A rainstorm hit the town.
It wasn’t a rare once-in-a-century event, but it was strong enough to knock out power lines and cause chaos across the streets. Of course the Chief Commissioner’s mood darkened accordingly.
“God damn it. What a mood.”
His neighborhood was lucky; while the rest of the town stumbled in darkness, his house still had power for TV and chilled beer. He grabbed a cold bottle, downing half in one go to get the edge off from the doom and gloom.
Stripping off his soaked uniform, he tossed it in the hamper—then froze, catching his reflection leering at him.
He stepped closer to the mirror, eyes narrowed as if he spotted an enemy within. Only to turn his reflection around to gaze upon his back.
A tattoo of a skull staring back at him with empty eyes; a snake licking in and out of the open jaw. All of it sliced by finger nail scratches.
"Damn bitch," he muttered trying to reach a hand to rub the wounds off. In the end he just cursed under his breath and took another bitter gulp. “Man, I’m bored.”
Outside, the storm raged on—wind howled, rain hammered the windows, and thunder cracked through the night. Ignoring the chaos, the Chief Commissioner cracked open another beer, flicking on more lights in the kitchen to chase away the creeping unease. To distract himself, he fiddled with the blinking light of his answering machine.
There were three new messages.
"Hey, honey, it’s me. I’m taking the afternoon flight from London tomorrow, so I should be back by evening. You can pick us up after work. Love you lots! Come on, kids, it’s morning! Wake up and tell Daddy goodnight—no, no, don’t fall back asleep!"
“Love you too, babe,” he chuckled while distracted by the rain and winds clawing at his windows for help. A sip of his beer and his ears perked at the next message.
"Hello, this is Precious Life Insurance Company. I’m Danielle—we met the other day. I wanted to follow up regarding the insurance policy—"
“Hey there, cutie,” the Chief Commissioner cooed, leaning toward the machine like it was a face of a pretty girl. He smirked, tracing circles on the numbers with a finger as if a chin. “Been thinking about you a lot... I bet you’d look stunning without those glasses. Don’t you worry, I can’t wait to let your hair down. Hahaha.”
The recording droned on, but he wasn’t listening anymore. In a good mood, he reached for a third beer while the machine played the third message.
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“…What the hell?”
The Chief Commissioner thought he’d missed the start of the third voicemail. But as he listened closer, there was nothing—just faint pops, like an old gramophone record skipping every ten seconds.
Maybe the machine broke. Or perhaps the memory was full? No—there was still space for twenty more messages. Just as he reached to cancel and delete, a violent SCREECH tore through the recording.
“JESUS!”
BLINK. The lights went out with an instant pop. The kitchen plunged into darkness, the glowing numbers on the stove and microwave dead. Even the refrigerator, usually humming along, fell silent. It was only when the lights didn’t work, did the Chief Commissioner finally felt how cold the place was.
“Power outage? No... Wait. The Robinsons and the Matthews—they still have their lights on. Is it the breaker?”
Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic
The Chief Commission heard a rattling noise and turned to see a table lamp just shaking, as if it knew a bad premonition. It kept quivering on the table, over and over, making sounds of a bug clambering across the floor to escape an impending danger. It finally reached the edge and fell over with a CRACK, splitting its light bulb skull wide open.
The rattling continued even when the table lamp died. The photograph stands on top of the fire place shelves, the many decorations on tables and cases, even the standing lamp were all shaking or shivering as if it felt trembles of an earthquake.
Odd, the Chief Commissioner squinted in the dark. He felt nothing under his own feet. And was it just his imagination or was there something standing outside of the wind--
“JESUS CHRIST!”
The head of the entire police department suddenly fell over, eyes wider than saucers.
Staring at what might have been a woman in shocking white, standing right outside of his house!
Calm down! Calm down, was all the Chief Commission could think about out. I-it must be some neighbour who needs a candle o-or a flashlight. Maybe a passerby with no where to hide from the storm.
Still, why did they have to look like they came back from shooting a horror film!...Wait, where did she go!?
All the Chief Commission did was blink and the woman in shocking white was gone. He looked left, right, left again—NEVER MIND, ON THE RIGHT, RIGHT!
“AAH!” The Chief Commission caught sight of the woman in white now standing outside his kitchen door. This time, up close, he could see her long and shaggy hair was veiled over her face like some weeping willow...or...gh...gh...
“Wh-what do you want!?” He shouted, trying to sound brave. He thought he wet his pants, but his hand knocked into the rolling bottle of spilt beer. “If you don’t leave, I’ll arrest you!”
Fwip. That bluff seemed to have been enough. A clap of thunder and flashing lightning, and the woman was gone. He let out a sigh—and something fell onto his head. He thought it was some towel that fell from the hangar...but...
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It was shirt, bearing vivid leopard skin patterns.
“YOU!?” The Chief Commission bolted to his feet, nearly slipping over the scatter of beer bottles on the floor. “Y-you’re dead! You’re supposed to be dead! OH!”
A white entity fluttered by his windows. Like a ghostly cloth in the air. It would blink in and out of the darkness, followed by this eerie sound akin to an ethereal woman singing. Normally he would laugh at such haunted house tricks but...three bottles of beer and some mixed feelings in his gut didn’t really help right now.
“It can’t be! It just can’t!...Gun! Where’s my gun!?”
Remembering who he was, the Chief Commissioner raced up the stairs. Even as he ran like the wind, this ghostly entity was faster! It would fly pass his windows and skylight, peering through as if searching for something important. A pale white hand clawing and rubbing at the windows.
This has to be a bad dream! It must be the beer playing tricks on him! But no matter how much he punched or slapped himself, the nightmare was still real around him. He scrambled into his closet and fumbled for the combination lock. The dark was not helping and he forgot to bring his phone to shine a light on it all. Even when he did crack open his safe to grab his hunting rifle, he wasted several buck shots as they fell from his shaking hands.
“A prank! It has to be!” The Chief Commissioner muttered as he gritted his teeth, “I’ll show them.”
Determined, he prepped his rifle at the ready and bolted out of the closet.
All quiet on the bedroom front. The storm was still going, perhaps at full rage. He could see the top of the trees clawing at the windows, as if begging to be let inside to be spared of the skin-ripping rain.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The Chief Commissioner fired wildly, ripping holes through the window and walls. Trees, shadows, even the mist of his breath—everything in his line of sight became a target. He wanted to make sure his message was well received!
But it wasn’t enough.
The ghost woman crashed through the window like a bat out of hell. She swung her sleeves, turning them into whips of white cloth, and struck out at the Chief Commission like a thousands of slaps to the face. The alcohol, the fear, the darkness, the counter was more than enough to force the man to stumble back down the stairs like an obese slinky.
Dazed and aching, he looked up—and froze in terror.
The ghost woman floated, FLOATED, right in front of him as if ready to pass down divine judgment. Her pale white hands claw the air, as if hoping to scrape whatever life left that was stripped from her gasp. Her voice chimed and echoed, stirring the ear drums with this melodic cacophony of despair and anguish.
‘How could you’ the ghostly woman wept before him, 'I devoted my heart to you. How could you do this to me?'
The Chief Commissioner snorted and cocked his hunting rifle. He didn’t care if this was some elaborate home invasion – he just pulled the trigger and deal with the consequences after.
KABLAM!
The kitchen cupboard and fine china plates exploded into the air, throwing shrapnel and smoke around. The ghost gloating in front of it...did not.
“...Oh sh...” The hunting rifle fell uselessly out of the Chief Commissioner’s grip. He swore he hit his target, it was only two paces in front of him...Wait...was this really... “It’s you!?”
‘You left me in the mountains, to become a nest for worms and have the crows feast on my eyes. Why, why was I so blind to fall for a beast like you!’
“SHUT UP! Weren’t you clingy enough when you were alive? Why do you think you ended up like this? I told you, hundreds and hundreds of times – boundaries! Boundaries! Never EVER interfere with my personal life! But you didn’t listen, not one bit!”
'My life. You stole my life. I lost everything! Give it back to me!'
"YOU nearly made me lose everything the very second you showed your pregnancy stick to me. Didn’t I say no babies, no marriage right from the beginning. I already had enough kids to drive me up the wall! And if my wife ever found out, I can kiss my job good bye!”
'You would sacrifice me, over your career?'
"In a heartbeat! Do you know who I am? The Chief Commissioner of the police! Do you know who put me there, my father-in-law! If he got wind of this mess, it would be over for me! You! You had to be stupid and try to ruin it all!"
The ghost woman released an ear piercing shrieked! KYAAA!
The windows shattered and unleashed the raw rage and violence of the storm outside. Wild leaves and bone-chilling winds cut into the Chief Commissioner as he was knocked and pinned against the wall!
'If I had known you would grow to be this grand and cruel to me; I would not have traded my heart for your happiness!'
“Happiness? Don’t make me laugh! You’re all the same—every single one of you! That store clerk, the teacher—hell, every girl I’ve ever met! Why can’t a man just enjoy himself without hearing about kids, marriage, responsibilities—blah, blah, blah! I used to break my back for women like you, and what do I get? You all run off to have your fun behind my back. It makes me sick—absolutely sick!”
Out of instincts, the Chief Commissioner whipped out his belt and snapped it taught in his white knuckled fists.
“Shutting up women like you – is just so therapeutic.”
BANG!
It wasn't a gun shot. It was the front door being smashed in! A flurry of men in black jackets and body armour raced into the house and pinned the Chief Commissioner down. It was only thanks to the clap of lightning, did he see the words POLICE on their chests and backs.
"Wh-WHAT THE HELL!? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!? LET GO OF ME!"
The Chief Commission gagged when the ghost woman ripped off her scalp as if taking off a hat...A wig!? He watched in horror as she wrung it in her hands like a wet towel before dropping it on his dinner table like a dead rat.
Lights finally blinked back on when the generator was reset and he winced in pain from the blinding rays. Only to realize the light didn’t vaporize or even harm the incorporeal creature. She remained perfectly fine...wait...that’s a man!
The ghost woman...er...man in a white robes would glance at his long sleeve. He stared right through the series of holes that ripped through the fabric. He made a tsk, tsk, tsk noise.
“Such a devastating weapon to sit in the hands of cowards. Shameful, most shameful.”
“Wh-who the hell are you!?”
“Mongrels need not hear my name.”
Martial Kim glared at the culprit of this entire nightmare, staring him deep enough to peer into that pitch black soul so he could judge him for himself.
--- How I wish I have my sword with me. How I yearn for this to be in the Jade Empire. How much I desired to deal with his crimes back in my world. For sure, I would feel no remorse in cutting his head off his shoulder with a single swipe. This villain, even the Imperial Guillotine is too merciful for his deeds... If I did not swore to Prof. Stone to spare his life, there would be no need for such an elaborate charade.
“LET ME GO!” The Chief Commissioner thrashed and hollered against the officers holding him. “This bastard broke into MY house and you’re arresting me!? Oh, you’re all going to get demoted, I swear to god! Back to traffic and beat patrols, the lot of you!”
As he screamed, he realized something. Thanks to the lights coming back on, his eyes were drawn to the broken table lamp. It wasn’t just the light bulb’s skull cracked open, there was something else lying inside of the bits and pieces.
“...A-A microphone!?”
Wh-when did that get there!? And not just the lamp! But he now could spot several bugs and small listening devices on the back of the photographs that fell off the fireplace and other places. It was like, whoever placed them there REALLY wanted to get all the details of his words.
Realization dawned upon him.
“...YOU MOTHERF—SWEET JESUS!!”
Detective Fraulein appeared before him under the clap of thunder and lightning, like a real ghost!
Although she chewed on the insides of her mouth to control her emotions, her eyes failed to hide the flames of her rage burning inside of her heart. There was so much she wanted to say right now...starting with:
“You are under arrest, Belt Rapist.”
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