The abduction, rape, and brutal murder of Samantha Runnion in California compelled me to send Justin Graves after a murderous child abductor in Deckers Texas. This was a difficult story for me to write. Though it is not graphic in detail, it is highly suggestive of a very disturbing subject, pedophilia. Comments are always welcome.

By

Terry Wright

A deathlike silence crept into the dinning room. Edgar glanced up from his plate, noticed his wife not eating her meal, and then returned his attention to his mashed potatoes. What did she have to complain about, anyway? They lived in a nice house in the suburbs of LA. His job at the consulting firm afforded them a lavish lifestyle. He was doing well for thirty-two, though he was prematurely balding.

          Delores pushed her dinner plate away. “I can’t take any more of this,” she said in a whisper-soft voice.

He pretended not to hear her.

“This marriage is a joke,” she said louder.

Edgar shrugged. He knew she wouldn’t do anything about it. She hadn’t done anything about it for ten years. Besides, wives never tell on their husbands. The revelation would be too embarrassing, though he truly believed he wasn’t doing anything wrong. “Why don’t you just shut up?”

“You shouldn’t be allowed to work around all those children.”

He pointed his fork at her. “You want all our snobby friends at church to find out?”

She just glared at him.

“I thought not.” His consulting firm was handling the new contract for LA County’s preschools. He was now working on site, elbow to elbow with the administrators and teachers, and blissfully in direct contact with children everyday.

Rising, Delores took her plate to the sink. “You better not touch those kids.”

“Go to bed.” 

She was right about their marriage. It was a sham...a front. After all, he had to keep his image up. He was a devoted husband, a deacon of the church, and an upstanding citizen in the community. No one would ever suspect he was pedophile.

After dinner, he went upstairs, showered and donned a robe, which he left hang open down the front. Delores closed the bedroom door without saying goodnight, as usual.

          Relieved she was out of the way, he stepped into his study and shut the door behind him. This was his private room, decorated with reminders of his boyhood, his model airplanes, his old catcher’s mitt, and his favorite comic books.

          Sitting at his computer desk, he unlocked the bottom drawer and pulled it open. Inside he saw his greatest treasure, the scrapbook, which he took in his hands as lovingly as Romeo had taken Juliet. His mouth began to water. He opened it.

          On the first page, the princess JonBenet Ramsey gazed out at him. Her picture was said to be the most widely distributed photo among pedophiles. She posed in a white dress with ruffled trim, and her curly blonde hair cascaded down to her shoulders. She had mascara on her eyelashes and red painted lips. His heart raced. 

           On the next page, Sears catalogue clippings of little girls modeling short dresses smiled out at him. His fingers tingled as he turned the pages with gentle strokes. In some poses he swore he could see the slightest glint of white panties. His robe fell open, exposing himself to the air-conditioned room. He shivered with delight.

Now he was ready for more stimulation. Turning to his computer, he logged online as Lidlwacker and opened his mailbox. There, he found an email from “The Club” with the daily password he needed to get on their Web site. With pulse racing, he worked the keyboard. The screen soon displayed a picture of his boldest fantasy, a naked man hunched over a small child.

Edgar’s excitement became intense. He grabbed himself through the open slat of his robe. Moments later and dreamily exhausted, he forwarded his latest find to one of his “buddies” online: Pearlfancy.

Howard sat in front of his computer and eyed the flashing icon indicating a new download had arrived in his private folder, Pearlfancy. A 30-year-old and handsome man, he fancied himself a pearl among pedophiles. And he was good at deception. Even his new wife didn’t know his secret.

“I’m going to work now,” Rachael called out from the hallway. She worked night cashier for Oklahoma City Market. He worked in the bakery department there. Everybody loved him, especially all the wonderful children that came in for the free cookies that he’d set on the counter for them. 

“The kids are in bed. Bye.”

“I love you,” he replied, though he really didn’t love her. She was a necessary part of his secret life. He had to keep up the façade as loving husband and caring stepfather in order to get close to her angelic children.

The front door closed. His heart rate went up a notch. Now that she was gone, the fun could begin. He opened his Pearlfancy folder. The attachment was from Lidlwacker, some closet pedophile in LA. It was a tantalizing picture that made Howard’s imagination run wild. The line between fantasy and reality dissolved. With his heart racing, he forwarded the download to Crotchpotato then made his way to his stepchildren’s bedroom.

Mrs. Drake shouted up the stairs to her 27-year-old son’s room. “Your breakfast is on the table.” The door was closed, as usual. “When are you going to get a job?”

“Shut up, Mother. I don’t need a job.”

“You lay around all day watching TV with those kids.”

Darren drew the bedcovers over his head. “I work on the computer.”

“That filthy smut box?

 God, he hated it when she started nagging him. “Find friends your own age. Wash the BMW. Get a job.” Darren liked things just the way they were. His room was his sanctuary. Here he could play with his erector set and his model cars. And some of the neighbor children would come over and play with him, too. What was wrong with that?  “Leave me alone!”

“I want that kitchen cleaned up by the time I get back from Deckers Golf Haven.”

          “Go to hell.” Darren didn’t give a damn what she wanted. After all, she’s the one that married that prick. His father was the one who taught him how to intimidate, humiliate, and control children. They were vulnerable. In their innocence, they truly wanted to please him. Darren had no use for friends his own age.

The car cranked, and his mother drove off.

Darren’s rage boiled inside. He remembered when he was a boy, how his father would call him a dickhead and make him do the unmentionable things. Child’s play, he had said it was. “This is how we love each other”. Afterwards, he would threaten to tell his friends what a nasty little boy he was, what a filthy dickhead. How humiliating that would have been. Fear may have kept him from telling anyone what his father was doing to him, but he could not contain his anger. He mistreated his friends, bullied them, and frightened them away so his father would have no one to tell.

Several years ago, his father died and left Darren a lot of money. Guilt money, he surmised. Since then, he learned that many parents in the neighborhood didn’t give a crap about their children, where they spent their afternoons or whom they were with. That was the trick, he knew, spotting the kids who were bored, the lonely kids with idle time on their hands. They were perfect kids for child’s play.

He got out of bed, sat naked at his computer, and signed online: Crotchpotato. There was an attachment from Pearlfancy, a picture that didn’t particularly move him. He’d done all that before.

The doorbell rang. Shit! They’re here. Not ready for visitors, he threw on his favorite pair of baggy shorts and bounded down the stairs. Quickly, he combed fingers through his curly brown hair and opened the door.

“Hi, Uncle Darren,” said Mikey, a neighbor’s six year old son. “I brought my sister. She’s already seven.”

“You’re just in time for The Power Rangers.” Darren poked his head out the door, looked up and down the street for any nosy goody-two-shoes, then ushered the children inside. Now the seven-year-old girl had his full attention. She wore yellow shorts and a white top, her skin creamy smooth. “What’s your name?” 

Her pigtails flailed back and forth as she refused to answer.

“It’s Sadie,” Michael said and rushed to turn on the VCR.

Darren could already feel himself getting excited inside his baggy shorts. “Would you like a Coke?”

“I do.” Michael plopped on the floor in front of the TV. Sadie nodded and knelt next to him. She was nervously quiet, and Darren wondered if he could convince her to play with him. “Help yourself to the candy dish.” 

In the kitchen, he poured two glasses of Coke and spiked them with Vodka. He really wasn’t in the mood for child’s play today, being upset about his father and all. He’d rather just get on with it, do the deed and dump the dregs. After inserting straws in the glasses, he returned to the front room. “Drink up.”

“This tastes funny,” Sadie said.

“Don’t be a brat.” When he sat on the couch, he made sure he exposed himself to her through the baggy legs of his shorts. 

Sadie saw him. “You don’t have any underwear on.”

“You want to touch it?”

She gasped. “I’m telling! Come on, Mikey.” She grabbed her brother’s arm. “We’re going home.”

Darren leaped from the couch. He had enough of this child’s play crap, anyway. First his mother was on his ass, then his father’s memory pissed him off, and now this little bitch was going to blab to everyone. He blocked the door with his body. “You’re not going anywhere.”   

Down in Deckers Gulch, a small and naked body floated facedown in stagnant green water. It was Sadie Cross. Her little brother, Michael, was still missing. Texas Ranger Captain Holland and his team of homicide detectives were on the scene. This was the third dead child this year. They’d found footprints in the mud. Forensics was making plaster casts of the impressions. A madman was on the loose in Deckers, raping and killing children.

In the afterlife, the light revealed this scene to Justin as he sat in his favorite chair surrounded by a warm glow. He was clean-shaven and smelled of Stetson cologne. His clothes were neatly pressed, and his cowboy hat sat comfortably canted on his head. But none of this lightened his mood. As if Billy Denton’s brutal assault against the Rangers wasn’t enough, it now seemed as though the Devil himself had brought the worst imaginable suffering to their town, the slaughter of innocence.

“Put aside your hate, Justice,” the light said in a deep voice. “Help Captain Holland save the children.”

            “I want my daughter back.”

“You’ll soon have a visitor. She will help you.”

            “You know I work alone.”

            “She was only seven years old, Justin, sexually assaulted, brutally slain, and discarded like garbage.”

            Justin’s problems seemed suddenly small. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

            The light dimmed a little. “Pedophiles have recurrent and intense sexual urges, which arouse fantasies involving adult sexual activities with children. It’s a psychological disorder that usually does not involve a criminal act.”

            “Sounds criminal to me.”

            “Pedophilia becomes a crime when the pedophile acts out his fantasies. The vast majority of them do not cross that line. Those who do are called ‘child molesters.’  They seduce children by offering gifts and appealing to their emotional weaknesses. These molesters can have hundreds of victims before they are discovered.”

            “And you believe one of these whackos is terrorizing Deckers?”

            “Worse,” the light said. “What you have in Deckers is a 'child abductor.' These are the most dangerous molesters of all. They snatch children off the streets, take them from their front yards, and even grab them out of their beds in the middle of the night.”

            Justin’s mind couldn’t fathom the depth of that horror. “And they do this for sexual gratification?”

            The light replied, “Like rape, most molestations are about power and control. Children are weak and easily coerced. Where sexual desire is not the main driving force, the pedophile is classified as a ‘situational child molester.’ His choice of victim is strictly based on availability. His motivation is criminal in intent and often fueled by abuses he’d suffered during his youth. Abuse breeds abuse, Justice.”

            “Justice!” The light interrupted. “You’d better watch this.”

            The light flickered and parted, showing Justin a scene in the land of the living. A small bed appeared on which a young girl was sleeping. She wore a short pink dress, bobby socks, and saddle shoes. Suddenly, she sat up and screamed.

            Sally’s little heart was pounding like mad. She darted her eyes around the bedroom. Her afternoon nap had run overtime. Now the dim light of dusk seeped in around the curtains. Everything looked familiar, and safe. But was the snake really gone? She leaped to the floor and sprinted for the kitchen. There, she found her mother sitting at the table, a stinky cigarette clamped between two fingers and the phone pressed to her ear. Her words slurred. “What did she say, for Christsake?” 

           Empty beer bottles lay all around like sleeping puppies.

“Mom?” Sally tugged on her mother’s shirtsleeve. “I had a bad dream.”

“Shhh!”

“I’m frightened.”

Mom clutched the receiver to her chest and glared. “Can’t yah see I’m talkin’ on the phone? Why don’tcha watch TV or somethin’?”

“It’s broken.”

“Then fix it.”

“Gee, Mom, I’m only six.”

“Go outside and play.”

“But it’s getting dark.”

“Go...”

“I’m hungry.”

“Do you want a whippin’?”

“All right!”

Mom lifted the phone to her ear again. “Kids can be such a pain in the ass. Where were we? Oh yah...”

Sally sighed and headed for the front door. Outside, the sky was beginning to darken and streetlights winked on.

“Hi, Sally.” Her little next-door neighbor friend was standing by the front gate. She wore blue shorts and a white blouse with a ketchup stain on the front. Her face was dirty.

Delighted, Sally asked, “Trisha, how come you’re out so late?”

“My dad is drunk, and my mom’s at work. Wanna play some jacks?” She held out her open hand, displaying silver jacks and a red rubber ball.           

“Sure.” Sally bounded out the gate with renewed happiness. Sitting on the sidewalk Indian style, she arranged her dress so her panties wouldn’t show and pulled up her bobby socks a little. Trisha sat across from her and tossed the jacks. She was only five and had them scattered out too far. “I had a bad dream,” Sally said, taking the red ball from Trisha. “You want to hear about it?”

“Will I be scared?”

“I was.”

“Forget that. Bounce the ball.”

“After I tell you, first. There was this snake, you see—this big snake was chasing me. He was in the grass going really fast, and I ran and ran, but I couldn’t get away.”

Trisha’s eyes got big around.

“Then there was this tall fence, and I tried to jump up, but I couldn’t reach the top. A loud hiss came from behind me, and when I turned around, the snake’s mouth was wide open with fangs coming up to my face. I woke up just before it bit me. I was never so scared in my whole life. I screamed as loud as I could, but my mom was on the phone and didn’t hear me.”

“Bounce the ball,” Trisha said, exasperated.

A silver car pulled up to the curb. The door flew open, and a man came toward her. Sally suddenly felt afraid. Quickly, she resituated her dress, which had hiked up her thighs a little while she was telling Trisha about the snake.

“Have you seen my little dog?” the man asked in a soft voice. He had curly brown hair and looked worried. “Her name is Candy. I can’t find her,” he said. “She might get run over by a car. Will you help me find her?”

Though the lost dog troubled Sally deeply, she said, “My mom told me never talk to strangers.”

The man bent over. His open hand came down close to her knee. “Candy’s only about this tall...”

She scooted back.

He grabbed her leg.

A wave of panic engulfed her, a huge fear like she had in the dream with the snake. “Run, Trisha! Tell my mommy! Tell my mommy!” Sally kicked and screamed, but a hand suddenly covered her mouth and nose. She couldn’t breathe.

He forced her into the car.

The car raced away, tires smoking.“You don’t have much time to find her,” the light said to Justin. “She has a 74% chance of being killed within the first three hours.”

“Please find Mikey too,” Sadie said and stepped back into the light.

Justin felt a pang in his chest as he dematerialized back to Earth.

Footsteps and hollow voices echoed through the halls of Deckers City Morgue. Tiled floors and whitewashed walls could not erase the aura of death in this place. And on the stainless steel table in the examination room, a child’s lifeless form lay in a swirling puddle of water tainted with body fluids and blood. Captain Holland could hardly bear to watch the autopsy in progress. Little Michael Cross had been found in a dumpster behind Deckers Lumber and Landscape. The medical examiner worked skillfully and displayed no emotion as he drew diagrams and took notes documenting the boy’s bruises and crushed throat.

Sleep tore at Holland’s eyelids. His healing chest wound throbbed. Suddenly, the smell of formaldehyde in the room intensified. He thought he was going to vomit. Then he felt a familiar pressure on his chest and realized the stench was Justin Graves, though the ghoul had not revealed himself. “Justice? Where are you?”

The coroner grumped. “There is no justice for this kind of crime.”

Justin’s raspy voice reached only Holland’s ears. “I talked with his sister, Sadie.”

“We’ve got to find out who did this,” Captain Holland said.

The coroner nodded and went about his gruesome task.

“Darren Drake did it,” Justin said.

Holland gasped. “That preppy overgrown adolescent with the silver BMW?”

“And worse,” Justin added. “He’s taken another child.”

“Oh my God. We’ve got to find him.”

Looking up, “Do you mind?” the coroner said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“I’ll be back.” Holland ran outside to his squad car, his chest wound on fire. Judging from the formaldehyde smell that accompanied him, he surmised Justice had followed him. Holland started the car, turned on the overheads, and peeled out of the parking lot. Now his car smelled like a dissected frog.

“Last time I saw Darren,” Justin said in a sandpaper voice, “he was headed out of town on Route 22.”

Holland rolled down his window to get some fresh air. “Maybe we can cut him off at Miller Junction.” He flipped on the siren and screamed past cars veering for the shoulder. “Where do you suppose he’s headed?”

“Deckers Gulch,” Justin said. “He’s familiar with that territory.”

Holland glanced at the passenger seat. Justice had materialized. He was hanging onto the armrest and the dash, his face rotten and pale, his molars reflecting the headlights of oncoming cars. His tattered brown coat shed dirt and worms all over the seat. “Better buckle your saftey belt,” Holland said.

“Like that’s going to save my life .” The car hit a bump. Justin put a bony hand on top of his cowboy hat. Dust flew. “Can you go any faster?”

“Who did Darren kidnap?” Holland asked as he barreled toward Miller Junction.

“Six year old, Sally Daniels.”

“Nice family,” Holland said.

“Her mother is a drunk. She ignored Sally and put her in danger.”

“We can’t watch our kids every second, Justice.”

“Don’t you people understand?” Justin said. “Molesters and abductors are a fact of life. They are out there. You can’t recognize them because they blend into the community. They appear to be upstanding citizens, usually have families of their own, and they hold respectable jobs and live in tidy homes that hide their despicable secrets.”

“We can’t investigate everyone,” Holland said.

“But you can protect your children. You can pay attention to them, take an interest in their activities, especially around the neighborhood, and watch over them when they are outside playing. Be vigilant. Do not take your children’s safety for granted.”

“There he is!” 

A silver BMW shot through the intersection at Miller Junction. 

Holland accelerated, and within moments was riding the Beamer’s rear bumper. 

But the driver hit the gas. The chase was on.

Darren Drake, the dickhead, had enough of this bullshit. The cops were on his tail, and the little bitch in the back seat was screaming like a possessed demon . “Shut up!” She was tied up good, but he didn’t have any duct tape to put over her mouth.

“I want my mommy!”

He shot a glance to the rearview mirror, which brightly reflected the cruiser’s emergency lights. One cop car behind him was all he saw, but he was sure they’d called for backup. If he were going to get away, he’d have to do something pretty damn quick. He slammed on the brakes.

The jolt was staggering. Metal crunched and glass shattered. The blinding lights went out behind him. Wrestling the steering wheel, he saw the cruiser crash into a guardrail and explode into flames. It rolled and slammed into a signpost.

“Yah dumb bastards!” He cackled. “Now you’re all mine, sweetheart,” he said to the little bitch, now frozen in fear on the back seat. The silence was a welcome relief.

Ten miles down the highway, he found the dirt road that wound its way through a heavily forested valley toward Deckers Gulch. He’d been here many times before. The most recent time he’d dumped Sadie’s body. This time he was going to dig a grave. It was going to be a lot of work, not like some of his other forays that had been fun, when he’d taken the neighborhood boys for a ride in his BMW. They always thought they were on a picnic. 

The road took him deep into the forest where he found a little-used Jeep trail. Even though it was pitch black, he knew exactly where he was going.

“I want my mommy!”

“Shut up!”

Justin knew Captain Holland hadn’t reacted fast enough when the BMW’s brake lights lit up. He’d slammed on the brakes and swerved to the right but caught the Beamer’s rear bumper. The swerve turned into a skid, and the guardrail might as well have been a brick wall. Everything started spinning and flipping, crashing and banging. Justin didn’t know what was worse, the jarring impacts with the ground or the searing heat of the fire. He tumbled around the inside the car like laundry in a dryer.

Holland let out a guttural scream.

A door flew open, and Justin found himself sliding across the pavement, his left arm bone torn from its socket and flames chewing on his long brown coat. His cowboy hat flew off  his head. Whatever meat he had left on his elbow was now grated cheese. The squad car banged and crashed down the shoulder ahead of him, a ball of whirling fire in the darkness. It hit a signpost with horrendous force and landed upside down, the wheels spinning wildly.

The BMW sped away into the night.

Justin came to rest on his back, the Texas night sky ablaze with stars. He knew his wife was waiting for him up there. He’d find peace with her, no more misery and death. However, his time on Earth wasn’t up yet. His job wasn’t finished. He still had to free his daughter’s soul from the devil. So everything that awaited him in eternity would just have to wait a little longer..

He got up and stamped his feet. An ankle was giving him trouble, and he struggled to get his left arm bone back into its socket. One good thing about being dead, it didn’t hurt. He staggered toward the burning car with deep concern for Captain Holland.

Darren found the place he was looking for and parked the BMW between the trees. The little bitch started screaming her head off again. 

“Go ahead, sweetheart. Ain’t nobody going to hear you out here.”

“Let me go home.”

He hit the trunk release button and got out of the car. The Coleman lantern lit, he grabbed the shovel, a hunting knife, and a blanket so his knees wouldn’t get stuck with pine needles. Next, he yanked the little bitch out of the car, and with the hunting knife, cut the ropes binding her feet. He couldn’t wait to get under that little dress of hers. “Now walk that way.”

“It’s dark.”

“Shut up and walk.”

“Please, mister. I’m afraid.”

Darren grinned. “It’ll be over before you know it. Now start walking.”

The swaying lantern made the shadows slant this way and that. A slight breeze rustled the pines. There was no path, so the little bitch kept getting tangled up in the underbrush. He had to carry her half the way. About fifty yards into the woods, he came to a small clearing. It was level here. It was perfect. He laid out the blanket. “Sit.”

“Untie my hands.”

“Shut up!”

Now for the hard part. Work before play. Slamming the shovel into hard earth, he went about his task feverishly, knowing full well the finality of what he was doing. It didn’t have to be a very big grave, but it had to be deep. They were never going to find this little bitch.

Even as fire fed on the hem of his coat, Justin rushed toward the burning car. It rested on its roof. Flames were leaping up from the trunk area and quickly invading the interior. Hanging by his seat belt, Captain Holland wasn’t moving. Justin reached in and pressed the buckle release. Holland slumped to the ceiling.

“Come on, Captain. Help me here.” 

But he was dead weight. As the flames lapped closer, Justin struggled to pull him out through the driver’s window, all the while knowing the BMW was getting farther away. Should he abandon the Captain and take after Sally and her captor? Save the children, the light had said. But he couldn’t let his best friend burn to death. Besides, three hours hadn’t lapsed yet. He figured there was still time to save her.

With great effort, he managed to get Holland halfway out the window when the Captain’s pant legs caught on fire. He regained consciousness and started screaming. 

“Crawl, Captain.” Justin reached around the doorpost and released the fire extinguisher. As Holland scrambled clear of the car, Justin sprayed the burning pants with white powder, which roared from the extinguisher’s nozzle. Then he turned the spray on his own flaming coat.

Smoldering, Justin and Holland sat on the pavement, back to back, the flaming car illuminating their features. Holland was breathing hard. Justin stared into darkness. “I’ve got to find them.”

“Go ahead.” Holland gulped air. “They won’t be easy to track down.”

Justin rubbed his fleshless chin. “Deckers Gulch is a big place. He’ll stay high and take the Jeep trails.”

“Where’s your cowboy hat?”

A wind came up. Justin’s hat rolled to him like a tumbleweed.

“How’d you do that?”

“Wish me luck.” He donned his hat and dematerialized.

           In spirit form, Justin flew over the ground like a stealth fighter. His night vision was like an owl’s, his hearing acutely tuned. Any human activity below would not go undetected. But Deckers Gulch was a wilderness area with five thousand square miles of forest and rugged terrain. Justin feared time was running out for Sally Daniels.

Darren had been digging for an hour. The grave was deep enough. 

“I’m cold,” the little bitch whimpered. “I’m hungry. Take me home.”

He clawed his way out of the grave and scrambled over the pile of dirt. “I’ve had enough of your bellyaching.” He tossed the shovel beside the hole. “What do you think this is, some kind of picnic?” He dropped to his knees on the blanket and undid his zipper. In the lantern light, her eyes went wide with terror as he exposed himself. “Ever see one of these?”

She started screaming.

“You can touch it if you want.”

She kept screaming.

“This is child’s play,” Darren shouted. “But you’ll never live to tell my friends that I’m a dickhead. You won’t tell anyone. They’re all gone!” Now he was really getting excited. 

Just then, a horrible odor came in on the breeze. Skunks?

The little bitch screamed louder.

          He tried to ignore the ballooning stench. “Touch it! I’m your father. Do as I tell you. Touch it! Touch it!” His stomach started churning. A skunk must’ve fallen into the grave. Or maybe it was a whole family of skunks. It was ruining his mood.

Then a grating voice came from the grave he’d just dug. “Darren.” . 

Panic went through him like a rifle shot. What? He quickly put himself away. He’d never been caught with his pants down before. Now everyone would know he was a dickhead. It would be humiliating. He couldn’t let that happen. Whoever spoke from the grave would have to be buried there...right alongside the little bitch. He grabbed the hunting knife and peered over the pile of dirt. To his amazement, a smelly old cowboy with gray hair hanging to his shoulders glared up at him with steely eyes. Darren showed him the knife. “What are you doing in my hole?”

“My name is Justin Graves,” the cowboy said. “But you can call me Justice.”

Darren twisted the knife in the air. “Your name is mud, mister.”

Justin rose up like Christ on Easter Sunday. “We’ll see about that.”

This was way beyond anything Darren could handle. His mental condition was on overload anyway. Now his only thought was to save himself, and what better leverage would he have than the little bitch. He turned around, yanked her off the blanket, and held her from behind with the knife blade across her throat. “Back off. I’ll kill her, I tell yah!”

Justin floated backward. “Don’t hurt her.”

Suddenly, the little bitch bit Darren’s hand, the one that held the knife. Her teeth broke skin and dug into flesh. 

Darren let out a yell and tried to pull his hand from her clamped teeth. He dropped the knife. She stomped on his foot. He tried to push her away, but she wouldn’t let go of his hand. In all the confusion, the old cowboy was suddenly on him. A bony fist cracked against his temple. He saw stars spinning dizzily. The ghoul grabbed the little bitch.  

Confused and disoriented, all he could think to do now was run. And run like hell. But he tripped over the goddamned shovel he’d tossed on the ground next to the grave. The hole rushed up to meet him. When his face hit the bottom, his neck bones cracked.

Everything went black.

The next day, Captain Holland hobbled up to Sally’s doorstep. She ran out with open arms. “Did you bring Justice?”

“He’s around here somewhere, I’m sure.”

Sally hugged Holland’s neck. “He needs a bath.”

          “Hello, Captain.” Mrs. Daniels was standing at the open door, sober. “I’ve learned my lesson,” she said with conviction.

          Her husband stepped up behind her. “We’re grateful for getting our daughter back.”

“She’s a lucky girl.”

“I bit him,” Sally said, twirling her dress.

“What have you found out about Darren Drake?” Mr. Daniels asked.

“He was just a small part of a vast network of pedophiles in this country. We seized his computer and uncovered his email contacts. Arrests are being made as we speak.”

A breeze stirred the air. The smell of decay overpowered Captain Holland.

“It’s Justice,” Sally squealed.

Justin materialized. “How are you feeling, Captain?”

“I’ve been beaten, shot, and set on fire. How do you think I feel?”

“Glad to be alive, I’m sure.” Justin turned to Sally. “And how’s my little hero?”

“I love you, Justice.”

Mrs. Daniels picked up Sally and hugged her. “Children are so innocent. How could anyone prey on them?”

“Pedophilia is the soil from which molesters and abductors grow,” Justin replied. “It’s the dirt of the devil, which reminds me, I have other matters to attend.”

Holland protested. “When are you going to let it go, Justice? I can’t take much more of this.”

“When I get MY daughter back.”

With a gust of wind, the ghoul was gone.