Doodles in the quiet night

"She heard nothing in the dark ally besides her own steps, moving into the next ally quickly, yet she could feel it close in on her. Feeling how it tirelessly and determined hunted her down, she knew running was futile, but she wouldn't stop. So she forced her tired legs to keep running. The blocks around her became a gray blur in the night as her conscious mind needed to focus more and more on keeping the legs running. She could feel it so very close, gaining on her despite her efforts, almost drooling down her neck. The very thought of it made her shiver down her spine, so she ran further, passing an unknown barrier where she wasn't able to keep her mind together from the exhaustion, yet her feet obediently moved despite all logic. It is said that the body is capable of miracles when the situation calls for it, and though a miracle it was, it was obviously not enough, and three blocks down, she passed out. The last thought going through her brain as she passed into a semi-desperate last stand was that she'd bite and claw at her assailant for as long as there was life in her body.

Deputy Richards had been in the force several decades and seen a lot of nasty shit, but what met him that fateful Thursday morning was high up on the list of inhumane crime-sites. Some kid had stumbled upon a "sleeping lady" outside the cemetery uptown, right next to where his favorite Starbucks used to be before they replaced it with some fancy coffee-shop shit. "Ecologically brewed my ass," he thought as he reflected upon that memory before joining up with the rest of the guys behind the rope. The lady in question lay with her back against the low stone wall that lined the cemetery. She was still alive, but only barely and the paramedics had just began emergency treating her before they could rush her off to the paramedics. He failed to get a really good glimpse of her but from what he could see she was all torn up; several nasty bite-marks, really deep scratches, teeth missing, one eye poked out, limbs in nasty angles and lastly, and abdomen seemingly torn asunder. It was a medical miracle that she was still alive he concluded after seeing her condition. As the last bits of noise and unquiet removed itself from the place he assumed his normal pose; sitting on his heels, scratching the stubble he'd forgotten to shave off this morning. There was something about the crime-scene he couldn't puzzle out; there seemed to be a lot of victim all about the place: shoes, her purse, blood-pools, torn pieces of clothing and all such, yet he couldn't see a single trace of whoever, or whatever, made her such a mess. This wasn't a mere hit and run, this bastard had covered up his tracks real good. He could already feel it in his guts that the crime-scene investigation would turn up useless.

Five days had passed and Richards had gotten nothing out of the case other than the bitter feeling of being right about the crime-scene. Nothing, not even a speck of dust, told him where to look or what to look for. He was at the hospital now, pacing through the hallway anxious to get some piece of progress; any piece of semi-valuable information really. He'd come sooner but the doctors wouldn't let him near her until she was called a little further back from the brink of death. Apparently she'd woken up today, catatonic, but awake. He stepped into her room somewhat brutish, he'd never been one for the careful ways of hospitals. What met him was a woman whose good looks only could be guessed from the small patches on her body that was somewhat in close shape to what they'd been prior to the attack. The rest was closer to a Frankensteinian wet-dream. She stared blankly ahead murmuring a string of close to inaudible sounds, not even noticing his presence. Or if she noticed it she at least failed to acknowledge it at all. Doctor Winston, an old friend of the Deputy stepped into the room. "Sad view ain't it. Poor girl has been like this since dawn." Doctor Winston was a man who'd dealt with cases like these for a long time, luckily, so he'd secured every last bit of detail he could record about her wounds and even recorded her babbling for later review. He was not one who'd let lack of evidence be the freedom to any gruesome criminal out there if he could help it, and this was what Richards had hoped for. Among all the papers, pictures and the recordings there had to be at least one little speck of information he could use.

At the end of the seventh day Richards had been through all he'd gotten from Winston, making sure that the tooth-marks had been sent to analysis, the skin-samples they'd found under her fingernails was sent to DNA-profiling and cleaning up the recording of her mumbling. The first two would take some time before any results would come back, but the tape was in his hands and ready for repeated listening now. It would describe a shadow with a sea of fangs and a voice like a dead city. Then she'd tell of the eyes that burnt her soul and tore open reality as they mercilessly consumed all they could cast their gaze on. Lastly she'd recite a poem about a city of maces whereas the only way out was the wrong way. In between she'd repeat a word, or sound, that seemed total gibberish. It was as if she wanted to tell him something, but every time she did it came out wrong and distorted. Clearly the incident had taken this poor womans mind. He'd listen to the tape over and over throughout that entire night, only stopping to put on a new pot of coffee and all the time swearing he'd take whatever had robbed this woman of her life like that.

It was a particularly ghastly April morning when Richards stumbled into his office. The case of the mauled woman hadn't moved forward and inch since he'd gotten the tape and all they now did was waiting for the test-results to come back. They should have been there ages ago but some jackass had fucked up and hauled out the wait at least another week. Richards hadn't had any real sleep since the start of this case and it showed as an ungroomed  to the extent of plain nasty Deputy hauled his exhausted limbs to the office. Upon lifting his eyes to his desk he saw what he'd been waiting for; two brown envelopes addressed to him personally. He ripped them both open and skimmed the documents until the part he actually gave a fuck about. His heart missed a beat and he sat down, this time reading through the entire documents, slowly, twice. His mind ground to a halt a second and as it started back up again he found himself manipulating the audio file; changing pitch, backmasking it and adjusting the speed. He couldn't believe it even as the truth churned through his ears like a painful grindstone of truth.

A name, a womans name; her own name."