Payback

by T. S. Worthington

  “I’ve told you for the twentieth fucking time that there is nothing else to say about it. The guy was covered head to toe in some sort of lab quality radiation suit or some damn thing. I don’t know what you call it. I guess you will have to look it up. It was black and it was thick, heavy rubber. He also had this duct tape and ball gag wrapped around my face that tasted worse than the worse night of vomiting I can ever remember with the worst hangover I have ever had.”

  Darla drank her third cup of coffee since they had offered it to her. The caffeine had also been shown to have a strong effect on memory and it really seemed to help people recall better the more they drank of the stuff. It was pretty much the opposite effect of alcohol that way. The caffeine also had the nice side effect of calming people down despite being a strong stimulant.

  “Ok, Darla. We really appreciate this. I’ll just read it back to you so that you can verify that I got everything down correctly, ok? The man was about six feet to maybe six feet two, with a slender build, but still athletic and strong. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Darla replied.

  “Now he had a set of knives with him that you said looked like some really expensive set of hunting knives. They were polished and carefully sharpened and he spent several minutes inspecting them to make sure that they were going to be good enough. Is that right?”

  “You got it, detective.”

  Brian loved it when people called him detective. He was not sure why it made him feel proud and embarrassed all at the same damn time. He was going to miss that when he started up his own security business. But there were sacrifices to be made no matter what you did in your life, he supposed.

  “Now the man said that he wanted to kill you because of a sick desire or need that he had that he could not control. He said he had been this way since he was young?”

  “Yea, he actually sounded like he wished he could be normal like everybody else, but then he got back into character. He seemed like it was important for me to not hate him and that I know that he did not hate me. He said he would not have blamed me for trying to fight back due to my self-preservation. The guy is so twisted. I just hope he dies from that wound I gave him.”

  “You stabbed him that deeply?” Brian asked.

  “Hell, yea. The blade was like six inches long and all of it was stuck deep in his chest about here,” Darla said pointing to the spot right above her breast.

  “Well, if that aim had been just a little bit lower he would have been dead almost instantly as the blade tore through his heart. He definitely would not have got up and just walked away like that.”

  “I know, if he hadn’t moved. Dammit. I wanted that bastard dead,” Darla said.

  Brian had to admire the girl’s moxy and the way she was dealing with almost being murdered just a few hours ago. She was a girl that one would not want to try to mess with if they encountered her in a dark alley that was for sure. Brian could tell that Darla had been through a lot in her short life. The girl was barely in her twenties and she looked like she had lived and survived five harsh lifetimes. He hoped that things would get better for her and that she would be able to put this behind her.

  Of course there could be none of that until they caught the Copycat. But at least now they knew more about him and what he was all about. They knew what he was thinking when he was getting ready to kill someone and they had verification of the methods that he used to break into someone’s house and then the routine that he followed once he was inside and ready to do his work.

  “Have you guys checked the hospitals to see if he might have gone there? He has to get medical attention for that stab wound or he would bleed to death, right?” Darla asked. She seemed hopefully optimistic. That was a trait that Brian recognized but simply did not have anymore.

  “Right. We have checked around and so far we haven’t received any word of anyone reporting with any chest wounds like that. The suit he was wearing may have offered him enough protection that the blade did not penetrate his skin as much as you thought it did.”

  “No way! He was bleeding all over the place. I could clearly see the gash with blood like pumping out of it all over the place,” Darla said.

  “Well, that is also the strangest thing. He cleaned it all up and packed up all of his gear by the time the first responding officers got there, which according to 911 records was about twenty-eight minutes. That is pretty fast to clean up a crime scene that had as much blood flying around as you say,” Brian said. He did not want to sound like he was purposely trying to piss off Darla by questioning the validity of her story, but there were certain things that did not add up. There was a reason why eye witnesses were so notoriously unreliable and usually dismissed in court proceedings as unusable. People did not usually get the full picture, especially during times of high stress and fear. The body was in survival mode and the mind was focusing all of its energy on that, not on minute details about the surroundings.

  “I don’t know what to tell you. He must be like the Houdini of psychos,” Darla said.

  “Well, Darla we really appreciate all of the information and we are all glad that you came out of this ok. You are a brave woman,” Brian said. “Of course we will help you get set up in a different apartment and we are going to have a police escort watching your home at all times and someone else to follow you pretty much everywhere you go. I understand how annoying that can be, but this man might come after you again. A guy with an ego like that is going to be outraged that his target outsmarted him and that you hurt him in the process. And of course you got away and you have been able to give us some really valuable pieces of information.”

  Darla groaned. “Well, can you at least put some cute cop patrols on me? I would love to have some sexy cop action.”

  Brian was not sure if Darla was joking or not. It was definitely one of the weirdest request he had ever had a witness of a survivor to a heinous crime ask for.

  “We will see what we can do for you,” Brian said as he left the room. He almost burst out laughing but held it in. it would have been in poor taste he felt.

  He joined the chief in the other room where he was watching the interview sipping from his famous Simpson’s coffee mug that he had drank from daily for about ten years. Brian was sure that he washed it occasionally. Or at least he hoped.

  “You think the Copycat will come after her again?” Arnold asked.

  “I’m not sure. It fits his M.O. that he should, but he might decide that this one is not worth the trouble. It is just too tough to tell with guys like that,” Brian said.

  “I wish she had nailed him better too. Damn, it was so close. This could have been the thing that blew this case wide open.”

  “Well, it might still be.”

  “Well, we now have three separate crime scenes. Any connection to any of these victims as of yet?”

  “None that I can figure out. They all come from different backgrounds and socioeconomics classes. Even race is not a calling card here. The first victim was part Hispanic. It makes no sense how he is just randomly choosing the victims. If we could establish how he is finding them or what his criteria is then we would know a lot more about him and where he might strike next.”

  “Damn, we just don’t have enough yet, do we?”

  “No, I—“

  “Sir!”

  Adam Myers, the head forensics blood spatter expert rushed into the room just then. He looked like he had heard the best news that had ever come across his ears in his entire life. Brian braced himself for something not useful. Adam had the same tendency with any new little tidbit that he happened to find out about any case that was coming his way. It was disturbing how much this guy actually loved blood. It was like he day dreamed about blood and all of the different things you could do with it. It had always given Brian the creeps.

  “What is going on?” Brian asked.

  “We were able to retrieve some of the blood of the assailant. We found some cling
ing to the sink drain where she washed up at the neighbor’s apartment. We found a small trace and we were not sure it belonged to anyone besides the owner of that apartment or the victim here. But it does not match either one.”

  “Did you run it through the database?” Arnold asked.

  “We are doing that as we speak. I’m excited. It could take several hours, but if this guy has ever had his DNA collected for any reason in his life we will have it.”

  “That is great news!” Arnold said. He slapped Brian a high five.

  Brian did not share the chief’s enthusiasm on all of this. It was promising, but he didn’t think this guy was going to match anything.

  “What’s wrong?” Arnold asked.

  “I don’t think we are going to get a hit. It would be amazing of course if it did turn up something, but I just don’t think it is going to happen.”

  “Why?” Myers asked. He looked like he might fall to pieces and start crying any minute because Brian had dashed his hopes and dreams in the world. He was going to have to step in front of a semi now and do the world a favor.

  “So far as meticulous and as careful as this guy is, I just don’t think he has ever been in trouble with the law before. A lot of these types of offenders have minor things on their records from petty crimes when they were younger, but I just don’t think it fits this guy.”

  “Well, you are certainly a party pooper, “Arnold said. “ We will just have to hope for the best here.”

  When Brian got home that night and laid down he found himself unable to rest. It was almost four in the morning and he had to get up and report to the station by nine to start his regular shift, but he was wide awake. Although he was tired as hell and his legs and back both felt like he had just fallen off the side of the Sears Tower. He was always in so much pain these days. He wondered if he should go see a chiropractor or if he should follow the advice of his awesome wife and just eat better and get more exercise.

  The chief would probably understand if he didn’t make it in till a few hours after normal because of the late night they pulled, but Brian wasn’t wired that way. He couldn’t live with taking the baby way out and giving in to the sleep monster when he had responsibilities he had to live up to. He could guarantee that the chief was not even going to go home. He would possibly change his shirt with the backups that he kept in his office and he would probably brush his teeth and shave with the travel pack that he also kept. The man was a machine and that was probably why he had been chief for twenty years. He was the best and he was willing to do what most would not to make shit happen. Brian had to admit that he deeply admired the man.

  When he got home Amber was fast asleep, which was a relief because the last thing in the world that he wanted to do was discuss the new developments about the case with her. She had finally calmed down enough about it all to stop fretting and thinking every single second of every day that someone was coming to kill her. Brian had come so close so many times to divulging the fact that he had a cop stationed outside their house at all times to report any suspicious activity and to make sure that his family stayed safe during this ordeal. So far the chief had not even said anything to him about using the extra resources to accomplish this. He knew why Brian was doing this and he was perfectly fine with it all.

  Brian closed his eyes and tried to drift off to dream land and hoped that he could at least salvage a few hours of precious sleep time. It was rather unlikely with all of the thoughts that were swirling around his monstrous dome. He kept thinking about the blood sample that they had discovered. If it did turn out to be a match for someone in the data base then it was game over for this bastard. They would throw him in a cell before he had any idea what was about to hit him. It all sounded too easy and it sounded just like someone who was ready to give up on it all would be banking on. It was a coward’s way out and he was not going to think about the possibility of it anymore. It was easy to find yourself giving up on things if you did that. He wanted to remain focused on this and then he wanted to move on and put it all behind him. The whole damn police career; he was so done with it. He realized it more and more all the time. Working this case had actually taken its final toll on him. He did not want to do it anymore.

  As he lay there thinking of the way his life had started to crumble down around him, he found sleep and he slept like the dead.

  Chapter 8: The Darkness Consumes

  He winced as he rolled out of bed and brushed his chest wound against the bed. After taking a copious amount of pain killers that he had stolen from a small veterinarian clinic he had finally drifted off to sleep just fine. Looking at the clock beside his bed he saw that he had slept for six straight hours.

  The chest wound was not throbbing as badly as he thought it would be. It had subsided a bit and he felt like only a small bit of that was the pain meds. He liked to think that pain did not affect him the way it did other people. It was a weak, human feeling that people allowed to govern their lives. People lived their whole lives to avoid pain of any sort and it was just a feeling. The fact of it being good or bad was open to interpretation and it was open to the context. A lot of people went through extreme pain to just get to reach a certain goal or obtain something that they desired. The pain was worth the effort because the reward was great.

  There were other kinds of pain though. Like the pain he was experiencing right now. That sort of pain was purely physical and it was covered in rage and anger. Every time he hurt he got mad at that bitch who had not known her place and had in fact attacked him. She was working in self-defense and fear, but it pissed him off all the same. Did she not understand that she was interfering with his work and his mission?

  The need had risen exponentially since then which only added to his discomfort. He had to kill someone soon, but he was not going to be able to do so safely while he was injured. Luckily for him the girl’s aim had been bad and she had missed his heart by a few inches and the rubber of the suit he had been wearing did contribute to the blade not going in quite as directly as she had been aiming. Luck had worked out in his favor. He would never forget that and it only aided him in his reasoning that he had been chosen to do this work.

  He was not sure by whom or how it had happened, but he now understood why he had the need. He was not evil. He was not cursed. He had been given a gift and a mission. He had never believed in a God or a higher power of any sort, but he knew that the need had been given to him somehow. Whether you wanted to call that God or nature, or whatever—he didn’t really go into that sort of thing. He just knew what he needed to do and he had always done his best to serve his own needs. To a lot of people that meant that he was selfish, but why would you not be selfish? You had to love yourself more than your fellow man, even family was not as close to you as you were. He had never understood how people would constantly put others ahead of themselves. He had never been built that way and he never would be.

  He did not care about the lives he shattered because he was serving what was best for him. There were sheep and wolves in this world and his path had been decided at an early age. He did not realize it then, but he had been set on a distinct course in this world.

  Surviving this attack only added to this.

  He thought about the girl nonstop and had been thinking about her ever since this happened. Darla… she would need to pay, but he would not go for her now. It would be a long time coming and she would never see him coming after her. It might even be years from now when he was living somewhere else far away. He would never be able to continue his work in one spot for too long. The powers that be would try to catch him at every turn and eventually they would find some odd little thing that would trip him up.

  He stood up out of bed, wincing the whole time and made it to the bathroom. He turned on the shower nice and hot and let it run for a few moments, appreciating the steam that was coming out of the hot water. He could feel the infection trying to start in the wound. He would not allow that to happen
. To think that all of his work and his mission could be foiled by a stupid chest wound infection. That would be hideous to go out that way. He would not allow that.

  When he had arrived back at his home he had carefully removed his clothes and hopped in the shower to wash the wound carefully with hot water and soap. Then he had applied alcohol. The burn had been insane and he had blacked out from it, falling in the bathroom and narrowly missing hitting his head on the corner of the sink. It had been almost an hour before he came to, his chest was still throbbing a hot pain that echoed throughout his body. He had lost a bit of blood and he was feeling dizzy but he had managed to get the bleeding under control.

  It had been two days since his encounter and the wound had not bled anymore and so far he showed no sign of infection, but he did not want to take the chance. The wound was still a large, open cavity in the middle of his chest and it was terribly painful. Any small movement at all felt like he was being stabbed again, as if the wound was being ripped open repeatedly. It was a ghosting sensation because every time he checked it certain that he had torn it open, and it was fine as could be. It was an odd sensation. He hoped that little bitch Darla would have fun with the pain he was going to inflict on her.

  He had toyed with the idea of attacking someone she was close to, but delving into her background she had been a product of junkie parents and really had no one close to her. She had fought so hard to live when she didn’t have anyone to live for except herself.

  He wasn’t sure if he found that admirable or just plain sad.

  The shower was ready and he braced himself as he stepped inside the hot water. The pain hit him with the ferocity of an atomic bomb exploding in his lap. He had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming at the top of his lungs and he wondered how long it would be before he passed out this time.