This chapter contains graphic description of a loli murder near the end. Skim if you can't into loli.

Kayla's Massacre

Fifty-thousand dollars per kill was a tempting proposition, considering Kayla was broke. There were 21 girls in the class she was targeting and two teachers serving as supervisors—23 girls total, exactly how much Alyssa would want. They'd be going to a water park, and she had three days to prepare. She could hide and take them all out one-by-one, and she would certainly do some of that, but a water park presented so many opportunities for unique kills. She had to scope it out, first of all.

"Dad, I wanna go to the water park. Do you have money?"

Kayla's dad stared at her. "You? Go to a water park?"

Kayla nodded.

"Why? I thought you were a hydrophobe."

"I am. That’s Mom’s fault. I wanna stop being a hydrophobe."

Her dad shrugged. "Just make sure there's always a lifeguard around. I don't want you joining your mom just yet." He handed her the entry fee, plus a little extra—for snacks, she assumed.

"Thanks, Dad."

***

The water park had seemed enormous to Kayla 10 years ago. When she walked in the front gates, it seemed like it had only grown. There were miles and miles of water slides and tubes and tunnels, at least ten pools of different sizes and shapes, three lazy rivers, a simulated rapids with small waterfalls that riders probably had to sign their lives away to try, at least five water-themed playscapes—and that was just what Kayla could see through the locker room doors. She stepped out into the park and shielded her eyes from the sun and a blast of water from a kid's squirt gun. She was drenched within seconds. The kid laughed and ran away, and Kayla kept walking. Wearing her bikini, she had no place to hide her sketchbook or pencil, so she'd left both at home. She'd have to commit her plans to memory.

Twenty-three girls meant 23 deaths. Ideally, they'd be automated and timed so that Kayla could film them, or at least catch them on hidden cameras. They couldn't cost money, either. All the kills had to be done with stuff laying around either Kayla's house or Bart's. Granted, stuff laying around Bart's house was probably a lot more suited to murder than the stuff in Kayla's. She'd even found what looked like a home slaughterhouse while exploring once.

She rode down a slide, then through a tunnel, and got an idea. It was dark in the tunnels, and the slides were engineered just right so the turns wouldn't throw their passengers off to fall a hundred feet to their deaths. Kayla could use that. The small pools at the bottom of each slide and tunnel would make great showcases.

The playscapes, now occupied by younger kids, would undoubtedly get used by the older girls. There were squirt guns mounted in several areas for water turret fights. The water could be replaced with gasoline, and then when the playscape was filled with the stuff, one match would burn everything, including the girls inside.

How could she use the pools? Maybe she could gather all the girls' corpses and toss them in one pool, but that seemed unnecessary. There had to be a way to use them well.

Kayla set pools in the back of her mind and moved on to the next bit of equipment. It took her about three hours to try out everything and come up with at least a small idea for each. She would sneak in the night before the girls arrived and set everything up, but then would come the hard part. Even in a large park, she'd have to keep everyone oblivious to their classmates' deaths till their turn came. That meant no screams outside the tunnels. That meant no dead bodies out in the open.

That was hard.

***

Bart watched as Kayla drifted around the house. She was looking for something, or some things. Occasionally, she'd pick something up, then put it back down. After a few minutes of this, Bart caught her shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"You know how I was gonna kill a lot of people for Alyssa's birthday?"

"Yeah."

"I need stuff to do it. I have a knife and a gun and some wire. I need more."

Bart pointed at a closet full of Alyssa's old murder weapons. "Use anything you need," he said. "The video camera is free as well."

Kayla opened the closet and groped around for a light switch. When she found it, she flicked it on. She smiled. She turned around.

"Bart, you kill for money, right?"

"Yeah."

"And Alyssa kills for pleasure?"

"Yeah."

"Did you marry her before or after you started killing people?"

"Before."

"And she was a serial killer long before you started here in Summermount?"

"Long before."

Alyssa entered the room then, wearing a bath towel. "I killed all my classmates in fifth grade and blamed it on the teacher. After that, I killed people whenever I felt like it. Haven't been caught yet."

She reached past Kayla and took a blowtorch from the closet. "This was my favorite weapon for the longest time." She conked Kayla on the head with it. "You and Bart both use generic stuff like knives and guns. Be creative. C'mon."

"I'll show you creative," said Kayla. "Give me three days." She entered the closet and returned with a plastic coat hanger. "Also, how in the world did you kill someone with this?"

***

It was 8:30 a.m. when the girls arrived at the water park. Kayla watched them all step off the bus, some already in their swimsuits—mostly pretty little bikinis with a couple one-pieces mixed in. One soft-faced blond girl Kayla recognized as Amber Hawke wore a bikini bottom with a blue T-shirt. She'd probably take it off, but Kayla had seen girls swim in shirts before. It would make the kills at least a little more variable. She could use everything at her disposal to conduct the murders—even a shirt.

Kayla listed off their names in her mind and matched them to their faces. There were a few she didn't know, but she knew most of them. There was one who looked a lot like Irri Snowski: Micaiah Miller. Kayla hoped she'd get to her before her traps did. She'd never gotten to have sex with a living, conscious Irri. Raping her lookalike was the next best thing.

The two supervisors left the bus last, and the bus left. Kayla watched them closely. One was Jenny Mirth, a black-haired 27-year-old English teacher who worked in a strip club after school hours. The other was Kelsey Iron, a math teacher with a somewhat generic "beautiful Hollywood blond" look. She was 30, if Kayla remembered correctly. Both of them disappeared into the women's locker room after their students. Kayla made her move then. She left the bushes she'd been hiding behind and brushed some dirt off the lens of her video camera. It was small, but recorded at a surprisingly high resolution and a decent framerate. As Bart had instructed, she never touched the zoom slider. "Just move forward and backward," he'd said. "Zooming lowers the quality."

Kayla practiced now, moving backward and forward, keeping her focus on the open gate to the park. A gentle gust pulled some of her hair in front of her eyes. It was warm red now that she'd washed the dye out. She'd done it for two reasons: first, her emo look wouldn't fly if her plan was to work, and second, like Alyssa had said, it was actually prettier. She switched the camera off and readied her hunting knife, concealing it against her wrist. She approached the gates and turned to the young black woman in the ticket booth. She wore a white tank top over a red bikini top. She smiled when she saw Kayla.

"Hey there," she said. "Are you with the freshies?"

Kayla nodded and smiled back. This woman's reaction was already more favorable than it would have been had she come with her previous look.

"Are we allowed to have cameras?" Kayla asked her, setting hers on the counter. The woman shook her head.

"Sorry, no. I doubt you're going to record your classmates' swimsuits malfunctioning, but child protection laws will have their way."

"That's the reason? Jeez."

"Yeah."

"Hey, can you charge it for me while I'm in, at least? It goes into an U3B port."

The woman cocked her head. "Which one is that?"

"It's circle-shaped with tiny prong holes out to each side."

The woman knelt and started searching her computer. She wouldn't find anything. At best, she'd find the PS/2 ports and mistake them for the U3B bullcrap Kayla had made up on the spot.

"Want me to help?"

"Yeah, that would be great."

"I'm allowed behind the counter at least, right?"

"Nope, but I'm the only employee here today. My manager doesn't have to know."

Good to know. Kayla stepped through the door to the side and knelt behind the woman. She flicked her blade out straight.

"What does U3B stand for, anyway?" the woman asked. She started to turn around.

Kayla rammed the knife into the side of her neck and slit her throat. "I have no idea.”

***

Kitty Grant stared at her hands, pondering now that she had the ability to ponder. She felt more aware of herself now. The clothes she'd been wearing for the past week were stained with Casey Shaw's blood and needed to be washed. Her hair was a mess of brown tangles pouring over her shoulders, and her heartbeat simulator was stuck at 130 beats per minute. She knew Adrian had her plugged in since last night, and she knew he was editing things, fine-tuning her, but she didn't always realize instantaneously what it was.

"Adrian," she said. "What are you doing to me?"

"Honestly? I'm ruining you. But I'm also perfecting you."

"I don't get it."

"I'm trying to make you as much like you should be as I possibly can. I want you to be Kitty Grant, not Kitty Grant's cyborg replacement."

"Just give me Kitty's memories. You have her brain. My brain."

She felt confused for the first time. Was the brain in Adrian's freezer hers, or some other girl's? How about the organs he also stored? Were they hers?

"I don't know how. I'm working on that. As soon as you have your memories back, I can send you back to your parents."

"I want to stay with you."

Adrian stopped typing. He looked at her with a smile. "I'd love to hear that from you again once you have your memories back. As it is, of course you do. As much as I try to make you like Kitty, the corelets I used are still based off my personality."

"Adrian."

"Yeah?"

"I heard a song so beautiful yesterday I stopped and listened to it all afternoon."

"That's great." He sounded like he genuinely meant it. "It's great that you can appreciate music now. Remember last week, you asked me what the guitars were saying?"

Kitty smiled. "I want to hear it again and I want to cry."

Adrian stopped typing again. "What did you feel when you heard that song?"

"I felt like I did when I went to all the funerals. But also like when you hug me, and when I took Casey to the hospital. When I tried to quell it, I felt like there was something in my throat I could only let out through my eyes."

"Now I want to hear that song too."

"I'm confused."

"Why?"

"I don't know what I am. Am I a computer, or am I a human? I can't draw breath, I can't reproduce, I can't eat, and I can't get rid of waste. And yet I can think. I can feel. I've felt pain, and I've felt joy. I've felt fear and sadness, and I've felt love. Some things make me want to cry, and I can't cry."

"Like that song?"

"Like that song."

***

Kayla walked around the park in the dead woman's clothing. Her tank top had "STAFF" written across the back. It was close enough to Kayla's size that no one would ask questions, and she even had the woman's phone in her pocket, looted off her writhing, quivering body before she’d even died. She ran a last minute check on her cameras and traps, then headed for the locker room. The unsuspecting girls ran out into the park and Kayla squeezed in past them. She doubted any of them recognized her with her natural hair color and a complete lack of makeup. Only Kelsey, the math teacher, was still in there. She was completely naked, standing under a shower. Kayla paused at the door and prodded her rope trap with her toe. No doubt some of the girls had noticed the rope, but the trap was hidden in the ceiling. Kayla gave the rope one pull, readying the contraption. Then she strode forward and drew her knife in one hand. She readied the camera in the other and started recording.

"I'll be out in a moment," said Kelsey. "Be patient."

She didn't turn around. Kayla pulled out the camera's built-in tripod, set it in place, and focused it on Kelsey's beautiful naked form. She approached the woman and considered where to sink the knife first. When Kelsey finally looked over her shoulder, Kayla hurriedly jabbed it straight into the side of her forehead. Kelsey's eyes went wide. To confirm the kill, Kayla pulled it out and shoved it in again from a different angle. A quiet cry escaped Kelsey's lips, and then she collapsed. Kayla caught her and stabbed the blade deep into her belly, then her chest, and finally her head again. The blade made a satisfying schlick, familiar to Kayla by now. Kelsey's blood washed off in the falling water and spiraled down into the drain as her dying eyes stared up at Kayla. Kayla sat on her belly and absently stabbed Kelsey's neck and shoulders until she died, thin trails of blood following the tip of the blade out a few inches before splashing down against her soft, wet skin.

Any other day, Kayla would stick around and rape the corpse, but today, she had 22 more girls to destroy. Roughly half of them would die before she got to them, but she'd have videos of every death—or in the cases of the traps in the dark tunnels, before and after shots.

"Miss Mirth?" came a voice from the door. Kayla stood and spun. She rotated the camera to face the door, then waited for the trap to activate. A girl of about twelve or so walked in. She had golden brown hair, parted around her forehead and falling down to her middle back. She saw Kayla, and stepped right into the middle of the trap. The rope rushed in and tightened itself around her ankles, then yanked her up toward the ceiling. Wide brown eyes darted around the room before focusing on Kayla and the camera. Kelsey's corpse was likely out of her line of sight.

The girl opened her mouth to scream. Kayla shot forward and buried the blade in the girl's tanned throat. She sputtered out a garbled word and struggled against the rope. It held tight. Kayla pulled the knife up. She carved a bloody line down the girl's torso, biting into her sternum, then sinking deep into her soft belly. Her frilly top fell off with that, revealing two perky B-cups quivering in pain and fear. Kayla fondled them with her free hand and continued carving. Blood flowed down the girl's body, soaking Kayla's hands. She reached the end and yanked the knife out of the girl's tiny cunt. By now, she was dead, staring lifelessly into the lens. Kayla stood aside and let the camera get a good look at the young victim. The moment Kayla took her hand off the girl's belly, her guts fell out in a glop, hanging from her like half-coiled bloody ropes. Kayla wished she had time to stay and masturbate, but time was short. She had two down and 21 to go. She locked the door from the inside using the dead employee's keys, collected her camera, left the locker room through the entrance, and locked that as well. She closed and locked the gate, then locked the men's locker room. Now, because the park was walled—presumably to prevent people from peeping on half-naked kids—Kayla had the only way out dangling from her neck.

Only she would leave this park alive.