Page 19 of Camriel
Chapter Eleven
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VICTORIA RAN A TOTALof forty miles again, then found a house to sleep in.Her slumber was restless, due to the sounds of chaos that kept waking her up.Something was going on a few blocks away.Once again, curiosity won.She went to investigate it when she got up early the next morning.
“Getting up at dawn sucks,” she grumbled as she headed towards where the noise had come from.At least the area was quiet now.No one was out and about as she made her way down the sidewalk.
She came to a park and halted to stare at a huge tree standing in the middle of the grassy area.“That’s fudged up,” she said in shock, swallowing down the bile that was trying to rise.
Bodies were swinging from the branches in varying degrees of decay.All of them were missing limbs.Dogs that had already turned feral were slinking around, snatching up body parts.It was a common sight, unfortunately.
“I’m living in a horror story,” Victoria said, then noticed all of the victims were female.“It looks like there’s a serial killer on the loose,” she figured.He appeared to be rooting out his surviving neighbors one by one and dragging them to the tree.From the amount of blood that had splashed all over the ground, they’d still been alive when he’d dismembered them.The screams last night had been her first clue.
She’d seen plenty of death by now, but this was next level disturbing.There was no way she could leave without finding this psychopath and wiping him out.
“Where are you, you fudging sicko?”she murmured, turning in a slow circle and stretching out her senses.He could be hiding anywhere, but she didn’t want to spend all day searching for him.“I bet he lives somewhere close by,” she figured.“He can probably see his gruesome artwork from his house.”Several buildings nearby had occupants.She was sure there would be more people within seeing distance of the park.
There was one sure way to get his attention and she grinned in anticipation.She crossed to a nearby yard and put her backpack and duffle bag on the other side of the low fence.They couldn’t be spotted from the road and she sensed the house was empty.
Victoria returned to the park, put her hands around her mouth and screamed as loudly as she could.“Murderer!”she shrieked.“There’s a killer on the loose!Someone has to do something before he kills us all!”
Sensing people rousing, she put her hands over her face and pretended to sob.Shoulders heaving, she kept up the pretense as she picked up on someone moving closer.A shiver worked its way along her spine when she sensed how evil the guy was.
“You should have kept your mouth shut,” he said in a creepily quiet voice.“Now I’m going to have to add another ornament to my Christmas tree.”
Hearing the shift of fabric when he lifted his arm, Victoria spun around and caught his wrist as it descended.He was holding a reaping hook with a short handle.The wickedly curved sickle looked sharp enough to slice her in half.“Gotcha,” she said in satisfaction and yanked the weapon out of his hand.
Short and weedy, the guy looked ordinary, with long stringy brown hair and pasty skin.His eyes were utterly insane as he pulled a knife from a sheath at his waist.He wore black jeans and a black concert t-shirt with a faded image of a heavy metal band.
“If there was a picture of an incel in the dictionary, it would be you,” she said with her upper lip lifted.Being involuntarily celibate would explain his hatred of women.One look at him would be enough to send females running.
“I’m going to gut you,” he vowed, then he tried to eviscerate her.
Victoria took a small step back and the blade missed her by six inches.She swung the sickle she’d snatched out of his hand and severed his head from his neck.“Guess again, loser,” she said to his corpse when it collapsed to the ground.“This is a cool weapon,” she said in admiration, swishing the reaping hook through the air to get rid of the blood drops.
Bending to wipe the blade on the psycho’s shirt, she decided to keep it.A few people emerged from their homes as she ambled over to the low fence to retrieve her belongings.
