This is a work of fiction.
Warning: adult themes, graphic detail, smoking, alcohol use, substance abuse, violence
Monday, 13 October
03:40
Detective Sergeant Frank Sanders was slow to wake up. It seemed to him like the phone had been ringing for a while, but he didn’t know for sure; his sleep had been deep but troubled. Always with the fuckin nightmares, he thought. As the memory of this one already began to fade, the ringtone on his department cell phone, the music from The Munsters, grew louder. Wasn’t that part of waking from sleep paralysis? He didn’t know.
His supervisor, Lieutenant Timothy Cobb, had heard his ringtone in the squadroom last week and snapped that it wasn’t funny and that he should be a bit more sensitive; it didn’t do for a homicide detective to play such a thing because Herman represented a body put together by a grave robber.
“Fuck you, Tim,” Frank had retorted, making everyone else in the room smother laughter, turning away and holding both hands over their mouths. Frank Sanders was the only detective who got away with things like that, and no matter how jealous some were, two cadets working with the Robbery detail cringed as if Frank had just uttered a blasphemous thing that would land him in Hell the moment he died.
Lieutenant Timothy Cobb wasn’t even mad at him; he had learned long ago that Frank was irreverent, smart-assed and deeply cynical. But the veteran detective made him and the whole department look good: in his 30 years of service, over twenty of which had been spent as a detective, not once had he failed to solve a case, a miraculous feat.
Cobb was aware that now, at age fifty-two, grizzled, gray and a wreck of a man, Frank dreaded retirement. He by no means was compelled to retire, but he was deathly afraid of being retired by the department. Everyone knew he was an alcoholic, but only Cobb knew about the pain pills. Still, his body was wrecked. That was serious.
In such an expansive part of Georgia, there shouldn’t be a single man who had, in the line of duty, been shot, beaten half to death too many times to count, stabbed and slashed, and had taken over a thousand stitches, so many that the department’s insurance had paid for cosmetic surgery, and also, long ago, he had even been gored by a bull with a raging erection.
He’d lost his spleen to that bull, whose owner had, before Frank had even been wheeled into surgery, riddled the animal with bullets from his antique Thompson submachine gun. The dairy farmer would later tell Frank, “…that fuckin bull, even dyin he had a fuckin boner.”
But the dairy farmer had not stopped there; he had then shot every single cow sired by that old evil bull.
Lieutenant Cobb was positive that once retired, or confined to the office, Frank Sanders would die. And so were a lot of cops and people in the county. Frank had been around, and he had friends everywhere. Starting around the 18th of December, they would bring pumpkin pies, donuts, wrapped gifts, gift packs of Scotch, and someone inevitably would donate a Christmas tree to the department, which would stand in the lobby until the end of the holidays.
Cobb also dreaded the day he would lose his friend to retirement. He was an Eastern U.S. legend. And he got the job done.
Frank missed the call, but the iPhone hurt his eyes with the screen light, so he put it back down on the bed beside him.
He groaned. His back ached and he had to pee. He didn’t want to move, but if he didn’t —
Sure enough, he didn’t make it in time. He was already pissing before he got to the toilet. Then his head started to ache, and the hangover was on. He ignored the phone, turned on the shower, kicked his soaked briefs toward the hamper and fixed up a glass of Alka-Seltzer.
Fuck, it’s cold, he thought. The furnace should have kicked on, but when he looked, the thermostat and temperature matched, 71 degrees. He turned it up.
Shivering, he stepped into the shower, not caring about the water being too hot.
Barely audible, the phone rang on. In the middle of the night if his phone rang like that, someone had been killed. It could be a suspicious death, or something obvious. The iPhone made it seem like this was the obvious kind.
He let the water soak his pounding head, then he leaned forward to throw up. Nothing in there to throw up: a yellowish slime was all; he was killing himself by not eating and instead downing half a bottle of Cutty.
He let the water rinse down the shower tub, then gently, slowly, he soaped and rinsed. Once out, with a towel around his waist even though he lived alone, he answered the phone. “Tim, what the fuck? Did someone shoot the president in my county? Pin a plastic, gold-leaf toe tag on his limpy and UPS that sorry fucker to D.C.”
Without bothering to humor Frank, Cobb said, “You remember that abandoned truck stop down on I-
60? That spooky-ass fucker?”
“Of course I do.” Frank’s furnace was groaning like a living thing threatening to eat him. “What the hell would happen there? It’s surrounded by thickets and brambles and all kinda shit. Can’t get into the fuckin place. Don’t tell me someone out walkin their dog just happened to find a stiff!”
“No. But some boys, they cut a path, drive in and start looking round and they see an old cabover Brockway, and Sheriff Hardesty over in Merriweather County says it had air, which I didn’t know was possible, so they pulled on the air horn, it wouldn’t release, and some guy yells, “Stop it or I’ll shove that horn up your ass,” so they high-tail out of there, left their pickup and everything, cause once they saw the guy, he scared them to death. So there’s four guys, a four-seater Dodge, and a junked Brockway, and some crazy homeless guy that they never anticipated being there, except they make it back to the ramp to the highway and one of em is missing. So they go over to Hardesty’s office cause it’s closer and he says by the time they flagged down a ride, they heard him screaming back there. But they couldn’t call 911?
“Anyway I’m heading there now but I asked Hardesty for backup. That truck stop scares me.”
“Don’t feel bad about it. That place is enough to scare Stephen King.”
“Not helping, Frank. He’s scared of everything. That’s how he writes all them books.”
“Well then it’s enough to scare the devil, how’s that?”
“Shut up, Frank. You got your socks on yet?”
“I will in a minute, you stop talkin long enough.”
He ended the call and finished toweling dry.
Skinner‘s 76 Truck Stop! It was more than scary. It had operated from 1960 through 1979 when Interstate 60 was closed east of it within two miles. Once a busy place to eat and refuel, get repairs or just get some sleep, it was obsolete by 1970, too small to handle the traffic its 80 foot neon sign attracted. The in-ground tanks only held ten thousand gallons between both, and the pumps would get shut down regularly. The restaurant didn’t have the room to sit, much less the staff to feed the truckers who were hungry, and the repair shop lost money because once drivers got sick of not getting what they needed, they detoured over to the US highway then the new interstate after five more miles. A newer and much bigger truck stop awaited ten miles from there, and by July of 1979, the restaurant had to close, sealing the fate of Skinner’s 76 Truck Stop. One day in June, only one customer had come in, and had coffee. One of two waitresses had quit by sundown and the last one did serve customers afterward but never received even a cent as a tip.
The state had, on finding that the entire place had been abandoned, issued a warrant for the owner’s arrest, but he was never found. There was still fuel in the ground, and the tanks slowly leaked, rendering the whole area contaminated.
A few hulks of trucks once awaiting repairs sat in the spacious shop, but strangely, there was no registration information on them. No plates, no tax decals, not even a company placard on the doors.
Eventually details like this made it into the local papers, and when the state finished pumping the diesel from the tanks and scrapping them once they were lifted out of the soil by a crane, Superfund refused to do anything because the contamination extent was so negligible.
This made Governor Atkinson so angry that he initiated a lawsuit, which didn’t get results. Here was prime real estate, ready for rezoning and homes and a state road to connect to closer towns, a new shopping mall, and Interstate 50. And it was useless!
Atkinson lost his bid for reelection. The site, including four acres around it, was fenced off with 12-foot chain link topped with barbed wire.
It was possible for someone to buy a house six miles away and never know the place was there nowadays. It was hidden by trees and bushes, wild and overgrown with weeds that blocked it off more efficiently than barbed wire ever could have.
Until now. Frank, dressed and ready to go, walked to his car and unlocked the door. He had no use for newer cars with key fobs. His 1989 Viper, custom ordered in a beautiful metallic dark green, still gleamed and ran perfectly. He used good money to keep it that way, and his mechanic still drooled every time she saw it.
He headed out, suddenly getting the feeling that he was going to regret not retiring.
Skinner’s 76 Truck Stop (abandoned)
04:17
Frank was confused. He couldn’t see anything. No police lights, flood lamps or anything. He called Cobb. “Where are you guys? I’m at your end of the exit ramp but I can’t see anything.”
“I see your lights. I’ll walk out to you. Just move forward about fifty feet and park it. Make sure you carry your flashlight and your weapon, but don’t shoot me.” He sounded grim. Frank had never heard Cobb sound like that. Like his mother had just died.
When they were facing each other, Frank asked, “What? What’s in there, Tim? The hell’s wrong with you?”
“I’ve been to some weird crime scenes in my time. But I’ll betcha a steak dinner even you never saw anything like this shit.“
“Cheapskate. Even if I win you ain’t going to do that. You shitting me?”
“Frank, after tonight, you’ll be a vegetarian.” He turned and led through a path cut to the dirt through tall grass and weeds and a freshly cut gap in the fence big enough to drive a Dodge Ram through. Up ahead the back of the truck was visible and beyond that were flashing lights, red and blue, of several county SUVs.
“We found the missing boy. The others are being held at Hardesty’s office. Once we found the kid, we kept them out of here. If they’re the killers, they’re really sick pups. The oldest one is nineteen, and the deceased is sixteen. Brace yourself Frank. This made the Merriweather boys puke.”
Again, Frank had the unmistakable feeling that he shouldn’t be here. He saw why when they stepped inside the shop. Portable floodlights connected to a small generator just outside the door glowed over the most grisly scene Frank’s eyes had ever beheld.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Told you,” Cobb said grimly.
His long light in one hand, Frank holstered his 1911 Colt. Rumors among the department had it that Frank had notched the grip with the number of kills he had made, but it wasn’t true; he had killed and wounded with it, but he certainly never wanted to think about that. Taking a life, any life, was serious business and every pull of the trigger was traumatic to him. He buried it as deep as he could and just did the job. He never had a shooting that was not justified, but that had never been any comfort.
The victim was not in one piece. He lay face down on a floor covered in grass and weeds that had grown through cracks in the concrete or on top of soil blown in over the years. It was hard to tell which pieces had already been removed and dragged about by the enormous rats that darted about and which ones had been taken apart by his killer.
Blood was everywhere, even ten feet away, indicating arterial cuts while the boy was still alive. He must have died slowly though, because there was just too much of it, and after death, blood settles in the lowest part of the body. He’d bled out in agony or had gone unconscious, but this was a horrible way to go. The worst thing he had ever seen.
Frank didn’t get closer. He couldn’t move. He stared. What kind of monster could do a thing like this?
“Motherfucker,” he whispered. This person, he decided, would never be arrested. If he found the fucking animal, he was going to kill on sight, and it would not matter if there were witnesses. The person, or persons, who did this were already tried, found guilty, and sentenced to capital punishment. There could be no other outcome.
However it had been done, Emory Samuel Phillips the Third was a testament to the existence of the Devil in Hell himself. No human could have done such savagery to his body without help.
The body had been hacked open from the gluteal section to the shoulder blades, right between them, turning the spine into gravel. Vertebrae stuck out like pebbles covered in ketchup. The stench of the opened entrails made them all sick, nothing else smelled like that. But what had been done to the intestines was just weird. A truck’s air horn had been torched into pieces and shoved inside. Finally, gloved and masked with Vick’s inside the mask, Frank knelt beside the boy. “Tim, this was done or at least started while the boy was conscious. Look at the initial hemorrhaging. I’d say he immediately passed out and never regained consciousness even when he hadn’t bled much yet. Whoever did this is still here. Have everyone pair up, no more than twenty feet apart, and start a search. He’s armed with a heavy blade, looks like a vintage machete. Could even be a small chain saw. Everyone has swords these days so watch for that too, probably a medieval long sword. If anyone gets hurt, I will personally deal with them. Nobody else dies today. Nobody even gets a paper cut.”
Cobb, always wise enough to follow Frank’s orders, could see that his friend was on the hunt. That was normal.
What wasn’t normal was everything else. This case was bad, and it was going to get worse.
“Get the K-9s out here. He’s still close. I want a chopper too. Bag the body. He needs to be transported.”
The coroner had already been notified and was standing by. Frank prepared himself to face the parents.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 