by Lotta Smith
“That you’re obsessive?” Despite the grim situation, I tried to appear confident, but my statement sounded more like a question.
“Whatever you say, I’m positive Mom’s been helping me out, giving me assisting hands, backing me up, for the first time in my existence. Of course, I must return her the favor.”
“By the way, I was expecting to see Karen,” I said. Finally, my desperation beat my cowardice.
“Karen? Oh, that little bait girl? Good thing I kept the kid alive. There were moments I thought recorded voices were good enough, but now I know I made the right decision, considering you asked her if she was pregnant. I wasn’t expecting that question.” He chuckled and pointed to the ceiling. “She’s up there.”
“You mean like, as in the upstairs?”
“No, I mean like, as in heaven,” the bastard replied mockingly.
“You killed her? How could you do that?” I shrieked.
He shrugged off my accusation. “I didn’t. She hung herself on a doorjamb while I was out picking you up. After making that phone call, she was muttering something about a conscience. Anyway, she took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it. Then again, once I got you, I needed to get rid of her anyway, so she kinda saved me the trouble.”
“Eat dirt and die!” I spat.
“Don’t be so upset. Suppose your soul gets out of the body for my mother’s sake, you can probably meet the girl up there, wherever that place might be. So, Kelly, I believe it’s time to say goodbye.”
Strengthening his grip of the knife, he cracked a sheepish grin.
Reflecting the light, the edge of the knife blade glistened like morning dew.
I opened my mouth to protest, but words failed to come out.
Step by step, he came closer and closer. With my mouth agape, I watched the blade of the knife like a total moron.
Before this moment, I had my share of ‘life sucks’ moments. Still yet, getting myself killed by a lunatic in such a brutal way and having my eyeballs poked out of me was something I had never imagined, much less anticipated.
On top of all that, it sucked big time that I’d let Karen die.
I sighed and shut my eyes as tightly as possible, determined not to make it easy for him to conduct his sick ritual.
Then I heard the alarm blasting.
Chapter 33
It was a long journey, but finally, I was almost there.
I had just met the woman of my dreams, and I was about to rebuild my relationship with her.
One more step, just one more step was all I had to take.
Finally, I had her in my possession, nicely restrained so she couldn’t get away.
I was one step from the magical moment.
Her eyes were shut tightly, but that was not a problem. If necessary, I could always slash open the eyelids.
According to the stupid media, I was an insane, soulless monster, which was a completely unfounded and false accusation. The fact that I’d been trying to reanimate my mother with so much effort alone proved I had a heart and blood in my body.
I admired the sharp blade of the knife as it reflected the candle light.
She sighed, as if all fight had vaporized out of her.
I was ready.
I took a step toward her and then stopped. All of the sudden, I heard an earsplitting noise.
I frowned.
It was the alarm system.
The alarm was not connected to any security company. Its only purpose was to alert me that somebody had broken in. Besides that, security programs didn’t seem to work in my favor. So it was nice to have those people protect my house from potential thieves and burglars, but having them snooping in my burglarized house for damage inspection was just plain unacceptable. In that case, I would have to kill them all in order to shut them up, but it would not be an easy task, especially when the security company started wondering about the whereabouts of their missing employees.
Getting rid of occasional thieves was much easier; they usually came in alone. They were easy to catch; not to mention, playing with them was fun.
The purpose of my DIY home security was more for keeping my captives from getting away than keeping occasional petty thieves from coming in.
The alarm kept beeping.
Considering the little bait girl had died on me, it seemed like I had an intruder. How could I have an intruder at such an inconvenient moment?
I looked at Kelly, who was soon to become just a case to host my mother’s eyeballs. Neither Kelly nor her eyeballs were getting away from me.
“Better to go look and see,” I said to her, and to myself, I added, “Relax. Perhaps it’s nothing.”
Closing the basement door behind me, I hurried up the stairs leading to the ground floor, hoping it was just a little malfunction of some device. Or was it my nerve messing my head? Yeah, as much as I was overjoyed, I was a little bit nervous, but I had no intention of having my nerves stop me.
I opened the door to the first-floor corridor. As I walked forward, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. With the walls standing in an L-shape, I couldn’t see the entrance from where I stood. But I wasn’t alone. I knew it.
“Hello there.”
Around the corner stood my nightmare.
And he was real.
The skirt-wearing creep whom my Kelly called her boss stood there. Except he was wearing a pair of black cargo pants, a black windbreaker, and a pair of black work boots instead of women’s clothes this time. Still, it was unmistakably him. With his long auburn hair in a low ponytail, the former fed stood in my way.
I didn’t like it.
“What do you think you’re doing? Breaking and entering?” I demanded. “I think I have to call the police.”
“Go ahead. That’s exactly what I was planning—calling the police to get you red-handed, with the weapon, eyeballs taken from victims, and everything.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Hey, let’s get right to the point and get it over with. I’m politely asking you to return someone who doesn’t belong here.” He looked straight into my eyes.
Chapter 34
Eyes tightly shut, I was choking on my fear. Under the current situation, I was about to say goodbye to my dear eyeballs and, consequently, my dear life as a human being. It looked like the worst-case scenario was inevitable.
Here’s the problem: I wasn’t ready for that, for Christ’s sake!
In the darkness behind my closed eyelids, I listened to my heartbeat booming like a bunch of meth-crazed baboons having a rave. The sound of Alan taking steps toward me was muffled by the beat of partying apes in my heart.
I also heard something beeping, but I didn’t dare to open my eyes. I was afraid it was only my brain beeping an emergency alarm out of sheer panic and desperation.
Split seconds felt like an eternity in the deafening sounds of jumping baboons, blazing alarms, and the imaginary ticking of a time bomb ready to blow up. Then I heard six magical words from my capturer: Better to go look and see.
Then I heard the sound of the killer walking away from me. The basement door opened and closed. The alarm kept on beeping for a few minutes, and then came silence.
Yes. A sweet, sweet silence.
I opened my eyes. I was alone in this room. Yay-yeah!
I felt like doing a happy dance, except my body was tightly secured to the heavy wrought iron chair. Considering I was being held merely six feet from the door, being unable to run away was very unpleasant.
I took a glance at the knife on the table. If I could somehow reach the knife, I might be able to cut myself loose. I thought about swinging the heavy chair and banging it against the table to move the knife, but thought better of it. In case the chair swinging went wrong, I might end up having a great fall, banging my head on the hard concrete floor, and cracking it open like Humpty Dumpty. Albeit busting my head sounded somewhat lovely, on the account it would have helped me out of the miser
y of getting my eyeballs poked out, I liked to keep my brain inside of my skull. Basically, it was the same logic as the one about keeping my gourmet sauce where it belongs.
After the initial endorphin surge, the grim reality started to resurface. I sighed. So my eyeballs may be out of reach from his menacing hands at the moment, but that didn’t mean I’d be safe for good. So whatever caused the beeping might turn out to be just a delivery guy or a malfunctioning alarm, and it might not take much time for Eyeball Snatcher slash Alan slash Sam to return.
So anyway, my life expectancy is pretty much limited…
As disappointment kicked in, I felt lethargic.
Special moments of my life flashed before my eyes like some kind of sitcom rerun. Regrets, I had a few…perhaps more than a few. Undoubtedly, it was not too few to mention, so I started counting my misfortunes chronologically before I said adios muchachos to this cruel world:
My biological father had run away with a Vegas stripper.
My favorite faux-dad who had almost adopted me as his stepdaughter was killed in a plane crash just before initiating the adoption process.
When I was nine years old, I tried to take a close look at the carps, fell into the pond, and drowned myself.
When I was fifteen, I was hospitalized with a bad case of pneumonia, and instead of losing lots of weight like a very sick girl, I gained an extra sixteen pounds.
My first ever boyfriend decided he was meant to be an absolute gay.
I failed my college entrance exams.
My first husband turned out to be a pathological liar and a fraud.
I hadn’t had a chance to have a child.
I was called Vicious Bitch.
Many people in the UK still hated me.
My current employer thought I was an idiot, and perhaps he was right.
I failed to save Karen…
So, I could have lived with most of those tough luck if only Karen hadn’t died at such a tender age of eight.
If it was not for the restraints, I would have banged my head until it exploded like a rotten grapefruit. I recalled my miraculous joy and faith-like excitement when Karen called me. Just a while ago, she was alive and all I wanted to do was meet her and tell her how we were all worried sick about her.
Now look what had happened.
Karen was dead, and I was about to join her.
I was a complete failure. This time, I was positively flabbergasted by my idiocy. I should have immediately called Archangel, purged what little information I had, and assisted him with taking down Alan.
Archangel will be so pissed… I thought.
Then I imagined what would happen when Alan came back. Without a doubt, he would pluck my eyeballs out and end up killing me. Then what? Would he dump my body somewhere? Probably. My body would be discovered by somebody, and then follows the procedure: police officers, forensics team, and autopsy by the coroner perhaps. I found myself wondering if Archangel would attend my autopsy and seriously wished I could vanish like smoke.
I totally, completely, desperately hated the possibility of Michael Archangel seeing my remains being dissected. Just imagining the situation was… excruciatingly mortifying! So I was a little bit on the chubby side and he knew it. But hey, it was just too embarrassing to let him see my dead body getting cut open before showing him myself naked in person when I was still alive. Dying was one thing; postmortem humiliation was a totally different story.
Would he grieve over me? Would he miss me?
“Ow, gawd…,” I muttered. My brain had just started playing “Enter Sandman.” Not that I hated Metallica, but I wanted my brain to play something more calming, more serene, on my exit from this world—such as “Ave Maria.”
“Ave Maria Gratia plena—” I started singing to the tune of Schubert with Latin lyrics. Thanks to having an Opera singer faux-dad in the past, I knew the song.
“Ave, ave dominus. Dominus tecum—”
I wanted to say to Mom, Thank you and I love you.
For unknown reasons, I truly, desperately missed Michael Archangel.
Chapter 35
“I want my assistant back.” He looked straight into my eyes.
“Excuse me? I’m not quite following.” I tilted my head to the side. The alarm was still beeping loudly.
“Come on, Alan. I know my assistant is trapped here against her will. If you’re 100 percent sure my accusation is unfounded, why don’t you call the police?”
Why he knew my name, I didn’t know.
Before I got a chance to reply, he pressed on. “I’ll tell you what. You’re not calling the police because having police officers over here is not in your best interest.”
Disabling my alarm by yanking the plug out of the wall socket, he continued. “Isn’t it funny? Even your alarm system is not designated to alert third parties, such as a security firm or the police.”
With the alarm killed, a disturbing silence filled the space.
He continued. “Once law enforcement personnel arrive, they might find incriminating evidence, put two and two together, piece by piece, and start wondering if they’d accused the wrong guy and let the true culprit go running loose. Is that correct, Alan?”
“Stop treating me like a serial killer! Besides that, the so-called Eyeball Snatcher cases are already closed, with the killer, Yves the musician, killing himself and everything. Don’t you have any common sense?”
I made my point, and he grinned. I felt cold sweat running down my back.
“That’s interesting.” He chuckled.
“What’s interesting?” I asked innocently, though I knew my last words should have been unsaid.
“It’s interesting that you mentioned Eyeball Snatcher, especially since I haven’t even uttered the word ‘eyeball’ or ‘killing’ in the first place. Isn’t it ironic, the nature of the human mind, huh? The more you try to conceal something, the more your mind works on it, and as a result, making you focus on the thought. That’s why you mentioned Eyeball Snatcher.”
“That’s a groundless accusation,” I said firmly. “I had nothing to do with the victims, much less killing.”
“Oh yeah? Then why do the crappy art pieces Alice Sinclair had in her room have your fingerprints all over them?” He tilted his head to the side.
“I’m an artist, so my creations have my fingerprints. Besides that, my artwork is not crappy. Shame on you.” I felt like killing him right then.
“So, you’re Sam. Hey, we were looking for you.” He beamed.
Maybe I should have denied being ‘Sam,’ but I didn’t. I didn’t want to waste my time anymore with him. “That’s my artist name, and just because one of the homicide victims possessed my work, that wouldn’t qualify as a justifiable reason to accuse me of killing. In addition, I don’t have your assistant here. You have no reason to accuse me of snatching her. How could you say—?”
“Cut the crap, Alan.” He butted in before I finished the sentence. “It’s over.”
His confidence made me uneasy. His words made it clear I needed to kill him ASAP.
Considering the trouble of getting rid of his body, killing this guy had initially seemed burdensome. But hey, I had to do what I had to.
Quietly, I took a deep breath and said firmly, “Stop playing with words. I said I have nothing to do with the serial murder, and I don’t even know your assistant. It’s tragic that one of my customers fell victim to a killer, but it’s only a coincidence.”
“Oh, speaking of a coincidence, is it a coincidence that the presumed time of death of your mother happens to overlap with the dates you stayed in London? I don’t think so. Your biological mother, Kelly Dowson, was found dead in London about three months ago. She died from liver cirrhosis, and the time of death was estimated to be a few days before her body was found. It was quite tragic that she died alone, but that could have been determined as just a death by natural causes—except that her eyeballs were poked out and missing. So in a way, your mother was the first victim o
f Eyeball Snatcher.”
“I have never met my biological mother,” I said icily.
“That’s right, not while she was alive. By the way, Alan, let’s face it; plucking eyeballs out of women and swapping them with your mother’s eyeballs is useless.” He crossed his arms. “That kind of sick ritual only kills the wounded women instead of bringing your mother back to life.”
I didn’t say anything. He seemed to know everything, so denial was pointless.
He continued. “I can tell you haven’t started your sick ritual on her yet. You’re not reeking of blood. That’s good. Sparing the life of a victim tends to give the jury a good impression. Prosecutors might even give you a deal.”
“You think so?” I slumped my shoulders. “If that’s the case, I’ll take you to where she is.” I reached one hand to him as if attempting a handshake, with a concealed lightweight stun gun in my palm.
Without shaking hands with me, he pulled away his hand. On top of that, he kicked the hidden stun gun out of my hand.
The next thing I knew, I heard a click of a zip tie securing my hands behind my back while I was physically being pinned to the floor.
He was strong.
“I was trying my best to play it nice. Don’t forget you’re the one who screwed it up.”
He stood and stomped on the stun gun with one chunky sole of his boots, crushing the device into bits. Then he started walking away from the entrance toward the direction of the stairs to the basement.
I gazed after him in total disbelief. I was unable to accept my current situation.
Chapter 36
“Ave, aaave dominus, dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus…”
I went on singing. As if I was channeling with the late Maria Callas. Except my version of Maria came with lousy tunes, missed keys, and shaky pronunciation.
