Pet Shop Of Horrors Fan Fiction ❯ The Journal of One, Leon Orcot ❯ May 4, 1999 ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

May 4, 1999
Alright, I've made a list of aliases:

Christian Arata Jamie Daum Kurt Dildy Neil Dollins Cody Eaker Jamie Frisk (Hah, that sounds like a perv name. Maybe I'll use it in Amsterdam.) Max Haslett Ted Nilson Matthew Prisbey Darryl Strauch

I just picked them out of a phone book, blindly. If it was some weirdo foreign name I would look again, but I'm OK with this list. Although maybe I'll rethink Darryl. I'm not sure I can pull off Darryl. But 10 names should be good for now.
I crossed the Netherlands border early this morning. A just about half an hour ago I arrived here, at Enschede. It's the first sizable town I've seen here in the Netherlands. The people seem friendly enough. Is it just me, or do Dutch people and the like all sound like their voices are trapped in a flute?
Anyway, I'm sitting on a small park bench as I write this entry and there are some children playing Frisbee on the grass. They look happy. One kid missed the disk completely and it clonked him on the head. It reminds me of the time we took Chris to play baseball. He was never a good catch. But “we”, I mean D and I. I distinctly remember a ball clonking me on the head, hard. I know that abominable goat had something to do with it. But I couldn't prove it at the time. Freaky, man-eating flea bag. I wouldn't have brought him along, except for the fact that Chris insisted on having that animal with him all the time. Seriously, what did I ever do to him? I mean, besides try to arrest D. None of D's animals liked me. I can only assume it's because I kept trying to put away their master.
Hah, listen to me, talking about these animals like they have minds of their own, loyalties, and vendettas. But they do, really. I know it. I've seen them. They aren't normal. Or if they are normal, then what does that mean? Are all animals like that?
By 'that' I mean...Gah, I don't know what I mean. I suppose this all goes back to the beginning. The only way to make it make any sense is to start from there.
There were people there. THEY were people. Every last one of them. The animals, I mean. I know it's crazy. I didn't believe it before; not until I saw them with my own eyes, at the very end. Call me a doubting Thomas, if you want, but a good Detective needs solid proof, not hearsay testimony.
People always had stories about people in the pet shop. Men and women, boys and girls, babies; exotic beauties from the far reaches of the earth. No matter how you spliced it, it sounded like a black market people trade to me. Child abuse is probably one of the worst things I've ever witnessed in my time as a detective. You see one case, and you're determined to make sure it doesn't happen to another victim. Illegal immigrants, sold into slavery; babies, sold to black market adoption agencies; more often than not, physical and mental abuse goes hand in hand. It's sickening. I don't know about you, but seeing the dismembered corpse of a girl who's only crime was trying to run away is plenty of motivation for me to zero in on any human trafficker.
And that is what Count D was, in my eyes. Every time a new 'pet' was sold, I'd be there, checking up on him. And every time, he'd be clean. Try as I might, I could never find a shred of evidence to support the human trafficking theory. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Except for that damned goat. Freaky thing.
Yeah. I didn't see anything. Not until the end. After Howell was killed. After I killed D's father. After D saved me.
I never fail to be amazed at that. D saved me. I had just shot his old man, right in front of him. I killed him to save the human race, the ones D and his family hated, and sought to destroy. He should have left me to die. Any other criminal would have. It was his chance. He could leave, and I'd never be around to pester him ever again. I was ready to die.
I guess he didn't like that. Nope, not one bit. The next thing I knew, D was lifting me roughly by the underarm, dragging me to the edge of the burning highrise. I was half-joking when I reminded him that all Chinese people could fly. And then he gave me that all knowing smirk of his, and jumped, pulling me with him. I braced for impact—but it never came. D disappeared, and I was suspended in the clouds. My injuries were healed. I felt no pain. I thought I was dead. I still thought I was dead, when I saw that huge vessel sailing through the sky. I swam/flew/floated to it as fast as I could, as though nothing in this universe was more important than me reaching that ship. I reached it. I climbed over the side, and that's when I saw them. All the people I'd been looking for over the past two years. Men, women, children...everyone...
Then I realized, that I knew them. Pon-chan. Pon-chan! She ran to me with a huge smile on her face. And I realized that I must have been the stupidest man alive right then. I'd seen Pon-chan before. I know I had. I saw her every day at the shop. I saw her the day that evil goat got shot. She'd told me about the woman in the car, who had taken Chris and the Count that day. God. How had I not noticed? The goat was there. Tetsu, in genie pants and goat horns. This is what all those people had seen, wasn't it? I could accept that. Hell, given the alternative, I WANTED to accept that. I could live with it, and revelation that came with it: D was not guilty. I think, that was the first time I'd ever been relieved at his innocence.
I found D at the far end of the deck. He was looking at the Earth below us. I asked where we were going. “Anywhere,” he had said. When he turned to me, I saw something I'd never witnessed from him before: tears. (I'd never seen him cry before, except for those ridiculous crocodile tears he bawled when I threatened his dragon egg on Christmas Eve....there was something strangely satisfying in that. Kinda like picking on the little girl next to you in kindergarten, heh.) I can only guess at why he was crying at the time. A lot had happened. He was smiling though. Always smiling. Always fucking smiling.
What was it, Josie had said? Count D's smile was like a mask. Does that mean I should only pay attention to his eyes? What do those tears say about the man? More importantly, what does the mask conceal?
I never got the chance to ask him. “Humans have not earned the right to board this ship. Not yet.” He said, then he pushed me, with more strength than I ever thought the slight man capable. And I woke up, as though from a bad dream.
I should have died. By all accounts, I should be dead. I sustained massive injuries to my head and chest. I lost a ton of blood. Heh, but I've made it out of near death situations before. And D was always there.
But not anymore. Every other time I woke up in the hospital in the two years I knew him, he was right beside me when I woke up, chastising me, peeling apples and obnoxiously telling me to open wide and say “Ahhh”. But now, D was gone.
I'm going to find him.
I'm going to unmask him. And you can bet your ass, I'm going to be the first human on that ship.
~Leon