EVO Universe 1: The First (8 page)

Luckily, the office had a window so she was able to search around via moonlight; she was careful to ensure she did not move anything out of place. The first thing she found was the video recorder linked to the surveillance cameras outside. She pulled out the tapes, and thought about destroying them but remembered seeing enough cop shows in her time to know they would find a way to view the footage regardless. She stuffed them within her bag taking them with her. The next thing she had to find was money.

Sure enough like all small towns, there was still some trust, a safe underneath the manager’s desk. Like the drop-box but with more confidence she ripped the door off the safe with ease. She pulled out the cash box and popped it open as if it never had a lock. It was full, probably all of the cash from last week and yesterday; as she pulled out the twenties, tens, and fives to count them her eyes glanced the picture of the manager on the table.

He was a stocky cheerful elderly man probably in his early sixties with white silver hair and some silver horn rim spectacles. There were pictures of him with his wife, children, grandchildren, and employees. In every picture she could feel the happiness pouring out, the sense of family even from the people who worked for him. Sophia sadly sat down in his seat riddled with guilt. Aside from the paddling she got from her mother for attempting to lift a stick of bubble gum from the local convenience store when she was six, she had never stolen anything in her life. She was accused and punished for many things up until now that she was innocent of; she was actually guilty of this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her mind began to wander back to almost four and a half years ago, during the grueling trial, and the looks of disgust and hatred she had to endure. The district attorney wove a story to the court and those attending of how she was an evil conniving woman who grew tired of taking care of her badly injured mentally traumatized Veteran husband who served honorably for his country.

That she acquired a personal checking account a month before in the same bank her husband and she kept their joint accounts, which she had no knowledge of doing. Evidence namely video footage showed that she did in fact entered the bank and opened it. There was also evidence of the neurotoxin she smuggled from out of the experimental facility of the hospital she worked at that she used to drug her husband after making love to him, and then savagely murdering him while he lay both powerless and defenseless.

The District Attorney then accused her of transferring all the money in the joint accounts to the personal account, and purchasing a one-way flight to Brazil that same night while he lay dead in their bed. The IP address from her laptop was the additional damning evidence.

The next day she withdrew two thousand dollars cash from an ATM, and then drove all the way to Oklahoma checking into the Four Pointed Hotel near the Will Rogers World Airport using her credit card; tollbooth cameras also caught her and her Nissan Maxima during the drive there.

Aside from the DNA from the murder weapon, which was their wedding cake knife, she had to sit there and watch damning video footage of her doing things she had completely no knowledge of doing.

It was like watching another person who looked exactly like her wearing her exact clothes and jewelry down to her wedding ring doing those things. She almost came to believe she had gone crazy, because in her own mind the events she watched were a complete utter blank.

Compound the medical examiner’s testimony of how the forty-one stab wounds on her husband’s body were slow, deliberate, and with precision hitting major veins and organs so that he bled out slowly, and with her skill and knowledge of a neurosurgeon she was capable of doing it; it was a major slam dunk for the prosecuting District Attorney.

She feverishly denied everything despite the mountainous evidence against her admitting to only thing. She did make love to Robert the night he was murdered.

She could still remember the cries and wails of her family especially her mother when the lead juror read the guilty verdict on all charges, a week later, she would hear the chilling words during her sentencing.

“Has the jury reached a verdict on sentencing?” demanded the judge.

“Yes your honor,” announced the lead juror.

The judge motioned for the bailiff to take the paper from the lead juror so that he can read their judgment against Sophia. Time literally stood still for her in that moment, after reading; he looked at the jury one more time, then back of a trembling Sophia waiting for sentencing.

“Usually I would disregard what is on this paper, and hand down a life sentence with no promise of parole, being that this is your first brush with the law Mrs. Matheson,” the judge started to say.

“But the evidence of the crimes in which you have committed is so …disgusting…so heinous…I have no choice but to make an exception here today,” he continued to say shaking his head.

“You not only planned out the murder of your husband, but you butchered him while he laid very much coherent and defenseless…as a former Marine myself…I find this to be the most
dishonorable
and
cowardice
way to be murdered,” he continued with his sentencing.

“And so I have no choice but to go with the decision of the jury and levy the ultimate punishment against you…Sophia Matheson….you will be remanded to Mountain View Unit for Women in Gatesville where you will be sentenced to death by lethal injection…May God have mercy on your soul, remand Mrs. Matheson into custody. This court is adjourned,” was his judgment as he slammed the gavel down.

She had collapsed at the word “death” as the wails grew louder in the courtroom; her mother rushed to the hospital for a mild heart attack. After three months of prison time she had cut off all contact from her family and friends, so they could not see the state she was in. She changed her name back to Dennison, and after her first and only appeal that took an agonizing three and a half years, she did not have the strength to go through another appeal and decided to wait to die.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She did not know if it was one of her abilities, but her mind was like a DVD operating in 4D mode, playing back events in her mind in clear detail where it felt like she could literally smell, hear, and touch things as long as she focused on that time. She tested it by concentrating on the night in the hotel. She remembered waking up, literally feeling the grogginess and massive cottonmouth taste like it was happening again. She did not understand how she went from being naked in her bed wrapped up in Robert’s embrace to one of her business suits as she tried to sit up on the bed.

Looking around the room the only things she recognized was her laptop on the desk and her luggage. Who packed her luggage, and why was it there? Why was she there for that matter?

Bathroom she thought to herself, running her face with ice-cold water would wake her up and shake the fogginess so she could figure out what the hell was truly going on. As she got to her feet, her soul leaped out of her body from the startling sound of the door to the room slammed open, men flooding in and screaming at her. As her focus became clearer, she could see that they were police officers with their guns pointed at her.

“What…what’s happening…?” Sophia managed to get out amid the chaos.

The officers ignored her as they just barked at her, “On the ground! Get on the ground now!”

Sophia raised her hands in the air terrified, “I don’t understand…what’s happening? What’s happening?”

Realizing she was not armed two officers rushed her throwing her violently to the carpet floor of the room. It felt like they were attempting to snap her arms in half like twigs. She sobbed and wailed uncontrollably. Why was she in that room? How did she get into that room? Why were they hurting her, and why was no one answering her? Most importantly, where was Robert? She tried to search her memory but everything between the night she slept in Robert’s arms and when she woke up in that room was completely blank.

As she felt the cold steel of one of the officer’s handcuffs clamp down hard on her wrists, the officer with the words “Detective” written across his bullet proof vest finally gave her an answer, “Sophia Matheson…you are under arrest for the murder of your husband Robert Matheson…you have the right to remain silent…”

She did not hear him reading the rest of the Miranda rights to her, as she screamed incoherently asking, “What? Robert is dead? No! No! No! Tell me what happen?! Tell me what happened?! Please! Please!”

She went on like that, as they pulled her to her feet and dragged her out of the hotel, back to Houston through the horde of reporters who asked questions, she could not answer all the way to the police station.

She did not bother reliving the hours and hours of brutal and relentless grilling from a chain of detectives, and the sleepless nights of bitter crying in a cell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She tried to focus on what happened after that night in the hotel, but once again, it was all blank. The length of the blankness told her she was probably out for a day or two. She focused harder to get to that night, on the verge of giving up out of frustration an image appeared in her head.

It was blurry and dark; but an image was still coming through. She could see the moonlight coming through the windows of their room. The cottonmouth had comeback just like in the hotel; but this time she was home in her bedroom.

She was not lying next to Robert in their bed. She was propped up against a wall covered in her bed sheets, sitting on the cold cherry oak floor that they redid together. She looked around wondering how she got there, it was then she heard the voices. Three distorted and one muffled, she looked up to see Robert laying on the bed looking straight at her.

His eyes were full of tears; it looked like he was fighting to move but could not. Why could he not move? Why could he not even speak for that matter?

His mouth looked like it had a case of lockjaw. She then realized
she
could not move either; she did not feel paralyzed, but her body felt like it weighed a ton. Her voice was gone as well, filling her with fear. It felt like she was in the middle of a nightmare, and she could not wake up. She tried to calm herself and focus on what the voices were saying.

“Of all the things…a fucking wedding cake knife…,” said the first distorted voice, which sounded like a man.

“What?! It’s symbolic!” returned an entirely different distorted voice, which sounded like another man in the room.

“Whatever…let’s get this over with,” fired back the other man, their voices sounded Vader like without the heavy breathing.

“Playtime big boy…” came a third distorted voice that sounded definitely like a woman.

Sophia concentrated on the female voice; she could make out a slender dark figure straddling her husband. She could not see her head because she could barely raise her neck up, but she could see what appeared to be a patch on her shoulder. It was dark and embossed, but the moonlight revealed to her what appeared to be the Grim Reaper sitting on a large skull holding a scythe in one hand and holding a skull in another hand. Sophia’s eyes traveled lower to see her running something silver and pointy across her husband’s stomach. It appeared to be the cake-cutting knife from their wedding.

Her eyes returned to Robert who remained fixed on her, while he mouthed the words, “I’m sorry…I am so sorry…”

Still not able to find her voice she let out a groan catching everyone’s attention in the room.

“Holy shit…she’s awake…” came from man #2.

“Impossible…” said the man who was apparently the leader of the group, “She should be out for at least thirty-six hours…”

“Just cut her fucking head off…,” hissed the woman of the group.

Sophia struggled to lift her head to see who the bitch was at that point, only to see that she was wearing some high tech looking helmet that covered her entire head attached to an equally tech like suit.

“No you idiot, we need her alive for this to work,” the leader reminded the woman, “Just hit her with another dosage and some of the pink stuff…that’ll make sure she won’t remember any of this…”

She struggled to move, tried to make her voice louder so someone could hear her but it was no use. The next thing she felt was a leather hand grabbing her arm, and a sharp prick. She groaned again as things began to get foggy, what little consciousness she had was focused on the female figure.

She could feel her looking at her before everything went black, and she was sure she heard her say, “Get ready for your life to change…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She woke up from her trance with a gasp and her eyes blinded with tears, as she scrambled to her feet in confusion she crashed into the nearest wall effortlessly caving it in; she steadied herself, forced herself to breathe normally, and to stop the damn shaking. As crazy as it was, it was now clear what had happened on that night all those year ago.

Raged now stoked her heart, somehow, some way she had to find out about that morbid patch, and then she would find them. First, she grabbed the cash out of the box, counted it taking half and putting the rest back in the box. She then tore a piece of paper from a tablet, grabbed a pen and wrote, “I’m so sorry for taking your money and the damage. I promise I will pay you back and fix everything. You have my word.”