Crime Rave

by Sezin Koehler

  “I’m just gonna get it off my chest and then you won’t hear me say it again, I hope: This shit is fucking weird.” Red Feather exhales smoke and breaks off a fresh piece of cigarette to leave as an offering.

  Günn takes a long drag and shakes her head. “It’s only going to get weirder. A wolf girl? A fucking werewolf? And the body parts are growing? I mean, what exactly are we supposed to do with that? How’s this all gonna read in the report?” Pauses. “Jesus H. Christ I can’t believe it’s us that pull lead on this case. Our reps’ll be ruined by the time it’s over.”

  “Naw, we’re gonna have all the physical evidence we need to prove this madness is happening.” Red Feather sounds as convinced as the Roadrunner telling Wile E. Coyote he’s not going to drop a safe on his head. “Anyway, Severin’s filming the body parts at the morgue. We have crime scene photos of that wolf girl and her amputated leg—”

  “Atticus,” Günn interrupts, “that isn’t going to mean diddly and you know it. Prepare to be scapegoated.” Günn grinds out her smoke on the stair rail, puts it in a tissue. As Red Feather takes another drag, screams of bloody murder hit them through the fire door. Red Feather tosses his smoke aside, and bolts through, gun drawn.

  The screams come from the wolf girl’s room where a posse of onlookers crowd around the door, craning their necks and standing on tippy toe for a better look.

  “What the hell is this?” Red Feather roars and grabs hospital staff, pulling them out of the way by the scruff of their necks when necessary. The wolf girl is awake, huddled in the corner of her room and getting her growl on, big time. She looks at Red Feather, looks back at her furry hands, places them on her furry face, and bursts into tears.

  “What’s wrong with me?” She screams, a sound that is more howl than human. “What’s happening to me!” She screams again and convulses in pain, collapsing into the fetal position on the floor. Red Feather watches as her fur begins to retract into her body, inspiring another of those God-awful howl-screams. “It hurts!” Her claw hands and feet crack and splinter as they re-form into what Günn sees are human extremities. Another scream breaks Günn and Red Feather from their reverie of amazement.

  “Günn, get a blanket!” She strips it from the bed and hands it to Red Feather, who turns to the bystanders and shouts, “What the hell are you people doing? You think this is a fucking sideshow? Go get the goddamn doctor!” The voyeurs jump and scurry away, embarrassed. And also disappointed. The show was just getting interesting.

  Red Feather covers the wolf girl with a blanket. She looks up at him with puppydog eyes, watering with pain. “It hurts so much,” she whispers in a voice raw from screaming. Another convulsion tears through her body, her head arches in pain, the tendons in her neck an inflamed red against what is now hairless skin. Red Feather crouches next to her, gathering her in his arms, holding her as she writhes and twists in agony.

  Günn watches as the transformation is complete and instead of a hirsute wolf girl, before them a twenty-something woman with dark curly hair and an olive complexion. The wolf girl looks up at Red Feather, her skin rubbed raw, but human. Red Feather is startled to see that those brown eyes have turned a blue-green, almost the color of turquoise.

  “Thank you,” she moans and passes out.

  Red Feather realizes that the woman is now buck-naked and blushes. Günn frowns. “Let’s get her back in the bed, shall we?” Günn tucks the blanket around the former wolf girl and helps her partner put her back in bed.

  “Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” Red Feather unties his long hair and runs his fingers through, smoothing it back before retying it with the leather cord. First a vampire, now an honest-to-God werewolf.

  “The captain is never going to believe this,” Günn insists.

  “Everyone’s gonna believe all kinds of things we never thought we would before this whole thing is over.” Red Feather tucks the blanket around the girl and she begins to snore, a sound that reminds them she was just in werewolf form.

  Red Feather and Günn quietly move to leave the room thinking it’s easier to fall on OJ Simpson’s side than explain this.

  Nurse Pratchett approaches them, frowning. “Were you two smoking on the stairwell?”

  “No ma’am, not us.” Red Feather’s eyes shift and Pratchett knows he’s lying. Günn smells burning tar, her ability takes no vacations even when she’s a guilty party.

  “Right,” Pratchett draws out the word. She puts the wolf girl’s IV drip back in, checks her vitals, tucks the blanket in around her body. “The doctor’s on his way, but looks like she’s okay again for the time being.”

  Günn is struck by her matter-of-fact-ness. “You’re not surprised by this?” Günn’s curiosity gets the better of her.

  “Frankly, Detective, I’ve got a sick boy at home who’s dying very quickly of leukemia. My home is essentially a hospice at the moment. I was supposed to be with him hours ago, but instead my twelve-hour shift has become eighteen and still, I’m here. So you’ll have to forgive my lack of enthusiasm.” Nurse Pratchett feels tears prick her eyes. These overtime shifts run her ragged.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Red Feather says, shooting Günn a look that says You are an asshole. Günn avoids his eyes, and Nurse Pratchett’s. She’s not one for apologies, even when she knows she’s in the wrong.

  Nurse Pratchett takes a shuddery breath. “Well, come on then, let me show you to the other two survivors.” She begins walking down the hall. Stops two doors down. Inside, the fifty-something screamer tosses and turns in her sleep. Red Feather hears a high-pitched whining sound in his head. Günn’s fillings rattle.

  “What is that?” Red Feather rubs his temples as if a migraine settles in.

  “We don’t know, but it’s coming from her.” Pratchett shakes her head, tired of thinking about how strange all this is.

  “What do you mean ‘comes from her’?” Günn’s temper is back on the precipice.

  “I’ve just about had enough of your tone, young lady,” Nurse Pratchett snaps. “What I mean is that sound is being emitted from that woman right there. You should hear it when she’s awake, like someone set off a sonar bomb inside your head.”

  “When will the sedatives wear off?” Red Feather takes over.

  “She burns through them like a heroin addict, but it’s the only way to keep her calm. One of the nurses had a heart attack. Whatever this lady is doing messes with electronics. The nurse’s pacemaker went kaput. All the machines on this floor stopped working. We can’t have that when there are still some patients on life support here.”

  Red Feather runs his tongue across his molars, as if trying to placate the amalgam within. “Can we move her somewhere else?”

  “If you can find a place in this hospital with no vital machines in it then be my guest. I’ll give you a heads up though—there isn’t one. Until we can figure out what’s wrong with her, she stays sedated.”

  Günn knows it’s not worth it to argue. “Dammit!”

  Pratchett gives Günn a stern look. “Would you like a tranquilizer, Detective? Looks like you could use a little relaxing yourself.”

  Red Feather interrupts before Günn has a chance to retort. “What about the fourth survivor? Is she sedated also?”

  Pratchett sighs the weight of the world. “I don’t think you’ll get much from her, but come on then, I’ll show you.”

  The end of the hall. A locked door.

  “What’s this about?” Red Feather looks at Nurse Pratchett.

  She unlocks the door and they step inside. The room is empty. Günn’s eyes widen. “What the hell is going on here? You lost her?” In her head Günn starts drafting the whoop-ass letter that Pratchett’s boss will be receiving detailing the nurse’s utter incompetence.

  Red Feather hears a twitter from above. Lookin
g up he sees the fourth survivor perched atop the closet door, her feet and hands clinging to the frame like a canary on a swing. Close cropped bleach blond hair, ethnically mixed features, a tall frame hunkered into a squatting position, all elbows and knees. Red Feather suspects she’s half white and South Asian. Pakistani maybe?

  The bird girl opens her mouth and twitters again, the sound of a mockingbird in a tree. She titters and leaps across the room, landing on the top of the bathroom door, as if to better gaze upon her visitors.

  A startled Günn calls out and Red Feather balks, not expecting a human to be able to leap quite like that.

  “When she thinks nobody is looking she flies,” Nurse Pratchett says not batting an eye. “Although she does use the toilet when she needs to go.” Pratchett’s shrug says Go figure.

  “Um, is she human?” Red Feather asks.

  “Her bloodwork looks like someone put fowl DNA in a petri dish with human, so I don’t really know how to answer that question. How much Homo sapiens blood makes one human? A question that I’m sure will plague science for years to come.”

  “Does she speak?” Red Feather meets the bird girl’s eyes and smiles, trying to be friendly. She shudders and chatters, jumping and turning her back to them, but craning her neck so as still to see.

  “Not that we’ve heard. She makes those bird sounds. She does indeed seem to understand what we say, but without a way to communicate back…” Pratchett shakes her head. “Must be lonely.” She thinks of her son who drifted into what will likely be the coma from which he’ll never awaken just a few days ago. What she’d give to hear him say “Mummy” just one more time.

  Red Feather walks further into the room. The bird girl shudders as if ruffling her feathers. “Can you chirp once if you understand what I’m saying?”

  The girl shudders again. Eyes Red Feather as if considering his request. Chirps once.

  Red Feather smiles wide, which makes her jump back across the room to perch atop the closet. “My name is Detective Red Feather, this is Detective Günn.”

  The bird girl settles down.

  “Chirp once for yes, twice for no.”

  Chirp.

  “We’re here to ask you some questions about the rave last night.”

  The girl shudders and shakes her head. Chirp chirp.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  Chirp.

  “We really need your help.”

  Chirp chirp.

  “You won’t help us?”

  Chirp.

  The girl chitters away in a volley of sounds.

  Red Feather winces. “I am so sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  She’s angry, yammering away in rapid-fire birdspeak.

  “Can you write?”

  She stops her unintelligible barrage, cocks her head to the side and shrugs. How the hell should I know?

  Red Feather’s phone rings, startling the bird girl who squawks in protest. He hands the phone to Günn who answers it and leaves the room.

  “Nurse, can we get a pen and a pad of paper in here?”

  “Right away.”

  The bird girl sniffles.

  “This all must be really scary.”

  Chirp. Sniffle.

  Nurse Pratchett returns with a legal pad, the yellow lined pages almost the same color as the bird girl’s hair. Red Feather reaches out to hand it to her. She shrinks further back into the corner. Tattering, she gestures her head toward the door.

  “You want us to leave?”

  Chirp.

  “Okay, miss, we’ll go, but I’m just going to write some questions on this pad for you and if you can answer them that would be great.”

  Chirp.

  Red Feather sits on the bed and begins to write, his peripheral vision keeping an eye on her as she looks on, nattering to herself.

  Günn returns, eyes wide and flustered. “We need to go, partner. Now.”

  Red Feather nods and finishes, looks up at the girl. “I’m going to leave this right here and I’ll be back in a few hours to check in on you. Sound good?”

  The bird girl shrugs.

  “Would you feel better if the door was unlocked?”

  Chirp.

  Red Feather looks at Pratchett, who raises an eyebrow. “If we unlock the door, do you promise not to escape?”

  Chirp!

  The girl floats off the closet and claps her hands.

  “Will you listen to the nurse and her assistants?”

  Chirp! A nod to accompany.

  “Nurse, what do you think?” Pratchett nods assent and whispers, “Can you get her to eat something?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  Chirp.

  “Will you write down what you’ll eat and slide it under the door for Nurse Pratchett?”

  Chirp.

  Red Feather senses that she wants to come down from her perch, but she holds herself back.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he says with a small wave.

  In a flurry of chirps, the bird girl does a little jump and waves back at Red Feather.

  He points to the legal pad. She nods.

  Chirp.

  Nurse Pratchett closes the door softly and keeps her back to it. “Very clever, Detective. I am sorry none of us thought of that. Then again, she didn’t respond to any of us as she did for you.”

  “Maybe it’s my name. We seem to have bird spirits in common,” Red Feather cracks a smile and Nurse Pratchett returns it, probably the first time she’s smiled at work in months.

  Günn grabs his arm. “Come on. Nothing else we can do here. We need to get to the morgue, like yesterday.”

  “Okay, okay. Nurse, you’ll keep an eye on her?”

  “Absolutely.”

  A piece of paper flies out from under the door:

  “Sunflower seeds, gummy worms, strawberry milk, baked chicken skin. Thank you.”

  Pratchett’s eyes widen. “My goodness. There are no words.”

  “Agreed.” Red Feather shakes Nurse Pratchett’s hand in goodbye. Günn is already at the elevator, foot tapping.

  Asha Kinsella, aka Galactic Canary

  You don’t like this. You don’t like this one bit. You’re thinking in English, but that’s not what comes from your mouth. You want your mom. You want your sisters. Cherry Thrush and Cerulean Amazon. The super-trio. But you have an awful feeling they aren’t here. That they didn’t make it. It’s an emptiness. Something hollow inside. Their light is missing. You try not to think about it, but it’s all you can and you wish you could tell someone all they meant to you. You wouldn’t even know where to start.

  You remember when you first met them. It was at a Revolution rave, downtown LA, rundown building, seedy-ass neighborhood. It was so hot. The site was a maze. So many floors, crowded with sweating bodies. You lost your friends. You were on E, but it was laced with something heavy. Or maybe that was the fear. You saw Cerulean and Cherry sitting in the corner. They weren’t like everyone else; there was a shine to them. They weren’t rubbing each other with lotion; they weren’t gnawing on pacifiers or lollipops. They were just chatting, like they were in the park or at a French café solving the meaning of life. They looked safe. You told them you were lost. They made room for you in their little world. You never found your friends that night, but Cherry and Cerulean made sure you got home safe.

  They have a homegrown business: marijuana. They blow glass pipes and the like. They take you on as a partner. You move into their West Hollywood bungalow, of which they’d been trying to find the right tenant for months. You discover that the power of the three of you together creates fire from nothing. Firebirds. You research growing techniques, find out that menstrual blood is the key to the best and st
rongest pot with its nitrogen rich tissue and growth-promoting properties. You three can’t grow it fast enough. It sells like lollipops at parties.

  You don’t know what you’ll do without your sisters.

  Picking up the pen and paper, you begin to write for the nice detective. You munch on the gummy worms and chicken skin Nurse Pratchett discreetly slips through the door. It doesn’t help the sorrow, but it’s better than nothing.

  6:15 AM LAPD Morgue

  Medical Examiner Guy Severin, now accompanied by several open-mouthed morgue assistants and a host of others who heard about the growing body parts, is more and more frightened as he watches the entities become whole. His greatest fear ever since becoming a mortician was that one day he’d be performing an autopsy or embalming and the corpse would open its eyes. Then he read a case in the New England Journal of Medicine about a man who was bit by a snake with paralytic venom who ended up being totally conscious during the start of his own autopsy and just by chance was able to open his eyes before getting his ribcage sawed open.

  Anxiety courses through Severin’s body, adrenaline makes his hands shake, certain that any moment one of these people will sit up and start talking. Severin thinks he’s going to have a heart attack in that moment. No, he’s sure of it. He shudders, trying to get a grip.

  Red Feather and Günn burst into the room. Their jaws hit the floor as they see and hear the creaking of what were body parts that are now mostly bodies.

  “No fucking way.” Günn’s left eye starts twitching again.

  “Way,” Severin responds. “Can I go now?” I am freaking the fuck out.

  Red Feather flashes with irritation. “No Sev, help us get these bodies loaded up. Ambulances waiting outside. All of you: Move it!” The group jumps to action. “Make sure they’re all strapped down properly. No room for error here.”