Monster: The Story Of A Maniac Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  PETER CRY

  MONSTER

  THE STORY OF A MANIAC

  This bestseller thriller novel of the young writer immerses its reader in a controversial world: intriguing, frightening, full of reality and powerful emotions. It shows that even in the most severe moments of silent darkness a human soul keeps searching for light. And to get to the bottom of the true essence of things, the reader is offered the opportunity to rise to the heavens and observe the darkest sides of human nature from above and very close up.

  Copyright © 2020 by Peter Cry.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2020

  I hope someday

  children may forgive me...

  Chapter 1

  Sunrays slowly glided over the faded pattern on a carpet lying on the floor. Observing them regularly, Jason was able to determine what time it was. He was usually accurate to within about ten minutes.

  That’s how every morning began for him – year after year. Each morning he would open his eyes, turn to his side, and focus on the carpet. He would turn off his alarm clock before it started to go off because he hated the noise it made. It was so piercing that it could penetrate the far corners of his big house.

  The alarm was not the worst thing though. He was more annoyed that despite his customary nine hours of sound sleep he never woke up rested, and he had no dreams. Jason considered that every healthy person should have at least something to dream about, even if it were nightmares. And in his case, there should have been plenty of them. But there was only emptiness, blind, meaningless, darkness. Perhaps that’s why he never felt rested in the morning.

  So, during the day, he had to remove the pent-up tension in other ways. And Jason had a lot of options – diverse and special.

  He threw off his blanket and got up. After opening the dusty curtains and letting the warm sun fill the room, Jason moved to a spot in the center of the bedroom where he routinely did exercises to rid him of the fatigue and the irritation.

  The young thirty-two-year-old man smiled with pleasure as he did his asanas – neatly, tidily, calmly, as by the book. He was enjoying the incredible beauty of the process and his part absorption in it. He was obsessed with keeping his face, body, and looks in the best possible condition, and the sun’s rays accentuated the splendid contours of his body.

  Jason had a god. He believed in him devoutly and adored him – a perfect, absolute ideal. He saw that god every morning when he looked in the mirror. An athletic body with the right proportions and posture, perfect smooth skin, youthful face, and endless self-love, gave this arrogant superman his incredible self-confidence.

  This god had brown, almost black eyes. The color depended on his mood, or on the light falling onto them. Yet, there was something of the predator in Jason's face. He terrified and attracted at the same time with incredibly strong energy and dangerous beauty. There was coldness and indifference in his look – attributes that are so attractive to some women but are the ones that always end up hurting them. What was not visible was the pain of the companion that followed Jason constantly. Different varieties of pain, each with its own incredible history, deep philosophy, and sometimes nasty consequences.

  Jason stood up pleased. His body had got rid of the fatigue, and the anxiety had been flushed out of his head with yoga. There were desires and tasks to be addressed on this beautiful sunny day and he would be up to it.

  He put on his shabby dark-gray terry bathrobe and headed down to the kitchen. He could hear the TV and smell strong fragrant coffee.

  “Good morning,” Howard said with a smile.

  He took the last pancake off a frying pan, put it on a plate and placed it on the table together with the coffee.

  “Hi,” Jason answered indifferently.

  He sat down, took his cup of coffee, and stared at the TV, waiting for the coffee to cool down.

  The news was on. The images did not differ much from the ones from yesterday, or from weeks before. The same endless car chases, another confusing war in Eastern Europe, eternal conflict in the Middle East, floods, earthquakes, and other nonsense he was not interested in.

  “May I sit down?” Howard asked politely.

  Jason nodded without looking away from the TV.

  He drank the coffee slowly and switched through the channels.

  “Incredible! What people waste their time watching! Is this really of interest to anyone?”

  His companion responded with a sarcastic grin.

  A few seconds later, Jason came across a newscast with a flashing ticker: "Breaking News."

  Howard's face changed when he realized what it was about. Jason turned up the sound.

  A pretty newscaster was telling her viewers about an incredibly daring and terrible crime that had been committed on the outskirts of Indianapolis. In the morning, a psychopath, whose identity had not yet been established, had kidnapped five children on their way to school. The abduction was carried out in an extremely brutal way. The culprit had murdered the school bus driver. He had driven the vehicle along the planned route and harvested the unsuspecting children like a crop. After that, he had taken them off in an unknown direction.

  Howard began to worry.

  “I think…”

  “Shut up!” Jason cut him off and turned up the volume as loud as possible.

  The news caster linked up with a correspondent located not far from the crime scene. The yellow school bus stood alone aside from the road about hundred feet behind the journalist. Forensics and police officers were inspecting it, keeping the media away. They were looking for evidence and clues.

  Jason shook his head in frustration and turned off the television.

  “What a nightmare. In broad daylight, so many children... Unlucky poor little fellows.”

  Howard agreed obediently, daring to look at his neighbor as he continued with the breakfast he had prepared with loving care.

  “Check the cattle,” Jason said, as he was chewing. “I'll take a shower. You can tidy up here later.”

  Howard got up and before leaving the room turned around and asked: “Are you going into town today?”

  “Yes, need to buy feed, fertilizers, a lot of everything. Do you need anything?”

  “No. Yesterday you told me to remind you what’s needed. But you’ve remembered anyway.”

  Howard continued to stand in the doorway and stare at Jason eating.

  “What?” Jason asked.

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  Jason’s looked at him in a way that combined kindness with contempt. An endearing smile appeared on Howard’s face.

  “Of course, I did... Everything was delicious
, my friend. As always,” Jason continued to smile. “Now go, we’ve got work to do.”

  Reassured, Howard glided down the corridor. Just like his housemate, Howard had a god. He loved him and was infinitely faithful... But what mattered most, both worshiped the same god.

  Howard Foster was a short, stout man with a paunch, close to sixty. All his life he wanted to look like Jason. He dreamt about it all the time he had been working as a cleaner in a Chicago school, and that had lasted for decades. Growing up, aging, looking at himself in the mirror, pulling back his greasy brown hair with its grey streaks into a ponytail, he never stopped wanting to look different. He had hated his reflection more and more.

  At Lincoln High School, Howard Foster was loved by both pupils and management. He became a local mascot, an attraction. He responded to this appreciation by keeping the classrooms and corridors clean, and sometimes helped with the housekeeping if it was necessary. His keen eyes always watched the students so nothing bad would happen.

  Fortunately, the parents of the pupils could not see inside the head of the reputable janitor – the mixture of envy, hatred, and servility that had been thriving within it for many years. Howard did not feel that way about everyone, only the ones he wanted to be like, whose life he dreamed of living. And although he could never live someone else’s life, he was able to take it away, together with all that made young people loved, active and carefree. It was a miracle that the tall, handsome, dark-haired Jason had suddenly appeared in his mundane life. He had given Howard the opportunity to be what he had always dreamed of being while working at school.

  He had grown older without ever looking any better. He watched endless monotonous late-night shows about the beautiful lives of others, full of youth, joy, and pleasure. Gradually, he began to look at the pupils of his beloved school differently, as if he had turned into a tired, hungry dog.

  Howard left the school three years ago and begun working at Jason’s rustic Iowa farm. For eighteen hours a day he took care of the cattle and an endless field of corn. There was no time to rest. Sometimes, on the busiest days, he thought he was on the verge of collapsing, that his heart would stop, and he would collapse like a worn-out work horse. However, despite all the difficulties, Howard’s new life made him happy. His eyes lost the look of a hungry dog. It was completely different now. It was like if he had become a well-fed hound with a bloody mouth that endlessly tore at raw meat.

  The reason for that change was his work with the cattle. It made all the difference. It didn’t matter that Jason had neither a barn nor a stable on his farm. The most important thing was that he had the cattle…

  ***

  Little Emmy sat in the sunny bedroom on the soft bed. Although, she was completely alone there, she did not dare to look around. She was afraid to move and did everything as she had been told. After spending several minutes on her own, the blonde girl finally raised her head and glanced around. There was a window to the right with sturdy metal bars. On the left was a door. Being metal it contrasted with the wooden ceiling and the floor.

  Emmy could not understand what she was doing in this strange, unfamiliar place. Why was there a camcorder on a tripod in front of her? Why two more to the right and left of the bed? Why were there so many numbered DVD cases, and as many unlabeled ones? Why were there three monitors on the computer desk and not just one...? And who was that strange man, whose huge black-and-white photograph in a shiny metal frame hung on the wall?

  But most of all, little Emmy was interested in when she could finally be with her parents again and eat.

  She heard someone approaching, and a key opening the door. Frozen, she stared down at the carpet again.

  Jason entered the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He stared at the girl sitting on the bed and beamed. On taking a closer look, he noticed that the huddled child was so scared she was trembling. Her breathing irregular and full of fear.

  “Hey... Why aren’t you looking at me?” he asked softly.

  She did not react, kept looking at the floor and shook even more.

  Jason switched on all three cameras in his bedroom, so each began recording everything that was happening in the cozy, floodlit room.

  The strange new school bus driver fixed his hair, still wet after his shower, and sat by Emmy.

  “I just can’t get used to it,” he said quietly to himself. “My face is not visible on the recordings, but I still prepare myself as if it’s me that’s going to be filmed.”

  Jason carefully examined Emmy like an item in a store.

  “I really like your dress. It’s so beautiful.”

  “I’m hungry,” the petrified girl uttered.

  “Well, finally we're talking,” Jason smiled. “If you are an obedient little girl, immediately after we finish what we have to do, you’ll be fed by that nasty uncle with a prickly beard who brought you up here, okay?”

  Emmy nodded her head without looking up.

  “Frightened... So, tense... Stop it! I'm a friend, nobody will hurt you. On the contrary, you’ll enjoy it. You’ll see.”

  Jason touched her blond delicate hair. He carefully began to stroke it like a father.

  A child never knows what is happening in the moments like that, and always anticipates something horrible.

  As soon as the hand of the adult stranger touched the girl’s head, she hunched up.

  “I want my mom and dad. Please, let me go.”

  Strangely, while crying, Emmy did not whimper. While the tears rolled down her cheeks, she held on almost like an adult.

  “You’re already eight years old... Why do you need your parents?” Jason continued to reassure the child. “Just be a good girl, and soon they will come for you.”

  “Okay, I’ll do everything,” Emmy uttered.

  “Hmm... You all have such sweet voices... Like in cartoons. What a pity you lose them as you grow up. Don’t become an adult, Emmy. You are so beautiful just the way you are now.”

  At times like this, a feint squeak would fill Jason's ears, always ending with a deafening silence. His emotions and feelings no longer existed. He became the hostage of the desire ravishing his soul. There was neither tomorrow, nor yesterday, nor the world around, only the place where he was with Emmy, and the things they were about to do.

  His cold hand slid down her silky hair and slowly took off the red shoulder strap from the child’s small white shoulder.

  Emmy's heart froze, she almost stopped breathing and rasped from her tight throat: “Please, don’t.”

  But Jason did not stop. His hand moved to the second strap.

  “Oh, come on, don’t you like that? Just enjoy it,” he continued, as if talking to a grown-up girl.

  His eyes became glazed and looked sickly.

  The child's snow-white teeth, that resembled pearls, were clenched tight. Her lungs were struggling for air. Little defenseless Emmy had been pushed to the edge of that fine border between sanity and madness.

  She began to scream, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” Jumping off the bed Emmy curled up in a corner. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” she begged.

  The child no longer cried. She didn’t try to escape from the clutches of the monster. She just screamed repeatedly, like a robot. Emmy kept calling her mother. Her beautiful eyes were glazed over, and a foggy veil enveloped her trembling soul. Emmy was not there. Only her body was struggling to free itself, while she herself was in the tight embrace of her father, or maybe hugging her mother. She was not in that horrifying room.

  “Stop it!” Jason screamed, getting off the bed.

  He stepped closer to the screaming girl and began to unfasten his belt. Having taken it off and wound it around his hand, he was transformed into a ruthless monster. Smiling, he pointed his finger at the black-and-white photograph hanging on the wall and asked.

  “Do you know who he is? He’s a huge friend of all the people on Earth, especially children. His name is Alfred... Alfred Charles Kinsey. He was a great man, a great scientist. And he t
aught us that all children are sexual."

  Paying no attention to the incomprehensible words of the pervert, Emmy continued calling for her mother. Her childhood dreams and hopes had carried her to a secret place where no one could hurt her.

  “Hallelujah!” the monster continued. “Let’s thank him for that wonderful discovery.” Clenching his fist, he got down on his knee and quietly said, “I hope he likes what he sees next.”

  Suddenly, Jason punched Emmy with the fist that had the leather belt wrapped around it. The blow split her lip and knocked out a tooth. She fell silent for a moment. Stunned, she collapsed on the floor.

  “Passed out,” Jason thought.

  But to his surprise, the child managed to get up. Emmy staggered to the wall and clung to it. Seeing blood on her dress, she covered her face with her hands and began to scream again – this time louder. Her innocent mind was unable to cope with this horror. She was too weak to even scream “Mother!” or “Help!”. There was just a wailing, which the child’s vocal cords could barely sustain.

  “You lousy bitch! Stubborn brat!” Jason raged. “Shut the fuck up! Not all of our customers want to see a child crying.”

  He removed the belt from his hand and began to whip the child, which only intensified her cries.

  ***

  In the garage, Howard was busy with the pickup truck. He was replacing old tires, which urgently needed to be burned, with new ones. While bolting a wheel to the vehicle, he suddenly heard the screams of a terrified child. He straightened up, dropped the wheel from his hands and listened carefully. An evil smile spread over his face.

  “Jason,” he whispered lovingly.

  Suddenly, Howard realized the master had forgotten to close the window in his bedroom. Even though they lived in the middle of a grove adjoining a huge field, and that there were no other homes for miles around, he knew, cries coming from the house, was dangerous for business.

  He ran to the house and rushed upstairs. Before he reached the end of the corridor, where Jason's bedroom was, he stopped. The owner of the house suddenly appeared in front of him. He had left the bedroom and seemed lost, agitated, with an almost rabid look. He was muttering something through his teeth and holding his head in his hands.