The Eyes Have No Soul

by Matthew W. Harrill

  Tina grinned. “Let's find out.” She pulled down on the hook. There was a click and a six-foot high part of the wall receded. Tina pushed at the segment and it rotated, revealing a narrow corridor.

  “Ingenious,” Tina remarked, sticking her head into the gap beyond. “This ain't deep. There's another door. Metal.”

  Clare followed Tina into the corridor. Between walls, the path was clean to the point of fussiness. Unlike the room behind, this had been kept spotless.

  Tina edged sideways along to the other door. “It's just a bolt at this end, nothing special.”

  “Can you see anything in the room?”

  “No, it's covered.” Tina gave the bolt a yank and it moved freely. She tried the handle and it opened without fuss. The detective peered into the room and on reflex, gagged. An instant later, a waft of carrion swept over Clare.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Clare doubled over, vomiting what water was left in her stomach between her feet. The stench of death, decaying flesh and embalming fluid fought to equalise between the two rooms. It was a struggle to breathe. Clare held her nose, steeling herself against whatever was to come.

  “You don't have to come in here,” Tina cautioned her. “In fact, I wish you wouldn't.”

  “I've come too far,” Clare insisted. “There are answers in that room.”

  “Perhaps sweetie, but maybe not any you may like.” Tina pushed the door wider, the noxious breeze subsiding as the airway increased.

  Following her friend, Clare was glad she had already puked. “Tell me this isn't real.”

  Tina turned on the light, an ancient chandelier with broken crystal appendages and three upturned light bulbs, one of which flickered. Opposite a series of paintings had been affixed to the genuine external wall. Each painting depicted grotesque scenes: humans feeding on humans, supernatural beings lording over rituals, sacrifice, sex, every sordid practice the mind could imagine and many it could not. On the walls to either side hung a collection of decayed human body parts. Entire legs, the skin torn and irregular, the flesh shrivelled and black, lay in a pile, a yellow fluid. Clare remained frozen to the spot, her eyes fixed on the human remains.

  “Clare,” Tina said. “Snap out of it.”

  The pungent smell was so strong she had to force herself to breathe. She turned away only to face a series of hands severed at the wrist, clawing at the cloudy glass jars in which they were preserved.

  Clare backed away. Something brushed her shoulder. She turned. A string of eyeballs hung from the shelf above, the eyes tied by the optic nerves. Many were desiccated, the flesh withered and tough. Others were fresher, the whites yellowed and cracked, the irises a mix of brown and blue. Blood stained the walls and coagulated in puddles on the floor. Scarlet stains mingled with older black. Worst of all, atop shelves near the ceiling, two human heads stared across the room at her, the eyes lidless. The skin was taut over one of the skulls, but the other, still fresh, caused her to cease moving altogether. Clare stared into the dead eyes, all other thoughts banished.

  Tina moved forward, picking up a small photo that rested on the mantelpiece of an unused fireplace. “Recognize anybody? Clare! Come back to me.”

  Clare turned to her, trying to exclude the horrors around. “I'm sorry, Tina. That head on the right. It's Clifford Lee Burke. Terrick and I found him dead just before the broadcast, drained like the others. The fifth victim. Whoever dismembered him did so in the last day.”

  Clare noticed a picture on the wall. The photo was faded, but the likeness was clear. Harley and the janitor both grinned at her out of younger faces. “Confirms what we knew. They're related. They could have been brothers in days gone by.”

  Clare opened a small closet sheltered in a relatively unscarred corner of the room. Inside she found three boiler suits, all without a mark on them. Hung next to the clothing, wrapped in a plastic sheet she found a butcher's leather apron. Pulling it out, she examined the garment through its plastic protection.

  “Blood?” Tina asked.

  “It appears to be soaked right in to the leather. He spends a lot of time practicing his craft.” Clare replaced the garment. “So where do we start? Prints? Blood?”

  Tina looked around the room and echoed her comment. “Where do we start indeed?”

  “I know. Gather your forces, Detective. We're putting an end to Harley.”

  Tina pressed a button on her phone. “It's me. Get down to the basement with everybody you can find.”

  Clare took the phone from her pocket. “Hold tight, boys.” Before there was any chance of a protest, Clare dialed.

  “Hello, Alison Gunn.”

  Here goes nothing. “Alison; it's Clare. You busy?”

  “Clare, are you crazy phoning here?”

  “I'm crazy. I'm desperate. I'm a dozen other words. Listen, I'm onto something and it's huge. Is the team all in?”

  “Are you kidding me? With all that's going on? I don't think any of us can remember the last time we slept.”

  “Grab the team, get all the kit you can and meet me in the janitor's closet in the basement.”

  “But…”

  “Alison, just do it. You know I'd not be calling if it wasn't important. This one's a career-maker.” She put the phone away. “You boys still out there?”

  “We're good,” said one of their escorts.

  “We're gonna need your skills soon. We might have to fight our way out of here.”

  Clare replaced the phone in her boiler-suit pocket. “Well what do we do about all this?”

  “Don't touch anything else,” Tina said. She was right. Clare began to go through a mental list of what they had disturbed while in the room. It wasn't much.

  She closed her eyes; trying to avoid so much gore and twisted hideousness was impossible. Yet when vision was removed, those eyes still watched from the darkness, following her everywhere, waiting to taste her.

  “The guy's got to be around here somewhere.”

  “A guy?” Tina's response was loaded with sarcasm. “More like a ghoul.”

  “We got a code for being a ghoul?” Clare quipped.

  “We could always get him on code five-nine-four: Malicious mischief.”

  Clare shook her head. “Sounds too much like a badge of honor to me. This guy's going down for whatever we can pin on him.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Clare saw the door to the room move. She tensed.

  “Clare?” It was Helen.

  “In here.”

  Helen pushed the door open and stepped in. Her face went pale, nearly as white as her hair. Sunny and Alison followed bumping into her as she stopped in her tracks.

  “Oh dear God,” Alison gasped.

  Sunny stuttered, trying to get words out. “Why…Who?”

  “Right under our feet,” Clare said, her voice flat, emotionless.

  Helen crossed to her, still visibly shaken. “Is this what you meant? Is this why you left?”

  “Not directly. Look, I need to get out of here. The stench, all this… It's too much. I need to sit.” Not meaning to, Clare barged past her friends and into the narrow corridor. Her legs were like jelly, her stomach in knots. She gripped the wooden cladding on the back of the false wall, pain lancing into her hand as splinters pierced her skin when she pulled away.

  Not caring about evidence she slumped onto the couch, staring unseeing at the entrance to what everybody had perceived to be the janitor's refuge. The plastic case dug into her chest. Four people entered; their two escorts led two suited men into the room. She didn't look up.

  “What is it, Tina?” asked one of the strangers.

  “Go look, Hank,” Tina answered and knelt down in front of Clare until her face filled the limit of her vision. “Don't come apart on me now, girl. Not this close. Not after everything you've done.”

  That one sentence may have saved her. After everything I've done… She shook her head. “Got any water?”

  Tina handed her a bottle, which Clare opened
and gulped down.

  The two other cops quickly reappeared, both ashen-faced.

  “You all right, Rosser?”

  Clare looked up, recognising the cop as a rookie detective Tina had been training, Dwayne Codd. “Hey fish,” she said, using the nickname he had very quickly picked up, “only a small case of type-one diabetes. There's nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Jesus, you should be in the hospital.”

  “She was,” Tina said. “Some things are more important. Now you've seen what's in there, your thoughts?”

  “They've been trying to pin this on her for the last week. I don't believe it.”

  “Harley's machinations. This isn't the end of the search, detective. We need to find the janitor. He's Caucasian, about five feet ten tall, brown hair fairly short, long sideburns, slim build. Wears a blue boiler suit like that one.”

  Tina pointed at her and Clare realized she was still dressed like a member of the cleaning staff. She reached up to take the cap off and Tina prevented her. “Don't, not yet.”

  “But Fish recognized me. If he does, surely everybody else will.”

  “And if you're normal Clare Rosser, walking shoes, prim and proper with the habitual hair-flicking, can you hide?”

  Her friend was right.

  Helen came back into the room, still visibly shocked. “I've got the guys cataloguing everything and taking photos. Clare, I don't suppose an apology would suffice? This is huge. There's enough in there for several teams to pore over. I've got to call some more in. I'll be back.”

  “Where did all those body-parts come from?” She asked Tina. “Our morgue is secure.”

  “Is it?” Tina replied, thinking. “That's a bold statement. Nothing's ever that secure. You still think this is your guy?”

  The question flummoxed Clare. She stood, despite the effort. “Honestly, I thought so. This creature sucks people dry. It doesn't chop up its victims and store their bodies. It's feeding and moving on. What we have here isn't survival. This is much more macabre. I expected to see the janitor looking withdrawn but he was completely normal.”

  Tina barked a laugh. “Forgive me for saying so, but Clare, have you looked in a mirror lately? You don't exactly look normal.”

  “But I'm accounted for,” Clare vouched. “I've been with you the past two days. Terrick's keeping an eye on things in UMASS and I've not left his side for several days before that.”

  Clare shrugged, even that movement making her muscles ache. “You're right to ask. I would. The fact of the matter is that the janitor might not be what I'm after but he's a means to an end. He's Harley's cousin.”

  The room fell silent as those not in the know processed this information.

  “How do you want to play this?” Tina eventually said.

  “We have to find this guy, no matter what. It has to be on the quiet though. I don't want Harley knowing I'm here. With the chaos in the precinct he will find out eventually but let's try and reach a conclusion first.”

  “Several of those body parts are still oozing fluid,” Tina offered. “Not to mention the head up there. Somebody's been gathering carrion this very day.”

  “The morgue,” Clare blurted out. “But Daniel would never allow access.”

  “Then you have to conclude either that Daniel doesn't know, or that he does. It's simple.”

  Clare lurched to her feet. “We need to get to the morgue. It's not far away.”

  “And if you're spotted?”

  “That's what these two are for. One way or another, this ends tonight.”

  Clare, Tina and their two bodyguards made their way through the underbelly of the precinct. The morgue was so close, yet when she had been here before, Clare was merely unwell. Now she was desperately ill and every fibre of her being screamed out for help, quashed only by the dogged determination she possessed to see this task through. If this ends tonight, I'm taking six months off.

  Clare smiled at her own comment.

  Tina noticed. “What?”

  “I was just thinking I needed a vacation.”

  “No joke,” was Tina's sarcastic answer.

  Clare's phone began to ring. She motioned her companions into a dark room, leaving the door cracked open for light. It was Terrick.

  “You got him?”

  “No, sorry girl, he's a no show. I just wanted to let you know that girl succumbed to the assault. She passed away not five minutes back. If Viruñas were to return, he'd have to start all over again.”

  “Crap. That could put him anywhere and in the condition he's in, he might be getting desperate. Have you got anything on the security footage?”

  “Again, nothin'. Its complete chaos but I'll keep lookin' for you.”

  Clare switched the phone off and replaced it. “UMASS is a bust. He's long gone. The girl died too.”

  Tina looked to the floor. “That's a bad way to go. I just hope she was so out of it she never knew.”

  There was silence in the room. Perhaps out of respect for another lost innocent, perhaps because of the futility of this madcap hunt.

  “We need to move,” Clare said. “The morgue's down that hallway then left. There's a stairwell to the right. If we meet anyone coming it will be from that side.”

  As quietly as she was able, Clare led her companions out into the hallway. Her heart began to thump in her ears. Flashes appeared in her eyes as the stress on her body threatened to overwhelm her. Her breath came in rapid, shallow pants; sweat began to trickle down her forehead, dripping into her eyes and gathering like tears in the hollows where flesh had filled her face beneath them.

  They reached the final corner before the morgue. There was a clicking out of sight to the left. Clare held her hand up bidding the rest of them to wait. Leaning forward, she gripped the wall for support and edged toward the corner. A man stood, back facing them, locking the door with one hand while he gripped something in the other. He wore the same boiler suit as her and stank of offal. It was him. Clare withdrew the case from her pocket and opened it, her fleshless fingers slipping easily into the loops at the base of the syringe.

  Clare glanced back over her right shoulder and nodded. In an instant Tina and the two agents were round the corner, guns drawn, pointed at the janitor.

  “Freeze!” Green-eyes raised his gun. “Put your hands where we can see 'em! Now!”

  The janitor turned his head, dropping the key to the morgue from his right hand. He raised his hand over his head, his eyes wide, mouth hung agape in disbelief. He clearly hadn't expected company. That was as far as he moved.

  “I said hands where we can see 'em,” insisted the agent. “Don't make me put a hole in you, sir. Turn around.”

  The janitor complied but slowly. He turned to face them, revealing the front of his boiler suit bulging with concealed objects.

  Clare stepped out from behind the protection of the wall and the janitor's face changed from disbelief to a snarl, his jaw jutting forward.

  “Open your suit,” Tina ordered. “Do it now. Slow and deliberate. Don't give my man here a reason to shoot.”

  The eyes emptied of anything resembling humanity as all reason fled the man. The janitor reached to the zipper of his suit with his free hand, still supporting the load with his left forearm and jerked with twitching movements. Nothing happened.

  Smiling, staring right at Clare, he grabbed the material to either side of the caught zip and tugged.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  For the second time in under an hour, Clare retched. This time there was nothing left to come up. The torn boiler suit spilled more body parts to the floor. Two hands, one still attached to an arm, ears, a small foot, broken bones and sinew tied in a knot. Clare couldn't look away. She had no energy to move.

  The ARC agents didn't suffer from the same affliction, leaping forward to take hold of the janitor's arms, wrenching them behind his back as they shoved him up against the door to the morgue. He didn't appear to care. The whole time they manhandled him his e
yes fixed on her. It was the steely gaze of a predator, not the defeated visage of a doomed man. Another hand had caught in his zip and hung there until gravity claimed it and the hunk of flesh dropped atop the rest.

  “He has a key,” said Tina, who had remained beside Clare, her gun trained on the man. “Take it.” She turned to Clare. “What do you want to do with him?”

  “We can't throw him in a cell, not yet. If we do that, this place is so corrupt he'll be released within the hour.”

  The janitor chuckled; a soft sound but a triumphant one nonetheless.

  “That's right, you keep on laughing, smiler. You're going down forever.” From the way she gripped her gun, the wide eyes and the grimace, the situation threatened to get to Tina. She was terrified and trying hard not to show it.

  “I don't think so,” the janitor countered, indicating the grotesque scene on the floor. “I am Legion. I am many. You cannot stop the moon. You cannot stop darkness. It is inevitable.” He stared straight at Clare, taking a deep breath and tipping his head back in pleasure. “Ahhh, pear drops: My favourite. Some things you cannot stop. Some people are destined to be free, some to die.”

  “Which are you?”

  “I'm free, do you not see this? Incarcerate me. He will release me. He always does. There's a war coming and I've chosen my side.”

  The janitor watched her now. Not cocky, just certain. As twisted as the man obviously was, he had accepted his fate if not embraced it wholly.

  Clare tightened hold on the plastic sheath, ready to remove it and end the creature for good. As she did, Helen approached from the direction of the janitor's basement refuge. It had become a full-on crime scene by the looks of the people coming and going. She couldn't do this now, not among all these people. She slipped the syringe back into its case, clicking the plastic shut and tucking it into a pocket. A few people followed Helen. Clare recognized Mike Caruso among the number, oversized suit flapping about him like the blue robes of some distant eastern nomad. It didn't matter if they saw her now. This was out in the open.