Chapter 1

Samantha locked the door to her bookstore and walked down the sidewalk into the parking lot where her car waited. She climbed behind the wheel and turned the key to the start position. After three tries the starter finally engaged instead of just spinning freely. Sam sighed in relief. She had been putting off replacing the starter far too long. I'll have to move that to the top of my list, she thought and then smiled. Yeah right, I think you told yourself that the last time it gave trouble, in fact you probably put it as top priority on the list. Then when the car started it went back down to the bottom of the list, she smiled to herself as her thoughts continued. The engine rumbled to life and she put it in gear turning out on the street.

Sam owned the small bookstore and though she had many loyal customers, she was struggling to make ends meet thanks to the large chain store that had opened in nearby Potterville. Sam offered something that was fast becoming a thing forgotten and that was customer service. She cared for her customers and went to great lengths to answer their questions. If a book was in print or if it was available somewhere, Sam had a knack for finding and getting it for her customer. If a customer didn't know the title of a book or the author but knew generally what happened in the book, the chances were excellent that Sam had read it and could locate it. Because of this her business had a loyal following but she was still struggling.

She drove down the deserted street in Stanusburg and headed for her home. Stanusburg was a small town with a population of about five-thousand and located a few miles south of Potterville that had a population of about sixty-thousand. Just large enough to have a crime problem, Sam thought, I'll take Stanusburg any day. Sam drove out of the south end of town and down the highway toward the turnoff two miles out of town that led to her small but comfortable wood frame home. She had lived alone in this house ever since her mother had passed away five years ago. Sam had inherited the bookstore from her mother and though she was only twenty-four years old she was infinitely more mature than most twenty-four year olds and operated the bookstore very well. Her father had died when she was just a young child.

As she drove she reflected on her life. Life! She snorted. I don't think I have much of a life. I go to work, I come home, I read my books, I don't even watch much TV, her thoughts continued. Sam did not party. In fact, outside of customers, she had very few acquaintances. She was a little on the shy side. She had no boyfriend, or girlfriend for that matter, Sam was attracted to both although she had never had a girlfriend before, at least not of a sexual nature anyway. She liked the fact that her home was outside of town and somewhat secluded in the trees. In fact it was not even visible from the highway. The small road that led to her driveway from the highway was easy to miss. Sam had few visitors that came to her house and those that came were not strangers.

She pulled into her driveway, pressed the controller that opened the door on the detached garage and drove her car into the two stall structure. She walked through the walkway that connected the garage and the house and opening the door with her key, stepped into the dark kitchen. That's funny, I could have sworn that I left the light over the range on, Sam thought.

A hand reached from the darkness and a rag was clamped over her mouth and nose. Oh God was Sam's last thought before everything turned inky black.

Charlie was a despicable person. Many would describe him as the lowest of scum. He had no qualms about killing and had done so many times. He especially liked to kill women but not before he had subjected them to every type of degradation he could think of at the time. First he would rape them repeatedly and torture them until they got that wounded look of terror in their eyes. Hearing them beg for mercy was music to his ears but Charlie had no mercy. He would promise to set them free if only they would give him every thing of value they owned. When they had given him everything they had, he would smile and slowly kill them. Very seldom did Charlie use a gun, he much preferred a knife if he had time. He enjoyed watching them squirm and twist as he held them motionless and slowly pushed his knife in them and then cut them open.

Charlie was on run. He had gutted a policeman in a town two hundred miles north of here. The policeman was responding to a scuffle involving Charlie and a woman he was molesting. The woman had escaped but the policeman was not so lucky. Charlie had taken the officer off guard, shoved his knife into the policeman's throat and dragged it downward opening him up down to his belly. He had fled from the alley and spotted a car on the corner waiting for the light to change. Charlie slid into the passenger seat beside the hapless stranger and before the man could react sliced him across the throat holding him in place until he bled to death. He had calmly exited and walked around the vehicle. There he had opened the door and shoved the dead man into the rear seat. It had been late at night and therefore no one had noticed the car sitting through two red lights.

He had driven the car south until it had gotten low on gas, at which point he stashed it out of sight. It just so happened that the small road that passed by Sam's drive was the one he had chosen to stash the car on. As he passed by he had noticed the house and after getting rid of the car had returned to the house with the intention of stealing a car. He had broken a window and entered. He started looking for keys and money. In the process he discovered that there were no male things in house only a solitary female. His plans had changed accordingly. He had found a small hanky and pulled out a vial of Ether he carried in his waist pack. He was totally patient as he sat at the kitchen table and waited. Even when it became dark he did not turn on any lights. At last he had heard the car come up the driveway and enter the garage. Charlie had stepped to the door and waited. When Samantha stepped into the darkness, he had moved from behind the door and covered her mouth and nose with the Ether soaked hanky holding her motionless until her struggles had ceased and she had lost conscious.