Silencing the Screamer
Part 8
by Christina Kazmierczak, published on January 5, 2001
The trio decided to split up. Gregor and Grace taking Alexi's car to the different crime scene's in order to get information.
Grace parked the car. The next scene, their third, was the area underneath one side of a bridge that spanned the width of a major highway and connected the two sides of a large historic park. The bridge looked well maintained from the top side. Outdoor holiday lights streamed across both the underside and across lamppost above the bridge.
The two approached the side of the bridge and slowly began the trek down to where the embankment supporting bridge meat the retaining wall which surrounded the highway bellow. Grace scanned the ground with a Halogen beam while Gregor waited with plastic bag and tweezers in hand. As the two reached the retaining wall – and the chain link fence that separated the park from the highway – Grace sighed. "S%^&. Nothing. The place is picked cleaner then Gabe's teeth."
"Pardon?"
Grace kicked the ground. "Nothing. Like every place else there is nothing."
Greg leaned his head to the side, his dreads arching slightly in the breeze. "I have found that in your cop movies the suspect always comes back. Is it because there is always some evidence left?"
"Its more like–" All the air in Grace's lungs went out in a swoosh as something dropped from under the bridge. The thing had hit her in the chest, smacking her head hard against the links. She heard something pounding on the darkness which was trying to envelope her.
Grace tried to hit the thing back but found her fingers stuck in the links. After a millisecond of panic, she used the trapped fingers as a brace and brought more of her hand into the steel squares. This gave her the leverage to bring her knees up to her stomach and then out in an attempt to hit what appeared to be her attacker's head.
Greg saw Grace's opening. He took the Halogen – which Grace dropped – he had been using to make any hit he could and aimed for the thing's head coming from behind.
Their combined forces resulted in two sickening wet thuds that should have knocked whatever it was out cold. Instead, a whoosh of cold air and the thing was gone.
Grace disentangled herself from the links. Greg put his arms out as she fell. "We need to get out of here," he whispered while pulling her up a long the embankment with him.
Grace was trying to scramble up the dirt, using the ivy and iceberg plants as makeshift handholds. "And do what? That thing could take us at any time. We don't ever know what it is."
"To the car."
"Like that isn't that most telegraphed move in history." Grace said under her breathe.
As they got within 40 feet of the car, Grace heard the car's alarm go off. 4 beeps – something had tried to mess with it. Then a sizzle similar to deep frying fish. And one smoking attacker of the darkness took off back under the bridge.
Stopping right in front of the door, Grace faux bowed to Greg. "After you."
Greg took a car remote from his jacket and thumbed it. "I picked up an extra set on the way out. Maybe we should thank her for being paranoid."
Grace just slumped into the driver's seat.
"Honey, I am home!" Grace said entering the apartment.
Alexi sat up from the floor. "That was qu–what the heck did you run into."
Grace winkled up her nose. "The usual we are way out of our league who know's what it is monster."
"It's human. I can tell by the smell." Gregor was trying to hide the disgust in his voice.
Alexi giggled her nervousness. "We smell that bad eh? You guys look like you were dragged through the mud. Any chance you have anything physical from the attacker?" Grace shook slightly. "Any thing physical? We made contact! The thing nearly killed me!"
Alexi beamed. "Gotcha sucker."
Candles and mirrors. Reflections of reflection going out into eternity. So infinite, thought Grace, yet it is only an illusion in a very small place. The flickering candles vaguely reminded Grace of the ocean. Little waves going this way and that. Overlapping. Rising and falling, till the stronger ones grew in power.
Three circles. One inside the other inside the third.. Alexi sat in the center. Grace and Gregor both had a position in a separate outer ring.
Grace sighed exasperated. "Why, again, are we here?" She stuck her finger in a bowl of herbs that was besides her.
"You two are in the outer circles so that I can protect you from anything that comes up while I try to trace any contagion that was left on your clothes from the fight. (While I try to keep myself from strangling you both) "
"I believe the proper term would be slaughter except that we are both still alive."
Alexi ran a gloved hand threw the hair that was now a crew cut on her head. "SHUT UP CHILDREN! I did tell you all to take care of that before we began."
Last update: October 24, 2007
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