Who Knows What Evil Lurks

Whatever. Any reluctance he felt when killing the first three women wasn't on his mind or in his heart as he approached the back of the Tyler cabin. "This, I'm going to enjoy."

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Over the sound of the mower Jason thought he heard a scream. Looking up, he swore he could see two people through the large plate glass picture window. Surprised for a moment, Jason made a potentially fatal error, hitting the kill switch on the mower, running across the lawn and rushing into the cabin.

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Katie pulled into the cabin's gravel drive; something wasn't right. In all the years she lived at home, she couldn't remember one time that her father left a tool on the lawn, but here was the mower sitting there. Was she just being paranoid because of her father's warnings about her mother's stalker? How would the guy even know where they were this week?

She didn't know why, but as she sat in the car thinking, she realized it was also strange for neither her father or mother to come to the door to greet her; it's just what they always did for her or each other. For a second Katie thought about a worse-case scenario - her mom and dad decided to take advantage of her absence by getting in some 'private' time. But that didn't explain the mower being left out; surely her parents weren't so randy that they couldn't wait a few seconds to put away their tools.

Paranoid or not, Katie just felt something and slipped the pistol out of her purse and moved the slide back to put a hollow point round in the chamber. She kept the gun in her hand with her finger off the trigger, just like Charles taught her and hid it discreetly with a shopping bag. Katie stepped out of the car, walked up the front steps and into the cabin.

Katie realized she was wrong, a worse-case scenario wasn't catching her parents having sex - this was.

"C'mon in, little lady. You must be Katie."

Jason and Alexis were sitting on the sofa in the great room and a man with crazy eyes and a handgun was sitting on a bar stool behind them; The handgun was pointed at the back of her mother's head.

"C'mon I said. Come in and join this party. Your whore of a mother has been leading me on; making me think she was interested in me, but all the time laughing with that bitch Susan Oster at my expense. Susan isn't laughing anymore and in a few hours, neither will your mother. Come on in."

Katie didn't move; she tried her best to think, think about all the things Charles had taught her over the past year. She had a clear shot at Mason, but she knew she couldn't raise the gun fast enough to avoid her mother getting shot first. Charles taught her that it wasn't like the movies, it's virtually impossible to get off a shot before the bad guy pulls the trigger, in real life the hostage's head will have a great big hole in it.

Mason misunderstood Katie's lack of movement. "Scared, are you? Can't move from fright? This is going to be more fun than I originally planned. I was going to let your mom watch me kill you and your father first, then have some fun with her before putting her out of her misery. But now that I see what a cute little cunt you are, I think I'll have to play a little with you first.

"Your dad isn't such a brave man without his fucking shotgun." Mason looked over at Jason and waved the handgun back and forth between Alexis' and Jason's heads, "Got a little something for you here."

Mason let out a sinister laugh and looked back at Katie, "And just because I can, I'm going to let your mom and dad watch. A bullet in their knees to keep them alive, but immobile."

Mason kept laughing as he got off the bar stool and started to move around the sofa, getting in position to shoot at the knees. First Jason, since Mason considered him the greater threat. From this angle Mason couldn't effectively keep an eye on Katie and her parents at the same time. Katie thought this was her best chance.

Katie dropped the bag from her hand and started to raise the gun. The sound of the bag hitting the floor shifted Mason's attention from Jason to Katie, if only for a second.

But a second is all that Katie needed. Her eyes saw through the sights of her S&W 9mm Shield semi-auto. Mason's eyes went big as he realized what he was seeing, his arm went to swing his Glock toward Katie, she was now the greater of the threats, but he was too late.

Katie didn't think about the implications of taking a human life as her finger squeezed the trigger, just like she had been taught and had practiced for months on the range; although justified, she would have moments later when she prayed that killing him was the only option to save her parents and herself from this madman.

The first bullet struck Sandy Mason dead center in his chest, but even as Mason felt that bullet enter his body he could hear the sound of a second shot. Besides proper trigger pull, Katie took seriously another lesson Charles taught her; don't ever let them back up, eliminate the threat. Katie heard those words as she fired a second, then third shot. The second bullet entered Mason's chest just slightly above the first bullet and the third bullet a little higher, this one tearing through his throat and blowing the vertebrae in Mason's neck into tiny fragments. Mason's legs collapsed from under him and he fell into a heap on the floor.

The entire sequence lasted less than two seconds, Jason was up and kicked the gun away from Mason's open hand; a completely unnecessary act because Mason died before he hit the ground, but you can't fault a guy for trying, he at least hadn't frozen in fear.

Later Jason would have moments of doubt about his bravery and manhood; he wondered if he should have attacked Mason before his daughter returned home. He went over it in his mind; did he know Katie would come in with her gun? Is that why he didn't act sooner? Would he have done all he could before Mason raped and killed his girls? Deep down he knew the answer; moments before Katie dropped the bag, Jason was getting ready to jump off the sofa in a last ditch effort to get the gun from Mason, despite the slim chance such a move would be successful. Someone was watching out for him and his family, the bag dropped milliseconds before his move.

For now, Jason was just happy to have his two girls safe and sound. He grabbed Alexis and hugged her tight to his chest, then reached out to Katie for her to join them. Katie had the presence of mind to clear the round out of the chamber of her pistol before joining in. Alexis saw what she was doing and it suddenly hit her what Katie had done; the shock was starting to wear off.

"Where did that gun come from?"

Jason and Katie looked at each other sheepishly before Jason replied, "Later, dear. Just be glad our little girl knows how to use it. I'm looking forward to meeting Charles to thank him for his part in saving my family."

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The state troopers and county sheriffs started to show up within a half hour of the Tyler's 911 call. It was pretty cut and dry as to what happened and how Katie had fired in self-defense. Mason's car was found within another half hour and the contents of the car answered a lot of questions, both for the Tyler's and for two unsolved murders in Florida and Mexico; it would be two more days before Susan's body was found. Mason had souvenirs from all three of his killings. Also, voyeuristic videos and photos of hundreds of unsuspecting women were found on the thumbdrives locked inside a suitcase. The dates on the images spanned the last twelve years.

There was a stolen Ontario license plate in the trunk, Canadian maps and a guidebook for Caribbean islands and Venezuela. Sandy Mason obviously planned to escape through Canada and end up hiding somewhere where he wouldn't be caught.

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Four days later Jason was sitting on the back porch drinking a beer and watching the moon rise over the lake. The moon was in the first quarter and the sky was dark, dark enough for him to see a million stars. As Jason sat looking up, a shooting star flew past the Milky Way. Jason remembered the saying from his youth, make a wish on a falling star. "No thanks, I already got my wish." He did say a little prayer of thanks as he looked back into the cabin. Sitting at the table with only a candle to illuminate the room sat his wife, daughter and Charles; Charles had arrived earlier that day.

It didn't surprise Jason one bit that he and Alexis took an instant liking to the young man. He was bright, respectful and obviously in love with Katie. Jason's gruff papa bear turned into a teddy bear before dinner was over that evening. Alexis was amused at Jason's behavior; so different from how Jason approached Katie's previous dates. Jason even agreed when Charles offered to take him to the local range to teach him how to properly handle a handgun. Alexis begged off when he offered her the same training, she now agreed to allowing a handgun in her home, but wasn't ready to fire one. Time would tell if she changed her mind, but for now it was a minor victory when she agreed that if guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns.

As Jason sat on the back porch finishing his beer and feeling blessed, the screen door opened and out walked Alexis with a couple more longnecks in her hands. She handed one to Jason before sitting down next to him.

Jason took a swig from the bottle. "This is my fourth beer tonight, I'll be up at least once tonight getting rid of it."

"Well, when you come back to bed, don't be afraid to wake me. When was the last time we had a mid-nighter?"

Jason grinned, but before he could answer the screen opened; Charles and Katie came out and headed for the lake.

"We're taking the row boat out and may be going for a swim."

Jason and Alexis answered at the same time, "Be careful out there!"

Alexis laughed and gazed into her husband's eyes. "I like him, I can tell you do, too. It's good he's here, he'll help take Katie's mind off what happened last week. Sandy Mason deserved dying, I just wish it wasn't our daughter that had to do it. She had a couple sleepless nights last weekend. Just now we were in the kitchen and Katie was sharing some of her feelings. Charles held her hands, he let her have another cry. That young man has maturity well beyond his years.

"How did we get so lucky Jason? I keep thinking of Susan and how sad it is. She was such a nice woman and her life was so tragic; I find myself crying when I think of how her life ended."

Jason knew there was no answer, so he put his arm around Alexis and just held his wife.