The campfire crackled and popped, and logs hissed from trapped moisture.
“We appreciate you setting up your tent here, right, guys?” Tara burped with the last few words.
Betsy agreed. “We feel much safer with your tent only fifteen feet from ours. Somebody has to protect us from those damn bear, and you’re a big guy. They’d see you and run for their lives.”
John gave each of them a grin. “I’m happy to help three damsels in distress.” His eyes twinkled with malice, but he was sure they didn’t notice. The girls had downed the first pint of vodka, and it wouldn’t take long before they were incoherent and rendered helpless. Tara’s words had begun to slur, and Brittney giggled for no reason at all.
“Did we eat yet?” Tara asked.
John cracked open the second bottle of vodka, took a gulp, and handed it to Betsy. “We had hot dogs, potato chips, and pork and beans, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Tara chuckled and hiccuped.
Betsy took a few swigs, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and stretched her arm over the campfire to hand the bottle to Tara.
John steadied her. “Be careful there. You don’t want to ruin a perfectly good night by injuring yourself.” He watched as Tara gulped a good portion of the bottle. “Hey, take it easy. You want the fun to last, don’t you?”
“I’m done.” Tara stumbled to the tent, where she spent several minutes trying to unzip the door.
“Let me give you a hand with that.” John stepped over the fire pit. His tall frame made taking long strides easy. “There you go. Once your head hits the pillow, you’ll truly be done.”
“What time is it?” Brittney asked.
John slid back his jacket sleeve and tipped his arm toward the campfire. “It’s eleven thirty.”
“No shit? I guess time flies when you’re having fun.”
“You sure you want to go to sleep? I guarantee there’s more fun to come.”
“I think I drank too much. Maybe tomorrow night.”
“Let’s polish off the second bottle, then we’ll all turn in. What do you say, Betsy?” John held the pint bottle to the light. “There’s less than half a bottle left. C’mon. Don’t act like girls, be warriors.”
Betsy snickered and stuck out her hand. “Hell, I’m a warrior. Give me that bottle.”
John pretended to take a gulp then wiped his mouth. “It’s all yours.”
Betsy tossed back her head and drank then jerked her chin toward Brittney.
Brittney took a seat on a rock. “Okay, I’m in.”
With a stick in his right hand, John stood and stirred the fire then threw another log on it. He’d need a certain amount of ambient light to successfully complete his much-anticipated task. Killing women was in his blood. It was his drug of choice. There was no better fix than the sound of those final gasps of breath, and no drug could compete with the feel of warm, sticky blood as it drained from open wounds. “Good enough. You’ll be dead to the world in no time, as peaceful and quiet as it is out here.”
Brittney smiled and guzzled the rest of the bottle. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Me too.
With visions of what the next few hours would have in store, John stared at Betsy and Brittney. He was becoming aroused. “Don’t stay up too long.” He pointed over his shoulder at his one-man tent. “I’m going to roll out my sleeping bag. Why don’t you ladies go ahead and get comfortable in your tent, and I’ll stoke the fire a few more times. The heat and flames should keep the bear away.”
They nodded and crawled inside their tent, then John threw three more logs on the fire.
That should suffice for an hour or more.
He crawled back into his tent and pulled the set of Neko Te gloves out of his pack. He looked them over carefully as he sat close to the mesh window that zipped over the door. The flickering campfire accentuated the razor-sharp fingertips. He carefully rubbed each blade with his shirt. Dried blood coated the sharp steel tips. He thought back to the girls he had killed in that Arkansas state park two nights ago as he put the gloves back in the pack.
They sure put up a good fight. I love that kind of challenge. It fuels my desire for more.
He decided to wait an hour before making his move. He still heard them—fifteen feet away—drunk talking as they settled in for the night. Soon, they’d be silenced for good.
A distant owl hooted, and another answered with a call of its own. John stirred from the sound and was surprised that he had dozed off. The girls took some time to fall asleep, even as drunk as they were. He listened for sounds from the neighboring tent. All was quiet. The time had come.
He unzipped his sleeping bag, climbed out, and opened the backpack. From inside, he pulled out the gloves, careful not to slice his own skin. He set them to the side and reached back in for the headlamp. He tucked his straggly hair behind his ears and secured the light over his head. With his right hand, he pressed the button, and the tent lit up. Hoping to be as quiet as possible, he slowly unzipped the mesh window and crawled out. He reached back and grabbed the gloves.
Before he dozed off, John had planned his method of attack. A bear wouldn’t crawl through a tent door like a human—it would shred everything in sight. The tent would have to go last. John needed to disable the women in quick order to keep them quiet. He’d knock them unconscious then take his time and enjoy the carnage. He approached the tent silently and set the Neko Te gloves on the ground. Once the women no longer posed a threat, he’d secure the instruments of pain and torture over his hands and fulfill his fantasies.
He knelt at their door and, inch by slow inch, unzipped the tent and crawled in. He appreciated the fact that there was room to work. He pressed the button on the headlamp in short bursts of light to see where the ladies were positioned. Brittney lay to the far left, then Betsy, and Tara slept on the far right, facing the tent wall. He silently stepped to the right and knelt over Tara. With his fist balled tight and coiled back, he came forward with a violent thrust and coldcocked her in the face. She didn’t make a peep. John turned to his left, where Betsy lay, and waited for a minute. She grumbled in her sleep, flipped over, and pulled the sleeping bag halfway over her face. Only her eyes were exposed. He gave her the full thrust of his fist to the forehead, then he tiptoed to Brittney’s side. She rolled over, opened her eyes, and squinted when his light hit her in the face.
“What’s going on?” She abruptly sat up, now fully conscious. Fear and dread covered her face. “Tara, Betsy?” The sleeping bag held her prisoner as she tried to stand and flee. Brittney fell before she reached the door. With a fistful of her hair, John pulled her head back then bashed her face into the tent floor. She fell quiet along with the others.
“Good girl. Looks like it’s party time.”
John cracked his knuckles and neck then pushed Brittney aside and reached for the gloves. With the Neko Te carefully secured over his hands, he went to Tara first and sliced her open from forehead to pelvis. He watched as her blood spilled out and soaked the sleeping bag beneath her. He returned to Brittney, who lay facedown near the unzipped door. He bore down on her head with the claws and gouged the razors through her hair and scalp. He buried the claws in her back and dug in deeply. John pulled the claws through her muscle and ended at her ankles then flipped her over and repeated the process to her front side. Both girls would die soon from blood loss. He wanted to take his time with Betsy, but the thought of real bear investigating the scent of blood had him a bit nervous. There was still work to do before he disappeared into the night.
“Betsy, wake up.” He pulled off the gloves and slapped her face. “Wake up, damn you!” He shook her by the shoulders. She moaned. “Good, now open your eyes.”
“I can’t see. That light is blinding me. Why is my forehead pounding?”
“You’re going to die tonight, so lie still. I want to have some fun with you first.”
John covered her mouth with his enormous hand as she tried to fight him off. She flailed and kicked then bit him.
“You stupid bitch.” John swung his arm and slapped her hard across the face.
Betsy dove for the exit and scratched her way across the tent floor, but she couldn’t match his speed. John grabbed her leg and jerked her back in. When she made contact with her free leg and kicked him with everything she had, the jolt in the face stunned him. That fueled his anger even more. He laughed, threw her to the ground, and straddled her. She was pinned beneath his heavy body with nowhere to go. He pressed her into the floor with his knees then slipped the Neko Te back over his hands.
“Ready to join your friends? Here we go.”
With the claw of his index finger, John punctured the hollow at the base of her throat. Blood pumped out with each breath she took.
“How does that feel?” He watched with pleasure as her wide, terrified eyes began to roll back. “Let’s move on.” He slid farther down her body and dug in. He pulled with the claws and tore open her flesh and muscle as he went along. She twitched and moaned with each new slash until she fell silent. He smiled at the bloodied bodies strewn about the tent. “Sorry I didn’t have more time to spend with you, Betsy, but I have to work on the tent now.” John climbed out and stood under the stars, where the metallic scent of blood filled the night sky. He cracked his neck and shoulders, took a deep breath of crisp air, and began shredding the tent. With his needs met and the campsite destroyed to appear like a bear attack, John dismantled his own tent, changed clothes, loaded his gear, and disappeared into the woods.
Several hours after catching one short ride, John heard air brakes hiss in front of him, and the oversized tractor trailer rumbled to a stop. John jogged along the shoulder of the four-lane highway toward the big rig, and with the sun barely peeking over the horizon, he saw the driver staring back at him through the passenger-side mirror. Grasping the handrail, he climbed the first step and pulled the truck door open.
The driver sized him up then waved him in. “Need a ride?”
“I sure do. I’ve been walking for hours, and this pack is awfully heavy. Appreciate it, man.”
The trucker checked his side mirror, clicked the blinker, and pulled back onto the road. “Where are you headed?”
“Anywhere you’re going. I’m taking it one day at a time, meeting new friends, and seeing new sights.”
The trucker stuck out his hand. “I’m Ray Moore, and you are?”
“John Pratt’s the name, and it’s nice to meet you. Are you a long-haul driver, Ray?”
“Yeah, sure am. I started my day a few hours back, just south of Branson. I’m headed to the Detroit area.”
“Sounds good. I know people up north. Mind if I tag along for the duration?”
“Not at all. The company will help keep me awake. You can toss your bag in the back. That footwell is small for a guy your size.”
John nodded and heaved his pack and his baseball cap into the sleeper behind him. “I used to be an over-the-road driver.”
“No kidding? What was your route?”
“My weekly route took me from Arkansas to Arizona.” He chuckled. “I hauled pet supplies.”
“Yep, there’s a huge pet supply headquarters just outside Phoenix along I-10.”
“That’s the one.”
Good thing I listened to the last trucker’s yammering before I killed him. At least I had a vehicle to drive and a bed to sleep in for a few days.
“John?”
“Oh, sorry, my mind drifted off. What did you say?”
“I asked where you came from?”
“Most recently the Little Rock area. I’m just traveling and checking out the scenery with no particular place in mind.”
“Sounds like a nice life.”
John grinned. “And it keeps getting better. I can take over driving too whenever you get tired.”
“Humph, I just might take you up on that.”