The God Who Stood Alone

“Jesus fucking Christ.” the officer whispered.
Both of his thumbs are tucked into the loops of his beige pants. They were creased down each side, perfectly ironed. He was a tall man, and made to look larger than his frame suggested by the thick vest worn underneath his beige and white uniform. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed his sun-darkened face, and a pair of sandy brown eyes stared out from the shadow beneath the lip. His partner was dressed identically. The other man's had was lying in the leaves a few feet away, forgotten.
A cool breeze blew through the forest, the chill which crept along their necks and arms a testament to the oncoming winter. The sky above them was open and blue, the sun just having crested noon. Somewhere nearby, a bird called. The raucous sound broke the otherwise silent afternoon, seeming to echo the man's voice. His words were empty – stunned. He stood like the ghost of a man, staring blankly in front of him. His partner was worse; his skin paled, his eyes tight around the edges. His disheveled black hair was a mop on top of his head, normally slicked backward, but today twisted into a swath by his fingers.
“Twenty three years.” the other man answered, his voice dry and hollow. “Twenty three years I've been a member of this force, and I've never... There hasn't been ... I never ... this ...” he trailed off, voice lost in the silence of the sunlit afternoon forest.
They stood at the foot of a small rise, which led up to the edge of the road. Around them, the tree trunks stretched seemingly endlessly. Enormous sentinels of brown and gold, touched occasionally by patches of yellow-green. Oaks and maples, towering into the clear blue sky. The leaves whispered to one another the secrets of the forest, of their horror. They spoke in brushing passes of the scene below.
The first officer spun on one heel and snapped out his cellphone. He could feel a strange burning in his eyes as he mashed his thumb against the keypad of his cellphone and raised it to his ear. To his surprise, he was shaking slightly – in shock, in anger; he didn't know. The cellphone rang twice, and then a voice spoke electronically through the earpiece.
Redirecting to regional manager, please hold.
The phone rang twice more, and then picked up on the other end. The voice started as a static crackle, and then became clearer.
“Regional Manager Morrison. What's the issue?”
“This is Collin Parks.” the officer spoke into the phone, trying to control the rattle in his voice. “Wildlife Conservation officer. Sir ... there's a problem. We got a call for animal control this morning on Route 2. Senior Officer Madison and I came to check the line. Sir ... there's been a death.”
“Do not disturb the scene, officer!” the voice on the other end of the phone barked. “My team will join you soon. Stay where you are, and keep clear of any evidence. We're going to need clearer directions...”
Ten minutes later, the forest was filled by the sound of sirens screaming. Four cars were parked in a rough line at the side of the road; a brown wildlife boxcar, two cop cruisers, and a black SUV. Red and blue lights flashed in a disjointed symphony through the trees. Five men stood at the scene, including the two original officers, and a woman. The most dominating man, the one obviously in control, was an enormous figure with a full head of black hair and a thick, rounded beard. He had hard eyes, narrowed in his wind-darkened face until they were no more than lines. Even without the grey and blue uniform of law enforcement, you could tell he was a fighter. A large scar, faded to white against his dark skin, curved across his left cheek. He had a slight stomach, pushing against the thick black belt encircling his waist, but arms large enough to match. He stood away from the scene, watching his team with careful, intelligent eyes.
The smell of vomit hung in the air, staining the otherwise clear air of the forest. Vomit, and blood. The man crossed his enormous arms below his chest, blowing out a breath and leaning back against the bowed trunk of a mighty oak tree.
“Poor girl.” the woman said.
Her voice, however, said something completely different. Bland and straightforward, she could have been speaking about that mornings magazine headline. She probably knew that she was seeing the one for the next morning, anyway. Her eyes were a slate grey, and hard beneath her twisted braid of blonde hair. She had a narrow face, with a sharp nose and ears, and high cheekbones. She was the closest to the scene, bending down on one knee to inspect something against the ground, head tilted at a slight angle. She spoke again, her voice unchanged.
“My best guess is animal attack.”
“No person could do this.” the black-haired conservation officer agreed from a few feet away, watching the investigation with wide-eyed intensity. That one was close to losing it, the manager thought.
“Oh trust me, Officer Madison,” the woman said coldly, standing and brushing her hands together, “a person could do this. I say animal attack only because of the tooth marks. The incisors are too long to be human.”
Tooth marks.
Finally, the man found it in himself to look at the victim. Her head was turned to one side, staring at the road – mouth open, eyes wide. As if she had been screaming for help, but no one head heard. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. Around her, the forest floor was soaked darkly by blood. One of her arms was stretched out, reaching toward the road, fingers splayed. The arm hid some of the damage, but not all. It was amazing, how even in death the girl could looked both serene and pained. It was horrific.
“Why would an animal do this?” the man asks, his deep baritone breaking the silence easily – like waves against a distant shore.
“Could be a whole manner of reasons.” the woman answered, giving a shall shrug. “Could have been rabid, could be mating season, could have been hunger ... could have just been 'wrong place, wrong time' I'm afraid.”
“Any idea what animal it is?” the man asked.
“Could be.” the woman corrected quickly. “Not is. I'm in no way ruling this out as a murder. My first suspicion would be wolf, obviously. Mating season's just ending, and the nature of the attack suggests a single aggressor – common of rabid males. The shape of the incisions, reaching from the jugular to just under the nape of the ear, the spacing, also suggests the bite of a long-muzzled face.”
“But you're still not ruling out a murder?” the man asks, bending his arms behind his back and wrapping his left hand around the opposite wrist. He speaks to the woman, but his eyes are busy studying the scene of the attack.
“No.” the woman shook her head slightly. The action caused the woman's golden hair to catch in the sunlight. One of the men nearby, dressed in a police uniform, bent down to inspect the lower half of the corpse. “There's too much that doesn't add up.”
“Such as?” the man pressed.
“Where is the chase?” the woman asked, bending her knees and dropping to the balls of her feet as she studied the ground more closely. When she spoke however, she turned her face upward toward the blunt-featured man. “Wolves don't just kill randomly, and they don't kill stealthily. It's not in their instincts. But there's nothing in the nearby area to suggest a chase, or even a struggle – even though the girl was clearly attempting to flee. There's no evidence of resistance, and there's no tracks. Let's say this is a wolf attack, for the sake of simplification. If there's no struggle here, then the animal carried this body to this location specifically – why? How? A two to three hundred pound animal, carrying a hundred pound girl. That kind of things leaves prints to follow, manager. It's not like they've been washed away. We've had clear weather the last four days, and this is less than two days old. Besides, the only reason an animal would bother wasting the energy to carry prey is if it felt threatened where it was, or if it was going to consume that prey at a later time. It makes no sense for a wolf to go through the effort of moving the body here. It goes against everything I know about their hunting patterns, and there's one thing I've learned about things I don't understand, manager – they're usually not true. This leaves two options.”
“Either it was a person, or ...” the man trailed off, lowering his eyebrows in a questioning frown.
“Either the killer left the body here because it's going to come back and eat it later, which I doubt.”
“...Or?”
“Or the killer meant for us to find this body.” The woman's eyes flashed darkly, their slate grey surfaces intense and thoughtful. “My best guess, manager? This is a warning. This ... thing ... is marking its territory.”

Roman Amadeus Devores smirked. He held a pencil clasped lightly between finger and thumb, the eraser drumming against the cover of his notebook. A novel lay open on the desk in front of him; A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. It was pushed to one corner of the desk. Left there, a gesture of thoughtless apathy. The blue plastic chair creaking under him slightly as he shifted against it sounded through the otherwise quiet room. The sound of two dozen students breathing, the warmth of breaths and bodies filling the small room. A clock ticked above the door, the metallic sound echoing around the desks. The teacher sat at the front of the room. Every minute or so, her heavy-lidded eyes would flicker up from her laptop and do a scan of the room.
Across the room, a girl caught his eyes. He could see the rosiness of her cheeks as she saw him staring, and then the tiny smile that lifted the corners of her satin lips. Her brown hair twisted down around her shoulders, hiding one eye secretively behind the auburn curls. She wore a brown leather jacket, falling halfway down her stomach, a white shirt, and a pair of jeans. His eyes watched the light that caught her dangling gold earring, reflecting onto her cheek. His gaze caught for just a little too long, and it became a stare. He did not move his eyes after she caught them, continuing to watch her openly and without abashment. She looked up again, pressing her bottom lip upward into her teeth. He could see her fingers tighten slightly around her pencil, the tip which had previously been inching across her paper in tiny letters hanging where it was – forgotten. He saw her neck tighten as she swallowed, and the way her eyelids fell quickly to kiss her cheeks as she blinked.
Benjamin watched all of this from the back of the room, tucked away in his corner. His own pencil worked its way between the lines of his notebook, his eyes darting from notepaper to textbook as he dutifully copied answers back and forth. He answered one question, going back to check in the textbook for the name of the revolutionary leader of France, and then scribbling it down on the paper. Finally, he relaxed. Settling back more comfortably in his seat, he stretched his legs out in front of him, toes just barely brushing the chair legs of the student in front of him. His eyes returned to Amadeus, and his silent conversation with the girl across the room. He watched as the other boy trailed his first two fingers across the bottom of the desk, the girl's attention riveted to them, and then gently brushed the tips with his thumb.
Bathroom.
He saw the boy mouth the word. The young woman sitting at her her desk hesitated for a moment, stuck in a cycle of indecisive thoughts. Her green eyes moved from Amadeus face to where the teacher sat, face down into her laptop, fingers tapping across the keyboard. When her eyes returned to Amadeus, she was smiling. Her pointed chin dipped in a nod. Benjamin watched, impressed, as the girl raised her hand and coughed lightly. Whens she spoke, her words seemed to be melting in her mouth. Her voice was so sweet, so light, that Benjamin was taken aback by it.
"Mrs Kalliger?"
The teacher raised her face from her work, and the girl pointed toward the door with one finger. The teacher nodded away the request, and silently went back to her working. Another student shifted in his desk, coughing to clear his throat. Filled by nothing but the sound of scratching pencil lead and breathing, the classroom seemed almost eerily silent. When the girl stood, pushing her metal chair legs back across the linoleum floor, the screeching sound was filled with relief. Benjamin let out a pent up breath he hadn't realized her was holding.
Reaching down to gather her purse, the girl cast a quick glance at Amadeus. He had gone back to doing his work, and Benjamin watched confusing flash through the girls eyes. For a brief moment, Benjamin thought he might have been playing with her. Then, without looking, Amadeus raised two fingers in a sign of peace.
Two minutes.
The girl picked herself up, striding confidently between the rows of desks, and disappeared through the classroom door. It whispered shut behind her with a breath of air. One student near the door mumbled in irritation, pinning a sheet of paper to her desk with one hand as it attempted to escape. Benjamin picked up his textbook and dropped it between himself and the desk, so that the open pages lay propped up by the wooden tabletop. That way, he could watch while pretending to read. For a minute, nothing happened. The clock ticked by, passing a minute, and then another thirty seconds, and then fifteen. Once again, Benjamin was left thinking that Amadeus would never do anything. That he would leave the beautiful girl hanging on nothing. That he was going to ... and then something happened. Amadeus raised his face from his notes, darting a glance at the teacher to make sure she was caught up in her computer screen. She was. Twisting his pencil in his hand, Amadeus flipped his other hand on the desk so that his palm was toward the ceiling. Benjamin's eyes widened slightly, realizing what the other boy intended a moment before he did it.
Pressing the tip of the pencil to his skin, Amadeus shoved his flat hand upward. Benjamin watched, awed, as the boy stabbed himself. He flinched in pain slightly, his jawbones pushing out through the skin of his cheeks as he clenched his teeth. Jerking the hand holding the pencil away, Amadeus dropped it onto the desk. The sound of the pencil clattering against wood drew the teacher's attention, and she glanced up disinterestedly. As soon as she saw Amadeus, one hand wrapped around the wrist of the other, clenched fist dripping blood, her face went pale.
“Mister Devores!” the woman cried, half-standing from her wooden desk. “What happened?”
Two minutes.
“I'm afraid I must go to the infirmary.” Amadeus said quietly, without glancing at his hand. A single drop of ruby blood rolled from his palm down his wrist, inching slowly closer to the rolled-up sleeve of his white dress shirt. “I'm afraid I've cut myself.”
Benjamin watched with wide-eyed amazement as the other boy stood, his tall, lithe body unfolding from the confines of the desk. The rest of the class had turned to watch; a few gasps and murmurs went up at the sight of Amadeus bleeding. His face was stoic, emotionless.
“Go!” the teacher instructed, waving her hand toward the door. “Get that cleaned up and come back so I can sign you out for the end of class.”
Amadeus nodded, bowing slightly before making his way to the classroom door and disappearing through it; one hand still clasped tightly around the other. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, the whispers started. They were everywhere at once, like a buzzing that filled the classroom.
“Alright, now, everyone.” the teacher waved her hands slightly as she seated herself in her swiveling black office chair. “Back to your work.”
Looking around the classroom, Benjamin saw a strange thing happen. It was then that he realized what Amadeus power was; what made the boy so awfully, unbelievably attractive. He knew how to control people. Not through force, and without them even knowing it was happening – he thrived from it, drank of it, allowed people to sink into him and make him more than he was. With this simple gesture, he had become more than himself. He had become something to whisper about. Amadeus knew how to turn himself into a concept, into an idea.
He was an impossible deep convolution of thoughts, of pretenses: he cared, and yet he did not care at all. He craved this – the stories, the godliness that came from whispers and barely heard murmurs. His saving grace lay only in himself, but his happiness lay in other people.
And Amadeus was not the kind of person who left his happiness up to anyone but himself.