Scraps of Flesh: Prologue (Patreon)

The bodies were cold, and they had been for quite a while.

What had previously been a collection of school kids watching from across the street — eyes wide, expressions blank and knees drawn up to the chest — had evolved into most of the neighborhood finally approaching the corpse that had been there since around twenty past midnight.

Several officers were standing outside the yellow lines someone had already produced, facing away from the body and keeping an eye on the populace for troublemakers. Coppers stomped around them, mechanical limbs clumsily carrying a tube full of biological materials — only enough to create a life on the level of a dog — which were garnering wary looks from civilians and undisciplined officers alike.

The sky was blue and wide, nary a cloud in sight. Summer heat beat down on all and accelerated the decomposition of the bodies. A few members of the audience held bottles or ice treats, appetite unaffected by the sight of bodies with flies surrounding them.

The detective stepped out of the car, laid eyes on the nearest body, and promptly said, “Fuck.”

“Mm?” his partner said, but he was already hurrying forward, ducking under yellow tape. A few officers made to stop him, but his partner rushed forward, flashing her badge as she chased him down. “Harvey! What’s wrong?”

He failed to answer, walking around until he found the corpse’s face, it having turned as he fell forward.

Seeing the face he expected to see, he repeated himself between ragged breaths.

“Fuck.”

His partner arrived at his side. She looked at the young man’s face, frowned, and said, “Who is it?”

“Fuck.”

“Harvey?”

“We’re fucked, Kate.”

Kate looked at their audience from the corner of her eye and winced at the worried expressions on the civilians’ faces. “Harvey, maybe calm down? You’re scaring the people.”

“They fucking should be scared!” Harvey hissed. “That’s–”

He stopped himself, eyed the civilians and officers by them, and he leaned in to whisper, “This is Kingston Hill’s son.”

Kate stared at him, then looked down at the body and whispered, “Okay, we’re fucked.”

“How did this happen?” Harvey asked, giving a look upwards as if begging some superior power for clarity. “I just saw him last night!”

Kate frowned, looked at him and said, “At what time?”

Harvey rolled his eyes, “I didn’t fucking do this!”

“I know, jackass. Talk.”

“Um,” Harvey rubbed his chin, “I’d just grabbed the sushi from the gas station, so that had to be around… eleven? Half past, maybe?”

“Closer to half past, I think,” Kate agreed, remembering the hour she’d won the rock-paper-scissors match for who had to get ‘dinner’. “Okay… what was he doing out that late?”

“I dunno, he was grabbing one of those tiny bottles of liquor with some friends?”

“So who was he with?”

Harvey shrugged. Then he frowned, and stood straight to peek over the crowd as best as he could.

Hill Jr. had dropped near the edge at the corner of the sidewalk, as if he had been leaning against the bloodstained stop sign. The other bodies were in two different directions, one farther than the other.

The one that had gone up Ford street had fallen with a bullet through the back of the lung.

Another had gotten further, but laid dead with a hole in his leg and the back of his skull anyways. There was a small trail of blood staining the floor from the leg shot’s exit wound.

And upon seeing their clothes…

“Those guys. And he’d still been hanging with them at the end,” Harvey concluded. He mimed the shots, trying to get a feel for the sequence of events. “Whoever did this… had to have been pretty fucking good.”

“You’re thinking seconds between each death?” Kate asked.

“Hm…” Harvey frowned before pointing his thumb at the farthest corpse. “Mind checking that one over?”

“Sure,” Kate shrugged, already taking out two packets and handing one to her partner.

Kate opened her packet and removed two folded blue latex gloves. She put them on as she stepped under the yellow line, gesturing to speak with one of the nearby officers.

Minutes later, Harvey approached and stood by her as she leaned down, inspecting the breaks of the corpse’s fingertips and nails.

“... probably not seconds between each death, then,” Harvey muttered.

“Probably not,” Kate agreed. “Still… our perp was smart about this.”

“I’d say he was efficient,” Harvey noted. “And stealthy. That head-shot looks point blank.”

“Right…” she looked at him. “Is something bothering you?”

“Besides the need to have answers when someone asks us why Hill’s son is moldering on the sidewalk as we speak?” Harvey muttered. “Yeah. The angles are fucked.”

Kate looked down at the hole in the runner’s leg. At first, she didn’t notice an angle. Then, she realized that was the issue.

The street was level, any shot at a target as low as someone’s leg would have to have a downwards angle. The shot was almost straight.

“Huh… And they’re all like this?”

“Except the one on Track Star’s head,” he pointed out, pointing at the hole. “But I’m guessing that one was just aiming down.”

“So… could be shooting from the hip? Or ducking with every shot?”

“Hill was taken by surprise, I don’t think someone crab walking behind him would’ve gone unnoticed by anyone.”

“Right. So shot from the hip?”

“That… or it could be a midget.”

“... well, that’d narrow down suspects, at least,” Kate shrugged. “Okay, someone that shoots from the hip or is very short. Who would make a move like this against Hill?”

“Anyone that thought they could get away with it. So the question is who can possibly be that dumb?”

=]O[=

A few blocks away, nine-year-old Lucas DeRose woke up to the ringing of his alarm clock.