Dreams and Reality Set 3: Cannibal Dreams and Butchered Dreams

by Hadena James

  “I thought baiting FBI agents was bad.”

  “Some FBI agents. Others are just pencil necks in suits with badges and guns.”

  “I take it you feel that way about Rollins.”

  “Rollins is in over his head. Hell, you and I are in over our head. We can’t get ahead of him because we don’t know who’s on his list. All we can do is try to play catch up, but this one isn’t like a normal killer. He has a mission and obviously, little need for sleep.”

  “That bugs me,” I admitted. “If he killed four people in thirty-six hours, how the heck is he still up and walking around? Why isn’t he comatose in a hotel room somewhere? Especially after what he did to James Okafor? The guy’s like the Energizer Bunny.”

  “How many people have you actually killed?” Malachi asked.

  “Oh no, we are not playing that game,” I told him.

  “Six?” Malachi asked.

  “Sure,” I answered.

  “Seriously, Aislinn, how many?”

  “Seriously?” I looked at him. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  “Seven,” Malachi answered.

  “Five,” I told him.

  “How long did you sleep after each of them?”

  “Hours upon hours. Until they put me in a coma for my burns, my longest sleep records were held by those handful of days after the kill.”

  “Not mine. After my third one, I didn’t sleep for four days. It’s my longest stretch with no sleep, but not by much. Your crash is faster than mine. I’ve always wondered why. I think it’s because of your migraines. My adrenaline levels off, but it levels off and it’s still really high. Yours levels off and it might still be really high, but I think that drop triggers a silent migraine.”

  “Painless migraine,” I corrected.

  “Fine, a painless migraine gets triggered because of the drop. That’s why you aren’t a serial killer. You may not consciously realize it, but when you crash, you have all the symptoms of a migraine except the pain. As a result, you can’t become a serial killer because it makes you physically ill.”

  “Huh,” I thought about the theory. It made sense. Going head to head with a serial killer in a fight was a rush and I tended to sleep afterwards for long periods of time, but to kill a person was enormous. It was quite possible that the adrenaline rush gave me a migraine. “What if it’s the rush that causes the migraine? Maybe that is why I get so mean when I have the rush.”

  “You do become super bitch when you have a migraine,” Malachi agreed. “This really only tells us that Patterson doesn’t have migraines.”

  “You should point that out to Rollins. It might be useful at some point.”

  “Just as useful as your bullet train to Hell,” Malachi flashed me a grin. It was genuine, which was rare for Malachi. It didn’t make him look younger, it made him look evil. If Satan smiled at me like that, it wouldn’t terrify me even half as much as Malachi doing it. It made his cold eyes suddenly sparkle, making his impressively green eyes even more dazzling. His normally ageless face, developed wrinkles, making him appear older. His mouth softened, making his lips appear fuller. It only lasted a second, maybe two, certainly not much longer than that. It was gone as dramatically as it had come. He went back to wearing his perfect mask with cold eyes and a face that showed no expressions or even hints that expressions were even possible.

  As scary as those real smiles were, it also made me understand why Malachi was a “ladies’ man.” He was an attractive male with high testosterone levels and a good build. His face was timeless with only a shadow of stubble that was always well groomed. His green eyes were brilliant even when they were cold and distant, a green that was unnatural in a human being or any living thing for that matter. His dark complexion made them seem even greener. His skin was naturally a shade darker than mine, speaking of something Mediterranean in his ancestry; even in the winter he had a tan. In contrast, he had brown hair that was lighter than mine, darker than a dirty blonde, but lighter than a true brunette. He kept it cut very short, hiding the secret that it was naturally curly.

  Also, Malachi was tall with a lanky, but athletic build. For everyone else on the planet, I considered lanky and athletic an impossible combination. Malachi was exactly 192 pounds, with muscle definition around his arms and legs and washboard abs. What made him seem lanky was that he was six feet, ten inches tall, with a fifty-eight inch inseam, meaning my nose was almost even with his navel. The long legs made him seem taller and thinner.

  Being a woman with no interest in sex, I didn’t know if high testosterone levels were important to other woman, but I had a feeling they were. Women seemed to be attracted to dominant, alpha male types fueled by testosterone. Malachi certainly fit the bill, except with me.

  I was a problem for Malachi, a weakness. It was hard to see, even harder to understand. Most people believed Malachi wanted to jump my bones. This wasn’t actually the case. If I ever decided to develop a sex drive, Malachi would be at the front of the line, vying for first dibs, but it wasn’t really because he wanted to have sex with me. It was because he couldn’t control me. I could and would and did tell him no whenever it struck my fancy. Very few people said no to Malachi and no one ever said it more than a few times. I had been telling him no for decades. No, you can’t torture my roommate. No, you shouldn’t abuse your position of power for your own amusement. No, you can’t pick up women when I’m with you, it’s weird. No, you can’t kick that guy’s ass just because he’s a jerk.

  The other problem was that since I did tell Malachi no, he had come to depend on me. Not like most people depend on their friends, but like I depended on Nyleena. In the darkest recesses of Malachi’s mind, it was my voice he heard when he needed to make a moral decision. If my voice ever disappeared, bad things would happen. He knew it. I knew it. As long as I was alive and well, the voice remained present. However, I was aware that Gabriel had been responsible for keeping his leash while I’d been in a coma and it had been difficult. As a result, after I had been put into the coma, Malachi had called the hospital every day to check on me. That’s how he’d managed to be there when they woke me.

  Standing next to him, in the dark, with a dead body in the house behind us and serial killer on the loose, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. One day, that would change. He’d cross the line or I would and we’d be forced to put the other one down. Until then, I was fine with him standing beside me in the dark. It was better to have the devil at your hip than behind your back.

  “Ok, is he going after Gertrude, Joe and August or will he let justice take care of them?” I asked.

  “Beats me,” Malachi stubbed out his cigarette. “If they weren’t in federal custody, I think he’d go after them, but they are. He has a list of targets, but I don’t know who they are. John Bryan more than likely, also in custody. Any enemies you had as a child, that list is too long for us to protect. He killed a guy because the guy shot at you in high school.”

  “And was trying to frame me for murder,” I added. Gabriel had told me the story at the hospital the first day after Nyleena’s surgery.

  “Framing you for murder might have been the bigger incident,” Malachi conceded.

  “I also think the list would include Nyleena’s enemies. He swears he did not mean to shoot her in the face. Killing her enemies would be a good way to prove it.”

  “Does Nyleena actually have enemies? Part of the reason I have issues with her is because she’s such a goody-two-shoes.”

  “Nyleena is a federal prosecutor. She has enemies and she is not a goody-two-shoes, she just is not deranged like you,” I thought for a moment, “or me for that matter. She’s had speeding tickets and parking tickets and once, she drove after smoking part of a joint.”

  “Nyleena smokes pot?” Malachi looked doubtful.

  “No, she smoked pot in college with other college kids. She did it like seven times. You know how many times I’ve smoked pot? None. She does normal ‘bad’ things.
We are the aberration, not her, Malachi.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, she’s still a goody-two-shoes, she’s just experimented with life a little.”

  “How many times have you smoked pot?” I asked, suddenly curious.

  “Once,” Malachi looked at Rollins. Rollins was still on the phone, but he hadn’t said anything for a long time. He looked defeated. “It slows down your reflexes.”

  “You realize we are being outsmarted by a serial killer?”

  “I’d say he’s a genius though and he’s had a lot of experience.”

  “We are supposed to be geniuses, yet, he is still outsmarting us.”

  “He isn’t really outsmarting us, we just don’t have any leads.”

  “Do you think clues are going to fall out of the sky and magically land in our laps?”

  “Nope.” Malachi walked towards Rollins. He took the phone from the other agent, said a few words and hung up. “You want to know where Patterson Clachan is going to be. You’re going to have to set a trap for him.”

  “How do we do that?” Rollins’ voice was barely audible.

  “Her,” Malachi pointed at me.

  Ten

  It was just after six in the morning. We were heading to Sikeston, Missouri. We’d been awoken by Rollins telling us there was a message for us there. I didn’t really like the sound of that. I liked it even less when I discovered we were going to be traveling by helicopter.

  In theory, I didn’t mind flying. I didn’t look out the windows and we had a private jet, these helped. This helicopter seemed to be nothing but windows. We weren’t as high as a plane, but it didn’t matter, if we crashed, we were probably going to die. I wasn’t afraid of death, but I wasn’t ready for it yet. There were still things to do, like fly a kite. I had never flown a kite in my life. It seemed like a shame to die before trying it. I made a mental note to fly a kite when Nyleena got better.

  The noise was awful. Even with the headset that was supposed to dampen it, the whirling blades droned in my brain. By the time we landed, an hour after takeoff, my head was starting to throb. I popped a pill when I thought no one was looking and gratefully put my feet on the ground.

  For the first time, we had two crime scenes. One was a house, the other a field, my opinion hadn’t been asked about which we were visiting first. I climbed into the waiting SUV clutching my overnight bag like a life-line.

  Despite being a well-traveled Missourian, I had never been to Sikeston. The population sign declared 40,000 people called it home. This was roughly the same size as our capitol, but about half the size of my hometown. This also meant it wasn’t exactly rural. Traffic flowed smoothly along the roads. I couldn’t remember what day it was, but I figured it was a workday, given the traffic and the time of morning.

  I leaned my head against the side window. I’d been shoved in the back seat, which was fine, I had no desire to engage in conversation with Rollins or the police officer driving us. The window was cold against my forehead. The cold soothed my head some, but the throbbing continued. I hadn’t been allowed a soda on the helicopter, the caffeine would have helped. Without opening my eyes, I picked up my bag and rooted around until my hands clasped a lukewarm bottle. Not bothering to zip the bag back up, I pushed it gently from my lap and opened the soda. A hissing fizz sound filled the backseat as the seal was cracked for the first time.

  I drank with my eyes closed, tilting my head back, chugging at the bottle hard enough to cause the sides to begin to collapse. A hand touched my shoulder, the wide palm was hot even through my jacket. I shook my head and the heat disappeared.

  “We’re going to see the body first,” Rollins announced from the front seat. I considered giving him the finger or Tasering him for simply interrupting my solitude. The migraine medicine was starting to flood my blood stream. It was a combination medication, filled with acetaminophen, a mild muscle relaxer, caffeine, and codeine. I rarely took it, because I didn’t like the effect of the narcotics, but I knew that out here, I was going to need to kick it quick. I didn’t have time for a slower medication.

  The noise of city life was receding. I opened my eyes. We were on a two-lane highway, slowing down as trees cropped up on either side of the road. I didn’t know if Sikeston was part of the Ozarks or not, but it was pretty. We turned down a county road.

  “He left the body in BFE?” I asked.

  “I don’t know where that is,” Rollins said.

  “Never mind,” I sighed. “He deviated, he does not remove bodies from the crime scene.”

  “This is going to get strange,” the officer in the front seat said. “The farmer was spooked before he woke up and found a dead teacher.”

  “Teacher? Spooked?” I asked. Malachi handed me a folder. I frowned at it. I couldn’t read in the car, it would set off motion sickness, especially with a migraine looming. When the SUV stopped, I scanned the file quickly. The teacher had moved, often, every year actually for the last twelve years. He finished a school year and moved to a different place. Not all of them were in Missouri, Sikeston was only his third school in the state. He’d also taught in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. This information raised all kinds of red flags. Normal people didn’t move every year, especially not teachers. Teachers were stable persons, who grew roots easily. Teachers who didn’t, were up to no good. He’d taught kindergarten or first grade, nothing older. It explained why his victim pool wasn’t filing complaints, most children molested at such a young age, didn’t say anything for years. I believed it was because they didn’t have the words to explain what had happened or how it had made them feel.

  We stopped at a farmhouse. The front yard was well kept. A large building could be seen behind it, a good ways from the house. I studied the building quickly, as we walked to the front door. It opened before we reached it.

  “Bud, this is the FBI, they’re here to talk to you about what happened,” the officer, who I now saw had the double bars of a captain.

  “The dead guy or the mutilated cattle?” Bud asked.

  “Mutilated cattle?” Malachi asked, his attention suddenly focused solely on the farmer. I groaned without realizing it. Malachi ignored me. “What mutilated cattle?”

  “Well, yesterday morning, I woke up and had three dead cows in my yard. They’d been cut up pretty bad.” Bud started.

  “We’re here about the dead teacher,” I interrupted, stepping forward. “US Marshal Aislinn Cain with the SCTU. I’m guessing you raise turkeys judging by the barn set-up you have.”

  “That’s right, which is why the cattle are weird. I don’t have any cattle and neither do my neighbors. Then this morning, I found the dead guy, cut up the same way.” Bud told me. I stifled another groan. This was going to be a nightmare.

  “Around back,” the captain said to us. I followed the captain, leaving Malachi to ogle the turkey farmer. As I rounded to the back of the house, I groaned again, much louder. The bodies of the cattle were still there, near the turkey barn and our dead body. I was hoping the death of the teacher would be more interesting, but I knew Malachi, and I was fairly certain the teacher would receive nothing more than a cursory glance.

  My eyes avoided the cattle as I walked past. I’d seen pictures and video of them before. It always grossed me out; rotting human carcasses were fine, I was growing used to them as part of my job. However, I still got a squicky feeling in my stomach when I drove past road kill.

  Of course, that depended on how the human had died. My stomach gave a determined flop and my throat began to burn with bile. It had been a long time since I had thrown up at a crime scene, I certainly wasn’t going to do it here, but I wanted to. The victim was completely naked. It was obvious his genitals were missing, as were his eyes, and lips. That part didn’t bother me. Patterson had taken some sharp implement and cored out the victim’s anus. That horrified me. Entrails dangled from his behind like a giant tape worm trying to escape.

  Rollins cleared his throat several times. No one was sta
nding near the body. I completely understood, I was four feet away and wishing I was at home, under the covers. Malachi was slowly sauntering towards us, his eyes focused on the cattle.

  “Hey Blake!” I shouted, suppressing the urge to vomit as I opened my mouth. “This one is right up your alley.” I’d heard the stories, probably from Malachi. Cattle mutilations often involved the removal of the eyes, lips, udders, and anus. The position and extreme mutilation had been done for Malachi, like a sick Valentine’s secret between lovers.

  “Huh?” Malachi had stopped at the last cow. He was kneeling next to it, looking at me.

  “We have a dead teacher. Teacher trumps cows.” I reminded him.

  “We have a dead pedophile who happened to be a teacher, there’s nothing interesting or surprising about it,” Malachi answered, pulling on gloves.

  “I believe this one is different,” I started walking towards him. “This one requires your special attention.”

  Annoyed, he stood up and joined us. He stared at the body for a moment, then his gaze darted back to the cattle, then back to the body.

  “Think Patterson did it on purpose? How would he know?” Malachi asked.

  “The local paper ran a story because we haven’t had any cattle reported missing,” the captain said to us.

  “There’s your answer. I believe the teacher was dead for some of it, but not all of it.” I pointed to the missing genitals. “Too much blood flow there for it to have been post-mortem.”

  “I agree,” a man stood up. He was one of the brave ones, not standing forty feet from the dead man. “And the eyes were also removed while he was alive. Tentatively, I’d say cause of death is blood loss.”

  “Fun,” I ground my teeth together.

  “Fun?” Rollins turned red.

  “You’re going to have a coronary,” I told him. “Relax. Malachi has a good plan, we just need a day to implement it.”

  “If we don’t have a day?” Rollins asked.

  “We will,” I assured him. Malachi had gone back to looking at the cattle. I sighed. This was a problem. Malachi was fascinated with animal mutilations. He’d seen a horse in the desert somewhere in New Mexico, it’d just been lying by the side of the road. His obsession had gotten worse when he joined the FBI because as a member of the VCU, he could access files from the Department of Forestry, Natural Resources, Conservation, The Interior, and the FBI. “You about done, Mulder?”