Issue #87

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This is the fifth installment in an ongoing story which
will conclude on All Hallows Eve.
To go back, click on the appropriate link:

part one        part two        part three        part four
She woke up within pain.

There was a warm, thick fluid flowing down her arms and legs that she knew had to be blood. She could feel the lacerations up and down her arms, her back and down both sides of her body. She had no idea where she was, but the ground underneath her was cold, stony dirt. As she tried to move, fresh pain seared through her and caused her to scream out, in that moment not caring who was near and might hear that she had awoken.

She could hear the night-time wildlife outside but nothing else. There was an urge to call out for help, one that she managed to suppress, chiding herself silently for giving in to the urge to scream, an urge that was starting to rise up in her again and she bit into her lower lip to try and suppress it.

The memories of how she had come to this place were vague, wrapped in flashes of rage and pain. She couldn’t see the thing clearly in her memory, or anything else that might have caused this. The only thing she could really remember was being lifted off the ground, flying through the air.

Had the other victims been left alone like this? Or was it possible that thing had given up on her? It was impossible to know the answers but she needed to keep her mind working, to ignore the hopelessness of this situation she was in. She needed to plan. For whatever reason, she had been left here alone on the ground and gritted her teeth at the pain that rose up through her, fresh cuts on her hands as she tried to push up into a standing position, the glass breaking underneath her as she did so. Even with the blood making her hands slip, she eventually managed to stagger to her feet, which she noticed were bare.

The world around her started to unhinge as she walked and struck her shoulder several times against the wall as she listed to the side. The ground felt like it had started to tilt as she put a hand out to brace herself from falling. She reached the end of the building and peeked around the corner, across the main pavilion. There was no one around but she still heard the faintest vestiges of music coming from somewhere. That, and flashing lights.

It wasn’t clear how long it took to recognize the lights from the squad cars as they swarmed around her but she suddenly looked up and saw the uniformed officers, stepping out of their cars and approaching her slowly. Of course they were from her house.

“Detective?” One of the older ones asked as they walked up to her, unsure of what the protocol even was for situations like this. “Detective, are you hurt? Is that your blood?”

It was the last coherent moment she recalled before waking up in an interview room, a detective she didn’t recognize sitting across the table from her.

“Good, you’re awake,” he said as he slid a coffee mug with water over to her. “Detective, can you give us some idea what’s going on here? Because we’re trying pretty hard to not see it for what it looks like.”

Even in her disoriented state, a sarcastic remark rose to her lips but she cut it off. “I …” the sentence she did try to get out trailed off as she looked around the room again, trying to reconcile where she was with her memory of the evening.

“Detective, we’ve been getting reports of a woman seen several times in the general vicinity of the fairgrounds, especially around the times we think the murders took place. There were two new victims there when we found you and it just so happens that you’re drenched in their blood.” She stared at him and then down at her arms, still slightly caked in dried blood, but at least covered in bandages. He followed her gaze as if reading her mind. “They both had tissue under their fingernails that matched up with you, which would coincide with those scratches and cuts. Now, I’m not looking to get you into a situation here so if you can just give me an explanation, I’d appreciate it.”

“Who are you?” Kim finally found her voice.

He leaned back in his chair, let out a long breath and occupied his attention on something in his file folder, as if he already knew that the conversation was going nowhere. “I came in from the two-nine. Some of the victims have been found in out area and they wanted someone you didn’t know to talk to you.”

Kim stared the man down until the silence was finally awkward enough for him to raise his head and make eye contact with her. Once he had averted his gaze from her again, she spoke. “You think I did all of this? I’m a suspect?”

“If you want to know my opinion? No, but the way we found you, it isn’t like we can just call you a cab. There’s too much we have to factor against you. The department has thought for a while that the killer could be a cop, the way they seem to know about police procedure.”

“A cop.” She almost laughed at the notion.

“I know, but it’s their theory and they’re going to have some questions for you.”

“Well, then here’s my answer.” She lofted the classic, middle-fingered response and shifted her gaze to the windows. He let out another tortured sigh before standing and leaving the room.

What could she tell them? What did she have to tell them that they didn’t already know? And worse, how could she do it and not come off completely crazy, talking about being abducted by some kind of supernatural creature. As much as she hated tactics like this when she was on the other side of the room, maybe it was time to shut up and let the lawyers deal with this. There was no way any charges would stick to her on this.

Kim’s head jerked up at the sound of something crashing to the floor outside. It had sounded like glass breaking, followed by a file cabinet being knocked over. At the sound of people yelling and the first few screams, she was up and out of her chair, hand creeping over for a gun which she no longer had.

Several more crashes of objects knocked to the floor were followed by one gunshot and then silence. Kim crept to the door, put a hand out to take the knob and twisted slowly. She winced at the sound of the hinges and what sounded like broken glass as the door swung out over the floor ahead of her.

Blood stained the walls of the main office. There were a half dozen bodes that she could see and God only knew how many more. Whatever had happened out here, it had been so fast that only one person had managed to get a shot off. Everyone was dead.

She was going to be blamed for this.

Kim looked around the room, trying to make a decision, trying to see through her panic. If someone had gotten a call out for help, she probably only had minutes to get out of here. Ronnie’s desk was to her left and she remembered that he always parked next to the rear exit. She took his keys from his desk drawer as well as his service revolver and extra mags from the floor safe that he never kept locked. There was only one choice left to her.

She ran.

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