by Shawn Inmon
And just like that, here I am once again.
A moment of panic filled him.
Wait. Can I remember everything?
There was a momentary void where all his memories about his studies had been. Then, the first page of his notes appeared in his mind and everything was there.
I made it. I’ve got everything I need. It took a lifetime to get here, but now I can get started.
SCOTT HAD METICULOUSLY planned for what he would do when he woke up again in this life. But he had dreamed it so often that actually living this life again felt slightly surreal.
The first eighteen months played out almost exactly as it had the last time through. He asked Earl to help him build a place to do his rehabilitation and spent many happy hours in the basement with his grandfather. Scott listened to him whistle tunelessly and tell him the same stories he had before. He didn’t mind hearing them a second time at all. Getting to spend more time with Gramps was a gift, and he recognized it as such.
Scott had a lot of other preparations to make in order to be ready. He knew he would want weapons with him as he went about his newfound vocation, but he wanted to avoid guns if at all possible. Guns were loud. No silencer ever worked like it did in television and movies. Plus, they left more information behind than he was comfortable with. He wanted to be as untraceable as he could be.
Finding a mail order supply house catalog for police departments, he ordered a collapsible steel baton. Small enough to easily be hidden on his body, but able to do serious damage when it was extended.
He also purchased a karambit, a weapon he had learned about in Vietnam. It was a short, curved knife with a finger ring on the end of the handle. That grip made it difficult for an opponent to dislodge the weapon during combat. Perfect for close combat, and potentially lethal.
The one question Scott couldn’t answer was, when faced with the opportunity, would he be able to actually do this thing? Could he kill someone even though they hadn’t committed the crime yet? Did he have enough faith in the way things had played out in his previous lives to actually put someone in a grave? He believed so, but he suspected that was something he wouldn’t actually know until he was faced with the decision.
In all his previous lives, he had burned his green canvas army jacket while he was rehabilitating himself—a way to forcibly separate his past. He chose not to do that this time, thinking that the jacket might allow him to blend in better in certain situations.
When his grandfather died once again, Scott knew his moment was almost at hand. While he waited for Cheryl to once again announce her engagement, he worked on getting into the best shape possible.
He bought a set of weights, set them up in Earl’s old workshop and spent several hours each day working on building up his muscles and improving his sense of balance. He also focused on his stamina. He started by walking a mile each time he went out, but by the time the wedding rolled around again in April, he was able to jog a few miles at a time.
He prepared Cheryl and Mike for the idea that he would be going on a walkabout when they returned from their honeymoon. They were once again planning the trip to Florida. The fact that their lives played out almost exactly the same, time after time, showed him how little impact he and his changing lives had on them.
Scott had taken the time to write down all the notes he had memorized. He knew they were hardwired into his brain by now, but it made it easier to sort through and plan when he could look at the specifics on the page.
For most of his previous life, he had known what his first mission was going to be.
Brock Allen Jenkins had murdered his wife and children in Waterville, Maine, on the 4th of July, 1974. It had been a horrific crime that had made headlines around the country at the time. Jenkins had gone drinking with friends at a barbecue earlier that day. He had arrived home to find his wife Sylvia and their three children sitting in the front yard.
No one ever knew what set Jenkins off, or why he did what he did, but he had killed his entire family. The medical examiner, upon examining the victims, had theorized that the deaths didn’t occur at the same time, but were spread out over a period of five or more hours.
When Scott thought of what each of the children or his wife had been thinking as they watched the rest of their family be murdered, it sickened him. In some ways, it was a carbon copy of what he had gone through when he was ten years old.
By the first week of May, 1974, he was packed and ready to hit the road. He had eight weeks to get from Indiana to Maine.
Chapter Seventeen
Scott knew that one of the keys to his long-term success would be the ability to travel anonymously. He decided that meant growing his hair out. That would help him fit in with the times.
One more long-haired guy wearing an old army jacket riding his thumb or the bus through an area wouldn’t be particularly interesting or memorable to most people.
Scott made his way on Interstate 69 north to Indianapolis. There, he turned east. He managed to pick up a ride with a sales rep at a truck stop outside of Indianapolis that took him across Ohio and into Pennsylvania.
His previous trip through Pennsylvania, he had barely nicked through the northwest corner of the state on the way to New York. This time, he caught a number of short rides that took him right through the heart of the state.
As he worked his way across Pennsylvania, he wondered how he had missed it while wandering in his previous lifetime. It was lovely—filled with small towns and a tremendous amount of history.
Scott knew he had plenty of time to arrive in Maine, so he allowed himself to take a few days off when he reached Gettysburg. He stayed in an inexpensive motel and took a guided tour of the battlefields.
While passing the time in Vermont, he had made a study of military history, reading as many books on strategy and wars as Greta had in stock at Twice Told Tales. Somehow, reading about many centuries of war helped him put his own brief battle experience into perspective.
His guided tour ended with a visit to the hill where Pickett had made his charge. As the sun set, Scott stood in the last rays of light, lost in contemplation, trying to picture the life and death struggle that had happened in that very place. Twelve thousand Confederate soldiers had run, crawled, and bled over three-quarters of a mile of empty field while the Union army rained hellfire down on them. The Confederacy breached the Union lines in a few places, but couldn’t hold their position. Eventually they were forced to retreat, with nearly fifty percent casualties. The Civil War continued to play out for several more years, but that marked the high-water mark for the South.
Years later, when a reporter asked General Pickett why his charge had failed, he answered, “I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.”
Scott shielded his eyes against the dying rays.
There haven’t been many times in our history when we weren’t sending our young men off to fight in a battle somewhere or another. Almost eight thousand people killed right here. Forty thousand badly wounded, all in a single battle.
The next day, Scott caught a bus out of Gettysburg and rode it up through the verdant farmland of New York and across the border into Vermont. The closer he got to Waitsfield, the more he felt like he was coming home.
By the time he arrived there, it was the third week of May. Hitchhiking is the most economical form of travel, but it’s good to not be on a tight schedule. For the uninitiated, hitchers live by what is widely known as The Rules of Thumb. Those rules weren’t written down anywhere, but if you stepped outside of one of them, any experienced hitcher will let you know.
Rule number one was, if you arrive at a spot and there’s another hitcher already there, you sit and wait.
That means you don’t go back up the road half a mile and try to steal their ride before it gets to them. It means you don’t stand with them while they hitch. It means that you take a seat on the grass or dirt a sufficient distance away and read a book or soak up the sun until the person or
persons ahead of you get their rides.
If there were two or three people all trying to catch a ride out of town at the same time, that meant Scott often sat under a shade tree reading for the better part of a day.
His ride from Montpelier dropped him off right in downtown Waitsfield. He didn’t want to spend too long there. He knew he had to get to Maine and still have time to scout out the area there. Still, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit what he had come to think of as his hometown.
His first stop was Twice Told Tales. Greta sat in her normal spot behind the counter, thumbing through a book about train travel through Europe.
Greta, you look a bit younger than that first day I met you. Still formidable, but younger.
“Hello,” Scott said.
“Hello, is there anything in particular you are looking for, or do you just want to look?”
“I think today is a just looking sort of day.”
“That’s what old used bookstores are good for. You never know what treasure might be lurking around the next stack. Feel free to look around. Fiction is mostly here on the main floor. Nonfiction and reference books are up in the little loft.”
It’s so strange to see you like this, Greta. I know you so well, but I am a complete stranger to you.
Scott browsed the true crime section out of old habit. Nothing there was new to him. He picked up a Sydney Sheldon paperback and a few True Detective magazines to read in case he got stranded on the roadside somewhere.
He paid for his books, said goodbye to Greta again and strolled outside. Vermont did have a hot season. The temps in July and August often reached above 80 degrees. But here, in late May, the afternoon temperature was only fifty-eight degrees. The clean air and towering trees of the forest beckoned him to go for a walk.
Without a conscious thought, he walked the road that he had traversed for decades in his last life. The sun filtered through the trees, the birds chattered and he felt both at home and at peace. Before he knew it, he saw his old cabin dead ahead. A white haired man sat in the rocking chair on the front porch, watching him come up the road.
Scott intended to pass by with a wave, but the old man said, “Just out for a walk?”
Greta’s brother, Kurt. Of course he would be here.
Scott stopped and said, “Out to see what I might see.”
The man waved his arm in an all-encompassing gesture and said, “What you’re seeing is about all you’re going to get down that road. It dead ends into the old quarry in another half mile or so. This old place of mine isn’t much, but it’s the last sign of civilization.”
“Good to know. Guess I’ll turn back toward town, then.”
I envy your place, Kurt. It was a simple life, but so good.
“Whatever you please. Just wanted to let you know.” Kurt Gnagy stood up with an ease that belied his advanced years, spit a long ribbon of saliva off the porch and went inside.
For a few long moments, Scott stood looking at what had been his hideaway home. With a sigh, he turned back toward town.
Enough of a trip down memory lane. Time to get to the task at hand.
Chapter Eighteen
Scott arrived in Waterville, Maine, on June 2nd. He clambered down from the delivery truck that had given him a ride for the last fifty miles and yelled “Thanks!” to the driver. He stepped onto the sidewalk and tried to get his bearings.
He had expected Waterville to be a little smaller, a little more rural, but it was a bustling, busy town of eighteen thousand people. The downtown corridor, which would be hit hard in a few decades, when the suburbs and big box stores drew people away, was still the center of commerce in 1974.
Scott stopped at a drug store and inquired where the library was—that was his planned first stop at each new town. He knew you could learn a lot about a town from the library and the local newspaper. It was easy to combine both at once. The clerk behind the counter gave him directions to a location a quarter mile away.
After a short walk, he saw the library. It sat off by itself and was an impressive brick building with a turret and three arched doorways that led to a small covered area. He liked it immediately.
If a town’s personality shows in its library, then I like Waterville already.
Scott jogged across the street but saw that the library was dark inside. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was a bit after six o’clock, but he had no idea what day of the week it was. Keeping track of days and dates hadn’t mattered to him for a very long time. He knew that now, and for the foreseeable future, he would be on some sort of schedule and made a mental note to grab a tiny calendar for his pack.
He turned back toward a small motel he had seen on his walk and rented a room. He planned to spend a month in Waterville, but he wouldn’t want to spend it all in a hotel. He had some cash saved up, but didn’t want to drain it staying in a motel that long. He vowed to find a longer-term place to stay in the next few days. For tonight, the King’s Arms Motel would do.
Checked into his modest room, Scott sat on his bed and went over the notes he had on both Waterville and the murders themselves. His notes on the city reminded him that there was a small liberal arts college in town.
That’s the answer. There will be houses around the college that rent to students. Semester probably ended a week or two ago. There’s gotta be room vacancies.
He took a long hot shower and thought of the task that lay ahead of him.
Everything has been theoretical so far, but it’s going to be real very soon. Am I ready? Have I done everything I can to prepare for this?
By noon the next day, he had managed to rent a room with kitchen and bathroom privileges. Almost all of the other rooms in the house had been vacated for the summer. He had a cover story ready to tell the landlady, but she didn’t care. She was just glad to see a warm body with cash in hand.
The next morning, he was waiting at the library when the librarian unlocked the door. After reviewing his notes, he realized that he had a fair amount of information about the murder, but none on the family before the crime, and not much on Waterville itself.
He didn’t want to make a lot of inquiries about the Jenkins family around town. It wouldn’t be good if Brock Jenkins suddenly disappeared and it came to light that a stranger had been nosing around, asking questions about him.
The first thing Scott did was wander around the library and familiarize himself with the layout. Next, he found a local phone book. He looked through the Js until he came to Jenkins, Brock and Sylvia. He jotted their name and address in his notebook.
Gotta remember to burn these notes before I leave town. Don’t want to get pulled over at some later date and be carrying around a list of people who have been found dead or missing.
He found a table at the edge of the library where the sun shone through the filtered glass. He found the previous months’ worth of copies of the local newspaper, The Morning Sentinel. Scott had hoped that the paper would be a weekly, but found it was published seven days a week.
Damn. Weekly papers are a lot more concise with their reporting. Gotta cram a whole week’s worth of news into one issue. Daily papers like this have a lot more filler. I don’t even know what I’m looking for, but I guess I’ll know it when I see it.
He developed a system. He scanned the first section of the paper, which had a mix of local, regional, and national news. He skipped the Sports and Classified sections, but looked carefully through the Local section. That was where the police blotter was, and small stories like car accidents and break-ins were reported.
By noon, he had scanned through three months’ worth of papers without finding a mention of any member of the Jenkins family. He stood, stretched the kinks out of his back and returned the papers.
For his three hours of effort, he had written exactly one note—the Jenkins’ address and phone number.
He walked to a café downtown for lunch, then went into the Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Center. He wasn’t inter
ested in the Colby Museum of Art, or the Fort Halifax State Historic Site, but he got what he was interested in—a map of the local area.
Scott found where he was on the map, then located the Jenkins’ address, which was on Greenbrier Lane. Initially, he thought that Greenbrier wasn’t on the map, but then he saw it—a small street in a wooded area northwest of the city proper.
It was hard to judge distances on the map, which didn’t seem to be drawn to an accurate scale. He guessed it might be three or four miles to get to the street they lived on. He decided to put that trip off until the next morning and returned to the library for more searching.
He made it through another three months’ worth of The Morning Sentinel that afternoon. He still didn’t find any mention of the Jenkins family.
I guess that’s not too unusual. How often does a family get their name in the paper, anyway? Besides, I’m not even sure what I was looking for. Maybe something to convince me that I need to do this. Sitting in the library an entire lifetime ago, this all seemed so black and white. A bad man in Maine killed his family. I should kill him, so his family can live. It was easier then.
He picked up the stack of papers and returned them to their proper place. The young librarian behind the desk smiled at him for being a good citizen, but Scott didn’t notice.
I know I can kill someone. I did it before. But, that was with a rifle, at a great distance, or with my handgun, when they were rushing at me, intending to kill me first. Can I be the instigator of violence? Can I look someone in the eyes and kill them?
Scott walked out of the library and toward his new home in a residential neighborhood half a mile away.
He looked around as he walked, soaking in the feel of the town.
Just another All-American town. Feels like it could be the setting for a Jimmy Stewart movie, not a Stephen King novel.