Robby gives a wobbly-headed nod. “Good idea. But first, we follow Sammy.”
Tee gives a subtle eye roll to Robby and shakes his head. “Fine.”
“How much of the formula is left?” Brady’s question pulls Professor Wadlow from thought. He opens a cabinet above his workbench. There’s one tray holding three glass vials filled with green liquid. “Professor, the formula forced it to change. Almost killed it, I think.”
“This is good, good news. How did you introduce the formula?”
“I threw the vial at it. It shattered on its face. It forced it to change forms. It was struggling.”
“Limiting it to control its changes no doubt.”
Brady furrows his brows. “But maybe the formula needs to be tweaked. Needs to be stronger.”
“I suspect it needs to be injected.”
“Whoa.” Tee raises his hands. “Injected? I’m not getting that close to that thing.”
“Maybe we won’t have to.” Devin taps his paintball gun.
“Inject the paintballs!” Robby’s excited voice echoes in the confines of the basement.
“It’s the right idea boys, but it will need to be introduced below the skin.”
Professor Wadlow opens a drawer and pulls out six bullets. He sets them on the workbench. The tips of the bullets are hollowed out.
“I’m going to put a few milliliters of the formula inside of these bullets. Solder off some metal caps and voilà.”
“Skin-walker killing bullets!” My face beams.
“Yeah, but what about now? We’re not safe. No one’s safe.” Tee’s wide eyes roam the group.
“We know the formula can slow it down.” Brady extends his hand. “Let me see your paintball gun.”
Tee hands Brady his paintball rifle. Brady opens the ammunition cap, turns the gun sideways and the remaining paintballs spill out onto the workbench. Brady inspects the spherical paintballs.
“Professor. Can we spare a vial?”
“Yes. I can synthesize more this evening. Should be ready by tomorrow.”
Brady grabs a syringe from the workbench and eases the needle inside one of the paintballs. He draws on the piston, pulling the paint into the syringe. He empties the paint into a petri dish. He draws the green fluid from one of the vials and injects it into the paintball. With the remaining formula, he’s able to fill seven more paintballs.
“Get rid of all the paintballs you have left in your guns,” Brady instructs. “This will give you two shots a piece. Make ‘em count.”
We all empty our ammo into the waste basket and take two paintballs each. We load our guns.
“Listen. We all meet back here tomorrow. Noon.” Brady’s tone lands stern as a commanding general.
“Be very careful boys. This thing is highly intelligent. Even if you’re not marked, it will kill anything that stands in its way. So stay together and stay alert.”
Brady’s eyes meet ours. “And don’t go back into the woods.”
Chapter 37
Aftermath
OFFICER CLANCY AND Officer Ivansek break free from the woods about one hundred yards from the previous spot they entered. As his eyes locate the patrol cars, Clancy’s brisk walk turns into a sprint. Ivansek struggles to match his pace, his fat rolls jiggling with every stride.
“Jesus Christ!” Clancy comes to an abrupt stop and surveys the battered patrol car.
Ivansek shakes his head as he joins Clancy. “What the hell happened?”
“Get on the horn. Get Holt! Get everyone!” Clancy assesses the situation.
“Holy shit! Is that the door?” Clancy follows Ivansek’s eye line to a heap of twisted metal loosely resembling the cruiser’s door in the tall grass by the road. “My God. It’s like it’s been ripped right off the frame.”
“Just get on the damn radio!” Clancy’s voice blares alarm.
The words that Officer Clancy spoke to Cam, you’ll be safe here, haunt his guilt-ridden mind. The kid? Oh Jesus! Is that?... A substantial amount of blood pools, canals of it collected in the grooves of the leather seats. Blood spatter streaks the windows and drips from the steel mesh grate. All of it’s fresh, hasn’t even begun to coagulate.
Ivansek clacks into his radio. “Marcy! Over!”
He waits for a response as Clancy notices the blood trail that leads from his patrol car into the street. Clancy pulls his service weapon from his holster and begins following the crimson spatter.
“Marcy! Over!”
“Jiminy crickets, can’t you give me just a second?” Marcy’s voice crackles through the radio.
“Get everyone out here. Now! Get Holt! Get everyone!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Everything! It’s a blood bath! That Myron Thompson kid ain’t missing. He’s done killed a bunch of kids.” Ivansek’s voice arcs like an electric current.
“Oh! Oh no. Dispatching now. But shouldn’t we send Cam Givers home? Over.”
Ivansek takes a deep breath and winces into a frown. “Cam Givers is one of them.”
“Dear God.”
“Put out an APB on Myron Thompson. Suspect he’s armed and dangerous. Over.”
Clancy proceeds with caution. The blood trail leads him across the street and into the tall grass adjacent to the roadway. A visible path of matted grass triggers a frightening supposition. Cam was dragged over this area. Clancy’s stomach somersaults, bile rising into his throat. As the senior responding officer, he carries full responsibility for the well-being of that little boy, and in all likelihood, that little boy is dead. I should’ve given the boy’s story more credibility. The palpable fear in Cam’s eyes alone provided a reason to believe him, but Clancy hadn’t. He discounted Cam’s story from the get-go, a rookie mistake. He alone made the judgment call to leave Cam Givers locked in his patrol car while he and Officer Ivansek investigated in the woods. So stupid! Why? Why’d I leave him? Jesus, what was I thinking? They’ll fire me. Probably should. The same cavalier audacity that propelled the upward ascent of his career threatens to end it.
Clancy swallows hard as the blood trail thickens and leads him to a steep embankment. He’s no blood spatter expert, but even a novice can recognize a shift in the spatter pattern from occasional splatter to heavy spurts like that from a deep arterial wound. Every couple of feet, clumps of tall fescue soak in blood. As he makes a wary trudge into the woods, Officer Ivansek files in behind him.
“Oh Jesus.” Ivansek’s stomach turns on itself.
Clancy doubles over and vomits. Beneath some low-lying brush, a human leg, severed at the knee, lies in a ruddy sludge of gelatinous blood. The child’s sneaker, still attached to the foot, bears the signs of the grotesque trauma, the canvas spattered and the laces stained with blood. The shoe sets Officer Clancy’s world to a wobble underfoot. It matches the blue tennis shoes Cam Givers came running into the station wearing.
“Is it him?” Ivansek’s voice crackles.
Clancy musters a somber nod and bends on one knee. “I’m so sorry, kid.” Tears streak Clancy’s cheeks as his heart caves in on itself.
Chapter 38
Divergent Truths
OFFICER MORROW ARRIVES first on scene, but Detective Holt follows at less than a car’s length. Clancy’s sitting in the backseat of Officer Ivansek’s patrol car with the door ajar. His chin hovers near his chest, his complexion stonewash. As Morrow comes to a stop alongside Officer Ivansek’s patrol car and shuts off his siren, Clancy doesn’t stir.
Detective Holt exits his cruiser and snags a quick glance at the empty roadway behind him. No beige sedan today. He turns and takes determined strides to Ivansek’s patrol car. Officer Morrow drafts behind him. Holt scans the scene, notices the damaged cruiser and the blood on the roadway. With a prolonged silence for a greeting, Detective Holt looks at both men with disapproval.
“Somebody better start talking.”
Ivansek glances at Clancy, but he doesn’t even lift his head to acknowledge Holt.
“
Well?”
“Holt, that Myron Thompson kid’s done gone nuts. We think he attacked, maybe even killed, Cam Giver’s friends, Seth and Shane Rogers. That’s what Cam said. Swore he killed them. Me and Lance went to investigate it. You know, where Cam said it happened. We found a whole heap of blood on one of the trees out there.” Morrow’s eyes grow wide.
“Where?”
Ivansek points to the woods. “Shiners’ Gorge, ‘bout three ridge lines that way. We was trying to get Cam to show us where. But the kid was scared. Wouldn’t get out of the cruiser. Ain’t that right, Clancy?” Ivansek’s voice quavers as he eyes Clancy for backup.
Officer Clancy raises his head with a blank expression, musters a slight nod, frowns, and resumes his empty gaze at the floorboard. Holt’s eyes flood with disbelief.
“And you left him in the car all by himself?”
“We left the car running. Thought he’d be okay. Didn’t want to go into Shiners’ Gorge with just one of us.” Ivansek casts his head at the roadway.
“Why in God’s name didn’t you call me or Officer Morrow?”
Ivansek lifts pitiful eyes and frowns. “It was a bad call.”
“You’re damn right it was. Clancy…Clancy! Snap out of it. Where’s Cam Givers?” Holt levels a rigid glare at him.
Without raising his head, Clancy lifts his hand and points. Ivansek motions to Morrow and Holt and leads them along the blood trail to the remains.
“Sweet Jesus.” Morrow gulps.
Detective Holt surveys the severed leg, the tibia and fibula bones splintered and exposed above the lacerated flesh. He inspects the black substance around the perimeter of the wound. Same as on John Watson’s wounds. Same killer. Hell, killers. Who knows? Why in the hell didn’t Clancy just call me? Dammit! I taught him everything. Ivansek, sure, but Clancy? He ought to know better. Chief’ll probably fire him. Hell, he might fire me. Shit…shit, shit, shit!
“Wonder what makes a boy go crazy like this. Go on a killin’ spree and all,” Ivansek wonders aloud.
“It wasn’t Myron Thompson.”
Officer Ivansek cocks his head, taken aback. It wasn’t just the words that struck him, but the confidence with which Holt delivered them. And those words flew in the face of everything Officer Ivansek already accepted as concrete truth about this incident.
“Well, you do know Cam Givers told us that he witnessed Myron Thompson kill them other boys, right? Says he smashed one of those boy’s head into a tree over and over. We found all the blo—”
“It wasn’t Myron Thompson.”
Officer Ivansek squints his eyes and tilts his head at Holt. “But I don’t understand. How can you be so sure?”
“’Cause we got the DNA tests back from Lexington on all that blood near that backpack. We got a hit. It’s Myron’s blood.”
“Noo…I mean. Are you sure? Cam Givers was adamant.”
“Only a one in three-hundred million chance it’s not his blood.”
“Pulled a huge favor from an old friend to get it expedited,” Officer Morrow boasts. “And it doesn’t get much more definitive than that.”
“Maybe it was his blood. But maybe he walks away from that. There wasn’t a body after all.”
Detective Holt shakes his head at Officer Ivansek.
“There must’ve been five or six pints of blood there. Only eight in the body. No way he walks away from that.”
“I’m telling you though, Cam Givers swore it was Myron Thompson. Said something was seriously wrong with him. So, if that was Myron’s blood, maybe somebody helped him or something.”
“Kid would’ve needed several transfusions. That’s assuming he could even survive that much blood loss,” Morrow interjects.
“Just doesn’t add up. That kid was scared. Real scared. Said that Myron boy had been bullying him for years. You’d think he wouldn’t mistake a person that’s terrorized him. And it kinda makes sense, right? He seizes the opportunity to finish what he started in the woods. Being that the kid was a witness and all.”
Morrow crosses his arms. “You can’t argue with science based on a kid’s idea of what happened.”
But Detective Holt still lingers on Ivansek’s words. Damn. That’s the most sensible thing he’s ever said. He’s right. What the hell’s going on? This doesn’t make any sense. None of it. Something’s really wrong here. Holt’s eyes meet Ivansek’s.
“You find any bodies in Shiners’ Gorge?”
“No. Just a bunch of blood on a tree. Checked out with Cam’s story. Oh, and when we were wrapping up, footprints. At least five sets.”
Holt twiddles the corner of his mustache. Five sets. Cam, his friends…that’s three. Latravious Wadlow…four. And Brady Palmer…five. Possible. What are they up to? Something weird going on there. Brady at Wadlow’s house last night. And Wadlow’s hiding something. No way he’s not. But a killer? Don’t know about that. Possible, I guess.
“I want you to make a cast of those footprints. Get a sample of the blood. Morrow, you go with Ivansek.”
“You got it, Holt.” Officer Morrow tips his head to Holt.
“It’ll be dark soon.” Detective Holt checks his watch. “You got about an hour and twenty. Don’t want to be in Shiners’ Gorge after nightfall. You guys better hump it.”
“Hear that, cap’.”
“I’ll secure the scene here. Going to try to knock some damn sense into Clancy.” Holt shakes his head. “He looks catatonic.”
Ivansek follows Morrow to his car. They pop the trunk, grab some casting supplies, and disappear into the tree line.
Ivansek’s car idles, the whir of the engine a soft purr against a backdrop of silence. Clancy droops forward, hunched in the backseat. As Holt approaches, Clancy lifts his head, face devoid of expression. Damn, why’d you do this, Clancy? Just a mistake though. A costly one… But a mistake. He places his hand on Clancy’s shoulder.
“Holt, I screwed up. I screwed up so bad. That little boy’s dead because of me. What are we going to tell his parents?” Tears resume streaming on Clancy’s face.
“I don’t know, Clancy, but the best thing we can do for that family now is to find out who did this to their boy.”
“It just doesn’t make sense.” Clancy slowly shakes his head. “I mean, have you ever seen anything like it? That door was pried right off the frame.”
“No. Not till this week. Lot of things don’t make any sense this week.”
“Am I fired?”
“It’s not my call, Lance. That’s up to the chief. But right now…right now…I need you to get yourself together. We’ve got a job to do. You think you can manage?”
A basset hound-eyed Officer Clancy looks up and nods. He wipes the tears away from his cheeks and gets out of the police cruiser.
He’s basically me. A decade ago me, at least. I made mistakes, too. Not this bad. But mistakes. Gonna be hard to recover from this one though. But hell, even I couldn’t have foreseen this happening. Kid was basically in a prison, reinforced glass, steel frame. No way in. No way out. Somebody had to pull that door off with a vehicle and a tow hitch. SUV or Truck maybe? Or they used a shitload of elbow grease and a crow bar. But either way, they wanted that boy. Damn determined to get him, too. Why would killing this little boy be so important to someone? Was this in response to what he’d seen?
“So, tell me exactly what happened.”
“Cam wouldn’t get out of the car. He swore up and down that Myron Thompson killed his friends, Seth and Shane. I tried to tell him, look, you’ll be safe with me and Ivansek. The kid was terrified. Wouldn’t budge. I didn’t know what to do. Knew me or Ivansek shouldn’t go into Shiners’ Gorge alone. I didn’t want to pull you out of your session.”
“I wish you had.”
“Me too. Dammit. That was so stupid.”
“What’s done is done. No way to change that now. So, then what happened?”
“I finally get Cam Givers to get out of the patrol car. I had to concede that I wasn’t going t
o force him to come along just to get that far. He points us in the direction where he says his friends were attacked. And then I locked him up in the backseat of the car with the air on full blast. That’s what I was worried about, you know. Him being too hot in the car. And then we left him. Oh God, I left him.”
“Did Cam Givers say anything about two other people being there? Like Latravious Wadlow or Brady Palmer?”
“No. He said it was just Myron…Wait. He did say that the reason they ran into Shiners’ Gorge in the first place was because they were hiding from Sammy and Bo.”
This reminds Holt of his premonition a couple of days prior of Sammy Needles soon finding his way into his crosshairs. Has Sammy Needles finally gone and done it, crossed the line that’ll put him away? Not much of a stretch to imagine Sammy capable of something like this. Kid’s a violent sociopath.
“Really? But Cam said that they weren’t there in the woods?”
“That’s what he said, but the kid was all shook up.”
A glimmer flashes in Clancy’s eyes as he retreats to his racing thoughts. Be the break! Please, God, let it be. We can arrest Sammy. Bo, too. Easier conversation with Cam’s parents. Still awful, but easier. And the media loves a killer. They’d obsess over it. No questions on the finer points. How it happened under our care. But no killer. Lots of questions about the circumstances leading up to the murder.
“We’ll bring Sammy back in, but first, let’s secure this scene. It’s getting late. I want to collect any evidence we can before nightfall. Why don’t you jump on the horn and get Mr. Latrell out here?”
“Yes sir.” Clancy grabs his radio from his belt.
A white van breaches the hill and comes into view on Timberline Road, speeding in the direction of the four police cars. As it approaches, Detective Holt’s stomach drops.
“Marcy over.” Clancy walks to the edge of the road.
“Shit! It’s that damn reporter. Put down that radio, Clancy! Use your cell.”
“What?”
“Clancy. Go. Over.”
“Put it down! Put the radio down!” Detective Holt yells as he runs to Clancy, waving his arms and pointing to the oncoming van. “It’s Channel Four News. They must be monitoring our radio channel.”
The Tear Collector Page 20