Showing the Butcher Shop ~ an Enigmatic Moon Mystery by Neil Austin

"It's so rare to find someone who understands that murder is an art.

"Take your garden variety sociopath turned serial killer. Amateurs, all of them. Your average serial killer would wait until dark to cross the street here to where the young people will gather for dancing, drinking and flirting in their 'secret' club, named with such delicious irony.

"Once inside the Butcher Shop, he will flirt and mingle and blend until he spots that one girl who reminds him of the mother who did unspeakable things to him, or who stood idly by while his sadistic father did worse. He will sublimate his rage into charm, and suggest 'let's get out of here' with the implication of exciting casual sex.

"When they're alone, the charming mask will vanish, and then it'll be all about the revenge he was never able to inflict upon the parents who betrayed him. And they say sociopaths don't feel normal emotions! I think it's more the case that they simply fail to understand their own emotions, and can only express them in warped, broken ways.

"My parents were great; they encouraged me, they loved me, and they gave me everything a boy could ever want. Melanoma took my father when I was twelve, and my mother tried very hard, but she wasted away quickly after that, and died when I was thirteen. They left me with a strong sense of self, and enough money to make my life into whatever I wanted.

"It was a lack of challenges equal to my abilities, and subsequent boredom that lead me to develop my own little game. It's been years of study, planning and preparation, and it's begun quite well already. Before you judge me, let me assure you that I do feel quite badly for the girls. A sociopath dehumanizes his victims so he can better focus his rage on the true object of his hatred, but I feel neither rage nor hatred. I have to fake both, or else the scenes wouldn't look right.

"But I've never dehumanized any of them. I know their names, and their stories; their hopes and their dreams. I mourn each and every one of the girls I've killed, and I will remember each moment I've spent with them in perfect clarity for as long as I live. That is just part of the cost of this game.

"Here comes the girl with the pink hair to prepare the Butcher Shop for tonight. She calls herself Claire, but that's not her name. She's different from anyone else I have ever met, and I am comfortable telling you that she is unique.

"I have something special planned for Claire."