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The smell of freshly spilled blood stung Max’s nose as he gazed down into the fogged over eyes of the victim. How he hated this part of his job. Kneeling down next to the nearly mauled corpse, Max called out to the man behind him. “Five feet seven inches, Caucasian male, about…thirty-four years of age and,” Max reached down for the corpses hand, lifting it into the air slightly, “Married.”
He ran his eyes over the victim’s almost unrecognizable body once more and remarked dryly, “Died a prolonged death, blood loss, and/or shock. We seem to be dealing with some really sadistic sicko.”
He brushed the man’s large wrist with the tips of his fingers. “Signs of a struggle. Perhaps he was grabbed, dragged to this location? And…oh? What’s this?”
A silvery glint, between the man’s fingers in his right hand, had caught his eye. He suddenly found it quite hard to breathe as he reached for the object, lightly tugging it from the man’s death grip. It was a coin,
one of the very coins that had partaken to his son’s collection. One of the small, circular disks imbedded with the Chinese Yin-Yang, the symbol for balance, that his wife had given his boy.
It was one of the coins that had been appearing on his murder cases for the past two months, ever since his son had died.
It had been a drunk driver. Speeding, naturally…and he hadn’t even bothered to brake when his son Nathaniel had started to run.
The drunk had fled the scene. Later, in court, he’d been declared innocent, although he’d lost his license for driving while intoxicated. For Max, it hadn’t been enough. The man had killed Nathaniel, hadn’t even bothered to apologize, and had altogether forgotten of the incident and returned to drinking.
Max stared silently at the coin in his gloved hand, his whole body trembling with encased rage and sorrow at the memories. The coins had disappeared following his son’s death. The fact was inexplicable. His son always had his coins with him.
His fellow crime scene investigators told him there wasn’t enough evidence to locate and name the killer. Of course, he had his own suspicions. All the evidence he had pointed to the man who had killed his son. The drunk could have taken the coins at his son’s death scene! But no one cared about his hunches. Evidence. That’s all they ever went on, evidence. And of course they wouldn’t bother going out of their way to gather the right evidence. Investigators these days…pah! Never using logic, always on a physical level.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder and he jumped, turning around to face his boss.
“Find anything, son?” the older man rasped. His voice implied a tired sort of surrender. They had been working on these unsolvable cases for two months now, with no results or leads.
“Only this,” Max replied in an equally tired tone. He held the coin out to his boss reluctantly, knowing that the large man would take that little piece of his child away from him, as he always did. Evidence.
“Bag it”, his boss said. “There’s not much we can do with that. We already have…oh, say around…twelve.”
“Man, this guy is thorough,” Max mused. “No evidence. No strands of hair, no fingerprints, nothing. It’s as if he knows what we do for a living and how to avoid us.”
“Yup,” replied his boss. “You know what? Go home. I’m letting you off early today, sonny. There’s no use in both of use standing around with nothing to do.”
Max smiled weakly. “Thanks Sir. I just wish this guy would slip up somehow…one fingerprint! Just one. That’s it…”
“I ain’t Christian, but I’ll pray on it kiddo,” his boss replied. “Now go home. Wife’s waitin’ for ya”

~~~

Later that night, Max sat on the corner of his son’s bed.
“Nat, I let another piece of you escape me today,” he murmured to the empty room. His eyes were closed, his mind summoning the image of his now-dead son smiling at him. “I’m sorry, so sorry…but it was for our own good. I have to do everything I can to find your killer.”
The door opened with a creak. “Max? Are you okay? You’ve been in here for hours.”
Max looked up, blinking back tears. “Shei’Luin, honey…it’s just you. I thought…”
Silently, she sat down beside him and wrapped her arms around him. Nothing was said, and the still silence carried on for a few moments before Max’s wife voiced the question that had been nagging at her mind all day.
“I know this is a bad time Max, but I just wanted to know…why did you yell at me for cleaning your desk yesterday?”
Why would he yell at her? But Shei’Luin always cleaned his desk when she had spare time on her hands.
“I…yelled at you?” He inquired, confused. “I don’t remember yelling at you.”
“But you did,” she insisted, also looking confused.
“Maybe I was half asleep or something,” he said, trying to smile. “Either way, love, I meant none of it.”
“That’s fine,” she replied, “I’m not angry, just worried.” Her face changed into an expression of anxious concern. “You haven’t been yourself all that much, lately. You laugh in your sleep…do you know how disturbing that is?”
He stared silently at her, doubtful of her words. “Shei, what on earth could I have to laugh about?”
“I don’t know…”
She smiled at him uncertainly and stood up. “You should get some sleep.”
He followed her from the room, giving one last backward glance at his son’s bed. What on earth could he laugh about?

~~~

After approximately five hours of sleep, Max was roused from his slumber by an irritating buzzing.
Bugs, he thought. There’s a stupid fly in my room…damn it, of all times…
Still half conscious, he swatted half-heartedly in the direction of the buzzing, succeeding in knocking his cell phone off his night table. The thud of it hitting the floor jerked him from his half-sleep, and he fell out of bed, cursing quietly so as to not wake up his wife, who was sleeping quite soundly. He grabbed his phone quickly and flipped it open.
“Hello?”
“Max! We got ourselves another victim!” His boss’s voice sounded vaguely rushed. “ The body was found behind an apartment building on Crescent Street, two blocks from your house. You’re closest, so I’d like ya to go. We’ve got enough on our hands right now.”
Max sighed. Five in the morning and he had to go to work.
“Alright boss. Let’s see who it is this time.”
He shut off his phone and stuffed it in his pocket as he left.

It was a quick walk. Ten minutes and he had reached the location of the victim. The apartment building’s patron was waiting for him at the front door, looking flustered. Max didn’t blame him… The corpse the man had discovered behind his building had probably taken a good ten years off his life.
“Sir! I’m so glad you came, the body’s out back, I haven’t touched it they told me not to!” the man blurted. “He was dead when I found him sir,” he continued as he led Max towards the back door. ‘Guests only’, it read.
“I couldn’t touch him even if I wanted to…the blood! It was everywhere! It is everywhere!”
Outside, not five feet away from the door, the victim lay. The blood around him was already congealing, it appeared. The familiar reek of it reached Max, forcing him to suppress a gag reflex.
“I swear to you, Sir, no one from my facility could have done such a thing! We lock the doors at night, they’d have had to get through a window…”
“Thank you, Mr…”
“Bailey, Sir.”
“Thank you Mr. Bailey,” said Max, forcing a smile. “I’ll just take it from here, don’t worry. Go to sleep. You’ve earned it.”
“Yes,” murmured the aged man. “Sleep…by the way, you have something on your face...”
He waddled back into his building and was gone.
Max ignored him and squatted next to the corpse, trying not to choke at the scent. “Now, what have we got here?”
He pulled a pair of gloves on, running his eyes over the victim, avoiding the face, which was horribly mangled. “Male…Caucasian, again. Middle age, perhaps…hard to tell…” He glanced around the corpse and spotted an empty beer bottle. “Drunk?”
He stared at the face…and gasped. Through the blood he recognized the man who had killed his son. And, low and behold, a single Chinese coin rested on his forehead.
But…if this man, this drunk, was lying here dead, with a coin on his face…who was the killer?

Someone laughed. A cold voice, somewhat familiar, was giggling next to his ear. So close! He swung around, whipping out his handgun.
“Who’s there?”
The voice laughed once more, behind him again. “Who? Now, that’s a funny question,” it mused. “Who I am depends on who you want me to be…but, for the record, I like to call myself ‘Jack’.”
“Show yourself!” Max shouted. Panic was prodding at his heart, his mind. That voice was right behind him, wherever he turned. No one could be that fast!
“Must I?” the Voice whined. “I don’t think you’ll like what you see. I’m not all that purdy.”
“I promise I won’t scream,” Max growled. He was growing tired of this game. The killer was so close!
“Well…I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Me, that is. Turn around.”
Max spun about and nearly fired a shot into the reflective windows of the building. His own reflection! Was that really him? He had gone to sleep well groomed. His hair had been brushed, his face washed…now his hair was tousled. And he did have something on his face, after all. An almost unnoticeable fleck of a reddish brown substance barely distinguishable in the light clung to his cheek, just under his left eye.
“You see?” said Jack. “Not nice at all, eh? Bet that wasn’t who you thought the killer would be.”
“This is some kind of a joke! Max shouted. “You’re lying!”
“Ooh, accusations. You want proof? Why don’t you go check your desk?”
Max let out a wail and ran off. The voice, however, followed him.
“Running won’t get you anywhere!” Jack taunted. “You can’t run from me any better than you can run from yourself!”
Max reached his home, throwing open the door and rushing towards his office in the basement without bothering to close it after himself. He reached his desk and began searching frantically through the papers on the desk.
“Bottom drawer,” Jack mocked in a singsong voice. “That drawer you seldom use.”
Seldom use? He used it more than that…that was where he put all the stuff he didn’t need, after all.
“Damn you, get out of my head,” Max whispered angrily. He tugged open the bottom drawer and shifted through it.
“You’re looking for a black folder, my friend,” said Jack. “Labelled with that white gel pen you so despise.”
Successfully finding the folder, Max pulled it out and slammed it to the desk. He opened his mouth to say something, but only succeeded in hissing angrily, as if the very sight of it burned his eyes.
“What’s that, cat got your tongue? Open it, open it!” Jack squeaked, in tones that implied a child on Christmas morning.
Max simply stared at it, not wanting to touch it.
“Oh, must I do everything around here?” Jack complained. “You can’t even kill someone without me helping you!”
“I never wanted to kill anyone!” exclaimed Max.
“That’s what you think,” replied Jack slyly. “I know the truth. I know what lies in your mind, in the deepest, darkest regions, which you yourself refuse to explore. I reside in those areas. I know how you think, I know how you work, your pain, anger, sorrow…and hate. Now open it!”
Max’s hands reached unbidden towards the folder and opened it. He watched, helpless, as they neatly spread the papers within out on the desk. They were all dated, each paper enclosing a thorough plan of death. The hows, the whens, the whys. The most recent paper had a slash of blood on the corner.
“Oh,” remarked Jack. “Sorry. I meant to rewrite that on a clean piece of paper. Silly me! And you wondered why you had yelled at your wife?”
“But I didn’t!”
“Because I did. Therefore, we did. Therefore, you did.”
“Oh, shut up, you beast! Why are you doing this?” demanded Max. He was infuriated. He could feel his heartbeat pulsing in his very ears.
“Because you won’t,” Jack explained. His tone was calm, like that of an adult talking to a child. “You haven’t the power to kill those people. You have what’s called a conscience. You know…that whole guilt thing?”
Max could feel him grinning within his mind. It was a toothy, sadistic grin, yet somehow, unbelievably knowledgeable.
“That little problem resides in your half of our mind only. Therefore, I’m free to do as I please with the society you so hate.”
“I don’t hate it!” Max snarled. “I pledged my life to keeping it safe from freaks like you!”
“Ooh, harsh. That hurt.” Jack replied innocently. “Oh no. Wait… It didn’t. That feeling resides on your side too. Kind of like the hurt and sorrow you felt when Nathaniel died.
“He fell at the hands of modern day society. A drunk driver. A stupid fool who wasted his life drinking his problems away and gaining new ones. When he finally got in trouble for it, after crushing every bone in little Nat’s body, he heeded the warning for about a week before going back to drinking. Most of this society is like that! Stupid. They waste their time on such pointless things. Gone is the intelligence we could have. There are so few people worthy to live on this planet.
“Which brings me to my purpose, Max my friend. The very reason why I’m here. I, my friend, have appointed myself as the unofficial exterminator of the fools of this world. People like that drunkard who killed our son.”
Max snapped. “Our son? Our son?! He’s my son! You had nothing to do with it! You probably don’t even care about him, having no conscience!” He lashed out at empty air. “If I could kill you I would, you monster! I wish I could wring your throat, draw every last breath from y…” He trailed off, breathing heavily. A sort of red, painful feeling…rage, was emanating from the back of his mind.
“You don’t think I cared about Nathaniel?” Jack spat. “Of course I cared! I even went back to the scene of his death and fetched his precious coins! Every death was in honour of our son! Every life I took was in his name, for his sake! By killing these people, I’m saving perhaps hundreds of innocent lives!”
The rage grew again, threatening to overwhelm his mind. “By destroying the useless lives, like that of the alcoholic, I’m saving all the little Nathaniels of this world! You should be happy!”
Through Jack’s entire speech, Max had been searching throughout his desk for a certain object. Finally, he found it and he raised it victoriously above his head with a loud “Ha!” It was a rope, about six feet long.
“Whatcha gonna do with that, mm?” taunted Jack. “Hang yourself? You’re not seriously considering taking your own life over this, are you?”
“Why don’t you read my mind and find out!” sneered Max. “I won’t let you use me like this anymore!”
He climbed up on his chair and tossed the rope over a stray pipe overhead. Furiously, he secured it, tugging on it to test its durability.
“Whoa, man, time out!” blurted Jack. “You can’t do that! Without me, this world could go to the dogs. You’ve already seen it, all the stupidity. The government, the President himself, everyone! Soon, there’ll be no one but stupid people.”
“You’re certainly one of them,” Max scolded him, now in the process of working on a makeshift noose. “Without you, this world will be a lot better off. If the only way to get rid of you is to get rid of myself, so be it!”
He pulled the noose over his neck and tightened it. Suddenly his arms flailed uncontrollably away from it.
“No more!” screamed Jack. “I won’t let you do that! I need our body! Alive and kicking, thank you very much!”
Max grunted, trying to gain control over his rebellious limbs, all the while wobbling on his chair. His desk chair had always been frightfully unstable. It was old, and not very well made. He grinned.
“Go to Hell.”
With the last of his strength he made a little jump. Not much force there, but enough to push the poor chair past its limits. It collapsed, and as the world went dark for Max, his grin widened into a broad smile. Jack’s helpless, furious screaming was music to his inner ears.

~~~

“He was what?”
Shei’Luin stopped crying for one moment out of sheer shock. That wasn’t right.
“He was a schizophrenic, madam. Also, from the tests done here, he suffered a severe case of split personality disorder. You could almost say there was another man in there.” The forensic doctor pointed at some charts on his clipboard. “Apparently, during his moment of death, he was suffering great mental strain. If he hadn’t suffocated, he probably would have had a seizure, or something.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Either way, we’ll never know what went on in his mind.”
“But…he killed those people. All those papers.”
“Ah,” the doctor said. “But did he? Like I said…split personalities. He might, actually, have hanged himself to stop the killings. He might have, until last night, been unwary of what his alter ego was up to.”
Shei-Luin shook her head in disbelief. “This is all so crazy…First my son…now my husband…what am I going to do…”
The doctor gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I suggest you go home and get some rest, miss. It’s been a long day.”

The End