Searchlight: An Unkind Death
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Searchlight: An Unkind Death
David Willoughby
Copyright 2012 David Willoughby
The room spun slightly as I set my foot on the floor. The dull pain in my leg shot up in to my head like a bullet and made me see stars. I reached over to the bed stand and found a familiar friend. I took the cap off of the top of the bottle and flung it across my dirty apartment and out of a window that had been carelessly left open. I tilted the bottle of rum back and placed it back on the nightstand, dry. The burning sensation pushed the pain back down. The alarm clock that sat next to the bed had long since blown its speakers but it still told time. Once again I had woken up at 6:00 with absolutely no reason. I growled menacingly at the clock as if it could sense my displeasure.
I knew my ride wouldn’t be here for another two hours so I went about my usual routine. I limped over to the closet and threw on a wrinkled button down from within. Many years ago, I had made sure all my clothes were a dark blue-grey color scheme. It took the work out of matching. Having slept in a pair of dark wash jeans and a white t-shirt that was rumpled and dull from years of use, I was ready to go when my driver got here. I limped over to the bed and dropped down next to it and cranked out a few dozen pushups. Rolling over, I pulled off a hundred crunches polished off with a few leg raises. I stood up cautiously and eased my way in to a squat. I dropped down to about half way before my right leg gave out and sent me crashing to the floor.
“Fuck” I growled to no one in particular. I steadied myself and pulled my body up off the floor. Walking towards the door of the apartment I grabbed my wallet and keys off of the bed stand and shoved them in to my wallet. The apartment I lived in was much bigger than I needed but it gave me a bit of breathing room and since the company was footing the bill I didn’t exactly feel bad about it.
Hobbling towards my pantry I started my breakfast routine. I whipped a bowl down from the cabinet and gently left it on the counter. I grabbed a spoon from the drawer and tossed it in to the bowl from across the kitchen. I lobbed in heavy side down and with a bit of spin. The spoon whirled around the inside of the bowl a few times with dramatic flair. A splash of milk and a pour of a box later and I was good to go. Peanut Butter Crunch was the reigning champion of the morning routine. It was once unseated by Cheerios for about a week when the superstore ran out due to some coupon or what-ever. I never cooked food in the morning; it seemed so hazardous for a person of my morning temperament to be wielding a hot skillet.
I chewed down my food and made a show of running through a morning routine of dishes and laundry before the door bell rang at 8:00. Before I limped up to the door I grabbed the shiny metal cane off of the coffee table. It was a bright Georgia day, as always, and I grabbed a pair of cheap superstore sunglasses off of the counter before opening the door.
The man on the other side of door was a lean mass of muscle. His black hair was cropped in a military cut. His khaki pants and blue button down were clean pressed and straight. He looked like an off-duty soldier. It was a bit of shame that he had to work for a contracting firm instead of working for a real department but he had one little flaw that made him decidedly undesirable. Not that it mattered to me. I wasn’t going to be passing a physical fitness test any time today. My cane held the door from swinging closed as I stared at him. I wasn’t walking out the front door until he said something; it was a point of pride. He had caught on to my game and stood there silently staring through me and in to my home. It was a long couple of minutes before he broke the silence.
“In all seriousness though, we have to go” his voice was unnaturally smooth and had he a touch of an accent that not many would be able to place. The name on the tag stuck absolutely perfectly to his shirt was Andrew. I knew it wasn’t his real name, so I called him Jekyll. He didn’t appreciate the joke.
I walked out of my apartment and followed him down the stairs. The morning obstacle of the stairs lay before me. I had intentionally requested a second floor apartment. The day I couldn’t walk down those stairs was the day I didn’t need to leave the apartment. I tackled the stairs with little more than a wince, brought on by a slight miscalculation with my cane that placed too much weight on my knee.
Jekyll had parked his car in front of the curb. The black sedan screamed government, which was convenient considering our occupation. The door to my side was already open when I got to it. Jekyll, having beat me to the car, was already inside and waiting for me with all the lethal patience of a glacier. My seat was warm from the sun and it was still in my usual reclining position. I lay back in the seat and closed the door. The A/C kicked in and began blasting cold air. My chair rested just so that I could not easily see out the windows. It was a nice relaxing rest on the way to where ever we had to go.
We drove out of the apartment complex and down the calm street. The drive was only a few short minutes. Jekyll parked the car with his usual grace and practical flair. I knew we couldn’t be at the office by now. This was very unusual. Jekyll was a very by the book kind of person. It occurred to me for a brief second that Jekyll had finally gotten tired of my crap and driven me to some hell-hole to bury me. That would have been very out of character for him. I dismissed it. I popped my head up and looked around.
The parking lot was familiar. It was the local mall, a nice place for casually waddling around and wasting money. I liked it a lot. I doubted very much that Jekyll had driven me here for a shopping trip.
“Here to update the threads? Because I think you are right, blue is just not your color.” I said hoping for an answer to my questions without having to ask them.
“Do you ever stop being a smart ass?” He asked with only with only slightest bit of annoyance. He opened the door and waited a few seconds as I limped out of the vehicle. I followed him as he turned to walk away. It was not long before I saw the yellow tape. My cane clicked on the asphalt as I approached and I saw several heads turn at the sound. Some bore mixed looks of recognition and pain. Other had mixtures of grief and sorrow. One was vomiting. Always a good sign.
The body was that of a middle aged man, he had a wedding ring on but that was all that I could gather for his personal status. He was remarkably naked for being in a parking lot. Didn’t give a person a lot to go with.
The wounds on his body were clearly claw marks. I was going to guess werewolf, I never like to jump to conclusions but they never would have called us in if it were a mere mauling. He was bruised and beaten. Either he was a really tough guy or a lot of these wounds were inflicted post mortem. The amount of claw scrapes and bruising indicate a very hefty beating. One other thing stuck out as peculiar. I lacked the expertise to determine when it happened, but the man in question was at some point in the altercation shot in the head, execution style. The bullet hole was in the center of the forehead. I couldn’t see an exit wound but with him being on his back and the massive puddle of blood underneath him it was hard to tell.
“What do you make of it boss man” I said as I turned to see Jekyll’s face contorted to reflect his inner conflict with the scene. Jekyll was always a little nervous around werewolves.
The reason that Jekyll had shown up with me instead of in a squad car was because Jekyll had that one flaw. Our dear Dr. Jekyll had a Mr. Hyde. He defies current classification as a were-creature because he is not strictly limited to lunar activity. We have not yet tied down his trigger, but Jekyll has a very unfortunate tendency to become a bear under the right conditions. Not just any bear mind you, a ridiculously large grizzly, the kind that takes shotgun slugs and then munches on the shotgun owner.
When he was shorter, about 14, he had a sudden uncontrolled outburst in the middle of his school. I don’t know if it was his f
irst incident, and I won’t ask. He killed 12 classmates before he was subdued. He was sent to the Searchlight Facility for “protection”. He was locked up in the super-max security wing, a gross over precaution, of the aboveground Searchlight Asylum. There they had him locked up until he turned 21. He took a few tests and they set him loose.
His discomfort confirmed my suspicions without his words. Werewolves attacking humans was not particularly uncommon. The Atlanta area had two or three packs operating at any given time, depending on what you wanted to call the Atlanta “area”. Most people actually discredit the inner city pack as a real pack considering its tendency to rip each other apart to just two members once or twice a