Five Minute Fiction is an ongoing experiment. The goal: To write as much as I can in five minutes. Don’t think. Let the fingers do the work (it’s funny how the brain works when you don’t impose any restrictions). Once done walk away then come back later to clean it up.
Enjoy?
The Chase
Detective Lutz stood silently at the door of room 213, examining the plastic keychain fob still dirty from the time it spent in the shallow grave. It was more than a clue found at a crime scene, it was a taunt from the Ethereal Slasher. Lutz wanted nothing more than to put an end to this two year-old case that had long since turned into an obsession for both cop and killer. Each sensing that the other was getting closer, and neither was willing to give up the game.
Slowly sliding the key into the doorknob on which hung a “do not disturb” placard, Lutz twisted it and heard the lock snap open. Not bothering to call for backup or unholster his service weapon, he pushed open the door and stepped inside the dark apartment. He had entered enough rooms tied to this case to know that nobody would be inside.
Turning on the lights revealed a sterile room devoid of personality. Everything from the window blinds to the rug was saturated in the same bland beige hue. The neatly made beds looked as if they had never been slept in. None of the towels in the bathroom had been used. Even the paper seal wrapped around the toilet bowl lid with the words “Sanitized with pride” printed on it was still in place. The only thing that was out of place was the painting of a desert scene at dusk that hung on the wall above the television.
It was slightly crooked.
Approaching the painting, Lutz saw what looked like a dark smudge peeking out from the shadow behind the canvas. Placing a knuckle on the black metal frame he nudged the painting over and uncovered what appeared to be dark markings on the aseptic beige wallpaper. With eyes wide and ignoring all protocols of a clean crime scene (a term that he always considered an oxymoron), Lutz grabbed the painting by the frame and lifted it off of the nail on which it hung.
There, concealed behind the painting, was an ink drawing of the shallow grave Detective Lutz had just come from, only in this drawing the grave had yet to be filled in. Lying in the thin scrape of earth was the body of Susan Eltch, her face disfigured by dozens of deep cuts, throat slashed and her right thumb missing. His calling card. The drawing was of the caliber of a highly trained artist, and not that of an insentient serial killer.
Below the drawing were several newspaper clippings. One was from The Ankron Post contained a picture of the industrial warehouse where two bodies were discovered several months ago. Another from the Galviston Gazette covered the story of the billionaire heiress who was found dead in her bathtub over the Labor Day holiday. The final clipping talked about the as-yet unidentified body found at the edge of the Granton swamp earlier this year.
The three newspaper clippings shared two things in common; All of the bodies were missing their right thumbs, and each story had Lutz’s name carefully circled in red ink.
