Socks
#1 of Socks: The Novel
"So...That's it, then? This is the end?" the girl sobbed, her whole body wracked with grief. She would have wiped her eyes, but muddy brown rusted chains held fast her wrists to the wall. "I solved your puzzle! The riddle's answer is right here!" A shadowed figure with noticeably large ears emerged from the wall opposite her. "I couldn't have lost!" she screamed, pulling against the cuffs so hard that her shoulders dislocated, making the empty iron hall echo with a sickening crack. The shadowed figure chuckled. "Well, you know...you forgot the part where you're supposed to get out alive," it muttered, and it brought an air-filled syringe to the girl's neck, causing her eyes to roll back in her head.
Chapter One: "Today or you're fired!"
At this exact same time, Detective Stockings was reading his paper. "The Clock Killer Strikes Again, Next Attack Planned at 8:45 A.M. Today," he read from the headlines. "Same gore, different day." You see, Detective Stockings was the second detective to be put on this caseload. After two or three years on the beat, he decided it was time for some action, and became a homicide detective for the Phoenix Police Department. Dropping his paper, he took his coffee into the bathroom and set it on the counter, getting ready for work. The mirror showed what he hated most: his short, black, messy hair, his always half-closed muddy eyes, his scruffy chin, and most of all, his nose. "I'll never be happy with me..." he sighed, and started to get himself ready.
He couldn't help but think about the other detective. She'd been found dead, an eyeball missing, in an old lockbox. The kind they used for tigers at the circus. The lockbox was abandoned at the bottom of a lake, and prints were completely clean. Her skin had washed away, leaving only her skeleton. The lab techs said something was wrong with it, but no matter how much he pleaded, they wouldn't let Stockings know. Of course, this scared the poor rookie into taking easy cases like traffic stops, and shoplifting and things. Only recently did he once more dredge up the courage to take this case. Not like Stockings had a family, mind you, but he knew that staying alive was kind of important. Such morbid things aren't worth wasting thinking time ove..."Oh no!" he yelled. "Time!" Stockings was late to his first day on the case...that would not help his credibility at all. He dashed out the door, spilling his coffee on the ground before his got into his car and cranked the ignition hard. "Like that'll make it go faster," he told himself, but any way he could go Mach 1 was sounding good to him right now. He screeched out of the driveway, tearing off the outturned flag on his mailbox.
The road was a blur of yellowblackyellowblackyellowblack as Stockings made his way to work, weaving in and out of cars and keeping his sirens on. He hated his fellow cops who did that, but he really had to get to his desk on time, or he'd have to face the chief. Chief Iggy Malcent was his name, and stomping on your balls with his iron heel was his game. You were in a wheelchair? You didn't roll fast enough. You were dead? Well, damned if you didn't get rigor mortis exactly 30 minutes to the second after you died. "There I go, thinking about death again," Stockings said to no one, shaking his head. This job made him much more morbid. He pulled a hard right into the station's parking lot and ran out of his car and into the building, literally diving into the clock room, causing him to land on one knee with his card in the slot. The timer blared, "CHECK IN TIME: NINE O TWO P.M." "Oh, no...Oh, no..." he said, walking with head hung to his desk, the door slamming open almost as soon as he sat in his chair.
"STOCKINGS!" Malcent screamed, his plump face coupled with his mustache turning a deep shade of red, resembling a moldy tomato. Stockings hated being called by his last name, because it made him feel like a sock. Better than having anyone know his first name. Good thing he was thinking this to himself all this time, or he'd hear Iggy's yelling and screaming and whatnot. "One last thing..." That was his cue to tune back in. "This case needs to have something on it before I leave the office today, or so help me, you are fired." Stocking's ears perked up at that statement, and he leaned forward, shuffling his papers. "Sir, yes, sir," he said, sweating a little. He watched good ol' Chief Iggy walk out the door and sighed. "Ah...this is gonna be a long day..."
Stockings looked over the bundle of papers on his desk, trying to figure out what the best way to attack this was. Something had been bugging him since he'd first heard of this case, and it had to do with Gina. She was a bombshell of a woman, the first detective on this case. Stockings called her curves "speed bumps," because you always slowed down when she walked in the room. Unfortunately...Stockings located the file that was titled "Case History." "Gina Kowalski, Dead," Stockings read. "I sure miss her." She'd been dead for almost two years now. That's when an idea struck him; this is where he could start! If he followed Gina's path, he'd find the answers he needed. Too bad all the evidence she'd gathered was so cryptic...
"A hand towel, a nametag, a locket, and...a stapler?" Stockings almost laughed when he saw the evidence. None of these made any sense! How was he supposed to conduct an investigation with these? He buried his face into his palm and groaned. His job was as good as gone! He lightly slammed his fist on the table and bit his lip, deciding he should try anyways. The nametag was the most obvious thing. He checked it over, reading the front. It was strange...half of it was scribbled out with marker, unfortunately the half that had the name on it. All that remained was a hand-written "F" at the very top left corner. "Alright, there's not a lot to do with this." Stockings set the nametag down and picked up the locket. After about ten minutes of trying to open it, he threw it down against the desk in frustration. It needed a key. Why the hell didn't Gina get the key? This super-abundance of evidence that totally made sense was surely going to help him keep his job, yeah! Still angry, Stockings picked up the hand towel. It was filmy, and a quick whiff steeled his suspicion to truth: it was chloroform. "The worst kind of coward," he commented, and threw it back in the bag with the other things. That's when he picked up the item with the least sensibility of all, the stapler. "Swingline," he noted, and then a familiar pang of forgetfulness hit his mind. "Aw, darnit. I remember this from a movie...fat guy...really funny...dammit, now it's gonna bother me all day."
He was of course talking about "Office Space", but don't tell him. He likes to figure things out on his own. He checked over the stapler more, running his finger along it. Nothing was wrong with it until he opened the top to check if there were any staples inside. A small piece of fur fell out, about as big as a dime, and Stockings bent over to pick it up. "Green? What animal with fur is green?" Another shake of the stapler produced a scrap of paper, with the writing on it saying as follows:
"Sorry about this, S. I knew you'd take this case. If you're reading this, I'm probably dead and you're pretty sad, or at least you better be. :) Anyway, I put in this stapler halfway because it's important evidence and halfway because it's so pointless-looking that nobody but you would check it. Keep the patch of fur in your pocket, and please forgive me. It's the only way to get into his compound.
~You'll find a way to fix it soon enough!
Gina."
Stockings was confused, but he put the patch in his pocket like he was told. What should she be sorry for? Fix what?
"Ah, Office Space!" he shouted, probably a little too loudly.