FAKE Fic: Them Bones - Part 2/2
Title: Them Bones - Part 2/2
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo, Drake
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2886
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Whatever is happening down in the cellar, looks like it's up to Dee to do something about it. The question is, what?
Written For: spook_me 2021, using FAKE, Skeleton, and this pic.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Set after the manga.
Previous Part
No. Dee shook his head slightly, rubbed his eyes with the back of the hand holding his flashlight. He was imagining it, he had to be. Bones didn’t glow, and anyway, there’d been no glow earlier. After a moment’s hesitation, he fixed his eyes on the skeleton and flicked the flashlight off, just for a few seconds. He had to be sure.
His breath caught in his throat. There was no doubt about it, the bones were definitely glowing, giving off a faint, cold, bluish light. Hastily he snapped the flashlight back on, but even in its yellow beam the glow was still dimly visible. No way that was natural.
Tearing his eyes away from the skeleton, Dee checked his watch; a little past twelve-thirty, which meant he and Ryo had been sitting here for nearly an hour. He didn’t want to disturb his partner, Ryo looked so peaceful, but feeling a little guilty, he nudged him awake.
“Ryo? Hey, Ryo!” He wasn’t sure why he was whispering.
Dark eyes snapped open, and Ryo sat up straight. “What is it?” he breathed, immediately alert, his hand reaching reflexively for his gun in its shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
“Are bones supposed to glow?”
Dropping his hand from his gun, Ryo shifted to glare at his partner. “You woke me up to ask a dumb question?”
“It’s not dumb; I’m serious! The damned skeleton’s glowin’!”
“You’re imagining it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but take a look at it yourself and then tell me it’s not glowin’.”
“Dee…” Ryo started, but Dee didn’t give him a chance to finish whatever it was he intended to say.
“Just look,” and he turned off his flashlight.
The glow was brighter than it had been a few minutes earlier, pale and sickly, but undeniable, even to a confirmed sceptic like Ryo Maclean. There was a long moment of silence, and then…
“Okay, you’re right; the skeleton’s glowing. It’s probably got some kind of bioluminescent algae or fungus growing on it. Either that or it really is nothing more than a hoax, an old skeleton from a medical school, daubed with fluorescent paint and planted here, in which case we’ve been had.”
By the time Ryo finished speaking, Dee had already turned his flashlight on again. The yellow beam stabbed out across the darkness of the cellar, comfortingly clean and bright, before wavering, flickering, and going out, plunging the cellar into darkness again except for that eerie glow.
“Dammit!” Dee cursed.
Beside him, Ryo snorted, amused. “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave the batteries in when you’re not using it? They last a lot longer that way.” He fumbled his own flashlight from his jacket pocket and switched it on. Nothing happened. “What the hell?”
“About that,” Dee said, his voice tight. “I put in fresh batteries before we left the precinct. There’s no way they could’a run outta juice already.” He was staring at the skeleton, transfixed, watching as the glow grew steadily brighter and a strange haziness gradually formed around the skull, flickering with movement. It was like mist stirred by an errant breeze, except that the air in the cellar was completely still.
“What is that?” Before Dee could stop him, Ryo pushed himself to his feet and started towards the skeleton.
“Ryo! Don’t!”
“Relax, Dee; I just want to see what’s making it glow like that.”
Cursing under his breath Dee scrambled after his lover, not wanting to get any closer to the eerie skeleton than he already was, and yet unwilling to let his dumbass of a partner go wandering into potential danger by himself. Someone had to look out for him.
Ryo stopped about three feet from the skeleton as Dee came up alongside him. “Strange. It’s almost as if there’s something moving inside the skull,” he murmured, leaning forward for a better look.
“That’s ‘cause there is.” Grabbing Ryo by the arm, Dee pulled him back as the glow intensified and the misty haze thickened, spreading outwards, writhing shapes forming within it.
A chill ran down Dee’s spine as he saw that the mist was made up of wraiths, their eye sockets as empty as those of the skull, wild hair streaming out behind them, long, bony arms ending in skeletal hands, and mouths stretched wide in soundless screams. They brought to his mind the climax to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Part of his brain was screaming at him to shut his eyes and not look at them, but he found he couldn’t, because if he did, he wouldn’t know where they were, and that would be worse than seeing them.
One of the wraiths shot upwards, then abruptly changed direction and headed straight towards them, clawed fingers reaching, and with a gasp Ryo stepped back, retreating from it. That was when Dee knew for sure he wasn’t the only one seeing the apparitions. Swerving again, it soared eagerly upwards, only to be sucked back down, struggling as if against an invisible force. It wasn’t the only one. No matter how hard they tried, the wraiths seemed unable to break free. The desperation and hopelessness in their faces was terrible to see.
“What are they?” Ryo’s eyes were wide, although he still didn’t appear afraid, mostly just curious.
“What d’ya think they are? Ghosts, spirits, the souls of the dead. Somethin’ like that anyway.”
“But ghosts aren’t real. It has to be a trick of some kind, a projection…”
More wraiths streamed out of the skull, emerging from its eye sockets, mouth, even the nasal cavity, to swirl around the skeleton, growing larger, reaching out, still groping for freedom, and yet always being dragged back. Now Dee fancied he could hear faint voices, right on the edge of hearing, the despairing wails of tormented souls, but that might have been nothing more than his imagination.
Indistinct though the wraiths were, Dee could just about make out the clothes they were wearing. Outdated gowns, military uniforms he thought might date from the Civil War, possibly even earlier, a handful in more modern dress…
Ryo wasn’t looking at the eerie spectacle, he was peering around in the flickering light, no doubt looking for the projector he was sure must be there, somewhere, his mind simply refusing to grasp the truth of what he was seeing. Then he focused back on the skeleton again, pulling free of Dee, taking a couple of steps closer to it and leaning forward, having apparently concluded that the projector must be inside the skull itself. He reached out as if he meant to touch it.
“What’re you…” That was as far as Dee got, because at that moment all the ghostly figures seemed to abandon their attempts at escape, instead turning their full attention on Ryo. A dreadful hunger and anticipation filled some of their faces, while others radiated fear, sorrow, even pity. Deep in the skull’s eye sockets, a reddish glow became apparent, quickly growing brighter, as though it was emanating from the very depths of Hell…
A shape began to form within the light, but unlike the wraiths, this one looked nothing like a human. Its eyes were slitted, the arms oddly jointed, the teeth in a too-wide mouth sharpened to needle points. There was no nose, just two narrow slits above the lipless mouth, and small, pointed horns like daggers thrust from its forehead. It was grinning, gloating, as it emerged, expanding, becoming more solid, raising its hands, hooked claws at the ready. A forked tongue flickered between its teeth, and its bloodred skin was scaled like a serpent’s.
His years of experience as a detective combining with his talent as an artist, Dee took it all in, committing every detail to memory in the space of a few heartbeats.
Ryo seemed to be frozen to the spot, like he was hypnotised, in a trance. The apparition’s yellow eyes locked onto him, the clawed hands reaching out eagerly, but Dee was faster; he grabbed Ryo by the shoulder, wrenching him backwards with one hand while reaching for the crucifix around his neck with the other. Normally he didn’t wear it for work, preferring the St Christopher medallion Mother had given him when he’d left the orphanage for the police academy, but when he’d been getting ready for work a few hours ago he’d plucked the wrong thing from his dresser and hadn’t realised until he’d been almost to his car. He’d already been running late so he hadn’t bothered to go back and change it, something he was glad about now.
“I don’t know who or what you are, but you’re not havin’ him, he’s mine!”
The Latin prayers and invocations he’d grown up with came easily to Dee’s lips. Tugging the chain over his head, he held the crucifix out, keeping it between himself and Ryo, and the apparitions hovering over the skeleton. They drew back and the red one hissed, frustrated, and angry at being thwarted. Shoving Ryo behind him, so hard that his lover tumbled to the floor, Dee stepped forward, scared, but determined that neither he nor Ryo would be joining the host of tortured souls. No one else would if he had any say in the matter.
He'd never been much for soccer, basketball had always been his game, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to kick a ball. Drawing his foot back, he took aim at the skull.
“Dee, stop! What’re you doing? That’s evidence!” From the sound of it, Ryo had come out of his trance, but Dee couldn’t spare a glance back to check on his lover, not with the demonic form in front of him just looking for an opportunity to add another soul or two to its collection.
“Evidence of what, the existence of Hell?” he snapped. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this ends now!” His toe caught the skull at the hinge of the jawbone, and the whole thing flew across the cellar to connect with the brick wall at the far side, immediately shattering into splinters. The demon, or whatever it was, reached out one hand, face twisting in fury, its fingers grasping, even as it dissolved into mist and vanished. A few of the wraiths lost cohesion, melting away along with their master, but the rest…
Their faces changed, from grotesque and cadaverous, to something more natural, human. Men and women, their eyes wide, shining now with hope and wonder, their lips beginning to curve into smiles. They swirled around the cellar, faster and faster, building up momentum, sweeping past Dee and Ryo with a sound that might have been a whispered ‘Thank you!’ in a hundred voices, and then as a silvery glow filled the dark room, shining down from somewhere high overhead, they changed direction and soared upwards, trailing the light like the tail of a comet and taking it with them, plunging the cellar into pitch blackness once more.
Time stretched like elastic, the few seconds that passed feeling like eternity until Dee’s flashlight, lying where he’d dropped it on the floor near the wall, suddenly came on, its yellow glow reassuringly familiar. By its light the two detectives watched as the skeleton, along with the fragments of skull littering the floor beyond it, crumbled into dust. A breeze that smelled of warm summer meadows swept across the floor, collecting the particles together and spinning them into a small tornado, carrying them ever upwards until they appeared to pass right through the ceiling, although surely that had to be an optical illusion.
“The skeleton! What just happened?” Scrambling to his feet, Ryo joined Dee, who hadn’t moved.
“You tell me. You saw the same things I did, right?”
“I… don’t know.” Ryo looked troubled. “Maybe we were hallucinating.”
Dee just looked at his partner. “Yeah, right. You don’t believe that any more than I do. We both saw the damned skeleton. You even touched it!”
“I thought I did, and it felt solid, but if it was real then where did it go?”
“Where did it come from in the first place?” Dee could make an educated guess on that one, but he doubted Ryo was ready to hear it. “Maybe it went back there, or maybe it was taken somewhere else; what does it matter? It didn’t belong here and now it’s gone. Can’t say I’m sorry about that.”
“But those kids reported it, that’s on record! It was evidence of a possible crime, and now it’s vanished on our watch. How are we supposed to explain that?”
Dee shook his head. “Y’know what? I don’t even wanna try.”
“Well you’re not leaving all the paperwork to me!”
“Wasn’t gonna.” Dee shrugged. “Guess we’ll just have to pass it off as a hoax. Good thing we didn’t call the coroner.”
“We should still get a crime scene team in here. Maybe it left traces of some kind behind when it…” Ryo stopped mid-sentence, frowning.
“Disappeared, dissolved, disintegrated?” Dee suggested helpfully. “Waste of time; they won’t find anything.”
“You don’t know that. They might.”
“Face the facts, babe; whatever it was, it’s gone, but go ahead and call ‘em if you wanna, have ‘em, scour every inch of this cellar. They’ll just tell ya what ya already know.”
“I can’t call them. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re stuck in here and I can’t get a signal on my…” Ryo was rudely interrupted by his phone ringing. “What the…”
“You were sayin’?”
Tugging his phone from his pocket, Ryo answered the call. It was Drake.
“Hey, where the hell are you guys? I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.”
Ryo pulled himself together. “Sorry, been having some trouble with my phone, and Dee left his in the car. What’s up?”
“Chief says to drop whatever you guys are doing unless it’s important and get back to the precinct asap. We got a bank robbery in progress, and they’ve taken hostages, might need your sniper skills. JJ’s already on scene, but it’s a big building, lot of windows, and he can’t cover them all.”
“Uh, that could be a problem, we’re sort of locked in a cellar. Don’t laugh!” Ryo snapped as Drake started to snicker.
“Not laughing,” Drake lied. “Coughing.” He fake coughed.
“Liar. I don’t need to see you to know you’re laughing.”
“Okay, busted. Sorry, it’s just… Locked in a cellar? How’d you manage that?”
“It’s windy out. The door slammed shut behind us and now we can’t get it open.”
“You guys have a real talent for getting yourselves trapped places. If it’s not rooftops, it’s cellars.” Drake was enjoying this way too much, which did nothing to improve Ryo’s mood.
“Oh, like you can talk; how many firemen did it take to free you that time?”
That sobered Drake up. “Alright, point taken.” Being reminded of his own mishap was a lot less amusing. “Gimme your location and I’ll have a patrol car come let you out.”
“No need for that,” Dee said, coming back down the cellar steps. “Problem solved. Tell the old badger we’re on our way.” With that, he snatched the phone from Ryo’s hand and ended the call.
“Dee! Are you crazy?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Either that or reality just shifted again.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“See for yourself.” Dee led the way back up the steps, with Ryo right behind him. At the top, the cellar door was still shut, but instead of the rusting metal slab they’d seen earlier, now it was plain wood, crumbling at the edges with decay, and it swung open easily when Dee pushed it, one hinge coming adrift from the frame.
Ryo stared blankly at it. “That’s not possible! It was metal, I’m sure it was!” He checked his sleeve. “I’ve got rust stains from it on my jacket!”
“Same here,” Dee agreed, “but right now it’s wood and I’m not gonna argue about it. Let’s just get outta here before it changes again.”
“But… I don’t understand…”
“Babe, forget it, you’re not gonna make sense of any of this no matter how hard ya try, you’ll just drive yourself nuts. There was a skeleton, now there’s not, the door was metal, and now it’s wood. Call it a hoax, a trick of the light, whatever helps ya sleep at night. We can tell the Chief the skeleton was a fake. Not like anyone would believe us if we told the truth.”
Ryo aimed his flashlight back at the cellar, which was completely empty now, as though nothing had ever been down there in the first place. “And what is the truth?”
“Way I see it, we’re probably better off not knowin’. C’mon, work to do, hostages to save.” Dee slipped his crucifix back around his neck and said a silent prayer of thanks before leading the way out of the building into the cold night air, breathing in deeply to clear his head.
He glanced up at the sky, smiling, as he followed his partner towards their parked car. Whatever had happened in that cellar tonight, maybe they’d somehow been sent there to put an end to it. He had a feeling they’d done good.
The End
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo, Drake
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2886
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Whatever is happening down in the cellar, looks like it's up to Dee to do something about it. The question is, what?
Written For: spook_me 2021, using FAKE, Skeleton, and this pic.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Set after the manga.
Previous Part
No. Dee shook his head slightly, rubbed his eyes with the back of the hand holding his flashlight. He was imagining it, he had to be. Bones didn’t glow, and anyway, there’d been no glow earlier. After a moment’s hesitation, he fixed his eyes on the skeleton and flicked the flashlight off, just for a few seconds. He had to be sure.
His breath caught in his throat. There was no doubt about it, the bones were definitely glowing, giving off a faint, cold, bluish light. Hastily he snapped the flashlight back on, but even in its yellow beam the glow was still dimly visible. No way that was natural.
Tearing his eyes away from the skeleton, Dee checked his watch; a little past twelve-thirty, which meant he and Ryo had been sitting here for nearly an hour. He didn’t want to disturb his partner, Ryo looked so peaceful, but feeling a little guilty, he nudged him awake.
“Ryo? Hey, Ryo!” He wasn’t sure why he was whispering.
Dark eyes snapped open, and Ryo sat up straight. “What is it?” he breathed, immediately alert, his hand reaching reflexively for his gun in its shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
“Are bones supposed to glow?”
Dropping his hand from his gun, Ryo shifted to glare at his partner. “You woke me up to ask a dumb question?”
“It’s not dumb; I’m serious! The damned skeleton’s glowin’!”
“You’re imagining it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but take a look at it yourself and then tell me it’s not glowin’.”
“Dee…” Ryo started, but Dee didn’t give him a chance to finish whatever it was he intended to say.
“Just look,” and he turned off his flashlight.
The glow was brighter than it had been a few minutes earlier, pale and sickly, but undeniable, even to a confirmed sceptic like Ryo Maclean. There was a long moment of silence, and then…
“Okay, you’re right; the skeleton’s glowing. It’s probably got some kind of bioluminescent algae or fungus growing on it. Either that or it really is nothing more than a hoax, an old skeleton from a medical school, daubed with fluorescent paint and planted here, in which case we’ve been had.”
By the time Ryo finished speaking, Dee had already turned his flashlight on again. The yellow beam stabbed out across the darkness of the cellar, comfortingly clean and bright, before wavering, flickering, and going out, plunging the cellar into darkness again except for that eerie glow.
“Dammit!” Dee cursed.
Beside him, Ryo snorted, amused. “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave the batteries in when you’re not using it? They last a lot longer that way.” He fumbled his own flashlight from his jacket pocket and switched it on. Nothing happened. “What the hell?”
“About that,” Dee said, his voice tight. “I put in fresh batteries before we left the precinct. There’s no way they could’a run outta juice already.” He was staring at the skeleton, transfixed, watching as the glow grew steadily brighter and a strange haziness gradually formed around the skull, flickering with movement. It was like mist stirred by an errant breeze, except that the air in the cellar was completely still.
“What is that?” Before Dee could stop him, Ryo pushed himself to his feet and started towards the skeleton.
“Ryo! Don’t!”
“Relax, Dee; I just want to see what’s making it glow like that.”
Cursing under his breath Dee scrambled after his lover, not wanting to get any closer to the eerie skeleton than he already was, and yet unwilling to let his dumbass of a partner go wandering into potential danger by himself. Someone had to look out for him.
Ryo stopped about three feet from the skeleton as Dee came up alongside him. “Strange. It’s almost as if there’s something moving inside the skull,” he murmured, leaning forward for a better look.
“That’s ‘cause there is.” Grabbing Ryo by the arm, Dee pulled him back as the glow intensified and the misty haze thickened, spreading outwards, writhing shapes forming within it.
A chill ran down Dee’s spine as he saw that the mist was made up of wraiths, their eye sockets as empty as those of the skull, wild hair streaming out behind them, long, bony arms ending in skeletal hands, and mouths stretched wide in soundless screams. They brought to his mind the climax to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Part of his brain was screaming at him to shut his eyes and not look at them, but he found he couldn’t, because if he did, he wouldn’t know where they were, and that would be worse than seeing them.
One of the wraiths shot upwards, then abruptly changed direction and headed straight towards them, clawed fingers reaching, and with a gasp Ryo stepped back, retreating from it. That was when Dee knew for sure he wasn’t the only one seeing the apparitions. Swerving again, it soared eagerly upwards, only to be sucked back down, struggling as if against an invisible force. It wasn’t the only one. No matter how hard they tried, the wraiths seemed unable to break free. The desperation and hopelessness in their faces was terrible to see.
“What are they?” Ryo’s eyes were wide, although he still didn’t appear afraid, mostly just curious.
“What d’ya think they are? Ghosts, spirits, the souls of the dead. Somethin’ like that anyway.”
“But ghosts aren’t real. It has to be a trick of some kind, a projection…”
More wraiths streamed out of the skull, emerging from its eye sockets, mouth, even the nasal cavity, to swirl around the skeleton, growing larger, reaching out, still groping for freedom, and yet always being dragged back. Now Dee fancied he could hear faint voices, right on the edge of hearing, the despairing wails of tormented souls, but that might have been nothing more than his imagination.
Indistinct though the wraiths were, Dee could just about make out the clothes they were wearing. Outdated gowns, military uniforms he thought might date from the Civil War, possibly even earlier, a handful in more modern dress…
Ryo wasn’t looking at the eerie spectacle, he was peering around in the flickering light, no doubt looking for the projector he was sure must be there, somewhere, his mind simply refusing to grasp the truth of what he was seeing. Then he focused back on the skeleton again, pulling free of Dee, taking a couple of steps closer to it and leaning forward, having apparently concluded that the projector must be inside the skull itself. He reached out as if he meant to touch it.
“What’re you…” That was as far as Dee got, because at that moment all the ghostly figures seemed to abandon their attempts at escape, instead turning their full attention on Ryo. A dreadful hunger and anticipation filled some of their faces, while others radiated fear, sorrow, even pity. Deep in the skull’s eye sockets, a reddish glow became apparent, quickly growing brighter, as though it was emanating from the very depths of Hell…
A shape began to form within the light, but unlike the wraiths, this one looked nothing like a human. Its eyes were slitted, the arms oddly jointed, the teeth in a too-wide mouth sharpened to needle points. There was no nose, just two narrow slits above the lipless mouth, and small, pointed horns like daggers thrust from its forehead. It was grinning, gloating, as it emerged, expanding, becoming more solid, raising its hands, hooked claws at the ready. A forked tongue flickered between its teeth, and its bloodred skin was scaled like a serpent’s.
His years of experience as a detective combining with his talent as an artist, Dee took it all in, committing every detail to memory in the space of a few heartbeats.
Ryo seemed to be frozen to the spot, like he was hypnotised, in a trance. The apparition’s yellow eyes locked onto him, the clawed hands reaching out eagerly, but Dee was faster; he grabbed Ryo by the shoulder, wrenching him backwards with one hand while reaching for the crucifix around his neck with the other. Normally he didn’t wear it for work, preferring the St Christopher medallion Mother had given him when he’d left the orphanage for the police academy, but when he’d been getting ready for work a few hours ago he’d plucked the wrong thing from his dresser and hadn’t realised until he’d been almost to his car. He’d already been running late so he hadn’t bothered to go back and change it, something he was glad about now.
“I don’t know who or what you are, but you’re not havin’ him, he’s mine!”
The Latin prayers and invocations he’d grown up with came easily to Dee’s lips. Tugging the chain over his head, he held the crucifix out, keeping it between himself and Ryo, and the apparitions hovering over the skeleton. They drew back and the red one hissed, frustrated, and angry at being thwarted. Shoving Ryo behind him, so hard that his lover tumbled to the floor, Dee stepped forward, scared, but determined that neither he nor Ryo would be joining the host of tortured souls. No one else would if he had any say in the matter.
He'd never been much for soccer, basketball had always been his game, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to kick a ball. Drawing his foot back, he took aim at the skull.
“Dee, stop! What’re you doing? That’s evidence!” From the sound of it, Ryo had come out of his trance, but Dee couldn’t spare a glance back to check on his lover, not with the demonic form in front of him just looking for an opportunity to add another soul or two to its collection.
“Evidence of what, the existence of Hell?” he snapped. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this ends now!” His toe caught the skull at the hinge of the jawbone, and the whole thing flew across the cellar to connect with the brick wall at the far side, immediately shattering into splinters. The demon, or whatever it was, reached out one hand, face twisting in fury, its fingers grasping, even as it dissolved into mist and vanished. A few of the wraiths lost cohesion, melting away along with their master, but the rest…
Their faces changed, from grotesque and cadaverous, to something more natural, human. Men and women, their eyes wide, shining now with hope and wonder, their lips beginning to curve into smiles. They swirled around the cellar, faster and faster, building up momentum, sweeping past Dee and Ryo with a sound that might have been a whispered ‘Thank you!’ in a hundred voices, and then as a silvery glow filled the dark room, shining down from somewhere high overhead, they changed direction and soared upwards, trailing the light like the tail of a comet and taking it with them, plunging the cellar into pitch blackness once more.
Time stretched like elastic, the few seconds that passed feeling like eternity until Dee’s flashlight, lying where he’d dropped it on the floor near the wall, suddenly came on, its yellow glow reassuringly familiar. By its light the two detectives watched as the skeleton, along with the fragments of skull littering the floor beyond it, crumbled into dust. A breeze that smelled of warm summer meadows swept across the floor, collecting the particles together and spinning them into a small tornado, carrying them ever upwards until they appeared to pass right through the ceiling, although surely that had to be an optical illusion.
“The skeleton! What just happened?” Scrambling to his feet, Ryo joined Dee, who hadn’t moved.
“You tell me. You saw the same things I did, right?”
“I… don’t know.” Ryo looked troubled. “Maybe we were hallucinating.”
Dee just looked at his partner. “Yeah, right. You don’t believe that any more than I do. We both saw the damned skeleton. You even touched it!”
“I thought I did, and it felt solid, but if it was real then where did it go?”
“Where did it come from in the first place?” Dee could make an educated guess on that one, but he doubted Ryo was ready to hear it. “Maybe it went back there, or maybe it was taken somewhere else; what does it matter? It didn’t belong here and now it’s gone. Can’t say I’m sorry about that.”
“But those kids reported it, that’s on record! It was evidence of a possible crime, and now it’s vanished on our watch. How are we supposed to explain that?”
Dee shook his head. “Y’know what? I don’t even wanna try.”
“Well you’re not leaving all the paperwork to me!”
“Wasn’t gonna.” Dee shrugged. “Guess we’ll just have to pass it off as a hoax. Good thing we didn’t call the coroner.”
“We should still get a crime scene team in here. Maybe it left traces of some kind behind when it…” Ryo stopped mid-sentence, frowning.
“Disappeared, dissolved, disintegrated?” Dee suggested helpfully. “Waste of time; they won’t find anything.”
“You don’t know that. They might.”
“Face the facts, babe; whatever it was, it’s gone, but go ahead and call ‘em if you wanna, have ‘em, scour every inch of this cellar. They’ll just tell ya what ya already know.”
“I can’t call them. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re stuck in here and I can’t get a signal on my…” Ryo was rudely interrupted by his phone ringing. “What the…”
“You were sayin’?”
Tugging his phone from his pocket, Ryo answered the call. It was Drake.
“Hey, where the hell are you guys? I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.”
Ryo pulled himself together. “Sorry, been having some trouble with my phone, and Dee left his in the car. What’s up?”
“Chief says to drop whatever you guys are doing unless it’s important and get back to the precinct asap. We got a bank robbery in progress, and they’ve taken hostages, might need your sniper skills. JJ’s already on scene, but it’s a big building, lot of windows, and he can’t cover them all.”
“Uh, that could be a problem, we’re sort of locked in a cellar. Don’t laugh!” Ryo snapped as Drake started to snicker.
“Not laughing,” Drake lied. “Coughing.” He fake coughed.
“Liar. I don’t need to see you to know you’re laughing.”
“Okay, busted. Sorry, it’s just… Locked in a cellar? How’d you manage that?”
“It’s windy out. The door slammed shut behind us and now we can’t get it open.”
“You guys have a real talent for getting yourselves trapped places. If it’s not rooftops, it’s cellars.” Drake was enjoying this way too much, which did nothing to improve Ryo’s mood.
“Oh, like you can talk; how many firemen did it take to free you that time?”
That sobered Drake up. “Alright, point taken.” Being reminded of his own mishap was a lot less amusing. “Gimme your location and I’ll have a patrol car come let you out.”
“No need for that,” Dee said, coming back down the cellar steps. “Problem solved. Tell the old badger we’re on our way.” With that, he snatched the phone from Ryo’s hand and ended the call.
“Dee! Are you crazy?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Either that or reality just shifted again.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“See for yourself.” Dee led the way back up the steps, with Ryo right behind him. At the top, the cellar door was still shut, but instead of the rusting metal slab they’d seen earlier, now it was plain wood, crumbling at the edges with decay, and it swung open easily when Dee pushed it, one hinge coming adrift from the frame.
Ryo stared blankly at it. “That’s not possible! It was metal, I’m sure it was!” He checked his sleeve. “I’ve got rust stains from it on my jacket!”
“Same here,” Dee agreed, “but right now it’s wood and I’m not gonna argue about it. Let’s just get outta here before it changes again.”
“But… I don’t understand…”
“Babe, forget it, you’re not gonna make sense of any of this no matter how hard ya try, you’ll just drive yourself nuts. There was a skeleton, now there’s not, the door was metal, and now it’s wood. Call it a hoax, a trick of the light, whatever helps ya sleep at night. We can tell the Chief the skeleton was a fake. Not like anyone would believe us if we told the truth.”
Ryo aimed his flashlight back at the cellar, which was completely empty now, as though nothing had ever been down there in the first place. “And what is the truth?”
“Way I see it, we’re probably better off not knowin’. C’mon, work to do, hostages to save.” Dee slipped his crucifix back around his neck and said a silent prayer of thanks before leading the way out of the building into the cold night air, breathing in deeply to clear his head.
He glanced up at the sky, smiling, as he followed his partner towards their parked car. Whatever had happened in that cellar tonight, maybe they’d somehow been sent there to put an end to it. He had a feeling they’d done good.
The End