Twice Bitten (6 page)

My Internet search turned up only vague headlines like ‘Second victim found in Knoxville’ and “Security tightened after double murders at the University of Tennessee”. Each story gave little information. Nothing as far as details, with ‘the police are still investigating the crime scene’ and ‘the female victim’s identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin’ as the only advisements given. 

So, we had another dead female, with not much else to go on. Yet, I knew in my heart that by the day’s end, the crimes would be officially connected. Armando’s words, ‘each victim will be taken closer to here’ rang true to me. 

After our three-hour lab session, we met up with Johnny and Tyreen again, this time at the Krystal’s near campus. An early lunch, a couple of tiny burgers sounded like a good idea. Something light, since Peter slipped and told me that we were having filet mignon tonight. If only Johnny hadn’t felt the need to fill us in with some gory details, courtesy of his campus security friend.

“Dude, this is way worse than the last one!” he said, mostly to Peter after he broached the subject first, asking Johnny if he had ‘gotten the inside scoop yet’. “The chick’s head was almost torn off, and her legs and an arm are missing!”

He almost spilled his Coke onto his fries with his exaggerated hand gestures, the large cross on a gold chain he always wears swinging wildly for a moment.

“Do you really need to gloat about this shit?” Tyreen was especially irritated with his exuberance, as if he was happy the killer kept the party going. You should see her green eyes when she gets pissed, even as tired as she seemed that morning. They literally become narrow slits of emerald fire. “What if it had been Txema this time?”

Chilled by her words, I again thought of my midnight conversation With Garvan and Armando. Their comments about the ‘others’ taking body parts with them for later snacks reverberated throughout my tired mind. I pictured my left arm, severed, still wearing the silver bracelet given to me by my grandmother last Christmas attached to the wrist. A Chupacabra’s fangs worked around the bracelet, carefully avoiding the silver to get to the meat in my hand and forearm.

“What?! Damn it Tyreen, just ‘cause the dead chicks look like Txema doesn’t mean this crazy asshole will be coming after her next!” he replied, indignantly. He pulled on the sleeves of his Bengals sweatshirt, as if that would give him strength against his girl’s simmering anger. “It’s anyone with dark hair and green or hazel eyes—and that’s like a quarter of the girls attending school here!”

“Well, dumb ass, don’t you think it implies that it’s even
more
important we make sure she’s
not
next?” 

Too late. Tyreen was thoroughly pissed off, and there was no one to rescue Johnny from the doo-doo pile he just stepped in. Even Peter slid closer to me, and I damned sure wasn’t coming to Johnny’s defense.

“Yes, it
is
important to make sure Txema is safe,” he said quietly, glancing sullenly at a nearby table where an older man and woman looked on. They politely nodded and then looked away. “I’m sorry, babe…sorry to you, too, Txema.”

“It’s okay,” I assured him, shooting a look that pled for mercy to my roommate who whirled around to face me. “Let’s just enjoy our lunch and make plans for the afternoon. I say we skip school and go see a movie.”

Normally, this would make Peter bristle, since he wasn’t willing to take any chances on a less than perfect GPA. He hopes to become a surgeon, and the best medical schools are hard as hell to get into—something money alone can’t buy. Even Tyreen was a stickler for excellent grades. Her goal of being an attorney someday depended on her keeping her grants and scholarships. She would also need additional fellowship funds when her undergraduate education was completed.

But, they both said they were game for a movie…until Johnny waved them off.

“Man, she can’t go anywhere—
we
can’t go anywhere!” he said, his expression a long way from the smug look he had just minutes earlier. “I heard it on the news, man, on the way here to meet ya’ll. Everybody living on campus will have to stay on campus, and if you live off campus like Peter here, you’ll have to show I.D. to go back and forth. They’re supposed to be setting up police roadblocks at every intersection to make sure nobody who doesn’t belong near here gets through. So, by the time we get to the theatre, it’ll probably be too late. I’ll bet the place is closed.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you heard it all wrong,” said Tyreen, reaching for her Blackberry, intent on verifying this.

“Go ahead and check,” he said, pointing at her handset while scowling. “You’ll probably find it on Channel 4’s website—”

“He’s right,” Peter interrupted him, holding out his android device for Tyreen to see. The murder news story and curfew sidebar were prominently displayed on his phone’s screen. “So, that nixes the movie idea…but do we
have
to go to class?”

This time my head whirled around. His offer to play hooky without any real reason to do so surprised me. Impish excitement danced in his eyes, and I believe my heart skipped a beat. This was a side of him that I hadn’t seen. Now…we just had to find something fitting for the four of us to do, and kill time until tonight.

“So, what do you have in mind?” Tyreen’s tenseness lessened at the prospect of something to take her mind off of all that had transpired the past two days. 

“Well, there’s the theatre room in my townhouse, that ya’ll really haven’t had the chance to check out yet, and a shitload of Blurays. Johnny’s checked it out once, and Txema and I watched Avatar in 3D a couple of months ago,” Peter suggested. He shrugged his shoulders with raised eyebrows when she didn’t respond right away. “We can all climb in the hot tub for a while. Plus, there’s plenty of booze in the fridge!”

That got her. Or, it was more like it nailed Johnny’s interest and he practically begged her to forgive him and say ‘yes!’ to Peter’s offer, dropping to his knees next to her seat.

What could she honestly say without coming across as a royal queen bitch?

“Don’t you have a roommate that’s a little stuck up around people he doesn’t know?” she asked. 

“Stephen just sent me a text, while you two were going at it. He’s getting an early start on his trip back to Nashville today,” said Peter, smiling wryly. “That’s how I knew to look on the web and see what was up, since he mentioned the curfew restrictions would be in place before his original planned departure at six o’clock.”

“What do you say, baby? The hot tub could be a helluva good time, you know?” said Johnny, lowering his voice to just above a whisper, an obvious ploy to coerce Tyreen into giving her consent. For a moment, he looked as if he might cry, his gray eyes misting. He must’ve needed a drink, or a lay, badly.

“All right,” she agreed, glancing at all of us. “But if this shit gets any worse, then we immediately come back to the dorm. Okay?”

“Sure,” said Peter, looking over at me. “We won’t let anything happen to either of you—I promise!” 

The two guys shared mutual looks of relief, as if this had been their plan all along. Tyreen noticed it, but let it go, as did I. We all could use some fun while the sun was still shining. With only five hours left before it got dark, we would have plenty to worry about, soon enough.

Chapter 7

“I think you waited too long to do this—really I do!”

Tyreen stepped in front of the door to our room as she said this, for the moment effectively blocking my escape from our dorm room. I had already showered and changed into my favorite jeans—torn on both knees—and bundled up in a warm knit sweater Peter bought me for my birthday. He had wanted to buy me something flashy and expensive, but it seemed too early in our relationship for that sort of extravagance. Besides, I have plenty of jewelry, and the sweater would serve me well on a night where the temperature was supposed to dip into the low teens.

“I’ll be careful, I promise,” I assured her, picking up my duffle packed with everything I’d need that night and in the morning. I grabbed my backpack and threw it over my shoulder. “Peter will meet me at the library, and we’ll walk to his place together.”

I offered her a warm assuring smile to sell my confidence.

“All the way to Laurel Ave, huh? Are you both out of your
frigging minds?”
Her concern shifted easily to disgust. She looked so much like my mom right then, with her arms folded across her chest. “Peter should be picking you up right outside the dorm tonight in his car and
not
having you walk
anywhere
on campus to meet him!”

“He offered to meet me here, but I preferred he wait for me at the library,” I explained, seeking to avoid direct eye contact with her, as I sought to move around her to reach the door handle. “The short walk could do me some good. Besides, there’s still a little daylight, and it won’t be dark for at least the next half hour.”

“Have you looked outside, Txema?” She moved over to the window and pulled the drapes back. Only the last vestige of daylight was visible, and the sun had already set below the western horizon. “It’s gonna be dark in just a few minutes—you
can’t
go out there!”

I understood her worry—really I did. And, she had tried in vain to get me to leave Peter’s townhouse with her at three o’clock that afternoon. But everyone—her included—was having such a great time in the hot tub that I didn’t want to be the party-pooper. So, it wasn’t until almost 4:00 p.m. that we got out of there. Peter dropped us off at Massey Hall by four-fifteen, and Tyreen and I raced to the fourth floor. You would think she’d cut me a little slack, since I let her win the foot race to our room.

“I can still see some sunlight beyond the tree line, and it’s less than two blocks from here,” I retorted, praying my smile seemed warm and unpretentious…and hard to detect my growing irritation. If we kept arguing, soon enough she’d be right, and there wouldn’t be a way to beat the encroaching darkness. “I’ve still got some time before things get creepy outside.”

There, I said it. I’m sure this was what had her in a tizzy, and by then we had finally learned more about the previous night’s latest victim. The girl this time was slightly older than me and the other victim. She was a graduate student, named Mary Pervalus. It took a little longer to identify her since there were less body parts to work with than the original victim. Not to mention her closest living family member lives in Reno, Nevada, more than two thousand miles away.

“The hell you say!“

“Just
trust
me, damn it!”

In the only stare-down I’ve ever won with Tyreen, it gave me a brief upper hand. I pushed past her to leave the room.

“Hey! You really shouldn’t do this—Txema,
wait!”
she called after me as I moved quickly to the elevator. I caught her running toward me, blocked momentarily by Jenny Faye carrying a load of clean laundry back to her room. I stepped inside the elevator and pushed the lobby button.

“I’ll be all right—I promise!” I called back to her. The door closed as she arrived. I heard her say ‘call me!’, but the elevator was already descending before I could respond. I whispered ‘I will’ as I considered her warning, along with the sparse facts surrounding the second confirmed ‘slasher-hacker’ murder. I also thought about the night of wanton fun I hoped to have with Peter. I needed it, and prayed he had already finished his physics homework to be ready to deliver, later on.

On the way outside, I noticed a campus cop standing in the lobby with a Knoxville policeman. No doubt, this was the result of the recent curfew orders. Papa would be so happy…. At least I could count on no boogeymen jumping out of the bushes on the way to the library, since there had to be other policemen patrolling our campus.

I was wrong about that.

In the fading daylight, the brisk evening air chilled my face, forcing me to pull on my hood and fully zip my parka up to my neck. Tyreen was right…it was getting dark quick.

I walked fast…as fast as I could without running. Thankfully, the security lights were on throughout the area, and Hodges Library sat just a block away. If it had been any farther, I might not be writing this now.

As I reached the lawn in front of the Tyson Alumni Center, I heard something. It was a growl, low and guttural. The hairs along the nape of my neck stood on end, and it sounded as if it came from near the Alumni Center’s entrance. A pair of glowing eyes studied me from the shaded alcove…almost yellow in color. Or, maybe it was just some weird lights, and my heightened uneasiness made them look like something alive and dangerous.

But, then the strange yellow lights disappeared, and I saw a hulking form move out onto the lawn, hovering near the hedges by the center’s walkway. It seemed careful to avoid the bright security light high above, on the building’s exterior.

I was less than twenty yards away and starting to freak out a little. I couldn’t afford to keep guessing whether or not the thing was real or just some trick played by my imagination.

So I ran. Ran like hell. Ran like hell despite lingering stiffness from my September injury and a muffled scream stuck in my throat. I may never know for sure if the thing pursued me, but I could’ve sworn I heard something scampering across the lawn, its clawed hands and feet tearing at the frost-covered grass already dead from the coming onset of winter.