Chapter 2: The Face of Evil
One lesson my brother and I have learned over the years is that evil doesn't always look evil. The only problem is, we seem to need to relearn this lesson over and over again. Case in point, Tara Stoppable. When we first met her, almost two years before finding out what she had done, we would have never guessed she was capable of such actions. Even when she confessed that she killed Kim Possible, we were expecting to hear about an accident, followed by a panicked teenaged girl hiding the evidence.
When she told us she'd trapped the heroine, her friend, in the cistern and left her there to die, we were dumbstruck.
Like I said, we would have never believed that she could do such a thing. It wasn't simply a case of Tara being pretty. Trust me, we've gotten to the point that we get nervous whenever we encounter a woman who looks like she should be on the cover of the swimsuit issue. That's caused more than a little speculation about us, but I digress. The point is, Tara was one of the kindest, friendliest souls we'd ever encountered. Seeing her interact with family, friends and neighbors had convinced us that Ron Stoppable was the luckiest man on the face of the planet. Seeing the way Ron acted around her told us that he agreed with us.
I had to ask, "Mrs. Stoppable?" Has something happened with this situation recently? I mean, we've noticed that Ron has become more aggressive and less humorous, could this have something to do with it?"
"It has everything to do with it," Tara sobbed back. "This past Halloween, Kim escaped for a short time. Actually my son, Lon, released her. He heard scraping sounds coming from inside the cistern and assumed some animal had burrowed in and gotten trapped." Tara barked out a humorless laugh, "one of my eccentricities is that I don't like my children near the old cistern. Knowing this, Lon waited until Ron was at the medical center's fundraiser and I was handing out candy. That left him alone to open the thing. I guess I interrupted him just as he opened the lid, so Kim was able to sneak out without anyone noticing. I don't know exactly where she went but from what Ron said she visited her…her parents' home before returning to mine."
"She went to my daughter's room," Tara continued, "the same room I had as a teenager, when Kim and I were friends. When she escaped, she hadn't known how much time had passed – she hadn't even known she was dead. She came after me once she figured it out. Kim wanted to kill me, to even the score but Ron interrupted. When he saw that…thing about to strangle me he swung his magic sword and knocked her back, yelling at her to get away from his wife. When Kim realized that we were married, she went from shocked too completely and utterly furious. I've never seen anything so angry, I could literally feel the hate flowing out of her. She demanded to know why Ron betrayed her by marrying her murderer. That's when Ron realized the monster he was fighting was…Kim."
"Is that when you told Ron how you killed her?" I prompted.
Tara shook her head, "that was no time for explanations. He got the full story later. Almost as soon as he realized he was fighting Kim, Lon showed up. Kim realized he was our son and remembered that she had been in a girl's room. That's when she…she…" Tara struggled to force the story out. It wasn't hard for Dean and I to figure out what she was going to say next.
"She threatened to kill our children!" Tara finally blurted out. "She said since I had gained a husband and children by killing her, she'd take them away from me! She doesn't just want me dead, she want's my kids dead first!"
"What happened next?" Dean asked.
"She…it…Kim tried to attack Lon but Ron wouldn't let her," Tara told us. "The two of them fought. Kim clawed Ron up yet he still managed to chop her into pieces. It was terrible! Even though she was lying in pieces, she kept threatening our children and us. Ron took charge of the situation and grilled Lon until the boy told him about the night's activities in the cistern. Realizing that it had held Kim for over twenty years, he entombed her in it again. Then he sat me down and I told him the whole story."
"Who all knows?" I asked.
"Ron, Lon and me," Tara told me. "I'm sure Wade suspects something but he isn't talking."
"What about Kim's parents and brothers?" Dean demanded.
"In the dark," Tara told us. "Ron doesn't talk to me very much any more but he told me to never tell them, tell anyone, what I did to Kim. He wants everyone to believe she's resting peacefully, after a quick death."
Dean snapped at her, "how could you do that to a friend?" That question had been burning inside my skull as well, ever since she told us what she had done. Of course, she went pale and her lips started to quiver.
"It's not important right now," I insisted. There would be time to deal with the whys after we dealt with the what.
"No," Tara interrupted. "Neither Ron nor Lon wanted to know why I did what I did. It's time I told somebody. It may sound stupid right now but I'm willing to bet that when you reach your mid-forties, some of the things you did in your teens will seem just as foolish."
"We don't have a very good chance of reaching our forties," Dean quipped, "but I never killed another human as a teen."
"Shut up!" I snarled. This took Dean a little aback. I didn't have time for Dean's attitude. Mrs. Stoppable's story might give me the vital information I needed to deal with whatever Kim Possible had become. "Go ahead, ma'am," I prompted our guest.
"Thank you," Tara nodded to me, with a hard glare at Dean. Dean glared back with equal ferocity.
The story she told us chilled even us, seasoned monster hunters. She told us how she'd invited her friend, Kim Possible, over to her house to look at the latest rendition of the 'cute stuffed animal' type of toy. She told us how she'd hidden an open container of Team Possible's knockout gas in the box that supposedly held the toys. When Kim opened the box and was incapacitated by the gas, Tara dragged the unconscious heroine into the abandoned cistern, chained her to a wall then sealed it shut. Finally, she told us how she planted false evidence that made it appear as if Kim had gone out to a local lake and vanished.
For several minutes, Dean and I just stared at her. Finally, Dean found his voice. "Okay, you just told us what you did," he said. "Now, tell us why you did it. Were you mad at her? Jealous? What?"
"It was for Ron!" Tara insisted.
"Killing his girlfriend, his lifelong friend, was for his benefit?" Dean said in disbelief. "If that's doing him a favor, I never want you looking out for me."
"Mrs. Stoppable," I interrupted. "You've explained how you did it but it really is important that you tell us why, it might help us deal with her more effectively."
"The two of you don't understand how Ron was back then," she told us, "everything he did, he did with every fiber of his being. He threw his whole heart into everything and that included Kim. Whenever something didn't work out for him, he became terribly depressed about it. For example, he opened a gourmet restaurant in our high school Home EC classroom. He was so crushed when the Health Department shut it down after a couple of days. He dated a girl named Zita for about a week, then went into a two week funk when it all fell apart, but those aren't the worst examples."
"The worst parts centered around Kim," Tara explained. "He did everything for her, including risking his life to help her on her missions. She was the absolute center of his world but she never seemed to appreciate his sacrifices. She would ditch him in an instant for a hot guy. I thought it was great when they finally got together but then I realized that it would eventually fall apart. Sooner are later, she would ditch him again and leave him so devastated that he would never pull out of it."
"Are you serious?" Dean said with contempt. "C'mon, do you really think he'd become some sort of lifelong basket case over a teen romance?"
"As a forty-something mother of three, no," Tara answered back. "But as an eighteen year old who owed him for saving my life from a sick mutant, yes. I told you that I can see, now, how foolish it all was but by the time I realized it back then, weeks had passed and I didn't know what to do. Eventually, I managed to kind of half-forget what I did."
"Conveniently leaving the guy vulnerable and desperate for some kind of anchor," I couldn't help but say, "an anchor that you were more than happy to provide. Seeing your home and family, I don't think you exactly suffered all these years."
She snarled back, "I honestly didn't care if I hooked up with him! I did it for him, not me! Ron's feelings for Kim were intense, much stronger than the typical teen romance but to Kim, he was the guy who was always there. I don't think she ever really…respected him and loved him for who he was. She valued his friendship and she appreciated him but I don't think she ever loved him."
Tara shook her head, as if clearing old memories, before continuing, "like I said, that was back when I was eighteen. It seemed so clear, so obvious to me. I just knew she was going to destroy him and that he would never see it coming! Warning him wouldn't do any good; he was completely devoted to her. Telling her off wouldn't do any good, she had him and she was happier than she'd ever been in her life." She concluded, with a heavy sigh. "Anyway, I know how absolutely stupid my reasoning was, believe me I know. Until this past Halloween, I hadn't realized she'd become…that thing. Now, I'm turning to you for help. I need to deal with her without drawing a great deal of attention."
"So her friends and family remain blissfully ignorant? Or so you can avoid prosecution?" Dean challenged.
"You can call the police or the FBI after you deal with her," Tara countered, her voice firm. "If you think that's best for her parents and brothers, fine. If you run to the police now, whatever happens to the poor cop who opens the cistern will be on your head."
Dean and I shared a long look. Tara Stoppable was right, telling everybody what she had done this long after the crime wouldn't accomplish anything. I'm no justice fanatic; one look at the way Dean and I fund our activities will tell you that. Still, the idea of letting her off scot-free burned my gullet.
"I don't care what happens to me anymore," Tara said, apparently correctly interpreting my expression. "Once Kim has been put to rest, what you do is up to you. I've already lost my husband and my oldest son, they won't even speak to me unless they absolutely must. I'm not going to risk Kim escaping again and possibly killing my children."
Dean stepped in, "okay, first things first. We need to pick out a time when we can deal with it…"
"Her!" Tara insisted.
"Okay, her," Dean rolled his eyes. "Here's something that might make this easier on you; start thinking of her as a monster…as an it. It isn't a young woman anymore, it isn't a heroine anymore and it isn't Kim Possible anymore. Now, it's a threat to be eliminated."
"Fine," Tara rolled her eyes in return. "What do I need to do so you can take care of IT?"
"Clear everyone out of the area," I told her. "If Kim manages to escape the cistern again, there will be whole lot of uncomfortable questions to answer. It's better if we do this as soon as possible."
"Ron chopped her to pieces. How can…"
"If she's a revenant, like I suspect," Dean interrupted, picking up Dad's journal and flipping through it, "her body, whole or otherwise, is anchoring her here."
"Salting and burning the remains is the best solution." He concluded as he snapped the journal shut. "Nailing her to her grave bed with a silver stake is another solution, but it presents some unique problems."
"It's going to fight us whatever we try," I added. "Which means the whole encounter is going to be noisy as hell."
Tara kept her eyes downcast while we discussed her former friend's final fate. When she finally looked up, the skin around her eyes tightened and her voice could have cut ice, "Ron will be gone next week. He's meeting someone in California and he won't tell me what it's about. I can probably arrange for my kids to be away from home overnight on Monday."
"What about the other neighbors?" Dean asked.
"We can pull something off," I assured him. "I can mimic a call from a utility company, make it sound like there's a gas leak or something like that. We can arrange for a temporary evacuation, which will give us the chance to deal with it."
"Do you really think that the authorities won't catch on?" Tara retorted. "We're not a major city like Denver but we aren't a bunch of ignorant hicks, either."
"We never said you were," Dean assured her in a tight voice. "We'll be able to fool the authorities for a short time and get the job done. After that, we'll probably have to steer clear of Middleton for a few years."
"So…this Monday?" Tara asked.
"We'll take care of everything," I said, hoping to reassure her.
Dean and I requested her cell number and worked out a couple of simple, coded phrases so she could let us know if it wasn't a good time to talk. After a short discussion, she took her leave. Dean stood up and looked out the window while I sat and stared at the carpet for several long minutes after she left.
"So, can we trust her?" I asked Dean.
"I think so," Dean replied, turning back from the window. "She's acting in her own self interest. She wants to get rid of a monster in her backyard and try to put her near-perfect life back together."
"It happened over twenty years ago," I pointed out. "Who knows, she may have been influenced.
That's another thing that makes dealing with the things that go bump in the night difficult; you don't always know if they've been there. Look, there's enough nastiness in humanity without any extra assistance yet sometimes evil things just insist on helping the process along. Take what Tara did to Kim; did she actually come up with this horrible plan on her own or did something plant the idea in her mind? Some of these influences are crafty and convince people they're doing the most horrid actions with the best intentions. Life would be much simpler if they would just hang an 'influenced by malevolent spirit' sign on their victims.
In the end, it really doesn't matter. Kim Possible is now some sort of revenant trapped in the Stoppable's cistern and we have to deal with it. Dean and I've been doing this long enough that we can almost hear each other think. We had a lot of preparation to do and only a few days to get it done. First, find out which utility company maintained the natural gas lines in the Stoppables' neighborhood. Second, hack into the company's servers and plant our credentials so we could make reports to law enforcement agencies. Third, appropriate a utility service vehicle or modify a similarly 'borrowed' vehicle to look like one. Fourth, stock up on the tools of our trade.
The next couple of days passed in a blur of activity. While Dean and I have the routine down, every town is different. Some Police Departments follow procedures more closely than others do and some utility companies have tighter security protocols than others. The bottom line is that it isn't always easy to fool people for their own good.
Still, by Monday we had records showing us employed by the utility company, the proper uniforms and IDs, and a pickup that looked pretty much like a utility company service vehicle. None of these items could withstand close scrutiny but we hoped we would be out of Middleton by the time anyone thought to verify our identities. We checked out of our room and arrived in the Stoppable's neighborhood at about 9:00 AM.
Ron was in California, Lon, Roy and Kim were at school so that left the neighbors. I hacked into the utility company's network and placed our names on the on-call list right as Tara called them to report that she could smell gas. The company immediately called and dispatched us to investigate the complaint. We waited a half-hour and called in to report that our instruments were picking up elevated gas levels. The utility company called the police and I slipped downstairs and released some propane from a tank. When the police officer arrived, we showed her our utility company Ids before leading her to the basement. The propane smell quickly convinced her and she asked us how she could help. We asked her to evacuate the homes bordering the Stoppable property and to block off the area. She complied, giving us the privacy we needed to deal with Kim.
We insisted that Tara leave with the other evacuees, both because it supported our cover story and because we didn't want her in the line of fire. Before she left she gave us the grand tour so we knew where everything was located. Time to hunt.
Once we had everyone out of the way, our first order of business was to fetch the same pulley and frame system Lon had opened the pit with, a few weeks earlier. Once our hoist was in place, we made sure we had a several molotov cocktails, a large container of rock salt, a couple gas cans and some matches handy. Trust me, in our line of work, forgetting the matches can get you killed. Finally, we scratched a circular slot in the ground around the cistern cover and filled it with rock salt. While we didn't have any evidence that a barrier of salt would contain the revenant, it couldn't hurt and salt's a hell of a lot cheaper than a thirty-foot silver chain. With the salt in place we chipped the mortar sealing the cistern.
Needless to say, this eliminated any possibility of catching our prey by surprise. While we've noticed that the weird critters we hunt tend to be very aware of their territory anyway, nothing says 'company's coming' quite like pounding on their front door for over an hour. Finally, we had the mortar chipped free and the cover's handles hooked to the pulley. We shared a look, took a deep breath, and hoisted the lid.
For a few, endless seconds, nothing happened. Dean and I started to entertain the hope that we could just dump some salt and gasoline into the cistern and drop a match. Suddenly, a bone-chilling shriek burst from the pit, followed by a hideous stench. Stunned and watery-eyed, we gawked like a couple of schoolboys at their first peep show as a skeletal…thing leapt from the hole and stood before us.
"Where is she?" It demanded. "Where's that murdering whore? I know you're here somewhere Tara! You can't stop me! Nothing can stop me! If you come out, now, I'll kill you before I kill your children! At least you won't see them die!"
"That's not going to happen," Dean growled, pointing his salt gun at her.
"And who are you?" The thing demanded, turning its head so the empty eye sockets pointed towards us.
"Our names aren't important," I told it. "What's important is that we're here to put an end to you. You can either accept the inevitable and go quietly, or fight us."
Did I really say that? I mean, honestly, it sounds like a something a science fiction hero would tell an evil overlord. Hunter Handbook lesson number one, never monologue during a fight. When facing monsters, hit hard, fast and often, preferably without any warning. Save the heroic banter for after you've got the job done. Dean flashed me a glare that said we were going to have a pointed discussion about my lapse let loose a double-barreled twelve-gauge worth of rock salt into the thing.
The salt seemed to hurt the creature, made it pause for a moment, but didn't inflict serious damage. That's another standard idiosyncrasy about dealing with assorted bogeymen, they don't react to wounds the way normal creatures do. If you're fighting a man and deliver a solid kick to his knee, he goes down and won't be able to use the leg very well. With revenants, such as Kim Possible had unfortunately become, it's all or nothing. They seem to feel pain but they don't lose their capabilities until you take them out of the fight…completely.
Fortunately, this little trivia tidbit took very little time to recall. Kim leapt at Dean before he could reload and unleashed a blow that sent my big brother sprawling backwards. I had just enough time to contemplate just how much trouble a combination of revenant strength and sixteen forms of kung-fu could be before she was looming over Dean, kicking the shotgun away and preparing to deliver the death blow.
Unluckily for her, this is exactly what we had been waiting for. I don't know what it is about the conversion from life to not-life, but those who take this dark journey seem to trade rationality and logic for rage and strength. Kim's attention was completely on Dean when I dashed up behind her, pulled the silver stake out of my jacket and pinned her foot to the ground.
Another interesting thing about dealing with bizarre creatures, most of them have odd vulnerabilities. With Kim's undead strength, she should have been able to break through the cistern's concrete cap long ago. However, the concrete had probably assumed a metaphysical barrier as well as a physical barrier. Because she was unable to escape the cistern in life, she couldn't leave it in death, either, unless someone opened it for her. We were hoping, actually betting our lives, that the silver stake would have a similar effect. Even though she was easily strong enough to pull out any stake that I jammed into the ground, she shouldn't be unable to free herself.
It seemed to work. She screamed and tugged at the stake but couldn't pull free. Dean rolled clear and I backed off, out of her reach. While we seemed to have immobilized her, she was still making a racket, challenging our ability to explain things to the local authorities. Dean and I shared a look, regretting what we were about to do. We both pulled out a molotov cocktail and lit it.
"I don't know if you're still in there, Kim," I said to the creature, now safely indulging in a bit of monologuing. "I only hope that if you are, this will set you free."
Suddenly, something swatted the firebomb out of my hand. One hand grabbed me by the wrist, another by the elbow and hurled me towards my brother. Dean managed to dodge my sprawling body and I spun around just in time to see a hooded figure land a punch on his jaw that dropped my brother like a marionette with its strings cut. The figure pulled the hood back, revealing the face of…Ron Stoppable.
"I told you two to leave," he reminded us in a low, emotionless voice. "But I guessed you wouldn't listen. Now, you've found out something you should never have learned. I wish I didn't know, either."
"Then you know that we need to eliminate it," I protested.
"Her!" Ron growled back.
"Fine, her," I conceded. "You aren't doing her any favors by letting her exist like this, we have to set her free!"
"Set her free or destroy her?" Ron countered.
"She's already dead!"
"But she still exists!"
"Technically!"
"Ron?" Kim quit cursing my brother and I long enough to understand what was happening. "You've come back for me? You'll release me? I knew you wouldn't let Tara get away with it! We'll eliminate her and her children!"
"They're my children too, Kim," he murmured back.
"See?" I demanded, pointing at the skeletal creature. "This isn't Kim anymore! Kim would have never dreamed of harming your kids, no matter who their mother is!" Behind Ron, Dean was stirring; recovering from the blow Ron had delivered. I was determined to stall Ron long enough to give Dean a chance to pay him back.
"She'll never stop while your kids are still alive!" I told him. "It's your choice, either release her from that body or accept the fact that eventually, she'll break free again and destroy your kids, grandkids, or whatever descendants of yours happen to be around when she does!"
"That may be true," Ron growled menacingly, as Dean stood up, unseen, behind him. "But you'll have to destroy Kim over my dead body."
A/N:
Those of you who are re-reading this story will notice some changes. After I posted this chapter my dear wife, Ciya, read it and came to the rightful conclusion that she couldn't trust me to post stories unsupervised. I must thank her for her beta efforts. I hope you enjoyed the alterations. For those of you reading the story for the first time, I hope you enjoy.
For everyone, best wishes;
Daccu65