Lab C: Chapter 26 - A weird body
“Alright John, go ahead.” Sabine Ambower tells John Grimsen.
He clicks play on the recorder.
*Recorder starts*
“NO! No I Want everyone to hear how much of a bitch you are.”
*something crashses*
“Look! I never touched you and you’re throwing a fucking chair, this is the kind of thing-”
*Recorder transitions to a new sequence*
“No, why aren’t you listening to me. I wasn’t the one who was throwing things. I have evidence. Look dude, I’m a detective. I have a sense of control-, wait shit. I pressed the wrong-
*Recorder transitions to a new sequence*
“Alright, I am walking into the scene at 748 Tonal Tides Avenue. It’s decrepit, to say the least. Clear signs of activity. Looks like, someone drug something through here in last few weeks, and then a second set of people came in more recently. The layers of dust tell us a story.”
“Shut the fuck up Greg, no one’s going to listen to your tapes.”
“Hey man, I see messed up stuff. I see stuff people would want to see, from an outside, obscured position.”
“Then do it by the book and let the situation dictate why it ends up there. Not your cheeky ass… Oh. Woah. That’s new.”
“Subject is knelt in a holy posture*shove* I, sorry dude, I’m hunting for words. Ok. Subject is as described in the initial report. It is kneeling, still up right, and the face has received massive blunt force trauma. Finger tips appear to be ripped, probably from sheer grip force… Is sheer grip force too much?”
“I don’t know man.”
“What are you seeing?”
“In front of the subject is a clear circular impression in the dust and dirt of this place.”
“Are we not gonna mention that it’s a kid?”
“It’s not a kid. They’re probably like 17.”
“Report just stated that the subject had a high school ID.”
“Yeah, subject is uh… Look. There’s this ring in front of him. The deceased’s blood is missing only on the outside of the ring. So something was here, and somebody moved it.”
“Looks heavy. Are those scratch marks?”
“Absolutely. Onto a dolly I bet. If we look we’d find…”
“Track marks. Yep, already in the report.”
“Ok. So we need to figure out, what the fuck could have made him do that to himself?”
“We do not know if he did it too himself.”
“Check out those hands, he was gripping INTO something. Pushing away would damage your hands completely differently".”
“Ok, but we don’t even know what was in the room. Have we figured out how many boxes there were yet?”
*papers wrestling."*
“No, so let’s start with that area over ther-
*Recorder transitions to a new sequence*
“Look, to who ever hears this. I don’t want to sound weird but, I need to say it out loud or I’m going to go crazy. Jeff has been replaced. I can’t prove it. I just… This isn’t the same person.”
*Recorder stops*
John looks at Sabine, he raises an eyebrow. Sabine smirks and nods. John rolls his eyes. “It’s so fucked up.”
“No one ever notices though. And this guy picked up on it, immediately. Within minutes.”
“Fucking… I don’t even know if I noticed.” John starts to start the recorder again, but Sabine makes a cute little “oh”, so soft she didn’t think she had made a real noise. John looks back to her.
“Well, you don’t think you wouldn’t notice right?”
“I don’t know Dr. Ambower. I’d like to think I’d know with certain people.”
They share a smile, then she shrugs. He thinks about it for a bit, turns back to her. “I’d notice if you changed.”
“Yeah, same to you.”
*Recorder starts back up
“He’s not asking the right questions. And I swear he checked out Marlene. I know he knows about our situation but, that’s just not how he interacts with her. It’s… I’ll figure that out later.”
*Transitions to another recording*
“Alright, so our guy-” The familiar voice starts up.
“-Or girl.” The less familiar voice cuts off.
*A beat*
“Sure, they-” the familiar voice pauses “-had some heavy stuff in here. They had 26 boxes of stuff. Give or take.”
“But what could they be for.”
*A beat*
“Are you doing alright man?” The familiar voice says.
“Oh, uh, honestly. Not really.” The unfamiliar voice says.
*A beat*
“And you don’t wanna uh… you know. Talk about it?” The familiar voice says.
“Nah. I’m ok man. Just, give me some grace?” The unfamiliar voice says.
“That’s, yeah. Sure. Fine.” The familiar voice says.
It’s quite for a little bit as they walk around. There’s a tiny crunch, then some rustling.
“Old sim card.”
“Nice.”
“It was lost, under a discarded leaf. Like it wasn’t anything. But like most people don’t know, it’s the smallest pieces that can carry the most weight.”
“Oh woah,” the unfamiliar voice reacts. “You’re adding some spice in there.”
*A beat*
“It’s with something like this that a case goes from Wild Goose Chase, to a search down the rabbit hole.”
“Oh, hoh. Nice man. Come on, let’s take that wit back to the station.” The unfamiliar voice reacts.
“Yeah, alright.”
*Recorder transitions to a new sequence*
“Alright, so… maybe he’s a different guy with the same face. I don’t know. If he can turn a new leaf so quickly. Maybe I can too. Maybe' it’s not a different guy. Maybe I just… maybe I just didn’t see what kind of guy he could be. You know? But I guess… I guess I just should pay better attention when he’s doing something I wouldn’t.”
*Recorder transitions to a new sequence*
“Babe… hey. Look, if you just listen back you might hear what I hear.”
“That’s stupid Greg. I don’t want to listen to any of your MURDER TAPES!”
“Marlene, just, please. It’s not my recordings. I just think, if you hear what you sound like. You might understand me better-”
CRASH
“Marlene! Marlene I just want you to hear how you sound. Please.”
Knock knock knock.
“Fuck, and the neighbors. Marlene, please be quiet. I’ll go talk to them.”
*Recorder transitions to a new sequence*
Our familiar voice goes, “Ok. Just putting it out there for posterity, we have now, a second body with the same wounds in a different position. I know it’s in the report, but-”
“-No, it’s fine. Add the spice man. It’s ok if you wanna mix it up. This ones getting to me too. If it helps you out,” The unfamiliar voice says, ending open endedly.
“Alright. So, the sim card was actual garbage. We didn’t learn anything. However, we are now hunting for some whose carrying a lot of boxes, and look at those marks. Here, there were boxes. So we are where our mystery situation has occurred again, and at the very least we know, we just gotta watch for places that a person could drag 26 large boxes into with out being noticed, because man… this person is smart.”
“Didn’t the sim card like, fry the guys-”
“-Torched it!”
“Yeah! Torched it. I didn’t know you could put something on a sim card that could damage another persons computer like that but-”
“-this guy can!”
“Hah! Right, this guy can.”
“Wow Jeff, you’re really something lately man.”
“Thanks, but, come on, let’s make sure we get to it. Need something for your recorder there.”
*A beat*
“Uh, yeah, sorry, I was just kinda, lost for words. Uhm…. Ok. So this subject, the deceased, blunt force trauma to their face. It’s like ground beef, the virscera just takes you somewhere if you just stare into it long enough-”
“Yeah! YEAH! That’s… that viscera alright. Come on man.”
A slight snicker, “You’re right. This lady is splayed out on the floor, marks on the floor indicate she was running, falling, getting back up, and running back into the thing.”
“The circular thing.”
“Yep. Same indents. Same size. Same thing. Initial report indicates that nothing besides the body was found. Then again, last time, they missed the sim card.”
“Unless the sim card was added between when we arrived and when the last team left.”
“Ah. Ok. So maybe we are dealing with a guy who kind of wants to be found, so he came back, but is justifying it as a way to “shake us off” with the sim card.”
“I still think there may have been something else in play. How can you… never mind, computer’s are essentially magic to me.”
“That’s the spirit. Let some other people be experts on other stuff so you can focus on what you care about.”
“Hey is that… an imprint of paper onto wet wood?”
“That is absolutely the imprint of paper onto wet wood.”
*Recorder stops*
John sighs, “Hey Dr. Ambower. I’m getting the picture. Do you really want to go back over all of this? I can do it as homework if you just want to show me what the hell was in the big circular tube. I’m sure the rest is fascinating.”
Sabine pauses, “To be honest, I just really don’t want to have to go look at it again.”
