Obscure Blood (4 page)

Octa then pulled him in his direction with such force that Officer Brinking lost his balance and fell on his back.
I should turn off and on the lights to play with his mind,
Octa thought.
I have to scare him so he can plead for death to come quick.

Officer Brinking rolled to his knees, his ankle screaming in pain, and looked for him. “I’ll cut you open,” he shouted and pressed his back against the wall. With his good leg, he pushed himself back up to standing. He lost sight of Octa when he moved to the kitchen.

“Where are you, coward?” he shouted as he stood in the kitchen facing the sink.

The light in the room went off.

Brinking screamed when the baseball bat slammed into his hand holding the knife. The knife clattered to the floor and suddenly Octa’s hand gripped the back of his neck and shoved him forward. His belly hit countertop and he doubled over.

Octa grabbed his uninjured hand and shoved it down the open drain. His foot and hand throbbing in agony, Brinking didn’t think fast enough to fight Octa and he screamed again when the garbage disposal roared to life in the darkness, the vibration pulsing through counter, tickling his gut.

He barely registered that bits of his fingers were ground away by the whirling blades and turned to bite Octa on the shoulder. Octa pushed his arm deeper into the drain. Brinking groaned and gave in.
He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,
Octa thought.
He’s about to know my dark side.

Octa released Brinking and quickly left the room. Brinking pressed his bleeding hand to his chest. The light was suddenly on. He looked at his bat-broken hand, and the bleeding mess of the other and horror crept more solidly into his eyes as tears flowed down his sweating face… There was a towel and a bottle of whiskey on the table.
Damn, what am I thinking?
flashed through Brinking’s mind. He poured the alcohol on his hand, and fell to the floor. He took the towel and wrapped it around the stub of his hand, which was missing its fingers. The bones hung, dangling small shreds of flesh. Octa shoved the broken hand down the disposal.

“You win,” he cried out.

“Hmm,” he heard someone sigh. It was Octa.

He walked out of the kitchen, turning all the lights on. As the maimed officer tried to step out, Octa came behind him and hit him in the head.

When Officer Brinking regained consciousness, he was in a cemetery with his hands tied behind him, lying on his right side. Opening his eyes, he saw a tomb mausoleum in front of him with the words
Octa Family
. He closed his eyes and opened them. Still there. He did it again. It was still there. “It is real,” he murmured.

Octa grabbed him by the back of the collar, and said, “Let’s go.”

“No, no, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

“Nah, I’m just gonna kill you.”

Octa was not himself. The tomb had no doors on the four sides. There was only a set of stairs that went to the roof. He accompanied officer Brinking up the stairs, listening to him plead for his life.

Octa sat Brinking on the surface of a small square. The tomb was ten feet tall, and each side approximately ten feet. Octa pulled hard on the cemented square cover.

Octa had to use his legs to budge the cover. After removing the cemented cover, Brinking said “You are just a sadist.”

“I’ve a police meeting tonight at 11:30. I don’t think we have time to discuss that subject.”

Octa pushed him into the tomb after he untied Brinking’s arms. It seemed that there was something soft under him. Something that gave off such a powerful stench he had to cover his mouth.

“Octa, I hate you,” he said. “They’ll find you and have you arrested.”

“Who? They? The best way to hide a dead body is in your own graveyard or tomb.” He dragged the piece of cement covering the Octa tomb. No noise could be heard coming from the room once the doorway was covered.

Once home, Octa took a shower. His shoulders were in pain, and the slicing flesh wound burned in his abdomen. His wounds were still bad, and he had not taken care of them.

The bell rang. He looked through the window and saw one of the police officers from work. He went down without his towel on. Before he opened the door, he took a flower from the vase next to the door and placed it between his lips. He stripped another one and placed the leaves on the floor. He opened the door, and said, “Yes, my darling.” The police officer looked startled.

Octa let the flower fall on the floor. “Oh my God, I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought it was my wife.”

“I’m sorry for coming at the wrong time,” the other man said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” He turned around when Octa stepped back inside to hide his nakedness.

“Tell me what you have to tell me.”

“The cause of the fire at your childhood house was a grenade taped to a bomb of gas. This is similar to the action taken to destroy the evidence about your mother’s murder.”

“Really? Thanks. I’ll take a look into it tomorrow.”

“Octa, enjoy your night.”

Octa closed and locked the door. He started cleaning his house. He poured bleach in the sink. He bagged anything that was broken. When he finished cleaning, he took everything to his car.

“There, can’t let Bob be suspicious of anything. I need to go on a walk. I have started not to cope with my mind. I need to figure out why my father is after me. Why did he not kill me? He can kill me at any time, unless there is something he wants from me that I have no idea about. He must be trying to break me down first. I need to find out the truth.”

After Octa finished cleaning the house, he got in his car and drove to Oleta River State Park to relax.

That night, Octa stood at the river park, watching the bushes and the birds. He then walked on the bike trails as he stared at the bright moon. As he veered into the corner of the street, he met a man face to face, who was holding a knife. He said, “I just gonna get a mini portion.” His skin was dark, and he had broad shoulders.

The man ran toward Octa.

Blocking the knife with his forearm, Octa received a defensive wound.

Octa managed to take the knife from his attacker, and elbowed him twice in the face. Three men appeared from nowhere. Octa ran. In rapid succession, several gunshots echoed in the street. They ran after him as they continued shooting at him. He made a sharp right turn, jumped in his car and sped off.

He made it safely to
II Gabbiano
restaurant.

Panting, he got out of the car, then he stood against it to calm down. He got there at 11:05 p.m. for his appointment. He walked in, and the waitress highlighted his name on the list and directed him to the restroom.

He cleaned his wounds and wrapped them with a piece of cloth from the back of his undershirt. Then, he entered the last of the small toilet stalls to urinate. It was the handicap stall and was not locked. Just as he unzipped his pants, several men walked in talking in low voices. He held on to his urine. He recognized one of the voices. It was the security guard for the evidence room.

As he stood motionless, he overheard a startling conversation between the security guard and two other characters. “Don’t worry,” the guard said. “As soon as I hire a hit man to kill Octa, everything will be fine.”

“Lower your voice,” one of the other men said. “Someone might be listening.” Then, one of the men bent down to scan beneath all three toilet stalls. He stood up when he realized all was good to go. They washed their hands, and walked out.

As soon as he heard the door closing, Octa, who had been kneeling on the boarder of the toilet, stepped down. He finished urinating, washed his hands, and, disturbed by the smell of cigarettes in the restroom, looked around for it. He found one in the trash can. It had an eagle sign at the end of it. He bagged it and put it in the inside coat pocket.
The security guard never smokes this kind of cigarettes,
he thought.
It belonged to one of the unknown characters.

The restaurant had large, mullioned windows and the curtains were long and embroidered. The tables were dark brown. There were roses on each table, some were real and some were fake. The lounge contained an embellished couch, rectangular coffee tables, and shiny silver trays. The floor was made of flagstone tile.

As he stared across the dining room pretending to wait for the hostess, from a distance, he saw the security guard shaking the hand of two, old characters and then the two men left the restaurant. He quickly walked out to see their faces clearly. Presenting their backs to the building, they entered a waiting limousine. He ran toward the vehicle, saying, “Sir! Sir, you dropped your wallet.”

The limousine stopped. The man inside rolled the window down. “Damn, who is this?” Octa murmured. He didn’t recognize the face, but he knew he was a security as he took the wallet and handed it to the passenger next to him.

“This is not mine,” the man said as the security took the wallet from him to hand it back to Octa.

Octa couldn’t see his face. It was so dark inside.

“I apologize. I thought it was yours.”

He saw the security take a cigarette out of his pocket to smoke, giving him a weird look. The cigarette had a 999 symbol on the filter which is 666 upside down.

Octa went back in and took a seat at the table with the rest of the crew waiting on the department boss, Scarlet Albany. He drank two cups of red wine and tasted a bread as an appetizer. Then, he pushed his chair away from the table and said, “I’m leaving.” The security guard said, “You can’t leave. This meeting was set up for the several police officers. Scarlet will be mad.”

Octa said, “At least I will not be mad.”

He stepped out onto the sidewalk, waiting on the parking valet to bring him his car. He had received a phone call from his boss telling him that she would not be able to make it, and he must inform the others.
They can rot in there,
he thought.

1:00 AM – Someone came up behind him in a sudden motion, and said, “Do not turn around.” The man was very close to Octa’s back. He pushed the muzzled of a gun into Octa’s spine.

“When you go home tonight, use the windows to access your house,” he said.

“Why should I believe you?” Octa said.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “You better not turn around to see my face or follow me. Don’t put me in danger. The three-days rule does not apply to you or family members, so you should just let it go. Don’t focus on the teapot at the crime scenes. It is a distraction for every detective who took the case.”

“I have a question,” Octa said.

“No, you don’t have one,” the man replied.

Then, Octa’s car was there. He felt the man withdraw from behind him and resisted the urge to turn and catch a glimpse of him. He jumped in and drove home, but he parked across the street and down a way from his house.

Octa took out his binoculars. He saw a small light flickering in the house. Then, the light went off. He got out of his car. He pulled his gun and checked the chamber. He wanted to go in fully armed. He went in a half circle around the house. There was a tree close to the bathroom window on the second story. He climbed the tree knowing that he always left the window half open.

He went through it. The door was open. “Someone has used my bathroom,” he said. There was a smell in the room, like a three-week-old, dead body rotting under the sun. This decaying body smell came from the perpetrators in his house. They must have never taken a shower. He took off his shoes. He stepped into the hallway that took him to his bedroom. The door was wide open, but no one was inside.

“They must be downstairs,” he said. He heard two different voices coming from the first story.

“When is he coming in?”

“He should be here soon.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I had a phone call confirmation.”

Octa realized that everything in his bedroom had been ransacked.
Maybe they want to fake my death as a burglary that went bad,
he thought.
Just like the old woman…

As Octa approached the stairs, something rolled down the stairs. It was a vase he had accidentally kicked. Someone must have placed it there.

“What was that?” Octa heard coming from below. “You go look . . .”

Octa hid in the corner of the stairs. All the lights downstairs came on. He moved his position to the small closet. All the curtains were down, so that any scenes would stay in the house. A man headed along the hallway with his gun in hand, stepped in the bedroom, and looked for the switch.

Octa came from behind the open door, pointed the weapon at the intruder’s skull, and said, “Give me your firearm.” He took it from him.

“How many others downstairs?”

“Only one.”

“Why are you trying to kill me?”

“We were told to.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know.”

Octa shot him in the right knee. He screamed. “Someone in your family wants you to suffer.”

“Is it my father?”

“Your father is a victim of a criminal organization.”

“What’s the name? How do you know this information?”