'One piece too many', by Reyes Martínez

one

The beating of your own heart

With each breath he felt a stab of pain just below his ribs, on his right side. Even so, his instincts didn’t allow him to stop; she would kill him. She forced herself to keep running aimlessly, with the sole objective of increasing the distance between him and that man.

He wasn’t even aware that he was getting further and further away from the center of the city, from the streets he knew, from the people who could help him. He was entering forbidden, dangerous, unexplored territory… he only thought about running and breathing, especially about that, breathing and not fainting, despite the pain, despite the terror. His legs behaved like automatons, following orders from someone who had nothing to do with himself. They simply moved one after the other in a tireless search for the freedom that he saw more and more distant. He didn’t know why he had chosen him, certain that he was not an exceptional person; but, as far as he knew, he had never hurt anyone. Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He tried to remember. He was having a beer with a friend when he felt ill; he preferred to go home, the next day he should be one hundred percent. The individual accompanied him to the car, for which they needed to cross a deserted street. The next thing he remembered was that man dressed in black taking off his clothes. He looked familiar to her, even though his face was hidden by the hood. Seeing him awake, he tried to hit him on his right temple, he prevented him from hitting him squarely and thanks to that he was able to run away. From then on, he had only thought of running away, of getting away from that dark figure that did not give up.

He could hear the footsteps of the man who was chasing him, like the beating of a drum before the imminence of the scaffold. She matched the rhythm to the sound of his own heartbeat, which seemed to be pumping right into his ears.

He didn’t even feel the sharp stone that plunged into the sole of his right foot. He kept concentrating on his desperate race to safety as the stone sank deeper and deeper into his bare foot, causing a wound that would never heal and a trail of blood that might help find his body later.

He did perceive the metallic taste of his own blood in his mouth, perhaps he had bitten himself, or perhaps he was bleeding from the blow received.

While he was concentrating on breathing and running to nowhere, he was not aware of how the sound of the footsteps that were chasing him was getting closer and closer. Only when he felt the pain of the violent pulling of his hair, forcing him to stop dead and land on his ass on the ground, did she realize that the danger had become a reality, something he would never escape. He was on the ground bruised, wounded, his foot was bleeding and he could finally feel the pain that he had avoided for so many meters, as if it began at that very moment.

He looked around for help that would never come, a place to take refuge. He would have grabbed a red-hot iron, if he knew that his salvation was there. He thought about screaming before realizing that he would only serve to waste what little strength he had left. At that moment he knew that he was exactly where his pursuer wanted him, in a place away from prying eyes, away from curious neighbors and brave passers-by who could help him if they realized the danger he was in. He led him, without his realizing it, to where his pursuer had chosen.

When her mind knew she was about to lose everything, she strove to send him images of everything she wanted to do and that, without a doubt, she would never be able to: jump in a parachute, give surf lessons on a paradisiacal beach, have a child, the same two; finish his degree and become a great professional, as expected of him… Things that had suddenly ceased to matter.

He would not survive, and he knew it. It was that certainty that let a single tear escape from his eyes as the predator pounced on his body and squeezed his neck with all his might until everything was reduced to a black dot that disappeared without a trace.

2

a makeshift pool

Rivers of rain poured down the gutters while blood still flowed from her naked body. The pattering of the falling water provided a funeral music to the scene, as if the sky said goodbye to the boy in a divine ritual.

The young man remained with a serene gaze, fixed on an early star that the dense clouds revealed. A thin veil began to cover his eyes, eyes that just a few minutes before were brimming with life and dreams of youth. His body still reacted to the cold rain emitting a vapor that was lost in the night, like everything else.

The drops furrowed the three-day beard that he liked to show off so much because it made him look older. Now it resembled a labyrinth through which the rain moved in dozens of narrow rivulets that emptied into the cleft of his neck, just below the Adam’s apple. He didn’t have much hair, so his bare chest looked bright in the moonlight. Her nipples, hard from the cold rain, stood out like two little pink buttons. Below them, the horror began.

Her hair was neatly combed, clearing her face, and spread around her head, as if someone had placed a crown on her when she died, and the water washed away the remains of the minty-scented hairspray she had used that afternoon to To keep each hair in its place. His mane was the envy of many of his classmates. And some colleagues too. Her clothing lay under her head, like a carefully folded pillow for the occasion, though now it was soaked and covered in all manner of stains and wrinkles. Perhaps whoever had placed it there did not count on the fact that the weather would end up redecorating the scene at her whim.

The boy appeared calm, nothing suggested otherwise. Only by going through his body, and seeing the state he was in, he could guess the suffering he had been subjected to. His mouth was red, with traces of blood at the corners, as if someone had stretched it too far.

Not even the rats came out of their hiding place in the heavy rain, they just feasted on the sweetish liquid that seeped into the sewers in that dark place. They would still take time to discover that the best part was on the outside, in the wound on the young man’s naked body, from the sternum to the pubis, and that someone had opened it to reveal his internal organs, which now appeared drowned in a makeshift pool inside his abdomen.

Next to the corpse, the man worked with well-studied movements. He still hadn’t finished his work and he wasn’t going to leave it half done. He took everything he would need out of his sports bag and got to work. He loved the feeling of feeling how the body was limp, without a glimmer of life inside. If he waited long enough, he might even notice how the rigor mortis that so fascinated him began to harden, how the skin turned to marble as he manipulated it, how it would become more and more difficult for him to cut, place, stretch… That day he couldn’t wait for what happened It would still take several hours for the body to react naturally, and he didn’t have that much time. They were waiting for him and he had to take a shower first, he couldn’t come looking like that. He admired the young man’s hair and, after straightening it a bit, went to work.

After writing down everything he needed in his notebook, he took out the camping fridge that did him so much service. With precise movements he performed his work and admired the result; no one could ever say that they were dealing with a botch, that of course, few people were as meticulous as him. With the feeling of a job well done, he closed the wound and collected his things, and all that remained was to finish the job; but he would do that better from home, safe from inclement weather, from possible interruptions and from the nocturnal rodents that he saw waiting for him to get away so they could have a generous feast.

A few streets away, a young woman was unsuccessfully trying to contact her boyfriend for hours. Her messages didn’t get an answer and neither did her calls. For a while she thought he would be busy. Then she thought something had happened to him. Later, that she still deliberately ignored her, even though she couldn’t find any reason for it.

In the end, she went to bed with a bittersweet feeling in her stomach, remnants of worry and anguish, no doubt about it. He tried to calm down a bit, the next day he would surely get an explanation and it would be very mundane, why think about it that night.

Meanwhile, the city was preparing to rest, sheltered from the heavy rain and oblivious to the loss it had just suffered.

3

I shouldn’t be here

The language class was not one of the most enthusiastic J. J. He was good at numbers, drawing, science and physical education, and he was even doing his first steps in English, at least in listening classes… But language…, His tongue was his Achilles heel, no doubt about it. Even though he explained to his teacher that they didn’t realize he had dyslexia until he was a little older, she thought it was a cheap excuse for not studying. She never believed him and she didn’t give him a reason to, did she? Damn, he thought, I really want to give this girl a hell of a dyslexia. Or does she write with “h”?, bah, what does it matter, I just want to put it on her, not send it to her by letter ».

He leaned the bike in a corner. That day she wouldn’t waste time going to language and she was thinking about whether he would come back for the rest of the course; Overall, the note was already posted from the first minute she saw that embittered woman in front of him. She took a few steps into her “refuge” to smoke the joint she had prepared the day before. Pulling out the two cigars he had in his pocket, she felt a pang of anger. His colleague, Freckles, had dumped him on Elena’s big ass. He understood that a good pair of tits were more than enough reasons to change his plans, but not to smoke a joint on a Wednesday at twelve in the morning… He had to really like the girl. Better both for me, he thought, trying to be practical.

He lit the first one and inhaled as hard as he could. The first puff always made him cough, it was certainly the best. As soon as the cough passed, he felt his muscles relax and the objects around him soften as if they were definitely not there, as if they were part of an alternate reality or something. It was like being inside a video game. He burst into laughter as he realized the absurdity of his idea and took a second drag that made her immediately smile and close her eyes. The noises seemed to take priority in his head, he was able to hear the construction of the building next to the institute, despite the fact that there was at least half a kilometer to where he was, he could hear the nearby traffic, the beeping of the traffic lights that warned of the weather what was left to cross. He could even feel a plane passing over his head, so close to him that he reached out to try to touch it, which made him laugh again and inhale a third time. What his colleague was missing…

A few quick and light scratches forced him to turn his head towards the center of that industrial warehouse, to the area where the ceiling was missing. Nothing seemed out of place. He admired the place, it had taken them a long time to find the perfect corner to hide when they decided to skip a class, like that morning. A place safe from prying eyes and unexpected visits. He did not go there by chance, he left and that was it. It was a ship that was formerly used to load milk trucks in an abandoned factory.

He and Freckles had walked the interior corridors dozens of times, the offices, the factory where the assembly lines were located, and so on; in the end they determined that, next to the outer nave, among the columns and rubble, it was more likely that no one would find them. And, if they did, they had several ways to flee. In that area of ​​Madrid, in the Fuencarral neighborhood, it had been a great luck that the old Clesa factory, abandoned many years ago, had become a decrepit mausoleum that only served to accumulate garbage or to hide from the outside world scenes like that of a young man playing hooky and smoking a joint away from prying eyes, for example.

On the fourth puff, he no longer had any doubts that something was moving to his right, it was something small and fast, despite the fact that he saw it in slow motion due to the high. He didn’t take his eyes off the spot and tried to listen. A small tiger tried to hunt another smaller animal that stood up to him. J.J. looked at the joint in his hand, shook his head to the sides in an attempt to order what he had just seen, it didn’t really suit him that there was a tiger in that space, and he looked again carefully. Of course he was not a tiger, but rather a fairly large stray cat, blond in color with darker stripes on its back. He was facing a rat that was undoubtedly defending something that he felt was his own, prey or a place. When the cat attacked again, the rat sought a hiding place and was out of sight in the blink of an eye, sure to have slipped down some sewer. J.J. was close enough to see the tracks that the two animals left on nearby stones. He supposed someone had left a paint can or stepped on rust or something, because the tracks were a reddish color that was hard to miss. Either way, they caught his attention long enough for him to stand up and look. A new rat crossed in the opposite direction and the cat retraced his steps to chase it. They seemed too many rodents to J.J. for such an early hour and a bit reckless to pass so close to his position, although they seemed that way to him because he was a little confused after having already smoked more than half of the joint.

He approached the place where the second rat had passed, tried to keep his balance, not without difficulty, and saved his colleague’s joint for another time. Perhaps that morning it was better not to smoke anymore. He slowly approached the center of the ship, where he could see a stone out of place, piled up cardboard, several long-extinguished fires… Everything appeared as always: the graffiti that he already knew, the “piss” corner…

In the background, next to the access door to the factory, a detail seemed to be left over. Before she got close enough, she felt a sweetish scent mercilessly pierce her nostrils and make her gag. His eyes fell on something that shouldn’t be there. His brain was not prepared to witness a spectacle like that. A bundle that looked like a naked body, or a mannequin, rested face up on the concrete with obvious signs of violence. From his position he could see several necessarily fatal injuries, which made him dismiss the idea of ​​the dummy. The victim’s eyes were open and fixed on the sky. Trails of blood were going to a drain that was to one side and whose lid was in lamentable conditions. No doubt that was where so many rats came from. As if to give strength to his theory, a snout suddenly appeared followed by a third rodent.

His body convulsed in a new retching that made him vomit the milk with cocoa and cereal that he had had for breakfast an eternity ago and the sausage sandwich that he had on the way to the factory. He never thought that his body could release so much content in such a short time. When the nausea finally subsided a bit, he forced himself to look towards that place. He could see several articles of clothing stained with blood, huge wounds that sullied the whiteness of a naked body, and a couple of rats nibbling at the toes. He had never seen anything so horrible, and he really liked bloody movies. The worst thing was the smell… the smell was something that didn’t appear on the screen and, without realizing it, he got into her brain and stayed inside her.

When she felt strong, she took her phone out of her jacket pocket. His fingers felt numb with a cold he hadn’t even noticed before, despite being in mid-November. He searched for the number of his friend Freckles without thinking and hit the call button. The young man did not answer and waited until he realized that his friend would be in class and with the phone silenced, as they forced to have him there.

“Fuck, why can’t I be in school too?” I shouldn’t be here,” she scolded herself, her voice cracking with the cold. I shouldn’t be here.

He looked at the cell phone in his hand and knew that he only had two options: call the police or leave as if he had never been in that place. Since there would be thousands of his fingerprints and his DNA, because it was rare that he did not come over to smoke a joint or chat with his colleague, he opted for the first option. He dialed 112 and waited.

“One hundred and twelve, tell me.” What is your emergency? A female voice answered on the other end of the line.

“I… I…” he stammered, unable to say anything else.

“Are you in trouble?” the voice asked.

—Uh…, no, I don’t…; but there is a…

“Sir, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong with you, I can’t help you,” the voice insisted.

“There’s a dead man here,” he answered, trying to ignore the fact that he had called him sir, that he was fifteen years old!

-Where is it located? Have you checked the pulse?

“No, I haven’t checked, but I assure you he’s dead.” He has… a lot of wounds… he’s a mess…; I… I got closer and it’s impossible that… Also, his eyes are open… and the rats have bitten his feet and he doesn’t move, damn it.

At that moment, the air returned a bit of that sweet smell felt a few minutes ago and his body rebelled again, throwing out what little was left of breakfast. From the amount of food coming out, it seemed to J.J. that he was even throwing up yesterday’s dinner. The person on the other end of the line waited patiently for the young man to catch his breath, it was evident that his body was revolting over and over again at whatever was in front of him, because every so often the boy would pause to vomit. . When it seemed to him that he would be able to speak, he very calmly asked her for his details and his location. He kept him talking for several minutes while he told the police to send a patrol as soon as possible. J.J. appreciated it; If he had hung up, he would still have done something as foolish as get out of there, which was what his body was really asking for. He tried to hide all the cigarette butts he found from previous visits, and as soon as he saw the lights of the patrol car, he instinctively reached into the back pocket of his jeans and shoved the joint as far in as he could. He just hoped they didn’t come with a dog, because he would sniff it from a distance and he didn’t want any more trouble. He had enough to explain already.

As she waited for the officers to get out of the car and start asking her endless questions she’d rather not have answers to, she made a promise to herself that she intended to never break: she would never skip English class again.

4

What a day

Macarena was startled when she heard the alarm clock go off. It was her first day in the unit and she didn’t want to be late, which is why she hadn’t slept a wink all night. She had been so careful not to fall asleep that when she finally fell asleep, it was almost time to wake up. She reluctantly turned it off and forced herself to get up. She was sure that if she rested her head on the pillow for a second, there would be no more alarm from her forcing her to go to work.

He opened the hot water tap so that it would warm up, the heater was old and sometimes it took forever to do its job. The clear liquid that he hoped would immediately wake her up wasn’t clear at all, but rather a suspicious earthy color.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He—he cursed for not having washed his hair the night before, now he would have to tie it up anyway. On my first day…, it can’t be. Little hairs…

Stepping on the stoneware floor, he slipped and almost fell. She grabbed the sink and sprained her wrist. He cursed again and rummaged through the medicine cabinet to see if there was any painkiller that could be applied. After setting aside more than ten bottles that he didn’t even know what they were for, he found an anti-inflammatory cream that had expired several years ago and applied it without hesitation, it would have to do. It wasn’t more than a minute before he began to feel an itch in the area where the ointment had been rubbed on. He wanted to rinse his hand under the tap, to which the pipe responded with a groan.

“Well, the day starts off well,” he said to nothing, although the little Miko pricked up his ears, very sure he was saying it to him.

Macarena had always liked animals, especially dogs. For months she pondered the possibility of adopting a puppy that would keep her company and force her to leave her on those days when she didn’t feel like taking off her pajamas. She thought about it for days because she had to admit that her job in the police left her little time to walk him and so on. A visit to some distant cousins ​​who had just adopted an Irish Setter had put him off the idea of ​​her. In the time he was there, the little dog ruined a new pair of shoes for them, ate half a photo album, and broke a jug full of freshly made sangria, and still had time to drink a good amount of the liquid, causing him to disgusting diarrhea. No, adopting a puppy with his job was not a good plan. Although his hours were theoretically more or less fixed, the previous year, while living in Guadalajara, he had been part of a crime investigation team, first collaborating at key moments and later as an active part of the unit, and his hours had become more or less fixed. been greatly altered. There he ate, investigated, shitted and pissed when his boss ordered it, neither more nor less. And he could not even imagine the havoc that a furry man without knowledge and a human who came and went without a fixed schedule would cause in his house.

The cat, as long as he had his sand more or less clean and plenty of food and water, didn’t give him much more to do. It was true that on some occasion a scratched piece of furniture or a dead mouse had been found in the patio. As long as it was just that, I didn’t need to worry about taking him for a walk or playing with him. Actually, Miko was quite surly even for a cat. He only had, yes, to put up with the criticism from her mother, who told him that she was less and less left to become the “maternity aunt of the family”, which on the other hand did not matter to him at all.

After doing almost a miracle with her hair, feeding Miko without making her fall by getting tangled between her legs, and washing her face just a little more than her pet, she wanted to make herself a coffee before realizing that the coffee pot was working too. with a water that did not have. She muttered “shit, shit, shit” again and put her shoes on to go out into the street. Total, she could not get worse. A blast of icy, rain-drenched air greeted her at the door. Maybe things could get worse, because she had just been soaked to the bone. Of course, finally something really woke her up. She thought about taking the umbrella, although opening it in that air would have become an impossible mission, so she put on a raincoat to avoid getting too wet and she ran to the car. She crossed her fingers so she wouldn’t slip in a puddle, her wrist was already sore from the bad ointment in which the only bandage she found had been placed.

“Shit, shit, shit!” – She complained in a low voice so as not to alert the neighbors. She just hoped she didn’t find a cracked wheel or something like that.

When he got to the car, he found that, luckily, all the wheels were well inflated and in perfect condition, something finally going right. He struggled to boot three times, he didn’t dare curse for not giving clues to the Universe. He got out into traffic while crossing his fingers, rush hour in Madrid was little less than an odyssey on his roads; he hoped not to find them too congested, it was not yet seven in the morning. He left Majadahonda and headed for the A6 in the direction of Madrid, which was already quite busy at that time, despite the fact that the central lane that oxygenated traffic a bit was open. As soon as he got onto the freeway, the low fuel light came on on the dashboard.

-Of course. I didn’t expect less,” she ironized as she looked for a service station to refuel.

He stopped at the first gas station he found, where by the way the fuel was sold at the price of gold. She thought of going on to the next one, but with the day she was having, it was clear that she would be stranded halfway, in the place with the least visibility and when the rain got worse; she wouldn’t play it.

When he finally got out onto the highway with a full tank and having taken a coffee from the machine that tasted heavenly, he received a call and answered without knowing who it came from; he couldn’t hide the bad mood from him.

-Who is it? she asked reluctantly.

“Deputy Inspector Valverde?”

-Yes who are you?

“I’m your boss, Inspector Quintana,” a male voice answered dryly on the other end. She, without even realizing it, gave a start.

She got nervous for no reason. Although she did not expect her new boss to call her at those hours the first day she would work under her orders, her fame preceded her and dozens of comments had reached Macarena’s ears about her character and bad manners. permanent genius of hers.

That day she began as a Homicide Deputy Inspector at the Central Police Station in Madrid. Inspector Quintana had a reputation for being a great investigator and arrogant with his subordinates, and that made her feel expectation and fear in equal measure. On the one hand, she hoped to learn as much as possible from someone like him, not in vain had she solved several complicated cases in a very satisfactory manner. On the other… it’s not like they were the most docile police in the city, they’d crash at the first opportunity.

“Good morning, Inspector…” he managed to say as kindly as he could. Something wrong? I’m on my way…

—Yes, report to Calle Romancero Gitano, in the Villaverde neighborhood, now.

—Uh…, yes, of course…, I have to go to the police station first and then…

“You have to go where I tell you to go,” he snapped at her.

“Sure, sir, of course,” she replied, biting her tongue. How high up the street should I go?

I’m sending you the location. Don’t be late, we have a dead body. She didn’t come to work until an hour later and she already had a dead body and had been scolded by her new boss. with the day

he was wearing, he must have guessed.

“I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes,” she promised after checking the GPS, she actually had no idea where that place was.

“Make it ten,” he settled just before hanging up.

“Shit, shit, shit!” she repeated as she accelerated a little and navigated the intense traffic of the city.

It took her seventeen minutes to find the location her boss had sent her, which had become quite an odyssey, because she lived on the other side of Madrid, and another seventeen minutes to find the exact place and park the car. That area of ​​Villaverde, towards the south of the city, was not very crowded, but its streets resembled a labyrinth where the prohibitions to move towards one side or the other were inversely proportional to the desires of a driver. She knew that she was in the right place when she ran into an enormous amount of people who were milling around in search of something to see, something to tell or something to solve; she hoped to be one of the latter.

A middle-aged, XL-sized man approached her with a scowl. She recognized the one who would be her new boss and squared her shoulders, waiting for the rebuke that she was undoubtedly about to hear. What a day. In a kind of inner courtyard, a small tent sheltered the corpse that she was about to investigate. As if he needed proof that this was his place, the sky ripped open with a thunderous noise and the raindrops that had never stopped falling turned into an intense downpour that threw everyone who shouldn’t have been off the stage. be. Her boss simply turned up the collar of her coat and urged her to hurry with him; a body was waiting and the longer it remained out in the open, the more difficult it would be to find the one that ended her life.