Condemned: A Thriller

by McBride, Michael

  “You know I didn’t do it.”

  “And what makes you so certain of that?”

  “Because you don’t have any proof. You know how I know that? Because there isn’t any to be found. So you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going to get out of this car and I’m going to go home. And unless you want to arrest me, there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”

  With that, I flung the door open and walked away from the cruiser. I expected to hear footsteps behind me, but was rewarded with only silence. She was still sitting in her cruiser when I passed through the chain link fence surrounding the rear lot. I tried not to break stride while I tried to remember where I parked.

  I was more than ready to put this whole thing behind me. This was a job for the police, not for a newspaper reporter who couldn’t even land a job at a real newspaper. She was right when she said I was nothing more than a blogger. I ran a free site and supported myself with funds provided by advertisers who in no small way proved that everything I was trying to accomplish was a waste of time. This city could never be returned to its former glory. It had been bankrupted and handed over to the scavengers and criminals, and those of us who elected to stay in spite of the writing on the wall would genuinely need the bulletproof vests and survival gear offered by my sponsors, who obviously knew better than I did how to target their desired clientele.

  I sat in my car and stared into my bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror for several seconds before pounding the horn in frustration.

  All of these allusions to hell and here I was, living smack-dab in the center of my own private version. The city I loved was dead, and might as well have been fueling flames stoked by a cloven-hooved devil with his requisite pitchfork. Maybe raging against its ultimate denouement was counterproductive and we’d be better off leaving it to its own devices and letting it burn. With any luck, something worthwhile might rise from its ashes, because sure as hell nothing good was going to come from its festering carcass.

  I was overcome by a crippling sense of sorrow as I drove back to my crappy little apartment in my decrepit old neighborhood. I wondered if this was how it felt when your dreams died and you finally understood you’d wasted your entire life on the Sisyphean task of rolling a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down to the cheers of those dousing the slope with gasoline.

  TWENTY -TWO

  The sun was setting when I opened my eyes and was blinded by the red line of light perforating the curtains. I felt hollowed, like I’d just sobered after a three-day bender, but at least my headache had diminished and receded to the base of my skull.

  For a single blissful moment I actually forgot everything that had happened and reveled in the warmth of the light on my bare chest. And then I saw the dust on my hands and the dirt under my nails and it all came crashing down on me again. I remembered Lindsay DeWitt’s naked body hanging above me with her throat ripped out and Alex Snow, whose abduction had been the sloppiest, and from which her killer had honed his craft and eliminated his mistakes in the process of grabbing three more girls in a matter of days.

  I didn’t want to think about it anymore. All of the suffering. All of the death. I needed to find a way to wash my hands of it, both figuratively and literally.

  I turned on the TV and found myself staring at a picture of the Eastown Theatre.

  “…vampires descended on the city of Detroit? Angela Dryer interviewed one eyewitness who claims to have seen just that.”

  I flipped the channel.

  “…the undead living in the ruins of this once great city a sign of the impending apocalypse? Dr. Allen Carmichael, professor of theology at Detroit-Mercy, thinks that might be the case.”

  The sensational element of the killings had leaked and would soon spread like wildfire. Soon everyone the world over would know about the murders in Detroit and the supernatural creatures preying upon young girls.

  I switched to CNN in hopes of seeing something resembling actual news and caught a glimpse of Dray trying to prevent the cameraman from recording the men from the ME’s office as they attempted to sneak the bodies out of the overgrown lot beside Lee Plaza and into the rear of their van, parked in the high weeds near the chain link fence.

  “Authorities have yet to confirm a correlation between these most recent deaths and the mutilated remains of two young girls found earlier this week. The bodies of the previous victims—Alexandra Snow, a medical student at the University of Toledo, and Lindsay DeWitt, a senior at nearby University of Michigan-Dearborn—were discovered in the Metropolitan Building and the Eastown Theatre, respectively, with what one source—speaking on the condition of anonymity—describes as ‘bite marks meant to resemble those of a vampire’ on their—”

  I hurled the remote at the wall and it shattered into a hundred pieces. At least it turned off the infernal television in the process. Who in the name of God would have divulged the details of the bite marks? Someone was about to find himself unemployed as the DPD couldn’t afford another public black eye. And the fact that even CNN, the supposed last bastion of professionalism and integrity, had latched onto the vampire angle, albeit in a way meant to sound almost clinical, made my stomach churn. Worse, they’d been so focused on the sensational angle that they hadn’t even listed the victims in the right order. Lindsay DeWitt had been found first and Alex Snow…

  I furrowed my brow. Something about that line of thought struck a chord with my subconscious, which screamed for me to retrace my mental footsteps.

  Last bastion of professionalism. Vampirism. Wrong order of the victims.

  Wrong order.

  Wrong.

  Order.

  I sprung from the bed and ran to my computer. I needed to see it to be sure.

  The names. Wrong order. Why hadn’t I recognized it earlier?

  I opened my word processor and typed the names of the accounts from which the tips that led to the discovery of the victims originated.

  Anachronist.

  Magic3124.

  Linett41325.

  I stared at them. At the numbers. They were sequential, and yet they were out of order.

  3124. 1234.

  41325. 12345.

  There had to be some sort of significance, but what?

  And Linett. Shouldn’t it have been spelled Lynette? Or even Linette? Why drop the “e”?

  A misspelled name and numbers in the wrong order. Was one a clue to deciphering the other? Would rearranging the letters in Linett produce something relevant?

  I typed the permutations as I thought them. LIT TEN. TEN ‘TIL. TENT LI. LIT NET. Or maybe LINE TT read like a license plate? Line tease?

  What about magic? It couldn’t think of a single factor, so I searched the internet for an anagram solver and plugged it in. There were no actual words.

  I entered LINETT and only added EL TINT and LENT IT to my list.

  I stared at the prompt for a long moment, then typed MAGIC LINETT. I was rewarded with 735 possible anagrams from ANGELIC MITT to TAT CLING ME, and all sorts of random combinations of letters that only loosely qualified as words in between. I scanned for any that jumped out at me. I saw CAN’T GET, but only gobbledygook followed. CALM GENT…MATT ICING…TEAM CLING…

  Nothing.

  I added ANACHRONIST and was inundated with more than 68,000 possible combinations. The sheer number was overwhelming. I couldn’t scroll through that many, at least not while maintaining a critical eye. There had to be a way to make it more manageable. I clicked the button for the program’s advanced settings and was led to a screen with all sorts of filters, from the total number of words to the minimum and maximum number of letters in each word. Selecting SHOW CANDIDATE WORD LIST ONLY narrowed the list to 3,565 of what I would consider actual words. I scanned the results, watching for words that I had to believe were part of the message the killer meant to send.

  ANNIHILATION. ANTAGONISTIC. INCANTATION. INCINERATION.

  That one spoke to me, so I returned to the filter a
nd typed incineration into the box labeled MUST CONTAIN THIS WORD, thinking I was onto something, but the word was a total bust.

  I returned to the root word list.

  INSTIGATION. LACERATION. MATERIALISTIC.

  And then I saw the one word that simply made sense.

  MICHIGAN.

  I opened the filters again and made sure the resulting anagrams included the word Michigan.

  The resulting list consisted of only 31 combinations, most of which made no sense.

  MICHIGAN ATTRACTS ONLINE. MICHIGAN ACTUAL CONTENTS. MICHIGAN ANTICS TOLERANT. MICHIGAN CANTONAL SITTER.

  And then I saw it and knew I’d found the message the killer had left for me. It wasn’t a cryptic clue as to his identity or insight into his motivations, nor was it some psychotic mission statement or political message.

  It was a summons.

  Dray had asked about the endgame. This was it.

  I stared at the words on the screen and realized that I now knew exactly where to find the killer.

  MICHIGAN CENTRAL STATION.

  TWENTY -THREE

  I tried calling Dray’s cellphone a dozen times before finally giving up. He was undoubtedly up to his neck in insanity now that the news had broken and either unable to take my call or unwilling to answer. I didn’t blame him either way. Of course, that didn’t mean I could just sit around waiting for him to call me back either.

  I called the station as I was getting dressed and left a message for him. There was no answer at his home number, which just rang and rang until finally an automated voice answered to tell me the subscriber’s inbox was currently full. I probably could have gotten hold of Aragon’s number, but after our last conversation I kind of figured I’d rather repeatedly close my own head in a car door. So I grabbed a red delicious and my last Granny Smith and ate them as I drove back to the station.

  The desk sergeant was different, and yet somehow exactly the same. He managed to make me feel like a criminal with just a few clipped sentences and suggested that I go darken someone else’s doorstep since as far as he knew, Detective Rogers was in no mood to be subjected to any more abuse, although in much more colorful terms.

  I tried to cut him some slack. He’d pegged me as a reporter the moment I walked through the door. The place was crawling with them. The parking lot was filled with numbered vans and even a few with letters, all of them crowned with spires and satellite dishes. Cameramen smoked and talent primped. They were like vultures waiting for the next corpse to be delivered to them and I realized that while we were birds of a feather, we were of completely different species. I wanted the world to be a better place, while they wanted to be in the front row when it started to burn.

  Dray had probably just switched off his cell so he could get a moment’s peace, especially after his face went national. Reluctant though I was to return to Lee Plaza, it was probably my best bet. I checked the rear lot to make sure the desk sergeant wasn’t lying to me, but Dray’s car wasn’t there, so I invested the last of my money into gassing my car, minus the cost of a Monster energy drink, of course. If I burned through these last few gallons, I was down to the bus pass I prayed I’d never have to use.

  My hands were shaking and my heart was beating so fast I was on the verge of opening negotiations with my maker to spare my life when I arrived at Lee Plaza. Or at least as close as I could get.

  They’d closed off the one-way on the eastbound side of Grand at Linwood and had officers directing traffic in both directions on the westbound side. The sun had set and the Lee was lit up from every conceivable angle by the bright beams of police spotlights and television cameras. I ended up parking nearly three blocks away behind Northwestern High School and hiking in from the south.

  Neighbors were gathered in whispering clusters, nervously watching the police presence in their midst and anxiously awaiting their opportunity to be interviewed for the eleven o’clock news. They served as a backdrop for the reporters who vied for space along the chain link fence, trying to get both the Lee itself and the officers tramping through the overgrown fields with flashlights and canines in the same frame.

  In addition to the wary faces of those who belonged were the powder-white faces of those who obviously didn’t. With their thick eye makeup, black clothing, and even blacker hair, the goth contingent materialized as spectral figures haunting the periphery, their voices redolent with excitement and their faces strangely alive with what I could only describe as a combination of exhilaration and hope.

  The officer manning the barricade on the sidewalk at the corner of Lawton and Grand recognized me from earlier and passed me along to his harried brothers in front of the building itself. They were under siege by the national and cable news crews, who weren’t content to just set up shop at the perimeter; they wanted to get close enough to smell the blood and were willing to go through the poor patrolmen if that’s what it took. One of the cops was more than happy to step out from in front of the cameras and the firing squad of questions long enough to tell me that Dray had left not long after the ME’s people. He hadn’t said where he was going, but anticipated returning once the CRST was done working its forensics magic.

  I thanked him for his time and wished him luck as he waded back into the shark tank. I wanted to tell the goth kids that there was nothing remotely romantic or seductive about what had been done to those poor girls inside, but in a way their feelings were similar to mine, however misdirected. I felt a kinship to them that made me feel simultaneously sad and old in a way I hadn’t before.

  I tried Dray’s cellphone again when I returned to my car. Still no answer. Same at his house and rather than take a message, whoever answered at the station transferred me to his voicemail. I even sucked it up and called back for Detective Aragon, who wasn’t at her desk, but her message assured me she would return my call, whether I liked it or not.

  Dray lived in the old neighborhood, near where we grew up, maybe a five-minute drive from where I sat in my car, trying to figure out what to do next. He’d probably gone home and passed out for a few hours while he waited for the state crew to gather evidence. At least that’s what I would have done in his shoes. It couldn’t hurt to swing by.

  I went south and used Marquette to avoid the detour and the rubberneckers on Grand and took Rosa Parks Boulevard to the northwest. I didn’t come back to the Boston-Edison neighborhood very often. It was one thing watching the city rot; it was another entirely to see what had become of my old home. In my mind, I still saw this area through the eyes of youth, when everything had been wondrous and every step brought me one closer to adventure. I remembered everything being green instead of brown, as though my childhood, despite the tough times, had been lived in a perpetual state of summertime. Now even the houses seemed long-suffering. Their roofs sagged under the weight of some unseen burden and the elements had caused the paint to fade and peel. The bricks were broken and the porches were crumbling and every third house was either abandoned or had “For Sale” signs staked in lawns mowed by realtors whose attention to detail reflected what they thought about their chances of earning their commissions.

  Dray’s house was a two-story, drab-green Colonial just off Byron and Longfellow. I parked at the curb and walked up the concrete path to a porch spotted with waterlogged newspapers in orange and blue plastic baggies. I knocked and waited, then tried the doorbell. I peeked through the windows while I dialed his number, listening for his ringtone through the glass. For as long as I’d known him, Dray had slept the sleep of the dead. In college, I’d envied him his ability to just close his eyes and welcome unconsciousness while I tossed and turned and stressed every facet of my life from exams to the future to my eventual mortality.

  I was about to head around the side to see if his car was in the garage out back when I tried the front door and the knob turned in my hand. I chuckled. It was probably the only unlocked door in Detroit, and it belonged to the man who probably best knew every reason to lock it.

  “Dray?
” I called as I entered the dark foyer.

  I flicked the light switch, but nothing happened.

  “Dray? Janae? You here?”

  I barely had both feet inside the house when the smell hit me. And from somewhere in the darkness, I heard the droning buzz of flies.

  TWENTY -FOUR

  My flashlight bathed the entryway and living room in an eerie red glow. I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose and held it there with my left hand. Still, the smell was overwhelming.

  I flipped the light switches in the living room. Nothing. The toggle on the table lamp produced the same result. The house was stifling-hot and the air was so heavy I doubted anyone had so much as cracked a window in weeks. Motes of dust hung in the air and there was a fine patina over everything.

  I tried to call out to Dray, but no voice formed. Rationally, I knew he wasn’t here, and yet deep down I prayed he was. My mind struggled to make sense of the situation. Or maybe it was my heart.

  The buzzing sound originated from ahead of me and to my right. I passed the kitchen and stared up the staircase toward the dark second story. There was no doubt in my mind that was where the noise was coming from.

  I ascended the stairs on numb legs, my pulse thundering so loudly in my ears I could barely hear the stairs creak under my weight. Vaguely circular shadows passed across the wall of the landing. They resolved into swirling black flies that clung to the walls and the railing. They were so fat they barely had the energy to fly for more than a few feet at a time, unlike those at the end of the hall, which filled the corridor like television static and forced me to wave them away from my face.

  The smell intensified as I approached. I tasted Monster and bile and something vaguely metallic in the back of my throat. I squeezed my hand so tightly over my mouth and nose I might as well have been holding my breath for all the air my lungs were getting. I barely made it across the threshold before losing the battle and vomiting onto the carpet.