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Victor Anderson Network Solutions | ||||
| 4102 13th Ave Apt D6 | ||||
| Brooklyn, NY 11219-1333 | ||||
| Click here to end further messaging. |
"May God have mercy on our souls"
Were the last written words of Jeremiah Watts.
"There is an approaching storm!" The ethereal voiced preacher said over the static filled radio. "Something the likes the world has ever known! You all that can hear my voice, you better repent!" His voice crackled with intensity as the rain outside the car continued to beat against the car, as if were trying to get at the occupant inside. The man did his best to stay on the road. He hadn't seen another car in miles, and he wasn't concerned with seeing one. He had other, more pressing matters on his mind.
"Please God, forgive me." The man in the driver's seat whispered softly. He drove for a few moments before deciding to stop the car. He closed his eyes and said a quiet prayer to himself in an attempt to calm his wrecked nerves. When the prayer didn't work he opened his eyes turned his attention to his bible laying in the passenger seat. As he reached for it he took care not to pay attention to the barrel of a shotgun sticking out from the passenger's side well. Or the vague smell of sulfur that emanated from it. As he grabbed his bible he opened it and began reading, until the sound of thunder made him jump and drop the bible at his feet. He began to weep at that moment.
"God, why?" He sobbed, "Why? Why have you made me carry this burden?" He cried into his hands "They weren't, right, Lord. I just..."
The preacher's hollow, forlorn voice crackled through the car radio again, causing the man to pause momentarily in his suffering.
"You know you have sinned. You all have!" The preacher said before pausing. The rain outside coming down so hard that the man could not see out any of the car windows. "When the almighty makes his return, he will wipe all the filth from the land! But before he comes, before he comes, a wicked evil will appear, In fact, I would say it has already appeared. Which is why, the storm is approaching."
The man looked up from his hands and stared into his own bloodshot eyes. The man he saw before him was not the man he saw just 48 hours ago in a laboratory bathroom. That man was a confident man, a man who thought he knew the world and everything in it. But after last night. He became the broken, hollow shell of a man he is now. Part of him believed he was still sane, so much so that he decided to park the car in this downfall. But the greater part of him knew, that something, fundamentally deep down on a base level, he was no longer sane.
The rain and thunder outside the car picked up, so much so that the man turned up the volume on the car radio to hear the preacher. The man quickly jerked his hand back from the radio as if it were a viper when he began to hear the preacher's gravely voice laughing.
"But you know what you have done. I'm not talking to those in my flow before me. No, I'm talking to the ones out there. The ones out in the godforsaken world. They know not what will befall you! Repent! Or your damned souls will forever burn in the lake of fire!"
Even over the preacher and the rain, the man sitting in the driver's seat, began to hear the sound of scratching coming his backseat. When he slowly turned to look, he saw nothing, but he knew there was nothing in the backseat. Tiny sobs began to leak from the man, like a rusted pipe. He knew the scratching sounds were coming from "behind" the backseat. He knew something was in the trunk.
"Why." The man sobbed. "Why have you placed this...this, curse upon me lord? Why?" the man said as he began to beat the steering wheel in frustration. The static of the radio and the intense sound of the rain began to drown out his own thoughts. He took a glance over at the shotgun, took a deep breath and grabbed it by the barrel. He felt the warm metal against his palm as he pulled it out. He opened his car door to the pouring rain, and slowly walked toward the trunk, not caring that he was getting soaked to the bone.
As he reached the trunk, he could hear the sound of scratching even over the sound of rain all around him. As he reached for the handle of the trunk, he mentally prepared himself for what he knew he was going to see. As he opened the trunk, the man sobbed again as the body of a woman in a lab coat with a gunshot wound to her stomach laid there. Next to the woman was a silver case the size of a small shipping box. On the box and on the woman's lab coat were the letters A.R.C. The woman's lifeless eyes stared upward at the man in confused agony.
"It made me do it!" The man screamed as he raised his shotgun "It got into my head and it made me do it! It got into you too!" He pointed the shotgun at the woman in the trunk and stood there for a few moments, letting the rain completely soak his body. His finger hovered inches away from the trigger. His mind flashed back to the moment he used this gun before. He remembers the flash, the recoil of the gun, and the being in front of him being hit But when he ran over to whatever it was to finish it off, to his horror, the was woman lying there, looking up at him with those sorrowful eyes.
"I don't even know, what I am seeing anymore." The man said in a shaky voice. "I know, what I saw, and it wasn't....it wasn't you. It wasn't you! That thing got into my head, you knew it got in yours too!" The man lowered the shotgun, as his will began to drain from him. "Lord forgive me" He said in a pitiful voice, as he closed the trunk on the rain soaked woman.
The man slowly headed back to the drivers seat and he sat back down, completely soaking the seat. The radio just continued to spew static the entire time as he reached over and opened the glove department box. Many papers spewed out and covered the seat and the floor, but he picked up a single sheet, grabbed a pen, and began to write:
"My name, is Jeremiah Watts, this note is for anyone that find it. The woman in the trunk of the car was a colleague of mine. If the police find this first, and I pray you do, you will be able to piece together the scene. Yes, I shot the woman, Helena Goe, in a fit of insanity. I cannot tell you what I saw when I pulled the trigger, killing her. I know I didn't see a woman, it was something beyond the horrors. Something truly and utterly so imposturous, that you would dismiss this entire, note, as the ramblings of a mad man. So I will live on with what I have seen, and I will live with what I have done. The container next to the woman should be put into a highly secured vault. It is with the utmost importance that this is achieved and once this happens, call this number 418-267-0978."
As he continued to write, he began to feel the dread he felt a few moments ago began to melt away. With each word, he felt the weight of the world gradually lessen from his soul, as he felt as if this were penance for killing his co-worker. When he was finished writing, he placed the note right in the seat next to him and laid the shotgun across the backseat. He started up the car again and began to drive, this time in silence.
While on the road, a passerby noticed a car was involved in a car accident. The car crashed sideways into a pole and was completely wrapped around it. Knowing that if anyone was in that crash they would surely be dead, the citizen called the police and they arrived on the scene. The two officers that arrived accessed the scene as the fire department began to use the jaws of life on the car in an attempt to unwrap it from around the pole and help tow it away. One officer was already on the scene as the other pulled up.
"This is a rough one." One officer said joining the other officer watching the scene.
"Yeah, a real rough one, How fast do you think he was going?" The other officer asked
"Hmm. Probably 75, or more." He replied.
"Yeah, I was thinkin the same." He said, he took a look over at the officer before continuing, "You know they found a body in the trunk, she was completely mangled. As well as a damaged shotgun."
"The two related?"
"More than likely since she had a hole the size of a cantaloupe where her midsection should have been."
"Where's the driver?"
"That poor guy." The officer said taking off his hat and brushing his short hair before replacing it. The sun overhead began to hide behind a few incoming clouds casting an ominous shadow over the scene as the two officers watched as the firefighters continued to work. "He was found a few feet away. Clearly he died on the spot due to his landing. It wasn't a particularly good one."
"Ah." The officer replied
"That's not even the crazy part. There was this note found in this bible not too far from here." The officer pulled out the note and handed it to the officer. "The bible was soaking wet along with the guy, but as you can see, there ain't a reason why he would be wet."
"He was wet?"
"Like soaked to the bone. Even the car showed signs of water damage."
"What? How?" The officer asked
"Don't know. Read the note."
His eyes scanned the entire thing as he mouthed the last words: "May God have mercy on our souls."
"Spooky ain't it?" The other officer said "You really want to raise some hairs, turn it over."
As the officer did, he noticed there was a second note on the back, this one was written in a state of madness. Words were scrawled in a writing that the officer struggled to read. When he did, he looked confused. The note read as follows:
P.S: The container in the trunk of the car must be thrown in the nearest incinerator, preferably at its highest setting. I was going to do it myself, but it prevents me. Since it has, been inside and it knows me, but its sleeping now. And im doing this. Throw the container into the hottest fires you can find. If you come across this container, and it is damaged in, even the slightest way, then I truly pray for us, You will know when you are near it, the weather patterns around will be completely erratic like extreme rai
The letter stops abruptly.
"What in the world? What container is he talking about?" The officer asked
"That's the thing. We don't know what he is talking about. We are still looking for the thing and-
"Hey! I think I found it!" One of the firefighters called out. He was in the field a few feet from the crash. He reached down and picked up what appeared to be a shiny object. As he approached the officers he held it out to the officer that was already on the scene. "Here you go sir. We found it."
As the officer held the damaged container in his hands, the one thing he took note of was the damaged letters A and R. Where the C would have been was a long, jagged gash, exposing the inside of the container, which was empty.
"What do you think was inside it?" The officer holding the note asked
"I don't know." The officer said turning over the container in his hands. "But for some reason I have this feeling of..I don't know...dread? Like something being wrong, but you cant figure it out? I get that feeling when I hold this thing. Here wanna hold it?" The officer said, holding it out to the other officer
"Nah, I'll pass on that one. Uh, look. I'll go and check out the two bodies so i can make a better report, and uh, you okay there?" The officer noticed his colleague wasn't paying attention to him, but was staring intently at the container in his hands. "You should put that thing in the car or something.
"Yeah, I'll do that." The officer said as they both separated. As the officer put the container in the backseat of his car, he took notice of the city skyline in the distance. He noticed a great storm was rolling in. And something deep inside him felt something he had never felt before. A simple, but primal fear of the coming storm.
Heading west on I-80 from Omaha is high on the running for the most boring drive on the face of the earth. You see road. You see corn. You see truck stops and gas stations. And then more corn. And then more road. Welcome to Nebraska, the Cornhusker State, the state whose nickname comes from its most exciting pastime, husking corn, because god knows it's certainly not driving. It's roughly 350 miles from Omaha to the I-76 junction near Big Springs, which you can take into Colorado and eventually into Denver, where you can finally see something besides corn and road. Or, you can stay on I-80 at the junction and continue through the blessed end of Nebraska and into Wyoming, where you will eventually see something besides corn and road.
Omaha - 350 miles to go
Jack Morton only needed to get to I-76, five hours away, where the three corpses wrapped up and lying underneath the custom floor of his Escalade were to be transferred to someone else. He didn't know whom, didn't care, didn't want to know, and wasn't told. It had taken years for Jimmy Doyle to convince him to finally junk the Eldorado that Jack had had since he got into the business. Jack resisted. The old Caddy had been the look Jack wanted to have, plus a trunk big enough to sleep in, along with a couple of broads if you were lucky. Jimmy always laughed, then reminded Jack that it wasn't the sixties anymore and that he didn't even think chicks were called broads anymore. It wasn't until the transmission finally gave out in Reno that Jack finally walked away from the old boat, and not just figuratively. He knew what had happened right away when he heard the high-pitched hum and couldn't get it over forty, right there under the Reno Arch. At that moment, he knew it was fate. If a town and a car ever belonged together, it was Reno, Nevada and a late 1980s Cadillac Eldorado. He left town in a rental.
That was five years ago. Now, he was pulling out of the house in Elmwood Park in the pouring rain, where the wet work had been done. It was dawn. The conventional wisdom is that if you have to transfer contraband, you should do it at night. That's what the gangster movies tell you. While that may be true in a big city where you need to expose the goods to fresh air and curious neighbors, if you're going a long distance it's better to do it during the day. The teenage kid behind the counter in Bumbfuck, Missouri won't remember you paying for gas or buying Slim Jims if you're just another American Joe passing through along with the rest of them in the middle of the day. Things go south, she may remember the guy who wandered in at two in the morning looking unusually refreshed, especially when she hadn't seen another face in three hours. That goes double for staties on the night shift. The secret isn't doing your dirty work while you're hard to see. It's doing it while you're invisible.
What Jack Morton couldn't stop thinking about was why the contraband under the floor at that particular moment was corpses. He had helped get rid of bodies before, and in that case the gangster movies are right. If you can't outright destroy them with acid or pigs a meat-grinder in a timely fashion, you have to dump them, and that never means more than a few miles from where the deed is done. But across an entire state? That was unheard of, and as Jack thought about it, he suspected it was unheard of because nobody but nobody would ever want to do it.
?Jesus, I don't want to know,? Jack had said the night before he made the pickup. ?There's rules for a reason.?
?I know, I know,? Jimmy had said, ?but this, I don't know. Maybe I need to tell someone about it, you know what I mean? It gives me the willies.?
Lincoln - 295 miles to go
Jack had never been a breakfast person, but going through the college town he felt his stomach rumbling and hunger overcame him. He knew he could have driven farther, but this would be one of the last places with civilization before he made it to the transfer point on the other side of the state, and he wanted to stay blended in and out of sight every chance he got.
What he really wanted was coffee, but the last thing he needed was added restroom breaks, so he drank water instead. He ordered something light from the senior menu?even though he barely met the requirement and looked ten years younger?then went back to the Escalade parked on the street while hunched over with his collar pulled up against the rain. He hit the unlock button on the fob then stopped. He would have sworn it made the sound it does when it's already unlocked, but he didn't bother to test it. A passing car splashed his ankles with water and he started moving again. He reached for the driver's door and opened it, then closed it again and went around to the back.
?What the hell?? he said, but not loud enough for anyone to hear him.
The floor panel nearest to the back door was open, revealing the narrow ends of three large white canvas sacks. He reached a hand in and felt around to confirm what his eyes were already seeing: everything was as he had left it, including the bodies. He shuddered, then closed the panel and told himself it was only a faulty latch.
?Fine, whatever,? Jack had told Jimmy. ?Go ahead and get it off your chest. We've known each other long enough.?
?The boss thinks he's cursed,? Jimmy said.
?Oh, wonderful,? Jack said, then laughed.
?No, I mean it,? Jimmy said. ?Think about it. Six months ago, his wife hangs herself.?
?She was on meds for years,? Jack said ?It was a matter of time. Everyone knew that. I mean, God rest her soul, of course.?
?Let me finish,? Jimmy said. ?His wife, then after that, his two kids drown in the backyard, at the same time. Then, his favorite dog is poisoned. And did you know what happened just last week??
?No, what?? Jack said, with feigned interest.
?His father gets shot and killed in a hunting accident,? Jimmy said. ?Now, you think that's all just coincidence??
There was a silence, then Jack sighed. ?Jimmy, listen,? he said. ?The wife was a long time coming. Paulie, of all people, was watching the kids. He went inside for some nose candy and forgot about them. The dog ate some chocolate after a party because he wasn't kenneled properly. And the guy who shot his dad?accidentally, as you said?was drunk as a skunk. It's a horrible chain of events, I'll give you that. Very unlikely, but nothing more than coincidence.?
?Yeah, well, the boss doesn't think so,? Jimmy said, ?and he didn't want to take any more chances.?
Kearney - 168 miles to go
The sky grew eerie as Jack drove past the Interstate town of Kearney. The rain lightened and he began to see shades of green and purple in the sky. Had Jack not spent the last five years in a region of the world known for tornados, he would have thought an alien invasion was only seconds away. He switched the radio to an AM station and within thirty seconds was met with the discordant buzz that portended a message from the Emergency Broadcast System.
This is not a test. Seek shelter immediately. If you see a tornado, do not attempt to outrun it.
?And if you don't see the tornado,? Jack said, ?grab your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye.?
But Jack did see it, up ahead and off to the left, forming out of the wall cloud in a cone that was half invisible until the funnel met the ground and drew debris up into its vortex before spitting it out. He saw the overpass a second later.
If you see a tornado, do not attempt to outrun it.
Jack saw it, then attempted to outrun it.
Self-preservation would, for the moment, trump his directive to avoid the attention of the authorities. He gunned the engine on the Escalade and it roared into life. He shot past the speed limit, then, seconds later, past the speed of the average motorist on I-80 He saw that two cars ahead of him had already pulled into a shallow ditch on either side of the road, then he whipped past them like blurs.
The overpass came into focus, clear of vehicles. The twister still lingered off to the left, also larger, and Jack had no idea which way it was headed. He had already committed to his course. The Escalade approached triple digits on the speedometer and Jack saw that he would beat the tornado to the overpass with time to spare. It even appeared to be headed south. Jack let out his breath without knowing he had been holding it the better part of a minute.
Then, the engine stalled.
The Cadillac decelerated and coasted on the straightaway. Jack panicked, threw it in neutral, and tried to restart it. All it did was turn. He slammed on the breaks, parked it, then turned the key all the way back to the off position. Up ahead, the overpass stood out like an oasis. Jack moved his eyes to the left, where the twister now appeared to have changed course again. This time, if Jack had to put money on it, he would have bet it was headed straight for him.
He turned the key over and over with no effect. The engine was flooding. If he failed one more time, he wouldn't be able to try it again until he and the Escalade were scrap parts somewhere in a Nebraska cornfield.
He took a breath, held it for a flash, then tried one last time. The engine turned over and thundered back to life. He threw the shifter into drive and took off.
Whatever spare time he may have had was obliterated. Even if he could beat the tornado into the overpass, he would have no time to brake until he was underneath. Seconds away from shelter, debris began to shoot past his grill. Wooden fencing and whole stocks of corn flew in front of him. Long blades of grass and ears of corn beat into the side of the truck.
He entered the overpass while in top gear, then hit the brake with both feet. His body slammed into the seatbelt and he let out a cry of pain. He strained his arms to keep the wheel straight. He felt the bodies underneath the floor thump up against the panels. Overhead, the freight train of wind and rain pillaged the backcountry road that sat above him and the freeway behind him. He felt the rear end of the Escalade lift off the ground, turning the front end of the vehicle toward the center barricade. A screaming wind crashed into the back window. A moment later, the storm put the truck back down and continued on its course.
Only minutes later was Jack able to pry his aching white hands from the steering wheel. He caught his face quickly in the rearview mirror and didn't recognize it. He stifled a gasp. He turned the engine off, got out of the vehicle, and surveyed the damage. Only minor dents peppered the body. He popped the hood and tried to determine the origin of the stall, but he couldn't. He wasn't quite good enough to be a certified mechanic, but he was close, and he knew where to look for the usual suspects. He checked, then double checked, then checked again. Clean as a whistle. That's how he kept it, and that's why he got back behind the wheel again wishing more than anything that he would have told Jimmy Doyle to shove that five grand up his ass.
?What kind of chances?? Jack had asked
Jimmy sighed. ?Look, this didn't come from me, alright??
?It's your confessional, Jimmy,? Jack said. ?I really don't want to know.?
?Alright alright,? Jimmy said. ?A year ago, the boss sends out a couple of heavies on this kid. He made a loan, kid didn't pay. It was only supposed to be a couple of broken legs. Not enough dough to warrant a permanent vacation. Anyhow, things get out of hand and the kid buys a one-way ticket anyway. He's a nobody so the boss slaps the heavies on the wrist and calls it a day. Thing is, it was the wrong kid. Turns out he's got three older sisters.?
?The three from the job??
?That's right,? Jimmy said. ?They find out what happened to innocent little Tommy and eventually it leads them to our fair organization. Don't ask me how because no one knows. Boss'll work on that part soon enough. Anyhow, the sisters put a curse on the boss because they're all part of a coven.?
North Platte - 73 miles to go
The sky had turned back into gray and the rain lightened up an hour out of Kearney. By the time Jack reached North Platte and the home stretch of his trip, he could even see patches of blue in the distance. No sooner than he finished filling the tank and gotten back on the road, however, he began to hear thumping from the rear of the Escalade. He checked the dash but the gauges were all normal. Not even the tire pressure alert was flashing. He listened as he drove, trying to feel out the problem. It wasn't the tires.
The more Jack thought about what had happened earlier?how that tornado had seemed to change course and head right for him, how the truck had stalled for no apparent reason and not once in the prior five years since he had bought it brand new, how that panel had popped open on its own?the more he wanted to finish the job as soon as possible. If that meant driving with a noise from somewhere in the back that he couldn't explain, so be it. As long as the Escalade kept moving, he wasn't going to stop.
?What?? Jack had said. ?A coven??
?You know,? Jimmy said, ?witches.?
?Witches?? Jack said. ?Unbelievable.?
?At first the boss thought the same thing,? Jimmy said. ?Didn't see them as a real threat. Of course he didn't admit to the kid because that could lead to the cops snooping around. Then, it starts with his wife. After his old man, like I said, he didn't want to take any more chances.?
?What about the guys who hit the kid?? Jack said, now with genuine interest.
?No one's seen them in months,? Jimmy said. ?They got straight.?
?You know they got straight?? Jack said.
?Well, I mean, that's what I'm told,? Jimmy said.
?And now I'm tapped with driving three dead witches across the state,? Jack said.
?You want to know more?? Jimmy said. ?I'll tell you.?
?No,? Jack said. ?No, I really don't.?
Big Springs - the end of the road
Jack Morton pulled off the freeway and onto the road into town ahead of schedule. When he made it to the grain elevator minutes later, the van he had expected to see was the only vehicle around. He flashed his brights and two men stepped out of either side of the van in the rain, which had started to come down heavy again within the last twenty minutes of his trip, around the time that the thumping had finally stopped. Not that Jack would have been able to say as much, seeing as how he had drowned it out with the radio blasting, which he turned on somewhere around Ogallala.
Jack stayed behind the wheel of the Escalade. The two men approached the back and opened the door. He heard them open the first panel, then the second. He heard them whisper to each other, then they opened the third panel. They reached in and pulled something out, then another, then a third. Jack found himself impressed by their efficiency. Three bodies in as many seconds. There were professionals and then there were professionals.
They closed the back door and approached the driver's side. That was not supposed to happen. That was against protocol. The whole reason he stayed behind the wheel was so that he wouldn't see them and they wouldn't see him. There was to be no communication of any kind aside from the initial flash of the headlights. Something has to be wrong, Jack thought. Something has to be wrong, or?or the boss is tying up every loose end associated with this whole damn mess.
Jack gulped. He felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead. He wondered how quickly he could reach into the glove box, pull out the .45, and plug both those guys before they could do anything about it. No. That would have made him a dead man for sure. Maybe not that day, but soon. And that's assuming the rounds hadn't rotted since he had last fired it.
Jack reached for the button on the door and rolled down the window.
?You're Jimmy's guy?? one of the men said.
?Yeah,? Jack said, not turning his head.
?We got a problem that you have to solve for us,? the man said, with more than a touch of aggression.
?What is that?? Jack said.
The man held up one of the white canvas bags for Jack to see.
?There's nothing here,? the man said.
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