PROJECT MORTUUS: Killer In Silence

Chapter 15: Death's Little Game *

Mortuus continued to walk along the road. He needed to let the police station know the truth. His eyes narrowed as he neared the station, Officer Lamb's beat-up cruiser sitting in the parking space closest to the entrance as usual. He knew this was going to be possibly the riskiest thing he could do.

Mortuus walked up to the door. A few officers were sitting on the hood of their cruiser, eating donuts near the entrance. "Is everything alright, Mortuus?" The one officer asked. They could tell he was apprehensive, which only seemed to make it worse for him.

Mortuus's hands were quaking with anxious energy. "I-I'm fine." He uttered, unsure of himself, "Where's Officer Lamb?"

The two officers looked at one another and then at Mortuus. They could see he was hiding something but knew better than to ask him. "He's at his desk, just inside the station." They responded. "You can't miss it," The one added with a friendly laugh.

Mortuus thanked them and entered the police station. Officer Lamb was indeed just inside the door. He was sitting at his desk, focused on making a report on some sort of violation. Possibly a traffic-related one, like running a red light. Besides the evils of Crater Hollow that came from Project MORTUUS, it was a relatively dull town.

He walked to Officer Lamb's desk and leaned against it as he spoke. "So, how's the police work going?" Mortuus asked with a surprisingly hearty laugh, his voice startling the focused officer.

"Oh! Mortuus! Hi." Officer Lamb chuckled, "It could be better if you hadn't aided a fugitive." He added, his voice very stern and somewhat angry now as he recalled it.

Mortuus sighed, "I aided a wrongly convicted person. Not a fugitive." He responded, his voice equally stern as he felt the need to defend Jackson. "There's a very big difference."

Officer Lamb stood from his desk, "Evidence doesn't lie, Mortuus." He said as he pulled his handcuffs from his belt. "Please don't make this more complicated than it has to be." He said as he went to grab Mortuus's wrists.

Mortuus sighed and held out his hands willingly. He didn't feel like resisting and considering the things he usually dealt with, rotting in a prison cell didn't sound so bad. Officer Lamb clamped the cuffs onto his wrists and locked them. "I'd say that you have the right to remain silent, but..." He seemed to struggle with his wording, "... Given that you're technically dead, you don't really have rights."

The officer led him along to a cell at the very end of the hall. It was a dim and kind of pungent little room with horrid lighting. It seemed to give him a feeling of rubatosis as he sat in the tiny cell.

He sat in the lonely little cell, his heart beat steadily pumping at an average pace despite how much he could feel it, but something about that felt unnerving. He could feel it more than usual.

"Way to go, me." Mortuus scolded himself after Officer Lamb had taken the cuffs off and left. There wasn't much to do in the little room. Just an old and tattered bible and chess board on a splintery wooden crate. Not that the chessboard mattered since he was alone in the room.

As he sat on the bed, a pawn on the board moved two spaces forward and landed on the black square. Mortuus looked at it for a minute; he knew who had moved it. "What have you come to say now, Death?" He asked as he stared into the 'empty' room.

Death revealed himself again, "Much like this pawn, Mortuus. You sacrifice yourself for the better of others." Mortuus nodded and moved a knight forward on the board just a few spaces away from Death's pawn. Might as well engage in Death's game since there wasn't anything else to do.

Death moved his pawn again and then watched as Mortuus moved his knight and took the piece with swiftness. Mortuus spoke as the two played, "I guess life is similar to this chessboard." Death moved his bishop and took Mortuus's pawn, nodding in agreement with Mortuus's statement.

Death watched Mortuus's moves as he spoke, "Some are destined to remain pawns all their life while others will-" He laughed as Mortuus's pawn reached his side and became a queen.

Mortuus finished Death's sentence as he moved his king out of check. "-Will become the queen of life's chess board?" He asked, his hand hovering over a piece as he decided whether to move it or not.

Death nodded and moved his rook forward, "Precisely, Mortuus..." He chuckled and crossed his arms as he smirked smugly, "Check." Mortuus looked at the board a minute before moving his queen and taking Death's rook.

Death smirked and moved another piece, "Clever boy, Mortuus." He uttered quietly under his breath. Mortuus moved a knight and took Death's queen, putting him into check. "Checkmate, Death."

Death looked at the board and laughed in amusement. "It has been ages since I last lost a game of chess." He said as he peered at his king, who was now trapped between his own pieces and Mortuus's bishop. He reached a hand over the board to Mortuus. "Well played, Mortuus."

The two shook hands, and Death vanished again in a cloud of smoke, leaving Mortuus to his own. As the cloud dissipated, the smoke caused the cream-white king to topple and roll across the board.

Mortuus's eyes focused on the king piece that Death had knocked over. It was just an ordinary cream-colored king piece besides the tiny chip in the small wood-carved crown. But something about it felt like the piece was a vessel for some more significant meaning than a mere game piece.

He couldn't take his eyes off the king piece, waiting for it to make a move as if it had a mind of its own. For it to do anything at all but, no such movement occurred.