They

by J. F. Gonzalez

  “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t remember you as Vince Walters,” Frank said. “I remember you as Andy and your mother as Margaret. Your name is….or was…Andrew Swanson.”

  At the mention of the name Vince felt a weird sense of deja vu. Andrew Swanson. The name came to him so effortlessly, so easy. It was as if the long missing piece to a puzzle had been finally inserted in its place again. He felt whole and complete.

  “Andy,” he let the name roll off his tongue.

  “Trouble was, we couldn’t find you,” Frank said, turning back in his seat again and facing Vince. “We tried every method of skip tracing known to man. So do you know what we did?”

  “What?”

  “Several things.” He brought the old photograph of him and Vince out and held it up. “We scanned this into a computer and with the aid of a sketch artist I know, he aged your picture to make you appear as you might look now.” Frank grinned. “Scott was pretty damn accurate.”

  Vince managed a small grin.

  “Next, I remembered you were good in math and sports. I thought this would be a long shot, so I checked at the local universities and colleges first. Our plan was to search colleges and universities statewide, but I thought I would try California first, since it seemed the easiest thing to do. I had them compile a database of alumni from the years 1985 to 1992, years I figured you would be attending college if you enrolled, and I asked them to pay close attention to math majors, computer science majors, and accounting or business management majors. I also paid attention to those students that excelled in sports or maybe gained sports scholarships. The database spit out a list, and Mike and I narrowed it down to several hundred thousand candidates.” He laughed. “Quite a lot, I know, but it didn’t take us that long to go through it. We obtained school photos and began comparing, which helped whittle down the list. And we found a match right away. A University of California at Irvine alumni by the name of Vincent F. Walters, graduating class of 1988. From the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania where he had previously lived with his mother, Maggie Walters.”

  Vince sipped at his Coke, amazed that he’d not only been tracked down so deftly, but that the pieces were slowly coming in place. “The rest was simple,” Frank said, sipping his Dr. Pepper. “We found out where you lived, did some background work on you and your mom, and started doing some background work on your close friends and co-workers to make sure they hadn’t found you yet.”

  “You did background checks on my friends?”

  “We had to,” Frank said. “In order to make sure the group hadn’t found you. We found out about your wife’s death and checked it out as much as we could. There’s no physical evidence they had anything to do with it, but if you know their history you could see that they might have had a hand in it. They’re experts at making deaths seem like accidents. Defectors from the group always wind up dying from them. One such accident was very similar to Laura’s—his car just suddenly veered off a highway at fifty-five miles an hour and he died in the crash. By all accounts, the guy was a good driver, the car was in top shape, and he had no health problems. And there were no other cars involved—plenty of witnesses testified to that. They just…”

  Vince finished for him. “It’s like they maybe used some kind of supernatural power to make the car lose control. Right?”

  Frank nodded. “Yeah. Sounds crazy, huh?”

  “And you think they got to Laura this way? Why?”

  “It’s just a theory,” Frank explained quickly. “From what we were able to gather, they seemed to have no knowledge of your new identity. So it seems unlikely they had anything to do with Laura. What happened to Laura was tragic and unfortunate and probably not their doing. And…I know this is gonna fuck with your head, but it just seems so unlikely they had anything to do with this incident at the airport. That just isn’t their style, but then I could be wrong. If they were going to get to you, they would have done so through your friends. That’s why we had them checked out. Yeah, your wife’s death was probably an accident, but we couldn’t be sure of that, know what I mean?”

  Vince shook his head. The whole thing sounded like an Ian Fleming novel. “You checked out my friends!”

  “Brian Saunders and Tracy Harris seem okay,” Frank said. “At least on the surface, but then so does everybody else in your life. So does your shrink, Dr. Cartwright. Likewise, Laura’s parents in Kansas checked out okay too—”

  “You did background checks on my in-laws?” Vince snapped. A hot flush crept up the back of his neck. Now he was getting irritated and more than a little angry.

  Frank held up his gloved hands. “I’m sorry. We had to. You have no idea how good these people are at blending in with society, leading double lives that are all but unknown to those they’re close to when they parade around wearing their masks of normalcy. We had to make sure that—”

  “This is starting to sound like a bunch of private eye bullshit!” Vince spat. “What the hell do you think you can accomplish by telling me this? Who the hell do you think you are to butt into my life, invade my privacy?”

  Strong hands grabbed Vince’s shirt and pulled him toward Frank. The bigger man scowled as he held Vince firmly in his grip, rumpling his clothes. “You listen to me, goddamnit! I’ve got more than our lives at stake here on this. I’ve got my wife and kids to think about, too. If they were already onto you and I come poking around, they’d find out, find out who I am, then go after my wife and kids and kill them. So don’t you come to me with your whiney bullshit about your pathetic loss of your privacy!”

  Frank let go of Vince and turned back to the front of the car. Vince slumped in his seat breathing heavy, his heart beating fast. He’d been taken aback by Frank’s sudden outburst and it scared him. He looked at Frank and realized he was dealing with the real thing here. The man was serious and it might be beneficial if he just kept his feelings in check and listened to what he had to say.

  “I’m sorry,” Vince began, softly at first, then more assertive. “Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be so…pissy about what you said. I just freaked out. I’ve…never had anybody poke into my life like that and I guess I just felt…I don’t know…violated.”

  Frank regarded him from his seat, his eyes dark and piercing. Vince noticed for the first time that Frank’s sudden assault had spilled some of his soft drink on his slacks. He wiped at the dampness with his hand as he put his can in the cup holder on his side of the seat.

  “I am not trying to fuck with you, Vince,” Frank breathed through gritted teeth. “If you don’t want to know anymore about your mother or why she was killed, just tell me and I’ll take you back to the mall and we can forget this whole thing.”

  “No,” Vince exclaimed, forgetting the stain on his pants. “Don’t do that. I’m sorry. Really. I won’t do it again.”

  There was silence for a moment as the tension eased. Frank remained hunched over the steering wheel, head bowed, eyes closed. Finally he let out a big sigh and lifted his head. He looked at Vince through haunted, bloodshot eyes. “Okay.”

  Vince sighed, relaxing. He felt better now that the tension had died down. “You were saying that I checked out.”

  Frank nodded. “Yes, you did. From what we’ve been able to gather, they haven’t come in contact with you yet. That still doesn’t mean they don’t know who you are. They very well could, which is why I’m being such a paranoid bastard. What happened to you and Tracy is just totally unexpected.”

  Frank continued with his narrative. “Before we even started looking for you, we did some checking on Samuel Garrison. That was easy. I remembered he was involved in big business, that he owned some big corporation, but I didn’t remember exactly what kind. Who remembers that kind of shit when they’re nine years old? Mike and I sifted through back issues of the Wall Street Journal and various business magazines at the library until we found what we were looking for.” He leaned forward, fixing Vince with an intense eye. “Samuel F. Gar
rison is the leader of this group. He’s known as the Head Devil, or the Grand Chingon. He currently sits on the board of Directors of Cyberlink Systems, Corporate Financial Consulting Group—”

  At the sound of Corporate Financial Consulting Group, Vince flinched. He felt his stomach turn into a knot. Frank noticed. “Don’t think we didn’t notice that you work for them. That’s why we really went to town on your background check. We thought maybe they’d found out about you long before you applied for that position. From what we can tell, everybody at Corporate Financial is clean, from top to bottom.”

  The coincidence was striking, though. And disturbing. “Go on,” Vince said. “He sits on the board for my employer. What other companies is he on the board for?

  “He also sits on the board for Al Azif Oil and Commodities and he is also the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Garrison Enterprises and Real Estate. You may have heard of them.”

  Vince’s mind was racing. He’d heard of Cyberlink and Al Azif; Corporate Financial was their top client. “Garrison owns most of the shopping malls in Orange County, don’t they?”

  Frank was nodding. “And the land that several buildings in Costa Mesa are on, most of them insurance and financial firms. They also own the Orange Coast Theater and a string of hotels. They’re very big. But here’s the thing that worried Mike and me. Garrison once served as CEO of Corporate Financial.”

  Vince blinked in surprise. A flutter rose in him. “What?”

  “Yeah, no shit. You don’t know that?”

  Vince shook his head. “No. I don’t. My knowledge of what happens where I work is confined to my division and the executive branch. I get the quarterly reports and stuff, and I know there’s a list of the current board of directors somewhere in my office, but I’ve never paid attention to it.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Frank said. “As you can imagine, when we learned this we freaked. It certainly made our mission more critical.”

  “I can see why,” Vince said, the flutter in his belly growing colder. He turned to Frank. “Should I be worried? I mean, are you sure they don’t know about me?”

  Frank nodded. “The headhunter that recruited you has no ties to any of Garrison’s companies. Their current executives have spotless records when it comes to dealing with Garrison’s former and current companies. It’s just a coincidence—a pretty fucking weird coincidence, I gotta admit, but it was too close for comfort.”

  “So what about this Samuel Garrison?”

  “He’s a killer,” Frank said, his face dark, unbroken by the comment. “He’s in charge of an international organization of killers, drug cartels, pornographers, white slave leaders. You name it, he has his hand in it some way.”

  Vince took another sip of his Coke. “This is all so crazy. It’s like something out of Geraldo Rivera or something.”

  “That’s why they’re so successful at hiding it,” Frank continued. “It sounds crazy to most people, therefore, they refuse to believe it. That enables them to carry on with their activities. They’ve also got people planted in various law enforcement and government organizations that make sure all their tracks are covered.”

  It sounded like something out of the mind of a paranoid End-of-the-World wacko. Vince held his tongue.

  “Once Mike and I identified the group we stepped back and started doing research at the library, looking through microfilm of old newspapers. We couldn’t find any proof or evidence this group exists. Not a bit.”

  Vince shrugged. “They sound pretty secretive.”

  “They are,” Frank said, taking a sip of Dr. Pepper. “I contacted the LAPD under the guise of an investigative reporter. I told him I was doing a book on unsolved crimes to connect some of the murders I’d witnessed—”

  “You witnessed murders?”

  “Oh yeah,” Frank said, matter-of-factly. He took another sip of Dr. Pepper. “I did.”

  Vince leaned back in his seat, staring out at the park. His stomach was queasy. The more he listened, the more this was making him sick with dread.

  “I got a chance to go through their files and do some poking around,” Frank went on. “I didn’t find anything. I spent a few weeks after that driving around in the Topanga Canyon area, Malibu, Mission Hills, Calabasas, Canyon Country. Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Just trying to jolt my mind. I remember spending time in a lot of those places when I was younger—Sam had a mansion in Bel Air, and I remember being there at a very young age. Anyway, I finally found something two weeks later: the house I’d lived in as a child, shortly after we moved back to Southern California.”

  “Fountain Valley?” Vince asked, breathless.

  “No, Tustin,” Frank said, taking another sip of Dr. Pepper. “Close enough, though. I spent a lot of time driving all over southern California trying to remember things, place locations with my memory. It wasn’t until I was driving in the Santa Ana Mountains that things started coming back. It was almost like I was being guided to the exact spot by some force. I remember driving past the cul-de-sac and something just popped into my mind and said that’s it! I made a U-turn and drove through the neighborhood and saw it immediately. My house.”

  He breathed heavily and at first Vince thought Frank was going to collapse emotionally again. But he regained his composure and continued. “I ended up obtaining copies of the mortgage records and deed to the property of the current owners. I did a background check on them. They turned out to be normal. I decided against going to the house and knocking on the door, introducing myself, telling them I grew up there and that I was just passing through the neighborhood. But God, did I want to see the inside of that place. Despite the fact that I lived nightmares in that house, I just had to go in there.

  “I spent the next two weeks shadowing the owners,” Frank continued, leaning back in his seat casually, looking out at the park. “I learned their habits, their whereabouts. Then one day when they weren’t home, I broke in.”

  “You broke in?”

  “Yeah. Holdover from my days as an addict when I used to break into houses and steal shit I could sell for dope. I managed to slip through the back. I must’ve sat in the living room for thirty minutes, letting old memories wash over me the way waves lap on the sand of a beach. Then I hit all the rooms. I didn’t take anything. Didn’t touch anything. Just walked around, letting the memories come to me as I entered each room.” He paused, struggling with the next bit of memory that was coming to the surface. “And then when I got to a room that was an addition to the house—it was set in the back and was sunk down into the foundation by a few feet—the last memory hit me hard.” His voice lowered, his face grew stony as he remembered that long ago incident. “I saw my parents. Your parents. Opal and Paul—you remember them?”

  Vince nodded. Opal and Paul had been a sweet older couple, very grandparent-like in appearance. Vince used to like being with them.

  “There were others you’d probably remember as well. You remember the people our folks used to get together with?”

  Vince nodded, his own memories now flooding to the surface. The people that used to come to the house—friends of his mom and dad, co-workers, people he referred to as “Aunts” and “Uncles,” people he thought until recently had been blood family—memories of their faces swam to the surface of his mind.

  “Your folks were there, too,” Frank continued. He was gripping the steering wheel hard. “I don’t remember what I was doing at the time. Maybe I woke up in the middle of the night and heard a noise. I think my folks used to drug me on nights they had ceremonies. I remember my mother used to give me a pill with a glass of water before I went to bed on certain nights. I’d sleep all the way through. But one night I must have woken up and heard something and stumbled onto what they were doing in the den and later blacked it out of my mind.”

  “What was it?” Vince asked, breathless with dread.

  “They were in the middle of a ceremony,” Frank said. “They were dressed in black robes and cowls. The room was
dark, illuminated by several burning candles. They were grouped around something lying on the floor. When I got there I remembered a frenzied chanting, and then I heard a wet thud and a cry, almost like a cry of passion. The group was huddled around whatever was on the floor and they parted briefly, allowing me a brief glimpse.” Frank gulped once, turned to Vince. His eyes were wide liquid pools of fear. “It was a body. A young man, kinda hippie looking. He was naked and they’d just killed him, stabbed him in the chest. One of them was cutting into his chest with a knife, and as I watched I saw somebody pull out his heart and hold it up. The heart was still beating, blood was running down the man’s hands. And they were all chanting something weird, like one long continuous voice.” He paused briefly, his voice deadpan. “And then the guy brought the heart to his mouth and bit into it.”

  Vince winced.

  “And it was passed around and everybody bit into it, everybody ate a piece of it. And then they all fell on him, tearing into him, rolling in his body like some insane orgy.” Frank paused for breath. “I don’t remember how I got back to my room, but the next thing I remember I was sitting up in bed. I was sweaty all over. I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing and then I heard a sound and realized what it was. It was them. Making sounds. Grunting, horrible sounds.”

  Vince watched Frank grapple with the memories he’d witnessed. Vince still had a hard time believing that what Frank just related was true. How could it not be, he thought, if his conviction of the events seems so real? The only thing that kept him from believing in Frank’s story wholeheartedly was the absurdity of it. To think that the supposed satanic group was as powerful as Frank said they were, and had avoided detection by law enforcement agencies thus far, suggested they boasted an intelligence system that exceeded the CIA’s.

  But if you consider the spiritual nature of the story—which Vince had a hard time doing since he didn’t even believe in God or the Devil—perhaps there was some sort of infernal doings here.