One week...
"Graham? Are you there? If you get this message... Call me, okay? We really need to talk..."
Two weeks...
"Graham... I know you're angry at me, but it's been three weeks. Come on, just call me... I miss you."
Three weeks...
"Graham, I'm really worried about you! Why won't you answer your phone. Your friends can't get through to you... if something's wrong, you have to tell us. Call someone... anyone... Give us a sign that you're okay."
Four.
1
There were two men standing outside of the apartment that belonged to Graham Terry. They were police, one in his late forties with dark hair and heavy stubble, the other no more than twenty - a fresh cop on the beat, his first night. The older officer knocked the door quite loudly, it echoed throughout the tidy hallway eerily as he did. He spoke, hoping to reach someone on the other side of the wooden door numbered '29'
"Mr. Terry," he knocked again "If you're in there, please open up."
No reply. Not a single noise. So he banged louder, it hurt his knuckles but he was in no mood to care, "Sir, open up. We're the police. We just wanna check on you, make sure you're okay. Mrs. Kramer said something about damp, is there a leak?"
Still nothing. The officer was beginning to become more tense "Please, open the door, or we'll have to kick it open, Mr. Terry and we know you don't want to have to pay for a new lock. So Just open up!" His banging was fast and furious and then it stopped. He sighed and looked to his young partner who stood with wide eyes and a strange little smirk on the edge of his lips. The older officer stood back and nodded regretfully which acted as a trigger - a signal - to the younger man. Almost instantly his leg was fired towards the door, just under the dirty, brass knob. The wood gave way easily, and the door swung open, hitting the wall a small table.
The room that they had opened up was dark, the windows were sitting open showing the adjacent apartment building and the heavy rain. It was cold, and as the two men stepped in - guns cocked, never blinking - they could see their breath on thick puffs before them.
The older officer whipped out his flashlight and turned it on. The strong beam of white light pierced straight through the shield of darkness and showed a sight the two had never seen. The furniture was all gone. The carpet torn into shreds. The wall paper ripped as if a lion had gone insane in that very place. And all over the floor was a thick, red liquid augmented by gooey chunks of a strange, meat. Their hearts were beating faster than ever before. The light moved along the drenched floor, towards the center of the room and it showed a large, oozing pile that slowly writhed in an entrancing and hypnotic way. The older officer squinted his eyes to make out the pile of moving mush on the floor. He gasped as he recognised something: A skull... It had eyes on it. Some of the muscle was still on, too. A spine was just visible through the mesh of blood and torn up muscle, it lead down to a pile of strangely intact organs... even the heart was still beating.
"How the hell is he still alive...?" He whispered
"What the hell? Oh my god!" Shouted the rookie as he began to realise what he was looking at. Without a second's hesitation he grabbed his mic and was calling for an ambulance.
The eyes in the skull lolled to the right and locked with those of the older officer, who was now froze in that Medusa-stare. The mouth moved slightly and let free a slightly hiss of a whisper, an almost inaudible sound. The officer leaned in closer, it whispered again. He still couldn't understand, so he again, moved closer. The tips of his black, polished shoes gently touched an intestine, his head inched closer. Closer again. And Closer once more until he was only ten away from the skeletal face of the thing laying before him.
It whispered once more, "Hel'...'E....Peash..." It's words were like that of a young child with a speech impediment, or perhaps of a drunk, but no matter how it spoke, the officer understood perfectly. It wanted help.
Help me, please, help me...help me... please... please... please....
2
It was the next day, not a few hundred miles away, that the same two men were talking to a perplexed coroner before a table covered in bones and organs. The coroner was Dr. Emmerich, a young man with chestnut hair and small glasses before blue eyes, he spoke softly to the two men with a hint of concern
"I don't understand how this could have happened... Tests show that he was alive for a whole week before you guys arrived. Imagine, laying on a floor like that for a whole week. It must have been hell."
The older officer butted in, a well known trait of his "But how come he didn't bleed to death, or just... die... I mean, he had no skin, muscles, no nothin'!"
Emmerich paused for a moment, for once in his life he didn't have an answer, "We don't know. None of this makes any sense. All we know is that this guy was called Graham Terry and --" He stopped and looked past the two officers to a new man who had just sauntered in with an air of self-importance about him.
The man wore a simple black suit, tie and shoes with a white shirt underneath. His hair was jet black and his skin was very tanned, which would lead one to think he was of a Mexican background - not too far from the truth. He walked up to Dr. Emmerich and spoke clearly with a Brooklyn accent,
"Hello, you must Dr. Emmerich. I'm Detective Ramirez. I heard about what happened and well... I'm interested to say the least." He turned to the two officers, "Could you two give us a little privacy, please?"
The two silently mumbled and quickly scurried off, quietly speaking to each other about how much of an asshole they thought Ramirez was.
"Is there something I can help with... As you can see I have my hands full" Said Dr. Emmerich, motioning to the disgusting mess to his right.
"Is there any way a person could have done this to Mr. Terry? With, or without a struggle?"
"Well, he wasn't sedated from what we can tell... and obviously we can't check for physical signs of a struggle. If a person managed to do this, they would have had to be extremely skilled. They'd need an anatomical knowledge of a surgeon, if not better."
"I see. So you've got nothing." Ramirez said bluntly, which drained all emotion from Emmerich's face
"Yeah. Nothing but this pile of goop."
Det. Ramirez turned and left as briskly as he came, without saying a single word more to Dr. Emmerich. He wasn't normally that rude, but he was focused -- determined to find out what had happened. He had a name, so he would start there.
He stood in the busy street, the streets damp and the sky overcast. Despite the previous downpour the place was busy with people scampering all around going from here to there. Ramirez often stood on busy streets, watching people going through their lives often wondering what it would have been like if he had become a banker or a lawyer. Their lives were fast paced, but his was slow and almost never moved. He had to analyse every detail that surrounded him and take a mental picture of everything at a crime-scene. His thoughts were empty on this, however, his mind completely blank. That was until his cell-phone rang loudly in his right pocket. Quickly he fired his hand in to get it and he held it to his hear,
"Yeah?"
A high-pitched voice of a young man told him that Graham Terry's only living relative was his son who, luckily, lived only a few blocks away from where Ramirez stood.
3
There were things that Josh Terry had wished would happen to him. And somethings he wished wouldn't. But what was to become of him, he would never have dreamt of.
He sat in his apartment, over looking the dreary city, on a leather chair. He often sat in silence and looked out the window, usually because he was bored, but he'd tell people it helps him think or something silly like that. He scratched his hair-covered chin and sighed. The room was quiet and if he listened close enough he would probably hear the dust settling around him. There was a light flap. Like paper falling gently. Josh turned and looked to his door to see that a small brown envelope had been slid under his door. He stood and retrieved it, checking the peep hole though he saw no one there, he sat down with the envelope.
The small brown paper in his hand was wrinkled and slightly torn on one of the corners. He opened it up with relative ease (usually he would have to completely obliterate an envelope to get inside) and pulled out a small, piece of crinkled paper. On the paper was writing that looked like it was written in a hurry without much consideration taken into how someone was supposed to read it. Josh squinted and tried his best to decipher the words before him, his eyes almost adjusted to it and it quickly became easier to read.
' Please, Don't panic. I'm a good friend of your father's.
Something is happening, something big. Right at this moment police will likely be making their way to your door to talk to you about your father's 'death'. Don't listen to a word that they tell you, he isn't dead. He just isn't alive...
I know how crazy it sounds, but you have to trust me. Don't sleep. They'll get you that way. Stay sharp. I'll be in touch.
~ Prant '
Josh had no idea what to think.
Was this a joke?
Should he take it seriously?
What the hell kind of pseudonym is 'Prant'? If it even is a pseudonym, that is.
The letter had caused him to go into a small flurry of though, wondering if his father really was dead. He didn't know if what the letter said about his father was true, but it was right about the police. They did arrive. Right on cue.
They knocked three times. And he answered quickly, shoving the note into his back pocket as he did. He was met with a young looking police officer and a man in a black suit. The man in the suit spoke calmly,
"Are you Josh Terry?"
"Yeah... Who wants to know?" He realised instantly that he just asked the dumbest question of all time.
"I'm Detective Ramirez, I'm investigating your father's death. If you hadn't already heard then I'm sorry to break the news like this. Can I come in?"
Josh nodded and lead him in, Ramirez left the young officer to stand outside before casually sitting on Josh's leather swivel chair.
"So, what kind of relationship did you have with your father?" he asked,
"We didn't talk much. When him and mom got divorced I went with mom and well, he sort of kept his distance after that. I'm not sure I can be much more help than that."
"We'll see. Did your father have any enemies, that you know of? Was he a particularly aggressive man, perhaps? "
Josh paused. He just told this man he knew nothing, yet he persisted to ask these questions, "Like I said, I didn't talk to him, and no, I was never told that he was aggressive."
Ramirez stood and pulled a small white card from his pocket, "If you think of anything that could be important, be sure to call me... I'll let myself out." and he left quickly, the card gently slid into Josh's hand. The door was closed quietly and the room held a strange aura in it, as it the man had left some of his personality behind. Josh stood, looking at the card that had only a phone number on it.
9-1-1
'Smart ass' He couldn't help thinking.
The strange silence was broken by a shrill ringing, the phone. Josh rushed to pick it up and his ear was met with only a few words from what sounded like a woman's voice,
"Diner on the corner of the street. You know the one. Three minutes. Hurry."
She hung up and without hesitating Josh rushed out, forgetting to even lock his door.
The person who called was accurate, he did know the diner. He ate there all the time. Every morning he would order waffles and coffee. He was in no mood for those now, he thought, as he quickly strode through the cold air.
The sky was looming above, dark and overcast, full of clouds and threatening more rain. Perfect. And it did. The rain began to fall heavy just as he made his way through the red doors or the Diner that he knew so well. Then he realised. How exactly would he know who called him, he obviously had never met the girl. He scanned over the few faces, and saw only on person sitting by themselves. A young woman with damp and messy blond hair, she looked round and noticed him. She made a quick gesture and turned away to face the window as Josh came over and sat opposite her on the red and white, leather seat.
"So," He began "just who are you?"
"Kayleigh." Her eyes darted from Josh to the window and back again, as if she was anxious or nervous about something.
"So you're not this 'Prant' guy?" her eyes paused for a brief moment at that word. It seemed to have struck a chord with her, but Josh didn't think she was going to tell him why judging by the way it made her look.
"Did... your dad ever say weird stuff, about his dreams?"
"What do you mean...?"
"Did he ever say that his dreams were real? stuff like that?"
"No, I don't talk to him. Did he go crazy or something?"
"Crazy?" Her hands were shaking along with the rest of her body in an odd rhythm, "he's one of the few who are actually sane."
END OF PART iii
Phew! Finally glad to have finished that! Sorry about the long wait, I've been busy.... okay! You called my bluff. I've been severely procrastinating. Anyways, now that I'm all done with this part I can finally focus on the story a bit more.
Comment and all the rest.
You should have noticed that one, Safi.