by Paul Allih
Kelly's hands and feet are tied to the bed with bungee cord, spreading her arms and legs outwards. She is cut open from her vagina up to the start of her neck with the skin pulled back to expose her rib cage. Her entrails have been removed along with her sexual organs and the killer has also taken the outer folds of her vagina. In sickness of his twisted artwork, there is a smile carved upon her face, starting from the corners of her mouth and moving just barley to her ears.
Taking a closer look, Emma sees that her sister's eye lids have also been removed. What is left is an empty shell of disgust.
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Emma's eyes grow in terror as she takes in the gruesome sight of what is left her sister. She backs away slowly as she tried to ward off the first waves of shock that push through her. As much as she wants to scream, she cannot force herself to do so. Tears boil within her eye sockets as she backs away into the hallway, over taken with a cold touch. Letting go of the smell, she breathes deep breaths of the carrion that fills the small house. Going back towards the living room, tears roll down her face as she makes her way to the kitchen where she last saw Donnie.
Walking into the kitchen, she finds that Donnie is no longer there. Feeling the weakness of the initial shock of her loss, she plops down in one of the chairs at the dining room table. Laying her head down, she cries out her pain into her folded arms. She lets it all out as she remembers the time her and her sister have had. Her childhood with her sister flashes through her mind like home movies painted upon a mental screen. In quick bursts is taken over by the things that Kelly has taught her, reflecting on how crucial she was in her life.
Now that she is gone, Emma left with nothing in regards to family or anyone else who truly loves her.
Taking deep breaths, Emma tries to collect herself so that she can find Donnie and call the police. Exhaling, she pushes herself away from the table and starts moving frantically through the house, calling out for Donnie. Walking past her mother's former bedroom, she does not realize that Donnie is in the bathroom across the hall, being held against his will.
Matt holds him tight with a blade against his throat in the darkness of the lavatory. Taunting him with sadistic grazes against his neck, they listen in silence as Emma loses her mind outside.
Thinking that Donnie went out to his car, Emma runs outside. Hearing the front door slam shut, Matt shoves the blade into Donnie's throat. He slowly twists it, severing his ties to this mortal coil. Donnie's eyes roll to white as his lids fold over. Unlike Kelly's demise, Donnie moves quickly onto 243
his passing; bleeding out onto the cold bathroom floor.
Unknowing where Emma is, Matt lets Donnie's body down easy upon the tile. Standing in a puddle of blood, Matt pushes Donnie's corpse off to the side. Exhaling his held breath, he cleans the blade on Donnie's shirt and readies himself for his next move.
Emma walks back into the house and closes the door behind her. She stands in the kitchen and looks around the house from her position. A voice trembles in her head, telling her that something is closing in on her. This voice is incessant as it grows louder and louder, rippling waves through her body. Chills begin to ride down her spine, causing the tiny hairs to stand upon the back of her neck. Taking her steps with great caution, she draws a butcher's knife from the utensil drawer. Preparing herself for anything, she holds the knife with the blade pointing outward—on guard.
Walking softly on the balls of her feet, Emma starts to scout out the rest of the house in search of Donnie. She tries her hardest to keep her fear at bay as she makes her way down the hall towards her mother's room. The voice that has been echoing in her head screams for her to leave the prem-ises immediately. It tells her to run as fast as she can to the nearest neighbor's to call the police. Shaking away all reason-able warnings, she moves forward as her heart beats in rapid movements. With every step she feels one thousand eyes upon her from every direction, not knowing what to expect to slither from the darkness.
She opens to the door to her mother's bedroom and gives the space a careful scan. Seeing her cell phone on the night stand, Emma walks over and picks it up. There is one dwindling bar in the battery meter as she quickly dials 911.
Holding the phone to her ear, she cautiously looks around her as she shakes. Every ring feels like an eternity as the phone dial through to the emergency line. Sweat drips from her hairline and her palms form small pools in dread, waiting for a helpful soul to answer her call for help.
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Finally an operator answers, "911 emergency?"
"My name is Emma and I live at 1105 Belmont, my sister has been murdered and I'm all alone in the house."
"Do you think you are safe in the house?"
“I don't know… I'm scared."
Emma keeps her voice at a loud whisper as her nerves tie her stomach into knots. The operator keeps her on the phone, constantly asking unnecessary questions. This is a method that is supposed to keep the dialer calm while madness ensues around them. While their questions mostly irritate the caller, who is nine times of ten in distress—this is crucial to the arriving officers. The more information the operator can get out of the person on the phone, the better prepared they can prepare the officers for the situation. Depending upon the kind of neighborhood the call is coming from, the officers should arrive to scene within minutes.
As Emma paces in the range of her five steps, Matt slides out from under her mother's bed. Caught up in the phone call, she turns and slowly walks out into the dark hallway. Matt stalks behind her slowly, taking his time and smiling manically with his trusty blade in hand. Taken off guard with a question from the operator, Emma stops in her tracks at the entrance of the living room. Matt sees his chance as Emma pulls the phone away from her ear to shake her head. In a quick action, he grabs the phone and throws it against the wall. Just as Emma turns around, the phone shatters into several pieces.
Seeing Matt's grinning face in front of her, she lunges at him with the kitchen knife. Just before the tip of the blade hits his skin, he grabs her arm and twists it. Forcing her arm behind her back, she recoils and allows the knife to drop to the floor. Keeping his grip on her appendage, Matt pushes her up against the hallway wall. Emma hits the surface with whimpering gasp. Holding her tight in his grip, Matt places his blade to her temple. Pressing his body against hers, he 245
says, "We're leaving this hellhole together… give me any problems and I will just fuckin' kill you right now."
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CHAPTER 31
When the officers arrive on the scene, they enter the unlocked house to investigate. Performing a search throughout the property, they find the remains of Donnie draining in the bathtub across from Ophelia's room. Stumbling upon what is left of Parker in the second bathroom bathtub, one of the officers vomited in the sink. There is not an officer that was not taken back upon finding what was left of poor Kelly.
Finding her in such a manner, the investigators combed through with a heavy weight upon their shoulders. These young lives were taken so savagely and it caused a somber aura to course through the scene. Keeping the details from the news outlets, the Vero Beach police department put out an all points bulletin for Emma.
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The saying, "it can't happen here" cannot be said for the small area of Vero Beach. David Gore, an orange grove worker by day and an auxiliary sheriff by night, hunted women for sexual sport through the early 1980's with his cousin. Offering his cousin, Fred Waterfield one thousand dollars for each girl he could find, the two embarked on a reign of horrific escapades that left several young women dead. These young women were brutally raped by the two and then murdered in various ways. Their bodies were found left to rot in orchards, the sides of highways, and ditched in canals. Gore also admitted in questioning to feeding one girl to alligators.
In 1983 police responded to call in a residential neighborhood where a naked man was firing shots at a naked woman. When authorities arrived on the scene, they surrounded the suspect's house upon findin
g blood trickling from the trunk of a car in the front. Seeing that he was out gunned, Gore gave himself up willingly. Opening the trunk of his car, they found the remains of a seventeen year old girl who was shot in the head. Gore then pointed the officers to the way of his attic where they found a fourteen year old girl alive and tied to the rafters. Taken into custody, Gore confessed to the killing of six girls. Found guilty, his cousin was given a life term and Gore was sentenced to death.
Twenty five years later, Gore is still sitting on death row for his crimes.
The reports pour out from the local news outlets regarding Emma's disappearance. They inform the com-munity of the triple murder and tell their viewers that Emma is believed to have been kidnapped. Every half hour the story is re-told, wrapped in the marketing of breaking news. Television screens across the treasure coast and abroad are splashed with her recent picture, holding out the hope that someone has any kind of information. Struggling to come up with suspects, the authorities are slow to give out the details of the investigation. Despite the similarities in the recent 248
unsolved murders in the area, the police hesitate to link the crime to a potential serial killer.
Matt drives Donnie's car with Emma shivering in the passenger seat. His threat to her earlier spins inside of her head, repeating, "Keep quiet or I'll gut you and leave you for dead." Sitting quietly she tries to jeep her trembling on the inside. Her thoughts unfold for a means of escape as she copes with the fact that she is so close to the beast who murdered her sister and friends. No matter how hard she tries, Emma cannot shut out the image of her mangled sister from her mind. Fear holds her in its grip as she glances off and on at the madman beside her. With one hand on the steering wheel and his other clinching his knife, Matt stares blankly at the road ahead.
Leaving Vero Beach far behind, Emma watches the mile markers count upwards as they move north on I-95. Emma wonders where Matt is taking her, but Matt has no clue where he is heading himself. He just keeps driving, trying to make it as far as he can from the place that he used to call home. With no plan in mind, Matt keeps his foot on the gas. Fearing the authorities are on his trial, he tells himself that he must keep moving. Having no friends and no family, he is left to figure out his next move on his own. Luckily he has the funds to hop from town, however he knows it will only be a matter of time until the police trace Donnie's stolen car.
After being on the road for almost two hours, Emma sees a highway sign that reads "Now entering Volusia County".
Her nervousness starts to fade upon the burden of being annoyed by her yearning to know. Taking a deep breath, she exhales with a heavy sigh and asks, "Where are you taking me?"
Without taking his eyes off of the road, Matt smirks and answers, "Where ever I take us…"
Emma inhales with a shiver and musters up the shaken strength to ask, "Why did you do it?"
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"Do what?"
Emma sighs, "You know what."
Toying with her, Matt grins wider, "No I don't… what did I do?”
Keeping her cool, Emma looks at Matt with a gaze laced with disgust, "Why did you kill my sister?"
Matt looks at her and watches her bottom lip tremble as she fights back her tears. He grins as his eyes shift back to the road, "I have no reason left in what I do any more. My actions are merely survival at this point… I know that I won't be here on this earth much longer, so I'm just biding my time and collecting numbers."
"Collecting numbers?"
Matt emphasizes, "Kills, bodies, notches, numbers… "
Giving him a nasty look, Emma asks, "So, my sister was just a number to you?"
"What do you want to hear from me, huh? Do want to hear this grand reason for the things that I do, is that it? Well, I hate to tell ya this, sweets, not everything happens for a reason! In fact, hardly anything happens for a fuckin' reason!
We're just a microcosm so fucking miniscule in the spectrum of anything that matters. We're just simple strains of bacteria that happens to be morphing and multiplying!"
The louder he yells, the more Emma backs herself into the corner of the passenger side. It is in this moment that she knows that Matt is going to kill her. She tells herself that she will fight, but at the same time she begins to tell herself that she is going to die. Tears bubble in her eyes as she prays to herself, the first time since she was a small child. Closing her eyes and nibbling on her bottom lip, she attempts to combat her perpetual nervousness.
He pauses to take a breather and lights one of Kelly’s cigarettes. Emma notices her lighter and her brand of smokes, bringing her eyes to water with tears. Matt exhales the smoke and says, “I don’t know why people like you fear death. After all, when you die your brain expels a chemical known as 250
Dimethyltryptamine or DMT and it acts like a hallucinogen.
When you die you are actually getting high… pretty fascinating stuff. So when you look at it in those terms, I’m bringing people to their ultimate trip… I am a god to these poor saps that I’m offing.”
Listening to his psycho babble, Emma holds herself back from screaming at him. She breathes in and out, fighting to find her center where she can think clearly. Suddenly a voice tells her to try and reason with him, "Look if you let me go I'll the cops that it was some sicko trucker… I won’t even mention you, I swear!"
Matt laughs at her with a howling cackle, "Do you really think I'm that fucking stupid?!"
Speechless, Emma just stares at Matt as he holds the wheel steady with a sick smile on his face as he continues on his rant. "The minute I let you go you'll tell 'em everything and I'll be sitting on death row for the next twenty years… do you think I'm gonna let that happen?!"
"I won't!"
With a scoff, Matt replies, "Bullshit! I fuckin' know you, you cunt! You're a two faced back stabber… just like the rest of 'em! All of you deserve to fuckin' die a slow and blood soaked agonizing death!"
Held hostage by the sound of his voice and his words, the loud tone is that of a thunder clap that ripples through her soul. Losing control of her emotions, Emma starts crying and slobbering in painful release. Emma feels herself collapse under the weight of Matt's rage. Even though she has tried her best to remain strong— channeling every ounce of her being for the strength to hold back her fear. Burying her face in her hands, she fights to gain back her mental ground. The last thing she wants to do is feed his twisted need to watch his victims suffer. In this darkened moment, Emma holds on to the hope that Matt will have mercy on her.
Gripping the steering wheel, Matt stares out on to the open road. He takes a deep breath and tries to control his 251
rage. Matt does not want to listen to Emma's weeps, her gasps and moans ride what is left of his nerves. Though he tries to keep his cool, his impulses tell him to pull over, kill her and bury her under a soft layer of brush. Clinching the handle of the dagger, he holds back his urges and exhales his useless deep breath. Blinking his eyes he slowly comes back to his calm frame of mind.
Regaining his cool, he tells Emma, "We're going to a hotel room. I'm gonna rent a room and in the morning I will be leaving. It doesn't matter who you call… by the time you wake up, I'll be long gone."
Catching her breath, Emma is washed with a feeling of relief. This warmth takes her over and cradles her wounded nerves, easing back to a temporary stability. Emma dries her tears and wipes away the scowl from her face. Breathing in and out brings her stressed repertory system back to its normal capacity. As much as she thought she was going to be killed, she is consoled by what Matt has told her. She is left with the happiness in believing that she will be a free woman by the first signs of morning. Thoughts of her living on so that she can somehow avenge her sister's death allow her to keep her composure.
After allowing her the time to collect herself, Matt says,
"I couldn't kill you, baby… I love you."
Hiding her face from his by looking out of her window, she grits her teeth and closes her eyes shut ti
ght. Forcing herself not think about the things he has done, Emma reserves the urge to punch him. She knows that he does not love her because he never did. As far as Emma is concerned, she was just easy prey for his psychotic lusts.
"After all," he says, "I did this all because of you…"
Turning her head from the passenger window, she looks at him with an expression of mixed shock and disgust.
Emma's lower jaw hangs from its hinges as she is caught in awe at a loss for words. She cannot believe what he just said, his accusation that she was responsible for the deaths of her 252
sister and her friends. It is the text book condition of madness to take blame from oneself and place it on others for their own actions. Emma could argue with him but it would do no good. Most likely he would just get upset and attempt to harm her. Keeping this in mind, she just plays along with his games, staying as docile as she can.
Matt feels her eyes burning upon him. Giving her quick glance he replies, "Don't look at me like that… you know what you did… you made me do this.”
Taking in every word that he breathes towards her, Emma looks down towards the floor board of her dead lover's car. Before she could not argue with him out of fear of his reaction, now she is rendered speechless because a small part of her believes what he is telling her. Guilt rushes through her like a damn that has been torn asunder, filling her with the sickness of unchangeable regret. Emma convinces herself that if it was not for her then Kelly would still be alive. Playing on her deepest emotions, Matt puts her right where he wants her with a simple string of words.
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CHAPTER 32
Pulling into the empty parking lot of a seedy motel off of I-95, Matt checks them into a room for the night. By his side, Emma temporarily played the role of the loving girlfriend. All the while, she spent the entire time hoping that the in-keeper would notice the beaten look of anguish on her face. If not noticing her, she had hoped that he would notice the face of her captor. As the miles counted down, she hoped that the authorities had put out a sketch and an APB on Matt for the surrounding area. Unfortunately for Emma, there is no APB