The Bedroom Killer

The Bedroom Killer

The Bedroom Killer

by

Taylor Waters

© Taylor Waters, 2013

ISBN-13: 978-1492887546

ISBN-10: 1492887544

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer for the purposes of a book review only—without permission from the author.

To my wife Sheri, and our fantastic kids, Nicole, Jennifer, and Cameron.

CHAPTER 1

It was a scream like no other.

Dr. John Randall's decision to kill himself came just after he gazed out his kitchen window at the first winter rain
. He had three days of stubble, wavy dark hair with a touch of gray sprouting at his temples, all on a round face. He awoke to a pounding downpour and a dull ache behind his eyes, anxiously anticipating this day. As he watched the rain splatter on the window, he thought of his wife and son—dead now for a year.

Over the past twelve months
, John had come to accept that the memory of their deaths could burst into his brain at any time, and because he didn't have the ability to predict when it would return, he also couldn't foresee what was about to happen. It was only a moment later when the decision came—the decision to kill himself. It was quick and instant, with no forethought. It was as if the words
I will kill myself
had been stored in a dormant neuron, and when an electric impulse hit that neuron those four words shot into his thoughts.

And that moment came with a child's scream.

It came from outside his home. He was just about to open a gallon of milk for his morning bowl of cereal, but as he gripped the plastic ring preparing to pull it free—he heard it. It came from a neighborhood kid, no doubt. The kind of squeal most associated with running away from a playmate in a game of capture the flag or maybe from a young child who's just been introduced to a happy, jumping puppy. The reason for the squeal, real or not, had nothing to do with his intense and immediate physical reaction to the sound. What truly gutted John, what clamped down onto his insides and twisted them until he felt he could take it no longer—was the pitch. An audiologist might classify the pitch as falling between 65,000 and 95,000 decibels. Land of the referee whistle, the air horn, and on certain occasions—
a child's scream.
He heard the scream and he rocked back on his heels, clutching the kitchen counter. Within seconds his hands began to shake and a small gurgle of bile rose up and touched the back of his throat, burning his larynx, before he managed to swallow it back down. It left an acrid taste in his mouth and a flaring in his nostrils. At that instant it reminded him of the death of his son, Trevor, and of Trevor's howling scream five minutes before he died.

John heard the scream in his head every day for the past year. No matter what he did, he couldn't make it go away.
Beads of perspiration formed on his brow and upper lip, a searing heat spread from his face down to his chest and he turned, bent over the kitchen sink, and dry heaved. After catching his breath he drank from the faucet, just enough to get rid of the taste. He slammed the faucet handle down and stood erect, sucking in large gulps of air and exhaling slowly through his nose in an attempt to calm his heart rate.

I can't keep doing this
.
What's the point?

He opened the curtains at the kitchen window and watched the rain streak down the panes. L
ike a defeated chess player who topples his own king, thirty-four-year-old Dr. John Randall knew it was time to quit. It wasn't something he debated in his mind, or something he reviewed the pros and cons about. He had no idea when he would do it, but he knew, as he turned and leaned against his kitchen sink, staring into his small, quiet kitchen, the words came.

I will kill myself
.

***

John spent the rest of the day rifling through his belongings, searching for something. He wasn't sure what he wanted to find. Something to take with him. Something that had meaning. Every time he passed the locked bedroom door, he felt it was probably inside there. Whatever he was searching for was inside there. But he couldn't bring himself to unlock that door. He didn't want to see inside. In the end he gave up, deciding instead that he would write something to take with him. A confession. A mea culpa. He spent the better part of the afternoon preparing the letter in his head, writing and rewriting each line until he had it right.

John stabbed the on-button, t
he laser printer hummed to life, clicking and clacking until it was ready. He moved the mouse, clicked
print
, and three pages quickly spit out. Each page was identical. A half page filled with adjectives describing John's life, how it was working, and how it was not. Mostly not. Words like
fruitless, meaningless, and guilt
sprinkled throughout the text. He'd asked to be cremated, the cheapest and quickest way to dispose of a body. Toss the ashes into an overpriced urn and bury him next to his wife, Paulette, and son, Trevor. That was the summation of each letter. John grabbed a pen, opened his address book, and hand printed the addresses of Dr. Danny Turner, Nurse Carrie Atwood, and Dr. Burt Larson onto the front of three plain, white, number ten envelopes. He addressed and signed each letter, then folded them neatly, and slipped them inside their respective envelopes.

John
drove aimlessly through the town of Greenwood, sipping from the bottle of Jack Daniels, as if taking a last tour. He thought about driving past the hospital, but couldn't see why. Instead, he drove toward Greenwood Cemetery. That's where they would bury him, if Danny followed his instructions in the letter. He knew Danny would. As he drove down Hawthorne Boulevard, he was overcome with nostalgia, wondering how many times had he driven home from work this same time of night. The streets were mostly empty, just the way he liked it.

John approached the intersection of Hawthorne and Sepulveda Boulevards
. He would have to turn right to get to the cemetery, but at the last minute he changed his mind and went straight. He really hadn't given it any thought until right at that moment. He knew where he would go now. It made the most sense. A little melodramatic, he knew, but what the hell. He didn't care. Yes, if he was going to kill himself, it might as well be there. So John drove another two miles, then turned right into Marble Estates, and proceeded through the residential streets until he came to Date Avenue. That's where he would kill himself.

At his real home.

CHAPTER 2

Rain was falling again. The weather man said there would be three storms passing through, almost back-to-back. John
checked his watch—1:27 a.m.
One year to the day.
He glanced across the street at the Miller's house, Bill and Lori, his old neighbors. Next door were Terry and Carla Johnson. A nice couple, but John had never quite understood Terry. He was odd, and John had made a point of not doing much more than waving at him when he'd lived on this street. John didn't miss Terry. That was for sure. But he felt a sudden sense of guilt knowing what his old neighbors were going to hear and see in the next hour—or days—depending on how soon someone noticed. The interviews. The questions. The news cameras. He knew what that was like, and he was sorry, but he couldn't help that now. His mind was made up.

John checked his watch again
—1:40 a.m. He turned on the radio for the news
.
Murders, the Middle East, interest rates rising.
Who cares? Not me.
He punched the radio to a classic rock channel. The bottle of Jack Daniels was half-empty now, and John felt the effects. He hadn't eaten much during the day. The digital clock read 1:44 a.m. He'd give it fifteen more minutes.

While he awaited h
e slipped the gun muzzle up under his chin and began naming the neck muscles.

"The left thorax
ial muscle," he said, as he slid the muzzle over two inches. "The right thoraxial muscle, each overlain by carotid tendons."

A hard gust of wind slammed into the car
, and the rain fell harder as John continued citing his anatomy, using the muzzle of his loaded gun as his pointer.

CHAPTER 3

In his three previous murders
, the killer had never been lucky enough to find an unlocked door. But now, as his gloved hand held the twisted knob to the kitchen door of the small bungalow, an old saying came to mind:
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is
.

The rain had returned
, and the splash of water coming off the shake roof made a loud smack as it hit the concrete side porch. He would have to move quickly, knowing that once he opened the door, the slapping sound would spill inside, replacing the quiet calm, and potentially waking the occupants. The killer pushed open the door, stepped inside in one fluid motion, and swung the door nearly closed, allowing the last inch to close slowly and softly. He gently twisted the doorknob back into its resting position and, holding his breath, stood still. Seconds turned to minutes, and all he did was listen.

After three minutes had passed
, he entered the living room, pulled the flashlight from his waist pack and, flicking on the light, approached the front door. He found the dead bolt lock and quietly unlocked it—a trick he learned from a small-time thief ten years prior when he did time in Folsom Prison for assault. In case all hell broke loose, the guy had said, "You don't want to be fucking around with a door lock as you're trying to get away."

The killer
turned and stepped into a short hallway, passing a bathroom before he found three bedroom doors. He peeked inside the first bedroom and flashed his light quickly over the bed. It was a young girl's room. The walls were light pink and filled with posters. Stuffed animals sat like sentinels on a shelf. The bed was made.
Where is the girl? Strange
. He had walked the entire home. She wasn't in the house, at least not where he had looked. He had even checked the bathroom. Either she was sleeping with her sister, her mother, or she wasn't here.

Maybe she
spent the night somewhere else. Maybe she snuck out. She was old enough and looked the type to sneak out at night. He knew. The killer didn't choose his targets indiscriminately. He moved to the next bedroom and flashed his light over the bed. Only one body. He stepped inside, closed the door, and then faced the bed. He could see her, not clearly, but in form. He studied her face, the rain outside masking her breathing. But he felt her presence. She was so close that his heart raced.

Kill number four was about to happen.

More fun than a barrel full of monkeys, as his demented Uncle Clark used to say. He moved into place near the head of the bed, unzipping his waist pack and removing the three-foot-long white rope.

The killer
wound the rope around his hands and clenched it tightly. He turned back toward the girl's sleeping form. Lightning flashed from somewhere outside, and a brief moment later, thunder rolled in the distance. The killer knew he would have to act fast before the thunder woke up the young girl.  He turned back and bent over the girl’s sleeping form, and did what he had come to do.  It didn’t take long.

The killer
had the tiny flashlight stuck between his teeth,  as he unzipped the black waist pack, reached in, and removed the digital camera. He flipped it on and switched to flash. He shone the dim flashlight beam over the young girl's body, the ligature still taught around her neck. He fixed the camera on her face and pressed the button. The flash came, illuminating her face for a split second, capturing her death in a series of pixels, ones and zeros. After he placed the camera back into the pack, the killer reached down and unhooked the charm bracelet from around her wrist, a gift from her cousin on her fourteenth birthday. He examined the bracelet, turning it over in his hand, noting the three charms—dolphin, heart, and butterfly—before slipping it into the waist pack and zipping the pack closed again. He pointed the flashlight beam at her face again, running it slowly down her exposed breasts, then to her pelvis, where one leg was stretched straight and the other akimbo.

***

Karen Sharp opened her eyes. She hadn't been one to sleep all night, given to tossing and turning most mornings after waking up. It seemed like ages since she had slept completely through the night—since Rick's death. She never felt completely at ease. She missed his big frame filling up the bed, sometimes pushing her so much she had to shove him back over to his side. But it wasn't the empty bed that bothered Karen this night. Something didn't feel right. Maybe it was a dream. She rolled over, pulled the covers up to her chin, and tried her best to fall back to sleep. She thought the sound of the rain would help her sleep, but then the first flash of lightning came. She waited until she heard the low rumble of thunder in the distance. She listened to the rain, but sleep didn't come.

What was that?

Karen scratched her scalp as she shuffled down the black hallway toward her daughter's bedroom. She wasn't sure if she'd heard a sound or dreamt it, but she wasn't the kind of mother to leave such things unchecked. She picked up the Louisville slugger she kept next to her bed——and stepped out into the hallway. A flash of light came from inside Rachel's bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, allowing Karen to see just a sliver of light, but at nearly two in the morning, there should be no light in her daughter's room.

M
aybe it was just lightning.

She waited to hear the thunder, but no thunder came
. She crept along the carpeted hallway, the bat still gripped in her right hand, and quietly pushed open the door. A large black form towered over Rachel's bed. And it wasn't moving. It was just there, as if someone had moved a statue inside her daughter's room during the night. But this black form was no statue.

It was a man
.

In her daughter's room.

He swung around. His arms separated from the central black mass, taking form as elbows and hands, which moved too quickly to follow. The head, which was tipped forward looking down at Rachel, shot up suddenly, revealing wide shoulders and a height that towered over Karen. Somewhere deep in her brain, her fight or flight instinct kicked in, and because she was a mother, flight wasn't an option. Karen lifted her bat and took her first swing, catching the killer on the side of the head. But the bat slid off too quickly, partially deflected by his arm. She brought the bat up the other way, swinging like a lefty, catching him in the lower back as he bolted for the bedroom door. Lightning flashed outside, and the bedroom lit up, throwing a trio of distorted silvery black shadows across the walls: Karen, the killer, and the baseball bat. But they disappeared just as quickly, and the thunder followed with a boom. Karen looked at Rachel.

"It's okay
, baby."

Karen ran through the door to follow him but stopped short
and turned toward Rachel. Karen flicked on the light. The covers were off her daughter's body, and a rope was around her neck.

"Rachel
!" Karen screamed as she grabbed at the rope, tearing it from her daughter's neck, and tossing it to the floor. Karen shook her and slapped her face in a futile attempt to wake her. She lifted Rachel, then laid her back down and blew into her mouth, trying desperately to resuscitate her.

"Come on
, honey, breathe. Breathe!"

She blew again, twice, then she placed her hands together and pump
ed Rachel’s chest, but all she did was bounce her daughter's body on the mattress. Karen grabbed Rachel, dragged her to the floor, and resumed CPR.

Four one thousand
…

Five one thousand
…

Six one thousand
…

***

John brought the gun back to rest on his left lateral thoraxial muscle, third largest in the human neck. John knew this. He knew every muscle in the human body, every nerve, every vein, every joint. Six years at medical school, two years pre-med by age twenty-six, followed by four years of residency at Greenwood Memorial had taught John everything he needed to know about the human body.

W
here would the bullet fall after it tore out the top of his skullcap? It would likely drop somewhere across Hawthorne Boulevard.

T
he incessant rain poured down in a din unbroken with increasing gusts of wind, rocking his car, and fulfilling the news reports of this possibly becoming the strongest storm in the past ten years. John lowered the gun to his lap, where it lay powerless now without his finger on the trigger. Holding it was the only sense of power he'd felt in the last year. He slipped the tip of his index finger over the open circle of the six-round chamber.

He pictured himself pulling the trigger.

Bang
…
Flash
…
Peace at last.

He checked the clock one last time
—2:08 a.m.

Good enough.
Stop wasting time, John.

So after a full year of living a meaningless life, John inhaled deeply, exhaled,
and tilted his head back. He reached his hand around the gun, slid the cold muzzle up under his chin, and placed his finger on the trigger. Then, Dr. Randall closed his eyes, clenched his jaw tightly…

An
d squeezed.