He paced impatiently around his room. He felt trapped, he felt dirty, he felt like he was going insane. He ran his fingers through his long, greasy, tangled hair. Paranoia got to Atticus, as he locked himself up in his own house, hopefully away from death.
Atticus never really liked living in Murdervile. After all, the place was called "fucking Murdervile," the most obvious "kick me sign" there is. He always preferred his small apartment in LA. Granted, he never really considered it safe, either, but at least is was a step up from that town. There was always an air of wholesomeness or forgetfulness that cloaked the delusional backstabbing personalities of its residents. At least in LA, they were honest about wanting to kill you.
"This was a bad idea" he thought to himself while dropping himself down onto his couch. "These killers work in weird ways. It's like they don't fucking sleep! It's like they have a grudge against people they don't even know!"
The apartment was a mess: Furniture was misplaced or shoved into the front door as barricades. The curtains were shut and taped down. Boxes of supplies were strewn across the floor, making it difficult to walk on. The whole apartment was askew and Atticus didn't like it. Sure, he found it to be necessary, but felt like a coward doing it. During his time in seclusion, he continuously thought about whether or not he was doing the right thing. SHould he have gone back to Murdervile and help find this sick bastard? Would he be safer if he was just isolated from the rest of the residents? All day, everyday, he thought about this and all day everyday, he worried if this was making him lose his sanity.
Then his phone rang. Atticus looked at it nervously. He was hiding for weeks and yet no one called until now. He slowly inched towards the device and picked it up. Unidentified number. "Shit" thought Atticus, it was him. I was the killer. He refused to answer but he insisted on calling. He couldn't take it anymore, he had to answer.
"What?" Atticus answered bluntly.
"So," the killer said in his sly, but altered voice, "I finally found you. You've been hard to find."
"Well, considering the position I'm in, you can hardly blame me."
"Right," the killer chuckled, "You keep telling yourself that."
"Alright," said Atticus, already tired of the conversation "Give it to me straight: How many of my friends have you killed so far?"
"None" the killer said, smugly. "You're my first victim. Since you've been a pain in my ass to get, I thought it would be best to get the most difficult out of the way."
Atticus paused. His mind went into a momentary relapse. He just stopped in dead fear. But he gathered his strength quickly. He wouldn't accept death so early on.
"Listen to me, you little fucker" he said his voice raising with courage "I'm not afraid of you! And I'm not going to hide anymore. You haven't killed any of my friends yet? Good, because you're not going to! Believe me, I will find you! And when I do, I will kill you!"
"No you won't."
At that point, the killer hung up, and a bullet flew through the window and pierced through Atticus's skull. From the building across was a man cloaked in black holding a silenced sniper rifle with a heat vision scope. A crazed man trapped inside his own home with a barely noticeable bullet hole through the window: The perfect crime. The killer got up from his sniping position and walked off.
"And so" he muttered under his breath, "It begins."
