The mind of a killer is a complex entity in and of itself. Rationalization and justification are the constant companions of a being such as this. Male, female, it does not matter. The brutal act of murder must be validated by some sort of lucid conspiracy, real or imagined, to prevent the mind from shutting down in a frenzy of insanity. Empathy and morality are strangers to this creature. To take away the right to exist gives due cause for a feeling of infinite supremacy to the assailant.
So what can one expect from a person such as this? If they are intelligent, they expect nothing. To expect one thing makes them weak. For then they are vulnerable to the assault which is guaranteed to follow. You cannot rehabilitate this being. The need for fatality courses through their veins and nothing can stop it. When you get a taste for brutal acts, it is not something that you can give up.
All of this is true of Dane Dattel. He was an unassuming man of thirty-three. His childhood was uneventful—a mother and father, no siblings. A family dog and a modest home in Seattle sealed his fate.
On his twentieth birthday, he became a serial killer.
On his twentieth birthday, he became a serial killer.
The First Taste
It was an accident, or at least that’s what he told himself. Dane was never prone to violence as a child, never one of those cliché little boys who set fire to ants with a magnifying glass or strangled neighborhood cats in an alley. His darkness was quieter, more insidious.
He had a way of watching people—his parents, his teachers, his classmates—with an unnerving detachment, as if their suffering was an equation to be solved rather than a tragedy to be mourned. When his father lost his job and spiraled into silent misery, Dane did not comfort him. He only observed, curious.
When his mother wept in the kitchen over unpaid bills, he noted the way she rubbed at her temples, the slight tremor in her fingers as she gripped the edge of the counter.
It fascinated him.
But he was careful. He learned, early on, that people expected certain reactions, and so he mirrored them. He smiled when he was supposed to, frowned when appropriate, laughed at the right moments. It became a game, one he was very, very good at.
And then, on the night of his twentieth birthday, something changed.
He had been drinking, celebrating, though he never cared much for alcohol. His college roommates had insisted, and so he went along with it, playing the role they expected of him. They bar-hopped through downtown Seattle, the city lights buzzing overhead, laughter ringing out over the clinking of glasses.
At some point, he wandered off. He didn’t know why, exactly. Just that the noise had become grating, the presence of people too much. He walked aimlessly, the streets growing quieter as he distanced himself from the bars and neon signs.
That was when he saw the man.
Mid-forties, balding, cigarette dangling from his lips as he leaned against a brick wall in the alleyway beside a liquor store. He barely noticed Dane, too preoccupied with whatever he was mumbling into his phone.
Dane stopped.
He wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. But something about the moment—the isolation of the alley, the dim orange glow of the streetlamp overhead, the rhythmic tapping of the man’s fingers against the phone screen—felt… right.
His body moved before his mind caught up.
One step. Two. Three.
The man looked up just as Dane reached him, eyes glassy with drunken stupor.
“Hey, man, what the—”
Dane grabbed the back of his head and slammed it against the brick wall.
The sound was beautiful. A wet, meaty crunch. A gasp. A gurgle.
The man slumped, his phone clattering onto the pavement.
Dane stared down at him, breath coming fast and shallow. His heart pounded, but not with fear. It was something else. Something electric.
The man was still alive, but barely. Blood trickled from a wound on his temple, pooling along the cracks in the pavement.
Dane crouched beside him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. The way his lips trembled. The confusion in his half-lidded eyes.
He reached out and pressed two fingers to the man’s throat. The pulse was weak.
He squeezed.
At first, the man didn’t react. Then, as the pressure increased, his body twitched. Dane kept squeezing. The pulse beneath his fingers fluttered like a dying bird.
And then it was gone.
A breath left Dane’s lips, long and slow.
It was over.
It was perfect.
The Evolution of a Monster
Dane didn’t expect to kill again so soon. But the hunger was insatiable. The rush he felt that night, the sheer rightness of it, haunted him in the best way.
He wanted to feel it again.
The second kill was cleaner. A woman this time. Early thirties, jogging alone in a park just after dusk. He followed her for ten minutes before making his move. A knife this time, pressed against her ribs. A whisper in her ear. She didn’t scream. Not right away.
The third was even easier.
By the time he reached twenty kills, it had become second nature.
He learned how to pick them—who would be missed and who wouldn’t, who would fight and who would go down easy. He learned to control his impulses, to plan instead of act on a whim.
Dane never tortured. He wasn’t interested in suffering. He just wanted the moment—the flicker of realization in their eyes, the shuddering gasp, the precise instant life ceased.
That was enough.
The Hunt Continues
They never caught him.
The news ran stories, of course. The Seattle Phantom, they called him. Investigators speculated, FBI profiles were drawn up, but none of them ever got close.
The news ran stories, of course. The Seattle Phantom, they called him. Investigators speculated, FBI profiles were drawn up, but none of them ever got close.
Dane listened to the reports with idle amusement, sipping coffee in crowded diners, watching the panic spread like wildfire.
But he wasn’t arrogant. He was careful. Patient.
The only thing that worried him, sometimes, was how normal he felt.
He was supposed to be a monster, wasn’t he? A soulless predator? But when he looked in the mirror, he saw a man who paid his bills on time, who nodded politely at strangers, who laughed at jokes he didn’t find funny.
That was the trick, he realized.
People expected monsters to look a certain way. To feel a certain way.
But he wasn’t some bloodthirsty beast lurking in the shadows.
He was Dane Dattel.
A man with an uneventful childhood. A mother and father. A family dog.
And a hunger that would never, ever be satisfied.
©Genevieve Mazer, 2025
