Harold Bletchman had killed seven women across five states.
He had a method. He had rules. He was careful.
He liked them quiet. Small. Alone.
They called him The Threader on the news—because he left silk ribbons down the throats of his victims.
Like threading a needle, he'd joke to himself. Clean. Beautiful.
And tonight, he found another one.
She sat alone at the edge of the parking lot behind a gas station off Route 12, just before the woods began.
Barefoot. Pale. Wearing a red dress that didn't seem to wrinkle when she moved.
No coat. No phone. No bags.
Just watching the sky.
He pulled his car up slowly, headlights off.
"Hey," he called through the open window, casual, predator-smooth. "You okay out here?"
She turned slowly.
Didn't smile. Didn't frown. Just looked.
Something in her stare felt off—like her face hadn't finished loading.
"Need a ride?" he asked, almost hopeful.
She nodded, silently.
He smiled. "Hop in."
And she did.
They drove in silence for ten minutes.
She didn't ask where they were going.
She didn't ask who he was.
She didn't even blink, as far as he could tell.
When he glanced over, her skin seemed too smooth.
Not like makeup—like wax. Or something mimicking skin from memory.
"You got a name?" he finally asked.
She turned her head slightly. Her voice was faint, like it came from somewhere deeper than her throat.
> "You may call me what you need to."
He laughed, uneasy.
"Alright, 'Jane' it is."
She said nothing.
He took her to the same cabin he always used.
An old hunting place in the woods, long-abandoned. No power, no neighbors.
Inside, he flicked on the battery lantern and told her to sit.
She did.
No resistance. No fear.
"I like you quiet," he said, pulling the knife from his coat pocket.
She tilted her head. "Do you think this will go how you expect?"
That gave him pause.
He'd heard begging. Screaming. Crying.
Never... that.
He stepped closer. The knife glinted.
"Take off the dress."
She looked down at it—almost like she hadn't noticed it before.
Then she smiled. Just a little.
> "No."
He lunged.
She didn't flinch.
He grabbed the fabric and pulled—and for the first time, his hand met resistance.
The dress felt like it was rooted in her, like muscle pretending to be cloth.
And then it tore.
Not fabric—but flesh.
Beneath it: not skin.
But something moving. Glossy, black, and folded wrong.
He stumbled back, breath catching.
"What the hell are you?"
She stood slowly.
The tear in the dress widened on its own, unfolding like petals made of screaming geometry.
> "You've been so busy taking women apart, Harold…"
> "Did you ever stop to wonder what might want to wear one?"
He ran.
Out the door. Into the woods.
Branches whipped his face. His lungs burned.
But the trees began to change.
Their shapes bent.
Leaves turned to eyes.
Bark became tongues.
And behind him, she walked. Calm. No sound.
> "You made a habit of hiding bodies in the forest, Harold."
> "Do you ever visit them? Do you think they forget?"
His feet stopped moving.
Not because he wanted to.
Because the ground spoke.
In dozens of voices.
Her voices.
Each girl.
Each throat he had threaded.
They remembered.
He looked up.
There was no moon. No stars.
Just a hole.
A gaping tear in the sky shaped like a spiral, pulling at light and thought.
And in its center, a silhouette.
Not a woman.
Not a god.
A formless memory—wrapped in flesh it had borrowed, stitched from trauma, walking in skin like a costume.
> "You gave me shape, Harold."
> "Piece by piece. Fear by fear."
> "I am what you left behind."
He screamed. But it didn't echo.
Screams don't echo in memory.
She stepped close again.
Her hands weren't hands anymore.
They were ribbons—wet, red, and whispering.
He dropped the knife. Fell to his knees.
"I'm sorry," he begged. "I didn't know—"
> "No one ever does."
She pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shhh."
And then, slowly, threaded a ribbon down his throat.
Not silk. Not fabric.
It was the sorrow of everything he'd tried to forget.
And it went down, and down, and down.
Until he was still.
In the morning, hikers found the cabin.
No body.
Just a trail of red silk leading into the woods.
And a girl in a red dress walking away down the road, barefoot.
She didn't wave.
She didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
The world would forget Harold Bletchman.
But the girls never did.
And neither did she.
Sometimes, late at night, a girl in red can be seen sitting alone by roadsides, staring at the sky.
Don't stop for her.
She's not lost.
She's waiting.
And if you've done the kinds of things Harold did…
She's not waiting for a ride.
She's waiting for you.
End
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I wrote this down quickly so I didn't forget, sorry that it's shorter than usual