Chapter One- The Mess

Detective Rose Examines the crime scene.

Normally, when a murder is committed, it’s done so completely on impulse. Not much thought goes into plotting murder. It tends to play out with bozo one pissing off bozo two to the extent of a need to permanently erase bozo one from the face of the earth. Maybe words were said, or deeds were done, but in the end, someone wound up dead. And no justification is found in it. And most people are left with more questions than answers. Why did it happen? Could there have been another way? What was the point behind it?

I found myself asking those same questions. I mean, I don’t think anyone wants to wind up on a metal examination table; strangely as morbid as that may sound, that kind of crap happens. A life can be extinguished so quickly, and there’s just no rightness at all to it.

And I questioned that more and more as I crossed the yellow police line tape. I found myself out of the mild October chill, and in a rather warmer apartment room. It was all basically one room. A bed in one corner, a TV on the opposing wall, and a kitchenette in the far back corner.

The room itself wasn’t very big. But hey, maybe that’s just coming from a guy who casually ducks low doorways.  

The only thing that stood out was the police tape cutting off entry into what I then assumed to be the bathroom. I made my way towards the door, shrugging out of my National’s baseball jacket along the way. A young man in a D.C.P.D. beat cop uniform stepped out from the room, ducking under the police tape as he exited.

I inclined my head at him.

“Afternoon, Detective,” he greeted me somberly. I glanced at his name tag. Vargas.

“Officer. I understand you were the first responder?”

He nodded. “Noise complaints, sir. Everything that I originally assumed was just a

domestic disturbance. Screams, thumps, banging, stuff like that. But after seeing what’s in there,” he jammed a thumb at the entrance of the bathroom. “I’m surprised they didn’t report more.” He tipped his hat, and went back outside.

  As I entered the tiny hole-in-the-wall bathroom, I now understood what Vargas had meant. Blood was everywhere. Well, that was an understatement. There was simply too much of it. Sprayed in an arc across the mirror, coating a portion if the opposing wall, a pool of it on the floor.

  Blood normally doesn’t bug me. But this was a bit of a different story. The average human has roughly nine to ten pints of blood. But this looked like someone had taken two gallons of it, and went nuts. And the cherry on top? The absence of a stiff. No body. Now that made me do a double take. Enough blood to make Dracula a diabetic, and no victim?

  My mind was trying to process the possible logics (which were slim to none) and came up with nothing. I scanned the room. No murder weapon, at least not that I could see. And there weren’t any windows in the bathroom either. So therefore, the only possible way someone could’ve gotten in was through the front door. But there was no sign of forced entry. No busted lock or door frame, no signs of a struggle, no overturned or broken furniture. Nothing. It kind of bugged me.

  “Well,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “What do you think, Christina?” In the doorway, stood a young woman, pry no older than thirty. Her sandy blonde hair was up in a bun held together by metal chopsticks. She wore a light blue business blouse, tailored almost exactly to her fit. I could easily say that it showed off her curves rather nicely. She was a step below stunningly gorgeous, every visible feature seemed to stand out more so than it should.

  Her gleaming pale blue eyes scanned the room, going from myself to the mess of blood that painted the walls. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, entering the room carefully as to make sure she didn’t

step on anything that would be considered evidence. She huffed out a breath. “Honestly?” Her words sounded like an orchestra at its finest, a songbird, and fluffy bunnies all at once. “Didn’t Schwarzenegger do a movie on something like this?” I held back a chuckle, and shrugged. “Something like that.”

  She weaved her way past me, and examined the largest puddle of scarlet in the middle of the floor. She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip, before she answered.

“From a rough guestimate, and from how fresh everything still is, most likely four or five hours old, at the least.” She thought on that. “How long ago did dispatch receive the call?”

“Maybe six or seven in the morning,” I answered, looking at my watch. Already going on noon.

  So a good five four hours, at best. I cursed silently. Plenty of time for a goon to skip town. But I couldn’t argue with Christina’s opinion. She was almost always right in terms of times and dates. I could only agree.

So no body, no clues, and a killer on the rampage (Don’t feel no fear!). And not even lunchtime yet.

Christina stepped out of the room, and, I kid you not, started crying. “Why? Why would someone…a human… do this?” She wiped her eyes, and did her best to reclaim her composure. I could only help by staying quiet. Christina was sensitive. A big old teddy bear of fluff. Not entirely cut out for what the real world liked to dish out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, everyone goes through some sort of an emotional traumatization. Especially when it comes to seeing a dead body. But for most cops, you work around it. Or get used to seeing stiffs Christina took it a lot harder. And how could I not be aware of it?

 

  We took a look around some of the other apartment rooms. There wouldn’t be any point in asking if they heard anything, considering someone had called it in. Two doors in, however, and there was no luck. We got to the third door on that bottom floor hallway, and hit the buzzer. A sound of moving fabric came, and a deadbolt unlocked. A creepy looking little old lady answered the door, but barely peeked her head out. “I’m not interested,” she squawked. She began to shut the door, but I stuck my shoe in the door. She blew out an exasperated breath.

  “Detective Daniel Rose and Christina Faith. We’re asking around the other rooms for any information regarding a-”

“I don’t know anything” she, rather rudely interrupted, and tried shutting the door again. My shoe said otherwise. She let out another huff.

  “Now, if you don’t mind,” my partner said, forcing the door open completely. “We would like to have a few words with you.” She displayed her D.C.P.D. badge, to the older woman, who grudgingly moved away from the door. I couldn’t help but smile a little. Christina’s attitude would change on a dime based on any situation.

  The next five minutes of the little pow-wow with creepy old lady is kind of a mismatch colored memory. The old woman’s jaw unhinged completely, letting out a guttural scream that would put most death metal frontmen to shame. Granny death then heaved herself at Christina. Her skin turned three shades darker, and her eyes blackened into pits. Her speed was nothing more than a blur.

  Suddenly, a bright burst of white light blinded my vision. I grabbed onto the stairway leading upstairs, and held myself up. I, just barely, opened one watery eye, and surveyed the scene. I felt a searing wave of heat emanate off of my partner. The creepy demon-woman lay in a crumpled twitching heap a few feet from my illuminated partner. I didn’t dare look at her directly, else I’d probably risk being blinded. Billowing shadows of huge feathered wings protruded from her back. I couldn’t help but grin fiercely. It felt damn good, too. I pulled myself up and onto my feet. I gave a quick glance to my partner, who was starting to dim down. She flashed me a smile as I glanced over at the wriggling form in front of us.

  By the time Granny Death had come back to relative consciousness, Christina and I had already gone through the tiny room and found nothing, and was gone before the thing had woken up. We both walked to my car, myself processing everything that had happened within the last half hour.

“Whatever that thing was," Christina began, “I removed the evil entity that inhabited that cranky old woman.” I shivered. “Was that thing what I think it was?” She nodded. Not many things will shake a man’s faith more so than seeing things that he deemed were not natural in this world. Add that to any stories and legends that you’ll hear over the years, and you got yourself the equation for fear. I opened the driver’s side door, and got in, starting the ignition as I did.

Christina looked at me. “Faith can move mountains, and can be shaken like earthquakes. Sooner or later, you will need to either find yours, or be lost without it” I thought to myself “Well, faith never did help me. And it isn’t helping us now.” Somewhere in the center of my back, a familiar itch came back, harboring a past of mine best left in the deep recesses of my life. “So where to then?” I asked. She looked at her notebook. “188 north Independence avenue. That’s where the tenant, A miss Denyse Trainer’s parents live. Maybe they can enlighten us on Ms. Trainer and her disappearance.”

I nodded, and drove out of the parking lot and onto the main road, another crisp Autumn wind picking up colors of red, orange, and yellow leaves, and sending them across the way. Halloween was only two or so weeks away, and the streets were beginning to become decorated with grinning pumpkins, cackling witches, and dancing skeletons.

Author's Note

Please, open to criticism.