All Inclusive

By Richard Howard

Young lovers Claire and Derek are on their fourth all inclusive trip away together, first as husband and wife. They enjoy the sun, sand the ocean and a darker enjoyment. Murder! They hunt together for the perfect victim and once they are found its time to get creative. Psychopath lovers perfect for each other in every way. Murder after murder, victim after victim gets more exciting and original.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477120057

Richard Howard

Richard Howard was one of the most prolific and respected twentieth-century literary critics and translators. He won a Pulitzer Prize, a PEN Translation Prize, a National Book Award (for Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil)), a Literary Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, a MacArthur Fellowship, the title of Chevalier from France’s L’Ordre National du Merite, and the position of Poet Laureate of New York.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Hurry up Claire! I shout. As much as I love this lady, she has one hell of a problem getting anywhere on time. I’m coming baby she responds. Finally, she emerges from the front door of our newly bought house with deep red bricking, and brilliant white siding that surrounds a large bay window. Claire comes down the stairs with her new burgundy luggage with brightly colored tape around the handles to make locating our bags easier at the busy airport. She flashes me a brilliant white smile while she squeezes between the closely parked cars on our driveway. We feel like teenagers again—excited for our first trip away together! All of her bags are packed to the maximum as usual. Claire is an absolutely stunning woman. She looks back and winks at me as she heaves her luggage into the trunk of the cab. I can’t help but melt every time I see that face. She looks back, staring at me with those frighteningly beautiful green eyes—I can’t help but notice how much they pop with her new hairstyle. Short dark hair, her bangs graze just over her eyebrows, bright white teeth and the body of a model. When she moves slightly her jacket lifts up revealing an amazing tattoo of doves and roses on the small of her back. It sounds cliché but it’s not her looks that keep me coming back—it’s this connection we share that no one else would understand. To be completely fair, I’m no slouch myself. I can practically hear Claire in the back of my mind, Who wouldn’t love a man over 6ft tall, with baby blue eyes that could hypnotize any woman? I’ll admit I’m no stranger to the gym either, which is another thing Claire and I love to do together aside from these special trips.

Let’s go to PUNTA CANA! I scream with excitement.

Four hours later we arrive at the Punta Cana airport. It’s nothing like the terminals we see back in Canada. The airport resembles a large hut with tall wooden beams and palm tree leaves covering the massive roof. There are no doors in sight, and the beautiful marble floors shine while the hot tropical sun beams down on them. Surrounding the airport are hundreds of palm trees that reach higher than the roof. A wave of warm humid air brushes our faces; we feel rejuvenated for a moment before the day’s travel sets in.

Claire and I are tired from what feels like a full day of travel. The flight was long, with spots of turbulence that startled a lot of the other passengers. Claire and I never even flinch during these bouts of rough air. The thought of the plane crashing only intrigues us. What if we crash? How will the pilot calm his passengers? What crazy story will they tell us? We chuckle at every bump.

Eventually, we fight our way through the pale crowd at the baggage claim and find our uniquely decorated bags—thank you Claire! We tip one of the eager locals who helps us push through the mayhem of the other tourists to find our bus among the hundreds waiting to transport the others to their resorts. After a while we find our bus. Then it’s another hour on a bus that holds no more than 12 passengers comfortably, while we’re trying to squeeze on 20! To top it off, the bus is old and worn down, and appears as though it hasn’t had any maintenance since it was originally built. The tinted windows are peeling at most of the corners, revealing moments of shade mixed with sunlight as we make our way to our destination. The familiar cheesy tropical music greets our ears. I have to imagine there is only one song ever written in Punta Cana.

When the bus finally stops, we look out the windows to find we’ve pulled up to an aged building made of marble with large red clay shingles on the multi level roof. Birds are swarming around the entrance snagging scraps of bread that a group of small children are throwing for them.

The resort is not large, or even beautiful by any means, but it’s perfect for our purposes. We check in with the customer service desk. This turns out to be an ordeal in itself. Victor, we see on his appointed resort name tag, he is a tall thin man with short black curly hair. After minutes spent struggling to communicate back and forth, Claire steps in and uses the little Spanish she learned in school to end this language hurdle after a few minutes of trying to understand his grasp of our language we finally complete the tedious task of getting our room. We sign our paperwork, receive our room keys and make our way down the left row of rooms to our suite, number 2111.

As we enter the room we feel the dampness caused by the air conditioner viciously pumping cold air into the room. In an attempt to warm the room a little, Claire opens the patio door of our ground floor room.

You have to see this I hear Claire proclaim.

We step out into our semi private backyard where two poorly stained wooden lounge chairs with now off-white cushions in their place. Our bedroom is only feet away from the large swimming pool that starts at the front lobby and travels the full four hundred meters to the beach. This would be our means of transportation to all of the amenities the resort offers. We step back into our room, gather ourselves and then begin our exploration of the grounds.

It’s our first day of seven at the Punta Cana resort; we take in our surroundings as the bright orange sun goes down. It’s a warm muggy evening the lizards are no longer on each of the lamp