To the west, past the gutterage, farmlands rolled onwards to the base of the mountains in the distance. An armoured truck—likely part of some surveillance patrol—drove out onto the winding roads. I couldn’t catch the license plate, but I noted the make.
The Helix Institute lay in full view, solar panels soaking up energy in a black array. In the early mornings the dome cast a shadow over the complex, but after that it basked in the sun until it set on the mountains. My heart jumped slightly as I picked up movement—two men and a woman slinking around the walls. I watched them intently, but they thought better of intruding and loped off into the shadows.
Closer to where I sat, a plume of dust—or smoke?—snaked through the roads. I pressed my form to the bricks as a bike curved into the street below me, nipping around broken cars and debris before gunning for the quarantine cordon. Someone was in a hurry.
To the north-east, the city jarred the broken landscape. Despite the dry season, the river still flowed, passing the RailTech office block and the Riverside Mercy hospital. Sturrock was probably there, which meant I should probably make plans to be there too. Through a third-storey window I saw someone retching violently.
Vincent’s cover-house was being swarmed by construction workers. I could see straight into his living room, blackened and blasted as it was.
‘Gas explosion’. Realistic.
The RailTech offices always pulled my eye while I was up here. It annoyed me and distracted my thoughts and musings. I’d considered burning it to the ground, but my self-preservation instincts overpowered my appreciation of aesthetics every time. An upward tilt of the binoculars caused the floors to flash before me, until a figure caught my eye.
He was beautiful: sleek brown hair, hard blue eyes and a razor-sharp jawline. A scowl carved his face as those eyes—intense beyond dreaming—glared over the perimeter walls. As I drank him in, he shifted and—for a strangely harrowing second—I stared into those narrow slits.
I twitched, repressing an urge to press myself into the bricks again. There was no way he could have seen me, but the full intensity of that gaze was unexpected. The slightest flush had found my cheeks, spawned from the desire of something new. I found myself wondering what it would be like to strangle that neck.
Slowly, deliberately, he opened the window and extended his arm into the wind. We both breathed deeply. The scowl deepened and he retreated, leaving my line of sight.
Dammit.
I flitted over the adjacent rooms in the hope of catching him again. No such luck.
Suddenly bored and no longer hungry, I flipped the tin can over the edge with my foot. Beans and sauce splattered against the wall and started creeping, gradually, away from the winds. A voice coughed in my head.
Red drips. You’ve seen that recently.
I had. I pulled out the pictures of the murder-suicide and leafed through them until I found the one I wanted. Blood drops on the window: the trickle flowed straight down, then tilted to the right, and finally straight down again.
Razorjaw was jettisoned from my mind at orbital speed. Sturrock could wait. Right now, I had to get across the cordon and into the flat. I looked at the window in the photograph one last time.
Definitely, undeniably closed.
#0810
“This may be the last will and testament of K Fletcher. Valerie has given me something to drink. I drank it through an intravenous drip, and now I’m sitting on a pile of body parts in the middle of the city. My heart is racing, my vision and memory is flashing in and out and I can taste lemon juice on my tongue. I can feel my urges pawing up and down my body with perverse and heavy hands. Their roughness is my only solace.
“Do not mourn me. I would have probably killed you.”
9: Old People Make Better Kindling
A short drop from a ledge took me to the street. The afternoon bluster kicked grit into my face as I made it to my favourite crossing point. The sun was still high, but the curfew was approaching; I had to be fast. I breezed past the receptionist—looking decidedly less cheery—and went back up to apartment 202.
Back in the room, I stared at the window. Still closed. The blood had been washed off, but faint red traces still marked the glass. Down, right, down. Nice try, gravity.
I lifted the latch and pushed it out. The window was hinged at the top and grated for a half-second before responding to the force. There was a faint whistling as the wind invaded the new cracks. I pulled it shut and took a switchblade out of my boot and pressed the edge into my left palm then clenched for a few heartbeats, until red was spilling from between my fingers.
I flicked at the window and watched my blood trawl down the glass. Thicker than water—slower too. Pushing the window out again confirmed what I expected; the drops deviated to the right, thanks to the wind. I pulled it shut and they resumed course.
I looked at the photos. She was crumpled by the bed, splattered over the headboard and sheets. Not the window. This was definitely his blood.
Shoot my wife, shoot myself then open the window for a quick breath of fresh air. Sounds logical.
I glimpsed a massive grin in the mirror. These moments made everything worth it. Actually, the job was pretty satisfying in general, but these moments were just ego-gravy.
I mapped out the scenario in my mind again. Someone opened the window and closed it again, soon after the suicide. This birthed a series of new questions: who? Why? Mysteries within mysteries. I dug out my phone—shit, covered it in blood—and tapped out a quick message to Valerie.
Smooth, K. These keys are going to get sticky, you moron.
I tried to wipe it off on the bed sheets—they were stained anyway—but to no avail. Whatever.
Somewhere in the lofts of the Midnight Hour, Valerie’s phone buzzed. I imagined a hand emerging from beneath blankets, and a quizzical stare at the garbled message.
The stupid smile was still etched into my face. Despite the annoying questions it brought to the table, it was progress. I washed and bound my hand and locked up.
I passed the receptionist on the way out. My elation pulled a “Cheers” from my throat, unexpectedly. She grunted and didn’t look up.
This put a damper on my good mood. At my worst, I’m narcissistic, irascible, sour and vindictive. But if I’m in a good mood, the least you can do is reciprocate. I stopped walking.
A shriek was cut short as my switchblade bit into the desk in front of her. For a few seconds we remained frozen, eyes locked. Her breaths were quick and pained; mine hissed from my throat with grim purpose.
“Stop sounding so fucking sad! Jesus!”
I really, really wanted to pull the knife out and set to work. A faint apology escaped her, half-syllabled. Something confused me, and halted my murderous advance. I continued my tirade instead.
“Not a month ago, you were the cheeriest creature alive. I remember, because I really wanted to hurt you. Why are you so miserable now?”
She hadn’t been expecting discourse. Another two words made it past the lips.
“New job.”
This was interesting.
“How new?” I asked.
“Two weeks.”
That was very new, and very coincidental.
“Why?”
“The old guy stopped coming in. No receptionist for almost a week.”
She was getting wordier. I pulled the knife from the table and pointed it in her face, eliciting another squeak.
“Name. Now. Don’t speak, write.”
Terrified scratching commenced.
“Don’t make me come back.”
“Y—”
“Don’t speak.”
She handed a scrap of paper to me. The handwriting was spidery, but legible. I withdrew the knife—wink—and tapped her nose with my finger.
“Cheers.”
***
Two clues in quick succession. It was a good day. The disappearance of the receptionist was too coincidental to ignore. Despite living in times of viol
ence and disappearance, I felt a tingle about this one.
Alastor Cartwright. The name reeked of the old times, of white hair and wiry glasses and dry coughs that came without any specific illness. Old people made my skin crawl. I never want to get old.
To someone like me, names have a certain power. An alias is a window into the mind. A pseudonym always leaves a trail. A handle tells me about the organization in charge.
A real name? Those lead to family and friends. That terror-train stopped for no stations.
For now, the name gave me a location. Thanks, possibly outdated phonebook. Cartwright lived in a small apartment, close to Riverside Mercy. The complex was called Arcadia. I glanced at my watch.
15h49. Two hours until perimeter lockdown; three until full curfew. One hour for walking, one hour for talking. I’d probably have to jump the crossing again on the way out, but that wasn’t a problem.
The streets were fairly empty, considering the time. Clusters of people hung around out of the wind, with one or two smoking on the fringe of their group. I ignored them, mostly, and met any curious stares with hateful daggers of my own.
I made it to Alastor’s block twenty minutes later. Even the building reeked of old people—a weathered pink-mauve wall with barred windows and dusty glass. The gas canisters were burning a hole in my backpack, but I ignored the urge.
Focus, K.
I stumbled into an old lady leaving the complex, lifting her swipe tag in the process. Apologising profusely—it felt distinctly alien—I proceeded through the door. There had been no apartment number in the phonebook, just the complex and a landline number. I dialled and listened carefully.
He lived on the fourth floor, five doors on the right from the stairs. 4-10.
Deceptively big complex.
I knocked on the door. No answer. I bent down and stared through the keyhole. The key was still in the lock. I knocked again, louder. Still no response.
I pulled one of the photographs out and slid it beneath the door. Using one of my thinner blades I gingerly pushed through the keyhole, hoping not to jam the lock. After a few seconds of tender jiggling I felt the pressure fall away, and a dull clatter as the key fell onto the page.
I pulled the photo back out from under the door, until the metal was visible.
Bingo. You deserve a YouTube series. If YouTube was still a thing.
I pulled the key out and unlocked the flat. The smell hit me first—a musty, sickly sweetness. As an afterthought, I locked the door behind me.
I turned into Cartwright’s room, and took a foul breath of air.
His hair was white and thinning. His forehead was wrinkled with age, and his eyes—wide open—had probably been blue at some stage. The sockets gazed up into space, right through me, from the foot of the bed. The rest of his body was slumped in a chair, on the other side of the room. An over-eager breed of grave mould already hung on his frame.
He was dead.
I held a cloth over my face and tried not to taste it. Gloves would probably be best, so I hunted through the kitchen until I came across a heavy yellow pair.
Back in the room, I parted the flesh around the wounds. It was soft and peeled back easily, exposing the bone beneath. Whatever had happened to Alastor, it hadn’t been pretty.
I muttered to myself while I examined the remains. The head had been fully detached by a few heavy strokes to the neck, evidenced by chips on the spinal cord. A trail of blood streaked between it and the chair, but the majority was pooled around the corpse itself. The neck was messy, but the chest was complete carnage.
Possible post-mortem decapitation. That’s a lot of rage. If the chest didn’t say that already.
It did, in no uncertain terms. Decomposition didn’t fully explain the state. He was literally mincemeat. A sharp, heavy blade—most likely the decapitator—had been deployed to great effect. The spongy lung tissue, now extra spongy, poked out from between the broken ribs. Despite the cloth over my face, I found myself holding my breath. The smell was utterly vile, even to my experienced senses.
I stripped off one of the gloves and took out my phone. I exposed the bones and their marks and took as many photos as possible. I was reasonably certain that this was the deadly damage. The head was an afterthought, spawned from fury.
I wanted Valerie to take a look.
I donned the glove and scrummaged around the chest cavity again. The flesh sloughed off in slimy chunks, revealing more and more of the ribcage. Deep grooves everywhere: I counted at least twelve. Twelve slashes; two vertical ones (possibly the initial assault) and ten from side to side. Whoever did this had stamina and strength in plentiful proportions.
I took more shots. I really wanted Valerie to take a look.
I checked his wrists and ankles: no ligature marks. While on my haunches, I noted scratches on the linoleum, forward from each of the feet of the chair. I muttered into my recorder—“Chair shifted, possibly as the body fell into it”—and moved on.
Mysteries within mysteries. Importantly, this shifted the focus of my investigation heavily. Follow the fury, find the feelings. The murder of Alastor Cartwright brought a lot of anger into the picture. It would have been a crazy coincidence for the murders to be unrelated; I was fairly convinced that a third party was the link.
Again, more questions were raised. I originally assumed that Alastor had been bought off or silenced due to something he’d seen. This spoke of something different, a brutal rage directed at the old man. I didn’t know where the motive was in the three deaths; was the intention to kill the wife, Cartwright or the shooter himself? What was the connection?
Another discrepancy jumped to mind. Everything looked like a brutal attack—maybe with a machete—but I needed Valerie to look at a specific spot on the ribcage. At this spot the bone shattered inwards, hairline cracks radiating out from a central point. It didn’t look like a hacking wound; rather, it looked like a puncture.
The strange injuries and the scratches on the floor swam around my thoughts. I took the gloves off and searched the rest of the house. The phone sat on the kitchen counter, battery dead. I decided to take it. Hopefully his final communications could reveal something about the situation.
This seems a little too convenient.
I didn’t like how the phone was just lying on the kitchen counter. It felt staged to me, in the same way that an actor might see through the work of a colleague and view it as menial and overdone. Through the veil of brutality and violence I could feel the stare of an intelligent creature, but exactly how intelligent I did not know. After some deliberation, I lifted the notepad by the landline and spent some time collecting papers from the desk and the trash. This killer—or killers?—might have forgotten to factor in the old-fashioned nature of his—their?—target.
The mystery of the locked door was solved on my final sweep. Shiny grooves and recent scratches on the hinges showed how the apartment had been entered. The door had been unscrewed and lifted completely out of place.
This no longer felt like a one-man job. The equal doses of rage and forethought, and the mechanical obstacle of quietly unhinging a door, spoke of at least two or three others. A surgical revenge killing? I tried not to over-speculate.
Another ten minutes had flitted by through my musings. I wondered what to do with the body, but quickly realised that it was of no importance to me. I punctured a gas canister and held the spray over his chest, saturating the flesh. The fumes struggled valiantly with the stench of rot until I struck a match and lit up the room.
***
The phone had been a nice touch. It told a very specific story, once I returned home and got some charge in it. One of the perks of using so many disposable phones is that I have a charger for every possible slot.
I’ll take ‘slutty mantras’ for fifty points. Heh.
It was pretty clear. Cartwright had made several calls, one after the other, to a single number. I tracked it down to a relatively well-known, illicit gambling den that dealt
mainly in what little sport was still played worldwide, fronted by the City Centre Animal Shelter. Horse racing in reclaimed France, sailing regattas off Mauritius—mainly self-obsessed, rich survivors passing the time and broadcasting it to anyone who cared, without any real competitive edge to it. Still, it was something to bet on and some people just can’t say no to that.
Two failed calls, followed by a twenty-four second connection, followed by eight more failed calls. Finally, several hours later, a two-second attempted dial to the armed forces. It probably hadn’t even started ringing.
Open and shut, then. Cartwright owed money to the wrong people, and the wrong people decided to do something about it. Totally unrelated to Rourke. Everyone grab a drink and go home.
Not a snowball’s chance in fiery Fucksville.
I’d been to the shelters once, late at night, while following a lead. The dogs had barked incessantly, which helped drown out the sounds of drinking and revelry on the basement level. They hadn’t liked my attitude. I hadn’t liked the way their fingers weren’t all broken.
The shelter was not responsible for Cartwright. Im-fucking-possible. Their enforcers couldn’t organise a shanking in a shiv warehouse. I arranged my collected pages in order from least to most worn and started to read.
Several unique phone numbers could be made out. I called them, sequentially, and noted who answered.
“You’ve reached the Arcadia Retirement Home Reception.” Hang up.
“Hi! You reached NutCase Repairs. Our operating hours are between—” Hang up.
An automated phone sex number, a laundry service and a local grocery store were the next three most recent scribbles. Cartwright clearly had a habit of transferring numbers from the computer to the pad before dialling them.
God, old people are inefficient.
I wasn’t actually complaining this time. I spent some time dialling around the options of the phone sex line—not that I liked her voice, God no, it was ghastly—to see if there were any less-legal services hidden in the system, but it seemed clean. I circled NutCase and the laundry for further investigation before taking the right pills and wiping out on my sheets.
Fletcher Page 6