So, maybe there was a lesson to be learned here. Maybe it was deemed that Ted needed the taste of his own kill again, if only because it had been so long. If that was the case, Kenneth Berkowitz was fine with God’s decision because it would only strengthen his bond with Ted as they moved across the country and took out as many whores as they could.
Still, there was a chance that she might not be dead. Maybe she was suffering...?
He was about to start running in the direction of the shriek when a woman he remembered from his past stepped out from behind one of the trees in front of him.
Her name came to him instantly―Meredith Ward―and she looked just as she had when he took her life after following her out of a Texas bar four years ago. Same snug red dress, same sluttish show of nipples pressing against the dress’s thin material, same red high heel shoes, same smear of red lipstick coloring her full lips. Her pupils were dilated pools of black, and the hatchet he’d planted in the back of her head was still there, cleaved deep into her brain.
He wasn’t surprised to see her, because he often came upon those women he’d sent to hell.
“Meredith,” he said with a nod.
“Kenneth.”
“How have you been?”
“Recovering. Understanding. Repenting. You were right to do what you did to me. I hope you don’t regret it.”
“Are you being serious this time?”
“Of course, I am. I’ve come around. You told me to lose the sarcasm, so I’ve lost it. I understand why you did what you did and I want to thank you for it.”
He studied her for a moment, then decided that maybe she was telling the truth. “I only did it for your own good, and also to send a message to the rest of the whores in Texas.”
“I think you were successful.”
“I wish that was the case.”
“Oh, come on. Look at the press you’ve received. You and your friend are national celebrities. Everyone writes about you.”
“If Ted and I were that successful, we wouldn’t be going back to Texas to make an example of another woman when this job is done. We’re thinking Dallas this time, not Austin.”
“Dallas is filled with whores.”
“That’s right, but you’d know that, wouldn’t you? And that’s why our work will never be finished, Meredith. There are too many others like you out there. Too many others who interpret the Bible for their own means and ignore God’s will. We’ll never get them all.”
She leaned against the tree trunk and lifted her long blonde hair off her shoulders. She pulled it behind her head and seemed oblivious to the fact that it was clotted with blood and brain matter.
“You know,” she said, “I liked it when you raped me.”
“Most do.”
“Are you going to rape Cheryl Dunning?”
If she’s alive. “Of course, I am.”
“Now, I’m jealous.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“But you were fantastic.”
“I know I am, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point always has been to teach people like you a lesson.”
She cupped her breasts with her hands and cocked her head to the side. The hatchet didn’t move. It remained fixed in her head, as if the bone had somehow grown around it. “Teach me a lesson, Kenneth.” She pulled up her dress, and exposed herself and her bloody thighs to him. “Just like you did before. Teach me a lesson. Come on, baby. Mommy needs a lesson.”
So, she’d been lying to him. Fucking with him. Quietly laughing at him. “What you need to do is leave. Until you fully repent, your soul is going to rot in hell. You’ll never be free of it, Meredith. You’ll never understand the beauty that awaits you in heaven. It’s there for you, but you’ll never reach it until you fully repent.”
“Do you ever think of me?”
He was growing irritated with her. “I don’t.”
“Not even a little?”
“How about this? Not at all.”
“I don’t believe that. You told me you never got hard like that. You told me I was special. You said you could fuck me all night long with that big, thick cock of yours.”
“You’re a liar.”
“About your cock?”
He just stared at her and said nothing.
She frowned and dropped her dress. Had she learned nothing from him? Was his work in vain? He was about to run past her to catch up with Ted before he killed Cheryl Dunning, if he hadn’t already done so, when he saw, just behind Meredith, another woman walking toward them from within the nest of trees.
“Kenneth,” she said.
It took a moment for him to place her. Who was she? There were so many he’d sent into the dark that he sometimes struggled to place a face.
And then he remembered. This was one of the ones they found in Vegas, right? Three years ago? When he and Ted took six, because the area essentially was a candy shop for their cause. What was her name? He couldn’t remember. Mia? Something like that.
He remembered how he killed her, though. And how she suffered. And how she screamed at him when he screamed verses from the Bible at her. And the moment life left her with his arms around her throat. He could see her bulging eyes, her bulging tongue.
“It’s me. Maria.”
Maria Fuentes―of course. The stripper he and Ted targeted for death along with three other strippers and two prostitutes when they were in Vegas over the course of those three eventful days.
They offered her five hundred dollars for a threesome, she took it without hesitation because that’s the kind of person she was, and each took turns strangling her in their hotel room at the Circus Circus within minutes of arriving there. When they were finished, they dumped her body in the bath tub, wiped their prints from her throat and anything else they might have touched in the room, which they paid for in cash, and moved to another hotel to continue their work.
Now, she was wearing the same stripper costume she wore when they killed her. Bedazzled pasties winked and blinked over the nipples of her otherwise naked breasts. A pink feather boa sloped around her neck like some kind of serpent. And a scant, bejeweled undergarment covered her private parts in ways that suggested one should pay absolute attention to them. Her neck was thick with bruises, but otherwise, with the exception of that and her dilated eyes, she looked normal to him.
“You won’t get Cheryl,” she said to him. “She’s too smart. She’s a Maine girl. She knows these woods.”
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“I’m afraid you are.”
“You’ll see. I can feel her energy. You’re no match for that one.”
“Bullshit,” he said.
“So much for Jesus,” Meredith sighed. “I wonder what he’d think of your language.”
To his left, another woman appeared. She was wearing street clothes and she emerged from behind a fir tree. She was tall, almost six feet, and looked to be in her early thirties. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders with a casual flip, and she had the same dilated eyes. She was wearing a blue business suit, conservative shoes and almost no jewelry, save for the diamond studs at her ears. He looked for a wedding band on her left hand, but there wasn’t one. In the center of her forehead was a hunting knife, buried so deep that it had caused blood to cover much of her face, neck and clothing.
He didn’t remember her.
He was about to speak when before him, dozens of women who died at his and Ted’s hands stepped out into the open.
Some dropped from the trees and landed silently on the forest floor. They stood motionless, their hands at their sides, their dark eyes staring back at him. Others seemed to emerge in front of him like ghosts from the ether. He recognized most of the women, but not all of them. What puzzled him is that he could see faintly through some of them. Worse, others were flickering. Why?
That part of his brain that hadn’t completely eliminated his
past reminded him what his therapist once said while they were in session: “It seems as if you suffer from hallucinations, Kenneth.” But he didn’t. The day that he saw God was real. He knew that. Later, when he was blessed by Jesus Christ Himself, it was real. He knew that. And what he saw in front of him now was real. He was certain of that.
He steeled himself against them and stood firm while Maria took off her pasties and exposed her breasts to him. The woman in the blue suit pulled the hunting knife from her forehead and gripped it in her left hand.
“You think we’re whores,” they said, and when they said it, in unison, it was so loud, it filled his head to capacity. “But we’re not.”
Were they joking? Of course, they were whores. Every one of them. That’s the reason they were targeted for death. He and Ted had watched each of them before they decided to act. Their choice wasn’t random. It was based on the behavior they witnessed. And now, by challenging him, they seemed to have no clue that they actually were challenging Him. He was incredulous that they’d be so brazen.
But that’s why they’re in hell and not with Him.
“None of you has repented, you haven’t heard the message of the Cross or the Gospel of the Christ, and by the sound of it, you never will, which is why you never will ascend into His arms. All of you are pathetic. You don’t possess a humble Christian spirit. You don’t understand that your souls are broken. Worse, you don’t fear Him. Instead, you sneer in the face of Him. You’re going to burn in hell forever.”
He was finished with them. He sprang forward and started to run past them, sometimes through them, which gave him a chill because he didn’t understand how that was possible because they were, after all, real.
He felt their hands grasp him and tug at his clothing as he shot by them. They were trying to bring him down, trying to do God knows what to him, but he was strong. He shook them off and pressed forward in spite of nearly slipping on the damp earth. He looked into their liquid black eyes as he flew past them and what he saw were deep wells of hatred.
When he finally was beyond them, one of them spoke out in a raised voice: “You shouldn’t have killed us, Kenneth.” It was Maria Fuentes. “We’re here to help her. This won’t be the last time you see us. You’re up for the challenge of your life. May the true God be with you, not the fake God you carry around in your fucked up heart, because you’re going to need the real God if you’re going to survive this time.”
And then, right at his back, as if his relationship with Christ didn’t matter, as if he wasn’t one of God’s Chosen Ones, each of them began to laugh in ways that only made him run harder.
He’d been through this with them once before, and he came out stronger and more focused because of it. He’d show them. If she wasn’t already dead, he’d make Cheryl Dunning’s death an example of why you never, ever crossed Kenneth Berkowitz.
CHAP
TER EIGHTEEN
Cheryl Dunning knew that at some point, she needed to stop moving and remain in one place. That was the first thing her father and grandfather told her she should do should she ever become lost in the woods. She should create some kind of shelter for herself, just as they’d shown her how to do, and not move until she was found.
If I’m found.
She no longer was running. Instead, she was walking softly and listening. She saw the direction in which the madman ran―far off to her right. The bull moose had frightened him enough that she watched him dart blindly through the woods, which allowed her to slink low and keep to the left, along the wetlands, which is where she wanted to be because at some point, she knew it was here that she’d find some sort of water source. Not the pools of ground water that were around her―drinking from them would probably kill her. She was hoping to find a brook or a stream. Something that was coming from a fresh source and, more importantly, that was moving.
But even if she found that, she’d be taking a risk if she drank from it. As thirsty as she was―the alcohol she consumed last night didn’t exactly hydrate her―and as disgusting as her mouth tasted because of the blood she’d been unable to rinse out, whatever flowing water source she came upon would still have its share of bacteria, which could cripple her.
Still, she remembered her father’s words. If she had a choice between dehydration and illness, she should drink and pray for the best.
She stopped for a moment, pressed her back against a thick pine, and reached inside her pocket for the phone he left her with. She turned it on, saw that no other texts had been left, and then she tried to see if she could get a connection, but she couldn’t. Everything outgoing had been dismantled and since she was no techie, she knew that whatever he’d done to the phone, she’d never be able to fix.
She put the phone back in her pocket―and her heart stopped when her fingertips touched something cool at the very bottom of it. She knew at once what it was, and the thrill she felt was undeniable. She forgot she had it on her because she rarely smoked, though she did last night because Patty was with her and that’s what they did when they went out. She’d been so distracted by everything that was happening to her, she hadn’t even felt it in her pants. She pulled out the red Bic lighter and gave it a flick. It took three tries for it to light, but when it did, it was perhaps the most beautiful sight she’d seen all day.
Besides the moose.
Hunters hunted in these woods. The less responsible ones would leave debris behind, like tin cans used for coffee or food. If she could find an old can, she would be able to create a small fire and boil water in it. That would kill off any bacteria and she would be fine. She wasn’t so much worried about food, at least not right now, but water and shelter were critical for her survival.
She needed to make plans. First, she had to find a water source. Second, she had to make an inconspicuous shelter that was near it. Third, she needed to find something, anything, that could be used to boil water.
Finally, what was most daunting is that somehow she had to do all of this without him hearing her, and she wasn’t sure that was possible, since building the shelter alone would involve the breaking of branches. Worse, when she created a fire, the smell of the smoke would give him an idea of where she was. At night, if she started even the smallest of fires to generate heat, he’d see the glow. So, at the very least, she couldn’t have a fire at night. The smoke would drift in the breeze, which might actually confuse him if the breeze came from different directions, but the glow was a mainstay. He’d see it. He’d find her.
She thought about that for a moment, and her mind went to a darker place. If she was prepared for him, was it so awful if he found her? If she could draw him to her, what were the possibilities if she did?
She looked around her, from the forest floor to the few dead pines scattered amid the living trees. She studied their branches, which, if broken, could be used as a weapon.
But he has a gun.
So he did. But at night, in the ever-changing shadows cast by a fire, he might not see her until it was too late.
It was a risk, a big one because setting a fire would absolutely draw him to her, but what else did she have?
And then, in a rush, it came to her.
She thought it through. She smiled in spite of her broken lips and the knowledge that the odds were against her. She knew she likely wouldn’t come out of this alive. But it was something. And it could work.
For the first time since she woke this morning, beaten to a pulp on some random forest floor by a maniac she didn’t know, she felt a spark of hope and knew exactly what she had to do.
CHAPT
ER NINETEEN
Ted Carpenter stood deep in the woods, his gun at his side, his breathing labored, his heart slamming against his chest as if it wanted out every bit as much as Cheryl Dunning wanted out of these woods.
He was lost.
Before he was chased by the moose, everything was going as planned. Everything was under control. She was in his sights. He was scaring the hell out of her j
ust as he and Kenneth did with everyone they eventually murdered.
And then she disappeared.
She probably saw the moose herself and ducked behind some trees. If that was the case, then she set him up. She intentionally hadn’t warned him. She let him run straight into that moose’s path―not to mention its wrath―as if his life meant nothing to her. As if he wasn’t there to serve the Lord. As if he wasn’t there to represent the Lord. Didn’t she get it?
Obviously not.
If she was in front of him now, he’d take her without Kenneth―who demanded to be present for every sacrifice―and he’d kill her without hesitation. Right now, he didn’t really care that Kenneth would be angry with him. This was about him now. He was the elder. He was the one who was nearly run down by a moose. If he had the chance―which he eventually would―he’d lift his gun to her face and pump enough bullets into it until it slid off her skull.
The moose was gone, but instead of a short run meant to frighten him off, the beast wanted a piece of him and drove him far into the woods before, after what seemed to him like an eternity, it gave up the chase and wandered off.
He and Kenneth had been over these woods dozens of times, but who was he kidding? He didn’t know them as well as Kenneth thought he should know them. These woods were massive. He obviously knew the path when he saw it. And he knew where the wetlands were in association with the path. But right now? After taking so many turns and jumping over all of those fallen trees? Right now everything looked the same―an enclosure of fir and pine trees, the crooked skeletons of twisted dead trees, the brightly colored seasonal trees, a blue sky overhead, the sun square in the middle of it.
And no feasible way out.
Earlier, he tried to follow his tracks out of the woods, but they were so jumbled in his effort to evade the moose, they didn’t make any logical sense. Sometimes, the tracks went around in circles. Often, they criss-crossed when he dodged the animal. They were such a mass of confusion, he couldn’t rely on them to get him out.
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