An Alien Darkness: A Short Story

An Alien Darkness

An Alien Darkness

A short story

I was 8 weeks from retirement when I got the call. Our bags were packed. Property purchased. The construction teams had even started building our house along the Mogollon rim in Arizona. As a federal law enforcement agent with more than 25 years' experience, I get called a lot. Especially about murders and serial killers. I never really liked my job, but I was very good at it. Maybe I was just lucky. But there I was taking to the Phoenix PD detective, having been referred to me by my boss or something. If they were calling me, that meant it was bad. Usually really bad. Like you only see this in the movies or on the TV bad. Most of the time, it is actually worse, worse than worse. This time, it was the worst thing I had ever seen.

The detective told me that they had sting of murders, they had suspects, they had evidence, they even had motive... but nothing that tied them together. Asked the detective how long he had been in the police and rolled my eyes when he gave me his answer. Let's just say I was old enough to be this kids grandpa. I thought to myself, 'Isn't there an age requirement to be a detective?' Apparently not. I asked the kid who was at the top of their list. The first was a female suspect name Cassidy Yates, white, mid 50's, rail thin, wisp of a woman with razor sharp features, in and out of mental hospitals of the past 30 or so years for schizophrenia and other mental disorders that have new names that I can't pronounce. She also had a gaunt, predatory, hungry look about her, like she hadn't eaten sufficiently ever in her life. The other was Cassidy's son, I never did hear his name, only the nick name, Butch. Really. Butch and Cassidy. What's next a Sun Dance kid? He was relatively close in age to Cassidy, probably had him when she was still in high school. He didn't have the same psych profile of his mother, he was just plain mean. He had a slopping forehead, round nose, buffy lips, weak chin and blockish cheeks like they were cut from a cheese wheel. He made me think of a cave man. He also had been in an out of "institutions" for most of his life, but for run ins with the law. Each time Butch was in jail, his mother was also in a mental institution. I can't believe no one else had caught that. The reason they were at the top of the list of suspects is that they were seen exiting or in the area of each of the victims when they supposedly died.

The detective kid emailed me the profiles of the suspect, and the jackets on the all the suspects as well as the evidence that they had. Photos of the crime scene, forensics, testimonies of family members, witness statements. After reviewing the other suspects, and the information I had on them, nothing fit. The Alvera brothers, killers in their own right, were tied up with the Zeta's. These killings weren't their style. William Watcher had just been release after serving 20 years. One of the first guys I ever put away. But he had personal connections to each of his five murders. And Michael Penn, for want of a better word, was a monster. But these murders were clean, efficient, or at least that is what the evidence said.

Then I dug into the evidence, there were six murders in an eight-week period before they started making arrests. As soon as they did, the killing stopped. So, logic dictates that clearly one of people they arrested was doing the killing. If only it were that simple. Each of the individuals killed, disappeared, and a few days later their cleaned dried skeletons would appear where they had disappeared from. The medical examiners were clueless as to how they were killed, or how the bones were cleaned, there were traces of chemicals all over the bones. Chemicals used to treat and preserve bones that are both expensive, and hard to come by. National registries of purchase had nothing usable, and local suppliers didn't have any purchases that were out of the ordinary. Besides, aside from Cassidy and Butch, the others used knives, guns, or garrotes to dispatch their victims. And Cassidy and Butch hadn't killed anyone before, at least no one we knew about. Clearly, I was missing something.