The Synergistic Effect

Her dance partner said the pill was called Rapture. And indeed, it catapulted her senses to a new level—initially. Before long, a strange sensation welled up inside her like a slow rush of water. As seconds ticked by, her pulse rate rapidly increased. Believing her heart would pound right out of her body, she grasped her chest. Her mouth suddenly felt as dry as sun-bleached bone. Bile crept up her throat. She gurgled. Eyes now dilated, her vision continued to blur. In an instant, feelings of ecstasy and joy turned to agony and fear. The once-playful and jubilant flight student trembled uncontrollably. “What’s happening to me?” she cried, her voice muted by unthinkable pain.

She tried to walk but stumbled. Her esophagus tightened like a coiled spring. Clutching her throat, she gasped for air as if a python had twisted itself around her neck. Color leached from her face, leaving it ashen. As her skin transitioned from pale white to cobalt blue, she collapsed on the floor, eliciting gasps of horror from other dancers.

Mercifully, her convulsions did not last long. Robbed of oxygen, her brain simply died, followed quickly by her body. The tainted drug did its work with deadly speed and efficiency. In one monstrous minute of violence, she was gone.

She wasn’t his first and would not be his last.

The world of a serial killer is striking to behold, staggering to comprehend, and hostile to be in. Just how hostile, a bounty hunter discovered when he was assigned to apprehend what seemed to be a simple fugitive from the law. However, he soon learned that his quarry was no run-of-the-mill escapee. Rather, he was a cold-blooded criminal whose contaminated pills produced a death so horrible even medical examiners were baffled. For the killer, it became a race to stay one step ahead of his pursuer. But for the bounty hunter, the chase took on a life of its own as he ventured into the startling world of pleasure drugs, rave parties, and highly elevated radioactivity. And it all became personal when he discovered that his own niece was killed by the same man he was pursuing.