hells_half_acre | April Ficlet: The Transcript (SPN)

Still spent too long on today's prompt. It'd help if I would stop clicking away to chat with my sister on FB, I guess... but she just scored a free van. It's exciting news. My ultimate goal is only to spent a half-hour to an hour on these. I used to be a much more efficient writer (hello demented'verse fans!) and I'm trying to get that groove back.

Today's prompt was: Transcript

The Transcript
(SPN, Outsider POV, 557 words)

Lieutenant Harding looked down at the printed page on his desk, skimming its contents.

“Jones!” he called out through his open door. “Get in here!”

“Sir?” the detective said, leaning against the door jamb.

“What the hell am I looking at?”

“The transcript you asked for,” Jones replied slowly.

“I know that, wise-ass. I meant what the hell... IS this.”

“I told you it’s better to listen to the audio.”

“Well wears that then?”

Jones rolled his eyes and went back to his desk. He returned a moment later with the recording, closed the door, and made himself comfortable while Harding set up the playback.

“Why did you break into the crime scene?”

“I’m a friend of the family. I just wanted to check on the place.”

“Bullshit. Where were you the night of November 12^th?”

A pause.

“...Pittsburgh? Yeah, think it was Pittsburgh.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“Wouldn’t do me any favours if they could, officer,”

“And why is that?”

Silence. No, not silence – a strange flutter of sound, like a glitch in the recording.

“That’s when the video surveillance cut out,” Jones sighed.

“Answer the question, Mr. Cooper.”

“Nah, I think, in about two seconds, you won't care anymore,”

Harding didn’t need a video recording to know that the perp was smiling widely, he could hear it in his voice.

Thunk.

Harding raised his eyebrows, pausing the tape. Jones looked like thunder.

“Was that...?”

“I swear something touched my head just before...”

“You passed out,” Harding finished.

“There was someone else in the room, Lieutenant, I swear to God,” Jones replied angrily. “Keep playing it.”

“Took you long enough,”

“You’re welcome.”

And damn, but there really was someone else in the room – a voice deep and quiet.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

“That’s it.” Jones reached forward and stopped the playback. “Unless you want to listen to five minutes of silence before I wake up to an empty room.”

“And no one saw them leave?” Harding asked.

“Phil was standing right outside the door it never even opened,” Jones replied.

“What else do we know about this...Mr. Cooper, any priors?”

“We know that’s not his real name,”

“How do we know that?”

“Call it a hunch, but he didn’t really strike me as an Alice Cooper. If anything, he looked like...”

“Like what, Detective?”

“Dean Winchester, Sir. He FBI’s most wanted a few years back.”

“Dean Winchester is dead. The bureau confirmed it.”

“Yeah, and we were also alone in that room right until the moment I lost consciousness.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting...” Jones sighed. “I’m suggesting that I’m freaked the fuck out, Sir. You can do whatever you like with my report, but I’m off this case. This is...above my pay grade.”

Harding nodded. After Jones left, Harding deleted the audio recording and threw the transcript in the trash. If he claimed one of his men had interviewed a ghost, fainted, and had the ghost disappear into thin air... he’d be the laughing stock. As it was, they’d already found their murderer – an apparent suicide with a printed note. Harding chose to ignore the strange pentagram graffiti that had covered a good portion of the building they’d found the body in, just as he chose to ignore the fact that the glitch in the audio recording had sounded an awful lot like wings.