Yet another stopgap.

I’ve not been writing my own stuff lately, on account of far far too much work to do. So sorry for not updating this nearly enough. However, you all get to read some of my work in an attempt to placate you until I can get something good written and posted here!

The project I promised you last time I posted is proceeding, albeit slowly. I was hoping to have had enough time to write the first ‘episode’ of it by now, but the aforementioned workload, coupled with a myriad of other stuff has conspired against me. But it does exist, and it will be written soon. Have patience.

In the meantime, please enjoy this humble little short story I wrote for one of my portfolios.
P.S. Watch ‘A Detective Story‘ if you haven’t before – because it’s awesome, and it inspired this story.

Anyway here it is, in its cliched but fun goodness:

Fin.

It was a black-and-white sort of a day. Walking back, you felt like an old movie, some silent flick where all you can hear is the wind barging any other noises out of the way. They used to show those kinda things down at the old theatre, with some jaunty piano guy playing along to the story. There was no music here though. Not today.

The paint was flaking off the door again, rather ruining the effect of the professionally done lettering on the window. My name, and then the words “Private Detective and Investigator” underneath. Very classy. Not that I’d ever once had what you’d call ‘a case.’ That’s the problem with this country. Everyone’s the same. Just flock to the police and they’ll make everything ok again, right? It’s ludicrous. Six months I’ve been in the business, and all, literally all, the work I’d had was from suspicious spouses wanting me to spy on hotel rooms. To be honest with you, I was just about ready to pack it all in.

Faux-dozing in the chair, in my stereotypical private-detectivey kind of way, I waited for the phone to ring. There would be one last case. One more shot at the dream, and then we were out. Then I’d go and work at a burger joint, or something. This point, this moment in time right here, this is when the phone should ring, if my life were a movie. But it’s not. I’ve learnt that by now. So the phone didn’t ring.

However.

One in the morning, with me now truthfully asleep in the hard-backed chair, there’s a scratching at the door, a rustle, a muffled knock, and a series of hasty footsteps down the path. All very dramatic, no?
So obviously, I fall backwards off the chair. All standard procedure for imperturbable loners like myself. Very good, sir. Cursing my bruised head and my inability to sleep in a goddamn bed for once, I amble over to the front door. Where there’s a note of paper crumpled underneath, pushed through the gap in the floor. Whoever put it there obviously had never heard of a letterbox.

To whomsoever receives this letter,
the letter said.

Come to the abandoned house at 324 Oldham Street.
There may be a job for you.
A job that pays money.

And that’s all that was there.
Well, this was somewhat peculiar. I mean what kind of a job? And it wasn’t even signed. Obviously, something was up. But what kind of a detective would I be if I didn’t go to check it out? Possible answers here: either a smart one, or a busy one. But I was neither. So check it out I did.

But this is where it gets really weird.

I was basically straight out the door, whatever the time was by now. And then my mobile rings. Now, nobody has my mobile number. It’s ‘strictly for work purposes,’ so I’ve actually never given it to anyone. I don’t even know the goddamn thing myself. But as I open the door, the damn thing starts ringing.
“Don’t leave yet,” says the voice on the other end. I don’t know if it was a woman or a man, young or old. There’s one of those voice messer-upper things over the top, like they’re speaking with a mouthful of bees or some crap like that.
I start to say something, but they cut me off.
“Don’t talk, just listen,” they say. Now I’m all over this. This is the shit I’ve been waiting for. This is it, I think.
“I know where it is you’re going. I’m not going to try to stop you from going there. I know you wouldn’t listen. But where you’re going, that house, it is dangerous. Be careful, and go armed”.

Now. You may have guessed this about me already, but I have something of a penchant for the dramatic. Always have done. So naturally, this gets me in a big way. Go armed. Brilliant.
And as a matter of fact, I do have a gun. A revolver. It was an inheritance from my Gran actually. A crazy old gal if ever there was one. So I grab it, and head out the door. Today, I curse the weather. There’s shafts of sunlight poking through yesterday’s rainclouds. All well and good, but dark and stormy works so much better for this kind of outing. Much more atmospheric, if you’ll excuse the pun.

But the house is great. Makes my house look like the Taj Ma-goddamn-hal.
Inside, shadows slink around the skirting boards, and there’s a steady drumbeat of water droplets, a staccato rhythm all throughout the house. It is disgusting, and it is glorious. My kind of place, although even I have some standards. I climb the stairs, calling out, my voice much more confident then I ever was. My voice is in its element here, apparently.
As I round the corner at the top, I end up in a big old room. I think it probably used to be several rooms, but there’s only jagged stumps of wall, like a stripped forest, to show where the boundaries used to be.

And right there, right in the centre of it all, are a pair of identical twin kids like you wouldn’t even think could exist. Yet there they are, staring at me and all. And boy can they stare.

I ask if it was them who wrote the note, if they have the job for me. Although if it was them, I’m starting to have doubts. I mean they’re dressed up pretty upmarket and all, but what do a kid brother and sister want with an investigator like me?
But the little girl, she nods at me.

“You’re just like us,” she says “You’re all make-believe.” She has a point, I suppose.
I inquire again; what’s the job? And she replies:
“No job. No money. We’re liars. Liars like everyone else. But we’re so much more than that. We like to hurt people too.” And she says it all with the sweetest grin on her face.

Did I mention that it got weird around here?

I don’t know whether it was cold sweat, or one of those ceiling drips I mentioned, but something ran straight down my back, freezing all the way down my spine. Maybe it was just a premonition or something.
Because then the brother, who’d been standing here with god-knows-what kind of vacant expression on his face, he pulls out some kind of knife. It was one of those, what are they called, those commando knives. That’s the one. So anyway, he jabs the knife at me, and it cuts a score right across my stomach. I haven’t been hurt, not properly, in a long time, so just a little scratch sends me gasping to the floor. Then you can see it, he thinks, this little psycho, that that’s it for me. I’m done for. Tell the truth, I was thinking that myself.
But then there it is. The gun. I mean I forgot it was there, who would be used to carrying a gun around? So I pull it real quick, thrusting it in the face of Master Psychopath here.
And call me crazy too if you want, but I like this. This I like. Just like a movie. Of course, in the movies, they don’t shoot the kids, even when they are crazier than a bag of cats. So I run the hell away. I’m dripping everywhere. I guess that scratch was deeper than I thought. But anyway, I run run run down the stairs, and through the open door.

The door has daylight streaming right through it and all, so it’s like running into the jaws of an angel. It was like being born. And I swear to God I laughed.

So that’s how it happened. My last case. Out with a bang, or not. Whatever. Roll the credits, please.

~ by tanquill on April 30, 2009.