The Umbras

by Derek Keeling

  The loaner car sped down Carter St., in between Third and Fourth Ave, with the van following quickly behind. Walter’s nervousness was running amuck, fogging his mind like the streets around him. Faintly, through the thick fog, a green light began to emerge. With one hard push of his foot, the car sped up to forty miles per hour, sending an unusual vibration throughout the car. “Come on baby, don’t do this to me now,” Walter uttered. The light had begun to change. The vibrant yellow pierced through the windshield of the car and left a glow upon everything. Walter blasted through the yellow light just as it begun to turn red. He had hoped that driver in the van would feel it was too dangerous to run the red light, and thus letting Walter get away unscathed. But unfortunately, the mysterious black van just kept on driving, completely avoiding any regard to the safety of himself or others. “Okay, it’s time to pull out the big guns,” he whispered, putting his seatbelt on. It was a normal thing for Walter to forget his seatbelt, but in this situation he thought, “I’m probably going to need this.” The seatbelt made two clicks as it was forced into the receiver, the strap instantly tightened to Walter’s chest and waist.

  The cars raced down Fourth and quickly made it through the green light that awaited them on Fifth Ave.. Walter tried to scan the next street for any oncoming traffic as he braced himself for the surprise he was going to pull on the van behind him. But, the fog was too thick. Nothing could be seen clearly, except the red light that faced Walter. He hoped that no one would be coming in the opposite direction. As he got closer to Sixth Ave. he noticed the headlights of traffic. A deluge of fear ran through him. His eyes peered into the rear view mirror to check the vans position. It followed close, swerving back and forth in a menacing manner, as if trying to taunt Walter into stopping and succumbing to his fate. Walter had no intension of stopping. The red light suddenly changed to green as Walter and the van approached. He spun the steering wheel violently and the sound of screeching tires filled the streets as Walter took the corner onto Sixth Ave.. The sudden violent left turn caught the chaser off guard. He had almost missed the turn. But, he veered sharply left. The driver adjusted his speed and took off not far behind Walter.

  Sixth Ave. was a rundown street to say the least. Transients, prostitutes, gangs, and drugs all littered the streets. It was the street where most of the action happened when Walter was working with the Francis City Police Department.

  It was his intension to floor it, passing through Main St. and then taking a sharp right onto Portland St.. But, as he approached Main St., he could vaguely see the faint silhouette of a shopping cart being pushed by a homeless man, and a few more people crossing the intersection on the east side of the street. Thinking fast, Walter slammed on the brakes, sending the car skidding across the first crosswalk before the intersection, west of the street. Noticing this, the pedestrians scattered like bugs away from the scene. The only thing left in the intersection for this split second as Walter skidded and turned, was the homeless man’s shopping cart that he had left behind. Walter gripped the steering wheel and took a quick left. The car felt as if it was going to flip as he turned the corner of Sixth and Main, but it didn’t. As the vehicle skidded through the intersection, turning violently to the left, it smashed into the shopping cart that was left abandoned. Bits of trash, cans, and other debris shot across the back and side of Walter’s car. He checked his rear view mirror again and saw that the van had anticipated the turn and made it with no trouble. “I’ve got to lose this guy,” Walter thought as his car shifted itself into second gear. Walter, now heading north, truly put the pedal to the metal. The car, on the other hand, strained at such a request. A loud pop and a burst of sooty black smoke was expelled from the exhaust pipe. But still the little loaner car sped up faster, its weak aluminum frame rattling more and more as the speed increased. The van’s speed was also increasing, gaining quickly on Walter’s little loaner car. Both cars flew through Fifth and Main effortlessly.

  The van’s fog lights turned on, sending a blinding white incandescent beam into the car, enveloping all of Walter’s view of the chaser behind him. For a moment his vision was completely blurred, stunned from the bright lights. “Oh yeah,” Walter whispered. “How about this.”

  The asphalt shredded the loaner car’s tires as Walter braked into the corner of Forth and Main. Smoke and rubber particles surrounded the intersection. The sound and sudden chaos at Fourth and Main ceased for a brief moment, but Walter soon broke that silence and peace with another round of screeching and smoke as he turned onto Fourth Ave.. The van had to slam on the brakes, but over corrected and was sent spinning into a quick three-sixty degree turn. Walter peered into the mirror and saw that the chaser was stopped for just long enough to possibly make an escape. So, he extended his foot all the way to the floor and the car was sent flying down Fourth Ave.. Walter could see nothing through the thick fog as he hit speeds in excess of fifty miles per hour. “Time to lose this fellow,” Walter thought. The car started shaking again as the speedometer reached sixty miles per hour.

  The corner came fast. Almost too fast. A garbage truck out on its normal route was trying to take a left turn from the east side of Fourth and Portland. Walter had just enough time to react. As he laid hard into the steering wheel for the right turn from the west side of Fourth and Main, the garbage truck slammed on his brakes. Walter swerved just enough to miss the truck and jolted right passed the front of it. Walter heard the sound of screeching tires behind him. “Ha,” Walter bellowed, happy with the sudden turn of events. The van was completely stopped, stuck with the garbage truck in front of him. The garbage truck driver was in a state of shock from the situation that had just occurred. Needless to say, he wasn’t moving.

  Walter could barely see the garbage truck and the mystery van, which were still stopped at the corner of Fourth and Portland. The image started to disappear into the fog. Walter’s nerves were still shot, but he felt better being further from the situation. The Umbras scared him, he wasn’t sure why. They just did. The car sped down Portland St., passing easily through Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Ave.. Until Walter felt he had completely lost the van.

  As Walter approached Twelfth Ave., he couldn’t help but feel a little stupid for letting himself get as scared and nervous as he did. He also couldn’t help but feel dumb about the whole car chase in general. “I’m a cop, well, a detective I guess. I shouldn’t be running from someone, breaking every law in the book. I should be chasing them,” he observed. The thought of this eased the pressure from his foot to the gas pedal. The car slowed down quickly, as if yearning for torpidity. The stop light on Twelfth Ave. glowed brightly green into the fog. Walter took the right turn with ease and calmness. It was over, seemingly. He could see the morgue ahead, passed Main St. and on the corner of Twelfth and Carter. The building was like a trophy for Walter, shining in the distance. It was a kind of solace to him. That was until he thought about poor, sweet, beautiful Marcia Darden. The late wife of the late Neil Darden.

  He pulled into the parking lot. The loaner car popped one last time as he turned the engine off. He sat in the car thinking for a moment. His mind wasn’t thinking of anything specific, just running through everything that had just happened. Kind of like a slideshow of the day, little pictures in his head passing back and forth through his mind’s eye. All amounting to nothing, just mental rhetoric. He got out of his car and entered the morgue.

  The door to the mortuary had just slammed shut as the black van pulled onto the road next to the morgue. The headlights went out and the engine turned off.

  Chapter 6

  Another Morgue Mystery

  The putrid smell of the morgue had greeted Walter’s nostrils the moment he entered the building. It was a fragrance that can never be forgotten once whiffed. An absolutely nasty mixture of rancid meats, eggs, and curdling milk. All of which filled the air and mixed with whatever cheap, flowery air freshener was on hand at the time. “Glad to see the place hasn’t changed much since I’ve been
gone,” Walter said to himself as he wiped his feet on the dusty gray doormat. With exception to the horrid smell, he was beginning to feel safe, calm, and comfortable. The chase had stirred his fears into a frenzy. His manliness, he felt, was shattered into a pile of childish pieces. He ran like a coward fearing for his life. But a sense of security came over him as the adrenaline settled within him. The creepiness of the morgue, had turned into a safe haven for him.

  A long, dimly lit, straight corridor laid in front of Walter, fading into the dark distance of the morgue. A glimmer of gold to his left caught his eye as he finished wiping his feet and started down the hallway. A very simple plaque, made from a cheap metal, and containing large black letters that read: Presentation Room. To his right was the office of Edward Brussels. One window allowed a view into the room. Walter peered through the thrashed venetian blinds and found only darkness. The hallway extended passed two exam rooms, and soon came to an intersection where another hallway led far to the left and the right. He stood at the intersection of these hallways and looked around. The place seemed to be deserted. No movement, no nothing. Just silence, and stillness. Down the hallway to his right, he noticed three doors. Two of which, looked like normal doors. But the third, looked to be an emergency exit of sorts. He could see a red sticker atop the door, but couldn’t make out the writing.

  He could hear the sound of a door opening behind him. It jolted him out of his staring stupor. He turned sharply and could see the familiar pudgy shape of Thomas Webster, the mortician’s assistant. He was drying his hands off from a recent wash. The damp paper towels shuffled back and forth in his small, sausage-like fingers. He looked up and met eyes with Walter from down the hall.

  “Walter, you made it,” he said still wiping his hands, this time with increased speed. “What took you so long?” he said as Walter decreased the distance between them.

  “It’s a long story,” Walter said shaking his head.

  “Well, never mind that, please come with me,” Thomas said with urgency. He jammed the paper towels into his back pocket and led Walter through Exam Room Three’s door.

  The room was cold, bitterly cold. Stabbing through Walter’s thick trench coat with ease. A shiver was sent throughout his body, giving him goose bumps.

  “Why is it so cold in here?” Walter asked, tucking his hands into the deep pockets on the front of his trench coat.

  “Keeps the bodies fresh,” Thomas answered. Bodies were everywhere, littering the room like the scene from a horror movie. All the bodies were placed on stainless steel gurneys, which adorned the entirety of the room. A stark white sheet covered them. Stains appeared randomly on the sheets, some deep crimson, some smoky yellow. “She’s over here,” Thomas said. He walked toward the back right of the room to a table shoved into the corner. A sheet with numerous stains, varying in color, blanketed the body. Walter could see a few strands of blond hair exposed from the sheet, laying gently on the cold steel table. The sight sickened him. He turned from the body and covered his mouth, his face beginning to turn a light shade of green.

  “How did this happen?” Walter asked, repulsed at the image before him.

  “Well…Hey are you okay?” Thomas said, just noticing Walter’s unusual state of illness.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” He shook the feeling away from himself and faced the body and Thomas. “So, what going on?”

  “She came in about three hours ago,” he said, placing his right hand on his chin. “She’s got a needle mark on the back of her neck, like Neil.” He paused and scratched his chin and neck. The excess fat and skin made a wave-like movement that seemed to cascade down his face like a receding ocean wave. “But, unlike Neil, Marcia has a bit more bruising, and a few more needle marks.”

  “What are you saying?” Walter asked.

  “Well, I’m saying that there was a struggle. Here, take a look,” Thomas said. He grasped the stained white blanket with his hand and pulled it down to Marcia’s chest. “You see here,” Thomas said, pointing to a bruise on the lower part of her chin. The bruise was nasty, with a deep purple center, fading out to a pasty yellow-green.

  “My God,” Walter exclaimed. A sickness fell upon him the instant Thomas revealed the body. Walter was normally good with seeing and dealing with dead bodies, with exception to the smell. But seeing Marcia laying stiff and cold on a steel table did something weird to his insides.

  “You see these needle marks, how they don’t go in straight. Based on that, and the bruising, I’d say that there was a struggle before she succumbed to her fate,” Thomas reiterated. Marcia’s body was riddled with small needle holes. Some of which, appeared to have entered sideways and left a long streak of red where the puncture was made.

  “So, why did you call, me?” Walter asked.

  “I wasn’t supposed to call you,” Thomas answered. His eyes paced across the body of Marcia Darden, studying her with visual rhetoric. “I just thought it was necessary for you to know.”

  “What do you mean by you weren’t supposed to call me?” Walter wondered.

  “When the body came in, I first called Eddie. When I told him about the marks and bruises on her, he told me not to tell anyone,” Thomas said. “But, I thought you ought to know, considering your involvement with this case.”

  “Why didn’t Eddie want anyone to know about it?” Walter sought.

  “Past experiences, I guess. He was probably just scared,” Thomas answered, unsure.

  “What about the police, what did they do?” Walter said curiously.

  “Ha. The police did the same thing they did last time, closed the case.

  “What?” Walter said stunned. “How is that possible?”

  “They said it was a suicide. According to the F.C.P.D., she injected herself and died in that warehouse,” Thomas answered.

  “How does that make any sense? Did they find the needle? Why was she at the warehouse in the first place? All of these are good enough questions to keep a case open,” Walter said furiously.

  “Someone is making it so all of this just goes away, just disappear,” Thomas said. “Whatever’s going on, no one is supposed to know, or supposed to find out. And if they do, they end up like the Darden’s.” His chubby fingers stretched out and pointed toward the late Marcia Darden.

  “Ok then, I’ve got some work to do. Do you know what warehouse she was found at?” Walter asked pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen.

  “Yeah, the old abandoned warehouse on the corner of Third and Portland,” Thomas answered.

  “Is that the building with the sign that says, Young’s?” Walter asked.

  “Yep, that’s the one,” Thomas said.

  “Well, I can’t thank you enough for all your help, I do appreciate it,” Walter said humbly. Walter’s hand extended outward toward Thomas’s.

  “No problem,” Thomas said, shaking Walter’s hand tightly. “Be safe out there.”

  The door shut behind Walter, slamming and echoing throughout the halls. Walter’s sickening feeling only increased as he walked toward the exit through the halls of the morgue. As he walked by Eddie’s office, he glanced into the window to check to see if he had arrived. The room was still blanketed in darkness. It was as dead and as cold as the bodies in Exam Room Three. The horrid mass of flesh that lay still, lifeless, and pale, brought frightening feelings to Walter.

  “Am I next?” he wondered. The door handle turned and released its catch on the frame, exposing him to the consistently gray, foggy, and dark interior that downtown Francis City was known best for. A whipping breeze stung at Walter’s cheeks. He was tired of the cold. He was tired of the unknown. He was tired. But the work had to continue. If he stopped or rested now, more victims could turn up, including himself. With this in his mind, he shoved the key to the loaner car into the ignition, starting a series of rattles and pops that jolted and frightened him. He was most certainly on edge. His hands started to shake, not violently, but enough for him to be concerned for himself.

 
“Get ahold of yourself,” he quietly whispered. The engine popped one last time and finally started. Walter let pressure off the key and put the car into drive. One push of the gas pedal sent the car flying out of the parking lot.

  The black van soon followed Walter’s lead and started up the vehicle. This time the van’s lights stayed off. He pulled onto Twelfth far behind Walter. Walter saw none of this, oblivious with fear.

  Walter took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He tried to shut out the fears with rational thoughts. “This is bullshit,” he thought. “Someone is toying with me, trying to hide something.” He gritted his teeth tightly, exposing a long tough muscle along his jawline. “The Umbras are a myth,” he tried asserting to himself. But still he had his doubts. He wondered who would go to such extents to silence the people that got in their way. No answers came to him as he took a left on the corner of Twelfth and Portland St.. The long expanse that is Portland St., faded away in the distance behind a shroud of thick, white, Francis City fog.