Dead Rise: An Alex Penfield Novel Read online

  Dead Rise

  An Alex Penfield Novel

  By

  Robert W. Stephens

  Copyright 2017 Robert W. Stephens

  All rights reserved.

  For

  Felicia Dames

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - The Dream

  Chapter 2 - No Good Deed

  Chapter 3 - The Watermen

  Chapter 4 - Charles Ray Tatum

  Chapter 5 - Bobby Tatum

  Chapter 6 - The Hammer

  Chapter 7 - Ben

  Chapter 8 - Sally Tatum

  Chapter 9 - Carrie Tatum

  Chapter 10 - Partners

  Chapter 11 - Buddy Butler

  Chapter 12 - The Black Flies

  Chapter 13 - Danny Keller

  Chapter 14 - The Coffin

  Chapter 15 - The Past

  Chapter 16 - The Fire

  Chapter 17 - The Tree

  Chapter 18 - The Funeral

  Chapter 19 - DNA

  Chapter 20 - The Interrogation

  Chapter 21 - The Psychic

  Chapter 22 - I Have Her

  Chapter 23 - The Warehouse

  Chapter 24 - The Woods

  Chapter 25 - He Never Loved Him

  Chapter 26 - It Changes Everything

  Chapter 27 - Wilton

  Chapter 28 - You Know What’s Happening

  Chapter 29 - The Map

  Chapter 30 - The Grave

  Chapter 31 - Emma

  Chapter 32 - Punishment

  Did you like this book? You can make a difference.

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Robert W. Stephens

  Chapter 1

  The Dream

  Henry Atwater Interrogation. Audio Transcription. Part 1.

  Slater: This is Sheriff Lucas Slater. The date is twenty-one, November, two thousand sixteen. I’m joined by Henry Atwater. Mr. Atwater, let’s start when you first reached out to Alex Penfield. You phoned him on the evening of four, November. Is that correct?

  Atwater: It probably is. I don’t remember the exact date.

  Slater: Why did you contact him?

  Atwater: To warn him.

  Slater: About what?

  Atwater: You know what, Sheriff. Why are you even asking me these questions? We’re wasting our time.

  Slater: I need to get your statement down on record.

  Atwater: Why? What am I being charged with? Are you going to accuse me of murder? Why don’t you just do it now and get it over with?

  Slater: Please, Mr. Atwater, answer my question.

  Atwater: I saw Alex’s death. That’s why I called him.

  Slater: And this was in a dream?

  Atwater: Yes. It was a dream.

  Slater: You’ve had similar prophetic dreams about Mr. Penfield before. Is that correct?

  Note: Silence on audio recorder for approximately ten seconds.

  Slater: Mr. Atwater, was this the first time you’ve had similar disturbing dreams about Mr. Penfield?

  Atwater: He was just a boy then, but you already know that, at least I assume you do.

  Slater: Describe this current dream to me.

  Atwater: How does this stop what’s going on now?

  Slater: It goes to motive.

  Atwater: Motive for what? I haven’t done anything wrong.

  Slater: Please, Mr. Atwater, tell me about the dream.

  Note: Silence for five seconds.

  Slater: Mr. Atwater?

  Atwater: I know what you’re doing. I’ve seen this before. You’ve already made up your mind. Nothing I say will change that.

  Slater: I haven’t made up my mind about anything.

  Atwater: Is it your profession? Is that what made you this way?

  Slater: Made me what way?

  Atwater: You see things most people will never see. You see the evil that men do. It changes you. I know that, but it also blinds you. You no longer think anyone is capable of anything good. I can see how you’re looking at me. Is it Detective Ross? Has she accused me of something? Is that why I’m here?

  Slater: You’re here because of your involvement in the Tatum murders. There is no other reason.

  Atwater: There is no involvement. They were dreams, Detective. I wasn’t there for any of the actual murders. You know that.

  Slater: How would I? There’s no proof that you weren’t there.

  Atwater: Is there proof that I was? Innocent until proven guilty, isn’t that the presumption? Of course it isn’t, not with you people. You convict in your minds, and then you look for the evidence to back up your beliefs. That’s all this is. It’s just guesswork on your part. Pure guesswork. I’ll be charged by the end of this interrogation. That is what this is. It’s no discussion. You kick down my hotel door and force me to come here. You’re the judge and the jury, and if it was up to you, you’d probably be the executioner, too.

  Slater: I haven’t made up my mind about anything. That’s why you haven’t been charged.

  Atwater: Where is Alex? Since we’re talking about him, why isn’t he here?

  Slater: Mr. Penfield is no longer a law enforcement officer. His presence here would be inappropriate.

  Atwater: So why has he been working the case?

  Slater: He wasn’t supposed to be doing anything, but even if he was, I don’t have to justify the department’s decisions to you. Tell me again about the dreams.

  Atwater: They’re just pieces really, like a frame of film from some scene in a movie. It’s difficult to understand what I’m seeing. Sometimes I never understand it.

  Slater: It must have been enough to scare you since you called Mr. Penfield a few weeks ago. You warned him that you’d seen his death.

  Atwater: I saw myself in a marsh. It ran along the edge of a river. There were police officers digging to uncover the wooden box Alex was buried in, but when they found it, Alex was gone.

  Slater: How did you know Alex was supposed to be in the box?

  Atwater: I just knew.

  Slater: What happened after you realized his body wasn’t there?

  Atwater: The officers accused me of killing Alex. One of them said they would put me in that box and bury me in the marsh.

  Slater: Did they?

  Atwater: No. They vanished from the dream. I looked up and saw Alex floating in the river. I looked around for someone, anyone, to help me. But I was alone.

  Slater: What did you do?

  Atwater: I waded into the water. It was difficult to reach him because the current was so strong. His body wasn’t floating down the river, though. It was staying still, like it was anchored somehow to the bottom of the river. When I finally got closer to him, I saw that he was floating face down in the water. I turned him over. It was Alex, only his face was different.

  Slater: How so?

  Atwater: Half of it was missing. It was completely caved in like it had been crushed with a great weight.

  Note: Silence for four seconds.

  Atwater: I can tell you don’t understand. It wasn’t just a dream. I was seeing things through his eyes.

  Slater: Whose? Mr. Penfield’s?

  Atwater: No. It was the killer’s eyes. I was myself but not myself.

  Slater: That doesn’t make any sense.

  Atwater: You see the actions of your dreams through your eyes. Everyone does. It’s just like real life. You don’t see your body separately from the action, but that’s how it felt for me. I just knew this wasn’t my body. It’s like I was floating inside someone else’s consciousness. I could feel their thoughts. I could feel the hate they had.

  Note: Silence for five seconds.
>
  Atwater: There’s something else. I saw my reflection in the water, but it wasn’t me. It was someone with long dark hair. I couldn’t see his eyes at first because the hair covered his face, but he pulled his hair back as he stood over Alex’s floating body. That’s when I saw it. Half of his face was gone just like Alex’s was. It was caved in toward his jaw, and I could see the outline of his teeth. Does this mean something to you?

  Note: Silence for four seconds.

  Atwater: It does, doesn’t it? You’ve seen this man, the man with half a face.

  Slater: I haven’t seen him, not yet.

  Chapter 2

  No Good Deed

  Hampton, Virginia. Six, November.

  Alex Penfield exited the bar. He fished his black winter hat out of his coat pocket and placed it onto his shaved head. Despite being early November, the cold winter air already seemed to be in full force. He felt the mist strike his face as soon as he stepped from below the awning over the bar’s front entrance. He looked up and saw the dark clouds above. The storm would be here soon.

  Penfield was halfway through the parking lot when he noticed two men in a Ford pickup truck about ten yards away looking at him. It was a natural thing to do. He was the only one in the parking lot other than them, so it made sense that they’d make eye contact with him as he passed. That wasn’t what set off his alarms, though. It was actually two things.

  The first was the look in their eyes. He’d seen that look many times before as a former detective with over twenty years of experience on the job. It was the unmistakable look someone had when they meant to do you harm. The second thing Penfield noticed was the man behind the steering wheel. Penfield thought he recognized the man as the wayward husband he was hired to follow a few weeks ago. The man’s name was Greg Phillips.

  The two men got out of the car after Penfield was just a few feet past them. Penfield reached into his coat pocket and used the remote on his keyring to unlock his car.

  “Hey, you,” one of the men said.

  Penfield did a quick calculation. He was at least twenty yards from his car. He could probably make it there before the men caught up with him. He decided to stop instead. He turned to meet them. He had a tactical folding knife that he always kept in his front pocket, but there was no reason to brandish that tonight.

  “You that investigator guy? Penfield?”

  It was the same voice as before, and it came from Phillips, who was the smaller of the two men. Penfield was around six-foot-three, and this guy was a few inches shorter than him. He had a pot belly, which Penfield could see from the man’s open jacket and the T-shirt that stretched at the midsection.

  The other guy, Penfield’s size, looked in decent shape.

  “Can I help you?” Penfield asked.

  “My wife told me about you,” Phillips said.

  “Let me guess. You and your old lady got back together.”

  “She told me you took photos of me.”

  “Your wife hired me as part of your divorce proceedings. So, yes, I did take photos of you with that waitress.”

  “You need to mind your own god damned business.”

  “The job’s done. Your wife paid me.”

  “That’s not good enough. You caused me a lot of problems.”

  “No. You caused yourself those problems.”

  “Fuck you,” Phillips said, and he charged Penfield.

  It was an unavoidable and highly predictable outcome to the conversation. It had been five years since Penfield was a cop, which meant it had been at least that long since he’d been involved in a physical altercation. He knew he was beyond rusty, but he also felt confident he could defend himself from the angry husband, especially since he thought Phillips had been drinking. The alcohol had already made Phillips unsteady. The heightened emotion, coupled with his undeniable pre-fight anxiety, would hopefully make him an easy target. Penfield wasn’t so sure about the friend, especially since Penfield’s attention would be preoccupied by Phillips.

  Phillips swung a right fist at Penfield’s face. It wasn’t a jab but was, instead, a big, lazy arching movement. Penfield grabbed the man’s wrist and used his momentum against him. He sent a sharp elbow into the back of Phillips’ head just as he passed, which sent him sprawling to the hard, wet pavement. Penfield turned to see the friend moving toward him. He was nowhere near as fast as Penfield expected him to be. Perhaps he’d expected the exchange between Penfield and Phillips to last at least a few seconds longer than it actually did. Penfield saw the man ball up his right fist as he charged him, so he slammed his heel into the side of the man’s left knee.

  The kick landed perfectly, and Penfield heard the knee pop. The large man howled and also dropped to the pavement. Penfield turned back to Phillips. He saw him struggling to stand. Penfield thought about hitting him a second time to make sure he stayed down. Instead, he turned away and walked to his car. He climbed inside and drove out of the wet parking lot.

  The sky opened up on the way back to his house, and he got drenched as he ran to the front door of his brick ranch. He hung his wet jacket on a wooden peg on the foyer wall and walked to the back of the house where the den was located.

  He sat down on the sofa, turned the television on, and flipped through several channels before ultimately deciding to mute the volume and lay back on the sofa. He went over the fight again in his mind. He didn’t know if it had been the right thing to do. Sure, he could have run, but it would have only served to bolster their courage and maybe make them even more dangerous.

  Penfield couldn’t believe his life had come to this. Years ago, he would have scoffed if someone had asked him to follow an unfaithful spouse and take photographs of the affair. It was bullshit work, and it didn’t come anywhere close to paying the stack of bills that were piling up on his kitchen table.

  His cell phone vibrated. He looked at the name on the display: Henry Atwater. Despite his best efforts, the call sent waves of anxiety through his body. He answered it anyway. Atwater wouldn’t call unless it was something important.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Alex. I’m sorry for calling at the late hour. It couldn’t wait.”

  “What couldn’t wait?”

  “There have been three dreams so far. They’re all the same. I saw you in them. There was also a river or a bay with dark water surrounded by a marsh. It felt so real. There’s something else: a woman’s name.”

  “What name?”

  “Sally. Do you know anyone called that?”

  Penfield had met plenty of women throughout the years named Sally, but none that posed a physical threat, at least not one that he knew about.

  “I don’t know what the name means,” Atwater continued. “I don’t even see a woman in the dreams. I just hear the name. It’s like it echoes off the surface of the water. There’s a man, too. I see his reflection in the water. I’m not sure, but there’s something wrong with his face, like a large piece of it is missing.”

  “I’m not a police officer anymore. Maybe you didn’t know that, but I suspect you did.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Alex. You will seek this out. I’ve seen it, and you’ll die because of it.”

  Penfield didn’t know how to respond to such a proclamation, so he said nothing.

  “I could feel the water on my skin,” Atwater continued. “It was freezing. This will happen soon. You must do whatever you can to stop this from coming true. Don’t go looking for it.”

  “How can you stop fate? That is what you’re saying, isn’t it, that I’m fated to be killed?”

  “Nothing is certain. You must stay away.”

  They spoke for a few more minutes. Atwater went into more of a description of the dream. If it had been his intention to scare Penfield away, he’d failed. Penfield was never one to back away from a fight.

  Penfield ended the call and placed his cell phone back on the table in front of the sofa. He stood and walked back to the master bathroom. He turned on the faucet and
cupped the water with his hands. He splashed it onto his face and then looked into the mirror above the sink. He was beyond exhausted, and he felt like he looked much older than he actually was. Penfield thought back to Atwater’s dream. A river with dark water surrounded by a marsh. A woman named Sally. A man with part of his face missing. Atwater’s dreams couldn’t be easily dismissed, not after the things Penfield had personally witnessed him do.

  Chapter 3

  The Watermen

  Gloucester County, Virginia. Seven, November.

  The call that morning had been vague. All that Detective Emma Ross really knew was that someone was dead at the Mobjack Bay Marina. She’d already been at the sheriff’s department for a little while, but she’d had to wait an additional hour for her partner, Benjamin Hall, to get there. At fifty-nine, Ben was over twenty years her senior. He’d been talking about retirement for a while, but she thought that’s all it might be, talk. She knew he lived for the job, and it was really the only thing he had left in his life.

  She also knew the reason for his late arrival. It was the tenth anniversary of his wife’s death. She knew it was his habit to visit her gravesite on the mornings of this particular date. She also knew better than to bring it up. Ben was an outgoing man, but in a strange contradiction of sorts, he seldom actually talked about himself. His feelings were his feelings. He wasn’t about to share his thoughts on his wife’s death with Emma, or anyone else for that matter, even though she’d been partners with him for a few years. Ben’s wife had been gone before Emma had even started working at the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Department, but she’d heard enough stories around the office to know just how deeply Ben had cared for her. The cancer had been caught too late. There had been nothing they could do. Within a few months of the diagnosis, his wife was dead.

  Ben had called Emma when he was about a mile away from the office, so she was already waiting for him at the curb as he pulled up. She climbed into his car, said “good morning,” and sat in silence as they made the drive to the marina.

  They turned left off George Washington Memorial Highway to Guinea Road, which led them to the marina. Guinea Road was a long, two-lane road that went through a sparsely populated region of the county. It was not an area strangers regularly went through.