Sirens in the Night

by Bradley, Michael;

  “Can Jack come out to play?” was the whisper he heard in his ear.

  With his mouth gaping, Jack was in awe at the effortless way that she drifted before the window. Her beauty was unlike any that he had ever seen, and he wanted nothing more than to touch her silky skin. Without thinking, he stepped forward toward the window, placed his hands against the thick glass surface, and gazed up at Adonia as she smiled down at him. She drifted closer to the window until the only thing between them was a single pane of glass.

  “Come play with me, Jack,” came a whisper in his ear.

  Jack watched as Adonia, hovering before the window, seductively began to caress her own body. Her hands gently slid down her abdomen and around to the side of her smooth thighs. Her erotic touch skimmed back across her stomach and across her breasts. Any sense of logic and levelheadedness in Jack was pushed aside by the eroticism of the moment. Her overwhelming beauty, combined with the sensual way in which she was stroking her body unleashed a carnal lust in Jack that he neither understood nor seemed able to control. His knuckles were turning white, as he pressed on the window, desperate to reach her. She puckered her lips and blew him a kiss, which only fueled the fire inside him. Feverishly, Jack began to bang on the window with his fists, hitting the glass as hard as he could to no avail. Frustrated and in a frenzy, Jack spun around, scanned the room, and then reached for the nearest office chair. Raising it above his head, he turned back to the window. Adonia drifted back from the window, and smiled.

  As he prepared to lunge the chair forward through the window, Jack glanced up at Adonia. Her eyes had turned fiery red, and blazed like an inferno. The chair hung above Jack’s head as he stared at the two orbs of fire. The piercing bright lights shone through the glass and cast a faint orange hue around the room. Suddenly, Jack’s grip loosened on the chair, and it crashed to the floor at his feet.

  “Jack, aren’t you going to come out and play?” echoed the whisper in his ear.

  Speechless and frightened, Jack backed toward the door, never once taking his eyes off the floating image of beauty outside the window. The corner of a desk jabbed into the back of his thigh, but his eyes never wavered. When he felt the doorknob against his back, Jack slowly slid his hand behind him and gripped it firmly. Turning the knob, he heard the latch click, and he inhaled deeply. Then, with one swift movement, Jack flung the door opened, dashed through it, and slammed it closed behind him. Leaning back against the door, Jack’s heart raced as he found it hard to catch his breath, and he slowly slid down the door until he was seated on the carpeted floor. Leaning forward, he placed his head into his trembling hands. Then, he suddenly looked up toward the ceiling where a small round speaker was uncommonly silent.

  “Dead air! Damn it!” he muttered.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Traffic in the city was heavier than usual on Monday morning as Jack darted between the line of slow moving cars and those parked on the side of the street. The rest of his shift had gone by uneventfully until Ron Michaels arrived the next morning. Jack had found it difficult to explain to Ron why he had jammed a chair against the inside of the studio door. There had been no more whispering voices, but that hadn’t stopped Jack from feeling frightened. The morning show host, getting frustrated with Jack’s lame excuses, finally stopped asking questions and took his seat behind the control board, gesturing for Jack to leave the studio. On his way out of the station that morning, Jack had opened the sales office door just enough for him to peek in. The chair was still lying on the floor, but there were no images of beautiful women floating outside the window in the early rising sunlight. He closed the door and hoped that no one would ask what had happened to the chair.

  Jack had been relieved to see the sun shining as he exited the parking garage on his Harley Davidson. The crispness of the morning air had helped to revive him as he sped through the empty streets toward Monk’s Cafe. Breakfast had been hearty and satisfying, and Jack had returned home to find a message waiting for him on his answering machine.

  “Jack, it’s Bryan from Den of Heroes. Look, I know you don’t believe me about the whole Seirenes thing, but I’ve dug up some information you might find interesting. This definitely isn’t the first time these creatures have come to Philly. Call me when you get a chance.”

  He had replayed the message again and then, like a man on a mission, strode out the door of his apartment. Now traffic had become more like he would expect during rush hour, with cars lining the streets in a slow moving gridlock. Being on a motorcycle allowed Jack to be more agile as he darted between and around the cars that lethargically inched through the narrow city streets.

  Jack needed to talk to someone about what he had seen over the past few days, and he knew that Bryan Salisbury would be the perfect confidant. The horrifying events of the previous evening had erased any doubts in his mind about the existence of Seirenes in Philadelphia, and he wanted to get as much information as possible. Because he felt that theory was rubbish before, Jack had paid little attention to any of the details that the comic book storeowner had presented earlier. Now he wanted to know everything Bryan knew.

  _______________

  Samantha, with a steaming white ceramic coffee mug in her hand, gazed out the window of her bedroom at the street in front of her townhouse. She had worked feverishly all weekend long, following up leads on the whereabouts of Calithea Panagakos to no avail. Before leaving her office in the early hours of Monday morning, she had sent an email to her Captain informing him that she would be in a few hours late. She knew he’d understand once he saw that the time stamp on the email was from three that morning. Her sleep had been restless, and she drifted in and out of consciousness throughout what had been left of the night. Finally giving up on the prospect of slumber, Samantha had risen at seven thirty and spent the next two hours in her basement workout room. Whether it was residual adrenaline from her long weekend or just a desire to work out some of her frustration, Samantha had doubled her workout routine. She was covered in sweat when she emerged from the basement to the bright sunshine beaming in through her living room windows. After a long, hot shower, Samantha had dressed slowly, trying to drag out her time at home before having to head back into the office.

  The first mug of coffee hadn’t been successful at taking the edge off of her morning, and the second seemed determined to fail like the first. The traffic outside her window that had rapidly built up through rush hour was now beginning to lighten again. She checked her watch. Nine fifty-two. With another long sip from her coffee mug, she turned from the window and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Pouring the remainder of her coffee into the sink, her eyes remained transfixed on the dark brown liquid as it swirled around the drain of the stainless steel sink. The dull ache behind her eyes had started early this morning; it had not let up, even for the two Tylenol she had taken.

  The headaches had started to occur after the discovery of the first three corpses. Each successive corpse only served to increase the frequency until the headaches had become a daily occurrence. She didn’t complain about them because she knew that her co-workers would blame them on the stress of the case, and some would even see the headaches as a sign that the case should be reassigned to another detective. It frustrated Samantha to no end to know that because she didn’t have a penis and a set of balls hanging between her legs that she had to fight doubly hard for the respect of some of her fellow detectives. She had come out of the police academy with top honors, and had even scored one of the highest scores on record on her civil servant exam when she applied to become a detective. Yet some of the “old guard” of Philadelphia’s detective force still viewed her as a usurper. Although her superior officers supported her efforts, she knew those co-workers who still felt the detective force was no place for a woman scrutinized every case. Samantha wasn’t the only female detective on the force, but she was by far considered the most successful, which had made her a target. Her aggressiv
e approach to everything she did had become her trademark around the department. But with that trademark came the guilt she had so carefully hidden away. And over the weekend, that guilt had doubled.

  Samantha returned to her bedroom, grabbed the holstered pistol from her dresser, and extracted the weapon from its leather encasement. She performed her usual morning check on the firearm, attached the holster to her belt, and slid the gun into its proper resting place on her hip. As her hand reached for the LG mobile phone on her dresser, it began to ring.

  Touching the screen to answer, she placed the phone to her ear and said, “Detective Ballard.”

  “Samantha? It’s Jack Allyn,” came the reply.

  “Jack, what’s up?”

  There was a pause, and then, “I have something you need to see.”

  _______________

  Leaning against the doorframe of the small office in the back of the Den of Heroes comic book shop, Samantha slowly shook her head. It had taken her fifteen minutes to get to the small shop, and another five to survey what she found when she had arrived. She would have classified the small room as more of a walk-in closet than an office. A small desk spanned from wall to wall along the back wall. Cheap shelves had been mounted above the desk five high; they contained a collection of science fiction action figures from a variety of movies, television programs, and comics. A stack of comic books sat on the right-hand side of the desk, each contained in its own clear protective plastic envelope. The screensaver from a grey Dell laptop provided the room’s only illumination. Slumped face down on the floor was another mummified corpse with its arms outstretched toward the desk. From its position, Samantha reasoned that the victim must have been trying to reach for the cordless telephone, which rested next to the laptop.

  Samantha had been so engrossed in her initial analysis of the scene that she had barely noticed Jack’s presence behind her. When he quietly cleared his throat, she turned to face him.

  “Did you know him well?” she asked.

  Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Not really, but I considered him a friend. I was in here every few weeks.”

  Brushing past Jack, Samantha paced around the small comic book shop. “I can’t really picture you as someone that’s into all this crap. You don’t seem like the comic book type.”

  “I’m not. But I collect some of the more rare comics. They’re part of my investment portfolio,” explained Jack.

  “Yet another surprising fact about Jack Allyn.”

  Jack smiled. “What? That I have comics in my investment portfolio?”

  “No. That you actually have an investment portfolio,” said Samantha. Then after pausing, she commanded, “Tell me what happened.”

  Jack leaned back against the glass display case. “A few weeks ago, after that first murder outside of Pulsar, Bryan tried to convince me that there was some ancient mythological creature running loose in the city. He kept going on and on about it, but I didn’t pay much attention. The story he told was just too . . .”

  “Incredulous?”

  Jack smiled. “I was going to say stupid. But I guess incredulous is probably more appropriate. Said he had a contact in the police that was filling him in on the murders. At the time, it seemed insane to think it was true.”

  Folding her arms, Samantha replied, “When we spoke a few days ago, you said you didn’t believe it, but it sounds like something’s changed.”

  Jack hesitated, and then said, “Yeah. At the risk of sounding like a complete nut job, let me tell you what happened to me last night.”

  It only took Jack ten minutes to complete his narrative of the early morning events at the WPLX studios. He decided that it was best to hold nothing back, no matter how bad it made him look. At this point, he knew it would be folly to withhold any detail. Dried up dead bodies and floating naked women with burning red eyes were far beyond the realm of anything he had ever experienced. And as much as he would have liked to be passive and not get involved, it seemed that he was going to have little choice. Two of his friends were now dead. There was no longer any way to deny it, he was involved.

  Samantha listened with interest to Jack’s tale, and as much as she wanted to shrug the whole story off as being the ravings of a lunatic, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there might be something in his dubious story. She had seen too much over the past few weeks to not give it serious consideration. As his words poured forth, her mind drifted back through each of the crime scenes she had seen during the investigation. The underground chamber. The parking garage. The alley alongside Pulsar. In her mind’s eye, she vividly recalled the security camera footage from the club, and the horrifying scene it had recorded.

  When Jack finished speaking, Samantha asked, “So, why’d you come here this morning?”

  Gesturing back toward the office door, he replied, “Bryan called and left me a message, saying he had some info about these Seirenes. Besides, after everything that’s happened, I needed to talk to somebody. He’s the only person I could think of who wouldn’t think I’m crazy.”

  Samantha sighed. She knew perfectly well how Jack felt. It was a feeling she had experienced during the Society Hill Serial Killer investigation. The vile and ghastly manner in which the killer had dispatched his victims had disturbed even the strongest detectives on the force, but Samantha even more so. Back then, she had been desperate to have someone to talk to, but there had been no one for her.

  “Jack, I think your friend was right,” said Samantha. “That woman you identified on Friday night killed two police officers on Saturday, leaving behind two corpses just like that one.” She gestured back toward that small office. “We’ve been looking for her ever since.”

  “Shit!” replied Jack. “Wait . . . that doesn’t make sense. The woman I saw Friday night at the club wasn’t the same one I saw outside the radio station window! And she wasn’t the one who attacked me!”

  Samantha stared hard at Jack. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. There were some similarities, but they were definitely different women.”

  “Could she have been wearing a wig?” inquired Samantha.

  Jack shook his head. “No way! Different women.”

  “Damn! That means there’s more than one of them.”

  Jack gave Samantha a half-smile. “Sounds like you’re starting to believe too.”

  Samantha hesitated before answering. She had fought so hard to keep a rational perspective on this investigation, and all of her rationality seemed to be crumbling before her eyes. To admit that there may be monsters stalking through the streets of Philadelphia was to admit that all of her intelligent reasoning had gone out the window. There was a time that she prided herself on her ability to maintain her grasp on reality, no matter how difficult or unusual the cases got. But now she was slowly watching herself believe in things that she would have outright criticized any fellow detective for even suggesting. Yet, she couldn’t deny the evidence of her own eyes. She had seen the bodies of ordinary people reduced to nothing more than dried husks. Samantha had watched two healthy police officers walk into an elevator with a suspect and come out as shriveled corpses. There was little point in her trying to abnegate this theory any longer.

  She nodded. “I believe it.”

  The door to the small comic shop swung open, and Peter Thornton stepped cautiously in. He glanced around the room before his eyes locked on Samantha. His dark face held a frown, causing his forehead to furrow. He crossed the space between them with a few long strides, and said, “Sorry I’m late. I rushed over here as fast as I could.”

  “We’ve got another body,” said Samantha. She gestured toward the office door in the back of the shop. “He’s back there.”

  Peter’s eyes widened as he asked, “Bryan?”

  Tilting her head, Samantha replied, “Yeah, Bryan Salisbury.”

  Pointing toward Jack, Peter i
nquired, “Why’s he here?”

  “He found the body,” explained Samantha.

  Turning toward Jack, Peter asked, “Did you know Bryan?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Apparently you knew him too,” said Samantha. “Peter, is there anything I need to know before we start digging into this crime scene?”

  Peter stared down at his feet, embarrassed, and avoiding eye contact with his partner. “I . . . I shop here occasionally.”

  Samantha raised her eyebrows. “You’re into comic books?”

  “I only read graphic novels. Not the regular monthly comics,” admitted Peter.

  Samantha smiled. “I think that’s like saying you only read Playboy for the articles.”

  Suddenly, Jack interrupted with a revelation, “Ah, you must be Bryan’s contact in the police force!”

  Frowning, Samantha asked, “Were you feeding Bryan Salisbury sensitive information about our investigation?”

  “I, ah, might have mentioned something here and there,” muttered Peter.

  “Did he tell you his theory about what was killing these people?” asked Jack.

  Peter nodded his head. “Yeah, but it was all rubbish, right?”

  When Samantha didn’t respond, Peter said, “It’s rubbish. It’s total bullshit! It has to be!”

  “Before we call in forensics, we need to find out everything Bryan knew about these creatures . . .” Turning to Jack, Samantha asked, “What are they called?”

  “Seirenes. They’re from Greek Mythology.”

  “Yeah, Seirenes. We need to find everything he had on them,” said Samantha.