A gruesome tale- Chapter three

The shrewd looking policeman eyed the man lying in the hospital bed before him. Chief of Police Derek Andrews did not like what he was told. Apparently, the man had been tortured and released, after being forced to bite his own tongue off, by a madman in a hooded cloak. This wasn’t something that happened once, he knew what the work of such a killer looked like, he sensed that the man wouldn’t stop after this, this was like a milestone to the killer, the first hurdle perhaps, there would be more. He knew it. He tweaked his moustache and peered at the man, Alistair Longman, or something like that, he couldn’t quite catch the name. Al, as he preferred to be called, was sleeping, and making a remarkable recovery, he would have a replica tongue stitched onto the bloody stump that was his own, but for now, he had to rest.
The Chief turned out of the ward and signed out at the receptionist desk. He clambered into his police cruiser and shifted the car into gear, making his way to the station. It wasn’t much of a town, but it was one of the big, up-and-coming areas outside of the cities, but Derek didn’t like the drastic incline of the population, with new society, comes new crime. And that just made his job harder. He was already feeling the pressure on this case. The media had swarmed upon him like locusts when he arrived at the hospital to talk to Al, and he had known less about the case than they did. They gathered that it was a torture, and they were never a one-off, so most of the questions were based around when the guy would strike next. To be truthful, Derek was afraid. He had taken a lot of stick over the seven years he had been Chief, but this was big, big as in the whole of America, this guy was a nut job. When he got to the station, it was practically deserted, so he tipped his hat to Lorna, the receptionist, and made his way into his office, readying himself for a nice snooze.
The man in the hood unbuttoned the cloak and stretched his muscles, the lack of exercise getting to him.
“Gawddamn shithole” He muttered as he rolled his head on his broad, thickly muscled shoulders. He moved out of the small, cramped, self assigned office and into his rather more established “Chamber of death” As he liked to call it. The room was filled with all sorts of torture devices and instruments that would make a hardened navy seal squirm; he knew that from experience when he showed one the ripper, a long probe like thing with hundreds of miniscule hooks placed at the end. It was passed into the anus, and then savagely ripped out, although he had never had the pleasure of using it on a victim that was alive. He stroked some of the ghastly weapons, smiling at them as if they were people. He sighed as his watch bleeped angrily at him. Time to go to sleep, he murmured. He lived by a strict schedule, and liked it that way. He walked into his sleeping chamber and sat on the bed, undressing himself. He looked at a picture on the wall; it was of a young man, a deputy in the county called Paolo Andreas. He put his hand to his lips and blew a kiss towards the picture.
“You will see me tomorrow, my number twelve” he whispered, and rested his head on the pillow, smiling in his sleep.1

The alarm by the side of Derek’s computer began to emit its wailing tone at six o’clock am and, routinely, Derek’s hand slammed on top of it, the sound dying mid-squeal. He groaned and realised that he had slept in his chair again. He had installed a small bed into a room adjoining his office, so he could work away more often. He swivelled the chair away from the desk and got to his feet, stretching out his back. Damn chairs, he thought, they obviously weren’t designed for sleeping in. The thought of going to bed crossed his mind, but he shook his head animatedly to rid himself of the idea, he had work to do.
Al was sat up straight and his eyes were red and swollen. His wife had come to visit him with Perry, his 9 year old son. She had been shocked by his injuries and had left after spending only a few minutes with him. Al was starting to think about divorce when he had a phone call, it was Perry. He said he wanted to stay with daddy, no matter how many tongues he had. It had made him laugh at first, but then the tears came. Now, he was waiting to be questioned by the Chief of police. A few minutes late, the Chief ambled in with a tape recorder, he sat in the comfortable chair next to the bed and placed the recorder on the food tray in front of him.
“Do you mind?” He asked Al. Al waved at it with a hand, not at all, he replied. The interview lasted for about ten minutes and during ten minutes the Chief had enough notes to keep the whole force busy for an hour. The two had shared a few jokes, Derek trying to raise Al’s spirits, Al trying to raise his own, but he knew that he would live the rest of his life with a plastic tongue, unless they presented him with a miracle replacement, or found his old tongue.
As Derek was leaving the building for the second time in 10 hours, he got a message on his pager, there was a robbery at the local grocery store, it was only petty crime so he notified the two deputies on call, Robertson and Andreas.
The man in the balaclava ran down a side street and snaked his way through the intricate maze of alleyways, turning every other corner, but keeping Andreas on his tail. When he was sure it was only the Hispanic left chasing him, he turned mid-flight and thumped the man in the temple, rendering him unconscious. He half dragged the body into a large wheelie bin and whipped a uniform from a pocket in the side of the bin. He donned the shiny jacket and workman’s clothes and slowly began to roll his next victim away to the car he had waiting.
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