Cautiously Tolen stepped inside, his senses on full alert. He kept the gun levelled ahead as he moved. A mothball scent coated the air and became stronger with each step. The front room, a living room, appeared neat and orderly. “Mr. and Mrs. Jackson?” he called out through the cold house. He was met with an eerie silence. Tolen was suddenly aware that nothing electrical was turned on; no lights, not even a heater. He crept through the hallway picking up his pace. He moved into an open foyer with a staircase that led to the upper rooms.
A sudden clang behind startled him. Tolen wheeled, aiming his pistol into a doorway that led to the kitchen. A dark, monstrous figure flashed to the side, opened a door and darted outside. It was a man, moving awkwardly, as if struggling with something heavy. Tolen dashed into the kitchen in pursuit. The backdoor was still open, and as he reached it, a hail of bullets sent him scrambling to the ground. He crawled his way back inside to the shelter of the house and scurried behind the center island counter. An endless stream of bullets ripped into the walls, clanging into the hanging pots and spilling them onto the counter and floor. More bullets exploded cans of food in the pantry, dislodged the wooden door from its hinges, and tore the walls, along with anything hanging on it, to shreds. Tolen felt the debris raining down on him. His best chance of survival was to stay put. The firestorm went on for several more seconds before everything went quiet.
Tolen rose to his knees. He choked out a cough then slowly moved toward the opening amid a cloud of dust clogging his vision. A new noise arose, one he knew well. The thumping sound picked up speed quickly.
Fomp....fomp...fomp..fomp, fomp-fomp-fomp…the rotors of a helicopter starting up.
Through the debris filling the air, Tolen could see the massive man in the distance moving toward a helicopter, laboring to carry something solid.
A pilot and second man with a machine gun sat waiting inside the helicopter. Tolen stepped outside and fired twice, but as another cluster of bullets riddled the side of the house, he was forced back inside to take cover. Tolen cautiously rose to the kitchen window to see the helicopter with its passengers ascending into the air. He raced outside, considered firing upon the moving craft, but restrained himself. Within seconds, the helicopter tore back over the farmhouse, the beating rotors fading into the distance. There were no visible markings or serial numbers on the aircraft, and he never got a clear look at the face of the big man or the other two waiting inside the helicopter.
Tolen returned to the kitchen, crunching over the debris. A fine mist hung in the still, cold air. He held his breath as he passed through it. His concern now was for Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. He reached the foyer where a large dining room connected ahead. It was empty, so he turned and made his way up the staircase.
An unsettling feeling washed over him.
“Mr. Jackson? Mrs. Jackson? Are you here?”
He reached the second-story landing and saw a series of bedrooms on either side of the hallway ahead. Only the room to the far back right had the door closed. Tolen tried the light switch on the hallway wall, but there was no power, and the windowless corridor remained in shadow. He moved cautiously down the hallway, gun pointed ahead, checking the open bedrooms as he went. A sense of foreboding loomed heavily in the air.
Moving stealthily, Tolen eased before the last bedroom with the closed door. His gun at the ready, he gently turned the handle until the door released with a pop. He let go, and the door continued to slowly creak open on its own. The curtains were drawn, separated only by a small crack that allowed dull daylight into the room.
The sight before him was horrific.
An elderly woman, who could only be Elsie Jackson, was slumped in a pile. Pooled blood encircled her body on the hardwood floor.
Propped upon the bed, nestled in the corner, was the headless body of Monty Jackson. Jackson was leaning against the bedpost as if he were reading a book. The body rested on what had, at one time, been white sheets. His hands lay by his side with the palms down on the brownish-red, blood-soaked sheets. Likewise, his pants and shoes were stained with the same nauseating color. His shirtless chest bore an angry, grizzled gash. Between his shoulders, there was a divot where his head belonged. From his angle, the poor lighting caused a shadow to fill the cavity, giving it the appearance of a bottomless pit.
On the far-left bedpost against the wall, Monty Jackson’s head was speared and prominently displayed. His deformed, wrinkled face withered forward. His eyes were closed, and his nose had a slight trickle of dried blood forming a perfect line from his nostril to his top lip, which was puffy and remarkably pale. The decapitation had not been clean. Elongated internal arteries and muscle flopped from the base of the neck, hanging like jellyfish tentacles.
Tolen holstered his weapon, knelt down to Elsie Jackson, and felt her neck. Surprisingly, she had a faint pulse. His touch roused her, and she slowly rolled over onto her back. Her swollen eyes fluttered open and focused on Tolen. Blood coated the front of her blouse where a gash had destroyed her abdomen. Her chest rose and fell, each time releasing a slurpy, guttural wheeze. Tolen was shocked she was still alive given her appalling physical condition.
Oddly, she offered a faint smile. There was something familiar in her face, something about her eyes. Then she spoke, and her words were lucid and calm, clearly recognizable despite her otherwise rasping and gurgling chest, “Don’t let them meet.”
In utter disbelief, Tolen tumbled backward, impacting the side of the bed frame. His action caused the headless body of Monty Jackson to slide to the side and land on the mattress. The dead man’s arm flopped onto Tolen’s head. Tolen pulled away breathing heavily. He rose shakily to his feet, willing himself under control, even as the phrase Mrs. Jackson had spoken repeated in his mind: “Don’t let them meet.”
He looked back down at the woman. Elsie Jackson’s eyes were closed now, and her chest was still. Her wet, raspy breathing had stopped. She was dead.
Yet as the woman’s words replayed in his mind, Samuel Tolen looked down at his hands and found them shaking. It wasn’t what she had said that had unnerved him. Indeed, he had no idea what “Don’t let them meet” meant.
It was that she had spoken them in a hauntingly familiar tone.
Elsie Jackson had spoken in the voice of Samuel Tolen’s deceased father, Jaspar.
CHAPTER 2
Green Cove Springs, Florida. Four months later: Friday, June 14. 1:42 p.m.
Scott and Kay Marks, and their young son Cody, were making their way onto the sunlit public pier that overlooked the St. Johns River when a rising murmur from the riverside park drew their attention back to shore. A dozen or so people were scurrying about the playground, moving toward the opposite end of the park. Scott’s initial thought was that someone was hurt. He looked over at Kay. “I’m going to see what’s going on.”
Kay took Cody’s hand. “We’ll wait here,” she said.
Scott began a slow trot inland from the public dock and crossed the small footbridge spanning the spring run. He turned up the inclined sidewalk that paralleled the stream for some distance, eventually passing the high fence of the public swimming pool that mirrored the paved walkway. He was barely aware of an old man sitting on the bench as he passed.
Ahead, a crowd of onlookers had encircled the cement portal, known as the boil, from which the fresh spring water rose from the ground. The chatter had ceased, but the small crowd staring downward into the opening seemed hypnotized. When Scott reached the group, he stopped. All attention remained focused downward inside the boil.
Scott approached it, also staring into the water. The normally clear, fresh water had a murky, red hue. Scott gently pushed between some people and leaned over the lip of the cement enclosure to examine it closer. Visibility generally extended two dozen feet downward where the funnel-shaped side walls of the natural spring well escorted the rising water to the surface from a crevice deep below. Yet the view was now completel
y obscured as a deep crimson stream rolled forth and quickly swelled to the surface. It reached the top of the boil then followed the normal flow of the spring, disappearing out of sight through a narrow vent just below the cement concourse. The discolored water moved unseen through a short aqueduct. Scott followed and watched as the red water discharged into the large in-ground municipal swimming pool where it spread rapidly, slicking the entire surface with a crimson coat before escaping through a tiny pair of aqueducts at the far end.
The crowd followed along, watching in stunned silence.
How could this be? Scott thought. This is a freshwater spring!
Without thinking, Scott moved alongside the pool fence, watching as the substance flowed with the current. He followed the descending sidewalk and saw the dark water spilling from the pool through the vents into the natural spring run. From there, the shallow ravine served to guide the spring water 200 feet, under the footbridge and beyond, where it eventually fed into the St. Johns River.
Several folks joined Scott as he followed the bizarre red flow, formulating explanations as they went.
“Must be some sort of underground pollution,” one said.
“Probably from that scallop factory across the way,” another commented.
“That ain’t no pollution like I e’er saw,” a man said.
“That’s dirty, nasty water,” a young boy commented.
Meandering down the spring run, the crimson mass snaked under the small footbridge and shot down a narrow slot in the stream. Scott followed, eventually wading through the soggy earth as he got closer to where the spring run merged into the St. Johns River at the edge of the park. He squatted and turned to look back upstream at the surreal picture before him. The entire length of the spring run was bathed in red. Far away, where it originated, people were still gathering around the cement portal, their heads barely visible. Others were walking the sidewalk and pointing into the stream making excited comments. A group of teenagers stood on the tiny footbridge watching the dark stream flow underneath and feigning swan dives. An African American man wearing sunglasses knelt on the far bank with a small metal box. All the while, the stained water poured onward, making its way into the incoming tide of the St. Johns River.
The air was suddenly split by a woman’s terrified scream. It came from somewhere near the boil. Scott sloshed from the wet grass and raced back up the cement walkway, again passing the old man sitting on the bench. There was a second scream, and more people were yelling and shouting.
Scott reached the fence bordering the swimming pool and stopped. A throng of people had gathered, shouting and pointing at the pool. The entire body of water was stained red, and a small, pale lump was being pushed across the surface, caught in the flow. Then another viscous chunk appeared; another small, unidentified mass. Countless more unidentified globs followed, bobbing on the surface, all with a pink hue glistening in the sunlight.
Horrified, Scott turned, followed the floating debris, accompanied by others shouting wildly. Moving quickly, he nearly bowled two women over. One was pointing and crying, the other appeared to be in shock.
That’s when Scott saw it. Everyone saw it. The collective gasp from the crowd was appreciable.
One of the clumped forms had eyes. Other features then came into focus. As confusion reigned, Scott’s mind pieced the rest together: a nose, a mouth, a partial ear, but not an entire head, just a face as if it had been removed from the front of the skull intact.
A man standing beside Scott began to wretch. Children had come from the playground to see what was happening, and mothers and fathers were moving them away before they could catch sight of the grim spectacle.
The malformed face and other floating objects reached the two small aqueducts at the end of the pool and became wedged in the narrow funnel, but only temporarily. Within seconds, the force of the water shoved them through, and they bobbed into the spring run with a morbid splash.
In near disbelief, Scott kept up with the flotilla. Just before the grotesque armada reached the footbridge, the African American man whom Scott had noticed earlier holding a small metal box, stepped into the water holding a shrimp net and proceeded to secure them. Moments later, a Green Cove Springs policeman came running up.
The crowd grew threefold as the ghastly sight of the mushy, fragmented human face seared into Scott’s mind. A realization struck him that the other chunks were, most likely, more human remains; more gelatinous body parts that looked as if they had been whipped mercilessly in a blender.
Scott suddenly wanted away from it all. Marvin Sellon’s death, although nine months removed, was still fresh in his mind. He pushed his way out of the crowd as more police arrived on the scene. He turned to see the municipal swimming pool in the distance. It had been replenished with crystal clear water and now looked as it normally did.
Scott wasn’t sure why, but something drew him back to the cement boil. As he neared, he saw that the area was barren save for a hooded man dressed in a robe. His head was down, and his face shielded from view. Scott approached apprehensively, drawn to the strange man. The man appeared to pose no threat, yet something about the thin figure stooped over the cement lip made Scott uneasy. He warily moved forward with an ever-increasing sense of déjà vu.
“You saw it,” the man said never lifting his eyes. The voice was oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“Excuse me?” Scott said, easing closer, trying to see the man’s face. “If you’re referring to the discolored water and…and…those things that came out of the spring, then yes, I saw it.” Scott hesitated and then blurted out the next question before he knew why he was asking, “Do you know what happened?”
At first, Scott thought the man had not heard, for he kept his head down. Before he could repeat the question, though, the man spoke. “Yes,” he replied, “and so do you.”
With that, the man turned and spryly made his way up the side steps that led across the gentle incline of the park to the far parking area.
Scott watched him leave, wanting to ask more questions, trying to recall the voice. In the background, the air was filled with the chatter of people congregated near the footbridge where police were quickly cordoning off the area. A slight breeze wafted off the river, skimming the surface of the public pool and washing over the spring, causing a smell of sulfur to rise through the air. He looked down. The sun glowed brilliantly, sending slivers of light piercing the depths of the crystal clear water and bouncing light off granite-tipped stone walls beneath the surface.
Scott’s body stiffened. For a brief moment, he saw a dark glob rising from the lowest visible crevice. Then it was gone, and the deep water returned to its clear state. He exhaled, realizing it was merely the shadow from the limb of one of the nearby oaks swaying in the wind that had momentarily blocked the light. Still somewhat shaken, he turned and walked toward the street to bypass the crowd and burgeoning number of policemen in order to reach Kay and Cody on the public pier.
He could mentally hear himself repeat his question to the unknown man: “Do you know what happened?”
Scott looked past the crowd to where the flowing spring run reached the river. Beyond, and to the left, he could see Kay and Cody holding hands waiting patiently at the foot of the long pier. He wiped his brow, only now realizing how much he was perspiring in the June heat. Scott again considered the bizarre reply. He could hear the throaty, crackling voice, barely audible through the light breeze, respond in his mind, “Yes, and so do you.”
The scene had been as bizarre as anything he had ever witnessed, including the events of last September with that Fish. What had the man meant, he wondered, and how could I possibly know what had just happened?
Yet, even as he tried to suppress it, one explanation, as inexplicable as it was, kept forcing its way into his mind: the freshwater spring had regurgitated a human body.
CHAPTER 3
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br /> Several hours later, at the Second Coming Presbyterian Church on the outskirts of Green Cove Springs, a small contingent of church parishioners were busily preparing meals for the Clay County Homeless Shelter to be delivered that evening. Thirty-nine-year-old Jack Turner and his 34-year-old wife, Tonya, arrived toting a Chevy Suburban full of groceries: everything from canned peas to fresh cut pork chops to bananas.
For Jack, it was a lost afternoon. His fishing plans had been thwarted when Tonya had volunteered him to help at the church without so much as asking him first. She offered no apology, instead proclaiming that it would be good for his soul. Jack had yet to object to Tonya’s increased participation in church activities, but the woman was taking her holier-than-thou attitude a little too seriously these days. Why did he have to sacrifice his afternoon off? He had decided not to argue, fearing another lecture about “Satan’s hold on him.” Besides, the kids were staying over with friends tonight, and Jack wanted sex. For a woman to have a god-given body like Tonya’s and only share it with her husband once every full moon was a travesty. If he could get her to partake of the sacramental wine this evening, he might worm her out of her tight panties.
Jack quietly stewed as he sprang open the tailgate to unload the store of food. He looked up into the crystal-blue sky as the scent of pine wafted in the air from the adjacent woods. “Yeah, all things considered, I’d rather be fishing,” he muttered under his breath.
Tonya wheeled around. “What?”
“Jesus fished, you know,” he commented, lifting the first bag.
She didn’t respond.
“He did,” Jack insisted.
“Jesus was a carpenter. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishermen,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Jack chuckled. “Kinda ironic when you consider Jesus was a carpenter, and he was nailed to a cross.”
Tonya looked at him with an icy stare.
Evil in the Beginning (The God Tools Book 2) Page 2
