This story continues from
http://pirate.planetarion.com/showthread.php?t=187930
Detective Debreu was a man in his early 40’s who had aged well. He had kept his waist as thin as it had been in his youth. The wrinkles beginning to crease his face worked in his favor. They drew attention to his serious eyes and had not disturbed his perpetual easeful expression. Sgt. Clark and Sgt. Walras worked for him. He was the senior detective for the homicide division of the 22nd precinct for the large Maryland port city of New Dresden. It was a large booming town, a city on its way to fast becoming one of the largest metropolitan areas on the east coast. At the moment, however, it seemed to be a city in a lot of trouble. Due to this morning’s events, its wealthiest community seemed to be in some sort of creeping jeopardy.
All three men were inside a make shift headquarters, an old police trailer set up on the now blocked off High Street. Their eyes focused on a bright black and white television screen. The video setup connected to it was feeding it a security tape from the Blehr Lobby on a ten second loop. It had taken them a few minutes of rewinding to find the occurrence of the murders, but whatever hopes for answer they held onto fragmented into pieces, and more so with each play of the loop. Sgt Clark’s dark brown eyes focused on an object on the screen that defied any sound judgment or useful rationalization he tried to conceive for it.
It was possibly a man, a black blur on a black and white screen with terrible contrast. The cameras had caught the entire spectacle excellently. The loop begins with the desk clerk looking into a computer monitor, while the security guard stood next to him with his arm resting on the lobby counter. The picture was too indistinct to show if they were speaking, but the guard was gesticulating with this free hand. This vignette lasted about four seconds. In the fifth second of the loop, just around the corner, completely out of the view of the two men, but in full view of the camera was a door that led to one of the condominium’s two stairwells. It slowly opened and the object emerged, like a shadow growing from the darkness of the stairwell. It moved swiftly into the lobby, remaining out of view for a moment, seeming to stare through the wall at the two men. The moment passed and the obscurity dashed from behind the corner wailing its broad black arms in a quick frenzy as it jumped, and cleared, the entire space of the lobby, landing on the edge of the counter. The figure’s left arm stuck into the clerk, the right into the neck of the guard. The encounter ended as rapidly as it began, the men dropping to the floor and the object charging into the direction of the building exit. The loop played again.
“Look at this here.” Walras approached the television. His finger traced the curves of the object’s arms as it flung itself into the air with one rapid motion.
“These arms seem too broad, but I think it may be the perspective.”
“Where is everyone?” Debreu said softly, once Walras had broken the silence. “Just where is everyone? There are fifteen hundred people in that building, and where are they? Why aren’t they coming out?” He tapped his chin with his index finger. “The other building has something like a thousand people in there, that are also supposed to be waking up right now, and going to work, school, I don’t know, somewhere! Nobody is answering their phone. Where are they?”
“Let’s play one of the hallway tapes from the floors.” Walras walked over to the setup. He pushed something that clicked, the loop disappeared, and the monitor turned into a loud crackling screen of snow. Clark reached over and turned down the volume. After a few moments of fumbling, Walras stepped back from the screen. “This is the third floor of the Blehr building, I think this tape stops at 5 am.” The snow on the television set turned into a quiet black and white image of a hallway.
“Why don’t we put it on fast backtrack to see if we can spot any movement,” Clark suggested after shuffling his arms a bit.
“No! Wait, look!” Debreu exclaimed. His finger pointed at one of the doors in the playback. “It’s open. There’s something on the floor there.” All three men gathered around and stared intently.
“What is it?” Debreu asked.
“I think…I think it’s a…it’s a hand,” came Walras. “It’s just lying there, poking out from behind the door.”
A chill fell over Debreu. “I fear they’re all dead,” he whispered.
“Impossible!” stammered Clark. “Because of what? The lobby? This hand, here?”
Debreu looked at Clark’s unshaven chin as he spoke. He noticed a faint whiff of alcohol coming from Clark’s direction. “Let’s get some men up there,” said the detective.
“Sgt Clark,” cackled the radio. It was Martinez. Debreu grabbed the radio from the counter on which it lay.
“Martinez, it’s Debreu, get Team A to start clearing floors from the bottom up on Blehr, use extreme caution, and enter every room, break down the doors if they need to. Get people into the Potsdam, too. Got it?”
“Sir.”
“What?”
“A man just emerged from the Potsdam elevator, he’s a resident, his name is James Baldwin.”
The three men in the confines of the dank police trailer looked at each other.
“What floor is he from?” Debreu spoke into the radio.
“He said he lives on the 16th floor.”
“That’s one of the top floors,” said Clark.
Debreu’s eyes grew wide. “It’s still happening! It’s still in there killing!” He made a fist. “Right now!” In a frenzy he grabbed his coat and barged out of the trailer shouting orders into the radio. Clark and Walras followed.
Linear Mode
