by Willow Rose
It had been a few tough years since we moved to Florida from Ohio two years ago. I wasn't used to hard times. I had always been a straight A-student. I had always been outgoing and easily made friends. But since the move, I had found myself a little off balance; it had been harder than I expected. My grades had slid slightly during my first year here, and no one seemed to want to be my friend. But over the past few months, things had been shaping up. I had made a few good friends, and my grades were back to where they used to be. It was just like my father had always told me: All good things come to those who wait. And then he would add: and work hard. You have to work hard to get anything in this life.
Life hadn't been easy for my parents. Both came from poor backgrounds. But my father had worked his way up in the world. He had worked hard all his life to provide for my two younger siblings and me. Still, I had always known that they would never be able to afford for me to go to college. It was simply not doable.
Until this very day. Until the counselor had called me out in the hallway and asked me to come into his office. A future leader, he called me when handing me the letter. As I walked home from school, I remember I still had that tickling sensation in the pit of my stomach just thinking about it.
Mom is going to be so proud. No one has ever gone to college in our family before me.
I hugged the letter and couldn't stop smiling when a girl from my street rode up behind me on her bike.
“Hi, Steve.”
I turned briefly but continued to walk. The girl walked up next to me, pushing her bike.
“Hi, Juanita,” I said.
“What you got there?” she asked and looked at the envelope containing my letter.
“Just a letter for my parents,” I said.
I didn't want to tell anyone yet, especially not Juanita, whose parents would never be able to afford college for her either. I didn't want to rub it in her face. She lived across the street from us with her five siblings, and we both knew that once we graduated this summer, she was going to help out at her dad's restaurant and she would probably end up doing that until she married and had children. It was expected of her. Even though she was a genius at math. There was no way her dad would ever let her pursue anything else.
“So, what did you get on your biology paper?” she asked, probably just trying to make conversation. I knew she liked me, but I had no time for girlfriends. Especially not now. I can't afford the distraction.
“Let me guess. An A…as usual?” she said.
I answered with a smile while still hugging the envelope. Juanita chuckled, and we stopped as we reached the entrance to my driveway.
Juanita smiled too and was about to say something when she paused.
“Say…isn't that your dog?”
February 1974
I stared at the dog in the neighbor's yard. It was lifting its leg against their daughter's bike and relieving itself.
“Dylan!” I yelled.
The Doberman lifted his head and looked in my direction but didn't come to me even though I called. Who had let him out? I wondered. We never let Dylan out of the house alone. Not since he bit the Freidman's eight-year-old son from down the street. That was the third time the dog had bitten someone and, after that, my dad had told us not to let the dog out on its own again.
“He must have escaped somehow,” I mumbled.
I put my backpack down and put the envelope inside of it, to make sure nothing happened to it. Then I walked toward the dog in the neighbor's yard, hoping and praying they weren't home yet.
Juanita put down her bike, and we approached the dog together. Dylan started growling as he saw us come closer.
“Dylan,” I said, harshly. I needed to show it who was boss, my dad always said. “Come here!”
But the dog didn't budge. It walked across the grass and then squatted and relieved itself again, this time in a more solid manner.
“Eeeww,” Juanita said, while I sighed, annoyed. I knew that I would have to pick it up before the neighbors came home. The neighbors hated our dog and always complained that it barked at night.
“Come here, Dylan; you're coming home with me now,” I said and walked closer to the dog. I grabbed it by its collar and pulled it off the Hansons’ lawn. Juanita came up to me, and Dylan let out a low growl when he saw her. I pulled the collar again to make it stop, but that just made the dog snap at her and Juanita pulled back with a light gasp.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “This dog is impossible. He doesn’t like strangers.”
“It's okay,” Juanita said and backed up a few steps further. “I just wanted to help.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve got him now. I'll take him home. He's lucky my dad won't be home till later or else he would face a bad beating. He knows he's not allowed outside on his own.”
Juanita nodded. “Okay. Guess I'll see you tomorrow then?”
I forced a smile. “Sure.”
I watched Juanita grab her bike, then send me a soft smile before taking off toward her own house. As I watched her ride off, I wondered if things had been different if I would be able to like her back. She was ever so cute, and I really liked her eyes.
In another place in time.
“Come on, Dylan. Let's get you back inside the house before anyone complains. How did you escape anyway, huh? Maybe we should rename you the Great Houdini? Would you like th…?”
I suddenly stopped talking. As I looked at my house, I realized the dog escaping wasn't the only thing odd on this crisp afternoon.
The garage door was left open, and my mom's car was gone. To most people, that wouldn't be alarming, but to me it most certainly was. My mother was always home to greet my siblings and me when we came home from school.
Always.
February 1974
The first thing I noticed when stepping into the kitchen was a half-made peanut butter sandwich sitting on the counter next to an empty lunch box with my younger sister's name on the side.
Baffled, I let go of Dylan and walked to the counter. The bread had gone hard on the edges, and the peanut butter that was only half spread on one side had dried up and sat in lumps. The knife was on the counter, still smeared in the brown substance that my sister loved so much, but I never took a liking to. It all gets a little blurry from there on, but I remember that I stared at the knife, dumbfounded, not sure what to believe. My heart rate was going up rapidly. My mom had clearly been making lunches for my siblings, but why hadn't she finished? Had something happened?
“Mom?” I called out. I could hear my voice quivering as the sound was returned to me as an echo.
“Mom?” I tried again, slightly shrill and anxiously.
But there was no answer. Why was there no answer? My mom always answered when I called. You have to understand. She was always there.
Always.
“MO-OM!”
I felt how my legs went soft and wobbly beneath me as fear set in. Desperately, I walked to the stairs, called my mother's name, then my siblings' one by one, and then my father's, even though I knew there was no way he was home already.
But the thing was, his car had been in the garage, not my mother's.
I wondered. Was something wrong with my dad's car? Had he maybe taken her car instead? Could it be as simple as that?
“Dad?” I almost screamed.
And that was when I saw the blood. There was blood on the floor and up the stairs. I stared at it, my hands beginning to shake, while the dog took off. It sprinted up the stairs like someone had told it to go find a treat up there somewhere.
I followed. I walked up the steps, my legs heavy and my hands trembling. As I reached the top of the stairs, I heard my dog whimpering, half growling. I then rushed into my parents’ bedroom. In there, I first spotted Dylan on the bed; then I saw what the dog had in his mouth. He was pulling at it. The sight made me want to scream.
It was my mother's arm.
“DYLAN!” I yelled, then rushed to get the dog away from my moth
er, who was lying on the mattress. The dog let go, then backed up while I walked closer to better see what was wrong with my mother.
I stared at the face behind the plastic bag, and the first thing I noticed was that it wasn't moving. The bag remained completely still, as were my mother's eyes.
I turned my head and spotted my father's body on the carpet behind the bed. It was lying there just as still as my mother's, a belt wrapped around his throat, his face bloated and grotesquely swollen. Both of them had been bound with thin cords at the wrists and ankles.
I wanted to move. I wanted to do something, to pull the darn bag off my mother's head, but I couldn't. I was frozen in place. It was like I was trapped in a nightmare, but no matter how hard I tried to wake up, it didn't happen. I wanted to scream, to yell at my mother to get up, to take the bag off and stop playing games, that it wasn't funny, it was some cruel, cruel joke. I wanted to call to my dad to rise to his feet and stand up straight. But no sound left my lips. No part of my body would obey. Fear had me fixed to the ground. I couldn't move.
Not until I heard a noise. It was coming from my brother's bedroom next door. I stopped breathing as I realized that someone was in the house.
February 1974
My pulse was like a heavy drum in my ears, drowning out everything else. I stormed out of the bedroom and slipped as I headed for the stairs. The perpetrator was coming up behind me. I grabbed the railing and rushed down the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Behind me, I could hear the perpetrator. I could hear the breathing, and I was certain I could even hear laughter.
Get to the door, Steve, I remember thinking. Just get out into the street and scream for help. Juanita might still be out there, or someone else.
The perpetrator behind me was closing in. I raced down the stairs, hearing the heavy breathing behind me as the person closed the gap, reached out a hand, and grabbed me by the hoodie. I was forcefully jerked backward, and the air was pushed out of my throat. I landed with my back against the steps and heard the sound of something cracking, followed by pain. As I lay there screaming, I opened my eyes and looked into those of the person holding me down. The face was covered with a doll's mask, picturing a woman with rosy red lips, light pink skin, and black painted eyebrows. The mask had deep holes where the eyes peeked out. Big steel grey eyes.
Like those of a wolf.
I screamed again as a fist was raised and slammed down on my face, each punch followed by a deep laugh.
“HEEELP!”
More punches fell, and soon I tasted blood in my mouth and my vision became blurred. I felt dizzy and could barely stay conscious. The blows stopped, and I felt myself being dragged up the stairs, the back of my head bumping onto each step, causing the pain in my back to flare up, but having no strength to scream or even moan anymore. The bumping continued till it suddenly stopped and everything went quiet for a little while. The next thing I heard was the sound of something coming closer and, as I opened my eyes again and watched through patches of blood, I realized I was now looking out through a plastic bag.
Oh, dear God, no!
I tried to move, to fight the man off as he closed the bag using a cord around my throat. The bag moved back and forth against my skin as I fought to breathe. The inside of it soon turned foggy while I felt the perpetrator fumbling behind me, trying to tie up my arms. It was through that fog that I spotted another set of eyes staring back at me. The very familiar brown eyes of my dog.
Dylan!
I had no air to scream at the dog, and there was no need for it. The black Doberman exposed his teeth, let out a loud snarl, then went directly for the perpetrator's thigh. I could hear as the teeth went through the jeans and sunk into the skin and I could have sworn I even heard the bone crushing as the dog bit down. The perpetrator let out a loud roar and turned to hit the dog, but Dylan didn't move an inch. While I reached up my hands to pull off the plastic bag and dash for the stairs, Dylan held onto the thigh with all the strength he had in him, and as I raced for the door, reaching out for the door handle, I knew I would be forever indebted to the darn dog.
Behind me, I heard the dog whimper loudly, and then followed the sound of fast moving steps on the stairs. Realizing the perpetrator had somehow fought off Dylan, I was spurred into motion. I sprang into the driveway, gravel skidding beneath my feet. Screaming for help, I ran into the street, tripped on a lawn sprinkler and landed in the grass, face first, having the air knocked out of me. Behind me, the door was yanked open. I scrambled to my feet and turned my head with a gasp. My eyes searched frantically behind me and met the steel grey ones behind the mask before I ran into the street, screaming for help. The sound of feet behind me on the asphalt made me run even faster down the street till I reached the river and plunged into the brown water. Luckily, I am an excellent swimmer, and I stayed under the murky water for as long as I could without breathing, then swam for the dock at the Williams’ house. I swam underneath it, grabbed onto the wood, and stayed like that for hours, continually staring at the water behind me, wondering if the perpetrator had taken up the chase and plunged into the water as well. I was just waiting for that doll mask to appear out of the murky water.
It was dark before I dared to climb up onto the dock and run into the Williams’ backyard and knock on their sliding doors. The rest of the story, you know."
Steve stopped talking and exhaled deeply, feeling how his mouth had grown dry. He wiped a couple of tears from his cheeks and held onto the table to stop his hands from shaking.
The man in front of Steve nodded. He wrote a few words on his pad, then looked up at him. Steve took a sip of water and swallowed. The man took off his glasses and put them on the table in front of him. He grabbed the recorder on the table and turned it off.
"Thank you, Steve. I think I have what I need."
Steve sighed. Telling his story always drained him. It didn't matter if it was the police, a psychologist, or journalists who asked him to. It was so painful to go back there again and again.
"So, when will it be in the paper?" he asked.
"Tomorrow. It's our front-cover story."
Steve nodded, tired. He was about to start crying again but held it back. He was getting quite good at that. He couldn't allow himself to get carried away. Crying wouldn't get him anywhere.
"Good," he said with a sniffle. "I just want the world to know what this bastard has done and warn anyone else to be careful."
"I know you do. And we appreciate it greatly. You are very brave to come forward like this and I know it hurts terribly to tell your story, but you did a great job."
Steve exhaled. "Maybe this way the monster will get caught and people can get back to sleeping peacefully again. That's all I can pray for. I just want justice for my family. I want this sick killer to get caught."
The journalist rose to his feet and gathered his things. He reached out his hand and shook Steve's.
"That's what I pray for too."
Part I
Chapter 1
August 2018
It was a busy street, yet no one saw the young boy as he leaped into it. Maybe it was because they didn't expect a young boy to run into A1A like that during rush-hour, without looking for cars. Or perhaps they were just too busy to notice, going to their jobs or other destinations only the drivers themselves knew.
A woman did see him, though. Old Mrs. McMullen was standing on the other side of the four-lane road, where the car rushed past at forty-five miles an hour, while most of them were going fifty-five. She was out walking her dog, her four-month-old Standard Schnauzer, Fluffy, that her son-in-law had gotten for her, picked up at some breeder half an hour from where she lived in her beachside community. Fluffy didn't see anything and, at first, old Mrs. McMullen believed she had to be mistaken, that she was imagining things, maybe seeing things that weren't even there. It wasn't the first time, you know. She was suffering from worsening Alzheimer's that made her forget and sometimes even see things that weren't really there. At lea
st, that's what her children told her.
Mrs. McMullen blinked a few times, but the boy was still there in the middle of the road, zigzagging between the cars, not looking where he was going.
Old Mrs. McMullen shouted. A loud piercing cry, but it was completely drowned out by the roars coming from the cars.
The boy ran between the cars like he was confused where to go, but also like he didn't even realize where he was, and they missed him by a hair, much to the old woman's relief.
But then he stopped.
The boy stood in the middle of the road and, right before the car hit him, he turned his face toward Mrs. McMullen like had he finally heard her screams, and their eyes met.
It was a moment she was certain not even the Alzheimer's would be able to erase from her mind.
Chapter 2
August 2018
The Weasel walked through the police tape when Sergeant Mike Wagner approached her. The house in front of her was a typical old Cocoa Beach beach-house. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths. Small kitchen, small backyard with a shed—probably used for surfboards—and a hammock between the palm trees.
"So, what are we looking at?" she asked. They had briefed her on the phone, but she needed to hear it one more time. With more details.
"Double homicide. A woman in her mid-thirties and her daughter, eleven years old."
"And they're related to the boy?" she asked and walked to the front door, putting on gloves that Mike handed her. The forensics team hadn't arrived yet, and she had to be very careful not to contaminate the scene.
"Yes. They’re his mom and sister," Mike said.
Weasel walked into the living room where the body of the mother lay on the floor. Her eyes were wide open on the severed head that lay inches from the body. Her hands and feet were tied with cords. The Weasel drew in a deep breath, then nodded.
They had received the call this morning about a fifteen-year-old boy, Parker Reynolds, who had run into A1A in the middle of rush hour traffic and then gotten himself hit by a car. He was then slung through the air and hit by another car before they finally managed to stop. The scene had been a mess, but the boy was still alive. Barely, though. He was now in the hospital in Cape Canaveral, where they were fighting for his life. As soon as they had identified the boy, her officers had set out to notify the family, but as they arrived, they had found the mother and sister dead.
