Black Is the Night

by Theodore Lee

1| IN THE SUMMERTIME

Bill Howard had a “Little Debbie” in him: It was a terminology Bill’s wife, Carla, often used whenever Bill overindulged his cravings and unleashed this inner demon of his, the glutton he strove to hold back from the world. Carla imagined Bill’s urge akin to something like Dr. Jekyll’s Mr. Hyde. Once his inner beast was given permission to freely roam, whatever self-control Bill had once maintained over himself was vanquished. The inner conscious showed its true face, and the internal became the external. Once Little Debbie was given permission, the Bill regularly present became absent. A night that could start with just one donut, or just one slice of pizza, could end up with three empty ice cream tubs, a missing credit card, and a dead stripper hiding in the kitchen pantry.

A few weeks before, Bill had promised Carla that he wouldn’t let his Little Debbie out anytime soon, and he was sure that he had meant it at the time, but rather than stick to his word—as any officer of the law ought to do—here he was instead, sitting in his police cruiser, his left hand out the window holding a radar gun (half of himself at work, the Bill still in control), and his other hand (the other half of himself, the “Little Debbie” fighting to come out) staring back at him with a maple donut grasped firmly in its fingers.

So stereotypical, Bill thought with resentment. A cop on duty preoccupied with a donut. Dammit, Bill, couldn’t you have craved anything other than a donut? His stomach gurgled, and he thought about how he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d left for duty that night, more than three hours earlier. He wanted a reason to justify his cravings, along with that undeniable desire to eat the donut, but he could think of nothing better than the fact that he felt himself starving. Carla’s starving me, he thought impulsively, and yet the fact remained that Carla hadn’t been starving him; in fact, Carla had insisted earlier that night that Bill was too hard on himself and that it was unhealthy to starve himself in order to achieve his much-anticipated six-pack—a set of six-pack abs long in the works, neglected by binge eating. Regardless of Carla’s pleas, Bill had asserted that he would stick to his diet of celery, canned tuna, and cotton balls, and he remained stubborn throughout it all—unrelenting, in fact—until the very bitter end, when he would be able to see the outline of those glorious abs at last.

But if that’s true, and you really want a six-pack, then why did you steal the donuts, Bill? He glanced at the box resting on the passenger’s seat, where five other donuts awaited him. I took them from the station, he thought in defense. They were free donuts. . . . They would have been wasted had I not saved them. He looked away from the box and back at the maple donut in his hand. He wanted to take a bite, just one little bite; he could almost taste the sugar on his lips. Just the tip . . .

What harm could it be?

He shook his head. Carla’s gonna hate me if I do this.

He shook his head again. If I take one bite . . . ?

He sighed and thought more about it. He didn’t agree with the conclusion, but he tried to convince himself otherwise. Yeah, I suppose . . .

Still, he knew Carla all too well, and he knew that she wouldn’t give a damn if he ate the donut. Hell, if Carla were there with him right now, she would have probably insisted that he indulge himself with the donut, that he shouldn’t have to feel so guilty for eating, nor should there be a reason to punish himself by not eating. But a voice from his past echoed in his mind: “You are what you eat.”Was it his father’s voice? His mother’s? His ex-wife’s . . . ?

If I am what I eat, what then does that make me? he wondered. A cotton ball . . . ?

Perhaps when it came right down to it, the reason why he felt so insecure about himself was that he constantly worried about how others perceived him. And in his worrying, he hated himself for it. Perhaps he needed to stop caring about what others thought about him. How often did they really think of him anyway? How often did he truly cross their mind?

It doesn’t matter, Bill thought stubbornly. Little Debbie wants out. He brought the donut closer to his lips. Little Debbie wants to be free. He opened his mouth to accept the offering.

But before he could accept any such offering, a car whizzed past the cruiser, startling Bill. He accidentally dropped the donut, watching it—as if in slow motion—fall onto his chest, roll onto his lap, and continue its momentum until it was nothing more than a broken pastry on the floorboard beside his feet.

“Son of a . . .”

He quickly picked up the broken pieces of the donut from the floorboard and put them back in the box before licking his fingers and wiping his sticky hands onto his crotch and chest in a failed attempt to clean up the mess. He brought the radar gun back into the cruiser and eyed the numbers displayed on the scanner.

He found himself distracted again. Someone has a death wish. He flicked on the lights to the cruiser, merged onto the highway, and pursued his newfound victim. The donuts will have to wait.

• • •

Ace Shades leaned his head out the window much like a dog or any other animal and felt the fresh summer breeze rush against his face. At that moment, he imagined himself flying, soaring across the sky. Perhaps even riding a motorcycle helmetless (something he often imagined himself doing). And all of his worries, all of his fears, ceased to be. Zooming along I-24, one foot on the pedal, the other foot on his seat—and his whole face and arm out the window—the self-proclaimed detective had never felt freer in his life. Being out like this on patrol reminded him of the early days, back when there wasn’t a care in the world. That warm feeling of being a kid again, enjoying existence for existence’s sake—no worries involved, no responsibilities. Like riding a bike, just the state of being. Living solely in his imagination. Existence at its most raw, most natural state. A being of pure emotion. Of pure instinct. Pure impulse.

Perhaps things hadn’t changed for Shades—who was he to make that judgment? Facts and fiction were all the same to him because at that moment, the only truth he acknowledged was that he was happy, and whatever thoughts came in to oppose that happiness—no matter how fleeting that happiness might be—could take a back seat. Detective Shades was at the wheel now. The night was young; there was much to be had and still much to do.

The possibilities were endless.

The self-proclaimed detective could vaguely hear the sound of his two companions coming from inside the car. They were talking to each other (or, more accurately, talking over each other). Shades hadn’t been listening, though; he had tuned their voices out—that is, at least, until he heard the distinct sound of one of them saying his name. He put his head and arm back into the car, rolled the window closed, and turned around to face Detective Earrings, who was sitting in the back seat watching him. Shades’s partner was wearing a black trench coat almost identical to the one he was wearing. Earrings had a circular pin on the breast of his jacket, depicting a cartoon chimpanzee with the word Nostroman written underneath it. He was dark, tall, and lean, and his eyes turned to Detective Hat, sitting in the passenger seat.

“What did you say?” Shades asked Earrings. He glanced at Hat, exchanging a look with him. Hat shook his head repeatedly.

“I said, ‘Hand me the bag of chips,’” Earrings reiterated. “I’m starving.”

Hat stooped down and started searching through the plastic bag by his feet. He pulled out a blue bag of potato chips and turned around, dangling it in the air for Earrings to see. “What chips? These?”

Earrings shook his head. “No,” he said, “the other ones.”

Hat pulled out a different bag of chips. Earrings shook his head again, frowning. “No, no, no, not those. I want the other ones.”

Annoyed with Earrings’s demands, Hat finally tossed the plastic bag containing all the snacks at Earrings. “You do it, then.”

Earrings frantically scanned through the bag. “Where are the pink ones?”

Hat stared at Earrings and shook his head. “We didn’t get any ‘pink ones.’”

Earrings glanced up at Hat. His eyes widened. “We didn’t get the pink ones with Nostroman on it?”

“I don’t know . . .” Hat shrugged, slightly agitated. “I thought you picked the chips.”

Shades exchanged looks with both Earrings and Hat. “What are you guys going on about?”

“I can’t find the pink ones,” Earrings complained.

“‘Pink ones’?” Shades repeated. Does he mean chips? He has to mean chips. He shook his head curtly. “We didn’t get those.”

Earrings looked hurt. “Why . . . ?”

“You said you wanted ‘Mike and Mike’ instead.”

“I said I wanted both.”

“You said—”

“Wait!” Hat stopped Shades midsentence. He picked up a pink bag with chips inside that had been hiding by his feet. “Here they are.”

Earrings snatched the pink bag from Hat and wasted no time in tearing it open with both hands. The ensuing explosion was inevitable. Most of the chips flew out of the bag, landing all along the seats and floorboard (and even a crumble of one ended up in Earrings’s hair). “They better have it in here,” Earrings mumbled to himself, digging his entire hand in what remained of the bag. He pulled out a small toy. “Yes . . .” Satisfied, he tossed the nearly empty bag behind his head with indifference and let the rest of the contents spill out, all along the seats and the trash-littered floorboard.

Hat was dumbfounded. “All you wanted was a toy?”

“Not just any toy . . .” Earrings held up the pink and blue chimpanzee figurine like a holy relic. “Nostroman.”

“Gentlemen,” Shades said sternly, trying to cut their conversation short. He noticed the red and blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror, following them from a distance but getting closer. “I think it’s safe to say that we’re not alone.”

• • •

Officer Bill Howard stepped out of his police cruiser and walked toward the black four-door sedan, now resting on the side of the highway. The car was nicked and marred, had a busted taillight, and had a bumper broken beyond repair. There was no license plate on the vehicle, nor had it been washed in years. Bill wondered if the inside looked any worse than the outside. The windows were tinted, though, and Bill could see only the silhouette of a figure sitting in the driver’s seat. He approached the driver’s door and knocked on the window twice.

The window opened slowly, revealing a man sitting on the other side. The man’s dark hair was a lengthy and unkempt mess, and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved in days. He wore a black trench coat and sleek, reflective sunglasses—even though the sun was nowhere to be seen. He smiled nonchalantly and put an arm out the window. “Morning, Officer.”

“It’s nine p.m.,” Bill pointed out matter-of-factly. “Do you realize how fast you were speeding?”

The man in black turned to the back, as if listening to someone back there, and turned again to Bill. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

Bill walked closer to get a better view but saw no one in the car with the man. He was alone. “I’d like to see your license and registration.”

The man in black nodded. He took out a crumpled piece of paper from within his trench coat pocket and handed it to Bill.

Bill observed the crumbled paper closely, slightly confused. “This is a Wowzers coupon.”

The man in black smiled. “It has my name on it.”

Bill looked again at the coupon. “Your name is . . . ‘Alyssa Edwards’?”

The shades-wearing stranger snatched the coupon back from Bill and examined it himself. “I guess not this one . . .”

Bill leaned forward, analyzing the stranger. The man was fidgety, as if on something. Perhaps hard drugs. “Have you been drinking?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t drink. . . .” His brow furrowed. “Especially when on a case.”

“I’d like to see your eyes,” Bill said and took out a small flashlight. “Take off your sunglasses.”

The driver grimaced. “I can’t.”

Bill noticed his face tense. “You’re refusing an officer?”

“The shades never come off. Never.”

Bill sensed hostility and took a step back. “I’d like you to step out of the vehicle.”

A sly grin formed on the driver’s lips. “And if I refuse?”

Bill’s right hand slid down to the butt of his gun. “I didn’t ask . . .”

The man cocked his head to the side. “I guess that calls for only one thing.”

• • •

Detective Shades hit the pedal hard and listened to the engine roar. The car jerked forward, rocking the detectives within, and continued along the shoulder of the road before swerving back onto the highway. Shades watched the officer from the side-view mirror as he ran back to his car. He would catch up soon, that was certain. And they would need to get rid of him—somehow. Through any means necessary.

“What now?” Detective Earrings asked from behind Shades.

“We see where this takes us.” Shades tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He focused on the road ahead. He wasn’t worried in the slightest. He felt fearless tonight—there was nothing that could stop him. Nothing that could stop any of them. Not even—

He swerved the car just in time, passing a truck in the right lane. That was close.

“We need to get rid of him,” Hat said.

“We will,” Shades said confidently. He swerved again, this time cutting past an eighteen-wheeler. The car almost lost its traction and felt like it would flip over, tilting from side to side, but Shades managed to get it level again.

“If only we had the Lamborghini,” Earrings voiced.

Shades shook his head. “You know that’s not in the budget anymore.” He turned to Earrings with a look of determination. “We have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“What do you have in mind?” Hat asked Shades while strapping his seatbelt back on.

The police cruiser was closing in now—having passed the eighteen-wheeler with ease. Now would be a good time to do something, Shades thought. Backup’ll be coming, and before we know it, we’ll be surrounded again. It had happened before, and he figured it could easily happen again. So, what now . . . ? What will I come up with next?

“We need to do something,” Hat said.

“I know.” There was nothing but forest on each side of the highway, and if Shades remembered correctly, the next gas station wasn’t for another six miles. He glanced back at Earrings, who was fiddling with his new toy. “Daniel, can you get hold of one of the guns in the back?”

Earrings peered over his Nostroman toy—Shades saw the reluctance on his face as if their situation were only a minor inconvenience. Nonetheless, Earrings nodded with compliance, set down his toy, and climbed over the back seat, partially, up to his waist to search the trunk for supplies. Once finished, Earrings brought out a rocket launcher. “Do you mean this?”

“Well . . .” Shades started, at first unsure. “That might work.”

“Isn’t that overkill?” Hat asked.

Shades shook his head. “It’s all we have. It’ll work. It has to.”

Earrings put the rocket launcher on his shoulder and opened the window, rolling it down slowly, before peering out with half his body, the weight of the rocket launcher nearly making him fall out of the car.

“Careful!” Shades shouted, swerving again.

“He’s going to miss.” Hat shook his head repeatedly. “He always does.”

“Aim for the tires,” Shades instructed patiently. “We don’t want to kill him but only—”

But before Shades could finish his sentence, Earrings had already fired the RPG. The rocket shot out—straight at the police cruiser—and made contact with the road, exploding in a lighted frenzy.

“He did it,” Shades said to Hat, actually surprised. He didn’t know that Earrings had it in him; he knew how bad of an aim Earrings had.

“No,” Hat corrected, looking back. “He missed.”

The police cruiser was still behind them, swerving away from the explosion—still catching up.

“Hey guys,” Earrings shouted, “how do you reload this thing?”

Shades gripped the wheel tightly and held in his frustration. “Only one shot, Detective.”

“Oops.” Earrings carelessly tossed the RPG out of the window and watched as the weapon rolled away—bouncing, nearly hitting the cruiser on their tail.

Shades turned to Hat. “Now what?”

Hat sighed. “Let me see what I can do.” He climbed over the passenger seat, into the back seat next to Earrings, before climbing over to the trunk again, seeing what he could rummage.

Shades watched from the rearview mirror. “See anything?!”

“I have a few ideas,” Hat said, searching. After climbing back to the passenger seat, Shades noticed the pack of C-4 in his hands.

Earrings looked the C-4 over. “Nice! Wait . . . what is that?”

Hat looked at Earrings and smirked. “It’s our escape.”

The police cruiser was now right behind them, bumper to taillight. “Pull over,” the officer said, his voice blasting through the car speakers.

Hat leaned out the window. “You first.” He threw the pack of C-4 at the cruiser, and the explosive landed on its front window, hedged between the windshield wipers. When Shades saw it was a successful throw, he hit the pedal as hard as he could, pushing the engine past its limit.

“Do it,” Shades told him.

Hat turned his head. “Do what?”

“Blow it up!” Shades shouted. “Detonate it.”

Hat, confused, searched around the floorboard. “With what?”

“There’s supposed to be a trigger somewhere.” Through the rearview mirror, Shades could see the officer in the cruiser with his arm out the window, trying to push the C-4 off the vehicle. “You better hurry before he—”

A deer suddenly appeared ahead, in the middle of the road, where nothing had been before, forcing Shades to jerk the steering wheel. The sedan swerved sharply, away from the deer, but in the process, Shades suddenly lost control, and the sedan flipped over from the momentum.

An airbag erupted on Shades’s face.

He felt his body rocked back and forth with each jerk of the car.

The vehicle barrel-rolled across the highway, and skidded to a stop—upside-down, on the side of the road.

Shades groaned loudly and felt the blood rushing to his brain, dripping from his nose and onto the ceiling now below him. That was close, he thought. Too close . . .

“You guys okay?” he asked, turning back to glance at Earrings and Hat. To his horror, he saw that Hat’s head had brutally collided with the side window. Blood was everywhere, all along the broken window, seeping out of Hat’s forehead and dripping onto the ceiling, flowing out of the car. Hat’s face itself was unrecognizable. His body remained still, hunched over. “Detective,” Shades said, trying to wake Hat up. “Patsy, are you all right . . . ?”

A dreadful silence followed. An overwhelming grip of fear suddenly caught in Shades’s throat. He’s not breathing. . . .

It was then that Shades noticed that Earrings wasn’t sitting where he had been. Shades looked forward again: He noticed the gaping hole in the front windshield and saw Earrings’s body on the other side, lying still on the ground, ten to fifteen paces from the car. Motionless. . . .

Shades realized that Earrings hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.

Shades struggled to unbuckle his own seatbelt. When he finally unlatched it, gravity thrust him downward, and he landed hard on his neck and shoulder. He struggled to open his door and crawl out of the car—staggering, discombobulated, and trying to get away from it, limping as he slowly got to his feet. He was numb but could still feel the shards of glass on his skin, poking through his trench coat, some chunks larger than others. He was sure his nose had broken from the airbag’s impact.

The officer arrived behind Shades and aimed a semiautomatic at him. “Put your hands in the air!” he shouted aggressively, his finger remaining on the trigger, ready to shoot at any second.

It’s okay, Shades thought calmly and remembered something crucial. I have the Deus-ex-Machina device in my pocket. . . . He carefully reached into his trench coat to grab the Deus-ex-Machina device, but the cop started firing without another warning.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

The gunshots echoed into the night, and again and again, Shades’s body jerked as each bullet made impact.

• • •

When he opened his eyes, he found himself sitting—once again—in the sedan. On the side of the road. No longer upside-down, nor dead for that matter. He turned around and glanced at both Earrings and Hat, unscathed, once more sitting where they had been. The two stared at him obliviously, seemingly unaware of their preceding deaths. The Deus-ex-Machina device worked, Shades thought with relief and glanced down at the device still in his hand. He noticed a new fracture, right in the middle, from a bullet hole, and suddenly, the device fell apart in his hands, crumbling to the floorboard.

I didn’t know the Deus-ex-Machina device could break, Shades thought, surprised. I thought such a device was eternal. . . . He shook his head, disappointed. I guess that’s the last we’ll see of it.

There was a knock on the window, and Shades turned around. The officer from before stood on the other side of the glass, just as he had been before, after pulling Shades over for speeding. The officer wasn’t holding a gun anymore, though, as Shades had last seen him, nor did he seem in any rush. We’re back to where we started, Shades realized. Only this time, I don’t have the Deus-ex-Machina device. . . .

Only this time, I can’t mess this up.

He slowly rolled open the window. “Hello, Officer.”

The officer exchanged a look with Shades, serious, and nodded curtly. “I like your sunglasses,” he stated matter-of-factly and displayed no hint of hostility nor jest.

Shades smiled. He hadn’t been expecting a compliment. “Thanks.”

“How are you doing this night?” the officer asked calmly. He glanced inside the car at both Earrings and Hat and nodded to them in a manner of greeting.

Shades let out a sigh of relief, grateful the officer wasn’t hostile this time around. “Just finished a case,” he said nonchalantly. “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”

The officer nodded. He glanced up at the moon in the sky, partially hidden between two clouds. “Beautiful, indeed.”

“Have you been working all night?” Shades asked.

The officer shook his head. “Only a few hours.”

“I’m sure it feels like forever, though.”

“It does.” The officer regarded the detective. “Time’s a strange thing, isn’t it?” He looked at him almost absentmindedly. “It can be relative to where you are. . . . Sometimes who you are. . . .”

Shades thought of Earrings and Hat, having died only a few minutes earlier, and remained shell-shocked that the three of them were still alive. He tried to disguise his emotions, though, and didn’t want the officer asking any more questions he’d have to answer dishonestly.

The officer smiled. “I used to be a theater actor in high school; in fact, I was really good at it.” He looked at Shades closely now, reminiscing. “The moment I entered the stage, it was like I was possessed and found myself no longer in control. In a sense, who I was before no longer existed.”

“Do you miss it?”

“I took my art seriously,” he explained wistfully. “I had to go method in order to take myself seriously.” He shook his head again, wincing. “But once you go method, there’s really no going back.” He unexpectedly took off his badge and observed it, staring closely at the gold medallion resembling a star. “Fifteen years on the job,” he told Shades. “Fifteen years of day-in, day-out, nonstop wondering who I’m supposed to be and what my purpose is.” His eyes were somewhere distant now, somewhere far away. “All I wanted was to be on stage . . . to play my part, whatever part was given to me.” He eyed Shades again, carefully. “Now look at me: I can hardly play myself.”

Shades considered the officer’s words. “And who do you want to be?”

The officer looked down again. “I don’t know,” he admitted and shook his head repeatedly. “I wish it was simpler than that.”

The officer’s words were too close for comfort, and Shades found himself again on edge. “Life’s never simple, is it?”

“Anyway,” the officer said, blushing from embarrassment. “I don’t mean to bother you with my self-loathing.”

“It’s okay,” Shades said and offered a friendly smile. “We could all use someone to talk to.” He thought of his many nights on patrol, sitting alone in his car, and the officer’s words resonated with him. “I understand how you feel.”

“Isn’t that true?” The officer smiled back, a knowing glint in his eyes. “You have a good night now, okay?”

“You too, Detective.”

The officer began to walk away but stopped suddenly, once Shades’s words had registered in his mind, and he turned around, eyeing Shades keenly. He shook his head with a melancholic expression. “I’m not a detective.”

“How can you be so sure?” Shades challenged. “It’s all relative, isn’t it?”

The officer considered Shades’s words. “I suppose you’re right.” He double-tapped the roof of the car with the palm of his hand, and his expression changed again, less serious. “Anyway, be careful on the road tonight. There was a bad crash earlier, up ahead; it left three dead.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” The officer nodded again, his eyes darkening. “The car collided with a deer; I suppose that makes four dead, actually.”

Shades’s heartbeat quickened for a moment, and he wondered if that was the same deer he had almost run over before using the Deus-ex-Machina device. He composed himself. “That’s not good.”

“It’s not,” agreed the officer. “So, be careful out there. You never know, it could always be you in their shoes.”

Shades feigned a friendly smile. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

When the officer left—and Shades watched from the driver’s seat as the cruiser’s taillights disappeared into the dark horizon—he turned to Earrings and Hat, alive and breathing.

“That was easy,” Earrings said, laughing.

“It could have gone a lot worse,” Hat agreed.

Shades glanced down, once again, at the broken Deus-ex-Machina device on the floorboard, now nothing more than a pile of ash. No, a voice suddenly said in his head, louder than all the other voices. Everything comes at a price.

Copyright © 2023 by Theodore Lee

All rights reserved.