21X: THE ZOMBIE CHRONICLES

Chapter 2

Weaving their way through the cleaning crew as Griff sometimes referred to them, they found themselves in the living room. There they stopped abruptly. An entire leg, bare and bloody, possibly a woman’s, was unceremoniously draped over the arm of the sofa. Across the room closer to them but off to one side was what appeared to be at first glance a small skinned animal. On second glance it was apparent that it was an internal organ, origin unknown for the time being.

Regaining control of his vision, Manton turned away from the body parts. "Is that all you got?" he tried to joke.

"Follow me."

They soon found themselves at the doorway to the master bedroom. The view was much the same except more gory and more everything else. An arm here, a leg there. Skin tissue here, a piece of something there. On the bed was a disemboweled torso with shredded parts of a nightgown still clinging to it. The head was still somewhat attached to the mangled neck but the top of the skull had been ripped open. Nobody asked if their were still any contents left inside. A hand rested in one corner of the room with two of its fingers missing. It sat there unmoving of course, but still just the way it was simply discarded as if the customary thing to do was to fling it aside and let it slide down the wall onto the carpet. It was sickening to read too much into the reasoning behind the act. Pozak pointed upwards, above the bed where they easily spotted a chunk of human scalp. Hair, a different red from the crimson that saturated and surrounded it on the ceiling still clung to it. From time to time it dripped a tiny single drop of blood onto the pillow below where it was soaked up almost immediately.

Without a word the two trailed down the hallway after Pozak where another bedroom, a child’s room was. The door had been hammered and pounded with a fist until it had come off of the top hinge. Everywhere along the walls were scarlet smeared hand prints.
Griff scanned the room. "The girl. Where is she?" he asked with urgency, needing to know.
"Gone." Pozak said this quietly almost under his breath. A moment later he elaborated a little further but not much. "We found it this way. No girl anywhere. Can’t explain it. Yet."
Grffin’s mind worked the scenario over. It was a little girl’s room. She was nowhere to be found. Did the monster who did all of this take her with him? Did he bury her out in the woods somewhere? After what seemed like forever, he turned his thoughts to the woman. "What about the girl’s mom. What do you know about her?"

The agent motioned for another agent to come over. This one had been busy scratching away in a notepad. "Give Mr. Griffin what we’ve got so far."

The man cleared his throat. "The first officer on the scene was at two this morning. Her boyfriend, a Mr. Strickland reported the incident immediately upon discovery. The deceased, Ms. Carmen Beck, was a single mother. Never married. Unemployed. She had just the one child named Tamara. We estimate the time of her death around 11pm, maybe later. We’ll know more after the--" he paused and glanced down the hall that led to the master bedroom. Clearing his throat again, he picked up where he left off. "Uh, after the autopsy. The front door was found ajar and unlocked but it had still been forced open - possibly the perp didn’t realize it. The assault began in the master bedroom where there was little or no struggle. Probably the victim was asleep until it was too late to react. The perp then made his -or her, way down to the daughter’s bedroom. Evidence shows that the girl must have been awakened by the first assault and was able to lock the door in time but this effort failed as the intruder broke down the door. The girl apparently tried to get away by eluding her attacker but all indications are that she was abducted. We’re still uncertain whether she was alive or dead when she was transported from the house."

"What about fingerprints or anything that can get us looking for whoever did this?" Manton interrupted.

Pozak sighed. "There’s fingerprints everywhere. Footprints too. The place is covered with them. But no matches. Not the boyfriend. Nobody in the National Crime database."

"And no witnesses, no other clues," Griff re-paraphrased from earlier. "So the neighbors didn’t hear any screams or see any suspicious cars?"

Pozak and the other agent exchanged glances. "No."

Griff’s jaws and fists clenched angrily with frustration. Sometimes he wondered if he was called in to help the law, or merely to test his abilities and quite possibly his temper. But the facts were the facts. There was simply a whole lot of nothing to go on for the time being. But that would change. It always did. Quickly a thought reoccurred to him as he remembered the dirt driveway. "Did anyone check for any obscure tire tracks yet?"

"Yes," the younger agent replied rapidly. "None that don’t match Ms. Beck’s or Mr. Strickland’s vehicles."

"So I take it that we have people searching the surrounding area?"

Pozak answered first this time. "Every available officer. We’ll find the girl. That is if she ran off."

"I’m not concerned if she ran off. Odds are that if she did escape she ran to a neighbor’s house, which apparently didn’t happen. I have a feeling she was carried away, possibly dragged away by the intruder, not by car. Those look like a very confusing stretch of wilderness, but to a seasoned hunter or a lifelong resident it would be a piece of cake."

"That’s your theory, Griff?"

"For now."

Pozak seemed happy to have something to pursue, and of course for the fact that it wasn’t his idea if it didn’t pan out. As far as he cared, Anthony Griffin was in charge until further notice. Meanwhile his stress-related headache slowly subsided. He left the two to check on the progress of the search outside.

21X: THE ZOMBIE CHRONICLES

If it hadn’t been for the flashing lights from all of the emergency vehicles, Griffin would have thought it was the epitome of a humble country community neighborhood. It was typically gloomy for a late northern Michigan autumn and the skies had been falsely threatening either rain or snow since Tuesday. And here it was Friday. In most lines of work, the busiest part of the work week was inching to a close as festivities were about to commence. But for police officers, firemen, EMT’s, hospital workers and the such, the real drudgery was just beginning. Even for Griffin.

Although Anthony Griffin was no member of these unionized professions, his livelihood was also affected from time to time as a high-priced investigative consultant for authority figures like mayors, congressmen, chiefs of police, the military, and other official government bigwigs. This morning he was called upon by Colin Haggerty, the state assigned big cheese for the FBI. It was a rare thing to be requested (coerced actually) to provide some insight and creative scenarios for the bureau. Then again, this was how Griff found his niche: by unconventional thinking and problem solving, which came in handy in cases such as these where said entities knew nothing more than what they were taught and trained by agents before them.

Crooked River, Michigan was a minor mention on the map Griff had purchased because it hadn’t come up on his car’s GPS device. But he was able to find out as they had traveled through it that it was a laid back farming town with the usual offerings to society. Crops of vegetables and fruit were abundant when in season, and to pass the rest of the year were a variety of non-franchise establishments that advertised home-cooked meals and a large array of alcohol to the locals, who apparently favored plaid in the form of flannel shirts as the preferred color of choice. Ball caps were also customary in this neck of the woods where most announced sworn allegiances to colleges in the state. The John Deere logo came in at a close second. Hunting, fishing, boating and winter activities filled any gaps year round. Other than that there was nothing more to find in the locale other than several underestimated mountains and an overpopulation of trees.

As Griff and his assistant Todd Manton eased the Park Avenue closer they surveyed the crime scene. State police had taped off the house and addressed curiosity seekers where presumably the latest victim or victims waited patiently to be taken to the morgue. Apparently the town had no police force as the rest of the official looking vehicles obviously belonged to the characteristically dressed FBI. For a moment Griff wondered why the FBI touted their agents as people who could blend in with a crowd, and yet, dress them in suits which made them stand out. Anyway, the major players were onsite and that was all that mattered at the moment.

"This is close enough," Griff pointed out to Manton who then stopped the car. Getting out, the two casually advanced towards a small group of suits chattering quietly, taking in the surroundings. Everything seemed normal except for the heightened feeling that something very, very disturbing awaited them inside the house.

"Whoa. Wait a minute," a state trooper warned. "Nobody is allowed into this area. Please return—"

A familiar face approached from behind the trooper and put a hand on his shoulder. "They’re okay. They’re with me." And then to Griff he said, "Come on."

The face, which belonged to Special Agent Pozakowinski - or Pozak to his acquaintances, was a respectable field agent with sentences rarely containing more than six words at a time. Griff had worked with him about two years ago in the Detroit area where a schizophrenic pizza deliverer was plotting to pick off the local baseball team, player by player in order of their jersey numbers because of their losing season. It ended with just two close calls, but also gave Griff a lot of free game tickets, stadium dogs, and autographs. He had almost hated to see the case come to an end.

Unlike Pozak the other two were dressed more casually in jeans and button up shirts. Griff’s head was covered by a Detroit Tiger ball cap he had acquired from the aforementioned case. Also unlike the G man and his cookie cutter counterparts, Griff and Manton were more fluid in their demeanor rather than going about things like programmed robots micromanaging the evidence technicians who were diligently gathering crucial data for analysis.

After Griff and Manton limbo’d under the crime scene tape and reached a safe distance beyond the earshot of civilians and the press, they began discussing the crime.

"Okay," Griff began. "What’s the big deal that caused your fearless leader to have two of his finest - and largest - pull me out of bed at four in the morning?"

"Haggerty did that?" Pozak pondered aloud more than asked. "Not sure."

"Not sure?" Manton did ask.

Thoughtfully rubbing an imaginary beard on his chin, Pozak offered a guess. "Taking too long probably. N clues. No witnesses. No motive. No nothing."

Griff furrowed his eyebrows and scrutinized the man. "No clues? None at all? There has to be something." Perhaps involuntarily he looked around at the ground around him to find something, anything, literally a thread of evidence of some sort that might lead them to at least what the perp was wearing. A bizarre thought occurred to Griff that if a swatch of clothing was found it would most likely be plaid and therefore eliminating only five or ten percent of the community as being a suspect.

"Maybe you two will just have to see inside the house for yourselves first."

"Let’s go," Manton urged. "That’s why we’re here."