Chapter 33 A Visit to The Past

The old abandoned warehouse stood, corner lot, like a looming gargoyle; perched on a mound of earth protruding like an overfilled grave. The place looked dilapidated and unvisited.

For a moment, Kevin looked over the warehouse T-Rex had used to torture Loretta over a year ago. Felt like he was revisiting his horrible past by coming back to this very place. For months he’d tried to fight off the memories of the past, and now he’s back to the place where it all began, the very building he sat to watch his fiancée die.

He’d returned to the one place he’d hoped he would never have to see again. As he climbed up the old broken staircase, Alex heeled him. And when he reached the wooded door, the memories of the past flooded his mind, filling him with great horror.

It was almost twenty-four hours after T-Rex had left the room, leaving Kevin tied to the chair. Kevin watched with painful eyes as flies buzzed around the opened wounds on Loretta’s lifeless body. His face was pale, his arms and feet still tied to the chair. The belt had stopped the proper circulation of blood to both his arms and feet. He was hungry and weak and sought for death to come quick, to end his agony. But death seemed so far away, only pain served as his companion at the moment.

He had gone for several hours—maybe days even, without food, but that was the least of his problems. He was more worried about how he would continue his life without Loretta in it. Knew for certain that the gruesome torture of the woman whom he loved most in the world would haunt him forever.

Then without warning, the door burst open, and bright light from the touches of the several police officers bathed his face. That was when he met Leonard. Kevin—unhappy at the sight of the police finally coming to his rescue, was counting on a slow and painful death, side by side with the woman he loved, and not to be found and saved. He was rather ungrateful that the police had finally found him and rescued him.

Leonard walked up to him, flashing his torch at his face. He loosened the belt strapped around his arm. The rest of the officers who were with him untied Loretta’s lifeless body from the pole. Flies buzzed around the corpse. The sickening smell of metal and rotting flesh blanketed the air in a choking aroma. Covering their nose in disgust, they dragged her body out of the room. Traces of her blood were drawn on the floorboard as they dragged her away.

“Who the hell murder a person this way?” Murphy uttered, holding his nose. Felt a prickle in his stomach as he looked away from the body.

Leonard held the torch over Kevin’s face, looking at him. “Did you see who did this?”

Kevin’s expression was numb. He sat looking straight ahead at them like he had no life left in him.

“Hey! What’s your name, kid?” Leonard asked, waving his hands around his face. But Kevin remained unresponsive.

“After what he just witnessed, he won’t respond to anything. He is in shock.” Murphy uttered from behind as he walked towards them. “We need to give him some time to recover before we question him about what had happened here.” Murphy examined Kevin more closely. “He looks completely broken. We need to get him to a hospital.”

“The poor kid is going to need a lot of therapy before he can ever be normal again.” Leonard added and searched Kevin’s pocket.

“What are you doing?” Murphy asked him.

“Looking for some ID—anything we could use to identify him.” Leonard took out a wallet from Kevin’s pocket and opened it. He fished out a card and glanced through.

“Kevin Logan…” he read out the name.

“Kevin? Kevin!! Can you hear me? Kevin, look at me. Come on. Snap out of it!”

He finally blinked.

“Are you daydreaming?” Alex waved his hands over his face.

He was slowly being drifted back to reality. “It’s just something I remembered from a year ago.” he said, turning to glance at the door as he inched closer. “Let’s go.”

Kevin reached for the doorknob and twisted it to open. The door creaked as it slid open, swinging into the darkness of the stuffy room. A foul breath gasped through. The room inside was dark and dusty.

Alex took out his flashlight and walked into the old wooden cabin. Cobwebs wrapped around his face as he inched into the darkness. His footsteps creaked on every step on the old floorboard.

Alex flashed the light over an iron chair at a corner far across the room. An old belt hung loosely from the arm of the chair. “I’m guessing this is where T-Rex had tied you up.” he said, looking over the old, dusty chair covered in webs and dirt.

Kevin remained still, glancing over the iron chair—a painful reminder that he couldn’t do anything while T-Rex tortured Loretta. He kept picturing himself still sitting there, his arms and chair strapped to the chair to restrain him while he watched Loretta being tortured to death. He walked over to the chair, slowly, but stopped midway into the room.

A table caught the corners of his eyes, and he quietly trudged towards it. On this same table, several months ago, T-Rex had placed all his torture equipment. He ran his fingers over the smooth surface of the table and examined it. It was all covered in dust.

He momentarily remembered the wrong card he’d played with Natasha earlier. He knew if he keeps letting his emotions get the better of him when he’s around her, she, too, would end up being tortured—like Loretta.

He’d had his fair share of experience with PTSD, and maybe still struggling with it for months now. He didn’t know if he could ever recover if he is again forced to watch another woman whom he cared so much about die most horribly.

Alex walked over to the wall to turn the lights on but found that the light bulbs were all dead.

Kevin walked to the pole where T-Rex had tied Loretta. “This is where he tied her.” he announced, scrutinizing the pole.

Alex flashed his light on the pole and found stains of dry blood smeared on it. Kevin rubbed his fingertip on the pole. “Her blood is still on it.” he almost wept with bitterness.

Alex, sauntering towards him for a closer view, stepped on something slippery which almost made him drop. “What the hell is that?” he bawled, flashing his torch down on the wooden floor to see what he had stepped on.

The light fell on a pool of blood beside his feet. Kevin’s eyes narrowed at the sight of blood. He bent to examine it closely. Not satisfied with the mere examination of sight alone, he stretched out his finger towards it.

Touching the surface of the blood, he rubbed his fingers together. “That’s wired,” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “It is still fresh.”

He looked over the dried blood on the pole, then returned his puzzled gaze to the pool on the floorboard. “Something is not right.” he observed. “It’s not possible for Loretta’s blood to remain fresh for this long.”

“Maybe it isn’t hers.” Alex reiterated, glancing around. His eyes were drawn to more blood on the floor. He beamed the torch on the floorboard to reveal more blood. There were piles of blood on every corner of the room.

“Hey, come check this.” he called Kevin’s attention.

They found a series of footprints stained in blood. Alex followed the path made by the footprint with his torchlight, and the traces of blood ended beneath the foot of the dusty table. Looking under the table, he quivered in fear after his torchlight bathed a cadaver.

The body looked hideously disfigured and was clothed in a police uniform. His shirt, torn to rags, was soaked in blood. There was a large cavity in his chest. His throat had been slit, and he lay like a butchered animal in a waste of blood.

His head—almost cleft from the body, had drooped forward, and over his chest, a great mat of blood had spread like a bib. It was a gruesome sight indeed—almost somewhat similar to how Mirabel had been murdered.

The brutal nature of the corpse made Alex puke. Kevin threw his face away in disgust. He was getting used to seeing tortured bodies like this. Dragging the body from underneath the table, they looked over the corpse in disgust. They could see right through his punctured chest. The victim had a strangled expression, and his face was frozen in an open scream. Flies infested his open wounds.

“T-Rex tortured him the same way he tortured Mirabel.” Kevin observed.

Alex, still shivering from the discovery, flashed the torch over the police uniform worn over the corpse.

Kevin turned to look at him. “Any idea who he might be?”

“I’m not sure we can ID him since his face had been burnt beyond recognition.” he bent over for a closer view. “The wounds and cuts on his body are still fresh, and judging from how fresh his blood appears to be, I’d say it wasn’t long ago this happened to him. He died hours ago—twenty-four hours at most.”

“His head looks like it was smashed against something hard. It is broken. I’m guessing that’s how he died.” Alex added.

Kevin bent for a closer look at the corpse. “So there’s absolutely no way we can ID him?”

Alex slid his hands into the breast pocket of the corpse and found a badge. Taking it out, he glanced at the name that was carved on it. “Murphy Hatfield.” he read, his eyes widening.

Kevin’s expression became frozen.