text: Note: this story contains themes of violence, gore, substance abuse, implied sex and self harm. Please be advised before continuing. My new skin itched. I was not yet accustomed to forms like these, nor could I decide which was most frustrating: my new long hair constantly obstructing my field of vision, or the heaviness of my breasts. No, that's a lie. I had so far failed to manage putting my hair up in a way that wasn't conspicuously sloppy enough to attract unwanted attention. Frustrating, but a problem I knew would disappear with practice. The breasts on the other hand, well they certainly drew unwanted attention. Also, I was beginning to experience lower back pain. These discomforts aside, I retained my anonymity nominally well. A mousy, petite skin seemed to do the job satisfactorily. Smaller breasts next time though. Too much male gaze. Hell, coming out of Portland as I was, too much female gaze. To be honest with you, it didn't matter much. Victor wasn't going to notice me. Lizzy was the only woman I ever saw him acknowledge, so with her comfortably dead, mousy little old me could have added three bra sizes, padding in the rear, and only been noticed if I sat in his lap. Convenient then, that I had my own seat on the Greyhound instead of opting to use him as a cushion. Just a couple seats back and across the aisle, I was conveniently placed to observe him. Even without the good look I got at his face as I boarded, it was obvious from his slump that he was exhausted. From the way he started awake every time a noise or bump alerted him to the embarrassing fact he had dozed off, you would have been forgiven for thinking he was a hunted animal, not the hunter. You would be forgiven, as you should, since you would be correct. Victor, however, thought he was doing the chasing now and I was eager to track his progress. He had done a splendid job so far. After handing in all the necessary papers to take an extended leave of absence from his teaching position at OHSU, he had taken the month to bury Lizzy and his father, get everything in order and every other boring thing you people foist on your loved ones unless you- like Victor- need the distraction to numb the pain. Then he ran out of distractions. His friends stopped dropping by with dinner every night as they, one by one, justified being elsewhere, having paid their friend toll, and moving on with their own vapid lives. That's when I noticed the constant glow of a laptop in an unlit living room glaring from the wide window of the cozy Alberta home every night. Soon after, I observed him throw thumbtacks, string and photo paper into a basket at the hardware store. I wondered how much of that would end up tacked onto the hotel wall once we reached Seattle so he could track me down. Jacob Morrison. Dawn Clease. Brandon and Abby Dearson. They all lived in Seattle, until they didn't. They had all been slit from ear to ear. Other than that, nothing connected them that I was aware of. The only features which led to their lucky selection was their uncanny resemblance to Victor's younger brother William, to Justine, to Harry and finally to Lizzy. I finally identified the feeling of "joy" when I found doppelgangers for Victor's late best friend and wife, and they just happened to be married. I could have thought someone was watching out for me. The news had barely marinated for two days and I had only just returned south when I saw him pack his bags and take a bus to Union Station. An hour later, a petite young woman with light brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail had been transformed beyond her own family's ability to identify her, and shot full of so much heroin her corpse would eventually be cleared off the streets and Victor would never even see a conspiracy blog mention it. Especially considering she later boarded her bus just in time after using her ID to buy a one way ticket to Seattle. I'll admit, having sat in the skin awhile, it had started to grow on me. A couple of hours later, the bus stopped in Centralia by a McDonalds so the meatbags could relieve their tiny bladders and purchase a number five, some ready-to-order Diabetes and Coke with a side of grease. In practice, this looked like the bus emptying out, the fast food being ignored, and dozens of little clouds of smoke and steam--not least of which was the driver's own-- rising up into the cold early morning air to announce mankind's unflinching dedication to developing one cancer or another to die of instead of old age. Victor had stopped being so jumpy about an hour prior as he acclimated to the bus's ambient clamor and bustle, settling into a fitful doze. Once the noise had moved outside, the silence seemed to shock him into awareness. Looking around him at the empty chairs and stillness, it took him an embarrassingly long moment to clear the fog and piece things together. The prick put me in a bind as he got up and put his caffeine dependent ass on a beeline to McDonalds. Should I follow and possibly get noticed, or wait on the bus and avoid detection while risking him getting left behind? I decided to try to split the difference and give womanly charms a spin. Sauntering out of the bus, I moved past the gaggle of addicts toward the double arches. As though a thought just occurred to me, I doubled back a small way and with small steps came up to the driver. "I'll be quick, I promise. Just please," I attempted my best pouty lips and saucer eyes impression, "don't leave me behind, m’kay?" His eyebrow quirked a little, but he smiled too as he nodded, then tilted his chin toward the restaurant to urge me to hurry. Not quite the success I was hoping for, but these skills take time and practice. Entering the human feeding pen, Victor was easy to spot. He had wasted no time getting the largest coffee he could and was off to the side loading it with a deeply concerning mountain of sugar packets. Since it was obvious he was going to make it back in time, I was about to turn around when he did first. It would have been far too conspicuous to turn on my heels at the door and leave now, so I headed toward the bathroom. Once I left the main room, I sidled up to a urinal in case he decided to take the chance to relieve himself. Best not to be found idling near this entrance either. While I stood there, pulling down my sweats, I discovered my mistake. Time to leave. I was just a few steps away from the door when it swung open. Not Victor, thankfully, but a scrabble faced thirty something in a hoodie reeking of just-smoked cigarettes walked in. He didn't seem to notice anything amiss at first, but I failed to sneak by him before it clicked. We stood there, eyes locked for a stretched moment. His mouth cracked open but before the brain behind his bloodshot eyes could decide what to say with it, I decided to get more practice in. Wordlessly, I winked at him, bit my lip a bit, turned around and headed for a stall. If it hadn't been for the suburban silence confirming he hadn’t yet taken a step, I would have thought he had retreated when I didn't see him after another thin moment of anticipation on the toilet seat. I don't know why I worried though, while his brain may have been telling him this was too good to be true, his blood was busy rushing elsewhere and soon the stall door opened again and he stepped coyly in. With an encouraging smile I soon had his pants around his ankles and he seemed fully committed. His eyes locked onto mine, Scruffy was defenseless as I spun around him, allowing him to fall forward into the space I had vacated and into the toilet, where I shoved his face into the bowl. Holding him down was easy, my strength was my own regardless of the skin I wore and he failed to come up for air. His thrashing about had me worried someone might overhear and come to investigate, but the restaurant was dead as he was about to be, aside from old men staring out past their coffees toward wars long past, and nobody came to rescue my newest conquest. He took too long to go limp enough to satisfy me and it stressed my urgency. It wouldn't do to have the bus leave without me after all; this would have to be a rush job. Thankfully, I had developed a tool for just this sort of scenario, and I took a long needle out of my pocket, quickly drew a full syringe of his blood and injected myself with it. I knew I only had a couple of minutes, so I did my best to dress the man up for the scene. Anybody with one eye and half a brain would be able to tell he had drowned, but just in case the local police were particularly stupid, I took a dirty needle I kept with me and some more heroin (a stupidly easy find on the streets of Portland) and did my best to make it look like an overdose. Thankful I was already wearing sweatpants with an elastic waist, I grabbed his hoodie, locked the stall door from the inside and slipped underneath into the next one. Just in time too, as I had to grit my teeth from calling out when my femur snapped. One by one in rapid succession came each and every joint and bone in my body and a blinding flash of white pain. Every element of my body twisted and contorted until I had morphed into the man whose lungs were filled with toilet water in the stall next to me. Taking the longest moment I could afford to breathe and collect myself, I threw the hoodie over my head and ducked out as fast as I could. It had felt like ages to me, but the cigarette posse was just starting to load back onto the bus as I returned. Nobody batted an eye as I got on and sat down vaguely where I remembered my new skin had sat before. It was convenient, but I couldn't help but feel a little anger on my old skin's behalf as the bus driver looked toward the McDonalds, shrugged, and drove away without a second thought. I had lost my good view of Victor, but by the time the new skin's body was found I would have long faded into the crowds of Seattle. I hated what Victor had made me, but it was astoundingly well suited to exploiting humanity's hubris against themselves, and I knew I had gotten away with it again. Within a couple of hours we were in Seattle. Victor would be easy enough to find later, so I went in search of a new skin I could more discreetly acquire before he realized I had been on the bus with him. We played like this for a few weeks, and it was the most fun I had found so far in my short existence. Several times I let him almost "get" me, but his exhaustion began to catch up with him. It was taking him longer and longer each time and it seemed the police and frantic media might get closer than he could. The skin shopping trips grew further and further apart and I relied more heavily on changing up my appearance the old fashioned way. I'll even admit to several evenings glued to old spy movies in hotel rooms paid with my conquests’ credit cards to try and catch some hints for what makes a good disguise. Seattle was just too easy for me to hide in, and I all but led his sorry ass by the hand further North into smaller towns. I could be sporting after all, and the game was still fun since he hadn’t yet given up. I couldn't let it end until the defeat in his eyes was mine for the drinking. Months passed like this, leading him further and further along with notes left under his motel door after a perfectly timed redbull crash rendered him dead to the world, or a "Let the gentleman in the booth in the corner over there know his breakfast is covered by his friend from (whatever podunk town was next on my list)" before slipping out of the diner. Things he couldn't miss but weren't a beacon for authorities hunting "The Cascade Butcher” as the papers had taken to calling me. Quaint. I would have considered collecting clippings for a scrapbook, but Victor was already doing that for his red-string boards. That's how we found ourselves in Vancouver. The Capilano suspension bridge is really something to see. My last invitation told him to meet me on the main bridge today. I knew this man better than anybody at this point, had successfully predicted his actions time after time, so I knew he would come. I also knew that, God only knows how, he had smuggled an unregistered handgun into Canada he had bought in cash from some redneck veteran on Whidbey Island. He would threaten me with it, even mean it, but it was time to end this. He was running out of money faster than I could use my skins’ credit cards and this game wasn't going to last much longer anyway. The bridge swayed, as I imagine it always does, as I walked toward him. Keeping one eye on him, I spared a glance for the verdant chasm below. I whistled, imagining the drop. As I suspected it would, it also caught his attention. Few had braved the bridges today in this weather and I was near enough now. He turned abruptly from watching the end he had come from (I had come early so I could approach from the opposite side. You've got to plan your entrances, at least that's what I got from all those spy movies). No point hiding, I shrugged the broad shoulders of my new skin and offered a smile as he glared daggers at me. Cold as ice, "Monster. Finally done running?" "I suppose so, though I'm no more and no less than what you made of me. You're the monster Victor, you've just got no follow through. Oh, and the name's Bill, nice to meet you." My proffered hand was pointedly refused as his pupils tightened further and I saw his coat pocket bunch up as he gripped what I assumed was his nine millimeter in fury. We didn't speak for a few moments after that, turning to face the view of the valley below instead of each other's faces. I gripped the rope railing, my arms tensing as I steadied myself and prepared for his inevitable snap. "It ends here, Monster," punctuating the last he made clear he was denying not only my name but my place in the world. There's so much more I would have asked him, but I lost my cool and my clenched teeth must have reached their pressure point, erupting in a loud snap that broke a tooth and the silence held only by the wind. That snap set off everything as he assumed I had something up my sleeve (perhaps literally), responding by pulling out his gun. While I am not fast enough to dodge a bullet, I had been counting on my ability to rush him and catch him off guard, that and the fact he was a bookish scientist who had probably never even held one of the things before. It turns out I didn't even need concern myself with my own defense. The wild movement as he pulled the handgun from his pocket on the too-narrow path swung his arm wide just as a gust of wind hit the valley, exacerbating the rocking of the bridge his swing had caused. The pistol fell to the planks, but Victor's momentum carried him too far. I surprised myself by instinctually reaching to grab him, but it turns out that dodging a bullet isn't the only superhuman feat of speed I'm incapable of. With a cry more whimper than yell, my creator, hunter and prey catapulted past my outstretched hand, over the railing and down into the valley far below Capilano suspension bridge. I was in a state of numb shock for what felt like hours, staring at the hand that had failed to grasp him and pull him to safety. It was over. My little game was over. Had I won? Had I been cheated of winning? Did it matter? Then the existential dread kicked in. Had any of it mattered? I felt the world around me constrict and my breathing grew rapid and painful. Had it ever mattered? I could have stopped at any point. I was virtually impossible to find if I wanted to be. I could have left him be or killed him ages ago, but I played with him instead like a cat with a mouse. Like a child in pain lashing out at a parent. I wasn't aware how far my tall new skin was leaning over the railway, tears rushing down my face as I stared toward the unceremonious end of my father until I heard someone farther along yell "Don't do it!" But why not, I asked myself. I had no direction now, and had grown used to chasing Victor.