Smiles

Mctussie Case: Aftermath

This might have been the end of the letter. But I was curious on what happened to Fillmore McTussie. I packed my things and went there for the second time. It was just how I remembered it, the town was any like other, beautiful parks, cement roads, great trees around the town. I stopped by the Police Station to check for information relating to an earlier case.

None so far.

I passed by the High School were a girl died during her prom. Poor girl. An unfortunate event. Very Tragic. It involved a love triangle and a toothbrush, weird I know.

I followed the road that leads into the woods. It was still early in the morning, the lake nearby caused a thick fog that made visibility hard. I drove slowly in fear that I might have hit something.

Eventually I did, just a slight thud, he didn’t mind he only let out a slight yelp, it was Samuel. The local drug addict, whom I got an acquaintance with the last time I visited here. He saw Third’s beating and eventually saved the poor child. Shame he was murdered after.

“ Oi, is that yous?” He called out to me, seemed he recognize my car.

“ Samuel!? How you’ve been? Before that, Get out of the road! This is the second time I almost run you over with my car.”

I unlocked the doors and greeted my old friend. Luckily, I didn’t damage his leg like the last time, I had to bring him to the ER and pay his medical bills. Cost me around a few hundred, me and him started to be friends ever since.

Mostly so that he won’t sue me in court.

That was a joke of course, for the most part that is. But I trust him, he helped me with a case the last time. I let him into my car and explained to him why I am in the town once again. His face was full of concern.

“I didn’t, did-did, did not like that that McTussie.” He stutters a lot due to drug abuse, he is trying to go clean. “He didn’t seem to be la like the person on that le letter you got. That is for my  mine perspective”

I looked at him with surprise. “ Mind telling me more?”

“Ka can’t say fo for sure. Oh only met hima few times outside the bar”

“You were asking for some some weren’t ya Samuel? Didn’t we talk about that?”

“Na now wait. Tha that was a few years ago. I’m a a changed man. Yous already know that”

“Forgive me, I worry for you.” In a sense, I was.

“Do don’t mention it. So so anyways, he fo fought with a fa farmer guy. I believe it was Sti Steve?”

“I see”

“I I I am going with yous. Fo for yous backup.”

“I thought you didn’t fancy this?”

He stayed silent and then we together headed. A few minutes later, still in the fog, he started talking about how he has been living. I left him some money and used it to get him cleaned. Some business owners wouldn’t hire him due to his past, but he got a job as a janitor in the local Police Department as a pity.

He then continued how he was almost shot when he went hunting with one of the police officers. His laughter filled the car, unlike before where he only filled it with stench. Eventually we arrived at a clearing but the Fog was still thick and milky.

I saw the pump sign still standing in the distance but its LED lights are no longer functioning so it’s just sticking out of the cloud like a lonely tower. We parked at the side of the road to find the house. It was my first time arriving at this destination. We can only see a few feet in front of use so we had to be careful.

“Di This place is giving me the ji ji jitters”

We arrived to cement ground. I thought we must be in the gasoline station. Then I heard a yelp from Samuel. I looked around and I didn’t see him.

“Je Jesus Fa f*****g Christ! OW!” I followed his voice.

As if some miracle happened, the fog in the area cleared revealing something I wouldn’t believe to actually happen. He lay in a crater the size of a swimming pool and wide as a truck. Pipes and rubble littered the crater floor.

“You are laying in McTussie’s pump, well what is left of it. He did write that his pump exploded but I didn’t believe it at first. But here we are”

Samuel picked himself up “So tha that explained the la loud explosion I heard some ta time ago. Wo woke me up ee it did. Get me out of here.”

I crouched and let out my hand. But as I was pulling him up, a loud bang echoed through the surrounding woods.

A gunshot.

 Me and Samuel looked at each other. Stayed silent and walked slowly not to make a sound. Samuel was still shaking.

“I do don’t like this”

“Neither do I”

Then we heard a woman screaming. I ran towards fog following the sound, I can hear Samuel complaining behind me “Yo yous don’t have to run to towards people screaming. Yo yous run away from it!” but he followed suit either way.

In the fog appeared a two story brick house, windows were still in construction, I can see some of the brick pieces missing, and the flowers all dried up. It was a depressing sight. I opened the door which still had plastic on its door knob.

Inside was what it look like it was still in construction. Plastic covering some furniture, walls were half painted, and boxes scattered around the place. The lights were on, it illuminated the place like a safe haven in the fog.

“Is anyone there!?” I shouted into it.

I can hear, sobbing. Samuel behind was behind me. I gave him my phone.

“Run if anything happens and call the police but stay behind me for now”

“Do do I have to? Fa follow yous I me mean”

The noise was coming upstairs. I crept upstairs, and as I popped my head out of the second floor I can see an old lady standing in a dark hall way staring inside a room. The room’s made her a sickly blue glow. The light probably came from the window as it seemed natural.

“Miss McTussie?”

I reached out to her but out of curiosity I peeked inside the room. And I was stunned with fear. It was disturbed as  I heard Samuel approaching me, pulling me out from disbelief. I closed the door immediately.

“DON’T GO NEAR! TAKE MISS MCTUSSIE AND CALL THE POLICE! AND DON’T LOOK INSIDE THIS ROOM!”

“Wa what’s wrong?”

“You don’t want to know. Take madam outside and watch over her. She’s in shock, as I was as well.”

He looked at me with concern and did it. As I saw them disappear downstairs, I opened that wretched door and truth behold, my eyes were not lying to what I have seen.

In the left far corner was a bed, neatly tidied up, the window besides it showing the fog is still around. To the right were some boxes and a partially open wardrobe. And near to that was a mirror and a table with a chair.

Resting on that chair was a body with no head.

On the floor lay a gun and besides it was a piece of paper. The ceiling was filled with crimson red splattered with pieces of brain tissue and skulls pieces. Blood flooded the table as the upper abdomen leaned against it. Blood was still pouring out of the neck as if some sick fountain.

Samuel popped out of the door way “Ye yeah what is wro-“ he puked at the sight. I believed I almost have too.

“Did you call the police?”

“Ya yah I di-“ he puked some more.

I felt sick at the sight as well. It was a scene that will continue to haunt me up to this day. The body of a partially fat old man, his overalls stained with blood, left hand above the gun and a pool of red where his corpse sat.

I picked the piece of yellow paper before the red pool can take it; splatter of blood can be seen on the surface. I think what might have happened was he read something that made him kill himself. I thought it was a suicide not left by the diseased? Or left for the recently diseased.

We will never know as that paper was blank.