"He was the model worker..." - Part 1

He moved the bodies of his victims behind the sofa in the lounge. Satisfied that the murders wouldn't be discovered for at least a week, he knew he'd have enough time to get out of town and be completely free of suspicion. No-one had seen him come in or leave. He couldn't stop the vicious grin that was crawling its way across his face as he drove off. It had all been so easy.

Alex had seen her come into the store on a regular basis for over a week now. He made sure his till was always free to serve her when she had all the groceries ticked off on the cheap, lilac stationary notes she used for penning her shopping lists. He loved looking at is as she double checked through the items while putting the goods she had purchased on the conveyer belt with her free hand. The lilting of her "l"'s, the boldness of her "g"'s, the tender fingers that held the list..."Yes", he affirmed to himself mentally, "she will do".

"Will that be all, Miss Sanchez?", he smiled at her as innocently as he could manage while he replaced the barcode scanner into it's stand. "Si, thank you Alex". There had been no need for introductions since they both wore uniforms with name tags. Her, a nurse's uniform and him, a humble store-clerk's - his day-job. He had called her Miss Sanchez after the first day of serving her and after a brief startled moment, she laughed realising he was looking at her name tag and had read it off from there.

He finished processing her groceries and started putting them into a big shopping bag. She paid him with her credit card, then lifted the bag and headed towards the door that would take her outside to her car. Alex watched her departure solemnly, calculating when the best time to enact his plan would present itself. "Soon", he promised himself.

At night Alex worked as a data-capturer for an accounting firm. He liked his two jobs because they provided him with more than enough money as well as the thrill he got from creating and being around precision. Numbers. Mathematics. He loved the way everything was logical and made sense. Truth be told, he could be doing a much more prestigious job but it might mean he would have to interact on a more personal basis with people and he didn't want that. Somewhat of a loner, Alex preferred working in environments where he could choose who he wanted to get more involved and interact with. Like at the supermarket: no-one remembers or cares much about him as a store clerk, apart from his manager. Since he's never late for work, doesn't cause any problems and is a good worker, he's never had to speak with the man again. It's the same story at the accounting firm. He shows up after completing his last shift at the supermarket and carries on working until his third shift is over or until he logs off from his workstation. In any case the computer records all the hours he works and the paycheck that gets mailed to him from them every month includes over-time pay for the two or three hours over-time he puts in a week. He's never had to see anyone at the accounting firm again after doing the interview and getting the job, the data he has to record is usually waiting for him in a manilla envelope attached to his "inbox" clipboard just outside his cubicle.

No-one was the wiser. For all intents and purposes Alex appeared to be the model worker. He came and went as he pleased, no-one really minded how late he stayed at the accounting firm as long as his work was done, which it always was. The same counted for the supermarket. Neither managers at his two places of work did very thorough check-ups on his background, they just knew him as Alex Edwards. Had either of them pried a little deeper into his past or took a more thorough look at his CV they might've noticed his middle initial, P, which stands for Pierce. Alexander Pierce Edwards, or A.P.E.

Alex had spent most of his childhood and school career enduring vicious mocking about his initials and simply snapped one day after being the brunt of yet another joke concerning apes or gorillas, he couldn't quite remember. All he knew at that moment was that he would make Jason, his room-mate, pay. Late that night he waited up for him to get back from a frat party. Heavily inebriated, Jason was still fumbling for the light switch and didn't even see the knife or feel it slice through his windpipe and jugular veins. It was over in less than five seconds but those five seconds felt like a life-time for Alex. He revelled in the feeling of power he now had. The voice that had been inside his head, his being...castigating him for being weak, insulting him far worse than his peers ever could with their snide remarks about his initials had taken over...and it felt great.

The ensuing briefly publicised court case, of which he was the primary suspect, had dragged on for almost three months before the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. The knife, now lying buried in the soft river sand of some local lake, was never found. As an orphan, the only real family tie Alex had was his wealthy adoptive father who's only connection with him was a substantial monthly stipend which he had used to pay for his college admission and lawyer. Set free from the law and with his new-found feeling of power, Alex felt like a new man. He telephoned his father's secretary and arranged for him to come up from New York to sign his emancipation papers. Alex wanted to be free of this part of his past as well. Duncan Edwards was only too happy to make the trip. The adoption had been his late wife's idea after all and he didn't feel anything towards the boy. He didn't even know, and probably wouldn't have cared had he known, of the court case his adopted son had been involved in.

Alex moved far away to Chicago where he quickly acquired an apartment with left-over funds from the savings account he had placed his father's monthly stipends. Once settled in, he looked around and it didn't take him long before he secured a job as a clerk in a local supermarket and a night-job at an accounting firm.

Bent on experiencing again the feeling of power he got when he killed Jason, Alex had started making various plans and schemes of who his next victim could be and settled on the pretty nurse that started frequenting the supermarket where he worked.

Juanita Sanchez didn't have the slightest idea of the murderous intentions of the store clerk she only knew as Alex. After a somewhat messy divorce, she had sent in for a transfer and got one to the new clinic that had been constructed in Chicago. The supermarket where Alex worked was close to her apartment and she stopped off there every day after work to do some shopping.

It was a week and three days after Alex had first met Juanita. He was on his last work-shift at the accounting firm. "Do it", the voice said. "Do it". Firmer this time. Alex was proficient with computers. He knew what he had to do and how to do it. He had cracked into his manager's account the night before and used it now and set up an admin account for himself. With root privileges, he searched for, downloaded and installed the additional tools he'd need to gain access to the local bank. It would certainly have alarmed the bank's system administrator to have been able to see how quickly and effortlessly the supermarket clerk broke into their system.

It wasn't long before Alex was able to use Juanita's credit card number, which he had copied down when she used it to pay her groceries with a few days previously, to get to her account and then her details. "Juanita Sanchez. Born 16 March 1975. 45 Palmer Street, Apartment 2B, Sleepy Heights". Alex carefully removed all evidence of his intrusion from the bank's logs, removed the account he had used on their system and removed the programs and account he used at his accounting firm. Finally removing the incriminating log entries from their system as well before logging off. It had taken him little over an hour to achieve his goal, which wouldn't seem suspicious at all because he worked an hour over-time here and there during the week.

The next phase of his plan was to find out how long Juanita's shifts at the hospital were. He wanted to inspect her flat uninterrupted. Finding out where she worked shouldn't be that hard either. He knew now that the General Hospital and the new clinic were the only medical centres close to her apartment. He drove to the Hospital and hung around for a while noticing the nurses' unforms differed from Juanita's. A further drive to the clinic confirmed that she worked there because the nurses uniforms were the same white and blue that she always had on when she came to the supermarket. Alex went to sit in the waiting room for a while, then spotting one of the doctors, sauntered nonchalantly after the man and found his office. He waited until the doctor was called away to tend to a patient then slipped in.

He walked over to the doctor's desk and consulted the labeled numbers on the telephone for a while before settling on "1", which was the reception desk. "Hello. This is Dr." - he read the name from the plaque on the desk - "Humphry. I seem to have misplaced one of my patients files and I thought you might be able to check if it's not in the file cabinet at reception. It's a Mr. Thomas Delaney, patient reference #4047X. If you find it could you fax me a copy of his most recent prescription?" "Certainly, Dr. Humphry". Alex replaced the phone and moved quickly to the reception area and noticing the nurse on duty was busy in the back-office looking for his fictional file, walked behind the desk and rain his eyes over the duty roster. "Perfect". Juanita had three two-hour shifts still scheduled and checking his watch he realised she was busy on her second one.

He left the hospital and drove down to Sleepy Heights. He found Juanita's apartment easily and picked the lock to gain entry. The interior was neat and respectable with a portrait of the Virgin Mary and a cross on her wall. He started going through the drawers in her bedroom and found a spare key to the apartment. Alex didn't believe in taking chances, so he made careful mental notes of where everything was in the apartment, lest he disturb anything that might alert her. Satisfied with the visual confirmation that she lived alone and was to the best of his knowledge single, he returned to his own apartment and turned in early.

The next day went quite quickly and it didn't take long before he saw her pull up outside the supermarket. "Punctual. I like that", Alex murmured as he consulted his watch. He tilled up Juanita's groceries. He watched as she made her way to her car with her shopping bags. On impulse, he decided that today would be the day. He turned off the conveyor belt and walked over to the manager's office. "Mr. Kain, would you mind if I left early today? I've got some personal business to see to. I'll make up the shift I still have left tomorrow." "Sure Alex, go right ahead". The manager frowned as Alex left, but didn't think much of it.

Alex walked briskly through the staff-only back entrance of the store to his car and speeded off to Sleepy Heights, intent on getting there before her. Unperturbed in the least, Juanita was packing her groceries in the boot of her car slowly, taking care to position the glass jam jar and other fragile goods she had bought carefully so that they wouldn't roll around and break in transit. Unknown to Alex or her, a third car started up and trailed Juanita's at a cautious distance as she drove to Sleepy Heights.

"He was the model worker..." - Part 2

Alex arrived at the flat first and used the spare key to get in. He locked the door again behind him and seated himself on a chair hidden in the shadows of the living room and waited. Juanita arrived a few minutes or so later. She unlocked the door, walked inside and put the light on. Alex was moving stealthily behind her while her back was turned. When she turned around her surprised look at finding him in her flat was interrupted rudely as the door was shoved open.

Juanita was flung into Alex and he instinctively grabbed hold of her as they both fell to the floor. The door made a soft click sound. "Well, well, what do we have here?".

Rick Taylor was a convicted sex offender fresh out of jail after serving two years on a four year sentence on parole and it had been his intention to follow Juanita home, rape her then relieve her of any money she might have. He didn't expect finding another man in her flat and the horror Juanita was registering on her face told him with no words needed that she either didn't know the other man or that he was there uninvited as well.

Alex recovered quickly and launched himself into Rick's stomach. The rapist was bigger than him though and easily subdued him with a blow to his head. "Take whatever you want, just leave!", Juanita cried out at Rick. "Oh, I'll definitely take what I want", Rick retorted and stood over Juanita. Quick as lightning he dropped onto her, doubling his legs back to secure hers and gripping his wrists with his meaty hands. Alex came to and was outraged about what was transpiring in front of him. He wasn't about to allow some two-bit thug to ruin all his careful planning. He was steadily losing all reason and the voice in his mind urged him to dispose of the intruder. "No!" Alex bellowed and tore Juanita's assailant from her. He sat on Rick's chest and started pummeling him with his fists, blind fury reflected in his twin eyes.

Rick draped his left arm over his face and deflected some of Alex's blows and reached under his shirt for his gun. Pressed against Alex's stomach, the gun briefly flared in the darkened flat followed by the short rapport of the bullet as it cut through him inflicting a fatal wound. Rick threw the body off of him and caught Juanita's leg as she tried to run to the phone bringing her crashing to the floor. He couldn't allow her to live now that she had seen his face and witnessed him killing the other man. He grimaced realising that he'd have to save his amorous intentions for now. He took a pillow from the sofa and holding it to the back of Juanita's head, he pressed his gun into it and tugged gently on the trigger. He carefully rifled through both bodies for money and searched through the flat as long as he dared stay for other valuables. No-one had heard the commotion or the gun-fire and he could slip out unseen from Juanita's apartment and drive off in his car.

Rick's shrewd timing was more or less correct and it was just short of a week by one day before the bodies of his two victims were discovered where he had put them behind the sofa and identified. They had started to putrefy rapidly in the warm climate and complaints of bad odours coming from apartment 2B had gotten the landlord to go over an inspect eventually using his copy of they flat's key to gain entry. The news of the brutal double murder made the front page of the local tribune.

The police investigation into the murders uncovered Alex's past and his supermarket manager and the manager at the accounting firm where he worked at nights were questioned about how he conducted himself at work and if he was in any kind of trouble which might have warranted his murder. The gun used in the killings was never found and the missing money and pillaging of valuables from Juanita's flat seemed to indicate that the two victims were surprised by a robber and then things had just gone wrong ending up in their deaths. The supermarket manager was visibly shocked after hearing about Alex's death and his past, but simply remarked, "he was the model worker...".

You trying to tell me something o-juice?

Cool story man, awesome stuff!

Ninja Mo: Thought you might wonder about my character name choices.

So now that I've taken the plunge who's going to join me and write a short story as well? It can't be worse than mine.

Good stuff, o-juice! I dunno why u were so "shy" to post it.

Now I feel reluctant to post my story.

I tried putting some stuff down on paper yesterday, but not much came out, but I will have it up sometime though - hopefully soon.

im going to post one as soon as I figure out what the fudge to write on

having said that, i see you dodged the naming thing. Im glad I inspire you though juice, you da man!

Read it last night. I enjoyed it quitte a bit, disturbing as it was.

The ending kinda reminded me of 'The Road Virus Goes North'

good writing there o-juice, good stuff,
realy emjoyed it.

Very interesting o-juice, I like your writing style. Keep it up :)

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. Busy trying to come up with ideas for a second short story and in the meantime I'll be trying to think of some ways that I can plug the Creative Strokes forum to get some more people to read and contribute. Big up to Ziggy for getting this sub-forum set up and for his posts as well as to everyone else who've contributed their stuff on here. Keep it up.

I really enjoyed reading this, it was different.
Can't wait for your next peice of work.

Nice, gripping opening.

Jikes talking of raisng the dead

I wonder what ever happened to ojuice

isn't he on ss?

Noes, I cant find him as a user on ss (not that I'm surprised), I too wonder what happend to him.