New Eden Chronicles – The Animal Interlude - Chapter 2

Yesterday...

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Douglas blurts as he slams the phones handset down hard into its cradle nearly shoving the entire set-up off his desk. “This is all I need right now” he mutters to himself as he plops back into his chair suddenly realizing all eyes in the squad room are fixated on him. Shooting a stern glare back at the assemblage is all it takes to sever their gaze and put everyone back to work.

Police Captain Charles Douglas isn’t someone to be trifled with, and his people know it. A career military man, with time of service in various Special Forces units, the Captain had recently taken down a drugged out perp with a Swingline stapler from across the room. The guy was about to overpower one of his rookie deputies when the red steel stapler shot through the room like a missile striking the assailant square in the back of his head—sending him down for the count. Everyone who witnessed the incident swore the damn thing left a contrail as it streaked across the squad room. Impossible, of course, but it made for a colorful footnote to the story.

You'd think an episode like that would mandate a severe rebuke of all involved, and a refresher course on proper police procedure. Instead, Douglas barked, "someone make sure that damn stapler gets back on my desk—and wipe off the blood!"

Douglas believes in leading by example, and learning from your mistakes. He would later be overheard telling the Police Commissioner, "the kid screwed up, Morgan, but no one died."

"He may as well be dead!” Morgan shot back.

"Who?” Douglas asked.

"The perp!” shouted Morgan, so loud that Douglas pulled the phone away from his ear for a second. "That damn stapler drove a piece of skull deep enough into his brain that he'll be a retard at best for the rest of his life. What the hell were you thinking?" Morgan continued admonishingly.

"He was going for the rookie’s gun", said Douglas, "how in the hell would you of liked me to handle that situation?"

"Truthfully?” asked Morgan—somewhat condescendingly.

"Yes—truthfully", repeated Douglas, echoing the Commissioner's tone.

"Shoot the bastard next time!" Morgan paused—"that's off the record of course."

"Of course" said Douglas, again dittoing the Commissioner's response, and tone. "And that would have been an option if I had been stapling my reports with my sidearm."

That comment pretty much ended the phone call. A week later a similar situation arose during a prisoner transfer to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police unit from neighboring Ontario. Just as the RCMP had taken control of the prisoner he knocked one officer to the ground and managed to relieve the other of his weapon. The Captain quickly drew his Glock 32C and without hesitation delivered a single slug dead center of the thug’s forehead. As the lifeless form crumpled to the floor, Douglas holstered his weapon and barked at the stunned group of his people “Somebody get those Mounties a bucket and a mop!” Then glowering at the two shaken blood splattered Mounties “You clean that shit up and get the hell out of my city!”

Week’s later skull fragments and dried brain matter are still turning up in various parts of the squad room—but there was no phone call—not that time.

In the earliest days of New Eden, Douglas’ four precincts and one hundred police officers under his command mostly stood around twiddling their thumbs. Other than an occasional parking ticket or traffic violation there wasn’t so much as even a hint of an actual crime being committed in this city. It was strange; strange enough that Douglas considered quitting many times over the years. Even once asking the Founder “What the hell do you need me for, Adam? You could put a boy scout troop leader in charge of this city.” As was always the case Adam had a way of convincing him, and everyone else for that matter, to see things his way. Even though Adam had persuaded Douglas to stick around he never really liked Adam’s response.

“We will,” Adam had said, “one day Douglas, we will need you.”

It was two years after that conversation that Adam Graham disappeared without a trace. In the weeks leading up to Adam’s disappearance Douglas had needed to promote some of his officers to investigators because there had been a crime. A transient had wandered into town undetected and mugged a resident. A few days later he promoted a couple more after a robbery was reported; another transient, another crime. Then, the day before it was discovered Adam Graham was missing, an assault and battery was reported, and two more made the jump to investigator.

The next day Adam was nowhere to be found—and the city erupted. All at once, synonymous with its birth, New Eden burst out of the picturesque image of perfection it had enjoyed for so many years; and suddenly New Eden needed Douglas—just like Adam had predicted.

New Eden’s first mysterious death occurred three weeks later, late in Douglas’ nineteenth year on the job. The scene was so grisly that everyone was convinced it was an animal attack. And that’s how it was written off—at first. The victim had been torn to shreds. Blood spatter and tattered flesh surrounded the body like confetti. It was everywhere. There was barely enough left to verify the find as human, let alone make a positive identification.

A medical examiner was brought in from a neighboring city and she attributed the attack to a pack of wolves, wild dogs, or possibly a bear. Only none of those animals were indigenous to New Eden; nor had any been seen or heard in the days prior to, or following the attack.

The victim turned out to be Bob Morgan, Police Commissioner Robert “Bob” Morgan who in Adam Graham’s absence was looked to as the de facto leader of New Eden.

Like Douglas, Bob Morgan had been a career military man before joining the New Eden Police Department; they had even served together. Morgan was once a national champion collegiate wrestler, and highly capable combat veteran. At 59 years of age he could still best ninety percent of the department in hand-to-hand combat, and half of those two and three men at a time. A fact he boasted about quite often. It was a hard to pill for Douglas to swallow that whatever got Bob Morgan got away without a fight. But when all the blood, flesh, hair, and DNA evidence had been analyzed it all belonged to Morgan.

No evidence of what had gotten to him. No eye witnesses. No one had even heard a sound. A 6’-3” man weighing 225 pounds was savaged by something in the middle of the night, on a populated street, and no one heard or saw anything. It was strange.

Strange was a word Douglas often used throughout his tenure in New Eden. How New Eden itself came into being was strange enough. It was strange that absolutely no crimes of any significance were committed here during Douglas’ first nineteen and three-quarter years of command. It wasstrange that things started to unravel in the weeks preceding Adam’s disappearance. It was strangethe first person to die mysteriously in New Eden was the Police Commissioner and acting Founder. And it was strange when the second body found, and the three after that, were all New Eden officials who were in succession to Bob Morgan as interim leader. Douglas’ realization was that not only was there a murderer in New Eden, but that Adam Graham may have been the first victim.

It was a brief conversation with New Eden’s Sanitation Director, the last remaining city official, which convinced him to bypass his office in the city hierarchy and give the reigns of power over to Captain Douglas—thereby making himself the target.

A very public press conference was called so the announcement was certain to reach the animal responsible for these murders. Although not publically acknowledged by the police department that during the preceding eight weeks each and every acting Founder or city leader had been savagely murdered, the New Eden press had overtly speculated that was the case. During which time the press had transitioned from using “animal” as a description of the person responsible for these ferocious murders to Animal as the moniker for a serial killer.

The day after Douglas’ announcement a package arrived at his desk. He eyed it cautiously as a sickening feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. Even before the bomb squad had determined it wasn’t an explosive, or biological weapon Douglas knew the contents. The hand scrawled note that accompanied the package was barely legible even though it only contained three words— “Now your turn”.

Douglas surmised the box contained what was left of the Sanitation Director. Although it would take days for the DNA to confirm that for certain one thing was evident; the Animal knew the city hierarchy also.

Now, still staring at the phone, Douglas was trying hard to grasp what he'd just heard at the other end of that conversation. "This city has gone absolutely bat shit crazy!” he thought to himself. It had been ninety-three days since the Founder disappeared without a trace. In that time numerous crimes, both violent, and non violent were escalating exponentially with no apparent end in site. It was as if Adam was the glue that held New Eden together. And once that “glue” had vanished—New Eden quickly fell apart.

And to top things off, Douglas just learned Adam’s own spiritual leader, Father Nathan Darke, had apparently himself—just committed a murder.

New Eden Chronicles - The Animal Interlude

What follows is my first attempt at "publishing" a fictional story. In as much as a Facebook Note is publishing that is. I've been laboring over this draft for so long trying to make it perfect that I almost scrapped the whole idea altogether. But as with my previous non-fiction notes I have to look at this as an exercise toward developing my writing style, and not an endeavor to write the next "War and Peace". If you feel inclined to do so I would enjoy hearing feedback from anyone who would like to give it. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy.

Giving credit where credit is due I would like to say my version of the setting for this story is based on a creation by my friend Victor DiGiovanni some 26 years ago in Sulphur, Louisianna, and the villain from a character created by Jenifer Boone Lybrand.

Introduction

Although the name New Eden shouldn't conjure images of darkness or corruption it's important to note this is the current state of being, and not its origin. During most of New Eden’s first two decades it was an abundant untroubled place. All that came to live and work there were successful in their ventures and enjoyed a happy fruitful existence. There was no crime, sickness, unemployment, homelessness, unhappiness, or even death. It was in every sense of the word—Eden. Throughout most of those first twenty years so many marveled at New Eden’s miraculous birth, and continuous prosperity, while only a very few knew the dire portent of its existence—or that of its Founder, Adam Graham.

For two decades and a day ago, New Eden didn’t exist.

Prologue

New Eden’s twentieth Founders Day has come without celebration—and without its Founder. Adam Graham disappeared without a trace three months earlier and with him went New Eden’s innocence. It was as if almost two decades of crime and misery had been unleashed like a flood upon a city whose worst criminal offense up until that day had been a parking ticket. If it was a single apple that delivered sin unto the Garden of Eden then the residents of New Eden must have consumed an entire orchard that day….

Chapter 1

Douglas could feel the life draining from his crumpled form as he lay in a crimson sea of his own blood. In a final attempt at self preservation he tries to shift his body so the gaping wound in his left side is pressed hard against the cold stone floor. Wracked with pain from the effort, Douglas quickly losses consciousness….

Seemingly hours later, Douglas awakes and the crimson sea now resembles a reddish mud. Lying with his back against the wall, his left side to the hard stone floor, coagulated blood now surrounds the wound. At the time he had thought this a fleeting attempt to prolong his life, but it appears the bleeding has stopped; Douglas now lay stuck to the hard stone floor. Consciousness fades again….

Struggling for a breath, Douglas awakes with a jerk and expels a lung full of blood. The thick salty liquid had been pooling in his throat and mouth slowly choking out his breath. He was able to seal his external wounds for now, but during the Animal’s vicious attack razor sharp claws had penetrated deep into his flesh lacerating his lungs, and esophagus. The internal bleeding was filling his filling his chest cavity, squeezing his organs like a dishwasher wringing out a sponge, and seeping into his throat and lungs. There was nothing he could do about this. He was drowning in his own blood with no hope to stop the internal bleeding, no way to save himself— not now; unconsciousness….

The ear piecing scratching noise in the distance invaded Douglas’ unconscious mind forcing him to awaken once more. Like fingernails on a chalkboard the sound impales his senses sending a cold chill throughout his ravaged form, and forces his burning blood soaked eyes open. Douglas can barely focus in the dim glow of dozens of candles now spilling their light into the cavernous chamber before him.

Douglas had responded to an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city based on an anonymous tip with only a small flashlight and his sidearm as back-up. “Stupid—I knew better!” he thinks to himself as he lay reflecting on the events that had gotten him to this point. In the basement of the building he discovered an open trapdoor in the floor and descended a flight of rickety wooden stairs into a dank musty sub basement. Directly adjacent to the staircase a stone corridor revealed itself and Douglas followed it to an arched doorway at its end. He had barely passed through that opening when the Animal struck from behind. In the ferocity of that onslaught the enormity of the space Douglas had entered was lost on him. His last recollection before he blacked-out from the attack was the frightening physical appearance of the Animal himself.

Now, following the sound with his eyes, Douglas’ gaze falls first on a familiar black object that lay just outside the reach of his outstretched arm—his pistol. Beyond that, another hundred feet or so with his back to him stands the Animal. His tall sinewy form, long black stringy hair, and cadaverous completion, are barely more visible than a shadow in the faint light, but are indelibly etched into Douglas’ mind. The Animal’s initial savage attack had been brief, at best, but before Douglas lapsed into unconsciousness the beast had pressed him hard against the wall, looked him dead in the eyes, inhaled deeply through flaring nostrils as if drawing in Douglas’ scent, then chillingly proclaimed— “You smell of death”.

The scratching sound Douglas hears is that of the mechanical claws the Animal wears on each hand as he uses them to inscribe something into the stone wall. As the shimmering candlelight light wafts across the walls Douglas can see the inscriptions appear to cover most of the visible wall surface, but it is much too far away, and much too dark for him to make out their meaning.

Shifting his attention back to the pistol in front of him, Douglas extends his fingers trying desperately to reach the grip. “Still a little too far”, he thinks to himself. Turning his palm flat to the stone surface Douglas digs in his nails and tries to claw his hand toward the weapon. His arm inches forward slightly, his body shifts with it riveting him with immense pain as his world suddenly fades to black—perhaps for the last time….

"I'm still alive", Douglas thinks to himself as his mind edges back toward consciousness. No longer hearing the scratching sound he again wonders how long he has been out—and what the Animal is up to now. He opens his eyes struggling once more to focus. It is quiet now except for his own labored breathing. Gone is the light from the dozens of candles that barely illuminated the area where the Animal dutifully incised the stone wall. In their stead a single candle now burns in the middle of the room illuminating a very tiny sphere of the enormous space. The inscriptions, the walls, and the Animal have all receded into the darkness.

"What is he waiting for?" Douglas thinks to himself. "Just finish me off dammit!" He tries to scream the words but manages only a barely audible gurgle as a gush of red fluid races forth from his mouth along with the words. Dropping his gaze from the single candle he eyes the weapon once more only mere inches from his fingers—and notices the fresh pool of blood surrounding it. His last attempt to reach his sidearm had obviously reopened the gash on his side and he was bleeding profusely. He wonders now, even if he could reach the pistol, whether or not he has the strength to pull the trigger.

Douglas also realizes he feels nothing at this point; not his arms; not his legs; not the blood pouring from his body; not the pain that permeated every fiber of his being—nothing—nothing but coldness.

Resolute to his fate Douglas’ attention treads momentarily to another place and time, then is snatched back just as suddenly as his eyes catch sight of a dark silhouette slowly creeping into his field of vision from the right—from the corridor. As the figure nears, Douglas’ body is enveloped in the shadow of the towering black form lowering itself beside him. Unable to move his head, Douglas can only tell the figure is dressed in black, and not the tattered scraps that the Animal wears. “Who is this?” he asks himself. Douglas feels warm fingers against his neck as the figure reaches to check his pulse, then extends his other hand to retrieve Douglas’ weapon. He watches as the figure quickly discharges the magazine for an ammo check, replaces it, then draws the slide back to be sure a round has been chambered. “Whoever this is he knows his way around a weapon.” Douglas admires silently. Then the stranger places the weapon in Douglas’ hand. He tenses, and tries to say something but the figure leans toward him and speaks softly into the air.

"Shh—this will all be over soon."

There is comfort in the tone of this man's voice, and familiarity in his manner. This is not the Animal—nor is it one of Douglas' men. The stranger stands drawing himself up to his full height and makes his way slowly toward the light as if daring the Animal to reveal himself.

"Don't!" Douglas manages, but far too softly for him to hear. The man is weaponless, as near as he can tell, and it’s Douglas’ hope the gun placed in his hand by this man is not his only means of protection against the Animal.

As the stranger nears the glimmer of light surrounding the candle, Douglas realizes who it is that has come to his aid. The dark figure, the stranger, the towering black form that handled Douglas’ weapon like a seasoned professional is none other than the priest he’d come to this place to look for—Father Nathan Darke.

Through burning watery eyes Douglas watches as Nathan Darke, now standing in that puny orb of light, seems to change in form and dress from the dark clad figure of a man in his late fifties to that of a younger man clad in a long coat and attire that appears to be from centuries past. Douglas assumes it’s a trick of the light, or he is finally losing his mind.

Summoning every last bit of strength he has, and fighting against pain, and unconsciousness, Douglas raises his weapon to aim at the priest.

Suddenly—the Animal strikes—Douglas fires...!