The Nature of the Beast

by GM Ford

  He slowed his eyes and scanned the area again. His Red Sox cap was missing. A tingle of apprehension rolled down his spine. He was certain he’d left the cap hanging on the hook to the right of the door. He immediately turned his gaze to the area around the sink. The yellow dish towel lay on the floor. The Beretta was gone. His heart felt as if it might beat out of his chest and fly off into the night.

  He threw open the door to the children’s room. Michael had pushed all the covers off onto the floor. Rebecca bent an arm across her eyes. “Puuuuuleeeeese,” she croaked.

  The other bedroom was empty. The bed was still made.

  “Will you puuuuuleeeeeese close the door,” Rebecca entreated.

  Gilbert hurried back to the children’s room. “Where’s your mother?”

  Rebecca sat up. Her eyes were slits. “Huh?”

  “Get up,” Gilbert said. “Get up and get your coats.”

  Something in her father’s face set Rebecca to scrambling.

  __

  He’d used the entire roll of duct tape on her. Ten wraps each where he’d taped the backs of her ankles to the backs of her thighs, trussing her into the kneeling position. Another ten to tape her forehead to the tree, likewise her torso and the tops of her legs. He used the remainder connecting her wrists together behind the tree in a giant pair of handcuffs. The only loose end was on the foot of tape covering her mouth.

  He pulled hard at the end. The tape came away with a hiss. Unable to move her head, she threw her eyes his way. A silver sheen of polished steel passed by her vision.

  “Scream,” he said.

  When she failed to respond, he slapped her face hard.

  Something in her snapped. She’d had all she could take. She spit in his face. He smiled and wiped it off with a latex-clad hand. He grinned in her face as he unzipped her jacket, peeled it back and undid the buttons on her blouse. The scream he’d demanded began to rise in her throat.

  He didn’t have to ask her again.

  __

  “Run,” Gilbert said. “Run to the root cellar. Stay there until I come and get you.”

  “Where’s mama,” Michael whined, rubbing his eyes.

  He kept his eyes on Rebecca. “Take him there,” he said. “Hurry.”

  An earsplitting scream rose above the tempest. A scream of such utter pain and despair as to dash the hopes of those unfortunate enough to hear it.

  Gilbert pulled open the back door and pushed his children into the night. Without missing a beat he turned on his heel and hurried across the house. He threw open the front door and stepped out onto the porch with the Smith and Wesson 40 in his hand.

  The rain had stopped, leaving only the uneven rat-ta-tat of droplets falling from the trees. “Emelda,” Gilbert shouted at the top of his lungs.

  He was greeted with another horrific scream, longer and, if anything, more mortifying than the first. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he pleaded as he jumped down from the porch and ran across the muddy red ground. “Please don’t hurt her.”

  __

  Michael rested his head on her shoulder but didn’t sleep. Rebecca had her arm crooked around his neck, pulling him tight as they huddled in the damp dugout. She stroked her brother’s hair and listened for the sound of footsteps, the sound of boots above the low hiss and gurgle of water.

  “I want Mama,” Michael whined.

  “Be brave,” was all Rebecca could think to say. She listened to the water seeping into the ground and pulled Michael closer. And then the door swung open. Rebecca sprang forward, her arms outstretched, reaching for her father in the second before she sensed something wrong and the tall shadow shined the flashlight in her eyes, blinding her, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her out of the cellar in a single stroke, the terrible burning in her scalp as he held her completely off the ground, legs kicking, arms reaching as he moved to the right, swung her once to gain momentum and then pitched her off into the darkness, legs still kicking, hands groping like a mime…only screaming now as she tumbled head over heels into nothingness. Above the sound of her own cries and the roaring of the wind, she heard his voice.

  “And so…the new order begins,” he bellowed into the darkness.

  19

  One. Was it one? Okay one. Stay ahead of them. Gotta stay ahead of them. Best way to do that was to give em something else to do.

  His eyes were ungodly tired. He’d had another series of weird flashes, like badly overexposed film, nothing but the darkest of the dark and the lightest of the light, left blind and blinking, staring at a giant red planet swimming before his eyes. He made a mental note. Be on the alert. Note the situation and the time. Ascertain what was triggering these short-lived mind videos, all these black and white images, markets and manholes and folding metal doors, dirty men in watch caps, graffiti on walls and trash lined gutters all running through his head at flank speed, odd disjointed pictures accompanied by the familiar sensation of fullness, of being stuffed to bursting and a burning sensation that followed him around like the fiery tail of a kite.

  Two. Or was it part of one? Anyway. Recycle paperwork all over the place. Bread crumbs for them to follow. His scalp tingled with a mixture of anticipation and terror.

  Three. Gotta make a plan adjustment. The farm wasn’t going to work out. Good for a couple of weeks maybe, a month at most and then he was going to have to think of something else. Something permanent. Something more crowded. He knew just such a spot. Problem was, it was the first place they were going to look.

  20

  Log cabin out in the wild blue nowhere. Cloudless sky floating over a picture postcard landscape of buttes and mesas running off into infinity and all Audrey Williams could look at were the pair of bright yellow forensics enclosures. One up on the side of the hill, constructed around the base of a tree, another to the right of the driveway, fifteen yards closer to the cabin. Her insides began to tighten. Her face prickled with ‘wreck on the highway’ anticipation as she gulped cold mountain air and moved forward.

  Last night’s rain had been swallowed by the thirsty ground. Back in the shadow of the butte, tinsel traces of silver sparkled from the lowest pine needles. The late morning breeze ran through the tree tops like a freeway, setting the plastic sides of the forensics enclosures to flapping and snapping. Somewhere in the distance the flat slap of helicopter rotors fractured the air.

  Fifty yards ahead, the cabin clearing seethed with activity. Outside of the house, half a dozen brown-uniformed lawmen formed a tight circle in front of an empty car-port, watching from the corners of their eyes as a line of FBI technicians moved methodically across the front yard searching for evidence. Inside the cabin, another team of white clad agents was hard at work. From a distance, they looked like insect larvae.

  A tall man in a gray suit walked out the front door. He stopped to button his suit jacket and then walked at them with an awkward gait, as if his knees were bothering him.

  He passed the yellow enclosure without a sideways glance and continued walking their way. His eyes were locked on Jackson Craig. The two men stopped about a yard apart. The man was big, beefy and beginning to lose sight of his belt buckle. He had a thick head of graying curls and a flat pock-marked face, made oily by the sun.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I should have guessed.”

  “Herm,” Craig said.

  The ID read: Special Agent in Charge Herman Waldrip. The men opened their arms and embraced one another in the porcupinic manner of the manly. Waldrip patted Craig on the shoulder, said something about how long it had been and then turned his attention to Audrey. Craig introduced them. Herman Waldrip reached out and shook her hand, explaining that he and ‘Jack’ as he called him went waaaay back.

  “We were halfway to Pennsylvania,” Craig groused.

  Actually, more like two thirds, Audrey reckoned. Somewhere over Ohio when the call came. Gilbert and Emelda had been found. Nothing to the effect that they were alive and well. N
othing like that. Just that Special Agents Craig and Williams were being re-routed to St. George, Utah, where they could expect to be met by a driver from the Phoenix office, who would ferry them to their destination. Six interminable hours later, they found themselves standing in the middle of the Kaibab National Forest, seemingly seconds from having their worst fears confirmed.

  Waldrip reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a transparent evidence bag. “We found this on the front porch,” he said. Same newspaper article as they found in Wyoming. Only this time Gilbert Fowles was also crossed out.

  “It was held down by this little paperweight here,” he said. A Motorola cell phone swung between his fingers. Black and blocky. Made of plastic and nearly indestructible. The kind of thing you’d give a kid.

  Craig took the bag from his fingers, studied the contents briefly and then handed it to Audrey. “How did you come to be here to find it?” Craig asked.

  Waldrip shrugged. “The Pittsburg office only found two cell phones at the Oil City house,” he said. “There was supposed to be three.”

  “Ah,” Craig said.

  “Family Plan,” Waldrip said. “They ran the missing number. Telemetry said the only usage in the last three days originated from right here.” He spread his big hands as if to say the rest, unfortunately, was history. “Telemetry also says they weren’t the first ones to annex the account. The information was acquired by an unidentified outside source on January 28.” He anticipated Craig’s question. “They’ve traced the inquiry to an address in south Florida. They’re en-route.”

  Craig started to step around the older man. Herman Waldrip placed a big hand on Jackson Craig’s shirtfront. “You sure?” he asked. “Nothing much you can do for them now.”

  “We were partners,” Craig said.

  Waldrip dropped his hand to his side. “I know.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Might be best to remember them the way you last saw them.”

  Craig met his eyes. “Could you?”

  “No,” Herman Waldrip admitted. “I’d have to see for myself.” He eased a thumb back over his shoulder. “Special Agent Fowles is in the one by the road. Probably best you start with him.”

  Jackson Craig put an appreciative hand on the older man’s shoulder as he stepped around and started down the driveway. Audrey handed the evidence bag back to Waldrip and hurried after Jackson Craig, Haste proved unnecessary, however, as Craig’s stride slackened as he approached the yellow plastic barriers. From Audrey’s perspective, his legs seemed to grow stiff and resistant, almost as if he were being forced along by rough unseen hands.

  The technicians parted in order to afford Jackson Craig a view. Audrey approached slowly, not wanting to infringe upon the moment. Craig straightened his posture and stood still. Audrey quickly closed the distance.

  Gilbert Fowles lay flat on his back, one arm folded down along his right side, the other reaching for the stars. He wore a bright blue polo, khaki’s and a pair of New Balance running shoes. He’d been shot in the head and then stabbed repeatedly in the chest.

  Audrey leaned closer. The body seemed to be staring up at the sky. Were those…although she’d never seen such a thing, the notion of pennies on a corpse’s eyes came to mind as she slid next to Craig, fascinated by those staring eyes…wrinkled and ragged around the edges, beginning to shrivel. And then she knew. Those weren’t his eyes…those were his wife’s nipples covering his eyes.

  She turned away, trying to stay professional, swallowing her rage, moving to the downhill side of the driveway and propping herself against the rough bark of a pine tree. She stared at the ground, trying to unburn the image of Gilbert’s ‘eyes’ from the hard drive of her mind but knowing the picture would remain in her head until the day she died.

  Waldrip cleared his throat and gestured toward the side of the hill. “He left her to bleed out,” he said.

  Craig stared at the house, his breathing shallow. “The children?” he asked, steeling himself for the worst possible news.

  “We’re still looking.”

  Craig grimaced. “You know it’s a bad day when missing children qualifies as good news,” he said bitterly.

  “I’ve got twenty search and rescue people from two counties combing the area. Forest Service is lending us the helicopter for as long as we need it. By ten tomorrow morning, I’ll have fifty people on the ground looking for those kids.”

  Craig looked for the sun. “Couple hours of daylight left,” he offered.

  “Sun goes down it gets real cold up here.”

  “You’d think the chopper would have sighted them by now,” Audrey said.

  “It’s tough terrain and there’s a lot of it,” Waldrip allowed. “The pine canopy is thicker than you’d think.”

  “How’d the perp get here?” Audrey asked.

  Waldrip pointed downhill. “HERTZ rent a car. We found it about four miles back down the hill. Backed into a little turn around.” He assured Craig as to how they were following up on the car rental information and then gestured for Craig and Audrey to follow. A third of the way to the house, he stopped and pointed at a single set of footprints coming up through the trees. “Walked straight up the hill,” he said “Right here. Son of a bitch must be in some kind of shape, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Best guess is that he left the scene in the family car,” Waldrip said with a shrug. “Probably knew the rental was wired. Didn’t want to take any chances on telemetry pointing the finger at him.”

  “Which means he’s going to need a new ride almost immediately,” Audrey Williams offered.

  “Unfortunately, the tag on the family car took a little time.” Waldrip said apologetically. “Both of the vehicles registered to the Browning family were sitting in the Oil City garage.”

  Craig nodded knowingly. “Gil liked to get his hands dirty. Always had a project car he was working on.”

  Special Agent Waldrip checked his notes. “2000 Ford Explorer. Registered under the name of one Hiram X. Collier, who as it turns out, passed away back in sixty-eight, leaving the cabin here to his great, great nephew Gilbert R. Fowles. According to the Pennsylvania DMV, Mr. Collier drove regularly and lived with relatives at 643 Dunbar Oaks Blvd, Oil City, Pennsylvania.”

  “Gil always had a plan,” Craig said sadly.

  Special Agent Waldrip patted Craig on the shoulder again. He took Craig by the elbow, leading him forward toward the cabin. Waldrip led him over to the uphill side of the cabin where a bright blue tarp had been laid out on the ground. Eight wildlife cameras were lined up on the tarp. The logo on the front of the cameras read: Game Finder 2000.

  “Seems Special Agent Fowles set himself a makeshift security perimeter around the cabin.” Waldrip waited as Craig squatted down and examined one of the boxes, then continued. “He bought them back on January 25th in Oil City.” He shrugged, as if to say ‘for all the good it did him.’ “Techs been through all of them,” Waldrip announced. “Mostly just somebody setting them off with his hand.”

  Craig straightened up.

  From his pants pocket, Waldrip produced a collection of photographs and handed them over to Craig. “Notice the times,” he advised.

  Craig seemed oblivious to Audrey’s presence as she moved to his shoulder. The top photo showed Emelda coming out the front door of the cabin. Wearing a Red Sox baseball cap and a heavy jacket. The digital marker in the lower left-hand corner read: 11:56 pm. The flash had caught a glittering curtain of raindrops, in addition to the image of Emelda.

  “Notice her right hand,” Waldrip said.

  “What about it?” Audrey asked.

  “Look at the way she’s got it jammed down into the pocket.”

  “Okay.”

  “M and I flagged it. They figure she had a gun,” said Waldrip. “Probably the Beretta thirty-two Special Agent Fowles was killed with.” He gestured with his head toward the enclosure on the side of the hill. “We found it lying next to her,” he said. “One expended, one in t
he chamber, seven in the clip.”

  Craig shuffled past another photo of Emelda down the front steps. Her hand still jammed in her coat pocket, her shoulders now hunched against the wind and rain.

  Gilbert was next. Same angle. 2:46 am. Bare headed, obviously distraught, coatless in the face of the storm, holding an enormous silver automatic in his right hand.

  “Ballistics says it’s an S and W Forty.”

  “You find it?”

  “No,” said Waldrip. “Look at the next one.”

  Craig shuffled again. Special Agent Fowles placing the weapon on the porch. Next picture: Special Agent Fowles walking away from the gun, his mouth open, the cords in his neck straining, as if shouting above the storm.

  “Perp must have had Emelda,” Craig said. “Must have been hurting her. Nothing short of that would separate Gilbert from his piece at a time like that.”

  Waldrip moved to the far end of the tarp and peeled a folded up corner back to reveal a baby doll. An expensive looking child’s toy, in a lacy white dressing gown and pink booties. He picked up the doll, fiddled with the back. “Mama come,” the baby bleated in a remarkably authentic voice. “Come Mama. I need you. Please Mama.”

  “Perp bought it at a Phoenix mall yesterday afternoon,” Waldrip said. “Tamara the Talking Toddler. Big among the pre-school set. Does everything but recite the frigging Gettysburg Address.”

  “The ‘mama’ talk would have been sufficient,” Craig commented. “No way Emelda stays in the house with that going on. Too much mother in her.” Craig shook his head sadly. “Uses the flashes to get her attention and then lures her outside with the baby doll.” Craig nodded his approval, “This guy’s sick. Sick and adaptable.”

  “Once he’s got her, he’s got him,” Waldrip said.

  The thought of what the woman must have endured sent a shiver through Audrey. She stared at the photo again. “He must have known what was coming,” she said. “Not giving up your weapon is the first thing they teach you at the academy.”