They were deep blue, wide open staring into the space. Eyelashes brushed to perfection, eye shadow expertly applied. Those glass eyes looked, but did not see. They would never take in the light again.
“I don’t know if I can stand it. Why is her mouth so wide? What did the coroner say cause of death was?”
Two men stood over the body which was strapped into a chair by the wrist and feet. Her clothes were untouched besides a days grime and there was no sign of bruising or blood any where on her. Which looking around, it might be the only place there was no blood.
“Heart attack, he said.” Tom said.
“Heart attack he said” James repeated walking around her once and then fixed his eyes on her head. “Scared to death? You ever see anything like this before?”
Tom shook his head, his eyes stuck on her jaw which looked as it was barely hanging on.
The body had not been moved yet or, at least it could not be moved yet. Each time anyone touched her they would feel faint, weak in the knees, short of breath. Make anything up, they felt it. The body stayed were it sat. Eyes wide with terror.
“I gotta get out of here. Let’s find the thing that did this” Tom said moving back towards the stairs.
The entrance to the room was behind a hidden panel in the wall. It led down a small set of concrete stairs and into a room of white tiled walls and concrete floor with a drain in the middle. A chair, which the body sat in, was at one end of the room and a couple of chairs were lined against the other wall. All the chairs looked like they should be in a mental hospital. One of the chairs against the wall had its restraints ripped apart. Upon the floor when the police arrived, off an anonymous tip, blood stained the floor and pieces of someone were strewn across the walls and ceiling. The poor bastard that stepped down slipped and took a bath. The rest of the cities police were brought in and then the FBI and finally Tom and James.
When the body could not be moved by the FBI they called in the paranormal unit. James who looked straight out of Miami vice. Tall and muscular, a permanent mustache, with mavericks covering his eyes and always chewing something. He supposedly was attacked by a witch and some her ghosts at the age of fifteen. He fended them off with just a can of salt and a bat. Tom, looked like belong behind a fancy bar in New York. His fashion was always high class with a expensive suits, cuffs, black hair tastefully swept to the side. His olive skin and orangish brown eyes seemed to glow among a well kept clean shaven face. His first house was haunted. Which he sold. His second house was also haunted, which he tried to sell. Then his apartment that he rented while he sold his haunted house was also haunted. So he learned how to exorcise ghosts and here he was. Regretting that he sold his first house, which was the one he really wanted.
Both of them were hired at one time to help an old grandmother put her husband to rest and through chants, wine, salt and trying not to get possessed or crossing the barrier themselves they became friends. Turned out the grandmother was once an FBI agent and recommended them for special cases. Viola, you have the paranormal unit.
Tom took one last look into the blue eyes of the dead girl in the chair. They usually dealt with small crimes, bodies were rare, and scared to death bodies were something else. This felt different. Evil in a way that he had not felt before. They had seen a lot of violence through flashbacks and things from ghosts, but nothing of this caliber.
He turned and walked up the concrete stairs, bloody footprint joining the others from the blood that could not be wiped clean.
James was standing in the kitchen eating a muffin as James came up the stairs. The brownstone which the room was hidden in was furnished in riches and tastefully decorated. The kitchens was marble counter tops, with black embossed cabinets. A large island sat in the middle with a old time looking light hanging above it. Agents and police officers darted around the whole place, dusting, opening drawers and looking for more clues.
James turned to Tom, with muffin crumbs hanging on to his mustache and said “Hey they found out who the parts belonged to”
“Parts?”
“The body parts, well more like pieces” James laughed and Tom groaned in response. “The owner of the house, Tyler Indel. Rich guy, rose to the top of this investment firm, big donor and philanthropist, the works.”
“This is his place, so that means that secret murder basement is his”
“Yup” James took a large bite of of the muffin “absolute psychopath, they found a box buried in one of the plants with a bunch of his victims stuff, seven in total”
“The living are pretty brutal” Tom said under his breathe while rubbing his eyes “well, if Tyler was the psycho, who killed him? Or more like blended him?”
James rose his eye brows and gave a shrug then took a large gulp of coffee from a fancy looking mug “I tell ya what, Tyler had some good coffee, brewed a carafe if you want some” he pointed over his shoulder “You know what we are dealing with” said in a serious tone and looked straight into James eyes.
Tom nodded not wanting to confirm his suspicions, what clawed at the back of his mind and haunted his dreams. He had only seen one once, and that was enough. A demon. There were many types, but he had only seen one and it was not even through his own eyes, but a ghosts. What he saw stroked a cosmic fear in him, one that went beyond comprehension. When he saw the eyes on the girl, he knew that those would be his eyes if he saw what she laid her last gaze on. Absolute madness and terror.
Tom and James had known each other for a while and had shared intimate details of their lives together whether they wanted to or not. There was always one memory, one line in James’s consciousness that Tom could never get near or see into. Like a black hole that each time he would get close he would be flung at light speed away from it. Now looking at Jame’s carefree attitude he wondered again about that abyss inside him. Maybe he had tangled with demons before and that was the price you paid. Your sanity.
The world went black as the blow to the back of his head connected. He stumbled into a wall and next thing he knew he awoke in a bright lit room. It was small with a single entrance of concrete stairs leading up somewhere. His wrists were bound along with his ankles in a chair. His eyes rolled and he saw three more chairs to his right and a one single infront of a blank wall. I women sat looking defeated and beyond her energy. He tried to scream, but a gag prevented him. He sort of doubted that anyone could hear him anyway.
He was trapped in a horror movie, but this wasn’t on the big screen. This was in ultra high definition. Reality, baby. The one and only. One life and it was going to end like this. The door up the steps opened and a man walked down. He was dressed well, black slacks, a vest, his dirty blonde hair brushed. His face was handsome, and almost symmetrical. He had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows and was fixating tight black gloves onto his long fingers. As he walked he ignored him and went straight to the girl in the chair.
She whimpered as he approached and he clutched her chin in his hands. He examined her pulling her chin back and forth, then clutched his hand to her hair and gave a gentle tug to move her head back and looked straight into her eyes. He then stepped back and acknowledged the new guest.
“Wrong place, wrong time, buddy” the man said whistling a small tune to himself. “Hey” he called over to the women “What should I do to this guy? I want an audience for a time. Slice him up bit by bit? Maybe some sensory deprecation, remove the eyes? The nose maybe? Why not everything, flay the senses.” The women cried out and the man in the chair screamed into his gag. The room was a mixture of hysteria.
Cries, screams, and laughter.
The man in the vest held out his hand “Tyler, is what they call me in these parts” he then withdrew it and started leafing through the tied up mans wallet until it came to his drivers license “Ally? Seriously? What ever modern times. Well, Ally, your about to end up on the back of a milk carton and recycled into the greater world. No hard feelings, but I do hope you suffer tremendously” Tyler gave a look, one of a deranged animal, his eyes seemed to salivate with his mouth as he looked Ally up and down in the chair. All the pain and brutality running through his head, building up and just waiting to flow through his fingers onto flesh.
“Let” Tyler brought out a table “us” he rolled out a set of sharp and dangerous objects “begin”
Ally’s eyes widened and his muted screams lasted hours.
I have been thinking of a concept about a killer of killers. We will get that soon, but in the meantime I introduce or FBI duo Tom and James. I modeled them after the series and aloof crime solving duo from novels and movies. One is a bit over serious, Tom and the other is a bit loose with the rules, drum beating to a different tune, which would be James.
James is modeled after detectives Wainwright in Hot Fuzz.
This is duo story taking place from two different perspectives. It will merge at some point when all our cast comes together.
It is also not so standalone as my other works. Why could that be?
Till next time
Cheers