Living (Un)dead

Living Up To It, part III

"What do you mean, they kicked

you out?" Christy yelled over the phone.

The sun was setting over the

police station parking lot by the time I was dropped off at my car and I wasted no time in calling my own police force from the phone in the lobby.

"I mean," I hissed through gritted teeth, "Detective

Grumpelstiltskin has invited me to get the hell out of his way, and while his arrogance is overwhelming, somehow I don't feel assured."

"Oh, s**t! So, we're going baddie

hunting?? Let me get dressed! I'll call Alice!" She disconnected.

Laughing to myself, I got in my car and went to pick them up.

Good thing I was already wearing my ass-kicking boots.

The first girl had been found in a

warehouse more akin to a really big abandoned barn, and it smelled like it, too. In a former life it must have been a s*******r house.

It was isolated but not the only building out here.

From what I was gathering; all the scenes were remote, not well known, and relatively abandoned but still marginally maintained, which meant an occasional car would not be out of place.

It was a smart approach to crime. Our murderer was clever, which I could admire and loath at the same time.

Smart was the new sexy, after all.

I was no expert, but it looked to me like a local was most likely to know about these places.

"I don't know if we should be

doing this, isn't it illegal to disturb a crime scene?" Alice fretted, glancing around.

"Only if we get caught!" Christy

said excitedly. And loudly.

"Yes, which will happen much faster if you don't keep it down," I rolled my eyes at her.

At this point in the evening we

were standing outside the Warehouse of Murder as I tried to remember what my da had taught me about picking locks.

It's pretty difficult when you're out of practice and in the dark. And wearing gloves.

"I don't like just standing here,"

Alice chimed in again.

"We should do a perimeter check!" Christy was practically bouncing into space, her energy barely contained.

"I don't think it's a good idea to

split up, this place feels....I don't know, not right?" I shivered.

Not right didn't really cover it. Upsetting? Disturbing? None of those words really covered it.

This place felt almost hungry, like the rotted boards and concrete were some kind of hulking monster, waiting for something to happen.

Like three idiots playing detective.

The lock the police left on the door finally popped open and I wasted no time whipping it off so we could hurry inside.

As I shut the door behind us an

unimaginable smell assaulted our

noses. It was roadkill that had baked in the sun for two days, had a port-a-potty's contents dumped on it, and then someone vomited on top of all that.

I tried to stifle a gag.

I had never smelled putrified person before, much less mixed with eau de s*******r-house.

The view wasn't much better; blood was still splashed everywhere, old and new. On stalls used to hold the long-gone animals, the floor, walls; some had even splashed up to the catwalks above us. Arterial spray from when the girl's throat was cut. The rest was an echoing emptiness between the vaulted ceiling and where machinery had been removed from cement plinths.

One had been used as an altar, of sorts. A human sacrifice in a place saturated with the unwilling deaths of so many animals.

Odd symbols stood out, darker than the old blood, slightly obscured by the blood thrown from the vicious thrashing of the victim.

"I'm going to vomit!" Alice moaned, clutching her stomach.

"If you do, we'll definitely get

caught and arrested," Christy warned her.

"f**k," Alice groaned, eyes going wide.

"Do you know how long it took to find the first girl? I mean, how long was she dead before they found her?" I asked, pinching my nose.

"I think the news said she was

dead for a day before they found her," Christy answered, twisting one way then the other, ogling to take it all in.

"Just one day? Then why does it

stink so bad?" I huffed trying to only breathe through my mouth. That almost made it worse and I fought down a wave of nausea.

"It doesn't smell that bad...." Alice disagreed, looking confused. "It looks awful," she added forcefully.

They both stared at me in askance, confused.

Well, that made all of us.

"You said you were going to vomit...just because of how it looks?” I pressed Alice.

"Because of all the blood," she

answered. Like duh, of course that's why.

That's when I noticed it wasn't a

smell at all, just my brain trying to interpret a feeling into something I could understand. Being here made me feel so wrong, so awful, that it

presented itself as a horrendous smell.

But Alice and Christy seemed unaffected.

Was this a residual memory? Something trying to fight to the surface? Had I been here for the murder? If I had, was there some kind of evidence of my presence? Was that why Hein was so hostile?

"Do a spell!" Christy demanded

suddenly, making me jump.

"I can't," I mumbled, still lost in thought.

"How do you know?" Alice asked. She had decided that she'd seen enough, and had her eyes closed."Have you tried?"

Huh. She made a good point.

"I mean..." I shook my head, at a loss. "What do I even say?"

"I don't know. Make it something

about finding the killer or some clues."

"Golly, that's helpful," I said

sarcastically. "How about...

Find the killer or some clues,

Maybe both, so I don't have to

choose?"

"Boooooo!" Christy heckled.

Alice snickered.

"Um, excuse. It's harder than it looks!" I pressed my lips together.

They should try coming up

with a good rhyme on the fly.

"I got it!" Christy gasped. "Killer, we want to find. Help us out so we aren't blind!"

"That's as bad as mine," I scoffed.

I turned to Alice expectantly. "You're up."

Alice shrugged, eyes still firmly clamped shut. "I don't have

anything better. Try it."

"Fine," I huffed. "Killer, we want to find. Help us out so we aren't blind."

We all went still, waiting.

Nothing happened.

"You have to say it three times!"

Christy burst out.

Alice turned to her, sqinty eyed.

"Where did you get that from?” she asked suspiciously.

"Uh.... Charmed," Christy giggled.

"Oh, my God," Alice snorted,

rolling her eyes.

"Maybe if you snap your fingers?" Christy asked, turning back to me.

I crossed my eyes and stuck my

tongue out at her.

Fine. Worth a try.

"Ahem," I said for emphasis, sliding a sardonic glace their way. "Killer, we want to find. Help us out so we aren't blind." And then I snapped my fingers.

We all looked around curiously.

"Soooo, how long are we supposed to wait to see if it worked?" Alice asked after maybe thirty seconds.

I blew out a sigh. Guess I wasn't naturally gifted at magic.

I had just opened my mouth to suggest something else when Christy elbowed me, hard.

"Holy Balls!" She yelled. "What is that?"

She pointed to the base of the altar, where a glowing shoe print had appeared, and what looked

like...hooves?

We hurried over to see better when a hand print appeared, too. The "altar" was really just a big block of concrete, large enough for two people. In the crime scene pictures, the girl had been placed in the middle of the slab, but now a glowing outline appeared off to one side.

And the outline of an ass appeared on the other.

The hand and foot prints, that looked like they belonged to a man, moved in front of the waiting ass, then moved away.

More prints started to appear, as if an invisible person, who had dipped their hands and feet in phosphorous, was moving around. This person knelt

near the hooves for a minute and then an outline of a goat appeared on the floor.

Poor little guy. Why does the goat always get it?

The person walked around the altar, kneeling at each symbol painted in blood causing them to glow, and came back to the altar with the two outlines. The feet stayed at the top of the altar by the head of the body, then wisked over to the person sitting.

We had all leaned in to make sure we wouldn't miss anything, especially after the goat, so when the soft moaning started we were all taken by surprise.

"Is it a ghost?!" Alice

asked, panicked, practically dancing in place.

"No?" Christy whispered uncertainty, wide-eyed. "Ghosts don't actually go around rattling chains and moaning...right?"

I was about to say that I didn't think so, when the unmistakable sound of flesh smacking flesh began.

"Um...is that what I think it is?"

The rhythmic smacking increased pace, bringing more, and enthusiastic, moaning that no one could mistake for a ghost.

Maybe a hella horny ghost.

All we could see was feet and the ass, bouncing happily, back and forth, when it stopped and the feet backed up. Loud face-sucking commented.

"Did you see that?? Dude has a prize hog, right there. But it can't have been fun to drag that across concrete. He should be more careful." Christy tisked.

"He's a multi-murderer." My lip curled in disgust. "He's my murderer. I hope it f*****g hurt."

"Probably, it did. That thing has to have some weight to it," Alice said sagely. "You think he's done already? That was short."

"Isn't it always?" I snorted.

The feet shifted and knee imprints appeared. The person on the altar shifted to a leaning, reclining position. The outline of her back slim and petite.

Soft, wet sounds floated through the air.

The moaning resumed louder and more enthusiastically than before.

"Anyone else think she's laying it on kinda thick?" Christy asked suspiciously. "It can't be that good."

The moaning turned to panting and gasping as the victim lost herself in carnal pleasure.

Soft masculine grunts joined her as the toes and knees shifted, a hand print flashed into being, as knuckles from the other hand brushed the altar. Presumably, when he pumped his fingers into her while suckling her c**t.

Standing here listening to their liaison was uncomfortablely arousing, and really embarrassing.

An image of Hein, sweaty and panting, hovering above...someone popped into my head.

I felt hot all over and I tried to shake the images away.

The heavy breathing reached a crescendo as the victim felt her petite morte and cried out in ecstasy.

The moment of pleasure turned into horror as her happy exclamation turned into a shrill scream that was quickly cut off.

A low, frantic gurgling kept time with the victim's urgent thrashing.

I took a silly step forward, desperate to help, to do anything, but it was obviously far too late. This was just an echo and wishing I could reach back in time to stop this from happening was pointless. Wishing and hoping and regret would not, could not bring this girl back.

Feeling utterly helpless, I tried to blink away frustrated tears, but they wouldn't stop falling.

Seeing the aftermath was one thing, but living through a poor girl's murder wasn't something I thought I could handle again, ever.

I swallowed hard and turned to see Christy and Alice were equally shaken, but it wasn't over yet.

The invisible man stood for a moment, maybe waiting for something to happen, before picking up the second outline. Since it was no longer in contact with the ground it disappeared. He then dragged the victim's

outline into the middle of the slab. His feet hesitated, paced a bit, and walked out of the warehouse pushing something; what could have been wheels left glowing tracks.

He did not return.

We stood in silence for a moment, uncertain how to proceed. If we even should.

"We should go, what if someone

heard?" Alice finally offered.

Christy nodded solemnly.

Casting my gaze around one last time, I could honestly say I couldn't see any reason to stay.

We had learned what we could.

As we shuffled to the car, I

wondered if the police knew what we had just witnessed.

The footprints hadn't been visible to the eye, which was odd; the murderer would have had to have stepped in at least a little blood, it was everywhere, but there were no bloody foot prints. The wheel tracks hadn't shown up either. How was that

possible? A spell maybe?

Christy and Alice had had enough sleuthing for one night so I took them home, but the thought kept nagging at

me. The police needed to know what I had seen.

Heavy sigh.

How inconvenient, now I'd have to go confess to trespassing and disturbing a crime scene. Maybe Knight would take my statement and say it was anonymous.