The Department
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ada asked.
“You know this is the only way to activate my powers,” Jewel said.
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“I know. Yes, let’s nail that monster.”
“Okay, Jewel. See you when you’re back,” Ada said. “Well, people, let’s do it.”
Jewel closed her eyes while the fluid entered the IV and somebody -that had to be Carl- switched on the audio. Through her earphones, she heard once again the details of the case. She let her mind drift…
~~~
The heart-rate monitor beeped slower and slower. Ada had grown to hate the sound, to the point of waking up in the night imagining it was a deathly alarm, only to find Jewel asleep by her side.
“Freezing fluid transferred,” Carl intoned. “Temperature 25 Celsius, heart rate…”
He didn’t need to say it. The beep had turned into a steady, brain-racking tone.
“Okay, people,” Ada said. “We know the drill. We give her three minutes, no more, no less. Adrenaline ready, defibrillator ready.” She tried to keep calm, and failed.
~~~
It always started the same way. At sixteen, she was weird enough to ride her bike not listening to music on her earphones, but the local news. She recalled -no, she lived again- listening to the latest news report on the Ghost, the suspected serial killer that journalist had so christened because he left no clues. The late winter afternoon, the small bump in the road that had made her fall from her bike, exactly in the worst place possible. The ice breaking, the chilling sensation as she sank in the frozen lake and started drowning.
“`ello, Jewel,” the familiar voice had said.
“Mum? Is that you?”
“Yes, ma chérie, it’s me.”
“Am I dead then?”
“No, chérie. Not yet. We have no time. I don’t think you’ll like this, but let me show you.”
And her mother, who had passed away ten years earlier, had shown her. Jewel had woken up in hospital, and had teared off her mask, saying she knew where to find the Ghost. The cops hadn’t believed her at first, but she had given so many details they had decided just to check.
That was how the Department had found her, and Jewel found out she was not, after all, so weird. And never was she alone again. She had Carl, and Griffin, and the rest. And Ada. She had Ada.
~~~
“`Ello, chérie,” her mother said. “We’re in a hurry as always, oui?” Oh how Jewel missed her French accent.
“Yes, mum. We’ve arrested this… monster, but he’s completely clean. No DNA, no electronic evidence, nothing. We cannot even find the bodies, and he’s killed tens of women.”
“Let me help.”
Underwater. They were underwater, wrapped in concrete. Of course, the guy was a builder. Jewel swam among them. Oh God, there were many more, and coral had began to grow on some of them. How long had he been killing? She thought she could hear them wailing, shouting at her for justice. She spun, looking at their empty eye sockets, at their open mouths, and she herself gasped for breath. Underwater, how could she be underwater and breath?
Not real, not real. Using her powers. Swim up, get in the air. Look at the land, get higher. The sea, the coastline, where are we?
So tired.
So tired…
~~~
Jewel gasped for breath again, this time for real. She saw Ada by the bed, her forehead furrowed with worry as usual. God, how she loved Ada.
“Miami,” Jewel whispered, “the bodies are in Miami.”
***
This is my entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: April 6–12, 2015 in the Google+ Writer’s Discussion Group.
Not much to comment this week. I saw the picture, I had this idea of a sort of medium belonging to a crime-fighting unit using weird superpowers seeing these bodies, and the rest fell into place. I wrote it all and overshot the word limit as usual, so I has to tweak it here and there to make it fit. I really like how this particular story came out.
A quick Google search shows those are not bodies in the picture but sculptures in the underwater museum at Isla Mujeres, Cancún, Mexico.
Additional note: I “won” the exercise this month! I’m specially proud, since I felt happy with how this story came out.
