The voice on the other end of the line sounded frantic, and Tom had to slow him down several times, like switching from 78 rpm’s to 33 rpm’s on an old fashioned record player. After he understood what the other person said, he calmly told the other party that he could be there in a half an hour and not to touch anything until he got there.
After dressing in the dark, he made a few phone calls, kissed his wife on the forehead, and headed out the door. Tom had been a cop for the last fifteen years, and had worked his way up from Detention Officer, to Patrol Officer, to Detective, and had eventually landed a position in Homicide. Most days he enjoyed the job, but other days, he went home defeated at the end of the day. He had never worked a regular “nine to five” job, and had always worked weird hours, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary for him. Sometimes he felt as if he would have lost his mind if not for the love and support he got from his wife.
Heather had been a constant source of joy for him, and was always supportive. Even when Tom had a terrible day, Heather had worked her hardest to try to cheer him up. A bad day for a Detention Officer or a Police Officer was much worse than a bad day for an office worker. A bad day for an office worker usually meant that they had been passed up for a promotion, or they lost an important account. A bad day for a Law Enforcement Officer usually ended in bloodshed. Tom had sustained numerous injuries in the line of duty, and the prevailing attitude of the general public was that that was just “part of the job.” These were the same people that Officers were sworn to protect.
When Tom left his house each day, he made a point of kissing his wife, because he never knew if that was the last time he would see her again. For this same reason, he never let her go to bed mad at him. They had spent many nights up late talking, trying to resolve their problems, because Tom refused to let her go to sleep until they had resolved their differences.
Tom’s car was a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle SS painted midnight blue. It had been seized from a drug dealer who had been transporting twenty kilograms of Cocaine in the trunk, when the Police had stopped him for speeding. The Police Department had been able to keep the car for official use, and Tom had been issued the car. He was allowed to take it home every night, and was given a certain amount of leeway to “tinker with it” as long as he maintained it in good condition. It didn’t look like a Police car, which was advantageous when looking for suspects that were watching for the Police. Tom took good care of the car, primarily because it was the car he had always dreamed of having. It looked normal enough on the outside, but it was anything but ordinary under the hood. This was because Tom had been tweaking the engine and had used parts from several different cars to give him an edge against the criminals he chased. It now had a COPO (Central Office Production Order) 427cubic inch engine with forged pistons and an oversized camshaft, oversized ports with a supercharger. Tom had also had to put a new rear end in his car after he realized that the standard one wouldn’t be able to handle that much torque. Tom had taken it to an abandoned airstrip outside of town and “put it through its paces.” He could go from 0-60 miles per hour in under five seconds, and could run a 10 second quarter mile with the supercharger activated. The Police Department had installed a covert light bar and hidden siren switch in the car, as well as a two-way radio in the trunk with the microphone under the seat.
Several times in childish, but fulfilling displays of power, he had spun the tires in his driveway. This time he did it more out of necessity than out of need to show off. “Maybe,” he thought after melting the asphalt in his driveway and waking half of the neighborhood with the ten second screech this caused, “I over did it just a bit this time.”
Tom’s partner, Steve Carlile, lived five miles away on route 65, and it took just under five minutes for Tom to reach Steve’s house with the blue lights on. Steve lived out in the country, so Tom had done most of the work on the car at Steve’s place with Steve’s help.
As usual, Steve was waiting out front looking at his watch and shaking his head. “Give a guy a race car, and he can’t even make it move. Geez what a slowpoke,” he said. “And cheerful good morning to you, too,” Tom replied. As if in defiance to Steve’s slowpoke cracks, Tom laid so much rubber on the ground it would have made any drag racer envious.
Steve Carlile was a lanky 6’3” tall with a dark complexion, black hair and brown eyes, while Tom Kinkaid was a stocky 5’10” tall with a fair complexion, brown hair and green eyes. Both men were in their late thirties and both had been on the job for fifteen years or more. Neither of them had children, and Steve was still single, unlike Tom. Steve claimed that he just hadn’t found the right woman yet, but Tom believed that Steve was so set in his ways, that he was scared of committing to one woman. The thought of having someone move into his house and rearrange things seemed to freak him out a little. Steve and Tom got along like brothers more or less, however, they fought less than brothers do. Sometimes, Tom’s wife, Heather would complain that he spent more time with Steve than he did with her. He and Heather had discussed having kids, and both of them wanted children, but the thought of bringing a defenseless baby into this world scared Tom half to death.
He had discussed this with Steve, who replied “Defenseless? Babies are hardly defenseless! Have you seen what they do to diapers? They are master manipulators. For instance, when they are hungry, they cry in an obnoxious way, so that you have to shut them up or go insane. They keep you up all night just to lower your defenses so you are more susceptible to their subtle mind control.”
“Wow, you really should be a pro-life counselor,” Tom retorted sarcastically. Steve was as blunt as a sack of doorknobs, but years of living by himself after several failed relationships had made him jaded. Heather had tried to fix Steve up with friends and acquaintances of hers, but when they had showed an interest in him, he had suddenly broken up with them. Steve’s version of these events, of course was slightly different than Heather’s. When Tom had asked Steve about this, Steve had said that the women were suffocating him, and that they were “psycho hose hounds,” that were desperately searching for the emotional security of a long-term relationship, even if they didn’t love the other person. Steve admitted that he might have overreacted when he had suggested that they buy a puppy instead, and had acted like a jerk just to push them away. In his mind, he felt that it was somewhat nobler to leave them when they thought he was a jerk, than if they thought that they had lost a great catch.
As they sped toward the prison, Tom filled Steve in on the details he had been told over the phone.
As the trees whistled by, Tom tried to reenact the incident at the prison inside his head. Murder was never an easy subject to deal with, but murder by someone with absolutely no conscious or sense of right or wrong was a particularly hard subject to comprehend.
When they reached the prison, it looked as if World War III had broken out. Search lights pierced the night, a helicopter hovered overhead, and the riot squat had been called out.
They were greeted by Lt. John Granger upon arrival, who seemed relieved to see them, He ushered them to the scene, filling them in with a condensed version of the suspects’ background history, and the events of the night.
The hallway was already taped-off, and after the officer on duty checked their credentials, Tom and Steve entered to find the most grisly murder scene they had ever seen. After taking it all in, they had the fingerprint crew dust for fingerprints. Then, the coroner came in and inspected the bodies before hauling them off. Apparently they had been dead since around two o’clock that morning.
From the bloody fingerprints and a few smudged handprints and footprints, Tom and Steve figured out the general direction the suspects had fled.
Hazarding a guess, Tom asked Lt. Granger if any vehicles had left since two o’clock that morning. He made a few inquires, and found out that the garbage truck had left at or around 2:30 that morning with a full load.
Driving to the main gate of the prison, Tom and Steve questioned
the guard on duty there about the garbage truck and its pickup schedule. In finding nothing unusual about the pickup, and no irregularities in the schedule, Tom had Steve call dispatch, and request that some available units be sent to the city dump to search the incoming trucks and surrounding area. While Steve was making the call, Tom started the car and the two detectives started following the trail the garbage truck had taken.
Chapter 3
Charlie looked down at his newly found “Mickey Mouse” wrist-watch, and Mickey’s famous white-gloved hands pointed to three o’clock in the morning. The watch had been a champion find; when he had found it, it was still ticking, and the only thing wrong with it had been a cracked crystal.
Charlie always liked to be the first one at the dump in the mornings, because he was sure to find the best “treasures” before anyone else could. He had single-handedly turned scavenging into a fine art, knowing what to look for and which garbage trucks delivered the best junk.
It was no surprise that when truck number fifteen rolled up, Charlie recognized it as being from the prison. Charlie dismissed it summarily as being useless, because nothing good ever came out of the prison. If the prisoners didn’t want it, he sure didn’t.
Charlie had been in trouble with the law before, and had been sent to that prison years ago when he was young and dumb, as he thought of it. In prison, Charlie had learned to cherish everything you find, and being resourceful was the only way to survive. There were very few things that he was sure of in this world, but Charlie was absolutely positive that he did not want to go back to jail.
As Charlie was turning away to search for more treasures, he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. When he turned around, he noticed that three people were climbing out of the back of the garbage truck. “Man, those prison folks’ll throw anything away nowadays,” mused Charlie as he watched the figures scamper off into the woods. He didn’t much care for people in general, because he often found them hostile and untrustworthy. He was only interested in finding treasure.
When two police cars pulled into the dump few minutes later with their lights flashing and sirens blasting, poor Charlie thought he was getting busted for vagrancy, and in sheer panic he dropped the armful of valuables he had collected, and high-tailed it out of there at a full gallop. Even so, one of the officers managed to catch him with a flying tackle that sent both men sailing through a pile of rotten banana peels and eggshells.
After picking Charlie up off of the ground, the officer apologized and told him that they just wanted to ask him a few questions. When Charlie heard this, he was furious. “You mean I jes lost a whole morning’s worth of treasure for nothing?”
The officers asked him if he had seen anything unusual that morning besides “treasures.” Charlie told them about the three people that someone had thrown away, after a long lecture about the value of the things people threw away.
At this point, Tom and Steve walked up and found out from Charlie, which way the three suspects had gone. When Charlie had pointed to the woods, Tom and Steve organized a search party with the officers there and they scattered into the woods.
Tom picked up the trail almost immediately. The suspects had been in a hurry, and had left a trail so obvious it could have been seen from across the dump. Broken branches and footprints led into the woods on the East side of the dump. Tom cursed to himself. This was the direction to town from the dump. The dump was located about ten miles west of town and about two miles north of the prison from which these jackasses had escaped. Between here and town, there were probably twenty to thirty houses. When Tom thought about what these suspects would do to an unsuspecting family, he got the cold sweats. Brief flashes of what he had seen at the prison came to him like photos taken by a crime scene photographer. Tom shivered sub-consciously, and started walking faster through the dense forest.
Chapter 4
Francisco “Diablo” Caseres saw a light in the distance. He had been trudging through this freaking forest for what seemed to him like an eternity. He needed to feed. He chuckled to himself, thinking that this must be what a wolf felt like when he stalked his prey. He wasn’t just hungry for food, he needed something more- he needed carnage. As he scrambled further into the dense woods, he saw that a farmhouse was up ahead of him in a clearing in the woods.
He had needed these other losers in order to escape, but now it just felt like they were slowing him down. He made a mental note to kill them when he had a chance and when he was sure they had gotten away. As far as he was concerned, they were weak and stupid and deserved to get caught.
As he approached the farmhouse, Diablo looked to see if there was a clothesline in the backyard. If he was going to get far, he would need to change out of his prison uniform. It was still an hour or so before sunrise, but he knew that people in the country usually got up early, so he would have to act fast.
He hated rushing this thing. This should be savored, like a fine meal. His skin prickled with excitement as he imagined what he would do to this family. What he would see, what he would hear, what he would feel. He loved to be there when a person let out their last breath on earth and he heard their soul escape their body with a “death rattle,” as he had heard it called. Diablo liked to kneel over the body of his victims and inhale the victim’s last breath, so he could capture their soul. He felt that this gave him added strength and power. He worried that these other two guys would try to steal the victims’ souls for themselves. If he killed them and stole their souls, would he become crazy like them? That thought nearly made him laugh out loud. Imagine, if he was as crazy as them, but with the power he now had? They were standing next to him, looking desperate.
There were no clothes on the clothesline, but when Diablo went to the barn out back, he found a pair of coveralls. Obviously they were used for hunting, because they were printed with camouflage. Diablo stripped off his prison uniform and put on the coveralls. They were a little small on him, because he was a large man. He stood just over 6’4” tall, and weighed 300 pounds. He had used almost every waking moment in prison to exercise and stay strong. He had seen too many guys get fat in prison because of the high carbohydrate diet and lack of activity.
Diablo found a chicken coop behind the barn, and grabbed a big hen. Before the hen knew what had happened, he had wrung her neck. He grabbed some eggs that were also in the coop, and put them in some of the pockets in the coveralls. He looked over to see where the other two guys had gone, and saw them peeking into various windows in the house. What the — . . . No way was he going to let them steal these people’s souls from him. He knew that soon the police would be looking for them, so they had better get moving. If he didn’t have time to savor killing these people, he would go to the next house he found and kill them slowly. The longer he waited, the more the next victims would have to suffer. After all, someone must pay for his frustration.
Chapter 5
Fred Grimsley sat up in bed, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It was 5:00 am, and he had to feed the chickens and milk the cows. He yawned and stretched. He looked at his beautiful wife still asleep, and wanted to crawl back in bed with her. He thought about the hungry animals and got dressed instead.
Fred thought about his wife Melissa, and how they had met nearly thirty years ago at the county fair. She had been a pretty girl with a great figure who instantly caught his attention. She had a friendly smile, which she wasn’t afraid to show often. Thinking back, he realized that the first thing that had really gotten his attention was her face. She had a peaceful, caring face, and when she smiled, it showed in her eyes as well. Truly happy people were hard to find, and there were too many people who would try to hide their internal misery with a smile, but not mean it, or use a phony smile to get what they wanted. This girl was not like that. Her smile and her joy were genuine, as he would later discover.
Melissa had been standing behind a large pyramid of cantaloupe melons, which were for sale. To make small talk, Fred
had blurted out “nice melons,” to her. Melissa had blushed and smiled and said, “thank you, you’re not so bad yourself.” Fred realized how it must have sounded, and being somewhat shy and awkward around women, especially beautiful women, he was mortified. He stammered, “I…I meant that the cantaloupes look especially large this year.” Fred could feel the blood rush to his face, and his ears started burning. After toying with him for another minute or so, Melissa playfully elbowed him and said that she was only kidding around. Fred had a good laugh at his own expense and gathered the courage to ask her out. They dated for a few years, and got married at the Baptist church in town.
As Fred stared down at his sleeping wife, he realized how fortunate he was to have such a wonderful woman to grow old with. She had been his best friend, his lover, and his companion all of these years, and had rarely complained about anything. He knew that Melissa could have married anyone she had wanted to, but she had chosen him.
Fred snapped himself out of his reverie and focused on all of the chores he would have to do before breakfast. He knew that when he came back inside, Melissa would likely be up and would have a hot meal waiting for him. In his mind, he could smell bacon and eggs frying on the stove, and his stomach rumbled. First, he would check on the chickens and gather eggs, and then he would go milk and feed the cows. After that, he would feed the horses.
Fred made his way through the dark house toward the back door. He didn’t turn on any lights because he didn’t want to ruin his night vision. Fred did not use a flashlight because he knew where everything was in the dark. He grabbed his machete on the way out the back door—“that damn fool rooster had better not attack me again,” he said to himself. He didn’t intend to kill it, just smack it with the flat side of the blade, to knock some sense into him. From time to time, Fred would also run across a snake, and he would definitely use the sharp side of the machete if he saw one of those. In his opinion, the only good snake was a dead snake.
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