In the light of a candle - The Violet Tulip

Night. Cold, dark night. Not a whisper of wind, not a sound of footsteps. Clouds, obscuring the full moon. Heavy, warm air. A lone street lamp blinking, its light bringing out shadows that best be left alone. Sudden flap, a raven scream. And deafening silence again. Pair of eyes, blinking for a moment and disappearing in the darkness. Gloom, so think it could be touched. No dogs’ howls. No cats’ meows. Nothing.
 Pulse. Loud in the ears, pounding in the chest. Breath, coming heavily and quickly, threatening to choke. Footsteps, quick and urgent, hurrying to escape. Barren street, dark windows. Empty shops, looming above. Unclear silhouettes, shifting and disappearing in the shadows. Static air, static time, no motion.
  Suddenly, a plant. A pretty violet tulip, just thrown on the street. Like rubbish. A figure bending to pick it, a figure standing to pull. A rope, a gush of air, tense moments and then nothing. Just darkness…
   A cemetery. People crying, a mother staring blankly in the coffin. Lots of people. The dead was young, just out of teenage. The photo shows smiling girl with dimples. The day is dark, the flowers many. Roses, carnations, daisies. The mood is heavy, the coffin is taken down. The police are astonished, the doctors �" amazed, the parents �" devastated. In the chest, beneath the breastbone, a violet tulip has been placed. There isn’t almost any trace from the surgery. Only a thin, invisible white line between the girl’s breasts. But is looks healed, like years had passed after the operation. And she’s been gone for a week. It just isn’t possible. And the flower is fresh. Somehow the flesh surrounding it hadn’t ruined it, hadn’t stuck to the delicate petals. The killer is obviously a scientist, a surgeon. A person with sure hand and lack of scruples. Someone, who would be irreplaceable in the operation room, but now is loose on the population. The details about the murder are hidden, nobody learns anything, the case is visibly closed, but a few detectives continue working on it. In their free time, of course.
 A year passes. Fifty-one more victims are found. The only evidence that the Violet Tulip has struck is that after the burial, on the next day, a violet tulip appears next to all the flowers left by the mourners. All of the victims share the flower in the rib cage, all lack clear evidence of the operation. The police are terrified. The general population has no idea that a killer is on the loose, that a hunter is free. And enjoying it. The flowers can’t be traced, there are too many gardens in the town. The victims don’t share any trait �" sex, age, looks, interests. Everyone is a suspect and everyone is a possible victim. The police had tried everything �" watching the cemeteries, looking for surgeons with the right skills, even looking for tulip gardens. Nothing.
 One day a woman appears in the police station. She wants to talk to the detectives working on the case. Since nobody knows there is a case, she is quickly taken to an interrogation room. She claims being the killer. The officers are amazed. After fifty-two kills the killer surrenders. She gives details about the murders that nobody could know. Only the real killer. She looks ordinary, speaks ordinarily, smiles slightly. They take her to a cell and leave her. She is going to be sued tomorrow.
 But she isn’t. In the morning she is found hung on a rope in the tiny room. Not possible since there aren’t any ropes in the rooms. The bed sheets aren’t touched, the walls aren’t touched, the water isn’t touched. At noon an autopsy is made. The killer is just a young woman. Nothing unusual. The detectives are present to the opening of the body and the whole procedure. The killer is left in the metal boxes they keep the corpses in. The body is going to be buried. And it is. Everyone, who knows about the serial killer, is watching. They know her face now, will remember it forever. It is over.
 On the grave there aren’t any flowers the officers leave one by one. They gather right to the gates of the cemetery. Suddenly one of them remembers that he’d forgotten his sunglasses. He returns to pick them. And gets back to his colleagues, running. They return to the grave. A single violet tulip is left there. Later the coffin is pulled and opened. The body is missing. And everyone has seen the autopsy. A procedure that is impossible to be survived.
 The same night. A woman is walking down her street. Her husband is a detective and he’s warned her not to wander outside. But the killer is caught now, she knows. Her man told her so. And the night is so lovely…Oh, a flower. A violet tulip. Who would’ve left something pretty on the street ? She looks left, then right, and bents to pick it up. It is the last thing she sees.
 
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  Every single friend or relative of the police officers who have hunted for the killer the violet tulip dies. Every person they become even a little close with dies of some kind of natural cause soon. But they know. They know that if they open the chest, they will find a flower.
 Years have passed. Decades. The heirs of the detectives suffer. Ninety years after the first kill their friends are dying. It can’t be escaped. No matter where they are, no matter what they are doing. She always catches them.

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  So be careful with your friends. Because the children and grand-children of the police officers tried to escape, now the are all over the globe. You can’t know of the shop assistant you meet today isn’t one of them. All that is know is that death follows them. Or, maybe not death, but the Violet Tulip. Sleep well.