The Amygdala Syndrome (Book 1): Unstable

by Hunt, Jack

  It was her that initiated the divorce, not him.

  It was her that pulled away.

  It was her that moved out.

  And it killed him to think that he had lost his closest friend. The person he cared the most about in this damn world.

  Brody glanced over at Gottman who was still rattling away. He forced down his emotions. It didn’t take much to get back there. If he broke, it usually happened late at night when he came home to an empty house. Nick had gone to Alpine to live with his mother. Now that relationship was another thing entirely. It came with its own set of challenges. His son had blamed them both. If it wasn’t hard enough to lose his brother, he had to witness the breakdown of their marriage.

  Gottman continued. “Anyway, the third test you want to try is the prenup. Especially being as a number of us guys are loaded with money and well, you know how women love that credit card.”

  “Geesh, Gottman, your Tinder profile must be a real hoot.”

  “Hey, look, it’s a short life, do you think women want to spend it with a douche? Well it’s a two-way street. I want to enjoy this life, not be dragged down by someone with massive issues.”

  “Gottman, trust me. You’ve got issues.”

  Gottman waved him off and laughed. “Anyway, are we getting close?”

  “Yeah, it’s just over this rise.”

  Right then Officer Matt Niles came over the radio. “Chief. You there?”

  Brody scooped up the mic. “Go ahead.”

  “We seem to be getting a high increase of folks inflicting harm on themselves, and several that are a little out of control, like they’re scared.”

  “And you’re calling me because?”

  “Well, how do you want us to handle it?”

  “Like you would handle any other situation. Your job is to protect and preserve the peace.”

  “I know, it’s just that with Kristin ill at the moment, we’re short on staff to hold down the fort. How long are you going to be out there, and any luck finding her?”

  “We’re still looking.” Brody tapped Gottman and muttered to him. “Keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks out of place.” He got back on the mic and told Officer Niles to keep him in the loop of how things were progressing, and he encouraged him to use his initiative. “Proactive policing, Niles, remember that.”

  “Roger that.”

  As they came over a rise and swung down into a valley, Brody parked the truck and got out leaving the engine idling. He reached in and pulled out his binoculars and began to scan his field of vision looking for any sign that someone might have been out there digging or might have dumped a body. Chances were if she was dead and someone brought her out there, she was hidden below the earth, or had been tossed down an old mine shaft. The thought of seeing Viola’s face made Brody’s stomach churn. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle seeing death as he’d witnessed it enough over the course of his career, but it never got any easier.

  Gottman came around from the passenger side and squinted.

  “You see anything?”

  “Just a whole lot of desert, rocks and shrubs.”

  “You know, chief, there is a good chance they didn’t even see anyone out here. You know how people are when they see the Marfa lights. Lots of people have their views on what it is.”

  Brody nodded and they worked their way across the terrain scanning for anything that looked out of place, or where the earth had been disturbed. It took them close to an hour before they stumbled across a patch of land where shrubs had been partially buried as if someone had moved them from one area and replanted them.

  “Gottman!” Brody yelled. Gottman was several feet away looking through some old camping gear that someone had left out. It was torn to shreds and weathered by the climate, which made it clear it had been out there a lot longer than a week. “Think I have something.”

  As Gottman jogged over, Brody began kicking at the earth. The shrubs were loose in the earth. As he continued working the soil and sand, he spotted three fingers sticking out. His heart sank.

  Brody crouched and took a moment to catch his breath.

  He pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves, took out his camera and began taking a few snapshots as evidence. He raised a hand towards Gottman to keep his distance, as he wanted to take some video.

  Once that was done, over the course of the next five minutes they unearthed the body buried in a shallow grave. Although the earth had begun to decompose the body, Viola looked as if she’d been strangled, as there was purple bruising around her neck.

  A warm breeze blew tumbleweed across the ground near their feet and Brody had to put a hand to his face as grit went in his eye. He kept shaking his head as he looked at her soulless eyes. She was still fully clothed but they wouldn’t know if a sexual assault had taken place until they got back the initial report from the ME.

  “Poor girl, no one deserves to go through this,” Gottman said as he rose up and stretched out his back. Brody stooped and took a few more shots of her neck.

  “How did you get on with the boyfriend?” Brody asked.

  “He’s sticking to his story. Seems he has an airtight alibi. However, we are checking footage from cameras in the area to see if it lines up with his account.”

  Both of them stared down at the girl. Such a waste of a life, Brody thought. If it happened because there was a breakdown in her relationship, there were always other options. Why people had to go to this extent was beyond him. Sure, his relationship with Jenna hadn’t been ideal but at least they both knew when to give each other space. He surveyed the landscape for tire marks.

  “I’ll look around, there has to be tire tread.”

  “No, the desert may have taken care of that by now,” Brody said.

  It was true, all it took was one blustery day and shallow tracks in the ground could be covered up as though a truck had never been there. Five days had already passed. Still, they would need to bring a team out to comb the terrain for tracks. In the meantime he would get in contact with dispatch and get EMTs out here to bag her body.

  Chapter 4

  Emerick Jones couldn’t believe his ears as the last radio caller disconnected. He removed the large black headphones he was wearing, pushed the bulbous sponge microphone away from his face and got up and looked at Angela, his assistant and radio program controller.

  “Is the whole world going mad? That’s the eleventh phone call we have had this morning telling us about people hurting themselves or lashing out at others.”

  “Maybe it’s all this sun. We have had a bit of a heat wave. My cousin suffered from heat stroke last year. He said he was seeing all manner of things.”

  “Your cousin is a drunk,” Emerick replied walking over to the coffee machine and pouring a cup. “This is very different. I mean, one or two incidents I can accept. In today’s society we are dealing with a lot of unstable people, but eleven within a matter of hours?” He crossed the room to the large window that overlooked Highland Avenue. He took a large gulp of his drink and grimaced. “Shit, Angela, when was the last time you changed this coffee?”

  “That was a fresh brew this morning.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Uh, how many times do I have to remind you? I like my coffee fresh. That’s why I get them to do pour overs when I go through Starbucks. None of this pour me a coffee that’s been sitting inside a machine for three hours. That crap goes bitter. It gives you a burnt taste.”

  “Picky.”

  “If I’m paying four dollars a cup, you had better believe I’m going to be picky. How the hell they get away with it is a mystery.”

  “Don’t go then.”

  “Easier said than done. I’m addicted to it.”

  She mumbled something, probably a curse word, and went back to working on lining up what they had next on the agenda. Emerick had been working in radio since he left college. That was forty years ago. A lot had changed since then. Radio was going the way of the dinosaur. Sure they streamed
it online and even videoed their guests and uploaded to YouTube but syndicated radio was becoming hard to make a living from. There was so much free stuff out there being created by amateurs that the idea of paying or supporting a radio station was unheard of nowadays. Every week they had to put out a request to have people send in money, he was starting to feel like a local minister asking for tithe. He glanced at his watch; it was a little after two in the afternoon. He was still trying to make heads or tails of what was going on in Alpine and Marfa. Reports had come in from locals who had not only witnessed people losing their mind but others had mentioned seeing a military presence in Alpine.

  “Angela, can you get hold of the local hospital in Alpine? Find out what’s going on there and see if there is any truth to the rumors.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Right then he squinted and stepped closer to the window. “Hey, uh, Angela.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Isn’t that David McCarthy?”

  Angela turned in her seat and gazed out. “Yeah, what’s he doing?”

  Emerick chuckled. “Looks like he’s had a few too many to drink.”

  Bar Saint George was on the same block as Marfa Public Radio Station. David was a mechanic in town, a good one at that. Emerick had gone to him on a number of occasions instead of heading into Alpine. He’d worked on his Chevy Blazer a few times and not charged him. Now he was standing out in the middle of the road not moving. Several drivers honked their horns but he didn’t react. Then, he began to walk forward towards the oncoming traffic. Vehicles swerved around him, and several drivers shook angry fists at him.

  “Here, hold this, I’m going out to speak to him.”

  Emerick handed off his coffee and walked down the hallway and out a set of doors. The street wasn’t that busy, compared to the weekends when everyone and his uncle flooded into town to take in the art galleries and eat at some of the fine restaurants.

  “Hey David!” Emerick shouted from the sidewalk.

  David turned his head and looked at him and he had this strange look on his face. Almost as if he wasn’t registering what was happening. David turned back and continued walking forward. Emerick stepped off the curb to make his way over but a truck shot by nearly striking him. He stumbled back to the sidewalk to catch his breath. Several more vehicles zipped by, preventing him from cutting across. Right then, he heard the roar of an engine, music blaring and then tires squealing and a loud thud. Emerick darted around a large truck that was blocking his view. He hurried out onto the road, and then his stomach sank. Curled up in a fetal position with blood trickling out the side of his mouth was McCarthy.

  Standing nearby with hands on his head, a guy was beside himself.

  “I didn’t see him. I’m sorry. I really didn’t see him. I looked down at my phone for just a second and…” The young guy in his mid-twenties trailed off, his face going a ghostly white.

  Emerick reached into his pocket and immediately called an ambulance.

  “Presidio County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “Hi, I need an ambulance quickly. Send it to South Highland Avenue.”

  “What’s the nature of the emergency?”

  “Someone has been struck by a vehicle. Hurry up.”

  “Sir, we will get one there as soon as we can. However, we are currently experiencing a lag.”

  “What?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

  “There is only one ambulance for Marfa and we’ve had numerous calls over the past few hours. But trust me, they are on their way.”

  He shook his head and hung up. By now a crowd had gathered, most were staring, someone was trying to perform CPR but without much luck.

  “Is an ambulance on the way?” asked Jill Grayson, the owner of Marfa Book Company, a small bookstore just down from the radio station.

  Emerick’s mind was in a fog. Shock was setting in. “They’ve been notified but chances of them getting here before…”

  The stranger performing CPR stopped and raised his head slowly. “He’s gone. There is no pulse.”

  “Well don’t stop. Keep going,” Emerick said.

  “He’s dead.”

  Emerick dropped to his knees and shoved the man out of the way and began applying pressure to David’s chest. With each chest compression, more blood came gushing out of David. He got close and listened but there was nothing. No breathing. He was gone. Emerick leaned back on his knees and looked into the bright blue Texas sky. Someone placed a hand on his shoulder and he turned to find Angela beside him. “Emerick. There’s nothing more you can do.”

  A few people stepped in to lift David’s body out of the road onto the sidewalk while Emerick walked back across to the station. He was shaken up by the ordeal and needed a drink. Something stiff. Something to take the edge off.

  He kept shaking his head. “I just don’t get it. Why would he just walk out in front of traffic? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Across town, Nick was in his second to last class of the day. There had been rumors spreading among the students that the military was in town conducting some kind of training for some doomsday event. Keith Parker, a kid who often arrived late because he lived in Alpine but traveled to Marfa for school, said his old man was nearly stopped on the way out of Alpine. They had seen police and several military officials stopping vehicles but his dad had managed to find an alternative route out.

  Then to add even more fuel to the rumors, sick videos of locals injuring themselves were circulating online. One showed a guy sticking a knife through his hand, another was of someone dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself on fire, and then another was of someone trying to attack people with a machete. That video was cut short when police started shooting.

  Of course it was speculation. Everyone knew that videos online were often doctored to look real. Now had that been all that had happened, he might not have given it another thought, but they’d already had a kid in gym class that morning hit the button to retract the telescopic bleachers and then he shoved his hand inside as it was closing. Apparently it was a mess. Nick had already hit the showers by then but he heard the scream, and by the time he went to see, the teachers had already closed off the room but Shelly Winthrop saw it and passed out. They carted her away, and an ambulance took her to the hospital to treat her for trauma.

  “Hey, Jackson,” Devan said under his breath as he shot him a glance and kept low so the teacher couldn’t see he was talking. They were meant to be studying and working on algebra but Nick couldn’t shake the weird feeling that something big was happening.

  “What?”

  “You want to nip down to the gym and see if we can get in there?”

  “Don’t be stupid. They have it blocked off.”

  “I think the kid killed himself.”

  “That’s not what I heard. Jerry said they took him away in an ambulance.”

  “Yeah, in a body bag,” he said with a grin on his face.

  “Jones!” a loud voice bellowed. “Do I have to put you outside?”

  Devan looked around and made a waving gesture to Mr. Harper before pretending to look interested in his work again. Mr. Harper’s eyes darted to Nick and he returned to scanning his study book.

  “Psst,” Devan said.

  “What?”

  “So?”

  “Seriously, man, just focus,” Nick said glancing at Harper who fortunately had his head down.

  “Nah, meet me outside in five. Tell him you need the washroom.”

  Devan’s chair let out a screech as he got up and went to the front of the room to be excused. Harper glanced over his glasses and shook his head but then flicked his hand towards the door. Devan smiled. At the door he mimicked himself being hanged before darting out. Nick shook his head and was about to return to studying when he caught Callie looking at him. He coughed and cleared his throat. She always had this way about her that made his throat go dry. Nick glanced at the clock on the wall. There wasn’t long until the end of the day. His fathe
r had arranged to take him to the movies that night. It frustrated him to no end the way things had gone between his parents. They both used him like pawns in a game. One of them would do something nice, and the next would up the ante once they learned about it as if they were scared he would pick sides. He didn’t want to be in the middle of it all but he had no choice. He just wished they could work it out.