KALULU
The room felt musty. He placed a hand over his mouth, and tried not to hurl. His eyes felt as if they had been hit with a blast of a base that even his own taste buds could not handle. Some of the stuff that he swigged in his best pal's bar, Sasha, did have a similar powerful kick to them like the one in the air of what felt mostly now like a haunted space. The corpse lay splayed out sans any garments, or covers across its toned figure. He felt some form of remorse for the kith and kin of the deceased, but also really had to find out where in the galaxy they had been training. His trainer looked like All Might, aka All for One, from the hit anime: My Hero Academia, with a similar gloriously strong jawline, then of course he felt like Midoriya and just wanted a single ounce of the same build like his hero/idol. Of course he would not want to end up going that route of obtaining the trainer's strand of hair, in this day and age with the latest technologically advanced upgrade- everyone would think he was trying to create a clone of All Might the trainer.
Musa slammed his gloved hands on one of the bare cushions of the wooden couch. He scanned the room once more, surely the killer just thought he was clever. How was it that with all the killings that were taking place in the thirteenth province had there been no additional reinforcements of officers been dispatched to this part of the lower division of the district?
He took out his paired wireless support tech out of his smartcase. The device beeped- and beeped. His eyebrows furrowed, and he sighed. This was going to be a long night. He tried to work on collecting some more data to build new intelligence to apply to find the killer, the problem was whoever was doing this was a clever hare. The rabbit could try to keep thinking it was going to win this race, sooner or later the slow tortoise eventually finds a way to get to the finish line and manages to beat the kalulu at its own game.
The crime scene was no place to spend the night for too long. After what seemed like eons, Musa trotted up the hill, away from the dark shadows, and into the night streets of Desrut. The city buses whizzed past him almost brushing his shoulder. He yelled and exclaimed, "Sheesh, watch it fellas, I still have a case to solve!"
Bright neon lights buzzed across from the other side of the street. He crossed it in a rush, and nearly tripped on a banana peel that had been left along the road from one of the drivers who could give Vin Diesel or Jason Statham a run for their money with the need for speed when driving a vehicle, or transporting passengers, albeit while still following the rules of the road because the buses here just followed their own and the driving felt more like flying-well, in a hovercraft kind of car that is.
Musa stared at the sign that read: 'Closed for the Holidays, please come back next time/year.'
He scoffed. This might have been one of Sasha's ways to either let her customers know that she would not be trying to provide them with free adult drinks, it was that...or Sasha was actually not in town and went somewhere fun for a girl's trip/vacation. He squinted his eyes and peered into the bar. Empty. Not a single soul in sight.
The moment he turned around to head home, he heard the door squeak. He turned back and came face-to-face with Sasha's assistant, Rosie. Although that was what Sasha called her Musa preferred to say, "Ro, Ro, Ro...your boat, my boat, sorry- I need to work on a better way to greet you. I apologize, Ro. Ahh." He raised his hands in defeat. Rosie gave him a death stare. He now really wished he had kept his mouth sealed like a wrapped Mummy's, hmmm, with that look from Rosie he felt as if that is exactly what she would do to him the next time he said something she didn't like- she would manage to do that, while also taking out all of his organs, and bury him without anyone tracing the murder back to her.
This made his mind gears begin to slowly turn. Could the murderer be none other than Ro...er..Rosie, the bartender extraordinaire in training? Musa twirled one of his dreadlocks as he thought to himself.
Rosie slapped him, and this brought his mind back to earth. She asked, "Did you come here to stand at the door, or were you passing by for a brief- Hello- and goodbye?"
Musa smiled, and replied, "Fine. I came to say...Happy holidays to my two favorite folks in the whole city."
Rosie shook her head. "Sasha is out of town, she won't be back until..."
"The end of the holiday season, her vacation/time away from work." Musa remarked with a smirk.
Rosie raised her other hand and in this one she held a bible. Musa backed away. "Whoa...do not hit me with that thing," he said pointing at the bible.
Rosie chuckled, "Maybe if I do then the demons that torment your spirit will depart from your poor lost soul."
Musa blew a raspberry, and then ran off into the night. Rosie watched him skitter away under the light of the moon.
He had moved at a good pace, and was back at his place before the sunny side of the earth had caught up to him. The rest of the residents of the community were still in dreamland, not even the roosters could be heard/seen in the cloudless wee hours of the night. Soon the light of the predawn would break through Morbeus' dark blanket hanging over the city.
Musa bent closer to the entrance of his unit. A ray of light scanned his eyes, a swab popped out from a tube for his nostrils, and a clear bag for his shoes had been left right by his doorstep. He completed the steps he needed before he was granted access to enter his own room. The door opened and his paired wireless support technology greeted him, "Seasons greetings, Mr. T."
Mr. T was glad to be home, for the time being. His tech support system chimed from his study room, "All's been quiet in this neck of the woods. The data collected has been analysed. Would you like the findings to be faxed, or added to the force's shared drive?" Musa shrugged his shoulders, "Hmm, the data can be canceled. There is no need to add it to the linked files."
The system responded, "Understood. Also, you have one new message, from, Ms. Marie. Would you like me to add it to your saved audio files?"
Musa jumped with a shriek. That is what he had forgotten. He had planned to meet her at the bar, but forgot to check if it would be open earlier before the night had fallen.
He slapped his face. This had been quite a sour day, in a way similar to trying Sasha's usual blend or mix for the adult drinks collection for the holidays- her concoctions for such were an odd mix of what smelled, and tasted like some lemons, vinegar, and cloves. Musa nearly retched from the thought of Sasha's Christmas fizzy drink.
The system chimed, "You have one new message from, Unknown. Would you like me to add this one to your saved audio files, too?"
Musa almost slipped while trying to take off his socks as he sat on the edge of his bed. "Eh...give me a chance to hear it..play one from Unknown...."
"Mr. T," a neutral voice spoke not so clearly because of the static noise in the background, "We have not met in person, or I guess I should say I have been watching your every move. By the time you listen to this message, you will be back at your place, and realize that all your hard-work is not paying off. The case still needs to be solved, and you have yet to still catch the killer. Well, try to catch me...if you can.."
The line cut and Musa screamed. He had turned off the system's audio file function, and moved the audio file to the collection under: 'KALULU.'
Musa slowly dragged his feet to bed. He tried to close his eyes, but sleep did not come knocking at the door.... instead what was there were images of the crime scene, Rosie placing a rope around his neck- ready to drag him to the pyramids-where she would bury him. Scorpions would sting his body, and whatever was left of his flesh would be consumed by the other deadly creatures inside the sarcophagus, placed on his body that had no way to escape.
Then images of shadows appeared. Sounds of laughter. Musa woke up trembling, his entire body felt alien to him. His skin was burning as if he was on the second planet from the star of the Solar system.
Musa plopped out from his bed, and went to his bathroom with the nightlight guiding his path. He waved his hand across the sink, and water began rushing out of it.
His hands were close to the water's edge. He froze, and gasped.
Musa ran at the top of his heels, "Eat my dust, Mr. Sandman. Your works of creation of terror will not bring me to bow down before you, on the other hand you may be onto something."
He pulled out his smart case, and scanned the data, again. Musa gasped. All this time the clues had been right under his nose.
Musa grabbed his smart case, and shut the front door behind him. The game of cat and mouse was afoot.
He held the piece of substance in his hand, crushed it, and added another chemical into the graduated cylinder. Swirling the materials vigorously, and took a gulp. He belched, and a puff of light smoke puffed out of his mouth.
Musa felt the room begin to spin. His mind felt as if it was going to explode. He tried to grab a hold of the laboratory sink's edge, but his fingers could not hold on firmly to the sink.
Another wave of images flashed before his eyes. In one, this time he saw Sasha, and another, Ms. Marie. Then he woke up in a daze, not knowing how long he had passed out.
The images were still fresh in his mind. He analysed the data he had once more, and plotted the points on a graph: locations of crime scenes, against times for the business hours of Sasha's workplace/bar.
His jaw dropped. Still he needed more details to figure out how, as well as why the two sets of data matched to make sense of the Unknown.
Musa rubbed his temples. He tilted his head to one side, and blinked at the smart board. There was another layer behind the data points the computer now added. Musa stared at the data. "No way." He slowly shook his head.
He stepped back and blinked again. "O, computer send me Sasha's exact coordinates at this moment."
The computer provided them to Musa. As soon as it did, there was a loud bang.
Musa's body dropped to the floor. He felt the world begin to grow dark.
Sounds of footsteps approached him. Musa choked, and coughed. His eyes widened at his worst nightmare.
"Ro, Ro, Ro...your boat..gently down the Styx....Mr. T."
#KALULU. (c) 19th December, 2022.