Curse of the Red Moth

“My name is Michael Wydock. I’m a detective. Some may call me the modern Sherlock Holmes. I’ll admit it, I looked up to both my father and Sherlock Holmes to be where I am today. I’ve handled many cases in my life, but this case was the most disturbing and also my biggest case yet. This case was entitled ‘Curse of the Red Moth’. At first, I didn’t know what to expect when the case was given to me. But from what I saw and what I’m about to tell you, you’ll know why. It began just like any other ordinary day for a detective….”

“FREEZE!” I shouted after kicking the door opened to an unsettling sight. The room I have entered was small, damped and dark. It began to smell like something died in here. A man wearing red robes and a blooded knife in his hand stood in front of me. I couldn’t see his face thanks to that red hood he was wearing. Candle stands were lit up on each side of him. There was a strange symbol on the floor along with a dead corpse of a woman. She was cut open from her neck all the way down to the pelvis area. Her rib cage was slit opened and her organs were missing. I stood there with my gun pointed straight at him dressed in my brown leather trench coat and black fedora hat.

“Drop the weapon!” I commanded. Sweat from the heat of the candles began rolling down my dark brown eyes, almost blinding me. The man had dropped his knife and stuck his hands in the air, surrendering without a fight. Seemed strange to me. He was up to something.

“Detective Wydock. You came just in time to witness the rebirth.”

“Shut-up you psycho!” I shouted at him. I looked at the dead body in front of me. “You son of a bastard. Why did you do this, what were you trying to prove!?”

“Me?” questioned the man.

“I was just fulfilling my duties as my god instructed me to do.”

“What the Hell are you talking about?” I said confused, thinking he was loony and needed to be locked away and throw away the key in an insane asylum. As I stepped closer to him, the window behind him was opened so my long, red hair was blowing in the breeze.

“The time is nigh detective. She is nearly here, the red goddess! It doesn’t matter now detective; my duties are finished.” As I crept closer to him with my gun still pointed at him, I picked up the blooded knife. As I picked it up, he whipped out some sort of hidden wrist blade and stabbed me in the leg. The blade went into my leg pretty deep. As I stood there, mourning with agonizing pain, the man sought the opportunity to run and jumped out the window. As I ran towards the window to see him fall, he had killed himself. The impact of his body hitting the ground caused his death. It was a six story building and we were on the top floor. But what he said before he decided to jump clouded my mind. The time is nigh. She is nearly here, the red goddess. What could he have meant by that? I reached in my pocket for my walkie and called it in.

“I need an ambulance here and a body bag.” I said on the walkie.

“Got it chief. What of the suspect?” The voice from the other end of the line had said. I looked down at the dead body from the window.

“Make that two body bags. He decided to take a little fall.” I hung up the walkie and waited for them to come. As I waited, I decided to snoop around the room. It was a small room so there wasn’t a lot of places to check. It was an apartment room. Just a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and the living room. All of the walls were blackened like they have been burnt. The place was all dusty, moldy and abandoned. It was the perfect place for that man to have performed the ritual or whatever the Hell he was doing.

While I was snooping around, I came across something odd. A book with a red hard cover on it and a strange symbol on it. The same symbol that was drawn on the floor. I picked it up and looked at it. ‘Province of the Red Goddess’ it was entitled. The title was there but it looked as if the author’s name had been scratched off. Maybe something in this book was related to what the man in red robes was talking about.

Finally, the medic team had arrived along with a team of detectives and police officers. Yellow police tape was wrapped around the entire room. I sat in a chair as one of the medic’s took a look at my leg. The chief of police came up to me. He was a tall bald-headed man who always wears that black trench coat. He took off his sunglasses which made him see a lot better.

“Great job detective.” he said pleased with my work.

“Even though we couldn’t bring the culprit in for questioning….”

“He acted on his own free will sir.” I interrupted.

“Jumped out the window and looked death straight in the eye.”

“Nonetheless though Detective Wydock, you are coming out to be a cunning detective. Your father would’ve been very proud of you.” My father was a cop. He got himself shot by an unknown shooter trying to rob a bank. I looked up at him.

“Thank you sir.”

“What’s that you got there?” Of course he was referring to the book that I found.

“I found it. I think it belonged to the culprit.” I handed him the book and he flipped through the pages.

“All of these pages are blank.” he had said.

“What? That can’t be.” He handed the book back to me and I saw the pages. He was right, they were all blank. Which grew me more curious. But in the back of the book were the words ’Pinesberry’.

“Pinesberry? Isn’t that a town?” I thought to myself. The culprit must’ve gotten this book all the way from Pinesberry. The medic had finished patching up my leg. I stood up.

“Whatever this book is, it came from Pinesberry.” I told the chief.

“Pinesberry? That area isn’t even on the map, you’ll never going to find it.”

“Well I have to do something. It’s the only lead I’ve got to understand why the murderer did what he did.” I looked at the body of the mutilated woman as the medic’s zipped her up in the body bag and carried her corpse out of the room on a stretcher. The chief sighed.

“I’ll look up directions online, see if there are any.” I told the chief.

“I hope you’re right about this detective, I’ll trust you.”

“Thank you, sir.” He looked at me as I shook his hand. He gave me a pat on my back. It stung just a little. I left the crime scene with confidence. As I walked down the stairs and out the building, the medic’s had zipped up the culprit’s body in a fresh body bag. They had the two bodies in the back of the ambulance, and I watched as they drove off. I walked down the street back to my car and disappeared into the fog. I have gotten back to my car which was the classic black 1971 Cuda. It was an exact replica of the Cuda that was featured in one of my all-time favorite horror movies entitled ’Phantasm’. A movie made back in 1979 but this right now is the year 1995. I got in and started up the engine. I loved hearing this car purr. I can’t help but think of that one scene in the movie every time I would turn on the engine. I revved up the engine just so I could hear that sweet sound.

I felt like a teenage kid learning how to drive his first car being this 1971 black Cuda. It was such a sweet car. I love it like it was my own baby. I stepped on the gas and drove off into the city. I had to get home so I could look up the directions to get to Pinesberry. Whatever was waiting for me up in Pinesberry, it can’t be good. I can sense it.