#really feeling sullivan right now / as would my courier
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Inside a Brain Bank, Where Humans' Most Precious Organ Is Dissected and Studied
https://sciencespies.com/nature/inside-a-brain-bank-where-humans-most-precious-organ-is-dissected-and-studied/
Inside a Brain Bank, Where Humans' Most Precious Organ Is Dissected and Studied
Around three or four in the morning, Tina Zheng leaves home to meet a brain. “I’ll try to nap a little bit in the Uber ride, and then I’ll review all the brain regions in the car ride too,” she says. “We’re never sitting down doing a boring office day job. It’s just the next second, there’s a brain coming, and we have to be up and ready for it.”
Zheng works as a tissue coordinator at the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC) at McLean Hospital, one of the oldest brain donation banks in the country. Brain matter has a limited shelf life, so dissectionists like Zheng are on-call around the clock to partition and preserve a freshly donated brain as soon as it arrives to the lab, whatever time that may be.
Unlike other organ donations, which are generally used for transplants, brains are primarily harvested to support the research of neurological diseases and disorders. Every year, the HBTRC sends thousands of brain tissue samples to labs all over the world to investigate the causes and possible treatments of ailments such as addiction, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Research supported by brain banks is increasingly critical with today’s rising rates of neurological illnesses. Between 1990 and 2015, the number of deaths from neurological disorders, including stroke, dementia and multiple sclerosis, increased by nearly 37 percent. In the United States alone, 5.8 million people currently live with Alzheimer’s, making it the nation’s sixth leading cause of death. By 2050, the affected population is projected to increase to almost 14 million.
Although treatments for these disorders remain elusive, postmortem brain tissue offers a key resource for unlocking possible solutions. In the past, neurological medications like lithium, used to treat ailments such as bipolar disorder, were discovered mostly by trial and error, with researchers or physicians prescribing different substances and observing the effects. Thanks to advances in genetics and biotechnology, scientists can now hunt for specific genes and molecular pathways that are related to a particular disease, and hopefully find treatments that are tailored to these targets. Brain tissue serves as the raw material for exploring genetic and environmental factors of neurological conditions, making it a critical substance for meeting the needs of brain research labs around the world.
“It’s that feeling of, I am contributing to something much more than myself that keeps me going,” Zheng says. “The human brain, there’s so much mystery involved in it right now, I want to be part of discovering what’s next and what’s left to uncover.”
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The brain is like a ticking time bomb whose clock starts at the moment of death. If a brain isn’t retrieved within 24 hours, its texture changes from a “firm Jello” to “pudding,” Zheng says, rendering it essentially useless for research. Given this short window of time, the brain donation team must work as efficiently as a fine-tuned assembly line.
The brain donation process starts when a donor is near death, or soon after they pass away. The family notifies a coordinator at the HBTRC, who secures a pathologist to remove the brain and a courier to retrieve it.
Studies on the human brain are essential to discovering the biological causes of brain disorders.
(McLean Hospital)
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“Most of the time it’s a cold call,” says Kay Sullivan, program manager at the HBTRC. The coordinators screen potential donors for issues like massive strokes or infectious diseases, and direct the families to place the bodies in refrigeration within six hours. Most brain removals take place in a funeral home rather than a hospital, since hospitals are wary of taking in “random bodies,” Sullivan says.
Allison Rodgers, another tissue coordinator, recalls her first week on the job when the brain bank received eight cases in just five days over Christmas. “Sometimes you’re working a case, and you’re wrapping up … just getting back to bed, then you get another phone call,” she says. “Honestly, all you do is put on another pot of coffee and keep going.”
The HBTRC accepts donations from every state in the U.S., so sometimes a pathologist or courier needs to drive several hours to retrieve a brain. Fortunately, the center has a network of over 500 pathologists across the country, making most brain donations possible.
Katherine Waters, the chief of pathology and laboratory medicine at VA Maine Healthcare, started harvesting brains for the HBTRC this year. “When I get a call saying where the death is, I get the kit, get my car, get to the funeral home, and harvest the brain,” Waters says.
Waters’ brain removal kit is like something Florence Nightingale might carry if she were also a mechanic and a superhero. It contains a fluid-impermeable jumpsuit, a catheter to extract cerebrospinal fluid from the spinal cord, a tool resembling a chisel to pull off the calvaria, or skullcap, and a bone saw, which is similar to an electric cast saw. “You could do it by hand,” Waters says of cutting open a skull, “but it would take a lot more time, and I don’t have the physical strength to do that.”
Waters starts by elevating the upper body and making an incision from the back of one ear across to the other, allowing her to pull away the scalp. Using the bone saw, she cuts a circle across the skull and twists the skullcap off with the chisel. With the skull open, Waters can collect fluid samples and then remove the brain, placing it in a bag with a slurry of ice, and then in another bag and a Styrofoam cooler. Afterwards, she reassembles the skullcap and scalp as if nothing ever happened. The whole process takes less than an hour.
The brain makes its way from the funeral home to the HBTRC via a courier, sometimes on a commercial flight. Team members like Zheng and Rodgers receive notice of the brain’s arrival and assemble at the brain bank to perform the dissection. Like Waters, they follow a strict routine.
After weighing and photographing the brain to note any abnormalities, the dissectionists cut it in half. One side is further dissected and frozen at minus 80 degrees Celsius, while the other is fixed in formalin. Throughout each of these steps, dissectionists look for signs of disease progression, like the shrunken frontal lobe that can accompany dementia or the deteriorated striatum of Huntington’s disease.
“Throughout the whole process, we can see how much every part of the brain changed based on what the person was experiencing,” Zheng says. “You can kind of imagine what the person’s life was like and how the disease really affected him or her.”
Human brain specimens preserved in formalin. The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center (HBTRC), established at McLean Hospital in 1978 and known as the Brain Bank, is a centralized resource for the collection and distribution of tissue for brain research.
(McLean Hospital)
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After about three hours, the dissection is complete. The formalin sample joins over 6,000 other half-brains in the “fixed room,” and sections are made into slides and stains that histologists examine under a microscope to look for abnormalities in the tissue, like plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s. Scientists from around the world can later request samples that match the specific pathology of their research.
“I don’t think that feeling you get when you first pick up a brain ever goes away,” Zheng says. “I feel very privileged to be in this position and to be able to talk to their families and hear their stories, and to be trusted with their loved ones’ tissue. … Seeing the tissue in my hand and cutting it and thinking about the person’s life—I think it’s really empowering.”
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Postmortem samples from brain banks like the HBTRC have already started to support breakthroughs in neurological research. For instance, a recent study using tissue from the cortex of donated brains pinpointed specific neurological pathways that are affected by autism spectrum disorder. Other work used donated tissue to look at the genes associated with major depressive disorder. The scientists found that the expression of genes varied based on factors like gender, providing key information that could someday be used to develop more efficient and personalized antidepressant treatments.
“You need all the tools you can get to understand these disorders,” says Sabina Berretta, director of the HBTRC. In addition to studying postmortem tissue, imaging methods like MRIs offer alternative tools for investigating neurological conditions.
Berretta explains that while imaging has the advantage of allowing scientists to study living subjects, it has poor resolution (“maybe a square centimeter”), and “you only get a slice of a person’s life at a certain time of their disorder.” By contrast, postmortem tissue provides resolution at the molecular level and could reveal lifelong patterns in a subject’s history. The two techniques are complementary, allowing broad analysis of living brains and then a more meticulous investigation of donated tissue.
“I like to think of it as if you were exploring a completely different part of the world,” Berretta says. “You would first want to fly at high altitude—get a bird’s eye view … but if you want to know about the plants and animals, what language they speak there, what houses they live in, you need to go to the ground.”
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Even with teams working around the clock, brain banks are sorely lacking one critical component: healthy brains. While people suffering from neurological disorders are more likely to register as donors to contribute to a future cure, healthy people usually don’t think to donate their brains. This absence places an enormous limitation on research, since scientists need control samples to compare against diseased tissue.
“I think a lot of people are scared of brain donation because it involves death, and a lot of people, especially young people, don’t plan their funeral,” Sullivan says. “There is a stigma … so people are scared of the topic.”
Sullivan cites some common misconceptions, such as the idea that brain donation prevents a funeral viewing (it doesn’t, as cuts are only visible on the back of the head). Many also assume that the brain is included in the standard organ donation you sign up for on your driver’s license, which prioritizes transplant and only retrieves the brain after it’s started to degrade.
“I think in the future, we’re hoping there will be a database where you can select which body parts will go to research, and then if there’s a car accident or something, you’ve already given pre-mortem consent for [brain donation],” Sullivan says.
The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center collects brain and tissue samples from across the United States and distributes them to investigators all over the world.
(McLean Hospital)
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Efforts to increase the number of brain donations are already under way. Tish Hevel founded the Brain Donor Project in 2016 to help spread the word about the NIH’s NeuroBioBank, a national network of six brain banks including the HBTRC that was established in 2013. Motivated by a nightmarish experience trying to facilitate her father’s brain donation while he was suffering from Lewy Bodies dementia, Hevel started the nonprofit to ease the process of connecting donors with brain banks.
“There are more than 50 million Americans [with neurological disorders],” Hevel says. “That’s [almost] one in five of us … and we’re not getting answers fast enough. There simply is no substitute for human brain tissue. Many neurological researchers say that is the most precious substance known to man.”
In its first two years of operation, the NeuroBioBank supplied more than 10,000 tissue specimens to support almost $70 million in research funding that involved postmortem brain research. Since October 2016, the Brain Donor Project helped reach more than 6,300 new donors from all fifty states. But Hevel emphasizes that there is still a long way to go.
“When we were first setting up, [experts asked], ‘What if we’re too successful? What if we have too many brains?’” Hevel says. “It’s just not going to happen in our lifetime. It’s just such a critical issue, [and] we’re just not making progress in key areas. … We got to get to it so that people don’t have their whole families’ lives ruined.”
In light of this escalating need for neurological research, Hevel’s efforts offer hope: We might finally save the human brain from its most pervasive threats, if we choose to put our minds to good use.
#Nature
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My Wife Thinks I sleepwalk (Part 16) by TuckandRoll91
“Got you, now, you son of a bitch.” I hissed under my breath, then shouted, “Claire!”
She came out of the bathroom as I spun the screen around, and she stopped, dead in her tracks, and reflexively backpedaled a couple steps. “That’s him!” She was pointing at the screen.
“I know.” Some of that rage creeping into my voice, “And we know his name.”
Claire managed to tear her eyes away from the screen, and looked at me. “We need to call the police.”
“Wouldn’t do any good.” I told her, “According to this he’s still in prison for drugging and raping nine women.”
Her expression went from shock, to confusion, to dread, in a matter of seconds, “He’s--”
“Yeah.” I told her, as she sank down to the bed, “I don’t get it.” I said, “Why?”
She looked at me, a question in her eyes.
“We don’t leave any physical evidence in the past when we slip, Claire.” I said, “At least, I assume so, or I would’ve been arrested, several times for breaking and entering, at your place alone. Fingerprints, blood, hell, even the clothes I was wearing come back with me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Some of them are bad, Claire,” I answered, trying not to think of all the times I should have died. “Really bad.”
“Oh, God, David,” Her hands flew to cover her mouth and nose, as her jaw dropped open. “That weekend. The hotel, you--you slipped, didn’t you?” She remembered. She remembered the night I woke up thrashing, screaming, sobbing after a concert she wanted to go to, because I had spent three hours impaled on a tree. “Baby, I’m so sorry.” She threw her arms around me, tears clouding her eyes, “I didn’t—”
“You didn’t know,” I reassured her, “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not!” She told me through her tears, “What happened?”
“I fell.” It wasn’t technically a lie, but I really didn’t want to relive that slip. “It doesn’t matter, I’m always okay once I come back. I feel it for a little while, but I’m always just the way I was before I slipped.”
She pulled back, trying to get herself under control “David, don’t let me put you through something like that again.”
“Claire,” I ran my hands through her hair, gently bringing her eyes to meet mine. “It’s not your fault, and it never will be. I need you to focus. I need to focus.”
She wiped the tears from her face, and nodded. “Okay, okay,” She began, “If people that can what you do don’t leave evidence behind when they slip, we know he was…where”
“When he was supposed to be,” I picked up her train of thought, “Which doesn’t make any sort of sense, if he wanted—wanted to,” I felt like I needed a shower just for thinking like this, “be a fucking rapist, he could have done it, indefinitely, on his timeslips without getting caught.”
Claire shuddered, “So he’s just stupid? Poor impulse control?”
“No.” I said, as the answer didn’t feel right. “I know of six of us, myself included, stupid wouldn’t be something I would call any of us.” Then I realized, “From that sample size, half of them were dead before their twenty-first birthday.”
She was looking at me strangely, “Six?”
“Me, Our daughter, This Hawthorne guy. My Great Uncle Bob, Uncle David,” I listed them, and met Claire’s eyes, “And your Aunt Claire.”
She blinked at me, her face going pale. “MY Aunt Claire?”
“I think he killed her, Claire.” I said, “I think he tracked down the wrong Claire Sullivan and killed her, trying to get at our daughter.”
“But why?” She came out of her shock, “She didn’t get it from me, I can’t do what you do.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” I said, putting it together. “Your Mom said—”
“My MOM knows?!” She nearly shouted.
“Your Aunt Claire told her, and your dad, before she died. They didn’t believe her. But it’s why she’s doing what she’s doing. It’s how she knew about me.” I answered, “She said this runs in families, but most of us die before we have kids.”
“So it’s a recessive gene?” Claire questioned, trying, but failing to calm herself.
“Has to be.” I shrugged, “How else would it get passed on?”
“She didn’t get it from you?” Claire said, astonished.
“She got it from both of us.” I once, again, finished for her. “I think these other girls, the ones he targeted, I think they were Carriers, like you.”
“So he wanted, what? A kid?” Claire said, then realized that didn’t track either, “That doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just ask one of these girls out, If he wanted a time-traveler baby? He was about to graduate from [redacted] University, he’s not bad looking—”
“And rich.” I added, “He makes us look positively middle class.”
Claire shot me a look.
“You ever hear of the Hawthorne Foundation?”
Her eyes bulged out, “He’s one of those Hawthornes?” Her shock was understandable. If I had ‘fuck-you money’, as Sarah put it, these people had fuck-everyone money. “I’ve got to call my mom.” She sprang up from the bed.
“What? Why?” This is another reason why I love her. When she is focused, she is laser-focused.
“The Hawthorne Foundation almost completely funds her Non-Profit.” My brow furrowed, “It’s what she does now, since she took early retirement. She set up an organization to take on missing persons case that law enforcement had long since given up on. If she’s using that to find people like you, like our daughter.” Claire stopped, her phone in her shaking hands, “Then they know. They know everything.”
I had spun my laptop back around and starting search for more information on the Hawthorne Foundation. A cursory glance showed the funded everything from medical centers in the third world, orphanages, gene therapy, research into fertility medicine, and cutting edge research into theoretical quantum physics. “Oh, shit!” I hissed. “Claire. These people are into everything.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “But why?”
Then, as the gears clicked into place, I realized it. I thought about my daughter, my beautiful daughter, and just how effective she was in protecting us, and herself. How even I had mistaken her for a weapon, and just how lethal a weapon she would be if used as one. “Claire,” I swallowed, hard, “They’re breeding… they’re breeding people like me.”
I almost choked on the words.
The next morning, as we prepared to leave for the airfield, I called Gary, while Claire called her mother.
“Gary. I sent you an email. Did you get it?”
“Yes, I did, David,” He answered, “But I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help. Cases involving sexual assaults are usually sealed after the verdict, to protect the victim’s privacy.”
I had done a bit more research the night before, having been unable to sleep. “The Prosecutor on that case is running for re-election this year. I want make a donation.” I said, “As much as I legally can. And I want to use every shell company that you have access to make donations, for as much as they legally can.”
“David, this is highly irregular, and I’m certain its unethical.” He objected.
“I want you to hear me and understand, Gary.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t give a good God damn, if it’s ethical. I think those women are in danger and I think it’s connected to Addison’s murder.”
“Then you should report it to the Police.”
“Make it happen, Gary. Get me those case files.” I warned him, “Or I’m going to find a new law firm.”
I should have felt bad about threatening him. But I didn’t. A Courier met us at the airfield that afternoon.
Before we left, however, I took Claire down to Dad’s basement. The Armory there was barren compared to the one at the Lake Cabin, but something was better than nothing.
“I need to teach you how to shoot.” I remarked as I pulled open a drawer with a selection of handguns.
Claire shot me a look. “Seriously?” She smirked at me, “My Mom is a cop. Do you think I don’t know how to use a gun?”
It tracked, I laughed at myself. “Fair point.”
She selected a Taurus Judge, and a compact Sig-Sauer, and quickly found a holster for each. “Ammo?”
I grinned, “Right this way, My Dear.” Then led her to the locker where dad stored the ammunition.
As Claire dropped alternating .410 slugs and Personal defense rounds in the revolver, I told her “Run before you fight, if it comes to that. I don’t think it will, but just in case.” She tucked the Judge in it’s holster at the small of her back, then loaded the compact nine-millimeter and strapped it to her ankle, “You leave me, and run. I’ve told the security team that you are their primary objective. They will get you to safety.”
“You realize I won’t do that, right?” She was giving me the devil eye, over her cat’s eye glasses.
“What?” I was dumbfounded.
“I will never,” Claire stood, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me, “leave you behind.” I pulled back, looking at her, like she had just grown a second head. She kissed the tip of my nose and said, “Mine.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, as I slid my arms around her waist, lifted her up and spun around, before kissing her neck just below her ear. “Mine.” I replied.
“But, Seriously.” I said as I put her down, “You run. Or I’ll have the security team carry you off. If he’s between you and safety, you fucking drop him. Do not hesitate.”
“But if he’s on a, a slip?” She queried, “It won’t kill him?”
“No, it won’t, but it will get rid of him. At least for a while.” I answered, “I’ve been reading. I haven’t found a way cause instantaneous brain death, yet.”
“That should really disturb me.” She mused, “But it doesn’t.”
“Drowning him would be the only way I know to take him out if he’s out of his time.” I said, “But I’m not even certain that would work.”
“Is this what our life is going to be like?” Claire half-smirked, only half joking.
“God, I hope not.” I told her, honestly.
“You realize this is the second time this week you’ve flown?” Claire said to me as Dad guided the little Piper in an orbit of the Mountain. To Claire, he was just showing her the place. But I knew what he was doing, Aerial Reconnaissance. We were set to land at a grass strip about an hour’s drive away.
“Huh?” I was distracted, visually inspecting the routes I would take to assault the Lake Cabin. Medical textbooks weren’t all I had been reading. “Yeah.”
She offered a reassuring smile, and put her hand on my knee. “Getting over some of those fears?”
I smiled back. “Worse things to be afraid of.” I told her, having just began to be totally honest with her, I didn’t know when to stop.
“He used to make us drive down here.” Dad said from the front. “Glad you’re breaking him of those old habits.” He grinned over his shoulder at Claire.
“Why don’t you like it?” She asked me.
“Eleventh grade.” I told her. “We were visiting colleges.” I motioned to Dad. “I wanted to check out Stanford. It was too far a hop for this thing, so we flew commercial. Beautiful city, beautiful campus, it was warm during the winter. I was sold.” I told her, with a bit of a grin. “I fell asleep on the flight back.”
She was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to finish, when the realization hit her, “Oh, My God, David.”
“Yeah.” I said, then smiled at her, “Glad I didn’t pick that place anyway.”
She leaned across the seat, and hugged me. “That must have been terrible.”
“Understatement of the century, right there.” I kissed the top of her head, then changed the subject, not really wanted to think about falling from the sky, while in the sky. “You see the fog over the lake?”
“Yeah” She leaned across me to look out the window.
“It’s like that most of the year.” I told her. “It’s fed by a hot spring. Ninety-three degrees, year round.”
“Used to be too hot to even swim in.” Dad added from the pilot’s seat. “We put a geothermal generator in, the process steals some of the heat.” He said proudly, “Powers the whole mountain, and that little town over there,” He pointed off toward the horizon, and added sourly, “Still too hot to stock fish, though.”
I snorted a little laugh. “That’s one of the reasons he bought this place. He wanted a place to go fishing.”
“Boy, I will stand this thing on a wing, if you don’t watch it.” He chuckled from the front.
“How did you even get this place?” She said, a little amazed. “I can’t believe anyone would ever sell it.”
“No one else wanted it.” I explained. “It’s got a bit of a history.”
“Previous owner was a man named Ernest Stepro” Dad added.
I didn’t explain it to Claire as well as I will explain to you. Ernest ‘Ernie’ Stepro was a hateful man, in the purest sense of the word. He hated dogs, he hated cats. He hated his ex-wife. He hated black people, Hispanics, Jews, Indians, The Chinese, The Russians. You get the picture. I don’t even think he liked his kids.
Basically, if you aren’t a white male pig-eyed redneck, Ernie probably would have hated you, too. But you don’t have to worry about that. Because Ernie’s dead, and has been since before I was born.
Ernie also hated the government, and paying taxes. But Ernie loved whiskey, so much that he made his own, and guns. This is also how Ernie got himself killed. According to everything I’ve read about the man, he was a waste of good air, without a single redeeming quality.
Ernie inherited both his hatred of, well, everything, along with the Mountain from his father, who had done the same. But that’s where Ernie’s hatred of the government got him. He refused to pay his property taxes, for several years. When the local sheriff was charged with executing a warrant for his arrest due to his failure to pay his taxes, Ernie shot him through the neck with an M1 Garand. Then he shot and killed five deputies, before succumbing to bullets, a lot of them.
But not before he managed to set fire to the house his great grandfather built on the bank of the lake. He managed to destroy everything he had of value,(whether or not his life had value is debatable.) except for the land.
Neither of his two children, or his siblings felt like paying Ernie’s back taxes in order to take possession of the Mountain, so it went to the government. That’s when Dad bought it. Well, started buying it.
And that’s how we got here.
My dad brought me up here for the first time the summer after Mom died. There was no house, no bunker, no nothing, just that beautiful crystal blue, steaming lake, and a small clearing where Ernie’s house burnt down.
We arrived late in the afternoon, pitched our tents, and quickly fell asleep. The roads were overgrown and impassable to anything larger than a good-sized deer due to neglect, so we had to hike up to the lake.
I woke up before Dad, because no matter where I am, I tend to wake up with the sunrise, at least when I’m in my correct time, and haven’t just come back from a slip.
I was sitting by the ashes of our campfire, watching the sun creep over the horizon, glowing like the light of Heaven itself, through the fog. It was so quiet, like the totality of nature paused to take in the sight.
“Can you believe it?” Dad asked me as he crawled out of his tent.
“It’s just a sunrise.” I said. I was thirteen and trying on being sullen. “Happens every day.”
I heard Dad snort a little laugh. “Don’t bullshit me, Boy.”
That’s when he told me about Ernie, the history of this place. He had learned all of it secondhand, through locals as he made his repeated trips down to purchase another piece of the Mountain. He told me about Ernie’s small, angry, wasted life.
“I don’t understand, how a man could wake up to this,” He gestured to the horizon, “Every morning, and still find so many things to get angry about.”
“It is nice.” Like, I said, I was just trying on being sullen.
“My point is, David,” Dad sat down beside me. “I know you’ve got a lot to be upset about. A lot to be angry about. With your Mom, and, well, your condition.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “And it is okay, to be hurt, and angry. Just don’t let it eat you alive, son. Don’t lock it in, and let it grow. Don’t let it keep you from seeing the good things in life. That’s what Ernie did, and look where it got him.”
I nodded then, blinking back tears. “Mom would’ve liked it up here.”
“Yeah.” Dad said with a smile. “Yeah, she would have.”
We spent that summer clearing the roads, and mapping out where we wanted to put certain things. Dad had a three story, five bedroom house built over the ashes of Ernie’s burnt home. Every bed room face east, so everyone that slept there, would wake up to that sunrise, and know, somewhere, something was right with the world. He had a concrete dock, more of a pier really, built off the porch, and out over the water, where we could walk out into that mist, and be surrounded by the light of Heaven itself.
Under the Mountain? He built a bunker that would give Cheyenne Mountain a run for its money.
Of course, I know now, that history lesson was completely wrong.
“What the hell is that?” Claire was referring to the Beast, as it sat, seemingly crouched, and ready to pounce, in the hangar off the grass strip.
The Beast started his life as a 1983 K Series Chevy Blazer. I took possession of it as a sixteen-year old after the previous owners had used, abused, and neglected him to the point that it probably should have been put out of his misery. Dad and I had lovingly rebuilt him from a rolling scrap heap to a screaming scrap heap. I know for a fact that the only original part left is the steering wheel. It’s tired, worn out V-8 had been replaced with a twin-turbocharged diesel engine. It’s antiquated four-wheel drive transmission and drivetrain with a modern system capable of four-wheel steering. The bull bar and self-recovery winch on the front end gave him the appearance of having an underbite. Then we patched and lowered the body, while raising the suspension, giving that appearance of being crouched, while allowing for a lower center of gravity and greater ground clearance. To the untrained eye, it’s paint job may have appeared to be a shitty spray can primer job. But the mottled dark grey was in fact, intentional. In low light, in the forest on the mountain, I could park it the brush, turn off the lights, and it seemed to utterly disappear. Later, we had it armored to stop rifle fire. The tires were just out of prototype, and you would pretty much have to run over a land mine to flatten them.
Sure, I couldn’t take the top off anymore, but considering its rear seats had been removed for a roll-cage, and the front seats had been replaced with racing seats with five-point harnesses, that really didn’t matter.
“Careful.” I told her with a grin. “A girl I dated in high school once called him a piece of shit.” She looked back at me, waiting for the punchline. “The next day she totaled her car due to some mystery vehicle. It resulted in two black eyes and a broken thumb for her. I cannot account for his whereabouts at the time of the accident.”
She chuckled and shook her head.
“I think it may actually be possessed. I passed out drunk at a friend’s house, after a football game once. Woke up in my driveway.” I edged closer and slid my arms around her waist, putting on my best campfire story voice. “I’d park it in the drive way, go inside, five minutes later he would start on his own, and I swear I could hear a demonic voice telling me, ‘Look, motherfucker, there is a squirrel in the road to run over. GET. OUT. HERE!’”
“You’re ridiculous.” She laughed, then pointed at the Beast. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Do not speak ill of the Beast.” I warned her in dire fashion, “Bad things happen.”
She just shook her head at me, tossing that wild blonde hair.
“And he’s bulletproof.” I said as I carried our luggage to the truck.
She looked at me for a second. “You’re not saying that because you think that thing is awesome, right?” She asked, in seeming disbelief. “It’s actually bullet proof?”
“Bullet resistant, was the term they used.” I told her, serious this time. “But I watched the glass the used for the windows stop a thirty ought six.”
The ride, however, was unforgiving, as the sharp glare I received from the love of my life after every bump in the road, reminded me.
God, I missed that truck.
I gave Claire a quick tour of the Lake Cabin.
“This place is bigger than my parent’s house.” She said, giving me the stinkeye. “I was expecting some little shack in the woods.”
I grinned at her. “This place is its own low profile, plus it’s only place I can really go on vacation, so Dad went for it.”
“Any other secret hide-aways I should know about?” She stepped into my arms.
“Just the one. Oh, the basement is pretty much a bomb shelter.” I told her. “Which bedroom should we take?”
“Master.” She said without hesitation. She was referring to the third floor. Vaulted ceilings, cedar beams, skylight, bathroom bigger than my dorm room.
“I will get the bags.”
“I am going to take a shower.” She grinned that come-hither grin, and kissed me, suggesting with her laughing blue eyes, that I should come join her.
Yeah. I did.
I watched Claire drift off, a bit later, wondering if my last conversation with our daughter was meant to lead me to another conclusion. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we’d just made her. I knew it was unlikely. As like most twenty-two year old girls that didn’t want kids just yet, she was religious with her birth control. Still. I would not have minded, one bit. I fell asleep, her head on my shoulder, with the skylight open, under the stars.
I woke up the stars, falling.
At least it will be a quick trip I thought, after the initial fright. I must have slipped back to a time before the Lake Cabin was finished. This meant I was going to fall three stories, crack my head, and possibly break my back, and wake up sore, with a splitting headache.
Or so I thought.
Instead, after falling about 6 feet, I hit a pitched roof, and tumbled. I managed to catch the gutter as a went over the edge, my weight and momentum tearing it away from the house. I held on and rode the gutter to a hard, but ultimately safe landing, about twenty feet below.
What the fuck? I was thinking, as my daughter emerged from the shadows, with mussed hair, and a bleeding lip.
“What the fuck?” She said, slightly astonished.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“What are you doing here?” She countered, her dark blue eyes flashing in the night gloom.
“Ernie!” A man’s voice boomed through a loud speaker, from the other side of the house, “C’mon, man, it’s just a tax warrant!”
I froze, and turned slowly to fully face my daughter.
She saw the question on my face, and answered, “You are NOT supposed to be here.” She said as she turned, and slipped into the house via the back door. I followed her.
“This happened before I was even born.” I said, more just thinking out loud than anything else.
“Yeah,’ She informed me, as she ducked down behind the counter, and pulled me down beside her, “Did you figure it out?”
“We’ll call your brother from the station, you’ll be bonded out by noon, tomorrow, buddy!” The Loudspeaker voice boomed. “I don’t want to have bust up your shit, Ernie, man, it’s me, Jim!” Jim Clevenger, duly elected sheriff of [redacted] County, I remembered, the first one Ernie killed.
“Figure what out?” I whispered to her.
She brushed that red hair out of her face, and muttered, “What the fuck?” Then she dropped to her belly and crawled to the next room, careful to avoid the spotlights aimed at every window. I followed her.
“You might have to sell a few acres, harvest some timber, to cover the bill, man!” Jim said into the loudspeaker. “There is no need for this to get ugly, brother!”
When I caught up to my daughter, she was crouched in the corner, nearest the front window, holding a rifle, An M1 Garand, and staring off into space.
But she wasn’t, I realized, as I followed her gaze.
I hadn’t noticed him before, because he hadn’t moved. Ernie Stepro was slumped in the opposite corner, eyes open and blank, his throat slashed to the bone, and from ear to ear, obviously dead.
“He was here.” She said quietly. “I was too late.” She slid the bolt back on the rifle, and checked the magazine, before carefully, quietly, sliding it back into the locked position.
“Hawthorne was here?”
“Yeah,” She seemed unsurprised that I knew his name. “Look, Dad,” She continued, “It doesn’t matter who killed them.” She swallowed hard, “Only the lesson you took from it does. You need to go.”
Then I realized what she meant to do, “Angel, no.” She meant to preserve our histories. I couldn’t let her.
“They are already dead, Dad.” She said, trying to convince herself, "This already happened, this is the way it always happened!"
“No.” I repeated. “I can’t…I won’t let you do this.”
She snapped around to face me, tears in her pleading eyes. “What’s my name?”
I blinked at her, “What?”
“I can’t take orders from you unless you can tell me my name.” She was struggling to keep it together, on the edge of breaking down, “Please, Daddy,” She almost whimpered, “Tell me my name.”
My mouth fell open, and all I could say was, “..Baby..”
“You NEED to go, Daddy.” The steel returned to her voice, as she edged toward the window, the rifle in hand.
I sprang without thinking, and instantly had her in a chokehold. “I am your father.” I told her, as she dropped the rifle. “It’s time I started acting like it.” She struggled, as I bore down, “I’m sorry, Baby. I can’t let you do this.” I told her as she went slack. A moment later, she appeared to flicker, expand slightly, then she vanished.
“C’mon, Ernie,” The sheriff started again. “It’s late. Hell, we can even stop by Smitty’s for a few rounds, ‘fore I take you in, eh?”
My hand closed on the stock of the M1. I raised it to my shoulder and brushed the curtain aside with the barrel. Then I sighted in on Sheriff Jim Clevenger’s chin.
“Hell, if you’re that hard up for cash, I’ll buy that M1 off ya, my own self!” He chuckled into the megaphone.
I pulled the trigger.
For those of you still wondering who the monster is in this story: I am.
Sheriff Jim Clevenger was fifty-six years old when I killed him. He had two adult children, one grandchild and another one the way. Emily, I am so sorry you never got to meet your Poppy. He was known to both the law-abiding and law-breaking in his jurisdiction as a tough, but fair officer of the law.
Deputy Rob McClellan was six months out of an eight year stint as an MP in the United States Navy. He was engaged to be married. I shot him through the sternum, and stole your husband, Heather. I do not expect you to forgive me, but know I only did what I had to.
Cam Goreman was a twenty-nine year veteran of the [redacted] County Sheriff’s Department. Throughout his career he never even drew his gun. It was still in the holster when I put two rounds into his face.
By the time I shot Eli Lafayette, tears where clouding my vision. I hit low, severing his femoral artery. He bled out in three minutes. He left behind a wife, and two kids.
Frank Morton had been with the sheriff’s department for ten years. He was a hard drinking, unlikeable son of a bitch. He was also the first one that managed to shoot me. A round from his .45 hit me in the hip, throwing off my aim. My first round took him in the shoulder, spinning him forty-five degrees before the second round crashed through his ribs, lungs and heart. He was all but dead before he hit the ground.
Elsa Davenport started her career with the [redacted] County Sheriff’s department some twelves years before, as a dispatcher, and had only recently been promoted to a full deputy in what many saw as a PR move. The last round, before the en bloc clip ejected with its distinctive ping, hit her just above the navel. She lay on the ground, unable to move, and moaning for close to fifteen minutes before she expired.
After that, it started raining bullets, perforating the walls, the curtains, me. I can’t tell you how many times I was hit. I lost count after the sixth impact, or maybe it was the ability to distinguish new pain from old pain.
After that fusillade slackened, I heard footsteps. My vision was tunneling down, then back up, as I lay in an expanding pool of my own blood.
“I really didn’t think you had it in you.” Hawthorne said, standing over me. He was holding a mason jar full of clear liquid. He took a sip from it, coughed, wheezed, spat, and said “Damn, Ernie, this shit would make anyone go feral.” He grinned that victorious, gloating grin down at me, as he poured the liquid over me, slowly from my head to my toes.
I tasted alcohol, as I saw him take a zippo lighter from his pocket. “I don’t expect this will kill you.” He explained, “But I do believe I owe you a little pain.” He struck the lighter, then dropped it at my feet.
Hawthorne walked away, as I burned. I felt every inch of my body, blistering, cracking, peeling and finally combusting. I was unable to move, unable to scream, for four minutes and nineteen seconds before I passed out, praying, May I be damned.
Part One: http://ift.tt/2uAVaOL
Part Two: http://ift.tt/2uWNQQd
Part Three: http://ift.tt/2tIazeU
Part Four: http://ift.tt/2w8aIcc
Part Five: http://ift.tt/2tPzJZ3
Part Six: http://ift.tt/2wgzgjg
Part Seven: http://ift.tt/2hqbgHQ
Part Eight: http://ift.tt/2hsjK1g
Part Nine: http://ift.tt/2utwFRJ
Part Ten: http://ift.tt/2veAuhp
Part Eleven: http://ift.tt/2wKu87f
Part 12: http://ift.tt/2w2g7pg
Part 13: http://ift.tt/2v6fSom
Part 14: http://ift.tt/2v6fwy3
Part 15: http://ift.tt/2vbyUON
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