Silver Scare

A.N. Each font is a different character's POV.


         I inched down each step, making the least amount of noise as possible.  My palms tingled, my heart raced, I could feel the adrenaline burning through my blood.  I rounded the corner, concentrating, not losing control.  The metal now felt like ice against my steamy hand.  I clutched the knife harder.  I kept my eyes fixed on the walls of Dr. Morgan’s medical study.  Achievement awards, certificates, and family photos were plastered on every wall.  My target finally came into view. He was working late, as always, trying to perfect his latest serum.  I walked toward him; this time it was the serum that felt like ice on my hand.  I padded closer. He was concentrating so hard he didn’t even notice I was there.  I raised my arm, stretching it towards the doctor.  He winced.  I didn’t care.  I went in for the kill.  He was gone before he could even fight back. It felt so good.
         I was already in the bedroom. I paused as I watched my next victim sleep peacefully.  And to think, her life was in my hands; she couldn’t stop me.  I moved forward and traced the lines on her face. She tensed, but didn’t wake.  Suddenly she rolled over and without thinking, I stabbed the scissors into her head.  Blood leaked down her face, beginning to soak the bed sheets.  What a beautiful sight.

         McCoy Brown surveyed the house.  Something wasn’t quite right about his aunt’s home.  His plain brown eyes scanned the area and were drawn to the back door, which was slightly ajar.  He knew this was the killer’s point of entry.  McCoy walked in the front door.  He padded down the stairs to Uncle Morgan’s study.  The coroner was already assessing the body.
         “There is an empty vial and needle on the desk. Bag it for Trace.  He also has a knife in his mouth.  C.O.D. is most likely an overdose from the new serum he was experimenting with.  According to his notes, he received more than ten times the safe amount.” The coroner explained as he placed the body into one of those foreboding black body bags.  “My assistant is with the wife in the master bedroom.” Brown took the stairs by twos, his long strides swiftly bringing him to the second story.  His aunt lay lifeless on the bed, her book still open from some late night reading.  She had a pair of open scissors jutting out from her temple and a fork in her left eye.  She must have been asleep because she hadn’t screamed.  The assistant finally noticed McCoy standing in the doorway. 
         “The scissors are probably the cause.  The fork is post-mortem.  It is a fairly intimate killing, but the fork and the knife don’t make much sense.”  McCoy walked back down the stairs.  Nothing really made sense.  All clues and evidence pointed to his own cousin, Thomas, the son of the victims.  He had a passion for cooking and was a well-known chef here in Harwinton, Connecticut.  His parents had not been very supportive of his career choice, though, and he has resented them for it for many years.  Tom just didn’t fit.  He may be harsh, but not that brutal. 

         I came-to in a kitchen that seemed strangely familiar.  In front of me, I saw that someone was making pancakes. The room was filled with the smell of bacon. It was breakfast time. From where I was standing and the fact that I held a spatula, I figured I must be the one cooking.  Somewhere in my mind something clicked and it made sense.  I’m a chef; I own a restaurant.  I realized that this is something I should really know about.  I should also know where I was and what I was doing here, but I didn’t know the answers to either of those questions either. 
         Soon, I heard someone walk into the room.  When I looked at him, I felt like I should know him, like he was important to me.  He looked to be in his early twenties and wore all black.  He had a few piercings and chains dangling from his pants. 
         Instinctively I backed away.  I didn’t know who this person was and they were walking towards me like they expected me to do something.  All he did though was pass me and grab a piece of bacon which had started to burn while I was distracted by my strange situation.  He began to munch on the meat as he walked away and started to gather things seemingly to go somewhere.  All the while I stood there staring, watching his every move.
         “Who are you?” I finally managed.  He just rolled his eyes.
         “Very funny, Dad.  I’m going over to Ryan’s, so I guess I’ll see you later.”  Then he walked out the door. 
         “Dad?” I said aloud.  I heard the car start, and the roar of its engine fade as he drove away. 
         I sat down and thought for a bit and everything slowly started coming back to me.  I was in my house; I was cooking breakfast for my son; my name was Thomas Morgan.  I began to tremble as I remembered last night: I had gotten a call from my cousin, McCoy, saying that both of my parents had been murdered. 

         I had to wait a week before my next “attack”.  I had a feeling that I was one of the suspects and the cops would find out if I wasn’t patient.
         I speed-walked into the small salon.  Sure, Helena had never done anything bad to me, but she had betrayed me when I needed her most. And that I could not forgive.  Helena was just beginning to close up inside of the salon; I could hear her in the back room.  I cautiously touched the gun in my pocket.  I didn’t really want to use it.  Where’s the fun in that?  No, I wanted to do something a little more creative, but I had brought it just in case.
         I tiptoed to the back room, breathing heavily.  My hands were even shaking.  I turned the doorknob silently with two fingers.  The women I had once considered a friend was inside putting caps on bottles of hair dye.  I had to admit, she was great at what she did – but I doubted she’d be any good at putting up a fight. 
         She spotted me and screamed.  I grabbed Helena and threw her to the ground.  Then in one swift motion, I snatched one of the open bottles and poured its contents down her throat, choking off her cry of, “Help me God!”  I stood back and watched as she suffocated, ingesting the harmful chemicals until she was no longer alive.
         I sighed with relief, only one person left on my to-do list.

         Brown had been investigating for a week before the hairdresser incident.  The killer was good.  They had covered all their tracks, no fingerprints, nothing.  At least, not until the bottle of dye there was one partial fingerprint, right on top of the bottle.  This murder didn’t seem as angry as before, except for the spork.
         “Shoved right up the nose, something that takes skill.” The coroner said.  “This one is either suffocation or poison from the bleach in the hair dye.  We won’t know for sure, though, ‘til we get her to the lab.”  McCoy turned on his heel and headed out the door.  Something didn’t make sense.  Everything before had pointed to Thomas, but Helena didn’t fit.  Tom and Helena were best friends especially after the divorce.  Tara Knight, Tom’s ex-wife, however; was the one with the beef.  McCoy raced over to his car and grabbed his Blackberry.

         I sat at my desk going over some paperwork for the restaurant.  My son (Cody, I had remembered later) had gone out to some party, so the house was empty.  The past week had been very strange.  I had been questioned repeatedly by the police about the night my parents were murdered.  The problem was I could not remember what I had been doing for the life of me. 
         There had been other periods in the past few days that were completely black. I would remember waking up and then suddenly it would be late at night. I would be sitting in my car in the middle one nowhere, my GPS telling me I’m completely lost. Needless to say, I was beginning to get very worried.
         I jumped when the phone rang somewhere in my house. I dreaded having to talk to the police again, but I knew that I should answer.
         I checked the caller ID… Unlisted, could be anyone, I thought.  I slowly picked up the phone and was surprised to hear McCoy Brown on the other end.
         He sounded almost frantic as he spoke. “You have to get out of your house. There has been another murder, your friend Helena Smith. She was found with a utensil in her face, the same as your parents. It has to be the killer’s signature. We had thought it was you, but it’s not. You care too much about Helena. I think you might be next. The killer is going after everyone you are close to. Tom, you have to come to my hotel…NOW.”
         My hands shook as I wrote down the information of the hotel where McCoy was staying.

          I entered the household. I admit, it was impossibly easy to break into my ex-husband’s house. Of course, maybe that was because I used to live there too, but still, he could have changed the locks at least. I walked over to the kitchen table. If I was right, Thomas would plug his computer into this outlet later tonight to check his checking account. During our entire marriage, he would do this out of paranoia thinking that he had less money than he really had. I crouched down and carefully took off the cover. With a simple cut of my scissors, the wires were frayed.

         McCoy raced into Thomas’s house. The scream had tipped him off. He sped into the kitchen to find Cody, Tom and Tara’s only child, dead on the floor. He had electrical burns on his arms and a cell phone plug in the same hand. He knew exactly what had happened. His theory had been right. Behind him, Tara stepped closer.
         “Don’t come any closer!” McCoy raged without even turning to Tara. “How could you do this Tara, kill your own son? Your hairdresser? Your ex-parents-in-law?” McCoy reached for his Colt .45 he had tucked in his belt before leaving Tom. Tara ran over to her son and placed a silver spoon in his mouth. A single tear fell down her cheek.
         “It was supposed to be Tom! I didn’t even know Cody was in town!” Tara screamed. She reached for the butcher knife that had been in the butcher block. Tara lunged for McCoy.
         “Where is he you prick? Why did you warn him? Society could have been better because of me!” Tara hollered as she impaled Brown. Brown cocked his weapon and fired at her. Everything went deathly still.

         I was beginning to worry as I drove down the street my house was on. McCoy had left earlier in the afternoon to grab a few things from my house for me. He had insisted on going alone, so I wasn’t in any danger. I didn’t really like it but I agreed to it. He lied. I sat alone for the past five hours and my house is 10 minutes away.
         As I approached the house, I heard the explosion of a gunshot in my house. Panicking, I immediately jumped out of the car and rushed inside. I knew I wouldn’t like what I was going to find. Part of me wanted to just turn around and not find out what happened, to just have this all disappear with the last two weeks of my life. The larger, less intelligent part of me did want to see what lay in my dream house. It was certainly something of a nightmare now.
         I entered the kitchen and found a grisly sight before me. There were bodies and blood, my family nonetheless. Closest to me was McCoy, with a knife jutting out from his throat. I soaked my pants in the blood that had begun to pool around his body. I knelt down to find a pulse. I felt one beat, but that was just me, my blood pulsing through me.
         Beside him was Tara, my ex-wife with a bullet through her forehead. There was a deranged look on her face that told me she was responsible for all of this. Any pity I would have felt for her dark fate grew cold as I identified the next body.
         My son, Cody, lied lifeless on the floor. I dropped to my knees in shock, tears cascading down my face. I couldn’t handle this. Not Cody. I didn’t even know he had come back from his friend Ryan’s and now he was gone. I had nothing left to live for.
         Without knowing what I was doing, I moved towards where McCoy had dropped his gun. I had passed the point of no return and I was done with life.
         I moved back over to Cody’s body, pressed the gun to my temple and pulled the trigger. All I saw was the fade to black.