by Jack Davis
He pulled up real estate tax information and other public records, but nothing gave him what he needed. School records, although confidential, were also not conclusive. What if the kids went to private schools, or were too young? There were no truly reliable technological methods of determining all the information he needed. The little-purple-pill effect had worn off.
After another week the man was desperate. That desperation fueled his solution. The answer was travel to where these sub-humans lived and see if they had children.
Once he had decided he was going to travel, the man actually had fun planning it. It required him to use a false ID and act like someone else. That was the part of credit card fraud he enjoyed the most. Now he was going to get the chance to take it to the next level. He was going to have to take on a completely new persona and live it. It was like WoW; he could be anyone he wanted to be…within reason.
To interact with others meant he would have to eliminate the more glamorous professions. Professional athletics was not going to be possible. The same for acting or being an astronaut. He finally settled on the medical profession. He liked the thought of people treating him like a doctor. He felt he looked the part, and with a small amount of internet research, he could absorb enough background to make it believable. He spent an inordinate amount of time in the initial planning stages, and by the start he had gone over his cover story dozens of times.
The first quest was thoroughly organized and well executed…until the very end. His travel through New York’s LaGuardia Airport went smoothly. He arrived in Atlanta, rented a car, and drove to the suburb of Marietta, where he checked into a Motel 6.
After playing WoW until four in the morning, he slept until the phone rang. It was eleven-thirty a.m. and the front desk clerk told him he would either have to check out by noon or pay for an extra night. The man smiled—he wouldn’t be paying for any part of the trip anyway, so he told the clerk to charge his credit card, and he went back to sleep. Waking shortly before 2 p.m., he took a shower and left the room, careful not to leave any evidence behind.
He drove to the address of “Sweet Southern Belle,” whose real name was Mabel Harris. She and her husband had used the innocent look to its full advantage. Any given month, they had between three hundred fifty and four hundred customers willing to pay $9.95 to watch the demure Mabel get ravaged.
The man was able to get the information he was looking for by just driving by the house. He saw two children’s bikes in the yard and a boy shooting baskets in the driveway. He drove by and slowed down, momentarily mesmerized by the youngster, who looked to be about ten years old. The man thought about himself at that age and what he had endured. He wondered if the boy was the butt of jokes by other kids in school. He wondered if later some of the other kids would pretend to be his friend to see if he would open up the blinds to the front window so they could watch his mother. As he struggled with demons that had lay hidden just below the surface of his psyche, he didn’t realize the car was drifting toward the side of the road.
The sound of metal scraping metal brought the man back to reality. He had sideswiped a maroon Chevy Impala. To add to his shock, the owner had been walking to his car at the time of the accident. The man stepped in front of the rental, pounded on the hood, and started yelling. He looked to be about thirty. He wore coveralls, work boots, and a ball cap. He was stocky and enraged. He moved to the driver’s side and yanked opened the door.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you? Do you see what you did to my car?”
All the man could do was sheepishly respond, “I’m very sorry. I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry.”
“Not paying attention, what the fuck were you looking at?”
“I’m sorry…I was daydreaming.” The man was sweating profusely as he sat there and tried to explain why he wasn’t paying attention.
“I can’t believe this; I have to go to work, and now I have to deal with this shit! You better have good insurance.”
This was the first time the man had even considered the thought of having insurance that matched his fake ID. All he had was false ID, and no insurance.
“It’s a rental car. I think it’s part of the policy.” He was struggling to remember if he’d signed for that option.
The Impala owner kept barking, “What about you, you have to have personal auto insurance? I don’t want to have to wait for months before the rental car company decides to pay. You got insurance of your own, don’t ya?” The man took a cell phone out of his shirt pocket and started to dial. “I gotta get to work. I’ll call the cops and have ’em fill out a quick report so I don’t get screwed.”
Panic—how was he going to deal with the false ID and insurance issue if the police got involved? He blurted out, “Wait, don’t call the police.”
“What? I gotta have a police report for my insurance company to start the claim.”
A quick flash of inspiration. “I’ll pay for everything in cash.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll pay for everything in cash. I don’t want to get the police involved. I’ll give you cash.”
The man’s victim looked confused and more than a little skeptical. “You got insurance problems?”
He grabbed the lifeline with every ounce of mental strength the adrenaline in his system could produce. His next logical thought gave the man the ruse that would sustain him for years.
“Listen, I’m a doctor, and I have had a few other slight accidents. I’m a little absent-minded. All just fender benders, no one got hurt.” He was quick to add this part. “My insurance is horrible right now; another problem and they may drop me. I’ll make it worth your while. I can get the money today; it won’t take months. Can we take care of this with cash and avoid the insurance companies?”
The Impala owner was thinking, weighing the options.
The good doctor decided to help the process along. “You figure out what it’s worth to you. I’ll give you that and then more for your inconvenience.”
“Let’s see what we think about the damage first. Pull over and let’s have a look.”
The man complied and the two looked at the side of the damaged car. The actual damage was slight and might have been able to be buffed out and repainted. All told, it should have cost between three and four hundred dollars. When the Impala owner said four-fifty, the man said six hundred, in the hopes of getting the transaction over more quickly. The man noticed the Impala owner’s mood change significantly. The offer of a small windfall seemed to have that effect on most everyone; the man learned to count on that reaction.
As the man calmed down, he started to take control of the situation. He came up with the idea of driving the Impala owner to work and stopping at an ATM on the way. During the drive, he was able to test out his character background. He found a few holes and had to ad lib. When they reached the bank, he took a cash advance on one of his false credit cards. He worried because he knew that the cash transaction would be reported more quickly than regular charges, but he didn’t see any other option.
When he got back in the car, he gave his newfound friend the number of his cell, “to reach me in case there’s more damage we didn’t see.” It was a nice touch and gave his victim the level of security he needed to completely let down his guard. The man dropped the Impala owner at work and the two shook hands.
“Thanks again for not getting the cops involved. And if there’s any other damage you call me, okay?”
There was a nod and a friendly smile.
He left the rental car in the airport parking lot and purchased a ticket in a name not matching that on the rental agreement.
While the man was waiting for his flight, he contacted child protective services for the Marietta area. He explained how the parents at 600 Watson Boulevard were abusing their children by their promiscuous lifestyle. He said he was a concerned neighbor. To his amazement, the woman on the other end of the line asked him if he had any proof.
“Proof? Li
ke what kind of proof?”
“Sir, do you have anything to support your allegations? Have you seen any behavior or any change in the personality of the children?”
“What?”
“Sir, what are you basing your allegations on?”
“The parents are running a swingers website out of their house; the kids are being exposed to what’s going on. What more do you need?”
The voice on the other end of the phone was kind but firm, “We need something more than an anonymous phone call from someone who has no hard evidence that the children are being affected before we turn a family’s world upside down.”
“And the kids need to be fucked up before you can do anything?”
“Sir, first, you need to watch your language. Then you must give me some evidence other than you think something is happening. Our system requires a little more than that! Do you have any evidence the children have been harmed or are going to be harmed?”
“Then the system is fucked up! You’re fucked up.” He slammed down the payphone.
The man fumed the whole way home. The system is fucked up! It’ll only step in after the kids were already traumatized. This is bullshit. I gave them everything they needed to be proactive, and they’re going to hide behind policies and procedures. The kids are already emotionally scarred and by the time the system does anything, it’ll be way too late. I tried to work within the system, and this is what I got. Something has to be done!
46 | The Perfect Storm. Terrible Resolve
Endwell, New York, 09/23/00, 2015 hours
On September 23rd,, a month after the trip to Georgia, the fourth large thunderstorm of the month cut through the Susquehanna Valley region of upstate New York. In many ways in turned out to be a landlocked version of The Perfect Storm, only this one would cost more lives over the next decade.
It wasn’t the size, intensity or even the amount of rain that made the storm unique. This region of upstate New York was no stranger to huge thunder boomers. The significance of the storm was brought about by a combination of factors, both natural and man-made.
It came on the heels of three other hefty storms within a twenty-two-day period, and within two days of the most recent. There was little warning as it had been tracking to the south, but made a northerly direction change over western Pennsylvania and headed straight toward the Binghamton area. Rolling in shortly before seven p.m., just after dark, it brought severe lightning. The flashes were frequent and spectacular. Last, it hit on a Monday, and this was the second Monday of bowling leagues in Endicott.
Shortly after eight-fifteen, lightning struck a local power line, which tripped a transformer at the substation. This knocked out power to a section of homes, including 610 West Wendell.
The man was in his basement at the time working on a patch to his data transfer code when the lights went out. His heart rate increased as he waited and counted.
“One thousand one, one thousand two…”
Shortly before the man hit ten, his emergency gas-powered generator kicked in and the lights and computers started up again. His annoyance at having lost some of his work started to overtake his uneasiness with the lighting. The real problem came when the man, who had been listening to music with Bose headphones, didn’t hear the generator begin to sputter and then stop. If he had, he would’ve been able to get out of the basement and up the stairs to his candles and Coleman lanterns.
The man was completely caught off guard when the basement went totally dark again. His training was so ingrained he didn’t realize he’d started counting, “One thousand one, one thousand two…” only this time when he reached, “one thousand ten,” then eleven and twelve and nothing happened, panic overtook him.
The man wouldn’t find out until the next day that with all the recent storms, the generator was low on fuel. His house had been scheduled to get a refill that afternoon, but with a few appointments running long, no storm expected, and week two of the oil delivery driver’s beloved bowling league starting in twenty minutes, the driver decided his last few customers could wait until the next morning. The driver was dreadfully wrong.
“One thousand thirteen…” The man reached for his cell phone to the right of the computer. In his nervous state, he knocked it off the cluttered desk. It shattered on the concrete floor. The man instinctively reached for the flashlight; there was one in every room. As he did, he remembered taking the flashlight upstairs to change the batteries after the last storm.
The shadows in the basement started to shift and move, assisted by the random shards of lightning leaping in through the small painted shut windows. The child inside the man leaped to the front of his consciousness. The boy saw terrible beings, long hidden, lurking in the darkness. The child began to sweat, then sob. He cautiously got off the chair and froze. He started to hyperventilate. He lay down on the cold concrete floor and curled up in a fetal position.
Susan’s tortured boy remained in that position until the first rays of morning light streamed through the basement windows. He hadn’t slept one minute. His heart raced the entire night. Trapped by terror, he’d soiled himself; between that and crying, he was dehydrated and edging toward hypothermia.
At 7:05 a.m. on September 24th, something different, something now inhuman, rose from the cold damp floor. It stumbled up the stairs, went to bed, and slept for the thirteen hours.
From the age of eight, Susan’s son had reason to be afraid of the dark. Early in his mother’s process of sexual liberation, she still felt a little shame. While she didn’t see anything wrong in what she was doing, she felt that at six, her son was a too young to understand what was happening. While this sense of propriety didn’t stop Susan, it did make her try to find ways to keep her son from knowing too much.
Initially, on days when she planned on have a friend over—mainly the weekends—Susan tried to get a relative to watch the boy. As time went on and her encounters became more frequent, certain men became regular guests at the house. When they became more comfortable, they would show up without notice, sometimes on the weekends or sometimes in the evening. If it was late, Susan couldn’t always find a relative to watch her son for the night.
One weekday afternoon, a good friend called and told Susan he was in the area and would be over soon. She was desperate to get rid of her son, who’d stayed home from school with a fever.
Her male friend arrived and was clearly annoyed at seeing the boy in the kitchen.
“What’s he doing here?” asked the man in hushed tones.
“He didn’t go to school. He has a fever,” said Susan with an undercurrent of disgust. “I didn’t know you’d be here today.”
“I’ve only have an hour for lunch and it took me ten minutes to get here.” The flustered suitor looked at his watch. “I’ve got to leave in probably thirty-five minutes.” He looked at Susan demanding a solution to the child staring at him from the other room.
“Waddya want me to do? I called everyone I know, everyone’s at work or not answering their phone. It’s like eighteen degrees outside. I don’t think he should go outside and play, do you?”
“This is screwed up. I’m just gonna go have lunch.”
Susan grabbed the man’s arm with her left hand and his crotch with her right. She started to rub. “I’ll take care of it. I will.”
Never being one to process information quickly, Susan hit on what forever after would become an acceptable option in her mind: lock her son in the basement.
Among the problems with the basement was that after her husband left, Susan had only used it to store unneeded or unwanted items. That irony was lost on her as she hustled her son downstairs.
The basement had been her husband’s area; that was how she thought of it. After years of neglect it was cold, damp, and dark. In the summer it was crawling with every type of upstate New York insect. In the winter, only the heartier strains survived, mostly arachnids that had feasted on the summer’s bountiful harvest.
The basemen
t scared her son during the best of times, but that afternoon when the only remaining light burned out, he spent two terrified hours huddled on the top step holding the doorknob. The spiders used the lack of light to explore, occasionally finding the youngster’s warm socked feet, and then after a short climb, his legs. The feeling of insects crawling on his legs added to the terror and he hit and slapped furiously at his attackers.
When the afternoon’s companion had had enough and left, Susan remembered her son shortly after her shower. Opening the basement door, she found the traumatized youngster on the top step in soiled clothing. Angry, she marched him upstairs into the bathroom. She didn’t notice the self-inflicted bruises on her son’s lower legs when she made him get into a cold shower as punishment for “shittin’” himself. It was just as well, she wouldn’t have taken the time to try to understand their meaning anyway.
No one knew the man well, but those who knew him even slightly could tell that something had changed after September 24th. He’d always been distant and aloof, but now a meanness rose to the surface that had been cloistered. Somehow, even with Its short stature and stooped shoulders, the Thing now seemed menacing.
What people could sense on the outside was nothing compared to what had taken place deep in the recesses of what once had been a soul. The Thing had completely given Itself over to hatred and malice. It had stepped across a line from which there was no return. Through tortured logic It could rationalize the most hideous act against any victims. There was a complete lack of pity, remorse, or conscience. The Thing was an ideal instrument of evil, and the devil was all to ready to welcome It.
When It awoke on the twenty-fourth the Thing was resolved as to what to do. Fed up with trying to do things indirectly or relying on others, the Thing was going to help the children directly, before they suffered through what It had as a child. No one else could do, would do, what needed to be done. Only the Thing knew what these kids were being subjected to by their degenerate parents…especially their mothers. Only It understood, only It could help, only It had the ability and willpower to do what had to be done.