Chapter 4: The Construction Site Chorus

Chapter 4: The Construction Site Chorus

The interview with Detective Rossi had changed the rules of the hunt. Leo was no longer just the observer; he was the observed. As he walked the city streets, a cold knot of paranoia sat permanently in his stomach. Every unmarked sedan that slowed at an intersection, every person talking on their phone who glanced his way, was a potential tail. Rossi’s skepticism was a cage, and its bars were closing in.

But the obsession was stronger than the fear. He couldn't stop. He had to find another one, to add another red pin to the map that was becoming a shrine to his own fracturing sanity. His nightly walks had become grim patrols, his data-analyst eyes scanning the urban landscape not for anomalies in numbers, but for a specific, terrifying deviation in the physical world. He was looking for a ghost.

The break in the pattern came not in the quiet shroud of night, but under the harsh, unforgiving glare of a Tuesday afternoon. Leo was on his lunch break, a sad, pre-packaged sandwich in his hand that he had no intention of eating. He was walking aimlessly through the downtown core, the noise of traffic and commerce a dull roar, when a new sound cut through the din: the high-pitched screech of a power saw, the percussive clang of steel on steel, the shouts of men.

It was coming from a massive construction site, a skeletal high-rise clawing its way into the sky. A whole block was cordoned off with plywood walls plastered in permits and blueprints. And there, bolted to the temporary plywood wall right next to the main gate, was the phone.

It was the most audacious one yet. It gleamed in the midday sun, a relic of perfect, silent black against the dusty, splintered wood. Hundreds of people were walking by. Dozens of workers in hard hats and high-visibility vests swarmed the site, their movements a chaotic ballet of labor. The phone sat in the heart of it all, a silent, patient predator in the middle of a stampede. Brazen. It was taunting him.

Leo’s sandwich fell from his numb fingers. He had to get closer, had to warn someone, had to do something. He started to cross the street, his heart a frantic hammer against his ribs.

A city bus hissed to a stop directly in front of him, cutting him off. Behind it, a cascade of brake lights flared to life. Traffic, thick and immovable, became a solid wall of metal and glass. He was trapped on the wrong side of the street, a hundred feet of impassable steel between him and the unfolding disaster.

Through the gaps in the traffic, he saw a man detach himself from a group of workers. He was broad-shouldered, his face ruddy from the sun, a film of sweat and dust coating his skin. He took off his hard hat, wiping his brow with the back of a gloved hand, and walked toward the gate, presumably for his own lunch break. He saw the phone. He stopped. A slow, curious grin spread across his face. He nudged the man next to him, pointed, and laughed, the sound swallowed by the symphony of construction.

"No!" Leo yelled, the word a pathetic, useless puff of air, lost in the roar of a diesel engine and the whine of a grinder. He banged his fist on the side of the bus, the hot metal stinging his palm, but no one noticed. He was just another face in the crowd, a man in a cheap suit having a bad day.

The worker, still grinning, picked up the receiver.

Leo watched, his helplessness a physical sickness rising in his throat. He saw the now-chillingly familiar sequence play out in the cruel daylight. The worker’s grin vanished. His body, which had been relaxed and loose, went rigid, his shoulders locking into place. His eyes, looking at the plywood wall, went wide and blank. He was a machine that had just received its programming.

The call ended. The worker carefully placed the heavy receiver back in its cradle. He didn't look around. He didn't look at Leo. His gaze was fixed, his purpose already set. He turned with a calm, deliberate slowness and walked back toward the heart of the construction site.

He moved past stacks of rebar and pallets of cement bags. His fellow workers, busy with their tasks, paid him no mind. He walked to a tool bench littered with equipment, the umbilical cords of extension cables snaking across the dusty ground. His eyes scanned the collection of tools, not with confusion, but with the quiet focus of a craftsman selecting the proper instrument. He bypassed drills, hammers, and nail guns. His hand settled on a large, orange and black reciprocating saw.

A cold, absolute horror washed over Leo. The traffic was beginning to move, but it was too late. It had always been too late.

The worker picked up the saw. He braced the tool’s foot against the edge of the workbench, ensuring his grip was firm. He clicked the safety off. Then, with an expression of profound, untroubled serenity, he raised the saw, angled the blade against the side of his own neck, and squeezed the trigger.

The high-pitched scream of the saw was a new and terrible note in the construction site’s chorus.

For a split second, nobody reacted. The sight was so impossible, so contrary to the laws of survival, that it didn't register. Then, a shower of red mist erupted from the man’s neck. A worker ten feet away dropped his wrench and screamed, a raw, piercing sound of pure animal terror.

That scream broke the spell. Chaos erupted. Men were shouting, stumbling backward, their faces masks of disbelief and horror. The methodical, rhythmic buzz of the saw continued its work, a sound that would be seared into Leo’s memory for the rest of his life. The man didn't falter. His serene expression never wavered, even as his life sprayed out of him in a gruesome arc.

The saw cut through flesh and bone with industrial efficiency. With a final, wet severing sound, the man’s head lolled impossibly to the side, connected only by a ragged flap of skin. The saw fell from his lifeless hands, clattering onto the concrete. His body stood for a moment, a headless statue in a high-visibility vest, before collapsing in a heap.

The street descended into bedlam. Car horns blared. People on the sidewalk were screaming, pointing, turning away to vomit in the gutter. The spell of public anonymity was shattered, replaced by a collective, shrieking panic.

Leo didn't even realize he had crossed the street until he found himself standing at the edge of the police tape, which seemed to have materialized out of thin air. He was just another stunned bystander, his face pale, his mind a hollow chamber of shock. He had seen it all, a perfect, unobstructed view of the entire atrocity, and he had been able to do nothing but watch.

Later, as the first wave of detectives began to arrive, he saw her. Detective Rossi stepped out of an unmarked car, her face a grim, stony mask. She took in the scene—the horrified workers, the covered body, the controlled chaos. Her sharp eyes scanned the crowd, and for a terrifying second, they seemed to pass right over Leo, seeing him but not registering him.

Her partner pointed toward the plywood wall, and Rossi’s gaze followed. She saw the payphone, still hanging pristine and untouched amidst the mayhem it had caused. Her professional composure cracked for just an instant. A flicker of something—disbelief, confusion, maybe even a sliver of fear—crossed her features.

She looked away from the phone, her gaze sweeping the crowd again, this time with more purpose. She was looking for something. Or someone.

Leo knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that she was thinking of the frantic, wild-eyed man who had sat in her office and babbled about killer payphones. His impossible story wasn't impossible anymore. It was lying under a blue tarp a hundred feet away, a headline waiting to be printed. And Leo Vance, the only person who knew the truth, had just become the most interesting man in her entire city. He turned and vanished into the screaming, panicked crowd, a ghost fleeing a nightmare of his own discovery.