TR Noir - Freaks

by Mrsebi Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:15 am

TR Noir - Freaks

I took a good look at the room I was in: it was dark, darker than my schoolboy socks at the bottom of a well. It was the sort of dark that made you wary, the kind of dark that made you feel as if it wanted to choke you to death. Now, this was Manhattan. No matter where you were, the whole place would always seem dark and grey; the exhaust from the cars blocked out most of the sunlight during the day, and the moonlight during the night. I sighed as I relaxed in the chair as much as I could without breaking my back. As the door opened, I took a good look at the man that walked in: the fellow was in his forties, graying hair combed back and a carefully groomed moustache decorating his face. His pinstriped black suit hung loosely against his body, as if he had lost weight lately… judging by his eyes, tired and stressed, he most likely had.

The man walked over to the other end of the metal table I was sitting at and took a seat himself. Placing a series of folders on the table before him, he spoke.

“Mr. Hawke… I’m glad you could join us….’’ His voice was tired as well; seeing him more closely, I noticed the bags under his eyes. This man had not slept well, if at all, in a long time.

“My name is Officer Flaw Sanity,’’ he muttered. “I assume you have been briefed on why you were called here?”

“Yeah,’’ I replied, leaning forward. “The boys downstairs told me something about a special assignment?’’

Sanity rubbed his eyes and opened one of the files; handing a photo from it to me, he whispered, “Tell me what you think about this guy…’’

I took a look at the photo. It seemed fairly new, although I noticed the photo had been smudged, as if taken in a hurry. It showed a man quite clearly, much younger than myself: he was probably in his twenties. He looked slightly Latino, and had noticeably sunken eyes; however what really piqued my interest was the unusual color of his hair and skin: based on the shade of grey… the hair seemed to be bright red? Not a lot of redheads around here… and the skin… was pale, almost white.

Sanity spoke from across the desk: “The man is named Vladimir Paragon, ethnicity is mixed: father is from Mexico; mother is from Transylvania. Both parents moved to America in 1905, a year later he was born.’’

I looked up. “What’s so special about him?’’

Sanity leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, almost as if dreaming. “Paragon was born in a poor family; however, at the age of 21, he managed to graduate from Harvard with full degrees in Marine Biology. Moving South, he worked in a small rural village on the coast of Brazil, where he quickly became renowned for discovering a new fish.’’ He tossed me another picture. This one depicted an ugly looking thing: a small fish with unusually large fangs, and evil looking eyes…

He continued, “This fish was known as the Water Dracul, and it was a bit of a… vampire; from what Paragon's studies show it used its fangs to drain its prey of blood… quite a feisty little bugger. Anyways, about a month ago… a wealthy researcher and his family went down to Paragons lab, it was the best thing that could have happened to him: if everything had gone well, right now our good friend would be working in the top labs here in the city… IF!’’

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Well… from what we know… there was a problem with one of the fencing areas… the researchers son fell into one of the fish tanks… it… wasn’t pretty.’’

I grimaced, as he continued:

“Paragon's future was ruined. He was expelled from the scientific community. The only job he would have been able to get was cleaning crappers in the diners, but he wouldn’t have that… no, he would rather die… and that’s what he tried to do.’’

“So what exactly am I here for then?’’ I asked. “If he died, that’s it. What, do you think he was murdered, or that the accident was intentional? What exactly do you want from me?’’ I asked, slightly disturbed by the story.

Sanity shook his head and got up, walking over to the wall and leaning against it. “I wish it were that simple. No, he tried to kill himself, jumped into the same tank of fish that the kid had died in. Difference is, it didn’t kill him… it… changed him…’’

I looked up. “What the heck are you trying to say?’’

He frowned. “Witnesses report… Paragon… emerged from the tank a day later… he proceeded to his—Paragon's—residence, took a suit and some money, and headed for the train station… a week later, the researcher was found dead in his house; his blood had been drained. That was about the same time this picture was taken… the one that eyewitnesses believe to have been the suspect.’’

“What is this, some kind of sci-fi novel?’’ I inquired.

He shook his head and handed me a card; looking at it, I saw it was Paragon's ID card. He looked the same as in the picture—except for the shades…

“What this is…’’ Sanity continued, “is evidence that before he jumped into the tank, Paragon had brown hair and slightly tanned skin. What this is, is evidence that BEFORE he jumped into the tank, Paragon had never been a suspect in a murder investigation. What this is, is a man that is now able to drain the blood out of a human body, has the strength of twelve men, and can survive without oxygen for over 24 hours.’’ He handed me the rest of the folder: I could see police reports, pictures, an article about how the Dracul fish had all mysteriously disappeared…

“What this is,’’ Sanity whispered softly,“is a monster, and we will be needing your help to find him and bring him to justice.”

I smiled and closed the folder. “I’ll be happy to help,’’ I chuckled.

by Mrsebi Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:07 am

The officer straightened and cracked his neck. “I’m afraid I’m not done yet,” he whispered. Walking back to his end of the table, he pushed the rest of the files towards me; I picked them up and rifled through them as he elaborated on each one.

“This guy was known as Mark Christensen,” he told me as I looked at a picture of a young man wearing a dark suit, his hair messily draped over his face with a golden cane in his hand.

“Probably some spoiled rich kid,” I muttered.

The detective smiled for the first time that night, and shook his head. “Afraid not. A few years ago, Mark here was just another poor kid from Harlem, until he joined in with the wrong crowd and took part in a museum robbery.”

“Ouch,’’ I muttered.

“The police were merciless,” Sanity confirmed my suspicions. “They killed the whole gang, Mark included; what they didn’t count on was that at the time, our young friend was holding an old tome from ancient Egypt. A few days later, his grave was discovered empty. Now Mark, or at least a man that looks, acts, talks, and identifies as him, is one of the top underworld bosses.”

“So… this tome… it brought him back to life, but did it do anything else?” I asked, having an idea where this was heading.

Sanity chuckled and nodded: “You are catching on… yes, while most of our reports are from inside men who were all killed rather quickly, or else mere rumors, what we DO know is that these reports indicate… well, that he can turn himself into living shadow.”

“Living shadow?” I arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Yeah…” he sighed, “or something similar. The description differs from witness to witness, but most of them indicate that he can turn himself intangible, basically appearing as a black mass. As this mass can pass through solid objects, it’s given him quite the advantage…”

I shook my head, Sanity just sighed and pointed to a third file; opening it, I was met with the picture of an Asian woman clan in a red and yellow kimono. I couldn’t help but whistle.

“That woman is known only as the Lion, and unlike these past two freaks, we know near nothing about her: her past is a mystery; her name and family is unknown; all we know is that she is an assassin, and that every single target we have been able to link her to…. They were all killed regardless of location, and I mean that in the strictest sense possible.” He pointed to several inked-out documents. “Officials, politicians, even royalty! Whoever hires her so far has been awarded a guaranteed kill, and she knows we are onto her, that’s the only way we have even been capable of finding this picture and proof of her murders,” he muttered.

“What proof?” I put the folder down and crossed my arms.

“It’s where we got her name. Every single murder? She leaves behind a small crystal statuette of a lion.” He sighed and handed me the last folder. I opened it and was met with the sight of a tall bald man, Scandinavian in appearance. “Nice fellow,” I noted.

“Isn’t he?” Sanity asked. “This man is known as Petre Grines, and he is the target of our investigation.”

“Investigation…’’ I sighed and stood up. “Alright pal, how’s about you start telling me what’s going on? What kind of police are you?”

Sanity took of his coat and tossed it over his chair, then leaned forward and pressed his hands together. “As you may have guessed, I am part of a… special unit…. We deal with more fragile cases, and we have had our eye on you for a while; we would be interested in having you join us detective. As for Mr. Grines… well, from what little we know about him, he is involved in pretty heavy illegal dealings, but he is powerful enough to stay hidden despite it all, and we do know that in the past few days… he has interacted with all the aforementioned criminals; we think he is planning something, and we need to find out what.” He pulled up the final folder and showed it to me. Unlike the others, it was sealed shut; also unlike the others, it had a label on it: MRSEBI. “We think it may have something to do with this file. I can’t show it to you—in all honesty, I can’t see it myself. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to know, but whatever it is, it’s bad.”

I rubbed my eyes, starting to feel as tired as Sanity looked. “So, you want me to…”

Sanity pulled his coat back on and stood up. “I want you to find out more about these freaks, and I want you to help me lock them up, Paragon, Lion, Christensen, Grines, all of them, but you shouldn’t worry. You won’t be doing it alone.”

I grinned and stood up as well, walking over to the door. “Don’t tell me you have one of these freakshows on your side?” I joked.

Sanity just chuckled and opened the door. “That’s right…”

by Mrsebi Wed Sep 21, 2011 8:17 pm

Sanity quickly slammed the door shut before I could see what lay past it. I stared at him inquisitively; he just shrugged and reached into his coat.

‘’Before I let you see this…’’ he muttered, rifling through what seemed to be papers. ‘’I wanna know I got yer full cooperation on this, once you see what’s past this here door, yer working with us till the job is finished or yer dead…’’ he looked up ‘’and trust me kid, you will die long before this thing is over. My advice is to turn around and walk away, once you’ve seen what I’ve seen, there ain’t no going back!’’

So there I was, at a crossroads. Just like that little blond girl from the stories my momma read to me as a kid, I could go down the rabbit hole into a whole surreal mess. Thinking about it now, I wish I had just turned around and walked away, gone to the local diner near my apartment, flirted with the waitress and eaten a nice sandwich.

But I wouldn’t have, I guess it’s just in the nature for us lowly humans to know everything, to delve into the unknown even though our curiosity will kill us.

Really… are we loving stupid or what?

Sanity finally managed to remove a crumpled paper from his pocket and handed it to me, along with a pen. ‘’Sign this kid, if you wanna go through’’ he stated with an emotionless tone, I nodded and quickly signed the paper. Pocketing it, he looked me over, for a moment it seemed like his eyes were almost... sad. ‘’Don’t say I warned ya kid.’’ He opened the door, and I walked through.

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