The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

Sweeping the beam along the narrow pathway, and then across the raised concrete pavement in front of the building, he found nothing more than additional bits of scattered trash. Slowly, he passed the light across the windows and doors, looking for signs of vandalism or forced entry. Aside from some scratched graffiti etched long ago across two of the windows, John saw nothing else unusual. His hand resting near his baton, John moved closer to the third door.

He found it closed. Shining his light through the tinted window into the office space beyond, the interior appeared dark. A faint glow came from something deep within the office.

Someone probably left a computer on . . .

John tried the door, surprised to find it unlocked. It swung open with a quiet screech of metal against metal.

Shit.

He had reset the alarm. Now, he had at most a minute to locate the inside panel and override it again. John was sure that he run and reach the panel on the side of the building in time, but that would not solve the problem. He still needed to check inside the office.

Playing the beam across the walls of the office, he searched for either a light switch or the alarm panel. Although the latter was more critical, turning on the lights would make it easier for him to find the panel.

“It’ll either be up front here,” John reasoned quietly, pausing with relief until he realized that his flashlight had located the thermostat. “Or in the back.”

He hoped that it was not hidden away in a locked storage closet. It would not be the first time he had run into that kind of setup. There was, he knew, a rear door as well, so he could still head for the outside panel without having to go all the way back through the office.

Assuming it’s not locked.

Some of the business owners, in violation of several state and local safety codes, felt themselves to be more secure if they left those rear exits locked and bolted at all times. Since they never used those doors, the owners often forgot to provide copies of the keys to the security company.

Josh moved quickly through the dark office space, trying to avoid bumping into desks and other office furniture. He stumbled, but caught himself, swearing in hushed tones. Automatically, he swung the flashlight down to get a look at the unseen leg of a chair that had attempted to trip him. He froze for an instant, his breath coming to a stop, when he saw a dark-suited man sprawled across the carpet.

Not again.

That was his first, absurd thought. Then, his training took over and he knelt, reaching down to check for a pulse on the man’s neck. Even before he failed to find one, John knew it was too late. The man’s skin was cool and papery. He considered for a moment turning the man over, just to be sure, but the strong hints of other scents convinced him that what had once been a moderately successful businessman was now definitely a corpse.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

He tapped the radio control.

“Los Altos Apartments,” he reported in. “I’m just finishing my circuit.”

That was not entirely true, John knew, but no one would know if he completed it on his way out to wherever they needed him to go.

“Copy that,” the dispatcher replied. “There’s an alarm event at the property at Paxton and Smelt.”

John brought up the map on his tablet. He already knew the property was a small strip mall southeast of his current location. The app reported that he should be get there in about eight minutes.

“Copy that,” he responded back. “I’m en route.”

Shifting the car into gear, he headed for the exit. Heading directly to that intersection would take him out of his way from the three other sites he was scheduled to patrol that night. Going back to them after he dealt with the alarm event would require a somewhat convoluted route back.

Maybe I can tackle them in reverse order . . . ?

He tried to map that out in his head as he drove, although his fingers itched to tap it out on his tablet.

Both hands on the wheel, he cautioned himself.

Although there was almost no traffic at that hour, it was exactly the kind of time when a drunk or overtired driver would do something stupid, such as running through a red light or stop sign, not expecting there to be any other cars on the road in be in their way.

Eleven minutes later, after being forced to wait for two unmetered lights, John arrived at the location. He slowed, surveying the empty parking lot. His hand remained poised over the spotlight control, ready to trap someone in its intense glare if they seemed suspicious. He saw nothing, though. The interior of each of the shops and offices appeared dark. He pulled around to the side of the building, coasting to a stop adjacent to the external alarm panel.

Leaving the car running, he grabbed his flashlight and climbed out of the car. He played the flashlight beam around the area, but it revealed nothing more than scraps of garbage and two large empty glass bottles. Each was a different shape and color. One of them he guessed had held vodka or gin; the darker one had probably contained rum.

Using his key to open the alarm panel, he saw that the alarm on Suite 3 had been triggered. Playing back the building signs in his mind, he tried to remember whether that was the tax office or the small Asian herb store. He reset the alarm, waiting to see whether it went off again, and then closed and relocked the panel.

Returning to the car, he turned it off and removed the keys. Retrieving his baton from the passenger seat, he slid it smoothly into its holster on his belt. He locked the car and headed toward the front of the building, his flashlight aimed out before him.

“Silent Night”

Author’s Note: This was a piece I did for the A Merry Little Apex Christmas Flash Fiction Contest. I didn’t win, so I’ll publish it here for you. Happy, um, holidays.

---

Gerard barreled down the stairs.

I’m first! I’m FIRST!

He reached the landing and skidded to a halt. The tree was dark. Even the lights strung along the mantle were out, resembling a black, tangled vine in the dark.

Gerard’s heart thumped in his chest. He hated the dark. Things lived in the dark, in its shadows.

“Not on Christmas,” he whispered. “Not on Christmas.”

It really was Christmas morning; he was certain of it. Yet, underneath the tree, there was nothing.

“There have to be presents,” he mumbled angrily.

Looking toward the mantle, he saw six stockings hanging there. Gerard approached them. Unlike the others, which remained flat and empty, his clearly bulged with . . . something.

He grinned. “That’s how it should be.”

Gerard grabbed it down, his eager grin changing to a look of confusion when the contents rattled.

He dropped down to sit cross-legged on the floor in a patch of gray-white light and poured out the stocking’s contents. Five small, dark shapes clattered against one another as they tumbled onto the carpet. Each one was about the size of his finger and perhaps twice as wide.

He examined one, turning it slowly beneath his fingers. Its edges felt rough, almost sharp. He stared down at it, recognizing the shard for was it was.

Coal!

He nearly flung it away. In the reflected light, though, from within the black substance, his mother’s face stared back at him.

Gerard began to scream.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

It was nearly midnight when his patrol route returned him to the apartment complex from the night before. He drove slowly through the parking lot, seeing nothing unusual. He brought the car to a stop beside the same garbage enclosure where he parked the day before. A startled cat darted across his headlight beams, a quick black and white dappled flash of motion, before disappearing into the shadows of the landscape shrubbery.

John stared up the stairway toward the apartment. It seemed to be dark. At least, no light came from either the small kitchen window, or from the large sliding door that led to a narrow balcony. If lights were on deeper within the apartment, he could not see them.

I probably wouldn’t want to be alone in there either right now, he thought with a vague shiver.

He wondered if she was alone up there, and whether he should check on her.

I could call it in as a welfare check.

He settled back into the seat to think about it, recognizing that he really had no justification to make such a call.

I’ll probably take eight sorts of shit for it too, he knew, thinking of at least one fellow officer would persist in making rude and suggestive remarks about John and the young woman.

She wasn’t that bad looking, he decided.

It had been difficult to tell for sure between the robe and her puffy face and eyes. There had been something about her face, though. Even through the blotchy complexion brought on by fear and crying, it had been oddly familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

Thinking through his collection of friends and acquaintances, he knew that perhaps one or two of them might live somewhere in this part of the city, but he had never visited this apartment complex before the last night. His uncertainty told him that he was probably looking in the wrong place. If he had ever seen her before, it had not been among his friends.

Where then?

“Car Twenty-Seven, what’s your ten-twenty?”

The dispatcher’s voice broke him from his thoughts.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

He was not sure that he liked it—nor was he entirely certain that he did not. Based on rumors he had overheard, she sometimes liked to bring her work home, as it were—complete with handcuffs. John could not quite figure out whether the idea intrigued him . . . or terrified him.

Probably both, he decided, and then shoved the whole idea forcibly from his mind. That is so not happening.

Snapping the keys onto his belt, he looked down to his clipboard. With mixed feelings of relief and reluctance, he saw that it was the same patrol assignment as he had received the previous night. Although there were plenty of other places along the route where a dead body could turn up, he found the consistency somewhat reassuring. So far, he had only encountered when he had been assigned to a different patrol route

And let’s keep it that way.

John knew, though, that this patrol assignment would probably change tomorrow—or certainly within the week. Although he had not thought to ask whose route it normally was, he guessed that it probably belonged to someone was out sick, or on vacation, and he would be assigned somewhere else when that person returned. For the moment, though, he took it as a sign that the evening would hopefully be far less eventful than some of the previous ones had been.

He climbed into the patrol car, dumping his computer bag and lunch onto the passenger seat. Starting it, he saw that the gas tank showed as nearly full.

About time . . .

His two of his last three shifts had all started with him having to locate an open gas station so that he could complete his full patrol for the night. Most gas stations, he thought, were open twenty-four hours a day. Apparently not in this part of town, he had discovered much to his initial aggravation. Once the tank was filled, and he was feeling more charitable toward the owners of the stations that he had found closed, he decided that it probably did make sense. Getting robbed on a regular basis was probably less profitable than remaining open all night in a neighborhood with a high crime rate.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

Peering around the doorway, he checked the large numeral digital clock on the dresser. He was at little risk of being late for his shift. As he finished toweling himself off, he tried to decide whether he had time to have dinner there or if he should grab something at a drive-through before heading up to pick up his patrol car at the dispatch office.

He tried to remember how much cash he had in his wallet . . .

. . . probably like three dollars . . .

. . . and how much he had in his bank account . . .

. . . probably even less than that.

John checked the clock again. Unless his father was earlier than usual, John would already be on his way by the time his father arrived home from work.

I guess I can text him, John decided. He’s going to lecture me either way.

A speech by text—while no less annoying—was, at least, was a little easier to ignore.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he padded barefoot back to his bedroom, once again wishing he could remember where his slippers were. The fake wooden floors were cold this time of year.

Later, as he drove to the dispatch office, with the aroma of fast-food burritos mixing with the other stale scents in his car, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder where he might be assigned to that night.

My track record lately has been . . . well . . .

He trailed off, unable to find a good way to rationalize that nearly all of his patrol shifts over the past few days had involved someone being dead. Tempted to call ahead, to see whether they would tell him which assignment he had drawn for the night, he resisted, afraid that he might just turn around and go home if he knew.

When he walked into the dispatch and signed in for his shift, John had the distinct feeling that he was on the receiving end of several sidewise glances. He caught no one at it, specifically, but was certain that it happening. Carole’s customary smile seemed a little wider and, John thought, almost predatory. Her eyes appeared a bit brighter as well when she handed him the keys. John the smile noncommittally, feeling uncomfortable.

In the past, she had been friendly enough—in a cordial, yet professional sort of way. She had, however, never really teased or flirted with him the way she did with most of the other men. Although she was not really at all his type, being a bit too lean and with a narrow face that he did not find particularly attractive, he still felt a dull stab of jealousy and disappointment at the perceived rejection.

Tonight, however, seemed different. It was a poorly kept secret that the night dispatcher preferred “bad boys”. His getting hauled in for questioning by the police the night before had evidently now placed him into that category in her mind.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

The first he had almost casually discarded it, glancing only briefly at it. It was not until they had found the dead man at the upscale house that the sergeant had seemed to actually read what was printed on the sheets. John remembered the sergeant’s puzzled expression, and then his sudden, urgent reaction.

John was certain that the sergeant had expected to find a snake in the bag delivered to the dead woman at the office complex’s bag—sure enough so that he was willing to involve Animal Control. Once the bag had been proven to be empty, the sergeant had immediately called it a homicide.

And then the same thing at the apartment last night.

So the sergeant clearly saw the pattern.

But what did those sheets say?

If they were already secured as evidence, then John knew that there was little chance that he would be allowed to see them.

Would they let my attorney see them?

Possibly, he decided, but the problem with that idea was that he had never actually been charged with anything. He had only been questioned and then released.

“Damn,” he swore softly, rubbing his closely shaven head with the towel. “I should have thought of that last night.”

He then pondered whether it would have been worth the several hundred dollars it would have cost him just to satisfy his curiosity.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

He also suspected, though, that he would find out that the victims had nothing in common. Thinking back on the guest lectures in the his Administration of Justice classes, he tried to remember what the officers and detectives had said about serial killers—that it usually turned out that there was some kind of pattern even to the supposedly random ones. It was usually when the profilers were called in that it became obvious—often much too late for subsequent victims.

“Well, this guy seems to have a thing for workout bags . . .” he murmured, also unable to recall the last time he had made it to the gym for more than one day in a row.

The moment he spoke the thought aloud, though, the connection became apparent to him. An instant later, he tried to dismiss it.

For sure that sergeant must have picked up on that.

Playing back the scenes from two of the murders in his mind—the most recent one at the apartment, and the one at the expensive home—John saw the sergeant had recognized it.

It’s like a calling card . . . he’s sending them gym bags with something inside.

John turned off the water and stood there, frowning while he dripped. This was the part that did not quite make sense.

Each of the bags contained something different.

He thought back through them: a snake (probably), a bottle of expensive liquor, a box of (presumably) poisoned brownies, and . . .

Damn.

That was where it kind of fell apart. That one bag, shipped to the woman in the office complex and unopened, had contained nothing but a bunch of papers.

The papers?

John thought about those. There had been several sheets of paper in each of the bags.

What the hell were they?

He had never gotten a good look at any of them. The one set that had actually passed through his hands looked like a college term paper or something.

Some kind of manifesto?

That kind of document was not at all uncommon from being issues by serial killers—particularly among the more severe whack jobs.

So what had it said?

John remembered the expression on the sergeant’s face when he had read it.

No, wait, he told himself, reaching for a towel.

The sergeant’s reaction had been different each time.

The Stories of the Wild One (continued)

Even as he shuffled down the short hallway to his bathroom, he found his mind returning to memories of the day before.

Why the hell did they think I did it? He pulled on the shower control. I know all about being in the wrong place at the wrong time—I did almost a month in Juvie for it. But this . . .

He could see a certain logic to the sergeant’s suspicions, but he also knew that he was completely innocent—not just innocent, but totally uninvolved.

It’s not my fault I got assigned to those patrols.

He paused in mid-step out of his pajamas, trying to convince himself that the notion bubbling through his thoughts was just a side effect of not yet being fully awake.

Did someone deliberately send me to those sites?

John knew that he had not requested any of those patrol sites. They had all been assigned by his supervisor. Sure, he had expressed a desire for ones closer to where he lived, but only of them—the man in the expensive house—had been anywhere near his neighborhood. Even then, it was a good fifteen minutes distant, up in one of the more exclusive private communities up in the hills.

Frank? he wondered.

He considered the possibility whether his supervisor might have manipulated his assignments. It seemed a reach. Frank Marshall was an ex-cop, retired from the force, who had started his own security company. While it was entirely possible that the man had made enemies while he was part of the police force, John had a lot of trouble imagining that any the people he had seen killed would have been among them. It just did not feel right.

John stepped into the shower, letting his mind roam while the water ran down on him.

If they truly were not random killings—and he still had no good reason not to believe that there were not—then all of the victims must have something in common. It was not, he felt, something immediately obvious, for the victims had spanned a variety of ethnic origins and age groups. The age of the first set of victims seemed to cluster around the forties or fifties, but the most recent one was at least a decade younger than that—maybe two. It also did not seem to be a grudge against a particular gender, as was often the case, as there had been both male and female victims.

He considered next what he had seen of each of the crime scenes. For several of them, though, he had seen very little. They were all radically different: an underground parking garage, a luxury home, a corporate office complex, and an economy apartment. There had been only one snake. The cause of death for each of the other ones had been . . . what?

John realized that he did not know. Only the first one had been obvious. He had never heard the results of any testing or autopsies from the other ones.

Of course, he thought. Why would I?

If there were evidence in a trial, they would not be released. Even if they were not, they might still not be a matter of public record. Or they might be, if he knew where to look.

That could be a problem, John considered. He had never learned any of the victim’s names.

Easy enough to find out, he realized—if he was truly interested in finding them out.

He discovered that he was, particularly now that he had been dragged in for questioning about it.