Valentina's Lost Days

VALENTINA’S LOST DAYS

A CASE OF THE

EX INSPECTOR CHIEF POLICE OFFICER

LAZARUS DEL RÍO

A.P. Hernández

About the Author

Antonio Pérez Hernández (Murcia, 1989) is a teacher of Primary Education, Pedagogue, Master Degree in Education's Research and Innovation and Doctor, mention Cum Laude, for his Doctoral Thesis Evaluation of the Competence in linguistic communication through tales in Primary Education.

He has been awarded an Accésit in the Prize of Literary Creation Nemira, and with Finalist results in the International Contest of Fantastic and Terror Novel, Dagón. He has published a total of seven books and has been translated into English, Dutch and Italian.

Nowadays, he combines his teaching with writing.

OUT THERE

-1-

Lazarus del Río watches television. Or at least try. After a long time of doing absolutely nothing except subsisting on canned food and cheap beer, he thinks that turning on the TV in his house can be a good (and simple) way of showing interest in the world in which he still lives.

The screen lights up, and Lazarus closes his eyes, dazzled by the sudden flash of light. Since that happened, Lazarus has never gone out again. He has declared war on the outside world and is now firmly convinced he will not set foot outside his 200-square-meter duplex. There you have everything you need and, thanks to the Internet, you can pay the utility bills and purchase from home.

Lazarus sits on the sofa in the living room and, still with slanted eyes, watches the newscaster on his LG 45-inch HD Ready. She is pretty. Woo! yes, it is! Brunette, as Lazarus likes, with brown eyes and white skin. He sits down on the couch and listens.

She speaks of an organized band specializing in the theft of high-range vehicles and alerts the neighbors of a Madrid neighborhood to extreme precautions.

Lazarus breathes, relieved, although he knows he is not yet safe.

He was waiting for the next news.

- Come on, Dark-eyed, behave well with Lazarus.

The next news is the aggression produced between two young people at the exit of a discotheque. The presenter explains that the events occurred at three in the morning when the youngsters, aged 19 and 22 left the premises in a state of obvious drunkenness. When leaving, they argued and engaged in a violent fight. Apparently, one of the boys had a knife and stabbed the other, who is hospitalized in critical condition.

- The world is shit, -says Lazarus.

And, may God forgive him, he cannot be happier for it.

He waits for the next news, becoming even calmer.

The presenter talks about a minor fire in a building. Fortunately, the incident has not caused any deaths, only two minor injuries ...

Lazarus turns off the television.

The anxiety accumulated in his chest is diluted, little by little. The rhythm of his heart diminishes and is keep in step with his breathing.

At last! At last Lazarus has stopped being news ... Of course, how long has been that? 15 years? 16 years?

He cannot answer those questions. Time ceased to make sense from the moment he entered prison. And, if it were not enough, after serving his sentence, he has returned imprisoned again, although this time in his own house. When entering Lazarus lowered the blinds, and locked the main door.

- As if someone were coming to visit me, -he thinks. - "As if anyone cared about at all!

He left jail a few weeks ago (maybe months) and many things have no longer cared.

For Lazarus, his life also no longer makes sense.

What future awaits him, submerged continually in that darkness, unable even to go out to the garden of his house? Lazarus knows that, despite the time that has passed, his incidents have not been forgotten. Clear evidence is the graffiti that is on the front of his house: FUCKING KILLER.

He also knows that moving to another city is not an option. Wherever he went, people would recognize him: The Chief Inspector of the National Police Corps, Lazarus del Río, turned overnight into an assassin.

His photo was on the front page (and for several days) of the leading international newspapers. He was the headlines of magazines and bulletins in several countries. His actions resonated in all languages ​​and all the news of the world.

- I used to have a life before, -he says, thinking aloud. - I have nothing now.

Lazarus has no family, except for his older brother, who since what happened, did not return to maintain contact with him.

- Nobody went to visit me in jail ...

And that's what hurts the most. No one. Nobody cared for him.

I'm alone. Understood.

Lazarus stands up and walks to the fridge. Of the beer saving pack that he bought a few days ago on the Internet, there are only three left, grabbing them from the handle, returns to sit on the couch with the cans in his lap. He drinks the first one in a sigh, squeezes it with his left hand with an excessive force and throws it towards the corner of the living room.

He had never been drunk, on the contrary, he was always an abstemious man.

- But that was before I became the monster I am now.

And with that thought, Lazarus tipped up and drank the second can.

He burps sonorously, squeezes and throws it, this time, against the entrance door.

- Fuck you all! -He screams at the lonesomeness that surrounds him with the tears streaming down his cheeks. - FUCK you all! He was a murderer! He was a fucking rapist!

-2-

It is four o'clock in the morning and Lazarus purchases on the Internet. Tomorrow, in the first hour, they will be taken to the door of his house.

Check his final order: twenty packs Maxi-Beer savings, three packs of sugary drinks, thirty cold ham and bacon pizzas, toilet paper, eighteen bags of potatoes, twenty-seven cold coffees and five packets of whole grains.

Click OK and enter his credit card number. Then click FINISH PURCHASE again and, for his surprise, notices that cannot do the operation.

Lazarus, fearing the worst, access with his ID and password to his private online banking. Check that he has a balance in favor of only 121.45 €. His eyes wide open and he puts his hands to his head, stunned.

So much time in prison had made him forget that he had no job or income. He was expelled from the National Police Corps and disqualified from employment and salary.

Lazarus frowns. Where had all his savings gone? Without a doubt, enters his user profile, select his current account and click on the option SEE MOVEMENTS FROM THIS ACCOUNT.

For his astonishment, he realizes that not everyone has forgotten him. Maybe none of his workmates had come to visit him; perhaps even his brother did not talk to him ... But there was someone who had periodically remembered him!

- Big bastards!

The Mortgage of his house.

He'd forgotten about the damn mortgage.

At the end of each month, there was a negative balance of € 490 accompanied by the HIPOTECA VIVIENDA concept.

The good part was that thanks to his savings, the bank had not seized his house. The bad, terrible part is that his savings are gone and that, also, he still must pay more than 40,000 € of the mortgage. Before, when he was Chief Inspector of Police, dealing with a monthly fee of € 490 was a simple matter, but ... what would he do now?

The last thing he wants is to be kicked out of his house ...

- I have to find a job ...

But reject the idea quickly. There is something about him that refuses to work on something that has no relation to the national police. After all, he has been in the group most of his life, since he passed the entrance tests at age 19.

The career path of Lazarus was brilliant. He began, like everyone else, a simple police officer in practices, to later become a policeman. But it did not stop there. Unlike his companions, Lazarus continued to ascend: from a police officer to deputy inspector, student inspector in practices (first and the second year), inspector trainee, inspector and finally chief inspector.

The position of the chief inspector was a high rank, no doubt, but Lazarus knows that if he had not committed that stupidity, he would have become a commissary.

- And now that? -He asks himself, staring at the stack of beer cans in the corner of the living room. - Am I supposed to look for a job as a waiter or store clerk?

The single idea makes him sketch a sullen grimace. Lazarus has nothing against the waiters, nor against the store clerks. The real reason he refuses to look for a job is that he still believes to be a police officer. Despite being expelled from the body years ago, Lazarus, inside, continues to behave, acting and feeling like a policeman.

- I'll always be Chief Inspector, -he says to his reflection projected on the screen off the TV. - And a Chief Inspector is full-time.

––––––––

Lazarus contemplates himself; he can barely recognize himself. He sees a tall, thin man with black eyes. He has the shabby hair and the tattoo of a snake crawling from his left nipple to her neck.

Lazarus gets up from the sofa and heads to the second floor of his duplex. He's tired, and his physical condition has gotten worse since