Sam maintained his composure as he returned to the blood labeling room behind the lab. He closed the door at his back and felt the heat spread upward from his neck to his face.
Now the FBI is involved? This is such crap. The government and big pharma are to blame, along with the bureaucracy bullshit. They’re the reason I have to resort to this madness. I was a normal guy before Mom got sick.
He paced the room as he talked to himself in a low whisper. “Okay, keep your cool. FBI agents or not, they aren’t going to find out anything. Keeping the girls at home, safely tucked away in the back of the garage, is the answer. Nobody dies and no bodies are found. News of the deaths will eventually fade, and life will go on. People forget these things in time.”
Sam spent the afternoon planning and plotting his next move. He had to be more than careful. Luckily, Heather was the only girl he had an actual link to, and he had played that well. Pretending he barely knew her seemed to work. The agents didn’t question his story.
He took a deep breath, shook his strained shoulder muscles, and jotted notes to himself as he thought of his next tasks. He’d buy used chairs from now on and figure out a way to strap the girls still as he drew their blood. He envisioned the process like the one used at blood donation centers. The girls would have to sleep in the chairs, but that was a far better option than death.
Yeah, I’ll make it work, and I’ll stop at a secondhand store on my way home. They’re bound to have what I need.
At five o’clock, Sam stood in line with the rest of the hospital employees leaving for the day. When he reached the time clock, he took his card from the slotted holder on the wall, slid it into the machine, and waited for the sound of the punch. Blue ink indicated the time he clocked out. With his time card back in the wall slot, he walked through the lunchroom, turned at a short hallway, and exited the employees’ door to the parking lot. He repeated that same process each and every day he was scheduled to work.
He sat behind the steering wheel of the van and watched as everyone drove away, happy to be heading home, going somewhere normal, somewhere they could unwind and relax.
Not me. I’m going home to my own personal hell, but first I have to buy two chairs and have them ready to go. Later, I’ll prowl the streets and grab an unsuspecting victim or two. They’ll accompany me home and find out for themselves what hell is really like.