Waiting in the Shadows

By Leonardus G. Rougoor

 JUSTICE! How can you get it if the system fails you totally? They say that if the right buttons are pushed, a person can sometimes be made to do things that they would have thought impossible. The right buttons have been pushed. His mother has been brutally murdered and the killer has gotten completely away with it. This has driven a young man to a place he never dreamed he would go. No one would willingly want to go down this road, but life some-times forces a person to take the most drastic of measures. How the ideas come into his head amazes even him, and those who pushed the buttons are about to pay. Worse still is the question—where, where will this all end? Is his communication with the dead a sign?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Opal Books
• Release date: Dec 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781626945654

Book preview

JUSTICE! How can you get it if the system fails you totally?

They say that if the right buttons are pushed, a person can sometimes be made to do things that they would have thought impossible. The right buttons have been pushed. His mother has been brutally murdered and the killer has gotten completely away with it. This has driven a young man to a place he never dreamed he would go. No one would willingly want to go down this road, but life sometimes forces a person to take the most drastic of measures. How the ideas come into his head amazes even him, and those who pushed the buttons are about to pay. Worse still is the question—where, where will this all end? Is his communication with the dead a sign?

KUDOS FOR WAITING IN THE SHADOWS

In Waiting in the Shadows by Leonardus G. Rougoor, Joseph, who as a teenager is devastated by his mother’s brutal murder, finds his life taking a very different turn than what he had planned. When the killer gets off scot free, Joseph starts down a path from which he fears there is no return. Disillusioned by the lack of justice in the world and the number of innocent people hurt by animals with no conscience, he decides, when he grows up, that something has to be done. But what can one man do? The story is fast-paced, exciting, and filled with a number of surprises. I found it very hard to put down. ~ Taylor Jones, Reviewer

Waiting in the Shadows by Leonardus G. Rougoor is the story of a young man who has had enough. When Joseph is just a teenager, his mother is murdered by a man who gets away with it. Then when Joseph grows up, he suffers the loss of another loved one, and also the loss of a good friend, both in much the same way as his mother. These men also get away with it, making Joseph wonder where the justice is for the victims. Deciding that enough is enough, he takes matters into his own hands in a way that surprises even him. Pretty much a loner with few friends, he makes his way through life, determined to meet out justice to evil doers. But things rarely go as planned, and Joseph discovers that the life he has chosen makes him walk a very fine line. Rougoor’s character development is superb, and you can’t help rooting for Joseph, the ultimate underdog. An intriguing, exciting, and tension-filled thriller, this one is a page turner from beginning to end. ~ Regan Murphy, Reviewer

Waiting in theShadows

Leonardus G. Rougoor

A Black Opal Books Publication

Copyright © 2016 by Leonardus G. Rougoor

Cover Design by Jackson Cover Designs

All cover art copyright © 2016

All Rights Reserved

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-626945-66-1

EXCERPT

My plan was solid and I executed it perfectly, so what the hell happened?

The excitement builds as the moment of action approaches. I walk quietly to the back door and find that it’s locked. I have anticipated this. I go to the nearest window and try to slide it open. It moves and, when it’s all the way open, I slip into the house. This room is for storage not George’s room because the light that went out last is at the other end of the house.

I have a small flashlight that doesn’t shine very brightly. I make my way toward the door of the room that I’ve entered. Slowly opening the door, I get my bearings. I bump a small table outside the door. What the hell? What kind of idiot puts a table in a spot like this? There’s a noise in another part of the living room that I’m walking through. Someone is sleeping on the couch and is getting up. He turns on a light which catches me halfway across the room. Oh crap, I’m busted. The man yells and I hear George stumble out of bed. I’m heading toward the man on the couch to take him out, which should not be a problem, when I hear a drawer roughly opened and that unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked, Shit!

All I can do is turn, run back into the room quickly get to the window, and, with a leap, fly through it. As I hit the ground, I hear a shot, and the window frame splinters as I start to run across the yard to the trees. My heart is pounding as another shot is fired narrowly missing me as a bullet hits the bark of a tree beside me. I duck into the stand of trees, grab my stuff, and race back toward my car. What the hell? This isn’t the way it was supposed to go.

Dedicated to my wife Kathleen for all her patience.

A special thanks to Lana, for her amazing insight.

To my editing friend Moira.

Chapter 1

Joseph

The choice has been made. This man has to die. What makes him think that he should be tolerated, even this long. Carl Bently is an admitted child porn producer who has the nerve to call it art.

Anyone who has any morals at all should be horrified by this person. I am personally repulsed by this man, although he seems to have quite a following. It makes me wonder what happens to the children who are subjected to this abuse. Where do they end up? How many lives are ruined because of this practice and is this cycle carried on by some of the victims? Thinking about it makes me ill.

I believe with all my heart that I’m performing a community service by removing this person from the land of the living. It’s not something enjoyable for me, but there’s no longer a choice in these matters.

He thinks he has no need to take any serious precautions concerning his safety, thus making things easier for me. He likes to jog on a regular basis. His route is almost always the same, and his schedule is fairly predictable. I get the information by doing a little surveillance on a couple of weekends, as the drive is not all that far from where I live.

He lives in an upscale home, which means that he must do fairly well. This also means there must be quite a market for what he produces. I wonder what draws people to the material that this man makes. It makes me fume a bit whenever I think about it too much. No one else seems to want this job, so I believe it has been left up to me.

The creep lives outside Sacramento. I get an address and start watching the subject. It’s surprising how easy it is to get information on people. Disguising myself a little differently each day, I follow him, making sure that I am not seen. Today I go to a café he likes to frequent but I’m early and already there when he comes in to have his latte. This turns out to be a big mistake, in more ways than one.

As I sit there waiting for Carl to show up, my mind drifts back to when I was a teenager. What I would not give to be able to change the day that started me on this path. You see, Carl is not the first person that I have planned to remove from society.

I wish with every ounce of my being that I had never been forced to remove anyone at all. This is not the road I would have chosen. In my mind, I relive that day, the day my mother was so horribly murdered. If that one day had not happened, I would never have had all those years of anguish.

Carl walks into the café, bringing me back to the present.

Up to this point, he has never noticed me because I’m usually sitting at a corner table and there are always a few empty tables available.

He’s at the counter and when he gets his order, he turns to find a seat. I haven’t counted on the place being this busy and, with nowhere else to go, the guy sits right down on one of the stools at my bistro-type table.

Hi, he says boldly. You don’t mind me sitting here do you?

So what the hell am I supposed to do now? I could just say I’m done, but my cup is almost full. No problem, I say, none too friendly.

He starts talking to me like we’re friends and, looking at him, I think that he actually seems like a decent type of guy, but I know what lies beneath that exterior. For a moment, I almost think that this may be the wrong guy, but I have already checked and this is definitely him.

He continues talking, striking up a conversation I don’t want. I’m at a loss as to what to do. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. It’s all I can do not to ram his coffee cup down his throat. It’s hard for me to follow what he is saying. I just want to get out of here.

What do you do for a living? he asks pleasantly.

In my head I say, Kill people like you. Instead I tell him, I work in the steel fabricating industry.

Oh, what kind of work is that? Do you drill holes in steel and weld pieces together, or is there a lot of machining to be done too? he asks.

I’m caught off guard by the friendly way he talks to me. Yeah, stuff like that, plus quality control.

Shit, I didn’t mean to give away information about me. This guy has managed to make me lower my guard and that shouldn’t happen if I am going to kill him. If I end up liking this man, I might not have the heart to do him in later.

Just then someone else walks up to the table, and it’s obvious that a friend of his is about to join us. I’m just getting up off the stool when Carl introduces me to Albert. The guy sticks out his hand and, seeing I am about to leave, asks me to stay. Crap, I’m getting in too deep and have to get out of here.

Slapping my pocket and grabbing at my cell phone, I pretend someone is calling me. At this point, it doesn’t matter what they think as I head out the door, talking to nobody. I keep right on walking, hoping they don’t suspect anything, but then again what difference can it make? I berate myself for getting into this predicament by being in the café before him. I have to stick to the business of doing what I came here for.

To most people, I’m just an average person. No one suspects what I do on the side and that I live two completely separate lives. It’s almost like being two different people. If Mom was still alive, she would be horrified. But then again if she was, I wouldn’t be doing this. I started down this road long ago because of what happened to her. A flood of memories come to assail me, and it takes a great effort to get back on track.

After getting myself back together, I think things over and decide on a method of how to take out the freak. He takes a leisurely jog through a wooded park every evening just as it starts to get dark. It’s a good thing this is early October, because the sun sets earlier. It gets dark earlier, helping me. It’s not real dark but the brightness of the day has diminished considerably.

I enter the park from the opposite end that Carl will be coming into. As I jog past a group of trees, a hooded man steps out with a gun pointing at me. My first instinct is to put my hands up.

Keep them down and get behind these trees, asshole, and do it quick, he snarls at me.

Bloody hell, how could this have happened? Doing as he says, I pass in front of him heading to a blind spot. He takes a quick look into the park to make sure we aren’t being observed, and this is all I need.

My right arm goes up and back toward him so fast that he doesn’t have time to react. My fist smashes his forearm just above the wrist, and the gun drops to the ground. His face turns to me with his eyes bugged out in surprise. The robbery is not supposed to go this way. My other hand is already in my jacket pocket, which has the liner removed, and I pull out a knife, the same one that will be used on Carl. The blade enters his midsection, and he drops to the ground. Dragging the idiot behind the trees, checking to make sure he’s dead, I place him out of sight and head to where I was originally going.

Shit, what else is going to go wrong? I’m tempted to postpone my meeting with Carl but this place will surely be crawling with police as soon as the mugger’s body is discovered, and my whole timetable will then be upset. There’s nothing to do but continue with the original plan.

There are several spots that will work for what I have in mind as the path curves around several large trees. I don’t want to rely just on my martial arts, because it’s necessary to take him out as quickly as possible, especially now. If I could take the time, a little more might be done to him, but I can’t and, now after meeting him in person, I don’t know if I could.

The time he’ll be coming into the park is getting close. Jogging to the spot where I want to be, I take a number of deep breaths like I have been running for a while. Pacing back and forth, I make it look as if I am getting my breath back and slowing my heart rate down. At least I can make this look realistic because of the incident with the mugger. While I’m doing this, I look around to make sure there’s no one else coming. Things appear to be working in my favor, because everything is quiet.

Seeing my target entering the park, I feel the adrenalin start to flow in me again. My hands start to tremble just a bit. I have to get a grip on myself. My nerves need to be calm if I’m to do this properly. Things can’t be allowed to get out of my control, which will easily happen if I can’t stay focused.

Damn, someone is not far behind Carl, more trouble that I don’t need. First the chance meeting at the café, then the jackass in the bushes, and now this. What else can go wrong? Geez!

I hold on for a few seconds and, to my relief, the other jogger heads away from us. Taking a deep breath, and after one last look around the park, I start moving. The knife is in my left hand. It’s not gripped so that the point is toward the ground, but rather the blade rests against my forearm pointing up with the strap around my wrist. I don’t want Carl to see the knife as we approach each other.

Running just to the right of the center of the trail will force him a little closer to the side of the path as we pass. As we get closer to each other, I adjust my pace in order to intercept him at the right spot. I notice him move over to where I want him. Nobody is in sight and the blade is rotated in my hand, so it now points toward the ground. Wow, it almost slips, but I manage to get a good grip and, as we get a few steps apart, he seems to be aware that things are not right. And as I make my move—

Chapter 2

They say that, if the right buttons are pushed, a person can be forced to do things that they would have thought impossible. The right buttons have been pushed, and it has driven me to a place I never dreamed I would go. The things I have done were, at one point in my life, unthinkable. No one would willingly want to go down this road, but life sometimes forces a person to take the most drastic of measures. It’s amazing how these ideas come into my head. But even I have rules! Worse still is the question—where will this all end?

Why, where, when, and how? These are the questions that need to be answered, and I usually do this before anything else is done. I don’t consciously think about it, but these questions are answered in my head. I’m, of course, talking about removing someone from society.

Why? Have they done things that warrant this action?

Where? Where is the absolute best place to do this, with the least possibility of getting caught or having any interference?

When? When would be the best time to take this action? This, of course, is determined by many factors.

And finally, How? The answer to this question will often determine how his punishment will come about and is based on the life the subject has lived and what he has done to deserve such a drastic end to his life.

Of course I often wonder why I think I have a reason, let alone the right, to make these decisions. But I have not always been the way I am now.

Thinking back to my early teens, I remember that I’m actually a very happy and forgiving type of person. My mother was raising me to the best of her ability and, because we were alone, my attachment to her was exceptionally strong. I loved her more than the average kid did. She always tried to do what was best for me, and we got along famously. We did a lot of things together, from going to the park to watching television. I wasn’t a mamma’s boy, but we did have a special relationship.

I spent a lot of time at the gym and martial arts classes after school and could take care of myself against the best of them. The reason that I spent so much time with Mom was because we only had each other. Because of the bond I had with my mother, some of the guys at school ridiculed me and tried to take an occasional shot at me, thinking that I was a suck. Of course, they only tried this once, as invariably a nose was broken or a few teeth were loosened. I didn’t really enjoy this but I was starting to not hate it either. I had to do what I had to do.

A football player who had a reputation for being a badass cornered me in the bathroom one day. Everyone had heard stories about him. He had hurt a number of kids and always had a couple of goofs with him just in case. I saw him coming and backed myself toward a corner so nobody could get behind me.

So, I hear you think you’re tough, he said to me.

No, not compared to you.

He didn’t even hear me and continued with a line he probably practiced in front of a mirror and used on every victim. Maybe you can show me how tough you are, he said as he smirked at me.

The two guys with him were by the door and I asked him if he needed them to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He confidently signaled the two to stay away. They leaned against the door, making sure no one could come in and Danny, the football hero, started coming closer, raising his hands.

I purposely wore clothing that hid my rather muscular physique. I put a little look of fear on my face and his confidence became even more evident.

At the right moment, my foot came up fast as I sidestepped to the left. He had no time to react before I impacted with his groin and his testicles got flattened. Ouch!

Coming back in with my left fist, I connected with his jaw. There was a sound of bone breaking.

Down he went. Turning my attention to the guys by the door, I had a little grin of my own. This conveyed a message that I was enjoying myself and gave them an invitation to join the festivities. They declined by leaving as fast as they could.

To tell the truth, I rather enjoyed this incident. My reputation spread quickly in school and, for the most part, after this I was pretty much left alone.

We ended up having to sell our home and rent an apartment on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York, not too far from the shopping mall where my mom worked, maybe a couple of miles. This meant that I had to change schools and make new friends. This time, I made certain not to be obvious that I was close to my mother. I didn’t need this crap again.

As apartments go, it was actually a rather pleasant place to live. We were on the third floor of a four-story building, and there were a total of sixteen units. That meant that everyone had a corner unit, with fire escapes going down the middle of the building, front and back. We had a small balcony at the back of the complex on the left-hand end, right off the living room. Looking out from our balcony, which was just large enough to fit two lawn chairs comfortably, there was a view of a wooded area just past the parking lot. The balcony was next to the fire escape, but this didn’t matter because no one ever used it anyway, as it is for emergencies only.

Mom and I spent a fair bit of time watching the birds in the trees and talking about our day on that balcony. One day we spotted a hawk in one of the trees. It seemed to have its eye on something. All of a sudden, there was a movement in the grass and a small rat scurried across the parking lot.

The bird of prey was off the branch and in the air. There was only a slight swoosh to break the silence as it glided toward the rodent that was totally unaware of the hunter. The raptor came up behind the rat before making its strike. There was a squeal as the rat was lifted off the ground, squirming but locked in a grip by long sharp talons that soon killed the vermin. The hawk flew in a circle and headed back to its perch. Once there, it let out a screech and, after looking around, it ripped the rat into edible size pieces. Mother was not impressed and headed into the apartment, almost retching.

We actually enjoyed ourselves in the apartment for about four years. Mom didn’t date much, although there was no shortage of guys asking her out. I think trust was the issue of concern for her. Too many guys thought of life as wham, bam, and thank you ma’am, and she didn’t feel like going through all the pain again. When someone you loved cheated on you, it made you feel like there was something missing in you. Why else would your mate continually have to have sex with other women? It was like you were just not quite good enough.

Some people thought that the relationship with my mother was the driving force that shaped who I became as I got older, but this was not the case. Something else would do that, something drastic.

On my way home from martial arts classes, I had to take a route I didn’t like much. There was a biker club hangout on the route home. I did my best to avoid those guys as they looked like too big a pile of trouble for me to handle, despite the fact that I was pretty good at kicking ass.

Sometimes walking down the street on the opposite side of the road, I heard the bikers making foul comments to a female about what they would like the woman to do for them. It didn’t matter if the woman was with a man or not. Never yet had the same woman been seen twice in that area. Every now and then, a guy would try to defend his girl’s honor and got a beating for the effort. It made me wonder what caused some people to be so low class.

The neighbors we had were real nice and we got along well with them. Well, all of them except for a quirky old man on the first floor, at the back of the building on the other end. He had a craggy lined face and walked with a stoop, forcing him to use a cane. For some reason, he thought that he was the local cop, and he figures he was there to enforce what he thought should be the rules of the apartments. I read in a newspaper that most gated communities had people like that. There was always some character that thought he could tell everyone else what to do.

We didn’t have a car, so Mom had to take the bus and walk about three blocks home after work each day. This was okay during the good weather, but it could get unpleasant during cold and stormy times. It was then that she had to take a shortcut that went past the biker clubhouse. This route was a last resort and was used very infrequently.

The Buffalo, New York, area was in the Snowbelt and got dumped on quite regularly. The winters here were sometimes very bitter. I remembered hearing that a few years ago there was a blizzard so fierce that many people froze to death. It was around nineteen-seventy-seven that it happened. The snow drifts were up to the roofs of houses and it was bitterly cold.

In the summer, it was often stinking humid and it had been described like being in the banana belt. Geez, I hated those days.

I could never get it out of my head, the day everything changed. It was in the fall in early October, Friday the thirteenth, to be exact, and bad luck as it turned out. I was at a friend’s house watching a movie. We’d wanted to watch The Bourne Legacy for quite a while and finally got the chance.

I found out later that it was suspected that Mom left the door to the balcony open, letting a cool breeze come into the apartment. It had been an unseasonably warm day, and it was revealed later that she’d had to work late, finding an error someone made, which had thrown off the balance sheet.

According to one of the tenants, she arrived home about eight-thirty and must have opened the balcony door to cool off the stuffy apartment. Mom proceeded to make a little late supper for herself because the pans still had the unfinished meal in them. The fire escape was close to the balcony, allowing the intruder to quietly sneak on to the balcony without making enough noise to alert her. He must have grabbed her before she even realized that he was there. I couldn’t even imagine how much she suffered and how frightened she must have been.

How long he was there, no one would ever know and what he did to her will haunt me the rest of my life. I came home after the movie was finished and found my mother lying dead on the floor.

The sight was unbelievable. There was an unpleasant odor in the air, and I stared in disbelief. At first, I thought that it was someone else lying there.

I trembled and started to fall apart as I realized it was my mother. I don’t know how I managed to dial nine-one-one.

How in the world could this have happened and why wasn’t I here? How could someone do something like this? It made no sense to me. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I had stayed home. Why didn’t anybody phone the police? There must have been a fair bit of noise. Why, why, why?

When the police finally got here, I was inconsolable. This event was what would change me from the reasonably pleasant person I’d always been to who I was to become.

At the station two days later, the police told me it was one of the most brutal rapes they had ever seen. The intruder had beaten her with such intensity that she was just a pulverized body. I fell apart again like never before. There was no reason for this? The intruder, it appeared, had not taken anything of value and went out the way he came in. Most people thought guys didn’t cry, but having this happen turned me into a blubbering baby.

The police talked to everyone in the building. The old man was questioned and told them he remembered hearing a noise on the fire escape. He looked out his window just in time to catch a quick look at a man who was running across the parking lot. Why couldn’t he have heard him on the way up the fire escape before he got to my mother? As the man was crossing the parking lot, he turned to look back at the building. He turned just