Remember That Day

Chapter 9

“It’s past five. Where are you? Don’t you know I’m busy?”

“Saw you. Turn around,” a man’s voice through call answered. “And what? Busy? Aside from sketching, drawing, and all, what more that makes you busy? You don’t even have a girlfriend to—”

“Is that how you say thank you, Gon?” Damek snarled through his phone as he turned to his back only to see his friend walking towards him, waving his hands. Damek almost rolled his eyes because of the sight of him.

He ended the call the moment Gon drew near him. They were alike at being a tease, but Damek wasn’t really in a mood to get back at his friend.

“Why are you so cranky today, Grandpa?” Gon chuckled, staring at Damek on his creased forehead.

“Grandpa your face! Here,” Damek said as he handed over the lipstick he bought—that Jayda bought earlier to him. “It’s what you asked for and this is the last time that I would do you such a favor like this! I wouldn’t help you with your girlfriend again. Swear!”

“Fine! I know, but wait. Is this... Oh, wow!” Gon exclaimed after he saw the lipstick inside the paper bag. “I didn’t know that you would actually get her favorite shade!”

“Oh? Really?”

A slight smile appeared on Damek’s face, not just by what Gon said, but by the fact that it was Jayda who actually picked it for him.

“Thanks, bro. My girlfriend would spare me because of this,” Gon laughed. But the moment he saw how his friend smiled all by himself, he tilted his head sideward and zoomed his face near Damek’s.

“What’s with the smile? Oh? You even wear a lipstick. A long-lasting one.”

“Ah, fuck.”

Damek almost rubbed off his own lips just to get rid of it, but it didn’t help. All he could at the end was to swear on his friend who could just die in laughing.

“You wouldn’t want to be impotent, right?” Damek said, almost a threat.

“Of course,” Gon automatically had a grip of himself before Damek could take away his happiness from him. Clearing his throat, he added, “But I’m just wondering. Did you put it by yourself...”

“No! I’m straight, you crazy!” Damek almost shouted. “I just forgot to get rid of it because of her.”

“Her? Who’s her?”

“She was the girl I met last night and then today, I saw her again inside Watsons as well. She helped me to buy that lipstick and she put it to my lips to try and—Gon. Just get lost!”

Gon clicked his tongue as he was dismayed with Damek’s sudden changing of moods.

“You almost ran your mouth unstoppable because of her.” Emphasizing the word ‘her’ made Damek raised her brow.

“Did I?”

“Whatever! But I’m looking forward to meet her telling me that she’s your girlfriend,” said Gon, smiling. “Alright. I’ll be off before I get late. Bye!”

“Whatever.”

Hands on his waist, Damek watched his friend marched away as he wagged his head. He was a good tease himself, but he got a friend who could boil his blood more than he could do to others. A true friend, perhaps? Regardless, he was wishing to meet Jayda again.

“I wonder if she’s still here,” he whispered to himself and took a glance at his wristwatch.

After a few rounds, he decided to call it day without him meeting the noodle girl again. His stylus was waiting for him and it could no longer wait until tonight.

He was owning a Jaguar, so traveling and doing some outdoor activities was fine not until he realized that two is better than one.

“Should I hit on her?” he mumbled, moving the steering wheel to a hotel.

Parking his car in front of the building made him noticed a familiar face of a girl entering the place. Although he was uncertain, the quick sight of her bothered him.

“Is that Jayda?”

As much as he wanted to catch up with the woman, he wasn’t able to do it because she also quickly disappeared from his sight.

Damek stepped out from his car, grabbed the keys, and almost ran inside the building. A few glance from his left to right, he could tell that he lost her.

As he let out a sigh, he whispered, “Is this a side effect of being in love? Hallucinations? Am I really that hooked with her to think that she could also be probably here?”

But no matter how he tried to calm himself, he ended up facing a front desk agent to ask for a girl named Jayda, although he knew, of course, that it was confidential.

“For the tenth time, I’m saying sorry, Sir. We cannot give out names of our guests. We have to keep the information confidential for safety,” an agent said, giving her most beautiful smile to Damek who seemed very upset.

“Just this once, please? I won’t do anything. I’m not a bad guy! I just really have to know if she’s the one I saw before I arrived here,” he pleaded, but he received a big fat no again.

Finally surrendered, he walked towards the elevator devastated as if he was a child who didn’t get what he wanted.

When he got to his room, a call on his phone was waiting for him to get answered. As he sat in front of his table with crumpled papers and piles of comic books, he finally pressed the green button moving up and down on his screen.

It was a real quick change of Damek’s expression when his face turned into some disgust and annoyance.

“Should I kill her as well?” he said, grinning like a mad man as he unconsciously split the pencil with his hand into two.

In spite of that, Jayda inside her room was spinning herself while sitting on a swivel chair after a shot of champagne she found inside her fridge. She didn’t know why she still had a lot of energy left no matter how she moved all day. By the fact that she wandered until sunset inside the mall, she didn’t feel sleepy at all.

On her bed was her laptop, Netflix on screen, but she didn’t feel to watch anything. Until she came up with the idea of searching about murderers.

Jayda stood up and inched towards her bed. She sat cross-legged then moved her laptop on her, starting to run her fingers through the keys. Few moments of loading, a lengthy article welcomed her eyes.

Some would say eighteenth century John is synonymous with Joshua, the Four Corner movie theater shooter. Both are murderers, right? However, these two killers fall into two completely different categories of murderers. John, an unidentified person, infamous for murdering several women in the slums of eighteenth century San Fernando, is a serial killer. Joshua shot and killed fifteen people and injured fifty-five others at Four Corner movie theater, making him a mass murderer. The numbers and timing are important factors.

“Males,” she whispered, fingers on her chin, she read in a squint-eyed manner.

A serial killer is conventionally defined as a person who murders three or more people in a period of over a month, with “cooling down” time between murders.

For a serial killer, the murders must be separate events, which are most often driven by a psychological thrill or pleasure. Serial killers often lack empathy and guilt, and most often become egocentric individuals; these characteristics classify certain serial killers as psychopaths. Serial killers often employ a “mask of sanity” to hide their true psychopathic tendencies and appear normal, even charming.

“Serial killer or a mass murderer, he still killed someone,” she uttered, nodding to the thoughts flowing inside her head. “Alright. Now I wonder how people couldn’t recognize him as a person doing such a heinous activity. He could probably have that mask of sanity to conceal his hidden agenda. He could be charming...”

The most notable example of a charming serial killer is Timothy Franks, who would fake an injury to appear harmless to his victims. He is classified as an organized serial killer; he methodically planned out his murder and generally stalked his victim for several weeks before committing the crime. He committed an estimated thirty murders from 1874-1878 before his eventual capture. Serial killers such as Timothy Franks are known to be organized and psychologically motivated to commit murder, which separates them from mass murderers who appear to kill randomly at one time.

Mass murderers kill many people, typically at the same time in a single location. With some exceptions, many mass murders end with the death of the perpetrators, either by self-infliction or by law enforcement.

According to Dr. Mark Gerona, professor of psychiatry at Greenland, mass murderers are generally dissatisfied people, and have poor social skills and few friends. Generally, the motives of mass murderers are less obvious than those of serial killers.

According to Gerona, 95.6% of mass murderers are male, and most of them are not clinically psychotic. Rather than being a psychopath like most serial killers, mass murderers tend to be paranoid individuals with acute behavioral or social disorders.

Like serial killers, mass murderers also display psychopathic tendencies, such as being cruel, manipulative, and uncompassionate. However, most mass murderers are social misfits or loners who triggered by some uncontrollable event.

“Is he perhaps a loner?” Jayda asked herself, scrolling down the article on her screen.

Serial killers and mass murderers often display the same characteristics of manipulation and lack of empathy. What differentiates the two is the timing and numbers of the murders. Serial killers commit murder over a long period of time, and often in different places, while mass murderers kill within a single location and time-frame.

“Ugh! It’s killing me!” she exclaimed, closing the laptop. Grabbing her pen and notebook on her table, she stood up and looked around.

Even though she was on her pajamas, she went out and decided to just stay in the lobby. Maybe she could feel more tired and fall sleep fast once she take a walk around again.

Walking on the hallway, Jayda saw the signage pasted on the door at the 8th unit she never thought of giving any attention. It was read do not disturb which made her realize something.

“He’s hiding something,” she whispered.

Jayda was aware of saying no to a hotel housekeeper, so putting a signage like that would help—a great help not to get caught by anyone.

Not anxious that she was already holding the doorknob, she snapped back to reality with the thought of she couldn’t sneek inside however she would try.

“What’s with the sudden call?” the man’s voice asked. It was Jayda’s third time to hear him on call with someone.

She took a step closer to hear the conversation and she was caught off guard with what she heard next.

“What?” The voice boomed in shock and anger. “Should I kill her as well?”

Jayda got goosebumps. As she pressed her palm against her mouth, she slowly step backwards away from the door when she noticed that the man’s voice seemed to be coming to her.

She started to panic. Her hands were sweating and her heart was pounding hard.

“She leave me no choice.”

Almost tripped, she still managed to run as fast as she could to the elevator.

Wait. If he’s the one who killed the woman with the red scarf, he could be a serial killer for planning another crime. What the hell? she thought to herself, clutching her chest, other hand was gripping a pen.

Ran as the elevator opened, she went straight to a security standing near the entrance.

“Security! Security!” Jayda yelled as she desperately gasped for air.

Three, four, five securities on night duty almost ran to her to check what was happening.

“What’s with the rush, Ma’am?” one of the security asked.

Hands on both kness, Jayda said, “There’s a killer! A serial killer! He was the murderer. He’s on the floor seven, 8th unit!”

“A serial killer?”

“In this hotel?”

Few staffs and people in the lobby started a commotion after hearing them. As Jayda composed herself, she repeated herself to the guards, hoping that they would believe her.

“Okay. The guy living in the 8th unit at floor seven which is my neighbor is hiding something. I heard him planning to kill someone. He is a serial killer—”

“You’re Jayda, right?” a bulky security interrupted her.

“Yes,” she answered, stuttering then nodded.

“Ma’am Jayda,” he said, emphasizing his words, “it’s you again who reported this kind of serious... stuff which is hard to believe. You’re—”

“Okay, look! Please believe me!” Jayda, who was desperate to unveil the mystery that was happening almost shouted in front of the securities.

But she went silent when the bulky one slowly took a step forward then bent a little over her. Jayda saw how he grinned as he shook his head.

“There’s a serial killer you say?” he asked, almost a sarcastic one. “How could we believe you if you smell like alcohol?”

That slapped her hard. It was just a little amount, but she knew the guards wouldn’t believe her again. As much as she wanted to argue more about it, she just shut her eyes and surrendered.

“With all due respect, Ma’am Jayda, please refrain yourself from spreading false information inside this hotel as it might cause trouble and people might panic. We advise you also to stop drinking as we that alcohol might not be very helpful to you. Goodnight.”

That was the last words she heard from him. They had calmed the people first at the lobby before they went to their stations.

“Okay, Jayda. Get a grip of yourself,” she had mumbled before she noticed the pen on her hand.

Fuck! she shouted inside her head after realizing that her notes wasn’t with her. And as the moment she went up to the 7th floor again to look for it, it was no longer in sight. It was gone.

“That guy...” she whispered as she looked the 8th unit.