B00IZ66CZ8 EBOK

by Unknown

  Cutter’s ears filled with the sound of running water. The bathtub was running over from when he had started a bath.

  The door to the bathroom was shut. He kicked it open and saw that the water ran over, spilling onto the floor.

  The bathroom had no window, so it was pitch black.

  Cutter shone his light over the tub that he had drowned his wife in ten years ago.

  Then he saw a dark shadow lying in the tub.

  He fired his gun at it. Outside the thunder rolled and the lightning continued to crack across the sky. The thunder muffled the sounds of Cutter’s gunfire.

  Cutter fired four rounds into the figure in the bathtub. He hadn’t even hesitated. He hadn’t even stopped to confirm that it was Shane. He had just fired his weapon.

  He stopped. The smoke from the muzzle of the gun covered the beam of his flashlight. He waited for it to clear and then he shone the beam of light across the overflowing water from the tub.

  Kirk Cutter was one of the hardest and best-trained FBI agents around. He had seen it all. He had murdered and done horrible things. And all of his experience, all of his training, all of his demons, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.

  A ghastly expression came over his face. The life force that drove him on skipped a beat.

  He recoiled away from the tub and dropped his Glock.

  The tub was filled with the muddiest water that he had ever laid his eyes upon, but that was not what terrified him.

  The thing that terrified Cutter to his very core, to his bones, to the bowels of his brain was the figure that he had shot.

  Floating in the mud and filth in his bathtub was a skeleton.

  The skeleton’s eyeless eye sockets stared back at Cutter.

  |||||

  Ally’s research had been thorough as always. And one of the things that Shane had also read in her message was where Kirk Cutter’s wife had been buried.

  The article about him and his murdered wife did forget to mention one minor detail. When Millie Cutter was murdered she had been eight months pregnant. I guess the police decided to keep that from the media due to sensitivity of the case.

  Cutter’s eyes focused and scanned the entire skeletal remains. That was when he saw something that terrified him even more.

  He saw tiny skeletal remains floating inside his wife’s ribcage.

  As he moved closer and leaned in, he saw the under-developed bones of an unborn child.

  “She was pregnant,” I said. My dark voice hissed in his ears.

  He swung around, but I was not in his sight.

  “But you already knew that.

  “You murdered your wife. You blamed it on a ghost. And you murdered her while she was pregnant,” I said.

  “Then you got the taste for killing. And you couldn’t get that taste out of your system.”

  Cutter charged into the master bedroom, looking for me. His Glock was drawn out in front of him like a lance.

  Before Cutter could sweep the room with the gun, I swiped it out of his grip with a violent strike.

  The gun went flying against the wall.

  In the darkness of the master bedroom, two sparks of light lit the room. The sparks were from the dual Tasers that I wielded.

  After Cutter’s Glock went flying from his hands, I struck him straight in the chest with Sun Good’s Taser.

  The Taser had two prongs at the end. They were nestled at opposite ends of an arch. They faced each other like twin serpent heads. Instead of hissing their tongues at each other, these serpents spit out a powerful electric current.

  The Taser shocked Cutter.

  He screamed.

  I held down the trigger for only a few seconds, which was about as long as I could do, since he fell back and away from me.

  The scales on my skin crawled, but not from fear. I was excited.

  Cutter had fallen back against a dresser. I closed in on him.

  He was badly dazed, but he was not down for the count.

  He immediately rose to his feet. Before he could fight me, I showed him both Tasers.

  I taunted him with them. I switched them both on. Like a boxer showing his opponent his blood-soaked gloved hands, I taunted my opponent. I faked each Taser in sequence.

  Left. Right. Left. Right.

  Then in one quick move, I jabbed with my right hand.

  I hit Cutter square in the solar plexus. It was a powerful move. The jab brought the force of a punch, but it hadn’t ended with just that. This jab ended with volts of electricity.

  Agent Cutter was the most powerful monster that I’d ever faced. In that moment, I saw just how powerful.

  I used Shane’s left hand and struck toward Cutter’s head with the other Taser.

  The sparks from the Taser in my right hand shocked his body, but he was so powerful that he grabbed my left hand and deflected the blow.

  I struggled for what felt like minutes, but it was actually only mere seconds.

  Of course, the human body was a perfect conduit. The powerful shock from the Taser in my right hand jolted through Cutter’s body and into my left hand.

  I felt Shane stirring inside me. The electricity jolted our circuits. This was painful, but at the same time, it satisfied. Feeling that pain made me realize that it was really jarring the monster inside Cutter.

  Suddenly, Cutter twisted his hips in a throwing maneuver. He threw me into the dresser and loosened my electric grip on him.

  Shane’s body recovered quickly from Cutter’s throw. Then I was back on my feet.

  Cutter shook his head as if the creature inside it had been shaken loose from the voltage.

  My first instinct was that he would make a move for his Glock.

  I was wrong. Cutter charged at me.

  He jabbed at my head and then at my chest. Shane’s powerful muscles absorbed the blows, but then Cutter popped me once more in the face.

  The blow whipped Shane’s head back. Without even realizing it, I stumbled backward. I soon realized that the force of Cutter’s blow sent me into the bedroom window.

  Then came the feel and sound of broken glass and I was falling backward into the rain.

  Shane’s back hit an overhang below the master bedroom. The weight of his body bent the rods, but they remained attached to the house. I rolled off the overhang and landed violently on the ground.

  The rain pounded down on me. I could hear it echoing through Shane’s ears.

  Lightning struck somewhere in a nearby yard. It lit up the sky. I looked up and saw Cutter leaping through the window after me.

  His monster must have been enraged. Or maybe those shocks to his chest had blinded his senses.

  Perhaps he was simply out of control.

  At any rate, Cutter’s monster forgot one very important detail when he jumped from that window. He forgot his gun.

  Cutter landed on his feet.

  I spun around and rose to my feet.

  The rain fell between us. Cutter and I stood, staring at each other in a final showdown.

  This would be the final moment for one of us. I smiled inside Shane’s skin. That was when I noticed that I held in my left hand only the Taser that I’d removed from the SWAT gear in the trunk of Cutter’s FBI car.

  The other Taser, Sun Good’s Taser, was on the ground. It was closer to Cutter than it was to me.

  We charged for it at the same time, like two rams in the wild about to butt heads.

  We reached the Taser at the same time.

  I squeezed the button on mine and sparks shot from the tip.

  Cutter grabbed my wrist. He deflected it from his face. Then he pulled Sun’s Taser from the ground. My free hand grabbed at his forearm, but the glove and the rain made it hard to get a grip.

  Cutter mashed the button on Sun’s Taser and sparks flew from it.

  He shoved it into my stomach, but I managed to grab at his hand with my free hand and hold his attack at bay.

  The two of us struggled with the sparks sho
oting and wailing between us.

  I forced my Taser closer and closer to Cutter’s center mass, overhanded.

  I came close, but then he used the momentum of his upper body and pulled away from my attack.

  The two of us were at an impasse.

  The rain pounded harder and harder.

  A set of three thunder claps rolled through the sky.

  Suddenly, I realized that Cutter was speaking.

  He said, “You will die!”

  Then I said, “You killed your own wife and used a made-up serial killer to hide behind. I think it’s time for …”

  Before I could finish, Cutter pulled farther away and forced me to move forward.

  A second later, I regained my breath and continued, “It’s time for you to own up to it. It’s time for YOU to die.”

  Cutter replied, “I am like you!”

  “Like me? You are nothing like me!”

  Cutter pulled away a little more, and then I realized why he kept pulling me back. It wasn’t to get away from our struggle. He did it so he could lean back on his feet and use the full strength in his legs to drive a powerful head butt directly into my face.

  The blow sent me completely out of a deadlocked grip. The force from it threw me almost off my feet.

  I recovered as quickly as I could. It was just in time to see Cutter charging at me again. He had Sun Good’s Taser at the ready.

  He jabbed the Taser at my face. I deflected it with my Taser, like parrying a sword attack with my own sword.

  The Tasers sparked. Electricity flung wildly as the currents met for an instant.

  “I have watched you for a long time. I like what you do. I am like you,” he said.

  Then Cutter backed away. He retreated, circled me, and attacked again.

  Like before, I held off his attack with my free hand. Simultaneously, he held my attack back with his free hand.

  Our faces were only inches apart. That was the first time that he saw just how dark I was. I could see the recoil in his eyes. The monster inside of him feared me.

  “You are not like me. I am a serial killer. You are a monster who murdered his own wife and unborn child,” I said.

  He said, “I never murdered MY wife. I murdered Kirk Cutter’s wife after I murdered him.”

  A sharp, dark realization stabbed through me like a stiletto blade had pierced it.

  Then he said, “The ID Killer is real. And Kirk Cutter did discover me. Only he discovered me more than ten years ago, before he joined the FBI. He discovered me back in law school, or rather, I discovered him.

  “His wife—or actually, she was really married to me—she did marry me, but she thought she was marrying a man named Kirk Cutter,” he said.

  My grip began slipping. My forehead was bleeding and the blood seeped down past my eyebrows and into the corners of my eyes.

  The rain pounded harder on Shane’s shaved head.

  Cutter’s Taser got closer and closer. Meanwhile, he managed to keep mine at a safe distance from his head.

  “I am the ID Killer. How do you think I found other serial killers so easily?

  “I was getting bored in Cutter’s life until I found you. After I kill you, I think I might try on Shane Lasher’s skin and see what it’s like being you—defender of killers. That is, until you kill them.”

  The blood began pooling in the corner of Shane’s right eye. I was losing vision because of the blood and the dense, pouring rain.

  The ID Killer began to reel back again like he was going to deliver another head butt.

  I couldn’t withstand another head butt attack. If he delivered one more, I knew it would be lights out.

  As he began to snap back, I surprised him. I let go of my grip from his Taser. Instead, I leaned into it. As it shocked me, the voltage was so intense that I struggled not to scream in Shane’s skull.

  The voltage fired through Shane’s body. It seared the tip of my tail and tendrils, but I held onto his brain.

  Then the shock conducted through his body and his grip on Cutter’s forearm hand.

  The ID Killer jumped back violently and dropped Sun Good’s Taser.

  The electricity that fired through Shane’s body was gone.

  Before Cutter could recover, I picked up Sun Good’s Taser. I held both Tasers.

  The ID Killer had fallen to the ground. He began to stand up.

  I shoved both Tasers against his head. One Taser touched the tip of one of his ears.

  I studied him for a second. He looked up into my eyes.

  I pressed the buttons on both Tasers.

  Electricity seared through the prongs on the Tasers. The high voltage shock charged through his head. He squirmed and whipped.

  I couldn’t even imagine the pain that he felt. His body fluttered and flailed violently.

  Shane’s fingers mashed the buttons down hard on the Tasers.

  He watched for several minutes while the ID Killer wailed around. Blood flooded from his nose and foam formed in his mouth.

  I imagined how the creature inside his head seared and charred.

  When I felt that Shane was satisfied, I released the buttons. Shane’s fingers were blood-filled from how hard he had pressed down on the buttons.

  Cutter’s body slinked over and fell to the ground. A normal person would have been dead for sure. That amount of electrical current should have killed him, but it didn’t. He was still alive, but he would never move again.

  The ID Killer’s brain was mush and the monster inside of him had fried. Nothing was left but a motionless shell of a man.

  Cutter’s cell phone rang in his pocket. I looked at him.

  Shane came back. He huffed and breathed hard.

  The struggle had exerted him to the limits.

  He knelt over Cutter’s body and reached in his pocket. He pulled out the phone.

  Shane looked at the caller ID.

  The ID read:

  Hanna Cutter

  Who is this? Shane wondered.

  Too late to worry about it now. Certainly there would be police here at some point. Shane thought it best to get out.

  Normally, he would have taken Cutter’s body to his furnace. Normally, he would take his weapon that he had used. That was what he kept as a souvenir, the weapon of his victims.

  Instead, Shane thought that it would be best to keep the Tasers. They would make good trophies.

  He bent over Cutter and picked up the Taser.

  He stopped and studied Cutter’s scars. Self-inflicted. Those were his trophies.

  Each cut represented a murder.

  Shane wondered how many were murderers and how many were innocent victims like Sun Good.

  Cutter’s phone rang again. Same ID on the caller screen.

  Shane decided to take the phone. There might be evidence on it that he’d rather erase.

  He ignored Hanna Cutter and slipped the phone in his pocket. Then he left.

  10

  Partners

  “…research on serial killers’ partners is limited because often these women feel they can’t talk unless given permission by the serial killer.”

  ––Dr. Helen Morrison, Psychiatrist

  |||||

  The next week was January. It was cold and windy.

  Shane felt the New Year all around him. Time moved quickly like it was just last year and then that year was gone.

  It was time to wake up. It was time to start the new day, the New Year.

  Shane’s black Mercedes was parked in the driveway. His father’s old Harley Davidson was buried in the depths of his garage.

  He wore a thick, black pea coat over a suit. His blood-red tie was tucked neatly into the coat. Everything about his outfit was like his kill-suit, except for his scarf. It was black. After all, he was attending a funeral.

  Shane stood over the newly patted down grave of Detective Sun Good. He had reburied her in his backyard. He’d buried her in his family cemetery, a small patch of land on his family manor. And
now, on this new day, he was having a funeral for his friend.