Girl with all the Pain

by Michael Herman

  “Because the crime is horrific, and just asking about it places the person requesting information about it under suspicion.”

  Rafa extends his cellphone to Forbes and says, “See for yourself.”

  Forbes takes the phone and stares at the image on the display. A boy is protruding from the hood of a car. He blinks and then looks at Twizzle.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “A boy whose body intersects with a car. His feet and legs protrude below the engine.”

  “He was cut in half?”

  “No. He was fused with the vehicle. They have yet to separate him from the car. They started to cut him out of it, but the results were not what they expected.”

  “What does that mean, ‘not what they expected’?”

  “The boy’s body and metal, where they intersect, have combined into a soft metallic bloody mass. It is unlike anything they’ve ever seen. They’re afraid of it. The coroner is afraid of it. They moved the car and bodies...”

  “More bodies like this one?”

  “Two more. Both intersecting with parts of the vehicle. One is partially sticking out of the rear of the car. Flip through the pictures. You’ll see another inside the car. All young boys supposedly from the neighborhood.”

  Forbes breathes deeply as he scrolls from image to image.

  “These are the three boys who were found dead today?” He sighs an expletive and then, “So what I am looking at is something impossible, something horror show and...what?”

  “Black magic. Voodoo. Evil spirits. Witches and warlocks. The undead,” Rafa says. “You have to understand that the police are only human. When they run into something outside anything they’ve previously experienced, they go to their primitive roots–the devil, evil angels, monsters from hell; you name it. They have no answers so they fall back on ancient superstitions.”

  Forbes shakes his head and curls his lips.

  “Are we talking about a witch hunt? Someone to burn at the stake?”

  Twizzle jumps in, “Coming from the Congo you should be quite familiar with this sort of thinking. Witches and spells are part of the Congolese people’s everyday society. These people are only a little more advanced than the ones you lived amongst. The unexplained needs to be explained and no one in the world of science is stepping up to the plate. These officers are grasping at the nearest straw.”

  Zed takes the cell phone from Forbes and scrolls through the images.

  “Have you sent these to Sonnet and the twin?” he asks. “Maybe they’ll have insight.”

  Rafa answers, “I sent them off, but haven’t heard back.”

  “The scream?” Twizzle asks. “You think they’re connected, Forbes?”

  He’s shaking his head in uncertainty when Doctor Eloisa de la Cruz enters the room, apologizing for being late. A glass of Carménère is balanced in her right hand. With her left, she sets her purse on the table and seats herself next to Rafa. Immediately behind her is a waiter carrying a plate of shrimp in pil-pil sauce with cacique merquén; he places the dish directly in front of her.

  “I thought your daughter had a recital this evening,” Twizzle says.

  El brushes it off and answers, “Recitals and more recitals. My husband and I trade off. Tonight he’s taking her. She doesn’t mind. She thinks of them as just another practice, but with an audience. It’s no big thing. Besides I get private recitals from her prior to each public recital. She plugs it in and my husband and I get our own private show.”

  “Plugs it in?” Zed asks. “Electric guitar?”

  El laughs. “No, nothing so common. She trains in classical violin but has chosen to go the route of the electric violin. It works out well. When she’s making mistakes, she’s plugged into headphones so we don’t have to endure them. When she’s ready, she plugs into her amp and speakers and lets loose with the sweetest music. Oh! I love the violin, electric or acoustic. It doesn’t matter to me. Is that being too modern?”

  “You are a product of your time,” Twizzle assures her.

  El downs the rest of her wine and asks, “So what have I missed? You’re discussing the scream?”

  Twizzle fills her in on Forbes and Zed tracking down the screamer to a neighborhood below the Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception. When she gets to Forbes’ encounter with the tall man, El gasps and her hand shoots to her mouth. She gives Forbes a look of awe.

  “You spoke to him?”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t speak back.”

  “Describe his scent.” Her eyes narrow and her brows furl.

  Forbes makes a stab at describing the odor of the man and then Zed augments the description with his own impression.

  She looks away for a moment in thought, then looks at Zed. “I must be sure. Zed, come with me to the parking lot, alone.” She stands abruptly and says to the curious faces around her, “Don’t worry. We’ll be back in a minute.”

  Five minutes later, she is back with Zed, but instead of sitting next to Rafa, she takes the chair next to Forbes, leans in to him and whispers, “Breath deep. Is this the odor you detected under his humanity?”

  Forbes sniffs the air and immediately pulls away from her.

  “How did you do that? Yes, that is most definitely the smell, only subtler. His was overpowering like he bathed in it. Yours is watered down.”

  She leans away from Forbes and says matter-of-factly, “He is a person like me. He is an enigma, someone my people talk of but rarely see. I was unaware he had moved into that neighborhood.”

  Zed adds, “El says it’s a defensive odor, like what a skunk puts out. El’s poison hair that grabbed me is just one of her defensive mechanisms. Outside, in the parking lot, she asked me to attack her, to provoke her body’s natural defensive glands that emit an odor when she’s badly threatened. She said to make it real.”

  Forbes says, “My God, Zed, what did you do to her?”

  El explains. “He put a knife to my eye. Very unexpected. Incredibly fast. Threw me off guard immediately. Over the top. Not what I asked for.”

  Zed grins. “But exactly what you asked for, wasn’t it?”

  El tilts her head, twists her lips into a forced half-smile and admits, “Yes, very effective, thank you, but please don’t ever do that again. It took all my self-control to not use my Krav Maga on you.”

  “So my sense that his odor was defensive was correct,” Forbes concludes.

  “Accurate, indeed.”

  “He’s a homeless version of you, is that what you’re saying?”

  “He is altered from birth like me. Beyond that, we are two individuals. But what is surprising is that you saw him and talked to him. He almost never lets himself be seen.”

  Forbes shakes his head in disagreement. “That doesn’t seem correct. Two kids walked by while Zed and I were talking to him, and they taunted him about his odor.”

  “Children, yes. Adults, no. He has no fear of children.”

  Zed laughs in disbelief. “Are you saying that he makes himself invisible to adults, but not to children?”

  “That is exactly what I am saying. He is a shadow to adults. He does not allow himself to register with them. Why he allowed you two to see him is a question.”

  Forbes answers, “I think I caught him by surprise. He seemed focused on the scene of the dead boys. Didn’t notice me until I was right in front of him.”

  “You are the first in a long time to report having seen him. And being allowed to talk to him, well that is something even rarer.”

  “He seemed harmless, like a sad homeless guy, damaged and lonely and taunted by kids. How do you think he gets by? He has to eat. If he’s getting food from a homeless shelter or food bank, he has to be seen by the adults who run those.”

  “Of course, but they have no memory of him. We’ve seen him on surveillance cameras with people at shelters, but they have no recollection of the moment. They saw him, but they didn’t. You have exact recall. He allowed you to remember.”

  “You kn
ow this because you can do the same?” Zed asks.

  “No. He is unique. I’m told he wasn’t always like he is now.”

  “But he was interested in the boys,” Forbes says.

  “You mentioned dead boys, what are you talking about?” El asks.

  Rafa fills El in on the boys and the car, showing her the pictures sent to him. She is silent while she scrolls through the images.

  “I don’t know how to respond to that. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Do you think he had something to do with them being like that? I’ve never heard of him harming anyone.”

  Forbes shakes his head. “Can’t say. All I know is the scream and the boys are anomalies. Don’t know if they’re connected. And maybe your man was just curious. Who knows?”

  Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of two waiters with trays of food. A plate of slow-cooked lamb shank with potatoes goes in front of Zed. Seared Beef Tenderloin Medaillon is placed in front of Rafa and Forbes. Chilean style King Crab pie is set before Twizzle and fried Conger Eel Medaillon ‘A La Pobre’ goes before El. Drinks are refreshed and the conversation returns to the mysteries.

  Chapter 16

  Day 1

  Evening

  Santiago, Chile

  “Quieres bailar?” That’s where it had started and that was all it took; the simple phrase “want to dance?” spoken in Spanish. There was no “Chilean finger wag” (the pointer finger shaken back and forth signifying she didn’t want to even look at him), but instead, she smiled approval, rose from her seat, walked onto the dance floor and then they moved and touched in synch with the rhythm of the music. Zed’s limited Spanish was enough to complement her limited English, bringing them to a mutual understanding of what they both wanted out of the encounter that ended in Zed’s hotel room.

  Finished with the dinner at the Coco Pacheco restaurant, Zed had ventured alone into the night in Vitacura where the “best,” by Chilean standards, nightlife was to be found; beautiful people, expensive covers, drinks, and international acts.

  Now his date for the night spooned with him and was fast asleep. Still restless and rolling over the day’s events in his mind, he remained awake.

  The three boys’ tragic disposition was truly a first for him, and he could only guess that it was alien made, but which alien? Gi or Gi’s enemies? If either of them had the ability to merge entities like the boys fused with the car, why wasn’t it used in their encounters before? No Gi that he or his family was in harmony with demonstrated such power. It could only be Gi’s foes. If this was a precursor of things to come, then he should worry.

  He and Forbes and Sonnet were all at risk since they were used by Gi to protect itself by having them ‘go avatar’; the act of transferring their consciousness into defensive creatures Gi would create and they would control. Would this new alien simply fuse their avatars with objects when attacked? If so, going avatar was useless. Or, worse, it might fuse them with an object, killing them and ending their attack. And what of the twin? She was two Gis blended into one. Would the enemy alien simply fuse her with some object and end her existence?

  If this were the work of enemy aliens, then he or Forbes or Sonnet needed to go avatar and search the city for alien signature. But there was no Gi for them to go avatar with. The twin was not the Gi they needed for this. It would have to fall on the twin’s avatars to search.

  But she was focused on her own hunt for a sister Gi; a Gi that should be in Chile, but was missing. Or would that change with the discovery of the three boys? Would the twin Gi switch priorities and seek out evidence of alien infestation in Santiago? Doubtful. In her current form, she was much less powerful than the huge Gi entity that he and Sonnet and Forbes entered in the Congo to go avatar.

  And what of the snake creature that was shipped from the Congo? The creature the twin brought back from her encounter with the second Congo Gi? Last he heard, it was resting safely at a veterinarian clinic. What was its purpose in everything?

  Putting things in perspective, the huge odiferous man they encountered earlier seemed of little importance compared to the possibility of a powerful alien enemy presence that could fuse the living with the inanimate.

  Then there are the two programs that Twizzle is backing, programs that would be in direct conflict with the enemy alien agenda. How do they figure into the presence of an alien that can fuse? Was it just testing its power that was going to ultimately be used against the programs? The aliens attacked Gi in the past. Will they go into direct conflict with humans now? If that’s the case, then it could mean that humans are very close to something that the aliens do not want humans to discover. The good and the bad. Humans are on the verge of some discovery that the aliens deem so important that they will take extreme measures to try to prevent its discovery.

  His companion shifts her naked body, pressing her buttocks against his bare groin, arousing him once more. He shifts with her and presses his chest against her back. When he kisses her neck, she responds with a moan. Twenty minutes later they are both sated and she slips back into sleep, curled up into his body again.

  As he drifts off into a half sleep, he mentally replays the scream, his imagination fleshing it out, giving substance to the screamer until he suddenly feels hot breath on the back of his neck and hears a low purring sound just behind him. Groggy from alcohol and sex, he slowly opens his eyes. When he turns his head, the purring and the heat are gone. Both just part of a dream.

  In the dream, he had the distinct impression he was in the presence of a huge cat, one breathing only inches from his head. Leftovers from the Congo? Sonnet’s avatar jaguar mixing with his dream of the scream? Anything was possible. Dreams often mix and confuse familiar elements.

  His companion whispers in her sleep, shifts beneath his arms and then is still. Her soft skin against his young and strong muscles is seductive and comforting. The odor of their sweat and her perfume is sex revisited.

  Exhausted, he slips away into a deep sleep, untroubled by concerns beyond his hotel room door.

  Chapter 17

  Day 2

  Santiago, Chile

  No matter how many times he sees them together, when they dress the same and move the same, it’s still a mild shock to Zed. When he walked into the hotel breakfast dining room with Forbes, he was surprised to see the twin and Sonnet both seated at a table with their backs to him. They are duplicate images of each other; same hair color and style, same clothes, same body posture.

  Rafa and Twizzle, across the table from them, wave to him as he enters the room. Seeing them greet him, Sonnet and the twin turn in unison, and then acknowledge him with a smile.

  “You two have any luck?” he asks as he takes the seat next to them.

  Sonnet tilts her head, gives him a full once-over, slowly shakes her head and makes a wry smile while the twin looks on blandly.

  From across the table, Twizzle asks, “Zed, you stay out partying till the wee hours? You look beat.”

  Sonnet wrinkles her nose. “He’s just sexed out, Aunt Twizzle. That’s his ‘morning after night of debauchery’ look.”

  Zed reels back in his chair. “Hey, hey! Not in front of Uncle Forbes and Aunt Twizzle. Please!”

  Forbes shakes his head in admonishment and chimes in, “It’s written all over him. He’s been tossing the sheets with someone again.” As much as Zed always tried to keep his liaisons with women a secret, Forbes could almost always tell, but rarely mentioned any of it. Yet the group tease is too irresistible to not join in.

  “God, am I that transparent?” Zed asks.

  Twizzle adds her two cents: “Zed, even I can tell from where I sit. You bring her back to the hotel? She’s not joining us for breakfast?”

  Zed shakes his head. “She’s sleeping. Said it was too early to get up. I mean, 6:30 AM?”

  “You were always up at the crack of dawn in the Congo,” Forbes reminds him.

  “That was there. This is different.” He yawns and stretches his arms up
towards the ceiling.

  “I’d ask what time you got in, but what difference would it make if you didn’t get any sleep?” Twizzle says.

  “No,” Zed rubs his eyes. “I got a few hours of sleep, two maybe three.”

  When a helpful waiter comes around, Zed is thankful for the interruption. He orders yerba maté (caffeine-rich infused hot drink served with a metal straw in a hollow calabash gourd) and tostadas con palta (toast with avocado) then asks, “So we still on track to go to the Atacama Desert Breakthrough Starshot Laser Array facility?”

  Twizzle shakes her head. “Postponed. They’re having issues with the launch of the probes. There’s no test without the probes first being released into orbit, and besides, there are new priorities. I’ll let Sonnet and the twin explain.”

  The twin and Sonnet exchange glances and then Sonnet says, “I’ll explain, but first let me give you some backstory. Let’s start at the beginning.

  “On May 22, 1960, near Valdivia, Chile experienced the world’s largest earthquake. It registered 9.5 on the Richter scale. It occurred around 3 PM local time and lasted about ten minutes. It caused localized tsunamis across Chile that battered the coast with waves as high as 80 feet tall. The pictures of them are breathtaking. Needless to say, a lot of people died.

  “Two days after the quake, Cordon Caulle, a volcanic vent close to Puyehue Volcano erupted. The eruption came to an end on July 22nd. Why is this noteworthy? Because as far as the twin can determine, that eruption killed the Gi that resided in that area. There are remnants of its underground existence, but the bulk of that Gi is gone.

  “And to compound the loss of Gi, an area about the size of Texas centering where Gi used to be, became an area of no connection, a dead zone for Gi and its worldwide links. The conclusion is that there is another entity at work here, something counter to Gi.”