My Brown Dog

I deserve to die. I deserve to die horribly. The traps won't catch them of course...too obvious a human would see them...they'll come and kill me. They won't eat me but fill me full of lead and bury me in the dirt and—

HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO WRONG?

My death is here...I might as well wait for it. I can't hide, not from them. They've brought dogs of their own, real dogs, bloodhounds and smelling dogs...

Wait...the lift...the elevator...why am I still writing this? The elevator...I have to know...

6

From the Miter Metro 73553 Herald, Friday, October 2nd, 2020 (page 1):

JONES' BOY FOUND DEAD: MYSTERY KILLER TURNS SURPRISES

In the early hours of dawn this morning, Metro Police stormed the locked down shopping center, FallPark Mall, after heavy suspicions pointed to it being a hideout for the prime suspect of the string of grisly murders and disappearances from Miter Metro 73553 in the past two years. After combing through the decaying rubble of the collapsing building that had been locked down by faulty Radioactive Emergency Lock Down System (RELDS) applications in October 2008, the SWAT Team discovered the body of seven-year-old Danny Jones, who'd been reported missing by his parents two days earlier. The boy was pronounced dead on site. Police have declined further comment, saying that the details are not an issue of public concern.

Police spokesman, Lieutenant Lewis A. Jeffery, says that the routes to the basements were blocked with "childish, ludicrous booby-traps." Team Leader, Sgt. Dave Polley, declined to elaborate, but commented that "whoever thought marbles and trip wires could stop the Metro SWAT" were "seriously mistaken."

Sgt. Dave's team pursued the suspect, who'd presumably fled the scene shortly after the Police stormed in. They found him at the highest level of the twelve-storey building. He was standing in the see-through glass elevator, gazing out into the slowly waking metropolitan of downtown Ruther Street. Sgt. Dave says the suspect turned on them when they confronted him, and his team was forced to "subdue" him. The suspect was pronounced dead on the spot.

Lab records have identified the twenty-one-year-old male Caucasian as Roberts Dunnow, son of the late Steven K. Dunnow. Ironically, it was his father who designed the RELDS and committed suicide shortly before the FallPark Mall Tragedy. Even now, interrogators are piecing together what may be one of the most startling stories of the decade.

According to sources, Roberts was trapped inside the FallPark Mall when its faulty RELDS locked the building down because of a nearby structure undergoing demolition in October 2008. The sound and shockwaves of the blast apparently triggered the false RELDS Alarm. Most of the people inside the building at the time of the system failure were able to evacuate, and the rest were subsequently rescued by search teams. It seems that Roberts was trapped in the building, where he managed to "escape" all rescue attempts and searches. For twelve years, he has been living in the prison-like confines of FallPark Mall, surviving on preserved food from a Mega Mall.

Police have attributed the disappearances of Barlow Matthews, Joseph Philips, Stevie H. Berkely, Layla Rochester, Elaine Roderford, Jonathan and Crystal Sheares, Aaron Bergaway, McClean O'Brien, Andrew Nelly, Rodriguez Frederick, Nelson Roddicks, Burms Laetia, Victor Callahan, Roland D'Maggio, Leroy Patch, the murders of George Pert, Charlaine Adams, Lisa Bowlé, Cathy Perkins, Allen Trolls—the corpse of the last having been found cooked and partially eaten—and, lastly, the kidnapping and murder of Danny Jones, to Roberts Dunnow, who allegedly committed these crimes over the past two years. Police have closed the cases on all sixteen disappearances and six murders.

Sgt. Dave reports that before Dunnow attacked them, the last words he said were,

"The sky! The sky is still blue!" And then, "How could I have been so wrong?"

Then Dunnow attacked them and police had no choice but to use lethal force against him. Members of the team on-site refused to comment, but one of them said that he'd "never seen eyes so wild and fearful. It was as if [Roberts Dunnow] he just realized a great and terrible understanding."

Roberts's older sister, Anne, a doctor at Metro's St. Joseph's Hospital, was at the scene to identify the body.

Lieutenant Jeffery says he hopes this "closes the book on this gruesome saga."

Real Estate mogul, Richard Gibbons, says he will now continue his plans to demolish FallPark Mall, what he calls "Metro's Landmark of Terror."

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Jesse De Rozario

Singapore, September 2004

*

Copyright © 2006 De Rozario Jesse

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