Title: The Game
Author: LadyElaine
Rating: R
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of Pitch Black belong to USA Films and David Twohy. I make no profit except (hopefully) feedback.
Summary: A weary detective hunts down a killer.
Warning: Graphic and disturbing imagery. This is not a pretty story.
The Game
I.
"Black male, aged between late thirties and early fifties. One stab wound to the lower back. Cuts and abrasions to the arms and hands: he didn't go down easily. Bruising on the back of the neck and on the jaw suggests that he was held, face down, just before being stabbed. Cause of death, massive blood loss due to severing of the abdominal aorta.
"White female, aged somewhere between eleven and fifteen. Cause of death, slashed throat. No obvious signs of rape, and no defensive wounds on this one, suggesting that she was taken by surprise; blood matching her type found on the hands and neck of the male means she probably died first.
"Both bodies show extensive bruising and abrasions, as though they'd been tossed around a good bit some time before they died. However, considering that both victims were found abandoned in a lifeboat, these earlier wounds may--
"Wait... There's something in her mouth... Oh, hell."
* * *
LIFEBOAT HARBORS TWO MURDERS.
Two dead bodies, a middle-aged man and a teenaged girl, were found aboard an otherwise abandoned lifeboat which had been docked at the Andreas II station. The man has been identified as Abu al-Walid, a Chrislamic cleric, but the girl's identity remains unknown....
Detective Clarence Miller lay the paper down on his desk and rubbed his face. It had been a long day, and it promised to get longer still. The bodies were still fresh in the morgue, but the bloodhounds in the press were already sniffing around.
"And then there's this," Lowell said.
Marina Lowell had been Miller's partner for all of five weeks, and her detective's badge was still bright and shiny--but Miller figured her chipper eagerness would fade soon now, especially in the face of these two brutal murders.
A small, grimy slip of paper, sealed inside a plastic bag, landed on the desk between them. Creases on the paper showed how it had been carefully folded. "That," Lowell sighed, "was inside our Jane Doe's mouth."
Neatly written words spidered across the paper in crusty brown. Old blood, Miller realized with a rush of nausea.
Tag. You're it.
He wanted to curse. He wanted to yell and cry and break something. Instead, he set the evidence carefully back down on the desk, stood up, and with steady hands slipped on his overcoat and straightened his tie.
"You all right?"
"Get your coat, load your weapon and backup, and alert the canine unit," Miller responded. "It's time to go hunt down an old friend."
* * *
Two years. Two years don't count for much when there's no one to go home to. It was two years ago this month that you were called to yet another homicide scene. Only this time it was at your own apartment. And the victims were your own wife and ten-year-old son.
The whole station had been living in terror of the Minerva System Slasher. Lock your doors at night. Don't leave your children alone. Sleep with a loaded gun beside the bed.
Sleep? That's a crock. You still wake up sweating at three a.m. every morning. The time of death, they told you. Liver temperature and muscle rigidity and how much blood was left to pool inside the body instead of staining the walls or soaking into the cheap carpet of the apartment.
Lie awake in bed--three o'clock, three-oh-one, three-oh-two--trying not to think about the note carefully folded up and slipped inside little Tyrell's mouth--under the tongue, so you'd have to fish around inside the dear, dead flesh to get it.
Tag. You're it.
* * *
"Hey. Miller." Marina laid a concerned hand on her partner's shoulder. "Hey. You okay there, Clarence?"
Giving a quick shake of his head, Miller smiled. "Yeah. I'm fine."
"Ha. You don't look fine to me." Closing the file in front of him, Marina half-sat on the edge of Miller's desk. He looked so tired, she thought she could count every line on his face. "Look. We've been at this since we came in this morning. No one saw anything or anyone suspicious at the port the day the skiff docked, it's been too long for the dogs to find any residual scent, and my watch says we both ought to be home asleep by now. But since I doubt either one of us is going to sleep much till this is over, what say you and I go grab some dinner?"
For a moment, Miller looked like he was about to decline; but then his shoulders straightened, and he took a deep breath. Giving Marina the first real smile of the entire day, he said, "Sure, how 'bout Barney's? I'll buy."
"Uh-uh, Detective. You bought last time. My turn." She helped him into his coat, grabbed her gloves, and added, "And not Barney's. I'm taking you for some real food, not that toxic waste. How's about Momma Mia's?"
Another smile, and Marina could feel the day's tension finally draining. "Sure," Miller said. "And... thanks."