Orion3

By Wiehahn Taute

Three cunning scientists are on the verge of transforming humanitys very existence. With their Orion3 serum, the trio aims to give birth to a race of humans with special abilities ranging from the regeneration of lost limbs to unmatched intelligence and eidetic memory.

Two unsuspecting test subjects have their lives forever changed through a labyrinth of confusion, horror, shock, and amazement. Jack Turner and a man simply known as The Mexican, have their lives inexorably entwined with both men having to fight for not only their lives but for that in which they unequivocally believe.

Sheriff Ryan Adersen and Deputy Dave Donahue are desperately trying to put an end to the horrific killings in their beloved town. Will the duo be able to restore the peace, or will Clover Vale forever be cast in a shadow of death and hopelessness?

Orion3 is a morally disputed tale of good versus evil where the light does not always conquer the dark. Sometimes evil reigns to leave chaos in its wake. Sometimes death is dealt to those most undeserving. Yet sometimes it takes just one righteous man to vanquish the dark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481780469

Wiehahn Taute

Wiehahn Taute is an Industrial Psychologist for the South African National Defence Force. He was born in Kempton Park and rumour has it that at birth he laughed instead of cried. He lives in Pretoria and shares a home with a flamboyant imagination, a witty sense of humour, and a dog suffering from catatonic immobility.

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© 2013 by Wiehahn Taute. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/08/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-8045-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-8046-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Author  Introduction

Dedication

Part  One Three  Blind  Mice

1

2

3

4

Part  Two Special  Abilities

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Part  Three When  Worlds  Collide

16

17

18

Part  Four A  Faction  Of  Four

19

20

21

22

23

24

Part  Five Facing  The  Giant

25

26

27

28

29

30

Part  Six A  Bird  In  The  Hand

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

Part Seven Like  Father  Like  Son

39

Author  Introduction

Wiehahn Taute is an Industrial Psychologist for the South African National Defence Force. He was born in Kempton Park and rumour has it that at birth he laughed instead of cried. He lives in Pretoria and shares a home with a flamboyant imagination, a witty sense of humour, and a dog suffering from catatonic immobility.

Dedication

To all people who try and make the world a better place by being good to others.

Part  One

THREE  BLIND  MICE

‘But ye are forgers of lies,

ye are all physicians of no value.’

Job 13:4

1

In the peaceful little town of Clover Vale, nothing happened quite regularly. The biggest annual events were the changing of the seasons—not that it was celebrated in any way. With the exception of funerals there were never any other occasions that drew people together with expectant excitement. Clover Vale was small enough for the folks who enjoyed knowing everyone and big enough for the folks who didn’t. The townsfolk kept to themselves and went about their daily business with monotonous drabness. There were, of course, a few self-appointed officious individuals who regarded it their everyday duty to make sure that everybody else’s lives were organised in such a way that it provided entertainment to the locals.

When life in Clover Vale got too samey and dreary (which seemed the rule and not the exception) these meddling individuals would make sure the Clover Vale soap opera got interesting again by simply starting an ‘innocent’ rumour. Like when you had a cold it was because you probably had some life threatening disease and was, in fact, on your last legs. It was as if spreading rumours provided entertainment for those people whose lives were entangled in a dull routine of crossword puzzles and Sudoku.

Despite the lack of entertainment, many visitors and tourists flocked to Clover Vale during summer-time. The Misty Mountain, getting its name from the heavy mist that often rolled down from the mountain to town, surrounded Clover Vale with picturesque beauty. The Misty Mountain would often exhale its thick, foggy morning breath to blanket the town in a fresh, plush white down. On clear mornings, however, numerous mountain waterfalls would be visible from town, shimmering with energy and life. Hiking routes with various degrees of difficulty snaked up the lush mountain. The Willow River, adorned with flourishing flora along its banks, flowed along the periphery of town with neatly kept picnic and camping sites on its grassy rim.

At night, the only local pub, Night Owls, was merry with good music and high spirits. Spirits, of course, also referring to the consumable kind. Three kinds of customers visited the pub. The first kind included those who used work stress as an excuse to pop in at the pub to ‘ease the tenseness in their shoulders’ with a couple of beers. The second kind of customers were those who visited the pub to get away from their wives’ PMS. In fact, the only way to relax was to order a ‘PMS’—or better known as a pint and mouthful of spirits. The third kind of customer always came in with a smile and cheerfulness, their only aim being to simply have a good time and a couple of laughs with friends and comrades. Crime was something that always seemed to happen ‘once upon a time in a faraway place’. Clover Vale was a town which time forgot.

***

Sheriff Ryan Andersen was warming his big hands against the side of the boiling kettle. He wasn’t a big man but he had a charming smile, a larger-than-life sense of humour and a huge heart. He was staring out the kitchen window at the majestic mountain. He wouldn’t trade living in this peaceful town for all the money in the world. He moved here fifteen years ago at the age of forty to take up the position as sheriff and it didn’t take long for the townspeople to like and adore him. It was a quiet and beautiful town and yet it had enough excitement to keep him sane. At 55 he still had a full head of dark hair, passionate dark brown eyes and wrinkles around his often smiling eyes and mouth. The town was good to him and he tried to serve the people well. His wife fitted in nicely and a number of people attended her weekly book club meetings.

The sheriff’s phone rang just as he was pouring his mad-morning-magic into his favourite cup. It was 06:35 and his phone hardly ever rang this early. Contemplating the motive for such an early call, Sheriff Andersen’s thoughts took him back to when Bob Farley needed assistance. Four months ago, old Bob’s son, Peter, phoned him at round 07:00 asking if he would tow his dad’s pickup out of the river. Old Bob apparently got drunk the previous night, passed out behind the wheel and ended up, luckily, in a shallow bend of the Willow River. Until this day no one knows how old Bob ended up in the river—two miles away from his house and more than eight blocks away from Night Owls.

Three weeks ago the sheriff was awoken at 02:48 by a phone call from Mrs. Mary Kripke, complaining about a bunch of drunk teenagers across the street still partying to music which was, according to her, played by the devil himself. Mrs. Kripke was a widow who kept her title as ‘Mrs.’ and insisted on being addressed as such. She always complained about everything and never had anything nice to say about anything or anybody. She blamed the world for every mishap in her life and a lot of townsfolk thought of her as a paranoid recluse. It turned out that the teenagers weren’t having a drunken party but were merely skateboarding up and down the street with portable stereo sets. No black metal, or the like, was playing on arrival.

Sheriff Andersen had an uneasy feeling that this morning’s phone call was something more urgent than just a simple case of getting stuck in the river or skateboarding in the street. Deputy Dave Donahue was the man on the other end of the line. He was 35 years old but his raspy voice made him sound much older.

‘Sheriff, you need to get over to Mrs. Kripke’s house immediately; something terrible happened to her.’

Sheriff Andersen realized that something had to be wrong because Deputy Donahue didn’t even bother to say good morning.

‘What’s the problem Dave?’ asked the sheriff as he took a careful sip of his black brew.

‘She was murdered,’ replied Dave distressed.

Sheriff Andersen gagged and coughed up burning hot coffee through his nose.

***

Sheriff Andersen arrived at Mrs. Kripke’s house at 06:54. Deputy Donahue’s car was thoughtlessly parked in the driveway with two wheels on the lawn. Mrs. Kripke would probably have had a seizure if she could see the deputy’s car parked on her lawn but she was already dead and the sheriff pulled the Jeep onto her luscious green lawn as well. The garden was beautifully decorated with hundreds of colourful roses and flowers, four tall palm trees, and a pond filled with multi-colored Kois. Delicate Crimson Jewel flowers grew alongside the stepping stone pathway and a huge Firefly bush with bright red flowers adorned the porch. Together with the pink apple blossoms the garden looked like a scene out of a fairy tale. Sheriff Andersen thought that the garden really didn’t belong in Mrs. Kripke’s yard since it wasn’t a true reflection of her personality. The garden was simply too lovely.

Deputy Dave Donahue was a red-haired, slender man with a pale skin and light freckles across his nose and cheeks. His face wasn’t merely looking pale this morning; it was as white as the snow-capped Misty Mountains during the cold winter months. Even his freckles were faded out. Dave was sitting on the front porch and even from a distance Sheriff Andersen could see that his deputy was looking queasy. They’ve been working together for seven years and although he was his deputy’s senior by twenty years they’ve built a friendship that was worth more than the twenty year age difference.

‘A goddamn slaughter, Sheriff! Shit, it’s a fucking mess, sir,’ said Dave with shock and disgust in his green eyes. Obviously the situation was too stark for morning greetings. Walking past Deputy Donahue into the foyer, Sheriff Andersen was overwhelmed with the coldness of the house. Old furniture was placed all around the house.

In the bedroom, the furniture made the room look like an antiques museum. An impressive wall-mounted clock, which was probably more than 200 years old, ran ten minutes early and showed the time as 07:07. A sturdy pine coffee table, too big for this room, was strategically placed in the corner of the room between two tall Silver Torch cacti, which looked like slender serpents rising out of a snake charmer’s basket.

The bed was a huge king size bulk of sleeping equipment and Sheriff Andersen thought that it probably dated back to the time of King Arthur when noble knights still served proudly. It was most likely passed on from generation to generation and somehow ended up in this bedroom.

Brown velvet curtains and a wall-to-wall Walnut bookshelf contributed to the impersonal, library-like atmosphere of the room. The wooden floorboards moaned beneath his footsteps and the sheriff thought that this bedroom was too ancient for his liking. It made him feel much older than 55.

Another distinct feature was the spicy odour drifting in the house. In the bedroom Mrs. Kripke, or at least what was left of her, was lying on a blood-soaked bed. What made Sheriff Andersen sick was not the bloody bed or the bluish colour of Mrs. Kripke’s corpse, but her ripped ribcage and the sight of the eyeless socket staring at him like some kind of cosmic black hole. For a moment he thought the hole winked at him. Mrs. Kripke’s slit throat caused her head to tilt loosely to one side like a flower’s head would hang when one snapped the stem.

The old woman’s heart had also been violently removed. Her rib cage was torn open and some ribs were pointing into the air as if the ribs themselves sacrificed her heart to some evil heart-consuming deity.

Two paramedics were fussing around with a body bag. Upon seeing the sheriff, one of them handed him a severed index finger in a sterile plastic bag.

‘Morning, sir. Found this lying on the carpet next to the bed.’ The paramedic pointed to a small bloody spot on the carpet.

‘It was just lying there?’

‘Oddly enough, yes sir.’

‘Strange,’ added the sheriff. ‘The killer obviously went to extreme efforts to remove specific body parts and organs and yet was careless enough to drop or forget a severed finger? Strange indeed.’

Dave entered the room unnoticed and from behind the sheriff he added, ‘It could, of course, also be that he was probably startled and had to get out quickly and in his hurry simply neglected to pick up the finger?’

‘Maybe,’ agreed the sheriff but shook his head dismissing the deputy’s theory.

‘Who could have done a thing like this?’ Deputy Donahue asked.

‘Well, Dave, I don’t think the question should be who, but rather what?’

2

Jack Turner awoke suddenly, sweaty and anxious from a macabre nightmare. During the past three weeks Jack had been having regular nightmares. Visions of him lying on an operating table with men in white lab coats, probing him with sharp needles, were now lingering in his mind. These disturbing images frequented his dreams of late and they were a weird kind of déjà vu, but Jack knew that dreams weren’t always, if ever, logical. As was the case after all his other nightmares, a hot sensation burned inside his head as if a red-hot amber was scorching his brain.

Jack desperately needed a shower to invigorate his sore body and clear his muddled mind. He rubbed the crusty sleeping dust from his eyes and saw his bedside alarm clock glare 12:46. ‘Shit,’ moaned Jack. Oversleeping was an understatement.

Lethargically he got out of bed. For some reason Jack felt tired; in fact, it felt as if he got run over by a bus. His joints were stiff, his muscles ached and his eyes were scratchy. In his bedroom’s en suite bathroom he took aspirin from the cupboard below the washbasin, popped two from their foil coffins into his mouth, and gulped them down thirstily while cupping his hand under the running faucet. When Jack raised his head again he saw his face in the mirror. A disturbing chill crawled up his spine and nestled in the back of his neck. Jack always thought that the biggest fright any person could get would be to wake up one morning expecting to see your own face in the mirror but instead staring into strange eyes and looking at an alien face. His own face now seemed alien with a ghastly two inch cut stretching from below his right eye down to his jawbone.

‘What the fuck?’ asked Jack rhetorically. His heart began to pound so loudly it muddled his thoughts. Touching the scar, Jack imagined that some sharp-bladed knife probably made the cut. Strange, he thought, the cut wasn’t open or raw but instead it seemed like a two-week old scar. Although a deep purple coloration and some swelling were visible around the closed cut, it wasn’t aching or throbbing painfully. If it was a raw wound sutures would surely have been necessary.

Jack was shocked, confused and afraid. He didn’t understand what had happened to him but the scar was clear evidence of something inexplicable. He didn’t know how he got the scar and considered that he might have acquired it while sleepwalking.

Even if this was true, the wound would still be raw and he probably would have woken up from the injury. The explanation wasn’t realistic but it was the only one he had. When he pulled the shower curtain aside to open the hot water faucet, he noticed a bloody shirt lying in the bath tub. It took him a few seconds to realise that it was his shirt.

Dry bloodstains corrupted the blue shirt with brown splotches. Jack felt nauseous. Something terribly bizarre and horrific must have happened. Jack felt like a character in some gruesome PlayStation game engulfed in a parallel universe where nothing was real or made any sense.

The scar on his face, his bloody shirt in the tub… what the hell is going on? He sat down on the edge of the bath, his heart racing like a runaway locomotive on a collision course. He could feel his heart thump against his sternum and drumming in his ears. Jack was shaking and he suddenly felt cold. He tried to take a couple of minutes to calm himself but his mind was a black abyss filled with dark nothingness. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t even think about thinking. Jack wondered if he was losing his mind. After what felt like hours he got up from the bath’s rim and removed the wastebasket’s plastic bag. He placed the bloody shirt in the bag, tied a knot, and put the bag on the floor beside his bed. He would deal with it later.

After taking a long hot shower, Jack inspected his cut in the mirror. It was strange, he thought, but it was almost as if he could see the wound healing. The purple swell of his cheek—

which was quite prominent prior to his shower—was already subsiding. Surely a cut this nasty couldn’t be healing this fast? No cut could heal this rapidly and yet it was healing right in front of his eyes.

Despite the nasty cut, Jack was a good-looking man. He was approximately six feet tall with thick dark hair and matching deep brown eyes. His strong jaw line and masculine cheekbones gave him a rugged handsomeness. His kind eyes, athletic build, and smouldering smile often attracted the attention of the fairer sex but he hardly ever reciprocated the interest. Since his wife Janet died of leukaemia two years ago Jack lost interest in the idea of female companionship. He knew the reason for this was his fear of losing someone close to him for a second time.

The only consolation was the fact that they never had any children. He wouldn’t have wanted to raise children without Janet by his side to enjoy every moment of parenthood with him. After carefully shaving, Jack rinsed his face and gently patted his face dry on a fresh towel. Hunger was furiously gnawing on the walls of his stomach. Lately his metabolism was faster than usual. He ate almost constantly, as if he was a professional weightlifter who had to have eight meals a day to fuel growing muscles. It felt as though he already skipped three days’ meals. A three-egg omelette stuffed with mushrooms, bacon, olives, onions and green pepper, together with a cup of coffee and some toast, was a real priority at this stage. Jack was so hungry he could actually smell the food. In fact, he was convinced that a faint spicy aroma was hanging in the air. Jack got dressed in a white collared shirt, his blue Levis and his favourite Puma sneakers. He wished Janet was here. He needed her now more than ever. He needed her to be there so that they could talk this through. He was slowly coming to the realisation that this was turning into a time during which he would need her a great deal more than usual.

Jack spent most part of his childhood in an orphanage and when he was 16 he decided to investigate his history. He learnt that he was an out-of-wedlock child; his mother was 17 when he was born. His grandparents died in a car accident shortly after his birth and his mother was an alcoholic by the time she turned 18. The pressures of raising a child on her own at such a young age was obviously too much for his mother to bear. His father disappeared off the face of the planet and was obviously too much of a wimp to take up his parental responsibilities.

Child Welfare decided that an 18-month-old baby would be better off in an orphanage than with an alcoholic mother who was often too incapacitated to take proper care of him. He never tried to search for or meet his father or mother, or their relatives. It wouldn’t change who he was, or who he had become.

Jack was never adopted by a family but he figured it was a blessing. He got used to doing things his way and living by, to an extent, his own rules. It taught him to be independent, disciplined, determined, and to stand up for himself and his beliefs. He can’t say he misses the idea of having a father or mother since he never had either of the two. Jack often reminded himself that he couldn’t miss something he’s never had.

Now, in the kitchen, Jack opened the refrigerator to get the ingredients for his omelette and saw what looked like a human heart and an eye floating in a fluid-filled jar. Jack vomited.

***

‘We don’t have shit on this case. No prints, no motive, no witnesses, no nothing! Only a goddamn purple finger floating in a formaldehyde-filled jar—like a rotten sausage!’ the Sheriff growled in frustration.

‘Read me the coroner’s report again, Dave.’

Dave rummaged through some files and papers on his desk.

‘Well, Sheriff, the victim’s throat was cut through the larynx and all the way through to the neck vertebrae by a sharp-bladed knife, similar to something a butcher would use to cut through tough meat.’ Dave shook his head in disgust.

‘The skin,’ Dave continued, ’bone, and ligaments of the severed index finger suggests that it was effortlessly and quite smoothly cut off. An ordinary knife wouldn’t be able to make such a clean cut. Not through ligaments and bone anyway.’

‘Well,’ interrupted the sheriff, ‘maybe the killer didn’t use a knife. Maybe he used a machete, scimitars, wire cutters, a pair of industrial scissors, or an axe!’

‘An axe? No offence, sir,’ Dave added, ‘but that sounds a bit absurd.’

‘Absurd?’ growled the sheriff. ‘I don’t know if we’re talking about the same case here Deputy, but does anything about this murder seem normal to you? In fact, I think if there was anything normal about this murder that would be quite goddamn absurd.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, you’re right; we should keep an open mind and pursue all possibilities. The nature of the matter suggests that nothing is too absurd in this case.’

‘Damn right,’ replied the sheriff.

‘Okay, uhm… where was I?’ Dave continued. ‘The aggravated muscles of the eyeball suggest that the eyeball was partially pulled and torn out of its socket before it was cut off. Both the finger and eyeball were removed post-mortem. The sternum and seven of the victim’s ribs were broken and viciously torn open. The victim’s heart was haphazardly cut out. The aorta, vena cava, pulmonary veins and pulmonary arteries were chaotically severed. The coroner states that the killer had to be physically strong. At least someone with a strong grip. Probably a male.’

‘How did he figure that?’ asked the sheriff.

‘Well, according to the coroner, the tendons, and ligaments surrounding the larynx and trachea are very resilient. Also, the larynx itself is made up of tough cartilage. It would take a strong hand to cut or saw through it. Also, it takes a strong grip and a forceful hand to break a rib.’

‘So why would the killer carelessly tear out her delicate eyeball, cruelly split open her ribcage to cut out her heart, messily slit her throat, and yet carefully and thoughtfully remove her finger only to drop it on the carpet next to the bed?’

Dave only shrugged.

‘What I also don’t get is why the crazy son of a bitch removed these specific body parts? It is almost as if he planned this fucked up act very meticulously.’

‘Well sir, I got Mrs. Kripke’s medical records this morning and I don’t think this is coincidence but she had glaucoma in her right eye. She also suffered from diastolic dysfunction, basically heart problems, sir.’

Sheriff Andersen raised both eyebrows.

‘She also had a malignant growth on her right index finger.’

‘Holy shit!’ the sheriff exclaimed. ‘It’s as if the killer removed her imperfections.’

3

The three intelligentsia sat around a robust oak table in a corner of the hangar. Blue-grey smoke engulfed them and it seemed more like a clandestine meeting of VIP mafia members than a standard progress report meeting attended by scientists. They were about to discuss the progress of Project Orion. The hangar was an old abandoned textile workshop, which the three scientists bought from the local municipality and converted into their laboratory and headquarters. High tech surveillance cameras covered every corner inside and out, and several monitors displayed the cameras’ visuals. A week ago the hangar had a burglary where, interestingly enough, only medical files were stolen. For the sake of staying covert the authorities weren’t contacted. Since then, the security around the hangar had been seriously upgraded.

The hangar contained, among other things, a fully equipped laboratory. Microscopes, monitors, regulators, dialysis machines, dissection sets, histology equipment, distillation apparatus, measuring cylinders, and various other pieces of laboratory equipment were neatly arranged in the laboratory section of the hangar. The hangar also contained a fully operational surgical section, complete with operating table, various monitoring and respiration equipment, surgical instruments, anesthetics and other daunting tools and instruments which gave the hangar an eerie clinical aura.

The surgical section was capable of accommodating intensive and time-consuming surgical procedures and was just short of being able to accommodate surgery on Polar bears. The opposite side of the hangar looked like a university’s zoological laboratory. It consisted of containers, cages, glass tanks, fully equipped aquariums and terrariums and infrared bulbs. The set-up looked like a scene from a science fiction movie where various small, dormant aliens were contained. Big glass terrariums housed several fire ant colonies. A number of large aquariums contained starfish of all colors and sizes. Glass containers served as artificial hives for African honeybees; alternatively known as African killer bees. The setting looked like unmanageable chaos but in fact, it depicted a delicate balance of creatures, man and machine.

An impressive collection of scientific books, magazines, journals and encyclopaedias filled five massive bookstands, stacked close to one wall. Four shelves were arranged in a box formation with a fifth bookshelf placed in the centre of the cube. The amount of reading material was probably sufficient to fill a small-town library. The knowledge contained amongst all the pages was enough to keep the Discovery channel broadcasting for the next couple of decades.

The three men seemed tense and expectant. The large oak table made them look like anxious dwarves rather than confident scientists. They had gathered to discuss the progress of, and threats to, Project Orion; their ‘ingenious venture’ which would accelerate the evolution of mankind.

Project Orion was named after the constellation of stars. Throughout the ages mankind has referred to the