A Summertime Journey

hysterical or screaming, so he feigned kindness and said it was no big deal. He led her out with her mask still on and let her do her business shrouded by the darkness of the sky and trees. He wiped her clean, and calmly led her back to the cabin. Once inside, though, everything changed. He was furious she’d risked them getting caught, but more than that, he was angry he had to clean her. He beat her senseless that night, nearly ending her life. He accidentally snapped the radius bone in her left arm and kept hitting her each time she screamed in pain until she eventually passed out.
Watching her defecate destroyed his fantasy of a decent, proper girl. That was the reason he chose her. She was new to the streets, not yet sullied by the runaway life. She was beautiful with long brown hair and blue eyes—she wore a yellow ribbon in her hair the night he snatched her. The ribbon amplified her innocence, and to Charlie was like a halo hovering above her head. That was too much for him; he needed to be satisfied, and he needed it now.
Charlie was in town buying supplies the day the new owners of the cabin arrived. He never had a clue his world was about to end. The couple had bought the cabin and the two acres that surrounded it with plans to renovate and use it as a new vacation home. They were a young couple, mid-thirties. He was a certified diesel mechanic, and she was a schoolteacher. When they arrived at the cabin, they did not know what horror awaited them inside. Laughing and talking about what they were going to do to fix up the outside of the cabin, the schoolteacher swung open the door.
The woman screamed when she saw Lori tied to the bed and dropped the box that was in her arms. Startled, the man ran back to their Jeep Cherokee, and he grabbed his .30-.30 rifle. He chambered a round, and all of his senses were now on high alert. He rushed back into the cabin as if he had the force of an army squad behind him. The cabin was clear except for Lori, sobbing, dazed, and confused. The couple freed her, and the man carried her to the Jeep and gently placed her in the backseat.
As they drove away, his wife removed Lori’s latex muzzle, holding her breath from the pungent smell of the blood, sweat, and fear trapped under her mask. The Jeep came to a screeching stop at a gas station, and the man leaped from the vehicle and ran to a phone booth, where he dialed the police.
Charlie had no idea when he walked into the cabin with his arms full of supplies what was waiting for him. He’d been grappling with the options of trying to keep her alive a couple more days or get rid of her. She did have a broken wing, and if all she was going to do was cry, Charlie couldn’t take that. If he weren’t so complacent and had been paying attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed the tire tracks from the Jeep and also from the police cars that were there earlier. The police were waiting for him inside and had backup in the trees surrounding the cabin. He had no chance of escape and taken into custody without incident. Lori was able to identify Charlie from her hospital bed with her parents by her side.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
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CHARLIE, IN A SMALL cramped jail cell with a slit for a window, was awaiting his day in court when his cellmate, a huge man with a shaved head, found out who he was and what he had done. The cellmate, a convicted felon, was waiting to go back to prison, he despised child molesters and rapists—yes, he was a criminal, but even he had standards.
The cellmate continually tried to provoke Charlie into a fight, so he’d have a reason to beat him to within an inch of his life. After several failed attempts, his cellmate was growing more and more frustrated. He even pissed on Charlie’s pillow… nothing… Charlie threw it under the bed without saying a word. Charlie liked to dominate with fear, ridicule, and dish out the pain, not the other way around. The sight of Charlie moving around the cell without consequence was frustrating for the felon. His cellmate’s anger was growing and deepening until he decided he was already going back to prison, so what the hell.
It was a little after 10:30 p.m., and lights had only been out for about thirty minutes when Charlie decided he needed to take one last piss before bed. The fact that Charlie waited until after lights out to get up angered his cellmate, who’d reached his boiling point. Charlie was standing in front of the toilet/sink, moaning to himself as he pissed, when his cellmate jumped down off the top bunk. For a big man, he was fast and agile. Before Charlie could figure out what was happening, the felon grabbed him by his head with both hands. The cellmate crushed Charlie’s skull against the stainless-steel sink and shattered his glabella and nasal bones. After he was dead, his cellmate pulled off his blood-soaked t-shirt, tossed it in the corner of the cell, and climbed back up onto his top bunk. He afforded himself one last look at his handiwork, and, satisfied, he slept until the guards made their rounds and discovered Charlie’s body. It was a grotesque scene. Charlie’s head viciously smashed against the sink, blood was splattered on the walls and ceiling and pooled around his crushed head on the floor. His pants and underwear still gathered down around his ankles.
It was evil that brought Charlie back to life—sinister, demonic beings that are not a part of heaven or hell. Undescribable, they have no form and can’t be associated with anything our minds can