Teddy Dumitru Short Story

It started one dark stormy night in Detroit, Michigan. Bang! I woke up immediately after hearing the strange, loud ringing noise. I rushed down the stairs of my apartment only to find that there wasn’t anything there. I sighed. I was so tired because I worked so hard the night before at my job that I could barely stand, so I decided to go back to sleep and look into it the next day. On the way back upstairs my next door neighbor, Colten, stopped me before I went into his apartment.

“What’s all the commotion about?” asked Colten.

“I don’t know. I heard something that sounded like a gunshot, when I went downstairs to check it out… there was nothing there.” I explained.

“Well, I’m sure that the police will find out what happens in the morning,” Colten assured me.

“Yeah, it’s a shame that they never get too involved with things like this,” I said.

We both decided to go to sleep because it was 3:30, we would both only get a few more hours to sleep before our jobs started. We both worked together at a school, we were both janitors. He was 24 and I was 23. As I started falling asleep the bang I heard kept ringing in my head. The next day we both met at work.

“Hey, last night I slept like a horse,” said Colten.

“Yeah, me too. That ‘gunshot’ woke me up so rudely.” I stated.

“I really hope that the police find out what happened, that was really loud and it didn’t sound like anything that I’ve ever heard,” Colten said.

That day as we worked we kept talking to each other in the hallways when we saw each other. We were really starting to bond because of that loud noise. When work finished we started walking to the apartment complex together. When we got there, there were a lot police cars turned off and 2 million feet of crime scene tape. We were allowed to enter because we lived there, but they told us to be careful. When we saw the policemen standing by a room. I couldn’t read the numbers from where I was, but as we moved close I figured out it was 304. I knew the man who lived at the room 304. He hated being cold. I talked to a police officer and asked what was happening.

“What’s happening?” Colten and I asked.

“Someone’s been killed,” said the police officer.

“How?” I asked. My mouth must have been gaping at least 1000 ft because the officer was looking at us in a funny way.

“We believe that he committed suicide,” said the police officer.

“I knew the man that lived in that apartment room and he didn’t seem like a man who would commit suicide,” I said. As I said that I got a glimpse of what the room looked like on the inside. There was one isolated corner in the room that was filled with dark red blood. The blood was paint, it was splattered everywhere, and on the wall was a gruesome Pollock piece. I kept looking in the room and I saw that the window was open, but he never keeps his window open. There was a strange feeling in my gut: there was something off here.

“He couldn’t have committed suicide, his window is open. He never has his window open,” I said.

“Yeah, the man who lived here, his name was Ian, he hated the window being open. He couldn’t stand it,” said Colten.

“Maybe something changed in his head, maybe that’s why he committed suicide. Something changed. Anyway all the evidence points to it being a suicide. There are many knife stabs and a bullet wound. The bullet must have been stuck inside because it didn’t come out the other side and there is no bullet,” said the police officer.

“Maybe you’re right.” I said as Colten and I were leaving.

Colten and I walked to our room we talked the whole time about how and why somebody like him would commit suicide. As we talked I became very sleepy. It was only 5 PM that day, it was a Friday. The moment I went into my apartment, I went directly to my bed and fell asleep. When I woke up it was 7 PM and it was the same day. I realized that I forgot to get rice that day and I ran out of rice that morning. I went to go get rice and I when I went outside I started walking to the supermarket. It was pretty dark out so when I was walking I notice something very shiny.

“Oh, a penny, it must be my lucky day,” I thought. As I got closer to pick it up I saw that it wasn’t a penny. When I picked it up I realized that it was a bullet shell.

Something inside me thought, “This must be why there wasn’t a bullet fragment at the crime scene. The killer must have taken it and ran.”

This explained everything. I had to go buy rice, but after I bought the rice I went straight to the police department. I realized I didn’t know who I should talk to about this. I went to the desk and asked who was in charge of the case at Livernois Avenue. He said that a police officer named Officer Polski and he pointed me to his office. I went into his office.

“Hello, Officer Polski,” I said greeting him. He had a great big, bushy, ginger mustache. His face was round like a bowling ball. He looked to be about 5’ 11’ and weighed around 195 lbs. He was wearing the most generic police officer outfit.

“Why hello, you must be the young man that talked to me at the crime scene, what was your name?,” he responded.

“My name is Sasuke. I found a bullet shell that might help you in your case.” I stated.

“That’s exactly what we need. Can you take me to the place where you found the evidence?” said Officer Polski.

I gave him the bullet fragment that I put in a plastic bag. I left the police department and Officer Polski was on hot on my heels. We walked a kilometer until we started walking into a dark alley. We were almost there, but as we were walking into the alley I noticed that Officer Polski had a frightened look on him. He also had his hand near his hip, ready to fire incase something went wrong. We were around half way through the alley, when something unthinkable happened.

Sudden I heard Officer Polski say, “You know too much, see you in h…”

Everything went black, there was a sharp pain, and a loud bang!