"I'm on my way. Tell everyone to--" Something under his foot went crunch. Yoongi froze on the doorstep, mobile phone clamped to his ear. He slid his shoe to one side and curled his top lip. "Not again.." Three little bones lay on the concrete slab, tied together with a tatty red piece of ribbon.
A hissing whisper came from the other end of the line.
"Seriously, Yoongi, Taehyung's having ferrets up here, it's--"
"I said I'm on my way."
Yoongi stuck the phone against his chest and scowled out at the caravan park in the growing gloom. Bulky static caravans, the size of shipping containers, all painted a uniform instiution green. A patrol car idled on the square of tarmac that acted as a turning circle, its blue-and-whites strobing into the warm late-evening air. The driver hunched forward in his seat, peering through the windscreen at Yoongi, working his hands back and forth along the steering wheel - as if he was trying to feel it up.
No sign of the little buggers.
Yoongi kicked the broken bones off the step and into the straggly ivy growing up the side of his home. Then took a deep breath and bellowed it out: 'I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU LITTLE SHITS.'
Back to the phone.
"I mean, he's gone off on one before, but not like this. He's--"
"If he's screwing up the scene, restrain him. If not, just hold his fucking hand 'till I get there." Yoongi stomped over to his rusted old Chevvy that was a faded red, throwing himself into the drivers belt. He hauled on the belt, then turned the keys and shoved his foot down onto the pedal.
For fucks sake. He was certainly not riding with Jungkook either, and he waited until the patrol car drove on by, before moving out after him.
The sun was a scarlet smear across the horizon, filling the patch of rough ground with blood and shadow. Tree's loomed around the periphery, their branches filled with clacks and caws as the rooks settled in for the night. Grey and black hulks dotted the clearing: burned-out cars, their paint stripped away, seats a sagging framework of rusty wire, the tyres turned into gritty vitrified puddles. A cordon of blue and white 'POLICE' tape was strung between the vehicles, making a twenty-foot no-man's-land around the scenes examination branch's inner cordon of 'CRIME SCENE' yellow and black. Three SEB technicians knelt into the dirt, poking at something, their white Tyvek oversuits glowing pink in the twilight.
Yoongi wrinkled his nose. The rancid stench of vomit fought against the greasy scent of burned meat and rendered fat. Like a barbecue with food poisoning. "Where's the pathologist?"
One of the techs - a short-ass with fogged up safety goggles - finished scraping something dark and sticky into an evidence bag, then pointed her gloved finger at the other side of the 'CRIME SCENE' tape. There was another figure the in the full Smurf outfit, hunched over a bucket, making retching noises, his back convulsing with every stomach-wrenching heave. The short tech peeled her facemask off, exposing a circle of shiny olive skin and a pretty shaped mouth. "Poor boy. Can't blame him, really. Nearly saw my lunch again too." she puffed out a breath, hauling at the elasticated hood of her suit. "Christ, it's hot in here..."
"You call for backup?"
A nod was returned. "They're en route as we speak." The tech pinged her facemask back into place. "You want to take a sneak peek? We've got as much as we're going to before they move the body."
"How bad is it?"
She peeled off her gloves and snapped on a fresh pair. "What, and spoil the thrill of finding out for yourself?" Then she set off across an elevated walkway - metallic stepping stones, like upturned tea trays on tiny legs, keeping their blue plastic booties from contaminating the scene. It led away between a couple of burned-out hatchbacks, disappearing behind the blackened skeletal remains of a Renault Clio. A dark curl of smoke twisted up into the sky on the other side. Yoongi adjusted the safety goggles he'd been handed, zipped up his oversuit and tip-toed after her. The walkway clanged beneath his feet. The rancid barbecue smell worsened. And then they were there.
"Oh shit.."
His stomach lurched two steps to the right, then crashed back again. He swallowed, hard. Blinked, then cleared his throat.
"What do we know?"
"Not much, the victim's male, we think." Another shrug. "He's been chained to what looks like a section of that modular metal shelving stuff, the kind you get in your garage? Been hammered into the ground like a stake."
The victim was kneeling on the hard packed earth, his legs tucked under his rear. His bright orange overalls were stained around the legs and waist, blackened across his chest and flecked with little glittering tears of vitrified rubber. Someone had forced his head and right arm through the middle of a tyre, so it sat across his body like a sash - then set fire to it. It was still burning; a small tongue of greasy flame licked up the side of the rubber.
The SEB tech groaned. "Shit.."
She hauled a fire extinguisher from a blue plastic crate set aside from the scene, pointed the nozzle, and squeezed the handle. A whoosh of white hid the poor bastards face from view for a moment, but when the CO2 cleared he appeared again in all his tortured glory.
His skin was swollen and blistered, scorched crimson; the eyes cooked to an opaque white, teeth bared, yellowed and cracked. His hair had been burnt away, and patches of skull and cheekbone poked through the charred flesh...
Don't be sick. Don't be sick.
Yoongi cleared his throat again and looked out over the graveyard of burnt out cars. Deep breaths. The long corrugated metal roof of the makeshift lab was just visible between the trees in the distance. What sounded like some kind of old 60's rock song belted out somewhere in the distance, probably a disco or corporate bash, where there would be dancing and boozing it up until the early hours. And when they were gone, some poor soul would be left clearing up all the spent party poppers and empty bottles. Somehow, that job seemed much more appealing to him.
