Brush Creek Charlie, D. B. Reynolds [top non fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

yards opposite of the Navy Operational Support Center. Why would Sandy Barnholtz stand like a mannequin in the grass on a frosty cold winter night? She figured it out within recent weeks. Charlie wanted her dead.
As long as she was still alive, she’d be just the game for him to hunt. Charlie stood by his favorite mantra: War has no beginning, and it has no ending. He snacked on danger. He dined on death. Sandy would be the perfect snack for him to dine on. The ducks whisked across the nighttime skies. The squirrels hopped from tree limb to tree limb. Rabbits shot up from their holes for some playtime. Racoons and possums trampled through the damp soil in the woods. All the wildlife in Brush Creek were the only present company Sandy had.
She had to be the bravest female soul alive. She knew Charlie hadn’t been captured yet. Him being on the loose didn’t concern her much. The psycho being captured would bring her the greatest satisfaction. A constant stream of cars cruised up and down Brush Creek Bouelvard. A shadowy figure emerged from the side of the Navy Operational Support Center. The shadow grew larger the more the figure walked towards the street. Sandy stood in the grass like a body frozen in time.
The figure stepped across the street at a slow pace. Sandy moved closer to the murky creek waters. The brightness of the Christmas lights mixing with the street lights pronounced the shadow to a larger size. He took a step everytime she took one. Their movements seemed to have unexplained powers. Sandy couldn’t proceed any further. The figure was about ten yards away. Five more yards and she turned around to face the secretive nighthawker.
The very psychopath she’d come face-to-face with some months ago stood at least two yards from her. Charlie had never given up on killing her. Sandy was by no means a dummy. She came prepared. She reached into her coat pocket and presented a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum with a black rubber grip. No way would she show up at night in Brush Creek without something to cover her ass.
“Well, Charlie, I see we meet once again,” Sandy whistled in her brave, challenging voice. “You thought you’d be the one to take me out. Sorry, my friend, but it looks like you’ll be the one who’ll be checking out tonight.”
Charlie hesitated to reach into his pocket. “I slipped up that night we first met, but I won’t slip up this time.”
The time couldn’t’ve been grander for Sandy to confront her would’ve been killer. “You killed my precious dog Bolo that night, right down here in Brush Creek. You tried to attack and kill me, but you didn’t know the kinda woman you were fooling with. You didn’t get the job done. You murdered and mutilated those four women like they were useless pieces of garbage.”
“You’ll be the fifth piece of useless garbage that I murder and mutilate.”
Sandy kept the gun pointed at the center of his chest just in case he made any sudden moves. “Don’t be so sure about that. We went into your apartment and found out everything about you. You don’t have a dick nor a pair of balls to work with. Is that why you killed those nice, innocent women? Huh? Is that why you feel like you don’t have an ounce of manhood left?”
Confronting Charlie about his genital mutilation only sent his anger into orbit. “Two of those bitches were useless hookers like yourself. That mutt of your’s, that piece of dog shit, he got what he deserved.”
Charlie eased his fingers down into his left coat pocket.
“You make one funny move, I’ll empty this .357 into you,” Sandy dared Charlie, holding the gun steady. “How dare you kill innocent women and then chop them up with a machete like they’re rotten portions from a meat packing house. How dare you attack those two police officers who were assigned to look for your ass, right down here in Brush Creek? You had the audacity to kill their canine.”
Charlie kept his hand still since Sandy had the firmest grip on the trigger.
“You lesbian slut!” Charlie gristled. “Little do you know, I could’ve killed you a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I believe in saving the best for last.”
“No, I out maneuvered your ass. You knew that my partner and the women in S.A.V.E. were watching my back every step of the way. Your little tricks of showing up everywhere I showed up is coming to an end.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
He kept his hand steady, knowing Sandy wouldn’t hesitate to start blasting.
“Tell me, Charlie, why’re you so obsessed with a creek filled with wild animals and dirty sewer water?”
“Bitch, you wouldn’t understand!”
“Why’re you so caught up in something that’s baseless beyond regulating the flow of raw sewage?”
“Brush Creek is my life. Brush Creek is not of this world.”
“Yeah, yeah, I believe I heard that story the first time. Killing innocent women is a part of your sick fantasies. Betcha didn’t know that I knew that you suffered genital mutilation when heavy artillery blew off your privates over in Vietnam.”
Hearing such insulting words only infuriated him to the point of making Sandy his fifth murder victim. Still, she had the upper-hand since she held a powerful .357 in her grip. Charlie knew it was the type of handgun which blew big holes into people’s bodies.
“Where’d you get your fucking information from?”
“When we went through your apartment, we found out your whole life history. Vietnam wasn’t so kind to you, was it?”
“Kinder than homo-lesbo bitches like yourself.”
“The two Vietnamese hookers. You wanted to have sex with them, didn’t you?”
Sandy had pushed all the right buttons.
“Shut your fucking mouth, you whore!”
“They laughed at you. They laughed because you didn’t have the tools to satisfy them. They laughed when they saw nothing but thick layers of skin stitched together between your legs.”
Thinking about the four women Charlie brutally murdered, and then senselessly mutilated, Sandy felt she had every right to confront him with extreme words of detriment.
Charlie shivered with anger. Redness coated his eyes. Blood pumped through his veins at an unhealthy pace. Sandy still waited for him to make any false moves.
“Are you making a mockery of me?”
“With pleasure.”
“Don’t you-----!”
“Don’t what? You can’t give pleasure. You can’t receive pleasure. You can’t even bring children into this world. We saw all of your discharge records when we went through your apartment.”
By now, Charlie was moments away from exploding. The words Sandy lashed him with were stinging. And who said words could never hurt another individual? His feelings were shredded up like confetti.
“Why I let you live the first time, I’ll never ever know.”
“Because you ran up on a woman with brains, a woman with street smarts, and a woman with great survival skills. I knew the day would come when we’d meet face-to-face again.”
“And this will be the last time we’ll meet again.”
“One of us is not going to leave here alive. From the look of things, you’ll be the one who they’ll be carrying away in a bodybag.”
“You sure about that?”
“More than positive.”
Charlie had slipped into a series of flashback episodes. The first episode of actually running into enemy crossfire which severed the genitals away from his body jetstreamed through his mind. The second episode of witnessing a human body being devoured by thousands of hungry maggots sent electrifying jolts through him. The third episode of seeing his fellow soldiers being gunned down by Vietcong casualties felt like a heavyweight boxer punching him right in the gut. The fourth and most painful episode of being mocked by two Vietnamese hookers rattled his brain and burned through his heart. The haunting sounds of their giggling shot from one ear to the other. Charlie came out of his brief episodes of flashbacks. Sandy hadn’t moved one inch away from him. The .357 was still pointed at the middle of his chest. Her composure never lost its stride.
Charlie moved his hand towards the opening of his pocket.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mister,” Sandy warned him once again, pressing her finger deeper into the trigger.
“Guns don’t scare me.”
“Does the pain of a bullet scare you?”
“I’ve been shot before.”
“I’ll bet the pain is a sonofabitch.”
“Depends on where you get hit.”
“You try any funny stuff, you’re gonna make a trip down to the morgue at Truman Medical Center.”
“TMC, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“You’d like to see them put me inside a cooler, huh?”
“Your choice, Charlie.”
“Whaddaya plan on doing?”
“Seeing you go where you belong?”
“Which is where?”
“To the-------.”
Before Sandy finished her sentence, Charlie lunged towards her with both hands curled to strangle her. Time at the firing range paid off. She got a shot off in his right shoulder blade. Charlie took off running across the slippery grass. Sandy fired another shot, missing him by just inches. No doubt, she knew where he was headed.


CHAPTER—54

The phone at the residence of Lieutenant Jerry Overstreet rung at a little past one o’clock a.m. Overstreet’s wife of over thirty years, Irene, rolled over towards the night stand to answer.
“Yes?” Irene said, her voice tired and raspy.
“Please, may I speak with Lieutenant Jerry Overstreet?”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Sandy Barnholtz. I have something to tell the Lieutenant that’s a matter of life and death.”
A woman calling their home at one o’clock in the morning? Was it a matter of real business or some bullshit prank going