by James Hunt
The shell of an apartment building that had never been finished was as good a place as any to spend the night. She passed dozens of lumps in sleeping bags, their human contents snoring and shifting in the night from either withdrawals or bad trips. She drifted silently through the concrete halls, the floors dirtied with the grime of both nature and man.
Exhausted, Cooper chose a spot in the far corner of the building, picking a room that had a door and four walls to guard her back. She barricaded the door with an old workbench bare of any tools and collapsed in the darkest corner. She curled into a ball and felt the weight of the day seal her eyes shut. But whatever rest she hoped to receive was interrupted with nightmares. The killer’s victims visited her in the night, casting their judgment over her as blood spilled from their gaping wounds. They flung accusations of fault and death, and with every word, a drop of blood splattered on her body until she was drenched in the fluids of the dead.
Beth appeared as well, her face a ghostly white, the gunshot wound at her stomach a bright red, pulling Cooper’s gaze toward the crimson. She spoke of their mother, their father, and her children, who she would never see grow up. But the worst of the night came at the very end.
A cold mist flooded over her, and goose bumps rose over her flesh as she puffed icy clouds of air. She looked down to her stomach, which had suddenly swollen with child. When she grazed the bare skin of her womb, a knifelike pain stabbed her in the stomach, and she screamed, the blood-curdling howl so loud her throat bled.
Blood poured from the open gash in her womb, and she watched the lifeless body of her unborn infant drift away in a river of crimson. When she lifted her head, a dark figure loomed above, and he held a knife in his hand. The cold thawed from the hot rage that seared through her body. “You did this!” She spit the accusations like curses, each one more wicked than the last. But the dark figure remained still, hovering over her like a storm cloud. Slowly, the figure’s features filled in, the first being his small, beady eyes.
The icy grip of panic and fear returned, and when Cooper tried to scream, a gag suddenly appeared over her mouth, and her wrists and ankles were bound to the legs and arms of a chair. The killer held the silver box with four switches, and she was suddenly in his basement. All but one had been flipped, and when he pressed his finger to the last switch, he laughed, the ominous timbre filling her mind like chants from the dead. He flicked the last switch up, and a shock sprung her from the nightmare and back into the dark, musty room of the broken-down building.
Drenched from head to toe in sweat, Cooper propped herself up and leaned against the wall. She wiped her eyes clear of the stinging perspiration burning her pupils. Her calf throbbed in pain, and she regained control of her breathing, letting her heart rate slow. It wasn’t real. It was just a dream.
The door suddenly burst inward, and the bench Cooper had moved to barricade it slammed to the floor as two bums wrestled one another, oblivious to Cooper’s presence. A crowd of homeless gathered to watch the fight, and Cooper quickly shuffled out, evading the harsh stench of body odor that followed the building’s inhabitants like a cloud.
The fog of morning loomed overhead as Cooper stepped outside and squinted into the early light. The sun was still emerging from the river, which meant it couldn’t have been past eight a.m. Cooper lingered by the building’s exit and watched the start of the morning traffic on the interstate down the hill. For the first time in her career, she didn’t know which path to walk. She was a wanted criminal, and the last person she could turn to had betrayed her for his own cause.
With a high level of uncertainty down every road she could see, she started small, stepping out of the building and onto the stoop. All she needed was a starting point, momentum to build on. McKaffee. The probation officer was the only surviving member from the video. If the killer wanted Cooper to bring down the governor, then McKaffee could be the key to unlock that door.
Cooper pushed herself off the steps as a homeless woman exited one of the doors on the far end of the building. The woman lit a cigarette then turned the corner. Cooper hobbled after her, struggling to catch up. “Hey, wait.” Even the short distance had caused her trouble, and she hunched over, catching her breath, as the woman stared at her with lifeless eyes. “Is there a soup kitchen around here somewhere?” It’d been almost a day since she’d eaten anything, and she already felt the effects of dehydration from both the wound and the physical exertion.
The woman remained silent, and Cooper reached into her pocket, pulling out her wallet and removing some cash, which was still soggy from her swim in the river. She would have used the money herself, but by now her face was plastered on every news station in the city, and with the FBI’s involvement, they’d be watching traffic cams. A low-level place like a soup kitchen wouldn’t have any surveillance equipment for her to worry about. “I just need to get something to eat.”
The woman extended a weathered hand and carefully removed the bills, then crumpled them in her fist and shoved them into her pocket. She pointed down the street. “There’s a place off of Seventh that serves till nine. It’s not more than a few blocks away.”
“Thank you.” Cooper limped in the direction of the woman’s hand and flipped the collar of her shirt up and kept her head down.
“Did you have to use that or something?”
Cooper stopped, turning around. “Use what?”
The woman took a few steps forward, squinting with half a smile that revealed several missing teeth, and gestured to the revolver tucked in Cooper’s waistband, which was hidden behind her shirt. “Most of the people that stay in that place have never even fired a gun, let alone have the money to buy one. And you don’t fit the mold of our normal visitors.” The woman shifted her head from side to side. “Typically the only two things people have when they come here are money and trouble.” She tapped her pocket where she’d hidden the bills. “And you’re strapped for cash.”
Whatever angle the old woman was working Cooper couldn’t be sure, but the last thing she needed was for that old hag to point the cops in her direction. She reached for the pistol and curled her fingers around the handle that protruded from her waistband. “Are we going to have a problem here?”
“Shit, honey.” The hag coughed as a wheezing laugh escaped her lips. “I don’t give a fuck what you did, just as long as you don’t use that thing on me.” She held up her hands and backed away. “The cops don’t ever come around this part of town anyway, not unless it’s to peddle some of their own shit.”
Cooper waited until the woman was completely gone before she started back on the path toward the soup kitchen, and even then she found herself turning to ensure no one had followed. When she spotted the horde of hungry bodies, she joined the rest of the homeless waiting for a hot meal.
The line moved quickly, and the chatter between the serving line and its patrons was friendlier than she expected. She found a spot in the corner, close to an exit, in case the unforeseeable occurred and she was recognized. But she managed to finish the powdered eggs, home fries, and grits without incident and chugged the small carton of orange juice in one long gulp. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and returned the tray to the collection pile. Now all that was left was to find McKaffee.
“Hey.”
The voice came from the door, and when Cooper turned, she saw that it was the same woman from earlier, grinning a toothless smile. Cooper followed the old woman outside and around the building to an alleyway. “What do you want?” Silent, she dug her hands into her pockets and pulled out a balled-up piece of paper. At first Cooper thought the old woman was returning the money, but the paper was white, not green. “What is this?”
“A guy gave me a hundred bucks to come and give it to you.”
Even before Cooper unfurled the crumpled paper, she knew what it was. A shiver traveled from her hand to her spine when she opened it and saw the scribbled red crayon. Cooper sprinted out of the alleyway and looked down the street both ways,
searching for the pair of beady eyes that had followed her.
“Whoever he was sure had an interest in you,” the woman said, shouting from the alleyway. “He wanted to know how you were, if there was anyone with you or not. You must have done one hell of a number on him to make him come all the way out here.”
Cooper crushed the paper in her hands and turned on the woman in the alley, gripping her by the collar and shoving her against the wall. “Where is he?” But the old hag only shrieked a blood-curdling cry, and Cooper backed off, hobbling away as a few of the workers from the kitchen spilled into the alley.
Cooper managed to move quickly for six blocks before the pain in her calf slowed her pace. She dipped behind a collapsing brick wall on the side of the road outside of an old recreation center and caught her breath. She checked the dressing and saw that her calf had started bleeding again. She quickly rewrapped the wound, flipping the bloodied side of the bandage out in hopes of keeping the wound semi-clean, and checked the road behind her to see if anyone had followed.
Once the coast was clear, she uncrumpled the piece of paper and flattened it against her palm. The killer had given her an address, one she had been familiar with earlier in her police career. It was where she’d shot Douglas Mavin, the only suspect she’d ever killed in the line of duty.
***
The neighborhood hadn’t improved in the ten years since she’d last visited. Crime rates had only worsened, and the gangs in the area had completely taken control. The crime was so bad that the residents didn’t even bother to call the police anymore. It was only after a dead body turned up that the authorities were contacted.
The address the killer had given her was to an old strip mall that was in front of the back alley in which she and Mavin had faced off. The stores had long been abandoned, and all that remained was dirt and items unwanted by looters.
Glass and debris crunched under the weight of Cooper’s boots as she stepped into the remains of an electronics store. She waded deeper, pulling the revolver from her waistband and keeping her eyes peeled for anything that would tell her where the killer was hiding.
The high-pitched din of a cell phone spiked her heart rate, and she nearly shot the phone as she turned. She found the old flip phone amid a pile of discarded boxes. The small boxed screen was lit up, and the number across the interface simply read “unknown.” It was a prepaid model judging by the look of it. She flipped the cell open and pressed it to her ear, keeping the revolver aimed in front of her with one eye on the pistol’s sight and the other scanning her periphery. “Where are you?”
“I’m everywhere, Detective. I’ve planted myself in your mind, and I have festered and grown into something that’s taken hold of everything you hold dear in your life.”
Cooper remained quiet, trying to determine from the background noise whether the killer was in the building. She knew he had to be close. He would have had to keep a visual on the phone to know when to call. “There isn’t anything that’s left in my life that you can take.”
The killer laughed. “Detective, I was pulling your strings long before you even knew about me. Every time you’ve come up against me, you’ve lost. You haven’t been able to save anyone that I wanted to kill. That’s not going to end anytime soon.”
The deeper Cooper moved into the building, the more she began to realize the killer wasn’t there. She weaved between empty aisles, and it wasn’t long before she was at the entrance to the inner hallway that connected the rest of the stores in the strip mall. The hinges of the doors squeaked as Cooper exited the electronics store.
“You’ve never listened, Detective.” The killer’s words cut sharp like the tip of a knife, enunciating every syllable, digging deep into Cooper’s eardrums. “That’s always been a problem of yours. It’s plagued you both in your professional and personal life.” The killer drew in a deep breath then exhaled loudly into the phone. “But I must say it’s one of the reasons I was drawn to you.”
The air inside the hall of the old strip mall was stale and musty. Yellowed and faded papers covered the floor. Most of the windows to the storefronts were shattered, their shelves bare and empty like the electronics store. Naked mannequins flashed their bodies, some disfigured with graffiti, which also decorated the walls and benches inside. “I stopped caring about whatever sick reason you chose me the moment Beth died. I don’t give a shit what you want. All that matters now is putting a bullet through your head.”
The killer laughed. “Abandoned all of law and order, Detective? That’s good. Very good. You’ve reached an understanding of the world only a few others before you have grasped. My earlier offer still stands. Expose the governor, and we both get the ending we want.”
“I don’t give a shit about what you want!” Cooper white-knuckled the phone, the thin thread of patience severed. “I’m not going to do your dirty work. It’s only a matter of time before—”
“You won’t find me, Detective, unless I want to be found.” He scoffed. “Even with the resources of the FBI and the Baltimore Police, you couldn’t find me until I gave you the clues you needed. And it’s going to stay that way until you give me what I want. And you and I both know you’ll do it. Chaos and vengeance are your scales of justice now, and I’ve finally given you the strength to do what you’ve always wanted. Kill.”
“There’s only one life I care about taking.”
“I know. And that’s why I wanted to bring you back here to where you first got blood on your hands.” The killer paused. “Beth and I spoke quite a bit during our time together. She told me about the phone call the two of you had after you shot and killed Douglas Mavin.” He clucked his tongue. “You never know how heavy a life can weigh on you until you’ve taken one yourself. Believe me, I can sympathize. The first time is always nerve racking. It takes courage to kill something that’s still breathing, that has a conscious mind, that thinks and speaks like you do.” A sense of wonderment filled the killer’s voice. “There’s no other sensation like it in the world.”
Cooper stopped in the middle of the hallway, the revolver in her hand lowered to her side. The sun cooked the inside of the strip mall like an oven, and she smelled the rotten stench of death nearby. It was a smell that never left you once you experienced it, the decaying flesh of a human being. “Where are they?”
“Ah, so you’re getting closer.” The killer chuckled. “You had to have been wondering what other motives behind this visit could have been.” He sighed. “I knew you’d be resistant to appeasing my demands, so I thought I’d offer you a little incentive. Head to the gaming store at the end of the hall.”
Cooper’s gait shifted from walk to jog, and she kicked up old papers stuck to the floor. She saw the store sign, and the sight broke her into a sprint. He couldn’t have gotten the girls. That was impossible. But still the heightened fear in the back of her mind only exacerbated her haste as she skidded to a stop in front of the closed game store. The bottom of the door was stained red, and the handle was smeared with blood.
“Afraid of what you’ll find, Detective?” the killer asked, a smile hidden by the anonymity of the phone.
Cooper gripped the bloodied door handle, the crimson smear still wet from the heat of the building. She felt the slippery, metallic slime on her fingertips as she pulled the door open and the stench of death blasted her face. She dropped the phone, nearly vomiting the breakfast from the soup kitchen. She covered her mouth and nose with the collar of her shirt, her free hand clutching her leg as she hunched over, gagging.
The back of the game room was dark, but the sunlight that spilled in from the hallway illuminated a lifeless hand that stretched from the shadows. Cooper stepped toward it, keeping the door open so what light it offered could brighten her path. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the lump attached to the hand took shape, and she saw the outline of a man. A hole in his chest had sprouted a dried well of blood that had pooled next to his ribs. His eyes remained open, staring into the dark ceiling ab
ove.
Cooper knelt and pressed her finger against his neck, checking for a pulse, the body still warm. In the darkness, she could barely make out the features on the man’s face, but after examination, she saw that it wasn’t anyone she knew. She stood, and as she gazed further into the darkness, she realized dozens of bodies lined the floor, a sea of corpses. She went to each body in turn, praying that the next face she saw wouldn’t be one of the girls, or even Tim, knowing the loss of both parents would cripple her nieces to the point of mental collapse. But after checking every body, every pulse, every face, she returned to the front of the store, guilt ridden with relief that the victims weren’t anyone she knew.
Cooper hunched over and finally puked her breakfast, feeling the acidic burn of the vomit and the foul taste on her tongue. She stumbled backward, weak, wiping her mouth, and smacked into a counter that she clutched to steady herself. She eyed the phone she’d dropped on the ground. She picked it up and pressed the device to her ear. “Why?”
“To send a message.” The killer’s voice dropped an octave. “Despite what vengeful hate you feel toward me, there is over twenty years of law enforcement programmed into you, and it’s not something that goes away willingly. I killed those men and women to show you what I can still do, what I’m truly capable of. Every single one of those people died within the past twenty-four hours. I can go anywhere, Detective. Do anything I want. And unless you do what I tell you so you can come and stop me, I’m going to continue killing people. Eventually I just may get to someone else you care about.”
The call ended and Cooper released her grip on the phone, which landed in the pile of vomit near the door. She gazed at the lives taken because of her. A wake of death followed her everywhere now. And the only way to make it stop was to play the killer’s game.
