Gabriel hunched down to get a better look. There was a small blinking icon in the tray.
“Yeah?”
“That’s from the inbox.”
“But we didn’t connect it to the Internet. How did we receive one now?”
“It’s not new,” David said. “These pop-ups are timed notifications from unread emails. Meaning, the idiot who owned this laptop had his email account logged in by default.” He tutted. “People are unaware of what even a small-time cyber crook could do with open invitations like this.”
He clicked the notification, which maximized into a web browser. Once the email loaded, he typed the keyword Noah in its search box and hit return.
No result.
Obviously Noah wouldn’t have used his own email address to receive the list.
“Seems like we’re going to spend some quality time together,” David said. “We should do it manually.”
With no other way to search for the list, David said they had to sift through all sent emails one by one, and began working. When he got tired, Gabriel picked up from where he left off. Once his eyelids failed him, Emma came to the rescue. Bill didn’t take part in their perusal. Instead, he lay horizontally on Gabriel’s bed, his legs dangling over the edge, and snored.
The email screen had over one hundred pages. By the time they were done with the last page, the sun was well above the horizon. But they didn’t find a list of any sort.
“Well, it’s not here,” David said.
“Maybe he deleted the email he sent to Noah,” Gabriel said.
“There is nothing in the trash. I’ve already checked it. If he emptied it, there is no way we can get to it without a warrant.” David pinched the bridge of his nose.
The sunlight permeated the drawn drapes and filled the room with a dull glow. Since Gabriel hadn’t had a wink of sleep, the light made him irritable. He hated sleeping in the daytime and working at night. His stomach grumbled, joints ached, eyesight fogged, and he also experienced a bad case of hangover. For this reason, he had always thought highly of people working nightshifts.
“Wait a minute,” David said, now energetic. “This is probably a big list, right?”
Emma and Gabriel nodded, their eyes bloodshot and puffed.
“Maybe he didn’t copy the list and paste it in the body of the email, like how we thought he did, because many servers will filter long emails as spam.”
“He should have sent it as an attachment,” Gabriel said.
“That makes sense,” Emma replied. “But there is nothing here.” She tapped the screen. “We just went through them all.”
“Not in the email, no,” David said. “If Simmons sent the list to Noah as an attachment, then at some point it should have been saved on this laptop. That is, if he uploaded it from the hard drive.” He smiled. “We can search it.”
“Now that’s not a bad idea.” Emma smiled back, too pleasantly. “I’ll leave this pesky task to you guys.” She stumbled to the bed, fell beside Bill, and closed her eyes.
Within a minute, the confluence of their feeble snoring vibrated around the room.
In the course of an hour and a half, David and Gabriel dredged hundreds of documents that had lists, but none had names or petition dates or anything that signified expunged records.
“He might have deleted it,” David said.
“Shit.”
“I didn’t say it would be unrecoverable.”
“You can get them?”
David shook his head. “Not here. I need some state-of-the-art applications to retrieve deleted files from the hard drive. But for obvious reasons, I can’t connect a stolen device to the police server and download those apps. I’ll take it to my house and use my computer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but don’t hold your breath. I’m gonna sleep first.” David got up, put Simmons’s laptop in his bag, and left.
Gabriel checked his phone before plugging in the charger. He sighed, not because the a.m. had become p.m., but because in some corner of his mind he had expected Liz to have messaged him. She hadn’t.
Since his guests were sharing his only bed and he didn’t own a couch, he spread two towels on the floor beside the bed and lay down. He closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t have a nightmare and scream and terrify them all out of their much-deserved rest.
Chapter 18
May 7, 2017. 09:12 A.M.
Shane was making bacon, when his cell phone vibrated on the kitchen countertop. A call from an unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, sir. I’m Lloyd, the guy that works at your farm? Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday morning.”
“No problem, Lloyd. I was already up.”
Guy? The kid hadn’t yet grown a single hair on his face.
“I tried calling the boss man, but his phone’s not reachable.”
“It’s not? That’s weird.”
“Yes.”
“Anyway, tell me what’s up.”
“I may have left the water running before I went home last night. Could you check it out, if you don’t mind? I’d do it myself, but you live closer to it than I do. It’s my day off, and I’m not feeling very well.”
“It’s all right. I’ll go.”
Lloyd wasn’t known for malingering.
“Thanks, man.”
“Bye, now.”
Shane called Tyrel’s cell phone. It was indeed not reachable.
He had visited Tyrel’s ranch only a handful of times in his twenty-year relationship with him. Just like how Tyrel hated the smell of medicine and hospitals—which was what Shane’s pharmacy smelled like—Shane hated the smell of animal ranch, and seldom went there.
But now a five-minute drive could save water, a precious resource. It would be irresponsible of him to let it go to waste when he could do something about it.
He turned off the stove, grabbed his keys, and headed out.
* * *
Tyrel’s ranch housed mostly cows and pigs, plus some stray dogs, cats, and old horses. They were sick, wounded, or abandoned animals in need of shelter and medical care. Tyrel did this work, on top of managing Ben’s potato plantation, the main source of his income. So Tyrel hired a high school kid to help him out.
Shane drove into the farmstead and parked in front of an old building, which was just a huge stable. During the day, the enclosed animals would be herded to and penned in any one of the spacious corrals dotting the pastureland around the building. But that morning, since their helper was on leave, the animals were still inside. Shane got down, covered his nose with a hankie, and walked toward the building.
When he stepped inside, the indolent cows in their stalls looked at him with no curiosity, chewing cud, and foaming under their mouths. Bundles of hay and sacks of grains were stacked up against the walls. There was an aquarium on the far side, and a box turtle named Raphael swam lazily in it.
Shane checked the troughs and pipes, but no water was leaking out. False alarm. The teenager must have smoked a lot last night. Not feeling very well. Shane shook his head and jogged back to his car.
Just as he touched the door’s handle, a high-pitched cry froze him in his tracks, and he felt the blood drain from his face. The painful shriek, which sounded like a dog’s throaty howl, came from behind him. He removed his trembling fingers from the handle and turned around.
Nothing there but a small shack flanking the main building. Shane inched toward it, opened the door, and crept inside. An empty toolshed. Weird. Auditory hallucination, maybe?
And then he heard that bone-chilling screech again and jumped. It came from beneath him. From a locked trapdoor.
What the hell!
He took a pickaxe from a pegboard and wedged its tip between the lock’s cylinder and bolt. Then yanked it back. The lock gave in, but didn’t break. Careful not to move the pickaxe from the lock, he dropped its handle down, stood on it, and bounced. The lock released with a clank.
He opened the latch an
d lifted the heavy door. A reek of disinfectant and shit assaulted him. As he climbed down a flight of stairs, the rising sun behind his shoulders beamed light inside. Something strange manifested in front of him. An old refrigerator rested near the wall opposite the stairs. Beside it was a grill and skewers, and an open, half-empty sack of coal loafed under them.
Another shrill rang the semi-dark place, and this time it sounded weak and final. It came from Shane’s left.
He pulled a thin rope hanging from above, and orange light filled the room. He found the source of the cry and what would become the seed of his nightmares.
A naked man was chained to the wall, in a crucifix position. One of his legs had been amputated below the hip, and dried blood puddled directly under it. His other leg didn’t have the strength to carry his body and had buckled, but the manacles bolted to the wall were clutching his wrists and didn’t let him crumple down. Both his hands missed several digits. There was a vile gash on his stomach, and slimy tube-like intestines pushed through it and drooped over.
In spite of being aghast, Shane rushed to help the ruined thing.
“What the… what happened to you?”
The man’s head bobbled, but he couldn’t lift it. Shane touched his slobbering chin with shaky fingers and lifted it for him. His heart burst in sympathy. Tears of shock and terror welled up in his eyes.
The man had no flesh on his left cheek, just rows of baring teeth.
Shane hurried up to the toolshed, brought a screwdriver down, and went to work on one of the locks on his wrists. As Shane jammed it in between the metal and his skin, the man shook like he was having a fit.
“Please, wait. I’m trying to help you.”
But his numb fingers failed to hold the tool, and it slipped down.
“Come here,” the man said, his voice barely a whisper.
Shane bent low and positioned his ear near the man’s bloody mouth.
“It’s s-so cold. I am ve-very scared. Pl-please hold my hand… please.”
The man wasn’t crying. His eyes were drained of hope, and half-dead, focusing on the other side.
Shane fulfilled the dying man’s last request, but winced when the shortage of fingers became more apparent in his touch. Seconds later, the man’s weak grip on Shane’s hand loosened. His eyelids didn’t close and rest peacefully. They were still open when the pupils dilated and fixed in an eternal hollow stare.
Shane looked down at his own quivering hand smeared with blood. Sadness, fear, and nausea roiled inside.
He covered his mouth with the other hand and ran upstairs.
Chapter 19
May 7, 2017. 09:12 A.M.
Tyrel was driving from a grocery store, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and listening to a song the DJ had called “Heathens.” Happiness and a sense of accomplishment elevated his mood. He was going to collect his thirtieth skull that day.
Back home, he had a shoe trunk brimming with twenty-nine. He had cleaned them all with dishwashing liquid and hydrogen peroxide, painted them in vivid colors that glowed in the dark, and adorned them with spellbinding designs. What Tyrel had been doing out of intuition apparently had a name—Mexican skull art. It was a shame they had to be hidden in his cellar, but that was the only place in the house Shane didn’t go to because Ben’s things were stored down there, and he knew Tyrel didn’t like them to be disturbed.
A police or ambulance siren wailed behind him, and Tyrel angled the rearview mirror. The police. With long hair and a thick beard, he looked like someone a cop would pull over and frisk for meth. Seconds later, a black and white breezed past him and Tyrel breathed a little easier.
Lately he had been worried about getting found out, like how chain-smokers feared cancer, or a hedonist feared AIDS. You could only get away with so much. The last cigarette or the last cheap hooker would finally start the terminal chain reaction and begin to fuck shit up. The more reckless you became with your vices, the more probable getting screwed by them became.
Tyrel couldn’t control his craving for human flesh. However, unlike most addicts who hated their addiction and wanted to quit but couldn’t, he didn’t want to stop his burgeoning desire.
None of the skulls belonged to someone who didn’t deserve what came to him. Tyrel was not one of those crazy killers who strangled random strangers. That was immoral, and neither his dad nor Sandy would approve of it.
So he researched and selected men only from meat and dairy industries—workers, managers, owners. People who had made their living from the anguish of innocent animals. As much as Tyrel would love to wipe them all out, he tried to keep his diet under control, getting just one carcass every eight or nine months so he didn’t attract attention to his deeds. For the same reason, he never got anyone in his own town after Ricky.
Most of his carcasses were hunted in North Carolina, a few from her southern sibling, and four from Tennessee. There was one guy who Tyrel punished but didn’t know if he was dead or alive. That douchebag had chained a pit bull behind a train, videotaped it as the poor dog was dragged along the tracks, and uploaded it on the Internet. Tyrel did the same to him. After he gouged his eyes out. And Tyrel hadn’t taken his heart, so he didn’t include that asshole in his twenty-nine.
Though Tyrel took hearts, he liked leg flesh better. Sometimes he experimented with other body parts, mainly to prolong the righteous torture, but he stuck to these two. It netted him thirty to forty pounds of edible meat, plus the heart—usually from 250 to 350 grams—that he consumed in one sitting. He froze other meat, which lasted for six months, and buried the rest. Instead of eating them as full meals, he merely snacked on them so he wouldn’t skip food at home and raise any suspicion.
His current prey was a poultry worker named Jake, whose only job was to cut the throats of broilers hanging upside down on conveyor belts, that the machines had failed to murder. The last time Tyrel had seen Jake, which was about two hours ago, he was still breathing.
Tyrel always kept his food fresh as long as he could. Just when they were about to die, he carved out their still-beating hearts. And that day, Jake was on the verge of dying. Hence the urgent grocery shopping.
It was amusing and satisfying to watch them writhe in pain. Tyrel enjoyed being the device of karma, and he hoped Jake wouldn’t rest peacefully. It had only been two days since he’d abducted him, and he hadn’t even punished him till his heart’s content. To keep Jake from dying, Tyrel had taken his gag off because the murderer struggled to breathe. It wasn’t like he had the energy to scream for help, or anyone would be there to hear it. Lloyd was off that day.
Tyrel turned onto a backroad that ended in an open wooden gate. As he drove into his ranch, he found a familiar Fiat parked inside. Shane was vomiting in front of the toolshed, and the floor door behind him was lifted.
Shit.
* * *
“Don’t come near me,” Shane said, the lines beside his eyes became more prominent.
He had aged badly and wasn’t virile anymore. Whereas Tyrel had got taller, stronger, and more sinewy, Shane had become chubby.
“You took a gander at Jake down there?”
Shane grabbed his temples. “I saw leftovers on the skewers. Did you… did you?”
“Yes.” Tyrel took a breath. “I’m what people call a cannibal.” A huge weight was lifted off his chest.
Shane retched. A minute later, Tyrel was looking at his puke on the grass. He held Shane’s shoulders in a vain attempt to assuage him.
“You monster!” Shane swatted off Tyrel’s hands.
“Why? You eat chicken, pork, and beef.”
“It’s not the same thing, you psycho!” Shane screamed again, torrential tears flowing over his cheeks.
“Why? Tell me, why exactly?”
Shane’s eyes and face shrunk as if Tyrel had asked the stupidest question ever.
“Because we’re people. And people don’t eat each other.”
“That’s not a reason. It’s a rule that w
e made.”
“The people you’ve killed, they have families. Children. They have emotions.”
“And animals don’t? You ever tried to steal an egg from a chicken? Normally a chicken runs at the sight of us because we are bigger and stronger. But if you take its egg, it comes after you. At that time, it puts its life in danger to save its egg. Its baby. Same can’t be said for some human mothers.”
“Eating people is not something you can justify.” Shane buried his face in his palms. “Oh, my god, what am I listening to?”
“Why can’t I? Animals feel physical and emotional pain, as we do. I honestly can’t think of an answer that doesn’t involve ego. Human ego. It’s like, you can’t kill and eat this species because we as society deemed it as immoral.”
Shane wiped his face. “Who are you? Do you hear yourself?”
“I do, because I don’t hear you making a valid argument. Just raving malarkey. I challenge you to tell me why killing humans is wrong, while humans kill billions and billions of other species.”
Shane didn’t answer.
“What I’m saying is that animals feel family bonds, too, and they suffer when you break them. You ever been inside an animal factory? Hell, even lions and crocodiles, the most dangerous predators, don’t industrialize the torture of their prey. They jump, kill, and eat. But humans have systematized the incarceration of animals and forced them to spend their lives working for us and dying for us. And don’t forget they inject animals with gene modifying shit and change their nature. In a way, we’re Nazi doctors who’ve conducted experiments on their prisoners.”
“You are sick,” Shane said.
“I knew this is what you’d say. Too scared to look in the mirror, huh? You could easily survive without meat or animal products, and live healthier. But you need them to get that teeny-weeny bit of extra taste? Have you ever thought that maybe God has given us the ability to eat both plants and animals, and he is testing us? To see if we would eat something that might not be as tasty, but isn’t a victim of horrific murder?”
“Plants feel pain, too,” Shane said, weakly.
Inhuman: Detective Chase hunts an animal who protects his own Page 11
