DC: I am Bruce Wayne

Chapter 19: The Night of the Hunt - Aftermath

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"A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well — or ill?"

— John Steinbeck, (East of Eden)

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<(James Gordon pov)>

"Who else do you think did this?" Harvey shouted at me while holding his cross tight in his palms.

"Whoever it was, It wasn't a mummy Harvey. This is not a horror film. Mummies do not exist in real life just like aliens or ghosts or demons or any other made-up stuff you see in movies. We cannot just conclude the case by saying that the crime was done by mummies." I felt a headache coming my way.

It seemed like the world itself didn't want me to rest. Just when I was thinking of going on a vacation with my daughter, I'll have to deal with a high-profile case once again. After the entire thing with the Waynes, crime has almost tripled in Gotham. It was like everybody is trying to screw everybody.

"Then what do you call this? Those four bodies in there were withered like mummies. I am telling you either an Egyptian mummy has gotten loose from the museum or the family threw some curse at the gang members or something before they died." Harvey said as he continued to rub his cross in frustration.

"Sir, we found another body at the back. It looked like the man was staying close to his car as a quick getaway plan. His cause of death seems to be a goopy brain." A young cop approached the two senior detectives and reported with a straight face.

"Excuse me?" I said looking at the rookie with one of my brows raised.

If this was a joke, I wasn't appreciating it.

"The man doesn't have a brain anymore. Most of his brain seems to have liquefied and leaked through his... orifices. We will know more once we send the body for post-mortem." The younger cop said with a slightly disgusted face.

"Seems I was right. This is a curse after all. I knew I should have listened to my mother and taken that firefighter job. A least I wouldn't have to fight god-damn mummies." Harvey said looking like he wanted to shoot himself.

"Okay, first this was not done by a mummy. And, second, there is no curse just a very smart person who either wanted to send a message or is just trying to hide how he committed the murders." I said looking at Harvey.

This was one of the weirdest murders I have ever seen in my life. It isn't that I haven't seen dehydrated bodies before but normal bodies take weeks to dehydrate like that and also they are not nearly as intact as these are.

The Bertinelli family is a very famous crime family in the Gotham Underworld. Those four gang members are most probably from a rival gang who came here to kill the Bertinellis and steal whatever wealth they could get their hands on. It's a classic tale of the cruel and competitive underworld. But what changed this simple case was how every gang member included in the crime was killed by weird unexplainable methods.

"What about the survivor? Did she say something?" I asked the younger cop with some hope.

"No, she hadn't said anything. She is still in shock. We tried to ask her some questions without trying to further worsen her condition but she isn't even paying attention to us. She just ignores us and stares at the void with tears in her eyes." The young cop said as he signaled towards an ambulance parked a little further from where we were standing.

"I see. I didn't expect her to know anything about it anyways. She was hiding under a table when we came. I doubt if she wasn't hiding from the very beginning, those monsters would have even let her live." I said as my fists tightened on their own as I remembered the two little young bodies lying in a pool of blood.