012 - "Let's run away."

It was early in the morning when my life changed. Maybe late at night, depending on what kind of person you are. As a detective, all times are both early and late. You get a call, you go to work. They tell you that nobody has touched the crime scene. They said that they had waited until I arrived. As soon as I stepped into the abandoned hotel room, I knew why.

For most people, the first thing that they would notice would have been the blood. It was spattered about the room as if a platter of red paint had been strewn across the room. Some of it had caked the walls for long enough that it had begun to dry, falling away with the scratch of a fingernail as if a ketchup stain on an old shirt. It smelled of iron and made your teeth feel suddenly heavy.

They might have noticed the bodies first. There were three of them. Two of them looked to have been bled dry, dark, thick pools of blood surrounding their bodies like a moat. The third was set up like a pawn in a chess match. It was a male, with a joker-esque smile carved into his face. His hair and clothes were similar to mine. He was tied to a chair, both of his bruised and battered hands placed out on the table in front of him. The corpse was holding a map spread out. Various marks were on the map from previous crimes. There was a dark red X exactly where the hotel was.

But as a detective, I had already seen too many scenes like this. I had already seen too many exactly like this one. It was my case. It was my serial killer. No, the first thing I noticed was the map, and the message that had been left for me. Over the location of my home were three rows of scrabble letters. They had been arranged to form three distinct words. "Let's run away." It was not the first message that had been left for me, but it was the worst. I knew what it meant.

I remember my stomach churning. I remember my senses suddenly being assaulted with the stench of blood, of the sudden sight of mutilated corpses all around me. It was as if I had awoken from a nightmare to find myself in another horrifying dream. My feet sloshed through puddles of dark, sticky blood as I backed away. I was overcome with the morbid scene, and I closed my eyes, trying to push it all away.

Let's run away. Let's run away. The words ran through my nauseated mind and I ran. I don't know where I ran, just that I fled the crime scene faster than a predator hunting it's prey. I was in my car and on the road before I realized what I was doing. I was home before I had a plan. I was vomiting before I even made it up the sidewalk to my door. I was on my knees, in a pool of my wife's blood, before I heard it out-loud: "Let's run away."


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Could have been better, but it'll do. For more, and the source image, click here. Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!