Chapters:

Tony 1

I open my eyes and slam them shut. The pain radiates through my skull.

My fingers wrap around a rusted metal pipe that drips sickly brown water as I grasp for anything nearby. The smell hits me first, rotting flesh. The smell that you walk in on after a long trip with leftovers on the counter, meat infested with maggots. The smell of death. 

The room looks like an old slaughterhouse. Molded linoleum floors with stains from years of animal abuse. I brace myself on the butcher table next to me, careful not to pull too hard.

The pain subsides and I notice my hands are slippery with a red liquid, blood. Panic overcomes me as I frantically glance at my chest, my white dress shirt is covered in blood. I rip the buttons off and shove my sticky hands inside, feeling around my torso but find no wound. The blood must not be mine. 

The adrenaline stops pumping into my veins but I still shake, leaning against the metal pipe, breathing steadily to try to calm down. In for four seconds and then out for four seconds. Combat breathing. It was one of the first things they taught us at the academy. I never thought it was useful until now.

Nothing hurts more than my head. Despite scars and bruises on my skin, I don’t have any major injuries. There is a nagging feeling in my head, like I’ve forgotten something. I have no idea where I am or how I got here. Pulling myself upright, I rest my head in my hands and desperately try to force a memory of where I was or how I got here but nothing comes to mind.

I know my name, Tony Tambini. I know that I’m thirty-four years old and that I’m from a shitty town in rural California called Ridgemont. I have no idea if I’m in Ridgemont now or some other shit hole. Everything else in my life is a blur. The last thing I remember is the retirement party for my father’s partner, Frank.

A puddle of blood below me is the cause of the stains on my shirt. I must’ve slept in it. Waking up with no memory is like living a dream. You aren’t sure how you got where you are and you have no idea what came before. It’s a terrible feeling, not knowing. 

A burgundy strand of blood that’s drifted towards the center of the room catches my attention, it disappears into the black void of the drain. It must’ve been there a while as the edges are starting to dry and the distance was a few feet. I trail it back to the source.

A man lying face down in a large puddle of blood.

“Hey, man.” I say, in the hope that he was still alive, but he doesn’t answer. 

The light flickers overhead again as I climb to my hands and knees, accidentally placing my hand in the blood. I slip, topple forward and slam into the ground. The blood smears onto my clothing.

“Shit!”

I regain my composure and crawl to the body, placing a hand on him, his skin is icy and his muscles are rigid. I roll the body over and my heart drops. I recoil in horror, stumbling backwards and bumping my head against another rusted pipe. My hand instinctively covers my mouth as I stare. 

It’s my father.

A knife is jammed into his heart.

I’m having a nightmare. I must be but the pounding in my head is so sever. They say you aren’t supposed to feel pain in dreams and this pain was very real.

I crawl to my father’s body, gently placing my index and middle finger on his neck. The feel of his skin sends a shiver down my spine. 

No pulse. 

A tear streams down my face as a clang from the other room catches my attention. 

A red blur whizzes past the doorway, I barely catch a glimpse of it. The figure moved so quickly that I couldn’t see whether it was human, animal or something else.

My head spins as I scramble to my feet and rush for the door. Bracing myself on the doorframe for balance, I spin into a large abandoned slaughterhouse. Iron shackles hang from rusted metal beams. Blood stains the concrete floor. Broken windows with cobwebs in the corners shine beams of light like knives through the dusty air. 

I scan the room and catch a glimpse of the red blur, it was human after all. A man dressed in a red flannel shirt and tattered blue overalls. His bare feet scrape along the bare concrete, leaving bloody footprints. His toe nails covered in a black rot. He scuffles for the door with a gait that reminds me of a shackled man. 

“Stop!” I shout, but he continues, disappearing around a corner. 

My bare feet slap against the cold floor as I rush towards him, shoving the hanging chains out of the way as I round the corner. There he is again, he’s at least forty feet or more ahead of me now. The bloody footprints stop on the ground at my feet, almost like he leapt thirty feet into the air and landed. 

“Police!" I shout, "I said stop!”

I’m not police anymore but that usually gets people to stop doing something wrong. It works, the red man stops and turns back towards me. He holds his hands in the air as though I had a gun. Blood seeps from the corners of his mouth as he smiles at me. His teeth are yellow, snarled and covered with cavities. His mouth looks like it is made of a dozen arrowhead rocks. That isn’t something that happens naturally. This guy had filed his teeth down to points.

His face is riddled with scars, like a war veteran that was tortured by the enemy but this guy doesn’t look like he could’ve ever serve in a war. He’s far too skinny and frail. The skin on his arms limply falls off with no muscle to hold it up. He looks like a cancer patient on the shit end of treatment, withered and dying, yet still alive. His eyes are jet black, no whites, just large pupils with light that glimmers off.

He looks more monster than man. 

“Don’t move!” I shout at him again and step forward.   He turns and sprints towards the only exit in this place. A few strides further and he slams into the door.

I cover my eyes as the sunlight engulfs him, like a man running into a burning building. The door slams shut as I pick up my pace, rush towards the door at full speed, lowering my shoulder and bracing for impact. The door is lighter than I thought it would be, it swings open and collides with the outside wall. I stumble forward, losing my balance but manage to catch myself.

I shield my eyes from the sunlight, it takes a moment for my pupils to shrink and the world around me fades from white.

The parking lot of a large industrial complex. It looks abandoned. Teenage punks with spray paint have been by, leaving their tag on the concrete walls. I slip on the loose gravel that makes up the entire parking lot. This place hasn’t been inhabited in a while, it looks like the owners just up and left. 

No red man. No bloody footprints on the ground. The length of the building is too large for him to have run around a corner. I was right behind him. 

It’s like he just vanished.

###

The wind kicks dust into tiny whirlwinds as I step across the desert laid out in front of me. Across the parking lot, a rusted brown pickup truck is parked behind a police cruiser. My father’s. He always drove car number fourteen, for the day that I was born. 

My father and I never really got along except for when I was in the academy. I still remember the look on his face when he found out that I passed the exam. I remember the look on his face when he discovered that I had been removed from active duty for psychological reasons. 

Limping to the squad car, I peek inside, spotless, like always. The door is locked. Whatever state my father was in last night, he knew to lock his doors behind him. It was second nature for a cop that had been on the force for so long. Normally, a detective would drive a plainclothes car — one that had no number or external sirens — but my father preferred the flashy black and white.

I grab a rock off the ground, lift it over my head and smash the window of the driver’s side door. Dragging the rock against the edges of the window, I clear the window of any sharp edges. The rock thuds against the ground after I drop it. 

I reach into the car, pop the lock and open the door. Glass covers the leather seat that I sit onto, but the pieces are too small for me to notice. 

There’s a photo on the dashboard. My father and I, taken the day that I graduated from the academy. The day that I became a real cop. I was dressed in my spotless new uniform, my father in a pair of black slacks, a white shirt with a black tie and a faded brown blazer, his standard duty attire. It’s the same blazer that he’s wearing back in the slaughterhouse. 

My father was so proud. I hate that I disappointed him. 

I reach below the steering wheel and feel around for a button that I know is there but can’t remember the exact spot. It’s been some time since I needed to open the trunk of a police cruiser. My fingers scan past the wires and latches that open the steering column and find the small button. The truck clicks open behind me.

There’s no sign of the red man or glimmer that might tip me off to where he went. He is the only one who knows the reason why I was in there. Why my father is dead. I need to find him. 

Everything in the trunk is neatly organized. My father suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. I say suffered but I think he enjoyed it, always being neat and tidy. It gave him a sense of purpose after my mother passed away. If he kept himself busy with work and organizing the house, he never had to confront his feelings, or mine.

I pull out a plastic evidence bag, slam the trunk closed and turn my attention to the pick-up truck. 

It has a large crack in the windshield. The left headlight color casing was smashed out like someone had backed into it at some point. The entire truck looked like a piece of shit that belonged in a junk yard, not on the road.

Some liquid rests in the grooves of the plastic bedding. I dip my finger in it. I think it’s blood but I can’t say for sure. Real blood dries brown but since this was still wet it’s hard to say whether it is blood or not. If it is blood, maybe my father was killed somewhere else and dumped here. 

In the truck, keys swing in the ignition. I’ll come back for them afterwards. I need to do something first. 

Back in the slaughterhouse. Chains clink against one another as they sway back and forth. The place is more eerie now than before. At least before there was someone else alive to make noise. Silence has always scared me. 

The large slaughterhouse is like a maze but I manage to find my way back to the butcher room where I awoke. Part of me hopes that my father isn’t in there, that I imagined the whole thing. Turning the corner, I prove myself wrong. He lies where I left him.   Lifeless and alone. 

The knife sticks straight up out of his heart. I run my hands around his neck to check for other wounds but I can’t find any. His pockets are empty as well, no wallet, no car keys. Nothing.

My father was older but not old enough to die, fifty-seven in January, close to retiring. I’m sure he would’ve wanted to go out on the job instead of in a home somewhere, but not like this. Not this early. A detective could last until he’s seventy if he had other people to do the chasing and left him alone to do the deducing. My father was always a better problem solver than most, I’m sure he could’ve taught me a lot if we were closer.

I scan the room as I step over to him. Bloody knives and cleavers on the table. A hole in the middle of the room that was intended for water run off to clean the blood from the floor. The knife in my father’s chest matches the style and handle of the ones on the table. My theory that we were dumped here is starting to look wrong.

I flip the evidence bag inside out and stick my hand inside like a glove and grip the knife. It slips out easily with a haunting schlep sound that is going to stick with me. Blood drips from the tip of the knife as I flip the baggy upside down and slide my fingers across seal. 

I can feel the tears coming back as I stare at my father a moment. His eyes looking back at me — lifeless — but I feel like he’s still inside, pleading with me to find the man responsible.

“Love you, pops.” I whisper as I place my fingers on his forehead and pull his eyelids closed. 

I storm out with a fire in my stomach.

###

Back at the pickup truck, the driver’s door is unlocked. The inside smells like rotting food and old garbage. Trash tumbles out of the glove box as I open it, old lottery tickets that are sure to be misses and cassette tapes from the eighties. I toss the knife into the box and slam it closed. 

The center console isn’t much help either. More trash. More receipts. I dump the contents onto the passenger seat. A folded-up piece of paper catches my eye, I pick it up and unfold it to find the vehicle registration. 

Scribbled in black ink on the form is the name Dominick Franco. Something about that name echoes in my head. Dominick Franco. The address listed is blurred and smudged by liquid, it’s illegible. 

The keys dangle in front of me, twisting them forces the engine to click but not turn over. A moment later I try again, pumping the gas and twisting the keys. The engine roars to life.

Taking one more look at the slaughterhouse and my father’s cruiser in front of me, I shift into gear, slam my foot on the gas and spin gravel out behind me, speeding down the dirt path with one name on my mind. 

Dominick Franco.