Individually Wrapped Horrors

by Eric Joel Kleinschmidt, Sr.

  Nearly two days of traveling, much of the countryside and the roads were torn up pretty bad. I did, however, manage to find a four-wheel-drive pickup that was jacked up and had some mighty good-sized tires on it. I got through most of the bad rubble and debris OK, having to go miles out of my way to get around some of the worst. After the traveling was done, nearly two days’ worth, I pulled another pickup that I had confiscated when the bigger truck ran out of gas into what remained of my driveway. There were no people anywhere to be found outside. There were still a few vehicles in the drive. I pulled in and got out. I ran nearly tripping and hurting myself to get into the house. Mostly, it was strangers in my house, taking samples and pictures. I made my way through the crowd until I finally found Caylee in the kitchen, looking over some maps with a stranger. Our eyes met and she wailed: “Daddy!!” throwing her arms around me and nearly knocking us both to the floor. A man with a large hand-held radio called it in and my family was located in the search party. Another half hour later and they were all back in my arms. My big strong loving arms. I never thought I’d hold them again and now here I was holding them all. I silently prayed to God and thanked Him for all things good and for watching out for my family. Another short amount of time later and General Davidson came rushing in.

  Vehemently shaking my hands in his, he yelled over the crowd of people, “Damn good job, soldier, damn good job!” He was smiling a very real smile now and my family was holding me tightly.

  I leaned in toward him and said, “You have to fill me in! What happened?” He led us all to a quiet bedroom and closed the door. The General and my family began in turns to fill me in.

  I had crowd surfed my way to immortal stardom, it had seemed. It was believed that the meteorite that had been found in the field nearby had some type of virus or bacteria on it that drove people to a weird state of mass psychosis on a global scale. There was some unknown factor that they could not establish as of yet in that those infected seemed to know who I was. The only reasoning they could come up with was that Sam, being a friend of mine and the family, was one of the guys out with their grandsons that night that discovered the meteorite in the first place. He had laid hands on it at the beginning, maybe the first one to touch it at all. General Davidson told me that “this was all the eggheads in charge can come up with so far.” The real scientific theory floating about was that all those years ago, I touched a similar meteorite, one that held a different type of virus or bacteria on it. A different type that I was infected with. In humans, it would seem, this first virus (playfully called Virus 1.0) would boost certain sections of your creative brain and give you talents you may have been lacking in before. While the second virus (Virus 2.0) caused the mass hysteria in humans that drove them to the brink of utter madness. The world was in fact still in great ruins. Technology had been bumped back a good twenty years give or take. When combined through human skin contact, Virus 1.0 cancelled out Virus 2.0 and vice versa. I found this latter to be true when I again tried to draw and found myself producing something on a second-grade level. So much for my career. Being that Virus 2.0 had spread so fast, the 1.0 version spread equally as fast and with 100% effectiveness. I had only traveled on the hands of the people from northern Illinois to south-eastern Kentucky, but the entire world was affected.

  “So, what you’re telling me, General, is that when I took Sam to see the Doc, after he had killed the Doc and just wanted to touch me… Are you saying that if I had touched him, the rest of this would never have happened?” I said in horror. The General looked at Gina and the kids, then down at his feet. He returned to looking at me.

  “It seems likely, yes.” I sat down hard on a chair. The whole world had gone to hell and I could’ve stopped it any time.

  “Honey, this is so far outside any of our understanding. How could we have known? Plus, the meteorite went all the way to South Carolina, so maybe not.” Gina soothed. She rubbed a hand up and down my back.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” I leaned my head down between my knees. My family held close. I looked over at Shawn.

  “I’m so sorry about Derrick and his family, Shawn. I could’ve stopped it if only I had…” He stopped me right then and there.

  “No, dad, we just got you back. You are not going to beat yourself up about this. You saved the entire planet from extinction. Don’t you understand the importance of that?” It wouldn’t sink in. All that I kept coming back to was the loss of life. The people all over the world whose worlds were completely destroyed. The ones who didn’t get to come back.

  “General, you have to do one solid for me and my family.” He raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, you have to keep us from this. Whoever needs to know, those in charge or whatever, fine. Don’t let the rest of the world know. Keep it away from us. We’ll never have a normal life otherwise and right now, I still don’t feel very much like a hero.” He nodded at me.

  “I’ll do my best, Michaels.” I looked back up at him, standing tall and proud across the room.

  “Hey, General, one more thing. Can you call me Mick?” The General snapped off a genuine salute at my family and I and then he was gone. My family drew in close again.

  When no one was in the room with us, I told them About finding the other meteorite in south-eastern Kentucky and burying it to be done with the whole stupid mess. They asked me if I was going to miss being an artist. I told them only time would tell, but I thought it a fitting punishment in my secret heart of hearts. Caylee asked me what was going to happen next.

  I told them all, “I don’t know. I don’t much about any of this. But I will tell you one thing I know for sure.”

  “What’s that, dad?” Shawn asked from beside me.

  “When I was thirty-six, I touched a meteorite.”

  ****

  8

  “Dumpster”

  [Video begins, Tom Duggan, Chief of Police is sitting with microphone at his desk speaking.]

  “I’m sorry as hell to have to report the following incident. A lot of good people died in very peculiar and horrific fashions. Damage was done to a great amount of property and there remains an element of mystery about this case. A brief glimpse into the unknown. Much of this may be hard for the viewer to comprehend, just as it is for me to comprehend. Still, the story must be told, the facts known and so forth and so on. A fair portion of this case will be presented through video tape evidence. Much of the story itself seems to have miraculously ended up on tape and—thanks in part to one of the victims, a millionaire by the name of Miles Deacon—a large portion of the video-taped evidence is in living color and comes equipped with full sound. Until this matter has been sorted out, this video evidence and its findings will remain in the privacy and custody of this detective unit and this station. No one assigned to this case should have any communications regarding the case with any outside parties unless first approved by yours truly, the Chief. Unapproved investigations or other inquiries made on behalf of this case or the victims will be dealt with in the most severe of manners. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further delay, I present to you this video evidence. Due to its intensely graphic nature, some of the more squeamish of you may be excused through certain parts.”

  [Video cuts briefly to static, returns to stock footage of exterior of mansion in a clearing of forest. Chief’s voice over video.]

  “This is the home of the deceased owner, Miles Deacon. Mr. Deacon has been involved for decades in the import/export of goods and services not yet fully known by this department. Most of what we have uncovered seemed to be on the up and up. However, the further evidence provided here today will shed some light on that subject. It would appear the late Mr. Deacon also fancied himself an occultist…”

  [Video cuts to various police evidence photographs of books, pagan idols, tools and other objects bearing occult symbols and writing on them.]

  “…and it is felt that this was a main contributing factor to the follo
wing events and misfortunes. It has been discovered that he had numerous dealings with this man…”

  [Video slideshow stops on photograph of a heavy-set man in his mid-50’s, thick greying sideburns and medium length curly grey hair framing a severely stoic face. Scars scattered across much of the exposed face, one eye hidden behind a designer eye patch.]

  “…Villads Pedersen. Danish-born, 56 at time of incident, also deceased. We believe through the evidence compiled on these tapes that much of what transpired there was to a greater degree his doing. He was—we believe—the catalyst that propelled Mr. Deacon into his actions of late. Especially leading up to the incident at the Deacon Estate. Mr. Pedersen was his go-to guy for all things occult and forbidden. He was a man of the world who knew exactly how to get certain things that most people wouldn’t go near to save their lives. Personal possessions of Adolf Hitler, copies of Satanic bibles and other verses related to Satanism, amulets and charms. Anything he could get his hands on to get him closer to his goal. We have a lot of forensic evidence and video-taped evidence, but we do not as of yet know what that goal might have been. We know it to be nefarious in nature as the following footage will show you, but otherwise—we just don’t know. The endgame is what really baffles us.”

  [Video changes to the day of the incident, February 18th, 2019. Exterior Deacon Mansion, time stamp reads 1:12 a.m. Police lights illuminate the compound around the mansion. Officers are busy taping off the area and searching the perimeter as an ambulance slowly enters from the left going to the right. The top right quarter of the mansion is no longer part of the entire structure. It has been cataclysmically sheared off at a 45-degree angle and the rubble and debris on the grounds are all that remain of it.]

  “Now, for those of you officers on the scene that morning, you may remember that a great portion of the upstairs had been demolished. The footage we found at the scene and have reassembled will fill in some or many of the questions you may have about that. To our few fellow officers from South Division, we welcome you and your expertise into this unusual case. The call from the closest neighbors [pauses to check notes] who live just under three miles away, came in shortly before 1 a.m. The explosion that rocked the area and in fact took off that missing section of the house happened a few minutes prior. We are now going to be looking at some of the video from the officers on the scene at that time. It had—previous to this recording—been established that no one remained alive in the house. Here is that footage.”

  [Video rolls of mansion interior. Furniture overturned, lights and artwork destroyed on the floor, holes in the walls ranging in shapes and sizes from fist-sized to car-sized, severe damage to the staircase leading to the upper floor, and blood. Gallons and gallons of blood. Some used to draw occult symbols on the walls and windows, some congealing in pools and splatters where it fell. Four mangled bodies lay in the immediate foyer. The video footage is somewhat shaky, but steady enough to see in great detail the carnage that befell Deacon Estates. The video and audio quality are also considerably more reduced compared to the video and audio of the house.]

  “We do apologize for the unsteady quality of the film. It was one of the first officers on the scene and that young man has not had a decent night sleep since. OK, so we have first and foremost, four bodies in the foyer. They were little more than meat when we found them. Blood is omnipresent, that will include all rooms, all floors. Not a single area in the house was untouched. Notice the large holes in the walls. Also, pay close attention to the symbols on the windows and walls. We know that was mostly the work of Mr. Pedersen and a few of his close friends. We’ll follow the trail of the carnage as the video footage takes us here… [video of kitchen area] …into the kitchen. The explosion that took out the top half of the house was centrally located just above this room. Notice the ceiling has taken on a very downwardly bowing look to it. The ceiling did not collapse at any point, but it has been cordoned off just in case. More bodies as this video will show. [Video shows six more bodies; one large male appears to be torn in half.] The male we know to have been ripped in half. This is the late Mr. Pedersen. We are now going to skip ahead a bit. The rest of the remaining rooms in the house show us pretty much the same thing. Blood, bodies, destruction.”

  [Video cuts back to brief static, then returns to Chief Duggan once more at his desk.]

  “We are not going to show you the entire story from the beginning. The beginning as far as the video-taped evidence goes. We know that whatever Deacon & Pedersen were trying to achieve, they had been after for decades. To the best of our collective knowledge, we also believe that they failed. So we still have a great number of unanswered questions. The young female victim you will see next is Suzette Higgins. She had the usual tragic upbringing of violence and sexual abuse in her childhood, in and out of foster homes, history of drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, the works. This incident was merely a paycheck to her. This video footage shows her 1986 Ford Taurus pulling onto the grounds at the mansion. As you can see, a fairly large security guard comes out to greet her and escort her in. This is where the interior video feed begins, complete with sound.”

  [Video cuts to a young woman in a yellow dress with short, yet braided blonde hair sitting at a large oak desk. She is in an office and is currently alone. She waits less than five minutes and the door opens and a tall, slender man in a business suit walks in and shakes her hand.]

  “Ah, good morning, Miss Higgins. So very nice to meet you finally. I trust the directions were easy to follow,” he says jovially as he takes his seat across the desk.

  “Yes, very easy to follow. Not too many houses in the area are as big as this.” He took a moment to study her. She smiled nervously and looked uneasily around the room. “I love your art collection. I saw a few more in the hall. They are very pretty.” The man across the desk smiled again and said:

  “Yes, art has always been a passion of mine. If everything goes to plan, you too may become well-versed in the enthralling world of modern art. I, of course, am Miles Deacon. Miles is fine, as we are going to all be on very intimate terms soon enough.” She smiled nervously again and said:

  “Thank you, Miles.” She fumbled unconsciously with the strap of her purse.

  “Has anyone taken the time to go over the details of this little venture with you?” he asked opening a drawer and pulling out a small stack of legal-sized documents.

  “Well…” she began softly. “I understand the venture involves a gang-bang of some sort. There were few details provided to me so far, but I got that part.” She shrugged it off. “I’ve been involved in those before. That part won’t be a problem at all. I really don’t know much if anything about the rest of it.” He smiled coyly and asked:

  “The filming? Was that mentioned to you? And will there be any foreseeable problems with that?” The slightest trace of a smile that had happened across her face fell away.

  “Filming? I wasn’t told about any…” He interrupted.

  “Come now, Miss Higgins, we were off to such a promising start. Surely a woman such as yourself can handle a little filming scene. I mean, it isn’t as if we’re going to be selling it or posting it online anywhere. It is strictly for my private collection. I assure you, no one else will ever see it and shortly after the venture is finished, I will be destroying it personally. It’s all right here in the papers I need you to sign. I will also be present in the room at the time of the act so it’s not as if I would be seeing anything new once I had a copy. What happens inside the walls of my estate never escapes.” She visibly became uneasy after that last statement. “Oh, my dear, I don’t mean you. Good heavens, what do you think I am? A monster? No, my dear, once our scene is filmed, you and your two million dollars are free to go or stay the night and leave in the morning if you so prefer. It will be awfully late when we cut. Uh, stop, I mean. When we stop.” He smiled again and this time she joined him. She leans over the desk and begins to read the papers as he hands her a very expensive looking pen.
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br />   [Video cuts to a bedroom in the upstairs of the mansion. It is full of various dresses and skimpy lingerie hanging from clothes hangers. They are arranged from most conservative to most provocative. There are only two colors, red and black. All outfits are one color or the other or a combination. The door opens and Suzette Higgins is shown into the room. The butler is dismissed and Suzette is alone with Miles Deacon.]

  “I trust you will find something suitable here. All sizes that may fit you are present. You will first dress in something a bit more appropriate for the formal dinner we are providing this evening. All the other participants of the night’s venture will be there. You may wear what you wish. As for the rest of the evening, may I suggest the black lace number on the end with the small red roses? Of all that I see before me, it is my favorite choice for you.” He clapped his hands together once and said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Gerard, my personal assistant and butler will be back up here to check on you in a moment. I will see you at 6 p.m. sharp for dinner.” He turned to leave and stopped at the door. “Might I add, my dear, that you are ravishing in your beauty and I believe we have chosen correctly in this matter?” He smiled hugely. “6 p.m.”