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Haunted Visions (Chapter One)
By AlanGrant5
HAUNTED VISIONS
Prologue: Prelude to a Crime Scene
Early on the morning of October 15, 1995, I was the picture of contentment lying beside my fiancee. I had been watching her sleep for the past five minutes, absorbing the beauty of her face. With her short dirty blonde hair dangling over her closed eye lid, I gently pushed it aside waking her up. Blinking her eyes into focus, she smiled and stretched at the same time. I traced her jaw line with the tip of my index finger and kissed her on the forehead.
“Morning beautiful,” I said smiling.
“How long have you been up?” she asked wrapping her arms around me.
“A few minutes I guess.”
“Really. And what exactly have you been doing with your spare minutes?”
“Thinking about how lucky I am to have a woman like you in my life.”
She giggled, “Your such a smooth talker Detective Jack Thomas.” We kissed briefly on the lips. Our brief kisses turned into passionate ones as we rolled around in bed. Nothing could ruin this morning. Nothing. Then the phone rang. I glanced at the phone by the dresser, but Dana tried to distract me. I wanted to be distracted. I didn’t want to pick up the phone for I already knew who was on the line, as I also knew that whatever had to be said, wasn’t going to be good. I gently unlocked my lips from Dana’s and rolled my eyes.
“My goodness I think you have a temperature, she said feeling my forehead. I don’t think you should go to work today sweetie,” Dana whispered sarcastically.
I smirked at her attempt to keep me home. “Your such a smooth talker Mrs. Thomas.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves... I won’t be MRS. Thomas until next month, remember?”
“How could I possibly forget,” I murmured rising out of bed. I reached over to pick up the phone, listening for a familiar voice.
“Wake up call. You up yet?,” the voice on the other line called. It was Jacob Shepherd, his partner, as he had suspected. Jacob was thirty one and had been working with me for the past five years. He was a bright kid for the job. I call him kid every once in a blue moon, while he calls me old timer. I am only five years his senior, yet we still call ourselves by our nickname.
“If I wasn’t up, I am now,” I said into the phone receiver. “I don’t suppose you have good news.”
“Your a regular Miss Cleo, old timer, he said giggling. No, not good news. We have another murder.”
I shook my head with disappointment, “Our guy?”
“From the look of things... it’s the same guy. Hurry your ass up and get down here. They’re waiting on us.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I groaned after he filled me in on some rather gory details. I shoved my feet into my slippers and trudged over to the bathroom sink. I splashed some cold water onto my face, while glancing at myself in the mirror. I padded my face down with a towel and headed over to my closet. Slipping on a sport coat and a Harris Tweed jacket, I made my way back to the bathroom, brushing my teeth.
As I turned around, Dana stood in the doorway, leaning her head against the wall as she crossed her legs. “You gonna stay for breakfast?”
“I’d love to, but I can’t. There’s been another murder. I have to be there in ten minutes,” I explained setting my tooth brush onto the tile counter.
She rolled her eyes at me, setting her arms lazily at her sides. “Okay then,” she sighed, making her way out of the bathroom.
“Dana, don’t do this,” I pleaded, following behind her.
“Don’t do what? Don’t ask for a little quality time from my future husband? Jesus Christ Jack, the amount of time we spend together is equivalent to that of a... of a... of a fucking Pepsi commercial!”
“Dana, please. I told you how life was going to be with me and I promise you when we get married, things will be different... but for now we just have to share one another.”
“Share one another? You know, that wouldn’t be such a bad idea if I wasn’t getting the left overs,” she argued.
I walked up to her slowly, awaiting for a slap or some sort of physical abuse, but she simply embraced me and began to cry on my shoulder. I held her tight in my arms whispering, “Everything will be different, baby... I promise.” I knew deep down in my heart, that life would be relatively the same even after their marriage, but I had to say something... something to keep her by my side.
“I’m sorry, she whispered, I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s okay... I understand,” I replied brushing her hair with my hands. I pulled apart from her planting a kiss on her moistened lips. “Are you gonna be okay?”
She nodded with a smile as I wiped a single tear from her left eye. “I won’t be home until five thirty tonight... Parent, Teacher Conference.”
I nodded, kissing her on the forehead once more and exited out the door. My morning was off to a great start so far; phone call from partner, fight with fiancee, and a gruesome murder scene. It was as good as it gets. And my day was just about to get better.
Chapter One: Murder on Mayberry Lane
I arrived at the murder scene five minutes late only to find a trio of blue-and-whites waiting for my arrival. The murder scene was a two story Victorian style home with a white picket fence; the ideal family home. It was covered with caution tape and shrouded in a low morning fog. Two EMS trucks and several squad cars were parked along Mayberry Lane, adding to the grim feel of police business.
The neighbor hood looky-loos were all lined outside their homes, all sporting more than three layers of clothing due to the cold that sent chills down one’s spine even with several layers of warmth. Their breath came out like car exhaust as they watched a horrific murder being unveiled. Mayberry County had never experienced a crime of this magnitude and the gaping mouths made that evident.
The house was white with a blue trim and had a greeting mat saying: Home Sweet Home, how ironic is that? With one foot set in the house, the stench of blood marinated his nostrils. Jacob stood at the doorway with a mask covering his nose and mouth.
“Detective Thomas,” Jacob nodded, leading me upstairs. “Five minutes late... car trouble or woman trouble?”
“The second one,” I said putting on a pair of plastic gloves.
“The son of a bitch murdered a whole family this time, even the girl.”
I looked around the walls and noticed dozens of family portraits. They even looked like the ideal family. The husband looked like a younger Gregory Peck; a business man but a family man nonetheless. The wife looked radiant, with shoulder length blonde hair and the face of a familiar someone. She reminded him of his soon to be wife, Dana, and that alone made the situation worse than it was. Then came the heart breaking stuff, no detective, no human for that matter would ever want to see; the pictures of the children. There were two; one a girl and the other a boy. Both had everlasting smiles, unaware of the horror ahead of them.
“Any sign of forced entry?” I asked Jacob as we made our way down a hall washed in white.
“None. The kitchen door was left unlocked.”
“Who called it in?”
“Well apparently a neighbor had spotted a man prowling around the street. She finally decided to call it into the precinct after seeing him several times through her window. He disappeared after she made the call.”
“Did she get a close look at the man’s face?”
“No. She said it could of been a woman for all she knows.”
I couldn’t respond to Jacob’s previous statement, once he was inside the adult’s bed room. The wife lay beaten to death in one corner of the room, while the husband lie naked on the bed, with a puddle of blood already absorbed by the sheets beneath him. There were several blue-and-whites looming above the dead corpses.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered, slowly making my way through the murder scene.
“The woman, Sarah Winters, was beaten with that phone and strangled with the telephone cord. Husband, Jeremy Winters, has numerous stab wounds in... in the...–”
“In the what?” I asked impatiently.
“In the anal. Some kind of sexual act... it seems as if our guy has moved to a whole new low,” Jacob said gnawing on a tooth pick.
With my hand over my mouth I asked, “How about the children? Where are they?”
“They’re in the kitchen. It isn’t pretty.”
I walked out of the bedroom and made my way downstairs. Pushing a few people beside, I made my way into the kitchen. The girls head was stuck in between the oven door and the oven itself. Her head had been bashed in several times beyond un-identification. And the boy lie naked, just as the father was, beside his sister. Both the wife and girl were beaten savagely, while the father and son were stabbed nude. What did this mean? Did it mean anything at all?
“The thing I can’t figure out is why the guy dragged the kids down here to kill them,” Jacob said tossing his tooth pick to the floor.
“They were dragged down here?” I asked.
“Yeah. The kid was already dead, what reason would there be for him to bring the body down here?”
I studied my surroundings with great attention to detail, listening to the walls screaming that they knew the truth, but would never tell. “What is he trying to tell us?”
“What?” Jacob asked.
“The killer didn’t just drag them down here for nothing... he wants to tell us something.”
“Tell us something? About him?”
“Maybe, or maybe something about the victims.”
© 2002 by Evan Prescott
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2/15/2002 11:11:50 AM
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