Scratch Lines

by Elizabeth Blake

  A mutt was a monster, plain and simple. They were not cuddly, pleasant, or capable of being domesticated. Mutts scared sharks and snakes alike. Even vampires hated mutts, and vamps were creepy-crawly-from-under-a-rock refuse.

  Vampires.

  Like snake oil salesmen, the vermin showed up at the apocalypse, rife with “miracles” to save our souls. Mysterious vampire histories promised eternal life and validated God. The Church claimed vamps were agents of the Lord, and the Revival began. Religions walked through fire, forever changed.

  I didn't trust any of the arrogant bastards. Drinking blood is creepy no matter who does it.

  When vamps and werewolves emerged like the diaspora from a preternatural zoo, millions of people died. No one could convince me vamps didn't have a snack or two out of the bunch. I've seen their teeth. I know a predator when I meet one.

  We fought a war of attrition. Humans and mutts killed each other for dominion over the planet while vampires stood in the background and cheered us on. Vamps even helped once or twice, claiming their cooperation was the Will of God and they only wanted what was best for us. Apparently, the enlightened suckers didn’t kill humans anymore. Whatever.

  Most days, I stood neck-deep in slop and knew the monsters were winning.

  Oviedo represented another casualty in the current holy war.

  The house smelled of wet dog and copper.

  Mutts are muscled like an army tank, and ravenous like sharks on crack. When Stuart shed, he became a three hundred kilogram mutt with jaws wide enough to swallow a turkey.

  The mutt trembled as if alive. The magic (or indescribable science) trickled back from whence it came. Fur drifted away like powder under a gentle breeze. Bovine-sized bones shuffled down. Skin sloughed and disintegrated. The demolished skull looked like a wet pile of pancake batter full of bone shards and gray brain pudding.

  Roy’s human body sported a small, obsolete pool of blood leaking from the chest wound. He stared into dead space, eyes like white noise.

  Agent Winters arrived to collect mutt remains from the scene. The man had salt and pepper hair, a wobbly belly, and a grip gone soft with paperwork. Also, he was a gigantic prick. Heaven spare me from two misogynists in the same room making conversation like I wasn't there.

  I waited in the jeep, reloaded the empty mag with Ag rounds, and checked my spares.

  A teenage girl in a black camisole approached the window.

  “I'll give you a hand job for three bullets,” she said.

  “Refine your sales pitch. Better yet, go home and read a book.”

  She shifted her weight back and forth, thinking hard, possibly considering another bargain. I flashed a badge and she scampered off.

  I sipped cold coffee and felt sorry for myself. The day was heating up. Even with the windows down, I was too warm. My stomach growled. Murder and caffeine did not comprise a proper breakfast.

  Fifteen minutes later, Vincent joined me. I offered him a box of Ag rounds and he reloaded his magazines.

  “Consultation call,” dispatch said. Daisy's grim voice slid through my earpiece. I knew all her moods by sound alone, and this tone said: I watch soap operas and eat heaps of chocolate because I am undersexed. Face to face, though, I couldn't guess what she was thinking. Daisy gave us the address. Vincent grunted, pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, and waited for me to drive.

  A consultation meant the victim was already dead. When cops didn't have an easy answer for messy or unusual crimes, the FBHS liked to blame a mutt. Silly, really. A bovine-sized carnivore leaves telltale signs on everything, especially victims. A jaw big enough to swallow a basketball makes obvious wounds. Claws as long as steak knives scrape blatant evidence on meat, flooring, and the glossy red faces of mutilated cadavers. If these obvious signs were missing, the scene would prove a waste of our time.

  Traffic picked up, clogged, and made the trip twenty minutes longer. Vincent sat quietly. Of course, he was hung-over. Whiskey permeated the air, reminding me I was struggling to be sober and alcohol really stinks. He also smelled like burnt bacon grease, which made me hungrier. I hated walking onto a murder scene with an appetite.

  Contrell, the PD homicide detective on the scene, loitered inside the yellow tape with his hands deep in his pockets. Once someone suspects a mutt kill, police jurisdiction is suspended and everyone backs off. His job was to maintain the integrity of the scene until the FBHS decided if it was monster-related or not.

  I bent under the crime scene tape.

  “Morning, Durant,” Contrell said. His elegant coif reminded me of a detective noir film.

  “Morning. Have gloves for me?”

  He gave me two sets. I handed a pair to Vincent, who could barely stuff his paws into an extra-large.

  The victim had come to rest in a dumpster behind Jingles, the last surviving gay bar outside of Red Sector. Sister, the transgender who ran the place, had a heart of gold and a spine of pure steel. She risked her life on a daily basis to keep the establishment open. Jingles was a target for every hate-mongering group in the city, so the place was done up like Fort Knox.

  Yet it wasn't an uncommon place to find a corpse.

  The body was male, late twenties, and naked. Lean to the point of starving. The victim lay unceremoniously in the trash, limbs askew, with bags of garbage for his pillow. A spray of shiny silver buckshot frayed his chest. A deep cut sliced from his sternum to his gut. The general lack of blood suggested the body had been moved. The majority of his skin looked unusually fresh and clean. His wrists bore sooty marks, nearly like tattoos, except they were raw. I poked at the stain and my glove came away with a tiny smudge of glitter. Or metal. Vincent fingered the mess down the corpse's chest. His thick alcohol breath made me sick.

  “Blade did the work down its chest. Not a mutt mutilation,” Vincent said.

  “Silver-capped rounds,” I said.

  He held a bullet fragment up to the bright summer sky. “High grade.”

  “Someone killed a mutt, or killed a person and wanted to imply a mutt kill. We might never know. He's skinny enough to be a vagrant. Have you talked to Sister to see if she recognizes him?”

  Contrell winced. The New Catholic didn't want to step foot in a gay bar and deal with its controversial owner.

  “The body was dumped here for a reason,” I said. “Be it mutt, atheist, or gay: God's blessed followers aren't too keen on any social outliers. Most fanatics will target whatever they can get their hands on, whatever fits the prescribed religious bill.”

  “That type usually likes to preach,” Vincent said. “I don’t see anything overtly religious, no scripture or sermon. Silver is the only symbol here. Dude looks clean.”

  I squatted to examine the marks on the corpse's wrists. Contrell crouched beside. He smelled of cinnamon vapor, the kind that accompanied electronic cigarettes. His wedding ring was engraved with an odd x, so stylized it took me a moment to recognize it as a cross.

  “I'll have tech process his DNA to determine if he cross-references with an L-pos potential. Wouldn't prove he was a mutt, but he might have known one,” I said.

  “Got needle tracks,” he said. His blue-gloved finger twisted the corpse's forearm so I could see a series of little pricks. I touched the lumps. The meat was hard. None of the pricks landed in the crook of his elbow.

  “Isn't that an odd place for an addict to shoot up?”

  “Whatever works,” he said.

  “I don't know much about drugs that require needles, on account of needles being creepy. Syringes can inject absolutely anything from orange juice to meth. Try a tox screen, but if the victim was a mutt, his metabolism could eat all chemical traces from his veins, depending on how much time it was in his body.”

  “So our vic is a druggie or was drugged, then tied up with something rough like chains,” Vincent said.

  “Bondage game?” Contrell said. Odds were he said that because we were near Jingles.

  “We'll have him checked for signs of penetr
ation. Maybe he or someone else shed during intercourse. We'll have to assume sex was voluntary until we know otherwise,” Vincent said. I was impressed by his clean language.

  “If he shed during sex, his stomach contents should reveal his...partner,” I said. “I wonder—”

  “This is not our goddam problem,” Vincent said. “No mutt evidence, no mutt crime. The corpse is yours, Contrell.”

  “Good luck,” I said.

  I turned from the scene, tucking my head and avoiding cameras. Vincent strolled alongside, and his stonewall demeanor repelled spectators. Reporters filled the gap, spouting questions. Vincent peeled contaminated gloves from his hands and tossed them at the reporters. They scattered like cockroaches, making me smile.

  We had a mutual disdain for the press. I didn't like Vincent and he didn't like me, but we protected each other from common irritants. A certain companionship grew from that. I couldn't trust him to be discrete and politically correct, but he had good instincts.

  “I want coffee,” Vincent said as we climbed into my jeep.

  The day was looking up.

  Chapter 4

  I chose a coffee shop with an epic dark roast and a retro decor. Two old hippies ran the joint and all the books on the shelves had been chosen for content and not for show. Every time I went for a cup of joe, a different barista worked the counter, but the coffee was always remarkable.

  “They better not put any frou-frou crap in my drink,” Vincent said.

  I rolled my eyes.

  We strolled to the counter where two new baristas steamed cappuccinos and served quiche. Their groupthink tattoos proved them peace-loving, socialist sheep. Piercings in their faces and ears and…wrists? Kids these days. I had assumed they were boys, but second glance revealed one was a girl with tiny upturned breasts.

  “Large dark roast with a shot of espresso and a muffin,” I said. “Doesn't matter what kind.”

  “Black coffee,” Vincent said. “No sweetener, no frills, no goddamn jokes.”

  She nodded like he was kidding. He set his hands on his waist to emphasize the gun holster on his hips. I wasn't beyond brandishing a weapon for good coffee, but his action prompted the servers to recognize us.

  Me, specifically.

  “The Bureau Princess,” the girl said. Her shrill voice betrayed a-celebrity-in-our-midst excitement.

  “Durant?” the boy whispered. Vincent perked.

  “No cream, no sugar,” I said. Ignore the situation, and they'll think they made a mistake and peaceably fetch my coffee. Instead, they argued, one saying, not possibly, not pretty enough, too tall. The girl became insistent, and the boy’s eyes widened. Not I-see-a-famous-chick big, but scared-to-death huge.

  I held up my hands in a no-shoot gesture. “Wrong gal.”

  “I don't remember the princess having scars,” the girl said.

  “See? Can't be me,” I said. Media edits the ugly stuff before putting my face on screen. Image is everything.

  “It is you,” a bystander said. “I'd know you anywhere. I saw you shoot a crazed beast at the mall on New Year’s. You're Kaidlyn Durant!”

  Lacking a witty denial, I said, “So?”

  “Is that blood on your sleeve?” The coffee boy's voice warbled.

  “Rookie,” Vincent said, so soft and gentle it triggered a gong of alarm.

  It happened fast.

  The boy huffed, puffed, and turned red in the face. Gauges dropped from his ears. Cheeks peeled open. His body burst like a water balloon and shed into a mutt. Superfine dust floated around him. The beast knocked aside magazine racks, tables, and stools. Patrons ran screaming. A customer bumped me. I twisted, feeling the scar-tight skin cinch around my middle. Vincent and I freed our guns.

  The mutt shook out his hide. Adrenaline slowed the motion until it resembled a breezy shampoo advertisement. Its ears flattened and the monster roared.

  My heart pattered in my chest and I squeezed the trigger. Silver tore into his flank. Blood spurt from the wound. Terrible animal noises rode the sound of gunfire. I put round after round of silver behind his skull. Filled the head to bursting. Contaminant splattered on the muffin case. The mutt seized and fell. A pool of crimson snaked across the tile. I covered Vincent as he rounded the counter. The mutt wasn't breathing. Vincent put a habitual bullet in its skull. I exchanged magazines.

  My body roared with the adrenaline surge and its peak of bliss. I survived. I loved that feeling.

  Came at a price.

  My boots left bloody footprints as I rounded the dead mutt and checked the blood path. It stopped short of the cashier. The other barista huddled behind the register, holding a broken cup of spilled coffee, and stared at the mutt with catatonic eyes.

  “Don't move.”

  I took a picture of her with my phone so our tech guys could see no dirty blood touched her face. She'd be interviewed and tagged so the FBHS could monitor her activity. Contaminated civilians used to be rounded up for work camps or worse, but soon there were too many. Now we tagged and released.

  Vincent tucked the gun away and popped two cups on the counter. He poured two black coffees and we waited for the coroner to arrive. Again.

  “Time for you to see the dermatologist,” Vincent said. “You're stiff on the left.”

  “True.” Fuck you.

  With two incidents before lunch, I was ready for a hot bath, a good book, and a cup of soup. Life didn't work that way. We paroled for a few hours, driving in circles, stopping frequently for snacks, and going door-to-door.

  Knock-knock. Have any illegal, contaminated monsters in here? No? Well, have a nice day.

  Such tactics rarely paid off and trolling the neighborhoods was a shitty time-killer. I coped with Vincent's severe presence and munched on beef jerky.

  “Drop me at the range,” he said, like I was his chauffeur. I left him without as much as a screw you or goodbye.

  Crowd-control agents in full gear posted at the front gates, pushing folks back, trying to cull the visitors from the protestors, and making way for the people who belonged there. I blasted the metal music so I couldn't hear the protestors’ chanting and booing.

  Once in the office, I visited our team’s tech.

  Yoshino managed data coalition and supplemental intelligence. He was cute, Japanese, brilliant, and he adored me. Literally. His thick rimmed glasses and sweater vests made him a picturesque nerd. He would be a good friend if he stopped hyperventilating at the sight of me.

  I said, “Do we have any idea where Stuart Oviedo picked up the disease?”

  “Uh, well, no. Could be anywhere. He played soccer, went to public school, and worked at a daycare center. Basic good boy stuff until, well, you know.”

  I pictured a daycare unit full of children with runny noses, grabby fingers, and unsuppressed coughing fits. “Endless opportunity for exposure.”

  “I agree. It will be impossible to tag all our options. I compiled a list of potentials based on duration of exposure to the lykos.”

  Lykos was the world's polite way to refer to L-pos individuals. Werewolf felt fictional, like fairies and unicorns, which probably don't exist. Mutt was dehumanizing and as bad as calling a black person a ‘nigger.’ Yoshino couldn't bear rudeness, so he and civilized society said lykos.

  “About eighty-three potentials,” he said. “Several have volunteered to wear tags. Possibly, you'll only have to track and tag thirteen folks.”

  Volunteers sicken me on principle, but they make the job easier. Most people eagerly cooperate so we don't make their lives miserable, or worse, tempt their neighbors into believing they've got something to hide. Secrets are no longer tolerated. Everything was public, and the public demanded it be so. No intimacy, no privacy, no human validation without the herd.

  Sheep, all of us.

  Not thoughts I could share without raising suspicions.

  “The coffee shop incident is harder to track,” Yoshino said, in his perfect mid-western accent. He had a Japanese accent once up
on a time but dropped it like a rock. Pretends he was born and raised in Ohio. “The potential, Rosette, comes from an illegal family. Upon learning of the incident, they disowned her and started packing. We aren't sure where Carlton—that's the lykos—acquired the disease. We scouted for DNA leftovers to identify visitors, pulled surveillance footage from street cameras, and evaluated Carlton's life pattern. Few friends, no family or roommate, and no promising leads. If we can't find some next of kin, the bureau will have to eat the cost of silver. Again. The coffee shop will be closed pending sanitation, so I hope you have a backup.”

  “Thanks, Yoshino.”

  I did paperwork until it was time to go home.

  Chapter 5

  The best part about my house was it belonged to me. Mine. My safe place, my Fortress of Solitude.

  When a fifth of the population died, the housing market suffered. I bought the duplex specifically because it was cheap and old. The landlord was too broke to upgrade to the A.I.Appliances, monitors, and systems that moderate middle-American life. Brainy tech makes its own decisions, controls the water, opens and closes doors, child-proofs appliances, spins the shoe rack, pops the lid on the crapper, regulates room temperature, lights, etc. New houses think. Most people love that stuff.

  I hate it.

  All those conveniences make life safe and easy, which translates into stupid. Who wants a house to control how they live? Worse, the systems can be hacked. One of our tech guys once set a pedophile under siege in his own home. The pervert starved because the fridge door didn't have a manual release and he shat in the corner because the toilet seat wouldn't open.

  I parked in the garage and gathered empty cups. The kitchen door positioned me conveniently in front of the fridge, which was empty. Disappointing. I decided to wait for the telltale jingle of the tamale man's cart.

  Maybe I could catch up on some reading.

  I locked the doors, shut all the curtains, closed off the other half of the duplex, and otherwise initiated a house-wide lockdown. Heart pounding, I tip-toed to my bedroom and closed the door. I upended a laundry basket and used my jackknife to pry open the false bottom. The book was wrapped in black cloth, tucked alongside moisture-controlling packets in odor-blocking plastic.