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Marcus William Hartford the Fifth looked around the bar at the many costumed guests who were attending this invitation-only Halloween party at The Swamp Witch Roadhouse. He knew exactly what– or rather who– he was looking for. Her hair would be blond, but not too blond. Her skin would be fair, but not overly pale. Her eyes would be blue, but not the deep blue that shows up in television ads. No, they had to be the light, misty flaxen blue of the linen flower in spring.

She had to be all of that because, you see, such women were Marcus’ hobby and he was very particular about his hobby.

One of the advantages– and disadvantages– of fifth generation, inherited family wealth was that Marcus had a lot of time on his hands. His only responsibility in life was to manage the family money, and there were plenty of advisors and brokers and lawyers to do all the actual work of keeping track of the huge investments in the Hartford trusts. He showed up at his office only a few times a month. The rest of the month he had a lot of time on his hands, so he had developed this hobby as a way of keeping his mind occupied.

A very large world map hung on the wall behind the desk in his office. There were little pins in it which showed exactly where in the world the family money was invested. The map had been started by Marcus William Hartford, Junior back before the days of large monitor displays. It was totally obsolete as a business tool, but was kept up to date as a reminder of the past.

Most of the funds were invested in the United States, so that is where the majority of the little multi-colored pins were located. But there were also twenty-seven white pins which he, not his staff, had put on the map. The staff had no idea why they were there, but Marcus knew. They marked, not investments, but rather the locations of the many Halloween parties which he had planned.

To be totally honest, he had planned only twenty-six of them. That first Halloween party at the Yacht Club shortly after he graduated from college was totally unplanned on his part. And it had been absolute happenstance that he stumbled across that young witch at the party. Her hair was that dusty shade of blond that many called dishwater blond. Her skin was fair, but not overly pale. And her eyes were the misty blue of a linen flower in spring.

The party had been at the marina. He had taken her out on one of the family boats to look at the moon at midnight. It was a pontoon boat–what many called a party boat. They had made love on a blanket spread on the flat deck– or at least they had tried to. Maybe it was the liquor… or perhaps the drugs… but for some reason he was unable to rise to the occasion.

She started laughing at him. He didn’t mean it to happen. He just pushed her to get her away from him, but she stumbled and fell overboard. He could still remember the moonlight reflecting off her pale skin as she tumbled over the low railing and fell into the water.

He didn’t know that she couldn’t swim. If he had, perhaps he would have moved more quickly to save her. He could have saved her, had he but known. He always told himself– as he had told the authorities– that he had tried to save her. But she slipped beneath the water before he could bring the boat back around.

Actually her hands were still above the water when he pulled back alongside her, but they slid beneath the surface before he could grab her. That’s when he realized that he was holding himself… and he was hard– harder than he had ever been in his life. He waited until he had spurted over the side into the water before roaring the boat back to the dock screaming for help.

There was an investigation, of course. He was cited for operating a motor craft on the water while intoxicated. But there was no evidence of foul play when they recovered the body, and all witnesses said she had gone with him willingly. So, it was put down as a tragic accident, which in truth, it was. But it was that tragic accident which caused him to start his little hobby.

Each year since then, on Halloween, he would find a woman– but it had to be the right woman– and he would re-enact the events of that first Halloween party. It wasn’t always on the water. And it could no longer, in any way, be called an accident since it was so meticulously planned. But it was always a woman who was blond, but not too blond; fair, but not overly pale; and whose eyes were the misty blue of a linen flower in spring.

There was one other requirement for the woman. Unlike the unfortunate young witch that first time, the woman at the Halloween party had to be someone who wouldn’t be missed. Someone with no family was best, but if they were living by themselves away from home, that was sufficient. By the time they were missed, the Halloween party would be a distant memory. The special team would have moved on. The business or house would have once again changed hands. And Marcus would be planning his next party.

There were twenty-seven white pins on the map in his office, each in a different state, and no one had yet suspected that there was a serial killer who chose Halloween night to strike. Tonight would put the twenty-eighth pin in his map.

Marcus was sure that the right woman would be at the party tonight. He had been working on this party since last Halloween. Actually, he and his team had been working on the preliminaries for this particular party for the past three years. He was very serious about his hobby and spent a lot of time on each one. He would spend years setting up just the right party with just the right guests.

Each party was held in a different state. Some were in large cities. Some were in small towns. Some, like this one, were in old bars or roadhouses way out in the country. In this case, the party would be at The Swamp Witch, originally built back in the old days as a sporting house out in the privacy of the swamps of southern Louisiana.

It took time for his employees to put everything in place. A holding company held by a holding company held by a holding company would obtain the house or land or rural bar where the party was to be held. Then one of three carefully-trained, well-paid teams of employees would cultivate the proper friends or clientele which would become the pool from which people were selected for invitation to these special Halloween parties.

There was a list of criteria which they were given to help in their selections. Everyone there was supposed to be young– though as the years passed, the definition of young, at least for the men, had to be extended. Everyone was supposed to be single. And there was supposed to be a representative sample of various ethnic and body types, including, of course, blond women who weren’t too blond, with eyes that weren’t too blue and skin that wasn’t too pale.

None of the employees knew who it was they actually worked for. Most thought it was all part of some special reality movie that would one day be released to theaters. None of them ever realized that one person from each of these parties was never seen again. And none of them ever made the connection that there was one person who had attended every single one of these very special Halloween celebrations for the past quarter of a century. That person was Marcus William Hartford the Fifth.

His target for the evening– as he liked to call her– was a young woman dressed in a tattered witch’s dress that had cuts and rips and tears which revealed a great deal of her fair, but not overly pale skin. Her bright white teeth and well-formed ruby lips perfectly set off the misty blue of her eyes. A wrinkled witch’s hat sat atop her dish-water blond hair. There was no requirement that his target be dressed as a witch, but the fact that she was made this one even more special for him.

She had been coming into the roadhouse for several months now and had been excited to receive an invitation to this special Halloween party. She was one of several invitees who met the required physical description, but was one of only three who also met that all-important “would not be missed” requirement. Only Marcus knew about that requirement.

Marcus, himself, started dropping by the roadhouse regularly about six weeks ago. Of course, no one knew that he was the fabled, rich, Marcus William Hartford V. He was Rick, a salesman from Duluth, Minnesota, who was staying at the motel on the edge of town. Salesmen away from home for extended periods of time were another of the selection criteria. He varied the requirements for the male guests slightly each year to be sure that his current cover story and disguise fit the descriptions exactly. It wouldn’t do, after all, to have to crash one’s own party– though he had, in fact, done that one year.

During the weeks before the party, Marcus / Rick got to know certain special prospective guests, especially the ones on his target list, like the young, blond witch which he considered to be his primary target. She was always alone when she stopped by the roadhouse. No one seemed to know for sure where she lived or where she worked. In fact, most were unsure of her name. When asked, she always just said, “Names are so unimportant.” When really pressed she would murmur, “You can call me Hattie.”

All had gone very well as he moved in on his primary target. But there was a secondary target if things did not work out with the primary. And a tertiary target if the secondary also failed. They would not be needed tonight. He was able to buy his young witch a drink… and then another… and then another as the night wore on.

As midnight approached, he ordered one final round. He even went up the bar himself to order and pick up the drinks rather than having one of the waitresses do it for them. The waitresses were, after all, very busy… that, and it was much easier to slip something into a drink you picked up yourself at the bar. Besides, it took a few moments for the drug to fully dissolve or there would be a bitter after-taste. Marcus had learned that the hard way one year. His target had almost eluded him that night, and would have had he not made such a fuss about the bartender having been so sloppy in mixing the drinks. The second drink that night tasted fine as did the drink tonight.

The blond witch appeared slightly drunk, but not overly so, as he led her out of the bar to his car. That was the beauty of this drug, which had been developed by one of his companies for some totally different purpose. It didn’t really make your body or mind unresponsive, it just made you extremely susceptible to suggestion. All he had to do was say, “Why don’t we go back to my place?” and his target walked willingly out the front door in his arm.

The drug did not suppress memory, however, so the next morning she would remember everything. But that was not a problem for Marcus. His plans did not include a next morning for his little blond witch.

He had chosen his destination very carefully. It was an old fishing cabin deeper in the swamp. The cabin was also one of his holdings and was rented out to locals or tourists who came to fish in the back waters and canals. A family from New York would be arriving tomorrow afternoon. They would find nothing amiss, and after a week of them tramping in and out with fishing gear and muddy boots, there would be no forensic evidence left even if someone came looking for it. Forensic evidence of the missing witch would be around for a little longer, but not much. The crabs and crawdads and ‘gators would make sure of that. The rest would become part of the swamp itself.

As he drove down the winding road through the mangroves, he could feel himself getting hard. This was going to be one of his best ever. The drug must have still been working at full capacity as he asked her to take off her clothes and get onto the bed. She was so anxious to comply with his request that she didn’t seem to notice that there was a hospital-style waterproof sheet on the bed. She also didn’t seem to notice as he tied her arms and legs to the corners of the bed. She even smiled at him as he climbed on top of her and pushed her legs further apart with his knees so he could more easily enter her.

She must have been more drunk– or horny– than he thought because she didn’t seem to be at all afraid. She was even responding to his thrusts with thrusts of her own. He could feel his seed boiling up inside him as he went higher and higher. As he approached that point, she was starting a keening wail of her own as she approached orgasm. His hands moved so that they were on either side of her throat. The moment was almost there. But before his hands could move again he erupted inside her.

Erupted is the only word which could possibly describe it. He had never cum so much before in his life. And it seemed to go on forever.

It took a moment for his lust-fogged mind to realize that something was wrong. Even when he was in his teens, he had never been able to continue pumping for more than a few seconds. It had now been almost a minute and his balls continued to spew forth cum. He could not control his muscles as he thrust and thrust and thrust, pumping out what had to be quarts– if not gallons– of cum into the young, blond witch.

Only now she was no longer blond… and no longer young. Her hair was gray and stringy. Her ruby lips were gone as she smiled and showed her cragly teeth. Her voice seemed to crack as she laughed– no cackled– while she drained the life from his body. The ropes dropped from her wrists and her hands reached up and pulled him tighter into herself.

She held him tightly until he no longer struggled. Then she pushed him off her body and stood beside the bed. She was once again young and pale and blond and beautiful. She walked naked to the side of the cabin and passed easily through the walls. Her body seemed to glow slightly as she walked over the surface of the swamp and disappeared into the steamy darkness.

***

The family from New York called the police as soon as they discovered the car– and body– at the cabin. An older detective, accompanied by a younger, uniformed sergeant responded as well as the county Medical Examiner and a forensic team.

“I forgot it was this year,” the ME said to the detective.

“So did I,” he answered.

“What was this year?” the sergeant asked.

The older detective looked down at the withered, almost mummified body lying on the bed. “According to local legend,” he began, “it all started in 1727 when a rich, unscrupulous landowner accused a neighbor woman of witchcraft so he could steal her land. There was no trial, so no public records, but supposedly on Halloween night of that year, the locals burned her as a witch and threw the ashes in the swamp.

“Ten years later,” he continued, “the landowner, was found– also on Halloween night– just like that.” He pointed to the body on the bed.

“Next to the body,” he said, “written in blood dripped onto the bedsheet, was a big number one.”

He laughed. “Of course, everyone assumed that meant the witch had returned for revenge and he was the first. People were pretty scared for a while, but no more bodies turned up, so things went back to normal. Then ten years later, an identical body was found. This time there was a bloody “2″ dripped onto the sheet next to the body.”

He stepped aside slightly so the ME could wheel the body out of the cabin. “Every ten years since then, she strikes on Halloween night somewhere back in these swamps. The body isn’t always found the next day. Sometimes it takes a week or two before the shriveled body is found, but they are always found. They are so dried up that even the critters won’t touch them.”

He held up Richard’s driver’s license and pointed to his picture. “The men were all in their mid-forties or early fifties,” he explained. “All had dark hair, but not too dark. And dark eyes, but not black… more like the dark brown of a deer’s eyes. All were somewhat musty of skin, but not overly dark. They were all apparently rich, or at least very well to do. And were all, according to the legend, evil.”

He pointed down to the sheet on the bed and said to the forensic technician who was beginning to process the scene. “Make sure you get some good pictures of that before your take the sheets off the bed.”

The tech nodded and moved around the bed so that he could get a good image of what the detective was pointing to. Written in blood dripped carefully next to one of the looped ropes was a very clear “28.”

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END OF STORY
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