Killers - Blake Crouch [0]
BLAKE CROUCH & JACK KILBORN
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: Lucy
PART TWO: Donaldson
PART THREE: Together at Last
AFTERWORD
Excerpt: SERIAL UNCUT
Excerpt: SERIAL UNCUT, Part One, Tampa, 1978
Excerpt: BREAK YOU
About the Authors
Also by the Authors
The original version of SERIAL was a 7500-word horror short story written as an experiment. In less than a year, that experiment was downloaded over 300,000 times, and has received over a hundred scathingly negative reviews, with many people claiming it was the most depraved, awful thing they’ve ever read.
But there were also those who wanted more. We expanded the scope of SERIAL and added new content, creating SERIAL UNCUT, which was over 30,000 words.
Readers demanded a sequel.
Which brings us to KILLERS, an 18,000-word novella. Even though SERIAL UNCUT seemed to end on a final note, there was still more to reveal about Donaldson and Lucy. A lot more…
If you can handle horrific thrills, proceed at your own risk. But if you suffer from anxiety attacks, nervous disorders, insomnia, nightmares or night terrors, heart palpitations, stomach problems, or are of an overly sensitive nature, you should read something else instead.
The authors are in no way responsible for any lost sleep, missed work, failed relationships, or difficulty in coping with life after you have read KILLERS. They will not pay for any therapy you may require as a result of reading KILLERS. They will not cradle you in their arms, rock you back and forth, and speak in soothing tones while you unsuccessfully try to forget KILLERS.
You have been warned…
Love,
Blake Crouch & Jack Kilborn
February, 2011
Lucy
Where am I?
Think.
Think.
Think…
Lucy opened her eyes to a blurry brightness.
Couldn’t feel a thing but the weight of her eyelids.
Her first conscious thought was that she’d been drugged, and if that was the case, this made only the third time she’d lowered her guard enough to let that happen. Normally, she didn’t party with guys she picked up. Sure, she’d sip a beer, pretend to take a toke off a joint—never inhaled—but for her, inebriation itself was worthless. She’d never understood what people saw in getting stoned and drunk. It only dulled the senses, and for her, intensity was everything.
If they’d drugged her, then they’d probably raped her and beat the shit out of her, too.
And she wouldn’t begrudge them if they had.
Good for them.
This wasn’t her first rodeo, and if someone had found a way to slip something into a drink or otherwise incapacitate her before she did the same to them…
Then kudos.
Hats off.
But the hole in her memory was just so gaping she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe she’d let herself get drugged.
No, something else had happened.
Something much, much worse.
Slowly, images were beginning to sharpen all around her.
A black cube up in the corner near the ceiling that she realized was a television set.
Empty chairs.
The railing of a…bed…she was lying in a bed, and those things wrapped in red and brown stained bandages were her legs. In four places, black foam dressing had been taped to her appendages and drainage tubes arched out of them.
An IV stand loomed above her, and several bags filled with clear liquid dangled from its hooks, running their contents down various intravenous lines into her left arm.
A heart monitor behind the stand displayed her rate and rhythm.
Her nose itched, and when she tried to raise her left arm to scratch it, something arrested the movement—her wrist was handcuffed to the railing.
The door to her hospital room stood open, and sitting just outside was a pudgy lawman in a khaki uniform, reading Guns & Ammo. His gun—looked like a .40 mil subcompact Glock from her vantage point—bulged off his right hip next to a can of pepper spray and a sheathed baton.
What the hell happened?
Or perhaps more appropriate…What the hell did I do?
She wasn’t in any discomfort. The only pain of note was a steady, subtle burn in her urethra, which, to be honest, felt just a little bit nice. The kind of thing