Billie Girl

Chapter One

Blake waited until his mother hit the sack to tell me it was time for the two of us to step out for another one of our death-defying walks through the streets of East Grand Rapids, knowing damn well there was a curfew and a warning from the police not go out since there was strangler loose in the community.

"The streets are ours tonight," Blake said to me, clutching my gloved hands. And I wondered how he was able to be so convincing and drag me into all of this. Yet, as we walked on a cold snowy December night up Plymouth street, everything was cheerful as it could be with Christmas lights flickering and dogs in the windows poised ready to bark at passersby. If my mother knew I was out walking around during these perilous nights, she'd ground me for a year. But to walk on the edge of possible death was positively exhilarating. Blake told me that once he had tried cocaine but he said this high was so much better. Plus, it was cheap and free. I could feel my heart beating inside my chest. My breathing was shallow, and even my vision was heightened. But I still stuck by Blake's preposterous theory that whoever the mysterious killer was, he was thriving on terror, and that if we simply stopped fearing him (or her) we would stop giving it power.

I clung to Blake's arm, and it felt as thrilling as going to a slasher flick. Except the danger here was real and palatable.

"Do you want us to die together?" I asked Blake.

"Of course not. We are not doing this to get killed. We are doing this because we have a right to walk our neighborhood streets. Nobody has the right to terrorize us. If everyone were walking the streets at night, it would send a signal to this guy to just get lost. We are doing this because we are two good people who have nothing but good karma on our side."

"But isn't it always the good people that get it in the end in all those movies?"

"This is not a movie. And you are wrong, it is usually the promiscuous girls that get done in in those movies. The ones who get around."

Up ahead we now saw a lone figure walking. He was just a grayish shadow set against the snowy street.

"Look up yonder," I said jokingly.

"I saw that guy long before you did. I think you should have your eyesight checked. You would not be much good at reading highway signs on a long distance road trip."

"I pride myself in having very good eyesight," I said.

"Just get your eyes checked. I'm just sayin'."

"What do we do now? Shouldn't we cross the street, or turn around or something? Now I am officially freaked."

"No, that would show fear. Our fate is to continue to walk on this street, at this time, and our destiny is not to be killed. I can promise you that."

I clung even tighter to Blake's thin arm. He may have been divine and dreamy but he was not the body building type.

The man ahead was either like us, tempting fate or maybe he was the homeowner standing in front of his property surveying his Christmas lights, or maybe he was really the Kentwood Strangler. We were soon to find out. We kept walking forward. At one point I could not take the tension, and I tried to loosen my arm from Blake's and to turn around and go home as fast as I could.

"Don't do that," Blake said, pulling me back."You really think that it will do you any good to be out here on these streets by yourself? Think about it. You will be all alone. I think it best we stick together."

The man dressed in a hat and scarf stood his ground. We were now within ten feet of him.

He looked to be in his late fifties but still fit, still strong. In fact, he looked like someone from another era. Like the twenties or something, with his trench coat and hat. He definitely looked the part of a tortured soul that was for sure.