Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 13:57:08 -0400 (AST) From: "l.d. steele" To: fkarchiver@fkfanfic.com Subject: UNSUITEDS: Red Stains Mel, Here's my contribution. There might be another on in there though! :) * Dawn ** "We must learn to appreciate diversity, not suppress it. * L.D. Steele ** How devastating to think of a world in which everyone is * h36a@unb.ca ** the same!" -- Janice LaFountain ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Here's my contribution for the Schanke and LaCroix challenge. Just what I needed for inspiration after my fingers had been languishing for so long. :) It's short and entirely thanks to the right side of my brain. My left had to do with it since I just sat down and the words came out without me knowing what I was writing about. Thanks are due to Perri and Lynn who checked it over for me, told me how to fix it up, and assured me I could send it to the list. Dawn ------------------------------- Warning: I'm not sure how to label this one -- maybe "grim". It's a funny story, but how far it goes into the realm of "horror" depends entirely on your own imagination. Red Stains By: Dawn Steele (h36a@unb.ca) Copyright Feb. 1997 Schanke snuggled down into the recliner, and took a deep sip of Alpine beer. On the TV screen in front of him Jeannie was trying to fix yet another of her screwed up magical "blinks". He really wasn't sure what the screw-up was this time, as his mind had been more on a body found during his shift the previous night. The body had been that of a young girl thrown away like a piece of garbage in a dumpster, and both of her hands had been chopped off. They'd spent over two hours at the crime scene cataloguing evidence that might never lead them to the killer, while a rookie got to go through the entire dumpster piece by piece looking for the missing hands. A squeal from the kitchen and then the sound of the radio being turned up distracted him from the gloomy thoughts. Jenny had a friend over tonight, Amy or Emily -- something like that, and Myra had practically ordered him not to talk about anything to do with his work over dinner. Myra hated to hear about his cases, but he could usually count on her to listen to him if he needed to talk when he woke up. Schanke wiped a sweat-stained hand through his hair. The damn air conditioning was out again, and the doubly-damned Weather Channel nimrod had happily announced humidex values of "mid-forties Celsius" for the next three days. The smell from the dumpster had been.... He forcibly brought his mind back to the present, and the TV, where Jeannie had magically produced an elephant inside her house for some reason. She seemed sure that this would solve her problems, whatever they were this time. The elephant made him think of the zoo, and how he'd promised to take Jenny to see the White Lion exhibit while they were still there. His daughter, horror lover that she was, would want to go during feeding time. Pieces of red, blood-soaked meat with white bone sticking out.... Schanke hit the power button on the TV and sat in the darkness. Jeannie wasn't working her soothing, mind-numbing magic on him tonight. The memories of that poor girl (16? 18?) refused to go away. He'd probably spend his night off staring at the ceiling and listening to Myra turn over next to him in her sleep. More giggles and then the sound of footsteps getting closer. Schanke closed his eyes moments before Jenny turned on the bright overhead light. "Daddy! If you're going to take a nap, then go upstairs!" Hands on her hips and a militant expression on her face, Jenny looked remarkably like Myra. Schanke couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face. "Just resting my eyes, Munchkin." "Daddy!" An embarrassed look to her friend Amy (Emily?), and then she was pushing him out of the room so that they could watch a taped movie. Schanke let himself be forcibly ejected and then shambled into the kitchen. He was reaching for the leftover cherry pie in the fridge when he realized that the radio was still on. Vanilla ice-cream in the freezer, and a fork from the silverware drawer and he was ready for a bit of forbidden dessert. The voice on the radio was familiar. It was speaking of death, rotting meat, and the absence of hope. Schanke almost turned it off in disgust before he realized who it must be. The Nightcrawler -- the guy Nick was always listening to. Those same fingers hesitated, and then turned the volume up. "... and when will it end? A death that no one will care about, and might never be solved. A two-inch space in the newspaper, five if it's a slow news day. Does anyone really notice anymore? Just one more death in a city that used to be called 'Toronto the Good' but is slowly catching up to its American cousins." "The body will lay in the morgue, to be dutifully cut up by some nameless city official in search of how she died. Perhaps her hands will even be dug up some years hence by a dog digging holes in a neighbor's backyard." The girl. He was talking about her. The media must have already found a leak in the department, and were enthusiastically spreading the news far and wide. "Do you care? Can you see her lying unnamed in a dumpster surrounded by flies and reeking of death?" The memory made his stomach lurch and his appetite flee. "I can." The ice cream was starting to melt and mix in with the red cherry sauce. Red. Red blood at the source because the body had been found almost immediately, and brownish-red stains splattering the garbage around where she'd lain. "But then, I am the Nightcrawler and I can imagine... anything." So could he. Unfortunately, so could he. -- Finis --