The Gatekeeper

CHAPTER ONE
Jami Stratford

         A huge iron gate, which always stayed locked with five chains and padlocks, stood in front of a Colonial style house on the corner of Oak and Elm streets.  Anyone who paid any attention as they walked by wondered what the story behind the gate, the house, and the man was.  Occasionally they would wonder why the gate was always locked.  Every once in a while they would see the man standing outside the house at the gate with the keys to all five locks.  This man had become known as “The Gatekeeper” and everyone who had ever really paid close attention to him when they saw him was terrified of him--they had seen his arms and chest.  He was what some in the medical and mental health professions had termed a “cutter”, which meant that he derived pleasure from self-mutilation through the use of knives and razor blades.  These cuts were always deep enough for stitches, although he never went and got stitches for any of them--he just bandaged them up and went on about his business because he didn’t want anyone at all knowing what he was doing.  He had started cutting himself at age 14, but always kept it hidden that way his parents wouldn’t have to deal with, or even know about, what he was doing to himself.  As a young child, he would take field mice and sewer rats and smash their heads in with a rubber mallet and then cut their heads off with a hatchet.  Then he would cut them open to see what the insides looked like and to feel the blood on his hands and run down his arms.
         It always felt good when the blood covered his hands and ran down his arms--it was physically, mentally, and emotionally stimulating for him.  One day, he promised himself, he would feel actual human blood in much the same way.  He hadn’t yet gone after a human victim  because he wasn’t sure how to go about it--this was something he was going to have to research by studying several previous serial killers.  And, he didn’t know if he wanted to torture his victims before he killed them or not.  However, he had graduated from killing mice and rats to killing dogs, cats, rabbits, and any other stray pets he came across, which might include the occasional pig or goat as well.  He had read up on Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, The Son of Sam (David Berkowitz), The Green River Killer, The Boston Stranglers, and The Zodiac Killer.  He was also a civil rights activist when Charles Manson was arrested.  Tiger himself was arrested for protesting Manson’s arrest outside the courthouse.  Charles Manson was arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of murder although he was only the mastermind behind the Sharon Tate murders.  Of all these serial killers, the one that intrigued him the most was the Zodiac Killer because the police had never caught him and he just kind of faded out of sight after his last murder.  Oh yes, he could also not forget his other favorite serial killer, and cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer, who was subsequently killed while in prison.  But, what he had read about all of these serial killers was that there was something wrong in their minds that made them commit their atrocious acts.
         He knew people were terrified of him, so he maintained his distance.  He did all of his grocery shopping at night and, for the most part, stayed in during the day so that no one would have to see him.  He knew it was time to start abducting his victims.  At first, he concentrated on watching young, pre-pubescent girls--ages 8-13--from his second floor window.  But then, he decided that it wouldn’t be very much fun, or very wise--and it would be too risky--he also knew what prisoners did to child killers and pedophiles in prison should it come to that.  Next, he concentrated on watching young, athletic men in the age range of 20-25 years, but decided that they would be too much of a challenge because of their athletic abilities.  Finally, he decided to concentrate on women from the ages of 18-25--he figured they would be his easiest targets.  And he had many of them to watch from his second floor window--all of them coming and going, going and coming not even realizing what he had in store for them.  All of these women didn’t even know that Tiger Eyes even existed.  Tiger was six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, with dusky blue eyes, and dishwater blond hair.  He was a danger to these women and they didn’t even know it; however, he was also a danger to himself as well.
          Tiger had been abused when he was younger and this made him a complicated man to deal with and figure out.  He loved to look at pictures of dead people and the more morbid the better.  He even had a tattoo on his left forearm of a young woman on a cross being burned alive with the words “ROT IN PIECES” printed underneath it.  There were only two other people besides him that knew why he was so morbid, twisted, and sadistic.  His mind was tortured and troubled and he had thoughts of death all the time.  When these thoughts of death would come, he would take a razor blade and slice it across his arms, chest, and abdomen--and then he would sit for hours and watch them bleed until all the death thoughts were gone.  While doing this, he would fantasize that a young woman was strapped to a torturous bed.  He also thought about raping women quite often, but yet he didn’t think there was anything wrong with him.  He finally decided that when he started abducting his victims, he would torture them and rape them repeatedly before killing them and disposing of the bodies.
         Tiger started buying the things he would need to build the torture chamber in his basement, which was rather large at 1800 square feet--this allowed for plenty of space for a bed as well as other torture devices.  He bought a six foot long, four foot wide of plywood that he drove nails through one side of and attached leather straps to it where the arms, legs, and head would be placed.  He bought a twin sized bed for the basement and he built a small four foot by four foot room in one corner of the basement which he called “the cell”.  The room had no light source and only a small hole for air to get through.  He welded together a rack to hang women from by their wrists and bought hoods and handcuffs, as well as whips, knives, chains, and other sexual instruments.  He also started raising rats, Madagascan Hissing Roaches, tarantulas--big tarantulas, the ones they called Goliath Bird Eaters, which, when full grown, were as big as an average sized dinner plate--and emperor scorpions.  When it was all said and done, he had approximately 10-15 tarantulas and 20-25 scorpions--some of the most deadly there were.  Tiger would sit for hours on end and play with his new found “friends”.  He would let the spiders crawl up and down his arms and, occasionally, he would let them roam about the room, keeping a very careful eye on them so as not to lose sight of any of them.  He would stick his hands in the tanks with the scorpions just daring them to sting him, just to see if it would hurt, how badly it would hurt, or if he was allergic to them--he also did this with his tarantulas.
         All in all, Tiger’s spider and scorpion collection was rather small considering some people had collections in the 80’s and 90’s--but then again, he didn’t want just any tarantulas or scorpion either, he wanted the ones that were the most aggressive, the most dangerous, and the most deadly.  His largest tarantula, a Goliath Bird Eater named Attila, even as a young female, already weighed over four pounds and that was nothing unusual for this particular species of tarantula and his largest emperor scorpion, named Darth, was, at present, over seven inches long and extremely potent.  Tiger prided himself in his tarantula and scorpion collection, as well as his collection of other animals that he had been raising.  He didn’t have to buy any of his animals, especially the tarantulas.  He had a large supply of males and a small supply of females--when it came time, he would simply mate a male with a female and then he let the female kill the male and have him as a meal.  He was also mating his other creatures of torture and had many now.  His little torture chamber was almost ready, he just had a few more things to buy and then it would be completely ready for its first trial run.  One night, Tiger went out and bought an aluminum baseball bat, several thick chains, an axe, a machete, a hatchet, several different types and weights of hammers, several sets of screwdrivers--flat heads and phillips heads--he also bought six different hedge trimmers, several guns of different calibers, a dozen packages of straight razor blades, several spools of fishing line, six packages of piano wire, four chainsaws with replacement chains, and several drills.  He also invested in several bags of cement to build a concrete slab in his basement in which he put four eyehooks--one at each corner.  He then went to the gas station with five ten gallon gas cans and bought fifty gallons of gas.  Now that his torture chamber was ready for a trial run, all he had to do was pick out a victim.
         Tiger decided that his victims needed to fit a certain profile though, it couldn’t be just anybody--it would definitely have to be women that would be missed by someone or else his little plan as “The Gatekeeper” wouldn’t work.  His victims had to be women in their late teens to early twenties, in college--this would assure that they would be missed when he abducted them--they also had to have blond hair, blue eyes, be between five foot five and six feet tall, and weigh between 125 and 190 pounds--and he had already found his first victim.  She was fairly easy to find as she was always walking to and from the college by herself, no one else around her.  Oh, she had friends, but no one ever walked her to or from the college.  He wasn’t sure if anyone ever walked her to her classes or not, but that kind of information would be easy enough for him to find out--all he had to do was get a job at the college as a janitor.  He didn’t know it at the time, but her name was Jami Stratford and she fit his profile perfectly.  She was six feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, had platinum blond hair, and husky blue-wide set eyes.  She also had an average build, and a long, round nose; high cheekbones; full lips set on a small mouth; wide set jaw with a round chin; and a tan complexion--she was also a college sophomore.  The fact that she wasn’t a true blond didn’t matter much to him, the little purple man in his closet, or the loud pounding voices in his head--all they knew and cared about was that she was a blond and she would soon be his first abduction as well as his first murder victim.
         Tiger was successful in getting a job as a janitor at the college that Jami attended.  But, instead of doing his job thoroughly the way he was supposed to, he only half-assed did his job and spent most of his days following her around from class to class.  All of this he did without her knowing it--being the fact that he was a janitor, he was at liberty to go to any building that he felt needed cleaning or touching up.  He followed Jami around for days until he knew her class schedule by heart and knew that no one ever walked her to class.  He was beginning to wonder if she was the right person to even pick as his first victim because he didn’t know how much she would be missed, if she was even missed by anyone at all.  Jami could have been one of those college students who didn’t have anyone to care about her or what happened to her and that wasn’t what was in his ultimate plan.  He decided to follow her for a little while longer,  there was bound to be a friend or boyfriend somewhere that would miss her when she was gone and he had decided that she would definitely be gone--when was his biggest question though.  Tiger had a very colorful history that only two other people knew about and one of those people was his psychiatrist, Dr. John Graves.
         No one knew Tiger the way that his best friend and Dr. Graves did, but it had been months since he had seen either one of them.  His best friend rarely came around anymore and he hadn’t seen Dr. Graves in months because he hadn’t been happy with the way their last recollect it more as a time of sorrow, grief, and sadness--that is, if I ever retain any of it at all.  I believe people can choose whether or not to remember their past, including their childhood.  For the most part, I have chosen not to remind myself of my past.  As with most people, there are things from my past which stand at the front of my mind; however, things I don’t remember, or depression, marks most of this.  I know of things that were told to me that happened when I was still a child, but I vaguely remember them because I choose not to.  Then there are things that were told to me that I don’t remember because I was too young.”  Tiger said to Dr. Graves.
         “Why don’t you like to talk about your past?”  Dr. Graves inquired.
         “It’s too painful.”  Tiger replied.  “My life is like a spider’s web--my birth being the middle of the web--and the rest of the web is my life spiraling and winding in an ever widening outward direction.  Have you ever studied a spider’s web, Dr. Graves?”
         “No, I can’t say that I have actually studied the web of a spider, but I have seen spider’s webs.”  Dr. Graves answered, uncertain of where Tiger was heading with this.
         “Well, you ought to study one sometime--it can be quite fascinating.”  Tiger said with emphasis on the words can and be.  “A spider’s web is very intricate and amazing.  You see, a spider--when it’s spinning its web--takes time and care while spinning the web.  The spinning spider goes about the business of building its web, oblivious to the fact that it is being watched and studied.  The spider’s web provides three main uses for the spider--one, it provides a home for the spider; two, it provides a means for the spider to capture its prey; and three, it provides a place for the spider to shed its old skin and grow from time to time.  So, Dr. Graves, you see, a spider is a very complex animal and I am like that spider--complicated and very deadly.”  Tiger said.
         Dr. Graves still didn’t understand and this pissed Tiger off to the point that he hadn’t come to his next scheduled session.  And he hadn’t seen Dr. Graves since either--maybe he needed to abduct and torture Dr. Graves as well, just to show him exactly what type of patient he was dealing with.  Tiger didn’t have a phone that Dr. Graves knew of so he couldn’t call him--he decided to go to his house.  He had Tiger’s address on file so it shouldn’t be too hard  to find the house.  When Dr. Graves got to Tiger’s house, he noticed the big iron gate in front of the two story Colonial house and he also noticed all the chains and padlocks on the gate--there was no way he was going to be able to get in there to see him today and maybe not ever.  He knew Tiger was home because he could see the midnight blue ‘83 blazer sitting at the back part of the driveway.  Dr. Graves wondered what Tiger was up to since he hadn’t seen him in over tree months.  Dr. Graves was worried about him and with good reason--toward the end of his last session, Tiger’s thoughts and thought processes had become more and more fractured and more and more out of touch with reality.  The doctor knew that Tiger needed more help than he could give him in these one on one sessions but he had put his foot down at being put in a hospital--his mother had died in a mental institution--and he wasn’t about to let that happen to him.  Dr. Graves couldn’t go to the police with his thoughts and fears because that would be breaking doctor/patient privilege.  He was just going to have to sit and wait and see if Tiger came back to him--he didn’t realize that Tiger would soon come back to him, only not in the way he wanted.
         Tiger was still following Jami on a daily basis--he had been following her for two weeks now--and so far had not seen one friend, or even a boyfriend, in this young woman’s life.  He still didn’t know exactly where she came from, who her parents were, or even if they had any  money to pay a ransom, should he decide to let her go after he had kidnapped and tortured her for a time.  He decided the best thing to do was to keep following her to get a better idea of her schedule and what she did when and where she went when.  He already knew her class schedule by heart so he was a step closer to where he needed to be.  He knew that his blazer would be big enough to transport a knocked out woman back to his house two blocks from the college--if he decided to abduct her from the college--but abducting her from the college might be a bit risky he thought.  He thought that maybe abducting her on her way home from school might be easier but she didn’t have any night classes so that was a bit risky too.  By now, he knew that she had a night job as a clerk in a convenience store and she walked to her job as well--apparently she didn’t own a car or have access to one.  He decided that the best time to abduct Jami was at night on her way home from work since she had to walk five blocks to her house and there was no taxi service or bus service in this small town after ten o’clock at night and she didn’t get off until midnight.  He still needed to follow her until he knew what her days off were and he had to find out her name--up to now he didn’t know her name, all he knew was  what she looked like--he had to find out her name.  The next day at work, he asked another janitor what the young woman’s name was as he pointed her out and he told Tiger that her name was Jami Stratford.  He thanked the janitor and slowly walked away as if deep in thought about something.  The janitor thought this to be a strange question and odd behavior but didn’t really give it a second thought either.  Although, after she disappeared, he realized that maybe he should have given it a second thought and called the police.
         Tiger now knew all he needed to know about Miss Jami Stratford.  All he had to do now was pick a night on which to abduct her and pick a method as to how he would get her into his blazer because he was sure she wouldn’t go willingly.  He contemplated what methods were good to knock someone out for a while and decided to use a rag soaked with ether to knock her out.  Now all he had to do was play the waiting game and wait for the voices to tell him when it was time to go and get her, his very first victim.  He had severe headaches all due to the constant yammering in his head because of his voices--not only did they talk to him directly, they also carried on conversations amongst themselves as well.  Most of the time, he didn’t know what they were saying or talking about but sometimes they were very clear in their conversations with each other and he could hear them very clearly.  One day, while sitting in his bedroom getting ready for the day, he clearly heard the voices in his head carrying on a conversation with each other.  Sometimes he felt left out of these conversations.  He had no friends to speak of, except for one--his best friend--that would check up on him periodically.  This one friend’s name was John, but it had been months since he had seen or heard from John.  He felt like the loneliest person in the whole world and, with no friends to speak of, he was.  This didn’t help his mental state in the least bit either, it only aided in making him worse.  So, he started talking back to the voices in his head--having actual conversations with them.
         This time when Tiger heard the conversation in his head, the voices were talking about the murder of Jami and how it should be done.  He asked them several times if he should torture her first but he had yet to get an answer.  Apparently the voices were more interested in her murder than they were in him torturing her before he killed her--but he wanted to torture her first.  He realized that he had to do what the voices and the purple man wanted him to do and the way they wanted him to do it because if he didn’t then they would get angry with him and torment him to no end.  From the sounds of it, they wanted him to kill her just to see if he had the courage to kill another person.  Killing animals was one thing, but to actually take a human life was a whole different ball game because he had to figure out which method to use to kill the individual and then he had to figure out how to dispose of the body.  He knew he had a lot to learn about killing people and the only way he would learn was to do it and keep doing it until he perfected his crime.  The voices told him to just concentrate on killing his first victim, torturing them would come later when they felt he was ready for it.  The time had come for him to abduct his first victim.
         Tiger got dressed and went outside--which was something he rarely did--and watched the people passing by; some stopped and stared at him, but most just kept right on going as if they had not seen him at all.  They all had some place to be or someone to see.  He wasn’t just watching the people through the gate as they walked past; he was also waiting on Jami to pass by as this was her normal time of day to pass by.  At three o’clock on the dot, Jami walked by.  After she was well down the block, Tiger got into his blazer and pulled into the alley behind his house.  He followed Jami to work that day and sat in his blazer all afternoon, waiting patiently.  He went in the store a couple of times for something to drink and a snack, but Jami didn’t find this odd because lots of people came in two or three times a day for something to drink, a snack, or a pack of cigarettes, or even to use the restroom.  He noticed that today was a busier day than usual for Jami and he knew she would be tired when she got off work--he hoped she wouldn’t fight as much this way.  He was prepared for a fight from her though, at least a small fight anyway.  As he was thinking through what he would do to Jami when he got her back to his house, a police car passed by going very slowly.  As the car passed by his blazer, he suddenly felt apprehensive about sitting there doing nothing, so he got out of his vehicle and went to the pay phone and acted like he was making a phone call.  Someone had call the police department and reported that his blazer had been sitting at the convenience store all afternoon.
         His plan worked.  Soon the police car left and he quickly walked back to his blazer, got  in, left, and went back to his house to wait for it to get dark.  He left his house again around seven-thirty that evening and went driving around for a while waiting on the right time to go back to the convenience store and wait for her to get off work.  At ten-thirty, he went back to the store and, to his surprise and dismay, Jami had gotten off early and was already gone, so now he had to go look for her.  He slowly drove around the streets until he spotted her.  He drove up a couple of blocks from where he had seen her and pulled over to the curb.  He got out and pulled a flat tire out of the blazer and quickly put it on the rear passenger side, and then he grabbed a flashlight.  As soon as she was within hearing range, he hollered at her and asked her to come help him.  Jami could see that Tiger had a flat tire.  He asked her to hold the flashlight, which she gladly did, while he went to get the jack, lug wrench, and spare tire from the back.  What she didn’t know was that there was a bottle of ether in the back and he was dousing a rag with it.  He came back with the necessary tools to change the tire and put them on the ground.  Then he stood up and told her he had to get a pressure gauge from the front seat to check the air pressure in the spare tire--he was trying to work up the nerve to abduct her.  As he came back to the rear of the blazer, he went behind her and put one arm around her neck and then placed the ether soaked rag over her nose and mouth with his free hand.  She put up a good fight but she was soon out.  He quickly changed the tire back, put everything away, loaded her into the back of the blazer, and left the scene of the abduction--it had taken a total of twenty minutes and nobody had seen him.
         He arrived back at the house the same way he had left, through the alley behind his house.  He knew he needed to get her in the house quickly and strapped down because she would be coming to soon and would try to escape--lucky for him the house had been built with  a set of doors and stairs leading to the basement from the outside of the house.  Once inside the basement, he placed Jami on the concrete slab and chained her arms and legs--spread eagle--down to the slab; he also strapped down her head--he didn’t want her to be able to move when he raped her.  The voices had granted him permission to do that much before killing her--how much and how often he raped her was up to him, but once the voices said it was time to kill her then he would have to kill her an dispose of the body.  Despite the sweltering heat, Tiger didn’t have the air conditioner in the basement turned on and it was well into the 100’s down there.  After he placed Jami on the concrete slab and had her firmly secured in the position he wanted her in, he used smelling salts to bring her around.  To say the least, she was a bit confused as well as being totally terrified--she couldn’t move.  The only thing she could do was look around with her eyes and what she saw brought more terror to her than she could ever have imagined.  Tiger had placed the rats, roaches, tarantulas, and scorpions within her eye sight.  She wasn’t sure what the largest tarantula was called but it looked like it was the size of a dinner plate--10 ½ inches--it was huge, and she had a paralyzing fear of spiders, but when she saw the scorpions, she almost flipped out and would have run screaming from the room if she had been able to, but he had taken care of this move already by chaining her to this hard, cold, concrete bed with medium weight tow chains.
         She wondered what he had planned for her.  Was he going to rape her, torture her, kill her, or all three?  The thing that made it hardest on Jami was that there was no one to report her missing except for her boss and she wasn’t due back at work for two more days.  How long did he plan to keep her chained to this slab?  She wondered.  And, was there any hope of escape for her?  She didn’t even know who it was that had abducted her.  She remembered stopping to help some guy change a tire and then the next thing she knew, she was here, chained to a concrete slab, unable to move anything except her eyes.  When Tiger came back downstairs, he wiped the sweat off of Jami’s face.  She recognized the man as the one that she had stopped to help, she also knew him as a janitor at the college, but she also knew him as “The Gatekeeper” at the iron gate in front of the house on the corner of Oak and Elm streets.  She asked him what his name was but received no response, just an evil look--she decided that he didn’t talk very much.  Each time she saw him though, he was wearing long sleeves and she wondered why.  The reason would become painfully obvious soon enough.  He stripped all his clothes off in front of Jami and she realized why he was always wearing long sleeves.  The scars on his arms, chest, and abdomen were hideous and looked like they had been gone over more than once with a razor blade.  Tiger just happened to have a straight razor in his back pocket. He pulled it out and, right in front of her, he proceeded to slice open a previously healed scar on his abdomen, it took a minute but then it started bleeding, he also pulled the razor across a scar that was on his chest, cutting as deep as he could without going deep enough to need stitches.
         After slicing open some more of his previously healed scars, he proceeded to cut Jami’s clothes off little by little until there was nothing left on the slab except the body of a naked and horrified woman.  Jami was horrified at what this man had done to himself and her as well, and she soon discovered what his true intentions were.  He climbed on top of her and proceeded to rape her over and over until he fell exhausted on the floor.  There he slept in peace, still covered in his own blood, which had clotted and dried by now.  Jami was never-the-less in a state of shock.  Here she was, chained to a concrete slab in the perfect position for the rape, couldn’t move to defend herself, and to top it all off, the creep hadn’t used a condom and she had his blood all over her.  She didn’t know what to do, she tried to move but her efforts proved futile, the chains and head strap were too tight.  She knew that her captor was asleep because she could hear him snoring and she realized he must be in a deep sleep--if she could only get out of these chains, she had the perfect chance to escape right now while he was asleep, but that wasn’t about to happen, before she could get into a position to get loose, he woke up and caught her trying to escape.  This threw him into a blind rage and he took one of his larger rats out of its cage and proceeded to let it walk and run all over her body.  He knew the scent of his blood would drive the rat crazy as he had done some experiments with the rats, using his own blood, to find out how they reacted to human blood.  Not only was Jami terrified of spiders, she was also terrified of rats.  She tried not to breathe, not to move, to keep the rat from biting her; however, this didn’t work, the rat discovered a pool of blood that had collected in her belly button and the rat proceeded to drink the blood until it was gone and then it bit into her bare flesh more than five times before Tiger got it and put it back in its cage--Jami was now in excruciating pain.
         Not only was Jami trying to escape now, but she was also screaming at the top of her lungs, hoping that someone passing by would hear her.  But, no one heard her and no one would ever hear her because Tiger had sound proofed the room.  No one would ever hear her voice again because she was about to die.  He again knocked Jami out using the ether and unchained her long enough to turn her over on her stomach for his next little adventure.  He was having fun with his new playmate and didn’t want the fun to end for a little while.  Once again he used smelling salts to rouse his victim.  When she came to, she realized that she had been turned over and wondered what he had in store for her this time.  Once again, he stood in front of her and cut open his healed scars so that she could see them bleed.  He then climbed up on her back and proceeded to rape her repeatedly to the point of satisfaction, the he sodomized her by  sticking large, oversized sexual toys up her rectum.  He proceeded with this act for over five hours to the point that his victim finally stopped screaming from the pain and simply passed out.  After she passed out, Tiger started talking to her, pretending that she was answering him.  He asked her if she was having a good time and, in his warped mind, she told him that she was having the time of her life.  In his mind, she also asked for him to do it again and again and again, so he turned her over, and once she woke back up he proceeded to rape her some more.  All in all, he raped her 11 times, sodomized her six times, and let the spiders and bugs crawl all over her twice.  Finally, the voices told him that it was time to kill her and dispose of the body.  He didn’t want to, not yet, he was having too much fun, but he knew that he had to do what the voices told him to or else they wouldn’t leave him alone and they would think that he didn’t have the nerve to kill a person.
         Tiger had asked the main voice in his head how he should kill her.  This particular voice told him that if he wanted to feel the blood drain out onto his hands then he needed to slit her throat from ear to ear with a good sharp knife.  He went upstairs to the kitchen and got a brand new carving knife--it had never been used and was still in the original wrapping.  He came back downstairs with the knife in hand.  When Jami saw the knife, she freaked out again and started begging for her life.  Tiger didn’t care and he knocked her out with the ether soaked rag again.  This time, while she was knocked out, he took the chains off of her so that she would be free to roam about the basement while he chased her.  There was something about hunting his “prey” that gave him an adrenaline rush--he likened this to the rush that junkies feel when they stick a needle in their arm.  He let her remain knocked out for about ten minutes, long enough for him to go upstairs and lock the basement door--there would be no escape for this victim because his lock system on both doors was extremely complicated and would take the average person thirty minutes to figure it out and by then she would be dead and possibly dismembered and disemboweled.  The voices kicked in hard and heavy now.  “Do it,” they said, “do it, do it.  Wake her up and kill her.”  He knew it was time.
         Once again, he woke her up using the smelling salts and then he ran and hid in the four foot by four foot room that he had built in the basement, that way she couldn’t find him or see him with the knife again--he didn’t think he could handle all that screeching again, it gave him a headache.  He was watching her through the small hole that he had cut in the wall of the small room just to see her reaction at being left alone in this locked basement, covered in his blood, and unable to get out.  He could visibly see the fear rising into her face and eyes--fear that only he knew how to instill in women.  He knew that she wouldn’t ever be able to get the blood off of her, but then again, she would never have that chance.  The voices told him that his playtime was over and it was time to end her life.  Tiger left the confines of his self-made dungeon and walked toward her.  She had no idea he was behind her because he was very stealthy and very,  very quiet.  When he got to within arms reach of her, he wrapped his left arm around her body and slit her throat from ear to ear with his right hand.  Blood came pouring out of the wound he had inflicted on her neck--it was running over his hands and down his arms.  This gave him a rush that was unimaginable to the average person, but then again, he wasn’t the average person either.  After placing her body on the piece of plywood that he had created, he strapped her down because she still had a little fight in her, then he retrieved a chair from the corner of the room and watched her life slowly ebb from her body as she bled to death.  The floor of the basement was nothing but dirt so the cleanup would be easy for him no matter how grisly her murder was.  Once she was dead, the next question became how to dispose of the body--the voices had a solution for that too--it was called dismemberment and then scattering the body parts in several different locations; but disposing of the body had to be done after dark.  However, he could go ahead and dismember the body during the day since no one knew he was down there with her.
         Tiger didn’t want to just dismember the body, he wanted to play with her organs and entrails.  He wanted to know what human entrails felt like when he wrapped them around his hands, arms, and neck.  Naturally, he was a sick individual that didn’t think anything was wrong with him.  He didn’t know which tool to use to dismember her body with, so he had to ask the voices--they told him to use the chainsaw this time.  He filled the chainsaw with gas and started it up--at least he didn’t have to worry about her screeching anymore, the yammering in his head was bad enough.  Now, he thought to himself, which part to cut off first and after a few minutes he decided that the head should come off first.  After he cut off her head, he placed it on a wooden shelf until he had cut up the rest of his victims.  He then cut off her arms and then her legs.  He placed each part, except the head--he wanted a souvenir from his first kill--in separate trash bags, doubled the bags, and then set them in a corner.  He asked the voices if he could cut open the torso and “play”, and they told him that was fine because he had a few hours before it got dark and he couldn’t dispose of the parts until after dark.  He took the scalpel that he had bought and made a y-incision on her torso, which allowed him easy access to the organs.  He experienced a rush of orgasmic proportions when he saw the organs.  Soon he reached in and pulled out her liver--he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with it just yet so he set it on a movable cart--and then he sat and stared at it for the longest time--it was as if he was mesmerized by this.
         Hmmm.  Tiger wondered which organ to remove next.  This was all very fascinating to him as he had never seen human organs before--he had only seen animal organs--this was far  more fun to him than killing mice, rats, dogs, cats, rabbits, pigs, and goats.  The organs were so much larger in humans than those in small animals.  He had finally gotten to feel human blood pouring over his hands and running down his arms--this created an exhilarating feeling for him.  He felt high--like he was flying through the clouds.  Next, he decided to remove one of her lungs--this proved to be a more difficult task because he had to remove her rib cage to get to her lungs.  He used a pair of bolt cutters to cut through and remove her rib cage.  As he took her lungs out--first one, then the other--he felt how soft they were.  He had thought that they would be hard and rigid, not soft and pliable.  He had decided that by the time he got done with this corpse the only thing remaining would be the shell of its torso.  Now that he had removed the liver and lungs, he concentrated on removing the heart.  This was a very delicate procedure as he wanted the heart in one piece and there were lots of arteries and veins holding it in place, not to mention the biggest part of all, the aorta.  He had to cut through the arteries and veins and around the aorta so as not to damage the heart.  Once he had the heart out, he placed it on the cart next to the liver and lungs.  Next, he decided to take the kidneys out--this required him turning over what was left of the corpse over and making incisions on the back so that he would have an easier time removing the kidneys--he also placed these on the cart next to the heart.  He wasn’t sure which organ to remove next, all he knew was that he wanted to remove the intestines very last because he wanted to these to “play” with.  He wondered which part would be easiest to take out next.  He sat back and looked at what was left of the torso for a moment and then decided to take out the gall bladder--it was fairly easy to remove since he had already taken out the liver.  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to remove her reproductive organs or not--that was a decision that would have to come a bit later.
         So now, what was next?  Tiger couldn’t decide, so he sat in his chair thinking and pondering which organ to remove next.  He finally decided that the stomach needed to come  out next.  He removed the stomach and, instead of placing it on the cart with the rest of the internal organs, he placed it in a one gallon jar with some formaldehyde and tightly sealed the lid--he had decided he wanted to keep this part as well.  He labeled the jar with its contents, the  an victim’s name, and the date that she was murdered and he placed the jar on a shelf that he had built on one wall for just such an occasion.  He decided to clean his instruments before continuing to dismantle the torso.  Once they were clean, he decided to remove the spleen.  Now, he wondered, should he remove anymore of the organs--all he had left to remove was the bladder, pancreas, appendix, intestines, ovaries, and uterus.  He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to remove the reproductive organs or not--this would take much thought on his part.  As he went about his work, the voices remained quiet, they were actually watching him work and were in awe that he could actually kill someone, much less dismember them, and take out their organs with the skill that he was exhibiting--they decided to remain quiet and let him work.  He was surprised that there wasn’t more blood than there was.  Of course, he had slit her throat and she had lost most of her blood that way.  He decided to go ahead and remove her bladder.  Once it was detached from her body, he placed it on the cart with the other organs--while he was at it he removed her appendix.  His next move was to remove her pancreas and this was not going to be an easy task because he had to cut through some muscle, his scalpel was getting dull, and he didn’t have another one handy.  After about five or ten minutes, he had the pancreas out and placed it next to the other organs.  He decided against taking out her reproductive organs.  And now for his favorite part, the intestines--he took her intestines out and started winding them  around his hands and arms, and then he wrapped them around his neck.  When he got through “playing”, he got his camera out--after he washed his hands--and took pictures of the limbs, hands, feet, torso, and organs--he wanted them to hang on his wall, lucky for him he had a Polaroid camera.  The pictures would serve the part of trophies to him along with at least on body part or organ as a souvenir.  After he took the pictures, he painstakingly labeled all of them.
         It was dark now, so Tiger loaded all the body parts--except the organs--into the back of his blazer and drove around town placing the parts in various dumpsters where he knew they would be found.  He knew the crimes wouldn’t be linked back to him because he had worn gloves during the whole process.  On his way back home, he stopped and got a large cardboard box and some more trash bags--he had a specific plan in mind for the organs and torso--he had kept the head and stomach plus pictures as souvenirs.  He was going to boil the head until there was nothing left but the skull and then he was going to place the skull back on the shelf by the nametag he had made for Jami.  He wasn’t exactly sure how long it would take to boil the skin and hair off the skull so he started it boiling as soon as he got home.  While he had the head in a post on the stove boiling, he went downstairs and cleaned up the bloody mess, which consisted of stirring the dirt on the floor around and bleaching the concrete slab.  After cleaning the basement, he went out and got the box and trash bags out of the blazer.  When he got back in the basement, he taped the bottom of the box together with duct tape.  Next, he put two open trash bags inside the box.  After doing this, he very carefully and very precariously placed the shell of the torso and all of its organs inside the plastic bags in the box.  He taped the box shut with packing tape and then addressed it to the police department and put no return address on the box.  However, he did write a small note in block letters and taped it to the top of the box in an envelope.  The note said:  “CATCH ME IF YOU CAN---I’M THE GINGERBREAD MAN.  HA-HA-HA-HA-HA.  SINCERELY, GINGERBREAD”.
         Tiger had had lots of fun with his first victim, especially when he had cut her up and then cut her open and gutted her--he couldn’t wait to do the next one.  He was also going to have fun taunting and laughing at the police because everything he’d done up to now he’d done wearing gloves and a shower cap.  He left no way for the police to trace it back to him.  Besides that, he had no police record so they didn’t have his fingerprints or DNA on file.  By the time he got to the post office and back home the next morning, all the hair and skin had been boiled off the skull.  He removed the skull from the water and set it on a towel to dry while he went into the alley and dumped the water out of the pot.  When he got back inside, he dried the skull with the towel, put a coat of varnish on it, and set it aside so it could dry.  After taking care of the skull, he went downstairs to the basement to finish cleaning his tools--they were still covered with her blood.  This was a time consuming process because he blood had dried on the knife and on the chainsaw as well and his blood had dried on the straight razor.  As he went about cleaning his tools, the voices started in again, only this time, they were praising him for doing such a good job instead of taunting and tormenting him by telling him he couldn’t do it.
         The next day, the police received the little “care package” Tiger had sent them.  There was no return address on the box, the letters had been printed in block style, and so was the note that was taped to the box, so they had no idea where to start looking or who to look for.  And, from the looks of it, they had no way to identify the body because the head, hands, and feet had been removed.  They had a murder on their hands and didn’t know where to start.  All they had was the shell of a woman’s torso and a bunch  of organs to go with it.  And, not only were the head, hands, and feet missing, but the stomach was also missing and there was an extreme lack of blood as well.  Someone had killed this person, gutted them, and left no blood.  So now, not only did they have to figure out who this was and who killed them, but they also had to find the crime scene.  Finding the crime scene was going to prove to be harder than they thought because it was in Tiger’s basement and had already been cleaned.  They knew they had to start somewhere so they started by sending the box to the coroner’s office in hopes that he might be able to identify the body or at least give them a time and cause of death.  This was all done in vain because he couldn’t tell the police anymore than they already knew--it was what was left of a woman’s body and that the head, hands, feet, and stomach were missing.
         Tiger wondered if the police had received the little “present” yet, but he had no way of finding out.  He knew that if he went snooping around about it, the police would know it was  him.  He sat down to watch the news that evening and got his answer--not only had they received the “present” he sent, they had also found the other parts as well.  He had to laugh in spite of himself because they would never get the head, hands, feet, or stomach, he made sure of that--they were safely tucked away on a shelf in his basement.  He reveled in this because he was smart enough to beat the police at their own game.  He wondered how long he would be able to outsmart the police.  His idol, the Zodiac Killer, had completely outsmarted the police and never been caught--could he do the same thing he wondered.  He couldn’t worry about that right now--for now he was happy and satisfied that he had already outsmarted them once.  He needed all of his energy to concentrate on his next victim, whoever she may be.  The voices weren’t telling him anything today--maybe they were letting him rest and save his energy for the next one.  Apparently, the voices were so much in shock by his first murder that they either didn’t know what to say or they were trying to pick out his next victim--either way, they were quiet today and he was headache free.  And he was headache free for the next three or four days.
         Four days after her murder, out of the blue, Tiger got a blinding headache--the voices were back, it was time to kill again.  He went to bed and tried to get some sleep but the voices were loud and kept telling him he needed to watch out the window--he needed to pick out a victim.  Reluctantly, he got up, put on his jeans, and went to his bedroom window to watch the women coming and going.  He had yet to see one that matched his particular profile.  He stood there looking out the window for what seemed like hours, but it had only been 45 minutes--yet, the voices wouldn’t let him lay down, he had to find another victim they told him.  He was having trouble finding a victim that matched his profile and the voices weren’t helping him any at all--right now they were being more of a nuisance--kill this one, kill that one, they kept saying--they were doing nothing more than confusing him and he hated it when they did that.  After  standing at the window for two hours with the voices taunting and tormenting him, he still had not found a woman that fit the particulars of his victim profile.  Some were too short, some were too tall, some were too thin, some were too fat, and none of them had blond hair.  It was beginning to look like he wasn’t going to find a victim today, but the voices just kept on and kept on--they just wouldn’t let up.  They finally let up when it got dark, this gave him some peace and he finally got to go to sleep.  But, the next day, they were back at it again and worse than the day before--they were louder.
         So, just like he had done they day before, Tiger stood at his window watching the women come and go.  He had a bit more luck today --he was actually seeing some blondes but still no one that matched the height and weight requirements.  The voices were getting angry with him now and had started yelling at him--he tried to drown out the sound by covering his ears but that only made it worse.  It seemed to him like the voices kept getting louder every day--and they were, and would continue to do so until he found his next victim.  He didn’t seem to be having any luck at all and he didn’t want to have to go out in public because of people’s fear of him.  He wondered what he should do and this time the voices were being no help at all.  He wished the voices would tell him which one to nab, but they weren’t saying a word.  As a matter of fact, they told him that since they had helped him pick out the first one, he was on his own this time.  He decided that to find his next victim, he was going to have to go out in public and possibly even back to the college.  He hated going out in public because he scared so many people but in this case he had no choice.  So, he went upstairs and got dressed, then went downstairs and ate breakfast.  After washing his breakfast dishes, he got in his blazer and left.  He went driving around the streets for a while and had no luck finding a victim so, he went to the one place he knew he would be able to find his next victim, the college.  He only had to look around campus for about five or ten minutes to find the perfect victim.