I spot her at the end of the bar—the brunette who hasn't looked up from her phone in twenty minutes. There's something almost prey-like in the way her fingers nervously tap the screen. Third vodka soda, no lime. Shoulders curved inward like she's trying to disappear into herself. Perfect.
I smooth my Italian silk tie and signal the bartender. "Another round for the lady."
This is what I live for. The selection. The hunt. Finding the vulnerable ones whose screams no one will hear. Whose fears no one will believe.
"I didn't order that," she says when the bartender sets down the drink.
"Compliments of the gentleman," the bartender replies, nodding toward me.
Her eyes—amber, unnaturally bright under the dim bar lights—dart toward me, then away. No wedding ring. Expensive watch but discount shoes. The kind of woman no one misses for days.
"I couldn't help but notice you've had a rough day," I say, sliding onto the stool beside her. "I'm James."
"Eliza," she replies, not offering her hand. Her voice is oddly hollow, like it's coming from somewhere deep inside her.
"Beautiful name for a beautiful woman."
She smiles, not weakly as they usually do, but with something that, for a fleeting second, looks almost like hunger. I dismiss the thought. They always make it so easy.
Two hours later, we're in her apartment. Something isn't right. The place is too clean, too sterile. No photos. No personal items. Her cat watches from the windowsill with yellow eyes that seem to follow only me.
"You don't do this often," I say, not a question but a statement designed to make her feel special as I pour more wine into her glass.
"No," she replies, studying me with those unblinking amber eyes. "But there's something about you. Something... collectable."
I slipped something into her wine when she went to the bathroom. Not enough to knock her out completely—where's the fun in that?—just enough to make her compliant. To dull her reactions.
"What do you do for work, Eliza?" I ask, waiting for the drug to take effect. The room feels too cold suddenly. Like a meat locker.
"I collect," she says. "Specimens with specific behavior patterns."
I feel a flutter of unease crawling up my spine. She isn't slurring her words. Her eyes remain clear, fixed on me like a predator tracking movement.
"Interesting," I say, my mouth suddenly dry. "Like a biologist?"
"More specialized." Her smile widens unnaturally. "I look for repetitive behaviors. Men who target women at bars. Men with certain... preferences. Men like you, James."
Something cold slithers through my veins. "I should use your bathroom."
"Second door on the left," she says, sipping her wine. "Past the collection room with all the specimens."
I freeze. "What did you say?"
"Nothing important." She sets down her glass. "You haven't touched your wine."
I look at my untouched glass. Then at her empty one. A sick feeling spreads through my gut.
"You're feeling it now, aren't you?" she asks, her voice suddenly different. Deeper. Hungrier. "That crawling sensation under your skin? Like something's burrowing into you?"
"What?" My tongue feels thick, foreign in my mouth.
"I switched our glasses while you were busy imagining what you'd do to me." She stands, steady on her feet. "I've been studying you for weeks, James. Your hunting patterns. Your kill zones. Your trophies."
I try to stand but my legs buckle. Something is very wrong. My skin feels too tight, like it's shrinking around my bones.
"You're number six," she says conversationally. "Though you would have been my seventh if Marco from the Westside hadn't dissolved too quickly."
The room spins violently. I crash to the floor, my cheek pressed against cold hardwood. The grain of the wood seems to writhe beneath me, patterns shifting like maggots.
"Why?" I manage, as darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision.
She crouches beside me, her face transforming as my vision distorts. "Why you? Because you're a perfect specimen. Because you think you're the apex predator." Her teeth look wrong now—too many, too sharp. "Because specimens like you ferment so beautifully in fear."
Her amber eyes are the last thing I see clearly before my consciousness fragments.
I wake to darkness and the stench of decay. My head throbs with each heartbeat. Where am I? I try to move, but my limbs feel disconnected, like they belong to someone else. I can't feel my fingers. Just dead weight at the ends of my arms. Panic claws up my throat.
"My fingers," I rasp into the darkness. "I can't feel my fingers."
"They're still attached," Eliza's voice whispers from everywhere and nowhere. "For now. I'm saving them for last. They've done such terrible things."
The darkness retreats slightly. I'm in a room with walls covered in... are those photos? No. Not photos. Faces. Preserved faces stretched across frames. Men's faces frozen in expressions of terror.
My mind fractures. This is a nightmare. It has to be. I squeeze my eyes shut, but when I open them, the faces are still there, watching me with dead eyes.
"Please," I whimper. "Money—I have money. Anything you want."
A cold finger traces my cheek. "Ssh. This isn't about wants. This is about collection. About preservation. About keeping what makes you special."
My heart slams against my ribs like it's trying to escape. I strain against whatever holds me. Something shifts slightly. A restraint loosens. Hope flares desperately.
"What are you going to do to me?" I ask, trying to keep her attention away from my struggling hands.
"Display you," she says matter-of-factly. "But first, we need to drain you. Fear has such a distinctive taste. It needs to be extracted while fresh."
Something glints in the dim light—a long needle attached to a tube. I thrash wildly, the restraint giving further.
"They always fight at this part," she sighs, almost disappointed. "Even though they know there's nowhere to go."
"I'll be different," I plead, feeling the restraint slipping. "I'll do anything."
"That's what number three said." She gestures to a face on the wall. "Before I peeled him."
My wrist comes free. In a surge of desperate strength, I lunge forward, knocking her back. I scramble off whatever I've been lying on, my legs numb and useless. I drag myself across the floor, toward what looks like a door.
Behind me, she laughs. Not angry. Amused.
I reach the door, fingers scrabbling at the handle. It turns. It actually turns! The door swings open to reveal—another room of faces. Hundreds of them. Rows upon rows, watching me with empty eye sockets.
"No," I moan, crawling backward.
"You're right where I want you," Eliza says, standing over me now. "They always run to that door. It's fascinating how predictable prey can be."
My bladder releases. The last thread of dignity gone.
"Please," I sob, "just kill me."
She crouches beside me, head tilting at an impossible angle. "Oh, James. Death isn't the point. The collection is. And you'll be conscious for every moment of it."
Something sharp slides into my neck. Not killing me. Keeping me aware.
"Most collectors kill their specimens first," she whispers, her breath cold against my ear. "But that's such a waste. The terror is what preserves you. Keeps you looking lifelike."
As paralysis spreads through me, I see her clearly for the first time. Not human. Never was. The amber eyes are the only part that remains as her face shifts into something ancient and hungry.
The cat watches from atop a shelf of jarred organs as I finally understand what it truly means to be prey. Not just killed. Collected. Preserved. Displayed. Forever aware in my glass case, a trophy of the true apex predator.
And as she begins her work, I know that I will never truly die. And that is the greatest horror of all.
