Chapter Text
Wind tears through barren, wiry trees and empty streets. Every curtain is drawn and every door is locked, leaving the residents of a dreary cul-de-sac to spin about in their lonely grey homes. Only two do well at it. A pair of young women sit in the hearth room, one on the couch and one on the floor by the fireplace. They talk freely, exchanging topics at a steady pace.
“Enough of that boy Archie,” the brunette one by the fireplace says, brushing away the topic with a flick of her hand. “I’d rather talk about anything else.”
“Really? Didn’t seem that way five minutes ago. You still haven’t told me what he wrote to you yesterday.” The other girl on the couch is surprised at the sudden switch-up.
“It was a deal-breaker. I just wanted to catch you up so we wouldn’t have to talk about it again.”
“Oh.” The silence festers for a couple seconds. “I’ve been having headaches.”
The brunette laughs. “That’s what you’ve got?”
“Well, right now, yeah! It was the first thing that came to mind. But they’ve been weird. Whenever I get them, it feels like it’s not my pain. Like, the pain is coming from my head, but at the same time it’s outside of it.”
“I think you just need to drink some water.”
“You’re probably right.”
There is another silence, but this time less awkward. The girl on the couch turns to look at the front door and frowns slightly. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet and tentative. “Do you think they’re gonna catch him?”
The brunette sighs. “I dunno. Nothing has happened for a while. Maybe he moved on.”
The girl can tell her friend doesn’t believe her own words. Even still, she doesn’t want to lie with her. “I doubt it, but I hope so.”
“I just want to feel safe again.” The brunette fidgets with her sleeve, as if shying away from her words.
The girl continues to stare at the front door, as if trying to will results into existence. She can see it. Whatever scary, monstrous man who murdered and mocked so many, standing in handcuffs with his head down in shame.
“I get the police is stretched thin, but with all the murders, and all this leaked information about paintings and posed corpses… Don’t you think they’d ask for outside help by now?” The girl speaks quietly, mainly to herself. Maybe she should have kept it to herself. She can see her friend shrink further into her knees in her peripheral vision.
“The press are vultures. I would’ve rather we stayed in the dark about it.” The brunette’s voice is dangerously shaky.
“Hey, it’s okay.” The girl stands up from the couch and sits by her friend. “Like you said, he hasn’t done anything in a while. They’ll catch him.” Her words feel hollow, but they seem to offer the brunette some comfort. Even still, she can tell by the brunette’s stare that she’s thinking of those paintings.
They reminded the girl of caricatures at the fair when she first saw them on the news. Disproportionate and painted in grays and whites and reds and blues, they made a foul mockery out of every act of unspeakable evil. The thought of them made her angry and sick.
The brunette stands up, tearing the girl away from her flashback. “I need to go check on Rob.”
“Isn’t he out getting groceries?” the girl asks, standing up with her.
“No. He went yesterday. You were in your room.” The brunette heads for the stairs, likely desperate to find some comfort in her older brother’s presence.
The girl follows, but only to the stairway. She figures her friend needs space to cry.
The house is quiet, save only for the whirring AC and the dull swirling of pain in the girl’s head.
It doesn’t stay that way for long. Before she can register her friend grabbing her arm and rushing her to the opposite end of the house, she’s shoved behind her bed and grabbed tight around the shoulders.
Her friend sobs into her neck, deliriously trying through ragged, panicked breaths to explain herself. “Rob… Oh Rob… He got.. He…”
The girl holds her friend tight, eyes on her shut bedroom door, waiting at any moment for a shadow of someone to appear beneath it. She can already guess at what happened, but she doesn’t know if the perpetrator’s still here.
The girl manages to grab her flip phone from on top of her bed, and by the time her friend has cried herself out, two cops have shared what she saw.
The police station is more populated than the girl imagined. Clusters of officers gather and speak in low, agitated voices behind cracked doors. One walks brazenly through the hallways, eyes narrowed in annoyance. Her escort had the same kind of look on his face when she came in, as if he had been interrupted in the middle of a crossword puzzle.
Not by her, she doesn’t think. The disgruntledment shared throughout the station seems very separate from her.
She follows her escort down the hallway and is led into a small room, only decorated with a table, two chairs, and a security camera in the corner.
“Have a seat,” her escort says, gesturing to the chair closest to the door. “You’ll be seen shortly. Please make yourself comfortable.”
The girl takes her seat and out of habit makes a handmade metronome. She focuses on the action and sound of her finger tapping against the table, though it only distracts her from a few things. The agitating buzz of the fluorescent light and the worry for her friend fade under the repetition, but her head still feels like it’s slowly being burnt over an open flame.
The door to the room opens and the girl looks over. A man in a trenchcoat takes the other chair, placing down some sort of heavy briefcase on the floor beside him. He wears a black fedora that covers his eyes, but even so he wears some kind of black mesh over his face.
“You are [_] [__], yes?” the man asks. He has a faint British accent and sounds to be on the older side.
“Yes, that’s me.” the girl replies, putting her hand back in her lap.
“You can start by explaining what happened. Do not spare any details. Afterwards, I will ask you more specific questions.”
[_] obliges, keeping to what happened as best as she can. Though she knew she would inevitably be questioned, and the incident had only happened three days ago, her mind had already started filing away major details behind brick walls. By the end of the recount, her hands are shaking. She can’t imagine how her friend is doing right now.
The man in the trenchcoat seems understanding. He gives [_] time to calm down, which she does quickly enough. With a clearing of his throat, he continues. “Have you communicated with Miss Judy at any point after the incident?”
“No. We haven’t seen each other since, and we haven’t called since the 12th.” At the question, [_] gets the itch to check her phone, though it isn’t in the room with her. She knows her friend needs space, but she’s starting to get worried. Usually [_] is the one more infrequent with updates.
“Have you been sure to follow the recent curfew?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if-“ The man is cut off by three sharp beeps from beside his chair. Without even flinching, he reaches for the briefcase-shaped box beside him and unlatches it. He opens it and slides it to [_] across the table at a slight angle.
It’s a computer in a model she has never seen. She only gets to stare at it for a second before the man in the trenchcoat stands up and walks out of the room.
When she looks back, the once black screen now has blocky white text on it.
[HELLO MISS [_]. WE WILL PROCEED WITH YOUR QUESTIONING THROUGH HERE. PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK OR LOOK AROUND. RESPOND WITH THE SPACE PROVIDED BELOW.]
[_] furrows her eyebrows but stays quiet, watching as the text on screen is deleted and replaced.
[DO YOU RECALL IF MR. ROBERT SMITH LEFT THE HOUSE AT ANY PERIOD BEFORE HIS BODY WAS FOUND?]
This was a detail she missed. She forgot about the grocery store. Did Judy remember to tell them this? She doesn’t even know if she’s been interrogated yet. She must have been. She was the first to find the body. Whatever. If she doesn’t hear from her by tomorrow, she’ll call her and find out.
[HE WENT TO THE GROCERY STORE THE DAY BEFORE.]
Both her answer and the question are deleted, and the next is typed.
[DID YOU OR MISS JUDY GO WITH HIM?]
[NO. HE ALWAYS GOES ALONE.]
Deleted, new question typed.
[DID HE SAY OR DO ANYTHING OUT OF CHARACTER WHEN HE RETURNED?]
She thinks. She doesn’t interact much with Rob, but during the fleeting times she’s passed by him on the way to the kitchen or seen him hanging out in some room or another, she’s able to get a good sense of his mood. The day before he died, she saw him at the kitchen table, shoulders tensed and picking at his fingers. Nothing horribly noteworthy, but he did seem on edge.
[HE SEEMED A LITTLE PARANOID.]
For an extra tense moment, as if the very code itself is taking a second to ponder, the text stays on the screen. Then, the next question.
[ARE YOU CERTAIN THAT YOU DID NOT SEE MR. ROBERT SMITH’S BODY?]
She pauses, reconsidering what she said to the man in the trenchcoat. She did make it clear that she didn’t see Rob’s body. What’s the extra emphasis for? Are they building a profile for the killer? It’s a bit jarring that they haven’t already done that, after however many months this guy’s been roaming.
[YES.]
The text doesn’t linger this time.
[WHERE ARE YOU PLANNING TO SPEND THE NIGHT?]
[A MOTEL.]
[_] would prefer to be staying with Judy’s aunt, but the woman is not quite as gracious of a host as Rob was, and she doesn’t want to be overbearing to Judy while she’s grieving anyway. Even still, she selfishly hates having to shill out her earnings and inheritance every night. She’s going to have to do enough of that as is after this is all over.
[WHICH MOTEL?]
[EAST SIDE.]
[THAT WILL BE ALL. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION, MISS [_].]
[_] can confidently guess now that the police force finally caved and got outside help, but what kind of help fights so hard to stay anonymous, to the point where the very words on the computer screen are positioned away from the cameras of the people they’re helping?
She doubts she’ll ever know, but she’ll beat herself up about it for as long as she remembers if she doesn’t at least try.
Her fingers hover over the letters W, H, and O, but before she can type, the formal farewell vanishes and is replaced by two little characters. They appear for a split-second, barely a blip, but she catches them.
[-L]
The door opens, the man in the trenchcoat takes back the computer, and the officer that brought [_] in gestures for her to follow him out.