Something’s run afowl.
There isn’t a miscreant in these slimy streets who can’t smell the rot oozing from this smog-smeared town. There’s a killer on the loose, and for every ounce of whiskey I pour on my cold desolate heart, he spills twice as much in blood.
Look — I didn’t get into the private eye business because I wanted an easy life. I live on the edge; I am daring, striving, hungry — nay — starving, to bring justice to the lot of evildoers who have taken over this town. That’s why I took on this caper.
69 victims. 420 days. Fucking despicable.
I’ve been running around, taking names, and searching for clues, but nothing adds up. He has no trademark, no signature way of killing. No thread linking any of the deceased.
Most terrifying of all, I don’t know this guy’s motive. I’m always so curious to know what drives people to madness — to see just exactly what it was that chimmied a man’s changas. And maybe that makes me fucked up for wanting to know. But I’m not a therapist, I’m just a jaded detective.
Then the phone rang.
I ran to pick it up, but by the time I lifted the receiver, I felt a rush of nihilistic dread. A hundred cases, and the only thing I’ve caught is polio. My days are numbered, and any effort I make in banishing the sin from this town seems impossible. This place is cursed; haunted, much like myself. Then I realized: The killer knew my grizzled past would impede me from picking up the phone! He was one step ahead of me.
I turned back to the evidence wall. Something just wasn’t adding up.
But then I followed the breadcrumbs — literally. In every photo, the victim was holding something–a Rocky’s sub, an empty pastry bag from Connections, an empty bag of bread.. Hmm.
I finally had a thread. It wasn’t much, but it was something. But within every something lies a nothing. And in this something, the nothing was the ceasing of the ring of the phone.
The line had been cut. I heard a pitter-pattering behind me, and just as I reached for my revolver, I felt a cold shiver down my spine.
I stared Death in the eye.
Death was not a woman. Death was not a man.
All this time, Death, mounted atop her pale horse, had taken the form of 10 geese wielding knives.
As I stared into their eyes, it finally clicked. This was the piece I needed, the motive I lacked. The bread bags, the brutal stab wounds; this was not some reckless savage out for blind carnage. This was a calculated murderer(s), like me. They killed because they had to in order to survive. I looked at their faces, and part of me felt sorry for them. But part of me saw myself in those tired eyes; we were both born killers, and it was only fate that we should be face to face to face to face to face to face to face to face to face to face to face at this very moment.
I spoke:
“At long last, we meet. We’re reflections, you and I. Whether it’s your bodies or mine on the floor when it’s over, the corpses will be mangled. We’re brutal. Ruthless. Driven by a need for a singular thing. I feared you were a madman, and now I can hardly tell which one of us is more sane.”
“HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!”
He’s good. Too good. (Cue a pause for a very-needed drag of a cigarette.)
“Why’d you have to kill ’em? We both have our demons, but you don’t have the balls to keep ’em in.”
“HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!”
The honking bled into ringing. The ringing bled into my phone. My phone bled into somebody who was talking on the phone — my dear old partner, Salvatore.
But wait… Hadn’t the line been cut?
It was then that I looked down at my own trench coat and noticed — feathers? Then I noticed the scissors in my hands.
Then I realized that I owned not one pair of hands, but 10.
And these were not hands; these were vessels for bread.
And tonight?
The streets would become vessels for blood.
LONG LIVE THE CRIMSON GEESE!
HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!
