To Catch a Killer

by Mitch Goth

  Kellen weaved through what little traffic Sun City had during the middle afternoon hours. She wasted no time getting to the other end of the Texas town. As she drove, she could hear Ezra speaking, although she couldn't comprehend a word. Her own thoughts dominated her senses.

  Once she hit a stretch of clear road, Kellen's eyes shot down to her pocket. She wanted to call Remi. After a few moments of deliberation, Kellen reached into her pocket and collected her thoughts. She pulled out her phone and dialed. It was a hassle trying to hit the right keys while also keeping a watch on the road.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Ezra inquired, she could finally hear what he was saying.

  "Calling the local cops to back us up," she explained. She would have rather called her therapist, but Megan's life depended on her keeping it together.

  "I would recommend otherwise."

  "Why? We don't know what we're getting into with this. For all we know, this freak could have built a maze or something in that factory, or set up traps."

  "Mazes? Traps? Kellen, you sound a bit off your rocker."

  "I am just preparing for the worst over here!"

  "Prepare for this: if this guy is in the area and we're wrong about this factory, sending the cops there will tip him off and send him fleeing, and our shot is gone, Megan dies, and I go back on trial, which isn't something I planned on doing."

  "Are you honestly suggesting that we go in there alone?" 

  "If we want to catch him, yes."

  Kellen pondered for a second before sliding her phone back into her pocket and focusing all her attention back on the road. "Look." She aimed into the distance, seeing the brick architecture of the factory just a few long blocks down.

  "It's big. A place like that had to have quite the output during operation, which means a lot of large, rather noisy machinery around what is basically residential space."

  Kellen scanned the area and saw he was right. This factory was surrounded by small houses. "If that place didn't want to be registered as a noise nuisance, it'd need some damn thick walls."

  "Perfect place to house a screaming victim. Place is so big. Even if they escaped where they were held, it'd take forever to find a way out."

  "That just means it'll be hard for us too, you know? Going through there blind will be dangerous, especially with no back up."

  "It's the only way, trust me," Ezra said. After a moment he pointed to a spot on the curb. "Park here, we'll walk the rest of the way, we don't want him seeing a car pull up."

  Kellen pulled to the side of the street just a block and a half from the factory. The structure seemed to loom over them, as if it were its own living, breathing monster. It seemed fitting that a beast would do well to house one of its own.

  At first they tried to walk the rest of the way, but soon found it impossible to keep the pace slow. It was nothing more than a quick sprint to the building from where they had parked, and then they were stopped.

  "What on earth do we do now?" Ezra looked up at the building, now close enough to touch it.

  Kellen looked around, the only doors she could see had large, heavy locks on it and all the windows had both bars and thick metal screens. "Shit. I don't know."

  "Let's look around back." Ezra kept close to the building's brick exterior as he walked around the perimeter.

  Around the other side of the factory was a dense thicket of shrubs and vines, intermixed with years of garbage. Kellen was the first one to delve into the conglomeration, finding it difficult to maneuver around the vines enough to not get cut up by their sharp edges while also avoiding the piles of fly-infested trash.

  "Here," she said, getting spat out of the greenery and onto a thin dirt track. She looked down one way to see it leading away from the factory property and off to what looked like abandoned train tracks. Down the other direction was the building itself, and a large garage door.

  "That's promising." Ezra smiled, looking at the rusted up door once he got out of the vines. "This whole road is hidden by these bushes, it'd be the perfect place to hide. You can't even see this road from the outside."

  "It's probably locked too."

  "Yes it is." Ezra pointed to a small padlock near the bottom of the door. "But nothing that can't be handled."

  "What the hell are we supposed to do? Shoot it?"

  "No, no, that'd make too much ruckus. But it wouldn't hurt to have that gun of yours out right now. You never know what we'll find or run into here."

  Kellen took that advice and drew her weapon as she watched Ezra approach the door. She still didn't have the slightest idea what his plan was, but she could tell he had one, and she stood still at a cautious distance. For a moment he looked around, then grabbed what looked like some kind of plumbing pipe. He stuck it into the bar of the lock and angled it. The whole door rattled as he pushed down on it. It wasn't until he turned around and let all his body weight fall onto the pole that they got results. The padlock snapped apart, the bar mechanism flying far into the thickets.

  "How the hell do you know how to do that?" Kellen asked, walking up to the door herself.

  "How did I pull a cop's gun apart earlier today? Practice," Ezra said as he reached down and lifted up the door. What was on the other end shook the smile from his expression and stopped Kellen's racing mind.

  "Jesus Christ." Kellen raised her weapon, not sure what else lurked in the depths of the factory.

  Ezra sighed and peeked his head into the garage space, staring at the tan RV sitting within it. "I think you should call those cops now."

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