Harvest Moon- Revelations
Jack is back on the case and is visited by the original Pentagram Killer.
Jack Shane has returned to the force and his son doesn’t like it. After lashing out at Chris and his friends, Jack is forced to confront some demons he thought were left behind. But those demons might have accidentally revealed something about the new Pentagram Killer.
X
The news broadcast hadn't been over for more than five minutes before Jack Shane walked through the front door. He expected Chris and Zach to be sitting around the living room doing nothing since it's all the two of them had done the past week, but he didn't expect the tree. That surprised him.
"Christopher, I thought I told you to get rid of the cinder blocks out front? I almost broke my neck this morning."
"I'll take care of it," Chris said, head buried in his phone.
"You said that two days ago."
"Dad, relax. I said I'll take care of it."
"Knowing your track record, I figured I'd gently remind you," Jack said.
Chris lifted his eyes from the screen like he was going to say something, but didn't.
"Hey, Mr. Shane. Caught the press conference. Nice tie. Brings out your eyes," Zach joked.
"Thanks, Zach." Jack struggled to keep a slight chuckle buried.
Chris turned his attention back to his phone and said, "Oh, that reminds me, thanks for telling me you're going back to work."
Here we go.
"You know, when your mother left, I figured the nagging was over."
Jack cracked open a bottle of aspirin and poured a handful into his mouth, washing it down with his first Silver Bullet of the day. The cold rush was best he felt all day. He started to feel like himself again.
"Excuse me for being concerned," Chris tried to say sincerely but came out snarky. "You could at least told me before you left."
"Sorry, princess, I didn't want to wake you on a Sunday."
Usually, a cheap shot at Chris going to church was an easy way to get a reaction. Chris let it roll off without so much as a shrug.
"How was fantasy camp this morning?" Jack asked before taking another long pull off his beer.
"Missed it today."
Jack expected more conflict with his answer. Chris' lack of enthusiasm disappointed him. He never cared much for the time Chris spent in church with Coach Anello. His fault for enrolling the kid in Catholic schools. But it did keep the kid out of trouble.
There was an uncomfortable silence between the two. Fighting came easy in the Shane home, but the silence was far more difficult. The quiet allowed too many thoughts to rush through their heads. It was much easier to run their mouths and let emotions do the talking. But Chris figured out the best way to hit Jack was to say nothing.
"Well, ain't that a shame," Jack said before taking another drink. "Looks like you found something else to quit."
Maybe the kid would react to the thing neither of them wanted to talk about, but had been hanging over their heads all week. Chris, the quitter.
Chris finally looked up from that damn cellphone. "That's how it's gonna be?"
His son stood up from the couch. Chris wanted to yell and scream. Jack wanted it too. A little fight to break the tension. C'mon, kid, throw some insults and lamps across the room.
The kid had a trim and muscular build at a hundred and sixty-five pounds. He probably thought he could whip the old man's ass now too. Maybe they'd find out.
Chris bit down on his lip, ready to unload. But the kid didn't. Chris spent years watching his parents goad each other into fights so intense he stayed up nights wishing they had become physical because it wouldn't have hurt as much. Those were words Jack heard from the kid's coach.
Chris looked at his father with dead eyes. No emotion, no reaction. He just got up and walked out the door. Jack wanted his son to stand up and just punch him in the face. But the damn kid wouldn't. He was soft.
"As long as you're leaving, get rid of those damn cinder blocks!" Jack shouted, making sure to have the last word.
"You know, I kinda missed watching you two do this. College sucks," Zach said, again trying to suck the tension out of the room.
"Is that why you don't go?"
"One of many reasons."
They shared a quick laugh. Jack didn't want to admit it, but he liked the kid's dry sense of humor.
As Zach extended his hand, Jack reached back before squinting. A strange set of lights started pulsating inside of Zach's palm. The light pierced the center of Jack's eyes, blinding him. An ear-splitting shrill stabbed Jack's brain. His tightly shut eyes watered. He couldn't focus on anything. His hands and feet went numb. Something whispered in the back of his head. Whispering in a language he pretended not to understand.
Let he who prays be chosen.
Jack grabbed Zach's hand and whipped him down to the ground.
"Dad, what the hell are you doing?!"
Jack snapped back into reality. He looked down, realizing he had Zach's arms pinned behind his back, ready to slap on the cuffs. Another minute and he surely would've broken Zach's arm. Jack let go. Before he collected himself, both the kids left him in that house alone. Smart move.
Jack sat in silence for a moment. The hallucinations beat him again, but it never got so violent. Except that one time. Jack got the conflict he wanted. He ran his taped left hand through his hair.
"What the fuck is wrong with me?"
XI
Jack pulled the string hanging from his ceiling and a set of wooden stairs came down from the attic. He tugged another string and turned on the overhead lamp. It had been a long time since Jack had been up there. The attic was a disaster but cleaner than his bedroom.
He stumbled around, pushing aside garbage bags and manila boxes filled with Chris' childhood clothes and other keepsakes. On top of a cardboard box labeled Chris sat Cartel, his stuffed moose.
“Cartel, you old son of a bitch. How the hell are ya?”
Cheryl's mother gave it to them shortly after Christopher was born. From six months to six years old, Chris dragged Cartel with him everywhere. Cartel was the kid's best friend.
Jack also found a box of tee-ball trophies, karate certificates and wrestling medals. This was Cheryl's work. He never would have thought to keep those things. Now he was glad they were here. But this isn't why Jack was up here tonight.
When things cooled down between him and Chris, he wanted to take him up here and show him these little memories. But not today. Jack pushed the boxes full of stuffed toys and childhood prizes aside. He came upon a box labeled do not touch. Jack took a deep breath. He didn't want to open it, but he didn’t have a choice.
Jack walked through Walter Connell's front door, terrified not only of having to go back to work, but that he had lost his touch. Afraid he'd look like a jackass in front of a bunch of people who thought he was a worthless has-been who'd be better off staying on his couch. But it didn't go that way when he arrived.
As soon as he steeped inside the crime scene, everything came back. Like swinging a baseball bat after years away from the game. Even if you forget the finite details, your instincts carry you through. For a minute, he thought they were doing him a favor. Throwing a softball. Walter Connell couldn't have been killed by a person. Not like this. Then he saw the pentagram.
His scam was over. Now what seemed simple made no sense. At first, he thought someone on the force was trying to pull one over on him. But when no one in the room laughed, he wished it was a joke. At least a joke would've made sense.
Jack spent three hours wandering the scene, trying to fit the imaginary puzzle pieces together in his mind. The paw prints in the snow made less sense.
The Connells didn't own a dog, but they were the only set of prints in the backyard. The prints stopped thirty feet away and ten feet down from the only possible entrance and exit point. There's no way a person or an animal could make that jump. The perp could have used the front door, but a window broken from the outside-in made it unlikely. What if the window was set up to throw him off?
Something could tie this whole thing together, and it was right in front of him. He was positive. He just missed it. Not that Harlan and Prentice expected him or wanted him to figure out what. That didn't change the fact he wanted to prove it to the punk kid and Harlan he was more than some put-up patsy. On his worst day, way out of practice, he was still better than either of them. But that didn't happen. Instead, they all stood around trying to figure out how something so simple could be so complex. That's why he needed to go through those old boxes. He needed to re-acclimate himself to the job. He needed to get back into his old headspace.
Jack took the box down into the living room and set it on the coffee table between his empties. He pulled out an X-Acto knife and cut away the thick layers of masking tape. Jeez, how much tape did this box need? He must have never wanted to open it again. Except he never wrapped up the box. Christopher did.
What happened earlier embarrassed him beyond belief. Maybe the kid was right. Between all the cheap shots and trying to break Zach's arm, maybe he couldn't handle going back to work. Not that he'd admit it to himself. Or to the kid.
It wasn't that he disliked his son. He loved him. But something about the way Chris looked at him when they argued made his temples throb. That same condescending glare Cheryl used to give him when they fought. Back when they dated, that look made him want to kill. Toward the end, she stopped giving him that look. She stopped looking at him, period.
If he ever mentioned that look to his son, Christopher wouldn't know what he meant. The damn kid was so much like his mother it drove Jack nuts. But when Christopher left home, Jack was proud.
The day the kid walked out of their small house in Edgebrook, part of Jack hoped he wouldn't see his son again. At least not for a long time. He made sure to say something offensive -- probably some religious crack, he couldn't remember -- to make sure Chris stayed away.
Cheryl should have taken the kid with her when she left, but she didn't. She left them together. A responsible father would walk off the case. But he didn't. Maybe it was a test? If it was, he failed. But what if he did? What if he walked away? How many people would that monster kill?
Monster. Thinking about the word turned his stomach. Jack bit down on his knuckle and whispered, "It's not real."
Just the PSTD playing games with his memory.
Jack cracked open another Coors Light and took a long drink, emptying the can. He placed the empty next to the box and started flipping through the stacks of old bloody pictures. He needed to reacquaint himself with Alexakis' work. He shouldn’t have had any of these pictures. They belonged to the CPD, but Jack made his own copies. He needed them to feed his imagination. He needed them to fuel the dark side of his mind. Jack had to see Alexakis' work to understand him. Without those dark corners of his imagination, Jack would never have figured out the pattern. Alexakis would still be out there collecting victims. Thank God for the darkness. If only it could have gone away.
These pictures weren't just crime scene photos. They were pages from his history. Each gruesome snapshot told a story.
The smell came back. Burning incense tickled the inside of his nose. Jack cracked open another beer and slammed it, trying to wash the warm copper taste of blood off his tongue. He closed his eyes and rubbed the inside of his taped left hand with his right thumb.
The weight on the couch shifted. Someone now sat next to him. Jack refused to open his eyes. He didn't want to look at the man sharing the couch. Then he heard that laugh. Jack slowly opened his eyes and turned to his left. Marvin Alexakis leaned back, his feet kicked up on the coffee table. Alexakis turned to Jack and smiled. The blood trickled down from the gaping wound in his forehead.
"Are you trying to find your way back inside my head?" Alexakis' voice echoed in Jack's head, but his lips never moved.
"You don't need to do that. You know what you saw," the ventriloquist's voice echoed.
Jack closed his eyes and bit down on his knuckle again. He sunk in and took three deep, slow breaths, trying to push the voice out of his head. As always, the pain cleared his thoughts, helping him focus on reality. He breathed in deep, waiting for the incense to go away.
The stench of cedar wood subsided, replaced by stale barley and hops. Jack opened his eyes. Alexakis was gone, but his words stayed in Jack's mind.
"Those weren't dog prints.