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neserit — The Parable of the Flea
by-nc-nd
Published: 2010-09-12 19:24:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 859; Favourites: 2; Downloads: 8
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Description
The city was dying.It was subtle, but there all the same.
Here, a man with one leg sat on the dirty concrete asking people for change as they passed by.
There, rats ran through the alleys, feasting on the remains of some once popular restaurant's courses.
All around, new buildings went up, while the old were left to decay.
The worst of it all was that no one seemed to notice it. The streets were full of middle-aged suburbanites in town for the attractions. Once they had their fun, they'd return to their nice, quiet homes and go to work the next day with smug details of how they briefly survived in the city.
Josh frowned to himself. They were all too ignorant to see the city's final death thrones.
He stood at his windows, far above the crowds, and watched it.
He was gifted at times with a photographer's eyes. That gift allowed him to sell a few choice photos to local papers. He didn't need the money, but it felt gratifying just to have a piece of him out for the world to see.
The curse of it came when he could never turn away from the things that he had seen. Like the murders. Murders were very common here. Fights over drugs, over turf, over lovers, all usually ended in someone's death. But these were different. The police weren't delving too deeply into it because the women and a few men were all known prostitutes. Prostitutes tended to be the lowest life form in popular opinion and he was certain that many people took a "one less" approach to one of them dying.
Josh could not bring himself to see it that way. They were as much a part of the city as he was. The whores, the crackheads, the bums. They were all the fleas on a dog's back to so many people.
He turned away from the window and his eyes found the most recent photo. She had been beautiful before she found drugs. The brief mention of her in the paper had included an old photograph of her. Almost like a "before" photo that complimented Josh's "after" photo. She was not very pretty after the drugs had taken the toll on her body. Certainly not after death. Her killers didn't seem to mangle her so badly, he had seen worse, but the ruin of her chest gave away to a horror he would never want to imagine. The bastards had stolen her heart.
Now, he looked at all of the photos. All of them with the same cavity in their chest, telling the same story. All of their hearts were missing.
It was puzzling as to why they kept the hearts. Josh chalked it up to serial killers and their tendency to collect souvenirs. Gein had his bowls and worse made from his victims, Dahmer just kept his victims as souvenirs themselves. Trophy hunting serial killers was nothing new. But...this bothered him for some reason he could not fathom.
The looked away and walked away from them completely, shutting the door on them and their ruined bodies for the day.
The next victim was found in an alley just blocks away from the casino. He got the call while he was working on his fifth cup of coffee for that day. His cell rang and it was Macy as usual. As sick as it could be, she seemed excited that they found another body. As sick as it felt, so was he.
She was just mere blocks from him. Freshly disposed of. Word from Macy was that no one saw anything.
"Just one minute she's not here, then, she is!" Macy said, breathlessly. She had been a part of the police force for years and knew about his passion for this case. Josh was grateful for her friendship for just that reason. She was a sweetheart to him, always all smiles and that short strawberry blonde hair that drove him wild.
But, right now, she was all business. Well, mostly.
"How could someone dump a body here without anyone seeing?" he asked.
"Beats me." she sighed. They stopped at another cop they knew who greeted Josh with a smile.
"Obsessions come to sticky ends, sir." he chuckled, darkly.
Josh frowned up at him, the man stood a good foot taller than he. "That's pretty poetic coming from you, Mayner."
The big cop, Mayner, laughed. "Not all of us cops are stupid, Josh. So, you want more pictures?"
Josh looked past him to the alley. "That's what I'm here for."
Mayner shook his head. "It's not healthy. And you." he pointed at Macy with that smile still on his face, "You could get us into a hell of a lot of trouble for calling him to these things."
"Pull the tampon out, Mayner."
He frowned. "If I say anything back, it's sensitivity camp for me." he groaned. "Go on." He let them through the line. "Just remember not to mess with anything!"
She was like the others. Ligature marks around the arms and wrists, opened chest and missing heart. Nothing new.
He photographed her as she was, making sure to stay out of the way of the forensics team. He was so well known by them that they never once questioned his presence. Occasionally, they'd crack a joke now and then with him, but aside from that, it was business as usual.
He snapped a shot, then paused. Something was there that he hadn't noticed before. Josh lowered his camera. "That's not ordinary rope." he said almost to himself.
One of the forensics techs looked up at him. "No shit."
Another walked over, "Billy, go easy on him. He's not a pro, okay?"
Bill looked ashamed suddenly, "I didn't mean it like that. It's just--"
Josh held up a hand, "I understand. It's this case."
Bill nodded, "The rope isn't exactly rope. It's hemp. Rough, not mass produced either."
Josh let that sink in for a moment. "Handmade hemp rope?"
The other joined in, "Really horror movie type of killer. Never saw anyone so...methodical, so clever. Not here."
"Christ, Steve! You want to give him a fucking medal next?"
Steve shot Bill a look full of disgust. "No. It's just...serial killers aren't this neat and tidy. And dumping a body out in the middle of the day, in one of the busiest parts of the city? He's got balls."
"Maybe it's not just one killer." Josh spoke up.
The others considered him for a moment.
"Could be." Steve answered.
Bill nodded in agreement.
"But. That doesn't explain how he or they could dump her out here without anyone seeing." Josh looked down and realized that he had his camera gripped tightly in his hands.
This was wrong. Why hadn't he seen that before? Handmade hemp rope, missing hearts? This was a horror movie-type serial killer. Unreal, almost something created by writers to entertain and scare. Something that made people believe afterward that this was how all the killers were. But they weren't. They were quick, messy butchers and half didn't seem to be aware of how to cover their tracks. Well, at least not as well as this.
The mystery puzzled him the entire way home. He walked with his camera in hand. He wasn't disturbed by the fact that the body was left so close to home. Murders happened all the time around him, why should he be bothered by one more?
Josh stopped cold just outside of the door to the loft he lived in. Someone knew he was digging. On his doorstep, someone had written in chalk "Give your HEART to the dying city".
He took a picture.
He sat in his living room, nervously looking through his developed pictures. The killer or killers had visited him. There was no doubt about it. The message was too obvious.
"Give your HEART to the dying city" Josh turned it over and over in his mind. What did it mean?
Most importantly, how did they know who he was or where he lived?
He considered calling Macy for help, but something stopped him. Who ever left the message didn't leave it as a threat. It was an invitation.
He woke still on his couch with the tv droning on in front of him. It was dark out now and he had slept the rest of his day away, much to his disappointment.
"Give your HEART to the dying city"
No matter what he did, the words kept coming back to him. In his dream, something dark was chasing him through the alleys. He never once looked back to see what it was, all he had to know was that it was there and he was running from it. That feeling from his dream came back to him suddenly.
His loft wasn't safe and he knew it, but he wasn't going to run to a friend's house. If they knew where he lived, they could find him just as easily and he didn't want his friends to be hurt. What ever he had done to bring this on himself, he had done alone and he meant to keep it that way.
He also couldn't hide in here all night and day. Josh wanted to walk the city streets, HIS city streets. It was the only thing he could to try and not panic. Plus, what could happen to him once he was out in a crowd?
So, lose himself in the crowds was what he did. It was easy to. He moved with the flow of the people, letting them lead him to the casinos and the bars. A man was playing the saxophone on the street, its case open and ready for tips. Josh liked his skill, if not the song he was playing and dropped a five dollar bill into the case. The man smiled around the mouthpiece and nodded at him. Josh gave a smile back and walked away. He made it five feet before he reconsidered and doubled back to drop a ten into the case.
That's when he saw it. A flier attached to the post above his head. "Give your HEART to the dying city". The same message and nothing else.
Josh's smiled curdled. He turned and walked away stiffly from that message. He left his apartment to get away from it, but it was following him.
No matter where he went, it seemed that the signs were already ahead of him. They were still clean and crisp looking. Someone had to put them up recently.
His eyes were so focused on looking for those fliers that he never saw the man he ran into. The man fell to the ground, his handful of fliers scattered around him.
"Oh, Christ! I'm sorry!" He began to extend his hand towards the other man just as he got a good look at the fliers. "Give your HEART to the dying city"
Josh froze and the man picked himself up.
His eyes went to the man. The man looked to be in his late 20's—around the same age as Josh himself. He was ordinary looking, nothing really stood out about him at all.
But...those fliers.
His mouth was so dry that he thought he could barely say the words he did, "What does it mean?"
The man's eyes met his and they weren't the eyes of a stranger. This man knew him somehow. "Just what it means, my man." He gave him a cocky smile.
"The murders..."
"Not what you think, but that's not what it's about right now." The man held out his hand once he had collected all of his fliers. "My name's Phil."
Josh just stared at the hand, This guy was a part of the murders or at least knew something about it. There was no way in hell that he was just going to shake his hand.
Phil slowly lowered his hand. "I'm not the bad guy here. None of us are. We just want the same thing you want."
Josh frowned, "And what's that?"
Phil smiled, "This city to live on. To survive."
"By killing people?"
Phil shook his head. "Maybe you're not listening. I just said that it's not like that at all. No one's being murdered."
Josh frowned. "Really, so what do you call it when they pull their bodies out of the alleys? Sure as hell doesn't look like suicide to me."
Phil looked uncomfortable for a moment. "We're on a public street. It's probably best not to talk about it out in the open. McMally's Pub. One hour. Come if you want to know. If you don't..."
Phil walked away from him, leaving Josh with thousands of questions running through his mind. Thousands of questions that he desperately needed answers to.
He could have just walked away from it. He could have ignored the fliers, the murders, Phil, everything...yet, it gnawed at him. The mystery of it all, the why, was chewing in the dark places of his mind, wanting to be discovered.
So, he found himself at McMally's Pub a half an hour later, nursing a beer and waiting for Phil to arrive.
He glanced around the half-packed pub and wondered why Phil chose this place. How many of the patrons knew the secret? How many of them were in on the murders?
For all he knew, they could all be killers. Every single one of them. He knew he was being paranoid, but at this point, it couldn't be helped. Something was going on. Something very wrong and something very dangerous. He could have left. He could have decided not to show up at all, but here he was and he wanted—needed—to know just what was going on in his city.
On time, Phil walked through the doors of the pub. He was dressed the same, but his hands were devoid of the fliers he carried around earlier. His eyes did a quick sweep of the room until he found Josh. He smiled a warm, friendly smile. One that looked better on an old friend, a complete and utter stranger. Josh had never wanted to kick in someone's teeth so badly before, but he restrained himself as Phil sat across from him.
Before the man said a word, Josh jumped on the chance to ask, "How many of the people here know?"
Phil looked a bit startled. He swallowed and composed himself, "None. You just want to get right down to it, don't you? No warm up. No getting acquainted."
"No." Josh replied, coldly. "I want to know what's going on and why."
Phil folded his arms across his chest. "Well, can I at least get a beer first?"
Josh allowed him that much.
Phil took a sip and smiled to himself. "That's much better. Now--"
"Now, you tell me what's going on."
"The city's dying--"
"I know." Josh interrupted. "You've said that much. It's on all your fliers. Now tell me something I don't know."
Phil gave him a dark look. It changed his jovial-looking face into something grotesque. Almost animal in its raw nature. It made Josh reconsider being such an asshole towards him.
"If you would like to know the truth, then I would ask you to keep your smart-ass comments and opinions to yourself. Deal?"
Josh just nodded. He didn't want to piss this guy off. From the look the man gave him, Josh knew that despite the fact that he was taller than Phil and weighed slightly more than him, there was more to Phil than what he was seeing.
Phil's face didn't return to it formerly jovial visage, but softened a bit when he began speaking again. "Each city is alive in it's own way. They all start small with so much promise. Tiny homestead become pioneer towns, then larger towns, then cities. Before they know it, their tiny little village is now a sprawling metropolis.
"Then, something happens. They forget their city. They forget this love for the city. Some leave and new people come in. These new people have no love for the city. It's just another place to live to them. Buildings crumble, the history gets swept away and people want bigger, better, newer. The heart of the city is forgotten. People destroy it. They tear down everything that it gave them, everything that made it unique. Once that happens, the city goes mad. Murders rise, crime rises. Why? Because the city is furious with us all for forgetting it. The murders you're so upset about are our way of keeping the balance."
Once Josh trusted himself enough to speak, he asked "What balance?"
Phil gave the slightest smile, "Not exactly a balance, per se. We give the city what it needs and the city improves."
Josh shook his head, "That's crazy. You're talking about the city like it's alive. Like it lives and breathes. That's crazy."
Phil looked sad for a moment. "That's where you're wrong. Every city is alive. Every one of them."
"I can't believe that."
Phil shrugged. "Most people don't until they see for themselves. Hell! I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself."
"Then, maybe I should see it for myself." Josh could hardly believe that those words had comes out of him. He did want to know the truth, but me certainly didn't want to be alone somewhere with this nutjob or any of his nutjob friends.
The prospect seemed to delight Phil however. He drank the last of his beer and produced a pen and a scrap of paper from the pockets of his grey jacket. He wrote something down on the paper and gave a tentative look at his watch. "We should have enough time. We're all meeting in two hours. It was earlier than I thought!" He chuckled as if they were meeting for a party, not a delusional cult meeting. He slide the scrap of paper to Josh and put the pen back in his pocket. "That's where you should be in about an hour and a half. I'll be there to escort you the rest of the way."
Phil rose and dropped a twenty on the table. "Drinks are on me." He gave the briefest of a warm smile and was gone.
Josh barely moved. His fingers graced the surface of the paper, gingerly. If he took it, he would know what those people had died for. If he threw it away, he'd stop himself before he got completely involved.
With a grimace, he quickly snatched up the paper and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans.
Josh stood in the shower, letting the hot water wash over him. His mind ran over the upcoming meeting again and again to no result.
A part of him knew that he should just call Macy and let her force deal with it. He'd get his name in the paper and would be credited with helping break the biggest unsolved case in the city. He'd stop a murderous cult and possibly even be celebrated among the citizens. Hell, he might even get a few free beers out of the deal.
He emerged from the shower and made up his mind as he dried off. Clad only in his towel, he crossed his living room to reach for his phone...only to hesitate as he began to dial Macy's direct number.
He couldn't do that. He wasn't a coward and if he called Macy, he would be just that. He had to know and see it with his own eyes. Calling Macy and stopping it now would not satisfy this sick curiosity he had for this case.
Besides, Phil knew him. Phil knew that Josh was determined to find out what was going on. He was suddenly convinced that Phil had been watching him this whole time and that their coincidental meeting on the street wasn't that much of an coincidence to begin with.
Paranoia crept in on him suddenly. If Phil had been watching him, then Phil would know if he called Macy. Josh would be found out, the cult wouldn't meet and Josh would look like an idiot or worse for leading the police on a wild goose chase.
No, he had to go. There was no way around it. He was too close now to just run and let someone else handle it. He set his phone back down and walked away to dress for the night.
The paper gave him simple directions to McMillan Park. They were easy enough to follow for someone who wasn't a stranger to the city. McMillan Park was something that Josh thought of as a forgotten park. Less than two miles away from downtown, the park had once been beautiful. Places for children to play, beautiful flowers to admire, and places to just quietly sit and eat a lunch or have a romantic picnic.
Those days were gone. The flowers were long dead. In their place, tall weeds stood. The children's slides and swings were broken and covered with rust, promising anyone who was stupid enough to play on them several tetanus shots.
Litter covered the ground and even the benches were either broken or gone entirely, leaving only the barest trace that they had ever been there to begin with.
Only 50 feet away was a maintenance shed built out of concrete. It was from one of these that Phil emerged from.
"Josh! I knew you'd make it!"
Josh froze for a moment. His paranoia wasn't unfounded; He never told Phil his name. The man had been watching him all along. But where did it start? When he started taking photos of the victims? Before that?
Phil must have seen the sudden realization on his face. He smiled, "Don't worry. It will all be explained shortly." He raised his eyebrows. "Coming?"
Josh expected a meeting room inside of the cramped shed. His surprise was clear when Phil felt around on the floor and pulled open a hidden door disguised as the flooring.
"Down there?" He asked.
Phil nodded, "Yep! I hope you're not afraid of the dark or anything." He joked.
Josh wasn't, but he really dreaded the idea of going down into the dark with this man.
Phil gave him a reassuring look. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill you down here. No one is."
With that, he led Josh down into the dark. Once down, Phil closed the hatch behind them, covering them in blackness. A flashlight came to life in Phil's hand and he started to lead the way.
Josh was amazed. From what he could see, the walls were painstakingly carved out of the rock surrounding them. This wasn't a makeshift tunnel, it was deliberate design.
"How long has this been down here?" he asked.
Phil shot a look behind him. "This passage? Ages. The founders of the city built it. There were others, older ones, but they weren't very stable. Once they saw the city itself, they built better ones. We take care of them and close off the ones that start showing signs of wear."
Josh took a moment to marvel over that. This just wasn't a cult that was quickly thrown together. If Phil could be believed, this was a secret organization that went on for generations. The implications of that possible fact almost overwhelmed him.
Ahead of them, a metal door loomed. Aged and spotted with rust, yet incredibly sturdy all the same.
Phil reached out a hand and knocked. The door swung slowly open and a man held it for him. The man holding the door was a large black man who was dressed in faded jeans and an old T-shirt. His head was bald, but massive. His very demeanor suggested that he was not one to mess with.
Yet, seeing Phil, the man's face warmed with a pleasant smile. "Good to see you again." He shot a look at Josh. "He the new one?"
Phil nodded.
"Step on in." The big man said.
Beyond the man, Josh could see the faint glowing of light. It didn't seem like natural lighting that he had ever seen before. It was a pale blue color, almost beautiful if it wasn't so eerie to him.
There were other people down here in the huge hall that unfolded before him. He froze in his tracks. There had to be hundreds of them! Far more than he had anticipated. They came from all walks of life and all races. The white businessman who, above would ignore the homeless, now stood with a black homeless man. Their comfort with each other plain on their faces as they spoke to each other. Women were down here as well, even some whose gender Josh could not determine.
Phil noted Josh's wonder. "Not what you expected, right? Above, we carry on our facades. Below, we know that we all belong to the city and it brings us together. Prejudices, hate, fear...that's all for the above world. Below, we are all the same. To the city, we are all the same."
The others started to take notice of Josh then. He expected hate and anger that a stranger would be down here with him. What he got was the opposite. They people seemed happy to see him. Excited that there was someone knew among them.
Some spoke, saying welcoming words. Some simply smiled or nodded in his direction. It was overwhelming.
"Are you taking him to see it for himself?" One asked.
Phil laughed softly, "That's the best way to get them to believe, right?"
The others around laughed with him.
As they made their way through another passage, Josh stopped him, "It's a great big fucking happy utopia down here, I get that. But you've killed people! All of you for all I know!"
Phil stopped his growing hysteria by placing a gentle hand on his should. "I told you that it wasn't like that. Those people gave themselves to the city. Willingly. We don't kill out of malice. We kill out of sacrifice. The city needs them. It needs their hearts to stay sane. It needs their love, their devotion to it, all of them. It needs all of them to survive."
He led Josh to another door, this one much older than the last. "The city goes mad when it's being forgotten. I told you that. We do our best to keep it sane. It holds it together and we maintain. You spent your whole life looking at the city."
Phil opened the door and led Josh through. "Now, it's your turn to really look at the city and let it look at you."
At first, Josh could not tell what he was looking at. That eerie light was coming from everywhere in this room. It took him a moment to notice that it came from the minerals in the walls themselves. The wall were glowing. He allowed himself to be fascinated with that for several moments until he caught the faintest of movements before him.
How he hadn't seen it before was beyond him. It was black. His eyes must have mistaken it for a pit of darkness, but now—as he looked upon it—there was no mistaking that it was...something.
It loomed over them all, it's black mass, shiny.
"This is the city." Phil whispered in a harsh voice. "This is what we serve and maintain. It's always been here. There's one beneath every city in this world." A loving smile broke across his face.
Josh's eyes went over the mass. It laid in a huge pit in the center of this room, much larger than any living thing that existed or possibly had ever existed.
His eyes moved up and noted the black tendrils that rose from its body into the roof above it. Into the very soil of the city above ground.
Josh stood and stared at it. Tears came to his eyes and ran freely down his cheeks. It was beautiful.
The mass—the city—turned and looked at him. It had no noticeable eyes, but Josh felt it's eyes on him just the same. The eyes weighed him, measured him, delved into his soul...and loved him.
He let out a shuddering gasp as the city's eyes fell away from him and he collapsed to his knees.
Phil fell in beside him and clasped is shoulders. "I know. It's frightening at first, but it has seen your heart and you have seen it for what it truly is."
Josh let out a sob. "I---I---it's real." His eyes went down to his shaking hands.
"Yes, it's real. Now, I think you're ready to help us maintain."
It wasn't a question, but Josh nodded all the same.
As he emerged from the city's chamber with Phil, the others surrounded him and embraced him. Josh looked at the faces of all of the people—The City's People. They were strangers to him a moment before, yet, now they were all his siblings in this.
As they held him and spoke supporting words to him, a sudden realization came to Josh.
Above, the people society ignored were nothing but fleas. Down here, they were all fleas compared to the City.
And to the flea, the back of the dog is the world.
