by mike Evans
The Stranger slowly shook his head no. “I don’t think Megan is going to be going anywhere. Well…she might be going to the morgue, but I haven’t decided if I want to leave my artwork the way it is or if I’m going to burn this place to the ground.” He set his machete down, always up for a challenge.
Mark brought his free hand out with a meat cleaver in it. Matt nodded, “Those are nice. Great for chopping bones.”
Mark threw him momentarily off guard because instead of rushing him with the cleaver he brought it back behind his head and hurled it as quickly as he could. When Matt ducked out of the way, Mark ran for the back door. He fought to pry it open but it would not budge.
The Stranger stood back up and saw a crowbar hanging on the side of the deep fat fryer that looked like it was for prying open the grease pit below. He lifted it liking the weight and said, “Keep your crowbar handy.”
Mark tilted his head, the sweat beading on his forehead. Matt said, “I like zombies.”
Mark tried to say something and The Stranger covered the distance in only a second. Mark watched in awe as he felt the crowbar hit him unprepared for the blow. The weight of it did nothing to slow Matt down. His power and size was decimating. He lunged and hooked him through the shoulder with the crowbar. Mark didn’t think that he could take any more pain and The Stranger was absolutely nowhere near being done dishing it out. He brought Mark forward even as he was trying to pull the crowbar from his own shoulder. He was in survival mode and planned on doing anything he could to make that happen.
The Stranger pulled him in quickly throwing him off balance. When Mark was within reaching distance, there was already a punch coming straight for his throat. He could feel his windpipe collapse under the pressure and he tried to drop to one knee. Matt kept him coming forward and lifted him by the shirt with the crowbar up to his eye then dropped him down onto the grill. His face began to fry in the burned vomit and blood. The only thing Mark could think of was how he was being cooked on his own grill and how the cock that he’d slipped into his dream girl was now four foot away from him and floating to the top of his deep fat fryer. His face began to grow cold and he knew that meant it was beyond burnt and that there wasn’t going to be any salvation from this.
The Stranger pulled him off the grill and he could feel the side of his face peel off. He tried to stay on his feet and when he fell The Stranger held him up off the ground momentarily. Mark brought his leg up kicking him in the groin making Matt drop him to the ground where he lay for a moment trying to figure out what he was going to do so he could get away.
When Mark tried getting up Matt pulled the crowbar from its place. He said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” Matt wiped the crowbar clean drawing his smiley on the oven hood. When Mark tried crawling away the air whistled as the fifteen-pound crowbar cut through the air. It hit the back of his skull sending shooting pains down the back of his skull and into his pelvic bone. He wavered in place and The Stranger brought it down a second, third, and fourth time until the crack echoed through the restaurant.
Mark could only hear footsteps. He had no faith that there would be anyone left that would save him. He heard metal being tossed to the floor and through blurry and blood soaked eyes he saw they were his fry baskets. He tried moving his arms but the signal from his brain went nowhere. Pain exploded through his spine and the back of his head as he was lifted up from the ground, his pulse exploding like gunshots through his head. He saw his legs were useless and was confident he’d been crippled. The Stranger lowered him into the grease and the skin that was still left intact instantly began to burn and then melt. Mark’s screams went unheard. He lay there limp, boiling and frying in the three hundred degree grease as he fried to death.
Matt looked around and heard a ringing coming from somewhere that wasn’t the restaurant’s house phone. He walked to the lobby and found a purse and pulled out the ID first. Seeing the name Holly Kivett, 555 Rangewood Drive, Los Angeles, California, he smiled thinking of the waitress and the fact that she appreciated his work. He knew that desensitization was common and he in no way had his fill of the kill for the evening. He pulled her ID from its case and slid it into his shirt pocket. The phone quit ringing and he picked it up. He flipped the phone open and saw a message from Hubs, “Hey, when are you going to be home? Make sure you get wine and food for my belly. Love you, Rob.”
Matt hit reply creating the message, “Be there soon.”
He walked to the back when he saw the lights pour across the parking lot. He stepped into the shadows created by the broken ceiling lights. The Stranger watched a police cruiser making its way through the lot. It pulled to a stop in front of the building and the light attached to the driver’s door blinded him, caught him standing there staring. When the officer saw the large bloody smiley face she stopped moving the light for a moment. Matt stepped out into the light motioning with his hand to come in. He unlocked the door and pulled it open, then headed out of sight.
**
The two officers sat in the car staring at each other. The rookie asked, “What do you want to do, Hagardt? You think it’s really him?”
“I have no clue, Speight. How the fuck would I know? We need to call this in though. Get on the radio, do it now! He might be trying to go out the back. I’ve been in here a hundred times; it’s as old as dirt. They have a front and a back and maybe a roof. Unless he has a helicopter, he ain’t going to be using that for much.”
Speight laughed, nodded and still did not pick the radio up. Bethany stared at him shaking her head until she got her point across. Speight picked up the radio. “This is car 562, we have a potential for multiple 187’s and a—”
Bethany ripped the radio from the rookie shaking her head in disgust. “You realize you are fucking useless, right? This is Sergeant Hagardt, we have a visual or had a visual on a suspect. We think it’s the killer from Missouri and Colorado. We need backup, and we need it now!”
A voice came back. “Please hold, Sergeant. We are under orders to transfer all calls to FBI Agent Jack Gray.”
“Well you need to hurry,” Hagardt yelled. “We aren’t sure but it could be someone messing around.”
“This is Agent Gray, I don’t want you to do anything wrong here. You stay in your car. I repeat… do not get out of your car! The two of you aren’t enough to take him down, we have units on the way. I will be there with a small army so just wait. If you see him leave, follow him!”
Hagardt said, “Sir, there’s two of us and we—”
“Please tell me you’re a rookie. There were dozens in Iowa, Missouri, and Colorado and they are dead. Every fucking last one of them. Do you understand me?”
“Yes sir, I do. What would you like me to do if the subject leaves the vicinity?”
“You shoot first and ask questions later. If you think you hit him, then do it again until you’ve emptied a second magazine! Make no mistake do not try to take this man on hand-to-hand.”
Speight was staring at the open door to the diner. She knew if she ever wanted to make detective that something like catching a national fugitive would be what would push her in that direction. She pleaded, “Hagardt, I know I’m new, but this would make us gods down at the precinct!”
Hagardt shook her head no immediately, “Look, kid, you don’t know your asshole from a hole in the ground at this point. You go after a sick fuck like that all you are going to find is yourself getting a one on one meeting with God. You need to listen to the agent. He’s been chasing after this weirdo for months on end. I got a feeling everyone in that place is dead right now and in some way that is going to stick with us for the rest of our lives. Now you unbuckle that seatbelt and I’m going to wring your fucking neck, kid.”
“Is this what a good training officer is supposed to do when there could be a valuable time to learn something?”
“Yeah, it’s my job to keep you alive, and alert and teach you how not to get killed. If you got a problem with any of those things then kis
s my ass, and file yourself a complaint later.”
“Tell you what, you can file a complaint later that I disobeyed orders right after I get my award for catching the sick fuck.”
Hagardt reached to hit the lock on the cruiser door but she already had the door open and was sliding out and away from Hagardt’s reach. Speight said, “Come on, Hagardt, don’t you want to live a little?”
She whispered to herself thinking of the number of days until she had her twenty years in that, no, no, she didn’t want to live a little. She wanted to retire with a bottle of wine and a good scary book, not chase after the sadistic fucks that she read about in her free time. She watched Speight pulling her Maglite and pistol at the same time. She walked with it aiming the light where her pistol was pointing. She yelled, “You might want to drive around back. I don’t see him.”
Hagardt, who had already started getting out of her car, slammed the door and punched the gas doing exactly as told. She could already feel the nerves and the ass chewing coming their way. She pulled out thirty foot from the door running the light around the perimeter knowing the giant of a man could move quick, but when she saw the barred door in the rear she knew that he wasn’t going to be coming out and that she wasn’t going to be getting in. She hit her shoulder radio, “Speight, you do not go in that building, do you hear me? The back is blocked and no one is getting in or out of that place.”
Speight heard the speaking and turned her radio down. Gray snapped over the radio, screaming. “What fucking part of don’t go in there did you not understand? Now, you two stay alive. If you can get her back out of there before she makes it in any further then you need to do so!”
Hagardt was already driving around to the front again, and did not see Speight anywhere. “She’s in. I don’t know where she is.”
Gray was driving his Tahoe as fast as he could and slamming his fist into the dashboard as hard as he could. The officer riding shotgun asked, “Sir, don’t you want to take it easy on that? I think if you hit it too hard you could deploy the airbags, hence sending us into a horrible crash.”
“I think that you would prefer that I punch the steering wheel instead of anything else in the truck.”
The detective held up his hands. “They said you were hot headed, but damn, man.”
“Sandlin, is it?”
He nodded his head slowly, “You know what makes me different than the rest of the people out there? Let me tell you. I’m alive, every other fucker he’s come across hasn’t been left alive to tell about it. The deaths from this man reach far across the United States. He held up with a few hookers in Nebraska after he had his way with a hospital. He terrorized a small group of people at the campsite, which was the best thing he ever did for us.”
“Sir?”
“He got his blood on everything because he’d been shot. The officers took samples of everything and we matched it to his DNA sample on file with the offices that he’d been in and from there we were able to match it to him. The fact that Matt Hardin confessed to his wife solidified that. He kept off the radar and changed his appearance after Missouri. He didn’t start acting back up until he hit California and it’s just been sporadic since then.”
**
Speight moved into the diner. She saw the door with the smiley face and knew pretty quickly that it was not a joke. She said, “I have got additional units on the way. You are not going to get away with this.”
She turned around when she heard the tires screeching to a stop twenty feet from the door. She saw the car number, 562, stenciled on the side and knew that her backup was no longer where it was supposed to be.
Speight turned back around slowly when she could sense more than feel the man. She tried to bring her gun up but all she could see was his chest. He grabbed her gun arm squeezing until she let go, but not before she sent three shots wildly into the restaurant walls. Speight screamed as she realized her one savior was now on the ground. “You won’t get away with this, you’re gonna get caught damn it!”
He leaned in close, smelling her fear. “You know I’ve heard that before, right?”
He dragged her into the back of the kitchen slamming her against the meat counter and dead lifted her with one hand to pin her to it with his giant hand. She squirmed and kicked but it was useless. The Stranger grasped a cleaver from the woodblock and the last thing she saw was him bringing it down across her jugular. Blood sprayed across his chest and her legs quickly stopped kicking. He stared at the death in her eyes and knew that there would never be enough death to satisfy him.
**
Hagardt ran out of the car hoping that there would be a tomorrow. She wasn’t stupid and hadn’t ignored the reports about this man, especially since word had made it to them saying he’d made his way to California. Hagardt didn’t care how big the state was, just knowing there was a chance this monster was here made her lose sleep at night. Not in a million years did she actually think that she would have to cross paths with him.
She walked with the Glock raised and saw Megan, there was little question that she was dead. She hit her radio, “We have a woman down, appears to be dead, looks to be the waitress. There is no sign of Officer Speight in the diner.”
Gray came back over the radio but Hagardt turned it off. She moved in slowly glad that the kitchen lights weren’t flickering. The ambiance was plenty for her to be creeped out. Hagardt moved slowly into the next room keeping her gun at eye level and ready.
The sizzling she heard from Mark was coming across clearly and his body, while not shaking anymore was more than enough to make her stomach turn. She did not think that she could see anything more disturbing until she saw Speight laid out on the counter resembling a piece of steak filleted and ready for cooking.
She was going to hit her radio but knew it was too late before she even reached for it. She looked around and saw a man in the sink drowned, Mark in the fryer, and her trainee in the oven. The kitchen, she knew, would be a place full of nightmares and stories for years to come. Hagardt looked at Speight’s body and her head sitting a few feet away. She went for her shoulder radio but didn’t have the heart to tell Gray that he one, got away and two, took out four more people. She walked up to Speight resting a hand on hers thinking that they were dealing with the devil. She looked at the rest of the victims thinking that maybe the drowned one had gotten it easiest of all. When Hagardt turned back around she saw that the victim was no longer submerged in the water. “Hello, sir. I’m here to help, do you need help?”
She ran back out to the lobby not stopping for anything. She felt something warm running down her neck and felt immediately light headed. She felt her throat feeling loose skin, more so than usual and brought back her fingertips soaked in blood. She winced unable to make sense of what was happening and placed her hand to her throat feeling the slash across it. When she spun around still trying to figure out what was happening she saw the masked man standing there.
She saw the puddle of water at his feet and it hit home that the fourth victim was not a victim but the devil in disguise. She brought up her pistol before Matt could move firing three times point blank at his chest. The giant of a man flew back into the kitchen out of sight. She came in after him aiming low but saw no one there. When she turned around he brought down his newly acquired crowbar into her forearm, hitting it so hard that the bone burst through her skin she stumbled backwards dropping the gun and landing in the dining room.
Hagardt watched as Matt walked towards her while unbuttoning his overalls to display four perfectly aimed shots embedded in his bullet proof vest. He said, “The last time this happened, it almost put me out of business. I realized that if I wanted to continue a life this great, that I needed to do my best to keep myself safe. Not everyone has the same respect for what I do as myself.”
Hagardt watched in shock because the scene looked more like a rave and with each blink of the lights The Stranger was moving closer. She tried to lift her gun hand a second time but it was poi
ntless. She hit her radio with her left hand and said, “He’s here, I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to you.”
Gray came back over screaming, “ETA is four minutes! ETA is four minutes, hang in there, Hagardt!”
Hagardt smiled and for some reason thought that she had that long to live. The Stranger knelt before dipping his finger in the blood coming from her neck and drew up both sides of her cheeks with the blood to create the smiley face. She said, “What is wrong with you?”
Matt tilted his head to the side, “A lot.” He took her radio and said, “I don’t think she’s going to make it, Agent Gray. You should slow down and take your time I’d hate for you to have an accident.”
“I’m going to catch, and I’m going to lock you away until you’re so old that you won’t be able to fight off the ass raping’s in the showers.”
“Oh, I have a feeling no one would want to be my friend in jail, Agent Gray, but I’ll shoot myself in the head before I let myself be taken in. I’m not going to deal with the thousands of psychiatrists that will want an insight into my beautifully twisted mind. Goodbye for now though, Agent, I still have work to do tonight.”
Hagardt’s eyes were beginning to lose focus and gloss over. She opened her mouth to say something else but he brought the crowbar down into her skull one last time before the lights went out. He had a plan for her. He threw Speights corpse to the ground and threw Hagardt up onto the meat bock. He found the cleaver and chopped at her abdomen, spine, and surrounding flesh until she was literally half a woman. He took the bottom half from the block throwing it out of sight into the meat locker.
Chapter 15
Gray was driving like a lunatic, swerving in and out of traffic cursing at the top of his lungs, trying to think of what the body count would be when he finished his spree for the night. He had seen the man go on binges and the amount of death was insane. Gray knew that he had to catch him this time, that if he didn’t find him within a few hours he would control the animal and stop, but only for a while. He’d always known that the most dangerous criminal was one that knew the system inside and out. He also thought the fact that the man was a small giant had done nothing to help his chances when it came to hurting him.
