Hull - Volume I

The Case of Silent Streets

 The police car approached the parked vehicle slowly, the lights on top of the prior flashing and the policeman watching with caution. It wasn't a rarity for officers to find abandoned cars on country roads around Newfield. But this car wasn't abandoned. It was nearly 2 AM and there was someone in the car. Or, at least, someone nearby who had left the headlights on. The officer, Dan Hastings, had been out on these roads all week, and the only thing he'd come across had been a mountain lion that had strayed too far from the nearby mountain range.

He stopped a good several meters behind the car. He looked up at the car, thoughts going quickly through his head. It could be just another drunk driver who decided to pull off before passing out. Whatever it was, he had to deal with it. He exited the police car, checking to make sure he had his gun holstered just in case. He'd yet to pull it on anyone, but you could never be too careful. He was about halfway to the car when he realized he'd left his flashlight in the passenger seat. If he turned back now, the person, if they were even conscious, could become suspicious, or even try to leave. He kept going forward and was somewhat surprised to find an open window waiting for him.

It was too dark to see the upper half of the person sitting in the driver seat, but they were most certainly conscious and alert. From what Hastings could see, the person wore a heavy black jacket that blended in with the natural darkness. Hastings leaned forward slightly, still unable to see the person's face.

“Hi there,” he said, looking in the direction of where he assumed the person's head was. “Mind telling me why you're out here so late?”

“Just some business to deal with, officer,” the person, a male by the voice, replied.

“Alright. Just for safety purposes, I'm gonna have to see your license and registration.”

“I'm sorry, officer, but I believe this is a gross allocation of police resources,” the stranger said.

Hastings furrowed his brow. “And why is that?”

“There is a far more serious crime occurring at this very moment.”

“What crime would that be?”

“Murder.”

Bang.

*

I had been living with Hull for almost a month when he got sick. Not a fatal illness, or even a serious one. I recommended he see a clinic doctor, since I was more specialized at recognizing wounds and postmortem situations. He had already given the self-diagnosis of an upper respiratory infection. I say self-diagnosis because he had no desire to “pay someone to tell me what I already know.” I knew, however, that if he was right, he would have difficulty recovering without the proper antibiotics. He didn't seem to care. He had been sick for ten days, and I quickly learned that he did not treat being sick like a sick individual would.

After two days of being sick, Hull discovered he couldn't move without severe body aching. This prevented him from continuing his very odorous experiment in the kitchen, which Mrs. Hanson was very prompt to throw out. Hull had claimed he was testing the properties of milk when exposed to diseased cow meat. Why he had sought to test this, I had no idea. I was just glad the God-awful experiment was gone. Now that Hull was restricted to a bed, he spent the next eight days compensating for his inability to move, or even relatively speak. He lost his voice on day four, and even then, his coughing fits kept him from trying to talk.

Without being able to move or talk, Hull was restricted to his laptop and me. He would sit up in his bed for hours staring at the illuminated screen, doing work I didn't quite understand. For anything outside of the flat, he sent me. In the first three days of his bed restriction, I was sent to pick up an orange sweatshirt missing a sleeve, deliver a coffee mug, and tell a homeless individual to “rally 37th street.” It was on day five that Hull discovered exhaustion. He would often stay up for days on end when healthy. He attempted it while sick, and verbally expressed his confusion at having slept for sixteen hours.