Unofficial Report 02

In the hours following the hospital shootings, police scrambled to conduct the investigation, interrogate the shooter and find the missing hunters. Even with the local fire department and ranger service joining in, the town was on its way to hysteria. Scared people demanded answers in groups in front of the police station, fearing for their lives. Tensions elevated when speculation began on how one man could kill several hunters, even though a connection between the then unknown person and the missing people had never been established.

While all this was going down I managed to talk a few words with Ms. Clay, just as she was admitted to the psych ward for monitoring. I dashed over to the station, and thanks to some friends could keep an ear on the interview conducted with who I only ever got to know by the name Lynch. It was one of those moments in life, when you know your world is shifting around you, and you can’t do shit to stop it. Boon yelled his way into the room, and played worst cop against Sheriff Macready’s bad one. Lynch didn’t deny anything. He was cool, collected. He had done this before. He was not in a position to divulge information. His words. Accusations and threats came hard and fast, as he was told he could be facing the chair, he would be lucky if folks didn’t break in and hung him from a lamppost.

Then a strange thing happened. He asked about Ms. Clay. I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen many people lie who were. His concern seemed genuine, but it was hard to make out if it was concern for her well-being, or concern whether it was the right thing to do, to let her live. My suspicion was the latter, and when told of her condition his expressions changed. He became agitated. Finally, he dropped the bomb: he was a government agent. No one believed him then. He said he was undercover, and looking back, he really had no possible way to verify any of what he said. Intelligence agencies would never have admitted to him.

Doctor Talbot suggested playing out this possible psychosis, to at least learn of his motivations or background. Lynch refused to answer personal questions, but warned against contact with his victims. He spoke of some kind of biological threat, but refused to go into details. He later told me, that at this point he was still hopeful of a quarantine situation being avoided.

Not long after, word reached the station that Ms. Clay had passed away. It appeared her infection was resilient and could not be fought. The Sheriff told Lynch that he could add another nail to his coffin, and asked if he used some kind of poison or “biological agent” on her. Lynch got hysterical. He kept asking where’s the body, who was with it, what was going to happen to it. He was told to “sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up”. The body was kept in the psych ward, with a guard to be safe and to have someone to check on the other patients. Lynch demanded everyone get away from the corpse and be careful not to let any other person near it. “Relax Lynch, the others are bed ridden, most of those people can’t go to the bathroom by themselves.” The terror in Lynch’s eyes was clear to see.

He blurted out in one single sentence, how he was working in Japan, gathering intel on the continuation of a former Russian experiment of unknown origin. He said he was tracking a plane that left Japan with the last few remaining specimen, headed to some private organization. The plane was lost in the hills, he found some of the wreckage and notified his handler. He was told to refrain from contacting anyone about his presence, and to track whatever crawled away from the plane. At this point Boon asked who they suspected the survivors were. Lynch answered he was never supposed to look for survivors. He started explaining how the virus works, what the stages are and what we were supposed to do with the infected. We didn’t have time to laugh.

Because at about 6 p.m., the missing hunters found their way back to town…