Jean

So, uh, now we're gonna have to talk about Jean...

Strange. Who's Jean again? I don't remember her. Even Subject 1 doesn't remember her accurately since I can't seem to find much information about her in the man's memory database! Who in the world is Jean? The man knows her name; the man remembers saying the words "Poor Jean" before inevitably murdering her. However, the man has no recollection of who she is.

Oh wait; he knows now why he didn't remember much about this woman.

Yes. Jean is the victim that the man hated the most.

She was that beautiful woman he kidnapped when he was drunk that night after partying on the death anniversary of Mary. I know, fucked up, right? They threw a party to commemorate a murdered woman's death. It's so beautifully disgusting. However, the man didn't mind it that much. He didn't even know that this party in the tavern at that moment was one to commemorate one of his victim's deaths. He was just trying to drown the deep rush of melancholy creeping through the cracks appearing in his mind. Then again, we don't really know why the man is feeling so blue, for, at that very moment, he had already forgotten the face of Laura! He couldn't even remember the outline of Mary's body that he once loved. He could still remember the sensation of Chris' neck on his hands, but other than that, there really is no reason for him to retain his memory of the boy.

He just danced among the crowd of people lurking about the feisty tavern and dunked bottles after bottles of whatever drink the bartender was giving him.

The party was not the craziest one in the world. It's filled with older people and a few young ones, so it's most definitely not the one that high school students knew intimately to their hearts. Nevertheless, it's still a party. Disco music is playing on a cheap speaker that barely lasted the entire night, and people of varying ages danced among one another to drown the memory of a fallen neighbor and friend with the taste of booze. A few hours later, the only music one could hear at the party is the sound of the older village people, chanting a polka. Luckily, the man knows how to sing it; he lives on the outskirts of the town long enough to see the culture of these people. They might not know much about this unsociable lad, but they do know that he's quite a charismatic person who quickly drew the attention of everyone towards him. Thus, he sang with his victim's family and friends happily while groping the breast of a new-found lady.

Jean.

They sang a merry tune with the person who killed the woman to whom they dedicate this very party. A bunch of men happily partied in her memory. I bet Mary would be immensely turned on right now, seeing all these men dancing and drinking in her name. Too bad she's dead.

Going back to the topic at hand, Subject 1 left the party with Jean. Their arms wrapped around each other. Nobody saw them leave; everybody was either unconscious or too drunk to care.

When he woke up the next day, the man felt good, rejuvenated even. He felt refreshed, and to be quite honest; Jean gave him a great night, the sex was amazing. He wondered then why this is the first time he saw a beauty like Jean. Sexy and beautiful with a very gentle voice and soft skin, the man didn't know much about the other parts of her body such as her neck, nor does he know more about her personality since he's too drunk, but she was perfect nonetheless! However, when he came about in the morning, she wasn't on the bed.

He put a boxer short on and left his van. He's still hopeful that Jean is around, that maybe he could know her better; Subject 1 is hoping that he could fuck her like a barbarian again, strangle her neck like he meant to kill her rotten and breed the woman to mark her as his property. He walked around. Still, he didn't see anyone pass by his lonesome van on the outskirts of the village. There's not even an animal about, and the wind is oddly still. It's as if Jean left a spell on him and the ecstasy he felt that night will be naught but a fond memory. How disappointing.

He was about to enter his van again when he heard an elderly woman calling out his attention.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for being rude to you, young man!" The elderly woman said, gasping and panting with a gentle smile, the kind of smile an elderly woman gives to their grandchildren. "I wasn't able to hear your name when we were at that anniversary party yesterday!"

"It's okay, ma'am. I'm not sure if I know you, too, so I guess we're even." He laughed louder than he should have, but the elderly woman didn't particularly mind.

"Silly you! Of course, you know my name!" The elderly woman chuckled. "Don't tell me you forgot already after that exciting thing we did last night?"

The man raised an eyebrow with a disgusting thought running through his head though he refuses to accept it. "Excuse me?"

"It's me, silly! Jean!" The old woman said with a chuckle. "We were having the best moment of our lives last night, and I know how much you loved momma."

Crack.

The man felt as if he heard his sanity, his manhood, and his boner crack and broke both at the same time. That last word that the hag said rang in his head, and slowly, he filtered all his fond memory of the beautiful woman he held that night with the newer revelation of this elderly woman who was still speaking in front of him. The disgust he felt almost made him nauseous when he pictured both of them having sex in his bed. It made his stomach churn even further after remembering that he masturbated earlier while smelling the scent of Jean in his blanket.

The man was angry, madder than Laura's father, when the villagers found his daughter's body. He was filled with an unrivaled amount of pure hatred for this ugly hag standing in front of him that the only thing he could hear is a ringing sound in his head. The ringing reverberating throughout his mind blocked everything that the woman was saying, although he could see that her lips were moving.

Jean looked at the man like a schoolgirl and smiled like a young woman in her 20s. That was the last straw for the man. He couldn't bear the disgust he felt for having affection towards this creature of times immemorial standing before him. The man couldn't keep the anger inside him, and he couldn't believe that he loved every moment he had with this old hag!

Subject 1 clenched his fist and bit his lower lip as if he wanted it to bleed out. His eyes are covered with red veins, and to top this off, his forehead produced beads of sweat profusely. It was a strange sight for someone who was merely standing in front of a woman he barely knew. His body trembles in anger as he sees Jean, still talking nonstop even though he's not receiving everything that she speaks of in his brain.

Whatever mercy or sanity this man has in his head is gone. Whatever he's about to do now is a taboo rooted deep within human culture, and the world could blame it all on Jean. The man even pointed his fingers at Jean for the lousy weather. It was such a simple conundrum, but it's enough to drive his malevolence to transcend into a different form entirely. Maybe it got something to do with the woman's overly revealing clothes for someone who's probably already around the age of 60? Perhaps his blood boiled because of the ugliness of his skin, contrary to how much he loved the Jean in his fantasies! We can even guess that this anger came from a more emotional effect that is far too complicated for us to discuss in this panel. It's just such a deep anger that we just... can't understand it.  

Yeah, that's right, I couldn't quite understand the anger he felt for Jean. He was older, much, much older than the woman in her dreams, without a doubt; she's also one ugly hag, and I could understand why he would hate her for her ugliness. I would also agree with him in hating old people. Truly I can get past the part where the man hates the sight of old people or the idea of fucking one.

"Poor..." He said in a shaking voice; he doesn't even want to say her name. Sweat drips all over his lean body. "...Jean."

I could understand hating her because of something as petty as her being an old ugly hag, he just hates old people. I don't empathize with his anger, but I could understand.

But killing her?

That I cannot understand.  

That day, on a hot summer afternoon, the people cried and shouted all over the marketplace. The shock was all over their pretty little faces as the new talk in town is the wife of their former mayor, who died with thirty-four stab wounds all over her face to the tip of her toe. Or was it thirty-five? Eeehhh... I'm not sure, but the sight was gruesome for everyone in the quiet town, but it was beyond an artistic masterpiece in the eyes of the man. It was so grim that although they kept talking on and on about it in their neighborhood, nobody mentions the state of her body when they found her.

Jean's death is the first time the town witnessed this kind of grotesque tale. For fifteen hours, they let the body of Jean alone, rotting in the mountain, until the state police handled the situation. For almost a week, they did not let their children outside of their houses. Jean's funeral didn't even start, but everybody had already forced each other to erase the memory of her death in their minds.

Once again, Subject 1 made history, for, in the people's mind, nobody had suffered such a gruesome death before in this small village in the middle of the forest. Some of them are even starting to talk about leaving the town entirely. It was a valid point; why stay anyway?

Nobody died with such a pained expression before in this village. Then again, they only gossiped among one another that Jean had a pained expression. It doesn't actually hold any factual foundation. In reality, the hag didn't have a face anymore when they found her. The people of this once lively and peaceful town denied the sad, pitiful, unbearable, and disgusting expression Jean had in her last moments.

They even denied that the same murderer who killed Mary and Laura did this to her. They knew that the murderer is very picky when it comes to his victims; why would he suddenly murder an elderly woman? He may not be a saint, but they didn't know him as a person who would bombard his victims with countless stab wounds. At least that's what they all believed about the man because the only death that mattered to them is Mary's, and Subject 1 presented her body to the town folks as if she was treated like a princess before her death. In fact, they didn't speak of Laura's name when her parents moved away to a different country. They didn't even remember Chris' existence.

He was so mad, and it still maddens him till now to the point that every time he walks to the village to buy food, he gets this underlying urge to thwack the hearts of the elderly. He keeps imagining it every time in the comfort of his van as he touches himself. He would think about the mangled corpse of an elderly person, the beauty of the adults' confusion, and the fear in the young ones' eyes. These are what drive his libido to the point of orgasm. Sometimes, while walking in the town square, he would prematurely ejaculate while thinking of twisting an old lady's head.

That's just how much he hates them. He loathes them in a way that touches his sexual urges.

Okay, look. I don't hate the old hag, she's just doing her thing. You shouldn't hate her too even though she's a few decades too late to be such a whore. She literally did nothing wrong. Her only mistake in this entire mess is that she picked the wrong man to sleep with that night. Can you really blame her? I mean, she's old and soggy and weak then a man suddenly flirted with her and said all sorts of beautiful things about her. She was simply swayed by a man blinded by the power of alcoholic beverages.

To be honest, this is by far the man's weakest kill, and in my opinion, his most disappointing moment. It just didn't click well for me that he would react in such an oddly aggressive way just because he got catfished. Given that he would murder Jean regardless of her age anyway, he got a bit sloppy on this one, and frankly, I'm surprised the police didn't manage to capture him after this one.

I guess, he's just not good at dealing with surprises, which is an understatement to say the least. And it affected him in the most radical way that is completely unwarranted for, even for a man like him. I wouldn't be surprised then that he's now scurrying around to find a better woman.

Thus, while walking down the town square to buy the usual things he would cook, he found her.

Carol.