by Paul Sating
Contents
Title
Copyright
Subject: Found
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Chasing the Demon Chapter 1
Review
Also By Paul Sating
Links
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Published
RIP
Paul Sating
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any situations or similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2019 Paul Sating
All rights reserved.
No parts of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN-13:
Cover Art By: Kessi Riliniki
The novel you are about to read was adapted from the second season of my Subject: Found audio drama podcast. The book remains true to that storyline, with plenty of new insights along the way. I believe in staying true to that original piece for the fans who enjoyed it and want to read this novel to relive the story. I hope you enjoy!
You can listen to Subject: Found iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
To Mom, your patience, understand, and capacity to love is a model for the rest of us to follow.
1
She was being followed.
The night was thick with humidity. Memphis' streets shone ink-black with wetness, the rain long stopped. Streetlights provided a jaded yellow glow that made spots of pavement look as if they were trying to sparkle, but gave up halfway through the effort.
Empty.
The victim's heels clicked in an idiosyncratic rhythm, a sign of the damage done from the club she should have left hours ago.
She tugged at her too-short purple skirt that kept raising up beyond the danger point of her mid-thigh. Inside the club, she felt confident, normal. Acceptable and sexy. Back in the world of adults and business, being dressed like this made her feel open and unlike a proper member of the Southern community. This was Memphis, Tennessee, and here respectable women did not dress this way. This was big truck country, home of the most audacious outdoorsmen store on the planet; a glass pyramid rising above the cityscape. This was the birthplace of Graceland, of not only Southern hospitality, with a capital S, but also Southern expectations, a place where men were men, and women were taught their roles in subtle and designed ways from before their first words.
One day she would be of Memphis' suffocating conservative culture, her true motivation for spending too much time in clubs, but right now it was the last thing on her mind. The eyes watching her touched her in her most vulnerable places.
***
The person hiding in the alleyway also understood Memphis' culture, and for the briefest moment they wondered if this woman, who's fate was about to change, understood. Stepping outside the place of entertainment on Beale Street would have reminded her that she was a lady, a mother, and cruising the streets of Memphis in search of a taxi in the early morning was unbecoming of all but the dirtiest of women.
In the distance, over by the apartments on Vance Avenue, a dog barked. Its call rose into the early morning as if announcing that even a mangy mutt wanted to draw attention to the fact the woman in purple was a dirty whore. No one answered the animal, only the occasional sound of a car slicing through puddles filled the night, but the victim still hitched her stride and stepped quicker. The heels she wore, tools of a Jezebel, clicked the concrete sidewalk.
Tomorrow, the city of Memphis would wake up to a new world. Tonight, was the overture to the city's violent new beginning. The dirty woman in purple wasn't even First Act quality.
The killer stepped out from the black alley onto Beale Street, the centerpiece of entertainment and irresponsible joy for the city's sinners. They followed Purple Skirt—they knew her name, and Memphis soon would too, but it wasn't important now—down Beale Street toward the Robert R. Church Park, passing the Ida B. Wells historical marker which indicated something significant had once happened in Memphis.
Tonight, another entry would be added to that historical list.
The victim turned down S. 4th St., her pace picking up, enough to give away her fear. This one was smart. Too smart. Too aware. The legacy couldn't fall before it began. The killer grunted quietly, half in satisfaction, the other half parted by frustration and blood lust. Time to control.
The park was near, only a few hundred feet away, and the victim made the fatal mistake of turning toward it. The killer's chest swelled with urgency, accented by excitement. They knew Purple Skirt would stick to her routine; she always did. They had planned on the park serving as the opportunity to strike, and now the moment was almost here.
The victim's steps stretched as much as her too-tight skirt allowed down.
This was perfect. The trap, almost sprung. A few hundred yards deeper into the complete solitude of the park, ensured by the late hour, provided the perfect cover. Emboldened, the killer increased their strides.
The victim clutched her purse to her side. Her heels drummed her panic.
The killer accelerated into a run.
So did the woman, kicking off her slutty heels, still hindered by the tight purple skirt.
The distance shortened.
The sidewalk curved to the left and so did the victim, heading back toward Beale Street. Past the church.
Past the historical marker for the auditorium.
The killer sprinted. Purple Skirt wouldn't get back to Beale Street.
Twenty feet. So close but still too far, and running out of time.
Ten feet.
Even from behind, the killer heard the victim's exhausted panting.
This was fun.
Five feet. Almost there.
Beale Street loomed. Too many street lamps.
Three feet. Almost time.
Two.
The victim cried. "No!"
The killer grinned.
A foot.
"Please!"
And the killer lunged, laying flat as they flew into the victim.
The woman in the purple skirt was soft and smelled of decaying cigarette smoke. They crashed to the concrete sidewalk, the killer cushioned by then victim. There was a crack. A bone. The victim's. She rolled, trying to escape, but the sprint around the park had exhausted her and she didn't have much fight left. The white marble arch announcing the park's name stood sentinel for this life-and-death struggle. It also marked the edge of the park. They were close to the street, too close. The work had to be done fast. The legacy needed to be cemented.
Yanking the eight inch Wusthof stainless steel blade free, the rubb
erized handle gripped in a fist of steel rage. The rubber would ensure it wouldn't slip even after the whore's blood flowed.
Down.
The victim screamed as the stainless steal penetrated her flesh.
Down.
Purple Skirt cried hysterically. This would draw attention. A gloved hand over the victim's mouth muffled her cries.
Down.
The third stab took the fight out of the woman. "Whore!" The killer mocked the death of evil.
Down.
"Hey! Knock that shit off!" A voice, a man's, broke the ecstasy. The killer looked up at a burly figure across the sidewalk and down the street. Thirty yards. Only a few seconds to spare.
"Die, dirty girl!"
Down.
Purple Skirt didn't struggle. She didn't cry out. A shrouded whore, bloodied.
The killer jumped to their feet, taking another look at the witness, cursing their bad luck and unfinished work. They weren't going to get the time they wanted with this first one.
But there will be many more.
The park dominated by two churches of different denominations provided a sanctuary. The killer sprinted between them, through trees and down the sidewalk toward Linden Avenue, remotely aware that the witness was huffing his way to the dead woman in the blackened dress.
Blackened to match her soul.
2
Janis Herring sat at her small kitchen table. It was chipped in numerous places and dented in a few others. The table had its own story. She fingered a deep chip in the laminate while looking at the recorder sitting within reach, just beyond the coffee cup. It stared back. Mocking.
Earlier in the week, she lost the original file and was less than thrilled about having to rerecord everything for her new boss. But if there was ever a boss to screw up under, it was Monica Ravenholt. A sweet southern belle, Monica was about a sharp as a soggy piece of paper.
Janis spun the recorder, thinking how lucky she was to have landed this gig. It was about time she got a break and this was it. The recorder didn't care; it awaited to serve her next audio entry.
Janis sighed and crossed the small room to the coffee table, where she left the remote control for the television. The news was all over the breaking story, even a few Nashville channels cared enough to cover it, and Nashville never cared about Memphis.
"Another body was found today in what authorities say is one of the most gruesome scenes some of them have ever witnessed. Sources told me—"
Janis changed the station. That news anchor was an asshole, he'd proven that over the hundreds—thousands—of hours she'd studied him and his presentation.
A new channel. A new reporter. This one, a strikingly handsome man in his thirties with a chin that hinted at a weekend ruggedness she found addicting, leaned on an elbow, dominating the table. "Memphis is gripped by fear as yet another body was discovered this morning in an isolated—" she clicked the UP button on the remote, cutting him off.
On the next channel two women shouted at each other across a prop table, their coffee cups unstained by tinted gloss. Everything about them and the furniture was fake. Typical Memphis. "It's ridiculous, Jennifer. What's it going to take for the police to actually do something about these murders? I mean, how many people have to die before they can be bothered to get serious?"
"Who knows, Ramone," the host named Jennifer responded. "Let's look; what have they done ... really? All we hear is one excuse after another!"
Gross, Janis thought, and changed the channel once more.
"Mike, what I'm saying is that I don't feel safe letting my daughter out in the streets. Authorities aren't doing a thing about it."
Every single local channel covered the murder. Memphis wasn't immune to murders, it had a lot, but this recent string of murders had the city's attention. This was big. Memphis' horror was her fortune.
Click. "There are consistencies in these murders. When asked, authorities refused to clarify the state of—"
Janis turned the TV off. Seeing more wouldn't change a thing. Everyone was covering it, and rightfully so, and that meant competition. This event was the type that rocked communities, had parents tracking their children's every movement, locking car doors, and buying expensive home security systems for precious peace of mind.
Now, picking up the recorder didn't feel as laborious as moments ago. She held it to her mouth, pacing the cramped kitchen, a behavior that was occurring more frequently and would ultimately wear a path in the cheap linoleum. Outside her open window, birds flirted with each other through song, a nice irony to the mood around the city.
"I'm Janis Herring, a writer by passion, independent journalist by necessity. I live in Memphis, Tennessee and was hired, a little off the record I guess you could say, to investigate a string of ghastly murders. People are in a panic, disturbed by the nature of the killings and the fact no one is saying whether or not they're related. There aren't a lot of answers right now." She paused. What did I say last time? It was so much easier to write when in a flow. Losing it made it nearly impossible to make anything sound genuine again. "When you listen, you learn. When you keep your ear close to the ground, you find the stories, the real stories, a city has to tell. The local media are afraid to run with the real story though. They've got arrangements with authorities and favors they'll need to call on from time to time. Bureaucracy muffles the truth, and no one wants to be the source of panic if the public found out what's really been happening.
Until now.
"I've been hired by a local paper, on the down low, to get the scoop. Why? They get the leading headlines without the culpability since they'll deny association with me. And me? What do I get?" The corner of her mouth turned up in a satisfied smirk. "I get to tell the story of a lifetime. I get to cement my legacy."
Janis set the recorder down, satisfied. The commentary would be dramatic enough for Monica, Janis figured. Maybe endless months of filling her days building a social media following had improved her flair for the dramatic. Time without employment taught her about the importance of being a show person. Janis figured if politicians were entertainers before governors of the people, then why shouldn't everyone be, including her? Not always one to see the positives in life's challenges, at least she recognized her proficiency for telling a story. That confidence played a role in Monica signing off her temporary contract. The door had been opened and she already had a foot inside.
If the paper wanted an entertainer, an entertainer they would get. Memphis had a story to tell, and Janis was determined to be the one to tell it, even if that meant diving into the squeamishness of flair features for an audience who demanded sexy news. Screw all those television reporters. Her smaller platform would allow her to be more responsive. She'd beat all those bastards to the narrative.
3
Somewhere in the cloudy realm of dreams a telephone rang. Janis squeezed her eyes against the blazing sun and pretended a new day hadn't already begun.
The phone won the battle.
She rolled over, throwing her comforter off, suddenly aware of its suffocating effect. "Goddamn," she groaned. The clock read 6:45 AM. Since she'd been blogging and YouTubing for a living over the past year of unemployment, Janis couldn't remember what the world looked like on the other side of 9 AM. With the start of the new job, that changed today. "Jesus," she fumbled for the phone, dropping it to the floor. "Shit! Hello?"
"Oh my God, Janis. Are you watching?" It was Angelique Kelly, one of her dearest friends, one of the few she had left in Memphis' media circles. Outside her own efforts, Angelique was the person responsible for Janis landing the job with the paper.
"Dammit Angelique, it's first thing in the morning!" Janis squinted against the sun, which teased her from the other side of the window. "Whatever it is, can it wait? Please? I'm exhausted. Last night was … I had a lot to do."
Angelique responded immediately with an urgency that bordered on panic. "There's been another one."
Angelique didn't always react
well to life. This wasn't the first time she'd called Janis in a panic about something. She loved this friend, her gay, black sister, but, Angelique's tendency to sensationalize everything in life was a primary annoyance.
Angelique's personality quirk didn't stop Janis from springing up and swinging her feet out over the floor. "Wha-what? Are you sure? Where?"
"They—the news is saying they found her out in T.O. Fuller."
"The state park?"
"Yeah," Angelique's raspy response was immediate. "But they haven't given out much detail yet, but when I got into work, people were mentioning Riverport Road, by Horn Lake."
Janis jumped out of bed, already stripping. The floor was already sticky from the humid air. "Shit, I've got to get going. I need to get over to the paper."
"Okay, honey. Let me know if you hear anything."
Janis grimaced, reminding herself that she did love Angelique like a sister. The incessant need to be informed was irritating on the best of days. "If I can." Janis waited for what she knew was already coming.
"Don't give me that crap, Janis! I'm scared. I can't function with all this shit happening. You know I'm a bag of nerves. Tell you what, I'm going to start carrying again."
"Your gun?"
Angelique gave a firm, mmmmhmmm.
This would be a long conversation unless she did something now. Completely naked, Janis headed toward the shower, turning on the faucet, hoping the sound would give Angelique the not-so-subtle clue that this phone conversation was about to end. "Angelique, I'll tell you what I can, as soon as I can."
There was a pause and Janis fist pumped when her tactic worked. Angelique sighed, "Okay honey, I'm ... sorry. I'm just freaking out."
"I bet a lot of people will be when they wake up to this news," Janis responded. Then the thought came to her. "Who broke it?"
"Channel 13," Angelique answered cautiously. Janis imagined Angelique pulling the phone away from her ear as if she expected her friend to leap through it.
