Chapter 4

Joey and Lance sat on the bed staring blindly at the people standing in front of them as they were told what was going on. Lonnie was standing before them in handcuffs along with five police officers who were ready to take him away as soon as he finished speaking to the guys.

“Okay, so I have to go away for a little while, but you guys are gonna be okay. These guys are gonna take care of you very well, and everything’s gonna be okay. Just do what they say and stay in this room, and everything’s gonna be okay in just a couple of days, alright, guys?” He looked at the two blank stares, waiting for some kind of recognition from either face. Finally Joey faintly nodded his head, and glanced over to Lance who also nodded his head in agreement.

“Okay, then, I’ll see you guys in a couple of days.” Lonnie was lead down the hall by two of the police officers while the other three stayed in the room. All three of them stared at the two young men for a few minutes until one waved his hand before Lance’s eyes in an attempt to see if he was still there. Lance closed his eyes and irritably sighed, causing the cop to retract his hand and get slapped upside the head by one of the others. The officers all walked out of the room while the cop who had slapped the first mumbled to his friend.

“What’s your problem, man? Three of his best friends were just murdered.” He shrugged his shoulders in reply and they all stood in front of the door, turning on the security camera that had been set up to make sure that they didn’t walk into the room.

“So, who do you think has been killing those guys off?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s probably one of their security guys. I mean who else could it be really?” The last officer spoke up after an uncomfortable silence.

“It could be one of them?”

“What?!” Both of the other officers sounded surprised.

“Well, I mean, I’ve heard of people getting to really hate each other after being around each other for too long.”

“Then why are you allowing them to be together in there.”

“Well, if the investigator thinks that they should be together in there, then I guess my guess was wrong.”

“You’re right, we shouldn’t even worry about that.”

They listened to any noises that might be coming from the room, and after it had already gotten dark outside the climax of the day came for their ears: Somebody opened the bathroom door. All of the officers sighed at their highly disappointing climax, but in the privacy of the hotel room it was a different story. There was now only one person sitting on the bed, and when he was sure that his friend was not watching him, he scrambled over to his friend’s bag, and searched through it for something, anything. He had no idea why he was looking through the bag, but he just had some kind of hunch that it contained something very important, and boy did it. When he had completely turned the bag inside out he came to a small plastic baggy containing a very familiar pendant, a ring, and a pen. He took a closer look at the pen, and realized that all three items had initials on them: JRT, CAK, and JSC! He heard the bathroom door begin to creak and threw the stuff back into the duffle bag, before his friend would notice his disturbing discovery, and for the next few minutes he contemplated over what this newfound information meant. Finally he spoke up out of fear for his own life.

“I know what you did, and you can’t kill me. The cops are out there and they’ll know that it was you all along.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“I saw the stuff in your bag, and I’m going to tell them.” He got up to walk toward the door, but was then grabbed from behind.

“Oh, no you’re not.”

All of the sudden the officers could hear scuffling coming from inside the room and they ran to the door to assess the situation. There was a loud scream from inside the room, and one of the officers grabbed a hold of the doorknob and attempted to turn it, but it was stuck shut.

“Who’s in there?! The cops are out here, and we’re on our way in!” He ran backward and lunged at the door breaking it down with his shoulder. Both cops ran in and looked down at the mess on the floor, as both Joey and Lance lay on the carpet covered with blood. A few seconds later Lance hoisted himself up and looked up at the cops, shaking all over.

“What happened?” He simply shivered and looked back at Joey with what appeared to be fear in his eyes.

“He attacked me. I found out that he killed the others and… he tried to kill me. I grabbed a knife… and I… I had to protect myself…” He shook even harder and was wrapped up in a blanket by one of the many other cops who had made their way into the room.

“It wasn’t my fault… I… I had to defend myself.” He looked back at Joey’s dead body as he was being pulled away from the room.

“I know. It’s going to be okay. He’s gone now.” The sympathetic woman lead him away from the entire hall and sat him down on a bed in a separate room filled with more officers. He was questioned and it was then decided that Joey had killed off the others. Lance’s answers were airtight, and everyone was relieved that they were no longer among a killer.

Chapter 5