American Albino, Chapter VII: Enemies In High Places

The Next Morning

Lincoln stayed asleep on the bean bag in the most uncomfortable position there could only be- But with the minor Cannibal Girl actually taking to sleeping on him like a baby, it might not have been so bad. It was a nice surprise that he woke up first to find the younger girl- Whose name he hadn't gotten yet- Sleeping on him. "Oh- H-hey-"

"Mmm..." Heather cuddled him, head brushing against the side of his neck the way an adorable kitty cat would. God knows what she was dreaming of before Lincoln woke her. "Oh... Oh!"

"Yeah, good morning," Lincoln greeted, "now please get off of me. Those guys might get the wrong intention-"

"Too late," Remender dropped in, walking by them. "I don't know what the reason was for this, but if I see you two being romantic, you're outta here."

"You'd kick me out for that, but not for having shot up your plans to high hell?" Lincoln found the joke in it at long last, laughing heartily as Heather moved up to her feet. "You are senseless, Johnny boy."

"Shut it, Jerry," Remender blared. "Cop car is drowned-"

WAIT! Christ, I forgot to tell them to take the fucking CB radio. F-fucking senseless of me...

"-sitting in the bottom of the lake."

"Did you loot it before you did that?" Lincoln vaguely inquired to know.

"Nope, not at all."

SHIT! "Ah, alright, that's good. I don't need to tell you that you needed gloves and stuff, I hope."

"Precautions are always beneficial," Remender wised up. "I take it you're all hungry."

"Hey, girl," Lincoln called to Heather. "You wanna take yourself off the human diet?"

"W-well... Last time I ate something not flesh was four years ago... A cinnamon roll."

"Let's break that cycle, together." If anything, I could have tried to give this girl better eating habits- And oh, yeah, there was an idea.

"Any snacks, pass them down here," Lincoln requested. "It's time for Human 101."

"Hm?" Heather had wondrous eyes, sparkling away of curiosity and a little confusion. "Eat normal food?"

"Do we have time for this?!" Remender shrieked. "Need I remind you that we've got enough on our plate as it is?!"

"You're no fun," Lincoln lightly joked, yawning for the new day. "No, I haven't forgotten, but it'd do us good to take our minds off of it... As silly as it comes from me."

"Tch..." Remender looked one step away from flipping his lid, turning it around to fetch for them. He soon came back with a bag of trail mix a box of chocolate chip cookies, and some temperature Gatorade bottles. "All we can spare."

"This is a nasty combo..." Lincoln moaned. "Okay... Here, girl," he handed Heather a cookie, making sure she had it in her hands. "One bite won't hurt..."

Wait... Am I really trying to reform a corpse-eating cannibal...? Ngh, I can almost feel myself sweating...

Lincoln took one for himself and set a prime example to Heather. "Like this-" And he bit and ate it. "Guys, don't you have any sandwiches?"

"Jerry, we don't have a mini fridge here... You wanna steal one without making noise? Be my guest."

I needed some better meat here, that made her want it. Bacon, ham, steak, anything, and perhaps everything.

Heather licked her lips after the cookie went down her throat. "That was dry. A little yummy but dry."

"Have yourself some... Gatorade-" Lincoln shot a hard eye towards Remender.You're a horrible host, Johnny boy.

"This is a sports drink," Heather stated with disgust. "Do I want to?"

"You do..." Lincoln urged, acting like the girl's father. "It helps with the digestion. Don't tell me you only devoured the meat without any beverage, have you?"

"Actually..." It was as she just heard from him, and she nervously laughed so not as to agree. "I relied on the blood-"

You've gotta be kidding me... This was not gonna be easy, I should have known that. So then, why did I- No wait, a better question would be... Why am I bothering with Cannibal Girl? She's clearly in need of help, snd I am not an expert in whatever field this is. I figured if I didn't try... I was compelled to do it, this girl had no one. This girl, in the same spot as me at one time. This, I had a hand to change.

"Jesus Christ, chick," Remender said with a sore throat. "I can't really listen to this."

"Good, have yourself a breather."

Miles Away

Three police cars had surrounded the Wheete-Glass place, had been for over an hour. The ambulanca would not get there just yet, not for another ten to fifteen minutes. Deputies Gary Bail and Dennis Grill taped it down and scanned the sectors the moment it seemed foul play struck the household. One dead body of some Russian down the basement, a messy blood trail on the kitchen floor, running to the basement and front door, and a few bullet casings and a bloodied sledgehammer that had Bail worried about the missing Wheete-Glass. "What's all this look like to you, Dennis?"

Grill shone a flashlight around the bone remnants of Heather's victims. "These weren't recent, I know this. I'm ruling out the possibility that the sheriff's missing, it looks more like an act of guilt. I'm telling you now, the man's run away."

"No- He's good people, he's a friend!" Bail believed. "This- This has a logical explanation."

"We're gonna need to take that sledgehammer into forensics, that'll tell us just as much as this guy here will..." Grill circled around the dead Rostovich. "What the hell's some red punk doing here like this? Did he come breaking in?"

"Had to, the balcony glass is shattered, from a bullet undoubtedly. Bet you the very same type matches the one in this dude's skull."

"Shit..." Grill shook his head, hand running across the back of his neck. "First off, he tells us to take yesterday off, leaving him the only player on the force. This little town went to full-on shit with those two murders yesterday. Not even a gut feeling, but now..."

Bail went down to his knees, coming closer to Rostovich's body- Where much of the upper half had missing portions of flesh missing. "Can we rule out animal attack? This doesn't have anything human about this, but I could be wrong."

"I don't know..." Grill replied in his clueless state. "I really don't know what went on here. But I can say that I don't think it's over. It's like something serious just started. Dead Russian John Doe here, two bullet cases here and outside, a collection of fucking bones, and a missing sheriff who insisted that we fucked right off from work."

"You mean he knew something was up?" Bail assumed. "But- Okay, so maybe he had an idea- Was this kidnapping? And please, I don't want to believe Nelson was embedded with something nasty. That can't be, Grill. It just can't be."

"We won't know yet..." Grill assured. "It could just be nothing..." But he looked at the bones as an undisputed factor that made Wheete-Glass look bad. Run away or kidnapped, he was involved in a nasty situation now. "Come on, let's do another sweep, I'm getting the creeps just staying in here alone."

Up above, they came into contact with Jessica Dawson, another officer of their sector, having done her own clearing of the house. "Don't even bother, there isn't anything that is valuable," she lied, hiding the sheriff's phone in her back pocket. "Which one of us three gets to deal with the rest of the investigation? I figure you both, strong men, should man it together while it sorts itself out. I can't take the reek of dead body down here."

"Rock-paper-scissors for it?" Bail suggested.

Dawson rolled her eyes and moaned. "Such a child, I'm leaving-"

"Hey!"

"-so call me later for the update, will ya?" The brunette Jessica Dawson, made up of steamy-sexy curves that could turn the heads of all boys, and was the type of woman who could produce the exact milkshakes that brought all the boys to her yard, took her leave and did so in a slow manner so as to make them drool over her.

She was that hot.

"Y-yeah, we will-" Bail stammered about like a simp.

Outside, Jessica pulled out the phone when she saw that she was out of their sight, and fiddled with it. The call log, recently filled by Matthews who had been trying to reach Wheete-Glass all night. She was quick to wipe it before opening it up to remove the SIM card from if, putting it into her pocket. As for the phone-

She walked across the street and handed the phone to the driver of a parked red 4x4 off-roader. "Dispose of this and tell Patrick we have no lead on his friend, Rostovich is dead and the girl's gone just like Nelson."

"They went missing, have they?" Raymonds, the American mercenary, had an itch on the tip of his nose, proceeding to claw against it like a barbarian, reaction from the news. "This is quite a pickle Patty wants me to clean up, I hate it as it is."

"Oh please, I know you're happy about the payout about to double on your behalf," Jessica cut, already having a feel on him. "Rostovich's check goes to you, more incentive to not have any more fuck-up. Hope you have more than just a dumb sniper rifle- Which is missing."

"...Fuck," Raymonds yelped. "We're this fucking sloppy, that's unbelievable."

"Tell Patrick I'm moving forward with the APB, we need this to contain and limit this man Jerry Cruise's movements. We've got enough footage to paint the pretty picture, it won't be hard to find him when we'll inform tons of people. Hell, I'll even add a cash reward taken out of Pat's pocket. See how he likes that for relying on one person to stake out over a trap."

"Enough of that-"

"You're all idiots for not teaming-up to prevent this when it was so easy-" Jessica felt like she had gotten the world's worst headache. "Go on, take off, I'm taking over for Nelson while he's... Missing."

"That means dead, doesn't it? You think he's dead, do you?"

"Nelson is gone, the freak man-eating weapon he kept in the basement is gone, Rostovich is dead, and this all points to Cruise having the advantage. Do you really think he kidnapped them a gunpoint to have a fucking tea party, you dumbfuck?"

"Is your mouth as big as your ass?" Raymonds joked.

"If I were the top dog here, I know what I'd have been doing."

"I don't really care what you have to say, you're not the one with the five grand. A thanks for your help, the faster word gets out for Cruise, the better it will be for me to end him."

"For you? Ha, don't make me laugh..." Jessica turned away, moving away from Raymonds. "Be on your way, man with a mission."

The red truck pulled out of the curb, revving down the road like it was powered by lightning. The veteran dug into his pocket for his phone, dialing away for his boss. "Hello, it's the local dry cleaners, we regret to inform you that your special tracksuit has been mixed with the colors."

"What-?! How is this possible?! It was the best-"

"As it stands, the tuxedo is in top shape, do you wish to continue?"

"YES, YES! PLEASE! PLEASE CLEAN THE AND FAST! I WANT IT DONE BY TONIGHT IF POSSIBLE!"

"Understood, thank you for choosing the Deviant-" And Matthews hung up on Raymonds just like that. "Unfriendly asshole..."

The Steel Mill

Heather held up a large tree branch upwards, having it stand high and mighty, distancing herself from Lincoln just fifty feet away. She was in the midst of helping him in the warm-ups. Currently, Lincoln looked down the sights with the Dragunov at hand, the field between them being steady and silent. "A-are you sure about this?!"

"Not going to shoot."

"If you shoot my eye out by accident, I'll be really mad!" Heather promised, shaking.

"You're not saying what I think you're saying, are you?" Lincoln, for a second, believed that Heather was a pheno. Wasn't too far-fetched from where he stood. "If I shoot you, will that kill you?"

"It depends where, doesn't it? Heart, head, neck- Various kill points-"

"...And how does a girl know this stuff, huh?" Lincoln took the scope downwards, centering it on Heather's forehead. "You aren't like most girls, that's some achievement somewhere on the planet."

"Oh, gee- It's not like I didn't-" Then, she stopped from talking, treading carefully while the albino washers with the sniper rifle. "Uh, I'm sorry, was that a compliment or an insult?"

"I'm judging you, girl." Lincoln had touched the trigger, but only that. One clean headshot through her, that would be easier, wouldn't it? But... With this- He closed his eyes. -With how things are going, nothing would be easy. Not this girl, not today. Maybe someday, and maybe if she forced me to make that decision, but not today.

Lincoln bounced the rifle back up, scope aligned to the tip of the branch and fired once, breaking the bark into multiple pieces. Heather freaked out and lost her grip on it, letting it fall as she squeamishly moved away. "H-hey, you've got the aim, you've proved your point!"

The afternoon was coming, and so was the meeting between Matthews and this real estate agent. No time to find a dye pack for my hair, so I needed some hooded sweater or a cap with sunglasses. As if those looks weren't suspicious... To hell with everything.

Heather met back with Lincoln after it looked like he was done. "Said you weren't going to shoot, you liar."

"No, I said I wasn't going to shoot you, and I didn't."

"But you pointed it at me, and don't forget it isn't the first time!"

"What do you want from me?"

"...Uh," Heather then stuttered. "Did I win the argument?"

"What argument?" Lincoln set the rifle down, mind racing to the future in store for him later today. "So when do you think you'll be hungry again?"

"Soon..."

Not a lot of bullets left, but this state was famous for wildlife and endless woods. I'd find a deer or two around- Question was... And it was silly, but could she try out raw deer meat? Or maybe a trip to the supermarket for quality meat made all the difference...?

"Need you to hold out and not eat anyone..."

Then it was right there, in front of me, and I was daft blind to it. How fucking stupid of me. Cannibal Girl could accompany me as her own weapon, backing me, and if there was any trouble, it would be lunchtime for her. Her and this weapon, that was all I needed as I would go on to make the kill on Matthews. Look at me changing my mind as if I was this state's fucking weather. Okay, new plan.

"Nix that, you want to devour flesh?" Lincoln brought the best offer to the table. "You and me, we're going to crash that little lunch meeting and get Matthews."

"A-are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"And just what is Jerry saying now?" Remender scoffed, growing rather irritated of the messes Lincoln kept making to no end. "The footage is ready to be uploaded- Or maybe mailed so that we can further protect ourselves. Matthews can't know it's us behind it."

Cowardice... Wait, the footage is ready- "I've got you. Just give it to me and I'll make the right people listen. I might just bring the DA into this, give him the tape-"

"DA is friends with Matthews," Remender shot down. "Not him."

"I guess you know that, don'tcha?" Lincoln tapped his chin. "Okay, then Wheete-Glass's friends-"

"It's more simple to just make a shadow account and upload it, Jerry!" Remender pushed. "Saves us all trouble!"

"Yeah but I'd like to make allies," Lincoln reasoned. "I'd rather turn the cops over to my side-"

"Are you kidding me?!" Remender took a deep breath, and them growled. "You are so confusing!"

"Give me the camcorder."

"No..." Remender denied. "Go to the restaurant and put an end to this, and the right fucking way!"

"Okay," Lincoln told him, letting him hear what he wanted. "I'm taking the girl as back-up-"

"B- What- B-back-up? BACK-UP?!" Remender was already paat losing his patience. "YOU'RE NOT BABYSITTING HERE! KEEP HER HERE UNTIL YOU COME BACK! WE'LL KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HER, WITH THEM ALL! SHUT THIS ALL DOWN, DAMNNIT! CAPTURE PATRICK AND BRING HIM HERE SO THAT WE CAN EXONERATE OURSELVES FROM HIS FALSE ALLEGATIONS! WE CAN FILM HIS CONFESSIONS!"

And Lincoln swung once, punching Remender's lights out. "Girl, wait here."

He went inside for the footage, having noted he would have to push past Jwnnings and Ramirez for it. They wouldn't like that, but to each their own. Right now, Lincoln needed to turn minds away from the regiment of dickheads, gain the allies he could use and have them fling about the shit that was enough to make noise. Lincoln had only two hours before it was noon, and less to get set up with the sniper rifle. One shot, one kill, the end of Patrick Matthews. Cannibal Girl could have the corpse or all he cared, but this was a final play where time was not with them.

"You and me, we're going back to his place," Lincoln informed Heather. "Figure we can talk to the police there, show them this."

"Uhhh..."

"Now is the time to tell me, who else besides the sheriff knows about you?"

"That's a late question to ask of me," Heather exhaled. "The guy with the long hair, the one they call Patrick. There's the weirdo with the blue hair, Bill something. Uhhh, there's a fat Mexican with a camera, I think he's the snoop guy. You've killed the Russian dude with the weird name. Uhhh, oh, this one dude, a veteran soldier-"

"Matches all I know."

"Some other Latino dude, I think they said he was Venezuelan? Oh, and there's the blonde girl."

"A girl...?" Lincoln froze to process that last reveal. "A girl on the board?"

"That's all of them, those who've seen me anyway. Not sure if Wheete-Glass ever talked about me to others, but between you and me, I would prefer that he didn't."

"This is the first I'm hearing about a chick under the payroll. Tell me about her, if you know something."

"She does the calling, it's like she's a boss, she talks to Matthews on the phone. Bill and the others, they all assemble to the sheriff's place almost like a routine, but not him. Not Patrick Matthews himself, he rarely visits."

"This girl, what's her name?"

"Jessica Dawson, I don't like her, she's a complete bitch."

"Blonde, huh? How can I identify her?"

"Ponytail, booming voice, and more importantly-"

Jessica Dawson turned out to be a cop. No, a dirty fucking cop. My fucking luck.

"We're going to bump into her when we go back to the house, just so you're completely aware of what we'll find." Heather remained positive that Dawson and Wheete-Glass were the only cops in league with Matthews. "Don't worry, it's just one bad seed we'll come across-"

"We don't know the amount of players, those three imbeciles inside have only encountered those closest to Matthews, but he's bound to have more influence."

"Wow, you are so full of hope, aren't you?" Heather grabbed and rubbed Lincoln's right arm. "You need to have faith and worry about one thing at a time. Like now, we've gotta go show the good cops the footage, you know-"

She blushed and then snapped her hand away from his. He noticed but said nothing about it. "You can hope and believe for the both of us."

"And I won't hold it back!"

"Then we'd better get going."

Later

Lincoln disarmed Bail and Grill, taking them by gunpoint in the living room. "Om your knees," he instructed them, their handguns taken up in each of his hands, connected to the back of their heads.

"You have some nerve," Grill hissed. "Where's our sheriff?!"

"Be quiet already!" Bail warned. "The man's got your gun, you idiot! And the girl-"

In front of them, Heather was put on watch, holding the long rifle in her small arms, waving it between them, and she dared to smile to make things better. "Better to listen to him, boys, you don't get this lucky."

"Lucky?" Bail blinked idly. "S-sorry, why is that?"

Lincoln presented the camcorder out to them after lowering one of the guns, and set it in between them. "You wanted answers, you've got it, but I want something in return."

"What?! You think you can get us to dl you favors?!" Grill had brass balls on him much to Lincoln's annoyance. "You kill our own and you think you can-?"

"Uh?" Heather squealed.

"Your superior is not dead just yet," Lincoln let loose. "But his reputation will be quite soon."

"What do you mean?" Bail fondly asked, trying to figure it all out for himself.

"Watch the footage in there and run it to the press-"

"F-footage?"

Lincoln circled them, guns back in place, insisting to keep sight of them. "Go ahead and watch."

And they did, they saw for themselves. They heard Cannibal Girl's revelation- And I expected them both to take it as it was, but that wasn't what I got in the end. Officer Grill, by the nametag, refused to believe it as of yet.

"THAT'S SUCH BULLSHIT!"

Heather rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Well then, fuck you too!"

"WHEETE-GLASS-" Grill continued to speak, still in sheeple mode, "-IS A-"

"Give it a rest," Bail resigned. "You, you're Jerry Cruise, aren't you? The man of white hair who murdered Skip Bart and David Khan in cold blood."

"Bart attacked me first," Lincoln corrected. "Or, would have if I didn't act first."

"LIES TO DEFEND HIS OWN ASS!" Grill blurted out. "DON'T BE STUPID, BAIL!"

Did the truth matter at this point? All the shit that went down, it could not be undone, so maybe there was no reason to explain the truth to them, but of my current intentions.

"Your sheriff is a racist and a pedophile, keeping this girl here a hostage and exploiting her humanity to become as she is now..."

"Yeah..." Bail seemed to accept it nice and simple. "It's not so... Out of character for him... Cannibalism... The remains we saw in the basement, that's-?"

"Our food," Heather half-lied. "We munched on them together, and- I never wanted to! N-not against my will!"

"And that body, the Russian?" Bail asked.

"The guard dog," Lincoln explained. "One of two under Matthews' payroll. This is his territory, but I'm here to flip it against him."

"M-Matthews? You don't mean Patrick Matthews, do you?" Bail fixated on Lincoln now.

"WHAT STORY ARE YOU TRYING TO SPIN HERE?! WHEETE-GLASS! MATTHEWS! CANNIBALS! RAPED MINORS! BLASPHEMY!"

"Payroll for what?"

"Matthews is crooked, he's knocking people down like they're nothing, but I am not just a nobody he believed he could mess with."

"I don't follow..." Bail peeped.

"Maybe we're all just propaganda tools to use to boost his career," Lincoln surmised. "That and to take out the opposition that means him harm in the place he stands. What an insecure wretch."

"Hmmm... Let's say this is all fact and not fiction..." Bail calculated. "What then? How can you beat someone with, at the minimum, three hundred followers? A good portion of Dadetown loves Matthews over Xavier Benton."

"Three hundred?"

"Number still spiking," Bail continued. "I'm not surprised we've got a town official being scummy like this, but what can you do? It would take a lot to expose him, you know. And, you're a wanted criminal, nothing you say will matter. You'll be arrested for the deaths of two."

"And you'll arrest me?"

"DAMN RIGHT WE WILL!"

"No," Bail answered truthfully. "I have to know it this is all... Real. Personally... I have a grudge of my own against Matthews."

"BAIL, YOU TRAIT-" Lincoln struck Grill just the one time, knocking him out with the gun in hand.

"That badge will mean jack shit, you know."

"The footage needs to be uploaded quickly, I can get it into the internal servers down at the precinct if you trust me."

"I'm hungry!" Heather complained.

"That's just it-" Lincoln pressed the gun against Bail's forehead. "You'll have to show for it. Your word now means so little to me, and I'm on a tight schedule."

"Bet living as a wanted felon will do that to you," Bail thought to make light of the situation. "I was almost positive that you were the bad guy here, but you came here to tell us about Nelson's affairs and didn't kill us instead. Now I know that you aren't all bad, but the others-"

"I'll worry about them later," Lincoln put aside. "You're smart, maybe you can be trusted with this."

"It's not noon for another hour and a half," Heather notified the albino man. "Do we have time?"

"What- What happens at 12?" Bail inquired.

"We..." Lincoln was mentally paid a visit by Matthews in his mind, and the failsafe plan that had him a winner, the martyr. "We're going to reel in the big fish alive."

"Doesn't sound good..."

Elsewhere

Jessica Dawson had pulled over and listened to everything her bug had transmitted over to her. The madman Jerry Cruise and Heather White had returned to the house to pull a fast one, st it seemed to be working. Now she knew there was footage involved, of Heather having defected, laying down the exploits of Wheete-Glass. And oh, now she was on the shitstorm by name and face, Heather had to have talked. And things we're already looking bad. She heard the keywords there. Hour and a half. The time slot set for another of Matthews' meets, this one being lunch at a noodle shop with Adam Parson.

They knew. She frantically called Matthews directly to alert him. "I've found the girl, she's with Cruise, they're working together."

"They're...?" Seemed like the official had time to process it, because he took a bit of time. "What else?"

"They know about the lunch meet, I would advise-"

"Will continue as scheduled," Matthews insisted. "I know what to do here, thank you for informing me. Goodbye, Jess."

"...What the-?" She gravely wondered why he didn't sound too worried. Maybe even she knew not of something, maybe she was being left in the dark about some key fact. "Son of a bitch."

Dawson dialed the phone again, this time for Bail himself. They hadn't talked of her, mentioned her at all, but they were still there- And here was the way to clean house by herself, not with the others, not via the others, not through them. Fuck them and their incompetence. She strapped up into her Kevlar vest and loaded her handgun. "Hey, Bail, you mind meeting me at Sunnyside? Something I've gotta talk to you about."

"Oh, sure... I'm heading back to the precinct right now, and it's just on the way-"

"No shit, man."

"Uh- I'll be there in five minutes or so."

Perfect. "Great, see you, and please don't tell anyone." And just like that, Dawson had them coming to her, leading them right into the killbox she was about to set up for them. Whatever happened to Wheete-Glass didn't matter anymore, as long as the footage was destroyed.