The Fields Chapter 5: Watch your back.

In case you were wondering, the name of the town I live in is Pizzatown. Frankly, Tony's Pizza is the most important junction in the entire place and the real name is boring anyways. The fact that there was a triple attempted homicide though, now that's something worth visiting for.

I forget how bored I get when both Julie and Kyle are out of commission. They're pretty much my only friends. It's pathetic. I get so bored that hunting down a crazy man sounds fun. Well, maybe you don't need to be bored to do that. I packed some things and grabbed my sword for a day full of adventure and mystery, which is more like me wandering around town looking for 'clues' on the Lime Green Gunslinger. Julie keeps me entertained on the phone, but Kyle has barely said more than a sentence.

I sat on the curb of the deserted park jotting some things down in a journal I bought from the convenience store. The strange man has been replaced by an old woman, either through him getting fired or not existing at all. I started to have serious doubts about this hero thing. I don't know what I'm doing and have only survived through luck. I searched high and low for the green bastard, no one in town has seen him except for the people who sat by the entrance to the Darkstar. I checked every store in case he bought some plastic tarps or hatchets, serial killer stuff. I asked a Bed and Breakfast owner if she rented a room to any cheesy Hollywood director wannabe, but she wanted like $200 before she'd tell me any real information so I left. I kept having this nagging feeling like the most critical part to all this is staring me in the face. No idea.

I walked up the cement steps to my apartment and something didn't feel right. I brandished my blade and stepped slowly to my door. It was unlocked. Holy shit, I thought. Some rustling and page turning could be heard through the door, which is definitely not good because that means my walls are probably paper thin too. I stormed in, screaming some nonsense like "HA-CHAA!" without actually swinging the weapon. Then I dropped my shoulders and sighed, completely disappointed and more than mildly annoyed.

"You need to start reading something not so... Sixth grade." Heather broke in. "The fuck do you think you're doing?" is what I wanted to ask, I ended up asking "What the hell is this shit?" I opened my arms wide in a very 'are you serious?' manner. Heather just points back to me and says "Katana. Nice. You don't seem like you know how to hold it though." Funny how she doesn't ask if my arm is okay, because you can clearly see scarring. I slammed the door shut and grabbed her shoulder, trying to pull her away from my stuff.
"Look, Derek, I know you're very naive about this detective work but-"
"How did you know I-"
"I've been on the trail of a serial killer for some time now and your little, uh, village just became interesting."
"You realize that I was-"
"Of course, it's personal for you, which is why you should definitely not be doing this. We already have a threat big enough to wipe us all out, so you should focus on that."
"Fuck, Heather, why are y-"
"I'm writing a novel about this serial killer. It's like you're not even my brother."

That last sentence made me sad. She does that. She can make puppy dog eyes affect you through verbal communication alone. "Wh- J- Then let me help." I leaned against an old chair I got from a garage sale once for a penny. "You'd get in my way. That gets you killed." I sharply exhaled. She seemed to be on my computer now, clicking away, and my voice became frantic. "Why do you need to look at my stuff? Go catch killers and, uh, shit," I then sprung a surprise attack, trying to knock her off the computer but she was like a stone wall. "Since it is so personal, there may be some connection in here that you just didn't see. By the way, you'll get a lot of viruses this way" she tapped the screen and looked at me with a plain face and I punched the monitor. It broke. "Maybe you can help me speak to Kyle Davis." I shook my head. "He won't. He doesn't talk to anyone now. He even wants to stay in the hospital." She just pushed her fingers together and thought out loud, 'maybe they were lovers,' and I buried my face in my hands. "Let's go."

At least this time she had a car. She would take me to the last known murder from this guy. The MO was supposedly that he'd lure victims to construction sites, or deserted hotels, or ruined churches, then he'd take pictures of them in the positions a 'naughty schoolgirl' might make, whatever that means, then a single strike of the nail remover of a hammer to the face. Gruesome. Perfect for a novel by my sister. We took a tour of a crowded city called Jacobtown before we showed up at the crime scene. "What makes you think someone who shot me and my friends is someone who likes, uh, schoolgirls and hammers?" She just giggles, looking ahead and says under her breath, "Aw, cute, they're your friends" I snapped right beside her ear, "Well, this dude has been making appearances all over California. Well, not appearances, no one sees him. But they see the dead body and that's all that matters. Anyway, it's been trickling down to your... What did you call it?"
"Pizzatown"
"Sure. I firmly believe that he was about to get his most satisfying kill of them all, the coupe de grace, except you and your girlfriend really screwed that up."
"She's... not even-"
"You really interrupt a lot of things, you know that? Like that one time when you walked in the room while mom and dad-"
"I will slice your air tube."

We arrived at a skyscraper. It was daunting, a magnificent glass and steel beast. "What happens here?" She replied, "What do you think?" We stepped inside the main elevator, completely ignoring the front desk. She said we needed to get to the roof, then pressed the now-lit circular button 86. The ascension will take an eternity.

"So how's Sierra these days"
"Oh, she's pretty good. Do you not talk to her?"
"You don't even talk to me," I looked at the ground.
"Oh, yeah... I'm sorry about that. We have been busy. Now we all have something to worry about."
"Aren't you the least bit curious about my life?"
"Not really. Don't guys typically like their own space and stuff?"
"Sometimes. But you said nothing about the bloody glass. I also I have this," I held up my arm, it looked like I had subcutaneous spider webs and a little bit of redness but no signs of bullet holes.
She said nothing.
"What's going on with the whole end-of-the-world thing?"
"I've seen some weird stuff, but nothing to worry about yet. After the second earth quake, all the really bad stuff ceased, then you went home."
I sighed, resting my head against the cool glossy granite wall.
"Are you afraid of heights?" she asked, no hint of judgment in her voice.
"Reasonably. I don't know. We won't be up there long, right?"

I stood near the helipad platform while she examined forensics or whatever, while I clung onto a metal pole whole my face was lashed with bitter winds and vertigo might have made me choke back vomit, but it happened less than six times.
We were there for two hours and thirty-two minutes. I stared at the pretty city lights and the skyline. "Is the sky supposed to be purple?" I asked, yelling over the winds. "Global climate change," she simply yelled back.
"No, I mean it's really purple. Blips of plum and royal purple and stuff," I said, concernedly.
"Maybe it's the apocalypse," she said, pocketing plastic bags of evidence.

On the trip down I laid, curled up, with my shoulder pressed against the wall. "Do you think we can do this? Fight off our demise?" She looked into my eyes for once and said grimly, "We might never know."

Back in her car, I felt even more melancholy. "Does mom wish I was never born?" She raised an eyebrow at that one. We were driving to the suspected home of the killer. The police found it empty, but we have talents the police would never be able to grasp. Sweating profusely now and feeling like I'd be violently ill, I kept doing this combination of gagging and swallowing. Softly, I asked "Do you wear make up?" She was wasting time trying to figure out what I meant, so I forced out a grunt that roughly translated to 'give me the powder with the mirror' and so she fished it out of her coat pocket. I slipped it into mine. Her eyebrows furrowed now.

The house was old, probably cheap, built on dead land with some old fashioned appliances. Furnaces, a grandfather clock that seems to have been gutted and left there to rot, a bunch of cast iron pots. Nothing else. Well, nothing else besides the blanket she found rolled up and stuffed under the side of the floor boards. So this is where the gunman squatted. Which means Pizzatown really was the prize and if Kyle was the X on the map, he'll come back agai- "Seems like you have gotten the hang of detective work, lil' bro." Oh crap I was talking out loud. I shrugged it off.

Something twisted in my intestine and searing pain shot up my back. I suddenly knew that our universe was doomed and Kyle would die and I would never see Julie again and my family will never belong anywhere ever again, my talents are nonexistent and all I'm good for is surviving.

"Derek, are you okay?" Every word of that sentence rung in my head similar to a church bell. I was trembling and stiffly put one foot in front of the other on the rotted wood floor.
Demons inside of me...



One hand, the left one, clasped the hilt of the sword hard enough to hear the satin lining in the grip crinkle.
My future is no future...

My other hand grasped the sheath, keeping it steady. I was on my knees on the front steps of this small, decrepit house.
I should let the world swallow me up...
"Derek! Shit, hold on, let me call dad-"
I should kill everyone in my familyWait, what?

Too late, I slid the sword out and across my neck, staring at nowhere.
However,
before I die and end my legacy permanently,
I made sure to dissect the bastard creature sucking the life out of my body
thinking it's clever
hiding in plain view...
My sister's tears drench my body and dad is on the phone, but at least I killed the despair eating piece of shit.

...
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What's Kyle doing here?