Merlyo felt a strangely foreboding sensation as he descended deeper into the murky unchartered depths of the dirty swimming pool and cold water attacked his body with its icy embrace. Cold darkness surrounded him within an instant and obliterated his amusing thoughts of laughter that had given him a head rush and caused him to lose his balance upon the surface. The all-encompassing darkness now brutally pulled him deeper and deeper into the blackened and sightless pool, its unnatural power pulling him towards the abyss below that now eagerly awaited his imminent arrival. As he felt himself descend into the blackened void he also felt the warmth of life strangely drift away from him and it was as if he was crossing over from one realm of the living and into a colder realm where only the dead were allowed to reside.
He then opened his reluctant eyes to see nothing but a black void of emptiness before him as the sounds of the above men where now muffled by the thick waters relentless embrace, only to be quickly replaced completely with the pure silence of ringing within his water filled ear. Then he saw something curious in the dark stillness before him, a distinct movement within the darkened depths as a pale figure slowly started to emerge from the turbulent blackness. It was a young and beautiful little girl whom came slowly floating up towards him, her eyes closed and having an ethereal quality about her as if she did not belong here. She looked to be peacefully asleep within this ethereal realm of silence and as the pretty nightie wearing girl slowly floated up towards him, he noticed that her features became more defined as the murky water became clearer.
He curiously looked at her with caution because he was weary of yet another troubling encounter with the Lady of the Lake and remained steadfast as she drew nearer. He then noticed that she had an angelic smile edged upon her pretty but static face which forced him to brace himself for yet another onslaught of terror courtesy of the Lady of the Lake. His apprehension was justly rewarded as the girl suddenly opened her eyes when she was near him to reveal that she had none which in turn instinctively made the frightened detective scream and soundless scream underwater.
The gaping holes that used to contain her eyes were now filled with nothing but red raw meat and quickly ascending maggots that where now free of their masters prison. The now recognisably putrid Lady of the Lake then grabbed his alarmed face and screamed at him as she forcefully pulled him nearer to her own horrifying face. The struggling detective tried to release her vice like grip but could not and then alarmingly noticed that she was pulling him in for a macabrely gruesome kiss as her rotten lips began to come together and stick out towards his own. The struggling detective frantically pushed and pulled at the Lady of the Lake’s spectre but to no avail as she proceeded to fill his oxygen filled mouth with her rancid tongue of hideousness, forcing it in through his closed mouth and letting its slimy contents saturate his reluctant mouths interior.
The alarmed detective then saw his precious bubbles of life giving air quickly break free of his mouth and ascend up into the sightless water, cruelly disappearing back into the world of the living where he belonged. He expected that this was how he would now ultimately meet his end until the gruesomely hideous spectre then pulled his face back and away from her gaping mouth. The petrified Merlyo had little oxygen left as he looked into her hellish face in all its complexity, attempting to differentiate between her rancid flesh and her strangely seaweed like hair. She then forcibly tilted his head backwards by pulling his hair so that he could just about see the macabre collection of body parts upon the surface which strangely now came back into view.
As she firmly held his head in place as she then pointed with her rotten outstretched finger towards this area in a determined fashion as if she was wanting him to see something that he could not. A sudden realisation unnaturally came upon the frightened detective as he felt the Lady of the Lakes hand gentle release his head which in turn caused him to instinctively look upon her face again. Her face had now changed back into the initial beautiful face of a smiling young girl but this time her newly returned blue eyes lovingly looked back upon him, silently expressing a sadness from her unknown location.
She then gently drifted back down into the murky depths whilst she looked up at him with her fantastic eyes, there defiant blue colour being the very last thing to disappear within the sightless black that lay below her. Merlyo silently watched her as she finally disappeared into the darkness with a feeling of immense sadness within him before he was then forcefully brought back up towards the turbulent surface and back into the land of the living. He gasped for the life giving air which the Lady of the Lake had so cruelly denied him whilst the concerned diver eagerly helped him towards the pools edge.
The confused and preoccupied Merlyo then desperately climbed out of the water and got back onto his feet with the help of his attentive partner. The concerned Zalewski looked on as the preoccupied Merlyo then immediately went towards the centre of the macabre collection of body parts which were now flanked by two dismembered torsos. He then hastily demanded the diver’s knife so that he could pry open the sealed rusty can, convinced that there was something of interest within it after the timely intervention of the Lady of the Lake. The diver hastily gave him his knife whilst the concerned Zalewski shrugged his shoulders at the diver, not fully understanding what Merlyo’s intentions where.
The determined Merlyo then frantically attempted to open the rusty old can and he did so after a few strenuous attempts. To both Zalewski and the diver’s horror, Merlyo then shockingly revealed the doubly troublingly dark secret that the Lady of the Lake had wished him to find. Two tightly packed and frozen heads of the male and the female victims where forcefully lodged within the rusting can with such an immense brute force that the detective struggled to dislodge them from there frozen tomb. As he forcefully pulled them out of the can by their solidified hair, all noticed that both heads had a hideously maddening screams edged upon their separate tortured faces that cried out from the beyond for help that would never come.
Eliot Ness stood confidently assured at the front of his modified silver Scarab which was in turn at the apex of a fleet of eleven police automobiles, two police wagons and three fire engines. All there search lights were primed straight ahead and towards the cluster of rickety shanty homes that lay deep within the uncompromisingly jungle like maze of Kingsbury Run. There separate blue and red emergency lights flashed in an all-encompassing aura which shrouded all the nearby facing shanty homes within its grasp, confusingly mixing dark shadows within a barrage of colour.
It had just gone forty one minutes past midnight, a minute since he had given the order for his units to start their planned operation. His thirty five loyal Unknowns were frantically buzzing around, going in and out of the rickety shanty homes whilst shouting and forcefully arresting the scared looking inhabitants of all nationalities, sexes and ages. A satisfied Ness stood by himself as the accompanying and concerned looking fire brigade staff all cautiously viewed the ongoing operation and waited patiently behind the wall of powerful spotlights and flashing emergency lights that illuminated the shantytown.
The anxiously on looking fire brigade staff did not trust the safety director because they had been used by him recently to go from home to home, pretending to inspect all properties for potential fire hazards whereas in fact this was a clever ploy by the shrewd Ness in a fruitless effort to locate the elusive Mad Butchers abattoir. They did not trust his well versed techniques of artful deception and considered his scheming methods unethical as he skilfully skirted around the law unhindered, searching homes for one thing when he was actually seeking another. Some of his own Unknown’s team were also of same opinion of his questionable tactics but dared not voice their concern over these “vintage Ness techniques” for fear of being sacked by the drug fuelled lawman.
This silent opposition was mainly because he had recently used them to frantically round up all doctors of distinguished medical notoriety within Cleveland, and this included a rather disgruntled Gerber, in orde
r to interview them about their whereabouts during the times of the numerous unsolved murders. Many where of the opinion that forcibly dragging in the startled county coroner was a step two far and gave the impression that Ness was desperate to finally conclude this dreadful chapter in the city’s recently dark history. Ness was however furious at the brazen killer for defiantly leaving the two unidentified and dismembered frozen bodies so close to his office in an obvious move to both publically embarrass and humiliate him.
This night would be his personal answer to the unknown killer, a defiantly brutal and appropriate response whereby he would be the one inflicting the pain and not the Mad Butcher. He would show this deranged madman the true nature of the force in which he so willingly sough to intimidate, the untameable force of a resurgent ex-prohibition agent whom was starting a new and successful career here in Cleveland. He would pummel the defiant killer in the eyes of the public with his brutal fist in the only way that he knew how and he would be successful in his quest to ultimately destroy him in all of his totality.
The untrusting and concerned fire brigade staff looked on as the panic they were witnessing soon changed into chaos as some violent scuffles occurred between the disturbed residents and Ness’s loyal Unknowns. The poor residents of the shantytown thought that they were being robbed by some well-armed gang of interlopers and violently struggled even though the Unknowns had made it clear that they were police officials and simply wished for them to leave there homes. There warnings only solidified the untrusting nature of the local residents whom did not trust the establishments men whom had done nothing to help there already downtrodden community in recent times.
Unusually there was only a light drizzle of warm rain coming down from the sparsely covered sky above which allowed a full, bright blood red moon overhead to fill up the gloomy maze like surroundings. It was as if the shantytown had been painted in a dark but vibrant red, showing all of its hidden squalid and putrid ugliness in a full and uncompromising clarity. This disturbing view of the squalid living conditions was further highlighted as the police and fire brigade’s red and blue lights added to the illumination of the city’s shame, highlighting the brutally cruel nature of capitalisms failures. The constant humidity reminded Ness of his first arrival here those years ago on the train and he briefly reminisced about how optimistic he had initially been about this promising new position and how excited he had been about this new challenge. However those first positive emotions felt alien to him now because much had happened which had made the safety director position that much more unappealing, just like his relationship with Poppy had metamorphosed from something beautiful into something more pessimistic and contaminated.
He then took off his trusty patched hat to wipe his sweaty brow with his handkerchief as the humid and sticky night air saturated his very being. He looked at his trusty hat for a brief solitary moment and remembered the man that he had used to be and how much he had changed over the preceding years. He then tried to forcibly move this nostalgic feeling of his past self away and into another place, a dark and uncompromising place which was separate from his new self and a place whereby he could feel comfortably lost within his conflicted thoughts. He had vitally important work to do here tonight that was far more important than clinging on to some sort of self-loathing or self-hatred about how things had turned out in the past. He was determined not to dwell on regretful events that had already transpired and which he could not hope to change.
There was the Mad Butcher to catch and an entire community and an entire city where depending upon him to do so and he would not let them down, not tonight and not ever because he had chosen to save this city. He had chosen to save this city because he was unable to save himself from what he had already become and Merlyo’s confrontational words by the Cuyahoga double homicide scene continually rang out from within his troubled mind, frighteningly assaulting his mental stability with their accusatory insinuations. He chose to ignore his current unsavoury identity because he was absolutely resolute that this conundrum of a case would be solved this very night in one way or another, regardless of the consequences and even if it meant the total destruction of the entire filthy and rotten to the core shantytown.
He had to be more than a man tonight in order to compete with this Mad Butcher because the newspapers had made out the elusive killer to be more than a man and some sort of cleverly cunning and conniving, otherworldly demon that had been playing the police for fools with his malicious mind games. That is until tonight because a resolutely determined Ness had decided to draw the line in the preverbal sand because this night was about righteous judgement and he was determined to dish out some justice upon this unknown killer and stop this prolonged nightmare before the sun rose. He had come to the conclusion that in order to find this monsters abattoir or even catching him red handed and in the act of murdering, then destroying such a seedy viper’s nest of cutthroats, criminals and prostitutes in this shantytown could only be a good thing for both the case and the city.
He would not only catch the Mad Butcher tonight but also finally bring some law and order back to this godforsaken area of the city and reignite his good image within the eyes of the newspapers at the same time. By doing this necessary dark deed tonight he would also take the initiative back from the ravenously rampant newspapers whom where making a mockery of all that he had accomplished within his first two years of arriving here. He had decided that he would not allow some crazed and vile lunatic, whom had a macabre lust for blood and torturing his victims, to slowly dismantle and ruin all that he had accomplished and tarnish his hard fought for good reputation. Once he was finally rid of this irritating distraction that hid within the confusing labyrinth of shadows in Kingsbury Run, he could finally focus back upon himself, getting off the opium and possibly even starting a family of his own.
The Mad Butchers macabrely humoured mind games had ignited a curiosity within the general public that needed to be endlessly feed by the vampire like newspapers, whom where all too eager to please their readership with numerous tall tales and unconformable speculations. This constant public analysis of the killer’s motives and behaviour was beginning to be at his own determent because his name would always be linked with the unknown killer and constantly highlighted his inability to capture the deranged madman. His relationship with the Mad Butcher was yet another negatively popular relationship to add to his many that was being actively commented on and speculated about by the press on an almost daily basis. He could no longer pick up a newspaper without reading about his own love life in combination with his inability to catch this most elusive of infamous killers. These two most secretive of topics had now alarmingly amalgamated together to form a deadly new entity which any avid reader could no longer differentiate between because they were now in effect, one in the same. If the Mad Butcher struck then it was not because of the killer’s obviously deranged mind but more so because of Ness’s inability to capture him due to his famed late night partying antics.
He smiled about this as he continued to satisfyingly watch the frantic searching of the chaotic shantytown by his loyal Unknowns before him, causing many scuffles to break out amongst the various small determined units that he had put together. Screams of mercy came from many arrested residents and the sound of breaking plates and loud radio chatter blissfully filled the turbulent night air with the pleasant symphony of sweet vengeance. He felt a new wave optimism as the screams of panicked children and their mothers rang out within his wanting ears whilst he satisfactorily leaned upon the gleaming silver bonnet of his beloved Stout Scarab.
The impressively shining automobile appeared to brilliantly reflect all the surrounding red and blue lights even though dust from the hysterically scattering vagrants before it coated it in a thin layer of dirt. This layer could not belittle the marvellously shining silver beast of a machine that lay underneath as it effortlessly repelled its attempt to smother its brilliance. Ness felt that the silver Scarab was a repr
esentation of himself in that he also repelled the negativity and aggression from all outside forces to retain his uniquely stylised approach to both law and order. It also represented his ego in that it was a defiantly noticeable attraction wherever it went that also hinted at the complicated nature of the successful man underneath.
Since he had bought it at the Great Lakes Exhibition he had heavily modified it through a variety of specified alterations that where aimed at both his own protection and feeding his opioid fuelled ego. Since he had been so brutally treated at the hands of Polizzi both upon the street and behind the steering wheel by his goons, he had been determined to never be treated in such a manner like that again and had taken the initiative to heavily fortify the gleaming automobile. The silver Scarab was a continual work in progress, much like himself and he was constantly making alterations to it and had numerous ideas about both its hidden defensive and offensive capabilities. He had made his own licence plate which jokingly had his old school nickname written on it “ELEGANT MESS”, in reference to his recent troublesome life events which the entire of Cleveland now knew about whether he liked it or not. He had decided to tackle the tricky issue by amusingly referencing himself upon the silver Scarab’s shiny shell which had the undesired effect of further convincing people that he was either vain or worse, unstable.
The Noir Evil Page 36
