The House of Murder

By Hope Hopkins

On the streets of St. Louis, a murderer is running loose, murdering women everywhere he goes. He is ruthless when he kills his victims, for years the police have not been able to catch him, he was notorious for his kills because the women he murdered were brunettes and he cut them a certain way. The murderer known as the Midnight Striker has been killing for decades, he was like the modern day Jack the Ripper, no one could catch the Midnight Striker, he was good. He was like a shadow in the night, always hiding and covering up his tracks, leaving no traces of himself anywhere. None of the Midnight Striker’s victims made it out alive, but one woman defied the odds, one woman survived. The woman’s name was Mary Louise, she was a rookie cop who fought the Midnight Striker and somehow survived. Mary thought she killed the Midnight Striker, but somehow he too survived. Now after many years passed, women were coming up missing and murdered again, everyone believed it was the Midnight Striker. Mary is a detective now and she has been called back to St. Louis P.D. to help solve the case, and Mary has to work with an unbearable partner named Norman Hanes who is a male chauvinist moody man that is hard to work with. So far he has been through seven partners, no one can handle Norman, but Mary can, she was sassy and just as bullheaded as Norman, Mary is quick on her feet and tells Norman off almost every time he has something sarcastic to say. Both Mary and Norman do not get along, they argue all the time and Norman can’t stand having a female partner. In the mist of their arguments and conflicts, the Midnight Striker is still killing innocent women, will Mary and Norman be able to work together to catch the Midnight Striker? Or will their animosity for one another get in the way?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hope Hopkins
• Release date: May 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370063475

Hope Hopkins

Hope Hopkins is a home-school graduate, earning her high school diploma from Penn Forster High School. She also has an Associates in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and studied psychology. Hope is a writer, Instructional Designer/Videographer, artist and musician. In the year 2006 Hope started writing, at first her stories began in drawings, than she started to write short stories, for the longest time she only wrote endings to her stories. Hope started writing after she watched the movie One Night with the King with her mother. She continued to write, but stopped after awhile. In 2009 she picked up writing again never thinking about publishing, she was just writing for the fun of it. Than as more time passed she found Twilight by Stephenie Meyer one Christmas when she was shopping with her mother. Hope was already a fan of vampire stories, so she read Twilight and loved it. She read the whole Twilight series and was further inspired to write more. Check out my website here is the link: http://hopechopkins.com/ And follow me on https://twitter.com/hc_hopkins and google plus: https://plus.google.com/105678323919615625930

Book preview

The House of Murder

By

Hope Hopkins

Copyright © 2015 by Hope Hopkins

Cover art by Sam O’Neil

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events, and places is coincidental.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 0

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

About the Author

Prologue

Year, 1984

In St. Louis Missouri in the middle of nowhere there was an old big house that was beautiful where a wealthy family lived. In this house a young boy of ten stands over his mother as she dies. Blood was all over the floor as the boy watched the life leave his mother’s eyes. Call 911… the boy’s mother struggled to say as the boy said nothing. He continued to stare down at his mother, waiting for her to die. The boy had blood all over his hands, body, and blond hair as it dripped down his face. My son… Call 911… The boy still didn’t listen. The boy’s sister walked in the grand living room seeing her mother dying on the marble floors. The boy’s sister was a year older than him. She stared at her dying mother than her brother. Oh my God, What’s happened? the girl asked in shock. Her brother turned around, looking at her with haunting cold blue eyes that showed no emotion. All she saw in his eyes was emptiness, a darkness that couldn’t be explained.

The boy walked over to a cabinet on the other side of the living room and opened the door. The cabinet was full of guns. The boy reached for one and held it in his hand. What are you doing? His sister asked with fear in her eyes. Something I should have done a long time ago, the boy answered in a mature voice as he walked over to his mother aiming the barrel of the gun at her head.

Wait, his sister said walking towards him. Don’t do this, don’t shoot her. It’s too late. Her fate is sealed, the boy said as he pulled the trigger. The boy’s mother looked right at him and said, NO! The gun shots were loud. People in the neighborhood heard the shots and started calling the police.

Chapter 0

In the night of 1994 in the forest of St. Louis where a house dwelled, the moon shined brightly through the fog covered sky. Making the house look dark and mysterious as a woman ran for her life, trying to escape the house where she was trapped for four months, being tortured by the murderer that lived in the house. The woman ran with all her might trying to escape with her life, but as she ran, the murderer with cold blue eyes, pulled out his rifle and shot the woman in the back, killing her instantly. The murderer watched the woman fall to ground as leafs and dirt flew into the air, then fell back down and covered her body. He smiled, but he paused as he turned around to look at his house, because he had two other women to take care of. One was a cop and the other one was a woman he kidnapped the same time he captured the cop.

The cop’s name was Meagan Hamilton. Meagan went undercover to find the murderer known as the midnight striker. The murderer was given this name because he only killed in the night. But Meagan’s cover was blown a few days ago and the midnight striker kidnapped her and the other woman at the same time. The midnight striker locked Meagan and the other woman named Samantha Smith up in his basement having them bound with ropes. Meagan was laid out on the floor and managed to break free of the ropes that bound her as she looked all around the room she was in. Once Meagan freed herself of the ropes, she saw a tool box and searched through it until she found a hammer. She turned to look at Samantha. She was sitting on the floor, scared and shaking, with her hands tied behind her back.

Don’t worry. We are getting out of here alive, alright? Meagan said to Samantha, but she was in shock and didn’t hear her. The midnight striker had been torturing Samantha every night and each time, it seemed as though she lost a piece of herself every time he came for her. Meagan looked up the stairs and looked back at Samantha telling her, I will be right back for you, okay? Samantha still didn’t answer. So Meagan ran up the stairs with the hammer she found in the tool box, and broke the doorknob to the basement door and opened it slowly. Meagan walked quietly through the house when she found a phone, and called her best friend Mary Louise who was a cop also. Hello? Mary answered. Mary! It’s Meagan, I’ve been captured. I need you to come for me, Meagan said in a loud whisper. After that Meagan told Mary about Samantha and how they were captured. Then she gave Mary directions on how to get to the house. Mary quickly wrote down the directions picking up her gun when suddenly, the midnight striker came in the house and knocked Meagan out with the back of his rifle.

Mary heard Meagan fall to the floor. Meagan? Meagan? Mary hollered out on the phone when the midnight striker picked up the phone and said, Sorry, Meagan’s out right now. Please leave a message. The midnight striker hung the phone up, suspecting Mary was a cop and thought she was going to call for backup. He cursed under his breath as he dragged Meagan outside to kill her and get rid of her body. Once he threw Meagan outside, he went into his basement still holding his rifle, and dragged Samantha out as she fought him every step of the way. She was crying and kicking him. When the midnight striker was in his living room dragging Samantha by her hair an inhuman voice said to him, You’re getting sloppy. The midnight striker stopped walking as he was inches from the front door. He turned around staring back where the voice came from and shouted, I’M NOT GETTING SLOPPY!!!!! After the midnight striker hollered out, he threw Samantha out of the front door and held up his rifle and shot her before she hit the ground. The barrels of his rifle smoked as he turned to look back at the voice that talked to him. You are going to get us both caught because of your arrogance! the inhuman voice hissed. The midnight striker smirked and said, Don’t worry. I’ll make sure we won’t get caught. I am a master at this. Just relax and enjoy the ride, the midnight striker paused and said with a wide smile, Or should I say, enjoy the show. No doubt whoever Meagan called is on their way. It’s some woman, so I will take my time with her. I think I heard Meagan call her Mary, so I earnestly await her arrival. The inhuman voice laughed, while the midnight striker smiled and said, You know what a patient man I am when it comes to women.

Meanwhile, Mary Louise grabbed her badge and gun, putting it in the waist of her jeans and ran out of her apartment to her car, and started speeding down the highway with the directions Meagan gave her in hand. Mary searched and found a flashlight in her glove compartment and put it in her mouth to read the directions. As Mary read the directions, she thought she should have called for backup, but decided against it, because she knew if the midnight striker saw the cops coming, he would kill Meagan and Samantha. But Mary didn’t know Samantha was already dead.

As Mary sped down the dark road, she thought of her friend Meagan, she hoped she was still alive. Mary and Meagan were rookie cops, trying to make their mark. They knew they had a lot to prove. So Meagan volunteered to go undercover to catch the midnight striker. But it backfired on her, the midnight striker knew Meagan was a cop, so he captured her and tortured her and Samantha. Mary hit her steering wheel in frustration as she gripped it tightly. She had to hurry before it was too late for Meagan. The midnight striker was no one to miss with, he was completely insane. It took Mary almost two hours to make it out to the dark forest were the house of the midnight striker was. Mary hid her car in some brush and held her gun as she ran quietly towards the house.

But as Mary ran towards the house to find Meagan, she saw Meagan lay out on the ground unconscious. Mary knew this was a trap, but she had to take the chance to get Meagan out of here. Mary slowly walked towards her and bent down to shake Meagan’s shoulder, trying to get her to wake up. While Mary did this, she searched the forest for the midnight striker. Meagan wasn’t waking up so Mary shook her harder whispering, Meagan, please wake up. Mary continued to scan the forest, but it was really futile looking for the midnight striker. Because it was nighttime and no one knew what he looked like, most of the time he wore a mask or kept to the shadows so no one could identify him.

Finally, Meagan woke up as Mary raised her hand up, letting Meagan know not to say a word. Mary pointed to the opposite side of the forest, letting her know that’s the way they were going to get out of here. Meagan stood up slowly, holding the back of her head, than she and Mary ran in the direction Mary came from. As they ran in the night, the midnight striker watched them, holding his rifle as he smiled to himself. He let Mary and Megan get a head start so he could have a little fun before he killed them. He loved the thrill of the hunt and he couldn’t wait to see Mary’s face so he could torture her and reveal in her screams of pain.

Mary and Meagan ran in the night completely lost, Mary didn’t know where she was. She kept looking around trying to get her bearings, but she continued to look around utterly lost. Where’s your car Mary? Meagan asked in a panicked voice. I don’t… I don’t know, Mary struggled to say as she tried to catch her breath. These woods are an endless labyrinth, a puzzle that I cannot find the end nor the beginning too. Crap! Mary said frustrated as she searched the woods frantically for her car. Their lives depended on finding her car before the midnight striker found them. Mary, what are we going to do, Meagan said looking helpless as the moon’s light shined down her face. Mary looked at her childhood friend who was more of a sister than a friend. They knew each other since they were two and grew up together, they both wanted to be cops when they grew up like their fathers. Whenever Meagan needed Mary she was there for her, Mary was Meagan’s matron of honor at her wedding. Meagan was so happy when she married Michael Williams, the man she had been in love with since college. Mary was happy for her and gave her a big hug on her wedding day. Will I see Michael again…? Meagan cried. Yes, of course you will, don’t talk like that. We’re going to make it out of this, you hear me? Now hold tight, I’m going to get us out of this mess, Mary said looking around trying to find a path, but she couldn’t find one.

Look Mary, I have always thought of you as a sister and you know I love you right? Mary turned around to look at Meagan and said, I know, I love you too, you’re the best sister I ever had since I don’t have one, Mary said smiling. Then suddenly a twig snapped. Mary turned her attention to the sound of the noise. Than a rifle was fired and blew Meagan’s face off right in front of Mary, her blood went all over Mary’s face. Meagan’s lifeless body fell to the ground as Mary stared down at her best friend. Her face was completely gone. Oh my God… Mary whispered in an anguished voice. The midnight striker lowered his rifle looking at Mary as she fell to her knees, dropping her gun to the ground, as she shook Meagan’s shoulder. But she was dead. The midnight striker wished he could see Mary’s face, but he couldn’t because the trees in this part of the forest hid the moon’s light.

Meagan! Wake up! Please! Mary cried through her tears as they streamed down her bloodied face. Mary knew Meagan was dead, but she was in shock. There was nothing left of Meagan’s face, only blood and a lot of it. "Oh don’t worry my sweet girl, you are next, but I won’t blow your head off at first. We will play together first. Then I will blow your head off. But I shall have mercy," the midnight striker promised as he walked over to Mary, standing behind her as he bent over whispering into her ear, I won’t kill you yet. I promise. Mary’s eyes widened as she held her breath. Then she looked down at Meagan, closing her eyes as she opened them again, looking straight ahead as her heart slammed in her chest.

Than the fight to flight response kicked in when the midnight striker placed his hand on Mary’s shoulder. Mary reached out and grabbed the midnight striker by the back on his neck, and flipped him over in front of her, as he landed hard on the cold earth. Once the midnight striker landed on the ground, Mary took off running into the dark forest, running blindly, not knowing which way to go. The midnight striker screamed and hollered as he jumped to his feet, picking up his rifle, running after Mary as he cursed loudly.

Mary ran fast in the dark forest as the clouded moon showed her small paths, while she tried to turn left and right to throw off the midnight striker. But he was too good. He knew this forest like the back of his hand. He grew up in this forest, knowing each path, each turn, each hill. He led Mary to a hill, cornering her as she stopped to take a breath. Where are you going to go now? I am afraid you have run out of places to go, my sweet girl, the midnight striker said as Mary looked around seeing a hill below, the fall would be steep and no doubt devastating. But Mary was willing to take that chance, because she made up in her mind that this night she wasn’t going to die, she was going to live.

The midnight striker walked towards Mary with his rifle in hand, smiling as he reached out for Mary, while she breathed hard, waiting for him to come closer. Come now. Let us go back to my house, where there is heat and warmth. I will give you whatever you desire, even the inner most dreams you dream of. Mary waited for the midnight striker to come for her, while she still had her back to him. She saw how twisted he was as he spoke to her like this whole situation was normal, as though they were taking a stroll in the park.

When the midnight striker took Mary’s arm and turned her around to face him, he searched her face. But he still couldn’t see her face, because it was so dark and the moon was hidden by the clouds above. Mary breathed heavily as she looked at his face, but she too could not see his face fully, because it was nighttime. The midnight striker pointed his rifle at Mary’s chest and said, Don’t try anything funny, alright? Mary’s heart nearly stopped when the midnight striker brought her to him and kissed her hard and fast, leaving her with very little air to breathe. Mary pushed and punched the midnight striker in the face with such force that he nearly fell backwards, had he not caught himself before he hit the ground. The midnight striker started to curse as blood from his mouth streamed down his chin. He quickly aimed his rifle at Mary as he balanced himself from almost falling.

Don’t you MOVE!!!! he shouted at Mary as she quickly moved out of the way, as his rifle went off with the bullets grazing her right shoulder and the side of her face. Mary fell to the ground holding her shoulder that burned with pain from the heat of the bullets. Blood spilled down the right side of Mary’s face as she stared up at the midnight striker, even though she still couldn’t see his face. Then unexpectedly, Mary jumped up to her feet and ran towards the midnight striker when he said in a confused voice, What the hell? How are you even moving this fast...? Mary tackled him. When Mary took the midnight striker down, he lost his rifle and it flew down the hill. When Mary slammed the midnight striker to the ground, he fell in a heap of dirt and leaves and rocks as he hollered out, because a sharp rock pierced his side. After that, Mary and the midnight striker starting rolling in the ground beating each other down.

Mary kicked and punched the midnight striker in his side and stood up slowly. She was just inches away from the hill she had stopped at earlier. While Mary stood beside the hill, the midnight striker leaped to his feet, and ran towards Mary as he grabbed her and threw her down the hill. But before Mary fell down the hill, she reached out and grabbed the midnight striker by the collar of his shirt, and took him with her. Mary and the midnight striker rolled down the hill together, hitting boulders, small trees and rocks and dirt, as they descended down the hill violently. Finally, they both landed in a ditch as the midnight striker landed