’Where do they take the bodies they collect?’
The answer was self-evident.
Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick planned to follow the corpse collectors when they left, figuring they would make an unexpected discovery.
The commotion from the residential building grew louder. The onlookers, afraid of getting involved, began urging the couple to hand their child over to the corpse collectors. The child’s mother knelt on the ground, begging them for mercy and asking to be allowed to bury her child outside the base. The couple offered up their points with both hands, but even after the collectors took them, they still insisted on taking the child’s body.
In the end, the couple was shoved to the ground by two tall men from the team. They roughly carried away the child’s body, leaving a threat behind.
"Behave yourselves if you don’t want to get kicked out of the base."
Once the corpse collectors had left in their designated pickup truck, the building’s residents began to offer the couple hypocritical words of comfort.
"My, you two have some nerve. You can just have another child. Why pick a fight with the leadership? If you get us all in trouble, you won’t be living here anymore."
"Exactly. It’s a huge kindness that the base is willing to collect the body at all, yet you’re ungrateful. Don’t think you’re so special just because you work at the pharmaceutical factory."
"Stop crying. Life is hard enough as it is, and hearing you wail is just bad luck."
"Your kid was always frail. Anyone could see he wasn’t long for this world. It’s a relief, really. He was only suffering with you."
SLAP... With a trembling hand, the woman slapped the face of her sneering neighbor.
The neighbor, after recovering from the shock, started cursing and raised a hand to strike back. The two of them began to brawl.
Meanwhile, Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick followed the corpse collectors’ truck to a large iron gate.
The sound of dogs barking erupted from within. Evelyn Ford and Ronan Kendrick exchanged a look; neither had expected the collectors to bring the bodies to a place like this.
Ronan Kendrick had already moved the child’s body from the back of the pickup into his space. He then knocked out the burly collectors and threw them directly into the large compound.
Ronan Kendrick told Evelyn Ford to stand guard outside while he went in to investigate. They both suspected they would find something disturbing inside, and Evelyn silently agreed.
Evelyn Ford stored the pickup truck in her space. It was an opportunity too good to pass up.
About twenty minutes later, Ronan Kendrick emerged. He looked grim. Evelyn noticed he had just taken two large bottles of poison from their space.
"Let’s get out of here first."
The stench coming from inside was nauseating. Evelyn saw that Ronan’s pant legs and shoes were stained with blood. They didn’t linger in the base any longer and headed straight for the parking lot.
Their truck was still in the same spot. The people in the cargo bed were sitting there quietly, and no one else was around. Ronan Kendrick used a pebble to shatter a nearby streetlamp, then moved the people into a small, unlocked truck parked nearby with the keys still inside.
Evelyn stored this truck in her space as well. It was new with a full tank of gas—too good to leave behind.
The original truck had entered the base brazenly, right in front of security. When the base authorities discovered the four men were missing, they would waste more time searching for them inside the base.
Once everything was taken care of, Ronan sat in the driver’s seat of the small truck and showed Evelyn the video he had recorded.
The place they had just been was, in fact, a crocodile pit. It held nearly a hundred of the reptiles.
The bodies of the dead were brought here. Whoever came up with this method of feeding the crocodiles was both cruel and disgusting.
Ronan had poured the poison from their space into the crocodile pit. He had also dealt with the vicious dogs guarding the compound.
"The dogs mauled the collectors until they were unrecognizable, but none of them are dead."
Evelyn felt a wave of nausea after seeing the images.
"They feed the dead to crocodiles, then hunt the crocodiles for food. Aren’t they afraid of contracting viruses?"
Ronan Kendrick adjusted Evelyn’s hat and hair. "Some people have no scruples. If eating feces could extend their lives, you’d have people fighting over it."
Evelyn actually laughed at his words. "Alright, let’s go home."
They drove the small truck right out the main gate of the base. Evelyn took out her pocket watch and checked the time. It had already been eight and a half hours since they left the island.
"Let’s drop off the people in the back first. Somewhere far from the base, so it’s easier for them to hide."
Ronan Kendrick had hypnotized them. They wouldn’t remember meeting Evelyn and Ronan tonight. Instead, their minds would hold a new memory: of them killing those four scumbags themselves. To avoid being found and targeted for revenge by the base, they would be sure to hide far, far away.
As for the scumbags’ bodies, they just needed to find a place to burn them completely.
’And the child... I originally wanted to return his body to his parents, but to avoid trouble, I decided against it. I’ll find a place to bury him later.’
On the return trip, Ronan drove much faster. At the fork by the Source River Dam, he took a different road. An hour later, now over a hundred kilometers from the base, Ronan stopped the truck.
"Let’s have them get out here."
Evelyn opened the back of the truck and unloaded their luggage. Ronan put them under a second layer of hypnosis, and half a minute later, they slowly began to regain consciousness.
Ronan got back in the truck, started it, and headed back the way they came.
"I hope they run far away and don’t get caught by the people from the base."
On the way back to the island, they disposed of the bodies in the mountains, but not before stripping them of their clothes. The thick furs and padded jackets were too valuable to burn.
As for the child, Evelyn and Ronan buried him in a forest not far from their island.
"This round trip took us more than ten hours."
As she got out, Evelyn glanced at her pocket watch and gave a weary smile.
After stowing the truck in her space, the two of them walked toward the creek.
’The island is so quiet. Are they still asleep?’
They put the raft in the water, and just as they paddled to shore, Evelyn saw Quincy dozing behind a pine tree.
"Quincy, wake up."
Startled, Quincy reflexively swung his knife at the sound of her voice, but Evelyn dodged it with ease.
"Holy crap, it’s you! I thought you were someone else. What took you so long? It’s been more than ten hours."
Evelyn didn’t hold the reflexive attack against him. She looked him up and down. "What are you doing out here on guard?"
"I waited for hours, and when you didn’t come back, I started to panic. I figured I’d wait for you by the shore, but I must have fallen asleep. Are you two okay? You didn’t run into any trouble, did you?"
Evelyn smiled. "If we’d run into trouble, would we have made it back? Anyway, Ronan and I brought you a present."
Quincy’s eyes lit up. "A present? What is it?"
Evelyn told him to hold out his hands. Quincy rubbed his palms together excitedly and then held them out in front of her.
Evelyn placed two tree grubs in his palms. They wriggled incessantly. Quincy wasn’t scared, but after a moment’s pause, he started to gag.
"Ugh, disgusting maggots."