by Roger Hayden
Sterling turned away from the morbid trophy display and approached a flat, stainless steel table. For the most part, it was clean, though she saw shades of red that had seeped onto the surface. Below the table were air tight plastic storage bins filled with bones. She opened the first bin on top and saw that it was filled with a mixture of human and animal bones.
A sense of death permeated the very air of the room. She closed the bin and turned to a large wooden table, where the windows were naturally boarded. Its surface was covered in saw dust. A large power saw lay across among all bits of wood. A shiny red tool storage cabinet stood nearby. She pulled on each drawer, but they were all locked. Her attention shifted to the many fertilizer bags stacked under the table.
The mini-light guided her through the room as she moved away from the table and glanced around for a light switch. The only source, it seemed, was from the track lighting above Landon’s trophies. Past the wood and saw dust were a sizable mess of black, red, and green wires cut and burnt at the edges. So, it was Landon the bomb maker. She had suspected as much earlier when hearing him work. The only thing left to do was to try and stop him.
The room Sterling found herself in was indeed Landon’s refuge. She wondered why he would leave it all behind. Away from the workbench, on the other side of the room, sat a large desk made completely from construction lumber. A desk lamp affixed to its side lit up the surface. Sterling approached and noticed stacks of notebooks next to a closed laptop.
She grabbed the first one on top, a red college-ruled, and opened it. The pages were filled from to top to bottom with black ink. She began at a random paragraph in the middle of the third page, where the handwriting matched the letter he had left her.
Thursday: I’m truly invisible, but I know that I’m not alone. Maybe this is what death feels like. I’ve quite taken to bird watching. Been reading a book called, Birds of South Carolina. Good find. I’ve also set up cages all around the cabin. Capturing, cutting, and skinning is necessary to hone my skills. Plus, I need to eat. My finances are dwindling, but that’s not going to matter soon. My favorite bird is probably the black-billed Cuckoo. My father was a coward to shoot himself.
Sterling paused and flipped through the rest of the notebook and saw that writing filled every page. She set the notebook down and took the next one. Its pages were filled as well. Landon had promised clues, though she considered it very unlikely. Each notebook, she began to see, had a number written in marker on the cover. There was twenty-two, five, seven, nine, and fifteen.
She spread the notebooks out and opened number twelve. It contained not endless writings, but page after page of gruesome pencil sketches—decapitated corpses, dead bodies, and human organs. She tossed number twelve aside and opened the dusty black laptop next to her. The welcome screen lit up. She pressed the Enter key and was then met with a log-in screen, requesting a password.
“Son of a…” she began, only to see a small text in the lower screen which read, “Password Hint: Notebook One.”
“Notebook one?” she asked herself, glancing at the different numbers displayed on covers. She typed the same response as the hint and received an “incorrect password” notification. She searched through the notebooks in a frantic haste, pushing aside seven, four, and twenty-three. The highest number she found was twenty-five.
Then, under the notebook marked eleven, she saw a large “one” written across the front of a green spiral college-ruled, its edges worn and faded. She opened it to find an index card on the first page, covering a portion of the endless scroll that awaited. Upon closer inspection, she could see that it was addressed to her.
Hello again, Detective. All my exciting plans are on the laptop. I’ve narrowed down your password hints to a fun game. To find it, you must read on. Or you could go get your detective buddies to figure this thing out. You don’t have much time though. Good luck. - Landon.
She set the notebook one down and sat under the desk lamp with a sigh. Even if she left the cabin with the laptop, she’d never make it to the station in time to stop anything. Landon obviously enjoyed his games, and all there was left for her to do was to read.
Back Then
From the Journal of Landon Kearney:
It was around September of 1990. I was seventeen years old and had just began my senior year of high school. For so long, I had wanted nothing more than to be done with it all. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to go to a good college, earn a degree in business administration, and run the family business beyond my parents’ wildest dreams. My father owned a factory and had a few investments throughout town. I knew that we could do more. The Kearney name was growing, and I was going to help us expand even more.
Each school year, I studied hard, focused on my grades, and prepared the best I could for the SAT. By eleventh grade, I had dozens of college applications sent out to several top-rated universities. I had worked at my father’s factory since I was ten years old. Most kids I knew at the time had no concept of work beyond household chores, but my parents instilled a work ethic in me that I’d grow to appreciate as time passed.
When they first purchased the factory on Old Industrial Way, Summerville’s main manufacturing sector, it had been a tile outlet for homes and business. But my father had other ideas. He wanted to distribute plastics. By our third year, Priceless Plastics was seeing a profit, and the Kearney name was gaining traction. But it was to be only the beginning.
On the night of my thirteenth birthday, my parents took me out for pizza to celebrate. I thought we were doing great, but their constant fighting had taken its toll. And it always involved money. My mother feared that the factory was going to bankrupt us. My father thought otherwise. And their argument continued throughout dinner as I ate my plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
Both my parents had grown up on farms in the same rural neighborhood in Yellow Springs, Ohio. They were high school sweethearts, where Mark, my father, was captain of the football team and Mary, my mother, was leader of the cheerleading squad. After high school, they married and moved to Akron, where my father worked as a steel press operator and my mother a book-keeper for the same factory.
Their separate vocations would benefit their future endeavors. My father had worked in warehouses his entire adult life, from entry-level positions to shop foreman to supervisor. After two years of marriage, I was born. My father was twenty-one years old. My mother was nineteen.
It was during our pizza dinner that my father told me that I would never have any biological siblings. Unless they adopted, I would be an only child. They had recently discovered that my mother couldn’t have any more children. That evening, I’ll never forget his words or his stern gray eyes.
“Son. You’re very important to this family. Many years from now, everything will be up to you.”
That evening, he wore his blue and white striped flannel, blue jeans, and work boots. He was a tall, stocky man, twice my size, who I had always thought of as a giant. His dark, busy beard was reminiscent of a lumber jack. My mother sat quietly and listened as he explained my potential.
“We’re going to try to send you to the best college we can, and give you the opportunities we could only dream about at your age.” Ha paused and then pointed at me with his thick oil-stained finger. “You have to apply yourself though. Nothing will be given to you. I’ll only expect your best at all times. Deal?”
He held his hand out to shake. I glanced at my mother with her pinned-back brown her, thin face, and librarian glasses. She seemed to echo his sentiments. I shook his hand. His grip was as strong and assuring as ever. They made me feel like someone who mattered. There was undeniable pressure on me to succeed, and I began to worry that I wasn’t as good or smart as they thought I was. But I didn’t want to let them down.
“It’s time to grow up,” he told me in closing.
I tore a big chunk of pizza off my last slice as MC Hammer played overhead. We ate in silence for a moment when a question came out
of me I hadn’t planned on even getting into. “Why’d you marry Mom?”
My father looked up, surprised as I was, wiped his face with a napkin and then nodded with a slight smile. “We were good for each other. I just knew it. You know, when you look at a girl and just see it there, clear as day?”
“Are you both happy now?”
He answered after this weird pause. “Of course we are. I mean, we have our differences like any married couple, but you shouldn’t worry about that now.”
I shrugged and bit at my crust. “I just don’t see the point in being with someone if you’re not happy.”
My father laughed. “You’ll see someday. Are there any girls you’re talking to now?”
The question hit me out of nowhere. I looked down, embarrassed, and said no.
“That’s okay,” he said. “Just concentrate on your schooling and the rest will take care of itself.” We wiped our hands and faces with napkins as my father paid the check. On our way out, he wished me a happy birthday again with a slap on the back. I felt embarrassed about all the attention. My parents were already dating at seventeen. That was only four years older than me at the time. I hadn’t even dated a girl yet. I could barely talk to one, and I didn’t know at the time that it would be years later before that would change.
By junior year, I was sixteen and not much had changed. I wasn’t socially active. Most of my time was spent working at the factory or studying. My best friend was a boy named Nick Talbot. We had been friends since middle school and were equally unpopular for years to come.
We hung out at each other’s houses during the weekends and daily at school. Every day after school, I rode my bike to the factory where I operated machines, inventoried, swept the floors, and other busy work. Priceless Plastics had over fifteen full-time and part-time employees. We primarily manufactured bottles, cups, plates, and utensils along with whatever my father believed to be profitable.
I worked five to six hours each day until closing time, bored to tears most nights. But it gave me time to think of ideas. I wanted to create something that would change the world. Back then, cell phones were getting popular. The Internet was gaining steam. It was a time of innovation, and I wanted a piece.
Some nights, I didn’t just think of ideas. There were times I felt alone and sad, like any teenager. Other times I felt angry and full of disturbing thoughts that I kept only to myself. I imagined ways I could hurt or even kill some of much older factory employees. I knew every inch of the place and could make it look like an accident. There was an overweight loud mouth named Bruce who would always boss me around. He had something to prove, and didn’t like the idea of a person my age doing the same job as him.
“You ain’t shit,” he’d say to me. “And I don’t care who your dad is.”
I didn’t so much mind his endless taunts as I did his slovenly appearance. Deep down, I wanted to hurt him. One evening, I poured cleaning solution across the concrete floor near the break room. I hid around the corner and waited until Bruce came down the hall. He slipped and fell hard on his back like a bag of rocks. I covered my mouth and tried to hold my laughter as he writhed in pain.
It took him a few minutes to get up. He cursed up a storm, got up, and limped away. I stayed hidden near a stack of pallets, my face reddened and wet with tears. The sight of Bruce flopping around remained a constant source of amusement for me for years to come.
A few months later, my parents got me a car after I got my leaner’s permit; an old Ford Escort with over seventy-thousand miles on it. It ran fine for the most part and I had never been happier. What it lacked in inside carpeting, air conditioning, or radio, it had in character. And it was all mine.
I received the license plate and registration in the mail. I had paid for a tune-up, fixed the radiator, and even installed a stereo. Soon, I was ready to drive it to school on the first day of my senior year. That morning, smoke fumed from under the hood as I pulled into the school parking lot. The radiator was still acting up. I walked toward the school and saw Nick standing there, eyes widened, near the bike rack.
“Runs like a dream!” he said, laughing.
I told him that I was working on it. We walked to class together, both nervous of what the day would bring. He then looked at me and noticed my collared shirt and new jeans.
“You’re all dressed up,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s the first day,” I said back.
“You still trying to impress Rachel?” he asked me.
Rachel was a girl I kind of liked in junior year, but couldn’t make a move on. We hadn’t talked the entire summer. My first block that morning was art class. Nick had PE, which he wasn’t too happy about. We parted ways and went to class just as the tardy bell rang. I walked quickly inside the classroom with my head down and went to the back table.
The art teacher, Mrs. Ambrose, leaned against her desk. She faced the class and introduced herself. There were about fifteen other students in the classroom, sitting among three rows of tables. I took my notebook out and opened it to the first blank page. She explained that, in her class, we would be learning about art in addition to practicing it. I was no artist, but I did like to draw from time to time.
For our first exercise, she asked that we sketch a self-portrait. Our stunned faces said it all. “It’ll be okay,” she assured us in the class’s uncomfortable silence. “Just give it a shot. Have fun with it.” I figured it was an easy enough assignment for the first day, and fished out some pencils from my backpack.
As I began to get started, two girls seated one stool over from me quietly laughed. I knew the first girl from the year before. Her name was Betsy Wade. She was a popular girl, pretty with straight blonde hair, a thin face, and large blue-green eyes. She always wore the same pink headband with the latest in school fashion.
She had on a long-sleeved collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans, and Converse sneakers. I found everything about her irresistibly attractive. But that didn’t matter. I didn’t even think she remembered who I was.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Ambrose,” a kid said with his hand raised. “How can we draw a self-portrait without a mirror?”
Mrs. Ambrose smiled and sat behind her desk. “Just draw whatever comes to mind. You might be surprised.”
I stared with an oval of bushy hair, long stringy arms, and gawky stance. I glanced in Betsy’s direction and accidentally made eye contact with the girl seated next to her, Sarah Jenkins, who looked away. I buried my eyes into my rough drawing just as Mrs. Ambrose announced the bright idea of “sharing” our portraits with a classmate or two. I just hoped that no one would notice me.
“Hey there,” a girl’s voice said to me. I looked up and saw Betsy looking over.
I shielded my drawing and tried to stay calm. “Oh. Hi.”
“Wanna see mine?” she asked. She pushed her drawing toward me. It was a nice likeness of her face with several clouds drawn around it. “That’s where my heads at right now. What do you think?”
“It’s good,” I said.
She then asked to see my drawing, and I reluctantly handed it to her.
“That’s good,” she told me. “Better than mine.”
“Don’t lie,” I said. But she insisted so.
She then examined me closer. “Landon? Oh, wow. Your hair is different.”
“That’s me,” I said and brushed it back.
She leaned closer and touched my shoulder. “I thought it was you. You helped me pass statistics last year. Thank you so much.”
We had sat near each other. I’d help her out from time to time. I didn’t think she remembered.
I waved her off. “That’s okay. Don’t mention it.”
“How was your summer?” she asked.
I tried to cover up my nervousness. “Good. Just worked a lot. I got a car.”
Her eyes lit up as her voice went louder. “Really! That’s awesome.” Sarah Jenkins turned and gave me a disapproving look.
“Yeah, I drove
it today, actually.” I said.
Betsy smiled. “I’d like to see it sometime.”
A smile from Betsy Wade could make your entire day. Our conversation was short-lived, however, as Sarah pulled her back. I returned to drawing lines and shapes on my paper as quiet chatter resumed throughout the classroom. The teacher talked to us some more until the bell rang, and my first class of the day had come to an end. Betsy waved goodbye and I met up with Nick to walk to our next class. All the while, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The rest of the day was uneventful. I had Spanish class next, followed by lunch, Humanities, and Algebra II. And that’s how things went for some time.
After school, I drove to the factory to work my five to six hours, running the machines and fixing any inevitable clogs that happened. I read between breaks, studying for the SATs. Betsy kept returning to my mind. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her, but I certainly didn’t care for the distraction. As I got ready for school the next morning, I put even more attention into my appearance with my hair brushed my hair back and a nicer shirt.
“You look spiffy,” my mother told me when I entered the kitchen.
I thanked her as my father rushed into the kitchen with a coffee mug in hand, barely noticing me. “This coffee’s cold,” he said as he poured it out into the sink. He looked at my mother with near contempt. “What were you thinking?”
I tried to slip out of the kitchen without him noticing, but he turned right in my direction. “Hey. Did you forget to clean up last night?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I mean. I think I did.”
“The shop floor wasn’t swept, machines weren’t oiled, and the place looked like shit,” he said, angered. “Phil just called and told me.”
I apologized and left the kitchen as his scolding echoed down the hall. I then hurried off and drove to school with my radiator as smoky as ever. I walked into art class before the tardy bell and moved quickly to the back with my head down. I sat down and glanced to the side. Betsy’s stool was empty, though Sarah was there. I turned away and dug through my backpack as Mrs. Ambrose welcomed us back and went on about our next assignment.
