Outpatient - A Story of Horror and Madness by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 16

The stranger left his cell phone on, staying in touch with the 911 operator while attempting CPR on Catherine's body. A few minutes later, the police arrived, having suspected that the abandoned car on Route 27 was connected to the woman that lay on the wet pavement. With an ambulance in tow, the area was surrounded, and the highway blocked off in both directions. The paramedics pronounced Catherine dead at the scene and as her body was zipped into a long gray bag, the streetlights at the intersection flickered back to life. And after the police had spread out over the area, an officer noticed some footprints in the mud just inside the entrance of Stratton Brook Road. He followed the tracks down the rain-soaked road and spotted the cabin, with a single light from the living room shining out into the wooded darkness. Approaching the cabin, he noticed the car parked in front, as well as the wide open front door and glass shards that lay strewn about the doorway. Leaning his head in through the doorway, he also discovered Nancy's body sprawled out in the living room, the side of her face sticking to the floor as she lay in a large pool of blood.

The officer radioed back, reporting that he"d found a second body in a cabin at the end of Stratton Brook Road. It didn't take long for other officers to converge on the small house and after Catherine's body had been loaded into the ambulance, the paramedics soon followed. Nancy was also pronounced dead, but because she appeared to die as the result of violence, the police were forced to investigate it as a homicide. After the police photographed her body, Nancy was rolled over by the paramedics and prepared for transport. Upon turning her body over, the side of her face became unglued from the pool of blood that had cemented it to the floor. The separation of skin from hardwood made a wet, peeling sound that sent one officer racing for the door, while others forced their tongues against the roofs of their mouths, trying to fight off the same reaction.

The police continued to photograph the living room as well as the kitchen where the cast iron pan landed, leaving a noticeable dent in the floor. They photographed the living room floor, where Nancy's body lay only minutes ago, as well as the walls and ceiling that had been spattered with blood. But as the pan was being put into an evidence bag and the blood spots were being swabbed, Catherine's phone rang. Every officer stopped what they were doing and stared at it as the answering machine switched on. The lead detective ordered that no one was to touch the phone or the answering machine. What they heard next brought tears to the eyes of every officer within earshot.

“Hi Catherine, it"s mom. We lost power because of the storm, but everything"s back on now. Give me a call when you get a chance, and remember to take your meds. Talk to you later. Love you.”

Outside the occasional car accident, nothing like this had ever happened in Carrabassett Valley, and the peaceful tranquility of the valley's natural beauty was now permanently scarred. One or two of the officers at the scene would eventually resign, having been pushed over the limits of their emotional insulation. But, the events that unfolded in that small cabin, nestled in the idyllic woods of Maine"s Bigelow Mountains, changed the lives of everyone and would forever leave a cloud of tragedy over the people of the Carrabassett Valley.

End