Lone Lake Killer (4 page)

Tyler gave up on Jake and turned to Carli, “So why didn’t Heather come in?”

“Perhaps she had a dental emergency,” offered Bill.

“No,” said Carli, “definitely not a dental emergency.”

“Umm, to feed her cat?”

“Nope,” smiled Carli.

“Knowing Carli, she probably went to change her locks.”

“Noo.”

“To get her perv whistle?”

“Hey, what the hell?”

“Ooh I got it,” Jake slapped the bar excitedly, “Dude Tyler, I think she poisoned the well.”

“What well?”

“Sweet.”

And then Bill got excited, “Sweet? So the poison is sweet?”

“No Bill, poisons are not sweet.”

“How would you know, have you tasted it, plus I’m pretty sure there are some spiders that secrete sweet poison… Black Windows.”

“Okay Columbo, it could be sweet poison. I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“So Deputy Jake, where is this sweet poison lake?”

“What lake?”

“It’s not a lake, it’s a well.”

“What?”

“She poisoned the well, not the lake. Poisoning lakes is epically bad… and a bigtime social crime. Total felony.”

With things devolving around her rapidly, Carli yelled above the din, “I told her, Tyler might have herpes.”

“What??”

“Herpes. Told her you got herpes.”

“Fuck you Carli, you serious right now?”

“Well, oral herpes.”

“Carli, is that the good kind?” It was Bill.

“Yeah. You definitely don’t want the other kind, Bill,” confided Jake.

“Gotcha.”

“The fuck is wrong with you Carli… so you did poison the well… my sweet, sweet poison well,” Tyler said dejectedly.

Carli bit her lip, “Also told her Jake might have given it to you.”

The killer’s memory had served him well. Arriving at the leeward side of Jensen Manor he was greeted by unkempt shrubbery, a rotting Cutlass and that dilapidated structure. Manor my ass, thought the killer. The front obviously led one to believe that the manor was well cared for, but Lars knew it was a total scam. A complete hogwash. Whoever was maintaining the place had put in a lot of effort on the front side and a lot less on the rear.

Within moments Lars identified the broken window at ground level. Despite the lawn being overrun by weeds, it wasn’t hard to spot. Lars assumed it opened into the basement and ultimately led into the house.

The thought of crawling through the two by two opening reintroduced Lars to claustrophobia and caused him to instinctively suck in his gut. But on the bright side, the cashmere guy wouldn’t have that problem. The dood had no love handles. Not even slightly.

After making sure that all was quiet around Jensen Manor, Lars stealthily walked across the yard and slid the body through the basement window. Even if he couldn’t get himself past the opening, at least he would’ve gotten rid of the evidence… the darn body. Plus if a vagrant or some creepy cretin was already in the basement, Lars wanted to give it a chance to escape… his wrath.

The body landed on the basement floor with a solid thud, like a piece of dough or meatloaf. No creaking or cracking, which again proved that the guy was a total meatloaf.

Lars waited and listened for a bit as he allowed his eyes to accustom to the cellar’s darkness. All he saw was basic cellar stuff and maybe a staircase leading up into the house. As for sounds other than the thud created by the body’s impact, everything seemed quiet at Jensen Manor.

Lars waited a little longer for rats, raccoons and other little shit to get out of his way. But nothing came.

A minute later, the killer lowered himself, feet first into the cellar. As expected he had to suck in his gut quite a bit.

Flailing awkwardly and trying not to squash the body on the floor, the killer lost his grip and landed ass first on something rock solid. The ass thumping reverberated around the abandoned cellar for at least three seconds.

BOOM… OOOM…. OOOOM.

As pain… as in, ass pain reached the extremities of his spine and neural circuits, the killer winced, “Wufk.”

But something felt off about his fall… his ass had arrived rather quickly at its destination. Not the typical, one second for an eight feet fall. Seemed faster… much faster. Or maybe he’d miscalculated the drop height. Perhaps this was a cellar for dwarfs… a dwarf cellar, or… or… a dwarf dungeon… a dungeon where the dwarfs kept Snow White imprisoned…

As his eyes acclimatized to the darkness, Lars dismissed the rather cool,
Cellar for Snow White
theory and realized that he wasn’t even on the floor. Yep, he sat about two feet above the cellar floor on some kind of a weird box.

A weird rectangular box… white in color… well whitish… a whitish rectangular box… but boxes were cubes… so a whitish, cubish box… but as his pupils accepted more light the whitish seemed more sullen-yellowish... hmm.

He ran his fingers over the contraption and felt the smooth plastic surface. The entire thing was a bit warm, nothing drastic, but just a hint of unnatural heat. Still plopped on top of the box, Lars let his hands roam the extremities of the contraption. Smooth… rubber… rubber beading… smooth… smoother and then a…
super nasty shock
as 125V shot through his heart.

“Yeowwfuk,” yelped the killer as the electrical shock hurled him halfway across the cellar.

***

Lars woke up with a splitting headache, and for once it wasn’t due to questionable decisions from the night before. Nope, this was due to questionable decisions from twenty minutes ago. Running a hand over his head he felt the swollen bump. Cursing at his naiveté, Lars turned his head and looked across the room at the fucked up cubish box.

Like a possessed demon the box was spewing hazy white smoke from its top… the same top where Lars had landed his sweet bottom. As he tried to crawl away from the evil box, he touched something… something hard… something cold… something hard and cold enough to give him the creeps.

“Wufk” shrieked the killer as realization wanked all over him.

Alongside Lars lay a body part… a frozen body part.

***

A minute later Lars chided himself for getting carried away and believing in ghosts and body parts. The whitish box, as it turned out was the Jensens’ freezer in the basement, which due to its contents – the sweet meats – had been left running. And the ghostly white smoke bellowing – was just water vapor from the freezer. Basic physics bullshit.

And then of course, the improperly earthed freezer had shocked him and flung him across the cellar. During the
act
the demon freezer had thrown itself open and hurled a bunch of its contents - steaks and frozen veggies - all over the cellar.

Thank goodness no one had seen him freak out over a fucking freezer.

Sifting through the peas and cold cuts Lars suddenly felt something. His old yearning for meat. Being a recent convert to veganism, he was about to wilt. Sure those berries were the bombs, but who was he kidding, meat was meat. No two ways about it. (Unbeknownst to the killer, some kids in Colorado had hypothesized that a lack of meat could turn anyone into giant wuzzies.)

The killer hadn’t tasted meat in a while… not since that
incident
at Soldier Field.

Dodging memories from that wretched night, Lars returned to the task at hand. Obviously his initial plan had been to hide the body somewhere in the Jensens’ attic, but this discovery of the meat freezer literally changed the game and provided him with an array of options – each more deplorable than the other. Plus that old hunger for meat was on the comeback… only a matter of time before he succumbed.

But despite his inner turmoil, the killer ultimately did what he had to do and got down to business. Yep, he was a total tcb kinda guy… a take care of bodies kinda guy. He threw out the peas, moved around some meat and then stuffed the body of the dead guy into the freezer and slammed the door shut.

SQUEAK

As he picked up the veggie bags off the floor, he heard an unnatural squeak from upstairs.

SQUEAK

Hinges. Old unoiled hinges holding a window. Unoiled window opening.

SQUUEEAAK

Unoiled window closing.

SQUEAAK

Had to be that un-boarded window he’d noticed earlier. Allowing the situation to develop, Lars held his breath for what seemed like an eternity.

CLICK

Latches. Yep, that was definitely that fucking window. No doubt about it. Someone had latched it from the
inside
.

CREAK… SQUISH… CREAK… SQUISH

Someone, probably a burglar but more likely an asshole, was walking on the wooden floor above wearing his new pair of Jordans.

***

As thoughts of pursuit and stylish shootouts with the cops flooded his mind, Lars smelt something… something that was a controlled substance in like forty states.

The home invader… or rather the
co-home invader
… Lars tried to be fair in his assessments as he too was sort of a home invader… so yeah, this punk co-home invader was fucking smoking weed.

“Wufk,” exclaimed the killer as the punk, whoever he was, rolled up a second joint. Lars couldn’t believe it. Who in their right mind would break into a house to smoke weed. This wasn’t Detroit… not even close. The fuck was wrong with the country. Perhaps the Jensens had a darker side… perhaps they were dealers…

Lars’ unorganized thoughts were interrupted by a stupid sounding voice.

Above, in the Jensens living room, a post-puberty-pre-sanity male voice hollered into a cellphone, “Cody? That you Cody… oh hey Mrs. Sanderson… um, this is Shane… uh… yeah the Monson kid… Shane Monson, yeah that’s me… I was wondering if I could talk to Cody… thank you…”

Lars silently shook his head as the darned teenager named Shane Monson waited for the fool Cody.

The veggies were melting fast.

After what seemed like an eternity, the conversation came back on, “Cody… dude, I’m lighting it up right now… wanna come over… where? ... Dude you won’t believe it… it’s like the most genius place in Lone Lake… no one will ever know… guess where… no, got nothing to do with the lake… it’s in town… nope… not on top of the diner…”

The killer suddenly realized what was about to happen.

“No… try again… if you guess it right… I’ll give you a free pound… umm… nope… fuck it dude… I will just say it… I am at the…”

Lars dropped the bag of frozen veggies.

***

CRASH

The killer rushed up the stairs and crashed right through the basement door.

“What the hell,” exclaimed the teenage voice on the phone, before getting snuffed out by Lars and his mammoth hands.

And this time he knew exactly how to use them. Who woulda thought practice made things perfect.

Standing over the brand new body, Lars rapidly reassessed the situation. Teenager. Definitely not the law. Smoking pot. About to invite friends. Yeah, he was becoming quite good at this shit.

Lars had to get rid of some real good cuts to make room for the second dead guy. Of course, being vegan he would have to donate it to that raccoon family near the tracks… maybe earn their respect and trust.

With the evidence and other incriminating shit secured, the killer headed out to Lone Lake for a well-deserved dip. He needed to get rid of these dead guy smells.

After what seemed like forever Carli screeched out,
White. Male.

“That’s all you got,
White
and
Male
? What a scam, even a two a year old could’ve told me that.”

“Relax Tyler, I’m just setting up the framework. Once I have the framework up and running, it’ll be a breeze. Trust me, you gotta respect the process.”

“Yeah dude, trust Carli and her process…,” Jake chided.

Tyler shook his head in resignation, as Bill, wiping down the bar asked, “What about Bonnie and Clyde? That Bonnie sure was a
female
and if Wikipedia is correct, killed a ton of people.”

“No Bill, they were anarchists… bandits,” clarified Jake, “not serial killers.”

“But they did kill people… and am pretty sure Bonnie was no light weight.”

“Yeah, but anarchy has always been kinda cool. People seem to get it.”

“Sorta like John Wayne?”

“I guess you could say that. But remember even he was just a surname away from… hey!”

Carli had thrown a piece of chalk at him to get their attention. “I’m done.”

The guys looked up to see a shopping list of bullshit that read:

A gaggle of anger, insinuation and confusion broke out between the guys – all aimed at Carli.

Carli stomped her foot for order, “One at a time. One at a time. Guys…”

Tyler drew first blood, “The fuck is a Toyota Celica doing on the list? Do you have a shred of proof that ties the killer, let alone a serial killer to an extinct Toyota model?”

“Umm it’s got great pickup, decent efficiency, great maneuverability and a surprisingly large boot… all characteristics a serial killer would pine for…”

“Bullshit,” it was the other deputy, Jake, “I know what this is about.
You
drive a battered Celica don’t you, Carli?”

“So what?” began Carli indignantly, “You suggesting that I’m the serial killer?”

“No, but you’re trying to profit from a bad situation.”

“Whaaat… how could you say something like that?” Carli dragged.

“I think I know what your shitty little scheme is. You’ve been trying to get rid of that junk for a while now haven’t you?”

“No.”