Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction ❯ The Journal of One, Leon Orcot ❯ April 3, 1999 ( Chapter 2 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: CrossedScarsX 
And on we go.
Anime/Manga: Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Mystery / Psychological / Angst | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 08.09.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 551 | Status: Completed
And on we go.
Anime/Manga: Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Mystery / Psychological / Angst | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 08.09.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 551 | Status: Completed
April 3, 1999
Ok, so it's been a few days since the first entry. I wasn't being lazy about writing, promise. I actually started writing a couple of times since then, but like I said before: There's a lot to write. So, I tore out the newer entries. This is like a final draft of those earlier ones, I guess.
Right. So...My history with Count D.
God that sounds like a bad high school essay title.
I met Count D four years ago, when I was still a homicide detective with the LAPD. I noticed a trend of unusual deaths where all the victims were connected to the the Count's pet shop in Chinatown. By unusual, I mean deaths that looked like wild animals mauled the victims. Or sometimes no apparent cause of death at all. It was the second type that actually got me into D's shop. It was the case of Robin Hendrix.
Hendrix died. Just died. No reason. No drugs, no poisons, no physical wounds of any kind. The only witness to it was a rare lizard, which was also dead. Count D said the lizard was a “basilisk”. It could kill someone by simply looking at them. Which is totally believable if you take stock in Greek myths. Then he spun a tale of a lovers' suicide. It was absurd.
Count D always insisted that he only ever told me the truth, even when it sounded crazy. Every case, he said his stories were the truth. Half-truths, maybe. Every case I investigated seemed like hokey little home-spun ghost story. My life began to feel like a prolonged episode of the X-files. (I mean the early seasons, before it got all government conspiracy...y) It was irritating. There were even people running around claiming to be vampires. Yeah, right. It was just an old fashioned serial killer, plain and simple. I didn't believe in that shit.
Actually, when I think about it, maybe I did. I mean, after that vampire case, I actually did entertain the idea that our suspect was hiding out as a bat at the shop...but I just said I was going 'batty' (haha, see what I did there...wow I'm starved for humor.) and dismissed the idea.
The longer I investigated D, the crazier things got. Man-eating fish, killer rabbits—no, seriously, killer rabbits. I know I'm not crazy on this one. Half of Los Angelos was covered in the freaky little critters. And plenty of people, children even, were hospitalized. As much as I wanted to arrest the bastard, legally, D was clean, and free to go. He always had an escape plan of some sort. Repeated attempts to obtain evidence against him were fruitless. The guy always had some sort of legal documentation or reasoning that made it impossible to pin anything on him. I began a to regularly patrol the area, hoping to catch some illicit activity.
I stopped using specific cases as an excuse to check out the pet shop. I decided that I needed to keep a closer eye the Count. I took up the Count's many offers of tea and cake. Well, the tea at least. I'm not much for sweets, but the Count was a sugar addict. The first cup of tea he ever gave me was sweet enough to put a rhinoceros into sugar-shock. Disgusting. He always remembered to serve it to me 'black' after that time. And there were many times, after that.
...And then it started getting weird.
From the moment I met the Count, he was disgustingly polite, but always held this air of superiority and sarcasm that always irritated me. It pissed me off. He was constantly brewing his tea and eating sweets, and was (almost) always delighted to share them with me. I'm pretty sure he was more interested in playing mind games with me. Still didn't find any dirt on him. I did look.
Despite his condescending behavior, tea with the Count became a regular thing. I went to the shop nearly every afternoon. To the point where it only seemed natural go there on Christmas Eve. Which turned out to be one of the most insane nights of my life. It involved eggs, sneaking into houses, rush hour traffic, a dominatrix dentist, a mob boss, and a dragon. (Not kidding. I'll probably make an entry about that another time.)
I'm sure that (after asking the obvious 'wtf were you smoking that night?' question) if anyone reads this, I'm sure they're thinking: Why would you do that? You were so obsessed with this suspect, that you didn't have anything else to do on Christmas? Or have other people to celebrate with? Count D asked me the same thing.
And you know what? The answer was 'no'. I didn't have anyone else to celebrate with. My dad left years ago, my mother died five years prior giving birth to Chris, my little brother...and he didn't even really know me. To be honest, I really didn't know him. He was living with my Aunt and Uncle on the East coast, under the impression that they were his real parents. I was basically out of the picture. My job didn't allow for much time off around the holidays, so heading across the country wasn't really an option. Everyone else I knew had plans of their own.
I think I got a little off topic, but since I brought him up, I suppose I should write about Chris.
After about a year of investigating the Count, my little brother came to live with me. His 'sister' had gotten mad at him, and told him the truth: that he was not her real brother, and that his real mom had died in childbirth. She told Chris it was his fault. Poor kid. He turned all his emotions inward, and his guilt left him unable to speak. It was traumatic for the six-year-old. So, they sent him to me. I was planning on sending him to an institution, for kids with emotional and psychological problems. I was a cop, I didn't have the time to deal with him. But the whole thing was so sudden, it took me a few days to get all the paperwork sorted and medical stuff filled out. But what was I supposed to do with him till everything was squared away?
I ended up leaving him with the one guy I knew who could deal with him. Count D. At least until he was in that special school. Ok, I might have railed about him being a murderer, child-trafficker, and drug dealer...but like I stated earlier, I had no proof...and I didn't think he'd hurt my little brother. And Chris...he loved it at the pet shop.
I don't know how to describe this next part without sounding like a complete loon, but honesty is the best policy in this report, no matter how crazy it sounds. I began to understand Chris. And I don't mean I began to relate to him. I mean, I felt like I could 'hear' him. He could just look at me—not even look at me, I just KNEW what he needed. I knew what he was thinking. It was so loud and clear.
And Count D could hear him as well.
We never discussed it. And I never sent Chris to that special school. I just dropped him off at the pet shop, every day, before I went to work. Count D protested at first, but it wasn't long before all arguments stopped, and it became routine, like tea-time. And soon enough, I was leaving Chris there for days at a time, and every afternoon, I stopped in for tea, and checked on Chris. Played with him a bit, and after a while, went to my apartment to sleep before a long shift in the morning. Eventually, sleep was all that my apartment was good for. Chris and I were practically living at the pet shop.
Then Chris could suddenly talk. I don't know the specifics, but Sam, his 'sister' came and apologized, and 'click', words poured out of his mouth. His family took him back home. I wasn't there. I didn't see any of it happen. No one asked me. I just came back to the pet shop after work that evening and he was gone. And the Count just brushed it off. He just said, “Oh, Chris can talk now. He went home with his sisters. Care for some tea?”
I was so angry. Mostly at D. I mean, he just brushed Chris aside! Chris had been under our care for about a year. And D didn't even bat an eyelash when he left. Going home was good for Chris. He needed a 'normal' family life.
He isn't human. I'm not sure WHAT he is. But it's something bigger than us. Something from China. A creature who felt all humans deserved to be on the lowest ends of the food chain. He thought he was better than us. What did Chris or I matter? It pissed me off. It hurt.
It had felt like we were a family. Apparently, D hadn't thought the same thing. He went on with life like Chris never existed.
Then it happened. Out of the blue, I'm called into the Chief's office, where some big league FBI agent Howell asks me for the scoop on D. This guy was serious. He wasn't like the rest of our precinct. He didn't think I was a loon, or weird or whatever. He genuinely wanted to crack down on the Count D situation. He had some pretty cracked-up theories, but this was D we were talking about. Cracked-up was just run-of-the-mill-crazy to the bat-shit-insane-crazy that was Count D's life.
It's funny. The moment that someone actually took me seriously about my suspicions, was the moment that I realized that I didn't really want to arrest D anymore.
And then D was gone. He just left. His shop left with him. He just disappeared. From there, the manhunt was on. Agent Howell tracked Count D down. And I was lured in by Count D's father. Pleasant guy. Tried to kill me. I ended up killing him. Apparently, 'daddy' was some mad scientist. He was going to release some super-virus that was going to kill all the humans on earth. So, what choice did I have than to fire a bullet to his brain? Kill or be killed. The rule of mother nature. If I learned anything from the D's, it was that.
I wish I could say: this is where things get unbelievable. But, I'm not gonna even try to make it sound like the rest of this journal makes any sense.
To sum up: after I killed his father, there was a big explosion, Howell died, and I thought I was gonna die. I expected D was going to kill me. I asked him to make it quick. I was a goner either way, and he'd already demonstrated that he didn't give a damn about any human, not me, not Chris, not anyone.
Then he saved me. We were falling off a skyscraper. Then I was floating. I thought I was dead. Then I found myself on a ship, flying through the air. It was the pet shop. Count D was there.
“Humans have not yet earned the right to board this ship”, he said. Then he pushed me overboard. He was smiling. He was crying. Then I woke up, in a hospital, with Chris and his family, and my partner Jill. I hurt like hell. And the Count was gone.
I don't know if I dreamed that last thing. A rational man would blame it on whatever painkillers they had me on. But I stopped being rational the moment I met that cross-dressing China man.
That's why I'm on the road. I need answers. I need to know where he is. What he is doing. Why he left. I need to know.
Jesus, I've written a novella here. Hardly the utilitarian 'police report' I was going for. I suppose journals force you to do that. I suddenly understand why people thought I would have kept a journal back then. And I understand why I never kept one. It wasn't that my reports were enough. Not just that, anyway. Journals are where you pour out your inner-most thoughts and problems, when paper is the only thing left that you think you can trust to tell your secrets and fears. Back then, I didn't need paper. After my shift was over, I didn't pull out a pen and write; I drank tea and talked.
D was my journal.
~Leon
I think I'm going crazy.
I'm in England now. Or the UK. Britain. Whatever they are calling it now. But more importantly, today, I got the wild idea to walk through Sherwood Forest. Hahaha, I know. It sounds incredibly hokey. But after reading through some of the visitor center tour guides and helpful informational pamphlets, I read that one of the reasons old Robin Hood was hiding out in the woods, was because all those people hundreds of years ago thought that the forest was haunted or some shit like that.
Like so many things nowadays, it got me thinking about the pet shop. Count D used to say that legends and such were rooted in fact. For a moment, I thought: maybe. So I went off the trail, wandering around, not caring whether or not I got lost, and just looked around at everything.
They were all normal trees, normal birds, normal flowers, and normal critters chattering on the ground and in the branches. After maybe 20 minutes of walking, I had no idea how far off the path I'd wandered, but I could no longer hear the low rumble of tourist chatter, so I decided I was alone.
I started to shout. It wasn't planned. The words just spewed out of me. I kept on calling for D. I was shouting: “Where are you?”, “Why are you running from me?”, and “I have to find you!”
Then I saw a squirrel. He was as bushy as any squirrel could be, brown, normal-looking. He was just darting by, all squirrely-like, then he stopped. Like he just noticed me.
I know, I know: squirrels do that all the time. They run by, and freeze like a deer in headlights. But this time, it felt different. It felt like it was really staring me down. It wasn't scared of me. More intrigued. Somehow, he seemed like the most smug squirrel in the world. Then I realized it: He was looking down on me.
This little, tiny, insignificant little furry rat, thought he was better than me. I think he was laughing. It reminded me of the Count. It made me angry.
Ok, so it's been a few days since the first entry. I wasn't being lazy about writing, promise. I actually started writing a couple of times since then, but like I said before: There's a lot to write. So, I tore out the newer entries. This is like a final draft of those earlier ones, I guess.
Right. So...My history with Count D.
God that sounds like a bad high school essay title.
I met Count D four years ago, when I was still a homicide detective with the LAPD. I noticed a trend of unusual deaths where all the victims were connected to the the Count's pet shop in Chinatown. By unusual, I mean deaths that looked like wild animals mauled the victims. Or sometimes no apparent cause of death at all. It was the second type that actually got me into D's shop. It was the case of Robin Hendrix.
Hendrix died. Just died. No reason. No drugs, no poisons, no physical wounds of any kind. The only witness to it was a rare lizard, which was also dead. Count D said the lizard was a “basilisk”. It could kill someone by simply looking at them. Which is totally believable if you take stock in Greek myths. Then he spun a tale of a lovers' suicide. It was absurd.
Count D always insisted that he only ever told me the truth, even when it sounded crazy. Every case, he said his stories were the truth. Half-truths, maybe. Every case I investigated seemed like hokey little home-spun ghost story. My life began to feel like a prolonged episode of the X-files. (I mean the early seasons, before it got all government conspiracy...y) It was irritating. There were even people running around claiming to be vampires. Yeah, right. It was just an old fashioned serial killer, plain and simple. I didn't believe in that shit.
Actually, when I think about it, maybe I did. I mean, after that vampire case, I actually did entertain the idea that our suspect was hiding out as a bat at the shop...but I just said I was going 'batty' (haha, see what I did there...wow I'm starved for humor.) and dismissed the idea.
The longer I investigated D, the crazier things got. Man-eating fish, killer rabbits—no, seriously, killer rabbits. I know I'm not crazy on this one. Half of Los Angelos was covered in the freaky little critters. And plenty of people, children even, were hospitalized. As much as I wanted to arrest the bastard, legally, D was clean, and free to go. He always had an escape plan of some sort. Repeated attempts to obtain evidence against him were fruitless. The guy always had some sort of legal documentation or reasoning that made it impossible to pin anything on him. I began a to regularly patrol the area, hoping to catch some illicit activity.
I stopped using specific cases as an excuse to check out the pet shop. I decided that I needed to keep a closer eye the Count. I took up the Count's many offers of tea and cake. Well, the tea at least. I'm not much for sweets, but the Count was a sugar addict. The first cup of tea he ever gave me was sweet enough to put a rhinoceros into sugar-shock. Disgusting. He always remembered to serve it to me 'black' after that time. And there were many times, after that.
...And then it started getting weird.
From the moment I met the Count, he was disgustingly polite, but always held this air of superiority and sarcasm that always irritated me. It pissed me off. He was constantly brewing his tea and eating sweets, and was (almost) always delighted to share them with me. I'm pretty sure he was more interested in playing mind games with me. Still didn't find any dirt on him. I did look.
Despite his condescending behavior, tea with the Count became a regular thing. I went to the shop nearly every afternoon. To the point where it only seemed natural go there on Christmas Eve. Which turned out to be one of the most insane nights of my life. It involved eggs, sneaking into houses, rush hour traffic, a dominatrix dentist, a mob boss, and a dragon. (Not kidding. I'll probably make an entry about that another time.)
I'm sure that (after asking the obvious 'wtf were you smoking that night?' question) if anyone reads this, I'm sure they're thinking: Why would you do that? You were so obsessed with this suspect, that you didn't have anything else to do on Christmas? Or have other people to celebrate with? Count D asked me the same thing.
And you know what? The answer was 'no'. I didn't have anyone else to celebrate with. My dad left years ago, my mother died five years prior giving birth to Chris, my little brother...and he didn't even really know me. To be honest, I really didn't know him. He was living with my Aunt and Uncle on the East coast, under the impression that they were his real parents. I was basically out of the picture. My job didn't allow for much time off around the holidays, so heading across the country wasn't really an option. Everyone else I knew had plans of their own.
I think I got a little off topic, but since I brought him up, I suppose I should write about Chris.
After about a year of investigating the Count, my little brother came to live with me. His 'sister' had gotten mad at him, and told him the truth: that he was not her real brother, and that his real mom had died in childbirth. She told Chris it was his fault. Poor kid. He turned all his emotions inward, and his guilt left him unable to speak. It was traumatic for the six-year-old. So, they sent him to me. I was planning on sending him to an institution, for kids with emotional and psychological problems. I was a cop, I didn't have the time to deal with him. But the whole thing was so sudden, it took me a few days to get all the paperwork sorted and medical stuff filled out. But what was I supposed to do with him till everything was squared away?
I ended up leaving him with the one guy I knew who could deal with him. Count D. At least until he was in that special school. Ok, I might have railed about him being a murderer, child-trafficker, and drug dealer...but like I stated earlier, I had no proof...and I didn't think he'd hurt my little brother. And Chris...he loved it at the pet shop.
I don't know how to describe this next part without sounding like a complete loon, but honesty is the best policy in this report, no matter how crazy it sounds. I began to understand Chris. And I don't mean I began to relate to him. I mean, I felt like I could 'hear' him. He could just look at me—not even look at me, I just KNEW what he needed. I knew what he was thinking. It was so loud and clear.
And Count D could hear him as well.
We never discussed it. And I never sent Chris to that special school. I just dropped him off at the pet shop, every day, before I went to work. Count D protested at first, but it wasn't long before all arguments stopped, and it became routine, like tea-time. And soon enough, I was leaving Chris there for days at a time, and every afternoon, I stopped in for tea, and checked on Chris. Played with him a bit, and after a while, went to my apartment to sleep before a long shift in the morning. Eventually, sleep was all that my apartment was good for. Chris and I were practically living at the pet shop.
Then Chris could suddenly talk. I don't know the specifics, but Sam, his 'sister' came and apologized, and 'click', words poured out of his mouth. His family took him back home. I wasn't there. I didn't see any of it happen. No one asked me. I just came back to the pet shop after work that evening and he was gone. And the Count just brushed it off. He just said, “Oh, Chris can talk now. He went home with his sisters. Care for some tea?”
I was so angry. Mostly at D. I mean, he just brushed Chris aside! Chris had been under our care for about a year. And D didn't even bat an eyelash when he left. Going home was good for Chris. He needed a 'normal' family life.
He isn't human. I'm not sure WHAT he is. But it's something bigger than us. Something from China. A creature who felt all humans deserved to be on the lowest ends of the food chain. He thought he was better than us. What did Chris or I matter? It pissed me off. It hurt.
It had felt like we were a family. Apparently, D hadn't thought the same thing. He went on with life like Chris never existed.
Then it happened. Out of the blue, I'm called into the Chief's office, where some big league FBI agent Howell asks me for the scoop on D. This guy was serious. He wasn't like the rest of our precinct. He didn't think I was a loon, or weird or whatever. He genuinely wanted to crack down on the Count D situation. He had some pretty cracked-up theories, but this was D we were talking about. Cracked-up was just run-of-the-mill-crazy to the bat-shit-insane-crazy that was Count D's life.
It's funny. The moment that someone actually took me seriously about my suspicions, was the moment that I realized that I didn't really want to arrest D anymore.
And then D was gone. He just left. His shop left with him. He just disappeared. From there, the manhunt was on. Agent Howell tracked Count D down. And I was lured in by Count D's father. Pleasant guy. Tried to kill me. I ended up killing him. Apparently, 'daddy' was some mad scientist. He was going to release some super-virus that was going to kill all the humans on earth. So, what choice did I have than to fire a bullet to his brain? Kill or be killed. The rule of mother nature. If I learned anything from the D's, it was that.
I wish I could say: this is where things get unbelievable. But, I'm not gonna even try to make it sound like the rest of this journal makes any sense.
To sum up: after I killed his father, there was a big explosion, Howell died, and I thought I was gonna die. I expected D was going to kill me. I asked him to make it quick. I was a goner either way, and he'd already demonstrated that he didn't give a damn about any human, not me, not Chris, not anyone.
Then he saved me. We were falling off a skyscraper. Then I was floating. I thought I was dead. Then I found myself on a ship, flying through the air. It was the pet shop. Count D was there.
“Humans have not yet earned the right to board this ship”, he said. Then he pushed me overboard. He was smiling. He was crying. Then I woke up, in a hospital, with Chris and his family, and my partner Jill. I hurt like hell. And the Count was gone.
I don't know if I dreamed that last thing. A rational man would blame it on whatever painkillers they had me on. But I stopped being rational the moment I met that cross-dressing China man.
That's why I'm on the road. I need answers. I need to know where he is. What he is doing. Why he left. I need to know.
Jesus, I've written a novella here. Hardly the utilitarian 'police report' I was going for. I suppose journals force you to do that. I suddenly understand why people thought I would have kept a journal back then. And I understand why I never kept one. It wasn't that my reports were enough. Not just that, anyway. Journals are where you pour out your inner-most thoughts and problems, when paper is the only thing left that you think you can trust to tell your secrets and fears. Back then, I didn't need paper. After my shift was over, I didn't pull out a pen and write; I drank tea and talked.
D was my journal.
~Leon
I think I'm going crazy.
I'm in England now. Or the UK. Britain. Whatever they are calling it now. But more importantly, today, I got the wild idea to walk through Sherwood Forest. Hahaha, I know. It sounds incredibly hokey. But after reading through some of the visitor center tour guides and helpful informational pamphlets, I read that one of the reasons old Robin Hood was hiding out in the woods, was because all those people hundreds of years ago thought that the forest was haunted or some shit like that.
Like so many things nowadays, it got me thinking about the pet shop. Count D used to say that legends and such were rooted in fact. For a moment, I thought: maybe. So I went off the trail, wandering around, not caring whether or not I got lost, and just looked around at everything.
They were all normal trees, normal birds, normal flowers, and normal critters chattering on the ground and in the branches. After maybe 20 minutes of walking, I had no idea how far off the path I'd wandered, but I could no longer hear the low rumble of tourist chatter, so I decided I was alone.
I started to shout. It wasn't planned. The words just spewed out of me. I kept on calling for D. I was shouting: “Where are you?”, “Why are you running from me?”, and “I have to find you!”
Then I saw a squirrel. He was as bushy as any squirrel could be, brown, normal-looking. He was just darting by, all squirrely-like, then he stopped. Like he just noticed me.
I know, I know: squirrels do that all the time. They run by, and freeze like a deer in headlights. But this time, it felt different. It felt like it was really staring me down. It wasn't scared of me. More intrigued. Somehow, he seemed like the most smug squirrel in the world. Then I realized it: He was looking down on me.
This little, tiny, insignificant little furry rat, thought he was better than me. I think he was laughing. It reminded me of the Count. It made me angry.