Lucena Burning - Tres Buffalo

A FLORIDA LOVE STORY

Meet Lucena, a seemingly normal Florida girl who also happens to be a ruthless killer. Her childhood started out normally but a series of tragedies put her into the foster care system and then an abusive relationship. Finally, she breaks and unleashes hell on the men who caused her harm.

Her unique methods of murder require an accomplice and she knows how to find just the right one. She stalks him and gives him a night of unbridled passion. She then stops pursuit and he forgets about her. That is until she kidnaps him. She uses chemical and physical enticements to help him forget his former life and make sure he is always willing to assist her in whatever maniacal scheme that is next on her agenda, no matter how bloody and bizarre it gets.

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LUCENA BURNING - A FLORIDA LOVE STORY

By TRES BUFFALO

(CHAPTER 1 EXCERPT)

SATURDAY

Dan had a rough night and then found out that they were out of coffee. He decided that he would just pick up a cup on the way to one of his favorite fishing spots. He headed out to the garage, jumped into the truck, hit the garage door opener, turned the key, and nothing happened. No click, no lights, no buzzer, nothing at all, the battery was dead. He was pretty sure that he had driven himself home last night and everything was fine when he parked the truck. Then, his throbbing head spotted several problems; the headlight switch was on, both of the dome light switches were in the on position. Plus, his cell phone, mp3 player, and a power inverter were in the outlets that are always powered on. Looking around he spotted a bicycle, a battery charger, and the canoe in the back of the truck. He decided that he somehow must have loaded up to go fishing after arriving home last night but couldn’t remember doing it. He knew he needed coffee and used the jump-start feature on the battery charger to get going. Five minutes, and several showers of blue sparks later, the engine was running and when he got into the cab discovered that the fuel light was glowing. He silently wondered what else could go wrong.

You’ve heard people say that you should never tempt fate by asking the “What else?” question, haven’t you? After that, your brain silently transmits the challenge to fate and sometimes the proverbial fan starts blowing chunks everywhere.

Off to the convenience store he went, the radio blasting Whippin’ Post by the Allman Brothers, windows down, wind in his hair, sunshine in his eyes, and pre-coffee confusion in his brain. It was only a mile or so to the station but time didn’t seem to be working properly today and the trip seemed to take forever. Then, he looked up and realized that he had been parked in front of the store for some time. He realized that he seriously needed coffee but somehow the few functioning brain cells managed to tell him that if he turned off the ignition it could mean trouble, so he left the truck running. A few more cells came online and reminded him the gas light was on and he backed up to a pump to fill the tank paid with a credit card and then pulled back into a parking spot near the door. The store was practically empty since the convenience of paying at the pump had the effect of hurrying customers on their way to pick up coffee and breakfast from a fast food window instead of actually entering the store. A classic situation of giving the customers what they want at the expense of potential additional business. Some of the stations up on I-10 had tried to solve this problem by locating a fast food drive through in the store building and some of the truck stop type stores on I-95 renamed themselves travel centers and tried to lure you in by opening nationally branded sandwich shops in the store. This particular station had allowed a local sandwich chain to locate in the store but there were never many people taking advantage of it. Most of the people who actually came into the store bought coffee, cigarettes, beer, lottery tickets, gum to get the beer off their breath in case of boss or police, milk forgotten elsewhere, and the junk food that was everywhere. The counter people generally waited on customers and tried to keep the coffee pots full for the swarms of lawn care workers that arrived regularly on the weekday mornings. On the weekends, the coffee pots were always empty, and since the clerks were as likely to be as hung-over as the customers were, the coffee was usually less than ideal. Unfortunately, this was a Saturday morning.

Inside the store, the smell of coffee led Dan to the huge multi-pot machines. But when he got there he found no regular coffee in any of the nine pots and had trouble thinking about what to do next. There was plenty of the flavored concoctions that sound like bar drinks, decaf, and no sign that anybody was even attempting to make any more real coffee. Two girls brush by, and pour some mocha chica crap in a cup and laughingly make their way to the breakfast foods rolling on the hot dog grill. He decided to try the fake espresso coffee from the machine. Yah, that’ll work for now. Now, what size 12, 16, 20, or 24? He chose 20, placed the cup in the indicated spot, and pressed the button for 24. A few seconds later, he was trying to stop his hand from burning with a handful of napkins as he spotted a familiar looking woman at the checkout counter. He tried to remember where he knew her from but came up blank. He decided that it was probably best to sip the fake espresso and wait until she left before approaching the counter just in case she remembered him in a bad way. He looked over, saw beer was on sale, grabbed a suitcase pack for the fishing trip later today, and made sure the woman was outside before heading to the front to check out. At the counter, he grabbed a pack of jerky and asked the clerk for ten quick picks on the lotto drawing for that night. He usually only bought a couple dollars’ worth of tickets but decided he might as well go for it. He fished his wallet out and discovered there were three twenties in it but decided to pay with a card anyway. Leaving the counter he was balancing a twelve pack of beer, a bag of jerky, and trying hard not to spill the coffee. The lotto ticket went into his jeans pocket. He fumbled opening the door and noticed his truck was backing out of the parking spot. He ran to catch up with it and noticed that the woman he saw at the counter was at the wheel. She slowed down which allowed him to get into the truck’s bed and then she gunned it onto the street. At the first light, she hit the brakes hard and he slid headfirst into the front of the bed and things went into a spin but he was too tired to care.

In his mind he was fishing, casting for bass along a canal bank while watching for gators and snakes. Yesterday, he had put his poles and tackle box in the back seat and the canoe in the back of the truck to go do just that. His usual thing was to just try for a little causeway getaway on the weekends. This was normally fishing from the Pineda Causeway where the most often caught thing is a buzz and little else. One time he actually caught a good size snapper but could not decide if it was a Schoolmaster, Vermillion, or other variety and after consulting with the other fishermen who were also there, threw it back because no one really knew exactly what it was and how big it had to be to be a keeper. His luck with Game Wardens had always been marginal, it just wasn’t worth the risk to keep the fish and possibly have his truck, and gear confiscated for what he thought was an eleven inch Mangrove or Grey Snapper, which turned out to be a Mutton Snapper, which has to be sixteen inches. He also usually just enjoyed his personal insanity and believed it kept him off the serious medications. Anyway, he had planned a little freshwater fishing for this particular Saturday and there is not much controversy over what a Largemouth Bass looks like.

Light and air hit him sometime later and for some reason it felt like three cats had a mega death-match in his mouth. He smelled like he had drunk a lot of coffee, passed out, and pissed himself. He found a warm twelve pack of beer was resting against his leg. Sometime later he gazed at a deep blue sky with a few clouds and as he wondered why it suddenly blinked out and returned. A mild seasick like sensation overcame him and he almost regained consciousness as they went under another overpass at ninety mph. In Florida I-95 is like a speedway in many spots and if you are going under seventy-five miles per hour someone will honk and give you the finger every few minutes if they manage not to rear-end you. The police are simply not staffed to handle this problem and deal with the normal crime spree that is Florida. Ironically, pulling over a few speeding cars would probably slow the crime wave down. Trouble is that every car pulled over is potentially four hours of paperwork and a series of court appearances for the officer then there is the possibility of the officer being shot by the occupants. One of the biggest problems is the felons from every other state driving south on I-95 or I-75 to blend into the endless stream of tourists and retirees. Then there are the drugs going north, illegal immigrants going every which direction, and a multitude of people who are just mean and uncooperative.

The sun was hot and his head pounded as the truck coming to a stop woke him up. He rose up and found that nothing looked familiar. His initial assessment is that a good-looking woman was at the wheel of his truck and they were parked at a boat launch in a swampy area and maybe he had found a woman that wanted to go fishing with him for the day while drinking the night before. Then he thought he may have launched his canoe here once and became promptly aware that airboats could not see a canoe very well. The memories of a near death experience wafted through his head of an airboat tearing across the swamp that did not see him until the last second, nearly killing them both in the frantic direction changes and sudden stop. Fellsmere, he thought this must be that boat launch a few miles south of town where you can access the Blue Cypress Marsh Conservation Area or get to the south side of Farm Pond 13 using canal L75 and then over to Blue Cypress lake, if you want. There was plenty of good bass fishing nearby, a major sports network even broadcasted tournaments from the area sometimes but he still wondered why the hell he was here.

The woman got out of the truck and his stomach dropped as a wave of recognition hit him. She was not your typical young buxom beauty. She had all the right assets, in the right proportion, and in the right places but her face did not seem quite right in a way that defied easy description. Then there were her eyes. This was not a horrible disfigurement but enough to make her memorable and it kicked his memory into gear. He remembered being drunk a few weeks back and picking her up at a bar. Having sex with her seemed like a really good idea at that time and he actually thought it would be nice now too. He had never seen her before and figured that he never would again. They had taken the party from the bar to the Radisson Hotel at the end of Eau Gallie on beachside and he thought he had snuck out early in the morning before she woke up. All in all, he thought it was a good time and wondered if she knew who he was. Trying to stand up, he discovered his legs were made of Jell-O and had to hang onto the rail of the truck bed just to remain sitting. After an indeterminate period of silence and hard appraisal of him, she said I guess you didn’t think I’d do it, huh.

A frantic memory search began in his head and immediately failed again. His brain was a complete blank and he had no idea what the hell she was talking about and wanted to know why they were here. The glazed look in his eyes spoke for him so she started a refresher course in what happens when your horny head over rules your actual head. Do you even remember my name Steve? Steve, who the Hell, he realized she meant him and never asked the question. He hardly ever used that name. Steve was actually an Army buddy from long ago, but that’s a different story. He stared blankly at the woman in front of him, she slapped his face and said it’s Lori, you asshole. Dan tried to think quickly, is that what she said in the bar? He had thoughts about alcohol killing the weak brain cells first. Finally, the fuzziness cleared a little and he was able to blurt out a somewhat coherent sentence that asked what were they doing here?

Just like ordering a Happy Meal from McDonalds, she said you promised to help me dispose of Joe’s body. He denied ever saying anything before he even knew what or who she was talking about. She countered that he did say it and after bantering back and forth, he finally asked who the hell Joe was. Her reply was that they had made a deal that involved her doing whatever he wanted to and with her sexually for the night and in exchange he would help her dispose of a problem. He had just never asked what the particular problem was because he was getting more sex than he could handle from a hot woman at that time. She pointed out that they made a bargain and he needed to keep up his end of the deal or it would be very bad for him. At that moment, he had no idea just how bad this woman could make it for a man.

His first thoughts were that this was not really happening and his girlfriend had put her up to this or it was some cruel revenge game played on men who didn’t call or lied to get in a woman’s pants. He looked around and saw no body, no Joe, and decided this this really was a joke. Just then, a Ford Pinto appeared in the parking lot, yes, a Pinto. The driver was out the door before the car completely stopped and began running towards them. The car hit a curb block and stopped. Time froze, sounds stopped, and he was frozen in place. Lori yelled Joe, you came you must really love me after all! He started yelling …What the fuck? Who the fuck is this asshole? What the fuck is going on here? He was now heading straight for Dan saying I kill you, you fuckin’ sombitch and then something even more unintelligible. Lori timed her interception perfectly thus preventing Joe from getting into the back of the truck to kill him. She said you do love me, threw her arms around him, and while planting a kiss on his lips a thick plastic zip-tie strap snaked behind his neck and she quickly pulled it over his head and yanked it tight. He was off balance and before he could react, she was pulling on the loose end with all her might. Dan heard the ratcheting of the little plastic teeth as the strap tightened and Joe’s time as one of Lori’s loose ends started fading away. Joe tried to say something but the tightening strip cut it off as Lori pulled with everything she had and added her knee in his groin for additional leverage. She let go and Joe immediately starts trying to pull the zip-tie loose while beginning a stumbling dance of death in the afternoon sun. A few minutes passed and Joe first turned red with the effort of trying desperately to perform the impossible task of getting the zip-tie loose and then slowly turning a funny shade of blue and doing a bizarre rendition of the I need a Heimlich dance. A few more surreal minutes passed and Joe fell face down in a mud puddle, began thrashing about like a fresh caught Bull shark, and then perfect stillness. A few seconds later, the birds began singing again and a cloud passed in front of the sun. Dan found the warm 12 pack, and since his mouth was parched and his tongue felt furry, he popped a can and guzzled it. The warm beer went down smoothly and he immediately went for a second. The beer and the dehydration met for a battle between his temples and the world went fuzzy again...