“No!” Kenneth moved his head, attempting to shake the rat off, but it found its footing.
“Ha ha! I think he likes you Kenneth!”
Chapter Fifteen
Uncle
Someone was coming down the hallway, and I gripped my blade.
“Kenneth? Hey buddy, you here?” asked a man.
His voice was family, but I did not respond.
“I tried calling but the line was busy!" said the male voice.
I'd left the phone off the hook.
I glanced at Kenneth, but he did not smile or smirk.
Moving next to him, I whispered, "If you yell out, I will stuff a rat in your mouth! Okay?"
He nodded.
The door knob turned and the door opened. I gripped my blade, waiting without fear.
The man came into the bedroom, goosebumps rose like little soldiers on my arms. Red overlaid my field of vision. It didn't matter why he was here; I needed to kill him.
It was Uncle.
Uncle hurt Henry. I had something special planned for him. I planned on calling him later when I was ready.
My hands trembled. The image of this man in front of me was almost too much to handle. “You!”
Uncle's eyes were the size of dinner plates when I came down fast. My blade met the skin of his face above his left eye. It sliced skin, gashing deep into facial tissue, cutting from above his left eye across his nose to under his right eye.
Grabbing his face, he squealed like a stuck pig. “AHHHH!” Falling backwards, he held his face, slamming against the wall. Terror spilled out of his eyes.
"Hi, Uncle, if I'd known you were coming I would have saved you a seat.” I pointed behind me. "Kenneth and I are having so much fun!"
Uncle didn't answer. He tried wiping the blood away but was unsuccessful, blood flowed from the gash. There was just too much blood coming out to stop it with his hands.
“You should’ve never touched my brother.”
Holding up a hand, he said, “We love Henry and you very much.”
Anger bubbled inside my head. As I raised my blade again, Uncle grabbed one of Kenneth's boots from the floor and threw it at me.
I blocked it. Tripping, I fell backwards, the blade escaping my grasp when I opened my hand to brace myself. I landed hard something, something biting into my ribs. I reached underneath me, grabbing a hold of it. My shoebox.
“Chloe you are going to pay for that.” Uncle was mad now, did not try to stop the bleeding. He stood up.
I reached inside the shoebox, and pulled out a .380 snub nose revolver. It was Kenneth’s.
Turning around, I aimed the revolver and squeezed the trigger. The bullet missed the monster, hitting the wall to the right of him.
Uncle wasted no time, swiftly running out of the bedroom. I fired the pistol at him, but missed, hitting the wall a foot to the left of the door jam.
I chased him out of the house. I shot again, hitting the side of his car a few times. He jumped into his car, slammed the door, and started the car. As he took off, my last bullet went through his back windshield, creating a white spider web of cracks around a hole.
Uncle sped off, dirt spitting up behind the car.
Mad that I didn’t hit Uncle, I went back inside the house. Entering the bedroom, I said, “I missed him!”
”Give this up. This is over, Chloe!”
"Did you see his face?" I used my hand to motion over my face.
"Yeah, and you don't think that he's going to hospital right now? Or he’s probably calling the cops right now?”
He might be right, sensing the surge of rage coursing through my veins, mad at myself for allowing Uncle to escape, I started back on Kenneth.
Giving him the gift of agony, I managed to pull out a couple of his fingernails. I put the pliers down when I heard the sirens in the distance.
The cops arrived.
Uncle did call the cops after all. What a coward!
I didn’t have much time. It'd be only a matter of seconds before the cops were inside the house. Wondered what to do, I needed to cause the most pain in only a few seconds.
He managed a smirk. “Chloe, time to give this up,” he mumbled. "The cops are here you stupid little bitch!"
“Stop talking you …”
Kenneth yelled over me. ”You should swing that machete at the cops when they bust in here! I hope they shoot and kill you!"
I knew what to do when I grabbed the boxcutter.
He tried to inch away from me, but he was not going anywhere in the next several seconds.
"No, stop …" he cried.
"Open up monster!"
Want to hear about when Shawn releases new books? Then you might want to sign up to his email list.
You can sign up to Shawn’s email list - HERE!
Shawn was born in Baytown, Texas. He has a B.S. in Electrical Technology from the University of Houston. He's worked as a Sales Engineer and Project Manager (Engineer) before happily trading his cubicle existence for a gig as an indie author.
Shawn lives with his wife, Lilly, in Houston, Texas.
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue: Broken
Pete surveyed the crime scene.
He wished he was home hugging his children. There was so much blood.
They found a couple of shoeboxes full of Polaroids of men and children in a hallway closet, on the top shelf. Most of the men were smiling but hardly any of the children were smiling. There were children of all ethnic backgrounds, pictures and pictures of sick memories.
There were only men and children in the Polaroids. Nothing sexually explicit in them, but they were not pictures of innocent memories.
No doubt in his mind, the Parnells or at least Kenneth Parnell was involved with some kind of child sex ring. It made him sick to his stomach.
Pete thought that people who preyed on the weakest members of society deserved to be put to death.
The victims of the blood bath were Kenneth and Miranda Parnell. The ambulance rushed Kenneth to the hospital. He was still alive.
Pete arrived on scene, and inspected Mr. Parnell entire body before the paramedics took him away. He looked bad.
He heard someone walking up from behind him. It was his boss, Davey Bordeaux.
Davey stopped and stood next to the detective, hands deep in his pockets like he was searching for change.
“Well, Pete, this is all kinds of fucked up, don’t you think?” he asked, wincing.
Closed his eyes momentarily, he shrugged. “Shit sir, I needed some air."
Davey nodded.
"Have you ever seen so much blood?”
“No, can't say that I have. Pretty awful in there,” Davey said.
Pete nodded, blinking, taking mental photos. He was always amazed at the amount of blood the human body contained.
“So, I talked to the first on the scene and he tells me that there was a little girl, around eleven or twelve, who done the killing. Is he right?”
“Yeah, there she is over there,” Pete pointed at the patrol car.
Something horrible happened to that little girl. Human nature could be very dark, but little girls were not violent, if at all.
One thing was apparent, this girl was dealing with some serious stress. Pete's instinct told him it was most likely abuse. Either physical or sexual abuse.
Davey glanced at the girl in the back of the squad car and squinted. He then pointed at the house. “How in the hell does a little girl do this level of violence I saw in there?”
Shrugging, Pete raised his eyebrows. "I’ve never heard a girl that young commit murder or rise to this level of violence.”
"Me neither!"
He looked at his boss. “I don’t know if you’d call it murder. My gut's telling me something was going on in that house. Something bad enough to make this little girl have a psychotic break and do what she did.”
At that moment a uniformed officer came running up to them.
Pete recognized him
as the first-on-the-scene officer.
“Sirs, y’all have to come see what I found!” he said, his face had no color.
They walked into the garage. It was clean. You couldn't eat off the floor but it was clean for a garage.
Pete inspected the work-table. There was a whole assortment of hand tools and power tools. Pete spotted a circular saw, one like he had in his own garage.
The uniform pointed to an opening in the floor. “Down here.”
He stared down the stairs, and did not like it at all. “Ah, shit. This can't be good.”
They traveled down narrow stairs to a room under the garage.
He could narrowly breathe due to the horrible stench. A single low watt bulb at the end of a threadbare wire was the only source of light in the small, dank room.
“God fucking damn it!” Davey took out his handkerchief and covered his mouth.
Pete stood, his mouth open a little, his eyes wide. He spotted carcasses of a dozen or so animals and the skeletons of dozens others.
Some things were made clear now. Pete figured the girl was involved down here, against her will. To do what she did to the Parnells in the house, someone had to teach her. And this room appeared to be her classroom.
“So what is this? Some kind of kill room? He a hunter?”
The uniform shrugged. “Well, this appears to be some kind of kill room, but I don’t think he's a hunter sir. I didn’t find any rifles inside, only one revolver and the girl told me where to find it.”
“The guy, Mr. Parnell, going to make it?” Pete asked.
The uniform twisted his mouth. “Not sure. Did I tell you what the girl was doing when I entered the bedroom?” He blinked, stared off to the side, lost in the memory.
"No, you didn't," said Pete. He could see the uniform cop noticeably disturbed by what he witnessed. He walked over to the younger man and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hey it’s okay, part of the job and I promise, all you have to do is breathe. I have seen some very bad things. Hell Davey and I both saw some really bad shit on the job. But we go home and kiss our wives and hug our children.” A small lie. It never got easier.
The uniformed smiled. “Yeah, I know, but it was …”
“Tell us, no problem,“ Pete whispered.
The officer turned to face the detective and the lieutenant. “When I realized that she was using a box cutter I holstered my weapon and subdued her. I got the girl cuffed, she calmed down, and I put her in the back of my patrol car." The officer paused and glanced in the direction of his patrol car. "I asked her why she did it. She said, ‘They piddled Henry.’ I asked her about Henry and she said he’s her little brother. We've tracked Henry down, but not the other Foster girl who lives here. Her name is Annabelle.”
“Son, what was she doing when you entered the bedroom? You said she had a box cutter?” asked Davey, knowing every little detail could be important.
The uniform tilted his head to the right, as if trying to crack his neck. “When I first entered the bedroom, I couldn’t see what she was doing. I informed her I was a police officer but she didn’t stop or turn around. So, I moved in closer and I saw something in her hand …” He held up a finger, the uniform needed a moment.
Pete knew this shit wasn’t easy. “Take your time.”
“With the box cutter in her hand, she was using it, trying to cut his tongue out.”
Davey grimaced. "Damn, a little girl?"
“Yeah, I pulled her off of him, but she slipped away from me. She rushed over to the bed, put what was in her hand down on top of the bed grabbed a small plastic bottle and poured the contents over what looked like a piece of meat,” he said, shaking his head. “It smoked. Turned out to be lye.”
“The piece of meat was his tongue?"
The uniform nodded, obviously a little freaked out.
"What's her name?"
"She told me her name is Chloe," said the officer.
Pete studied the officer’s face, and said, "Thank you officer, we can take it from here."
The uniform stood still for a few moments and when Pete figured he wasn't quite ready to leave them yet, he asked, "What is it?"
"Oh, I uh was just wondering what's going to happen to Chloe?"
"Well, we will hold her until we find a relative or she might be going to juvie if we can’t find a relative," Pete said, giving the young officer a warm smile.
"I meant in the area of talking to somebody. She ain't right in the head, sir. What I saw her doing would make most grown men throw up their lunch."
After talking to Pete for another five minutes, the officer finally left.
"He's right, you know?" Davey asked.
"About what?"
Exhaling, Davey stared at Chloe in the back of the squad car. "That girl ain't right in the head."
The squad car Chloe sat in, drove off. She gazed out of the back window, at him and Davey. She was covered in blood, but none of it was hers per the paramedics. Relief was in her eyes. What makes a little girl do something like this?
"Better get back in there, detective," Davey said.
He turned and faced Davey. A reluctant smirk appeared on his face. "Yeah, time to get to work.”
Pete wanted to do was go home, hug his kids, and forget this ugliness.
True Monsters: Thriller and Suspense Novella (Ungoverned Series) Page 5
