Deadpix
Prologue 

It was late, dark; we were on our way from Gila Bend to Mesa, our home in Arizona when the first flash of light startled me.
Another flash bounced off the dry rocks lining that part of the desert highway.
A third followed.
   'What is that?' I murmured.
Robert didn't have time to speak. I didn't have time to check Jack in his baby-seat.
The car took off, airborne one second then on its roof, screeching along the road, showers of sparks flying past the window.
There was crying - Jack I think.
Screaming - perhaps me, perhaps Robert.
There was crashing, the crunching of metal, the shattering of glass.
And then – silence.

 

Chapter one
Four years later

His back to his guest, he edged towards the door of a seedy motel room on the outskirts of Blythe, California.
He brought a cigarette to his lips and stared through a grimy window. His digital video camera sat beside a
laptop computer on the dressing table. A tall blonde, her face pitted and scarred from years of drug abuse,
fastened her leather miniskirt, eyeing the expensive equipment.
   ‘You want to make a porno movie, Sugar? It’ll only cost ya another fifty bucks,’ she remarked, lifting the
cash he’d put on a table for her.
   ‘Porno isn’t my scene,’ he replied, opening the door.
   ‘Maybe next time huh?’ she suggested, stepping outside. He flicked his cigarette into the courtyard and
kicked the door closed behind her. She sneered over her shoulder, gave him the finger and walked away,
counting her money.
   Sitting before his laptop, he lit another cigarette. He connected the video and computer equipment together,
lazily switching on the devices. He started transferring data from the camera to the pc, and pulled a cell-phone
from his pocket.
   ‘It’s loading from the camera now. I’ll have it online in an hour or so. Hot off the press. –
Usual fee, usual process. – You’ll love this one, there’s lot’s of screaming. – I’ll be doing another one soon. –
Yeah sure, talk to you later.’
   The transfer complete, he switched off the camera. Using video editing software, he viewed the scenes he’d
filmed the night before. He smiled at the images on his screen, cutting out the gaps between sections of action
he considered worth keeping.
   It started in a secluded roadside rest area. Seats reclined, windows rolled up tight, a single car was parked
facing a narrow gorge beyond a safety rail. A teenage boy and girl were necking inside a ’79 Trans Am.
The youngsters were oblivious to the man watching them. They didn’t see him leave his camera, hidden
between trees at the edge of the rest area, and approach low to the ground, an unlit cigarette between his lips. 
   He slid under the back of the vehicle, quietly, confidently, as though he’d done it a hundred times. Shuffling
a little to get comfortable, he casually pulled a pair of cutters from his pocket and cut the fuel line. Gasoline
ran from the severed pipe in a steady trickle. Almost laughing, he watched the gas soak the ground and spread,
before he squeezed past a wheel. He moved out from under and forward along the side of the car, the cigarette
still between his lips. 
   Grimacing, he stretched his arm, reached under the front of the car and placed a bundle of rags beneath the
engine. The couple were so engrossed, they didn’t notice the man lighting a cigarette beside their front fender.
They didn’t see him reach under the car and ignite the rags. He stood up, smiled at the preoccupied teens and
casually walked back to his camera.
   Small flames licked the edges of the rags. A little smoke wafted up over the hood, unnoticed by the car’s
occupants. He licked his lips, smiled, flicked his cigarette away and grabbed the camera. There was a rush
of air, it sounded like a dull thud, as the gasoline caught. He almost laughed as the flames ran back under
the car in a flash. Fire engulfed the vehicle instantly. The fuel had spread into a large disk on the porous
ground, leaving no escape for the teenagers.
   The blaze grew quickly. He watched the frantic couple beg for help, and filmed every second of their demise.
The young half dressed man kicked and punched the windows, but they wouldn’t break. Smoke filled the interior
of the car. Flames lapped the windows, blackening the glass.
   Struggling to breathe, they smeared the sooty windows in an effort to see outside. Their screams broadened his
smile, as he walked around the inferno. They saw him through the flames, pleaded to the smiling cameraman, but
he continued filming. He stayed a safe distance, knowing the tank would blow any second. The Trans Am
paintwork peeled and shrivelled under the intense heat. Their screams quickly faded. A huge ball of flames blew
out from under the car and rolled skyward as the fuel tank exploded.
   He videoed the tires exploding, the windows and windshields imploding, then as the flames slowly died down, he
focused on the charred remains. Twisted, smoking bones were contorted into strange positions by the heat. Flesh
quickly shrunk and blackened on the lifeless faces. Their mouths, now silent, stuck in permanent scream.
   An hour later he’d uploaded the video file to the World Wide Web and was ready to leave. Unnoticed by motel
residents, he climbed into his white van and drove away. He enjoyed the traveling, but most of all he loved the
killing. He’d lost count of the random kills, but knew he’d been lucky over the years. Death was his pastime, his
all-consuming passion. Nothing made him feel as good, not even sex.


The first two years were the hardest. I rarely bothered to dress, when I managed to crawl out of bed. I looked after Jack,
though it was hard to find any motivation. It’s strange looking back. Every day was gray, like a childhood memory of winters
in London. The Arizona sun could have been scorching the earth, but my memories are of gloomy days spent indoors. I often
thought of moving back to England during those first two years.
   My older brother Craig has been great. He reminded me that I hadn’t seen England since I was twelve, and that we’ve
nobody left there. Mom and Dad are long dead, but Arizona is home. With Craig’s help, I’ve managed to pull myself together,
enough to be a better mother anyway.
   Things have slowly become easier. I get dressed in the mornings. I even do the grocery run more regularly. I’ve started
dabbling with photography again, an old passion I hadn’t really bothered with since marrying Robert. The darkroom has
become my retreat, a place where I can hide from the world.
   It was coming up to the fourth anniversary of the accident. I was, as usual at these times, feeling pretty low. It was one
of the ordinary, pitiful days that I counted to the anniversary, when it happened. Jack was at school. I was working on my
web site, uploading my latest batch of photos. The site quickly became something of a shrine to Robert. Happy that I was
sending the right files, I wandered through to the kitchen and fixed myself a drink.
  I sipped coffee; my computer beeped. Three messages loaded into the email window. The first was from Craig.
   “No party pooping tonight sis. We’re coming over. Don’t worry we won’t stay long. We’ve got a club to go check out.
See you at 8. Love and hugs. Craig & Larry.”
   The self-invitation read and saved, I checked the second email. The subject heading read, “Lose five pounds...” I deleted
it without a second thought. My focus turned to the last subject header.
   “Truth about Robert.”
I froze. I couldn’t take it in. The sender’s address, “010101@hotmail.com,” a fake if ever I saw one. I leaned back in my
chair and gazed at the screen. My images loaded into the web page in the background. Perhaps it was some bizarre coincidence.
Maybe another spammer using Hotmail just happened to use a phrase that hit me hard. I almost deleted it.
   The text appeared in a blink. It came up so fast my eyes took a few seconds to adjust. My mouth became dry. I re-focused.
It wasn’t a spam message, nor was it a coincidence. I dropped my coffee mug and tried to breathe. Covering my mouth, I ran to
the bathroom and promptly threw up.
   One short, chilling email threw me back into the car that night. Memories of the crash ran through my mind in a series of horrific
images. I tried to make sense of what I’d read. My stomach felt hollow. I retched again, but nothing came up. Blown away, I was
quite simply blown away. It had to be a crank. I couldn’t explain it any other way.
   The bathroom floor was cold and hard. My head over the toilet bowl, I listened to the sound of my breathing echo around me.
I tried to think. It took ages for anything to filter through the shock. Anger started to take over. Who could be so cruel, so sick?
I ran back to the computer. Trembling with rage I studied the email. The account used was web based, so meant little or nothing.
Two sentences made up the body of the message, questions to be precise.
   “Was it an accident?”
   “Do you get news?”
   The first question had haunted me from the moment I woke in the hospital four years earlier. It was a question the police had asked
more than once. But a subsequent investigation quickly concluded the crash had been an accident and nothing more. There was no
motive for anyone wanting either of us dead. So why was someone asking that question again? Why now, four years later? The second
question made no sense to me.
   I knew it would be a waste of time, but I had to vent. I typed my reply, snarling quietly with each keystroke. “I don’t know who you
are, or what the hell you want. Have you considered professional help? You’re obviously a sick fuck! So fuck off!” The server returned
my reply almost instantly; stating the account I’d addressed didn’t exist. I stabbed the delete key with my finger. My returned mail
erased, I almost deleted the sicko message, but grabbed the mouse instead.
   I closed the email window. Robert’s face smiled at me from the screen. It was a picture I took when we were dating. His hair was longer,
his skin softer. I gazed at his image for several minutes. The anger simmering in my gut turned to anguish. I closed the updated web pages and
shut down the computer. I tried to push the email out of my head, but it wouldn’t let up. Who? Why? What did they mean? I powered up
the pc again. Banging my fists on the desk, I waited for the system to boot up. It seemed to take longer than usual, but eventually my pc was
ready. I opened the email program again. There was nothing to explain it. No way to trace the sender. Just two damned questions that didn’t
make sense. I screamed with frustration, slapped the keyboard and turned off the computer again. Frustrated by the knowledge that there
wasn’t anything I could do, I kicked the desk and stood up. Snatching up my coffee mug from the floor, I trudged to the kitchen.
   The mug slipped beneath a layer of bubbles in the sink, I sank to the floor. Crouching against a closet, I wept. I punched the closet door.
Four years of grief gushed out of me and still there was more. I must have bawled for half an hour, there on the cold kitchen floor. My renewed
agony, mixed with moments of fury. Someone had taken my grief and perverted it. Hate filled me up and swept me away. But I had no one to
hate, just a dumb email.
   I dried my face with a fistful of paper towels, took a deep breath and wandered to my bedroom. The woman looking out of my mirror was
in a mess. Untidy blonde waves hung over her shoulders, blue eyes edged with red gazed back at me. Mascara streaked her cheeks.
God what a state! She was a hundred and fifty pounds of slouching. I straightened up, dried my face again and cleaned myself up.
Whoever was out to hurt me had succeeded, but they couldn’t destroy me. I left the house early to collect Jack from school. He was
my priority; no lousy email was going to change that.
    No matter how I tried to ignore it, the email bugged me. The questions repeated in my mind. Could Robert have been seeing someone?
Was there something he’d been hiding from me? We’d had a great marriage, but it wasn’t always perfect. We’d had our ups and downs.
We’d made our mistakes, but we loved each other, perhaps to the point of obsession. I thought I knew the answers, but the questions nagged
at my core.
   I had forty minutes to spare, so I took a trip to Fiesta mall. I stared without focus at the goods on sale. After leaving the mall for a visit to
Safeway, we had groceries for the week. Groceries filled the back seat of the car, but I couldn’t tell you what I’d bought.
   I sat outside the school gates watching other parents arrive. They were happy looking women. They gathered in groups on the sidewalk.
I always chose to wait in the car; I felt awkward listening to their “normal” family-related chatter.
   I focused on my windshield. The smudges left by splattered bugs reminded me of my pain. My mind drifted from the crash to the
email and back.
   Children poured from the school in a noisy rush, snatching my attention. I caught sight of a man waiting with his wife. He held her around the
waist. They waved at their child as he ran towards them. It was an idyllic scene; I wished it had starred Robert, Jack and me.
   ‘Mom! We got frogs in the class tank!’ Jack shouted, startling me as he reached my window.
   ‘Hi honey! You can tell me all about it on the way home.’
   He got it and fastened his seatbelt. I leaned over to kiss him. He backed away fast, ‘Mom! Not in front of the guys!’ He offered his cheek
with a smile. I looked around, kissed my fingertips and touched his cheek. He smiled at my compromise.
   ‘Why don’t you tell me about the frogs?’ I suggested and pulled away. His beaming smile eased my distraction as we drove home. He spoke
with excitement. Stories of screaming girls and teasing boys, washed over me. I laughed in all the right places, but Jack’s tales of mischief couldn’t
delete the email from my thoughts. I struggled to pay attention to him.
   The urge to cry annoyed me, but it wouldn’t let up. I drove without thinking about the turns I took or the lights I may have jumped. Trying to
listen to my son and appear interested wasn’t easy, but I thought I had him fooled. No matter what I was going through, he didn’t deserve to
suffer. I had to clear my head. I wound down the window, but the air outside was hotter than hell.
   ‘What’s up Mom?’
   ‘Huh?’
   ‘Are you okay? You look upset.’
His perception was too acute for my liking, but I think I managed to con him.
   ‘Hey, I’m fine. Sorry honey, I was thinking about dinner. Why don’t you tell me about the frogs again? It sounds really funny,’ I replied and
tried to think about dinner as he repeated his story.
   The questions foremost on my mind switched between what to cook, to who had sent the email. Pasta was the easy answer to the first question.
The second question was another story. I knew I was in for a rough night. If it meant no sleep, I didn’t care. I wouldn’t quit until I’d exhausted
every possibility.
Jack’s voice, his laughter, soothed away some of my pain.
Thank God for Jack.

-----
That's all for now folks...

HOME