Survivin' - [B.C.]

Chapter 8: Let It Be

"Where have you two been?!" She demanded in a hushed and exasperated whisper. Ben and I smiled as we looked at each other, then at her, and answered simultaneously.

"Swinging London."

========== SURVIVIN' ==========

MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING!

Wednesday morning's news almost threw me out of Earth's gravitational orbit.

At first, I was sitting in bed, texting Toby and waiting for Sophie to call me and Ben down for breakfast. That was when the latter barged into my room with an urgent look on his face.

"Come down here now. You need to see this."

Heart hammering, I threw the covers off me and raced after Ben down the two flights of stairs. The sharp right turn on the marble floor almost sent my socked feet sliding across the foyer. Ben stopped abruptly in front of me and I ran into him. He grabbed my arms and held me in the view of their large flat-screen TV mounted above the fireplace. My expression of horror grew as I watched the pixels move in real time to something that felt like a fairytale.

"And now, ladies and gents, we have received news that New York City's nefarious 'Black Fosse Killer' has been arrested during an attempted kidnapping of a young orphan girl earlier this morning..."

The British news anchor ranted on about this killer and the crimes he's been committing for the past two years and how he'd achieved his nickname by leaving every single one of his victims in dark, narrow ditches. A growing pit of anxiety in my stomach mad me feel lightheaded. I started panting, wishing the woman on the TV would just hurry up already.

A scruffy man in handcuffs flashed only briefly across the screen, but in that short amount of time, I took a good look at him.

He was tall, maybe about 6'3, with buzzed hair and a 3-4 inch brown beard. His dark green eyes flashed everywhere around him with an accumulating look of terror and regret. He looked like he hadn't showered in days and his wrinkled mint t-shirt proved that point only further. His faded jeans looked old and stiff. His brown boos were scuffed and filthy. He didn't seem to be putting up a fight with the cops as they shoved him into a car. It almost seemed like he knew he deserved this.

"Allan Lawson, a thirty-one-year-old mechanic from New York City, U.S.A. has finally been captured after being on the run for nearly two years now. NYPD has been on his tail since his very first victims were brutally slaughtered in August of 2019. Edward and Diane Martinez were found..."

The noise faded and was drowned out by a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Tears started to form in my eyes. The image on the TV flashed to a picture of my mom and dad, taken nearly three years ago, with 11-year-old me in their arms. That was taken on my birthday. I remember that exact moment. I was in a pretty blue dress my grandmother had sewn for my mom when she was a kid. My mom and dad were holding each other with me cocooned between them. We all had huge smiles on our faces. My dad's work friend had been the one to take the picture before he died a month later due to a stroke. That was the last picture ever taken of my parents and I together.

Another image flashed on the screen that made me jump and let out a terrified, shocked, and disgusted whimper. I felt bile prick at the back of my throat. I turned to hide my view from the horrifying image but I found myself cowering into Ben's torso. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. I clenched my eyes so tightly but the only thing I saw was that picture.

It was my mom. Tied up in a chair, ropes constricted so tightly around her wrists and ankles that her limbs were turning purple. The yellow cardigan I'd last seen her in was now used as a gag. It was wrapped tautly and restrained her jaw from moving upwards at all - pushing it out to it's exceeding limit. Her usual warm and friendly brown eyes had turned fearsome and desperate, filled to the brim with tears that started to run down her bruised and bloody face. Her body was exposed other than the modest pink underwear and bra she wore. You could tell she was trying to wriggle away from the camera because of her twisted upper body and closely-drawn knees. My dad was tied to a pole some few feet from my mom, in the same external condition, except the only difference was that he was already dead. His jaw was slacked open at an unusual angle. Probably broken from the gag that once silenced him. Well, he didn't have to worry about that anymore, did he?