The Blood Red Wisp by F.C. Shultz
story by F.C. Shultz
“Only five hundred for these old ones.”
“Five hundred?” Marsden shouted. His voice echoed off the frozen, metal walls. “I’ve gotta pay rent, Angela. Got mouths to feed.”
“It’s Detective Brentwood,” the woman said, adjusting her badge. “And keep it down, damn.”
“Mouths. To. Feed,” he repeated, ignoring her. “There are two fat cats at home that are not going to be happy with you.”
“New cases are two grand. These cold ones are less.”
“Shuuush,” he replied, cutting her off. “Let me do my thing.” That trick worked every time. Marsden Hans Sullivan V did not need to concentrate to feel the wisps of the deceased, but it made people shut up, which made him happy. The truth was, he couldn’t not feel the wisps, even if he tried. A result of the accident, he was sure. Like any nineteen year old trust-fund kid with father issues, he spends his days eating calzones with his cats, Mum and Little Boy, in his Lakeview apartment in East Chicago. That is, until Detective Brentwood calls him and says she has a case.
Then he finds himself ankle-deep in pig blood.
Laughing.
“Hope you found something,” Detective Brentwood said.
“We’re in a meat locker.”
“And?”
“It’s kind of a cliché, ya know?”
“Let’s get on with it,” she said, pointing her flashlight in Marsden’s face. “Did someone die here or not?”
“You suck,” he replied. “Does this have to do with the One-Shot Killer?”
“That’s an on-going investigation,” she replied. “Can’t comment on that.”
“If it is, you gotta pay me the full amount.”
“It’s not,” she replied. “Can you do your little death-detector thing already?”
“It’s not something I do. I can’t turn it off,” he replied, getting worked up. “I’ve gotta take it slow. When someone dies, their soul explodes out of their bodies like an atomic bomb. The more violent the death, the more violent the explosion. If I get too close to a spot where someone died, especially recently, it gets all over me. That residue is hell to wash out.”
“Come on, Sullivan.”
“You’d be surprised how many times you walk through a place where someone died. Used to give me the creeps. Now I don’t go to the south side.”
“Did someone die in this meat locker?” Detective Brentwood asked. “That’s all I need to know.”
“Okay. Okay,” he replied. He walked toward the back of the meat locker, past the metal hooks, some with fresh pig remains hanging splayed, and felt his hands go numb. The dull, numbness crept up his arms and began to converge on his chest. His legs wobbled.
“Here,” he said as he staggered back.
“Really?” Detective Brentwood asked. “How’d they die?”
Marsden started backpedaling from the near-frozen, deep red wisp. Every step brought feeling back into his limbs. Once he was fifteen feet away, he replied in a hollow, exhausted tone.
“Doesn’t work like that. Been here twenty years, I’d say.”
“Let’s get you out of here,” Detective Brentwood said, as she finished typing something into her phone. She put her arm around Marsden and walked him out of the wisp catacomb.
Marsden opened his eyes. A wave of heat and orange light washed over him. The sun had nearly set and the streetlights flickered on.
“Need me to call you a car?” Detective Brentwood asked.
“Just need some fresh air,” Marsden replied. “And five hundred bucks.”
“Only if we close the case,” she replied, tucking her badge back in her pocket. “I’ll be in touch.”
Marsden stood in the parking lot of Paul’s Meats as Detective Brentwood drove off. The neon glow danced around him. He took one look at the meat locker sign, shuddered, and started walking home.
After walking a few blocks, the sweet, smoky smell of wood fired pizza filled his nostrils. Without a second thought, he ordered a three cheese pizza to be delivered at his apartment. A text from Detective Brentwood flashed across his screen as he finished his order
Case closed. Check account.
Marsden switched apps and found five hundred dollars that wasn’t there before. A devilish grin crept across his face. He texted the detective back.
*DOLLAR SIGN EMOJI*
“It’s a good day,” he said to himself as he continued to push through the people. The numbness tickled his fingers again. He looked ahead and could see an icy blue wisp on the street curb. “Blue…” he mumbled to himself. “Accidental.” He cut off onto a side street to avoid the wisp.
“Don’t like that,” he said to himself. His phone buzzed in his hand.
Just got a lead. Big one. Might need you. Will call.
It was the detective again.
“Why can’t it be a girl?” he said with a sigh as he put his phone back in his pocket. He kept walking toward his apartment. The sun was gone and the lights of the city took over illumination responsibilities. One light shone on a sign with an arrow pointing in the direction he was heading. The words flooded him with memories.
EDGEWATER HOSPITAL CLOSED.
“Nope,” he said as he turned around and went the long way around to his apartment.
When he arrived, winded, a delivery kid not much younger than him, held the pizza and rang the doorbell repeatedly.
“That’s mine,” Marsden said.
“You Hugh Jass?” the delivery boy asked.
“That’s me,” Marsden replied with a smirk.
“Here.” The boy handed the pizza to Marsden, who immediately began to open the door to the apartment complex. The boy cleared his throat. “I paid online,” Marsden replied.
“A tip?”
“Did that on the app, too.”
“You didn’t,” the boy replied. “Says right here, ‘Customer declined tip.’”
By this point, Marsden had the door open. He walked through and shut the door behind him, not acknowledging the boy. Less than a minute later he was on his couch eating a warm slice of pizza.
“I don’t tip people,” he said to Mum, the pillow-sized, rust haired cat on his lap. “He’ll be fine.” Marsden took another bite. “Hey! Stop that!”
Marsden used his free hand to shoo away Little Boy, a black kitten with ribs showing and white boots on three of his paws, who was chewing on the cardboard pizza box. His phone rang as he finished his first slice.
“I’m too tired,” Marsden answered the phone.
“This is the big one,” Detective Brentwood said on the other line. “The One-Shot Killer. Meet me at the abandoned hospital. You know the one?”
Marsden froze as echoes of his mother’s screams from her hospital bed chilled his spine.
“I’m not going in there,” Marsden said. “I’m done for the night.”
“Captain says I can pay five grand,” Detective Brentwood said before Marsden could hang up.
Marsden received a monthly deposit from the trust-fund, but it was not enough to support his eclectic lifestyle. This limitation usually lasted until eighteen years of age, but his father set it up until the age of sixty. Marsden wanted the money.
“Fine,” Marsden replied. He grabbed two slices of pizza and left the apartment.
As he neared the hospital, he saw Detective Brentwood leaning against the hood of a police car.
“We got a lead that the One-Shot Killer is in there now,” she said, handing Marsden a bulletproof vest. “Witnesses say he has a middle aged woman with him.”
“What do you need me for?” Marsden replied.
“Put the vest on,” Detective Brentwood said. “We need to know if he’s already killed her, or if he kills her while we’re in there, because that changes how we do things. Either way we’re getting this bastard tonight,” Detective Brentwood growled. “Let’s go.”
Marsden pulled the vest over his head and secured it to his body. The weight was uncomfortable, but he figured it was better than the alternative. The detective motioned for him to join her.
“This is Sergeant Coda. Stay behind him,” Detective Brentwood said as they approached the front door of the hospital. The sergeant led the trio into the abandoned building. Marsden noticed the cut padlock on the ground near the door. Two flashlights flickered on as the door closed behind them.
The air was moist with mold and dust. A staircase had collapsed on itself in the corner. Papers and clipboards matted the floor. Heat rose from under Marsden’s collar. He felt the familiar numbing, only this time the feeling was magnified. His fingers were expanding like sausages. He was sure his fingernails would pop off at any moment.
Then, the sound of scurrying echoed in the corner. The flashlights tried to find the source of the noise.
“Rats,” Sergeant Coda spit.
“Well?” Detective Brentwood asked. “Anyone die in here?”
Marsden couldn’t help but laugh.
“Come on, Sullivan,” Detective Brentwood said.
“At least twenty,” Marsden replied. “I can feel them all.”
“Twenty?” Sergeant Coda replied. He readjusted the grip on his gun.
“No recent deaths,” Marsden replied. “These are ten years old at least.”
“Hospital patients,” Detective Brentwood said. “Means the hostage is still alive. Let’s keep moving.”
Sergeant Coda led the way. Detective Brentwood motioned for Marsden to follow. They exited the lobby through a side hall. Seafoam blue tiles lined the walls. Some were broken, but most had been spray painted over with various caricatures and obscenities. Marsden tried to push back the dull throbbing from the hospital patient wisps. His guess of twenty wisps was much too low. And, not all wisps were blue and white, like he assumed. Not just accidents and natural causes. Red wisps glowed stronger than the others.
People had been murdered here.
“Stairs,” Sergeant Coda said, motioning them forward. They climbed a few flights in the near darkness. The stairs were edged with a plastic, deep maroon lining. Memories of running up these stairs, nearly thirteen years ago, flashed in Marsden’s mind. They were nearing his mother’s room.
Her final resting place.
“Look,” Detective Brentwood said. She pointed her flashlight to the ground. She touched a spot of red and it stained her fingers.
“Blood,” the sergeant replied.
“Fresh, too,” Detective Brentwood said. “This way.”
She led them through a door with a large number four painted next to it. Marsden’s hands trembled as he crossed the threshold. Thoughts of the One-Shot Killer had vanished from his mind. His thoughts swirled around his last visits with his mother, the bloody hospital bed, and the unsympathetic nurse. He had not been back to room 417 since her death.
And now, he was walking straight toward it.
“Marsden, anything?” Detective Brentwood elbowed him.
“What? No,” Marsden replied. “You’ll know if someone dies here tonight.”
Marsden’s watched the numbers flash across the rooms as they walked down the hallway.
403.
405.
407.
It was too much. His hands were trembling fists now. There was a pop in his jaw from the clenched teeth. The detective and sergeant walked ahead of him, shining their lights in every room. Marsden slowed his pace as he came upon the room from his nightmares.
The door had been ripped from its hinges. His chest tightened like vice grips as he entered the room. His eyes closed as he rounded the corner. The doctor’s words “accidental death” echoed in his mind from over a decade before. But, when he opened his eyes, the air was knocked out of him. The glowing wisp lit the room.
It lit the room in a blood-red glow.
Murder.
Marsden ran out of the room and as soon as he entered the hallway a deep cracking sound followed by a gust of wind knocked him off his feet. The dark hallway turned pitch black as his head smacked the ground. The skin from his palms and chest were being pulled apart. Burns bubbled up from his bones.
“MARSDEN,” he heard a voice yell. Seconds later, Detective Brentwood knelt over him.
“Dead,” he managed to whisper. “She just died.”
The detective pulled Marsden over her shoulder and began to carry him out of the hallway.
“I’m...sorry,” he coughed. “Couldn’t save her.”
Detective Brentwood replied, but the ringing in Marsden’s ears was too intense. A crimson cloud of wisp residue billowed out from a door farther down the hallway. He saw a figure run into the cloud. Seconds later, the figure exploded from the room, carrying someone. Once the sergeant got closer, the other figure came into focus.
A middle aged woman.
Marsden blacked out.
He woke in a stretcher. His chest had loosened and the burning smoldered. A dozen police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks filled the street, lights painting the neighborhood red and blue. After Detective Brentwood finished talking to a uniformed officer, she came to Marsden’s stretcher.
“You saved her,” she said.
“And, stopped the One-Shot Killer,” Marsden replied with a scratchy voice.
“He shot himself. You don’t get to claim that one,” she laughed. “Thanks for your help. You did a good thing.”
Marsden let his shoulders loosen up and wiggled his toes a bit. Then he looked at Detective Brentwood with sincere eyes.
“That five grand is cash, right?”