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Hello, I'd Like To Report A Murder

Ring Ring...

By Francis Curt O'NeillPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Marlow had seen enough crime scenes to know this one was monstrously different.

“You ate at all today?” He shook his head, knowing full well a quick gulp of last night’s red as he left the house didn’t count. “Good. It’s a mess. Barely enough pieces for an ID…”

Barely?”

“‘Sic is bagging the salvageable chunks now, will run the hand for any priors… which you’d think have to exist right? Because whatever he did to deserve this, must be bad. A litany of piss poor decisions that led him here, lifeless under an overpass. Otherwise…”

“Well. Life would be just too cruel.”

“Exactly, only a tolerable measure of cruelty please, remarked in deep distance. Well. This one’s up close, and particularly frightful.” Stanton leads Marlow through a fresh mire, mud pocked with bucket footprints full of rainwater, stagnant like the body. A white canvas tent is swarmed by officials, dimly lit with the spill from the freeway, traffic speeding unawares of the horror festering below. “Teeth are powder” Stanton opens, “so no use chasing down dental records, unless the tooth fairy is feeling particularly charitable.”

“Jesus…”

“No items of clothing, ID, tattoos… Nothing close to a face… It’s a bloodbath. This was deliberate and profound torture, most of it meted out when he was alive. This type of violence repeats on you, so brace yourself.”

“I’m a big boy.” Marlow smiles unconvincingly.

“He was too…"

“Any links to the perp?”

“Nothing as of yet. I can glean from the lacerations that the victim was attacked with a curved blade, unlikely to be recovered. As brutal as this appears, it was controlled. Hopefully I’m wrong and some saint discovers a veritable treasure trove of implicating evidence in the bushes nearby, but my many years as a harrowed witness have reduced me to a realist.”

“And a bit of a philosopher.”

“Death and life are best friends, and in that friendship a penchant for observation is encouraged. Festers even.”

“No desire to look away? Not even today, with its salvageable chunks?”

“It doesn’t even look enough like a person to encourage pity.” Stanton is practically grey, all colour and liveliness drained to some distant place.

“Well. You’ve sold me a ticket. Time to see the show.”

“Front row seats, sir.” He lifts the tape like an usher. Sullen officers linger, their backs turned to the corpse. Marlow collects his boot covers, slipping them on in a hunch. He lowers to the half open tent, peeking a look at the prostrate tableau of death. Stanton was right. This is a devastation, of the used-to-be-man, lying in wait for their observation, a warning of startling purity. Beware, the monsters that walk as man and make in their image. Limbs are scattered, linked by a constellation of disparate lumps. Patches of skin are draped over prior fixtures, ragged approximations of human elements, just disjointed enough to cause pervasive unease.

“The amount of blood indicates it happened here, around 5 hours ago, the very early hours of the morning” Stanton opines, hand cupped over his mouth, “Lucky we caught it before the joggers and the school run.”

“Luck is far from here… The smell?”

“Some sort of chemical. Toxicology is on it, but you know how that goes…”

“Are we on the clock? A reaction I mean… is it destroying evidence?”

"Who knows. It’s thoroughly mixed in, no use attempting to separate it… at least none I’ve found.”

“Well… You weren’t kidding. It’s a nightmare. Think it was a pro?”

“It’s likely. Doubt this is anyone’s first sojourn to Murder Town… But that begs the question, why were we able to find it? Wetwork is discrete, only time it’s really in the open is gangland pomp, the stuff that ensures you die in daylight surrounded by your buddies. This display might be meant for us, and that’s-“

Terrifying.” Marlow squats deep and looks the corpse where the eyes should be. “Who the hell… are you…” he stutters, catching so much of the stench it burns his throat.

A muffled, but overly chirpy ringtone bursts over his study. Marlow glares at Stanton with mechanic rigidity, who shakes his head in turn. “Not mine”, he responds, pulling out his phone as proof. Angry, Marlow bounds from the tent “Which idiot dropped their phone!? Hey!? You hear me?” They stare back, stunned, it is a decidedly awkward moment, left unanswered. Marlow retreats back to sheltered murder, his partner kneeling over the body “I swear these newbies, they’d lose there heads if they weren’t…. bolted… on…”

Stanton turns to face him, a bloodied burner phone, buzzing in his gloved right hand. “It… it was inside him…”

Short Story
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About the Creator

Francis Curt O'Neill

Writer and artist based in the north of England, passionate about all forms of storytelling.

@curtoneill on most socials

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