Nature of Evil

by Robert W. Stephens

  Marcus went through the fence gate and made his way down the side of the house. He saw Angela standing in the center of the street. She was looking in all directions. He didn’t see Ingalls.

  By the time Marcus made it down the driveway, the police cruiser was heading towards them. The cruiser slammed on the brakes and stopped beside Angela. The window rolled down.

  “I didn’t see him,” the officer said.

  “Damn it,” Marcus said.

  Angela looked at his leg. It was bleeding profusely now.

  “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “It can wait.”

  Marcus and Angela entered Bob Ingalls’ house. It was messy, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Marcus saw the shotgun on the floor. It had come within inches of killing them. He wanted to smash it into pieces. He wanted to hunt down Ingalls and force the gun into his mouth and blow out the back of his skull.

  Marcus could feel the rage flow through his body and threaten to completely overwhelm him. The only thing that kept the rage somewhat in check was the pain in his leg. Every time he took a step, he felt the pressure forcing more blood to run down his leg. He tried to not let the agony show on his face.

  He needed to search this house. He needed to find anything that would lead them back to Ingalls.

  They made their way down the hallway, looking into the open bedroom doors. One room had been converted into a home gym. It had a cheap weight bench and black and red weights stacked in the corner of the room and spread across the floor. The next bedroom they saw was empty except for a sleeping bag that was unrolled beneath one of the windows. It was crumpled and looked like someone had recently slept in it.

  They found the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. There was an old video camera on a consumer tripod at the foot of the unmade bed. A few feet away from the camera was a large wooden dresser with a flat screen television on top. Video and audio cables led from the back of the television to the outputs of the camera.

  Angela walked over to the dresser and looked at a stack of DVDs beside the television. None of the videos were labeled.

  Marcus inspected the camera while Angela searched the drawers of the dresser. Marcus saw that there was a DVD still inside the camera. He removed a glove from his coat pocket and slipped it on his right hand. He pressed the play button on the top of the camera and turned to the television.

  Within a few seconds the dark image of Eva Parks and her roommate appeared on the screen. They were naked and stroking each other’s hair and shoulders. Occasionally Eva would turn to the camera and look seductively into the lens. The video had obviously been shot in this room and was an apparent clone of the DVD they discovered in Eva’s apartment.

  Angela stopped searching the dresser and looked at the television.

  “It’s the same video.”

  “We had him, Angela. We had him.”

  Marcus limped out of the room, furious at himself for having allowed Bob Ingalls to escape.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Rats

  Journal Entry: Outside Rome, October 16, 1948

  It was finally getting dark by the time I got to the house. I had taken a tremendous chance to walk the road during the day, but I needed the extra time. I had learned that lesson on my last kill.

  The house looked unchanged since my previous visit here. I had left Alda’s body on her bed. Had someone found her?

  I tried the front door and found that it was still unlocked. I opened the door and smelled her decay at once. I walked to the back bedroom and entered. There were rats all over her, devouring the rotting meat of her torso. Her legs and arms were gnawed to the bone, and the flesh and muscle and eyes of her face were also no more.

  I didn’t feel guilty for what I saw. The rats were only destroying the flesh of the body. Her soul had long since departed this place. Still, they would distract me from what I had to do. I went into her kitchen and found a broom. I tried to knock the rats away, but the meat had driven them into a feeding frenzy, and they snarled at me.

  I had brought several knives with me, and I used the largest one on the rat closest to me. I drove the long blade into its back. Its head roared back at once, and it tried to bite me on my hand. But I quickly withdrew the blade, and I was able to avoid its snapping teeth.

  The injured rat jumped off the woman and scurried across the room. It settled in the corner opposite me. Its tiny heart raced, and it pumped more and more blood out onto the coarse gray hair of its arched back. It slumped to the ground after a few moments and was dead.

  The other rats didn’t seem to notice the death, and they once again ignored my efforts to knock them away with the broom. I had to take the knife and kill them one at a time. Luckily I was able to stay away from their sharp teeth.

  I found a shovel in the tiny shed behind the house. It took me most of the night to dig the hole, and I was completely exhausted by the time I was done. So exhausted that I had barely enough strength to drag Alda’s body through the house and dump her into the ground. I grabbed the rats by their tails and hauled them outside as well. I threw them into the same hole as the woman. Then I covered their bodies with the fresh mount of dirt.

  I went back into the house and got to work. I cleared off the kitchen table and took the rest of the knives out of the canvas bag that I had brought with me. I had several to choose from, and hopefully the smaller blades would allow me to skin the next face without tearing it apart.

  I looked out the kitchen window and saw the horizon glow orange. The sun was rising, and I had run out of time. I don’t know why I had thought I could do all of this in one night. Still, they would not expect me in Florence for a few more days. I could find the next woman today, and she could be on this table by night.

  “The face, bring me the face,” I heard the voice say.

  It startled me greatly. I don’t know why I felt this way, but I didn’t expect it to follow me here.

  “It will be light soon. It’s too dangerous now,” I said.

  “You can’t stay here forever. Eventually they’ll find you.”

  “I won’t need to be here forever. Just another day. Just another day and I will have the face.”

  “You’ll need to bring many,” the voice said.

  “Why?”

  “The face must belong to a person of the light. He will not talk to us if we’re still in the darkness.”

  “How will I know?”

  “We must wear the face and wait for him.”

  “But what if he doesn’t come?” I asked.

  “Then we’ll find another face. And we’ll kill and we’ll kill until we find the right one.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Trap

  Present Day.

  Charlie Darden lugged his wife’s overstuffed suitcase down the three stairs of their front porch. He rested it on the ground and raised the pull-out handle so he could roll it down the sidewalk.

  Charlie was in his early forties and had a strong, athletic build. He was Angela’s older brother, and although they were several years apart, they had been quite close as children. Charlie viewed himself as her protector, and he had always encouraged her endeavors growing up.

  That all changed when she joined the police department. He thought the decision was reckless and irresponsible. Why would she want to put herself in harm’s way? Angela had tried for months to convince him that she knew what she was doing, that she wanted her life to mean something. She wanted to contribute to society. But none of those arguments changed his opinion, and eventually they stopped talking as frequently.

  When Charlie’s daughter was born, virtually all communication was cut off. Angela had gone to the hospital to see her new niece. She had offered her congratulations, and she had meant every kind word she said. But the emotional distance between Charlie and her had widened significantly. With a new child came easier excuses for Charlie to talk less and less with his little sister. After work and the child, there was no time left for a
nything. Now he and Angela felt like complete strangers. It was a development neither of them could have imagined thirty years ago.

  “Whoever first put suitcases on wheels was a genius,” Charlie said to his wife.

  But Sara Darden couldn’t hear him. She was inside her car, cranking the heat to full blast.

  She exited the driver’s side of her car and shut the door. Sara was the same age as Charlie, but she had a youthful energy and a girlish face that made her appear a good decade younger.

  “You’re gone three days and you need this much stuff?” Charlie asked, feigning exhaustion from carrying her suitcase for her.

  Sara ignored the question. It was something Charlie always asked her when they packed for trips.

  “Why do they keep booking me on these six a.m. flights?” she asked.

  “You already know the answer. They’re cheaper. Anything to save a dollar.”

  Sara walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk for him.

  “Are you going to miss me?” she asked.

  “Always do,” Charlie said.

  He heaved the bag into the trunk and shut the lid. Sara leaned into Charlie and kissed him gently.

  “Morning breath,” she said, smiling.

  “It’s four a.m.”

  “Call you later,” she said.

  Sara hugged her husband goodbye and climbed back into the car.

  “Have a good flight,” he said.

  Sara smiled and shut the door. She put the car in reverse and backed the car slowly out of the driveway.

  Charlie stood in the cold and watched his wife drive away.

  Sara and Charlie had moved several miles away from town to get more house and more yard for their money. She loved their home but hated the commute. It took her thirty minutes to get anywhere, and the airport was a good hour away. At least the traffic wouldn’t be bad at this time of the morning.

  She leaned forward and pressed the preprogrammed radio stations until she found a song she liked. She almost always ended up on the local PBS station. The classical music calmed her nerves, and she was embarrassed to admit that she hated the popular music of the day. Catchy though it may be, she couldn’t relate to it.

  Sara approached a blind curve in the road. As she was half way through it, she saw a figure standing in the middle of her lane. She broke hard to avoid hitting him, but it was too late. The car swerved and fish tailed and the back side of the car smashed into the figure and sent him flying towards the ditch on the side of the road.

  Sara pulled over and put the car in park. She was shaken but unhurt. She jumped out of the car and ran towards the victim. It was dark, and there were no street lights in this part of the suburbs, but Sara could make out the dark figure in the grass. It was wearing black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. The man was on his stomach with his face away from her.

  She carefully walked to the other side of the man and pushed his hood back. She stared into the dead white eyes of a mannequin’s face. She recoiled in fear. Who would put a mannequin in the middle of the road and why? Was this some kind of sick joke? All of a sudden she realized whoever pulled this trick might be out there with her.

  She turned to run back to her car and saw him. He was much taller than she was, and he was dressed just like the mannequin, black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. She screamed as loud as she could, but there was no one to hear her. The man in black ran towards her. He was shockingly fast. He pressed a damp cloth over her face. She tried to pull it away, but he was too strong. The fumes went into her nose and mouth quickly and deeply. She felt the dizziness right away. She thought she would throw up in the cloth and gag on her own vomit. She wondered how long it would take before someone knew she was gone.

  Then she lost consciousness.

  Kendra Martin leaned against the brick wall of the closed pawn shop. She was freezing and wanted more than anything to go home. But she was broke and couldn’t afford another day of making no money. She was already a month behind on the rent and if it weren’t for the free sex she was giving the landlord, she would be out on her ass. She hated the fat, disgusting slob of a man, and it was everything she could do not to get sick when he laid on top of her. But she needed a place to stay. What else could she do?

  A gust of wind blew down the street, and Kendra decided to give it a few more minutes before heading home. How had her life come to this? What could she possibly do to free herself?

  She heard the car heading down the street towards her. She didn’t move off the wall. She was simply too cold to walk. The car drove up to the curb and stopped a few feet from her. The window rolled down. Maybe she would make some money tonight after all. Kendra forced her legs to move and headed over to the car. She leaned through the window and instantly recognized the cop from the other day.

  “You here to arrest me?” she asked Marcus.

  “Get in,” he said.

  So would she need to fuck him for free to stay out of jail or would he actually pay her? She hated cops, every last one of them.

  Kendra opened the door and climbed inside. At least it was warm in the car.

  Marcus drove off.

  Marcus parked his car. He had driven them to a remote part of town. They were parked at the end of a road. It was dark, and no one would see them here. He kept the engine running. It was far too cold outside not to.

  Kendra looked at him. It was obvious why he had brought her out here.

  “In the back seat?” she asked.

  “I don’t want that.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “He called you.”

  Kendra didn’t answer, but the look on her face gave it away. There was no point in denying it, but she certainly didn’t feel like cooperating with Marcus. This entire meeting could get her killed.

  “He won’t see you out here with me.”

  “He may have seen you pick me up.”

  “Maybe. All the more reason for you to help me catch him.”

  “No thanks.”

  Marcus hesitated. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

  “We found one of Bob’s cell phone bills in his house, placed a trace on the calls made with it. He called you last night. He must have destroyed his phone after that because we lost it.”

  She said nothing. Ingalls was a dangerous man. She had been the one to give them Bob’s name. At the time it seemed like the smart thing to do. Get the cops to solve her problem. But she quickly realized how foolish it had been. They didn’t care about her, and they would undoubtedly fuck it up. She had heard about the botched raid on Bob’s house. Her hunch that they would make her problems even worse was justified.

  “He murdered Carrie. Cut her up pretty bad,” Marcus said.

  Did the cop think she needed to be reminded? Had he thought she didn’t know that already? But there was something about the way he had said Carrie’s name.

  “You knew Carrie. Didn’t you?” she asked.

  Marcus looked away. It was more of a statement than a question. He did know Carrie Dempsey. He had been with her only once. But that was probably all the killer needed to mark her as a victim. Marcus turned back to her.

  “Bob Ingalls shot at me and my partner,” he said. “Where can I find him?”

  Kendra said nothing.

  “It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you,” he said.

  “And who is going to protect me? You?”

  “You help me. I’ll help you. It’s that simple.”

  “You’ll actually catch him this time? What if you don’t? Then where does that leave me?”

  Marcus reached into his coat pocket. Kendra was frightened. She assumed he would pull out his gun, but he actually removed a hundred dollar bill.

  Kendra looked at the money. Her internal debate was obvious.

  “He tried to kill a cop. He won’t get out anytime soon,” Marcus said.

  Kendra stared out the windshield. It had started to snow. Fat flakes fell against the glass.
She looked back at Marcus. He still held the money in his hand. She needed that money. But what good was it if the cops screwed up and missed Bob again? He would surely come for her then. And do much more than cut her arm. She subconsciously pulled up her sleeve and touched the thin scar. Every day she saw it in the morning while she showered, and every day it reminded her of Bob Ingalls. She made her decision.

  “He called again this morning. He wants to shoot another video.”

  “Does he act in the videos?” Marcus asked.

  She looked at him intensely. Why would he ask that?

  “Where will he be, behind the camera or in the bed with you?” he asked again.

  “No. He just watches. It’s always me and another girl. Never another man.”

  “Are you going to meet him?” Marcus asked.

  Kendra was afraid. Had she made a terrible mistake revealing what little she knew? Bob Ingalls was not a man you betrayed. He was a psychopath.

  “Are you going to meet him?” Marcus asked again.

  Sara Darden couldn’t feel her hands anymore. The tight plastic bands wrapped around her wrists had long ago cut off circulation. At least the pain was gone.

  When she woke she found herself in the woods. The sun was just beginning to rise and the morning light cast long shadows across the ground in front of her. She was sitting on the ground, and she was pretty sure her back was against a tree. But the bands were so tight she couldn’t turn more than a couple of inches to try to see behind her.

  The white mannequins leaning against the trees around her were terrifying. She didn’t know why they were there, but they seemed evil to her, like they enjoyed watching her suffer. She couldn’t tell what covered their faces, but it looked like a series of deformed masks.

  She looked down at the crude box built around her. It was only a couple of feet tall. What was its purpose, and who or what was it supposed to keep out?

  Sara sat alone throughout the entire day. She still had her coat on but it seemed to offer less and less warmth as the day progressed. The wind was biting and felt like a thousand needles piercing her skin all at once.