by mike Evans
The Stranger said, “You should say nicer things to your lady.”
“What the fuck do you care, you sadistic fuck?”
“Because it was the last thing that you will ever say to her.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything—”
The bat came out of nowhere whistling as it approached, Jon being a baseball fan usually would adore that sound but right now it was the reason that he would not live to see another day. Jon’s head snapped back so hard that he was staring at the ceiling. He didn’t know he’d even hit it until he realized he was looking up from the floor.
He thought of his wife and hundreds of vacations that the two of them had been on as his life flashed before his eyes; that all stopped when the bat struck his face and his nose erupted in a geyser of blood and snot.
When he tried to push back up the whistling came again but this time sounded as if it was coming from a tunnel. The bat connected one more time and sent him back. His face split and the line ran up through to the top of his head. Blood painted his features and Matt left him sitting there bleeding out on the carpet. His wife yelled, “Jon, Jon, baby, are you okay?”
He looked back at Jon on the ground and then back to the wife shaking his head. Matt pulled the pistol, aiming point blank at her skull and said, “You are kind of stupid, aren’t you?”
She tried to say something but Rosa’s pistol barked and a fresh hole appeared in the middle of her forehead. Matt turned around picking up his kill bag and baseball bat, and for good measure he crushed Jon’s skull until brains covered his ankles.
He looked to Rosa’s doorway expecting to see her in agony against the door frame, but she was not, a pool of blood and his machete were on the floor of the entryway. He sighed, sliding the gun into his pocket and the bag over his shoulder. The Stranger whistled the theme for the Andy Griffith show as lights came on in the surrounding homes. Brave souls started coming out of their front doors The Stranger turned around looking at all of them. “Don’t worry… we have all night to get to know each other a little bit better.”
When the neighbors saw his mask, everything lined up in their thought processes the doors slammed echoing down the street. Matt strolled into Rosa’s seeing the blood trail and followed it to their bedroom. He knocked and then took a step back. A shot erupted from the bedroom and a handful of buckshot tore through the door leaving holes big enough for him to peer through.
The gun clicked again but this time it was empty. Matt put his shoulder into the door popping the doorknob loose and came through the doorway like an animal ready to pounce. She held up the shotgun to try and defend herself but he had no fear of an empty gun. She screamed as he lifted her body by one hand as the other dug into the machete wound and spun her in the air, launching her into a wall filled with memories. They shattered, as did her bones when she struck. Rosa pushed up off the ground, the glass cutting into her hands. The Stranger said, “We don’t have all evening, and this is going to take a while.”
She tried to say something but he stuck two fingers knuckle deep inside of the machete wound. Rosa screamed and cold shivers of joy ran through Matt’s body into his soul. She said, “Just kill me. I want to be with my family.”
He pulled out a hunting knife, removing his fingers from her shoulder. “We need to have a little fun first. Hopefully you all don’t look like how I sent you there or you are going to have a pretty fucked up family reunion.”
Rosa looked down at the knife and in one movement Matt deadlifted her off the ground slamming her into the bed. When she pushed to get up, he ran the knife across her neck in one fluid movement. She clasped her hands to her throat, the blood soaked them and the bleeding slowed down. She began to convulse and Matt began to cut the clothes from her skin and then grabbed as best he could to begin the process of cutting every inch of skin from her body.
As her hands became weak and the blood began to flow faster he leaned down and said, “Tell your husband hello and that I always keep my promises.”
He looked at her naked body sitting atop the once clean white linens. He smiled thinking of the fun that he would have over the years if he was not stopped. Police sirens were echoing in the distance as he finished his skinning of Rosa’s corpse. He knew his time there was over. He bent down kissing her forehead and dipping his fingers in her blood so he could trace a smiley face on her forehead.
Chapter 12
Lincoln, Nebraska
Gray got out of the police officer’s car. He took his time moving through the people trying not to disrupt the already insane scene. Everyone that was gawking was in the way and he made damn sure that none of them were Hardin. He knew that there would be little chance for him to get through this, and heaven would be the only place for his mistakes to be forgiven.
Jack pushed through the officers crowding the entrance and into the motel room taking a minute to collect himself. The other officers had been dying to turn the air back on but Jack had screamed to leave the scene as it was. They had insisted and he reminded them that he blew up his last two victims. When they didn’t catch on to his meaning he said simply that there could be a bomb. They had called in their mobile SWAT team to go over the room with a fine toothed comb and found nothing.
Jack walked in pulling his badge off his hip to place it on a chain around his neck. He already knew how much local cops liked it when you stepped on their turf and began telling them what to do. A young detective who Jack figured hadn’t been on the plain clothes side of things for long was mouthing off not realizing who was standing behind him. “Yeah, maybe one of us should go ahead and tell this guy that we don’t need his help. Shit, I just want to let my lunch digest before I go and solve this thing. I mean only an idiot would need to spend this amount of time tracking down a killer. He’s like seven fucking foot tall. How hard can he be to find?”
His friend’s smiles both turned to frowns once they saw Jack, who was no small man himself. The detective choked a little on his laugh turning around and seeing the words FBI and Gray on his identification. Jack leaned against the wall waiting for the man to speak. When he didn’t, Jack said, “So, did you by chance solve the crime yet, or do you need to take a shit first?”
“A shit, sir?”
“Yes, is that part of your digestive tract? I can only imagine a fuck like you is going to need to shit. Hell, I could see you shitting right now...you know…in your pants.”
He smiled uneasily shaking his head, and if he had anything he could think of intelligent enough to say it was not coming to him. “I’m sorry about what you heard. I mean...did you hear anything?”
“You want to know why I haven’t caught him? I’m sure all of you guys are wondering why I haven’t caught him. I mean, shit, I ask myself that every day. Well, let me tell you why. He’s a cop, one of your fellow brothers in blue. He knows what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and before he does what he is going to do he already knows what to do so he can get away with it. You ask why I had to run after this guy for three weeks? I will answer that too. It’s because no one in this fucking town was smart enough when they found the damn truck a week and a half ago to report it. What did you do? You fucking towed it and it’s been sitting in a parking lot at the impound yard for another week and a half. I’d say by the looks of what I can only assume are hookers that it wouldn’t have made much difference to them. But ol’ boy over there sure seems like he could have still been alive if we’d come out. Now there’s a damn note on his chest saying that he's all better now and basically saying, hey, I'm gonna go out and just fuck all the shit up in the world.”
“Uh...uh, I’m sorry?”
“Is that a question or are you just an idiot?”
He opened his mouth to say something else when a rookie yelled, “Hey, we might have something over here, Agent Gray. Could you please come look at this?”
Gray stared at the detective for another minute and said, “You realize I’ve been chasing him for 3 wee
ks while your dumbass has had him in a town not more than a few miles from police headquarters, right? The stupidity of your force is going to get its own special section in the newspaper. Imagine what everyone is going to think when they see that. One bit of work by someone with the footwork and there’s more than one person that would probably still be alive. He’s better and that is a scary fucking thought, Detective.”
Gray walked over and saw the officer shining a light on the plastic bag still attached to Earl’s chest. A small square the size of a credit card was silhouetted by the light. Jack pulled it up feeling it lightly and pulled the pins that were keeping it in his chest from its place. He looked at the back and saw Chuck’s ID with a smiley face in blood on it. He got sick to his stomach thinking what implications this had. He pulled his cellphone punching in the numbers to the bureau and told them to get someone to the house immediately. Fifteen minutes later a number he did not know called him. “This is Gray.”
“Sir, we sent someone to the address in question. We were too late, sir. There’s nothing we can do at this point but call in the coroners.”
“Coroners?”
“Yes sir, this was quite literally a bloodbath. He didn’t just go after the woman at the address you sent us to. He went to her house, the neighbors and at least six others. There are broken in doors and smiley faces drawn in blood, quite frankly, everywhere. They are going to spend a week on this and getting the crime scene worked.”
Gray was cursing with every word he had in his vocabulary. “Why the fuck isn’t this man getting caught, god damn it?”
The detective from earlier who should have left well enough alone, said, “Well, it would seem that it’s because he’s smart and a fellow brother in blue. Isn’t that what you said, Agent Gray?”
Gray didn’t respond with words. He spun with a right hook that would have made Tyson proud aimed directly for the man’s head. He never saw it coming. By the time he figured out what was going on he was already falling to the ground in a heap.
Three men held Gray by each arm and carried him back outside before he could hit the fallen man. When they got him outside they let go holding their hands up. “Just because Rogers is a dick and a moron doesn’t mean he deserves that. You had better be careful or you’re going to get written up. We don’t care if you are Feds or not. You might want to tell him that you are sorry before you have a union rep after your ass.”
Gray smiled a bit devilishly. “I just got off psych leave. It wouldn’t take me much to get that sponged from my record. “
Gray walked down the steps waving for a taxi. “Take me down to the Federal building downtown.”
The cabbie asked, “Are you here for business or pleasure?”
“Just drive the car. My chance to have any pleasure is long gone. There’s nothing left in this place for me.”
The driver dropped him off at the Federal building. Gray walked into the restroom and punched the wall until he could no longer feel his hand. The man left no clues, he left no trail, and there was no rhyme or reason for why he did what it was he did. He called the bureau back requesting a plane be put on permanent standby until the next set of killings began.
Chapter 13
Six months later
Joan’s Roadside Diner
Holly sat out back looking up at the moon. “Earth to Holly. I said, what are you doing this weekend?”
She shook herself out of her daydream. “I’m sorry, Megan, but I feel like this job just might be draining the life from my body. You know how you sit in the parking lot before work?”
“Yeah, we all do…except Mark because he gets dropped off, so he gets to stand outside and wait before his shift.”
“Megan, I love you, but you might be missing the point, honey. I need to do something else. I can’t keep doing this, there has to be something better. There has to be more to life than relying on the gratuity of others. You know there are some nights when it doesn’t matter how much the bill is and you get no tips. There’s something more that we could do, both of us could do more.”
“You ever been hungry, Holly?”
“No, not real hunger.”
“You got a roof over your head at night? You got a husband that loves you, and a car that takes you there, don’t you? Don’t you say no, Holly, because I know that you do. Those walls are paper thin, and you are spoiled. I'm just going to say that. No man, unless he is mine, should go down on a girl as much as yours does.”
“Yes, Holly, I have a roof. Oh my god does he spoil me, you say anything and ruin that, and you are dead. I mean that. I mean…I love you like a sister but don’t tell Rob a damn thing! You need to pass out less often at our house.”
“Do you really think that I would do that to you? I just wish he had a twin, or a brother…a friend that even had an overactive tongue would work for me. I mean—”
“Megan…for god sakes, shut up! I can only talk about vaginas for like twenty seconds. You start hitting minutes and I’m not sure how much I can take. What I mean is, stop talking about jay jays, especially mine.”
“Fine, just remember if you see anyone that he knows that looks like they have a tongue like Gene Simmons, if you know what I mean, just keep Megan in mind. That is the last vagina statement that I’ll make.”
“You’re sure?”
“Not a hundred percent, but I’m going to try, Holly, just for you.”
“That’s all that I can ask.”
Megan took one last draw off her smoke before dropping it on the ground and rubbing it out with her sneaker. Mark yelled from the door, “Hey, orders up here! Come on, shake a leg… let’s move! Don’t make me cook these orders a second time just because you are out back living it up.”
“I kind of hate Mark, Megan. I'm just saying that if something bad happened to that man, I might be a little less than upset about it.”
Megan winked and gave Holly a hug. “I hope that you get out of this funk. It’s almost Christmas, the temps are perfect and this is why we live somewhere without the shitty seasons. Are you sure that you don’t want to go camping this weekend?”
“You are kidding right, Megan? I mean seriously, the psycho is still out there, and you want to go camping. Did you hit your head?”
“I'm just messing with you. There’s no way in hell I'm camping, unless we go to Hawaii. Are you going to call Rob to see what’s going on after work, or are you and the hubs going to keep it solo tonight?”
“Are you kidding me? It is Monday and most of the kids in the neighborhood complex are finishing courses for the semester. There is going to be some sort of insane party, I bet. I don’t think we’ll have any choice but to be social unless he can talk me into staying in for the night. Why? Did you want a ride home, Megan?”
“No, I'm going to see if I can seduce Mark and get him to come to the party.”
“I thought he didn’t have a car and that you didn’t want to date anyone.”
“I don’t but sex shops at night creep me out, and he has a loaner tonight.”
“Right…what does that have to do with anything?”
“My buddy broke and I need a pitch hitter. Mark gets to be that lucky person. I’ll deal with the weirdness of things later. The first priority is me getting laid.”
Holly hopped down off the milk crates she’d been resting on. She gave Megan another hug, “You realize the chances of us meeting would have been slim to none if I’d have majored in accounting and not art appreciation in college.”
“Well that just goes to show you that your luck isn’t so bad after all. I bet once your last ticket closes out that you could get out of here. There’s no reason both of us need to stay until eleven. We aren’t going to get any rushes. Once you close them out I’ll tell Mark that I said it was okay.”
“You think that he will be okay with that? He’s got a bit of a complex since he took over the assistant manager/line cook duties.”
Holly smiled knowing that she should keep it to herself but whisp
ered what she was going to do to him once Holly left and the place was locked up after closing. “You’re going to go to hell, do you know that?”
Megan smiled shaking her hips as she walked in, saying, “Well, we both know that if I do it sure as hell should be because I’ve had all the fun in the world that was possible.”
Holly walked past, shaking her head as she saw Megan leaning over Mark’s shoulder and hanging on him, whispering into his ear. She walked out blinking, letting her eyes adjust when she saw the place had all but cleared out. She looked up at the special edition report playing on the TV and leaned against the countertop. She listened to the news reporter.
“This is Leslie Bryant. I was the first newsperson on scene in Iowa, and from there followed the killer's path for the last six months. The killer is not selective when this monster wants to kill. No one is safe, and there is no escape. A small camping group found this fact out in Missouri. He even went so far as to stage his own death to give the police the slip, as they say in the police business. We have a special guest tonight that is here with his parents. Joey, we are happy that you could make it here from Missouri all the way out to where the magic happens in Hollywood. Now let me ask you, were you really the very first person to show up on scene at the home of Rosa Pendergrast?”
Joey looked to his mother waiting for permission to speak. When she did he said, “Yeah, yeah I was the first one.”
“Can you recreate the day for us and those watching at home, Joey?”
Joey shrugged and said, “Wasn’t too much special about the day, Mrs. Bryant. I rolled papers from three to four in the morning like I usually do. During the summer I can ride my bike wherever I want to go, or before that night I could. I remember it wasn’t even windy on that morning and I was tossing papers.”
“So it was like any other day…and then you went down the street of death!”
