Eyes of the Predator (3 page)

No, Daddy was just hateful.
Instead of wanting better for them, he just wanted to punish his own family.
She didn’t know why and had given up trying to understand. He seemed to be
happy only when he could make them unhappy. Maybe that was his way of dealing
with the burdens of his shabby life. Maybe.

To Lyn he was just a mean,
hateful man who lived in the same house with them. Hating his own family and
doing whatever he could to degrade them; he seemed to want to condemn them to
the misery that was his life. Right now that meant peeing on Mama’s rosebush.

After a few minutes, she heard
him thump up the three steps to the old porch. The warped floorboards creaked
under his weight. The screen door screeched open and then clattered shut.

“Where you at?” he shouted.

Lyn heard the floor creak in the
next bedroom.

“Right here, no need to shout.”
Mama’s voice was tired.

“Get your ass out here. Where’s
my supper?”

“Didn’t know when you’d be home.
I’ll make you some eggs,” Mama replied softly.

Lyn winced at what she knew was
coming. This was almost a nightly ritual. A sick, perverted ritual maybe, but
it was their nightly family ritual. She could have repeated the dialogue before
they said it in the next room.

“Eggs?” her father roared. “I
want some goddamned food!”

“Well, that’s all there is. And
at that, it’s more than Lyn and me had.”

“I don’t give a shit what you and
that sneaking little bitch had!” He turned towards Lyn’s bedroom door. “You
hear me in there you sneaky bitch. I know you’re listening. Afraid to show your
face you little pissant! Always sneaking around. Get your scrawny ass out
here!”

Mama was getting angry now. It
was one thing to abuse her, but leave her baby out of it.

“You leave her be! She ain’t
done…” Mama’s words were cut off by a sickening thud followed by a heavy thump resembling
a sack of potatoes hitting the floor.

Unaware, the girl drove her small
car within fifty feet of the silhouette watching in stillness from the
nondescript car. It was a curiosity to him. Did she sense anything? Was there a
twitch, a ripple of fear or nervousness sliding up her spine with the feeling
that she had somehow come close to something very dangerous and menacing? Or,
was she completely oblivious of her proximity to the danger and her fate?

Perhaps the tingling at the back
of her neck faded as she navigated her car safely through the parking lot,
sitting in its safe and familiar interior doing a routine thing in a routine
way; the familiarity and the routine pushing the nervous, tingling fear away.

It was more likely that there was
no tingling, no psychic connection warning her of the impending, nearness of
extreme danger. He was good at that. She would not know of his presence until
he wanted her to, until he needed her to.

As she turned to pull out onto
the main road, he started his car. It moved quietly, not disturbing the flow of
movement around it, but becoming part of that movement, using the flow around
it to disguise its driver’s focus on the small Japanese car a hundred yards
ahead. 

She was young and not driving a
great car. No rich daddy or sugar daddy was taking care of her. Likely she was
on her own, another important piece of information.

He absorbed the information
unconsciously. It was a cunning and instinct within, of which he was not even
aware. It just was. He just was. That was enough.

George watched the two boys
disappear down the road in their ragged pickup. They could have been him twenty
years earlier; hanging out, under age, sneaking a beer. Things didn’t change
much. It was unlikely, he knew, that they would have ever done anything to hurt
the Cutchinses. But a few beers might lead to some bad judgment, and then to a
bad idea executed on an alcohol-tinged whim.

Watching until the truck’s
taillights turned off the road, he walked through the wooden screen door and
into the small building. Mrs. Cutchins looked up from her counting. A smile
crossed her face.

“Evening Deputy,” she called
across the room.

“Evening, ‘Mizz’ Cutchins.”
George walked over to the small counter, crowded with racks of chewing tobacco,
snuff, lighters, pocketknives, and gum. “Looks like you had a pretty good day.”
He nodded down at the stacks of bills she was counting out, separating them by
denomination.

“Yep. We did good today. We were
due.” She smiled and continued her count, not missing a beat as she sorted
bills from her hand into the stacks on the counter.

“Wonder if you could do something
for me?”

 A wisp of white hair moved
around her forehead in the breeze from a small fan behind the cash register as
she looked up questioningly. “What is it, George?” she said, laying the wad of
bills on the counter with a questioning look in her eyes.

“I would appreciate it if you
could do your nightly count in the back room or somewhere but here, where
everyone can look in and see what kind of day you had.” He nodded down at the
neat stacks of bills on the counter. “Quite a temptation to some young fella
wanting to take his girl to Savannah for a big weekend.”

“You think so?” The surprise was
evident on her face. It had never occurred to her that someone might be tempted
by what she and her old man had.

“Yep. I do,” George said firmly.
“Doesn’t take much to tempt some, especially these days. What you got there
would be quite a lot to a lot of people; like maybe some young boys out having
a few beers.” George looked her in the eye, his face expressionless.

“You mean those Gantry boys. They
were in here earlier,” she said nodding, although some skepticism still showed
in her eyes. “They’re harmless. Good boys just out passing some time.”

“I mean them and lots of others,”
George said. “They may not mean any harm, and ordinarily it wouldn’t even cross
their minds, but…a few beers, a wad of cash, a hot night and a pretty girl
waiting…it could happen. Probably good boys, but it’d be nice for them to stay
that way. No need to put a temptation in front of them that would follow them
the rest of their life.”

“Suppose you’re right,” she
nodded. “I’ll tell Mr. Cutchins, too.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thanks.” He added a
question. “By the way, you wouldn’t know where those Gantry boys got the beers
I made them pour out in your gravel, would you? Seems like a waste of good
beer. Besides, it’s illegal, them being under age, you know.”

The old woman started to smile,
but realized George was serious. “Well Deputy, I make it a point never to lie,
especially not to an officer of the law, so I guess it’s best that I just
didn’t hear the question.”

George nodded. “Well, I’m not
much for lying myself, so I reckon it’s best I don’t hear an answer. Just
remember, it’s illegal, buying and selling in this case.”

Reaching down into a barrel
filled with icy water, George pulled out a can of Coke. He pulled some coins
from his pocket and placed them neatly on the counter beside the stacks of
bills.

“Thanks, ‘Mizz’ Cutchins. See you
tomorrow,” he said pushing open the creaky screen door and walking out into the
night.

“You too, George,” she said as
the screen banged shut, then brushing back the strand of white hair around her
forehead, she reached down for the stack of bills and continued her nightly
count.

Standing in the ring of gravel
illuminated by the light from the store’s window, George popped back the tab on
the drink can and took a long pull. The night air was warm in this part of
Georgia, even in the fall. The single light on a pole over the gas pump cast a
cool fluorescent glow. A bat circled the swarm of moths and beetles that in
turn circled the light. Flitting in what seemed an erratic way, it would dart
here and there into the swarm. George knew that the bat’s movements were not
erratic at all.

Each swerve by the bat was the
stalk of some unsuspecting insect selected by the bat from the hundreds in the
swarming mass of insects. Selection seemed random, or it might be based on some
rudimentary judgment by the bat. Size, type of insect, or taste perhaps played
a part in the selection of the bat’s victims. Or, maybe it was just proximity
to the bat. The closest bug lost.

There was no way of knowing. One
thing was certain though. Each darting attack into the swarm was a kill.

The light blinked off as Mrs.
Cutchins threw the breaker and closed the store. In an instant, the bat and
insects scattered into the night, but the hunt continued.

She didn’t go home. She never
would now. The Japanese car traveled several miles. The four-lane highway
turned into a two-lane road. The area was more suburban now, on the verge of
rural. After another mile or two, she stopped at a discount supermarket. It was
at the intersection of another larger highway. There were clusters of houses in
small developments scattered around. Urban sprawl from the big city, but the
area was far more country than city. The clusters of lit homes and buildings
surrounded by the dark countryside just made them seem more isolated.

 It was an older store and
had a fairly deserted parking lot. He drove by on the main road as the brunette
cruised in and found a space midway down the parking row directly in front of
the store’s entrance. Turning at the next corner, he pulled into the parking
lot from the side entrance and saw her walking across the lot and into the
store.

“Yes.” The word came out slowly
and softly with a hiss. Guttural and low, it was the expression of a yearning
soon to be fulfilled. Like the deep-throated sound, not quite a growl, that the
great cat makes before springing. He wanted her. He would have her.

Scanning the lot and exterior of
the building with practiced eyes, he quickly saw that there were no cameras.
This far out in the country, security was considered a minor concern. The only
predators people were familiar with were gators along the banks of canals and
ponds, and the occasional panther deep in the swamps. That would change.

Waiting until she had entered the
store, he moved the old Chevy beside her parked car, with the passenger door
next to her driver’s door. Then, exiting his vehicle and leaving the keys in
the ignition, he adjusted the passenger door so that it was slightly ajar. The
interior light of the car did not come on. He had removed the bulb. One of the many
details he was so careful about.

He had just started this
‘runaround’. That’s what he called it. When people at work asked where he was
going, it was a runaround. They thought it meant a vacation road trip, but it
meant something very different.

It was early in the runaround to
be seeking prey. He had stopped, thinking he would just gather some supplies,
but the feeling had hit him as he pulled into the mall parking lot. The
instinct took over. Within an instant, he had become the predator, and now he was
outside the grocery store waiting for the girl.

Crossing half the country on I-10
in a day and a half, he had only arrived in northern Florida that afternoon. It
was early in the trip, but it felt right, safe. Sometimes it worked that way.
With a successful hunt here, he might have a chance for another project before
the time ran out and he had to return to work. Who knows, maybe even two more.
That would be a record, three on one runaround.

He walked across the parking lot
and stood behind a van parked thirty feet away from the two cars. Twenty
minutes passed before he saw her walking across the parking lot pushing a
grocery cart. She didn’t have much, just a few plastic bags. He readied himself
as she pushed the cart to the passenger side of her vehicle and placed the bags
on the front seat. For a moment, he thought he had made a tactical error. She
looked as if she was going to push the cart to the return stand, which was off
to his right and closer to the store. If she had, she might have seen him moving
around the van to stay out of sight. Not likely, but still, he was careful, and
this was one of those details that might cause him to call it off. If his
senses felt that the moment was lost, he would let her go and immediately leave
in a different direction.

But that hadn’t happened. She
hesitated as if she sensed there could be some danger in crossing the parking
lot in the dark. She was smart and careful. But he was ready, prepared,
willing, and very experienced. She left the cart by her car and walked around
the rear to the driver’s door.

People usually did that. Even
though going around to the front was normally closer, they almost always went
around the rear of the vehicle to get to the driver’s side. It was a small
idiosyncrasy that he found curious in the way a house cat might curiously
regard a mouse trapped in a corner trying to find a direction to run in order
to avoid the cat. Of course, the girl had no idea that the cat was so near or
that she was trapped. But she was.

He sensed which direction she
would take. It was part of his subliminal, animal cunning, like a leopard
sensing which direction the gazelle would leap.

As she crossed the rear of her
car and turned towards the driver’s door, he moved. He was quick and silent.
The thirty feet to the car were covered in seconds, long before she had a
chance to unlock the car door.

The hunting knife in his pocket
was out in a smooth, practiced motion. He pressed against her, pushing her
against his car, the knife at her throat. He was positioned so that anyone in
the store looking out would only see his back and not the hand holding the
knife. She had only time to give a short, startled gasp before his hand was on
her throat. He was not an overly large man, but the grasp was powerful. There
was terror in her eyes. He smiled.