Sunday, April 14, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Eight – Part One
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Eight: Concerning Birds and Clones
October 24th , 2002
6:47 p.m.
Kestrel McLeary sat on a couch in the den of her Long Island home and looked at the television. She barely paid attention to the story; she was thinking of something else. She was thinking that she was a little too old and experienced to be making a slip-up like that one. She hadn’t just been seen, but photographed. She had looked right at the camera and gotten her damn picture taken as good as a mug shot. All while trying to take that stupid picture again. She didn’t even like The Scream, but it had been a pride thing. Take the painting instead of swiping jewels all the time, and she got caught for it, or thought that she had. The camera had looked right at her, it couldn’t have been helped.
Then it had been those stupid diamonds, those goddamn stupid diamonds. She had only had them in her possession for maybe two hours before dropping them off, but they had somehow been connected to her. It was just supposed to be a little drop off to get a little money and apparently they had her.
The people in her neighborhood had been avoiding her the last few days, the police had been asking questions. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know before, everyone had known who and what she was, or she thought they had. They avoided her nonetheless though and this marked difference in their attitude could only mean one thing really. The only question was when the police would come kicking the door down and slapping the cuffs on her. She wished they’d hurry up, as she was getting tired of waiting for them.
She had more or less guessed the time of their arrival within a few hours. She knew the date, and that they would come in the evening. They didn’t need helicopters as far as they knew. They thought that they could just walk in on her. That wasn’t to say there wouldn’t be helicopters, since they used those whirly birds for everything these days. There wasn’t the sound of any helicopters just yet, but there wouldn’t be just yet would there?
She was preparing for their impending visit in the fashion of all polite hosts. She had set out some cookies and a large bottle of very expensive whiskey. However, it was taking them an awfully long time to arrive, and she had already opened the whiskey. It would be a shame to let the whiskey go bad and turn to vinegar, so she figured she’d better start drinking. By the time she remembered that it was wine that had to be consumed immediately and not whiskey, she’d already consumed over half the bottle and once you’re at that point, why stop?
She looked at the photograph again, a bad photo, but still her. Her face had been photographed in the act, which meant she’d been burned, connected to a crime. Thieves don’t really have what you might call a code of conduct, but they do have rules of thumb, one of which said you don’t keep working in a place if they have a photograph of you committing a crime. This rule, like most others, exists for a very good reason. She should have cleared out a while ago, she knew that of course, but she was tired. She had enough money to hire an excellent lawyer and simply the fact that so many countries wanted to have a word with her would keep her bouncing around for a while.
She couldn’t think straight, the whisky rolling around inside her made things fuzzy at the edges. She felt that she had drank the first one to help take the edge off, and found the edge to be quite sharp and the dulling of it required a few more drinks than she had originally anticipated. Then of course whisky has that habit of not hitting you all at once, or at least it didn’t hit her all at once. By the time she had come to the conclusion that she was going to be drunk, she had already taken a few too many.
She looked from the newspaper shot of her to the television where the newsreader was complaining about how violence had plagued the city again. They were showing footage of The Weirdo, trying to gather himself and chase after someone. Another shot came to the screen and the passing resemblance between the man in the red coat and The Weirdo was mentioned. The red man’s picture was kept on the screen for a long time and she watched it with great interest.
Her attention was fixed entirely on the glowing screen, something about the smile on the face of the red-coated man looked familiar. There was something about the two men which made her shudder. There was something there, something deep within her long disavowed memories. It was like having something stuck in one’s teeth that you just can’t get to. It wasn’t something that she could identify, but she knew it was deeply unpleasant. In a sudden move she clicked a button on the remote control, blanking the screen. Still feeling chilled; she retreated from the den, wanting to not think about it any more.
She walked out of the room and began to ascend the stairs, holding the rail to steady herself. The oak rail felt warm beneath her fingers, she moved up the cold stairs and looked around her with a sudden feeling of impending danger. She looked over the loft where the stairway ended and glanced at the front room. Something wasn’t right, and she could feel it. She thought it had something to do with the twinkling of the lights outside, but it was hard to think past the alcohol. She looked outside and shook her head again, trying to remember what those particular lights meant.
Moonlight shone down brightly through the enormous skylight, bathing her bed in its blue-white light. She ran her fingers over the king sized bed and felt the firmness of the springs. She thought of sleeping for a moment, as she was very tired, but that same danger instinct wouldn’t allow it. Finally, she entered the adjoining bathroom and flipped on a light. Standing before the whirlpool bathtub, she turned on the faucets, watching as the porcelain tub began to fill.
She pulled her shirt over her head, tossing it to the tiled floor before stepping out of her jeans. The air felt cold, goose pimples rising on her flesh making her shudder a little. She looked around at the people who were assembling outside and moved more quickly. She had completely forgotten about the jewel theft, which had led them here, and forgotten about the photograph of her.
She slid her left foot into the warm water and then lowered herself into the tub. Flipping a switch on the small control panel to turn on the jets, she leaned back into the water with a sigh. Her eyes unfocused, she gazed out the window at the blue and red twinkles and let her mind wander. The lights were so pretty. She wondered what they were. They were flashing brightly in red and blue, reflecting off the houses. She knew that she should have some idea what those lights mean but it was hard to remember.
Her mind was sluggish with whisky and tears, moving like a drunk trying to negotiate his way down a particularly difficult street. It was a particularly old drunk, one who had wandered the streets for a long time and had been drunk nearly every night of his life. She didn’t have any memories left anymore because the booze had washed them all away, over a thousand nights. The old drunk of her mind slid from one lamp post to the other, trying to decide where to flop down for the night.
October 24th, 2002
7:00 p.m.
“Keep those damn lights off!” Detective Murphy yelled. “God, do you wanna let her get away?”
‘The police were readying themselves for a raid on the house.’ Detective Murphy thought to himself. ‘The woman inside, known as Kestrel McLeary, was an oft suspected but never actually arraigned jewel thief. She was very careful, very clever at covering her tracks, but someone had finally caught her in the act of taking a consignment of Swedish diamonds, though only on paper. They hadn’t been able to get her in America, until now. After that, it was only a matter of getting the warrants; and now, finally, they could storm the house. They loaded the rubber pellet guns and gas guns, they were going to take this one alive. There was going to be no slip-ups this time, this time they’d take her.’
It’s no use trying to make excuses, this is actually the way Detective Murphy narrated his life. What can you do with a person who narrates his life, particularly with such a bad script? He would have said all of this out loud had his men not been close enough to hear him. Here was the sort of man who put an unlit cigar in his mouth because while he liked to be seen with a cigar he couldn’t stand the smell of one lit. There is, I’m afraid, no hope for poor Detective Murphy. He wasn’t actually a bad guy, it was just that he wanted to be in an action movie. He wanted to be the kind of cop he had seen on TV as a child, and was terribly disappointed that he had been a real police officer. Starsky and Hutch never showed the massive amount of paperwork that was required. That being said, he was currently having more fun than he had ever had in his entire life.
A shotgun was put close to the doorknob, Kestrel’s head slipped under water, holding her nose. The gun fired and the knob and surrounding door was suddenly pocked heavily. The heavy thick door ram, held by two officers, swung in and broke the knob away from the door. Kestrel raised her head above the water as the front door was flung violently inwards. The door smacked against a small table and knocked a cheap glass candlestick off the table. It didn’t break as it hit the wood floor, but it clanged loudly. In a flash of understanding, she realized what the twinkling light had meant. She cursed herself for not seeing it earlier, and cursed herself again for allowing herself the weakness of getting drunk. Even now her mind felt fogged, her muscles not quite in sync with her will. Rising, as quickly as uncooperative limbs would allow, she got out of the bath and shook her head around to get some of the excess water off. Then, fumbling for precious seconds with the latch opened the window as wide as it would go. One punch knocked the screen out to fall the ground a story below. The rush of cold air revived her somewhat, clearing her mind just enough to think.
She closed her eyes for a moment, focused her willpower, and her body began to shrink. It seemed to waver, as it grew smaller, changing form. Her bare legs thinned, flesh becoming scaled and toes become claws. Her arms stretched out, becoming wings, and feathers replaced hair all over her body. When the police broke into the bathroom, they found a mottled brown bird the size of a robin. It was in fact a Kestrel, the smallest of all falcons. It looked at them and shook its head in irritation.
“What the hell is that?” Murphy yelled.
“It’s a bird, sir,” one of the officers said.
The little bird flapped its wings and flew out the open sky light window.
“Stop it!” Murphy yelled, but the bird was already gone. He could tell that with the bird probably went his current prospects for a promotion.
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions
Friday, April 12, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Seven – Part Four
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Seven: Face to Face
October 24th, 2002
4:21 p.m.
The Weirdo hadn’t actually stuck around to talk to the police as he had been in no mood for their antics. They would likely make a whole bunch of not funny jokes and would all express faux concern for him because he hadn’t killed everyone. Then he would shoot one of them in the leg or break one of their noses and they would all get offended because he couldn’t take a joke. Nevermind the fact that if they had been there, they would have just been another set of corpses in the wake of that red leather encased lunatic. They were to him a fairly useless lot and since he didn’t have to talk to them he rarely did.
Besides, he was going to hear enough of that if he actually bothered to turn the television on later. The cable news pundits would be all over this one, decrying what a blood bath it was and how dangerous the city was because of him and his kind. They would conveniently forget the fact that the drive-by shootings had gone from daily occurrences to having nearly vanished in the two and a half years he had been around. They would forget that the mob was no longer in this town. They would forget everything in fact. It was going to be all his fault.
He thought of going to a few of the news stations and just shooting a few of the cable news pundits, so that they would have a legitimate axe to grind against him. It was the daily reminder that they had begun to revise his actions over the last few years. They had really revised their thoughts since he had been hiding away They had all decided that it would be a lot better if he hadn’t shown up. They would all have preferred the mob rule of the city, as it had been when the mayor had been shot openly on the steps of city hall two months before The Weirdo returned. How that shooting had never actually been investigated, they had simply arrested two blacks from Harlem and they had been conveniently hung on a lamppost the same night.
That sort of thing apparently didn’t bother them, but being able to walk the streets did. The cable news guys would prefer all the costumed superheroes, The Weirdo in particular, would just go away now that the city was becoming safer. He stood outside a McDonalds with a large order of French fries in his hand and thought about how they were going to attack him on this one.
He also thought about what Loki had said about the street gangs though. They had just been looking for someone to lead them. They had just needed a god they could believe in, that’s what he had said. He thought that if he wanted to gain an army he would go to the street gangs and teach them about strategy, form them into a loosely collected fighting force. Let them each do their own thing, but all taking orders from him. He had the perfect disenfranchised angry groups to fight for him. All they needed was the promise of a place where they could be men on their own terms. They had just taken the old tribal system and he had adapted it. He thought about how his old friend Sun would have done this and thought there would be a few changes, but it was such a perfect collection of lads. They weren’t afraid to die, only to live without honor. They had just wanted respect and he was giving it to them.
He bit into a French fry and thought about the problem, and couldn’t see an easy solution. The only useable solution was to shoot all of them and he had been trying to avoid that as it was. They had already been in a situation where they’d killed so many in one room they had stood in blood up to their knees, he had no desire to do that again. It had all worked out in the end, but he didn’t want to pull it off a second time.
He just stood for a moment, on the busy sidewalk and ate his fries, watching the traffic go by and glancing at the girls as they strode by in their high leather boots and other autumn clothes. He liked the autumn weather clothes better than any other. They had a way of revealing in a covered way. You could watch the movement of legs encased in jeans, and note the buttocks as they shifted. You could try and guess how the movement of the sweater disguised the bosom beneath, and how well it enhanced the look. The young ladies hadn’t yet gotten out the heavy coats that would obscure all there was to view, they had just brought out enough to keep warm. He very much liked autumn, and he liked watching girls.
What he didn’t like was failure, and that brought him back to the events of an hour ago and nearly six months ago. The way the child had been thinking about the movie about the clown fish, and then her head had been splattered across her mother’s coat. How Shannon had been laying in a pool of slowly congealing blood. How after the initial quick run, blood became thick and sticky. How the woman had screamed, holding her daughter’s body. How the blood had sprayed across her face when she squeezed the little girl to her.
Ah, such were the things late night bouts of insomnia were made of. It wouldn’t matter how tired he thought he was, he could always have a few more hours of looking at the card catalogue of dead faces of those he had failed to save. When that was done of course he would have to go through the long drawn out painfest that was reliving every nanosecond of Shannon’s death as if it were an hour. He put another fry into his mouth and munched it down like a child, slowly moving the stick into his mouth as his jaws munched it to tiny bits.
Not having Tommy and Jack there had been a problem, but he couldn’t see what they would have done had they been there. Besides, he had a feeling this was going to have to be a personal thing. No one else was going to be able to take care of this unless it was him. There was some sort of pact that had begun with the two of them. Loki was going to kill him (No he’s not, but you must jump) or he was going to kill Loki.
There wasn’t going to be any sort of middle ground, it was going to be a struggle between the two of them, trying to kill each other. He thought about the black gun for a moment and reached into his coat. He felt the cold handle immediately and while he wanted to draw it out, this wasn’t the place. It hadn’t been there when he wanted it, why not? There was no reason for the gun to have been hidden, and yet it hadn’t been there when he wanted it. He wondered if the gun had run from the prospect of having to kill him, even if it was a copy. He felt that there was a certain amount of truth to the idea, but it was an uncomfortable truth. What if the gun began to make other executive decisions about when and where it was going to show up?
That worried him.
May 2nd, 1643
2:21 p.m.
Japan
The old man was a mess, but he was always a mess. He rarely bathed, and took no particular care of his appearance. The Weirdo was quite the dandy compared to the old teacher, dressed in a clean kimono and having shaved only two days ago. The old man was as nearly beloved by The Weirdo as any teacher could be though. The aged samurai had none of the formality of many of his other teachers. Particularly the sword masters seemed to have an idea about formality. This one had no such leanings though, nor did he have a sword. He had dropped the blade of steel long ago and only used the wooden boken.
“You have improved.” The old man said.
“Have I?” The Weirdo asked.
“You have.” The old man said. “There is only one thing that will improve your fencing now. That is to go out there and fight.”
“I’ve been doing that.” The Weirdo said.
“Yes I know.” The old man said. “And you have told me that the sword may not serve you in your journey.”
“That’s not completely true.” The Weirdo said. “There is more to fencing than the sword.”
“So I keep saying.” The old man said. “Still you have learned all you are going to learn from me.”
“I know.” The Weirdo said.
“And you will return to your own place and begin the process of this thing they want you to do.”
“I don’t know what they want me to do.”
“But you know that there is a task to perform.”
“Yeah.” He said.
“Duty is not compulsory.” The old man said.
“I’m not sure they’ll let me escape it.” He said. “If I sit around, I think it’ll come for me.”
“You could run.”
“I think I’d run right into it.” The Weirdo said. “I might be trapped.”
“Hmm.” The old man said. “Then try to figure out what this mighty task they want you for is, then come at it from an angle they don’t want you to.”
“That might just work.” The Weirdo said.
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions