Briefing
FlashNano 2019, Day 7
“People, pay attention.”
Lieutenant Jones comes in, two people trailing him. A man and a woman.
Officer Kitteridge smiles. I like Jones.
“These are Special Agents Jackson,” the man waves, “and Chang,” and the woman does the same. “The profilers.”
Look at this. It’s like one of those TV series! Us the police agents here, waiting for them to use their magic!
“Officers,” Chang starts, “first of all, we want to thank you for your efforts so far. We’re not here to overpower you, we’re here to help.”
Well said, well said. Good start.
“You’ve seen the crimes scene, you know the details,” Jackson takes over. “The suspect we’re searching for is a Caucasian male, in his middle thirties.”
“He’s probably quite successful in his job,” Chang continues. “But there was something in his past that triggered him. What exactly, we cannot know yet.”
“But that event,” Jackson again. Do they rehearse this? “will show up in your records. He may have witnessed a crime. Perhaps closely, a relation of him. We can look for that.”
Whoa. How can they know that? From the bodies? The crime scenes? These people are amazing.
“But right now,” Chang again, “we want you to look at this.”
She shows a chart and a map. Jackson points at them.
“Look at the dates. Of course you’ve noticed, since the media have. The gap between crimes is becoming shorter, faster. The first victims that we know of had months between them. Now it’s days.”
“But that’s not all,” Chang says. “You know the details: some of you have been at the crime scenes. We know how a station is. You talk among you. We do the same. He’s getting more and more savage. That’s what we’re trying to hide from the press.”
Furlong rises his hand. Of course, it has to be Furlong.
“What does that tell us?”
Jackson answers the question.
“He’s getting anxious. The subject obtains pleasure not only from the kill, but also from the torture. His brain produces endorphins when he’s committing his crimes.”
Ah.
“Literally,” Chang finishes,”he’s an addict. He’s addicted to murder, and as any other addict, he needs his dose. And he needs it faster and more often.”
Oh. I had never thought of that. An addict? Ah, well, that explains what happens to me quite well. Well, I don’t mind much…
This is my flash for Day 7 of FlashNano 2019, (idea by Nancy Stohlman). The prompt for today was “Write a story that includes an addiction.” As I’m intending to do more often than not, I tried to give it a twist.
