Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 12:25:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Tony Simms Subject: For RIcher or For Poorer Chapter 3 In an abandoned rundown warehouse on the Southside of Chicago, muffled screams permeated the quiet night air. A muscular yet somewhat overweight man stood over a terrified and battered body of a young brunette lady. After the initial assault he hoisted her up by her wrists, chained together. She screamed in agony at the pain. The man was drunk and drugged out. She could smell the tequila radiating off him. She vomited from the smell and the torture. He also was on a three day crack binge, and was extremely agitated and completely paranoid. SLAP!!! He punched her in the face for puking all over him, and shoved his knife up against her throat. She cried out in pain again. "SHUT UP, BITCH!!! I'm gonna gut you like a pig, you stupid slut. You failed to please me, you cunt! Time to die you ungrateful whore!!!" he said in his drugged out and drunken anger, "you are gonna pay for that, you stupid bitch!!!" "Please don't kill me, I'll do better... I... I pr-pro-promise." "It's too late for that, slut." The woman, chained and suspended from the ceiling of the walk-in freezer by meat hooks, began sobbing at the fact she was going to die. The sinister figure got behind her and ripped her already bloody panties and shoved his knife into her, eliciting blood curdling screams. After a couple minutes he took the knife to her stomach and bellowed in her ear, "Now that you've started bleeding, it's time to make a sacrifice. There is isn't enough blood here." At this point she could barely stay conscious after losing so much blood, but the sadistic monster wasn't done yet. He ripped the poor girl's blouse and began stabbing her in the breasts and abdomen, resulting in even more anguished cries. "Please just kill me. Finish me off," she cried, resigned to her fate. "With pleasure." He said snidely. At that he dragged the blade across her throat, finally putting an end to her torture. He then picked her lifeless body up off the hooks, wrapped her up in industrial plastic sheeting and put her in the van waiting outside. After cleaning up the kill site and burning his and the woman's bloody clothes, he set off for the state line to dump the body, in a place that mobsters from the Al Capone and Dillinger eras dubbed affectionately "The Dumping Grounds." After arriving at their new apartment off campus at Marquette and unpacking, Bryce and Davis, called Bryce's older brother James, a senior at UW-Milwaukee. After a few beers and pizza, they began talking about what happened the day prior. James, angry at the fact that Davis, the guy he came to love as his little brother, was disrespected and screamed at because he wouldn't sleep with a sleazy girl in a bathroom, he lost it and began ranting about how she was probably on something and could have easily given Davis a disease. "That woman deserved more of a tongue-lashing than you gave her, little bros, she should be in jail instead of trying to force herself on other people," James said pointedly. "I know but we were terrified and after coming out to her, I panicked and just wanted to get the hell out of there," Davis said. Bryce, stunned that Davis would out himself to his older brother, began rubbing his back affectionately, sending shock waves to Davis' crotch. This action by Bryce and Davis' reaction wasn't lost on James. He smiled a little knowing about Bryce's crush. Davis on the other hand, had to use all his willpower to keep from ripping all of Bryce's clothes and fucking him on the couch in front of James, blissfully unaware that Bryce had the same thoughts going through his mind. After drinking a few more beers and watching the Cubs get embarrassed by the Brewers, the boys said bye to James and headed to their place. After talking to the parents, they turned in, exhausted from the alcohol, before tackling a busy day of registration and orientation. As the weeks passed by and classes got ramped up, the guys began meeting new people. Neither of them were big partiers and Bryce and Davis were 4.0 students, both graduating in the top two percent in high school, so it really surprised Davis when Bryce would disappear for hours and then come home drunk. Bryce's drinking and sudden vanishing acts became clear when in the cafeteria Bryce introduced Xander Pollack as his friend from Delta Sigma Alpha, the big fraternity at Marquette Davis' surprise turned to jealousy when Xander practically ignored him after being introduced and began recruiting Bryce to the fraternity he was Rush Chairman of. It got ramped up further when Bryce, who had never shown any interest in fraternity life before, seemed riveted to everything he said. What made it worse was Bryce began ignoring him too. Xander Pollack was a god. 6'4" 250 lbs. of pure football muscle. "He probably has a big cock too," he scoffed to himself. After ten minutes of conversation, Xander asked Bryce, "Why don't you come to the mixer tonight?" Bryce oblivious to Davis' darkening mood agreed. When Xander got up to leave he said, "Come on, how about you follow me to the house and meet the rest of the brothers?" Bryce agreed and to Davis' consternation didn't even ask if he was coming or even say goodbye. "What the fuck just happened?" he thought dejectedly. After Bryce's agreement and walking off with Xander, Davis, heartbroken, got up and walked off angrily back to the apartment. After eight hours of Bryce not showing up at the apartment, Davis' anger got the best of him and began drinking heavily and passed out on the couch. When Bryce got home at 4 in the morning, drunk himself, he didn't even realize his best friend had fallen asleep after crying himself to exhaustion. When Davis realized that Bryce's obliviousness to his friend's feelings continued into next day, Davis began to ignore him, but his anger suddenly began to build when Bryce began to talk about how Xander got him into a bar the previous night and talking about pledging. When the tension began to get thicker, Davis had enough and walked out slamming the door to the apartment behind him. Bofore he left he screamed out, "Why don't you go move into the frat house then? Asshole!" Davis' storming out left a stunned-looking Bryce looking on with confusion and disbelief at his friend's outburst. "What the fuck?!?" he said after a few seconds of stunned silence. Davis stormed out and drove off angrily, not knowing where to go. He drove for hours finally stopping in Chicago and got a hotel room, and paying a man to get him some vodka and tequila, he got blitzed and cried for the state of his friendship. Bryce called Davis ten times that night but after the first two the calls went to voice mail. Wondering what the hell he did he walked around campus trying to find his best friend without success, but he did run into Xander again. Forgetting all about the outburst, he joined him and some of the other brothers but soon got tired of listening to the tales of sexual conquests and not knowing where Davis went off to. After a couple hours of this he had had enough. "I'm gonna head out, my roommate and I need to talk, we had a fight this morning and he's ignoring me." "Come on bro, fuck him. He obviously doesn't give a fuck about you, just storming out about last night. He's probably pissed off about not being invited." Xander quips indignantly. Everyone laughed except Bryce. "You don't know him. He is my best friend. How can you not invite him? I just thought he didn't want to come." The boys laughed again and Bryce's anger built. "Come on, he's bad news. He's a fucking Caldwell, for God's sake!" as if that explained everything. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Bryce asked heatedly. "His father is an asshole and a pariah. He was a part of this frat until he beat the fuck out of this gay guy from the frat when he found out about his sexuality. I heard his brother is just as bad at Michigan. How can you be best friends with someone like that?" Xander says just as heatedly, not liking being pushed by some freshman. Standing up and tossing his drink at Xander, he yelled, "You know what? FUCK YOU!!! He is nothing at all like his homophobic asshole of a father or brother. You don't know shit about him. You know, I was interested in this frat because it's a gay friendly fraternity and I wanted to have Davis come along with me. The problem is all I see a bunch of prejudiced asshole frat boys that believe that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Well guess what? In Davis' case the tree was on a hill and his apple rolled down the fucking hill so far away from that tree." He got up, put money down and left without saying goodbye leaving a slack-jawed Xander and the rest of the fraternity sitting in shock. He returned to the apartment and broke down. After calling his father with the latest events, a concerned Michael told him to just sleep it off and let Davis calm down. After hanging up he went to sleep. Over the next two days and Davis still being a no show, his concern multiplied. He began to get agitated when Xander kept trying to take him out for drinks with the boys. He just walked away and ignored him. He got so worried that on the third day of Davis not showing up, he began to look for Davis with James and a couple of concerned frat brothers, albeit without any success, not knowing he had driven back to Chicago. After four days of binge drinking, Davis returned to an empty apartment, and in his emotional state, got even drunker, completely unaware Bryce was looking for him. Davis unintentionally got too drunk and after four days of binging on alcohol and eating nothing but pizza he got dizzy, threw up, and blacked out hitting his head on the sink putting him into unconsciousness. The situation got worse for Bryce, when, after arriving back to the apartment and seeing Davis' BMW in the lot, rushed through the door, stopped in his tracks at the state of their shared place, and finding beer bottles strewn all over the place and an obviously drunk Davis passed out in a pile of vomit and blood in the bathroom, he realized something was terribly wrong. Yes they've been shitty drunk together, but the sad state he found the man he was in love with in, made his heart break. It shattered when he tried to wake him up but could barely find a pulse. Crying he called 911 as well as his older brother James. Ten minutes later, Davis was rushed to the ER, with a very sad and worried Bryce looking hopelessly on wondering if his friend will live and a worried older brother James, who was also heartbroken because over the last twelve years he's come to think Davis as another little brother to him. "He's gonna be okay little bro." Bryce didn't respond, but broke down when doctors and nurses began rushing through the doors to the OR. James tried to comfort him, but broke down himself. Meanwhile, Doctor Isiah Hamilton began furiously working to revive Davis, who wasn't responding to the pumping of his stomach. After fifteen minutes, Davis began to fade and flat lined. "CODE BLUE, CODE BLUE!!! WE'RE LOSING HIM!!!" Meanwhile Waukegan Police detectives found the body of a young lady wrapped in plastic and looked like she had been through hell. Stabbed, sexually assaulted, and beaten, the body was unidentifiable until went for a autopsy. At autopsy, Dr. Madeline Harris found DNA under her fingernails and a rape kit was done. When her DNA came back, she was finally identified: Melissa Abernathy. Melissa was in the system for prostitution and drug charges. As the body was being identified, a shadowy figure went into the DNA lab and swiped the rape kit leaving the only DNA sample the one taken under her fingernails: Davis Caldwell.