The Mask of Romek Read online

  Chapter Seven: B.Y.O.B

  March 21st 2009. 2045hrs

  Miskatonic University

  The last time I had walked across the plaza to the new museum block I had walked into a hellish mess of a crime scene. I felt somewhat reassured by the presence of an Arkham PD black and white parked at the entrance foyer. That feeling didn’t last long however.

  I touched the hood, still warm. Dammit, that wasn’t so good. It meant a high revving engine and most likely a panicky 911 call.

  I took off toward the large glass doors which opened easily, standing in the atrium I listened.

  I could hear the muted chatter of the police band from nearby.

  “Officer!” I shouted, my voice sounded harsh in the modern acoustics.

  No reply. Considering I was here to crash a party it was kinda quiet. I walked toward the source of the radio traffic. The pair of feet sticking out from behind a display case brought me up short. I drew my revolver and carried on.

  The cop was face up, at least he would have been if he had a face left, in a pool of his own blood. His name tag read Kinder.

  Dammit, sorry kid. I reached down unclipping the poor kid’s radio and said the words no dispatcher wants to hear.

  “Officer down. Upton Hall Museum Miskatonic Campus.”

  I paused considering the prospect of Arkham's finest running headlong into this whateverthellI justwalkedinto.

  “Dispatch this is Agent Marx, Homeland Security. Please note all officers attending to secure a perimeter around this location. Possible biochemical attack. No persons to enter or leave is that all received?”

  I got a curt but panicky “Roger”. I dropped the handset before the awkward questions started and took stock.

  I was expecting to ride to the rescue and persuade a group of slightly tipsy academics and socialites to take the party elsewhere with the help of a gun, a badge and some profanity. Find the bad guy and shoot him down. Sadly that dog just wasn’t gonna hunt this time. It was more like arrive a dollar short and a day late then step over a pile of seriously mutilated corpses and figure out how the hell to keep a lid on this whole mess.

  On general principal I took the officer's department issue Glock and tucked it in my waistband. Looking up I could see a sign pointing the way.

  “Treasures of the Maya Preview First Floor Help yourself to Drinks!” I should've brought the rest of that Jack with me.

  With my revolver leading the way, I made off towards the main stairs. I moved slowly, hugging the wall to the right checking behind display cases as I went slowly up the gleaming white stairs. In an ideal world there would be at least four of us, heavily armed, to do this right. I had two handguns, a growing thirst for neat bourbon and my sunny disposition to get me by. I got to the corner near the entrance to the exhibit hall, taking a breath I popped my head round for a quick look and drew back. No screams, no zombies. Okay so far.

  I stepped out and moved to the nearest cover, a large stone head about 8 foot tall in the middle of the floor. From there I could see that someone had cleaned the crime scene from earlier so that they could replace it with a worse one.

  To the casual eye it looked like someone had thrown several buckets of blood around and smashed some wine glasses. Sadly, years of seeing this kind of thing told me a slightly different story. First off, the drink was probably drugged to make crowd control easier. The blood spatter was low to the ground so the victims were killed while on the floor. Judging by the amount of blood and the distribution pattern about 15 to 20 people died here less than an hour ago. But where the hell did they go? The white tile floor was a mess of bloody footprints and drag marks and I was never much of a tracker. My cell rang interrupting my train of thought. It was the Doc.

  “Doc the place is a ghost town, whatever happened here I missed it. I reckon Romek offed a whole bunch of people but I can’t find what he did with the bodies.”

  “I think I can answer that John,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “They're here.”