Crossing the Midnight Line

Originally entitled 'Dark World' and might go back to that title at some point because it is possibly more apt and definitely less pretentious. This story revolves around Claire Twining, a forensic photographer in New York, and a mysterious blond man called Soren. Claire has been involved in the case of a violent serial killer operating in the Manhattan area, whilst the cryptic Soren claims to be searching for a 'dead man' hiding somewhere in the city. Watch for the brief cameo of Det. Lucifer Hill, because if I'm going to do a noir story in New York I have to let one of my favorite characters make an appearance. Also, this is a first draft so don't get too wound up about inconsistencies or repetition.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Prologue

Sterile taupe walls, stainless steel tables and a green polyester curtain, such a depressing way to leave the world, listening to a heart monitor beep as if counting down the final moments of his tragically shortened life.

Beep. Another moment of lying in bed.

Beep. Another moment of the nurse holding his hand.

Beep. Another moment of a tear running down his cheek.

Beep. Another moment of a song he'll never sing.

Beep. Another moment of a woman he'll never love.

Beep. Another moment of his heart aching.

Beep. Another moment of his life counting down.

Beep. Another moment of fear about the unknown.

Beep. Another moment of the void drawing breath.

Beep. Another moment of the cancer eating away at his body.

Another moment, each more fleeting than the last, and somewhere in his mind the thought barely registered that the monitor didn't beep.

He lay on the bed fighting the terror, he tried to squeeze the hand of the nurse as she held him, he just wanted something to hold onto in the world, an anchor to keep him here and away from the terror beyond the veil, he wanted a rock to hold fast against the inevitable. He could feel his soul separate from his body and tears in his eyes, he could feel the weight of the world literally falling away as the edges of reality fell to shadow and misty darkness.

A new light was born before him, a splendid and glorious light as the world behind became weaker and more insignificant until at last the black curtain of his eyelids came down for the final time and the walls of the universe crumbled to ash.

The heart monitor hummed a long, sorrowful note as the final release of breath sighed from the lungs of Aaron Young, thirty years old, his hand now limp in the hold of the hospice nurse who had stayed by his side this day.

She laid his hand gently across his chest, rubbing the tips of her fingers against his as she did so, the sensation as though allowing him to play one final chord of the music of life. She would like to have heard the young musician play his guitar in person, she had his album and he was a man of such heartbreaking talent, his words filled with such honesty, the deep sincerity of someone who knew he was already dead, the pancreatic cancer in his body just catching up with the fact.

Had life been fair and just there might have been no bounds to his fame, instead he was destined to pour his heart and soul into one beautiful, tragic album.

She rubbed the hair back from his forehead, then reached out to silence the sonorous buzz of the heart monitor.

Before she could do anything Aaron opened his eyes and sat up ramrod straight, he looked around the room, confused, he stared at the nurse who stood in shock. He felt his chest then stared at his hands gaunt from the disease that had wasted him away, he looked at the machine beside him making that relentless, unceasing buzz and the leads running from it to his chest.

Grasping the leads he yanked hard and they pulled free, the buzz changed to a repetitive beep and a message flashed 'lead out'.

Swinging his then legs over the edge of the bed he stumbled to his feet as though getting used to gravity again, he staggered to the curtain, looked back once at the nurse still standing in stunned silence, and then he walked away.

Chapter 1

THE WORST DAY SINCE YESTERDAY

The moon was high in the sky over an old and abandoned farmhouse, it's old timbers partially collapsed and windows long ago smashed by children from neighboring farmsteads, what remained now only a decayed sentinel of a once happy home. Weeds had long ago reclaimed the pathways and the building itself home now only to a few feral animals and a couple of spiders.

Across what had once been a yard stood an equally dilapidated barn with cracked rust-red paint looking crisp in the silver ethereal glow of the moon, all was still this night save a lone cricket singing it's nocturne and a light breeze causing the slightest whimper of a creak from the broken door of the house.

In a field of grass swaying gently under that crystal sky was a pole that had once held an ancient scarecrow, the lone guardian of the empty field with clothes long frayed and straw stuffing bursting through seams in sackcloth baked dry with the sun and age.

On a small hillock in the distance a figure silhouetted in the moonlight strode toward town.

***

There was a blinding flash as the first snap was taken, the inside of the hollow ribcage illuminated as the body lay splayed open on the edge of a bathtub. The victim, a young black man, had been sliced from the neck to the groin and with the skin rolled back the internal organs had been removed. Heart, lungs, liver, stomach, intestines, pancreas, spleen, and kidneys, none were to e found anywhere at the crime scene.

Claire raised the DSLR camera and snapped another shot, this one of a bloody hand print on the yellowed tiles of the bathroom wall, most likely from the victim trying to push himself away from the tub. From the blood splatters on the floor he had probably been tabbed five or six times already.

The smell was horrible, disturbing for it's familiarity, like freshly cut meat in a butcher's shop awaiting the frying pan. The killer was a suspected cannibal, where these the thoughts that passed through his deviated mind, that all flesh is the same, that humans were just some form of self-domesticating livestock?

She took a deep breath and tried to remain detached as she adjusted the zoom of the lens and captured a shot of what looked to be part of a scalpel blade that had broken off in the third rib near the sternum. The metal gleamed sickening and alien against the red flesh between the pale ribs, she fought against retching as she snapped it again from another angle.

"You got something, Dr Twining?"

It was the homicide detective, Hill, standing at the entrance to the bathroom as she worked and surrounded by his usual haze of cigarette smoke. He was a good man, good cop, knew when to stay out of the way, though desperately unlucky, this was his second serial killer case, and this one just as gruesome as the last.

"Scalpel blade, third rib. Scratches going both directions. Looks like the point of entry."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, I need some air because I'm going to be sick."

She stepped back from the corpse and turned to the blond detective, he nodded silently as she walked by then he stepped into the room.

Claire stooped at her case to load away her equipment, trying not to look back at the scene in the room behind her. Down the hall she could hear Hill's partner Burke question the landlord of the apartment, asking the usual questions about the victim's character, known associates, known enemies et cetera, et cetera.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath she slipped off her latex gloves, threw them in the case and then clicked it shut. Brushing back her raven hair she stood and gave one glance back at the body lying prostrate and hollow across the bathtub then walked to the front door, the soles of her shoes clicking on the laminate flooring.

A uniformed patrolman stood just outside the apartment door talking to the captain of the precinct, Claire gave him the curtest nod then continued on her way down the dim corridor that smelled of ash and stale liquor. The stairs creaked and protested despite her slight frame, the building was old, decrepit, should have been torn down ten years ago but would probably see another thirty.

A cockroach watched impassively as she trod by, the creature observing with indifference the comings and goings of the large faceless ones preoccupied with affairs that made no sense to it. When it was by itself once more, the large one having descended into the deep, it scuttled off along the sticky carpet past some rat droppings and into a dark crack in the woodwork.

A drunk sat in the front porch of the apartment building, seeking shelter from the rain and a place to sip from the bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag that he gripped as though a lifeline. He stank of piss and huddled in his dirty brown coat against the cold gray plaster of the wall, rain blew in around his feet and drops sat on the drained skin of his face.

Claire barely paid him any heed, the city desensitized you to such sights, over time you saw so much neglect and suffering that it simply ceased to register. This was part of life in the big city- some people had none.

Others though had it taken from them. She felt the weight of her case in her hand, it brought some measure of comfort, the weight was reassuring, strong in it's way.

It was late evening and the rainy sky was turning to darkness under a neon glare, the fall of yet another day as changeless as those that came before. Today again Claire was shown the darkness in the heart of humanity, with each day the world was able to reveal that despite her best intentions it was still a dismal place.

She steps through impatient and listless traffic, heading not for home but to a seedy bar, one with sticky floors, a jukebox turned up just slightly too loud, and piss-poor watered-down whiskey.

This is what it takes she tells herself, this is what it takes to do her job, to get over death in the city you have to remind yourself that life here is shit anyway.

Some dickhead will probably try to hit on her, offers of drink or food, some fake and insipid lines that he probably read in some men's magazine that he thinks come across as charming. She'll casually reveal her gun in it's holster, take another shot of whiskey then maybe go throw in a bathroom stall before heading home and ordering Chinese takeout.

She would try to forget today, to forget the body and the mindlessness of it all. She would try to forget and she would fail. Then maybe she would drink from the bottle of Jack Daniels in her cupboards and pass out on the couch to some 90s sitcom.

Pausing under a sign offering live XXX sex she figured passing out on the couch would be nice.

***

On a gray and overcast afternoon the small country town was busy with the comings and goings of daily life, over the hills to the west the black clouds of a storm brewing loomed heavy and oppressive. To the east the sky was dark with heavy rain already hitting far away New York City, but this was the calm little center like refugees trapped between opposing armies.

A man in ragged clothes strode with an almost carefree aloofness down the main street, not noticing or not caring about the looks of disdain from passers-by. No one wanted to say anything to an obvious down and out but they would have preferred he not walk the streets and shatter their illusion of the perfect community.

Soren, his name, smiled to himself as if reading their minds by the looks on their faces, a storm was coming, the economy was in no great shape, a war loomed in a faraway land, and what preoccupied these people most was a vagrant upsetting the decorum of the town.

Sometimes people were truly fascinating, how they manage to compartmentalize the world around them so that the bigger picture as it's called is no longer so threatening, its just something that happens to other people.

He decided maybe he should do something about his attire, people have little tolerance for that which makes them uncomfortable and it served his purpose to move unnoticed.

Beside him was a sports store but he quickly dismissed that idea, the thought of wearing a tracksuit anywhere outside of a gymnasium was about as classy as wearing a hakenkreuz to a synagogue.

He felt the shadows start to lengthen, the evening was drawing in and soon he'd have to be under way to the city, he had too much to do to waste time seeking something fashionable and inconspicuous.

A shop that looked the sort to sell menswear exclusively to grandparents was next door to the sporting goods store, a gray and blue faded sign declaring it a 'gentleman tailors' and the suits on the mannequins declaring it to be the pinnacle of 1950s fashion. It would do the job he needed.

Inside the store was musty and dimly lit, a silver haired man stood by a mahogany counter and cast a snide look at the straw haired transient who had just entered his store.

"Can I help you... sir?"

This was a man who could only have been more condescending if he had a stiff upper lip and a strong desire to get this business with the natives over and done with in time for afternoon tea.

"I need a suit," Soren said, glancing idly over the stock, "preferably something from the last decade."

"And what is sir's price range? I'm afraid I don't carry much in the line of... remaindered goods."

"It all looks remaindered to me," he replied, at the same time holding up a billfold of more hundred dollar bills than the clerk had ever seen in one place before.

Half an hour later a different man stepped onto the street, in a pinstripe suit, white shirt and purple tie he pushed back a lock of blond hair and stepped into the dark of an alley next to the tailors, and promptly vanished into the shadows.