A family

   His wife had fainted and the kids were now trying to help her feel better in the car. Meanwhile, he was still staring at the house, as if it was going to magically change it’s looks from the old and almost destroyed state it was in to the almost mansion he had thought he purchased some weeks ago. He didn’t feel good at all but his body was suddenly not able to respond to anything. He only reacted when his boy, who was around ten years old, came from the car and told him his wife wanted to talk to him with urgency. He turned around slowly, still in disbelief.

 The only thing his wife wanted to tell him was that they should be going to the police and tell them what had happened. They had to do it as soon as possible because maybe, just maybe, the person that had done that to them may be closer than they thought. He drove back to the nearby small town and explained the situation to the police officers. The one that took care of them put a hand to his forehead to clean the sweat off his face and told them they weren’t the first to come saying they had been robbed in such a way. At least four families had gone through the same thing that year.

 He explained that they had always used that house because the owner had died many years ago and no one could claim ownership of it. Actually, the state still had to wait ten years in order to be able to take possession of the house and then sell it or do whatever they wanted with it. And, of course, everything they showed was false and people never cared to check before they spent all that money in a new house. The family man, called George, explained to the officer that they were precisely there to check out the house because it was supposed to be finished in six months.

 Again, his wife had sit down. She asked for a glass of water and tried to relax but her heart was beating too fast. Norma, that was her name, had already begun planning so many trips and so many other fun stuff around that house. The amount of money they had spent was nothing next to the emotional investment they had obviously already done in that place. It was just a very cruel joke to play in them and she just could not believe someone would do such a thing. She still wanted to think it was some kind of mistake.

 But it wasn’t. They had been robbed of millions and they did all the paperwork to sue the people and the alleged company that had processed the whole thing. Of course, the company was a fake and the possibility of being reimbursed was almost impossible but they needed to do everything according to the law. Because, when the time came, they would need to prove they did not have a country house or anything like that. It was a very long process and a very slow one too. But after several months, it finally ended.

 The relationship between George and his wife was not the best. The situation with the new house had deteriorated everything they had before they realized they had been cheated on. They stopped being close to each other and after what happened, they rarely even spoke when they were alone. They tied to maintain normalcy for the children but it was obvious they were not idiots and could realize very easily that their parents didn’t really like each other anymore. However, they did not have a big response to it.

 In time, about a year after the robbery, Norma decided to file for divorce. She realized she simply didn’t trust her husband anymore and she actively blamed him for having been robbed off all the money they had paid for the country house. She realized she could never forget that, so the intelligent thing to do was to just get a divorce. Of course, she wanted to keep the kids and George wasn’t going to just give them to her. It was a very ugly situation in which every person they know had an opinion and that helped their marriage to die quickly.

 They finally agreed that they would share custody of the children with them living most of the week with their mother and the weekends with their father. They were still young and they both knew it was going to be a very hard thing to live with but they agreed they could do it for their children. The kids felt everything was their fault somehow, and began to behave in different ways, from hitting classmates back in school to just stop talking and turning into a repressed little kid which obviously wasn’t great for such a young age.

 They each had less and less money to spend, because they had many more things to pay for: gasoline for all the car rides during the week, the shrinks for both of the kids, the allowance George had to pay his wife in order to support the kids, the amount of groceries they had to buy each in order to supply everything necessary for the children… It was just too much and every month things seemed to get pricier and more complicated. One kid began fighting in school too much and the other was accused by a teacher of being autistic.

 It was just a very ridiculous situation that had came from one bad investment, one bad moment in which they hadn’t had the brain to check on the product they were buying first. They both knew it was both of their faults that they had been robbed but it was easier to blame the other because confronting the truth was always very hard and embarrassing. But both George and Norma were to blame. They wanted to seem rich in a moment and never cared to think of their children or about anything else.

 Their marriage was destroyed and when the kids became older they stopped seeing each other and just moved on to have their own lived. Norma remarried first and George killed himself two months after that. He had been tired of calling his children and never getting an answer. That fatal day, he wrote a letter to them, including Norma, telling them how sorry he was for what he did. However, he also reminded them they used to have been a family and they all just bailed on him the first moment they could, not thinking about anything they had gone through.

 In the last few lines, he blamed himself and all of them for the implosion of their perfect family. He said it was their entire fault that just because of something other families could have rallied around, they all just began to fall apart and try to run away from each other as far as they could. Now one of his kids was on drugs, the other had social problems and he made them see what they had become, hoping they could change their ways once he wasn’t there anymore. Of course, he never knew that letter was too little, too late.

Who Dunnit?

   There was a little bit of cold chicken in a bag and some old bread around the second big bin. The trick was to clean it all real good, being careful none of the filth of the rest of the thing inside the containers could harm the good things that were waiting for anyone to grab. Viv had been doing I for five years and now she knew how to look for the best in the best parts of town. Of course, she had to go at night, but not loo late or the guys of the garbage trucks would throw it all away.

 One day, she was even lucky enough to find half a pizza. And I was very good, made out of a lot of vegetables. The only bad thing was that it was cold but to that she was already used to and she didn’t care at all. In other places it was very hard to get any of that but that neighborhood, called Spring Heights, had the best meals for any person that happened to live on the streets. The problem was the security crews and the police who loved to fuck anyone who entered those communities.

 Every time Viv was caught there, she reminded the police that she wasn’t doing anything wrong and that no one could get harmed by her feeding herself with things no one even wanted anymore. It wasn’t like she grabbed clothes or real expensive things from he garbage. She could’ve but people in that area seemed to be very careful not to throw away things that were very valuable, except when it was about food. Then they didn’t care at all about the treasures that they gave away.

 One day she was even able to eat three sushi rolls. Viv was scared about that food because she knew it was raw fish and that, if old, she may have been in for some serious stomachache, but nothing happened and she realized how overrated that kind of food was.

 But her moment happened the day she found something very different in the garbage. She had managed to avoid the private security, again, and was checking on some boxes by a big house on the hill, when she was almost paralyzed with fear. When she took out a plastic bag filled with lots of crap, there was something in there she knew wasn’t very common to see in the trash: it was a human ear.

 It was the first time Viv ran to the police. At first, they didn’t want to talk to her because they knew her really well but after some serious consideration, they heard what she had to say. The consideration was basically when she three the bag with the ear on the chief of police’s desk and was almost tackled to the ground by two male officers. Her move had been very bold but effective, as the police sent several of their own to check the rest of the boxes she had been going through.

 They found the other ear and also a couple of fingers. When they rang the bell at the mansion the bins belonged to, they didn’t get any answer. The cops seriously had no interest in talking to anyone in that house but it was a formality that they had to proceed with. The house was better known as Montecarlo, the preferred mansion in the city of one of the richest men alive. Or maybe it was fairer to say he was barely alive, as he neared ninety years old. That and his unlimited power were the reasons cops didn’t really want to bother him.

 But in any case, no one answered the door. They tried multiple times for months and no one answered. Even when contacted through the main offices of the conglomerate the man was president of, no one would say a thing. It was very uncommon and mysterious but also predictable as no well known person would even think about being caught in a scandal such as that one that not only involved body parts found in the trash, but also a homeless woman and the police.

 The ears were sent to a laboratory for exams and the results were very interesting: apparently, they had been removed fairly recently, not even a month ago. The studies also said the owner of those ears was probably younger than forty years old but older than twenty-five years old, according to the cartilage and general shape of them. They also concluded that the ears had been sawed from the body they had been attached to, which indicated the police that they may have been dealing with the case in the wrong way.

 Those techniques to remove body parts were primarily used by men in the mob or in any other organizations that dedicated themselves to using violent methods. The cops went through every single mobster they had arrested recently in order to get a confession that they had done it but none of them seemed to understand what he was talking about. They were even so bold to say they hadn’t done that in a while.

 But how to believe a mobster when he was arrested for reckless driving and attempted murder of their own wife? Others had even had their closest enemies killed and had no problem at all talking about it. But they’d rather be damned than accept they had cut off those ears. They didn’t insisted on the subject but most of them were consistently positive they had nothing to do with it.

 That was not good news for the police that had been investigating for more than six months and nothing had come up: the mobsters said they weren’t the ones, the owner of the bins was a no show and even Viv had stopped helping them because she thought the police was only good for taking her away of all the street’s great prizes.

  Almost a year would pass until another body part was found in a garbage bin; very close to the ones that Viv ad been going threw. The foot was from a male body and it wasn’t especially big. The scientists at the police were able to confirm with a high degree of certainty that the foot and the ears came from the same person. The police couldn’t ignore this anymore, so they ordered a sweep of every trashcan in the hill. Groups of people would go through every single garbage container in order to look for the rest of the body.

 The cops were smart enough to get Viv to help them, as she was the one that knew perfectly about every single spot to throw food and possibly body parts. They started on the bottom of the hill and worked their way up. They didn’t find anything near the first houses but as time passed, other parts were discovered: a nose, a finger, and a toe. They kept appearing as the police worked their way up to the top of the hill, where the wealthiest people lived.

 Of course, the whole thing was an epic scandal and many rich people thought the police should stop targeting their neighborhood as if they were the ones to blame for whatever had happened. They insisted no one from the hill would even think about killing, simply because they were all so rich they didn’t need to do it. Their reasoning was easy to understand but simply not good enough.

 After several weeks of research, they had collected enough body parts to do a proper examination and attempt to reconstruct the whole person or at least what was his or hers most likely appearance. When Viv found a penis by a fence, they knew it was a male. All the parts were dry some that’s why blood testing was impossible and only reconstruction of the whole body was the only real solution to the problem.

 Searches on the garbage bins ended soon and the police dedicated themselves for a week to reconstructing the body, part by part. There were still some large parts missing but most small pieces were there. It was one of the female cops that dropped her coffee when she entered the room to deliver a letter to the chief of the scientific staff. She knew whom the body had belonged to.

 This time, they didn’t ask to be invited in. The doors of the mansion were toppled down and every corner of the premises searched. The head was found on a pike, in the living room, by the fireplace. Someone really hated the richest man in the city, to the point of killing him in his own house and dividing his body all over the hill. Who had done it?

From the gutter to the sky

   Grant Tower used to be a gigantic building located in the limit between downtown and the industrial districts. It had been abandoned for many years until it was bought by a mysterious person who recuperated its former splendor. In a city filled with strange things happening everyday, the destruction of Grant Tower did not go unnoticed. After all, it had been Captain Incredible the one to destroy it during his battle with his arch nemesis, Doctor Perdition.

 The battle had taken place all over the city. The superhero and the villain were able to fly, so they moved from one area to the other and the destruction was palpable all over the place. Captain Incredible had promised it would be the last battle to fight in the city as, according to him, every other gang and criminal organization had been dismantled. Only Doctor Perdition stood in the way of a pacified city. So every single person affected by the last battle, tried to understand what was as stake.

 Many inhabitants of the city fled beforehand, others just locked themselves home (if they had a basement). The battle took several hours and affected every single inhabitant in the same way. They knew what they would get in exchange, but many were already pissed at both the bad guy and the good one because for years and years, their battles against the other side had caused devastation once and again. People were tired of all of it and Captain Incredible knew he was risking a lot by saying that was going to be his last battle.

 Inspector Paulson was the first one to arrive to the site of the former Grant Tower. The battle was still going on but it had moved to the port, where they could be less damaging to the people. Pieces of the tower had fallen all over the neighboring streets and some of the neighbors were attempting to move the pieces by themselves. Others were looking for objects to recuperate from the destruction.

 Delia Paulson put on her gloves and entered the destroyed building. Only a couple floors were still standing. All the other seventy floors had disappeared. She used a mask to walk inside and join two men of her team who had gotten there before her. Neighbors had told them that a sound could be heard coming from the building, from below the ground. So they had to look where it was, probably a bomb made by Doctor Perdition.

 Inspector Paulson descended towards the lower levels of the building, that had received no damage, and encountered the noise was coming from a boiler room. The machine that used o heat up the water from the tower seemed to be about to explode. A rapid move by one of the policemen, helped to bring the pressure down.

 When he moved away from the boiler, with a face of triumph, the policemen pushed a pipeline that changed positions. But not only that, it also opened a door on the wall, just in front of the boiler. The inspector told everyone to be on the lookout and entered first; illuminating her path with a flashlight she took from her long coat.

 She walked slowly, covering her face because the air was charged with dust particles, probably because of the violent movement suffered by the building when it had been destroyed. It was a long corridor and then a path that seemed to descend in a spiral, down into the ground. Paulson ordered one policeman to stay at the entrance and was only joined by two of them, one being the one that had stopped the boiler from exploding.

 They walked slowly through the narrow passaged until finally they could see artificial light. They arrived at a massive room, carved into the natural rock. It was very humid but there wasn’t as much dust as there was above. They could breath at ease and not feel trapped anymore. The policemen were visibly scared because they remained just behind Paulson and she didn’t say anything because she was scared too. What was that place? Why was it there?

 On the wall, there were dozens, hundreds of screens showing different TV channels and also some footage from closed circuit cameras. Paulson saw the inside of the Central Bank, the security cameras from the police department building and the mayor’s office. It was all live. Someone had them all cornered and they hadn’t realized it.

 One of the policemen attracted her attention to one of the screens. It was a news channel reporting that the battle between the superhero and the villain had ended: good had one versus evil. The two men cheered but Paulson did not say anything. The existence of that room was proof that things did not stop with Doctor Perdition. She kept walking to find more clues and all she saw were plans of every building in the city, including Grant Tower, weapons of every kind and a diary hidden on the drawer of a work table.

 She started reading and, at first, it didn’t make much sense. It was all about a boy telling his sad high school stories. Apparently he was mocked because of the way he dressed and the way he looked. He hated people for laughing at him but would only find solace in one friend he had away from school, another kid. Paulson kept on reading as the policemen looked around, still happy that the last evil plaguing their city had finally been defeated and was dead for good.

 Paulson kept on reading and realized the diary belonged to no other than Doctor Perdition. She then raised her head and told her men to stop walking round and touching everything. She did so just in the moment were one of the weapons fired a set of arrows against a wall, piercing the wall with incredible strength. The men decided to get closer the inspector, who told them to bring their scientific team in order to bag every single thing in that lab.  She told them they had probably gotten the big prize of the night.

 The two men went back upstairs but Delia stayed behind to wait for the science team and in order to keep reading. She didn’t excuse Doctor Perdition for what he had done; after all he was a felon that had served time after killing people and doing the most unspeakable acts of violence. But she kind of felt sorry for him, as she read more and more of the diary. Apparently, he was the only son in a family of only women and he had been mistreated by his parents because he wasn’t the man they wanted him to be.

 He also hated his family. Paulson wondered if he had them killed at some point but the diary didn’t say. It only spoke about his childhood and the most beautiful pages, because they actually were, were dedicated to his encounters with a friend that shared his vision of the world. He was a bit younger but seemed older than him because of his convictions. He was a strong believer that people that did wrong should pay, no matter what is was that they had done.

 She stopped reading and looked for more diaries in the drawer but it was the only one. When the scientific team arrived, she ordered them to scan the room for hidden compartments and traps. They found a small hiding space beneath a huge metal table, which the inspector moved by herself. There, covered in dust, she found something else. There were no diaries but papers that assigned this property to the kid she had been reading about. If the kid was Doctor Perdition, the building must have been his. He was the one to renew it, all those years ago.

 There was also an electronic book, which could be turned on but had a password to protect it. A member of the scientific team helped Paulson bypass the password in order to read whatever it was she had on her hands. And when she was able to read it, she almost dropped it on the floor. Because what was in that book was not only a diary or some legal papers. There were pictures, and statements and videos and text that talked about that other kid, the one that had been Perdition’s friend when he had been bullied in school.

 That friend had helped him seek revenge, which had resulted in the death of at least two children and it had been Perdition who had put a stop to it.

 That kid… That kid was Frederick Edwards AKA Captain Incredible.

Tip of the iceberg

      The metal door opened up with a “bang”. Carter was holding her gun upwards. She looked to her right and to her left and walked slowly, trying not to miss whatever she was supposed to found there. The day was perfect, almost no clouds in the sky and a shiny sun glistening above her head. She was wearing the uniform and sunglasses, as she was very sensitive to light. As she walked, more like a crab than like a human, the sound of several police patrols could be heard on that rooftop. They were possibly trying to contact Carter but she had left Johnson downstairs and had made him promise he wouldn’t let anyone in until she was done with the criminal. Johnson was younger and eager to help. He was kind of the ideal partner.

 Finally, Carter saw Frost sitting on the edge, looking at the office building in the distance. As she grew closer, she noticed he had no gun, no weapon to defend his life. She had a bad feeling about all of it and made a full stop when Frost talked in a loud and clear voice:

     - Your gun is not necessary. You can come closer but leave your gun somewhere over        that vent. – He indicated one pipe that had a cubic shape.

 Carter held her gun for a few more minutes until she realized the best thing to do was to follow his advice. She left the gun on one side of the small vent and then, slowly, walked up to the criminal. He didn’t stand or looked at her, he just spoke from his seat.

     -  I guess you are aware that I lured you to this rooftop?

 Yes, Carter knew that. It had been obvious from the beginning that he wanted to be caught, that he wanted someone to notice where he was and Carter had been the first and only one to realize what he had meant. Frost had sent a letter to many newspapers, each one very different but having a secret hidden among the letters. Being an avid reader, Carter was able to break Frost’s code and know where he was going to be next. However, she had made the mistake of leaving a note on her desk about it and now every member of the police was there.

     - Poor Johnson. He’s not that strong. – Said Frost, looking down.

 Carter got nearer and looked over the edge. She could see a large group of men dressed in blue and they seemed to be arguing. Her eyesight was not so good but she thought they were talking about how to get in. Johnson had probably locked the door, blocking their entry for some time. Frost was right, Johnson was too young, to new to know how to handle these kinds of situations.

 Frost finally turned around and looked at Carter. She pulled back a bit, scared by his scar. He had a large scar running from the left corner of his mouth to his ear. He smiled, which made him look insane, much more evil than she knew he was.

     - I am sorry. Enemies try to make their marks you know?

 He didn’t wait for an answer from Carter, who was too scared o say a single word. The man stood up fast, putting his legs with agility over the edge of the building and standing up, revealing that he had been seating on a big envelope, the kind they used at office for reports and so on. Carter’s scared face changed to a curious one. She thought, for a moment, that he was inviting to grab the envelope but then realized he was just taking his time and letting her see what he wanted her to see. He took the envelope and pulled out one random paper. Carter could see it had a big seal on top of the page.

      - This is from Saint Mary’s hospital. No that you should feel bad, but I have an                   incurable disease. They told me I could live my life normally if I take pills forever and       have the life of a monk. And I won’t have that.

 Frost looked straight into Carter’s eyes. She felt a bit hurt by then, as they were bloody, as If he had been crying for a long time. Maybe he had cried a lot, maybe he was thinking about his chances and that’s why he had decided to leave the hidden message. He just wanted someone to join him and to know how bad he felt or how sad he was. Although that didn’t really corresponded to a man that had activated a bomb in a very crowded mall less than one year ago. His disease, whatever it was, didn’t change a single thing about him and the justice system.

     - I have to take you in. – Carter saw him straight in the eyes too. – You have done too         much. You cannot get away.

     - Yes I can. You know that.

     - But you wanted someone here with you. Why do that if all you wan is to keep                  vanishing?

 At first, Carter’s hands had been trembling. But that had disappeared. She was not nervous or scared anymore. She had a job to do and she was determined to actually do it, even if it meant running back to her gun and kill the terrorist right there. She was supposed to respect his life but she couldn’t allow him to keep escaping as he had been doing for so many years. He had fled so many horrible events he had caused, he was very insane and unstable, a person that could be trusted. Frost could not really believe he had the cards to come on top this time.

      - You’re done Frost. Come down with me, calmly.

      -  No. I need to tell you something first.

 She walked towards him and he didn’t move. Carter proceeded to taken his arm and made him kneeled before her. He didn’t really complain, he just seemed exhausted, tired somehow. His scar turned a little bit redder and she was disgusted to see it so close to her face. She took out some handcuffs she had on her back pocket but then Frost did a very fast move, pushing her by a vey loud punch on her chest, leaving her with no air on the floor. Then he got near her and asked her for silence.

 Frost took out a cellphone from his pocket and dialed a number. He waited for a bit and then someone answered in the other end. He asked for someone named Carly and then he waited again. Carter could hear he had called to a hospital or a hotel, somewhere where rooms were numbered. He talked with Carly for a while, smiling a bit and laughing. Maybe she was his wife or maybe a very close friend. Was she doing all of this for her? It didn’t make any sense. And if it was true he didn’t want to come in peace, then why bother doing all of this.

 When he finished his conversation, he told Carter to get up. He helped her but she let go of his hand as fast as he could. She demanded to know what was going on. And he complied explaining everything he had to explain. It was a long monologue, with precise details like times and days and even places and descriptions that made al seem so real. Carter thought he was playing her again but somehow he seemed honest, more than any other person she had witnessed confessing such a big part of his life.

 When he was finished, he just smiled at her and told her to keep the envelope. Downstairs, they were finally able to open the door but it was too late for that. A body crashed into one of the police cars, scaring ever-single man and woman there. Frost had jumped a few seconds ago, running towards the edge and not even doubting for a second. He had planned it like that all along and he had chosen that building because he knew how the police would park, how long they would take to bring the door down, how much time his body would take from top to bottom and so many other variable that he had loved to unravel. That had been him, through and through.

 A few weeks later, Carter visited Saint Mary’s. She met Carly there. She happened to be only nine years old and suffering a very rare disease. The best doctors in the world treated her and Carter was told it had been a difficult process but that the child would live. She was Frost’s niece, his only living relative. The envelope also revealed his disease, which was revealed by the police in the media creating a wave of hatred and proof, the irrefutable kind, that he had been forced to do every single one of his evil deeds. So his death was just one step of many on a game no one knew they were playing.