The Negative Man: Twilight Days (Pacific Station Vigilante Book 4)

by Jeremy Croston

  Rich was holding the suitcase with the rest of us behind him. Whisnant had one person with him, someone he introduced as Mr. Bain. “Gentlemen,” he addressed us. “You have done your country a great service.”

  “Too bad no-one will ever be any the wiser,” I quipped.

  Mr. Bain apparently didn’t find any humor in my words, as he cracked his knuckles. The president just smiled and patted the man on the shoulder. “No, that is unfortunate. I didn’t realize Victory would’ve gone to such lengths to keep his work from being obtained. That explosion was no small matter to cover up.”

  “On the way over, we heard it was a gas line explosion,” Erin said.

  “That was the best we could come up with on short notice.” With the suitcase in hand, “Chances are the country will never need your talents again, men, but I’m glad to know I have such a loyal group—just in case.”

  Rich seemed lost in thought, but a quick elbow from me brought him back to the president. “I’m glad we could help,” he answered. “And to be honest, I think I’m done with all of this. One hell of a way to end a career.”

  The president walked back to the ominous black SUV parked along the cove. “You’ll each find an envelope waiting for you at your safe house. Again, the country thanks you for your service and your secrecy.”

  With that, he ducked into the car and the creepy Mr. Bain found the driver’s seat. We watched as the SUV drove off, leaving the four of us alone on the beach.

  “So, gents, I think this deserves a beer,” I suggested.

  But Wade killed that. “Before we turned everything over to the president, I found something on the file that I thought we should keep.”

  Rich let out a short, hard laugh. “Damnit, Wade, what in the world did you keep?”

  “There was an algorithm deep in the files that sends out a ping anytime negative energy is used,” he answered.

  “Jericho’s dead, bro,” Erin answered for all of us.

  Wade shook his head. “The last ping came five days ago. I think The Negative Man’s still alive.”

  Issue #8 – The Return

  **’Old’ Rich Shock**

  It’d been six years since the day Wade had evidence that Jericho Staley may be alive. In that time, the algorithm he’d loaded on to his computer had stayed silent.

  A lot had changed since that day. We were made men, with enough money from that job Whisnant assigned to us to live relatively peaceful lives. We all agreed to stay relatively close to each other and we picked a community about an hour north of Pacific Station to call home. Harbor Towne wasn’t the most rocking and rolling of places, but it afforded us a bit of closure from the crazy life we’d lived before.

  I was watching the news, which had become even more depressing lately. There’d been another mysterious attack on the super community in Valrico, a city in the southern part of the country. These were becoming more and more prevalent each year, despite President Whisnant promising us a reform to protect the supers.

  That’s when my phone rang. “Wade?” It was too early in the morning for Clickbait to be up.

  “The algorithm went off again last night,” he said so low, I could barely hear him. “I wasn’t careful, either. When I set up a trace, I found him, but I think the feds piggybacked my signal.”

  Before I took any of this seriously, I needed to find out if this was conspiracy theory Wade or the real deal. “You’re telling me you found Jericho Staley?” I asked.

  I think my probing question put him on the defensive. “Rich, I’m serious. Andy and Erin are on their way over. We’re going to extract him.”

  It looked like he was dead serious. As I had really nothing to do, I grabbed my jacket. “You know what? We haven’t had a good adventure in some time. Let’s go.”

  By the time I got to Wade’s place, the rest of the old team had arrived. Andy had put a few pounds on around the middle, Erin was pretty toned from his yard service, and Wade, well Wade looked exactly the same. Me? I covertly had been staying in shape, just in case a day like this ever came. I couldn’t explain why I had this nagging feeling why I needed to stay ready, but it was there.

  The four of us got into the van, just like the old days. Erin was driving and Wade had everything set up in the back. “Jericho is here,” he pointed to a remote part of the desert, at the base of some foothills. “According to satellite imagery, there’s a rundown old gold rush cabin.”

  “Why, after all this time, did he show himself again?”

  “A surveillance drone was out in the area, Rich. Either he shot it down or is losing control of his powers,” Wade reasoned.

  Either answer was as good as the other. “Last question; why are we going to get him? Chances are the reception won’t be very good. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to conceal himself.”

  Wade rotated the screen so that we all could see. “I intercepted this email right before we left.”

  President Whisnant,

  The hostile known as Jericho Staley has been confirmed alive. We are preparing a tactical team to catch him off guard and bring him in for further testing. If Project: Twilight Days is to be successful, we will need to study the subject even further.

  Gen. Baxter Wheelhouse

  I read over it twice as Erin sped down the highway. “I thought Twilight Days was that thing Whisnant wanted to destroy? None of this makes any sense.”

  “Rich, we were played,” Wade said stoically. “I don’t have solid proof yet, but Wilson is one hundred percent convinced that the attacks on supers are an order from the capital.”

  “Why haven’t you shared any of this earlier?” I was being blindsided with information.

  “Yeah Wade, all the times we’ve had a beer and you never mentioned this,” Andy added.

  “We have no proof,” he stressed. “Plus, what would the four of us be able to do against an entire government and military?”

  Damnit, he was right. “Okay, first thing’s first, let’s get Jericho. Once we’ve picked him up, we can figure out our next move.”

  There was a silent agreement in the van. Erin pressed harder down on the gas, picking up speed. Time was of the utmost importance. No one said much from that point on; for me I was a bit concerned with what we’d gotten involved with all those years ago. Plus, there was the not so small matter of a guy we all thought was dead being alive. I wondered why Jericho chose to hide for all these years.

  No, I didn’t. The man just wanted to be left the hell alone. Who could blame him, after everything that happened?

  As evening turned into late night, we made it. “Dudes, are you sure about this?” Erin asked from the driver’s seat.

  “If Wade says this is the spot, then this is the spot,” I strongly answered. “Erin, you go up first. It might be better that way.” My reasoning came from the fact they’d been friends a lot longer than the rest of us. A familiar face might do some good.

  Why was Erin getting cold feet? “I’m sure the trail’s led here, but seriously? What’s the point?”

  “The lad’s scared, boys!” Andy cried out. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said after realizing he called Erin out a little too harshly.

  But it worked. Erin started hyping himself up. “Yeah, I got this.” And with that, he jumped out of the car and made his way towards the house.

  “Be ready, guys.” I looked at my watch. “The minute they get back, we need to floor it.”

  To be continued in The Negative Man: Retribution

  Issue #1 – The Lynx Returns

  **Kyle Wonderton**

  For five years after the death of Jericho Staley, Pacific Station returned to a level of calm semblance. Then, the murders began happening. Most people with the powered gene didn’t use them, instead they tried to live a normal life and hide exactly what they could do. For those people, it generally wasn’t an issue, either. Their powers were on the lighter side and didn’t trigger any suspicions from friends and family.

  Yet, this was the
third dead super in two weeks. Lattimore and I were on the scene, looking over another gruesome body. Somebody was making an example of the super community and we were none the wiser on who it could be.

  “Jeez,” Lattimore said, turning his head away. “I thought the last body was bad.”

  The first body looked as if it had been beaten by a baseball bat. The second body, yeah, I’d rather not talk about that one, either. “Whoever this is, it’s escalating. How long do you think you can keep the papers and news crews guessing?”

  There were only the two of us on scene, per Police Chief Brad Woods’s command. “Woods doesn’t want this getting gout. With the top brass behind us, I think I can keep at least this one under wraps. If we don’t find the sick son of a bitch soon, however…”

  He didn’t need to finish that sentence. “I know. I’m working on it.”

  I reached down with a needle and drew some blood from the victim, an early thirties female from an early guess. Guess was the key word with what I could actually tell. With a knife, I scraped some skin samples off, too. Lattimore did the fingerprints and a hair sample.

  Cleaning up before he called in the medical examiner, “Okay, you take your samples back to your people and I’ll take this to forensics. Call me if you get anything.”

  “Of course,” I replied. “If you find out anything, just text me.”

  He gave me a small nod as I escaped into the night as he made the phone call. The crime hadn’t happened all that far from the edge of the city where my dad’s house stood. I guess it wasn’t his house anymore, it was mine and Becky’s. It didn’t take me but ten minutes to get back to it and into the garage. My wife was sitting at the computer, playing a game of blackjack against our very own organic supercomputer.

  Well, Phil Jenkins used to be a supervillain. He transferred his mind into a laptop before his death and ever since, has been working to redeem himself. “Looks like dealer wins again,” the digital voice cried out triumphantly.

  “You’re such a cheater,” Becky said, annoyed.

  It wasn’t until my boots hit the ground from the staircase that she turned her head over and smiled. “I don’t know why you keep playing against him.”

  “Because one day I will beat you,” she said more to Jenkins than me. “What do you have there?”

  I walked over and set the brown paper bag down on the work bench. “Another homicide, another super. I’m hoping this time we’ll get lucky and get something.”

  Becky grabbed the blood sample and placed just a drop on a tray. Placing a thin glass over it, she inserted it into a special drive that she cooked up with for Jenkins’s laptop. She pushed it in and Jenkins began his analysis.

  “Female, thirty-four,” he chirped. That confirmed my field assessment. “Powers were very low-end telekinesis. This poor girl would be lucky if she could pull a pen from across the desk to herself.”

  I shook my head. “The third low-level super killed. This seems so needless.”

  “Are these the skin samples, too?” Becky asked.

  I handed her the baggie filled with the flakes I scraped off. She pulled out the blood sample and, after giving the skin samples the same treatment, she placed them into the drive. “This is odd,” Jenkins came out with right away.

  “What’s odd?”

  “Kyle, we have a connection between all three murders now.”

  Neither Becky nor I could believe our ears. I leaned in close to the laptop screen with Becky behind me, her hand on my shoulder. “How do the pieces fit?”

  “Our first two victims, we couldn’t figure out where their paths crossed. So, either the killer is dropping us a clue or made a mistake.”

  “Whoever this is, they’re not making mistakes,” I assumed.

  “Okay, so let’s take this as a calling card. This victim worked at the same place as the first victim,” he stopped for effect, “and she was the cousin of the second victim.”

  Damnit, when we did the family profile of victims one and two, we only considered immediate family. Cousins weren’t on the profile or else we may have seen the small thread that connected them before victim three’s death.

  Phil broke my concentration. “That’s not all.” His digitized face disappeared and a picture of a man appeared. He was your classic handsome blonde hair and blue eyes man. “This is Merrick O’Donnell. He was victim three’s boyfriend and also worked with victim two. We have the complete picture.”

  This was too easy. There was a pit in my stomach, yet I had no choice. “I’m calling Lattimore. We need to talk to this O’Donnell as soon as possible.”

  Issue #2 - Fate

  It was well after midnight when Lattimore’s car pulled up to the address that was registered to a Merrick O’Donnell. He got out of the car, looking a bit apprehensive. “O’Donnell’s a carefree playboy, living off his parents’ money and their business. I wouldn’t be surprised if this piece of crap lawyer’s up the moment we walk in.”

  “You may have to legally abide by that, but I don’t.” If he was the serial killer, I would find out one way or another. “You ready?”

  Lattimore had his gun at his waist. I walked up to the door and gave it two hard knocks. A light came on seconds later and there was some shuffling. It was only on the next attempt at knocking did the door open. The man from the picture was standing there, smiling. “The Morning Lynx and one of PSPD’s finest. What a fine surprise.”

  The bad feeling in my stomach came rushing to the surface as a knife came hurtling from behind O’Donnell and towards us. I tackled Lattimore out of the way before the edged weapon could bury itself in either of us.

  The slammed shut as we hit the ground. I jumped up and kicked the damn thing down. “He didn’t lawyer up,” I growled.

  As we walked slowly into the house, two more knives came out of nowhere, their targets being us. Lattimore busted his way into the office to the right side of the foyer while I did something very stupid. I caught one of the knives out of midair, barely avoiding cutting off one of my fingers. I whipped around and sent it back in the direction it came from. O’Donnell was slinking in the shadows, but moved just in time. The knife buried itself into the wall where his head had been.

  “Don’t kill him!” Lattimore shouted from the office.

  “I wasn’t trying to.”

  O’Donnell moved up the stairs, allowing us the freedom to follow. “His telekinesis is much stronger than last victim’s.”

  Lattimore followed closely behind me as we rounded the hallway and took the first set of stairs upward. “If I fire at him, would he be able to snag the bullet out of the air?”

  It was a legit question. “I honestly don’t know. Let’s keep the lethal force to a minimum though, if we can.” We crossed the landing and moved on to the second part of the staircase. “Does anyone know we’re here?”

  “I’ve been sticking to Woods’s word. Keeping all of this on the down low and such.”

  Great, so we were really all alone on this. Becky and Phil knew where we were, but I’d chosen to leave the comm’s off. I assumed this would be just a simple interview, or even an arrest. Nothing about the three murders suggested a telekinetic madman was behind them.

  I pulled out my phone and texted Becky the SOS code. She knew that if she got that then trouble was afoot. Given the part of Pacific Station we were in, even with little traffic, she’d be at least a half hour away. Lattimore and I were pursuing a maniac on our own.

  At the top of the stairs, there was no sign of him. “Do you think he flew the coop?” the cop asked me.

  Something told me this guy was itching to get more blood on his hands. “No, he’s still here.”

  Sure enough, the moment I said that, a door flew open and O’Donnell came out with five more knives floating around him in a circle. “Welcome, gentlemen, to my home. As trespassers, I hereby sentence you to death.”

  My eyes narrowed as the knives left his orbit and raced towards us. My reflexes were at their peak per
formance, picking the killing implements out of the air with inhuman quickness. As soon as the last one was in my possession, O’Donnell started laughing like a maniac. “Possibly one worthy of what’s to come.”

  “What are you talking about?” I fired back.

  “You know me as Merrick O’Donnell, but to him, I’m just the first acolyte: Fate.”

  Damnit, of course our serial killer was whacked off his mind with drugs. “I really don’t know what you’re smoking, O’Donnell…”

  Lattimore had his gun pointed at the man as he stepped up beside me. “It’s over, O’Donnell,” he said solemnly.

  If either of us expected O’Donnell to stop and come peacefully, we would’ve been disappointed. A sixth, hidden knife, this one was much more ornate, snaked out from behind him and rushed towards us. With my hands full, all I could do was drop to the floor. Parker followed my lead as the fancy blade missed us one more time.

  It swung back around, but it didn’t go for us. When I saw what O’Donnell was up to, I tossed the other knives away and leapt up to catch the last one. I missed, and the blade buried itself into his gut. The psycho landed on the wood floor, blood flowing everywhere.

  I ran over to him. “You’re not dying on me until I get answers!”

  “The answers will come in due time, Lynx,” he garbled out. “I was just the first acolyte—Destiny and Providence will come before he does.”

  O’Donnell’s body was starting to tremor, death was near. “Who? Who’s coming?” I demanded.

  His last word meant nothing to me at that moment, but would stick with me for the rest of my days. “Volkkenkrüger.”

  Issue #3 – Victory’s Final Legacy