Darker Still

by T. S. Worthington

  “This place is creepy,” Kelly said.

  “I know. Just be quiet and find the ball. It has to be upstairs.”

  They both made their way out of the dining room, down a long hall, and up the creaking old steps. John felt like a horde of bats were going to come flying at his head any second like some old Dracula movie.

  He was very scared and nervous. He wanted to find the ball and get the hell out of there as fast as possible. He was sure that whoever lived there was going to come home and find them both. Then being in trouble with their parents was going to be the least of their worries.

  The upstairs of the house looked just about as cluttered, dusty, and moldy as the downstairs. Going from room to room John checked for signs of a broken window until he came to the last room in the house. His sister Kelly was right behind him clutching nervously to his arm. She was shivering from fear and John felt bad that he had made her come inside with him. He should have told her to stay outside and stand watch for the owners to show up.

  John saw the football lying on the bed amidst several shards of broken glass. He went into the room and grabbed the ball and started to hurry out with it.

  As they reached the door suddenly someone was standing in front of them. Before they even had time to scream the large figure backhanded John across the mouth sending him flying against the wall and crashing to the floor.

  His head felt dizzy and his face felt numb from the blow. He had barely seen the person who had hit him, but now as he tried to stagger to his feet he could see it appeared to be a large man in a long robe wearing some sort of Halloween mask.

  John tried to bolt up to his feet when he heard Kelly scream. The man in the robe was holding her tightly to him and he had a big hunting knife held to her throat. Before John could even scream for him to stop and to leave his sister alone the man made one jerking motion with his hand and slit her throat.

  John could not understand the world he was living in the moment as his sister fell to the ground silent and still. The man stood there tapping the bloody knife on his thickly gloved palm. He just stood there staring at John for several seconds and then he grunted and lunged at John.

  John’s reflexes took over and he dove across the bed and using the springs of the bed he jumped bouncing off the mattress out of the broken window. He landed on the upper deck patio, which did not look the least bit sturdy. But he had no time to think about that right now. He had to move before the maniac came for him.

  He climbed over the patio and hopped on the eaves spout and straddled it to the ground. The second his feet touched the dirt he was off and running as fast as his legs would carry him towards home.

  The police eventually arrived at the house. It looked the same as John had described it, full of clutter, but there was no one there. No one living that was. In addition to Kelly’s body which had not been moved from the upstairs bedroom, the basement gave birth to the bodies and remains of at least twenty men, women, and children. Not to mention a vast array of homemade torture devices and hundreds of hours of archival footage that was recorded with his home video camera.

  “The killer was never apprehended,” John said finishing the story. Michaels sat still glued to his every word.

  “The house belonged to an old lady named Aileen Thompson, but they discovered that she was one of the victims in the basement. She had no family or anyone who would miss her, so she was never reported missing. The killer had to know that. But he escaped and went into hiding.”

  “Wow that is an incredible story. I remember when that story broke. I was about fifteen that summer,” Michaels said. “I remember they mentioned the story about you and your sister. I don’t know why I never made the connection when you transferred here.”

  “Why would you? It was a long time ago and probably the last thing on your mind,” John said.

  Michaels poured another cup of coffee. “So, do you think this is really the same guy?”

  John looked at him incredulously.

  Michaels held up his hand as he started. “Hear me out, hear me out. There was a lot of information about that story in the press back then. It might just be some weirdo living in his mom’s basement that for whatever reason made the connection between you and that story and decided to have a little fun with you.”

  “I don’t think so. He seemed to know me too well. I was a kid back then and a scared one at that. I probably gave the worst description of what happened to me that anyone would ever hear. It was probably full of goofy holes and things I forgot and left out.”

  “Maybe not,” Michaels said.

  “Maybe so,” John countered.

  “Alright, let’s say it is him. Do you think he is up to his old tricks? Do you think he never stopped killing? Maybe he found a different M. O.? Maybe he just found a new system altogether.”

  “Serial killers don’t do that. The ritual is the most important part of it. For some of them it isn’t even about the killing. It is all about the ritual and the presentation. They get off on the fear they cause to others who discover it.”

  “Ok, I will grant it that you have a lot more experience dealing with serial killers than I do, but what if you are wrong here? I mean I don’t find it to be a huge coincidence that we have a viciously savaged body of a young woman and then a day later you receive this letter from a serial killer with a past who was never apprehended.”

  John thought a moment. He had not really made the connection between Theresa and this letter until just now. Could it be that the killer wanted something more now? He was totally bored and the old tricks just weren’t doing it for him anymore. He wanted to up the ante and hit the ground running with a new style and a new playmate. John was a much better adversary for him now than he was when he was eight.

  He was not ready to run with this ball quite yet, but it was close.

  “You may be onto something chief.”

  “Ok, well maybe, but don’t tell anyone. We don’t want to spark off a huge media circus about there being a serial killing roaming the area. We don’t really know this. Right now all we have to go on is pure speculation.”

  “Right. I wasn’t ready to jump the gun on anything yet.”

  “Good man. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off and get some rest. Are you sure you can drive?”

  “Yea, I’m fine now.”

  With that he walked slowly out to his car and got behind the wheel. He wasn’t really sure that he was fine to drive, but he hated that other people always wanted to do things for him. He hated to be waited on and besides he didn’t rust other people to be around him outside of the station; there was a serial killer looking for him.

  When John got home he grabbed a few beers from the fridge and a bottle of whiskey out of the liquor cabinet. He settled in with a good movie and started his nightly routine. He was the most boring guy ever—he realized that—but he was happiest at this time. This was the time of the day when he actually got to relax and enjoy life for a few moments. There was nothing better than this he decided. He had even given up women for it.

  But he had been thinking a lot about female companionship. He was starting to get lonely and starting to develop tendinitis in his wrist from too much down time in his life. He needed someone to share things with, but every time he thought about it he was gripped in panic and fear. It was ridiculous he knew that, but he did not have a handle on his anxiety.

  As he watched the detective movie his mind began to drift, until he was really unable to even pay attention to it anymore. He could not get his mind off that letter. He had to go into research mode and find out all he could about the person who might have sent it.

  Of course John was sure that merely searching for clues was pointless and he had avoided capture for over thirty years. He had to be doing something that put him above the rest of the psychos out there. No one was successful for that long. Either they slipped up and made a mistake or they started to unravel mentally and
they ended up doing something totally stupid and unrelated that put them away.

  He was just waiting in the shadows wondering when he was going to strike next. That was how John felt at that moment. He had to just wait for something to happen. He felt fucking useless. And of course he couldn’t tell the community anything about this. There were probably people who were still leaving their doors unlocked tonight. The killer would find one of them and tear them apart if he were so inclined this evening.

  And who’s to say that a new victim would shed any light or uncover any more evidence about anything? It could all lead to nothing and you just end up with another person dead. There had to be a way to predict his next move.

  As John sipped his bourbon he thought about it all. He tried to step outside of his own brain and see and think like a killer. What was this person all about? They enjoyed sadistic torture and sexual torture mixed together on the most innocent and helpless victims that he could find. The men were occasionally killed if he wanted a challenge or just needed them out of the way, but if he were able to secure them well enough he would torture them all the same too. But the men he felt he could not overpower, according to the videos he just put a bullet in their heads, so he could have his way with the family.

  He has an inferiority complex. That’s what was going on. He had a strong narcissistic need to control and to feel important and powerful, but he made sure that there was no way that he was going to be undermined or overpowered. He never abducted people from anywhere close by. From what John had studied of the case files and what he had gleaned doing endless research on the net many years ago the killer kept wallets and drivers licenses as trophies as well. Many of his victims were from at least five or six hour drives away.

  That was why law enforcement wasn’t looking for anyone close to him. He had that well-kept buffer zone. His method of attack or the method he used to lure his victims into a position where he could abduct them had never been determined, but thinking on it now John was pretty confident that he abducted people from their home when they were asleep.

  That had to be it. Somehow he was able to sneak in, after probably studying the house for some time, and then possibly inject them with something that kept them asleep while he was free to abduct them. They never knew what hit them and they woke up in some dark basement somewhere.

  But where?

  It was all but impossible to know where he was going to strike next. John leaned back in his chair, stretching his spine trying to jump start his brain to work in that next gear, but it wasn’t having much effect. He knew that a good night’s sleep would probably work wonders, but he doubted that he was going to get it.

  What about the house where the killer was living? Before he had killed the home owner and basically assumed her identity. He had chosen carefully someone who would not be missed without many friends or family. Of course that would be like finding a needle in a haystack. The killer might not even be living in Belpre; he could be living anywhere in a hundred mile radius.

  John got up and paced around a few minutes trying to get the blood going in his veins. He usually thought better on his feet. After several minutes of deep thought he realized that was the only way; they had to find out how he had secured his place of lodging.

  John realized he was limited at home. He got in his car and drove to the station. It was late in the evening and the place looked like a ghost town, but he was fine with that. He didn’t want any distractions bogging him down.

  John fired up the computer and logged into the database. He was searching for a few things. He was not able to access these databases at home. It was silly of him to think that he would have been able to do much there. He was seeing himself turn into that cop who never left the station. That was the guy he used to be and that was one of the reasons his fiancée had left him. He tried to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand.

  He was searching for people in a fifty mile area who were home owners who had no living relatives and lived by themselves. This was hopefully going to narrow the search down. The computer finished the configuration and it came down to fifty-three names. He narrowed it down further to how many of these people were elderly women. That seemed to match the killers M.O. It seemed like he wanted someone that was not expected to leave the house much.

  The configuration dropped down to twenty-four. He then narrowed it down even further by people who lived in isolated houses with no close neighbors. The house that he had used previously was at the end of the street and it was hidden by a group of trees. The killer would need privacy and the ability to leave the house on occasion without arising suspicion.

  This dropped the number down to eighteen. That was doable. They just needed to get officers to investigate these eighteen properties and that would most likely give them a pretty good indicator of where he might be hiding out, unless he decided to change his pattern. That was always a possibility, but John felt that this was a pretty good indication of where to start. It might amount to nothing, but it was definitely worth a shot.

  He thought about calling the chief with this, but decided to hold off due to the late hour. John was feeling wired; he was not sure what he wanted to do, but he felt like he needed to just do something. This guy could be out there stalking his next victim right now.

  How? How did he stalk his prey? What were his tactics? Those were the questions that were nagging and buzzing at him. If there was a way to know when and where he was going to strike then they could cut him off at the knees. There just wasn’t enough intel on it. He could put different information into the computer based on previous serial killers histories of stalking and luring victims and cross reference to rule things out, but even with the computer that could be a slow process.

  His cell phone rang right then, the buzzing jarred him from his thoughts. He looked at it and noticed that it was Cheryl Daniels calling. He instantly answered the phone praying that she was still ok. He had actually found himself thinking about her off and on since they had shared coffee the other day.

  “Hello?”

  “Yea, Detective Anderson?”

  “Yea, Cheryl? What’s wrong?”

  “Well, there is something that keeps nagging at me. It’s something that I just can’t let go of even though I’m sure it’s nothing, but you told me that every little thing can make all the difference sometimes.”

  “Yea, absolutely.”

  “Can we talk in person? I feel kind of scared.”

  “Scared? Why are you scared? Has someone threatened you?”

  “Well, I’m afraid to go into my house. I just came back from the gym and my door is unlocked. I know I triple locked it when Ieft. I always do that. I’m afraid to go inside my house. I don’t know if someone is there or what is going on.”

  “Sure. I’ll be right there,” John said.

  He was at Cheryl’s house ten minutes later. When he arrived she was really shaken up. He first surveyed the perimeter of the house and after not seeing any signs of a break in he decided to go inside, moving slowly and cautiously.

  Cheryl’s house was nice and well decorated. It had a certain homey quality to it that his own place just lacked. He guessed that must have been a woman thing to be able to just put the little touches that melted the heart and made you feel like you were at home.

  He checked the living room and the closet in the hallway that led to the back bedrooms of the house. There was one bedroom that had been turned into an office/study, and he checked that room thoroughly, opening the closet with some trepidation. Nothing.

  Then he checked out Cheryl’s bedroom. It was a calm, serene color scheme with a large King sized bed. He wondered why she needed a bed that big, and he felt like offering to share it with her sometime. He decided not to say that to her though; it just didn’t feel right.

  The house seemed to be squeaky clean; there was no one there.

  “I’m sorry to make you come all the way out here. I guess I’m just b
eing a nervous Nelly about it. I feel stupid,” Cheryl said.

  “No, you can’t blame yourself. It’s perfectly natural. You thought you locked the door; it’s perfectly logical to think you might have accidentally unlocked it as well. Stranger things have happened.”

  “I could have sworn I locked it. I feel stupid,” Cheryl said.

  “Nonsense. This gave me something to do anyway. I was bored out of my mind at the station,” John said.

  “You were at the station this late?”

  “Yea, I’ve been working on your sister’s case. Nothing has turned up yet and we have no breaks, but we will keep searching. There is always something somewhere that is waiting to break a case open. I have always believed that.”

  “Thanks,” Cheryl said. “Would you like to stay for a while? I really don’t want to be alone right now.”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to.”

  “So, you didn’t always want to be a cop?” Cheryl asked. She was definitely feeling much more relaxed, which John hoped was attributed to him, but might have been to do with the rum and coke she was drinking.

  “No, like all little kids I wanted to be a baseball player.”

  “That sounds like a cool dream to have,” Cheryl said.

  “Yeah, it is. I was actually getting close to the dream, but I blew my shoulder out when I was college and that was pretty much the end of that.”

  “Ouch. That sucks.”

  “Yea, but I enjoy what I do. I mean it has its ups and downs just like everything else, but there is just not anything else that I could ever picture myself doing on a regular basis,” John said.

  “I can hear that. Would you say that catching bad guys is more than a job for you?”

  “What? Like it’s my passion?” John laughed.

  “Yea,” Cheryl replied with a sexy smile.