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Mū

The engine of Mū's van ticked as it cooled in the stifling hot garage where he’d parked it after gassing, washing, and getting an oil change to prepare for his next victim. Wouldn’t do to have the thing break down at an inopportune moment; staying under the radar of authorities when out on the road was key. Preparing for his work, he pulled on a mask and gloves; these additions added to his sweaty discomfort. “It will be worth it in the end,” he muttered. “Everything I’ve done has been leading up to now.”

The air in the garage hung thick with the metallic stink of the engine. Mū turned on a fan, but he couldn’t risk opening the main door and a neighbor glimpsing his activities. He went around the back of the vehicle and opened the doors, gazing down at the disgusting mattress on the vehicle’s floor. Steinbrenner had messed it up with blood and fluids during a long day and night spent there. Separate lidded buckets beside it held his bodily waste.

Distasteful as it was to deal with the aftermath of his kill, Mū was preparing for Her . He couldn’t put Her in the van in its current state. She deserved better.

Mū stripped the filthy sheet off, exposing a plastic covering over the mattress. He threw the sheet in the nearby washer, doused it in bleach, and turned the setting to Hot. He carried the buckets inside the house and flushed them, then brought them back out into the garage to the utility sink. He splashed bleach into them and then rinsed them out, setting them to dry.

He wouldn’t need them again; he didn’t plan to have Her in the van as long.

He took out the large plastic gun case where he kept his kill kit. The police would be combing the marketplaces for where he’d obtained his weapons; they would find nothing. The latest leiomano had arrived with the other materials in the mail from the maker in a foreign country; he had paid anonymously with cryptocurrency.

His orders were untraceable.

Mū removed the weapon from the packaging and set the bubble wrap and cardboard into his burn can; he took no chances with disposal. He held up the weapon; a ray of sunlight came in through the side window of the garage and moved along the smooth wood and shining white shark teeth that ringed one end and the sides.

Mū’s gloved fingers traced the serrated edge; he wanted to caress its bite with his naked fingertips, but it wouldn’t be wise to leave any possible trace. The shark teeth, harvested in the Philippines, were pristine and sharp as jagged razors, catching on the rubber of the gloves but not piercing it.

The weapon felt springy and alive in his hands as he swung it back and forth. It hungered for flesh, as had the others he'd used to honor each kill.

He nestled the weapon in its waiting foam niche, then reached for the next item. The syringe gleamed under the single fluorescent light as he filled it from the vial, capped it, and put it back in place. He then took the fresh and stiffly new coiled woven fiber cords he’d ordered from the same source as the leiomano . He unwrapped them, stowing them in the case. He packed the terrifying tiki mask he would wear. And finally, he shook out and refolded the printed cloth he would drape around Her loins.

Would he take Her body before he dressed Her in the skirt? Or after?

He’d used Goodwin’s body before he dressed her for the kill.

But She was special.

When She was pliant from the drug, he’d put the skirt on Her. Maybe the lei po’o too. Then, he’d use Her body for his pleasure the way he’d fantasized about for so long. The thought made him hard.

She’d be out of his system after that—easy to discard as he had the others—but such a unique thrill because he’d wanted, craved, and hungered for Her this long.

The first three had been necessary steps. Practice subjects. Each sacrifice had taught him something vital about how long the drugs took to work, how tightly to bind the restraints, how much abuse and deprivation the human body could withstand before it broke.

Three times he'd packed this van. Three times he'd returned it to the garage, the sharp iron scent of blood still clinging to his clothes. Each kill had honed his skills and prepared him to make the most of this last sacrifice. They had all been preparation for Her.

Mū’s lip curled with contempt as he checked his burner phone. The message boards churned with theories about Hawaiian sovereignty, about political motives, about everything except the truth. Fools, all of them, chasing shadows while he moved unseen toward his real purpose.

He pressed the button to raise the garage door. It groaned open, rusted hinges protesting. A dog barked in the distance, then fell silent. The afternoon felt heavy with promise, like the hours before a storm. Mū got in and started the van.

By tomorrow, everything he'd worked toward would be complete. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. After all this time watching, waiting, learning . . . She would finally be his.

He drove out of his neighborhood as the garage door rumbled shut behind him. A few miles further on, the van sped past the sugar mill's ruins, leaving Kahului's sprawl behind.

Heat waves rippled off the asphalt of the highway as Mū merged into traffic. On one side, Haleakala’s vast slope rose into a crown of clouds, while mountains loomed on the other, their jagged peaks carved by centuries of rainfall into deep, shadowed valleys.

The highway curved along the island's shore. Winter waves could pound the cliffs, but today the ocean lay flat and turquoise, deceptively peaceful. Like him—biding his time. Tourist cars crept along, stopping at every turnout for photos. He passed them with practiced patience. He had memorized every curve of this road during previous journeys.

The miles unwound like the coiled cords in Mū’s kill kit. The leiomano seemed to pulse behind him, as if sensing they were near, when at last he turned onto an unmarked private drive. Her house waited at the end. The afternoon heat would soon give way to evening clouds rolling down the mountainside. By then, he would have Her and be ready.

Everything he had learned from the others would serve him as he took Her to the perfect place he had chosen for his final sacrifice. But he wasn’t in a hurry for that final act; he’d savor every moment of his time with Her in the van first.