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TEN YEARS LATER

The three girls left the bar, clinging to each other as they teetered on their high heels. Tipsy giggles were heard as they walked across the campus. Celebrating her twenty-first birthday getting drunk was so cliché, but Tonya Perkins loved it. She was the last of her friends to turn twenty-one, so they decided to go all out. Their short skirts and low tops left little to the imagination, but what the hell, it was a celebration. Starting with dinner where the servers sang Happy Birthday and ending with visiting several bars, each one offering the birthday girl free drinks, the trio now staggered back toward their apartment.

It was after midnight and the clicking of their heels resounded loudly, although the campus was hardly empty. Tonya loved Montwood College and recognized many of the faces passing by. Sybil and Alice had been her roommates since freshman year and while many college students did not get along with their first roommates, the three had been inseparable. Graduation was only a few months away and then real life would hit all of them. But for now? Continuing to celebrate was all she wanted to do.

Pounding footsteps came from behind, and the three girls turned, still teetering on their heels, as they saw two of the men they’d danced with at the bar running toward them. Holding hands and giggling, they stopped as they waited.

“Damn, they’re one man short,” Alice said, recognizing the blond she had been tangled with on the dance floor.

Tonya saw that the two men approaching were the two that had been dancing with her friends. The blond-haired man that had been buying her continuous birthday drinks was not with them. The two men halted in front of the trio, eyeing Sybil and Alice.

“We thought you’d like to extend the evening,” one of them said, sauntering up to Sybil. The other threw his arm around Alice, slurring his words as he invited her back to his apartment.

“Guys,” Alice whined. “What happened to the guy all over Tonya? We can’t just leave her.”

The men looked confused for a second before one spoke, “He wasn’t with us. We thought he was her boyfriend.”

Tonya laughed and gave her friends a slight push toward the men. “Go on, bitches. I’m almost at the apartment and I’ll be fine. You two have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Well, then hell boys, you’re out of luck,” Sybil joked, “because she never does anything. ”

Offering goodbyes, Tonya watched the foursome turn and walk in the opposite direction. She pulled her keys out of her purse and headed down the block to their place. The area was illuminated with streetlights and the security light at the front of their apartment building. The only dark spot was near the trashcans. Passing the alcove where the garbage dumpster sat back from the road, she gasped as hands reached out to grab her. A foul-smelling cloth was placed over her nose and as her body slumped backward, the stars in the sky were the last sight she viewed before blackness descended.

He stood outside the room where the girl was still sleeping, her restraints would keep her from escaping. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he reveled in the feeling of rightness. The right time, the right place, the right girl. They were all sluts after all…all of them. That’s what mama always said.

He looked down at the camera hanging around his neck. This part had gotten easier. In the old days, he had to develop his own film. But now? Digital and his computer made it simple.

Straightening, he sucked in another fortifying breath. With the long thin knife in his hand, he was ready. Entering the room, he smiled.