Stalker

by Dave Dykema

  Melissa woke up from the frantic action around her. Dan opened and closed doors, lifted up the trunk and hood, peering into all the crevices.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

  Laura smiled. “You know how boys are with their cars.”

  “He’s probably looking for the license plate. I bet he forgot where he put it.”

  A moment later Dan was attaching said plate. As he worked, Melissa explained how they were trying to hide the car. When he finished the women got out of Laura’s car.

  “It’s ready,” he announced.

  Melissa took Laura’s hands. “We can’t thank you enough for coming up and getting us.”

  “No problem.”

  “It sure is making it easier to get my car back home,” Dan said. “We’ll still have to get Jerry’s here somehow.”

  “We can see him when the weather clears up and help him.”

  Dan hugged her. “That’s why I love you.”

  Laura began to feel out of place with the lovebirds. “I guess I should be heading back. Don’t worry about coming into work for the rest of the week. We’ll live without you.”

  Dan and Mel exchanged shocked glances. “You mean you don’t want to air our story?”

  Laura gave a knowing smile. “I’ll send a crew to your apartment tomorrow, Melissa. That should give you time to talk to lawyers and get your affairs in order. We’ll interview you, but you don’t need to cover the story yourself.” She got in her car and rolled down the window. “Just don’t say too much to the competition!” she yelled, waving as she drove off.

  “She’s a newshound,” Melissa said.

  “Some things never change about this business.”

  *4*

  Melissa wandered through Dan’s apartment wearing his moth-eaten bathrobe tied loosely around her waist. She was naked underneath, fresh from the hot shower she finally took after their exhaustive drive back. Hearing the sound of water against the glass, Melissa realized Dan was in the shower longer than she was, but she understood the need. Never had pounding hot water felt so good against sore, aching muscles. And unlike Lady Macbeth, Melissa felt clean and totally refreshed after stepping out, purged of her agonies and demons. She hoped Dan would feel the same.

  She heard the water shut off and Dan came out, wearing a towel. He curled his arms around her and hugged her from behind. “Hi, beautiful.”

  She smiled and returned his embrace. He felt so good and warm.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “How do you feel about moving in with me?”

  “Oh, Dan, do you mean it?”

  He kissed her. “Of course I do. I love you.”

  She got excited and started roaming his apartment like a robin going through nesting. “Is this big enough for two?”

  “I don’t think I can live here anymore. Too many memories. Who wants to see that corridor outside every time we come home?”

  “Where will we live then?”

  Dan shrugged and had to laugh. “I don’t know. Someplace with two or three bedroom units.”

  “Can we afford something like that?”

  “I think so. Jerry’s old building was nice and had some apartments that size. They’d be affordable. A good place to start looking anyway.”

  She grew serious. “How do you think he’s doing?”

  “If I know him he’s lying on the bed flirting with the nurses.”

  She frowned.

  “He’s going to be all right. You heard what Laura said. We’ll visit him as soon as we have a chance. We’ll probably have to go back to Michigan anyway at some point to testify—unless they extradite Kim and Cambridge here.”

  “I don’t know,” Melissa said. “Both places were a bloody mess because of Stone. Who knows which state gets to clean up after him?”

  “That’s really not our problem,” Dan said, drawing Mel back to him. “Right now we have to think about ourselves.” He ran his hands along her smooth shoulders and arms.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  He loosened the robe from around her waist and let it fall to the ground. Then he undid the knot in his towel and let that fall as well.

  “I think we should say goodbye to this place with a bang,” he said, winking.

  She grinned a devilish smile. “You know, we never have done this in a proper bedroom setting.”

  He took her hand and led her back to his bedroom, and she willingly complied. “We can fix that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Easy as pie.”

  When it was over, she placed her head on his chest, dancing her fingers lightly in his chest hair. She could hear his heartbeat and didn’t want to ever dance without that beat. It was wonderful music to her ears.

  Dan’s eyes drooped shut. He smiled as he smelled the intoxicating scent of her clean hair and felt the weight of her head on his body. It was one of life’s simple pleasures.

  *5*

  Dan got up to use the bathroom. When he was through he strolled the layout of his dark apartment and pondered the events of the past few months. In his solitude he was able to lose himself in his thoughts. So much had changed; so much was still the same.

  The moon shone on his Stalker poster just right, lighting it in an ethereal glow. That was really the start to all of this. His life seemed to have taken off as soon as he saw that movie, taking many unexpected twists.

  As if in a trance he approached the smooth one-sheet. He ran his hand over it, careful not to leave smudges. It took him back to a different state of mind—a fantasy world that he enjoyed.

  Lost in thought, he wandered away from the poster and made his way to his hall closet. There he knelt and started riffling through his box of keepsakes. Jerry’s snow globe would have eventually ended up here, if not for its use in knocking out Bill Cambridge.

  Several hours ago, while Melissa was taking her shower, he ran out to his car and retrieved an object, placing it here. It had been hidden in his spare tire compartment. He was glad he had the forethought to hide it there, especially after the police rummaged through his apartment following the shootings. He now plucked it out of the locked metal box. It was a knife. He handled it like a lover.

  The police had it all wrong. Cameron and his men assumed Reverend Stone and his cult had killed all the Dumpster victims that had cropped up over the summer and fall. In that way Dan was clever, like the Stalker. He got the first seed of the idea after the police interviewed him for Jennifer Cook’s death. He was seen with her in a photo at The Norseman’s Bar. After he was cleared of her murder, he knew he’d be off the hook for the one murder he did perform.

  He still remembered the look of absolute horror in her eyes as he thrust the knife into her. Amy Whittenberg was her name. He’d heard it for the first time at the press conference Cameron held. Until then, she had just been an unfortunate nobody.

  He had gotten bored and frustrated after he followed Janet to Stone’s church. He was bored because nothing was going on and frustrated because he couldn’t tell what she was doing…and he so wanted to know! His frustration became anger, and it needed to vent. His body went on autopilot.

  After buying a knife at a Home Depot, he took to the streets, barely aware of what he was doing, as the guise of the Stalker took control. Row upon row of houses streaked by him, their different colors blending together like a Monet painting. Everything was a blur, except what he was focused on: finding a victim.

  It didn’t take too long. He sometimes wondered if it had taken longer would he still have had the balls to go through with it? A moot point, now. He just felt untouchable at the time, like a cocky college athlete on a full ride.

  Amy Whittenberg stepped out of her car after just getting home. The night air was inviting, so she decided to take a quick walk around the block to burn off her cheeseburger dinner. The sky threatened rain, but she figured she could make it back before it did. Dan clung to the shadows of the trees as he watched her.

  Following her
was easy. She didn’t suspect a thing, even with all the warnings in the news to stay off the streets. For every step she took, Dan closed in two. It was textbook Stalker.

  Soon he was close. He was disappointed when he couldn’t catch a whiff of her perfume in the air. In his fantasies that was always one of the elements: an intoxicating perfume, a sweet naiveté, and luxurious flowing hair…

  He saw opportunity ahead. Two vacant neighboring houses were for sale. The lots were dark, and no one was around to see him act.

  Snapping like a cobra, he reached around, cupping his hand over her mouth. She froze and tensed up, caught totally unaware. He started dragging her body down one of the gravel driveways to the backyard. At the chimney she started to kick.

  One foot wrapped around his legs and they both went down in a tangle. Dan landed on top of her. They tussled over and over, grinding into the stones. Throughout it all Dan kept an iron grip. After much squirming he finally gained the upper hand. He sat on her stomach, maintaining his hand over her mouth while he fumbled for the knife with the other.

  Amy’s eyes darted about, desperately seeking an escape. Dan leaned over, taking them in. He was within inches of her now. A passerby might think they were about to kiss. Even though she couldn’t make a sound, he knew she was scared to death. He drank in the powerful feeling of absolute control. It was like how he felt when he took Cambridge out.

  His hand found the blade and gripped it. It was now or never. In hindsight he always thought there’d be some kind of delay…some kind of warning to stop what he was about to do. Isn’t that what conscience is? An inner voice of reason to speak out about questionable acts? However, the Stalker was stronger. He could block it out. He was powerful, in control.

  He thrust in the knife. Amy gasped, and became still again. Her eyes were confused, lost in utter amazement and horror. Surely this wasn’t happening… Looking for more reaction, Dan stabbed her again. This time Amy’s eyes glared over in anger, hot warrior breath flaring out her nostrils over his clamped hand. Sensing the rage, Dan knew he only had moments before she would become a fighting tiger.

  He cut her again and again, swiftly, maniacally, losing control. In his frenzy, his hand slipped off her mouth, but she didn’t make a sound as blood rained down on her. Her eyes rolled back, her lids flittered, and life escaped her. Dan was amazed how fast it went. She was there; then she was gone.

  After a moment he stood up, surveying the corpse at his feet. He barely had a recollection of doing it, yet he knew he was the one that had slaughtered this girl.

  What am I supposed to do now?

  Alone, in the dark, the Stalker was suddenly quiet. He didn’t know how long he had been standing there, but rain on his face snapped him out of his stupor. It intensified, the drops stinging his face like pellets from a gun. The air simmered and crackled with electricity as the storm clouds moved in. Soon it was pounding rain. Confused and scared, he ran the few blocks back to his car.

  He sat behind the wheel, about to take off, when he realized the girl’s body was still there, in the darkness, waiting to be discovered. His heart pounded like a jackhammer as beads of sweat formed on his brow.

  He had to get the girl into his car, out of sight, and quickly. He got back out, opened the trunk, and looked inside. It wasn’t cluttered with tools or golf clubs—just a spare tire and some blankets. There would be room. He opened the spare compartment and tucked his knife behind the tire. Then he gathered up the blankets, went back to Amy’s body, and wrapped her inside them. Her intestines were spilling out of her body, and he gingerly pushed them back in, careful not to touch anything with his hands. He used the corners of the blankets to do the work.

  The blood was the next problem: what to do about that? He fidgeted with nervous confusion when he realized that maybe the hard rain was solving the problem for him. Pools of blood washed away into the grass, soaking into the soil. Within a few minutes, most of it was gone.

  While he was celebrating, the enormity of what he had just done began to hit him. In the next few seconds he felt more terror than he had in a lifetime of horror movies.

  What have I done? Why did I do it?

  Clumsily he put her body in the trunk and slammed the lid. At this rate, he would be caught within moments. He was acting like a stupid character in one of his horror movies—always going off and doing the wrong thing. Even though he didn’t want to, sick as he now felt, he had to summon the Stalker one more time to guide him through this crisis. A calm washed over him and he was able to disassociate from his body, like a spirit on a vision quest.

  He soon found himself back on the road, looking for a Dumpster to dispose of the body. He had a vague recollection of stealing a license plate from a car before leaving, but the where and how were beyond him.

  As he pulled into McAlester Park he extinguished his lights and rolled through the gravel streets using as little gas as possible. He had the Stalker’s clear mindset, focusing on the problem at hand. As he unloaded the body he had the killer’s smooth efficiency.

  That all stopped as he heard a sudden noise, a man yelling into the park, and the two boys starting to scream. Reality came crashing back like waves against the surf. He panicked, peeled out of there, and never looked back.

  Until now.

  He heard footsteps shuffling down the hall and turned to look. Melissa puttered toward him, tying his robe closed around her.

  “What are you doing up, hon?” she asked.

  Dan found himself without words. She came at him like a spectre out of the dark, catching him doing something she never should have seen. His hands froze, half on the knife and half out in the open. If he acted quickly, he might still be able to shut the box and hide his treasure. Damn her for getting up! If only she’d stayed away; but she kept coming, relentlessly. There would be no time now.

  “It’s cold in there,” she beckoned. “Come back to bed.”

  She was almost upon him, no doubt to rub his shoulders and kiss his ear, summoning him back to a lover’s retreat.

  Dan instinctively gripped the knife until his knuckles turned white. He felt like a cheating husband caught with his pants down, but found the effect of contact with the blade soothing. It took him back to the streets and the dark shadows of the neighborhood.

  He had only a second or two to choose his course of action. As before, there was little debate in his head. Obviously, there was really only one way to act:

  What would the Stalker do?

  This novel is dedicated to those whom encouraged me to finish it. Writing a novel has always been my dream—and without the help of the following people I’m not sure I would have ever completed it:

  Kathleen Phipps and Lynnette Werning

  Two co-workers and friends that read early sample chapters and pushed me to give them more to read.

  Jim Ellis

  Another co-worker who’s written a novel or two of his own. We’d meet for lunch, pass our work back and forth, and critique each other. Without Jim, this book would be a few megabytes heavier. Thanks for the editing help!

  Caris Dykema

  My wife, without whom I know I wouldn’t have finished it. I started handing her chapters when I picked up writing it yet again. I only had about a chapter and a half to go, so each time she finished one and asked for the next she fueled my fire. She gave me kind words and talked about what she thought would happen next. Her excitement for the project pressed me to finally finish it. I want her to know that I love her and appreciate her expressions of support. This is for all of you, but mainly for you, Caris…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dave Dykema grew up in Michigan and now resides in Ohio. He’s the father of three children. He tries to write when he’s not running around putting out little fires at home. Oh, he also works at a TV station.

  His next thriller, Wrong Number, will be coming to the Kindle store in June 2009.

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