“Why?”
“It’s fun. And it’s to let him know that I am keeping close tabs on him.”
“Interesting. That must frustrate the shit out of him.”
“Of course, it does.”
Wyatt had a look of curiosity. “You told Jim to call you JD. What does that stand for?”
“Nothing. Seth Coker is my real name.”
“Are you worried that I let your name slip. Their computer system can generate a list of names that have Seth in them.”
“It doesn’t matter. I had to abandon that part of my life when a detective came to my house.”
Wyatt looked confused. “If they find out who you are, they can put your picture out to the public.”
“I grew up in foster homes. I had no real identity and no pictures were taken of me in all those years, except for what happened to Ashley and me. Even then those pictures were in a file and not in a database, and I now have possession of the file.”
“Ashley must have been your fiancée that was murdered?”
“Correct.”
“What about the detective? Why did he come to your house?”
“He was investigating me, or I should say, The Angel of Vengeance, which was what the damn media called me back then.”
“Sounds like you don’t like the name they picked for you.”
“As much as I like The Angel of Death. But it could have been worse.” He looked at Wyatt. “You fucking reporters always have to put a label on someone.”
“Hey, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I know. You would have come up with something that included a male organ, like the Midnight Knob Goblin or something.”
“That’s real cute.”
“You know it’s true.”
“I’m not fucking gay.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Get back to the detective.”
“Like I said, he was doing an investigation and thought Ashley and I had been victimized by…” Seth shrugged his shoulders. “The Angel of Vengeance… Me… It’s freakin’ weird when I think about it.”
“I’m sure there have been plenty of other serial killers that have been in your shoes.”
“I’m not a fucking serial killer.”
“And I’m not fucking gay.”
“Fair enough.”
“So why did he think you and Ashley had been victimized by him?”
“The asshole that killed Ashley had burned me in the chest with a knife that had been sitting in a fire. The burn had taken the shape of a tribal looking skull. The police had taken a picture of my wound when I was unconscious in the hospital. I never knew the picture existed until the detective told me about it. Unfortunately, I made a mistake and was using a similar skull as my signature mark. The detective assumed my attacker had purposely burned that skull on my chest, and when he found the old case file, he thought Ashley and I were his first victims. He was able to find me because, somewhere, somehow my house was still listed under the name Seth Coker even though I had gone to great lengths to prevent something like that from happening.” Seth looked at Wyatt. “And by the way, the detective was the one who had killed my parents.”
Wyatt’s eyes got big. “What? I don’t understand.”
“I know. What would be the chances of that; the fucker became a detective, then happened to be investigating me. It’s definitely a small world.”
“But how did you know he was the one who did it?”
“Back when I was a kid, my parents and I were in the front yard of our home. They were watching me ride my bike up and down the sidewalk. A car came swerving down the street, sideswiping vehicles, and when they ran out to protect me the car ran them over before hitting a tree. I was standing right next to the car and saw the driver. The crash gave him an unusual gash on his face that took the shape of a backwards question mark. The detective had the same scar.”
“It could have just been a coincidence.”
“Nope. He confessed.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Shock therapy.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Where’s he at now?”
“At the moment, he is being prepped for something special.”
“Did you torture him?”
“We need to change the subject.”
Wyatt didn’t know what to say. Seth had been very open until now. Wyatt also didn’t know that the detective was John, Jim’s partner.
Seth lit a cigarette. He took a long drag, then blew the smoke out the window. “There are some things I can’t talk about right now, but they will be revealed later.”
Wyatt looked concerned. “Should I be worried? You give me the impression that something is going to happen on this trip.”
“You’re right. In the end, you, me, and Jim will have a life-changing event occur, but you have nothing to be worried about. Just like you said earlier, outside of the jokes, you also have turned out to be somebody that I can trust. That’s what this trip is about; getting to know each other.”
Wyatt had an ornery look. “If I offered you a million dollars would you suck my dick?”
Seth laughed. “No comment.”
“You have to answer.”
“If I say no, then that means I suck dick for free. If I say yes, then I’m a rich cocksucker. I know you don’t have a million bucks, and since you made up something you don’t have, I have large, razor sharp, snaggletooth teeth like a werewolf.”
Wyatt shook his head. “I have no hope in getting you to fall for a dick joke—you’ve apparently already thought about this kind of shit way too much.”
“I learned it from two dumbasses back in the chamber. They were always fucking around with each other with this kind of humor.”
Wyatt wrote in his notebook. “You really haven’t told me about the ones you took back to your chamber.” He looked at Seth. “I thought you tortured them? If these two guys were joking around, then it must not have been as bad as what I had originally imagined in my head.”
“After I ripped off their tattoos for wall art, I had removed all their bones from their arms and legs, and I had also removed their front rib cage. I cut off their hands and feet, and sewed the end of their arms to the end of their legs after I intertwined them together like a pretzel. Then they got to live in a basket made from their bones that I had tied together with pieces of their hair. They got so bored hanging in a dark ventilation shaft that they began aggravating the shit out of each other for entertainment. This went on for years until I removed their tongues and lower jaws.”
Wyatt had a disturbed look. “Oh my God! Is that the kind of shit you did when you refer to long-term punishment?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do to deserve that?”
“Killed some cats at an animal shelter.”
Wyatt just looked at Seth.
“Hey, it is what it is. A person that gets off inflicting pain on the vulnerable, regardless if it’s a human or animal, in my book is deserving.”
“I wasn’t questioning what you did, even though I think it was extreme. Sorry people like that need to be punished.”
Seth looked at Wyatt. “I feel bad not finishing the story about the detective. What would you like to know?”
Wyatt was relieved—he had been feeling like he hadn’t been trustworthy enough for the story. “I’ve been thinking about that. You said he was being prepped for something. Does that mean you’ve kept him as a hostage all these years?”
“Yes. He’s at my new location.”
“And you said he came to your house. The one that you abandoned.”
“That’s right.”
“But the police haven’t searched it in all these years?”
Seth smiled. “You have definitely been paying attention. And that would be correct.”
“That doesn’t make sense. When something happens to a cop the rest of them are like flies on shit. You must hav
e covered it up somehow?”
“And you would be correct again. Luckily, it turned out to be an easy fix. At the time, I knew that the cops would come looking for him—just like what you said, flies on shit—and I needed to make his disappearance look like it was unrelated to me, the Seth Coker that lived in Texas. Fortunately, he told me that the file was locked in his desk and he hadn’t told anyone else what was in it, and that the information had not been entered in the computer database or duplicated. He also informed me that no one knew that he was coming to my house. I needed to get the file, and I needed to make his disappearance look like it had taken place far from Texas. I packed up his belongings, a bag of his blood and his left hand, then drove his car to Virginia where his field office was located.”
Wyatt interrupted. “Hand?”
“Yeah, I cut if off.”
“Why in the hell would you do that?”
“He was refusing to answer some of my questions about his field office.”
“Like what?”
“The layout of his office building, security cameras and normal routines of his coworkers; stuff like that. Up to this point, he had told me about the file and why he came to my house, but he became difficult when I started asking about his office building. Of course, I knew why. He didn’t want me to get the file because it was his only chance of being rescued.”
“That makes sense.”
“I also learned that his building was usually vacant between 2 and 4 AM, which parking space he used, and how to avoid the cameras. I used that info to my benefit. It was 3 AM when I parked his car in his normal spot, then went into the rear entrance, using his keys to unlock the door. He had told me there were no cameras at that entrance or where he parked.”
“How could you trust him? He could have just told you that, hoping you would get caught.”
“You’ve never seen the inside of my chamber. It can be a very convincing place, ensuring the truth is told.”
“Do you have pictures?”
Seth laughed as he looked at Wyatt’s folders. “I have a binder as well, but it’s back at my new location.”
“Are you going to take me there?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Wyatt had a look of curiosity. “I would like to see it.”
“It’s in Texas. If it works out, we’ll stop by.”
“That would be cool.”
“Not really—there’s no air-conditioning in there.”
“You know what I mean.” He looked at his notes. “Why did you take the hand with you?”
“So I could make his disappearance look authentic. It needed to appear that he was in his office at the time of his abduction. That’s why I also took his belongings with me. I put his gun in his desk drawer. Laid his wallet and FBI identification on his desk. Put his keys in his jacket pocket and hung it on the back of his chair. I smeared and dripped his blood around as if he had been injured, then replaced the file with another one.”
“Replaced it with what?”
“I took his hand and laid it on a copy machine and made several copies. I also drew my mark on the pages with a pen that was lying on his desk. I put the copies in a new folder and wrote a bullshit date and file number on it.”
Wyatt was shaking his head. “That was ballsy, but it looked like it worked.”
“It did, but at the time I wasn’t sure if it was going to, and that’s why I moved locations.”
“So what do you have planned for the detective?”
Seth looked at Wyatt. “All I can say is that it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Oh.”
“But I can tell you that his name was John and he was Jim’s partner.”
Wyatt’s eyes got big. “No shit!”
“Kind of ties everything together, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does.” He thought for a moment. “That explains why Jim has taken this personal. I could sense there was more to all this. And that explains a lot about his behavior towards me.”
Seth already knew what Wyatt was talking about; Jim had forced him to set him up back at the hotel. “Now you see the bigger picture.”
“I’m glad you told me that.” He looked at Seth. “Something is confusing though. Everything you do is well thought out. Why in the hell did you buy a house with your real name, knowing it could come back and haunt you?”
Seth laughed. “I didn’t know that I was going to be doing this to this extent when I started out. I thought I was going to fuck up just a few assholes, but one thing turned into another and here I am today, spilling the beans to a reporter. The name Seth Coker had absolutely no identity, except that I had gone through the foster system, been victimized, and used it when I financed my house. Even then, I had sold my house five years later to one of my aliases, then faked my death. Somewhere a database had not been updated, causing this problem. And that’s how John found me. It was a mistake on my part, but like I said, back when I first bought my house I wasn’t doing the vigilante shit.”
“You said you had faked your death? Tell me about it.”
“I was planning on fucking up this sheriff, Chuck Johnson, and since he knew me from my early years, I would have possibly been a suspect, so I faked my death before I turned his world upside down.”
“What did he do?”
“His son was the one who killed Ashley and he covered it up.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Why you have such an issue with our judicial system and feel the need to take the law into your own hands.”
“At the time, I did.”
“And now?”
Seth laughed. “The same.”
“This has been a real productive conversation.” He looked at Seth. “Why didn’t you tell me all this from the beginning?”
“Because I wasn’t sure if you were Jim’s patsy.”
“That makes sense.” He yawned.
“Don’t start that shit. I haven’t slept in days.”
“Sorry.”
“We’ll get some rest tonight.”
Wyatt noticed they were leaving Georgia. “What’s the game plan?”
“We’re going to stay on Highway 20 all the way to Arkansas.”
“Then what?”
“There’s a bad ass diner west of El Dorado. I want to get there before closing time.”
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “And I thought this trip was going to be bad.” Wyatt looked at his notes. “I would like to know about some of the people that you had in the chamber.”
“They’re not people. They’re scumbags, lowlifes, and assholes. Or you can refer to them as ass wads, parasites or fuckheads.”
“Oh yeah. Will you tell me about some of the scumbags you had in the chamber?”
“Sure.” Seth started telling Wyatt the stories as they drove down the highway.
Rock Star
Jim and his team came out of the hospital shortly before lunch. When they walked up to their car, Jim held his hands out. “Stop! Something isn’t right.” He opened the driver’s door, then looked at the painting that was sitting in his seat. “What the hell?” He looked over at Ron as he was standing at the front of the car. “Do you know anything about this painting?”
He walked over and looked at it. “No. I’ve never seen it before.”
Thomas started laughing. “Holy shit! That’s Pat.”
Jim shook his head. “I know who it is.”
Thomas smiled. “Someone is playing a joke on you.”
Jim looked at him with a serious look. “Is this of your doing?”
“No, Jim. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Then why you smiling?”
“Because it’s funny.”
Ron noticed a piece of paper taped to it. He pointed at it. “There’s a note. It’s probably from Mrs. Peterson.”
Jim held up his keys. “The doors were locked.”
Ron looked around the parking lot and noticed an Atlanta
cop car. “One of the officers probably jimmied it for her.”
Jim looked irritated. “Why in the hell would they do that? They knew where to find me.”
Thomas was still giggling under his breath. “Because they knew how ridiculous it looks and probably thought it would be funny to mess with you.”
Jim was irritated as he pulled off the note. When he started reading it his eyes opened wide. “It’s from Skull.” He looked around the parking lot. “He was here.”
Ron grabbed the note and read it out loud, “A fuckhead for a fuckhead. Please enjoy, your buddy, JD.” Ron looked at Jim. “What do you want to do?”
He handed the painting to Ron. “Put the damn thing back in the car. I need to go talk to the Petersons.”
Thomas yelled out. “Has it occurred to you that one of the officers might have written that note just to mess with you?”
Jim shook his head as he walked away.
Ron handed Thomas the painting. “Do something with this.” He yelled at Jim. “Hold up, I’m going with you.”
Jim stopped and looked at Thomas. “You’re coming with us.” He looked at Ron. “We can’t leave him alone. Skull might be interested in him.”
Thomas put the painting in the trunk, then they went back into the hospital. Jim eased the door open and poked his head in, noticing Pat barely had his eyes open. He softly spoke. “I have a quick question for y’all.”
Mrs. Peterson was sitting in a chair. “Yes, Jim, what is it?”
“Did either of you have someone leave a painting in our car?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He walked in the room. “I was afraid of that.”
“What did it look like?”
When Jim described the painting and where he found it, Pat started getting out of bed. His wife quickly came over and stopped him. Pat was upset as he stared at Jim. “That’s my prized possession. Who’s been messing with it?”
Thomas laughed. “Prized possession, really?”
Jim glared at Thomas. “Go wait out in the hallway.” He looked back at the Petersons. “We believe it was your attacker.”
Pat’s eyes turned red with anger. “That motherfucker had no right going into my house.”
“I’m going to head over there.”
The complete “A Glimpse into Hell” series - 5 books, 195 chapters, 1700 pages, 600K words of pure gore Page 71