by Hector, Jr
Her voice dies in the “thump-thump” of our shoes as we continue walking, before speaking again.
“Hector’s disappearance also is noted here in Charles’ case, but Detective Knox was going to investigate that particular event as a disappearance. There was not enough evidence to indicate it should be treated as a murder. Yet, in the most recent reports up until his death, Detective Knox was pushing for Hector’s disappearance to be regarded as a homicide. Especially, since after his disappearance a body trail was left behind in this hotel,” she says as Agent Roswell opens the door and we enter the second floor.
I look around me, the darkness sucking all the fresh air and only leaving something foul and rotten.
“In Detective Knox’s report on Hector’s disappearance, he states that a body was never found. No connection of any kind with other people, except an acquaintance in the processing center in which he was attending under an internship,” she continues to say as we all stand before a broken-in door. I watch as Agent Roswell rips the yellow tape. Back to back we all walk in into Hector’s apartment. I could not help but be surprised at how similar everything seemed to be arranged. It feels like I am walking through my apartment.
“CSU processed this apartment, but there was no evidence of foul-play. Actually, there was no evidence of any sort but a note left in Hector’s personal computer,” she finishes saying as she looks forward towards Agent Roswell.
I look around me, wondering why we have stopped, but I begin to understand… There are no photos, no variety of furniture, only dust over everything.
“Agent Roswell?” Detective Ariel asks as he walks through the living room and stands before the painting. It is a very beautiful painting of a woman watering her garden at the edge of her apartment’s balcony. She was an older woman with red hair that fluidly etched itself over her left shoulder. She was wearing a flower-printed button shirt with ankle-hugging caprice. You can tell she was not wearing any make-up. Yet, the strangest part was that she was watering her plants on a rainy day. You can clearly see the drops in the painting as they crawled along the window sill of Hector’s apartment… I shake my head as black spots dance in my vision. I rub my eyes. When I open them again, I find myself alone. I look around, only to catch Detective Ariel be absorbed by the shadows of the hallway. I turn towards the painting again, laying my fingers over its surface. I trace the different layers of ink as I follow the outline of the different shapes and contours, when I feel a shiver run down my body. I gasp and close my eyes as in my mind’s eye I clearly see the lady watering her plants, when out of nowhere I see her fall over the balcony railing and scream as she falls to her death.
“Ms. Javana?” I hear, making me jump. “Are you alright?” Detective Ariel asks as I turn around towards her.
I nod.
She nods as she turns towards Agent Roswell. “We will head over to another victim’s apartment. A child by the name of Robert. He was six years old…,” Agent Roswell says as he turns and walks through the living room and out the apartment. Detective Ariel and I take our time catching up to Agent Roswell in the fourth floor.
“Agent Roswell?” Detective Ariel calls out, her voice cracking. No response is heard. She slowly walks into the murdered child’s apartment with her hand perched on the holster of her gun. I meanderingly follow.
“Agent Roswell?” Detective Ariel calls out again as we stand in the living room. Again, no response. She begins to talk towards the hall in front of us, but I grab her arm, stopping her. She turns and looks at me, her eyes tainted with a murderous glint.
“What are you doing?!” she exclaims as I step in front of her.
“Whatever happens, know that Agent Roswell is no longer here…,” I tell her.
“What do you mea--” I cut her off, “he was never here to begin with.”
She grabs my arms, forcing me to face her.
“What do you mean he was never here?! You and I talked to him yesterday, Javana,” she says. “We came in with Agent Roswell. We scoured half of this apartment complex with him. How could he have never been here?!” she exclaims.
I breathe in and exhale. This is not the first time I have worked with a detective, but all those times have ended badly. Some even in the death of the detective. In this day and age, people have forgotten of what crawls in the dark. I am not talking about assassins and other things of the human world. I am speaking of ageless beings who at some point were never human to begin with. They are things.
I look at her, that murderous glint in her eyes slowly fading away, and being replaced by confusion and fear.
“Then tell me Detective Ariel, what does he look like?” I ask her.
“I do not have time for--”
I interrupt her, “what does he look like?” I say with more spite in my voice than I intended.
“Well he…” she stops at the beginning of her sentence. Wait… Wait!” she yells as I turn towards the darkening hallway. “He had black hair, brown eyes-- and-- and,” she stutters, her eyes clouded with memory.
“You cannot remember, can you?” I ask her. “It is because he never was here, alive,” I tell her. “He is a figment of this place…” I say as I step into the hallway, strange shadows creeping around me.
“What rubbish are you talking about?” she asks.
I stop and turn around to look at her, her gun now pointed at me.
“I am saying that this place does not exist. Look around you, detective, tell me what you see.” I tell her.
With her gun still pointed at me, she takes a quick peek at her surroundings. The moldy decrepit wall, the once-beautiful living room that now was empty, but a ripped and wasted sofa. I watch as she slowly lowers her gun. She looks around as the truth is revealed, until at last she is looking at me again.
“What is happening…” she asks me, her voice a mere whisper.
The shadows around us solidify into a dark murky substance. I will psychic energy to cocoon me as I sense it rise behind us. I have known about this place for a while, but at first when I found out in the second floor, I thought it was an apartment complex too. It was not until I was in Hector’s apartment and I touched the painting, the energy disrupted me out of the illusion. I saw the true nature of this place, and it was then that I understood why Hector’s only legacy was the painting in his apartment. Think of it as a failsafe...
I turn around and face the thing that slowly took shape, tendrils swaying behind its back as a faceless thing took a step forward from the murky darkness. It is wearing a suit, but like I said before, it has no face.
“What is that?!” I hear Detective Ariel ask with a shaky voice.
“This is the source of Charles’ death, Hector’s disappearance, Detective Knox’s death, the child’s death, and the massacre of the CSU unit,” I tell her.
I stretch out my hand and release a wave of psychic energy. The murky shadows disperse, but the faceless man does not budge an inch. I turn my head slightly as I sense Detective Ariel aim her gun, the room rebounding with the sound of fired shots. The bullets just phase through. The smell of rotten meat profile the air, as it takes a step towards us. Whatever light that still remained from the setting sun made it possible for us to see the black tendrils that almost screwed us, as they unhinged from the stone.
“I have to get close to it…,” I tell Detective Ariel.
“Why?!” she exclaims.
“Because for it to exist on our plane, it needs a host. No matter how powerful a being, nothing can exist without energy…”
I look at Detective Ariel who in turn looks at me.
“In the investigation relating to these string of murders and disappearances, which one of them struck out the most?”
I can sense it come closer, but I need Detective Ariel to overcome her fear, for in this moment it will only get us killed.
“Um-- The one that struck the most--”
Out of the glint of fear tainting her eyes, a shred of cunning and realization seeps throu
gh. She looks at me: “No way…”
I nod, my voice distilling the air of the dread: “This thing before us, even though it has great power, it needs a host... Hector became that the night he disappeared.”
I grab her wrist as I turn and run towards the apartment’s exit, getting out just in the nick of time as the door slams shut behind us. Running down the hall, we turn to our left, push open the emergency door, and begin heading down the emergency stairs. Practically jumping over steps, we pass the third floor, the second, until at last the first floor is just a few inches away. Yet, at the last moment, we are thrown across the air. I listen to myself as I yelp, hitting the staircase rail before landing on the floor. I groan, my vision blurry, but I see enough: It phases through the metal, the surface flexing and distorting at its dark energy. One of its tendrils whizzes through the air, wraps itself around Detective Ariel’s throat, and forces her against the emergency door. She struggles. I try to get up but the ground under me swerves and flexes, leaving me breathless and dizzy. I close my eyes and breathe. I focus. Depending on the strength of someone's psychic energies, will be the deciding factor on how long of a host a demon, spirit, or entity will keep you as. Yet, psychics can sense each other, and that also depends on the strength of our psychic energies but as I focus on this entities energy I can feel it: Hector’s life force. I call to him, forcing all of my psychic energy to pierce the shell of dark energy from this entity. It fights me, yet I push on-- I open my eyes, screaming into the air as I feel myself rise. I groan as I look down, its faceless face just a few inches from mine. I scream as whatever is in my chest punctures the backside, yet not once does my concentration waver. I watch, helpless, as one of its hands cradles my face. Shivers crawl all over my skin as its voice resonates through the air, like nails scratching the chalkboard: “You are not good enough…” It raises its other hand and lays its fingers just under my ribcage, its sharp claws drawing blood. I smile as blood trickles down the side of my lip: “I do not have to be good. I just needed time…” I suddenly drop to the ground. I look towards Detective Ariel, who lies unconscious. I breathe in and exhale as I look up at the dark entity, its ethereal shell mimicking a static screen, flashing and distorting as goops of whatever it was fell onto the ground. Its tentacles whiz through the air, stopping just a few inches from me, before they too begin to disintegrate. I focus, pouring more of my psychic energy into Hector. I smile as at last within the pool of dark muck, I can see his face. He is Hispanic. His narrow round face is encompassed by the long curly hair that trails down onto his shoulders. My vision begins to darken, but the last thing I see is Hector fall before me as the gooey dark substance seems to join into a pool and recede into the darkness.
Chapter 7
-Detective Ariel-
It hurts to breathe. My body aches all over as the world around me comes into view. A young man lies a few feet before me, unconscious. I try to get up, but my body refuses to listen to my commands.
“What is your location, Detective?” I hear one of the dispatchers ask from the walkie-talkie.
I want to respond, but only my ragged painful intake and exhale of breathe is all I can manage. From all of this pain and helplessness, a surge of anger boils within me. For ten years I put my life on the line, some days wishing to take the place of the child or family that would lie on that cold table in the morgue. I became a detective not to save other people, but bring them justice when everyone discarded them as a cold case. You learn very early on, that the amount of people you lose surpasses the few you get to save.
As I lie, the strain I am putting on my body forces everything around me out of focus, until at long lost darkness takes me.
The world around me comes into view again. It no longer pains me to breathe, but I keep tasting something metallic in my mouth. I try to get up, gritting my teeth as my muscles scream in protest, but I suck it up and stand on my feet. How much time has passed? I do not know, but I slowly make my way towards the young man and Javana, who both lay sprawled on the floor. The steps are hell, and it only makes it worse than I have to take each stair one at a time, until at last I kneel before them. The young man is extremely cold to the touch, but I can feel a steady heartbeat as I feel his pulse. When I check for Javana’s pulse, a steady heartbeat thumps under my fingers, but upon closer inspection of all the blood tainting her shirt, I see the gaping hole on her right shoulder. I cringe as I move towards my walkie-talkie, and gasp as I make the motions.
“This is Detective Ariel, currently at the Saxon Hotel,” I say into the walkie-talkie, my hand trembling with the device’s weight.
“Acknowledged. What is your location?” the dispatcher asks.
I press the button on the side, static sounding off in my ear. I do not know what to say. I cannot think properly. I put down the walkie-talkie, groaning as every bone and muscle in my body protest as I sit down. Whatever happened to us, it was real. Since my in and out of consciousness, I have tried to drown out the replaying memories but I cannot. That thing that appeared from the darkness, with its tentacles swaying in the air and faceless to boot. I have never been a firm believer in the supernatural. I am detective. I work with what I can touch, see, smell, and hear. I follow the evidence. I gather clues that evidence might provide. When it is all said and done, a case is formed and hopefully solved. I am not a skeptic, but I am a firm believer that evidence supersedes a quack who comes into our offices more often than not for attention. Yet, as I sit here with two unconscious psychics after we all survived whatever that thing was, I cannot hope but to worry of how I am going to explain this… If I should explain it at all.
After an hour or so, I finally gave dispatch a more exact location. It did not take long for paramedics and other officers to arrive at the scene. Questions were asked and many statements were taken. Javana and Hector were taken to the Regional Hospital near this hotel. None were in any danger when they were carried away in the ambulances.
Chapter 8
-Detective Ariel-
Disoriented, and bruised in places I never thought possible, I awoke surrounded by friends and family. After an hour or so, the small group began to leave in twos or threes, until only my mother remained. We talked, well, it was more of me reassuring her that I was okay. It was not until a male nurse came in and had to escort my mother out a few hours later, that I realized night had already come. For a while I just looked out the window, watching the lights down below, and the people who passed under them until I felt myself getting drowsy. I tried to stay awake but I was so tired, especially of that things faceless face replaying in my mind again and again. Yet darkness came for me.
“I was…,” I begin to say but I hesitate. How do you explain that you followed the lead of a person that did not exist? How do you rationalize that you were investigating a hotel that was literally a pile of forgotten rubble in a shady part of New-York? How do even begin to accept that this entire investigation is something out of the show Outer Limits.
“Detective Ariel?”
I look at Sargent Escovar, her red hair elegantly resting on her shoulders. Her young appearance did not betray that she was actually in her thirties. She had a lean hourglass figure, which her suit curved around perfectly. Her tan skin was a lite contrast to the hazel eyes she is looking at me with.
“I was retracing the last footsteps of Detective Knox, Sargeant Escobar,” I respond. “No one has been able to find any leads. Also, why is there no mention in any reports that Hotel Saxon is a rundown place?”
“What are you talking about?” My sergeant asks with frustration and anger in her voice. “After the incident you caused--”
She looks towards the doctor that comes in, as he closes the door and walks over to me.
“Well, Ms. Javana--”
He looks suddenly to Sargent Escovar.
“I am sorry, but you will have to leave,” he tells her.
Sargent Escovar looks at the doctor and then at me, before walking over to the door and leavi
ng the room.
“Your boss?” he asks me.
I nod as I inhale and exhale. I look over to the window and watch as the sun begins to gain altitude in the sky, its rays no longer so warm.
“Ms. Javana.”
I look towards the doctor, his short curly hair a nice touch to the dark tan he bore. His brown eyes and medium-pointy nose gave him a middle eastern type of look. Yet, he did not have an accent. For a few minutes I watch him look at my reports, the ruffling of the papers the only sound in the air. Until at last his brown eyes capture me in their grasp.
“Ms. Javana, no abnormalities were found. No internal bleeding. No broken bones or ripped muscles. All we did find was a lot of bruising, especially around the neck.”
I lose my breathe at him mentioning that, as suddenly I can feel that things tentacle wrapped around my throat. My chest feels heavy as the memory of that event plays in my mind’s eye. I try to inhale but I cannot. My vision becomes blurry, and in the distance I hear someone call my name. The last thing I remember is a bright light before darkness takes me.
“Ms. Javana, can you hear me?” I hear someone ask me, as I strive to see past the bright light.
“Pupils dilate,” I hear someone say.
It is the same person who asked me if I can hear them. All I can do is groan in response.
“Ms. Javana?”
I groan again, every part of my body protesting at me as I try to sit up, but there is a strange pressure on my wrists and ankles. For some reason, I feel the need to panic. I want to sit up. Why can I not sit up? As the world around me becomes clear, I am aware my wrists and ankles are bound against the metal rails of my bed. I struggle against them, but I only cause myself pain.
“Ms. Javana!”
