It
was a cold wintry eve; the silence of the Knoxville lodge was
shattered when the phone rang. Stacy was in the living room, she’d been
working lately on the coverage she was assigned to do in the coming days. Tired
She picked up the receiver and when she was about to say ‘hello’ a heavy and
muffled voice from the other side said, ‘We’re watching you Stacy’ and the call
was disconnected. There was no caller ID on the phone which scared her but she
let it go thinking it was some random freak messing with her. Tired from the day’s
work, she made herself a cup of coffee, switched on the TV, sat on the old
Victorian couch and sipped it slowly. She went to bed early that day.
She
woke up in the middle of the night screaming, gasping for breath. Luke, her
husband, suddenly got up from his deep sleep and told her it was alright. He
told her that there was nothing to be afraid of. ‘I’m right here, don’t worry
dear’ he said while wiping tears from her face. It was not the first time this
happened. She was an international correspondent for the American Broadcasting
Company and had just come back from Vietnam after covering the war there. It
was something that had left terrible memories in her life and something which
haunted her, ghosts of the past which made her restless and scared her every
time she remembered them. Something had happened with her in Vietnam that she
would never forget for the rest of her life. She went up to work early next
morning after dropping, David, her 9 year old at his school. Luke had a flight
to catch and was headed to Virginia for meeting some international delegates to
close a deal. He worked for Parker and Sons International Limited, a technology
giant which operated overseas and had a huge clientele.
Stacy
Whitman was a blonde in her mid-thirties with mesmerizing dark grey eyes, sleek
and really slim body and fair skin. She had an aura of charm around her. When
she spoke, it was like casting a spell on the people listening to her about
herself. She was a delightful sight for sore eyes, an individual who was so
kind and humble, so gentle and soft. Tracy was a proud winner of the Pulitzer
Prize last year which she received on her article ‘War Crimes: A tragic
legacy’. She had exposed the war crimes committed by the guerrilla fighters
in Congo. Massive graves had been discovered and several secret prisons
had been discovered which were administered by the government. Everybody adored
her work and she was an inspiration for all the journalists of the country.
Nick Coffman, her boss was waiting for her in her office when she entered. He
was a tall man, with a strong body and black eyes. They both greeted each other
and he handed her some news which was to be covered at the night’s bulletin
which Tracy hosted everyday with her co-worker and friend James Mathew. The day
passed by just like any other day and after lunch as she was heading to grab
some coffee from the nearby café, someone hushed through her quickly and
spilled their coffee over her. Furious, she went home to change and then
swiftly headed back to the news-room as it was almost time for the nights
bulletin. It went well and she grabbed her coat and went back home. On her way,
she picked up David, from her aunt’s, where he stayed until Tracy came from
work every day. She stopped at fuel station to get some gas, unaware of the
mysterious black sedan which was following her from the moment she left from
work. Someone was following her, and she had no idea of the storm that awaited
her.
At
night, while opening mail, she heard a loud sound of shattering glass and when
she went into the living room, the window was broken and on the couch laid a
glass bottle with a paper tied to it with rope. Scared and shocked she went up
to the couch and unraveled the paper. ‘Tracy your time is coming. Scared?’
terrified she dialed 911 and sat down hysterically. She checked all the doors
and windows, whether they were locked or not. At first she could not believe it
but then the realization dawned upon her like a nightmare. Someone was
threatening her, she was being watched. The phone call, the hooded guy who
spilled coffee over her and now this, it all pointed towards one conclusion and
it made her tremble with fear. The cops came a while later and she explained
everything that had happened lately. A patrol car stayed outside her house that
night and the next morning the broken glass was replaced by new one. She had to
be careful from now on. She knew why this all was happening. Somebody had
discovered about her investigation into the Wisconsin Ghost Gang case. It was a
gang thought to be responsible for all the crimes taking place in Milwaukee,
but then it was just a theory. A little after her starting the investigation a
secret source came up which assured her to lead her to the discovery of
evidence which proved the gangs presence and what the FBI had been unable to
find. Her investigations were leading her somewhere from where there was no
going back. Tracy thought it was not wise to trust anyone but just her best
friend Richard who worked at the FBI. He and Tracy were the only souls that
knew about her secret and now someone knew it too. She called Richard and told
him about her fear. He assured her that it could not be possible but it wasn’t
enough to calm her down.
In
the coming days she visited some places where the source had mentioned the
evidence would be. It was shocking what she find. Photographs of dump sites
where there was blood everywhere and bodies were scattered, warehouses where
the victims were held, torture cells and much more atrocious things. She was
provided the addresses by the source of their ammunition storage places. She
was very queer to know who the source was, and believed it was someone from the
inside of the gang but was not sure. Tracy kept copies of all the evidence in a
brown box at her house and the real evidence were with her all day long. She
saw a man at the ammunition storage and followed her that day. His car, the
same one that followed her the night she called the cops, stopped in front of a
warehouse east of Lake Wisconsin and he stepped out. As he was opening the back
of the car, what Tracy saw almost made her faint. It was a body, of a girl,
covered in blood. He took it out, dragged it to the lake and threw it inside
the water. After that he went inside the warehouse and she heard sounds of
laughter and screams from inside after some time. Horrified Tracy raced back to
her car and went to Richards’s house. As soon as he opened the door she flung
into his arms and started crying quietly. After calming down she told
everything to him and he too was alarmed but in a different sense, she decided
to go the police but he stopped her and said it was too early. Later that day
she got a letter telling her the gang was moving drugs and their victims
through the Wisconsin highway and they did that at midnight every Saturday. She
kept it to herself and didn’t even tell David. Lucas wasn’t home as yet, he was
coming that Sunday. So Tracy thought it would all be over before he came home.
That Saturday she left her home at eight, dropped David at her aunts for the
night and went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. After dinner, she drove
aimlessly until it was nearly eleven o’clock. It was time to leave and prepare
for collecting the last piece of evidence and she thought at last she could
hand it over to the police and the gang would be busted. It was as easy as she
thought it was and that too without any help. She parked her car behind the
trees off road and waited for the gangs move. It was one and they had not
passed by yet. Half asleep she tried to stay awake and wandered into the forest
near the road so that she would not miss them. Then she heard it, some cars
stopped nearby and she hurried behind the bushes so she could not be seen. Some
men dressed in black holding shotguns stepped out and one of them looked
vaguely familiar. It was David. She felt sick to her stomach after seeing him.
He was one of them. The one whom she’d trusted from the beginning was the
traitor. He was the one feeding her Intel. He was always the one stopping her
from going to the police. Of course why would not he. He had every reason to
stop her. He was a gang member. ‘Tracy, come out dear, we won’t hurt you’
David’s voice said followed by muffled laughter. She was sweating profusely and
wanted to run. But where would she go? If she went for her car they would see
her and kill her. She could not outrun them because she was tired. She put her
camera in her pocket and tried to not make a sound and escape in the forest,
and hide until morning. She moved slowly and crept towards the trees. Looking
again and again around her for any sign of the gang but they were nowhere in
sight. Suddenly a shot was fired out of nowhere and it hit her in the shoulder.
She wailed with pain and started running. She saw a cabin far from there. She
ran towards it. She was on a dreadful spree. As she advanced towards the door
of the cabin, something hard hit her on the back of her head and she fell
unconscious. When she woke up her body was throbbing with pain and she was
lying inside a warehouse like place, unable to move her body even an inch.
Helplessly she cried softly. She was hit badly and abducted. Nobody knew where
was she and they would never find her. Lucas, the thought of him made her heart
ache badly. He would be left in awe after finding that she was missing. Nobody
would be ever able to find out about the gang and uncover the hideous crimes
they had done. Hours passed by and nobody came in. She thought maybe they went
away to get something. She fell asleep crying. When she woke up, the pain was
gone and she was feeling a bit better. The door was unlocked and there was no
one outside. This was her chance and it was not going to come to her again.
Debilitated and disturbed deeply she pulled her chair to the glass that was
nearby on the stool and broke it with a little nudge from her leg. She picked
up the broken glass piece and cut the rope. Her hands were bleeding now, badly.
She tore a piece of cloth from the table cloth and wrapped it around the hand
to stop the bleeding. It did, after a while. She gathered her strength and got
up.
Stumbling
on her way through the forest to the police station she kept on crying. When
she went there the detective recognized her at once and helped her get medical
aid at once. She told them everything that had happened. About the evidence box
at her house, about Richard’s involvement and how they abducted her and hit
her, the warehouse and the bodies at Lake Wisconsin. Lucas was getting paranoid
about the whereabouts of his wife and went to the station at once after getting
a call from there which told him about her being found and safe. Seeing him
made all of her pain go away and they went into a timeless embrace. She cried
until she was feeling relieved. Next day the headlines on the news were
‘Pulitzer winning journalist uncovers the mysterious gang behind crimes in
Wisconsin’. She had done it at last; she’d won and escaped from the dreadful
spree.
