Chapter 3 of the 4th Alcrest Mystery novel

Hey, Spencer Alcrest here.  I'd like to try and explain how a book character is talking to you, but that would make Mr. O seem insane.  This is chapter 3.  If you want to see the others scroll down.  There's also a pretty spooky prologue.  Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Oh and I'm not sure if Mr. O wants the title out yet, but it's looking like it might be Wind-Chimes.

S.Alcrest

Chapter 3

“Where were you sitting on the bus?”  The police detective’s voice has an attitude.  I doubt many others would hear it.  I can because I recognize it.  She thinks she’s better than me.  She thinks I’m a waste of her time.  She wants to go onto someone more important.  She only asks questions she’s pretty sure she knows the answers to and she’s pretty sure I can’t give her any of the answers she wants.

I won’t disappoint.  “In the back seat.  Th-the very last one.”

She makes a note in a hard covered notebook.  Probably some doodle that means nothing.  Her nails look too neat for a cop.  She wears a perfume that smells nicer than the natural environment.  She has highlights in her dark-blond hair and has on red lipstick.  What kind of cop wears bright red lipstick?  She likes taking care of herself.  She likes looking good.  She likes the way it feels when she notices someone looking at her.  I bet she works out.  Does she do it for herself or someone else?  She has on an engagement and wedding ring, but what does that really mean? Without looking up she asks, “And what did you see?”

I force my mouth not to turn up at the edges.  I saw everything you stupid cunt!  I saw Joey Love’s face as I started cutting his limbs off.  I relished in his screams.  I bathed in his searing hot blood and then I giggled like a little girl as I hung his bits and pieces from the trees like a human wind-chime.  And then when the entire bus freaked out I came in my pants. 

She looks up at me with steely green eyes.

“I-I heard that one woman scream.”  It made me get instantly hard.  “Then I heard some others and by the time I looked people in the front were standing and the bus was backing up.  Wha-what was there?”

She gives me a look that says I was better off not knowing.  “Bad things.  Thank you for your time.  Someone will give you a ride out.”  She turns and struts off.  I let my eyes linger on her a while.  She’s not too tall, but has long legs.  She doesn’t have much of an ass, but I can bet by the way her pants cling to her thighs that she has definition all up her legs and in that “white girls” buttock.  What was her scream like?

I never get that ride out.  Instead I stay around watching from the side.  Other people come and start collecting behind the yellow police line.  People from the press.  People who don’t have a life.  I am merely one of them.  I wear my skin like human camouflage.  Nobody really sees me.  I’m there, but their eyes fly past me like the dirty spot on the wall that has just “always been there.”  People step in front of me without a Canadian, “Excuse me.”  They don’t see me, the police didn’t see me and the detective forgot I existed the moment she turned around.

They are all players in my show and I the director hidden in plain sight.

After a while I see her standing near a white truck.  Not the cop.  The screamer.  She is with two others and isn’t screaming any more.  The Alcrest Gastropub is written on the side of the Dodge with a red lion ready to pounce above the words.  I liked the story of what happened there.  I know the smell of burnt flesh.

I’m the lion in this story.  I might be savoring the moment and licking my lips, but I’m hungry for more.