Page 42 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

It was no use. She couldn’t escape. “Why?” she cried, sobbing. “Why me?”

Calm yourself, Roberta. Remember your faith. Reach out to the Father. He will help you. He is with you. He has not forsaken you.

She scaled her own ribs upward, past her bare breasts to the hollow of her throat, to find her cross, but as her bloodied fingers searched her neck, she realized that her chain and cross were missing. Whoever had stripped her had taken off her necklace as well as stripped her of her precious wedding ring.

“You sick bastard,” she hissed. Tears of despair streamed from her eyes. She began to cough. Fear congealed her blood and an odd pain started up her arm. A tingling and worse, something squeezing her, deep in her chest.

Trust in the Lord God. He is with you. Roberta, keep your faith!

The pain burned through her, but she clung to the words that had comforted her as a child. Quietly she began to murmur, “Jesus loves me, this I know, ’cause the Bible tells me so…”

What the hell was that?

Singing? The old lady was singing? The Survivor adjusted his earpiece once again as he guided his truck into the dark alley behind his house. No lights glowed in the upper stories and the basement was dark as death. He cut the engine behind a gray van with moss growing on it.

“For little ones to Him belong. They are weak but He is strong…” Roberta Peters trilled.

As if it would do any good.

The Survivor listened to her surprisingly strong, clear voice, the sound of a woman no longer wailing in fear but loudly proclaiming her faith in a song she’d no doubt learned as a child.

As if she was ready to accept death and meet her Maker.

The Survivor’s upper lip curled back in disgust. He recognized the lyrics and tune. Had sung the song himself. How many times had he been forced to warble that pathetic little ditty after a particularly brutal beating? And what good had it done?

Where had God been when he’d been in pain?

Listening and ready to save him?

Not that The Survivor remembered.

“Go ahead,” he muttered in disgust, as if the old woman could hear him. “Sing your pathetic lungs out.”

“Yes, Jesus loves me…” Roberta Peters’s clear voice cracked. “Yes, Jesus loves…”

And then there was nothing.

She didn’t cry out again.

Didn’t beg for mercy.

Didn’t sob uncontrollably.

The skin over his face tightened painfully. He rolled down the window and spat. Who would have thought the old woman would so docilely accept her fate, probably even looking forward to slipping into the next realm, hoping to sail smiling through the Pearly Gates?

The Survivor felt empty inside. Furious, he yanked out his earpiece. For this, he had worked so hard? For her acceptance and compliance, he’d plotted and planned? Shit! Aside from the first gasps and cries of terror and a few bangs when she’d tried to free herself, Roberta Peters’s reaction had been a bust.

Not nearly as satisfying as Barbara Marx. Listening to Bobbi Jean, as she’d called herself, had been exhilarating, even bordering on sexually stimulating. The fact that she’d been such a lusty, sensual woman had added to the thrill of her death. Even now, thinking of her wails, he felt his body respond.

But this…the pathetic crying and singing of a childish Bible school song had left him feeling empty inside.

Don’t worry about it. The old lady had to pay. As had the others. There will be more. You know there will be and some of those will be even more rewarding than Barbara Jean. Be patient.

He slid from his truck, locked it, then walked unerringly through the shadows to the back entrance of the old home where he resided. Along the broken brick path to the basement, the vines were thick, fronds of ferns slapping at him, the smell of the earth filling his nostrils as he withdrew his keys and slipped through the door into the dark interior. To his private space. No one suspected he dwelled deep within the bowels of this old mansion, even the owners didn’t realize he had the keys to this particular part. Which was perfect.

He didn’t snap on any lights, felt with his fingers along the old shelves and brick walls.

Tonight he would listen to the tapes again. Compare them. Time them…see how long it took each of his victims to die. As he ducked through the doorway and slipped into his private space, he turned on the lamps and walked to his bureau where he deposited Roberta Peters’s underpants—voluminous panties for a scrawny woman. But not white, no, lavender and smelling a bit of the same as if she’d kept them in a drawer with sachet. They were silky, no doubt expensive.

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