![]() It was deer season around these parts, after all. He imagined it to be some local hunter coming back with the day’s kill. The truck rumbled past Tommy as they both crossed onto the bridge going over the lake below, and he saw a tarp flapping over the bed. White smoke belched from the mufflers (that were most definitely not living up to their name) and a large and probably human shape hunkered over the wheel. A high-pitched whine was just barely audible from where the nearly bald tires met the asphalt. He turned his head, raising his hand to the brim of his black cap to block the sinking sun so he could confirm his suspicion. Tommy could tell it was a truck, an old one, and it was not in the best condition. Tommy snapped his consciousness back to the present as the deep rumble of a V-8 engine approached quickly. That was when he found three of them hunkered behind a dune. But as the battle wore on, he found himself driving deeper behind the enemy lines and beyond the safety and support of his squad. Tommy had done his job, returning the favor to those same twenty men with stolen American weapons they had taken from the corpses of countless and nameless other soldiers. How could he not? He had seen half a dozen friends slaughtered by insurgents before his very eyes. Tommy had never been diagnosed with PTSD- not formally, anyway. ![]() He would wander the countryside, doing odd jobs here and there, always moving. Since returning from Afghanistan a few years earlier, he had lived a nomadic lifestyle. Tommy was no stranger to sore soles and strange towns. As the bus flew past him, he knew only that his feet ached from walking, and that this would be the town he spent the night in. And the only reason it had a law enforcement presence at all.Īlas, Tommy Hanover had no idea about any of those interesting (a term loosely applied) facts. Aside from being a bedroom community for oil rig workers, the mill was the main reason for Kingston’s existence. Sitting on the edge of the water- a lake created when a nearby river was dammed a century earlier- was a massive sawmill. A quaint downtown was just down from the school, and it was surrounded by modest homes and pine trees. The high school sat on a hill in the middle of the island, like a modern day Acropolis where footballs were thrown about instead of philosophies. Only one road led into the town, and that same road was the only way out. Kingston sat on an island in a man-made lake in East Texas. The third thing it might have been famous for- but would most definitely soon be famous for- was its isolation. The bus was coming for the latter, as the former would not admit minors. It had two claims to fame- a little bar that served legendary cheese fries (Guy Fieri had been there once they say) and an amazing six-man football team. It was headed to the tiny town that lay just ahead, an unremarkable hamlet known as Kingston, Texas. The sun bounced brightly off the yellow roof of the bus as it wound through the trees into a clearing. He smiled, and for the first time, those dead eyes showed life. After a minute or so, the white letters began to wash in a blood-red shade. He read it again and again, a tiny bit of drool beginning to form and ooze from the corner of his mouth. The eyes ran back and forth over the simple words and numbers glowing white against a black background. Those blank eyes scanned over a simple message, while his fingers idly played with the object he had been crafting- a six-inch blade with sharp wings going in all directions for maximum carnage when inserted into a person. And that distinct ping told him that a particular friend had just sent a message. It was there he found.dare he say it? Friends. It had been in the recesses of the black pits of evil that he first dared share his dream of malice and mountains of blood. He moved over to the small monitor rigged up by his own hand, connected to a port that allowed him access to the blackest of black on the dark web. They were the eyes of a man who would kill you- if only the opportunity presented itself and his will was strong enough. But it also showed eyes that were dark and devoid of hope or joy or even life. No victim had experienced absolute terror as they breathed their last.Ī single ping made the shape turn its head, and the slight movement of the stark bulb momentarily illuminated a youthful face, the face of a man who was barely that. To make death art, and to make it prolifically.īut no blade had split flesh, no bullet had puckered skin, no bomb had charred and blasted bone from bone. Planned to bring forth a darkness that would shake people to their core. Planned death, destruction, murder, torture, and terror. Something that would be deadly and vile and monstrous. It was vaguely human, but contorted as it worked on something intently. The stark white light bulb swayed ever-so-slightly on its bare cord in the dark room, casting strange shadows on the shape bent over a workbench.
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