• Chapter 2

    Ron within his own mind, he fears what lies ahead on this road. He does not know what is ahead, though he is afraid that it is not good. He kept his eyes on the road, not wanting to blink. His conscious was telling him what lies ahead was not good.
    Linkson was well aware of what is going to be seen within the next mile or so.

    Ron shifted back into reality, picturing what is going to happen, what he is about to see though is nothing like he imagined. “If you could only tell me what I am going to see, then maybe things wouldn’t be like this. I will find out eventually, so you better tell me now!”
    The old man kept on driving. With a deep sigh of concern, wondering if his next move will be best. No, let him find out on his own. He is still just a kid! Don’t tell him now, he will find out soon enough.
    Slowly edging to the top of the hill, the presence of lights appeared. Going to the top of the hill revealed a large field. About three-hundred yards in width and about four-hundred yards in length, though in the dark, most of the field was hidden, with a light display near the beginning of the entrance. All of the lights were red and white. There were five sheriff cars and three police cars, all eight vehicles had their lights turned off.
    Amongst the flashing vehicles was a van, looked like a Caravan. As Ron got closer, it’s his Caravan! Ron charged to the Caravan, to find his two children in the middle seats, dead. Their body is stiff and cold(due to the atmosphere outside). Everything on them looked perfectly fine, except their necks. They were both bent back and the snapping of their necks showed where the bone shattered into pieces.
    Is this what I think this is? Ron questioned himself, though he knew the answer. He is filled with mixed emotions. He wants to bring his children back to life and kill the slayer that had taken two of the most important things in his life away from him.

    In shock of being hit with such a traumatic force of emotions, Ron falls to his knees. The ground is wet and soggy, he is dead on the inside, he cannot think. His face shows no expression other than he is numb.

    Two policemen run to him and grab him to stand him back up. He stands on his feet, his legs are weak. Tears slowly show and disappear on the ground below. Though there is no movement from Ron.
    In the mist of being in shock, Ron sees a body in the corner of his left eye, on the ground. He turns his head to the left slowly, and he sees his wife lying on her back. He sees two holes in her shirt, covered in blood.
    Ron ran to her and laid overtop of her, looking at her beautiful face. He leans down, and gives her a kiss on the lips. Her lips were cold and rough, he never wanted it to end like this. He just started a new life, and yet it’s taken so quickly away from him. Gracie was one of the best looking girls back in school; now she lies dead. She lies dead upon this field of grass with her cold bloody body.
    Gracie was wearing a white sweater, with a turtle neck. She was wearing blue jeans, tight to the skin but ‘comfortable to wear,’ with black Nike tennis shoes. Her red fuzzy jacket that Ron paid five-hundred dollars for was left in the van, untouched. The van continued to operate, but it almost ran out of gas.
    “Hey! Get off of her! You’ll get time to look at her.” One of the officers demanded, “Don’t touch her, we still need to gather DNA.”
    Ron snapped back at the officers instantaneously. He jumped to his feet and walked over to the officers and screamed in their faces, “This is MY wife! Not yours! Let me do what I want to do! You will get what you want soon enough!” Ron snaps back into reality with the fact that this is not a game. His wife and children are dead! This is real!

    Ron looked at the officers standing talking, taking ‘notes’, “Who did this? I swear to God I will kill him right now!” Ron looked back down back at his dead wife in anger. “I don’t care what my limits are, this person will regret what is coming for him!”
    The officer on the right looked at the officer on the left, whispered something and walked over to Ron. “Mr. Sharp, I am sorry for your loss. We cannot tell you who has done this, but we will assure you that we will find the person.”
    Ron looked up at the officer, “Listen, and don’t be sorry to me, ok? Be sorry for my family… They never did any wrong! Let me tell you this, you better listen: you better hope to God that you find this guy before I do. Because there won’t be anything left of him. I’ll go his house, break down that ******** door, and I will tie him down and burn him down to the ground, and piss on the ashes. I will not regret a thing either!” Ron was infuriated. He knows he said too much, but he doesn’t care anymore.
    “Sir, I told you. We will find this guy. As long as you are willing to cooperate with us and the other detectives, this guy will be caught!” The officer did feel confident too. His coffee he held in his hand must have made him feel warm. He looked comfortable, in his big outdoor black jacket. It had a hood, and on the inside, it had some kind of, furry texture to it, to keep his ears warm.
    “Well, you better find him. Or I will make sure that he won’t be seen again!”
    The officer in his mind, doesn’t blame him. With his job though, he has to follow the rules, “Sir, we will find this guy.” He looked off into the hills on the left side back at the entrance of the field, then corrected himself. “Oh, my apologies!” He extended his hand for a hand shake, but Ron declined it. “Understood… If you need to find me, the name is Johnson, Mike Johnson.”
    “Well, Mike… I’ll have to talk to you some other time, I need to go and figure out what the hell happened here!” Ron walked off, and got a cup of coffee and received a jacket to keep him warm.
    Linkson walked over to Ron when Ron was looking in the van. “Hey, I need to talk to you.” Ron got out of the van.
    “Ok, what?”
    “Do you see that guy over there?” He pointed over to a guy looking at Gracie, taking blood samples. “He needs you to answer some questions, do you mind?”
    The old man was wearing an old black heavy jacket. Something that had to be at least twenty years old, though it was in good condition; the jacket looked like something from an eighties police show.
    Ron studied the guy’s appearance for a moment or two then said, “No, sure, I’ll answer all that he needs.” Ron did not want to talk about it, but it would be much easier to find this guy with more information.
    “Good, because he’s from Columbus, and trust me, he’s good! I don’t want him to leave here empty, I want this case settled! This guy will get the job done, if you’re willing to cooperate?”
    “Sure, I have no problem.” Ron was relieved that someone was actually doing something rather than sitting around talking about Friday night’s game. High school football was a major thing down in Ironton Ohio, big talk of the town. After the end of a season, they would talk about what is yet to come the following season.
    Ron approached him and watched him observe Gracie, “Quite chilly out here isn’t it?” Most people near the southern tip of Ohio, had a southern accent. Their grammar most of the time wasn’t that well either.
    The older man looked up, got off of his knees and brushed himself off. “Oh sorry… Yes it is actually. I assume you are Mr. Sharp? I am John Howard, one of the greatest detectives in the state.” The old man was in his late forties, early fifties. With shiny grey hair, his appearance suggested a early fourty year old. Though, his work shows that that he has been doing this for a very long time and he knows what he is talking about. Ron sees real well, that this is not a game to the older man.
    “Yes, I am Mr. Sharp, Ron Sharp.”
    “Well then, let’s get started. Do you mind if I ask some questions? Some questions involving your family. And, I’m sorry for your loss.”
    Ron preferred to not talk at the moment, due to the circumstances, it’d be best if he did. “Yes, I’ll answer the questions. I am still very unsettled right now, so please give me time to answer if I seem blank.”
    Ron answered all the questions. The man asked about twenty questions, and then went off studying the area. He studied what Ron had said. The old man asked simple questions like, “How old was your wife and kids? When were they born? Where does your wife work?” Simple questions, though Ron didn’t mind if he went into more detail, but he won’t talk about it if nothing had to be said.
    Ron had always been a quiet person, hardly ever got in trouble. He just thought if he minded his own business, then he shouldn’t get involved in someone’s life.
    Every second Ron stood still, it felt as if everything around him got colder, can’t do this much more! Then, Ron got an idea, how did this get reported?
    The man walked over to Deputy Linkson and said, “Who made this report?” In curiosity of how they found out about it.
    The old man looked down the road where they came from and pointed down that road, “There’s a man and woman that live in a trailer down the road, it’s the first one you’d get to on the right. Not far down the road. They reported saying that they seen the van go up the road, heard a couple of gunshots, then complete silence. They called us about fifteen minutes after they hadn’t heard a thing for awhile and the van had not come back through.”

    “Had these people come up here to see what happened?”
    “Nope, they don’t want to distract us. We’ll question them more later on.”
    Later on? Why not now?! Ron wanted to know the answer, but he knows that all the people here are doing their best.
    “If the van was the only vehicle to come through here, then the person who killed them left the area on foot?”
    Linkson looked down and studied the possibility, “Yes, you’re right! He would have to leave on foot! This happened a couple of hours ago, the people that reported this said that nobody came through here after the shootings.”
    The deputy walked around telling everybody else to radio out around in the area looking for someone walking along the road or would show anything that could make them suspicious.

    The deputy got up on top of his cruiser and yelled out “OK! EVERYBODY! Look! We just now came to a conclusion. This person was on foot when he left! Knowing this, I will not let this settle! We are going to find this man before anybody thinks about doing something else!” With that being said, he jumped off the cruiser and reached inside and grabbed a map of the local area.
    He pointed down at the map, and looked at Ron and said, “Ok, here we are, right here. The closest road around here is State Route 93, which is an easy five miles walk. He could be walking along that road, or he is camping out in the woods for tonight and head off tomorrow. Either way, we will find this man!”

    Ron felt enlightened that they are making progress now. Not much has been established, but they all have to start off somewhere. “Hey, Mike, I’m glad that you’re on this. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with these crackerjacks without you, because I doubt that’d be possible.”
    He tried to joke around, attempting to remove some of his emotions about everything because right now is now the time to feel sorry. This man is still out there, and he possibly will keep doing this until he is caught.
    Ron looked around; all the cops were looking at maps, studying the area from the map.

    After five minutes of looking down on their maps, the deputy jumped back up on his cruiser, “Ok! Now, we all get the idea of where he could be. I want two cops to stay behind, make sure that nobody gets in and nobody else gets out. We will find this man tonight!” With that being said, he got off the cruiser. He looked at Ron and said, “We’re not going to settle this anytime soon. This person will be caught.” Then he looked around at the cops and said “Let’s go!”