Dreams and Reality Set 3: Cannibal Dreams and Butchered Dreams

by Hadena James

  George made weak suckling noises through the gag. His eyes once again rolled uncontrollably for a moment. The chair suddenly became damp under him. Patterson smiled. He’d scared the piss out of him, literally. This was going to be fun.

  Patterson pulled out a long, serrated knife used for hunting. He started at the navel, inserting the blade slowly, then pulling it out.

  “Oh, I forgot something,” Patterson said in a sing-song voice. He hit the handle on the recliner and the footrest flopped out. “That’s much better.” Patterson cut open George’s shirt, watching the blood already pooling on the younger man’s stomach.

  He slipped the knife back into the same wound. George tried to scream again. Patterson giggled. He applied pressure, moving the blade upwards. George’s screaming was becoming frantic. The intestines, free of the captive flesh, spilled out willingly. Patterson had expected it, seen it happen often. However, he also knew a person could live for a long time with their intestines lying exposed as long as they weren’t damaged.

  It was a slow process. He removed the organs carefully, ensuring he didn’t cause damage when he took them out. He scattered them about the house, turning it into a ghoulish scene. Unfortunately, his victims died quickly once the initial cut was made. Between bleeding from the wound and having their organs harvested, it was a quick, but painful death.

  Patterson showered, dressed in a different outfit, leaving his suit on the bathroom floor and left. They’d find the body, eventually.

  Twenty-Five

  With the exception of Nina, my family was unhelpful. The men clammed up the instant August’s name was mentioned. Gabriel sat beside me in a small room with a video monitor. I had yet to be in a police station that had the giant two-way mirrors that they always put into police stations for TV and movies. Usually, there were three or four people crammed into a room the size of a janitor’s closet while the investigators and detainee were in a room about the size of a small bedroom.

  The idea of torturing them for information had already crossed my mind, several times. I was sure it had gone through Gabriel’s as well. The fact that I hadn’t stormed in there should have won me serious karma points. They kept repeating that August was dead, like this was a fact that we didn’t already know. All of them claimed they knew nothing about August’s activities while he had been alive. Their second favorite phrase was “he was a quiet guy.”

  The August I remembered was not quiet. He’d been loud and obnoxious. He’d been creepy and weird. He’d even gone so far as to hit on my mother at a few family gatherings. If August was the quiet type, then I was perfectly stable and well-adjusted.

  I put my face down on the table on the backs of my hands. The skin was rough from the burns I’d endured last summer. It rubbed against my face like a lion’s tongue, threatening to tear away the healthy skin.

  “Go make them talk,” I told Gabriel.

  “I don’t think I’m scary enough to make them talk,” Gabriel told me. “After watching them, they don’t seem to intimidate easily.”

  This wasn’t true. They were used to people who were nuts, but they never knew what to say or do when I was around. Some tried aggression, some submission, others just tried to ignore me completely, hoping I’d disappear like a morning mist. They could be herded like sheep, if the right shepherd could be found. Sadly, I wasn’t the right shepherd. Lucas would have been good at getting them to talk. He’d outwit them while lending a sympathetic ear, coaxing out the answers. But we didn’t have Lucas. We had Gabriel, Xavier, John, and me. They certainly wouldn’t respond to me. They didn’t seem to be responding much to John and Xavier either. I wondered if I could make Gabriel scarier. It was a long shot. Gabriel just didn’t seem scary.

  On the monitor, Xavier and John both stood up. They left the interrogation room. Gabriel left, joining them wherever they had gone. I stayed and stared at the screen.

  My uncle, Joe Clachan, was in the room with Nina. The two were arguing. I leaned in, as if it would allow me to understand them better, and listened. Nina smacked him in the back of the head, then went and beat on the door of the interrogation room.

  With my comrades off doing whatever it was that they did, I went to the room. I didn’t go in, just opening it enough for my head to enter. Nina frowned at me.

  “We can’t tell you,” she said.

  “Well, everyone else seems to have gone out for coffee at the moment. I’ll let them know you want to talk to them.” I told her.

  “What do you mean they went out for coffee?” Joe demanded.

  “They went to get coffee.” I answered, speaking very slowly.

  “What, I’m not important enough or something?” Joe stood.

  “You were uncooperative,” I shrugged. “So, they went to get coffee and, as Kurt Russell famously said, maybe a Danish.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you people? You drag me down here, send in two guys that act like Scooby-Doo and Shaggy to interrogate me and then go out for coffee and a Danish? That seems unprofessional.” Joe responded.

  “Hey, if you want professional police officers, we are definitely not the team for you. If you want federal officers that get the job down and bust down doors, you call us. I don’t know what to tell you.” I looked at Nina. “Do you want coffee or something while you wait? You don’t have to sit in here, you can come out. He has to stay though.”

  “I would like a cup of coffee,” Nina said, following me out of the room. I walked with her down the hall. I had heard the information and I desperately needed Gabriel to go into the room and hear it from Joe. I was hoping they were at the coffee machine. My wish was granted. The three men stood around a coffee machine.

  “You have got to go,” I told Gabriel. “Joe has a bombshell piece of information to share and I’m not sure how long he’ll be convinced to tell it.”

  “Ok,” Gabriel looked at me skeptically.

  “Go,” I shooed him with my hands. Nina stood next to me. “Coffee-like substance?” I pointed to the pot.

  “How old is that?” She asked.

  “It isn’t as old as the coffee on Snow Dogs,” Xavier giggled. “What’s the bombshell piece of information?”

  “My cousin, August, is alive.” I told him, practically dancing.

  “How is that possible?”

  “That is an excellent question,” I looked at Nina.

  “Don’t ask me, I just found out myself.” Nina answered attempting to pour the coffee into a mug. “Crazy people.”

  “Was that directed at us or someone else?” Xavier asked. Nina seemed to think about this for a few moments. Her wrinkled face pinched up.

  “Our family, but I guess it would apply to you guys,” she finally answered. “Want to hear a joke?”

  “A real joke?” John asked.

  “Yes, a real joke,” Nina scolded him. She should have been a school teacher. The scold and look she shot him would have made high school students wither in their seats as they tried to think of excuses as to why they didn’t do their homework.

  “I’m always up for a joke. Ace doesn’t tell many.” Xavier leaned against the counter holding the coffee pot.

  “Aislinn has never had much of a sense of humor. Her father didn’t either. However, he’s the one that told me this joke.” Nina answered.

  “I have a sense of humor,” I defended myself.

  “I didn’t say you had no sense of humor. I said you didn’t have much of one. There is a difference. You’ve always been too serious to really have a sense of humor. On to my joke, before Aislinn starts protesting,” Nina said. “Which side of the cheetah has the most spots?”

  I stared at my great aunt, racking my brain for an answer and coming up with nothing. I wasn’t sure there was any way to know which side of a cheetah had the most spots. Genetics, gender, even food sources could have an impact on the way spots formed.

  “I give up,” Xavier said.

  “The outside,” Nina chuckled. Xavier and John both chuckled with
her. I frowned. “Stop thinking about it, kiddo, it’s a joke.”

  “I’m not thinking about it,” I told her. This was true, I had stopped thinking about it the moment I heard the answer. I had overthought a joke and ruined it as a result. Maybe I didn’t have a sense of humor.

  “She’s just realized that she doesn’t have a sense of humor after all,” Xavier said.

  “That is exactly what I was thinking about,” I admitted. “Is Gabriel talking to my uncle alone?” I asked pointedly.

  “No, Detective Russell is with him,” Xavier answered. “He came in and said he was going to give it a crack a few seconds before you did. You didn’t see him in the hall?”

  “No,” I answered, rushing back to the room with Joe and Gabriel. I flung open the door. Detective Russell and Gabriel sat at the table. Joe sat with them. They all stared at me. “Sorry.” I closed the door.

  “Everything okay?” Xavier asked sauntering around the corner.

  “Seems to be,” I answered, leaning against the wall. I had expected to find Joe strangling my boss. I was glad he wasn’t. “Could you have been any slower about getting here?”

  “That is a small room. I didn’t want to be in there with you if things were not okay,” Xavier sipped his coffee. “This is terrible.”

  “So the old adage of police station coffee being bad is true?” I asked him.

  “No, most police stations have good coffee. Maybe we got it from the wrong pot.” Xavier told me. “Since your cousin is alive, do you think he is still in the illegal animal trade?”

  “That is an excellent question,” I said. “But a better question is how is he still alive. They found his body in the rafters.”

  “No, they found a body in the rafters.” Xavier said. “If he was positively identified, they may not have done much to prove it was your cousin.”

  “Not even compared dental records?” I asked.

  “His face was eaten, what dental records?”

  “His face was bitten, there’s a difference.”

  “There is a difference,” Xavier agreed. “Your cousin’s face was eaten. I saw the photos. The lower jawbone was detached from the skull and gnawed on.”

  “Then we’re back to how he was positively identified.” I looked at Xavier. “Think about the numerous victims we’ve seen that had only part of their face missing. It was hard to identify them without DNA.”

  “Anyone else in your family missing?” Xavier asked.

  “My grandfather is missing. Oh and he’s The Butcher.” I told him. Xavier’s mouth dropped open. “Yeah, surprise! Nina just found out, she tipped Malachi, so I’m guessing the lead that Malachi called about was legitimate.”

  “Is he a serial killer?”

  “It would appear that way, but aside from my grandmother, all his victims were in Europe during World War II. It was a serial killer’s paradise. Any mutilated corpses were just assumed to be Nazi barbarianism. My grandfather served on the front lines. He could easily have committed crimes that were attributed to Nazis. I guess he used to brag about them once he came back, at least to family members.”

  “How do you feel about your grandfather being a serial killer?” Xavier asked.

  “Annoyed,” I said. “That gives me a serial killer and a mass murderer in my family. I’m starting to buy the whole argument that most serial killers are created by genetics.”

  “With ten thousand serial killers a year in the US alone, most people are likely to know one or two.”

  “How many can claim that they have two in their immediate family?”

  “The girl from Alaska has two, her father and brother. I’ve forgotten her name.” Xavier said.

  That was true. The young teenaged daughter of an Alaskan serial killer could claim two. That meant there were at least two of us in the world with immediate family members who liked to kill. All I could say was at least Eric hadn’t skinned his victims alive. I didn’t know that a bullet was more merciful, but it seemed less painful in the long run.

  “Did you really just play my mass murderer is better than your serial killer in your head because your brother didn’t skin his victims?” Xavier asked.

  “What the hell?” I glared at him. “The mind reader has to take a few months off and you acquire his powers in the mean time? Get out of my head.”

  “Wow, you did. So, we should sort out how your cousin was identified and find somewhere for your aunt to go. I don’t think going back to the Clachan Cult would be very healthy.”

  “I think she is going to Nyleena’s.” I told him. “She has terminal cancer.”

  “I know, I can see the symptoms,” Xavier said. “Do you want to call Nyleena while I get all the case notes from your cousin’s autopsy and investigation?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I told him, pulling out my phone.

  Twenty-Six

  Arrangements were made for Nina to go stay with Nyleena. She said she needed nothing from the house except her medications. Xavier and Gabriel went to get those. We figured my family was still huddled together waiting for the return of the guys, so they wouldn’t be an issue, but better safe than sorry. Xavier returned with medications and a suitcase. The suitcase contained clothing and some photos that had been hung on the wall of my great aunt’s apartment. They were photos of Nyleena and her immediate family and my immediate family.

  One caught my attention. It was Nyleena and I at the park, we were both smiling. I looked about twelve in the photo. In front of us was a dog. I had never had a dog and at that time, Nyleena had been away at college. The dog wasn’t hers.

  “Who’s dog?” I asked Nina.

  “Eric’s,” Nina answered. “Eric took the picture.”

  “I don’t remember going to the park with Eric and Nyleena.”

  “Obviously, you did,” Nina answered.

  “I look happy. It seems like something I would remember.”

  “Look might be the keyword,” Nina said. “You were always hard to read, even as a young child. You were good at looking happy, even when you weren’t. It was a skill your father had as well.”

  “My father was a sociopath,” I told her.

  “I know.” Nina answered. “So are you. What’s your point?”

  “Nature versus nurture,” I shrugged.

  “You were a sociopath long before that picture was taken. I remember when you were three, I told your father that you were going to be like him. But damn you were smart and logical, you were so logical you could think circles around most of the family. That’s why your Uncle Chub, Nyleena and I were sort of put in charge of caring for you when you needed a babysitter. We were the only ones that you couldn’t confuse with logic. That’s why Nyleena latched onto you. At a young age, you were her intellectual equal. She liked that and very mature. I’ve never seen a child so independent and mature as you. Some of that seems to have slipped, probably because you have friends now.”

  “I think that was an insult,” I told her.

  “Just the opposite. You were always too logical, too mature. It’s good that you have friends and have someone that can relate to you. It’s made you grow. I see it in you. So does your mom.”

  “You talk to my mom?” My mom had been ostracized after my father’s death.

  “Twice a month,” Nina said.

  “My, my, you have been keeping secrets,” I raised an eyebrow.

  “We all keep secrets. They usually eat us alive. That’s why I have cancer, too many secrets. But I’m done keeping them.” She told me. I didn’t tell my great aunt that secrets hadn’t caused her cancer. She wouldn’t have believed me anyway. “Now, go do your job. I’ll be fine here waiting on Nyleena.”

  Gabriel, John, and Xavier were in a conference room. A single box sat on the table. The guys had folders in their hands. Xavier was frowning very hard at his. If he concentrated or frowned much harder, his face would break and the file would combust within his fingertips. He slid the file to me. I read a few pages.

  Augus
t had been identified by DNA. It was therefore impossible that he could be up and walking around, like Joe said. It was even more impossible that he was still importing animals illegally and selling them to a serial killer. While my family probably could have hid August for ten years, it was very unlikely. I slid the folder back to Xavier. Joe had lied to us. This didn’t really surprise me.

  Xavier caught the folder as John motioned him over. Xavier stared over the other man’s shoulder at a computer screen. They talked quickly with Xavier pointing to things on the screen.

  “Is there a history of inbreeding in your family?” Xavier asked.

  “No,” I told him.

  “Are you sure?” He pressed.

  “Sure as I can be. I’m not monitoring the bedroom activities of all my relatives.”

  “Are you adopted?” Xavier continued.

  “Not that I know of,” I responded. “Should I call my mother and ask?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Xavier took out his phone and speed dialed my mother. It said something when your coworker had your mother on speed dial. Of course, my mother lived in Kansas City. No one else’s mother lived that close and I was discovering that occasionally, the guys just needed a mommy. Lucas had a term for it, but I hadn’t paid enough attention to remember it. Essentially, my mother was a surrogate for all of them because she was close.

  Xavier went through the same questions with my mother that he did with me. There were several minutes of silence on his end. After those minutes, he hung up.

  “Your mother is about to call you,” he said as my phone began to ring.

  “Do I want to hear this?” I asked her.

  “Probably not,” my mother said on the other end of the phone line. “You and Nyleena are not double cousins. She’s your sister. She’s adopted.”