by Neal Goldy
Woolf wasn’t breathing. He needed air, Colton needed air and energy to continue on before the fire got both of them in its clutches. His face fell as if melting from the extreme heat. What made things worse was the smoke coming from above. With Woolf in his arms, Colton couldn’t crawl, nothing. He yelled, running faster. It wasn’t doing any good. The heat and the smoke and the fire and Woolf and tiredness of his legs and breath, all jumbled up in one mental picture.
The hallway never ended. So did the fire.
*****
One of the choppers swung heavy like a bronze bell when rung. The pilot of what was called the “Aerial Flight” moved in, seeing the white blaze on the department building.
“It’s starting,” Aerial Flight Pilot said into his radio. “Anyone else is seeing this? Over” .
There were multiple replies. All said the same thing: they were seeing it, and it was beautiful.
What a sight to truly be remembered.
*****
It was right there – the door open in temptation, giving the Special Forces men time to think of going in or not. One of the largest of the lot, Sean, was dancing on his toes. What were they waiting for, anyway? If anything happened, surely they would’ve been ordered to charge in like bulls baring the color of red for the first time – well, that was Sean’s way of thinking it.
“Shouldn’t we be going in?” he said to the others.
“Chief said to stay put!” said one of them, Charles. “We can’t go in now!”
But Sean didn’t care about what Charles said. “I hear something . . . crackling sounds. Don’t you hear it, too?”
Charles said he didn’t.
“Come on! You don’t hear anything?”
It was as if Charles had all the time he needed to think about it. Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t hear a thing, not in the slightest –”
What came from inside the police department belched out flame onto the Special Forces men. Sean saw it first, dashing back. Others followed him when they saw what happened to him running and all, but not all of them survived. The fire – “So white . . .” Sean would whisper later on after the incident – caught onto many of the men, most of them crumbling into an ash of black grit. It seemed like everyone was running that night.
Did fire do that to people? Hell, nah! Sean kept running, not thinking but running.
It took less than a half hour (and a lot of white fire) until the police department building finally took its surrender. Of course, in this case, surrender meant destruction. As for the people who were still inside the building, if there were any . . . but Sean was not the type to think of others in mourning. Selfish was the word for people like him.
Chapter 7
D. learned the man’s name after he went into a coma – Paul. It made him think more of the famed Paul McDermott, whether or not the young man who greatly disappeared was even real or not. When he heard the news about the man he found in the church, sunken in blood, he made up the best excuses he could to get out of it. Paul II would surely get out of his way to find D. once he recovered. At least he saved the dying man in the cloak, but the chances were too great to let something like that slip by. Already his life was in danger – he didn’t need the case to be a part of it, too.
Before the doctors got to him, he snuck out of the hospital and into the Water Home. Like before, he did not use a car (how he wished to have a car now more than ever) and with what little money he had left, he took a bus to the outer parts of the city where the home was located. He did not stop to ponder the waters making their occasional stroll; there was no time for it. His eyes were intent on the door, always the door to go into things and take charge of it.
His mind raced. Why did none of the others see this before? Ashamed of them all, even Darren Will whom he greatly admired. Did he even work on this case? None of it was right, for a man like Investigator Will would’ve solved it quickly. But they’re all gone now, swept away like the dances of the night to disappear when day arrived.
Before he got to the office room, there was a creaking upstairs. Long, howling noises like this: ccccccrrreeeeaaaakk with the letters stretched out and all. Was someone else before him?
D. stopped, looking up at the ceiling. Pinches of dust shook off, some landing on his head and shoulders when he walked by. He would’ve checked if he had time, but that seemed the last thing he had left on his plate right now. Going to the office, old detective D. took his hands and scrambled over the papers of work he’d done. Surely it must have been somewhere, he needed the proof . . .
Ah, there it was right next to the lamp. He flipped the switch on. It came alive despite him not needing it. Just in case, you know? You could never be too sure.
“Fifty years since Paul McDermott, then 7 years old, had disappeared,” D. said aloud to himself. He paced around with no destination in mind. Instead he kept on thinking. The same thoughts twirled through that mind of his like a cotton gin. More than one detective or P.I. had gone through this, so why him? Was he chosen? The only answer he got was yes, he was asking the same questions again. But that didn’t solve anything, although it brought up a few clarities up front.
For far too long D. kept his suspicions about the McDermott family although he had never met them in person. He should garner interviews with them soon to clarify the inaccuracies in the history unraveling before his eyes. Would they tell the truth? Who’d crack first? Surely the children, he guessed; children were keen on telling the truth whether it mattered or not. Not too many children lied unless practiced on the task, but still. But the certainty of it, no less, racked his brain like rolling tidal waves coming over to splash everything out like dues ex machina. Sooner or later – despite the interviews he might take hold of – he would have to report as well as confront the police force on this “supposed” case. Yet he wondered who would do such a thing, since you needed help when you needed it and not when you were pranking someone. Foul tricks weren’t to be played like this, not when things as serious as this were the new normal. Something’s up.
Loud licks came from the second floor. D. glanced up, his eyes keen on the culprit. Narrower his eyes went as the seconds went by. Tick tock went the clock, D., better hurry up and see just what the hell’s going on up there.
The ceiling – right where his eyes were on – rattled and shook. Quickly he got his pistol from the office desk, trudging through the rooms of the first floor and onto the stairs, making his way to the second floor.
He went to the end of the stairs, and what do you know? Large pails of fire, the heat peeling through his eyes.
Shocked, D. fired. The bullet went wild. Were there others on the other side?
“Hey!” D. supported onto a wall. “What’s going on here?”
Furniture toppled over. Someone was trying to run.
“Get back here!” Did D. have to act so useless sometimes? Since no one was getting in his way, he needed to go there himself. Officially becoming the pulling force never seemed a good thing to him; it made him feel weak.
The fire grabbed a hold of his clothes, screeching in almost human voices. D. went through while making sure to roll on the floor where it was clear so he wouldn’t burn to a crisp. The fire didn’t scare him. On the other side, where the bedrooms resided, everyone was gone. He assumed this, of course, not having seen anybody upstairs and only the fire. Oh how bright it was, but D. needed to search through the bedrooms. Were they hiding someplace?
He checked. All had empty beds, but not for the normal reasons.
Like all fires, this one spread quickly. D. opened the windows to get the smoke out and spent most of his time on the ground where most of air was. He moved with his arms in front. His blood boiled in his body, cooking him for dinner. He was living things over once again, and how he hated it. All of them gone, he’d gone looking for an exit. Did an exit exist?
The plan was fixed like the lenses of a camera in the right focus of light: go to the police station, report the frau
d case presented to him, and bring everyone to justice. Evidence was everywhere except in the interviews which he hadn’t gotten yet, but that didn’t matter – or maybe it did. How could he get an interview in this predicament? God, things were so terrible, but the smoke never got to him and old detective D. made his way out.
And he was out like that, but the fire wasn’t over.
His eyes only saw red. Stick around and his eyes also saw the reaping hues of orange and white killing blades of grass. It went on for miles in search of more torment. Men shot in fury with their guns, frolicking like maddened demon children. None of them laughed or screamed in happiness; the sound of bullets firing ceased sound to penetrate one’s ears.
Some of them sprang forth, ready to shoot some more, until they saw detective D. “He’s here!” some of them said.
But the old detective said nothing.
The smoke and fog distilled the world of its visual aspects. The gunmen sprang on their long legs like human spiders. Their faces, obscured by the white mask of lacked identity, haunted the reminiscence of ghosts and the supernatural. They gunned down.
D. ran into the fog. Like a magician, he made himself disappear. Then he realized that during most of this journey through the case, he was always running – did he think this before? Now he forgot, but the same thought arose without stopping. Old men shouldn’t be running: they should retire. Money and finances hurt the slim chances of living peacefully.
Talking wouldn’t solve anything with these people, he thought while running.
“GET HIM!” they screamed.
Were they gaining distance? The smoke destroyed the existence of distance; everything looked the same place as where you started, no matter how far you ran. ’Course, sparks in the air D. used as marking points of location even if it didn’t always work; those men ran awfully hard, but never to be admired.
“Who’s the man?” gasped one of them.
“Obviously D., you idiot!” screamed the other. Their names weren’t known to him at the moment, but which could be known from the chase.
The second gunman shouted louder than any bullet D. heard that fired. “D., come back here! We need to talk!”
So they want to talk? D. thought. If he weren’t running for his life, he might have laughed a little. Just when he was thinking about that . . . crazy, huh?
D. kept his pistol ready. He was running for it this time, sure, but he never shot one bullet. Anyone who asked such a question D. would’ve answered that he tended to save his bullets for important targets. But being old had its consequences. He had it in his hand the entire time, but never used it in his defense. Not even once! When will he learn? D. was beginning to slow down like the brake function of an automobile, steadying while getting the gun in case such promises were not kept. The second gunman never said any such things as promises – not even the word “promise” – but whenever someone said orders like that you could perceive it as the like.
“Lay your guns down and we’ll talk!” D. said.
The two silliest-looking gunmen appeared in from the smoke. One of them wore a beard in a French braid, a gray color.
D. never left his aim. “Lay‘em down!”
Both of them complied.
“Don’t touch them!” he added.
One of them – the one without the beard – scowled. “What’s it got it to you?”
“Many things, so just do as I say.”
The one without the beard sighed in displeasure.
“So, what is it you want?” D. asked. “I’m not looking for trouble, but it seems you two are. Be quick about it and we’ll be on our own paths where we’ll never see each other again.”
“We’re not looking for any trouble,” said the bearded gunman. “Orders from the boss, actually – I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed.”
D. raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”
“Our boss told us, nitwit!” said No Beard. He was stout and tiny. “Now, let us talk!”
“All right, but answer me this question: why are you putting the Water Home on fire?”
No Beard sighed again all sassy-like. “Again, orders from the boss.”
“Who is this boss of yours?”
No Beard shook his head. “It’s our turn: what did you find at the Water Home?”
“Nothing much,” D. lied. “I found some notes and a very broad background on the McDermott family.”
“Liar!” cried Beard. He dived for his gun, but D. fired first. The bullet did not hit Beard, but it startled him quite a great deal. His legs wobbled around, dancing, until finally squatting onto the ground. “What the hell was that for?” he demanded. “Answer me!”
“No weapon taking,” D. said. “Don’t you remember what I said?”
“Forget it,” No Beard said. “And why is it that you’re the only one with a gun?”
“I’m pretty sure there are more of you than me, I assure you.”
No Beard sniffed. He didn’t like it, but he could live with it.
Other gunmen came onto the scene, probably wondering what was going on them between the three. They dragged a woman who wore no shoes, her black ashen arms dangling. D. stopped them and ordered for the woman to be brought to safety. No, none of them was happy about that, but D.’s gun made them obey. Silver knives flashed, but were too short to puncture pain into the weaker parts of D. He kept close to the woman who didn’t speak and garnered his attention more to Beard and No Beard, who, for some reason, did naught with the situation at hand.
“Killers, all of you . . .” old detective D. whispered. “Now, what were we talking about?”
“You’re a liar,” Beard repeated more or less. “Tell us the truth about the Water Home.”
D. sighed. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Get him.”
No matter how many times D. shot, none hit the two gunmen. They, with their guns, tackled him, pounding him with their fists and the butt of their guns. Old detective D. wheezed for surrender but you’d think they’d listen? Ha, never! Only when they were satisfied – and sure D. wouldn’t get up from the ground – did Beard and No Beard stop.
“Paul McDermott’s back,” No Beard said. “How do you like it now, old man?”
Barren with blood, the old detective almost winced. “H-huh?” he wondered.
No Beard smiled while zooming into D.’s eyes. “It’s what we were trying to say, but it seems you were too busy trying to crack us down and all. McDermott’s back and he will announce his return to the world at noon tomorrow. He also wants to meet you specifically.” He grinned. “It’s not just his family this time!”
This time . . . the way he said it made it sound like McDermott had disappeared before. “He wants to see me?” D. said stupidly.
“Uh-huh,” said No Beard. “Now, old man, tell me what is it you’ve found in the Water Home? Was it what you were looking for?”
“Yes.”
At least he told the truth, even if No Beard hadn’t a clue as to what he spoke of.
“Did it involve his family?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting . . .” No Beard kept that tight-lipped secret from the old detective D. “I’d say you better run, old man, cause this place will go down in flames soon if not already. The house is long gone. We wish you happy times, right?”
He nudged Beard, who agreed with him. D. was all questions being the detective that he was, so he knew the underlying layers beneath Beard’s common looking surface.
It might have been the fire, but no one else spoke a word. The endless land of the Water Home sickened into the all-famous black color of the dead. Memories, all the information D. had been going through day after day with little sleep to hold him up, vanished in the massive flames, their colors contemplating his anger. But with this other idea in mind – the return of Paul McDermott – even more questions arose, some of them questioning the idea of the reality in which he lived in.
Voices shouted, and Beard as
well as No Beard dashed off. Their guns, which for some reason they had picked up without D.’s permission or him noticing, were aimed at him everywhere. If they shot, the old detective wouldn’t live. The wounds would cry in so much pain, yes, even the wounds, although they were the aftermath (or the effect) of the bullet fire. He lay there, clutching patches of grass, while the two gunmen left. They got what they wanted – all the evidence destroyed in the fire – and made McDermott’s return announcement as shocking as it would please. Wonderful, if you were them or McDermott himself.
Speaking of which . . .
*****
Assassinating the mayor of the city was easier than Lake thought.
Stone, actually. When you put it into context, the name change seemed rather dull; from a body of water to a stone, what a difference. Patrick Stone wasn’t the perfect ideal name he desired, but it appeared fitting when you became the new mayor.
Keeping this in mind, Patrick Stone (West Lake) made his very own tour of the city hall. He was expecting Mayor Bloom. The mayor was a large man heaving his weight everywhere like giant footprints in the snow. Just about everybody knew where he went despite the omnipresent bodyguards circling him. It wasn’t that he was a public figure with whom everyone was acquainted; it was people like Stone they needed to keep an eye out for was all.
The plan had been done in rehearsals so many times that it would take a fool, two bananas, and an impaired monkey to mess everything up by reordering the steps and not following directions. Hell, even a child could figure it out! But the mayor must stay ignorant, always unaware of the people who were ten steps ahead of him.
In his mind, he wandered over the steps like a dance: attend the dinner, switch the drinks, and relax . . . everything will be over. Quite simple, really, when you thought about it, and if you go back to the previous statement Stone thought about, you might have to agree with him.