Judas

by Caleb Meeks

  The two men remained. One was slightly older than the other, but they both wore the same desperate look. The look that said they were ready to take me down. The older of the two was quicker to draw his gun, and fired one round. It just missed my arm, so I pulled my gun and returned the favor. I didn’t miss, though. The bullet grazed his arm, but just on the outside. It flew into the wall just behind them, but knocked him back due to the close proximity. He fell to the ground, hitting his head on a steel table to his side, which rendered him very briefly unconscious.

  That left the younger of the two. He seemed to be stuck in a fearful haze. “What’s the matter? Cat’s got your tongue?” I asked more dramatically tongue in cheek than I’d intended.

  He looked like he wanted to speak, but he never got the chance. I hastened towards him and knocked the gun out of his hands. That seemed to knock him out of whatever haze he had slipped into. The man sprung into action, landing a solid blow to my chest. It jarred my ribs, which caused the slit in my side to shriek in pain, but again, I didn’t have the ability to let it phase me. He followed through with a swift right cross, but I was able to grab his arm and throw him behind me. His balance was shaken, but he quickly regained it. His ability to hold his own shocked me. Again, he threw a punch at me, but I dodged to the side, gripped him by the nape of his neck, and pushed him down onto the metal table immediately beside us.

  It was in that moment that I felt something. He rolled back over, trying to pull his mind out of the fog it had slipped into. His nose was oozing blood. It was probably broken. There was a large gash across his forehead from the edge of the table. It was bleeding down the sides of his face. That wasn’t what I was paying attention to, though. I removed my sunglasses and looked him directly in the eyes. Looking past the immediate hatred that was piercing through his gaze was easy. Anger is an easily forgettable emotion.

  What caught my attention was the pain. Not the physical pain from what I just did to him, but a deeper emotional pain. It was so real…sad…familiar. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but the longer I looked, the less I wanted to kill him. It was something so unique to me. He looked me straight in the eyes, and I could see the shift from anger to confusion in his stare. Instead of attacking him again, I turned around and walked back out the door I had come in from. I walked past the unconscious bodies I had scattered across the ground without even a second glance. I was still so mesmerized with the feeling looking into the man’s eyes gave me. I eventually reached the car, and climbed in. Dominic looked me up and down, concerned about what had happened.

  “Drive.” Was all I could get out.

  Chapter Ten.

  Matthew Newman was only partially aware of everything that was going on. He vaguely remembered flashing lights, and some distorted yelling, but had no context. All he remembered was that something had happened, he just couldn’t remember what that something was. Something he was very aware of, though, was the hot substance that was running down his face. There were people running all around him, but his eyesight and thoughts were foggy, so he couldn’t figure out why.

  Eventually, someone noticed that his eyes were opening, and he was starting to squirm, and rushed over to him. “Officer Newman?” Newman heard the voice but didn’t quite understand. “Officer Newman?” They repeated. That time, it clicked in his mind. He slowly turned to look at the person, blinking a few times to try to clear his mind. He was greeted by a woman holding a medical bag. “Officer Newman, my name is Samantha. You were in a bit of a situation, but you’re going to be just fine. Can you lay back for me?”

  Newman pushed out all the sound he could, a half grunt of sorts. The woman, Samantha, reached around to the back of his head and gripped his neck, as well as held him around the waist as best as she could so that when he laid down, he wouldn’t just fall over. She guided him down onto the ground. Newman’s hand came up and touched his cheek, then pulled it back to eye level. His hand had blood smeared on the fingertips. “What happened?” He managed to push out, after a long battle of trying to form the words.

  “I don’t know. All I know is that it’s a good thing we got here when we did.” She said, trying to use some kind of good bedside manner. It didn’t really phase Newman. His brain spiraled into a frenzy, though, when he remembered Cadman getting shot.

  “Cadman…” He said, trailing off before he could finish his thought.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?” Samantha said as she was working to clean the blood from the sides of his head.

  He rallied his thoughts again. “Detective Cadman….” He managed to get out.

  It clicked in her mind. “Detective Cadman was taken to the emergency room as soon as we got here. He and one other officer were the only ones who had gun shots, so they were taken immediately. Fortunately for Detective Cadman, the bullet just grazed his soft tissue. He’ll be fine.” The relief in his eyes was visible. “Now, just lie still and try to rest. I’m going to clean you up, put in some stiches for this gash on your forehead, and then we’ll get you to the hospital.” Cadman very subtly nodded, but the woman understood.

  He laid there in silence, aware that Samantha was swabbing his face, trying her best to clean off the blood, but wasn’t really paying attention. The blood from both his nose and his forehead had run down his shirt, and he could feel the sticky substance that was gluing his shirt to his skin. But again, he was only aware of it like you’re aware of a dream. What he was paying attention to was the nightmarish vision that kept playing back in his head. He remembered it better than he thought he would be able to. The black clad villain, the officers cut down like wheat in a field, his partner getting shot. It all played back in vivid detail. The part that was especially hard to relive was the frozen fear he had slipped into once Judas was standing right before him. He’d dreamt of the moment he would be in the same room as that monster. He’d even admittedly fantasized about what he would do to him when he got the chance. And now, he had been in a room with the very man who he had vowed to either kill or bring in, and he hadn’t. Something happened to him when Judas stood before him. An intense fear came up upon him, but not one that he had ever felt before. He’d read all the case files. He could practically recite them from memory, but still, something happened when he was standing right in front of him. And, it just might have gotten his partner shot.

  After lying there for however long it took Samantha to work on him, his mind was starting to clear up, at least slightly. He was now more aware of everything going on around him. There were blue clad officers bustling around the complex, talking to people, and doing their best to collect any evidence they could. There were EMTs everywhere. Some were on the ground trying to make sure their patients could walk, and some were outside loading up battered officers to take to the hospital. All he could remember was the gunfire. He and Cadman were making their way through the building when they heard the shots. The three shots were deafening. With the way the sound rang through the industrial building, it sounded like they were in a war zone. That said, they were, in a way.

  Samantha leaned over so her head was directly above his. “Alright, I’ve got you taken care of here, so they are going to come and load you up so you can head over to the hospital, ok?”

  “Okay.” He grunted out. The unfortunate part about his head clearing up was that he could feel the burning from the gash on his forehead. Due to the lights in the room, he was squinting, which made the already piercing headache worse. And, in addition to that issue, his nose also felt like it might’ve been broken.

  After a few minutes, two bulky men came over to him, holding a stretcher. “Officer Newman?” The head of the two asked. Cadman nodded. “Alright. We’re going to get you on here, then we’ll take you to the hospital. You feeling ok?” Cadman nodded again. After rolling him onto the stretcher, the two men escorted him into the emergency vehicle. One of the men climbed in back with him, along with an accompanying officer, while the other of the two EMTs climbed into the driver’s seat of th
e vehicle. The man who climbed in back strapped in right next to him. Because of the nature of the injuries, they weren’t too concerned with working on him in the vehicle. Most everything they would do would wait until they got to the hospital.

  The ride to the hospital was smooth, but seemed painfully long to Newman. He just wanted to get there so they could dose him with painkillers, hopefully to numb the physical pain as much as the mental pain. Really, he wanted to get to the hospital so he could see Cadman. Even though they had only known each other a few short weeks, Cadman had become on older brother figure to Newman, which was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Being around him just gave Newman a feeling of safety, and especially after everything that had happened, he could really use that.

  Eventually they pulled into the hospital’s entrance. Once they got him out of the vehicle, they placed him in one of the patient docking stations. The man who was with him in the ambulance was the one who was treating him.

  “Alright, Officer Newman, this is a temporary situation. I’m going to have you here for just a few minutes to get some fluids hooked up and to check your vitals. We aren’t concerned about anything; we just want to make sure everything looks good.” Matthew nodded. The EMT got to work. He hooked up an IV, took some blood, checked his heart rate, everything that was standard. The fact that they didn’t want to do an MRI on Newman’s head surprised him, but he took it as further assurance that he was fine. After he finished working on Newman, the EMT grabbed a clipboard and looked at him. “I am just about done with you, but are you feeling ok? Is anything bothering you?”

  Newman fought to clear the fog from his head to form a sentence. “My head is killing me, and I just feel really foggy.”

  The man smiled. “All very normal, it should clear up within the next few hours, maybe even a day. As for the headache, I’ll have a nurse bring you some painkillers.” I nodded. He started to walk away, but then turned back around. “Oh, and about your nose. I put a bandage on it to keep it in place. For the most part it looked ok, but I didn’t want it to get moved at any point while it’s trying to heal, so just do your best to leave it alone and give it some time. Other than that, you’ll be just fine. I’ll have someone take you to see Detective Cadman in a few minutes.” Newman nodded, relieved.

  ▪

  Cadman sat there on his bed. The anesthesia was wearing off, but the fog was not. It wasn’t even the kind of excitatory anesthesia that makes you lively, just the kind that makes you feel like you’re stuck between a conscious and unconscious existence.

  He had a vague remembrance of what had happened, but that was still coming back to him. He was less foggy than when he first woke up, but still enough that he had little clue what was going on. A crowd of medics rushed to him as soon as they arrived. Due to his lack of consciousness, he could hear them barking orders to each other, but none of them really made sense to him. He wasn’t even immediately aware of the bleeding chunk missing from his arm.

  Details about what just happened were spacey at best, but he did his best to piece them together. He remembered Matthew coming into his office to tell him about the call. He remembered the drive to building. He remembered the uneasy feeling the second they arrived, but none of that was uncommon for him. He remembered walking into the building with Matthew, accompanied by the six officers he had managed to get together, but that’s where it got fuzzy.

  Bang! The sound resounded in his head in such a real way he jumped, thinking it was inside the building with him. It immediately clicked in his mind, though. The gun shots were the next piece of the puzzle he was missing. Two came, one right after the other. He and Matthew locked eyes instantly, worrying about what they walked in on. They had turned around to make their way slowly towards the gun shots, and then they were greeted by another one. They both stopped, barely even taking breaths, to see if they could determine where the sound was coming from, or even if they could figure out how many people were in the building. After waiting for a few moments, an officer made his way into the room with them. He motioned that whatever it was, it was coming from the room right in front on them. They quickly made their way through the door, and that’s when they saw him.

  The very person that had been being tracked, but never found, for the past seven years was standing right in front of them. Judas.

  The officer that was with them was unaware of the severity of the situation, so he didn’t have the pause Cadman and Newman had. The two men stood in horrified observation as Judas made quick work of him. For some reason, Cadman decided it would be an optimal decision to pull his gun and fire a round at Judas. The shot, of course, missed. Cadman would never stop hating himself over missing that shot. If he had just taken another few seconds to center his aim, it would have gone so differently…

  It was after that first shot that Cadman froze. Whether it was the fact that he had taken the shot, or that he had missed it was uncertain, but he did not immediately fire again. That gave Judas enough time to pull his gun and shoot one bullet. He did not miss. Cadman remembered smacking his head against a table as he fell to the ground, and the light slowly fading from his eyes. It was in that moment that he remembered the last thing he saw. Judas approaching Matthew.

  He didn’t even know if the young officer made it out alive, and that was enough to pull him from the fog he was stuck in. While it didn’t cure him of it, it was enough to bring him to a more cognitive state. A nurse was right next to him, making sure his vitals were steady. She noticed he was starting to come to, so she put a hand on his shoulder to draw his attention to her.

  “Detective Cadman? How are you feeling?” She asked.

  Cadman looked her in the eyes, struggling to find the words to speak. “What happened?” Was all he managed to say.

  “You were involved in a situation and you were shot in the arm. Lucky for you, the bullet just went through the outside of your arm. We knocked you out so we could make sure everything looked good in there, but no surgery was necessary. We stitched it, and you’re looking at a full recovery. It’ll hurt for a little while, but give it some time and you’ll be fine. The grogginess you’re feeling right now is from the anesthesia, but since it wasn’t a heavy dose, you’ll start feeling more normal soon. We did a nerve block in your whole shoulder, so you shouldn’t feel any pain for a while. If you do, though, just let one of us know.”

  “Thank you.” Cadman exhaustedly let out. The nurse turned back to the monitor one last time. She was right, the anesthesia’s fogginess was already starting to wear off. Unfortunately, that meant he was climbing into a more aware headspace, which made the regret from the Judas encounter even more real. Matthew appeared in his mind again, and he remembered that he hadn’t asked the nurse about him. She was just about to leave the room, but he was able to grunt loud enough that she recognized it as a call for her.

  “Did you need something?” She asked.

  “Officer Newman, he was with me at the scene.” He struggled to get out.

  “Yes, of course. Officer Newman is doing just fine. We’ve got him down on the first floor resting. He’s been insisting to come up and see you. We’ll bring him up in twenty minutes or so.” Cadman nodded and the nurse left the room. He was instantly relieved to know that Newman was ok. He had filled in the spaces with some grisly images, superimposing Matthew’s face on the crime scene photos, so to know he was okay gave him some relief.

  He knew that trying to pull himself out of the anesthesia haze would just make it take longer, so he laid his head back and tried to rest as best as possible. The anesthesia was leaving his system, but would still take time. So, he waited. It seemed like it took an eternity, but the time eventually came.

  The nurse came back and poked her head in the door. “Detective? How are you feeling?”

  “Anesthesia’s starting to wear off.” He said, more clearly now than before.

  “Good, you feel up to a visitor?” She asked.

  “Absolutely. Bring em’ in.” He said.
The nurse stepped into the room, allowing Newman to walk in behind her. Cadman looked Newman in the face. “Sure, so I get shot, and you get a nose job.” The nurse and Newman laughed, then the nurse left the room to give the two men some privacy.

  “What happened to you?” Cadman asked, this time a little more seriously than before.

  “This? You should see the other guy.” Newman joked.

  Cadman smiled, but it quickly faded. “But seriously, Matthew, what happened? Are you ok?”

  Newman’s smile faded, returning to the reality of the situation. “Yeah, I’m okay. I don’t know what happened, Leo. It all happened really fast. He dropped you, and after that, it got really fuzzy. I just wanted to get my hands on him, but I let it go to my head too much. He was able to grab me and slammed my head into the metal table we were right next to.”

  “I’m surprised that’s all he did.” Cadman unintentionally uttered out loud.

  “Me too. That’s what’s really been bothering me.” Newman said, a confused look on his face. It wasn’t quite the response Cadman had expected. “I don’t know why he just left me there. He had me right in his hands. I was literally defenseless. After he slammed my head on that table I was on edge of going unconscious, so he could have done whatever he wanted with me. At first, I thought he was going to kill me right there. The look on his face seemed almost possessed.” Newman trailed off for a moment.

  “That sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming?” He speculated.

  “Yeah, there is. I don’t know, Leo. Something happened between us, but I can’t figure out what it was. He pulled those dark glasses off his face and looked me right in the eyes, but it was like he looked past my eyes. I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, he walked away looking just as bothered as I feel right now. He didn’t lay another hand on me. He just walked away. That’s when I lost consciousness.”