Chapter 3
Ron sat in the back of the patrol car between Kim and Shego and tried desperately to keep from falling asleep. Life as Kim Possible's sidekick was always a hectic one but the last week had to be one for the record books.
From aliens from other dimensions to demonic corpses and now this. Everyone kept telling him it was just a 'simple' murder in a small town but every sense in his body screamed it was much more.
That was enough stress to keep anyone from sleeping well but then factor in his new love life too.
Now there was a strange thought. From secretly loving and longing for his best friend but never daring to tell her how he felt, to the occasional heated fantasy involving a super hot villainess that just happened to have the most appealing green tinted skin, to the reality of a sexual relationship with both of them. While it was every man's fantasy, the reality of it was enough to exhaust the most energetic of men. And that was exactly what Ron Stoppable was at the moment... Exhausted.
Ron's head dropped to his chest and he quickly jerked it back up and looked left and right to see if Kim or Shego had caught him dozing off. Ron frowned when he noticed Kim and Shego were staring straight forward and didn't seem to notice his sudden movements or that he was looking at them.
"Hey Kim, Shego. Hope I didn't snore." He joked hoping to get some kind of reaction from his lovers. Both women however continued to stare straight forward and didn't even blink.
Ron sat for a several long moments wondering if both women were zoning or were ignoring him for some reason. He had lost his cool there back at the station but that was because he could detect that the police chief was lying to them for some reason.
That was bad enough when you take the time to drop out of the sky in parachutes to help someone but he was also incredibly rude and caustic to Kim and Shego! In Ron's mind that was inexcusable, so he lost his cool a bit. Surely the girls weren't so angry at him they were ignoring him and giving him the silent treatment.
Even though the situation was very serious and somewhat tense, Ron reached over and tickled Shego under her arm in an attempt to get her to react to him. Even if she just turned and slugged him it would have been better than the silent, almost wax figure like act she was doing now.
Nothing.
Ron with a sigh looked past the women at the street the patrol car was going down. Just another typical small town. The residential streets could have been in Middletown for all the distinctiveness they had. Typical tree lined streets. Typical white painted houses with manicured lawns. Typical creepy looking little girls playing jump rope in the front yards...
Ron frowned. While he had seen girls playing jump rope in his home town of Middletown, the ones outside the patrol car in Springwood just looked odd. For one thing all the girls were dressed in white. Unusual to find children all wearing the same color clothing unless they were triplets but there was a fuzzy quality to them as well. Almost as if they weren't quite real somehow.
Ron turned in his seat to watch the girls jump roping as long as he could as the slow moving patrol car crawled by them.
That was another thing that was strange. The patrol car was moving at such a slow rate, Ron felt he could have gotten out and walked faster. He knew it wasn't like the crime scene was that fresh. The murder having taking place sometime yesterday or the day before and the murderer most likely wasn't still hanging around the place but why the slow speed?
Ron thought about nudging Kim and Shego to ask them what they thought about their snail's pace but with a shake of his head he gave up on that idea. Leaning forward he addressed the deputy riding on the passenger side of the car in the front.
The Police chief obviously didn't care for Ron that much and Ron doubted he would answer him but maybe the deputy would.
"How much longer till our destination?" He asked trying to be overly polite.
The deputy suddenly turned his body to look back through the metal grating that separated the driver's compartment with the back seat of the patrol car.
Ron suddenly sat back as he noticed instead of the deputy he was expecting there was some guy with a burnt face grinning at him. The burnt faced man raised a hand and Ron's eyes grew wide when he saw that he was wearing some kind of knives made into a glove on that hand. The strange man slowly raked the knives over the metal grating causing a most unpleasant screeching noise.
"Your final destination is almost here!" The man growled at Ron with a voice that sounded like he had gargled with razor blades. With a sudden shove the burnt man sliced through the grating with the finger knives as if the metal grating was so much tissue paper.
Ron woke with a start just as the blades were about to slam into his face.
Kim sitting in the patrol car kept going over the crime scene pictures in her head. While the memory of those pictures made her want to hurl she was determined to find some clue the police had missed. Whoever this sick twisted person was going around killing, she was determined they were going to be stopped. She was Kim Possible and anything was possible for a Possible. Even finding a killer the police couldn't.
Glancing over at Shego she noticed the older woman was sitting with a melancholy smile on her face.
"Probably remembering other times she rode in the back of police cars and not as a 'guest' like she is now." Kim thought to herself.
Glancing at Ron sitting right beside her she wasn't all that surprised to find the blond sound asleep.
"At least he isn't drooling." Kim thought to herself with a faint smile.
Kim could see that the patrol car was easing to the side of the road about to stop in front of a house so she turned back to wake Ron. She frowned when she saw that for some reason he was now sweating and his breathing had turned very rapid. She reached out and placed a hand on him to shake him awake when he woke with a shout and looked around wildly as if searching for someone.
"Darn it Ron! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Kim yelled at him.
"I think he did give me one." Shego added.
Both women continued to look at Ron curiously as he leaned forward and cautiously reached out a hand and touched the metal grating that separated the rear seat from the driver's compartment.
The deputy who had given a start when Ron shouted looked back at him in question.
Ron let his hand drop to his lap and slowly shook his head as if he was in a daze.
Lt. Thompson had climbed out of the driver's seat and was opening the back of the patrol car to let Shego, Ron and Kim out when he heard Ron mutter. "Just a nightmare I guess. But why would I dream of some burnt freak I've never seen before?"
Shego who was sitting on the side that the police chief had opened clearly saw the man's face turn pure white and his hand tighten on the handle of the car door.
Shego continued to watch him closely as she slid out of the back seat and stood up beside the car. After a moment Ron and Kim exited the vehicle too but by that time Thompson had regained control over himself.
"Sergeant Parker will take you into the Lantz's home and show you the crime scene. I have something else while I'm in the neighborhood I need to check on." So saying Lt. Thompson walked across the street towards a house that was directly across from the one they were parked in front of.
"What about the murdered boy's family?" Kim asked nervously. It was one thing to examine a horrible crime scene, it was quite another to do it and have to meet the family of the dead person.
"No worries there." Sgt. Parker explained. "They left the house the night of the murder. Abandoned everything and just walked out the door. I don't think they'll ever come back here or to this town again."
"What about all their possessions?" Shego asked. "Aren't they afraid someone will steal something? I mean I can understand not wanting to be in the house after what happened but why don't they have someone box their stuff up and send it to them?"
Parker lead them to the front door of the house and just pushed on the door. It swung open revealing it wasn't even locked. "I don't think they care any more after the loss of their only son and they may have reasoned that no one would willingly walk into a house where something like this happened." Parker looked Shego up and down. "Are you?"
Shego frowned at the police officer and entered the house first. She was Shego! She had seen more destruction than that pathetic police officer could imagine. She had even seen some gruesome murders, fortunately none of them she had committed herself. Her crimes while highly destructive were always without fatalities. One of the reasons Global Justice was willing to give her a second chance.
But even the mighty Shego faltered when she saw a bucket sitting in the middle of the living room filled with old black blood. The bucket had overflowed and stained the living room carpet with a huge stain of blood. The buzzing of flies and the smell of death almost made Shego turn right around and walk out again.
She doubted there were any clues to be found in this house of horrors that the police had missed, and more than anything she wanted to spare Kimmie or Ron the experience.
She knew the two teens were hardly children but something like this could seriously screw someone up inside for years.
The static crime photos were bad enough. But for Kim and Ron to have to go upstairs and see with their own bare eyes the scene they had looked at in the photos?
Paker walked in and stood beside the quite green tinted woman. He shook his head as he gazed at the bucket sitting in the middle of the living room. "They emptied that bucket three times." He said but Shego could tell he was not talking to her but merely saying the words out loud almost as if he was in shock himself.
"Three times and the blood just kept pouring from the ceiling."
Shego turned and started for the front door. She had made up her mind. There was no way she was subjecting Ron and Kim to this place. Unfortunately as she neared the door Kim walked in and went straight for the stairs leading to the second floor.
"Kimmie, no!" Shego said as she reached out to grab the younger woman's arm. Kim avoided Shego's grasp however.
"We are here to find clues so this kind of thing doesn't happen again. I'm not a child Shego! I can take whatever there is upstairs." Kim replied as she started up the stairs.
"Kim?" Ron's voice caused her to pause on the steps with Shego right behind her. Both women looked back at the man they had come to love. Ron's face was white and he looked ill. He was breathing through his mouth to keep the smell out of his nose and frankly he looked like he was about to throw up at any moment.
Kim's determined look softened for just a moment. "Ron you don't need to do this. I will just go up and scan the room for Wade to see if his computers can pick anything up the police missed. Why don't you stay outside and see if you can find anything outside?"
Ron hesitated. There was nothing more that he wanted to do at that second than get the hell out of that house but he couldn't just let Kim face what was coming alone.
As if Shego could read his mind, she tried to give him a reassuring smile. "I'll keep an eye out for princess and make sure she doesn't get so stubborn she takes on something she can't handle. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to bring Rufus in here with the smell and all." Shego said as she nodded towards Ron's pocket where a very ill looking Rufus was leaning out of.
Still Ron was reluctant.
"Ron? Both Kimmie and I know if there was any dangers here you would be right here with us. But there is no sense in you making you and Rufus sick just to prove it. We'll get the scans for nerdling and then get out of here. Now go outside."
Ron with a sigh turned to go out and noticed Sgt. Parker was standing next to the front door as if he was going to go outside as well. "Aren't you at least going to go up with them?" He asked.
Parker shook his head. "Been there. Not doing it again."
Ron turned and raced up the stairs. There was no way he was staying outside if even the police wouldn't go up with the two women.
"Ron? If you come up these stairs I promise you it will be you that get no fun times for months!" Shego's voice called down. "Now go OUTSIDE!"
Ron raised a foot he had on the sixth step of the stairs and placed it back down on the same step loudly.
"Not going to work Ronnie! Drakken used to pull that crap on me before. Now really go back down the stairs and out that front door!"
Ron sighed loudly and stomping down the stairs he walked down and out the front door.
Ron stood on the front doorstep and looked across the street at the house that Lt. Thompson had crossed over to and entered.
The house was another nice white painted houses like the others on the block but this one had iron bars across the windows. Ron could see that there had been some on the front door too but they had been bent and broken down. The front door was hanging on its hinges at a odd angle as if someone had battered down the door as well. Ron could also see several broken windows.
"Who's house is that one? It looks like someone ransacked it. Did it have anything to do with this crime?" Ron asked gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder to the house they had just exited.
Parker looked uncomfortable but then replied. "That is Lt. Thompson's ex-wife's house. She lived there with their daughter."
"Lived?" Ron asked. He didn't like how that sounded.
Parker shifted from foot to foot. He knew if he told what he had seen and heard that night that Thompson would be very cross with him but at the same time something strange was going on in his home town. He had heard the stories of Kim Possible and some of the amazing things she had been credited with on the news. And he could always tell Thompson that he never told anything to Possible directly. He would just tell her sidekick and if he happened to repeat it to Possible later, how would it be his fault.
"I was one of the first officers called out the night this happened." Parker began gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder at the house behind them. "We arrived. Found... Well you know from the photos and the report what we found. I used the Lantz's phone to call the chief in and let him know he needed to get down here."
Parker paused for a moment. "You know I just remembered a strange thing. The phone wasn't on the hook. It was lying beside the phone." Parker shook his head annoyed at himself for getting off the track with minor details. "Anyway, once the chief had arrived but before he went upstairs, he received a call from his daughter across the street. I have no idea what she said to him but he told me to go outside and keep an eye on their house. To come get him if I saw anything peculiar."
"Like what?" Ron asked interrupting the man's story.
Parker shrugged. "I asked the same thing. John just told me anything strange. So I was standing outside, actually grateful that I didn't have to be in this house any more and trying my best to not think about what I had saw."
Parker paused for a long moment before sighing. "After, I don't know, 10 maybe 20 minutes I could see the chief's daughter at a window screaming for me to get her father. I tried to calm her down figuring she was just upset that her boyfriend had been killed that night..." Parker turned to look fully at Ron. "That was who got killed by the way. The chief didn't tell you all but everyone in town knew that Glen Lantz was Nancy's boyfriend. They grew up together and had known each other since Kindergarten."
Parker shuddered a little. "Must have been so hard on Nancy. Locked up in that house with all those security bars, not being able to get out and she could probably hear Glen's screams as whoever it was slaughtered the poor boy."
Ron felt his stomach drop. The guy who had been killed in the house behind him had known the girl across the street since Kindergarten and he had died while separated from her by less than a hundred yards? The similarities between these two people and Ron and Kim were just too close for Ron's comfort. Would Kim someday have to stand by and have to listen while Ron got hacked to bits?
Ron gave a mighty shudder and then turned his attention back to the deputy as the man continued his story.
"... We broke down the security gates Nancy's mom had recently installed and got the door open. Nancy met us at the front door crying something about she got the guy who did it. She lead us to the door to the basement. When the chief opened the door we could see the basement was on fire."
Parker paused for such a long time that Ron began to wonder if his story was over with but Ron didn't say anything for fear that the man would rethink telling him and he wouldn't hear the end of what happened that night.
"You know it is so strange." Parker started again but not looking at Ron but staring across the street at Thompson's house. "The chief ordered some of the men that came over with us to put the fire out in the basement but Nancy pointed out there was something on the floor. Looking down I could see these burning spots in the carpet. I followed along behind John and Nancy as they followed the flaming spots and they went through the kitchen and back into the living room and then up the stairs."
Parker shook his head in confusion at his memory.
"Those spots were right near the front door! We came in that way. If they had been there when we came in we would have seen them! So that means something caused those spots after we came in but we didn't see what caused them. Anyway, Nancy screamed something about someone named Freddy was now after her mom and Nancy and John went tearing up the stairs. I followed but as we arrived at the top of the stairs John, I mean Lt. Thompson gave me orders to stand guard outside the door and him and his daughter went into the room alone."
"What happened next?" Ron couldn't contain himself and asked.
Parker gave a shrug. "I heard a lot of screaming and shouting and after a few moments the chief came out and told me that his wife was missing and to put out a missing person's report on her. While we were talking the door to the bedroom closed again but frankly John was a bit dazed and I don't think he noticed. I was just starting to worry since Nancy was still in the room alone and she had been acting strangely, I mean the basement of the house was on fire and it appeared that if John's ex-wife was missing then Nancy must have done the fire herself. The door finally opened and a smiling Nancy came out. She told her father and me she had 'taken someone's energy away and mother and her friends would be back soon. That it had all been a dream.'"
Ron blinked a few times. "What happened then?"
Parker looked very uncomfortable. "The chief tried talking to Nancy but she just kept smiling crazily. Finally we called in some of the paramedics that had been across the street, they were called here even though there was nothing they could ever do for Glen, Thompson had them give Nancy a sedative and he took her away in his patrol car and no one has seen her since."
Parker was quick to add. "It is rumored he took her to the local psychiatric hospital but none of us in town have asked to spare his feelings."
Parker continued to stare across the street with Ron at the now empty and abandoned Thompson house. "I'm going to check in with the office and see if anything new has turned up." So saying the deputy left Ron staring across the street at the Thompson house and went back to the patrol car.
Kim and Shego neared the door to what had to be the boy's room. First hint was the posters and little signs plastered all over the shut door. That and the trail of crusty dried black bloody footsteps that lead away from the room.
Kim nervously swallowed. While the teen killed was much older than her brothers she couldn't help but think of how she would react coming home and finding such a scene outside their room. Suddenly the mental image of her brothers' room was replaced by one of the entrance to Ron's room instead.
That made Kim's blood inside her veins turn to ice.
Ron and her were nearly the same age as the murdered guy.
Kim tried to do everything she could do but she couldn't stop the mental daymare that ran through her mind of getting a hysterical call by Ron's mother, racing to his house and finding the scene that awaited her behind the innocent looking door in front of them.
Shego could sense Kim becoming more and more tense as they neared the murdered teen's room.
"You don't even have to look Princess. I'll take the Kimmunicator in there and do the scans for Wade." Shego stated.
"Don't be silly Shego. I'm fine." Kim lied through her teeth and ducking down both her and Shego crossed underneath the police crime scene tapes. Reaching out Kim turned the doorknob and swung the door open before Shego could stop her.
A swarm of flies having been disturbed swirled out of the room and past Kim and Shego. Next came the smell. The smell of dried blood and death.
Shego had almost made up her mind to knock Kim out and take the damn Kimmunicator in herself no matter what Kim said but the decision was taken from her when Kim took several quick steps and crossed the threshold into the room.
Shego practically leapt the short distance to regain Kim's side. For a split second Shego had the most chilling thought that the door was going to slam shut separating her from Kim and sealing Kim in the room alone forever.
Shego winced as her shoes made crunching sounds on the stiff blood encrusted carpeting of the boy's room. All the teen's possessions were still in the room except for the mattress itself. No doubt the police had that hauled away for evidence.
Shego with a growing sense of nausea looked around the room. There wasn't a single square inch of wall that was not covered in black dried blood and bits that Shego's mind refused to process as once having been part of a human body.
Looking over she spotted a white faced and slightly shaking Kim as she held up the Kimmunicator and carefully scanned everything in the room.
Shego went over to try and comfort the obviously upset younger woman and as she neared she could hear Kim muttering to herself.
"I thought nothing could be worse than the sight of those people the Cenobites skinned alive but this is ..." Kim muttered.
"As Ron would say, wrong and sick beyond words." Shego finished for her.
Kim turned to look at Shego with tears in her eyes. "Thank you for stopping Ron from coming in with us. He would follow me and now you anywhere I know but this kind of nightmare he doesn't need. Ever!"
The gruff but quickly softening Shego looked sadly at Kim. "I wish you would have let me spare you it too." She softly said.
Kim gave a half shrug. "It had to be done. I've got the readings for Wade. Let's get out of here and rejoin Ron."
Ron waited a few moments after the deputy had left him on the doorstep before running across the street to the Thompson house. The sheriff obviously didn't want to follow him to his ex-wife's house but Ron had a gut feeling there were answers to be had there.
Easing through the broken front door, Ron took a quick glance around the living room area he found himself in. He noticed easily the burnt spots in the carpet the deputy had mentioned. The patrol officers with them that night must have gotten to the fires fairly quickly because the burns were fairly restricted to small semi rounds spots on the carpet even paced out.
Ron cocked his head and examined the spots even closer. Spaced out? Ron placed one foot on a burn spot and then as if he was drunk or maybe on fire he stepped over. His foot landed almost exactly on the next burn spot.
Ron felt a shiver of ice run down his spine and unbidden the mental image of the guy in his brief nightmare came to mind. Face horribly burnt.
Hearing a noise from upstairs Ron rightly deduced it was probably the sheriff upstairs so Ron tracked what he now thought of as the burnt footsteps back towards the basement.
Passing through the living room he stopped when a scent hit his nose. The smell of gunpowder.
Looking down at his pocket he saw that Rufus was looking around with him.
"Smell that Rufus?" He asked.
"Uh huh, uh huh." Rufus replied and leapt out of Ron's pocket to land on the floor and quickly following his nose he led Ron to a overturned floor lamp. The top of the lamp was gone and Ron could see burn marks on what was left. Bending low Ron sniffed at it and nodded his head. The lamp had burnt gunpowder on it. Conclusion? Someone had rigged some kind of homemade explosive in the lamp but for what reason Ron couldn't even guess at.
Shrugging Ron continued to the basement door and made his next surprising discovery.
There was a broken thumb lock on the door and door frame of the basement door. Someone had made the door where it could lock someone or something in the basement.
"This just gets weirder and weirder." Ron said looking down at his equally puzzled naked mole rat buddy. Picking up Rufus he slipped his buddy back into his pocket.
The stairs leading down into the basement were badly burnt and Ron decided he didn't want risk going down there if he didn't have to so he turned around and started following the burnt footsteps to the stairs and quietly made his way up.
Reaching the landing on the second floor he noticed the steps went to the nearest door to the stairs. Ron could hear someone moving around in that room and still wanting to avoid the police chief for a while longer he ignored that door and continued to the next room. He noticed something very odd about that door. Like for instance it had a sledgehammer hanging in front of it. Ron being careful not to touch the hammer examined it. Even if he wasn't trained in police procedures he had seen enough detective shows to know not to touch or handle evidence.
Nudging the door open Ron stuck his head and looked around. The room obviously belonged to a young woman.
The posters on the wall and the feminine touches clearly showed that.
Conclusion even if it didn't make any sense. That the room belonged to Nancy Thompson and for some reason she had rigged a trap at her door. A trap made to hit someone coming out of her room, not going in.
Entering the room Ron made his way to look out the window to across the street where Kim and Shego were in. He couldn't see anyone in the bedroom over there due to distance and the fact something seemed to be covering the windows over there. Remembering the crime scene photos Ron had a pretty good idea what it was covering the windows over there and that thought made him ill and leaving him with a intense desire to be with Kim and Shego.
Silently slipping out of Nancy's room Ron made to sneak past the mother's room and down the stairs and get out before Lt. Thompson could find out he had been inside.
Of course luck was not with him however and as he came along side the door to the room it opened to reveal a very annoyed looking Lt. Thompson staring back at him.
"What the hell are you doing in my house?" He asked.
Ron thought quickly.
"Um, ah, yeah. Um, this is your house? I um..." Ron silently cursed himself. He could think quickly but he never could make his mouth work correctly when he tried to lie.
"I saw the broken down door from across the street and thought there might be some connection between this house and the one over there." He finally said without stumbling. It was enough of the truth without mentioning that the deputy had told him for him to say it without stumbling around.
Lt. Thompson looked Ron over for a moment and then said. "There is nothing here that has anything to do with what happened over there. Now let's get back to your wonder Possible and see if she has solved the case for me. Okay?"
The police chief then took Ron by the arm and almost physically dragged him down the stairs and back across the street. Ron noticed that the officer didn't even bother to try and close the broken door or secure the house in any manner.
Kim and Shego coming out of the house met Thompson and Ron near the patrol car. Kim frowned to see Thompson holding Ron by the arm.
"What's the meaning of this?" She asked pointing at Thompson's grip on Ron.
"Your sidekick instead of concentrating on the scene of the crime was over poking his nose into something that doesn't concern him." Thompson practically snarled at her.
Kim shot a questioning look at Ron but Ron merely gave her a look that she knew meant he would talk to her when they were alone.
"Where can I take you three now? Back to the station? Or did you already solve the case with clues my inept police department missed?" Lt. Thompson asked finally releasing Ron's arm.
Shego was the one to answer him. "You can take us to the nearest Bueno Nacho."
Kim turned to look at her like she was crazy and even Ron who never turned down a trip to Bueno Nacho looked at her as if she had sprouted another head.
"Look Kimmie, you have had a very big shock with what we had to face inside that room. The quickest way to get over something like that is with an activity that is perfectly normal. We haven't had anything to eat in a long time, you need the normalcy to help overcome the shock and we need to let these law enforcement officers get back to their duties." Shego raised one eyebrow trying to convey to Kim that she wanted a place where they could discuss what they had learned without the Springwood police listening in.
Kim picking up on Shego's signals nodded her head. "I suppose we should get something to eat and it would be unfair to make the police wait on us. You can just drop us off there and we'll find our way around town on our own."
Lt. Thompson gave a snort but then nodded his head. "Fine! I'll take you three to the nearest Bueno Nacho restaurant and after that you are on your own. You can explain to the mayor how you failed to come up with anything more than my police department did."
As they got into the car, Kim noticed that Ron seemed reluctant to ride in the backseat this time but eventually he got inside. She couldn't help but notice though that he sat bolt upright and wouldn't relax any.