Guns And Roses

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

“Show him in,” ordered Chief Rutt, to one of the attending Officers. “You aren’t coming in, sir?” asked Walker, surprised. “I’ve been in there once already, Walker. Believe me, once you see it, you won’t feel like going in again. I feel nothing but sympathy for the people who have to clean the place up,” said Rutt, his tone one that was new to even Sebastian’s ears. Perplexed, and more curious than ever, he went along with the attending Officer, into the room.

At 112th Street, there stood a lively and posh bar, named “Chug it Down”. Vulgar, thought Walker. Yet, it clearly gave the message. It was to its backroom, now that he was being taken. As soon as he entered into the room, he jumped back in mortal horrification.

The room was of a dark shade of red. Walker assumed that this was the room’s colour. It wasn’t. Around the room there were a total of seven people lying on the hardwood floor, lying in pools of red liquid. The room was covered completely with blood, but this wasn’t the most peculiar factor in the room, surprisingly. It was the positioning of the bodies. This was all Senior Detective Sebastian Walker could take in. He looked away and came out of the room immediately. 

 As soon as he came out he felt a sense of nausea, and before he knew it, he was vomiting on the pavement. He soon got a hold of himself, with the help of the attending Officer, who didn’t look any better than him.

“First time?” asked Walker.

The Officer nodded, his face visibly pale, even in the dark night. Walker soon got a hold of himself by taking a couple of deep breaths. He had switched off all sentimental pathways to his brain. He was now a complete machine. He had learnt that displaying emotions during any investigation, would result in biased decisions. Similarly, if he let his emotions get the better of him, he wouldn’t be able to even enter the room, much less solve the damned case. Now in complete control of himself, he entered the bar’s backroom once again.

He again had the feeling of running away, of getting out of this horrid place, but he steeled his nerves. He closed the door behind him. There was a fireplace in the centre of the room, which provided enough natural light to see the gruesome picture which now met his eyes.

There was a lot of blood around him, so he had to be careful where he put down his foot. He cautiously treaded the hardwood floor, so as to get a good angle to view the entire scene. He finally stopped. His first inference: all the victims were men. They all were stripped of their upper garments, however their lower garments were intact. There were no marks on their bodies, nothing to indicate a struggle, even. This surprised Walker, as most of them looked like well-built men, save a couple whose tummies were jutting out a bit. Drugged. This was the first thought that came to his mind, but immediately knew he was wrong. When any person is even slightly drugged, their eyeballs either shrink or magnify. However, of all the seven people lying on the floor, not even one looked abnormal, with respect to their eyes. Then again, he thought, those signs are common in people who have been taking drugs over a period of time. As he was thinking about this, he saw the bodies again, sensing that he had seen something quite prolific, but that he hadn’t taken seriously.

He saw it immediately. The victims’ eyes were wide open. How had I not seen that before, thought Walker. The answer came immediately. When he usually saw corpses, their eyes were open, no doubt. However, they were wide open, mostly with horror, or shock. These bodies, looked eerily... peaceful. Feeling a little weird, he went on to the wounds, from which the blood had flown. He went over one of the bodies from head to toe, but couldn’t find the wound. He scowled quizzically, his face feeling hot in front of the fire. This was really awkward. There were bodies, and a lot of blood. However, there was blood, but no wound. How the heck, exclaimed Walker in his own mind. Surely, the men lying here were dead. Or were they? The forensic team hadn’t even come in yet, and he soon realised that he was the first person who was legitimately analysing the bodies. All his “sentimental pathways” crap had been thrown right out of the window. He slowly checked one of the dead bodies’ pulse, and hoped for his sake that he were dead. One, two, three, four, five, six. No pulse. Walker exhaled. Well, they were dead all right. But where the hell had the blood come from?