by Kipjo Ewers
“Please know Special Agent it was not my intention to undermine your investigation,” said the Director giving a somewhat sincere apology, “But due to this being an extremely time sensitive matter you left me with very little choice.”
“Who the hell are you?” Mark still demanded to know.
“I’m just like you Special Agent, the good guy,” smiled the Director, “You must have seen the footage already…look around you. This woman is extremely dangerous and you are not equipped to deal with her. I am. She’s my problem now. My advice to you is to finish your investigation here, file your report, and walk away from this case, for your own sake.”
The Director does not wait for Armitage to tell him to go screw himself as he walked away followed by the doctor who accompanied him and his technicians. Agent Slater waited for the Director to leave the vicinity before him and the agents under his command move in unison creating a protective perimeter around the Director and everyone with them heading all the way to the elevator. Armitage and Mercer forgetting they had guns pointed at them walked out to the hallway with their agents to watch them depart.
“Gentlemen.” Agent Slater finally lowered his gun along with the rest of his agents, bidding farewell as the elevator door shut.
Armitage and Mercer headed to the nearest window with a view of the courtyard to see the Director and his party heading to the helicopter they had traveled in.
Dustin turned to Mark and asked the obvious question: “What the fuck just happened?!”
“We just got punked.” Mark muttered trying to quell the rage building within so that he could think straight once again.
“Did we really just let them walk out of here?” returned a dumbfounded Dustin.
“This place has seen enough mayhem for one day. Something in my gut is also telling me as much as that piece of shit down there is a grade “A” asshole…he’s no bullshit artist. The doctor said they got the samples they needed,” Mark quickly contemplated getting back into his thinking mode, “They just came for the blood. Get the team back in there now, scour this place from top to bottom…blood, skin, hair samples if you can find it I want it…all of it. Call the Houston office; we’re setting up camp there. Grab all of the footage. We’re starting the interviews ASAP. I also want to know who Director Rosen and Agent Slater are by the time I walk out of here. No one points a gun in my face and gets away with it.”
CHAPTER THREE
She appeared to be running until the breath ran out of her, except she was not losing wind. Her bare footsteps sounded like that of a wild stallion charging across the open plain. Part of her screamed for her to stop realizing how fast she was actually moving, that what she was doing, what she had been doing was inhuman and unnatural. By right medically speaking, her heart should have popped several hundred miles ago, and her leg muscles should have torn off her bones, but the exact opposite was happening. Here she was clocking speeds of almost seventy possibly eighty miles an hour and she had a heart beat as if she was taking a leisure walk while her muscles did not even cramp.
Fear was the rider that kept her moving; images of what just happened at Mountain View flashed before her eyes forcing her to move faster and faster. She had to get as far as her legs could carry her so that she could sort out what was happening. What she did not realize was at her current speed she had gone extremely far. Her tattered, bloodied, bullet riddled clothes felt like they were going to be tear from her body at the speed she was going. It was then that things also got blurry, superhuman speed did not translate to superhuman eyesight, which would allow her to see in order to maneuver at such break neck speeds as she charged right into a wooden area.
Logic would dictate stopping at this point, but Sophia trying her best to maneuver around the trees was not even sure she knew how to stop, not that she really needed to clipping and smashing through any and everything getting in her path.
“Oh Shit!” Sophia yelled.
The mammoth oak tree had probably a century on it within those woods; its trunk was clearly six times the width of Sophia’s body. Age would give it the strength and density close to steel making it strong enough to stop anything made of fiberglass and even some things made of pure steel itself. Sophia barreling through obliterated a huge portion of the trunk on impact sending chunks and splinters flying everywhere, she would have been fine if she did not trip over what was left of the trunk sending her into an awkward roll tumbling down an embankment destroying any and everything in her path whether it be wood or stone. What was left of the tree could not support its weight any longer, as it burst in half and fell to Earth with a ground-shaking thud.
Sophia screamed and cursed as she tumbled down the steep embankment falling in ways that should have snapped her neck or split her skull open. She would scream again as she would be flung off a cliff to the bottom of the embankment falling a good fifty feet hitting the river down below hard like a two ton Mack truck.
Minutes would go by as she finally got her bearing underwater and battled against the currents to come up, her now powerful lungs kept her from drowning as she emerged, but her gag reflexes made her hack up half of the river she took in while going under. As she finally made her way to the shoreline of the river, she continued to throw up what was left of the water in her lungs. Yeah she was still human she thought to herself, that and the fact that her heart was still beating in her chest meant she was not the walking dead. Sophia instinctively checked herself to make sure she did not break a bone only to find that despite the life-ending tumble she took there was not a scratch on her.
She looked around in wonderment as the morning sun shined down on her, then the realization of what happened several hours again caused her to emit a nervous laugh mixed with sobbing tears as she clutched her chest.
Several hours ago, the state of Texas executed her. A couple of hours ago she was brought down by a hail of bullets; after each death she was resurrected stronger than the previous time giving her the ability to physically break out of prison fighting through a brigade of heavily armed and highly trained correctional officers, police and from what she could tell SWAT team. Four years ago, she was sure she would never see outside of those walls alive, and there she stood on a riverbank free underneath God’s blue sky.
She then remembered why she was there, distorted images; memories she had no knowledge of flashed before her eyes. Pieces of an obvious puzzle hidden from her for years, Sophia grabbed her skull trying to sort through the visions. It was then that she realized that around her wrists were the restraints from the lethal injection table. She went to unbuckle the wrist restraint on her right wrist when she was hit with the vision of being on the lethal injection table, going to sleep, feeling herself suffocating and dying despite the assumption that lethal injection was the most “humane” and “peaceful” way to be executed before everything went dark. She could feel her lungs filling with air again, more distorted memories flooding her mind, the skull cracking strike of the baton, the bullets ripping into her body, and choking on her own blood before the piercing pain of a bullet penetrating her skull; destroying her brain before everything went black for a second time. She did not know how long she was in the black but for the second time air violently rushed into her lungs again, her heart felt as if it was going to beat out of her chest, and all of her veins felt as if they were on fire. The last pain she would ever feel before escaping Mountain View would be what felt like another bullet to the back of her skull.
She quickly ripped both restraints from her wrists like paper throwing them as far away as possible while crouching down in the freezing cold water of the river trying to get it together. It was terrifying; she literally felt everything all over again only she was not actually dying. She gripped a nearby stone that was about four times her size, not realizing her hands were imprinting into the wet stone. She began to count backwards to herself from twenty taking a deep breath while focusing on the stone; slowly the visions disappeared and she could see straight aga
in.
“It’s not real…it’s not real…you’re alive…you are alive,” she reaffirmed to herself. She submerged herself into the river to shock her system with the ice-cold water.
She could still feel cold and wetness, which meant her nerves were intact; not the teeth chattering hypothermia type cold one would feel after being dunked into a surging river. Not that it would matter since the heat from the Texas sun would dry her off once she started to move again. She rose back to a standing position with her senses more clear and focused looking around in bewilderment pondering the most obvious question since coming to a stop at the riverbank.
“Where the hell am I?” she asked aloud to herself.
CHAPTER FOUR
Gatesville Women’s Unit of the prison designated for regular prisoners and lifers as opposed to Mountain View, which was strictly for death row inmates. Agents Armitage and Mercer sat in the interrogation room going through the files and pictures they had on Sophia attempting to piece things together when the door opened. Sister Shareef walked through in shackles flanked by two correctional officers; she had a slight permanent limp to her walk in her right leg due to a prison altercation some years ago. Armitage looked up while Mercer continued to go through the files.
“Shackles aren’t necessary boys you can take them off,” Mark requested to the officers.
As they removed the restraints from Sister Shareef’s wrists, ankles, and waist, she proceeded to stand taller and more distinguished. Armitage motioned for her to take a seat, which she does as the correctional officers took their leave waiting outside.
Mark picked up her file, “Agnes Shareef Wilcox also known as “Sister Shareef”…head of the Sisters of Islam; convicted of murder and sentenced to forty years to life in prison with eligibility for parole after twenty. My name is Special Agent Mark Armitage, and this is my partner Special Agent Dustin Mercer.”
“How can I help you Special Agent?” Sister Shareef got down to the point.
Mark took out a photo of Sophia sliding it in front of her, “Do you know this woman?”
She glanced at the picture and responded, “Her name is Sophia Dennison…she was murdered a couple of hours ago…”
Dustin scoffed.
Sister Shareef narrowed her eyes at Mercer, who shot her back a dirty look.
Mark spun the laptop on the table to face her, fumbling a bit to bring up the video function. “We’d like you to watch something,” he said. “The footage you’re about to see is a bit disturbing, but we ask that you please watch.”
As the video played, Sister Shareef’s chiseled expression quickly softened at the footage of her now deceased good friend lying lifeless on the execution table. As she swatted away the tears forming in her eyes, twenty years was scared out of her as she witnessed the lifeless corpse of her friend rise back to life gasping for air.
“Jesus…” uttered a now shaken Sister Shareef.
Dustin gave her a sarcastic perplexed look, “Thought you prayed to Muhammad?”
She ignored Mercer’s snide remark as she watched her friend rip through her restraints, and overpower five correctional officers hurling one through two inches of solid glass. She then cringed letting out a yelp as she watched her friend savagely gunned down before her.
“Sophie…” whimpered Sister Shareef as she was forced to watch the new bloodied and bullet riddled corpse of her once again dead friend.
A stone-faced Armitage with full knowledge of the end story walked up to fast forward the video, “Keep watching…please…”
Sister Shareef gave him a quick look of disgust until she glanced at the speeding footage and saw what they saw a couple of hours ago. Armitage stopped the video just before the second resurrection, which took another twenty years for Sister Shareef.
She watched in horror as what use to be her friend rose to her feet, now impervious to gunfire, and proceeded to tear through a hallway stuffed with correctional officers, local police, and S.W.AT.
Armitage allowed her to listen to the screams and yells, along with the background sounds of smashed concrete and bending steel before shutting the video off. Sister Shareef lowered her head and tried not to appear shaken after absorbing everything she had seen.
“If you’re expecting that doofy looking white kid from “That Seventies Show” to come running out and tell you you’ve just been punked…he’s not…” came Dustin out of left field throwing a zing.
Sister Shareef tried her best to compose herself as she raised her head looking Armitage in the eyes, “What do you want from me?”
“Aside from her attorney, during the almost four years Ms. Dennison has been here she has not had contact with family or friends in any shape or form,” Mark started off his interview, “No phone calls, personal visits, e-mail; she refused all mail that had been sent to her. The only people she’s had contact with during that time are the people in this prison, and I have it on good knowledge that you and her became bosom buddies during that whole time.”
“And?” she shrugged, “Yes…we were friends…good friends…sisters, but if you want to know if I knew if she was stronger than a friggin locomotive, leaping tall buildings with a single bound, no I did not know that, nor did she display that ability in the four years she was here. I don’t know what that is…but that is not the Sophia I knew.”
Dustin put his head down and muttered to himself. “We’re wasting our frickin’ time.”
Mark moved closer to Sister Shareef sitting on the edge of the table now looking down at her.
“Ms. Shareef, let’s put aside the unexplainable insanity that has happened in the last couple of hours . . .the reality of the situation is your friend seriously injured several people in her escape, men and women with families. She even murdered one,” Mark said attempting to show her how dangerous her friend was and that for the good of all she needed stopping. He was hoping his song and dance would get her to tell him anything she might be hiding.
“Who did she kill?” Sister Shareef demanded knowing the Sophia she knew would never hurt a tick much less another human being.
“Officer Dennis Wilford…husband…father of…” began Mark with his violin speech.
Sister Shareef halted him before he could finish his tune, “She killed Big Buck…?”
Before Armitage could answer her, Sister Shareef hunched over, as a cackling noise came from her. It grew louder as she stomped her feet with apparent joy.
It royally pissed off Dustin who sprung to his feet violently slamming his fist on the table, “You think this shit is funny convict?! How about I…”
“What exactly do you think you can do to me F.B.I man?” Sister Shareef snapped back at Mercer looking dead at him.
There was not a thing Mercer or anyone could do to her, as her mind wondered back to how she became a resident of Gatesville Women’s facility.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She remembered when her name use to be Agnes Shareef Wilcox-Miller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox and the youngest of three children, one eldest brother and an older sister by a year. Her father worked on oilrigs, while her mother sold beauty products from door to door. Agnes grew up in as regular a household as one could have as a child growing up in Austin, Texas.
She finished high school and was the second in her family to graduate from Community College. She met her husband Derek Miller on the way to work one day, three years later she became a happily married woman, and a year and a half after that a mother of two a son and a daughter.
Derek, worked as a car dealership sales representative, while she worked as a social worker for the state of Texas while continuing to reside in Austin.
She had quite a happy and normal life, despite her job not being an easy one. It was a constant battle to help those who were unfortunate by birth and economic class, or took a wrong path in life by fault of addiction or a criminal lifestyle. Sometimes it would entail long hours at work, and during those days, she would ask her favorite fourteen-year-old n
iece Rebecca, who was the eldest daughter of her older sister to babysit her two children until she or Derek got home.
