Chapter 7: The Aftermath

Percy awoke to the smell of ammonium carbonate (Smelling salts). It made him turn his head and that movement hurt. One of the EMT's started cautioning him to lie still while they checked him out. Percy's awareness slowly returned as he laid there. First he remembered running into the tree, and falling, and then he remembered the reason why he was running in the dark.

Percy spotted a State Trooper hovering around him and asked, "The women?"

The Trooper just shook his head "No". "We found their bodies stacked in the barn. The barn was rigged to explode and burn, but the timer failed. The Capitan wants to talk to you and see if you can shed any light on this massacre."

"What's all the smoke?" Percy asked.

"The main farm house is burning. The fire chief said it looks like an accelerant was used to burn the house. Oh and by the way, one of your guests at the lodge saw the smoke and phoned 911, we got lucky" the Trooper answered.

Fire rescue arrived with a four wheel ATV and loaded Percy in the back. Percy was on his way back to the hospital, again. "If I keep this up, they'll start keeping a room vacant for me," he thought, "Boy is Judith going to be pissed."

He was bounced across the field on the ATV and eventually loaded into an ambulance. The State Police captain climbed in the back so the two of them could chat on the ride back to the hospital. The captain was pissed about the slaughter and wanted answers. As Percy unfolded the events of the night before, the captain became more and more concerned.

The captain explained to Percy that there were no vehicles, no air planes, and no signs of a party. The only thing they found was the women's bodies. Besides the initial gunshot wounds, each one was shot once in the head, execution style. Someone wanted to make sure they were dead.

The barn and the house were rigged to explode and burn. The barn had barrels of some kind of a flammable substance rigged to a timer. The timer failed and ignite the barrels did not ignite. So there was a hope that forensics would find something useable.

Percy doubted it. These guys were too thorough to leave a trace of their existence.

The ambulance pulled into the Emergency Department. Judith was standing in the doorway with both his kids. He was glad to be loved even though Judith had that "pissed off" look on her face. Percy knew he was going to hear about this for a while.

Percy closed his eyes and went back to sleep.