In a sleepy little town, a
seasoned detective and a killer the likes of which no one has ever seen.
Detective Steve Belcher has his work cut out for him. But how do you find a
killer who leaves no clues. A killer who has the police lost at every turn. How
many bodies will stack up until Detective Belcher can find the monster
committing these unspeakable crimes? How many monsters will he have to chase
down to find the one behind the murders? Where are the monsters and who are the
hunters? In whose mind do they live?
Excerpt
Their heads had been
severed. The wife's terrified features, pale and ghoulish, taunted him from the
body of her husband. The son-of-a-bitch had switched their heads. Detective
Steve Belcher leaned in and examined the crude stitching on the couple’s necks.
He rubbed his finger across the stitches, and it slid between the dried scabbed
skin and tissue. He jerked back in disgust, and the head fell over, restrained
only by the stitching stretched over the loose skin. He reached over and pushed
the head back in place. Fear ran through him, and a cold sweat covered his
forehead as he imagined the horror they’d faced.
Their dried out eyes had
already begun to shrivel in their sockets. A pale white glaze was forming over
the pupils, nearly obscuring the blue color. The built up gasses in the bloated
bodies’ decaying organs permeated the air so thickly the stench filled his
nostrils and mouth.
He gagged and almost
vomited. He swallowed hard. The skin on the bodies had dried and shriveled to
the point of cracking and revealed the tissue underneath.
In his twenty-five years on
the force, he hadn’t felt this level of fear mixed with hatred erupting in him.
He didn't know what kind of sick bastard had done this, but he would find out.
He left the bodies and
continued around the rest of the house. No matter where he looked, no clues
seemed to be left behind. Everything was too clean. The pictures on the walls
of family, the decorated place mats on the dining room table, showed how the
couple cared for the house. The numerous windows wore only top valences,
exposing the crime scene to the many on-lookers in the neighborhood.
To have two bodies
desexualized in such a manner and have no mess told him it hadn’t happened
here. He needed to look elsewhere, but where, he didn't know.
The coroner reached up and
closed the eyes of the victims, completing her work. Doctor Fisher, dressed in
her blue pants suit and white coat, stood up and removed her gloves. She turned
to the detective. “This is a new one for the books,” she said. She had been
with the Sheriff’s Department for as long as Steve. Her short brown hair
covered by the hairnet she wore, just covered her ears.
“Yeah, just what I needed
this morning,” Detective Belcher said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“None at all, and I'm not
sure where to start, either,” she said. “Let’s get them back to the lab so I
can find some answers,” she told the men waiting to bag the bodies for
transport. She picked up her bag, ready to leave the scene.
* * * *
Steve watched the local news
reporter, Lacy James. She stood on the street in front of the crime scene,
fingers pressed to her ear. Her long blonde hair moved with the breeze. Only
five feet tall, she was petite and fit. She got the lead on the best stories to
report.
“The police have told us two
people were found murdered in the house behind me, a husband and wife of thirty
years. At this time, the police will not speculate on any motive or suspects.
We will keep you up to date as soon as we know more. This is Lacy James
reporting live, back to you in the studio.”
She ended the cutaway. “Load
up the van,” she said to the cameraman. “Let’s go.”
The gurneys, with the two
body bags to be loaded in the awaiting van, where wheeled out. Lacy stared into
the forming crowd and met Steve’s gaze as the detective left the house. Dressed
in his oldest suit and nineteen eighties wingtip shoes, he probably looked like
something out of an old movie to her. Every day the mirror told him his
silver-streaked hair and exhausted face revealed the stress of too many years
working long hours. His dark blue piercing eyes looked right through suspects,
but they didn’t faze Lacy, and she ran to catch him.
“Detective, is there
anything you can tell us? What happened in the house?”
“Not now, Lacy, you’ll have
to wait for the press conference like everyone else.”
“Can you at least tell us
their names?” she said with contempt in her voice.
He got in his car and drove
away.
About the Author
Born and raised in a
military family, Allen spent most of his youth traveling from one Air Force
Base to another. That allowed a wide-eyed boy to open his imagination to all of
the different worlds around him. Having learned from life's experiences showed
him how much adventure there is in the world, that along with the old westerns
he watched as a child to the science fiction he still enjoys today, his mind
was opened up to a wonderful world of endless possibilities. Starting out early
writing songs played a big role in creating and singing a song for his
daughter's wedding for the father daughter dance. Allen has been married for
thirty-seven years to his beautiful wife and has been blessed with three
daughters and four granddaughters.
He was once told that
"you can't read a book, much less write one." He thought to himself
"Challenge accepted." So out of spite, he sat in a dark room letting
his mind wander down pathways that had been closed by time and life. This
opened up a world long forgotten. Telling no one, he completed his first
manuscript and found a publisher. Today he is a published author, a song writer
and if flying a model toy helicopter counts, he'd tell you he's a pilot. His
only dream is to see his family happy, healthy, loved, and laughing through
life. He works very hard at the last one.
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