Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
“Weren’t expecting that, were you motherfucker?”
This is now self-defense.
I shoot him. I pull the trigger at point blank range, and all the parts of him capable of entertaining a thought or planning a murder become grime, fluid, and biomass. The sound damn near makes my ear drums rupture, but there’s no time to worry about hearing loss. I need to get out of this filthy tomb before I throw up.
It takes seconds for me to throw myself out of the dumpster. I pull my turtleneck off, wipe my bloodied face off, and toss it back in the dumpster.
Retreating to the car, I make a call.
“Hey, Hank. Can I get a pick up on a dumpster? Yeah. Brooklyn. Alley between Forsyth and Hencher. Gonna need that done ASAP, bud. Drop at the usual place.”
Hank is a man who could be in prison, but is not, and that is all anybody needs to know about him.
It takes twenty minutes, but Hank shows up. He backs his truck down the alley like a pro and hooks that dumpster up like it’s his business. I suppose it is.
Hank is thickset, with heavy brows, dark hair, and an abundance of body hair. He wears oil-stained blue overalls that bring out his bright blue eyes. He must have been very handsome when he was young, in a Brando sort of way. Middle age has transformed him, as it no doubt will transform us all. He’s still handsome, but in a more accessible sort of way.
He gives me a slight wave as he pulls out, taking the evidence of my crime away with him. The dumpster is on its way to a place where a lot of criminals drop a lot of things. Criminals. The word sticks in my mind. Am I one of them now? My hands are shaking slightly. When I look down at them, I see there’s a fine mist that used to be Rage.
Next thing I know, I’m in the shower. Not entirely sure how I got here, but I have to assume it was in the ordinary way. My brain isn’t tracking as it usually does.
My phone is ringing. I step out of the shower to answer it, not bothering to turn the shower off or put a towel on. I just drip where I stand, butt naked.
“Hello?”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Just having a shower?”
“You took my car ten hours ago. Obigor and I need to go home.”
“Shit. Did I? Fuck. Sorry. I’ll bring it back to the station now.”
“What have you…”
I disconnect the call. I have got to get my shit together. I cannot afford to fall apart now.
When I glance out the window, I notice that night is starting to fall. Have I been showering for hours? My skin does seem particularly pink in spots, and sensitive. You could even say raw, especially on the backs of my hands when I was covered in parts of a recently departed sentient creature. I should probably get some moisturizer on those.
“Where have you been!?” Tessie is not pleased to see me. Obigor isn’t either, but he greets me anyway in case I have any secret flavors on my skin. He licks my hand with his little tongue. I yank my hand away with a hiss. It feels like sandpaper being dragged over a raw wound.
“What the…” Tessie gets up, hops to the door, and shuts it, pulling the blinds down with quick snapping motions. “What have you done?”
“Uh. Nothing.”
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” she says. “Or made one.”
Sometimes I forget Tessie is a detective in her own right. She may not do much in the way of fieldwork, but she has interrogated more people than I can count. Thousands, probably. She knows what guilt looks like.
“Do you really want me to tell you?”
She sits down and pulls open her snack drawer. This is a drawer I am supposed to pretend does not exist. It is her private stash. She feels the same way about this drawer as I do about my apartment. She grabs the most chocolatey of bars and hands it to me. “Eat this,” she says. “Before you pass the fuck out.”
I thought my hands were shaking from all of the murder. Maybe I’m not so much racked by guilt as suffering from low blood sugar. I take a bite and immediately feel nauseous.
“I’m good,” I say, wrapping the wrapper carefully over the end, hiding the nub of my nibble.
“You are absolutely not good,” she says. “You’re pale, sweaty, and you can’t eat. Either you’re coming down with one hell of a flu, or you did something you wish you hadn’t.”
“I had to do it. I wish it hadn’t been so gross.”
Tessie doesn’t react. She’s using her interrogation skills on me. I could say anything now and she wouldn’t show any sign of horror or similar emotion. She’s just going to listen and build the case against me, let me hang myself with my own rope.