Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned people into carriers in a couple of days,” Sam said. “Who’s to say it’s not doing it again?”
    Chloe turned to Sam. “You might be on to something.”
    “Maybe.”
    “You’re pretty smart too, you know,” Chloe said, grinning.
    Sam shrugged.
    They exited the school and stepped into the parking lot. They stopped. Sam turned back and looked at the school for a long time. Chloe waited for him.
    He turned to her. “I read, you know,” he said. “Edgar Allen Poe, stuff like that.”
    Chloe grinned. “You’re twelve and you read Poe?”
    “Almost thirteen,” he said, grinning.
    They left the school behind them. It occurred to Chloe just how alone they were in a world that seemed preoccupied with killing them. But now they had each other and that was better than being alone.
    Much better, actually.

Chapter Eight

    Lester Delaney had been called genius many times. He’d never once been called murderer.
    In reality, he was both.
    It started with animals, a common genesis amongst sociopathic serial killers. Lester would know, because before the virus he’d been known as Dr. Lester Delaney, practicing psychiatrist. At seven he was pulling the wings off of flies trapped on fly paper he would hang from the ceiling of his parents’ garage. At nine he was breaking the legs of field mice he’d catch in homemade traps.
    By thirteen, so many neighborhood dogs had gone missing that the local news showed up. To avoid detection, Lester resorted to capturing squirrels, muskrats and other vermin after that. When he was seventeen his father found the carcass of a fox Lester had trapped and tortured over three days. By the end it had looked like Jack the Ripper’s final victim, a stinking mess of blood and guts. Lester made up a bullshit story about trapping the thing for fur. His father only nodded, his face ghostly white.
    Things were never the same with his parents after that.
    They knew what Lester was and he really didn’t do much to hide it. They were afraid of him and he was just fine with that. He liked it, actually. Eventually they sent him off to college. No tears were shed and they never called. By the time he graduated he’d killed three people. By age thirty he’d taken the lives of fourteen people and gaslighted three patients to suicide. Vicarious murder was almost as much fun as the real thing. Almost.
    As much as he enjoyed the killing itself, he enjoyed the manipulation and the control equally. Like foreplay before sex with a beautiful woman, Lester would woo his victims into a state of trust. His extremely high intelligence and refined good looks made him instantly dateable. Add money into the mix and he became irresistible. With so many women looking for Mr. Right, they were practically falling over themselves to get to him.
    Women were stupid, so that also helped. So fickle and predictable. He’d talk them up at bars, at the grocery store, in waiting rooms. His training and intellect allowed him to see inside their tiny little minds and find all their buttons. Then he’d push them all, one by one, like a master pianist making beautiful music. He’d take them to dinner, feigning interest in their vapid babble while he took notes in his head of their favorite movies, their friends’ names, their favorite flavors of ice cream. The kinds of flowers they preferred. The kinds of character traits they searched for in a mate.
    Then he’d take them out for their favorite food and bring them yellow roses. He remembered birthdays and their mother’s middle name. He shed tears at their sappy movies, right on cue. After so many years spent psychoanalyzing people, he learned to wear their emotions like a mask, all the while allowing the anticipation to build, foreplay of his own making.
    But he was also careful. He never actually met their friends or family. He never used his real name. He rented an apartment that he fully furnished, used only to fuck these women, both physically and mentally. Like a