Gazing down, he started to massage it, gentle curiosity guiding his fingertips across the jet-black surface. In the back of his mind he could think of a dozen different things he should be doing, like for one getting home on time so Rosa could go to work and he could watch the baby. But he couldn't coerce immediate movement into himself. A strange yet unique pleasure paralyzed his body as his fingers patted across the smooth surface, distracting him from all that mattered—even the tide of blood just feet away.
A memory suddenly willed its way out from below the ecstatic feeling floating on the surface of his mind—from deep from within his subconscious—and he remembered his duty: that Rosa would be leaving for work soon, that the baby would need to be fed.
Home?
Confused, he slid the object into his jacket pocket, keeping a tight hand on it. He exited the alley, using only his routine instincts to guide him home through the quiet early morning streets.
It was only eight-thirty, and a long and arduous day was already in the works. Frank and Hector had completed their visit to the hospital and were now racing through the streets, lights ablaze en route to the 190th Street Station in the Bronx where Martin had informed Hector of a police broadcast he picked up revealing the discovery of another mutilated body.
"187—Code2...blood, blood everywhere!" Martin had said, relaying the shocking broadcast. A 187 meant a dead body. A Code 2 meant come with no lights or sirens, an effort utilized to avoid drawing a crowd. Frank and Hector, lights in full swirl, shut down the works a few blocks from the scene.
They located the activity a block ahead, thirty feet up on an elevated platform. A horde of cops, detectives, and forensics experts milled about on and below the platform. A number of squad cars sat alongside barriers arranged to shut off the block to pedestrians, who of course had gathered in great numbers anyway despite the effort of the Code 2. Hector pulled the car up, situated it next to a 57th precinct cruiser.
Sure enough, just as Frank and Hector shut the car doors behind them, Sergeant Sid Clemens came thumping down the metal steps of the el, his hefty gut bouncing atop his belt. His approach also brought a thin drizzle from the graying skies. Misery loves company, Frank thought, the cold rain a perfect match to Clemens' air of arrogance.
"Great—your timing is impeccable," Frank whispered to Hector. "You're on his shit list, Hect. You ain't never gonna get his cooperation on this one."
"Well," Clemens said, his face round with surprise as he stopped and greeted Frank and Hector. "Shouldn't you boys be checking up on your bald guy? I sent him off to Strong like you asked." His demeanor rang more of contempt than fact.
Frank's irrational personality couldn't help but be irked at Clemens' clear lack of respect. "He called us boys, Hect." He stepped forward, pointing. "We've got more years in than you, kiddo.
Hector held his hand up, and Frank sealed his lips even though it further maddened the irrational third of his personality to do so. "Sergeant Clemens, we believe that this particular murder may be related to the man we have in detention at Strong. If you'll simply allow us to take a quick look—"
"Captain Rodriguez. You know I can't, and frankly, I'm surprised you would even make such a request. Besides, I've got the area cleared of everyone except forensics now."
Even though Frank thought he was a jerk, he clearly understood Clemens' current position, and knew that Hector would too. "Fine," Hector said. "Let me just ask one question."
"Make it quick."
"Did you find anything unusual?"
Clemens' eyebrows arched. "Like what?"
Frank spoke up. "A strange-looking object, perhaps? Black in color, looks like a distributor cap, only roundish."
Clemens shook his head. "No. Why? Is there something I should know about?"
Frank looked at Hector and saw a bit of anger in his face. Clearly this wasn't the one question Hector had in mind. "No," Hector said. "Not really."
"Well, if you'll excuse me gentlemen, I have some work to—"
"Sergeant, we've got another body!" The voice came from a plain-clothes detective approaching from a small crowd of police that had magically formed. Frank's senses perked up and he and Hector both sidled over next to Clemens.
"Three blocks from here," the detective said, raising an eyebrow at Frank and Hector.
"They're okay," Clemens said. Frank wasn't sure if the police Sergeant was actually throwing them a bone, or if he really cared less one way or another if they listened. Probably the latter.
"An alley between 193rd and 94th. The body has similar injuries based on the witness' description..."
Both Frank and Hector didn't stay to listen any further. They raced to the cruiser, slamming the doors behind them.
"I don't know why we're rushing Frank. I mean, what else could we expect to find at this point." He pulled the car away from the scene, lights twirling, intersecting the traffic that had built up from the closed street.
"I want one of those black things. With the points."
"And if you get one?"
"I don't know. But what other choice do we have at this point? We're gonna lose this thing if we don't break any serious ground soon. Then it's back to square one, with the questioning, trying to come up with answers that make sense. In the meantime we've been able to keep most of what we've found out of the public's eye, and our superiors for that matter. Once it all breaks, the cult, if that's what this really is all about, will go underground for a while until it finds a new city to terrorize. It’s up to us, right here, right now, to put an end to it. We really have no choice but to find some answers. Now. And I believe if we find one of those black things, it will provide us with them."
Hector remained silent, the siren howling at a line of cars gridlocked behind a red light. "You're right about one thing. We do have to solve this thing ourselves. And I agree. At this point we're the only ones that can do it. But I'm not sure what our next step would be, especially if we don't find one of those things."
"Haven't we been surprised time and time again over the past two days?"
Hector nodded. He finally managed to break through the traffic, a line of police cars following him through. "Are we being chased?"
"No. Escorted."
Atmosphere. Atmosphere.
Jesus repeated the word in his mind, beat it into his subconscious. Standing over his daughter Elise, he reached into her crib and tucked the covers under her chin. A sleeping angel, her breathing soft and hushed, her flesh as pink as rose powder.
He backed away and cushioned himself on the edge of his own bed, eyes wandering passionately to the strange object sitting on the dresser. He twisted his head, perhaps to view its beauty from a new angle, then clutched his racing heart, at once struck with an immense determination to discover the true meaning of it.
Ah, and how beautiful it was. Six hollowed prongs, extending out at odd angles like hands reaching from below the surface of a tar pit, each one alluring his mind with uncommon feelings and desires.
Atmosphere...
The sleek voice in his head returned, louder than it had before, helping him recall the overwhelming ambiguity of feelings that had swept over him when he first found it in the alley, feelings of love, hate, fear, excitement, hunger, all interbred as one great emotion.
Suddenly one of the six prongs began to wiggle, like a tired worm on a fisherman's hook. The uncanny sight had Jesus rubbing his tired eyes with disbelief. He blew out an anxious breath of air, and when he removed his hands from his face the fading blackness revealed something extraordinary: all of the little tubes, undulating to and fro, slowly and hypnotically like six tiny charmed snakes.
He genuinely realized that this was his cue, that it, the Atmosphere, was ready for him.
He stood and removed his clothing.
Naked, Jesus reached his hand out to it. All six tubes stopped moving and Jesus froze along with it. The room became uncomfortably warm, sauna-like, and a coat of sweat filmed his body. The air around him s
uddenly felt thick, like syrup, and within it he could feel an electricity fraught with temptations of immense hunger and desire.
A single tube pointed at him. He stood like a soldier, arms outstretched, prepared to accept its offerings. A few droplets of blood trickled out from the tip of the tube. He closed his eyes in ecstasy. "I am yours..." he muttered, and then the object spat a stream of blood at him.
Jesus relished the wet heat upon his chest, rivulets of crimson painting his torso and legs. He rubbed it into the skin on his chest, shoulders, and face, kept at it until coated.
Fulfil your desire, your hunger!
He turned and walked to the crib, bare feet streaking through the blood on the wood floor. For a brief moment he watched his daughter Elise sleeping, then picked her up and walked to the bed.
Frank and Hector raced into the alley, the first of the police to arrive. The first thing he saw was the blood, a remarkable puddling of crimson washed across the alley floor as if it had poured down from the sky in a violent storm. A pile of clothes came into view at the base of the dumpster flanking the rear of the alley: a pair of trousers, a tailored shirt, sport jacket, tie, shoes, underwear. It struck Frank that these articles of clothing were the first evidence leading him to believe that all this carnage might have come from a human.
When he first laid eyes the mess, it looked like some kind of Santeria practice had taken place, and that all the gore had come from a few slaughtered farm animals. Once in the past he witnessed a horrific scenario similar to this—blood and tatters of viscera strewn about like a sick piece of art, an occurrence of fanatical animal sacrifice.
He walked over, Hector tailing him, stopping near the pile of clothing. Poking the pants with his foot he noticed that the clothing had not been damaged in any way, which meant it had been removed prior to the murder. "See this? Show me a body and I'll show you a guy who spent his last moments as naked as a jaybird."
Hector walked around to the side of the dumpster, placed a foot atop the crane hinge and stepped up. The grimace on his face told the story.
"He naked?" Frank asked, his detective identity already akin to the answer.
"What's left of him. His crotch is gone to the chest."
A flurry of activity ensued as a handful of police from the 57th precinct ran into the alley. They suddenly stopped, the wide-eyed expressions on their faces not necessarily a reaction of shock but more so of surprise, as they most probably had just witnessed a very similar scene just a few blocks away on the el of the 190th Street Station.
A unique feeling of discomfort crept up on Frank, one that finally asked a very simple question: why is all this happening?
Hector stepped down and another cop took his place, looking in at the carnage. "Looks like another poor bastard's been served up through a wood chipper," he remarked callously.
Frank focused on Hector as he walked over to him. His face was as white as sheepskin; it seemed Hector hadn't the knack for hiding his dismay. Frank offered a weak smile then drew his gaze across the sticky pool. Blood, internal organs, used as someone's passion.
Frank's detective personality pushed pass the weak timid personality currently begging him to leave this mess for the other detectives to handle. It made him remember back to when this whole damn thing started, when he got out of his car at four in the morning and stepped out into the puddle with the streaks of blood floating in it.
The blood. It had come all the way from the alley.
He tiptoed from the scene, eyes pointed to the littered ground. Tiny droplets of blood led away, out into the open, down the sidewalk. There were only a few, but they were there.
"Frank?"
Ballaro turned. Hector was in his face, breathing heavy, now all flushed. The sight he beheld in the dumpster had really gotten to him. "Look Hect." Frank pointed to the ground, trying not to make his discovery obvious. Eventually the other detectives would find this trail, but he did not wish to give it away just yet.
"Déjà vu," Hector said.
Frank nodded. "All over again. Let's see where it leads."
Like a scant trail of breadcrumbs, the tiny droplets of blood led Frank and Hector away three blocks, up the front steps of a brownstone and into a foyer past a pair of Victorian doors.
Frank and Hector entered the dull unlighted hall and after a quick perusal of the first floor in which they found nothing, they moved upstairs.
The first door on the right had blood smeared on the knob.
Hector gave the door three loud raps with his fist. They waited. No answer.
"Again," Ballaro whispered. Hector banged the door, louder. "Police," Frank yelled, pulling his gun. "Open up." He had to swallow a lump of discomfort in his throat to get the words out.
"Let's go in."
Frank stepped back, picked up his right leg and gave the door a swift kick. It stuck. He kicked again, and again, sharp pains jolting the muscles in his leg. The fifth attempt proved successful and the door broke open, shards of wood splintering in all directions. Hector raced in, gun poised to the left, Frank gun-ready behind him. Instantly there was a rush of malodorous air. Cold, primal, dead. It made him shudder.
"Frank...?" Hector's eyes were wide with apprehension.
In the silence they heard heavy breathing emanating from the apartment's only other room.
Frank and Hector stepped cautiously to the threshold of the other room. Frank could feel his eyes bulging, and his hand reached for his mouth to hold back the nausea caused from the thick, coppery odor issuing from within. He glanced at Hector. His face returned to white, like parchment.
The partners readied their guns, hurriedly edged the opposite sides of the doorjamb to the second room. They gave each other nods of reassurance, then whirled in.
There was a moment's hesitation, and in that horrifying amount of time Frank Ballaro had to question his sanity as the sight before him nightmared its way into his line of vision. "Dear...God..." he heard Hector say in a voice thick with nausea, and then at once tried to convince himself that insanity couldn't possibly be contagious, that the only madness in the room was wholly within the occupant facing them.
A young Latino man, maybe twenty years if that, sat naked on the bed. His body was entrenched in blood, from hair to toe, the mattress saturated likewise. He looked like some God-forsaken fetus newly emerged from a wicked, monstrous womb.
And then, the boy's face. A visage of the Devil himself: eyes widened and unblinking, the whites four small pearl crescents floating in a crimson sea, the irises blackened like two charred wounds. And his mouth, smiling broadly, so happy, or so insane, perhaps a perfect combination of the two. The scene was a sickening reminder of the unidentified boy from the alley yesterday morning, the only difference being that instead of a strange black object, this boy displayed a bawling infant in his hands, holding it out as if it were a generous offering to be graciously accepted by a willing hand.
And beneath it all, a bloodied erection stood tall.
Frank felt his face drip with icy sweat as he tried to make sense of the sight, but none of his personalities could come up with any form of rational explanation. "Don't move," he finally uttered, albeit weakly, gun shaking wildly, not sure if his words had been directed to the boy or his partner.
Suddenly the man's teeth began to chatter, head shaking wildly, like a ventriloquist's dummy possessed by some cold malevolent evil. Slithering whispers tremored from his lips, and Frank knew with little doubt the soul of the young father inside was desperately trying to get out, trying to release itself from the evil that had him caged in his own body.
More tortured whispers. Almost words.
Frank twisted slightly toward Hector. "What's he saying?" he whispered.
"He's trying to tell us something."
Then one word slithered past his lips like a worm's last effort to escape a fish's mouth:
Atmosphere...
The room fell deadly silent. Not a breath was heard.
"Atmospher
e, " Frank repeated, gently as if not to let the baby hear.
All of a sudden the boy jerked up, legs wobbling in a grotesque dance, efforting to secure balance. Crazily, Frank thought of a marionette.
Through clenched teeth, Frank forced, "Whatever in God's name happens, don't kill him."
And at that moment the boy was dividing the air in front of them, like a fleeting shadow in the night. There hadn't been enough time to even transfix their eyesight on him, much less try to stop him as he dropped the baby and leaped through the only window in the room.
Glass rained everywhere. Frank shielded himself with his arms. Hector made a half-hearted coughing sound, and then there was a crunch! as the boy slammed into the sidewalk two stories down.
"I'm going down!" Hector yelled, speeding from the apartment. Frank ran to the bloody baby, checking for injuries; his cursory glance showed that the blood had come from elsewhere. He carefully picked up the bawling infant, then scanned the red room. It looked like a slaughterhouse, blood and gore everywhere. Like the alley.
He heard a gathering of noises outside. He shuffled towards the window, then stopped.
Something sitting on the dresser grabbed his attention.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fleeting visions came and went, like tiny bubbles of dream material bursting to reveal only snippets of scenario not quite visceral, yet clearly understandable. His senses prevailed beyond his mindlessness, remained acute, and amidst the prominent haze obscuring his consciousness, the visual smatterings of controllable thought continued to flash in his mind's eye, maintaining his awareness of existence, of his true identity.
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