Listen, my children, and you shall hear the cries of Paul O’Leare. His last moments were filled with terror and fear…

In the eerie autumn of 1964, Belinda Brenson was average. I mean, average according to everyone at Franklin High. Her soft brown hair and delicate demeanor concealed something different, something sinister.

Belinda had been Paul O’Leare’s “girl” for three years. Belinda found him boring but better than staying at home on a Friday night and curling her hair. Everything changed on that warm late September day. Paul had something to show Belinda. His brand new red Cadillac convertible had finally arrived.

Belinda plastered a smile and thought of every possible way she could get her hands on that car. She could marry Paul; he had asked too many times for her to be “his,” but the thought of being with the fool for more than a second made her nauseous. She could steal it, but she saw him everyday so that was out of the picture. Finally, she came to the conclusion she had to kill him.

One moonless night, Belinda invited Paul for a clandestine rendezvous near the old oak tree. As their lips touched, Belinda’s mouth filled with repulsed vile; she whispered sweet nothings into his ear. Unbeknownst to Paul, Belinda’s soft palms concealed a black widow spider, trained to do her bidding.

With chilling precision, Belinda’s spider struck, its venomous fangs sinking into Paul’s flesh. His life ebbed away as his eyes widened in terror, a gasp forever cemented on his trembling lips.

Poor Paul.

The following days found Belinda playing the role of the grieving girlfriend, her mask of sorrow concealing her murderous glee. Paul’s parents couldn’t bear to look at that beautiful car and gave it to his “distraught” girlfriend. With a bit of pushing and prodding she accepted tearfully. She hungrily fed off the sympathy, all the while nurturing her next murder.

Once a tiger gets a taste for human blood, it can’t stop. It goes on killing until every available human is dead, or until it dies itself. This tigress had no intention of dying. Her next target was Cad Carmichael, Paul’s best friend and top ranked student in her class, just above her. He was the only obstacle in her path to Harvard. So he simply had to die. With a shaking voice and crocodile tears, she invited Cad to “comfort” her at her secluded home, where the spider lurked in the shadows.

The venomous dance played out once more, and Cad, too, met a gruesome end, his lifeless eyes mirroring Paul’s in their final moments.

As the corpses of her victims lay hidden in darkness, Belinda Brenson climbed to the top of her class with unrivaled ease, her path cleared for admission to Harvard. The innocence in her gaze concealed the horrors that lurked beneath.

One fateful evening, a couple weeks later, Belinda stood before a dimly lit mirror, her reflection a haunting echo of her malevolent soul. She smiled with an unsettling satisfaction while she stroked her hissing pet spider; as her reflection grinned back at her, the abyss within her heart widened. In that moment, Belinda Brenson reveled in her dark triumph, her complete and gruesome satisfaction.