Rhythm of the Night

Short story. He was obsessed with his dead victims.

        It was just another night. Just like all the others. Fifteen years he had been on the job and he had seen everything: rape, murder, suicide. Tonight would be just like all the others. It disgusted him, the things he saw. Pretty girls with their brains blown out, people killed in a drunken rage, and sad souls who had decided that living was too much for them. The suicides were the hardest. The corpses were more beautiful in death than they had ever been in life, with pale, cold, beautiful skin looking almost like marble, their eyes empty and open, focusing in on something that could not be seen by the living world. So statuesque, it was almost easy to forget they were once people. But he knew.

        The night was the hardest. There was a certain rhythm to it, a rhythm of explosive rage and sadness that caused a senseless death for his beautiful victims. Ten minutes he had been at the station and the first call was in. A suicide, the first of the night. Dread filled him " It was only 9:30 PM. Tonight was going to be different, he thought. He left the station with leaden feet; He didn't want to do this anymore. His partner and all the other police officers that he worked with seemed completely fine with dealing with murders and suicides, it was their work. When they went home to their families they didn't think about the marble skin and the eyes glazed-over with fear and sadness. But he didn't. He'd lay in bed and think about the dead all day. He didn't have a family; He was empty. The only thing that was in his head were the horrible crime scenes, night after night.

         No, he didn't have the time or capability to have a family. He never had. He had found a woman, however, who loved him deeply and understood the pain she saw in his eyes. She could not evoke any emotion in him, though " He was dead inside, just like his victims. He only stayed because she was little bit of sunshine in his otherwise empty life. She cooked, she cleaned, she made love to with fervor. She was everything he had ever wanted. But he knew it was too late.

        He drove through the Lincoln Tunnel in a daze, his eyes fixed on the road. His driving was automatic, mechanical. When he finally reached the apartment with the ambulance out front, he saw that a crowd had gathered. Nosily, they stood behind the police tape, seeming to rock in the wind to a rhythm he could not hear. The rhythm of life, the rhythm of the night. He entered the apartment slowly, his heart continually filling with dread. This was only a formality, to make sure it was actually a suicide. Once inside, he found a beautiful girl strewn across her bed, an empty bottle of sleeping pills at her side. He touched her neck gently, like a lover, looking hopefully, stupidly, for any sign of a pulse. Of course there was none; She had been long gone. Now the only thing to do would be to call her family so they could prepare a funeral. Imagine, a funeral for this beautiful, sad girl. She was too young. Honey, it couldn't have been that bad, he thought to himself. He ruled her death a suicide, of course. Now he felt only an inexplicable anger. Yes, tonight would be different.

       As soon as he reached his car, relieved that his job here was over, he received another call. A woman had been shot to death in her hotel. Again, he felt dread.

       The crime scene was chaotic. People milling around everywhere, trying to get a glimpse of his victim. A tornado of crying, yelling and whispering swirled through the night air as he made his way to the hotel room. What he found there was horrific. Another beautiful girl laying on a bed with a bullet lodged in her brain. Her eyes were wide open and her face contorted in a frozen scream that no one had heard, that no one would ever hear. No prints, no clues, no identification, only the bullet that ended her life. The case was hopeless, he knew, as many of them were. No one would ever find out who had murdered this girl. Before he left the hotel room, he ran his fingers through a length of her hair. Whoever had done this did not love this girl, but he did. A heat creeped into his face, more anger. He was not used to the feeling of anger. It was the only real emotion he had felt in years.

       More suicides, more murders. It was the longest night he could remember. Finally, he was able to leave the station. When he reached his apartment he found his girlfriend asleep on the couch with her eyes closed and a slight smile on her face. At that moment he felt disgust. It was four o'clock in the morning and she would be asleep for another couple of hours. He felt only a strange surge of energy, like electricity running through his body. He knew he would not sleep. Instead he filled a bath with hot water, hoping that relaxing in the bath would take his mind off all the horrible things he had seen that night. But as soon as he sank his body into the water and closed his eyes, he saw their faces. They were distraught, asking why he had not saved them. I wanted to! I wanted to! Please believe me! he screamed in his mind. He opened his eyes but he could still see them, hear them, feel them. They were pleading, begging for another chance at life. They hadn't been ready! He fought down a scream that was forming in his throat and shot out of the tub, knocking over a vase filled with flowers that had been perched on the windowsill above the tub. “Damn it,” he whispered. The glass was shattered all over the floor, glimmering in the moonlight that came through the window. For a moment he stared at it, then he noticed that the flowers in the vase were dead. Again, he was filled with anger and a strange electricity that terrified him. A long shard of glass lay on the floor. He closed his eyes once more and saw the face of the first suicide of the night, that beautiful girl who had downed the sleeping pills. She had been the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He knew she would never leave his mind. Leaning down, he slowly picked up the long shard of glass and watched as it shimmered brightly in the moonlight; it was dazzling, hypnotizing. Slowly he sank back into the bath and without thinking slid the glass down both his wrists. He felt no pain, only the warm gushing of blood. Again he closed his eyes and fifteen years of his victims rushed through his mind.

        5 o'clock in the morning. The water was bright red and his eyes were still closed, he wanted to see those girls in his mind one more time. They were still screaming, but the screaming was quieter, subdued. This had been the only way to end the screaming. When he felt his life draining away from him, he opened his eyes. The electricity he had felt earlier crackled through his veins in a steady rhythm. He was determined to keep his eyes open. He wanted to be marble, too. He didn't think about if anyone would miss him; The only people he cared about were those poor, beautiful dead girls.

With one last breath, the electricity sizzled, sparked and died. His last sensation was that of rhythm. The rhythm of the night. He was right. Tonight had been different.