L'appel Du Vide [Call Of The Void]

[6]

       

The three policemen were gambling when Philippe ran up to them and told them about the body.  They had been reluctant to cut short their game initially, but when Philippe showed them the blood he'd wiped from his neck, they'd believed him. Now, they were all standing under the tree, staring at the silhouette of body, the moonlight like a halo around it.

The body was that of a man. He was wearing relatively clean and untorn trousers, stained only by the blood that was trickling from his neck. The coat that hung on his reasonably well-built frame indicated that he was certainly not well to-do, but wasn't dirt poor either. Philippe's gaze shifted to his crimson fingertips, a question crossed his mind:

"The man hung himself. Why in the world is he bleeding?"

"He probably didn't hang himself. Look at how high the branch is," the policeman next to him pointed. The branch the body hung from wasn't very high. However, it was certainly not low enough for him to hang himself.

"Betting he was stabbed and then hung across the branch," another one voiced.

"Why would they do that? Why not just stab him?"

"They probably tied him to the tree to keep the body from wild animals. And then stabbed him."

"They kept him safe so someone would recognize him, didn't they?" Philippe questioned.

The policeman nodded in assent.

Philippe's eyes wandered to the branch, trailing over the silhouette of the body. The force of his involuntary shudder seemed to rattle his bones.

After some prolonged deliberation by the men--who Philippe thought to be quite incompetent--the man named Henri decided to climb up the branch to loosen the rope. The other two and Philippe joined hands to form a net of sorts on which the body would fall. Philippe and the man to his right were holding torches up so that Henri could see where he was going.

As he climbed the branches cautiously and the three of them waited below with bated breath, their eyes following his every movement. The wind picked up.

The man next to Philippe let out a sharp sigh and tightened his coat around himself. Philippe, in his coatless misery, was forced to bear with it wordlessly.

The hung man's clothes fluttered in his breeze softly, patting him like a mother would a sleeping child.

Suddenly, one of the policemen on the ground swore. Philippe tore his glance from the body to the man beside him. A drop of blood from the body had fallen right on his forehead. It slithered down his face like a menacing snake, glinting in the moonlight. He wiped it off with the corner of his coat and shivered.

Holding his breath, Philippe watched Henri as he reached the branch that tipped low due to dead weight that had been tied at its end. It wasn't a weak branch, but he doubted whether it could hold the policeman's weight as he gingerly tested it. When he was halfway to the body, the branch groaned, dipping slightly. As quick as lightning, he moved back an inch.

"Are you able to reach the knot?" the man to Philippe's right called out.

"I think I'll be able to," he replied, stretching out his arm that held the sword. He was the tallest man out of the four of them. If he wasn't able to reach the knot, one of them would have to go back into the city and get help.

Henri gripped the trunk with his fingertips tightly as he slipped towards the dead body. A retching cough slipped from his mouth as he neared the body. It echoed sickeningly in the deathly-still forest. Philippe could feel shock trickling into his body little by little now.