by Ken Lindsey
Back in the states, he was released from the hospital and the Church paid for him to get into an apartment. Soon after, he enrolled in classes at a community college, and got started on his education degree.
Another ninety days went by before he could no longer ignore the hunger.
"Hey, you need a ride?" Robert asked the young nursing student as he slowed his 4x4 near the curb where she was walking. The snow storm had arrived unexpectedly, and it came in with a vengeance.
"Yes, please!" she said as he opened the passenger side door for her. "It's freezing out here and I didn't even bring a jacket because it was so nice this morning."
He drove back out into the empty street, slowly, to keep from slipping on the snow and ice. He watched from the corner of his eye as she brushed dewy flakes from her hair and wiped the moisture from her face. She had pretty, soft features and couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old.
"Where can I take you?"
"It's only up on Redwood Road. Any further than that and I would have to give in and get myself a car," she laughed.
He slammed on the brakes, sending the pickup spinning to the side of the road, and the girl crashing into the dashboard. Once stopped, he leapt across bench seat and wrapped his forearm under girl's chin, squeezing her windpipe closed. She kicked and grunted and scratched at his arms, but within seconds she fell limp.
He reached into his glove compartment and grabbed the bottle of Percocet he had saved from his pain treatment. With shaking hands, he fished out three pills, pinched her nose closed, and forced the pills down her throat. Then he got back on the road.
Robert navigated his car east, through the storm. He drove for nearly two hours, out onto a remote salt flat, far outside the city. There was no traffic, no road crews, nothing for forty miles. He shut the pickup off, making sure to remove the keys so the battery wouldn't lose charge. Then he got out, opened the door to the camper shell, and yanked the nursing student from the cab of the truck. She was heavier than he expected, but he didn't have much trouble getting her to the back. Once her body was safely out of the weather, he climbed in behind her, and closed the camper door.
For the next two and a half hours, Robert tested the limits of the human body. With a butcher's knife and a pair of pliers, he ripped through the nursing student's arms and legs. He cut around the skin on her kneecap, and then ripped it off with his teeth. He gorged himself on her flesh until he threw up, and then started eating again. Each new slice tasted different, the heel of her foot, the muscle of her upper thigh, a hunk of breast meat, her cheek. When she finally died, he laid in the ocean of blood that had pooled in the bed of his truck and masturbated.
Once finished, he bagged up their clothes and tossed them into the cab. Then, he detached the camper shell and shoved it off into the snow that covered the salt flat. Using the falling snow and a broom, he swept the nursing student's body, the blood, and most of the mess out of the truck bed.
He made it home before daylight and cleaned the remaining mess with bleach and a mop. When he woke up the next morning, his pickup was covered in white powder again. Before the snow around Salt Lake City could melt, Robert packed everything he owned and moved to Portland.
These were the memories that haunted his dreams. As the taste of the blood, and the rush of his first time started to fade, he knew he was waking up.
Chapter 13: Small Miracles
He opened his eyes, but nothing he saw made sense. Directly above him he could see wood paneling and his legs were tangled in a chair. His head throbbed and there was a dull ache that went from his Adam's apple to the top of his sternum. He turned his head slowly to take in his surroundings. He saw his refrigerator, his linoleum covered floor on which he lay, and the chair that his feet were tangled up in belonged to him as well. Home.
With one question answered, the rest came back to him in a rush. He stopped struggling and slid his feet away from the chair. He had no idea how long he had been out, but he could hear someone moving around in the other room. For a moment, he worried that it may be the police, but he heard mumbling and grunting and then whoever it was yelled and fell to the floor. It had to be English, and from the sound of it, the drugs were working hard. He rolled over and climbed to his feet without making a sound. The private detective had found his feet again in the living room, and he flailed and grunted his way over and around furniture. For a brief second, Williamson worried about all the cleaning he would have to do once the drugs finally put the man under.
Pressed to the wall, he slithered his way down the short hallway until he came to the edge of the living room. Sure enough, English stood there, head lolling on his shoulders and legs threatening to give out as he stared at the door that led down to the basement.
A second of panic as he pictured the man finding Jennifer, tied to the bed with nearly twenty ounces of flesh stripped from her legs. But he knew that the drugs were still there, pumping heavier through the man's blood stream every second. And there was another bed.
Careful to avoid the toppled end tables, lamps, and other furnishings littering the floor, Williamson crept through the room until he was only a foot away from the private detective. Anticipation surged throughout his body as English yanked the door open and then shook his fist threateningly into the darkness. "Ha!" he yelled out, oblivious to the predator in the room with him.
Williamson inched closer as the man lifted his foot slowly, apparently planning to go down the staircase. Then he shoved him, as hard as could, and looked on gleefully as English tumbled down the steps and slammed hard into the door at the bottom.
In the sliver of pale light streaming down from the living room, he saw the man's eyes were still open. Frustrated and disappointed, Williamson slammed the door shut and left the private detective in the darkness.***
The light bulb hanging between the beds kept Jennifer from being able to get any real sleep. It added to the constant pain in her legs. Little things like an itch on her nose or a fly landing on her face became endless tortures as she lay, unable to move, strapped to the bed. On her first day, he confided to her that the room was soundproof, and no one would ever hear her cries. So, in the hours while she occupied the room alone, she would find solace in crying or screaming or cursing the man who put her there.
Now though, she wondered about the person who he had talked about. Would it be someone that she knew? Another student? Or would it be someone like him, another person to hurt her and haunt her dreams? Was there any chance in the world that it would be someone who might be able to help her?
She didn't dare think of that.
She only knew for sure that it was a man, or possibly a boy. Williamson had said that he had invited "him" over, before he started cutting on her good leg. Thinking about it made the throbbing more pronounced. She thought about the new person instead.
Could having someone else down in the basement with her make things easier? Maybe talking, getting shit out of her head, would help her forget about the pain. Or, would things be darker? She didn't want to imagine Williamson cutting on someone else, or even worse, having to eat another person's flesh.
A thump on the door. He was coming in.
Her pulse raced and it became harder to breathe as a familiar wave of panic took over.***
"Hell no."
Captain Meadows sat behind his desk with a sour look on his face. It was the same look David saw every time he mentioned anal sex to his ex-girlfriend. The look said that there would be no discussion.
"Captain, I get that you don't trust Gavin. Hell, I don't trust him half the time either. But this is important."
"Goddammit, Reeves. You can't come in here and tell me that Gavin Fucking English called you up, pissed out of his gourd, and had something important to say. I'm not giving that sack of crap a handful of my guys to lead around on a wild goose chase."
David bit back an angry reply. Getting into trouble just then wouldn't help anyone. "Well do I have permission to check it out at
least?"
"I don't care what you do. But if a call goes out anywhere near you, you better forget your drinking buddy and get your ass on scene. Got that?"
"Got it."
He ducked out of the big man's office and made his way across the department floor, doing his best not to make eye contact with anyone. If Gavin was screwing around, he wanted as few people as possible to know that he'd been truly worried.
Once out of the building, he rushed to his Crown Victoria and found the number of the school on his phone. It rang three times.
"Principal's office," answered the old woman, who he remembered from his last visit to the school.
"Hello, this is Lieutenant Reeves. I had a meeting with Mr. Rawlings yesterday."
"Oh, yes. Hello, Officer Reeves. How can I help you? I'm afraid Mr. Rawlings is visiting a class right now."
"That's fine. I just needed to get an address for one of your teachers there. I think it was a Mr. Williams."
"I'm sorry, sir, we don't have a Mr. Williams here."
"I might have the name wrong. Is one of your teachers absent today?"
"Oh! Mr. Williamson, yes. He's out today, is that who you meant?"
"Yes, ma'am." David started the car and waited for the GPS to power up. "What address do you have for Mr. Williamson?"
The old woman rambled off an address and David entered it into his navigation system.
"May I ask what it is you want with Mr. Williamson?"
"We just have a few questions to ask him. Thank you," he replied and then hung up. He tried Gavin's phone one more time.
Straight to voicemail.***
I don't know if I got an adrenaline kickstart from falling down the stairs or from the ribs that were definitely broken, but right after everything went dark, the druggy fog faded. This was good because the shitty situation I now found myself in had every intention of getting worse real quick, and I needed my head on straight. It was bad, though, because I had stabbed myself in the leg with a dirty fork and then went head over heels a few times down a concrete staircase.
Every-single-damn-thing hurt, from a gash in my scalp that trickled blood into my eye, to my ribs, which were trying to escape from my body, down to my ankle that didn't seem to fit within the confines of my sock. I took a few breaths, savoring the pain as it cleaned out the cobwebs. Things did not look good for me and Jennifer.
I left my gun in the Jeep, which might as well have been a bank vault for all the good it would do me now. Williamson was nuttier than squirrel shit, had a taste for long pork, and Jennifer and I were in his creepy, super-villain lair. To top it all off, if it turned out I picked the wrong door, then I wound up busted to pieces at the bottom of dark staircase, with no idea where he had her tucked away, or how I could get to her. Oh well, no time to wallow in self-pity.
I found my feet, and used the wall to steady myself as I tried to get on top of them. It hurt, but I'd been banged up and squiffy plenty of times before. It felt a bit like riding a bike. It took a minute to get my bearings with the lights out, but before long I found the big pull handle on the door. It reminded me of the huge steel doors they use on meat lockers; this thought did not bring me any comfort. I guessed I had as much chance of finding a fridge full of body parts, as I did of finding Jennifer.
And then there was light.
It burned my eyes and raked through my skull like a fork on a chalk board. I flinched and blinked a thousand times. Eventually my brain began to build a picture of the room behind the big door. I was in the right place. A rectangular room decorated in all concrete and metal, with a naked bulb dangling between two hospital beds. The room reeked of blood and chemicals and urine. The far bed had someone in it, unmoving and naked except for strips of bloody cotton that were being used to bandage her legs. I shut the door behind me.
"Jennifer?" I didn’t whisper, but my voice sounded low compared the beating of my heart. What if I had come too late? I took a step forward and my shoe on the concrete sounded like a hammer in the dull silence of the room. She flinched at the sound. Thank god.
"Jennifer, it's alright." I crossed the room, favoring my swollen ankle. "It's alright. He's not here."
She started crying, hard and fast and wet. When I got to the side of the bed, I started unlashing one of the straps pinning her down, the one which held her head first. Her eyes were closed but the tears kept coming, washing away the stains of so many tears that had come before.
When the strap came undone, she moved her head slowly, testing the freedom. I moved on to the next strap without speaking. Then the next, and the next, until there were none left to keep her down. She barely moved, and her eyes were still locked shut.
I took off my jacket; it glistened with blood, but it was large enough that she could cover most of her body with it. "Here, Jennifer. Put this on."
She opened her eyes finally, and I tried to help her sit up. She flinched and bit down on her lip, but once she stabilized she wrapped the coat around herself.
"Are you a cop?" Her whole body shook like she was freezing, and her voice shook right along with it.
"Not exactly. Your mom hired me to help find you. They're on the way, though." I couldn't be sure if they were or not. I knew I had called David, but I had no idea if he got the message out of my drugged ranting.
She wiped her face clean with the sleeve of my jacket. "He killed Denise. It's Mr. Williamson. He killed her."
"I know. Don't worry about that right now, hun."
She nodded, fresh tears broke the dam. Somehow, my cigarettes and lighter were still in my breast pocket. A minor miracle. I lit up, offered one to the girl. She accepted. I lit one for her.
"I'm only seventeen," she said after her first drag.
"Once we get out of here, the fine for giving a minor a smoke will feel like a medal of honor."
She laughed. Another miracle.
Chapter 14: One Shot
He paced the length of the kitchen and dining room, grinding his teeth and rubbing his knuckles over and over. His mind jumped from thoughts of running, disappearing into the world, to thoughts of the heaven that awaited if he could get that damned detective under his knife. As he stepped past the table one more time, he picked up the bottle that had failed him. The GHB had worked, of that he had no doubt. And yet, English was still awake.
He imagined being the type of person who would scream out in his anger, throw the bottle and watch as it exploded into a satisfying mess of booze and shards of glass. That kind of anger was wasteful and useless to a man like Williamson, who planned and adapted for every situation. Instead, he placed the bottle back in his liquor cabinet, and locked it.
No, rage would exacerbate this situation. He walked to the living room and began cleaning up the day's mess. An end table laid overturned on its side. He lifted it back to its place, picked up the papers and notebooks that had fallen from its drawers, and replaced the lamp that had gone down with it. Thankfully, nothing was broken. He put couch cushions back in their proper place, straightened his diploma and degree certificates, which had been knocked askew, and rehung his winter coat, which had fallen from its place on the coat rack.
Then, he found the cell phone. English's cell phone. It had hit the floor hard enough to crack the screen and knock the battery loose, but that didn't mean he hadn't used it. He picked up the pieces, slid the battery back into place, and put it back together. It wouldn't turn on. For several minutes, he stood and stared as he tried to figure out what it could mean. What were the chances that English could use the phone in his drug addled state? Who might he have called? Were the police on their way?
Fight or Flight.
Nearly ten minutes had gone by since he shoved English down the stairs. If he had managed to call the police, they were well on their way. Getting away without being noticed would be almost impossible, if they were. With a locked door and several warnings to get through before they could come in, though, he still had plenty of time to enjoy himself in the basement. A
last meal, and then he could make himself a cocktail of drugs that would send him off nicely. No prison.
And, if they were not on their way, then there was no reason to hurry. He could put the girl down, enjoy a hearty slice of English, and then saunter out of town before anyone knew what had happened.
Either way, the party would start in the basement.***
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Gavin."
"He's still up there, isn't he?"
"What?" I was thinking of ways to get to my gun, or any weapon that could help us get out of there, and her question caught me off guard.
"Mr. Williamson is still up there. That's why we're not leaving, isn't it?"
"Yeah." I didn’t have any comfort to give her; I wasn't going to lie. "I think he meant to put me in the other bed but the drugs didn't leave me as far under as he thought they would."
"Oh. What are you going to do?"
Good question. I had no idea. "We'll just wait it out down here."
"Do you have a gun?"
"It's in my car."
"Oh." I could hear hopelessness creeping into her voice. "He has knives and stuff down here." She pointed to the counter with the big, metal sink. "Maybe there's something you could use."
Sure enough, when I looked in the sink I found a plethora of surgical tools and kitchen knives, all soaking in an acetone bath. There were scalpels and hypodermic needles, and a few other things I recognized. There were also huge, jagged saw blades and other, more insidious items that looked like holdovers from medieval torture rooms.
I lifted out two of the bigger kitchen knives, and set one next to Jennifer in the bed. She didn't say anything, but I could see she didn't like having it there. Her eyes shifted nervously from the blade to the door, and back again.