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The scent of death was something a person never forgot. Leaping to his feet, he ran in the direction of the young student. Barbara rushed after him, shooting the other three students a firm command.
“Stay right where you are, and don’t follow,” he instructed.
They found the girl standing at the entrance of a washed-out cave. The young blonde had apparently run right up to the entrance before freezing in horror. A partially decomposed body and a few other body parts had washed out of the entrance, and she was practically standing on some of it.
Ace had to hand it to the young lady. She was in the midst of a total freak-out, but she was keeping her lips zipped. Both of her hands were covering her mouth and nose. The professor’s hands flew to her face as well. Ace knew it was because of the stench.
Approaching the mouth of the cave, he suddenly remembered the girl’s name. “Jennifer, everything’s going to be okay. Take a step back. You don’t want to get any of that on your nice sneakers.”
She jerked slightly and slowly turned her head in his direction. Tears squeezed out of her eyes, and she gave a slight shake of her head. Fucking hell, she was close to checking out.
“I’m gonna reach out and pull you back out of there. Don’t freak out, okay?”
Her eyes were glazing over, and she looked like she was about to faint. Ace grabbed her and lifted her off the ground. Taking a couple of steps back, he sat her back down. Rather than running or fainting, she wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shirt. Shooting Barbara a worried look, he found her shaking her head.
“I can’t believe someone got injured out here and nobody came to look…”
“That ain’t what’s going on here, angel. You’ve both wandered into my wheelhouse, and you need to listen up. That’s not a single person.”
Gesturing wildly at the corpse, Barbara insisted stubbornly, “It is.”
Ace’s chest ached to have to deliver the bad news. “There are more than two arms and legs. This is likely a dump site for either a serial killer or a gang of some sort.”
“Are you saying the farmer is a killer?”
“Hell no. If he was killing people and dumping bodies here, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to call you up and invite you out here, now would he?”
“I suppose not.”
“He probably was working on the other side of the hill before the last storm. I doubt he knows anything about this situation.”
“We should have left when you told us to.”
“Well we sure as hell can’t leave now. You gotta call this in.”
“I’ll call once I get home. I don’t want to be here anymore,” she insisted. The women in their group were being kind of girly about the whole thing. Then again, Ace supposed that they’d probably never seen anything like this in their entire lives.
“I might be able to tell by looking what’s going on here. It might be that I can recognize one of bodies or something,” he mused.
“Are you crazy? You can’t go in there,” Barbara protested.
“As of right now, you’re no longer in charge,” Ace told her firmly. “Take Jennifer and give me a minute.”
The young woman’s hands flew off him at the speed of light. She turned on her heel and took off running back around to the where the other students were waiting. Ace moved toward the entrance, carefully stepping around the mess that had washed out. Though the area was always pretty dry, every now and then, the sky opened up and dumped a tremendous amount of rain all at once. When that happened, sometimes gullies got washed out and things like this happened.
Taking a quick peek inside, a sick feeling began to churn in the pit of his stomach. There were three bodies with seven-six tattooed on their necks and one black man wearing colors from a club he didn’t recognize.
Ace quickly snapped some pictures with his cell phone, unsure if his flash would be strong enough to ensure any kind of decent picture quality. This was some seriously fucked-up shit.
Making his way out of the cave, he joined Barbara, who was waiting rather impatiently. It was irritating that the other three students had come to gawk, even though she’d asked them to stay away. He imagined their curiosity got the better of them when Jennifer told them what was going on.
“Dude, you’re totally fierce. I can’t believe you went in there.”
Ignoring the idle hero worship, Ace cut to the chase and broke it down for them. “We’re all in some pretty deep shit. From the little I could make out inside, this looks like a dump site for some Aryan gang.”
Barbara gasped. “You can’t know that.”
“Well there are three dead guys from the seven-six and a black gang banger. When I was in lockdown, the Aryan gangs used to stomp on a man’s back as a sign of disrespect. Word had it that on the outside, they would chalk the sole of their shoe first to leave a white imprint. It’s a calling card of sorts. The only body with his back showing had the imprint of a boot on his jacket.”
