SSA Virgil told him to keep the list until she had some news for him. He did. He also signed a full confession and admitted that he acted alone. He requested that he be put into a SuperMax prison, like the one in Kansas City that they had nicknamed The Pit.
The court agreed to all of Eric Clachan’s conditions. He’d been an inmate for nearly two months. It had not gone well for the first few weeks. Not because it posed any problems for him, but because his body count kept climbing. There were certain things he couldn’t ignore, even in prison.
He was in solitary for killing another inmate when the first transfer request came through. A serial killer was moved into The Pit; by the end of the week, they were sharing cell walls in solitary. They didn’t shout through the walls to each other, they didn’t need to. They could tell by how the guards reacted that a serial killer was next door.
Time out of solitary confinement passed quicker than inside. Every week, Elle shipped him a new set of puzzle books. He did them on notebook paper that he bought from the prison commissary. By the end of the second month, he was trading out puzzle books with two other serial killers. By the end of the third, the prison commissary was carrying them and they were no longer allowed to be brought in. The puzzle books were a huge hit with the serial killers.
Of course, they weren’t average serial killers. Eric had made sure that he made a few allies. All of them had requested the transfer because Eric was inside The Pit. All of them had gone after bad guys and gotten caught. They all had above average intelligence and had been productive members of society, even though they were also killers. Now the State of Missouri was getting transfer requests from inmates in other states. Chaos was happening again and Eric thrived off it.
During his sixth month at The Pit, a riot broke out in one of the wings. It didn’t include Eric’s cell block, but that didn’t really matter to any of them. They sat on their hands and waited. The wait didn’t take long. A group of thugs chased two guards into their cell block. Eric offered assistance and since he had earned a reputation as being a protector of police, the guards let him loose.
Eric, Hank Leonard, who had taken to killing drug dealers in St. Louis because he could, and Mitch Anderson, who searched out sex offenders and made them obsolete, were let loose on the inmates within The Pit. It took them less than an hour to get their own cell block back in order. When they finished, almost a hundred inmates were dead, and the lives of seven prison guards had been saved. Two hours later, they had accumulated more guards and killed a few dozen more inmates and taken back another cell block. The guards were able to let the US Marshals into The Pit.
The Marshals took the rest of the prison. Eric, Hank, and Mitch all returned to their cells as if they were going to their rooms for the night. The Marshals hung around, helping out the guards and letting the FBI investigate for about a month. Something had gone very wrong and everyone could see it.
On the last day, a US Marshal named Nathan Green walked into Eric’s cell. He motioned for him to stand up. Eric did, without any resistance, and the two of them walked down to solitary confinement. The place was silent. Eric, used to being able to hear his fellow inmates breathe in these subterranean quarters, heard absolutely nothing.
“It was an organized hit that got out of control.” Marshal Green looked at Eric. “One guard armed six inmates just before your lunch shift.”
“I eat with four dozen inmates,” Eric pointed out.
“Yeah, but they all had your picture.” Marshal Green dropped his gaze. “SSA Mary Virgil sent me a letter a couple of months ago and told me she was looking into the Ahead Movement deaths. The same day the riot took place, she was found murdered in her car. There was no evidence that she had ever touched a single case file regarding the deaths of those involved in the Ahead Movement.
“So she lied to me,” Eric didn’t sigh, although he wanted to. Betrayed by yet another government agent that was supposed to be keeping the country safe.
“No, she didn’t. What she sent me was copies of her notes. She was looking into it. They tried to make it look like she committed suicide, but I don’t buy it. Whoever has been behind this failed to connect all the dots though. The Ahead Movement was trying to get agents into the field that were specialists with unusual skill sets because they believe the serial killers are organizing. They also believe the ones who aren’t part of the organization are still winning. They are created faster than we can catch them. Virgil wasn’t just some trainee who happened to catch two of the biggest serial killer cases she possibly could. She was the niece of a US Senator who is silently involved in the Ahead Movement. I don’t want the list of names you have from The Turk. I’m a supporter of his work and a few others like him. My own son will one day have to make the decision to become a good psychopath or a bad one. I’m hoping that if he goes the wrong direction, he looks at the work men like you, The Turk, and Apex do and follows in those footsteps.” Marshal Green sighed. “It’s hard, you know, knowing that your son has to make that decision on his own and hoping he does the best he can with what he has. I know Donnelly struggled with it every day. He didn’t want to be like his father, but he knew that you and your little sister would both have to make those choices for yourselves. I know it sounds strange, but he’d be proud of you and how have you handled yourself.”
“You knew my father?” Eric let his guard drop just a little, let the emotionless calm sneak out.
“I’m a member of the Ahead Movement,” Marshal Green answered. “My respect for your father and my desire to see you live to fight another day, is why I’m going to tell you what I’m about to tell you. You need a year. You, Hank, Mitch, you all have to survive for one more year. That’s when the US Marshals will take over the running of this prison. Once we do, it will become a federal SuperMax where we put only serial killers and mass murderers. We think it will be the most secure prison ever built and not just because it is well constructed. If we’re right, psychopaths like you and the others in here, will make sure that it stays lopsided in favor of law and order.”
“My father believed that too. However, he had another reason to believe that.” Eric took a deep breath. “You know my sister, Aislinn, at least in reputation?”
“Yes.”
“You know her friend Malachi Blake?”
“I know of him, your father mentioned him as did a few of the agents that worked her kidnapping case.”
“You know he’s a psychopath?”
“I got that impression, yeah.” Green frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“My sister doesn’t know it, because my mom burns the letters, but she has a fan club. A creepy ass fan club, but a fan club none-the-less. There are roughly two dozen serial killers currently in captivity that write her letters. They praise her skill and her beautiful deranged mind. If she stays on the path of justice and doesn’t end up in here, they will be loyal to her.”
“We’re already watching her,” Green said. “We have our eyes on several young men and women for a new unit, if we get it passed. Most of them come from families of law enforcement, most of them have families involved in Ahead. Lucas McMichaels, Xavier Reece, my own son, Caleb, they are all at the top of the list when they finish with school and start their careers. Then there are a few others, like a young man named Alejandro Gui, who killed a serial killer a few years ago and Gabriel Henders, who…”
“I know Gabriel’s story.”
“I read the transcript of your confession. I had wondered about that with your word choice.”
“Gabriel is just one of many kids connected to the Wendigo cases. He’s the only one alive though.”
“You are very read in. I’m guessing it has something to do with your redacted files and your connection to Jacob Strong.”
“You know Jacob?” Eric asked, a little surprised.
“Apex is a founding member of Ahead. He isn’t exactly who everyone thinks he is.”
“I’m guessing you mean Apex, because Jacob is exactly who everyone thinks he is.” Eric gave a quick smile, and it was a real one. The first he’d had in a long time.
“I need to get you back before we raise suspicion,” Green told him.
“How old is your son?” Eric asked.
“Nineteen.”
“Same age as Malachi.”
“The exact same age. Their birthdays are two days apart. The organization of serial killers has one big weakness,” Green said. “They don’t know that people like you, Apex, and The Turk, work for Ahead. They also don’t realize we intend to tap into that all-too-familiar psychopathic personality to start bringing them down. Our Senator is already drafting legislation to strengthen the Serial Killer and Mass Murderer Act. He’ll get it passed because Virgil was killed by a serial killer. We haven’t caught him yet, but we will.”
“When you do, let me know. I owe him a very short conversation.” Eric’s face darkened and the life drained from his eyes. Marshal Green watched it happened with awe, not fear.
“Just remember, you have a target on you.” Marshal Green reminded him once the personality had started to leak back into Eric’s face.
“Like Apex, there’s more to me than most people think,” Eric told him.
“Of that, I have no doubt, Eric. You might be one of ten fully functioning advanced psychopaths that I have ever heard of. Your grandfather is the second. Your father is the third. They just don’t build them like you very often; they don’t have the full range of whatever it is that you guys have.”
“Donnelly used to joke that we were the evolutionary step above psychopaths,” Eric answered.
“Super psychopaths, all the abilities of Superman, none of his humanity.” Green’s voice sounded distant.
“And my sister is a hybrid.”
“We are all waiting on pins and needles to see how that works out,” Green looked at Eric. “Do you worry about her?”
“Every day. I worry more about her not knowing what to do with herself. Our cousin, Nyleena, has been a huge help there. She works as a moral compass for Aislinn and she can bring her back from the ledge of her own darkness.” Eric stopped for a moment. “When the Marshals take over, they need to make sure to keep us mentally stimulated. A bored mind is a psychopath’s worst enemy. Puzzle books seem to work surprisingly well.”
“I will put that on the list,” Green smiled.