Light Ray Blues, part 3

A shiny dark blue sedan came down the street and stopped beside me. Barry Vader and the driver exchanged glances. Barry held open the backdoor and I got in. This is a nice car. Leather. Wood grain. Budgets must be flush at the police department these days. This was a far cry from the usual grubby Crown Victorias.

“Where are we going?” asked the driver.

“I live a few blocks from the Darlington stop. We can just drive north along Sheppard until we get there, and I can show you the turns from there.”

I’m always forgetting my manners, “My name is Ed. Ed Bryce.”

“Constable McMillan,” came the reply.

That was the end of our conversation.

We drove for a few blocks until the headlights revealed a big lump in our lane. We slowed down and the lump took on human form. It looked like a bicyclist had got his rear wheel caught in the streetcar track and had fallen. He wasn’t moving. 

McMillan stopped the car a few feet from the downed rider, got out, walked over and leaned in to see what was wrong. Then a miracle struck the rider. In an instant he reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun and fired it point blank into the constable’s chest. 

McMillan screamed. The gun was silent. No gunshot noise. No smoke. There was just an intense red beam of light that seared straight through McMillan and petered off into a dim white light before completely disappearing a few metres down range. McMillan crumpled over onto the bike’s back wheel. The rider didn’t waver and held the gun firm as the beam sliced through McMillan’s torso as he fell. The rider didn’t kill the beam until the constable had fully replaced him as the lifeless lump on the road. The rider then got up and ran down the street.

After I had finished seeing the cosmos spin wildly before my eyes, had broken into a cold sweat, had barfed up my dinner of vending machine sandwich and coffee, and had felt my legs recongeal after turning to rubber I got out and staggered over to McMillan. He had a hole in his chest the size of a baseball with a thinner diagonally radiating slit that tracked the arc of his fall. My stomach started to heave again but there was nothing in it now. I was shaking. I tried to steady.

The beam had seared and sealed his wounds like burnt barbecue. I knelt by him. I tried to calm down and figure out what to do. There was no traffic. No people. No cars. No dogs. Nothing.  It was just as dead as him. I’d have thought someone would have noticed the commotion. I needed a phone. I got up to see if there was one in the car.

From behind me I heard, “Leave him. We need to go.” It was that voice again. I need to pay more attention to my surroundings.

Part 4 is here.