Chapter Two
July 4th, 1998 - First Incident
"It was like something from my brother's favorite horror genre. I never imagined I was in my own horror movie now."
Two hours before:
A daily jog was one of the things that kept her moving. Naturally, Jennifer Hector wanted to keep herself healthy. She also had a lot of things going for her at home, like the little toddler she had given birth to a month ago: her second son. The first born, Shaun Gregory, had just started college this year, and it made her feel old, but she surprised herself when Dean got her pregnant again.
Thankfully her husband was with the baby, so that Jennifer could do her exercises to take off the pregnancy weight. It was hard to keep it up, what with work and the baby keeping her busy. In fact, she was a little behind on her exercises. She looked at her watch, and took deep, steady breaths.
She kept up the pace, and knew that she was near her car so she could head home. Something from the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she stopped. She looked around. Was it a figment of her imagination? She was gonna turn around and continue her jog, but she heard a noise and thought she saw something moving towards her.
"Hello?" she called out.
A low moan sounded, and soon Jennifer found herself stepping backwards.
She would never leave that spot…
Now:
A team of police officers stood over the chewed up corpse that had previously been Jennifer Hector. One of them, Marvin Branaugh, had a sickened expression on his face. When he heard a commotion, he walked over to where Barnes was standing with a fellow officer.
"Let him through, I called him in," he said.
Barnes nodded to the officer, and walked over to Branaugh. "What's goin on? I'm enjoying a delicious meatloaf and you call me in on some sickly scene," Barnes said.
"Yeah, sickly is one way to put it. Take a look," Branaugh said, motioning to the corpse.
Barnes glanced towards where he was pointing at, and almost gagged. They both walked over towards the body.
"Oh jeez," Barnes said.
"Yeah," Branaugh commented. "The neck is almost all chewed off."
Barnes got to his knees, grunting as he did so, feeling his aching bones in his knees pop, and attempted to take a better look at the bites, but the scene was almost too gruesome for him.
"Is Donivine here yet?" he asked.
"I'm just arriving," Anika said, as she walked down the path. She took a good look at the body and sighed. "Reminds me of movies my brother watches," she said.
"That bad?" Barnes asked.
"You wouldn't want to watch anything like it after," she commented. She got down next to him.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"Zombies, but they're just in the movies," she replied.
"Some of these do look like human bite marks, but I think I see some animal teeth marks too," Barnes said.
"Yeah. The coroner is gonna have a field day with this," Anika said.
"We have someone coming. He's on his way now," Branaugh said.
"I want a toxicology report. Possible rabies attack," Barnes said.
Barnes and Anika both stood up.
"Who was the person who found her?" Anika asked.
"Another jogger who happened to pass by, says the attackers must have left before he got there," Branaugh said. He pointed to a man standing off in the distance.
Barnes glanced at the man, and took a deep breath.
"Sick him, Dee," he said.
Anika smirked, and walked over to the man, who was standing with an officer, Chuck Walters. The man gave her a once over.
"Come to ask me questions too?" he asked.
"Just a few," she replied. She took out a note pad and pencil.
Just as Anika was doing her thing, Barnes took a glove and put it on. Then he dug into the woman's pockets and took out her wallet.
"Let's see what her name is," he said. He looked it over for an ID, and found it. "Her name is Jennifer Hector. We'll have to make a call to her husband, if she has one. Or her closest
relative," he said, handing it to Branaugh, who also had gloves on. "What's out this way? Like what's out there?" Barnes asked.
Branaugh shrugged. "I think, if you go a certain direction, you come upon some open roads, the old Arklay hospital, and somewhere out there is the Spencer Estate," Branaugh replied.
"Nothing to indicate some sort of cult, right?"
"Your guess is as good as any," Branaugh replied. "Why, you think this may have been a cult?"
Barnes shrugged, and took a deep breath.
"At this stage, it's too early to decide. I've seen some strange shit, but this is new," he said.
"Cannibalistic murder is certainly not common here," Branaugh commented.
Anika walked over to them. "Just your typical 'I was just making my way through the path' bullshit. He doesn't know anything about what happened. As far as he knows, they killed her, ate her, and left long before he got there," she told them.
Barnes nodded, and took another glance at the body. "We'll let the coroner do his thing. Nothing we can do now. I'll write up the report. You go home," he said.
Anika nodded, and walked off.
"Keep safe!" he called out to her, and she gave a gentle wave to him.