Chapter Four: If Heaven Was Needing A Hero

Jack works on his case files at home

Spreading the applicable case folders across the table in front of him, Detective Jack Foxfire sat back to contemplate for a moment before grabbing a separate notebook. Of the 10 folders he had to work with, there were 4 that Claire Lappin had agreed were suspicious, so he placed those to one side. He would, of course, still use them, but as Claire was going to be investigating those, right now he needed to get a look at the files that had been deemed suicides, accidents or “indeterminate causes”. First on the pile, Alex Bien, was the most recent one �" the bus driver’s body found crushed by his own vehicle just this week. He was classified, at this point, as an accident.

 

Also under “accident” were Rowan Corax, who drowned in a puddle after reportedly tripping on his own shoelace and knocking himself out, and Tobias Mirapi, whose hydrolic seat had apparently malfunctioned, sending him skyrocketing into the roof of his vehicle �" a messy and painful death.

 

His suicides pile had only the one name on it, that of Kate Weber who had left her bus just near the Story Bridge and jumped to her death.

 

Indeterminate causes included Kanan Malhotra and Justin Cepod.

 

Jack sighed, running his right hand through well tussled hair, and holding his mug of instant blend coffee with the other. Sipping it, he tried to sort out the similarities of the case. He knew that first and foremost, what they all had in common was that they drove busses. Some of the drivers were with Brisbane City Council, some drove for Logan City Council and others for Park Ridge Transit, so he crossed the bus company off as a connecting factor. They were all different ages, all different races, all different genders. Beyond a few minor details, all that connected really them, it seemed, was the fact that they all drove a bus in Brisbane.

 

He groaned. There must be something more to it; even the timing of the murders didn’t fit a particular pattern except that it was always night. Most of the drivers had been driving the last run for that bus’ route, but not all, and most of the drivers had stopped their vehicle and turned off their radio and camera before the death had occurred. The strangest part of that, though, was that it was against regulations for the audio and visual equipment to be turned off before the bus had arrived at the depot, and yet some of these men, apparently known for following regulations well, had chosen to go against that. Nobody had been detected on the tapes at around the time of the disconnection, except for the driver him (or her) self, of course; and the driver had always appeared to be quite calm, if somewhat thoughtful, as the devices were disconnected. Jack fingered the folders again, pulling out the two whose deaths had not been preceded by a disconnection of the audio and video equipment designed to protect drivers and prevent this kind of thing; Justin Cepod, of indeterminate causes, and Tobias Mirapi, who had the unfortunate incident with his hydraulic seat. There was little else about either to set them apart, to help him untangle this puzzle; both men had died on their bus’ final route for the evening. Justin Cepod was an Irish man, known to be friendly and pleasant to passengers; Tobias, an older Australian fellow, not known as either surly or particularly friendly.

 

Running a hand through his hair again, before briefly cupping his chin, Jack frowned and jotted these few pertinent facts down on his notepad. “Connected by: occupation (not workplace). Radio off? Camera off? Drivers apparently not under duress.”It wasn’t much, but it was the best he had so far, to tie it all together, except the theory that was based mostly in the experiences of his sister, and a vague idea that tugged at the back of his mind.

 

 

 

 

 

When he was 14, Jack Firefox’ younger sister, Casey, was nine years old, and particularly friendly. She had lived something of a sheltered life, they both had, and Casey, in particular, had not yet learned that some people just weren’t good people. On her way home from school one day, Casey had stopped to talk to an older boy who asked for her help in locating a missing toddler. She had followed him into a back street, on his word that that was where he had last seen the child. Once he had her out of the public eye, the youth had thrown her, unceremoniously, into the boot of his car, and driven back to his house. Once there, he had raped and stabbed little Casey, dumping the body and leaving her for dead.

 

Thankfully, his sister had somehow survived the attack, and it had been this event that had inspired Jack to join the police force. Unfortunately, the same thing that had motivated him to join the police force in the first place was what had for years held him back from being able to do a top rate job; his concern and love for his sister stopped him from being able to give the job is everything. His ‘bleeding heart’ meant that he couldn’t cope with the aftermath of dealing with victims, and his desire to make a difference had led to some quite hairy situations, when the two factors came in conflict. And then.... and then this new position had been offered him, and it had been perfect. It was something somewhere between police man and Human Resource Manager, and a way to make a difference; if not directly for the victims, at least in some capacity.

 

The man who had raped Casey was eventually caught and jailed after Casey’s brave testimony, and Casey... well, she was never the same afterwards. In addition to the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder she had suffered, it was as though some kind of switch in Casey’s brain had been flicked. She began to boast of having some unusual skills and talents that Jack and his parents had, at first, disbelieved. Early on, Casey had claimed that she could influence the emotions of her friends by accident, or on random occasions, but gradually the skills she claimed to have became even more outlandish; from the ability to transmit emotions to telepathy and even telekinesis. Jack had scoffed, in the beginning; he was, after all, just a 15 year old boy, with all that that entails. A ten year old sister who claimed to have crazy “magic” powers, regardless of what had happened to her, was totally not cool, and he, like almost every other teenager, desperately wanted to be cool. He brushed her off and refused to listen, turning up his music or shutting his door in her face, until the day she took matters into her own hands. By then she was 12 and he was 17 and instead of just watching him walk away, she was ready to do something about it. As he turned to shut his door, he began to feel a sense of guilt that threatened to overwhelm him. It was stronger than any guilt he had felt in his life up to this point, and then it abruptly stopped. At the same time, he watched as his sister held out her hand. Her eyes were trained on his bedroom, and he turned his head in time to see his pencil roll from its spot on the desk, right onto the floor. That in itself might not have convinced him �" oh, alright, let’s be honest, it definitely would not have convinced him �" but what had made it roll was that the glass of water that the pencil had been leaning against was now floating a little above his desk. He looked back at his sister, whose eyes were slightly glazed with the effort of concentrating so deeply, and swallowed hard. “Uh, Case? You can, uh, you can put the glass of water down now,” he began, haltingly.

 

“I don’t think I can, Jack,” she sounded almost as though she were pleading with him, now. “I think maybe you need to get it. Quickly. I, well, I haven’t tried lifting anything so heavy before. If I try and put it down, I think I might break it, or at least spill it!” Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke, and Jack had hurried into his room, plucking the glass out of the air just as it started to fall. Water sloshed over his hands, splashing onto his desk and spattering droplets over his homework, but he ignored it and looked back over at his sister. “That’s a pretty neat party trick, little sis,” he had grinned at her. “I guess maybe you weren’t making it up after all, huh?”

 

Over the years, Casey’s skills had continued to develop, and her ability to control them and use them as she wanted had become almost legendary, in the right circles. During the therapy she had in order to deal with the trauma she had undergone, she had learned about various ways the brain is affected by trauma, and she had gone on to both study the subject in depth at university, as well as to do some independent study on both trauma and the sort of special abilities she had. She had met a few others whose similar experiences had encouraged the development of similar skills and talents, and she had discovered for herself just how widespread the phenomenon was. She had shared all of this with Jack, confiding solely in him after that day, sharing every detail of information she scraped together.

 

Eventually, Casey’s theories became Jack’s theories, too. He began to understand just how much had been covered up; the way society pretended that nothing had changed to a victim of rape or abuse, the way society shunned those who claimed to have developed new skills or talents after their assault, because society, The Man, did not want it known that that was exactly what happened. The Man did not want word to get out that, with rape rates so high, there was a good chance that at least one person on every street had either developed, or undeveloped, talents similar to his sister’s skills. And that was something else Casey had discovered; even when the powers were ‘activated’, the person often had to learn how to access them. She had been lucky, perhaps because she had been so young, building and developing that skill set had just naturally fallen into place for her. Others were not so lucky at all; their talents flared at random and went unrecognised for what they were, or they remained dormant and buried beneath the minutiae of life, undiscovered and draining the person’s energy without them even realising it. She had done some work around setting up “survivor groups” that were, in actuality, groups to build understanding and skill use around the new talents, but the secrecy around it all certainly got in the way at times. And Jack had helped, passing the information along if he came in contact with anyone who could make use of it, during his work; sharing the information around his colleagues who could also pass the word along. He had a few friendly colleagues working with sexual assault victims whom he was able to trust in to share Casey’s group’s information with the survivors who came to make a report, and that helped a lot.

 

Meanwhile, he used his knowledge of that secret world to aid his detective work, though he had never had so much to work with before. He worried, constantly, that this serial killer was one of the people his sister had counselled alongside; or one of the men or women she had taught how to use their powers. He hoped the Bus Driver Killer, or BDK for short, was not going to turn out to be someone his sister had trusted; he didn’t want to be partially responsible for crushing that naivety, the innocence that was one of his favourite things about his sister. He wished he could just ask her, if she might know of anything, if someone might have mentioned something that would help, but that was one thing his sister did not confide in him about. Everything those men and women shared at their “survivor meetings” was private and confidential. He couldn’t ask her to break that, not when she had worked so hard to build something for the community, in that counselling centre �" slash �" school, or whatever name you wanted to put to it. It didn’t matter, after all, what it was called �" it mattered what they did, what they achieved, and his sister was achieving a lot. In fact, she’d been achieving so much that she was currently in the UK, doing some work over there to train up a few people like herself.

 

It was even nicer to see that it put the old glow in her eyes, too, the one she’d worn before she was nine and the world turned topsy-turvy with the actions of one boy who wanted to prove he was a man.

 

Jack reached for his coffee cup, sipping absentmindedly for a few moments before realising that the mug was empty, and probably had been for some time, given the cool of the porcelain. Stretching, he stood and moved into to the kitchen.

 

Leaving the light off, he moved about using his memory to guide him while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Still thinking about the names and the cases, he mechanically filled the kettle. Reaching for the coffee jar, he noticed its emptiness, and went searching for more.

 

Suddenly, potatoes!

 

His search had knocked an old, forgotten, bag of potatoes. He sighed and reached out to grab the back before it spilled, but his angle was wrong, and instead of catching it, he ripped a hole in it, out of which tumbled several potatoes. They rolled across his kitchen floor, leaving behind dots and traces of soil. “Ugh,” he grunted, picking up what he thought was all of them, from where they had each landed themselves. “I wonder how long these potatoes have even been here!” They seemed alright, surprisingly enough, but as he couldn’t remember the last time he had bought any. Perhaps last month? Jack wondered how long potatoes usually lasted, he’d have to ask Casey.

 

Chuckling to himself, he wondered what his old friends would think of that. They’d probably complain about how easily he was fitting into the stereotype of a bachelor who couldn’t survive on his own. That, he knew, was definitely not the case; but it had been a while since he’d worried about cooking. With his job, home cooking was sporadic �" his hours were somewhat unpredictable and quite often he’d only just start cooking something when the call would come that he was due on the job. At some point it had become easier to just grab something on the run, or live off sandwiches and cereal for a while, until he could hit Casey up for some decent meals, for which he’d usually pay with cash or things she needed done for her support group.

 

Mentally shrugging his shoulders at his own musings, he grabbed out the new jar of coffee and turned the kettle back on. While it boiled, he set about preparing his mug, completely failing to notice the lone potato still sitting in a corner of the kitchen.

Author's Note

Please bear in mind this is a very rough first draft as I'm throwing together 50,000 words in a month. Feel free to add reviews and comments/fix grammar and spelling/find plot holes and problems (these things are heavily encouraged!), but please do be gentle on this, as well as bearing in mind that part of the NaNo experience means unnecessary padding and/or weird moments/dares.

Reviews

[ATG]

Even though I have read only one chapter so far, it was a very entertaining one that made me want to read more. Bearing in mind that it is a roughdraft, there wasn't much wrong with it. My only complaint was the "Suddenly potatoes" part. It seem unneccessary to write an entire sentence devoted to what appears to be something minor. Simply deleting the line would fix that problem quickly or possibly extending the line and making it less dramatic. Over all, this was a very good read and I look forward to reading more of it.