I think I am going to do something that I haven't done before. Being that my Piper Vale: Please Don't Hurt Me novel has been sent to the editor...and everyone knows I am far from being the perfect writer without editing help....I want to share more than an excerpt, I want to share a chapter, one of my favorites....and it's Chapter Two..LOL And I know more than any out there, that my unedited work has issues...But, this one chapter will give you an idea about the novel.
Tucker Brown is someone you may never forget and it is also a lesson well learned. Once you read it, you will know what I mean.
Please forgive my typos and errors. It will all be corrected once my team is finished with it. I just really wanted to share a piece of the first to be published in my serial killer ( Thriller/ Mystery Genre )series.
Warning bad language and graphic violence~
PIPER VALE
Please Don’t Hurt Me
By: Robin Renee Ray
©Copyright Robin
Renee Ray January 2015
Chapter Two
The drive was long but beautiful. I had
taken the scenic route to keep from hitting all the traffic that started
filling the freeway by noon. It was peaceful taking the smaller road that let
me pass through quaint little towns that graced the farmland at the base of the
mountains. The trees were thick and the weather was perfect. I had made my way
a good hundred miles before I started hearing a strange sound in the motor.
“Not now,” I moaned out loud, and then seconds later found myself pulling over
on the side of the road with smoke bellowing out from under my hood.
“Great, that’s just fucking great!” I
hit the steering wheel.
While I was getting out of the driver’s
seat a big red Ford pulled over. “Need some help sexy?” I knew before he opened
his mouth that he would say something sarcastic; young, overly confident, and
more than likely driving a truck that mommy and daddy had bought him. I didn’t
reply, I was pretending I didn’t hear his sexist remark, so he got out of the
truck. “Looks like you have a blown motor.” This time he took off his cap and
bent down in front of my Bronco like he had any form of clue about what he was
doing.
“My husbands on his way,” I lied.
“Need a ride? I can…”
“I just said my husband was on his
way or didn’t you catch that?” I interrupted.
“Look lady, I just stopped to help,”
he said, putting his cap back on.
“Well, I didn’t ask now did I?” I
crossed my arms and put my hand on the handle of my knife that was clipped on
my belt.
He gave me a hard stare then got in
his ride and drove away, spinning dirt and rocks all over me. I was pretty sure
that I heard him call out ‘crazy bitch’ as his tires screamed. I got back in my
car and called Max, getting a beep in my ear letting me know my cell phone was
about to die. On the third ring his answering machine picked up, which meant he
was with a customer and Chopper and Boomer weren’t paying attention. “Max, it’s
me. My stupid car died outside of Riley…” Beep, the phone died. “Son of a motherless
bitch!” It was one of those times that I
wished I had listened when my friends told me to buy myself a new ride. This
thing was old and had no working lighter. I put the phone back in my purse,
grabbed my coat and took off walking in my three inch, high heel, black boots.
I hadn’t made it about mile before the second car pulled over. It was an older
man that rolled the passenger window down instead of yelling out of his.
“Need a ride, hun?”
“My car broke down.”
“I saw it back a ways, can I call
someone, or give you a lift to the nearest gas station?”
“You have a cell phone?” I was grateful.
“Sure do, hear ya go,” he said,
handing it across the seat.
I opened it and, of course, no
signal. “Thanks, but it’s not picking up out here.”
“That old things needs to be
replaced. We can drive up to the top of the hill right there and see if you can
get through?”
I stood there looking back
down the way that I had come, and saw no other cars heading my way, then I
turned and looked at what he was calling a hill. It was several miles away, and
one of the higher caps of the mountain range that would allow for a signal. So
I did what I knew better than to do…I got in. He shifted his waist line and
reattached the seat belt over his substantially large abdomen. “Tucker Brown.”
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Names, Tucker Brown,” he chuckled.
“Oh, I’m sorry I was thinking about
the phone call. I’m, Piper Vale.”
“So, tell me Piper, what’s a pretty
thing like you doing out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Going for supplies for my boss,” I
looked over at the man in time to see him scratch at his crotch.
“Hear, try this again,” he handed me
the cell phone. “Can’t believe they’d send a good looking woman like you out on
a road like this.”
“I chose this route, and I’d really
be pleased if you would stop with the whole compliment thing, Mr. Brown.”
“Tucker,” he snorted. “You think I’m
one of those weirdo types, don’t you?”
“I think you should just pull over
and let me out. I’ll be fine on my own,” I said turning to look him eye to eye.
“Fine by me, but you may not find a
good man to give you a ride way out here. There are so many that would want to
do bad things to a pretty little thing like you,” he rubbed his chin, giving me
a looked that was all too familiar.
I pulled my blade and had it
up under his chin before he could blink. “Pull the fucking car over, Tucker.” I
hissed every word as close to his ear as I dared to get. “I’m the one you sick
mother fuckers have to worry about.”
“Don’t kill me, please. I was just…”
he stuttered.
“You were just what, you sick fuck!”
I yelled, digging the blade into the fat of his neck.
All I could see was my cell door
opening and the man in the leather mask coming toward me. “How many have you
hurt, Tucker?” He didn’t answer my question, his eye’s just darted at me then
back to the road that he was slowing down on. “Did they scream for mercy before
you did them in?” I could feel the cold steel of my captures blade slid across
my back, and reality began to slip. He slowed almost to a stop when I saw a
dirt road that turned off on the other side of the road. “Take that road,” I
raised my chin in its direction. He shook his head no. “Take it or let them
find you rotting in this piece of shit, because I will kill you where you sit.”
“And you’ll let me go if I drive down
that?”
“Just do it,” I replied reaching
around with my free hand and took out my 38 Caliber, Smith and Wesson.
“Oh good Lord! Please, just take the
car, take anything you want.” Tucker began trembling.
“Drive!” I screamed so loud he jumped
digging the tip of my blade in deeper.
He didn’t bother looking back to see
if anything was coming, he just hit the gas and with a twist of his hand veered
the car to the left. The dirt road was a winding chug hole filled mess that the
car bottomed out on every few minutes. I had moved the blade when he hit the
gas and replaced it with my gun. I held the blade in my left hand up against
his gut, and the gun in my right pointing it right at his head. Tucker Brown
had no choice but to stop the car, because a large Oak tree had claimed the
road when it lost its footing to either age or storm. I just happen to glance in the back seat and
saw the handle of a shovel, it was then that I lost the blade in Tucker’s
abdomen. He screamed out, opening the door and with a speed that he shouldn’t
have had, jumped out and started stumbling into the forest that seemed to have
closed in around us.
I reached over the seat and pulled a
bag out of the floor board, and then got out placing my gun back into its
hiding place. I walked quickly over to
where Tucker went down hard, tripping over his own unsure footing. I dumped the
contents of the bag next to his head as he tried to pull himself off the ground
using the base of a tree. He froze looking down at the contents; duct tape,
rope, handcuffs, and a bottle of clear liquid. “So, what was you gonna do with
this, huh, Tucker? You just happen to have everything you need to take down a
victim. I bet you‘ve been driving for hours, maybe days looking for that one
perfect young girl, or is it boys with you as well?”
“Go to hell,” he grunted, holding the
handle of my blade that was still implanted in his side.
“As long as you know, without a
shadow of a doubt, that I will not be going alone.”
“Who are you…how’d you know?”
“Let’s just say you pick up the wrong
bitch.”
His admission was all that I needed.
His brown four door Sedan would be hard to find out here, and the shovel was
just waiting for me to remove it from the backseat. I looked around at all the
trees, admiring how I had chosen a bad man right off the bat and the perfect
place to end his decrepit journey. The young man in his shiny new truck, just
didn’t fit the bill. He was far too cocky, and acted like he didn’t have any
need to threaten or harm a female for sex. In his case, money was all he would
need to get laid several times a month from women that he’s picked up on some
lonely road. Now Tucker was a horse of a different color, from his foul breath
to his beady little eyes that hid behind a pair of black framed glasses. His
yellow shirt was turning a deep purple on the right side of his huge gut and
the site urged my need to finish this. Tucker got his feet under him, and took
off stumbling from tree to tree to get away from what he thought would be
another frightened victim.
“Where you going, Tucker?” I called
out as I walked back and reached in and pick up the shovel by its cold metal
handle.
I couldn’t help but to follow him,
making sure to keep my distance until I was ready to strike. He turned around
and saw me holding the very shovel that he meant to dig my grave with. “I never
meant for any of them to die,” he coughed falling onto the base of another
tree. “You can’t do this,” he held out his shaky hand and I laughed at his
statement. He went down on his hands and knees, and I stepped closer. He turned
his head just in time to see the back of the wide mouth shovel coming down and
he raised his damn arm. The snap of his forearm echoed through the tree’s,
followed by his manic screams. He pulled my blade out of his side and made a
strikingly fast move at me. I jumped back sucking in my stomach as he swung the
weapon from one side to the other, wickedly fast for a man that was bleeding
out and sucking in air like he had just ran a marathon. I could feel the warm
liquid running down into the front of my pants long before I felt the sting of
the slash on my flesh. I brought the shovel back and swung it at the fat man
slamming the back of the shovel down on his freshly broken arm. He threw his
head back with his mouth open wide, shaking back and forth then he threw up all
over the front of his shirt.
“You fucking whore!” he yelled out.
“I’m going to enjoy gutting you.”
The violent look in his eyes
had me spellbound in a gaze that kept me from seeing the rock fly at my
face. At first I thought I was floating
then the sky filtered through the trees and life swam back with a pounding
throb in my left eye and cheek bone. I felt something jerking at the front of
my pants. That’s when I focused on the bleeding and broken Tucker Brown trying
to pull my pants down. The shovel was no more than two feet away, but he could
have my own blade deep into my stomach before I got a good grip. I rolled my
head and moaned, freezing his action with my zipper. He let go of my pants and
grabbed the rock. It was my turn to get a blow to my arm. I blocked his swing
with my right arm and grabbed his broken arm with my left. His head went back
and an animalistic, guttural cry filled the air. He tried to come down with the
rock for a third strike, when the blast of my 38. Caliber smashed into his
forehead. He dropped like a rock right down on top of me.
Tucker’s upper body was laying on my
upper body, with one of his legs between mine and the other to my right. I had
to roll the fat carcass off before it suffocated me. My chest was so pressed
into the ground I could hardly take in a breath. I pushed his upper body to the
right and began wiggling my way out from under him. I was soaked in not only my
blood but his as well, and the only thing I even thought about was how I was going to pick up the supplies
looking like this. I searched for a good hour for the car keys, but Tucker
must have slipped them out without me seeing him and now I had to search his
corpse for the stupid things. I like to have never got the big man rolled over
onto his back, and with every grunt I could feel my stomach relieve itself of
more of my blood. I rummaged through his pockets and found nothing but the keys
to the handcuffs, and a handful of coins.
“What’d you do with them, Tucker?” I
asked in a soft tone.
I felt no remorse in the least. As a
matter of fact all of the built up stress I had been feeling was completely
gone. The only thing that I felt was the pain that was in several places on my
body, all screaming out at the same time. I found my blade and wiped it off on
Tucker’s pant leg. It was at that time that I noticed his manhood exposed for
the world to see. He had every intention of doing me in while he sexually
molested my body. I couldn’t hold back the smile, then seconds later I was
leaning on a tree laughing so hard that I couldn’t control myself. I laughed so
hard and so long that the outbreak of stronger emotions was the only thing that
could calm me down. I wasn’t crying for what I had just done, I was proud of
the fact that he would never hurt another victim. I was crying over the joyous release
that his death gave me.
“So long Tucker Brown, I hope the
animals get their fill on you before anyone finds you out here.”
The scene was a frightening site all
on its own. The bag of Tucker’s demented plans were spread all over the ground;
a shovel next to his body, and his intentions laying on the outside of his
zipper. The facts spoke for themselves, he had planned on killing someone and
that someone got lucky. It was all laid out in the perfect set up for a self-defense
act, with the victim being the victor. But, I wasn’t saying anything to
anybody. I had just felt the sweetest form of revenge that I had felt since the
night my young vulnerable self, took the life of the man in the black leather
mask. Just like Tucker, a simple looking man by day, creature of nightmares by
night. It was a long walk getting to the end of that dirt road, that seemed
much shorter going in. The site of my Bronco in the setting of the sun gave a
new lift to my drowning spirits, which just happened to be slipping with every
drop of blood that was seeping from my wounds.
The cold of the hood of my Bronco
felt wonderful against my swollen cheek. I left my head laying there, holding
myself up with what little strength was left in my legs. I heard the squealing
of brakes behind my Bronco, thinking for the remotest of seconds that ole
Tucker Brown was coming back for more. I looked up to see two bright headlights
then my legs gave way to the pavement that I cannot remember hitting. I woke to
the hum of a motor and two men in a heated argument. “She needs an emergency
room!”
“She’d be pissed if she woke up in a
hospital,” Max replied. “I’ve known her for a long time, she wouldn’t want to
be questioned.”
“She’s cut up…she could have a
concussion,” Chopper voice rang out.
“Look Chopper, I know what I’m
doing.”
“So, you’re just gonna take her to
your house, and then what?”
“Clean her wounds and take care of
her until she’s better, it’s what friends do!” Max snapped, bringing the
conversation to an end.
Chopper kept looking into the
backseat as if I was somehow going to disappear on him. I could now feel every
bump that the tires made contact with, and I could make out Chopper’s face. His
stringy blond hair swinging around when he turned in a state of his own panic.
His blue eyes glowing off the light on the dashboard. Pain shot through my head
and I black out for the second time. The next time I woke up I was laying on
Max’s couch, and he and Chopper were worrying with the wound on my stomach. “I
have a headache,” I said, reaching to touch my cheek.
“What the hell happen, Piper? I heard
the message, but I had no idea you were in this kind of trouble.”
“I wasn’t until I got in the car with
an asshole,” I tried to sit up.
“No, Piper,” Chopper said, putting
his hand on my shoulder, it was then that I realized I was laying in just my
bra and panties.
“My arm hurts,” I said, trying to sit
up again.
“Piper, damnit. Your stomach’s cut
wide open. Whoever did this really fucked you up,” Chopper’s nerves showed with
every word.
“Watch your mouth,” I coughed, grabbing
my stomach.
“Get the whiskey,” Max said without
looking up. “This is gonna hurt.”
He opened a bottle of alcohol and
stuck a threaded needle down into the clear liquid that had an aroma that huge heavy in the air, and that little bit of
knowledge about its sharp piercing effect came to the front of my thoughts.
“Can’t you just glue it?” I had used super glue more than once, after cutting
myself while practicing with my blades.
“You’re cut too deep.”
“And you’re sure you know what you’re
doing?” I asked, closing my eyes to the sharp pain that kept pounding in my
head.
“Field medic for four years. This is
nothing kido. You feel like talking?” Max glanced up at Chopper.
“Hear take a drink of this.” Chopper
held a coffee cup half full of brown liquor.
I drank most of it down without a
problem. I’d been taking shots with Boomer and Max for years. But the last
drink went down the wrong way and I began choking. Max got on his knees and
pressed a folded up white towel down on my stomach. “Lift her head up!” Max yelled
his demands and Chopper didn’t hesitate. Max held the towel in place until I
caught my breath. I could actually feel my insides trying to come out with the
pressure of my coughing attack. “Think you can hold that to a minimum until I
get you sewed up?” Max smiled in a way that I had never seen. He was afraid.
“Just do it before I lose my nerve,”
I smiled back, while Chopper put another pillow under my head.
“Wanna another shot?”
I shook my head and grabbed the edge
of the couch with one hand and Chopper’s hand with my other. Max moved the
towel that was close to being soaked in my blood and dropped it on the floor.
He took out a roll of gauze and poured a burnt orange liquid over it then he
gently covered the area where the blade had sliced me open. I flinched the
first few times that Max ran the needle through my flesh, then somewhere in the
middle of it all I gave into the pain and relished, to myself of course, on
what had expired just hours before. How could I explain, even to Max, how
Tucker’s death released a piece of my emotional pain? It was like losing a
memory of one of the evil nights that I spent in that hell. A mere child that
stepped out a woman, and with no uncertainty, a killer with the same conscious
than the demons that walked in human clothing held so dear. To kill without
remorse. Only I had played on a different field, and turned the tables on one
would be serial killer.
“You still with me?” Max asked,
feeling my forehead with his forearm.
I just nodded my head, but I kept my
eye’s closed. It was the only way to control the pain. I saw the bullet make its
mark and the recognition that he saw it coming. I focused on that very thing
until Max was taping down the gauze over his stitch job. “You’re gonna have to
stay awake kido,” Max whispered as he tilted my head to the side inspecting.
“This is gonna show for awhile. You’ll have to take some time off, lay low.” He
sounded like a fucking cop and he was giving me a worse headache then I already
had.
“I’ll do what I wanna do, Max, and
you know it. A little make-up, sun glasses and I’m ready to roll,” I replied
flinching at the burn of whatever he was sticking to my already irritated skin.
“Not happening kido, I’m closing shop
until you’re back on your feet.”
“The hell you will, what about our customers?”
I jerked my head to look at him. “We have payroll coming up…”
“You’re making yourself bleed again,
so be still for heaven sake,” Max scolded me like any good father would and I
calmed down.
“So, am I gonna make it doc?”
“Shut up, Piper!” Chopper spun
around. “You almost died out there. God only knows where this creep is now. You
should have let me call the cops.” He was glaring at Max.
“He’s not the only one that knows,” I
spoke before I thought, and they both just looked at me. “God’s not the only
one that knows.”
“Where’s he at then? We’ll go kick
the shit out him,” Chopper bent down to my level. “He has to be stopped,
Piper.”
“Trust me, he’ll never hurt another
living soul.”
I just stared at Chopper with my good
eye while Max cleaned up my other one. The look of horror filled his face like
rain filling up a bucket, and I could tell by the way he stared back that he
knew I had killed the man that had picked me up. “It’s pretty swollen and it’s
gonna bruise like a bitch, but your eye looks good, red, but good.” Max started
wrapping gauze around my head and over my left eye. I reached up to touch it
but he scolded me telling me that, good, didn’t mean I couldn’t get infected.
“One last thing and then we’re all done hear.” Max got up and open a small
black bag that was sitting on the coffee table. He pulled out a little bottle,
followed by my worse fear on earth, a syringe. The needle on the end was very
much unlike the one he just used to sew my stomach back together. This one
stabbed you and it happen to be the top of the list of my phobias.
“Hell no, you are not touching me
with that thing!” I angrily said, pointing my finger at him.
“Do you want to get an infection that
could eat your stomach away?”
“Yes!”
“He just stuck a needle in your
stomach at least twenty times…what’s the difference?” Chopper asked, handing me
a glass of ice water with straw in it.
“I don’t have to explain anything
kid. I hate shots, always have, always will.”
“But, you’re tattooed, like
everywhere. That’s needles too, ya know.”
“No, really! It’s not the same, trust
me,” I handed back the glass of water and put my focus back on Max. “Don’t you
have a pill, or something?”
“You’re gonna take one of those also.
It will help with the pain and let you rest.”
“I don’t wanna rest, and you can stop
filling that damn thing up,” I tried to sit up.
“Hold her down, Chopper,” Max said,
coming toward me.
“Fuck you,” I hissed and pushed
myself into a sitting position.
“You need the antibiotics, Piper.
It’s either this or the kids right, you’ll need to go to the ER,” Max explained
stepping closer, holding the needle that looked two foot in my mind’s eye.
“Don’t go there Max, you know I won’t
do that, and you know I’m not taking that damn shot.”
“Fine,” he said and pretended to sit
the offence thing on the coffee table.
Max, without warning, put his hand on
my neck and pushed me over. “Hold her you little shit!” he yelled and Chopper
jumped. Max had me on my side with Chopper holding me down by my shoulders. Max
quickly pulled the back of my panties down and shoved the needle in.
“That hurts you stupid fuck!” I
screamed, and he started laughing. “Let me go Chopper, or you’re gonna get it!”
“Yes ma’am, he made me do it. Please
don’t be mad at me,” he pleaded while backing up.
“See, all done and not even a big
deal,” Max smiled as he help me lay back on my back.
My fist hit him right across the
cheek and it was Chopper who yelled out. Max, came back around holding his face
and still smiling. “I guess I deserved that, but no matter how you look at it,
you needed that shot.” I went to hit him again, only this time he grabbed my
wrist. “You’re gonna rip your stitches open, and we’ll have to go through this
all over again. I’m not kidding, Piper, you need to be still.”
“Touch me like that again and I will
kick your ass so hard you’ll be unbuttoning your pants to make a phone call,
and if you ever help him hurt me again, kid, you’re out.”
“That’s harsh, Piper,” Max whispered.
“Not like out the door,” I rephrased,
“but, damn sure off my good boy list.”
“I’m sorry, he scared me into doing
it,” Chopper spoke but didn’t come back over by me.
“Yeah, he has that effect on people.
Sorry I took it out on you kid. You’re forgiven, but you’re not.” I clinched my
teeth saying the last.
“Well, when you don’t have gangrene
spreading across your intestines then you can thank me.”
“Not likely,” I laid my arm over my
face.
“Hurt?”
“Like a bitch.”
Max didn’t have to do too much
talking when it came to taking the pain pill, and before I knew it my eyes were
getting heavy and my words were all running together. Max told me to sleep,
that he was going to run Chopper back down to the shop to help close up and
fill Boomer in on what was going on. “The phone, my name.” I tried to tell him
about the message on my answering machine but he just kissed my forehead and
covered me up. “We’ll be back within the hour to wake you up.” Then they were
gone, and darkness took me under.
