Deadline is by the time I check my computer after I get up next Monday. Christine tapped another cigarette on the edge of her desk and looked forlornly at the carboard box. This case was so stupid, and she had that creeping feeling that it was taking over her life. She didn't care about this missing rich kid, she didn't care about his bitch mother, and she was 100% convinced this kid had done a runner to get away from his bitch mother. He had access to huge amounts of cash to fund a getaway, and everyone who met his mother couldn't stand her inside of five minutes. Christine had gotten screamed at that very morning, the crazy bat going on and on about how her son's room was locked, oh my god oh my god. She just could not hear the obvious answer: the kid locked it from the outside to buy himself some time. What's more, he was 19, and really didn't need to tell anyone where he was in the first place.
If anything, Christine would've felt sorry for the kid, if it weren't for the fact that she'd had to comb through all his crap. He spent most of his waking hours on the internet, having tedious conversations with other recluses about God knows what. She'd pored through two hard drives worth of saved instant messages and now knew more about Heroclix figurines and Asian horror movies than she ever wanted to know. The last box sat on her desk, a smattering of incidental items that weren't dutifully organized like the all the rest of his stuff. She sighed, lit her cigarette, and pulled it towards her and peered inside.
Ugh. Piles of printout, paperbacks, fliers, boring boring boring. She saw something bulky at the bottom, and reached through the other crap to get it. It was a battered Playstation 2, still with all its controllers and wires attached. Goddammit, didn't forensic take care of this crap? Cursing under her breath, Christine bent beneath her desk and fit the AC adaptor into her powerstrip. She sat up and hit the "open" button. When the disc tray slid out, her boredowm abated somewhat. Inside was a disc type she was unfamiliar with. It was a dull gunmetal gray and had no markings at all, no indication whether it was a movie or a game disc. She picked it up and found it surprisingly heavy, like it actually was made of metal.
She doubted this had anything to do with anything, but for the first time in ten days this case yielded a glimmer of interest. She gathered up the PS2 and its wires and headed into the empty office in the back that had the TV. Her last ex had been a gamer geek and she hooked it up easily, re-inserting the mystery disc. As she heard the machine whirring to life, she noticed for the first time how empty the floor was, all the other cops having gone out for a drink or gone to drink at home. No matter, she'd have more fun with this mystery game or flick or whatever it was, and maybe wrangle a little overtime for watching TV, ha ha.
She lit another cigarette as the screen came to life...
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and strange, gorgeous swirls of color filled the monitor. The whirring of the drive was loud in the deserted office. As Christine watched the monitor intently, the whirring sound of the drive increased in pitch and volume, like the disc was spinning in overdrive, louder and louder, faster and faster. A smell of electricity and scorched plastic, as well as wisps of smoke, began to emit from the Playstation’s disc drive. As Christine bent to peer at the smoking drive, the door of the PS2 disc drive flicked open and the metal disc sped directly toward her at lightning speed. There was a “thwipp” sound, a moment of silence, and then Christine’s head tumbled forward off her body, and her body fell backwards, a last whiff of cigarette smoke escaping from both ends of her severed esophagus.
Another moment passed. Then a barely-detectable sizzling sound arose, as the portions of Christine started to dissolve, beginning where the metal disc had made contact with her flesh. This process took about 20 minutes, and left behind only an odd smell and the metallic disc itself, lying innocently on the floor in front of the PS2 and its tangle of wires.
Oh, good. I thought I was going to have to give this one to the crickets, is in the crickets that were the only thing I heard every time I opened this comment page.
...colors flashed in a bright, hypnotic sequence. Christine found herself glued to the screen, literally glued. She tried to look away but couldn't. Her head refused to turn, her legs would not work and her arms were frozen at her sides. She couldn't even blink. She could feel her eyeballs bulging from her head being drawn toward the tv screen. As they stretched forward her vision became warped and two dimentional yet somehow she felt no pain. With an audible "Pop! Pop!" she realized her eyes were now completely dislodged from their sockets. This somehow reminded her of an old Terry Gilliam cartoon from Monty Python's Flying Circus about a guy watching too much tv and it being bad for his eyes and she began to giggle. The sound of her own laughter was alarming, it sounded distorted and distant. As her eyes stretched toward the screen it was the strangest sensation, she was still stuck fast in her chair yet her eyes told her she was moving forward. They reached the screen and after touching it she felt pressure as her eyes continued to push forward and flatten against the glass. Christine was still without pain but the force of her eyes pushing against the screen was maddening in itself. She made every effort to break free but it was useless, the pressure was uncomprehensible. She screamed through clenched teeth for what felt like an eternity until the pressure finally seemed to be easing off. Just then she realized that her eyes were actually forcing their way through the screen. Unreal as it might seem, that's exactly what they were doing and for the moment she was blind.
As her eyeballs emerged on the other side of the absorbant glass Christine's vision began to clear. The flashing colors were gone and she was looking at a large oval room. At first she thought the room was vacant until her eyes pushed deeper into it's space where she could make out the shape of human figures virtually lining the walls. There were no sounds here, at least not that she was aware of considering her ears were still in the office at the station. Her eyes continued to move forward, she wondered how far her optic nerves would stretch before inevitably snapping from the strain. They moved for another five or six feet then came to a sudden halt, she was grateful to be pain free at this point. Christine could make out the faces of the 3 people immediately in front of her path of vision, one of them she recognized as the missing kid. They seemed to be in state of suspended animation. Their chests were moving ever so slightly but that was a good sign, at least they weren't dead. She was so completely engrossed in watching the immobile bodies that she hadn't realized her own body was up off of the chair and moving toward the tv screen. Head first she proceeded through the screen and began to emerge on the other side, her body catching up with her eyes. She still had no voluntary control of her own movements, it was as if she was being drawn in by a powerful vacuum. In no time at all she was whole again and standing in the center of the bizarre room. Now with her body fully intact she could hear a low hum and feel a warm vibration radiating through her entire being. She heard a whooshing sound and felt aware of a new presence in the room though she could not turn to see what or who it was. A small grey figure appeared in front of her then another, they spoke to each other in a language she could not comprehend. Then the beings each grabbed hold of one of her board stiff arms and they dragged her over to an open space along the wall. After she was set into place and properly secured to their satisfaction the two creatures exited the room. Now she was just like the other humans, left alone and helpless, her thoughts being the only voluntary function she had left. She knew that the Playstaion disc was still running in the vacant office and wondered how many of her coworkers would be sucked into this immobile living hell once the morning shift began to arrive. She had a long time to think about that and so many other things, she wasn't going anywhere any time soon. Man, she wanted a cigarette.
I started writing something and never finished but I figured I'd post it anyway.
She lit another cigarette as the screen came to life with a bright burst of crimson. She couldn’t tell if it was blood or paint, but hypnotically she watched as the red splattered, sprayed, and dripped against the wall like a Jackson Pollock. Barely audible was a distant voice moaning and pleading, which was shortly followed by a deafening thump and a breath-stealing shriek. A shadow appeared and prowled restlessly along the perimeter of the screen until the camera quickly panned across the room so fast that Christine’s eyes couldn’t focus on a single image but just an array of shapes and colors that swirled and blurred until the lens jolted forward and left its gaze to stare tightly on the ruby wall.
She noticed her cigarette had burned down to the filter sending its sweet disturbing scent to burn through her nose as it simultaneously scorched her nail bitten fingers. She put it out and lit another feeling an unexplainable bliss each time she pressed it to her lips and drew the smoky air deep within her chest. How she ever gave these up she would never know. For three years she hadn’t smoked, but one day on the job she saw something she wished she hadn’t. Her hands were shaking so badly that she had to smoke to calm herself down. She knew it was the only way she could ever quiet her hands.
The camera stayed focused on the red wall. All was quiet until music filled the air. It wasn’t a song Christine entirely recognized, but even though there were no lyrics, the instrumental alone sang of foreign origins. The tune was solemn, almost weeping, and it sank and settled queasily in her belly. It ailed her because it suddenly seemed to have a strange familiarity.
A moment passed and then she realized what this all was about. It was that damn rich kid’s attempt at making a horror movie, she thought, and as strange as it and he was, she had to admit that the film wasn’t all that bad. It was kind of artsy, and the song was so unsettling it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight.
She continued watching, hoping maybe it would reveal some clue to the kid’s whereabouts so she could finally put this case behind her and stop listening to the incessant screeches of his overbearing mother, but just as she was about to light another smoke she heard a noise coming from next door. She paused the video and quietly peered into the adjacent room. It looked all clear and the noise had ceased, but she still preferred to have a better look. She flicked the light switch on but it failed to illuminate the dark room. “Damn,” she mumbled, that fuse is out again. It was a constant problem, which always forced someone to go down into the cellar to fiddle with the fuse box. She wasn’t about to do it now, she had work to do, and was still feeling slightly unhinged from the music. Surely one of the boys could handle the fuse in the morning, she thought.
As she began to make her way back into the other room she suddenly felt a hand wrap around her waist. She screamed and swung her fist swiftly into the perpetrator’s jaw.
“Whoa, whoa, easy there, slugger.”
“Michael, you scared me half to death. What the heck are you doing creeping up on me like that in the dark,” she inquired in a fiery tone.
“I came to see you, beautiful,” he muttered between several hiccups.
“You’re drunk! And I have work to do, so go home.”
“Work, work, work!”
“I have a kid I need to find.”
“Come’ ere.”
“Michael, not now! Please go home to your wife.”
“Baby, baby, baby,” he said followed by several kissing sounds and a silly, but sweet drunk smile.
She said nothing and simply smiled back. He pulled her close to him, unbuttoned her pants, and soon she felt his breath dancing heavily across her neck as his body collided rhythmically into hers. As always she felt intoxicated by him. She’d been sleeping with him for almost six months, but because he was married she did everything she could to end it, including becoming friends with his wife, purchasing books on how to stop an affair, and even trying to convince herself that she found him utterly repulsive, but nothing worked, all it took was a glimpse of his muscular arms and the sensation of his scruffy beard grazing against her face and she was putty in his hand.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“No you don’t, you’re just drunk. Now go home to your wife,” she snapped. “And I’m calling you a cab. I don’t want you driving in your condition.”
“I love you,” she said out loud after he had gone. Why would he say that, she questioned. He couldn’t have meant it, he loves his wife and she’s just his whore at work, but still his words lingered in her ears. She could hear him say it as if he were still in the room. She had to forget. He said it just to fuck with her, to make her crazy. There was no other explanation. She smoked two cigarettes consecutively as she wrestled to regain her composure. She would have to end her affair with him. It had gotten out of hand. Her feelings were too far out on the line and she was heading for heartbreak she knew she couldn’t bear. She would break it off tomorrow, but for now she had to go back to the video and try and figure out where the hell this damn kid had disappeared.
She began playing the film from where she had left off with anticipation that it would move beyond the red stained wall and melancholy song, but it didn’t. It stayed fixed in that spot for several minutes while the song repeatedly looped. She grew restless. She couldn’t take it anymore. She needed it to move on. She needed for it to do something, anything but this. Maybe she was irritable about Michael, or about the stupid choices she had made, but Jesus Christ, she thought, what the hell was this kid trying to prove? What the hell kind of crap movie was this? Why was he so obsessed with this wall and music? She lit another cigarette hoping to distract herself, but it didn’t work. The music kept seeping further in, nesting in her head, and attaching to her brain. It seemed to become louder or was it her imagination. Her head started to hurt, her brow began to sweat, and the room suddenly began to spin. Images started to flash in her mind and right before she lost consciousness she began to remember the significance of the song. The first time she heard it she was a little girl. She was wearing a white frilly dress and sitting on an older woman’s lap. Something happened after that, she didn’t know what, but she could feel it lurking like a shadow on the perimeter of her mind.
When she regained consciousness the music had stopped and the lens, though still staring at the scarlet stains, had significantly distanced itself. Shadows danced along the edge until a form appeared wearing a swine head. She observed that the body was petite belonging to either a woman or a young man. It had to be the kid, she thought. It was about his height and build. She anxiously waited for him to speak, but he never said a word. He just stood motionless in front of the camera as if he were waiting for something to happen. He slowly lifted his arm in the air and made a gesture with his hand. As he did it an image quickly flashed through her mind. It was of her in her white frilly dress surrounded by pigs. She could feel the fear she had experienced as they enclosed her, and leaving no apparent way to get out. A man stood close by. The sun blocked out his face, but she could see his hand forming the exact shape as the swine in the film. She yelled something to him, but he just laughed and walked away.
She couldn’t watch anymore. It was a waste of her time. There weren’t going to be any clues to where that damn kid had run off. He obviously had just made a stupid movie, there were probably more like this dispersed around his room, and he had probably skipped town with a wad of cash to escape his high-strung mother. She was about to turn it off when the swine with the help of another transported a chair with a body tied to it. There was a black sack covering the victim’s face, but the swine wasted no time in pulling it off. Christine was taken aback when it turned out to be the kid. She had been so sure he had been the swine, not that it mattered which part the brat played in his movie. The swine began punching the kid in the face. His lip was split and blood trickled down. She was amazed at how realistic it all looked. The person aiding the swine handed it a knife, which the swine took and abruptly shoved into the kid’s stomach. He screamed in agony and pleaded for them to stop. He was about to let more words pass when the swine’s assistant shoved a kerchief in his mouth and sealed it with gorilla tape. Christine now knew this wasn’t a movie. She maybe could have believed that the kid was acting if it weren’t for the look in his eyes. It was a look she had seen before.
i think i know who virginia is....
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