Simply Spooky - Killing Loneliness By Lily Luchesi

Killing Loneliness
USA Today Bestselling Author
Copyright © 2024 Lily Luchesi
 
“Thank God you’re back!”
I fling my arms around my girlfriend, Amy, the second she walks in the door, smelling like the autumn breeze outside. “I hate it when you’re gone for a long time!”
“It was five days, babe,” Amy replies with a laugh, kissing me before prying my arms from her neck. “Can I at least take my shoes off before you strangle me?”
I nod, blushing as if we are brand new partners instead of together for almost a year.
“I saw the news,” Amy continues as she walks into the apartment. “The Lonely Hearts Killer got someone again.” She shakes her head. “I guess that’s why you get nervous now?”
My shoulders rise in a shrug. “I miss you a bit more than I’m scared.”
She takes her phone out and I bring us both some wine. “Seven murders in seven months. All women whose partners — gender notwithstanding — are away for at least a full night. Like … how does the killer even know? Do they pick someone and watch their house? Stalk the partner?” She shivers and I put my arm around her in a non-strangling manner this time. “I worry about you. Our small town having a serial killer is no joke. Especially since you fit the profile of the victims.”
I won’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind that I am exactly what the killer looks for.
“Seven for seven. It’s impressive,” I comment, earning me a strange look from Amy.
“I’m not sure ‘impressive’ is the word I’d use, but you do you.” She grins. “I showed my colleagues our picture. And then I told them your job. Nobody believed me until I pulled up your website.”
“What? The girl with the Hello Kitty sweater doesn’t look like a horror writer?” I giggle. Maybe I don’t seem like the type to write thousands upon thousands of words about people being murdered and tortured in various ways.
What’s even more amusing is how squeamish Amy is, despite being a Goth. She supports my work, well, my writing. But she won’t read it.
“First person POV of how good it feels to kill somebody isn’t my thing,” she said before.
I respect that. And I love that she supports me even if she doesn’t like what I write.
Later that evening, I get back to my latest novel and Amy starts getting ready for bed; she must be jet lagged.
“I watched her through the window for a few minutes. Curled up on the armchair, a romcom on the gigantic TV mounted on the wall, lights low. Her legs were covered with a black and white checked blanket. She looked like the picture of comfort, except the tears falling down her cheeks.
“Her lover left earlier that day for a two-week trip abroad, and she was despondent, clearly. Poor thing. Her sadness called to me like a moth to a flame. I longed to banish her tears and replace them with something much more delectable: fear.
“They never hear me enter their homes. They never have the cliche horror movie moment of calling out, asking who is there, walking into the darkness like children lured by candy.
“No. They never know I’m there until I am upon them, striking my first blow, drawing first blood. Sometimes, sadly, I am overzealous and kill with my first strike. However, nights like tonight, as I stand behind the girl, I know it will be long and glorious
“My first cut is to her ear, the knife so sharp I am met with no resistance as it flops off and lands on the arm of the chair next to her. She stares at it, shock not allowing her to feel pain yet.
“Oh, yes. Tonight will be a long night of pleasure and death. And no one will hear her scream.”
As I type the final period in that sentence, like in a bad B-movie, Amy screams.
Please don’t let it be a rat, I think, wondering if I should put house shoes on. But that’s my girlfriend and she needs me. I can’t be scared of rats right now.
Dashing into the bedroom, I don’t see her. Then I spot the light from the walk-in closet. She’s in there, the door nearly totally shut.
“Amy? What happened?” I call, since she seems silent now.
Carefully, I creep towards the walk-in and open the door, letting the light spill out, silhouetting me against the darkened bedroom.
One of the shelves in the walk-in contains some older blankets we don’t use. In fact, we haven’t used these since we moved in together seven months ago. So why are they now all over the floor, as if they fell?
And sitting on top of them is a bloodstained knife.
“Amy?” My voice wavers as I say that single syllable.
“I wanted to grab a thin blanket because you run hot and I always need an extra one,” she says, her voice monotonous. “I pulled, and something snagged. And they all fell and that…” She bends down to pick it up.
“Don’t touch it!” I scold, not meaning to be so sharp.
“Why not?” she asks, her voice still monotone and calm.
“Because you shouldn’t get your fingerprints on a strange knife? It could have diseases? You don’t know where it’s been!”
We stare at each other, back at the knife, and over again, as if we are in a silent film but don’t know the plot.
The seconds tick by, and one of us needs to do something. Silence stretches, uncomfortable and thick, making my skin crawl.
“How long?” I finally ask.
“How long what?”
“How long have you been killing people?”
She shakes her head, her voice now back to its usual soft tone. “I don’t kill people, Jessie. Loneliness kills, slowly. I just end their suffering faster.” She glances at the knife. “But that’s not my blade.”
Amy. My sweet, shy, precious Amy, a serial killer? The very one she warned me against earlier this evening?
“Why do I always attract the crazy ones?” I blurt out.
“I’m sympathetic,” she counters. “Because I am the one who always has to leave for a while, knowing how sad you are. I don’t want others to feel that way too. Now, stop deflecting and tell me where that knife came from!”
“I thought I wouldn’t need it anymore,” I admit. “I should have thrown it away, but I guess I’m just … nostalgic.”
“Nostalgic about what?” Amy wonders.
“My exes. I really, truly thought you were the one. That you wouldn’t hurt or betray me like the others. But you did worse! You’re killing people for the same situation you put me in! How long until you felt sympathetic towards me and killed me?”
Her silence speaks volumes.
I pick up the knife, and her eyes follow me.
“You won’t hurt me,” she says, her voice steady. She’s confident. “You’re just like me, right? You have blood on your hands, too.”
“I have never harmed an innocent person!”
“I’m saving them from misery!”
“And what about the person they left behind? Who comes home to nothing but an empty house full of memories and ghosts?”
“They deserve to suffer. I do too.” Her eyes are so wide, so innocent. She truly believes it.
“So you’ll kill me, too? To make yourself suffer?”
She holds a hand out. “You could work with me. And then I wouldn’t have to feel so bad about it.”
Stepping forward, her eyes begin to sparkle and that smile I love appears.
She thinks I am about to agree with her.
Swiftly, I pick the knife up, and before she can register what’s happening, I slice the bloodstained blade across her throat. There is just enough time for her eyes to register shock as blood begins to pour from the fresh wound, and then she collapses.
Her body twitches once, twice, then lies still.
I sigh.
“I could’ve come to grips with what you did, Amy. I really could have. But then you had to ask me to do it with you. I’m sorry. But I work better alone. And now … I suppose you don’t have to suffer anymore.”

Lily Luchesi is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of the Paranormal Detectives Series.
Her young adult Coven Series has successfully topped Amazon's Hot New Releases list consecutively.
She is also the founder of Partners in Crime Book Services, where she offers a myriad of services, including editing.
They were born in Chicago, Illinois, where many of their stories are set. Ever since she was a toddler, her mother noticed her tendency for being interested in all things "dark". At two they became infatuated with vampires and ghosts, and that infatuation turned into a lifestyle. She is also an out member of the LGBT+ community.
When not writing, she's going to rock concerts, getting tattooed, watching the CW, or reading comics and manga. And drinking copious amounts of coffee.
Lily also writes contemporary books for adults as Samantha Calcott, and dark/taboo romance as S.L. Sinclair.

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