The Dimenzure

Episode 2

The police station, which was rather dingy—it being by the port in Crescent City—looked, on this particular day, run down and somewhat green, like the sea had forged its way onto land and made a home of the station. Greenwood stared at the shack-like building as he parked his cruiser and stepped his booted feet out one at a time, almost ashamed to be working where he did ("Why not Del Mar or Palm Springs, somewhere safe and relaxing; warm, too?").

The building was rather small, encompassing about 3,000 square-feet. It had old shutters, rusted door handles, windows that were barred with iron mesh, and the roof was covered in patches of sheet metal. It truly was a terrible thing to see, like an ogre lived there.

"Hey, boss, your wife 's on the phone;" Jesse Keeton was screaming out of a crack in the window, his arm barely visible.

"Got it," Greenwood called back. He didn't feel like conversing with his wife at the moment, though he did fully expect her to call him during lunch (they always had a call at lunch).

Greenwood got inside and got a handle on the telephone, patting Keeton's desk with his fist and flipping the young deputy off. He pulled the green landline to his ear: "Charlene?" The response: "Hey, so I got off work early and I'm heading home. I was going to make something...oh, I don't know...something healthy. Leafy? I don't know, a salad? But, anyways, I'm going to bring some to you if you'd like."

"No, that's okay. I'll scrounge something up or take a quick walk into town for something. Save some for me for dinner though, okay? I'm sure I'll be hungry when I get home. That'll probably be pretty late, by the way."

"Mmmhmm, mkay. I'll have it ready for you. Kisses."

"Kisses." Greenwood dropped the phone onto the receiver.

"Kisses," Keeton said under his breath. Greenwood examined him: he was short, somewhere around 5'7, had thick eye-brows, wore a scarf under his uniform, and had big knuckles.

"What was that, Keeton?"

Keeton looked up: "Hmm? Oh. "Kisses." Thought I'd join in." He went back to whatever he was doing. Greenwood slapped the man in the back of the head.

At his seat, swiveling back and forth, he found his arm resting gently against the table and began to tap his fingers and let his head circle around the images from earlier: the ripped stomach, intestines laid out and punctured; her arm broken and bent; the cavity in her chest, cut open so precisely that her heart was visible just beneath the rib-cage covering. There was so much that he wanted to block out.

Greenwood looked at the book in front of him. It was covered in plastic, sealing the blood and gore in.

"The Dimenzure," he said aloud; "What was that," Keeton responded, his face glued to a television screen. "Nothing," Greenwood persuaded.

Greenwood got up from his desk suddenly and snatched the book up from in front of him, ripping through the hallway to the back entrance. He let the door ease its way open and then stepped out into the foggy noon to let the books rest under a faucet. Slowly, he pulled the bag from it and let the drizzle from the tap trickle out and wash the blood from the leather cover. The water fell in a precise fashion, cascading down with the blood in a manner orderly.

Greenwood fingered the design on the cover, noticing the intricacies as the blackened, stained-hard blood was running away from it; he was precise to make sure that the water didn't reach any of the paper.

On the front, there was an odd symbol, that of a spider, but so faint it was nearly unrecognizable.

A spider, falling from the top, engraved into the leather.