CHAPTER ONE
"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel.
He is the only one who inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."
MARK TWAIN
Brooklyn Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York
The city was quiet but vibrant. This is the place where anything can happen. New York City, when viewed from the air looks like a grand kingdom. One of the most densely populated urban centers in the United States; New York is full of things that make it one of the greatest cities in the world. The names Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and the lesser liked Staten Island are known everywhere. Over 800 languages are spoken, from Armenian to Yiddish and from Spanish to Swahili, making it one of the most culturally diverse. Even if someone had never been to the city before, that person would have seen movies or pictures of this vast metropolis. Everybody knows the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, Central Park and the Statue of Liberty. The phrase "If You Can Make It Here, You Can Make It Anywhere" is not only a motto but a declaration of a person's dream to be whatever he or she want if they work hard and never give up. Cities are not only defined by their landmarks, but by their people, both good and bad, heroes and villains, cops and criminals. As Malvin Wald always said, there are eight million stories in the naked city, and this is one of them.
The night was cool despite the 75 degree temperature. Electric lamp posts illuminated the jogging path surrounded by fresh cut grass. Crickets chirped in the distant shadows at random intervals, creating an eerie ambiance like the white noise of a dead TV channel. Aside from the sounds of insects, the hum of electricity and the occasional police siren, the night was silent. It was just the way Linda Marcosi liked it when she ran.
The 24 year old nursing student at New York Community Hospital did this almost every night after her 14 hour shift, depending on the weather. Unless she was pulling down extra hours, or the weather was bad she would park her car across from the park near Gerritsen Avenue. Her jogging attire consisted of a sports bra under her "I Love NY" t-shirt, spandex track pants, and Nike running shoes. Normally she would run for about a half hour every night. Tonight however, she would shoot for a full hour since she had the day off tomorrow.
Somehow, the simple ritual of running after a hard day of dealing with the flaws and follies of humanity made her life a little more manageable. In the hospital she would tend to the victims of car crashes, gunshot wounds, assaults, burns and rape. The faces of the injured always changed but the message they conveyed was always the same: PLEASE HELP US. Sometimes she got lucky and helped saved a few lives from the Reaper; other times she had the misfortune of watching them slip into the next world despite all her best efforts. Tonight however, aside from a car accident over by Kings Highway, it was a relatively quiet night.
As she started her run deep into the park, someone else was following her from a distance off the walking path. He was a man of more than average size, muscled but lean from his time in prison. He wore a dark colored zippered hooded sweatshirt, dark blue sneakers and a pair of dirty, black sweatpants. A homemade mask made from the leg of a pair of sweat pants covered his pale face. His body reeked of sweat, crystal meth, nicotine and bad hygiene. This man was moving at an odd pace, quickly but silently through the tree line. A person seeing this would compare this to a wolf stalking a deer through the forest. He was the type of person that would put others on alert if they saw him coming. Linda did not see him coming.
As he got closer to the blond jogger, he began to giggle like a hyena on the Serengeti. Normally, Linda would have heard the uncommon and disturbing sound but she was listening to the latest album from Taylor Swift on her iPod. Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice told her something was off, that someone was watching her. In a flush of panic, she turned around and saw nothing there. She breathed a sigh of relief and returned to her jog. In truth, there was no one behind her, but in fact off to the side in the woods beside the running path. When Linda stopped to look behind her, the stranger got ahead of her. He knew exactly where she would end up. When Linda got close enough, he pounced.
Linda was brought forcibly to the ground by her attacker. Rough, gloved hands dug into her flesh as she tried to fight back. No matter how hard she struggled to get him off of her, the 5'6" athletic nurse could not budge from the grip of the larger man pinning her to the ground. Suddenly, a shock from a taser ran through her causing her body to seize up as if she was having a seizure. While she was weakened by the shock, the man began to tear at her clothes with a look of deviant intent in his eyes. He climbed on top of her and she continued struggling with renewed vigor. Gloved fists pounded her face and stomach, splattering blood on the pavement and rendering her unconscious. The man continued his sexual assault until he realized that she would not come to. With a look of evil glee in his eyes, he drew a switchblade and stabbed her as hard as he could in her stomach and slit her wide open. This new sensation of pain caused her eyes to snap open at the cause of her rapid departure from this world. Her pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as the man giggled at her predicament. Finally he tore off his mask to make sure his leering face was the last thing she ever saw. He cleaned himself off and finished up cleaning off the body, a smile of yellow teeth and sick satisfaction crept across his cracked lips. In a final act of control over the victim, he took out an odd looking box cutter and carved the initials PP into her forehead. Another lovely lady, the ghoul thought. The man ran off into the darkness, giggling like a hyena.
A few hours later, the area around her body was filled with police officers, detectives, and forensic technicians trying to gather all the clues they could find. Two detectives peered down at the former nursing student with the same feelings of helplessness they felt with the other murders. One thing was clear: Linda Marcosi, 24 had become the latest victim of the serial killer the media has called the Park Predator.