It, Happens A humming old refrigerator door hangs open, the cold air pouring out. A man in his late twenties stands in the soft blue light in an old grey t-shirt and shorts. It’s midnight. Now, everyone knows and understands the fact that there are five particularly interesting things about this guy. Three of them you can get if you’re looking straight at him. Only two of them matter right now. The first and foremost is the simple fact that this guy is lonely. His grizzly, unshaven face borders between grunge metal fan and hermit. His tired, ugly eyes bear heavy purple bags beneath them. And it’s these ugly eyes that sit on his scratched and hardened face. A cloud of cigarette smoke hangs in the air above his kitchen table, it almost masks the gnats that swarm the over-hang yellow lamp above him. This is detective Harlor. He slouches down in his chair, the first piece of furniture he ever bought for his apartment, and he hangs over a bowl of Captain Crunch. Trying to eat and smoke two cigarettes at the same time. Oh yes, that’s the other thing about our friend Harlor. The pungent cloud of smoke smell that boils off his clothing, his slightly off colored teeth, and the square bulging from his front coat pocket tells you one thing; detective Harlor loves to smoke. He smokes two as if they were one, and would gladly smoke three if cigarettes weren’t so goddamn expensive. It’s roughly two in the morning, and he writhes in his sleep trying to find some kind of middle ground between his left and ride side. He refuses to sleep on his stomach, and refuses to sleep on his back, he’s just not comfortable. In fact sleeping period is pretty much a convenience for him, he works late nights and has had his fair share of nightmares. His newest nightmare began just a month ago. An apartment building downtown has been producing a corpse every couple of weeks, and despite constant evacuations the tenants just get fed up and demand to be let back in. Harlor was only introduced to the case as of recently apparently this has been going on for quite some time, before him detective Niker was in charge until he quit the case due to frustration. Why would a hardened detective of seven years quit a case bruising his previously glistening record of never quitting? Well, this is where the fourth peculiar thing about our dear friend Harlor comes in. Since birth detective Harlor has been able to find himself in the exact right place, and the exact right time in which to be fucked over by the paranormal. It’s his gift, and promise. When Harlor was born, the devil woke up, pointed and screamed. He would be a cursed child and for the rest of his life there would be a demon, or some other blood sucking legion of the infernal parade standing around the corner. And this time, the corner existed at 127 Morex, deep in the heart of downtown. Past the ghettos and abandoned playgrounds. Past the unfinished site intended for a shopping mall, and past the Grove Hill church. Each corpse that turned up had a distinctive way about it. At first glance, a hardened, yellow, stiff, lifeless corpse. However, when you looked closer, deep into the face, small reddish eye-shaped spots appeared. The skin was loose and thin indicating that facial muscles had completely deteriorated. The face was posed in such a way to indicate that the victim died miserable and alone, frightened and confused. Harlor crouched close over the body, and twin ashes fell onto the corner of the agape, bile filled mouth. He reached into his front pocket and unclipped a click pen. There was only one thing he was looking for, one thing that every other deadbeat paper pusher standing around him was afraid to look for. They were taking pictures, and scraping things, bitch work. They needed to be here, down, crouching over someone’s father or someone’s brother, god damn it, someone’s son. Harlor tilted the head to the side, and took a look at the right side of the neck. There they were, as they were on every body since the first. Two parallel vertical puncture wounds. Obviously deep, and infected. “I fucking hate vampires,” Harlor said trying to keep the cigarettes in his mouth and his disgust under his breath. “Cover it.” Harlor was good at freaking people out, it’s the unknown that everyone’s afraid of. Cops, like bees filled the crime scene busy doing everything they were supposed to be doing. Only a few were brave enough to look up from their papers and watch Harlor storm out the door, and flick his two cigarettes behind him. This is perhaps the fifth thing that is so damn peculiar about Harlor. All they knew is what he wanted them to know, nothing. Some of the guys around the office swear that they’ve seen twin insignias on the back of his ankles, of what? They don’t know and probably thought they never would. Harlor made his way down the stairs, his hand clutched to the rusted metal railing. For some reason he was always afraid of falling, missing a step or getting tangled in his own feet and falling face first into pavement, possibly snapping his spine and rendering him paralyzed for life. He made his way past “6B”, “7B”, ...”8B”. Inside the apartments babies cried, and TVs blared relentlessly. “Another one?” asked a voice from behind. Harlor stopped, and reached inside his front pocket. Soon two cigarettes were hanging from his lips. He turned around squinting knowing that he’s only going to be answering questions. “Yeah,” Harlor said finding himself looking at a fairly beautiful redhead standing awkwardly in the doorway. I guess it’s been assumed, more by himself than others, that if there was a six on Harlor’s magical list. Number six would be redheads. Harlor loves redheads. “Fuck. Did they say what it was yet? Ya know, for ‘hard working detectives’ you all sure look like you’re bullshitting around every time I turn on the TV. Not once have they formerly stated what they think is happening in here.” she gently cocked her weight to one hip, the curves of her butt eclipsing from behind her full figure. Harlor’s eyes quickly darted in that direction only to dart back up to her face. “I think it’s because we don’t know.” “Did you just say that you, ‘don’t know’? Did you really just say that? You’re a cop, you better know something.” she sneered. “I’m sorry ma’am, what is it you wanted to know? Did we find another body? Fuck yeah we found another body. You wanna go see it? How ‘bout I bring that damn thing down here for ya and drop it on your couch?” Harlor sneered in return and flicked his cigarettes against a wall and watched them fall into the waiting ashtray below. “I just don’t see why this isn’t big news yet. It’s been going on for months now, c’mon.” “Mostly because it’s old people. When some senior citizens kick the bucket it kinda takes away from the seven year old girl in a flowered summer dress look that the news fucks are going for. When some orphan gets hit is when you’ll see my face smeared across the damn screen.” Harlor turned back around and started heading away. “That’s horrible.” Harlor turned around just long enough to see her cross her arms which in turn pushed her breasts up. Harlor smiled to himself, “Yeah. That’s what happens.” A stairwell entrance at the end of the hall stood out among the rest of the corridor. The plaster seemed to fade away and crack around the borders, and the borders were painted with an aged, flaking red paint. Harlor rounded the corner only to find himself face to face with a silhouette. A tall dark figure, completely shadowed against the under-lighting of the well. “Watch it buddy.” Harlor pushed past the figure down the stairs. “Speak for yourself detective.” It responded. Harlor stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around, his coarse profile illuminated in the stained lightbulb in front of him. Harlor’s hand rustled for a moment, and pulled a clear lighter from his pocket. A small quick flame erupted from it, and he brought it closer to the figure. A pale, sickened face slowly emerged into the light. Staring right at Harlor. “How about that?” the figure booked it up the stairs, he hopped stairs at a time with no effort. Harlor unbelted a beautiful, ivory handled modified handgun and started up the stairs after the figure. It may have been the cigarettes, or it may have been his age and lifestyle, who knows, but Harlor found himself trailing immensely as this guy leapt to each floor. After a couple of seconds, the top floor exit door slammed shut and Harlor slowed to a stop, his hands dropped to his knees and he looked back in surprise as to how far and fast he moved. He reclipped his gun, and put the lighter back in his pocket. A humming old refrigerator door hangs open. The pale blue light spilling out onto the floor. He stands as he always does when he’s tired, confused, hungry, and pissed off. He leans awkwardly on the door looking at an old box of glazed donuts, he knows in his head that if he were to eat one of those he would regret it for the rest of his life. The cold surface of a meant-to-be-hot donut would make him gag. At the bottom of the fridge was an open tub of cream cheese, for some bagels he bought about a month ago and had long since eaten. For some reason the cream cheese reminded him of the case. Actually, everything was reminding him of the case. The dirt on his shoes, his cigarettes, his front door. Everything. For the last week or so he’s been talking to connections. People that know people and things. Trying to figure out, who the fuck was responsible for this. None of the tenants had remembered seeing any strange figures, or reported any particular disturbances. Harlor was particularly focused on gangs. Vampire gangs. Roving slime that hit place after place trying to claim the most victims in order to one up a rival gang. However, there was no record of any vampire gang around this area. Harlor scratched his face, took a swig of milk, and closed the door. He didn’t want to go back to sleep, sleep meant dreams. Or sleep meant nightmares. He can’t handle nightmares. He was back at the building, two cigarettes in hand. A dark stain remained on the floor where the 65 year old man lied only twenty four hours earlier. He started poking around some of the old plastic wrapped furniture, and started shuffling through some of the old man’s belongings.. Luck, life, an love are awkward. Strange little things. Life is a string of mishaps. That’s all. You lived your life, as Harlor lived his. From accident to accident, learning what you could and applying that towards your survival of the next accident. However you deal with these accidents is up to you, for in this attitude lies the true meaning of happiness. Happiness is derived from luck. A purely chaotic twist of outcome from a seemingly normal event. All happiness, ever, was the result of luck, or mathematical circumstance. One of those circumstances, somewhere along the line will show to be love. A natural bond, or connection you have with another person suffering from the same string of accidents and same string of conclusions. You choose each other knowing that the other is beneficial to your survival of the moment. Which in itself is luck. Confusing? Well, all I guess you really need to know is that Detective Malcom Harlor had some really bad fucking luck. I guess that would be the third thing you could tell just by looking at him. It wasn’t vampires. It wasn’t demons, it wasn’t even the man in the stairwell. Harlor wasn’t even sure of what the hell it was till the last damn second. It sprang out at him from a stack of newspapers against the wall and sank its fangs deep into his neck. The sound Harlor most closely compared it to, while he lied there for some 8 minutes, writhing in pain and screaming, was the sound of a toothpick being stabbed through tightly stretched bubble wrap. It was a long 8 minutes, as he struggled to find the door knob in a state of hysteria and shock. Now he knew why they couldn’t obtain a proper match on the puncture wounds... When a venomous snake bites its prey, the venom starts to melt muscle tissue away immediately. Then it starts on the nervous system, slowly breaking it down until the victim is paralyzed or dead. However this snake had its ability to create venom surgically removed, so no trace of poison remained in the bodies. And the victim’s old age led to them bleeding to death before help could be reached. Harlor knew he was going to die, he just wanted to prevent it as long as possible. The snake had nailed him right in the jugular vein, and blood was pumping profusely through his fingers as he tried his best to apply pressure to the area. Harlor stumbled helplessly backwards into the kitchen, and slid on his back towards the first cabinet he could find, he whipped open the door looking for a towel, or a rag or anything. Nothing. Finally, his fingers weakened and his arms fell to his side. He had no more strength. The distant sound of footsteps clamoring through the walls made his face cold, his screams came too late. Just as the old man’s did. As he fumbled his coat pocket looking for a lighter, he held the two cigarettes to his mouth. He could feel the blood pumping out of the hole in his neck ever faster as his heart beat sped up from the panic. He finally managed to get the lighter out and on just as some last minute confusing thoughts ran through his head. “Why only old people? Maybe it was only this side of the building.” Now that he thought about it, all the victims did in fact live on this side of the building. “What about the marks on the body? The lack of facial tissue? Wouldn’t that mean that the snake was poisonous?” and just as he said that he noticed the movement out of the corner of his already fading eye. A series of snakes had taken nest under the cabinet, deep in the back next to the waffle maker. Harlor’s head slammed back down to the ground and made a sticky “heavy rain on glass” sound as it did. He smiled to himself and puffed on his cigarette. “The old fuck was making breakfast.” As the door to the apartment burst open, and Harlor’s cigarettes tilted and fell out of his mouth he could think about only two things. The chest and ass on that redhead, and the last thing he said to her: “Yeah. That’s what happens.” –thedexter