Tag: murder

Meet Me at the Gates of the Cemetery

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Peter Grange walked past the fake marble pillars that flanked the sides of the large wrought iron gate. He took a moment to appreciate the ornate flourishes of the metal flowers. If you couldn’t bring flowers, these would never wilt.

Peter turned to walk to the street and back home, brushing off some dirt from his jeans. As he looked up towards the road he saw a figure leaning against a street lamp, standing just between the two cones of light from the lamps bulbs. A faint cloud of cigarette smoke wafted away from the figure and into the leftward patch of light. 

The figure spoke up, “You don’t see many people here this late.”

Peter smiled. “Guess I could say the same.” He stopped halfway between the gate and the street lamp.

“So what are you doing here then? Paying your respects?”

Peter wanted to laugh but instead came out with, “Not exactly. More like, I was just doing some cleaning up.”

The figure shifted its weight, still resting entirely within the shadows. “Oh? You make a lot of messes.” The figure vaguely gestured towards the dirt stains on Peter’s workman jeans. 

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Incommon Haunts: Finished Business

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Emma sat on the edge of her mother’s old double bed. She only came in here to dust the furniture and vacuum the floors even though no one had lived there for a few months. And also for the visits.

She ran through the events of the last few days, making sure the omens were the same and that she was sitting in the right place. There was yesterday when the raven flew into the house. Emma tried to chase it out but it just kept landing on the picture of her mother sitting above the fireplace. Then this morning, without warning, she thought she smelt the same scent as the white lilies she placed on her mother’s grave at her funeral. 

And finally, just a few minutes ago, there were those two identical twins in the second story hallway beckoning her to her mother’s room. Emma shooed them out and sent them back to the house next door and was determined to have a talk with their parents, but right now, she needed to wait for her mother.

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The Truth: Part 1

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Trouble always seems to find me if it wants to go looking. It makes sense; my office can be reached from almost every corner of the world. See, all you really need is the right ingredients and the right incantations when walking into any investigator’s office. By the time the incense has finished burning, you’ll be right across the desk from me. 

See, every one of us had an aspect, a calling, something that defined us in the abstract. I was truth, and by extension I was the one the others went to when they needed to know the truth. It doesn’t mean I was always honest though. I was just simply inclined to find the truth, not tell it.

There were millions of us, I think. It was hard to keep track of at the time. You got to know those who worked around you, but that doesn’t mean that you knew anyone beyond your network. To be honest, I hadn’t seen my immediate network in a couple months. Most of them were of similar aspects, like “lying,” “honesty,” “knowledge,” and even “communication,” so they didn’t need my help as often as others.

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Dragonfly: Static

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Jenny flipped the switch to start the rotation of her dragonfly’s habitat module. The spinning allowed the structure to simulate light gravity, which, even if it was nothing compared to Earth’s, was much better than nothing. She removed her hair tie, let her hair fall to her shoulders, skipped over to the fabricator and popped out a warm meal. 

“Too tired to cook today. I’m sure you understand, Fab Fab.” She patted the fabricator right above a crudely drawn face she made on the front, above the screen. The machine did not respond.

Jenny glided across the habitat and sat herself into her chair, ready to set up a call with Sammi, her sister, still back in the states. “Did that girl change her lock yet or not?” Jenny said to herself while popping a bit of the breading into her mouth. 

After pressing the call button, Jenny sat back and waited, expecting the call to take a minute before being accepted. Instead, the call was immediately accepted, shocking Jenny forward and forcing her to drop her meaty pastry.

“Shit! Hold on a second, let me get my food.” Jenny got off her chair and crawled under her desk, quickly finding the pastry before crawling back to her chair. “Stay there, I’m almost back.”

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The Arrhenius Cask

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You know me. I’ve always been able to take a slight on the chin. I dealt with Felicity’s constant abuses and badgering for years, but after that insult…well even a saint can only take so much. So I had to resolve this in a way that both satisfied my need for resolution but also didn’t risk my name. To be clear, Felicity had no idea I was angry with her back then. That whole month leading up to my plan, I was kinder than I had ever been before. 

But Felicity had two weaknesses. Despite being quite charming, and rather manipulative, she was as much convinced of her genius as she was, in truth, an idiot. She considered herself an absolute expert on the whole freezing process, but hadn’t made a single breakthrough under her own merits. To be fair, she could recite the effects of any chemical, ingested or injected. In that sense we were similarly well-read. 

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