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On a calendar in a dark and musty room there was a red circle drawn around the 17th of April and a man with a vengeance. And that's how it began.

The planning stage was long and meticulous, but oh, he planned it perfectly. Three months of stake-outs, a peg board filled with detailed travel routes, and the slow collecting of necessary materials (which in fact were simple but needed precision): a two inch woven hemp rope, a stainless steel cut clip blade, and a pair of standard surgical gloves. Not a ski mask, though. He wanted his face to be her final impression.

Every Saturday, she would go to the grocery to purchase next week's meals. Andrew at the cash register would walk her out to the car with a smitten smile and she would smile back. She would smile back and Andrew would blush until she let him into her car, into her house, and into her bed. He could hear them fucking the first time but since he's brought ear plugs to accompany his binoculars. He was always a better visual learner.

Andrew was in high school and his senior trip was a week long. The Saturday of Andrew's return, she had dolled herself up to go grocery shopping, but the bus company was shit quality and their bus stalled, causing them a few hour's delay. She didn't smile at the replacement cashier and they didn't help her with her bags. She dropped them on her way to her car but that didn't matter because she would never get to eating them, anyway.

She lived in a small suburban area outside of the city where each house was a replica of the next, save for blue flowers instead of pink, a welcome mat versus a hanging sign. Her house in particular was modest but well-kept, the lawn mown within an inch of it's life and the shrubbery sheared into neat and tidy lines. The garage moaned as it opened and she carried the groceries inside. Her shoulder hunched over with the burden.

He watched from a distance as darkness fell and the shadows inside the house became more distinct. Most were stationary; the only movement was the occasional silhouette in the kitchen and living room and the only sound emanating from the house was the creak of the backdoor flapping open and shut. She had the intentions of paying Andrew to fix it. He never did.

Her location could be deduced from the rooms in the house that were lit. Around eleven o'clock every night, the living room would darken, the foyer would flash, and then her bedroom light would shine for a few minutes while she read Shakespeare to bore her mind to sleep. Then, it was black.

Slipping the key from under the door mat, he quietly turned the lock and coaxed the hinge to open without a sound. His materials were in a black knapsack slung over his shoulder. He did a quick 360 scan to make sure no one had seen him before clicking the door shut. The stairs moaned gently under the weight but she was still snoring. She slept with her bedroom door open in case an intruder broke in through the window and she had to make a quick escape.

For a few minutes, he simply stared at her: lips slightly parted, hair crowning her face, eyelids quivering as if she was experiencing a nightmare. He put the surgical gloves on and slowly lifted her wrists. He knew she was a deep sleeper and that this movement would not wake her unless done harshly, so he delicately bound her hands together and placed them on her chest as if she was praying to a god neither of them believed existed. He then proceeded to bind her ankles.

Next, he pulled the knife from its sheath and went to work on her face. She stirred for a moment before groggily opening her eyes. He paused, the knife tip against her face. "... Jonathan?" she murmured. He smiled. She didn't smile back. That was the last thing she said before he carved out her lips, and then her heart.

It took two weeks before the neighbors realized something was wrong, and another two days before anyone did anything about it. The minute the door was opened, though, the smell was putridly overwhelming. Upstairs, they found her body in pieces, though everything about her face save the lips was untouched. Underneath her nightstand they found a finger ornamented with an old engagement ring, passed off to be an heirloom because her family was unaware of any relationships that had advanced to such a momentous point. On top of her nightstand was a copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, flipped open to a page that read:

Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.

The murder case, to this day, remains unsolved.