Chapter 2

Chapter 2

My heart was racing just a little, I gotta admit. If I’m going to keep it to one hundred percent honesty, this was my dream job, and I was about to do it with my childhood hero. God, I couldn’t stop shaking for some reason. As soon as I saw Jack in the lobby, reality hit me like a train in a whirlwind with like, 6 V12 engines. I wondered what he was going to be like, and curiosity was killing me (pun fully intended, because apparently we were going to a crime scene.) It did, of course, finish the job that is when I got in the car with him, and he pretended like I didn’t exist. Not to be rude, but seriously? A famous detective with a perfect track record, and the guy can’t even talk to a single teenage newbie? Pretty rude, but maybe I'm overthinking it. Hey, maybe the guy was introverted or had some kind of social anxiety. As we walked to the police car together, I took a moment to observe him. Pretty tall, must’ve been about 6 '1 or something, give or take 170 to 180 pounds, pretty pale hand and had medium length black hair. Gotta say, the guy was pretty attractive. I wonder if he had a wife or something, since he looked to be in his mid to late 30’s. As we both got into the car, him in the driver’s seat and me in the passenger’s, he started driving, and I decided to make myself useful and take note of the car, everything inside of it, and the route we were taking, in case something happened and I had to make myself useful, i guess. The interior was old as hell, to say the least, dusty and musty, with the leather slowly peeling and the dash looking more like a museum piece than an actual vehicle. Seriously, how the hell is the station going to complain about “budget cuts”, when we have this antique piece of history right here? They could probably sell this beater as a relic to a museum or something. I should really tell my dad about this, but I guess that’s for the inevitable to-do list. Next, everything else inside. Me, jack, the elephant in the metaphorical room the size of asian, on and on. Jack had on a fairly casual outfit, but I, though, was wearing my incredibly nice, polished, and clean police uniform (that my stepmom 100% didn’t polish at all), which honestly looked way too good on some newbie like me, seeing as I swear I saw one of the lady cops staring at me in the lobby. Although, looking back, now that I think about it, that might’ve been a look of disgust or disdain, but I’m just going to act like that’s not a possibility. Interest is interest, after all. My badge was golden glistening in the 8 PM moonlight, (like it should), reading off my name. “David Miller”, the name to be potentially remembered, though for good or bad is yet to be seen. Hopefully, I'd pick up a lesson or two from this veteran Jack and take his spot as the best detective, assuming that isn’t too conniving of me. Or rude, for that matter. Should work out well. But, back on track. Inside of the car, me, him, our quality conversations (or substantial lack thereof), nothing insane. I just stared out of the window for most of the ride until we pulled up to the place. After he put the car in park, I glanced over at Jack, but he seemingly just didn’t care to explain jack s**t to me and got out. I took the message (reluctantly) with grace and followed suit. The crime scene was something, for sure, but honestly, I had a feeling that kind of told me this was weird. It was too frantic. As the son of a regional manager, an intern at a few departments, and a person who’s seen a copious amount of true crime documentaries, I'd been to crime scenes before. I’ve seen what they look like, how they work. This… this wasn’t it. Usually, it’s uniform. Everyone’s where they should be, doing what they need to, blah blah blah. This? Everyone looked liked they wanted to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. In the past, though, this was a big inspiration to me. So many people worked at the same time to figure out what happened, and how to find the person who did it.. But this wasn’t what I saw. When people left the building, they seemed glad. As if they couldn’t stand another minute being in there. Of course, the exact place where everybody seemed eager to clamor away from was exactly where Jack started heading, so I automatically followed him beyond the yellow tape lines. The building was a cathedral, a really old looking one too. Strange, seeing as barely any of the population of Hammond was catholic. Well, whatever. Hell, maybe someone wanted a clubhouse and followed the schematics wrong. As I finished that thought, we passed into the doors of the building and came across the hazmat crew looking almost queasy. Strange, seeing as, from what my dad's always said, those guys are usually stone walls when it comes to this. Walking down these dusty a*s corridors that looked at bare minimum 6 times older than me, I smelled something weird. Like, very, weird. I’d never smelled it before. When we got into the main chapel we saw… saw… we…s…saw… oh no.