Chapel: Where Sleeping Beauties Lie. 1 of 3

It is a scene that seems all too familiar to him, and yet strangely distant, this place.. It.. Feels like home. A home somehow long lost to him.. And yet here he is.. The small cottage in the glen, the narrow creek bed out behind it. The large thicket of woods just to the east of there. There it all is, right there before his very eyes, as clear as a picture, he knows that this is impossible, it can’t be, he hasn’t been here in so many years and yet here he is. The clear, brilliant blue skies, softly rolling pillows of white clouds, the air here is so clean it almost seems to burn his lungs to breathe it in. and in all this time the most important of details has escaped him. Just a boy he is.. Enjoying the indulgences of childhood.. Perhaps he is ten.. Maybe eleven. Running through the grassy fields and across the rolling hills of Aberdale, his younger sister Ava in tow.. Laughing, smiling, running through the fields.. Chasing butterflies were you?..


His eyelids begin to tighten around the sockets. His eyes themselves rolling almost impatiently trying to recapture the image. Slowly he focuses, almost willing it to return. The sun sits high in the sky, it is mid morning, they are running down a hillside now, the sun at their backs. A soft slow rolling breeze gently whips through Ava’s long dark locks, tossing them into her face. There is no sound here, no heat, nor cold. He watches with childlike curiosity as she loses her balance, stumbles and falls, almost moving in slow motion as her body tumbles down the grassy hillside. Everything around him seems to move even slower now, He runs to the bottom of the hill to catch up with her. But he can just feel it, something is terribly wrong. She lies still in a small ravine, her head sits at an awkward angle resting against a large jagged rock.. She isn’t moving, he cocks his head to one side as he stares at her curiously, as the first drop of crimson blood slowly rolls from her mouth, “it was the first time that you saw human blood, wasn’t it? and most certainly, it wouldn’t be the last.”


Present Day.
It was the piercing sounds of police sirens that opened his eyes with a start, and forced him back to the here and now. The air was cold and thin outside, and it had started snowing, he rose to his feet and slowly moved to the edge of the bell tower, below the police cars hastily slid along the wet street as they headed east on Delorian , their sirens tearing through the still, cold early morning air like a knife. He climbed out onto the ledge of the abandoned church, and watched as another two cars whisked by with their lights flashing. The sirens now though had fallen strangely silent. As his darks eyes scanned the empty skyline he was filled with a sudden sense of dread, three blocks away on Columbus street the police had discovered another victim, the city claimed another. He moved quickly and quietly along the rooftops of dilapidated hotels and stores until the caravan of police cars in front of Faversham’s drug store on Columbus street came into full view.


On the rooftop of the Martin hotel next door there was movement, the police were putting up crime scene tape.
“Walk away from it deadman.. This isn’t your concern.”
He ignored the voice that seemed to follow him everywhere and moved towards ground level, his curiosity drawing him closer to the crime scene, but staying out of the line of sight of the police. he moved unnoticed past the barricade and quietly up the stairwell leading to the rooftop. There he saw her lying on the cold wet tar roof, her dark brown eyes staring lifelessly skyward, she was beautiful, young, too young he thought, to have suffered such a fate. He closed his eyes and moved back into the shadows. Listening to their every word as if sorting through the clues with them.
“we have a female victim, probably somewhere between 17 and 22 years of age, no ID yet, but we’re still looking. Her skirt was pushed up, she was raped, her throat cut, she probably bled out right here on the spot. Doesn‘t feel like she‘s been dead for more than a couple of hours.”


The two officers turned their backs to him their voices falling into low mumbles as a third person joined them and all three bent down to inspect the deceased young girl. Then another came, he look like a detective. He closed his eyes and he could clearly see her face, she smiled at him, talked to him, showed him kindness without even knowing who or what he was. Just ten short hours ago this beautiful young woman was brimming with life, with hope, a bright promising future, no doubt firmly within her grasp. But somehow, somewhere she took a wrong turn, took hold of the wrong hand, trusted the wrong person, and she‘d died for her kindness. He watched them unnoticed the entire time, he watched them load her body onto the gurney and carry her down the empty stairwell, at his feet he felt something peculiar, and knelt down to look more closely and found a small overturned purse, he quietly picked it up and withdrew deeper into the shadows.


The voices fell silent as the officers slowly one by one made their way back down to the street, until there was but one left on the rooftop. He could sense the anger, as the detective slowly began to pace, he lit a cigarette and paused to look out at the empty sleeping skyline of King’s Harbor. He lived in a world of monsters, monsters that preyed on beautiful young women, on the homeless, the despondent, on anyone or anything too weak to fight back. He almost made himself visible to him but thought better of it.
“Not yet Chapel,” he thought to himself. “Not… just…Yet.”
He waited until the detective left the rooftop before stepping back into the light, he stepped nearer the street lamp and looked through the contents of the purse, removing the girls drivers license. Her name was Cassandra Dawkins she was 19 years old and lived at 413, 32nd street apt 10 B. he turned towards the stairwell pausing to be certain that no one was returning to the rooftop.


It didn’t take him long to gain entrance into apartment 10 B at 413 32nd Street. The residence was empty for the most part, the furnishings were sparse, an old couch, a couple of end tables, a few pictures scattered across the wall on either side of the small television. “she didn’t have much.” he thought to himself. He moved along the wall stopping at a smaller picture of Cassandra Dawkins posing beside of another young woman. He removed the picture from the frame and put it in his pocket and almost cautiously walked over to the living room window that overlooked Parish Park, his thoughts quickly returned to the Detective on the rooftop where Cassandra Dawkins body had been discovered. There wasn’t but one police precinct in that district so he knew exactly where to take the purse. It was after all, evidence in a homicide. Now all he needed was a good story to tell them about where he had found it. He left the apartment and sought out the 15th precinct on Tasker Street.



It was an old fashion three story red brick building that seemed on the outside to be crumbling into decay, and when he’d entered through the front door the inside didn’t appear to be much better. They were cramped for space and people were working practically on top of each other. He approached the front desk, and the fat balding, round faced desk sergeant leaned forward and down at him. Chapel placed the purse on top of the counter in front of him.
“I’ll be turning this in then.” he told him.
The desk sergeant put on his glasses and inspected it. His eyes slowly looking Chapel’s large frame up and down.
“Just turning this in are ya?” he asked him sarcastically.
“Well yes.. It doesn’t belong to me officer, and I’m sure that someone will be wanting it back.” he replied.
“Uh huh.. Where’d ya find it?”
“In an alley behind Faversham’s drug store on Columbus.” He responded.
The desk sergeant turned to enquire about the homicide on Columbus but when he turned back to further question Chapel about where he’d found the purse he was no where to be seen.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2010~