The Death Panel

by Cheryl Mullenax (Ed)

  “Hey, man,” FUBU said, jumping to his feet.

  Preston thrust him back down into the lounger. FUBU didn’t get up again. He swapped another glance with Raider Nation. This time, there was no mischievousness present, only shock.

  “Is this what you want, huh?” Preston demanded, ignoring the dealers.

  Nathan said nothing.

  “We had a deal. You don’t associate with drug dealers.”

  “Hey, we ain’t no drug dealers. We’re businessmen,” FUBU said, but not with the conviction I’d seen when we’d first arrived. He sounded more like a whining child.

  “Did you think for one minute I wasn’t going to find out? Was what I did to Hunter not example enough to show you how far I will go to keep you on the straight and narrow?”

  Fire burned in Nathan’s eyes. I felt the pain of that event. I’d only heard the tale second hand and it was a raw wound to me. God knows what it was like for Nathan who’d lived through it.

  “Do you think being a drug dealer makes you special, huh?” Preston flung his arms wide before stuffing them in his jacket again. “Do you think it’s cool or something?”

  Nathan still said nothing. I felt the escalation in the air. Preston was building to something. I willed Nathan to say something to calm his father down.

  “I want an answer.”

  Nathan mumbled something inconsequential.

  “Do you know what happens to drug dealers, Nathan?”

  Before Nathan could answer or FUBU and Raider Nation could mouth off, Preston jerked out a small revolver and shot the two dealers. FUBU took one in the forehead, killing him instantly and Raider Nation took one in the throat, mortally wounding him as blood geysered from the wound. He clutched at his neck. Pleas for help were reduced to gurgles, but they didn’t last long. He was dead within a few seconds.

  I hadn’t been prepared for what Preston had done—none of us had, least of all FUBU and Raider Nation. The look of shock and stunned amazement on Nathan’s face mimicked my own. Preston had crossed a line, but it was obvious by the way he talked and acted he didn’t believe he had. To him, this was parenting plain and simple—just good old-fashioned methods to keep a kid on the right track.

  Preston turned to me, the gun still in his hand. For a glimmer, I thought I’d been brought there to create a scenario—drug deal gone bad—but the gun wasn’t aimed at me.

  “You see, Mike,” Preston said. “There are no limits. You have to do what you have to do. If not, you’ll always be at someone else’s mercy.”

  “You killed them, Press.”

  Preston smiled the kind of smile intended for dense children. “No, these boys were on a slippery slope to this end. If anyone is responsible, then Nathan is.”

  “No,” Nathan protested.

  Preston grabbed his son by the shoulders, the gun still in hand, muzzle inches from Nathan’s head. “Yes. You are responsible for what happened here tonight. You were told what would happen if you didn’t keep your end of the bargain.”

  Nathan tried to interrupt, but Preston shut him down.

  “Nathan, listen,” Preston commanded. “You promised to stay in school, not to smart mouth your mom and me, stay away from bad influences, not to drink or do drugs and I promised not to take action. I’ve been true to my word. Haven’t I?”

  Nathan couldn’t look at his father when he replied. “Yes.”

  This was tough love at its harshest. Preston, whether you agreed with his methods or not, was a devoted father. I am too, but my devotion has never caused me to go this far. He was certainly a father among fathers.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Preston announced. “C’mon, Nath.” He rested a hand on his son’s shoulder and escorted him out of the building.

  As I hit the street, the cool night air struck me. I’d hoped it would refresh me and clear my head of what I’d just witnessed, but it didn’t. Instead, nausea overwhelmed me. But I wasn’t the only one suffering ill effects. As I helped Nathan into the back of the Crown Victoria, he was shaking. I wanted to tell him it was okay and not to worry, but I knew Preston would negate that. Tonight was a demonstration that things weren’t okay if Nathan carried on this way.

  On the drive home, Preston got me to ditch the gun down a storm drain and told me to dispose of the clothes I was wearing. He detailed other measures I should take to ensure that nothing came back to connect us to the killings. I listened and took it all in.

  As Preston parked up, I glanced back at Nathan. The kid was broken. He was clay to be molded into whatever shape Preston desired. I couldn’t see Nathan breaking the rules again. If he did, then he deserved Preston’s special form of parental guidance.

  “You go on in and apologize to your mother,” Preston instructed as we got out from the car.

  Nathan said nothing and traipsed inside.

  “Good kid, really,” Preston said, as Nath closed the door. “Just needs a few taps in the right direction. Know what I mean?”

  I nodded. I did.

  “Thanks for tonight,” he said. “I really appreciate the support. I hope you learned something.”

  I nodded. I had.

  “I just need your help with one more thing.”

  “Sure.”

  “I have to dump the car. Can you pick me up from this address in an hour?”

  He handed me a scrap of paper and I read the address. “I’ll be there.”

  “Good.” My friend smiled at me. The smile scared me, but I welcomed it. Things had been leading up to this point. This had been what I’d been waiting to hear. “We should talk about how we’re going to solve your problems.”

  “I’d like that,” I said.

  “I’m glad. Did you know these skills can be adapted to suit any problem? It’s totally universal.” Preston sidled up to me conspiratorially. “My boss kept taking credit for my ideas but since I cut the brake lines on his car, he gives credit where credit is due and now I have his job. My father-in-law said I was a good for nothing. It’s not a tune he likes to sing since his house burned down.”

  Once Preston started he didn’t stop. He proceeded to catalog his triumphant successes, describing in minute detail how he’d won battles with his church pastor, store clerks, car mechanics and a bank manager. As wrong as it sounded, I took it all in, never once questioning his ethics.

  “Like I was saying, it comes down to respect. Once you have respect the world is a much finer place. I think if you take my approach, you’ll see a marked improvement in your quality of life.” Preston spread his arms wide. “Aren’t I proof enough?”

  Yes, he was, but I didn’t respond. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to follow my neighbor’s path, irrespective of its successes. For all Preston’s stories and his demonstration, I couldn’t decide whether I was that kind of a man. Could I inflict the same ruthless love on Kevin? I needed something to push me.

  “Fall is certainly upon us now,” Preston said.

  “Er, yeah.” Preston knocked me off guard by the observation. I was still preoccupied with his teachings. My mind was thick with the visions of Hunter writhing on the kitchen floor and Nathan’s face when Preston had killed the two drug dealers.

  “Leaves are getting everywhere. Sidewalks are covered in the things. I’d hate to see my gutters right now.”

  Preston was right. Drifts of leaves were everywhere and who didn’t have a lawn hidden under a blanket of nature’s castoffs?

  “The problem is I don’t have a leaf blower.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Oh, I know I do, but I don’t have it.” Preston turned to face me. “You do.”

  “Sorry, about—”

  “I lent that blower to you last winter and you still haven’t returned it.”

  “I’ll get it back to you,” I promised.

  “Mike, would you like to know what happened to Jenny’s cat?” Preston’s eyes were hard. “I can tell you, you know, but it won’t be good news I’m sorry to say.”

  “That’s
okay. I understand.”

  I returned home full of Preston’s teachings. Things were going to change around here—and for the better. Preston had shown me the way.

  Rindelstein’s Monsters

  David Tallerman

  * * *

  “The common term is lycanthropy; or, if you really want to descend to the level of the pitch-fork-wielding masses, werewolfism. But this clinic, this sanatorium for the therianthropically impaired, is a scientific establishment.”

  I stare at him, trying vaguely to hide my contempt. Is he joking? Since Rapture, saying you believe in science is like saying you believe in vampires, except that since the attack on ’Frisco pretty much everyone believes in vampires, and knows to be scared shitless of them. “That’s not how I understand it. The Order put you in charge of this place to keep your residents under wraps. Where does science fit in to that exactly?”

  Dr. Rindelstein looks up at me across the rim of his pince-nez. “Mr. Fievre, science fits in to everything. Unlike many of my colleagues, I don’t choose to abandon centuries of learning because certain unfortunate events fail to correspond exactly with my worldview. I choose instead to study, to learn, to understand. I believe that science has not abandoned us, only we it.”

  I’d call the apocalypse something more than an “unfortunate event.” Still, I’m not here to argue the point. On the contrary, I’m here to investigate a murder. Granted at this point it’s still death under mysterious circumstances, but I have a nose for these things, and most deaths I investigate turn out to be murders of one sort or another. “Let’s see the body,” I say, “you can give me the theory lesson later.”

  The doctor harrumphs through his nostrils, as if one dead body doesn’t amount to much when science is at stake. It only reinforces what I’ve thought about him since the moment we met, that he isn’t so much a human being as a set of outdated principles wrapped in a dingy lab coat. At least he has the sense to do as he’s told. “This way,” he says. “We left everything as we found it, just as instructed.”

  Rindelstein’s so-called clinic, like many similar institutions, was founded as a panicked response to the Rapture crisis. Through five hundred years the building has been a manor house, a prison, and for the last hundred or so an asylum, which is basically what it looks like now. It’s obviously never been rebuilt, just reconditioned for each new phase of life. Ancient walls have been whitewashed over in layer upon layer; lamp brackets have been clumsily torn out and replaced with strip lights; fixtures and fittings are a random mix of antique and modern, with here a yellowed porcelain sink and there a cheap plastic table.

  The ground floor, where I met Rindelstein, has suffered more modernisation than the lower level he’s leading me into. A narrow stone staircase takes us down to an even narrower corridor, where paint’s been allowed to chip and stain and the ceiling light looks as if it might fail at any minute.

  The corridor twists and turns before opening finally onto a wider passage, which is just as dilapidated but straight at least. It seems to run close to the edge of the house. Every so often doors are spaced on either side, and from them come noises: Snoring, whispers, the occasional shout or groan.

  At one point a low voice calls, “Rindelstein … Rindelstein, you smug bastard, I know it’s you. You can’t expect me to eat this shit!” The doctor only tuts to himself and keeps walking.

  Most of the doors aren’t locked. Some don’t even have locks on them. The one the voice came from was, and reinforced as well, with clumsily-nailed bands of metal.

  A minute after we come to another sealed door. This one’s only secured with a padlock, and the bracket is shiny and new. A sheet of old cloth has been gaffer-taped over the small window.

  “I didn’t want our other residents to wander in and be … disturbed,” says Rindelstein, fumbling with the key. As the door swings inward he adds, “Mr. Price was our, and perhaps the world’s, only known kuknothrope—if you’ll forgive the neologism.”

  I’m not about to pretend I know what he means. Instead I glare at him until he continues. “That is, Mr. Price was a were-swan. Was … until his accident.”

  I glance over his shoulder at the broken, bloody thing on the floor. “That doesn’t look like any accident.”

  “Surely you don’t think anyone would do such a thing deliberately?”

  There doesn’t seem much point answering that one. Rindelstein reported a suspicious death and I’m here to investigate. Still, if I had to answer I’d say that in my experience people will do pretty much anything if the urge takes them. “You must have some idea how he ended up like that?”

  “I’m afraid my background is in clinical psychology rather than biology. Truth be told I’m a little out of my depth. What I can tell you—well, therianthropy isn’t an exact science. A sufferer may exhibit symptoms, physical or mental, related to his animal half, which in turn may or may not relate to the lunar phases. Actual physical translation into another species is quite rare, even in these times.”

  “And Price? What were his symptoms?”

  “For an average of three nights a month, Mr. Price was—by every definition known to science—a swan.” Rindelstein sounds pleased with himself saying it, as if he expects me to be impressed. Which is funny, because I’m a firm believer in what I see, whether it makes any damn sense or not, whereas he’s the one going on about science. “Yesterday was the first night of the full moon, and it’s clear that Mr. Price began his transformation. You can see from the elongation of the neck, the distortion of the arms—and of course, from the feathers. But something interrupted the process.”

  “Something or someone?”

  “Something, Mr. Fievre. He died from massive organ failure. There isn’t anything in there that could possibly function in its current state. Even if it weren’t for that, his heart has—well, exploded isn’t too strong a word, as you can see. I’m willing to accept that it was some unprecedented side-effect of his condition, certainly, but if you want me to believe it was murder …”

  I bend over the body, cupping a hand over my nose and mouth. “I don’t much give a damn what you believe, doctor.” Unfortunately, anatomy is hardly my strong point either. Still, as up close as I can manage without my stomach turning over, I do notice something of interest. “This coarse hair?”

  Rindelstein kneels beside me. “Well, it looks human. It’s certainly odd though.”

  “Why odd?”

  “Because Mr. Price was blonde, and this hair isn’t.”

  He looks suddenly nervous, and I can’t blame him. Though it would be easy to press him, I like the idea of letting him stew even better. “Maybe it’s time I met some of your patients,” I say conversationally.

  By “patients” I mean “suspects,” but I figure he already knows that.

  * * * *

  An hour later and I’ve met enough were-people to last me a lifetime. They’re a sorry bunch, and some of them I doubt are even cursed at all. A bit of facial fuzz doesn’t make you a were-badger as far as I’m concerned.

  As suspects they’re even worse. For a start they don’t mingle. As Rindelstein explains it, their condition leaves them with feelings of guilt and a need for punishment. Whether that’s true or psychobabble, if they’re to be believed then none of them leave their rooms if they can help it. And even if they’d had the means to kill Price, I can’t find much sign of a motive. Most claim they’ve never said two words to him.

  “Is that it? Is that everyone?”

  “Ah, well.” Rindelstein’s looking uncomfortable again. “No, not quite everyone.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, there’s Mr. McKennan. But look, you shouldn’t believe everything he tells you. He’ll say just about anything to be provocative.”

  I like the sound of that. Provocative suspects are my favourite kind, because half the time they’re the guilty ones.

  Rindelstein leads me back down the corridor, round a couple of corners, and stops in front of a door.
Lo and behold it’s the same locked and barred room we passed earlier, whose occupant expressed such vehement dissatisfaction with his diet.

  Rindelstein slides back a hatch two-thirds of the way up, revealing a small barred window. When I stick my face up close to look inside I hear a growl from somewhere back in the corner—not animal, not exactly human either. The light is out. Maybe it’s some kind of punishment, maybe he broke it himself to make a point. The only illumination comes from the window in the door and a slit of grey at the top of the back wall. I can’t make out much beyond a silhouette. That’s enough to tell me he’s big: broad and well over six feet, big in every direction.

  He can see me a lot better than I can him, which I don’t much like. When he speaks his voice is like the growl, not all human, not quite animal. “You want to know who killed Price? You’re looking at him. I ripped his lily-white throat out with my bare teeth. Man’s got no business turning into a swan; it’s an embarrassment to all of us.”

  “Yeah? You want to tell me how you got out of this cosy cell?”

  He shifts into the light, just enough for me to see better how goddamn big he really is. “I’m a werewolf, man. I got means. Ain’t no cell can hold a werewolf.”

  “Sure. Why don’t you give us an example of these amazing abilities of escapology then? Why don’t you come out here and rip my throat out?”

  “Maybe I will, man. Not right now, not when you’re expecting it. Sure, maybe sometime soon I’ll come out and show you what’s what.”

  “In the meantime, enjoy your shit food,” I say, and slam the hatch shut.

  When I turn around, Rindelstein is trying his best to glare at me through those ridiculous glasses of his. “You shouldn’t encourage him. Mr. McKennan is a difficult enough patient at the best of times.”