by Ryan Sova
“Ditch the phone, drain your bank accounts, and run!!!”
“Who said that,” Garry asked?
There was no answer. Garry immediately realized that this was the same voice that had saved Garry at his apartment. He looked around his room. There was no one there. Garry still had no idea who the strange voice belonged to but knew without a doubt that he should listen to the counsel that this voice gave to him.
Garry looked at the time. It was a couple minutes past 4:00 PM. I was only asleep for a couple of hours, Garry realized. The bank should still be open for another hour.
Garry was about to start packing his things at the motel when he realized one important thing. If I am not going to be taking my phone, I am going to need to look up directions for where I am going before I leave. Garry would normally use the Google Maps App on his phone to provide him with all of his directions. Then a realization came to Garry, that’s why I can’t take my phone, they can probably track my GPS.
Garry worked as quickly as he could. The voice had given him a clarity that he had not had since he first learned that his life was in danger. As he was looking up directions, an idea came to his head. Without a second thought, he carried through with his idea and mapped out several sets of directions. He used the print function on his computer for each set of directions that he came up with. By printing to the Microsoft XPS Document writer, he was able to save each set of directions to his hard drive. Once he was finally finished with this task, he turned off the WIFI on his laptop and then closed his computer down. This would be the last time that he would connect to any internet service.
By the time that Garry had reached his car, it was 4:34 PM. I should still be able to make it to the bank before they close. Garry started driving to the nearest Wells Fargo in town. While driving, Garry took some time to think about his current predicament. Until now, Garry had felt relatively safe at the store because of the rules that the master had given to the undead. I thought that they were supposed to keep their murderous activity quiet? I thought that they weren’t supposed to make a scene? What are you supposed to call a mass shooting other than a FUCKING scene?
Garry continued to brood over this for most of his drive to the bank when suddenly something occurred to him. Detective Klaben did, in fact, manage to keep a low profile. Think about it, Garry thought to himself. How desensitized are we as a nation to mass shootings. Nowadays, when one occurs, unless it affected someone we know personally, we all just say, “Oh God, how many people died this time.” For most everyone who doesn’t have a loved one who was affected, we might feel sad for the people who died for a day or two, but then it is back to life as usual after that.
Garry suddenly realized that Detective Klaben had, in fact, obeyed the master’s instructions all along. Not only did the incident not draw unwanted attention to her, quite the opposite, she had managed to portray herself as the hero. The fundamental difference between Dalen Strong and Detective Klaben, Garry realized, was that Dalen was sloppy when he killed his wife, bringing unwanted attention to himself, drawing suspicion to both himself and his newly dead wife. Detective Klaben, on the other hand, had managed to draw suspicion away from her and instead, pointed that suspicion directly at Garry himself. She had not compromised her position at the precinct at all. If anything, she had actually strengthened her position.
For the final minutes of his drive to the bank, Garry considered what he was going to do after he emptied his bank account. How long do I have before they start looking for me, Garry wondered? Garry assumed that the shooting occurred right before he woke up which would mean that it only occurred about forty-eight minutes ago. It is going to take investigators some time to process the scene. Detective Klaben also isn’t going to point attention to the phone that the masked man is caring, or she might draw suspicion to herself in the process. No, she will let the investigation continue unhindered and let them find her planted evidence all on their own. Which will, in turn, buy me more time. After some reflection, Garry assumed that he had the night, or at least a few hours to make his getaway before the police would start pursuing him.
Garry arrived at the bank and entered the building. He approached the teller and requested that the total sum in his checking account be given to him in cash. After a couple of minutes, Garry had the cash that he had requested in an envelope. He then returned to his car and began making his way to the city of Richmond, Virginia. Garry drove straight for Richmond for the next hour and forty minutes. During his long drive, Garry considered the rest of his plan.
The voice had given him some good starting advice by keeping him from using his phone which police could have traced using his GPS and also by getting him to drain his bank accounts. Garry soon realized after he had followed this instruction that his debit card would have also left a digital trail that police could have followed. This by itself was not enough though. The next part of Garry’s plan would take place in Richmond.
Garry first stop in Richmond was at Lowes. Once there, Garry bought eight five-gallon gasoline containers and two screwdrivers, a flat head, and a phillips head. After leaving the Lowes store, Garry filled his car and all of his gas containers at the nearest gas station that he could find. Before arriving at this gas station, Garry calculated that this would cost him about one-hundred and forty dollars to which he was very close in his estimate. His total bill came to one-hundred-thirty-six dollars and sixty-eight cents which left him with three dollars and thirty-two cents in change after he was done pumping. Garry quickly stored all of his gas containers in the trunk of his car and then returned to the store to get his change. As Garry was pulling away from the gas station, he considered what he was going to do next.
His next step was to start searching the city for large parking lots and apartment complexes. He was not very particular in his search though, he just wanted to find places that had a lot of cars. These types of parking lots were not hard to find and it was not long before Garry had found one.
One important thing that Garry had realized during his long drive to Richmond was that, while the strange voice had given him some good starting advice, this alone was not enough. Thanks to Detective Klaben, Garry was now the prime suspect in a mass shooting. Once the police start looking for me, they are going to use every resource at their disposal to apprehend me. That means they are going to start a nationwide manhunt for me. They are going to have the media at their disposal. They are going to have every uniformed officer in the nation at their disposal, and most frighteningly they are going to have technology at their disposal. If I think for one moment that I can just hit the interstate and flee to another state or even another country without getting caught, I am gravely mistaken. Nowadays police use license plate scanners that will instantly flag me as a suspect and notify police where I am and also where I am heading. These scanners are everywhere, ranging from traffic lights, street signs, bridge overhangs, and even on the police cruisers roaming the streets.
Soon my vehicle information will be flagged on the national police database hotlist and wherever I go my license plate number will be scanned and will ping back my exact location to the investigators pursuing me, leaving me with nowhere left to hide. Therefore, my only way to survive is to somehow outsmart the system. Garry considered all of this as he began scouring the apartment complex’s parking lot.
He was on the lookout for vehicles that were the same make, model, and color as his 2005 Honda Civic, or were at least very similar in appearance. Garry was in luck. He had found a perfect match to his car. He made a mental note of the area that he had found the car in then kept on searching.
Garry continued searching various parking lots in the city for the next two and a half hours. This search yielded two more cars that were nearly identical to his 2005 Honda Civic. Garry made mental notes of where he had found the other two cars then returned to the apartment complex where he had spotted the first car. He pulled in next to the car and then took in a deep breath. This was where things we
re going to get risky.
Garry observed his surroundings. It was 10:48 PM and from what he could see, no one was outside at the moment. He moved quickly, grabbing his screwdrivers as he exited the vehicle. Garry continued to scan the area with his peripheral vision, watching for anyone who might come out of one of the many apartments nearby. Garry quickly loosened the screws holding in his license plate, then swapped plates with the lookalike car nearby.
Once Garry had finished, he jumped back into his car. He breathed a sigh of relief. No one had seen him. His heart was still beating out of his chest and his hands were visibly shaking. Garry realized that this was the first actual crime that he had ever committed. But this act, criminal as it was, was absolutely vital to his survival. Garry could now flee from Richmond without any worry of pursuit. Police investigators would soon close in on Richmond Virginia, following the many sighting that this lookalike car would generate throughout the city. In time, police would apprehend the dummy car only to find that they had been actually pursuing someone else this whole time. They would then have two more dummy cars in the city to find. By the time that they had managed to track them all down, Garry would be long gone and in a new city with a new set of plates.
Garry would then continue to hop from city to city in wildly random patterns, stopping frequently to swap plates as he went. He would make it a point to do so with multiple cars, especially if he had just crossed state lines. Garry assumed that most people wouldn’t notice if the numbers on their license plate were different, but to suddenly find an out of state license plate on the back of your car would defiantly raise suspicion. But still, even so, not everyone would immediately notice that their license plate had been swapped, which would give the police both sporadic and unreliable leads. The police investigators pursuing him would be following a seemingly endless trail of dead-end leads, all while Garry continued to slip by their efforts undetected.
Garry also knew all too well that police would inevitably use a search warrant to compel Google to release of all his internet searches and would then soon find all of his pre-mapped directions that he had made from his hotel room before leaving. What they would find once they had retrieved all of this information would be a literal web of driving directions to and from nearly every city in the US. Garry had been able to make this web of directions at a remarkably fast speed by opening the directions function on Google Maps and then clicking on random cities throughout the country, adding new locations as he went. Once he had reached his ten location limit, he would print, save, then start again. This incessant clicking fest went on for almost a full thirty minutes and in that time Garry had hit nearly every city in the US multiple times. Each city had been linked to multiple other cities forming a massive web of directions that was now stored on the hard drive of Garry’s computer.
Garry could now access driving directions from just about any city in the US to just about any city in the US without ever having to access the internet again. Police would be able to see what routes he might take from city to city but had no way of knowing which city he was in or which city he might be heading to next.
In carrying out this plan, Garry only had three worries. The first two worries were minor fears and would always stay in the back of his mind. One, that he would eventually get pulled over (his swapped plates might be able to fool the automated scanners, but one traffic stop and he would be caught for sure). Two, that someone would catch him stealing a license plate and turn him in (Garry planned on limiting his theft activity to times late at night or early in the morning to mitigate the danger he faced in doing this repeatedly).
His third fear, however, was what concerned him the most. I am going to burn through my money quick by running, what am I going to do when it’s gone?
CHAPTER 12
Eliak entered the room. Nephal and King Noah were already seated at the long conference table, waiting for him.
The room that they were in was rather small, at least compared to the Throne Room chamber that is. The Conference Room (as King Noah called it) had only one door and no windows. The walls of this room were adorned with paintings that covered every inch of the walls from top to bottom. From what Nephal could tell, the paintings showed much of the history of this nation. Important people and events from the history of the kingdom were depicted in a seemingly chronological order as one would walk clockwise around the room. Nephal was sure that there was much about the kingdom that he could have learned by simply asking King Noah about the story behind just one of the many paintings on the walls of this room.
The floors were made with what Nephal assumed was some sort of fine wood. They had been coated with a thick coat of wax, leaving them smooth to the touch. The floors also gleamed brightly in the artificial light produced in this room. At the center of the room was a large oval table with fifteen chairs circling it. The table and chairs were made of the same fine wood that the floors were made of. Each of the chairs, as well as the table, was coated with a thick layer of wax. Aside from the quality of the wood and the thick layer of wax, the table and chairs seemed to be rather plain looking. They were not adorned with any precious metals nor were there any intricate woodworking on any of the chairs or the table. King Noah and Nephal were seated next to each other at the left end of the table. Aside from Eliak, who had just entered the room moments ago, they were alone in the Conference Room.
The ceiling of this room was painted to look like the sky at noon-day; however, the image of the sun in this painting glowed with such a brightness as to make it difficult to look at it for very long. The images of the clouds in the sky also moved slowly across the ceiling and the room itself was filled with a gentle, warm breeze. The sound of birds chirping in the distance could also be heard occasionally. The feeling that one would have in this room made it seem like you were seated outside, enjoying a nice warm picnic in the summer breeze rather than being seated at an important council meeting. Nephal gazed up at the ceiling more than once while waiting for Eliak, just to make sure that he was not in fact outdoors. He could only look for a short time, though, and had to turn his head away every time due to the brightness of the artificial sun. Nephal had come to realize that, while the sun in this painting was exceptionally bright, it was not quite as bright as the real sun was.
Nephal spoke to Eliak and asked, “Are you feeling better now?”
Eliak answered, “My stomach is still in knots, but I think that I am over my vomiting episodes, at least for now.”
Eliak walked to the seat across from Nephal and took a seat. King Noah was at the end of the table.
King Noah waited for Eliak to take his seat, then spoke to both Nephal and Eliak, “Now that you are both here, let’s discuss the question that I know is burning on both of your minds. Why are you here?”
Nephal and Eliak said nothing. Their attention was fixated on King Noah. King Noah paused a moment then continued, “To answer this question properly, I must start at the beginning. Our world was created by two Gods: Hebernal, Tecethnes, and one Goddess, Seberath. Together, these Gods and this Goddess forged the worlds, moons, comets, and all other wonders around our sun. They created our Earth, divided the day and night, created oceans, lakes, streams, mountains, valleys, forests, and all the many wonders of the Earth we now live on. They created life in all of its many forms and varieties. They created us and watched over us. They guided us and nurtured us. For some reason, we were special to them. They favored us and gave us dominion over all things on the face of the Earth. They protected us, calming fierce storms, quieting tremors in the ground, giving us rain when we needed it, commanding trees to produce fruits and vines to produce berries. They came to us in the early days of our history and taught us to hunt, to fish, to grow crops, to build homes, to treat and care for each other. They gave to us free will and gave us all the right to choose for ourselves, whether or not we would follow their wise counsel or choose to follow our own course in the world that they created for us.
“In the
beginning, this world was a paradise. But then the dark days came. Then the demon came. A being of immense power came to our sun and claimed it along with all of its planets and moons for his own. Our Gods opposed this demon and a war broke out in the heavens as a result. Our Gods succeeded at driving the demon off, but at a terrible cost. The God Tecethnes died in the struggle.
“The God and Goddess of our world mourned the loss of Tecethnes, but even in their pain and anguish, they knew that the conflict with this demon was not over. The demon had been wounded in the battle but was very much alive. The Gods knew that this demon was somewhere in hiding, licking his wounds and regaining his power. Their time was short for once this demon came back with the fullness of his power, there would be no stopping him.
“The Gods came to the Earth and warned us of the calamity that was coming. While on this Earth, they bestowed a portion of their power to many of us and taught us the ways of magic. Once this task was done, they explained to us why they had given us this power. You see, the Gods knew that they had no hope of being able to drive this demon off a second time. It took their full combined strength to drive him off the first time and that was with three Gods. Now they were down to two.
“So they determined that if they could not defeat this demon through their combined magical might, they were going to need to defeat him in another way. Immediately upon bestowing a portion of their power with us, they returned to the heavens and began work on an enchantment, a powerful enchantment that would encircle this world with magical energy. This magical barrier would then act as a shield, protecting the Earth and all of its inhabitants from the powers of this demon. For the Gods to create this barrier was no simple task though. After all, its magical energy needed to be stronger than anything the demon was capable of doing to it. For this task to be possible, the Gods needed to impart everything to it, even their own life forces. They sacrificed themselves for us and in so doing, created an impenetrable barrier that even the demon with all of his power and might could never break.
