Out For Blood 7

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The Present

Richmond Virginia.

Ellie Vincent is an exotic dancer; well that’s what she prefers to call it. Her neighbours on the other hand call her a stripper; among other things. Ellie works at a club on West Broad Street in the heart of Richmond just off I 95, called the ‘Cats Whiskers’. But all those that frequent the place call it for obvious reasons “The Pussy Club”.

Ellie is twenty-eight years old and has black wavy hair, except when she dances, then she wears a shoulder length blond wig; she says it goes nice with her dark skin tone, and it also helps create her persona. She is almost six feet tall, has a perfectly toned body and has dark brown eyes. Ellie works each weekday afternoon at the club from 3pm until 6pm, doing two “shows” as Ellie refers to them.

The first one at 4pm then another at 5pm and by 6pm she is walking out the door. What surprises Ellie is the amount of men and for that matter, women that have nothing better to do in the afternoons than to watch girls take off their clothes, but hey, it pays the bills so why should she care?

Ellies’ fourteen-year-old daughter Alicia doesn’t enjoy her friends and classmates knowing what her Mother does for a living, but there isn’t much she can do about it. The class bitch Grace Spellman made sure everyone knew, after her father who works as an electrician did some cheap work at the club one afternoon, then decided to stay to watch the strippers.

He recognised Ellie from the parents evening she attended just a week before. Alicia attends the Walkerton Park School in Glen Allen and finishes her last classes at 3pm. She makes her own way home by bus which she boards just outside the school gates, and after a twenty minute journey it drops her off half a mile from their apartment on Patterson Avenue, near Cheswick Park.

An upmarket name but unfortunately the name is no reflection on the area. Alicia had gotten off the bus and decided that as her Mother would not be home until after 6pm, she would visit the library by the park and return a book she had borrowed, and at the same time take out another.

If she got home around 5pm she could still start the evening meal for her Mother to finish off. Alicia liked to read love stories; one of her favourite authors is Michelle Moran who pens historical love stories. Her latest novel ‘Nefertiti’ is the one she has decided to borrow today.
‘There, that’s her in the uniform.’ drawled a pale looking skinny man to his front seat passenger; he was tinkering with a cell-phone.
They were sat in a light blue Ford that had a red lid on the trunk due to a non-matching replacement, and the licence plates were stolen from another car earlier that day.

The passenger was also pale skinned like his driver, and again thin, thin to the point of looking skeletal. They watched Alicia walking towards them and were ready to grab her as she passed the car. The driver popped the trunk and his passenger poured chloroform onto a rag ready to incapacitate their quarry.

‘Okay, wait while she reaches your door, then get out and ask directions.’ said the driver, his eyes searching the immediate area for someone who might just run to the girls’ aide. There was no one.
‘Directions?’ said the passenger puzzled. ‘Where to?
‘It doesn’t fucking matter where to ya dumb fucker. Just do it!’

Alicia noticed a car further down the road, a light blue one. She is sure she has seen it before, yesterday in fact, and the day before that too. It was also parked in the same place as well, but this time she saw two men in the car. The driver was the one she had seen before; he was looking all around. But the other man… he was staring straight at her. She decided not to walk past the car to get to the library; instead she turned back and headed the other way.

‘What the fuck is she doing now?’ said chloroform man.
‘She’s made us!’ said the driver, and he started to follow.

Alicia turned and saw that the car was moving, it wasn’t gaining, but it was definitely moving. She decided to quicken her pace. The driver did the same. Alicia began to run; she dropped her books knowing they would slow her down considerably. The car now was right behind her as she sprinted for her life; she could hear the open trunk banging as the car hit bumps in the road.

She quickly ducked into the gate of the park and ran for the other side to exit at the rear of the library. As she carried on she glanced over her shoulder and caught site of a tall thin man running about thirty yards behind. The car had dropped him off and was racing around the park to cut her off at the rear gate. She looked again and the man now was only ten yards behind her, the gate was ten yards in front. Alicia knew she was not going to reach it before he reached her.