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.
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