V. Deeper

Alex picked up Eric, then dropped Juan off at his house. When Juan got home, he saw Nathan's car in the driveway. Juan talked with his parents for a while before heading down to the basement. There was still some time left before they needed to leave for the high school. Nathan was sitting on the couch, counting dollar bills and writing something down in a notebook. "Job pay out good?" Juan asked, joining him on the couch. "Yeah, this one paid really good." Nathan put the money away. "A few more good jobs and I'll have a good amount of cash saved up to move somewhere low rent. All these places have these damn non-refundable application fees. What have you been up to?" "Having Alex touch my dick." Juan said to see how Nathan would react. "What?" "I didn't finish." Juan turned on the TV. "What? Is he bad at it?" Nathan asked. He finished writing in the notebook. "No, I just wasn't into it." Juan said. "Okay. Then why...?" "I thought I'd experiment a little because of Maria. But I dunno...I don't think I'm into guys, but I don't think I was in the right state of mind to be doing anything like that. I don't know what I was thinking." Juan flipped through channels. Nothing was worth watching. He settled on a cartoon. "Hey, when you were in those movies, how did you manage to get off with another guy?" "A lot of distracting myself." Nathan lit up a cigarette. "Did any of the girls you dated know about your, uh, acting career?" Juan asked. "I only had one serious relationship. I dated Sydney Long for about two years. Every other girl I went out with was only for sex. I usually moved on within a month when they wanted things to be serious." Nathan said. "What happened with Sydney?" Juan asked. Nathan put his notebook away with the money. "She graduated and went off to college up in New York. I knew she was going somewhere, so I broke up with her." "Did she know?" Nathan nodded his head. "Yeah. I showed her some of the better films I was in, and she knew about my financial situation. She said if it was for work, it didn't count as cheating to her since it wasn't a secret. She was really out of my league. Every day, I kept wondering why she was wasting her time with me. I knew if I didn't leave first, she was either going to waste her life on me or eventually dump me when she woke up." "Dude, I doubt she thought she was wasting her time." Juan suggested. "You know, I think you should probably talk to someone about this. You sound really depressed." "I can't afford that. Even if I get a legitimate job, I'd never be able to afford something like that without cutting into something else I need. This is Georgia. The state would be happier seeing me in prison, so I can be free labor. Though I guess prison does have free food and a free bed." Nathan was mostly joking about the last part. "That is really not how you should look at it." Juan said. He felt a pain in his chest. "I knew a guy who would try to get caught stealing specifically so he could be in jail and get food and shelter. He started doing that after one of his buddies died that the winter. She couldn't keep herself warm enough after the cops tore down her little home and took her blankets. She got sick and died." Nathan inhaled deeply. "They took her blankets away in winter?" Juan was disgusted. "They told her to go to a shelter. There wasn't one in walking distance. There was no way for her to get to one. No bus route. She didn't have a car." Nathan finished off the cigarette. "Couldn't they give her a ride?" Juan asked. "That wasn't their problem." Nathan spoke coldly. "She borrowed a blanket from that guy, but he didn't have much to spare either. He found her cold body in the woods not long after that. She was about fourteen then." "Why was she homeless? Do you know?" Nathan put out his cigarette. "I'm not sure on the details. She was a runaway. She told him she couldn't stay at home. It wasn't safe there." "And now she's dead. So much for CPS." "They never helped me. Conditions were to 'standard'. They left and I got beat." Nathan narrowed his eyes. "Standards. That's all this state cares about. If they can't see it and check it off on a little box that it fits their desired outcome, they don't give a shit. And if you're outside their checklist, you're the bad one and you need to be punished." "Where did this happen at? Was it here?" Juan asked. "No. The guy drifted from place to place." Nathan said. "Haven't seen that guy in a while. I wonder if he succeeded in getting into a jail or if he hopped a train out of here." Juan wondered how many other people were out there tonight with nowhere to go. He turned to Nathan. "How did you make it in the winter last year?" "Sleeping with people. A lot of older women and some older men let me stay the night if we fucked. I usually got a free meal out of it too. Better than dealing with freezing rain and snow." Nathan said. He lit up another cigarette. "Man, I really wish you would have told me about this. Thinking about you having to find someone to stay with every night just so you're not out in the cold..." "I lived." Nathan said. "It wasn't that bad. A lot of people have it worse. At least I don't need meds too." "Yeah, I know, but...I don't want to think about you ending up like that girl..." Juan sunk down on the couch. "I've got my car, for now. That's more than she had." Nathan stared ahead. "Sometimes, I wonder why I bother with all this. I'm not getting anywhere. Don't know why I bother with anything." "Something could be better one day. You said you almost have enough to rent somewhere." Juan reminded him. "With roommates, not on my own. That is something, but I haven't had any luck with regular jobs. They don't want me if I don't have a permanent address. I can't begin to look for a regular job until I'm already renting somewhere." Nathan sighed. "You'll get there." Juan said. "And my resume is empty because I can't list any work I have done." Nathan rubbed his chin. "Oh, I guess I can put down that I completed high school now." "See? That's more than before." Juan put his hand on his shoulder. "You've got to look for positives or you won't get anywhere." "Yeah, but sometimes no matter what you do, you still don't get anywhere." Nathan looked up. "Plenty of people are absolute failures, and get handed everything." "Maybe so, but those people are cheating the system." "They're not cheating it. They designed it. That's how it's supposed to work." Nathan said. "I'm not supposed to get out of this." Juan sighed. He knew Nathan was right. "That may be, but that doesn't mean we let them win either." "Sometimes, I think the only value I'll ever have is in death." Nathan said. "What do you mean?" Juan asked. "This society doesn't want me, but at least the Earth would." Nathan said. "In the end, I get to be food. Something could keep living because of me. At least worms do something for the Earth. But I might not get that either." "Why wouldn't you?" "I can't afford a burial. Whether I go in the ground or get donated to some place, that'll depend on where I die." "If you're donated for research, that research could help save someone." Juan said. "Save a rich bastard, maybe. And why should my body be used to save someone when I can't even afford to see a doctor for anything?" Nathan lit up another cigarette. "Besides, they may just ship me off to some empty lot for the military to test weapons on so they can better kill civilians abroad. Someone else choosing for me between that or getting to be a free lab rat as some honor in death because I can't afford a burial plot is just dressing up that I'm disposable." Juan didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry." Nathan went quiet for a moment. "You didn't do anything wrong. I know what you're trying to do, but I can't see any way out of this on my own." "On your own..." He thought about his earlier conversation with Alex. An idea came to Juan. "Do you care about living here specifically?" "No, why?" "Move with me. We can split rent. I already have enough money set aside for a couple of months between what me and my parents saved. That should be enough time for both of us to find jobs." "What if I can't find a job?" Nathan asked. "I'm sure at the very least some fast food place will hire you. It'd be easier on both of us if we're sharing bills, right?" Juan said. "You sure about that?" Nathan asked, surprised. "Yeah. Who better as a roommate than a friend? Besides, I don't have a car and you do. We'd be helping each other out." Juan smiled. "Well, it's not like I really have a reason to stay here. I have some money myself saved up. Maybe...I could get out of this at least." Nathan's mood started to lighten. "The faster we plan to get you off the streets, the better." Juan said. "So, where are we going?" "You like Florida?" "Never been there." Nathan leaned back. "Are we going anywhere near a beach?" "Eh, not too far a drive. Helluva a lot closer than here, for sure." Juan nudged him. "How about that? A nice drive to the beach on your off days? That's worth sticking around for, isn't it?" "Maybe. That might be nice. Suppose I'll think about it." Nathan took a deep breath. Uncertain of what to say, Nathan changed the subject. "Oh, hey, did you ever hear back from any of those people online?" Juan had almost forgot about what he learned earlier. "Actually, yeah. One of them, at least. The others can't. Apparently, most of them are dead." "Dead?" Nathan sat up. "Murdered?" "That's what Roshi seemed to think. They all died very suspicious deaths. That one...what was it? Cornus something or other...they were definitely covering for the company too. I asked Roshi if he could send me any of those files they were passing around. He hasn't emailed me back about that yet. I learned something else interesting today. So, according to Alex, Moone & Wolfe actually owns several other hospitals and treatment places that operate under different names. I got a list from him. We could try seeing if any of those places pull up on that forum." Juan took out his phone and looked through his notes. "Do you really think we're going to find anything different if that one person is already deleting everything for them?" Nathan asked. "Won't know until we search." Juan booted up the computer and went to the forum. He looked at the note of hospital names. "Let's see...we'll try this one first. Summer Springs Rehabilitation Center." Nathan pulled up a chair. He looked at the screen, not fully understanding the layout of the website. "Alex worked at one of those Moone & Wolfe places once, right? Did he know anything else?" "Nah, not really. He was just an intern for the summer. If they've potentially got a cult going on, I doubt some random two month intern was anyone they thought of as important or worth letting know about anything. They seem to keep their goals pretty hidden." Juan impatiently waited for the browser to load his search results. He looked over the list of threads that came up. He clicked on the third one down. "Hmm...maybe this one. Cult-like twelve step program." Juan sighed and closed out the thread. "Well, that was bullshit. Let's look at the next one." The next one opened was titled "Anyone know why this one company is buying up all these centers". Juan and Nathan read through the posts. This thread was longer than the previous one. Juan noticed a few familiar names in the thread. "And there's Cornus to put an end to anything interesting happening." Juan threw his hands up. "Hmm...I wonder...Who are these three people helping people out?" "Looks like they talked about that in that same chat. Guess we can't really see that. Maybe you could ask that one guy, if he ever emails you back." Nathan said. "Yeah, maybe." Juan opened up several other threads. These didn't have any new information in them. He searched up the other three names Alex gave him to similar ends. Threads would begin with horror stories about the location, others would chime in with similar experiences, and as soon as the thread was beginning to go past that, it would either be derailed entirely by Sun or locked down by the same mod. Almost ready to give up, Juan got an idea. "Wait, they kept calling that Cornus whatever a flower. I wonder if that flower is related to something...What flower is that...?" Juan did a quick search for Cornus florida. He saw a very familiar flower. Nathan laughed. "A dogwood." "Why a dogwood? Is it related to the company in some way? Or a name? This is a long shot, but..." Juan searched for "Moone & Wolfe Corp Dr. Dogwood". To his surprise, he got a result for such a person. He clicked on a website for a location in Rome, Georgia. "Dr. Felicia Dogwood. Are you our mysterious mod?" "There's no way...it couldn't be that simple, right?" Nathan looked at the page. "Specializes in teenage patients, especially troubled boys. Damn, she's expensive." "She looks really, really young to be a doctor of anything. She doesn't look much older than us..." Juan stared at her bland profile picture next to her equally sterile bio on the mostly white website. He noticed no wrinkles in her face, no signs of aging at all. She had been practicing for years. "This math isn't adding up..." Nathan joked. "They own a lot of companies, right? Maybe they own one doing a lot of anti-aging research." "I wouldn't be shocked at this point." Juan shook his head. "Wait a minute..." Nathan's eyes went wide. "Wait...if this psychiatrist is the same person as that Cornus person...isn't that person someone who was collecting dead bodies?!" Juan's heart stopped for a moment. "Oh god, I forgot about that. Wait...then...she specializes in treating one gender over the other...you don't think part of those flower code words was gender related, do you? Is she using access to all these hospitals to get access to dead boys? Oh...what kind of fucked up shit have we just stumbled on..." "And she's in Rome. She's about an hour away right now. That's certainly a pleasant thought." Nathan put his hand to his forehead. He sighed deeply. "Well, she did say she only used technically legal methods, right?" "So she claimed. Maybe it's not her. This could just be a coincidence." Juan took out his phone. "You know, if she worked nearby, maybe Alex has met her before. Let me text him." Juan sent a quick message to Alex. He received one within a minute after sending. It read: "I've never met her, but I talked to her on the phone once. She used to be Eric's psychiatrist. Why?" Juan felt a cold chill down his spine. He showed the message to Nathan. "Holy shit." Nathan could only shake his head. Juan texted him back that he was looking into local treatment options and to ask Eric if there was anything weird about her. Alex replied to him with: "Not that he recalls. He didn't find her helpful, but there was nothing really memorable about her either." "Nothing...maybe it's not her. Surely, if she was disturbed enough to be around...Eric would've noticed...Maybe this isn't anything after all. Dogwoods could have some other meaning to Moone & Wolfe. Or it could just be random and not mean anything at all. Guess that's a dead end." Juan wasn't fully convinced of his own words, but he didn't want to think about Eric alone in a room with a woman obsessed with collecting the bodies of dead teenage boys. His mind conjured up disturbing images of what that person might be doing with corpses. A notification went off on his phone. Deep in his dark thoughts, Juan jumped at the sound. He looked down. He received a new email from Roshi. "No way. Roshi just emailed me." "What's it say?" Nathan asked. Juan opened the email. He read it aloud. "Those at the Moon can't touch me. You could say I have greater protection than they can handle. I know you just found out about Miss Felicia, also known as Lynne Jones. Don't worry about how I know that. Do worry about any of your friends being alone with her. As for the files you wanted, I've sent you all the books, the TV show, and the adult films. And for the two blonds, forget about them. They're not anything nefarious, but you don't need to be investigating them. I suggest deleting everything once you're done reviewing them. It's better for your sanity that way. The porn films contain especially disturbing content. I hope you don't have a weak stomach, Juan. JC. JC...are those his initials? Would he really send that?" "Did you tell him your real name?" Nathan asked. "I don't...I don't think so....And he knew about what we just looked at on the forum...how...?" Juan knew these things were possible. He never thought something like this would be happening to him, in spite of the things he had looked into before. 'Why now? Why with this? What's so special about this company?' "So...he's watching us right now..." Nathan looked around the room. "Do you think he's nearby?" "No, he's seeing what we're doing through the computer or through my phone. Or both." Juan was always told he was paranoid for covering up cameras on any computer or phone he used, but now he felt vindicated in doing so. At least Roshi couldn't see him right now, at least not by any means he knew of. Though that gave him some comfort, he knew Roshi might be listening to them as well. "I don't think he's anyone trying to hurt us. Given what happened to everyone else, he may be keeping tabs on us to protect us." "He could do that in a less creepy way." Nathan said. "Yeah. Haha...we should just...ignore he's watching us for right now..." Juan said nervously. "Right...no different than the FBI agent that watches everyone...just pretend he doesn't exist." Nathan closed his eyes. "Huh. I didn't think you were someone who believed that about personal agents." "If there's one thing I know, it's that our government has plenty of people watching everyone for all kinds of bullshit. If not the FBI, someone else." Nathan shrugged. "This guy might even be one of those types. So, the best thing to do is not think about him being there." "Are you just saying all this stuff because you know he can hear you?" Juan asked. "Eh." Nathan sighed. "I'm already used to the idea of having no privacy. If he's not out to hurt us, I can ignore him." "Who knows...maybe he'll help us at some point." Juan tried to make the situation less disturbing. He looked over the email again. "So...Dr. Dogwood is that mod, then. Who is Lynne Jones? That name sounds familiar...where have I heard that before?" "Don't know, but it does sound familiar to me too." Nathan said. Juan searched for "Lynne Jones Georgia". His jaw dropped. Nathan leaned in closer to the screen in disbelief as he read the words before them. "What. The. Fuck." Nathan got up and walked away from the computer. "I'm...I'm gonna need a beer for this." "G-get me one too..." Juan opened up a page about her. He waited for Nathan to get back before looking through the information. Nathan came back with a six pack. He handed a beer to Juan. "So, uh...she's a serial killer, huh?" Nathan opened his beer. "Apparently." Juan compared photos of Lynne Jones and Felicia Dogwood. There was no denying they were the same person, but she somehow looked younger now than when she was arrested as "Lynne Jones". He summarized the information on the page. "Lynne Jones, active during the 90s. Captured by law enforcement with the aid of Aurora, then escaped. Current whereabouts unknown. Victims were white teenage boys, most of them underage. Bodies were mutilated. The body parts were arranged in patterns in wooded areas. Victims killed at age eighteen were killed more violently than other victims. Victims were homeless runaways Jones managed as escorts to wealthy clients before killing them. According to a surviving victim and her own words to police, she was having sex with her victims. Currently no leads on what happened to her after her escape...No leads...she's right here on a website for a mental health hospital...overseeing teenage boys...with access to controlled substances and restraints...What the fuck..." "So she's a pedophile, a child sex trafficker, and a serial killer. And she got away with all of it. Yeah, that's America for you." Nathan drank half his beer. "What's Aurora?" "I've heard of them before. They help with solving crimes, but they're independent from any government agencies. As far as I know, there's nothing weird about them." Juan finally opened his own beer. His hands were shaking. "A serial killer. This company has a serial killer on staff. And she's been covering up bad information about them online for years. They've even given her special access to her preferred victim. And Eric saw this woman...Eric was alone with this woman..." "Let's hope for his sake she doesn't do anything weird to her patients. Sounds like he never told Alex anything gross happened." Nathan finished off the rest of his beer. "She may have stopped doing that stuff after taking on a new identity, the murdering and all that. If she's getting these bodies more easily now without doing any law breaking, that may be keeping her sick urges satisfied. Well, we know one thing. This company definitely either does not vet people at all or they're fine with people like that having access to the very people they've previously victimized. Sounds like your average school system. Not what I expected out of a medical company, but I guess I shouldn't really be surprised." Juan kept scrolling through the article. He stopped, looked away, then looked back at the screen. "Oh god, the pictures are uncensored." Nathan opened up another beer. "What the fuck makes a person do this?" "I don't know." Juan's stomach turned at the images. He had seen many gruesome pictures over the years. When he and Alex were in sixth grade, they stumbled upon a forum dedicated to autopsy photos of celebrities and famous murders. They were easily able to find something like that from a simple search. He'd found other places that hosted videos of deaths caught on camera, executions, and all sorts of vile, disturbing behavior. Juan usually didn't look at that stuff, but when he did come across something like that, he often found himself watching out of morbid curiosity. The deep unease he felt after viewing things like that tended to linger in him for hours, if not days. However, the older he got, the shorter that unease lasted. He had become used to the idea of what the depths of human depravity and the cruelty of fate looked like. When he first went to the dark web, he was disappointed that the majority of the sites he came across were for selling drugs, sex, and other illegal things. He found much more disturbing content from a quick search on the clear net than going deeper did. He presumed worse was likely there, but he didn't know how to reach it. He didn't really want to see that sort of thing. It was more he wanted to know if those sorts of rumored horrible sites he heard about really existed. He found that forum and regularly posted there for a time, but he rarely bothered venturing much elsewhere there. The images before him were a good reminder of why. The set of photos in the article showed crime scene photos from one of the murdered boys. This one was a fifteen year old, according to the article. The boy's limbs and head had been cut off. The body parts were arranged in a heart shape in a wooded area on a bed of leaves near a creek. There was less blood than he expected there would be. The police presumed she cut up her victims in a different location than where she posed them at, and used nearby creeks and rivers to clean herself off at. The boys were always posed in a unique arrangement. This body's stomach was cut open and his organs used to fill in the gaps between his body parts to make the heart "full". The boy's dull eyes stared blankly toward the sky. Juan swallowed hard everything that was coming up when he read that her victims were alive when she started to cut into them. Her age was perplexing him though. She should look much, much older than she currently did. He didn't know of any plastic surgery or anti-aging treatments that could pull off those kinds of results. But she would be too young to be her daughter. She looked far too young to have a doctorate, certainly not old enough to have been practicing for years. Roshi was convinced they were definitely the same person, and Roshi knew how to find him and watch him without Juan giving him much of any information. If Roshi thought it was true, then it must be. Somehow, she had stayed young, if not gotten younger in physical appearance. Was there something special about this woman that Moone & Wolfe wanted to keep her around for, he wondered. Juan closed the article. They may not be able to get any information on that, he thought. With all the companies Moone & Wolfe had bought, if they were doing extensive research into anti-aging techniques, it would likely be under a different company's name. "I don't know what we could do about that...other than make sure Eric doesn't see her anymore. Don't think he is." "Gonna have to try my best to forget I learned any of that shit." Nathan said. "Yeah. That's...if we reported her to the authorities as being the same person...hmmm....maybe if I leave information at the tip line anonymous..." Juan reopened the article to look for the website link and the phone number. He went to the site and left a short message about Felicia Dogwood potentially being the same person as Lynne Jones. "Submit. I don't know if that'll help any, but we did something at least." "That's definitely anonymous, right? The last thing I need is some serial killer coming after us for revenge..." Nathan glanced over to check the back door was locked. "Yeah." Juan opened up his email on his computer. "Let's forget about that for now. I'll skim through the books later, but we could probably watch some of the kid show at least. And maybe skim through one of those porn movies. I want to see for myself that this actress is actually the same person in both." Nathan pointed at the clock. "Do we have time? Maybe we should save that for another night. What about tomorrow?" Juan thought on it. "We'd need to look at it in the early part of the day. Remember, we're going over to Alex's tomorrow night. And then we'll both be busy tonight too." "Guess that'll have to wait until tomorrow morning then." Nathan said. Juan turned off the computer and got ready for the ceremony. VI. Media