Crime Rave

by Sezin Koehler

  A slight bump and shriek of shifting gears as they approach Spruce-Musa Hospital. Battle faces on.

  Gustave II, The Croc Boy

  Your “father”—the creature known in The Congo as Gustave, from whom you received your genetic base material—is the largest known crocodile on Earth, and one of few maneaters on record. During the civil war in Rwanda, when hundreds of thousands of Hutus were murdered by Tutsis and dumped in the Ruzizi River or buried in mass graves, Gustave I began developing his taste for human flesh. And when the war was over, his preference remained the flesh of humans.

  You know this because Gustave I knows this. Sometimes, when he feeds you too can feel it. Other times, you can almost see through his eyes, though he’s on the other side of the planet from you. These were some of his genetic gifts. Seeing and tasting the world outside through him has been your coping method all these years at the Roswell Institute. You’re not like the dickless wonder Jason Mars, who passes for human and gets off-campus permission.

  At least they’re trying to create you a mate. You take what you can get. Actually, you’ll take what they give you. And you’ll say thank you for their trouble.

  There may still be a way out. If those alien girls keep escaping, surely you could too one day. Maybe even today. The Shark Girl’s eaten three humans already. Chaos looks to be in the cards. If your crocodile countenance could smile, it would.

  The coyote god Trixter keeps saying it’s a good day to die. No, you think. It’s a good day to live. Be free of The Institute once and for all.

  If only you knew that each of the other hybrids is thinking the exact same thing, you might have actually made your first friends. You might have planned an escape together—seven hybrid heads always better than one—before it’ll become too late, your fates forever sealed by the sinister designs of the Roswell Institute.

  7:30 PM LAPD Headquarters Interrogation Room 3

  Rosario Quatro looks at the weeping creature before her. Tommy Cullen, brother of already-interviewed and lawyered-up Frank Cullen. An eighteen-year-old accessory to mass murder. A child. A baby. Zygote. She sighs, her heart on pain overload. These American kids. So spoiled. Even the poor ones. Fast food every day, mobile phones, money for drugs. A breed of their own. Looking at him makes her feel disappointed in humanity. Time to get this over with.

  “Tommy,” Quatro says, throwing a packet of facial tissues at the boy. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.” Quatro shakes her head. “We know, Tommy. We already know. By not telling me you’re only adding years onto the forever it’ll feel like in prison. I don’t gotta tell you what happens to pretty boys like you in prison.” Tommy’s eye’s widen so far they’re gonna fall out his head. “Or do I?” Quatro pauses. “Do you know anything about life on the inside? Tommy?”

  Tommy never knew he had so many tears in him. They stream. The packet of tissues gets smaller and smaller. Emptied, hiccupping, his face swollen, all he wants is to see his mom and sleep.

  Quatro takes another folder from her magic carpet briefcase, the one from which photos of all the dead people she pulled out, forcing him to look at their faces, and which Tommy can’t believe still has room to hold more documents. “You leave me no choice, Tommy.” She opens the folder and once again begins to toss papers across the table. Some of them hit Tommy, some fall to the floor, some collect in a pile, growing higher and higher. “These are email printouts, Tommy. From your computer. And your brother’s. We know that Charles Wallace Crane, Mr. Motel Chain himself, paid you and your little friends to blow up that hill.”

  “Not possible!” Tommy screams. “I deleted everything!”

  Quatro looks at the camera, a sad smirk on her face.

  “Oh Tommy. Cariño, you should have paid attention in school. You ever heard of a hard drive? You can delete, but you can never erase. All those ones and zeroes, reconstructed into this stunning display before you.” Quatro shakes her head. “I’m so disappointed, Tommy. This,” she indicates the stack of scattered papers, “is not what I expected. Not at all.” She begins to put the printouts back in order. “And. So. Now we’re on the same page.” Quatro compiles all the strewn pages and makes to leave the room. Tommy is spent, in the first stages of shock, head lolling, pupils way dilated.

  “Where did you get all the dynamite, Tommy? Hmmmm?”

  Tommy’s head hangs down. Quatro watches snot drip into his lap. He shudders, takes a breath, looks up, wiping his face with his sleeve.

  “We found recipes on the Internet. Shane, one of the guys who got away, his dad’s a survivalist. Had all the other stuff we needed. Was happy to help us.”

  “How much dynamite did you make?”

  “Um, I dunno.” He looks up doing the math in his head. Fifty or so pounds in each car. Seven cars. “I guess about three hundred and fifty pounds of it. More or less.” Tommy’s head sinks back down.

  Quatro’s brow furrows. She looks at Assistant Chief Ortiz, who looks as puzzled as she feels. It’s not enough to vaporize the site. It looked like there had never been anything there at all. Ever. Ortiz can almost hear her thinking it and agrees. Quatro puts the discrepancy aside for now and collects all the documents.

  “This is where we say goodbye, Tommy.” Quatro moves to get out of her chair, reconsiders. “Out of curiosity, how much did Mr. Crane offer you to assist in this grand mass murder?”

  Tommy isn’t sure if she’s being rhetorical. He lifts his head, as heavy as ten watermelons, sees the agent being serious. “Ten million dollars,” he whispers.

  Quatro feigns surprise. Puts her suitcase down and sits. “Each?!”

  Tommy shakes his head, defeated. “No, for the whole job.”

  “And how many ways are we splitting this cool ten million, again?” Quatro rests her chin on her palm.

  “Eight.” He looks up. “There were eight of us.”

  A coldness steals over Special Agent Quatro. “So, let me get this straight.” She pulls out a notebook and a pencil. “Ten million dollars divided by thirty-five thousand people.” Quatro looks into Tommy Cullen’s eyes. “Actually it was more, but let’s use an even number shall we?” Tommy is broken, but Quatro doesn’t care. This isn’t the place for this, Agent. She hears the voice, the good dog, telling her to stop. But, she doesn’t. Quatro begins doing the sums.

  “Ten million dollars divided by thirty-five thousand people comes to roughly two hundred and eighty six dollars per head.” She looks at Tommy, who won’t meet her gaze. She reaches over and grabs his chin, forcing it to comply. “Oh sweetie. Didn’t you know that the going rate for a hired kill today is a thousand dollars a head on the low end? For a job this big, you shoulda made an easy thirty-five million, at least. Boy, what a discount.” She spits these last words.

  “So, ten million for the whole job. Split eight ways. That comes to…” Quatro scratches at her pad, “one point two five million. That’s what all those thousands of life were worth to you.” Quatro throws her pen down at the table. It deflects and hits Tommy in the chest. He cries out. “No more bullshitting, Tommy. You start from the fucking beginning, and you don’t leave a goddamn thing out. I want to hear this all in your own words.” Quatro’s eyes are icicle daggers. Assistant Chief Ortiz feels the temperature in the room drop and shivers. So this is why they pay her the big bucks.

  Tommy nods.

  “I need to hear you say it, Tommy.” Her voice, stilettos that cut glass.

  “I’ll tell you everything.” And then Tommy’s eyes roll back in his head and he passes out, head clanging against the edge of the table before hitting the floor in a resounding thud.

  Tommy Cullen

  You come to and almost forget it wasn’t a dream. You helped your brother murder all those people. You’re in so much trouble you can’t think straight. That Latin woman is a bitch, but she’s right. You’re a spoiled little shit. And now you’re gonna p
ay.

  You tell Agent Quatro everything. Chad Tanner was the drug dealer who started the Bad Vibe Kids. His first plot was to sell fake drugs and then he moved up to poison. All those cases in the news of overdoses at parties in the late 1990s? All Chad. He was the one who spiked the sno-cones at that one party, the one where the kids drove off the cliff. He wanted to create chaos. He wanted to be a master of mayhem. He wasn’t the only one.

  The group grew. They started bigger projects. Sabotaging light shows to catch fire. Groups of thugs waiting in parking lots after parties to beat up ravers still high on whatever. Poisoning candy as well as pills. Robberies. Rapes. A lot of rapes. At the parties, after the parties, following girls home.

  You only joined because your brother Frank forced you. He beat you up every day for a week until you agreed. You didn’t want to do it. You’d rather be in school. You didn’t want to hurt anybody, but it was easier to go with it. When Charles Wallace Crane approached Chad about the event of the century, Frank again bullied you into helping. You were the one who bought the supplies and kept them in your room. Nobody would suspect sweet little Tommy Cullen of planning a massacre. Your brother on the other hand, he’d be the first they’d point a finger at.

  Of the thirty-seven members of the Bad Vibe Kids, only the eight were into the Crane Project. Less ways to split the money, Frank and Chad said. There were six cars that planted bombs around the mansion. They came at the end and were glad they did, there was no order to the parking. Had they been there earlier they all would have died, too, along with the ravers. You wish you had died.

  The others skipped town right after the explosion. You write down their names for the agent. You write down all the names of the Bad Vibers. You can all go down together, just as it should be.

  You apologize. Over and over. You realize there are not enough sorries in the world for the horror you helped create. You write out your confession and resign yourself to your fate. You avoid the agent’s gaze. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to look anyone in the eyes again after all these things you’ve done.

  You begin praying for the sweet mercy of the death penalty you know you don’t deserve.

  7:35 PM The Barona Estate

  In the Countess Barona’s basement of pornography madness, Lily the cyclops starts to feel the effects of the muscle relaxant given to her by the nice lady whose name she can’t remember. Lily sips on a soda, feeling dreamy.

  “Want something stronger?” Tawny Porthole, the kindly costume mistress, asks.

  Lily’s eye is quizzical.

  “Something stronger to drink?” Tawny forgets Lily is a young girl because of her lanking seven-foot frame.

  “I dunno, do I?” Lily slurs her words.

  “Most definitely.” The costume mistress brings out a small bottle of vodka from her purse. “This makes my day go by more…tolerably.” She hands the bottle to Lily who drinks deep. Then coughs.

  “You okay?”

  Lily feels a warm glow seeps over her body. Tingly even. Her eye relaxes. She’s finally stoned. The bitter taste of the pill rests on her tongue, along with the tang of vodka. She wants more. In a few minutes, as the costume mistress promised, Lily begins to feel wobbly. Her limbs are rubber, she can bend in half if she wants to. She floats outside her body, looking down at this bizarre creature in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Maybe if I keep drifting up, up, I will reach heaven and none of this is happening to me. Lily tries to get through the ceiling, but can’t. She hovers, refusing to look down at the body she’s abandoned below.

  The Countess returns with four men. Huge. Hairy. Lily does not look down. She does not see the director leading her to the bed, telling her to lie down, look scared. She does not see the cameras whirring. She does not see the light check that highlights the oil spots on her face that the bitch of a make-up artist Jenna Juicy covers with finishing powder. Lily does not see the four men, naked, enter the room and surround the bed on which she lays, erections like swords. Lily counts the cracks in the ceiling. Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, OW!

  A whoosh and Lily is back in her body. Screaming, kicking, anything to make him stop. Pain! Stop! Where the orphanage supervisor only attempted with his hands, this one was doing something else. With something bigger. He can’t get it in. And it hurts. Bad. But he keeps trying. Forcing. More frustrated. He calls for lubrication. They bring a spray bottle and cover Lily’s lower body with it. The other men grab her legs, pulling her spreadeagle, holding her arms down. Lily feels the gel sliding down her sides.

  A rage rushes through Lily’s body with such fierceness that she remembers her gift. He thrusts at her. They hold her down. The sound of the cameras whirring. The director saying “Yes, YES!” The Countess Barona nodding and smiling her devil through. These images resonate in Lily’s brain. She remembers.

  Lily opens her eye, focusing the anger, the pain, the rage, the horror, and sends it right into him. In a split second the force of Lily’s gaze turns this prick to stone. Lily head butts him off her and he crumbles to ash. It sticks to the lubricant that was sprayed so uncouth over her lower body. Gross.

  “What the fuck?” Scream the chorus of men functioning as human chains.

  Lily sits up and focuses her eye on each of them, watching one by one as they turn to stone, crumbling to dust when she kicks them in the face, crotch, chest. The crew stops dead. Cameras still rolling. Jaws dropping. This is happening, they think, but they can’t move. They’re captivated by Lily’s Gorgon eye.

  Lily turns her eye to the director. Next Jenna Juicy, the make-up artist who so coldly refused to help and slapped her for her pain. And then the film crew who have participated in this monstrous abuse.

  The Countess Barona stands in the back, her pale face even paler, hands to her mouth, in denial about what is happening. This shouldn’t be happening! The moment reality hits her the Countess does something she’s not done since she was a child: cry. In a bundle of silk and tulle and high heels the Countess Barona makes a dash for the door, make-up streaming down her face.

  Lily spots the escape attempt from the corner of her eye. From her vantage on the bed—the would-have-been gang-bang bed—Lily turns the doorknob to cement. Barona cannot turn it.

  “Weird,” Lily says. She’s never done that before.

  The Countess screams in frustration as she scrambles to open the door. She looks back at her coterie, all turned to stone, save the costume mistress known as Tawny Porthole. Lily looks at her and asks for her real name.

  “Sophia,” she says, crying. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Why would I hurt you?” Lily doesn’t feel so drugged anymore. “You’re the only one who tried to help me.”

  Sophia cowers. Lily crawls off the bed and crouches before the pitiful woman. “Thank you for your kindness. This is your second chance to make a better life for yourself than torturing women.” Sophia weeps, ashamed. Grateful.

  Lily continues. “You turn your life around or I’ll be back for you too.” Lily grabs the woman and shakes her. “You hear me?”

  “I hear you!” Sophia cries. “Never again!”

  Lily nods and lets go. The aged porn star falls to the floor with a sobbing thud, and crawls into a corner, hands over her face.

  Now. For the Countess.

  Lily turns to see the Countess whimpering, pawing at the door. “Please,” the monster says. “Please! Don’t hurt me!”

  “You sick fucking bitch,” Lily advances, relishing the eff-word. “How many times have you done this?” Lily vibrates with rage.

  Flashing in Barona’s mind are the images of bodies turned to stone by this child’s one eye. “Never!” she screams. “NEVER!”

  Lily gets up in her face. Barona’s heart beats so loud Lily can hear it. “You misunderstand, asshole.” Lily spits. “How many times have you tortured children
, you sick fuck?” Lily comes to love the taste of the eff-word in her mouth. Metallic, like blood.

  A smug grin steals over Barona’s face. I’m gonna go out my way. “You want me to tell you about the boy I starved to death? Or the one I offered as a tithe to our local Catholic priest? Or the one I bled dry, collecting the blood and drinking it with my supper for the next year to come? Which? Which story do you want to hear? Monster? Hah! You belong in my collection, ugly girl. Who else would ever want such a thing as you, save for to torture it?”

  Lily shudders, grief wracking her body, the ghosts of this house enfolding her in a cloak, magnifying her power.

  Barona stands as tall as she can, her haughtiness a mask for her fear. “You cannot kill me. People have tried for centuries and failed.” But she sees a truth in Lily’s eyes, the truth of what this supreme freak is capable.

  “Any last words, bitch?”

  Before Barona can speak the one-eyed Lily takes the Countess’s face in her hands and looks deep into her eyes. “This is going to hurt, you twisted fuck. And it’s going to last for a really long time.”

  As slowly as she can, Lily turns the Countess’s skin to stone. Bit by bit. Another thing she’s never done before, and one she accounts to the help from previous, less fortunate denizens of the horror house.

  The Countess screams for mercy as her skin tightens over her organs. There is no clemency for her today, and her victims laugh or quietly watch as Lily’s magic takes root. Lily starts with Barona’s feet, working her way up, leaving her face and brain, enough to keep her alive.