by Richard Awe
He climbed down the ladder and filled in Trooper Wegner of his findings. He pulled out his cell phone and called Officer Keyes and told what he found. Miller ordered a South Elgin Officer to meet Keyes and bring him and his team to the area as well as the Corner’s Office staff.
While Detective Miller spoke to Keyes a Deputy took the ladder to the other dump truck and looked in. This truck contained an old mattress with what appeared to be large amounts of blood stains. There was a small end table next to the mattress that held a camping lantern and surgical tools. There was a five gallon plastic bucket that was nearly full of what appeared to be human urine and feces.
Rick thanked the Deputy and asked him to help coordinate this information with Officer Keyes and the evidence technician that were en route. Rick was flooded with so many thoughts and emotions. This was such a tragic scene. He could feel the pain and fear these poor people must have felt when they met their fate. What a terrible place to die, butchered by some sick son of a bitch in the back of old rusty truck in the middle of some god forsaken hole in an old abandoned gravel pit.
Rick could feel the heaviness that settled around him. He had not slept in over 24 hours and was physically and emotional drained. He was not sure how much more he could handle. Just when he started to lose faith in himself, he felt the warm and wet nose of Ida Mae gently nosing at his hand. Rick looked down and could see her tail wagging. She had done her job and was eager for approval. Rick felt a smile begin to crack across his worn out face. He knelt down on one knee next to Ida Mae and began to pet her on her head. Ida Mae snuck in a few licks on Rick’s face. “You did a good job, girl. You did a dam good job.”
Chapter 18
Like most mornings Samantha was up before her alarm clock could sound. Typically, she would spring from bed, throw on her jogging clothing, grab a bottle of water and hit the pavement for her daily morning jog. This Saturday morning was different and her morning jog was going to be skipped. This is highly out the ordinary for her. She rarely could find a reason she felt worthy enough to skip the morning run but today she did.
She had received a surprise call from Rick yesterday afternoon. He had filled her in on what they had found in the remote section of the park. He explained that, at the time he called her, he had been thirty- six hours working on this case. His plans were to head home in a couple of hours to get some sleep and return on Saturday morning and go over the evidence collected from the new crime scene.
He needed a break. Rick needed some down time away from the case so he could hit it fresh on Sunday morning again and knew Samantha was the perfect diversion. He asked Samantha, during his phone call, if she was free Saturday evening for a little dinner in, and some company. Of course, Samantha said yes. She was ecstatic that Rick called her.
Samantha was all too aware of the severity of these crimes and the impact it was having on their small community. She also knew how important it was for Rick to have a small break. He’s human and needs time to recharge. This stress was not good for Rick’s physical welfare, and was no good for the case.
She wanted this night to be extra special and was going to spend the day getting everything just right for the evening. She wanted to clean her apartment, shop for the dinner, and buy a new outfit for the evening.
Samantha’s house is never messy. She always keeps it very clean. The bed is made every morning. Dishes are washed and put away after each meal. Everything has its place and is returned to it after each use. She wanted to spruce things up for tonight. Dust and wax the furniture clean the kitchen and bathroom, vacuum the rugs, etc. She even wanted to wash the bed linens, just in case.
Samantha had so much to do today. She didn’t want to want to have run down to the laundry mat to wash her sheets and blankets. The laundry room that was in her apartment building contained the machines necessary to do it, but after her run in Gene the other day, she was trying to avoid using the machines.
She decided she would grab the linens and sneak down the hall to the laundry room. If the coast was clear, she would throw them in the machine and leave. They could wash while she cleaned and then she could sneak back and place them in the dryer. Then she would go shopping while they dried.
Samantha removed the sheets from the bed and stuffed them in a clothes basket. She opened the door that led to the hallway just a crack. She peeked out and stood there listening for several seconds. She didn’t see or hear anything. She quickly tipped toed down the hallway leading to the laundry room. She left her door open a crack so it would not make any noise when it closed. She was relieved to see that the light to the laundry room was off when she arrived at the doorway. She went in the room and stuffed the sheets and blankets into two separate machines. She fed the machines the quarters needed to operate and scurried back to her apartment, slipped in, and closed the door quietly.
She went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of orange juice and was sipping from it while she wiped down the counter tops and cabinet doors. She swept the kitchen floor and prepared a bucket of water to mop it. She set the mop bucket at the entrance of the small kitchenette, placed her glass in the dishwasher, started the dishwasher, and began mopping the floor.
Once finished in the kitchen she grabbed the mop bucket and went into the bathroom. The bathroom was the only one in the apartment and shaped like an “L”. When you walked in there was a wall that ran the length of the bathroom on your left with a towel bar mounted to it. To the right is a small linen closet, then the vanity, followed by the toilet. The shower was located around to the corner to the right in the short “leg” of the “L”.
Samantha pulled a set of clean decorative towels from the linen closet and began arranging them on the towel bar. The towel set was her favorite and was only brought out for special occasions. The towels were red in color. She hung two bath towels on the bar first. Then she folded two hand towels which she positioned atop the bath towels. This followed by two creatively folded wash cloths, placed strategically atop the hand towels.
Samantha took a step back to admire her work. She stood there looking and making an adjustment here and there. She was thinking about the evening to come. She could not wait to go shopping for clothes later. She was planning on buying a new outfit special for the evening. Something a little bit revealing in her cleavage area. She was not very well endowed in that area, but wanted to attract some of Rick’s attention. She was even planning on purchasing some sexy underwear for the evening. She was thinking something shear and tastefully lacey.
As Samantha took a step forward she felt a sudden sharp pain in the lower part of her neck, near the top of her right shoulder. She immediately slapped at the burning sensation with left hand thinking she had been bitten by some sort of bug. As she turned to see what may have bitten her she began to feel the muscles in her legs grow extremely weak, very quickly.
She felt as though she suddenly weighed 400 pounds and could no longer withstand her body weight. She felt herself beginning to fall to the floor. She tried to swing her arms out to try and brace her fall but was unable to. She felt herself begin to panic, trying with all her might to move her arms or legs to stop her from falling, but they simply would not work.
Just as she thought she was about to hit the floor she felt someone grab her around her waist from behind. Fear immediately shot through her entire body. “Who is in here with me?” she thought to herself. Her mind was racing trying to figure out what had just happened to her and who was doing it.
She felt herself being drug from the bathroom, her heels dragging on the floor. She could not see her attacker. Samantha feared for her life. Between what Rick had told her about the murders and what she read in the paper, she knew that she was in the grasps of the killer.
She thought of Rick as she was being drug into her bedroom and felt so sorry for him. For now he would have to investigate her murder. She wondered how this would affect him. She worried this may be too much for Rick to handle causing a mental break down.
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She was tossed on to her bed, landing on her left side, with her head close to the head board. She remained on her side still unable to see her attacker. She was wondering why he had chosen her as his next victim and how he had gotten into her apartment. Since the murders, she had kept all the doors and windows locked using the air conditioning. She figured her attacker had been hiding in the shower.
She could hear the intruder moving around behind her. She wished she could turn her head to see who was doing this to her but was unable to. She tried to strain her eyes to look. She suddenly became aware that not only could she not move her arms and legs, but she could not move her eyes or even blink.
This brought on a whole new wave of fear over her. This is what she had read and been told by Rick. This is the drug the killer used to paralyze his victims. Rendering them helpless, so he could do god knows what. She had no idea what to expect. Rick had spared her most of the gruesome details and the police had not released all of the details to the media.
She heard the intruder moving around behind her. It sounded as if a zipper had just opened, a bag or suitcase of some kind. Samantha was grateful that she could still see and hear. She needed to fall back on her senses. She could see and hear fine. She could still feel. She thought how odd it was to not be able to move, but still be able to feel everything right down to the attacker’s breath on her neck and shoulders as his breathing became labored dragging her to the bed. She could still smell as well. She could smell a strong smell of body odor coming from her attacker.
She knew she still had most of her senses. She needed to use these senses to try and figure out what he was going to do and how to get out of it. She was a fighter and not willing to just let the intruder kill her without a fight. She had no idea what she could do but she was determined to find a way.
She began running down a list of what she knew in her head. She knew she had been poisoned by the intruder, probably injected with curare in her neck. She had felt the sharp pain in her neck and immediately became paralyzed. She suspected the intruder hid in the shower because she had her back to the shower and she was attacked from behind.
She suspected the attacker was male because they were strong enough to catch her as she fell and she could smell the body odor and there was no mistake it was from a man. She had heard a slight grunt when the attacker flung her to the bed and sounded as if it were deep enough to be that of male voice.
Samantha soon felt cold metal being placed around her right arm. She heard the distinct sound of clicking made by a pair of handcuffs being closed. She felt her arm then being pulled towards the head board. She instantly knew she was about to be cuffed to the bars of her brass headboard. She was confused by this action. “Why cuff me to the bed if you have paralyzed me with a drug?” she thought. The only reason she could come up with was, the attacker felt as though there was a chance the drug could wear off and there was no more available to re-drug her. She also figured that whatever the plans were it was going to take long enough that the attacker felt there might be sufficient enough time for the curare to wear off. That meant she had time. She had time to form a plan. She needed to get as much information as possible for Rick, and she needed to, at the very least, escape so that she could tell Rick.
She could hear the attacker moving to the foot of the bed and sounded as if he was heading to the other side of the bed. No doubt to cuff the other arm she thought. She would soon be able to get a look at her attacker. She could vaguely make out a silhouette with her peripheral vision.
The attacker walked quickly up to her, and she was not able to get a look at his face. He leaned over and grabbed her left arm. She could smell the body odor again and this time it was very strong. It nauseated her briefly. The attacker pulled her left arm up and cuffed it to the headboard. She was now stretched out on her back, hands secured to the headboard with two pairs of handcuffs.
The attacker took her pillow and placed it under her head. She was surprised by this small act of kindness. “You jam a needle in my neck, drug me, and cuff me to my bed but want to make sure I am comfortable?” thought Samantha as she strained to get a look at his face.
The attacker moved to the foot of the bed where he stood staring her right in the face. Samantha made a gasping noise as she drew in a sudden breath. She could not believe what she was now looking at. Her attacker wore no mask or made any attempt to alter his appearance in any way. She knew her attacker! More waves of fear ran through her body as she laid there looking at the face or neighbor, Gene Harrison.
“Surprise, surprise!!” said Gene with a huge smile of his face. Samantha could not believe the killer responsible for all those horrible murders was living in her apartment building. “He could have killed me any time he wanted. Why now? Why all of a sudden?” she thought. She laid there trying to process the situation and was having a hard time wrapping her brain around it. “He was just hitting on me a few days ago. Why would he….” There was no need for her to continue that thought. It was immediately clear to her why he picked her to be next. He was in love with her and she shot him down for another man. Not just any other man, but for the man that was working his tail off to catch him. “This is payback to Rick. This is meant to teach him a lesson.” she thought.
Samantha was sickened by her next thought. “What if he is using me to lure Rick here alone and kill him?” She knew she had to do something. She suspected that he was keeping her captive in her apartment until Rick came over tonight. Then he could kill him. That is why the handcuffs. It will be several hours before Rick would arrive and the curare would wear off by then. She would take this time to formulate her plan and when the curare wore off she could implement it.
Chapter 19
“I know, I know. Not exactly what you expected in the famous “curare killer”. laughed Gene, as he was pulling a pair of scissors from an old leather medical bag. Samantha was focusing her attention on the scissors, trying to guess what he was going to do with them.
“I bet you have a million questions running through that pretty little head of yours. Well don’t worry darlin’. I have the whole day to fill you in. You will get all the details, I promise. But first things, first. I need to take advantage of this wonderful drug while I can. You see, I only had a little bit left and it will wear off soon and since your little fucking wonder boy stuck his nose where it should not be, my supplier is sitting the slammer! So, I had to make a little bitty adjustment to my plan.” said Gene as he ran the tips of the scissors over his finger tips.
Gene sat down on the left edge of the bed and leaned over her body. The scissors were in his right hand. He opened the scissors and placed the bottom blade on her skin just above her navel. She slowly and softly slid the bottom of the blade along her abdomen towards her breasts being very careful not cut her. He reached the material of the black spandex running top she was wearing. The top was short and ended a few inches below her breasts exposing her midriff.
He gently pushed the bottom blade under her top and began the cut the material all the way to the top. The top fell open partially exposing her breasts. Samantha feared the worst. She could not help think that she was about to be raped and could feel her fear begin to be replaced by rage.
Gene placed the scissors on the bed next to her waist. He pulled the two halves of the fabric to each side fully exposing her breasts. He was stunned at how perfect her breasts looked. He had always wondered what they looked like and fantasized about them often. He leaned over and without touching her, began smelling her breasts.
Samantha was sickened by this action. “What the hell is this pervert doing?” she thought to herself. Gene closed his eyes and savored the lovely smell of perfume. After several minutes he picked the scissors up and began cutting her sleeves down the sides. He placed the scissors back on the bed and pulled her top out from underneath her. “You won’t be needing this!” he said, as he tossed it on the chair in the corner.
Gene got up from the bed and stood at the en
d, staring up at her partially naked body. He leaned over grabbed her shorts she was wearing. “You wear such tight shorts. I love the way it hugs your luscious ass and you always wear black. I like that.” Gene began to pull her shorts down over her hips exposing a small portion of her vagina. “No panties? You naughty girl.” teased Gene as he finished removing her shorts.
Samantha’s rage had been replaced by fear and anxiety. She feared she was about to be raped and wished she could plead with Gene, not to do this. She tried so hard to speak but was still unable to. Gene threw her shorts on the chair and looked over to her. He could see the fear in her eyes, “Don’t worry my little princess. I am not going to rape you. Not my style honey!” laughed Gene. This some what comforted Samantha. Her mind raced as she tried to contemplate his next move and formulate a plan to escape.
Gene leaned over the bed and lowered his head over her vagina. He came very close to it, and like the breasts, spent several minutes smelling her. He was becoming extremely aroused by her smells and the sight of her naked on the bed. He was especially turned on by the fact that her pubic area was completely shaven. “No pubic hairs, eh? Nice and clean. This must be a very special night for the new love birds.” Gene’s voice began to sound angry as he trailed off.
Gene was taken over by his arousal and left the room and went in the bathroom where he began to masturbate. Samantha could hear him from the bedroom. She was nauseated by his sick actions but relieved at the same time. She was hoping that this manual relief would help Gene hold to his promise of not raping her. Gene was becoming louder. Samantha cringed when she heard him calling her name out during his climax.
She heard the water in the sink running as he washed his hands. Gene returned to the room. He removed her clothes from the chair, stopping to smell the crotch of her shorts. He threw the clothes on the floor and took a seat in the chair. “Sorry I had to leave so sudden. I could not take it any more.” said Gene as he placed a piece of gum he just unwrapped in his mouth.