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Last Words
By: David Boyle
September 9, 2008
Chief of Police, Martin Sanders plowed through the front double-doors of Town Hall with intensity in his eyes. The city was buckling at the seams. He demanded answers. What happened to the place? Who or what ripped the once quiet community of Chatsville apart? What the hell were the local politicians not telling him?
Sanders paraded through the main hall. The building was deserted. Everybody had vanished. Were they alive? Were they dead? Disappeared?
He rounded the corner and the plaque on the door lunged into his vision. The stained, rectangular wood was a platform to the brilliant gold letters:
“Welcome to the Office
Of
The Mayor
Mr. Frank T. Gullenwald”
Martin knocked on the door and the sound of his hammering fist went unanswered. His jaw clenched in frustration. He tapped again, forcefully, shaking his head with disgust. The disorder in town had swallowed his patience.
He twisted the knob and entered the private office. The window behind the desk was wide open and an ice-cold gust engulfed the room. The curtains levitated in the drift, books and papers were strewn on the carpeted floor.
Right away Sanders noticed a piece of paper tacked down underneath the phone. The desk itself was empty and the office appeared to have been ransacked. Martin yanked out the paper and read the document as the frosty current fluttered his hair.
*
My name is Mayor Frank T. Gullenwald. I am ashamed of myself for what I saw unfold in this small town of Chatsville, and more so for my inability to stop it. This letter serves as my resignation. It may seem cowardly to approach such a delicate matter this way, but I am weak and too embarrassed to show my face in public. Tonight I changed my appearance and skipped town with my wife and daughter.
We left this ordeal unscathed. Others were not as fortunate. If you decide to read further you will see a firsthand account of what transpired during the grueling and most horrific month of January, 2006. I will never forget it, nor will my family. My recollection is based on what I witnessed personally and what some of the residents saw with their own eyes. Some of the accounts are derived from hidden cameras around town, strategically placed in stores and on traffic- light poles.
It pains me that the cameras offered merely a deterrent. They were not a safeguard. Please accept my deepest apologies for walking out on the public during such a heightened state of confusion and hysteria.
*
People were killed at random. They turned up beaten and brutally slain. Victims young and old, it didn’t matter. The town of Chatsville was falling apart. The citizens were afraid to sleep; too frightened to close their eyes, filled with fear that some psychopath would come and carve them to bits.
Citizens walked the streets by day afraid of making eye contact with anyone. Unsure who was the lunatic behind the rash of slayings? It was reported that Colm Wilson escaped from the State Institution and his whereabouts were unknown. The townspeople knew it was him. A serial rapist who had bludgeoned and molested his aunt was enough to pin him as the principal suspect.
Extra police secured the streets, imposed curfews, even asked for volunteers to patrol. There were only a few risk takers, mostly men who had licenses to carry a gun.
Chatsville was thrust into the middle of a paranoia they hadn’t seen since an E. coli scare ten years ago. It seemed like the funeral home couldn’t keep up with the corpses. There was a non-stop parade of hearses rolling through, many broken families and damages spirits.
I remember driving past the funeral home one day and there was Barbara Medley. She owned a small convenience store on the Boulevard. Mrs. Medley was weeping in the arms of the Director as she collapsed in his grasp to the ground. Her daughter’s pretty face was plastered on the front page of the Chatsville Sentinel that morning.
She was strangled with a chain and mutilated to death, left at an old, abandoned restaurant dissected into little pieces.
The Chief of Police held a press conference on television. Despite all of his experience he stammered like a frightened child on the podium. He clamored for answers, pleaded for the communities help. The public had lost its sense of security. I tried speaking to them but this kind of epidemic was out of my league. They didn’t trust me. They had no inclination to listen to any more of my empty speeches while the town was overwrought.
It was a bitter- cold January and temperatures were below zero and plummeting. Residents were afraid in their own homes and they feared going outdoors only to be subjected to the wicked weather and the prowler on the loose.
Someone anonymous reported a strange encounter on Blair Street. It was late on a Sunday night and Mitchell Dennison was walking his German shepherd, Rufus.
The poor dog had to go out. It was desperate, whimpering. The duo walked along the woods like they always did, being that the Dennison’s were elderly and it was an endeavor to journey farther, especially with the storm and the alarm the town was under. Mitchell carried a metal flashlight to kindle a path for the dog.
His wife Betty kept a close eye on them from the picture window; clutched the phone in her hand in case something went awry.
A car suddenly crawled down Blair Street. The closer it came, the odder it looked. The vehicle was dark. Making out the driver was impossible. The car had no license plates and dark glass.
It rolled up next to Mitchell and the dog and blocked an onlooker’s position for a few moments. Seconds later, the car drove away and Rufus was walking all alone with the leash dragging behind him on the pavement.
Betty ran outside, aghast. She plowed though the front door and ran with all she had in her feeble body down the walkway. Before she reached the staircase she collapsed. She died an hour later of a heart attack at Levin Memorial Hospital.
Twenty-four hours after the Dennison’s mysterious deaths Mitchell was found sprawled out on top of the frozen lake… beheaded. The blood was completely drained from his body. His corpse was encircled with a mass of crimson-covered ice.
Seventy-two hours after the discovery a wake was done with a closed-casket and the couple was buried together.
This is how the nightmares of a once quiet town unfolded. The small speck on the map called Chatsville succumbed to a dwindling population, reduced in the blink of an eye without answers. No suspects and not a single clue.
Only Betty Dennison saw a glimpse of something, and now she’s dead like the rest. The anonymous witness was ridden with fear to elaborate on the occurrence. Was he threatened? Were the acts he saw so unspeakable that his mind suppressed the urge to divulge the lurid details? No one will ever know. Since that night, despite the best efforts of the Police Department, the only witness had sealed himself from reality; catatonic is a more appropriate explanation for what he transformed into.
The surrounding towns were called in to assist where they could. Extra officers spread the streets. Many patrolled around the clock, combed the town disregarding the freezing temperatures.
The policemen on watch were heavily armed with shotguns, pistols, zappers, pepper spray and whatever else they could find stored away that in previous years went unused. People were ordered to stay indoors and lock themselves in their homes. They were warned not to enter the streets unless it was urgent.
*
Pine Street was a long strip that cut through the center of Chatsville. It was lined with commercial stores and businesses galore, and many residential streets fed off of the main artery. It was a high-traffic area and Officer Bryant Steele was directed to cruise the strip and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.
Steele was carrying considerable personal baggage. He spent segments of each work day crying over the loss of his son, Jake. Jake was found dead one month before the town went berserk. Someone snatched him up and did a real number on him. He was maimed. His features were almost unrecognizable. An employee from the township came in one morning and noticed a pair of legs sticking out of the salt pile used for snow emergencies.
When the police arrived on the scene Bryant’s friend, Officer Patrick McKenna was forced to reveal the terrible news to his colleague. Steele went off the deep end and teetered on the precipice of insanity. He contemplated quitting the force he was so distraught.
You see, Bryant Steele’s son was a product of an eroded marriage. When he and his wife split up a couple of years back she won custody of Jake and he was allowed visitation rights for the weekends. He made the best of the time. They enjoyed their brief moments together although the poor kid was a victim to the post-marital strain between his guardians.
However, it was one night that demolished Bryant Steele and left emotional scars in the wake. He spent a long day with his son and later that evening Jake decided to visit with a couple of friends. He was an active sixteen year old. Sometimes he liked to sequester a little time with his pals who lived a few miles away on Mercer Street.
Jake did just that on the last night of his life, a future cut short from an unforeseen horror. The kids got bored and took a walk down the street to blow off some steam. A car rolled by and the group of kids made a few wise cracks to the driver. The car stopped. Everyone scattered in different directions, but Jake was the slowest of the group.
Eventually he found a place to hide behind a garage, hoped it would all end soon.
The car vanished and the coast seemed clear. Jake took a peek around the corner to check on his pals and suddenly a hand clamped down on his mouth. He was dragged away from the scene and found as explained earlier.
The rest is history. When they uncovered his body from the salt pile his flesh was sliced open and the rest was too gruesome to rehash.
Officer Bryant Steele toyed with suicide many times after his son’s demise. It was tough to come to grips with losing him when he should have been the protector. He struggled to live with it. The harder it was to fight the demons that slashed away at his conscience, the more devoted he became to finding the murderer and making the hunt personal.
As Bryant stood outside of the patrol car the tears dripped down his face in an endless parade, one stream after another. The flood of emotion ate through him. The sadness, the grief, the sleepless nights, the anger; he wanted to rid himself of the wretched feeling that shadowed his every step in life. But the web of despair and failure would cling to him for a lifetime and only he could heal the internal wounds with time and understanding.
Kate Sanderson watched him grieve from her dining room and was unsure of how to approach the once strong, now fragile officer. She left him alone.
*
Over at the center of town was McKay’s grocery store owned and operated by Grace McKay. An officer patrolled the front lot and was ready to spring into action if need be. It was a long, quiet evening for the patrolman stationed there.
Mrs. McKay was known for her philanthropy, donating large sums of money to police funds and the force knew her well. The store was thirty minutes from closing when the policeman went inside to check on her. He searched the aisles, the front, the back room, everywhere for her. She was gone…
He commanded the ranks to swarm the town for answers. An hour later his radio crackled, squelched. The officer was rocked by the transmission.
Her body was found draped over a bus stop bench with a scalpel jutting out from her temple. How the hell did they get to her? The officer wondered, panicked.
…More dead bodies...no leads.
*
Officer Steele cruised along Pine Street and the lack of answers mortified him. There must be something else, he thought. “Fuck this.”
He tore away from his post. It was pushing midnight and he was losing his head again. He turned onto Walter Avenue and approached an intersection. Across the street he noticed the basement light was on at the funeral home; strange for that hour?
Steele hit the gas, sped into the parking lot, stopping a car- length from the window. He looked down into the basement and saw a row of bodies covered with tarps of some kind. Paper tags hung from the toes.
Bryant pounded on the glass, waited. He stood by a minute. Nobody answered. Out of the blue he watched a man dressed in black come from a hidden corner, turn off the lights, leave the room, and close the door behind him. Officer Steele pulled open the latch on the window and slithered through the small space feet first.
He squirmed down the cold cement wall and his black boots touched the floor. He clicked on his flashlight and scanned the interior. A table was positioned next to the bodies. A dark trench coat hung on a hook.
The basement had an overpowering odor, like death. He steered the beam of light to the right and spotted a rolling table covered with surgical instruments. Scalpels, hooks, scissors, thread.
A strong blast of wind smacked the window he lowered himself through, he listened to it whistle outside. He moved toward the back of the room navigating behind the cone of light. He found a desk littered with papers and an empty coffee mug. Bryant shined the light on the clutter and found a document with an embossed stamp.
It read:
-The Town of Chatsville-
-Termination of Lease-
Steele heard movement from the other side of the wall. It sounded like shoes scraping on the concrete floor. He spun and aimed the light toward the door.
The noise stopped. He continued to peruse the document. The paper outlined that soon the funeral home would be forced to close unless they pay up the lease on the property. He put it back in place and waved the flashlight around.
Deeper into the room brought him to the cadavers. He stood in front of the first one and read the tag on its foot. The name Sarah Medley was written.
He checked the next table. The name Colm Wilson was scribbled. Nobody reported finding the infamous rapist. It all seemed suspicious, unnerving. What the heck was going on?
He lifted another tag.
It said Dennison.
Impossible, he thought. They were buried together. What kind of sick twisted game was it? The cold basement had no bearing on him. He began to sweat profusely. He imagined whose body it must have been in the caskets if her body was here? Curiosity beckoned him to remove the sheet. It was them after all.
There was a covered body next to that one.
He slowly pulled back the sheet.
The flashlight beam wavered in his trembling hand. This was almost too much to tolerate under his current condition.
Steele rolled back more of the sheet. The smell repulsed him. It forced him to turn away.
His stomach vaulted with nausea. He coughed hard from the foul odor, retrained his light on the corpse. He removed another foot of the sheet and dropped his flashlight…
He found his son Jake.
He jumped back, shocked. His training left him ill-prepared to deal with the sight of his dead son lying on a basement table engorged with fluid.
His eyes sewn shut.
Rows of stitches scattered on his flesh, like some sick display; a laboratory experiment gone wrong.
Another rush of tears returned. He twisted away and instincts kicked in. He yanked the service revolver from his holster, scoped the room. He was shaken.
Bryant guided the light in different directions hoping for something or someone to shoot, to heal the internal scars.
Suddenly… the steel door opened across from him. There was a squeak as pressure stressed the rusty hinges. A man crossed the threshold as Officer Steele held the gun to his face, following the lead of the flashlight beam.
“Freeze, you warped piece of shit!” Steele commanded.
The man wore a dark suit. His black hair was weaved with shades of ash. The officer remembered the man’s face. It was the funeral director.
“How could you? Why?” The officer asked questions that had no valid answer.
The man peeled rubber gloves from his hands and slapped them on the metal table full of scalpels and instruments. His demeanor was calm, unfazed. The gun pointed at his head failed to arouse fear.
“I did what I had to do. They were going to shut me down. Can you believe that? This is my livelihood,” he said, with a sinister tone.
The man rambled on. Steele’s gun and flashlight were poised and ready. The officer wanted to plant a bullet right between his eyes and end the charade. While listening to the man’s twisted confession he wanted to rid the world of this piece of crap.
“Your son was a tough one, a real fighter. I see where he gets it from.”
The funeral director smiled and pulled a cigar from the handkerchief pocket of his suit. He playfully inserted it into his mouth.
“Put your hands behind your head, now!” Officer Steele moved toward the subject with extreme caution. The man kept his focus on Bryant. Their eye lines locked. Neither man broke their probing glances for thirty seconds until the man ended the drought of silence.
“You can arrest me. I won’t resist.”
Steele moved closer. He had the nozzle-sight right on target. The bullet would rip the man’s temple in half.
His index finger massaged the trigger. His sweaty palm caused the magnum to play in his grip.
The man took another puff of the cigar and blew the smoke into Steele’s face.
Bryant held himself together, wanted to shoot with every fiber of his being. How good it will feel when he blows his brains into oblivion.
“If you waste me… it won’t bring your son back. Plus… business is picking up and someone will start where I’ve left off… That’s a promise.”
Officer Steele charged him. There was no resistance. He attached the cuffs to his wrists and roughed him up, ramming him face first into the cold cement wall.
He dug the pistol into the back of the director’s head and kicked his legs apart putting the suspect off balance. Bryant’s face was a pool of perspiration.
A series of unimaginable thoughts sifted through his mind about Jake. What did his poor kid go through? Did he suffer? Was he tortured first? There was no time to delve more.
He pushed the barrel deeper into the man’s skull using more force than necessary, trying to embed it, to inflict pain. He pulled back the firing pin and tears of anguish continued to soak his face, his neck.
He pictured this fucker’s brains decorating the basement walls. It was the logical solution to handling this kind of criminal.
Steele stepped back a few feet, belted orders. “Don’t move!” He called for backup with the gun still pointed at the director’s head. Again he tussled with his emotions getting in the way, reminding him how his son’s chance at a normal life was stolen by this piece of garbage in front of him. The dissolved marriage, how he couldn’t make that function properly either. It all hit him hard. The torment was relentless.
Steele reversed the pistol and shoved it into his own mouth. He bit down hard, tightened. Outside the police pulled up to the scene and a team of officers ran up to the open window and peered through.
The closest officer observed Steele on the verge of pulling the trigger. “Don’t do it!”
The exploding bullet ripped into the night. A flash of light illuminated the basement; the vibration shattered the glass to pieces.
The rest of the officers outside ran toward the blasted window and O’Brien shouted into his radio as a crowd of black and whites converged on the funeral home.
“Attention all units, a shot was fired! I repeat. A shot was fired! Respond to funeral home, now!”
*
Sanders crunched the letter in his hand, clenched his fist. Anger swelled inside of him. He heard the commotion of helicopter propellers whirling outside, closing in. A laser of blinding light smoldered his face from afar.
He raised his hand to shield his eyes as the helicopter descended to the street. Sanders cocked his arm twice to throw the paper out the window, to let it sail into the thrusting night wind.
He changed his mind.
He unfolded it and smoothed out the wrinkles. He ran to the helicopter, boarded it.
The pilot shouted over the din of the motor and the spinning blades. “Where can I take you, Mr. Chief?”
“Take me to ‘News Station 6.’ I want to address the people. Let’s roll!”
The door closed and they swept across the Chatsville skyline. The live feed reported breaking news. The pilot released the information he was given.
“Mr. Chief, it was just reported to me that there was gunfire at the funeral home.”
“What is the status now, sir?”
“One man was gunned down and the Lieutenant on the scene said that Officer Steele has been taken into custody for blowing away the suspect and that…”
“Say no more. Tell the men to release the cuffs. That’s a direct order, pilot.”
“Yes sir.”
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