Disclaimer: I do not own "Harry Potter" or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter Twenty-Six
"A Feral Prisoner"
Frederick glanced up at the sun out the window and wiped the sweat off his forehead. It was only February, and yet, he felt as if he were on the beach, on the hottest day of the year. Then again, after all the lifting, hefting, moving, and barricading he had had to do during the past several hours, just to get into the small house, he should be sweating like a pig.
He glanced around the kitchen, where other officers were dutifully gathering evidence. Finally, after sixty years of investigation, they had the drug bust of the century. Somebody had been marketing some form of underground drugs, for decades, to various parts of Europe. The drug, which did not have a legitimate name, as it had a substance in it that even the most talented researchers could not figure out, was highly dangerous. Taken in very small doses, it would send one into a state of euphoria. However, any more than the tiniest pinch at a time would drive one permanently insane, and could even kill the person who took it.
They had found a drug trafficker in Poland, selling untold quantities of the pink sugar-like substance. The man, who spoke with a thick foreign accent, would not give a word as to what the drug was, where it was made, or any other information. He had sealed his mouth shut, and had not uttered a word since his arrest. However, by putting his picture up on various news stations, they finally got several reports that he had been seen in the Burgdorf area.
Burgdorf, of all places. Such a small, remote town... the perfect place to make and package up drugs. No one would suspect anyone in Burgdorf.
Earlier that morning, they had found fourteen people in the house. Three they managed to arrest, but the others escaped... somehow. They had had the house surrounded.
They attempted to arrest an old man who had to be at least seventy or eighty. He looked it in the face, at least. He had the agility of a sixteen-year-old, though, and had escaped. His identity was still being worked out. Frederick, after years on the job, was confident it would only be a matter of hours or days.
A few satellite images of the place made it to become a much bigger case than just a drug bust, however. In the backyard, there were several pits. Only a few moments of digging and a few German Shepherds later, they had pulled up human bones from the partially filled in pits. Hundreds upon hundreds of human bones. And that was only in the pits; they were scattered around outdoors, as well. The pigsty in the back was just beginning to get checked, but Frederick would not delude himself into thinking that there would be no gore found there.
Just what would an eighty-year-old German, and a fifty-year-old drug dealer, amongst others, want with dead bodies? Both things were criminal, but usually did not go hand in hand in this way. It was a mystery the entire world was waiting to hear about, and the entire case rested on Frederick's shoulders.
The ground floor of the house was normal enough. Yes, there were all sorts of strange pots and fumes in just about every room of the house, but those had been quickly wrapped up and taken in for further examination. The first floor was still being searched, as was the basement. Frederick hoped that all they would find both places would be more drugs; after they found a partially decomposed man stuffed into the washing machine, he did not know how much more he could take before having some sort of panic attack. It was not like there was an absurd amount of people that had suddenly gone missing in Germany, but where did all the bodies come from, then?
"Oh, Christ!" A younger man bolted out of the hallway, his eyes wide. "Bodies! Bodies! Hundreds of bodies! In the cupboard!"
Frederick walked into the hallway, to the cupboard under the stairs, where trained officers had the situation under control. Oddly enough, there was no stench penetrating from anywhere in the house. Not the cupboard, not the garden... nowhere. Even the pigsty, filled with huge pigs and plenty of mud, did not smell at all. It was quite the oddity.
He watched as more photographs were taken, this time of the cupboard under the stairs and its contents. "How many?" He asked.
"It's filled," someone replied. "They look to be about two, three months old. The one closest to the door two weeks old, maybe. We'll need to have an autopsy done, to be sure."
Frederick nodded, not allowing himself feel any emotions towards the humans that had died under mysterious circumstances. If he let himself feel pity, sadness, anger, he would not be able to have the job he did. He had to set himself apart from the victims, from the human's natural need to grieve. Over the years, it had gotten easier. However, this grisly matter was-
"Schmidt? Downstairs. The basement. There's someone alive." His radio cackled urgently.
He pulled the radio off his belt. "A trafficker?"
"Uh, I don't think so. A prisoner, I think, or something. You're going to have to come down here."
Frederick's heart pounded. Someone was alive? Perhaps this person could enlighten them on what exactly the drug was, and where the old man had run off to. Maybe the person could tell them who all the dead people were, or how they died. Or at the very least, maybe they could rescue this person before the person's untimely demise.
The steps down to the basement were filthy, and creaked with each step. They were the type of stairs that you did not trust, that you were fully certain would break out from under you any moment.
He tried not to think about what was under the steps. They had reportedly found several corpses stuffed underneath the basement steps. He was not sure if they had actually begun removing the remains, though. He had seen hundreds of dead bodies in his career, but it never got too much easier.
The basement had the most peculiar smell. It smelled of mould, mildew, the iron smell of blood, and the unmistakable acrid smell that resembled that of burning rubber. Once one smelled the smell of burning flesh, one never forgot the smell.
Fredrick's stomach convulsed, but he continued his way down the steps into the cold basement.
The people in the basement were all clustered to the back left-hand corner of the rather spacious basement. They were all silent, except for the occasional murmur here and there.
"What's going on?" Frederick asked, weaving his way through the cluster of people, who thankfully parted so that he could get through.
His co-worker pointed to the corner. "He seems to be on the wild side. They're too afraid to get near him."
Frederick took the torch from his co-worker and beamed it towards the dark corner, squinting his eyes to see through the dim light in the basement, provided by old-fashioned torches on the wall. He could make out a huddled figure in the shadows, who was convulsively shaking.
"Male or female? Does it speak?" His questions were directed to his co-worker, who was directing things in the basement.
"Haven't gotten close enough to check yet. They are not answering our questions."
Frederick took a cautious step towards the person. "Hello," he said quietly, not taking his eyes off the huddled form. "What is it that you are doing down here?" He tried to keep his tone light. It seemed to be a rather dumb question to ask, though. It was the officers and investigators invading the person's private space. The person huddled in the corner should be asking that question.
As he got closer, he was able to make out long and skeletal legs, leading up to an equally as skeletal body. The person was covered in lacerated cuts, and had many other painful looking marks and bruises covering their nude, dirty, and battered form. The person looked at Frederick with wide black eyes, fear radiating out of them. Their hair was a knotted nest in the back of their head; it looked to be black, but the lighting was so poor and the person so dirty that its true colouring would be impossible to tell.
"Are you all right?" Frederick asked softly, as if he were speaking to his five-year-old daughter's playmates. "Can you understand me?"
He did not dare get any closer. He was about eight feet apart from the person – man – and did not want to push it. He had had enough training to know to expect the unexpected. It would be better to take things slowly, rather than to rush them.
He spoke without turning away from the figure. "Call an ambulance," he said out of the corner of his mouth. Whatever wound up happening, they would need some medical officials there to sedate and examine the person. The person was no doubt suffering from physical trauma, but mental ones as well.
The figure shifted ever so slightly. Frederick could make out what looked to be painful burns on the man's left thigh, wrist, and hand. They looked to be red, blistering, and fresh. That would no doubt explain the smell of the burning flesh, though not the absence of the odour of decomposing bodies.
"It's safe here. You can come over here," Frederick continued to speak to the man. The presence of all the other people was likely making the man nervous, but there was not a lot Frederick could immediately do about that. "It's safe. We're going to take care of you, clean you up, get you some clothes, some food."
The man began to blather incoherently, his wide eyes taking in every motion in the basement. Frederick managed to pick up a few words he recognised as English, but nothing he could translate into anything meaningful.
"Does anyone hear speak English?" He called behind him. That was a mistake; his raised voice seemed to have struck a chord with the man in the corner, which compelled the man to hug his knees even tighter to his chest and press his forehead into his knees. A soft whimper escaped from the man's thin and ghastly pale lips.
Frederick bit his lip as he noticed a collar chaining the man to the wall by the man's neck. He was chained to the wall like a mongrel. Even if the man were capable of understanding the German Frederick spoke, he would not be able to come closer if he wanted to.
"Name?" He tried again, moving the slightest bit closer. "Name? Do you have a name?" He spoke slowly, hoping to draw the man out of his foetal position. He could see hip bones jarring out of the man's body, and each rib defined clearly on the skin that seemed to have seen much abuse and never sunlight.
The man began whimpering unintelligibly. Frederick was starting to doubt that he would be able to understand the man even if Frederick spoke English. Was the man sane, or even aware of his surroundings? What had happened to him to make him like this? Had he always been so broken?
"Does anyone have a biscuit?" He called to the group of people that had not dispersed from behind him. "A biscuit? A wafer? Something to lure him with?" He knew that the man would not be able to come to him, but perhaps he would let Frederick come closer if Frederick had food. It made Frederick's gut twist to think that this was the way he gave his dog his heart-worm medicine each month, by wrapping it in a piece of hamburger.
Someone came over and pressed a cracker into his hand before quickly scurrying off. Frederick held it out as he inched forward, staying in the squatted down position he was in, however uncomfortable. "Would you like a cracker?" He said kindly. "It's good."
The man's senses seemed to come alive when the cracker entered the scene. Frederick did not know how the man knew that he had gotten food, but the man seemed to be able to smell it from feet away. The man looked at the cracker, at Frederick, and then shrank back further into the shadows, if that was possible. He did not take his frightened eyes off of Frederick, though.
Frederick broke the cracker in half and made a big show of putting one half into his mouth. "Mmmm." He said as he chewed, rubbing his stomach, hoping to get the message across to the imprisoned Englishman. He came a little closer, holding out the half a cracker. Perhaps the man would take it. Did the man even know what a cracker was? How long had the man been down there? From the reddened marks around the man's wrists and ankles, he had dealt with a lot of cuffing in the past.
Frederick was beginning to despair. Would they have to resort to sedation and a straitjacket?
The man's nostrils flared as Frederick – and the cracker – came closer. The man began to struggle against his choker and chain, trying desperately to move out of the corner – and away from Frederick.
The crowd of workers gasped and all took a few steps back involuntarily.
"It's all right. We're going to help you." Frederick said softly, ceasing any movement. He kept his eyes focused on the barbaric man, who was like a scared animal, ready to run at any sign of a threat.
Frederick took another step forward. That was the final straw for the man in the corner, apparently. A gust of light blue light erupted from the man's body, pushing Frederick and everyone else in the basement back, causing them to fall down.
What happened next, Frederick would never remember. In fact, he would never remember the murder cases, the drug bust... none of it. No one who had heard about it would. Frederick would have nightmares for the rest of his life about a burst of light blue light, but he would never know where it came from.
Coming soon in Unwell...
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The White Room