Part 3: You Don’t Know Anything

June 11th, 2008 5:45pm

Bryson and Derek

“She’s definitely not in this house.” Bryson said.

He sifted through the shattered glass that was once Mary’s favorite flower vase hoping to find some DNA evidence. The four men searched every corner of the house and there was still no sign of Mary. No evidence that anyone else had been in the house either. It was still being treated like a kidnapping, but everyone was starting to doubt that theory.

“We need to check Mr. Benson’s place.” Derek shouted back. “He’s suspect #1.”

“Copy. Want to go to his place while Blake and Harling stay here and gather evidence?”

“Yes.” Derek rolled his eyes and started walking down the stairs.

“Copy that.”

 “You don’t need to say copy when we’re in the house together.” Derek rolled his eyes and threw a set of keys at Bryson. “You’re driving.”

Harling and Blake

Those two dumbasses better be prepared. Whatever they find at Mr. Benson’s might be ugly.

“Harling, what were you doing here?” Officer Blake asked. “You were off duty.” He threw me a threatening glare “If anyone else had seen you with her file you’d be put on the other side of this justice system.”

I know he’s not expecting the truth. How would I even put it? “Blake, I was trying to make sure Mr. Benson wasn’t possessed by a monster.” If anyone heard that I’d be put in a whole other system.

“I was checking up on Mary. Didn’t you read her statement? She didn’t seem to be doing so well after the separation.” I almost convinced myself with that one.

“It’s not not protocol to take a file off duty like that. Why did you have to take the file if you already knew her statement?”

“What can I say, I’m a workaholic. I wanted to update her statement.” I pulled out a cigarette to act casual. “She’s a young lady with no property and low paying work. I wanted to give her a helping hand on getting the most out of her divorce.” I pulled out another cigarette and offered it to Blake.

He’s looking me up and down, trying to tell if I’m lying or not. After a long pause he grabs the cigarette and gestures for a lighter.

“I’m putting this aside Harling, because I like you, but please don’t go doing something like this again. You could cost us both our jobs.”

He’s right. I was damn lucky this time. I need to be more careful about this investigation.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He smiled at me. “If you ever did, I’d deny everything and testify against you in court until you’re locked up for life. Now let’s go, we still have a missing person’s case on our hands.”

“Bryson and Derek are already on it.” I said with a smile.

He rolled his eyes at me.

“Was that supposed to be comforting? We going to leave her life in their hands?”

I laughed as I walked out the house. “Hell no.”

4 Years Later

May 8th, 2012 4:09pm

What we found at Mr. Benson’s was not funny. 

What we found was the very thing that made Bryson leave town and had Henson asking for a demotion. Blake and I are the only two original members left on the force.

We swore we’d never tell anyone what we saw that day. For the town’s sake, we decided to leave it alone.

For the last four years it’s just been Blake and I working the minor cases of Soulville. We’ve had some petty thefts by teens, a few slashed tires by ex-wives, more than a couple domestic violence cases, etc.; but at least the murders that haunted this town seemed to be gone.

Everyone accepted it when we had a psychologist come into town saying that “Divorce is common everywhere and it only took a while for that to start here because of how secluded you are, but it’s not crazy to see divorces spike. As for the murders, people are in shock and fear. I’d expect no less.”

Of course we had to say more about the murders, we couldn’t let that keep happening. The police force decided to instill a counseling policy for couples undergoing divorce and started an after school program for kids to anonymously get free therapy.

Not to mention we decided that anyone who attempts murder, causes serious harm to another individual, or is even suspected of attempting murder will be kicked out of town and sent to a detention center over 1,000 miles away. They will be forever banned from our town after.

We’ve only kicked out one resident since.

The town seems to be coping well. A few couples have used our counseling program, crime rates have gone down, and I’ve even been to a couple of weddings.

As for Blake and I… we aren’t doing so well.

We haven’t talked about what we saw since, but we’ve been drinking together every night. We’ve even tried some of the drugs we keep in the evidence locker. 

Not too hard to fake a drug test when you’re in charge of administering them.

We still get our work done, we still seem friendly to the people around us, but we can’t sleep at night without some help. We can’t turn our brains off without feeling the pain of what we saw. 

We either have to be working or doping it up, there’s no in-between.

“Blake, do you think I can make it?”

“I have no faith in you Harling. $10 says you miss.”

“I’ll take that bet. And I’ll raise you to $15.”

“Deal.”

I stared at the trash can at the end of the room with as much focus as I could. Which wasn’t  much considering my intoxication of Mary Jane and beer. I do two mock throws, making sure my aim was right,  without releasing the ball of tinfoil in my hand that once contained my cookout quesadilla. Blake was staring hard, trying to psych me out. 

We’re really competitive for two people who don’t care about the $15. Odds are we’re going to use that money to buy the beer that we both drink anyways.

Gambling is also something We’ve fallen in love with recently.

“Just do it you dumbass.” Black said through a drunken laugh. “You’re gonna miss anyways.”

I smiled and threw it with a confidence so strong you would’ve thought I made it.

I did not. 

There goes my $15.

CACHHHHHH

“Harling, Blake, do you copy?”

Shit. We’re on call tonight. We’ve never actually been called in.

“What the fuck.” Blake says while he stands up and starts for the living room where the walkie talkie was charging.

“We copy.” He mutters as I start cleaning up the place and put my shoes on.

CACHHHHHH

“We have a situation on Lyon Street. Backup is needed immediately. One man has been shot and the shooter is missing. He left the scene too fast for us to catch, but we saw him, and he’s still armed.”

“Copy. We’re on our way.”

“This better not be what I think it is, Blake.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“If we find out the shooter was related to the victim, we need to call the other two.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. And let’s pray that they’re not related.”

We nodded at each other as we ran out the door. This moment could be the exact thing that fucks up our “let’s not talk about it” policy.

At The Scene

Things went exactly the way we hoped they wouldn’t.

We cornered the shooter in a dark tunnel under the train tracks. When he realized he had no where to run, he started talking.

They were related. Husband and wife. Blake and I knew what was coming next, but our newest traffic officer Jenny sure didn’t.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT.”

Jenny, the newbie, is now in the group of horrified monster see-ers.

“Fuck if I know.” I shot the terrifying monster headed man in the left knee cap.

At that, the man who was once before us was back. 

His monster head, the black wisp of smoke with king cobra eyes and teeth that resembled a vampire, disappeared without trace. The man underneath passes out on the floor, looking like he hasn’t slept in ages.

“How did you know that would work?!” Jenny asked, visibly panicking. 

She is the only one of us who looks panicked. Blake and I are still pretty tipsy. 

And high.

“Dunno. It worked last time. Figured it couldn’t hurt to try again.”

“Last time?! What last time??” Jenny looks like she is about to pass out.

Blake and I just laugh, which seemed to piss Jenny off.

“Don’t worry about it Jen. It’s over now.”

“You two are so stupid. Don’t think I don’t know what you were doing before you got here. You’ll be lucky if all you get is a suspension.” Jenny pulled out a phone, so quickly my hand almost didn’t catch it in time.

“We are not telling anyone about this Jenny.” 

I thought she’d try to pull the phone out of my hand. Instead she just sat down with her head in her hands.

“Why?” She said in a soft, calm voice. “Why should we keep this to ourselves?”

“You know why, that’s why you haven’t taken back this phone. We both know you could if you wanted to.” I wiggle the phone within her arms reach. “You don’t want to make the call to the station saying you saw a monster possessing this man.”

“If you did” Blake finally steps in “You’ll be lucky if all you get is a suspension. Otherwise, I suppose you’d lose your job too. Blaming monsters instead of doing your job? You think that’ll fly?”

“You saw what I saw. But you wouldn’t vouch for me, would you?”

“Hell no we wouldn’t.” I say.

She shot me a nasty glare at that.

“I want to know everything, Harling. I want to know when this started. I want to know everything you know, and I want to know what you plan to do about this.”

Harling and I side eyed each other. Blake spoke up.

“Fine, we’ll tell you when this started. But as far as what we know, it’s this and the one other time we saw this same thing, that’s it. That, and it seems to mainly happen in husbands and wives. At least that’s what we suspect so far. And what we plan to do about this?” He gestured to the man laying on the floor. “Nothing. I think it’s out of our world, whatever it is, so there’s really nothing we can do about it. Plus, it hasn’t happened in over 4 years, so it doesn’t seem too urgent.”

CACHHHHH

“BLAKE, HARLING, DO YOU COPY??” I heard what sounded like far off gunshots in my walkie.

Jenny and I shot Blake a worried look.

“This might be urgent again.” I said.

Part 4 will be released soon.

Monsters Inside, by Leeann Diaz