Third Eye: Part 2

Two Month Earlier....

 

    "This is the third one this week," Peterson said as he knelt down over the blood soaked sheet that covered what was left of the body.  With an end of a pen, he carefully lifted it.  "Recognize this?"

    He nodded at the torn flesh around the throat.  It looked as if an animal had ripped out most of the victim's neck with one bite.  The tears were not made by human teeth - the trauma wounds were not clean.  He lifted the sheet up a little further and allowed me to see the victim's ravaged body.  Pieces of flesh torn and presumably eaten.  I stood up and took a few steps back.  

    "Same as the last," I said and reached into my pocket for the cigarettes.  "I assume the same calling card had been left?"

    Peterson threw the damp sheet over the body.

    "Yeah - " he said.  "I ain't no handwriting expert but I am quite certain it's written by the same person.  You really shouldn't smoke at the crime scene."

    I shrugged and lit the cigarette.

    "Some of the guys smear Ben-Gay right over their upper lip so they don't smell the bodies at all."

    "The smell doesn't bother me," I said.

    Peterson nodded thoughtfully.

    "Yeah, right -- Raccoon City."

    He lead me through the living room and through the hallway and finally into the bedroom.  A detective was dusting for prints by the window while another was photographing a white card that stood open on the night stand.  After the photographer finished and moved on to take pictures of the connecting bathroom, I leaned down and read the card.

    In neat handwriting that looked almost like it could have been from a type writer, the same verse that was quoted from the Revelations.

    Woe to you o Earth and Sea   

    For the Devil sends his beast with wrath  

    For he knows the time is short 

    Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast

    For it is a human number

    And the last line of the verse had been left out.  It was the killer's calling card.  The means of killing had been similar;  animal-like. 

    "Now are you convinced it's one of yours?" Peterson said.  "You are the expert."

    "It's not the work of a zombie," I said.  "There are no parallel traits except for the fact that parts of the human had been consumed.  It looks more like you have a serial who is emulating a zombie."

    "And so what does these killings mean?"

    I smiled and threw my half-smoked cigarette into the coffee cup Peterson was holding.

    "I suppose the father of all evil had come," I said and walked out of the room.  Peterson told the detective in the room to bag the card.  I walked outside and lit up another cigarette outside the apartment building as I watched the cops pushing the passerby crowd back behind the yellow police tapes.  Peterson came out a few minutes later, a leather bound notebook tucked beneath his arm.

    "Let's go," he said, jiggling his car keys as he lumbered down the stairs.  

    I threw the lit cigarette on the ground and crushed it under my heels.  That was when I felt it.  It was the kind of cold that was familiar but distant from my memory.  If I had less control then, my gun would have been out - although I didn't know what the target was.  It was almost the same kind of feeling that I had when I drove into an empty Raccoon City on my first duty day five years ago.  The uneasy calm before the storm.

    I heard Peterson call my name but I could not make myself look over to him.  My voice had been stolen.  When I did look up, I panned my eyes over the crowd.  Vaguely, someone amongst them smiled at me.  I blinked - then the specter was gone.  

    "Leon?" Peterson stood in front of me.  As sudden as the cold that came, it left.  

    I nodded.

    "You look kind of sick..."

    "I was just...." I said, then shook his head.  "It's nothing. Let's get out of here."

 

    We spent the day at the lab, reviewing the results of the three previous killings.  We concluded with the same findings that we had started with.  Neither one of us could see a break in the case any time soon.  By the time Peterson drove me back to my apartment, it was almost midnight.

    "You never did tell me why you smoke." 

    "Are smokers that unusual to you?"

    "I've known you since you were three," he said.  "Before the Raccoon City incident you would have never touched a cigarette."

    Then there were silence.  I didn't have much to say whenever he brought up Raccoon City.  

    "I'm still the same person," I said finally.  "Just picked up a couple of bad habits over the years."

    "I see..." Peterson said, turning the car into driveway of my apartment complex.  "Perhaps you should reconsider returning to the police department.  It's still what you want to do and considerably less stress than what you are doing now --"

    "I wish it's that easy," I said with a small smile.  "But I think I would have more stress if I didn't do what I do now."

    "Chasing the dead?" Peterson said.  "No - no, I have that wrong. Chasing the undead."

    "Pete - don't start."

    "You are too good for some phantom agency that operates in the shadows--," Peterson said.

    I held up my hand and got out of the car as soon as it rolled to a stop and closed the door as he continued his banter.

    "Good night, Pete," I said and walked up the steps, waving good-bye with one hand and fishing for my keys with the other.  I heard him finally drive away when I walked through the door and closed it behind me.    

    "Shit..." I said and clicked on the light.

    My hand darted for the gun that was in the shoulder holster under the jacket even before I realized what had alarmed me.  Sweet foreign scent -- women's perfume, wafted through the air.  I pressed my back to the wall, walking along it carefully and as quietly as I could.  I cleared the kitchen first.  A soft giggle that came from the den made me bypass clearing the bedroom and bathroom and head for the back of the apartment.  The smell of the perfumes were stronger and the giggle became louder.  I used my elbow to click on the light while my gun pointed fixedly forward.      

    A man with dark crimson hair, neatly brushed back away from his chiseled face grinned at me when our eyes met.  Somehow, I wasn't angry that a stranger had intruded into my home and sat comfortably in my chair.  Perhaps the three women with tight and low cut outfits helped to soothe the nerves.  Two of the women draped over his shoulders like a stole.  The other one got up to go to the bar to fix a whiskey on ice.

    "You got me presents," I said and lowered the gun, but still held it in front of me.  "And I didn't get you anything."

    He laughed.  

    "Who the fuck are you?" 

    The woman at the bar walked to him with the whiskey and set it down on the desk in front of him.  She then sank down to her knees and laid her head on one of his thighs.

    "I am here to run an errand for my master," he said and took a careful drink from the tumbler.  "He has asked me to invite you to dinner."

    I said nothing.

    "Outside," he said to the women and reached into the inside of his jacket and took out a black envelope and set it down on the desk by the phone.  The women in turn gave him kisses on his mouth and winked at me as they filed past me and let themselves out.

    "Who the hell might he be?" I said when the front door closed and we were left alone.

    "Dear boy," he said, his finger tips tapped at the black envelope.  "That is for you to find out when you answer the invitation."

    "I see," was all I managed to say.  

    He picked up the whiskey and swirled it gently.  

    "I know you've realized that you have been infected with the Progenitor Virus.  Yet, you have not changed.  Do you not want to understand why? Or at least, have some comprehension of what you might become?"

    "Is that what this is all about?"

    "Perhaps."

    "Get out here," I said and raised the gun at him again.

    He shook his head.

    "I am not from Umbrella, boy," he said.

    "I don't care who sent you, get out of my apartment."

    He pushed the chair back and got up.  With his eyes still fixed on me, he drove his fist through the glass of the shadow box where I had encased my father's Marine ceremonial sword.  He tore the sword out from its hinges and held it up to the light, studying it.

    "Take this sword from me and I will leave."

    "If I take it from you, your fucking head will be mounted to that broken glass case above my desk."

    He smiled and thrust the sword forward.  I blocked it with my gun and shot him once.  There was a small reddish hole in his chest where the bullet had gone through but he was very much still alive.  He whipped the sword back and cut my hand.  Startled, the grip on the gun loosened.  It took his another hard slash to knock the gun out of my hand.  I was still stunned by the fact that he had survived a point blank shot with the hollow point that should have torn open his chest.  The sword whistled through the air and I caught it short of it being driven into my chest.  The blood from the cut the sword made from my palm ran down the length of the blade, stopping at the hand guard and dripped in a small pool on my desk.  As he he had been the one who was cut, he shuddered.  A tint of red darkened his pale gray eyes.

    "What the hell are you..." I said.

    He released the sword, letting it clatter onto the desk.  He seized me by my shirt collar and pulled me toward him until he stood between my legs, pinning me against the desk. .  His fingers with talon-like nails ripped along the button row, cutting a line on my chest down to my belly.  I pushed against him but he barely moved.  

    "It's your fault, you know..." he said into my ear - the soft air of his breath sent shudders through me.  "If you hadn't cut yourself on the sword... and I wouldn't have smelled your blood..."

    He pulled down my shirt down to the elbows.  I felt his mouth on the side of my neck, moving toward my shoulder.

    "I am sure master will forgive my sampling just a little bit of you...."

    A hot pain speared through me as he bit down on my shoulder.  His tongue moved against the wound - his teeth clamped on to the mouthful of flesh that I could not tear away from.  Vaguely I felt his hand move down to the small of my back as he pressed himself harder against me.  He rubbed his erection against my thigh, mimicking sex.  The pain was sharp, when he pulled back and let out a long sigh.

    "Maybe... a little more..."

    He pressed his mouth over mine and I tasted the coppery sweetness of my own blood.  I turned away.  He laughed and kissed me on my cheek and left a small smear of blood there.

    "Master would be furious if I fucked you," he said.  "Maybe next time, after he's done with you...."

    He bit down on my other shoulder.  This time, I felt the entire length of the fangs drill through my skin and down deep into the core of my soul.

    He pulled down the zipper of my denim, pushing aside the fabric.  I winced when he slammed his erection into my opened zipper - grinding against my soft cock.  He rubbed against me, harder and rougher as he bit down deeper.  My head was spinning from the rapid blood loss.  He was pushing into me so hard that it hurt.  Then an abrupt stop until I feel his warm cum wetting me.  He pulled away and let me drop on my desk.  

    "I'm sorry that I came so quick," he said as he tucked himself back in.  "I'm a little excitable when I play with new toys."    

    He bent over and kissed me on my mouth.  I couldn't even work up enough strength to curse at him.

    "I must say," he said and took a drink from the tumbler that had been pushed precariously close to the edge of the desk.  "You do feel and taste a lot better than those female bitches."

   He cupped me by chin and pressed on the hinge of my jaw with his thumb until my mouth opened.

   "I'll come and see you soon, even if you don't answer the invitation," he said and poured the remains of the whiskey into my mouth - letting it flow out from the sides.

   "My name is simply Alexander in the human world," he said softly and placed the emptied glass on the table next to me.  "A strong Russian name."

   He walked toward the chair by the door and picked up his coat and draped it over his arm.

   "But in my... no, our world," he said.  "I go by numbers."

   He nodded and walked out of the door, leaving me alone with my mouth flooded with whiskey that I couldn't swallow.

 

    I woke on my couch with a blanket spread over me.  For a moment I was confused.  I had little memory of how I had ended up there.  The taste of whiskey in my mouth suddenly reminded me of the visit by the vampiric creature.

    "Shit -- " I said and pressed my hand over my eyes.

    "Didn't think you'd come around this soon..."

    I glanced over to the speaker and found Peterson looking at me from the doorway.  Suddenly, I found myself angry and embarrassed that he had found me in the state I was in.  The dismay must have shown on my face because he frowned, crossing his arms across his chest as he walked to me. 

    "Jesus Christ," he said.  "Are you actually pissed that I came in --"

    "Shut up," I said and rolled to the side and faced away from him.

    "I did a U-turn and came back...I had a weird feeling..."

    "Just forget it," I said. 

    "Sure," he said. I heard him pull up a chair and sat down.  For awhile, he said nothing.

    I sat up - my shredded shirt was gone but at least my pants had been buttoned and zipped up.  My right hand was wrapped in layers of gauze.  

    "What attacked you?" 

    "Don't know," I said and cast the blanket to the side.  My body burned a little as I stood up - not ready to be moved yet.  

    "What could have -- "

    "Don't know," I said, cutting him off.  "And if you still need me to assist you in your case, go home."

    "What if that -- "

    "Go home," I said again, walking slowly toward the bathroom.  "I don't need this now."

    I walked past my desk - the blood and the sword were still on it.  I picked up the black envelope that Alexander had left behind.  As I opened the envelope, I heard Peterson leave - his shoes clacking loudly across the wood-finish floor toward the front door.  

    "I'll pick you up at 10 on Tuesday.  I'll leave you be for today," he said and closed the door behind him.

    There was a red card inside the black envelope.  On it was an address in the Lower Manhattan with tomorrow's date at 7 PM.  He shoved the card back in and tossed it back on the desk top.  He had no intention of going.

End Part 2