Smiling in the Face of Death

The pungent smell of death hit Max in the face like a punch. This was definitely the place. Flipping on his flashlight he headed down the tunnel towards what he knew was going to be another body. About a hundred yards down, the tunnel widened into a large room. The standard sodium lamps hung at regular intervals on the walls casting everything is a dim hazy yellow light.

This one was just like the last. Dead body, tied up, but with no visible physical injuries. And that stupid, glassy eyed grin. That’s how they found them all, dead as a doornail, sitting there in euphoric repose, wide-eyed and smiling. That grin scared the crap out him the first time he saw it, now it just made him want to be sick. Max called back up the tunnel, “Get the ME down here, we got another one.”
Getting him out of here was going to be difficult. The sheer size of this guy was impressive. He looked like one of those oil slicked body builders you always see out at the beach. The kind with the perfect musculature and testosterone charge personality that landed him a different girl every night.

Max climbed the ladder up and out of the maintenance tunnel and back out onto the busy street. The sweltering August night brought little relief from the stench and darkness of the tunnel. It had been six months since they found the first one, and now it was becoming an epidemic, body after body, sometimes more than one a day. Max caught his reflection in a storefront window.
Man, you look like hell, what is the matter with you?Max thought to himself.

“Hey, Max, we gotta go. Chief just called, they’ve found another body,” it was Fen, his partner and long-time friend.”
“Two minutes, I’ll be right there.”
“Hurry, we gotta be airbone asap, they stopped traffic so the chopper could land.”

Max watched as Fen crossed the street to the waiting helicopter. He turned back to his reflection. When had he started to look so old? How much more of this could he take? How many more would there be? Without a single lead, the city was in an uproar and he knew somebody’s head was going to roll if they didn’t find something soon.
He headed to the chopper and climbed into his usual seat.
“Good morning detective,” smiled the chopper pilot.
Max hated this guy, he had to be doing drugs, no one was that happy all the time.
He snapped sarcastically back to the pilot “And you’re chipper as always.”
“Come on detective, life is too short…”
Max cut him off, “Listen, I haven’t slept in two days and I really need a cup of coffee, so can you take your the-world-is-a-beautiful-place speech and pitch it to someone else, I am really not in the mood.”
The pilot nodded and turned back around. With the single press of a button the idling helicopter engine revved into life and in a few seconds they were flying across the city. The sun broke over the horizon with a brightness and radiance that had Max cursing himself for leaving his sunglasses in the car. The tantalizing smell of coffee filled the small cabin.
He turned and watched as Fen finished screwing the top back on a thermos.
“Don’t worry man, we’re gonna find something,” he said handing Max a cup of coffee.
“Yeah? I hope you’re right.”