The Alien Artifact 9 (Novelette) by V Bertolaccini Page B

let us in the back seat, and it
raced away.
    At the other side of the cemetery there were
blue lights flashing everywhere and it was lighting the cemetery
up, and we looked everywhere for him, and for who had been chasing
him, and the vehicles that had arrived there first, and saw that
they did not know where he had gone.
    He surely had not entered the cemetery and
had taken another route beside it, where nobody would have seen
where he had gone, and their faces started to look frantic and
worried, and they decided to search all the buildings, and as I
followed Marple to a nearby building I suddenly recognized it, and
it was the back of the Home Guard building where I was a soldier
at, where I had joined up, and I was surprised to spot a light
flash on inside, and I realized it was from a torch, and I knew the
killer had a torch, and I told Marple.
    It was worse than I had imagined, as I knew
we would be confronting him indoors, instead of the police making a
quick outside arrest, and I watched Marple get the police, and they
all started silently rushing about outside, getting into hiding
places, and two were in the cars, contacting the rest of the
police.
    I wondered what the motive was, and if it
was valuable jewels or he had been doing something else.
    My eyes stayed on the place the light had
appeared, searching for him, waiting for him, to take a quick look
out, or attempt to attack us or escape, and I realized that the
police had entirely surrounded the building and that we had him,
and I guessed he never knew where we were.
    When a policeman started going to a door I
decided to join him, as I knew the layout of the inside of the
building, and as I approached him Marple followed me there, and I
considered all the options open to us. I then realized that the
policeman had something to unlock the door, and silently opened it
up, and we slowly climbed in, and heard him inside a room.
    The policeman removed a handgun, and we
waited for the others to appear, and we stood listening to someone
inside the room breathing heavily.
    By their reactions I was sure that they did
not have a clue what they were dealing with, and that they had not
seen the place before. They were in a dark hallway, just outside
the room, at night, within the grounds of an army base, and they
were chasing a vicious serial killer.
    At the side of my eyes I spotted
traces of shoe marks from him, and his shoes were wet, and I traced
them going into the room and I stood amazed as the policeman silently pushed open
the door and crept in, and my face turned pale as I waited for
bullets to go smashing into his body, and I looked in and the other
police moved in beside me, and stood beside me with their loaded
guns facing inside, into its dark interior.
    I slowly faced
the blackness at the corner of the room, where there was someone
rolled up in ball in the corner, and we waited for him to do
something, as we searched for his gun.
    The policeman
that had opened the door stood frozen, holding his gun out at the
faintly visible black figure.
    My heart rate
exploded, beating faster than I had felt it beat in a long time,
and I was still standing doing it when Marple removed his gun and
pointed it at him, and turned the light on.
    As seconds
passed I watched the figure lifelessly remain there, rolled up in
ball in the corner, and I was sure he had done something to
himself, and he could be dead.
    I spotted a
trail of blood across the floor, in drips, going straight up to
him.
    We strolled
up, not shining their torches directly at the killer, wondering who
the hell it could be, and who could have had the entire police
force after him for so long.
    W hen he turned I was dumbstruck, and even wondered where the
real killer had gone, and I recognized the room, and Captain
Godfrey’s main office, and realized I had not noticed it because we
had entered through the back of the Home Guard office, and at
night, where I had not been before, and had been so obsessed with
what