*Chapter 8*
A man goes around the kitchen of a restaurant emptying the trashcans. After replacing all the trashcans with new plastic bags, he walks to the back door. With three bags in hand, he exits into the alley. Upon exiting the door, he puts the bags down. He takes out a pack of cigarettes, takes one out and lights it up. The smooth taste of the cigarette is heavenly to the man. He takes hold of the three bags, walks to the dumpster and tosses the trash in. As he walks away, he stops. The man thought he caught a glance of something unusual in the dumpster. He approaches the dumpster. Inside the dumpster, underneath the trash he just threw in, are two dead bodies with crushed necks. The cigarette falls from the man's mouth due to the shock.
"Shit…" The man sighed.
Not too long after the discovery of the dead bodies in the dumpster, NCIS arrives to the crime-scene. They exit from the truck and gather their investigative equipment from the back.
"Tony, bag and tag…" Gibbs starts handing out assignments. "Ziva, sketches. Samantha, pictures."
"What do you want me to do?" Lewis Matheson asked.
"We're dealing with a person who knows how to avoid authorities." Gibbs stated. "And he has a knack for disappearing from a scene without a trace."
"It's hard to imagine such a noticeably large man who leaves a path of destruction can actually be hard to find." Tony commented.
"So we need you to track which direction he went from here." Gibbs said.
"If there's any trace, I'll find it." Lewis stated. He walks away in order to track which direction the escaped prisoner went.
The team enters into the alley. They approach the dumpster and begin to process the crime-scene. After glancing at the scene, Gibbs walks to the back door of the restaurant where the man who discovered the bodies has been waiting to be questioned.
As Gibbs is taking the man's statement, Ducky arrives.
"Oh dear…" Ducky said upon approaching the dumpster and looking inside. He reaches his hands into the dumpster and begins examining the bodies. "What a harsh demise, my young lads. You must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time to have bumped into who you bumped into. But don't worry lads, we'll get you out of this dumpster and cleaned up in no time." As Ducky continues to talk to the victims, Samantha is confused and wonders if Ducky needs to seek professional help.
"He talks to them." Ziva stated.
"I can see." Samantha said.
"They unfortunately never talk back. But they eventually tell me everything." Ducky said. There's a brief pause as he recalls a past case. "Well, there was one that talked back. Apparently, he wasn't actually dead. He woke up just as I was about to cut him open. It's a very interesting story…"
"TOD, Duck?" Gibbs asked as he approaches with trying to get things moving and spare Samantha a long, Ducky story.
"Roughly forty-five minutes ago." Ducky responded.
Down the alley near the old car, an object catches Tony's eye. It's the empty French fry carton; medium fries from McDonald's. Among the garbage lying around, it seems out-of-place as it appears to be recent; the grease is still moist. He snaps a picture of the evidence before picking it up and placing it in an evidence bag. Then he looks to the old car. The hood has a considerable dent as if something large was recently on top of it. It strikes him as odd so he snaps a picture of it.
"What do you got, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.
"Medium fries from McDonald's. It appears to be recent." Tony holds up the evidence bag. "And this dent on the hood of this old car looks odd."
Gibbs leans down to take a closer look at the dent. From the paint and rust, he can tell something recently disrupted it.
"There are some paint chips on the ground here." Tony points to the paint chips on the ground in front of the car. He snaps a picture of them. "Maybe he was sitting here eating French fries. I could go down to the McDonald's to check if they saw him."
"Eat lunch on your own time, DiNozzo." Gibbs said.
"You know, he could've killed the victims for their lunch. Even a massively large psycho gets hungry." Tony commented. There's a brief pause. "Boss, if I may give my opinion about Agent Cole… I don't think she's fit for this team. Maybe a transfer to another team would be in her best interest."
"Are you tempted by her, DiNozzo?"
"No, of course not." Tony quickly defended himself. "What I'm trying to say is, being thrown to you is like being thrown under a…" He stops.
"Under a what?"
"Under a beautiful blue sky on a warm sunny day." Tony grins innocently. There's a brief pause. "Would you believe she's sexually harassing me?" He receives a glare from Gibbs. "Thought not." He said. Gibbs continues to glare at him. "I love my wife."
"I'm keeping an eye you, DiNozzo."
Gibbs walks away. Tony sighs because the day has officially gotten worse.
After the crime-scene being processed, the team returns to NCIS Headquarters. The evidence is immediately brought to the Forensics lab for Abby to process.
With having no leads and Lewis losing Apocalypse's trail, the team enters into the Forensics lab.
"You all must not have anything to go on." Abby stated at the sight of everyone entering into her lab. "That's okay, because we have something." She said with a smile of pride.
"What do you got, Abs?" Gibbs asked. He approaches the middle computer desk where his daughter Jamie is seated. He kisses her on the forehead.
"You go first Jamie." Abby said.
"We were going over the files Agent Fornell sent. And after the last victim, something doesn't make sense." Jamie stated. "Apocalypse escaped here killing four victims." A map shows on the plasma with a red dot to indicate the location. "The fifth victim was killed in a parking garage here." Another red dot shows on the screen. And a line appears to connect the two points. "The sixth and seventh victims were killed in the alley here." A red dot and connecting line appear. "In the last hour, Agent Fornell sent information about another victim. And this is where the pattern doesn't make sense." The last red dot and connecting line appear. "Take this and compare it to years ago." Past patterns now show on the screen next to the recent pattern.
"The pattern became erratic." Ziva stated.
"Something happen between the alley victims and the most recent victim."
"We need to figure out why he changed direction." Gibbs said as he's trying to figure out why. The past pattern shows Apocalypse never strayed far from a single direction. But now, he has.
"We already figured that out." Abby said cheerfully. "Well, kind of. It's certainly more than what you had before. Which, what you had before really isn't much to begin with."
"Abs…"
"Tony was right." Abby gets back on track. "The McDonald's fries were recent. There are two sets of fingerprints on the carton. Neither belong to the alley victims. So you were wrong about Apocalypse stealing their lunch, Tony. So I guess that technically only makes you half right. Not that your explanation couldn't be plausible. It's just the evidence doesn't support…"
"Abs!" Gibbs exclaimed to get her back on track.
"The first set of fingerprints belongs to Apocalypse, no surprise there. But the second set of fingerprints is smaller in size." Abby stated. "And I do mean smaller than adult size. It definitely wasn't an adult."
"Are you trying to say the French fries belonged to a child?" Gibbs asked.
"You're missing a witness, Gibbs." Abby said.
"Apocalypse may have changed direction due to that child." Jamie commented. "The only question is; why?"
"That doesn't make sense." Tony said in confusion. "What does it matter if a witness got away? There were tons of witnesses when he escaped. And their statements all say he basically disregarded them."
"I don't think the kid is a witness." Samantha stated. "Well, he is a witness but I don't think in the way we believe it to be." There's a brief pause. "I know this isn't within Apoc's state-of-mind, but what if he and the child were sharing the French fries."
"Apocalypse share? I don't think that's even possible." Tony said.
"Apoc is about destroying the weak so the strong can prevail." Samantha said. "A child is weak. But this child wasn't killed. What if the child managed to save his own life…"
"By sharing his French fries...?" Ziva is confused.
"No, by saying something that Apoc managed to relate to." Samantha said. "It may be a far stretch, but I think the child may have a name which other kids make fun of him for. So Apoc related to it and they ended up sharing the French fries."
"It's possible, Gibbs." Abby said. "The French fry carton shows no indication of being grabbed from someone's hand. When someone grabs something from another person's hand, there will be smudged fingerprints. There's no smudging on the carton at all."
"There's also no creases or dents to the carton." Jamie added. "Though, it's also possible the child gave him the French fries and ran away before he could be killed. But Apocalypse was too hungry to bother chasing him. Because there's no indication the child stuck around. The only evidence of the child is the fingerprints on the carton."
"Samantha, I want you to follow your theory." Gibbs said. "Tony, Ziva… I want you to assume the child is in danger. We have to figure out who the kid is." Gibbs said as the child might be in danger since they have no idea why Apocalypse changed direction.
Apocalypse's deviation from directional pattern is bizarre. The erratic change of direction is cause for concern since they really have no idea as to possible directionality now. All it leaves is questions which they don't have answers to. And the only theory is something which is far fetched, but plausible nonetheless.