Jeff the Killer: Jane



--Cult Hunters--

The young woman was tied to the chair, ropes binding her arms and legs to the sturdy furniture. A gag was placed around her mouth, muting her whimpers and cries for mercy. What sound could escape from behind the duct tape pressed against her seals lips were little more than soft, defeated moans. Her eyes darted about the dim room. Her mind raced to take in each and every detail. A corpse, the remains of a large man lay across from her. Blood pooled from his belly. From somewhere outside of her view, smoke began to slowly drift into the living room.

Then the footsteps became audible. Someone was behind her, advancing slowly towards the chair.

“Jane…” a male voice, raspy and harsh, speaks into her ear.

A louder cry, still muffled by tape, escapes from the bound victim as she realizes that her captor is inches from her face, still unseen but most certainly heard.

“Your father was a bad man, and for his crimes he has been punished. But what of you, what of the daughter, what am I to do with the apple of his eye?”

He begins to walk around the chair, advancing past her and then stopping several feet before her. The smoke is getting thicker. She cannot see his face yet.

“Must the children pay for the sins of their fathers? Must you die to cleanse one selfish man’s actions?”

The figure suddenly turns to face her. Her eyes go wide as the ghoulish intruder’s damaged face reveals his identity. One eye, ablaze with rage, the other, a white milky ball of dead apathy. A scar runs across his face. Having healed without proper medical care, it has left a trail of prominent disfigurement.

“Jane… I had to pay for the sins of my parents. What you see here, what you see standing before you… it is nothing more than the final product of hateful neglect. I was once Jeff Woods. I once had a family and friends. I had hope. Now… all I am is a shell filled with hate and rage. But maybe, just maybe Jane, if I cleanse you all, then and only then can I myself be purified.”

The woman in the chair squirms from left to right, desperately trying to loosen the ropes. As if in mockery of her efforts to escape, the deranged and deformed lunatic before her draws a large knife.

“Don’t fight it Jane. I tried to fight it, I tried to live with it or live through it… trust me, poison that runs this deep cannot be survived.”

Jeff the Killer raised his knife, taking aim at Jane’s heart.

“Now Jane, it’s time. GO… TO…. BED!!!”

“CUT!” a male voice suddenly bellows. The lights come on and crewmembers begin to move about to reset the scene. The previously blood pooling corpse stood up, stretched his legs a bit and walked off set until it was time to reset the scene.

The young woman in the chair wiggles her arms from beneath the stage ropes and removes the tape from her mouth.

“Jeremy! That scene was perfect up until the end! Do you know how uncomfortable it is sitting here with this damned tape over my mouth for your entire monologue?” the woman scolds.

“Shit Morgan, I got halfway through my scene and had a brain fart. I couldn’t remember if it was ‘bed’ or ‘sleep.’ Sorry.”

The man who’d shouted ‘cut’ came over. He was the director and producer of this program, which meant he was essentially God on set. He was rubbing his eyes in mild frustration.

“Guys, I know we’ve been working long days on this and I know I’ve been asking a lot of all of you. But Jeremy, you have got to lock this down. We can’t afford to miss a single minute here. Liu Woods is going on Newsroom with Jack Elder next week. Anyone out there that hasn’t already caught Jeff the Killer fever by now will most certainly have it after Elder interviews Liu. That means we have to have this production wrapped up in time to air the next night. Trust me, having Jack Elder as your opening act is a ratings bonanza.”

The scolding director was a man of roughly 30 years old. He was young, handsome and wealthy. His success had come quickly by means that most would never believe. His program, ‘Cult Hunters’ had become an overnight success. While he normally possessed a relaxed nature about life’s little challenges, he, much like his cast and crew, were nearing exhaustion. They’d all been working overtime to get this special produced in time to air the same week as Liu Woods’ appearance on Newsroom. The extended effort was beginning to breed a hectic combination of stress and fatigue.

The young actor, Jeremy Parsons by name, who’d been cast to play Jeff the Killer stated, “I flubbed the line boss… I’m really sorry.”

Morgan Anders, the actress hired to portray Jane Arkansaw spoke up next. “You know, if I didn’t have to wear this damn tape over my mouth, I could help Jeremy with his lines. I could mouth the words, I’ve done that on other shows and it worked.”

The director rubbed his tired eyes once again. Parsons was a fairly new actor, and took direction well enough when he didn’t forget his lines. Morgan on the other hand came with a bit more experience. Nothing huge, but she’d done a few made for television movies and a handful of commercials. For this reason she felt that it was her job to offer up unwanted advice throughout the filming process. What had been a somewhat useful and almost appreciated trait to the director at first was now becoming an annoying habit.

“Morgan, Jane Arkansaw was gagged with duct tape on the night her father was murdered. Therefore, the actress portraying her will be gagged with duct tape as well. I don’t think I have to remind either of you that my show is the only one she’s agreed to appear on. Every talking head in the country has offered her the chance to sit across from them and tell her story. She’s refused them all. Then she reaches out to me and offers to do Cult Hunters, so long as we tell her story correctly. So let me make this clear, you’re being paid to play Jane. If she’d been tied to a chair and had a clown wig and big red nose stuck on her head, then you’d be wearing a clown wig and red nose. We are going for accuracy here. She is allowing us to tell her story, and we have an obligation to do it right. So, can you do that for me Morgan, please?”

Anders rolled her eyes but nodded.

“Good, because we have to wrap this scene up tonight. Tomorrow I’m driving out to Mandeville to meet with and interview Jane herself. I’m still not sure why she picked my show, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to complain about good fortune. This episode is going be huge, which means that both of you will benefit vastly from a job well done.”

Both Jeremy and Morgan were nodding.

From across the set, a crewmember waved to the director. “Sir, you have a phone call. The caller says it’s urgent.”

“Okay, you guys take five, get some coffee or Red Bull of cocaine for all I care, whatever makes you hit all your marks and nail all your lines on the next take. I’m going to see what could be so urgent that one of my stagehands would interrupt filming.”

The director steps offset, taking the cellphone from the stagehand.

“Yeah?” he stated briskly as he placed the phone to his ear.

What answered was a voice that sounded altered, artificially deepened to hide the caller’s identity. It began to speak without waiting for the director to ask further questions or make further statements. It ran through its lines in a far smoother manner than either of his actors had been able to read theirs tonight, not pausing until it had completed its strange litany.

It began; “You are embarking on a dangerous voyage. You are but a tiny vessel thrown into an ocean of madness. The sky above you is black with storm clouds of rage. The dark waters below you hide monsters that would set your soul on fire. They are but inches away from your misguided sense of safety on deck. You are alone at the wheel, no friends to help you navigate this madness. No one will hear you scream as you are finally dragged down, deep into the pitch black abyss below you, torn apart by the blind fiends that reach and tear your body apart. They do this not out of revenge, not out of any premeditated act, but rather because that is their purpose. They do not think, they simply act upon their impulse to see you bleed and die. However, I can calm their bloodlust yet. Should you take the path of the wise, should you abandon this foolish, selfish race for attention and fame, I will pull them back from you. You can return to your routine unharmed. There are plenty more monsters for you to chase. Consider your options, for you will not be warned again. You know not whom you anger, but we know you. Turn back now before the marina is too far away, before you reach the point of no return!”

The director waited a moment. No more words came, but he could hear faint breathing. His caller was still there, no doubt awaiting his response.

“So yeah, I guess that’s supposed to be the scary part?” he asked, voice laced with sarcasm. “You know, for someone who claims to know who I am, you really didn’t do your homework on me. Maybe you should read my book, or maybe just Google my name. You’re talking to Derrick fuckin’ Reynolds you tiny dick asshole, and in case you haven’t heard, chumps like you don’t phase me one bit!”

He ended the call and thrust the cellphone back into the crewman’s hand. “Unless the next call is from Ron Howard saying he’s finally decided to make my Surviving Delphia movie, please don’t disturb me on set again!”

--Old River Road at Night--

Two more reshoots and the work was done. Morgan and Jeremy, who’d carpooled together, gathered their belongings and bid goodnight to their fellow cast and crew. Derrick thanked them for their hard work and effort. The reenactment phase of this project was finished. He’d be interviewing Jane Arkansaw the following night, which both Morgan and Jeremy knew was the true pearl of this program. The reenactment was simply fluff to make the hour-long program move more smoothly. Which meant that both actors were well aware that they, despite the famous saying, were in fact just filling small parts.

The filming was shot in New Orleans’ lavish Garden District. The home was an Air B&B, and the owner was some old friend of Derrick’s. While most residents who could afford such expensive homes were unwilling to allow a crew of actors and stagehands to run dry ice machines and use stage blood inside of buildings that were antiques in their own right, Derrick had no problem getting his friend to volunteer his house for the shoot. It would have made far more sense to film it all out in Mandeville, or at least Slidell, but Derrick had previously informed his crew that he had a bad feeling about spending too much time out there. He’d told everyone involved with the production that it was a well-known fact that the Mandeville Police Department, as well as several other high profile members of the community had been involved in the Jeff Woods incident. It was also no secret that town officials didn’t want this story told. Derrick had shown actual messages sent to his show’s official email account informing him that he was not welcomed in Mandeville. The real kicker was that these weren’t emails sent from anonymous burner accounts, but from the actual Chief of Police Mitchell Hardy. One such email read:

Dear Mr. Reynolds,

It has come to our attention that you wish to produce an episode of your show focused on the recent tragedies in my city. Please be aware that several people lost their lives in this incident, including a state investigator. If you weren’t aware, I already provided a press conference updating the public on these crimes. While I understand that this is a popular topic for the press to prey on at the moment, understand that many families, some with young children, were affected by these events. With that being said, I cannot legally prevent you from conducting your proposed interview with Jane Arkansaw. However, do be advised that all codes, taxes and permits related to filming will be enforced to their fullest extent. You will not be granted any special favor due to your celebrity status. We are a city simply trying to heal from the horrific events of 2015. As someone who grew up in New Orleans, I would expect you to possess a more sensitive understanding of the damage that rehashing pointless atrocities can cause to a community.

Sincerely, Mitchell Hardy Chief of Police, Mandeville Police Department

Derrick could easily read the writing on the wall. Should he and his crew attempt to film the entire episode in Mandeville, they’d be harassed daily. Everything from jay walking to loitering to failing smile at kids and old people would be watched and ticketed. The harassment would be inside of the law, sure, and should he suddenly decide to leave, the tickets and citations would likely be thrown out, but such annoyances would also muck up the machine. He didn’t want to spend half his day explaining to some small town cop the in’s and out’s of journalism. So, he’d opted to play it safe and do the work from New Orleans. The interview with Jane though, that he’d have to do in Mandeville. Sure, it would be simple for her to travel to the city and film. They could film from Derrick’s high-rise apartment, a posh loft on the 43rd floor of the Audubon Tower on Gravier Street. His enormous living room window overlooked downtown New Orleans, and would make a beautiful backdrop for the interview. However, as Derrick had explained to his crew when they all met for their first shoot, there was more to this than just finding the right place to film. He believed that for Jane to really open up to him, she’d have to trust him and trust in him, Since they’d already agreed, at her urging apparently, to film at her home, he knew that changing it now would disrupt the delicate balance that had led her to choose his show as the platform to tell her story.

“I still think he’s a fucking asshole,” Morgan stated as she and Jeremy drove down Old River Road, a stretch of pavement that run almost the entire length of the city along with curve of the Mississippi River. Her car was pointed towards Jefferson Parish. Derrick had put them up in a motel all the way out in River Ridge, a small suburb that featured little night life and seemed to go to sleep early.

“I think he just wants the job done right Morgan. I mean, he’s not making some cable access infomercial here; this is a real show he’s got.”

“I’ve worked with better directors on commercials for diapers than this guy. He’s just trying to get his name on the map by airing this program the night after Newsroom interviews Liu Woods.”

“Yeah, isn’t that the point of making a show?” Jeremy risked asking.

“Have you ever even watched Cult Hunters? It’s low budget, nothing more than a talk show with cut scenes. The false premise is that he’s going to help people who are trapped in dangerous cults, but the reality is that it’s just Reynolds talking to people who claim to have had some interaction with a cult group. I mean, when I first watched his show, I thought it was going to be like Dog the Bounty Hunter. I thought he’d be out there with a camera crew actually breaking down doors and catching devil worshipers or something in the act. Instead, you just get an hour a week of some pretty boy talking to some nutcase who got conned into sending half of their paycheck to some other nutjob who convinced the first nut that they were Jesus or some shit.”

“I’m don’t really care what the show is about. My resume needs credits, and this is going to be a good one. Portraying Jeff the Killer is not a bad accomplishment on IMDb.”

Morgan sighed and her next words carried a greater degree of cheer. “Ditto for Jane. Everyone is talking about this Jeff crap. Frankly I didn’t care about it when it happened, and I don’t care now, but you are right about it looking good on a resume.”

Jeremy nodded, glad to be done with Morgan’s rant. Before he could suggest another topic though, she once again picked it for them.

“I had to spend two days with her, did Derrick tell you about that?”

“You mean Jane Arkansaw?”

“Who else? Lady Gaga?”

“Ummm… he mentioned that you were researching the role, just like I had to study all the facts about Jeff Woods and Drake Arkansaw’s murder. I guess my character isn’t exactly available for me to shadow though. What was she like in person?”

“Annoying. She is such a drama queen. First of all, she’s gorgeous. That long black hair and intense doe eyes of hers are remarkable. She’s too short to model, but she could pick up work doing small stuff. She’s also rich. Her dead daddy left her a fortune. She lives in a nice house, but that lawyer or hers, Hardwick… he seems to be the one playing babysitter to her. That bitch could be off sipping drinks in Italy or chugging Red Bull while jumping from orbit or something, but no, all she does is talk about conspiracies and crimes and Mandeville.”

“C’mon Morgan, her father was murdered right in front of her. Add the fact that she was left to burn to death in her own home and you’re going to have some trust issues. The fact that they never found her father’s killer coupled with the recent murders in Mandeville revolving around Jeff Woods, and you can kind of understand why she probably isn’t in the mood to party in Paris or whatever.”

“Then shit, she can give that money to someone like me, a starving artist trying to carve her way into the world of film and…”

Jeremy halted her complaint with a sudden outburst of fear. “Hey stop!!” he shouted, causing Morgan to snap out of her diatribe.

The speed limit on Old River Road was only 35 miles per hour. Morgan, who’d been warned by Reynolds to be very mindful of all laws, even outside of Mandeville, had actually been traveling a mere 10 miles an hour over that speed limit. So when her eyes met the strange scene blocking the road before her, she was able to coast to a safe stop about 10 feet from the obstruction before her.

“What… what is that? A person?” Morgan asked, more to herself than to her traveling companion.

“Yeah, his face is covered though…”

Standing before them was a figure dressed in black. It appeared to be wearing a robe of sorts, similar to that of a Catholic priest. A black hood was pulled over its face. Its head was down, as if staring at the pavement, which gave Morgan and Jeremy only a view of its hood, keeping the strange robed figure’s face a mystery.

“You don’t suppose this is some scare tactic, like Derrick warned us about, do you?” Jeremy asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care. I’m calling the cops.”

“Just go around him Morgan, we can call them after we’re moving again.”

“Good idea. I haven’t seen any other cars out here in the last 15 minutes or so.”

The figure before them had yet to move. It had simply been standing there when he first spotted it. The thought of this stranger standing perfectly still on a dark road; watching their headlights approach and plotting whatever he or she might be plotting gave Jeremy a case of the chills. He also was running all the warnings that Reynolds had given them through his head. The creepy locals who called themselves Jeff’s Killers, the city officials and their cover-ups, the attempted murder of a woman named Nancy by a lunatic dressed as a serial killer… it was all coming together for him and he did not like the creeping panic growing in his stomach.

Morgan backed her car up slightly, intending to give herself plenty of room to swing around the freak blocking their progress. The lights of her car now pointed up the levee wall, a large natural mound that spanned for miles. Morgan had considered jogging on it one morning. It was about 25 feet high and inclined like a hill. The top was flat, and she’d been told that there was a path that cyclist and runners often enjoyed. However, what her headlights revealed was no friendly path for trendy runners to jog upon, but rather a scene from a horror show. Standing upon the levee were about 12 others, all dressed in black robes just like the individual on the road.

“The fuck…” she whispered.

“This is some sort of trap or something! Morgan, please, let’s get out of here!” Jeremy began to shout.

“Okay, calm down,” she replied, clicking the lock button on the car’s door. She began to pull forward, but as her car moved, so did the figure before them. It stepped over into the other lane, blocking their path again.

“Fine dipshit, get run over,” Morgan whispered as she prepared to pull forward. She didn’t intend to flatten the guy, as she had no desire to stand trial for vehicular manslaughter should all of this turn out to be some sort of prank gone wrong or a misunderstanding of a different nature, but she was confident that the robed person before her wouldn’t be able to stop her car even going 5 miles per hour. If she ran over his foot, she could live with that.

“Okay Jeremy, we’re fine, see?” she said as they passed by the black clad mystery.

Jeremy turned to look back over the seats to see if they would be followed, and was relieved to see the road was now vacant.

“Maybe it was just a prank,” Jeremy thought. “Just some assholes who found out we were filming a show about Jeff the Killer and….”

Jeremy Parsons never completed that thought. As he was about to turn back and face forward, intending to share his relief with Morgan Anders, a blinding brightness filled their car seemingly from nowhere. Morgan, who’d been less preoccupied with panic, did manage to hear, far too late sadly, the distant sound of a large and powerful engine growing louder as it quickly closed the distance between itself and her car. River Road however was very dark at night, and where they happened to be ambushed by the robed obstruction fell in an area where there were no streetlights. The speeding vehicle behind them had kept their headlights off as it accelerated towards the bumper of Morgan’s car. She registered the sudden flood of painful artificial light as it filled her vehicle and within the next moment she was thrust into her steering wheel as the motorist behind her plowed into them. She experienced a momentary sensation of floating as her car was rammed into the levee.

She slowly lifted her head from the wheel of her car. She’d managed to remain conscious, but her head was pounding and her vision seemed dim. She tried to look over to the passenger seat to assess Jeremy, but attempting to do so caused a flash of sharp pain to radiate up the side of her neck and into the base of her skull. She tried to raise her left arm to remove her seatbelt, but her arm felt too weak to lift, and her left hand seemed to be completely unresponsive to any attempt at movement.

For a moment she thought she might pass out, but the sudden loud thud on the hood of her car recaptured her attention. What she saw brought a scream to her lips, but what escaped the shocked and terrified woman’s mouth was nothing more than a weak moan. On the hood of her car was the figure in black. Perhaps it was the one from the road or maybe one of the dozen or so clones that adorned the top of the levee. Again she attempted to open the door, and this time was slightly surprised when her minimal effort resulted in the door flying open. However, the hands reaching into her car and grabbing and pulling her from the seat quickly corrected her initial thought.

As she was violently pulled from the car and onto the damp grass of the levee, she felt herself finally begin to slip from consciousness. The undeniable head injury from the violent vehicular impact, combined with the pain shooting through her back, neck and head as she was removed was causing her brain to seek an escape. Before she could though, before she could slip into the painless void of unconsciousness, she was treated to the terrifying realization of what lurked beneath the hoods of her attackers.

They’d removed their hoods. She tried to scream but was still unable to produce more than a whimper. What she saw standing over her was the very subject of Derrick Reynolds’ current work in progress. Those standing over her all bore scars along their cheeks, and all stared back at her with only one sane eye.

--The Interview--

The following night Jane Arkansaw and Derrick Reynolds sat down together in the finely decorated living room of her two story home in Mandeville Louisiana. Derrick’s crew had arrived several hours earlier to set up for the night’s production. A team of techs, all wearing T-shirts with “Cult Hunters” printed across the chest went about their business quickly and efficiently as Mr. Hardwick, Jane’s lawyer and apparent watchdog gazed on. He’d searched each of them for any possessions that he might consider contraband. He didn’t smile or make small talk as he did so. Once he was satisfied that no one affiliated with the popular cable television program was a threat to his former employer’s daughter, he allowed the crew to do their job.

About an hour before the interview was scheduled to begin, Derrick Reynolds himself arrived. Only then did Jane come down from her bedroom. Hardwick greeted him first though.

“Mr. Reynolds, I’m Russell Hardwick, we talked on the phone,” the large man stated in a firm, commanding voice as Derrick approached the front door. Hardwick did not offer a handshake when he closed the gap into a conversational distance.

“Mr. Hardwick, good to meet you. I appreciate your cooperation in this. From what Jane has told me, you’re not particularly in favor of this interview. That’s okay, I understand, we both just want to help tell….”

Hardwick held up his hand, pausing Derrick’s introduction. “Mr. Reynolds, I’ve read your book. I’ve watched your show. I am aware that you are, at heart, a showman. Miss Arkansaw in currently trapped within this debacle here in Mandeville, a debacle that relates to her near death, a debacle where she watched her father bleed out on the floor as smoke was filling her lungs. The story, Mr. Reynolds, is told. However, Miss Arkansaw refuses to listen to my advice at times. I’ve suggested we move from Mandeville but she insists on staying. I most certainly advised against her posting her theories on the Internet, yet she persists. As for your… show, well, I did more than suggest that she avoid you. I tried to muster whatever command tone I still carried from my days in the Army and practically ordered her to avoid you like the plague. However Mr. Reynolds, she is young and headstrong.”

“What exactly do you have against her telling her story?” Derrick asked.

“Nothing. She has been invited on quite a few… respectable programs. Anderson Cooper, Matt Lauer, hell even Whoopi Goldberg have contacted me about talking to Jane. She’s refused them all. Then, out of nowhere, she decides to contact you. That worries me Mr. Reynolds, that worries me a lot.”

“Why me, what makes me and my program so detestable to you Hardwick?” Reynolds asked, intentionally leaving the “mister” off of his name this time, a little bit of a power play perhaps to let Hardwick know he wasn’t dealing with a weakling.

“Why? Like I said before, I’ve read your book. Surviving Delphia… quite a story right? Funny how you write a book about surviving a cult kidnapping you and then you suddenly have a television show based on stopping cults. Seems like perhaps you figured that a cheap work of fiction would propel your name enough to lure some network into signing you, and look at that, that’s exactly what happened.”

Reynolds smiled a bit as his mind briefly revisited bad times in a very cold place. His smile wasn’t the result of the bad times though, but rather at his triumph. He’d survived and used his encounters with the King of the Red Star and his many minions to forge a path to success that he believed helped others in need.

“Hardwick, you’re not the first and I’m sure not the last to accuse me of lying. I appreciate that you are protective of Jane; I can certainly understand that with your military background and close relationship with her family that you no doubt have a heightened sense of commitment to her safety and wellbeing. Or, maybe you’re just an asshole, I don’t know. However, what I do know is that Jane is an adult. She, nor I, require your permission or even approval to conduct this interview. If you want to stand here and be a prick about this, we can always conduct the interview somewhere else. Although I assure you, if it’s on one of my sets, you will not be allowed to attend. You can sit down and watch it on television next week like everyone else.”

“You better contain yourself Reynolds…” Hardwick began, but this time it was Derrick’s turn to command the conversation. Perhaps Hardwick had thought, as many before him had, that Derrick Reynolds was just a preppy playboy who’d stumbled upward into good fortune. Of course, Hardwick never stood within Delphia’s Grand Cathedral, never witnessed a Feasting Ritual and most certainly never dealt with a certain perky redhead with a love for all things mutilation.

“No Russell, you should contain yourself. Think what you want about me, I don’t give a shit. From here out though, the keyword is think, not say. For a man who prides himself on knowing everything about everyone, you’ve missed the mark on me by a long shot. Now, I’m going to go on inside and prep Jane for tonight’s interview. You are not going to search me, you are not going to speak ill of me and you are not going to interfere with my production anymore. If you do, then you are out of the picture. Can you go ahead and make love to those facts Russell? Can you do that for me?”

Hardwick remained silent. He wanted to be on set during the shoot. He was concerned that word had gotten around about Reynolds’ interview, and despite his best efforts to protect Jane’s privacy, such as the unlisted address and phone number, he was fully aware that lots of people in this town knew who lived here. Hardwick would lose his mind juggling the possible threats to Jane if he had to wait offsite somewhere while this pretty boy used her story to boost his ratings. So, despite Hardwick’s balled fists and internal desire to put Reynolds’ dentist into a whole new tax bracket, he simply nodded and stepped aside. Without further comment, Reynolds walked past the consummate guard dog and into the home of Jane Arkansaw.

“Derrick, welcome!” Jane announced as the two met in person for the first time since she’d reached out to him offering an interview.

“Jane, nice to finally meet you face to face,” he replied, flashing a perfect smile.

“Please tell me that Mr. Hardwick didn’t give you too much trouble when you got here. I should have come down sooner, I really hope he was cordial.”

“Well, let’s just say that I have no concerns about your safety during this shoot. Hell, I think you’d be okay during a Godzilla attack with him around.”

Jane laughed a bit. She hadn’t had a real laugh in sometime and it felt nice. Derrick was as handsome in person as he was on television, and perhaps Jane, despite her horrific ordeal, could still fall victim to the charm of celebrities.

“Can I offer you something to drink? I’ve got coffee, soft drinks, water, whatever you’d like?”

“Thank you, but my crew brings my favorite refreshments along. I’ve got a pretty stocked little ice chest that should be around here somewhere, but I appreciate the hospitality.”

“So, I’m clearly a little nervous. I mean, I’ve never done a television show, I mean, besides the news, but that was a little different. You know, maybe inhaling all that smoke loosened me up a bit.”

Derrick chuckled. He could tell she was anxious. He was used to this, as many of his guests were telling their stories to a massive network audience for the first time. He’d gotten very good at helping his guests relax by conducting a pre-interview, so to speak. Nothing recorded, nothing repeated, just a chance for the subject to spill their butterflies before the actual cameras rolled. He’d turn on the bright stage lights and let them adjust to the brightness and heat and have a camera set up but not recording. He’d found that most people could adjust quite well this way as it allowed them to see that the cameras and lights were harmless. Even his most awkward guests, like this kid named Kenny Leonard that he’d interviewed a while back seemed to react well from this little exercise.

“Let’s sit and talk Jane. Not for the show, but just two new friends getting to know each other, okay?”

Jane smiled at that and led him into the living room. Derrick had used that very line with a few of his guests and it always worked. Had any of them known that he’d actually been taught that line in college by his best friend Sergio as a way to pick up women, they might have been less inclined to be lulled to comfort.

Once they were sitting across from each other, Derrick pointed to where the cameras and lights were set up and explained a bit about where she should look, how to avoid looking at the camera, and what to say if a question was too personal or simply something she didn’t wish to answer.

“Anything can be edited out Jane, so if you don’t like your answer or think of a better one, feel free to just say so. If you have to scratch your nose or yawn, just do it. We’ll clean all that up in post. Of course, if you fart, we’ll use that as the teaser for the show!”

“Derrick, don’t you know girls don’t fart!” she answered.

“Good,” Derrick thought to him self, “she’s relaxing already. Dumb jokes usually do the trick.”

“Jane, why did you choose me? I understand that lots of more established professionals in the world of journalism reached out to you. So, while I am certainly flattered and gracious to be here, I am a bit curious.”

“Derrick, I read your book. Not for the same reasons that Mr. Hardwick read it, you know, not to find holes in your story or whatever. I read it because I knew how you felt.”

“Felt about what?”

“Being called a liar. In your story, you talk about how everyone from the cops to your girlfriend to your shrink all thought you were making it up, or tried to say you were high on valium. Even after you and that famous scientist Clair Nobles went on Newsroom and told your story to the world, they still brushed you off.”

“Is that what you went through, after Hardwick rescued you from the fire?”

“Yeah. I’ll save the details for the actual interview, but let’s just say I get where you’re coming from. I’ve felt what it’s like to be told you were wrong so many times that eventually you want to believe it yourself just so you can feel right.”

A few moments later a member of the film crew stepped into the room and made a small gesture to Derrick, tapping his wrist. Jane knew this was the universal sign for “show time.” Jane looked up at Derrick and nodded before he was able to ask the obvious question.

Reynolds stood and summoned his production staff. “Alright folks, it’s time. We start filming in 2 minutes.” People began to bustle around, setting up any last second equipment, checking sound levels and adjusting lenses. Microphones were clipped, final tests were conducted and after what seemed an eternity, Derrick gave his approval.

“Okay Jane, on my mark we start rolling. Remember what I told you before, this isn’t live television, we can fix any errors and you can take as many time outs or do-overs as you please. This is your story, you control the conversation.”

“Thank you for this Derrick,” she replied, and soon enough was swept back in time. Her story brought her back to the days when she was a very different person. In this story she still had a loving father and a stable life. She was just another teenage girl, just another product of the American dice roll. In those days she could still laugh naturally, could still cry while watching romantic movies, and still believed that the horrible tragedies that she read about online and saw on the evening news could never happen to her.

--Long Distance Phone Calls--

Two hours later the interview concluded. Derrick gestured towards one of his staff, who responded by speaking a quick message into a small walkie-talkie. This triggered the team to go to work breaking down the production equipment.

“It’s going to be a bit hectic in here, would you like to step into the kitchen and talk while they do their thing, or if you’re tired, I can always just head out,” Derrick asked.

Jane, whose eyes were still a bit red from the teary moments during her story, nodded and stood up. Derrick followed her as Mr. Hardwick gazed on, his expression set in a stone mask of distrust.

“Sorry for all the crying,” Jane said as they walked into the large kitchen. “Some of those things, the loss of my parents, the loss of everything connecting me to them in the fire… I don’t know. I thought I was over a lot of it, but telling all of that again, it just brought back a lot.”

“No worries Jane. I’ve shed some tears of my own in my time. Better to let it out, you know? More room on the outside than on the inside, that’s what my grandmother used to like to say.”

“So… do you think I’m nuts?” she suddenly asked.

Without hesitation, Derrick replied, “Not at all. I wasn’t really paying that much attention to the news when the Jeffrey Woods incident took place, but I believe in small town corruption. Hell, corruption in general is pretty much the same, big or small. Honestly, I’ve always had a bad feeling about St. Tammany Parish, and I never really knew why.”

“I know what you’re saying. When we first moved here, something about the whole town gave me a bad vibe. I guess when something is this rotten, it’s pretty easy to smell it even if you aren’t actively looking for the stench.”

“Jane… I have to know, why do you insist on continuing to live here in Mandeville. You said yourself it’s corrupt and rotten. You could live anywhere, so why stay here?”

“Now you sound like Mr. Hardwick.”

“Ouch… I thought we were friends,” Derrick responded with a laugh.

“He’s always badgering me to move too. He thinks I’m in constant danger. He could be right, but I know something else too. If I move, if I give up this little piece of property that keeps me anchored in this town, then they’ll make sure I never step foot here again. It’s owning the land that keeps me rooted here. They can’t force me out.”

“And you won’t leave until the truth is exposed, right Jane?”

“Exactly. I’m close now, I can feel it, and something big is coming. As soon as Liu Woods’ interview with Newsroom, and my interview with you air, I think the next piece of this puzzle will fall into place.”

“Well, if you need anything at all, reach out to me. You’ve got my personal cell number and email address. If you run into any problems, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

“I will.”

A slight awkward silence fell between the two. Derrick felt like there was more to say, that perhaps he’d missed some of the really important questions during the lengthy interview. He wasn’t sure what he was missing here, but something still felt incomplete. He would have likely gone on staring for another minute of so if not for the his crewman peeking his head into the kitchen and informing Reynolds that the set was packed and they were ready to head back to the city.

“Okay Sid, excellent work tonight. Let the rest of the guys know that they were stellar out there,” Derrick informed his employee. Sid smiled and gave a little salute before heading out.

“Well Jane, I guess I should look at getting on the road myself. I have to go through the footage and edit this all together. Between our conversation and all of the reenactment footage, I’m going to be a busy guy for the next few days. I have to get the finished product to the network as quick as I can so that we can air the night after Newsroom.”

For a moment Jane studied Reynolds, and for just a split second, she considered offering him a room in her home tonight. Perhaps even her room. After all, he was very attractive and charming. She’d neglected so many aspects of her own life that she often wondered if she was even alive at all. Telling her story to Derrick had brought forth much emotion, most of it negative. Still though, it did give her a chance to reminisce on who she was before moving to Mandeville. She remembered having normal dreams and desires. She thought that perhaps she was in fact dedicating too much of herself to this mission of truth and vindication. Looking at Derrick Reynolds, she asked herself just how wrong would it be to just live for one night. The depravity of Mandeville would still be there for her in the morning.

“Derrick, it is pretty late, if you’d like…” Jane began, but was interrupted as Russell Hardwick entered the room. “Mr. Reynolds, I’ve taken the liberty of gathering up your remaining belongings. I’ve set them by the door. If you’d like, I can assist you to your car and see you off.”

Derrick took notice of the sudden tension. Instead of being baited by Hardwick into another argument, he turned his attention to Jane. “I should get moving. If I don’t leave now I’ll never get going. Jane, once more, thank you for letting me interview you. I promise this is going to help a lot of people.”

“Of course, I’m glad you agreed to have me as your guest.”

“I’ll email you once the final edits are finished. Be safe Jane, and remember, I got your back!”

Hardwick led Reynolds out into the foyer, where his possessions were waiting. It was only one small bag, just a couple laptops and similar media; nothing that Reynolds would require assistance with out to his car. But Hardwick wasn’t really offering help with heavy lifting, that much was too clear. Hardwick simply wanted him out.

“Thank you for the fine hospitality Russ,” Derrick snapped as Hardwick opened the front door.

“Have a pleasant evening Reynolds,” was Hardwick’s only response. He was preparing to close the front door when he was suddenly pushed aside. Jane had apparently remembered something she wanted to tell Derrick, and rushed past her stalwart defender and out into the front yard. Reynolds had to suppress a smile when he noticed the scowl form on Hardwick’s face.

“Derrick, here,” she said, handing him a small index card.

“What is this?”

“If something happens to me, I want you to call the man on this card. If he’s on the track that I think he is, then he might know more than I do by now. Just hang on to that in case, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Jane, are you sure there’s nothing else…”

“Not now, hopefully never. Just… be careful yourself.”

Derrick gently squeezed Jane’s shoulder and gave a small nod. She smiled briefly before returning to her home. Derrick climbed into his car and began to drive down the long driveway leading back to the street. He looked into his rearview mirror and wasn’t at all shocked to see Hardwick standing in the light of the still open front door, watching the car exit the property. He didn’t move until Derrick’s vehicle turned onto the street and drove out of sight.

Driving through the sleeping town of Mandeville at night gave Derrick a bad vibe. He hadn’t felt this way in some time, and honestly he’d possessed no real desire to experience it again. It wasn’t the fact that potentially dangerous elements could be watching him, perhaps even waiting to spring a trap. After the events of a few years ago, after what he’d gone through after his fateful little yacht ride down the coast of South America, he was in fact pretty hardened to typical paranoia. During the year and a half that he’d been producing and hosting Cult Hunters, he’d had a few close calls as well. Mostly your typical Internet nonsense; threatening emails, strange videos linked in his website’s comment section, cryptic walls of text that when finally cracked equated to just more scare tactics, he’d experienced it all. The major difference though was that his usual troll harassers would try to be secretive about it. They really went in deep with the ‘robes and dagger’ style of boogeyman.

Mandeville was the stark contrast to all of that. Their fear mongering and threats were very out in the open, such as the email he’d received from the city’s very own Chief of Police. The boogeymen of Mandeville didn’t seem interested in hiding behind gibberish usernames or speaking in riddles. They outright told you they didn’t like you and made it clear that they were fully prepared to make your life difficult should you step on their toes one too many times. It was that aspect of this little suburb, a town no more than 25 miles from where Derrick himself grew up. He could remember traveling over to the North Shore a few times with his parents when he was little as well. As he slowed his car to pass through the tollbooth leading to the Causeway Bridge, which spanned Lake Pontchartrain, he couldn’t help but wonder how he’d lived so close to such a sinister little community for so long without ever being aware of just how toxic it really was.

Once he was on the Causeway, which, according to his father was the longest bridge in the world at over 20 miles long, he reached for cell phone. The phone was connected to his vehicle’s audio system through Bluetooth.

“Call Clair,” Derrick spoke out loud.

“Calling Clair,” his phone replied, the voice coming through the speakers in his car.

Clair Nobles was Derrick’s best friend. They’d bonded through survival. She lived in Manhattan these days, but the two would get together about half a dozen times each year. They’d developed a bit of a tradition since Derrick started filming Cult Hunters. He’d always call her on the night of the big feature interview and give her the details of how it went. The feature interview was always the final step in the filming process, which meant that the most difficult phase of the production was over. Clair would congratulate him on wrapping another episode of his show, which to Derrick had become the real indicator that he’d completed yet another one successfully. Since the ride back to his apartment would take quite a while, he decided to call her on the drive home instead of when he got back to his place. He was getting tired, and the conversation would keep him going.

“So, how’d it go?” asked Clair, skipping the traditional ‘hello’ greeting and diving right into conversation.

“The interview was great. That girl is really something. She’s lived through some incredible shit and seems to have come out of it pretty tough.”

“Good. You know, with all this stuff on the news about this deranged serial killer cult, this might be the episode that finally propels you into primetime!”

“You think so?”

“Yes I do. Listen, this Jeff the Killer case is getting pretty major news coverage all the way up here in New York. But anyway, enough chat about stuff that you could easily Google yourself, I want to know about the interview. You know, after you told me she was going to be your next guest, I found her YouTube channel. She has some pretty wild ideas about murder pacts and hidden agendas. What was she like in person?”

“Not crazy, if that’s what you’re asking. Actually Clair, she kind of reminds me of you,” Derrick said with a chuckle.

“Oh really… How?”

“Nothing bad. Her determination though, that’s how she made me think of you. The way you’d bury yourself into things and just keep digging, slowly but surely turning over stone after stone until you eventually hit the jackpot, that’s what I think Jane is doing. She won’t leave Mandeville, despite everyone telling her it’s dangerous. I’m pretty sure she’s going to keep on digging too Clair, keep digging until she finds what she wants.”

“Fair enough, I can see how that’s an admirable trait. Now, it’s getting late, so if you’d be so kind Derrick, please tell the good Dr. Nobles all the good stuff.”

“Okay Clair, sit down and get comfortable, it’s quite an interesting story.”

Derrick retrieved a bottle of water from the center console, cracked the lid and took a sip. He cleared his throat and began to tell his closest friend all about the chain of events that eventually brought he and Jane Arkansaw into the same room.

--Jane's Story--

Jane was born in Dallas Texas in 1999, the only daughter of Drake and Elaine Arkansaw. Drake was a private investor at the time, having secured stock in some of the most valuable companies in the United States. A large man with a broad chest and a booming laugh, he was the epitome of the ‘rich Texan’ archetype. Elaine was a local journalist who spent her days writing articles on the comings and goings of the Dallas elite. Her connections with high society granted her and Drake constant access to areas of business that many envied. Her position in the media also caused potential rivals of her husband to think twice about any shady attempts at usurping the slowly rising king of commerce. Drake had a ready-made gateway to the evening news sharing a bed with him, and this made him an ever-greater force within the trading community.

Jane was their crown jewel though, and Drake made sure that the world knew just how precious his daughter was to him. She’d been a gift from God according to her mother and father; they’re perfect angel sent to earth. Elaine loved Jane, but Drake was utterly helpless to deny his daughter anything and everything she could want. People would warn him that he might be spoiling her, and when that would happen, he would simply laugh and make some joke about how his daughter was the only investment where he could lose money and still make a massive return.

What people didn’t know was that Drake was not spoiling Jane at all, but rather teaching her about the power of good money management. By the time she was 8 years old, he’d taught her all about the economy, public trading, private investing and how one could spend money to make money. Her fancy dolls, lavishly decorated bedroom and seemingly endless wardrobe of designer clothing all came from her own ability to understand her father’s trade. She’d help him choose stocks, sometimes simply on the basis of her liking the name of the company or finding the logo cute. Drake would invest, usually just a small amount as to avoid too much risk, but when the shares she told him to buy turned green on Nasdaq, he’d reward her for her wise financial decisions. These rewards were typically shopping sprees, but she impressed her parents quite often by passing on the new toy or new pair of shoes by either increasing her investment or occasionally telling her father to sell the stock. In a show of faith that would cause most moguls to go into cardiac arrest, Drake would take his daughter’s advice. If her thoughts did turn out to be poorly conceived, he would never tell her. She was always right when she’d ask him how her last investment idea did. Because of this, Jane Arkansaw was an incredibly confident thinker by the time she was 10 years old. Her bold interactions with others, especially adults, made her well liked and welcomed into many circles where children were typically not invited. Her mother and father took her with them to every fancy party, every pretentious gathering of the wealthy and even to many investor club meetings. If any snob in attendance made the mistake of sharing their opinion with Drake that perhaps he shouldn’t have brought his daughter along to such posh gatherings, said individual would quickly learn to never do it again. Drake was fiercely protective of his little girl, a lesson that rarely had to be taught more than once.

Jane was also the only person that Drake trusted without question. He would confide in her things that even Elaine was not privy to. He never worried for even a second that she would repeat anything that he told her was in private. It was this trust that led Jane to discover the tragedy that befell her family in the spring of 2012.

Elaine had not been feeling well for several months. She suffered through frequent stomachaches that could last all day and were rarely alleviated by antacids. Other times it would be lower back pain, sharp and constant. These pains would come and go though, appearing for a day or two and then vanishing again for a while. It was because of this that Elaine did not immediately seek medical treatment. It wasn’t until she found herself unable to lift a medium sized package that she’d ordered through the mail that she decided to make an appointment with her doctor.

The first trip to Dr. Higgins, long time trusted family physician, Elaine had returned with painkillers and orders to take a week off of work. She took the dope and laid about the house, her head buzzing from the opioids and her problems temporarily forgotten. However, as the pain increased and the Percocet did less and less to help her make it through the day, her concern continued to rise. On her next trip Higgins prescribed her Oxycontin. When she appeared before him two weeks later, still complaining of phantom pains, he made an admission that would eventually cost him his medical license.

He’d informed Elaine that he honestly believed she just wanted the pills and had come in making the minimal complaint to justify his writing the prescription. He’d done it for Drake many times, usually Valium if the large man said he was having trouble sleeping, sometimes Ritalin if he said that he needed more energy to work. He and her husband were close, and Drake, being a man that always shot from the hip, never wasted time pretending to need the drugs for any real necessity. He would just pull Higgins aside at the country club where they played golf sometimes and instruct his good doctor on what he needed and why. A long trip out of state with lots of important meetings would usually mean he wanted an amphetamine; a stressful week with lost sleep usually meant a depressant. Drake, with his wealth and power, never believed in mincing his words. Higgins, who knew without question that Arkansaw was a good man to have as a friend, would often write the prescription on the spot.

So when Elaine learned that her trusted family sawbones had never even examined her charts or performed any real tests, she was appalled, furious and also terrified. Higgins immediately brought her in for a full battery of testing, all done at no cost to her. He actually begged her not to tell Drake about his errors in judgment. She agreed so long as he made her better. This request would later turn out to be impossible.

Pancreatic cancer. That was the diagnosis once Higgins actually performed his duties as a doctor instead of just a drug dealer. It was far too advanced by this point. He read the chart over and over again, holding the receiver of the phone in his hand, the dial tone droning distantly. He needed to inform her, needed to follow through on his duties as a healer; however, he was terrified now. How would he explain this to her husband? In his desperation, Higgins committed a series of malpractice atrocities, all in the name of protecting himself and his clinic’s reputation.

His first act of business was to inform Elaine that she was just fine, fine as could be. Her pains, he explained, were simply caused by soft tissue damage, likely from her days of playing tennis at the country club, or perhaps from her adventures into yoga. He fluffed the story with lots of medical jargon, all intended to throw up enough smoke and keep his patient in the dark. He continued to provide her with an unlimited well of painkillers, ever increasing in strength and dosage. Somewhere in his mind he was maybe hoping that she’d become too much of a junkie to care once the inevitable truth was discovered. Higgins second order of business was to tamper with the testing. He switched labels and forged documents, all with the intent to ensure that the lab techs that tested her blood were fully blamed. He felt confident that a lab error would be a viable excuse to keep his hands clean, and should Elaine try and shout to the mountains that he’d admitted that he wasn’t correctly treating her at first, that the addiction to the pills that he was slowly orchestrating would make her words nothing more than the vociferating of a drugged out housewife.

This plan may have worked, however Higgins failed to factor in the always present appeal of gossip and sympathy. Higgins’ nurse, a young woman named Lola Cartwright who had no real faith in Higgins’ approach to medicine, became suspicious while reviewing the office charts. Elaine Arkansaw was being treated for chronic muscle and tissue inflammation with a battery of drugs that were typically reserved for cancer patients in hospice. She was well aware that the liquid morphine being prescribed was almost always given as a comfort drug when a patient was nearing the end. Cartwright knew that Higgins’ was in the pocket of many of his wealthy patients, she was aware that he and the pharmacist who filled most of his more… ambitious prescriptions were close friends who were always scratching each other’s back in someway or another. The pharmacist would receive all of the telephonic referrals, ensuring that his business was the first stop for all of Higgins’ elite patients. In return, the pharmacist did not question or report the wildly over potent drug treatments that Higgins’ provided.

Cartwright had never had any real moral objection to any of this, as her thoughts were rather utilitarian on the matter. She knew that addicts, rich or poor, would get their fix one way or another until the day they finally decided to stop, usually when they hit rock bottom. They were likely much safer getting their poison from an opulent doctor’s office than driving downtown and trying to score dope on the street. But Elaine was different somehow. She’d come in with a vague enough complaint of pain at first to make Lola believe that she was just another affluent resident of the Dallas well-to-do club looking to break up the boredom of everyday life. Then she returned though, still complaining, and then returned yet again. This didn’t fit the usual pattern, especially considering that Higgins was giving her the kind of drugs that someone faking the ailment would be happy with. Looking at Elaine’s chart now, red flags went off for Lola Cartwright. This woman was possibly sick, very sick, just looking at the slow loss in weight over her visits, weight that was once healthy and now appeared to be bordering into the danger zone. Cartwright dug deeper, and with persistence and a little luck, eventually found the paper trail leading to the intentionally switched lab results. Higgins greatest mistake had been in angering a mostly unseen member of his hospital’s staff, their janitor, a middle aged man named Roy Stumph. Stumph, who always held the door open for Higgins, who always made pleasant small talk and always shook the doctor’s hand (when Roy’s were in fact clean) had made the very human error of thinking that Higgins acknowledged him as a person. Roy’s son had become sick and the faithful janitor, confident that his employer and oath-sworn healer would examine him as a favor to a loyal member of the staff. However, when Roy brought his son to Higgins’ office on a slow Wednesday, a day that Roy had double-checked wasn’t busy for the doctor and simply asked him to take a look at his son, Higgins’ had refused. He told the janitor that he couldn’t see his son without an appointment. When Stumph offered to make one right away, Higgins changed the reasoning to the fact that the custodian’s son was not a formal patient. When asked about the process for registering the child as an official patient, Higgins became annoyed. Taking Stumph out into the hallway, Higgins informed him that he wasn’t in the right tax bracket to afford to be treated at the very clinic where he was employed. Higgins suggested perhaps a walk-in clinic or the free clinic downtown.

Stumph realized on that day that despite his years of service to Higgins, his years of loyalty to the doctor despite his abysmal pay raises and lack of formal recognition (the office Christmas card sent out to all the doctor’s patients was a large group shot of all the staff, except for Roy, who’d been asked politely to remain out of the shot) meant absolutely nothing when Stumph attempted to actually interact with his boss in a way that didn’t involve scrubbing a toilet or mopping a floor. So when Stumph came across Elaine’s discarded medical chart, a chart that indicated her real diagnosis jammed in Higgins’ paper shredder, still intact, he held on to it. He, like most everyone else, was at least partially aware that Higgins was running a pill mill of sorts. While he wasn’t sure if the paperwork in his hands could actually be useful in the future, should he need to bring a bit or reality into his boss’s life, he knew that anything his asshole employer wanted destroyed might be handy to have intact.

Stumph learned of Cartwright’s investigation when he finally got tired of her asking him to open various doors for her with his master key. When she told him that she was trying to learn more about a patient’s diagnosis, Stumph immediately picked up on her intent. She thought Higgins was up to something, and the janitor, whose son was still sick because the good doctor refused to so much as make a call on the child’s behalf, was more than gracious to help. Elaine’s chart; once meant to be shredded, but due to the damnable amount of papers that Higgins fed the machine daily, and his own refusal to empty the thing himself, now found its way into Lola’s hands; thus setting into action a chain of events that would change Jane Arkansaw’s life.

Jane entered her home on a hot August day. She’d just started the new school year, and up to this point, the 12-year-old girl would have told anyone that her life was perfect. As she dropped her backpack on the floor and kicked off her shoes, she was somewhat surprised at the absence of her mother’s daily, practically ritualistic greeting. Since Jane had started Kindergarten, if Elaine was home when her daughter returned from school, the question of ‘how was class today?’ would ring out through the house. Jane assumed that her mother was perhaps napping and called out to her.

“Mom? Are you home?”

Shuffling of feet could be heard from the second floor of their house. From what Jane could tell, it sounded like two sets of feet. Her dad’s heavy footsteps were unmistakable. She was surprised that he was home though. She could count on one hand the amount of times she’d seen Drake before 5PM on a weekday. Although nothing at all indicated any real problem, something didn’t sit right with the girl. A sense of wrongness seemed to sit heavy in the air. She felt a little silly, feeling worry over a lack of greeting and her dad’s footsteps, but she could not deny that the feeling was present.

Jane skipped the kitchen, which was her normal first stop after the removing of her backpack and shoes. Instead she climbed the stairs, intent on making sure her parents weren’t in some sort of danger. That feeling wasn’t passing, and an urge to check on them continued to blossom within her. Once she ascended to the second story of the home, her fear increased. Her parents’ bedroom door was closed. This was rare to see during the day. Elaine believed that closing doors would cause the rooms to get stuffy, something her grandmother had instilled into her. Occasionally they’d close their door at night, and Jane’s friend Lynette had delighted in telling her the most likely reason why. Jane remembered giggling uncontrollably that day. Now though, she couldn’t muster any form of good cheer. The closed door, the two sets of feet, the lack of greeting, it was all coming together in Jane’s mind, making its own narrative for her.

Arriving at the door, Jane attempted the turn the knob. Her parents had never objected to her coming into the room before, so she thought nothing of it being an issue now. The door though, was locked. Now Jane’s sense of dread was accelerating in its constant expansion. Never had she encountered a locked door in her home. Desperate to know the truth, she raised her hand without further hesitation and knocked.

“Mom, are you in there?” she asked through the oak barrier.

She heard whispers from the other side, both clearly belonging to her mother and father. Elaine’s muffled words sounded harsh and scared. Drake whispered something back, his voice slightly more dotted with the tone of reason. A moment later, the door opened and her father’s red and damp eyes greeted Jane. She’d never seen him cry, not once. Before now, she wasn’t even sure he could.

“Let’s take a walk Janey,” her father stated immediately. Jane could faintly hear her mother’s soft, delicate cries of sadness from beyond the partially opened door.

“Dad… what’s wrong with mom? Is she alright?”

“No she isn’t,” Drake replied.

Jane and her father walked for over an hour. From their front door and through the maze of connecting walking paths and intersections, Drake explained Elaine’s condition to his stunned daughter. She was in a state of shock. She did not cry that day, she did not try and barter with God that night when she closed her eyes and tried to find sleep. She went to school, came home and went to bed. Her mother would ask daily if she and Jane could take a walk of their own, and each and everyday Jane would politely decline. It was not that she was angry at her mother, it was that she was afraid to embrace the grief that was building up behind the thin defensive membrane of normalcy. Jane could feel the weight of the pain, and knew that to let it in might possibly kill her.

Three months passed. Elaine’s health collapsed faster than expected. An at-home nurse was brought in when Jane’s mother could no longer care for herself. Drake was always home now. Jane still avoided spending any extended time with her mother. Jane believed in her heart that her mom would recover. Despite what her logical mind knew to be truth, she continued to put off spending long periods of time with Elaine because she believed she could make all that time up once her mother was healthy again.

In December of 2012, a week after Jane’s 13th birthday, a day that is typically a milestone in a child’s life, Elaine Arkansaw died in her sleep. Jane later discovered that Elaine had given their at-home nurse strict instructions to not attempt to resuscitate should she begin to go. She was in too much pain.

Jane finally broke down on the night following Elaine’s funeral. She’d been sitting in her bedroom, just allowing her mind to wander where it wanted. She’d held up well at the funeral, she’d kept it together in a far more stoic manner than her father. He’d cried all that day; loud, barking moans of misery. He’d cried that night when they returned home. Jane’s resolve finally broke when her mind, wandering much on its own, found its way to Elaine’s requests to take a walk with Jane. She’d asked so many times when she was still strong enough to take a walk. After that, once she was bedridden, she’d asked Jane if she’d sit with her, read with her or maybe just lie next to her. Jane, still afraid of the black sea of anguish being held back, had done the minimal. She’d sat with her mother for short periods of time, but never did she just exist with her. She’d tell her mother about her life, about school and friends and whatever else she asked about, but the long and meaningful conversations that Elaine craved were never provided. On Jane’s birthday, Elaine had offered to sing to her that night. This was a birthday tradition that, for 12 of Jane’s 13 years, had always taken place when Jane would tuck in for the evening. Elaine would sing a sweet and simple version of ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ This was Jane’s favorite song as a child, and Elaine would sing it to her occasionally, but on birthdays it had always been sung as Jane prepared to fall asleep.

Elaine had requested that Jane come to her room and sleep next to her that night. Jane did not want to hurt her mother, so she’d agreed. However, as Jane settled into bed for the evening on her first official night as a teenager, she chose to simply fall asleep alone, forgoing the song. At some point she remembered Drake trying to wake her up, telling her that her mother wanted to see her before she fell asleep. His daughter decided instead to simply mumble back some inarticulate response and pretend as though she were sleeping particularly heavy. She still remembered the miserable sound of desperate pain that escaped her father’s mouth as he realized he’d have to tell his dying wife that Jane was already asleep.

All of this and more came crashing down on Jane in one massive break as she lay on her bed, still wearing the dark dress that she’d chosen to bury her mother in. She felt her face suddenly become flushed with heat. That heat coursed down throughout her body. Shame, regret, agony; all of these emotions flooded her at once. Even calling it a flood wouldn’t be totally correct. Flood implies that the pain would have rushed in over a period of time, filling and taking over in progression. What Jane felt was harder to explain. It was as if the emotions were absent one moment and then all there, all present and packed to capacity in the next. No progression, no gradual sensation of this sadness slowly eclipsing the melancholy, almost apathy that she’d used to shield her self from this attack starting on the very day that she learned her mother was sick.

She sat up from her bed quickly, as though she feared she could physically drown in the depression that was swelling over her mind. “I didn’t take the walk,” she whispered to herself. “She wanted me to take a walk with her and I kept saying not today, I kept saying maybe tomorrow…”

‘I didn’t take the walk.’ This phrase repeated over and over again in her mind, becoming some sort of poisonous mantra. She stood from her bed and began to pace, now saying the line out loud. She walked back and forth around her bedroom, but soon began to feel claustrophobic. The walls were too close, the ceiling was too low and the light being cast from her desk lamp was suddenly too dim.

The tears came next as she finally released the hopelessness and desperation that had been collecting in her heart. “Oh God mom I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t walk with you. I’m so sorry that I didn’t let you sing to me, I’m so…”

She fell to the floor and sobbed, her long black hair falling over her face. She felt pressure begin to build within her chest, as though the chaotic storm within her would burst from her body. She stood again, this time running to her bedroom door. She couldn’t stay here; she couldn’t be in this house right now. The bedroom where her mother died was right across the hallway. The kitchen where she watched the bottles of various pills pile-up as Elaine’s sickness worsened was right below her feet. Jane knew that there were still objects within this very house that her mother had personally placed. A pen that Elaine had uncapped, never to be recapped by the same woman again sat on the small desk within Jane’s own bedroom.

Jane ran out into the hallway, intending to flee into the night. She didn’t know where she would go, but she didn’t care about that right now. Her only goal in life was to create distance from where she was right now. She made it down the stairs, fighting to see through the tears that blurred her vision when she was suddenly stopped cold in her tracks. She saw Drake, her father and only remaining parent, sitting at their computer desk busy writing something out on paper. Next to him was a bottle of the liquid morphine that Elaine had been prescribed. She observed a pile of pills that had been poured on the desk. She could hear him crying.

“Dad… what are you doing?”

Drake looked up, startled from his focus. She noticed that he was wearing ear buds, and when she looked at the computer monitor, saw that he had been watching home movies that he had filmed and saved onto their computer. The video currently on display showed Elaine and her daughter painting Jane’s bedroom wall. She remembered that day, the day she decided that pink was no longer the color she wanted to see on her walls every morning when she woke up.

Drake removed the ear buds. “Janey, I was just watching some old movies,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Why do you have those?” she asked, pointing at the painkillers and the morphine bottles.

“Oh, I was just looking at them, you know, something to remember Elaine and…”

“Let me see what you’re writing!” Jane demanded, her voice suddenly filled with a concerned anger instead of the desperate sounds of desolation.

“No… it’s just work stuff, you wouldn’t want to read it…”

“Give it to me!” Jane shouted, and before Drake could react, his daughter grabbed the paper.

She read it, occasionally lowering the sheet of notebook paper to give her father a harsh look of disgust.

“You fucking asshole,” she whispered.

“Jane, no, I wasn’t really…”

“You were going to kill yourself? Tonight! You were going to leave me here alone! You selfish fucking bastard! What would I do if I lost both of you? What would I do then?”

Her father only stared forward, his hands dropped to the sides of the chair. It seemed as though he’d simply shut down. Jane threw aside Drake’s intended suicide letter and started grabbing the bottles of morphine from the desk. She scooped the small collection of Oxycontin into her hand as well. Drake set motionless as his daughter walked into the kitchen and activated the disposal in the sink. She poured the morphine and pills down that drain as the machine did its job within the pipes, grinding the would-be mechanisms of her father’s death into dust.

“Is there more?” Jane shouted at Drake as she walked back to him.

“I don’t know,” he softly replied.

“Don’t lie to me, you were the one that picked them up for her! Where’s the rest, show me!”

And so it was; that on the night of Elaine’s funeral, her husband and daughter went about flushing her remaining medications away. When they were finished, Jane led her father to the living room sofa and sat him down.

“I never got to take that last walk with her,” she said to her father.

“I know Jane… and I understand why you were being distant. It killed me everyday to watch her waste away like that. I didn’t want you to have to go through it with me.”

“But daddy… she just wanted to spend time with me, she just wanted to sing to me on my birthday… I denied her of those things, and now she’s gone.”

“Jane, she knew. She didn’t think you were avoiding her. She and I talked about it many times. She understood perfectly well that you were trying to stay above water. She never once went to bed thinking that you’d intentionally refused her company.”

Drake’s words gave his daughter just enough of a break in her guilt to allow a small bit of hope to seep back in. “On your birthday, she still sang you the song. You were asleep, so she called my phone from hers, and I brought it in and sat it on your pillow. She sang the whole thing. Here, listen.”

Drake picked up his cell phone and selected from the audio files. He’d recorded the call. He pushed play, and for the next 30 seconds, the Arkansaw living room was alive with the voice of Elaine, singing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ from her bed.

Jane hugged her father hard, tears flowing once more, soaking into his shirt. That night, Jane and her dad sat up until almost sunrise talking. They told stories about Elaine, watched home movies and when the need to shed tears would return, they did so together.

Three years passed. During that time, Jane and her father grew closer, behaving more as equals than father and daughter. During that time, Dr. Higgins had been stripped of his medical license and was currently spending a few long, hard years in prison for his intentional withholding of Elaine’s diagnosis, with a couple more years added on for running the drug mill. Drake took some time away from work to grieve his wife, and when he returned, he did so with a vengeance. He continued to make wise and profitable investments, often time with his daughter’s assistance. Jane was well liked at school, sought after by boys and feared by her competition as she championed the debate team. So, on yet another warm August day, as Jane returned home from school, dropping her backpack and kicking off her shoes, she once again walked into news that would change her life.

“Louisiana?” she’d asked for probably the fourth time during the conversation.

“Yes ma’am! I was contacted by a representative for one rich dumbass named Maxwell Hayden; seems Mr. Dumbass screwed the pooch something wild down there and has to sell off his portion of Falstaff Industries. Turns out he wants to sell it to me!”

“Hayden, that’s the guy whose son is tied up in the murders, right? That’s the one with the psycho kid that butchered his parents, right?”

“His parents as well as a few others. Apparently Hayden has to go into police protection. He’s moving and wants to sell off his big share of the business. My guess is that none of the current members of that company’s ‘head shed’ want to take the reigns. Too much bad press on ‘em at the moment.”

“So they’re looking to bring in someone from the outside… Makes sense, you always told me that a new broom sweeps clean, I guess you’re that new broom.”

“Seems like it. I haven’t said yes yet. I wanted to see what your thoughts were.”

Jane stared off at nothing in particular for a few moments. “Dad, maybe this could be a good thing. You told me that they’re offering you 35% of the company right? I mean, that’s pretty great. Plus I’ve always wanted to live in New Orleans. All the culture there; might be fun.”

“Well, it won’t be New Orleans exactly. It’s a little town about 20 or so miles away called Mandeville. From what I’ve read, it’s supposed to be a real quiet place, nice and easy down there.”

While Drake had been explaining Mandeville to his daughter, she’d taken out her phone and done a couple Google searches. “Holy shit dad! Oops, sorry, I mean, well… holy shit! Falstaff is worth a fortune right now. They sort of have a fat lip at the moment because of Hayden, but the company is way to big to fold up over night. Plus Hayden’s crimes were more personal, so this isn’t an Enron situation.”

“So you’re saying you want to go for it?” Drake asked his daughter.

“I don’t know, yes… if we can move into the home of the psycho kid! Apparently no one has lived there since the incident!”

“Why would you want to move there? Seems a bit morbid, doesn’t it?”

“Dad… I was kidding!”

So, on a bright and sunny morning in October, with the cool Louisiana breeze gently applying a coat of comfort over the lush tree lined street, Drake and Jane Arkansaw pulled into the driveway of their new home in Mandeville. A little over a year ago, another family had also pulled their U-Haul truck into that very same driveway. That family was gone now. Two were dead, one was missing and the other living with relatives, waking up everyday to the knowledge that his older brother and best friend was in fact a serial killer.

Over the next few weeks, Jane found herself in love with living in Mandeville. It was beautiful, peaceful and simple; a stark contrast to growing up in the metropolitan concrete jungle that was Dallas Texas. The night sky was riddled with stars, and Jane found herself often staring out of her bedroom window at night, lost in the beauty of the twinkling heavenly bodies. The neighborhood they’d moved into also featured a lot of wooded areas with paths and trails to walk on, and she’d discovered a love of exploring those places that she never knew existed. Living within the same walls as the infamous Woods family also carried a thrill to her that she didn’t quite want to come out and admit. She wasn’t sure if her bedroom had belonged to Jeffrey or Liu, but either way there was a strange morbid thrill to it. Jane hesitated on expressing this to Drake, as she feared he might think she was dwelling on less than savory elements, but her strange fascinations did open up her artistic side in ways that delighted and thrilled her. Jane asked her father for a quality camera and he’d stayed true to his tradition of showering his daughter with the best by purchasing her a Canon AE-1, a top of the line tool in the field of photography. She’d also found a love for journalism and writing that she had only dabbled in back in Dallas. Jane was home alone most days now, as her father was slowly working his way into the Mandeville world of business and power. He was home late most nights and would spend several hours on the phone with both new and old business affiliates as he conquered his new arena one dollar at a time.

On many of these days when Jane was alone, she’d go into the master bedroom and simply ponder the magnitude of where she stood. Even though the blood on the walls had long been cleaned and painted over, she knew that the room she stood in was the very place where Jeffrey Woods took a knife to his parents; and in a baptism of blood and rage transformed into Jeff the Killer.

“This is where it all happened,” Jane announced out loud to the empty room. She was panning her camcorder around the walls. “On a tragic night during the late summer months of 2015, Jeffrey Woods entered this very bedroom and murdered his mother and father. He would then say farewell to his little brother Liu Woods before leaving the home forever. He would go on to kill four more people, including the police officer who whitewashed the crimes of Randy Hayden, a journalist who Jeff requested an interview with and finally two other kids who’d taken part in his disfigurement.”

She paired her camcorder to her computer and transferred the files. She watched her little presentation and found that she wanted to do more. Perhaps make a movie or documentary of sorts. The artistic calling was stronger now and Jane wanted to follow that calling. Her father had raised her to be bold and follow her heart. So, without questioning her actions too deeply, Jane opened her Internet browser and brought up YouTube. She’d never uploaded videos before, but she’d never really felt she had anything worth posting. Now she did. She was living in the home of Jeff the Killer and felt as though this was something the world would take interest in. Drake always taught her, ‘Give the people what they want, that’s the most important rule in business.’

Now here she was, 17 years old and living in what was probably the most famous house in this little town. “I need a good channel name,” she thought to herself, and began to brainstorm. After considerable failed ideas, such as ‘Jane Explains It All’ or ‘The Arkansaw Files’ she finally had her eureka moment.

“Jane of Arc… I love it!” she said to herself as she created the YouTube channel. She clicked the upload button and prepared the little video of the master bedroom to go online. For a moment she sat there in hesitation. Something in her said not to post it, that it could perhaps be viewed in bad taste, or it might cause the other kids at her new school, kids that she was still trying to fit in with and were just now starting to accept her to think she was some sort of freak. She also didn’t want to damage her father’s ability to succeed at his new post. She knew that the residents of Mandeville were not big fans of those who spread the Jeff propaganda, and she didn’t want to be that thorn in her father’s side. She decided that moderation was the key and changed the picture on her YouTube avatar. Originally it was a picture of her face, just some flattering little selfie that she’d taken in downtown Dallas a few months back. She quickly searched through her collection of photographs and soon found a picture that was just generic enough to keep her identity somewhat safe but also unique enough to stand out. It was a picture of one of those Mardi Gras masks, one that just covered the eyes. She’d taken it on her first week here, when her father had finally buckled to her constant requests to go to the French Quarter and explore New Orleans a bit more. Drake had given Jane his Amex card and told her to get whatever she’d like. The tourist friendly merchandise did not appeal to Jane much, but she liked the masks enough to take a few snap shots. Thus, her first ever YouTube avatar was a simple black mask, a symbol of mystery perhaps, and what was Jeff the Killer these days if not one massive mystery. Jane uploaded her video to the world and quickly set off to collect more content for her channel. She had no idea the events that she’d set into motion that day would carry gruesome life altering consequences.

Jane dressed and stepped out into the chilly late morning air. The weather had been great down here and something in that crisp fall breeze helped to awaken Jane’s artistic endeavors even further. Plus, she finally had an excuse to wear her trendy autumn attire and expensive boots that the heat of Dallas had rarely permitted. There would soon exist for her a future where looking cute was no longer a part of the daily regiment, but at this point in her life, Jane was still able to enjoy being a young woman and celebrate the many nuances of that station. She stood on her porch and debated between taking her car or walking.

“Jeff and Liu were riding bikes,” she thought to herself, “but I don’t have a bike. If I want to see what they saw on that first little outing of theirs, I suppose I’ll have to walk.”

Jane set out, her new camera in hand; snapping pictures of whatever caught her interest as she went. She was a fast walker by nature and even with frequent stops to photograph a tree or a mailbox that might catch her eye, she found herself standing in the Village Shopping Center soon enough. She snapped a few pictures of the parking lot, the very place where Randy Hayden first encountered Jeffrey Woods. She turned her lens towards the storefront of Friendly Video, which was still open at this time despite its infamy. In her euphoric trance of exploration, she didn’t even notice the pedestrians giving her strange looks as they walked about the other storefronts in the shopping center. She entered the video store. There was a woman of perhaps her very early 20’s behind the counter. Jane pondered if this was the very same clerk that called the police when Jeff and Randy’s friends were fighting. The daughter of Drake Arkansaw was not someone who wasted time pondering such easily attainable questions, and with a confident stride approached the counter.

“Hi, good morning,” Jane said as the clerk met her eyes.

“Good morning, looking for anything in particular?” was the employee’s response.

“Maybe… it’s really cool that you guys are here. All of our video stores shut down in Dallas. Death by Netflix I guess.”

“We have a pretty loyal customer base out here, people have been renting from us for years. I think we’re pretty safe,” the clerk replied, and Jane sensed a touch of defensive undertone in her words.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” As Jane completed this request, she saw a look come over the clerk’s face and could almost read her mind. Clearly the woman behind the counter knew that Jane was new to the area, after all, she did just say that she was from Dallas, and she’d never been seen here before. Friendly Video no doubt was a centerpiece of the Jeffrey Woods incident, and Jane had no doubt that this establishment was well aware of their association. She almost considered withdrawing her question or perhaps even playing it off as just a inquiry about a certain movie, but her heart pumped with motivation and much like her father, she was not one to be denied.

“Let me guess, Jeff,” the woman asked.

“You read my mind!”

“What can I tell you that you can’t just read about on the Internet? Why do all you new people always want to ask about it anyway? Don’t they have murders in Dallas?”

“I’m not trying to be rude, I just wanted to ask you what it was like to actually witness the catalyst for such a crazy situation?”

“Listen, let me give you a some advice. Don’t ask people about Jeff the Killer, don’t talk about it, don’t even worry about it. It’s ancient history as far as the people around are concerned. It’s bad enough we have a bunch of idiots dressing up like that maniac like it’s some sort of club!”

Jane’s eyes grew wide with sudden excitement, “Wait, what?”

“I guess you haven’t heard about Shortcut Road? Yeah, some group of idiot kids go out there on some nights and hang out in the abandoned houses. They call themselves Jeff’s Killers. Hard to believe how stupid some people are. Mostly just outcasts that got their heads dunked in toilets by the football team everyday, so they found some sort of hero in Jeffrey Woods. It’s pathetic if you ask me.”

Jane was no longer interested in the video store, “You say they meet somewhere called Shortcut Road?”

“Yeah, but don’t go out there. Those people are scary!” the clerk answered, but Jane was already heading towards the door. She had the next step to her project and had no time to waste here.

Jane powerwalked back to her house; no longer concerned about taking pictures and quickly signed back on to her computer. She searched Jeff’s Killer in Mandeville and was amazed at what she found. The video store employee had not been kidding, there really were people that went out to some trashy neighborhood in the boonies and dressed up as the psycho kid himself. She found YouTube videos of them hanging out, talking about how Jeff the Killer had changed the natural course of society. They seemed to view him as some sort of hero, a champion to the underdog. Jane could tell just by looking the collection of oddballs that filled the ranks of Jeff’s Killers that the store clerk had likely been at least partially correct about them being the victims of bullying. Many chubby faces scattered with pimples were present, kids that likely had to put up with abuse from their peers on a daily basis. Randy Hayden and his friends may have harassed some of them personally. It was no wonder that this flock of misfits viewed the Jeff as some sort of bully-slaying savior. She was slightly disgusted by them but she was far too enthralled to let that stop her from continuing her little project for ‘Jane of Arc.’ She researched the location of Shortcut Road and decided that she had to head out there and see Jeff’s Killers for herself. Jane began to gather a few more supplies for her little adventure, ensuring that she’d have the tools needed for a successful trip into the lair of the strange.

It was around 2PM that Saturday when Jane pulled onto the gravel street that was Shortcut Road. Her Toyota Rav4, a gift from her father that was promised if she could go a year without any speeding tickets or accidents came to a stop once she confirmed that she was in the right place. From behind the wheel she could see that this little street had not been cared for in a long time. Weeds and grass grew high from the open ditches that lined either side. She could vaguely make out a few short chain-linked fences that ran in front of some very old, clearly abandoned houses. Many of these homes featured broken windows, decaying frames and front doors that had been either kicked in or removed completely a very long time ago. Jane adjusted her camcorder, which was mounted to her dashboard and began to slowly cruise down the gravel mess that passed as a street out here.

Jane began to narrate her video as she continued down the road at a snail’s pace. “This is Shortcut Road. According to the woman at Friendly Video as well as various Internet sources, a group of fanatical young residents hold regular meetings here, allegedly to pay homage to infamous serial killer, Jeffrey Woods, known in the media as Jeff the Killer.”

As she drove on, Jane began to have a sensation of being watched. The blighted homes along the street seemed to have too many windows, all broken out and dark within. The open doors on porches and walkways also kept their contents hidden in the shadows. Despite her best effort to tell herself that she was just being paranoid, she could not dismiss that feeling of eyes upon her. It was heavy and working overtime to break her confident resolve to embrace her new hobby.

She eventually reached the end of the street, which stopped abruptly as the gravel met the overgrown mess of weeds and grass that bordered the woods beyond. She’d have to back up now. Looking around she marked two options, either drive backwards all the way to the intersection of Shortcut Road and the pothole ridden pavement of Ganson Street which provided the only way in or out of this place, or back into one of the remains of a driveway, hoping to God that she didn’t pop a tire on some unseen nail hiding in the grass. Jane cringed at the thought of having to exit her car out here and change a flat. Even in the bright sunlight this place had managed to work its magic and was now giving her a full on case of the creeps. That feeling of being watched had not passed, and as she debated on how to turn her car around, her mind did her no favors as it created bullet points for many rumors she’d read online just a little over an hour ago.

Cult members, devil worshipers, serial killer fanatics and angst filled misfits dressing as a murderer all danced in her head. She decided to take the risk of backing into a driveway to right her car’s position, and as she turned her head to navigate the maneuver, she suddenly caught sight of a face in one of the dark windows. It was only there for a moment before it appeared to duck out of view, but Jane knew what she saw. She saw a pale face, a scar along the cheek and one solid white eye, the face that had once dominated the news, both in print and television. Snapping her head back forward, she caught sight of another, this one in the woods before her, standing behind the overgrown grass, staring forward. This one wore the same disguise, same scar and eye, and just as its companion had done before, it quickly ducked away.

Jane’s nerves began to get the best of her as she quickly dropped her car into reverse and swung in a backwards arc; taking little time to ensure the remains of the driveway behind her wouldn’t damage her vehicle. She decided that if she were to get a flat tire, she’d simply drive on the rim until she was somewhere safe. A ruined wheel was a fair price to pay to be very far away from this run down neighborhood and its unsettling little inhabitants. She reversed into the driveway when suddenly a loud thud struck the side of her car. She looked in the direction of the noise and saw several rocks coasting through the air before three more loud impacts followed.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Jane snapped as she jerked her steering wheel to the left and accelerated forward. For a split second she thought that she’d successfully maneuvered, but suddenly felt terror grip her as the left rear side of her car slumped down slightly and her forward momentum was halted. She realized that her rear tire had found its way into one of the open ditches.

A chorus of deafening impacts suddenly surrounded Jane as more objects were pelted towards her vehicle. A stone impacted with her windshield, just a couple feet from her face, causing cracks to spider web across her field of vision. She applied more pressure to the gas pedal and felt her car attempt to lurch forward. She was doing her best to fight the panic that was building within her core. The panic demanded that Jane floor the pedal, as more gas meant more power and more power meant freedom from the ditch. However, Jane’s logical mind held firm, reminding her that should she miscalculate her velocity, she could easily wind up in the ditch on the other side of the street, perhaps with both of her front tires trapped instead of just one. That would be an impossible escape without a tow truck, and as more rocks found their targets, Jane knew that this was her only chance. She depressed the gas pedal slowly, gently increasing the power. She could feel the other tires working to liberate the fourth from the ditch. She knew it was just a matter of patience and not… POW!

The loudest impact yet rang out from behind her. She looked into her rearview mirror and saw a horrible face staring at her through her rear window. The scar, the eye and now a smile gazed at her as she still worked to move her car forward. She could also see two more people, both wearing the same disguise on their faces moving out from the abandoned homes and slowly stalking towards her car. The thuds of rocks striking her vehicle had stopped, but were replaced by something worse. She could hear the unmistakable ‘click-pop’ of hands trying to open the back hatch. It was pulling the handle in a frantic method that Jane knew was being applied to effect. The stranger behind her car would jerk the handle back with force and let it pop back into place while simultaneously pounding on the glass.

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Jane screamed without looking back. She considered slamming her car into reverse and letting her license plate, still representing Texas, be the last thing the fucker saw, but she knew that wouldn’t work, she’d only bury her tire deeper into the ditch that way. Instead she stayed on task, and after what seemed an eternity felt elation as her Rav4 righted itself back on the street, pointing in the direction of freedom. She began to pull forward when a new sound exploded right behind her, the sound of shattering glass. Jane could see through her mirror that all three assailants were now at the rear of her car, one of which was holding a crowbar, no doubt used to shatter the window.

In what appeared to be slow motion Jane saw one of them attempt to climb into her car. Her reaction was immediate. She knew that flooring the gas would cause her Toyota to likely spin in place on the gravel and would not provide the forward momentum to throw the intruder to the ground. Additionally, such a move could lead to her losing control of the vehicle and potentially winding up in a worse spot than she had previously been trapped. Instead she reached into the space between her center console and passenger seat and retrieved one of the tools that she’d brought alone with her for this trip. Jane, despite her youth, was not a dumb girl in any way. She’d anticipated the potential of encountering someone out here, although she hadn’t expected such a sudden and violent reaction. Regardless, she’d come prepared, and as the heavy breathing of the maniac grew louder as he attempted to propel himself completely into her back seat, Jane reached down into her center console and retrieved a black cylindrical can. Police Magnum Pepper Spray was printed on the can, which had been bought for Jane under her father’s insistence a few months ago while still in Dallas. There had been a string of assaults and other violent crimes reported in close proximity to Drake’s gated Dallas neighborhood, and since Jane was driving at this point and spending a lot of time away from home in the evening, he’d made her promise to carry the spray with her. Jane was now very grateful at her father’s somewhat over-vigilant protectiveness as she flipped the top back on the can, took aim and pressed down the button.

She had time to see her attacker’s eyes widen in sudden realization of what exactly was aimed at him. His two companions, clearly arriving at the same realization, had backed away. The costumed freak tried to back out, but he’d already climbed too far in, and his pants were snagging on the shards of broken glass still protruding from the read window. The can discharged and Jane watched with satisfaction as the thick foam coated his face. The hooligan let out a cry of pain and panic as he clutched his hands over his eyes in a vain attempt to wipe away the burning chemical. In doing so he was only succeeding in rubbing the pepper spray deeper into his skin. Jane, without taking her eyes off of him, began to drive forward, slowly increasing her speed. The wailing man tried to climb out carefully, given his current state, but as the Rav4 gained speed and the man’s face burned ever deeper, he found no grace in his escape, falling out and landing hard on his back, the pointy rocks of the gravel road providing additional retribution for Jane Arkansaw.

Finally Jane was able to safely turn from Shortcut Road back onto Ganson. She rolled all of her windows down to air out the residue from her pepper spray, as she could feel a slight stinging in her own eyes just from being close. This made her smile a bit, knowing that the asshole currently twitching on the gravel road was without a doubt in a far greater deal of agony.

She dialed her father’s cell phone, praying that he’d pick up. Even as she was slowly merging back into civilization, the many wooded lots and shadowy alcoves that lined the streets caused her to relapse into that sensation of dread she’d felt back on Shortcut Road. She was washed with a palpable sense of relief when her father’s deep and powerful voice answered the phone.

“Janey, what’s up?” he’d asked in good cheer.

“Daddy… I was attacked!”

The good-natured tone of Drake Arkansaw’s voice vanished so quickly it was as if it never existed.

An hour later, as the bright day evolved into a dim twilight, Jane and Drake Arkansaw sat behind the desk of Mandeville Police Chief Mitchell Hardy. Jane had driven immediately to the police station as she informed her father of the incident. He’d told her he was on his way. Jane was greeted by a uniformed officer who began the task of generating the police report, asking various questions, some that seemed compassionate towards her ordeal, others that seemed accusatory.

“Why were you out there? What kind of pepper spray did you use? Did you let anyone know you were going out there alone?” Those were the questions the officer pelted Jane with, causing her to feel slightly guilty, although she’d done nothing illegal.

It was about 15 minutes before Drake arrived that a man wearing a suit and a badge pinned to his belt entered the room and tapped the interviewing officer on the shoulder.

“I’m going to take this young woman’s report personally,” the gentleman stated, and the uniformed cop withdrew his hands from the keyboard without question.

“Follow me ma’am,” the man in the suit said in a fashion that was more of an order than a request. Jane, who’d never had a bad encounter with the police and was too shaken up emotionally to feel anything other than the relief of being far away from that gravel road with its deserted homes, did not think anything odd of the situation. She followed him into his office without a second thought.

Once they were both seated, he behind his desk and Jane in the chair facing him, the man introduced himself.

“I’m Chief Mitchell Hardy. I wanted to speak with you myself about this… encounter you had on Shortcut Road.”

“I was attacked by people dressed up as Jeff the Killer. They broke my window and one of them was trying to climb in the back. He had a crowbar and…”

“Ah yes, Jeff’s Killers they call themselves. Bunch of juvenile delinquents if you ask me, but they’ve never caused much trouble out there before. Tell me ummm,” Hardy hesitated while looking down at a scrap of paper that he’d written some information on, “Jane, right?”

“Yes, Jane Arkansaw.”

“Okay, tell me Jane, what were you doing out there alone? I make it my business to know the people out here, and I’m pretty sure you’re a new face in town. You weren’t going out there to hang out with those guys, were you? Maybe smoke a little pot? Do you smoke pot Jane?”

Jane’s face twisted in a look of annoyance and building anger. She’d read about all the corruption surrounding the Woods murders. She knew all about the cop, Williamson, the one that was murdered. She was struck by the audacity of this man, asking her if she was looking to smoke weed after she was viciously threatened and almost personally assaulted less than an hour prior.

“What kind of stupid question is that? No, I don’t smoke pot, but what the hell does that…”

“Listen young lady, don’t get defensive. Actually, I am a bit more interested in seeing that canister of pepper spray you mentioned. You’re a minor Jane, and you do know that by law you have to be 18 years old to possess it, right?”

“Oh my God…” Jane stated in a voice that bordered between amused sarcasm and out right rage. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s what you’re worried about?”

“Now listen girl, I’ve already warned you about that little attitude! One more outburst like that and…”

“And what?” a voice suddenly inquired in a loud, deep and demanding fashion.

“Dad! Thank God!” Jane shouted as Drake Arkansaw entered the office, accompanied by another man dressed in expensive business attire.

Drake turned his intense eyes upon Hardy, “Just what in hell do you think you’re doing to my daughter? We heard you outside the door, she was just attacked and you’re asking about pepper spray and smoking dope! Let me tell you…”

Her father’s companion gently placed his hand on the large man’s shoulder, halting Drake’s tirade.

“Allow me,” the man spoke in an educated voice. “Chief Hardy, my name is Russell Hardwick. I am Mr. Arkansaw’s attorney, and starting now, also Jane’s. I’d like to ask you a couple questions myself.”

Hardy began to speak again, but Hardwick quickly spoke over him, regaining control of the conversation.

“Chief Hardy, you are clearly aware that Miss Arkansaw is a minor, you openly confessed that when you began to interrogate her about the pepper spray. With your admission of knowledge, why was a minor interrogated without a parent present or lawyer present?”

“Now listen Mr. Hardwick, this was not an interrogation but rather a matter of great interest, the Jeff’s Killers cult out there has been a long standing public nuisance and…”

Hardwick spoke over him again, “So, if the criminals who attacked my client’s automobile as well as threatened her life are of such great concern to you, why were you more interested in marijuana and pepper spray? If they are of such great concern to you, then you’ve surely dispatched police units out to their location by now, correct?”

“Well,” Hardy began to stammer, his face now red, “we’re in the process of gathering the facts, hence why I was personally seeing to Miss Arkansaw’s safety by…”

“By accusing her of using illegal substances and possessing a can of pepper spray that likely saved her life?”

Hardy, realizing that he was clearly bested, went into ‘damage control’ mode. “I sincerely apologize for the way I handled the interview. The murders committed by Jeffrey Woods last year are something that most of us around here are trying to forget and move on from. Those kids out there on Shortcut Road are a constant roadblock for our progress in healing as a community; and that’s something we can all agree is a problem I hope. Typically when I see someone around Jane’s age snooping around out there, it’s because they’re trying to join up with them or something. I’m very sorry for jumping to that conclusion. I’ll immediately dispatch patrol cars to that area and hopefully we can catch them and bring them to justice.”

Hardwick smiled thinly, “Your apology is not accepted Chief, and I will discuss with both of my clients, father and daughter, the possible need to file a complaint against you to the State.”

Drake took his daughter home. She stopped at her car only to grab her camera from the dashboard mount. Drake arranged a tow truck to bring the SUV straight to the mechanic to replace the rear window and assess any damage done to the body by the rocks. Hardwick followed them home in his own car, and they continued the conversation at home.

“I want Hardy fucking sued!” Drake demanded as they all sat down in his living room. “He had no right to treat Jane that way, he was way out of line! The nerve of the punk, trying to make her out to be the criminal here.”

“Relax sir, this is actually a very good thing,” Hardwick calmly answered.

“How? How was any of that a good thing?” Jane demanded, trying to keep her emotions in check but finding her fuse to be quite short after the events of this day.

“How? Simple, we own that fucking asshole now; excuse my French if you will. See, on the ride back, I called and informed Chief Hardy that you’d had your cellphone recording the entire conversation. He was just about in tears when he went into explaining how this was his first year as Chief, and he only had the town’s best interest at heart and blah, blah, blah.”

“But… but I didn’t record that, I wish I had, but I didn’t even think they would ambush me like that.”

“Doesn’t matter Jane, what matters is that he thinks you recorded him. He’s already terrified that we’re going to file a formal complaint against him. After the media disaster that was Maxwell Hayden’s little dirty dealings with the Mandeville Police, Hardy is terrified of bad press. I’d bet you a million dollars that he acted the way he did because your complaint involved those weird cult kids out there. I promise you he was never going to really bother you about the pepper spray, and he didn’t give a damn if you smoke pot or crystal meth for that matter. He wanted to scare you away from the complaint.”

“But why? If Jeff’s Killers are the constant reminder of the town’s mistakes last year, why wouldn’t he want to go after them full force? He should have been giving Jane the royal treatment in there, not playing stupid cop games,” Drake stated in an exhausted voice laced with confusion and anger.

“Hardy is hoping that the idiots out on Shortcut Road will simply get bored with it and vanish. He knows that it’s almost impossible for him to shut them down through traditional police work. The town’s short on cops right now, as a lot of people quit or retired once the Hayden controversy hit the news. The other challenge is that, by the letter of the law, those kids being out there is not technically illegal.”

“How is trespassing into those empty homes not illegal?” Drake asked.

“Because sir, it’s not actually trespassing. See, that piece of land out there falls under what is known as Unincorporated St. Tammany Parish, which means that his cops won’t patrol that area since it’s not on their municipal foot print. In order for Hardy to get anything done out there, he has to go through the Sheriff’s Department. Now, if there is a crime in progress, the Mandeville Police to go over and help, but the regular patrols fall under the Sheriff’s scope of authority. Problem is, the Sheriff doesn’t give two much of damn about that area. It’s cut off from any other parish access, meaning that he’d have to route his deputies through all of Mandeville’s back streets just to observe a tiny stretch of gravel. He honestly doesn’t care enough to more than send people out there if called. As far as the trespassing side goes, Mandeville doesn’t own anything out there, and those homes aren’t property of the parish either. They’re abandoned, and because those places, along with the Shortcut Road itself is essentially just an eyesore with the reputation for being a den of crack houses, no one wants to own them.”

Jane spoke up, “I get it. If the city owns them, it’s their job to do something about them, and the only thing to do about them is tear them down. No one, not the city, the parish or any private owner wants to shoulder the costs to do that, or risk the liable should someone actually get hurt in one of those houses. So, they’re just… open to the public.”

Hardwick looked impressed, but not surprised. “Drake, you told me your daughter was smart, but you didn’t tell me she was out for my job. You’re 100% correct Jane. Hence, those kids out there can’t really be arrested for trespassing or loitering because there is no one, not government entity nor private owner to serve as a legitimate complainant.”

“So what the hell do we do exactly?” Drake asked.

Before Hardwick could reply, Jane cut into the chatter, her voice filled with weary aggravation but not much surprise. “They deleted my footage, must have happened when I was at the police station.”

“You mean from when you went out to Shortcut?” her father asked.

“Yeah, it’s gone, all of it. When I got to the station I was so frazzled that I just wanted to get inside. I knew I left the camera in its mount, but I didn’t think anyone would tamper with it right in front of the police department.”

“Did you tell the first officer that you spoke with when you arrived that you were out there to shoot videos?” Hardwick inquired.

“Yes. He kept asking what I was doing out there, I mean, I didn’t think like this would come of telling the cop why I went out there.”

Hardwick laughed, “These Mandeville cops have always been amateurs. My guess is that your footage was erased on Chief Hardy’s orders. He must have overheard that you had video footage of the incident, and in his desperate attempt to suppress anything that could make his precious town… or his job performance look bad, he pulled you behind closed doors so that one of his little cronies could run out and delete the footage. The last thing a little paper pushing worm like Hardy wants is for the truth of all things to go public.”

Drake, so furious that he was now standing and pacing the room, made a suggestion. “There has got to be cameras outside of the police station, can’t you subpoena the footage?”

“Sure I could sir, easily. They’d fight it though. Everything from technical difficulties to their surveillance guy being on vacation will be their initial reaction. I’d keep pushing and eventually I’d get some grainy footage that you’d have to pay out of pocket to have a professional review for potential tampering. It’s not worth it.”

“Hardwick, why are you so relaxed about all of this. You don’t want to file a complaint against Hardy, you don’t want to push for the footage… are you my lawyer or his?” Drake shouted.

“Remember earlier, I told you that we own Hardy for the time being. Trust me, I have an idea that you’re going to love, both of you. It’ll allow you to make a lot of money Mr. Arkansaw, it’ll get rid of the little bastards that messed with Jane out there and our good friend the Chief is going to support it all the way, because even he’ll come out looking good on the other side. Plus, like I said, he isn’t going to be in the position to say no to anything I ask for right now.”

“And what about the asshole that attacked me?” asked Jane.

“He’ll be caught, my guess is by tonight or tomorrow. Hardy probably knows the parents of half of those little freaks out there.”

“One thing you haven’t explained yet Hardwick; what is this big plan of yours to make me rich and shut down Shortcut Road?” Drake asked.

“Give me a few days to review the legalities and double check for possible unseen loopholes okay sir. Just know that if we can pull this off, you could be the mayor of this little town in a few years.”

Neither Jane nor her father was aware of the influence that Hardwick wielded, nor the fierce nature in which he would pursue his goals. Less than one month after Jane’s encounter on Shortcut Road, almost every aspect of their lives had shifted in strange new directions. Perhaps it was the joy and excitement that Jane heard in her father’s voice that prevented her from telling him that she’d begun to receive menacing emails and phone calls. The emails could never be traced as they were sent from throw away accounts and the phone numbers, if attempted to be redialed, always rang to a an automated message stating that number did not exist.

The harassment started two days after Jane uploaded her YouTube video containing her commentary in the former bedroom of Matt and Shelia Woods. Hundreds of comments, all from usernames that were nothing more than scrambled combinations of letters and numbers, all stating the same cryptic and unnerving line:

“And I still have a key.”

At first she thought little of it, assuming it was just some troll trying to be edgy. However, when the messages continued to stack up, all containing the same line, many posted within seconds of each other, she began to get nervous. In her experience with Internet trolling, she’d found that most commenters went for large scale slandering. No one was attacking her character or motives, not one perverted comment or sexist rant, nothing of the typical trend in keyboard war fighting. No, just that same message from hundreds of users with dead end accounts. No pictures or profiles, no video links. It was as if hundreds of people were creating YouTube accounts just to leave that one line and then deleting the accounts right after.

When Jane finally disabled comments on the video, the phone calls started. They always came to the house phone and only when Jane was home alone. With her father and Hardwick currently chasing this mystery project, Jane was home alone more often than not. Even more frightening was the fact that the calls did not come when she was out of the house. She would return from school and check the Caller ID and see not a single missed call. Then, sometimes within mere minutes of being home, the phone would ring. When she’d answer, the same words were repeated each time before the caller would hang up.

“And I still have a key.”

The first time this happened, Jane was terrified. It demonstrated that the same people that were tormenting her over the Internet now had access to her home phone number. To make matters worse, the caller would disguise their voice using some sort of modification tool. The voice changed from time to time, but it was always disturbing. Once it came through artificially tuned to sound like a child, but it carried none of the innocence that one often applies to a child’s voice. Instead it sounded like the high, buzzing whine of mosquito, but slow enough to articulate words. Other times it was modified to sound like a group of people. Sometimes it was so low and deep that it reminded Jane of a tape recorder when the batteries are almost dead. But as many times as the voice’s audio was changed, the message was always the same. By the end of the second week, Jane took the video down from YouTube.

After the video was removed, she only received one more call. This was the first and only time that a different message played. It was worse than the others.

The voice, modified yet again to a higher pitch, called in:

“Are you scared? Scaaared?? Scaaaaaaaareeeeeed? Scaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrreeeeeeed????”

The caller continued to stretch out the word ‘scared’ in a horrifying, evenly paced and almost calm and centered manner. She listened for about 20 seconds, the word growing longer each and every time until she finally screamed into the phone:

“Leave me the fuck alone!”

She wanted to tell Drake about the calls every time he’d come home. What stopped her each time was the joy on his face. She had not seen him this happy since her mother was still alive. Jane knew just how protective her father was, and knew that he would abandon the project that brought back his smile if he felt she wasn’t safe at home. While she certainly was tired of coming home to an empty house and jumping in fear every time the phone rang, she had no desire to take her dad’s new found happiness from him. Instead, she confided in Hardwick.

“So, you say it began with threatening messages online, and then carried over to phone calls?” he asked her after she told him the story.

They were in Hardwick’s car that day. He’d come by the house and picked her up, told her that he had some big news for both her and Drake. Apparently the young man that had broken Jane’s car window and terrorized her had been captured. He was currently being held down at the Mandeville Police Department, waiting to be positively identified by Jane.

“I posted that video and started getting those scary calls and messages; once I took down the video though they pretty much stopped. If these people are behind all that, sending one of their friends to jail might cause them to start again.”

“I can run the phone records if you want Jane. I still have friends in the Army, many of which are Intel Officers. It wouldn’t take too much effort to run a few trace backs with equipment slightly more advance than what AT&T use.”

“No, the calls stopped. I mean; I was stupid to post that video in the first place. I forgot how small Mandeville is. Everyone knows where the Jeff Woods lived. I’m surprised no one has spray painted that crap on our front door yet.”

“My guess is they’re cowards Jane. They’ll mess with you over the phone and Internet, but no one is going to risk showing their face. This is a boring place to grow up, I’m quite sure. Jeff the Killer was the most interesting thing to happen to Mandeville since the town was founded, and while the older people around here hate it because it might mess with their property values or something, the kids here treated it like their Woodstock.”

Jane smiled. She trusted Hardwick. He was intelligent and focused. He had solid ideas and wasn’t afraid to follow them. If he said not to worry, she was willing to go with it.

“Mr. Hardwick, promise me you won’t tell my dad about this. He’s so excited about this project of yours… I’d hate to see him lose that.”

“It’s your call Jane, all the way. If you change your mind, we’ll tell him all about it.”

They arrived at the police station and they saw that Drake was already there, his huge Cadillac Escalade was parked outside.

Drake stood to greet them when they entered the lobby.

“Okay sir, where’s the little asshole so we can get this over with?” Hardwick asked.

The look on Drake’s face told the lawyer a different story though. Something had happened, something bad, and within a very short period of time. Drake looked pale.

“I should have called you Hardwick… told you not to bring Jane down here.”

“Dad, what happened?”

“Step outside with me Russell,” her father replied, not acknowledging his daughter’s question.

“Wait, dad, please tell me what happened? Why shouldn’t I have come here?”

“Sir; is it so serious that we have to step out. Jane was the one terrorized by this guy, what is so horrific now that it can’t be said in front of her?”

“Fine, the kid, well, somehow he got a hold of a knife or a razor blade and… he sliced himself up. They had him in a holding cell I guess, and when they went to get him ready to line up and be identified, they found him dead.”

“Oh my God…” Jane whispered to herself. “Is this because I had him arrested?”

“No Janey, don’t blame yourself. Hardy told me a bit about him when I first got here. Kid was in and out of the mental hospital a few times. He had some real problems. Hardy led me to believe that it was just a matter of time, you know?”

“Jane, this isn’t you fault,” Hardwick said reassuringly.

“I know, it’s just, with everything that’s been going on, the attack, the phone calls…”

“What phone calls?” her father blurted.

Hardwick raised his hands slightly, “Let’s go somewhere and talk. I think it’s time we move forward on our project Drake, and if everything goes as I think it will, no one else is going to be bothered by these people again.”

Drake was informed of the threatening messages and phone calls that night. By the following week, he was working overtime along with Hardwick to propel his project from the drawing board and into reality. Jane’s story had not derailed him in the least. In fact, it had motivated him further. Jane recalled her father’s passion and drive as things slowly began to fall into place.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

The plan had been elaborate in its design yet simple in execution. Drake Arkansaw, using his daughter’s attack at the hands of the disturbed and suicidal member of Jeff’s Killers launched a campaign to clear out Shortcut Road once and for all. Hardwick had laid all the pieces into place like a chess master, and with the exception of the suicide of the young man later identified as Ryan Kroger, a 19 year old former ward of the state with a long history of self mutilation, depression and drug use, everything else had gone off without a hitch. Even Kroger’s tragic death had come in hand to some extent. It made the suburban parents whose kids may be attracted to hang out on Shortcut Road all the more hyper-vigilant in closing the place down.

First was the matter of policing the abandoned properties. Since no government or private entity wanted to claim ownership, Drake lobbied out of his own pocket to have the homes officially declared as condemned by St. Tammany Parish. This would allow trespassing to be enforced. Drake was a bit hesitant due to the financial requirements that Hardwick laid out before him, but his lawyer assured him he’d get every penny back plus interest.

Hardwick had a plan for that as well. Drake appeared at several City Council meetings to propose his plan and gain the necessary votes to bring it to life.

Jane attended them all in support of her father. When he told the story of her vicious attack at the hands of Kroger, the people would have an actual victim to behold. Her father didn’t like the idea of Jane being used as a mascot of sorts, but Hardwick urged him that her strength and courage would show forth as a positive, not a negative. Only when Jane fully agreed to attend, made completely aware that she could be seen as an indirect poster-child for the campaign, did he give his blessings to bring her along.

Drake’s campaign would involve heavy policing of Shortcut Road. Anyone found to be loitering about the condemned homes would be arrested. The second phase would involve tearing down all of the abandoned houses and clearing out the properties. The upper-middle class and wealthy of Mandeville seemed to like the idea, that was until the unavoidable tax increase was brought up. The motion was shelved almost on the spot, and Drake felt his ambition falter. Of course, Hardwick had a plan for all occasions.

Sitting in their living room once more, Hardwick introduced the next phase of the operation. Jane was tired that night, but she was far too interested to go off to bed as she normally did when her father and his lawyer talked business.

“See Drake, what scares these yuppie crackers is crime. That’s why they moved out here from New Orleans. They like their quiet little suburban life. But, the one thing that scares them more is taxes. I think half of them would rather have Ted Bundy living next door to them than pay an extra dollar a year to keep him away. So, they’ll never pass your project if it comes from the tax payer.”

Drake’s face became confused, teetering somewhere in the middle of annoyed and exhausted. Hardwick never missed a beat though.

He continued, “That’s why you’re going to give these sheltered snobs the one thing that they love, good old American capitalism.”

“You’ve lost me Hardwick, and that’s not easy to do.”

“Not at all sir. Here,” Drake’s lawyer retrieved a print out from his briefcase and handed it to his client.

Drake mused over the paperwork, “These are members of the shareholder’s board at Falstaff. Why do you have some of them highlighted?”

“The highlighted names own larger pieces of the company. They also own local businesses in Mandeville; are members of various organizations and have some serious goals to move up the world. They’re willing to sell you a little bit of their equity in the company in exchange for having their names attached to this project to make Mandeville safer, cleaner and better for the children.”

“You already set all this up?”

“Are you kidding me? They’re all in. Especially since they don’t have to spend a dime. They just get to go along for the ride in exchange for a few shares. They get to be champions of justice and don’t even have to crack open their checkbook.”

“But… my dad still has to pay for everything?” Jane asked.

“At first. But Drake, if you’ll kindly do the math on the individual amounts they’re willing to sell you, and add that to the equity you purchased from Maxwell Hayden, and tell us what you get please.”

Jane watched her father do the math in his head. After a moment he grabbed his cell phone and used the calculator application to check his numbers. He did it a couple of times before letting the phone drop to the floor, a look of amazement and excitement taking over his face, transforming him into a much younger man for a moment.

“That’s… 51%.”

“Majority shareholder,” Hardwick added, as though he’d coined the term himself.

“And the Chairman of the Board is in agreement?” Drake asked, his voice sounding hesitant, afraid to say the words too loud, as if that might somehow dispel this miracle.

“Maxwell Hayden disgraced Falstaff and could have potentially ruined the company. The fact that there are still people out there dressing up as Jeff Woods, the very catalyst for Hayden’s crimes, well, that is a constant reminder of the corruption attached to the company’s name. Since everyone else is either too apathetic or too cheap to actually take steps to clear out those reminders, it only serves to benefit them to let you do it. You’ll be taking all the risk, both legal and financial, and in the end, they get to be a part of the solution. It’s like when a big oil company goes out and cleans their spill off of baby seals on the beach, it makes them look good. Now they get to be a part of cleaning up a dangerous neighborhood where teenage girls are assaulted and mentally disturbed kids contemplate suicide.”

“Okay, so we condemned the houses, but where are we going to get the police to patrol the area between now and when the bulldozers go out there to tear those crap heaps down? You said yourself that there was a massive shortage of cops, and then all the confusion with the jurisdiction and patrols.”

Hardwick smiled broadly, “Remember how I told you that we owned Hardy?”

Jane’s father slowly nodded.

“Well, I’ve cashed that in. He’s got plenty of cops that are happy to go out there on their days off or after hours to make that lovely detail pay. He’s all in. He’s convinced a few of his friends to match you dollar for dollar on the cost. A safe Mandeville for the future of the children and all that good stuff.”

“So it’s a done deal then, we can pull the trigger on this?”

“Bang, bang,” Russell Hardwick replied, and from there everything moved almost too fast for Jane to keep up with.

At first things moved as predicted. Within less that 60 days Drake’s proposal was voted into effect by the City Council, all thrilled to death that they’re tax dollars wouldn’t be touched. Shortly after that, he secured his majority ownership in Falstaff, now placing him at the top of the food chain. Operating like clockwork, the next step was a big press conference with Mr. Arkansaw shaking hands with Chief Hardy outside of the Mandeville Police Department, as his personal task force was approved and ready to get to work.

Everything fell into place with ease. Drake’s picture was in the paper as he was celebrated as the Anti-Hayden. The news dubbed him as “Good Business Arkansaw,” a man who understood what it meant to give back to the people. Drake was elevated to the status of King Arthur.

Things at home had changed though, and Jane wasn’t so sure she liked this plan as much as she had before. Her father was different now, that much she knew. He was always with Hardwick, always planning and preparing. Bulldozers were set to roll out to Shortcut Road within the next two weeks and start tearing down the old homes. Drake no long asked Jane for investment tips as he had before. They no longer spent time together. Jane was nearing adulthood though, and tried to be mature. She tried to remind herself that when all of this was over, she’d get her father back.

It was around the time that the bulldozers rolled out to Shortcut Road that Trent Vickers showed up. He was one of the founding members of Jeff’s Killers and really took exception to Drake’s plans. He’d started harassing employees of Falstaff, accusing Jane’s father of being a tyrant. He resisted the no trespassing ordinance that condemning the houses had made enforceable, and was often times a thorn in the sides of the police task force that was stationed on Shortcut Road.

Something else was going on too, although Drake would not tell Jane anything about it. He was receiving phone calls at all hours of the night. Jane would sometimes listen in as best she could, and the loud, angry voice of her father was unmistakable.

“You just try and do something fucker!” she heard him shout into the phone one night.

When she asked him what happened, he’d dismiss her quickly, telling her that it was nothing, just a prank caller. Jane knew better.

Drake had taken to drinking at night, something he’d rarely if ever done before, and he’d certainly never been drunk in front of his daughter. These days though, he always seemed stressed, always on edge. The phone calls continued, and Drake would sometimes receive envelopes in the mail with no return address or name. Jane had witnessed him open one up, scan the contents and immediately rip the papers up. When she’d ask her father what had him so upset, she’d get a similar response as when she asked about the phone calls.

Finally she confronted Hardwick, as she’d given up on getting any answers from her dad.

“What is happening with my father? We’re getting strange calls at night; my dad is stressed about stuff he’s getting in the mail… I thought you said this would make him a town hero, so why does he seem so miserable?”

“There are some people in this town that don’t like what we’re doing Jane. Resistance was expected, but… I’m sorry this is effecting you.”

“Why can’t we stop? If these are the same people that were messing with me when I posted that video, they backed off when I took it down. Can’t you just tell my dad to let go of the Shortcut Road project?”

Hardwick let out a short, harsh laugh. Jane didn’t like it. It was the laugh of an annoyed adult having to explain something simple to a child. At least that’s how Jane took it.

“Jane, he can’t just stop. People gave up shares of their company holdings, Hardy entrusted the reputation of his department and the community granted your dad a lot of trust to see this through. If he stops now, he’s done in this town.”

She felt her blood run hot for just a second but fought to control it, “If he keeps this up he’s done! Can’t you see how stressed this has him? He’s drunk most nights, he seems afraid of his own shadow and… and he barely even speaks to me anymore. I’d rather he just be done in this town and we move back to Dallas or something… anything is better than this.”

“You’re thinking like a child Jane. You’re almost 18, you have to see this as an adult. This is important and your father is obligated to it. We didn’t come this far to stop.”

“You’re acting like an asshole!” Jane shouted at him, and immediately covered her mouth with both hands. “I’m… sorry. I just, I just hate this!”

“I understand Jane, but I’ll let you in on a little secret, it’s almost over. Once we clear out Shortcut Road, that’s it. Project complete.”

So Jane allowed herself to be led. Hardwick had been a good friend to the family thus far, and she had no reason to question his judgment now. Perhaps it was her focus on her ever emotionally cracking father or perhaps it was the pool of self pity that she found herself diving into more and more often, but one or both of those factors kept her mind too occupied to notice the little things. She didn’t notice that a large truck, a Jimmy 4x4, was frequently parked at the end of her street. She failed to notice that when she would go out to shop or visit friends that the truck would occasionally follow her a bit. She didn’t notice until it was too late that on many nights, when the lights were off and the doors were locked, that people would exit the vehicle and stand in her front yard.

Then one day, as she was leaving school, walking towards her car, Trent Vickers accosted her. He cursed at her, accused her father of being a corrupt fascist. She was shocked and humiliated, unable to believe that this guy who she’d heard about but never seen in person was here at her school, making horrible comments. His comments became lewd as he began to make sexually suggestive gestures at her. School officials arrived and the police were called out. Vickers was arrested and taken away.

“I can’t take anymore,” Jane cried into her pillow. She’d come to hate Mandeville. She hated what her father had become. He was now a drunk, angry man. The work out on Shortcut Road seemed to have come to a halt as well. She’d trusted Hardwick, believed him when he said it would all be over soon, yet, soon never seemed to come.

The arrest of Vickers did nothing to stop the harassing phone calls. Jane’s attempts at reasoning with Hardwick led to dead ends as well. Jane felt helpless. Then, on a night that began like any other, a night where Drake stumbled about with a bottle of liquor in one hand and their cordless phone in the other, seemingly anticipating the next threatening call, everything changed once more, only this time, the change was forever.

Jane was awoken around 2AM. She’d fallen asleep with tears soaking into her pillow as her mind see-sawed between memories of her mother, her life with her father before he’d been led to take on Mandeville’s corrupt past and her life currently, the broken father and failing project. What pulled her from her slumber on this night was a persistent thump against her bedroom window. At first Jane had taken no interest, pulling her pillow against her head to block out the noise. However, the thuds were persistent, and just rhythmic enough to be intentional. Jane finally surrendered on her attempts to sleep through the annoyance, and sat up to investigate.

She sat upright in her bed for a few moments before her bleary eyes were able to detect the faint orange glow lighting up her window. She cautiously stood and began to walk towards the source of light, when another loud thump caused her to jump and utter a soft, short scream.

A rock, perhaps wrapped in a cloth to prevent it from shattering the glass, maybe a ball of mud, something though just hit the glass. The fear that she’d allowed to take residence in her soul for the last few months caused her to move slowly, as if her feet were wearing weighted shoes. When Jane finally reached her window, she immediately found the source of both the noise and the light.

A bonfire was burning brightly on her front yard. Human figures moved about, circling the fire. Their features were impossible to make out due to the combination of bright fire paired with the dark of night. She stared out at them for what seemed an eternity until one stopped its mindless pacing, slowly turning its face towards the darkened window on the second floor of the house that was once the domicile of Jeff the Killer. No sooner did the first figure lock eyes on Jane than did the rest follow suit. For a moment she was locked in a terrifying gaze with at least half a dozen strangers. She might have stood there all night but the sudden pelting of her window with more objects got her moving. Before she could turn away though, she got a good look at what was hitting her window. It wasn’t rocks or mud, but birds, dead birds. These freaks were standing on her lawn and hurling dead animals at her house.

Jane backed away, preparing to turn and run, when suddenly her home was filled with horrific voices. The intercom system, a jewel of a time gone by, long replaced with cell phones and instant messaging still functioned in the Arkansaw residence. Drake had been nuts about the thing when he was actually able to get it to function. However, it was impractical and therefore rarely used. It had been so abandoned that Jane had almost completely forgotten it existed until horrible voices began to berate her from the speakers. The voice was once again artificially enhanced. It sounded warped, like a dying record. Demonic, morphed into something that seemed as though no place of humanity could produce it.

“I still have a key…!” rang out from every room in the house at maximum volume.

“I still have a key, and I’m using it now!”

“You’ve redecorated!”

“Are you scared? Are you scaaarrrrreeeeed? Are you scaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrreeeeeeddd?”

Jane ran from her bedroom and down the hall, making her way towards the stairs. She was reminded of the night when her neglect towards her dying mother had finally crashed down upon her. This observation would prove to be very astute, as she once again discovered her father in a deadly position upon descending the stairs into the living room. Only this time, it was not his own hand that had put him in this place of near death.

“Daddy! What happened?” Jane screamed.

Drake was lying on the floor, a pool of blood forming below his stomach. Jane could hear him grunting in pain, trying perhaps to form words. She ran over to his side.

“Daddy, it’s okay, I’m here now. I’m going to get an ambulance here!” she screamed as she tried to get her father to look up at her.

“Get… out of the house…” Drake uttered.

“Not without you!”

As Jane stood, scanning the room for her cell phone, trying to remember if she’d left it charging in here or the kitchen, she suddenly felt a soft thud behind her head. A dull pain traveled to the place behind her eyes. Jane looked down and was shocked to see the floor flying up to quickly meet her.

She never fully passed out. She felt herself being jerked backwards, thrust about before finally being forcefully slammed down into a sitting position. She was aware of the sensation of her wrists being bound. Furthermore, she was aware of the smell of smoke coming from a nearby room. As she began to return to the land of the fully aware, she saw her father, still lying in his own blood. His head was up slightly though, and he was staring at his daughter.

“I’m so sorry Janey… this is my fault…” he weakly stated.

“Daddy… what is going on?”

“This town… it’s worse than we thought… I knew this was coming…”

“Daddy, you have to get up…”

“Janey, I love you. You are the only part of me that matters… You must survive… At the bank… only you can access… Drawer 9…”

“What, I don’t understand… please daddy, stay with me, don’t go…”

“I’m so tired Janey. I’m just going to rest my eyes a little.” A smile crept over Drake’s face; a familiar sight that crushed his daughter’s heart. It was the same face he’d make, and the same excuse for that matter, on the nights that he’d promised to watch some long movie with her. He would always begin to drift, and when she’d call him out, he would make that little smile and tell her that he wasn’t going to sleep, but just resting his eyes. Jane always knew better, just as she did tonight.

“No daddy please…” she begged, tears rolling down her face. “Don’t go to sleep, you won’t wake up!”

In the next moment Jane felt a strong hands grabbing at the back of her head. She screamed, thrashing about before a closed fist struck the left side of her face, causing stars to dance before her eyes. As she attempted to draw in air once more, she felt tape being pulled tight against her mouth, ceasing her attempts to scream for help. Left now only to look at the horrific events unfolding around her, her eyes shot open into a look of panic as her attacker stepped around from behind her, taking up position before her as she sat helpless to move.

The body was scrawny, torn clothes hanging from around its shoulders. In its right hand a large knife was clutched. Blood ran down the blade, and Jane’s overtaxed mind was still able to process the likelihood that the blood dripping before her was once her father’s. The figure bent its knees, bringing its face into perfect view. It was a face that Jane had seen a million times, on magazines, television and the Internet. A large scar ran up the side of its face, leading to an eye that was nothing more than a greyish white bulb of unseeing madness. Opposite the dead eye was one very much alive with insanity.

“Go to sleep!” it hissed, raising the knife in preparation for the kill.

Jane closed her eyes, ready to be done with the fear and anxiety, the unknowing and the grief that had plagued her for too long, when suddenly a gunshot rang out. In the enclosed space of the living room, the shot sounded like a cannon. She heard shouting, a familiar voice.

It was Hardwick!

Jane opened her eyes and observed flames now. They were reaching from around the threshold leading towards the kitchen. The house was burning. She then felt the ropes that bound her wrists being removed. She looked up to see Hardwick untying her with fierce determination. In the next moment she was being carried out to the front yard. Her would be killer was gone.

“No… more of them in the front…” she tried to say, but clearly the trespassers she’d witnessed earlier, throwing dead birds and dancing around a fire were gone as well. Police sirens could be heard in the distance.

“You’re safe now Jane,” Hardwick gasped.

Jane wanted to ask about her father, to demand that he go back in and retrieve Drake before the fire took the house, but she was far too exhausted. She felt herself slipping from consciousness.

She awoke a full day later in the hospital. As she’d slept in a deep slumber aided by strong sedatives, she’d dreamed her father’s last words. She’d relived his last moments of life countless times in the ethereal land of dreams. When she’d finally come back to, she’d known what she would have to do. On the day that Hardwick drove her from the hospital to begin the process of restarting her life, Jane was reborn with a mission.

--The Next Phase Begins--

“So… what did she find at the bank, in Drawer 9? How does this all tie into Mandeville and Jeff’s Killers and all the rest of it?” Clair Nobles demanded.

“Well my dear, you’ll just have to tune in next week like everyone else, now won’t you?” Derrick replied.

“Oh c’mon Derrick! Don’t leave me in the dark!”

“Tell you what Clair, I just got home. I am beat, okay. Let me get upstairs and unpack and get about 20 hours of sleep, and then I’ll call you and tell you the rest, deal?”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked.

“Nope, but I do need a favor, if you’d be so kind.”

“Oh yeah, get me all buttered up and then ask for something, typical. Sure Derrick, what is it?”

“Some of your friends up there have connections in the V.A. and such, right?”

Clair hesitated a moment before replying, “Ummm, I’m sure someone does, yeah. Why?”

“Russell Hardwick. Something about him just doesn’t sit right with me. Not just the way he acted when I showed up tonight to interview Jane. Just, parts of her story; the way he led Drake Arkansaw, the fact that he just happened to show up just in time to save the day. I don’t know, it might just be a bad read on the guy, but I’d love to know a bit more about why he got out of the US Army so young. All I know about him is that he’s a West Point graduate who seemed to have a stellar career. If there is something he’s hiding, I think Jane has the right to know.”

“I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

“Thanks Clair. Look, I’m just now walking into my apartment. I’m going to get off the phone now and… HOLY SHIT!”

“Derrick, what’s wrong?” Clair shouted.

“Clair, I gotta go, I gotta call the cops… oh shit… blood everywhere!”

“Are you alright?? Derrick… Derrick!!”

Clair could hear her friend shouting, his voice rising to a panicked pitch. Before she could ask any further questions though, the call was disconnected.