As he stared at the fog, wondering what it was or why he hadn’t seen it until he came over the hill, he felt the pain in his head, that thump thump thump that he thought had finally gone away grow more pronounced. Heavier. He blinked and shook his head. Perhaps it was a change in the air pressure that dropped the cloud low to the ground like this, and it was affecting his head.
Jem released the brake, turned on his headlights and started to lurch his vehicle forward. The headache went from a dull thumping to a spike of pain directly in his temples. He threw his foot back down on the brake and screamed out, grabbing his head in both hands. His eyes clinched due to the invisible ice pick that pierced him in the temples. The sharpness subsided after a moment and he felt lightheaded.
Jem opened his eyes and he nearly fell backward. No longer in his vehicle, he was on his feet as he peered down a long dark hallway, his eyes adjusting to the sudden change in light. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and looked at his surroundings. None of it looked familiar, though for a moment, he felt like he was back in his grandmother’s house in Nacogdoches, the dark paneled hallway and carpeting feeling reminiscent of that old house he’d spent his childhood summers in. But it wasn’t that old house. It had been sold nearly twenty years ago. This was completely different. Confusion—and then fear—took over his brain. Was he taken from his car? Why would he be brought back to some strange house?
He felt the softness of the dark carpet on his feet as his senses came back to him. Twenty feet ahead, a doorway was opened, light spilling from the room and illuminating the hall. Jem could see a shadow cutting a hole in the light.
He crept forward, each step silent on the carpet, until he reached the room at the end of the hall. With each step, a sound echoed through until he realized what it was. It was a child’s screaming. He could see, just inside the door, a little boy, no more than five years old. His little hands were balled into fists and he was yelling at someone, the mop of brown hair on his head shaking as he did.
The door opened into a bedroom and Jem gasped. The little boy was yelling at a man on a bed next to a woman whose head was contorted in a sickening angle and her face blank with a lifeless stare.
The man on the bed turned and, behind her now, wrapped the woman’s neck with a piece of white fabric, pulling hard, the tension seeming to nearly rip the fabric in two.
The woman’s lifeless mouth opened and gray fog spilled from her lips, her nose, every orifice, filling the room and engulfing them. The cloud seeped through the doors and windows, leaking outside into the air.
Jem tried to step into the room to grab the little boy from the fog and from seeing the woman, but found himself blocked by an invisible barrier. He pounded his fists against the barrier, his hands bouncing off the nothingness. “Don’t watch! Look at me!” he yelled out, though his voice felt shallow and distant. “Little boy!” There was no acknowledgement of his presence; Jem could only watch as the boy yelled at the man on the bed.
The woman’s body convulsed as the fog poured from it. She was dead. As it left her, Jem could see from her bulging eyes and the rope burn around her neck that she was no longer with them. Except those eyes. Her eyes continued to stare out, even in death.
Jem held his hands against the invisible barrier and pushed.
It felt like coming out of a falling dream, the kind that kicks you awake just before you hit the ground, and Jem grabbed at his chest as he let out a scream. His hand grasped at the seatbelt that held taut against his chest.
He was back in his vehicle, the dream still fresh in his mind. Except he knew it wasn’t a dream. It was too real. Ahead of him, he stared at the rolling cloud as his senses came back to him.
His vehicle was still in the middle of the road, facing the wall of fog. As his eyesight came back, the throbbing in his head resumed, first light and then hitting harder. Jem threw the Jeep’s shifter in reverse and inched back. The thumping in his head quietened until it settled into the dull ache that had plagued him all day.
He kept his eyes on the wall in front of him. But, he knew—there was no leaving Decker tonight. Perhaps not ever. Whatever this was had him trapped here.
The dream—or vision, or whatever—stayed in his mind. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, the way he always did when he was thinking. “What is this?” he asked aloud, talking to the fog. “What did you show me?”
Of course, there was no audible answer. But, the people who claim to hear God never hear an audible voice. No, it’s always more like a feeling, something in your gut. And Jem Taylor felt it now, in his gut. Beyond the confusion, he knew the truth—there was a murderer in Decker.
CHAPTER 15
CHIEF | 1:45PM
CHIEF MCMILLAN, ALONG with his son Chris, pulled up to the house on Lynn Drive and several of his officers were already there documenting and photographing the property. Police tape stretched across the lawn. Weeds grew in the grass but there was a row of planter boxes beneath the windows that paralleled the front door. Shadowed by Chris, who kept a few steps back, he walked up to the door, the handle still covered in residue from the fingerprint collection. He noticed a camera above the door, pointed to the street.
“She’s in here, Chief,” one of the officers said. He was one of the few older men that McMillan kept on staff. An investigator, Charles Duncan was pushing fifty-five, with hair that had long migrated from the top of his head and seemingly to his chest, where a tuft of white fur poked from beneath the top button of his white oxford shirt. Despite his age, McMillan wanted to keep him around to train the next investigator. He also happened to be very pliable, bending to the chief’s wishes.
Duncan led the chief through the modest house and to a bedroom at the end of the hallway. There, the chief saw her. Her body was sprawled on the bed, legs wide. Her face stared back at him, eyes bulging and lifeless. Without the heart pumping it through her veins, the blood in her body had given into gravity and turned her skin against the mattress dark purple. Even from the doorway, the chief could see the clear markings of strangulation across her neck.
“Jesus,” McMillan said.
“She’s been laying there for a while. Happened sometime overnight, as you can see the markings across her neck are still clotting,” the investigator said.
“All the women in town disappeared except for this one,” the chief said, more to himself than to Duncan.
“Must have happened before the vanishing,” Duncan said.
The chief stepped into the room to get a closer look at the woman. He crouched next to the bed and crossed himself. She was young, no older than twenty-five, and beautiful with long wavy brown hair that was matted to her bare back and neck. Between her thighs was a small pool of blood.
“Her name is Catherine Harlow,” Duncan said. “Unmarried, but we are looking into boyfriends or partners. This was a crime of passion. As you see, the perp used a t-shirt around her neck when he did it. Look at the headboard. She broke two fingernails off on the wood,” Duncan said, still in the doorway.
Howard turned back to the doorway. His son stood there, his eyes wide with horror. Chris didn’t say a word, simply stared slack-jawed at the crime scene.
“It’s part of the job, son,” he said. “Not a fun part.”
Chris continued to stare without a word, completely silent and still. Howard thought his son might pass out. He went over and put his hand on his son’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Why don’t you wait outside, Chris?” he said.
Chris blinked and met his father’s gaze. “Yeah, dad. Outside.” Chris turned and slowly walked back out to the front door.
“You don’t have anything on immediate leads?” the chief asked, turning back to Duncan.
“I’ve got a few lines in the water. Neighbor across the street, kid named Brandon Owens, said he saw a black or dark-colored Lexus parked out front early this morning before he left for work.”
“He get a plate?”
“Unfortunately not. Said he didn’t thin
k much of it at the time,” Duncan said.
“I noticed she’s got a security system. Camera above the porch. Are we able to get anything off that?” the chief asked.
“It’s one of those internet cameras. No internet, no footage.”
The chief grumbled something about damn technology under his breath. “Okay. What about prints?”
“We lifted some prints off the doorknob, but, just like her security system, our database is cloud-based. Can’t access it without internet connection,” the detective said. “So, we’re doing it the old-fashioned way. Talking to witnesses, getting prints. One of the guys outside working the tape though said he saw her at Mulligan’s last night.”
McMillan whipped his head around, “Well holy shit, Duncan. Let’s find out who else was there. Let’s get a list and print every son of a bitch that was there. We’ll cross-reference vehicles from there. There aren’t too many Lexuses in this town. And listen, Duncan,” the chief put his hand on the investigator’s shoulder, just as he did with his son. It was his signature move, one that simultaneously was meant to be encouraging while subtly reminding them who was in charge, “keep it as quiet as you can. I mean, I thought Chavez was going to have a damn heart attack when he pulled up to Central Market. I don’t want the entire town talking about this until we can catch the perp. Understand?”
“Will do, chief,” Duncan said.
“I’m going back to the station. I’ve got a couple of assholes to take care of down there.” With that, McMillan left the house and let his men continue their investigation.
As he walked out, the sun beat down on him, unseasonably warm. Indian summer, they called it. One more bout of hot weather before autumn finally took over and winter came.
Chris was waiting at the Tahoe.
“Was she really dead?” his son asked.
Howard nodded. “This isn’t easy,” he said. “This whole town is going to hell in a handbasket. Now you see why I need you. It needs strong men who can keep order. Can I count on you?”
Chris gulped. “Do they know who did it?” he asked, seemingly not even registering his father’s question.
“Look, son. Seeing a dead body like that isn’t easy. Look at me.” Chris’s eyes snapped up to meet his father’s. “This town needs strong men in charge. Can you handle it?”
Slowly, Chris nodded. “Yes, sir. I can.”
“Good. Let’s get to the station, get you a uniform. I’m putting you out on patrol,” Howard said. The two men got in the Tahoe and left the crime scene as one of the officers wrapped more yellow tape around the house.
Howard looked over at his son, whose legs were shaking, bouncing up and down. The kid wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving behind dark streaks of sweat. “You alright son?”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Just another migraine.”
His son had battled with these mysterious migraines his entire life. When he was a teenager, he’d spend entire days in the dark of the basement. Howard could hear him vomiting from the nausea. When he’d gone to Stephen F. Austin University after high school, he was prescribed some medications that were supposed to help with the frequency, though they still came from time to time.
“Listen, back at the house, I didn’t mean to—” Howard started.
Chris looked up at him. “I know. I didn’t understand what was going on.”
“The pills still helping?” Howard asked.
“Sometimes.”
“You know, things are going to get intense out here. I’m not going to lie to you, you may be above your head. But we don’t have a choice. It’s men like us who make the laws. If we budge an inch, the crazies will take it for all they can. But,” Howard said, “I think this will be good for you. Some purpose. I’ve let you wallow down in that basement for too long. When your mother died, I was lost too, I get it. But we need to be able to move on and be productive.”
Chris just nodded and Howard drove the rest of the way to the station in silence.
CHAPTER 16
CHIEF | 2:36PM
WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the police station, Howard McMillan was immediately inundated with multiple officers requesting advice and information. With Chris trailing behind him, they walked through the dimly lit hallway on the basement level of the courthouse. The police headquarters took up the entire basement of the courthouse on the city square, with the holding cells situated on the far end of the building. Where the station and headquarters were once in a crumbling building on the east side of Main Street, it was one of Howard’s first acts as Chief of police nearly eight years ago to consolidate everything at the courthouse.
“Chief,” Officer Chavez said, coming around a corner, “we’ve got an issue at FasTrip. There are men trying to hoard gasoline.”
“Shut off all valves and turn away everyone trying to get gas. We need fuel for emergency responders. That should be priority number one,” McMillan instructed, never once stopping as he walked through the hall.
The young officer saluted and left through the stairwell back up to the parking lot level of the building. Howard turned and spoke over his shoulder. “Chris, go in there,” he said, pointing to a closed door. “Go pick out a uniform, something that fits. Then come find me in my office.”
His son nodded without a word and turned to the door labelled “Equipment.”
When he reached his office, Officer Barnes was waiting in the foyer for him.
“I thought you were going to County?” the chief said, throwing his keys on his desk. They landed with a clatter atop a pile of folders and paperwork, the never-ending paper parade that only grew on his desk as time went on.
“Sir, we can’t get out of town,” he said.
McMillan narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean we can’t get out of town?”
“You may need to see it yourself, sir. I can’t explain it. It’s like a cloud,” Barnes said.
“You’re telling me you can’t get through some fog, Barnes?”
“It’s not fog, sir,” Barnes said, still panting. “It’s some kind of…” he trailed off. “Well, it’s a dark fog, but I can’t explain it, sir. When I got close to it, I had this excruciating headache. I think I passed out. You need to see it, though. There was another man out there as well, driving a Lexus.”
The chief’s head snapped. “What did you just say?”
“There was a man driving a Lexus that was also trying to leave toward San Antonio. Actually, said he was going to Houston. Something about his wife visiting down there. I don’t think he went through the cloud either, though.”
“You get a name?” the chief asked impatiently.
“Yes, sir,” Barnes said. “Grant Harris.”
McMillan leaned forward in his chair and it gave one of those excruciating squeals underneath his weight. He found a sheet of note paper on his desk and wrote down the name of the woman they’d found on Lynn Drive. “I want you to do some digging, Barnes,” he said, handing the paper to the officer. “See if the man you ran into has any affiliation with this woman.”
Barnes read the name. “I don’t understand, sir. Who is this?”
“That woman was found murdered in her house this morning, and the neighbor across the street said he saw a Lexus leave the scene this morning. If it’s the same guy, go get him.”
Chris walked in the office, a black nylon belt pulled taut on his skinny frame, causing his pants to bunch up around his waist. The navy-blue police shirt billowed off his frame. “Those the smallest pair you could find?” the chief asked his son.
The kid looked down and shrugged. “It was all that was left,” he said.
Barnes turned to see Chris in the doorway and gave the kid a half-smirk. “You’ll bulk up,” he said.
The chief turned his attention to Barnes. “Go make that happen,” he said.
Barnes nodded and turned out of the office.
Chris slunk into his father’s office. “What do you want me to do, dad?” he asked.
Howard stood from
his desk and grabbed his keys. “Barnes said something about a fog outside of town. We’re going to go check it out.”
CHAPTER 17
GRANT | 3:20PM
THERE WAS A knock at the front door and Grant Oliver got up from the couch and cautiously went to it, looking through the curtains that hung on either side of the egress.
On his front porch stood Craig Carlson and two other guys from the dealership. He opened the door to them and Craig raised his hands in triumph, a bottle of Jack Daniels clutched in one of his fists. “Hey buddy!” the man said.
“What’s going on, guys?” Grant said, keeping himself in the door, not quite inviting them in.
“Man, with everything going on, we thought a party was in order,” Craig said, already half-tossed from the booze. “Tried calling your cell phone, but I guess service is still spotty. Anyway, come on, we brought some stuff. You still have that foosball table in the garage?”
“I don’t know, guys.” He looked at his watch. “Things are looking pretty dicey out there. I think it’s best we not do anything to bring attention over here.”
“You’re telling me,” Craig said. “There was another beatdown at the gas station down on Main Street. The cops are running the place now, not letting anyone get gas.”
One of the other men piped up. He was Benny Gonzalez, one of the salesmen at the dealership. His large belly that hung below his belt jiggled when he talked. “You know Chief McMillan is just trying to keep things from going to total shit.”
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