Don't Smile

Some monsters are real, and the dark holds many things to fear. Carta city is growing colder, winter is coming and with it a monster stirs in the darkness. The shadows are on the move, the world growing silent. Veteran homicide detective Aiden Haxton must conquer his ambivalence and ever growing personal doubt in order to follow the clues left in the wake of a psychopathic killer claiming to be a god. A monster Born from sickness and insanity, that has a single minded intent to shape the world in his image. With his young partner Tad Russle, Haxton must battle the elements and the clock as the bodies pile up. The murders are gruesome, the monster unknown, and the messages clear. Time is running out for Haxton and for Carta city. The question remains, does Haxton have the resolve to stop the monster calling itself Code Blue, before all hope is lost? Or will he slip into memory along with the rest of the world. The answer remains to be seen, but it will decide the fate of us all.

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Don't SmileBy PriestAuthorHouse LLCCopyright © 2014 PriestAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4969-1692-1CHAPTER 1Sunglasses at NightNovember 2 6:00 P.M.To look down Fromer Street, you wouldn't think much of it. It was a lower- to middle-class neighborhood with mostly cheap apartment buildings and modest places of business including, but not limited to, the corner shops and local bookstore. It wasn't the best district in Carta City, but by no means was it the worst, not by a mile.It was 6:00 P.M. in the evening, November 2, and there was nothing special happening. It was not a holiday or local time of revilement and most of the Carta City residents, which occupied Fromer Street, were either already parked in front of their televisions, blank-faced, watching whatever was currently passing as prime time entertainment or they were just making their way home from work, briefcase or purse in hand or over the shoulder, juggling their door keys in one hand while trying to maintain their slender grip on the odd grocery bag from a local shop. The older of the residents were probably already in their beds along with the younger, of course, while the in between grabbed a moment either to themselves or with their significant other, just the same routine that had been acted out the day before, and was destined to be replayed the following day. However, in this tapestry of seeming normality existed an anomaly, for one thing was out of place by far further than anyone could have known. At 347 Fromer Street sat a small affordable duplex. The second floor was vacant and had been for around three and a half months, but an elderly couple, Beth and Robert Coleman, occupied the bottom floor. Normally, at this time of the evening, Beth and Robert would be watching Faith Revisited on channel 27, a talk show of sorts with a religious context that went off the air at 6:45 P.M., and just before the credits would have rolled, Beth and Robert thought of their bed, already being worn out from another day of doing very little.Robert, at age 69, had been retired for seven years and Beth, who had never worked in her 62 years on earth, watched their kids grow and leave the house. Now, the older couple had nothing to do besides make light conversation and do crossword puzzles. However, today was different. There was no sweet elderly couple sitting on the floral print couch. There was no religious program on the television. In fact, the television wasn't even turned on. There were no open crossword books and no one was getting ready for bed. Why was it that Beth and Robert Coleman had deviated from their iron set routine so drastically? What was it that could have so altered their lives and the course of their evening in such a way? The answer was inside of a closet in the tightly locked and very vacant upstairs apartment in the shape of a sweet elderly couple propped against one another in the cramped confines of the small room, the very place where Beth and Robert Coleman had been placed 17 hours earlier, the bodies stiff now and bowels long since purged onto the closet's floor, seeping through the wood, gravity pulling the fluids toward the basement. Their wrinkled skin was cold and drained of moisture, the insects just beginning to find their way in following the slowly increasing scent radiating from the bodily fluids, which leaked through the floorboards into the downstairs apartment, trickling down the walls, leaving behind a distinct odor of decay and forgotten summers of rotting meat and burnt out freezers.Past the first floor in the basement of 347 Fromer Street played the devil that had knocked ever so slightly on the Coleman's back door. The devil that had waited patiently for Beth to make her way to the door with awkward creeping steps made on top of bad hips with the aid of a wooden cane. The devil who had taken the breath away from both Robert and Beth before tucking them ever so neatly away in the upstairs closet. However, the Coleman's were simply in that devil's way, nothing more, but it was in the basement of 347 Fromer Street where that devil played out his true purpose, working on his first masterpiece.The basement was dark, dingy, and dusty, long neglected. The room was still for the moment, the rhythmic sound of a leaking water pipe tapping a tune onto the seat of an old bicycle left behind by Jerry Morgan, the last resident of the upstairs apartment.In the basement's center hung a young girl wearing only a matching set of underwear, a pink see through bra and thong with red piping. She was hung by her wrists, chains wrapped tightly around them and looped over a hook hung from the first floor girders above her. The girl's feet dangled cruelly an inch above the cement floor, her hands having long since turned a sickly shade of black and purple with the pain and dying circulation, the sensations fading from agony to burning, followed by no feeling at all. She had been hanging there practically naked for 14 hours fading in and out of consciousness. The young girl hung lifeless from her dead hands before once again stirring back to reality, although she hardly recognized it as being such. She slowly stirred awake and in the distant shadows of the basement through bloodshot eyes clouded with 14 hours of periodic tears she saw her torturer, she saw that devil as he stepped out into the soft light that covered the room from a lone hanging light bulb. The man, the devil, was dressed in black from head to heel. He had a leather coat on open at the front of his leather-clad legs, which tapered up to his waist where it grew tight around his torso, chest fastened with numerous buckles that shimmered silver, the clasps dotting his chest like crooked stitches in a sea of black, a jagged silver smile played out on treated animal hide. His skin was pale and somewhat transparent with the blue hue of veins being visible just beneath its surface. The devil's eyes were covered in small round goggles that were strapped tightly to his face by a cord that wrapped around his head, the cord hidden by the long wavy black hair that hung down around the man's face swaying side-to-side, as he stepped closer to her once again before turning to the table that sat just to the girl's left, putting a bare fair-skinned hand on a roll of black leather that sat on the table. Pushing it to one side, the bundle rolled across the table's top and in its center, tied by a single piece of string, sat a straight razor with a black handle and silver blade, which caught the soft light, just the same as his coat buckles did, black and silver, a stereotypical color scheme for the calm monster that pulled the string, freeing the razor from its prison.The hanging girl's name was Tabitha Connelly viewed by some as a party girl, wild and unbound by any strict set of moral codes or self-respecting limitations, viewed by others as the best thing in the neighborhood since the invention of the bicycle and twice as fun to ride, and viewed by even others still as simply the neighborhood tramp. She looked a lot older than she indeed was. Tabitha was only 16, but passed easily for 20 and did so on numerous occasions. Her promiscuous way of dress only served to make her look even older, drawing even more attention to her, which indeed was her intent.The man in front of her, that devil that played behind those simple round goggles, had come out of nowhere, stepping out of an alley as Tabitha walked home from just another desperate plea for attention in the form of a three-way sexual debacle with Jeffery and Frankie Doman, two brothers who lived a couple blocks away from her. The man had asked her if she had a light, holding out his hand, grasping an unlit black wrapped clove cigarette and when she looked up from the sidewalk at him then, she could have sworn he looked far less sickly, but seemed to be somewhat unsure of her own memories now perhaps due to the torture she had endured over so many long hours. Somehow, thinking back, his face seemed ghostly, like a dream that had been forgotten and clouded with the waking of the dreamer. She remembered his skin being normal, even flush and healthy, more so than her own pale Victorian pigment. The tight goggles he wore, now strapped so tightly to his head, were simple black-framed glasses with round lenses shaded just enough to keep his eyes hidden. In fact, young Tabitha had found him somewhat dashing in his long flowing dark trench coat that hung to the sidewalk, although it hadn't been made of leather then, she remembered, but a softer material, suede, she thought, and it wasn't tight as it was now and also not black, but rather a dark brown. The long black hair that hung in his face had been shorter then as well. It had aroused her when she saw the distinguished albeit slightly oddly dressed man with the rugged black hair hanging just slightly into his eyes. Tabitha could even recall being made even slightly wet by the stranger's rouge-like swagger and casual confident manner.In response to his request for a light, she had pulled a cheap toss away lighter from her purse, the fluid sloshing around just under the purple plastic. She walked up to him in her recently removed skirt that had been so high as to hide little of her delicates and the tight baby T-shirt that proclaimed her to be a spoiled bitch in full trailer park splendor. Even though it wasn't visible at the time, she was still wet with semen from Frankie Doman, one of the brothers who had played doctor with her, climaxing onto her breasts only minutes before she had run into the mysterious dashing stranger.Tabitha approached the man and struck the lighter as he lifted the black cigarette to his soft lips. The cool crackle as the flame hit the clove seemed to hang in the air with a sweet smell, then time slowed down or at least looking back on it that's how she remembered it, like a clock with dying batteries ticking slower and slower as the stranger spoke words that she couldn't recall at all now, only seeing his lips moving in her mind. Then he turned in slow motion, his dark brown coat swinging around him like a superhero's cape.She had followed him into the alley, time creeping down slower and slower, as she followed until he turned back toward her, smoke billowing from his cracked lips as he pushed the clove scented air out of his lungs, licking his lips, and then the last thing she remembered was giving him a wicked smile before kneeling down in front of the stranger and watching as his zipper found its way down and that was all she remembered of their encounter.The next memory Tabitha had was of waking up, hands burning for the lack of blood in them, seeing that the dashing stranger who had asked her for a light had turned into a leather-bound monster with sick skin and depraved intentions shimmering in his goggles. For all the hours that Tabitha had hung there, he had done practically nothing besides stripping her to her bra and panties and hanging her up by her hands, which she didn't even remember him doing. The dark stranger hadn't said one solitary word or touched her at all since, but that time she feared was rapidly drawing to an end.Tabitha struggled now to maintain consciousness. She had passed out several dozen times due to the pain in her blackened hands, wanting to scream, but being unable with her mouth stuffed with a torn piece of her T-shirt, a stretch of rope wrapped around her head to hold it in. The black- coated man left the razor on the table and walked slowly over to Tabitha softly grabbing her by the bare ribs and giving her a playful spin. Even though her hands had long since numbed completely, dying on the ends of her arms, the movement of the spin sent new waves of pain through her body and into her shoulders.The man stopped her with a jolt. Her eyes were fresh now with new tears and her cries of agony were muffled under the gag hindered by the semen soaked fabric stuffed between her teeth. The sickly man looked into her eyes as they jolted in every direction in panicked response to the coldness of his touch."I bet you're wondering who I am," the dark stranger asked in a whisper with a raspy voice, but Tabitha didn't care what his name was, although she couldn't give him an answer to either end."My name is forgotten, stuck between what is and what has been resisted," the man said, as he slid Tabitha's panties down just to her knees, running two of his leather gloved fingers across his tongue before slipping them inside of her, sending another muffled cringe of disgust and suffering into the moist humid air of the duplex's basement along with the smell of leaking pipes and mold."My name is born from darkness and carried back from the other side, nurtured and despised in conjunction. Until fruition inexistence realized in a somber splendor," he said, twisting his middle and index fingers of his right hand inside of her with silent glee, as the wetness of her slowly trickled down his fingers, a sickly mix of forced stimulation and urine."My name is ... Code Blue," the stranger revealed finally. "Although I think that in time you will come to call me God," Blue said, twisting his fingers inside of her once more before pulling them free, running them first across his tongue before holding them up to her nose."That is the smell of fear; know it well, girl," Code Blue said, turning away from the sight of Tabitha hanging from the rafters looking both heart wrenching and pathetic with her panties around her knees, her urine trickling onto the floor in a warm steady series of evenly spaced drips from her left big toe.Code Blue walked to the table and reached for the razor making the contained cries of the hanging girl pick up in speed, as her eyes became as big as cup saucers. However, Code Blue hesitated just as his hand was about to pick up the straight razor and he turned away toward a shelf near the darkness where he had been watching her from and Tabitha's heart rate lowered even if only for the moment. Code Blue reached into his coat and pulled out a small cassette tape. On the shelf sat an old looking stereo and Code Blue slid the tape into it pressing the power button followed by play, the little red light clicking into life. Blue waited a moment as the tape loaded into place. Suddenly, the speakers broke with life and crackling through them came the voice of Corey Hart. Tabitha recognized the song instantly as the drum picked up and the synthesizers kicked in."I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can," the vocals began, as Code Blue hesitated at the stereo, tapping his left foot on the floor and lightly waving his hands around in front of him like a conductor leading an imaginary orchestra."I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can," the song went on.Finally, Code Blue walked back to the table and picked up the straight razor, flipping it open with a single flick of his thumb, as he walked back toward Tabitha. He swiped the blade across her bra straps, letting it slide to the floor before liberating her of her panties as well, leaving her naked and mumbling in panic, never taking her eyes from the silver blade of the razor."Pain is a substance of excess, and suffering is born from flesh," Code Blue said in that scratchy, low, dark voice, wearing a visage of intelligent depravity, as Tabitha writhed on her chains, feeling the icy chill as Code Blue ran the razor's flat edge across her breasts and onto her stomach. Tabitha tried desperately to say please or stop or help or some other plea for her life or at least the mercy of a quick death."I'm not going to lie to you before I'm done. You will beg the devil to take you to hell so that you can escape the pain, and if you behave, I may just oblige you," Code Blue said, as the song continued in the background."While she's deceiving me ... cuts my insecurities, has she got control of me, I turn to her and say ... Don't switch your blade on the guy in the shades, oh no ..."Code Blue cut the rope from around her head with the razor and pulled the shred of torn cloth from her mouth. Grabbing Tabitha hard by the chin, he held her face close to his, leaning in until his nose touched hers. "We all want to be held, but so very few of us know how to hold," Blue said, lifting the razor up to Tabitha's right eye."Become a crescendo to a future in the making, scream for me!" Code Blue said and Tabitha did scream until her throat bled into her lungs and her lungs gave out.The things that Tabitha's mysterious stranger did to her would have seemed excessive even in hell and cruel even in the eyes of any devil, any devil but this one, but pity was beyond Code Blue, that devil, he had no time for mercy. There was far too much to do. (Continues...)Excerpted from Don't Smile by Priest. Copyright © 2014 Priest. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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