Enjoy this one. Sorry for the long wait I guess.
:
The Discovery Interludes:
:
"They stare, they laugh;
Rapture from seeing the weak split in half,
It's candy for the eyes, but sour at heart.
But when the light falls,
You're left to ponder, and you think:
Was it worth the trouble?
It'll always be kept like an ill photograph;
Irreversibly tainted."
:
10: The Interview
When glass shatters, it's not pleasant. It slides through the air, a blink of light bouncing off its surface along the way, and crashes against the floor. Shards — sharp and pointed — scatter the floor. Then the responsibility kicks in. You realize: that mess needs to be sweeped up, or someone — maybe even yourself — will get hurt.
Tell that to Dennis Looney when he got the call at six in the morning, and he'd feel the damning resemblance.
Muttering words (mostly discombobulated grunts and swears), he rammed the telephone into the retro cradle (he was always a sucker for old paraphernalia). The nightstand wobbled. Scattered pill bottles on the polished nightstand fell over, and dove for the floor like a bunch of paratroopers.
Muzzy and stiff, he sat up. The phone was at least a foot away, but those last words rang in his ears: we need you to come in, right now. His mouth slung open, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, and dropped back into the pillow. Am I seriously going to work a twelve hour shift, come home at eleven at night, and call it a day just after midnight — only to get woken up five hours later? There's no way in hell. He eased his throbbing head with his hands. Veined, skinny hands, the type you'd see on a kid who spends all day on the computer. They were chilled, good thing he didn't bury them beneath the covers, otherwise the relief he was sourcing would've never existed — well, nevermind. It didn't take long for his head, muggy like a day at the hot springs, to turn those chilled hands into some clammy mitts.
Dropping his arms to his blanketed thighs, he scanned the room. 122,000 dollars a year, and it didn't amount to nothing. The large paneled windows staring out of his Detroit flat seized the entire wall to the right, broadcasting nothing more depressing than the pale Tuesday sky. The moon wasn't out, as far as he could tell, so maybe the sun was looming at the horizon.
The buzzing noise of the AC unit flared his headache — maybe it'd make him go insane too. 122,000 dollars a year, and the electrical issue still hasn't been fixed. He muttered some more words, those same discombobulated grunts and swears.
But then something caught his eye . . . the royal wingback armchair propped at the right hand corner of his room had somebody in it — a pretty big . . . well, fat, guy, and the circle mirror above it pictured not only him — but a middle-aged man at his left. Isaac.
"Let's get this here—
1
A New Case
—started."
And he's back. Back to the salt mines.
Isaac Leonard, detective at the DPD, speaks with a thick Brooklynn accent. It's deep, too. Makes anyone shiver uncomfortably. Dark crescents circle the undersides of his lids. His eyes are just about pulsating, screaming where's my friggin' sleep!
Dennis pages through a stapled document, his elbows propped against the worktop so hard they'll grit like sand when he moves, eyes inches away from the paper. Even so he has a hard time making out the words; but manages to read:
Name (Last/First): Crawford, Dean
Height: 173 cm
Weight: 132 kg
Woah, hold on. Almost 300 pounds at 5 feet, 8 inches tall? His eyes graze the edge of the paper and scan the witness. Yeah, he really is that fat. And already going insane without any sleep, he snorts a laugh.
Dean Crawford — known locally as . . . many things, but notably the Michelin Man of Detroit
(real funny you dickheads)
— has been called to the DPD after claiming to have witnessed a shooting at Herman Industries from the 13th floor of his apartment complex. Forced to the respondent's chair, he watches one of the men lift their eyes to check him out — not that way, you know, but just to see how he looks. And then, out of all the things he could've done, he laughs. Laughs. He shyly turns his head away. He's not that self-conscious, but c'mon. Nobody wants to be bodyshamed, especially by someone who's said to be professional.
Dennis returns to the paper. Just thinking about Mr Crawford makes him want to erupt in laughter, being already sleep-drunk and all. That guy is a damn real butterball. Haven't seen one of those since elementary school; cuffs of fat around his legs and arms, neck folds shaping chins on chins, his cheeks puffed up like a goddam Taffy Apple, and he's already short-winded . . . just from scuttering his way to the respondent's chair. And just like all butterballs, he comes with something unique. Maybe Dennis isn't so lucky because his odor — as ripe as stale beer — has drilled deep into his nostrils, and he almost gags, convulses a bit too. D'you come in here with a six-pack of Stella Artois? Holy shit, leave the beer for home!
Doing his best to put those thoughts away, he focuses back on Dean; gives him a hard stare. "Alright, Mr Crawford, just start off by telling me what happened, maybe tell me a little bit about yourself too."
Dean swallows thickly, so loud everyone can hear the glug of saliva — then leaning back on his chair. Dennis can hear the top rail stressing and forcing back with a set of cracks. Sounds a lot like bones. "Everything happened last night, clear as day . . ."
2
The Whistle
The clock was minutes away from striking 10 PM.
Come down Pearson Street to the Golden Gate Apartment Complex, 13th floor; Dean Crawford was indulging on the nightly program, Live! With Lewis Aquila, cast on the television he had bought in '96. Yeah, that's right — twenty-three years old — twenty-four next week. The thing still worked, no need for those paper-thin screens from the local Best Buy that costs you at least a thousand bucks a pop. Made by Samsung or whatever. His was a Panasonic. His wife Ruby had already suggested the switch a few times (yeah yeah, we don't need it, yeah yeah) but Dean put that aside. Didn't even give it thought; but he would follow up with: Hey, the TV works just fine. As long as I can watch my shows, it's good enough for me . . . But the television didn't work 'just fine.' All the time, the shows got eclipsed by TV static. Damn-near every show was unbearably difficult to watch. His wife had once said, 'my head would explode like that if I tried to watch anything on that hunka junk.'
He was listening to Lewis Aquila drone on about the upcoming Tom Holland blockbuster when the whistle drilled his ear like a screwdriver.
Something leaped up inside him; boiling rage. And now he was pissed off.
He became Dean The Mad Machine. Clenched fists. Strawberry-esque skin, a bit lighter. Contorted lips. Squinched eyes.
That damn whistle.
It was a trigger — a trigger to a revolver (deviously named the hate gun) that nuzzled the rigid, tight skin of a ball — a ball that was not blown with helium, but blown with anger. And that trigger was pulled, the gun clicked, the cylinder wheeled, yet no shots were fired.
That goddamn whistle. The prick was on a schedule: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night; releasing steam into the night sky with a hellish scream; or whistle. There were some outliers in there. But usually it sounded like a whistle. His noise complaint bit the dust. Nobody else was complaining. The numb dumbs he had as neighbours couldn't grow a pair and give them a mouthful.
Again, the trigger jerked. Click. Nothing.
Nothing inaccurate there — Dean's anger was like a game of Russian roulette — every once in a while it dropped by and dipped, but at one point it would come back and unexpectedly blow his top. Like the revolver, you can shoot once; and it does nothing. But you can shoot again; and you blow your brains out.
The wheezing gasp of the whistle filtered through the walls, and now it was gone. Can't believe this, he thought, why are these idiots allowed to set their science fair up here? Lewis Aquila's voice was no longer drowned out by that blaring whistle, but Dean was still boiling with rage. As they say, gotta boil the hell out of it. This is the fourth damn time in the same hour, he thought again, I hate these damn people. His thoughts were screaming at him.
He lifted himself off the leather recliner, exerting the full 291 pounds of Dean Crawford on the armrests, and hitched in sapped breath. God, he needed some exercise; popping sweat just from getting off his chair. The office has really been sucking the muscle out of him — but he didn't want to spend his time off just to work more. He wanted to relax. And since he couldn't spend his night off watching television, he flipped to his second plan: get drunk like no tomorrow. Behind the television was the kitchen, the wallpaper vintage and lined with mildew, and in the kitchen was the dominion for his happy stash of booze, just in the fridge behind a stack of cabinets and a furnished island. He used to keep the beer in the wardrobe, on a shelf above the lineup of his clothes that hung below — which his wife wasn't very fond of — but he did it anyway to stow it from his son, Derek. Nowadays, Derek is gone. He had secured a job as a security officer, and found a place of his own. At least Dean is free to keep the beer in the fridge. The thing was rotting away— ah ah ah! It still works.
He left the living room and, absently picking at the section of his slacks that had been wedged into the crack of his ass, stalked down the hall to the kitchen. His breathing was heavy and stiff beneath his considerable meatbeard. Feet flopping like suction cups, they came around the island and paused in front of the fridge before he yanked the door open, welcoming himself to the epitome of alcoholism; rows of beer bottles, quite literally a sea of brown and green gleaming beneath the waning fridge light. Each of those bottles brimmed with that 'good stuff,' Dean would usually call it, along with 'anxiety-killing medicine.' That 'good stuff' or that 'anxiety-killing medicine' happened to be more widely known as beer: Rolling Rock, Stella Artois, Budweiser, and some other one that's impossible to spell. Was it Yongling Lager? Maybe.
He didn't like to call himself a drinker; maybe when he'd watch the basketball game, yeah he'd crack a few. But the Pistons half-assed the postseason; the series had gone seven games and they lost. Blew a 3-0 lead. Congratulations boys, you made history. An embarrassment to the league. Bunch of fuckin candy-asses.
But Ruby thought he was one of those depressed no-lifes who work sad jobs and cash all their paychecks at the bar. He knew it — hiding behind that fridge door was that sticky note: honey please cut down on the beer before you drink yourself to death.
That had left a bad taste in his mouth, more so than the beer would. Like I said, I don't drink too often.
Except he did. Dean was nothing more than a dirty alcoholic. But that was a bad thought, so he pushed it away.
It was easy to push away too. He pushed them away often.
His reaching hand closed on the curved hips of a bottle of Rolling Rock, his palm sinking fleetingly along a sheet of condensed water. He nestled it under his armpit. Brrr, chilly! He took a second one in his hands and guided the door closed with his foot. The metal face of the door slid through the musty air of the kitchen and swept the black locks that hung over Dean's face. And suddenly he was mad again. The goddamn note. The trigger of the hate gun jerked, the gun clicked, the cylinder wheeled, yet again no shots were fired. Huh, we're probably getting close.
"I'm not gonna drink myself to death but the whistle is gonna make my head explode — oh boohoo I guess that doesn't matter," Dean murmured.
He jerked the ragged edge of the cap against a wall-mounted bottle opener and cracked it open. Foam spilled over the top and draped the tight fist that closed around it. His skin tingled to its touch. That made him aware — too aware — that there had once been a time when Dean quaffed one beer after another before passing out on the kitchen floor — granted he did have a bad day at work, but still — it was enough to get his wife all riled up over his drinking habits. And though he kept reassuring her he was fine, she kept jumping all over his case. Like, c'mon, a few drinks here and there aren't too bad.
Can it, fucking alcoholic. Nothing more than an over-sized baby.
But what was bad was the whistle. And the prick responsible? It was none other than that damned nerd cult a few blocks down . . . better known as Herman Industries.
He scuttered back to the leather recliner, absently raking his locks out of his face, and wedged the remote out of the squeeze between the seat of his recliner and the armrest. It grazed two-inches of air, fumbled in Dean's hands and came to a halt, Dean's arm cropping out so sharply it let off an audible pop. He reached for the power button and clicked it with his thumb. Static broke out over Lewis Aquila's pallid face as would a hormonal teenager's face (trust me, he knew, his nephew could be mistaken for a victim of the chickenpox from a single look at his face) — the TV's farewell bid — and the screen went black. He could barely read the lines of his face on its surface. What do they call it? A black mirror?
"I don't give a flying shit about the show, the television's better off with the rejects at a yard sale anyways—"
Ah ah ah! It still works. If it works it works, remember? Can't go against your own word.
A double-hung window was fixed only a few feet away, practically reeling him in. He could see Herman Industries in all its diabolical glory from there, looking down at him with the fury of an avenging angel. Time to punish you again, it said. Only a few minutes left. He had moved into this apartment five years ago, and that was a damn mistake on his part. A real big one.
Not that it was a bad neighborhood, not that it was a bad place, not that it was pricey . . . The other tenants they had met weren't too shabby themselves — mostly good people at that, and the community of surrounding buildings
(not counting that shitshow Herman Industries)
was heartily linked, and the nearby small-owned businesses were welcoming, and the apartments were fine . . . but . . . but . . . Herman Industries . . .
Anger flooded him over in a green wave. The window crept open, the cold April breeze hitting Dean like a fist. He forced his lips on the rim of the bottle of Rolling Rock, taking a lengthy, grateful drink. His throat tensed and crimped, pissy beer streaming erratically from the corners of his lips. His Adam's apple bobbed and convulsed in a masthead of flesh that poked through the folds under his chin. The last of the drink grazed his throat. He pulled away, sucking crisp, spring air into his oxygen-deprived lungs, and sighed. That felt good. It tasted like angst and raging hormones, but it felt good.
He drove his head through the open window and a flutter of shadow ran along the brick of the Golden Gate Apartment Complex. There it was in front of him — Herman Industries — in its typical definition; the building a diamond-like structure built so high it could probably touch the sky. The Monday-night moon had waned into a white crescent. Crowned the tip of the building with a wreath of white ribbons of moonlight.
Herman Industries had always been a beautiful sight from the day he first moved in. But the admiration he had for that place aged like a left out carton of milk — boy did he hate everything about it. Moving day, he was complimenting the building on the smallest of things (Golly! Looks really well designed! Beautiful modern architecture!), but jump to the present day and he's complaining about anything he could think up (Fucking thing's blocking the sun, fucking thing's causing noise, fucking thing's a distraction, FUCKING THING'S A WASTE OF SPACE!).
Aloft the roof of a neighboring apartment building, he could see three pipes that peeked out of the parapet of Herman Industries' foundation. Standing tall, staring blankly ahead. Like a group of periscopes. Spying on him, wanting to see him go feral. Making that trash-talk. He looked on as they expanded — we gotta drop the load! — burst, and screamed a steady train of steam. Now the whistle was back, and that did it. The hate gun's trigger was pulled. This time, a round was fired. Don't blow a gasket, he tried to tell himself, but it was no use.
No escape Dean.
"WHAT THE FUGHJI, HERAMN IBNDSUTRIES THE GODAM WASTE OF SPACE IN ANYTHIG IN THIS FERGIN TOWN!"
He would admit, to him, it had originally sounded a lot more badass than that.
A hollow echo, laced with the ever-so present fury of Dean Crawford, stirred the silence that buried the streets below. The walls juddered — a few murmurs from the neighboring tenants — the anger reeling him in. He paused to gather his breath, dipping his head and clenching the windowsill to keep himself from listing and plunging to his death. His fist tightened around the neck of the beer bottle. Could've sworn the thing was about to break.
Let's scream again, he thought, maybe hurl the Rolling Rock too. Wait no, you'll get in trouble, don't do that . . . But oh boy did he want to, doing so would tone the bubbling hatred inside him down, doing so would make him feel good, doing so would get his message across . . . Screw it, I'll do it no matter the consequence!
Stupid Dean . . . Stupid Dean . . . Stupid Dean . . . you're not a little kid anymore . . . Stupid Dean . . .
He garnered the courage to scream again. His stomach caved in, throat tugging on the Adam's apple in anticipation, the crack of gunshots ripping into his ears like the whistle's screwdriver . . . not the hate gun — a real gun.
Wait. Real gunshots.
His heart seized in his chest. Trying to convince himself they weren't was no use. He had heard them before — the night of July 4th would erupt in gunfire and this sounded no different — except it was closer. Closer. This really was the real deal.
He forced himself back inside, tripped over his feet and next thing he knew, his ass hit the floor.
3
"T—that's when I heard the shots." His voice cracks. Fresh tears mushroom beneath his lids. They will eventually break the dam and fall silently, leaving glassy trails along his cheeks; their farewell gift. "Something I thought, and wished, I'd never hear in my life."
Dennis swallows awkwardly, raking his front teeth along his bottom lip in thought. He recognizes the reality of Mr Crawford's fear and trauma. Being a police detective himself, he has obviously seen some screwed-up stuff — and has already had a hand in a few shooting cases. There was a point in time where he was assigned a murder case, in which the victim's remains had been tossed into Lake St Clair. And no joke, when he first got a glimpse of the body, his stomach twisted into a wrung out towel. He almost upchucked too; you'd think a police detective would be desensitized to gore. But no, Dennis was human, not a brick wall. Poor guy looked like a hunk of chop shop meat. . . especially if the butcher that handled that thing was a callow young boy with a nasty habit of muscle twitching. Their skin was outshone by a flaxen skeleton — and wherever you could see skin, it was dead. Mottled with blue and purple. At the time he had thought, the scavengers must've gotten themselves a hearty meal. He then fashioned his fingers into hand-sized guns. But the victim, or, the said meal, needs to be served themselves — they need to be served justice.
And we'll get the fucker responsible.
This case isn't any different. An innocent man is now dead. But where's his justice?
"So," he starts, "can you run that by me one more time?"
Dean manages a breath. It's leaden with stress, so much so he has to fish it out of the still air of the interrogation room. He bars his eyes shut. From start to finish, he recites the story he had told — the two men across from him nodding their heads absently and jotting down extra notes — and does his best to keep his breath steady. There's a point in time when one of the men breathes sharply to the mention of gunshots. He figures it's with some kind of PTSD . . . Gunshots, he thinks, cops hear them all the time; could remind them of a stomach-turning situation — maybe a shooting. His shoulders quake. He witnessed a shooting only hours ago. That shit was scary . . . huh, I can definitely relate.
"Everything alright?"
One of the men has spoken but he isn't sure who. "Uh, yeah," he replies nonchalantly, pursing his bottom lip. He keeps a straight face, but his eyes singe with tears.
Dennis produces a pack of Marlboros from the polyester pocket on the thigh of his pants, the corners wrinkled and broken down, the colour fading. Flicking the top open, he pinches a cigarette between his fingertips. "Hey. I know that face when I see it. Wanna smoke? It'll make you feel better."
Dean pulls his upper lip up. "No thanks, smoking is bad for you."
A bitter shadow pisses on Dennis's face. "No shit sherlock, so is drinking a six-pack of beer a day. Probably the only six-pack you'll ever have," he shoots absently. His voice was calm and quiet, but he spoke way too fast. "O'shit, sorry 'bout that."
Hanging his head low, Dean hisses, "It's fine." Hey, at least I didn't blow a gasket. The hate gun is still there, you know. I could've tried to punch you in the face.
"Alright, look. We're going to ask you a few more questions, okay?" He clicks a BiC lighter beneath the tip of his cigarette and lights it. "Truthfully I'm not sure if smoking is allowed in here," smoke jets from the two nostrils of his hook nose, and Dean quivers as if disgusted. "But you are allowed to tell us anything that may help us in the case. Don't you want the jerk-off who killed those innocent people to get himself in shackles?"
4
Shot In Sky
Dean scrambled to a sitting position in a mess of arms and legs, his breath ragged, his heart thundering beneath his ribcage. He peeled his lips back in fear, and tried to steady himself. The gunshots were real. They really were real. He fought the urge to freeze. He had seen on a YouTube video that loose bullets can hit you even if you aren't the shooter's target. The last thing he wanted was to be shot; if he didn't die, it would be awfully painful, not just physically but financially. The medical bill that he'd receive weeks later would put a bullet in his wallet too.
A bullet whizzed by and drilled his ear like the whistle did. But this time he wasn't mad — he was scared. His heart went colder than the two-week-old tray of ice cubes in the freezer. They were real bullets. He could tell by the sound it made, he had learned from that same YouTube video, and that the best thing to do in this situation was to get on the ground.
He had been sitting down, the floor biting into his ass, wrists inward to keep his back propped up. Another gust of April wind slapped him in the face, and the roar of a second bullet made his fingers claw into the floor. The realization finally got to him. Getting on his stomach, he pulled himself away from the window, his body sifting through a film of floor dust.
The gunfire went rapid and Dean welcomed himself to darkness. He couldn't even breath with counting at least five shots. It came to him that he wasn't entirely safe. He never would be . . . and he shouldn't have expected to be. The shooter could still get a few hits on him, and his wife . . . oh, his wife . . . not Ruby . . . my precious Ruby. She was asleep in the bedroom, and a box window had been fixed into the outward wall, facing the bed. We liked to watch the stars as we slept, it was our television you could call it . . . He wondered if he'd ever see her again; her beautiful smile, her flowing, autumn hair, and her sparkling blue eyes — he was scared he wouldn't see her again.
But he would. He escaped the window's glint of moonlight. His knees rasping the floor, he managed to pull himself an extra few inches before getting back on his feet. He glanced back. Outside, a length of Herman Industries' windows were broken glass. It looked like a mint cobweb. Probably got hit by a few bullets. Back inside, a beer bottle that had rolled down to the edge of the recliner flashed him a comforting smile. I'll save that one for later. Chills wrenching down his lower body, icy-cold Rolling Rock glazing the way of his legs like piss, he pounded down the hall to the bedroom.
He found the door and stalled. What if he was too late? What if a bullet had screwed through the window and into Ruby? His face solemn, his eyes bulging, he took in air through a jagged motion that hitched his stomach, and clasped the brass doorknob to the bedroom. He tried to move but he couldn't. He was too scared.
"Ruby?" he called, but received no answer.
His stomach knotted and he cursed himself. "Ruby? Are you okay?"
Nothing. He breathed weakly. If anybody knew she was okay it was God. He firmed his grip on the doorknob and twiddled his wrist — it clicked, and the door creaked open. Relief swept him over, so hard he forgot how to say his wife's name; there she was, lying in bed unbothered, her eyes glued shut in sleep. That beer . . . I'll need that to calm me down.
He rushed around the foot of the bed past the dresser, came to Ruby's side of the bed, and joggled her awake. She wheeled her head at him and her eyes slowly fluttered open with the strain of sleep. She parted her lips. "What's wrong?" she managed softly.
Dean licked his lips nervously. "Someone's shooting and I almost got plugged through the window," he said. "I was scared y—you might've gotten h—hit."
Her eyes — though heavy — widened. "Someone's shooting? Where?"
"I . . . I don't know. I heard the shots outside and they came close to me, that's about all I know."
Ruby leaned on her side. "We're okay," she murmured. "Call 9-11. Please."
Dean dipped his head grimly, okay, while scanning the room for the telephone.
He got on his knees and scuffled to the dresser, signaling Ruby to get on the ground, and patted the wood surface for the telephone. It fiddled in his hand and separated from the phone base. Careful to not be exposed by the window, he dialed 9-11, and waited eagerly for a call-taker to pick up. The other end flared-up with a second's worth of static. Do you need police, fire or ambulance?
Ruby met the floor as well. She did so as she had once learned during a shooting drill at her old workplace; she didn't remember a lot since it was over fifteen years ago, but at least it was just now coming in handy. She listened to her husband explain the situation to the operator. It sounded like he was doing a good job. When he woke her up, his alcohol-laced breath was so strong it singed the inside of her nose. He had been drinking again — and reckoning with that, she was surprised he didn't get shot.
His drinking wasn't exactly weird. Dean had many names around here . . . there was Michelin Man of Detroit (though she found that quite mean-spirited) DD - Drinker Dean, and Dean the Mad Machine. As much as she wanted to disagree with them, she found shame in admitting they were true. Yeah, my husband has a problem, she thought. But I'm getting him to change. He suffered from notable anger issues, and Ruby had always known that staring into the sky helped him calm down. That was why they, when first moving into their apartment, had chosen to have their bed facing the box window in their bedroom. And surprisingly it worked; he slept better, worked more efficiently, and had better control over his anger.
"Nobody's injured . . . uh-huh . . . okay . . . we don't know who's shooting . . . I saw some broken glass at Herman Industries though."
Herman Industries. That building always made Dean mad. Something about the pipes always making his ears bleed. She wasn't too sure exactly why but she knew it bothered him, maybe a bit more than it should've. Actually not a bit. A lot more. She directed her eyes to the window. The stars, the sky, remember Dean, it keeps you calm.
But she didn't only see the stars. She could see . . . something. It kept the form of a fighter jet. But that wasn't it. It looked way too small to be a fighter jet. Across the sky, it drew lines of thick smoke that sputtered from its behind. Fighter jets leave white trails, not black ones. And most notably she could read the silhouette of a person atop the strange vehicle. A bulky person. Like they were wearing some heavy armor. She could tell by the silhouette's sharp ridges and the two points of yellow light where its eyes were supposed to be.
Dean came around to his wife's urgent nabbing, the phone inches from his ear. "What?"
She was goggle-eyed. Pointing to the window, she dragged herself away in fear.
Not any ordinary fear.
The fear of something unknown.
The sparkling interest in her eyes was enough to tell him: you have to see it. Hand clasping the telephone primly, his belly bouncing, he shuffled his knees to face the window.
5
"That sounds like a load of bullshit," Isaac Leonard's voice is as hard as wood. "You mean to tell me someone was flyin' around the sky in some flying device straight outta Back To The Future?"
Dean, still haunted by the sight, lunges his head forward. "No, no, no! I'm being serious!"
Isaac raises an eyebrow. "And you mean to tell us that you think this 'person' on the device was responsible for the shooting?" Dean nods yes. "Who do you think was on that thing?"
Dennis, still taking in the offspring of the lit cigarette, coughs a smoke cloud. He brings a closed fist to his mouth. "You think Herman Industries has a doing in this?"
Shame burns up inside him. Odd. "Yeah."
". . . good," Isaac replies. "Cause we do too. Now, did you see which direction the glider went?"
6
"You ready?" Officer Jerry Middleton cocked his rifle and hung the strap over his shoulder.
In the passenger seat of the police cruiser, Officer Chris Williams clutched the pistol grip of the rifle in his right hand, a finger on the side of the trigger. He nodded grimly. "No shit, we got to get in there now."
He jumped out of the vehicle, slamming the door so hard he could feel the car shake — even from his position. His head flared with concentration. Ahead was an entrance to section two of Herman Industries. The wall stretched a hundred some feet down and stood about fifty feet tall. Looking upwards he could barely catch the building that stood well above the rest. As he neared the door, his heart bumped so hard against his ribcage it hurt. He had never dealt with a situation like this before.
Without a goal other than neutralizing any threats and clearing the area, he plowed into the push bar, stepping aside and holding the door for Officer Williams. The place was deathly silent. Grey smoke clouded sectioned parts of the room. "We got smoke in here," he voiced into a communicator attached to his uniform. "Lot's of it. No audible sound."
Officer Williams drew a flashlight and mounted it to the accessory rail at the head of his gun. Jerry copied him. He then swept around a row of thickset computers and stopped dead. "Be careful, there's bullet holes in the screens here," he warned. "If there's still a shooter here, we could be getting close."
Jerry padded along the wall to an open doorway. Above, a small marble plate labeled the inside room as a Storage Unit. He welcomed himself inside and lit the room. There were nothing but a few broken bottles, a couple of glass encasements on some wired shelving with metal plates beneath (maybe to catch any droppage), and a few hefty black briefcases. The shape was like that of the YouTube Diamond Play Button which he had seen a while ago. As much as he hated to admit it, he kind of wanted to crack it open and check what was inside . . . no, no, how could you get distracted by a damn box? You could be saving lives right about now—
"WE HAVE A CASUALTY IN HERE!"
His heart jumped in his chest and slammed so hard against his ribcage that pain was back. Those thoughts (the ones about the stuff inside the storage unit) had stopped the paranoia of being shot just for a small while. They came so quickly he could barely read them, but he still sure as hell understood them. He brushed them away at once because someone was dead. He left the briefcases behind, chased the star of Officer William's flashlight, and came to his side.
The place was wrecked. Those same, heavy thickset computers were there too, only crushed. Whatever was left of their screens was nothing more than a bunch of shards heaped like a bunch of hurried shoppers on a Black Friday. Now the only use they had were being the deathbed for that dead man — clad in a white laboratory coat, Drew Carson printed neatly above the breast pocket, that veiled the mangled remains of the computers, stroked red from blood-ringed wounds that were peppered across his chest — his back curved so damn far he could read the outline of his ribs, so far his head dangled over the edge of the table, his eyes still popped open in an avatar of terror and agony—
"Come on, we need to continue the search."
Jerry's breath caught, as if on a fish hook being reeled by a hungry fisherman.
"There could still be a threat." A dark shadow crossed Officer Williams's face. "Unless you want to leave a murderer with a chance to escape."
He had more sense than to not get going, and so he left the body and the unease he felt while staring at it. Every second forward could be a second closer to someone ending up dead like that man. But something was off: the position of the body, the broken computers . . . a glass chamber to the left, inside a metal table hooked with wires and heavily-built bars that clung to it lazily, yellow syrup trickling from the elevated tile platform — all projected in front of that bloodied row of computers. He cocked his head back for one last look. The guy clearly wasn't just shot. He was beaten. Severely.
Whoever did this was one sick bastard.
7
It would happen on the night of May 25th 2020.
Dean would scrub the porcelain plates until they shined in his image, which was the set standard for when he did the dishes. 'Once you can see your reflection in them, they're clean,' his mother had said back in 2008. She died later that year from cancer of the pancreas. It was the saddest he had ever been in a while but eventually he had to rip the Band-Aid off. Can't go sobbing and sulking around forever.
He clenched the sponge in his hand, which was also wearing away at the sides, and soapsuds gushed out, then trickling down his fist. He never understood why people let their dishes pile up. That seemed ridiculous. They'd only end up on the counter, and nothing's worse than having to move a couple of crusty ass mugs just because you want to butter some bread — make room for me, cleaning dishes are my kitchen's bread and butter. Maybe it can be yours too.
Light from the late-night moon seeped through the blinds and spilled onto his face. He could see Detroit through the louvers. The city of almost 320 years in the making was pleated between tiny bars of polyester, almost like how a prisoner saw what was waiting for him outside his cell; except instead of the cheap polyester it would be tiny bars of steel. And maybe that wasn't very far off at all. Having to live next to Herman Industries had tailored this place into something more like a prison. Huh, fits Dean well.
"No dad! I'm sorry—" Derek collapsed to the ground with a meaty whap, his domineering father whipping his arm around to wear off the momentum—
Dean shriveled. That doesn't count! He was drunk.
He went to the living room. Ruby was on the couch folding laundry. He offered help but she turned him away. So he took his fatigue to the bedroom. For a moment he shuffled between taking a pre-sleep shower or heading straight to bed, but the alarm clock on the vanity read 10:30 in bony, green digits. All the time for his nighttime routine was gone. Fuck it. He'd just go to bed. A long shift was scheduled tomorrow; well thank God for that! He'd be better off scrolling through Twitter for a good hour before heading to bed. Not that he was big on devices — maybe the television, but that was about it.
His phone was a Nokia — not super old, but still a flip phone . . . if it works, it works. Remember?
Jumping onto his side, he tucked a pillow between his arm and love handles, and drifted off into sleep. Little did he know, he'd wake up during the early hours of the morning to scratching coming from the window.
And it would be the last time he ever did.