Aniel's Plight

Bled Zone

Detective Velic and his partner waited outside an abandoned apartment building, listening to the daily morning countdown for an outlawed radio station. At zero, an animated voice burst onto the airwaves. “Underground Radio is aliiiive! Eddie Deadfingers signing on. Goooood morning, Mazarathhhhh!”

Velic frowned, his hazel eyes narrowing. “I hate this guy.”

“Then why do we listen to him every morning?” Holliday reached to turn off the radio, and Velic swatted his hand.

“Nothing but the truth is our motto here. Today’s topic is Red Zones. When are the police going to get off their asses and retake them? I see zero effort from the mayor. What are your thoughts? Taking callers.”

Velic twisted the radio knob until it clicked. “It’s that voice, all nasal and arrogant, that will get him caught one day. I listen so it’s fresh in my mind. But,” he pulled a folded paper from his jacket pocket and held it between two fingers, “first things first.”

Looking over the bounty instructions, Velic paused at the Taken Alive section. He smiled upon reading “dead or alive.” The moment had come when he would finally cross off the second-highest name on the city’s most wanted board: Doctor Bohuslav Yeznith.

“Are you excited, Holliday?”

“Hardly.”

They stepped out of the car, and Velic scanned the apartment buildings on either side of the target one. The wind whistled past, carrying with it the scent of the sea. He scratched his graying, sandy-brown stubble. Makeshift bridges connected the upper-floors and rooftops, made of boards, ladders, ropes, or whatever was available, many of which were designed as death traps. Trash thrown from the windows had formed frost-covered mounds that overtook the alleys, and the remnants of stripped-down or burned-out vehicles lined the street. The wall surrounding the city was little more than a stone’s throw away.

Velic inhaled his cigarette until it burned his lips. Flicking it into the street, he unlocked the trunk and stared at the clutter within. Barely visible among the mess, entangled in weapons slings and buried beneath an assortment of clothes, ammo boxes, and pre-collapse field rations was a battering ram. He freed it and gave a shit-eating grin. “All right, let’s go get this bastard.”

Besides the dark eyes, skin, and well-kept appearance, Velic saw a younger version of himself in Holliday, who looked as respectable as a detective could in street clothes. Clean-shaven, with new boots, a worn black Mazarath Metropolitan Police jacket, and an attitude that hinted he wanted to work his way up the ranks. Holliday had reached the breaking point of his initiation into their oddball unit, a crossroads between knowing of the city’s horrors and having come face-to-face with them.

Entering the lobby, Velic discovered the first sign of an unpleasant day. “Dammit, I knew this would happen.” He unloaded the ram onto the rookie, who hefted it onto his shoulder with a sneer.

An out-of-order sign on the building’s only elevator mocked Velic. He tore it down and whipped open the stairwell door. Kicking it, he stomped up the stairs to the second floor without offering to take back the battering ram.

Holliday squinted as he followed through dust clouds. On the second floor, he stepped on something squishy. “This place is nauseating.”

“What did you expect from a Red Zone high-rise?”

Vulgar phrases and illustrations covered the stairwell walls. An ammonia smell made Velic’s chest tighten. His eyes watered as he tiptoed through the refuse minefield. “Damn, we should’ve brought masks.”

“Wait.” Holliday pointed to a spray-painted encircled V. Undecipherable runes surrounded it. Velic had seen them every time he got close. The V was for him.

“Yeznith enjoys the chase. That’s why he leaves them for me.”

Velic froze at the sight of a large mural on the platform above. He bent backward and twisted his neck to fully take in the portrait of a silver-haired, blindfolded woman. Faint white scars covered her pale skin, and deep scowl lines surrounded her mouth. The artist had captured her in such a way that Velic imagined himself the recipient of her anger.

“Vel?”

“What?” He straightened, blinked, and shook his head.

“What are you staring at?”

Velic looked at Holliday and pointed up. “This one is better than the rest of the crap on the walls.”

“What one?”

Looking again, Velic discovered the mural had vanished, leaving only the platform’s chipped white paint. He blinked hard. “Never mind. Let’s go.”

They arrived on the third floor, with Velic breathing as if he were on the roof instead. Holliday stifled a gag, and his cheeks puffed out.

Seeing an opportunity, Velic smirked. “What do you say we get a couple of fried fish platters and crab legs when this is over?”

“Screw you, man.”

Velic scoffed. “It ain’t right living by the ocean and hating seafood. But seriously, don’t touch anything.”

Holliday jerked his hand away from the sticky railing and slid his palm down his pant leg. “I can’t even imagine what we’ll find up there. Doctor Yez scares the shit out of me.”

“Me too. But our window to surprise him is closing. Backup means blaring sirens. Yeznith will run. And you know my feelings about running. It won’t be me chasing him across one of those death traps. Plus, I need the stats. They’re the only reason my badge is still red.”

“Fine. You get to brief the major.”

“My pleasure.”

Holliday followed close behind, laboring under the ram. “What floor is the apartment on?”

“Ninth.” Velic checked the back of his hand, his on-the-go notebook covered with various scribblings. “907.”

“Damn broken elevator.” Holliday wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Enjoy your good knees and hips while they last. Let’s keep moving.”

Holliday lifted the ram from his shoulder. “You want this back?”

Velic started up the stairs. “Keep your eyes open.”

On the fourth floor, they ditched their coats.

On the sixth, they jumped over a decomposing dog carcass. Holliday ejected his breakfast at seeing the maggots.

On the seventh, Velic leaned against the railing, his chest heaving. He forced himself to stand. “I will find the son of a bitch who owns this building and arrest them for a crime worthy of exile. I’ll make it embarrassing, too.”

On the ninth floor, Velic halted Holliday with a shaky arm. “Hold a moment.”

“Maybe if you smoked less?”

“Maybe. You ready for this?”

Holliday nodded. “Any chance of taking him alive?”

“Not this one.”

They crept down the corridor, stopping short of the door. Velic paused and listened. Twisting the doorknob, he shook his head, never surprised by how often he walked right in. He gripped the battering ram handle, and Holliday took the other. Velic mouthed the count as they swung it back and forth. The door buckled inward, and they dropped the ram. Pistols drawn, they flowed into the apartment, which reeked of rotting flesh and sulfur.

Holliday followed the hallway while Velic entered the first room on the left. With watery eyes, he scanned, searching for threats among upturned furniture, cluttered corners of clothing and shoes, and stacked medical boxes. Rough-cut plastic sheets created a walking lane. Flies speckled the browning wallpaper, collecting in masses at the ceiling and the door to the next room. Velic waved them away from his face, but one landed on his lip. He spat, with terrible imaginings of where it might have landed before.

In the kitchen, the sight of meat-stripped appendages across bloody counter surfaces halted him, his eyes and mouth wide. Plastic portable coolers covered the entire floor except for a narrow path. Velic identified the limbs of dozens of victims, all incomplete. No heads. No torsos.

He lifted a lid with his boot to find an assortment of hands, some with fingers interlocked. A foot protruded from the next cooler, preventing the lid from closing. The toenails were painted in alternating pink and purple. The next cooler he left to his imagination.

His worst cases still haunted his mind, deeds so gruesome that once solved, he hid them in a basement filing cabinet and never spoke of them. Among the worst atrocities of those cases, none tormented his soul as much as what he saw in Yeznith’s kitchen.

A panicked yell, a gunshot, and a cackle snapped Velic from his daze.

He hurried through the rooms and found Holliday lying crumpled beneath a body-sized hole in the wall, and Doctor Yeznith diving through the window. Glass shards fell onto the fire escape and clattered through the grated platforms. Velic raised his gun, cursed, and lowered it. While the kitchen was a butcher shop, the new room resembled a neglected hospital ward, tables strewn with medical instruments and a pair of bloodstained gurneys.

Kneeling to check Holliday’s pulse, Velic pulled out his radio. “This is Detective Velic. Officer down in Red Zone Two. Apartment high-rise corner of Nineteenth and LinMae, number 907. Breathing but unconscious. Possible internal damage. In pursuit of a tier-one bounty.”

He sprinted to the window and stopped mid-stride upon spotting a candlelit shrine. The centerpiece was a sculpture of a head, surrounded by offerings and organs.

“What in the fuck?” Velic recognized himself, but thought the hair seemed a bit on the thin side. Knives and other sharp objects pierced the head from different angles. The backdrop was a wall of pictures and newspaper clippings of him and those he knew.

He vaulted through the window, the apartment’s stink fading as he descended the fire escape stairs three at a time. The entire structure rattled with each landing. Velic took deep breaths of the salty winter air. He leaned over the side to check on the doctor’s progress. Yeznith paused and looked up. Their eyes met. Velic had never seen the man’s face. On the bounty board, his picture was a black silhouette with a question mark. He looked less hideous than Velic had imagined. With a cursory glance, he might pass for a well-dressed, gentlemanly fellow with a full head of wavy gray hair and matching shapely eyebrows set close to diabolical black eyes.

With a scheming grin, the doctor leapt over the railing and plummeted five stories without a sound until the thud on the concrete. The body lay twisted in an unmoving heap.

Velic smiled. Case closed. Major Rodriguez would be ecstatic. Snap a few proof-of-death photos, and don’t forget a close-up for his album. Check on Holliday. Hand over responsibility to homicide. Unwind at Slickers lounge while reveling in the other team’s glum faces.

He checked again, finding Yeznith was still dead. About to continue down, he froze. Had the body twitched? He convinced himself he had been mistaken until an arm reached out, nails scratching on the pavement. The other arm joined, and the doctor crawled. Velic fired three shots and saw the blood splatter from at least one. Yeznith trudged toward the labyrinth of back alleys, dragging a disfigured leg and swinging a useless arm.

Picturing himself explaining how he had lost the city’s second-most-wanted, Velic opted for a well-aimed jump for an open dumpster. The overflowing trash bags looked like a deceptively soft landing. Leaning forward from the rail, the frosted metal biting into his palms, he shut his eyes. What sharp and unforgiving things lurked below the layer of plastic? He screamed the entire fall.

Having not impaled himself and being certain that most of his bones were intact, he slid out of the dumpster to land on his back. Through blurry vision, he watched Yeznith turn right into another alley. Velic grumbled through all the back, neck, and other pains as he hobbled in pursuit. Imagining the doctor’s bullet-hole-filled body motivated him with every unmerciful step. Velic would never take him alive. Leniency, even for misdemeanors, had become a long-forgotten concept in Mazarath.

He turned the corner to find a grinning Yeznith halted at the entrance of the next alley. Velic skidded to a stop and aimed. Too late. Eight blocks later, his legs and lungs protested as he entered a dead-end. The doctor waited for him. Sirens blared in the distance.

“You got nowhere to go, Yez!” Velic’s pistol swayed as he stepped closer.

Yeznith stood tall, not attempting to escape, his leg straight and steady beneath him. His broken arm gestured normally, and his taunting smile never faltered. He stood within a hastily painted circle flanked by three intricate symbols.

Velic scanned the area with narrowed eyes.

“No traps. I only wanted you alone.”

“You don’t deserve last words.” He lined up his sights with Yeznith’s chest.

“My kind now hunts you.”

“Your kind? Tell ’em to get in line since half the city is gunning for me.”

Yeznith tore open his shirt, daring Velic to aim for his heart. “When my mistress brings me back, I will come for you. I want the pleasure of placing you under my knife!”

Velic squeezed the trigger. As the bullet exited, it took chunks of meat and the doctor’s heart. He staggered but remained standing. The runes pulsated with a violet light. Yeznith’s face showed pride as he stood straight again. No blood spewed from the hole. His eyes shifted into one glowing red orb and one empty socket.

His distinguished face melted and morphed, transforming from a smooth light-brown complexion to a sagging, torn, and scarred one. Polished teeth became baleful, uneven fangs crowding a lipless mouth. “I made you see, and now you can never unsee.”

Velic fired again. Yeznith’s head whipped back, and his body collapsed to the ground as a black mist escaped his mouth with a hiss. It rose above the building and soon disappeared from sight. The body made a sizzling sound as it broke down into a pool of liquefied lasagna, where the cheese and sauce blended into pink goop.

He pulled his shirt over his nose, kneeled, and poked the steaming clothing with the muzzle of his pistol. Hearing a clink from within the doctor’s jacket pocket, he searched it and produced a glass vial filled with a thick red liquid. Gold flakes pulsated throughout, like the rhythm of a slow-beating heart.

Squinting, he held it up to the sunlight and tipped it upside down. Nothing happened. Shaking it caused the flakes within to illuminate, forcing him to look away. The vial grew warm to the touch. He jumped at a voice and drew his pistol toward the alley exit. Nothing. He looked down at Yeznith. Still dead. He placed the vial to his ear, hearing a soft rumble and a whisper. “Our souls for vengeance.”

He fumbled and caught it. He held it still, and the flakes became dormant. Not daring to shake it again, he secured it in his pocket.

***

In the early evening, Velic sat where he expected, on the cracked leather couch in front of Major Rod’s desk. Cigarette smoke rose from an ashtray near his typewriter, collecting on the ceiling. The tobacco’s aroma helped Velic forget all the smells he had suffered through earlier. He pulled out his pack. The hot air from the vent blew directly above him, but he kept his coat on to convey that he did not want to stay any longer than necessary.

Stomping echoed from the hallway. A broad-shouldered, copper-skinned man entered silently and sat at the desk. He scratched his black caterpillar mustache and crushed out the neglected butt. “How is Detective Holliday? What did the medics say?”

“Concussion and a cracked rib. He’ll be okay. Desk duty for a few days.”

“Good, good.” He rolled up his sleeves, revealing tattooed forearms. “Let me ask you, what the fuck possessed you to try and take down a tier-one bounty in a Red Zone without backup!” Officers hid themselves throughout the station.

Velic considered a smart remark but remained silent. He never entered Red Zones with backup and had no plans to start. Three years ago, the mayor had called in the entire force. In crowded stations across the city, sleep-deprived officers stared blankly at large screens. Mayor Mazarath discussed her plan to abandon parts of the city to save the rest. “Tough choices must be made… We will become the next fallen city… These zones are already crime-ridden…” She asked for a marker, and an anonymous arm held out a chunky red one. She drew thick lines around the city blocks, indicating they needed to fend for themselves until further notice. The name Red Zone stuck. In the streets, they say “bled” in lieu of red.

Major Rod lit another cigarette. “Sorry, Vel. Appearances. The uniforms look up to you, and if they see me taking any of your shit, they will follow suit. You understand?” He pulled a label-less green bottle from his desk and took a swig. Coughing, he leaned across the desk and offered it to Velic.

“I do.” The smell of alcohol shot into his nose before he lifted it to his mouth. He tried not to cough but failed. Passing the bottle back, he pictured Rod and him as young officers in starched uniforms standing at attention outside the same office. “If our places were swapped, I’d be chewing your ass daily.”

“Can you imagine the madhouse this precinct would become if you were in charge?”

Velic crushed out his cigarette. “That’s why I’m out on the streets, and you’re sitting in here on your ass.”

“Didn’t your nose used to be straight?”

“Didn’t your gut used to not hang over your belt?”

They glared at each other. Rod laughed first.

“Half your team is down, Vel. Why didn’t you radio team two for the assist?”

“JJ came through on a tip. This morning, I found myself the closest I had ever been to Yeznith.”

“Tell me what happened.” Major Rod rocked his chair as he listened.

“The bastard barely made the dumpster when he jumped. I didn’t want to have an accuracy competition. He was in the wind by the time I got down the fire escape.” Velic had never lied to him before. The vial in his pocket pressed into his ribs, and he kept it to himself, the question burning inside him of what to do with it. Showing the vial to Rod for it to do nothing would only convince them both that he had finally lost his mind.

“As much as I wish you were placing a picture of Yeznith’s body in front of me, I am glad you weren’t reckless enough to jump. Write up the report. Tonight.”

“I’ll have it on your desk tomorrow afternoon.”

“Morning. Have your partner proofread it. You spell like shit.”

“Will do.”

The major leaned forward. “How is everything else?”

“I’m dealing.” Neither spoke for a time. “I’m beyond succumbing to your stare, Johnathan.”

“Try not to make any mistakes that I can’t fix, Thomas. I convinced the bosses that you had finished mourning, taken the time you needed, and returned resilient. Have you?”

“Don’t I look like it?”

Loud voices rose from down the hall near the sergeant’s desk, and they both ignored them.

“You look and smell like shit. Here’s what I want you to do. Bring in a few tier threes from the misdemeanor board. Maz citizens enjoy watching criminals be exiled. It makes them feel safer. Happier. High numbers keep the chief out of my ass. And you need a couple of wins to cover this mess.” He pulled Yeznith’s file from his desk and held it up.

Velic said nothing about it being the wrong file.

The major looked at the door, then at Velic.

Taking the hint, he stood. “One for show?”

“Sure. Stay safe out there.” He cleared his throat. “Get the Fuck out of my office!”

The desk sergeant was forming a line that snaked around the building. Velic shouldered his way through a crowded waiting area and the precinct’s main entrance, half answering the greetings of passing officers hustling up the front steps past him. What he wanted most was to get the vial out of his pocket, to rid himself of the lingering fear that it might break and the side effects that would follow.

Reaching the sidewalk, he paused, looking up and down the street. There was one place he had heard of, a spot he drove by many times, but had sworn never to set foot inside.