Prologue
Erik, The Monster
Friday, 1:00 A.M.

            He bolted shut the door, his heart beating like a piston. He stared at his hands. They would not stop shaking.  They were stained dark red. He wiped them on his shirt, already streaked a similar morbid hue.

            The smears of blood were dry.

            He shook his head and wondered how long had it been, how long since… for the blood to have dried?

            He remembered running, and dodging moving cars, each headlight like a laser beam that pierced his eyes; then hiding behind trees and parked cars.

            Somehow he’d gotten back to his small apartment.

            He focused on the distant corner of the living room where a desk and typewriter beckoned. His breathing finally under control, his hands no longer palsied, he approached the desk and, sitting, snapped on the lamp beside the Remington Electric. Crumpled paper lay strewn around the typewriter and scattered about the floor in piles and cartons and tied bundles. Opening the drawer, he removed a manuscript. 

            Quietly he read the words:

            “I’ll never forget the day I did my power walk around Diamond Head. It was early afternoon, the area not much trafficked. When I spotted a few hidden paths, among thick growths of keawe trees, I decided to change my habit and hike along one of them. On the way I encountered a few lone men. They were just standing around. Further on, I came upon four other men in their early twenties. I walked by ignoring them. The slope was increasing and I wanted to maintain my pace. 

            “Fifteen minutes later, I came out into an open area with a great view of the lighthouse and sprawling Pacific, upon which surfers were skating like water bugs. Then turning to resume my walk, I recognized the four young men.

            “They began to surround me. 

            “Before I could get away, before I could do anything, they were on me, swinging and pounding on me with large branches with thorns. They muttered hateful words, while beating on me unmercifully. They battered my upraised arms, my neck and back. When a kick struck my head, as I knelt down trying to ward off the blows, I heard a crack and felt a smash to the right shin. Then the left. Then the thighs. Lashings and kickings rained down.

            “One of the gang, bending over, seemed to judge the scourging, as if gauging its effectiveness. Then he returned to battering me on the head and face, my arms and chest. I lost my breath, trying to duck, trying to cover, trying to ward off the blows. I did my best to cover my face, not wanting it bruised any more. But they didn’t care. 

            “Soon curled up on the ground I became numb, barely feeling the beating, barely aware of the pain, and eventually I passed out. When I awoke, the men were gone, the ground around me wet with my blood.”

            He looked up and, eyes closed, recalled the time when he had first written the words. Seated at the same machine, he had typed in a rush of hate, reliving each blow, feeling each smash of club and fist, as if each, again, had been shattering his face, smashing his arms and legs. Miraculously, now, there was nothing, as he encountered the words: no wincing, no fear, no panicked intake of breath, as there had been, then, when the bashers - so it had seemed - were with him there in the room and he were about to encounter once again the horror.

            Now nothing. Nothing, that is, except for the satisfaction of knowing that something finally had been done.

            Investigating again the inside of the drawer, he removed blank paper. Inserting a piece into the typewriter, he began to compose, began to relive what had happened just hours ago: the revenge that he had meticulously orchestrated. A half-hour later, pausing in his fever pitch of composition, he read the words, savoring each one.

            Touching his face, he massaged the welts, drawing a finger along the scars that had transformed his face into the mask, which he’d begun calling “Poor Erik, the monster”, and reflected: Would he be able to finish the consummate horror that he had begun? Or would ke’koko, the blood, that he had spilt, would it be enough?

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REVIEWS

Living in Darkness
A Phillip Michael Carnegie Mystery
By John A. Roynesdal

"John Roynesdal has created a suspenseful mystery in his latest book, Living in Darkness.

When I first read the overview of Living in Darkness, I immediately thought of the former television series, Hawaii 5-0. Indeed, Living in Darkness could easily be changed to a script and become an exciting story for the show that starred Jack Lord. However, reading the book will produce a much-deeper impact than any television program. Mr. Roynesdal has created a number of heart-wrenching minor characters that become all too real to the reader. So much so, that it is sometimes difficult to keep attention on solving the case while reading of the chilling acts of pain through man’s inhumanities against man.

Nevertheless, Living in Darkness is a suspense-packed exciting “whodunit!”

Phillip Michael Carnegie is not the typical police officer. Most individuals who meet him, look past or over him to speak first to his partner, George Maikai’moku, who “looks” like a cop. However, the members of the Special Division Detective Team all know that Carnegie is the “brains” behind solving most of the major crimes that are handed to this group. For this case, however, Carnegie must depend on the other two members of the team, Nick Keone and Paul Noa, a gay couple who are also members of this special team put together within the Honolulu Police Department. This case calls for solving the murder of three men, whose bodies were all found within the grounds of a local park that was known to be a hangout for the gay community.

The first murder was by arrow, the second by hanging, and the third by burning. The first thing that the Team needed to find out was whether the victims were gay. Were the murders a series of hate crimes?

As identities are made, it is determined that those murdered were part of a gang, into S&M, who may or may not have been gay. But they definitely had been identified as having been gang members who preyed on gays. The investigation leads to a young man, his face scarred, his body bruised. He shares his story of being beaten by three young men. He rambles on, describing vivid details of what had happened to him . . . and he admits he killed the men who had beaten him.

But Carnegie is not satisfied. The teen’s story is convincing but, on the one hand, there are many details of the murders that do not match what actually happened. On the other hand, he identifies something that was found at every scene, a detail that was kept from the public, from the press. Could this seemingly crazed man have really killed these men? Listening to him, listening to details that were chilling, vivid—but not factual. Suddenly Carnegie asked, “Are you a writer?” After receiving an affirmative answer, Carnegie is even more convinced he is merely seeking attention, having been abused by the dead men. The police do not hold him.

But then the teen is found hanging in his apartment, and a manuscript is found that describes what had been done to him and how he would revenge himself. A manuscript that identifies a killing by arrow, by hanging, by fire. And he has left a suicide note, again admitting to the murders. But does the note match the boy’s other writings? Someone has followed the manuscript, and has become the executioner described in it . . .but now the boy who wrote it is also dead—not a suicide, but murdered.

Living in Darkness has an underlying story about the distressing life lived by runaways, some of whom are gay, but all of whom are potential victims of prejudice, harassment, and loss of life. They live in the darkness where they are safer, more secure, and in groups, banding together, seeking protection that they’ve not found, oftentimes, in their former homes. In many ways that story is more compelling than the mystery of the murders.

No matter why you read the latest book in this series, please do read it -- it is provocative, compelling, and a memorable novel!"

G. A. Bixler
IP Book Reviewer