Evil Like Me

by Steve Bradshaw

  “It’s you,” Green gasped.

  With a firm upward thrust, the blade moved up Green’s abdomen to his chest slicing open his sternum and severing his aortic artery. Green’s last words were lost in the splash of his steaming blood onto the dock. It poured from his gut over his Louis Vuitton alligator wingtips, and he dropped.

  The metal door closed. The river rats squeaked.

  Ten

  “The world is a contradiction, the universe a paradox.”

  Kedar Joshi

  *

  Southeast, Oklahoma

  *

  “You think he wants to kill me?” Bone asked.

  “I don’t know. Are you expecting anybody?” Baily watched the headlights climb out of the creek onto the road.

  The two slid down the trail behind the boulder. “Expecting nobody,” jostled out of Bone as he bounced off the last rock and planted his feet like an experienced hiker.

  “We’ve got a twenty-minute head start. You better know how to lose them.”

  They rounded the corner. Bone reached in the camper and grabbed a backpack and rifle. “Start yours and keep up.” He stuck his rifle in a holder and pinched his pack on the rack. Bone cranked his four-wheeler several times before it grumbled alive. He hopped on and the Sportsman XP 1000 shot around the back of the camper. Baily did all he could to keep up.

  The fat, bushy man snaked down the bunny trails crushing shrubs and leveling saplings knowing the way. Minutes later they broke onto a pasture. Baily looked. Bone disappeared. Well this is just great, Baily mused. Hell, I’d lose me too, if I were him.

  Seconds later Baily’s four-wheeler dropped down a steep slope into an unseen eroded creek bed. He immediately saw Bone’s tail lights bouncing ahead. They moved down the creek bed like the lead wave of a sloshing flood lapping up the walls at turns, avoiding boulders, and sliding under fallen trees and nests of debris. For the next thirty minutes they navigated the ravine of countless forks—most of which led to dead ends. Bone knew the way through nature’s intricate maze. Their hunters could fail in navigation, but their skills were unknown. Baily and Jackson had to assume the worse.

  At the end of the creek bed was a small canyon. Bone stopped at the edge and offed his motor. Baily killed his. They sat in the dark silence except for the cooling engines popping.

  “Can they get here another way?” Baily asked.

  Bone stretched his legs. “I’ve been all over this part of Oklahoma. There’s no other way from the camper on wheels that I know about. This place has too many cliffs and the woods are too dense. The trail we took is too tight for a horse in many places. A mountain goat would have a tough time out here. And if they try to do it on foot, we’re a good ten miles ahead.”

  Baily rechecked his gun. “We best keep moving, Bone. These people seem highly motivated to find you. We need to get where we can talk and breathe. Then I gotta get you out of Oklahoma so you don’t join your buddies.”

  “That’s it?”

  “And I gotta return this rental.”

  Bone passed a beer from his backpack. “You need to hydrate, Detective Baily. And you can forget about returning that rental. We’ll just leave it on the side of a road when you’re done with it. The thing’s got stickers all over it. People do it all the time, abandon them. Nobody’s going to steal a crumby rental four-wheeler. It will get back to the rental place before you get to Memphis.”

  “I can’t just leave it on the side of the road. I’m a law enforcement officer.” They looked at each other and broke out laughing until Bone slid off his seat and spilled his beer.

  An hour passed. “I’m glad I didn’t have to beat the ‘city’ out of you with my pipe.”

  “Don’t worry. I would have shot the ‘country’ out of you first.” Baily holstered his gun and looked over the canyon. “I need to know about Stargate and the connection to Stringtown. I saw that name on documents I found at the Keller farm. I did some diggin’ in the attic.” Baily downed his beer and passed the empty to Bone. “You don’t have much time to get help, Bone.”

  “You’re making me nervous,” Bone said as he slid his rifle back into the side mount. “We need to get to Marston’s. We will be safe there. Trust me. We can talk then.”

  Baily nodded as they cranked the four-wheelers. They crawled from the creek bed onto the rim of the canyon twelve miles east of the camper.

  “We got to get to Hochatown State Park,” Bone yelled over his shoulder. “Marston’s cabin’s on Mountain Fork River. It’s a hard place to find even if you’ve been there. I fished with Marston a year ago, a college acquaintance. Marston uses the cabin in the spring. The place is empty the rest of the time. It’s perfect.”

  *

  Aimed for a quick departure, they put the four-wheelers under enough evergreen branches to blend with the terrane. If they had to leave, the best route was a winding trail to the river. It also went to the main road if need be.

  The log cabin was under the towering pines next to the Mountain Fork River. Baily jimmied a window. Inside, Bone poked around for a lantern. When he found the matches he bumped into Baily. “We don’t light a lantern. We do not want to draw attention. It’s best we sit in the dark like a raccoon.”

  “Like a raccoon? Why would a city boy say a raccoon? I’d expect a city boy to say a sewer rat. I’ll bet you haven’t ever seen a raccoon and you have seen hundreds of those big rats.”

  Baily shook his head opening the window another inch and peering out. “I’m just sayin’ we need to become a part of our surroundings. I don’t see any activity out there.”

  “There are two ways out of this cabin if we need to depart,” Bone said. “We go out the window we came in or out the front door.” He pulled beef jerky from his backpack and passed one Baily. “We need protein.”

  “You’re a regular dietician. First we need to hydrate and now we need our protein. You wouldn’t have any mustard in that backpack of yours, would ya? I need mustard with my jerky.”

  Bone passed a mustard packet. “Help yourself. I rarely use it myself. I keep a little of everything in this backpack.” He poked around inside his bag. “I’ve got mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, hot sauce, and just about every other condiment that exists in packet-form that you can get between here and Stringtown.”

  They sat on the floor of the musty cabin eating their beef jerky and hydrating. An hour later the woods were still quiet. Moonlight fell in the window and through the burlap curtain on the cabin door. Baily’s cell phone had no bars and his battery was at thirty percent.

  “You said some things back there,” Bone mumbled.

  “Springtown’s got somethin’ going on, Bone. The people are starting to talk about it. They are one big family, if you ask me. It’ll all get out sooner or later.”

  “Everybody knows Uncle Joe’s a pervert and Aunt Martha had the mailman’s baby.”

  “It didn’t take me any time to get the details on the Keller homicides, and that’s after five years of silence. People are uneasy. Like you said, it was one of the worst things to ever happen in Stringtown.”

  “Worst thing to ever happen in Atoka County,” Bone said under his breath.

  “They wanted to talk about Hunter Keller,” Baily baited. “They told me what kind of guy he is, how he spent his time, and who he ran around with. They said you guys were always together. Said you were not typical kids growin’ up. Said you were always mysterious and secretive. Then one day you all left town.”

  “It’s called having a life,” Bone barked.

  “Yeah, but none of you guys ever came back.” Baily looked out the window. “Stringtown doesn’t know three of you guys are dead, Bone. You know what really got my attention after all the interviews and reading my notes and case files?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “People die around Hunter Keller,” Baily said. Bone stared at his shoes. “So you’re a PhD, Psychology,” Baily mumbled after giving Bone a few minutes to think about h
is friend at the center of the storm. Bone had to know why.

  “Yes I am,” Bone said still staring at his shoes.

  “And you’re heavy into parapsychology, like we already talked about some.”

  “No. I’m not heavy into anything.”

  “Can you at least admit your interest in the paranormal is because of Keller?”

  “You keep trying to weave that web, Detective Baily. What makes you think that?”

  “Psychology PhD types don’t buy into fringe science. You scientist-types work with facts. Your training teaches you to reject wild concepts. I read about parapsychology. It’s a pseudoscience. You know ‘pseudo’ means false, Dr. Jackson. There’s only one obvious reason why you would invest such a big part of your life into the study of psychic phenomena.”

  “You must be a brilliant detective,” Bone scoffed.

  Baily sat on the dust laden floor next to Bone. “You don’t have any more time to hope things work out. People are dropping dead all around you, Bone. Someone’s coming for you right now. I can’t protect you if you don’t help me understand what we’re up against.”

  Bone rubbed his head and took a deep breath. “You’re right. I can’t do this anymore. This whole thing has gotten out of control. I honestly don’t know how much it will help, but I will tell you everything I know. Let’s start by you asking what’s most important to you.”

  “Is Hunter Keller a serial killer?” Baily asked.

  “No. I do not think he is capable of hurting anyone.”

  “Then why is he at my homicides? Why’s he running? And, why’re you helping him?”

  “It’s not how it appears. For you to understand, I need to go to the beginning.”

  “Best be brief,” Baily warned. “They’re coming.”

  “In the early ’70s our government learned the Russians were spending millions of rubbles a year on psychotronic research, a term coined by a parapsychologist, Zdenek Rejdak, the Eastern Bloc. It’s about mind control and remote viewing and other psychic abilities.”

  “Tell me about this remote viewing?”

  “Remote viewing—or RV—is sensual perception at great distances through other than known senses.”

  “Like mind reading?” Baily asked.

  “Similar, but more. Someone in Dallas, for example, is able to obtain specific and detailed information on an object, person, or event in Tel Aviv as if they were in Tel Aviv observing it directly. Some RVs can do this in the past, present, and future state. These few RVs have extremely advanced precognitive skills.”

  “Do you really believe this stuff is real?” Baily asked.

  “I know it is real. So do most governments in the world. Remote viewing is the ultimate intelligence gathering tool, and more. Remote viewing has been a top secret program with our government for the last forty years, detective.”

  “I’m not a scientist. This sounds like a magic act. However, I did find some files stored deep in the Keller’s attic. I saw newspaper articles dated back to the ’70s about people in the Scanate Project found a secret Soviet military base and an R&D facility.”

  “In the beginning, it was public. The few RVs contracted by the government found Russian subs in the ocean with pinpoint accuracy. Soon the program went underground. The government said they shut it down.”

  “Sorry, but this all sounds like fantasyland,” Baily scoffed.

  “I don’t have time to convince or educate you, detective. If you want to get anywhere, you best accept it so you can start dealing with the bigger picture.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “If enemies of the United States develop an RV program first, they can access everything and shut us down. They can sit in top secret meetings at the Pentagon—psychically speaking. They can even sit in the Oval Office with the president, and we wouldn’t know they were there. Imagine our enemies having total access to our national secrets, plans, and strategies. Imagine them countering us at every turn. You best understand and accept that psychotronics is a world-changing weapon system with an unlimited reach.”

  “I understand what you are saying. I struggle with the possibility.”

  “The world as we know it will change, detective.”

  “How does it tie to Hunter Keller?” Baily asked.

  “Let’s go back to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA. They launched research into all forms of psychic phenomena in search of potential military and domestic applications. They recruited self-proclaimed psychics nationwide. Over time the fakes were harvested. The testing was rigid.”

  “This psychic recruiting, was it a public or secret process?”

  “In the beginning it was promoted. The U.S. Government ran ads in every newspaper around the country. They tested all military and government personnel. After elimination of the frauds, or weak psychics, they had a small elite force. They did not call them psychics or clairvoyants. They named them ‘remote viewer’ to give their program scientific credibility.”

  They must have found something, Baily thought. Maybe this is for real.

  “Identities of their elite force were aggressively protected. Their capabilities were no longer discussed publically. The program moved from Menlo Park—the Stanford Research Institute—to Fort Meade. There the CIA, DIA, and military took their turns sniffing around. The RV program had numerous names over the ensuing twenty-five years—Scanate, Gondola Wish, Grill Flame, Inscom Lane, Sun Streak, and …”

  “The Stargate Project.”

  “Right. In 1995 the CIA terminated Stargate and declassified.”

  “So it did not work?”

  Bone chuckled. “Come on, detective. You’re smarter than that.”

  “I’m not into government decision process, Bone.”

  “Let me help you with this one. You don’t interview the country looking for psychics, test them, narrow it down to a few, immediately take the program underground and spend millions of dollars over twenty-five long years only to suddenly discover it does not work!”

  “I get that.”

  “The U.S. Government then dumped a mountain of incomplete, complicated, and useless documents on the public claiming it did not work. But people like me read everything. We saw the gaping holes, the heavy redactions, the hiding of tests and results. People like me knew they had something that they did not want to share with the rest of the world.”

  “So, they took it deeper,” Bone said as he got up and went to the door. He peered out the edge of the burlap curtain and studied the shadows in the moonlit woods.

  “To add to the covertness of it all, the government’s contracted remote viewers vanished in 1995. In that same year things changed at Fort Meade. The once active military base became the new home for the most secretive agencies in the federal government—NSA, DIA, and DOD combat support. These government entities live outside the mainstream. They do not report to Congress or the people. They are unaccountable. They are connected to the White House.”

  “Again, how does this relate to Hunter Keller and Stringtown?”

  “Hunter is the Keller’s biological son. Alma and Arnold Keller were the most powerful RVs in the government’s psychic-weaponry program. The two ran away from Fort Meade one night. They settled in Stringtown in 1978. Or, I should say they hid in Stringtown in 1978.”

  “My information says he was adopted by the Kellers.”

  “This gets complicated. Alma hid her pregnancy. She secretly gave birth to Hunter in a car one night in December. They had made arrangements for their baby to be found. He would be a nameless, abandoned child. A few years later Alma and Arnold Keller adopted him.”

  “Why go to all that trouble?” Baily said as he dropped the curtain.

  “The Kellers knew their child would be different. He was the genetic product of two powerful psychics. They had to protect him from the government and the world.”

  Bone returned to the floor next to bone. “So, Hunter Keller is important or he’s dangerous. Which one is it?”r />
  Bone looked at the ceiling as if he could see into space. “Hunter used to get headaches, bad headaches, paralyzing headaches. One day they just stopped. Hunter then started to talk about things before they happened. I thought he was crazy and lucky. Didn’t take any of it seriously. But he knew scores of baseball games before they were played. And he knew the next day’s headline—verbatim. For a while I thought it was a trick. Then I knew different.”

  “What convinced you?” Baily asked.

  “It was the week before Christmas. He told me my father’s truck would be in a terrible accident. He didn’t want my father in the truck that day. Then he demanded I at least make my father wear his seatbelt—something my father never did.”

  “Was he in the accident?”

  Baily’s head dropped under the load of the memory. “Yes. The next day. He would not wear the seatbelt. I begged him.” Bone shook his head. “Broke his back on Main Street, downtown Stringtown. Paralyzed. My father died a month later.”

  “I’m sorry,” Baily said as the fog of confusion lifted some.

  Bone rubbed his face like a man rolling out of bed, but this was to fight back the tears. “I knew right then Hunter was gifted. Right then I decided to help him live his gifts. Hunter saw everything—past, present, and future. He needed to be able to turn it off. The information flow was too much to cope with. It would drive him crazy. I had to help him. Nobody else would.”

  “That ‘reality’ leaves all this open to question,” Baily said. “Maybe Keller is crazy. Maybe you can’t help the man. Maybe he’s responsible for all these dead people. The facts are the facts, Bone. He’s at each death. It’s hard to explain away.”

  “You’re a savvy homicide detective. I’m a savvy PhD in Psychology. I investigate things, too. I have my process like you have your process. I’ve observed Hunter Keller for twenty-three years as a friend and as a professional. I’ve tested him on many occasions over the last decade.”

  “And your point … ?”

  “His psychic abilities are off the charts. It cannot be explained. It is a first. His precognitive skills are a hundred percent accurate. He sees the future with the same detail you can see me sitting on this floor in front of you right now. He is a paradox.”