The Steaming, Tangled Mess

The steaming, tangled mess looked like just a pile of trash. Stained rags and clothes scattered in a loose pile just outside the compound. Detective Sanders circled his patrol car, pulling close to the mess and putting it in park. Rude, bigoted citizens were something he never could understand. At worst, it was trash. And at best, it was a symbol of hatred towards the “others” — the religious compound that lay on the other side of those high adobe walls. Aching inside, he stepped from the cruiser to examine the damage. His heart leapt into his throat with his realization. It was not litter. Nor was it a menacing pile of hatred. It was a poorly concealed corpse, wrapped in blood-stained white linen, dumped unceremoniously to rot outside the compound walls. Or so the swollen toes, peeking through the broken, burned tennis shoe at the top of the pile, seemed to suggest.

He crouched near the mess, where another bare and blackened foot was sticking from the crimson-black cloth. The smell hit him like a ton of bricks. It didn’t even smell of death yet, just shit and sweat and the primitive soap that the congregation behind those compound walls used to wash their sins away. He searched for the cloth’s opening and unwrapped the bloody cloth’s prize.

Pastor Danny had been a handsome man. Early forties, with speckles of gray in his black hair and piercing green eyes that could make just about anyone share their life secrets. He was not a handsome corpse. His face was barely recognizable under the dark splotches of coagulated blood. His left eye was exceptionally swollen even in death, and his tongue dangled lifelessly from his cold, dead mouth. If Detective Sanders had not seen Pastor Danny just three days prior, he probably wouldn’t have recognized this mess as the former leader behind-the-wall.

The dark splotches covered his naked body. His ribs were battered and crushed inwards, and only a gaping wound showed where his penis and testicles had been. He could not tell if the black, crusty frosting around the wound was blood, shit, or both.His legs were equally mangled, seemingly broken and rebroken until they were crushed at odd angles around the rest of his body. The smell was stronger now that the body was unwrapped, and the officer stepped back to catch his breath and gather his thoughts.

Who would’ve done this? Had the pastor gone out of his compound this evening and been preyed upon by some city folks? Could... did his congregation do this? Or did they know who among them did?

Stomach queasy, the officer turned back to his car and sat in the driver’s seat. He reached down and grabbed an antiseptic wipe from the container in the glovebox. His hands were sticky with unidentifiable ooze. He wiped and wiped, the smell of alcohol soothing his battered senses.

The sun shone bright across the hood of the patrol car. His hands were clean. His breath stopped rattling. It was time. The officer grabbed his radio receiver and called it in.

Next Chapter: Questions
Go Home: Go To Title Page