A gruesome trail of blood led police officers to the side of the building and into the bushes, where the trail stopped. The trail began directly beneath the open window of Erik Garcia, found dead inside his first floor apartment. He had presumably hacked away his left arm with the large butcher knife still in his right hand.
“38 year-old male, unemployed. We found some psychological assessments on file but nothing to explain his claims of…’alien hand syndrome.’ Ever hear of that, boss?” Vazquez, the lead homicide detective didn’t answer but had heard of it from Garcia himself; a former member of his team whom he was forced to terminate for extremely erratic behavior. Garcia claimed his left hand was moving on its own…and thinking about killing. Garcia had pleaded with Vazquez not to fire him, then threatened to kill Vazquez when he did.
Seems a highly troubled soul found a solution to his demons, Vazquez thought. Case closed.
“The victim expired here, but there is a trail of blood leading to the window. And we found this.” Vazquez was handed the victim’s wallet. In it was a picture of Garcia and Vazquez. On the back there was one discernible word, like a message: killing. Vazquez felt his heart pound in his throat and asked to see the severed arm.
“It’s missing boss. And the home alarm system reports indicate the window was opened from the inside 15 minutes after the victim’s estimated time of death.”
*This was my entry for round 2 of the "250-Word Micro Fiction Challenge 2020" sponsored by NYC Midnight. 5,400+ writers were whittled down to 1,200 for round 2 participating in 30 groups with 40 writers per group. We again had only 24hrs to write a complete story within an assigned genre which also needed to incorporate an assigned action and word. For my group it was horror, finding a wallet, and message. My "Missing" story placed 6th amongst the top 5 spots of my group, so I was just one spot shy of proceeding to the 3rd and final round. The challenge was very exciting and further fed my interests to write very short stories, and I will soon participate in their 100-Word Micro Fiction contest.
For my round 1 entry, please read "Rose" found on my blog list.
This short story was based on a rare but genuine medical condition.
Thank you kindly for taking the time to indulge my writing.
Commenti