She'd succumbed to madness by now, and it was a glorious thing to witness. He could tell there was a movie playing in her mind, and it wasn't a happy musical. When she spoke, she made no sense. Sometimes it was a string of random words, and sometimes it was pure gibberish. If he'd recorded it and played it for somebody, they'd be so creeped out they wouldn't sleep for days.

With all of his victims, he wondered what they'd do if he let them out of the cage. Not much, obviously, but would they just lie there? Would they try to make their arms and legs work in a feeble, clearly doomed effort to drag themselves to the door?

It would be compelling to watch. A beautiful sight. But it was a pain to get them into the cages, and having them desperately flail around on the filthy basement floor wasn't part of his overall plan. They could get hurt. If they got hurt, they could die sooner. He didn't want that.

Researchers would probably be fascinated by what he was doing. There really weren't many opportunities to study a healthy, well-fed person as they suffered through a complete lack of any nourishment whatsoever. It would be very difficult for a scientist to observe this process without giving the person a sandwich every once in a while. Really, he should be writing down detailed notes and taking daily pictures of their failure to thrive. Make a photographic diary as their bodies devoured themselves from the inside.

But...no. This was for him and him alone.

* * *

Ken made a halfhearted attempt to initiate sex that Vivian rejected. That didn't bother him. He was in the mood for a blowjob, but Vivian would want reciprocation, and he was not in the mood for that. They just sat up in bed, watching television.

"I've got a date tomorrow," he said.

"What?"

"Remember those girls who tried to catch me? The ones who got that guy to shoot himself?"

Vivian spent a few seconds trying to find the remote control. She picked it up and muted the television. "Of course I remember them. What do you mean, you have a date?"

"One of them thinks I'm interested in doing a TV show about her. We're meeting for dinner tomorrow. So I'll be home late."

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Why doesn't it surprise me that you're about to overreact?"

"Overreact?" asked Vivian. "You just told me that you're going to meet a girl for dinner and then strangle her and you think I'm overreacting?"

"I never said I was going to strangle her."

"Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. My mistake. So you've become a television producer now, huh?"