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There was no
question that he had died a frightful death. The evidence of
the terrible event was
written in every line on his pained face. The eyes
still bulged, the mouth agape,
perhaps in a permanent scream, the hands
clawing at the pavement – fingertips bloody
from scratching at the ground,
or his attacker since there could be no question that
this had been murder.
The gaunt figure of this man left an indelible impression on
her mind,
usually adept at handling situations of extreme horror. This was
different;
this seemed somehow unfinished and promoted the paranoid need to scream
long fearful cries into the claustrophobic night.
She walked over to the
hat, some five yards away from the body. This might
help distract her from the
weight of death that hung over the scene like a
ghastly candelabra swinging from its
chain and threatening to descend upon
the head at any moment. It was an ordinary
hat, a fedora of absolutely no
consequence. It was olive green and had a black
ribbon wrapped around the
brim, nothing special, unlike the body. She examined the
hat carefully,
but it offered no clues. Only the distance presented the possibility
of
evidence.
Back to the body and an immediate fascination for the
lips – curled back in that frightful scowl. What has done this? she wondered. What
COULD have
done this? The body was not dismembered, but the skin of every part had
been carefully sliced, as though by a surgeon, in strips of milli-metric
distance,
exposing the muscle underneath, and in some places, the fat or the bone. It was as
though someone or something had been interested in
creating a perfect anatomical
example of the human form. The skin was
elevated and curled like pieces of cooked
bacon, allowing what was
underneath to peek through. Her stomach unhinged itself,
and she had to turn
away and be sick on the ground away from the rotten image. Why
did I come
here alone? her mind cursed.
Then, she heard the faint echo
of a siren, and oh, thank God, it’s the
police.
As the vehicle
approached, her apprehension returned. The car looked unlike any cop car she’d ever
seen. There was something very unnatural about its appearance. The car came to a halt
and two figures emerged in the darkness,
shadows looming large and menacing in the
white of the headlights. There
was something not entirely human-looking about them,
but she could not make
out what her eyes were seeing because the headlights made it
impossible to
distinguish anything more than shadow. They approached with
intimidating
speed.
When she was finally able to make out their
terrible faces, it was far too
late. She screamed when the first one got a hold of
her arm. She screamed
louder when the second exposed its gruesome teeth, and as they
both sliced
into her throat, she screamed one last time.
