15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  ‘I could have been raped?’ she says, quite unsure of the reality she finds herself in.

  ‘Anything could have happened mam, it’s just lucky the right people were around,’ says Jesse, extending his hand out towards the woman.

  ‘Are they dead?’ she asks while accepting Jesse’s hand and pulling herself out of the car.

  ‘No, just beaten up. They’ll live. Hell, back in my day, school fights were more impactful than any of the beatings those two have gotten. Today will be a day they will remember. You should never lay your hands on a woman, especially one that’s so beautiful,’ he says, smiling at the blonde.

  Ricky remains with his hands firmly on his gun, unsure whether or not to remand his partner for the assault on both teens. Suddenly there is a loud beeping sound in the bushes.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ asks Ricky.

  ‘Probably one of their beepers or something, I’ll go and have a look,’ he says

  Jesse walks over towards the bush and gets within a few meters of it. Suddenly an explosion erupts through the bushes and flings the officer back a few meters, landing on top of a car windshield, cracking it like ice under immense pressure. The explosion is followed by another, flinging the woman and Ricky to the ground. A scattering of leaves and dust float in the air as the sound of car alarms and fire peppers the midday air blocking out the sun light a blanket of cloud.

  ‘Fuck, my ears,’ says Jesse to himself.

  He looks around and notices the bush in which he had beaten the two potential rapists was on fire. He quickly puts two and two together, and realises he could be dead if he was in their when they combusted.

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ asks Ricky as he gets up

  ‘I’m okay,’ says the woman

  Jesse gets himself off the hood of the car he landed on. He falls on his knees and wheezes for air.

  ‘You okay man?’ asks Ricky as he races towards his partner.

  ‘Yeah, just got the wind knocked out of me,’ he says

  ‘What the hell was that explosion?’ he asks his partner

  ‘Looks like the rumours were true,’ says Jesse, answering his partner’s question.

  ‘What rumours?’ asks Ricky

  ‘That we are all going to die,’ says Jesse.

  Twenty Five

  ‘You finished beating the shit out of that Militia guy?’ asks David as he hands Ray a sip of water from his bottle.

  ‘Yeah. The guy isn’t saying shit. He said there were three guys with him. That’s it. He won’t tell me where they are or what their plan is. He seems like the real deal. I broke six of his fingers and he still isn’t saying much,’ says Ray

  ‘They all end up talking Ray, no matter what, everyone talks’

  Both men look at each other for a few seconds, contemplating whether or not to continue beating their captured prisoner. Suddenly they hear the faint sound of a conversation in the distance. They look up and see Mitch sitting up, talking to the captured man. They both rush on over to deal with both men.

  ‘So that’s why they knocked me out I guess. What about you? Why are you tied up like a dog?’ asks Mitch as he smiles at the worn out looking prisoner.

  ‘I was sent here to kill the survivors. That’s why I’m here,’ says the Militia man.

  ‘Well, we all have a purpose I suppose,’ says Mitch

  Both Ray and David reach the two men and grab Mitch and drag him away from the prisoner.

  ‘I guess we will speak later,’ says Mitch as he is being dragged, his feet kicking up dust and dirt from the mucky sewer floor.

  ‘You need to shut your mouth! We will deal with you later,’ says David as he pushes Mitch into the furthest corner of their underground camp, at least two hundred meters away from the prisoner.

  ‘Where’s the girls?’ asks Mitch

  ‘Your daughters are being taken care of. Donner is looking after them. This is no place for two little girls to witness their daddy being held against his will,’ says David

  ‘My daughters?’ says Mitch, still confused from his sedative shot.

  ‘I told you where they are, stop repeating yourself’

  Mitch starts to laugh uncontrollably. David looks at Ray and signals another shot to calm Mitch down. Just as Ray is about to stick Mitch with another shot, he hesitates.

  ‘Come on boy! Give it to me good, like we did to your people in the cotton fields!’ says Mitch

  ‘Give it here, I’ll do it,’ says David, grabbing the syringe off Ray.

  ‘Just before you do knock me out, where are the girls?’ asks Mitch once again

  The groggy incoherent state Mitch is in is annoying Ray.

  ‘We fucking told you, your daughters are with Donner,’ says Ray

  ‘Just don’t listen to him, he’s playing with us,’ says David

  ‘They aren’t my daughters,’ says Mitch quietly, shocking both men.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks David

  ‘They aren’t my daughters….’ He repeats

  David kneels down to Mitch’s level and grabs him by the scruff of the neck.

  ‘You’re their uncle?’ Asks David

  ‘No…They’re my play things….’

  Both David and Ray look at each other in shock.

  ‘What?’ asks Ray ‘Your play things? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  Mitch starts laughing once again. David loses his temper and punches Mitch.

  ‘Answer the fucking question!’ shouts David

  Mitch wipes the blood off his face and looks up at David. His eyes burn with the reflection of the fire from the blazed oil drum a few meters away.

  ‘What’s a matter David? You never fucked a little girl before? You look the type…Hell I should know,’ says Mitch

  Both David and Ray don’t know how to react to Mitch’s provocative words.

  ‘You’re fucking with us! You’re lying!’ Says David

  ‘Why would I lie about such a thing? I killed the girl’s parents and took them for myself. I thought why not? They could come in handy in a world where everyone is dead. You got to repopulate the earth somehow,’ says Mitch, laughing uncontrollably once again.

  David and Ray’s worlds come crashing down as they look on at Mitch. Time seems to stand still as Donner approaches with the little girls smiling and giggling amongst themselves. Mitch winks at Donner as he licks his lips once more. The sadistic smile on his face makes David and Ray gobsmacked at the ghoul of this man. Whatever happens next, Ray knows that humanity or survival won’t come into the mix. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

  Luis Samways

  Beacon of Light

  Episode Three

  One

  Mrs Novik opens her eyes to see the vast blanket of black sky around her dancing in the atmosphere. She’s just woken up. Her back is killing her as she lies down in the dark and dirty dumpster. She heaves herself up and takes a look around her surroundings. The crisp air is biting at her face, making her cheeks rosy and cold. She coughs and the air around her is peppered with the condensation in her mouth. Bellows of muggy air congest with her warm mouth as the air surrounding the idle skip is akin to a smoker’s room. She puts her hands on the side of the dumpster and lifts herself up. She’s now standing in the midst of the dirty contents of the dumpster. She marvels at the filth surrounding her. It makes her stomach feel queasy as she stares at the left over rotten contents of food and baby dippers. She can’t quite believe she slept in the dumpster but she knew that the cold was far too much for her to survive without any sort of warmth. You’d be surprised at how warm a dumpster full of putrid smelling garbage is. There’s just something about sleeping in a trash pile of human waste that makes the body feel uneasy.

  Mrs Novik bends over the skip and heaves her chest as she starts to vomit. She doesn’t know why the hell she is vomiting but judging by the circumstances, she has her reasons. She continues to chuck up all sorts of liquid vomit for a few more minutes. She starts to realise
that she hasn’t eaten anything in a couple of days. The fact that she is vomiting anything at all is a miracle. She needs to get to Starbucks or a Wal-Mart. She knows there may be some left over supplies that some people looked over. You can usually find some tinned onions or something along those lines. Whatever she finds. She knows not to be picky. The apocalypse doesn’t allow for a menu of delicatessen. It only gives you whatever supplies the world didn’t want, and unfortunately for Mrs Novik, the world seems to want a whole lot of supplies at the moment, so she figures she better get her ass down to the nearest store and see what she can scavenge.

  She pulls herself out of the dumpster and breaths in the air around her. After spending much of the night in the skip, the air outside of the trash ridden box smells especially fresh. She doesn’t feel as bad now, even though a few seconds prior she was chucking up chunks. She looks around the small alleyway she is standing in and sighs. She sees a small craggy footpath in front of her. She follows it with her worn out feet. She stumbles for a few seconds and sees a small opening. She sees tall buildings poking through the opening she is about to walk through. She steps off the small pathway and onto a main road. She’s out of the alleyway as she looks around at the beaming skyscrapers surrounding her. She’s made it to Albany, but doesn’t know how far she going to make it through the city. She looks left and right and then decides to go straight on. She sees a mass of stationary cars on the main street; some still have their doors open, others have their trunks open. She decides to stop near the first car and do some rummaging. If she is going to find anything in this city, then an abandoned car might be the best bet.

  Two

  ‘You better be lying you son of a bitch!’ shouts Ray as he grabs Mitch by the neck. His hands grip around Mitch’s throat. The forceful grip leaves indents from Ray’s finger nails in Mitch’s pale skin. David grabs Ray’s wrists and separates Ray from Mitch, who is still on the floor laughing at the attempts of Ray trying to be a hard man.

  ‘Your nothing boy, you hear me? Nothing but a pussy!’ laughs Mitch

  Donner reaches the three men with a worried look on her face. She looks across the camp and see’s the two little girls looking on at the commotion.

  ‘Not in front of the girls…I’m pretty sure they don’t want to see their daddy get beaten up,’ she says.

  Ray laughs a cynical howl. It catches Donner of guard as she looks on in dismay.

  ‘What?’ she asks

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about the girls being frightened for their “daddy”,’ he says sarcastically

  ‘Leave it Ray, she doesn’t need to know; not until we find out what is really going on,’ says David with a pitiful look in his eyes.

  ‘Man, fuck that! She has the right to know, as do the little girls,’ says Ray

  ‘To know what?’ asks Donner, who’s starting to sound impatient as she looks down at the still smiling Mitch who’s sporting a few cuts and bruises to his face.

  ‘That Mitch is a paedophile,’ says Ray

  ‘What?’ asks Donner, not quite believing what she is hearing

  ‘You heard! He’s a fucking kid snatcher. He snatched those two little girls and was planning on…You know…Raping them,’ he says

  Donner looks down at Mitch once again, who is nodding in agreement unapologetically.

  ‘Yep…You got me,’ he says

  ‘Why would you admit to such a thing?’ asks Donner

  ‘Because I’m tired of hiding who I am’

  Ray swings a heavy fist at Mitch’s face.

  ‘Hiding who you are? You’re a sick fucking asshole who deserves to be gutted from bowl to sternum,’ says Ray

  David pushes Ray back a few feet to try and keep some distance between both men.

  ‘No one is gutting anyone, okay?’ he says, still holding Ray back

  Donner can’t believe what she is hearing; it’s all washing over her much like the warm water from a shower that she craves so badly. She looks around and see’s the two little girls still staring on in curiosity. She decides to leave Ray and David with Mitch, and go and comfort the girls. She takes her time; each step towards the two little angelic girls is painful. Just thinking about the intentions of Mitch is making her skin crawl. She knows she’s a medical professional, but she wouldn’t mind being the one to gut Mitch like Ray suggested. She finally reaches the two wide eyed girls and goes in for a hug. She embraces both of them and squeezes them tightly into her chest. She can hear Abigail sobbing into her right shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay. He won’t hurt you now,’ she says

  Abigail continues to cry some more. Her sister Tristan joins in.

  ‘Is the bad man going to die?’ asks Abigail

  Donner feels a little uneasy with the question and tries to act normal.

  ‘Why would he die?’ she asks

  ‘Because he said that my Mommy and Daddy died,’ she says

  ‘How did they die?’ asks Donner

  ‘I don’t know. The man said he helped them go to sleep,’ says Tristan

  ‘Oh,’ says Donner, not quite sure how to respond, still embracing both little girls.

  ‘Will the bad man go to sleep too?’ she asks

  ‘Everyone goes to sleep one day Tristan,’ says Donner

  Three

  London, England

  The man in the suit is walking down Trafalgar Square. He’s keeping an eye on things. He’s a people watcher after all. Day and night he watches people. It’s his job. He’s a private investigator. People pay him big money to follow cheating spouses from A to B, and then he records what he sees and reports back to the client. It’s quite an easy job really. He just likes the danger of it all. When people find out that someone is tailing them, they can get a bit confrontational. It’s a good job that he can handle himself, or things would be different altogether. There’s nothing like a stiff kicking in the British weather to make you realise that maybe it’s time you take self-defence classes. And that’s what happened. He took the classes and now he can literally kill someone with his stare, much like that famous scruffy looking fellow from all those eighties’ movies. Okay, maybe he can’t kill someone with his stare, but he can disarm people quite quickly.

  The man finds himself feeding the pigeons on a bench. It’s slow work today. He has to follow this business man that is accused of laundering money by some of his executives. What the business man doesn’t know is that he is being followed by the best in the business, Steven Grimshaw.

  Steven isn’t the type of man to stick out in a crowded place. In his work clothes, he looks like any other toffee nosed banker on the streets of London. All seeing and all-knowing is what Steven prides himself on. If it isn’t fact, he doesn’t know about it. He’s reading the Daily Mirror, which is a newspaper in England. He doesn’t much care for its trivial way of telling the news. He likes to entertain himself on the job by looking at the funnies. Today’s funny isn’t very…well funny. He’s been waiting for the business man to come out of the barber shop now for at least an hour. He isn’t one to sit on his ass much, but he decides that to keep his cover, maybe it’s best if he does just that.

  Twenty minutes goes by and he decides that enough is enough. Maybe his cover would be blown, but he has to be sure that the man didn’t slip out of his sights undetected. He gets up and stretches out, more because he feels crooked and not just to blend in to his surroundings. He leaves the newspaper on the metal grated bench he was sitting on and looks up at the sky. The British clouds are forming a blanket of white over the horizon, and the small alleyway in Trafalgar square is sprayed with a dank shadow over its cobblestone floor. He looks up at the sign above the shop in front of him and sighs. He decides to walk over the narrow one way street and approaches the dark pinewood door of the barber shop. He looks up at the barber shop sign once more, and smiles as it resembles a Candy Cane, like most do. He presses his face against the window to see if he can spot the business man he’s been waiting on. He sees the gentleman in question take
a seat in a big black cutters chair, and wonders what the hell took him so long to be seated, then he sees a couple approach the door with a little boy who seems to be donning a fresh cut. He realises that kids can take their damn time and puts two and two together. All suspicions of the business man doing one and running for the exits have been cleared up. Just as he is about to walk back to his bench across the road and wait for his mark, he hears a loud ringing sound. He quickly turns around and see’s the barber look on in shock. Before Steven can move an inch, the business man in the barber chair seems to explode, shattering the glass pane of the shop front. Steven hits the ground as the force of the explosion rocks the ancient streets of Trafalgar Square.

  Four

  New York City, NY, USA

  Jesse and Ricky are walking down 9th on 10th; they are accompanied by Gianna, the pretty blonde girl Jesse Manteo rescued from the trunk of her car.

  ‘So you’re Italian?’ asks Jesse as they walk down the residential street, a few miles from the police precinct.

  ‘Nope, my mom just liked Italians I supposed,’ she says

  Ricky smiles as he tags along from behind.

  ‘So I guess your mom liked The Sopranos?’ asks Ricky

  ‘Nope, she don’t like violent TV shows, heck she doesn’t like violent anything,’ she says

  ‘Good to know,’ says Ricky, sarcastically.

  ‘Is your partner always this inquisitive?’ she asks, looking at Jesse as they continue to stroll down the street.

  ‘Yep, that’s what makes him a good detective,’ says Jesse, turning around and giving his partner a wink.

  They continue to walk in silence for a few minutes. They make their way down the deserted street. The more they walk, the more carnage they end up coming across. It looks as if the city is really going downhill with every passing second.

  ‘Man what the hell is happening around here?’ asks Ricky, pretty much saying what’s on everyone’s minds.

  ‘Beats me,’ says Jesse, unsure whether to give an opinion, or come up with one for everyone else.