by Nico Augusto
He was still sliding along the windowed wall as the plane continued to tip further sideways. He reached out and tried to grab onto something, anything. He was still clutching the fire extinguisher so hard that his knuckles were white and sore. When he turned loose with one hand to try and grab something to hold onto the fire extinguisher slipped from his other hand and slamming forcefully into his head, sent him into a sea of blackness as the alarm began to screech wildly in the background.
When James came to, it was obvious that the plane was plummeting wildly towards the ground. James groped around, dazed and disoriented, only knowing that he desperately needed to find something to hold onto. He had to get to his feet…he had to get out of the plane. That made no sense, either way he was dead. Something told him that he’d rather face a free fall from thirty thousand feet or so than the eternal damnation the creatures seemed to be offering.
He was finally able to get a grip onto the back of one of the seats in front of him. With a great deal of effort because of the injury to his head and because of the sharp, downward angle of the plane he at last struggled to his feet.
The sight of the abysmal black shapes still hovering around him spurred him back into action once he was finally upright again. He began to head for the clearly marked “exit” door, but before he got there he was once again assaulted by an earsplitting sound and before he could even react to that, his body was sucked out the door that had been ripped off its hinges and he found himself suspended in the dark sky. Although relieved to have escaped the clutches of the dark, dreadful things, he knew without a doubt now that he was going to die and he began crying for a wasted life. He cried for having to leave before he knew where Thomas was and what had happened to him. That was the worst part, knowing that he’d never be able to discover what had happened to his boy. He couldn’t imagine that his soul could ever rest without that knowledge, no matter how sinister the answer might be.
He watched in abject horror as the plane was ripped into two huge pieces by the violence of the storm that surrounded him. James’ body was being twirled around, he couldn’t stop spinning and the force of the motion caused him to become nauseated, sick…he began to vomit violently as his body continued its motion. He was hurtled through the clouds which didn’t feel light and puffy at all, but as if they were coated with sharp edges that tore at his body as he passed through them. The bolts of lightning passed close, so closely that he could feel their heat and jolts of electrical currents ripping through his flesh.
His body finally stopped twisting and twirling and James began to fall now with his face turned towards the earth. His fingers and his face gathered ice as they froze and his eyes began to glaze over. He could no longer see well, but as he turned his head to the left he thought he saw a vast landmass with immense waterfalls only a hundred or so meters away, emptying out into the sky. He watched the sight, enraptured by it for several seconds and then suddenly what he’d been gazing upon just vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.
James turned his head back into the direction of the earth, the direction that he was falling. He could see colors first and then trees. The drops of water he’d seen began to turn into lakes and the tiny little houses into huge, tall buildings. The changes were too fast for his brain to process. He closed his eyes, hoping not to see what would come last.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“CONFRONTATIONS WITH A GHOST”
QUEEN’S NEW YORK
Friday, March 3, 1990
Tim Northman had been a criminal squad inspector, with the New York Police Department, since 1962. He’d earned several promotions and the undeniable respect of his peers after eighteen years on the force and the arrest of a serial killer who had been working in the New York area.
That arrest hadn’t come quickly, or easily. Tim and his peers had worked tirelessly chasing what sometimes felt like a ghost across a city so populated that it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Tim had ultimately been the one to solve the case and arrest the perpetrator however and because of that he had become known as the “pioneer” of modern profiling. Criminal profiling could be dated all the way back to the year 1486 when the first publication mentioned profiling in a professional manual for witch hunters, but the methods that Tim had been using were much more sophisticated than your run of the mill witch hunt.
Unfortunately, Tim’s efforts had not been lauded by all. The first American profilers including Tim were virulently criticized by the press and much of the New York City police department as well. They were in fact often seen as “witch hunters” mainly because of the way they conducted interviews and examinations were so different from the way the average police officer conducted his business. It often left the profiler working the case alone and leaving his colleagues out of the loop. That method didn’t go along well with the code of teamwork that officers were trained to live by. For many reasons, criminal profiling was looked upon as a “flawed science” but regardless of all of that, it had produced some amazing results. Tim had been amongst one of the first in NYPD to use the methods and succeed.
Once Tim solved that first case, he began to spend long hours going through the unsolved cases in the police archives…the “cold” cases. He looked hard at the thousands of missing person’s cases that had come to a dead end because of a lack of evidence. He got so into it, he began to file and sort all of the victims by a “modus operandi,” or how and where they had disappeared, ethnicity, social background, age, looks, etc. The faces from the photos of the missing, lost and otherwise misplaced souls haunted him. He felt a compulsion to at least look for them….And a driving need to find them.
While he was working on that overwhelming task, he was invited to give conferences and seminars throughout the country in order to educate his colleagues about profiling methods. Tim never missed an opportunity to educate himself either and as the years went by, his techniques continued to improve.
Today Tim was parked in the borough of Queens. He sat in the driver’s seat and his partner Eddie sat on the passenger side as they both sipped on cups of steaming hot coffee and talked about anything to fight away the boredom that a stakeout could bring about.
“Ok, tell me, don’t you think it’s a good idea? Getting him a dog is a way of making him responsible, or at least, that’s what the doctor...” Tim started.
His partner, Eddie Nomura interrupted by saying, “I don’t know, but it’s a good way of teaching him life’s indispensable lessons.”
“You’re right. And I really love dogs, I used to have one when I was a kid.”
“I think it can only help your son deal with the Asperger’s syndrome and...”
“And what ..?” Tim asked, wondering why Eddie had stopped.
“You know,” Eddie said, reluctantly. He was re-thinking what he had been about to say. He didn’t want to offend his partner, but they had a habit of being nothing but honest with each other so he went on to say, “We’re rarely at home. We don’t spend a lot of time with our families. It may help him cope with the absence of his father. You know what I mean?”
Tim had thought of that himself. He said, “You’re probably right...I should convert to Buddhism. You always put such a Zen spin on life...”
“Eh, that life would be easier to deal with. It’s a life philosophy...and stop that nonsense, you’re a good father and a great husband. Elise is lucky to have you,” he said with a laugh.
Tim smiled and said, “I know that you like her.”
They were interrupted by the harsh crackle of the car radio and then the dispatcher’s voice saying,
“All officers in the vicinity….903 reported in Queens, 42nd and Exeter. Suspect is reported to be armed.”
Eddie picked up the radio and said, “Car 1023, responding.”
The dispatcher said, “Copy 1023, back-up is on the way.”
“Damn, I knew it, it’s him! Maybe three days of sitting in the car drinking piss-poor coffee wasn’t time wasted afte
r all,” Tim said as he was already starting the car, putting it in gear and peeling away from the curb, leaving a puff of black smoke in its wake.
The unmarked brown sedan began to weave through traffic, not stopping for red lights or stop signs and taking as many back roads as he could to get there faster. Tim drove the car up onto the curb and without turning off the ignition he jumped out with his gun drawn.
“Go around back;” Tim told Eddie, “I’m taking the stairs.”
“Be safe! Don’t try to play a hero!” Eddie yelled after him. Tim was already leaping up the stairs to the building. He ran inside and then up the stairs again to the seventh floor of the building. When his feet hit the worn landing he looked around him for any sign of life. Tim knew from his years on the force that the suspect wasn’t always the only one a police officer had to look out for. The neighbors in these tight-knit “hoods” were often just as dangerous.
“Beat it, asshole!” Tim looked around again, the voice came from a crazy looking homeless man who lay forlornly in one of the doorways.
A doorway creaked open and Tim turned his gun towards it. What he saw looking out at him was uglier than the homeless man. It was a woman…at least he thought it was. She was wearing a bathrobe that looked as if it hadn’t been washed since the seventies, cheap looking clown make-up and her hands were covered in what looked like paint and Play-doh. Unfazed by the gun Tim had trained on her she said,
“Hey baby, you wanna have a good time? Come on in and take those pants off, make yourself at home. My lips are magic.”
Tim swallowed the bile in his throat that had risen at the thought. This building was well-known by vice. It was a hot-bed of prostitution and a den for drug addicts and dealers. Ignoring the clown-thing’s offer, he moved on cautiously into the dimly lit decrepit building.
Meanwhile downstairs, Eddie had found a way into the building as well. He’d gone around the back and through a broken window. He dropped down into a laundry room. It was filthy; the rats were probably not even comfortable there Eddie thought. He saw a man and woman leaning against the wall. They appeared to be waiting for their laundry. Amped with adrenaline, Eddie yelled at them,
“Don’t move. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
A voice floated through the room from behind him and he whirled away from the terrified couple coming face to face with their perpetrator….His name was Frank Lewis, but Eddie and Tim didn’t know that yet. The despicable man held a small child against his chest, using him as a shield.
“Let the kid go,” Eddie told him, his voice steadier than he felt inside, “If you don’t, I’ll put a bullet through your head!”
The tension in the room between the men, the child and the unfortunate witnesses was thick enough to cut. Everyone wondered who would make the first move.
Eddie gestured with his head towards the door behind him, then addressing the spectators he said,
“You can leave, go behind me.” Everything’s going to be ok!”
As the terrified witnesses made their hasty exit, Eddie’s radio crackled to life once more. Tim’s voice floated through,
“What’s your twenty? Are you okay?”
Eddie spoke into the mouthpiece pinned to his chest as he said, “I’m in the basement, in the laundry room. Our suspect is here and he’s brought company….a child who he seems to think is a shield. I have my gun on him. I think I might have to shoot him in the head.” Eddie said it matter-of-factly, hoping the suspect would take the hint and let the boy go.
“I’ll be right there,” Tim said, “Back-up will be here anytime now as well.”
Eddie hadn’t taken his eyes off Frank and the kid. After Tim signed off the radio he said, “Ok, if you let the kid go, we can end this peacefully. No one has to get hurt. I don’t think you’re going to hurt that kid, are you, tough guy?”
“I don’t really have a choice inspector, sorry...” Frank said. He didn’t sound sorry in the least. Before anyone could act however the light in the room began to oscillate and a strange series of sounds began to resonate in the small room. Then the light went off completely and back on again.
“What the hell is going on?” Eddie said, still with his eyes glued to the suspect.
If Eddie thought he was confused by the lights and sounds, he had no words for what happened next. As Eddie watched the hooded man vanished, leaving the kidnapped child on the ground where he had stood just seconds before.
Tim raced in as Eddie was kneeling over the child, making sure he was okay. He appeared to be in shock, terrified but breathing and unscathed.
“What happened? Where is he? Where is the kid?” Tim said; with his gun still ready to fire if need be.
“The kid’s ok, I’ll call an ambulance for him. I think…I mean…Shit! The guy went out the window. He must have. Go after him!” Eddie’s head was spinning…he felt like the man had just disappeared, but that couldn’t be possible. He must have just moved fast…that had to be it.
“Ok, back up’s on the way,” Tim told him, climbing out the window that Eddie had come in earlier.
“Tim!” Eddie called after him, “Be careful, there is something really creepy about this guy.”
The window opened up to a narrow backstreet. It started raining while they were in the building and Tim was suddenly getting pelted with a barrage of quarter size drops of water. The cars and trashcans made the alleyway like a maze for Tim to maneuver. As he wiggled and leapt his way through he came to a pet store. Suddenly from out of nowhere a wooden crate was thrown a few inches in front of him.
Stunned, he heard laughter as he felt his feet slipping out from underneath him on the drenched ground.
“Fuck!” he yelled as he tried to regain his footing. He ran inside the back door of the pet shop, through the store and out the other side.
He came out into another alley but this one was completely deserted. Tim followed the alleyway, coming to a door in the middle of the wire netting that ran alongside of it. It looked like it was damaged at the top and upon further inspection; Tim saw traces of blood and a piece of fabric caught in the metallic fence.
“I got you, you bastard!” Tim said out loud to the empty space.
As he began to advance towards the fence he spotted a photo on the ground. He bent down and looked at it. It was a black and white photograph of a group of young boys. Tim took a glove out of his pocket and slipped it on. He picked up the picture and slipped it into the pocket of his raincoat. As he stood up again, the rain was coming down so hard that it was like a wall of water and he could barely see anything in front of him. Using his sense of touch, he climbed the slippery metal fence and dropped down into a dark warehouse. He could make out the outlines of wooden crates, but that was it. Pulling out his flashlight, he switched it on just as he heard the sounds of police sirens and ambulances in the background.
He was suddenly slammed in the face with something cold and hard. The force of the hit knocked him back and as he fought for his footing, his gun slid loose from his hand and went skittering across the ground.
“Get up inspector; you’re making this too easy. Where’s the challenge?” the suspect’s voice echoed off the walls of the warehouse.
This time he slammed the heavy pipe wrench into Tim’s back, knocking him to his knees.
“I...I’m going to kill you,” Tim told him in a strangled voice.
The next hit was directly to his face. Tim was stunned, but still conscious. He began to crawl towards his gun, trying to reach out and grab it, but in vain. He still could barely see the outline of the suspect, but he felt him kneel down next to him before he felt the killer’s hot breath on his ear,
“I know who you are inspector… We know everything about you ...” he whispered as Tim’s world went black and his head and body hugged the cold, cement floor.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“NEW DISCOVERIES”
QUEENS NEW YORK
Tim woke up wet, freezing, in pain and surrounded by poli
cemen. They had taped off the scene of Tim’s assault with Tim in the middle of it. The floodlights that surrounded him burned his eyes and he tried to sit up.
“Be careful, move slowly. You’ve been beaten pretty badly,” Eddie told him. Tim hadn’t noticed Eddie right there by his side, but it figured. Eddie was a good partner, he was always there.
Tim, continuing to move let out a loud moan, “Shit!” he said, grabbing the back of his head, “Did you get him? Damn, I let him get away!”
“Stay Zen, take it easy!” Eddie told him. “We have a bunch of witnesses, on several crime scenes… An hour ago, we didn’t have a thing…at least we’re better off, right?”
“You’re not the one who just got his head bashed in,” Tim grumbled. Then realizing it was his own damned fault and not Eddie’s he said, “You’re right, I’m sorry. We wait…Holy shit! I almost forgot! Look at this, it fell out of his pocket I think,” he pulled out the photograph and showed it to his partner.
“Looks like a bunch of school kids, with a gym in the background. I’m not sure what it means, but it’s a start. See, I told you, patience. White men are always too impatient.”
Tim chuckled at that and said, “Ok, let’s get back to the station. We need to get moving.”
“You’re kidding right?” Eddie said, “You are going home to get some rest for a few days. On top of that, whoever we are looking for is going to lay low. He knows the whole force is looking for him and he knows we finally have some leads. While you’re resting, I’ll try to make that picture talk.”
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt,” a uniformed officer said, “But we’ve found something strange. I thought you might want to check it out.”
Eddie helped Tim up to his feet and once he was steady, they followed the officer over to one of the walls of the warehouse. They all looked at the wall in astonishment. Written there, in what looked like blood where the words,