CW: No one is safe. Part 2

“Write a story about how eight murders have taken place in your character’s town in the past 8 weeks. Once a week, on the same day, at the same time. When your character gets abducted after being out past the town’s new curfew, they have only 48 hours to discover why this is happening and how to get free…all while being tortured by the murderer.”

– a prompt for this week’s CW piece.
[Source: Self-publishing school]

 

[This is part 2 of “No one is safe”. If you have not read part 1, please go ahead and do so before proceeding with part 2.]

 

“How long was I out for?” – Martha wondered, trying to assess how long she had until Wednesday at 9 pm.

She had no guarantee that the streams were live, but that was what her gut was telling her. The killer was enjoying the chase. He wanted to prove that he was above the law. That no one could catch him. He bounced his IP all over the world so no one could trace it. No matter how hard the IT people tried, they came up empty-handed.

Martha wanted to crack this case, because she knew that would put her on the fast track to detective. And sky would be the limit after that. She was tired of the boring patrolling. She was made to do more, but they kept telling her about “paying her dues”, “working her way up” and “being patient”.

For a second, she thought she smelled something, but before she could analyze it, it was gone.

“Time to review what I know” – she instructed herself.

Eight weeks.

Eight murders.

She was the ninth.

“No!” – she almost exclaimed.

“I will NOT be number 9″ – she thought as she shook her head and pushed the intrusive thoughts from her mind.

“I will get out of here and arrest this man” – she nodded to reassure herself.

All victims were female.

“Coward” – Martha assessed.

She shut her eyes trying to recall the silhouette from the live streams and then burst out laughing. The room was pitch black. There was nothing that could distract her. What was she closing her eyes for?

He looked rather slender. Maybe 6 feet tall.

It was her theory that he injected the women with a paralyzing or calming agent before he killed them so they wouldn’t struggle. That was probably how he took her, too. She wanted to reach to check her neck for any injuries, but the zip ties wouldn’t let her. He was taking the easy way out – not wanting real confrontation.

“He’s not a pro” – she concluded and breathed out.

“Or does that make him the pro of pros?” – she wondered.

After all, he was killing people without breaking a sweat. And he was getting away with it.

“Motive?”

“Maybe some guy who was a nerd in school and was now getting his revenge on women for not wanting to date him back then?” – she was brainstorming in her head.

And there was the smell again. A mix of citrus and spice.

“Faint, but packs a punch” – she thought.

She realized she liked the smell. She wondered if that was a part of the trick – to make the victims calm down and feel a bit more at ease. Even though she was freaking out inside, she knew she could act cool, calm and collected in times of high stress.

***

She opened her eyes and saw she was in a brightly lit room. She must have been drugged again. Anger was boiling inside her.

“Come and face me like a man!” – she shouted, hoping that he would hear her.

“No tape!” – she thought to herself.

But the zip ties were still there.

The chair was gone, though.

She looked around the room.

It was smaller than the one from the live feeds. But equally as unremarkable as the rest. Grey walls. The floor, the ceiling and the walls all looked the same. You could flip the video upside down and think the chair was hanging from the ceiling.

And then she heard steps from behind.

She turned and her heartbeat skyrocketed.

***

P.S. As always, you are more than welcome to use this prompt to inspire your post. If you decide to write something, be sure to pingback to this post, so that I can get an alert and check out your post. (A post on how to do pingbacks can be found here.) If pingbacks are not your thing, feel free to simply leave a link to your piece in the comment section below. The more, the merrier!

Stay golden,

***

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