Envy

She covered her mouth with her hand and stifled a scream, the intensity of what she was seeing almost impossible to comprehend.

Between the pillows on her bed, it’s huge lifeless eyes seeming to stare at the terrified young woman, was the blood soaked head of a sheep, its mouth open slightly to reveal its teeth.

Above it on the wall, in spiral letters written in the animal’s blood were the words:

QUIT NOW OR YOU’RE NEXT!

Her lips trembled as she read the poorly written message, looking from the phone on her bedside table to the mobile in her crumpled jogging bottoms outside the bedroom door.

And as she tried to gather the nerve for whatever was to be her next course of action one thought kept playing over and over in her mind.

She had been in her bedroom to get changed before she had gone to use the gym downstairs; whoever had done this had done it while she was in the house! And maybe, just maybe, they were yet to leave.

Slaughtering the sheep had been the easy part; he had simply enticed it from the field near his home and hacked it to pieces in the kitchen area of his small rented house.

The difficult part had been smuggling a quickly decomposing sheep’s head onto a National Express coach; avoiding the accusatory looks of the other passengers, who stared at the carefully sealed black bin liner on the young mans lap and turned their noses up at the grotesque smell.

Once he had arrived at his destination the rest of the night’s accomplishments had been down to pure adrenaline.

He had found the mansion quite easily, using the map he had printed from the Internet for directions. Watching the building from afar a mixture of emotions had swept over him; envy, fear, excitement, anticipation. It was a roller coaster of emotions and he felt sick to his stomach at the weight of it all.

As the night rolled on and the clouds moved slowly across the otherwise starry sky, the lights in the house one by one flicked into life.

Twice he had seen her at the windows; once downstairs, once upstairs, but only her; no boyfriend, no lover, no friends, no relations, no cleaners or servants or maids or grounds men, and most notably, no minders.

Surely not? Surely he could not be this lucky? Surely a star of Lisa's calibre would have at least one bodyguard? Apparently not when she was at home. After tonight he bet she would though.

Slowly he had crept forwards, hiding in the shadows of the trees as he made his way closer and closer to the front of the huge house.

Edging along the side of the garages he saw her again; a downstairs reception room had been turned into a more than adequate mini gym, and he watched through the window with a mixture of lust and loathing as she pulled backwards and forwards on the cord of the rowing machine. He watched her body as it flexed and moved on the plastic seat, wanting to both fuck her and kill her, or kill her and fuck her.

He shook off the feeling and ducked under the window, shuffling forwards towards the doorway, keeping low just in case there really was someone else in the house.