The Event Series (Book 4): Filling in the Cracks

by Thomas Larson

  “I see” said Welles, “Sad, but I guess there was no other way for it to turn out.”

  “No, not in the long term, but it does leave an option open to do a series of books based on your groups,” I offered.

  “And I am guessing that those of us who stayed in the mountain pretty much met the same fate as Welles and his people,” said General Osgood.

  “Pretty much, I wish I could candy coat it for you, General, but that is the Reader’s Digest version.” I said.

  “Well, thank you, now we have closure,” said Osgood.

  “Yes, we do” added Welles.

  “Yeah well I would have kicked your sorry asses in the real world!” laughed De Soto.

  I started to say something but there was a beep, my computer was re-booting, I looked at the clock, it was flashing. There must have been a storm related outage. I looked at my watch; it was 3:42 and getting dark. The snow was still falling, heavily. I realized I had some time missing from my day.

  Unneeded Jealousy

  I’m starting to find that I can expect a visit from book characters at any moment. I‘ve come to realize that in the creation of a universe of my own design I have invited them to step out and talk with me. Some of the conversations have been happy, some kind of sad, and others, well, others are just plain out there.

  I was talking on line with a friend of mine the other night and the topic of relationships came up. The topic was was whether there could be a platonic relationship between a single person and a married one. And we pretty much agreed that it was possible once the issue of the sexual tension was put to bed……oops, perhaps the wrong way to phrase that. But you know what I mean; there is no sex, no friends with benefits thing going on.

  I have found that those relationships, whatever you call them, are very fulfilling, they allow for conversation and sharing of ideas, thoughts, emotions that are not encumbered by trying to find the delicate balance of saying the right thing. There is no hurt or fear of vulnerability in those connections.

  We did our usual signing off and I lay down with my latest dystrophic read before. I am currently about halfway through Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’. After a while I turned off the light and rolled over, Ning, the new kitten was sleeping near me

  It was dark, and actually kind of cold, which was surprising for August. I felt the bed move, actually the mattress. At first, I thought it was the kitten, she does move around some at night, but no, Ning was still purring, snoring actually oblivious to the movement.

  I rolled over and there was a figure, a woman, sitting on the side of my bed.

  “Ah, excuse me, who are you?” I said, a little shocked.

  But the figure just sat there for a few moments. Finally, she turned toward me, a woman, in her thirties, kind of attractive, dark hair, and sad brown eyes. “You killed me!” she said, quietly, but there was no hate or anger in her voice, just the flat statement.

  I sat straight up, wait, it is dark, night, how can I see her?

  “You didn’t kill me exactly, Mike killed me, and Avalon, and Ken, and Steven” She said softly.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, I was confused.

  “You made us a little blurb in the book and with so much else going on just made us a little something to add to the page count, but you did kill us, all.”

  I sat and thought for a minute, Ken, Steven, wait, they were the people in that little camp in the woods, the tracks in the snow.

  “I remember, Mike lost it thinking that…”

  “That Ken and I were too close and that we were lovers” she said. “But he didn’t understand. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all.”

  I stared at her, she was all in white long underwear, her skin was pale and as she turned toward me the side of her head, the one that had been away from me was matted, thick with dried blood. The white quilted long underwear top she had on was brownish red where the blood had dripped.

  “We were happy together, Mike and me, we had a great life, and Avalon, she was my heart string and the apple of her dad’s eye. Then, he changed. I am not sure what happened to him, but it began after he lost his company.” She told me.

  She explained that Mike ran a little machine shop made some parts for a gun manufacturer in North Haven. At first the sales were great because of the political climate, fears of gun control. He was able to expand his business, but then Sandy Hook happened. And in the aftermath the State, that ‘Asshole Malloy’ drove the guns manufacturers out. It caused Mike’s company to fold. In the end she said they lost everything, the company, and their savings. They had to put Avalon back in public school. They were just hanging on.

  She told me that Mike began to drink again, he had quit for a lot of years, but the situation drove him back to the bottle. He became crazy, paranoid, depressed. And then, the meteor, the walking dead, they had escaped and at first Mike had a purpose again, he quit the bottle, and his focus was to survive, to be able to protect and keep his family, me, and Avalon alive and safe. It worked for a while, we foraged, and we were doing okay. Continuing on she said that one day, in late September they met Ken and Steven on the road.

  “Like us they were lost souls just looking to hang on. We joined up thinking that we would, could work together and in time maybe find some other people. At first it was fine, everything was fine. But after a little while Mike started to get …..different, he was increasingly agitated. I did see it, now that I think about it but there was no reason, we were eating, and living, and had a good thing going. Avalon, she and the boy, Steven seemed to hit it off, and that was good. Ken was a nice guy, not my type but a nice guy. He was bright and funny and knew a lot about hunting, and survival. We would talk about things, things that I could never discuss with Mike, but there was nothing going on. I was with Mike.”

  Winter was closing in and she said the plans as to make a run to the south, warmer climate. But that early storm arrived and kind of slowed them down. They grabbed some winter stuff, heavy sleeping bags and tents and things from the Cabela’s up in Pittsfield after that snow.

  “We were fine, we had all we needed, we were gonna make it!” she began to sob. “Then, Mike…..”

  I sat in silence; letting the emotions run out of her a little. I probably should have tried to put my arm around her, give her a hug, but somehow, that just did not seem right.

  As the sobs subsided she continued. “While we were picking thing up at Cabela’s Ken and I got separated from the group. We ended up in the winter wear section and picked up some thermal underwear and wool socks. When we got back and found them, Mike was furious, at first I just thought it was because we got lost. But later, when we got back to camp he started, yelling, accusing, saying things like Ken and I were fucking around. We weren’t I swore to him that we weren’t, and it was the truth. But it didn’t seem to help.”

  I listened; I had never gone into this much detail about them in the book. I had just kind of glossed over it.

  “He went to bed early that night, he was angry. But in the morning it was strange, he was quiet, calm, he almost seemed happy. It was like he had listened to what I had told him and believed me. It was actually a wonderful day, the old Mike, the Mike I loved and married had come back,” she continued, “I was glad.”

  Then, she got quiet for a couple of minutes,

  “We went to bed that night, like usual,” and she broke down, crying. “I woke up when I heard the bang, the gunshot. He, he….had killed Avalon, and was standing over me. In the dim light I could see he was crying. All he said was ‘I’m sorry’ as he put the muzzle of the gun to my head and pulled the trigger.”

  I awoke, sweating, my heart was pounding, the dream or maybe better to call it the nightmare had been so real. Ning was lying next to me, gentle snoring those little kitty snores, but I was awake.

  I stumbled to the kitchen, I knew I was not going back to sleep. It was time for a coffee, and to think about what had just happened.

  Killer Unknown


  It has always been difficult for me to sleep the first night in a new or strange place, and I will say that the Coffee House was certainly new and strange. It was a little rustic cabin on a coffee plantation in which we, my girlfriend and her daughter were staying on a recent trip to Central America. The plantation itself seemed a little less than I had expected, and really it was more of a small house with three or four rooms, not the grand hacienda that I had expected.

  At the plantation there was no large porch for sitting with a cup of home grown brew. It was a little house tucked at the end of a small dirt road. A pair of bedraggled mutts lay on the concrete slab that projected itself outside the walls of the house. And although they did bark as we walked up to the main house, but then quickly settled back down to continue their siesta.

  The rustic cabin, well, that was even less than the plantation, two rooms and a little toilet closet, one an enclosed ‘master bedroom’ the other sleeping area was an alcove with a bed off of an open area which served as a kitchen, and living room. Seating was sparse, a table, and some chairs on the kitchen end, a couple of benches in the living room side, beyond that, nada.

  We did not bring anything to cook so we visited a market in the town in Santa Elena. We picked up some things to eat but by the time I got back I was feeling a little feverish, perhaps I was not so careful about the water I had been avoiding. The end result was that I was in bed, shivering and trying to sleep by 8:00 PM.

  I say trying to sleep because the wind in the mountains had picked up and had brought rain with it, a heavy rain that resounded like pennies falling on the corrugated tin roof. Clearly sleep was not going to be easy.

  I finally fell into a fitful sleep after a while. But I felt someone watching me. I could almost make out the sound of breathing over the rain rat-tat-tatted on the roof. It was pitch black.

  “You wouldn’t have caught me you know” said a voice in the dark.

  I sat straight up, “Who is it, who’s there?”

  At first I thought maybe I dreamed it, that it was just nightmare, but then, “Oh, just me, one of the friends you killed off in your story,” replied the voice.

  I was able to figure out it was in the corner, away from the door, but I had no idea who it was. I guess one of the downsides to writing a story is that you really don’t know what someone sounds like if they were to speak. I mean I could figure out some of them, Gillie with his Georgia accent, or Asuna, with that touch of Japanese, maybe Sgt Brown, but this one, I had no clue.

  “Without sounding mean or anything, I killed off a lot of folks in the story’” I replied, I was really at a loss for where to go with this and it was maybe the wrong thing to say.

  A chuckle, and then “Fair enough, I was kind of a minor character, but I could have had so much fun in Camp Romanica, I would have had you all twitching like nervous cats,” replied the voice trailing off.

  We sat silent for a few minutes, I know he was from Romanica, so that helped a little, minor character, Billy, maybe, or one of the surviving bikers? No, they were all women except for Billy.

  “No guesses? Then let’s play a little game,” suggested the voice. “If you can guess who I am, I will not do what I am here to do.”

  “Here to do?”

  “Of course, you didn’t think I would just go away without some payback did you?”

  “And if I refuse the game?” I asked.

  “Oh, that is not an option, you get 10 questions, and if it works for you, I go away, if not……well, then it’s on you,” the voice said coldly.

  I sat and thought for a minute, wait, this can’t be happening, I was asleep, I am in Costa Rica, I am a writer, and one of my characters is haunting me. I have to be dreaming, I will just have to wait it out and then I will wake up.

  “No, you are not going to get away with it that easily! You don’t get to wake up from a dream and just walk away, this is real, this is payback,” said the voice. “If you think you can wait it out, we’ll just set a timer. I know, that rooster that will crow during the night, if you haven’t guessed by the time he does I get to play my game.”

  I thought about it, and it is a character, it can’t hurt anyone, it is just a character.

  “You can’t,” and I stopped a I felt the sting of something shape rack my arm.

  “Oh contraire Motherfucker, I can hurt you, or if you like I can go visit your girlfriend and her daughter in the other room,” said the voice, now more menacing than before.

  I felt my arm, it was wet, and warm, but the cut did not seem too deep, “Okay, okay, I will play, just leave them out of this.”

  “Ah, that is better. So go ahead with your first question,” the voice said, with a touch of entertainment in the tone.

  “Okay, well, let’s start here, was it by one of us, the campers that you were killed?”

  “No!” A terse answer, or maybe just short.

  “So if it wasn’t one of us, it must have been a Zom.” I said thinking out loud.

  “Ah, ah, now that is almost cheating, is that a question? Are you looking for me to say that I was killed by one of the dead? That would be question #2, so be careful.” He said, almost mocking, or like an arrogant teacher.

  “No, not asking, just talking, thinking out loud” I replied.

  “Okay, just remember the rules.”

  I thought for a minute, then offered a name, “Armand? Were you Armand? The one who crashed his plane after your relationship with Grace went south?”

  “Ah, now that is a little better, wrong, but you are at least playing the game. Good. So now let me ask you, why Armand?” queried the voice.

  “Well, it was the first name I thought of, and well, it seemed like he might have had a back story to share, with losing Grace and all,” was my answer.

  “Fair enough, but why would he cut you? No, he was too pathetic in the end for that.”

  I sat and digested what he had just said for a few minutes.

  “Hey, don’t forget the rooster my friend, times passing.”

  Thinking to myself, ‘Okay I know you are a male character, and I know that you are a vicious one, or may have been. And I know or believe that you’re not a major player, so you are not like Barkley, or Gillie, or McManus, but then they lived. Okay, let me think?’ …. “What about the Paul character?” I offered.

  “Who? Who was Paul?”

  “I will take that as a no then, Paul was a member of the biker gang. He was one of the snipers that killed Laura and Maggie. He was disgruntled, and kind of a coward, but he did attack us.” I replied.

  “Okay, yes, no is the answer on that one,” said the voice sounding almost a little confused.

  I had learned something in that question, whoever was with me here was not one of the bikers, it is something, small, but something. So the question then was which group was he with, the Stanwix bunch, Brother Gabriel, perhaps ….Mike, he would have, could have…….”Are you Mike, the guy in the tent that killed his wife and daughter?” I asked.

  “Not bad, wrong, but not bad, Mike could have been a contender, but see, he was just a one trick pony, and he was led by his jealousy, and his depression, it was a sort of sad release for him, no real pleasure in it, the killings,” replied the voice.

  Well, this helps a little it gives me the idea that this individual was a killer, and one who enjoyed it, a sadistic player. How can I narrow the field down? “Well, let me try this, were you ever at Fort Stanwix?”

  “Ah, another good question, and although I knew some of the people who died up there, ah……that is a no to question #5, halfway to the end.”

  Okay, so he was part of our group, that helps, I have time, I can do this. Wait, this is too obvious but I said it anyway, “Brother Gabriel?”

  “Hahahahaha, he is a good choice, a sick dog for sure with some very nasty ways of killing, but again, too much of a sledge hammer, no, I was more subtle.” The voice answered, I could almost hear glee in his voice.

  Think Tom, think,
who, who was hidden, who would have been a likely candidate, someone who was sneaky, under the radar, RADAR, “Okay, how about our spy from Fort Knox, Lt. Mills?”

  “Again, a good choice, he had the skills, and the mindset of a killer, kind of like that Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now, but it was his job, not his passion. Come on now, you are running out of time, and questions, that was #7, think passion, pleasure, watching the pain. You know who I am!” The voice taunted me.

  I looked at the glowing dial of my watch, it was just about 2 a.m. and I knew that meant at any time the rooster could start his ritual. Think, there are clues here, you aren’t seeing them, but there they are there. Finally I said, “I am going to burn a question here, but have you lied to me about any of the things I have asked you?”

  “Nope, all true, I may have a fault or two, like being a psychopath but I am an honest killer.”

  Okay, let me think about what I have, a male, who lived in Romanica, was killed, but not by a Zom or anyone in camp. He knew people from Fort Stanwix, but was never there. He was or seemed intelligent, articulate, and focused on the pleasure of the kill. It was not much to go on; I needed that one piece of information, but what piece.

  “Yah know, maybe I lie a little, I am thinking that after I finish you off I may go next door and play with the girls a little. Mom will be quick and easy, but the daughter, Adrianne, now that would be fun, it would be slow, and so rewarding.” The voice sounded menacing.

  Bingo! That was the piece. I knew who it was, now the game was mine, I have the edge, and I can make him squirm.