15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  “You can’t be dead. I’m looking at you right now. That ugly motherfucker in the corner is staring at you, too. I can touch you! You aren’t dead…you can’t be….”

  I laughed some more. I was in near hysterics. The doctor still didn’t believe I was dead, even when he did tests on me that proved it.

  “Look, doctor. Thanks for your time, but unless you can give me an explanation as to why I woke up in a morgue and why I’m still alive and kicking, then I would suggest you stop wasting my time!”

  The doctor stood up and braced himself on the desk. His hand landed in the pool of blood flowing out of Hector. He didn’t seem to care. His mind was elsewhere.

  “So you remember dying?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I was running in a half-marathon and had some chest pain. My vision went foggy, and my mind went warped. The last thing I remember is collapsing onto my front. I remember paramedics preforming CPR on me. They even shocked me and everything. Then everything went black. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a morgue, surrounded by dead people. I escaped from the morgue and contacted an ambulance. They did the same tests you are doing now, and they came to the conclusion that I was an alien of some sort.”

  “An alien?” the doctor interjected.

  “Then they shot at me, and the police attempted to frame me for murder. Now the U.S. authorities have leaked a news story saying I faked my own death and killed my best friend. Something is going on, and I don’t know what to do. So I ran across the border, and here I am now. Captured by a damn madman in a white suit.”

  The doctor nodded his head. For the first time since this whole rising from the dead thing happened, someone looked as if they had sympathy for me. He put his hand on my shoulder and patted it. It was a gentle pat. A comforting action. Suddenly the door opened, and the fat man walked back in. He was followed by six armed police officers. They were wearing ski masks. They had automatic machine guns in their grips and grenades on their belts.

  “So, is it true? Is he really dead?” the fat man asked.

  The doctor turned around at the sound of the man’s voice and nodded his head. “I don’t know exactly what he is, but one thing’s for certain. He isn’t human anymore.”

  The fat man broke into an enormous grin. “Good…good.”

  One of the police officers rushed behind me and hoisted me off my seat. “You’re coming with us, gringo,” the masked officer said under his balaclava.

  The doctor put his arm out, attempting to block the police officers. “What are you doing with him? He is a medical miracle. He can’t be harmed. We need to find out more!” he yelled.

  The fat man drew his arm back and smacked the doctor in the face. The doc crumpled onto the floor into a heap.

  “I don’t care what you are, gringo. All I care about is the money that they are offering me.”

  Part Three

  Light & dark

  Fifty-Six

  I was dragged up the stairs and into the busy bar. Everybody was looking at me. But at the same time, considering the company I was keeping, they were careful not to look for too long.

  They pushed me out through the bar’s door and into the street. I landed on the ground, chest first. I coughed a few times as the dust on the street rode up my nose. I spotted the two girls I’d asked for directions the night before, staring at me from their usual street-corner hangout. They both looked worried. Worried enough to leave their hangout and get out of sight.

  I felt somebody pull me off the ground. He turned me around, and I saw another masked police officer staring at me.

  “Get into the van,” he said.

  The back doors of a black van were opened, and I was shoved into the darkness. I landed on something hard. I was just about to turn around and give them a piece of my mind when my surroundings turned completely black as the doors closed.

  “Fuck!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Let me out of here!”

  No one came for me. No rescue teams. No breakout bandits. I was stuck where I was. I wasn’t going anywhere, and I knew it.

  I heard the van’s engine fire into life. The vibrations running through the floor rattled my feet and shook my spine. I could feel nearly every gear shift as the van started to move. We were going really fast. It certainly felt that way. I could hear traffic whizzing past us. A few horns were going off. They must have belonged to pissed-off drivers. I wouldn’t put it past these guys to run someone over. There was just something about them that screamed corrupt. I know it sounds like a stereotype, but these police officers were more than they looked. They certainly weren’t there to protect and serve. They were most likely there to profit and gain.

  The van took a few hard rights and then a really hard left. I went caroming between the van’s two sides like a pinball. I was growing ever more impatient and was screaming at the top of my lungs for somebody to help me. I don’t know why I was taking it so badly. Up until that point, I thought I had handled it all very well. Everything was manageable before getting into the van. For some reason, I thought I’d be able to beat this thing, whatever this thing was. But getting shoved into the van and driven off in broad daylight to what was surely going to be my damnation had inherently broken me into many pieces. I felt as if I was losing control. I didn’t have a Plan B. The first plan had gone to shit. I shouldn’t have ever gone into that bar. I should have just taken the money and not asked any questions. But I was stupid. And now I was kidnapped and stupid.

  The van suddenly came to a stop. I banged my head on the hard metal of the inside left panel. I heard two doors opening. They must have been the passenger and the driver doors. I then heard footsteps and muffled talking. I braced myself. I was going to pounce on them as soon as they opened the door. My plan was simple. Fight or die.

  But they never came. The footsteps faded, and so did the sound of their chatter. I was left in isolation. I could hear nothing. Just the white noise between my ears.

  “If there is a God,” I began to say, “then fuck you for doing this to me!”

  The darkness engulfed me as I slid down the panel and put my head between my legs. I began to sob. And then I wailed. I was an emotional wreck. But sleep finally came after what seemed like hours.

  Fifty-Seven

  I felt my fingernails scrape against the side panel of the van. Chips of metal fragments embedded themselves under my skin. I could feel blood pouring out of my nails. It felt warm. I jerked myself into action and attempted to investigate my hands. I held them as close to my eyes as I could. I wanted to see the blood. I could feel it. It was there. I knew it. I was sure of it in fact. But when I looked closely, the warm liquid-like sensation I had felt was nothing but tricks of the mind. The pain I felt from the metallic fragments getting embedded in my nails was also a trick of my mind. I was close to losing it. I was certain that any more false hope would shatter my soul into a million little pieces. If that was to happen, I knew I wouldn’t be much more than a vegetable come the end of the week.

  I didn’t know what day it was. For some reason, I was certain it was a Sunday. But maybe it was Monday now. I had lost complete track of time. I didn’t know how long I had been in the back of the van. I had dozed off a few times. For all I knew, I could have been in the back of that vehicle for a week. It was no use guessing anymore. Everything had been taken away from me. Including my hope.

  Before all this, I was a decent guy. I made my grades. I tried hard at sports. I wasn’t the best guy, but a decent one nonetheless. But now I was certain of one thing. I was destined to go to hell. Either I was about to go there, or this was what hell was like. I imagined the reality of suffering that awaited me either way. I knew that I was destined for an unhappy ending. No God would put me through this. Only evil could conjure up a life of limbo. Because that was what it was, after all. It was limbo. I had no idea where I was. I had no idea where I was going. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. No warnings whatsoever. I just dropped dead and woke back up. And now I was living the
life of a fugitive on the wrong side of the mob.

  “Fuck this place! Fuck it!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Fuck everyone! Fuck the damn planet. Fuck the solar system! Fuck the children. Fuck the future!” I yelled.

  I didn’t want part of any of it anymore. I just wanted to die. I was fed up with not knowing. I was frightened. I needed to die. It was all that was left to do. I had managed to do everything right besides that. I couldn’t even end my own life. Bullets didn’t like penetrating me, even at point-blank range. I was destined to live. Like some sort of curse. No escape and no way out.

  I started pounding my head against the side panel of the van. Every time I did, little sparks of light came flooding to my eyes. Like tiny dots of hope. But for me, the hope had all gone. I wasn’t interested in signs. I wasn’t even interested in fate. I went into this not knowing what I was, and I was damn sure I’d come out of it no better off. If I ever did come out of it, that is.

  The light is near. It is close. You shall be with it soon.

  I stopped banging my head against the metal and sat up.

  You hear me, don’t you?

  I nodded my head. “Is that you, God?” I asked.

  There is no God where you are going.

  Suddenly my head felt like it was being crushed from the inside out. My eyes started to bulge, and my jaw clamped shut. The pain was excruciating. My eyelids felt like they were on fire.

  And then my eyes opened. It was another dream. The darkness was still there. It still surrounded me and swallowed my hopes of getting out of this. But then there was light. The back door to the van opened, and somebody stood over me, looking down.

  “You look like shit,” he said. His voice had an American slur. His suit looked official and the badge hanging off his front pocket said U.S. MARSHAL.

  “I’ve felt better, officer.”

  Fifty-Eight

  “Get out of the van,” he said to me, extending his hand. I grabbed it, and he pulled me out. I noticed that the sun was lower in the sky. The birds were chirping. It was dawn. We were near a harbor. A large freight vessel was docked to our left, and an SUV was parked next to the van.

  “How long have I been in the back of that thing?”

  The guy frisked me. He had a mean face, yet I could still see a little humanity in him. A lot more humanity then what was present in the fat man’s eyes, that was for sure.

  “You’ve been in there for two days.”

  I scrunched my eyes as the light hit the back of my retinas, making them feel as if they were on fire.

  “Two fucking days? I could have died in there,” I said, bracing myself against the outside panels of the van as the U.S. marshal continued to search me.

  “We both know that you ain’t dying anytime soon,” he replied, turning me around and giving me a wink.

  “So you know, then?” I asked.

  The guy nodded his head. “I know one thing and one thing only — you are precious cargo, and they needed somebody who could be trusted to deliver that precious cargo. They picked me. So here I am, ready to ship you back to America.”

  I looked at the boat and pointed. “We’re going in that thing?”

  The guy smiled as he reached in his pocket for a cigarette. “Unless they want you in China, I’m afraid we aren’t going on the freight ship. We are taking my SUV. It’s comfy in there. You’ll be able to get some shut-eye. We should be back in L.A. in four hours. If the traffic gets too rough, make that five. We have a stop to make, though.”

  He grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me toward him. He slapped some handcuffs on my right wrist. He had the other cuff clasped around his left one. I shook my head.

  “There’s no need for that. I’m tired of running. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind finding out what’s wrong with me.”

  The guy smiled. “I already know what’s wrong with you. You’re a killer. You killed your best friend, and his mother and the FBI want you back in L.A. They want to charge you with murder. That’s why I’m here.”

  I squinted my eyes again. Partly from confusion, and partly because of the sun.

  “What about the other thing?” I asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said with a tight grin. I could tell he was messing with me. He pulled me toward the SUV and shook his head. “I should have thought about this a little bit more before slapping the cuffs on you.”

  I then realized what he meant. I had to get into the driver’s seat to get into the car. I slid my legs over the gear shift and finally came to the passenger seat. It was comfy, and I sat back in it and exhaled. The marshal, on the other hand, was fiddling around with his keys.

  “Maybe the cuffs can go. I don’t want you pulling on them while I’m driving. We could go crashing into another vehicle, and one thing’s for certain, I am not risking any more lives for you.”

  He undid his left side cuff and rubbed the feeling back into his hand. I was just about to extend my right hand when he clipped the free cuff onto the cup holder. It was a metal holder and looked sturdy. I tugged on it to test its give.

  “Sorry, pal, you ain’t going nowhere.”

  Fifty-Nine

  “So they told you nothing?” I asked as we pulled out of the harbor and took a slightly narrow road off to the right. It was surrounded by chain-link fences and hazard signs warning of impending danger to trespassers.

  “They told me all I needed to know. That’s how it works, you see. The less you know, the less that can come back at you and bite you in the behind. I live my life like that. Never ask too many questions. Questions can dig you into holes miles deep, and before you know it, you’re drowning a cesspool of lies and misinformation.”

  The guy struck me as strange. I watched as he took a left and wondered what his game was. He was a cool character for somebody who was transporting such a monster as myself. Well, that’s what the news had been calling me. America’s new monster. The new person to blame the wrongs of this world on. And all I did was wake up after dying and realize I wasn’t dead. What a criminal I am. But I guess it’s fitting, really. The home of the free and all. Too bad I had to die to find out I wasn’t free at all.

  “So they didn’t say what really happened, then?” I asked.

  “Nope. But I do know that some people are claiming you are some sort of alien. A doctor in L.A. claimed that he examined you and came across no vitals. He said you had no heartbeat. It’s a pretty tough sell, you know,” the guy said, reaching in for another cigarette.

  “What’s a tough sell?”

  The guy lit his cigarette and blew some smoke rings. “It’s a little hard for me to believe that you’re an alien, or that you have no heartbeat. I think the guy is a quack. They had him on FOX News the other day. He took a polygraph on live television and passed. The public now think that there is more to this story than meets the eye. You have a few supporters, in fact. The country seems divided. Some people believe that you are an alien who flew down from space and you’re on some sort of intelligence mission, judging us for an integration between planets.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “I ain’t no damn alien. I’ll tell you what happened,” I said.

  “Nope, I don’t want to hear it. My job is to get you from A to B. As I said, the less you know, the better it is. Leave the answering of questions to when you’re being interrogated by the FBI. One thing I know, though, is they have their minds made up. I don’t think they’re going to care what you say. They want to hang you out to dry.”

  I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes. I could feel the road below us vibrate. We went over a few speed bumps, and it jolted me out of my haze. I saw that we were coming to a stop. I turned to see the marshal reach into his pocket and pull out a gun.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He just got out and walked toward a building. I recognized the place. It was that damn bar where the fat man had kept me. I then saw the two same girls
standing on the street corner. They waved at me and smiled. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe that I was waving to the two pretty girls while a U.S. marshal went into that bar with his gun drawn.

  The smiles on their faces were soon gone when the sound of muffled gunshots echoed in the street. I saw flashes of light emanating from the bar’s windows. They matched the sounds of the gunfire. Eight flashes of light. Eight gunshots. I then turned my attention back to the girls on the corner. Yet again they were gone, and I was left in an unfamiliar car, wishing all this would just stop.

  Sixty

  The U.S. marshal came running out of the bar with his piece tucked into his inside jacket pocket. I saw him cramming it into his long coat as he rushed out. He looked a little pale and sweaty, but was holding a briefcase in his free right hand. He ran up to the SUV and climbed in. He placed the case on my lap and turned the ignition.

  “Is this for me?” I asked sarcastically.

  “Nope, state property. We just want it back, that’s all.”

  I sat there staring at the case and wondered if it was the same case I’d been carrying before. It looked similar but was a tad different. But then I saw that it couldn’t have been the same case. It was a different color. The one I had carried into Tijuana was a metallic-gray case. This one was black. But I felt like asking what was in the case, so I did.

  “None of your business,” the marshal replied as he put his foot down on the accelerator and we went flying out of the street.

  “I know it isn’t any of my business, but I just want to know.”

  The marshal reached into his jacket and pulled out another cigarette.

  “Jesus, man, you’ll die of cancer like that if you aren’t careful,” I said.

  “Fuck cancer. I haven’t got time for it,” he replied, doing a hand-brake turn into a right.