This is part three of the prequel trilogy and introduces Colton Harris, aka The Drowner and Melissa.

Chapter 1

After Colton left the convenience store, he drove his car to a bar that he knows would be open for another three hours. One near the university where a lot of the students would be celebrating the end of their exams, lots of fresh possibilities for him to take home and dispose of. He likes the name the media gave him, The Drowner, fitting considering how many of his victims were dropped into the water while still alive.

Even from out in the parking lot of the bar he can hear the thump, thump, thump of the bass and the drums from the band playing inside. What little chick am I going to get in here? He asked himself as he entered the bar and paid the ten-dollar cover charge.

Looking around, he found an empty table at the back corner of the bar, all the better to scan the place for his next prey and do it without being noticed. A waitress took his order of a Bud Light and brought it back to him minutes later, he gave her a tip of seventy-five cents, not too big or small, they remember the big tippers and the stingy ones more than the ones who give a regular one, and the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself.

Taking small sips every few minutes it would not be good to get nailed for a DUI with a woman tied up in the back of his car, he scans his eyes around looking for someone, the girl who would look the least confident and easiest to get her to let her guard down. After twenty minutes he spots what looks like a good candidate, a hot little thing with long dark hair who has just taken a seat at the bar. She looks a little sweaty from dancing, and a little tipsy as she is sitting there, steadying herself with one arm on the bar as she waves at the bartender.

Colton leaves his seat and approaches the girl at the bar, she looks to be about nineteen and maybe weighs ninety pounds, two roofies should do the trick.

He reaches his hand out to her and says, “Hey there, sweet thing, what’s your name?”

She shakes his hand and smiles, “I’m Melissa and I have a boyfriend.”

Colton nods his head and winks, “Doesn’t mean I can’t buy a pretty girl a drink does it?”

“I suppose not,” she says, “but I’m not going home with you.”

That’s what you think, “Ever have a screwdriver?”

“Don’t think so,” she replies.

Colton turns his head to the bartender, “Two screwdrivers please.”

The bartender takes two glasses and pours of shot of vodka in each, then pours a scoop of ice in each before filling them with orange juice. He hands the glasses to Colton who hands the bartender ten dollars waving off the change. Turning his attention back to Melissa he says, “Before we drink I’d like to show you a magic trick.

He waves his right hand in front of her as he slips his left hand in his jacket pocket feeling around for the two pills he’s going to slip into the girl’s drink.

“You see that there’s nothing in my hand here, don’t you?” he says.

“Yes,” she says smiling.

 He snaps his fingers and reaches his hand behind her ear and pulls out a coin, “You had a loonie behind your ear.”

“A loonie?” she asks scrunching her eyebrows as he shows her the coin.

“It’s a Canadian one-dollar coin,” he says. He has the coin in the palm of his hand right in front of her face, she takes the coin out of his hand and looks it over, she doesn’t see him drop the two pills in her drink.

“Yes,” she says. “I remember seeing these when we went to Quebec. They also have two-dollar coins up there.”

He hands her the drugged drink, “A toast to new friends?”

She smiles again and says, “Sure.”

They clink their glasses and she sips from the straw. “What do you take in university?”

“I’m a drama student,” Melissa says. “My boyfriend and I are going to move to Hollywood when we graduate and become movie stars.”

“You go big dreams, I hope they work out for you.”

She smiles again, “Thanks.”

They continue talking as she sips on her drink, she doesn’t think it all that odd that he’s barely touched his drink, he seems like a big talker to her, over bragging about the things he’s done. She’s seen the type, but her head his now spinning, I must have had too much to drink. She closes and opens her eyes shaking her head.

“Is everything all right?” Colton asks feigning concern.

“I sh, sh, sh, should go,” she says, “I’ve had too…” her voice trails off as the drugs have taken full hold of her. She falls unconscious into his arms, he takes her over his right shoulder, slings her purse over his left and carries her to the exit.

“Is everything all right?” the bouncer asks.

“Yeah,” Colton says patting Melissa on her backside. “My girl has had too much to drink, so I’m taking her home.”

He carries her out to his car and clicks on the door opener on his keys, pulls open the passenger door and sits the tiny woman in the seat. She slumps down as he pulls the seatbelt over her and she lets out a soft groan.

Colton gets into the driver’s seat, and with two lengths of rope that he pre-cut from the spool he bought earlier, he ties Melissa’s wrists behind her back and then secures her ankles. He starts the engine and drives off into the night, The Drowner has his latest victim, snatching her went off like clockwork.

Chapter 2

Colton backed his car into the garage of the home, he still lived in with his mother who was away on a cruise vacation. After turning the engine off, he waited until the garage door closed before getting out of the car and sliding the bolt of the door to completely secure the door. Once that task was finished we went back to the car and opened the passenger door, Melissa was still unconscious, he felt for her pulse on her neck, good she’s not dead yet, unfastened the seat belt and again took her over his shoulder and shut the door to the car.

He stood in the garage for a minute, savoring the moment of holding this girl over his shoulder, breathing in and out slowly like simply the act of having a smaller weaker person at his mercy was as good or better than sex.

“Little lady, I am going to have some fun with you before I get rid of you.”

After another five minutes of standing there and running his hands up and down her legs and buttocks, he carried her into the rest of the house, past the living room and down the hall, he opened the door to a room that had his bass guitar and amplifier set up. There were some attempts at sound proofing on the walls, but he hadn’t gotten around to completing that task yet. He only brought a girl home whenever his mother was away on a vacation, and always made sure to clean up any blood his victims would leave behind before she got home.

Colton unceremoniously dumps Melissa on the floor and left her lying there returning a few minutes later with a pair of heavy-duty scissors that he uses to cut her skirt and blouse off. He drops her clothes on the floor near his amplifier and running his hands all over her before taking off her undergarments.

Half an hour later he leaves the room and secures it with a bar and padlock over the door, he turns and goes into the kitchen and takes out a bottle of beer and sits down in the living room. He can hear the girl he is holding captive starting to moan before he turns on the TV to catch a college football game. Tomorrow night I’ll dump her off a bridge somewhere.

The next night he enters the room and checks Melissa’s pulse, she’s still alive, he had put another two roofies in her a couple hours ago, just to keep her compliant, she was groggy the whole time. He has a gear bag with him and unzips the bag, the girl is groaning through the duct tape over her mouth as he sticks her feet first into the bag before closing the zipper over her. Shouldering her, he takes her out of the room, through the house and into the garage where the trunk of the car is open, inside is a cinder block with some rope tied to it. He drops Melissa into the trunk of the car and closes it.

Colton goes to the garage door, slides the bolt out of the hole, gets in his car, starts the engine and pressed the button to open the garage door. He taps on the steering wheel as he waits for the door to open enough so he can drive out. As soon as it does he drives out into the driveway and waits for the door to start closing. He has his radio turned on to the news, nothing has come on about the missing girl he has in the trunk of his car, maybe she was lying about the boyfriend.

As soon as the garage door starts its descent to close, Colton presses down on the gas pedal and drives off and soon gets on a two-lane highway. In his excitement he doesn’t notice that he’s gone over the speed limit and is startled by the police car lights and sirens behind him.

Dammit, he thinks the last thing he wanted right now was a cop pulling him over. Colton slowly pressed down on the brake pedal as he pulled the car over to the side of the shoulder. He put his wallet on the dashboard, no need to alarm the officer, and held his hand on his Ka-Bar knife as the cop got out of his car and began walking to the driver’s side window.

Colton rolled the window down and the officer asked for his license and registration.

“Sure thing officer,” he says as he reaches for his wallet with his left hand.

“Where’s your car’s license plate?” the cop asks.

“It fell off, the screws must have rusted out,” Colton says as he takes his wallet off the dashboard, “I’m going to the DMV tomorrow to get a new one.” He makes like he is about to take his driver’s license out of the wallet when with his right hand he takes the knife out from under his leg and drives it into the officer’s throat.

The cop falls to the ground dead, Colton opens his door and takes the officer’s badge and gun off him, a little souvenir like he takes from all his victims. He drops the badge into the center console of the car and slides the gun under the passenger seat. After another twenty minutes of driving he pulls his car into a gravel parking lot and stops the engine.

Fifty feet way is a small pedestrian bridge that spans the water, a perfect place to drop the girl off from, it’s not so high that she’ll die on impact. Her death will take a bit of time as she drowns in the water. He hits the button to open the trunk and gets out of the car, grabbing the girl he tosses her over his shoulder and grabs the cinder block and starts carrying her to the bridge.

He takes three steps on the bridge and the girl starts thrashing around, damn didn’t drug her enough, he gets to the middle of the bridge where he body slams the girl to the ground. Kneeling next to her, he ties the free end of the rope around her waist then feels around for the back of her head.

Colton pulls his Ka-Bar knife out and stabs her twice under the collar bone then speaks right into where her ear would be, “I am your worst nightmares come true. The reason you fear the dark. I am The Drowner. The bleeding should get the sharks to you fast.”

He picks her up cradle style and tosses her off the side of the bridge, he shines a flashlight on her as she goes under the water. On his way back to the car, he lights a cigarette and takes in a long drag. Around the bend of land that is jutting out from the other side of a bridge there is a boat called The Alexandra, hidden by the trees. Two men in scuba gear have jumped off the boat, one is heading toward where Melissa has been tossed off the bridge the other is going the opposite way.

Driving away from the scene Colton has no idea that with dumping this woman at this location he has set into motion a chain of events that would lead to one of the biggest police investigations in history.

This concludes the prequel trilogy. I hope you enjoyed it, if you did, check out the book below.