Eyes of the Predator: The Pickham County Murders (The Hunters)

by Glenn Trust

  Reaching down he took a roll of the tape from the duffel bag he had thrown on the floor and looped a piece around her mouth, all the way around her head, and around her mouth again. No need to worry about anyone seeing now, and it was handy stuff, duct tape. It was used so much in movies and on television for just this sort of thing that you didn’t really think it would work, but it did. It worked perfectly.

  He stepped back in front of her now. The hope was gone from her eyes. The fear was back. She trembled. A shudder of excitement ran through his body.

  “Now, honey. Let’s start.”

  He saw the muscles of her neck and jaw contract. She was trying to scream. There was no sound. Her terror and agony at not being able to make even a sound made something roar inside him. The animal in him had been raging and now it was released to immerse himself in the kill, to drench himself in her pain and fear.

  Over the next hours, her terror grew into a roaring crescendo, but no sound escaped. Her clothes had been cut away. A plastic tarp had been placed around and under the chair to catch what blood there was, but there wasn’t much. He was careful. The knife was only there to cause pain and heighten his pleasure by increasing her fear. The cuts he made were many but small. None bled very much. But each tiny cut was placed to cause the most pain and to inflict the most fear. Lightly across her breasts. The corners of her nose. The soles of her feet. None would cause death, but all would cause pain and increase the greatest pain of all, her fear. The animal that he was relished that fear like a great cat burying its head into a still warm carcass, withdrawing with fur bloodstained and gory. No, there was not much blood, but this predator bathed in her fear.

  The girl closed her eyes. It was an escape…an attempt to wash the horror of what was happening out of her mind.

  “Open your eyes,” he hissed.

  The girl just trembled, eyes closed. He lifted his right hand in a fist and struck her hard in the forehead. The blow left a bruise on her, but it was not hard enough to cause serious damage. It did succeed in convincing the girl to open her eyes.

  “Good,” he said. The grin was back on his face. It was the grin she had closed her eyes to avoid.

  He stood in front of her naked, his clothes folded neatly on the bed, hers severed and in tatters on the floor. Placing his hands around her throat, his grip tightened until her eyes bulged and she made an attempt at struggling for her life. It was futile. He had not spared the duct tape this time, safe in their little room at the StarLite Motel.

  It was awkward standing in front of her straddling the chair, and it required a great deal of strength and time to kill in this way, but that was fine. He wanted it to take a long time, and the exertion now at the end was part of his fulfillment.

  Their eyes locked. Reality seemed to register in the girl’s hopeless stare. It had finally become clear to her that there would be no escape. Devoid of hope now, she was left only with the terror. It sat cold and heavy on her chest. Hopeless and helpless, nothing could ward off what was coming. And what was coming was the end. The end of everything for her and all that had awaited her in life.

  Squinting in a macabre sort of concentration, he focused on his work, trying to suck out all of the fear and pain and hopelessness she was feeling. It was like sucking the marrow out of a bone—the best part. It washed over him bringing a shudder to his frame, and he relished it. Releasing the tension in his muscular hands occasionally so as not to hurry things, he gazed into the girl’s eyes. They were moist and wet. He lost himself in the eyes until, after a time, they dimmed, and her stare became blank. No longer deep, liquid pools of life seeing the world around them, they became empty and barren. That too, pleased him.

  Sweating and trembling, he stood over the lifeless form bound to the chair. His chest heaved from the exertion…and something else. Waves of ecstasy coursed through his muscles and flesh. He stood in front of the dead girl until the trembling subsided and his breath calmed.

  Turning, he fell onto the bed and slept.

  23. Canada, Really

  The old, banged-up pickup rattled some from age, but the engine hummed deeply. It was well maintained. Lyn sat between the two young men to whom ‘Aunt Kathy’ had entrusted her. She had offered to sit in the back, but the boys wouldn’t hear of it. Besides, the bed was full of tools, ladders, and equipment. Apparently, Cy and Clay were in the construction business.

  Lyn’s eyes fluttered open as they passed a large truck. Out of the side window, she could see the large tires of the truck’s trailer as they moved around it. Awakening fully, she realized that her head had dropped onto the shoulder of the young man beside her, Clay. With a jerk, she sat up straight in the seat.

  “Nice nap?’ Clay looked over at her with a chuckling smile.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.” She fidgeted and straightened her clothes out a bit in embarrassment.

  “Don’t be sorry. No problem.”

  “How long was I asleep?”

  “Not long. Half hour maybe.”

  “Didn’t mean to. I just got so tired.” She yawned and stretched her arms out in front, fingers interlocked.

  “No problem. Really.”

  A bump in the road caused some of the gear in the truck bed to bang loudly. Lyn looked over her shoulder through the rear cab window.

  “What do you do? In Savannah, I mean.”

  “Construction,” Clay answered staring out the side window at the passing landscape, still colorless and dark in the predawn light. “Working on framing up a new shopping center on the west side.”

  “You’re building a shopping center?” Her voice made it sound like something big and important.

  Clay smiled. “Well, we’re one of the subs…subcontractors, working on it. Takes a lot of people, job like that.”

  Lyn nodded not knowing what else to say, not sure if she should say anything. These were just two strangers, and she was just a hitchhiker. Silence filled the truck’s cab, emphasized by the hum of the tires and throb of the engine.

  Minutes went by. “So, where ya from?” It was Cy, the older brother and driver of the truck.

  “Down south,” she replied, not comfortable with giving out too much information.

  Cy and Clay glanced at each other over her head.

  “Yea. Us too. We live down with our mama in Pritchard, just north of the Florida line a ways.”

  “Just your mama?” she asked. She wondered what that would have been like. Living with just a mother and no father. She wondered if she would be out here on the interstate with these two young men if there had been only Mama at home.

  “Yea. Just Mama,” Cy replied. “Daddy died in a tractor accident when we were little. Turned over on him in a ditch and broke his neck.”

  Glancing down at her out of the corner of his eye so that she wouldn’t see him looking, Clay could see that she was pretty. A little thin, but pretty. Auburn hair and long-legged. Her knees were pushed up as her feet were on the transmission hump in the center of the cab. It made her look more like a little girl, childlike. He liked that. She may be a little thin, but so were a lot of girls who came up hard out in the Georgia countryside. He and Cy knew about that. Neither of them had ever exactly been overfed, but Mama had done her best to take care of them. They had grown up having to work hard, but it was never something they dreaded, just a fact of life. Might as well be mad at the sun rising. Just the way it was. That’s all.

  Still, he and Cy had always had each other. That was something. That was a lot sometimes when things were tough. And Mama had been there for them. She couldn’t give them much, but she would listen and would talk. When she talked they listened…usually.

  What had put this girl on the road? She was young, not much more than a child it seemed to Clay. He couldn’t really relate to a life so bad that you could just walk away…run away…from everything. How did that work? He thought about that, puzzling it out. He had no reference for it though. He and Cy always had Mama. Who did she have?

 
; He felt compelled to say something. “We had Mama’s brother, Uncle Thomas, to teach us some things about building, but mostly we came up without a daddy. How about you?”

  Immediately, Clay saw her discomfort. She sat stiffly, staring straight ahead out of the windshield, as if trying to avoid contact with the brothers on either side of her. After a time, she lowered her head and spoke. “I got a mama and a brother. He died in the Marines. We buried him at the church in...” She hesitated, almost naming Judges Creek and then said, “Back home.” Another pause and then, “Got a daddy, too.”

  Clay and Cy listened quietly, sensing that there was more and knowing that any word from them would silence her, like stepping on a branch in the woods and spooking a deer you are watching. Besides, they both knew it was none of their business. Bad things happened sometimes. Tractors turned over in ditches killing fathers. Things happened to young girls that made them leave home. There were just lots of bad things in the world. That was all.

  After a few minutes with only the highway hum filling the cab of the pickup, Cy decided it was his turn. “So, where you headed?”

  Lyn shifted uncomfortably in the narrow confines of the cab. “North.”

  “North? That’s pretty big area. Can’t pin it down any more than that, just north?”

  Lyn made no reply and continued staring straight ahead. Cy shrugged and focused on his driving.

  “So, things must be pretty bad at home?” It was Clay, who spoke this time. “For you to be out on the road and all,” he said, obviously waiting for an answer.

  Cy cut him a sharp look over her head. Clearly, he thought that it went beyond small talk and fulfilling the assignment that Kathy had given them. They had work to do. This was an unnecessary distraction, although he would never say that to Kathy. The next time they saw the waitress at the diner, he just wanted to be able to report ‘mission accomplished’. The girl had been safely delivered to the truck stop and pointed north.

  Clay knew that Cy was annoyed with his question. He would not want to become entangled in this girl’s affairs, but the thought of putting the girl out at the truck stop was beginning to bother him.

  At Clay’s question, Lyn pulled the cuff of her pink pullover shirt down a bit and shifted her stare to her lap. The boy, Clay, was waiting for an answer. After several seconds, she reckoned that they deserved more of an answer for what they were doing for her, or doing for ‘Aunt Kathy’, at least.

  “Yea. Things are pretty bad I guess,” she ventured as an opening.

  Clay waited.

  “Things are bad enough,” she continued. “Me and my daddy had a fight. I guess we always have a fight goin’.”

  “You hurt?” Clay asked. He looked at her hand holding the cuff of her shirt tight.

  “Not bad,” she replied softly.

  “Can I see?” Clay asked. “You might need a doctor.”

  “No, it’s just a bruise,” she replied, never looking up. But she slid the arm of the shirt up a ways, still looking down at her lap.

  Clay saw a purple bruise on her forearm, as if she had put it up to fend off a blow that might have been more serious if it had landed elsewhere. He reached over and gently slid the shirt back down. Cy missed nothing, but kept his peace, concern evident on his face. Clay knew it was mostly for him and not the girl.

  Of course, Cy was sympathetic and would never stand for anyone hurting a girl, but he was focused on the business. Drop the girl off and get to work. Anything else was a distraction they didn’t need right now. This could definitely turn into a distraction.

  “Your daddy gave you that bruise?”

  “Well, yea, I guess he did…he jerked my arm up and, well I got the bruise.”

  “That ain’t right you know. What your daddy did ain’t right.” Clay looked down at Lyn who continued to avoid eye contact by staring at her lap or out of the window.

  Cy shot Clay the look again, but shrugged and shook his head in resignation. Clay would do what Clay would do. He knew his brother that well at least.

  “It ain’t nothin’” Lyn replied. “He just been drinkin’. Drinks a lot. He don’t mean no harm, it just happens sometimes.”

  “Well, he ought to think of you and your mama some.” Clay felt a small, growing pit of anger inside him at the man who had abused this girl.

  “I know, but he tries. He does,” Lyn said, puzzled as to why she felt the need to defend her father. “He just gets so angry sometimes. I don’t think he even knows why. He just gets to drinkin’ sometimes. It’s like he’s lost, and the drinkin’ is the only way to find his way out. I don’t know. He don’t like me, and I knew I couldn’t stay no more.” She paused for a moment, thinking about what she had just said, probably the most she had ever said to anyone about it, and then ended simply. “Mama wouldn’t let me stay, was afraid for me. So I left.”

  The brothers soaked this all in. Hard as life had been without their father, it had never been abusive. It was hard to get their minds around the concept of beating a young girl.

  “So where you goin’?” He decided to return to Cy’s question.

  Lyn said nothing and tugged at her cuff.

  “C’mon,” Clay urged. “Where you headed to?”

  She looked up at him for the first time. “You promise not to laugh?”

  Clay nodded and waited.

  “I’m goin’ to Canada.”

  “Canada? You got family there?

  Lyn shook her head.“No. No family,” she replied a little embarrassed.

  “Well, then why go there? Why not someplace you know about?”

  Lyn shrugged and gave a little laugh. “I don’t know. It’s a place my brother, Sam, and me always talked about goin’ to get away. You know, kind of a place to start over. Different.” She ended with another shrug. She knew it must sound crazy to him. At this thought she looked up quickly at him and added, “I’m not crazy you know. I know what I’m doin’.”

  Clay was quick to reply, “Never said you were crazy. Just tryin’ to get it in my head. Canada, really?”

  “Canada, really,” she replied firmly with a touch of defiance in her voice. Maybe it was crazy, but she didn’t have to put up with questions from this boy, who probably wasn’t any older than she was.

  He thought for a minute then asked, “So have you thought of goin’ anywhere else? Some place closer.”

  She shrugged again, looked down and said, “Don’t have nowhere else to go. Canada seems right.”

  What exploded from him next surprised him as much as his brother.

  “You could stay with us.” He saw Cy turning towards him and added, “Us and Mama.”

  Cy almost turned completely in the seat. You didn’t have to be a brother to understand the look on his face this time. Puzzled and frustrated by this turn of events, and more than a little angry with his younger brother, Cy wanted to ask Clay what the hell he thought he was doing. Clay returned his brother’s angry look with a face that was hard and determined. Knowing this look all too well, Cy shook his head and leaned forward over the steering wheel, as if to say, ‘fine, do what you want. No sense me getting involved.’ Gripping the truck’s steering wheel tightly he focused intensely on his driving, not wanting to hear anything else his brother might say to the girl.

  Lyn, unaware of the silent interaction between the brothers, sat there in shock. No one had ever said such a thing to her or ever made such an offer. Why would this stranger make it?

  “Now who’s crazy? You don’t even know me.” The words blurted from her the way Clay’s offer had exploded from him. It was unreal. Too much. The look on his face though made her temper them a bit. “No,” she went on. “That wouldn’t be right. Besides, it was always Canada. It’s always been in my head. It was the place. The place for Sam and me. I have to do it. Go there.”

  Having opened the door, Clay couldn’t let it just slam shut. “But what are you gonna do? How will you live?”

  “I got a little money to get there. Then I’ll ge
t a job. I can work,” she answered.

  “How much money?”

  “Enough.” Lyn was wondering just how far she would get on her two hundred fifty-two dollars, and suspected that it would not be nearly enough, although she would not admit that to this young man. Doing so would call into doubt her judgment in the matter, and the last thing she could tolerate right now was another man interfering in her life and her dream.

  “It might not be so easy. You might not find work right off. They might not let you work up there. You won’t have anyone there. Besides you need a passport if you’re gonna go legal. You got a passport?”

  Having no idea what a passport was she simply replied, “I’ll get one, “ and then added “I have to try.” Her voice broke in a choking sob. “It’s the place we were gonna go to be safe.” A tear rolled slowly down her cheek, and her head went down, her shoulders shaking silently.

  Not knowing what else to do and feeling like a jackass, Clay moved as far away from her in the seat as he could, trying to give her what little privacy he could. The brothers exchanged glances again over the girl’s head. This time the older brother’s face was resigned. What the hell, he shook his head.

  24. A Thud

  The faded, old car pulled slowly from in front of the motel room door. The baggage had been loaded in the trunk, and the driver sipped a cup of made-in-the-room coffee. It was still dark, maybe an hour before sunrise. He noticed that the parking lot of the StarLite Motel was now empty. Apparently, the owners of the couple of cars he had seen earlier did not require a room for the entire night.

  Across the road, Pete’s Place was lit brightly and glowed in the early morning mist. Business seemed to be thriving although it was well past the mandatory two a.m. last call and closing. Such minor details did not seem to apply in Roydon, at least not when the entire Sheriff’s Department and all the state troopers within fifty miles were tied up at the scene of a murder. Some old black guy in a church lot off the Jax Highway got knifed, the bartender advised his customers after hearing the news from one of his contacts with connections to the Sheriff’s Department. The staff of Pete’s Place kept tabs on the movement of the law around Pickham County. Such information was important, even critical, in Roydon. The patrons of Pete’s Place were duly grateful for the information and contributed generously to the bartender’s tip jar. No one at the bar paid any attention to the old car pulling away from the StarLite across the street.