by mike Evans
Matt dead-lifted him with one arm. Ramsey was screaming, his voice filled with agony. “What do you want? Fucking kill me or leave, motherfucker! The cops are going to be here soon, or the FBI, you'll see. You’d best get out of here because my brother-in-law is a cop and he ain’t down with people disrespecting me. I hope you understand that!”
Matt threw him on a conveyor belt, hitting the switch and taking him down slowly. Matt walked next to him smiling under the mask but making sure that he would be the last thing Ramsey ever saw. “Threats don’t do much for me. You have a stack of papers on here. This one has my name. Where is it from, where did you get it—actually, when did you get it?”
Ramsey was getting a bit more coherent. The adrenaline released into his blood gave him a shot to take up. “Oh, one of my guys is a newspaper boy—or man. I told him that I needed a shit ton of papers, and he brought me all the papers from last week. It’s probably a couple days old.”
“Did you read it? Do you know what happened?”
“No, I don’t read that shit, who gives a fuck if something's going on somewhere in the Midwest.”
Matt took his index finger, holding it tight. Ramsey was sure that he was going to snap it like his wrist, but Matt took out his hunting knife, sticking it as close to the base of his finger and pinning it in place and let go with his other hand gripping a board, and brought a board down on it, making it more of a cleaver than a knife. Ramsey tried to move his hand to protect it, but did little good with the current state of his wrist, which he was unsure which hurt worse. Matt felt around in his pockets, pulling out a lighter torch, and put it to the wound. “We don’t want this bleeding out until after we’ve had a chance to talk.”
Ramsey screamed but nothing could be understood. Matt did not remove the torch until the skin began to blister after turning black from the fire. Sweat was pouring from Ramsey’s face by now. He stammered, “I think that paper said they were in Minnesota. I don't read much, never been all that good at it.”
“There’s a fucking shocker. Where exactly were they in Minnesota? How many people did they kill?”
“Look, you sick fuck, why don’t you go and look the shit up? Christ, that’s what the fucking internet is for.”
Matt went to say something but realized the man could not be more correct. He walked down, throwing the newspaper in his way to the side, took the newspaper he wanted, and stuffed it in his pocket. He would get the website later, but for now he figured he should finish up his work and get out of here. He patted Ramsey on the chest. “You know what, you’re right, let's get to killing you. There’s nothing you’re going to know that anything on the internet isn’t going to know about.”
Ramsey knew he’d just fucked himself. “Wait, I know shit! I know shit about this town that you don’t know. Stuff you might care about.”
“I doubt there’s too much here that I care to know. Besides, I’m thinking there’s going to be a little road trip in my future. I’m going to find out what happened, and where my kids are, and take them back. I always figured that my son would acquire the itch; that he would want to know what it felt like to give to people pain.”
“Your whole family is sick. I’m glad that we killed your dad. He screamed like a bitch when I slit his stomach open and watched his guts paint the woods floor.”
“Oh, you aren’t very smart are you? You should have shut the fuck up.”
“You can’t kill me twice.”
Matt smiled, patting him on the chest. He said, “You’re going to regret saying anything at all.”
Matt went to the end of the table circular saw. It was set to two inches. He looked at Ramsey’s frame. He was nowhere near what Matt was, not even in his thin state. He raised it one foot to cut from. “There that ought to be enough.”
Matt flipped the switch starting the belt. He walked up to Ramsey, who was paralyzed from the blow earlier and trying to get free, but moving nowhere. The Stranger stared into his eyes; the mask almost made it look like he had no eyes. Matt took hold of his legs, spinning him around, and started to push him down the conveyor belt. Ramsey screamed, he’d spent enough time in this place and knew exactly what was about to happen to him. “We can talk! Come on let’s talk. You need to talk to me!”
“I need to finish my work and leave, but you know what?” Matt tucked a finger into his jeans pocket and removed his keys and wallet, realizing he was next to poor and would need money for gas in case—by some small chance—he would be able to control his hunger on the way out of town. That he might just not turn it into a man hunt.
“I’m already crippled, what else are you going to do to me?”
Matt took his hair in his hand and lifted him up to see the circular blade spinning. Sweat was forming on his forehead as the thought of what was going to happen was taking place. Matt dropped his head down, getting behind him and making sure that he was centered to the blade. He pushed him up to it slowly, letting the foreplay of anticipation grow until Ramsey felt like he was going to puke. He begged for leniency, but Matt pushed him up until his jeans caught on the blade and started tearing into his crotch. Pieces of his manhood flew in every which direction followed by his intestines. The blade screamed as it cut into his spine. Ramsey stopped screaming after only a few inches. The pain from his privates and asshole being sliced was too much to handle.
Matt didn’t have time to fuck around and pushed him up with a board slowly until the blade finally reached his neck. It was difficult to keep him on as his lower half fell to the side. Matt did not stop until his face was massacred by the saw blade, making sure a casket funeral would have no options but to be shut.
Chapter 17
Laughlin punched in the number to his office. He’d decided to make the call and say that he saw something suspicious when he was driving, but didn’t think about it until he saw the old newspaper at the diner and it had made it all come together. “Hey Tonya. Yeah, it's me. I need you to connect me directly to the FBI field office here in Washington. I don’t have time to screw around, so if you could please, please hurry I sure would appreciate it. You think you could do that for me, darling?”
“Sure, but you haven’t even radioed in… What the hell do you need-”
“Look god damn it, if you’d still like to be the sheriff’s deputy going forward, then I think you’d best give me just a little bit of god-damned respect. You got any questions about that, goddamn it?!”
“Just one second, please, Sheriff Laughlin,” she said with more than an edge of hate in her voice.
Laughlin dropped a bill on the counter for his dinner as he made his way out, trying not to look like he was going to be sick to his stomach. The phone rang and he leaned against his car, lighting up a smoke. “Federal Bureau of Investigation, how may I direct your call?”
“Yes, ma’am, my name is Sheriff Laughlin. I’m calling from Washington—the state.”
“That’s wonderful, sir. Is there some sort of emergency, or is there something that I can do for you, sir?”
“I need to talk to someone in charge, this is serious.”
“Yes, sir, and what exactly is going on that is so exciting? I do need to know who I send the call to.”
“Have you heard of The Stranger? The serial killer that started in Missouri, made his way to Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and down to California?”
The line was silent for a moment, but he could hear keys being punched in like the urgency was more than made clear. The phone rang a moment longer, and a man who was ready to take no shit answered. “This is Special Agent Gray, I am in charge of this case. I must warn you that if this is in any way a joke, I will go to the fullest extent of the law to make your life an absolute slice of hell. Do you understand me? Do you have any questions?”
Laughlin tried to clear his throat. He felt like he was in the principal’s office, but had nothing that he could say, because he was quite confident this man had more clout than he did when it came to trying to talk a big game. “My
name is Sheriff Laughlin, I’m sheriff up in Deerwoods, Washington. I think your guy is up here. I had some reports of someone driving down in a mask that matched his description. A man called me asking for help, but I knew that I was supposed to call your agency before I called anywhere else.”
Gray sat up in his seat and started punching keys. “You said that you saw him—you saw him today, this week? When did you see him?”
“It was just a few hours ago. I thought it was just a few weirdos on the way to hockey or something, you know, out fucking around.”
Gray said, “Well, if you waited this long. He’s already gone. I’ll send in agents now. You do whatever they need. You stay out of their way, and if you think you know where he was going, I’d like to be the first one to go in and see it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes. Yes, sir… Yes, Agent Gray, I do. Thank you for coming yourself. It’s always better when you get someone who cares about the job.”
“I don’t care about it, I fucking breathe it. It’s been five years since this son of a bitch made an appearance. I don’t understand what he is doing there. I thought he was dead. He almost killed me; the medics getting there when they did was all that saved my life.”
Laughlin said, “How soon can you get here?”
“I’m on my way to the airport now. I’ll be there in six hours. I want confirmation the minute you know that it is him.”
Gray got up, walking with a light limp that he had since the surgery when he’d broken his leg, hip, and a few ribs. He had come to terms with doing desk work with the one promise that he would be allowed to take the case over if and when it ever happened again. His director had felt so guilty about sending him out for his first job back on, something like that, that he’d given him the honor hands down. Besides the fact that he was the only one who had volunteered to go after the killer in the first place. After pictures of him bandaged from head to toe leaked out, no one had wanted to chase him down. The fact that he’d disappeared had been a blessing, and everyone was perfectly content except for Gray, who had been unable to find a lead to follow.
Laughlin pulled up to the warehouse slowly. He used his light on the side of the car to go back and forth. He had been the lead car on the way out; he’d called in everyone that he could. He saw something that made his stomach do flips. He’d been looking the man up for the finer details and wished he hadn’t done so at this point. The smiley face was dominant with this killer and he knew that. At the bottom of the front of the building, accompanied by a pile of guts, stood a smiley face that had to have been eight feet in width, all the way around a door.
He got his shotgun, waiting for the rest of his men to file out as well. They walked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, until one of the men opened up the door to the warehouse.
Gray came peeling in a few hours later. Laughlin had not been in a hurry, and when he had taken the picture and sent it to Gray he’d been instructed to stay out.
Gray left his car behind, walking up, no gun out, only carrying a camera on him. He stopped, getting a cold shiver when he saw the smiley painting. A part of him was almost happy to know that his chance to be the one who would take him out had not passed.
He moved past the officers, ignoring pleasantries, and saw the bodies dangling in the warehouse. Gray yelled to Laughlin to come to him. “Have you had any issues since you reported this, I mean are there any threats, or others showing up dead in town? Anything at all? Anything in the States? I put on a full alert when I got your call.”
Gray walked through; he’d never seen anything like this. He got his phone and called to Dr. Scott Peters. “You on a case right now?” Gray asked.
“Are you kidding me?” came the reply.
“I’ve been on an assignment myself for the last month, until I got this call in the middle of the night from this podunk sheriff. Why do you sound like that?” Gray inquired.
“Because I couldn’t believe you didn’t want the smallest slice of this case I got.”
“Dr. Peters, could you be a little more to the point?”
“Yeah, it’s Hardin’s kid. I’m interviewing him now.”
“Interviewing for what?” Gray couldn’t help but ask.
“When you’re done there, you’d best get out here. It’s a fucking bloodbath.”
To be continued…
Written by Mike Evans
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Books by Mike Evans
The Orphans Series
The Orphans: Origins Vol I
Surviving the Turned Vol II (The Orphans Series)
Strangers Vol III (The Orphans Series)
White Lie Vol IV (The Orphans Series)
Civil War Vol V (The Orphans Series)
Divided Vol IV (The Orphans Series)
Gabriel Series
Gabriel: Only one gets out alive
Pitch Black (Gabriel Book 2)
Body Count (Gabriel Book 3)
The Uninvited Series
The Uninvited Book I
The Stranger Book II of The Uninvited series
The Unwelcomed Book III of The Uninvited series coming soon
Buried: Broken oaths
Demons Beware