Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Chapter 1

     It was just past midnight on one of Illinois’s many country roads when Eddie noticed the fire burning a quarter mile ahead on the road.  As a driver for an Anna Marie Cosmetics research facility, it was his job to ferry test animals from Midway Airport to the facility outside of Rockford.  He rarely took the back roads but it was Thanksgiving weekend and the expressways were jammed with drivers trying to either escape family gatherings or head to them at the last minute.  Eddie could only think about his wife’s stuffed turkey that practically melted in his mouth and the mounds of mashed potatoes he consumed each year.  Tomorrow was going to be the feast to end all hearty feasts at his household.  The images in his mind were enough to make his stomach roar with hunger and being stuck in the holiday traffic was not appealing to him in the least.  It didn’t help that the state was doing major construction on I-90, narrowing each direction down to one lane for six miles.
Eddie slowed the truck down and stopped fifty feet from what appeared to be several tree branches that were lit on fire and strewn across the road, blocking him from getting across.  He sighed heavily and banged on the back of his cabin, trying to quiet the small animals that were located in the back.  He was already late getting back to the facility and now he was going to have to backtrack and find another route out of here.
“Teenagers,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
Shifting his weight toward the driver’s side window, Eddie reached for the cellphone in his back pocket to call the fire in.  As he leaned closer to the door, Eddie glanced at the window, which was quickly glossing over with condensation from his labored breathing.  That’s when his eyes caught sight of a dark figure emerging from the shadows off the side of the road.  The glow of the fire illuminated a slender person dressed all in black but Eddie couldn’t make out whether the person was a man or a woman thanks to a pig mask that covered their entire face.  Eddie jumped back in his seat, jerking hard on his seatbelt, as he noticed the handgun that the masked figure was holding at its side.
His heart raced as the pig-face took a few slow steps toward the truck, each step seeming to give the person more confidence because the gun was now pointing straight at Eddie.  They were both frozen in place for what seemed like an eternity.  It was as if whoever it was was trying to figure out what to do next.
“Get out,” came a soft, muffled voice that Eddie barely heard through the pig mask.
Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, wishing this would all just go away.  The animals wailing in the back and the crackling of the fire were the only noises that Eddie could hear over the fierce pounding of his own heart.
“Get out!” the pig-face repeated more forcefully.
Eddie nodded, unbuckled his seat, reached for the door, and pulled on the handle, swinging the door open.  He nervously fumbled around a bit, trying to prop his stocky build against the doorframe in order to pull himself out.
The person in the black hoodie took a step back and shifted their balance on the gravel along the roadside.  Against the backdrop of the fire that crackled and popped, the pig mask was even more menacing than the gun.  Eddie pictured every bad horror movie his wife had ever made him watch and cursed himself for adding more mental images of what might happen.  Lord, his heart was beating fast!
Eddie stood with his arms raised to the sky but his legs felt like rubber.  He wasn’t sure if he could stand for much longer.
“Open the back,” the figure ordered, waving the gun toward the truck.
The back?  Oh, god, was he going to die surrounded by the animals whose fates had looked less promising than Eddie’s just five minutes earlier?
“Please, I’ll give you the wallet – anything – just don’t do anything crazy,” Eddie pleaded, but he supposed that ship had sailed the moment a person would put on a pig’s mask on a day that wasn’t Halloween.  He still hadn’t moved from his spot.
“Move,” the pig-face said, shaking the gun at Eddie.
Eddie nodded and walked toward the truck’s rear door, frantically looking around for anyone who might come to his rescue.  Besides the car lights streaming along the backed-up interstate in the distance, there were no other car lights to be seen.
“Open the door.”
Eddie turned toward the truck and began unlocking the heavy metal pad that kept the door held down.  He then pulled the creaky, rust-covered door upward.  It slid up the track and made a loud clanging noise when it came to a stop.  The noise startled the masked figure before it swiftly regained its composure, now gripping the gun with both hands.
“Get in there and open the cages,” came the pig-face’s next command.
Eddie’s face scrunched up in confusion as he glanced over at his captor.
“What?  Look, just take my wallet, please, and leave.  I promise -,”
Now, damn it!  Unlock the cages, now, or else.”  The pig-face shook the gun again, as if it had to remind Eddie it still held the weapon in its hands.
Whoever this person was, despite the muffled effect the mask was having on their voice, Eddie could make out a more falsetto pitch.
“Look, kid, the cops will be here soon, just go,” Eddie begged.
“I’m not a fucking kid!  Get in there,” the figure repeated and this time Eddie could tell they were trying to speak in a deeper tone.
Hoping to calm the figure down, Eddie complied and got into the truck’s interior.  Slowly, he began unlocking the cages of the various rabbits, mice, and guinea pigs that were cowering in confusion.  As a few of the cage doors began to swing open, some of the animals began to leap out and onto the truck’s floor.  Eddie seemed to recoil in fear of catching something from them but kept unlocking the cages as the masked figure stood silently outside the doorway.  One by one, the animals hopped, jumped, and scurried off of the truck, running past their hooded liberator, in a mad dash for freedom.
Once all the animals had been freed, Eddie turned toward the pig-face and raised his hands as if to say, “I’m done, what next?”
The pig-face took a few steps back and motioned toward the door.
“Close yourself inside the truck,” the figure paused before adding, “and toss out your phone.”
Crap.
When Eddie heard the figure tell him to close himself inside, he figured he was home free.  All he had to do was just call the cops after he was left alone.  Not any more.
He reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out his cell, and held it out for the pig-face to take.
“Slide it over, fat man,” the figure said with more confidence now that their objective had been met.
Eddie did what he was told and slid the phone across the floor, a loud metal rattling echoing through the truck.  The pig-face took the phone, took five steps back, and threw it into the acres of wheat fields that lined the stretch of road.  Eddie could hear a distant banging of his phone as it hit the hardening November soil.  It was going to take him forever to find that damn thing.
The pig-face told Eddie to close the door and once Eddie was alone in the pitch black, he could hear footsteps moving along the side of the truck followed by a light clanging.  Eddie squinted his eyes, not knowing why he needed to squint his eyes in pitch black, and tried to hear what the pig-face figure was doing outside.  He got his answer within moments as the familiar hiss of an aerosol can could be heard.  Somebody was spraypainting the side of his work truck.
Eddie collapsed onto the truck floor and gave a loud exhale as the figure sprayed up and down the side of the truck.  Once the masked figure finished painting, it called out to Eddie:
“Count to fifty – loud – before coming out.  If we don’t hear counting, we’ll come back and do worse.”
We?  Was this fool bluffing or what?
Eddie complied and began counting.
“1… 2… 3… 4…”
Eddie heard a loud pop followed by a long hissing noise from the back of the truck.  A rear tire had just been slashed.  He really wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
“4?” The figure shouted.
“5… 6… 7…”

Detective Trevor Daniels approached the cordoned-off crime scene with an equal mix of confusion and intrigue.  It wasn’t every day he came across a crime scene as odd as this one out in one of Illinois’s quieter corners.  There were the drug busts, the murders, and thefts, of course, but attacking some cosmetic’s truck?  The scene was already covered by a number of uniformed officers, a forensics crew, a fire truck, and an ambulance crew tending to a pudgy middle-aged man.  There was a surprising lack of reporters at this point but Daniels supposed that that would be short-lived once the temperatures grew a bit more inviting as the day wore on.
Or maybe only the police had to work on Thanksgiving.  His girlfriend was going to kill him if he didn’t get home by the time her parents showed up for dinner.
He flashed his badge as the uniformed officer lifted the police tape up for Daniels to walk under.
“Welcome to the great animal escape of 2011, detective,” came a call from the front of the parked truck.
Detective Daniels was able to pull his eyes away from the spraypainted message that was scrawled across the truck long enough to see his partner of ten years, Detective Mike Eddington, approach him.  The detective, five years younger than Daniels, still looked the same as he had when he first joined the force.  Daniels absentmindedly rubbed his slowly expanding waistline and tried to remember when he’d last been to the gym.
“What the hell is all of this, Mike?” Daniels asked, waving his arm at the truck.
Detective Eddington held up a finger as he flipped through his notepad.
“At just around midnight, Edward Knampf, was heading northbound on his way to the Anna Marie Cosmetic’s research facility just outside of Rockford -,”
“The what research facility?” Daniels interrupted.
A firefighter that was walking by stopped in his tracks.
“Anna Marie Cosmetics.  Some big beauty company based in the Rockford area,” the older firefighter replied.
Both detectives looked at him with a sly smile but he just rolled his eyes and held up his ring finger.
“Being married for twenty-two years means you pick up a few things from your wife, detectives.”
“God help us,” Daniels shook his head.
“May I continue?” Eddington asked as Daniels nodded.
“The driver sees a fire blocking the road and pulls to a stop here,” he pointed to the truck before continuing, “and moments later, a masked figure dressed all in black emerged somewhere from this side of the road.”
The two detectives looked out at the tall stalks of golden wheat that lined the side of the road, half-expecting the same perp to emerge from the overgrown fields that hadn’t been harvested.
“Anyone own the fields here?”
“Not since the former owner died and nobody was left the property so it went to the bank.  Anyway, the figure, wearing a pig mask -,”
“I’m sorry?” Detective Daniels interrupted yet again.
“A pig mask.  Can I finish?”  Detective Daniels nodded.  “The figure walked up to the driver holding a gun in their hand and demanded he exit the vehicle.  He complied and then Babe the pig asked him to open the back door of the truck.  Once he did, Babe asked him to release all the passengers and when he finished his job, Babe had him close the door on himself.”
Detective Daniels had made his way to the back of the truck and made a cursory look around the inside.  Small little cages lined the walls of the truck while animal droppings covered the ground.
“When did the call come in?”
Detective Eddington glanced at his notepad.
“Two.”
Daniels looked at his watch and hit the LED backlight.  Four-thirty in the morning.  His body was not loving these early mornings any more.
“Why didn’t our mystery figure lock the door?  If it wasn’t locked then why did the driver wait to call 911?  Did he have to walk to the nearest gas station?”  Daniels looked around the area for the nearest gas station sign but saw nothing.
“He said that Babe asked for his cell phone and ended up tossing it into the field.  It took him that long to find where his cell had landed.”
“Lucky guy.  Good thing his cell still worked after hitting the soil.  Did the techs get anything yet?” Daniels pulled out a notepad and began taking down Eddington’s recap as well as a few thoughts of his own.
“No track marks so far and nothing from the fields but since the driver can’t be absolutely sure where the figure emerged from, it’s going to take some time.”  Eddington tapped his notepad and looked around before adding, “There’s a lot of field to comb through.”
Daniels grunted his agreement.
The two walked over to the pudgy man the EMTs had been helping and introduced themselves to Edward Knampf.  Daniels proceeded to ask Edward many of the same questions again and could tell Edward was getting a tad annoyed by the redundancy.
“Did you recognize the voice at all?” Daniels asked.
“No, I could barely make out what he, she – whatever – said because of that damn mask.  I don’t know many people who’d go around hijacking test subject animals, sorry,” Eddie huffed.
Thanks to Eddie’s haggard look, with his scraggly rust red beard and his hair that shot out in a hundred different ways, he looked like he had been a test subject himself.
“Just going over everything, Edward, okay?  Did you hear any engines start up after you were put into the truck’s interior?”
“None,” Eddie paused, “but I thought I heard rocks being ridden over.  Kind of like they were riding a bike or something.”
Daniels had noted there weren’t many housing developments in this area, just businesses along the expressway and a few farms.  If somebody rode a bike, they would’ve gotten a good workout.
“Do you often take the back roads instead of the expressway?”  It was one of the first questions to pique Daniels’ curiosity.  If he didn’t, then how did the perp know where to lay his trap?  If he did, just how many people knew of his route?  Daniels hoped it wouldn’t be a long list.
Edward shook his head but pointed toward the expressway.
“The last month or so I’ve been taking this road only when the traffic’s gotten bad.  Anna Marie only gets their shipment of animals every Wednesday night, however, and I drive them straight to the facility.”
A pattern in the driver’s routine wouldn’t be hard for someone to follow if they were following him long enough.  But a month’s wait before striking?  That was some heavy duty surveillance for your average heist.  Daniels asked if Edward took the same trip at the same time and he confirmed that he generally did, barring any traffic delays.  So the perp could’ve just sat around and waited for Edward to pass by and if anyone else happened to arrive on the scene first, they could’ve just snuck away amongst the fields without anyone seeing them.
“Did the person who held you up say or do anything odd?” Eddington asked as Daniels scribbled furiously in his notepad.
“You mean besides wear a pig mask?  I don’t think so,” Eddie replied before noting, “but they did say ‘we’ before leaving.”
Daniels looked up from his notepad and looked at Eddington who just shook his head and shrugged.
“Did you see or hear anyone else other than the person who held you up?”
“No, but I wasn’t going to tempt fate and find out.”
“Fair enough.  Well, Mr. Knampf, once they’re done with you here, you’re free to go.  We’ll be in contact if we have any other questions.  If you think of anything else, just give us a call, okay?” Daniels said, handing Edward his card and sliding his notepad into his jacket pocket.
The two detectives were heading to confer with the techs when Edward suddenly called out behind them.
“Hey, detective!  I couldn’t tell much but I did notice that the person had a higher pitched voice.”
Daniels and Eddington shared the same expression as they looked at each other before looking back at the driver.  Edward continued with his thought.
“For a moment there, I almost thought I was being held-up by a kid, if that helps,” Edward shrugged.
Daniels took the moon-bathed scene in one more time as the wind whipped his thick blonde hair around.  What a clusterfuck, he thought.

The same morning Alexandra Arcos came stumbling down the stairs of her two-story home in the Chicago suburb of Roselle, craving the strong coffee her mother had already begun brewing.  The twenty-two-year-old barely slept after her late night in Rockford.  The images of the truck driver staring at her with his terrified eyes and the animals rushing past her were still fresh in her mind.  Alexandra rubbed her eyes before looking up at the family photos of two pasty-skinned adults with their petite Chinese daughter they adopted which lined the walls.  The scenes of her childhood seemed to clash with the scenes from last night.
She passed the upright piano her family had inherited from Alexandra’s grandmother two years ago and ran her fingers across the ivory keys, hoping the sound would keep her mind from wandering back to last night.  It had been her intention to learn how to play it eventually.  Maybe after the holidays, she thought.
“Good morning, Alex, and Happy Thanksgiving,” came her father’s voice from the kitchen.  “We thought you were going to be late for work.”
Alexandra grumbled, running her hand through her short-cropped, jet-black hair, as she entered the kitchen to find her dad, Nathan, sitting at the table and already on his laptop.  Her mother, Ophelia, was running around the kitchen, furiously making herself the meal she would have at work.  Ophelia glanced up at Alexandra, smiled, and nodded toward the coffee.
“Pot’s all set.”
Alexandra shuffled to the fridge, passing her father and briefly glancing at the news article he was reading at the table.  As she passed by, she caught a glimpse of a headline titled, “Vigilante Frees Animal Test Subjects”, but was still in her morning haze and it didn’t quite register.  It wasn’t until she had opened the fridge and reached in for the almond milk creamer that her eyes bugged-out.  Her heart kicked into overdrive when she stood back up and closed the fridge door behind her.
“Whatcha reading, dad?” Alexandra had to choke back the raised tone in her voice as she headed for the coffee.  Not that she needed the caffeine boost now.
“About some nutjob what else?” Nathan shrugged and shook his head without looking up.
Alexandra nodded but didn’t want to push the topic.  She continued getting coffee as her mom whizzed past her, grabbing her keys, travel mug, purse, and every other thing she needed before heading to the law office.  This was the pace Ophelia had maintained for the majority of Alexandra’s life.  It was the main reason Ophelia and Nathan had decided to adopt Alexandra from China when she was only two years old.  Ophelia, a self-described workaholic, simply didn’t have the time to have a baby the old-fashioned way.  Not that Alexandra minded, having grown used to the pace of her mom’s job and finding no problem with the money it brought in.  It was, after all, the reason Alexandra had received that sweet motorbike for her previous birthday.
“You were at Melissa’s late,” Ophelia said on one of her pass-bys.  Melissa was Alexandra’s best friend since kindergarten and her go-to cover story whenever Alexandra needed one.
“She needed help with Shakespeare and for some reason she thought that since my mom’s name was Ophelia, I had some secret understanding of his works,” Alexandra replied, having rehearsed this line a few dozen times.
“That girl’s going to need a lot more help if she thinks that.  And she wants to be a nurse?  God help us all,” Ophelia called out, exiting the kitchen. “See you tonight!”
“Don’t forget that we’re having Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow since your mom’s going to be at work all day,” Nathan said to Alexandra in-between sips from his “#1 Dad” coffee mug.
Alexandra grunted her response at her dad, who was still reading over the news.  Alexandra was burning with desire to know what that article said but she didn’t want to elicit a diatribe from her dad.  Anything related to animals had the potential to elicit a long conversation.  But curiosity was getting the best of Alexandra and she was running out of time before she had to be at work, too.
“So, what nutjob were you reading about today, dad,” Alexandra asked, taking a seat across from him.
Nathan glanced up, looking over his black-rimmed glasses, before shaking his head at his daughter.
“Last night some idiot held up some cosmetic company’s truck outside of Rockford and released all of the animals they were going to use for testing.
Alexandra tried to fain shock and hoped she was doing a good job of it.  Acting was never her strong suit.  She asked if anyone was hurt but Nathan shook his head, pushing his laptop away as he leaned back in his seat.
“No, thank god, but this kind of thing pisses me off.  Vigilantism is not helpful when legitimate organizations and ordinary citizens are trying to make real change against animal cruelty.”
“What?  Didn’t you say they freed the test animals?  That sounds like something real to me,” Alexandra said, reaching for the laptop and reading over the article.
“You’re taking that debate team role from last year too seriously, Alex.” Her dad winked at her before continuing on.  “Perhaps I could get behind it, in theory, but the animal right’s movement does not need some insane person going around and holding people up at gunpoint.  Now every vegan, vegetarian, or just anyone who cares about animals will be looked at like we’re dangerous and insane.  We’re already scrutinized and criticized enough as it is.  Nobody’s going to take us seriously with this sort of extremism going on.”
Alexandra pondered this for a few moments.  The gun might not have been her smartest move but at least it was just a toy gun; and at least for her sake, the guy couldn’t tell that in the dark.  She was starting to feel anxious about the whole thing, half-expecting the cops to come bursting through the front door at any moment. She got back up from her chair and walked to the sink just to keep herself moving about.  If she was going to have a fan, she figured it would’ve been her father, Mr. Animal Activist himself.
“Dad, I don’t think you have to worry about it.  You’re the head of the largest animal advocacy group in the entire Midwest.  This is just one small person,” Alexandra stated as she grabbed a banana and orange off the fruit basket on the kitchen island.
“Vice-president,” Nathan corrected, “but like the old saying goes, it only takes one bad apple.”
Alexandra had been planning this for over a month and thought she had taken every precaution possible.  From what the article said, they didn’t have any leads and had only recovered three of the two dozen animals that were in that truck.  Score one for the good guys, right?  She was starting to get annoyed at her dad for not being capable of seeing the good in all of this.
She was about to exit the room to take a shower when her dad added, “Did you also see what the vandal wrote on the truck?  I might not agree with their tactics but they do have a flare for the dramatic.”
Alexandra spun around and looked up at her father, who was now leaning back, folding his arms with a grin spreading across his face.
The Animal Uprising Begins.  Somebody’s been watching a bit too much Planet of the Apes, huh?”
Alexandra smirked.  Ah, the joys of having a film buff for a father.

The two detectives were back at the police station in Rockford and had collapsed into their chairs.  Daniels groaned as he ran his hands over his face while Eddington hunched over his desk and began tapping his cheap plastic pen on the desk.  They hadn’t gained much information in the last six hours but they did find an abandoned bike that was located about three miles down the road.  Unfortunately, they hadn’t been able to gain any information off it so far.
That’s when the phone on his desk rang for the first time today.
“Ah, eight o’clock and your first call, Trev.  Reporter or the lab?” Eddington asked.
Daniels scoffed.
“This early?  Reporter.”
“I’ll get the coffee then,” Eddington replied, getting up from his seat and heading for the coffeemaker.
Daniels picked up the phone and identified himself.
“Hello, this is Stacy Walters from WNCU-5.  I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the Animal Avenger story?” came the perky voice from the other end of the line.
“Pardon me?  The what?” Daniels asked after rolling his eyes.
“The Animal Avenger.  Wasn’t an Anna Marie Cosmetics truck held up this morning and weren’t the test animals being shuttled on the truck freed?” the intrepid reporter inquired.
The detective let out a long sigh.  He thought all the reporters were being directed to his boss, Sergeant Richard Stevens.  Daniels hated dealing with reporters.
“My boss released a statement about the case earlier this morning, ma’am, and as for the name, Animal Avenger, I can say that such labels have not been applied by anyone associated with the case.  I also strongly urge you to refrain from crowning our suspect with a title,” Daniels said, grabbing the coffee cup from Eddington’s hand and raising it up in a toast.
“It’s not me naming your suspect.  It’s popped-up on Twitter about three hours ago, detective, and I’m sure it’s already made a splash over the Internet.  I’m just playing catch-up for the twelve o’clock news,” the reporter corrected.
Suddenly, the detective sat up in his seat and snapped his fingers at his partner.
“Twitter has already grabbed onto this?  It’s just a small time theft, Misses…?”
“Ms. Walters, detective, and it might be a small time theft but this is the digital age and word travels fast when there’s a message associated with a crime,” Stacy Walters said.  “‘The Animal Uprising Begins’?  Pretty bold statement, wouldn’t you agree, detective?”
The smooth confidence in the reporter’s voice was starting to irk Daniels.  If it hadn’t been for the spraypainting, this case probably wouldn’t have attracted any attention at all.
“It’s just somebody’s delusional writings.  It means nothing.”
“So this person is crazy,” the reporter pressed on.
“I didn’t say that,” Daniels shot back.
“Is it true that the getaway vehicle was a bicycle?  Or how about the fact that the person wore a pig mask during the crime?”
Daniels’ heart jumped into his throat momentarily and he mouthed the word, “fuck” to Eddington.  The police left out any mention of the perp’s method of transportation or the unusual choice of headgear.  This reporter was good; she wasn’t getting all of her news from Twitter, not all of it anyway.  These kinds of details could only come from someone within the investigation. Terrific.
“We’re not commenting on what type of vehicle the suspect was using at the time of the hold-up or what they were or were not wearing.  And as far as comments go, that is all I can say.  Have a good one,” Daniels said, hanging up the phone despite hearing Ms. Walters’ voice still calling out from the other end.
“I think this is going to really be more interesting than we thought, Mike,” Daniels sighed.

Blood was splashed all over the plastic board as the knife cut through the sinewy flesh with relative ease.  Each slice collapsed neatly on top of the other slice as more and more blood oozed out.  This was a scene familiar to Alexandra, meat-cutter extraordinaire for the small Illinois grocery store chain, Simply The Best.
As a vegan it wasn’t the most pleasant of scenes that she had to deal with on a daily basis, but she did her job because it got her the money she needed.  Her parents, in an attempt to teach her about responsibility and independence, had refused to pay her entire school tuition.  They paid a small percentage but that still left a lot to cover, which is why she had to take this semester off.  If she was ever going to go back to college next semester, she needed all the money she could get, and in this economy, a crappy job was all her crappy job skills allowed her to attain.  A job’s a job, was what she had convinced herself day after day.
Plus, seeing all of that cut-up dead animal flesh just sitting out for customers to pick from helped to reinforce her veganism.  It also didn’t hurt that the typical omnivore she saw walk up to the counter was nearly ten times the size of Alexandra, who was as thin as a toothpick compared to these people.
Alexandra was cutting slabs of meat for Simply The Best’s customers when John, her coworker in the meat department, came strolling into the back room.  If there was anyone she wanted to have on her cutting board, it was John.  The man seemed to go out of his way to irritate her.
“Hey, Sunflower, once you’re done there, come out and help some of our customers.  We’re a bit slammed out there thanks to last minute arrivals,” he said in a tone that he must’ve thought was charming but wasn’t.
‘Sunflower’ was the little nickname he had given her when she first began working there.  Alexandra presumed he thought the sunflower was an exotic Asian plant and was the only thing he could use as a nickname.  John wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but he was a tool, thanks to having long ago drunk and smoked most of his brain cells away.  John was the stereotypical white suburbanite that had no idea about life outside of his small community and whatever he saw on the television.  His ignorance had once been amusing but had since grown to piss her off.
After having finished in the back, she came through the swinging door to the meat counter and saw several customers standing around the department’s glass counter.  It was surprising to see how many people left Thanksgiving shopping to the last possible moment.  Alexandra figured these were the people who didn’t know how long it took to cook a turkey and were now in for any last minute alternative they could get their hands on.  Just seeing them made her feel even more exhausted than she already was.  It took a lot out of her to fake the level of cheerfulness customer service required out of her.
“Can I help anyone?” Alexandra asked, barely able to see above the countertop.
A large woman, who looked like she was trying to break a world record for how much weight she could gain, came waddling up to the counter and pointed at the case.
“I want two pounds of that,” she said.
From Alexandra’s side, she couldn’t tell what “that” she was pointing at.  There were about five different things sitting in the general area where she was pointing her chubby finger.
“Two pounds of what?” Alexandra hated it when she had to play mind reader.
“Of the ribeye!” the woman huffed.
Alexandra clenched her teeth as she leaned into the case to grab two of the ribeyes that were already cut up into one pound steaks.  She was about to wrap the meat when the lady spoke up.
“Can you also cut the fat off the ribeye?”
“Of course,” Alexandra said before turning her back to the woman.  “She sure picked the wrong item if she’s trying to watch what she eats.”
Alexandra looked down at the meat as she took the knife and gracefully sliced off the thin layer of white fat that wrapped around the left side of each ribeye.  Even after removing the visible fat from the outer edge, Alexandra could still see the thick fat deposits that ran throughout the two steaks.  If this lady thought she was now going to be eating something healthier than what it was just a minute ago, she was in for a rude awakening.  She might’ve extended her lifespan by five seconds.
Just because Alexandra excelled at her job and was liked by everyone around her didn’t mean that she didn’t have any qualms about her means of financial support.  Though she reminded herself daily that a job was a job, to her, this was just as big of a crime perpetrated on the masses as the crime she supposedly committed earlier that morning.
Her breathing quickened at the thought of what she had pulled off twelve hours earlier.  So far Alexandra hadn’t seen any details about the suspect other than that they wore a pig mask and dressed all in black.  She hadn’t come across anything on the Internet that gave much more.  Alexandra thought she had put enough preparation into the liberation and the subsequent getaway to ensure she had made a clean exit, but she had seen plenty of crime shows to know that the cops never shared everything with the public.
She cleared her mind of her senseless worrying long enough to finish serving the woman her two ribeyes.  The woman swiped the packages away from Alexandra while glaring at her with her beady little mole eyes, and grumbled something once she saw the price on the package.
“It doesn’t cost this much when I shop elsewhere,” she mumbled as she left the counter.
“That’s because not every place can serve grade D cow,” Alexandra retorted, biting her tongue once she had said it.
The woman, who was already red in the face from the strain on her body, turned a lighter shade of purple upon hearing the dreaded c-word.  Horror swept across her face at the thought that she was eating the meat of a once-living animal but she said nothing and only hurried away as quickly as possible.
“You do know we’re not supposed to remind customers they’re eating animals, right, Sunflower?” John asked, already knowing the answer.
“She should know what she’s eating since she’s becoming one with each passing day,” Alexandra said.
When Alexandra first started working at Simply The Best she thought it was odd that they were discouraged in the strongest of terms against using certain words when referring to the meat they were selling.  The company went out of their way to avoid reminding the customer they were digesting cows, chickens, or pigs – now referred to as beef, poultry, and pork – or the process by which they received the meat from these animals.  Surely the people still knew what they were eating even if they avoided using the words, Alexandra had thought, but the first time she accidentally said the word ‘slaughter’ she was proven wrong.  The customer had looked at Alexandra with the same horror that the morbidly obese woman had given her just now.  Apparently, people really could fool themselves into believing or not believing anything they set their minds to
This little incident was probably going to result in another discussion with her supervisor.
After Alexandra returned to the back cutting room, Juan, a coworker of hers in the meat department, came barreling through the swinging doors with an empty, bloody tray from the front.  When he noticed Alexandra standing at the sink, he shook his head and looked away to conceal a smile.
“What’s so funny?” Alexandra asked.
“You and that crazy brain of yours.  Why do you try pickin’ fights with the customers?” Juan said, dropping the bloody tray into the sink full of hot soapy water.
Nobody knew she was vegan at her store and she wanted to keep that secret to herself for as long as she could manage.  Not that it was necessarily a bad thing if they did know, but she already spent enough time going through the same million questions that Melissa and her other friends asked about what a vegan was and she didn’t want to deal with the same repetitive questions.  Besides, if she even bothered to explain it, she doubted many of them would understand fully or bother to care.  Even though Juan was smarter than the average person, she still preferred her secrets.
“I’m just tired of ignorance being coddled in this world.  If she can’t handle the fact that she’s eating a once-living creature, then she shouldn’t be eating it at all,” Alexandra bemoaned, vigorously scrubbing the dishes.  She glanced up at Juan, who stood-in at the same five-and-a-half feet as she was, and who was now standing close enough for Alexandra to get a good look at his piercing blue eyes.  She quickly pulled her eyes away from Juan and focused on the dishes again.  She felt her heart flutter for a moment but for the first time that day, it wasn’t because of last night.
Juan patted her head as he walked toward the swinging doors.
“So much rage for such a small chica,” he laughed, giving her one last look.
Alexandra lifted her arm out of the soapy water and extended her middle finger at him before he disappeared to the floor.

Nathan had managed to make it through most of his workday hidden away inside his small office, going through papers and crunching numbers on behalf of his charity organization, The Sacred Home.  In an office building that only had thirty people in it, interruptions were generally at a minimum but he kept glancing at his phone, pondering when the first Animal Avenger call would come in.  The only saving grace that Nathan could see in all of this was that it took place on Thanksgiving weekend.  However, it was only a matter of time before a donor, a reporter, or worse a protester would find a way of contacting Nathan.
On his lunch break Nathan spent nearly the entire hour looking over online articles that talked about the Animal Avenger, as the public was now calling the mystery figure at the heart of the case.  A Rockford-based television channel was even claiming that the figure was wearing a pig mask.  It seemed that Nathan’s earlier comment about the criminal being nuts was being generous.
Perhaps Nathan was being paranoid for no reason at all.  Since herbivores accounted for such a small percentage of the population the mainstream probably wouldn’t pay any attention to this small incident.  Since nobody was hurt, Nathan reasoned, who really gave a damn?
A knock came from his door as his boss, CEO of The Sacred Home, Mark Hastings, peered into the office.  Mark and Nathan had known each other since college at Northwestern, where they were both English lit majors.  Mark was the grand visionary whose big ideas matched his muscular build and sharp mind.  He was equally at home playing rugby or the protest line with Nathan.  They started The Sacred Home after spending years working for other various charities.  With Mark having a double major in business and Nathan having the natural charisma of a politician who could raise lots of money, they operated The Sacred Home like a well-oiled machine.  That machine had raised millions of dollars to help support anti-animal cruelty causes throughout the country in its entire five years of existence.
“Hey, Nate, got a minute?” Mark asked, already entering the room.  “We need to talk about how we’re going to deal with this so-called Animal Avenger.”
Despite being friends and business partners, they often clashed on matters dealing with policy.  Nathan now sat shocked that Mark of all people, a man who used to drop a thousand dollars in a single weekend during family trips to Vegas, was suddenly concerned over the same thing Nathan had been obsessing over the entire morning.
“Are you serious?  Have you gotten any calls?” Nathan asked, fiddling with his red tie as he leaned back into his chair.
“Just one from Darius but it’s enough that we should at least draft an e-mail to send out to our supporters.”
Darius was the charity’s biggest donor and was the only one capable of getting Mark into a tizzy.
“Should we really make this out to be more than it is?  If we discuss it, we’re just going to give this idiot unworthy airtime.  It’s beneath us, Mark.”
“It’s called having a sound defense.  We not only have to calm our supporters but calm our detractors who already think our charity isn’t important enough to take up the office space in this building.  If we, and every major anti-animal cruelty organization, distance ourselves from this guy, he’ll be isolated and viewed for what we all know him to be, a lone extremist not representative of the rest of us.  But we can’t just say nothing and hope this guy doesn’t get any traction.  My son already told me Animal Avenger is all over Twitter.  He’s getting out ahead of us and in business, that’s never good, Nate.”
Damn, Nathan thought, he always has an answer for everything.
“What about the donors who do condone what he’s doing?”
Now it was Mark’s turn to look peeved.  He could only muster a shrug before finding his answer.
“The sword will always have its followers.  It’s our job to show that the pen is still mightier, Nate.”
Nathan tossed his pen onto the desk and rocked several times before looking back up at Mark with a wry smile.
“Mrs. Sanders would’ve been proud of that line coming from her star pupil.  Okay, I’ll draft something up and send it out first thing tomorrow.”

Alexandra had arrived late to the coffee shop that was nearly devoid of customers by that point in the day, but Melissa didn’t seem to notice since she had been texting when Alexandra first showed up.  She collapsed into the sofa seat next to Melissa, who handed Alexandra her favorite chocolate soy latte drink without looking up from her cell.  You would’ve thought her best friend would’ve done more to acknowledge her presence since they hadn’t seen each other in nearly two weeks.
“Heaven,” Alexandra sighed, inhaling the coffee fumes from the cardboard cup.  She removed her shoulder bag and placed it on her lap before allowing herself a very slow sip.
“Thanks for showing up, doll,” Melissa said, finally putting her cell down.  She brushed her long brunette locks out of her face and blew Alexandra a kiss.
“Long day.  John kept staring at me and it was creeping me out.  Not to mention all the disgusting customers who were terribly out of shape asking for the biggest slabs of meat possible.”
Another sip of her latte and with each warm sip, Alexandra became more relaxed.
“Maybe if you would just stick up for yourself and tell John to shove it, he’d leave you alone.  The guy’s a weirdo.”
Alexandra shook her head, looking around the coffee shop and catching more than one set of eyes glancing at her.  She hated the attention but at least they weren’t leering at her like John.  It’s not like Alexandra understood what their fascination was with her.  In her mind, her breasts were small, her ass was bony, and her short-cropped hair often elicited jokes from Mel about looking too butch for most men.
“I don’t like confrontation, Mel.”
Her friend raised her arm in surrender.  John and her never-ending confrontations with him was a running topic they had talked about a number of times.  Melissa was always the bold, goal-oriented one of the two.  With the exception of the previous night’s activities, Alexandra had rarely sought confrontation.  She doubted she could’ve done it had she not come across the pig mask at the Halloween shop a month prior.
“And about the customers, not everyone can look as good as we do, doll, and that’s good on us!  It leaves more of them for us,” Melissa smiled, waving her arm out at the few other patrons still at the coffee shop.
Alexandra grabbed Melissa’s arm and held it down so people would stop looking at them.  Melissa laughed her usual carefree laugh while Alexandra just shook her head and snickered.
“Do you mean the boys or girls?” Alexandra wanted to know.
“Whoever tickles my fancy,” Melissa winked.  “There is this one pretty boy in my anatomy class that’s easy on the eyes.”
Alexandra laughed.  “Shouldn’t you be focused on your studies, Ms. Nurse-In-Training?”
Melissa pursed her lips together and made a loud noise as she pushed air through her lips.
“Work hard, play harder, my dear.  Is it too soon to ask him to play doctor?  Yes?”

Detectives Daniels and Eddington were still at their desks when the sun began to set.  Their day had consisted of verifying Edward’s story by visiting the cosmetics company’s research facility and interviewing numerous coworkers of Edwards.  So far, they hadn’t come up with anything unusual.  The company’s surveillance videos were also not very helpful since they were recorded over every week.  The last few trips Edward had made, the cameras had picked up nothing.  Tomorrow they would head to the airport and see if they could find anything more useful on that end.
“Look, we better get going.  It’s Thanksgiving and my girlfriend won’t let me live it down if I don’t at least make an appearance.  We’ll hit this tomorrow and see where we are.”
Eddington grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and turned his desk light off before joining his partner as they headed for the door.
“Having your traditional Thanksgiving meal, Mike?” Daniels asked as he slid his black wool coat on.
“Value Meal number four?  Nothing but the best for me,” he replied.
“How you keep your physique while eating that crap, I’ll never know,” Daniels laughed.
They were just at the door when the phone on Detective Daniels’ desk rang.  Both men stood there and gave each other a long stare as the phone continued to ring.
“The lab’s been closed for over an hour.  It’s probably just your girlfriend calling to yell at you,” Eddington reasoned.  He was always the optimist of the two.
Daniels turned back toward his desk and saw the red light flashing on his phone.  He drooped his shoulders in resignation and began jogging back to his desk.
“Detective Daniels speaking.”
“Hello, detective?  It’s Karen from the lab.  I have some news about the bike we received earlier this morning.  Sorry for the delay, but with the holiday and all, we’re a bit light on staff.”
Daniels was waving his hand in the air, urging Karen to move on with her point.
“It’s okay, Karen.  What do you have for us?”
Eddington bit his lower lip, dropped his coat on his chair before sitting down, and rested his head on his hand while he waited for Daniels to be done.
“There wasn’t much on that bike that we could use.  Most of it looked like it had been wiped clean of anything useable but whoever rode that bike missed a spot under the seat where you can adjust the height.  We found a few smudges but got one fingerprint off of it.”
“Oh, Thank god.  Tell me, did you already run it?” Daniels was bursting with their first real lead of the case.
Karen scoffed, “You’re doubting me?  Of course, detective, and the print belongs to someone in the database.  Someone must be getting his Christmas gift a bit early.  I’ll fax you over the details.”
Daniels was positively beaming as he placed the phone back in its place.  He looked up at Eddington who still looked annoyed at having to be there.
“Sorry, Mike, but it looks like we might not get to wait until tomorrow.  Want to go find our possible suspect?”

Alexandra and Melissa had talked for more than five hours as they walked along the streets of Schaumburg, a suburb just about forty minutes from downtown Chicago.  Since Melissa’s parents would rather spend their Thanksgiving in the Caribbean with their high school friends than spend it with Melissa, the girls had all the time in the world with each other.  They had talked about everything except the one subject Alexandra wanted to talk about.  She had to put up with her dad’s disapproving attitude that morning, throwing her for a loop, and she was looking for someone else’s view.
That’s when Melissa brought it up.
“So, veg-head, did you hear about the Animal Avenger?” Melissa laughed, shaking her hands about when she said the words ‘Animal Avenger’.
Alexandra was honestly shocked.
“Huh?”
“Where’ve you been, hun?  It’s all over the Internet.  I thought you would’ve seen it on one of your vegan blogs.  Hell, it even made normal news.”
Melissa pulled out her cell and quickly got online and pulled up an image of the truck that Alexandra had tagged.  Above the photo, in big bold type was the headline:

The Animal Avenger Strikes, Freeing Test Animals

Alexandra reread the headline five times before looking up at Melissa.  The headline was a bit corny but someone had given her a name.
Crap, why didn’t I think of a name first?  I could’ve done a lot better than that.
“I didn’t know they gave the guy a name.  So, uh, any new developments?” Alexandra asked, clearing her throat as they continued their walk.
“Just that some dude got messed up!” Melissa shouted.  “Well, not physically, but this Animal Avenger guy made the driver free all the animals that were going to be tested on.  How sweet is that?”
Alexandra had to contain herself.  Finally, someone who agreed with what she did.  It took everything in her not to exclaim, “It was me!  I stuck it to the man and liberated the animals,” but she had to keep a lid on that.  It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Melissa to keep her secret, but for some reason something inside of her was telling her to keep things to herself.  This wasn’t some WB show where she could spill all of her secrets to every person she ran into.  She still understood that she had committed a crime, even if it was a justified crime.
“So, you agree with what this guy did?”  She gripped her shoulder bag so hard that her knuckles were turning white.
“Hell yeah!  Don’t look so surprised, girlie, just because I eat bacon everyday doesn’t mean I think we should douse the animals in chemicals so I can make myself look beautiful. Jeez.”
Alexandra held up both hands in self-defense.
“Hey, preaching to the choir here.  I wish you could talk some sense into my dad, though.  You’d think he’d be telling the companies that they brought this upon themselves.  They’re the ones testing on living creatures, there are bound to be consequences for their actions.”
Melissa disagreed, or at least that’s what the look on her face told Alexandra.
“I don’t know, Alex, I mean you’re dad’s cool and all, but he’s Gandhi and this Animal Avenger is Batman.  There’s a big difference.”
“Besides one having actually existed and the other being a work of fiction?”
Melissa shoved Alexandra off the sidewalk as they turned down the street to Melissa’s house.
“Meaning, this Animal Avenger is throwing a monkey wrench into the years of work your dad’s put into the cause.”
“But they’re fighting for the same goal, Mel.  He can go about his methods and this Animal Avenger can go about his.  The public will respond to each and see who has the stronger message.”
Melissa held up a finger and waved it at Alexandra.
“But will they respond the way this Animal Avenger wants them to respond?”
Alexandra stopped in her tracks and pondered that, while images of angry mobs carrying scarecrows with pig masks burning in effigy ran through her mind.  Things could backfire, sure, but was the American public as unpredictable as her imagination could make them out to be?
She looked back up at her friend, who was unlocking the front door to her parent’s ranch-level home.
“Alright, so are you for or against this Animal Avenger,” she asked, following Melissa inside.
“Just playing devil’s advocate s’all.  I’m all for our righteous superhero; you know, rah, rah, and all that.”
Once they were inside, Alexandra dropped her bag on Melissa’s bed and went to have a late night shower.  She still smelled like the meat department and she wanted to wash the stink off of her.  She was nearly finished getting into her yoga pants and her faded Tegan and Sara t-shirt when she caught herself in the mirror.  She took a few minutes to stare at herself, trying to see what guys saw in her.  She wasn’t fat, she didn’t have acne scars, and she didn’t have to wear glasses.  She ran her hands over her stomach, her shirt having shrunk to a point where it no longer covered her past her belly button.  Plus, she could really pull off this laidback look.  Okay, so maybe there were a few things she did well to attract the opposite sex.  She stuck her tongue out at her reflection when a knock came from the bathroom door.
“Do you have anything for a headache?” Melissa called from the other side of the door.
“Check the side pouch of my bag,” Alexandra replied before resuming her humming.
A few seconds had gone by before she heard Melissa call out yet again.
“Jesus, which pouch?  This thing has about twenty of them!”
For some reason that’s when the warning bells went off inside her head.  She hadn’t removed the pig mask or the toy gun from her bag. Shit!  She hadn’t wanted her parents coming across them when she wasn’t home and thought they’d be safer with her but now she was regretting that decision.  Alexandra ran out of the bathroom at full speed down the hallway, hoping she could get to Melissa before she went rummaging through her bag.  She had been so exhausted from last night that she wasn’t thinking.
Stupid!  Keep making these fucking mistakes and you deserve to be caught by the cops, she cursed to herself.
Alexandra reached Melissa’s door just in time to see Melissa standing at the foot of her bed, staring down at the inside of the bag.  Alexandra wanted to yell out and say something but what could she say?  All she could do was stand in the doorway, mouth slack-jawed, and her stomach flipping over like a flapjack.  Slowly, as if she was worried about some unknown danger, Melissa reached into the bag and grabbed something from the bottom.  Despite knowing what Melissa had found, Alexandra still felt like someone punched her in the gut when she saw the pig mask staring at her as Melissa pulled it out.  Now it was Melissa’s jaw that drooped down as she stared at the mask.
Alexandra tried to say something but only a tiny squeak make it past her lips.  Melissa turned her head toward Alexandra, who saw that shock had turned into anger on her friend’s face.  She gripped the pig mask in her fist and shook it at Alexandra, still frozen in the doorway.
“What. The. Fuck, Alexandra?  What the hell is this shit??”

5 comments:

  1. Great story enjoyed the read..your gonna have me hooked waiting to see what's next! ST

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  2. I love it! It’s fantastic, and I can’t wait for the next chapter!!! I’m so excited!!!

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  3. WAITING for chapter 2!!!!! ST

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  4. Come on already...waiting over here for chapter 2!!! S.T.

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  5. Great story so far Matt! You write very well. Keep up the good work.

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