Infinity Twice Removed Read online

  INFINITY TWICE REMOVED

  Prologue

  1991- Little Rock, Arkansas

  A solitary street light glowed dimly at the corner of an abandoned apartment-riddled neighborhood in a suburb of south Little Rock. In the cool darkness of the early spring evening, Malcolm Jeffers edged quietly around the outside of a vacant, brick, two-story structure nestled in the middle of the block. His left hand held a compact flashlight, which he discreetly thumbed on every so often for guidance; his right hand occasionally tapped at the small of his back, as if he suffered from mild OCD, ensuring that his Sig Sauer P229 9mm semi-automatic was still tucked beneath the belt at his waist. A couple of stray cats screeched nearby, bringing Jeffers to a halt, his training ingrained in him.

  It was a little after midnight, and thirty-one year old, former US Navy SEAL, Malcolm Jeffers, believed that he was finally closing in on his target…

  Last August, he and his Navy SEAL team had been deployed to the Gulf as a part of operation Desert Storm. But just this past January, he had received the news that Claire, his young wife of almost ten years, and Joey, his seven-year-old son, had been viciously murdered by the “Infinity Killer,” a serial killer prowling the mid-south whose M.O. included eviscerating his victims and disfiguring their faces. Jeffers had been devastated. He’d been granted permission immediately to return to the states, to his home in Millington, TN, to ID their bodies and handle the funeral arrangements. His parents had been extremely sympathetic to him, could only imagine what he was going through; his in-laws, on the other hand, felt he was partly responsible for the brutal deaths of their daughter and grandson, rationalizing that if he had not been out of the country at the time, had been involved in some other mundane occupation closer to home, they would both still be alive. Jeffers knew that it would take some time for them---actually, for everyone in the family---to come to terms with the devastating incident.

  He crept up to a waist-high window, several shards of glass still clinging to the frame, making it look like the open mouth of some primordial beast, and shone his flash light inside for a moment. Then he gazed carefully behind him in all directions. A chill breeze caressed his face and neck, virtually the only parts of him not covered by dark clothing or gloves. Using his thick jacket sleeves to clear away some of the protruding glass on the window ledge, he then effortlessly levered himself up onto the frame and slipped into the blackened room…

  Once the funeral services were over, and he had been able to mourn the loss of his family for a few days, Jeffers concentrated all of his efforts into locating the killer to avenge their deaths. Shortly after their marriage in July of 1981, Claire had taken out a hefty, $500,000 life insurance policy, designating her husband as beneficiary (Jeffers had done likewise when he had enlisted in the US Navy in 1982). So Jeffers was set financially for the time being. Without a second thought, he had resigned his position with the SEALs, and had begun his pursuit of Claire and Joey’s killer.

  Jeffers paused for a long moment in the empty, vandalized bedroom, quietly listening for voices, movement, any sound at all that would give him an idea as to where Jack Craven had gone. But there was nothing. Tiptoeing to the door of the room, discreetly flicking his flash light beam on-and-off as if he were Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, he peeked around the corner into a long dark hallway. Halfway down on the left he spotted a door opening, and quickly crept toward it. Dust and cobwebs provided his only opposition.

  Peering cautiously around the door frame, he thumbed his flashlight for a brief glimpse of his surroundings: a kitchen, minus any furniture, whose stove and refrigerator had been ripped free of their moorings and whose walls were now decorated with various gang signs and elaborate graffiti.

  And right next to the space once occupied by the stolen refrigerator there was a closed door…with a narrow strip of light at the bottom bleeding through into the kitchen…

  In the wake of the horrific murders, the Millington Police Department had quickly realized they were way out of their league, and had requested the assistance of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office out of Memphis, TN, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, headquartered in Nashville. Of course, the FBI had intervened, claiming an interest due to the “interstate” aspect of the killer’s previous victims. Regardless, very few leads had surfaced in the deaths of Jeffers’ wife and son, and after a month or so, it appeared that local law enforcement was simply going through the motions. Likewise, for one reason or another, the FBI offered very little of their expertise, perhaps because they too were still learning about serial killers, and mainly showed up for press conferences or photo ops. So, it was extremely fortunate that Jeffers had forged ahead with his own investigation, availing himself of his friends and contacts in the Millington Police Department in particular, and law enforcement in general, to narrow down his list of suspects to three, none of whom had been charged by the authorities due to lack of evidence.

  For better than two months, Jeffers had conducted his own background investigations, computer searches, and intensive surveillances, not to mention a couple of B & E’s, on the first pair of suspects. Unable to locate the killer’s collection of trophies---the eyes he brutally excised from his victims’ faces---coupled with additional input from his law enforcement contacts and the unfortunate violent death of yet another young boy during this time frame, he was confident in ruling out both of these individuals as the “Infinity Killer.”

  That had left Jack Craven, a thirty-three year old, divorced maintenance worker in private industry, who had been straddled with his eight-year old son since his wife left him almost four years ago.

  Jeffers advanced through the ruined kitchen, padding carefully about the debris-clogged floor. He grasped and slowly twisted the handle on the door beneath which the thin strip of light emanated. Despite the chilly confines, warm sweat spider walked down his forehead and neck. The door opened with a faint sucking sound, as if what was left of the paint had bonded with the door frame. Light spilled into the kitchen. Is the power on? he wondered for a second, pocketing his flashlight. He cautiously pulled the door wide open to his left, and poked his head around the corner to his right. And stared down a long flight of concrete steps leading down to what could only be a basement. Steeling himself against his fears, as he had done so many times in battle, he withdrew his semi-automatic handgun and began his descent…

  When Jeffers had begun his investigation into Craven, from the outset he sensed something different about him, something off, something…wrong. It wasn’t just the fact that the man had a modest arrest history, including assault and disorderly conduct; and it wasn’t the fact that he rarely observed him with his young son, almost as if he were ashamed of the boy, or perhaps disappointed in him for some reason; it was the way he carried himself, the way he went about his routine, everyday business---he just seemed odd, like a duck out of water, like he didn’t quite fit into normal society. Over the course of his career, and especially during his numerous deployments in theater, Jeffers had developed an innate and bizarre sixth sense that had served him well in mundane as well as stressful situations. It had never let him down, and had saved his life on more than one occasion. In just over a week, Jeffers was certain he’d finally struck pay dirt.

  He hadn’t even had time to search the man’s residence in Munford, TN, just north of Millington, before a young girl was reported missing a hundred-thirty-five miles west of the Mississippi River in the Little Rock area, and law enforcement scrambled into action once again. Jeffers had been tailing Craven off and on for several days, but had not bumper-locked him, and had no visible, concrete evidence that he had even been involved in the abduction. But since he had lo
st his target early the previous day, he would have bet the ranch on his gut-feeling.

  With Craven still out-of-pocket late that afternoon, Jeffers had cursed his luck and staked out the empty house immediately, hoping that the suspected killer would return shortly, allowing Jeffers to follow him 24-7 in an effort to locate the missing child.

  Padding slowly down the stairway, left hand caressing the railing, Jeffers noticed that the light grew perceptibly brighter as the ground rose to meet him. A couple of steps away from the basement floor, pistol tucked close to his right side, muffled voices tickled his ears. Two of them, he thought, reaching the bottom. A groaning hum off to the left caused his sixth sense to kick in, until he spotted a small, rust-coated generator, electrical cords trailing away like tentacles, further to the left. That explains the light, he realized. A cursory glance about the remainder of the room revealed nothing more than debris and litter, and a repeat of the kitchen’s graffiti-scrawled walls.

  Bearing left toward the generator and a smaller room in the distance, from whose depths a pair of male voices sounded like they were bickering, Jeffers straightened out his shooting hand, clasped the fingers of his left hand around his right and the weapon’s butt for stability, and quietly moved forward…

  Around 9:30 that evening, Craven had returned in his late-model mini-van. He had barreled into the house like a man on a mission, returning in less than five minutes with a young boy in tow. His son was in there the whole time? Jeffers had thought, adding a mysterious piece to the puzzle. The pair had then set out in the mini-van, heading west toward Little Rock, with Jeffers trailing discreetly, following their receding taillights.

  Just before midnight, Craven had pulled up to an abandoned house, or apartment, in the middle of a block in a grungy suburb of Little Rock, and dropped his son off at the curb. What the hell are you doing? Jeffers had wondered. The boy had strolled up to the blackened house as if it were the middle of the day, and calmly stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Craven had then slowly cruised down the dark street, disappeared around a corner, and within minutes had reappeared on foot. Jeffers had watched from a distance as his target, gazing suspiciously about him on the porch, then entered the same house his son had only a short while before.

  Quickly, Jeffers had circled the block, parked his car some distance away from Craven’s, and set off himself for the shadowy location into which his suspect and son had just vanished.

  Jeffers continued inching toward the open door to the smaller room at the far corner of the basement, his back coated with a layer of sweat, as the pair of voices grew decidedly louder. Upon reaching the door jamb, he realized that Craven was arguing with his son about something which he couldn’t quite understand. But before he even had a chance to curl his head around the entryway, the unmistakable odors of blood, urine and feces invaded his nostrils. Dear God! he thought, having only smelt those noxious aromas in such profusion in battle. Bracing himself, he craned his head around the door frame, and swiftly assessed the situation.

  Just off to his right were Jack Craven and his young son, who bore a striking and uncanny resemblance to his father. With the assistance of a handful of powerful mechanic’s trouble lights, whose cords slithered across the dusty floor like serpents, the pair was hunched over a makeshift table which held the gore-slicked, disemboweled body of a young girl. Clutching a large, bloody knife in his right hand, Craven continued to bicker with his son, apparently trying to instruct him in some technique or other.

  Taking a deep breath, Jeffers surged into the room in a crouch, his weapon trained on Craven.

  “All right, both of you!” he said. “Don’t move! FREEZE!”

  Jeffers stopped fifteen feet away from them, his eyes locked on the murderer of his wife and son: the “Infinity Killer.”

  “I’ve finally got you, you sonofabitch!”

  Craven and his son simply stared at him, the tall, slender man no longer looking like the monster the media had painted.

  “Craven,” he said, “I want you to drop the knife on the ground and turn around with your back to me.”

  For a moment, Craven refused to budge, then his eyes moved subtly, staring intensely behind Jeffers at the door. Going against his training, Jeffers glanced over his shoulder, realized his mistake almost instantly, and twisted his body away from the knife that Craven hurled at him with a flick of his wrist. His defensive skills saved his life, as the blade sank instead into the meat of his left shoulder just before he double-tapped his P229, the bullets striking Craven in the center of his chest no more than two inches apart. Craven dropped to the floor like a heavy bag of cement.

  Jeffers tucked his weapon into the small of his back and, with one eye on Craven’s stunned young son, removed the blade from his shoulder with a swift tug. He pocketed the knife, and as he rummaged through his jacket for a handkerchief or something else to dress the wound, Craven’s son suddenly charged at him, a switchblade materializing in his small hand, tears blossoming in his eyes and a blood-curdling scream issuing from his lips.

  Jeffers sidestepped the boy easily, knocking the blade out of his hand with a well-timed kick, and clasped him around the neck with his right arm in a choke hold. He wrestled the wiry boy to the ground, subduing him for a moment while extracting a couple of flex-cuffs from his pants pocket. Slapping the restraints on the boy’s ankles and wrists, Jeffers regained his feet breathing heavily, while Craven’s son sobbed quietly.

  Jeffers walked over and picked up the cheap switchblade, placing it in his jacket pocket alongside the father’s knife. He knew he needed to call 9-1-1 on his portable car phone. But there was something else he had to do first.

  Wrapping his right palm over his throbbing, but not heavily-bleeding, shoulder wound, he trudged over to the table upon which lay the ruined naked body of the young girl. Tears falling freely, shaking his head in anguish, he stared helplessly at the tiny mutilated frame, whose disfigured face would haunt him almost as much as the butchered faces of his wife and son. And even with her intestines spilling like spaghetti out of her torn abdomen, it was her face that upset him the most.

  Dear God, those eyes! he thought. Why does he do that to their eyes?!....

  1991

  “Jesus Christ. I don’t know if I can do this. I mean…oh, God…it’s dripping from the ceiling. What kind of monster…?”

  He hears eternity.

  “Don’t touch anything, damn it! If you’re going to be sick, then you need to get the hell out of here. You contaminate this scene and it’ll be both of our asses.”

  The rhythmic rushing sound of the circle unbroken.

  Thoosh. Thoosh. Thoosh.

  “There’s a generator over there. Must have been what was making that thunking sound we heard from upstairs.”

  “Well, it’s dead now. And I certainly don’t think anything else down here’s capable of making a sound.”

  He hears footsteps, a sound like masking tape peeling off the sticky floor.

  A cold amber glare sweeps across the cracked concrete in front of him and he presses himself deeper into the shadows.

  “There’s another body back here. On the ground. This one’s…different.”

  Eternity thumps in his temples, accelerates in his chest.

  He closes his hands over his mouth and nose so no one will hear him. He tastes the ever-after on his damp palms.

  “That him? That the guy we’ve been looking for? What the fuck happened here?”

  The light settles upon the broken body, reflects from the puddle slowly advancing toward him across the floor. He watches it follow the forks in the crevices, charting its own course, seeking him as though it is he to whom it belongs. Shadows animate the fingers, lend emotion to the familiar, yet startlingly pale face, but he has seen these tricks before and refuses to be deceived.

  “You hear sirens? About time backup got here.”

  “Where’s the brass? You see any? There’re at least two entry-wounds at center mass, but no
t a single casing. We got a dead serial killer and an executioner who takes his time to pick up his brass?”

  “Ain’t nothing right about this one. I’ll be more than happy to hand it off.”

  “Just keep your eyes peeled.”

  The beam swings toward him and he catches the circular flash from the lens. He scuttles after the receding darkness, knowing he is too late.

  “Jesus! You see that? There’s something under there!”

  “Nothing’s alive down here.”

  “I tell you. I saw it. There!”

  The flashlight catches him squarely in the face and he realizes there’s nowhere left to go. He shields his eyes, swats at the column of light, tries to become one with the crumbling concrete wall beneath the particle board workbench.

  “Holy shit! It’s a little kid.”

  He sees a silhouette behind the light, the outline of a crouching man. Metal reflects from his cap, from his breast. Another shape takes up position behind the first and shines a second beam into his face.

  “What’s wrong with you? Get him out of there!”

  A hand closes around his wrist and he screams.

  “He’s slick with blood. I can’t get a grip—”

  “Out of the way, damn it.”

  The second shape shoves aside the first and crawls toward him.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now. You hear me? You’re safe.”

  The thunder of footsteps overhead, pounding across the floorboards, loosing dust from the ceiling. He hears the crackle of a radio, a whispered voice.

  “Come on out, kid. Ain’t no one going to hurt you now. You got my word on that. Just come on out of there and we’ll take care of you. Get you back to your momma and daddy.”

  He bats the hand away, but the other seizes his ankle. The light in his eyes turns red and the whooshing in his ears grows louder. Eternity floods his veins.