On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 264, of 266 so far.

The Preponderance of Evidence

“You really believe in this garbage?”

The detective’s tone was as derisive as it had been all week, without any respite. His name was Callan, and he was a tall, gruff man with the jawline of a movie star and the dark, watchful eyes of a habitual sinner looking for his next opportunity. People skills didn’t seem to be in his repertoire.

Gearey didn’t rise to the bait, merely offering a small shrug. He’d been on the receiving end of the same question from Callan at least five times since the case — and their brief acquaintance — had begun, and each time he’d given a version of the same answer.

“Well, the preponderance of evidence I’ve gathered suggests that there’s more to human ability than medical science currently accepts. I always feel it’s best to keep your mind open.”

“And keep other people’s wallets open, huh professor?” Callan asked bitterly, his eyes darting around the gloomy space they’d just entered. The warehouse was vast, on the outskirts of an industrial area of the city, and there had been no-one parked outside when they arrived.

Gearey had been an investigator of paranormal phenomena for more than twenty-five years, and had been in many places like this. The unusual aspect of today’s visit was that the police rarely bothered to lend their assistance. But then the opposite was actually true here: Gearey was the one assisting, in his professional capacity which Callan so openly disdained.

To Callan, Gearey was either a charlatan or a gullible fool, and Gearey knew that the man’s opinion oscillated between the two extremes with alarming regularity and rapidity. The detective was in no way pleased that one of those crystal-ball guys had been drafted as a civilian advisor for this case, but the order came from the commissioner’s office and wasn’t exactly optional. And besides, the situation seemed to warrant a creative approach.

Four people were dead. They had all been criminals and thugs, yes, but if you asked him over a beer then Callan would have said good riddance to bad rubbish. But then the media had got a hold of it and an investigation was mandated. No-one really cared about the victims or even the motive, but they sure as hell cared about the means.

“Hell of a thing, though,” Callan said, unholstering his sidearm and adopting a classic two-handed grip as he moved into the dimly-lit maw of the old building. There was plenty of light from missing roof panels and broken shutters, but there were still too many places to hide.

“It was indeed,” Gearey replied. Anyone in the city would have known he was talking about the four deaths, without any other context. Most households were discussing the same thing at this moment, very likely, despite the passing of several days since the events took place.

It wasn’t every week that you read an eyewitness account of a stolen car somehow leaving the road adjacent to a junk yard and being flung directly into the crusher, with all its occupants still inside. No-one had been on duty at the yard, given the late hour. It was unclear who had even operated the machinery. There had been a photo circulating online of the resulting cube of metal, glass fragments, and human remains, that would stay in people’s memories for years.

Callan snorted and kept moving. “Some help you’ve been so far, professor. I’d have been better off with the psychic hotline.” The detective turned his head to see if his insult had hit its mark to a satisfactory degree, and then leapt to one side as a shape flew out of the darkness and struck the ground just beside him with a clang.

“Fuck,” Callan spat, immediately pointing his weapon in the direction the thing had come from, eyes scanning the area. After a few seconds, he glanced quickly down at what lay only a metre or so from his feet, and saw that it was an adjustable wrench, big and old and rusted solid. It had probably been here for as long as he’d been alive.

“Are you alright, detective?” Gearey asked, but Callan didn’t deign to answer. The tip they’d received about the perpetrator of the four murders hiding out in this warehouse seemed to have been right on the money, but all the detective felt was anger instead of triumph. Gearey could see that the other man’s teeth were bared.

“Be careful,” Gearey said evenly. “If this man is indeed telekinetic, it’s possible he can manipulate much larger objects than a—”

“Bullshit,” Callan replied, and for a moment Gearey thought he was actually going to fire without a target. Instead, the detective impulsively bent over and picked up the wrench. “I can throw stuff too, without any of your Uri Geller crap,” Callan said without even a glance at him, then he drew back his arm, and hurled the object into the gloom.

It sailed high and fast, and just before leaving the portion of the warehouse that was at least passably lit, it stopped dead in mid-air. Callan’s mouth fell open only an instant before the wrench dropped to the ground like a bird after hitting a window.

Callan’s pistol came back up immediately, and Gearey could see that his previously ruddy cheeks were now pale. Gearey took a few casual steps forward, moving past where Callan stood.

“Get the fuck behind me,” Callan hissed. “I personally don’t give a shit if you get a wrench or a goddamned truck in the face, but my Captain sure as hell will.”

Gearey only half-turned towards him, with a thoughtful look on his face. There was something in his eyes that Callan didn’t much like.

“That was a good throw, you know,” Gearey said. “Not one man in a hundred can throw like that. Understandable for a high school football star, certainly, but still impressive.”

Callan’s eyes were still seeking a target in the darkness, but he managed to give a one-shouldered shrug. “I played a bit, sure. You strike me as more of a chess club guy though.”

Gearey ignored the remark. “I can well imagine you out there as a young man. Plenty of girls, too, for the wearer of number 8.”

Callan’s eyes snapped to Gearey, and after a moment his pistol followed. He still had his number 8 jersey in a closet in his apartment, though the last time he wore it was a couple of decades earlier.

“Been checking up on me, professor?”

“The thing is,” Gearey said, taking slow steps now in no particular direction, “you were talented, but you weren’t kind. You made life very difficult for someone else in your year group. You might remember him. His name was Alan.”

The old images flashed through Callan’s mind, and he found his finger tightening on the trigger reflexively. He loosened his grip just in time. Gearey was still speaking.

“He took his own life, as you’ll recall. Hanged himself. All for the crime of being unpopular at school, and being adopted by a family who cared more about the financial incentives than about raising a vulnerable child. Did you know that his biological mother died in childbirth?”

Callan didn’t respond, but he adjusted his stance. His arms were starting to get tired from keeping the gun levelled at chest height.

“And his biological father was in no condition to raise another baby. It took him a further twelve years to actually drink himself to death, though. A sorry excuse for a man, and may God forgive me for saying so.”

“Who else is here?” Callan asked, with ice in his tone. “Your accomplice? You set this whole thing up, right? How did you kill those low-lifes at the junk yard?”

“I have no accomplice, detective,” Gearey said, and at the same instant Callan lifted his aim to the researcher’s forehead.

“So that’s why you waste your life with all this garbage about aliens and mind-readers? What was the kid to you? I’ve never met you before this week, and I never forget a face.”

“He was my brother,” Gearey said, “but it took me years to find out about him. Even more to track him down, only to find he was already gone. So tell me this, Detective Callan.”

Gearey took a step forward, and Callan flipped the safety of his pistol off with an audible click. Gearey stopped, but he didn’t look at all afraid. After a moment, he continued.

“Can you blame me, having lost my entire family, for seeking out others of my own kind?”

The gun left Callan’s hand on its own, and as the detective watched, it silently dismantled itself down to the smallest screws, unfolding in the air like some exotic bio-mechanical flower. The magazine detached and separated, each bullet losing its cap as its powder dispersed like dust, and then everything fell to the floor between the two men.

Callan had no time to reach for the backup pistol in his ankle holster. He was plucked from the ground, and he watched in disbelief as he rose to a height of four metres above the surface before coming to a stop. He couldn’t move, but he inwardly flinched at the sudden shriek of movement from all around.

He had no idea what sort of old, broken-down, rusted and abandoned machinery the warehouse contained, but he could readily see with horror what it was now becoming; tumbling out from the shadows, twisting and dancing and assembling itself into a grotesque gallows. The chain snaked from a hidden corner of the warehouse like a python from a nightmare, and he couldn’t even raise his hands to stop it from looping around his neck.

“It’s a shame, really,” Gearey said from below him, standing in the same spot as a moment ago, “because I actually like you. You’re stubborn and small-minded, but that makes you a useful tool. And I admit to envying your brusqueness.”

Callan was still held aloft by the even, gentle, but unrelenting force contacting every part of his body. The chain was tight around his neck, and he could see the frame of the makeshift scrap-metal gallows stretching down to the ground beneath him. He could neither move nor speak. His pulse thudded in his chest.

Gearey sighed. “But you’re also cruel, and you all but killed an innocent young man. I can’t forgive that.”

Tears leaked from the corners of Callan’s eyes, rolling down his cheeks to his broad and striking jaw. When they dropped off, they hung suspended just a millimetre from his skin.

“Death should be reserved for the guilty, detective,” Gearey said as he turned and began to walk away. “I’m sure you agree.”

Callan used every ounce of his strength, but he couldn’t move a single muscle. He tried to pray, and found that he didn’t know how. For the first time in years, the face of the awkward and pathetic kid that had apparently been Gearey’s brother rose up in his mind with perfect clarity.

Then he dropped.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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