Love You To Death: A Psychological Crime Thriller

by Rita Ames

  Carl was so remorseful afterwards that I could not hate him for what had happened. After all I hadn’t really fought him, had I? I tried to reason why but all I could see was the desperate longing in his eyes and I knew that I would have given in, no matter what.

  Now, I simply felt numb. If I thought too hard about it then I was sure I would crack up. I needed to hold it together until I got home. Once I was home I could examine my feelings and sort them into something that I could live with.

  I remembered that I had promised Ben that I would call him once I was on my way home. What the hell could I tell him? “ By the way I just popped over to Carls and allowed him to force himself on me and I let him do it out of pity for him. Oh, and by the way, do you still want to take me on a date when I still have another man’s sperm inside me?” I broke down at that and cried the whole drive home.

  It was amazing that I managed to drive the car at all and more surprising that I got home in one piece. I walked in the door and went straight to the bathroom and ran a hot bath. Sinking into it I tried to make my mind go blank. I didn’t want to relive the episode again and again although flashes of images kept intruding into my vision.

  I scrubbed myself until my skin was red raw, topping up the hot water several times until there was none left. As I got out of the bath I heard my phone ringing. I let it go to voice mail, not wanting to talk to anyone at the moment, especially not Ben.

  With a towel wrapped around me I wandered about my apartment like a zombie, getting my uniform ready for work the next day. I tried to keep busy so that I had no time to think.

  Finding no reprieve from my thoughts, the only option was sleeping pills. I threw a couple back and went to bed, sinking into a drug induced haze for the rest of the night.

  **********

  The next morning I was late for work. I rushed into the locker room, sure that someone would be looking for me.

  As I arrived at my nursing station everyone was busy getting on with their work. No one appeared to notice my tardiness. I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes. I couldn’t understand why it hurt so much that nobody cared enough to bawl me out for being late. I was back to being invisible again. Black depression overwhelmed me.

  I went through the motions of working, smiled at my patients and made small talk with colleagues during breaks. At lunch I noticed I had some texts, three from Carl and two from Ben. I should have been happy; however, I was in such a bad place that I didn’t know how to react to either of them.

  I opened them and read..

  Susie : How are you? I need to talk to you. Call me? - Carl.

  Susie : We really need to talk. Please call me! – Carl.

  Susie : I am worried now. Please text me or call me! – Carl.

  I deleted them all. I just couldn’t face it right now. Guilt was slowly eating away at my peace of mind. I looked at the texts from Ben and there was no stopping the tears.

  Sitting in a cubicle of the ladies room. I opened Ben’s texts.

  Susie : I missed you on Sunday. You didn’t call me. How did it go with Carl? Thinking of you. – BenX

  Susie : Let me know you are okay, please? – BenX

  Oh Ben, I thought, I have ruined our chance. Tears now fell unrestrained as my misery overflowed.

  My weakness had destroyed any hope of a relationship with the most amazing man.

  I was not sure that I could remain friends with Carl either, afraid that he would now expect more from me than I was prepared to give.

  As I walked home from work that night I found myself turning into a bar and sitting on a stool.

  The bar tender came over and I ordered a double Jack Daniels. It didn’t even hit the side as it slid down my throat, the burn promising to make me forget. I needed to blot out the memories and the lost chances. With resolve I held up my hand for another.

  Carl

  When Susie left on Sunday I was beside myself. What a complete fool I had been. There was no chance she would choose me now that I had all but raped her. I was under no illusion that her passiveness had been an invitation. The way she had left was confirmation enough. I had blown it.

  I grabbed one of the coffee mugs and threw it at the wall, smashing it to smithereens. As I pulled back from the throw I caught sight of my reflection in the wall mirror. I looked manic, my hair sticking up and a eyes full of madness and rage. It was a sobering thing.

  I sat down abruptly running my hands through my hair in exasperation. I was literally falling apart.

  I needed to know who I really was. There was no moving forward until I had proof of my previous life.

  I wandered around my apartment opening drawers and cupboards, looking for something that would trigger a memory. There was nothing.

  I went back into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe as if looking at my clothes might give me some insight to the two personalities that seemed to inhabit my body.

  I pulled out all the shoes, checking the base. As I went to throw them back in I noticed that the edge of the bottom plank had moved slightly.

  Looking closer I saw that the base of the wardrobe was not fixed and had become loose. I pulled at the lifted corner and it came away.

  Looking into the shadowed interior I saw that there was a small box which had been laid under the base. Grabbing it I brought it out and set it on the floor beside me.

  Lifting the lid I noticed several papers on the top which I glanced at quickly. They were rental invoices for a lock-up storage unit. It looked as if the rental had been paid 12 months in advance, which would explain why I had not received anything in the post recently.

  I looked in the box and there was a key along with a pair of soft black leather gloves and a baseball cap.

  My curiosity was peeked. I felt intuitively that these items were familiar to me but I could not begin to understand why they were hidden.

  I decided the only way to find out was to go and take a look.

  I hesitated, not knowing if I really wanted to know the truth and at the same time knowing that I just had to discover it. I could not live like this anymore. On Monday morning I hoped that I would finally find out who I was.

  *********

  Today was the day.

  I grabbed my jacket, put on the cap and shoved the gloves and key into the pocket. I took my car but decided to park it up a little way from the storage facility. I wondered if some instinct was driving the need for caution.

  If I had known what I would find I might have chosen to return home and simply throw the key away.

  As I signed in at the desk I was careful to hide my face from the entrance camera. It seemed like a silly thing to do, I reminded myself that there was no reason why I should be thinking and acting this way.

  I made my way to the lock up and, turning the key, entered into a 10 by 6 box. There were plastic containers littering the floor and an old wardrobe at one end. It looked pretty normal.

  Moving forward I opened the wardrobe and was surprised to see several women’s coats and one or two items of clothing. There were also a few pairs of ladies shoes.

  I laughed wondering if I was a cross-dresser in my pre-accident life. I puzzled at why I would keep this type of things in a lock-up. I looked at each item closely, pulling out the sleeves. As I did, something caught my eye. At the end of one of the coat sleeves there was what looked like a bloodstain. It was too much to be caused by a simple scratch and I held my breath, unsure of what it meant.

  I moved around and lifted the lids on some of the crates. One was full of a mixture of lengths of hemp rope and also some made with a kind of metal twist. At the bottom there were large metal rings and a box of long nails.

  Another revealed several power tools. I tried to remember using them but nothing came to mind.

  Another crate was more interesting, or disturbing, depending on your viewpoint. It contained what looked like underwear, however most of it was either cut in places or simply shredded. I gasped when I spotted what looked like mor
e bloodstains on them.

  A flash of something hit me and I saw more images from my nightmares.

  I frantically went through more boxes finding more unusual and mystifying contents. One had numerous sex toys and many pairs of handcuffs in all shapes and materials. I could feel the colour rushing to my face. I was embarrassed at finding these, but something in me was also finding it extremely exciting. More flash images of using these things on naked girls, restrained and begging gave me the most painful erection.

  At the same time a tear escaped and ran down my face.

  I sat back against the wall of the unit and closed my eyes.

  More and more of what I was now convinced were memories came flooding back to me. I knew without a doubt that there were too many women and girls to remember each one, but I relived enough of their deaths in the hour that I sat there, to know finally what I was.

  I was a cold hearted killer. I got off on torturing women and then killing them. My dick was so hard I needed to release the tension and my hand quickly unzipped my pants and began jerking off.

  I needed it, I told myself. I was also overcome with shame and sadness that I would never have the future that I had envisioned with someone sweet like Susie.

  The two parts of my new self were colliding and I was being torn in two.

  I remembered now all the feelings that had driven me before but I also wanted to hold on to the hope that I could be a normal part of humanity. The accident had been a second chance and by forcing myself on Susie I had inadvertently brought the monster in me back to life.

  Instead of letting Susie calm me as she always did I had committed an act of brutality, showing her what I was really made of.

  I howled out my misery, grieving for what might have been.

  After some time I decided to check the last few boxes before heading back home.

  In one I found another old key and as I touched it an image of a door came back to me. I knew instinctively that this was where I took my victims. I now remembered where it was.

  Staring at it I felt dread and excitement at the same time.

  I put the key into my pocket, packed up the boxes again and left. I had a lot to think about.

  Ben

  Susie was avoiding me and I had no clue why. After she called to cancel our trip on Sunday I was fully expecting to hear from her once she had checked in on Carl. We had made a connection on Saturday and spending the night on the sofa with her snuggled into my side was memorable and I had been keen to build on it.

  As it happened about twenty minutes after she cancelled on me I had a call from my partner Dave. There had been another murder in the same Park as the previous one.

  I left to meet him there and we spend the rest of the day searching for evidence and documenting statements.

  I didn’t think this killing was connected to the previous one but we had to check it out just in case.

  This poor guy had been strangled with such force his neck vertebrae had fractured. There were purple finger marks around his neck indicating it was another man who had committed the crime.

  He had obviously been in the park trawling for action as it was a known location for this.

  The forensics team confirmed there were traces of sperm in the dead man’s mouth and they had taken samples to send for testing. Whoever had done this had not planned it or they would have been more careful about leaving evidence behind.

  Getting back to the office we ran over the details comparing them to the previous one and also against the historical files that we had amassed on our possible serial killer. There didn’t seem to be any connection at all and therefore we entered it as a new case.

  It was late when we finished up and seeing that I still had no responses from Susie, Dave and I went for a drink.

  *********

  Over the next couple of days I tried to call Susie and sent a couple of texts. Nothing. I was getting worried now. She wasn’t the kind of girl to leave someone high and dry without an explanation.

  I knew that Carl had been having some problems with his recovery but I didn’t know exactly how much Susie knew about him. She had felt obligated to be there for him and I was so impressed by her big heart that I had not thought to check that he was worth her time.

  It would be hard for her to get to know someone properly that had no memories. A little frisson of worry hit me. Maybe I should have checked him out a little more thoroughly, just for my own peace of mind. If he had no idea who he was, how could Susie make any judgement on whether he was a good person? I was worried that I had not heard anything from her.

  The case was moving on and we had just got the forensics back on the dead gay guy. I looked at the report and had to get Dave to double check it. He confirmed what I was seeing.

  The DNA from the sperm sample found in the dead guy’s mouth was an exact match for the hair fibre on the jacket from the site of Tina’s murder. This was the most conclusive evidence that the jacket belonged to the person that killed Tina as well as the other girls in Birmingham and Plymouth.

  I decided to start pinning some dates and locations to the map on my wall. I wanted to see if there was a pattern that we could link to any of our suspects.

  A couple of hours later we had a startling visual of a prolific monster that had been preying on young girls over many years.

  We ran over the witness statements from both of the recent evenings. There was nothing that gave us any clue as to the suspect and without the DNA being matched to a known felon we were at an impasse.

  “Fuck!” I shouted “We didn’t get a statement from Carl!”

  Dave came over “What do you mean? Who is Carl?” he asked.

  “He’s the one that got run over the night Tina was killed” I ran my hands through my hair “I went to the rehab clinic to speak to him but he was not able to make a statement. I was supposed to go back and didn’t” I kicked the chair.

  “Hey, it’s no biggie, we can do it now” Dave said unconcerned.

  “What if he’s the one? If I missed it then that guy died because of me” I said.

  “That guy died because some crazy man decided to commit a murder, not because you are overworked” Dave patted me on the back. I knew what he was trying to do but it didn’t make me feel any better.

  The more I thought about it, the more concerned I became that I may have missed something vital to the investigation. More importantly, he had become close to Susie, meaning she could be in danger as a result. This one fact was enough to spur me on.

  I decided to call on Mr Carl Dawson at the earliest opportunity.

  First, though, I needed to ensure Susie was safe and well.

  Susie

  I was running on empty, no energy, no appetite and no interest in anything.

  Carl was burning up my voice mail, calling me constantly, begging to see me. I was beginning to get a little afraid that he would turn up on my doorstep. His messages had been getting more and more manic and I recognised the hysteria and panic in his voice. I knew he wouldn’t accept me ignoring him forever. I was too far into my own depression to take much notice.

  Getting home from work on Wednesday evening I dug out a microwave meal and turned the dial to cook it.

  I went into the bedroom to change out of my uniform into some pyjamas, opting for my comfy fleece ones with little bunnies all over. They were a Christmas gift from my Mum and always made me feel safe and warm. Shrugging on my slippers and trudged to the kitchen on hearing the ping of the microwave.

  As I got there the doorbell rang. I jumped. What if it was Carl? I wasn’t anywhere near ready to see him face to face again.

  I cautiously looked out through the peephole. Seeing Ben standing there I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the door. Shame burned my face.

  Taking a deep breath I opened the door and stood aside to let him in.

  He looked at me with concerned eyes and then on seeing my pyjamas he smiled.

  “Bunnies, cute” he smirked.


  I couldn’t help but smile back “A present from Mum” I shrugged “Do you want a drink?” I headed back towards the kitchen not waiting for him to answer.

  “Sure” he said following me, kicking the door closed as he went.

  I put the kettle on and proceeded to put my meal into a dish.

  “That looks appetising” Ben said, meaning the opposite.

  “Long day” I muttered “No energy for cooking” I busied myself making coffee, trying not to look at him. I was sure that if he looked into my eyes he would see my guilt and shame.

  My heart ached with the loss of something that I hadn’t even gotten the chance to have. His nearness was like a knife through my soul. Everything in me wanted to reach out and touch him.

  “Susie, I don’t know what happened to change things between us but I would like to know so that we can fix it” he said softly.

  “Nothing happened” I said shakily. I kept my back to him while pouring the water into the coffee mugs. “I’ve just been working long hours” I said.

  “No, that’s not it” he said moving closer “Something happened on Sunday when you went to see Carl” he touched my shoulder and turned me around.

  I kept my eyes down trying to keep the truth from him.

  “Look at me Susie” he put a finger under my chin and lifted my face upwards.

  I could feel the sting of tears as they welled.

  “Baby, tell me, please” his eyes implored.

  “You were right about Carl needing to get some professional help. He was all over the place on Sunday and scared me.” I said on a sob as a tear escaped.

  “Oh, baby. You don’t have to deal with this on your own. I can help to find someone that he can speak to. You shouldn’t be put in this position. It’s not fair of him to lay this at your door” he stroked the side of my face and I leaned into him, taking his strength into me.