Hunting Monsters: Book One
by Allen Currier
In a sleepy little town, a seasoned detective and a killer the
likes of which no one has ever seen. Detective Steve Belcher has his work cut
out for him. But how do you find a killer who leaves no clues. A killer who has
the police lost at every turn. How many bodies will stack up until Detective
Belcher can find the monster committing these unspeakable crimes? How many
monsters will he have to chase down to find the one behind the murders? Where
are the monsters and who are the hunters? In whose mind do they live?
Excerpt
Their heads had been severed. The wife's
terrified features, pale and ghoulish, taunted him from the body of her
husband. The son-of-a-bitch had switched their heads. Detective Steve Belcher
leaned in and examined the crude stitching on the couple’s necks. He rubbed his
finger across the stitches, and it slid between the dried scabbed skin and
tissue. He jerked back in disgust, and the head fell over, restrained only by
the stitching stretched over the loose skin. He reached over and pushed the
head back in place. Fear ran through him, and a cold sweat covered his forehead
as he imagined the horror they’d faced.
Their dried out eyes had already begun to
shrivel in their sockets. A pale white glaze was forming over the pupils,
nearly obscuring the blue color. The built up gasses in the bloated bodies’
decaying organs permeated the air so thickly the stench filled his nostrils and
mouth.
He gagged and almost vomited. He swallowed
hard. The skin on the bodies had dried and shriveled to the point of cracking
and revealed the tissue underneath.
In his twenty-five years on the force, he
hadn’t felt this level of fear mixed with hatred erupting in him. He didn't
know what kind of sick bastard had done this, but he would find out.
He left the bodies and continued around the
rest of the house. No matter where he looked, no clues seemed to be left
behind. Everything was too clean. The pictures on the walls of family, the
decorated place mats on the dining room table, showed how the couple cared for
the house. The numerous windows wore only top valences, exposing the crime
scene to the many on-lookers in the neighborhood.
To have two bodies desexualized in such a
manner and have no mess told him it hadn’t happened here. He needed to look
elsewhere, but where, he didn't know.
The coroner reached up and closed the eyes of
the victims, completing her work. Doctor Fisher, dressed in her blue pants suit
and white coat, stood up and removed her gloves. She turned to the detective.
“This is a new one for the books,” she said. She had been with the Sheriff’s
Department for as long as Steve. Her short brown hair covered by the hairnet
she wore, just covered her ears.
“Yeah, just what I needed this morning,”
Detective Belcher said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“None at all, and I'm not sure where to start,
either,” she said. “Let’s get them back to the lab so I can find some answers,”
she told the men waiting to bag the bodies for transport. She picked up her
bag, ready to leave the scene.
* * * *
Steve watched the local news reporter, Lacy
James. She stood on the street in front of the crime scene, fingers pressed to
her ear. Her long blonde hair moved with the breeze. Only five feet tall, she
was petite and fit. She got the lead on the best stories to report.
“The police have told us two people were found
murdered in the house behind me, a husband and wife of thirty years. At this
time, the police will not speculate on any motive or suspects. We will keep you
up to date as soon as we know more. This is Lacy James reporting live, back to
you in the studio.”
She ended the cutaway. “Load up the van,” she
said to the cameraman. “Let’s go.”
The gurneys, with the two body bags to be
loaded in the awaiting van, where wheeled out. Lacy stared into the forming
crowd and met Steve’s gaze as the detective left the house. Dressed in his
oldest suit and nineteen eighties wingtip shoes, he probably looked like
something out of an old movie to her. Every day the mirror told him his
silver-streaked hair and exhausted face revealed the stress of too many years
working long hours. His dark blue piercing eyes looked right through suspects,
but they didn’t faze Lacy, and she ran to catch him.
“Detective, is there anything you can tell us?
What happened in the house?”
“Not now, Lacy, you’ll have to wait for the
press conference like everyone else.”
“Can you at least tell us their names?” she
said with contempt in her voice.
He got in his car and drove away.
About the Author
Born and raised in a military family, Allen spent most of his
youth traveling from one Air Force Base to another. That allowed a wide-eyed
boy to open his imagination to all of the different worlds around him. Having
learned from life's experiences showed him how much adventure there is in the
world, that along with the old westerns he watched as a child to the science
fiction he still enjoys today, his mind was opened up to a wonderful world of
endless possibilities. Starting out early writing songs played a big role in
creating and singing a song for his daughter's wedding for the father daughter
dance. Allen has been married for thirty-seven years to his beautiful wife and
has been blessed with three daughters and four granddaughters.
He was once told that "you can't read a book, much less
write one." He thought to himself "Challenge accepted." So out
of spite, he sat in a dark room letting his mind wander down pathways that had
been closed by time and life. This opened up a world long forgotten. Telling no
one, he completed his first manuscript and found a publisher. Today he is a
published author, a song writer and if flying a model toy helicopter counts,
he'd tell you he's a pilot. His only dream is to see his family happy, healthy,
loved, and laughing through life. He works very hard at the last one.
