Authors: Jennifer Bull
I’d given up. What was the point? He just wanted to play with me. I was never going to escape this place; this living hell. I knew the door was open still, but I wasn’t putting myself through that again. He could play games by himself.
I heard faint footsteps coming down the corridor, growing louder by the second, and the door creaked open further. I lay stubbornly still, facing the wall and refusing to turn around. I didn’t want to look at him. I felt sick whenever he was around. He reminded me of what I had lost. Of where I came from. Of what I might become. I hated him.
‘So,’ a deep voice boomed around the cell. I jumped a little, startled at the noise. ‘You don’t want to play my games anymore?’
He laughed a little. It was cold, unfeeling, and sent goosebumps all over me. I hated that he could scare me just with a laugh.
‘Well,’ he said. The laughs were gone now. ‘I guess I have no use for you then if you won’t play the game. There’s no point in my keeping you here any longer.’
The voice was steady, but it was filled with clear meaning. I went cold. I didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t take any more of these games.
‘Last chance child.’ There was a scraping of metal on the wall and I jumped again, my fingertips gripping on to the stone floor.
‘Three…’
My whole body stiffened. This was it. Run again or die. The latter was actually tempting. At least I would finally escape this place.
‘Two…’
My hands were shaking now. My teeth chattering. Was I really just going to lie here and let him kill me?
‘One…’
I jumped up, turned and limped out the door without looking at him. I wanted to live; I wanted to escape. And I wanted to never see his face again. Ever. The evil, satisfied laugh that followed me down the corridor sent a final shiver through my whole body, and I ran as fast as I could.
CHAPTER NINE
Jack's Story
It was a few days before I got a call to say Tez was up to having visitors. I’d practically been waiting by the phone the entire time and it only took me twenty minutes before I was walking into the hospital and asking where he was. The nurse directed me to him.
‘Hey,’ I said, walking up to the bed, ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I was attacked by a werewolf,’ Tez replied, shifting his position to sit up. I helped him move the pillows so he was sitting comfortably. ‘Did you get anything outta the wolf?’
‘Nah, just like all the others. There was nothing in his head. No memories of how he got like that at all. The same tells as before though. This guy’s good,’ I said, feeling the frustration building up once again.
‘He’s gotta slip up at some point Jack. Law of averages. No one is perfect.’
I leant against the edge of the bed, and then noticed the flowery bag on the chair in front of me. It looked like it had been made out of my grandma’s old carpet.
‘Shit,’ I whispered, leaning closer to Tez so he could hear me, ‘she’s not here is she?’
He nodded and leant towards me with difficulty. He spoke so quietly I could barely hear him.
‘Give me a werewolf any day. It’s less painful. She’s been driving the staff crazy; she won’t leave, insists on sleeping here, messes with my medication. She seems to think she knows better than my doctor now.’
He lifted up the edge of the bed clothes and I could see the end of a tube that looked like it was supposed to be attached to Tez’s hand.
‘I have to keep it hidden or she’ll kill me. The nurse made me take it out before Mama T kills me for real. They’ve set up another IV round the back that she doesn’t know about.’
I grinned, ‘Remind me never to mess with Mama Tez. It’s be the end of me if I did.’
Tez’s face became serious, ‘Jack, can you please find a way to get Mama T outta of here. I don’t care if you have to arrest her. Just please…’
‘Tez!’ a voice squealed from behind the curtain, which didn’t stay shut for long. Into the cubicle waddled a little old lady, her short curly hair piled on top of her head, and her large glasses practically falling off her nose. She was wearing at least three different coloured cardigans. ‘You had better not just tried to get me arrested. I will lock your ass up for the rest of your life if you say that again.’
Tez winced and looked at me pleadingly. I grinned at him and said, ‘Never argue with Mama Tez. I’m liable to get arrested myself if I try anything.’
‘Now that’s a sensible boy,’ Mama T said approvingly, patting my leg as she walked by, ‘You knock some sense into that son of mine before you go. He needs his Mama to look after him.’
I got up off the bed and gave the old lady a kiss on the cheek. ‘Goodbye Mama T, you look after our Tez.’
The glare I got from Tez was crystal clear. I’d be lucky if I survived once he was on his feet and back at work. I should probably think about changing the locks.
***
That all happened six months ago. The leads came to nothing, the evidence was circumstantial, and the victims’ families moved on. At least, they tried to. Some managed it better than others. Since then nothing new had happened. No more creatures, no murders, nothing. The Doctor had just disappeared, and the case went cold.
I sat at my desk thumbing through the old case files littered across it. It was what I did every day. Since discovering that the Doctor might be a telepath, I had pulled out all the files and gone through them sentence by sentence. I’d double-checked all the results with the
serva’s
system to make sure there weren’t any mistakes. I kept thinking that I must have missed something, and that if I looked again I would find it, but so far nothing. The crime scene photos covered every inch of available wall in our office, much to Tez’s disgust. Some were even taped to the edges of my desk, and stuck to the bottom of the computer screen.
Tez had tried to distract me, take my mind off the case, but I always had an excuse ready. He’d given up now. Probably decided I was a lost cause.
I couldn’t help myself, there was something about this case that had a hold of me. I looked down at the crime scene photos from the last place. How was the serial killer doing it? Turning people into such monsters that they attacked their own friends and family? I had an idea, an inkling, but I needed proof. I needed to find him, to look into his mind. I just had no idea how I was going to do that. I didn’t even know what he looked like. Or if it was even a he.
I got up and crossed the room to my storage cupboard. I’d hidden a bottle of whiskey in there for occasions such as this. It wasn’t just this case, it was Halloween night too. I’d always loathed Halloween, being a paranormal. The
servas
spent the night dressing up as various characters, mocking us, which was bad enough. But it was the memories Halloween conjured up that made it the day I dreaded the most all year long.
Halloween night twenty years ago was when my life had changed. That night, my mother disappeared without a trace. No signs of a struggle, all her belongings were still in the house, but she was gone. I never saw her again. My father had been distraught, and he tried so hard to pull together for me, but he couldn’t. I was only six years old and I remember everything so clearly. In the weeks following the disappearance, the authorities, both paranormal and
serva
, had found nothing, and Dad, well, he kind of lost it. The house was a mess when he was done and I was taken away from him. The authorities said it wasn’t safe for me to live there anymore and I was sent to stay with my aunt.
That was the day I decided I wanted to be a detective. I wanted to do a better job than the detectives had done looking for my mother. Maybe, someday, I would even be able to find out what had happened to her. As for my father, I never saw nor heard from him again.
I took the whiskey out of the cupboard, grabbed a large glass and filled it up. I didn’t feel like going home that night, if I did there would just be
serva
kids knocking on my door wanting sweets, dressed in silly costumes pretending to be werewolves and dragons. I’d even had one come by dressed as a pumpkin before. I couldn’t deal with that. At least here in my office I would get some peace and quiet. Tez had gone home a few hours earlier and we’d been the only ones in the office that day. A lot of paranormals liked Halloween, a chance to go outside and not hide who they were. It was a busy night for the Paranormal Agency’s Police Service though, there were always some people who took things just a little too far.
Sitting down, I leant back in my leather chair and put my feet on the desk, ignoring the case files I was brushing aside. My eyes glazed over as I looked at the only framed picture on my desk. My mother was wearing her favourite green dress, her blonde hair curling over her shoulders, and my father had his arm draped around her looking proud, and a little tipsy. It had been taken on his birthday, only weeks before she went missing.
Taking a large gulp of whiskey, I picked up the TV remote and flicked it on. Nothing but Halloween movies. I settled on the News Channel, hoping it might distract me from anything and everything Halloween. All that happened was the monotony of the reader’s voice made me yawn.
The sound of screaming woke me up with a start. It took a few seconds before I realised I was still in my chair, in my office, and the TV was on. The clock in the bottom right of the screen told me it was way too early. I was about to flick off the News Channel and find something less noisy this time in the morning, when the reader’s voice caught my attention.
‘…the Haunted Towers Adventure Park this morning. Officers arrived to find a scene of devastation across the park. Three adults, one was a staff member at the park, were badly injured during the altercation and they are now being treated in hospital. The owner’s son and a female visitor to the park are still missing. Officers are searching through the debris. Video surveillance from the park caught some of the action…’
The video surveillance was playing now on the screen. It was dark and fuzzy, but there was no mistaking it, that was a werewolf.
Shit
. Why on earth hadn’t we been notified? Jumping up out of my seat, I picked up my phone from the desk; it was off. Tez must have tried to call already.
I grabbed my vest and raced out the door. If Tez was already there then that surveillance tape would never have been found. Training 101, remove any recorded evidence of the event. I tried calling him from the car, but it just went to voicemail. Putting my foot down, I hoped there were no police around. I had to get there before anyone found the werewolf. This was already messy enough without that happening.
One thing was clear though… the Doctor was back.
Part Two
CHAPTER TEN
Jack
‘Tez’s Rule #2 - Never take on anything you can’t handle. At least not without backup.’
I put my foot down a little harder on the pedal, glancing nervously in the rear-view mirror. It was still early so the roads were clear, but I couldn’t afford to be stopped now. I checked the car’s clock; 07:00. The clock was an hour out after daylight savings time had finished earlier that week. I really should get around to changing it… but then again, I could just leave it a few months and it would correct itself. I grinned despite myself. That was just what Tez did every year.
I’d tried calling him again, but it just went to voicemail each time. I had to hope he was on his way already, as this was going to take some serious clearing up. There was nothing we could do now about the video surveillance, too many people had seen it. It would go into the extra-terrestrial archive at some
serva
organisation, no doubt. We just had to keep them away from the actual werewolf. If they found the creature first… well, it didn’t bear thinking about. There’d been breaches like this before, but never in recorded history had a
serva
actually captured a paranormal. We’d avoided it at all costs, and I wasn’t going to let that change today on my watch.
I passed a road sign, ‘Haunted Towers Adventure Park’ pointing right. I followed the instructions, which was unusual for me, and before long I pulled into the parking lot. Turning off the engine, I sat back in my seat and shook my head in despair. The place was packed. You could not fit another news van or reporter in here. I’d had to park at the back as it had been the only place left with enough room.
My eyes scanned around, searching for Tez’s car. Clearly I wasn’t going to see anything from inside my car. I checked my phone and there was hardly any signal. With any luck, that would be the reason Tez’s phone was going to voicemail. I needed him to be here, there was no way I could do this on my own.
I got out the car, locked up and started to wade through the crowds. A number of
serva
police stood, arms folded across their chests, at the entrance to the park, keeping everyone at bay. The first one put his hand up to stop me from coming through and I reached down for my badge.
Shit.
My hands felt through all my pockets; it wasn’t there. I must have left the damn thing on my desk at work. No amount of explaining would persuade the police to let me through, although I gave it a good try. I had no choice but to go back to the car and try to call for backup. This was not a good day.
‘Jack!’
I jumped and spun back around.
‘Let him through boys,’ Tez called to the police, ‘He’s with me.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ Tez asked when I’d made my way through the entrance. I had been relieved by the sound of Tez’s voice initially, until I saw the look on his face. This was definitely a bad day. We retreated far enough away so our conversation remained only between us. The place looked eerie, like a deserted, run-down theme park, with all the rides turned off, no visitors and no noise other than the shouts from the reporters all jostling to get the story first.
‘Woke up to the news on TV and saw the wolf footage. Damn phone had switched itself off,’ I told him.
‘Funny old thing, eh. Not possible that you maybe turned it off last night?’ Tez raised his eyebrow at me.