Wet Touch

  “This masked man in this photo took my daughter about an hour ago…” William said with fury. “Tell me where I can find him.”

  “C-Rex.” Jeffrey uttered then he was awfully quite.

  “Sorry what?” William barely heard what he had said.

  “His name is C-Rex.” Jeffrey said. “No one knows who he is or what he looks like. He never takes his mask off. But there is something that might help you find this guy…”

  The room was silent. They all pay prompt attention to what he was about to say. Blood splashed across the room and spray on the walls and on everyone else in that room.

  “Bloody hell…” William stood up staring in disgust at the biles and meaty flesh that fell on him.

  Jeffrey collapsed on the floor with his head scattered like melon. Everyone in the room quickly swung into action at the horrible sight of Jeffrey lying there with his head blown off. Blood and whitish fluid flowed from his head.

  Something hanging from the ceiling quickly caught their attention, Derik looked up. He was terrified at the hideous creature he saw a clinging on to the ceiling with both its arms and legs.

  The creature held a riffle pointed down at the spot where Jeffrey had stood. The creature had a hideous red face that made Derik wondered if he was wearing a mask or that was just his original face. He wore a dark hooded cloth that had many tear on it making it look as though it was a rag. It was the same figure that stood behind T-Rex back there at the meeting.

  “Holy shit…” Derik exclaimed sighting the creature.

  It just hung from the ceiling looking down at them.

  Derik quickly pulled out his gun and then began to fire up at the ceiling. The creature ran swiftly across the ceiling down to the window. Landing on the window, it turned to look back at them. Letting out a terrifying cry, it jumped off and scattered in the air into three black birds and then flew away.

  “What the hell was that?” William said as he watched from the window as the three black crows fly away.

  “I don’t know sir, but whatever that was it has to be a part of Beocraft.” Derik looked over at Jeffrey as he laid there on the floor, blood gushing from his neck. “He tried to stop Jeffrey from spilling out more secret about the masked man with the C mask, C-Rex.”

  “There goes our only chance at finding Natasha” Derik said disappointedly.

  Suddenly Jeffrey’s body began to expand slowly and then transformed into the body of someone else. It was no longer the body of a teenager but now that of an adult. They were all speechless as they watched.

  Alex tried to identify the body but the head had been blown off making it a lot difficult to get a positive id on the body.

  “That wasn’t even his real body. He’d shape shifted before coming to talk to us.” William said, “I wonder what else we also didn’t notice. I doubt if Jeffrey was even his real name.”

  William then turn to Derik “Get someone here to clean this all up, then take the body away to the lab for analysis.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: THE EYE OF A WOLF

  “They killed him…” Derik said to Kevin. “He was about to give us an information that could have helped us identify and track down the masked man, but they killed him before he could say a thing”

  Derik sounded frustrated as he walked around the room hitting the wall with his fist making Kevin nervous. “This is not about Jeffrey getting killed that’s making unease, is it?”

  “No… it’s not.” Derik stormed. “It’s Natasha…”

  “Did something happen to Natasha?”

  “she’s been kidnapped.” Derik said almost raising his voice at him.

  Kevin stood there with his mouth agape. He found the fear of a year ago coming back to him. He felt his heart racing, his knee grew weak.

  “The same masked man took her…” Derik said as he turned to look at Kevin. “She was kidnapped two days to your birthday. You know exactly what this mean right?”

  “T-Rex is planning to torture her on my birthday.” Kevin said, his face filled with horror.

  “We have to get her back.”

  “how---“

  “Beocraft has her. Jeffrey was the only one who could have helped us but he was murdered by Beocraft. Cedric is our only chance we’ve got at finding Natasha and getting her back before something really bad happens to her.”

  “What? You want me to go talk to Cedric?”

  “That seems to be our only option right now. Cedric must know something about where they are taking her. We have no lead on finding Natasha and Cedric right now is our only lead.”

  “You could talk to William and have him send some men over to Cedric’s house to capture him.” Kevin quickly suggested.

  Derik shook his head, “we both don’t know what Cedric is capable of or what dark power he possesses. We will be risking the live of anyone we send over there.”

  Derik walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Kevin, you are the only one right now who can save Natasha.”

  Kevin felt a cold chill run down his spine as he folded his finger into a fist to knock on Cedric’s door. Every part of him was screaming out to him to turn away and run.

  The one thought that kept him standing there was the desire to save Natasha. He knocked on the door and then he stepped back waiting for a responds. He stood there looking over at the door expecting it will burst open any second. He felt his knee tremble as he waited.

  Looking over the door, he saw there was no response. He walked up to the door and knocked on it again. He then waited but there was no reply. He wondered if Cedric was home.

  He reached for the door knob and twisted it to open the door. He was surprised when the door swung open. Kevin stood there at the entrance looking over the door. He was too scared to go in.

  Kevin’s eyeball moved left to right from each corner of the room. Then he walked in slowly and cautiously moving his eyeball in every direction. “Cedric?” he called out while walking across the room. The house was awfully quite like there was no one home.

  He walked to Cedric’s room hoping he would find him there but the room was locked from outside. For a moment he wanted to return back but then something stopped him. Instincts told him to check out what was inside that room.

  He felt his heart racing as he walked slowly towards the door looking back every second of his step. Kevin’s hands grew larger and huge as he tore the padlock from the door opening it. He looked back once more to ascertain that no one was watching him, and then he finally walked into the room.

  The room inside wasn’t what Kevin had expected it would look like. There was a big bed at the far end of the room with which Cedric lay on and beside it was a bookshelf with several books arranged on it.

  The curtains on the window were pushed aside and the sunrays penetrated through the window. There was a big poster on the wall just above the bed. It had a picture of a scary eye of a wolf looking up at him.

  Kevin knew what it was.

  The insignia of Beocraft…

  Kevin walked slowly across the room, browsing through the books on the shelf. Most of the titles and pictures he saw on the books were disturbing.

  His eye fell on a book with the title “torture techniques.” The cover page had disturbing picture of heart being pulled out of a human chest while he screams.

  There was a little study table beside the shelf with a lamp and a book on it. The book was opened to its middle like someone was there recently, reading. it had pictures of a girl, whose eyes were sworn open with a needle so she could watch as she was disemboweled.

  Another had a picture of a man screaming while he watches the internal organ being pulled out of his stomach. Kevin threw his face away in disgust. Then he turned the book over to cover and the title was boldly spelt out at the cover page of the big book, ‘Seven most painful ways to die.’

  What the hell is Cedric doing with books like this? He wondered as he slowly stepped away.

  He noticed a little drawer clo
se beside the table where he stood. He noticed that there was a ring placed on top of it. Reaching for the drawer, he picked up the ring and then examined it.

  Kevin felt something familiar when he held it in his hands. He began to look over the ring and then wondered to himself where he had seen that ring. He froze in shock when he suddenly remembered.

  It was the exact same ring he had given to Loretta for their engagement over a year ago. He wondered how Cedric had managed to get his hands on the ring.

  Kevin remembered vividly he couldn’t find the ring on Loretta’s finger back then when T-Rex had tied her to the pole and made him watch as he tortured her. Kevin knew T-Rex must have taken the ring off her finger before he had her tied up to the pole to be tortured.

  Kevin suddenly caught a glimpse of something hanging from one of the drawer. He pulled the drawer out, he found a group of photographs scattered inside it. He took the photos out from the drawer looking over them one after another.

  Kevin found himself staring at different pictures of himself. He saw the picture of when he was taking to Leonard under the stone bridge that night, he also saw a picture of when he had broken into the shifter’s prison to save Ashley, and he also saw a picture of himself and Derik when they were both inside the bungalow at old Avenue Street. He saw a photograph of himself standing outside the old warehouse peeping through the keyhole at Beocraft. He saw a picture of himself in Natasha’s room just before they both had sex. He saw a picture of himself kneeling before Mirabel’s corpse.

  Someone has been taking photographs of me without my knowledge.

  His eyes widened.

  They have been watching me.

  Leonard’s word began to echo out loud in his head.

  Shut all your doors and windows, they are watching you right now…

  Looking at the picture, Kevin felt like every moment of his life had been watched. Someone had been watching him. A cold chill went down his spine, he felt like he was being watched at that very moment in that room.

  He then noticed another drawer just below the first one he had opened. He got curious then he pushed it out, inside the drawer was the black hooded garment that had been neatly folded inside. He felt something else inside, it was a mask. He brought it out and stared into it, it was just same as the one C-Rex wore when he was kidnapped.

  Suddenly, Kevin’s heart dropped when he saw the latter ‘T’ carved out on Cedric’s mask. The metal mask fell from his hands and made a really loud noise as it hit the floor. His eye widened and his face froze in shock.

  Oh my God! Cedric is… T-Rex?

  * *

  Derik ran past the number of uniformed officers on duty, pushing through them. He just kept running down the hall way until he finally got to William’s office. Without knocking, he pushed the door open. The men inside were all staring blankly at him.

  William was engaged in a conversation with Lawrence until Derik interrupted. “What is the meaning of this?” Lawrence quarreled almost raising his voice at him. "…you walk in here without even bothering to knock.” Lawrence berated him obviously sounding pissed at him.

  “I am really sorry for the way I barged in but this is really urgent.” Derik assured “I just found the true identity of T-Rex.”

  Lawrence’s eye widened.

  William got up quickly from his seat. “Tell me who he is. I want to know who the bastard responsible for all these deaths is.”

  “He goes by the name Cedric…” then he dropped a picture on the table before them. “That’s him in the photo. He is a retired military personal in the fallout city police force. For now, that is all the info I have on this man.”

  “Who is this Cedric and why haven’t I heard anything about a retired military personnel living here in this city up until now?” William inquired.

  “I don’t know how Cedric had managed to keep a low profile up until now, but we have to strike now he still doesn’t suspect a thing. We will use the element of surprise against him.” Derik said.

  William was unease as he stood up unlike Lawrence who sat back totally relaxed. Lawrence then asked him, “Have you gotten an address on this guy?”

  “Cedric lives in a little mansion which is sitting at an intersection between Huffman Street and Bill Avenue. He had been sheltering Kevin in his house since the incidence which happened over a year ago”

  “This Kevin seemed like an interesting character.” Lawrence said folding his lips, “do you have an address on Kevin?”

  “He is living in my house for now.” Derik said.

  Lawrence then said, “I would very much like to speak with him.” a cocky smile crossed his lips.

  William picked up the picture of Cedric from the table. “How can we be certain he is the one… we wouldn’t want to be arresting an innocent civilian.”

  “There is nothing innocent about Cedric. Few days back, Kevin found out Cedric’s affiliation to Beocraft then for some reason he left Cedric’s apartment to stay with his best friend who was recently murdered and his body was found in the pack. Kevin then moved in to live with me after the incidence. Yesterday, I made him confront Cedric to give us any lead that could help us find Natasha but he didn’t find Cedric home so he decided to search the apartment and that was when he found the truth about Cedric.”

  “I ran a DNA test with T-Rex’s blood sample that stained on the window of Natasha’s room. The blood sample matches Cedric’s” Derik brought out a file and placed it on the table before them. “These are the test result from the lab.”

  William looked over at it, then he said, “If this information is correct and verified, then we need to restrain this Cedric before we lose him. He should know where my daughter is being held.”

  William took out his phone and quickly dialed Alex’s number. Shortly after, Alex’s voice was heard over the phone. “Hello detective… could you quickly pull up a search on any Cedric, a retired member of the armed force in fallout city. We’ve got a new lead and this Cedric guy could be our possible serial killer.” William then hung up.

  Looking over at Derik, he said “get some men down to that address and then capture this Cedric. I wouldn’t want any casualties this time.”

  Kevin didn’t know why Lawrence had suddenly decided to visit him at Derik’s residence but knew he had to act normal. He watched Lawrence through the translucent glass window as he highlighted from the vehicle and then walked towards the house. He was accompanied by his muscular dark-skinned bodyguard. He quickly prepared himself to face Lawrence. He knew the moment Lawrence senses any dishonesty from him, he would discover what he was.

  A loud knock on the door distracted him from his thoughts. He froze where he stood staring out at the door, and then he took in a lot of air and then exhaled loudly. Then he heard another knock on the door, a bit louder than the first.

  Kevin opened the door. He found himself smiling sheepishly at Lawrence who stood there at the entrance. Lawrence let himself into the house and his muscular body guy followed after him.

  “…a pleasure to meet you again, Mr Logan.” Lawrence looked over him with a greeted smile. He made himself comfortable on the coach while Kevin still stood there at the entrance.

  Lawrence gestured to Kevin to sit down. “We have a lot to talk about.” Kevin sat in anticipation at what he was about to say.

  Then Lawrence started, “I believe you are acquainted with the man called Cedric.”

  “Yeah, I am. We used to live together.”

  “…and then what happened?”

  “I left his house after he indirectly threatened to kill me.”

  “I learnt Cedric had let you live with him in his house for over a year now. Why did he suddenly turn on you?” Lawrence asked looking closely at Kevin.

  “It had something to do with Beocraft. After I found out Cedric was a part of Beocraft, his behavior towards me changed. He became colder.”

  There was a short silence between them,

  “How long have you been aware th
at Cedric was a shifter?” Lawrence asked him looking straight at him.

  At this point, Kevin sensed out what Lawrence was doing. He knew he had to be extra careful when answering any question Lawrence threw at him.

  “Mr. Logan, I asked a question…” Lawrence called out to him “how long have you been aware that Cedric was a shifter.”

  “…for a while now.” Kevin answered shortly after.

  “…and you didn’t bother to raise an alarm or report it to an officer here on the taskforce.”

  Kevin was silent as he spoke.

  Then Lawrence spoke, “you friend kern, he was recently tortured to death by this group of killer. An autopsy was performed on him and during the process we found out that your friend had the shifter’s gene embedded in his DNA. He was one of them too.”

  Lawrence leaned in close to him. “How long have you known your friend was a shifter?”

  There was awful silence from Kevin. He didn’t know what to say or how to answer that question. He gazed at Lawrence who raised his eyebrow at him as if expecting an answer.

  “I don’t know.” he finally answered.

  Lawrence retracted backward to lean on the coach, “you don’t know?” Lawrence looked over at him with a straight face.

  “Yes. I don’t know, I never knew what he was until now.”

  Looking at him straight in the eye, Lawrence asked him. “…and are you aware the man you are living with presently is also a shifter?”

  Kevin felt his built up confidence breaking apart. He was starting to lose faith.“I was never aware of that until now that you’ve mentioned it.” Kevin uttered trying to look surprised.

  After a long pause, Lawrence asked, “On the 17th day of April, where were you that night?”

  Kevin was puzzled by his question. “Am sorry… how is my location on that day relevant to our topic of discussion?”

  “On that day, five men were brutally massacred by a sifter whom we are yet to…”