NO ONE BELIEVED him.
No matter how many times he screamed at them, his own brothers and sisters in the force looked at him with pity. When he tried to defend Jim from the hospital bed, ignoring the shot in his shoulder and abdomen, their eyes would only harden with anger at the betrayal he had endured.
“Jim is a good cop! He’s always been a good cop! He was not himself! That little bitch got to him! I swear that little bitch got him!”
No one believed him.
When he tried to show Internal Affairs the disks, to give them the proof of his sanity, he found, to his dismay, that they were gone. His computer had been destroyed; fried by the contents of the flask he had kept hidden. It broke him to admit that the only one who had watched seen the Collins’ murder play out on screen was Jim. Linda, who did not see the rest of the footage, could not vouch for them.
They made Jim out to be a dirty, corrupt cop, playing a copycat murderer to absolve his insane grandfather.
Some may think John came out of the ordeal with his reputation intact. However, thanks to the deep loyalty he had to his partner, he fell from a respected detective to a victim plagued by misplaced guilt.
“Jim did not kill the Collins! He didn’t kill anyone! I swear he was a good cop! Just look at my sketches! Look at those photos! Shit, look at the cold case!”
He shouted those words at the psychiatrist and internal affairs, of all of them sitting smugly on their chains, nodding with their vapid gaze. John knew that nothing he said could convince them otherwise, while the doctor wrote some diagnosis of a mental illness that the ex-detective did not have.
That diagnosis would keep him inside of a padded cell until he recanted.
The drugs, the constant therapy, the questions, all of them broke down his conviction until he had to admit that he was wrong. That there were no such beasts lurking in the shadows, hiding within the night and fog. He was numb as those words spilled from his mouth, his eyes dry and bloodshot, eyelids swollen and heavy from the many sleepless nights he endured.
However, he did not believe those words. He played a game of pretending, telling a fiction while reality betrayed him. The force may have taken his badge, his gun, and forced him to fit into their version of ‘sanity’, but he knew the truth.
The same truth that kept him awake, staring at the door of his home, his preferred prison. He ignored the piles of letters scattered in the hallway, one foot tapping against the tile. He gripped the rifle on his lap, his index finger hovering over the trigger as he leveled a cumbersome glare to the door.
This was his new reality; his truth. Behind that door, into the night, was a monster, consuming new victims, bringing them into her fold. Their ghosts were her servants, and he could hear her dark, taunting giggle onto the other side as he waited for her knock.
We have reached the end of Drained. I will be releasing other short stories onto Substack and there will be a new Webserial release for *PREMIUM* members. Keep an eye out for my newsletter with more updates!