The Uninvited

by mike Evans

  Lambert walked off without giving any orders or looking behind him to make sure that their guns had been holstered. He knew that they would have been by now or this department really was useless. When he got up to Hardin, he patted him on the arm and said, “You stay where I can see you from now on, you hear me kid?”

  Hardin nodded, pulling out his pistol again and motioned. His radio beeped and he said, “What!”

  “Sir, it’s Sergeant Adair. I have good news for you, sir.”

  “I doubt that with the way today is going. What is it? We are getting ready to go into the woods... again.”

  “The dogs just showed up that were requested, sir. The man in charge of them payed out a few favors and was able to get a flight in here. We can be there in five minutes by car.

  “Do it, we will wait. Those dogs' noses will save us any amount of time we would be willing to waste running through the woods trying to smell exhaust from a motorcycle.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll radio one of the men to go get the address. We’ll be in there in absolutely no time.”

  *****

  Just as the men were beginning to grow impatient waiting for the police to come, a squad car came skidding into the gravel driveway and slid to a stop. The trainer opened the door quickly, giving the dogs a command that only him and the dogs could hear. They started to circle around the Chief. Lambert didn’t need a bullhorn or to cup his hands around his mouth, he could project his voice with no one’s assistance. He yelled, “I know it’s been a long and trying day and we are all tired. This is the closest that we have ever gotten to catching this son of a bitch. We are not going to come this far only to fail now. We are going to follow these dogs and catch the bastard. The girl is our first priority. We will bring her back out of these woods healthy as we find her and in one piece. She’s my goddaughter and I'm not about to lose her now. Is there anyone that doesn’t understand any of this or has any questions?”

  No man raised their hands and someone handed the dog handler one of what they assumed had to have been Traci’s shirts. The dogs took one sniff on it and went to work. The Chief watched expectantly, thinking that they would have found the scent immediately but never having to work with dogs like this before, didn’t really know what to expect. He watched Hardin and said, “What do you think, is she alive?”

  “Honestly sir, he or she has changed something. She statistically has already survived longer than anyone else ever has. He might be evolving into something else. I’d hate to know what a serial killer ends up changing into. I think we both know that it isn’t going to be a good thing. The only thing that ever ends their killing sprees is them being killed or caught. It’s a psychological disease that they can’t help, even medicated they still might be dangerous.”

  “I'm very sorry, but are you trying to say we should fucking feel sorry for them? You think that we should try and cure them somehow?”

  “Yes sir…..yes sir I am. And I got the cure right here.” He held up his pistol. “And it is prescribed as 230 grains at .45 inches across as often as needed or until the magazine is empty.”

  The chief nodded at this. “Alrighty then, I guess the two of us have the same ideas. I’m not taking this bastard in though, I hope you thoroughly understand that. DeBryan, Nulty, Bynum, Christ he took half my damn staff in one day. My office is going to take years to try and recover from this.”

  “Unfortunately Chief, it happens. We aren’t trained to deal with people like this. I think that we should be thankful for at least one thing th-”

  “What the hell do we have to be thankful for after losing three of my men? I’d love to know what those college brains of yours are thinking.”

  “Simply said, he uses a machete most of the time, or some sort of blade right?” The Chief nodded and Hardin continued, “Imagine what this monster would do if he walked around with a M-16 or an Ar-15 or, god forbid, he figured out how to get any type of automatic weapon. He could go on a killing spree with no elegance to it at all. But he is picky, and he waits. He is smart.”

  “I don't know if smart is what I would call it, Hardin.”

  “The person has gone months on a spree and this is the first day anyone has actually seen the suspect.”

  “You seriously still think after all this that there is still a chance in hell that is it a woman?”

  “You can’t rule things like that out.”

  “I don’t know. I guess not, especially with all those freak cases that you know about. I’m glad that we have you around to look at both angles on it.”

  “Chief, this isn’t probably the best time to say this; if we get this guy today, I mean he lives or dies somehow, I'm done. My wife has been all over my ass lately about looking for something in the private sector and moving somewhere safe where the stress of the day doesn’t follow me home like a shadow stalking my brain every night.”

  The chief thought about this and remembered waking up with nightmares for the first six months when he and Chuck had done their final tour in Vietnam. He could still imagine exactly what every single man looked, smelled, and sounded like in his company. “Yeah, I can appreciate that Hardin. I just hope that between this guy and the one in Colorado that you can unsee what you are being haunted by. I can’t put up much of a fight, son. If I was you and so young, I’d probably take a different career. God knows the private jobs make more money anyways and typically you don’t have to be worried about everyone you go after trying to kill you.”

  “I don’t know if it’s too late or not sir, but I'm willing to try and keep my shit straight for awhile not chasing after someone. It isn’t easy on the brain having to deal with chasing someone for so long to finally catch them and feel a nothingness afterwards.”

  Lambert just nodded. He didn’t think that he was doing the man any good bringing up killings and visuals that would haunt him. Lambert could sense that he wasn’t the one that needed to be discussing this with him anyways and that there was pretty good chance if this kid wanted to totally be fixed that he was going to have to talk to someone on a couch about things. They walked for another mile, watching the two K-9’s running back and forth sniffing, finding a trail running for a bit and then running back and forth again. Lambert walked up close to the man and said, “Hey, my man saw them run off on a dirt-bike. Shouldn’t these dogs just be following a straight path?”

  The man shrugged, using a clicker as he walked, and said, “You want to let them know how to do their job?”

  Lambert said, “Look, this is serious shit here. Every minute is-”

  The two dogs started barking insanely and sprinted into the distance. The handler left him still finishing his sentence and sprinted after the dogs. He screamed commands in German that no one but them understood and the dogs finally slowed down. He caught up to them, giving them both a treat and a back rub for doing a good job. The two dogs ignored the food. Their teeth were showing and they were ready for blood.

  The rest of the men caught up within a minute and Hardin walked as close as he dared. When he made it, he saw Traci and the suspect. Lambert showed up a few minutes later not able to do the run that others did. He was panting and said, “Where….where is the motorcycle at?”

  Hardin whispered, “Who gives a shit? There’s the perp.”

  Lambert took off his cowboy hat, wiping at his brow, trying to think of something that he could say to Traci to make her feel better and put her at some sort of ease. Of course there was nothing he could think of that made any sense at all. He yelled, “Traci, are you okay honey?”

  Traci, who felt like she’d been in a daze, tried to shake her head free to where she could even speak. She nodded slowly and then shook her head no. “Get me out here, Uncle Nick. Get me out of here, please. I just want to go home. I just want to see mom and dad.”

  “Honey, where’s Isaac?”

  Hardin put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, we need to deal with the bigger picture.”

  Lambert nodded, knowing the answers he was
going to get would do nothing with getting this horrible standoff over. Lambert watched as the girl’s legs quivered even resting on the ground. She had a shotgun taped to her neck by the barrel and the suspect had a shotgun in his hand duct taped as well. Lambert whispered, "What the fuck does that mask mean? Is that a dolls face?”

  Hardin said, “I have no clue. It could be as random as him picking it up during Halloween last year when he began these murders. The cross though on it, looks like he added it. Maybe he thinks that he is sending people to heaven? Maybe he is just a sick fuck. I’d probably think that answer number two is pretty god damn accurate.”

  “What do you want to do? That freak has his hand taped to that trigger and if we take him out then what?” Lambert asked

  “Yeah, Traci’s head disappears in an instant and becomes no more.”

  Hardin walked forward in front of the line of fire. “Look, you can still make it out of here. You don’t have to die today. You let her go, and we can get you help, we can do something for you.”

  The masked one started to wave his arm, screaming towards them. Lambert said, “I don’t know if he can talk?”

  Traci said, “I woke up like this with this taped to the back of my head. Get me out of here!”

  She couldn’t turn her head in any way to see who was behind her. Lambert said, “Do you know if the masked person is man or woman?”

  Traci said, “Does it fucking matter? No, I don’t know, it’s the entire point of the mask! I’d guess a guy with how strong it was.”

  Lambert looked at the person behind and realized the jumpsuit could have been masking some serious muscles but had been expecting a much bigger person, but he’d also expect the person to half look like a monster as well. He wasn’t stupid and knew that there was a very good chance that the killer could look like any of these officers. He whispered to Hardin, “I thought you said how big this son of a bitch was? Christ, he's smaller than you and I.”

  Hardin turned giving the chief an eye fucking that he wasn’t used to getting. Hardin said, “Sir…..I'm quite confident that there are much more important things going on right now that has to deal with the life of your goddaughter. I’m sorry if in the stress of a moment that I miscalculated the fucking suspect’s size. I’m quite clear now that I can hand point him out and give you a much more accurate description!”

  Lambert said, “You give up now and I promise you that you live.”

  When Hardin stepped toward the masked suspect Traci said, “No, no you can’t come closer. He'll shoot me!”

  Traci moved forward just enough that the taped trigger pulled and a blast erupted across the forest. The men that had been surrounding them were instantly painted with skull, blood, brain matter, and pieces of her face. The men all fell back, momentarily picking pieces of her off of themselves. Lambert dropped to his knees, watching his goddaughter now headless fall to the ground, a bloody stump on top of her neck staring back at him. “Noooooo, Traci! Oh my god, noooo. Shoot the son of a bitch. Shoot him right fucking now!”

  The suspect held up his hand, now free, trying to tell them to stop but still unable to speak. They fired off thirty shots riddling the body with new holes and when they started to stumble to the side could see a metal cord. One that was attached to the tree and to the back of the killer. Lambert saw this first and screamed at the top of his lungs. It was as if he was back in nam. “There’s a grenade, run for cover, do it now!”

  The grenade blast was massive and he was sure there was more than one of them. The tree that it had been tied to exploded, sending pieces of wood shrapnel in every direction it could go. Lambert felt a burning sensation erupt through his thigh and screamed as he fell to the ground. Blood began to pour from his leg. He rolled to his side ripping it from its place and stuffing it with a handkerchief that he always carried on him. He wanted to scream, but the crying coming from around him and the visuals was all that he could do to not lose his mind.

  He looked around, seeing young men dressed in blood-covered clothes on the ground. Some was their own; much was from others. He crawled to the first man that he could and began emergency triage, seeing what was wrong and then doing what he could to fix it or at the least put a temporary stop. The tree had been decimated and he was confident whatever was left of the killer would need to be put in a baggy. He looked back as he worked, seeing absolutely nothing left but the mask that had been blown off in the force. Hardin was sitting next to a tree with his head in his knees. A slow trickle of blood came from his forehead.

  Lambert screamed, “Hardin…..Hardin, Hardin, are you okay? Are you okay, son? Say something, damn it!”

  Hardin looked up in a daze, unsure what to say. He shook his head yes, then no, then shrugged. “This isn’t how I wanted it to end. This isn’t how I wanted things to happen. We were supposed to save her. We were supposed to bring her home, god damn it! It was a trap. The entire thing was a trap. He wanted to finish it this way and must have wanted it to be over but on his terms.”

  Lambert knew there wasn’t anything he could do to make him feel better and because of that said nothing. He went around to the rest of the men, splitting them basically in half with another man, the only other one that had been in the service and knew how to apply emergency medical care to this degree. Within twenty minutes they had everyone who was alive resting comfortably and waiting for the emergency techs to get back into the woods and see the bloody mess that was their job.

  When the blast had gone off a local farmer had heard and came over on a four-wheeler instantly. Hardin and Lambert helped getting the injured officers on the man’s four-wheeler who chauffeured them out to the waiting ambulances. They were the last to make their way out, letting everyone else go first. When Lambert had gotten his leg stapled shut after being cleaned out he ignored the pleas of the emergency medical techs to come to the hospital. He hobbled being followed by Hardin who also was trying to convince him to go to the hospital. Hardin said, “Sir, at least we got the son of a bitch. What else are we going to do? We aren’t going to find anything else that we need to know today.”

  The chief ignored him and walked around the house. He went through the kitchen, seeing blood, then walked up the stairs following the bloodstains. He saw Brandi sitting in the back of the room in the corner, dead and crumpled. He saw yellow numbers everywhere for blood drips, and other identifying evidence. They had found her purse in the flipped SUV and her ID was inside. Lambert said, “So where the hell is the third woman? We are missing someone. This is Brandi, I find it hard to believe Jack Wallen’s wife didn’t accompany him on a holiday drive to a state park. Her car was parked out front at the apartment of Traci Pendergast's from what Chuck had told me. So where the fuck is she? The killer’s gone, and there is no sign of her anywhere. There isn’t anyone to ask.”

  Hardin stared at the scene, “I’ll put it out that she is still missing but this forest expands forever. I know the dogs are still here. We can keep them running until their paws bleed if it means closure for her family.”

  Lambert opened his mouth to say something and the horrible realization that he still had to face Chuck and Rosa made him physically sick trying to think about it. Hardin said, “I know it’s a bad scene, Chief. You really don’t have to be here though. You can go to the hospital.”

  “I don’t need a fucking hospital. I need a stiff drink and a fucking smoke." He walked back downstairs and through the kitchen, seeing there was a pack on the counter and a zippo, and searched through the fridge until he found a bottle of vodka in the freezer.

  Hardin found him lighting up and pouring a shot. “Sir, are you sure that you should be doing that?”

  Lambert pulled a second cup, filling three fingers in each of them. He slid one to Hardin straight faced. “Well, then I probably shouldn’t drink alone. One drink isn’t going to hurt a damn thing.”

  When Hardin didn’t step further into the kitchen, Lambert clinked the second glass and slammed back one and then the other. He p
ut his head down on the counter, waiting for the burn of the alcohol to make its way through his body. Hardin asked, “Are you okay, Chief? You feel better now?”

  Lambert pushed up off of the counter, spinning and throwing the glass as hard as he could against the wall. It shattered, sending pieces everywhere. Lambert said, “I need to go. I need to break the news to my best friend's family. Waiting isn’t going to do anything to help and the last thing I want them to do is sit there thinking that there is still a chance to have their daughter come back to them.”

  Hardin asked, “Did you want me to go with you? I can help break the news”

  “No, you go home to your family and be thankful that you have got one. I’m sure after your wife hears about this bloodbath that she’ll be thankful for you to come home.”

  “You going to take care of the other officer’s families as well, breaking the news?”

  “Yeah, it’s part of the job, son. It sure as hell isn’t something I'm looking forward to. I’m going to see if I can get a ride back to the city.”

  “I’ll give you a ride, come on. You don’t need to drive after that anyways. I promise we don’t have to talk. I won't try to make you feel better. I'm confident that we aren’t going to feel better for a long time to come.”

  They got a ride back to the park and Lambert and Hardin drove back in silence. By the time that they made it back to the police station Lambert was definitely ready for another drink. He patted Hardin on the shoulder, getting out and saying nothing as he walked to his truck.

  He rode in silence to the Pendergast's home, running the conversation through his head what seemed a million times over. When he pulled up to the front of their home, Chuck moved the curtain to see who was here from his recliner. He knew god damn well the news before his best friend ever made it to the door. He told Rosa to stay inside and went out to the front to meet Lambert.