My Face Showed Nothing [Short Story]

I examined the scene from my crouched position near the body of Robin Pinchbeck. A knife lay across the kitchen floor, motionless where it rested close to the dead man’s hand. A small pool of blood lay near his head. I jotted a few notes down in my notebook. It looked simple and obvious to me. “Murder.” My heart beat slightly faster at the thought, and images of previous investigations flashed through my mind. I hated murder and violence, maybe that was why I worked so hard to banish it from the world. Or at least that’s what I told myself. I often wondered if I could be capable of murder. The answer I gave myself was usually a quiet yes. Hating people was one of my strong points, unfortunately. Maybe that was the real reason for my murder investigations. I wanted to pay penance for my guilt; the part I played in the horrible process.“Excuse me, sir, if I could just get in there for a moment,” a voice said politely. I was jolted from my thoughts as I stood up at the photographer’s prompt. “No problem, I was just finishing up.” I smiled somewhat nervously and walked out of the kitchen. Murder scenes always made me anxious. Part of it was the amount of murders that I had seen. All that violence took a toll on me. I was walking towards the door when I noticed a woman standing by herself in the doorway to the bedroom. It must be Robin Pinchbeck’s wife. She looked at me as I passed by. I made a note to myself to come back later and talk to her. But right now, the anxiety in my heart was too much to bear. I had to do something about it before I could concentrate on the task at hand. Back in my office, I tried to relax. Seeing a murder scene was always hard, but this was somehow worse, as if I had personally known the victim. I needed to relax; relaxing was key. I could feel anxiety building up in my chest, pushing at my skull. Gruesome memories flashed through my head; this often happened when I investigated a murder case. My anxiety rose to the surface, resulting in sweat on my forehead. I couldn’t always deal with these panic attacks. They got worse, case by case. I needed to free myself, to escape. Most of all, I needed my head in the game. Yes, that was it! I needed to concentrate. I had to keep my cool and focus. Find the killer of Mr. Robin Pinchbeck. But I couldn’t do that if I was falling apart on the inside. I couldn’t deal with it! I had to escape. The sweating on my brow worsened. My thoughts were screaming at me to free them, to let them wander in their own reality! I couldn’t take it, I let myself obey my feelings. I looked around to make sure I was alone, and reached into my drawer. I popped up the false bottom and pulled out a bag of psychological delinquents. I didn’t even know what kind of euphoria I kept, but it didn’t matter. Anything that could take my mind off the searing images of death. Pinchbeck’s murder wasn’t particularly brutal, just a trigger. I plunged my hand into the bag and came out with a syringe. I prepared my arm, and silently slid the needle into my vein. Within a few minutes of injecting the fluid into my body, the room began to waver and flicker. This was a particularly potent does of…whatever it was I had just taken. Lights seemed to grow brighter and every color was so vivid I felt I could practically taste them. My favorite part was coming up; the incarnations of a personal reality. They strutted past me like a marching band. I saw familiar faces, imaginary faces; really, any face that would fit into my delirium. They spoke to me, screamed at me, tried to provoke me. They made me hate them. Maybe they were real…was it so bad to believe they might exist? Of course not, they were real. I knew they were, but more importantly, I believed there were. This was my solace, because here, every victim I failed to save was alive and well. In this reality, I had never failed.The colors faded and I was sitting at my desk in a dusty old office, alone. I could not recall what had just happened. I noticed the bag of miscreants in my drawer and shoved them farther down and under the false bottom of the drawer. The mysterious syringe on the floor followed suit. I shook my head and took a deep breath. Then I remember what I had been doing before the mysterious gap in my memory; a murder investigation. That would explain the gap and the bag of unexplained runaways. I pulled out a photo we’d had on file of the murder victim and was examining it when suddenly, a strange feeling hit me. I knew this man, and not because I had seen him dead earlier this morning. I knew him from somewhere else. I recognized him. His face probed at images that I couldn’t quite recall. Where did I know him from? I froze as realization slowly dawned. I leapt up and grabbed my coat as an anxious feeling gripped my heart.My car screeched to a halt in front of the house I’d visited just that morning. The wife was still here, I knew that because her car was parked in the same spot. I was sure she could help me. Pictures of the dead man would confirm my theory; pictures of him when he was alive. I needed visual evidence to prove my theory.I walked up the pathway to the door and knocked hesitantly. I heard footsteps drawing near, and I waited as the door opened. What faced me very nearly destroyed my sanity.Robin Pinchbeck stood in the doorway of his house. A wide, surprised smile was on his face.“Jared! What are you doing here? Come on in!” He exclaimed. I couldn’t move. The shock of what I was seeing was tearing the fragile thing I called reality into shreds. This man was dead. I had seen him lying face down in his own blood just this morning. He was dead.“Um…please, come in?” The man asked uncomfortably. He was examining my face now. He must notice my shock. I simply stared back. Finally, I summoned enough courage to say something.“Um….is…is your wife home?” Now it was his turn to stare.“Jared, you know I’m not married, now what’s this all about?” That did it. I broke. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. “You’re dead,” I whispered.“You are dead! And there was a woman here and she was your wife and she knew you were dead too!” By now, I was practically screaming in hysteria. I couldn’t think straight, I could only scream at this apparition of a nightmare. “Oh Jared…I see what’s happened...” He suddenly looked regretful and tense at the same time. He took a small step forward. “I was afraid of this. I knew when you approached me about your idea, that there could be serious consequences. You said you needed your head in the game; you needed to concentrate on your murder investigations. You said that you’d pay me well. I went along with it. The supplies I provided for you did what you wanted…for a while. Don’t you remember your last visit? You became angry with me because I refused to continue providing you with those…deplorable things. I know you hated me for that, Jared, apparently bad enough that you had me killed; if only in your own reality.” He looked as if he were pleading with me. But I couldn’t listen to this. He was dead and I knew it! Whatever this…thing was, it wasn’t real. It was a shadow, a dream. I felt anxiety rising in my chest as I grasped at this thought. The panic swelled in my head and blocked everything out. I needed an escape and I needed it now; I knew where to find it too. Suddenly, I turned and ran to my car not looking back to respond to the gasp of surprise from behind me. I leapt into the driver’s seat, started the car and drove away.I tried to drive for a few minutes but the anxiety got the better of me. I pulled to the side and, with shaking hands, pulled a syringe from the glove compartment. I jabbed it into my neck and released its contents into my system. I smiled and waited for the familiar sense of euphoria. But instead, my heart began accelerating. The anxiety increased, the pressure mounted. I could only hear my heartbeat in my ears, a fevered pounding. With trembling hands I raised the syringe to the level of my eyes and looked at the label on the side. It read “epinephrine”. I had just injected myself with a highly concentrated dose of pure adrenaline. I smiled at the irony of it all as the pounding in my ears increased to a rate I couldn’t keep up with. My smile disappeared as my body began convulsing. I wanted to scream, my body was going to explode! I felt my heart gasp as it reached its breaking point. Suddenly, my body ceased its convulsions. And the pounding stopped.