The Black Ibis Case

“Wake up Jeremy! Wake up!”, I slapped my captive awake as he returned to consciousness. He groaned and his head lolled about his shoulders and it slowly stood straight again.

It took him a moment to realize that he was restrained, and he struggled against his bonds to no avail as they were tight enough to hold a gorilla. He stopped struggling after a moment, tried to scream, but the gag I had put in his mouth worked like a charm.

“Not so fun getting jumped, eh Jeremy?”, I asked him as I lowered my face to his level. I couldn’t repress the foolish grin that twisted my lips.

His unswollen eye studied my face for a moment and grew wider.

“I want some answers, Jeremy, and you’re going to give them to me,” I went to the room’s entrance and picked up the bat, “Are we clear?”

He stared at me with a furrowed brow, his look spewing hate at me. Yet, he made no attempt at struggling against his bonds.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I moved the gag out of his mouth. “Don’t bother screaming for help, your television’s loud enough to drown out any other sounds.”

“What do you want with me?”, he asked as soon as his mouth was freed.

“Funny, I was going to ask you that. Where is Leonard Michaels?”

“I ain’t telling you squat,” he spat on the ground at my feet.

“Interesting you didn’t ask who I was talking about, or even who I am. Now the real question is what will it take to make you talk?”, I punched him hard in the gut and heard the wind get pushed out of him.

Jeremy coughed and caught his breath. “You’ll get nothing out of me, pig!”

I slapped him in the face and punched his chest a few times. “Just tell me what you did with him, and we can get this over with.”

He looked up at me and I saw his jaw move to gather saliva. I swung the bat at his left knee just as his lips perked up and the jet of spit and blood instead dripped on his shirt as he howled in pain.

“That’s not very nice, Jeremy. Haven’t you been taught any manners?”

“You bastard! You broke my leg!”

“And you still have so many other things left to break.” I felt a smile creep up on my face. “Where is Leonard?”

“He’s… he’s… you’ll never find him!”

I was about to soften his gut again when I saw the lights from a car pull up by the house. “Expecting company?”, I leveled the bat up to my shoulder.

“Ah! You’re done now, pig! My buddies are gonna make you regret messing with us!”

“We’ll see about that,” I replied as I hid behind the wall to the kitchen.

I heard knocks at the door. The person on the other side knocked twice then said, “I know someone’s in here, I can hear your TV.”

Another knock. They then tried the doorknob, and I realized I had forgotten to lock it before starting my interrogation. “I’m coming in!”, announced the newcomer.

The television nearly drowned out the sounds, but I could hear the door creaking slowly and the first footstep announcing the newcomer’s advance inside the house. I waited patiently for my chance to strike, but every step seemed to take a full minute for whoever this was.

Finally, I could see the tip of a shoe and I burst out from behind the wall ready to swing my bat down at whoever this was. I stopped myself short mid-swing though when I recognized the person in front of me.

“Charles?”, asked dumbfounded, “What are you doing here?”

“What the hell, Sam! What’s going on in here?”, said Charles his eyes wide as he backed away from me clutching his chest.

I lowered the bat and set it down. “Look, I can explain.”

Just then, Charles turned around to look into the living room behind him and saw Jeremy bound in his chair, his leg bent awkwardly at the knee. “Did you completely lose it, Sam? What are you doing?” He grabbed his head with both hands.

“This guy jumped me a few days ago. He’s one of the people who kidnapped the guy I’m supposed to find.”

“And that justifies torture?” Charles ran his hands through his hair and walked in a circle.

“If you’d seen what I’ve seen these last few days…”, I shook my head at the memories. “Look, he’s in league with some really bad people, the kind you don’t mess with unless you have a really good reason. Why are you here anyways?”

“I was worried about you, with good reason!” he looked from me to Jeremy and slid his hand down to cover most of his face but not his eyes. “You know I can’t let this go. I have to arrest you.”

Jeremy laughed, “You’ve really done it now detective! You should’ve abandoned this case days ago.”

“Shut up, Jeremy,” I spared him only a glance, but the color went from his face before I turned back over to Charles. “Look, Charles, you’ve known me a long time. You know me better than this. You know I wouldn’t just kidnap a guy, no matter how bad my case got, or that I wouldn’t lie to you. I also know you aren’t going to call this in, because you’re still standing here instead of being back at your car.”

Charles sighed and started tapping his foot. “But how can I know I can trust you? I need some proof if you expect me to believe you.”

I thought of what I could show him as proof, but nothing came to mind at first. These people weren’t the writing things down type, and for good reason. The creature I killed the night before sounded like the kind of thing you read about in some sketchy tabloid, and I expected that’s where that story would end up. Then, I thought of what I saw upstairs and I looked up the stairs before I knew what I was doing.

My face must have betrayed my thoughts, and Charles asked me, “Sam? Are you alright? What’s up there?”

“It’s… I suppose it’s the best proof I have so far. Come with me.”

I led Charles up the stairs and to the room with the onyx statuette. I could tell he was drawn to it the same way I was, and he barely spared a glance at anything else in the room. “Is that it?” he asked without taking his eyes off the dark stone.

“Yes. What do you think?”

“That you’ve gone mad if you think a bauble is proof. But…” Charles walked to the statuette and grabbed it before I could stop him.

Charles went stiff for a moment and the air got pushed out of him. He let go of the statuette and was driven back towards me as though something had pushed him. I caught him before he hit the floor, panting, sweating and staring wide-eyed straight ahead.

I waited a minute for his breathing to slow back down, “What did you see?”

He kept staring as he answered, “A giant coming out of a river,” he turned his eyes to me, “and that laughter, inside my head. I thought it would split.”

“I’m sorry, Charles. That’s why I have to do… this.”

Charles got back up, still shaking, and turned to me. His lips twisted as he thought, and he punched me in the gut. “That’s for dragging me into this,” he swung one more time, “that’s for not bringing me in sooner.”

I was seeing stars and trying to catch my breath when Charles helped me up from my knees. “You could have called me a bastard,” I rasped out.

I closed the door as we left the room. We went back downstairs and found Jeremy struggling against his bonds. His right arm had gotten looser but was still far from freed.

“What did you see?” Jeremy asked with a twisted grin. “Did the Master show you…”

Charles backhanded Jeremy across the face. “Your Master showed me you people are insane.” He looked at me with a nod.

“Where’s Leonard? What have you people done with him?”

Jeremy chuckled. “You want that boy so bad? Fine. I took him to pier eight to be loaded on the Cloverfield. He won’t be on board though, that ship already sailed and came back. Where he is now, I couldn’t say.”

“What do you people want with him?” I asked.

“He’s a very special young man, or so I’m told. He got scared and didn’t want to achieve his full potential though, so we had to do what we had to do to help him. We’re just looking out for his best interest, you see,” Jeremy started to chuckle again, and Charles backhanded him.

“We’d better go to that ship. There’s nothing more to be learned from this grunt. Put a gag on him, Charles.”

“Hey, what’re you…” started to protest Jeremy as Charles covered his mouth.

“We can’t just leave him like this,” said Charles as he looked back to the bound man.

“You’re right.” I picked up the bat as Jeremy’s eyes grew wider. I swung the bat down on his other knee and Jeremy screamed in pain through his gag as his knee twisted like the other one. “There, now we can leave him.”

Jeremy cried and moaned in pain as we closed the door behind us. We each got into our car and drove off to meet on the docks.