HELLS GRACE

Part 4

There was something wrong about Alvin Jones.

And I didn’t like it one bit.

For one, he wasn’t like the others. He had no “footprint” online. No social media. Not even the previous ones he made at the height of Facebook and MySpace. He barely had any popular apps on his iPhone except for what was already there after you got it from the factory. The only thing was a couple of games and WhatsApp, the latter he used to communicate with the…dubious friends he mentioned in the diner. As for his cell service, he bothered to purchase a premium plan for high-speed internet, but even his contacts list was small.

His browser history was incognito, and he diligently closed any tabs he used. It took Oracle several hurdles to access his DNS cache and see what websites he had visited in the past thirty days. Mostly porn. Several things he looked up on Google, though I did not have access to his search bar (only where he ended up). Lots of Wikipedia as well. Interestingly, there was a significant drop in searches five days ago, and he has not accessed his Safari or Google Chrome ever since.

This was not enough to form a profile on him except for an arrest record in his early twenties for drunk driving and physical assault. He spent four years in prison for drug trafficking before it seemed he found God and was paroled for good behavior. Since then, Alvin Jones remained low for the next decade.

Until he joins a murder cult, I thought.

However, whenever Alvin opened the map app on his phone, it left a digital trail for the past seven days. One of the many wonders of geolocation is how every app now tracks your movement just by browsing through them. I could see where he had gone. He frequented a roadhouse called Colleen’s Bar north of town on most nights (when he was not busy murdering children) and spent quite a few hours there. It also happened to be near my domain. Fortunately, the roadhouse joined the 21st century and had set up indoor and outdoor CCTV cameras, probably to dissuade bar fights and future property damages.

Per the website, the owner was actually not Colleen but a white-haired, bearded silver man in his fifties who dedicated the roadhouse to his late wife, who died of cancer—one of those promising to be a family-oriented business that his sons were also working in the establishment.

And through that, I gained access to their server, where they kept the last fourteen days of CCTV footage before it got scrubbed to make room for the memory card twice a month. The cameras were always recording. Thankfully, I had Oracle to sift through countless hours to find footage of Alvin in the bar. I asked Oracle to collect the footage from different folders and splice them together, and he told me it might take a while.

I glanced over the messages in WhatsApp. Alvin had asked the people he hired to deal with Maxine to meet him near Cedar Pine Summer Camp…right next to my cabin. He hadn’t opened his map app, so I couldn’t pinpoint where he was exactly, but I made Oracle keep watch of the traffic cameras along the way. He was last spotted leaving the exit ramp northward, but unfortunately, there weren’t any cameras along Route 26 except for the ones at the intersections.

He is getting closer.

I couldn’t help but feel some bubbling excitement. Finally, one of the cultists was coming to me, and although I had no idea what would make Alvin tick, I had plenty in my arsenal to take him out. I notified the others that he was coming.

“Everyone ready?” I asked through my many-eyes.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” the demon said next to me.

I peered over the lake and saw Siren wading through the waters, popping the top of her head (but keeping everything below the bridge of her nose underwater) without leaving a wake. Walking near Trail A, Goliath marched toward the cabin, armed with his double-sided axe. Old Growth perched above the tree, hidden by foliage near the road’s entrance, and kept watch of any vehicle that might enter the long driveway toward the cabin.

And then, through my many-eyes, I saw Alvin’s beat-up sedan rumbling through the empty road. He was still outside my border, and I couldn’t use any of my powers on him yet. Soon, I thought excitedly. But before passing the threshold, he slowly veered to the narrow shoulder lane and parked next to the drainage ditch, thirty feet away from my domain. I hovered right at the border, watching him.

Alvin climbed out of the vehicle and glanced over the road ahead. I checked, and there were no other cars nearby. Few people take this road anyway since the camp closed down, and the road just became a dead end a mile later on a farmhouse, which sat abandoned since 2008 (one of the many depressing outcomes of the market crash). Some people still used to camp around the area and go boating on the lake (there’s a public, state-funded ramp people could use to launch their boat on the southeastern side of Cedar Lake). But there hadn’t been any visitors in the past couple of days.

Alvin and I were alone.

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Looking around, he leaned against his car and took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket’s pocket and a lighter. He was waiting for the others to arrive, glancing at his watch occasionally. I desperately wanted him to cross the border, but when I thought he was about to, he just paced back like a headless chicken, and it was getting frustrating. I was tempted to order Old Growth to take him into my domain so I could collect his essence. But without knowing how strong his Resolve was, I might be up for a tougher fight. I didn’t just want to kill him and be done with it. I wanted to feed on him just like he and the other cultists wanted for my death.

They wanted power from my blood, right? Well then, it’s my turn.

Another car approached a Jeep with three occupants inside. Alvin dropped the dwindling bud of his third cigarette on the ground and stepped on it while the Jeep parked right behind his car. He gave a small wave at the woman climbing out of the passenger side door. She looked to be around her early thirties, long blonde hair that she tied in a ponytail, and wore a black cargo jacket and hiking boots like she expected to trek through the woods.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the woman said. “Alvin Jones. In the flesh. I haven’t seen you in a while. You look as ugly as ever. Could still smell your BO.”

“Good to see you, too, Tara,” Alvin said casually.

Tara scoffed. “What? That’s all I get after the last time we left off?”

“Not that kind of occasion, I’m afraid.”

She sighed. “Sounds boring.”

“This was definitely last minute, so this better be good,” a man in his early thirties who looked similar to Tara but taller climbed out from behind the wheel. “I was gonna tell my sister to decline, but, man, where the fuck did you get that money anyway? It’s not like you to offer that much for a simple rough and tumble.”

“From my employer,” Alvin said. “And they wanted to get it done fast and clean.”

“Seems like you’re moving up, brother. More power to you.”

“Steven is being generous. Plus, the past couple of months have been dry, so we’ll take what we can get. And besides, this is an odd way to meet.”

“Like I said, we want it done today. Not a lot of people use this road anyway.”

“You sure your boss will pay up?” Steven asked.

“Steven. Behave.”

“What? We don’t wanna get fucked over again. Shit sucks.”

“He will,” Alvin reassured them.

“Well, we took a job in Salem that also pays well, and they stiffed us in the end. Had to...use other means to collect the service.”

Alvin nodded. “Understood.” He glanced over Steven and Tara’s shoulders into the person sitting in the backseat. “Who’s that?”

Steven grinned. “Ah. That’s Yasmine. My girlfriend,” he said proudly.

Tara rolled her eyes. “They’ve been dating for just a few months, and my brother thinks they’re married already,” she whispered.

“Nah, sis. She’s cool.”

Alvin narrowed his eyes. “Then why is she here?”

“She might look small, but don’t let that fool you,” Tara said. “She’s a fighter, that one. Took down a biker during a brawl. She came in handy in some jobs we did.”

“She wanted to be an actress,” Steven interjected. “Went to LA, but just came back to Oregon when that didn’t pan out.”

“Must have not been very good then,” Alvin said.

“Oh, she’s excellent. Hollywood is just missing out on a star.” Steven looked over his shoulder and shot Yasmine a warm smile. “And if that didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have met.”

“Oh, kill me now,” Tara groaned. “Just to get us out of this fucking cringe energy over here, what’s this job all about, Alvin? We haven’t heard from you for a long time, and now you offer us a golden goose?”

“Trust me. The money is good. All you have to do is scout the area and, if possible, retrieve an object for us.”

“So we’re stealing something?”

Alvin paused. “Yes.”

“And what do you mean by us?” Steven asked.

“My employers.” Alvin took out his phone and sent them a pin on WhatsApp. “There’s a cabin up ahead. A woman lives there. All you had to do was look around. See how she’s doing. Scare her a little. And if you can get the object, we’ll increase the pay.”

“Lots of loose ends. What about the woman?”

Alvin gritted his teeth. “Dead. Once you extract the object.”

Tara smirked. “And who is this woman?”

“Someone we want out of the picture.”

Tara put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t mention it would be that kind of job.”

“Better to say things like this in person than through texts.”

“Understandable. It’s not our first time.”

“And what is this object we’re trying to find? Money?” Steven asked.

Alvin shook his head. “A gem.” He went through his sparse photo album and showed them the gemstone. My gemstone. “I want you to recover this.”

“A rock?” Tara asked, bewildered. “You want us to kill a woman for a rock?”

“Must be some expensive shit,” Steven muttered.

“It is valuable to my employers.”

“What, did it fall from the sky or something?”

“Do you want the job or not?” Alvin asked impatiently.

“We’ll take it. We’re already here,” Tara said. “Good thing we brought our tools then.”

“Good. I expect it to be done by the end of the night.”

“What about you?” Steven asked. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll wait by the roadhouse a few miles back. Once the job is done, meet me there, and you’ll get your pay.”

“Not gonna join us?” Tara asked.

“I’m moving up in the world,” Alvin shrugged and reiterated what Steven said.

She scoffed. “Fine, fine. We’ll meet you in the roadhouse. I promise we’ll get the job done.”

“Make sure that you do.” Alvin climbed into his car and started the engine. He rolled down the window. “Oh, and don’t underestimate the woman. She’s more than capable of handling the three of you.”

“Who is she?” Tara asked.

“A dangerous one. So, be careful.”

Alvin drove back out of the road toward Route 26.

“No!” I yelled. I waited too long. I could have dragged Alvin into the woods. They could have tortured him. I thought I could shed his Resolve while he watched his friends die one by one. He seemed a capable guy like Leo, whose Resolve rarely dwindled to red. I didn’t want a drawn-out fight with him, and Leo took hours to drop.

But I could still salvage this. I could still lure Alvin Jones later. “Clone the other three’s phones, Oracle. Study how they text. How they talk.”

> PROCESSING….

I’ll deal with these three for now. They’re good enough to satiate my hunger; the appetizers for the main course. If they work for the cult, they’re just another red stain on my list.