Dead Cell

by Chris Johnson

  Her host looked back at her for a moment, with a knowing smile that held a hint of a questioning look, before attending to the food on the pan. "Nothing happened last night," he told her, answering Brianna's unspoken question. "I let you sleep in Debra's room. It was better than letting you drive home after you had so much wine."

  Craig dished the breakfast, bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomato, onto plates. Brianna noticed he had already set a table for them, with glasses of juice next to the cutlery. The drawn curtains allowed a view of the back yard's Japanese garden with the kwoon behind it. Sunlight streamed from outside, warming the table and its seats, but Brianna noticed the wind was blowing outside. it was a good thing they weren't out there, but it otherwise looked lovely.

  "Dig in," he Craig told her, setting the plates on the table. "How did you sleep?"

  "With both eyes shut," she answered, a cheeky grin crossing her face to match a twinkling eye. "Pretty well. I didn't realise where I was when I woke. My own bed is nowhere near as comfortable." She started wolfing the breakfast down, a habit she picked up while serving in the Army. Feeling Craig's eyes on her, a wave of embarrassment swept over her, and she stopped to apologise.

  "It's all good," Craig responded, with a smile. "I'm glad you enjoy it."

  "You're going to make someone a good husband one day," she answered, savouring some more of the breakfast. Craig remained quiet, eating his own food, and appeared to be suppressing a smile. Brianna realised what she had said and blushed, feeling the heat spread across her cheeks. "I mean you're a bachelor who cooks well, and you seem to keep the house well. Is there something that you're hiding?"

  Craig stopped eating; his fork, with a piece of bacon skewered on its tines, hung in the air where he held it. He paused, as though listening to something (he always seems to be listening to something else, Brianna thought to herself), and replied, "What are you trying to say, Detective Cogan?" His tone seemed serious, but Brianna caught the coyness behind it.

  "I'm saying that there are a lot of men out there who don't show all the -"

  "Are you saying I could be a good catch?" he asked, just the tiniest hint of a smile showing at the corner of his eyes.

  "No," she answered, a slight blush coming to her face as she tried to think of a comeback.

  "Oh!" he interjected. "Do you mean I must be gay?" His eyes looked serious as he gazed back at her.

  She paused, not sure what to say now. Could he -

  "I'm not gay," he responded. "I've lived as a single man, as well as a "single father", for a long time and there-" Craig's voice trailed off; he lost himself in thought, remembering something.

  Brianna was about to apologise, but Ramsey changed the subject. "There's something I wanted to tell you about after breakfast too. You would never believe what."

  She released a breath of relief, glad to remove the tension. Ramsey seemed to be holding some things back about himself, she thought to herself. He didn't mind listening to other people's problems and learning their secrets, but letting other people into his world seemed to be another matter altogether. Brianna made a mental note and answered, "What wouldn't I believe?"

  Craig grinned, waving his knife like a mother waggling a finger. "After you finish your breakfast."

  A few minutes later, they finished their filling meal and Ramsey stood up. "Never mind the dishes," he replied, as Brianna started to collect them. "You're my guest and I have something for you."

  Ramsey led Brianna back to the hallway. Cogan couldn't help noticing the bedrooms were in the same direction, and she bit her tongue as they walked past towards another room at the end. The room was medium-sized with a large glass window overlooking the city and its river that formed a wide dirty blue ribbon through the middle. A walk-in wardrobe opened on one wall, and Brianna saw suits hanging inside its darkened space. The opposite wall sported photos of Craig in performance (one of them showed him posing with US President Obama and Prime Minister Tony Abbott) and a show poster advertising one of Craig's past performances in the late 1990s.

  "The photo is from when G20 came to Brisbane a couple years ago," Craig explained, noticing Brianna studying it. "But that's not what I wanted to show you."

  Brianna had been one of the police officers on duty during that time, but she hadn't been that close to either of the world leaders. she felt jealous but said nothing, as she watched Craig tap one of the keys on his laptop that sat near the window. "It looks like a great place to work," she commented, looking at the view outside.

  Craig looked outside a moment, before turning his attention back to the screen. "I received an email last night which I think will interest you a lot. By the way, you might want to check your mobile phone too. I heard it ringing before you got up."

  Brianna felt her jacket pocket and retrieved her phone. Five missed calls displayed on it from work. Damn!

  "Before you do call them back," Craig responded. "Check this out."

  Brianna watched the screen, her eyes widening at the carnage. It was almost as bad as what she saw in Afghanistan, only it seemed worse because she could tell this was in her city. The screen showed a car, its windscreen smashed with a pole speared through it. "That's what I was telling you about last night," Craig explained and then hushed so she could listen.

  The car's front passenger seat contained a woman in her late forties or early fifties. Brianna couldn't be sure of the passenger's age, and the driver had the end of the pole through his head. Blood and gore splattered everything, including the screaming passenger, but Brianna saw something else. A dark shadow, wearing a hood, hunched over the driver. Was he helping? No, he seemed to be pressing something on the victim's shoulder. At first, she could only hear the passenger's screams, and then she heard another familiar voice speak.

  "Who is that talking?" Brianna asked.

  "Sally Green, the news presenter," Ramsey responded, hushing her. "Listen."

  The black-hooded figure turned, faced the camera and its eyes flashed red as it looked into the lens. Brianna could see it focus first on the camera and then off-camera towards the person holding the phone.

  "You can see me?" its raspy voice boomed.

  "Y-yes," Sally's surprised voice responded. "But only on the camera."

  It approached the camera lens, moving through the car's body as though wading through water until it was less than a foot away, and then its voice boomed. "This is a warning! Another one! I will keep killing these stupid selfish bastards, and you won't stop me. Someone tried to stop me but I am unstoppable and nothing you mortals can do will make me."

  Brianna felt the chills down her spine and she shivered as though someone crossed her grave. The voice was cold, but it didn't sound evil either. It sounded determined, cold, and calculating, as though it had a plan in motion.

  "Who are you?" Sally's voice asked.

  The hooded figure kicked backwards at the crumpled mess of a car and it moved. Brianna jumped in surprise from the sound. Although it could move through solids, it was capable of manipulating them as well.

  "My name doesn't matter," the creature's voice answered. "Names are words on air, and so many words are meaningless these days, falling upon ignorant ears! But my message is clear for you. Heed the warnings, or I will kill more."

  "What do you want people to do?" Sally's voice asked with the slightest quiver beneath her professional news reporter's experience.

  The camera image faded, disintegrated, and the voice responded, but its message was not clear. The video ended there.

  Neither Brianna or Craig said anything at first, for a few seconds, until Craig finally spoke. "That's all the video, it seems. I'd say the strange stuff at the end was interference from the spirit."

  Brianna sat on a second chair at the desk, her legs feeling weak from shock as her beliefs were taking a battering. "Sally Green sent this to you?"

  Craig nodded. "She hasn't taken this to the television station yet. Any other journalist would have, but she's got brains."


  Brianna wondered why a journalist would show the video to Craig first. He picked up the thought, replying, "Sally was one of my first media contacts when I first started out as a mentalist, and she has experienced a lot of weird shit." That left the detective wondering more about Craig's contact with the female journalist, even though Craig didn't seem like one into cougars.

  The silent pause broke, shattered by both Craig's and Brianna's mobile phones ringing at the same time. Craig reached for his phone which sat charging on the desk, and Brianna walked out to the kitchen to answer her own.

  Sergeant Hohenhaus' voice came through her phone when she answered. "Cogan?"

  "Yes," she answered, noting the Sergeant sounded flustered.

  "Don't you answer your phone?" his voice responded. "We've been trying to ring you, and you weren't home-"

  "I've been out for the night," Cogan responded with a sharp tone, not appreciating that they thought they should be checking up on her. "It is my weekend off."

  The officer's voice softened to an apologetic tone. "Um yeah, okay. The Inspector told me to call you. We've got more bedlam going on and we need all hands on deck."

  Brianna took the details down with the notepad and pen from her inner jacket pocket. "Got it. I'll be there soon."

  She was about to let Craig know she was about to leave, when he bustled past her with a leather jacket slipped on. Brianna wondered how long she had been on the phone if Craig was already dressed.

  "Got to go," he said with a hint of business in his voice. He handed Brianna her backpack. "The proverbial shit could be about to hit the fan. Have you got everything?"

  "Yes," she answered. "What's happened?"

  "Sally Green wasn't the only one taking video," Ramsey said, slugging down what remained of his green tea from the breakfast table. "We've both got work to do."

  BLOW JOE KNEW ALMOST before he heard the sounds of sirens floating across the river that people on the other side of town had died. The voice in his head sounded satisfied, maybe a little jubilant. Take that, bitches.

  Joseph had parked the van off at the other end of the park and was running back to the reservoir when the voice shouted its jubilant message through his head. Blow Joe tried answering it back from his own mind, but the other voice went silent. Did it know he was answering it? Perhaps, it didn't trust him enough, thinking he could betray it and sabotage its important mission? He tried to talk back to it again.

  "I hope you are watching what I do," he said, using his mind-voice as he jogged closer to the fence line. "How many did you pick off?"

  There was still no reply, but he had a guess it was could be three people. It used to kill one at a time but, of late, it increased its killing. Friday's spree was phenomenal.

  He found the bag under the bush, slung it over his shoulder and climbed up the ladder of the reservoir. The concrete wall's top walkway was perfect for him to balance his rifle, which he unpacked and assembled with practised hands.

  Less than five minutes later, he was looking through the telescopic sights. In the distance, he could just see the blinking lights of the emergency vehicles: one ambulance and three police cars. He remembered there was another police station nearby. Swivelling his rifle around, he refocused and looked at the station. An officer was walking to his car, having a conversation with someone on his phone. The scope made him seem as though he were ten feet from Joe, who watched them with an eagle eye. Blow Joe's target opened the driver's door, sat inside, and closed the door again. The car started to move backwards. Blood exploded from the officer's head, splashing the windscreen from the inside. The dead man's head fell forward, pressing the car's horn. A few moments later officers came running out to the car, a few of them with hands on their weapons, looking for a target of their own.

  He swivelled the rifle sights in another direction, seeing a young woman, who couldn't have been more than twenty-one. She appeared to be on her way somewhere in her car, a zippy little red Ford Fiesta, and busy in some conversation; her hand up to her head. The rifle didn't roar as he pulled the trigger, thanks to its fitted suppressor, which muffled the report. The young brunette's neck exploded; how did he miss; it must have been the cross winds. He didn't calculate it well enough to achieve a clean kill. He watched her writhing in pain as she lost control of the car, and he aimed again. The second bullet finished her.

  He looked around towards the police station again. Things looked hectic there. Perhaps he should move.

  Without another thought, he disassembled his rifle in record time, stashed it in his bag, and slid down the ladder to the ground below.

  By the time the police officers realised the shooter was further away than they thought, Blow Joe was running through the bushland towards his awaiting getaway vehicle. Jumping inside, he stashed the bag in front of the front passenger seat, started the engine and drove away. It was a smooth, clean getaway without leaving many clues.

  Sirens wailed as police cars approached from behind. His heart hammered a little, but he otherwise felt as cool as a cucumber, as he allowed them to speed past him. They didn't even bother looking at him, and why would they when they were heading towards the path that led to the reservoir. He was driving in the same direction, which is the opposite of what they would have expected. That was his plan to shake them off. He was otherwise unhindered as he continued driving past the scene, taking a casual look at the two police vehicles heading down the gravel path towards the reservoir's entrance. They might find footprints, maybe even where he cut the fence, and chances are they might find some traces of mud, but there was nothing else that could link straight to him. He never carried identification, and the wind was blowing a gale still; any DNA he left would most likely blow away.

  However, Joe also knew about the other things, like the registration on the van. He had removed the plates from another person's car and placed on his vehicle. That way, if anyone happened to notice his van matched the description of a stolen vehicle, they wouldn't match a casual check. The risk still existed if they noticed the stolen plates belonged to a different kind of car, a silver Falcon instead of the grey van, so he kept an eye out just in case.

  At last, he reached a quiet street in another neighbourhood. There was his other vehicle, his own dirty navy blue utility, just where he left it in the driveway of a house he knew to be empty. He pulled up the van, stepped out, and wiped everything down to remove any prints from it before getting into his own utility. His bag containing the rifle sat in the back, hidden under some tarpaulins.

  It was time to catch up with his sister-in-law and the kids. The original plan had been to take them fishing at the Causeway, but that was before the wind. Perhaps they might want to go out and see a movie.

  He continued driving, leaving his mission behind him for the time being to enjoy the other half of his life.

  Chapter 16

  Detective Cogan sometimes wondered if Dr Kroot stayed up all night to think of ways to entertain her. As she stepped into the medical examiner's autopsy room on Monday 27th June, her eyes and ears experienced the stunned disbelief; she didn't know how to respond.

  He must have taken out all the stops to decorate the autopsy room. Dr Kroot sat in a deckchair, lazing back under a bright light that shone upon him. His loud Hawaiian shirt, decorated in colours that would have hurt a blind man, was unbuttoned and open - despite the winter chill from the weekend's cold snap. His long-legged Hookstock beach pants were rolled up, exposing his skinny hairy legs to the knees, and his feet sat in a tub of water. He held a tall glass of something that looked like a cocktail with a tiny umbrella in his left hand as he lay back under the bright light. A Beach Boys song, which Cogan thought was Surfin' USA, played in the background and behind him stood an inflatable set of coconut trees with a mock surfboard. His deckchair was one of three set up in a line; he sat in the middle chair; the chair to his right was occupied by what Brianna thought was another woman dressed in a skimpy bikini.

  "Detective!" he called out upo
n seeing her, and opened his arms wide in greeting from the chair. "You're just in time for the party, babe!"

  He stood and ran over to her, his arms still opened wide to hug her. As he reached her, he paused as though unsure how to hug her. Cogan made no effort to return it, feeling equally awkward and amused by the atmosphere. She looked at the woman in the other deckchair and noticed the person's figure was very still.

  "Ummmm," she hesitated, unsure of what to say. "Who is that?"

  Dr Kroot followed the direction of Cogan's gaze, towards the deckchair, then looked back at her. "Oh, her! I don't know her name. I asked her but she hasn't answered yet." He leaned closer to whisper, "She's playing hard to get but I'm playing it just as cool back at her." He winked.

  Cogan moved past Kroot to look closer. "Please, tell me that's not one of the dead bodies."

  Kroot shrugged. "I certainly hope not, as she seems so perfect. Never opens her mouth, at least not to talk."

  That was when Cogan realised the woman in the deckchair was really a sex doll; one of the more expensive types that look like a real person and apparently feel real too. The medical examiner took another swallow from the glass, crunched quickly on an ice cube, and motioned towards the examining table. "You will never believe what I found from three of the victims your people delivered to me on the weekend."

  Taking her hand in one, he dragged her along. "Come on! You hafta see this!" he cried, as though He had reverting to childhood and wanted to show his mother something. "Look at this!"

  When they reached the table, he turned towards the doll in the deckchair. "Just have some more Sex On The Beach, honey," he called to her. "I'll be right back soon for some Sand In Your Shorts."

  Cogan could normally take his madcap exercises with a straight face, but she couldn't help the laughter that shook her chest then. Kroot looked at her with surprise. "Is everything okay?"

  She stifled her laughter. "What's different with this body?"