0:02

When I was young, it felt like my father

0:05

knew the answers to everything. So

0:07

one day, I asked him about a science

0:10

word I heard when I was watching TV. Entropy.

0:15

He said, yes, that's entropy.

0:19

That's when big complicated

0:21

things that should be holding together

0:24

fall apart. They fall everywhere.

0:29

But it's nobody's fault. Doing

0:45

go-arounds on Sunday nights, it

0:47

was real quiet in town. Driving

0:51

around, almost no calls would ever

0:53

come in. So it was

0:55

just me behind the wheel, street

0:57

after street.

0:59

I had too much time and quiet to

1:01

think, really. I didn't

1:03

even listen to music or anything. And

1:06

then Mitzi from the detention

1:08

center told me that one statistic

1:11

she knew. She loved to hit me with funny statistics.

1:14

And that one never got out of my head

1:16

on Sunday nights.

1:18

I got it off the internet

1:21

or something. So maybe

1:23

someone just pulled it out of one of their

1:25

orifices. I don't know. But

1:28

it was something like, if you took

1:31

the population of any town and

1:33

divided it by some number,

1:36

you were guaranteed that a certain

1:38

number of houses in the middle of

1:40

the night had something

1:43

totally awful and terrible

1:45

and illegal going on. Just

1:48

basic

1:48

math. But I said,

1:51

Pat, you have to

1:53

take a joke, baby. He

1:57

took everything so seriously.

1:59

That man was wired tight.

2:04

So somewhere in Clay Smith on Sunday

2:07

night, you could safely say three houses

2:09

were definitely hiding something kind

2:12

of unthinkable. That's

2:14

what that meant. Some violent,

2:17

secret thing. You

2:19

just couldn't ever tell which houses

2:21

they were, even though I knew the town

2:24

as well as anybody. I

2:26

guess I went right past them for

2:28

hours. Sometimes

2:30

I'd see a light in a window and images

2:33

would go through my mind. It

2:35

was a made-up fact, maybe, but

2:38

it didn't need to be technically true

2:40

to bother me.

2:42

I got pulled over on High

2:45

Street for no brake lights,

2:48

which, you know, was really frustrating. It was

2:50

like the one person in town saw me,

2:52

he pulled me over, probably because

2:55

he was just bored. I don't know. Me

2:57

and Kev, we were kind of fighting

2:59

a little. A couple

3:02

minutes passed, like three minutes

3:04

after we said goodnight to this

3:07

lonely, hard cop.

3:09

So we're driving away and we're talking about

3:11

how in the world I was going to pay this

3:13

ticket. And there goes, walking

3:16

down the side of the road, some guy pushing

3:18

something on a hand truck. With two

3:21

wheels and big tires. We

3:24

use them all the time, it's a G&G, scoop boxes

3:26

around the warehouse, you know. Like this

3:28

guy was making a delivery

3:29

or something in the middle of the night. It was

3:31

real late. Big,

3:34

tall thing.

3:36

And Kev keeps hassling me,

3:38

but then he stops. And there's this funny

3:40

silence and he goes, did

3:42

you see what that guy was pushing?

3:45

You know, I should mention that by the time we were talking

3:47

about this, we had passed.

3:48

Like, time had passed,

3:50

right? And I kind of laugh.

3:53

I kind of forgot Kev was such a moron for a

3:55

minute. Because this thing had to be mentioned

3:58

straight up. And I was like...

3:59

Yeah, I think I saw what

4:02

he was pushing, but uh, that

4:04

can't be right. It was like

4:06

we had a delayed reaction.

4:08

I thought

4:10

it was a Proprims and Halloween thing. That's

4:12

what anybody would think if they were normal. Because

4:15

Halloween had been a couple of

4:18

days

4:18

before. Never in a

4:20

zillion years would anybody, right?

4:23

Any, any average person, what

4:26

have you, I don't know.

4:30

Where my house is, we're all lined

4:32

up in the back on an alley. It's

4:34

pretty nasty, there's a couple of, uh, condemned

4:37

places. It's

4:39

really just a dirt track, barely big enough

4:41

to get your car down to your place or walk your dog.

4:44

My bedroom window looks down on part of it, so

4:47

when I can't sleep, I'll sit

4:49

at my desk in there and I'll write, well,

4:52

porn, frankly. Porn is, that's what I

4:54

was actually doing around about, uh, midnight

4:56

and, and I saw the guy pushing

4:59

that contraption down the alley. He had a wheeled,

5:01

um, the,

5:03

the thing UPS guys use, a hand

5:05

cart thing. At first

5:07

I figured it was a piece of furniture, but it was so big

5:10

you had to kind of let the back of it rest against

5:12

his shoulders as he pushed. Otherwise

5:14

maybe it would get imbalanced. He

5:17

was definitely struggling a little. So I was watching this

5:19

and then I finally

5:22

realized what it was. I can't

5:25

sit here and pretend I was going to raise any alarm

5:27

bells or anything because what

5:29

am I going to say if I call the police? How

5:31

am I going to know what the laws are about owning that

5:34

kind of thing? He

5:36

pushed it right by the alley, dumps out on Conrad. So

5:39

I guess he still had a ways to go at that point.

5:42

You didn't really say

5:43

anything about it because like, what was there to say? You

5:46

saw somebody with a Halloween decoration. Like,

5:49

we're not going to waste anybody's time with

5:51

that, you know? Yeah.

5:54

So no, we don't feel

5:57

any guilt about not saying

5:58

anything.

5:59

I had

6:01

a lot going on. I was trying

6:03

to get my herbalist

6:03

certification.

6:10

Let me explain the sequence

6:12

of actual events in order so

6:14

people perhaps finally understand.

6:18

One, Mr. Dunker applied

6:20

for the trial based on a recommendation

6:22

from his mental health provider. Second,

6:26

a recommendation to the panel

6:28

and he was approved after a questionnaire

6:31

and an examination. An old

6:34

show that he went through 8 doses

6:36

total between July and October, 5

6:40

mg each time and

6:42

all the proper fasting requirements were met.

6:45

There's no way for him to have abused

6:47

a drug because it was administered

6:50

only at the Cheney Lake lab

6:52

site and the records there were all

6:55

found to be solid and accurate.

6:59

Third, our company takes procedures

7:02

very seriously. In 2014,

7:05

we were given the National Academy

7:07

of Strategic Scientists Award

7:10

for Protocol Design. Wrong

7:13

zooming came strictly from

7:15

Port Bias Pharma.

7:17

Or,

7:18

contrary to some people's belief,

7:21

we did not possess the

7:24

power to teleport our eyes

7:26

into the future and magically

7:28

visualize their misconduct.

7:32

Contrary to some people's apparent

7:34

belief, no such

7:37

magical teleporting device existed

7:40

at that time.

7:42

Psi was just one of those people who puts

7:44

on a perfect face for other people. There

7:47

was nothing schemy about it. It's adapting.

7:51

I think I was the only one at the shop who knew about the buttons

7:53

and coins thing. We

7:55

just saw this guy, this really friendly guy, he was

7:57

outgoing, a climber, always in shape.

8:00

He liked people, he was a good boss, but

8:03

it was like 10 years he'd been fighting with that anxiety. He

8:06

explained it all to me once. He tried to go through CBT,

8:08

cognitive

8:10

behavioral therapy, but the way

8:13

he described it, it was rough. It

8:15

was too rough for

8:17

him. You'd

8:19

never know how he was trying to keep things together. You'd

8:22

never know at a party that he was sweating it out inside

8:24

because you accidentally rattled some quarters in your pocket.

8:26

You took some change out when you were paying the tab somewhere.

8:30

Or you'd look up and notice Syed left something

8:32

real early. Maybe it was because someone had,

8:34

you know, buttons lined up in a certain

8:37

way on their shirt. He just wouldn't

8:39

know. He was too proud

8:41

to tell about it unless you drew it out somehow. The

8:45

human brain, man. I

8:48

mean, what a

8:49

mess.

8:51

The stadium was always the low point

8:53

of the circuit around town. I

8:56

honestly just like going there pretty

8:58

intensely. Something

9:00

about the place, as small as it was,

9:03

it felt like a haunted house,

9:06

but it had to be done at least once

9:09

a month or so because there were so many ways

9:11

into it that invited transients

9:13

or kids doing drugs or something

9:16

worse. I told myself,

9:18

you got to go in there right after Halloween.

9:21

The time we found a dead horse in there,

9:24

fully grown dead horse. I

9:26

got an alderman to yell for a barrier

9:29

fence, but nothing ever happened. What

9:31

was left of the bread factory had a fence,

9:34

but not the stadium. I

9:37

had keys, so I went in the main entrance

9:39

and I checked out the concourse. It

9:42

was just a half a loop, but

9:44

a lot of nooks and corners, raccoons,

9:48

and that big Clay Smith city kickers

9:51

banner that no one ever had the interest

9:53

to steal. Probably because

9:55

the league went bankrupt before the team even

9:57

started. had

10:00

come through about a half hour before, so

10:02

there were these trickles of dripping water

10:05

coming down, like some

10:07

cavern system. And

10:10

then I walked outside into the bowl

10:12

and

10:13

I did a visual scan from where

10:15

I stood of the bleacher planks all

10:17

around just to see if there were any anomalies

10:22

which meant someone sleeping there.

10:26

I think it was the field that always

10:28

spooked me the most really.

10:30

It was like the end of the world kind of sight.

10:34

They moored only when they thought about it. The

10:36

grass was up to my calves now. Something

10:39

about the stadium, that

10:41

grass and all that quiet,

10:44

you know? For whatever

10:46

reason it always reminded me of Jonestown

10:50

somehow.

10:52

Okay, so the honking bullsh**t starts when you

10:54

have Port once again pressuring us to keep expanding

10:56

the trial pool when all along we tell them, look,

10:58

Darth Vader, we can't find this optimal

11:01

set of patients you're describing in the time frame you

11:03

need. No one can,

11:04

it doesn't exist. It reads

11:06

great in your marketing materials, but you're eliminating

11:08

too much of the set if you want to achieve reliable data.

11:11

So you wind up nuancing the qualifications

11:13

and the questionnaire. Dump

11:15

this question, dump this question, and

11:17

you keep doing that and bingo!

11:19

You wind up with someone with previous damage to the mesolimbic

11:22

pathway from a surgery when he was two and

11:25

only through x-rays are you going to see that's still there.

11:27

So that should have been caught. And

11:30

then you have probable evidence showing in the ventral striatum

11:32

after the third five milligrams that his f**king

11:34

dopaminergic signals are getting corrupted. And

11:37

Darth tells you it's a statistical outlier and

11:39

we'll examine it closely when the trial is No.

11:42

How about you pull him in for a real evaluation

11:45

right now instead of nodding your heads like

11:47

a bunch of f**king parrots when he tells you he's feeling

11:49

fine. And maybe consider whether his very

11:52

response to that question is completely causal.

11:55

But see fine is what they want to hear. So

11:57

Boba Fett can give everyone good news about the drug

11:59

and then stockholders meeting. But

12:02

what am I supposed to do when this is so f***ing chronic?

12:05

Be a hero?

12:07

Tell my mother she has to move into a state home?

12:09

We can't afford a private one anymore?

12:12

Then try to explain why I left my last job to somebody

12:14

else on the Death Star?

12:17

I radioed Porter on schedule,

12:20

pretty routine, and he let me

12:22

know he'd seen something a little unusual

12:24

some time before. This

12:26

guy standing near the Salvation

12:29

Army store, looking a little out

12:31

of it. That was his exact

12:33

description. He was dropping

12:36

something into the storm drain, some

12:38

little thing. And I

12:40

asked Porter what the guy's story was.

12:43

Well, Porter didn't know. Porter

12:46

hadn't pulled over and asked him any questions.

12:48

I said, Porter, you're

12:50

gonna be out here for hours every night. This

12:52

isn't some place like Philadelphia. There's

12:55

no reason to let anything slide. And

12:58

he said, well, the guy had something

13:00

on a hand truck, some cabinet

13:02

or something. So obviously he was in the middle

13:04

of doing something. Porter

13:07

was about four months out of the academy.

13:10

He was still in that false mode of thinking.

13:13

He didn't know yet that you have to separate

13:15

the context sometimes. He

13:18

let that hand truck blind him. You

13:21

have to think,

13:22

what about the person? Am I seeing

13:24

here?

13:25

You see a brand new iPhone in Jack

13:27

the Ripper's hand and he's sitting in Starbucks

13:30

texting. He still Jack

13:32

the Ripper when he opens his mouth and you really

13:34

look into his face.

13:37

I just thought I

13:39

was one of the lucky ones, probably. There

13:42

were so many duds on that app. And

13:45

here was this really charming upbeat New

13:47

Haven guy. He owned his own business, made

13:50

things for a living. And the one time we

13:52

went out, he was really fun,

13:54

totally respectful.

13:55

And he was divorced,

13:57

everyone else.

14:01

He talked about it like he and his ex are pretty friendly.

14:05

So I was sad. He didn't

14:07

call me back. I waited and waited

14:10

and it just wasn't happening.

14:13

Not that I was going to fight it because I know

14:15

what it's like out there. I absolutely know

14:17

about Goldfeet.

14:19

I just thought we had enough of a

14:21

connection that he'd call me.

14:23

And then he finally did, like

14:26

a month later, pretty

14:29

much out of the blue. And

14:31

to him, he treated it like

14:34

it was like only a few days had gone by.

14:37

I said, sure, I'll go

14:39

out

14:40

again. His sense

14:42

of time seemed like

14:43

it was a little wonky. Like he'd

14:45

just kind of lost track. But

14:48

considering who some of my girlfriends wound up

14:50

with on that app, these

14:52

guys with their Batman Lego sets key, he

14:54

was pretty much a dream.

14:56

Maybe I was the only one who really

14:58

noticed him changing, but I don't know. That

15:01

kind of seems hard to believe. But

15:04

he started to seem kind of secretive. He

15:07

was spending a lot more time in his office and now

15:09

the door was closed sometimes for some

15:11

reason. And this was a guy who practically pioneered

15:13

the open door thing. A lot

15:15

of time on the internet, that's what it seemed like. A

15:18

lot of internet secrecy during the day. He

15:21

still kept to his usual schedule pretty much, but now he

15:23

wasn't helping us out on the floor. And

15:25

that was always something he kind of dug. It

15:28

was pretty amazing to watch him put something together. He knew

15:30

his stuff. The other thing

15:32

that sunk in quick was that when you were talking to

15:34

him, okay, he

15:36

would get this super intense

15:38

look of concentration on his face. Usually

15:41

when you talk to Cy, he was kind of smiling and nodding

15:43

helpfully, right? Now

15:45

he'd almost twist his face to follow what you were saying,

15:47

almost like a little puppy does. He'd tilt

15:50

his head like that cartoon mouse from the cereal commercials.

15:52

You know what I'm talking about? I'm

15:54

trying to do it, but it seems stupid when I do it. His

15:59

features would... crunch up you know and it was

16:01

Pat

16:03

I just couldn't put my finger on what was going on there

16:07

was a Chevy Impala on the side of the road

16:09

with the driver's side door wide open

16:12

and the flashers on the side

16:14

of thick whistle Road there's

16:17

absolutely nothing around that

16:19

area just a pig farm a mile

16:21

up there's a lot of woods

16:25

a lot of woods

16:28

I took a look around and then I ran the plates

16:30

I recognized

16:32

the name that came up Garth

16:34

Rizzo that was interesting

16:38

he was in toast masters with me for

16:40

a little while I've been out to

16:42

his house a couple of times on domestic

16:44

calls it was his son

16:46

who called in both times to tell us

16:49

his dad was beating on him sad

16:52

the kid was 22 23 Garth Rizzo was that kind of guy I tried

17:00

to start the car the keys

17:02

were still there and it wouldn't turn over not

17:04

enough electrical power everything

17:07

was pretty much gone except for the headlights

17:09

and flashers which were real

17:11

weak and the radio would

17:13

play for about 10 seconds

17:16

and then die

17:17

so I figured his alternator

17:20

had started to cock but he kept driving

17:22

maybe trying to get all the way home which would

17:25

have been about another two miles away still

17:28

since it was so late I thought it meant maybe

17:31

he was drunk in the bargain then

17:34

I noticed that the headrest

17:36

on the driver's seat

17:38

the cushion

17:39

was partially dislodged from the post

17:42

like someone had tried to yank it out

17:46

we'd call it sustainability of the delivery

17:48

chain that was the magic blame

17:51

phrase meant absolutely horseshit

17:53

we'd use that as the reason we couldn't procure decent

17:56

parts for the alternator but the reality

17:58

was it was pretty much planned to fail

18:00

at a certain mileage mark. The alternator,

18:03

the fuel pump, the water pump, we

18:06

had a 10-year contract with Convexity

18:09

Midwest to supply the parts to

18:11

the car care centers. So of course

18:13

those parts couldn't last. My

18:16

whole job was more or less shopping

18:18

for parts you could always get from suppliers

18:21

at an obscenely low price. Didn't

18:23

depend on any kind of improvement cycle

18:25

getting in the way of pure crappitude.

18:28

So when your car broke down on your weight

18:30

and grandma's, guess what? That

18:33

was me sitting in my office

18:35

in Phoenix calculating your

18:37

fate on a spreadsheet. That was

18:39

my light cyan column.

18:42

I always loved coloring in the little cells

18:44

in Excel. That never got

18:45

old.

18:47

That's what I left teaching for. I

18:50

figured I'd just go right down

18:52

to Garth's and see if he wound up home.

18:54

I'd been there one

18:56

time for a New Year's thing. I went

18:59

up on the porch, knocked a couple of times,

19:02

and the door kind of opened in by

19:05

itself. No one even

19:07

seemed to touch it. It

19:09

was dark inside and there was a deep

19:11

red light somewhere. It was

19:14

so powerful it lit up the hallway

19:17

and like a dream or

19:20

a

19:21

movie

19:22

this shape

19:25

came around the corner. Just

19:27

a total silhouette of a man in

19:29

all that red light wearing a cape

19:33

clearly with a big collar. You know that

19:35

very classy vampire

19:37

look. This person

19:41

walking toward the door very

19:45

slowly like

19:47

nothing I could have expected. Then I saw

19:50

it was Spencer Garth's

19:53

kid, skinny

19:55

kid.

19:56

He had his hair slicked back. His face looked

19:59

pale,

20:01

maybe some makeup to

20:03

get it that way. And he

20:05

told me it was only a

20:07

game,

20:09

some internet game he was playing,

20:11

but he kept on talking like someone

20:14

much older, much weirier. He

20:17

didn't want to break character or something,

20:20

so it was a little unnerving because I

20:23

wasn't sure exactly who I was talking

20:25

to. He told me his dad had

20:27

never come home that night. He

20:30

didn't sound surprised. Garth had been seeing

20:32

some woman recently. I really

20:35

wanted to give this kid a shake and say, come on,

20:37

I need to speak to the real Spencer, please.

20:41

But he was immersed.

20:43

I

20:46

could have asked to come inside,

20:48

but I didn't quite have cause

20:50

yet. And when we were

20:52

done, he turned

20:55

and drifted back into the light and out

20:57

of sight, just as slow

20:59

as he'd come. Probably

21:02

being whatever he was supposed to be was much,

21:04

much better than being Garth Rizzo's

21:07

son. I'd seen

21:09

a lot of that.

21:11

Cy called me in to talk about something.

21:15

I think it was a bed frame that was gonna be next to impossible

21:17

to get done on time, something like that, but almost

21:20

right away he got off that topic and he said to me,

21:23

we were sitting just like we are now, you know, he was behind

21:25

his desk. He said, let me ask you

21:27

something. You ever done anything really,

21:29

really terrible that nobody would understand? And

21:32

I said, I

21:35

don't know exactly what I said. I mentioned being

21:37

really mean to someone in Boy Scouts once who totally

21:39

didn't deserve it. I just picked a fight with him for no

21:41

reason whatsoever. Bloodied up his lip

21:43

pretty bad. I still actually feel bad about that.

21:47

Cy wanted more and more details though. I

21:50

asked him what was this about? And he said,

21:53

think of the worst being, the worst monster in the world.

21:56

It would be the devil, right? It would be Satan. And

21:59

I said, Yeah. He

22:02

said, theoretically, if he was inside one

22:04

of us, how would that person know?

22:06

How would you know if you were Satan?

22:09

Pretty sure I laughed, but it's your boss,

22:11

right? You're not going to talk to your boss in certain

22:13

ways, even if you're friendly. So I play along,

22:15

even though I'm getting really confused at this point.

22:19

He said, I

22:20

think if a person were Satan,

22:22

he'd know because he could get away with the worst

22:25

possible thing you could do and keep on going,

22:27

right? That

22:29

sounded plausible enough to me, so I said so. And

22:32

he said, so you'd try to do that awful thing

22:35

and see if it felt good enough to keep going, and

22:37

if absolutely no one could stop you, well, there's

22:39

your answer, right? Does that sound right? I

22:42

forget the exact words, but it was something freaky like that.

22:45

And I said, Si,

22:46

I got to know, what in the world is this about? You're

22:48

weirding me out, man.

22:51

There came that look that I was talking about, like

22:54

he was concentrating so hard, it almost hurt. And

22:57

then it passed, and he said something

23:00

about like, oh, he'd just been

23:02

reading some philosophy book and wanted to know if I was into

23:04

that kind of thing. He was just throwing it out there. That

23:07

was way over my head, very weird, you

23:09

know, because we'd only really ever talked about sports

23:12

or our kids or TV shows. Everything

23:14

else I knew about him came from other people or other

23:16

places. We

23:18

just sort of ended it there, and I went back to the floor, and he

23:20

stayed in his office, door closed again. That

23:23

had become his normal.

23:26

I drove back to Garth's car.

23:29

I was going to call a tow if I had

23:31

to.

23:32

I was looking at the GPS a

23:34

little to double confirm there really wasn't

23:36

any place for Garth to have gone. That wasn't

23:38

a residence. I

23:41

popped the trunk, and really

23:43

the reason was exactly what you

23:45

might think, which is the one in a

23:47

million chance that you're going to find someone

23:50

in there. It never happened

23:52

to me, but you always take

23:54

a breath before you open a trunk, but

23:58

instead it was totally crammed. with cardboard

24:01

boxes and inside those boxes

24:03

were much smaller boxes.

24:06

Pregnancy test kits are an item that happens

24:09

to uh retain their

24:11

price points very well when they're sold illegally

24:13

online, especially overseas.

24:17

So we see them stolen from the warehouses

24:19

quite a bit.

24:21

Not as much as adult diapers interestingly.

24:25

Porter radioed me again. He'd

24:28

just taken a call from Motas street. Someone

24:31

was saying they thought they heard a scream

24:33

from the house next door and

24:36

then everything had gone real quiet. So

24:39

now they were worried. They

24:41

admitted they waited a good half hour before

24:44

calling. That wasn't too surprising.

24:47

People tend to wait until the primitive

24:49

part of their brains really starts crying

24:52

out. I told Porter

24:54

to swap places with me. It

24:57

was getting on toward 230. We met at

25:00

Rustic

25:02

Steakhouse for our second date and

25:05

he was talking about very

25:08

different things than the first time.

25:12

A lot about stuff from my

25:14

past he wanted to know about. Nothing

25:17

too invasive, just

25:20

strange. It felt like he

25:22

was trying to figure out if I might be a killer

25:24

or something. He hadn't been like that on

25:27

the first date. Then

25:30

he really got weird.

25:33

He started to talk about how he had this

25:35

big plan, nothing anyone

25:37

had ever seen. I was like, you

25:39

mean a business plan? He

25:42

said no. What he meant was,

25:45

I don't know. He was talking

25:47

about

25:48

being more powerful than anyone in

25:50

the world. He realized there was only one way

25:52

to

25:53

prove it. Unless

25:55

he did it, good and evil would get

25:58

out of balance. really

26:00

ludicrous talk and it felt

26:03

like he was trying to make it into some puzzle

26:05

I had to guess at and I felt

26:08

really uncomfortable with it. Then

26:10

he asked me, this

26:12

was only part of the way through dinner,

26:15

he asked me to look into

26:17

his eyes and tell him what

26:19

I saw there. What

26:20

a flirtatious

26:21

or even nice, but

26:24

he was all like, oh no Faith, there's

26:27

no reason

26:27

to be free. You're

26:29

going to be able to tell everyone

26:31

who you encountered in this life. I

26:35

made up some ridiculous lie about how I had to go,

26:38

really totally unbelievable,

26:40

but he wanted. I think

26:42

I was crying before I even get out of the restaurant,

26:45

but I was more scared than that at the point.

26:48

That was three years

26:51

ago and I haven't dated since.

26:55

I swear it's like having

26:58

some lousy part-time job you have to keep dragging

27:00

yourself

27:01

to at night instead of relaxing and

27:03

then every time you get your paycheck it's just 40

27:06

cents or sometimes

27:08

it's all zeros and then at the bottom someone

27:11

actually

27:11

wrote you're worth nothing.

27:15

I'll tell you how gullible people are. Day

27:17

one we loaded the app up with fake profiles.

27:21

One fake for every 15

27:22

real ones. What

27:24

they'd figured out was that people

27:27

don't mind getting no

27:29

response from a hot person's profile.

27:32

They were used to getting rejected by hot people,

27:35

but

27:36

if they didn't see enough of them in the feed

27:39

that was what they got disappointed

27:41

by. That's where the cancel rate came from.

27:44

These Autobot responses all had

27:46

the same dopey pattern, but it was forever

27:49

until someone actually called us out on

27:51

it. We didn't even try hard

27:53

with the photos. They were all

27:55

from the last couple of search pages on the

27:57

Serbian version of PhotoSwan.

27:59

It was just laziness that

28:02

got us found out.

28:03

We kept accidentally giving all of our

28:05

hot people the same names.

28:07

It was either

28:09

like

28:11

Zach or

28:12

Sheridan.

28:13

Cranberry was the nice side of town.

28:16

There was some money in Cranberry. It

28:19

was rare we got calls there.

28:21

The neighborhood maid the call was standing on

28:24

her lawn in the dark. She

28:26

raised her hand to me when I pulled up and

28:28

pointed toward 146. We

28:31

didn't have any kind of exchange beyond that.

28:34

Wasn't necessary yet. I

28:37

knocked on the door a few times.

28:39

No answer.

28:41

All the lights were off. So

28:43

I walked around the side. The

28:45

neighbor was watching me. She had this enormous

28:48

cup of tea or something she had to

28:50

hold in both hands. She'd

28:52

bring it up to her mouth real slow

28:55

and sip

28:56

and watch me.

28:58

I couldn't see her face.

29:02

The sliding glass door out to the porch

29:04

was open. I took

29:06

a step inside,

29:08

called out.

29:09

It was the living room.

29:11

There were candles lit inside.

29:14

There was a video camera set up.

29:17

It was pointed at a table. And

29:19

on the table was a Ouija board next

29:21

to a bunch of other candles. Real

29:23

classical set up there. Except

29:26

there was also a rubber tie off and some cotton

29:29

balls beside it. The needle

29:31

that went with it had been left on the mantle.

29:34

I kept calling and calling.

29:37

And I walked through the house a bit but no

29:39

one was answering. No one was

29:41

in the bedroom. The

29:43

door leading into the kitchen from the backyard

29:45

was unlocked too.

29:47

It felt just a little bit greasy to the

29:49

touch.

29:51

Sigh didn't come to work the day after Halloween.

29:54

He just sent us an email. So the last time I ever

29:56

saw him I guess was October

29:58

30th. When

30:01

everyone went home on the first, I hung around for a while.

30:03

There were these ridiculous arch door jams I

30:05

had to fit. And

30:08

at some point I went out to one of the little storage units

30:10

we have around the back of the shop. I

30:13

went toward the back of this one unit we hadn't used

30:15

for a while because of a flooding problem. I was looking

30:17

for a certain mullion shape. And

30:20

there was all this stuff spread out on a big work table.

30:24

I thought, well this is a strange place for someone

30:27

to be working on something. Why wouldn't

30:29

they do it in the shop?

30:31

So I, you know, obviously I

30:33

took a closer look.

30:37

I figured out how to roll the tape back

30:39

on the camera. Or, I

30:41

guess it's not tape anymore, it's all

30:43

digital. And I played it through the

30:45

little screen on the video camera. There

30:48

was an older guy sitting at the table,

30:51

there in the dark in front of the Ouija board.

30:54

This was Mr. Worthy. And

30:56

he was looking all around him and he was

30:58

asking questions of nobody

31:00

in particular. He

31:03

definitely looked inebriated. Or,

31:06

astounded is the better word. I

31:09

let the video play while I kept checking

31:11

out the room. I thought, maybe I'd get

31:13

lucky and hear something on it.

31:16

And on the video he kept saying, do you

31:19

understand why I had to do it darling?

31:23

He said that over and over so

31:26

often that I couldn't concentrate. I

31:29

went to fast forward the video but it ended

31:31

real quick. When

31:33

I rolled it back a little, I got

31:36

the sense that he'd seen something in the far

31:38

corner of the room. He wasn't expecting

31:40

it, he stopped what he

31:42

was doing and then he'd gotten

31:45

up from the chair and moved out of frame.

31:48

And he just started to say something new

31:50

when

31:51

you could get a sense of the weight of his steps

31:53

on the floor. Jostled the camera

31:55

a little. And you heard his hand tap

31:58

it in the recording.

31:59

stopped.

32:01

The size sketches never

32:03

looked like anybody else's. They were really distinctive

32:05

because they were actually kind of bad. But

32:07

he always had it all up in his mind, right? That's how good a carpenter

32:10

he was. He didn't need sketches most

32:11

of the time.

32:13

They just looked to me like a lot of random joints

32:15

and edges. All that was

32:17

left of whatever he was building was wood scraps

32:19

and some bolts. And he'd drag a workmate

32:21

in. Except plain as day, right there

32:23

on the rack next to it were these cut steel pieces,

32:25

real big. And we put a black X on them

32:28

with a grease pen, which is what we would do in the shop

32:30

to mark stuff to be recycled. They

32:32

didn't seem to mean much until you touch the bottom

32:35

edges. They had been sharpened

32:38

and sharpened and sharpened. They

32:41

were as sharp as you can possibly get without slicing

32:43

your finger open just by touching.

32:51

When I was 12, the bread factory burned

32:53

down.

32:55

My father came home with a burn on

32:57

his neck that he thought was nothing to worry about.

33:00

But

33:00

it was a lot more serious than he realized.

33:04

He'd risked his life that night. I

33:07

remember stopping on my bike

33:09

sometimes on the way to the snack and go, looking

33:12

at the scary

33:14

sagging ruins and all

33:16

that gray ash that took so

33:18

long to finally blow away, little

33:21

by little.

33:23

But it was how angry the people

33:25

in town got with each other over

33:27

who was to blame for

33:28

the fire that actually scared me.

33:32

Seeing Gary Fair get beaten

33:34

up by a mob because of it

33:37

was what finally got me

33:39

to really start thinking about

33:42

entropy.

33:45

There were all kinds of little things in the

33:47

living room that were confusing the picture.

33:50

I noticed that the mirrors were

33:52

taped over.

33:54

There were two of them there in the living room and they

33:56

were done over really carefully with

33:58

electrical tape. There

34:00

was a junction bay alarm system

34:02

in the house that was activated, but

34:05

the sensor light was yellow.

34:08

I'd only seen them green before.

34:11

That stuck with me too. I

34:14

went out through the sliding glass door again

34:16

and took a look at the grass out under the

34:18

roof light. And there you

34:21

could kind of see it if you squatted

34:23

and looked at the right angle. Because

34:26

of the rains that night,

34:27

there were what looked like drag marks.

34:30

I was able to follow the traces out

34:33

almost all the way to the edge of the lawn.

34:36

Robert would do the installations, but

34:39

that first test in front of the customer wasn't actually

34:42

for the connection to the base. That

34:44

had to be tested after the account for the phone line

34:46

was confirmed. And of course, the

34:49

first one for 146M had failed because

34:51

Robert usually has his head up his ass. But

34:54

then I look at the account and I see the test signal went

34:56

out 10.15 at night and nobody wants

34:58

to call the customer about a fail that late because

35:00

they get all pissy. So what you do

35:02

sometimes is just wait till the next morning because

35:05

I figured, well, it's the first test. What

35:07

are the odds someone's actually going to trespass

35:10

before we get this fixed? But then,

35:12

because of all the layoffs, it was just me that

35:14

morning and I have a million things to

35:16

do. And then Big Round Boss comes out of

35:18

his office and he's like, me Big Round

35:20

Boss? Me need you get cake from

35:22

Safeway! And I said, seriously?

35:25

We're doing Nisha's birthday when we have all this stuff

35:27

we need to do we can't get to? But

35:30

I go and it turns out Big Round

35:32

Boss can't even spell Nisha over

35:34

the phone right to the cake people. So

35:36

it reads, Happy Birthday, Nichie.

35:39

And I think, oh well! But

35:42

Big Round Boss sees it and goes, me

35:44

Big Round Boss? You need to scrape

35:46

letters

35:47

off!

35:48

I have work to do and then

35:51

I see him in his office. He's using

35:53

his disgusting nail clippers

35:56

to try to do surgery on the letters. So

35:59

I definitely. couldn't have been happier that this

36:01

guy made three times what I did.

36:05

You have accessed the eArchival Law Enforcement

36:07

Media Database. Chapter

36:10

E337P, November 6, 2023. 1840 hours.

36:21

Okay, we can set the map aside for

36:23

a bit. Do you want to tell us about Mr. Izzo?

36:28

Well, I was driving

36:30

down the road and I hadn't quite figured out a definite

36:32

plan yet, and I saw the car

36:34

stuffed in the shoulder and I looked around and I thought, well,

36:37

there's as good a chance as any of the

36:39

guy was obviously alone. He

36:41

was closing his hood. There's nobody else around.

36:44

It looked like kind of a deserted road,

36:46

so I pulled over as close as I possibly

36:48

could.

36:50

And I

36:52

reached beside me and I took

36:54

the taser off the passenger seat, but

36:56

I hadn't really thought of how to conceal it, so

36:58

I really just had it in my left hand as I

37:01

walked up. I said,

37:03

hey, do you need any help? And I saw how

37:06

big the guy was and I thought, okay, this could be tough.

37:10

And the first thing he said to me was, I

37:14

am going to find the people who made this pile

37:16

of pus and I am going to shoot

37:19

holes in every single one of them. So

37:23

I said, what

37:25

do you think the problem is? Do you need a jump? And

37:28

he said, no, I don't need a jump. I need a new

37:30

alternator. So unless you have one to give away, why

37:32

don't you go screw your mother?

37:37

I thought, wow.

37:40

So I put the taser up

37:42

against his neck and it worked better than I

37:44

thought. What

37:47

did it do to him? He fell to the ground. He kind

37:49

of grabbed at the headrest

37:51

of the driver's seat to break his

37:53

fall. He was twitching and he kept

37:55

saying, what, what, what, over and

37:57

over again, like his mouth had got stuck in his

37:59

mouth. and I'd hated him a couple more times and

38:01

told him if he stayed still.

38:03

I'd thought, I'm not even

38:05

sure you heard me by that

38:06

point, I think I overdid it. His

38:09

arms were totally limp,

38:11

so I laid him out kind

38:14

of like a snow angel. And

38:17

I got the zip ties on his hands and his legs

38:20

pretty quick and I realized, you know what, I

38:22

hope I can figure out how to use the

38:24

liftgate on the truck, because this guy looks like he's

38:26

tipping 250 pounds. And

38:28

I never used one before and I forgot

38:30

to read up on it

38:32

at the shop.

38:33

But I made sure to park

38:35

with the truck's rear end right

38:37

next to where he'd been standing and

38:40

they mark it on the dash very clearly, one

38:43

button. All I had to do was roll

38:45

him onto it more or less before anyone else came

38:47

along and that didn't turn out to be a problem. I

38:50

knew there were fewer people

38:52

in Clay Smith than there used to be, I just didn't realize how few,

38:55

I'd never been there.

38:59

I closed up the house and did

39:01

a quick circuit of the street, but I didn't

39:03

see much sign of anything worth noting.

39:07

I told Porter to finish up with Garth's

39:09

vehicle for now and start cruising again.

39:12

I gave him the whole rundown of the situation

39:14

at the house, but I couldn't

39:16

be sure exactly what we were looking

39:18

for. It was just a

39:21

half certainty that something was very

39:24

wrong. I

39:26

had the alarm company give me what information

39:28

they could about the owner of the house, see

39:31

if an alarm signal was sent, but

39:33

he wasn't picking up on his cell when I tried.

39:36

So at that moment

39:39

he couldn't have been anywhere. I

39:41

couldn't believe that neighbor stayed out

39:43

in her yard the whole time. She

39:46

didn't want to go back in. I

39:49

practically forced her to. I

39:53

thought about my daughter. She

39:56

wasn't at home that night, she was doing a sleepover

39:58

at a friend's house.

39:59

Her friend Jackie was very

40:02

sick,

40:04

terminally ill in fact, so she and

40:06

another friend were sleeping over there, play

40:09

games, cheer her up a little. She

40:11

was going back in the hospital for a while the next

40:13

day.

40:14

It wasn't something we'd normally ever

40:16

let Barb do on a school night, but

40:19

that was a special case. There

40:23

was absolutely no reason for me

40:25

to think that they weren't all safely

40:27

asleep. These folks

40:29

were there, of course. It would

40:31

have been ridiculous for me or my

40:34

wife to suddenly call, but

40:37

I really wanted to.

40:40

I just happened to see the junction

40:43

bay sticker in the window as I drove by,

40:45

and based on my

40:47

own history with junction bay and how sakizi there were,

40:50

for lack of a better word, I thought, I bet those

40:53

people have no security system

40:55

at all. junction bay just unethically

40:58

sold them a sticker. That was how I decided

41:00

on that house, pretty random. I

41:04

walked around back to see if there was a door open and there

41:06

was, it was unlocked, but I

41:08

thought I still might have set

41:11

off an alarm. It looked like there

41:13

was a box next to

41:15

it inside on a wall, but nothing seemed

41:17

to happen. It was strolled

41:19

right in. Everything was really aligned just as

41:22

I had wanted.

41:25

I had to curve around the stadium

41:27

on the east side to go toward

41:29

Lancaster Road. There

41:32

are a couple of spots where you have

41:34

a pretty good glimpse of part of the field itself,

41:37

but you have to be looking right there

41:39

to notice it. I'd just been

41:41

past so many times I knew those

41:43

spots real well. I

41:46

was moving past the stop sign on

41:48

Mohican and I looked up and suddenly,

41:50

and you would have to have

41:53

seen that site a thousand times

41:55

to know anything was

41:57

different in the slightest. saw

42:00

something on the field, a

42:02

little blot. My

42:05

first thought was that it was a person. I

42:08

put the cruiser in reverse and I idled

42:10

for a bit. I was just

42:12

staring at it. The thing wasn't

42:16

moving. Then

42:18

what jumped out completely clear was

42:20

that the big service doors on that side

42:23

of the stadium had been forced inward.

42:26

There was this old man in the living

42:28

room. He was definitely surprised to see me. He said,

42:32

you can't be here. It's too dangerous for

42:34

you to be here. He

42:37

seemed very dazed, greatly under

42:39

the influence of some

42:42

kind of drug or alcohol. He had to sit down again or he

42:44

was going to fall right over. I

42:46

looked around at the Ouija board and the candles and so forth

42:48

and I asked him what he meant.

42:49

He said, it's me. She

42:52

said, I'm not going

42:55

to be here. She wants revenge on, but if

42:57

you're here, she could kill you too. I

43:01

asked him, why have you blacked

43:03

out the mirrors?

43:05

He told me it was too easy for her spirit

43:07

to leave the room through them. Something

43:09

like that. I didn't hear him perfectly

43:11

clearly. I

43:14

said, what did you do to this person?

43:17

He wouldn't answer that. All he did was like this.

43:19

He kind of slowly brought

43:22

his hands up to his face and

43:24

over his eyes like he couldn't better

43:26

look at me.

43:28

I went up to him and I put the taser against his neck

43:31

like the man before, but the reaction was

43:33

different. He screamed very

43:36

loudly, so I had to hit him

43:39

and stamp

43:41

on him so he'd stop. Then he went

43:44

completely limp. I didn't think he was breathing.

43:47

There was no sign of life almost

43:49

immediately. He was

43:51

extremely light, so

43:54

it was simple to just drag him out of there

43:56

and across the grass and get him into the back of the truck. I was

43:58

sure someone in the house was there would say, But

44:01

it never happened. You think you

44:03

might have been dead? Yeah, I was pretty

44:05

sure. I figured I could just

44:08

leave him and go back inside and pull the tape off the mirror. So

44:10

I did that and then I went back outside. Why

44:14

did you feel the need to do that? I

44:17

don't know. It occurred to me that if

44:20

this spirit he was trying to bring

44:23

into the house was actually there, she'd be trapped.

44:26

I don't know how anything like that works. It just seemed like the

44:28

right thing to do.

44:34

There's a thrill in sneaking out on

44:36

the night with your childhood friends like

44:38

nothing else in life. It's

44:41

like swimming together

44:43

in a dark sea of mystery

44:45

and wonder. We'd gone where

44:48

we'd never dared to go.

44:50

We were excited to either be caught

44:53

or not be. We knew what

44:55

we were doing was wrong, Jackie, Sonia

44:58

and I, but we wouldn't have given it

45:00

up for the world. All

45:02

we had were the clothes we had on and Sonia's

45:05

bowl. The bread factory

45:07

seemed impossibly far away, but we

45:09

kept going.

45:11

We were on an important mission.

45:14

That's what we told each other. Crossing

45:18

Sunset Park, I spotted the man

45:21

far away, standing where the tree

45:23

line stopped and the playground began. He

45:26

was neither walking a dog

45:28

nor smoking, nor doing anything

45:31

but watching us go past. Sonia

45:35

said, don't worry,

45:37

there's three of us and only one of him. And

45:40

we began to giggle. Our

45:43

nerves were frayed in a thrilling

45:45

and terrible way. The

45:48

man was careful to stand just

45:50

out of the lamp light, one

45:52

step in almost any direction and he

45:55

would be revealed.

45:57

We had seen the box truck sitting

45:59

in the corner of the house. of the parking lot.

46:03

He later said he

46:04

wanted just one more murder

46:06

that night. The second one,

46:09

the old man, had not felt right.

46:12

And when he saw the three of us, he

46:14

barely knew what to do. The

46:17

possibilities were overwhelming.

46:20

Things were coming together so beautifully for

46:23

him. Chaos becoming

46:25

order,

46:27

loose pieces on the ground rising

46:29

and melding, a

46:30

film reel of mangled

46:32

bloody colors

46:33

becoming a landscape. He

46:37

put his head in his

46:37

hands, clutching it, trying

46:40

to picture and feel it all.

46:44

He was just too slow in figuring how to

46:46

go about killing all three of us. The

46:49

next thing he knew, we

46:51

were gone in the dark.

46:55

Those service doors were barely even

46:57

chained and it looked from some indentations

47:00

that a vehicle had simply bumped

47:02

up against them until the chains had snapped.

47:05

There wasn't even a locking device. They were

47:07

just looped over and over

47:10

and knotted. The area

47:12

inside there was empty and just big enough

47:14

to drive something through. The doors

47:17

on the other side of it were open too. Same

47:21

deal, something heavy had struck

47:23

them. They weren't even chained.

47:26

Open right out into the open air, threw

47:28

a gap in the fence that hugged the field

47:30

all around. Couldn't have been simpler.

47:35

There it was, standing

47:38

right at the midfield point where the soccer

47:40

teams would have kicked off if the league had

47:42

ever started. It

47:45

was about five feet tall

47:48

and it was actually light enough to rock back

47:50

and forth with one hand if he was strong.

47:53

If it had been much heavier, it couldn't

47:55

have been moved with a hand truck too well.

47:58

So he built it very carefully.

48:01

I'd never seen one of these things up close,

48:04

except maybe in a museum when I was a

48:06

kid. This was sort

48:08

of a more shrunken

48:10

version, I suppose. If

48:15

you

48:15

had room in the truck for it, why did you push

48:17

it so far on the hand truck? Way first

48:19

part. Why not drive it right to the stadium?

48:22

I didn't even know about the stadium when I first

48:25

parked. I just wanted to look around for a place I felt good about.

48:27

I saw those bleachers way

48:29

off in the distance. I

48:32

liked this image

48:35

of the whole little

48:37

town filling up that little stadium,

48:41

filing in to see. No

48:44

talking or anything, just quiet

48:46

and

48:48

watching me do what I did. But

48:50

you didn't drive there. Well, part of it was

48:52

if I could push it on the hand truck all the way

48:54

there and no one stopped me, that

48:57

would be my affirmation

48:59

that I couldn't be stopped at all. That would be a sign I

49:01

was who I knew I was. And

49:04

that turned out to be true.

49:07

The bodies were lying just on

49:09

the other side of it. He

49:11

hadn't just rolled them away when he was done

49:13

with them. There was some attempt at

49:15

arrangement, some pattern I didn't

49:17

understand right away.

49:19

No, it was just that I had some

49:22

trouble when I cut the electrical tape off

49:24

their hands and their mouths. Things got out of sorts.

49:27

What flavor of snapple

49:30

is this supposed to be?

49:33

The basket was to the left of Mr.

49:35

Worthy's arm. His

49:37

arm was outstretched and his hand was

49:39

actually touching it. Just

49:42

a wicker basket from Walmart or

49:44

someplace, nothing special. Both

49:48

of the heads were inside,

49:51

sort of facing each other.

49:56

When I radioed the state police, I

49:59

remember My mind had completely

50:01

blanked on the actual word for what

50:03

this big thing was. Just

50:06

one of those moments you hear a word a thousand

50:08

times and obviously you know it but suddenly

50:11

it just won't come. And

50:13

then it didn't come to me as a sound in my

50:15

mind. It came to me as this image

50:18

of tiles on a scrabble board. That

50:21

happens sometimes. I play with my

50:23

wife a lot.

50:24

And there it was in the tiles. I can even

50:27

tell you how many points it's worth. Guillotine.

50:33

11 point score. I

50:37

was in year 24 of my career then. That

50:40

may have been my first time as a police officer

50:43

looking down into that basket that

50:45

for some reason my very first sympathies

50:48

weren't for the victims. Instead

50:51

my first thought standing

50:54

right there

50:55

was someone

50:57

else has lost their immortal soul.

51:01

That was getting older

51:03

talking. I had this weird

51:05

instant of sadness for some

51:08

wretched total stranger. And

51:11

then I went looking to find

51:13

him.

51:15

Inside Dunker

51:16

became disoriented and frustrated

51:19

and trying to find the box truck

51:21

again veering mistakenly

51:23

to the east. He eventually

51:26

spotted a patrol cruiser in the distance

51:30

waiting at the railroad tracks where the mayor

51:32

had been killed by a derailed freight

51:33

car eight years earlier.

51:37

The cruiser picked him up in the headlights by

51:39

another fluke of chance. When

51:42

he saw someone getting out of it he

51:44

turned to the north. Very

51:47

shortly he realized he was

51:49

finally being pursued.

51:53

Porter did a lot of things wrong that night

51:56

trying to cross that mud mess beside

51:58

Temple Emmanuel and the Cruckee. Cruiser was

52:00

definitely one, which is how

52:02

he got stuck

52:04

and wound up on foot so soon.

52:07

Some of it was bad training.

52:10

Some of it was adrenaline and being

52:12

young. He didn't know

52:14

the town real well, and he didn't realize

52:16

the old wooden city was a dead end, and

52:18

he didn't have to go in there after Dunker.

52:22

Once you got in there, it was

52:24

almost impossible to navigate your way

52:27

out unless you came back through the front.

52:30

But Porter did go in.

52:33

After the riots in Hartford,

52:35

the department had two years of awful

52:38

PR problems. We couldn't recruit

52:40

officers no matter what we tried. No

52:43

one wanted to be a cop. So

52:45

the Academy entrance standards fell off

52:47

a cliff. If you had a face and

52:49

could count to nine on your toes, you

52:52

were in. There was this place up

52:54

ahead and I was

52:55

getting tired. Strange

52:58

looking place to me, but

52:59

the officer was getting closer,

53:01

so I made for it. I thought,

53:05

I won't even use a taser. I'll kill him with my bare

53:07

hands. I really

53:10

wanted to do that. It seemed like that

53:12

would be a good ending. I

53:14

would feel good about that.

53:17

He was so desperate for

53:19

warm bottles. Once

53:22

I was at a recruiting table up at the college

53:24

and this kid went by and he picked up a

53:26

flyer out of politeness and

53:29

I said, what's your major? And

53:31

he said, imperative religion.

53:34

And I literally said, well,

53:37

have you thought about applying that knowledge as

53:39

a patrol officer for New London County?

53:43

Anyone could get into the old wooden city.

53:46

There was no real security. The

53:48

security was the sign that mentioned history.

53:51

There's no better way to keep teenagers out

53:53

of a place than the threat of learning something.

53:56

It was a recreation of the original

53:59

town settlement. eight bucks

54:01

to get in, but at night, no

54:03

one around, you could squeeze right through the posts

54:06

out front without much trouble if you really

54:08

wanted.

54:09

Porter had never been there before.

54:12

It was like a weird movie set,

54:15

all these wooden cabins and farmhouses

54:17

with thatched roofs and a town

54:20

council replica and a

54:22

mill and

54:23

a little path winding all through

54:25

it.

54:27

By the time I got there, of course, it was flooded

54:29

with lights from the outside.

54:31

But for Porter,

54:33

going into any of those buildings would have been

54:35

like going into a blackout.

54:38

When you think about it, to

54:40

sign one of those terrible seven-year indentured

54:42

contracts and leave home forever and

54:45

get on a ship for months with all

54:47

that disease, a lot of those people

54:49

who came over had to be serious lowlights. But

54:52

to get donations, we just went with whatever the tourists

54:54

wanted to believe. Oh, the people

54:57

who built our town were such brave heroes.

55:00

And we just lied. We'd be like, oh, yeah,

55:03

it was absolutely never just

55:05

somebody's violent cousin with a ton of gambling debt.

55:08

No way.

55:10

In time, he entered

55:12

a recreation of the convalescence hospital

55:15

where settlers first stayed upon getting

55:17

off a ship from London or through London.

55:20

It was often necessary to lie

55:22

two to a bed for days or weeks

55:25

recovering from the terrible ocean voyage.

55:29

Volunteers from the Historical Society had spent

55:32

weeks building the mahogany beds to

55:34

historical specifications, then

55:38

lined them up in rows. A

55:40

large iron crucifix was

55:42

mounted to a high wall.

55:45

He stood on the doorway, listening.

55:49

He felt for light switches,

55:50

but they were none. Slowly

55:54

and silently, he reached

55:56

for the flashlight on his duty belt.

55:59

his window punch and glove, it

56:02

was back in his cruiser.

56:05

I couldn't believe he couldn't see me. I

56:07

was standing right

56:09

in the aisle there between all those beds. I

56:12

was willing him to walk forward.

56:15

My intention was to stand

56:18

there in the darken up of the

56:20

muscle. And sure enough, he finally

56:23

started to walk toward me, but real

56:27

slow, like he had no

56:29

idea I was there.

56:32

I had merged with

56:34

the darkness completely. He

56:38

would take a step

56:39

and stop.

56:42

Take a step, then

56:45

stop. All

56:47

his senses would have been heightened, but

56:51

God, inside that building with

56:53

the trees all around the place blocking

56:55

the sky. You

56:57

talk about dark.

57:01

He was right in front of me, like

57:03

the distance you are for me now. He

57:05

was right in front of me and I was invisible.

57:09

And I felt this rush

57:12

of power like nothing I can

57:15

really describe. I

57:17

was a great crystal eagle.

57:19

I was bursting with wonder and

57:23

I lunged.

57:25

I thought I can pull his

57:27

head off. I can do it with

57:29

my hands. That's what I want. It can

57:32

be done. He's been brought

57:34

right to me to do this. They'll ask,

57:36

how did he do

57:39

what he did? And I'll say, with

57:42

these

57:42

hands. I've

57:45

been there since and stood

57:48

where he stood with the lights out to see

57:50

what it was like. It's a shadow

57:53

So,

58:11

it's

58:18

pretty

58:19

much right

58:21

in the back part of the, in the elbow

58:23

of course range. That's

58:26

a completely debilitating wound. So,

58:28

when the medics got there, the main form

58:31

wasn't hanging on by much. That's

58:34

gang, gang in the mountains right there.

58:37

There are no Jasons or Hannibal Lecters

58:39

that are going to bounce back from that. Welcome

58:42

to biology class, mother f**ker.

58:48

I started to laugh looking down at it because

58:50

there just wasn't any pain whatsoever. No

58:53

pain. I was able to sort of admire

58:55

this amazing body

58:58

I inhabit. I just laid

59:00

there looking up at the ceiling and laughing. I

59:02

knew I'd heal faster than anyone would

59:05

realize. I should be half dead, but I'm alive

59:07

and I'm already giving you this statement.

59:10

I'm not on any pain medication.

59:12

Nothing.

59:13

That should

59:14

really tell you something about who I am. Didn't

59:19

get to take the officer's head off though, did you?

59:24

We got you too, it looks like.

59:26

I'm looking at a man who's missing half an

59:28

arm and isn't going anywhere ever

59:31

again.

59:34

Sometimes there's a grander design.

59:37

Thank you for accessing

59:39

the eArchiva law enforcement media database.

59:43

eArchiva is hiring superstars.

59:46

Go to eArchiva.com slash

59:48

careers to take the next step towards

59:50

your future.

59:51

Outside the hulking ruins of

59:53

the bread factory,

59:55

Jackie read out the corny resurrection

59:58

ritual we'd found.

59:59

some young adult novel banned by our school.

1:00:03

We waited in

1:00:04

the dark and the cold, in

1:00:06

reverent silence,

1:00:08

for the spirit of the ashes to rise.

1:00:12

Our eyes were wide, and

1:00:14

our hearts were completely open.

1:00:18

But of course the spirit did not rise,

1:00:21

we

1:00:22

had been lied to.

1:00:24

Still, we laughed and

1:00:26

congratulated ourselves for our courage,

1:00:29

and for getting so close to that skull-like

1:00:32

place full of black sockets

1:00:35

and jagged pits, and ash

1:00:37

that still

1:00:38

sometimes swirled in the wind months

1:00:40

after the fire.

1:00:42

And yes,

1:00:44

we did finally get caught. Somehow

1:00:47

getting caught made it one of the most profound

1:00:50

memories of my childhood,

1:00:52

feeling the sweltering force

1:00:54

of how much my father cared

1:00:57

about me,

1:00:59

even in his anger.

1:01:02

So of course what happened in that climate

1:01:04

at the time was that the public was out for blood.

1:01:07

You know, it's not like Facebook is going

1:01:09

to let anybody see the situation clearly,

1:01:12

and the DA was trying to run for reelection

1:01:14

or reappointment or whatever. He

1:01:16

got swept up in that. He went all

1:01:19

out to depict this guy as a cold-blooded

1:01:21

killer. Instead of somebody who was just screwed

1:01:23

by the drug pirates destroying his brain

1:01:26

chemistry. It

1:01:28

was a total circus. And the next

1:01:30

thing you know, they find the guy guilty, and they give him like 12,000

1:01:34

years in jail instead of just

1:01:36

putting him in a mental hospital.

1:01:39

And

1:01:40

there was a podcast about it, and Netflix

1:01:42

did a thing, blah, blah, blah. Got really

1:01:45

old in a hurry. That's how

1:01:47

I found out that Netflix stopped running DVDs

1:01:50

actually. So they can burn in hell

1:01:52

too.

1:01:59

During the trial, I think it was that trial,

1:02:03

one of the scientists who worked for Port Biofarmer

1:02:05

completely snapped because of all the bad

1:02:07

decisions that he was forced to make over the years. Then

1:02:10

he barged into the CEO's office and

1:02:12

he put a gun to the CEO's head and he

1:02:15

pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

1:02:18

It was because someone at the gun

1:02:21

maker had bought all these thousands

1:02:23

of faulty firing pins from Russia to

1:02:25

get a kickback because he knew he was

1:02:27

leaving the job anyway. Something

1:02:29

like that. Just a complete corruption

1:02:32

fest. It's

1:02:34

not like there's angels everywhere you turn,

1:02:37

you know? I swear, sometimes

1:02:39

I think I'm going to be that person

1:02:41

that moves to some backwater town where there's

1:02:44

like a total of 12 people so I

1:02:46

don't have to deal with anyone ever again. Some

1:02:49

real small town

1:02:50

where everyone's just got their heads down

1:02:52

and they go to work and then

1:02:54

they chill the hell out. I

1:02:58

just don't know what I do on weekends.

1:03:05

Growing up, he would always

1:03:07

remind me that no matter how mad

1:03:10

the world might seem, there

1:03:12

would always be people who didn't hesitate

1:03:15

to stand up.

1:03:17

Be the ones who

1:03:17

stood for reason and logic

1:03:20

and calm.

1:03:22

Be the builders.

1:03:25

In every time of history, he

1:03:28

once said,

1:03:29

across all the eras,

1:03:32

there would always be a certain percentage

1:03:34

in all the quiet houses around us

1:03:37

of the strong. Just

1:03:39

basic math.

1:03:42

And because of this,

1:03:44

the world was never quite completely

1:03:47

lost. I

1:03:49

saw him as one of those people and

1:03:52

he has never wavered.

1:03:56

Now I wake up each day and try

1:03:59

to be what he wants. is in my own small

1:04:01

way. I drive

1:04:03

to my lab every morning at seven and

1:04:05

I study the science of things

1:04:08

breaking down and when

1:04:10

I can I try to stitch them

1:04:12

back together quietly

1:04:15

and

1:04:15

dutifully. Some

1:04:18

of it is misplaced nostalgia maybe, a

1:04:20

dream of restoring order to the chaos

1:04:23

that broke my friend Jackie's

1:04:25

small body

1:04:27

or even bringing the town I grew up in

1:04:30

back to life as well. But

1:04:32

every time I go back there to visit

1:04:35

and walk those fields it

1:04:38

seems more and more like that

1:04:40

just can't happen. It

1:04:44

doesn't get me down though.

1:04:46

There's a motto written in grease marker

1:04:48

on the glass wall of my office.

1:04:51

We repeat it often here. We

1:04:54

laugh about it in meetings. The

1:04:56

words read,

1:04:58

it's okay.

1:05:00

Entropy

1:05:02

is nobody's fault.

1:05:08

Okay Mr. Dunker, I'm going to go ahead

1:05:11

and let you speak at this point. I

1:05:13

probably shouldn't but I think it might be a very

1:05:15

long time before you get another chance. This

1:05:18

will be strictly for the court record. You understand

1:05:21

it's not going to change anything. We

1:05:23

are not going to be making any alterations

1:05:25

to your situation today. I'm

1:05:28

satisfied by the many medical opinions

1:05:30

submitted that the A54

1:05:32

originally introduced into your system

1:05:35

has not been a factor in your actions for

1:05:37

years

1:05:38

and hasn't been since 2023 and

1:05:40

is not to blame for the

1:05:43

murder of your cellmate, Mr. Dorn.

1:05:46

I don't understand your persistent evil

1:05:49

any more than anyone else does.

1:05:52

Frankly, I don't know if I want to hear what

1:05:54

you have to say

1:05:57

but if you want to speak I will

1:05:59

allow it.

1:05:59

I

1:06:04

don't know what else to add, Your Honor.

1:06:07

I believe I am the double, and

1:06:09

I will prove it again.

1:06:15

Maybe you are, buddy. Yes.

1:06:18

Okay. We're adjourned. Everyone

1:06:20

have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank

1:06:22

you, Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor.

1:06:53

I will

1:06:57

give it all. I

1:07:04

will give it all. I

1:07:07

will give

1:07:11

it all.

1:07:15

I will give it all. Thank

1:07:47

you. I

1:08:02

am

1:08:09

the one who is hanging

1:08:12

over him. Can you

1:08:14

see myself? Can

1:08:18

you see me? Can

1:08:24

you

1:08:26

see me?