more personal than guns. Anybody can shoot another person. All it takes is a quick flex of the finger and a life is ended. But who can really take a knife and ram it into human flesh? Or maybe take a blunt object and swing it into another person with enough force to kill them? Yes, death by this means is such a better rush of emotion and ecstasy. I love to watch the eyes of my victims as they realize their hopelessness. But this is not for you. I have something special for you."
"Please, just kill me." Waters said.
"What was that?" Wraith asked, pretending he did not hear what the doctor had said.
"Please, just kill me." Waters repeated.
"What about your 'right to life'?" Wraith mocked. "Isn't that what you believe in?"
"Please, just kill me." It was really all Dr. Waters could say anymore.
"I will." Wraith said, as he produced a taser and pressed it into the doctor's neck. "Or rather you will."
Waters felt the jolt run through his body and he fell backward and started to convulse violently. He was aware through his spasms of being drug through the hallway and down the stairs, but it was hard for him to focus on anything. Another shot of the taser went through him as they reached the front door. This was enough to get to him fade out altogether. He did not know what was going to happen, but he was certain that more pain was on its way.