It was late when he awoke with a start. Kyle thought he had heard something in the darkness and slowly sat up and listened intently. Straining against the silence he listened for any sound, any vibration, to hint that there was something there. After more than a minute of hearing nothing he decided he must have imagined the noise and sleepily looked over at the clock to see it was 3 am. He was relieved to see he still had three and a half hours before he had to get up for work. Kyle’s throat was scratchy and dry so he slowly climbed out of bed and shuffled down the hall to the kitchen for a swig of orange juice.
Bumping along in the dark he made his way to the fridge by the light of the full moon coming through the windows. As he swung open the door he instinctively squinted from the light and turned his head away from the refrigerator. His eyes were dazzled momentarily from the fresh glow that pierced the darkness, but when he turned back to look in the fridge through his squinting eyes he saw it. It took him three full seconds to register what he was seeing. A woman’s severed head resting on the top shelf between a case of beer and a box of leftover Chinese takeout. Once he realized what he was looking at, Kyle’s eyes widened and he slammed closed the refrigerator door with a startled exclamation. Jumping backwards he lost his balance and landed on his ass in the middle of the kitchen floor. He scurried backwards on all fours until he ran into the cabinets below the sink on the wall opposite the refrigerator.
Suddenly very awake, he sat there, breathing heavily, staring at the innocent looking white chest covered in snarky magnets, appointment reminders, and takeout menus. That couldn’t have been real, he thought. I just woke up from a deep sleep and my mind is playing tricks on me. Kyle slowly pulled himself up from the floor and scanned his surroundings. The kitchen was empty, as was the living room beyond. Nothing that he could see in the dark looked disturbed or out of place, so he cautiously moved toward the refrigerator. He reached out his hand but could not bring himself to grab the door handle. He just stood there, frozen in space, and there he stayed. He stood there for what felt like hours but was actually only a couple of minutes. This is stupid, he thought to himself finally, as he closed his eyes tight and quickly pulled open the door. He slowly opened one eye and then the other and there was no mistaking it. The head was real and it was staring him in the face.
His initial surprise was fading and now he was in shocked disbelief. Looking down at this unfortunate young woman, the first thing he noticed was that she had been beautiful. She was about his age, roughly early to mid-twenties and very pretty. She was wearing makeup and her eyes were open, staring at him. Her mouth even seemed to have a slight grin. There was no blood and it all seemed very clinical. With how clean and alive the head looked, he thought again that this couldn’t be real. He reached out to the head and carefully poked it in the cheek. As he snapped his hand back in disgust, he knew this was real.
He slammed the door closed again and began to hyperventilate. He then realized that he was standing in the middle of his kitchen, alone, in the dark, with a severed head in the fridge, and he was in his underwear. He suddenly felt very vulnerable and quickly made his way back to his room turning on every light along the way. He threw on some clothes and grabbed down the broadsword that hung on his wall over his bed. It was a replica of some sword from an action movie he’d loved in his youth, but it was sturdy and imposing and felt comfortable in his hands. It gave him a sense of security to have a weapon, and with this confidence he stalked from room to room in his apartment, turning on the rest of the lights and checking to make sure he was alone.
It was a relatively small, two bedroom apartment, with one of the bedrooms acting as his office/guestroom, so his security check didn’t take long. He ended in the living room, looking at the front door that was securely locked and dead bolted. Finally sure that he was alone, Kyle calmed down slightly and some of the tension released from his muscles. After a few more minutes of deep calming breaths it occurred to him that he needed to call the police. He walked back to his room, put the sword down on the bed, and grabbed his cell phone from where it was charging on the nightstand. His hands were shaking from the subsiding adrenaline and it was surprisingly hard to get his fingers to press the keys on the screen for 911. When the dispatcher answered and asked the nature of his emergency, Kyle spoke clearly and calmly, “Hello, my name is Kyle Rains. I’ve just found a woman’s head in my refrigerator. Could you please send the police?”
Half an hour later his apartment was a flurry of activity. Kyle was sitting on the couch in his living room while a patrolman took his statement. The head was being photographed and CSI techs were exploring his apartment looking for clues. Kyle felt that everyone now scurrying around his home thought he was a killer. Every question the patrolman asked, every sideways glance from someone passing by, seemed in his mind to accuse. He was starting to get very nervous and scared when someone new entered the living room.
The controlled chaos of the crime scene was suddenly interrupted by the door flying open and the bellowing of a belligerent argument being continued from outside. “I don’t give a good God Damn if your apartment is downstairs and you’ve got to work in the morning! I bet every other asshole in this building has to work in the morning too! Well guess what? We’re Fucking Working Now! We’ll be done when we’re done. In the meantime, if you’ve already given your statement to the patrolman, there are three things you can do. Go back inside and shove something in your ears, go somewhere else, OR, and this is just my personal suggestion, you can take a flying leap off the nearest fucking overpass and leave us the hell alone to do our fucking jobs!” With that, the door slammed shut and an unpleasant squat man in a stained and ill-fitting suit marched the rest of the way into the apartment.
The mood of the room noticeably changed. Everyone suddenly tensed and no one would look directly at the man who just came in. He was short, no more than 5’4” or 5’5”; and he was round, with a noticeable double chin. He wasn’t fat in the way that you imagined he never left the couch. Rather he was overweight in the way that you could see that he lived an unhealthy life. He was pale with a slightly yellow complexion, his breathing was labored from the altercation from the hallway, and he was sweating profusely. Even though it was August and in the mid 80’s, you could tell that even if it were March and the mid 40’s he’d still be sweating. He called the patrolman interviewing Kyle over to him and his voice was somehow gravelly and whiny at the same time. He spent a few minutes talking to the patrolman, going over the questions that had already been answered, before finally crossing the room and staring down at Kyle seated on the couch.
“My name is Detective Patrick Olsen”. He looked down at the notes he’d been given and continued, “And you are Kyle Rains?” “Yes sir”, Kyle replied nervously. Detective Olsen continued, “Age 26, working as tech support for the law firm Connor Connor & Riggs, never married, no pets, no roommates, and from the look of this place, no social life, is that correct?” “Hey!” Kyle exclaimed. It was true that his living room screamed geek. He had a flat screen TV that was too big for the room. There were bookcases full of Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels, programing training books and software boxes. He had several game systems, and even more bookcases full of games and movies. But the real giveaways were the movie posters around the room; “Star Wars”, “Lord of the Rings”, “Batman Begins”, “The Matrix”, and his pride and joy, an original one sheet for “Avatar” signed by Zoe Saldana. “Don’t get your panties in a twist there sunshine” said Olsen, “I’m just trying to figure out who I’m dealing with here.”
Who was he dealing with indeed? Kyle was on the tall side at 6’, but not overly so. He had been slightly overweight most of his life but his height hid it well, and in the last few years since he got his job, he’d been biking the 8 miles to and from work whenever the weather was nice. This had the three fold effect of saving him money on gas, getting him into the best shape of his life, and he got to feel smug about helping the environment. He was mostly an average guy; polite and a hard worker. He had a few office friends who he would occasionally go out for drinks with after work. But his real friends, a few that he grew up with, and some from college, were spread across the country. He would keep in touch through e-mail and Facebook. Also, he would sometimes meet up online with a few of his fraternity brothers to play first person shooters. He would say he was happy, but mostly he was lonely. He never knew how to talk to women in person and online dating didn’t really work out for him either. The last date he went on had been four months ago and he hadn’t been intimate with a woman in more than a year and a half.
Kyle was already on edge and this troll of a man in front of him was not helping. He needed to defend himself. “Look Detective, I’m sorry but this whole situation is really freaking me out, and I really don’t need to be insulted in my own home.” As Kyle spoke he became more and more animated. “As I just told the officer, I don’t know that woman. I’ve never seen her before in my life. I cannot think of a single person who would do something like this. Certainly not anyone who might have a problem with me. And I swear I didn’t hear anyone in my apartment. In fact that is the scariest thing about this whole situation. I didn’t hear a thing, and now I may never sleep again!”
Detective Olsen didn’t look surprised or taken aback. He just looked at Kyle with an almost bored look on his face. After a moment he condescendingly said, “Yeah, well that’s a real shame for you. Anyway, we’re going to need you to go down to the station to take your fingerprints so the lab boys can tell what prints around here might not belong. I’m also going to want to ask you a few more questions so please, try and think really really hard about anything out of the ordinary you may have noticed lately.”
With that, Detective Olsen nodded to the officer that had been interviewing Kyle before and the patrolman escorted him out the door.