'The Monsters Files: Tale of the Synesthete' Sneak Peek

A sneak peek from my April 2019 Camp NaNoWriMo, as well as the next book set in the 'Monsters 'universe.

     Zelin Michaels stepped outside of the apartment complex into the night and looked up and down along the street.  He removed his headphones from around his neck and placed them snugly over his ears.  He started the music.  He nodded his head in rhythm, looked both ways, and then began skating down the sidewalk.

     Zelin gradually sped up.  He was not worried about running into anyone; despite wearing headphones, all of Zelin’s five senses were very in tune with what was going on around him.  As a matter of fact, the headphones were actually to keep too much sound from getting in.  Zelin was a very special breed of monster where all five of his senses are heightened; he was what some would call a synesthete.

     He quickly glanced up at the street signs as he zoomed through the intersections, a few people giving him astounded looks as he whizzed past them.  He was not worried about them; he knew exactly where he was going.  He took a sharp left down an alleyway and sniffed the air.  He recognized the scent of rotting garbage and cheap yet audacious colognes; he knew he was at right place.

     He slowed down to a steady pace and glided up to the back door of a small gallery.  He gave the alley a quick cursory sweep with his eyes and a quick sniff before dropping his headphones back down around his neck.  He carefully removed his red and black marbled gloves and gripped them in his teeth as he pulled a pair of bobby pins from one of his jacket’s many pockets.

     He knelt down and put his ear down near the lock, inserting the bobby pins into the keyhole.  He listened for the tumblers to shift, also using his heightened sense of touch to feel the right way to move the pins.  The lock clicked open within a matter of seconds; this was not his first rodeo.  He had picked so many locks in his life that at this point, he had lost count.  Sure, he probably could have done something better with his gift, but he had turned to a life of petty crime.  A life that meant he was never worried about not having enough money to fall back on.  His heightened senses made breaking into buildings, safes, lockers, practically anything a breeze.  And he was always very careful to cover his tracks.  He even leased his apartment under a false name.  And he never stayed anywhere too long.

     Zelin quickly pulled his gloves back on and eased the door open, unstrapping his skates from the bottoms of his shoes.  He strapped them together and draped them over his shoulder.  He crept into the gallery, closing the door carefully and quietly behind him.

     Not only did his eyes afford him the gift of better than perfect vision, but to a certain extent he was able to see in the dark.  He scanned the room and quickly spotted the section of the back wall where the safe must be.  He tiptoed across the room, and, sure enough, there was the safe set into the wall.

     “Combination lock,” he thought to himself with amusement.  “Easy.”  He tilted his head and put his ear close to the lock, listening carefully as he twisted the dial.  He heard the first click and began to turn the dial in the opposite direction.  The second click.  Just one more turn.  “Easy easy easy,” he thought joyously, slowly twisting the dial so as to not turn it too far and have to start all over again.  He knew that he had to be close when he heard the scuff of a shoe behind him.

He froze.  Someone - or someones - was behind him.  He had been so focused on the safe that he had not been paying attention to anything else.  He tried to inconspicuously sniff the air but all he picked up was the lingering odor of the owner’s awful cologne.

“Put your hands where I can see them,” a woman’s voice said.  Zelin reluctantly lifted his hands up above his head.  “Now, turn around.  Slowly.”

Zelin turned around and spotted a female police officer flanked by a male officer and the establishment’s security guard.  He quickly took them in, his eyes darting between the three and then dropping to the floor.

“Silent alarm?” he asked, glancing up at the female officer and internally kicking himself for getting overconfident.

Author's Note

Sneak peek from my April 2019 Camp NaNoWriMo project.