Case No. 001... Dalmation Man

Filed Under... Missing Person(s)

Mortiarti's Notes...

  I received this email a few weeks back and thought nothing of it. Until I came across an interesting child abduction statistic, specifically the numbers on the City of the Plains, Morin Park in South West Havenbrook. A staggering three times the abduction rate compared to other territories in Havenbrook County. The number made me dig up this uh, "Dalmation Man". Research was done conductive to answering the matter of the “Dalmation Man”. Evidence isn’t conclusive quite yet, on who or…what the man is. But this frightening account was taken from a... Mr. Joaquin Ramirez who had encountered a “spotted man” in his youth. His chilling account was taken from a 60-minute interview by Channel24 news. Flourishes have been added for readabilities’ sake.

Subject: ever hear about the dalmatian man? <[email protected]>

it's something the kids keep spreading. I hear them. i hear them. like in the chatrooms. in the schools. the spotted dalmatian man, that's all they talk about!...they say he lifts them wherever he can. he comes in a car. he comes from the sewers. he leaves their mothers in wake…leaves a piece. something to know he was there and now they gone...

14 lost kids in too mnths. LOOK IT UP...breaker figueroa monte de sol LOOK IT UP…!

when you see the spotted man you do not turn away kevin lindsey lauryn tobi maple chris. chris. Chris looked away and look at where that got him... six pieces six spots...CHRSTIAN RAYNOSA...look it up…

they'll never catch him believe you me...cops to busy writing tickets and looking tough...chasing cement guy...trust me...dalmatian man is out there. ask any high schooler, they laughed until Sammy got his arms cut off. left on front lown, del Sol high school...LOOK IT UP…

kids are smarter. pray for them. Dalmatian man is OUT there NOW...

He did not seem like an evil man when we saw him. It was the three of us turned to him, the Dalmation man by the side of the van. That’s what we called him at least. Granted the black spot on his eye. Not like a black eye, not like something given by anything else but defect. A spot God missed his touch. Paint cans opened in the back, the man dipping his roller inside and working several coats along the side of the laundromat. The three of us - Jimmy (myself), Buddy and Ian - watched him from the corner of the store. Our finger tips showing on the cinder blocks. Somewhere inside the machine of my laundry rocked the walls, not that we could hear it.

We watched the man who paid us no mind. We saw him with half-gaped mouths.

  “How do you think he got that?” Ian asked.

  “Born with it.” I said.

  “How does someone get born with that?”

  “Same way you got born with your eyes, stupid.”

  “But his is black.”

  I turned to him. The youngest of us, dumbest of us, tallest of us. Buddy hated that Ian was taller, I hated it too. That he was taller than me, I mean.

  “Is this the guy you keep talking about?” Buddy turned to me. Fitted cap slid to the side, blocking a sun high in the sky. The floor over the bend warped. And in that mirage, the Dalmation man working the wall. Not so much as wiping the sweat off him. As if the heat wasn’t getting to him, as if the steam from the asphalt meant nothing.

  “Yup.”

  “He doesn’t look normal.”

  “No he does not.”

  “Is that his lunch?” Buddy pointed to the open door. “It’s in that bag, ain’t it? What’ya think he eats?”

  “I don’t know. Sandwiches and shit. I guess?”

  “I want a sandwich.” Ian rubbed his stomach.

  “Bet you can’t steal it.”

  “Of course I could steal it.” I said.

  “Bet you won’t.”

  “Why would I take this bet?”

  “See. You’re chicken.” Buddy turned to Ian. “See? He’s chicken.”

  “I’m not going to steal something for nothing. But I could if I needed to.”

  “Always bragging about how tough you are. And you can’t steal a sandwich?”

  “Why aren’t you stealing it then?”

  “I’m not the one who says he’s tough all the time.”

  I looked to Buddy then back to the painter. No cars drove beside us, on the quiet street. Liana’s Laundromat hovered above us, the logo in pastel paints. One of an old gentile holding onto a little basket of clothes, the pretty pinks and blue pants and dresses hanging by the edge. All eroded to time and as such cracked and dilapidated. Pipes ran out the side of the cinder blocked building. Steam rose up in the air behind us carrying the musk of detergent. Harsh to the nose, when we played out behind we always had to pinch our noses. Games of soccer in the narrow alley-ways. Those types of games. Things close to the apartment complex. Where we could run away from the police if they accused them of ditching or squatting again.

  “Why don’t you ask Ian to do it?” I asked.

  “Hey!”

  “He’s a baby.” Buddy said. “Besides tough guy, don’t you want the twenty? You never got any money. I just though…”

  “I get money.” I said. “Sometimes.”

  He smiled. I turned away and looked to the Dalmation Man. He turned around and stuck his paint roller inside the can. And in doing so looked their way. All three of us retracted and turned our backs against the walls and kept still. I felt twitchy, my legs shook. I kept licking my lips because they were dry and cracked. I started walking away, towards the back door of the Laundromat. Buddy and Ian followed, we went inside and gave the man side long stares through the windows.

  “Enough messing around. My clothes are almost done.” I said.

  “We can take them for you.” Buddy ran to the shaking machine. He took out bundles and put it in my basket. Him and Ian both taking onside and lifting it up.

  “Why you are you so obsessed with this?”

  “It’d be funny.” Buddy said.

  “He’s just a guy.”

  “He’s a weirdo.” Buddy said. “Don’t you want to know how he looks like when he’s pissed? I mean, he looks funny already.”

I breathed hard. An old woman was deep in sleep by a bench. An arcade cabinet, Street Fighter II, glowed with quick moving animations. I streaked my shoes against the linoleum. A quarter of the machines ran. Women looked at their magazines from little plastic seats.

  “Alright. Twenty five.” I said. “And you buy food.”

  “And I buy food.” Buddy smiled. We went out the back again and returned to the corner. Ian struggled with the weight of the clothes.

  “Take that home.” I said. A soldier giving his final orders facing certain doom. Whatever those in Normandy or in the Thermopylea pass felt. He waddled off, crossing the quiet street towards suburbs and apartment complexes. I breathed heavy and eyed the man rolling paint, counting steady at the repetitions and licks he did against the wall. Waiting. My heart in my throat, the pulse in my fingertips heavy. I squatted a bit. Waited. The man dipped. He shook his roller. Went up the ladder.

  I bolted. Pouncing off my hinds. Feeling light. I ran up behind the truck, crawled on the asphalt, opened the door from the driver’s side, reached over for the bag of what I assumed to be lunch. I gripped it. Held it.

  He grabbed my arm. The blood curdled in me to complete stop. Coming up slow, I found his gaze upon mine. Eye white in that black spot across his face. Yellow almost, glossy, blood shot and undressing me with a sudden contempt. I was stiff and holding onto the bag. Not even struggling for the moment. It felt like having my nape in the maw. I pulled. And the man smiled. He let go. Stood tall, I couldn’t see his face, the hood covered his upper body. But it was a smile. The phantom image in my head still.

  I ran out with the bag and came around the corner. Buddy had a sprint start down the block. I chased after him with the bag in my hand.

We went around the corner and ran until my legs were lead and my torso heavy enough to imbalance my stride. I caught myself from tripping several times. We must have been blocks off from the heist.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Where’s Ian?” I leaned over, breathing, dropping the bag.

  “You told me he to go to your house, didn’t you?”

  “Right.” My hand shook.

  “You look sick.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Huh.”

  “Open the bag. What do you think he eats?”

  I grabbed it from the floor, it was slouched and uneven, the little grocery bag from the grocery store. I started undoing the knot, it was too hard.

  “Maybe he likes dog food. He kind of looked like a dog, huh. Like a big bull dog.” Buddy said. We still breathed heavy, though he was regulating much better than me. I stopped trying with the knot and bit into it and ripped it. I tore the hole bigger and reached inside. We looked into the hole and pulled out something.

  Trousers. A cap. Overalls. A small skirt.

  “His laundry?” Buddy asked.

  Small panties. Crusted, spent into. Though I didn’t know that at the time. Buddy made an ugly face. He raised his hoodie up.

  “Gross.” But it was more than that that I felt. An emotion you can only study in retrospect. Fear beyond fear to a boy. Something entrenched in the id deep enough that there was no word for this newer leveled descent. A floor on a skyscraper without the number. A feeling without the word.

Something you archive for later study, later intuition.

  It was nameless dread.

We spent the night at Buddy and Ian’s place. They always had the best of everything. Unstained carpeted floor, a playstation on the glass counter top, posters and stacks of DVD’s their father collected. I sat at the study table, they were both on the floor with folded legs, hands on the controllers playing something. I couldn’t quite keep my eye on the tube screen, I just flipped through comic strips pretending I was there. Which I wasn’t, of course.

  “Do you want a turn?” Ian asked.

  “Later.”

  The pizza still hot next to us. Half eaten slices on paper plates scattered about. Out the window in front of my the landscape behind the apartment block expanded, nothing strange or out of place. The neighbors were coming in from work. The dogs and cats were being called in. The older high school kids were biking in. Things as they should be. But normalcy felt strange. Sat there watching scanning lines on the television, turning over random memorabilia. Keeping my hands on something as to not fidget.

  “I need to go to the restroom.” I said.

  They didn’t look at me. They leaned to one side and tapped fast on their controller. Fatality - the words bloody and dripping on the screen as a character got their spine removed and their body charred. I breathed heavy. Red bead curtains between the kitchen and the living room and really every other entrance. I stepped through them to get some soda and watched the darkness of the apartment through them. The dim lights of the kitchen coming only from the stove top and refrigerator. Pepsi. I sipped, looked out into the dark.

  They’d been panties. Kids panties.

  I shook my head and traced the outline of the apartment. The walls dense, you couldn’t hear your neighbors. A saving grace. Especially at the top floor of the apartment. We were on the fifth, my own room was on the second. Not that I wanted to be there. My mom was still working late into the night. All of our parents were, the trend of Sunset Villa family. Housing at a discount, that’s what the front said.

I drank three cups. Didn’t realize it. I was too busy staring at the beads dividing the dark. I went to the front door and locked it. Put my knees on the sofa and made a small slit in the metal pleaded curtains and peered through. A girl outside, smoking with her arms on the guard rail. A dull expression on her face as she finished her cigarette and rubbed it down on the rail. She walked back. I studied her, never blinking once. The door closed and the lights on the halls died to some dull orange. No one else was outside.

  I sighed. Went back into the room. Knocked over some Ninja Turtle figurines, rubbed my eyes and slid back into my chair. I ate. Burped.

  They were playing a new game now. Buddy was at least.

  Ian watched, mouth agape. Metal Gear Solid now, was it?

  “The door is locked, you know.” Buddy said.

  “What?”

  “The front door.”

  “I know.”

  “My parents said you can stay over if you want.”

  “Alright.”

  I chewed but didn’t eat much. Just kept at mawing at the same piece of pizza and looking out the window. The streets were empty ‘cept for the faint glow of the light posts. Was it a darker night than usual? I couldn’t tell you. Felt darker. It felt like something was crawling up me, a centipede or some other kind of bug quickening itself up my neck. I turned and looked away from the window and rushed back to it thinking something was going to sneak up on us. Nothing differed. Maybe a dog? A dog turning itself to piss and to trot away.

  “I’m getting tired.” Ian said.

  “You’re always getting tired first.” Buddy shook his head.

  We prepared ourselves to sleep and I took the bed closest to the window of course. All of us laid down and we started talking, not that I could offer much in conversation. We just kept chatting away about school and movies and new arcade games at the mall. A crystal colored pepsi, I remember that one lasted for hours. What a strange feeling to talk but not be there, the ghost of my consciousness up and above and away from the moment there with my friends. In all that talk I couldn’t help but daydream. Well, night dream I guess. I thought about ways I might have died, having my belly sliced open and my guts ripped out. Being pushed off the building and snapping my neck on the cornices below. Taken by the Dalmation man and put under his tires. Imaginations that kept me up, at first, until they started getting ridiculous. When I started thinking about being pushed out of planes, or thrown into volcanoes. Strange silly things like in the cartoons that lulled me into that falsestate of safety we often find ourselves in bed with. I passed out last.

  Near midnight I woke up again, rubbing my eyes. Something startled me, not that I remember the noise much. It kind of sounded like a dumpster diver, far below us. I yawned and looked out the window and slicked my nose with my forearm. My eyes widening as the picture outside focused sharper.

  “Wake up, Buddy.” I jumped out the bed. I shook both of them. “Wake up please.”

  “What?” Buddy turned over.

  He rolled out and stood and looked around. Ian was slow to come back into reality. He was still talking in his dreams.

  “What. What?” Buddy asked.

  I dragged him by the collar and pulled him to the window and pointed out.

  He looked out, then to me.

  “The van, dude. The fucking van.” I pointed.

  He stared for a while. His breathing sped up. He looked around and scratched his head.

  “The door is locked. Right?” I asked.

  He didn’t say much, just nodded yes. We walked outside. We looked out towards the living room. The halls looked larger, felt it too, as we tiptoed through the house. Ian slumbering quiet behind us. I went to the door and checked it. It was locked, alright. But there were scratchings on the keyhole? Or maybe they were always there? Oh, what you don’t notice that becomes a curiosity in panic. The normal life slightly changed, and that small difference finally given meaning. My hands shook. Buddy tiptoed on the counter and picked up the phone.

  “It won’t ring, dude.” Buddy said.

  I looked around the room. Buddy tried pushing down the numbers. He set the phone down. Picked it up. Dialed more and more. I surveyed and found nothing strange - until I looked at the kitchen again. In the corner. In that darkest dark. Something moving ever so slightly. A single hand coming out and behind Buddy.

  “Run.” I said. I blitzed it to the door. Buddy looked confused, he scrambled too. I waited by the door - I swear I waited. But he just wasn’t fast enough or maybe they’d gotten him? I can’t tell. I made it to the room, Ian was just coming up from his sleep. He sat on his knees. I closed the door, I left it unlocked. I swear I tried! But I didn’t hear him for a while, I couldn’t hear him. There was just a shuffled, chairs getting knocked down. I was screaming, Ian was crying. It was noise. And I locked the door. I locked it.

  Buddy came up, minutes after. He took so long! He sounded so tired, so beaten. He knocked and asked me to let him in. But I could see the two of them below the door frame. I could hear him being dragged. He clung to that door knob. The metal turned and almost broke and I was praying, honest, that he didn’t take it with him. That he just - I’m so sorry - I just wanted Buddy to go out quietly, to not take us with him. The knob stopped turning after a while. All the noise went away. The screams too. And in the silence Ian could finally cry, not that he understood much. He looked around and I had nothing to answer for him. Not a thing.

  Thirty minutes later the police arrived. The neighbors called in.

  They haven’t found him since. I doubt they ever will. All that they have going for them is the vague description of the Dalmation man, from a young kid in the dark.

  I can’t say that ten years later that it’s gotten any better. The memory fades, or changes, but none of it will ever get me closer to the truth. If you’re out there, Buddy, then I’m sorry.