Thomas interrupted. “How did you talk him into it?”
Ron looked at Jim. Jim looked in the rear-view mirror at Thomas. “I told him that it was a matter of time before he would be found guilty of arson, but if he met with Skull, I would get the charges reduced. He had a daughter to raise and didn’t want to go to prison, so he agreed to do it.”
“You bluffed him. If the police didn’t have enough evidence already, he was probably going to get away with it anyway.”
Ron looked back at Thomas. “He didn’t know that. And besides, it was for the greater good.”
“What happened next?”
“We set up at Wyatt’s house, waiting for the call. A few hours later Wyatt’s home phone rang. The caller ID displayed unavailable. Jim signaled for Wyatt to answer it. Jim and I were listening in, and when Skull started talking, Jim gave a thumbs up to another officer who was already on a cell phone getting the location of the caller. Skull didn’t stay on the phone long; he simply gave a time and place to meet after Wyatt took him up on his offer. The officer wrote the address on a piece of paper, then handed it to Jim. I could see the blood leave Jim’s face as he looked at the address. The call had come from Jim’s house back in Richmond, Virginia. He immediately called his wife’s cell phone. Luckily, she and the kids were at the mall. Jim contacted our field office in Richmond, and within minutes a team stormed his house. Skull was not there, and there was no evidence that he had been there. Jim had his family moved to a secured location, where they will remain until Skull is caught.”
Thomas was angry. “That son of a bitch had the nerve to break into Jim’s house. He’s going to eventually mess up, and we’re going to nail his ass.”
Jim looked at Thomas through the rear-view mirror. “He knew we were on his trail, and he knew we were there with Wyatt. It was his way of telling us to back off.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If he knew, then why did he risk meeting with Wyatt?”
Ron answered the question. “It’s a game to him.”
Jim pulled up to a building and stopped. “We’re at the morgue.” He looked at Ron. “Hopefully the examiner has good news.” Ron and Thomas followed Jim into the building. Thomas didn’t like the odor that was lingering in the main hallway. “Hey, guys, I’m gonna go back to the car.”
Ron nodded. “Okay. You can stay out here, but don’t wonder off.”
Jim pointed at a bench. “Better yet, park it.”
Thomas shook his head as he sat down. Jim and Ron walked through a double set of stainless steel doors. A woman in a lab jacket approached. Jim pulled out his badge and identified himself. “I’m Jim Thompson.” He nodded towards Ron. “This is Ron Serbanic.”
She reached out and shook Jim’s hand. “I’m Michelle. You must be here for the…” She paused for a moment. “I really don’t’ know how to describe the body.”
Ron smiled. “Internally cooked.”
She motioned for them to follow her as she walked off.
Jim looked at Ron and shook his head. “What the hell was that about? Internally cooked?” Jim walked off and met Michelle at a stainless-steel table; Ron went the other direction—he didn’t like to be around dead bodies, unless he had to. The man from the apartment building was lying on top of the table. His chest and abdominal cavities were still laid open. Jim looked at all the burn marks under the man’s skin. From his open cavities, Jim could see that some of his organs had been burned as well. He looked at Michelle and asked, “Have you identified him?”
“Not yet.”
Jim looked disappointed. “How long is it going to take? I need something that I can go on.”
She opened the man’s mouth. “His teeth have been removed.” She picked up one of his hands. “And his fingerprints have been burned off.” She laid the hand back down. “He has no other identifying marks. But we’re running DNA. That will be our last chance to identify him.”
“Was the cause of death from being burned?”
“It was part of it. The toxicology report showed nothing unusual in his system, but he did have internal bleeding and was severely dehydrated.”
“Bleeding from what?”
Michelle pointed to a small puncture wound on the side of the man’s abdomen. “His spleen had been punctured.”
“How did that happen?”
“Possibly from his attacker. Not sure why though.”
“I know. So he wouldn’t live long enough for us to question him.”
“That’s a possibility. The hole in his spleen was small, but when his body went through the horrific pain of being burned, his heart rate increased, causing more blood to be pumped into his abdominal cavity.” Michelle pulled out a small glass jar from her pocket. “I have something for you that might help with his origins.” She handed it to Jim. “I found this in his hair.”
Jim noticed it was a tiny insect. “What is it?”
“A very rare ladybug that belongs to a group of Ladybird Beetles. It’s called the Winton’s Ladybird Beetle. They have only been found in the Centennial Valley along the Montana and Idaho border. If I were you, I would contact the sheriff’s department in Dubois, Idaho. It’s the closest town to the Centennial Valley.”
Jim set the jar on the table. He pulled out his card and handed it to her. “Thanks, Michelle. Let me know if you find anything else.”
Jim walked over to Ron as he was looking at some preserved organs that were in a display case. “You could have joined us.”
“Ron looked a little flush. “You know I don’t like these places.” He looked back at some jars filled with formaldehyde and body parts. “This stuff creeps me out.”
Jim and Ron went back to the car. Thomas was standing next to it smoking a cigarette. Jim pointed his finger at him. “I told you to stay put.”
Thomas flicked the butt as he opened the back door. “What did y’all find out?”
Jim ignored him as he got in the car.
Thomas plopped in the back seat like a lazy teenager. “Well, what did y’all find out?”
Jim was aggravated at Thomas’ behavior. “Kids should be seen and not heard.”
“I’m not a damn kid!”
Ron looked back. “Then don’t act like one.”
Thomas crossed his arms as he looked out the window.
Ron looked at Jim. “What did you find out?”
“We still don’t know who he is, but there is an indication that he could be from Montana or Idaho.”
“Where to next?”
Jim looked at his watch. “The motel. We’ll head to Idaho in the morning.”
Thomas was already snoring in the back seat before the car pulled away.
The next morning Jim got a call from an investigator with the Atlanta Police Department. The investigator told him about Pat Peterson. He explained Mr. Peterson and another man had been reported missing a few days ago and they were found yesterday evening in the basement of Mr. Peterson’s building. The other man was still unconscious and hadn’t been questioned yet, but Mr. Peterson was able to give a statement. At first, Jim was aggravated that he was being bothered with a local issue until the investigator told him about the Spanish Pear. Jim and his team immediately went to the airport. They met with some more FBI agents that were waiting for them in a jet. Their destination was Atlanta.
Ghost of Brunswick Avenue
Wyatt woke up and noticed the SUV wasn’t moving and Seth was gone. It was dark and he couldn’t tell where he was. He looked out the window and noticed the area was secluded. The clock in the dash showed it was 4:30 AM and the keys were in the ignition. Maybe Seth was taking a piss or something, he thought. He got out and looked around. The moon was lighting up the tops of tall trees and the air smelled fresh, indicating he was in a wooded area. He got back in the car and locked the doors. About an hour later he noticed some lights flickering through the trees in the distance. Fear overcame him, not knowing who was coming. He didn’t know if he should run and hide, or stay in the car. If it
was a cop, he thought, he could go to jail when they realized the SUV had been involved with the trucker incident. The lights were getting brighter with each passing second. Panic overcame him; he opened the door and took off running through knee-high grass. Suddenly a set of headlights revealed themselves. Wyatt dove to the ground and hid behind some large weeds. He was shaking with fear as the vehicle stopped next to the SUV. His heart was pounding as he watched a man search the vehicle with a flashlight. He could barely see him as the light from a flashlight reflected back on him. He was dressed all in black and had long hair; that was about all he could make out. Wyatt was sweating profusely and his heart felt as if it was going to explode at any second. Finally, the man drove off. Wyatt took a deep breath as a feeling of ease overcame him. He sat on the ground and wiped the sweat from his head as he watched the car’s taillights disappear into the dark. Suddenly he heard the roaring of an engine accompanied by tires spinning and sliding on gravel. To his horror, the vehicle had spun around and was headed right for him. He panicked, then he jumped up and took off running. He could hear the engine revving as it followed behind him closely. It was dark, but the headlights were lighting his way as he ran through the tall grass. He could even see his shadow running for its life in front of him. There was a thick wooded area running parallel with him, and when he noticed an opening in the brush, he ran for cover. The vehicle slammed on its brakes and came to a stop. He wanted to keep running, but the wooded area was dark and grown up with vines that had sharp thorns. The door opened and the dome light came on. Wyatt could see a dark-skinned man with long hair sitting in the driver’s seat. He got out and started walking over to the wooded area with a flashlight. Suddenly, the light struck Wyatt’s face. A man yelled out. “What are you doing?”
Wyatt stood up. “Using the bathroom.”
“When you get done wiping your ass, let’s go. We’re only a few hours from Atlanta.”
He blocked the light from his eyes with his hand. “Seth?”
The light went off. “Who else did you think it was?”
Wyatt took a deep breath; he was relieved. He walked out of the wooded area. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I figured that when I saw you running. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
When they got into the car, Wyatt was able to see Seth’s new disguise more clearly. He had dyed his skin brown and his face had pockmarks. He was wearing a black, long-haired wig that hung down to the back of his neck, a tan buttoned up shirt tucked into old blue jeans and a black leather jacket. He had a dark, thick handle bar mustache and his goatee had been dyed to match. He kind of looked like Machete Cortez in the movie Machete Kills, but with a goatee. Seth noticed he was staring. “Why you looking at me?”
“It’s amazing how you can do that. You don’t even look like the same person.”
“I told you I have been doing this for a long time.” Then Seth spoke in a deep, Hispanic sounding voice. “Hey ese, that’s why this loco hombre been gettin’ away with dis pinche chit for so long.”
Wyatt shook his head. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, but at least I’m not a pinche maricon.” Seth winked as he put the car in drive.
Wyatt was aggravated. “What the hell did you just call me?”
“A fucking cool dude.”
“Bullshit!” He looked around the car, noticing it was a newer, black Lincoln Town Car. “And where in the hell did you get this thing, you lying fuck.”
Seth laughed.
“Seriously, where did you get it?”
“Off some asshole.”
Wyatt wiped some sweat from his face with a rag. “Why did you fucking leave me out here by myself?”
“You were asleep, and it was better that I went alone.” Seth spun the tires and fishtailed a little as he took off.
“Where are we?”
“Foster State park in Georgia.”
“Georgia? Wow, I did sleep for a while.” He looked at Seth. “What asshole?”
“Just some dude at a motel a little way down the road from here.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No. Just threatened him.”
“To kill him?”
“No. That I would tell his wife that he was fucking his girlfriend if he didn’t give me his car.”
“Oh.” Wyatt had a look of concern. “How did you know that I wouldn’t take off?”
“Just like you’re trusting me not to skin you alive, then wear your flesh as a bathrobe.”
Wyatt’s eyes got big.
“Trust, Wyatt. You must have trust. Same trust that I have knowing that you won’t pull out your revolver and pop a cap in my ass.”
“I understand that, but you make it sound as if you have worn someone’s skin around before.”
“A few times; just to fuck with someone.”
“Can that be your next story?”
“Those would be kind of boring, but I did scare the shit out of some black folk when I went around disguised as a dead person.”
“That’s kind of outside your character, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“No killing or torturing.”
“I didn’t say that. Actually, a whole bunch of dirt bags got fucked up.”
“Oh cool. Sounds interesting then.”
Seth laughed. “You’re starting to like this shit, aren’t you?”
Wyatt shrugged his shoulders.
“I knew you would.”
He noticed Seth had moved his bag to the backseat. He pulled it up front, then took out his folder and notebook. “Did this one make the news?”
“No, but it was turned into a story on one of those TV Ghost shows.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does when you hear what I did. It took place around seven years ago in Trenton, New Jersey. It all started when some gangbangers killed a nineteen-year-old. Of course, murder isn’t uncommon in the area. In fact, about four hundred people were killed there last year, and their crime rate is fucking ridiculous. This also wasn’t your normal punk ass gangbanger killing another punk ass. This story is about Dewayne. A good kid that didn’t deserve what he got.
I happened to be in New Jersey when this story came on the local news. It pissed me off, and at the time I was bored, so I decided to do something a little different. Going around and fucking up people can get monotonous sometimes, and occasionally I like to do something real fucked up, or unusual, to break the repetitiveness. The idea of messing around with some gangbangers excited me.
I spent a couple of days doing some research. What I pieced together from the news, and from a few locals, was that Dewayne had grown up on the streets just like the rest of the punks, but instead of whining and crying how society was keeping him down, or joining a gang, he had gotten an academic scholarship and was leaving at the end of the summer for MIT. He was well-liked in the neighborhood and was setting an example to younger kids, especially the ones who didn’t have any great physical abilities like himself—It was common that a person with good athletic skills could receive a sports scholarship, but not for someone like Dewayne; he was a big, clumsy teenager. Dewayne lived with his mom, grandmother and younger brother. The local gang, the Street Kings, didn’t like him because he refused to join them. They would call him the Blueberry Narc because he always wore a blue New York Giants jacket with either a blue toboggan or a blue hoodie, and bright green shoes.
A few days before he was killed, one of the members had been arrested for drug possession. They blamed Dewayne, accusing him of ratting out the fucker, when in reality, he had nothing to do with it, but nevertheless, fifteen gang members dragged him into an abandoned building where they beat him until his face was unrecognizable, then stabbed and shot him to death. They tied a canvas tow sack over his head, then painted their gang sign with red spray paint on it as a warning to other narcs. The decent people around this area, the northeast side of Trenton, were very angry with what happened t
o Dewayne. They were sick and tired of the gang violence, but the police refused to get the problem under control—they were too busy harassing law abiding people.
Dewayne had been murdered the day before I got there. I didn’t know anything about the Street Kings except that they wore red bandanas. The news stated there were about twenty of them. Before I decided what I was going to do, I waited until it was dark, then drove up and down Brunswick Avenue and the surrounding area. The Street Kings were hard to find at first, but I did see a lot of their gang tags painted everywhere. Their tag was the letters SK, and under the letters was written, 4 LIFE; they were painted red, in graffiti style writing. Around an hour later I noticed two punks walking down a sidewalk. They both had red bandanas on their heads. I drove on down, then turned around and came back with my lights off. I parked a little way down the street to see where they were going. When they turned the corner, I followed them. They finally went into a rundown house with two junky cars on blocks. I snuck up to the house and looked through a window. There were about twelve punks hanging around in the living room. They were smoking weed, playing video games, and smooching on hood rats. About that time, two of them started for the front door, so I went back to my car. They got into their seven-hundred-dollar car with five thousand dollar rims and took off. I followed them to another house. This one was a real shithole. The front windows had been boarded up, graffiti was painted everywhere and the front yard was all dirt and littered with trash. Within a few seconds three punks came out and got in the car. I followed them to a park where they hung around for a while, then they went to a rundown shack with a couch on the front porch. I hid my car in an alleyway, then went and looked through a window. Same thing going on there; weed, games and bitches. Now that I had several of their hangouts I went back to my motel room. While I lay in bed, I thought about what I could do from simply burning their shit down with them inside to machine gunning their ass like they do others. It had been a while since I did something fun, so I decided to fuck with these assholes. Dewayne was a big kid, around two-hundred and thirty pounds. His size was what gave me the idea of dressing like him, and it would allow me to wear my body armor, reducing the chance of receiving a fatal gunshot. The next morning I drove over to New York and bought the same jacket, hoodie and shoes that Dewayne had worn, and picked up a canvas tow sack, red paint, several small bug sprayers and ten, half-gallon bottles of Everclear. When I got back to my motel, I cut holes in the tow sack for my eyes, then painted the SK 4 Life tag on the front of it. Later that night I put on my custom-made body armor, then loaded…”
The complete “A Glimpse into Hell” series - 5 books, 195 chapters, 1700 pages, 600K words of pure gore Page 66
