ewww weee how yall are?
Yeap well I juss now git a caw from Lisa at tha lieberry an she was aw werked up inna tizzy. So bafore she starts tawkin I arked some spit off da front porch and towed her alright go head wid da story. She towed me at some mafuckin suits were there an they wasn't lookin fer books. They were lookin fer Janet. I mention her once or twice here. Nice girl datin a real bottom of the barrel piece of shit doe. Aaaanyways Lisa towed me at Janet cain't remember shit bout what em mafuckers asked her. As a matter of fact Janet almost donnit remember at all tawkin to dohs mafuckers. Guess ole Scotty's gotta go underground in find out just what the mafuck is goin on.
Men in black questioned Janet?
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
I'm not sure what you're one about here, Scotty.
Some guys dressed in suits came by and talked to Janet but she doesn't remember about what?
Lots of different organizations send guys dressed in suits to talk and ask questions. Often these conversations aren't something you'd want to remember. Many of these suits don't represent legal organizations, if you catch my drift.
Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but do you know why anyone would want to talk to Janet?
Some guys dressed in suits came by and talked to Janet but she doesn't remember about what?
Lots of different organizations send guys dressed in suits to talk and ask questions. Often these conversations aren't something you'd want to remember. Many of these suits don't represent legal organizations, if you catch my drift.
Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but do you know why anyone would want to talk to Janet?
Hi, I'm Darcy! 
"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
-Oscar Wilde.
"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
-Oscar Wilde.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
I'm not sure what you're on about here, Scotty.
Some guys dressed in suits came by and talked to Janet but she doesn't remember about what?
Lots of different organizations send guys dressed in suits to talk and ask questions. Often these conversations aren't something you'd want to remember. Many of these suits don't represent legal organizations, if you catch my drift.
Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but do you know why anyone would want to talk to Janet?
Some guys dressed in suits came by and talked to Janet but she doesn't remember about what?
Lots of different organizations send guys dressed in suits to talk and ask questions. Often these conversations aren't something you'd want to remember. Many of these suits don't represent legal organizations, if you catch my drift.
Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but do you know why anyone would want to talk to Janet?
Hi, I'm Darcy!
"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
-Oscar Wilde.
"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
-Oscar Wilde.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
Descriptions sound like me and mine, but we hardly have a monopoly on black suits and mirrorshades. If you find out who it was, please let me know - I would love to be able to make our visits less memorable.
If you have the contacts you might try starting with CIA programs, the havy memories sounds like some side effects I heard about from their MK-Ultra project before they tightened security up and and supposedly shut down.
If you have the contacts you might try starting with CIA programs, the havy memories sounds like some side effects I heard about from their MK-Ultra project before they tightened security up and and supposedly shut down.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
Scotty is himself a former spook. He went to work for the CIA after he left the military.
But what Scotty forgot to mention is that this isn't the first time this has happened to Janet. Which indicates to me that there's some weird shit going on down there in small town Missouri.
But what Scotty forgot to mention is that this isn't the first time this has happened to Janet. Which indicates to me that there's some weird shit going on down there in small town Missouri.
Волков бояться — в лес не ходить.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
Hi Sasha. I appreciated the call and the visit from you guys when you were here in the States last time. It elevated my spirits so much I can't even begin to describe. I love you guys.
Nemesis, before leaving to find Scotty I wrote down your questions but have not had an opportunity yet to ask him. But I will.
Logan, I think it was supposed to be partially memorable in the cat-chase-mouse way. That is my hunch anyway.
I saw that Scotty had not been heard from in a while and I thought that I would try to determine whether or not he was OK. So I contacted cab312 - who also answers to Mack - knowing that he has had some interactions with Scotty before and had skills and abilities that I would be beneficial when looking for somebody. Mack immediately agreed to assist me and we started to compile everything that we knew about Scotty. I booked two hotel rooms in Scotty's little town explaining to Mack that it was nothing personal, it's hard enough to sleep with First to Dance about but when flesh and blood people are around I do not get any rest and sleep very little since escaping the clutches of the cult.
If you have ever met Mack you know that he is totally laid back and responded with, "being perfectly honest, you would probably find my sleeping and grooming habits intolerable," and laughed. I did not ask for specifics and just accepted that he as defusing any discomfort I was experiencing. I chuckled slightly and called him back with the information. I made arrangements at work to have the necessary days off, which is not too difficult to swing where I work. So I went to the store and bought some essentials I was missing, loaded up the Jeep, and hit the road. I had a long drive ahead of me that should have taken about sixteen hours. I was there in twelve.
Mack had already arrived. He was in the lobby and I recognized him from the photograph he had emailed me and he seemed to recognize me although I had no photograph to send his way. He had already been in town for a while and did some preliminary work. Scotty was not at his trailer and there were no lights suggesting that Maude was not around as well. Mack reported that Scotty's pick up truck was at the trailer, which he recognized because of the last time Mack and Scotty met. "Do you have anything else?" I asked Mack.
"A general direction," he responded. He had with him a topographical map of the area upon which he had already made some markings. He pointed various places out to me and then showed where we were on the map and the general direction he believed Scotty to be.
"Ready to go?" I asked. I was really tired from the drive but when I have a focus the groove can carry me for a long time before I stop being efficient.
"In my previous life I would have to operate in the field for a few days on very little sleep," he explained but did not look enthusiastic, "that was in a previous life," he said a little bit defeated, "perhaps I can remember how," he said, handing me a color copy of the map that he had made. I'm not a map reader of great skill but the knowledge of the lay of the land and where the roads were would be handy. "Let's go," he said.
"Very well," I responded.
He went for his keys. I cleared my throat and quickly said, "I'll drive," with a telling smile.
"Fair enough, it does make using these easier," he said pointing to his collection of divining rods that were next to his map spread out on the table.
As we were making our way I guess that Mack has some instinct that he must multi-task. While being tuned to the directions he was being guided he was also looking at the map and telling me about the curves and so forth that would be upcoming - as he would say, "being helpful". It was a dirt road though. With deep ruts. We had to drive slow so the curves were not a problem, but I indulged Mack and acknowledged him with a "ok" or "thanks" every time. It is difficult to find his demeanor not charming. I was smiling the whole time. It made the challenge of driving in the middle of the night looking for somebody you just had a feeling needed help seem like just a walk in the park. Mack reminds one of Sasha. Charmingly insane. I see myself made in the same mold as Kolya, who is the perfect foil for Sasha. I was thinking of myself as Mack's Kolya. I didn't say anything, he never met either of those men.
I had met the Russians under severe circumstances: we were going to get Hannah and at the time the fate of my own daughters was unknown so I could not have taken the mission any more serious. I was with Kolya and Sasha during that time and they protected me; guided me; and taught me a everything I know about teamwork, courage, and grace under fire. Without that experience, I could not organize a thought under the stress of dealing with the things those of us who embrace reality deal with on a regular basis. Without them I would not have accomplished what I have accomplished thus far. But back to Kolya and Sasha. They couldn't be any more different from one another in their dispositions. It is quite interesting how well they operate together and the unbreakable bond that has developed from that. I looked at Mack and wanted to tell him, "after this is over, you can call me for anything you need help with," but I did not, and decided I would try again after it was actually over. These were the sorts of things I was thinking about as we bounced along the dirt track in a hollow called Sleepy Hollow secluded somewhere in the hills of the northern edge of the Ozarks.
"Alright, let's stop here and see what we can see," he said, bringing me back into the here and now.
"'kay," I responded.
He stepped out of the Jeep and was walking back and forth for about a minute. He got back into the Jeep an said, "he's quite close, let's get off the road. Up ahead is a curve."
"Right," I said and drove a bit further down the road beyond the curve and pulled off the track in between some trees. "Here?"
"Sure," he said, somewhat absentmindedly. "Follow me," he said, getting out of the Jeep.
I looked up and the moon was bright but not quite full. Out in the country though it was bright enough to read a book by. So we did not flashlights, at least not yet. We were walking down the dirt track we had just driven on and I stayed a few paces behind Mack. He would later joke he felt like he was in Asia. At one point he stopped along the road and turned back towards me. He pointed toward a hill and took out his map. He walked back to me and put his finger on the hill as represented on the map. The map was from the 1950s or thereabout when the USGS first made them. And at the top of the hill I saw a + symbol. When I looked it up in the map's legend, I discovered that it was a cemetery.
On the map there was a road marked leading up to top of the hill, however, the road was no longer on the ground. A testament to the difference 60 years can make. The area was overgrown with thick brush and grasses. It would be noisy walking through all that, and difficult. Mack checked Scotty's location and it was indicating strongly the direction of the hill. We moved slowly and carefully and as we moved we heard the usual forest noises of owls, crickets, the rustling of leaves in the wind, and the trickle of a nearby creek outflowing from a spring that was actually located near where I parked the Jeep. As we moved further from the dirt track the underbrush became thicker. We decided to halt for a minute to come with a plan of action. From the direction of the hill we heard the sound of a person whistling. We decided not to move a little closer when we saw a flashlight bouncing among the trees and bushes. Someone was coming our way!
Quickly, almost instinctively, we ducked down in the grass and duck walked behind a large bush and hoped for the best. I had my hand on my pistol as we watched a tall and lanky man walking towards to the dirt track. With one hand he was holding a shovel and a large black plastic bag over his shoulder and holding the flashlight in the other. I caught the slight reflection of a light off either his belt buckle or a pistol tucked into his jeans.
We watched him walk almost to the dirt track and there he dropped the plastic bad in the tall grass. He flashed his light up and down the track and uncovered a dirt bike and sped off in the direction towards town. Mack turned to look at me after the man had passed and shook his head slowly, which I understood to mean that this man was not Scotty. Then Mack checked his divining rod another time, and the direction of Scotty had not changed. We decided that we would go up the hill and check things out there.
After a few minutes of walking through the thick underbrush, Mack stopped to get another read on Scotty's position. Mack seemed to be surprised by something and turned around quickly and was looking over my shoulder. I turned quickly expecting that man we saw coming up behind me with a gun. I saw the whole thing play out in my head, but what actually was I saw a stocky man with a thick but not bushy beard in a plaid flannel shirt giving the secret handshake as if to say, "how yall are?" He was wearing nightvision goggles, too. Immediately after my heart restarted beating again he brought his finger up to his lips to indicate silence and that's also when I saw the shotgun in his other hand. We returned the handshake and he smiled at us. Scotty and Mack shook hands quickly and I smiled awkwardly like an awkward teenager. Scotty had only one extra set of nightvision goggles, which he gave to Mack since Mack knew what the hell to do with them.
I nodded.
And up the hill we went towards the cemetery. I was looking around and every now and then checking my watch. Scotty had a video camera and was moving around in squares recording stuff on the ground. After he was through with that, he removed his nightvision goggles for a moment and said in a low but relaxed voice, "good to go". And we headed back to the dirt track. And as we got to the road and he asked, "who drove?" I answered that I had driven and then he asked Mack and I at the same time, "ken yall gimme a ride ta town?" I nodded. Mack said, "absolutely, Scotty."
Scotty had explained that it's rare that people drive on this road but it's always to get from one place to another, so stashing something at the side of the road for later retrieval isn't really a problem. "Not even tha mafuckin mailman comes here," he elaborated.
The drive back into town would take about thirty minutes. Over that time, Scotty was going over the video footage that he had shot the previous night and pointing the differences that he had shot that night to Mack while I was driving.
So the cemetery has not been used since the early 1950s, so it makes sense that it would show up on the map. Scotty explained that where the road had connected to where we were had been washed out by a flood back in the 1980s and that is why we never saw the road that was indicated on the map. He said that most people in the area do not even know that the cemetery is there, and it is odd that somebody as young as "Junior" - that is what Scotty called him - would know about the cemetery. And according to the video, Junior was digging up the bodies and putting their bones in bags and carrying them back to the road where he would come by later with his truck and pick them up and take them back to the family farm. That is what he did the previous night. Of course, when he came back for the bones he had just dug up he would not find them. Scotty hoisted them into to back of my Jeep.
"And then what does he do with them?" I asked.
Scotty responded, "fuck iffa know but imma fixin ta find out."
"What about thos men at the library, Scotty? Are they connected?" Mack asked.
"Eeap, a reckon at day are, jus not sure how yit but imma fixin to find out."
We made our way down the bumpy road. The asphalt would begin and the drive much faster and smoother.
"Those depressions in the ground," Mack asked Scotty, "some of them look fresh. Those are the ones he was digging up?"
"Eeap," Scotty responded.
A good number of the headstones were missing. Either stolen or destroyed by years of rain and lack of maintenance. There is a lot of limestone in the areal Limestone is easily dissolved by rain water. Some of the larger stones, according to Mack, were just rounded off masses that once said something and obviously long ago forgotten.
That did not help me at that point in time, however. The people were still there and they called out to me, asking me to deliver a message, to do this and to do that. They are persistent, the dead. It is still something that I have not been able to get used to so it is never something that I had very well. It is always a challenge. And apparently I was not paying much attention to the road because First to Dance said abruptly, "pay attention!" I looked up and I was about to miss a curve and drive us straight into a tree. I managed to avoid doing that but it wasn't the smoothest move ever.
"You ok to drive?" Mack asked, I could detect the eagerness in his voice to get behind the wheel.
"She is. You ain't." Scotty said and I heard him laugh. No. I heard him guffaw.
Scotty directed me the local 24-hour Wal-Mart. "Yall ken drop me ear," he said, collecting his shotgun, a rucksack, and the bag of bones. He was parked at the far side of the parking lot. He hopped out of the Jeep and threw the stuff in the back of his pick up truck. "Where yall stayin?" he asked as he fished the keys out from under the wheel well. I gave him the name of the hotel and room numbers. "A'ight," he said, "call yall in da marnin." He jumped up into his truck. He turned the key and the truck roared to life. Scotty pulled away and we went to the hotel to get some much needed sleep.
Scotty had been found, but our time there was far from over.
Nemesis, before leaving to find Scotty I wrote down your questions but have not had an opportunity yet to ask him. But I will.
Logan, I think it was supposed to be partially memorable in the cat-chase-mouse way. That is my hunch anyway.
I saw that Scotty had not been heard from in a while and I thought that I would try to determine whether or not he was OK. So I contacted cab312 - who also answers to Mack - knowing that he has had some interactions with Scotty before and had skills and abilities that I would be beneficial when looking for somebody. Mack immediately agreed to assist me and we started to compile everything that we knew about Scotty. I booked two hotel rooms in Scotty's little town explaining to Mack that it was nothing personal, it's hard enough to sleep with First to Dance about but when flesh and blood people are around I do not get any rest and sleep very little since escaping the clutches of the cult.
If you have ever met Mack you know that he is totally laid back and responded with, "being perfectly honest, you would probably find my sleeping and grooming habits intolerable," and laughed. I did not ask for specifics and just accepted that he as defusing any discomfort I was experiencing. I chuckled slightly and called him back with the information. I made arrangements at work to have the necessary days off, which is not too difficult to swing where I work. So I went to the store and bought some essentials I was missing, loaded up the Jeep, and hit the road. I had a long drive ahead of me that should have taken about sixteen hours. I was there in twelve.
Mack had already arrived. He was in the lobby and I recognized him from the photograph he had emailed me and he seemed to recognize me although I had no photograph to send his way. He had already been in town for a while and did some preliminary work. Scotty was not at his trailer and there were no lights suggesting that Maude was not around as well. Mack reported that Scotty's pick up truck was at the trailer, which he recognized because of the last time Mack and Scotty met. "Do you have anything else?" I asked Mack.
"A general direction," he responded. He had with him a topographical map of the area upon which he had already made some markings. He pointed various places out to me and then showed where we were on the map and the general direction he believed Scotty to be.
"Ready to go?" I asked. I was really tired from the drive but when I have a focus the groove can carry me for a long time before I stop being efficient.
"In my previous life I would have to operate in the field for a few days on very little sleep," he explained but did not look enthusiastic, "that was in a previous life," he said a little bit defeated, "perhaps I can remember how," he said, handing me a color copy of the map that he had made. I'm not a map reader of great skill but the knowledge of the lay of the land and where the roads were would be handy. "Let's go," he said.
"Very well," I responded.
He went for his keys. I cleared my throat and quickly said, "I'll drive," with a telling smile.
"Fair enough, it does make using these easier," he said pointing to his collection of divining rods that were next to his map spread out on the table.
As we were making our way I guess that Mack has some instinct that he must multi-task. While being tuned to the directions he was being guided he was also looking at the map and telling me about the curves and so forth that would be upcoming - as he would say, "being helpful". It was a dirt road though. With deep ruts. We had to drive slow so the curves were not a problem, but I indulged Mack and acknowledged him with a "ok" or "thanks" every time. It is difficult to find his demeanor not charming. I was smiling the whole time. It made the challenge of driving in the middle of the night looking for somebody you just had a feeling needed help seem like just a walk in the park. Mack reminds one of Sasha. Charmingly insane. I see myself made in the same mold as Kolya, who is the perfect foil for Sasha. I was thinking of myself as Mack's Kolya. I didn't say anything, he never met either of those men.
I had met the Russians under severe circumstances: we were going to get Hannah and at the time the fate of my own daughters was unknown so I could not have taken the mission any more serious. I was with Kolya and Sasha during that time and they protected me; guided me; and taught me a everything I know about teamwork, courage, and grace under fire. Without that experience, I could not organize a thought under the stress of dealing with the things those of us who embrace reality deal with on a regular basis. Without them I would not have accomplished what I have accomplished thus far. But back to Kolya and Sasha. They couldn't be any more different from one another in their dispositions. It is quite interesting how well they operate together and the unbreakable bond that has developed from that. I looked at Mack and wanted to tell him, "after this is over, you can call me for anything you need help with," but I did not, and decided I would try again after it was actually over. These were the sorts of things I was thinking about as we bounced along the dirt track in a hollow called Sleepy Hollow secluded somewhere in the hills of the northern edge of the Ozarks.
"Alright, let's stop here and see what we can see," he said, bringing me back into the here and now.
"'kay," I responded.
He stepped out of the Jeep and was walking back and forth for about a minute. He got back into the Jeep an said, "he's quite close, let's get off the road. Up ahead is a curve."
"Right," I said and drove a bit further down the road beyond the curve and pulled off the track in between some trees. "Here?"
"Sure," he said, somewhat absentmindedly. "Follow me," he said, getting out of the Jeep.
I looked up and the moon was bright but not quite full. Out in the country though it was bright enough to read a book by. So we did not flashlights, at least not yet. We were walking down the dirt track we had just driven on and I stayed a few paces behind Mack. He would later joke he felt like he was in Asia. At one point he stopped along the road and turned back towards me. He pointed toward a hill and took out his map. He walked back to me and put his finger on the hill as represented on the map. The map was from the 1950s or thereabout when the USGS first made them. And at the top of the hill I saw a + symbol. When I looked it up in the map's legend, I discovered that it was a cemetery.
On the map there was a road marked leading up to top of the hill, however, the road was no longer on the ground. A testament to the difference 60 years can make. The area was overgrown with thick brush and grasses. It would be noisy walking through all that, and difficult. Mack checked Scotty's location and it was indicating strongly the direction of the hill. We moved slowly and carefully and as we moved we heard the usual forest noises of owls, crickets, the rustling of leaves in the wind, and the trickle of a nearby creek outflowing from a spring that was actually located near where I parked the Jeep. As we moved further from the dirt track the underbrush became thicker. We decided to halt for a minute to come with a plan of action. From the direction of the hill we heard the sound of a person whistling. We decided not to move a little closer when we saw a flashlight bouncing among the trees and bushes. Someone was coming our way!
Quickly, almost instinctively, we ducked down in the grass and duck walked behind a large bush and hoped for the best. I had my hand on my pistol as we watched a tall and lanky man walking towards to the dirt track. With one hand he was holding a shovel and a large black plastic bag over his shoulder and holding the flashlight in the other. I caught the slight reflection of a light off either his belt buckle or a pistol tucked into his jeans.
We watched him walk almost to the dirt track and there he dropped the plastic bad in the tall grass. He flashed his light up and down the track and uncovered a dirt bike and sped off in the direction towards town. Mack turned to look at me after the man had passed and shook his head slowly, which I understood to mean that this man was not Scotty. Then Mack checked his divining rod another time, and the direction of Scotty had not changed. We decided that we would go up the hill and check things out there.
After a few minutes of walking through the thick underbrush, Mack stopped to get another read on Scotty's position. Mack seemed to be surprised by something and turned around quickly and was looking over my shoulder. I turned quickly expecting that man we saw coming up behind me with a gun. I saw the whole thing play out in my head, but what actually was I saw a stocky man with a thick but not bushy beard in a plaid flannel shirt giving the secret handshake as if to say, "how yall are?" He was wearing nightvision goggles, too. Immediately after my heart restarted beating again he brought his finger up to his lips to indicate silence and that's also when I saw the shotgun in his other hand. We returned the handshake and he smiled at us. Scotty and Mack shook hands quickly and I smiled awkwardly like an awkward teenager. Scotty had only one extra set of nightvision goggles, which he gave to Mack since Mack knew what the hell to do with them.
I nodded.
And up the hill we went towards the cemetery. I was looking around and every now and then checking my watch. Scotty had a video camera and was moving around in squares recording stuff on the ground. After he was through with that, he removed his nightvision goggles for a moment and said in a low but relaxed voice, "good to go". And we headed back to the dirt track. And as we got to the road and he asked, "who drove?" I answered that I had driven and then he asked Mack and I at the same time, "ken yall gimme a ride ta town?" I nodded. Mack said, "absolutely, Scotty."
Scotty had explained that it's rare that people drive on this road but it's always to get from one place to another, so stashing something at the side of the road for later retrieval isn't really a problem. "Not even tha mafuckin mailman comes here," he elaborated.
The drive back into town would take about thirty minutes. Over that time, Scotty was going over the video footage that he had shot the previous night and pointing the differences that he had shot that night to Mack while I was driving.
So the cemetery has not been used since the early 1950s, so it makes sense that it would show up on the map. Scotty explained that where the road had connected to where we were had been washed out by a flood back in the 1980s and that is why we never saw the road that was indicated on the map. He said that most people in the area do not even know that the cemetery is there, and it is odd that somebody as young as "Junior" - that is what Scotty called him - would know about the cemetery. And according to the video, Junior was digging up the bodies and putting their bones in bags and carrying them back to the road where he would come by later with his truck and pick them up and take them back to the family farm. That is what he did the previous night. Of course, when he came back for the bones he had just dug up he would not find them. Scotty hoisted them into to back of my Jeep.
"And then what does he do with them?" I asked.
Scotty responded, "fuck iffa know but imma fixin ta find out."
"What about thos men at the library, Scotty? Are they connected?" Mack asked.
"Eeap, a reckon at day are, jus not sure how yit but imma fixin to find out."
We made our way down the bumpy road. The asphalt would begin and the drive much faster and smoother.
"Those depressions in the ground," Mack asked Scotty, "some of them look fresh. Those are the ones he was digging up?"
"Eeap," Scotty responded.
A good number of the headstones were missing. Either stolen or destroyed by years of rain and lack of maintenance. There is a lot of limestone in the areal Limestone is easily dissolved by rain water. Some of the larger stones, according to Mack, were just rounded off masses that once said something and obviously long ago forgotten.
That did not help me at that point in time, however. The people were still there and they called out to me, asking me to deliver a message, to do this and to do that. They are persistent, the dead. It is still something that I have not been able to get used to so it is never something that I had very well. It is always a challenge. And apparently I was not paying much attention to the road because First to Dance said abruptly, "pay attention!" I looked up and I was about to miss a curve and drive us straight into a tree. I managed to avoid doing that but it wasn't the smoothest move ever.
"You ok to drive?" Mack asked, I could detect the eagerness in his voice to get behind the wheel.
"She is. You ain't." Scotty said and I heard him laugh. No. I heard him guffaw.
Scotty directed me the local 24-hour Wal-Mart. "Yall ken drop me ear," he said, collecting his shotgun, a rucksack, and the bag of bones. He was parked at the far side of the parking lot. He hopped out of the Jeep and threw the stuff in the back of his pick up truck. "Where yall stayin?" he asked as he fished the keys out from under the wheel well. I gave him the name of the hotel and room numbers. "A'ight," he said, "call yall in da marnin." He jumped up into his truck. He turned the key and the truck roared to life. Scotty pulled away and we went to the hotel to get some much needed sleep.
Scotty had been found, but our time there was far from over.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
I am not sure what Scotty's idea of the morning is but I'm damn sure that 6:45AM is not my idea of morning. The knocking on the hotel room door rattled me out of my sleep. The room was just beginning to catch sunlight from the morning sun, but my head was still in a fog. The knocking resumed just as I pulled the sheet over my head. I groaned and in frustration as I ripped the covers off of me and stepped into my house shoes and shuffled my way over to the door. I looked through the peep hole and there was Scotty staring right back at me. I unlocked the door and pulled it open. He was smiling wide. "Eww wee, how yall are?" he said, a voice as bright as the sun starting to muscle its way into my room. I made a noise, not a word, just a noise, and at that Scotty gave a little chuckle. "We're in the lobby, see ya," he said, or maybe he asked. I wasn't sure so I just made another noise and stepped back letting the door shut. I took a quick shower, which helped me get my head on straight, and pulled on some clothes. I grabbed my rucksack and headed for the lobby where I found Scotty and Mack sitting in the large chairs there. Mack was drinking from a large styofoam cup with some steam wisping off the top. Mack looked tired. Scotty was just smiling.
And there was a man sitting in the chair next to Scotty. As I approached they stood up and Scotty introduced me to the gentleman as "Senior". I shook his hand and Senior went to explain how once Junior had returned from Afghanistan he just was not the same. They tried to get him to talk to counselors and and the whole nine years, but he steadfastly refused.
The man had the look of a defeated man on his face. I had seen it so many times before in my work at the clinic. He started to speak, "I want to apologize."
I started to tell him that it was not necessary but put up his hand shushing me.
"I should have done something earlier. My son is in some kind of trouble. I asked Scotty to help as a last resort. I did not know that he would involve others."
And I just interrupted no matter what he was going to do or say next. "Please," I softened my voice, "we would not be here if were not willing and wanting to participate one hundred percent." And Mack backed me up immediately with a, "that's right, and I'm being completely and totally honest now."
Senior smiled just a little bit. "Nonetheless I understand if you want to return to your homes." He sighed. "I also understand if you want to help. And I will be forever in your debt if you can manage it." He was criss-crossing himself a little bit, in fits of despair and courage.
"Debt is now it works," I explained.
The man decided it was best not to spar with me and just turned his head towards Scotty and said, "alright, you have everything you needed from me, buddy?"
Scotty nodded, "eeap, don worry none, Senior," Scotty said slapping him on the shoulder. Senior nodded and turned slowly and walked away.
I felt bad for how I treated him. It was apparent. Everybody, even First to Dance (or especially him), was telling me that I should not feel bad for wanting to assist. It didn't really change my mood but I knew that in a few minutes once we go into the thick of things that it would all change for me. It always does. If I am keeping busy, then I do not notice a lot of the shit around.
"Ewwww weeeee I reckon Junior's madder anna hornet 'bout now," Scotty said with a wide smile. He went on to make an impersonation of what Junior may say and how he might act upon finding his bag of bones missing. Scotty has known Senior for many years and remembers when Junior was born. He was always a kind of loner, but very impressionable, according to Scotty. Perhaps going off to war was precisely what Junior did not need. Scotty did not have much to say about that, however. The going theory was that Junior got caught up into some hocus pocus either from military comrades or perhaps while on leave somewhere. An impressionable loner is a perfect mix of character traits for manipulative people to take advantage of. No matter what Junior was into, we all seemed to agree that it was something bigger than Junior. Bigger fish, so to speak.
Where are we headed, Scotty?" Mack asked in the parking lot.
Scotty explained that he Senior somewhere safe while working things out with Junior, so we were headed to their house to check out the place. Junior has had some troubles holding jobs but has managed to keep his current job of mowing lawns around town. Presumably Junior should be work but if he was unable to get his bones retrieved he might be hanging out. So we had to be prepared.
We did a drive by of the residence. It was quiet. We went some ways down the road and pulled off onto a fat part of the shoulder near an overpass going over a creek where some people were fishing. We got out of the Jeep and made our way back to Senior's place. We were walked the street into the woods and started walking towards the back of the house. And going quickly. We stopped just behind the tree line. Scotty and I had our binoculars out and we were peering at the house. Scotty had told Senior to leave all the blinds open as possible. However, every last blind had been closed.
"Is he reliable?" I asked.
Scotty nodded, "eeap."
I started scanning the barn which rests a little further back from the road on the property. There was nothing going on there either. Nothing that I could see, of course. So we decided to head over to the back side of the barn and see what was going on there. After checking out the barn, then we would go and take a look at the house. So far, so good.
It was pretty easy to make our way to the barn from the tree line. Getting to the house would a little more of a challenge, but certainly it was possible. Before we made our way to the barn we switched on our radios and installed the ear buds and did a quick radio check. We picked the most obscure channel possible but it would still be possible for somebody to find us if they were scanning channels. But we were going to use the radios only in an emergency situation anyway. With that we made our way to the far side of the barn. And once there we caught our breaths and drew our weapons. Scotty went first and then Mack. I was the last person into the barn. I immediately got two nostrils full of pig slop and did my best not to make a noise although I really wanted to.
There was an upper level of the barn where there were some bales of hay. After we cleared the lower level of the barn, we made our way up the stairs of the barn. When we finally made it to the top we started to creep across the creaking boards of the loft. It was impossible to move without making a noise of some kind. So I hung back to cover the barn door while Mack covered Scotty. And of course Scotty was checking out the rest of the loft.
I did not see what happened, but I sure as hell heard it. There was a screaming sound, high pitched as if from a young girl or younger boy. And then the sounds of chains dragging across the wooden planks. I turned from the door briefly and saw Scotty turn quickly and bring up his shotgun and I turned quickly back to the door, remembering that I had a job to do.
"Help me!" I heard the same voice scream out.
"Eeap, will do, but ya gotta be quiet," I heard Scotty say through what sounded like clenched teeth.
"Stay on that door," Mack said to me hush-hush, "Scotty's good so far."
"Yea," I said back.
And the next thing that I heard was the creaking of the boards as Scotty or somebody was walking. I was staring at the door the whole time. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I tried to remain alert and ready for whatever might could through that door. The barn could have been wired for audio. Junior could have known we were there even before this event had taken place. So I was waiting for it. I was ready for it.
But it never came.
We had brought some tools with us, but left most of them at the Jeep. I heard the chain rattling and bouncing around on the ground a little bit. I heard more boards creaking. It all started to echo in my head, and to echo very loudly. And very painfully. I was going crazy and I wanted to look. I asked First to Dance if he saw anything. "Nothing," he replied. I growled a little bit. "Mack?" I whispered.
"Sit tight," he responded in a whisper.
On the inside I was screaming. That was just about the last answer that I wanted to hear. I was not sure how much more of this I could take. I wanted desperately for the situation to end. I wanted desperately for something good to happen next. I was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating. My senses were so tweaked that I thought I might explode. The slightly movement, the dust floating in the air, Scotty wrestling with the chain, everything was magnified and rang loudly in my head.
But Mack tapped me on the shoulder, "hey," he said, apparently with the sole purpose of calming the storm welling up inside me. I turned to look at him briefly and he was on his cell phone calling emergency services.
The girl was in horrible condition. She was pale and her veins were starting to show through her skin. Her hair was a rat's nest. She had what looked like a window curtain for clothes and her feet and lower legs were dirty and skinned up. Her hands were crooked, dirty, and apparently locked into one position. Her fingers did not move at all. But her face. The poor thing, her face. She had the shit beaten out her. Her face was basically a large bruise and her lower lip split and both were puffy. Her eyes were barely open and I could not tell whether or not she was actually looking at me. And I did not know if I could get close to her or not without freaking her out. I did not know what to do. So I just did what I believed I would want somebody else to do if I were in that situation.
"The medics are coming. They'll be here before long. My name is Magdalena." And then I said in a voice that suggested promise, "he won't hurt you ever again." God help me and Junior if I ever see him.
And there was a man sitting in the chair next to Scotty. As I approached they stood up and Scotty introduced me to the gentleman as "Senior". I shook his hand and Senior went to explain how once Junior had returned from Afghanistan he just was not the same. They tried to get him to talk to counselors and and the whole nine years, but he steadfastly refused.
The man had the look of a defeated man on his face. I had seen it so many times before in my work at the clinic. He started to speak, "I want to apologize."
I started to tell him that it was not necessary but put up his hand shushing me.
"I should have done something earlier. My son is in some kind of trouble. I asked Scotty to help as a last resort. I did not know that he would involve others."
And I just interrupted no matter what he was going to do or say next. "Please," I softened my voice, "we would not be here if were not willing and wanting to participate one hundred percent." And Mack backed me up immediately with a, "that's right, and I'm being completely and totally honest now."
Senior smiled just a little bit. "Nonetheless I understand if you want to return to your homes." He sighed. "I also understand if you want to help. And I will be forever in your debt if you can manage it." He was criss-crossing himself a little bit, in fits of despair and courage.
"Debt is now it works," I explained.
The man decided it was best not to spar with me and just turned his head towards Scotty and said, "alright, you have everything you needed from me, buddy?"
Scotty nodded, "eeap, don worry none, Senior," Scotty said slapping him on the shoulder. Senior nodded and turned slowly and walked away.
I felt bad for how I treated him. It was apparent. Everybody, even First to Dance (or especially him), was telling me that I should not feel bad for wanting to assist. It didn't really change my mood but I knew that in a few minutes once we go into the thick of things that it would all change for me. It always does. If I am keeping busy, then I do not notice a lot of the shit around.
"Ewwww weeeee I reckon Junior's madder anna hornet 'bout now," Scotty said with a wide smile. He went on to make an impersonation of what Junior may say and how he might act upon finding his bag of bones missing. Scotty has known Senior for many years and remembers when Junior was born. He was always a kind of loner, but very impressionable, according to Scotty. Perhaps going off to war was precisely what Junior did not need. Scotty did not have much to say about that, however. The going theory was that Junior got caught up into some hocus pocus either from military comrades or perhaps while on leave somewhere. An impressionable loner is a perfect mix of character traits for manipulative people to take advantage of. No matter what Junior was into, we all seemed to agree that it was something bigger than Junior. Bigger fish, so to speak.
Where are we headed, Scotty?" Mack asked in the parking lot.
Scotty explained that he Senior somewhere safe while working things out with Junior, so we were headed to their house to check out the place. Junior has had some troubles holding jobs but has managed to keep his current job of mowing lawns around town. Presumably Junior should be work but if he was unable to get his bones retrieved he might be hanging out. So we had to be prepared.
We did a drive by of the residence. It was quiet. We went some ways down the road and pulled off onto a fat part of the shoulder near an overpass going over a creek where some people were fishing. We got out of the Jeep and made our way back to Senior's place. We were walked the street into the woods and started walking towards the back of the house. And going quickly. We stopped just behind the tree line. Scotty and I had our binoculars out and we were peering at the house. Scotty had told Senior to leave all the blinds open as possible. However, every last blind had been closed.
"Is he reliable?" I asked.
Scotty nodded, "eeap."
I started scanning the barn which rests a little further back from the road on the property. There was nothing going on there either. Nothing that I could see, of course. So we decided to head over to the back side of the barn and see what was going on there. After checking out the barn, then we would go and take a look at the house. So far, so good.
It was pretty easy to make our way to the barn from the tree line. Getting to the house would a little more of a challenge, but certainly it was possible. Before we made our way to the barn we switched on our radios and installed the ear buds and did a quick radio check. We picked the most obscure channel possible but it would still be possible for somebody to find us if they were scanning channels. But we were going to use the radios only in an emergency situation anyway. With that we made our way to the far side of the barn. And once there we caught our breaths and drew our weapons. Scotty went first and then Mack. I was the last person into the barn. I immediately got two nostrils full of pig slop and did my best not to make a noise although I really wanted to.
There was an upper level of the barn where there were some bales of hay. After we cleared the lower level of the barn, we made our way up the stairs of the barn. When we finally made it to the top we started to creep across the creaking boards of the loft. It was impossible to move without making a noise of some kind. So I hung back to cover the barn door while Mack covered Scotty. And of course Scotty was checking out the rest of the loft.
I did not see what happened, but I sure as hell heard it. There was a screaming sound, high pitched as if from a young girl or younger boy. And then the sounds of chains dragging across the wooden planks. I turned from the door briefly and saw Scotty turn quickly and bring up his shotgun and I turned quickly back to the door, remembering that I had a job to do.
"Help me!" I heard the same voice scream out.
"Eeap, will do, but ya gotta be quiet," I heard Scotty say through what sounded like clenched teeth.
"Stay on that door," Mack said to me hush-hush, "Scotty's good so far."
"Yea," I said back.
And the next thing that I heard was the creaking of the boards as Scotty or somebody was walking. I was staring at the door the whole time. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I tried to remain alert and ready for whatever might could through that door. The barn could have been wired for audio. Junior could have known we were there even before this event had taken place. So I was waiting for it. I was ready for it.
But it never came.
We had brought some tools with us, but left most of them at the Jeep. I heard the chain rattling and bouncing around on the ground a little bit. I heard more boards creaking. It all started to echo in my head, and to echo very loudly. And very painfully. I was going crazy and I wanted to look. I asked First to Dance if he saw anything. "Nothing," he replied. I growled a little bit. "Mack?" I whispered.
"Sit tight," he responded in a whisper.
On the inside I was screaming. That was just about the last answer that I wanted to hear. I was not sure how much more of this I could take. I wanted desperately for the situation to end. I wanted desperately for something good to happen next. I was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating. My senses were so tweaked that I thought I might explode. The slightly movement, the dust floating in the air, Scotty wrestling with the chain, everything was magnified and rang loudly in my head.
But Mack tapped me on the shoulder, "hey," he said, apparently with the sole purpose of calming the storm welling up inside me. I turned to look at him briefly and he was on his cell phone calling emergency services.
The girl was in horrible condition. She was pale and her veins were starting to show through her skin. Her hair was a rat's nest. She had what looked like a window curtain for clothes and her feet and lower legs were dirty and skinned up. Her hands were crooked, dirty, and apparently locked into one position. Her fingers did not move at all. But her face. The poor thing, her face. She had the shit beaten out her. Her face was basically a large bruise and her lower lip split and both were puffy. Her eyes were barely open and I could not tell whether or not she was actually looking at me. And I did not know if I could get close to her or not without freaking her out. I did not know what to do. So I just did what I believed I would want somebody else to do if I were in that situation.
"The medics are coming. They'll be here before long. My name is Magdalena." And then I said in a voice that suggested promise, "he won't hurt you ever again." God help me and Junior if I ever see him.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
The firemen and medics arrived with some uniformed police officers. One of the firemen had a duffel of tools and when he took out a number of tools, then the skittish girl seemed unsure of what to make of what was happening. She looked anxious to be free but she had the fear of God of what Junior would do to her if she had gotten free. She was not capable of complete sentences and even the process of forming a thought seemed like it had been beaten right out of her. She was babbling like a baby, drooling on herself, and shivering as if she were naked and it was frigid weather. I did not have anything to wrap around her at the time and she was not at all willing to be touched. One of the medics handed her a woolen blanket which she accepted help in wrapping around herself.
We had not expected to find anybody except for Junior. We were not entirely sure what we were going to do with this young lady, but it really was not our call to make. It took a few hours to wrap up with the cops, some of it on site and some of it we went to the station to finish our statements and so forth. Scotty was a little bit nervous inside the station. He felt that if the feds were the guys at the library then they would have a convenient excuse for holding him and questioning him. But the cops themselves were fairly happy with the explanation for our presence. I was honest. I had called Mack to look for Scotty because we had not heard from him for a while, and when we found him he was checking in on a friend who was concerned about his son.
They did raise their eye brows a little bit when we told them about the plastic bags full of remains dug up from the old cemetery. But I do not know if that was primarily because even those cops did not know about the existence of the cemetery. In other words, they were quite clearly surprised to learn about its existence. But they took the remains from us (after we took what could psychically from them) and I suspect that we will never see them again or hear about them again, unless we call the station. Presumably they will be re-buried but the officers did not know the protocol off hand. And we did not press it.
I have to say that getting psychometry off of those bones was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was really expecting some horrific stuff, which there was some of that, but it was more like watching a movie or forensics TV show than anything else.
So that was that. It was all wrapped up by early afternoon. We regrouped at the hotel and both Scotty and Mack were suggesting that we should spend the rest of the day determining whether or not we had a tail and occasionally checking in on Senior. Scotty's past and background makes him a person of perpetual interest in the eyes of the federal government. The presence of feds in the area does not surprise him. If they are not feds, then it could be related to some of the other things that Scotty has been involved in, such as Skeeter BBQing his victims for the get togethers down at the sandbar on the river as well as some other incidents such as the disappearing trick a corpse made at the county morgue. As a matter of course, Scotty has some bunkers and safe houses that he uses to ensure personal privacy.
Dealing the with feds, if it came to that, was not something Scotty was willing to involve either Mack or I in and so for the being it was off the table. He just wanted to establish whether or not they were following him around again. Because it was going to determine our freedom to act in regards to Junior who was now wanted for questioning by the cops. Which was great, but we figured that we were not yet through with our involvement in this situation.
In fact, I knew that it was not because part of the reason why I was having a difficult time in the barn was because of the all the death that took place there in very recent times. I could hear and smell it, and even Mack was convinced by something that horrible deeds took place there. I was hearing the sounds of power tools, namely saws, but all what sounded like drills. I heard both males and females begging for their lives, sound of large pieces of plastic such as bags or tarps being used, and I the sound of a heavy door opening and closing with a metal latch banging against the wood. We were not through there by a long shot. We wanted to go back there and check out more of the barn.
So the guys set to work to checking for a tail. That's their thing anyway. I would not know the first thing about it. But I had stuff to do anyway. I sat down with the pad of paper and ink pen from the hotel room and started to write down the things that I was hearing and started to try to piece things together. People were being killed in horrific ways and probably being chopped into parts. The door I figured was a trap down in the ground. The metal was a ring that was used to pull up the door. As I was scribbling things down I started to see the bigger picture. Junior was keeping victims chained up around the barn, perhaps all in the loft, where he would abuse them much like some monsters might do with their victims. He would take them underground where he would kill and dismember them. We would have to see what was going on underground.
I waited for the guys to get back from their gig and then we could start planning our return to the barn.
Once the guys got back they were satisfied that there were no feds on our tail. And then I told them what I was able to piece together and what I thought was going on. The only thing missing, however, was what was up with the bones that Junior was digging up at the old cemetery. We figured that this information would come to light after our investigation of the barn and the house, to which we had a key thanks to Senior. But we had to wait for Junior to be taken into custody so we kept our ears close to the ground. Once that happened, we would have a lot less to worry about at Senior's farm. It did not take the cops long to arrest Junior. Once we learned about it, we went to the farm to check on things. The cops were surprisingly quick to have gone through it and did not find anything. A sweep of the barn turned up nothing as well. It was not good news for my theory but I was sure of it, absolutely convinced of it.
We did not find anything in the house and we spent a few hours checking it out for trap doors that might lead underground. But we were sure that he would have built the trap door inside the house since Senior was around a lot. Besides, nothing in the house, psychically speaking, suggested anything evil or deadly going on there. But we checked anyway. Satisfied that our search of the house was thorough enough we moved on to the barn. Scotty had brought along his metal detector and I was sniffing around. We checked the entire floor of the barn. The smell of death and fear was particularly strong in one of the horse stalls.
Bingo.
The cops apparently overlooked checking a pile of hay in one of the horse stalls. They hay was concealing a trap door with a metal ring. I lifted the ring and dropped it. It sounded exactly like the auditory reading I had previously while in the barn. It was locked shut with a padlock. But Scotty made pretty short work of the padlock with some rather large bolt cutters, or as he called the tool, "rabbit ears". We pulled open the trap door and upon shining a light down in the pit we discovered what appeared to be an underground passage, dug out with a shove. It was deep enough for me to walk upright but the guys had to stoop. Junior would have to stoop, too. But given the amount of work to just tunnel this much must have dictated its depth. We all looked at each other and then down into the pit again.
Scotty donned his nightvision goggles, tucked his video camera in his shirt, and then attached a flashlight to his shotgun and held it in one hand while his other hand was free, Scotty volunteered to go first without a word. He stepped down onto the small ladder that composed of angle iron being welded together. He descended into the darkness and I heard him jump down from the last few steps and then saw his flashlight bouncing around. He looked up and informed us that there was a tunnel and that it went in a direction away from the barn. At the bottom of the ladder he found an oil burning lantern and some bottles of oil for it along with two cigarette lighters.
I was supposed to help with the investigation. My role would be to determine the nature of things that were going on down there. I did not want to go there, but I sucked it up.
"Give er nightvision, Mack. Magdalena, come wid me," he said motioning with his free hand for me to come down the ladder. Mack helped me into the goggles and switched them on for me. It was disorienting at first but I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted to them. I tucked my flashlight in my pocket as I climbed down the cold ladder. When I reached the floor of the tunnel, I took out my flashlight and my pistol. Scotty took a look at my pistol and said, "jus don shoot me." I nodded and that is when I noticed that the pistol was shaking in my hand. "Finger offa trigger til ya gonna shoot," he said, and I remember the exact same advice given to me by Kolya. I nodded again. "Ken ya see a'ight?" he asked. I nodded. As he moved down the tunnel I stayed well behind him trying to stay alert. But it was difficult. There was so much pain, fear, and death in this tunnel that damn near threw up. I had to stop and get a grip.
"Hold up," I gasped, doubling over. "Fuck," I exhaled, shaking my head a little bit as if it might help get the shit out of my ears and nose. "I'm sorry," I managed to say.
"Take yer time," I heard Scotty say softly. "Imma jus gonna check up a bit farther ketchup when ya ken."
I nodded but did not say anything. And it is here that I have to admit, I have not had a great deal of investigative experience and this ability I have has never been so stimulated like it was at that time. It was debilitating at first but after a couple of minutes to myself I was able to get a hold of it and get back in control of myself. Just like when I was in the dream stream for the first time. This was quite unlike my experience not too much earlier with touching all those bones that Junior had dug up and put into plastic bags. After that I really thought I was getting on with things, but as I know now that was way too premature. I'm sure that the next time in a tunnel of death I'm going to get overwhelmed again. I just hope that it's not always like this. And while I seem to adjust to some things rather quickly, there are other things I cannot seem to get used to at all. If I would have these abilities for the rest of my life I sure as hell better get used to them thought. As they say, time will tell.
However, for now I finally got myself under control and caught up with Scotty. He was standing in a small room which had an autopsy table in the middle and a small tool cart which included a saber saw, Dremmel tool, a drill with various bits, a face shield, plumber's gloves, a stack of plastic bags or tarps, and some locks and shackles of different sizes and uses. It would not have taken a psychic to connect those dots. I brought my forearm up and covered my mouth as I gasped and took a few steps backwards. And the flood of pain, suffering, fear, and death screamed out from the ether and rang painfully in my ears. As if that was not enough, Scotty said softly as if trying to say what he was going to say somehow nicer and I could only barely hear, "It gits worse." He motioned to the curtain that was hanging at the backside fo the room. "'nother room," he informed me, but he happened to say it at the same time I was hearing a saber saw come to life, then the screaming and begging to stop, and then the sound of flesh, muscle, tendon, sinew, and then bone resisting the powerful mechanical back and forth of the saw's blade tearing, ripping, and shredding everything in its way. The horror of the situation distracted and I never heard Scotty say, "hey." And then First to Dance was saying, "Scotty's calling you, Magdalena."
And that was when I noticed that I was sobbing. I ripped off the nightvision goggles and felt like I was being suffocated.
"Are you ready?" Scotty asked me.
First to Dance reminded me, "take your time."
I sniffed through my stuffed up nose and wiped the tears from my face with my sleeve. I donned the nightvision goggles and adjusted them. While the stench would not relent, the auditory reading was over. I nodded to Scotty and said, "yea, I'm ready. Let's do this." But I was not sure if I was actually ready or not.
I wasn't.
With that Scotty pulled the curtain to the side and there I saw the ghastly sight of my life, bar none. I could not control myself. I spun away from the sight and dry heaved, almost losing it completely and throwing chunks all over. I have worked in ERs before, but nothing I have seen there prepared me for what I just saw behind that curtain. The nightvision green just added to the horror. I gulped, trying not to vomit. I was breathing heavily, hyperventilating.
At the same time I was going over it in my head, Scotty mumbled, "some kinda 'ssembly room, I reckon." I heard him work his video camera and get it shooting video but I still had not turned around, so I saw nothing. "Eeap, some kinda necromancer circle on da groun' ear wid some components," and then there was a brief pause, "a reckon it's a human heart ther an some kindeys," he said while he continued to document the scene. But I just could not bring myself to turn around. Scotty went on, "some kinda golem slash cyborg monster of flesh and metal." After that I did not catch everything he was saying. I was off in another world momentarily, a defense mechanism.
But then something Scotty said pulled me right back to the here and now. "Eeap air's at least five human skulls on da groun' back air."
We had not expected to find anybody except for Junior. We were not entirely sure what we were going to do with this young lady, but it really was not our call to make. It took a few hours to wrap up with the cops, some of it on site and some of it we went to the station to finish our statements and so forth. Scotty was a little bit nervous inside the station. He felt that if the feds were the guys at the library then they would have a convenient excuse for holding him and questioning him. But the cops themselves were fairly happy with the explanation for our presence. I was honest. I had called Mack to look for Scotty because we had not heard from him for a while, and when we found him he was checking in on a friend who was concerned about his son.
They did raise their eye brows a little bit when we told them about the plastic bags full of remains dug up from the old cemetery. But I do not know if that was primarily because even those cops did not know about the existence of the cemetery. In other words, they were quite clearly surprised to learn about its existence. But they took the remains from us (after we took what could psychically from them) and I suspect that we will never see them again or hear about them again, unless we call the station. Presumably they will be re-buried but the officers did not know the protocol off hand. And we did not press it.
I have to say that getting psychometry off of those bones was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was really expecting some horrific stuff, which there was some of that, but it was more like watching a movie or forensics TV show than anything else.
So that was that. It was all wrapped up by early afternoon. We regrouped at the hotel and both Scotty and Mack were suggesting that we should spend the rest of the day determining whether or not we had a tail and occasionally checking in on Senior. Scotty's past and background makes him a person of perpetual interest in the eyes of the federal government. The presence of feds in the area does not surprise him. If they are not feds, then it could be related to some of the other things that Scotty has been involved in, such as Skeeter BBQing his victims for the get togethers down at the sandbar on the river as well as some other incidents such as the disappearing trick a corpse made at the county morgue. As a matter of course, Scotty has some bunkers and safe houses that he uses to ensure personal privacy.
Dealing the with feds, if it came to that, was not something Scotty was willing to involve either Mack or I in and so for the being it was off the table. He just wanted to establish whether or not they were following him around again. Because it was going to determine our freedom to act in regards to Junior who was now wanted for questioning by the cops. Which was great, but we figured that we were not yet through with our involvement in this situation.
In fact, I knew that it was not because part of the reason why I was having a difficult time in the barn was because of the all the death that took place there in very recent times. I could hear and smell it, and even Mack was convinced by something that horrible deeds took place there. I was hearing the sounds of power tools, namely saws, but all what sounded like drills. I heard both males and females begging for their lives, sound of large pieces of plastic such as bags or tarps being used, and I the sound of a heavy door opening and closing with a metal latch banging against the wood. We were not through there by a long shot. We wanted to go back there and check out more of the barn.
So the guys set to work to checking for a tail. That's their thing anyway. I would not know the first thing about it. But I had stuff to do anyway. I sat down with the pad of paper and ink pen from the hotel room and started to write down the things that I was hearing and started to try to piece things together. People were being killed in horrific ways and probably being chopped into parts. The door I figured was a trap down in the ground. The metal was a ring that was used to pull up the door. As I was scribbling things down I started to see the bigger picture. Junior was keeping victims chained up around the barn, perhaps all in the loft, where he would abuse them much like some monsters might do with their victims. He would take them underground where he would kill and dismember them. We would have to see what was going on underground.
I waited for the guys to get back from their gig and then we could start planning our return to the barn.
Once the guys got back they were satisfied that there were no feds on our tail. And then I told them what I was able to piece together and what I thought was going on. The only thing missing, however, was what was up with the bones that Junior was digging up at the old cemetery. We figured that this information would come to light after our investigation of the barn and the house, to which we had a key thanks to Senior. But we had to wait for Junior to be taken into custody so we kept our ears close to the ground. Once that happened, we would have a lot less to worry about at Senior's farm. It did not take the cops long to arrest Junior. Once we learned about it, we went to the farm to check on things. The cops were surprisingly quick to have gone through it and did not find anything. A sweep of the barn turned up nothing as well. It was not good news for my theory but I was sure of it, absolutely convinced of it.
We did not find anything in the house and we spent a few hours checking it out for trap doors that might lead underground. But we were sure that he would have built the trap door inside the house since Senior was around a lot. Besides, nothing in the house, psychically speaking, suggested anything evil or deadly going on there. But we checked anyway. Satisfied that our search of the house was thorough enough we moved on to the barn. Scotty had brought along his metal detector and I was sniffing around. We checked the entire floor of the barn. The smell of death and fear was particularly strong in one of the horse stalls.
Bingo.
The cops apparently overlooked checking a pile of hay in one of the horse stalls. They hay was concealing a trap door with a metal ring. I lifted the ring and dropped it. It sounded exactly like the auditory reading I had previously while in the barn. It was locked shut with a padlock. But Scotty made pretty short work of the padlock with some rather large bolt cutters, or as he called the tool, "rabbit ears". We pulled open the trap door and upon shining a light down in the pit we discovered what appeared to be an underground passage, dug out with a shove. It was deep enough for me to walk upright but the guys had to stoop. Junior would have to stoop, too. But given the amount of work to just tunnel this much must have dictated its depth. We all looked at each other and then down into the pit again.
Scotty donned his nightvision goggles, tucked his video camera in his shirt, and then attached a flashlight to his shotgun and held it in one hand while his other hand was free, Scotty volunteered to go first without a word. He stepped down onto the small ladder that composed of angle iron being welded together. He descended into the darkness and I heard him jump down from the last few steps and then saw his flashlight bouncing around. He looked up and informed us that there was a tunnel and that it went in a direction away from the barn. At the bottom of the ladder he found an oil burning lantern and some bottles of oil for it along with two cigarette lighters.
I was supposed to help with the investigation. My role would be to determine the nature of things that were going on down there. I did not want to go there, but I sucked it up.
"Give er nightvision, Mack. Magdalena, come wid me," he said motioning with his free hand for me to come down the ladder. Mack helped me into the goggles and switched them on for me. It was disorienting at first but I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted to them. I tucked my flashlight in my pocket as I climbed down the cold ladder. When I reached the floor of the tunnel, I took out my flashlight and my pistol. Scotty took a look at my pistol and said, "jus don shoot me." I nodded and that is when I noticed that the pistol was shaking in my hand. "Finger offa trigger til ya gonna shoot," he said, and I remember the exact same advice given to me by Kolya. I nodded again. "Ken ya see a'ight?" he asked. I nodded. As he moved down the tunnel I stayed well behind him trying to stay alert. But it was difficult. There was so much pain, fear, and death in this tunnel that damn near threw up. I had to stop and get a grip.
"Hold up," I gasped, doubling over. "Fuck," I exhaled, shaking my head a little bit as if it might help get the shit out of my ears and nose. "I'm sorry," I managed to say.
"Take yer time," I heard Scotty say softly. "Imma jus gonna check up a bit farther ketchup when ya ken."
I nodded but did not say anything. And it is here that I have to admit, I have not had a great deal of investigative experience and this ability I have has never been so stimulated like it was at that time. It was debilitating at first but after a couple of minutes to myself I was able to get a hold of it and get back in control of myself. Just like when I was in the dream stream for the first time. This was quite unlike my experience not too much earlier with touching all those bones that Junior had dug up and put into plastic bags. After that I really thought I was getting on with things, but as I know now that was way too premature. I'm sure that the next time in a tunnel of death I'm going to get overwhelmed again. I just hope that it's not always like this. And while I seem to adjust to some things rather quickly, there are other things I cannot seem to get used to at all. If I would have these abilities for the rest of my life I sure as hell better get used to them thought. As they say, time will tell.
However, for now I finally got myself under control and caught up with Scotty. He was standing in a small room which had an autopsy table in the middle and a small tool cart which included a saber saw, Dremmel tool, a drill with various bits, a face shield, plumber's gloves, a stack of plastic bags or tarps, and some locks and shackles of different sizes and uses. It would not have taken a psychic to connect those dots. I brought my forearm up and covered my mouth as I gasped and took a few steps backwards. And the flood of pain, suffering, fear, and death screamed out from the ether and rang painfully in my ears. As if that was not enough, Scotty said softly as if trying to say what he was going to say somehow nicer and I could only barely hear, "It gits worse." He motioned to the curtain that was hanging at the backside fo the room. "'nother room," he informed me, but he happened to say it at the same time I was hearing a saber saw come to life, then the screaming and begging to stop, and then the sound of flesh, muscle, tendon, sinew, and then bone resisting the powerful mechanical back and forth of the saw's blade tearing, ripping, and shredding everything in its way. The horror of the situation distracted and I never heard Scotty say, "hey." And then First to Dance was saying, "Scotty's calling you, Magdalena."
And that was when I noticed that I was sobbing. I ripped off the nightvision goggles and felt like I was being suffocated.
"Are you ready?" Scotty asked me.
First to Dance reminded me, "take your time."
I sniffed through my stuffed up nose and wiped the tears from my face with my sleeve. I donned the nightvision goggles and adjusted them. While the stench would not relent, the auditory reading was over. I nodded to Scotty and said, "yea, I'm ready. Let's do this." But I was not sure if I was actually ready or not.
I wasn't.
With that Scotty pulled the curtain to the side and there I saw the ghastly sight of my life, bar none. I could not control myself. I spun away from the sight and dry heaved, almost losing it completely and throwing chunks all over. I have worked in ERs before, but nothing I have seen there prepared me for what I just saw behind that curtain. The nightvision green just added to the horror. I gulped, trying not to vomit. I was breathing heavily, hyperventilating.
At the same time I was going over it in my head, Scotty mumbled, "some kinda 'ssembly room, I reckon." I heard him work his video camera and get it shooting video but I still had not turned around, so I saw nothing. "Eeap, some kinda necromancer circle on da groun' ear wid some components," and then there was a brief pause, "a reckon it's a human heart ther an some kindeys," he said while he continued to document the scene. But I just could not bring myself to turn around. Scotty went on, "some kinda golem slash cyborg monster of flesh and metal." After that I did not catch everything he was saying. I was off in another world momentarily, a defense mechanism.
But then something Scotty said pulled me right back to the here and now. "Eeap air's at least five human skulls on da groun' back air."
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
I am again at the hotel. What we have found in the tunnel meant that Junior was using body parts from people that he was killing and butchering himself, body parts from at least the one cemetery, and using his welding skills to weld up armored parts for his golem(s). It made absolutely no sense to us, but we are not experts on necromancy by any means. We figured that we would throw out the three obvious conclusions:
1. Junior is severely and dangerously mentally ill and all this was an expression of that. The development of which could be a bizarre expression of PTSD, or perhaps it is just now surfacing and had been there for many, many years.
2. Junior stumbled across some weird necromancy and golemancy somewhere, perhaps even in Afghanistan, and decided to give it a try. We are confident that he was killing people to harvest their soft parts such as organs and flesh while he was raiding the cemetery to get the hard parts, but he would already have bones from his victims. So that is a mystery to say the least. It could be organized necromancy or it could simply deranged, which leads to the third conclusion.
3. A hybrid of the two.
Now we have managed to establish that all the bone parts came from those who died a long time ago. There is no way to say if they have any connection in the living or the ether with Junior's victims, however. That would be something that we would like to know but it is nearly impossible to be able to get that kind of information from any source. As for the cemetery records, they no longer exist. It cannot be overstated, very few people seem to even know this cemetery exists.
As about the circle on the ground beneath the suspended corpse/golem we have asked around already and most seem to think that it's hocus pocus machinations of a mad man, while others suggest it could be a lost circle that he somehow found. Which according to some of the people around here I've spoken with personally say it is not unheard of although very rare.
I have to be honest, I hope that it's just Junior being mentally deranged. The police will do more investigating and more charges will be pressed against Junior. I do not know what will happen to him now. Senior is beating himself up about it, blaming himself, and, who knows, maybe he had hand in this when Junior was a boy. It's not for me to judge or speculate, however. Mack had to leave in a hurry and he's on his way back to wherever it is he comes from. And Scotty wants to go to the family restaurant he calls "The Chew and Spew." He is crazy but at least he is on our side.
As for me, I politely declined. I'm going to sleep and check out early in the morning and head back to where I belong.
Oh and of course pictures, video, descriptions, and phone numbers are available. Just ask.
Stay safe everybody.
1. Junior is severely and dangerously mentally ill and all this was an expression of that. The development of which could be a bizarre expression of PTSD, or perhaps it is just now surfacing and had been there for many, many years.
2. Junior stumbled across some weird necromancy and golemancy somewhere, perhaps even in Afghanistan, and decided to give it a try. We are confident that he was killing people to harvest their soft parts such as organs and flesh while he was raiding the cemetery to get the hard parts, but he would already have bones from his victims. So that is a mystery to say the least. It could be organized necromancy or it could simply deranged, which leads to the third conclusion.
3. A hybrid of the two.
Now we have managed to establish that all the bone parts came from those who died a long time ago. There is no way to say if they have any connection in the living or the ether with Junior's victims, however. That would be something that we would like to know but it is nearly impossible to be able to get that kind of information from any source. As for the cemetery records, they no longer exist. It cannot be overstated, very few people seem to even know this cemetery exists.
As about the circle on the ground beneath the suspended corpse/golem we have asked around already and most seem to think that it's hocus pocus machinations of a mad man, while others suggest it could be a lost circle that he somehow found. Which according to some of the people around here I've spoken with personally say it is not unheard of although very rare.
I have to be honest, I hope that it's just Junior being mentally deranged. The police will do more investigating and more charges will be pressed against Junior. I do not know what will happen to him now. Senior is beating himself up about it, blaming himself, and, who knows, maybe he had hand in this when Junior was a boy. It's not for me to judge or speculate, however. Mack had to leave in a hurry and he's on his way back to wherever it is he comes from. And Scotty wants to go to the family restaurant he calls "The Chew and Spew." He is crazy but at least he is on our side.
As for me, I politely declined. I'm going to sleep and check out early in the morning and head back to where I belong.
Oh and of course pictures, video, descriptions, and phone numbers are available. Just ask.
Stay safe everybody.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
You know we wish that we could have met under more pleasant circumstances. And remember it goes both ways. Let's break the trend of only meeting up after something bad has happened.Magdalena wrote:Hi Sasha. I appreciated the call and the visit from you guys when you were here in the States last time. It elevated my spirits so much I can't even begin to describe. I love you guys.
Thank you for the report on Junior. I have sent you an address where you send copies of all your documentation. Uncovering ancient arcane secrets is indeed rare but not unheard of. If that is what you stumbled upon, we'll need to talk to Junior to learn where he found it and to make sure nobody else finds it.
Warmest regards.
С волками жить, по-волчьи выть.
Re: Men in black questioned Janet?
Glad that you're back on your feet again, Magdalena. You went through hell but the important thing is you came back stronger than you were going in. It doesn't help that your first investigation after finding your girls was something as grotesque as this, but you all stopped him and saved that girl from a horrible death.Magdalena wrote:Hi Sasha. I appreciated the call and the visit from you guys when you were here in the States last time. It elevated my spirits so much I can't even begin to describe. I love you guys.
Keep up the good work.
Волков бояться — в лес не ходить.
