If you were to find a serial killer in your house now, say, a strangler, or a ripper, you would not be terrified. I am thinking that this is what gets most victims in trouble. In the news, and in the movies, serial killers are these bizarre people who wear masks and display their intentions in their mean expressions (Director: “Look menacing! No, that’s not good enough. More menace! Menace harder!”). In real life, serial killers are just guys. 5‘9“, balding, beer-gutted, guys who have the same faces on that they wear at work. These are the faces that you see on the road, the guy across the counter at the coffee-shop, the guy delivering mail. Not monsters, not even more baleful or vicious-looking than anyone else.
You see this guy standing across from you in your living room and you think, there is nothing dangerous here. This isn’t Leatherface. You think you can take him. The problem is that he needs to kill you, and he has done it before. How many times have you defended your life against a compulsive homicidal maniac? One of you has experience. You don’t really believe that he is going to kill you, either. It’s all too strange, with this guy here. You don’t think death, not at the hands of this shifty-looking dork. He is thinking death, though. He means business.
You wind up with the knife in you and your head on the mantelpiece before you even realize what is happening to you.
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