Sun Shower Blog

Dark Passenger – Written by Luis Mederos

Despite the hands of the clock at Grand Square were close to midnight, the bustle could be felt in the main meeting places for youngsters who would get out to enjoy dancing, drinking and other night-related pleasures. It was a warm clear evening and the din was mingled with the deafening traffic noise that bathed the city like a raging metallic tide. The neon-drenched streets, barely allowed anybody to see the small silver drops in the sky. In short, it was just another ordinary summer.

He'd begun to feel indisposed half an hour ago. He felt dizzy and a sudden coldness had taken over him. It was likely due to drinking too much, which probably explained why everything was spinning round, but he wondered why on earth he couldn't stop shivering in a splendid warm night such as this.

He might be coming down with flu and all he was feeling was nothing but the symptoms, he suddenly thought to himself. Yes, that must be it.

As he didn't feel like partying any more, he decided to go home. He was on his own tonight, and therefore didn't have to warn anybody of his abrupt departure. After getting out of the pub, he began to walk down the street. The chill was even more unbearable out here. He was colder and colder by the minute and put his hands in his trouser pockets in an attempt to warm them up. It was in vain, though. After walking into his flat, he fetched a thermometer to determine whether his suspicion was correct and sat down on the couch. However, he found out, in his horror, not only that he didn't have fever, but that his body temperature was abnormally low. He wrapped himself up as much as humanly possible, taking even gloves and a scarf, and switched the heating on. This was insane, he was in mid-summer, for Christ's sake. Nothing seemed to ease the icy dagger that had got stuck in his bones and was tormenting him with heartbreaking strength. It seemed as though the more he did to try and fight the cold inside, the more it cleaved to him.

It was at that moment when an inexorable impulse took over him. As though he could listen to a soft, melodic and somehow persuasive voice whispering from the deepest of his mind, he got up from the couch. He didn't feel dizzy anymore. Actually, it dawned on him how great he suddenly felt in spite of still being cold. He got off his flat into the corridor and greeted laconically to a neighbour, who eyed him astonished because of his winter outfit on a summer night like this one. He didn't look back at her and began to climb up step by step the inner building stairs. The higher he got, the clearer and more compelling the voice became.

Fighting against this urge didn't cross his mind, not even for a second. He had to keep on going higher and higher.

Once he dealt with the stairs, he walked along a dark hallway and, at the end of it, there was a rickety wooden door. After opening it with a key he'd pulled out from his pocket and walking through, he shut it behind him. In spite of the lights of the city spreading below like a mantle of fireflies, it was easier to discern the starry sky from up here. But that's not what he was interested in. Even though there was nobody else around, the voice was now so loud and clear, that for a second he could have sworn he wasn't alone in the shadows of the building roof terrace.

And now, an intense breeze was running throughout his body, whipping his bare face. He was trembling more violently than ever. Tears were sliding down his cheeks from his burning eyes. He felt a final chill and, suddenly, stopped shuddering. The cold was gone at last.

The screams of several passers-by resounded with a ghoulish echo in the 21st street. The bloodshed was crawling –almost as though it had a will of its own– along the pavement and spilling into a nearby sewer.

A man had just fallen from the night sky. His body had crashed into the ground like a strawberry tart, dyeing the surroundings in red. A group of people were shrieking as they gazed at the gruesome scene transfixed.

It didn't take long for the emergency services to turn up. The sirens wail was deflected through the crowd of voyeurs now watching the leftovers with rapturous attention.

It was nearly as hard to try and clear out the street from snoops as to allow the authorized personnel into the scene.

'Somebody get all these people out of here,' he ordered with a deep low voice.

His men obeyed in the blink of an eye.

Carson observed the expressionless rictus of the inanimate body at his feet. According to all the evidence and the statements made by an array of eyewitnesses, that poor bastard had jumped off from the top of one of the buildings in the area.

'Nothing like a duty call to disrupt your sleep,' said a middle-aged woman's voice behind him.

'Well, not exactly,' he admitted. 'In fact, I was watching TV when my phone rang. You know I don't need to sleep much.'

She acted as though she hadn't heard this. It was evident the exhaustion on Ben's face, and in spite of helrself, she could not avoid a twinge of concern.
Laurel knelt down next to the corpse to look at it more closely.

'Another dead suicidal jumper. How many have we got this month so far?' she asked.

'Three including this one. But, there's something eerie going on,' he added as he too knelt down.

'You're absolutely right, Ben,' she agreed in a whisper.

'I guess we can't be sure whether these are suicide victims or not yet, but this is definitely one of the hottest summers I can remember, and all of them were wearing thick clothes at the moment of their deaths. This guy's even wearing gloves and a scarf,' he turned his head to look directly into her eyes.

Ben extracted a pair of latex gloves from a pocket and put them on. He offered another two to Laurel as he pulled on his to make them fit tightly.

'Yeah, this makes no sense at all to me either,' she said, shaking her head slightly and taking the gloves from him.

They both touched the corpse and were not shocked to feel how extremely cold it was even through their gloves.

'Just like the other two,' said Laurel under her breath.

He nodded at her.

'This may be the outcome of some twisted sectarian group,' ventured Laurel.

'I'm not so sure. It might be, but they usually kill themselves at the same time, let alone the way they thoroughly set the whole thing up. I reckon this must be something else,' pointed out Ben gritting his teeth.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, thinking hard of a possible explanation, but nothing came. He looked back at the destroyed body lying on the floor. It was a truly disgusting image, only suitable for tough and experienced people.

'I think we should let these guys do their job and clean this mess before more nosy spectators show up,' she said, breaking the silence.

Startled as though he hadn't been expecting her to speak, he got to his feet.

'Yes, you're quite right,' he muttered.

After taking the appropriate pictures and evidences from the spot, it was the turn for removing the corpse carefully and washing the blood off the tarmac. A really unpleasant task carried out by a group of workers who didn't look disturbed whatsoever – as if it were a routine job that they'd done hundreds of times. Some passers-by had remained behind and looked hypnotised, unable to move.

'Well, Ben, try not to give it too much thought. Not now, anyway. I wouldn't like you not to sleep well as a consequence of all this. On the whole, everything's under control here and there's nothing more we can do at the moment. You'd better go home and try to get some sleep,' she advised.

Sleeping might be a possibility this evening, after all. But this one only. Of that much he was sure. She was more right about him being incapable of sleeping properly than she could have imagined. Or maybe she had, after all. He hadn't shared this with anybody, of course, not even with her, but how could he? If he did, he would have to explain something he hadn't been able to grasp himself.

Even though he was one of those people who didn't fancy the idea of wasting too much time lying in bed or on a sofa doing nothing but slumbering, the truth was that he hadn't been able to sleep at all ever since the suspected suicides had started two weeks ago, with just one exception: the nights they had found the previous two freezing cold corpses smashed on the ground. On those nights, he'd been able to fall asleep, no matter how troubled the scenes might have been.

One death a week so far, which meant he'd only slept two nights in the last three weeks. Hopefully, he would finally be able to sleep tonight again. He craved for it, needed it badly.

'You know what?' said Ben. 'I think I'm going to follow your advice and I'll go to bed.' His tone was casual as he stared upwards at the surrounding brick buildings.

She looked stunned. 'Since when do I have such influence power over you?' asked Laurel suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

'Good night,' he said simply, as he turned around and began to walk.

'Good night,' said Laurel Harris back, as she stared at the district police captain, Ben Carson, moving hastily away until vanishing from sight.

On the way back to his car he heard a hoarse voice which made him stop dead. It was a familiar voice – too much, he thought as he turned around.

'What do you want?' he snapped.

'Come on, come on, captain,' replied Peter Eckhart as he waved his hands in a defensive gesture. 'I'm just doing my job. So, there's been another suicide tonight, hasn't there?'

'No comments,' replied Ben grumpily, as he got into his car and gave no time for the journalist to keep questioning him.

Damn scavengers, always harassing us after dead cold flesh, he muttered to himself. As a matter of fact, freezing flesh.

Lost in thoughts, he found no way of taking the face of the cold poor young-man away from his mind. Well, what was left of it, anyway. In spite of the early hours in the morning and the fact that his was the only car around, Ben stopped momentarily at the traffic lights ahead of him. Almost at once, his gaze was fixed on the inside rear-view mirror. For a moment there, he would have sworn there was something in the back seat. Somebody. Sort of a silhouette made of blackness, like a shadow. He shook his head listlessly, feeling tired. Seeing things that are not supposed to be there had to be the consequence of so many sleepless hours. That was bound to be the sensible explanation.

Ben had read about it in a magazine not long ago. People who have been extremely sleep deprived were prone to suffering from hallucinations and they may be unbelievably real or surreal. Yes, seeing unreal things like a shadow sitting in his completely unoccupied back seat was insane.

However, on the journey back home, he checked the mirror a couple of more times. Despite everything, Ben couldn't help feeling as though he was not driving alone, as though there might be a presence there, in the back seat, staring intently at his neck. For a instant, he even felt as if there was somebody breathing coldly on his neck. Ben turned his head around quickly even though the car was in motion. Nothing. He was on his own. Was he starting to drive himself mad because of his insomnia?

He needed to lie on his bed to try and get some sleep. With that idea on his head, he stumbled into his flat wiping the sleep from his eyes, and began to take his clothes off promptly as he entered the bathroom and switched on the lights. He stepped into the bathtub and took a refreshing shower, trying hard to relax his body and empty his mind full of corpses, blood splattered around and invisible shadowy figures.

After showering and drying slightly, he hanged the towel. Naked, Ben got closely to the bathroom mirror and scrutinized his own face. His green exhausted eyes looked back at him from his reflection as a reminder of the necessity of going soon to bed.

The wrinkles on his deeply tanned face revealed he was in his late forties. If he kept on going with that routine of working such long hours and barely resting, the bags around his eyes would soon get to his chin, he suddenly thought.

Ben hadn't lost his hair the way his father had when the old man had been even younger than he was now, but the first grey hairs could easily be spotted here and there among his straight black hair. It looked as if they had been multiplying over the last weeks. He'd never bothered dyeing it, despite the fact that Laurel had always insisted that if he did, it would take some years away from him.

He stepped backwards a little and looked at himself again. Being a tall, broad-shouldered and fit man had been useful for his job in the past, since it was more likely to intimidate those offenders who were particularly impressionable, although he couldn't remember when was the last time he had overpowered a criminal because of his robust constitution alone. Long ago, definitely not now that the criminals had got so used to seizing all sorts of weapons such as guns, rifles and shotguns. Ben shut his eyes and heard a distant shot inside of his head but fought to stifle it.

Opening his eyes again, he streched out his hand toward the switch on the wall to turn the lights off. He was already spinning on his heel as he did so, and that's why he missed –only for a split second– the dark steamy figure glaring at him from behind reflected in the bathroom mirror.

Ben got out of the bathroom into his dark bedroom, still naked, grabbed clean black boxer shorts from the upper drawer of the night stand, and pulled them on before lying down on his bed. Although he felt tired, the shower had somehow revitalised him. He grabbed the TV remote control and began to zap until he found one particular channel he'd got used to watching regularly. At such late hours, the channel used to broadcast classic films. Black and white movies, back from the old times when Hollywood gallants were still allowed to smoke without having to feel ashamed of it.

They were the true seducers, Ben told himself as he let the movie bewitch him. And the true dames: women exquisitely characterised, with their smart cocktail dresses, high-heel shoes and captivating looks.

After a while and without taking notice of it, he slowly began to close his eyes until he could see nothing, not even the casting lights and shadows around him from the TV. Then came an afterlife voice that whispered in his ear: 'good night, captain'. But Ben did not hear it, as he'd already fallen fast asleep.

To be continued...