by Shaun Meeks
He knew he couldn’t though, that he would see this go down by the book. He turned to look at Downey who was staring blankly at him.
“Looks like you’re not Charles Lindt at all, isn’t that right Alexander Downey?” Jana delivered the line like a cop in a TV show, a wannabe Columbo, in hopes that the killer would finally change his look, would stop with the indifferent stare, but it didn’t work. Downey just nodded and kept looking at him. It pissed Jana off that he hadn’t reacted differently, so he turned back towards the front of the cruiser and called in the arrest.
“Base this is car 5112. Be advised, I’m 10-7 that call at St. Jamestown for the trespass arrest. I have one male in custody for warrants. Caucasian male, surname Downey, G1 of Alexander, DOB is 1968/06/19. Copy?”
The dispatcher confirmed the call and as soon as they did, Jana’s cellphone rang. He looked at it, saw that it was his partner and answered before driving off property.
2
After his partner called, three other friends of his that were on duty called and nearly thirty minutes after his initial call to dispatch to advise them of the arrest, he was driving off the property towards 51 Division. As he drove though the pounding snow, taking it slowly the flurries increased, he looked in the review mirror from time to time and found that cold gaze staring right back at him. It reminded him of the days when he was a child, being called into the kitchen by his mom and made to sit at the table across from her. His mom was the real disciplinarian in the house. Sure his dad could yell up a storm and bang his chest like a great ape, but his mom was someone to fear. Cold, quiet and calculating with everything she did. His mom would look at him with the same deadpan look that Downey had, tapping her fingers on the table and saying nothing to him at all, just staring and tapping, tapping and staring. He knew that she was mad about something, but never knew what and would have to play his day out in his head to try and figure out what he had done wrong that she could even possibly know about. She would stare at him from ten sometimes fifteen minutes before finally saying, “You know why I called you in, right? Do want to tell me what you were thinking?” And young Jana would fall apart, babbling and admitting to things that he figured she knew about, trying his best to give reasons for his bad behavior. She would punish him for those things, and tell him never to do them again, to never keep secrets either, and it wasn’t until later in life that he realized that she had never known anything, that she had played on his own guilt to make him admit to things.
Downey wasn’t trying to get him to admit to anything though, but that look he gave would have worked just as his mother’s had. He was glad that the bastard wasn’t talking though, that the worst he was getting was that look and nothing more, and as he stopped at the red light, Thomas Jana looked into the review mirror again, staring into the cold, green eyes of the monster in the back, and never saw the man approaching the front driver’s side window of his cruiser, shotgun in hand. He was too busy lost in that gaze that was so much like his mothers, that he never saw the double barrels being leveled at him seconds before the gun exploded to life, ending his. He was oblivious, thinking to himself about what kind of childhood a monster like Downey must have had, wondering what his parents had been like, when bright light filled his eyes and darkness engulfed him. Thunder filled the car, a bright flash as well, but Jana didn’t notice any of it as his head from the chin up was sprayed across the inside of the car, skull, brain and flaps of his black haired scalp mixed with the broken glass from the closed window, blowing through the front passenger’s side and turning the snow on the road a deep crimson. His body was starting to fall over, jerking wildly, the pieces of his lower jaw that were still intact, moved up and down as though he were trying to say a few last words, or cry out his mother’s name. The front door was opened, cold wind blowing snow inside. The remains of the window fell into the street and were joined by Jana’s body as it was yanked from the car and thrown down like a bag of laundry, a dull thud sound as snow billowed up from the impact of his body. The owner of the shotgun stepped into the cruiser, ignoring the steaming blood and chunks of Jana’s head that were with him in the front seat, slammed the door shut and pulled a U-turn, heading north, away from the police station.
In the backseat, Downey had finally moved, laying down in the backseat when he had first heard the ear-shattering boom of the shotgun, he now sat up and looked at the back of the head of a man who was now driving. He tried to look at the man’s face in the rear view mirror, hoping that maybe this was some friend, an angel who had come to save him from being locked away from what he had done, but the mirror had been destroyed from the blast. He leaned forward in the seat, his handcuffs clicking as he did, and tried to look at the drivers face, wanting to see if he was a friend or foe.
“Sit back you fucking piece of shit before I just go ahead and kill you right here and now.”
Downey did as he was told, knowing this was no friend at all, and questioned what his fate would be.
3
Steve Moore had been listening to his police scanner every day for the last three weeks. He had bought it off the internet two years ago when he was working as a freelance reporter, hoping that it would help him catch a story or two, and it had. Over the last year though, it had sat in his desk, not having much use for it any more as he had moved away from freelance reporter to novelist, something he felt he was better at. He preferred to write made up violence and tragedy, instead of listening for it on the scanner, then driving to it and seeing it firsthand. He had found that he really didn’t have the stomach for murder scenes, suicides or things of that nature. He knew others in the field that thrived on the death and suffering, after all, that is what really sells newspapers anyway, but it wasn’t for him. Having been a horror movie buff all his life, people were surprised when he told them how much true death and violence disturbed him, haunted him as he lay in bed with his wife trying to find sleep. Movies and books did fail at capturing the true horrors of the world, but that was a good thing. He watched movies and read those books to escape reality, not to embrace the harsh truths of the world that he hated so much. He decided to try and get published as a novelist and short fiction writer, and put his scanner away, he hoped, forever.
Three weeks ago, he found himself sitting in his office, staring at the ceiling, knowing that his writing didn’t matter anymore, nothing really did. His eyes were red with tears as he thought again and again about his wife Amy and his son Alden and how he would never see them again, how they had been stolen from him by some monster.
He remembered going to the police station to report them missing, and minutes later a detective that looked on the fat side of forty, waddled out with a grim look on his face. Right away Steve knew that it couldn’t be good, that he was about to hear that his wife and son had been in an accident and would be taken to the hospital where they were.
He was taken to the hospital, but it was to the morgue instead, and there was no car accident involved. The detective tried to keep most of the details out, those he would later read in a local newspaper because after all, death sells. He was only allowed to see their faces, just so that he could identify them, but that was bad enough. Their skin was burnt; looks of terror were frozen on their faces, the looks seem to burrow themselves into his mind and haunt him in his sleep over the days that followed.
He walked around in a daze, waking from bouts of restless sleep, covered in cold sweats and was sure that he could hear Alden laughing or his wife calling his name. He felt as though he had failed them somehow, that he should have been there to protect them, instead he had been at home working on some stupid story while Amy had gone to the daycare to pick up their son and meet tragedy on the way home. He told himself he wasn’t to blame, that some sick animal was out there and was not looking for anyone in particular, that it was that persons fault and not his, but he couldn’t convince himself. Nobody could. His sister sent her priest to talk, and her husband, but Steve wouldn’t listen to anything the
y had to say. He had sworn an oath to his wife and his son, not in words, but it was implied, that he would always be there to protect them, to shield them from all the horrible things in the world that had malicious intent. He had failed them.
Amy had been his wife for over seventeen years, and they had tried to have a child the entire time, but she had been told by her gynecologist that she was not fertile and the only chance they had was adopting. They didn’t want to do that, but they knew there was no sense in spending thousands of dollars on fertility drugs either, so they just gave up. Then, Alden was came and in a way he was their little miracle baby, born out of hopes and dreams when they least expected it. With Steve’s day job, he had been there for all of his son’s big moments, first tooth, first words, first steps and first haircut. So many firsts and memories and now he had been there for his son’s first morgue viewing, a sign of his failure as a father and a husband. After finding out the news and seeing them in the morgue, Steve found himself haunted by the images of their cold dead skin and the ghost of who his son could have been. Some days, as he sat in his office, Alden would sit in the shadows across the room, his bluish white skin glowing in the patch of darkness, telling his father how he wanted to be a fireman, a police officer or a writer just like his daddy. Steve would beg for his son to stop talking, wishing he could go and hold him, pull him close to him and smell his unique scent, but he knew tried to go over to the corner, there would be no one there, just the shadows.
Sitting in the office and listening to his son talk about all the things he would never be, was where Steve had decided he needed to find the man, the monster who had taken away from him everything he loved, and make him pay for his crimes. He pulled out his old police scanner and for hours and days on end he listened to the transmissions, waiting for a sign, some way of finding and getting the bastard that had done this. He listened to the static filled calls as his mind went over the things he would do to the man who had violated his family and stolen from him the only people he had ever truly loved. There was so much pain that he wanted to share with the monster, things he dreamt of that might make the ghosts go away seeing that he had avenged them and they could finally be at piece.
Some days, Amy would appear with Alden and she would tell him how she missed his touch, how it was so cold and lonely where she was and all that she wanted was to feel the warm breath of his whispered words on her neck. She would hold her arms out to him, saying that she needed him, but that he had to prepare for when the time came to take care of his duty as a husband and father. She said to get ready for the time of vengeance and he did just that, pulling out his old double barreled shotgun he had from his youth when his father use to take him out hunting. He cleaned and oiled it daily as he listened to his son, and on occasion his wife talking to him and waited for a sign.
It took longer than most people would have waited, but Steve had nothing but time on his hands. When he heard the police officer call in that he had Alexander Downey, the name of the man that the detective had told him was the prime suspect; he saw the sign and quickly moved.
Steve took his shotgun, and a pre-packed bag that he had made up on his dead wife’s advice, went into his car and drove towards the police station. The snow outside was bad, but he didn’t want to slow down and risk not finding him before he was taken into the station. He drove though the blasting snow, looking into the review mirror as he went and saw that Amy and Alden had come with him, sitting in the backseat as they sometimes did on long trips. He told them that he was going to fix it all and his wife looked up, her eyeless sockets glaring back the nightmare of her face as she smiled and told him she knew he would make things better, that he would fix it for them.
When he drove up to the 51 division station house, he didn’t stop. He saw that the cruiser, 5112 was not in the lot, and that there were over ten officers waiting by the parking area, obviously waiting for the cruiser and the bastard to arrive. Steve looked in the rear view mirror again as his son was staring at him. He told his boy that everything would be okay, and Alden smiled back and told his father that it had to be, that things were happening just the way they should and that he would get the man that had hurt him and mommy. Steve smiled, ignoring the wet, green rotting sound of his son’s voice, the putrid smell that was coming from the back seat and drove north towards St. Jamestown. He smiled, knowing that his family was still close to him, regardless of the state they were in. He loved them and was doing it for them.
A few blocks away, he pulled his car over to a side street, took out his bag and his shotgun, and waited by a set of lights, deciding that the police car would choose this way to go to the station. He didn’t know how he knew it, he just did. He wondered if it was a sign from Amy and Alden, or even God. Perhaps God felt bad for letting things happen the way they had and this was His way of making things right. He prayed to Him, something Steve hadn’t done since he was a boy, that he was making the right choice and that he would be guided to the monster he was hunting. He also prayed that when the time came, it would all go his way, the light turning red at the perfect time, the officer not noticing him and then he would finish what the monster had started.
It did go his way, more perfectly than he could have asked. As he drove the stolen cruiser, wind and snow blowing in through the shattered window, he looked over to the front passenger seat and saw his son there, sitting on his mother’s lap. He would never have allowed that if they weren’t already dead, but seeing as they were, he felt as though he could let it slide this once.
The drive was shorter than Steve remembered it to be, but then again he had first driven out to the warehouse from his house in his own car, not coming from Parliament Street in a police cruiser, something that he had not given thought to. He went into the bag he had brought with him and pulled a small black leather sap from the bag and stepped out of the cruiser, ignoring the harsh wind cutting at his face as the snow crunched beneath his boots. He stepped to the rear passenger door and looked through the window at the monster in the backseat, at the thing that had taken away his reason for living.
Downey didn’t look so monstrous to him, cowering in the backseat the way he was, his cheeks wet with tears, he looked pitiful. He wanted to kill him right then and there, to go back into the front seat, pull out the shotgun he had used to kill the police officer and aim it at Downey’s face, squeezing the trigger and letting it all disappear. He wanted to paint the back seat of the cruiser with the sick mind that had thought all those horrible things that had done all the sick and twisted acts that he had done, ending it quick and bloody.
That was too good for an evil creature like him though, way to good and too easy. Downey needed to be taken from this world, along many winding roads of pain and terror that was only fitting for him. Steve opened up the back door of the cruiser then, his hand holding steady with the sap in it and motioned Downey forward.
“What are you going to do?” Downey whimpered from the backseat.
“Kill you right here and now if you don’t get the fuck out of the car.” Steve told him, trying his best to hold in the rage that was inside, trying to rip out of him and tear Downey limb from limb. “Get the fuck out now and do as I say.”
Downey moved towards the open door, leaning his head forward as he went to step out, never seeing the flash of black leather as Steve raised the sap and brought it down on the back of his head, just behind his ear.
4
Downey woke up to pain, bright white, lightening pain, exploding from his wrists. He opened his eyes, hearing the sound of metal striking metal, turned his head and saw what was happening.
“I’m glad you’re awake for this,” Steve laughed and brought more pain down to Downey’s wrist. “I thought you were never wake up. I already finished the first one and you didn’t even stir.”
Downey ignore the crazy tone that had taken over the man’s voice as he continued to work, slamming a small sledge hammer down on the railroad spike that was already buried into hi
s wrist, being pushed into the concrete floor. He looked over and saw that his other had was already pinned to the floor, tried to trash himself back and forth to get away, but that only made the pain seem more real.
Steve began to whistle to himself as though what he was doing was nothing more than putting together a bookshelf, not seeming to notice or care as blood sprayed his fast with every strike of the hammer, or that blood was pooling under the man’s wrists.
“Please,” Downey begged as the hammer struck home again, as he felt the metal slide deeper into though his wrist and vibrating as it went further into the concrete. “Please don’t do this. I’m begging you.”
At that Steve stopped and looked right into the eyes of the killer, the man who had taken everything from him. Downey could feel his own tears stinging his eyes as he looked up at his capture and he was filled with hope that maybe he had gotten through to him, that the man nailing him to the ground wasn’t so far gone that he wouldn’t be able to talk his way out.
“You don’t have to do this man; I swear you don’t have to do any of it.”
Steve looked up and away to his right, to where his wife and child stood, unseen by their killer, both wearing the cuts and wounds that had been served to them, looking on as witnesses and judges. They were there to ensure the punishment that had been ordered was being carried out. Both looked right at Steve’s face; the father, the husband, and wordlessly told him to carry on for them, to ignore the killer’s pleas and make him pay for what he had done. Steve smiled at them, his eyes close to tearing up, ignoring the destruction that covered his wife and child.