Sharing a chapter from my soon to be released: Piper Vale: Please Don't Hurt Me~

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.