January 15th, 1947
The last vestiges of sun disappeared into the gloom of an unusually bleak winter's day; grey skies, heavy fog, bone chilling wetness. Few people were outside, and those who needed to be hurried to get their business done as quickly as possible, longing for the warmth of their homes.
A young woman urged her little daughter forward. Thoughts of domestic unpleasantness causing her attractive face to turn dark, and absentmindedly she tugged harder at the little girl's hand, urging her along.
The girl was trying her best to keep pace with the big steps of her mother, when abruptly the long legs stopped.
The little girl's eyes wandered into the overgrown lot her mother seemed drawn to. "Mommy?" the little girl's soft voice questioned.
The woman's attention was caught by what looked like a dirty and broken department store mannequin lying among the weeds. The dummy was shattered and lay in two halves, separated by overgrowth and garbage. The bottom half seemed to be posed and twisted in a sexually explicit manner.
At first, the woman shook her head, vaguely wondering what twisted mind used a dummy for his sexual pleasure and why on earth he left its remains here, where little children would see. But as she began to move on, recognition dawned, suddenly and with striking impact. The woman swallowed. Her eyes were drawn back to the figure in the undergrowth.
White. Ghostly.
She began to scream.
The following day's newspaper headline read 'BODY FOUND AT GRUESOME MURDER SCENE,' followed by a graphic photo of a woman's body partially covered by a blanket, placed there by well-meaning neighbours.
What the photos didn't show was how the body looked before it was covered: The naked, dead woman had been posed. She was lying on her back with her arms raised above her shoulders, her legs spread apart in an obscene imitation of seductiveness. Cuts and abrasions covered her body, and her mouth had been slashed so that a grisly smile ran from ear to ear. She had rope burns on her wrists, ankles, and neck, leading the police to believe she had been tortured before being killed.
But most horrific of all, was that she had been sliced cleanly in two, just above her waist.
The case was never solved.
October 20th, 1977
Starsky rested his head against the window of Hutch's dilapidated LTD, slowly nodding off. His dark curls lightly tickled his forehead, causing the man to swipe at invisible flies.
"Starsk?" Hutch said, gently shaking his friend. "You with me buddy?"
"Ummm? Oh…yeah," Starsky yawned, trying to open his obviously sleep deprived eyes. "Had that dream again, last night."
"You mean the one with the woman?" Hutch looked over at his heavy-lidded partner.
"Um hum. It's weird. I've had the same dream every night for a week. I'm in some kind of night club, and a swing band is playing so loud I can barely hear…."
"And some gorgeous, black haired woman, wearing a lacy black evening gown, and covered in blood, begs you to help her. I know, I've heard about the dream every day for a week."
"Yeah, but this time the whole place is filled with blood! I was drowning in it while trying to grab her hand, but it was like the blood was made out of tar, and I could hardly move. Then she tried to strangle me!" Starsky's voice grew tenser with the memory, "It's really freaky. I can see her face, plain as day. It's like I know her."
Hutch just sighed and rolled his eyes. There was a simple reason for his friend's bad dream, now, if he could just make Starsky aware of it.
"What is it you're reading right now, Starsk? That Stephen King book, The Shimmering, or something like that?"
Indignant, Starsky replied, "It's The Shining."
Hutch chuckled to himself. He knew what the title of the book was--he just liked to rile his partner on occasion. And this was as good an occasion as any.
"What exactly is the book about, anyway?"
"Well," Starsky answered, "it's about a family that moves into an old haunted hotel as caretakers for the winter. This kid, Danny, has ESP or somethin', and sees ghosts. There's this one part with a bloated corpse in a bathtub, see, and she tries to strangle Danny, and…."
"Kind of like your dream, huh, Starsk?" Hutch smugly pointed out.
"What'd ya mean?"
"The book, buddy. I'm guessing it's full of blood and gore," Hutch explained. "Don't you see? Your subconscious is dramatizing the book for you in your dream. It's giving you nightmares. Why do you read that crap, anyway?"
"Well, if you're so smart, why do I know the girl?" Starsky was beginning to feel defensive about his choice in literature.
"Probably someone you saw at the store or on one of our calls…" Hutch was about to close his argument when a call came over the radio.
"Any unit in the vicinity of Del Habra and Holgate, please respond to a possible domestic disturbance at 6-3-3-2 Del Habra Drive." Starsky grabbed the mic, "Zebra three in the vicinity and responding. Our ETA is three minutes."
TBC