The
witch had apparently struck the tree at great speed. Although she was
small, she had been flying dangerously low in this leafy residential
neighborhood, and had face-planted into the oak. Her petite broomstick
bent and stuck out from where it had hit at a crooked angle. Adam
coughed politely- can we hurry this up, please? I stood up, brushing the
autumn leaves from my blue uniform, handcuffs mutedly jangling from the
case on my belt.
The
front lawn of the house had been transformed into a graveyard.
Stryrofoam memorials commemorated the passage of Ima Guhl, Dr.
Livingbones, and the late Mr. Late- better Late than Never.
Cotton cobwebs hung from the trees, and an entire pumpkin patch grinned
and gaped at us from the porch. However, what grabbed the most
attention were the three glistening skeletons staked out in front of the
tombstones. They were life size, eerily realistic from the street, and
the patches of gleaming and crusting red suggested a disturbing
provenance. Adam and I exchanged a look and walked up the front path.
A
werewolf glared at us from the bench when I rang the bell, and a sign
in the window asked “Boo’s there!?” There was a dark and hesitant
movement behind the glass, but finally the door cautiously opened and a
woman looked out at us. “Can I help you, officers?”
She
was in her late forties to early fifties, dressed for lounging- sweat
pants and an oversized sweater. Tall, nervous. Her eyes moved back and
forth between Adam and I with a mixture of fear, confusion, and some
contempt. Some people just don’t like cops. I sighed inwardly.
“Ma’am,” I began, “this is this your house?”
“Yes...” she replied, coldly..
“Ma’am,
we’ve received a few calls about the skeletons in your yard. You have
some neighbors who are concerned about the ...realistic nature of the
skeletons, and we were compelled to come and investigate.”
Adam
broke his silence. “Lady, we can’t tell you you can’t have skeleton
decorations in your yard,” holding up a hand to stop protests that don’t
come, “...so we just need to verify that they are decorative.”
They
lady in the doorway started to speak quickly, in halting sentences.
“Well of course they’re decorative...totally ridiculous that I’d
have.... three... bodies rotting! in my front yard... some people!” A
slight sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead.
I nodded and look towards the yard, “Then you won’t mind us taking a closer look, then.”
“Be my guest! One moment I’ll come out with you.”
She
opened the door fully and came out, closing it firmly behind her. She
squeezed by us, scrupulously avoiding contact, and marched into the
front yard in a pair of strangely white slippers. I caught a whiff of
her scent...odd. Adam was already following her.
“They’re
some kind of special resin... really expensive...got em online from a
Hollywood prop store. All handpainted.” The woman babbled on nervously.
Adam knelt and picked up a femur. He grunted.
“You
know, this doesn’t feel like resin to me.” He said simply, turning the
bone over. “No manufacturer's marks, no pour joints, no ‘made in
China.’” He lifted the bone to his face, sniffed it. Adam turned to her,
bone in hand, with a very serious look on his face.
“Ma’am,
I’ve seen some real bones in my time on the force, and I think you
really need to tell us where you got these skeletons.”
The
woman had been shifting her weight back and forth, but she stood stock
still at what Adam was telling her. Beads of sweat visibly formed on her
face and I could see her jugular vein jumping erratically. “That’s...
totally impossible!” she gasped. “They can’t be real! They’re definitely
not real bones! I swear to you I got them online.”
I cut in. “Ma’am, can we look around inside your house?” She jumped.
“No!
this is... absurd! Those are not real skeletons and I don’t think you
need to needlessly invade my privacy. You’re not coming in!” She was
breathing heavily.
Adam
set the bone down at his feet. “Lady,” he said slowly. “You said you
ordered them online. Did they come in a box or a package you can show
us? You can either show us what you have now, or,” looking in my
direction, “we can go get a warrant. You can’t just show us a box in
that case. We’re required to do a thorough home search from top to
bottom.”
“Fine,
you want to see the box, I’ll show you the box.” She walked quickly
back to the house and Adam and I followed her closely.
We
entered a dark foyer and the woman closed and locked the door behind
us. We followed the woman to the kitchen where she began to dig through a
closet, muttering and talking in an oddly high pitched voice.
“...bought it online, seemed totally legitimate company... found them
through Amazon.com... no way...” I leaned against the bar while Adam
stood impassively and waited, hands on his belt.
“Here! here it is!” she cried out with relief. She turned and hauled out a large, bright yellow box. I read aloud: Hyper-realistic
skeletons for stage, live action, cinematographic uses. Hand-stained,
authentic smell. Used by the leading studios! Lifelike Industries,
Pasadena, CA.
I
looked up from the box, and passed it to Adam. “That’s pretty
incredible, Ma’am. You sure had us fooled.” The woman looked like she
was calming down. Her eyes still darted between us. Her hair was
sticking from the sweat.
“Well,
that’s that.” She said, indignantly. “Good day, officers. If you don’t
mind, I’d like to recover from this heart attack in the peace of my own
home.”
Adam
put down the box and laughed quietly. “It’s amazing what replicas you
can find online these days”, he said. “Watches, bags, bones, hats,
badges.”
The
woman’s eyes automatically traveled down the cheap fabric of our
uniforms, and fixed upon the quiet stamp on the vinyl leather of our
holsters: made in China. She took a step back.
“Yes,
ma’am, you sure had us fooled with those bones,” Adam said, still
smiling as he slowly moved towards her, “so incredibly... realistic.” Knife in my hand, I shook with silent laughter.
If they neighbors ever called about the four lifelike skeletons staked out in the yard, I wouldn’t know.
Oct 23, 2012
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Medium is the message
I moved the blog again. I deleted the Tumblr account and moved everything to Medium.com, a more writing-centric website. medium.com/@wende
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I moved the blog again. I deleted the Tumblr account and moved everything to Medium.com, a more writing-centric website. medium.com/@wende
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I started a new blog about being a dad. On tumblr. archdadpdx.tumblr.com
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I'm planning on ending this blog. Not with a big closeout with a lot of fanfare but just letting it go quietly dormant, until a few ye...
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