Chapter 4 happened in this location.
Captain Hank Monroe had been 28 at the time. He hadn't been a captain back then, but he was on the fast track to success having made more arrests than any other junior officer in the history of the force. This man was talented. If you committed a crime while Monroe was on duty he would track you down; it was almost an inevitability. The medals were already stacking up on his chest by the time of that fateful day. No-one could have foreseen how far, and how dramatically, his fall would have been.
In the present day Captain Hank wasn't falling at all. Instead he was running towards a fairly innocent looking school with the intention of arresting a girl with an apparently magical blink. He'd never done that before and was finding the whole incident to be rather invigorating, kind of like the first time you try a new curry only with the possibility of being dead by the end of it. I guess a curry could kill you, but it's unlikely and would make for a far less interesting story. Interesting is a word I'm using loosely here. Anyway...
"You go round the back bois, the rest of you come with me," Hank ordered, quietly so as not to cause any undue concern. This girl might have the ability to do weird shit with her eyes but the rest of the kids at that school had done nothing wrong as far as the police knew. Hank ushered some men towards him. Slowly they made their way towards the front of the school. They knew at any moment the girl they were after could look out of a window and see them coming, panic and confine them to a lifetime of being trapped. No-one wanted that, so it best for everyone if they remained as calm as possible. There was an eerie silence over the playground as they made their approach with the only audible sound being that of the men's boots walking over that soft flooring that stops you getting hurt if you fall off a swing. They arrived at the front door.
"You in position fellas?" Hank asked over his radio.
"Sure are, boss," the crackling response informed him.
"Remember, she's a kid, we need to be friendly with her, gentle. But also remember she's got magic eyes, so we might need to run the hell away too."
"Got it boss."
The Captain and his men pushed open the door before them and cautiously stepped inside. What they saw next none of them were expecting.
"Monroe! What the hell are you doing?!?"
Those were the words that still haunted Hank's dreams to this day. Those words and the horrifying, tragic blood lust that he'd been a major part of. He couldn't understand why he'd felt the urge to use a flame thrower for such an ordinary, every day call out. He couldn't fathom why he had to take the whole place down just to stop one little shoplifter, or why he'd then turned the weapon on his own men when they tried to stop him. "Oh God Monroe, they're already dead!" had been the shout when he failed to stop his rampage. "You can't kill them anymore! You can't do any more damage than has already been done! OH GOD MONROE, NOT THE PET STORE."
Inside the school there was a soft hum. It sounded like someone had left something plugged in overnight and it was overheating a little. There was also a startling and highly unnerving glow.
"Sheeet boss, you think that is the girl?" an officer asked.
"There's only one way to find out," Hank replied, putting his hand to his side where his gun lay patiently. The men made their way towards the apparent source of the light. As they got closer the hum grew louder and the light became almost unbearable to look at. It seeped round the edges of the door and into the corners of the officer's shielded eyes. Hank put his hand to the door frame and pushed with fear in his heart.
"THE CATS ARE GONE, MONROE, WHY DID YOU KILL THE CATS?"
"We've gotta do this, bois." He pushed. The door flew open and smashed against the inside wall. Light flooded out and stunned the waiting men who stumbled back in horror. After the shock had subsided the true horror began to sink in.
Inside the hall behind the door was the young girl they'd been looking for. She was floating mid-air and buzzing like an urgent phone call. Her eyes were alight like the sun. Her classmates were all sharing the same unfortunate fate of the bank robbers, confined in the walls around them as if they were nothing but posters. This wasn't murder the girl had committed; this was far worse. These people would live their lives as part of the structure of buildings. Who the hell wanted that kind of hassle? Hank stepped forward boldly.
"THEY HAD FAMILIES MONROE, AND NOW YOU'VE SET THEM ON FIRE TOO YOU BASTARD!"
"Why are you doing this, kid? What have these people ever done to you?" The girl suddenly looked surprised by her recently arrived company. She turned her eyes off and settled down to the floor. When not being daemonic she was actually quite cute and more like a child as opposed to a monster. She looked up to Captain Hank and with a meek voice simply said,
"Mummy wouldn't let me have a phone." Hank looked confused.
"What has that got to do with this? Why did that mean you had to hurt these people?" The girl looked confused herself.
"Hurt them mister? I did not want to hurt them."
"Then what kid, what did you want to do?!?" The girl bowed her head shyly and clutched her hands in front of her waist. Hank waited with baited breath. What horror would this girl reveal? What cruelty had she aimed to inflict?
"I just..."
"Yes, what?"
"I just wanted to remember them, is all. And without a phone I don't have Instagram. I had to improvise."
And with that the girl looked up once more. Captain Hank and his officers were never seen again.
Only a vintage hue remained now.
