Mysterious Screams (Chapter 2)

The first murder victim of Dwayne and Katie Kerns was killed March 5, 1987 at 1:00 am. No witnesses, no logical evidence, no suspects, and still a Jane Doe. The impossibility and difficulty of this case curled up inside Detective Lewy’s mind, suffocating any chance of sleep.

Her apartment was small, and her room showed proof of this. In her bedroom there was only enough space to have her computer (plugged in on the floor), a standing lamp, and a twin sized bed. There was a small closet placed inside the yellowish walls, the frame around it slightly crooked. The paint was slowly peeling off, and fragments of it lined the rim of the puke green carpet. But, though it was a mess, it was on the safe side of town, and it was cheap.

But was there really a safe side anywhere? This thought seemed to zip through her mind every few minutes, until she finally decided that no place is completely safe, just some are less dangerous.

“Yes, I’m not on the safe side, there’s no such thing. I’m on a side that has less crime, but it still has some. Everywhere does.”

Finally, at 3:00 in the morning (3 hours before she had to get up for work), she fell asleep. The air gently caressed itself around her body, almost bringing life and color to it’s invisible state. And then, whispers. They started faint, slowly waltzing on the breeze. But then they got louder, waking Lewy just enough to be awake, but not enough to open her eyes. It was as if a small girl was speaking to her, her voice echoing as if it was glazing a deep canyon.

“Come with me Detective Lewy. Come play with me. It’ll be fun, I promise. We’ll have lots of fun. Come with me Detective Lewy, come with me.”

They continued to grow louder, but still kept the sweet, innocent voice of a little girl. Finally, Lewy opened her eyes. Standing next to her bed looking at her was a little girl, probably 6 or 7. Lewy focused in on her more, and saw that she was very strange and eery looking. It was as if she was a slightly translucent, black and white picture. It was like a colorless projection stood in front of her. After looking at her for a few seconds, the girl spoke once again.

“I like you detective Lewy. Come play with me.”

The little girl held out her hand, signaling Lewy to take it so she could lead her off to somewhere. Lewy was about to take it to, but then she realized something.

“Wait a minute… Her mouth, it didn’t move when she spoke. She just stood there. She didn’t budge.”

She quietly whispered, “This isn’t right. Something’s not right.” The little girl tipped her head slightly to her left shoulder, like a dog when it’s full of curiosity. Then that voice, that motionless voice, shot through the room again. Only this time, it became demonically deeper with every word.

“Come on Detective Lewy. I want to play. Come play with me!”

Suddenly, the girl changed. Black and white projection now turned into a tar black shadow standing at her bedside. Its eyes raged with piercing white light that was nonexistent in the world of the living. The girl’s possessed shadow leaped out, and hit Lewy right in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. She lay, gasping for air, as the blackness quickly made it’s way through her and disappeared.

The phone rang, waking Lewy up. She jumped, and began feeling her chest and looking around the room. No sign of the incident.

“Thank God it was just a dream.”

She rolled over to her telephone sitting on the bedside table and picked it up.

“Hello? Hey John. What? Okay I… I’ll be on my way. Thanks. Bye.”

She quickly got up, got dressed, and headed for the last thing she wanted to hear at 5:00 in the morning after 2 hours of pointless sleep.

“We have a murder scene. It’s another messy one. Same room, same hotel. I’ll see you soon.”

As she walked into that cursed hotel room, the same feelings as last time hit her again, only they were stronger this time. John stood at the chair which held the victim. He didn’t seem to be looking for evidence, or even looking at the victim for that matter. It was almost as if he was looking through the body as he stood in unsteady disbelief and confusion.

“What do we know?” Katie asked as she looked around the room.

John snapped back into reality and looked at her. His face was a ghostly white, and dark circles clouded his forest green eyes.

“Are you okay, John?”

He stood for second, wondering how to answer, then finally spoke.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well. I had this nightmare and… never mind. Anyways, we have a John Doe here. Once again, only one set of footprints leading in, none leading out.”

“What are the injuries?”

“Well, one of them is very clear, his head is gone.”

“Cut off?”

“Nope. Exploded is more like it. If you haven’t noticed already, there are pieces of his head everywhere. And mixed with those pieces are also his feet, hands, dick, and balls. Seems they were also blown off him. We’ll know more later. The Doc’s sending some kids to pick up the body, and the lab will analyze the pieces to see if there’s a sign of a bomb.”

Not a moment after John finished speaking, the ‘kids’ came in to get the body. As they lifted it, Lewy motioned them to stop. On his back was a slice that traveled from where his head once sat, all the way to his tail bone.

“His spine. John, his spine is missing.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

And with that, John signaled to have the body removed and taken to Doctor Montgomery. Lewy and John would look around the room for another hour, but once again, they wouldn’t find anything more than a disturbing chill and no useful evidence, getting the feeling that they never would.

As they drove back to the morgue, John looked even worse. Finally, Lewy spoke up.

“You know, Doctor Montgomery’s probably not gonna be done looking over the body yet, and it’ll take a while to analyze the pieces, how bout we grab some breakfast? I know a good place, my treat?”

John looked at her and flashed a small grin, “Sure.”

Within 20 minutes they found themselves parked out side a small building with a sign that read, “Emily’s Corner Cafe”. It was a small brick building on the corner of Doane and Windsor, not far from their crime scene, but traffic made time stand still some days.

As they walked through the door, a little brick building on the outside, came to life on the inside. There were photographs all around the walls, some for sale, some a permanent resident. The floor was pine, and the chairs and tables were a deep mahogany, redder than the bricks that lined the inside wall as well. On the back wall of the cafe was a small kitchen. Above it on the wall, the photographs were replaced by chalkboards, the white lettering breaking up the pitch black canvases with “Ham, Egg, & Cheese Sandwich” or “Peppermint Hot Cocoa” just to name a couple. These were the signs that you would find John and Lewy looking over as the sound of “Rockin’ Robin” played in the background, and the sizzling of bacon topped it off. They ordered their food, and maybe 8 minutes later, sat down with it.

“Mmm, this place is good.” John mumbled out as he bit into his burrito for a second bite, though his first bite wasn’t quite finished yet.

“I told you” Lewy smiled, but that smile slowly drifted away.

“John… what kind of a nightmare did you have last night?”

John stopped chewing and looked up at her with those green eyes filled with terror. Slowly, he wrapped the burrito back up, sat it on the table, and finished chewing what was still in his mouth.

“There was a voice, a little girl’s voice. She kept asking me to come play with her. But when I opened my eyes… I don’t know how to explain it. She was see through like… like…”

“Like a black and white projection?”

“Yes actually. How did you know?”

Lewy looked down at the table, and mumbled under her breath, “I had the same dream.”

As she looked back up, her eyes met John’s. He seemed as if blinking was impossible. Much like with the body, he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking through her. Water slowly started filling his eyes, and he was the one who looked down at the table this time.

“Lewy… I… I took the little girl’s hand.”

Now it was Lewy’s eyes that became filled with terror. She quickly placed her hands on John’s as a few tears went rolling down her face.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she managed to choke out. “What happened?”

“She… she smiled. Her teeth were slightly pointed, and they had pieces of flesh in them. Then she spoke again, in a deep, demon like voice.”

Lewy’s eyes only filled with more fear, “What the hell did she say to you?”

John looked up at her, tears were now pouring down his face. “She said…she said ‘March 9, 1987’… Lewy, I think that’s when I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die, cause I took her hand.”

And with that, he slipped his hands out from underneath Lewy’s, and walked out to the car, a dead man walking. But because he knew his fate, just thinking of the very fact that he was gonna die, he already looked 3 days in the grave.

“Hello Detective, where’s John?” Doctor Montgomery asked, sounding a little concerned.

“Oh, he went home. He wasn’t feeling to good.” He had good reason not to.

“Oh, well, at least I only have to worry about confusing one person with the impossible.”

“Can’t wait.” Lewy replied sarcastically.

“Well, let’s get started. Our victim shows no signs of fighting anyone away from him, but there’s no sign of restraints. He went through this torture either willingly, or so in shock he couldn’t fight back.”

“Could it be sexual fetish thing?”

“Eh, I doubt it. It would take a lot of balls to decide that you wanna get a boner just to have both of those things blown off. And then going, ‘You know, just take my hands and feet too, and maybe my head once that’s done. And also, before you blow my head off, could you melt my backbone?’ Just saying, that’s one heck of a turn on if you ask me.”

“Wait, what do you mean his backbone was melted? I thought that they took it out?”

“Nope. His backbone is all there. Only difference is that it looks like a bunch of melted candles in there instead of bones.”

“How hot of a flame does it take to melt bones?”

“2518 degrees Fahrenheit. This is completely possible with the correct utilities, but I have one small barrier. The back bone was never removed from the body, but it’s the only thing that experienced exposure to heat. It wouldn’t have been possible for the killer to melt the spine without burning up the body, or at least some of it.”

“So, another impossible death. Yay.” was the first thought that crossed Lewy’s mind.

“Identification?” she asked, hoping for some sort of evidence.

“Nope, I haven’t found anything.”

“Alright. Thank you. I’m gonna go check with the lab, see if they found bomb residue in our John Doe’s pieces.”

The morgue was on the first floor, allowing the vehicles bringing the bodies easy access to it. The first floor also contained parts of the lab, specifically the database’s that searched for finger prints and boot prints. On the second floor was the rest of the lab. This was used to test bodily fluids, test for residues, DNA; all in all, it was everything but what was on the first floor. Then the third floor was offices.

As Lewy walked into the lab, she was greeted by a young man. He had shaggy blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and no muscle or fat came anywhere near his small, untanned figure.

“You must be Detective Lewy. Nice to meet you, I’m David Cran. How are you today?”

“I’m doing fine, but I’ll be doing better when I crack this case. You have any info for me, or just more empty leads?”

“Well, I found no bomb residue. However, within his flesh we found… I can’t believe I’m saying this… peach juice.”

“Peach juice?” Lewy asked unbelievingly.

“I know how it sounds, and I knew you would doubt, so I double checked it, and then checked it again. Same results, beautiful.” He smiled as he complimented her, his minty breath caressed his white teeth.

“Wow, okay, number one, are you able to track down where the peaches came from? Number two, you can call me beautiful when you get the balls to ask me out instead of just smiling your college geek smile. Kapeesh?”

“…Yes Ma’m. I can try to figure out if they have any chemicals in them only used by certain companies, but in the end, unless it’s a small and unique company, it’s still gonna be spread pretty thick.”

“K thanks.”

“No problem, dinner tomorrow night?”

Lewy smiled at this thought. “What the hell, if I’m not busy then sure.” She gave him her phone number, and then walked out of the lab with a little bit of swing in her hips, him following her every move.

She barely made it to her office before her telephone rang. She quickly answered it, and John’s voice came on the line.

“Oh John, it’s so nice to hear your voice. Are you okay?”

Silence, complete and utter silence, and then his shaky voice came back.

“I can’t do this Lewy. I’m gonna die anyways. I’m sorry.”

“Wait! What are you do…”

But she was too late. A gunshot rang through the telephone and into her ear. John was dead.

Almost immediately after she heard the bang of a .45 caliber bullet emerge from the barrel and into John's head, another voice came on the line, a women's voice.

"He heard the voices, Detective Lewy.  You can't run from the voices forever, they'll catch you, and you will have a similar fate.  Tick tock Detective Lewy, tick tock indeed."