The Bleeding Man Season One

By Lex Williams

WARNING: Contains high impact horror and mature themes. Discretion is advised.

John Black, an Intelligence Officer working for the government, uncovers a conspiracy that puts him in conflict with powerful people and his own humanity.
A trail of horror and death is left behind as he struggles to stay ahead of the conspirators whose ire he's drawn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lex Williams
• Release date: Jan 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310906589

Lex Williams

Lex Williams is a novelettist ( although occasionally writing novellas with the rare novel ) whose intent is to take advantage of self-publishing stories to provide interesting, different and weird ideas that you won't find in traditionally published stories. Williams typically writes for the horror genre ( usually dipping into the surreal variety ), but has explored other areas, such as ( non erotic ) romance and science fiction.

Book preview

Episode I 'Pilot Light'

i

The harsh glow of streetlights cast seedy rays through half-closed blinds, highlighting the haze of cigarette smoke. He sat there on his sofa in the dim light, wearing ragged clothing and a beard. In one hand he held a cigarette, raised next to his face, and his other fist closed around a cassette tape.

He raised the cassette up to his half-closed eyes and looked over its archaic design. He turned it around in his hand and saw a small lined label with a scrawled description on it. His finger tapped his cigarette. Ash fragments wafted into the air while larger clumps sunk. He squinted at the label and managed to make out what was written.

The Yellow King Speaks.

It made no sense, as he had no context, apart from his friend who must've dropped it. The man smirked. His friend wouldn't mind if he took a listen to the contents. How bad could it be?

He leaned forward and brushed various empty packets of chips and pizza boxes from his coffee table onto the floor and then laid the cassette tape down onto the space. He stood up, stretching his back, and trudged off to find his cassette player.

Meanwhile, the cassette tape sat innocently in the room. As the lazy man stumbled and swore in an adjacent room, the smoke avoided the cassette tape; floating around it as if it exuded a force field. As if nature itself knew to stay away.

The man stumbled back and dropped himself into the couch. The cigarette now sat between his teeth as he held a cassette player in one hand. The headphones were plugged in, and the cord trailed on the floor. He reached forward and grabbed the tape in his other hand. A puff of smoke exited his lips as he leaned back into the comforting hug of the couch.

He pressed the open button on the cassette tape. He paused. He pressed the button again, harder this time. He paused, frustrated. He pressed the button several more times.

Come on, for fuck's sake.

The cassette player’s catch released, but he had to pry it fully open with his thumb.

Old rusted shit.

He placed the cassette tape inside it and snapped the player shut. Pulling the cable that connected to the headphones, he caught them in mid-air. He wrangled them onto his ears one-handed.

He pressed play.

At first, there was nothing. He looked at the cassette, expecting to need to rewind it, but he could see the gears rotating. Tape was moving from one end to the other. Then he heard a soft crackling sound, which became a loud crackling sound.

Then talking, words he didn't recognise. Some sort of faux Latin; it almost sounded like a real language. He heard a soft popping sound, and as the strange unrecognisable language spoke, there was another popping sound, and then another.

He reached underneath an earphone and rubbed his jawline. He brought his hand back and noticed blood on his fingertips. The popping sound got faster and louder and he realised the sound wasn't on the tape, it was inside his ear. But it was too late. The popping sound became louder and louder.

And then silence. But it felt wrong. He could still feel the popping inside of his ears. His teeth clenched hard, biting his cigarette in half. He felt the veins in his ears pop again and again, closer and closer to his brain.

His hands clenched down hard. Blood dripped down from his nose and seeped through the minute gaps between his teeth. His body seized and blood dripped from behind his eye sockets. It cascaded down from his ears, down his arms and trickled down the fingers that clenched the cassette player. His fists and teeth had clamped shut. The cassette player cracked, and his blood started to follow the paths of the cracks. His hand tightened, shattering the glass and crushing both the player and the tape inside.

ii

John navigated his way through the maze of office cubicles. He didn't look like he belonged there. He may have worn a jacket and a button up shirt, but the jacket was tattered and unprofessional and his shirt wasn't tucked in. He wasn't even wearing a tie. Most people didn't notice, though; they had their own job to do.

He made his way to a secretary who sat in front of a door labelled 'Area Manager'. She looked up from her desk and raised her eyebrows at him. John pulled out his wallet and placed an official ID on her desk.

She spun it around to face her and clicked on her computer mouse, and then she looked up at him, Looks like you have an appointment. Please take a seat inside - he will be in with you shortly.

John nodded, scooped up his ID and placed it in his wallet. He moved through the door, sat in the chair opposite the large desk, which had papers piled on top of it, and gave it a weary glance.

A blank computer monitor faced the chair. John glanced off to the large shelving to his side. On the shelves were books: legal books, management books, and even a few mathematical textbooks. On closer inspection, they almost appeared random, as if trying to give the impression of a formidable presence without thinking through the logic of it.

The door opened and an imposing presence stepped through, he looked like someone important, with his expensive suit and strong jawline. He rushed passed John, who leaned back and raised an eyebrow at the presence that ignored him. John watched him sit down and lay his suitcase on the desk, ignorant of, or oblivious to, the papers that lay on top of it. The man didn't look up, and instead shuffled the papers on the desk.

He spoke with a commanding voice, Not dressed to impress, I see.

John shrugged and sat up straighter, Uh, no. Sir. Plain-clothes job. You know.

The man stifled a small laugh and replied, with a hint of disdain. Call me Aldo; everyone else does. He stopped shuffling papers and leaned forward, clasping his hands together.

John took a deep breath, Uh yeah. Aldo. he leaned forward, New assignment?

Aldo nodded, turned to his suitcase and spun it around to face him. His thumbs flicked up over the latches and they clicked open. He brought his hands back and the case glided backwards and came to a gentle stop. It looked impressive and professional. He reached in and flicked through the documents inside. It's a short one, a few months long. We have nobody else and nothing more important at the moment. He pulled out a small envelope and placed it on the desk.

John leaned forward and picked it up, You know, they invented these things called computers. John glanced over the standard privacy warnings on the envelope, property of the government, only authorised people, to the full extent of the law. All bog standard legal crap. By now, he could almost quote it word for word.

Aldo shook his head, Computers can be hacked, data can be decrypted. But you have to physically be here to read this.

John glanced up at Aldo and smirked as he opened the envelope, removed the contents and didn’t even look as he moved the first page to the back of the pile. The first page was always more of the same legal bullshit as was on the front of the envelope.

Aldo continued, But you already knew that, didn’t you?

John looked down and started to read the official declaration of his assignment.

You snarky shit. I should fire you for insolence.

John glanced up at Aldo with a look of worry, Oh, but I already opened the envelope. He raised the envelope to Aldo.

Next time then. Definitely next time.

John looked back and squinted at the document. He stopped and looked back at Aldo, his look of concern more serious than before, Just an external? On a run-down factory in some shit hole? Aren't narcotics the jurisdiction of the local police?

Aldo shook his head, Not when the narcotics are strongly tied to terrorists.

John glanced to the left and right before speaking. How strongly?

Not to be spoken of aloud.

John nodded and turned back to the documents, he shuffled one page to the back and raised his eyes as he read, So, shouldn't we be working with the cops?

No. We'll involve them when you're wrapping up. You know cops are about as subtle as a pit bull on steroids.

Alright. John leaned forward and placed the documents into the paper shredder next to the desk.

Aldo furrowed his brow, So you remember where you’re going?

John watched the paper shredder whirr and desiccate the documents. The tiny fragments fell into the stainless steel bin. John said, Oh shit. as his eyes went wide.

Aldo rolled his eyes, For fuck's sake. You're an Intelligence Officer. Try to act the least bit intelligent.

John shrugged, stood up and pointed at himself, Who? Me?

Aldo almost cracked a smile, Get the fuck out of here and do your job.

John saluted Aldo and turned around as Aldo reached forward and dragged the bin to the centre of the room, away from all the paper and wood. John turned back as he opened the door and watched Aldo remove the shredder from the top of the bin and drop a match onto the shredded paper.

Some just want to watch the world burn. I see you're satisfied with just paper.

Aldo’s eyes made their way up to John’s, his glare full of stern indignation. John stepped out and closed the door before Aldo had the chance to rip him a new arsehole.

It was an odd assignment; a weak one for someone of John's experience, and he knew that. As John navigated his way back through the cubicle maze he thought about what could've happened to make them assign someone like him to an assignment like this. The more he thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed, and the more worried he was about what he wasn't told.

Maybe it was a unique case, but terrorists don't aren’t known for consorting with drug runners. They’ll have too many patriotic and violent ideas to be concerned with the income that can be made with illicit substances.

John decided he'd see how he felt when he got there.

iii

John entered the dingy little apartment block. A fat, hairy, balding man with the face of an unpleasant dog sat behind a desk in the lobby. The walls were grey and stained and the man behind the desk looked like he squinted at everything.

John walked up to him and stayed blunt, One room.

The man smiled and nodded, Of course, of course. We have many rooms, do you have a preference?

John shook his head and replied with hesitation, taken aback by the man's pleasant demeanour, A small room.

The man nodded again, Of course, we have just the thing.

The man turned around and, unfitting to his appearance, his hand danced over the keys lined up on the wall behind him. He picked one up.

The man turned back with his brow furrowed, It's three hundred and fifty dollars a week; payments can be collected weekly, or monthly with a fourteen percent up-front cost.

John nodded and reached inside his jacket and placed a fifty dollar note on the counter. As he'd learned, for his occupation, cash was key. It reduced your presence and left less of a trail for anyone to follow. The man smiled and handed John the keys. John nodded and walked to the side of the lobby where the stairs lead to the apartments.

The balding man called out, Wait! John paused and then turned, his eyes narrowed. The man held a dollar coin in his hand, Your change.

John nodded and removed the coin from the man's grasp, Um, thank you. John turned back to the stairs and took a step.

Would you like me to show you to your room?

John shook his head and tilted his head toward the man, I'll find it, thanks. The man smiled, nodded and stepped back to his desk. John headed up the stairs.

***

The apartments were cheap here, and it showed in the hallway he walked down. The carpet was rough and the wooden framing around each door looked old and worn. John looked down at the little piece of leather that hung from the key, the room number was engraved on it.

He made his way to the stairs at the end of the hallway and walked up to the next floor. He moved down the hallway, and counted the number of steps to his room. Fourteen, same as the room number. John took it as a lucky sign.

He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

It was a small apartment, to the immediate right after entering there was a bathroom, with a shower, toilet and mirror. To the immediate left was a small kitchen with a few cupboards. In front of him was a slightly bigger room with a sofa in the middle, a TV to the left and a bed to the right, all in the same room. Across from a sofa at the end of the room was a large window that took up the left half of the wall.

John took off his jacket, placed the keys inside a pocket and dumped it on top of the sofa. He moved to the window, with his hands in his pants pockets. He flicked a latch on the inside of the window and slid it open enough to be able to fit through if he needed. A cold breeze entered that nudged the window’s curtains. He peered down outside the window. Five meter drop. You'd break a leg, but you'd be able to limp away. You'd live.

He leaned back inside, slid it back and flicked the latch.

John looked at the road that his apartment towered over. He saw much of what he expected, pot-holes, people with a close-knit family and dark circles under their eyes, children riding bikes without helmets or shoes. It wasn't a fantastic neighbourhood, in fact it was a known criminal hotspot, but it wasn’t the worst place in the world. From his experience, the most suspicious looking people in these neighbourhoods were usually the most trust-worthy; the most normal, with a family and kids trying to make a decent living.

John had seen how places become the kind that you wouldn't want to walk through at night. It was always a bit of give and take. The area didn't get as much money from the government, so the number of police, and police patrols, decreases. Then people start to talk like it's a dangerous place; racism follows. And then the gangs or mobs, the professional criminals, come and settle in because they hear on the grapevine that there aren't as many cops. It then snowballs, as the cost to police a place like this sky rockets, and people become more insular, less trust worthy. They don't sleep as well at night, with their kids running out and about. And the kids, they get the worst of it, because they don't remember a time when where they lived wasn't considered a bad place, and so they grow up internalising all of it.

Then they're the ones with kids, and what they've internalised their kids do too, and the cycle continues, and each generation internalises it more and more, until you've got a generation of people who are as nice and kind as everyone else, but are judged for looking criminal.

John assessed his view of the street. He was a few blocks away from the run-down building he was supposed to be watching. He'd driven past it, and he’d seen a few people come and go. That alone confirmed something was going on in there.

Across the street he saw two buildings, and in between them was an alleyway, like the kind you'd see in a run-down neighbourhood on an evening police drama. It even had unintelligible graffiti dripping down the bricks and mortar on the alley walls. He could see right down it. The road in front of him stretched across all the way into the distance on the left, but on the right it stopped after a few buildings and broke into a T-intersection. The building on the left of the alleyway had another road that ran down past it, parallel to the alley. The roads were quiet.

Right down the alleyway, a woman stood and smoked a cigarette, minding her own business. Then a car - it looked a little flashy - drove by and stopped, right in front of the alley. Another woman stepped out and strolled around her car. She looked around and rubbed her nose before she walked down toward the alley.

John saw an opportunity. It was time to gather some intelligence.

***

John opened the door to the apartment block and stepped onto the street, with his hands in his pockets he looked left and right. A sporty car revved hard and screamed down the road, John watched it flash past and listened to the loud rumbling of the engine as it disappeared into the distance.

He stepped onto the road and made his way to the woman’s parked car.

The woman emerged from the alley and saw John crouched down behind the car. John stared at the wheels and nodded.

She asked, Can I help you? A question John was waiting for. People with flashy cars liked to talk about them.

No. John replied, as he stood and turned to the woman, I was just admiring your nice ride. Where'd you get those wheels?

The woman smiled, Custom body shop down on Sleet Road.

John nodded and smiled back, Nice. They do the paint work too?

Yeah, they're a place you can trust to do some damn fine work.

Mind if I ask how much?

Not really, it was all about fifteen k.

John whistled and looked back at the car, Wish I had that kind of money to spend. I'd buy myself all of the cars and a giant show room for them.

The woman laughed, No show rooms around here, mate, nothing but dingy warehouses.

John looked up at the buildings alongside either alley, Who owns them, anyway?

The woman shrugged, No idea, but no-one owns these ones. Someone owns that one a few blocks down.

Who?

Not a question to go around asking. Probably a bunch of people who are a lot happier not being known.

You mean like the mob?

Not necessarily. A mob, probably.

Alright, thanks. John waved, smiled and then turned around.

You're not a cop are you?

John turned to face her, his brows narrowed, No, are you?

Nah, but if you ever need anything, I can hook you up.

John moved in closer to the woman, What kind of anything are we talking about?

Let's just say the kind of things that are good for a pick me up.

John nodded and rubbed his teeth with his tongue. You mean like brownies and c?

John knew the lingo, it was his job to know the codes criminals used, and that included those that drug dealers used to refer to their products. Brownies – hash browns, refers to Hashish. C – ambiguous, either cocaine, for obvious reasons, or heroin, being a shortened form of ‘syringe’.

The woman nodded and looked around before she stepped toward John, You need a number? She reached into a pocket and held it out to John, You call me, Aashna.

John reached out and slid the card from her hand, Sure. Aashna - what is that?

Aashna smiled, proud of her name, Indian. Racist cops go after Africans, Aborigines and everyone else with much darker skin, but nobody takes the brown Indian seriously.

And the ones that aren’t racist?

They sure as hell don’t work in this shithole.

Sounds like you got it all worked out.

Aashna laughed, Mate, you do this long enough, and it all works itself out.

Aashna nodded to John and disappeared inside her car. John looked down at the card and turned back toward the apartment block. He looked left and right as he walked back across the road. Aashna revved up her car and shot down the road. John turned and watched her take the turn way too fast.

Aashna’s card read 'Acquisition Specialist', another vague term for drug dealer. This lady sounded confident, she’d know the deal in this neighbourhood. At the very least, all of the important players. Which made it a matter of time before John knew it all too.

iv

John sat, quiet and still, in his car; he was parked in a car park that was across the street from the warehouse he was supposed to be watching. All he was supposed to do was an external, which was a fancy way of telling him to do nothing more than observation; no direct interaction and stick to passive information collection. It meant listening in on others and not asking too many questions, so as to not tip anyone off that they were being watched.

John had parked facing away from the warehouse, but in his rear-view mirror he had a perfect view of their door. He was to spend his day noting people who entered and exited, and anything else that was worth noting. Times, descriptions, conjecture based on descriptions, that sort of thing.

By his count, based upon the comings and goings of those who passed through the door, there were six people who worked there, all of whom looked like they were born and bred in this shit-hole.

One looked big and menacing, underneath his shirt was a poorly hidden firearm. He must be security. He came before everyone else and John guessed he'd be the last to leave. So who were the other five? And what were they doing in there?

Some cars drove by. A few came and parked and John looked busy doing something else. He realised they were taking too long getting out of their fucking car and, to avoid suspicion, he started his car and backed out of his spot. With gritted teeth he drove onto the road and kept going until he hit a round-about. He came back around and drove down the other side of the street, stopping at a nice spot and parking off near the side-walk. He was a little more exposed here, but the streets were quiet and he could afford to hang here for fifteen minutes.

There was a large steel garage door attached to the warehouse that pointed into the street. A place for shipments to come and go, perhaps? But what would a terrorist need to ship to a large warehouse? How many so called freedom fighters go out of their way to assist in large-scale narcotics production and distribution?

John could tell that the operation, whatever it was, was large-scale. Nobody cooks drugs in a warehouse until they have no other choice, and even then, there's a front business which hides the drugs, but this warehouse didn't have any obvious corporate logo or symbol.

He watched the set of lights in front of him turn red. He watched the last few cars pass him by, indicated and turned over into the opposite side of the road. He made his way back to the car park and found a nice spot right next to the one he had first parked in.

The report John had read indicated they were making drugs in the warehouse, but that couldn't have been right. The warehouse was far too nondescript. Maybe they were synthesising cocaine, but synthesising anything was pretty much out of the picture because the warehouse didn't even have ventilation. Chemicals smell, and they're harmful too. At no point around the outside of the warehouse did it look like more than a giant storehouse.

So what were they doing? At around seventeen hundred hours two of them came outside for a smoke. They both looked around, but neither of them engaged in conversation with the other. They didn’t even look at each other. What kind of people who work together, and take smoko together, don't exchange any words at all?

One of them knocked on the door when they finished and the big guy, the one who looked like a guard, opened the door and let them back in. Then there was nothing. Cars came and parked, more cars went and John watched.

All there was to note was the electrical lock on the door. It was a keypad, and it sat next to the handle of the door. It was a common kind of keypad, average security. It was there to scare thieves away, as it implied the place had tight security, like CCTV, but in John's experience, they didn't, and relied on the threat of CCTV, because even criminals knew that keypads were bloody expensive.

It wasn't until night, twenty hundred hours, that the door opened and all six of them filed out. It was quiet then, a few other cars also remained in the car park. The big guy locked up the door and followed the others. They walked towards him and John glanced around. He realised he was in a car park. This was not a good thing.

If they saw him, it wasn't so bad, he was just some arsehole doing his own thing. That wasn't the problem, the problem was if they saw him more than once. Twice? Maybe a coincidence. Three times? Maybe he's a guy who goes home at the same time, but from three onwards, if it wasn't clear that he was just some guy, maybe coming home from the pub or who had just clocked off at work, then they'd get suspicious.

Suspicion did not mix with John's line of work. John took a deep breath, and knew he'd fucked up. As they all walked closer, some manoeuvred towards their cars, it was clear he wasn't about to get some awkward questions. It was because he'd used up one of the times they were allowed to see him. His buffer was smaller. It was the long day of nothing - it put John off his edge. He thought he was better than that. He had to be better.

John waited for them to leave, turned on his car and headed off home.

v

John lay on the bed in his apartment and stared at the roof; his mind uneasy. This investigation didn't add up. There were too many unanswered questions, too many probable lies. Not enough answers. As he thought about it, it all made less and less sense.

There were people working there, this much was obvious. But what kind of terrorist organisation doesn't even have a front? How could they be making drugs, or distributing them for that matter, in a warehouse without ventilation or air conditioning? Who was paying them? How? Were they a part of the organisation in question, or were they mules? What kind of drug doesn't need you to be concerned about temperature or humidity control? Why didn't they even talk to each other?

John would need to follow them. Find out what their angle is and who they answer to.

Fuck, but he couldn't do that. His job would be over if he didn't keep to protocol, external, nothing more. No tailing. If he was caught, he would be done. Burn notice and everything, which makes sense because then they'd be asking why someone like him wouldn't follow protocol. None of the answers to that question were in his favour.

The harsh glow of streetlights peered in through the closed blinds sitting against the window. As John lay back and fell in and out of sleep, the light from behind his blinds shifted from a harsh, pale yellow to the brighter white of a morning sun.

John took a deep breath as made his way to his feet. He'd showered before bed, but didn't have pyjamas; he wore the next day’s clothes. That way, when he stood up, his eyes blinded by the morning light that streamed in through his blinds, he was already dressed.

He walked across and opened the blinds. His eyes stung behind his closed eyelids as the sun burned them and seemed to mock him. As his eyes adjusted, he opened them, and saw a familiar sight. The road, the alleyway, Aashna’s car was even there, sitting in front of an alleyway. Aashna stood in the alleyway and smoked, minding her own business. John looked across and saw something peculiar: down past the road that ran parallel to the alley, off into the distance, there was a cop car.

John looked to his right and saw what most others saw, a guy minding his own business, walking down the road. He noticed what most others missed, the guy who appeared to mind his own business also talked to himself, into the collar of his jacket to be precise. His shoulder was raised higher than normal as he walked and it was obvious to John that the man was up to something.

Then it hit him. It was a sting.

John looked across to Aashna, and off to the cop car adjacent to the alleyway. Another one rolled up behind it. He looked to his left. There was a nondescript car; inside were two guys, one with binoculars, watching the man who talked into his collar.

It was a fucking sting. Aashna was someone John needed. He sighed and gritted his teeth. He had no other good contacts made here, and Aashna