SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT - The Complete Psycho Thriller (The Complete Epic)

by Blake Crouch

  “Why in the hell would you stick the key up your ass?”

  “I knew you’d frisk me. I didn’t have any other place to put it.”

  “Well, why do I have to get it?”

  “You’ve killed a hundred and thirty people, and you’re getting squeamish at sticking your finger up a girl’s ass? Some people pay to do it.”

  Donaldson just glared at her.

  “Tick, tock,” Lucy said. “My friend will be back any minute.”

  “Roll over.”

  Lucy shifted onto her side. Donaldson stuck his hand down the back of her scrubs.

  “Donaldson?”

  “What?”

  “Be gentle.”

  “How do I know you don’t have a fucking rat trap up there? I don’t want to lose a finger.”

  “The rat trap is in front, in case you tried to rape me.”

  Donaldson grunted, running his hand over bandages, slipping it underneath and inside.

  “How far up is it?”

  “I don’t know. An inch or two? I lost fifteen percent of my ass in the car wreck. You’ll probably know you’ve found it when your fingers touch a key.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if there was no key, D?”

  “Asshole. And I mean that in every sense of the word. Wait…okay…I think I got it.”

  He retrieved his hand, pinching a not-so-shiny handcuff key. “Explain to me why I had to do this, and not you?”

  “I don’t want to get shit all over my hand.”

  Swearing, Donaldson moved to unlock the cuffs just as Luther returned.

  “Look who’s awake,” Luther said.

  Donaldson hid the key under a pile of moldy hay.

  Luther walked over and squatted down in front of Lucy and Donaldson. He smiled at Lucy.

  Horrifying.

  “Is it really you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I never thought I’d see you again.”

  Luther reached out, touched the side of her face. “You’ve grown into a beautiful woman.”

  “Thank you.”

  Luther glanced at Donaldson, and then came to his feet. He lifted the kerosene lantern off the nail and carried it with him across the barn. The firelight splashed across a wall covered in ancient farm tools. Scythes of every size. Bill hooks. Sheep shears. Hay rakes. Axes. Hatchets. Sledgehammers. Drill spuds. Tail-docking shears. Yokes. Spades. Long-handled slashers. Hooks. Pruners. Pitchforks.

  “I have my toolbox in the car,” Luther said, selecting the bill hook, “but I always like to make use of what’s around. You guys ever do that?”

  “Can you pick a different one?” Lucy asked. “That one looks rusty. I wouldn’t want Donaldson to get tetanus.”

  Luther chuckled.

  “What exactly, darling, do you think is about to happen here? We tag team Fat Man and then I rush you back to the hospital?”

  “Yeah, that sounds great.”

  Luther returned the bill hook to the shelf and pulled down the pair of sheep shears. He started toward them, opening and closing the blades to dislodge the clumps of accumulated rust.

  “I’m going to start with you, Lucy. Show me those pretty little feet.”

  Lucy reached her hand down into her pants.

  “What?” Luther grinned. “This getting you hot? Wow, you are a little firecracker.”

  He sat down on the floor in front of her and set the kerosene lamp next to him.

  Grunting, Lucy extended her foot. The one Donaldson had shot three toes off of.

  “Not quite as pretty as I was imagining.”

  “You won’t do it,” she said. “We have a connection.”

  “Think so?” He opened the shears. “Stick your big toe between the blades and find out.”

  Lucy groaned, her hand still down her pants.

  She set her big toe on the bottom blade.

  Luther looked up, said, “Watch—”

  His face dropped, and then a smile stretched his lips.

  The blast of pepper spray hit him dead between the eyes, Lucy leaning forward, squirting it into his mouth and nose, and when the spray ended, Donaldson kicked Luther in the chest.

  Luther fell back and dropped the shears, his hands clutching his face.

  “You fucking bitch!” He pawed at his eyes.

  Donaldson laughed. “Tell me, Luther, did she get lucky just now?”

  Luther clambered onto his feet, one hand outstretched, his face buried in the side of his jacket.

  “I can’t fucking see!” he screamed. “It burns!”

  Luther stumbled like a drunk toward the opening of the barn.

  Donaldson stuck his hand into the old hay, becoming frantic because he couldn’t find the key. After ten seconds of desperate groping, his fingers locked onto it.

  “Grab the pitchfork,” Lucy said as he undid the cuffs. “Wait behind the door for him to come back.”

  Donaldson heaved himself up to his feet and took a staggering step toward the wall of rusted farm implements. He grabbed the pitchfork, and then paused.

  “Hurry!” Lucy said. “Hide before he comes back!”

  “I’ve been maced before. Hurts like hell. Even if he washes off, he’s not coming back for at least ten minutes.”

  “You going to sneak up on him, get him by his car?”

  Donaldson shook his head slowly.

  Lucy let out a short pant of air. After a moment, she nodded. “Hermit crabs can’t change who they are.”

  “No,” Donaldson said. “They can’t.”

  He raised the pitchfork and staggered toward her.

  Lucy stood up.

  “You goddamn lying little bitch,” Donaldson said, thrusting the fork at her.

  Lucy jumped back, wincing as her legs took the weight. Then she ran awkwardly toward the tools.

  Donaldson got to her just as Lucy was pulling a scythe from the wall. She tugged it off the nail and swung it hard and fast. Donaldson ducked and the sickle blade slammed into the wall, its tip embedding a quarter inch into the wood. Lucy yanked it out as Donaldson came at her with the pitchfork, sidestepping as the prongs missed her by inches.

  She raised the scythe and swiped again, catching Donaldson in the bad arm. When the tip went in, she twisted the handle, dropping the fat man to his knees with a whimper.

  Lucy pulled the scythe out and cocked it back.

  “We could’ve been amazing together,” she said.

  “Yeah.” Donaldson grimaced. “But killing you is going to be even more amazing.”

  She swung the scythe at his neck but Donaldson raised his weapon and caught the blade between the prongs. Rising, he jabbed the pitchfork toward the ceiling and sent Lucy’s scythe flying across the room, where it clattered against a dormant tractor.

  Donaldson backed her up, cornering Lucy against the wall of tools.

  “Okay, D. You got me.” Lucy raised her hands. “Is this really what you want?”

  Donaldson put his weight into the thrust, stabbing her through the fronts of both thighs.

  Lucy fell to the floor, screaming for Luther, and she continued to scream as Donaldson plunged the sharp, filthy tines into her legs, over and over and over.

  By the time he’d worked his way up to her pelvis, she was just screaming incoherently.

  By the time he started on her arms, all the fight had gone out of her.

  Panting, Donaldson set the pitchfork on the ground and leaned on the handle. He used his good arm to mop some sweat from his brow.

  “You still alive there, little girl? Or have I reached one hundred and thirty-one?”

  Lucy moaned softly.

  A pool of blood spreading out beneath her.

  Footsteps at the opening of the barn’s sliding door drew Donaldson’s attention. Luther stood in the threshold. He was holding something that the shadows kept hidden.

  “That mace hurts like a bitch, don’t it?” Donaldson said. “I straightened Lucy out for you, but
if you want to come give her a few pokes, by all means, help yourself.”

  Luther walked into the barn, and as he reached the lantern’s field of illumination, he stopped.

  Donaldson saw what he held. He said, “Oh shit.”

  “Drop the pitchfork,” Luther said. His face was swollen, his eyes red as strawberries. The gun in his hand was a semi-auto.

  “You mean drop this, or you shoot me? Don’t be an asshole, Luther. I’d rather have you shoot me than—”

  The first shot blew out Donaldson’s right knee, toppling him over.

  Luther strolled over while Donaldson howled.

  “Still rather have me shoot you, Fat Man?”

  He aimed and fired. Donaldson’s left knee exploded.

  A feeble, breathy sound caught Luther’s attention. He turned and saw a smile on Lucy’s face.

  She was laughing.

  “Knees are supposed to hurt the most,” Luther said. “Tell me if that’s true.”

  Two more shots, and Lucy’s laughter became sobbing.

  Luther went to the wall and chose a tool to play with.

  After twenty minutes of exhausting his imagination with that one, he went on to get another.

  On Luther’s third tool, Donaldson went into cardiac arrest.

  Happily, Luther kept a portable defibrillator in his car, and it only took three shocks to get the fat man’s ticker back on track.

  Then he started in again.

  Dawn approached.

  Soon there wasn’t much Luther could do, even trying really hard, to illicit more screams from the duo.

  Donaldson tried to say something but it came out too soft for Lucy to understand.

  They lay side-by-side on the floor of the barn. There were bits of them everywhere.

  Lucy could barely speak.

  “What…D?”

  “Is…he…gone?”

  “I think so.”

  The barn was quiet. Somewhere, across the field, a rooster was arguing with the sun.

  “Why aren’t we dead yet?” Lucy asked.

  “Because your friend is very…very…” Donaldson coughed up a chunk of something. “Good.”

  “I can’t feel anything anymore,” Lucy said.

  “Me neither.”

  “I believe I can fix that.” Luther had returned.

  He held a red plastic container.

  “I’ve read that in most witch burnings, the victim died quickly from smoke inhalation,” Luther said. “Or from breathing in the fire itself. So I’m going to try my best to keep the flames on just the lower parts of your bodies.”

  Luther poured gas on them. Donaldson turned his head, caught Lucy’s eyes.

  “You know what, little girl? I never should have picked your ass up.”

  “Hitchhiking can be dangerous, D,” Lucy said.

  They reached for each other and held hands as they burned.

  A Schizophrenia of Hawks

  The Plains of Central Illinois, 2008

  The road to the Heathrow Facility for the Criminally Insane is a two-lane blacktop that cuts a straight line through the prairie west of Peoria. On a clear day, you can see the stone quadrangle and its various spurs from four miles away, like some prehistoric monument abandoned to erode upon the plain.

  Only it isn’t abandoned. Heathrow is home to four hundred thirteen of the most violent and mentally damaged human beings in the tri-state area.

  And this wasn’t a clear day.

  Lightning slashed across the night sky as Doctor Carmichael drove down the narrow road to the asylum.

  Rain drumming hard against the windshield.

  Wipers barely keeping up.

  Another explosion of lightning revealed the facade of Heathrow in the distance—four stories of crumbling granite masonry, the glass behind the barred windows reflecting the electricity.

  Carmichael pulled his black Mercedes S-Class under the covered entryway and killed the engine. Lingered for a moment longer, enjoying the heated leather as it warmed his back through his woolen jacket.

  Eventually, he grabbed his briefcase and stepped out of the car into the raw, damp night. The sound of rain hammering the drive and the roof over his head nearly drowned out the deeper booms of thunder, which he could feel in his backbone.

  Everything smelled of Heathrow’s cold, wet stone.

  Inside, it was still as a tomb, and the air reeked of disinfectant, which barely masked the odor of urine, desperation, and crazy.

  Crazy had a distinct smell. It was medicinal, metallic, like an open bottle of pills. Almost human, but not quite.

  The good doctor walked to the reception desk where a nurse in burgundy scrubs was filling out an intake form.

  “Good evening,” he said. “I have an appointment with one of your patients.”

  The nurse looked up from her paperwork, gave a tired smile. She was young, might have been pretty, but her face was scrubbed free of any trace of makeup, and her hair was tied up in a tight knot against the back of her head.

  “Your name?”

  He said it slowly, patiently. “Doctor Vincent Carmichael.”

  “Who’s the patient you’re here to see?”

  “Alexandra Kork.”

  He registered some reaction in the nurse’s face at the utterance of that name. Disgust or horror or some mix of the two.

  The nurse rolled her chair over to a computer, whose monitor Carmichael could just barely see. She was studying a calendar.

  “Yes, I see you’re on here for 9:15.”

  “It’s a late appointment, but I wanted to see her after a full day. When she’s tired. More compliant.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Let me know how that works out for you.” The nurse lifted a phone and punched in a three-digit extension. “Hey, Jonas, Dr. Carmichael is here to see Little Miss Sunshine. You want to come up and take him back?”

  “Have you examined Ms. Kork before?” asked Jonas, head orderly of D-Wing. He was a large, bearded man who might have played guard or tackle at a small college. He reminded Carmichael of a combat orderly—white uniform, white tennis shoes, and a belt outfitted with a radio, pepper spray, zip-ties, and an assortment of other restraint tools.

  “This is my first time,” Carmichael said.

  They were walking down a long, dark corridor that linked the quadrangle to its most outlying, most secure wing.

  Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky, flashing through the tall windows on either side of them, casting the checkered floor in a burst of electric blue.

  “She is, without a doubt, our most violent, most dangerous patient.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “In your email, you mentioned you wanted to meet with her in a private room.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Thunder shook the windowglass all around them.

  “I would strongly advise against that,” Jonas said. “Our preference would be to have you meet in separate rooms connected by a Plexiglas window. You would be able to see her and speak to her through a telephone.”

  “Unacceptable.”

  “If she decides to kill you, you’ll be dead before we get to you. Ms. Kork has tremendous physical strength.”

  “But her ankles and wrists will be chained, correct?”

  “They haven’t stopped her before.”

  Carmichael quit walking and faced the orderly.

  “Jonas, everything I do, any progress I make with Ms. Kork, will be based upon a foundation of trust.”

  “I under—”

  “And that foundation is not built by speaking to someone through reinforced Plexiglas on a telephone. It’s by sharing the same space, breathing the same air.”

  “You know that Ms. Kork killed two of her previous psychiatrists.”

  “I am aware.”

  “The first was a two-hundred fifteen pound man who insisted on the same conditions you’re requesting. Seventy-four minutes into their third session, Alex went into convulsions. When Dr. Andrews attempted to he
lp her, she shoved a sharpened, plastic toothbrush through his right eye socket. It went all the way in, right up to the bristles.”