15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  It seemed that retro gaming wasn’t as popular anymore. People were too busy on their phones, downloading apps, to come to an arcade and experience a little history. But the arcade’s days were numbered. The last of its kind in Boston. It made the grumpy man behind the glass even grumpier. Malcolm wasn’t aware of the arcade’s fate as he plowed through stage 3-4 on Pac Man. He was enjoying himself immensely. Dodging the ghosts, eating Christmas candy as he did so. But his fun would become short-lived.

  At first it was like a di0stant rumble to both the boy and the man in the arcade. Most noises were drowned out by the sounds coming out of the arcade machines. The bleeps and bloops. The whizzes and pops. But today, something sounded off. A blood-curdling scream, followed by a stampede of feet. At first, neither Malcolm nor the man paid any attention to such a thing. The man was going through the books, looking at minuses and whatnot. But then something caught his eye. He turned his head and saw a bunch of people running past his big bay doors.

  “Must be having a ninety-percent-off sale or something,” he found himself muttering as he closed the books and turned his attention to the portable mini TV he had installed in the corner of his booth. Dallas was showing on delay, and he started to smile at a ridiculous screen kiss between two women. But his attention was torn between that and the pandemonium happening outside his arcade. At first, he’d put it down to a sale. But now — now he was asking himself questions. Before he could think about it anymore, his radio crackled, and a terrified voice came screeching over it.

  “Fuck! They’re all dead. Six fucking people! Just like that!” the voice screamed. It belonged to a man the arcade owner knew. It was the mall’s head of security, Bill Hart. The old man was just about to ask Bill what he was referring to when he glanced toward the big bay doors and saw a tall man brandishing a large knife-like weapon walking by. He was covered in blood and walking with a purpose.

  “Little boy, get your ass down now!” the old man screamed. Malcolm didn’t hear him over the loud bleep-blop noises. But he did hear what happened next. A loud smashing noise. Like glass breaking. Malcolm quickly turned his head around and saw a rather large man smashing his way through the bay doors. What followed next was instinct. He quickly squatted onto his knees and squeezed himself between the arcade cabinet he had just been using and another one that sat next to it.

  “Oh, God,” he heard the old man scream. That was followed by some more breaking glass. Malcolm assumed that it was the glass booth the man was behind being smashed apart. But there was no mistaking the sound that came next. Because even Malcolm could tell what a dying man sounded like.

  Even if he was only twelve years old.

  Thirteen

  Santiago and I were racing toward the mall. There was heavy traffic north and southbound. I was driving. Santiago was fidgeting in the front passenger seat. He had a look of discomfort on his face, as if time was moving too fast, yet we weren’t.

  “Doesn’t this piece of shit go any faster?” Santiago huffed. He was still fidgeting with his hands. An elastic band was intertwined between his fingers. It snapped in his grip after a second or two. “Fuck!” he yelled.

  Behind us, four police cruisers had their sirens blaring. Flashing lights bounced off the finish of their cars as they raced in the rain. It was dark, and Boston was particularly cold on that Christmas Eve. I could feel my teeth chattering between my lips.

  “Hurry up, goddamn it, Frank!”

  “Cool your shit!” I shouted at Santiago as the gears ground a little while I was trying to shift. I nearly stalled the Ford Capri, but luckily for us, I managed to tame it a bit.

  “You drive like a fucking pussy,” Santiago screamed at me, which, to be honest, I found a little annoying. I slowed down a little. The cruisers behind us overtook our car at speed. Santiago’s face went red.

  “Holy shit! Are you on a Sunday drive or something?”

  I put my foot down on the brakes. We came to a stop. Traffic beeped at us.

  “DUDE! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?”

  I turned in my seat. We’d been stationary for eight seconds. That was eight seconds that we couldn’t afford to lose.

  “Look, Santiago, I can’t drive this thing any faster with you criticizing me in my damn ear. Now cut the shit and let me do my job!”

  Santiago shook his head and said, “Well, you won’t get us there any faster if you stop in the damn road!”

  As he finished, I pushed my foot down on the accelerator. We picked up our pace. I could see the convoy that had been escorting us to the mall in the distance, half a mile up the road. Their taillights bounced up and down violently. The rain on the windshield smudged the reds and yellows into a haze of brightness. But I was determined to pass them. Show San that I wasn’t on a damn Sunday drive. I was taking this thing seriously. Even if he doubted that. I didn’t need his criticism. The whole situation was stressful enough. A damn killer on the loose that we thought we had killed. But no, not this Christmas. No turkey for me. No trimmings. No fucking presents. To hell with mistletoe and wine. I’ve got decapitated women and serial killers to keep me warm this December!

  “Slow down, man. You’re gonna wreck us!”

  Santiago said. I turned my head and scowled at him. First he wants me to speed up. Now slow down. I didn’t need to say anything. My expression was enough.

  “I’ll shut up now,” he said, looking plainly at me.

  I turned my attention back to the road. Good job we were on a straight, or maybe we would have actually wrecked. I reached the patrol cars that we had tagging along with us before I stopped. I honked my horn at one of the drivers. His left indicator came on. Banking to the left, I had enough room to squeeze past. So I did. We rushed past our convoy and overtook them once again. I opened up the revs, and we gained an additional twenty or thirty miles per hour. The road was slick. I could feel the tires protesting as I pushed my foot into the foot well. Suddenly, our radio crackled. A voice broke through. It was a woman’s. Wire operator Sandy Evans, to be precise. We banged a few times, but that’s neither here nor there.

  “Frank, this is dispatch. We have confirmation that the Machete Man is actually at the mall. We just got a flood of calls coming in. Hysterical cries for help. The lot! Apparently he’s mass-murdering a bunch of them. Local P.D is down there, but the FBI has showed up and isn’t letting anybody in there until SWAT comes.”

  I banged my fist against the dash. “Fucking FBI! On Christmas! Don’t they take off public holidays? Or is it their damn Christmas wish to make my job harder?” I shouted into the two-way dash radio.

  “Nothing we can do. If the FBI wants to take this sucker down, then we have to allow them the privilege,” Sandy replied.

  “Fuck that. They’ll have to shoot me if I’m letting them risk the lives of the people in that mall while they wait for backup. We are the fucking backup!”

  I swerved into a hard left. The straight road had ended, and we were now three minutes off Broad Street. I could hear Santiago as he gripped his gun. It creaked a little as he held it tight and checked the magazine for any bullets.

  “We going in strong?” he asked me, cocking his gun.

  “We go in hard, even if it is Christmas!” I said, the mall lights approaching in the distance.

  Fourteen

  Malcolm Holmes was breathing heavily. The footsteps were loud. They sounded as if they were right next to him. He was still pressed up between two arcade cabinets. He could feel his body vibrating against the cold metal on his back. He thought he was being too loud. He clutched at his mouth to muffle his breathing. But no matter how hard he tried, he could still hear his nostrils flaring.

  “Shhh!” he whispered to himself.

  The footsteps became louder. Like hammers against concrete. Smashing. Breaking. Banging. The footsteps didn’t let up. They became louder and louder.

  “Quiet. Quiet. Quiet,” he whispered to himself. But it was no use. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t be quie
t.

  But then the footsteps stopped. The darkness that surrounded him ceased, and a dim light cascaded across his face. He squinted. He couldn’t make out where the light was coming from. But then it all clicked. The sound of broken glass being trodden on. The creak of a door opening and the footsteps disappearing. The killer was walking out of the arcade. He was done with his spree, at least in there. But Malcolm couldn’t be too sure. He was still nervous. Still sweating. Still gasping for air.

  He slowly got to his feet and squeezed himself out between the cabinets. He could feel sweat dripping down his forehead. A little went into his eye. He’d never been this scared before. And he knew that he never would be again. Coming within a hairsbreadth of death changes people drastically. And for Malcolm Holmes, it changed him. Changed him from a boy to a young man.

  Malcolm wiped the sweat off his brow. He craned his head to the left and then to the right. Both sides were pitch black. He could barely see his hands in front of him. Somehow, the lights had gone out. Whatever was causing the people outside the mall to act hysterical was the same reason Malcolm himself was close to soiling his pants. Although he knew that the person who had come into the arcade, and assaulted the man behind the booth was gone, he still didn’t feel safe. Not until he managed to get a look at what had happened to the grumpy arcade owner. After that, he was sure that he’d feel safe. In his mind, he wanted to know what he was dealing with. His daddy always told him that that was the best way to deal with fear. To get to know it. To befriend it. And that’s what Malcolm was fixing to do.

  “I ain’t afraid of nothing!” he said out loud, trailing off a little toward the end of the sentence, as if he immediately regretted it.

  He took a few steps forward. The only light came from the bay windows on the front sliding doors. But it wasn’t enough. Not enough to see properly. He ended up walking into another arcade cabinet as he made a turn around the corner, toward the booth in which he’d last saw the grumpy arcade owner.

  “My foot!” he hissed, hopping a little. But he continued, like a brave little soldier. He didn’t know if what he was doing was really brave or stupid. There was only one way to find out.

  “Face your fears,” he said to himself.

  And that was what he did. He turned the corner and faced his fears. The booth was full of his fears. Blood. Guts. Open eyes. The sort of things that would scar men, let alone young boys. But he didn’t close his eyes. He stared and stared. The old man who’d given him quarters less than an hour ago was lying slumped against the corner of the booth. Sitting down, like he was napping. But Malcolm knew he wasn’t napping. He knew that he was dead. The massive wound to his neck confirmed that. The large pool of blood escaping the wound put an exclamation mark on the whole thing. But he continued to stare. To soak it in. Curiosity was getting the better of the boy. So much so that he had the urge to escape the arcade. Not to safety. But the opposite.

  He wanted to follow the big bad man. He wanted to face his fears.

  Fifteen

  The car came to a stop as I pushed my foot on the brakes. San leaned forward a little. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. I guess he forgot to strap in due to the urgency of the situation.

  “Nearly flew out the window!” he quipped as he got out of the car.

  “Maybe you should wear a seatbelt, then,” I muttered as I also got out of the car. The cold Boston air rode up my back as I slammed the door shut. In front of me stood the mall. It was large and rustic-looking. You could tell that it was in keeping with the history of the city. Old, yet strangely new. A nice contrast that could be seen throughout the streets. But I wasn’t there to admire the architecture of the city. I was there to bring down a psycho. But my heart sank when I saw the black sedans parked up just in front of me. Four of them. And next to each car, three to four suit-wearing officials watched the entrance to the mall. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out who they were and what they were doing there. The sound of Santiago shutting his door made one of them turn around. A smile crept across the agent’s face. He was a small man. About thirty. A little paunch, but by no means fat. He had a stern face. Square at the jaw. He approached San and me as we walked toward the huddle of black sedans.

  “McKenzie,” the man said. Wasn’t sure whether it was a question or a statement.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Was wondering when the local P.D. was going to show up,” the small man said.

  “Well, this is our city, so I guess you didn’t have to wait too long,” I said.

  The man gave me a look up and down, as if he was evaluating my posture. His right eyebrow raised a bit at his findings.

  “Interesting,” he muttered.

  “Not really. I buy my clothes at the Gap. Yours, on the other hand – costume shop, by any chance?” I said.

  “Very funny. I guess seeing a government official in a pristine suit brings out the green-eyed monster in you, Frank.”

  I didn’t recognize this particular dirtbag. I’d had dealings with the FBI before. I could never remember them by name or number. They all looked the same.

  “Do we know you?” Santiago butted in. The small agent took one glance at my partner and sniggered.

  “Easy, fella. Let the big boys talk,” the agent said.

  I could hear Santiago’s teeth chattering. Either he was angry or really cold. But considering it was Christmas Eve, and we were stuck outside a mall in the high teens - that was reason enough for his teeth to clatter together. So I was going with a little of both.

  Cold and angry.

  “Why don’t you step aside and let us through? I don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s a killer in there, and every second we waste is another life lost,” I said.

  The agent smiled and looked behind him for a second or two. I gathered he was looking at what I was looking at. The mall’s entrance. The shutters were down, and the lights were out. Someone had put up some generators next to the FBI cars. I supposed they got the luxury of light, no matter the situation.

  “I don’t know how good your eyes are, Frank,” the agent said, turning back to face me “But all entrances and exits to the mall are sealed off. The local power company was instructed to shut down the electric by Virginia. Standard protocol with terrorists.”

  “Terrorists?” Santiago blurted out.

  “Yeah, I’d say he’s terrorizing people in there.” The agent smiled.

  That was typical. The FBI wanted this guy, so they labeled him a terrorist. That way we wouldn’t have the case anymore. Matters of terrorism were dealt with by the feds, not P.D. But I wasn’t having any of it.

  “Call it what you want, but like it or not, I’m going in there and dragging each and every one of those civilians out. I ain’t waiting for your damn special tactics team. People are dying in there. He’s one guy. I’m sure a bullet between his eyes will put an end to this,” I said, pushing past the FBI agent.

  “Yeah, just like the last time, right? You guys had the ball, and you dropped it. Now this freak of nature is ours. You go in there, Frank, and I can personally assure you that it will be the last crime scene you ever enter!” I heard the small dirtbag say as I walked toward the entrance. Santiago was tagging along beside me. I gave him a look.

  “How are we getting in there, Frank? They locked the place down!”

  I looked at Santiago, my eyes squinting and my heart thumping in my chest. “I don’t know, San, but our duty is to serve and protect. We can’t do that while chatting with the damn FBI, now, can we?”

  Sixteen

  The Machete Man was no more than fifteen feet in front of Malcolm. He was watching the big man roam through the seemingly empty mall. The people who were in the mall before must have gotten away somehow. Maybe they’d gotten outside. Maybe they were hiding someplace else. But Malcolm knew that hiding was useless. Fear would get to you no matter where you were. So that was why Malcolm followed his fear. He wanted to see what violence was. Real violence, that is.

>   Malcolm was used to the violence he saw on a daily basis at home. Mommy got whacked across the face. Daddy went out drinking and came back hours later, with roses. Then Malcolm would hear the walls thumping. But Mommy wasn’t getting beaten up. They were making up. And like a circle, everything came back around, until the next day, when it happened again. And then the day after. The day after that.

  But this was a totally different thing. There was no coming back from this if Malcolm got caught, and he knew that all too well. But something was spurring him on. Curiosity, maybe. A lust for blood? Maybe so. But Malcolm felt that he could do something. That he could stop the killer. All he needed to do was learn him. To learn the fear, so to speak. And once he knew him well enough, then he could make a difference.

  So Malcolm continued to follow the big killer through the mall. Malcolm was ducking and diving between tables and chairs. He was keeping his head low and his breathing in check. The killer was grunting as he walked, his big-bladed weapon swinging in tempo with his arms. Specks of blood dripped onto the floor with every swing. As Malcolm got nearer, the Machete Man got more agitated. That particular area of the mall was very empty. It was as if everybody had disappeared. Back near the arcade, Malcolm remembered seeing three or four dead bodies. So not everybody had escaped. But it seemed that a few of them were hiding. And the Machete Man could smell one of them nearby.