Dark Intentions

Chapter 14

His finger pulled the trigger, and Evan felt a thrill of excitement as he saw the barbs hit their target precisely as planned. His model of Taser had two cartridges, which fired separately. He could immediately shoot again if the first one missed, but the second wouldn’t be needed today.

His target, whom he randomly chose while driving the streets in the neighborhood a few days before, collapsed into a spasming heap.

Grabbing the spray can from the desk, Evan dropped to his knees, setting the Taser by his leg where he could squeeze the trigger again if needed.

The man lay partly on his side, and Evan rolled him to his back.

He forced the tube several inches into his victim’s nose, and the man tried to pull his head away, but the effort was weak and ineffective. With an ear-to-ear grin, the killer depressed the trigger, and the spray foam burst out of the nozzle and began rapidly expanding.

The man on the floor immediately started gagging, but the thickness of the foam and his body’s impairment from the Taser attack were too much for him to combat it. He flopped around in an uncoordinated way, a clear look of terror on his face. Only after the foam started coming out the mouth and the other nostril did Evan release the trigger. Relaxing, he took a deep breath and studied his victim until he stopped moving, taking in every moment, burning the image into memory.

He placed two fingers on the man’s neck, gently pressing against the carotid artery. He felt the pulse as it slowed and eventually stopped. Evan moved back, sitting against the wall, looking at the dead man, and felt a sense of peace wash over him.

Then his thoughts went to his sister, and he started to weep uncontrollably. After so many years, he’d finally gotten to see how his family had died – fighting to breathe air that wasn’t there.

While he sat, his mind wandered back in time to the point where this had all begun.

He’d been 11 years old and was riding in the back seat of his mother’s minivan, next to his little sister, Patti. This had been during the strange period when he was still getting used to being named Evan and not Blake, his birth name.

His stepfather, Ray, was driving as they headed home from his favorite pizza restaurant. It was a special treat because it was Patti’s eighth birthday.

It had been a wonderful time until the adults started screaming at each other and were told to leave the restaurant.

Evan tried not to pay attention to their frequent arguments but could tell his mother wasn’t happy with how much her new husband was drinking that night. Evan didn’t know much about things like that, but he knew his mom had drunk as much. She’d been doing that a lot, ever since their lives had abruptly changed. Evan may have been a child, but he knew she wasn’t dealing well with the drastic changes in her life.

Today’s argument wasn’t unusual. The drinking was one of many things they frequently fought about. But having it happen in public was uncommon. As the yelling continued on the way home, Evan had looked over at his sister Patti and saw the tears running down her face. The argument had ruined the fun birthday celebration. He reached out and took her hand, which she clutched like a lifeline.

It was sad because, when they weren’t drinking, Mom and Ray were very nice, and they often did fun things together. Evan would still have preferred to be with his real father, but he knew that was impossible.

When these arguments happened at home, the children tended to seek each other out, and Evan would put on a brave front as he held his heartbroken sister, sometimes for hours.

Long ago, when this had first started, he’d promised Patti, whose name used to be Cindy, that he would always be there when she needed him, and he was determined to keep the promise.

From the curves in the road, the kids knew they were on Lakeside Drive and would soon be home.

Years later, Evan read the police report and learned the van had been going too fast and drifted into oncoming traffic. As a car approached, his stepfather jerked the wheel to the right in order to avoid a collision. But the van went off the road and rolled down an embankment several times before dropping into the lake.

Evan clearly remembered the van jerking to the right and his mom screaming in horror as they started to roll. The window next to him exploded, and with the next roll, the motion threw him from the vehicle. He struck the ground hard, bouncing and rolling several times, ending up on his side, facing the lake. Momentarily stunned but not unconscious, he knew what the huge splash meant when he heard it. The van was in the water.

A full 30 seconds passed before his senses returned and he could think clearly. From where he lay, he could see the lake and the van resting in the deep water at a strange angle. Through the shock, he could hear voices yelling for help from within the doomed vehicle. He watched as it continued its slow roll over to its side and sank below the surface. The screaming ended.

The last he saw of the van were the tires of the now upside-down vehicle as they disappeared under the water.

Knowing what he needed to do, Evan attempted to stand. He would save his family. Immediately his plan fell apart when his fractured collarbone impeded his ability to get off the ground. Undeterred, he rolled to his stomach, planning to use his good arm to help himself get up. He’d go into the lake, using only one arm if needed.

As he rolled over, he screamed in agony and looked down at his right leg. It lay at a strange angle with the foot facing backward.

Several seconds went by before the pain subsided, and he could breathe again. Collapsing to his side, he looked back to the lake and the van. Unable to help, he wept in dismay as he watched the water for several minutes as air bubbles continued to rise to the surface. The whole time, all he could think about was his family, slowly dying without air, and what it must be like.

Already close to dark, and since the van was under water, no one noticed the injured boy for nine hours. The whole time he lay awake in the same spot staring into the water, crying out his sister’s name over and over again.

For more than a decade, that image had remained with him, and his obsession with what it would be like to die that way – slowly and unable to breathe – grew.

In his teens, he’d drowned some small animals. Eventually, while in college, he’d killed some larger animals, but that hadn’t satisfied his need. He hoped that sitting back and watching other people suffocate, the way his family had, would give him peace and make his family feel a little closer.

After sitting next to the body of Leon Conway for a full 15 minutes, Evan got up and left the house.