Or so he hoped.
Granted, it was a small hope, but it kept him hanging around Crawford when his better judgment told him to get lost.
As another group of strangers moved to the far side of the street to avoid him, Matt walked past a newspaper machine. He'd passed it several times already but hadn't really noticed it. This time, the headline caught his eye.
"KILLER STRIKES AGAIN," it read. Then below that, in smaller text: "Blake County Killer Claims Another Victim." Below the headline the article talked about the latest in a string of bodies. The photo showed none other than officer Dale Everett at the scene. In the background Matt could make out the black outline of a body bag lying on the bank of a creek. Other officers milled around in the photo, performing their various duties.
Matt checked his pocket to see if he had the correct change, and came up with two quarters, a dime, and three pennies. He put the quarters into the machine, opened the door, and grabbed a copy of the newspaper. There was a wooden bench about a hundred feet down the street from the newspaper machine that offered a good view of Abbey's Antiques, so Matt sat down to read.
According to the article, the latest body was that of a twenty-seven-year-old woman named Eloise Stinnet, and victim number seventeen for the Blake County Killer. Like the previous sixteen, she'd been young and attractive, with a gym-toned body and a head of long brown hair. Also like the previous victims, she'd been stabbed multiple times in the legs, arms, and chest with a large knife. All the bodies had exhibited ligature marks on their ankles and wrists, and each one had traces of ketamine in their system. The victims all had needle punctures in their arms, which explained how the killer administered the drug.
Curiously, none of them had shown any signs of sexual assault, leading the police to believe the killer was impotent. Since the killer was meticulous about cleaning the bodies after he killed them, the police had very few other real clues. Still, the paper was full of theories the police were happy to share. Most of them read like your standard Hollywood profile. The killer was probably a while male aged twenty-five to forty-five, most likely quiet and unassuming, the type of person the neighbors would never suspect. He probably drove a nondescript van or SUV, which he could use to dispose of the bodies. And he probably had a garage, so he could clean up in private.
Matt shuddered to think what the killer would look like to him. A walking skeleton, maybe? A mummified corpse? Most likely, Matt would see him as a half-decayed zombie. Either way, he didn't want to meet the guy.
The article went on to say that Eloise Stinnet had been reported missing from nearby Cranston, Tennessee, over a month ago. The body, which had likely been dumped into the creek shortly after her disappearance, showed signs of having been in the water for weeks. That meant that the killer hadn't struck in almost a month, the writer warned, noting that the killer had been escalating his attacks. At first he'd killed only once every few months, but lately the bodies had rolled in every other week. It ended with a warning from Officer Everett for people to use utmost caution when traveling at night. Walk with a friend, try to be home before dark, don't answer the door for strangers, etcetera.
Matt was just about to fold up the paper when another photo caught his eye. In this one, the county medical examiner stood next to a uniformed officer. Both of them were looking at something on a clipboard. But they weren't what caught Matt's attention. To the right of the ME another officer was putting something into an evidence bag. The image was small, and the resolution none too sharp, but Matt thought he could make out what it was.
A lollipop.
"Fuck me," Matt said aloud.
Just then a rumble alerted him to the approach of a large truck. He looked over the top of the paper and saw Abbey driving the rented box truck up to the store. It looked like she was alone, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd half expected Dale to be riding shotgun, but the cop was nowhere in sight. Good. This was going to be hard enough without that asshole around.
Matt waited until Abbey got out of the truck and walked up to the door. Her black jeans and matching tank top left very little to the imagination, and Matt had a sudden image of her straddling him the night before. He shook his head and ordered himself to snap out of it. The last thing he needed right now was to picture her naked.
Focus!
After she walked into the store, Matt stood from the bench. She probably wouldn't listen to him, but he wanted to catch her inside so she couldn't run away before he had a chance to explain himself. Most likely, she'd just yell at him to leave or call the police, but he meant to at least try to talk to her. If nothing else, he wanted his ax back.
He made it halfway to the door before he heard a noise behind him. Matt whirled around just in time to catch a flash of something shiny as it cracked him on the side of the head.
The sudden flare of pain tore into him like a wild animal, and Matt stumbled backward on wobbly legs. A warm, wet sensation spread down the side of his face, covering his right eye in a sheen of red. Blood, Matt realized, as his legs gave out.
His eyes focused just enough to see a figure advancing on him, aluminum baseball bat in hand. One of the townspeople, perhaps? Come to get rid of the murderer in their midst? Matt tried to get his hands up to ward off the next blow, but the circuits from his brain to his nerves hadn't had time to reset, and all he could to was twitch as he sat on the ground.
"You should have listened to me," the figure said.
That voice! Matt thought. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it through the fog in his mind. Was it Mr. Dark?
Then the image solidified enough for Matt to recognize his attacker.
"I told you to keep walkin'," Dale said as he raised the bat for another blow. A small green sore began to sprout from the side of the officer's face.
Matt felt another round of pain. Then there was nothing at all.
CHAPTER TEN
Pain brought Matt back to his senses. His head hurt like a bastard, pulsing and throbbing with every agonizing heartbeat. He tried to touch his head, but his arm wouldn't move. His fingers tingled, sending hundreds of needle-like pains running up and down his arm.
What the fuck? He tried to move his head and a wave of nausea hit him, almost strong enough to send him back to dreamland.
"Wake up, asshole." The voice stabbed into his ears like a blade, multiplying the pain in his head by a factor of ten. "Open your eyes."
Matt tried to reply, but all he could manage was a gurgle that might have been "fuck you," but he couldn't be sure.
A sudden, sharp pressure on the side of his head, right where it hurt the most, caused a white-hot burst of pain to bloom in Matt's head. He couldn't keep the scream inside, and his attacker laughed. The pressure held for a few seconds, then faded. The laughter didn't.
"You better open your eyes, mister," the voice said. "Next time I won't be so gentle."
Matt tried to comply, but a gummy, sticky substance covered his eyes, gluing the lids shut. Blood. It had to be. There must have been a lot of it.
"I can't," Matt mumbled. "They're stuck."
More laughter. "Shit. I shoulda known that'd happen. Hang on." Rough fingers pried his eyelids apart, none too gently, and cleared away some of the gunk with a wet towel.
Finally, Matt opened his eyes. He found himself sitting in a small, dim room. His arms and legs were strapped to a wooden chair with duct tape. The concrete floor had a drain in the middle, which Matt took as a bad sign. On the floor next to his chair lay a blood-crusted aluminum baseball bat. Matt couldn't see the logo, but underneath the blood the bat was blue and silver.