by Paul Seiple
The Mayhem Children
A Project Specter Thriller
Paul Seiple
Contents
Quote
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
FIVE FREE BOOKS
A Note From Paul
The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.
-Elbert Hubbard
One
“Ever watched an hourglass trickle down?” Detective Sam Strode eyed the pink sand gravitating to the bottom of the glass cylinder. “It feels like it’s never going finish.” Sam stared at a dull gray wall. Years of neglect caused dirt to fill the tiny holes of each concrete block. “But, truthfully, gravity is robbing time as it lulls you into forgetting you’ve lost sixty seconds of your life.”
“I don’t need no lesson on time, Strode.”
“Time...most of us do not know when ours is up.” Strode eyed a clock on the wall, which read a quarter past one. He flipped the hourglass over. “I guess you’re one of the unlucky ones, Hayes. You know that your time here on Earth will end in less than six hours.”
“That’s why I don’t like you, Strode. You don’t fucking listen.”
Strode laughed. “Oh, I hear you, Hayes. The problem is you never say anything worth listening to.”
Elvin Hayes grew up as an outcast. Picked on in school for his seemingly low IQ and hand- me-down clothes that were either too big or too small. Nothing ever fit Hayes right. In 1977, he was convicted of the abductions and murders of six children from Charlotte, North Carolina. The case was dubbed The Silent Six due to the bodies never being found and Hayes’s refusal to speak of the crimes. One fiber from Jessica Challis’s bedspread put Hayes on death row. The jury didn’t need anything else to convict the monster. The children disappeared between the winter of ‘72 and the summer of ‘75. Charlotte saw its fair share of violent crime, but nothing like this ever happened. The city wanted it over. It wanted the horror in the past. The few who questioned Hayes’s hand in the disappearances changed their mind when children stopped vanishing after his arrest.
Hayes didn’t want to spend years on death row eating shitty food and staring at filthy walls. That was an extension of his childhood. He refused appeals, claiming that the sooner the bastards killed him, the sooner he could be reunited with his family. He never defined his family. But it was widely assumed that he meant the children he murdered.
“I have to say you’re taking this execution rather well,” Sam said.
“Fuck off,” Hayes said.
“It’s like you and the chair have always had a date with fate. North Carolina reinstates the death penalty in June of ‘77, and a few months later, you’re the first inmate sent to death row. How about that?”
“Fuck off.”
“No appeals. Death warrant signed on first attempt,” Sam said.
“Fuck off.”
“I’m disappointed you didn’t grow your vocabulary in here. Listen, Hayes, you have one chance left to do the right thing,” Sam said. “In a few hours, the priest will be here to read your last rites. Give the families closure. Tell me what you did with the bodies. And don’t play dumb with me. I know the low IQ thing is a defense mechanism. On your psych evaluation, you tested in the highest percentile.”
Hayes smiled and flicked his tongue over the jagged edge of a broken front tooth. “What makes you think I give a fuck about the priest, this world, or those families?”
“Cut the tough guy act with me. I’ve seen my fair share of killers cry and beg for their lives as they are led to the chamber. Think of it as me doing you a favor. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let the world keep thinking you’re a tough guy.”
Hayes flicked his tongue faster over the broken tooth. Blood flecked his lips. “Your reverse psychology bullshit will not work on me. I’m smarter than you. You said it yourself. If I cry as they lead me to death, it will be tears of joy. I’ll soon be reunited with my children.”
The last of the sand piled up in the bottom of the hourglass. Strode flipped it again. “Another sixty seconds you’ve wasted. The kids you murdered were not your children. They had families. Fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters who miss them terribly. You are the only person who can give them closure. I know you think you’re pure evil, and the Devil is waiting to welcome you with open arms, but let me tell you something. When electricity burns through your temples, you’ll find out there is no Hell. Your ashes will be tossed out like garbage, and that’s reality.”
Hayes traced his lips with his fingers. He smeared the crimson liquid between his fingertips before tasting the blood. “If you’re right, Strode, then Hell will be here on Earth, because those families will suffer until their dying days wondering what happened to their children. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m ready for my last meal.” Hayes wiped his lip again and scribbled the words “Fuck You” onto the wooden table in front of him with his blood.
Strode let out a deep breath and stood up.
“One thing does worry me,” Hayes said.
Strode faced him.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to eat because I’m so excited.” He flicked his tongue over the jagged tooth again.
A war brewed on the other side of the barbed-wire fence outside of Central Prison. The support group for Elvin Hayes, which mainly consisted of a small crowd of self-proclaimed Satanists calling themselves Haydes—a mashup of Hayes and Hades—and a few straggling anti-death penalty advocates, screamed at the injustice set to take place in three hours.
The era of Satanic Panic was strengthening its hold on the media. Heavy metal music was portrayed as “Devil Music.” Incorrect reports of Satanic sacrifices were appearing in newspapers all over the country. In 1977, serial murder held its share of television watchers’ attention. Holy roller preachers attributed the murders committed by Ted Bundy, “The Son of Sam Killer” David Berkowitz, and Elvin Hayes to Satanic influence. In Hayes’s case, they were right. Earlier in 1982, women were being killed in the Seattle area again, one of Bundy’s kill zones. The holy rollers were quick to blame the Devil. The murders were finally attributed to Gary Ridgeway decades later, but the Devil drew ratings. The media needed those ratings to thrive.
The Haydes seemed a million strong to those watching on television, but the view from the guard tower told the truth. It wasn’t a fair fight, even if Satan was their leader and Elvin Hayes was his voice.
The other side of the battle was an ever-growing congregation of religious advocates and friends of families of Hayes’s victims. They waved signs that ran the spectrum from “Burn In Hell” to quoted scriptures and pleas for Hayes to tell what he did with the bodies.
Sam Strode sat in his Buick Regal with the windows cracked, listening to the back and forth banter of good versus evil. He’d beat himself up for years after the children disappea
red. Above all else, he needed to know what Hayes did with those kids. He turned Hayes’s trailer upside down searching for anything that could lead him in the right direction and never found anything. He searched everywhere that Hayes stepped foot, only finding a few pairs of women’s underwear in a storage shed. Hayes never revealed why he had the panties. Strode spent countless hours grilling Hayes, trying to trick him into giving just one hint of what happened. Hayes never took the bait. If it wasn’t for the one piece of fabric, Hayes might have never been caught. The thought of how many more kills Hayes would have racked up was terrifying. Sam Strode was viewed by the public as a hero. He didn’t feel anything like a hero. He thought of himself as a failure. The case would always be unsolved if those children were never found.
Sam closed his eyes and listened to the crowd. By far, the loudest were the religious zealots. Not surprising, since they brought the most soldiers to the fight, but the pleas for Hayes to tell the truth about what happened unnerved Sam the most. Even more than the Satanists.
Sam knew Hayes as well as anyone. There was a pure evil that ran through the killer’s veins. A sadistic streak that for the protection of the innocent should probably stay hidden. The truth was no one really wanted to know what Hayes did to those kids.
Sam turned up the radio, letting “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” by Bach drown out the screams. He looked at his watch. In less than three hours, this chapter in The Silent Six story would be over. But there would be so many questions left unanswered. It devoured Sam from the inside to know the victims’ families would never find resolution. He took a deep breath and said, “The lesser of two evils,” trying to convince himself that it was better not knowing.
“Is there anything that you would like to confess, Elvin?” the priest asked.
For a moment, Hayes sat in silence, before laughing. “The steak tasted like shit. I asked for it rare. It was overcooked. Like eating fucking rubber. And the mashed potatoes were too lumpy. You would think a guy could get a good last meal.” He laughed again. “So here’s my confession. I’m angry, and I’d like nothing more than to rip your fucking throat from your neck. How’s that for a confession?”
There was a clang against the metal door.
“It’s time.”
The words seeped from underneath the door and filled the room with reality. The priest started to read the Last Rites to Hayes, who stopped him.
“Save your breath for someone who gives a shit, old man. They’re doing me a favor by killing me.”
“We are doing the world a favor too,” a guard said, entering the room and unhooking Hayes’s wrists from loops welded into the metal table. “You should probably go,” he said to the priest. “This man needs God about as much as the Devil needs a heater.”
Hayes smiled and flicked his tongue over the broken tooth. “You heard the man. Go save someone else.”
The guard jerked Hayes up by his elbow and escorted him out of the room.
“It’s going to burn you from the inside,” the guard said, walking with Hayes and two other guards to the chamber.
“I’d be disappointed if it didn’t,” Hayes said.
“You won’t die right away. Your body will tense up. The electricity is going to melt your organs.”
“If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working. I’m looking forward to this,” Hayes said. “But keep talking; I’d like to come one more time before I go.”
One of the other guards opened a door to a white room that had two windows and a cherry wood chair with what looked to be an upside-down metal bowl suspended from its back support. White curtains flanked the windows but were open. On the other side of the bigger window were eight black and white chairs. Sam Strode sat in one chair. A reporter for the News and Observer occupied another chair. The rest were empty. Sam advised the families not to attend the execution. He wasn’t sure what Hayes would do or say. He also had all media blocked, allowing only one witness as an assurance of proof that Hayes was dead once this was over.
“Oh look, my good friend came to my party. Did you bring me a gift, Sam?” Hayes asked as the guards strapped him into the chair.
“That’s one sicko,” the reporter said, extending his hand to Strode. “Derek Gallagher.”
Strode didn’t shake his hand. “Listen, Gallagher, I allowed you to sit in on this, but I have one rule.”
“Rule?”
“If Hayes says anything about the children, you cannot quote it. You cannot print anything he says about the children. Are we clear?”
“But it’s my job,” Derek said.
“Your job is to report that Hayes is dead. That’s all. I don’t care if you exaggerate how it happened. Most people will want to know he suffered. But if he says anything about the kids, it doesn’t leave this room.”
“I can’t...”
“Then you can leave now. This isn’t up for debate. I’m not compromising. Either you want to be the only reporter have a first-hand account of Elvin Hayes’s execution or you don’t. The families have been through enough,” Sam said.
Derek deflated. “You have my word.”
A tall, skinny, balding man entered the room along with Warden Jones as one of the guards strapped Hayes to the chair.
“Ignore my erection, Warden,” Hayes said.
“Elvin Hayes, you’re sentenced to die by electrical current,” Warden Jones said. “The executioner will flip the switch, sending 750 volts through your body. Doctor Rosen will then check for a heartbeat. If you’re still alive, another jolt will be sent to your body. Death will occur between two to fifteen minutes. Do you have any final words before we start the process?”
“I shall burn just like the witches.” Hayes looked at Sam through the glass. “I’ll tell you where the children are. They are in hell, and I’m going home to them.” Hayes turned his attention back to Warden Jones. “Let’s get this show on the road. I hoped they baked me a cake. Your food was complete shit.”
The lights dimmed as the first jolt hit Hayes. Doctor Robinson checked for a pulse after a few minutes to let the body cool. Hayes was dead. He didn’t lie. He was ready to go.
Two
Flashes of red and blue lights bounced off houses, leaving a vibrant light show in the night sky over the quiet development of Murrell Heights. The neighborhood, normally known for rising property value and easy access to a greenway, was now flooded with cop cars, ambulances, and news vans.
“How’s it look in there?”
“Bad, real bad, Terrence,” the uniformed officer said. “Worst I’ve come across in all my years.”
Terrence Simms, a former All-American running back at the University of Alabama, had seen a lot of death in his five years as a homicide detective in Alabama. Each murder left an impression on him that he never felt he could shake. But since moving to Mooresville, Terrence had blocked out as much of the gruesome details as possible.
“Four dead. Two are kids. Couldn’t be older than ten,” the officer said.
“Any survivors?” Terrence asked, putting on a blue windbreaker with the word HOMICIDE stamped across the back. It wasn’t often that he got to wear the jacket. Violent crime was rare in Mooresville.
“One. The shooter. He’s in the back of Blankenship’s car.”
“Who is it?”
“Tommy Lloyd. He’s the grandfather.”
“Has anyone talked to him?” Terrence asked.
“He just keeps repeating, ‘Jimmy made me do it.’”
Tommy Lloyd, a sixty-three-year-old grocery store manager, rocked the metal chair back and forth on the concrete floor. Clangs ping-ponged off the concrete walls of the interrogation room. “Jimmy made me do it” was the only thing he said since calling 911 to report he had murdered his family.
“What’s this guy’s deal?” Terrance asked, watching Lloyd through the two-way glass.
“In 1973, his son was abducted and murdered.” Detective Kim Strode handed a manila folder to Terrence. “His son, Jimmy, was on
e of The Silent Six.”
“The kids that Hayes guy murdered?” Terrance asked.
“Yeah, Jimmy was the second one taken.”
Terrance opened the folder. “Lloyd’s wife died last year?”
“Suicide,” Kim said.
“Any chance Lloyd played a part in that?”
“I doubt it. Marion Lloyd had brain cancer. The doctors gave her six months after she was diagnosed early last year. She kept saying she was seeing Jimmy. She said he was lonely, and she needed to be with him.”
“And the victims tonight?” Terrence asked.
“One was Lloyd’s other son, Will, Will’s wife Molly, and their identical twins,” Kim said.
“Jesus Christ.”
“I know. Looks like Lloyd had been treated in the past for PTSD. He stopped seeking treatment after Marion’s death,” Kim said.
A loud bang startled Kim and Terrence. Tommy Lloyd was beating his head against the table.
“Why did you make me do it? I loved them. You’ve taken my whole family,” Lloyd said.
Terrence ran into the room. “Mr. Lloyd, calm down. Hurting yourself isn’t going to help the situation.”
Lloyd ignored Terrence and started hitting his head harder against the wood. “You’re not Jimmy. You never were Jimmy. You killed Marion. And now.” Lloyd broke into tears. “Now, I have nothing left. You’ve taken everything from me.”