When you’re in the business as long as I’ve been, you’re bound to see some messed up shit. Trust me, I’ve seen it all.
An unfaithful husband angering his wife to the point where she commits a murder-suicide?
Check.
A young woman pushed into the path of an incoming train by an obsessive stalker?
Check.
My sister bleeding to death after being pierced by thousands of toothpicks, which caused the killer to so aptly call her the ‘human hedgehog’?
Check.
As you can probably tell, it’s that last case that I’m dealing with currently, trying to figure out how the hell the killer managed to get away with it. I mean, if you think about it, nothing adds up. For starters, the toothpicks had to have been inserted at a secondary location, prior to her being transported and left for dead at the park where she was found.
All without any witnesses.
And then comes the question of the toothpicks themselves. The paramedics at the scene found it impossible to move her, as it would drive the toothpicks further into her skin, increasing the blood loss. How did the killer manage to do it?
Well, I actually did have an answer for that question, but it was something I didn’t want to think about. The toothpicks were probably inserted one at a time. Over a period of several months, possibly years. Let the wound heal, and then move onto the next toothpick.
Which brings me to my final dilemma. Why? What did the killer gain spending months of their time piercing the skin of my sister? Why was it my sister in the first place? I don’t know of any reason it would be an act of revenge, so it may have been a murder of opportunity. Just pure chance it was my sister.
Which made it hurt even more.
It was definitely a shock discovering she was still alive after all these years, and seeing how she was treated only added salt to the wound. I was grieving, yes, but the killer mentioned that my sister would only be the beginning, and so solving this case would be my utmost priority. I couldn’t let this happen again. True grief could come later.
And so I sat in my office, sliding my sister’s watch over my wrist, and milling over these facts, with the first step to discovering the killer currently in my hands. A day after the killings occurred, a birthday card containing an address was mailed directly to me. Forensic work indicated that the handwriting on it perfectly matched the note left at the crime scene.
While getting a hand written birthday card was interesting in itself, it still raised a lot more questions. How did the killer know I took up the case? Where they at the crime scene that night? Maybe they knew it was my sister that they had killed, and were now targeting me.
As usual, nothing made sense.
But still, an address was an address. And in my line of work, you take notes like that very seriously. I thumbed over the birthday card again, looking at the cartoon giraffe telling me to have a ‘tall’some day. Yeah, birthday card puns are strange. I analyzed the address inside again, looking at the word 12 Baker St, as if they may have some hidden meaning that I hadn’t discerned yet.
Nothing came to me. It looked like the address was just that, an address. And so I coordinated with my supervisor to lead a team that evening down at Baker St, to see if we could find anything down there. I was secretly hoping that we wouldn’t, and that this was just a wild goose chase. As I was terrified of what I would find down there, if that was not the case.
Later that evening, I showed up at 12 Baker Street with three of the finest men I knew. Thompson, a mountain of a man, who I knew firsthand could keep a level-head in any situation. Ramirez, not as physically impressive as Thompson, but he had the brains to make up for it, his quick wit was known to save many a cop from danger. And Eddison, an analyst both in the field and out, he somehow finds a way to keep one eye on every detail.
I picked the best of the best to deal with the worst of the worst.
Baker Street itself was a row of warehouse buildings in the industrial district, on the outskirts of town. All the warehouses were exactly the same, large, rectangular and made up of red brick and mortar. Almost half of the warehouse’s were still in production, manufacturing different materials to be shipped across the globe, while the other half looked abandoned.
12 Baker Street was one of them.
It had the signature ‘there’s nothing worth looking at here’ look. Smashed windows, rubbish piled around the outside, bricks crumbling in a few odd spots, and doors set slightly of their hinges.
But this was the place. I set my jaw and motioned to the others while slowly making my way through the already open front door. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the dark interior, as I was opposed to using a torch in that moment. I could hear the unmistakable sound of water dripping from the ceiling into a hollow object nearby. The air seemed thick and musty, smelling largely of wet cardboard, and something more metallic.
Blood. A tangy smell that quickly invades the nostrils, while leaving no room for other smells.
I pushed on, my crew keeping pace behind me. Eddison looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and I nodded to him in return. ‘This is the place.’ I had silently told him. ‘Be ready for anything.’
We passed through another set of doors and came into a room dimly lit by an overhead light. And in the middle of the room, basking in the light, there was a person.
And I say person very lightly.
The average person has a neck 4-6 inches long, measuring from shoulder to chin. The person before me had a neck over ten times that length. They were on their hands and feet, their neck sprouting from their shoulders like a vine, and curling downwards. Their neck continued across the floor for about five more feet, before ending with a neck attached to it.
The person saw us, and began to slowly shuffle towards us, slowly dragging their head and massive neck along with them. They moaned mournfully as they moved, and I could see trails of blood slowly pouring from what seemed to be stitches every couple of inches along their neck.
As they moved forward, their blood fell to the ground, spilling in all directions and leaving a bright red trail wherever they went. The person groaned again, and looked up at us, obviously in tremendous pain.
“What the hell is that?” Ramirez said loudly, from behind me.
I kept my gaze focused towards the person, towards him as closer inspection revealed. “I don’t know. Another animal themed abomination, by the looks of it.”
I stood my ground and watched, unsure of what to do, as he heaved his neck and the rest of his body towards us. He made eye contact with me and moved his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out were more ghastly groans. I understood what he was trying to say anyways, his mouth opening and closing in a circle-like shape, enunciating a one syllable word.
Help.
I stepped back, out of fear more than anything else. I knew that this . . . thing couldn’t necessarily do anything to harm me, but in the back of my mind alarm bells were going off. This is unnatural. People shouldn’t look like that. You need to leave. Now.
I could sense my team behind me tensing up and shuffling backwards, probably going through the same thought process as I was.
The person continued to crawl forward, further extending the trail of blood behind him, his movements more slow and haggard. His life essence seemed to be dripping away from him, and it was obvious I was watching the final moments of someone tortured to the point of death, once again.
A voice began to speak.
It emanated from above us, broken and distorted, probably coming from some sort of P.A system. It was calm and somewhat cheerful in the way it spoke, as if everything going on was just a normal occurrence.
Welcome, all visitors, to the newest attraction to the human zoo. A lovely giraffe, created by slowly tearing apart pieces of his neck, and replacing it with larger, more appropriate pieces of human flesh.
I winced. That did not sound pretty.
A slow process, yes. But look at the end result! Isn’t he beautiful? Undoubtedly, much better than his original form, wouldn’t you agree, Jonathan?
I looked up, almost instinctively. That was my name.
Anyways, I just wanted to say a big thank you for volunteering a rather fine subject to add to my collection. I just know you’ll enjoy the wonderful things I have in store for you!
The voice stopped speaking, and I became aware of two things at once.
A sharp, loud noise of metal striking metal, that was over just as it began, came from the far right hand side, on the other side of the room. A gunshot.
And to my left, Thompson’s leg seemed to jerk backwards, causing him to keel over and fall on top of himself, blood spurting from an area just above his knee. A bullet wound.
I did the one thing anyone faced with an unseen gunman in a room would do. Duck and dive for cover. Fear is a primary motivator, after all. And I was scared shitless. I found myself behind a stack of boxes, which to my best guess, was blocking the gunner’s line of view. I stood still, chest heaving from adrenaline and fear, and assessed the situation.
Thompson was lying on the ground, unmoving. He must have hit his head on the way down. Eddison was directly to my right, having chosen the same pile of boxes to hide behind as me. Ramirez was unaccounted for, and we had a gunman on the loose. It wasn’t looking good.
And then the overhead light turned off.
Nothing makes your heart beat faster than the panic of suddenly being thrust into darkness. I heard the patter of footsteps ahead of me, close to where Thompson lay. It could have been Ramirez, looking to help him. Or the gunner, looking to finish the job. I hoped it was Ramirez.
I heard more footsteps. Heavier. Louder. More than one person. I contemplated making a dash for Thompson, grabbing him and getting the hell out of there. But he was too heavy for that. I turned to Eddison, to see if he had any idea what to do, when the light turned back on. I looked at my surroundings.
The giraffe-man was on the floor, unmoving. Dead, or close to it.
Ramirez was slumped over a box on the far side of the room. Dead, or close to it.
Thompson was gone.
The gunner was gone.
Eddison helped me carry Ramirez back to our vehicle. He had bruises all over his body, from what looked to be a fistfight, but he was still breathing for the most part. I couldn’t say the same for the giraffe-man, however.
We had the rest of the warehouse sweeped, but nothing came up at all. It had apparently been cleaned of all evidence beforehand, in preparation of our arrival. Or never even used at all.
It was hard to fathom it all. I had lost Thompson, and come back with a man with a 25 foot long neck instead. Thompson was out there, looking like God knows what. Ramirez was in hospital, badly beaten. Eddison was shaken up, understandably. I was scared. Everyone was scared.
But it was the words spoken out of that P.A system that bothered me the most. The way that they said the giraffe-man’s neck was made up of much larger pieces of human flesh. As if they had more humans with them. And judging by the size of the neck, a lot more than one.
There were people still out there, besides Thompson.
A lot more people.