He realized at that moment that when he'd looked in on Jordan and Opal, they hadn't been asleep–they'd been dead. And while he was looking for Shane, Shane had been outside killing Sandra Evans and Marilyn Herman on the east and west streets. Brandon saw it in his mind so clearly. Shane had then returned and killed Jack and Mark. It would've been simple for him, seeing how Jack was asleep and Shane could have easily snuck behind an exhausted Mark, who'd been facing the opposite direction.
"You son of a bitch," Brandon said.
"My mother? Yeah, she was," Shane replied. "She named me Patches."
Brandon suddenly felt wind rush beside him, and a heavy blow crashed into his head and his brain shook and stars danced across his eyelids as his skull rebounded off the cement floor.
He felt a hand hold his forehead down, but with adrenaline fury Brandon smashed downwards with the wrench and felt it collide with a crack against what had to be Shane's left elbow.
Shane cried out and his grip on Brandon's forehead relented slightly, and Brandon attempted to sit up, but at that moment ice seemed to split his neck and he lost control of his head, hitting the tile again, although this time barely feeling it.
He thought it somewhat amusing that his eyes had finally begun to adjust just as his vision now faded with death. His neck was slit, and he coughed but couldn't breathe.
"I'm sorry," Shane whispered.
Brandon felt his eyelids flicker, then felt them close for the last time.
◊ ◊ ◊
Lee wasn't concerned about anything as he watched Bernard ascend the stairs to collect Nick for the next shift. Sitting on the barstool by the counter, he typed on his computer, searching the web for anything that could help him in his current predicament. Because how things were looking now–all out war would erupt, and that didn't leave him with much of an advantage over Shane at all.
But then explosion after explosion rang out from upstairs and Leola and Lindsey screamed, as did Lee. Luckily for or his integrity, their screams obscured his–and they turned to him and he had no choice but investigate what had to have been gunshots.
He sprinted upstairs only to find Bernard, tears in his eyes, standing over the corpses of Nick Robins and Belinda who had obviously been in the act of making love, and Lee speechlessly understood what had occurred.
"I thought he was gay," Lee said quietly.
"So did I," Bernard replied.
They stood in silence, Lee speechless and at a loss, wondering how he should proceed.
Suddenly, Leola and Lindsey let loose a blood-curling scream, and Lee ran back downstairs, certain he was on the verge of a panic attack.
Breathless on the ground floor stood Andy, flushed, and as Lee descended he said breathlessly, tears in his eyes, "Across the yard–Sandra Evans–dead."
Sandra Evans? What?
Lee couldn't comprehend–it was too much. Through his panting, he uttered a single word. "What?"
Leola turned to Lee. "What happened upstairs?"
Lee shook his head and gathered his fragmenting brain. He could do this, he could figure this out.
"Nick Robins and Belinda Scott were having an affair," he said breathlessly. "Bernard caught them and shot them both."
"Just now?" Andy asked, shock apparently cured by fear, adrenaline, or both. "Was that the gunshots I heard just now?"
"Yeah," Lee said.
"They're both dead?"
"Yeah."
"Where's Bernard now?"
"Still upstairs."
Andy didn't hesitate and ascended the stairs, Lee following. They found Bernard where Lee had left him, still crying, staring at the corpse of his wife.
"We can't take any chances," Andy said, and immediately leveled his gun at Bernard and fired, blasting a hole through the man's chest.
Lee screamed out. "What the hell!"
Andy didn't remove his eyes from the scene. "This is war–that wasn't Bernard, Bernard would never–can't take chances." Andy looked shocked, Lee was as well, and both men kept their eyes glued to the bloody lifeless crumpled corpse of Bernard.
Andy ran back down the stairs, and Lee, falling apart, followed him, finding himself losing control of the situation.
Leola and Lindsey were missing.
"Where are the women?" Andy asked.
Lee shook his head and shrugged. "Maybe checking the other wing, Lindsey probably wanted to check on Stanley, and Leola probably went with her."
Andy turned towards the backyard. "Who else do you think is dead on the other side?"
Lee paused, wondering why the hell Andy was asking him all these questions, then he remembered that he'd been posing as an expert on the subject–which seemed then to be a huge mistake.
Lee closed his eyes, cringing at what he was about to utter. "Well, we can check. Nobody's been guarding the porch for a couple minutes now."
Andy nodded, staring at Lee with frightened eyes.
They left through the backyard, and Andy lifted his binoculars to his face, squinting across the field.
"I don't see anyone–wait." Andy paused, and Lee felt his breath stop in his throat. "–Oh my God," Andy continued, his voice shaking. "Mark Herman, he's slumped on the ground–I think that's blood–I think–take a look."
Andy collapsed on the chair and handed the binoculars to Lee, who glanced through.
It was hard to see through the darkness, but the inside lights from the house helped, and there was no mistaking it–without a doubt the corpse of Mark Herman.
What the hell was happening? Lee was certain he'd have a heart attack at any moment.
They reentered the house. Suddenly, the front door crashed open and Stanley, Lindsey, and Leola stumbled in, shaking their heads and sweating profusely.
"Marilyn Herman is dead," Stanley said. "There's no mistaking it, I saw blood drain towards the gutter."
"What happened?" Lee asked.
"I saw the professor run over," Stanley said. "I'd thought he was just going to chat, but when Lindsey and Leola ran over just now and I looked again more closely–there's no mistaking it–she was murdered at the hand of the professor."
"I told you," Lee said, face flushed. "I told you guys."
"We know," Andy said. "He killed them–but we have you, right? So now what?"
Lee closed his eyes, thinking that it was definitely a mistake to pose as an expert. But he forced himself to maintain the act and rubbed his chin–attempting to look calm.
They were looking to him for help, and he was was supposed to be professional, and he was the only one who really knew Shane, the real Shane, the killer–or maybe not knew him, but definitely knew him better than any of these people.
Lee attempted a calculating look. Shane was irrational, he thought. And killing mindlessly. In reality, his chance to kill Shane had never been brighter. It was five verses one. They'd lost three, but they still outnumbered Shane–plus, he was a lunatic. There was no way he could take them all out if they stuck together. Not to mention Lee now remembered that he possessed the more capable intellect, and so the odds were still in his favor. Surely Shane couldn't take them all out.
But he had to think. Why would Shane do that? Certainly his foe must've known that their side would notice the deaths rather quickly. What did he have to gain?
Lee knew Pat Shane was intelligent–he would have thought out some sort of plan–he would've considered the consequences of killing his side so noticeably.
"We have to go over there," said Stanley as Lee tried to think. "The rest of our friends might not be dead. They chose the wrong side–that doesn't mean they deserve death!"
Andy nodded, "I agree. We have to. We outnumber him, even if we split up. We can go over there and even if he's killed the rest of them, we still outnumber him–and he has to die. We can't let him leave here alive–not after what he's done."
With Andy's words, it clicked for Lee–now it made sense.
"Wait," he said. They looked at him curiously, and he continued. "No
body's been on guard anywhere for the past few minutes–Shane could be anywhere, and this is surely what he wants. He wants to kill us all, and if we split up and go look for him he'll just pick us off one by one."
At this point Leola Perkins grew hysterical and wailed. "We're all dead!"
Andy put an arm around his wife. "So Mr White," he said. "What do you suggest? We have to stop him, we have to go over there!"
"If we go, we go together," Lee said. "And we keep to the dark, so he can't pick us off from the shadows. I'm almost certain that Shane wants us to split up, or run across the field in a rage so he can shoot us from afar. He knew your relationships with those families over there, he would've planned for this. Our only chance for safety is to stick together, keep a watchful eye all around us, move stealthily–meaning not across the field–and enter Brandon's home from the front. If we're lucky, we might spot him trying to sneak to our side, and if we do, we can take him out by sheer firepower."
He looked to Andy for confirmation and after a moment Andy nodded.
"Alright, let's do it," Andy said. "We should go through the forest on the opposite side of the street, the west side. That way we'll be invisible to him from afar, and if he tries engaging us up close we'll easily overpower him by numbers."
Lee nodded.
Together, the group exited through the front door, walked across the street, and entered the forest.
It was dark, but for their safety they lit no flashlights, not wanting to draw attention to their movements.
The forest was thick and as they walked countless spiderwebs and pin pricks tickled Lee's legs and he had to frequently bend down to wipe off the only sometimes imaginary bugs. He could tell the other members of his party were having no easier a time.
Scared out of his mind–fear which only magnified in the thick woods, Lee forced himself to remain stoic, knowing that if he dropped his act now they were all doomed. He reminded himself over and over that Shane wouldn't have expected this–that Shane likely wanted them to split up so he could pick his group off one by one.
He kept checking towards the back, expecting to see Shane with his gleaming knife drawn. He'd never felt such a hatred towards another man. With every fiber of his being he wanted desperately to see Shane dead, to move on from this.
The more he thought, the more his hatred brewed, and he soon found a new hatred directed at Claire bubbling inside him–about how easily she'd tricked him into to doing this. It'd sounded so simple when he'd spoken to her–now his life was dangling on the line and she'd be laughing herself to sleep tonight. Why would he agree to this? The money was nice, but now he was going to die, for nothing.
Another branch swatted his face, a slap back to reality, and he angrily clawed the spiderweb from his eyes and hoped this portion of their venture was almost done.
Ten minutes later, after turning the corner and looking at Marilyn's corpse sprawled in a pool of blood in the street, they stumbled out of the forest, directly in front of Brandon's house.
They checked both ways, found it clear and quietly crossed the street and up to Brandon's front door. Andy tried the nob and found it unlocked, but considering what Shane had likely planned, that wasn't surprising.
"Stay together," Lee said. "Flush him out. We have the numbers and the eyes–if he's hiding here somewhere, we'll find him."
"He might be upstairs," Leola said.
Lee nodded. "We'll check downstairs first, everyone stick together, someone have their eyes on the front and back doors at all times, but remain with the group–that way if he tries to sneak out we'll get him."
They walked to the couch, Stanley in front, and as he peered over he cried out. Soaked in blood was Jack Evans, pale, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling. Stanley turned back to his wife and hugged her, eyes closed.
"It's Jack," he said, and she buried her face into his chest.
"This is beyond horrible," Lee whispered to no one in particular.
Andy led the group through the house, first through the kitchen, checking inside the cabinets, then the downstairs lounge, and finally the garage. It seemed the ground floor was clear, and they now stood ready to ascend the stairs. But as they were about to ascend, Lee thought he heard something and hushed the group silent. "Do you hear that?" he whispered.
And they nodded that they did–a small, slight beeping, like a microwave, but beneath them.
"What is that?" Lindsey asked.
Lee grinned. "Might be his watch–keep up your guard and we have him."
The group snooped around more carefully, searching in impossible places where Shane couldn't even fit–because, from the sound of the beeping he had to be hiding somewhere on the first floor. But then the beeping seemed to intensify, and as Lee checked under the couch the beeping grew to a pinnacle and his stomach fell through the floor, along with the blood from his face.
From the sliding glass door Lindsey suddenly yelled, "I think I see him in the field!" But Lee ignored her even as the others ran over.
"God," Lee whispered as he saw what was unmistakably a bomb.
He stood and began to run.
The beeping stopped.
Then, the house exploded.
Chapter 13
When Summers awoke, he found himself disoriented. For a moment, he'd forgotten that he hadn't returned home–but the quality of sleep he'd gotten the night prior felt like the kind he could only achieve in the familiar bed in his rundown but comfortably familiar apartment.
Instead of his gray and white sheets he found himself in pink sheets, and instead of his white pillow, his arm was wrapped around a pink one in a room so comfortably lit by natural light that as he sat up in bed and took in his surroundings, for the first time in weeks he felt genuinely rested.
He looked towards the other side of the bed. The sheets were unmade and all that remained as proof of Paige having been there was her slight indent on the bed.
His shirt was missing, but his jeans were where he'd left them on the floor, and he stood and put them on and ruffled his hair. He left Paige's bedroom and walked to the kitchen.
He saw her standing over the stove in his shirt. Women planned it that way, something about them wearing a shirt three sizes too big after a night such as theirs diminished the implications and magnified the prior night's desire, and as he approached her, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek, he knew that she'd planned this moment as soon as she'd awoken.
She turned in his grasp and leaned back against his arms, wearing a slight grin. "Morning handsome."
He smiled and kissed her.
"Eggs?" she asked, breaking the kiss.
"Sure."
"Take a seat. Coffee?"
"Please."
She scuttled from his embrace and grabbed a cup from the pantry. She wore nothing but her panties and when she reached up to grab a mug, he saw her long legs and he had to resist the urge to grab her and throw her onto the table right then and there.
He shook the thought from his head. There were far more pressing matters he needed to attend to, he thought, and he fought off the primal instinct and focused instead on the near future, and what it entailed.
He had the documents, he had his evidence, and it was time to strike, to save those kids. Hopefully amend for the one he couldn't save. That death plagued his mind like poison ivy, spreading upwards from the base of his brain, corrupting it with regret, cutting into his conscience, filling any activity that wasn't actively fighting with guilt. Guilt about the night prior made his warm glow cold, and as Paige brought him coffee and sat down, she noticed his grim expression.
"I need to take down GenDec," he said. "Every day that passes innocent kids have the innocence strangled from them."
She rubbed his hair. "I know. But this isn't your crusade alone. Charging in headfirst, while noble, will just bring a noble death–which saves no one. You need to rest. You need to recover and come up with a plan that will actually save them."
He nodd
ed. She was right, of course.
"Any news?" he asked.
"Murder and mayhem at GenDec. The police have a few leads, but sounds like normal media bullshit. They have nothing. When your evidence gets released his death will turn into anything but a tragedy. He's a bad person. One of my sources reported his income at two million yearly."
He closed his eyes and nodded. "We know he's bad. But more proof couldn't hurt. Can your source give us additional proof?"
Paige shook her head. "No, but if she found it I'm certain that a determined journalist or investigator could as well."
"I hope so. This story needs to be big. People should know what goes on there," he said, taking a sip of coffee. "Hopefully taxpayers will be furious when they find out how their money's been spent."
Paige nodded. "People want their safety, but this goes far beyond a question of that."
Summers addressed the envelope to the Jacksonville Herald and mailed it anonymously during a rush hour thunderstorm a few days later. Shielding his identity from overhead security cameras with a black umbrella, he let the evidence fall to the bottom of the post box. He'd placed the documents and a few of Paige's contributions in the envelope, and returned back to her apartment an hour later feeling a little off. He couldn't shake the feeling he was being tailed, so took a zigzagging path through the city just to be unquestionably safe.
He'd spoken with Penelope a few days prior–his friend continued to recover from his injury, and despite Summers’ objections, volunteered his services for the next, riskier operation.
Summers had run through it in his head countless times. Pat Shane would not be taken off the streets by any formal government operation. Not only was he too intelligent to be captured, but considering the FBE had taken over his case, Summers was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shane would not be caught, and if he was caught, not stopped.
He'd escape or feign insanity, and the FBE wanted him to be sane for his genes, and would likely not realize until too late that the time for saving him had long since passed.
Besides, even if they made the right choice, castration wouldn't sway him from his decidedly noble path. No, Pat Shane had to die, but Summers couldn't help but feel that condemning Shane was eerily similar to putting down Old Yeller.
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