Into The Dark

Chapter 6

Alan arrived at his home and parked his car. He went inside. The house was empty as usual but Alan never really felt alone since he mostly grew up relying on himself. He took off his clothes and went to take a bath.

As Alan stood underneath the shower he thought about the first body he found from the Raven.
                         •  •  •
It was 7 years ago. Then Maira Neel was just out of the police academy and a rookie officer in the department. It was late at night when Alan's chief said they found a body in an alleyway within the indecent part of town and that he and the newbie Maira should take the case as a way of showing Maira the ropes.

'I'm going to assume you know what a dead body looks like.' Alan said to Maira who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him while they drove down the streets of Strasburg.

'Of course, I have. They took us on morgue trips to the academy. We saw all kinds of gruesome stuff. Decapitation, mutilation, burnt corpses, guys with their dicks missing, girls with their boobs cut off, etc. All the squeamish shit. Don't worry, I'm a tough girl.'

Alan was impressed though a drop of doubt was still lingering inside. 'Well, I can't say I'm not impressed but we'll see about that.'

Alan saw a series of police cars parked on the side of the road and decided he reached his destination. He parked his car and walked along the side of the street with Maira following him. In front of him, a group of civilians and pedestrians crowded an alleyway with two police officers trying to push back the onlookers. In the alleyway, he saw a group of police officers all crowded together. He entered the alleyway and approached the officers.

Alan showed the officers his badge.

'Officer Alan Marou here with the newbie' Alan said while gesturing towards Maira. 'What's the case?'

An officer stepped and aside gestured. 'Have a look.'

Alan and Maira followed.

Laying on the ground was a woman dressed in short jeans and a leather jacket underneath which she wore a sports bra with simple heels on her feet. Interesting fashion sense though Alan knew she was certainly a prostitute. There was nothing more to say about her clothes but her head was a different story.

The woman's face was a complete blotch of red. Her nose was broken and disfigured. Her eyes were pushed back into her eye sockets and were filled with blood. The skin and meat on her face were ripped and scratched to shreds leaving only gruesome aftermath of red meat.

Behind Alan, Maira gasped then gagged and ran to the dumpster next to the alleyway holding her stomach. And with force puked out her dinner. So much for braving everything.

'What happened?' Alan asked the officer.

'A guy was walking and saw a pair of feet sticking out from the alleyway. So he decided to check whose fine legs they were and found the body and now we're all here.'

Maira slowly walked back from the dumpster with her hands on her mouth.

'Feel better?' Alan said.

Maira nodded. 'What monster did this to her? Her face is completely smashed in like a gorilla punched her.'

'Maybe some guy just let out some anger. Judging by her broken facial bones she was probably punched with brute force. Possibly male. Mid-thirties  to mid-forties.'

'How can you tell?' Maira asked in awe.

'Not everyone likes hookers.'
                       •  •  •
Alan was pulled out of the flashback when the lights in his bathroom turned off. The power was gone. It was a natural occurrence. The electricity went about two times a week on average.

Alan finished his shower and dried himself and sat down on his bed looking at the night sky.

When Alan and Maira found that body they had begun their long case of pursuing the Raven. Even now seven years later he's still out there. Free. But hopefully not for long.

After they found it, they saw the camera footage of the alleyway. The body was dropped behind an adult toy store and so there was a camera on the backside of the building since there was a back entrance. In the camera footage, a man dragged the body from the sidewalk into the alleyway and quickly escaped. Since the camera was pretty old, the camera quality was pretty low and so the killer's face couldn't be zeroed on. Since then they never found another trace of the killer. Countless prostitutes, hookers, and sex workers have disappeared over the last seven years but Alan and Maira haven't even come close to finding a clue to catching the Raven.

Alan thought about the first body they found and the latest one. Seven years and not a single clue but still the Raven was active. In the shadows. Slowly drying the town of its populace.

Alan looked at the stars in the sky while laying down on his bed. The stars sparkled like little lights of torches in the dark blue sky. He admired the stars since they were free without any chains or bonds holding them captive like a prisoner of his cage.

Alan relaxed on his bed and slowly closed his eyes. Drifting away into a peaceful sleep.