Chapter 1

- 1 -

All I recall was a swift and plentiful darkness shrouding me and then I woke up here, a cage. Not a filthy six by eight prison cage with a flat mattress filled cot and a dilapidated metal shit pot. This was a kennel, a large dog kennel. I barely had enough room to adjust my bra or get my hair out of my face in here. The flooring was a piss stained tan dog bed, cotton escaping from each corner. A light hung above me by a make shift coat hanger wire. My skin reddened with each ray of light being pumped into my black locked cage.

I still don't know how I ended up here and I've yet to encounter any beings in this dark damp basement. The smell down here was the worst. Along with the dog piss there was some sort of mold. The mold climbed the walls and inched towards me via the floor. With each blink, the green blackness crawled closer and closer. If I didn't die from the smell I'd most certainly die from the internal damage caused from swallowing gulps of death enriched air.

My bra was digging into my back. The clasp had become one with my body. A unit of sorts. I'm fairly positive I was wearing an Ice Nine Kills shirt last night and torn denim jeans that I bought that way. I was styling my best at the bar and I guess someone liked my styling a touch too much. Speaking of the torn denim, they were unwilling disappeared as well. For the first time in a long time I had decided to wear panties. Lucky for me in this current situation they were fantastically comfortable.

Scanning the area the best I could ended up with my eyes locking in on a pack of Marlboro Lights and a blue Bic lighter. Whoever was doing this at least knew what I liked to smoke. The asshole also knew I couldn't use the lighter to free myself without running the risk of frying myself like a chicken tender from Outback Steak House. Geez, I'm hungry. I'd put some poor soul in a piss covered dog cage for a chicken tender right now. Honey mustard on the side.

The cardboard of the cigarette box didn't respond when the light spoke to it. There was no cellophane wrapper for it to rest in. I snatched the lighter and smokes quickly as if a ravenous dog were waiting outside the cage. Similar to how your bed spread protects you from the monsters around your bed until one of your bare feet pops out. Then its game over from that point.

Pulling a single out from the box resulted in the air smelling of tobacco. Don't misunderstand, the mold and piss still won the wrestling match but a change of aroma was an orgasmic sensation. Don't worry though, that moment passed quickly as it became very apparent that someone or something was watching me. Each breathe from this being was long and deliberate. Almost like a sigh but there was no discontent tied to it.

The far corner of my new moldy nauseating home was completely black. Staring into the darkness felt as if I was attempting to glare through the depths of time in search of a new galaxy in which I was free again and the sins of my past had been forgiven. The eerie silence, aside from the ominous breathing, was suddenly broken up as I placed a cigarette between my cracked bleeding lips.

"You shouldn't smoke," the voice from the darkness said, heavy and labored, "it'll kill you before you know it." There was a familiarity to the sound of this voice. It was a man, a man I've been around or bumped into at the corner store. Something was there in his voice. Trying to figure this out was haunting me. The ghosts of my past fought me every time I got close to solving the riddle.

In a feeble attempt to act tough and fearless I barked, "Dying is the least of my worries creep. I've been in a lot worse situations before today." I had not. This was the scariest most retched situation I've experienced in my twenty three years on this spinning ball. There was nothing more frightening, more gut wrenching than this. A molded basement, a dog cage, piss, no clothes. I'm was not mentally equipped for this.

An unsettling chuckle echoed around the basement. My captor hissed, "Oh sweet Jennifer, I haven't even begun with you yet." His voice was raspy, almost like what you would think a tiger would sound like if it could speak to its prey. "Look around some more Jenny. There's more to fear than you think."

The monster emerged from the shadows slowly. His face, I know that face. The way his grey eyes sunk into his head, his nose protruded tilting to right ever so slightly, the topography brought his identity to the forefront of my brain. The more he inched out from the deep darkness the more the story began to unfold.

Unable to heed his warning of more to come, I was captivated by the glimmer from his clothed chest. As the burning light reflected around the decrepit basement it caught flashes of his metal badge, copper colored, protruding with pride, "You're a fucking cop? Are you serious?" My voice cracked with hatred. The morbid situation had just become a fatal reality. Who do you call to rescue you when a police officer has taken you as his own personal squeaky toy?

Resting one hand on his gun belt and using the other to brush his black hair back from his scarred forehead the officer said, "Jennifer, you've seen me every day since you moved here a year ago. This is my beat. I don't take kindly to shoplifters, especially the ones that get away with it every time." The Officer pulled a note pad from the back pocket of his navy blue dickies. "May fourth, 7-11, two candy bars, right front pocket." Flipping the page gently with a purpose, "June sixteenth, Rite-Aid, cherry red nail polish and a pack of Skittles."

Cramped in my cage, I listened to my offenses intently. The Officer wasn't wrong. I enjoyed stealing, the rush made me high. Almost getting caught was a semi-erotic event for me. My life gained purpose in those few fleeting moments, "Shoplifting? So you can't write a ticket or even take me to jail and book me? It has to be like this for candy and cosmetics?" My bra clasp burned intensely with each agitated word that I pushed from my mouth. A sharp grinding reminder that I was in a severe pickle.

The Officer shuffled closer to my cage, my noxious piss smelling cage. He leaned down, his knee cracked with a loud pop, "You know why your bra clasp hurts so much? You really wanna know?"

My body emitted a moan as I managed a nod.

His mouth twisted into a smile as he pulled a small spool of thread and a sharp sewing needle from his pocket, "I like to sew, shit, I like to do a lot of things. Just don't tug at it, that would really sting."

Dropping the sewing tools to the ground within reach of my small cramped hand, he continued, "I left you the bra and panties because I'm not a pervert. I'm not a rapist. I'm not a bad guy. I serve the city and I stand for justice."

My hands chased around the front of my black laced bra. Each inch was caressed in search of anymore surprises. My panties hadn't felt odd at all, considering the circumstances. I said, "What's the plan officer? I've seen your face, I know it like the back of my hand. It will forever be burned into my mind's eye. You're going to pay for this. You know that right?"

He shook his head and responded, "Well, I picked you. You live alone. You have a cat. You don't have any significant friends. Your family is in New York, quite the distance from Virginia." Clasping his hands together with an off putting laugh, "I'd say you're fucked Jenny."

The tears snaked down my face, each racing to my chin. I caught a tear with my lip, the salt filled my mouth. I lit a cigarette and took a very long drag. The smoke danced to the ceiling clouding the black mold and manipulating the burning light. There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do. Helpless and hopeless.

My serving and protecting psychopath stroked his thick black moustache with precision and care. Staring deeply into my eyes, I blew smoke into his as he said, "Thieves are worthless. They are the people that don't return the grocery cart to the rack. They don't hold the door for the person behind them. They are nothing more than scum infesting the world around them."

Sobbing extremely hard, the stitches holding my bra clasp to my back began to tear. Flesh opened and blood evacuated my body. I didn't scream, I wouldn't give him the pleasure. The pain caused me to forcefully roll to my side and pull my knees to my blood soaked bra. One final hit of the Marlboro and I'd be fine. I wasn't aware of my surroundings, the pain had blurred my brain and deleted my thoughts.

Within seconds the tan piss soaked dog bed caught fire from the cherry of my cigarette. The Officer smirked and offered a solution, "For your crimes, theft on multiple levels, you can burn or I will be gracious enough to give you the bullet."

The fire illuminated my demons face, it was more heinous than I had imagined. He was a certified Hampton Police Officer and was most certainly untouchable, at least in his mind. It would be my word, if I survived, against his. He took an oath, an oath to protect and service the community and to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

His hands went out to his sides, offering an olive branch of sorts, "The choice is yours Jennifer. You will never commit a crime in this community again. Fire or bullet?"

As the fire spread and began to lick at my hands and face, my pale skin began to char, a deep black chased away any semblance of my white freckled skin. Eventually I broke, "Fire you bastard. I control what happens here, not you." The burning flames rolled their way to my face. Each breath was molten lava. I did not scream. I just suffered waiting for the end.

Before my eyes were consumed by the hellfire, I noticed one key detail. OFC. Petty. He had his name tag on. It wouldn't matter now but at least I knew his name. Bastard Officer Petty. Hampton Police Department.

My captor became enraged. His voice cracked, "I am control. I am the reason you are here. Death is your sentence." He drew his Glock from the faded black leather holster on his hip and placed a one hundred and eighty five gran forty caliber bullet through my skull with the simple pull of the trigger.

Lights out. He took me before the flames could. Evil had prevailed.

-2-

Petty had been tracking Jennifer for months. Every intricate tedious detail of her life was under his microscope. In order to be a successful deliverer of justice, some would spew the phrase a killer, you must make sure every move you make is in the best interest of the goal at hand.

Abducting Jennifer from a bar was a very simplistic task. People would look, I'm the boyfriend. The thing about people looking was the fact that they were all hammered. You can't steal a human being in front of a crowd of coherent detail observing folks because obviously that would lead to a quick and easy capture.

Now that Jenny was dead, burned and shot, naked as a jay bird, Cajun cooked, it was time to make her melt away like water on the sidewalk on a hot summer day. One second it was there, the next it had vanished.

Officer Petty had planned this first kill on his off time mostly. He was very familiar with Hampton as he had grown up there and never moved but once and that shithole house was still in Hampton. He would never be caught, in his mind at least, as long as the attention to detail was followed to the T.

There's a little park on the edge of Hampton called Gosnold's Hope Park. This is a place you would take your children to play on rust embraced chain link swings or cancer causing plastic slides attached to spider infested molded cabins. This particular park also hosted most of the little league style sports, ages from four up to fifteen or so. Oddly enough, there wasn't a baseball field but soccer and football were hot items in Hampton.

Located on this mostly deserted park land was a school, St. Francis Elementary, where the "cool" teens would come to vape and pretend to high on the nicotine as if they were full on soaring through the clouds after dosing up on Moly.

Adjacent to the school was a small brick building, six foot by six foot, and that's being generous. It had a locked door for entry but the main security was the vines that cocooned it as they grew with a vengeance.

A man once hung himself from the rafters only for a young child to peer through the only window to see his grotesque swollen face, filled with blood as his lifeless body swayed from side to side making a God awful creaking sound. That kid, Benjamin Mansfield didn't make it to twelve. He found his father's .357 magnum and painted the walls of his bedroom with all his inner thoughts and deepest secrets. His mother found him, Sarah Mansfield, and quickly chased her son to Heaven or Hell depending on how you feel about suicide.

How was the man swaying you ask if he hung himself and was most certainly riga-mortised beyond repair, stiff as a board, even had a hard on? There was a downstairs that not a living soul knew about, a glorious space that opened up to roughly sixteen by sixteen feet. It was an old bomb shelter built back in the sixties. Officer Timothy Petty knew about the desolate forgotten dungeon. He used that knowledge to his advantage.

Getting Jennifer down there was no harder than breaking a crayon in half. Thea rea was lit well enough to see absolutely nothing at all and it was a part of Petty's beat. He was in charge of the safety and security for that area. How convenient. The spiral staircase under the solid steel access door was covered with growth, a living breathing organismic mixture of mold and vegetation. With the barbaric floor access closed it was an area that impenetrable to sound, light, smells, every sense you can think of.

Luckily for Officer Petty, his father had taught him some more advanced skills as far as building complex systems along with the concept of working smarter not harder. During preparations, Officer Petty installed a ventilation system that ran off of the electricity still powering the unused city shack. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. The fire was unexpected but I'll be damned if every aspect of this new hobby wasn't accounted for.

After shooting Jennifer in the head, Petty let the fire burn until there was only a black pile of what looked like charcoal left. The fire didn't burn hot enough to act as a crematorium but it sure did make the dismantling and disposing of that young shoplifter's body so much more accommodating.

Jenny's body fit into three steel five gallon buckets, bones and all. Hard to comprehend but it was the truth. Petty took her clothing, purse, and shoes and placed them in a separate bucket to be shredded and burned at a later date. The hard part was over. Petty needed a physical reminder of his good deed to society. Something he could look at, ponder, and reminisce about the time he eliminated a cockroach among the cleansed citizens of the world. He decided on a rib. God took a rib from Adam in the Garden of Eden to create Eve. The irony made Petty smile and belch a chuckle. A good killer would never keep a memento but a sadistic one always keeps a souvenir.

-3-

Officer Timothy Petty arrived at the Hampton Police Headquarters and was smacked with a buzz in the air. Most of the officers were huddled around the coffee area murmuring unintelligible words. The big one, Officer Derrick Anderson, was scratching at his nuts while continuing the conversation.

With a sharp about face, Officer Anderson saw Petty had arrived, "There he is!" Anderson ran to his partner, it seemed as if it were in an aggressive manner. All the other officers in the huddle turned with stoic looks on their faces.

Petty felt a rush of adrenaline swim through his body, his vision blurred, was this it? He said, "Whoa! What's up partner? Anything new?" His feeble attempt to create casual conversation was met with a bear hug and a swift tackle to the ground. Anderson grabbed his arms and slapped the hard steel cuffs on him.

With a growl of his voice, Anderson said, "Well bud, you lose. I hate to do this to my own partner but your time is up." The cuffs ate into the thin skin around Petty's wrists. The blood snuck from underneath the steel as he squirmed in pain.

Had they figured it out already? I was just getting started he thought. Yelping out in pain, Petty said, "What the fuck is going on? You might have broken my goddamn wrist you jackass!" If this was what he thought it was, there would be more than just a broken wrist and a touch of blood splatter.

The huddled officers blitzed over, one with a paper in her hand. Officer Shelly McDaniel said, "You lost Petty. Out of all of us traffic cops, you had the lowest ticket amount for the month of May…by a lot." Her red hair was slicked back into a ponytail that was pulled through the hole in the back of her HPD hat. Just to say it, she looked damn fine in uniform too but that's not related to this incident.

The largest wave of relief drowned Petty as he was splayed out on the floor, his partner still on his back. With a sharp tongue he said, "Get the fuck off me to simpleton brute." Anderson dragged him up by the cuffs and turned him to face the data sheet. It was true, he had the lowest ticket margin of all sixteen officers on duty. Still, the relief was orgasmic as his knees quivered and his torso slouched.

You bring horrific justice to one young girl and suddenly the paranoia swallows you. Hell, half these guys couldn't solve their way out of a wet paper bag. Anderson smooshed the data sheet into Petty's face with a bellowing laugh. "Now, a deal is a deal. You gotta wear the cuffs all day until you can figure out how to get them off by yourself. No cheating!" Anderson peered sharply at Officer McDaniel. Petty and McDaniel had a special bond you could say.

Red headed McDaniel and Petty used to be partners about two months ago until Lieu found out about their extra-curricular activities. Neither were married and both had a loving fondness for one another. The issue was banging your partner while you're on the clock in your Impala SS patrol car. Apparently that was frowned upon. Who knew?

The blood from Petty's wrists leaked rhythmically freefalling down to the cracked white tile floor. The pain from this was masked by the euphoria of not being caught bringing justice and damnation to young Jennifer. If anyone ever found out it was him that sewed a bra clasped to the back of a teenage girl in a dog cage that she inadvertently set ablaze, that would be a major issue to hurdle.

I know you're wondering about the sewing of the clasp. Officer Petty hadn't read the entire list of shoplifted items to sweet Jennifer. That black lace bra was stolen from the newly renovated outlet mall across from the Sweet Frog on Coliseum Drive. Petty thought, if you wanted it that bad why not make it a permanent fixture? And so it was done.

Sewing was taught to Officer Petty by his now deceased Mother whom he loved greatly. She was his world, his light in the darkness, the voice inside your head that sent you in the right direction. When she passed, all the marbles fell out of the bag. Life had no purpose anymore. Each day slowly sucked the life from Petty, each second a slap in the face, each minute a punch to the gut, each hour a knife to the jugular.

It was a Godsend when he was able to find his new hobby. Petty criminals deserved harsher punishments in his mind, twisted or not. Now it was his life's mission to make that happen, at any and all costs. Jennifer was the first but she wouldn't be the last. The world is full of young brunette women that break the most asinine of laws and get away with it every day, whether it be because they are beautiful or the other cops just don't care. That was about to change, at least in the Hampton area.

McDaniel could see the struggle deep inside of Petty. His black hair draped over his forehead and his face grimaced. As the crowd dispersed, she ushered the cuffed officer into interrogation room one. During the excursion, Petty following McDaniel, he just could contain his eyes as they danced all over her rear end. It had a sway to it, you know, that sexy left to right sway that seemed as if it were moving with some soundtrack that no one could hear.

McDaniel popped the door open with a side thrust of her hip and held it open for the disheveled former Sargent Petty. She guided him to the table as she unbutton the top of her navy blue top. Sitting him on the table, blood pooling behind him, she popped another button loose from its fabric jail cell. Petty final notice as he rolled his wrists back and forth making the cuffs devour deeper into his flesh.

Just as her red Victoria Secret bra was fully visible and staring directly into Petty's face laughter could be heard. Not like a belly laugh but more of a group of school boys giggling at the word titty. Some of the officers had helped themselves to a free show by entering the observation room. Instead of clamming up and squirreling away into the corner, McDaniel pressed her bra covered breasts into Petty's face while she stared defiantly into the two way mirror.

Not getting the reaction they wanted, the officers exited with a group sigh of displeasure and a hint of distain. The door slammed behind them. Perverts, the lot of them.

Key delicately in hand, McDaniel released Petty from his bet losing cuffs. The flesh dangled from his arms. He said, "I love you Shelly." The blood steadily poured into Petty's lap, pooling on the crotch of his dickies. Shelly smiled and kissed both of his tattered wrist, blood covered her lips. Before she responded she licked every spec of it from her face. She said, "Now that's a show of love Petty. Let's go get you cleaned up handsome."