The Tracker

by John Hunt

  Taylor? Wasn’t that Taylor? It sure as shit didn’t sound like him. He had listened to his voice for the past few hours and the voice on the radio wasn’t the same.

  He heard Samantha say he could have it, the car, and then Taylor? spoke again followed by a gunshot. The voices ended.

  Other officers piped up on the radio giving Dispatch their location and ETA. The closest officer was still five to ten minutes out.

  Earl and Owen ran out of the station and hopped into an unmarked car. Earl fired it up and Owen stuck a cherry light on the roof. They sped out of the parking lot, both tense. Owen thought he might crack his teeth if he didn’t stop grinding them. He’d been doing that since the second murder and all the bosses set their hair on fire in a panic. He couldn’t stop and a headache started behind his eyes.

  Owen said, “Do we know anything about the new guy? Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know. Call into dispatch.”

  “Fuck, man, they won’t pick up the phone. Not now.”

  “They better. It’s their job.”

  ***

  Before they got to the hospital, Owen surprisingly got through to dispatch. The new guy didn’t make it. Samantha and one of the paramedics had also been killed. The ambulance driver saw Taylor drive away. Taylor had left in the police car after dumping Samantha out of it.

  Stunned, he hung up the phone and relayed the information to Earl.

  “Call them back!”

  “What?”

  “Right now!”

  “Okay. What for?”

  “Christ, Owen. All police cars have GPS in them. Has anyone bothered to try to track police cruiser?”

  “Fuck, man. I’m an idiot!”

  Owen spoke with the Communications Supervisor. He made sure steps were being taken to secure the scene at the hospital and to have someone, anyone, call the Chief and give her a heads up. Owen asked to have anyone at the station who had shown up early for their dayshift to grab a cruiser and get out on the road. They were going to have to coordinate a takedown of Taylor.

  Owen said, “Are you tracking the cruiser now? On GPS?”

  Rachel, the dispatcher said, “Uh, yeah and it looks like it stopped.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m just waiting for the screen to refresh. Okay. There it is. It is parked at 22 Weir Drive.”

  “In Guelph?”

  “Yeah, the south end.”

  “Oh no. Send all units there now! Now Rachel! Whoever you got!”

  Earl said, “Where we going?”

  “Weir Drive. He’s gone to Rosie’s house.”

  -25-

  Early mornings are lame…

  Rosie cracked an eye as the sun slanted in through the blinds at such an angle it penetrated her eyelids demanding she wake up. She peered at the clock on her nightstand. It read 6:47am. Thirteen minutes before her alarm would go off. Awesome. She groaned, stretched and elbowed her boyfriend in bed beside her. He didn’t even notice. The bastard slept heavy. She elbowed him again, making sure to get the soft spot and instead of waking him, he farted. Jesus. She hated the morning and wanted to share the misery with her significant other only he hadn’t gotten the memo. She threw off the covers and walked to the washroom, scratching her hip. Looking into the mirror, she thought of Taylor. She wondered if they caught him yet. It made her sad, to have to talk to the police about what had happened to him. It didn’t excuse what he did, not in her mind, and she couldn’t not tell the police if it would stop more killing. Guilt rubbed her heart. If she had only told him back then about the party, Taylor wouldn’t be in this mess because he never would have gone to the barn with Hannah. Maybe Taylor and she would still be friends.

  It amazed her sometimes how different she had been in high school. What she had considered important then would be laughable now. And the skewed priorities led to some terrible consequences. When she got right down to it and voided out all the pretty excuses as to why she didn’t tell Taylor at the time, she was left with one simple reason: she had been a jealous bitch. Back then, it only mattered that Taylor hurt her by not noticing her. For years he hadn’t noticed her. She refused to accept he only thought of her as a friend. He probably equated her to a sister. It caused plenty of heartache for her. To see her subtle advances ignored or not even noticed. Then when Hannah came along, flashing her perfect teeth and beautiful body, flirting with Taylor not because she liked him, but because girls like that flirted with everyone, it hurt her. If Rosie had been ignored before, with the introduction of Hannah she all but disappeared. And when she overheard Hannah and Melissa discussing setting up Taylor at the party, she wanted to tell Taylor, she planned to tell Taylor and then she thought maybe he wouldn’t believe her. Maybe he’d think, because of his blind love for Hannah, that Rosie made it all up. It could be he’d see her jealousy on her face as plain as the sun in the sky. And another part of her, the angry and hurt part thought, fuck him. If he wanted Hannah so badly, he could have her and he could learn what that really meant. His indifference had hurt and she wanted him to hurt too. Wanted him to see Hannah as the manipulative, narcissistic bitch she had been.

  Last night before she went to bed she watched the news. It reported Taylor allegedly killed two more people. Rosie covered her mouth and felt her eyes dampen. Her boyfriend, Roger, put an arm around her and she fought an urge to shrug it off. She didn’t want to be touched. Even though Taylor killed those people, in the pit of her stomach where rational thought holds no sway, she thought she had done this, she helped create this Taylor. Although the news people never mentioned the names of the victims, she knew without a doubt they had been Hannah and Brad. They were the only two left. She went to sleep seeing the image of him running through the Wal-Mart lot. Her Taylor, the chubby boy she used to know all but gone. Now, a monster of a man with hate in his heart. Only it wasn’t hate she’d seen on his features when the media zoomed in to show the face and ask DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN? His face had been tightened into a rictus. The picture quality wasn’t clear, still, to Rosie, Taylor looked terrified. Strange, when she thought about it. What reason did he have to be afraid? He was the one killing people. She slept, unaware Taylor had been arrested because it happened too late to make the news. And she had no idea he had escaped. She wouldn’t have been scared even if she had known. He had no reason to come for her. It had been the others he systematically hunted down. The hairs on her body rose thinking about Taylor and what he had done.

  Rosie used the washroom, brushed her teeth and yawning, slipped on yoga pants and a sweater. She walked into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. Her cell phone trilled from the bedroom and at the same time she noticed a police cruiser on her front lawn, not in the driveway, actually on the grass. She was turning towards the phone, holding her coffee mug with a chubby cartoon panda on it, when the door exploded inwards. She screamed as pieces of wood from the breaking doorframe hit the adjacent wall and showered the room with debris. Splinters struck her face and she dropped the cup on the floor. It didn’t break. Instead, it rolled to hide under a chair, the panda’s eyes cheerfully regarding her.

  In her doorway, silhouetted by the early blue morning sky, stood Taylor.

  “Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. You hurt Taylor. You knew the bad thing was going to happen. You hurt Taylor…” he pointed to his heart, “here.”

  The voice didn’t sound like Taylor at all. It was deep and grating, like gravel crunching underfoot. Rosie peered closer because she wasn’t sure. Even his face had undergone a change. Before, the fat around his face pinched his features together as though someone slapped putty around his cheeks and chin. Even though his face had a leaner look, his expression did not resemble the Taylor she remembered. He even seemed different from t
he image they flashed on the screen. Different, for sure, because the terrified gaze on the screen was all Taylor. The man standing in the doorway was like a Taylor-mannequin. The shape she recognized only the substance was all wrong. He smiled at her but not one borne of happiness or amusement. The smile appeared unnatural. It pulled his cheeks too wide. His teeth were too small for the width of that grin. She could barely see his eyes in the flesh of his smile. His shoulders stretched the white suit across his wide chest. The arms strained the sleeves on his biceps. She thought, he could crack my head like an egg or pop it like a pimple with one hand. He’d just have to grab me and squeeze. She whimpered.

  She took a step back and shook her head as all the thoughts floated through her mind in the time it took to breathe one breath. It didn’t make sense. Him being here. A cop car outside, on the lawn. None of this made sense.

  From behind her, she heard Roger say, “Holy shit!” It made her jump and she shushed him like a parent would a rude child. Roger’s noise only added to her fear and she needed to put a stop to the terror twisting her guts like a cruel fist. She couldn’t think when she was so scared and she needed to think. She needed to figure a way out of this. One thing she knew for certain, this was no house call. It wasn’t a visit from an old friend where they talked over a pot of coffee and a plate of cookies discussing who married whom or who had kids and who had an affair with Stacey Charlton because everyone seemed to be having an affair with her. No, this not-Taylor standing on her linoleum floor in a white suit with splashes of red (blood?) on it didn’t kick down her door to play catch-up. The last two days had shown she had no idea who now stood in her kitchen with a stretched smile distorting his face while thoughts of murder riddled his mind. She had to get out of here. Only she had nowhere to go, not really. She could get out the back but Roger stood in the hallway with his mouth open and probably his dick hanging out of his boxers and why did he have to just stand there!

  Taylor stepped into the room. He made the kitchen seem small, like a giant in a doll house. He snatched her forearm and the strength in his grip stalled her movement backwards. She stared up at him. Had he gotten taller? Do people still grow after high school?

  “Taylor. Let me go!”

  Still smiling the impossible grin, Taylor’s grip tightened until she felt the pressure on her bones. He said, “No.”

  Roger moved up to her side and now completely blocked any avenue of escape to the back of the house. He slapped at Taylor’s hand, jumped back and said, “Let h-h-her go!” Rosie, stunned, thought, Jesus! A slap? I’m dating a wuss!

  In a flash of movement, Taylor pulled Rosie into his sternum and reached over her. He brought his right fist down like a hammer onto Roger’s head. Roger didn’t even have time to get his hands up before the fist landed on top of his head, compressing his neck and fracturing his skull with a sickening crack. Roger said, “Brech?” There was a lilt at the end, as though the nonsense word was a question and he dropped straight down, his knee cracking and popping from the strain of bending the wrong way.

  Rosie screamed and Taylor hugged her to his body. Taylor stomped on Roger’s head with his white bootie, a ghostly piston, until she couldn’t hear any cracks. Only squishes. Her ear against Taylor’s chest, she noticed in the slow-down-way you sometimes see things before a car crash, his heart rate hadn’t increased at all. A steady thump-thump. What he had done was so fast but to Taylor, it didn’t even raise his pulse rate. Roger’s murder happened between the spaces of breath. Roger slapping at Taylor ineffectually and boom! Dead.

  Taylor pulled her in tighter. Her ribs compressed and with her mouth and nose mushed against his hard chest, she couldn’t breathe and her scream died. He crushed her against him tighter and tighter until motes danced behind her eyes and she pushed against him with her forearms. His body yielded nothing.

  Her lungs burned. She needed air so she did the only thing she could think of: she bit Taylor. He didn’t flinch or yelp with pain. Her effort meant nothing. With a bulge of his flesh coated in the white material he wore in her mouth, she thought this was a stupid way to die and then air. Glorious air. He released her to the ground. Taylor helped her stand because her legs trembled and she wobbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t held her until she could straighten on her own. He didn’t let go of her, but she stood under her own power.

  “Taylor needs duct-tape.”

  She squinted up at him as a sob pushed out of her mouth, thinking of Roger dead on the floor behind her. She had been an ass to him. In the same way Taylor had been an ass to her so long ago. She had been indifferent to him in every way that counted. She chose him as a boyfriend to alleviate her loneliness and boost her self-worth and because of her selfish fear of being alone he lay dead on the floor. Before he died she felt disgust for him, at his lame attempt to save her. Her lips trembled and her eyes leaked salty tears down her face. She inhaled to let go another cry because she couldn’t stop the pain and sorrow squeezing her blood through her veins until they felt like frozen ooze travelling her body. Before a wail could escape her Taylor shook her. Her head flew back and forth. Bones in her neck ground and creaked and it stopped the cry. Taylor lifted her off the ground like a child and held her before his face. The grin, a maniac’s grin frozen on his face, smacked away any need to cry and she thought now it was her turn. He would open those crazy fun-house teeth and slide her down his gullet, chomping and chewing his way through her flesh and bones and although an absurd idea, staring into the giant’s face inches from her, it became all too real. A nightmare in her kitchen, one she wouldn’t wake up from. She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her head away from him as far as she could, waiting for the first bite.

  “Taylor needs duct-tape.”

  She creaked open an eye and said, “What?”

  He put her back on the ground. He let go of her with his left hand and raised it to her eye level. She could see the purple bruising and a clear bulge pressing against the skin. A broken forearm. How was he moving it? How was he not howling with pain?

  “Taylor needs duct-tape. And your car.”

  -26-

  Snakehunt…

  Earl and Owen were the first to arrive at Rosie’s. They parked a few houses down so anyone looking out of Rosie’s house wouldn’t see them pull up. Some dayshift units were on the way and when Owen jumped out of the car before Earl had a chance to put it in park, he heard sirens in the distance. Behind him Earl yelled, “Owen! Wait for me!”

  Owen took his gun out of the holster and duck-walked to the cruiser parked on the grass. He heard the chugging of the engine. Still running. Earl, breathing hard, came up behind him.

  “Jackass. You know better than to take off. Two on one. Always two on one.” Earl referred to the standard rule for police officers when going to any call with the potential for violence. You never went alone and the ideal situation was more cops than civilians. So two cops for one civilian, three cops for two civilians and so on.

  Owen said, “I know, I know.”

  Owen, crouching, sidled up to the driver side of the cruiser using the mirror to try and see inside. He paused for a second on seeing a blood swipe on the outside of the door. Was that Samantha’s blood? Owen blinked and pushed the thought away. He had to focus. He checked the mirror again and didn’t see anything. He listened and only heard radio chatter from inside the car. When he made it to under the driver side window, he glanced at Earl and slowly peered into the open window.

  He whispered, “Empty.”

  When Owen checked the front seat, Earl checked the back seat of the cruiser and he said, “Empty here too.”

  Staying low, Owen moved to the front of the cruiser, keeping an eye on the window facing them, fearing the large shadow of Taylor spotting them. He crept up tight to the house and pressed his body
against the wall. Earl hit the wall beside him.

  Owen said, “I’ll take the front, you go to the back.”

  “What did I just say? Two to one.” Under his breath, “Idiot.”

  “I can hear you.”

  “So?”

  “Okay. Both of us go to the front.”

  “Good boy.”

  Owen inhaled, patted his vest with one hand and reassured he had it on and staying under the window, he moved to the front door, the sirens getting closer all the time.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Earl said, “What?”

  “The front door. Busted open. Did the dispatchers get a hold of Rosie? Did they say?”

  “I didn’t hear it if they did.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Two cruisers slid around the corner and pulled into the driveway. The rotating lights flashed red, blue and white on the house and Owen squinted against the brightness with a frown. If Taylor didn’t know the police were outside, he did now. And he had two police officer guns. At least they had turned off the sirens.

  Owen said, “Can you believe this shit?”

  “We’ll ream them out later.”

  One officer popped out of each cruiser and jogged over to the detectives. Both young, both newly on their own. One officer, a short rotund white man with the singular worst beard going said, “What can we do detectives? Is he here?”

  Owen said, “If he is here, now he knows we are.”

  The officer turned a bright red and found something of interest on his boots. The second officer hung back and wouldn’t look the detectives in the eye.

  Owen said, “You two guys go around the back. We’re going in the front. Be careful. Don’t shoot us. Don’t shoot each other.”