The Pleasant Valley Murders

Chapter 1

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Wednesday

Mid August

       Trace opened his eyes, or at least he tried. One eye was swollen shut, and the other lid barely moved. It would not have mattered. The room was pitch black.

       He attempted to move his hands, but they were secured beneath his back, and his feet were bound as well. A weak, muted cry escaped his taped mouth, but it was a struggle just to draw in enough air through his broken nose to breathe.

       The stench of urine surrounded him. That explained the wetness beneath him. He rolled onto his side and sweat trickled over his brow and stung his eyes. He may as well have been in a sauna.

       A steady thrum vibrated beneath the floor and traveled through him. His body rocked back and forth from the roll of the sea. He was on the lower deck of a boat, and the vibrations were from large diesel engines.

       He had to calm himself and think, but his heart was about to burst through his chest. This was not real. Well, it was real for someone, but not for him. His consciousness had been projected into another person’s body. The out of body experience had happened before, and, unfortunately, the person was going to die unless he could find a way to escape.

       Trace pulled against the tape to free his hands, but his efforts were futile. He rolled onto his back and inched his body around until he could soak his hands in the puddle of piss he had been laying in. He twisted his wrists against each other and gained some slack in the tape. He soaked his wrists again and continued to work to free his hands.

       One hand slipped his bindings, and he sat up and ripped the tape from his mouth. He took a deep breath, and then another.  His hands went to his feet, but he heard the jangle of keys at a door.

       He groped in the darkness for the discarded tape, and he pressed it back over his mouth, but it was wet with piss and barely stuck. It would have to do. He laid down with his hands beneath his back and his face turned away from the sound he had heard.

       His opportunity to escape had passed, and now he needed to gather as much information as possible before they killed the person whose body he was in.

      Door hinges squeaked behind him, and there was a click of a switch. He squinted against the brightness of the overhead lights. Across from him, an unconscious girl who appeared to be in her mid-teens lay bound on the floor.

      Tangled, short brown hair obscured part of her bruised face, and dried, crusty blood filled one side of her swollen and crooked nose. Gray duct tape covered her mouth, and words in an unfamiliar language were emblazoned across her bloodstained shirt. The denim cutoffs were simple and nondescript, and her scraped knees were scabbed over.

       Another person on the floor behind her was obscured from his view, but he suspected the individual was also a teenage girl.

       He looked down at his own bare feet, and he was in the body of a young girl as well. He was not surprised. All the bodies that had been recovered were teenager girls.

       A man said, “I told you one of the bitches was awake.”

       The man had a southern accent, maybe Alabama. Trace had heard that voice before, but he’d never gotten a glimpse of a face to put with it.

       He turned his head in that direction. A bald white man in a sleeveless shirt stood in front of a door. He was big and muscled, and a skull and crossbones tattoo covered one shoulder. Well, it wasn’t actually crossbones…maybe swords.

       A man he could not see said, “I’m going to juice her again. I wanna keep all the stinking bitches quiet till we get there.” He had a nasally squeak to his voice, and his thick accent, possibly Russian, was hard to understand.

       The bald man said, “Barry, she’s had a ton of that shit already. You’re going to kill another one. The boss ain’t gonna be happy.”

       Barry said, “Not my problem.”

       The bald man said, “It could be your problem real fast.”

       Trace had no other option. He had to fight. He readied himself, but being in the body of a teenage girl put him at a major disadvantage with little hope of success.

       A cold hand snaked out and grabbed him beneath his chin. Trace brought his left hand from beneath his body and grabbed the man’s hand. His other hand shot up and struck Barry in the throat.

       There was not much force behind the punch, and Barry did not react at all.

       “Stop!” Trace screamed through the loose tape on his mouth.

       He pulled his fist back and tried to shove his thumb in the man’s eye, but Barry’s fist slammed him in the forehead. He looked up and saw the fist coming down again.

       “No! Don’t!” he mumbled. Trace tried to quell his panic. This was not real…but it was real for some young girl.

       There was another blow to his forehead, and then a flash of light from somewhere, and everything became blurry.

       Barry yelled out, “The little bitch tried to claw out my eye! I’ll teach her!”

       Trace was hit in the head again. He was now in a deep fog, and he heard the bald guy say, “He’s not going to be happy if she dies.”

       Something stabbed into the side of his neck, but he barely felt it. The voices faded away, and the pounding in his chest slowed. A sharp pain shot through his chest…and then nothing.

                                                                                                                   #

       The three sisters of Fate and Destiny peered through the veil that separated the two realms. Skuld, one of the sisters, nodded to Niorun, and the Goddess of Dreams lifted the consciousness of Trace Williams from the young girl as her body took its last breath. 

       Niorun cautioned the three sisters, “His spirit is about to break.”

       Skuld said, “There is no other way. He will succeed…his destiny is to succeed.”

       Niorun was not happy. She said, “But if he breaks?”

       Skuld responded, “He won’t break. We chose him for a reason, and we will calm him when needed, as we have done before.”

       Urd, another sister, said to Niorun, “Do you not remember why you were first asked to visit him?” Urd patiently waited. When Niorun did not answer, she continued, “He was barely more than a child, and yet he stopped a monster that Hel had released.”

       Before Niorun could respond, a horrid stench surrounded the three sisters. Hel, the Goddess of Death, had arrived.

       Hel struck her staff on the granite floor, and the rumble of thunder vibrated throughout their realm. She defended, “I did not release that monster. The beast followed his own master, as do the vile creatures we are now called upon to contain. It was I who alerted you, and you were the one who selected the mortal. He cannot be allowed to fail.”

       Niorun was intimidated by Death, but she pressed, “But if this is so important, why won’t you intervene?”

       Verdandi, the third sister, had remained silent, but she clarified, “There are rules all must follow, and even now, our interference is on the precipice.”

       Niorun heard the unusual warning, and she returned Trace to his own body. She said to the three sisters, “I will do what I can to help him through this, but I must say that this is not right. His soul was innocent.”

       Hel said, “His innocence was murdered long ago, and none of these mortals are innocent.”