by C. C. Wall
The stress of everything was making her nauseated. She couldn’t keep anything down. She tried eating a small amount of food earlier in the day and vomited it out in the sink. She thought something strange was happening. All the food in the refrigerator seemed to be spoiled. The smell as soon as she opened the door made her gag.
She entered the living room and immediately sat on the floor staring over at where her parents should be glued to the television. Tears slowly rolled down her cheeks as she looked at the void they left in the room. It wasn’t that they ever did anything to help or give advice or even attention; just the fact they weren’t there was enough to send Bekka into a downward spiral. There was a comfort in knowing that they were there.
It made Bekka feel odd that she felt safer knowing that they were there all those years. Her parents were in fact quite helpless and would not have been any help in an emergency whatsoever. But just knowing they were there gave her a solace that she missed.
The house seemed even quieter that usual. The silence was deafening. It began to hurt her ears. She placed her hands over her ears and fell over onto the floor. She buried her face in the yellow, shag carpet and cried until the carpet was so wet that the shag didn’t stand up high enough to hide her face.
She got on her phone and tried Colt again to no avail and then tried Dakota. Nothing.
She got up and walked down the dark hallway into her room. It was still the way it was the night Jason, or whoever that was, attacked her and Eric. She had moved certain things around, but every time she tried to clean it up, she would break down into tears and fall on the floor or bed screaming. She gave up on cleaning. She thought that as soon as Jen would come back, she would make her clean it up. She figured Jen would feel bad enough to do it and that was one of the only things that made Bekka smile that day.
She got into her bed and pulled the blanket up on top of her. Her bed felt comfortable. Her skin felt nice against the sheets. Her head fell deep into the pillow. A calmness flowed through her body. She smiled. She had completely forced out the fear of her parents being gone and Jen running away.
She felt something graze the tip of her nose. Something like a fly Bekka thought. She opened her eyes.
Floating above Bekka, just inches from her face was Jen. But it didn’t look like Jen looked. She was in a long white gown with tattered edges that flowed in the wind even though the air inside Bekka’s room was still. She floated the length of Bekka, from head to toe.
Bekka gasped silently. She knew it looked like Jen but couldn’t be sure if it was her for some reason. Jen’s face wasn’t one of anger or hate, but it wasn’t happy either. It was cold. Her eyes were dead like a shark. She just stared at Bekka.
Bekka thought that if she closed her eyes, she would go away. So she did that.
Bekka opened her eyes to find that Jen was still there looking at her with that same dead gaze. Her hair flowing in the breeze that wasn’t there.
Bekka screamed.
Jen floated and stared.
39 - Wasting Time
“They’ve been in there for awhile now,” Sue said. “Can I break this up?”
Reagan threw some peanuts in his mouth and chewed them with his mouth open. “Nope. Give it a minute.”
“Are you sure?” Sue said.
“Yep,” Reagan said. “They have had just about enough time to go over their plan. They’re going to try to break you.”
“I can handle it,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he said. “I can go in with you if you want.”
“No,” she said. “I got this.” She took a deep breath staring at the door to the interrogation room. She was wishing that it would open. Any second would be good she thought.
The door opened and Donald Roth motioned that they could come in.
“I told you,” Reagan said. “You sure you don’t want me?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“All right then,” Reagan said. “I’m getting a drink.”
Sue entered the room and shut the door behind her. She placed her files for the case on the table and sat down across from Jonathan and Donald. She placed her hands firmly on the table. “So…”
“You are wasting my time!” Donald snapped at her.
“Excuse me?” Sue said.
“My client has told me that the evidence that you have against him doesn’t actually show him doing anything. Is this true, deputy?”
“We have him entering the crime scene with the victim and then leaving alone. No one else could have been there. The victim never came back out,” she said.
“Do you have evidence that my client actually killed Michael Goodman?” Donald shouted.
“We have the tape,” she said.
“That shows nothing,” Donald said. “You need to release my client and drop these charges immediately.”
Sue smiled. “That’s not gonna happen. His arraignment is on Friday. If the judge thinks we don’t have a case, then that’s that and your little murderer there can walk right out of here and kill whoever he wants. Until then, he stays.”
Donald looked at her with disgust. “I will then need copies of all the evidence that you have against my client as soon as humanly possible.”
Sue sat there locked in Donald’s eyes.
“That means now, deputy,” Donald said.
Sue clinched her jaw and left the two of them alone once more.
Donald gave Jonathan a very stern look, “Are you sure there is nothing that can link you to that crime other than that surveillance tape?”
Jonathan thought for a moment. His eyes bulged out of his head. “Oh bloody hell!”
“What?” Donald said. “What is it?”
“Michael did say he was recording that moment when he was trying to blackmail me. He said he was going to put it online if I didn’t do what he said.” Jonathan swallowed hard. “You don’t think he was actually recording us with a hidden camera or a voice recorder do you? Do you think he meant the store’s surveillance tape?”
Donald rubbed his chin. “So you are saying that there might be other evidence there at the store that the cops missed?”
“Could there be?” Jonathan asked in a panicked tone. “Could there be something there they missed?”
“We are dealing with the Black Star Canyon Sheriff’s Station,” Donald said. “Of course there could be!”
40 - The Chunky Version
It was a good thing that Harry found the stream. He was dying of thirst. He drank so much that his bladder almost exploded. He took a few steps away from the stream and relived himself and then went right back to the stream and continued to drink.
Once Harry got his fill of water, he was back on the trail of the man with the warm, yummy, wet and salty. He trotted through the brush for about an hour before he stumbled upon something. It almost smelled like the warm, yummy, wet and salty but it wasn’t quite the same. He peaked his head through some brush and saw a coyote eating a rabbit.
This made Harry’s tummy growl. The growl startled the coyote who turned and locked eyes with Harry. The coyote growled louder than Harry’s tummy.
Harry knew this wasn’t good. He knew that this large dog-like creature could probably tear him apart just like he tore that rabbit apart.
The coyote moved slowly towards Harry.
Harry whimpered, coward and took a couple steps back.
The coyote snarled and showed Harry it’s massive and sharp teeth.
Harry was horrified.
The coyote wanted to attack Harry to keep Harry away from his dinner but knew the best way to keep Harry from getting any of it was to finish it off himself. The coyote turned back to the rabbit.
Once the coyote turned his back, Harry ran in the opposite direction as fast as his little legs could take him. He ran through the stream, through some brush and down a hill. He figured as long as he was going down a hill and not up a hill he should maintain a quick speed.
Then, Harry heard it. It froze Harr
y in his tracks. He tried not to pant so that he could hear properly. He was right! That sound, it was the same sound as the truck that the man with the warm, yummy, wet and salty had!
Harry hustled through the woods getting closer and closer to the sound. But then the sound of the truck stopped. Harry couldn’t hear it anymore. He stopped and stood up straight and twitched his ears in all directions trying to find a clue for where it could be. Then he heard a woman scream.
Harry ran towards the scream. That was like the dinner bell! When women screamed, that meant he got to drink!
Harry finally came upon the scene. There was the woman on the ground. The man stood above her and lopped off her hand with the shovel. No way was that guy going to take his warm, yummy, wet and salty this time!
Harry ran at the man and jumped at him. His teeth went into the man’s flesh right below his left knee. Harry locked his jaw and shook his head while growling ferociously.
“Not you again!” the man shouted. He swung his arm down at Harry repeatedly until Harry finally let go. The man limped back. “Are you freaking kidding me?” the man yelled.
Harry ran over to the woman’s arm that didn’t have a hand on it anymore and started licking up all the warm, yummy, wet and salty out of the opening.
The woman began to moan. She was coming around. Harry was confused. He wanted to go sniff her face and lick it. He saved her he thought. She would probably be very happy with him and be glad that he was lapping up her opening. With that thought, he didn’t bother checking on her but continued to lick.
The engine started on the truck which startled Harry, but when he looked up, he saw that the truck was driving away.
Harry was very proud of himself now. That jerk wasn’t going to get away with his warm, yummy, wet and salty this time!
Headlights shined on Harry and woman. The engine roared as it got closer. The truck was headed right for them! Harry dove out of the way right in the knick of time. The truck ran over the woman, exploding her head, launching a chunky version of the warm, yummy, wet and salty all over the ground and into a tree. The truck then made a loud crash sound when the front of it decided to hug a much larger tree. The back end of the truck jumped up in the air and came back down to the ground with a loud thud.
These loud noises really frightened Harry. He ran behind the tree that now had all the chunky warm, yummy, wet and salty on it. The man stumbled out of the truck that had smoke coming out of the front of it. He walked over to the woman and lifted her up over his shoulder and hobbled away.
Harry came out to follow him. He noticed a nice stream of the good stuff coming out of the woman and thought for sure that that trail would lead him right to the man and the woman. But for now, Harry just had to try the chunky version of the warm, yummy, wet and salty.
41 - The Ice Cube Mixer
The door to Sue’s apartment swung open.
“You really don’t have to make me dinner,” Lukas said.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Sue said. “I’ll make you dinner and you can drink whatever you want.” As she walked in, her words slightly trailed off as she carefully scanned the apartment, terrified that something might be different than when she was last there.
“In that case,” Lukas said. “Cook away but give me something strong to drink. It has to be able to compete with morphine.” He chuckled and shut the door.
Sue entered the kitchen and start opening and shutting the cupboards realizing she had almost nothing to cook. “What do you want to eat?”
“Whatever you have is fine,” Lukas said.
“I’m sure you don’t want nothing,” she laughed. “I’ll order something. Pizza okay?”
“Actually, Zeppo’s has really good lasagna,” Lukas said. “Have you had it?”
Sue shook her head in the negative. “No. Sounds good though. How about I order it and you find drinks.” She smiled.
Lukas grinned back and then had a strange feeling come over him. He started to feel like this was a date. The ordering of food, making drinks, alone in an apartment at night…
He shook it off. Chaney and him had done the same thing and never ended up making out or getting weird. He was just reading into it way too much he thought. The thought he imagined could be as simple as Sue nearly losing him and now she wants to keep him close…
This also made Lukas feel strange because maybe that meant Sue also thought about how much she cared for him after nearly loosing him…
“What am I looking for again in here?” Lukas asked.
“…Yes. Two orders.” She pulled the phone from her face and gave Lukas a strange look. “Alcohol?”
Lukas turned red but quickly turned around so that she wouldn’t see. He opened a cupboard and found the liquor. Inside the liquor cabinet, he found a near empty bottle of gin, a smidgen of vodka, about a half of a glass worth of tequila and a half of a bottle of rum. There was also an unopened bottle of white wine. “Is wine okay with you?” he asked.
“Sounds perfect,” she said.
“Glass, or…” he said then stopped himself. “I’m sure you want to drink out of glass.”
“What are you having?” she asked.
“I’m just mixing the left overs up,” he said. He poured the rest of the vodka, gin and tequila into the biggest glass he could find. He filled the rest of the glass up with the rum.
Sue looked concerned. “You are going to mix that with something aren’t you?” she said.
Lukas felt obliged. “Umm, yes.” He grabbed an ice cube out of the freezer and dropped it in the glass.
He came around to the couch where Sue was sitting and handed her the glass of wine.
“I can smell that,” she said with a smile.
Lukas took a sip. “Be glad you can’t taste it,” he said. He let out a huge sigh and leaned back on the couch. “Can we not talk about what happened to me please?”
Sue nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.” She took a big gulp of her wine and then sat it down on the table. “I did have an ulterior motive for asking you here tonight.”
Lukas sat up straight. “Before we get to that,” he paused. He felt stupid as soon as it came out of his mouth. “I need to brainstorm with you about this guy that’s chopping off hands.”
Sue picked her glass back up. “All right.”
“Well,” Lukas said. “I was thinking. To go through all the trouble of carving a letter into the hands then sending them to people in the town, there has to be a message in that.”
“That’s what we thought,” she said. “We tried to tie it to where we found the hands. But that didn’t really lead anywhere. I feel like if that is the way we were going about it, we would need the killer to take out like five more girls or something.”
“What about spelling something out?” Lukas asked.
“Chuck jumped on that,” she said. “He’s really good to have around.” She took a swallow. “Reed and Dyer are trying to link that up. Looking up every word that starts with E-S.”
“Have you guys thought about the fact that they may not spell anything out but are the first letters of people?” Lukas asked.
“Well the victims were Kara Church and Ashley Swain,” she said. “So the S is there but no E. We got the E first so that seems a bit unlikely.”
“What if it means Eric and Sue?” Lukas asked.
Sue’s face turned white. “I’m not sure if that is what this means or not. Yes, it is a coincidence, but…”
“But what?” Lukas said. “That is our only lead on this as far as I am concerned unless you can come up with something better.”
Sue sat there for a moment. Her face was pale. Her mouth was dry. Her hands were sweating.
“Are you all right?” Lukas asked. He moved closer to her. “What are you not telling me? Is someone after you and Eric?”
“The reason I brought you over here tonight,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember me talking to you when you were in your coma, but, I was there everyday, most of the day.
I told you things that I have never told anyone else in my life. I confided in you so many things, Lukas. Things that I am not proud of.”
Lukas put his arm around her shoulder.
She continued. “Lukas, there are things that I have done that might actually warrant someone coming after Eric and I. I was hoping that I was wrong. I was hoping that I was crazy. But because I didn’t know, I just kept my mouth shut. I haven’t been back at this apartment since the night you…” she looked up into his eyes. “Since that night. I made the hospital keep Eric there because I feel like he is safer there than with me at the moment.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Do you see that red door behind you?” she asked.
Lukas turned his head. “Yeah, why?”
“That night. The night of the incident at Cook’s,” she said slowly. “I came home and that red door was…” she stared off into nothingness. Her mouth hung open and she rested her finger on her lip.
Lukas shook her. “What? The red door was what?”
“…open,” she said. “It was open Lukas. Do you know what that means?”
Lukas shook his head. “No.”
“That means something bad,” she said. “That means I am in great danger.”
Lukas grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to lock eyes with him. “Sue, what was behind the red door?”
Her eyes turned sad. Tears escaped all on their own. Her frown quivered. “My husband.”
42 - The Mop Bucket
“We are closed and church isn’t until Sunday,” the woman from behind the bar said.
Chaney wasn’t even three steps inside before the snide comments started. “But this place looks so holy! I guess I got confused.” He walked to the bar and flashed his badge. “Detective Chaney. I have some questions that hopefully you can help me with.”
