SHADOWS OF KAYLA

VAN BEGINS

Kayla.

My head ached from trying to cry but not being able to. The weight of hearing about the cause of my death and who was responsible for it was perturbing. I was starting to get shivers of both dejection and hate surging through my bones. My jaws ached from gritting my teeth so hard, and the knot in my stomach tightened stronger.

I watched dad, after almost crying his eyes out, standing from the corpse on the floor. Alarmed by the blaring sirens from the ambulance outside the gates of the building, dad turned hysterically around, trying to figure out what he was going to do. Standing in a building with two dead people and a g*n in his hand was certainly not going to make him pass a mere good Samaritan, that I understood.

He stuffed his fireman back where he had taken it from, chuffing as he scurried back to the passageway to grab his bag. He was hurrying down the steps before running into the men from the hospital, whom he led to the first floor with a point of his finger. His back flattened against the wall, he waited for them to pass with the stretcher.

“There's two of them," dad muttered to one of them before hurrying down the stairs.

Dad was grabbed gently by the arm by one of the men standing outside. Who later introduced himself as a police officer, by flashing his ID quickly in dad's face before returning it to his wallet. He was not in uniform, so were two other men whom I guessed were policemen too.

I was palpitating where I stood, scared that they might really lock up dad in jail if things went south. Then there'd be no one at home, and Van would probably kill Tom and mum while Dad rotted away in jail.

Dad, however stayed calm, although I could imagine the apprehension that must have been building up inside him.

“Just a few questions, sir. You called the ambulance, eh?”

Dad nodded,

“Yes. Yes.”

“And could you tell us what you think happened?” the policeman quizzed.

“Uh…I got a call from the man….the dead man I mean…”

“Which of them? I see two dead men over there,” the policeman interrupted with a kind of subtlety in his voice that made me more uncomfortable.

Dad turned instinctively at the stretchers that were getting wheeled into the ambulance, nodding his head quickly before facing the policeman again.

“The old man, he called me…I mean I called him to talk…to inform about something urgent. Then I had a feeling something was happening on the other end of the call. I heard some noise, you see?”

“Hmm,” the man nodded his head, urging dad to continue, while he continued to access him.

“I thought something might have been wrong, so I came here and saw that he had been shot.”

“You don't seem to know anything about the other guy. Did you see him too? Was he dead before or after you got here?”

“I have no idea about that, Mister. I had no idea there were two of them in the building until the ambulance arrived. I had called the emergency and reported only for one, 'cause that was what I saw at the time,” dad lied.

“Hmm. And this information you speak of—the one you called to tell the old man, do you think it might be related to all of this?”

“No,” dad lied confidently again, but I was scared he was soon going to betray himself in front of the nimble-looking man.

“Was he dead before you got to him?”

“No, we spoke even.”

“Did he say anything about who might have been responsible?”

“No, he said other things, totally unrelated.”

“Things like…”

“Personal things, officer.”

The man sighed briefly before responding to dad,

“Well, that doesn't matter now, does it? This is a murder case right here. You'll be doing yourself, the man and us a favour if you don't withold any information.”

“Things about how he loved his family and how I should help find his daughter and tell her he loves her. Stuff like that, do you get now, officer?”

The policemen nodded, continuing to scribble words in the notepad in his hand.

“And the other man, you said you don't know about him?”

“I clearly said that.”

“Excuse me,” the policeman courtesied to dad, while he attended to a man who approached him with a brown envelope. There were already printed photographs of the incident in it.

“Hmm," the man hummed amusedly while he checked the photos one after the other.

“And you said you don't know anything about the other man, right?” The policeman asked dad again, not taking his eyes off the pictures in his hands. There was now clear evidence that dad was lying.

“Y—yes?”

“Mister….?”

“Joe Jenkins.”

“Mister Joe Jen—kins. Hmm. We'll be needing you at our station, so please cooperate with us,” he told dad. And without waiting for a reaction from Dad, he signalled the other men to take dad to the police vehicle. Dad obeyed with no words, and my chest pounded faster in fear.

“I'll go check the place myself,” he whispered to another officer, traipsing into the building.

***

I hurried back home from the depot to try and find a way to let mum in on all that was happening. But on getting inside the house, I was met by the petite nurse's unconscious body on the floor. Following the chills that went up my spine was a loud chime in my head, making me fly up the stairs for Tom.

He was not in his room and no where in the house either.

My mind raced around with several thoughts, making me go insane. Dad barged madly into the room to my surprise. At first, I wondered how he was home so quickly, seeing he had left with the police a while ago. But I didn't care too long because it was good he had returned.

He stared at the unconscious woman for a few seconds, awestruck, before leaping over her small frame for the stairs. Soon, he hurried back down, panting profusely and roughly scratching through his hair. He palpitated, taking his out his phone from his pocket.

“Pick up, Sandie. Please pick up,” he sang worrisomely, tapping his foot impatiently on the wooden floors.

‘The recipient is not answering, please try again later.’

“Please, no,” he cried in a whisper as he put the phone to his ear again.

‘The person you're trying to call, is not reachable at the moment. Please leave a message, or…’

Dad flung his phone to the chair, absentmindedly watching it bounce once, twice before it crashed to the floor. He walked over to the unconscious nurse and tapped her, gently at first, then roughly the second and further tries.

She let out a low squeak before blinking her dark brown eyes open, staring up into dad's face as he looked down at her.

“Is that you, sir?” She mumbled fraily.

“Yes, yes,” he answered quickly and pulled her to sit up. She almost slumped back weakly to the floor before dad steadied her with a firm grip to her shoulders.

“What happened here?”

“Tom. I think they took him,” she whispered and amidst a struggle for breath.

“Who were they?”

“It happened so fast…I was suffocated with some chemical…but I saw them taking him before it all went black,”

Dad frowned, gritting his teeth. He was boiling with anger. A beep from his phone sent him turning sharply in the direction of the sound. He crawled quickly to pick up the call, letting go of the poor lady who fell back down to the floor unconscious again.

A familiar husky voice filtered through the phone's speaker,

“I'm sure you know where to find me. You know quite well it'd cost me no more than two small bullets to finish off your wife and son.”