by Kunego, Chad
Chapter 5
“So where we headed?”
“To an alleyway about twelve blocks from here.”
“For what, exactly?”
“Well, after our boy disappeared, I put out the word to let me know if anything odd or unusual happened in the vicinity. Seems a group of guys got ‘jumped’ over there. Apparently three of the four weren’t able to get very far. A dislocated knee here, broken ankle there. If it’d been any other night, I woulda just ignored it, but after the craziness we just went through and it’s proximity, I didn’t think it’d hurt to check it out.”
Cora stared out the window as Frank drove, trying to make sense of the whole evening. When they’d left, the techs were still trying to figure out how someone could drive a wooden broomstick through someone, let alone a cinder block wall. It just didn’t make sense. Sure, she’d heard about stuff like that happening during tornadoes, but this was inside a janitor’s closet less than fifty feet away from the nurses station. How could something generate that much force in a broom closet? Better yet, how come nobody had heard it? It seemed every question only led to more questions instead of answers.
“Cora?”
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she glanced over at Frank.
“Sorry, lost in thought. You were saying?”
“No problem. Was just thinking about your mystery woman. You said she disappeared?”
“Yeah, one minute she’s walking around the room, then you called. By the time I looked back up, POOF, she’s gone. I’m not sure what to make of it. When I’d been talking to her, she was making lots of noise walking around the room with those boots of her’s. When I turned away for a second, I never heard her leave. So either she was playing me by purposely being noisy while walking around, or there’s something very bizarre happening here.”
“Bizarre you say?” he asked, running his fingers through his hair, “there hasn’t been one thing normal about this case since we picked it up. An unconscious guy found in a warehouse, no marks or identification on him, wearing a piece of jewelry that probably costs more than I make in a year and impervious to damage as far as we can tell, surrounded by over thirty bodies. The whole place is covered in cuts, gouges, claw marks, bullet holes, and all sorts of strange puddles of goo and other crap our guys can’t identify.
“Now our prime suspect, who conveniently has no memory of who he is or what happened, escapes his handcuffs, has his room torn apart, more strange gouges that might be from the same thing that gouged up the warehouse, and everything points to our suspect jumping out a fifteen story window and hitting the sidewalk hard enough to pulverize it before casually strolling away to parts unknown. I think ‘bizarre’ is putting it mildly, don’tcha think?”
Cora chuckled under her breath. Her brusque partner had a way of succinctly describing everything that’d happened so far. As best she could tell, there wasn’t one thing about the entire case that made any sense so far. She could tell her partner was becoming a little apprehensive about it since the incident at the hospital, which was saying a lot. She knew he didn’t like to talk about his experiences in force recon and she wasn’t inclined to pry. All she knew was, he’d seen some rough stuff over there, so for him to get agitated, it meant he’d now traveled into crazy-parts unknown.
“So what do we know of these guys who were ‘jumped’. What makes you think it has anything to do with our boy?”
“Well, for one thing, for getting jumped, they have very specific, very localized injuries. The one guy had his ankle snapped like a twig. Another had his knee dislocated. The third had his shoulder separated along with a probable concussion, probable neck injuries, and possible brain swelling. The one with the concussion was also stripped of his shirt, shoes, pants, and jacket. The fourth guy had no injuries whatsoever.”
“Yeah, not your typical sneak attack. Sounds more like they got in a fight with someone and bit off more than they could chew. I have to agree. If they’d been jumped, they would have had a bunch of other injuries, not just stuff that would have taken them out of a fight quick…”
Cora trailed off as she saw the lights from the cruisers parked at the entrance to the alley. A couple ambulances were parked nearby as well, preparing to transport the injured guys to the hospital. As they came to a stop, she looked over at her partner.
“Alleyway or perps?”
“Rock, paper, scissors? I win, I get alley, you win, I get perps, deal?”
“Deal.”
After a quick game, Cora headed toward the alleyway, leaving her partner cursing under his breath. Cora smiled to herself, thinking about how she had picked up his tells a long time ago, allowing her to beat him fairly regularly. He wouldn’t even play poker against her anymore. Stepping under the police tape, she nodded at the patrolman.
“So what’ve ya got?”
Nodding back toward one of the squad cars, he then pointed down the alleyway.
“Well, that one there was seen running from the mouth of the alley and headed south until he got picked up by one of the units that was responding to the disturbance. Witnesses reported hearing a fight happening in the alleyway. From the looks of it, these four perps appeared to be having a game of kick the bum when the tables got turned. Apparently, after beating on him for a few minutes, they stopped to talk, then one of them started yelling at the homeless guy again. That’s when things went sideways for ‘em.”
“One of the witness’s said they heard the start of the confrontation and had wandered down the alley and hid when they saw the homeless guy getting assaulted. They also saw the homeless guy block another kick to his head by grabbing the guy’s leg and twisting it so hard that they heard it snap. That’s when he took off. From there, the fight only lasted about another minute. The guy we caught was babbling about stabbing the homeless guy before dropping his knife and running off. There’s some blood in the alley, but not what I’d expect to see if someone was stabbed badly.”
“What about the one that was stabbed?”
“Not sure. We tried to find a blood trail, but other than the puddle and bloody footprints that only went several feet in the opposite direction, we couldn’t find anything.”
“Did the witness give any type of description of the victim?”
“I believe their exact words were, ‘he was so ripped he made Bruce Lee look flabby.’ Beyond that, only that he had dark colored hair, possibly of Mediterranean or Arabic descent.”
Cora glanced around the alley. Looking back at the officer, she nodded toward the scene.
“Mind if I take a quick look around?”
“Be my guest. I’m stuck until they get someone over here to take over the crime scene anyway, so knock yourself out.”
“Thanks.”
As the officer walked away, Cora turned back to take a closer look at the area. The scene seemed to match up with their theory. There wasn’t any evidence indicating there’d been a brawl here. As she picked her way through the scene, she tried to visualize the chain of events. As she looked around, something caught her attention. Walking over to the wall, she pulled her cell out.
“Frank?”
“Yeah?”
As she bent down, she pulled a latex glove out of her pocket to pick up what she’d spotted.
“Our boy was here.”
“How can you tell?”
As she stood back up, she motioned to a nearby officer to bag up what she was holding.
“Easy, I just found his plastic ID bracelet from the hospital.”
Chapter 6
“Well, it took a bit of persuading, but the only guy that managed to remain upwardly mobile finally admitted they’d tried to jump the guy for fun. Apparently it didn’t go as planned and the tables got turned pretty quickly. Based off the description and the medical band you found, it was our boy from the hospital.”
“Well,” Cora started, rubbing the back of her neck, “it appears our boy didn’t forget how to fight. From the sounds of it, after getting surpri
sed and stomped on for several minutes, it only took him about a minute to dismantle three of his attackers.”
“Sounds about right. I can’t say I’d have been able to do that on my best day, even if I wanted to. Even without being jumped, I probably wouldn’t be able to take out three assailants that quickly. It’s really beginning to sound like he’s someone I wouldn’t want to go toe-to-toe with, especially if he’s the one responsible for the mess at the warehouse.”
Frank paused for a minute, looking around before lowering his voice.
“What do you make of that guy saying he stabbed our guy? I saw the knife. The entire blade was coated with blood, along with his hand and the front of his shirt where he tried to wipe it off. Based off just that, I’d say our boy could probably make it a few blocks before blood loss and shock took him out. The funny thing is, this guy’s saying he saw the wound close up and stop bleeding while he watched. That’s why he ran. Remember when you were talking about the strangeness of this case? Well it just took the shuttle into X-files territory, minus Scully.”
“Not so sure about that… That redhead from the hospital might just qualify.”
They headed to the car while they spoke, talking over the oddities of the case up to that point. As Cora started to get in the car, she noticed a flash of red at the mouth of the alley. Doing a double-take, she noticed a tall redhead heading away from the alleyway.
“Frank! I think that’s her!” she shouted as she slammed the door and took off running.
“Wait!” Frank yelled, trying to climb back out of the car quickly, but Cora was determined not to lose their best lead again. As she started closing the distance, she noticed the other woman had picked up her pace a bit. When Cora had gotten within fifty feet of her, the woman ducked into the next alleyway. Breaking into a sprint, Cora reached the alleyway a few seconds later. Heading in, she noticed the other woman had broken into a jog, heading toward a tall chain link fence at the far end.
I need to catch up to her before she has a chance to climb that fence.
As she gained on her, Cora thought she saw Sybil smirk when she glanced back over her shoulder.
“STOP!”
I got her now. There’s no way she’s gonna be able to climb that fence before I catch up to her.
As she got closer to the fence, Sybil did a quick stutter step, then leapt upward, clearing the eight foot fence with room to spare. Landing on the other side, she landed feet first. As her feet hit the ground, she tucked and rolled forward before springing back to her feet.
“What the f—”
The other woman turned around and faced Cora, confirming it was the same woman from the hospital.
“Now, now detective… watch the language.”
The other woman walked closer to the fence, running her fingers across the links.
“Detective, for your own safety, I suggest letting this case slide. You’re way out of your league.”
Cora pulled her pistol out, leveling it at the other woman.
“Don’t move. You’re wanted for questioning. What you’re going to do is climb your way back over this fence so we can continue our conversation down at the station.”
“Now why would I climb over this fence? I might rip my coat. So unless you’re going to shoot an unarmed person through the fence, I believe we’re done here.”
“STOP!”
The other woman slowly started to back away from the fence.
“Heed my warning detective, back off this case.”
“CORA!”
Cora turned her head slightly so she could yell over her shoulder.
“I’m over here Frank!”
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to determine how far away her partner was.
“I’ve got her over—”
As she glanced back, she realized the woman was gone again.
“DAMMIT! HOW THE HELL DOES SHE KEEP DOING THAT!”
“Whoa… What’s wrong? Where is she?”
“Frank, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think we’re dealing with a ghost…”
“Huh?”
As she holstered her gun, she glanced around the empty alleyway again.
“Frank, she jumped this fence like it was nothing, then disappeared when I glanced over my shoulder at you, all without making a sound. So if that isn’t some spooky shit, I don’t know what is. Oh, she also told us to drop the case for our own safety…”
“She threatened you?”
“I really couldn’t tell, honestly.”
“Well, based off everything we’ve seen so far, I’m almost inclined to agree with your mystery woman…”
Cora gave him a dirty look before walking back toward the car.
“Come on… Let’s get out of here before a chupacabra hops out of a dumpster or something…”
She heard Frank snicker under his breath.
“Right behind ya Cora… Right behind ya…”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
“Where to? The precinct, or back to the hospital?”
“Let’s head back over to the hospital. Maybe those knuckleheads’ll be more talkative after being patched up some.”
Frank cast her a sideways glance.
“Maybe…”
“What?”
Frank was quiet for a minute. He looked over at her, then back at the road, before continuing.
“Cora, we’ve dealt with a lot of weird cases… plus I’ve seen some crazy shit when I was in the military, but this is a whole new league of weird. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this case.”
“Frank, I—”
“No, hear me out. I’ve worked with a lot of high-speed operators with my time in recon. Guys that enjoyed going into bars and starting fights for the fun of it. What I saw in that alleyway would have made those guys jealous. Assuming this was our boy…”
Frank held up his hand to cut her off again.
“Assuming this was our boy, then he’s in a whole different league of skill. The amount of strength and skill eliminate the threat against him borders on the impossible. If that one perp isn’t exaggerating, then he did all this AFTER they’d given him a beat-down for several minutes.”
“Yeah, so our guy’s pretty tough. We’ve seen meth-heads do stuff like that before.”
“Just think about it. Here’s a guy that supposedly has no memory but somehow escapes his hospital room. Someone who, by all appearances, did it by taking the express route out the window wearing nothing but a pair of scrubs and possibly a blanket before taking off into the night. A night, I might point out, that was in the mid-teens.
“A few hours later, instead of finding him frozen in some alleyway, our guy gets blindsided by a group of miscreants that play kick the can with his head. But instead of leaving a body behind, the ‘bum’ destroys most of them in under a minute with surgical strikes before getting stabbed. Then he disappears again to parts unknown without leaving a blood trail.
“I’ve seen a four-man fire team accomplish similar results in that time frame, but our guy did it by himself. Our guy was stabbed but still managed to strip one of his attackers and escape with a non-existent blood trail. If we don’t find this guy within five blocks from here, then I really don’t want to tangle with him in a dark alley, gun or no gun.”
Cora didn’t know how to respond. The fact that Frank was that spooked about this case was enough to make her consider her words carefully before saying anything. He’d been her partner for a few years now, and she’d seen how he handled himself in a confrontation. One time, she’d watched him dismantle a three-hundred pound biker wanted on suspicion of murder and drug possession, by himself, after the the guy came at him with a bat. If he could do that but was concerned about tangling with a suspect that he probably outweighed by at least twenty pounds, then she needed to re-evaluate what was happening here.
“Frank, I hear ya, but this was dropped in our lap. We can’t just slack off on it. Something bad’s going on, and from the looks o
f it, the body-count is only going to keep going up. So unless you have a better idea, we need to keep working this case until we catch a break.”
“Yeah… Let’s just hope that break isn’t our necks…”
§§§§§§§§§§§§
Cora and Frank entered the emergency room. Looking around, Cora spotted the nurse’s station and strode over and flashed her badge.
“Three men were brought in earlier. One with a broken ankle, one with head, neck, and shoulder injuries, and one with a screwed up knee. Do you know what rooms they’re in?”
The nurse glanced at them before consulting her computer screen.
“Yeah, the one with the knee injury is in surgery right now to repair some torn tendons and ligaments. Probably going to take a couple hours or so. The one that had the head and neck injuries is up in the ICU to keep an eye out for brain swelling. The broken ankle guy should be over there, in room 103a.”
“Any idea why there isn’t a uniform outside his room?”
“None whatsoever. Might have to do with the fact that, until they put a cast on him, he’s not likely to get too far.”
“Thanks.”
Looking over her shoulder, Cora nodded toward the room.
“Guess we’ll start with that one.”
Nodding in agreement, they both started walking to toward the room. As they got closer, they could make out groans of pain.
“Where’s that damn Doctor? My ankle’s killing me!”
“They’re busy… but how about telling us what happened earlier while you’re waiting,” Frank said as they entered the room.
“Who the hell are you?”
Cora pulled out her badge as she responded.
“Concerned citizens. Who’re you?”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say to no cops.”
Frank wandered over, bumping into the side of the bed closest to the broken ankle.
“Ow, Shit! Watch where you’re going man…”
