The Forsaken: Part V

The Forsaken-Part V

Beneath a warm tropical sun in the southern Caribbean stood an old colonial mansion surrounded by an eight-foot security wall. From four miles above the Earth, satellites could see the security patrolling around the grounds. The lights on the chopper pad flickered beneath the speeding rotor. An entourage arrived at the front gate, and activity at the compound was busier than in years past.

While a helicopter and its passengers landed on the south lawn, an entourage of vehicles arrived at the front gate. They were there for an annual retreat that happened once a year. As guests arrived, a barrage of footsteps echoed through the main hall as hard shoes repetitively struck the marble floors.

A young man wearing a white shirt and tie hurried through the halls. He clutched a piece of printer paper, explaining the nervous look etched on his face. From one side of the mansion to the other, he wouldn’t slow until he delivered the message.

Over a thousand miles away, in a place not seen by the sun in several days, cops were still processing the scene at Arthur and Mary Lou Jones’s residence. The bodies of Arthur and Mary Lou were in black bags on carts that were rolling out of the kitchen. There was crime scene tape across the entrance to the kitchen, as well as circling the property line.

Unlike most crime scenes, no crowd was outside, no curious bystanders, and no press had gathered. The strange, ominous fogbank that surrounded the city and left the streets barely passable kept the city snoops away. Things moved along slowly. The authorities were scarcely able to work the scene under the bizarre conditions.

With Chief Jones gone, Captain Elizabeth Harper was in command and the only other qualified investigator in the small Iowa town. While she was grieving, she knew she needed to ask questions. She stood outside, questioning the only person who saw what happened, Lucas Shaw.

“Mr. Shaw, why were you here?” she asked.

“I am…or was, consulting with Chief Jones on the rash of disappearances,” explained Lucas.

“What’s your connection?”

Lucas wasn’t authorized to share the details of his trip to Iowa with anyone other than the chief. Sitting there, hesitant, he struggled to decide what he should do. Everything was spiraling compared to Ben Garza’s case. Now, he had to decide what to tell the acting chief about Mary Lou Jones.

Telling her the truth would destroy Arthur’s legacy. Lucas didn’t feel good hanging the horror of it all on the memory of an innocent person. Lucas nervously smoked for the first time in years. All he felt was the burden of the moment.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shaw. I asked you a question,” demanded Captain Harper.

“If you insist. I work for some powerfully connected people. They sent me to work with Chief Jones,” answered Lucas.

“Why?” she asked.

“There’s a connection between my case and the disappearances here,” explained Lucas.

A young officer ran out of the house, white as a ghost, struggling not to vomit. Another officer stopped at the main door, motioning for Captain Harper.

“What is it, officer?”

“I think you better have a look,” the officer quietly suggested.

Lucas stopped her, saying just one word.

“Don’t.”

“Why not?” asked the captain.

“Because you’re not ready for what you’re going to see,” explained Lucas.

Captain Harper didn’t have time to play games, be cryptic, or wait on mysterious players to tell the truth. Looking at Lucas, she didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, and wanted to hold him accountable for the death of her boss. Now, the only witness was holding back.

“Bring him with. He might have answers we need,” ordered Harper.

Two officers flanked Lucas as they escorted him behind the captain. They walked him to the kitchen, where she stopped and looked at the markers where the bodies fell. Captain Harper considered Arthur a friend. Seeing where he and Mary Lou died was almost too much to take.

“What do I need to see?”

“Not here,” answered the patrol officer.

He led them to the basement door and down the stairs. Once in the basement, the captain and Lucas found the forensics team. That’s when Lucas realized the demon inside Mary Lou Jones didn’t have his servant clean up well after the last victim. Something sidetracked Mary Lou.

“Jesus,” sighed Captain Harper. “What happened happened here?”

“We’re not sure,” admitted one of the officers working forensics. “Most of this is going to have to wait until the weather clears to go to the lab, but I’d say someone was tortured here.”

The captain turned her head, looking at Lucas. She felt he had the answers to what happened in that basement. Her gut churned nervously, but she asked him anyway, nodding at her officers to let Lucas come forward.

“So, consultant, got any ideas what the hell went on here?”

Lucas examined the scene, trying to stay clear of the officers collecting samples. He had been around the world. Until now, Lucas never found signs of blood rituals or torture.

“What’s this?” one of the officers asked everyone, shining a flashlight on a clump of meat.

Lucas looked over the young officer’s shoulder, staring at a crimson slab of meat on the floor. He took an asp from his belt and turned the piece of evidence over. He and the officer were staring at a tongue.

“What could rip someone’s tongue out?” Lucas wondered.

Ripping a tongue from its mouth was a part of ancient torture methods usually reserved for only the worst offenders.

“Can you tell if the victim was alive when this was ripped out?” Lucas asked Captain Harper.

She stared at the piece of meat, weirded out by the question. Elizabeth was intuitive. She knew Lucas was holding back something.

“Listen, Mr. Shaw. The only reason you’re here and not in a holding cell is because you know something,” Elizabeth warned. “Start sharing or I’ll have my guys take your ass back to the station and you can sit this out in one of my cages.”

Lucas walked over to Elizabeth, gently guiding her to a corner away from most of the officers.

“Alright, I’ll tell you, but you have to access Arthur’s computer to verify parts of what I’m about to say. The rest, well that’s going to be harder to fathom, unless you’re like him,” explained Lucas.

“Like him?”

“Yes,” he replied. “What church do you go to?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.

“Just answer the question?” begged Lucas.

Elizabeth Harper went to church with Arthur and Mary Lou. She was a Catholic and had been since childhood.

“So, you’re capable of faith,” said Lucas.

Elizabeth nodded. The stern look on her face warned Lucas he needed to get to the point. Lucas reached into his jacket. Two of the officers grabbed their guns in response. The tenseness from the cops was so palpable it filled the air. All of them were lusting for two things. They wanted blood and revenge.

“Easy boys,” suggested Lucas. “I’m just getting something to show Captain Harper.”

Pulling a black journal from his jacket, he opened it and showed his passport and identification. He handed it to Captain Harper, urging her to be discreet. The questioning look on her face as she examined his credentials aside, he could see her drawing the lines between recent events and his presence.

“The official request for assistance, for cooperation, was sent directly to Arthur. Only he knew the truth behind my being here. I had to vet him in person before giving him all the details,” explained Lucas.

“So, if you know what really happened here I need to know the details,” Elizabeth demanded.

Lucas explained how he and Arthur were together, patroling, when Arthur realized there were questions surrounding his wife.

“That weird call over the radio,” realized Elizabeth.

“Yes,” replied Lucas.

Lucas told the story. He and Chief Jones were patrolling after the fog set over the town. They discussed the rash of disappearances and how there was an innocuous connection between them all. All except one. That was Mary Lou’s doctor.

“His wife reported he’d run off with one of his medical assistants,” said Elizabeth. “How’d he factor into things?”

When Lucas informed her of the cancer diagnosis and how the doctor had reached out to Arthur before he disappeared, Elizabeth rubbed her temples. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Jesus,” she sighed. “Mary Lou did this?”

“Yes, and no.”

Lucas described the final minutes before Arthur pulled his service weapon and shot his wife, then himself. He finally shared the last words he heard the chief mumble.

“Right before Arthur acted, he said, no, take me,” explained Lucas.

Elizabeth didn’t understand what that meant. Why would he say, “take me.”

Lucas could only offer an opinion because of the psychic connection between the demon and its host, but he thought the answer was simple.

“What I’m going to tell you may sound crazy if you’re not ready to believe in things you can’t see.”

Lucas told the truth about what he was and why the church sent him to LeClaire. He described how a possessed person hears the demon holding their soul. The power of the demonic hierarchy gave them the ability to get into the minds of others.

“We believed that Mary Lou made a deal to extend her life, and I think the creature possessing her convinced Arthur to silence her before we could extract his identity. If she knew his name, even after expelling the demon she might have remembered it,” explained Lucas.

“I don’t believe any of this,” said Elizabeth.

Lucas told her they could subpoena the medical records and see the diagnoses her doctor planned to meet with the chief about before he vanished. Then, he pointed to the table covered in crimson, the scraps of evidence, and the tongue lying on the ground and asked if she believed any of that. He then reminded her of the thick and mysterious fogbank that rolled over the city, separating it from the world around them.

Elizabeth wondered, presuming Lucas was telling the truth, what could they do? She knew her people at the department. They were good at their jobs. Now, she was in the middle of a new kind of weirdness.

“You’ve got to keep the people safe and we have to accept that this isn’t over,” Lucas told her.

Four people sat near the head of a long conference table in a lavishly decorated room with a large open window granting them a view of the blue waters of the Caribbean. All of them had traveled a significant distance, and all were anxiously awaiting their host. It wasn’t the usual retreat, as they never met in private during normal circumstances.

The large entry doors opened, and a silver-haired man in his sixties entered the room. He held a folder in his hand as he walked the length of the table, greeting his guests as he passed them. His assistant followed closely, and as the host sat, he stayed behind him against the wall.

“Thank you all for being here earlier than scheduled. Something has come up in the U.S. that requires the some discussion,” he announced.

“Steven, what is it?” asked the representative from Great Britain, Henry Gallows.

Steven’s assistant handed a file to each of the four in attendance. The file was marked classified. To them, it meant that only the highest-ranking council members were privy to the information.

As each broke the seals and opened the file, they began to discuss what was inside.

“It’s being called a strange weather anomaly, and we’ve managed to push the press to slow the cycle of coverage,” Steven explained.

“How did you manage that?” asked the European Union representative, Johnathan Ketters.

“As it turns out, having Joe still in office in the U.S. is a handy asset when it comes to controlling the flow of information, silencing the press, and getting people to believe whatever we want them to,” admitted Steven.

“Do we have an asset on the ground?”

“Yes, and no,” admitted Steven.

He explained that assets were limited, but they had one person on their side who was on the ground in Iowa. The only problem is he doesn’t know Father Rogers sent him at Steven’s request, explained Steven as he updated the senior members.

“So, what are we dealing with?” asked the European representative.

“Unfortunately, it appears they’ve come back.”

To be continued…