As promised, an excerpt!

This is AJ finding the second body. Warning: it's pretty gruesome!

The world had moved on in this area and the tumbleweed now crossed the large empty corroded parking lot. There was a cut chain at the back door. A.J. put his thick gloves on. He tapped the door and it opened invitingly. The air was muggy and dusty and the building was surprisingly dark. The darkness was almost overwhelming. Tom pulled his tiny flashlight from his pocket. Once a girl had asked him if that was a roll of quarters or if he was just happy to see her and Tom had simply showed her his flashlight. Needless to say that date ended early and Tom got to watch the 1991 Home Run Derby on ESPN Classics. For Tom it had been a good night.

A.J. switched his on too. He had hoped that the pierceing light would cut through the dust a bit better. Instead they were only able to see a few feet in front of them. “Let’s split up. We can cover more ground this way.” Tom said macho-like.

A.J. agreed even though he thought if the killer was still in the area they would probably both be gunned down easily. A.J. went left and Tom went right. Tom won this decision easily. The right direction led absolutely now where. Tom simply walked in a circle for half an hour before finding a set of stairs that went downstairs. That’s where he met a very pale-faced A.J.

A.J. had a more interesting time when he went left. He scoped out the entire left side of the building pretty quickly. Bits and pieces of machinery littered the floor and A.J. was very diligent and avoiding stepping on the bits of scrap metal knowing the consequences could dire.

About ten minutes into his search he picked up footprints in the dust. It looked like size 10 size eleven shoe men’s. A.J. took a quick photograph and moved on. The footprints didn’t have any specific distinguishing features but they could be possible evidence. The footprints were fresh and stood out like a pile of fresh manure. That and the cut chain at the door indicated at the very least someone had been here recently. Oddly the footprints started in the middle of nowhere. That perplexed A.J. but he moved on following the footprints deeper into the cavernous warehouse.

The footprints started to fade just a little. Finally the footprints faded altogether as A.J. made it to a solid steel door. The door was mercifully unlocked and A.J. twisted the metal handle and swung the heavy door open. He watched it fall back and knocked rust into the air. A.J. sprayed his flashlight into the open door. He spotted rusted stairs that led down to somewhere. A.J. was perplexed that there was a basement in a warehouse.

A metal staircase led down to darkness. A.J. edged cautiously down each step. He was nervous and he was breathing deeply. He could be walking into a trap or he could be walking on steps that could break at any second. He counted each step. One, two…, twenty-one, twenty two…, thirty nine, forty. Finally A.J. felt his feet hit cement. Sweet heavenly cement. He jumped happy to be finally off of the stairs because either he was swaying when he went down each step or because the stairs were swaying. Neither option impressed him.

A.J. moved gracefully through the nothingness that existed in the basement. He flashed his lights around and around searching for anything. He was creeping backwards to what he perceived as the north wall when his foot got caught on something. A.J. felt like a piece of gum had gotten got on his shoe. He looked down at his feet and realized what his foot had been cut on. Half dry blood.

A.J. wanted to scream but realized no one would hear him. Plus how could he face Tom if his highly girly scream echoed through the warehouse. Tom would never let him live it down. A.J. looked glumly at the blood on the floor. It was mostly dry but obviously the body where ever it was had to be still fresh.

A.J. twisted and followed the pool of blood that led to the north wall. He treaded slowly and carefully avoiding stepping into any of the bloody patches on the cement. The blood was thick and dark. A.J. felt nauseous. He hadn’t seen this much blood since Carrie.

He was glancing down at the blood when he hit a wall. Blood ran down the wall. A.J. didn’t want to look up. His eyes and light traced up the wall. Two feet up he saw the victim’s bloody feet. This wasn’t horrible yet. The legs were bloody but untouched. It was when A.J. saw the torso and above that he was horrified. On the man’s chest were two circular marks where the victim had clearly lost a lot of blood. Further up his throat had been slit. The blood started there and had trickled down to form the pool. A.J. checked the man’s arms. He couldn’t see how the man was staying up.

His light flashed to the palms. The hands were bright red. They had long concrete nails jamming through them and something else. A.J. looked at the body again. There had to be more nails somewhere else. He searched the torso again and was horrified to find two more concrete nails in his neck that stretched what little skin he had left and were grotesque looking. Whoever they were dealing with was one sick mother fucker.