Ebb and Flow

I hate to fly, but I love the airport. It is a microcosm of humanity. Here I feel the gentle ebb and flow of human nature in its most basic form. Crowds of people scurry back and forth; some wearing the native dress of their homelands; others wearing business suits or holiday finery.
Every season is represented in the arrivals lounge. Depending on their state of dress, I cannot help but wonder where they have come from. The Tropics or Alaska?
What attracts me most is the cathedral like silence. Despite the crowds milling about, there is an air of solitude amongst the travelers standing in neat lines, like parishioners in pews contemplating the sermon according to their own outlook on life.
Travelers speak in hushed voices, the many languages melting into a gentle hymn. Occasionally a cry of joy rings out, a sob echoes. Thoughts here are simple and uncomplicated. The frequent announcements over the PA system seem like an unholy intrusion in this tiny world.
That too was part of the greater scheme of the ebb and flow. It is my job to hunt out the intrusions and keep the tides flowing unmolested.
‘James Sanderson?’
Clutching my holdall tightly to my chest, I look up at the tall, broad shouldered man walking briskly towards me.
‘Yes?’
The man has a hard, mean look in his eyes. Already uncomfortable with the disparaging once over he gives me, I feel extremely intimidated by the harsh thoughts radiating from him.
Flipping open his badge, he gives me a taut smile that looks more like a sneer to me, “Detective Greg Holds of Melbourne Branch. I’m here to escort you to the crime scene.’
That’s what he says aloud. What I hear more clearly is, “Scrawny little faggot. What do we need this nerd for?”
Feeling disorientated, I want to scream at him that I don’t want to be here. Instead, I rise and nod. Holds towers over me and I know he enjoys the feeling of fear his physical presence creates.
‘I was waiting at the gate for you,’ Holds says as I look up at him, suspicion turning his mouth into a thin slash across his angular features, ‘Didn’t see you get off.’
‘No,’ I answer carefully, ‘I took an earlier flight. Needed some extra time to go over my notes.’
My answer sounds weak and silly to my own ears but Holds seems to accept it after a moment. He leads me to his government-issue vehicle. The drive is silent. Silent for Holds at least. I pick up many snippets of information about the case from the angry thoughts he is practically shouting. By the time we pull up outside of the fortress like house in the outer suburbs, I know how baffled the Feds are. No sign of forced entry. No forensics. No witnesses. Though he hates to admit it, deep inside Holds had acknowledged that my particular brand of expertise is needed, even if he can’t understand it.
Feeling more relaxed I immediately set to work.

The ability to get inside a serial killer’s head is partly from training, but mostly from a natural gift. If you could call it a gift.
I have heard, felt and seen the most horrific things imaginable as if I’d been in the room myself. My mind is often so overwhelmed with revulsion and fear that it takes a handful of sleeping tablets just to get me through the night.
My gift led me to the attention of a crack team within the Federal Police who specialize in hunting down and capturing violent criminals all over the country. My reputation has spread throughout the force and I am often called upon by other departments. Called upon? No. My presence is “required” and my boss makes me go.
I hate my boss for making me continue to search these evil beings out. I’d wanted to quit years ago, but she would not accept my resignation. I am not part of her team. This I know to the core of my being. I am their slave.
“You’re saving lives, Jimmy,” she’d said sternly the last time I begged her to give me my freedom, “You’ve been given this gift for a reason. You have a duty to use them for the good of the community.”
Never has she stopped to consider my sanity. How could she possibly know what it is like to look through a killers eyes; to feel your soul tainted by evil? There are times I have almost believed that I was the killer, torturing people repeatedly in my mind. I know it’s not really me, but it becomes hard to see where the line in the sand is drawn when she keeps forcing me to cross it.
As I stand in the large kitchen contemplating how much I hate Chief Inspector Gloria Danes, the woman herself enters the house and moves towards me. Ridiculously high stilettos click across the Italian tiles. The noise seems so inappropriately alive to me in this den of blood and pain.
‘First impressions?’ she demands without preamble, one long-fingered hand reaching up to smooth her perfectly styled hair, the golden strands pulled back in an elegant knot.
I can’t help but cringe at her apparent nonchalance. No one should ever get so comfortable with violent death, no matter who the victim is. It’s unnatural.
Turning slowly on my heels, I close my eyes and let the images, voices and thoughts still lingering in the air enter me. I channel out the unnecessary ones and focus on the pain. Opening my eyes, I take in the blood soaked room once more. Spatter covers the walls, floor, countertops and even the ceiling. Reluctantly I bring to the forefront of my mind the mutilated body this room had been painted with.
‘There is great rage associated with the kill,’ I finally answer, ‘and a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when it’s over.’
‘Is it our guy?’
I nod.
Danes taps her teeth with a red tipped nail, ‘Then the victim?’
The multitude of images trapped in this house are still battering at my senses, ‘He was the one the media called the Fitzroy Fiend.’
‘Damn it!’ Danes stamps her foot on the tiles, ‘How does he find these bastards before we do?’
Three serial killers had been found murdered in the last three months. Each had been killed by their own Modus Operandi.
To Danes, I shrug. She glares contemptuously at me.
‘Surely you can get a sense of who this guy is?’ she barks.
‘His mind is confused and disorientated,’ I say, keeping my voice as calm as possible, ‘He is not a natural born killer. These are crimes of passion…or desperation.’
‘Well what the hell am I paying you for?’ Danes’ temper is legendary, ‘the bloody profiler could have given me the same damn answer!’
‘You wanted me here for an opinion and I came.’
‘Took you long enough too,’ she snorts as the anger drains from her, ‘Why can’t you stay in one place? Damned embarrassing to have someone on the payroll that has “no fixed address”.’
I don’t answer. How can she possibly understand the need to run from the voices; to hide – at least for a little while – from the obstructions in the ebb and flow?
‘Sure you can’t offer me any insights?’
‘I can only tell you that you’ll find the Fitzroy Fiend’s souvenir collection in a hidden room behind his bedroom closet. At least that case will be solved and he won’t have a chance to harm anyone else. As for his killer?’ I shrug again, ‘I just can’t get a reading on the guy.’

Danes lets me leave after waxing lyrical about my uselessness on this case a little longer. Now I am sitting back in the airport, my holdall clutched to my chest. I don’t know yet where I am going and am content to just sit here with my eyes closed and enjoy the gentle ebb and flow of normal thoughts from normal feelings.
My eyes snap open as an obstruction interrupts the flow. I see a man walking to the ticket desk with a smug smile flitting across his flaccid features. He is remembering the pleasurable sensation of tying a scarf around a woman’s throat, tightening it slowly as she struggled and kicked until her eyes grew blank.
Her face now haunts me. Her silent screams and his evil chuckles reverberate in my ears. Rising, I follow the portly man. He does not look like a monster – they never do – but I know him for what he truly is. I note his flight number and book myself onto the same flight.
I am tired of the voices. I crave the simplicity of the ebb and flow. I will stamp them all out, one at a time. Three down and God knows how many to go.

© Alison Pearce 2009

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alifiction, challenges, crime, ssgift, twist and twistedtournoi01