It was this apartment that they was mow headed to.
James made sure to give the FBI a late start. So that he could have time with the scene. He had to find out what was there, before they yanked him out. This was his last chance and he had to make it count.
At first, Snyder wanted to let the FBI handle the raid. But, Chief Harris backed James to proceed. If the Chief didn’t back up his play, then he would have been forced to ask Charlene. She would have done anything for him. But, things were no longer the same between them. Not since the girl in the violet dress showed up.
As the truck sped down 46th Street, James wondered why a corporation would own a small apartment in Sunnyside? What were they hiding? Was it more bodies?
The police caravan arrived at the apartment building and screeched to a halt and the cops came down on the scene like thunder. They surrounded the building with four vehicles. About six armed police men secured the building in one fell swoop. Each cop carried a M-15 rifle, a bullet proof vest and black ski masks. James could tell that they were hungry for action. They covered the back and the front exits, as well as windows on the first floor. Locking down the building meant making sure that no one came and went without them knowing. That was one thing that James kept telling them.
James knew that the Beast was fast.
Securing the building was phase one and that was the responsibility of Detective Snyder. James trusted him and his men to keep a good look out. He hoped that some one would see the man in the mask that he saw that night at the abandoned house in Woodside.
James couldn’t let the FBI take the lead on this because they would have severely limited his participation in the operation.
Screw that, he thought.
He felt that there was a connection between the mass grave at the abandoned house and the black bags on the street and Violet. The cuts on thee bodies in the mass grave were the same as the cut on the severed body parts found in the street. He felt like it was all connected, even though he didn’t have any solid proof.
At the end of the block, Chief Harris monitored the situation. Once the building was secured, James was responsible for leading the team inside the building and taking the apartment by force.
Quickly, the men got into position and made sure that no one left or entered the building.
“The building is secured,” said Snyder. “Detective Night, are you ready?”
James Night glanced over at Violet, who was standing in the glass vestibule of the building, waiting for him. Then, she passed through the glass door and made her way in the lobby. Violet looked back at James and nodded at him, letting him know that she was ready.
“I’m ready,” said James into his walkie talkie.
James went inside, first. Then, four members of the raiding team followed. He led them through the art deco lobby with his red gun drawn.
James worked out everyone’s position making sure that everyone was ready to catch and detain anyone that tried to leave. As James passed the mail boxes in the lobby, one cop stopped to secure the elevator doors. Another cop went to secure the emergency stairwell.
There was a chance that the killer of those women was there.
James led to the team down a hallway on the ground floor. There were about ten apartments. But, James was interested in apartment 106. James and the other cops were about to start down the hallway, when Violet called to James.
James looked up and saw Violet by a set of apartments down the hallway, more toward the back of the building.
When James started to walk, Violet screamed “Turn around!”
James stopped and the other two cops stopped too.
“What is it James?” asked his team.
“Look, behind you!” screamed Violet.
James turned around and looked past the two cops at the other end of the hallway. There were two apartment doors and one of them was opening.
“Shoot!” said Violet.
In the crack of light of the door, James saw a large man with a pistol in his hand.
“Shit.”
Immediately, James told the men to get down. Then, he unholstered his red gun and pulled the trigger. He shot into the apartment through the crack in the door. Another bullet stuck the hallway and the metal green door, making the door swing open and knocking the man off his feet. The gun flew out of his hand.
Inside the apartment, the man with a tattoo covered face tried to reach for the gun.
James fell back on the carpet of the hallway with his back against the wall, while the other men fell back into the lobby. James was about to shoot the man’s hand to keep him away from the gun.
However, the two cops opened fire and shot the man with the tattoo covered face, in the chest. The bullets cut through his chest like butter. James looked at his face and his eyes went cold and pale.
In a flash of light, the spirit of the man stood up and he looked at his hands.
James pointed at the apartment door, “Go clear that apartment.”
After the cop stepped inside, James closed the door shut. The last thing he needed was to be distracted by another ghost. One was more than enough.
“Detective Night? What happened. Is the hallway secure?”
As James caught his breath, he took out his radio and answered Snyder. “Yeah, It’s secure. Over. What about the building? Is the building’s perimeter secure?”
There was silence on the radio.
James tried again, “Chief Harris? Has anything happened to the parameter? Over.”
James couldn’t help thinking that the gunman in the apartment was a decoy, more than anything else. Was the Beast already gone?
The walking talkie was silent for a minute, then sparked with life.
“Yeah, the parameter is still secure,” said Detective Snyder. “Is everyone okay in there, James? We heard some gunfire.”
“Yes. The hallway is secure. Over. We’re going into the apartment now.”
James turned off his walkie talkie and hooked it back on his belt Then, he looked down the dark hallway. About ten feet away, there were three steps leading up to the second half of the hallway.
Violet stood in front of apartment 106 where the subject property was located and leaned through the door by sticking her head inside and popping it back out.
Violet gave James a thumbs up. Everything was clear. Then, she disappeared through the door and went inside.
James stood up and quickly made his way up the three steps and to apartment 106. The others followed ten feet behind. Then, he told them to wait, while he got closer to apartment 106. With his red gun in his hand, he leaned against the green metal threshold of the door.
James was about to reach for the handle when Violet fell out of the green door. Light from Violet’s celestial body shimmered in his eyes, as she passed through the door. She ran into the wall in the opposite side of the hallway. Her spirit flickered with light when she hit the wall. Her back struck first and she slid down, until she sat on the carpet. When she took away her hands from her face, James could see the fear in her glowing eyes.
“Jesus. You don’t want to go in there, James. You don’t!”
“Come on, Violet. Get a hold of yourself.”
The other cops heard some mumbling come from James. But, they didn’t say anything about it. They knew that James was different. At least, that was the rumor.
“Go! Go look for yourself. I don’t even know how to explain it to you,” Violet pointed at the door.
James raised his gun, preparing to go in. He called the other cops to come closer.
Running down the middle of the hallway, a cop came through with a battering ram, ready to break down the green metal door. But, James told him to stop.
“Hold on. Let me try something first,” he told them. James hated making things more difficult then what they needed to be. He turned the knob to check if it was open.
It was.
As Detective James Night slowly opened the door, he first heard the te
levision playing loudly inside. The hallway was dark and led to the living room that was lit by a blue screen that blinked with white light every three seconds. However, the sound was as if there was a dramatic show playing with character voices and a narrator.
James carefully made his way through the hallway leading to the living room. The other two cops followed behind.
Detective James Night was the first to step into the living room, holding his red gun in both hands. The screen blinked, again. The sound on the television was on full blast.
James stepped into the living room and the first thing he saw was the back of their heads.
There were two old people sitting in two separate lazy boys. They stared at the television screen, blinking with blue light. They were taken by it, as if they were in a trance. James creeped into the living room, looking at each one of them. The old man’s face belonged in a Caravaggio painting. The woman was the same.
They looked harmless at first. He wondered if these two were responsible for the mass grave he uncovered at the abandoned house. Impossible. They looked old and feeble, too weak to move bodies around in the middle of thee night. He wondered how they fit into everything. Were they only mindless accomplices?
James kept his gun on the old man who was closest to him. The other two cops came into the living room, when James told them to hold off. He didn’t want to scare these old people to death. Plus, he wanted to get a statement from them, before the FBI took any suspects or witnesses away.
When James turned down the volume of television, the old lady’s eyes widened with fright.
“Bill! Bill!” She yelled over to her husband.
Quickly, the old woman snatched something off the table and threw it over to the old man who caught it with his fingers. He didn’t even need to open his eyes. He snatched out of the air, as if he knew exactly where it was going to be.
“Don’t move,” yelled James.
Quickly, Bill drank whatever was in that tiny vile, as two cops came into the living room with guns raised.
“Detective Night! What do you want us to do?” asked one of the cops.
“Don’t shoot, anyone” said James who needed them alive.
After the old man drank the vile, red liquid dripped from the side of his mouth. James thought that it was medicine. It had to be.
But, it wasn’t.
The old man grabbed his chest with one hand, as if he were having a heart attack. With the other, he held on to the arm rest of the lazy boy. The old man face convulsed with his veins and muscles bulging under his skin. Suddenly, Bills neck went limp and slumped on his char. Then, his head fell over his chest.
The whole time, James had his gun trained at his head.
“Jesus, what the hell happened to him?” asked the cop.
James stayed quiet.
“Bill?” called the old woman.
“Don’t move!” They yelled at her.
James dropped his gun and walked closer to Bill, who looked like a dead sack of potatoes.
“Watch out, James!” yelled Violet.
Suddenly, the old man’s head titled up. His eyes went white and he started to growl like an animal. Bill got up from the lazy boy chair and towered over James.
“Sit down!” said James.
“Stop him, Bill” yelled the old lady. “Stop them all!”
James tried to push Bill down, but the old man didn’t budge an inch. He tired again and nothing. The old man was unmovable like a solid piece of rock.
Then, the other two cops in the room yelled at Bill, “Don’t move. Get on the floor! Get down on the floor now!”
James looked up at Bill who had a big smile across his face. He was no longer the feeble man from that Caravaggio painting. Instead, he was something else. Bill’s face went flushed red with so much blood that the redness seeped out of his eyes.
“Do it Bill! Kill them all!” yelled the old woman.
With one arm, Bill pushed James and knocked him into the wall, knocking down a collection of civil war decorative plate that crashed down.
“Don’t shoot them!” James yelled at the two cops in the room. “He’s not armed.”
James looked up and saw the two cops with their batons in the air. Together, they jumped on Bill and struck him as hard as they could. They tried to hold his arms down. But, they could not. Bill’s strength was extra ordinary. Bill took down one cop who fell on the wooden floor. Then, he grabbed the other cop by the neck.
“Do it, Bill. Snap his neck!” said the old woman.
Suddenly, Bill heard his name being called by James. “God damn it! Bill!”
Bill held on to the cop’s neck, like a vice. James was back on his feet, when Bill turned around.
“God Damn it Bill!” said James again.
As Bill turned around his head, James struck Bill in the face with the battering ram. However, it had no effect on him. Then, bill grabbed the end of the` battering ram and pushed it away. Once again, James flew into a pile of broken plates.
Bill turned his attention back to the cop and lifted his feet off the floor.
“Do it Bill!” screamed the banshee. “Kill that pig.”
James picked up his red gun from the ground. He aimed it at the old man’s head. There was nothing else that he could do.
“Do it! Snap his neck now and get the others!”
James fired and a loud bang echoed in the room. Bill released his grip on the cops’ neck and the cop fell on the floor. Next, Bill’s arms fell to his side. He turned round to face James, who was covered in shards of white porcelain.
“Bill?” Called the old woman.
Slowly, Bill turned around to face his wife. His arms swung like dead lumber. The bullet hole in his forehead leaked blood, falling over his cheek, lips and chin and staining his white t-shirt.
Bill took his last step toward her and said, “Sorry Hill.”
Then, he fell over on the wooden floor. The next moment, his body became frail again. Blood receded from his face and his skin thinned, turning gray. All three cops in the room watched as Bill’s eyes shrunk back into his head and became hollow and dark.
“God damn you!” said the old woman. “You killed Bill!”
Suddenly, there was a flash of light in the room that only James Night saw.
Bill was dead. But his spirit crawled out of his dead body and onto the floor. His old hands grabbed the arm rest of the lazy boy and he pulled himself into the leather seat. Bill nestled back into the lazy boy and sat there staring at the television. He sat there looking into a screen filled with white noise, that blinked every two seconds. He sat in his chair, as if nothing in this world had changed for him. Most likely, he would stay there for the next three days.
The old woman fell onto the floor to get closer to Bill’s dead body. She stared into her husband’s pale dead eyes. “Come on baby. Come back to me," she cried over his body. "Come back, Bill!”
In the next breath, Hill pounded on her husband’s chest, blaming Bill for not being strong enough to stop the police.
“You god damn fool!”
The ghost of the old man looked down at his wife. His head turned toward her like a rusty hinge, wondering what was wrong with her, feeling bad for her.
“What’s wrong Hill,” said Bill’s spirit.
His words came out slowly, as he looked in the direction of his dead body that he did not see. He didn’t even notice the difference in his reality. Most people who died, never did either.
James wondered, if it would be the same for him.
“What’s wrong?” Bill asked her again.
I guess no one likes to see themselves as a dead man when they pass over to the other side.
"You animal! Why did you do this do him?" Hill yelled at James. "We didn't hurt anyone that mattered. I swear to god that we didn’t!”
The other two police officers helped each other get up off the floor. One of the cops was still coughing.
Detective Night brushed the shards of
porcelain off his trench coat and stood up. He looked over at Bill’s dead body with the bullet hole in his head.
He was still shaken by what happened. For a moment, Bill became unnaturally strong, taking down all the cops inside the living room.
James wondered what was in that vile that Bill drank. It must have been a shot of adrenaline. But James saw something else in Bill’s eyes that paralyzed him with fear. James saw something evil in Bill’s eyes and it was something that he recognized from before. But, he couldn’t place it.
James looked up and saw Detective Snyder walking into the living room.
“James what happened?”
James looked around and said nothing.
“Well?”
James continued to ignore him and step out of the living room and into the hallway to clear his mind.
Snyder grabbed him, “Where are you going?”
“Out. For a little air.”
"What about the rest of the house? We still have to clear the rest of the house.”
"So, clear it,” James snapped back.
Snyder saw that James was shaken and just let it go. One of the officers stayed with Hill grieving over Bill’s dead body. James stepped into the hallway, while Snyder and the rest of the cops finished clearing the apartment. He sat by the steps in the middle of the hallway to catch his breath.
After a couple minutes, two cops came out with Hill, the old woman. They brought her out the apartment while she yelled at them.
“Damn you pigs all to hell! How many times do I have to tell you? Stop. Stop. Come on pigs you have to stop and think about this.”
James watched the cops drag Hill down the hallway, as she cursed at James.
“Tell them, you murderer. You rapist pig! Tell them that the Beast made me do it! Tell them! Let everyone know! The Beast made me do it.”
James saw the woman’s wicked smile across her face, as she was dragged out of the hallway. Her voice echoed in the lobby. It was the first time James heard the name of the beast spoken out loud.
It was just the mouth of a mad woman, James told himself. But, Violet heard her too.
When Hill and the cops were finally cleared the hallway, James took out something from a small pocket in his vest. It was the tiny vile that Bill drank before he went berserk on everyone. James snatched it up before he left the living room. The capsule was small. But, there was still some red liquid still in there. He would have it analyzed by someone he could trust. Then, James placed it in a small plastic bag and slipped it back in his bullet proof vest, patting his pocket.
Never Wake the Dead Page 14
