Breaks And Bodies

Out in the depths of the forest that surrounds the lake and its five log cabins is Preston Burich. He is on the run. He escaped when the prison bus he’d been onboard crashed. He hasn’t got a care or a clue if anyone else survived. He’s isn’t exactly sure what happened. Rather, all he cares about is getting as far from the scene of the accident as he can manage. Freedom is his. He can taste it. He was sure he never would and instead would have been forced to suck down fetid air while serving the rest of his natural life behind high walls, barbed wire and prison bars.

Still, after all this running over semi-uneven ground his legs are beginning to scream in defiance. He ignores the pain, a twisted snarl permanently across his lips and continues to dart left and right avoiding trees partially fallen or entirely laid out across the forest floor. He hasn’t a clue as to where he is, or where he’s headed, but is not inclined to slow or stop. It might have been a while since he heard voices but that does not mean he isn’t still being pursued. He knows for a fact that at the very least there was a search party hot on his heels at one point. It wouldn’t have been just to find him but any of the other convicts that had been on the bus alongside him and managed to make a break for it. Regardless, running with your wrists cuffed together isn’t exactly the easiest thing to achieve.

Suddenly he hears voices loud and shouting from somewhere behind him. He can’t out what they’re saying which suggests they’re a little ways off, but their re-emergence gives him all the motivation he needs to urge his legs to drive harder and faster than the rhythm they’d settled into. There is no way he is allowing them to catch him. He refuses to go back to prison. His crimes and justice for them be damned.

Preston breaks left and runs headlong through the darkness at a diagonal angle. He doubts the law will be expecting that. They’ll search in straight lines. They always do and if they were smarter… His thoughts trail off. He can’t in good conscious complete such a thought seeing as he got caught and tried for multiple homicides. If only they knew the true extent of the violence he has wrought upon this world. They don’t. He would never admit it. He scarcely acknowledged the murders the authorities had evidence against him for. Part of the reason his sentence was so severe. Then again it was never going to be lax. He’s a murderer after all. Murderers don’t get lax sentences. They get life. Pleading guilty doesn’t change that, not really. Sure, if you’re part of some criminal gang you can turn witness but Preston is a serial killer. He has no partner. He works alone. And so there is no one for him to turn on and give evidence against. After all, it’s not like he knows other serial killers. Some might think they hang out together but they don’t. For all he knows some of those he’s killed might themselves have been killers. If they were they were terrible at it, but he has no way of knowing for sure one way or the other. Not like he ever stalked his prey for long periods of time. He’d simply go out with the intention to kill. Most times he’d satisfy that intent whenever it struck him. Victims aren’t exactly hard to come by if you aren’t picky and Preston never was.

He didn’t go for the elaborate, convoluted or sexualised kinds of kills. No, all Preston wanted was a body dead at his feet. A life ended by his hands and only his hands. It made him feel powerful. He liked to feel powerful.

The convicts foot lands on a dry stick. A loud crack fills the relatively quiet night air. Preston grumbles under his breath but changes direction. That alone should be enough to stay out of the long arms of the law, and boy are they long once your name is on their radar.

A series of shouts and several overlapped rounds of barks soon pierce the air. They sound closer than Preston would’ve expected and illicit another grumble in response. Just have to keep… Preston trips over an unseen exposed and raised tree root. He flies forward. The ground ahead of him drops away. His eyes go wide. His snarl gets worse. He tries to twist his body mid-air but fails. Still, he manages to tuck just in time to roll head over heels down the slope several times. At the bottom he rolls back to his feet. He stumbles several paces, feels the prison jumpsuit catch, he ignores it and pulls. His jumpsuit tears, though that does little to slow his sprint. The barking is loud now. He feels as if they are on top of him, ready to strike at any moment. Preston takes a risk and peers over his shoulder. Above him on the ground he has just tumbled away from are five dogs. He can’t make out anything other than their vague shapes. Then beams of torchlight slide into view. Preston turns away at that moment to focus once more on what lies ahead of him. He can’t afford to trip again. He doubts a second time would benefit him like the first did. More than likely it would result in his re-capture. Not happening, he tells himself.

Changing direction again, Preston bounds forward. He notes the trees are getting thinner. He wonders why. He soon finds out when he stumbles out of the tree line to find himself near the edge of an oval shaped lake. His head snaps right, then left but there is no one about. He counts himself fortunate, though does spy a series of cabins. They aren’t far and would serve as a perfect place to hole up. He just about catches the sound of barking on the breeze, the leaves high above his head rustling drowns much of it out. In that instant his decision is made. The cabins are his best bet. Whether they are occupied or not is of little concern to him.  He can always end those who might be inside. In fact, this might be the perfect place to indulge in his violent tendencies. A smile splits his face as he hurries toward the nearest cabin. It’s a single storey structure clad in wood. Preston can’t truthfully make it out in the darkness, at least not in any detail.

Upon reaching the cabin he erupts into a frenzied search for an easy way inside. Not through a window or door. They’ll inevitably be locked and if he forces them it’ll only bring unwanted attention his way. Whether that is from any potential occupants or the law when they come by it matters little, he can’t risk either. Maintaining his freedom, now that he has recovered it, is his primary goal.

Having completed a quick circle of the cabin he finds… Suddenly his blue eyes lock on a twin set of doors barely raised and angled off the grass. He’d missed them before but their intent is obvious, they can only lead to a basement. He smirks and collapses upon them. His heart is pounding but he feels no fear. The rapid thumping in his chest is the result of his prolonged sprint, plus the tumble. The flow of adrenaline is familiar to him. He’s addicted to it for it is the rush he gets with every kill he’s made.

With Preston at the basement doors he wastes no time grabbing a hold of one of the vertical bar shaped handles with both hands and pulling. To his delight the door swings open toward him confirming it is in no way secured. He can only imagine how reckless whoever this cabin belongs to must be if they willingly leave a basement entrance in this state. He thanks them for their stupidity and slips inside.

He closes the door behind him and then after a brief few seconds of seeking in the darkness finds a couple bolts. He slides them into place, top and bottom. That’ll keep the police out. They won’t break into these cabins if they’re locked up tight. He’ll have to check that the cabin above him is locked. After all, if the owner has been foolish enough to leave the basement unsecured there is a chance the cabin above is too, if it isn’t occupied that is. There’s still a good possibility that it is. Time will tell, Preston adds and then descends the wooden steps into the basement proper. He can see absolutely nothing of the space and wonders if he should find a corner and wedge himself into it. If anyone were to come along he could apprehend and dispose of them.

I need to check the rest of the cabin and free my hands before the cops arrive, is his conclusion. With his mind made up he gingerly creeps across the basement. One foot acts as his seeker. If it clips anything, however slight it might be, the serial killer stops to readjust his trajectory. Following that he continues forward carefully. Still, he hasn’t heard a sound beyond those caused by himself, so begins to doubt he is in imminent danger of being collapsed upon by the authorities especially.

Eventually, the convict reaches the ground floor of the cabin. He continues to hear nothing now that he is there.

A quick check of the doors and windows in the living space confirm that they are indeed locked. He breathes a sigh of relief but decides he needs his hands free. Thankfully, during his navigation of the basement he came across bolt cutters and tucked them into his waist. Being in the kitchen, as he is now, the killer can think of no better place to relieve himself of these restraints and so he extricates the cutters from his waist. It takes no time at all and following that goes about inverting them. The inversion process is more of a struggle but ultimately the killer succeeds in manoeuvring them into the correct position, without dropping them. Now all that left is to get the links between the jaws of the cutters and then squeeze to completion. Sadly, achieving that is far easier said than done. It takes what feels like hours before finally Preston feels the links between the jaws of the bolt cutters. A smile splits his face wide to mark his success. Soon after he pushes the jaws closed, but is met with a marked resistance to his efforts. Preston growls frustrated. However, he is not accepting defeat and doubles down on his exertion. It works. The cutters sheer through the links severing his right and left hand from one another. Still, the sound of metal splitting metal is more than he would’ve liked and as if to prove that there is a series of barks. Preston mutters under his breath in a whispered tone and ducks behind the kitchen’s island for cover.

The barking gets no louder. Rather, it grows fainter and then becomes lost to his ears entirely. Preston is pleased by that. He can’t say he’s safe as yet but it’s definitely progress that much is for sure. Still, he needs to confirm whether he is alone in this cabin or not.

Keeping low the killer moves out of the kitchen and into the living area. There are two doors off the living space that need investigating. With bolt cutters still in hand, they can serve as a weapon if he isn’t alone; he makes for the nearest door. Once upon it he edges it open carefully because it isn’t closed, just pushed to. Thankfully, it makes no sound as it swings slowly into the room beyond. However, Preston does not enter. Instead, he waits and listens. There is nothing that reaches his ears. He would expect to hear breathing noises. People aren’t silent when they’re asleep after all. Irrelevant, I have to check, he tells himself. That is why he creeps forward through the darkness and into the room. It’s a bedroom but an empty one. Preston feels a mixture of happiness and disappointment. There is one door left to check behind, is the reminder he gives to himself and with that does an about, exits the bedroom slowly and sidles up to the second door. This one he presses his ear against as it is closed not pushed to like the other. That complicates matters as inevitably the door will make noise when he attempts to open it.

Sadly, his ear while pressed against the wooden doors detects nothing. He hefts the cutters in his hand up onto his shoulder in preparation to swing. He’s eager for a kill. He twists the doorknob and pushes carefully into the room. It’s a bathroom. He chuckles once he realises that. Again, he feels an amount of disappointment.

He doesn’t get to feel that way for long because he hears the sound of a car. He spins on his heels and makes a b-line for one of the windows. The curtains aren’t closed and Preston is fully aware it could be the police. Hence, that is why he keeps his back pressed against the wall off to the side of the window and delicately leans round to get a glimpse of where the car is and who it might belong to.

He soon discovers that the car which has pulled up is not one that belongs to law enforcement. Rather, it is sedan and is sat across the way from where Preston is outside a two storey cabin. Three loud figures have got out. They exchange words Preston cannot make out. Though, from the voices themselves he surmises that they are young adults. The killer licks his lips thinking of how their presence might work in his favour, only to remember that he has to wait and be patient. After all, the police will inevitably still be in the area. No point risking his reclaimed freedom until they’re satisfied the escaped convict is not in the immediate vicinity. He doubts that’ll take long, a day at the most.