EVO Universe 1: The First

by Kipjo Ewers

“So how do you know their names?” Sophia steely pressed her interrogation.

  “You only saw their left side right?,” Ken motioned, “On their right side, each of them apparently have another patch with one letter that spells out the word “dead” between the four of them.”

  “Several years ago in Rwanda a couple of months after the Genocide” he went on to explain, “some poor bastard from the Impuzamugambi and his regime of over three hundred strong was attacked and wiped out in one night. Their camp burnt to the ground. With his dying breath, he described the patch you just described, and was able to see the patches on their right arm. He said God had judged them for the evil they had done by sending something far more evil than the Devil himself. Guess that makes sense considering the military police found him crucified upside down, and skinned down to his ribcage so the vultures could feed on his insides.”

  “He had the words “Cry out for God to end your life” carved into his forehead; they did that after they asked him if he believed in God,” Ken swallowed hard finishing his disturbing tale.

  Sophia being a visual person swayed and shuddered, “How do you know all of this?”

  “Like I said…unverified reports…rumors…drinking stories…if you’re in some branch of the military or a conspiracy theorist you’ve heard the stories,” his eyes went almost blank as he went into his next story, “But what solidified it for me was something on my third tour…our squad was on patrol in Ramadi. Got a tip that there were some insurgents in this small residential town…we roll on in, and from the beginning, something just wasn’t right; it was 11 AM in the morning. There wasn’t a person on the street…no kids playing or running around and dogs were whimpering and whining…we thought we were being set up for an ambush. We waited for fifteen minutes before we went knocking on the first door…got a sick feeling when no one answered, so we kicked it in…minute you walked in you could smell the stench of death and blood in the air…went into the bedrooms and there they were…family of five…their throats slit from ear to ear…”

  Kenneth trembled as he took a big sip from his glass; Sophia could see that he was reliving that moment right there in front of her, “We went to about five houses…each one same thing. Some were killed on the toilet…in their living room…kitchen…shower…it’s when we got deeper into the town we found a few outside done in the same way…and these bastards got creative…some were slit from chin to groin…some had their head cut clean off and placed in their laps…men…women…children…”

  He let out a nervous chuckle as his eyes got glassy making him take another deep sip, “There were so many we had to call in for back up to check the whole town. Relatives and friends started to come in from buses from neighboring towns…and then the blood curdling screaming and crying started…some thought that we were responsible. When we got to the fifteenth house…we found a mother and her two daughters…heard crying in a closet…it was a little boy, no older than Sam is. He was in the closet playing to get away from his sisters nagging him when he fell asleep…when he woke up…he heard scary voices in a language he didn’t understand and saw black figures. Watched as they cut up his mother and sisters…didn’t see their faces, but as one passed by, he saw a picture on their left shoulder of a skeleton in a cloak with a big blade…sitting on a skull…holding a skull.”

  Medical team came and picked the kid up after that…haven’t seen him since…said they took him to his relatives in a neighboring town or something. Four hundred and thirty-two fucking bodies…ten out of that number were identified as insurgents we were looking for…an entire town wiped out in one night and there were no signs of a struggle and not one shot was fired…as if the entire town was sleeping…and they just walked in and butchered them all…” Ken closed his eyes shaking his head to rattle the horrible visions from his skull.

  Sophia knew how he felt at that point.

  He quickly threw back what was left in the glass trying to get down to the last drop; he wiped his eyes and buried his chin in his chest so she could not see the emptiness that was now within them, “Never in my life had I seen any shit like that…and I’ve seen some shit…”

  “I’m sorry,” she said consolingly. No one in her mind should ever witness something so horrible.

  “Yeah…” was all Ken could say.

  Sophia instantly recognized the thousand-yard stare. He like Robert never really came home, and worse he was carrying a massive cross on his shoulders this whole time. She forgot about their past differences and her current problems for a minute standing there as a friend and a listening ear.

  “I was sent home early because I just couldn’t let go what I saw that day,” Ken went into explaining his last tour of duty, “Asking too many questions…trying to piece shit together.”

  “Did you know there are currently at least forty-four different military conflicts around the world…to date?” Ken estimated at the top of his head.

  “You think everyone is watching who’s killing who? You think everything is televised?” rhetorical questions he did not expect her to have an answer for, “Rebel forces with just a handful of guns and explosives eventually topple a military regime. Think they did it all by themselves, or did they get a “little” help? Did you ever wonder except for the first tower bombing and 9/11, why foreign attacks on U.S soil are almost nil? You think it’s just because of our “powerful military presence” in the world, because we have nukes?”

  “You’re saying…it’s because of these people?” asked Sophia joining in the conversation.

  “If you knew your enemy had the keys to the gates of hell itself, and could send something so evil with the capability of finding you no matter where you hid. Something that could not be stopped and could kill you slowly in the most intimate ways that you fear most…would you fuck with him?” he asked her with a dazed look.

  “So how do I find the gates of hell?” returned Sophia remembering why she came to speak with Ken, as much as she did not mind playing his shrink, she also remembered she did not have time to hang out.

  “Before I was sent home, started doing some research,” he continued as if prepping her for a mission, “Myth states that the D.E.A.D has been around since the Vietnam War, maybe even before…and it’s always been a team of four.”

  “Team of four?” she remembered that there was only three in the room with her and Robert.

  “Four horse men of Apocalypse,” he clarified, “Biblical type shit.”

  “That would make them in their fifties, this team seemed young,” she said comparing notes, “And there was a woman on their team.”

  “That’s the other part of the myth,” he explained, “It’s always a four man or person team…when one is killed or “retires” they replace those members immediately with someone else…but it is always four.”

  “I only saw three…,” she cited again.

  “Don’t know what to tell you, maybe one was doing lookout somewhere,” he shrugged his shoulders, “But all stories talk about four…but like I said that’s all word of mouth shit. Campfire stories told on patrol.”

  “You said there were conspiracy theories on them,” Sophia asked thinking that he checked those leads.

  “Yeah,” he had that fearful look on his face again, “I tried that route when I got back home. There was nothing out there…not a website…not even a blog, and I found out why. I sent an email blast to a bunch of conspiracy theorists thinking someone heard something. Some flat out didn’t respond, what was scary were the ones that did. Very aggressive e-mails telling me to never write or ask about the D.E.A.D again, and then they blocked me.”

  “Why?” She patiently motioned to push the story along.

  “This went on for about three days,” as he continued fighting past his fear, “One day I found a note on my truck windshield telling me if I wanted the answer I was looking for to go to the 59 Diner, sit in a booth, and have their big breakfast. I went there, ate and waited for an hour, I was about to leave when thi
s skinny kid with a bald head, black sweatshirt and jeans jumped into my booth. He told me to shut up and listen. That he was not going to give me his name. He told me to stop asking about the D.E.A.D, and to stop researching them. He said a couple of years ago a guy put up a website about them, and started making theories, drawing from factual stuff and bullshit.”

  Ken started to have the jitters again, as he continued his story, “A lot of people especially in their “field” subscribed to his site including him. Then one night he said the entire website was gone…not one trace of it was on the web, as he was searching for it, and talking to other subscribers he friended about what happened, he got an e-mail twenty minutes later from the owner of the site. He opened it…and the e-mail said, “Do not talk about us ever again”…five seconds after he read it, the e-mail disappeared from his inbox. He then said he tried to send an e-mail reaching out to other people he knew visited the site asking if the same incident happened to them. Before he could hit the send button the e-mail deleted itself, and a new e-mail popped up with no sender address saying “Read”. When he opened it, it only had two words…“Last warning”. Then that one disappeared from his inbox.”

  “Didn’t he call the police?” Sophia asked.

  “I asked him the same thing,” Ken said gripping the liquor table behind him to stop from shaking, “He said he dialed 911, and thought he got an operator…started to tell the person what happened. When the person on the line said to him, “What part of last warning do you not get?” then the line went dead. He said after that he never spoke to anyone about what happened. Two months later, he read on the web the same guy who owned the site died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his house. It was ruled an accident, but he knew better. He told me for the safety of my family and myself to forget about the D.E.A.D. Then he got up and ran off. I never saw him again, but I didn’t stop. And if you want to know, why I’m shaking like I want to piss myself. Two weeks after I spoke to this kid, I saw him on a missing person’s report on the news.”

  “His name was Michael Evans,” Ken hesitated as if he would surely die if he continued to speak, “I called the hotline number that night to speak with someone…the person on the phone told me…the kid’s dead…you and your family will be too if you don’t stop. Then the line went dead.”

  He looked like he was about to collapse as his legs would not stop shivering. It looked like he wanted to pour himself another drink, but was too afraid to move, “I took his advice after that.”

  “They set up his murder…like they set me up,” she went blank realizing how Ken’s story applied to her.

  Ken came out of his world confused as he asked, “What?”

  “They killed Robert, and then set me up as his murderer, because of whatever he knew…or was looking for,” her expression did not change when she said it. She looked like she was not even there as she pulled the pieces together seeing the bigger horrible picture.

  Kenneth’s eyes widened as he realized what she was saying, “Holy shit…”

  Sophia looked up at Ken as the tears began to pour from her eyes, “Did you tell him?”

  “What?” Ken looked bewildered at Sophia’s question.

  She could smell bullshit as she slowly walked up to him, “Did you tell Robert…about the D.E.A.D?”

  Before Kenneth could react, Sophia was in arms reach of him as she snatched him by his jeans pants and lifted him into the air like a rag doll.

  Needless to say the former hardened Marine freaked out at how freakishly strong a woman who use to stand at stomach level to tell him off was, “What the fuck man?!”

  “Did you tell him about the D.E.A.D?!” she screamed at him so that he could hear her loud and clear.

  “Of course I did, who else was I going to tell?!” Ken gripped her wrist to stabilize himself in the air as he locked eyes with her, “I was losing my shit over it! He told me to let it go, get my focus, and just think about the job and coming home.”

  “Oh my god…” she trembled as she held him high, she gasped as if her legs were about to go out from underneath her, “All this time…you knew…you...selfish son of a bitch…you knew about this…you got my husband killed…you got my husband killed!”

  Ken realizing what she was saying shook his head in denial, “No…No! No! He told me to forget about them! He told me to forget about them! Why would he go looking for them?! Sophia! I swear to god! He didn’t tell me! I didn’t know!”

  “You promised me!” She wailed, “You promised!”

  She screamed as he slammed him up against a wall.

  Ken broke down not fighting her. The revelation that he could have possibly gotten his best friend murdered over something he confided in him was too much to bare, “Sophee…I didn’t know…I swear to god…I did not know…”

  She wanted to smash him through the wall until he stopped moving, but she ended up slowly lowering Ken back down to the floor where he just hunched over bawling, she turned away grasping her chest as if she was having a heart attack. The pain in her stomach had come back as she covered her face shaking like a leaf while she wept.

  Her focus was officially gone as she saw her husband standing before her smiling with a cigar in one hand, and a glass of Cognac in the other. Ken and he were christening the den after the house warming. She was jokingly reminding him about cigars causing low sperm count, Ken reminded her of the imaginary sign that read “No Women and no whining”. Therefore, she had to leave for violating the rules.

  “Go…away”, she whispered whimpering, “Please…go away.”

  It was not fair, she was a good person; she did not want these powers, or this crazy existence. She wanted Robert, she wanted to have his children; she wanted to grow old and die with him. Now he was gone and she was all alone with haunting memories she could barely control.

  What was killing her most was that if what Charles said about her truly being immortal was true; she would also never see him again.

  She walked away to get some distance between herself and Ken, in fear that she might punch his head off. She took in some air, forced her tears to stop wiping her face, and counted down in her head again to make the vision go away. It was not easy but the mental apparition disappeared. In its place, a horrified Elizabeth stood at the door of their den.

  “What did you do?” Elizabeth shuttered close to her own tears.

  Sophia thought she was addressing her, when actuality she was looking at her husband, “My god…Ken…what did you do?”

  “Liz…please…go back upstairs,” Ken begged while turning away so as not to look her in the eyes.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she firmly threw back at him, “I am your wife…you should have told me. Days and nights, I waited thinking today or tonight I’d hear that knock at the door. That I’d have to tell your babies you weren’t coming home. I earned the right for you to tell me. You should have told me!”

  Her words made Ken stoop lowered into a ball and cry harder.

  With focus back and patience out the window, Sophia walked over to him grabbing him by the front of his sweatshirt forcing him to his feet bracing him against the wall looking him in his blood shot tear stained eyes.

  “Stop your damn crying,” she barked at him, “You don’t have the right to cry. You two selfish assholes and your secrets not even thinking about the people you claim you love. You two are responsible! You destroyed your wife’s trust, and I was executed over this bullshit! Now I have to fix your messes…so I need you to soldier up right now, and tell me what else you do know so I can find your best friend my husband’s murderers. Now think! After you spoke to Rob about Ramadi, did you contact him again?”

  “No,” he shook his head, “I swear to god no.”

  “Are you sure?” she pressed him, “Think. Did he contact you? Voicemail, instant messenger, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter?”

  “Sophia,” he made sure to look her dead in the eyes, “That was the last time I spoke to Rob before he was murdered. I swear
…”

  “Don’t you dare swear on the life of your children,” Elizabeth cut him off pointing at him with a warning, “Don’t you dare do it.”