The Lasts Survive

38. Army of Demons

I had run into so many brick walls and MACK trucks that night that I hardly thought it were possible for another twist to surface.

This is Marlowe Choler?

Right.

If that's true than I'm really six foot five and an all-star playing for the Indiana Fever in the WNBA. I was shaking my head, unbeknownst to myself.

"It's true," Jonas said. "You're a very smart woman Tracy, not even my own mother could figure that out after all these years. But it's been eleven years; if you tell anyone who I really am, I'm a dead man. That's because this will not stop unless we end them tonight and show full proof in the morning."

"Full proof?" Tracy asked.

"Yes. The Garaj Family wants to kill as many people as they can, drag them into the ground with them, and get out of sight without one hint of proof. They've succeeded so far, and they could do it again." Tracy moved closer to him.

"You know about my sister?" I overheard her say, but I didn't know anything about her family so hearing she had a sibling was like hearing she was really an actress.

"When I heard your father had disappeared, I knew what had happened. He was adamant about researching it, just like we were back in Missouri, but they had to silence him. When I wrote that article a day after the wreck, they immediately put a number on my head. When Mark went missing, I knew how serious they were. I kept up with your family. I kept up with you all, even when you went off to college. I did it for Mark." He lowered his head a moment. "I felt like a failure when your mom and brother went missing." He raised his head again. "But I thought if I kept a better eye on you and your sister I'd help out. So one day when I went to check up on your sister, I saw you. You were running back from some street corner in the pouring rain with slashes all over you. You were crying and I came and—"

"That was you?" Tracy said.

"Yes. By that time, I had changed my identity, but yes that was me."

I never felt so out of the loop.

They kept talking about some mysterious night where Tracy had fought for her life, and I can't lie, I started to fade away.

It was because of not being able to fathom Tracy in distress. The small knocking noise I had heard over my right shoulder was part of the reason as well. It was quiet enough not to be there, but pronounced enough to entice my intuition.

"You had face reconstruction surgery."

"Yes. I look nothing like I did," he said, a sense of gloating in his voice.

"You come here every rainy game?" Tracy said. The conversation between them, I noticed, had turned casual.

Letting them speak, I inched my way toward the double doors which was now closed. There was a square window towards the top half of the door which I knew I wouldn't be able to see out of even if I jumped. Maybe my make believe six foot five self would be able to.

"Over the years I've developed a sense of great prediction when it comes to the weather," Jonas was saying.

Meanwhile, I was edging toward the door. The knocking sound was rather consistent and creepy. I remember asking myself if I was hearing this in my head, but I wasn't about to wait and find out. Jonas continued.

"I've followed the studies of meteorologists and done studies myself. I am now so good at knowing when a big storm will hit that it isn't even the month that it hits yet." I strained to listen now, as I guess when he saw me walking away, his voice shrunk for only Tracy's ears. "History repeats itself, Tracy, but the weather does not. Even in seasons where we can damn near expect it to be some type of way, it may be that way a little, but with each year, it changes. I'm tracking the changes and I think so is the Garaj Family."