The Day of Legion

by Craig Taylor

  After everyone had left, Rachael sat next to him with her hand on his knee. She gradually got closer over the last half hour, and felt comfortable enough to touch him lightly. He was quite happy with that, and returned the caress with his hand on her forearm.

  He felt a little nervous about how he would end the evening when she leaned in closer and whispered in his ear. “Take me home.”

  “Oh, sure,” he replied. “Where do you live?”

  She laughed, and he thought he could listen to that laugh all night.

  “I meant, take me home to your place.”

  He felt his face redden.

  “Are you blushing?” she asked, half laughing at him.

  “Yes. I am.”

  She laughed a little louder as he took her hand and walked to the street. His heart was beating fast and he was nervous. This was the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and he didn’t want to mess it up by making a move on her; what if she meant she wanted coffee at his place?

  On the walk home, they changed from holding hands to arms around each other’s waists. She nuzzled into his neck and lightly kissed it. He felt his excitement rise and hoped the bulge in his pants wasn’t too conspicuous. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.

  They reached the apartment building and entered the reception area. At the elevator, Rachael reached around and placed her hand lightly on his groin and pressed gently. She returned his look with a smile that told him, no, she didn’t just want coffee.

  When they walked past Patrick’s apartment door, John was sure he heard the redhead growling like a cat, but Rachael didn’t notice or didn’t care. An image of the naked cougar on all fours scratching at Patrick’s leg almost made him laugh; if he wasn’t so nervous he probably would have.

  Inside, he poured them both glasses of water. He turned and looked across the apartment, saw her sitting on the long, white sofa. From where he was standing, he saw her from side profile with the light behind her. She was looking out the open folding doors at the night sky. She looked absolutely perfect. Her golden brown skin contrasted against the pale fabric of the sofa. She had one leg crossed over the other, and one of her shoes was hanging off. She sensed him watching and turned her gaze toward him.

  She inhaled deeply and slowly. “Come to me.”

  John walked over and gave her one of the glasses of water. She took it and placed it on the glass table next to the sofa. She then took his glass and placed it next to hers. She took his hand and pulled him toward her and at the same time moved herself into a lying position. He lay on top of her, his chest against hers.

  She kissed him tenderly, slowly pushing her tongue into his mouth, pressing it against the tip of his tongue. He responded by swirling his tongue around hers and stroking her face gently.

  They kissed and talked for fifteen minutes before he led her to the bedroom. She pushed him on the bed and remained standing, looking down at him. She began to sway gently, dancing to music only she could hear. Slowly, sensually, Rachael slipped her dress off and let it slip to the floor. Her naked breasts were pert and smooth. John looked at her nipples, erect and tight.

  She slid her panties off and stepped out of them before crawling over him until their faces were level. She laid her naked body on top of his. He felt her breath on his neck, causing a tingle down his spine.

  Slowly she moved down to his groin, undid his belt and zipper, grasped his erection with her hand and took him in her mouth. He arched his back at the sudden warmth and watched as she moved her lips up and down.

  They made love slowly and intensely. She read his desires and responded with her body and hands. He caressed her, touched her gently and brought her to climax easily and often.

  John couldn’t remember when he had made such passionate, heated love. Even in the beginning stages with Janine, their lovemaking wasn’t this intense. When they had finished and Rachael lay next to him, he watched her breasts rise and fall as she breathed slowly, slipping quietly into sleep. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, dreamed of, been with.

  * * * *

  Around three in the morning, Rachael woke up. She slid quietly out of bed and retrieved her clothes, holding them in her hands. She stood at the end of the bed and looked at him, snoring quietly as he slept. She smiled and slipped out the door and dressed in the lounge to avoid waking him.

  She helped herself to a bottle of water from the refrigerator, glanced at the photos of Jason stuck to the door with little heart-shaped magnets, then walked out of the apartment into the hall way, quietly closing his front door.

  She got to the elevator and pressed the Down button. Behind her, Patrick’s door opened. She didn’t hear a thing. A faint scent of formaldehyde, then blackness.

  Chapter Five

  It wasn’t so much a knock on the door; more of a pounding. It woke John suddenly. He could hear voices shouting, muffled by the walls, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. He heard a huge thud and crash, then voices of men in his apartment. He leapt out of bed, quickly glancing at the clock. Ten a.m.

  As he hurriedly put on his pants, his heart pounding, the bedroom door came crashing in, kicked nearly off its hinges. A man in black rushed into the room, pointing a high powered rifle directly at him. Another man followed, then two more. All had firearms pointed at him; ‘POLICE’ printed boldly in white on the front of their ballistic vests.

  “Police!” the first man shouted. “Police! Get on the ground!”

  John froze, afraid. His legs were shaking and his body refused to do what his mind told it to, which was to comply with the man with a rifle pointed at his face. The last officer through the door was armed with a Glock, which he holstered and moved quickly over to him.

  He grabbed John by his neck and pulled him violently to the floor, before ramming one knee into his back. “Give me your hands!” he shouted. “Give me your hands, now!”

  John shouted in pain. He managed to get his hands into the small of his back where the officer was indicating by tapping it with his handcuffs. Once in position, the handcuffs were applied, quickly and too tight. The clicks of the metal teeth of the cuffs engaging made a sound John had only heard in movies and on television. His whole body jerked at the pain and he received a punch in the back of the head for moving.

  “No resistance!” came the stern instruction.

  “I’m not resisting, you’re hurting me!” he shouted “The handcuffs are too tight and what the hell is this about? Did you guys make sure you had the right apartment before you kicked my door in and assaulted me?”

  He knew none of the police cared about him. The first three that burst through the bedroom door walked straight back out as soon as he was shackled. The two who remained picked him up and sat him on the bed. One was dressed in the same black garb as the others; his rifle now slung behind him. The second officer was wearing a suit, obviously a detective. He was older and appeared a little calmer than the boys in black, but he looked mean.

  He placed some papers, stapled in the corner and folded in half, on John’s lap.

  “John Hansen?” the detective asked.

  Before he could confirm, deny or protest the officer continued.

  “That there is a warrant to search your house. You are detained pursuant to that warrant. Any interference by you or refusal to cooperate will be deemed to be obstruction and you will be charged accordingly. Do you understand?”

  “What the hell is this abo...”

  He was interrupted. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I understand what you just said, but I don’t understand what this is all about. I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

  The detective ignored him and wrote something in a black notebook. John looked at the other officer. He stared back at John, frowning constantly, so he didn’t ask him any ques
tions.

  The detective finally stopped writing in his notebook and looked at him. He could hear the noises of a thorough search of the apartment. John could hear them talking, but nothing was clear.

  “Do you know Rachael Lewis?” the detective asked.

  John nodded. “Yes, we met last night at a café.”

  It was only then he realized she wasn’t there in the room.

  “Where is she?” John asked. “Is she okay?”

  The detective stared at him, grim faced, aggressive. “I don’t know. Where is she, John?” he asked. “Tell me about last night.”

  “Can you tell me what this is about?” John asked again.

  The detective ignored him, instead listening as another detective in a suit entered the room and whispered in his ear. The first detective nodded as he listened, not once looking at John.

  “Tell me about last night, John, where you met, what happened when you met Rachael,” he finally said, completely ignoring the fact John had just asked him a question.

  John relented and decided to cooperate, hoping if he did they would explain why they had barged into his house with a search warrant.

  “Okay,” he began, watching as the detective retrieved the notebook from his pocket and started to write again. “I went to a café down on the waterfront with my neighbor, Patrick. We had dinner and a few drinks and met a group of women, one of whom was Rachael. We got on well, had a few more drinks then came back here and...”

  “And what?” the detective asked.

  “We had sex, okay?”

  “Then what happened?”

  John shook his head. “We fell asleep. I woke up, she’s gone and you idiots are kicking my door in. Now, tell me what’s going on or I’m calling my lawyer.”

  The detective ignored the last remark and continued writing. John felt a little deflated. He had hoped the request for a lawyer would have compelled them to give him some information, but he guessed that’s how it was on television, not real life.

  He looked out the open door and watched as a uniformed officer walked past with John’s laptop in gloved hands and placed it in a brown cardboard box marked ‘evidence.’

  “Hey, that computer is my work computer and I need it this weekend and on Monday,” he protested.

  The detective looked up from his notebook. “The warrant covers all computers in the house.” He continued writing, looking at his watch a few times and noting the time.

  Without a word, the detective pulled a photo out of his inside jacket pocket and held it in front of John’s face. He reeled back in horror.

  “What the fuck are you...?”

  “This is your work!” the detective shouted. “We have the evidence. You killed Rachael Lewis, we don’t know why, but why did you take all those photographs and then leave them all over the body? You sick bastard!”

  John couldn’t breathe. The detective threw the photo onto his lap on top of the search warrant. It landed face up. Tension in his head began to build. He looked at the photograph again.

  It showed Rachael, pale-skinned with blue lips and eyelids. Her eyes were red and she had ligature marks around her neck. Her eyes were partly open, completely devoid of the sparkle and life she had a few hours ago. They were dull and dry, glazed over. One arm was bent awkwardly behind her body, with the other resting on her stomach. She was naked and lying in a shallow ditch outside somewhere. The officer who took the photo was standing on the ground above, looking down.

  Lying around her were photographs. One was in the crook of her elbow that rested on her body, another between her breasts. Three or four others were scattered around her corpse in the dirt.

  John cried. She looked so terrible. She was a beautiful woman, a beautiful person, taken from the world and discarded in a ditch like rubbish. Someone made an attempt at burying her. One foot and half a leg were covered in freshly thrown dirt. It seemed so unreal that he had just met her, just been with her, just made love to her a few hours ago.

  He looked up at the detective, desperate. “I didn’t have anything to do with this! We met at the bar, came back here and had sex. She must have left in the early hours or something. The last I saw her was in bed next to me, before I fell asleep.”

  The detective read him his rights and asked if he understood. He felt trapped. The cold reality of what they thought he’d done hit home. He understood his rights, but he also understood he was a suspect in a serious crime that he had nothing to do with. He felt the walls closing in, hammers pounding on his temples. He started to hyperventilate. He tried to lower his head between his knees, but lost his balance and fell forward on to the floor at the detective’s feet.

  No helping hands offered him assistance. Instead, the detective merely took a step back.

  “Why’d you do it, John?”

  John gasped for air and had to breathe in between each word. “Fuck...You. I...didn’t...have...anything to do with it. I...want...a...lawyer. No...questions.”

  “I’m sure you do want a lawyer,” the detective said. “Why’d you leave the photographs? You’re either very stupid or you wanted to be caught.”

  “They’re not my fucking photographs!” John shouted.

  The detective motioned for another officer to come into the room. He held several see through plastic evidence bags, each containing a photograph. The detective took them and held each one in front of Johns face momentarily as he sat on the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes and his chest tightened.

  “I don’t understand,” he said quietly, confused and scared.

  Each photograph depicted him and Rachael in various sex positions in his bedroom. The first they were clothed and kissing, the next she was standing in front of him naked, next she had him in her mouth, a few more on he was taking her from behind and the last he was on top, his hand on her neck as he kissed her, thrusting inside her.

  “They were found with her body,” the detective explained. “Along with this.”

  He held up another plastic bag. Inside John could see his business card, covered in dried dirt and blood.

  “This is a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t take those photographs. I’ve never seen them before.”

  The detective looked at him, stone faced. “They look like they’ve been taken from over there,” he said, walking toward the closet. He slid the door across and shook his head. Lying on the floor was a cream dress, a pair of flat women’s shoes and white lace panties, all sitting at the base of a camera tripod.

  “This is wrong!” John shouted, trying to stand up. He was pushed on to the bed by the officer in black, who had not said a word since their arrival.

  “Damn straight it’s wrong!” the detective shouted back. “You are going away for a long time, Johnny boy!”

  He began to cry, feeling hopeless, lost and confused.

  The detective carried on, relentless in exposing the “truth.” “Did you have someone in here, John?” he asked. “Or did you have a remote system set up?”

  “I didn’t have anything set up and I didn’t have anyone in the closet,” he answered. “I’m not like that. Let me think about this for a second.”

  When the detective and officer in black laughed he knew he just said the wrong thing.

  “Need time to think up an excuse?” the officer in black said, his voice devoid of any sympathy.

  “That’s not what I meant,” John said. He was going to say more, but threw up on himself and the bed clothes.

  “Oh, shit!” the detective said. “Get a wagon here. I’m not transporting him to the station in my car like that!”

  Another officer walked in, carrying the laptop opened and on. “Got it,” he told the lead detective.

  He showed the detective the screen and tapped the touch pad a few times scrolling through something. The detective no
dded and said something to him. The officer carrying the laptop looked at John and then the vomit in his lap. His disgusted look said it all and John wondered if it was his puke that disgusted him, or what they thought he’d done.

  They allowed him to stand under the shower, cuffed and still wearing the pants he had managed to put on. Once the communications officer informed them that no wagon was available, they decided John should be transported in the oldest car they had.

  While he stood under the warm water, wishing he could flow down the plug, the detective stood in the open door of the shower box.

  “John Hansen. You are under arrest for assault on Rachael Lewis.”

  John felt his whole world falling down around him. He had watched the news enough to know the police always arrested someone on a lower charge, a holding charge, so they could conduct a thorough investigation on the more serious charge and then proceed with that offense when they had sufficient evidence.

  “This is crazy,” John protested. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “That’s what they all say,” the detective answered. “You can talk to your lawyer when we get to the station.”

  John knew resisting would only make matters worse. He would call his lawyer from the police station and hope it could all get settled. He was led to the doorway of the apartment by the lead detective and a uniformed officer. There were about ten officers, some in forensic suits, searching through his drawers, cupboards and personal files. He shook his head. How had it come to this?

  He was bundled into the elevator, still in handcuffs and wet from the shower. This was a nightmare. He knew it was a mistake, but the police were convinced he was responsible for Rachael’s death.

  As they got outside the building, John saw all the police vehicles: four cars and a van marked ‘Crime Scene Attendant.’ Several passersby stopped and were looking from a distance, staring when they walked him out the door, shirtless with his hands shackled behind his back.