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by Richard Stephenson

  Now he had Bryan’s address.

  He decided to trip her up and texted her.

  “Poor thing, you need me to come home?”

  The reply was practically instantaneous.

  “No, I’m fine. Take the kids to your aunt’s house for the day. I can’t deal with them today and Martha really wants to see you.”

  Richard’s Aunt Martha was a thirty-minute drive from his house, a full forty-five minutes from where he sat at the moment. He replied.

  “OK.”

  Richard took control of his anger so he could think clearly. He wanted to do some surveillance and relished the opportunity to get his plan underway immediately. The good pastor was known for his very long sermons, so Richard had plenty of time to slip out, drive to the man’s house and check out the situation. He was already thinking about pulling a detailed report on Bryan. He would be back in plenty of time to pick up the kids.

  Richard exited the sanctuary, exchanging smiles with a few of the faithful on the way. He had no idea who they were but they clearly knew him. Once he was in the foyer, he stopped and thought for a minute. He realized that he needed to make sure the kids were attended to in case he needed extra time and couldn’t make it back to pick them up.

  On his way to Children’s Worship, he knew he had to come up with a reasonable excuse and decided that his wife had already come up with a lie he could use. He was going to tell them that his wife was not feeling well, and he needed to take her home. He was also going to add that his wife really didn’t want the kids to miss church on her account and that he might be late making it back to pick them up.

  He made it to the Activities Building and walked in the back, looking for his kids. He scanned the crowd of singing children and began to worry. Seeing the look of panic on his face, a kind old woman suddenly perked up her head and walked over to Richard.

  “Hello, dear, are you looking for your angels?” She smiled and placed her hands in his.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Richard returned the smile.

  “Yes, dear. Things were getting too crowded in here so Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson took some of the younger ones to the nursery to play.”

  “Thank you so much.” Richard smiled and turned to walk out.

  “Is everything alright, dear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I returned from overseas yesterday, and I just have to see them.”

  “Oh that’s just wonderful dear. They are so precious at this age.”

  “Yes, ma’am. They sure are.” Richard took a step back towards the door.

  “Are you going to stay for the potluck, dear?”

  “That sounds great, we just might do that,” Richard lied, trying desperately to leave.

  “Look forward to seeing you and your lovely wife; she has the most beautiful voice, and I just think the world of her!”

  You wouldn’t if you knew what an adulterous whore she is, thought Richard. The woman finally let Richard leave and once he was in the hallway, he couldn’t remember how to get to the nursery. He could have asked the old woman, but she would have delayed him further, and he was losing time he didn’t have. Richard scanned the hallways and looked for a sign to lead him. Once he finally figured out where he was going, he walked as fast as he could without drawing attention should someone see him.

  Once he arrived at the nursery he reached to open the door to discover that it was locked. Why the hell is the door locked? He knew he was in the right place because he could hear the children playing on the other side of the door. He knocked and waited. After a few seconds he heard a click and the door cracked half an inch. He stood back expecting the door to open towards him. It did not. He opened the door and walked into the most confusing thing he had ever witnessed in his life. His mind took several seconds to process what he was seeing and once he was able to understand what was happening, he froze.

  All of the children were stark naked.

  Thirteen children, ranging in age from two to eight were in the room naked as the day they were born. The children not yet old enough to know shame were running around the room giggling, free from the burden of clothing.

  One of those children was his daughter.

  Richard knew the trouble his wife had putting clothes on their little girl when she was dried off from her bath. She often slipped out the towel her mother wrapped around her and ran around the house laughing as her mother chased her down to put her into her pajamas.

  When his daughter saw him standing in the doorway, she squealed and ran over to him.

  “Daaaaaaadddddyyy!”

  On the other side of the room, Oswald Jefferson opened his eyes and looked at Richard in pure terror. He had been sitting as close to the table as he could, his right arm pumping up and down, his head kicked back and his eyes closed tightly.

  Richard’s adorable girl stood at his feet. She looked up at his face and beamed a smile. Her face looked like a tan porcelain doll. Her mousy little voice practically made Richard cry. “Daddy! We showin Gawd we not shamed our bodies! It’s fun!” Richard’s second born returned to the middle of the room and resumed playing.

  Richard had no idea what to do. Tears streamed down his face. He didn’t know if he should grab his children and run down the hall screaming his head off like the devil was chasing him or let his mind snap so insanity could rescue him from this nightmare. He looked at his innocent toddler playing in the room and realized that she had no idea anything inappropriate was happening. She could live the rest of her life and probably not remember this day. It was then that Richard remembered his six-year-old son was also in the room.

  Richard scanned the room to find his son and two other boys standing in the corner, cupping their genitals and crying. Richard would find out later from his lawyer that the three boys had tried to cover themselves with toys or books and Oswald spanked them for being ashamed of their bodies. The pedophile also told the boys that if they told anyone about their special worship, they and their families would burn in hell for all eternity.

  Richard was shaking to the point of collapse; the blood racing to his head caused it to beat like a drum. The man sitting at the table might have lived had he not opened his mouth.

  “Now, now, now…uh…Mister, you just hold on now a minute! Everything is just fine! You hear me? Just fine! I swear things are just fine! This is not what you think, you just don’t understand. Just let me explain! PLEASE!!”

  Richard let out an awful moan that began as a cry and slowly escalated into a dull roar.

  Seeing the statuesque, chiseled jawed soldier glaring at him, fists balled into rocks, Oswald knew his life was about to end. “Stop now! STOP!! PLEASE!!! Look here now, just listen! I swear I never laid one hand on them, and they didn’t see me do anything down there,” the monster nodded towards his crotch.

  Richard’s son looked to his father with complete and total shame; the look on his face would forever curse Richard Dupree’s slumber until the day he died. His son spoke to him through sobs and said the last thing Richard would be able to remember until moments later when he was covered in blood with two broken hands.

  His naked son was standing in front of him, tears drenching his face, snot running down his chin. “Daddy, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry you and Mommy are going to hell. Please don’t be mad at me, please Daddy, please!”

  Richard let out a scream that petrified the children and could be heard by the congregation on the other side of the campus. He then leapt across the room, knocking down chairs along the way. He grabbed the table with both hands and flung it into the wall, smashing it into tinder. The terrified children ran from the room; however, Richard’s son and the two other boys were trapped behind the broken table.

  With one hand, Richard seized the frail sixty-one year old’s throat and lifted him up onto the wall, his heels kicking three inches off the floor. With his other hand, he grabbed the man’s erection and scrotum into a vice grip, simultaneously pushing up on the man’s wind pipe and pulling down with his other ar
m. The muscles and ligaments in the man’s groin snapped as his scrotum ruptured, causing him to cry out in anguish. Richard threw him into the adjacent wall and watched as Oswald Jefferson crumpled to the floor, his neck broken. Unaware that the pedophile was dead, Richard attacked his prone body, savagely pounding his face with both fists.

  Members of the Winchester Street Baptist Church began to pour into the room. A deacon would later testify in court that he could hear the bones in Richard’s hands break as he repeatedly pummeled the corpse’s face. It took six men to tear Richard away from the mangled corpse on the floor. Richard broke the first man’s wrist, the second’s arm. The remaining four were able to trap Richard under a dog pile, covering themselves in Oswald’s blood in the process. Completely unaware of what had sparked the chaos, Sheriff Robert Jefferies ran from the sanctuary and drew his weapon on Richard while tossing a set of cuffs to one of the men atop the pile.

  Master Chief Petty Officer Richard Dupree, United States Navy, could no longer call himself a Navy SEAL. His military career ended that day in disgrace.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Chief Maxwell Harris sat at his desk, worried about the task at hand. In twenty-four hours Hurricane Maxine would make landfall near the eastern end of Galveston Island. Maxine was a beast. She was a powerful category five and was only gaining strength and speed. The destruction to Max’s little town was going to be complete. Over three-quarters of the structures in the town would take in at least ten feet of water. The remainder of the town would be subject to very high winds and torrential rain. Max could hardly imagine the damage that would be done to the city of Houston, but that was not his concern. He needed to focus on what was important — saving the lives of the people in Santa Fe, Texas.

  Max was hoping against hope that the report Elizabeth gave on her drive through the neighborhoods wasn’t true. She went from subdivision to subdivision and no one seemed to care one way or the other that a massive hurricane was headed right for them. They were content to keep their heads in the sand and hope the problem would just fix itself. Now that a mandatory evacuation order was in effect, they were required to leave under the letter of the law. If they remained behind, they would be fined if they required any emergency services. If such emergency services resulted in loss of life or damage to government property, they would face prosecution.

  Max called a meeting of the Police Department, the Volunteer Fire Department, and every city employee on the payroll. The “Captain” of the Volunteer Fire Department was sulking; he thought he should be running the show. Max couldn’t care less about the man’s insecurity as long as he kept his mouth shut and did what he was told.

  “OK, people, listen up; time is critical here.” The noise level dropped to a dull roar, but many people kept sipping coffee and chatting. Max was growing impatient. “Excuse me; may I have your attention?” A few people turned and looked at him, but many continued to ignore him.

  “HEY! If it’s not too much trouble, can you people shut up and listen?” You could hear a pin drop. “Maybe some of you don’t know what is going on here, but we have less than twenty-four hours to get the people in this town out of harm’s way. I do not have the time or the patience to tolerate anyone who isn’t focused and determined to do their job! If you have better things to do and don’t care about keeping your job, then get the hell out, NOW!”

  “Dude, calm down, man. In case you forgot, you’re not my boss. Just say what you have to say, and let’s do what we have to do. Sheesh!” The man rolling his eyes was Deputy Mayor Tom Williams. Tom was not a fan of the chief of police. When Max’s predecessor retired and Max took over as chief, Tom was very vocal in his objection to Max getting the job. The deputy mayor thought the chief of police was a lazy smartass who lacked any sign of motivation. Most of the people in the room, with the exception of Elizabeth, agreed.

  “Tom, I’m only going to say this once because we don’t have the time for me to repeat it. Check your attitude before I lock you up in a holding cell. I am your boss. I’m the boss of every single person inside the city limits, and don’t you forget it. In a state of emergency, sole authority in all matters rests with the highest ranking law enforcement official. You don’t like it, take it up with the governor of the state of Texas! You have anything else to say?”

  The deputy mayor was shocked. He didn’t know that Max had that kind of passion in him. The chief was staring at Tom.

  “I said, do you have anything else to say?” Max had his eyes locked on Tom Williams.

  Tom looked around at everyone in the room. They were deliberately avoiding his gaze. He looked back at the chief, who was still staring at him. He was clearly waiting for an answer.

  “No, I don’t, please continue,” Tom whispered and looked down.

  “Good, now let’s get started. We’ve printed up flyers to pass out to the citizens. It clearly states the mandatory evacuation order and the consequences for violating it. I want to make one thing very clear to everyone in this room. If we receive any 9-1-1 calls while the storm is on top of us, we will not be responding. I will not put anyone’s life in danger by ordering my own officers to drive around in a category five hurricane. I encourage each and every one of you to pass along this information to the local citizens. Hopefully that will light a fire under their asses and get them moving. Also on the flyer are the evacuation routes. Once they make their way to I-45, all lanes of traffic will be heading north. For those of you who don’t know, that’s called contraflow. Once they hit Houston, they can go either direction on Loop 610 and head north. Inform them that once they get to Interstate 10, they might be diverted east or west to an alternate route leading north.”

  “Excuse me, Chief?” Deputy Collins had his hand raised. He didn’t want to be dressed down like the deputy mayor.

  “Yes, Brad?”

  “We are going to have a hard time convincing people to leave when they don’t have any gas.”

  “Yes, Brad, you’re exactly right. We’ve planned for that. Each of you will be given gas vouchers to pass out. Each household will get one, and I mean only one voucher. The voucher is good for ten gallons of gas at the city garage or one of the three largest gas stations in the city. I’m deputizing everyone in this room. Every one of you will be given credentials and a police windbreaker. If you don’t have a firearm, one will be issued to you. We will maintain order at all four of these locations. Each site will have a member of the police force in command; any citizen without a voucher will be turned away. Any citizen trying to obtain more than ten gallons will be stopped. It is crucial that we maintain order and not let things get out of control. Does anyone have any questions?”

  “How long are we expected to perform this task?” One of the volunteer firemen looked irritated.

  “All non-law enforcement personnel are expected to remain and perform their duty for the next twelve hours, at which time they are free to evacuate or remain behind in the command post set up at the high school.”

  None of the police officers in the room needed to ask how long they would be staying. They knew they were in it for the long haul. They had already made arrangements for their families to leave immediately before the roads got too clogged.

  “If there are no more questions, you have your assigned streets and you know what to do.”

  The room quickly cleared out. Elizabeth had been smiling at Max the entire time, clearly impressed with her boss. She waited for the last person to leave the room and walked over to him.

  “Elizabeth, I don’t know how you could be smiling at a time like this.”

  “Maxwell, I have never seen you take charge like that. I knew you had it in you. I must say I am very impressed. You know Tom is going to try and get you fired for what you pulled. Once things get back to normal, people are going to be talking about that all over town.”

  “You like that? The last thing we need is a pissing contest and that asshole trying to take charge and completely screwing things up. He probably though
t I was a pushover.”

  “Well, it’s more than that, boss.”

  “Really? Do tell.”

  “He is a forty-nine percent owner of one of the gas stations you got giving away free gas.”

  Max laughed. “Well that explains things! And here I thought he wanted to be the Big Man in Charge! But it’s simply about money, huh? What a scumbag.”

  Elizabeth sat down in the chair across from the chief. She undid her ponytail and let her long, flowing hair spill down onto her shoulders. She sighed and slumped back. The chief was taken aback by her beauty.

  “What?”

  “I’ve just never seen your hair down. You always have it pulled back,” Max smiled.

  Elizabeth ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it back up into a ponytail. “How bad is this really going to get? Are we on our own?”

  “Computer, bring up the latest Emergency Action Message from TX-DOT.”

  A detailed overlay of south Texas appeared on the screen across the room. Elizabeth turned around in her chair and studied the map. “What am I looking at?”

  “Well, I must have stared at that thing for an hour after the evac order was issued.”

  “I was wondering what you were doing while I was carrying out your instructions.”

  “I’m hoping that I’m reading this wrong and that they’re working triple time to get the problem fixed.”

  “What problem?”

  “Five miles south of the loop, they have the southbound lanes closed and have one lane diverted to the north side. It’s going to be a bottleneck if they don’t get those southbound lanes opened back up.”