“Um, this is kinda scary,” said Clarice with her eyes wide open as she walked past the hall that had no light whatsoever. “Is it always this dark?” Her intention was to ask out of curiosity, not to say it to his face.
“I am almost never home so I don’t have much time to dedicate to the housekeeping.” That was his excuse, knowing it may have left a bad impression. “Look on the bright side, it is a house.”
If Clarice would’ve turned around, she would’ve seen his big smile under the dim lights as if he had whitened his teeth.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she kept walking down the hall grasping her fingers along the walls. Her arms were extended like a cross to be able to touch both sides of the wall. Andrew never knew how wide the hallway was, he just knew that his fat ass almost touched each side of walls.
Clarice got to the office where a single yellow light bulb was on. The door was open like the mouth of a turtle and the smell was that of old paper. A smell like dry and burnt wood. She went inside and saw a big mess. She wanted to say something but she didn’t. Part of her wanted to offer to help clean up. The other part, however, told her that she had just known Andrew and he was an old man.
“You have a very big office.” She said without smiling, but her eyes seemed to shine when she turned around with her hair waving above her shoulders.
“This is where I spend most of my time when I’m home.” Andrew realized at that moment that he didn’t have a normal office, that there were strange things in there and that Clarice would notice it, leaving her with many questions. She looked very smart, as if the state of hysteria and shock, two different things, would have been left behind like a big iron ball.
“You have a lot of cases right?” She said while the curiosity got the best of her.
Andrew shrugged his shoulders and placed the tray upon a stack of papers, one of the many he had on top of the desk, like little mountains. The beer was getting warm and it started dripping onto the tray. Andrew was dying of thirst or... was it desire?
“Enough to start leaving all behind at this age,” Andrew said.
“So why don’t you already?”
Andrew pointed at the wall.
“I don’t do it because of them.”
Clarice saw the pictures and one of the women in those photos looked familiar. The gap-toothed man, however, didn’t ring a bell.
“That picture on the left, the second one. I think that’s the woman that the killer was carrying.” She was frowning, staring at the picture as if she were a detective.
“You have a good memory.”
Clarice smiled.
“I saw her a couple of hours ago.” She said. Clarice went closer to the wall as her eyes wandered with curiosity. “Who are all these women?”
“These are the seven women that disappeared without a trace four years ago. Until now. Two of them have already turned up dead. The killer is loose and has kept them kidnapped up until today. I fear the worse.”
Clarice pointed to the last picture, on the right.
“And who is this man?”
That was the fall guy. He died of lung cancer and they cremated him. They charged him with the abductions at first, and he was even accused of their murder since some of his DNA was on all of their clothes. However, I must admit that we screwed up this time.” Andrew extended his hand to get a piece of the hotdog, it was as cold as the dead.
“That can that bring consequences, right?”
Andrew was chewing and with his mouth full said:
The consequence is that the killer is back. The kidnapper was all a farce. It was all a huge error even though I’ve always had my doubts...
“The what?” She interrupted. Clarice was clearly exalted. “I’m so sorry.”
Andrew was moving his head side to side trying to open up the beer. He was about to tell her about his abilities and his visions but he didn’t. He thought it wasn’t a good idea.
“Don’t worry, it happens to all of us.” Andrew smiled as he took a sip of the beer. The foam went up and spilled up the top leaving his fingers filled with foam. “Wow! Why is there so much foam?”
Suddenly, his cell phone started ringing in his trench coat. Andrew took out his phone very quickly and put it to his ear.
“Andrew, I have something to tell you.” It was Landon’s voice.
Clarice went back to the wall and was looking at the pictures that were crossed out and the one of the man. Her heart started to beat fast, she was feeling so much fear that she got goosebumps. She looked around, looking for the window but it was closed and she could see neither the lights in her caravan nor its open door.
After a moment of silence, except for Andrew’s ‘ohms’ and ‘ums’ that sounded like whispers, it was time to finally hear Andrew’s raspy voice again.
“Clarice I must leave. They found the body of the third victim.”
Clarice’s eyes opened wide and her heart pounded up to her throat leaving her with a gasp for air. She began to move her hands.
“The killer is on the loose and I don’t feel safe! I left my caravan’s door open, what if the killer is hiding in there?”
“Stay calm Clarice you are safe I’ll ask the sheriff to get an agent to protect you.” Andrew interrupted her with a foam mustache above his upper lip.
“I want to get out of here!” There was panic in Clarice’s eyes.
Andrew got close to her and hugged her.
“Nothing is going to happen,” He said.
76
Tom was constantly chewing tobacco, chewing and spitting in the dark but you could tell it was him. His disgusting breath that reeked of tobacco was present, a really acid smell. The sound of his spit would make the birds fly away in the middle of the night instead of remaining in their nest. The night was filled with noises and the tree branches looked like giant octopus legs making it like a place full of whispers and annoying situations.
And she was there.
With her eyes closed.
The eyes of the sheriff’s men looked towards Tom’s silhouette as if he were a suspect. Tom knew that the minute he called the station with his dirty phone, it was a phone from 2000 when the whole world used them.
“It’s the third body in thirty hours,” Landon said with his felt hat stuck to his head. It was as if the sun was shining at its peak, but only the moonlight made it bright around dark areas.
The flashlights dipped in gold the body covered with flowers. Hannah Ackerman had the same appearance as the other two women. Her blue hair was spread out like a carpet on the flowers and would bend down like old men.
It wasn’t hard to figure out whose body it was.
“Yes, it’s the third one from the list of the missing women. It’s Hannah Ackerman and she was blonde.” Andrew said with a frustrated smirk on his lips.
“I know, I saw the file,” Landon said. This time, biting on a toothpick. Neither were his eyes shining nor was Andrew’s bald head. He was tightening his belt in an attempt to straighten his belly.
“Do you also have the file?” Andrew asked almost smiling. It was neither the time nor the proper way to ask.
“Just like you, I would imagine,” Landon said while looking upon Hannah’s face. “Tom is very nervous.”
“Two times already,” said Andrew.
“Do you think it has something to do with this?”
Andrew shook his head in denial under the hot lights.
“No, it’s the lake that has me worried. Andrew said making a gesture.
Landon looked into his eyes.
Hannah was at their feet, face up, and covered in flowers. Luke and Owen were playing with yellow markers with a black number right next to the lifeless body. They were on their knees, speechless.
“I didn’t kill her,” Tom said from afar. He was only a few feet away but you could hear the spitting as clear as a telephone conversation. “I just found her just like I found the other one.”
Landon lifted his hea
d up and looked towards the silhouette moving around. A skinny dark arm was moving closer to his pants, he was agitated and would stuff something into his mouth, showing off those ugly yellow teeth.
“You are too damn drunk to see the killer,” Landon said with a pissed off face
“What’s this shit?” Tom said as he heard something hitting the water. Something with a loud heavy sound. It was spit.
Andrew had her car in mind. It was a 1968 orange or red Ford Mustang with a super V8 engine.
“I think her Ford Mustang was abandoned at the Long Sands,” Andrew said knowing that that would bring him repercussions.
Landon opened his eyes like an owl.
“What did you say?”
“What you just heard.”
“What’s going on? Are you hiding evidence?”
“No, it’s not that. No one knows where the vehicle is yet...”
“What the fuck is going on here?” Landon interrupted as he approached Andrew, so much he was coming close to punching him in the nose. “No one knows, yet you say the car is at Long Sands. Are you trying to drive me crazy tonight?”
“You’ll know soon enough about me. In the meantime, please be patient.”
“What are you hiding from me, Andrew?” Landon made special emphasis on every word as if he were writing a phrase in big black bold letters from a text.
“Everything in due time, Landon. Trust me.”
“You know, I don’t know what’s going on with you but I think you are bullshitting me.” His index finger pressed the temple and at the same time, he was biting down on his teeth that were not shining yet. He was nervous, he felt that things were getting out of hand, the case, the women, their lives. He felt like running but where to?
Andrew looked down upon the victim’s body, as the night produced shadows that danced in the forest and in the water tainted in grey by the full moon. As he crouched to see the body, all his bones cracked on his legs. He complained about it with a faint whisper.
“I want to see how this poor woman is.”
“Don’t look at her! I’m sure her eyelids are glued shut and her eyes are down her throat. I already know the story and in a little while she will be opened up like a pig thanks to the scalpel or whatever else Herbert chooses to use.” He stopped to get a breath of oxygen and added “We will be in Augusta soon. Overseeing the scene should be lots of fun.”
Andrew raised his eyebrow from the flashes. Henry and Jacob were there as usual and there were more agents as well. They lifted their heavy eyes to look up at their boss’s face.
“I have to make sure.” Andrew insisted as he extended his hand towards Hannah’s face.
Her eyelids were glued shut.
77
They were on their way to Augusta. They had about a three-hour drive ahead, but Andrew went back home to make sure everything was ok. Clarice had been hiding in her caravan with the lights off and the door locked.
When she saw the blue Ford’s headlights and the dirt coming from the road towards the entrance which it looked greyer that night, she opened her caravan’s door and watched closely with a serious face through the threshold that separated her from reality.
Andrew was about to make a huge mistake. He was about to show some of his, to some people, paranormal and, to others, sensorial qualities. He had spoken about the car Hannah was driving and almost messed up, but Landon didn’t really show much interest, he just considered it a triviality of the moment. He would notice Andrew’s qualities later on.
Now, they were both going to be present during the autopsy and Herbert, sporting a big ass smile with his white teeth and showing a scalpel in hand, was about to cut Hannah open. She was still warm when they put her into the ambulance on the gurney that was being pushed by two young men who couldn’t stop staring at her tits.
But first, he had to do something about Clarice.
“Did they get him yet?” Clarice asked coming down the metallic stairs. Her foot stepped onto the soft grass and touched her skin. She was barefoot.
Andrew asked as he rolled down the car window:
“Why are you hiding in the caravan?”
He had let her get into the house. It was safer in there. There was a gun in one of the drawers and by looking for it she would find it.
“I felt so strange inside the house. To be locked in a place I didn’t know.”
“A place that belongs to someone who’s protecting you,” Andrew said without thinking.
Clarice shrugged her shoulders like a little girl.
“I know, but I was so scared that I went back to my place.” She explained with fire in her eyes yet a tad serious.
“And that place would protect you, right?” Pointing at the caravan that had its windows opened like a blind eye hanging from an optic nerve. The other windows also looked like eyes, but they were closed, like the victims’. Hidden something behind the dark eyelid. Something dark and quite terrifying.
“That’s my house.” Clarice wrinkled her tiny and pointy nose was tiny and tried to force a smile with her lips, but she didn’t.
Andrew heavily got out of the Ford as if he would fall back into the seat, with one hand grabbing the roof of the car. The door squeaked and moaned at the same time.
“Have you seen anything suspicious around here?”
“No, not really. Only those pictures you have on the wall that give me the chills. Memories.”
“What memories?”
“That dead woman. The one that the killer let fall onto the rocks with all her weight. That image is imprinted in my mind.” Clarice touched her forehead with both hands. “And I can imagine what you might have found yourself.”
Andrew shook his head and his forehead was like a pile of blankets full of wrinkles.
“You have no idea how happy it makes me seeing them like that. You really have no idea.” Andrew also had those images imprinted in his mind. But he saw them before and right then he felt a sharp pain that started on his face and spread to his neck. He clenched his lips and closed one eye. Finally, he let out a moan.
Clarice was right next to him, not too far away from him but with her arms crossed under her breasts. She opened her eyes wider and leaned forward opening her arms so as to give him a big bear hug.
“Is there something wrong, Andrew?”
It was the softest, sweetest voice the detective had ever heard.
“No, it’s nothing. I get bad migraines from time to time.” He lied as he tried to regain his composure.
The Ford’s headlights kept lighting the floor, like two flashlights, as if they were just pointing directly at the ground from a high chair. The bushes were like a yellowish and greyish color under the light of the moon. The engine kept going under the hood, it sounded like an angry crocodile with its mouth shut. But if you looked closely you could see smoked figures towards the sky that were getting tangled with the stars.
“You should take some aspirins,” Clarice said as she touched his shoulder. He felt comforted. Why could it be that he liked this girl who could be his daughter? Why did his heart beat fast the closer she got to him?
“I have medication for it, and trust me, aspirins don’t help at all.”
She took her arm away and made a smirk with her lips even doing that made her beautiful.
“Let’s go in, Andrew,” She said.
“Just to take those special pills.” Andrew objected, lying again. And that’s when he saw her, of course, with her eyes closed. “I have to go to Augusta to be at the autopsy of that poor soul.”
Clarice made a gesture with her mouth and her voice was as if she was worried. She was trying to stop Andrew from going by grabbing him by his arm.
“I don’t think you should go if you’re feeling like this.” She explained.
“It’s my job.” He said.
They walked around the Ford and their bodies caught the lights of the flashlights, making all kinds of dancing shadows on the grass. The engine was still on under the h
ood and purring like a big cat.
When your migraine is gone, I’ll let you go.” Clarice insisted, this time firmly looking into his eyes.
“Ok, but promise me one thing.” Andrew said, “I want you to hide in my house.”
She nodded.
Meanwhile, he was seeing things. He could see the sun above the mountains, covered by trees. First, it was like a bright ring. Then, the yolk of a fried egg. And he saw her, that woman. He knew who it was because he remembered all of them. They were all hanging on his wall and he had crossed them out, one be one. Now, he had to cross out Hannah’s. Or... Should he cross out two instead?
When they almost got to the white wooden door that looked more like a grey metal door under the moonlight, Clarice asked a question
“What was her name?”
“But Andrew didn’t hear her.”
78
Landon was biting on his toothpick and his feet were standing on the clean autopsy floor, which looked more like a hospital. The fluorescent lights warmed the bodies covered in white sheets and the floor was like a tattered and withered mirror. The cold silver-plated beds where on both sides of the room and you could see some dark blood on some of the wheels along with something that shone like white snot.
Andrew walked behind him but his ass was tired from that three-hour drive on a dark bumpy road. Seeing those feet didn’t affect him, though. Some were whitish and some others were purple. However, all of them had a tag on their big toe with a scrawl stained with... blood maybe?
“I can’t stand that God damn smell,” Landon said as he was getting closer to Herbert who was wearing white latex gloves on his small hands.
“Are you worried about this?” Andrew asked, now walking right next to him. “You think this is bad, wait ‘till he has to open her up. That is indeed a horrible smell because the coagulated blood emerges from the flesh that has begun to decompose. It’s even better when it begins to swell but I’d like to think it’s too early for the intestines to explode because of the gases.”
“Enough!” Landon said with his arm extended showing his fingers long like barbed-wire. “I feel like vomiting.”
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