by Aiden James
“We’ll be in touch with you as soon as things settle down some,” Jeremy promised, and then started the Kawasaki, motioning for Jack to get on the bike behind him.
Careful not to drive excessively fast, due to the weather and drawing any unwanted attention, Jeremy pushed beyond the speed limit once they veered onto McFarland Boulevard. As they approached Skyland Boulevard he was forced to drastically slow the Kawasaki, for the intersection was barricaded with only one through-lane allowed. On either side of the lane stood a handful of police officers clad in slickers, their cars and motorcycles parked on either side of the barricade.
The visors on the helmets effectively concealed their identities. Even so, Jack expected they would be detained anyway, given the extensive manhunt in progress. If not that, he worried the colorful imagery on the bike might draw notice, given the racial outlook that still prevailed among Tuscaloosa’s finest.
But the officers seemed preoccupied by a long row of media vans parked along the length of Skyland Boulevard from more than a hundred television and radio networks across the country, there to cover the incredible storm system steadily closing in on the city’s southern edge. The outlines of the gargantuan objects were clearer now, closer. The shimmering orange haze that surrounded these towers hovered a hundred feet lower than earlier, when viewed in the helicopter. If it fell any more, certain buildings and towers in the area would definitely be at risk.
Surprisingly, the police officers motioned for them to keep going so they could keep the intersection clear. Once out of the officers’ direct view and earshot, Jeremy pushed the speed of the bike again until they reached the side streets that would take them to Cedar Creek Road, where their grandfather lived.
When they pulled onto the block where Marshall Edwards’ two-story bungalow sat, Jeremy cut the lights and pulled the bike over to the side of the road, a few houses down from their grandfather’s place. 2:20 am. The rain had subsided. Quietly, they moved over to the house, setting their helmets next to a large maple separating Marshall’s house from his elderly next-door neighbor, Edna Simmons.
A large holly hedge ran along most of Mrs. Simmons’ driveway, just up from where the maple tree stood. They crouched low on her side of the hedge while surveying their grandfather’s yard. The lights were on in the main section of the house, which made them feel better about Marshall’s welfare. In addition to his Chevy Blazer, a pair of FBI sedans and an unmarked police cruiser were parked in his driveway.
Jeremy motioned for Jack to follow him as he moved between the police cars until they reached one of the windows on the north side of the house. The den’s window, its wooden frame sealed, was equipped with soundproofing their grandfather installed the past summer to reduce the constant noise from a nearby amateur raceway. Most of the windows in the house were outfitted this way except for those covering the bathroom window and basement window-wells in the backyard.
Jeremy carefully raised his head to peer into the den through a slight crease in the window’s blinds. The den’s lamp was off, but the light from the hallway illuminated the room’s contents. One of the officers or FBI agents sat in the room next to their grandfather’s writing desk, just a few feet from the window. For the moment the agent had his back turned to them. Jack started to say something, but Jeremy reached over and covered his mouth before he could.
“Sh-h-h!!!” Jeremy whispered, and then pointed at the window to let him know there was someone in the room. “Come with me!” he mouthed silently and led Jack over to the backyard’s fence.
He lifted his head just above the fence and peered into the yard. At first the area appeared clear, but another man stood on the back porch, facing them in the dimness. Jeremy froze, but the man didn’t react to his presence, as if this agent or officer hadn’t noticed him. He ducked down and quietly alerted Jack about this.
“Have you seen Grandpa yet?” whispered Jack.
“Not yet. Let’s see if we can get over to his bedroom. He’s probably asleep.”
Jeremy motioned for Jack to follow him to the front of the house. When they reached the edge of the front porch, Jeremy verified it wasn’t guarded like the back one. They scurried to the other side of the bungalow crouched low to the ground, since an immense picture window dominated the front of the house next to the front door.
The brothers stepped in between a large juniper tree that obscured part of Marshall’s bedroom window on the house’s south side. Completely dark, its door was shut. Jack suggested they lightly tap on the window to try and waken their grandfather, but Jeremy noted the window of the bathroom next to their grandfather’s bedroom was aglow. Since likely either their grandfather or another of his guardians were using the bathroom right then, they needed to verify who it was first.
They crept up silently to the window, and this time Jack peered through the crease in the blinds. Normally, since this window required the highest level of privacy, its textured surface would be nearly impossible to see through. Tonight, however, the window itself was raised slightly, perhaps to fumigate the room. Jack looked through the gap between the window and the sill, and immediately the color drained from his face.
“What’s going on in there, Jackie?” asked Jeremy.
Jack just looked at him, and then started to collapse where he stood. Jeremy caught him before he actually did.
“What did you see in there, Jack??” he hissed.
“There’s blood everywhere, Jeremy!” he told him, pulling at his hair while his voice shook. “She’s been here, man!!”
“WHAT-T-T???”
They no longer worried about alerting their grandfather’s guardians or waking the neighbors. The continuous visitations and surveillance during the past week would’ve likely desensitized the Petersons anyway, Marshall Edwards’ neighbors on the southern side of his property. Jeremy pushed Jack out of the way and peered in through the bathroom’s window. The room covered in blood, the air was filled with the sour-sweet stench from the early stages of death.
“Goddamn it!!!” he seethed.
He grabbed Jack by the arm and ran back to the front door. As they climbed onto the porch, he took the 9mm pistol from his pants and clicked the safety off. The door was slightly ajar, which neither had noticed when they scurried by the porch earlier. Jeremy pushed open the door and they stepped inside the house.
The living room had been spared much of the bloody mess they saw from the bathroom window, and an overturned couch and chair were the only furniture disturbed. But just beyond the doorway toward the middle of the room, the corpse of a man hung upside down from the ceiling.
The man’s body appeared to have been shoved forcefully into the ceiling itself, with one of his feet pushed through the very floor upstairs. His other foot never made it, as his ankle had broken from the tremendous force inflicted on the joint as it hit an unforgiving attic stud. The foot hung down upon the same leg’s knee and was the main source of blood that had dripped down in a small puddle on the living room’s hardwood floor. The rest of the man’s blood was missing, despite the enormous gash that sliced his throat from ear to ear and through his spinal column to the very back of his neck, causing his head to dangle tenuously from the rest of the body.
“Oh, my God!” whispered Jack as they approached the corpse. “It’s definitely her work, Jeremy!”
Impossible to miss for anyone passing directly in front of the living room’s picture window, it seemed so much like Genovene’s sadistic nature to do something like this. When they briefly examined the man’s face, the glassy-eyed look of horrified surprise revealed how this agent or officer had only an instant to react.
“Grandpa!!” shouted Jeremy.
He moved quickly through the house with the gun held out before him.
Jack headed toward the den calling out frantically for their grandfather. Meanwhile, Jeremy reached Marshall’s bedroom. He opened the door and flicked on the light, but the room was empty. Fearing the worst, he ventured into the bathroom. Shieldi
ng his nose from the growing foulness in the cramped room, he found another man lying in a pool of blood inside the bathtub. This one was definitely an FBI agent, nearly split in two pieces from a large wound stretching from his crotch to the bridge of his nose.
“Did you find him?” asked Jack, coming up behind him, fearful of what he might learn.
“No! Not yet,” said Jeremy. “What about the guy in the den?”
Jack peered over Jeremy’s shoulder at the agent lying in the bathtub.
“He’s dead too. Only instead of what happened to your guy here, the agent in the den had something shoved through his ribcage to remove his heart and the rest of his internal organs.”
Jack didn’t mention the expression on the face of the den’s victim was the worst so far, as it appeared the agent had longer to anticipate his demise and may have even had a good idea as to how it would be carried out.
“Have you checked the dining room and kitchen yet?” Jeremy asked him.
“Not yet.”
Jeremy moved into the kitchen with Jack right behind him. They found a uniformed police officer from Tuscaloosa sitting at the kitchen table with his severed head lying upside down on the table next to where he was seated. As the case for the victim in the living room, the immediate area around the officer was mostly clear of blood. Five tall bloodstained beer glasses sat on the table nearby, with tiny red reservoirs left in the bottom of each one.
“We can only pray that Francisco and the others find the Cristal Del Sol before Genovene does, Jackie,” said Jeremy, as he moved over to the dining room to check for additional carnage. “Otherwise, what you see here is probably going to be what goes on during a typical weekend night—or any time, for that matter.”
Since there wasn’t anything else obviously amiss in the dining room, he walked back into the kitchen and over to one of the beer glasses and picked it up, studying it for a moment as if trying to picture the fiend that had recently held it.
“I guess it’s a pretty safe bet that the five glasses were for her and her kin,” he observed. “Genovene’s got two brothers and two sisters, right, Jackie?”
“Yeah, she does,” Jack confirmed, his somber tone hushed. “They must’ve all been here. They took Grandpa, just like she said they would. If he’s being held as an insurance policy for us to stay away, which we’ve already ignored, than I just pray we’ve got enough time to get to him before she sacrifices him at daybreak.”
“Me, too, Jackie,” said Jeremy, his own tone worried. “Just let me check on the dude I saw standing on the porch, and then we’ll run through the upstairs’ rooms real quick and be on our way.”
He flicked on the main light to the back porch and didn’t even have to move through the back doorway to see the horrible damage inflicted upon this federal agent, as the mutilated corpse was plainly visible from where Jeremy stood. Jack joined him, grimacing in disgust at the gruesome sight less than fifteen feet away. At least they both now understood why this agent appeared to guard the back porch earlier, even though his body actually faced where they stood.
Like what happened to the man’s colleague in the den, the puncture wounds in his chest indicated his heart and other organs had been removed. But, unlike the previous victim’s body savagely abused in a similar way, this agent appeared to have been killed in haste with blood and gore spread throughout the porch. Jack surmised that once Genovene obtained the prize she came for, she and her siblings became more careless and ornery, twisting the agent’s head around to make him look like he still guarded the place, like a weirdly contorted GI Joe doll.
“I believe we’ve seen enough of this shit, Jeremy,” said Jack, turning away and heading down the hall to the staircase located in the front of the house. “I’ll go check upstairs, and then let’s get the hell out of here!”
“Sounds like a good idea!” Jeremy called after him, closing the back door.
He moved to the stairway, just in time to see Jack turn on the upstairs’ hall light near the top of the stairs. Climbing the stairs, he commented on which route would be quickest to get back to South Queens Court. All at once the front door flew open behind them.
“FBI—Don’t move!!!” an angry voiced screamed less than ten feet away. “Drop your weapon now, or I’ll blow your fucking head off!!!”
Jeremy dropped the gun as requested and started to turn around when another voice joined in.
“Don’t even think about it, asshole!!! Raise your hands slowly above your head!!!... DO IT NOW!!!”
He did as requested and Jack raised his hands from atop the stairs. At least he could see the two agents, one white and the other black. Incensed, as if the carnage in the house was new to them, and that they now wished to exact immediate revenge for their colleagues. Roughly the same age as Agent Peter McNamee, this made them even more dangerous given the present situation.
“Both of you move slowly down the stairs!” said the white one. “That’s it, keep moving slowly!... Now, walk slowly over here and lie down on your stomachs!”
He motioned toward the middle of the living room near the spot where their dead associate hung upside down. The brothers did as instructed, and Jack feared the black agent would blow their brains out at any moment. His hands shook with rage while alternating his aim at their heads.
“Place your hands behind your backs with your thumbs up!” continued the white agent. “That’s it.”
(Click)
Handcuffed, they lay side by side on the living room floor. The two agents kept them from looking side to side, insisting on their heads remaining straight with their eyes forward. A moment later, the cold barrels from a pair of Glock 9mm semi-automatics rested against the backs of their necks, while a more mature voice addressed them.
“You boys are in a world of shit now!”
Part VIII
The Blood Star
“Lou and Jim, bring them over to the couch,” said the voice, which for the past twenty minutes had interrogated and berated the brothers while they remained prone upon the hardwood floor. If they so much as tried to move their heads, or more often, when their answers didn’t suit the mysterious agent who stood nearby, he would order Lou, Jim, or both to deliver a blow with their feet to either Jack or Jeremy’s side. Occasionally, they heard a woman’s voice as well, and this person’s kicks stung worse than the men’s did.
The blows quite painful, these agents were skilled in bringing the highest amount of discomfort with the least amount of damage. So far, neither Jack nor Jeremy had suffered any broken bones or, hopefully, lacerated internal organs. But the continuous sting was nearly unendurable, and it took every ounce of determination to resist telling the owner of the voice everything he wanted to learn from them. If not for their recent experience in Virginia a few days earlier, they might’ve been naïve enough to believe they would be released once they provided the information he asked for.
After the initial interrogation, they were lifted onto their feet and brought over to their grandfather’s couch, restored to its original location in front of the picture window. The corpse no longer hung from the ceiling and the curtains to the large window were closed.
“We’re going to try this again, boys, and see if either of you are now more willing to cooperate,” said the owner of the voice that until a few moments ago had been a mystery to them. Agent Stuart Johnson.
Much shorter than either Kenney pictured in their minds, his build was slight, unless one considered the middle-aged pouch around his midsection. Not an attractive man, with average hair and facial features, the coldness in his light blue eyes induced subservience from those under his charge.
While the men who recently died in the house were closer to his age, the woman and the other two agents were in their early twenties and obviously awed by this man. They watched his every move while he haughtily paraded back and forth in front of the brothers seated before him. The woman was a striking, blue-eyed brunette and the green-eyed black man and his Anglo, blond-hair
ed counterpart, whose eyes were nearly as blue as the woman’s, could have all passed for fashion models. Jack immediately thought of Agent Peter McNamee’s unusual good looks and his unwavering allegiance to this agent with the Napoleonic complex. Without a doubt, the man grilling them now was not only Peter’s boss but also the same villain who harassed the Kenney brother’s grandparents many years before.
“Where is Dr. Mohammed Quard-e-Lazim?”
“We honestly don’t know, man,” said Jeremy. “Like we’ve been telling you for the past half hour, neither of us has ever met the guy.”
He motioned with his head to the clock above the TV that presently read 3:31 a.m. and then nodded slightly at Jack.
“And, that’s why you found it so easy to make yourself at home in his fabulous estate?”
Stu Johnson glared icily as he bent down toward Jeremy’s face.
“Son, your shit’s not going to fly with me!” he sneered. “You’ve got one more chance to cooperate, and then I’m going to turn you over to my assistants here, who are just dying to get a piece of you after what you’ve done to our friends!”
“We had nothing to do with that, and you know it!” said Jack. “There’s no way in hell either of us could shove someone through the ceiling or disembowel them in the manner you’ve seen here!”
He looked pleadingly at all four agents as he said this, lingering on the three younger ones, who met his gaze with callous disbelief.
“We arrived just before ya’ll did,” he continued, “and the only reason we even came here was to make sure our grandfather is all right!”
“Do you think we’ve got shit for brains, son?” Agent Johnson stepped away from Jeremy and moved directly into Jack’s face, grabbing the front of his World Express pullover near his neckline. “If I recall correctly, a good friend of mine, Frank Reynolds, said these very same words to you just hours before you and your brother murdered him and our other friends back in Virginia!”