Sleep Demon

The First incident

It was 3:00 in the morning, and Marc was just getting some coffee from the doughnut shop on 5th ave when he received the call to head back to Coconut Grove after working a 12 hr shift. Exhausted and overworked, he flicked his lighter and lit a cigarette as usual. The first to arrive on the scene and the last one to leave. Marc and his guys are part of the crime and ballistic team. You can call them the badass.

At this point, nothing mattered much to him. He was going through a divorce and hadn’t seen his kids in a while. He is currently crashing on an old-time friend’s couch and still trying to get out of his debts. An old pal from his dog days in the marines that is. Someone who knew his dark secrets, someone around whom he felt very comfortable. It wasn’t much, but he was grateful to have a place to crash, well, except on Friday night.

You see, his old pal Garry is what you call a macho man and would bring home two to three girls from the nightclub on Friday. Waking up in a bed full of women is something they both enjoyed when stationed abroad and off duty.

But Marc had traded that lifestyle long ago when he married Rose and had two beautiful children, Mat and Gwen. His Mustang car deed and detective badge are the only things left signed to his name. His financial struggle started way before Rose moved out, to be frank. Marc may have left the marines a long time ago, but he never got over his post-discharge issues. He would argue with his captain down at the station. The demon within Marc calls it. Everyone has one.

He pulls over to the side of the road with his head out of the window and takes in a good puff from his cigarette as he inhales the fresh scented air of the nearby Pinecrest trees. Marc looked at his car clock, pushed the gas pedal, and said, “F*k it,” as he swung the wheels, screeching his muddy tires over the wet asphalt and making a U-turn toward Coconut Grooves.

He honks and revs his engine as he approaches the alley, trying to get the police patrols to move and let him through.

“You look like shit Marc.” A lady coming out of the forensic van says to him.

“Nice to see you too, Shondra,” he murmured and parallelled parked his mustang right behind the captain’s car.

He steps out of the car, takes a sip of his coffee, and puts out his cigarette with his shoes. He had never seen that many officers at a crime scene before. It’s as if the entire station was here. The red and blue flashes coming from the police patrols made the whole block look like a Summerfest fair. He puts on his badge, walks toward the crime scene, and hears the captain’s voice before even asking what is going on?

“It’s about goddamn time you got here!” shouted the captain standing behind the yellow line.

Marc flipped the yellow line over his head and was about to step forward when four officers barged out the door and puked over the pavement.

“Jesus Christ, would you guys get it together? You almost puked on my most expensive custom-made boots. Why are you still standing here? Marc, get your ass in there. I want a thorough report of what the f**k happened in that goddamn place on my desk the next day, you hear me. And keep the freaking press away, for now. I have too much shit going on right now, and I don’t want the mayor or anyone else breathing down my neck.” He says, puffing on his Cuban cigar and fixing his awful weird-looking mustache.

Marc reflects on how they would sometimes crack jokes at the station but never dare talk about it openly.

“Here, you’re gonna need these,” Shondra says with a shoulder shrug, pulling a pair of gloves and a mask from her forensic kit.

“Why the hell did you park so close to my car Marc, God damn it? Hey, you, move your ass out of my way.” The captain shouts at the officers as he maneuvers out of the parking.

“Take it easy, cap...” Marc says, putting on his gloves.

“Take it easy, my ass. I want that report on my desk asap. The captain answered and drove off the main street.

“So, what are we dealing with here?” Marc asked Shondra.

“I don’t know. We have never dealt with a case like this before. Someone or something took out the entire building. We’re talking close to fifty people, patients and staff included, but the real mystery here is how they did it?”

She pushed the door open, which instantly revealed a male torso hooked from the ceiling with its guts spilled, and the eyes plucked out. Underneath it was a pool of blood with a trail of footsteps leading toward the main entrance door.

The blood splatter and handprints on the door frame are signs of the victims’ failed attempt to get out before being killed by the assailant? Whoever did this must have dragged the victim’s lower body part out of the East parking lot.

“Over here!” she says, taking pictures of the victims at the nurses’ station.

One of them had her arms torn out, and the other had severe bite marks on her neck. A male staff member had a restraining jacket on and pinned to the wall with a plumbing pipe in room five. The security guy got nailed to the wall. The nail gun plunged into his stomach with the word sinners on the wall.

Marc froze for a minute. All this scenery was oh too familiar for him. It brought back old memories. Memories of exploding minefields and dismembered soldiers screaming in agony in the mix-shift ER. But this was not a result of a minefield or explosive devices, something much sinister was at work here, and Marc could feel it in his bones.

“Do you think it’s a payback?” Shondra asks while dusting the nurses’ coffee mugs for fingerprints.

“You mean from one of the cartels, nah... this doesn’t look like a payback at all, hell, I don’t even think it’s drug-related. The cartels always leave a message as a signature for their enemies or rivals to contemplate. What exactly is the message here?

I believe this is the work of a demented scumbag, more like a serial killer. But then again, how could one serial killer kill a security guard and all these muscled staff members? They’re mostly lone wolves who prey on weak targets and won’t let anyone take their credits.”

“Unless this one doesn’t work alone,” she says, rummaging through the garbage can for any possible clues.

Shondra got a page to come downstairs to the infirmary section. Things were way more disturbing there than here. The patients’ corpses had deep lacerations on the left palm. They formed a perfect circle around what looked like a satanic tetragram with someone’s heart in the middle.

Finally, the first clue of the day, somebody wrote the name Nathan on the glass window. Finding who this Nathan is without the last name will be like ‘finding a needle in a haystack.’ There must be at least one hundred thousand Nathans, if not more, in our database,

“Uh, you guys got to see this...” says the IT tech holding his Ipad. “I was able to collect images from the working cameras in the hallway, which is unbelievable. Take a look at this guy coming out of the infirmary.”

“Oh my God... did he just rip this man’s heart out of his chest?” asked Shondra with heavy palpitation.

“Yes, he did, and that’s not all. Keep on watching- did you see that? How could he lift that man against the wall with one arm like it was nothing?” He says, running his fingers through his hair.

“Who the hell is this guy? Do we have any facial ID on him?”

“Yes, we do... right there. The name is Eddy Sandlers. Six months ago, he got transferred here after pleading guilty to insanity and involuntary manslaughter. It says here that the patient has a severe mental illness and believes he is a vessel for the devil’s work.” Said the IT tech in disbelief.

“OK, people put an APB out on this guy. I want him found and taken off the streets as soon as possible. Shit, we’re looking at at least six months of paperwork, so much for my vacation.”