Chapter 8 #3
“That person on the floor wasn’t moving.
And for some reason, that terrified me,” I said.
“Through the crack in the stall door, I could see that the person didn’t look right.
Awfully pale. Like ghostly pale. The woman’s hair was greasy and kind of wrong in color.
And there were these lines on the woman’s chest right here.
” I made a Y outline on my chest. “Like she’d been cut and sewn closed. ”
Hux stopped what he was doing. “She was a dead woman?”
I nodded.
“You’re…”
He froze, his eyes wide.
“Was it the man they’re calling Corpse Violator in the news?”
I nodded. “I was the one to give the description to the police,” I said forlornly.
“When he was having sex with this dead woman, he had his hood off his face. He was kissing her. Like reverently. Like she was his long-lost love. When he was done, he tucked her underneath the long bench that held three sinks and left, pulling his hood on before he left. Once he was gone, I waited like ten minutes to be sure that he was in fact gone, then left the bathroom. I used to go to the bathrooms in the basements, because then no one could see me having an asthma attack. I just wanted to be normal, you know? I wanted no one to know how bad they were.”
He nodded, his hand gripping the knife so tight his hands were bloodless.
“It was the closest bathroom to the hospital morgue,” I said. “Where the medical examiner’s office was located.”
He breathed out a long breath, then let the knife go.
He leaned both of his fists into the stainless-steel countertop before he urged, “Keep going.”
“I found the cop that I liked a lot. He was a security guard during most of my shifts. I went up to him, and I told him what I saw, and he got this terrified look on his face. Soon after, he pulled me into a room with what felt like a hundred people inside. All of them cops. I told them what I saw. They questioned me for hours. I ended up having to sit and explain him to a sketch artist. Then they informed me that they’re pretty sure that I was the one and only person that had seen ‘Corpse Violator’ in person that was alive and able to give a description. ”
“Holy fucking shit.”
Corpse Violator was number one on America’s Most Wanted List.
And for eleven months and eleven days, Corpse Violator stalked me.
That was his MO.
He would kill once a year. For eleven months and twenty-nine days, he would stalk his victim.
He would let his victim know that she was being stalked.
That she was his next target. She’d receive gifts.
She’d receive everything that she ever could dream of.
And on the last day of the year, he would capture her and torture her until she died.
When she was dead, he would let her be found.
When she was found, he would then steal her from the morgue and violate the woman’s body in death.
“I didn’t realize at first that Corpse Violator had set his sights on me.
I thought my luck had finally turned around.
” I swallowed hard. “I found my dream job. That was where I was when Birdee found me. Interviewing for it. My mortgage was paid off. Found my dream car. I won the lottery.” I laughed bitterly.
“Wasn’t much. Enough to buy that dream car I’d always wanted. ”
“What tipped you off that it was all too good to be true?” Hux wondered.
“The last month of the year,” I said quietly. “He takes it all away. Then starts leaving you ‘gifts.’ Photos of you crying, mostly. When you lose what you thought was your perfect life.”
“You’re telling me that you’re the only known survivor of the Corpse Violator?” he asked. “You saw him. Could identify him. Then you disappeared before he could kill you?”
I nodded.
“You didn’t think to tell anyone this?” he asked.
“No,” I admitted. “I made sure to ask Apollo lots of questions, though, to ensure that I wouldn’t ever be found. Not by anyone. Not even the Corpse Violator.”
“Did you bring anything from your old life?” he asked.
“No. I left everything behind. Clothes. Shoes. Car. Money. I didn’t take anything. Not even my dog. I left him behind with a friend.”
He started cutting away again, so I started to stuff bags.
When I was done, and he’d cut the last of his meat, he started to clean up.
Everything was mostly spotless when he stripped off his gloves and took the tray of unsealed bags over to a large plastic dome-like thing and said, “Lay the bags in there. Open the side toward the entrance. Lay that little latch over the bag. Then press ‘SEAL.’”
I did, and he cleaned up the mess in the spot where I had been working.
I was four bags in before he caged me in with his large arms on either side of me.
“This isn’t something that you can keep quiet about,” he murmured into my ear, sending shivers down my spine.
“I have full faith in Apollo’s abilities, but you can’t underestimate a psycho, Bernice.
They’ll never stop. Not for anything at all.
He’s probably still out there actively looking for you.
All it might take is one fluke run-in, and he has you. We have to share this with the others.”
My shoulders slumped.
The secret had been slowly eating me alive for months.
He was right.
I knew he was right, which is likely why I told him.
Hux didn’t have any skin in this game.
He probably didn’t care about whether I lived or died.
But he did have family and friends here that could be affected.
I couldn’t keep holding on to this secret.
“Okay.”
He sighed, and I felt his breath on the skin of my neck.
It was surprisingly warm, which felt great against my chilled skin.
I was freezing.
Had been for going on an hour now.
I was practically standing in a freezer, handling nearly frozen meat.
But all it took was one huff of breath on his part, and I was feeling warm and tingly all over.
“We’re calling everyone once we get home,” he said.
“Home?” I asked. “We?”
“We,” he said. “I’m your new shadow until we kill this freak.”
My heart hammered. “What?”
He pushed away. “Get your hands washed. Trash in the trash can. We’ll take it out before I take us back to your place.”