Surviving Brooklyn (Brooklyn Series Book 1) (2 page)

“I need to go.” Mark walked to the door and grabbed the knob. I heard a sigh and then he turned back to look at me. “I thought we were friends, and didn’t need a case together to call each other.”

“We are, and I really have missed you Mark,” I stated without using the words I am sorry, but still trying to convey my feelings.

“Well, you know how to find me if you miss me again sometime.”

Before I could say another word, he turned his back and left. When I turned back around, Kate was standing by the island.

“What?” I glared at her.

“You got it bad,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You want him. You need him. You love him,” Kate stated in a sing-song voice.

“We are just friends.” I went into the kitchen to clean up. My appetite was gone, along with my happy attitude.

“Yeah, because friends refuse to call each other. You two must be such great friends that you can communicate through telepathy. You both know you haven’t come around since he started dicking it to that one chick.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to step away, but Kate kept talking. “Look, stick the moral compass in your purse. He wants you. You want him. Now jump on his grill chest and get it out of your system before you explode and start dating a vibrator.”  Kate finished with a huge smile.

“His grill chest? What does that even mean?”

“You remember my last cookout? Remember that grill I borrowed? The grate was rock hard and made of steel. I imagine his chest would look like that with line after line of rock hard abs. I also think that if I l climbed on top of his chest I would get burned because he is so hot.”

Kate tipped the wine bottle up, took a drink and then growled like a tiger at me. She had lost her mind in drunkenness. I shook my head and took the bottle away from her. She pouted and went to the couch to sleep it off, as I headed for my room with the case notes.

Every victim in the file was between twenty-five and thirty. They each had long black hair and blue eyes. They even had the same pale skin and slender body style that I have. I could envision the terror they endured as the photos showed every mark and every bruise; it even showed the blood spatter.

All of the victims were found in different locations, but they were all found the same way. They had their hair styled like 1950s movie stars. Their make-up was flawless, and their naked bodies were covered in thousands of blue forget-me-nots. Their hands were bound by a thick braided rope, holding a single red rose under the forget-me-nots as if they had been laid in a casket.

The killer took his time in torturing and killing them. He used the same precision and diligence in killing them as well as how they appeared after death. Every stab wound was done with surgical precision to inflict the most pain without causing death, then it was stitched back up before he took their lives.

I laid on my bed with the laptop showing me everything in a slide show. It was like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. They all looked like me. Single, young, white females with similar characteristics.

Did they choose me because I shared an uncanny resemblance to the victims? I shook the thought from my mind; there was just no way they would have chosen to use someone like me as bait, right? I pulled back my navy comforter and sheet to climb inside. I pulled it back over me, and continued going over the case notes that Mark had brought.

Chapter 2

Dreaming

Click clack
—the sound of heels echoing down the hallway. The white marble floors gave contrast to the beige walls. There were mahogany doors about every fifteen feet on both sides of the darkened hallway. Everything matched from one side to the other.

Click clack, click clack
—the sound was growing faster and the doors seem to fly by in the never ending hallway. I ran, looking for a red door. I did not know why it was a red door I needed as I glanced at all the mahogany ones.

Out of breath, growing tired very quickly, I kept running. Feeling as though someone was behind me. The anxiety rose up in my stomach as I ran until exhaustion swept in. Passing door after door, I kept going. Down the hallway, a new sound emerged.

Click clack, click clack
—someone else was running.

I didn’t stop to examine where the noise was coming from. As the footsteps sped up, I glanced over my shoulder. With nothing in sight, I turned back to scan the hallway. Gasping breaths came as I was growing exhausted. Just when I thought I couldn’t run any farther, I saw the red door at the end of the hallway. I ran as fast as I could to reach it; it was no more than fifteen feet away. The sounds of the other person were growing louder, and faster. As I reached for the red door, an arm swung around my waist and pulled me from it. A second arm came around and opened one of the mahogany doors to the side and flung me inside.

Landing on my butt and sliding across the floor, I heard the door slam. Immediately, I turned my head, ignoring the pain to my hip.

“Hello,” I called out. Fear paralyzed me to the floor when no one answered. A rush of cold air flew by me, forcing me to turn my face away from the cold to see an elevator in the distance. Total darkness surrounded me everywhere except for the light shining over the elevator.

Click clack
—the steps were coming again. I couldn’t see anyone but the heels running toward me were growing louder. I looked back at the elevator light.

Once inside, the doors closed on the sound of clicking heels moving faster. The elevator started its journey upward. Wood paneling covered the inside with a white floor to contrast and fluorescent lights that flickered off and on. The elevator reminded me of  older elevators they used before they got fancy with windows and decorations. I grabbed onto the wood railing; nausea was enveloping me when the elevator starting speeding up, passing two floors each second.

I knelt to the floor in hopes of holding my composure. The swiftness of the elevator had me ready to hurl; every jar and shift was enhanced by the flickering lights. It was as if the elevator lights were flickering to the beat of a song. I closed my eyes and listened to the cranking gears and passing wind as I was escalated up so many floors.

Finally, the elevator came to a stop on the one hundred and eighty-seventh floor. The doors opened and I stood up and stepped out onto a large platform. There were people everywhere. To the left and right of the platform were ropes to keep visitors from falling into the water. Confused by the sight, I wondered who would have a one hundred and eighty-seven story aquarium inside a building. Maybe I was at some Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum. Straight ahead, there was a man on a podium, barking orders and calling numbers out as if it were an auction. His demeanor pulled my focus from the water and the people, and my eyes were solely on him.

The man on the podium reminded me of Jeff Goldblum. The black hair and glasses from his days in Jurassic Park fit this man perfectly. The way he talked was deep and authoritative with a rusty tone to his voice. He was barking orders as people were moving to the left and right of the platform in a rush as he called out the numbers. I had an uneasy feeling and turned to get back in the elevator, but the door was locked. I pressed the light, but it wouldn’t come on.  A silence fell over the room as I tried to pry the doors apart.

The man at the podium parted the people as Moses had parted the Red Sea. This move left me in the middle of everyone, all eyes on me. As I turned to walk toward the man, he began to speak.

“Step forward, take a number. When your number is called, you answer the questions. Get them right, and take the sky lift up eight floors to your new job on the penthouse floor with me. Get one wrong, and you will be dealt with by my favorite pet, Crystal. Get the second wrong, and you will be fed to the sharks. There has never been a third; but, if it happens and you get it wrong, your soul belongs to me!”

I walked up and took a number from the small side table beside the podium and stepped back.

I looked at my number—
187
. Taking a deep breath, trying to remain calm.

What is it about these numbers?
I hated the number eight. It was always bad luck for me. Everything in this place was eights.

“Where do you want to go, Heaven or Hell?” the man asked from his wooden podium. I sucked in a breath at such a question. A question like that was a test.

“Hell,” I declared loudly. The man froze, as well as the other people, and stared in my direction. What had I done? They were all watching me.

“We’ll come back to you.” The man moved right along, asking others different questions.

Coming to a woman with long blonde hair and sharp green eyes, he asked, “Does the world exist outside your own mind?”

The woman seemed worried as she bit the corner of her lip and fidgeted with her clothes. Her jitters captivated how nervous she was as she fiddled with her skirt and lapels.

“Yes,” the woman eventually answered.

Everyone gasped in shock. The man waved a finger over at the water on the left-hand side, and the waves started churning. The woman froze.

“Crystal would like to make your acquaintance. Please step to the left of your own accord.” The woman didn’t move. I was horrified; watching this circus of events as people ran to grab the ropes.

The churning water had a shadow coming up from the bottom. It was one of the largest shadows I had ever seen. As an enormous albino blue whale came to the surface, I nearly fainted. The whale and the blonde locked eyes.

“It seems she doesn’t want to meet you, Crystal,” the man said to the enormous whale. The blonde began to stutter but didn’t make any actual words. “Last chance to go meet Crystal,” the man said.

When the blonde didn’t move toward the whale, a smile came across the face of the man at the podium. One nod and the whale went down in the water. I thought the chain of events was over, but was proven wrong a moment later. The whale returned to the surface and rose out of the water. A large wave of water knocked the blonde off her feet and slid her toward the right side. She had finally found her voice.

“No! Please, help me!” She screamed. I grabbed onto a wooden post that held the ropes. As the water pushed against my body, I saw there was a family of great white sharks in the water to the right. Where the hell was I?

The blonde was able to grab the rope and hold on as the whale came up out of the water again. The bystanders holding on were groaning with each new wave that hit them. Some even slipped and fell into the water. The oceanic creatures seemed oblivious to anyone except the blonde who was fighting for her life. My desire to help this woman was strong. She screamed as the sharks nipped at her feet.

I pulled myself up off the post and ran to help her. When I got to the woman, everything seemed to pause. The man cleared his throat and all activities ceased. I held her so she was able to get her footing and climb out. Everyone waited to see what would happen.

“Number one eighty-seven, step forward,” the man called out.

“No,” I replied, my hands on my hips. As an additional act of defiance, I gave him the finger. 

“You will stop and obey me.” The man bellowed with anger laced in his words.

“Make me,” I replied with determination. The blonde waved me off when I turned back to her.

“Let me help you,” I whispered to her.

Instead, she looked to the man at the podium and then back at me. The life left her eyes with one glance at him.

“Save me. Only you can save me now,” the blonde said in a monotone whisper. Then she threw herself backward into the water.

I quickly turned my head away from the massacre. The water turned red, hiding the way the sharks tore her body into pieces.

“No,” I screamed at the man at the podium. “You don’t like the answer, so they become fish food. They get to go in the belly of a whale, next they’re torn to shreds by Jaws and his friends in some water tug of war. I will not listen to you. I want to go to Heaven, and this charade stops now!” My words failed me as I came to the front of the podium.

The silence in the room emphasized that they had cleared all the people out. There was only me and him.

“Ahh, number one eighty-seven, you seem to defy me in every way. I have something special planned for you,” the man said. I wasn’t about to give up.

“Give those people back their lives and their souls and you can have mine!” I screamed.

A smile lit up his face and with a snap of his fingers, men came and tied me to a cable for the sky lift. Once I was tied, the man nodded at the others, telling them what to do.

“I already own your soul,” he said.

The sky lift took me up eight floors by my wrists. I was released and dropped on my butt when I reached a penthouse office. I tried to scream, but my voice had failed me again. The same people I was trying to help were standing before me, dressing me. After they dressed me up like Princess Leia in Star Wars with Jabba the Hut, I was left to wait. Allowing my brain to fill with questions as my stomach churned with nervous anxieties and fear.

The green bra was fastened around my neck and had golden metal embellishments across it. The same metal decorations held up the maroon skirt that was spilt on both sides of my hips. There was a golden bracelet on my arm that looked like a snake. I started to panic when I saw it constricting my arm while moving its head up toward my face.

With a chain around my neck, I tried to think back to how I got here. My fate was now in the hands of the handsome devil, with eyes of coal. He stepped out of the shadows and appeared before me as if he had always been there. He stared at me as though I should be begging for my life. I would never cave.

The man jerked on the chain, drawing me to him. I sucked in a deep breath and gathered every ounce of courage left in my shivering body. I refused to let him see fear.

“Are you ready to join me,
one-eight-seven
?” He asked with a smirk spreading across his face. “Are you ready to suffer eternity with me?” His snide remarks were turning his face more serious, as if made of stone.  When he stopped talking, he armed himself with an emotionless mask that made it impossible for me to follow his thoughts.

He began to change. His eyes turned from black to red, and his skin turned from a pale apricot to a crimson red. I started to see shadows of other people’s bodies in his skin, as though he’d consumed them whole and they were showing through, growing larger and larger. Every face I saw was someone I had once known. To add to my horror, I knew they were dead. Those faces were trailing one by one up his body. He was growing bigger, his skin darkening as if he was made of nothing but the blood of others. He grew larger until I was eye level with his thighs.

Once he was full grown, he wasn’t a man anymore. He had a dragon face with a long red tail that had a spade shape on the end. He used it to slice my leg open. He watched while I cried from the pain. He watched while I bled on the floor. The same curl of a smile crept across his face. The faces that lined his scaly body seemed to scream out for help. When my attention got caught on one of the faces, he jerked the chain in an upward motion, bringing me face to face with him.

"Do you like dragons?" he asked.

Oh God, I am going to die
. I was fighting for my life, struggling for air. I kicked and screamed. I would do anything for him to either end it or let me go. I fought with everything I had in me to realize that, even though the collar clung to my throat and held me up, I was not choking. Fear ravaged my brain as I thought I might already be dead and this was me facing the devil himself. Closing my eyes, I said a silent hopeful prayer.               

“You are so yummy,” the demon said.

I tried to scream, but his tongue came out and pierced my lips, sliding down my throat, stopping all sounds.

This must be the final touch of my death,
I thought. Except he took his tongue out and pulled my body inside out from my neck down. Staring down in shock, I could see my bones on the outside of my body. I watched as he slowly devoured each piece. I couldn’t look away as he ended my life bite by bite.

A flicker of light caught my eye. It was my heart beating behind my ribs. My soul lives in my heart. It makes me who I am. If he eats my heart, it will be the end of everything I am. I will be forgotten, a name on a tombstone no one visits. The regrets that plagued me were enough to give me a slight reprieve from what was happening in front of me.

With a man’s chuckle coming from the monster’s lips, he went for my heart. The pain was excruciating. How I was still breathing was beyond me. Agony and fire had set in. No time to wonder again about how I was alive. No time to think of regrets. There was no relief in sight when he came for me again. This couldn’t be the devil because even he would have felt empathy for what I was enduring.