Prodigal Son
Christine Sutton
No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part for any reason without the express permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance or similarity to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2013
Christine Sutton
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by Shaed Studios, 2013
This book is dedicated to my very good friends:
Jaime Johnesee
Author of 'Shifters' and 'Oh, The Horror'
Thank you for always being honest, and for being one of my absolute dearest friends, and a fantastic author!
Leslie Whitaker
An amazing woman and friend. Thank you!
Foreword
by
Jaime Johnesee
As an author who prefers her monsters to be realistic (because, to me, humans are the world's scariest monsters) I do a lot of reading about these types of psychopaths. I am interested in the neuropsychiatry of it all. Why can one person have a background rife with abuse, an above average IQ, and frontal lobe damage and not kill someone yet another with the same background, intelligence, and brain damage can? There is something at work that is neither psychological nor physiological and it turns people into monsters. It's truly one of my favorite subjects to tackle and to read. So when Ms Sutton offered me the chance to read her latest manuscript and told me what it was about, I got excited. As I read, I found myself firmly entrenched in the mind of Shively. I was right there with him from his first (and most important, as it was psychologically shattering) kill to his last.
It is so eerie just how well Christine Sutton captures the thoughts and mind of such monsters and channels them into telling a story so realistic you could almost see it in the pages of a newspaper. I watched as he turned from a cowering boy to a homicidal man in search of answers. As you read this manuscript know that the things Timothy Shively does are very real, the thoughts in his head and the motives behind his crimes could be taken right from the mind of the world's most violent offenders. In short, you could be reading the thoughts of Gary Heidnik, Angelo Buono, or even Jeffrey Dahmer.
The people who move from thinking and fantasizing about killing to actually taking a human life are not generally stupid people, nor are they deficient in any way except self control. Ann Rule was very good friends with Ted Bundy and had even let Ted babysit her daughter, all the while he was slaughtering women. She had no clue that her best friend was such a monster. It changed her life to the point she began to write true crime and has since become one of the foremost authors on the subject. All because she wants to understand why her friend would do the things he did and how he managed to hide it from her for so long. It shows how far reaching the effects of these human monsters are. True crime is a bit easier to write because you have the facts and the killer's own words and reactions in front of you.
In fiction it is difficult to get into and stay in the mindset of a murderer. There are certain things folks like Shively wouldn't do or say. If a sweet old grandma is broken down on the side of the road, a man like Tim Shively isn't going to stop to help her because he doesn't see her as a sweet old woman, he sees her only as a potential victim. There are subtle nuances to writing psychopaths, nuances that Ms Sutton understands and chillingly recreates here for you. Why, if I didn't know her so well I might start to wonder...
Chapter 1
What is it that makes me the way that I am?
I have asked myself this question many times. I have never been able to come up with an acceptable answer, so I just eventually stopped asking.
I don't really want to bore anyone with all of the details of my early life. I will just start from the point where it actually matters. I am not going to go on and on about interpreting my dreams, either. Nobody really cares about that crap, anyway. I'm just going to give the 'matter of facts'.
You may be asking yourself, 'what the hell is this guy even talking about?'. You may also be asking yourself, 'why the hell do I care?'.
I am so glad that you asked! The reason that you should care is that I, Timothy Robert Shively, am a very bad man.
I really should clarify. I do not steal, I rarely ever lie, I love kittens and children, and I have never struck a real woman in anger. I do, however have some unfortunate proclivities. Not unfortunate for me, mind you. However, unfortunate for several people that I have encountered throughout the last few years.
I have been called by many names. Monster. Serial Killer. Deviant. My personal favorite has to be Maniac. I love that one. If they only knew how not maniacal I actually am. I plot and plan, and go over those plans with a fine toothed comb. How else could I do this for such a long time without being caught? One reason. Lessons I learned from my father.
I remember a time around the age of twelve. It was two years before my father decided to turn tail and run away from his family.
He had decided that he was going to take me out fishing and show me how men spent their time. He had brought a cooler full of beer with him, along with a sack full of bologna sandwiches.
The two of us sat on the bank of the lake on that sunny March day eating our sandwiches, without saying much at all. My dad finished his beer and reached back into the red cooler that sat between us. He pulled out two beers and handed one to me before twisting the top off his own.
I twisted with all of my strength to get my cap off, but it wouldn't budge. The sharp edges of the cap cut into my small fingers and I finally gave up, setting the bottle down on the ground. My dad looked at me and sighed.
"Don't you want it?"
"Yeah, but I can't get it open. It's too hard," I said, feeling weak.
"This is a lesson for you, boy. Nothing in life is easy, but you have to work at it until you get it right. No matter how much it might hurt, you keep going until you get it. Just relax and it will happen. If you get yourself all worked up, small things seem impossible. Also, you need to know when to ask for help."
I picked that beer bottle up off of the ground and took a deep breath. When I gripped the top of the bottle and twisted, it still wouldn't budge. I tried calmly a few more times, but nothing. Finally, I turned back to my dad and saw the smile on his face.
"Can you help me?" I said to him.
He took the bottle and handed his half-empty beer to me. He twisted the cap off mine with ease and started drinking it. I stared at him.
"That's not fair," I said, feeling cheated.
"Lesson number two. Life isn't fair. Always remember, when you do ask for help, you lose a little bit to the person that helped you. Nothing is free, son. Not even help."
I took a drink from the bottle, happy in knowing that I had learned something of value from my dad. We finished our beers like men.
As I put the empty bottle down on the ground, I felt the pole that I had anchored in the dirt between my legs, move. I waited to see if I actually had a bite on my line. The pole jerked again and I scooped it up, pulling back to set the hook. I reeled in as fast as I could, excited to see what I had caught. When the trout came up out of the water, I could see it was of fair size. I could hear my dad behind me, cheering me on and instructing me on the finer points of reeling. I was so proud.
I reeled the big fish all the way up and watched as it writhed and swung at the end of my pole. I brought it closer to me and grabbed the line, letting the choking fish hit the ground.
"What do I do now?"
"Well, you have to clean it."
"Wash it off?"
"No," he laughed. "You need to cut it open and take out its guts."
I screwed up my face and looked at him. "Yuck."
"Sometimes, you have to do things that are yucky to get something good in the end."
He snatched the fish up off the ground, holding it by the tail. He walked further up to a large rock and swung the fish's writhing body, smacking its head against the rock. I could see a shimmery spot where the scales had been left behind along with a fair amount of blood and what looked like the trout's eyeball.
He returned and handed me the fish and a small knife.
"Cut it open and take out everything that isn't meat."
I sank the knife into the cold flesh of the trout and it began to writhe again. I stopped cutting and looked to my dad for help.
"Don't stop, boy. Sometimes killing is ugly, but it has to be done. Finish that up and we'll have another beer to celebrate your first catch."
A little less than two years later, my dad was gone. He left without saying a word of goodbye to me. I often remember back to that day on the lake. A great day that I spent with my dad, getting tipsy and catching fish. The thing that I remember most clearly was the feeling I got when that trout finally stopped writhing and died. I liked it.
Four years from that day, I had given up hope of ever seeing my dad again. That is, until one sunny day when I went out to check the mail.
See, it all started with a letter.
Chapter 2
I received the letter when I was sixteen years old. It was addressed to my father. My mother, who had spent most of her days in a drug-induced stupor, only became more agitated and hateful at the mere mention of his name, so I could only have imagined what a letter would have done to her.
I retrieved the mail that day, and amongst the coupons and advertisements, the letter addressed to Theodore Shively jumped out at me like a ray of sunlight reflecting off still water. The white paper with the letters written in bold black ink screamed at me to take it away and hide it from the blurry vision of the hateful, bitter monster that inhabited my mom's skin.
I did just that. After looking around for a minute to make sure that I was as stealthy as I liked to think I was, I tucked the offending letter into the pocket of my thrift store jeans and made my way back into the lair of the worthless whore that had given birth to me.
Every day brought new humiliations at the hands of that bitch. Lucky for me, she had grown physically weaker over the last few years. The beatings had decreased in both intensity and frequency.
“What the fuck are you doin’, you little bastard?” She slurred as I walked into the house and dropped the rest of the mail on the worn kitchen counter.
“Just getting the mail for you, Mama. I know you don’t like to have to put a bra on to go outside. It is only eleven AM, after all," I replied snidely, not sure why I was trying to get her goat that morning.
Without warning, and to my utter surprise, she came out of the kitchen chair in a flash. The glass that undoubtedly contained mostly cheap vodka with a splash of juice for color went flying off the table and crashed to the floor, shattering into several pieces. Her half-smoked cigarette was still clutched between her yellowed, bony fingers as she grabbed hold of my face. Her acrid breath made my eyes water as her rancid spittle sprayed across my cheek.
“You think you’re such a smart guy, dontcha? You think you’re so much better than me? Well, let me tell you somethin’, boy. You ain’t nothin’ but a by-product of some rancid spunk that shot out the end of a worthless fuck’s cock. I shoulda washed you out of me the second I felt him cum.”
I endured her words with little to no feeling about them. This was the same type of thing I had been hearing all my life. Over the past few years, her rants ended with an ineffective slap or a drunk-weak punch. This time was different, though. I could tell that there was something different in her eyes. It was just like old times.
I said silent prayers to a Christ that I didn't really believe in that she had not somehow seen the letter that I had hidden in my pants, causing her to get so angry. My useless prayers came to an abrupt halt as I saw the glowing end of her cigarette making its way towards my eye. I began to panic, squirming to free myself from the iron grip she had on my jaw. The only thing that I managed was to avoid the glowing ember connecting with my eyeball. Instead, it landed squarely on my cheek, close enough to singe my lower eyelashes.
I howled in pain as I felt my skin sizzle and burn, the scent of roasting flesh assaulting my nose. She cackled and laughed as she extinguished the butt with my cheek. My hot salty tears added to the pain, and I finally broke free of her grasp.
My hand found the painful, sticky spot just centimeters below my eye. I recoiled from my own touch, and at that moment, something in my head changed. It was almost like an audible click that echoed through my skull. All of the pain and fear and confusion simply disappeared like the red glow of her cigarette after it was butted out on my face.
Without thought, I pulled my fist back and punched the cackling beast directly in the nose. I felt an almost sexual arousal as her smile was covered with a fresh flow of dark red blood. I had shattered her nose, completely.
As realization spread across her damaged face, her lips curled in a grimace of rage. The thing that at one point had been my mother charged at me with a ferocity I had never before seen. Her crimson stained hands curled into claws and she suddenly lunged towards me. I put out my hands and pushed her back, hard. As her feet slipped on the small puddle of blood that her busted nose had created, she lost balance and slammed into the ground flat on her back. I expected her to scramble up and try to get to me again, but she lay there perfectly still, eyes bulging and mouth working but saying nothing. As my senses came back and the throbbing pain in my cheek returned, I slowly walked over to where my mother now lay. The pools of blood forming at the back of her head lead me to believe that she would not be getting up. She had fallen onto the broken base of her shattered vodka glass. I could see it protruding from the back of her neck, and I did not care.
You would think that the first thing I would do would be to call the police. The first thing that I actually did was to sit down on the floor in a daze. My mind whirled in a million different directions. My catatonia only interrupted by a strange sound; a wheezing, mewling sound that I could not place. Gathering my senses, I looked to the direction of the sound and saw my not entirely dead mother gasping and trying to pull herself up from her position on the kitchen floor.
For a split second, I felt a rush of panic. I had an urge to get up and go to her. I knew that I should help her. That passed and I remained in my position, leaning back against the dirty cupboards.
I sat and watched, her eyes bulging with the effort as she slipped and slid in her own blood. I couldn’t help but laugh at the spectacle of the thing. She looked like a big clammy catfish choking to death on the air, desperately looking for water. I thought back to that sunny day at the lake when I had caught my first fish and how my dad had encouraged me to gut it while it was still alive.
I kept my eye on her, making sure that she was not able to get up, knowing that eventually she was going to die. I relished the thought of the amount of pain she must have been experiencing. That sense of arousal washed over me again, and I felt my cock begin to stiffen. I have to admit, I did feel a small amount of shame, but the pleasure overshadowed it and I began lightly rubbing myself through the thick denim of my jeans.
Her cries and whimpers became less and less frequent, and I was actually afraid that she might die before I was able to finish. I looked directly at her face, right into her wide, frightened eyes as I rubbed faster and faster. Her eyes locked onto mine with an expression of confusion and fear that sent me over the edge. My body shuddered and convulsed as waves of the most intense pleasure I had ever felt before or since washed over me. I ejaculated into the crotch of those jeans as I cried out in a series of inarticulate moans and grunts. As my orgasm subsided, I looked back down at my mother and this time she was in fact, dead.
Chapter 3
/> I continued to sit there for a while, a small wet spot on the front of my pants, and I suddenly remembered the letter. I reached back and pulled the envelope out of the waistband of my jeans. I wasted no time ripping it open, eager to discover the contents.
As I unfolded the piece of paper inside, a small card fell out. I picked it up and read “U-Store It, Braverton, Ohio” On the back of the card three numbers were sloppily written in what appeared to be pencil.
12/22/63
I had no idea what the numbers meant, but I read the letter to see if it might explain.
Theo,
I’m about to get caught up any day now. The pigs have been looking for me and I can’t run too much longer. I got no place to go. I got no fucking idea where you got off to, so I sent this to your ex old lady. Hopefully, she can get it to you. I left everything in unit ten. The card has the combo on the back.
If I get caught, I ain’t going to roll on you, Brother. Be sure of that. I’ll die first. You was there for me. Nobody else but you.
We had us some good times, huh? Them bitches never knew what hit them.
I hope we can meet up, Bro. I hope you are holed up with some sweet piece. Maybe I can join you. Ha ha.
Stay cool, Bro.
Dale
I spent a little more time sitting there on the floor soaking in the contents of that letter. Who in the hell was Dale? What in the hell was the ‘everything’ he mentioned?
Finally I started feeling uncomfortable sitting there, stewing in my own semen, looking at the used up corpse in the corner of the kitchen. I had to get up and get showered. The now cooling gumminess in the crotch of my pants made me feel dirty. I raced upstairs, wanting nothing more than to wash the events of the last thirty minutes from my mind and my body.
Prodigal Son Page 1
