Free Night Terrors by Mark Lukens Page B

the concrete floor. His body swayed back and forth gently and the ropes creaked in the silence. He had a severe wound to the left side of his face; his forehead was caved in a little from the butt of the shotgun. Dark blood was matted in the wound and in his hair. The whole left side of his face was stained with blood that had dripped down the left side of his body. He was gagged with a rag stuffed into his mouth with several lengths of rope tied around his head to hold the rag in place.
    Greg was naked. And the skin from his entire torso, from right under his arm pits down to his waistline, had been removed. It hadn’t been a precision job, Perry could tell that just by looking at the sawed marks in the victim’s red muscle and fat. But it didn’t look like it had been a rush job, either. Greg hadn’t been tortured; this had just been a job to the killer, like someone skinning an animal after a hunt. Only, judging from the gag in his mouth, Perry guessed that this animal may have still been alive at the time.
    Blood-stained tools were scattered on the concrete floor around the massive pool of blood that Greg hung over. There was a box cutter, a pair of large scissors, a pair of rusty shears, and various pairs of pliers. In the bloody puddle under Greg’s feet were globs of fat and pieces of muscle that had been cut off during the removal of his skin.
    The skin from Greg’s torso wasn’t anywhere in the garage.
    “He’s taking things,” Jackson said as he stared at the body. He chewed on his wad of bubblegum and his jaw muscles clenched and relaxed as he chewed. “Blood from the first victim. Skin from this one.”
    Perry nodded and sighed. He stared down at the assortment of tools in the pool of blood.
    “Where are the knives he used?”
    Jackson didn’t answer. He stared at the pliers, scissors, and the box cutter.
    “There’s a box cutter,” Perry said, “but he didn’t use that to flay the skin off of the body.”
    Jackson looked at the saw marks on the man’s muscle and fat, evidence of the knives that had been used.
    “Why would he take the knives he used to skin this guy, but leave the other tools and shotgun behind?” Perry wondered aloud.
    Jackson didn’t have an answer for him.
3.
    Tara’s heart jumped when she heard the knock at her front door. She was at her easel, finishing up the last of the illustrations for the children’s book. She had the radio on – she liked to listen to music when she worked, something soft and easy that eventually faded into background noise.
    The knock sounded again.
    Who was at her door?
    Tara felt the instant prickling on her skin, the instant tension in her muscles, the instant buzzing of panic in her mind.
    She got up and hurried out of her office and then raced across the living room. She pried the blinds apart and peeked out the window near the front door and she just caught a glimpse of Steve walking back to his apartment.
    Tara rushed to the front door and fumbled with the deadbolt, and then the lock on the door handle. She finally got the door open and ran outside onto the concrete walkway. Steve was almost back to his apartment door.
    Steve heard her come outside and he turned back to her and smiled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
    “It’s not a bother,” Tara said, even though she wasn’t quite sure what she was saying was no bother to her. That hadn’t come out right and she wished she could start over.
    Steve walked back towards her at a leisurely pace, a smile still on his face. Tara noted again that he was a very good-looking man. He wore a pair of old faded jeans that hung perfectly on him and a Polo shirt that revealed more of his toned body than she had seen before.
    Stop it! Stop staring at him like that.
    “I was just wondering if you had a cup of sugar I could borrow,” Steve said.
    Tara didn’t say anything. She couldn’t seem to find her voice for a moment.
    “I was going to make some tea …” Steve continued