Confession

By

Gary Whitmore

This story is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to events or places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2011 by Gary Whitmore

Copyright: http://www.123rf.com/profile_
pietus
/ 123RF Stock Photo

I
t was a peaceful and cle
ar night with a beautiful full Moon in Phoenix, Arizona.  It was
July 1995.   But it was not so peaceful for Sam Woods
.  Tonight
Sam
tossed and turned in a puddle of sweat in his bed
sheets
.  He had
a nightmare.  This
nightmare that
ha
d been haunting him for
almost
thirty years now. 

In Sam’s nightmare…

The f
ield crickets sa
ng in the night in some woods located in
the Deep South.
  It was a cool evening and felt like autumn weather.

Twigs and small branches cracked
beneath Sam’s shoes while he
prowled between numerous
tall
pine trees. 

The fu
ll Moon provided light for him to
navigate without bumping into a tree but he still used a flashlight.

Sam looked determined while he illuminated the trees in search of something.
  It was something he had been searching for over thirty years.

His flashlight finally found the object of his hunt.   It was a
beautiful
young woman with shoulder length blonde hair
.  She was
tied to the trunk of a pine tree.  She was naked and dead.  Hundreds of flies buzzed around her rotting and stinking flesh.

Sam’s eyes welled up while he slowly walked closer to her keeping her body illuminated with his flashlight.

“I’m so sorry!”
he told the dead girl while stared at her
closed eyes
.  He reached out and touched her cold cheek.  The girl’s eyes suddenly opened, and gave Sam a blank zombie stare.  He jumped back startled almost tri
pping over a small tree branch in the dirt.

“Please forgive me!” Sam cried
out with extreme guilt while he inched closer to the girl.

She gave Sam a loving smile. 

He noticed that some blunt object had smashed in all of her front teeth. 

She gave Sam a blank lifeless stare. 

She screamed a blood-curdling scream that echoed in the woods.

Sam jumped back scared to death. 

The woods were
an
eerie quiet.

She stared back at Sam.  There was a few second
s of just a blank stare.  H
er eyes filled with tears.  “Why didn't you catch him?   It hurt so much.  I can't rest until you catch him.  You have to catch my killer!  You owe me!” the girl cried out then she sobbed. 

She immediately stopped sobbing and stared at Sam with a zombie stare.  Her head dropped down and she remained motionless. 

Her skin slowly dissolved along with all of her organs.  She was nothing but a skeleton tied to the trunk of that tree.

Sam opened his mouth to speak…

Back to reality in Sam’s bedroom, he bolted up in a panic from his bed.  “I’m so sorry!” he screamed while beads of sweat poured down his face.  He frantically looked around his room for the dead girl, but she was not in sight.  He wanted to cry knowing he had another nightmare.  

He held back his tears while he glanced over at the bare spot where his wife once slept.  He remembered those sweet days when he was married to
Vicky
.  But that stopped eight years ago when she divorced him after twenty-eight years of marriage.  His drinking and nightmares were intolerable and she could not take it any longer.

He sat up on the edge of his bed and ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair.  He silently prayed these nightmares would cease forever. 

He reached over at the bedside table and grabbed a
quarter
empty bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey.  As soon as the bottle was opened, he gulped down the booze then dropped the bottle to the floor.

Sam stood up and staggered
to
his
bathroom at the other end of his bedroom.

When he was four feet from the bathroom door, his
right
foot rolled on another empty whiskey bottle on the floor.  He started to tumble to the floor but quickly grabbed the dresser.
 
He did not fall, but the dresser shook knocking down a framed picture to the floor. 

This picture was of his son Charles Woods, a Major in the U.S. Marine Corps Major, with wife Beth and eight-year-old daughter, Mindy.  Sam was proud of Charles and his accomplishme
nts in the Marine Corp
.  

He picked the picture off the floor and set it back on the top of the dresser.

He staggered into the bathroom.

After he shaved and took a hot shower, Sam ate his typical breakfast of Cocoa Krispies and coffee alone in his kitchen. 

After he cleaned up his dishes, Sam got dressed his black suit, white shirt with red tie.

The drive this morning through the streets of Phoenix was the drive Sam had dreamt about for years. 

Sam entered the FBI building where he worked for the past twenty-eight years. 

He walked through a maze of cubicles that was a beehive of activity with agents keeping America safe from criminals.

“Good morning Sam.  Are you happy this day finally arrived?” a FBI agent called out from his cubicle the second he spotted Sam.

“Yeah.  It’s hard to believe it’s finally here,” Sam replied while he walked past the agent.

Sam entered his cubicle and stared at it for a few seconds.  On his one cubicle wall hung a few pictures of Sam, George Williams and Peter Bronson during their annual fishing trips to northern California and some old pictures of a younger Sam and Charles.

Sam grabbed his coffee cup off his desk and left his cubicle. 

He came back five minutes later and sat down.  He kicked his shoes up on his desk and sipped his morning cup of Java.

Peter Bronson walked up to the entrance to Sam’s cubicle.  Peter was Sam’s chief but Sam remembered the day Peter first joined the agency back in the early 1970s.

“Sam, they’re ready for you.”

Sam got up with his coffee cup in hand and walked out of his cubicle with Peter.

He followed Peter through the maze of cubicles and Sam rolled his eyes when he noticed the area was void of his fellow agents.

They walked by the coffee pot table where Sam quickly filled his cup. 

They headed on down the hallway.

The conference room was packed with fifty agents.

On the one end of the room hung a "Happy Retirement Sam Woods" banner on the wall above a table.  On the table was a cake decorated with a fishing boat in water with “Good Luck Sam” above it.  

At one end of the table stood, Harry Charles and Nick Wilson who were the top dogs of the office.

“Is he on his way?” Harry asked Nick.

“I heard Peter is rounding him up.”

Sam entered the room with Peter. 

Everybody stood up and clapped to honor Sam.

Sam motioned hello at everybody with his coffee cup while he walked up to the table.  He set his cup down by the cake and shook hands with Harry and Nick.

Nick motioned for everybody to sit down and be quiet.  They obeyed.

“Thank you all for attending this special occasion, the retirement of one of the best agents the bureau has had the pleasure of paying.  Mister Sam Woods,” Nick addressed the crowd.  

“And I would like to say that America has been a safer place with Sam out there putting criminals behind bars,” Harry added. 

Nick looked over at Sam.  “And now, if Sam would like to say a few words.”

Sam reached down and picked up his coffee cup and took a sip and paused for a few seconds. 

“I can't believe I started with the bureau forty years ago.  It was a great ride.  It was an interesting ride,” he said then took another sip of coffee and paused for a few seconds.

“Harry said that America was safer with me putting criminals behind bars.”  He took another sip of coffee and paused for a few seconds. 

“That’s true but there was one criminal I couldn’t place behind bars.” Sam took another sip of coffee and paused for a few seconds.  

“I have regrets over my failure with not catching this sicko,” Sam finished then took a long drink of coffee and paused for a few seconds.

In the back of the conference room, Trevor rolled his eyes and leaned over to Wilfred.  “I'm going to puke if I hear that nineteen sixties October Slayer sob story again,” Trevor whispered.

“Tell me about it!  That’s all I heard during my first week here at the bureau.  I never caught the killer, whine
whine
whine
,” Wilfred whispered back.

“I know.  Sometime killers just get away.  Get over it,” Trevor whispered back.

Wilfred nodded in agreement along with everybody around them who heard their whispering.

Sam looked ashamed while he remembered his past failure.  “I promised someone I would solve that case.  I broke that promise, and that frustrated me so much that it cost me a divorce.” Sam looked remorseful.  “And then Bo Smithson from the Atlanta took over the case,” Sam added and looked pissed.  “Why they stuck the dumbest agent in the history of the bureau on that case, I’ll never know.”

Everybody in the room was sick of hearing his whiny story again but was glad it would be for the last time.

“Thank you Sam, now, if I could get someone to cut the cake, we can proceed,” Nick asked the audience.

Laurie an administrative assistant walked up to the table from the other wall.  “I’ll cut it,” she volunteered with a smile. 

An hour la
ter and Sam’s party was over. 
Sam was glad, as he hated being the center of attention.  But he had to play the game since everybody who retired was thrown a party.

Sam poured another cup of coffee at the coffee table. 

He walked back to his cubicle where Laurie previously placed a cardboard box on his desk.

He looked around to make sure eyes were not watching him.  He leaned down and opened up a bottom desk drawer.  He discreetly removed five folders that were rubber banded together.  They were copies of the case files on the five girls killed by the October Slayer.  He quickly dropped the five folders into his box.

George Williamson entered Sam’s cubicle and startled him.

“George, you scared me,” said Sam while he glanced back at the box making sure the file folders were safely tucked away.

“Sorry about that my friend,” George said while he watched Sam remove all the pictures off his cubicle wall. “Sorry I missed your retirement party.  I was out checking a lead on a bank robbery case.”

“I understand.  So, when do you plan on retiring?” Sam replied while he dropped his pictures into his box.

“Hopefully in two years.  My bother in-law said he can get me a job with security at Warner Brothers,” George replied with a gleam in his eyes thinking about hanging around with famous movie stars.

“Warner Brothers?  That sounds like a sweet gig.”

“Oh it is.  What are your plans with retirement?  Do you plan on getting another job?”

“I’m finished with working, so I plan to relax and fish,” Sam replied with a smile.

“Good.  Maybe if you finally let go of that old case those nightmares will cease.”

“I had another one last night.”

“You need to find a sweet woman in Florida to take care of you in your golden years,” George added with hopeful eyes.

Sam glanced down at his empty
ring finger thinking about Vicky
.  “That would be nice.”

“Hey George, you have a call about that bank robbery,” another FBI agent yelled out across the cubicles.

“I’ll be there in a second,” George yelled back.

“Well Sam, keep in touch and maybe we can do some fishing out in the Atlantic this time.”

“I would like that very much,” Sam replied while they shook hands.

George rushed out of Sam’s cubicle.

Peter entered Sam’s cubicle. 

“I guess this is it, Sam.”

“Yep, the final day,” Sam replied while he glanced around his cubicle.

“Listen, I’m working on a transfer to the Tampa office.  If that happens, I’ll let you know and we can get together for some more fishing.”

“That would be grand.”

Peter stuck out his hand and Sam shook it.  “I’ll be in touch soon.”

Sam picked up his box and walked out of his cubicle for the last time.

Two months later, Sam packed up his house in Phoenix for his move to Florida to finish off his golden years.