Title: A Near Fatal Mistake
Chapter 3 - Closer to Despair?
A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far and to Arlene & SJ. You two don't have an account so I can't thank you with a proper reply but am glad you are all enjoying the story so far.
Horatio's mind continues to swim with dizzying pain as he tries to shift his body once more, mindful of the cut on his chest; the wound on his shoulder throbbing once more as he moves, causing the fabric from the dress shirt to chafe the open cut, his lips offering another muffled curse beneath the tape before his head angrily slumps back onto the musty blanket, the spot now damp from his sweat.
Calleigh, his mind calls; trying to push past the pain his evil captor has inflicted, his mind always reminding him of what Carl Wheeler has done to his victims before they were eventually found; sliced open, tormented slowly, and then killed in a most merciless manner. Over the past few weeks, he was frequently reminded of what Carl Wheeler was capable of; both by Frank and his team. His discussions with Calleigh, however, were always the ones that stung the most, with her he had the most to lose by being so passive about the real dangers. Those thoughts were now coming back to haunt him.
'Do you know what Carl Wheeler is capable of?' Calleigh queried.
'Calleigh, Carl Wheeler is nothing but a...'
'You might think him coward Horatio, but he has no fear and you know perhaps better than I do that a man with no fear has nothing to lose. He won't bend to our rules and before we have him figured out, he'll have killed again! Maybe one of us.'
'I won't ever allow him to tear apart my team,' Horatio brazenly stated.
'Then you better keep yourself in check also.'
'What does that mean?' He asked gruffly.
'Just practice what you preach Horatio.'
His face offers a small wince, one of pain and one of mental remorse. Of course she was right, but in the heat of the moment, his stubbornness refused to allow him to acknowledge that her concern wasn't based on principle alone, she cared about him and was trying to tell him so. She just wasn't able to offer him the heartfelt confession she wanted with Rick and Eric hovering just outside the door.
A bump in the road snaps his mind back to his tormented reality. He doesn't know what time it is, but surmises that his team must be alerted to his absence by now. Surely they would start to trace the GPS or even his phone. 'I disabled the GPS...' Wheeler's voice rings in his muddled brain and his heart sinks. He could be anywhere by now and unless destiny intervened he didn't see a way out on his own.
The truck starts to slow once again, but not coming to a complete halt. Instead the music dies and the compartment hatch opens; allowing Horatio to finally take in some semblance of fresh air; anything to distract his mind from the haunting smell of death that he was entombed with for the past few hours.
"You still awake back there?" Wheeler snides as he turns and glances back at Horatio's pitiful captive state.
Horatio glares at him, mumbling garbled words into the tape, his face offering strained winces at any slight movement from his body or jarring motion from the moving truck. A few damp red stands remain plastered to his forehead, still coated with blood, dirt and sweat.
"Sorry Caine, I'm tired of hearing your lies," Wheeler chuckles. "Besides you sound more pathetic this way, just like the others."
Damn bastard! Horatio's mind curses in futility; his wrists continually trying in vain to find any kind of movement from the harsh plastic still keeping them tightly restrained behind his back. He knows he simply cannot just lie here and accept his deathly defeat. He wasn't a quitter, even in the face of terrible odds, he never gave in and wasn't about to start now.
"Want to know the reason," Wheeler goads as he glances back at Horatio once more; greedily eyeing his handi-work, the crimson sludge still smeared across Horatio's lightly tanned chest from the movement of his body and ripped dress shirt. "You know the reason why I choose the ones I did? Well the reason might be kinda stupid to you but it was something that started way back when when I was a kid. It was just me and my dad together...our first. You know it was a real father-son bonding moment," Wheeler's wicked laughter starts to fill the musty cabin of the truck.
When he was a kid? What the hell? Who is this guy?
"There was this guy come around back home, you know back in Arkansas," Wheeler blabbers on; not caring what he's confessing, his mind thinking that Horatio will be like the rest, taking his secrets to the grave. "He was some handy man or so he claimed. Well he tried to pull a fast one on my daddy but damn my father, may the rotten bastard rot in hell," he chuckles once more. "Well he hit that guy over the head and then pulled out the knife he had just used to carve the cattle and he went to town. Damn bastard was still alive when daddy started slicing. Next thing I know he shoves the knife in my hand and yeah...that was it. After that, anyone that got in my way...well I guess by now I'm a bit of an expert!"
A kid? If that was the case then how far back did Carl Wheeler's murderous rampage actually extend? They only looked back at the deaths in Philly because they weren't told to dig deeper. But if they did, would they have seen just how wicked and deadly a monster Carl Wheeler really is? Why didn't the office in Philly dig deeper? Who really was Carl Wheeler? Was that even his real name?
"Yeah lost count over the years," Carl's voice continues to prattle aimlessly away. "Some worse than others."
Over the years, the tormented words dance in his brain. Oh god what have we done?
Horatio closes his eyes, his mind instantly hearing the blood curdling screams of the victims past and begging that he won't have to endure the same fate. But if this is to be his last night on earth, he prays his heart will give way before he'll have to experience any of the terror that his evil captor is promising.
"Them last two over the past few weeks...well they tried to talk to me like I was some dumb ass trucker; same expression you used Caine. I mean you...well you haven't really tried to pull a fast one on me, but with you gone I can have some peace of mind you know."
With me gone they'll double their efforts you ass! Horatio yells in vain.
"Yeah that's why the tape stays on Caine, you can't try to talk me out of this. I have evaded most everyone so far and unlike your friends, mine are willing to play my game," Wheeler's voice turns gruff.
My friends are looking for you right now!
"And when I dump your body, I merely lose my load at some truck stop and move on out of the state," Wheeler admits in a serious tone.
The roads are blocked! Horatio's mind keeps offering replies, hoping to keep him alert and focused, not wanting his body to yield to the pain.
"By the time they clue in where I have gotten to or find your rotting corpse I'll be long gone. In that case you should pray that no one else pisses me off. Course if they do, you won't know until you are all swapping stories in hell!" Wheeler finishes with an evil cackle.
Horatio closes his eyes, slightly shaking his head, his eye lashes heavily laden with dirt and tears, the right side of his face still warm from the blood that seeped from his head wound. This man was unstable. For weeks they had tried to look for a specific pattern. Who were his victims? What did they have in common? How were they all connected to the killer? They had seemed random but he had told his team, convinced them that there was a pattern and they weren't seeing it.
The pattern was whoever had gotten on his bad side paid the price. He was evil and vicious, without conscience or remorse, and didn't care at all about the innocent lives he destroyed without cause or merit. So anyone his mind perceived that personally wronged him; paid the ultimate price. That's why he was so elusive; the men were just ordinary citizens, no one that people would really miss until it was too late. And no one could predict when the right person would set Carl Wheeler off at the wrong time.
Calleigh you have to help me, his mind calls again. The truck hits a small snag in the road and Horatio's eyes quickly snap open as his body winces in agony from the jarring motion and the pain once again courses through his veins. He squints outside but seeing no lights of any kind his mind now wonders where they are? Obviously away from civilization. But where? His team knows this man likes to dump the bodies in lonely, unpopulated areas. Surely they would have this area monitored also. Wouldn't they?
Come on Frank you have to have this place monitored, his mind falsely reasons.
He feels his stomach starting to churn once more, as the truck hits a large bump and a freshly scabbed piece of skin rubs open and warm sludge starts to slowly trickle toward his belly button. Quickly swallowing back rising bile he tries to tell himself that he'll be found and this will be the last of his torment. His fingers once again try to find any kind of give under the unforgiving plastic; anything that would allow him to use as leverage to garner his freedom. But after a few moments of the hard edging biting further into his skin, his fingers rest and his lips curse his pitiful state once more.
"Well hope you're not too comfortable back there," Wheeler laughs as he looks at Horatio's trapped form with a slight sneer. "Yeah you don't look too comfortable. Well don't you worry; I am going to remedy that very soon."
Oh god...please help me! His mind yells in terror. HELP ME!
But as the big rig veers to the right; nearing what he fears will be his final resting place, his heart rate quickens and his mind reminds him that prayers for miraculous rescues are rarely answered.
Calleigh!
XXXXXXXX
Oh god, something's happened to Horatio.
Calleigh's mind swims with rising panic, her body quickly standing upright just as Frank reaches the door to her small office.
"Am afraid to ask, but have you heard from him?"
"Not a peep," Frank replies with a heavy sigh. "Eric's getting one of your lab geeks to track his phone and the Hummer's GPS."
"Think he's found this guy Frank?"
"Would be my guess," Frank sighs as he steps up a bit closer, Calleigh feeling her stomach tighten further. "But more likely, he's probably just out of range or somethin'. I'm sure he's fine."
"Do you really believe that Frank?" She asks pointedly.
Frank shakes his head and mutters a soft curse. "Damn bastard better not have done anything he'll regret."
"Who Horatio or this Carl Wheeler?" She dares to ask.
"Either, both," Frank gently shrugs. "One of these days Horatio's gotta start listening to his own lectures."
"Don't even go there," Calleigh sighs, her arms folding in front of her chest, mostly to keep them from shaking.
"How are you holdin' up?" Frank inquires with a softer tone.
"I am sick to my stomach. Have had this odd feeling for the past few hours. I um...thought it was lunch but..." she pauses, quickly swallowing back rising misery and pasting on a fake, tight smile. "I'm worried."
"Well when he does get back here in once piece we can both tie him to a chair and then take turns lecturing him about his manners," Frank mentions with a slight smirk.
"I'll agree to that," Calleigh answers, trying to see some humor in his words but feeling her very core hear up further at the sickening reality that she's already said all she can to him; their last moments on earth spent together in heated torment instead of blissful intimacy.
A few moments of thick silence start to develop, neither of them wanting to broach the subject that Horatio right now might be in the hands of the sadistic killer and they'll be saying goodbye instead of hello in a few hours; finding his body as the next bloody crime scene.
"So I um...well I think I'll go and check on Eric and that geek, you wanna join us?"
"I'll be right there," she softly assures him. "Just give me a moment to...check something."
Frank gives her a firm nod before he turns and leaves, Calleigh finally able to allow a single tear to escape before she quickly dials Horatio's number once more.
"Please pick up," she begs in sorrow. "I need you to pick up, I need you to be okay. Just pick up and tell us that you are somewhere just blowing off steam...or are mad at me...or whatever," she just talks aimlessly as the phone rewards her with nothing, refusing to cooperate; handing her only a dead rings in return for her constant efforts, her heart now painfully thudding in her chest and her mind trying to push away grisly images of her beloved Horatio as their next victim.
"Horatio I love you," she confesses in a soft whisper. "Where are you?"
"Calleigh?" Frank's anxious voice draws her attention to him. "Got a copy of that call that Horatio took and the number where it came from. Plus we got a lead on his Hummer. You better come with me."
"And?"
"And it's not good."
"Tell me Frank, what is going on? Where is Horatio?"
"He's in big trouble."
XXXXXXXX
Horatio's feet once again start to kick at the side of the sleeper cabin; something anything to try to alert anyone outside that he was inside and fighting for his very life.
"Damn you still got some fight left to ya? See the others...well they just accepted their fate..."
I'll never bend to you!
"No one around Caine," Wheeler announces as he brings the large truck to a stop in the dark and deserted area. He pushes the cabin hatch all the way open, flips on the inner cabin light and then pulls out a small camera. "Smile for daddy," he laughs as he takes a couple of pictures of Horatio's captive state and then tosses the small electronic device to the side.
"Now we are really going to have some fun," Wheeler smiles as his hand slowly reaches for the knife and Horatio's eyes widen once more as the instrument of death is set before his face; taunting his helpless and lightly writhing frame.
"Ready?"
XXXXXXXX
"How much further?"
"There is a great spot just up a few more yards, trust me no one knows where this place is. It'll just be the two of us and the wide open sky."
The two stray figures finally reach the top of the hill and pause; dark shadows against the inky sky; no one alerted to their presence. However, both look down and see an item that is very much out of place against the darkened landscape. An item the owner never guessed would be discovered.
"Thought you said this place was deserted? What is that?"
A/N: okay so hope you still have some nails left! And yes this story will have fluffy moments, we are building to that. But who do you think is out there and will they be friends or foes for our trapped hero? And for those of you that have alerted but have not reviewed, would love some feedback so please don't be shy and come out of the lurking shadows! Thank you to everyone in advance; more to come so stay tuned!
