“It’s a wise man who profits by his own experience, but it’s a great deal wiser one who lets the rattlesnake bite the other fellow.” Josh Billings
hey
wake up
wake up pal
A flood of colors and noises bombarded his brain with the force of a stealth bomber as he opened his eyes carefully.
After his vision cleared, he quietly took in his surroundings. From what he could see, he was in some sort of medical centre as far as he could tell- too polished for a makeshift medical area yet too rough-and-tumble for a hospital.
A memory flashed before his eyes and all of a sudden he knew that he was in the Bruckheimer police station’s medical ward- he had sent quite a few shot-up criminals here, long ago. Those days seemed like aeons ago to his fuzzy, frustratingly unresponsive memory neurons. He mustered up the strength to ask the strange-looking fella what the heck he was doing here.
“You got knocked out,” came the reply from the orderly, his large nose seemingly bouncing up and down with every word. “Chief insisted we bring you here.”
“Who knocked me out?”
“That doesn’t matter. But what does is that Chief Roberts gave me specific orders to get you to his office as soon as you awoke.”
Bastard, the man thought, and suddenly felt a clawing pain where the blow had struck. He lifted an aching hand in order to massage it and felt a thick bandage covering the wound.
“Erm, when is this gonna come off?”
The orderly smiled and led him on.
Ten minutes and roughly five hundred stares later, the man found himself standing in front of Chief Roberts’ door. He stared cautiously at the golden plaque, remembering when his own name had been there, before dismissing the memory once again. He scratched the back of his right hand- an irritating habit, but soothing nonetheless in its own weird way- and pushed the door open.
All one-hundred and fifteen kilograms of Police Chief Norman P. Roberts wobbled sideways to face the newcomer. The man watched with interest as Roberts’ look of annoyance quickly became a grin that would put the Cheshire cat to shame.
“Hunton!” Roberts boomed, sounding extremely similar to an ordinary humpback whale, “it’s good to have you back in Bruckheimer.”
“Looks like Bruckheimer isn’t too glad to see me.” He gestured towards his bandage.
Roberts roared with laughter. “You haven’t lost the old spark, I see. Good old Rick Hunton. Always prepared with a punch line to spare.”
What the fuck is he playing at? This guy hates my guts, Hunton thought.
“So, um… why’d you call me down here?”
“Ah yes,” Roberts sullied down. “We… ahem… kind of…”
Hunton got it in a flash. “You want me back on the force.”
Roberts gave him a puppy-eye look that a Saint Bernard would kill for.
“No!” Hunton roared. “I came here to bury my family, not join up for the fucking police force, Norm. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
Something in Roberts’ face indicated that he was about to play his trump card.
“Rick,” he paused, considering the move he was about to make. “We’re- we’re looking for your brother, and we know that, deep down, you want to find him too. Ande then there's Underwood, still at large.”
Bastard.
Hunton gave him his best I-hope-you-rot-in-hell look. Roberts deserved some credit here- he didn’t budge. “Fine,” Hunton spoke up. “But I couldn’t give less of a shit about Underwood. I’m going to find my brother and then leave this piece of shit town for good.”
Roberts smiled, wider than before. “I knew you’d see things our way.”
He slid his chair about a foot back and rummaged around in a drawer for a few seconds before pulling out an old, scratched badge with HUNTON inscribed under a large BHPD logo.
“We treasured it all these years,” he said in a piss-poor attempt to be solemn, sliding it over to Hunton with a grubby hand.
I’m sure you did, pal, I’m sure you did. Hunton slipped it in his jacket pocket. And then he stormed out of Norm Roberts’ office.
* * *
When the man in black walked in, Underwood was working on a bloodied, middle aged man on a dirty gurney with a rusty butcher knife.
“You could have knocked,” he breathed out in his signature distant whisper.
The man in black said nothing and waited for Underwood to turn around, which he did after wedging the knife firmly between a pair of ribs. The resulting squelch echoed briefly and the man in black had to cough for a bit before the urge to vomit dissipated.
“Well?” said Underwood. “Give me some news.”
“I’ve-" he cleared his throat- "found one. One willing to take the job.”
“Suicidal nutter, huh? What’s he called?”
“Gorbachev. Dmitri Gorbachev.”
Underwood laughed. “Why are all psychopath assassins Russians?"
The man in black stayed quiet. Behind Underwood, the supposed corpse’s head turned towards the man in black and mouthed two words: Help me. He could see a look of pure, unadulterated fear in one eye. The other was missing.
“Are you feeding on live ones now?” asked the man in black.
“Heh. This is a funny one. Squeals like a pig, but I cut out his vocal cords.”
The urge to haul returned, but the man in black kept it in this time. “Don’t you feel… even the slightest stab of mercy?”
Underwood turned around, retrieved the butcher knife, and cleaved the victim’s head in two with a single stroke. “No.”
The man in black nodded and walked outside. He was half a block away when he opened up a trash can and vomited the contents of his lunch into it.
* * *
Ralph Arquette had been listening to a loud Faith No More tune and watching Law & Order when his wife had gone down to do the groceries. He loved his little stereo- maybe more than he loved his wife, though he would never admit it.
He had barely looked away from the television when she told him she was heading to the supermarket.
It was roughly fifteen minutes later when Adriana Arquette, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and five months pregnant found herself stabbed to death in an alleyway by a man dressed as a church priest.
* * *
"Michael Matthias Underwood. Real name is Mikael Sandusky, but switched to his American mother's maiden name after shooting his father, his stepmother, and stepsister with his own dear daddy's pistol. Laid low for about five years, around which the Sandusky case was aborted. Relapsed into his murderous habits during his fifth year in Bruckheimer, where everyone at his 7/11 store was found torn to shreds. The case went on for weeks until the connection was made courtesy of our very own Fabian Jones."
A lean, pasty man with a hawked nose stood up from his seat and proceeded to dish out thanks to no one in particular before quickly seating himself down, hollow cheeks progressively reddening by the second.
"Thank you, Fabian. And now, as I was saying, Underwood has returned with a spate of murders all across the godforsaken island. He signs each victim that he has the courtesy to leave behind with the Greek letter Gamma- a sort of psychological obssession- we can't work out any other link to it. The possibility of copycat killers has been debated and refuted over time-"
The voice of the man in the front of the room slowly gave way to static in Hunton's tired mind. Why did I even come here?
The wiser - no, wiseass - part of him shot back a curt reply. Because you want to find your brother.
He groaned audibly and leaned back in his seat. Ever since his badly ending affair he had been slipping into a near catatonic state, where his body begged for nothing but sleep and pain. His misanthropic ways had just about peaked at that moment when his mind told him to pick up that coffee cup and spill its contents into Norm's face. Come on. You know you want to. The fucking dick had it coming anyways-
He jolted back into reality and saw that Matt Purcell had just ended his speech and was assigning tasks to various officers. As he slowly rose from his seat, something nagged at his mind-
You woulda done it, you prick. You woulda thrown the coffee.
Yes, he answered, I woulda. Good enough?
The next thing he knew, Matt Purcell was standing in front of him, right hand outstretched. "Rick?"
"Oh!- um, yeah, hey, Matt. Long time no see."
Purcell grinned like there was no tomorrow. "That's no problem. Norm assigned you to my unit, so we'll have plenty of time to catch up on things."
Oh, that'll work out good. 'Well Matt, I've been cheated on, found out that my family's been killed, and now I'm hunting my brother down because he himself, the guy I grew up with, probably killed them." Perfect. You're a real slick piece of work, Norm Roberts.
Hunton took a moment to compose himself as Purcell shifted from left to right on both feet in order to decrease the awkwardness of the situation. After what seemed to Purcell like forever, Hunton broke the ice.
"So, er, who is this Fabian Jones character again?"
Matt's face scrunched up. "Oh. Fagian- I mean Fabian- he's, um, an okay guy. Joined up not too long ago. He's climbed the ranks kinda quickly." Another awkward silence. He then pushed Hunton aside and whispered, "Roberts hates that guy like anything. Avoids him like the plague as do most of us. The freak has no friends or family. Some say he's-" Matt shuddered- "queer."
Hunton contemplated this for a few seconds. "Well, that was- a nice story. I'd - um - best be going now, I think."
"No problem. Get some rest and come back soon."
"Oh, and Matt!"
"Yeah?"
"How're Stephanie and the kids?"
Purcell stiffened. "They're, um- fine. Yeah, pretty much."
Hunton looked at him for a second more than he probably should have before turning and walking away. There was something weird going on.
* * *
"...Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..."
As an obese priest was calling out The Lord's Prayer, Ralph Arquette was looking at the large block of wood that carried his wife... being lowered into a pit that was to be her grave.
"...Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses..."
The coffin also contained the baby she had been carrying in her womb.
"...and lead us not into temptation..."
His eyes glazed over once again.
"...but deliver us from evil."
I will find who did this to you, he swore to his deceased wife. And then I will kill them.
* * *
A snoring Hunton was jolted awake by the sound of his phone blaring.
He snatched it off his bedside table, nearly knocking over a hotel-owned alarm clock in the process, and stared at the screen. An incomprehensible mish-mash of random numbers stared back at him.
He took a deep breath and answered it.
"Mmhm?"
"Hi there. Have I reached Richard Hunton?"
Say no. Impersonate a Mexican woman and hang up. "Yes-yes you have. Um... who exactly is this? And what's with calling me at-" - he squinted at the alarm clock - "six in the morning?"
"Apologies, Mr. Hunton- I wake up at this time to begin my work day and assumed you would have too. My name's Dominic Sanders, but you can just call me Dom. I work with Matt Purcell."
There was silence on the other end for about five seconds before Sanders continued. "I, er, figured we should at least know each other to some extent since we are going to be stuck on this Underwood case for a while. Oh, and that of your brother's whereabouts as well," he quickly added.
Hunton sighed. "That's extremely generous of you, and I'm pretty sure we'll have time for formalities later, but I flew in from Hamburg barely two days ago. So I kinda need my sleep." He added a fake yawn for effect.
"Why, of course. My sincerest-"
"Thank you, Mr. Sanders." Click.
Truth was, Hunton wasn't actually that sleepy any more. With the grace of a dying mule, he clunkered around his suite before finding the landline phone to dial room service with.
* * *
While Hunton tore apart his sandwich, the local butcher in the poorer areas of Bruckheimer entered his shop to find two pig carcasses missing. He tried remembering what had happened last night but only remembered opening a bottle of champagne at the strip club- the rest was an all-encompassing blur.
I'll blame it on the a-a-alcohol I guess, he thought. He allowed himself a little chuckle at the joke he just cracked to himself and made a mental note to copy it down somewhere.
Little did he know that the blame lay upon the shoulders of a certain Michael Underwood.