by E. E. Borton
“That list is getting pretty long,” said Joshua.
“Not one name on it doesn’t deserve to be there,” said Derek. “The Colonel being on the top of that list. His brainiac puppet scientists who did this to us and the fucking fed hitmen that killed Peter are close behind. They all deserve to be on it.”
“Patience, my young angry friend,” said Joshua. “We didn’t expect Alex to jump the gun and take Richard, but that only tells us the Colonel is getting sloppy. He’s starting to panic. He’s going to send every one of his henchmen, including Alex, and the feds to come after us in Atlanta. And when he does, we’re going to show up at his front door in Maine. We’ll arrive with a smile and plenty of time to work on him and every other white coat at the lab. Anyone that could even come close to slowing us down will be a thousand miles away chasing our fucking ghosts. Once we cut the head off the snake, Alex will be shitting his pants and running scared. It’ll make doing him much sweeter.”
“What’s the plan after, Joshua? What the fuck are we going to do? Where are we going to go? They’ll just keep sending guys after us.”
“And we’ll send them right back in fucking body bags. But we’ll be doing it from a Caribbean island I plan on calling Joshualand. And every six weeks the natives will bring me a virgin sacrifice to keep their new god happy. Because they know what will happen if they don’t.”
“Jesus Christ, Joshua!” said Derek, taking a step back from him. “You want to stay this way? You want to keep killing women and tearing them apart? You want to keep puking up their blood? I’ve taken your sick comments and jokes with a grain of salt because I thought that’s how you were coping with this, but now I wonder. I’m wondering if you like being this way.”
Joshua took two steps closer to Derek. He didn’t move towards him as an aggressor, he moved in closer so he could hold his undivided attention. Regardless of the intent, Derek stood his ground. He didn’t always agree with Joshua’s methods or ideology, but he knew the only way to destroy the people that destroyed them was as a team.
“It doesn’t matter if I like being this way or not,” said Joshua in a lowered voice. “I am what they made me and I can’t change that. Even they can’t change that. Either we accept what we are, or we end each other right now,” said Joshua, offering his pistol to Derek. “I didn’t enjoy killing those women, and I threw up their blood just like you. I tried to stop myself just like you. And just like you, I couldn’t. So get off your high fucking horse and let’s finish what they started. After they’re gone, we’ll figure out what to do next.”
Derek reached out and pushed the pistol toward the ground. “Then stop acting like you enjoy this so much. Stop making me wonder what’s going on in your head.”
“That I can do, Derek. I didn’t know it was bothering you so much. You’re right, I do joke around because I don’t know how else to deal with this. I’m sorry. You and I need to stick together. Running scared is what got Peter and Richard killed. We didn’t ask for this, but they gave it to us anyway. Let’s start giving a little back.”
“Okay,” said Derek. “We need to go home. Even those idiots should figure out it’s where we’re heading.”
*****
Ryan and Michelle arrived at the house where Richard Elliot had been hiding for months. Scott Wilson’s team was there waiting for them. Ryan immediately noticed Scott looked nervous.
“Agent Pearson, Agent Dobbs,” greeted Scott.
“This was a suicide?” asked Ryan.
“Apparently,” said Scott. “The local police received an anonymous call that someone was squatting in the area. They saw a light coming from a shack behind this house. This place hasn’t had electricity for years. They discovered four graves in the shack. One of them is very fresh. They found Richard inside the house. We haven’t touched anything. We were waiting for you to get here.”
“Well, that’s quite a departure from the Virginia scene,” said Ryan. “You guys wouldn’t even let me in the door and handed me my hat as soon as you arrived.”
“We’re under orders to allow you to verify his identity and that he’s dead. And that’s all we’ll need from you,” said Scott, making a show in front of his team. “When you accomplish the task, you’re to leave the scene so we can process the area. My men will accompany you inside. I need to make a phone call.”
“Then I guess we need to get started,” said Ryan.
The agents walked into the small house with four men dressed in black coveralls following close behind. They headed to the largest room dimly lit by battery-powered lanterns.
“Any chance we could get more light in here?” asked Ryan to one of his escorts.
“No, sir.”
Ryan chuckled at his new friend as he and Michelle approached Richard’s body positioned in a chair. A shotgun was between his legs, and what was left of his head was draped over the back of the chair. His brain, bone fragments, tissue, and blood covered the wall and ceiling behind him. The blast greatly distorted and reduced the anatomy of Richard’s head, but there was enough left for a positive ID.
“Would you agree that’s Richard Elliot?” asked Ryan’s escort.
“I do.”
“Would you agree Richard Elliot is dead?” asked the escort, writing down Ryan’s response to the first question.
“I do.”
“Thank you, Agent Pearson,” he said, writing down the second answer. “Would you please wait outside while we process the scene?”
“Could we do this over the phone next time?” asked Ryan.
“No, sir. We needed you for this very important phase of the investigative process. And now we’re finished with you.”
Ryan took a step toward the young man wearing black coveralls. As the FBI agent towered nearly five inches over him, the young man tried to take a step backward. The wall prevented his retreat. “You have no idea how wrong you are, kid.”
Ryan turned and walked out of the room.
“I think he likes you,” added Michelle before she followed.
As they cleared the front porch, Scott Wilson passed them without a word. Dallas and Tom arrived on the scene and met Ryan in front of the house.
“What did we miss?” asked Dallas.
“One of the worst staged suicides I’ve seen in a while,” said Ryan.
“Did you miss me?” asked Dallas as Michelle caught up.
“You were gone?” replied Michelle.
“Why do you think it was staged?” asked Tom.
“The obvious tells were his finger still on the trigger and the shotgun still between his legs,” said Michelle. “The recoil would’ve at least knocked his finger away and probably the gun as well.”
“He was also sitting in an old wooden chair in the middle of the room,” added Ryan. “The shockwave from the blast would’ve laid him out on the floor. Of course, the second blood spatter that was poorly concealing the first helped a little, too. Unless he killed himself twice, I’d say he had some help.”
“Like I said, these guys aren’t pros,” said Dallas. “And neither is Scott.”
“Scott?” asked Ryan.
“When we pulled up, he was standing beside your car like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar,” continued Tom. “He saw it was us and quickly headed toward the house. There was a large white envelope sitting in plain sight with your name on it. We tucked it under your seat.”
“Did anyone else see him?”
“I don’t think so,” said Dallas. “All eyes were on us when we turned the corner. I killed the headlights as soon as I recognized Scott. I figured he was leaving another note. I don’t think he went to spy school.”
“No, I don’t believe he did,” said Ryan. “He’s spooked about something. Okay, let’s head back to the house and open our gift from Scott.”
As they left the crime scene, Ryan dialed the director’s number.
“Is he dead?”
“Yes, sir. Looks like he did it himself after he buried his last
victim.”
“I wish Derek and Joshua had followed his example, but they decided to take two more women instead. I just received a call from the Atlanta Field Office. Two bodies were discovered off a jogging trail at a state park a few hours ago. Both victims have our guys written all over them. We discovered two more went missing exactly six weeks ago just outside of the city. We’re digging deeper to see if any others have gone missing in the past few months. It’s our worst nightmare, but it looks like they’re working together.”
“Any news on the whereabouts of Dr. Anderson?”
“Nothing concrete, but we’re assuming she’s with Joshua in Georgia. I’m sending a plane that should be there in a few hours. You need to hit the ground running.”
“Yes, sir,” acknowledged Ryan, ending the call.
“We need to pack up the house and get ready to move.”
“Where are we headed?” asked Dallas.
“Atlanta.”
“Your home town.”
“Sort of. I went to high school there my junior and senior year. I left for Virginia the week after I graduated. Our buddy Derek went to the same school as me, but he was a freshman when I was a senior. He actually grew up there. It’s a little west of Atlanta. But we do actually know some of the same people.”
“Yeah, I figured that’s why they grabbed you up pretty quickly when this thing broke,” said Dallas. “It’s also kind of weird he joined the Marines and ended up in your old unit. It’s like he was trying to follow in your footsteps.”
“Lucky me,” said Ryan.
They arrived back at the safe house and immediately headed for the windowless room. Everyone wanted to get a look at the autopsy reports from each of Peter Arrington’s victims. The similarities and patterns were obvious as soon as the files were spread out on the table.
“They’re all blond with blue eyes,” observed Tom. “Between 120 and 140 pounds. All very attractive young women.”
“And all killed the same way,” continued Michelle. “Large holes in their necks apparently from bites. Larger holes in the abdomen with –”
“With organs missing,” finished Ryan.
“He’s eating them?” asked Dallas with a grimace.
“And bleeding them dry,” continued Tom. “Each victim is also missing about two-thirds of their blood volume. Some of the organs were returned inside the abdominal cavity with bite marks, but very little missing tissue; however, they were drained of blood as well.”
“You’re telling me they’re fucking vampires?” asked Dallas, holding the painful expression.
“No, I’m not telling you they’re vampires, Dallas,” clarified Tom. “Vampires don’t exist. What I am telling you is that he’s taking their blood. We just don’t know why.”
“Cannibalism isn’t breaking news,” added Michelle. “Those types of serial killers are rare, but unlike vampires, they do exist.”
“Many, if not most, serial killers take some type of trophy from their victims,” said Tom. “Physically holding on to something belonging to the deceased helps them remember and relive the moment. Some take objects such as a driver’s license, jewelry or keys. A lesser number actually take parts ranging from snippets of hair to the entire head. I don’t know of any who have taken such a large volume of blood, but I’m not willing to rule out anything at this point.
“More than likely it’s being kept in a container of some kind and not ingested. Even a small amount of human blood is at least extremely irritating to the digestive tract. Ingesting a large amount would surely make them violently ill.”
“What’s interesting is that, even though the wounds are large and numerous, there seems to be little indication of anger or rage.”
“Once again, Tom, you’re losing me,” said Dallas.
“Like that’s hard to do?” jabbed Michelle with a smile.
“Seriously, he bit a hole in her neck, chewed on her liver, and drained her blood. How is that not an indication of anger or rage?”
“Take wild animals as an example for perspective,” started Tom. “I’m sure you’ve seen countless National Geographic episodes showing lions hunting prey in Africa.”
“Now I’m with you,” said Dallas.
“When most people see the lion take down an antelope, all they hear is the roar and see the violence of the kill. What they don’t see is that it’s all about efficiency and self-preservation. It has nothing to do with anger. The lion goes for the throat because it’s the fastest way to cut off air to the lungs and blood to the brain. Going for the throat quickly disables the prey. It may look like a defenseless animal, but if the lion didn’t kill it quickly, the antelope has very powerful legs and sharp hooves that could tear the lion open. My point is, wild animals have no desire to inflict pain on their prey. They kill for survival.”
“Arrington killed those women for survival?” asked Dallas.
“In his mind, maybe,” said Michelle. “But what Tom is saying is that Arrington’s primary focus was blood, not pain. Killers are violent. They get off on the control and the pain they inflict on the victim. The wounds on these women seem to be created with the sole function of efficiently extracting their blood.”
“Absolutely,” said Tom. “The only other injuries listed are ligature marks on the wrists and ankles. But even those are mild. They weren’t bound so tight as to cut off circulation. They were bound to keep them stationary. There’s no other bruising or abrasions on their bodies. There’s hardly a scratch on them other than the neck and abdomen wounds.”
“It makes sense the first wound would be a major artery in the neck,” said Michelle. “It’s the easiest to access with a bite. It would’ve supplied a tremendous volume before the heart stopped. And when it did stop pumping, it makes sense he would go for the organs engorged with blood, like the liver.”
“This is all fascinating stuff, really,” said Dallas. “But what are we trying to accomplish here? Is what you’re talking about going to help us find the others? There are two more monsters out there we need to find and stop before they kill again. Does it really matter how or why they’re doing it? I’d just like to know where they are so we can scratch the last two off the list.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Dallas,” said Ryan.
“You do?” asked Michelle.
“I do. But, Dallas, what we’ve accomplished here is figuring out Arrington didn’t brutally rape and murder that woman in Syracuse. But people wanted us to believe he did. That tells me without a shadow of doubt we’re in the middle of a conspiracy, and we’re being used like puppets to cover it up. The more we find out about these monsters they obviously want us to kill, the closer I get to finding out who’s pulling our strings.”
“I agree with you, Ryan,” said Tom. “This goes much deeper than just apprehending four UA Marines on a killing spree. We know they were genetically altered at the lab to make them super soldiers and something went wrong. I can wrap my head around one man snapping, but not four at the same time. What we need to figure out is what happened to them and who did it. We have our theories, but proving it is going to be incredibly difficult.”
“It will be unless we can find the scientists who put their hands on them,” said Ryan. “Kristina told me there were three main players at the lab. They were working on some high- speed creepy stuff before she left. Those are the guys with the answers.”
“Being the guys with the answers, they’re going to be on short leashes by the guys who don’t want them talking,” said Dallas. “How do we get to them?”
“It won’t be easy, but we already have a guy on the inside,” said Ryan with a grin.
12
Unit 731
The team packed its gear and was ready to move in less than thirty minutes. They still had over an hour before the plane would arrive to take them to Atlanta. Ryan walked out onto the back porch for some air. After a few minutes, Tom joined him on the deck.
“You need some alone time, Boss?” asked Tom
.
“No,” said Ryan. “Just out here finding myself asking the same question over and over.”
“What’s that?”
“Why? Why would they do that to those Marines? Why did they turn them into monsters and then turn them loose on the public? And then once that happened, why use us to hunt and kill them?”
“Tough questions, Ryan. But some of those answers can be found in the history of biomedical human research. I’m sure you’re familiar with the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the Japanese Army during the thirties and forties, but are you familiar with our own?”
“No, but that’s why I have your big brain on the team. You have to compensate for my little one.”
“I know you’re not serious,” said Tom. “Anyway, in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service recruited 400 underprivileged African-Americans with syphilis to participate in a study. They called it the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, and its main purpose was to study the untreated progression of the disease. Now, at the time, there was no known cure. Where it became a serious question of ethics was when penicillin was discovered in 1940. It did effectively cure the disease, but it wasn’t administered to the Tuskegee recruits. The U.S. Government basically let those people suffer and die even though a cure was available. They continued the experiment until 1974 when someone finally blew the whistle and leaked the project to the press. By then the victims included the men who died, their wives who contracted the disease, and their children who were born with congenital syphilis. All of that happened under the direct supervision of Uncle Sam.”
“That’s barbaric,” said Ryan. “You’re right, I didn’t know.”
“And really, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But if there’s a bright side to that dark time in our history, it would be the immediate formation of the Office for Human Research Protections, or OHRP. Those are the guys providing the ethical oversight which mirrors the powers and responsibilities of the FDA. Those are the guys that are keeping an eye on what’s happening at the Michaels Laboratory. Like Kristina told us, the Marines had to sign consent forms before any procedure could be performed on them. Those consent forms are mandated and reviewed by the OHRP.”
