I SHALL FIND YOU
Authors: Ony Bond
ONY BOND
A crime thriller suspense
Copyright © 2016 by Ony Bond
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be used, reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or quoted in any manner whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or critical articles.
Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. All characters in this book are a figment of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or places, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
Creating a story is tantamount to climbing a steep mountain whose top must be surmounted. Special thanks go to my family without whose support this book would not be here. Any mistakes are entirely my own.
Pain departed as darkness washed over Godfree. After continuous torture his friend Aaron finally grew silent.
The torturer, Comrade Moto dumped a bucketful of water on him and shouted. “Are you dead yet? Time to smash your head!”
Godfree saw Moto lift a hammer, hit Aaron’s head. The sound it made was tantamount to a lemon being crushed.
Moto glanced at Godfree. “Your friend’s dead, comrade. Gone to join his ancestors. You’re next.”
Moto grabbed Aaron’s legs, pushed him onto the floor and dragged him from the room. Now only the blood trail betrayed Aaron had ever existed. How long would Godfree stay alive in this dungeon of torture? He felt himself falling into a dark bottomless tunnel.
Something strange happened.
He saw himself come outside his body. Now he was in two dimensions. He was alive and younger, hovering over the inert person on a table he recognized as himself. Comrade Moto lifted the hammer.
“Are you still alive, comrade?” Moto said. “I’ve cut and burnt your back, done everything else. Yet you still refuse to die.” He felt his chest. “Mm, no heartbeat. Looks like I don’t need to crush your head after all. You’ve been hard to kill. Now the job’s finally done. I need to finish, go grab some beers and find a girl.”
He threw the hammer on the floor. Started whistling. Dumped the body in the back of a truck. And then drove into the night. The vehicle lights pierced the darkness. Comrade Moto stopped by the side of a road, gripped the carcass and chucked it over the side. It fell into the bushes. Then he drove back to the house. A light rain fell and soaked the body.
Observing everything from his other body, Godfree saw another car appear and stop. The door opened. A man and woman stepped out to urinate, their forms visible in the headlights.
“Don’t leave me,” the woman called.
And then she jumped, grabbed his arm and screamed.
“What’s the matter now, Mercy?”
She pointed, hand shaking. “There’s an animal over there. Look!”
“Be quiet! You’re imagining things.”
“Let’s leave! Where are you going?”
The man checked. Alarm crossed his face. “It’s a man.”
“A man? It can’t be! Let’s go, please.”
“He’s naked and viciously beaten.”
“Leave him, this place scares me.”
“He could be alive. I must check.” He drew closer to the still body and touched it. Then he straightened, hurried to the car, opened the boot, grabbed a first-aid kit and stethoscope. Kneeling beside the man, he wiped his chest, checked the pulse and listened.
A voice spoke in Godfree’s ear. “It’s not your time yet. Go back.”
“No, I don’t want to return to that battered and ugly body. It’s so peaceful here.”
He saw himself walking in a place with green mountains, trees and valleys. Colourful birds sang and hoped from tree branches. Everything here was serene and bursting with life. He wanted to remain here forever.
Now the voice was louder. “It’s not time. You must return.”
“I can’t leave this place. Why can’t I stay here?”
He felt himself pushed back into his old body. Then he heard the man exclaim, surprise in his tone.
“This man’s alive!”
The woman’s voice was louder. “The thieves that robbed him will come back, steal the car and rob us. Let’s go. He’s dead, David. We don’t even know him. If he’s alive someone’ll stop and help.”
“Do you expect me to go a hotel and leave him to die?”
She shouted. “I want to have beers, enjoy myself. You rarely ever take time off from work, relax and have fun. Why do you always think of patients first? If you don’t leave this man here and we got to a hotel and enjoy ourselves, we are finished. I’ll find a man who cares more about me than his job.”
“I’m a doctor and we’re taking him to hospital.”
She stamped her foot. “Did you even hear what I said? You aren’t on duty tonight David, and you don’t even know him. He could be a robber who was caught stealing. Do you have to be a doctor all the time? I wish we hadn’t stopped.”
“Will you shut up? You can remain and walk to the hotel if you want. This man needs help now. Don’t even know if he can get to hospital alive.”
After holding her for a day in the basement of his house in Stones, the time to kill her had arrived. She was a hitchhiker; the blonde abductor had picked on Wednesday night as he drove home. He met the lone blonde the day before. The night had been dark. She was illuminated in the lights of an approaching car, one hand waving him to stop. His blood quickened. He stopped, gave her a lift. She said her name was Tracy and had left her boyfriend Eric that same day after a quarrel when she caught him in bed with another girl. He had cheated on her before.
The killer asked where she was headed. She needed to catch a train to London to stay with her aunt. He told her there were no trains at this late hour. But he could help, give her a place for the night. There was no need for her to worry as he shared the house with his older sister who was out with her boyfriend.
Tracy agreed to come.
They parked at his house, a cottage in a cul de sac with a back entrance hidden from his neighbours. The Smiths were retired civil servants, who knew him as an amiable guy who waved at them when they met in the street and exchanged a greeting. Not as the man the police were looking for.
She followed him into the cottage, asked to use the bathroom. When she stepped out he offered to show her the guest-room. Without suspicion she followed him into the basement. Suddenly, she stopped, stared at the chains and bed in the centre of the room. Alarm rose on her face. He loved such moments when they showed fear. Realized they had been tricked, screamed, ran, fought and begged. He dragged her to the bed. Screaming was futile - the room was soundproof. Nobody outside would hear her. He chained to the bed and then introduced himself.
Tracy’s eyes bulged.
Police were still searching for the girls. They had no clue. The chained girl looked horrified. Her eyes pleaded as she made sounds through the gag and tried to break the chains.
He laughed. “Give it up, Tracy. You’re not going anywhere, are mine until I decide when to kill you. I killed a man and two girls already. You’ll be my fourth victim.”
And then he strangled her.
Now it was time to get her to her burial place. His lake. He zipped her in a black bag. Carried it to the garage and dumped it in the car boot. The advantage was he could approach the garage from inside the house, so the neighbours never saw a thing. When he drove out his neighbours were asleep. The road to the lake through the woods was empty and silent. He parked under the trees beside the lake glanced around him before switching off the lights. After tying a rock to the bag he waded into the water and released it. Watched everything sink and went back to the car. His last glance before he left was at the silent and serene lake that hid its secrets well. He drove back home as he went over the abduction and death of the three girls.
No dead bodies had been discovered yet. All the victims were young blonde women. Dumb detectives. Soon they would discover another missing girl.
He had already selected his next target from the moment he met her. Knew without doubt Rose would have to die. The only problem was getting her alone. That meant stalking her. Green-eyed and blonde with that small nose and full lips, how like his mother she looked. They could have been sisters. Maybe they were related. Each time he saw her made him recall the woman he hated. All Rose needed was dress in a short mini-skirt, paint her lips red, and put high stilettoes on her feet. Then she would look the perfect clone of his mother. That prostitute had walked out on him and his dad. Later in life he searched for her. But he never found her. All people recalled of her was a prostitute who had been strangled by a client in a dark alley. He had cried - he should have been the one to kill her for abandoning him. His dad became a drunkard when she left, got into drugs and then prison. The boy got bounced from one foster home to another.
More than ever he was convinced his mother had sent Rose from the grave. She was laughing at him. Mocking him that he never found her alive. He would kill her emissary, send her back to hell to join that prostitute. It was only a matter of time before Rose joined the other girls in the lake. He had already bought the bag to put her after he violated and killed her. How he would enjoy it. Watch that beautiful face scream as life seeped from her.
Just a matter of time. No, he must be specific. Give her two months to live. Eight weeks? That was too much. Cut it down to six, because he needed time to catch her alone. Six weeks would be final, starting today. He imagined Rose in bed fast asleep without any idea what was coming for her.
“Enjoy what you still have of your life, Rose,” he said. “Because I’m coming for you.”
The killer started humming.