‘God dammit, It’s a stack of trash!’ shouts Mullins partner in dismay. He kicks the now visible bags; rubbish explodes out of them like confetti.

‘It looked like a human the way it was propped up like that’ argues Mullins

‘Well it isn’t a human kid; it’s a goddamn trash bag, in a trash filled alley, what a surprise!’

Forty Four

Frank sits down at Jacobs’s desk with a shot of whisky in one hand and a bloody glove on the other. The confusion is returning. He downs another glassful to get rid of it. He stares at a motionless Jacob on the floor. Lying still, not moving one inch.

‘He was moving a lot before wasn’t he Frank. Oh how much he was moving, you could almost say he was squirming.’ Whispers the voice in Frank’s head

Frank pours himself another shot, downs it nearly as fast as he puts the bottle back down on the desk. He thumps his fist hard on the wooden desk, the pain hits his stomach.

‘In a little discomfort Frank?’ asks the voice.

Frank shakes his head, trying to rattle his conscious. He patters his pockets looking for relief. He grabs his pill dispenser and shakes it. No noise.

‘Shit’ Says Frank.

He opens the pill container and turns it upside down, nothing comes out of it.

‘Empty empty empty!’ Whispers the voice

Frank gets up and swings his arm across the desk knocking everything off it onto the ground.

‘Why won’t you leave me alone?’ He shouts

The room is silent; he slides to a seated position against the wall. He looks across the room at Jacob who is lying face down on the floor. He notices a meagre pool of blood seeping around Jacobs’s body. Frank quickly gets up and rushes over to the clutter on the floor from the desk. He searches the pile and finds his pill container; he chucks it over his shoulder and carry’s on scavenging. He finally stops and takes a deep breathe in, almost quivering. He picks up a white rag covered in red stains and unwraps it while breathing in heavily. He picks up a severed thumb from the wrapping. He wraps the thumb back up in the stained rag.

He gets up and patters himself down. The blood on his hands smears all over his leather jacket.

‘Crap!’ He says

‘That’s not going to come out easily’ says the voice in his head

Frank stops still; He turns around and makes his way out of the room, leaning against the doors entrance he peeks around the corner of the door frame to see if the coast is clear. It is.

He makes his way down the hallway and comes across a locked door; he tries the handle, no joy. He moves on deeper down the corridor and finds a sign pointing to the security post. He sighs and takes one deep breath and makes his way down the spic and span pathway. The corridor is bleach cleaned, the smell makes Frank feel queasy. He approaches the metal security gate that looked like a prison door with bars. He notices the fingerprint machine attached to the wall next to the door. He takes another deep breath in. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the bloody rag once again. He takes the severed thumb out of the rag and places it onto the flashing finger print machine. The machines small screen reads “PROCESSING”

It beeps and the light above the door goes green. The door unlocks with a rather loud crunching sound. It surprises Frank. He was expecting a more Sci-Fi type whoosh sound when the door opened. It crunches open and Frank walks through it. He looks back as the door automatically swings shut. He sighs and carry’s on walking. The hallway was just as clean as it was on the other side, but brighter. The light was making Frank disorientated. He braces the wall for a second as he stops to catch his bearings. He carries on walking slower as the pain in his stomach increases and throbbed away like a nagging nuisance in the background. He stumbles on to a second gate. He looks above the door and sees a red light. He once again puts Jacob’s thumb to work on the print machine. The door once again crunches open. Frank makes his through the second door. He hears a high pitched noise similar to trainers on a basketball court. He turns around to see the security door close. Turning back around he is greeted with a punch to the face making his head violently snap back.

Forty Five

Sandra Austin is standing alone in the middle of the channel 72 newsroom. The once hectic area is now eerily quiet and vacant.  She looks around and surveys the area, cameras are tilted down facing the ground, the news desk is littered with papers and Styrofoam cups. Coffee stains are abundant on the surface of the desk. She stands alone, preoccupied with her thoughts. Her mobile phone rings. She answers. She nods her head twice and hangs up, putting the phone back into her back pocket as she runs up the warehouse like staircase towards the production area overlooking the newsroom from above. The lights in this room differ from those on the studio floor. Lighting from the twenty something TV monitors saturate the rooms natural light, the air conditioning’s loud and humming, playing a sort of orchestral piece with the other electrical equipment. The buzzing and rattling are accompanied by the sound of tape stretching out, the sound of the audio tapes doing their jobs. Bob Sinclair was an old school guy. He did not like the way most newsrooms and media in general relied on computers to do their bidding. He kept the retro style broadcast booth with all of its reels of tape and noise to boot. Sandra liked that about him. She enjoyed a challenge and keeping up with the other news crews was challenge enough, even more so with the advantage of digital versus analogue.  Bob was sitting in his seat overlooking the control panels, twiddling the dials and nobs as he saw fit. He was in his broadcast zone; the unflinching look in his eyes was one that Sandra and her co-workers were used to. When he was in that zone everyone knew not to disturb him, even if he did call for her. She waited. He finally looked up at her and smiled.

‘We have a lead on a train coming into Boston in less than two hours. My source says something big is going to happen and I’m sending you down to the train station to report on it when it does.’ He said.

Sandra nods in agreement, reluctant to express any disapproval.

‘Good, I’m glad you understand the situation. Now get going, I want a full a set up before any other news crews catch wind of what’s going down.’

Forty Six

Nathan’s eyes open as the light hits his retina, he squints in pain, blood’s running down his face, pooling around his idle body on the ground. It looks worse than it is He thinks to himself. He tries to get up but his hands are handcuffed behind his back, making movement hard as he lies on his front, face down in the dirt. Nathan turns his head and looks at his surroundings. Where the hell am I He asks himself quietly in his head. He takes another look around and notices that he is in a cage like structure, imprisoned like a dog, a hand cuffed dog at that. He stretches his head forward, his chin resting on the cold hard ground. He looks straight ahead and notices an abundance of computer serves and wiring.

‘The basement’ He says to himself

Out of the shadows and armed man steps out, the little light coming from his lit cigar is enough to illuminate his face. A scar runs down from his eye brow to his chin. He is wearing a camouflage bandana that looks just as greasy as the floor underneath his feet.  He smiles at Nathan’s struggle and takes another drag on his large Cuban.

‘The basement is right star’ says the man, his Jamaican accent suits his face like the two were meant to be, stereo typical as it may seem, Nathan thought.

Nathan struggles some more as he tries to get a better look at the man.