There was a perfect storm, both literal and metaphorical, of external events that caused it to happen the way it did. But it all started with the planned transfer of one of the most hated men in the state.
His name was John Wheatly Jr and after his most recent spate of convictions, he was sentenced to over 300 years in prison.
John’s exploits were infamous. And he shared that infamy with his father, John Wheatly Sr.
The two-man team terrorized co-eds up and down East Coast colleges over the course of 6 consecutive summers.
They’d finally been chased down, but only John Jr was apprehended. John Sr miraculously got away and a state-wide search had recovered no clues or hints to his whereabouts or direction.
John Sr was a Vietnam vet who’d been captured and held prisoner for several years before escaping. The man knew how to disappear. And a lot more.
John Sr’s training helped the father-son duo avoid capture for years. They left no evidence at scenes and planned the attacks meticulously.
The father and son would check out various campuses and monitor whatever security was there. The campus they liked, the two would stick around and watch girls for days, profiling them and deciding which one or ones would be the easiest prey.
When John Sr picked a target girl, they’d follow her home and observe her comings and goings. If she had roommates, they’d watch them too. Sometimes, the roommates would be side victims in the eventual attack.
While the target girl was out during the day, John Sr would use his expertise to break into the house. From there, he and John Jr would remove the screens, loosen screws on the door handles. They’d unload guns if there were any in the house. And they’d leave pieces of rope around to help with binding the girls’ wrists and ankles.
The two became really good at it.
But they’d eventually been caught. Or at least John Jr was. And he was being held in a prison in the city during the trial.
When he was sentenced, there was an uproar for him not getting the death penalty. Which everyone knew wouldn’t happen, but there was still outrage among the dozens of families of survivors.
A large prison transport bus with four cruisers chaperoning it left the courthouse.
Within minutes the bus was attacked and overwhelmed by the large crowds.
But John Jr wasn’t in the transport bus. In fact, there weren’t any prisoners on it at all. The bus was a decoy. John Jr had been snuck out a back door and shoved into the rear seats of an unmarked.
An unmarked that I was driving.
There was a storm coming in that night, and my second-driver called in violently ill. As did the back-up driver.
Chaos was about to descend on the city, so I was quickly sent out with just John Jr. It would just be him and I for the two hour drive to his new home at the state’s largest max-security prison.
We managed to completely avoid any crowds through the city and made it to the outskirts with ease. That was when the rain really started. I was driving thirty on the interstate and saw more transport trailers flipped on the side of the road than I have in my whole life.
The interstate became quiet halfway into the drive and it felt like it really was just John Jr and I.
He must have felt the same way, because that’s when he started talking.
“So it’s just you and me tonight, huh buddy? I thought they always needed two of you’s for these here rides. Bin’ my experience, anyways. Buddy there probably called in sick, huh? And the backup guy, too?”
I knew he was trying to bait me, get in my head, maybe even cause an accident. Anything that would prevent me from taking him where he was going.
“You’re a tall guy. 6’3? Ya know how they get your body in a coffin if you’re over 6 feet? They break your legs. Shove’em up into your abdomen. They say it looks the same… I don’t think it does.”
I caught his eyes briefly in the rearview, but turned away the second I did.
“You have a hard time looking people in the eyes, Officer. You don’t like me. That’s fine. I don’t like you either.”
“Stop talking.” I wished I hadn’t spoken, but it just came out.
“I ramble when I’m excited.” He said.
“Yeah? You excited that your dad left you to get thrown in prison for the rest of your life? Just, totally fucking abandoned you. His son? What else you excited for? Your new home? At the state penn? Enjoy the next hour of the ride, cause nothing’s ever gonna get better than this for ya.”
Silence took over the car and I figured that’d shut him up. But I was wrong.
“I called him, ya know?”
I decided I wasn’t taking any more bait and remained silent.
“My dad. With his phone call at sentencing. I told him I forgave him. That I understood. And he… he told me he was outside… of this house in Temple.”
Temple’s a small town on the outskirts of the city I worked in. I owned a house in Temple with my wife and daughter. The word grabbed me, but I tried to keep a poker face.
“In the east end. Some sweet little street called Blackburn?”
My heart basically stopped at that moment. Guessing Temple was one thing. But guessing Blackburn was a complete shot in the dark.
“What do you know about Blackburn?”
“Not much, unfortunately. My daddy does, though. All it took was a couple phone calls, following people around, finding out schedules, routes. He got the list of prison transport drivers. Looked into the three of you’s and decided you were the one that’d drive me. So he made sure the other two didn’t make it in tonight.”
I dialed my wife’s cell number, but it went straight to voicemail.
“She ain’t gonna answer.”
I grabbed the radio and was about to call dispatch, but John Jr cut in.
“You ever wanna see that family of yours agin, you are goin’ in the wrong direction if you make a call on that. Put the fuckin’ radio down or your wife and daughter disappear forever.”
I put the radio down.
“That’s right. Now, you’re gonna keep driving or dad’s gonna do some awful things to Jess and little Tina. Keep. Fucking. Driving-“
I slammed the brakes and got out of the car. I opened the back door and pressed my gun to John Jr’s forehead. I yelled for him to call it off. To call his father off. Or I’d blow his brains out.
“Hm, so my options are - Get my brains blown out. Or go to prison for 300 years? Pull the fuckin’ trigger.”
I didn’t know what to do.
“How do I know if I let you go, he’ll let them go?”
“You don’t. But if you don’t let me go, he definitely won’t. Now get back in the fuckin’ car.”
It took everything in me not to blow him away right there. But I closed the back door, got back in the front seat and resumed the route I was on.
After a few minutes of silence, John Jr finally broke it.
“Ya know them girls we fucked? Sometimes we’d call them after. Weeks later. We’d take one of their yearbooks from highschool when we were there. So we’d pretend we were an old classmate- Bullshit’em. Chat’em up for a bit before bringing up something we did the night we were with ‘em. Something they’d remember. Listen to their voice change when they realized who they were really talkin’ to-“
“What’re we doing?”
“Up ahead there’s a set of train tracks. You know the ones. You’re gonna cross’em, and pull over on the other side. Await further’s…”
I kept driving, not wanting him to talk any further.
“Ya know, I don’t think I could ever have a daughter. I think I’d just-“
“Train tracks, up ahead”
I could barely see them, but they were there.
“Cross’em. Pull to the right.”
I crossed the tracks and pulled to the right which was populated by a forest full of shadows.
“Turn it off,” John Jr said.
I turned off the ignition. A second later, a set of brake lights blinked on and off in the forest.
“Open my door.”
I got out and opened his door.
John Jr got out and faced me. He smiled with a mouthful of rotten meth teeth and lifted his handcuffed hands to be released.
I un-cuffed him, hating every second of it.
“Good night, Officer.”
John Jr turned away and started towards the getaway car.
I yelled out to him to stop, to wait. Where was my family? My wife and daughter?
John Jr yelled back, “How the fuck should I know?”
And at that moment, John Sr burst out of the getaway car with a shotgun and fired at me. It tagged me right in the chest, and thankfully I was wearing my vest.
I landed hard. My arm moved on its own, grabbing my glock 9 mil and firing it off towards the car.
I couldn’t even see where I was shooting. I just kept pulling the trigger until I heard the magazine go ‘click.’
When it did, all I could hear was the storm overhead. I looked over at the getaway car and saw two bodies on the ground. John Jr and John Sr. I’d managed to tag them both at least twice.
Then I heard a groan. Only it wasn’t from the two men. It was from the getaway car. From inside the trunk, which was lined with bullet holes from my gun.
A cough barked out. A wheeze. More coughing. I knew what was in the trunk but I didn’t want to check.
Still, I walked over to the getaway car and found the trunk unlocked. I opened it and found out where my wife and daughter had been this whole time.