Winnebago

Every Last One of Them

Chapter Six

Bat Shit Kaylie, she hated the nickname.  Of course, what the kids meant when they called her this was that she was bat shit crazy.  And, in most regards, she truly was.  Her birth was a traumatic one.  Her mother, Vicki Roldano, gave birth to Kaylie when Vicki herself was but a young teen.  Kaylie's umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck in the womb.  She had been deprived of normal oxygen the last week before being born.  The Dr. said she would have a slight chance of brain deformity, but that the percentages were very low.   Vicki tried raising Kaylie for the sum of five years but was ultimately unable to do so.  Vicki was not the mother type.  When she could no longer handle raising a child, Vicki abandoned Kaylie on the doorstep of the local Orphanage in the town of Bowling Greene.  She would tie Kaylie to a post of the front porch and walk away.  Kaylie was able to keep memories of her mother locked away in her brain.  Even though she was only five years old when her mother gave her away, she would never forget her face or her voice.  Her hate would begin to fester one year after being abandoned.  At the age of eight, Kaylie was adopted by a family that lived in a small town in California called Orian.  Kaylie would live there up to her senior year and would graduate from the only Highschool in town.  Being a small school, there was no place for Kaylie to hide.  Many of the kids in her class would make fun of her.  She was different, and kids are typically mean in Highschool.  Kaylie would not be spared from the regular torment and heckling.  Three particular kids were the worst.  Sean, Brianna, and Mckenna were three people that Kaylie hated to the point she would imagine them no longer breathing the air on this planet.  Infact, she fantasized about it.  Her fantasizing turned into planning.  Those plans would be carried out her senior year, those plans extended far beyond just Sean, Brianna, and Mckenna!

Because of the lack of oxygen, Kaylie had a large dark spot over her left eyebrow.  To others it looked like a bruise.  This mark never went away however, and Sean would consistently remind Kaylie that she was defective.  Kaylie, nor Sean, knew that the two of them were related.  Sean's mom Rebecca left the Roldano's household soon after graduating from Highschool in Bowling Greene.  She never liked her family and wanted to move as far away from them as possible.  The little town of Orian seemed like the perfect spot.  It was simply coincidence that Kaylie was adopted in Pennsylvania and brought back to the very same town of Orian by her new foster parents.  Even then, nobody knew that Vicki had given birth to a child anyways.  Kaylie's new last name was Peak.  Mr. and Mrs. Peak loved Kaylie dearly.  Even though she had obvious mental problems.  They struggled to control Kaylie throughout her childhood.  Kaylie would disappear overnight sometimes, and she wouldn't tell anyone where she had gone.  Her parents would not alert the authorities in fear that they would take Kaylie away from them.  Sean, Brianna and Mckenna all hung out together at school.  They all three enjoyed picking on Kaylie because she would never defend herself.  She was easy to pick on.  They'd call her names.  They'd steal her lunch that her mother would make for her every day.  They thought she was harmless.  But all these harsh actions were seeded in Kaylie's brain.  She locked them away next to the hatred for her mother who had abandoned her.  Kaylie was not at fault for any of this.  She was dealt a lousy hand at birth.  Soon, she would be the one doing the tormenting.  She was crazy enough to turn her thoughts into actions.

Even at the young age of ten, Kaylie had both a love, and a special connection with animals.  This went far beyond domesticated animals.  When she'd disappear for a night, and her parents were uncertain of her where abouts, often times she'd escape to the mountains.  She'd found a special place off of one of the local trails.  This spot had sandstone caves and was protected by a wall of buckthorn.  There was a special pine tree that marked the spot.  It forked in to two points near the top.  Kaylie would hike to this spot regularly.  She found shelter inside the caves.  She also found certain plants that she knew she could make into hallucinogens.  She'd read plenty of books on the matter and had already made a few powders.  She hadn't tested these on any humans yet, but the time to use them was drawing near.  For reasons unbeknownst to Kaylie, wild animals seemed to form a bond with her.  Kaylie could walk right up to a racoon and pet it.  She'd even walked next to a pack of coyotes as if she belonged to the pack.  The animals could sense that Kaylie was not there to harm them.  The day that she descended upon two baby mountain lions that had been orphaned by their mother, was the day she realized that she was not normal.  The two cub lions took to Kaylie immediately, and she became in reality, their new mother.  She would feed them.  She would train them to hunt.  After months of interaction, the Mountain Lions had learned commands prompted by Kaylie's voice.  With a sharp whistle and a clicking noise made deep down in her throat, the lions would dart out and incircle a deer.  One more click of her teeth and they'd attack, killing the deer then devouring the carcass.  Kaylie was certain she could get them to hunt whatever, or whomever she pleased.  

The used car salesman scratched his head.  Young people like Kaylie had no interest in buying RV's.  When Kaylie told him she'd take it, he was at a loss.  "You sure you have enough money to buy this young lady"?  The car salesman was leery.  "Yessir".  Kaylie handed over the roll of money from her pocket. "Here's eight thousand seven hundred", she said.  "What do you want this huge vehicle for little lady"?  "To drive around, sir!"  "Isn't it obvious"?  She needed something of good size to be able to move her mountain lion kids around.  Plus, she could turn on the AC and keep them cool on warm summer days.  She could also cook food on the stove and store sixty gallons of water in the tanks.  Mountain Lions were thirsty all the time.  Kaylie had overheard Sean talking about his plans for the upcoming weekend.  She would park the Winnebago in a turn out a couple of miles before the trailhead of Pine Tar Trail.  She'd sit and wait for Sean to ride past her.  Once he rode past, she'd put it in drive, and move to just beyond the trailhead.  Sean would never have guessed he'd find Kaylie inside a motorhome.  He rode by without even giving the Winnebago a second glance.  Once parked, she left the RV.  She and the two animals headed up to the spot she knew Sean would camp for the night.  Her plan was to hide inside the cave she had spent so many nights in.  It would also conceal the two mountain lions out of sight.  Sean made good time up the trail.  He set up camp, he then began cooking his instant dinner in a pouch.  Kaylie sat and watched with great patience.  Sean poured the boiling water into the pouch of dried food.  He then got up and walked off into the bushes to go to the bathroom.  This was Kaylie's chance.  Giving the command to the two lions to stay put, she scrambled over to Seans's meal with her bag of mind dust as she called it.  She picked up the pouch, poured in what she thought would be a good dosage of the hallucinogen, and stirred it with a stick.  She quickly placed the bag back down and ran back to the cave where she had been hiding.  Once back to the opening, she cursed herself.  She had taken the pouch of food off of a flat rock where Sean had set it.  When she set it back down in her haste to get back to concealment, she had forgotten to put it back on the flat rock.  Oh well, it was too late, Sean was on his way back!  She'd just have to hope he didn't realize the different placement.

No one ever knew Kaylie was behind the one-way window.  She could see and hear everything happening inside the room where Vicki would sit in front of an appeals panel and plead her case as to why she had spent enough time in prison.  Where she would try to convince the panel that she was a new person who regretted her past mistakes.  Vicki had no clue that Kaylie was there.  She didn't even know that Kaylie had been adopted and taken to California.  Kaylie would talk to the panel just prior to the meetings.  She'd explain how her mother had abandoned her and given her to the orphanage at such a young age.  She would explain to them how her mother was an expert at making bad decisions and that Vicki would continue to make poor decisions, such as blowing up the Winnebago, for the rest of her life as far as Kaylie was concerned.  She all but sealed the fate of Vicki's denial for parole.  This would occur twice.  Kaylie was unable to attend the third hearing.  She had other matters to attend to in the small town of Orian.  Sitting in the protection of the hidden room, Kaylie was also able to surmise that Vicki had a brother and a sister.  They were the only two family members to actually attend the parole hearings.  She would remember their names, and their faces.  Kaylie had gotten away with murdering Sean at the top of Pine Tar Trail.  Five years had passed and there were no leads implicating her to the crime.  Her Mountain Lion pets had made easy work of Sean.  He didn't even know what was happening as the two cats pounced on him and ended his life.  The mind powder had done its job and Kaylie could only imagine what was swimming around in Seans brain as the two cats jumped on him and snapped his neck.  Inside the Winnebago she kept a nicely sanded pine box.  Inside the box she kept Seans ears as a memento to the meanness he had directed towards Kaylie for so many years.  She hoped that in a short period of time, she'd have four more ears to add to the box.  The scratches and claw marks all over Seans body were attributed to that of a bear attack.  The legend of Pine Tar Trail would bring many hikers to the area.  People were fascinated by the story.  Kaylie hoped this would lure two certain people there as well.  So far, she had not seen Brianna or Mckenna on the trail.  She had seen them in town however and knew that they both still lived in Orian.  Their time would come.  She just had to be patient.

Two lions had turned in to seven over the span of years since dispatching Sean.  They were indeed Kaylie's new family.  They loved Kaylie and Kaylie loved them in return.  Slinking down in the driver's seat, Kaylie watched the two girls remove their bikes from the bike rack on their vehicle.  Brianna and Mckenna had remained good friends, and they both had grown a passion for riding bikes in the mountains above Orian.  Brianna had become a teacher, while Mckenna was the towns attorney.  Neither of them knew that Kaylie Peak still resided in the area.  Nor did they remember the harsh punishment they had doled out towards Kaylie back in Highschool.  Kaylie remembered it like it was yesterday.  She knew where the two girls lived, what kind of car they drove, and that they had picked up an interest in riding bikes.  Kaylie watched Brianna and Mckenna ride off downhill.  This was her chance.  She couldn't have her lions attack the girls on their bikes.  The possibility of witnesses was too great.  She'd have to wait for them to return.  When a second car pulled into the trailhead parking lot, Kaylie thought once again, that she'd have to postpone ending Brianna and Mckenna's lives.  She did not recognize the female driver of this second car, but she was absolutely certain she knew the male passenger!  What were the odds Kaylie thought to herself.  As Grace and Jonathan headed up Pine Tar Trail, Kaylie came up with a plan.  Pulling on the door handle, much to Kaylie's surprise, Grace hadn't locked her door.  Not only had she not locked her doors, but she also left her keys in the ash tray.  Kaylie turned the keys to the power accessories position and slipped the car into neutral.  She had chalked the rear drivers side tire prior to doing so and now, all she had left to do was remove the chalk and hope the car stayed put.  Now, she would wait.  An hour had passed when the two bike riders returned from their ride.  They were very tired; the return trip was all up hill.  As they placed their bikes back onto the bike rack, and put their gear away, Kaylie silently snuck to the front of Grace's car and gave it a push.  She made zero noise.  By the time the car had picked up speed, Kaylie was halfway back to her Winnebago.  Brianna and Mckenna never knew what hit them.  The car rolled silently, mowing over the two of them and crushing their legs and pelvises.  Kaylie waited forty-five minutes.  She had to check to make sure the girls were dead, and she needed to cut off their ears to add to the pine box.  Just as she reached for the lever of her driver's side door, a Forest Ranger pulled into the lot.  She was doomed.  This Ranger would find the bodies, he'd radio for help and for an investigation.  She couldn't let that happen.  Just knowing that Brianna and Mckenna were dead was not enough.  She needed those ears.  Kaylie pulled on the lever easing her RV into drive.  She gave the signal to her lions in the back.  As she revved her Winnebago up the rode and into the lot, she slowed the vehicle abruptly.  The sun was setting, and the Ranger would never see the attacking pack of lions in time to do anything about it.  One more set of clicking sounds and the lions bolted out of the Winnebago.  They reached their target in seconds.  The Ranger couldn't even scream.  While the lions feasted on their catch, Kaylie crawled under the car and cut off all four ears.  This is what she had planned so many years ago.  She was lucky to have found the other two cubs that had been abandoned after their mother was put down for viscously attacking a woman at a private school and leaving her half-eaten body hanging in a tree.  A cry from deep in her throat brought all seven lions back to the RV.  Once all were inside, Kaylie pushed down on the accelerator, sending fuel into all eight cylinders of the Winnebago's motor.  A flip of a switch and the headlights came on.  Kaylie had no idea that Jonathan and Grace would meet their fate with an actual bear on top of the mountain.  She would read an article online a week later about the incident which would put a smile on her face.  Kaylie looked at the road map.  Bowling Greene was a long journey.  If she was to add her mother's ears to the pine box before winter, she'd have to get a move on it.  Rebecca had contracted Covid a month prior.  She would not survive the summer. There was no way for Kaylie to know that her entire family was dead.  Every last one of them.  Ant Death Circle poured out of the speakers of the Winnebago.  'Plastic Lovers' was one of her favorite songs.  She sipped on her bottle of cream soda, one hand on the steering wheel.  The sound of the Winnebago's slugging motor soon disappeared.  Only the vultures circling the twin forked pine tree at the top of Pine Tar Trail, and the mess she left behind in the trailhead parking lot, remained.

 Life Of Brian

1992

Senior

(A person who is a specified number of years older than someone else).

Nineteen Ninety-Two.  My last year of school, period.  I would never sit inside a classroom again.  A couple of training seminars yes.  A few weeks in the Sheriff's Academy, that too.  But I would never actually sit in a classroom with a teacher at the helm trying to further my education.  I was done!  School was not important to me.  I did have memorable moments.  Also had moments when I actually learned stuff.  Graduation day was the happiest day out of all others.  There was freedom.  The whole world was in front of me.  I could get a job (even though I'd already had a few), I could travel, I could just simply do whatever I wanted to.  It's both a great, and scary feeling.  You all know what I'm talking about, I'm sure.  Knowing that you don't have to go back to school the following winter is one of the best feelings out there.  I had a truck, a girlfriend, an awesome family, and my whole life ahead of me.  Who knows where it would take me. (I still live in Ojai 31 years later)

My senior year was the best out of all my years of school except maybe early elementary school.  As long as I passed Government, and Econ, I was good to go.  Putting this ultimatum on us made me pay special attention in those two classes.  There is no way I was going to screw that up.  My senior year started out with me getting dumped by my grocery store girlfriend.  As I mentioned last year, she would simply ignore me.  I got over that fairly quickly.  I'd go hiking with my friends, drive to the beach, we'd start having BBQ's together.  Most of my classes were very easy.  Drafting would become a bore.  I'd finish the year in this class, leaving it with no desire to continue on with it.  Somewhere in the second semester, I'd meet my future wife.  We were both aids in the front office.  I was a studly front office aid, she was just a councilors aid.  She was also a Junior.  We started dating sometime in that second semester.  I cheated though.  I happened to know she liked me before asking her out on a date.  My mom worked for her good friends' parents.  Her friend told my mom that she liked me.  So, I had the upper hand when deciding to ask her out.  She said yes, and we've been married for like a hundred years now.  I made it on to the varsity football team.  I'd attend a few summer weightlifting sessions and then I quit before the actual real practices began with pads and hitting drills.  Not before taking place in the Lift A Thon, however.  I weighed 135 pounds my senior year, so I was in the smallest players group for the lift a thon.  I'd end up taking second place in my weight class with a bench press lift of 180 pounds.  There was only one other kid who lifted more than me and he was an absolute muscular stud.  I think he pushed up 195.  No one could believe I had benched 180 pounds.  There were some kids who were in the 175-pound class that lifted less than me.  That was hard for them to swallow.  I got a metal for my lift.  It's floating around my house somewhere.  My dad had purchased a weight bench from Montgomery Wards.  Pretty much all I ever did with that weight bench was the bench press.  Every single night I'd lift weights to where eventually I could bench every single weight we had to put on the thing.  I think that total came to 165 lbs.  I'd push up that weight by myself, no spotter.  One night early on, I couldn't get the bar of weights back up to the rack, so I had to roll about 140 pounds over my stomach and on to my legs to get off of the darn bench.  It didn't hurt much; I was expecting worse.

I still lived up the canyon.  Loved to fish and ride my bike around the campground.  My parents actually let us kids ride our bikes all the way down hwy 33 to Ojai during my senior year.  Or maybe we just did it without asking.  Dangerous no doubt.  Hwy 33 was a narrow road, and my dad knew all too well that there were plenty of speeders and drunks on the road.  We survived.  I actually road my bike from Ojai all the way back up to our house a couple of years later.  What a mistake that was!  Never wanted to do that again.  Living at an old fire station meant that we had a hydrant with a one-inch hose connected to it.  I recall having a water fight with my dad.  He of course got to use the one-inch fire hose with nozzle.  My sister and I were stuck using the garden hose with no nozzle.  You can guess who won that one.  My parents would help me co-sign for a brand-new Nissan p/u at some point towards graduation.  I worked at Dahls market and was able to make my payments plus pay for insurance.  It wasn't a base model truck either.  It had larger wheels and rims and a nice bedliner.  A cool first car indeed.  It did not have a very robust bumper like the LTD, so Brian and I had to retire from staging fender benders at intersections.  On my very first date with my future wife, my friend would crash his car on the way to Bates beach.  I think his tire blew or came off which flipped his car.  He had another friend in the car who had his arm out the window.  When the car flipped, his hand was dragged across the pavement, and he was left with a fairly serious injury to his hand.  He had to be taken to the hospital and I think he may have needed some skin grafts to fix his hand injury.  The beach trip was cancelled, but Brian and I who were in completely separate cars, ended up going to the movies that night with our girlfriends.  The title of the movie was Bennie and June starring Johnny Depp.  My decision to quit the J.V. basketball team before the season ended would all but guarantee I wasn't making the team my senior year.  No basketball for me.  This is really the only reason I regret quitting the year prior.  But you know what, I didn't miss anything really.  I wouldn't have been a starter by any means.  I would have ridden the bench all year.  So, I did better things with my time.  I just can't remember what those things were.  I'd pass both mandatory classes.  I think I graduated with a 2.23 gpa.  Of course, I had a full year of office aid under my belt, so I was very appealing to all those scouts out looking for dead beat teenagers.  Circle K sent an agent to talk to my agent.  Only problem was my agent was the same guy that had screwed up my sick call that led me to getting fired at Double J Market.  Funny story, I worked as a box boy at Dahls Market, my girlfriend's aunt would come into the store to see what kind of person I was, I guess.  I had not really met her yet and had no idea what she looked like.  She'd report back to my girlfriend's mother.  I must have passed the test.  Her mom worked at Nordhoff.  I really never ate in the cafeteria, but the one time I did go through the line, my girlfriend's mom would ring me out.  She was so nervous to meet me or something that she messed up my change.   My girlfriend's dad was a truck driver, and he would only be home for a few days every two to three weeks.  So, a lot of nights over at their house was just myself, my girlfriend, and her mother.  A cousin of mine would wander into Dahls one day and offer me a job at the machine shop where I had drilled metal castings over the previous summers.  She was a supervisor of one of the departments.  I'd get hired by her department and worked there for many years to follow after my graduation.  My graduation was actually in 93.  My years of working jobs would not end until the year 2015.  I'll talk about my various jobs as we go along.  Some were quite interesting.  

The average cost of a home in the LA area was at $201,134.00.  Minimum wage was at $4.25 per hour.  When I landed the job at iti incorporated, a machine shop, I was making almost $6.00 per hour.  I was rich!  New cars cost around $16,000.00.  My truck cost me $8600.00 brand new.  A gallon of milk was just $2.09.  My girlfriend and I could go out to a nice restaurant and pay around fifty bucks for a really nice dinner.  Gasoline was .93 cents a gallon!

Mariah carry was at the top of the charts with Dream Lover.  Soul Asylum was close behind with Runaway Train.  Still like that song.  Whitney Houston was constantly in the top ten.  My mom and I would go see a movie she was in with Kevin Costner called, Bodyguard.  I enjoyed it.  Total chick flick though.  Ace of Base sang All That She Wants.

Movies included Jurassic Park.  I think I went and saw that multiple times the summer after graduation.  I seem to recall falling asleep in the movie theater the day after graduation watching this movie in the Ojai theater.  Other movies included Basic Instinct, The Pelican Brief, Malice, and Perfect World.  We didn't go to the movies all too often.  

I hear my kids talk about voting on where their class went for grad night.  We didn't have that luxury.  If there was a vote, I never heard about it, and most certainly didn't participate.  My grad night absolutely sucked.  Nordhoff doesn't even hold grad night on the same night as graduation anymore.  But mine was that same night.  After all family members left the graduation ceremony, our entire class was filed into the cafeteria.  We then watched a hypnotist do their thing for what seemed like two hours!  He'd put kids into a deep spell, and then ask them questions.  I was hoping he'd pick me so I could call his bluff, alas this never happened.  When the hypnotist was done, somewhere close to nine o clock at night, we all got on busses and were ferried down to Long Beach harbor.  There, we'd get on to a boat and circle around the harbor, in the dark of night until roughly four a.m. in the morning!  All we had to do was play blackjack for fake money, and dance.  BORING!  I ended up walking about seventeen miles around the outer decks looking at basically nothing.  Then, to cap it all off, we got back on to busses and made our way back to McGrath Beach where one of the Government teachers made pancakes.  Pancakes with a special layer of beach sand in them.  I do not believe I ate any.  It's the thought that counts though, right?  I was soo glad to be done with school, it didn't really matter.  My Prom a month early was much better than the previous year.  My date actually wanted to interact with me.  I remember I borrowed my middle sisters Nissan pick-up and drove myself and my date down to the old theater off of main street in Ventura.  It was a fun night, capped off with dessert at carrows.  No Limo, and no scowls, lol.  I'm not sure of the specific dates of this event, but my buddy Brian and I decided to do an overnight back packing trip somewhere soon after graduation.  It was my first experience, and quite possibly his as well.  We would spend one night in the Sespe.  Our starting point was Mutah Flats.  My dad would drop us off and wish us good luck.  We had no cell phones, and all I had was a forest service map with little, tiny red lines depicting the trail.  Brian and I were in good shape still.  My dad had told me he'd hiked this very same route as a younger man and that Johnson Ridge was the only trail or hike that had ever given him blisters on his feet.  This included Vietnam!  So of course we had to try it.  I had a 1-liter bottle of water!  This was for two days mind you!  We had been hiking for about forty minutes and came to a bush that had a black rag or ripped up shirt seemingly tied to the bushes.  It didn't look like a trail junction at all, so, we kept on walking straight.  After about thirty minutes, my intuition was telling me that something wasn't right.  We should've made it to our junction by then.  I decided we needed to turn around and it was a good thing too because had we gone straight, we'd have been in the completely wrong area, miles upon miles from where we were supposed to meet my dad the following day.  This would have prompted a search and rescue I believe, but we turned around and sure enough, the black shirt in the bushes was indeed the marker for the Johnson Ridge trail.  Hiking down to the Sespe proved to be very challenging and very warm.  I was out of my one liter of water before we even got to Hot Springs canyon.  No biggie you might be thinking.  Well, Brian and I only had about 18 more miles to walk to get back to civilization!  I made a very prompt decision to drink directly from the creek.  I didn't care about any illnesses.  Having an illness was far better than being dead, so the decision really was an easy one.  I'd fill my water bottle up with that delicious H20.  I had started to shiver just prior to drinking creek water.  I definitely made the correct choice.  We'd camp on the same sand bar that my dad had used.  Now that I'm recalling this trip, I was at least 21 years old because I bought a little bottle of Kesslers whiskey to take on this trip.  Put the bottle in the cold creek when we got to camp.  Worst whiskey I've ever had!  lol.  It was absolutely rot gut.  The next day we woke up and made our way back to Lions Camp.  I'd end up trailing far behind Brian.  My feet were in bad shape.  My twenty dollar running shoes weren't the best decision.  By the time we got to Lions Camp, I was exhausted!  My shoulders were bruised from the pack, I was only able to walk on the sides of my feet.  I vowed to never do that hike again, and as of today, I never have.  My dad, seeing how beat up we looked, made us get up from where we sat, and walk another twenty yards!  Yep, he's a keeper that one.  We had been tested in more ways than one and come out safe and sound.  It was kind of a rites of passage in a way.  1992/93 was a milestone for sure. 

"Being President is like running a cemetery:  you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening."

- President Bill Clinton, 1993

    

Winnebago

Death of the Family Name

Chapter Five

The box of photos didn't include many of his kids.  Those, he kept on a thumb drive, locked away in his safe.  Jonathan had never been the same after all the tragedy in the last ten years.  New York was a grossly dirty place.  He'd never gotten used to all the people.  His wife Sheryl had a lucrative career in New York.  Even if she'd wanted to leave, her job would not allow it.  She could retire in another ten years.  That was too long for Jonathan.  His sister Vicki, as far as he knew, was the only living family member left and she was still in a prison cell in Vacaville.  He had no knowledge that Vicki was responsible for the deaths of his children and that her ashes lay in the forest amidst a lump of burned-out steel that used to be a Ford F250.  Losing his entire family had altered his mental capacity to live life normally.  He knew he could not spend one more year in New York.  On a Thursday afternoon, he got in his F250, drove to the grocery store that he had worked at for decades, and told his boss that he was quitting.  His boss half understood, and he wished both Jonathan and Sheryl the best in their future endeavors.  Sheryl new that Jonathan was unhappy, but she could not change that.  She focused on keeping her secret affair with a woman she had met at work, exactly that.  She had no idea Jonathan was about to do something drastic.

Tossing his cell phone into the Mohawk River was the first step to Jonathan's plan.  That plan was to disappear completely from his old life.  He had already bought a new phone, under his name only.  Sheryl would not be able to track this new phone.  Jonathan had even thought to use his parents old address when setting up the contract.  He was headed west to the state of California.  A month ago, while aimlessly looking at the internet, he came across the story of three young men that had all disappeared in the same area on a mountain trail.  He printed out the article so that he had specifics to go by when he finally completed the long drive across the country.  His beloved F250 sold for a fairly good price, twenty-two thousand in cash.  This would be helpful with his plan to disappear completely.  The newly purchased used BMW E Tron would get him to his destination.  It had a lot of miles on it, but it was a BMW, he knew it would serve him for what he was about to do.  Plus, the price was right.  Jonathan wanted to use cash only.  Cash was not traceable.  His parents land in Pennsylvania hadn't yet sold.  He didn't care, Sheryl could keep that money if the land ever did sell.  Sheryl would know immediately that something was wrong.  The only evidence Jonathan left behind was quitting his job and telling his boss that he was doing so.  Otherwise, Sheryl was in dark and would have no clue where her husband had gone to.  Three days after Jonathan's disappearance, Sheryl would be killed in a freak accident.  While walking in a city park close to her condo, she and her lover Sarah, would be struck by a lightning bolt and both would die on the park sidewalk.  Jonathan would never know, as he had fallen off the grid.  There was no one left to contact him anyway.  The police only had his old information to go by.  They could not possibly know Jonathan was halfway across the country at the time of Sheryl's death.  

California was an odd place.  Jonathan had only been out two other times to attend his sisters parole hearings.  The land was dry and lacked very many trees.  The air was also dry, not humid like he was used to.  The motel he was staying in was dirt cheap and for good reason.  Most of the rooms were occupied by people that were on the verge of being homeless.  There were those even worse off living out in the alley way adjacent to the motel.  One of these men had been burned over sixty percent of his body.  This made Jonathan think about the man his sister had almost burned to death with the Winnebago bomb.  The motel was in close proximity to the little town that lie just below the mountains where Jonathan would find Pine Tar trail.  Three men had vanished off of this trail in years past and Jonathan was intrigued by the story.  Part of him wanted to vanish as well.  So, he would hike this trail and see if the mystery surrounding the three men, had any validity.  The motor of his BMW had been making noise since Tucumcari.  That was three days ago.  Now, on his drive up the mountain to the Pine Tar trailhead, the motor had had enough. Smoke wafted out from beneath the hood.  Coolant slowly dripped off the plastic guard on the bottom of the car.  Ninety percent of it was on the roadway a mile back where his hose had failed.  Jonathan was stuck.  He sat under the shade of a pine tree in a turn out.  Through the smoke from his car, he could see a vehicle approaching.  He began to wave his arms at this passerby and to his relief, the driver stopped.

Grace loved the outdoors.  She had spent her summers camping in as many of the local campgrounds that she could find.  She had just graduated from Cal Poly in Pomona with an Engineering degree.  She had read about Pine Tar trail, and she needed to see it for herself.  She did not believe in superstitions, nor did she believe in monsters or ghosts.  She felt there must be a sensible explanation to the missing person stories surrounding this particular trail.  Grace wore her heart on her sleeve and loved helping others.  It was no surprise that when she saw the broken-down BMW, she stopped to see if she could help.  Jonathan was more than grateful that Grace had stopped.  He thanked her for doing so and the two began talking.  When they discovered that their destination was one in the same, they decided to continue on together.  They pulled into the trailhead parking lot.  There was one other car already in the lot and it looked as though maybe the owners were off on their bikes as there was a bike rack on the back of the vehicle.  Grace and Jonathan put on their day packs and headed up the trail.  It was a sunny day, and the temperature was perfect for hiking.  They talked about the mystery surrounding the trail and both agreed that there had to be some sort of explanation.  The bear attack reports seemed logical to them both, but they did find it interesting that Pine Tar trail was not in bear country.  There had been no evidence of any bears since the disappearances.  Surely someone would have noticed bears in the area, the trail had become a popular destination for conspiracy theorists and the curious general public.  Hundreds of people had hiked the trail since the bear attacks were reported.  Not a single person saw any evidence of bears living on the mountain.  Grace and Jonathan made good time climbing the trail and had reached the end of it.  Now, before them was the thick stand of buckbrush.  Jonathan, while sitting in the shade assessing the thorny bushes, noticed a strange looking tree.  The trunk appeared to fork off at the top.  As far as he could tell, no other tree in the area looked like that.  Grace wanted to take a bit of a longer break, while Jonathan set off towards the forked tree.

Brianna and McKenna's bike ride was just about coming to an end.  As they slowly chugged uphill towards the trailhead, they noticed a second car had shown up and was parked a hundred feet in front of theirs.  Exhausted from their ride, their energy levels were at a markedly low level.  Now off of their bikes, they drank water and began placing their gear in the back of the car.  The car above them began to move.  The tires made little to no noise with the movement of the vehicle.  Brianna and Mckenna didn't even see it rolling towards them.  As they prepared their bikes to go back on to the rack, Graces car had picked up good speed and ran the two girls over.  They were not killed immediately.  Their bodies would remain crushed under the car for hours.  None of the cars passing by knew there was even anyone under the vehicle.  It just looked as though someone had parked really oddly directly behind Brianna and Mckenna's car.  This caught the eye of a forest ranger who pulled into the lot to check things out.  It was too late, however.  The ranger's discovery of the two victims beneath the car would become an investigation of two deceased females in their early twenties.

Just as Jonathan cleared the buckthorn, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.  It was big and, in the shadows.  He could not quite make out what it was.  He moved closer towards this thing.  Grace crawled out of the thorns a couple of minutes after Jonathan.  She was just in time to hear and see Jonathan being eaten alive by the biggest bear Grace had ever seen in her life!  The bear had tasted blood, and Grace had made a lot of noise trudging through the buckthorn.  The bear reared up and must have stood ten feet tall.  Grace passed out.  The bear would begin to eat her as well, becoming full by the time it had finished eating her legs.  It left the rest of Grace's body for the bugs and the vultures to clean up.  Back at the parking lot at the trailhead.  Ranger Brian had set up crime scene tape.  As he waited for detectives and the coroner, he could hear the rumble of a motor approaching from down the road.  The day was close to becoming night and the sunlight was dim at best.  The rumbling noise got closer and soon Brian could make out the Winnebago driving up the road, it's motor laboring away at the moderate grade.  Pulling into the parking lot of the trailhead, crime scene tape blowing in the slight breeze, the Winnebago came to an abrupt stop.  Brian shined his flashlight to motion the vehicle to continue driving.  With a sudden burst of sound, the doors flew open, and six to seven mountain lions bolted out of the Winnebago, towards Brian.  Before he could get his Smith & Wesson revolver out of its holster, the mountain lions pounced on him.  Knocking him to the ground and with great fervor eating his head. The crime scene had just gained one more body.  The forked tree up above the buckthorn now had two more bodies to rot and decay into the soil.  Giving the tree sustenance for the coming winter.

 

Winnebago

 Rebellious

Chapter Four

Vicki Rebellious Ronaldo.  The Wardon read the name out loud for all in attendance to hear.  This included her sister Angela, her brother Jonathan, and two correction officers.  There was hesitation in the Wardon's voice before reading out Vicki's full name.  But it was indeed her legal name and could be found on her birth certificate.   The parole board was there to determine whether or not Vicki had been transformed enough to be cycled back into society.  After seven years in prison, at the Vacaville Penitentiary, this would be her second chance at parole.  Ten years earlier, Vicki had stolen her parents Winnebago.  She drove it to the high school in Bowling Greene and set it on fire.  She also made sure to open up the stove valves so that propane had built up inside, basically turning the Winnebago into a bomb.  Nobody was killed.  A homeless person was living near the trash bins across the street and was badly burned but survived.  Her parole would once again be denied.  Looked as though she'd spend another five years in Vacaville.  Angela spoke to her brother Jonathan for a while in the parking lot.  She mentioned to him that she had just applied for a job as campus watch for a local private school and that she was fairly certain the school was going to hire her, and she needed to get back as soon as possible.  Jonathan was the manager of a grocery store back in New York.  They were both saddened by the results of the parole boards decision but knew that their sister had committed a serious crime in which people could have been killed.   Jonathan gave Angela a hug, and they both ventured off, Angela to the airport, and Jonathan in his full-size Dodge pick-up.  Jonathan did not like to fly.  He had asked Angela if she needed a ride, but Angela had already rented a car.  Jonathan, Angela, and Vicki all shared the same parents.  Donald and Vicki Roldano.  Their parents lived on a farm in Bowling Greene and were not in attendance at the parole hearing.  Donald had vowed to never speak with his daughter Vicki again after the Winnebago incident.  He was the one that drove Vicki to the Sheriff's substation the day after the explosion.  Vicki was quick to mention that it was her father Donalds fault that she lived an early life of trouble, just look at her middle name she would say.  Nobody knew why Vicki's parents chose the middle name, it wasn't ever a topic at the dinner table when all four siblings were young.  But Vicki, who shared the same first name as her mother, was definitely rebellious.   

Five years went by in a flash.  Vicki stood in front of the parole board once more.  This time would be her lucky day.  Her freedom was granted by the board, and she would be released back into civilization.  She had nothing to her name.  No cell phone, no car, only a few items of clothing the prison had given to her along with a pair of shoes.  She was also given three hundred dollars in cash to get her new life started.  Having spent the last eleven years in Vacaville prison, Vicki was not sure what to do.  The three hundred in cash would buy her a bus ticket back to Bowling Greene Pennsylvania.  From there, she was not certain where life would take her.  A full year would go by after stepping off of the bus.  Vicki had picked up odd jobs here and there.  Her latest, a janitorial job at the papermill just outside of town, was by far the best job she had obtained.  The news of her sister being killed by a mountain lion on the job was a massive blow.  Vicki was hanging by a thread as it was, this shockingly sad news was another heavy blow to Vicki's wellbeing.  She no longer had any relationship with her mom and dad.  Her brother Jonathan was busy with his career and his two kids.  His wife's job kept them hostage to the New York area and Vicki had never even met Melanie and Robert her niece and nephew.  Vicki had found a room for rent with a guy that was fairly creepy but harmless in Vicki's opinion.  She lived in the basement of his house.  She had just enough money to live month to month.  She was able to afford internet service and she had a smartphone.  The rest of her income went to rent, and food.  The old beat-up car she drove was given to her by her landlord who in all actuality had a crush on Vicki.  The resentment over the past year had continually built up and Vicki had even become somewhat angry towards her family.  Angela was her only friend left within the family and was really the only one that still talked to Vicki.  The news of Angela's passing was the final blow.

Roman liked having Vicki living in the basement of his house.  She was the prettiest thing he had ever seen, and he would at some point, when he got up the nerve, ask her out on a date.  But for now, he tried to accommodate Vicki's needs as much as possible.  He didn't charge her much for rent.  He had given her his parents old car.  They died in that car a year ago in a bad traffic accident.  His left eye dragged a bit from an accident as a young boy.  His job at the stripper club washing dishes didn't make him wealthy.  He was basically living the fine line of poverty.  His father had left him six thousand dollars and a beat-up Ford F250.  On the back window of this truck, Roman had a gun rack in which he carried his twelve-gauge shot gun.  Vicki had ridden in the truck before when her loaner car had broken down.  She saw a form of protection in Roman that gave her a bit of comfort.  She knew that Roman was sweet on her and she would use this to her full advantage.  It was a rainy Friday night that the plans were made.  Vicki, distraught over the death of Angela, and angered that her brother, mother, and father never showed her any love or attention, had become filled with malice.  She had forgotten that her brother had driven across the country to attend all but the last parole hearing.  The last time she saw or heard from her sister Rebecca, was just prior to her being placed in prison for the Winnebago incident.  Rebecca was dead as far as Vicki was concerned.  Roman fueled this depression by buying copious amounts of alcohol.  The two drank well into the early morning.  Vicki, looking at her cellphone, became more and more angry.  The videos of this privileged young girl, mowing the fields of her grandfather's farm, made her sick to her stomach.  She should be the one mowing those fields.  Why didn't any of her family show her any love and ask her over for dinner, or even for holidays.  She had to send some kind of message, had to make them feel some of the pain she was living with every day! 

The summer sun had all but set.  They had watched Jonathan, Sheryl, and Vicki drive off a couple of hours earlier.  Vicki asked Roman one more time if he was certain the shot gun would be good enough to do the job.  He assured her it was.  The two were only half sober and Roman had added some meth into the mix of his cocktail of bravery for the job at hand.  Vicki wanted to scare the life out of her family.  Roman would approach the house while Vicki watched for traffic out on the street.  Once Roman located Melanie, he'd tie her up and he and Vicki would take her back to the house and hold her hostage for a couple of days.  That was the plan anyways, just long enough to make her brother and sister-in-law scared to death.  Roman knocked on the main door while holding the screen door open.  When Donald opened it, Roman panicked.  He was not expecting Donald to be home.  The sound of the gun going off didn't register in his meth induced stupor.  He didn't stop after watching Donald fly back and fall lifeless onto the living room floor.  Roman quickly moved to the kitchen catching Robert with his head still buried in the food pantry.  Another squeeze of the trigger and Robert's life was over.  Melanie ran for the bathroom.  Roman quickly outpaced her and grabbed her by the hair.  Knocking her to the ground, he then tied a rag over her mouth.  Vicki came running into the house in a panic.  What are you doing she yelled out.  You've killed him!  You killed them both!  The crime had been committed.  There was no turning back now.  Vicki quickly turned off the kitchen light so that no one could see inside the house.  They would take Melanie with them.  They'd drive out to the papermill, put Melanie on her stomach, place a pillow over the back of her head and end her life.  Vicki was scared to the point of throwing up.  What had she done!  She would be an accomplice at minimum.  The two back tracked their actions of the last two hours and Vicki was sure that there'd be evidence back at the crime scene.  They dumped the body in the dumpster behind the papermill.  Vicki told Roman she was not going to be put back in prison.  She asked Roman to kill her, she did not want to live any more.  Roman had the idea of getting in the truck, driving out into the trees in a remote area where nobody would ever think to look for them.  They would douse the F250 with gasoline, firmly strap themselves to the seats, and set the truck on fire.  If the fire was hot enough, there would be no evidence left behind.  Nobody saw the glow from the fire.  Nobody heard the screams from inside the truck.  Just before setting the truck on fire, Roman use the shotgun one last time.  Firmly placing the barrel on Vicki's left temple and squeezing the trigger.  The passenger side window immediately darkened with a red mist.   There would be no need to fire the shotgun again.  The raging fire would consume all within.

Winnebago

Bloodstains

In

The Breezeway

Chapter Three

Five hundred watts was enough power to successfully pop 85 percent of the microwaveable bag of popcorn Angela had brought for a snack.  You could run it for longer, but then all you'd end up with was a bag of bitter charcoal.  She went back and forth in her thoughts.  If she didn't snack during her shift, it was always easier to stay awake.  But if she didn't bring a snack, she also felt a smidgeon of depression kick in about hour number three of her six-hour shifts.  What she didn't know was that the scientific reason for her tiredness wasn't the food.  It was the boredom.  The human brain is a very powerful tool.  When you give it nothing to do, it tends to want to shut down.  Once the kids were in their dorm rooms, her job generally became very boring.  The ding from the microwave in the faculty lounge snapped her out of her thoughts.

Her Dr. had been telling her to cut out many things from her diet.  At the age of 48, like millions of other humans on the planet, her body was in the early stages of breaking down.  Try to limit yourself to one alcoholic drink per day her Dr. would say.  Also, completely stop any use of caffeine.  The one good thing about her job at the private school was that it got her out and about walking.  She usually treated herself with a 16oz can of Cherry Coke for each shift she worked.  She would also snack on either some form of protein, like jerky, or a small bag of chips. Tonight's bag of popcorn was a different approach to her choice of snacks.  Jerky, like everything else in this post Covid world, was getting too expensive to buy twice a week.  Steam lifted out from the bag as she locked the main office door and descended the steps to her car.  The night air was dry at the moment, but the haze peaking over the ridgeline to the east, in the light of the half-moon rising, told her that tonight would once again end up cold and drizzly.  With a current temp of 56 degrees, having the driver's side window down all the way was quite refreshing.  As the office door was swinging to a close, she'd feel her left pocket, just to make sure she hadn't left the keys inside.  As she pushed the button on her door handle to unlock the driver's side door of her 2016 Chevy Tahoe, she heard a rustle in the bushes to her immediate left. A quick glance and a sweep with her eyes showed her it was just a leaf falling from one of the many oak trees surrounding campus.  Years of squinting in the full summer sun without sunglasses and staring into the bright screen of her cell phone for hours on end, had damaged her vision.  She had trouble seeing things when her eyes went from looking at something bright, to something dark.  Overall, her vision was somewhere between 20/30 and 20/45.  The Samsung Droid cell phone she carried every shift, vibrated.  Jeri had responded as the adult on duty that night.  Angela would acknowledge the text and make sure to document this info into her nightly report.    She didn't mind her job at the school.  It paid good money.  You just had to be positive minded to accommodate for being alone, looking at virtually nothing all night long.  Easing her Tahoe into drive, she was off to complete a perimeter check of campus.  As she drove on the darkened roads, random music came out of the car speakers.  She'd had satellite radio for years now and the nineties channel was her favorite.  INXS provided food for her brain as she drove around campus.  An owl way up high on a telephone wire screeched at her presence. Flying off just as the Tahoe began to bathe it in light from the HID headlights.  Angela was used to seeing many night creatures to include racoons, snakes, skunks, rabbits, toads, and even deer.  Although she had never spotted them with her 20/45 vision, she more often than not heard the coyotes yipping and cackling in the night air.  Some nights they seemed to be way off in the distance, others they sounded as if they were no more than 50 yards away.  Just as she rounded a turn, a catlike figure skirted alongside the dirt road, quickly diving off into the bushes towards the main hwy that bordered campus.  It was only a blur that she saw, and she was fairly sure it was a simple domesticated cat.  There were maybe a million mice in the surrounding fields so the thought of a cat being out at night was not out of the ordinary.  All the outlying buildings were locked up tight, her perimeter check was complete.  She'd slowly drive to just south of the boy's dorm to observe room checks. 

There was no manual for the work at hand.  Campus Watch was simply that.  She worked graveyard shifts much to her chagrin.  They weren't terrible, and it was only four shifts per week, so even though the hours went late in to the night and early morning, she could still live somewhat of a regular lifestyle.  Room checks were the school's way of making sure the kids were in their rooms, even if only momentarily.  Angela would watch for these checks to be completed.  What the teachers presumably didn't know was, that five minutes after these checks, the kids were out and about.  Visiting one another's rooms, taking showers in the bathrooms down the hall, some, even venturing off up the hill to the opposite sex's dorms.  If and when this occurred, her job became most exciting.  Over the years she had learned ways to catch these kids in their illegal migrations.  These kids were savvy.  Plus, they all had cell phones.  It wouldn't take the devious ones very long to memorize which cars belonged to Campus Watch.  They would peek out of their dorm windows searching for the slate grey Tahoe.  Once they located it, texts were made, and routes were drawn into the battle maps.  If the Tahoe was south of the boy's dorm, the rear breezeway would be the escape route.  From there, a short jaunt up a paved roadway of no more than 200 yards would bring them to the forbidden castle of the girl's dorms.  The only obstacle left once making it to this spot, were the locked doors.  This is where cell phones were crucial.  One quick text and a window would slide open to one of the girl's rooms.  If Angela hadn't spotted them by the time they made it up the hill, they were golden!  Or so they thought. Angela had been at this for her sixth year now, and she knew most of the tricks.  She knew that the car was a marker.  So, she would park it where she wanted the kids to believe she would be, sitting inside.  Then she'd get out on foot, make sure to unlock her car door so that the little red dot wouldn't appear when her alarm was on, and slip off into the darkness.  The hard part was guessing which path the rule breakers would take.  There were a few.  There were also many factors that could change the minutia of the plan.  Had the kids set out a spotter that saw her exit her car and go off on foot?  Had they heard the car door shut?  Or maybe on a well moonlit night, they could see her silhouette sitting inside the car.  With no partner to help close off some of these gaps, her job was actually quite hard to be successful at.  But success had come over the past four years.   In fact, she was confident that the successes of catching these kids out and about, outnumbered the defeats by three to one.  This particular night, while crunching on popcorn and sipping her delicious cherry coke, she would plan on making her way up to the girl's dorms via the dining hall path.  Once she got behind the dining hall, a path led the way up a hill to the south side of the dorms.  Hedges lined the ridgeline no more than twenty feet away from the dorm room windows.  She could stand here in the total darkness and see both the windows, and the paved roadway.  It was a good spot.  A bit creepy as well because you could not see the ground on dark nights and there were an abundant number of rattlesnakes around campus.  She had seen them personally while doing her walk throughs.  As she watched in the solitude and darkness, she almost thought she could hear a cell phone chirping as if one of the girls had left their phone off of vibrate.  The trees and hedges began to drip all around her.  The fog had moved in, and it was extra soupy tonight.  This added to the creepiness.  It also made it more difficult to hear anything.  Sure enough, not three minutes after what she thought was a text being received, a shadowy figure approached up the paved hill.  The kids knew to wear hoodies over their heads to conceal their identity as much as possible.  As the hoodie came closer and closer, Angela waited.  She heard a voice faintly ring out, and soon discovered that this hooded person was in fact a staff member out looking for her cat.  The false alarm didn't bother her.  The more time that went by, the sooner she could get back to her cherry drink and salty buttery popcorn.  Kids made their attempts between certain hours.  She'd never seen them out really late.  One thirty in the morning seemed to be the cutoff.  Not wanting to scare the crap out of the teacher, Angela shined her flashlight as if she was looking for something on the ground and then quietly introduced herself to the cat seeker.  Angela did not know the name of this teacher, she'd probably seen her in the roster, but she hadn't memorized them all.  Teachers came and went rather frequently, so trying to memorize all of them was a lost cause.  This one's name was Nancy.  Her cats' name was Farmer.  Nancy was still a bit startled when the flashlight appeared up by the hedges, but she quickly calmed down when she discovered it was just campus watch out doing their thing.  After introductions, Nancy mentioned she had not seen her cat since sundown.  Angela told her about the cat she thought she had seen on her perimeter check, and that it could have been Farmer.  This made Nancy feel a little better.  Although, Farmer would not usually venture out quite so far as the perimeter road.  The two said their goodnights.  Angela promised if she did in fact see Farmer again, she'd bring him up and put him inside the dorm for Nancy.  

The bright glow blinded her eyes momentarily.  She clicked her side button three times, and the screen went from bright white to a glowing red.  This red color was much easier on her eyes transitioning in the darkness of the night.  Her cellphone told her it was 1320.  She'd used military time since being hired.  It was written in all her reports, and it was just easier to use then regular time.  She was never in the military but had learned how to figure out the twenty-four-hour clock with the help of her father who had served in Vietnam with the Army.   Ten more minutes she thought to herself.  Looked like there would be no migration tonight.  The half-moon was gone, completely blocked out by dense fog.  The dark shades under neath every tree meant that they had consumed enough moisture to begin dripping down onto the pavement and dirt. Toads still sang their nightly tune of ribbit.  There must have been thousands of them on campus and the moisture from the fog meant it was party time.  Angela couldn't believe these toads could sit in the water and out in the cold night air without freezing to death.  She hated the cold.  Even the mid forty temps that were now present in the foggy drizzle seemed extra cold.  The toads could not care less.  Now the phone read 1330 and Angela made her way off of the hedge lined ridge near the girl's dorm.  She slowly strutted down the paved roadway keeping an ear out for Farmer.  As she approached the parking lot adjacent to the Breezeway of the second floor of the boy's dorm, she heard an animal cry out.  It was the unmistakable sound of a cat fight.  Oh boy she thought, Farmer is being a bad kitty.  Maybe he had found a raccoon.  Raccoons were mean creatures and very intelligent.  Their five digits allowed them to do things most other animals couldn't.  Like hold an egg and crack it.  Sucking out the goodness from within.  They also were equipped with very sharp, large, teeth.  Raccoons were also susceptible to getting rabies.  A raccoon with rabies was a dangerous animal.  The fight cooled off for the time being.  Angela moved even closer to the breezeway.  Her flashlight picked up an object dead center in the parking lot.  It was her bag of popcorn.  She scolded herself for not rolling up the window of her car before heading off on foot.  Those stinking raccoons had gotten into her car and stolen her popcorn.  The bag was ripped right down the middle, yet half of the puffy, buttery white goodness remained in the bag. " Can I still eat the bottom half " she softly whispered out loud.  As she thought about this her eyes raised up and picked up a dark figure, about the size of a large purse.  There in the middle of the breezeway, was what had to be Farmer.  His entrails were strung out about seven inches from the main carcass.  His head, completely gone!  Oh my she thought.  If this is Farmer, what would she tell Nancy?  Angela was uncertain what the hell could have torn the head off of this poor cat.  Was it a raccoon!  Surely no, it couldn't have been.  Maybe a raccoon that had several hours to pick at the body could be responsible.  But she had just heard the cat fight minutes ago.  She walked up to the cat body.  A pool of blood had formed on the concrete.  There were smudges of blood leading away and down the hall to the north.  Angela could not tell what they were, but they were big.  Not a raccoon that's for sure, she thought.  Then, she saw a collar, strung in a low hanging tree branch.  Upon inspection, sure enough, it was Farmer.  Her stomach sank.  She felt bad for Nancy.  She would have to break the bad news to her.  Angela loved animals herself and owned a dog of her own back at home.  This would be difficult.  As she turned back to exit out of the breezeway, a warm current wafted past her body.  Odd, she thought.  Where did that come from?  She walked back into the dark parking lot, pausing just beyond the roof line to let her eyes adjust.  The popcorn bag was no longer on the ground.  She didn't see it anywhere.  How could this be?  Had the warm breeze blown it away?  No.  She would have heard that.  She also figured she would have heard an animal carrying it away.  As she stood there thinking, she suddenly got a warm feeling and a memory of her sister that had been locked up in Juvenile Hall ten years earlier.  Her sister had since been transferred to a womans maximum security prison in Vacaville.  Aside from a couple of parole hearings, Angela had not seen Vicki very often.  The memory of her sisters' face was the last task her brain would perform.  From atop the roof, with virtually no sound at all, a massive one-hundred-and-eighty-pound mountain lion leaped from above.  It clamped on to Angelas neck with its massive teeth.  The loss of blood that followed was not what killed Angela.  The force of the attack, with all that weight hitting her at neck level had snapped her spine in half.  She never knew what hit her.  The big cat dragged Angela's one-hundred-and-forty-pound body through the breezeway as if it were a pillow filled with down.  The animal had amazing strength.  Up over the handrail it climbed into a low hanging tree.  The bloodstains in the breezeway were wide and thick.  The handrail dripped with blood, slowly matching the drip produced by the fog layer.  Angela would be half eaten up in the tree.  When the cat was full, it climbed back on to the roof, and out into the damp night air.  The cat would bring its two cubs back to feed on the carcass in the tree. Whoever was the early riser in the morning was in for a ghoulish scene.  They'd come across the blood first.  Then they'd most certainly follow it up to the tree where they'd find the half-eaten body of campus watch, slung over a branch like a piece of jerky hanging in the oven to dry.   The police would be called.  They'd determine the cause of death and begin looking for the cat.  An autopsy would confirm the suspect two weeks later.  Along with Angelas DNA, they found the remanence of a bag of Orville Redenbacher's movie theater popcorn inside the cats' bowels.   Angela's replacement was a young man named Sean.  Sean would not be told about the fate of the last campus watch employee.  And he too, loved to eat popcorn.