Urban Horror 2

Cont. from Chapter 1. It's not 100% complete.

Urban Horror ch. 2

The events of the previous evening had left Jack feeling drained and tired. It was only with the help of the whiskey that he'd gotten any sleep at all, if one could call the booze-drenched images of Candy tearing through his subconsious, sleep.

After a late breakfast of coffee and painkillers, he found himself outside a dingy fourth floor apartment on Dean Street. This was the final known address of the now cadaverous Candy Cane. Brody didn't know where she lived, but he had her number. Luckily she didn't use a burner, and it was a small task for Jack to dig up the billing address. Apparently, her real name had been Jennifer Price. To Jack, she would always be Candy.

Out of habit, he made sure no one was around before picking the lock, even though it was one of those buildings where no one gave a crap about anything not affecting them directly.

Once inside, Jack paused to get a feel of her home. It was a technique his old training officer on the force had taught him. Get a feel for the whole, before dissecting the minutiae. Not everyone could do he apparently, but to Jack it was second nature. Maybe that was why he had been fast tracked to detective. Oh well, bygones and all that shit.

The apartment was small, just two cramped rooms, a tiny open kitchen and a surprisingly spacey bathroom. The living room was a bit messy, like Candy had not been bothered with cleaning the last few months. Nothing too disgusting, but dirty plates were piled on the table, used pots on the kitchen counter and clothes strewn over everything. At first glance, the place looked tossed, but the way the debris had settled in told another story.

Jack started with the bathroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it was a mess. A cursory search of the cabinets told him nothing. Half used make up and hygiene products in untidy piles, no medication that would indicate a pill problem. Jack had gotten a good look at her body before it tore itself off the wall, and he had seen no needle marks. Over all, it seemed Candy wasn't a user.

Next he looked over her bedroom. The sheets in the unmade bed had needed a change months ago, but to his surprise the linen closet was well stocked. Tidy stacks of laundered sheets lay waiting for him when he opened the door. For some reason Candy had stopped caring. Usually this would indicate drugs, but everything pointed in another direction. But which direction was that?

Something in the bed caught his eye, and he carefully lifted a corner of the soiled sheet. A half closed laptop peeked out, Jackpot he thought. He sat down and opened the computer. It was running, but in sleepmode. He touched the mousepad, and the locked screensaver popped into life. Of course, why can't anything ever just be easy. He tried ”CandyCane” and almost laughed out loud when the login screen went away and left him with full access. The computer was a quite a few years old, but not so ancient as to be useless. The desktop wallpaper showed a graphic image of a woman in a black gothic dress exctatically cutting the throat of a naked man kneeling befire her in rapture. Charming. Now lets see what you were into.

Unlike anything mankind has ever used before, a private computer gives an insight into it's owner that took weeks of interrogation and investigation just a couple of decades ago. Now a quick once over of browser history and hard drive was all it took. Jack started with the hard drive. Some downloaded music, a couple of movies, nothing that interesting. Then he turned to the browser. No significant bookmarks. Just a couple of news and porn sites, but in the address bar he found something; www.caressyourpain.org. He opened the url and jumped as a ghastly moan erupted from the tinny speakers. For a second he was back in the dressing room, with Candy's corpse crawling up the wall. Heart hammering against his ribs, Jack stabbed the volume button viciously until the sound was at a managable level.

If he'd have to guess in advance he would have pegged the site as some kind of fetish page. Black background, chains and pale girls in black latex, that sort of thing, but he was wrong. Dead wrong. At first it looked like the home page for some underground band, then he found a lot of posts about some philosophical nihilism. It made no sense whatsoever, but it had been important to Candy, so he wrote down the url, and her log in information before putting the laptop back on the bed. He decided to take one last look around.

He stood in the middle of what had been her life, when there was a knock on the door. Jack froze in midstep, his breath catching in his throat. Shit, shit shit. Then a thin voice called out, 'Jenn, it's me'.

Jack took a deep breath and relaxed. He opened the door, and with every ounce of authority he could call up asked, 'Can I help you?'. In the hallway stood a skinny barefoot woman in faded jeans and a dull off-white tank top. Her dark hair fell limply around her pale face, giving her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks a cadaverous look. She jumped back and said, 'You're not Jen, where is she? Who're you?'.

For a moment he almost answered ”NYPD” but she looked paraniod enough to demand to see a badge, so he just said 'I'm her brother, who the fuck are you?'

She glared at him. 'Jen doesn't have any siblings, what's going on?'.

He forced himself to relax a bit and open the door a bit more. 'No surprise she told you that. We never got along, ever. Haven't talked to her in years, but there's been an accident.'

Her eyes grew large. 'Is she ok? What happened?'

He moved so the girl could step inside. Closing the door, his mind racing he said, 'Look's like Ca-Jennifer stepped out in front of a bus last night. Dead on impact, cops say she never felt a thing. You her friend or something?'

The girl collapsed bonelessly on the couch, eyes fixed on the ceiling. For a long time she neither moved nor spoke, and Jack was becoming worried she might have had some kind of seizure. Only her rapid breathing told him she was alive at all. Finally she turned her head, lowered her gaze and looked at him. 'I'm Liza. Jenn was my best friend. My only friend really. I live down the hall. Her brother, huh? Must have been nice growing up in Florida'.

'It was ok, I guess', he said before he could stop himself. With the speed of a furious snake Liza snatched up a heavy ashtray from the table and threw it at his head. It grazed his scalp, and he barely ducked in time as she swung a lamp at him screaming 'YOU LYING MOTHERFUCKER!'. She swung again, but he caught it. They wrestled for a second until he stomped on her bare foot and as she twiched in pain, he pushed her down on the couch.

'Fucking cut it out, ok?' he snarled at her. She started to get up but caught the look in his eyes and hesitated, body tensed as a coiled spring.

Jack gently touched his head and his fingers came away red. 'Shit! Look, take it easy, I'm private detective, I'm looking into Jennifers death, that's all.'

Lizas eyes were still livid, but she seemed to relax for a moment. 'Why would a private eye investigate a traffic accident? This is bullshit!' She jumped up aggressively.

Jack held out a hand between them and said, 'I'll level with you but if you come at me again, I'll put you on your fucking ass, woman or no. Got it?'

She glared at him and just as suddenly as she attacked, she collapsed in tears.

He had seen this before, and knew better than to intrude on her grief. Liza had to work through this on her own terms. Instead he stepped into the bathroom to look for some antiseptic salve and a band aid of some kind. When he got back to the living room, Liza had calmed down, and sat on the couch staring sullenly out of the only window in the room.

'You ok?', he asked. 'Hey, I'm sorry I lied, but in my line the truth can be dangerous.'

She kept staring out of the window, and after a while she asked, 'How did Jen die?'.

It was the question he'd been dreading. The whole truth wouldn't work, but he really didn't want to lie to this miserable girl again. He sat down on the coffee table opposite her, forcing her to look at him and said, 'She was murdered at work.' Lizas eyes got that dangerous look again, and he hastily added, 'not by anyone she worked with. It was an outsider. I'm trying to figure out who. If you want to help, you can start by telling me about Jen.'

Liza sighed and started to talk.