Beverly Davis slowly struggled to clear the fog from her head, the events of the past few hours lost from her mind until she saw the body of Felix lying on the floor near her bed. The ball still firmly stuffed in her mouth prevented her from screaming, yet she tried, her eyes filling with tears and searching the room for signs of the other man. The clock next to the bed read 1:11 a.m., she’d been out for a few hours, and the area of her head where she had taken the blow, still throbbing and sore but her memory was bright. She struggled with the restraints on both her wrists and ankles but was unable to free herself. The phone sat in a charging cradle near the bed on a nightstand. She wormed her way to the table and tried to pick the phone up with her hands bound behind her, in the process the restrained woman knocked the table, sending the phone skidding across the floor, coming to rest against the dead body of her lover.
With the frustration and anger rising in her chest, she closed her eyes and tried to think of what she could do. The thought of crawling to the neighbors entered her mind but it was a long way, the phone was still her best option. She eased herself onto her feet, then her knees and finally onto her front, her head facing the phone and the deceased Felix. She scooted and shimmied until her face was directly over the phone, thankfully it had landed keys up. With her nose she tried to depress the ‘on’ symbol but missed and hit the ‘speaker’ button instead. Again she tried with her nose and could suddenly hear a dial tone coming through the small speaker of the portable phone.
“Good,” she thought, “halfway there.”
With her nose as a battering ram Bev tried to dial 911 with repeated failures. Each time having to start over again with the sequence of, on, three numbers, then off and over again. On the eighth try she finally managed to get 911 dialed correctly.
Living outside the Valdosta city limits her emergency call rang through to the Sheriff’s Dispatch where the young woman had been enjoying a quiet night chatting with Deputy Guest and watching Otis wrestle with a towel from the locker room, eventually tearing it to shreds.
“9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency?” Bev heard clearly through the phone.
The gag made it impossible to utter any recognizable words so she simply grunted into the phone, her cheeks puffing in and out as she tried to be heard.
“I’m sorry I can’t make that out, do you have an emergency?”
Bev grunted once, and then stopped. It occurred to the woman manning the phone that it was possible that a mute was on the line so she reverted to an auxiliary training procedure she’d received some time ago.
“If you can understand what I am saying I want you to grunt once. Go ahead,” she said.
Beverly did as she was instructed and grunted once. To confirm that they were actually communicating she asked Beverly to grunt twice when she heard the word dog. The operator then listed a number of random words, Bev was silent until she heard ‘dog’, and then she grunted twice as loudly as she could. By this time the operator had pulled up the details of the home where the call was coming from.
“Okay, I want you to use one grunt for yes and two for no, do you understand?”
Ms. Davis grunted once.
“Fine, am I speaking with Ms. Beverly Davis?”
One Grunt
“Are you hurt?”
One Grunt
“Do you need us to send an ambulance?”
One Grunt
“Do you need a Sheriff Unit dispatched to your location?”
One Grunt
“Are you safe?” the operator asked, her nerves on edge.
Two Grunts
“Deputy Guest, need your help over here!” she said, calling for Natalie to join her at the station.
“What’s up?” Guest asked.
“I’ve got a situation. A Beverly Davis is on the line and unable to communicate verbally other than grunts and I can hear her breathing heavily, not sure if she’s injured and can’t speak or is bound and gagged. I’m sending an ambulance right away but I’ll need you or the Sheriff to run out there as well. You two are all I’ve got tonight.”
“Shit, better not be due to us releasing Wood this afternoon. I’ll see what the Sheriff wants to do.”
“Ms. Davis, help is on the way. Are you unable to speak because of an injury?”
Two Grunts
“Are you gagged?”
One Grunt
“Natalie, she’s gagged, we need to respond asap. Apparent intruder!” the operator yelled across the office.
'The Wolf' had his service belt and Glock 9mm on in a matter of seconds and was running for his squad car.
He hollered back over his shoulder, “Natalie stay with her and keep me appraised, I’m on my way.”
The operator continued to ask ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions to Beverly to let her know they were still there and would stay on the line until help arrived.
As the two women listened to the grunts coming through the sound system mounted on the desk the phone at the main reception rang. Deputy Guest hustled to the phone.
“Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Guest.”
“Deputy Guest, this is Dr. Camp, you don’t know me but I suspect you know a Seymour Wood,” the optometrist said.
“We do, what’s he done?” she said, expecting the worst.
“He dragged me out of bed tonight and brought me to my office saying that The Stalker had kidnapped his girlfriend, I think her name was Blanche but I can’t be sure. Anyway, he found some glasses and long story short, we think we identified The Stalker and Seymour’s on his way there to help Blanche.”
“Damn it! Okay doctor, give me the name and the location where Seymour is headed.”
“The guy is Lester Cummings …..”
“How in the hell…never mind, I know the location,” she said, cutting him off. “Where are you now doctor and are you safe?”
“I’m at my office and I’m fine. That boys going to need some help, send somebody as quickly as you can but Seymour said to be careful and not to shoot him.”
“Will do doctor, thanks for the call,” Natalie said trying to decide what to do next.
She called to the dispatcher, “I’ve got to get out to Lester Cummings’ place asap, can’t wait for anybody else to come in. Get on the horn and get some officers out of bed, send half to 'The Wolf’s location and half to mine. The name again is Lester Cummings — he’s The Stalker. Make it happen! I’m on my way! Come on Otis!” she said, running for the doors.
Seymour pulled the rusted-out pickup within twenty feet of the drive that led to the Cummings’ home. He could see where the dirt lane cut through the trees and weeds that would lead to the house. The gun behind the seat offered some comfort but the young man was scared to death, the thought of Blanche being harmed was the only thing that forced him from the truck. He filled a pocket with the shells from the glove box and slid the heavy rifle from the hiding place, the ten pounds now feeling like twenty. He opened the breach to confirm that a shell was still in place and slowly approached the drive. Seymour knelt next to the mailbox and looked down the lane. A single light was on in the house and a silver van was parked in the lane at the side of the structure. He listened but could hear nothing, just crickets and the nocturnal country sounds that he was so familiar with.
He crept slowly up the drive, moving his eyes right and left to prevent a flanking attack, his finger on the trigger. Reaching the rear of the van he opened it as quietly as he was able and examined the interior. No Blanche. A camouflaged hat and jacket thrown to one side, a bottle of ether resting on top of the coat along with a white rag but nothing that would assist in his rescue of the woman. Seymour slipped around the back of the van and stood between the house and the side of the vehicle, a window to his right allowed him a view into the home. Cautiously he peered through the lightly curtained window and into the house. He could make out the furniture and layout of
