Meg was becoming more anxious by the moment as she moved down the hall and tried to cover all the angles at the same time. There were just too many cubicles and dark corners to watch and the red beam from her sight was shaky from her frustration. It would have been nice to have a squad backing her, but the first two attempts at team life left her (and everyone else) with the distinct impression that she didn't play well with others. Maybe that was why she ended up working for this department. On the good side, at least they paid well and there was plenty of job security provided you lived.
Every cubicle was still and vacant, with only the occasional discarded cup or trampled SLA-mas decoration to show that they had ever been occupied. How people could have so much fun up here was beyond Meg's comprehension, but then most had no idea what the whole season - or life in SLA anyway- was about. At the end of the hall was a woman lying on her side and Meg squatted next to her. She was alive and looked up with glazed eyes.
"Uh-uh-uh," the woman mumbled. She was dressed in brown coveralls like maintenance techs back on Mort, but her legs and hip were stained crimson. She kept motioning in front of her towards a pool of liquid.
Carefully, Meg knelt next to the pool and gingerly probed it with a fingertip. Irritation rose as she wiped it off and glared.
"Stupid drunk! It's just dirty oil- not blood," she spat as she stood back up. How in hell could someone mistake oil for.
The mind's voice died in her throat when she saw what the woman had actually been pointing at. An arm clad in blue coveralls stretched from underneath the bottom edge of a closed fire door and back upward, with the bridge of the fingers pressed flat in the jam beneath the lock. It took her a moment or two to accept what she was seeing and her breath came back in short heaves.
"Uh," was the only thing she could get out, but reason returned quickly and she forced the woman to her feet. Giving her a shove towards the hall she had just searched, she yelled "Go" at her and carefully stepped over the oil. Her pistol was shaking as she crept up to the door.
"Stop trembling like a little girl," she told herself. At least the voice sounded brave, she thought as she carefully reached for the door's handle. "You can do it."
Gathering herself, she threw the door open and aimed inside. The crushed arm slipped free and hit the floor with a sound like a wet towel. Meg managed not to flinch, but the smell that wafted out pushed her resolve. Taking a breath, she stepped inside and covered the room.
The amount of gore was tremendous, making her very thankful that she wasn't a rookie anymore. Thin strips of flesh had been stretched across the lights like runners and spatters of drying blood covered the benches and debris. The person that the arm had probably belonged to was on a nearby workbench beyond overturned cabinets and there was no doubt about how he'd died. Someone had been pretty liberal with the use of what looked like an industrial nailgun, but that wasn't the worst part. The killer had also decorated the remains like a SLA-mas snow scene, complete with tiny figurines, silver tinsel, and a red felt hat that was tacked into place. The tiny figure of a fat man in red was jammed where the man's heart used to be and Meg felt her chest tighten.
"Someone sure nailed him!" a happy voice said behind her and she spun, nearly firing before she realized it was the damn Xeno again. He beamed at her with his wide rows of teeth, oblivious to the fact that he almost took a round in the teeth.
"I told you to watch the prisoner!" she barked, but the 711 remained nonplussed.
"Where's he gonna go?" he asked. "It's a small station and the next shuttle isn't for another couple hours."
"You disobeyed a direct order. If he gets awa-" she yelled, getting cut off before she really got started.
"Megan, deary. Don't worry about it! He isn't going to run and hide but if he did I can find him easily. Like I said, it's a small station."
"Did you at least cuff him to something?"
"Cuff him?" he asked with a sheepish smile.
"You son of a-" she started but realized that any conversation was pointless. The Xeno seldom took anything seriously and this looked to be no different. At least her anger was helping her keep her stomach in check, even if her voice was shaking.
"Well yes, technically I guess I am a son," he started. "I'm the son of Dr. Barker so that makes us siblings doesn't it?"
"No, you son of a bitch, it doesn't," she snapped, shifting her fear into anger. Turning her back to the room, she cut off his inevitable comment about how he isn't the son of a female dog with another order: "You take that end of the room and I'll take this one."
There was one other body and this one was in far worse condition than the first. Someone had gotten him with an assortment of blowtorches and power tools, using his insides to decorate a SLA-mas tree in the corner including the makeshift ornament at the top. It was too much and she gagged.
"Good Lord," she mumbled as she fought the rising urge to vomit. Pressing the side of her pistol over her mouth, she made her way towards the other side of the room. She had seen three serial killer victims in her career but this topped the carnage from all of them combined.
"That side is clear, no body but Mr. SLA-mas decorations and the pin- I mean nail cushion," Jester giggled as he walked over. His demeanor changed as he saw the look on her face and became serious for a moment.
"Are you okay?" he asked, actually seeming concerned.
Meg couldn't speak and just nodded her head. The combination of gore and the Christmas decorations were too much and memories came flooding back in full living color. Two full years had passed, nearly to the day since she saw anything like this and it shook her to the core. This couldn't be happing again.
"God, please don't let it happen again," she said under her breath. "Not here, not now, not again."
"Huh?" Jester asked, apparently unsure of what she was talking about.
"Getter," she said. "I saw a bottle of Vodka. Any left?"
The Xeno nodded, watching as she stormed out of the room and headed back to the office. Through his multiple eyes, he took pride in studying the entire scene at once. For him, it looked like just another miner had gone crazy and killed, dismembered, and skinned a few co-workers but Meg had seen something different. He looked one more time around the room with a simple half turn of his head and saw that once corner was completely empty and devoid of blood. With the floor apparently pretty crowded with junk, something that had been sitting there had been moved.
"Hmm," he said to the room as he left. "It looks like someone else doesn't like the holidays much either."
Comments to rw