Chris Carter - I Am Death

Hunter sat up. He hadn’t been expecting that. The first text message at the top of the file was time-stamped — 19:23.

C’mon, answer your phone, Sharon. Don’t you want to play?

Hunter read those first ten words, paused and looked back at Garcia.

‘We’ve already checked the sender’s number,’ Garcia said. ‘Surprise, surprise — prepaid cellphone, untraceable. No calls or messages were made or sent prior to or after what was sent to Sharon Barnard. All the calls and text messages made and sent from that phone were to Ms. Barnard’s number. After that, the signal died. He destroyed the phone.’

Hunter’s attention returned to the file.

Sharon Barnard’s reply:

Go fuck yourself, freakshow. Whoever you are, I’m blocking your number.

Then the killer.

You know what? Forget about the phone. Let me ask you something. Did you remember to lock your front door?

No reply from Sharon Barnard.

Killer:

C’mon, open the door, Sharon. I’m right outside. Let’s have some fun.

Hunter flipped over to the second sheet.

Again, no reply from Sharon Barnard.

Killer:

OK, who needs the door anyway? Maybe I can get in some other way.

The file came to an end.

Hunter reread the entire transcript a couple of times over. ‘Is this it?’

‘That’s it,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘We’ve got nothing else. But the killer called her twice just before sending the first text message. Neither of the calls lasted very long.’

Hunter gave him a questioning look.

‘Yeah, we’re already in contact with her cellphone provider to see if we can get either a recording or a transcript of those conversations. We might have something by tomorrow.’

Garcia began pacing in front of the picture board. ‘Have you ever encountered anyone like this guy, Robert? I mean, he’s like a fucking chameleon when it comes to the way he operates.’ He indicated the sheets on Hunter’s desk. ‘Those text messages show another complete change of MO from his previous murder.’

Hunter knew exactly what his partner was talking about.

‘He went for pure fear this time,’ he agreed, locking eyes with Garcia.

‘Exactly. With Nicole Wilson, instead of terrorizing her, he befriended her with that whole horseshit story about being Ms. Bennett’s cousin from Texas. He wasn’t looking to scare her. He was after her trust. But with Sharon Barnard —’ Garcia shook his head — ‘He wanted her fear, not her trust.’

‘And he certainly got it,’ Hunter told him. ‘The lack of response to these messages.’ He indicated them on the transcript. ‘The reason she didn’t answer them back isn’t because she was ignoring him, it’s because she was petrified. She knew he was about to break into her house.’

‘So why didn’t she try calling nine-one-one?’

‘Maybe she did but the call never got through. Maybe she didn’t have time. Or maybe, in her panic, she didn’t think of it. Thinking straight under that sort of fear is a huge task, Carlos.’

Three knocks sounded on Hunter and Garcia’s office door.

‘Come in,’ Garcia called.

‘Detectives,’ the man who pushed the door open said, lifting the blue folder he held in his right hand, ‘I think you’ll want to see this.’

That morning, just like every morning since Squirm had been taken into captivity, ‘The Monster’ unlocked the door to the kid’s cell at exactly 5:45 a.m. Squirm had been feeling ill all night. His dinner the night before had been his own vomit, eaten from the floor in the projection room upstairs — and ‘The Monster’ had made him eat every last scrap. Squirm had puked again, but not until he’d made it back to his cell, away from the man’s eyes. This time, shrouded by the fear of what could happen if he dirtied the floor one more time, he did it into his latrine bucket.

‘Rise and shine, Squirm,’ ‘The Monster’ said from the doorway, his voice bright and jovial. ‘It’s a quarter to six. Time for your chores.’

Squirm had barely slept. His left eye remained badly swollen and the pains in his stomach felt like knife stabs. They were a combination of hunger pains and the result of heaving for so long on a completely empty stomach. His head also hurt with a deadly purpose, as if somehow thorns had found their way into his skull, lodging themselves just behind his eyeballs and were now digging at them like crazed woodpeckers. There also came a point during the night when he wasn’t sure if he’d gone delirious, or ‘The Monster’ had brought a new victim home, because he was certain that he could hear a woman’s screams.

‘I know you’ve heard me, Squirm. So get your lazy ass out of bed. Don’t make me come over there.’

Squirm was curled up into a ball, lying down sideways on his dirty mattress, facing the wall. As he heard the man’s voice, he felt the will to carry on living desert him.

And Squirm didn’t fight it.

What was the point in living if he had to go through another day at the hands of this monster?

Squirm knew exactly what was coming because every day always played out the same. He would be beaten up, sodomized, starved, then beaten up some more — most days, until he passed out and was thrown back into his cell, ready for the whole process to repeat itself the next day.

‘Get up, Squirm.’

Maybe if Squirm didn’t move... maybe if he didn’t respond... maybe if he disobeyed the man’s orders, this would all end? Maybe the man would get angry enough to dish out a beating so severe the boy’s fragile body and internal organs would finally give up, and life would at last abandon him.

Was it wrong for an eleven-year-old to want to die?

Squirm didn’t think so, because in his mind what was wrong was for an eleven-year-old to live in this way.

Squirm had also given up praying, because he simply didn’t know to whom he was praying anymore. If there was a God, he had no idea what he had done to piss him off so badly.

Once again, tears came to the boy’s eyes. He was tired of them. He was tired of all the pain, and the hunger, and the darkness, and the fear. But most of all, Squirm was tired of living.

As he heard the man take his first heavy step into the cell, the young boy began shivering. Instinctively, his body curled up into an even tighter ball, readying itself for the inevitable.

But Squirm didn’t care anymore. In fact, he would rather be dead.

All I have to do, Squirm thought, is piss him off enough that he won’t stop beating me when I pass out. Yes, that’s it. I just need to make him angry and that won’t take much doing.

‘The Monster’ took another step toward the boy.

Squirm drew in a deep breath, as if he was breathing in courage, rolled his body over on the mattress to face his captor and looked him straight in the eye.

It was time to die.

‘Fuck you, you sick piece of shit.’

Garcia didn’t recognize the man standing at the door to their office. Decked out in a well-fitting black suit, a crisp white shirt, and a red silk tie, he was way too well dressed to be a CSI. He also didn’t look anything like any of the IT forensics people Garcia had ever met.

‘Please come in,’ Hunter said, getting to his feet. ‘Carlos, this is Detective Troy Sanders,’ he said, putting an end to Garcia’s questioning look. ‘He’s the head of the Missing Persons Unit’s Special Division based in Ramirez Street. He was also the detective in change of Nicole Wilson’s investigation.’

‘Please, call me Troy,’ Sanders said, shaking Garcia’s hand before turning to face Hunter. ‘I just came over to hand you this,’ he said, nodding at the file he had with him. ‘It’s the results of the search you asked me to run.’