by Phyllis King
‘I’m clean?’ I asked.
‘Did you doubt it?’ said Dr Fahour, putting away the pen.
Lying, I shook my head. I doubted all right. The doctors said I was clean and the feline was psychosomatic. But I could feel claws under the surface of my nails, ready to spring.
‘Krifi had been drinking,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t in a fit state to confront a group of hybrids. I decided to go in with Ralph. The two of us could handle it, but he was hungry. We picked up a sushi pack and he was eating it as we got to a block of the Tower.’
‘Do you know what species they were?’
‘From the clues, I guessed rodent. That musty smell, the shredded paper, and so on. I thought as a feline hybrid I would be able to spook them out. Anyway, we did the same drill as always. I’d go up, wired for sound; Ralph would be down waiting with the stun gun and a rifle full of lead shot just in case.’
‘What happened when you got to the apartment?’
‘I knocked, pretending to be a pizza delivery person with the wrong address. The first hybrid opened the door and told me to go away, but the smell of the pizza made him change his mind.’
‘When did the trouble start?’
‘Once I was in, I could sense that things were breaking down pretty fast. You have to understand that with hybrids, the memories can take over at a cellular level until you don’t realise that you are changing.
‘The hybrids all had pink eyes and twitching noses. Some had the classic claw shaped hands and were beginning to revert to walking on all fours. The leader however, looked human, which was disturbing, as he was paying for their survival by selling his body on the streets.’
‘You could have called the police at this stage,’ said Dr Fahour. ‘There are laws against willfully spreading the virus through sexual transmission.’
I nodded. ‘Sure, if you can get them there on time. You have forgotten how fast mice are at evading capture. Anyway, I had baited the pizza and taken retina scans of all the hybrids with my ocular implant when I realised that I knew one of the smaller members of the group.’
‘Did they recognise you?’
‘Yes, I think so. I wondered if she was going to give me away, but she didn’t say anything. Her hands were in a pretty bad state, and she couldn’t feed herself unless she ate off the floor. I think she just wanted an end to it all, to tell you the truth, but she was scared of going to the holdings and the experiments.’
‘Your report states that vivisection is still widely practiced in the holdings?’
‘Yes. I have eye witness accounts.’
‘From a bird hybrid only,’ Fahour said it so dismissively goose bumps spread over my arms. He was oddly specie-prejudiced for a murder interrogator, considering the case.
‘Birds can be reliable,’ I said.
‘I haven’t found that to be my experience,’ he said.
‘Well, it was an eagle hybrid, so that should tell you something. Eagles are known for their intelligence.’
There was silence as Fahour tapped his Mont Blanc pen on the clipboard. Like he was waiting for me to say something. I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
‘When did the shootings start?’ asked Dr Fahour finally. Damn him, I knew he had all the facts on the screen, what was to be gained from torturing me this way?
I was about to tell him that I didn’t care what they charged me with, when I noticed something odd. The hair on Fahour’s upper lip really was getting longer as we spoke, and his nose was getting fatter. It was as if his face was dissolving in front of me. Judging by the angle of shadows on the floor, this could only mean one thing.
He was a mutant and the steroids were wearing off.
They put a damn mutant in a room with me. Why? To see if I’d notice? To see if I’d crack?
Maybe they wanted me to kill him. I casually brushed my hand across my crossed leg and felt the reassuring weight of the glass knife wedged in my boot. I could get it out of the sheath before he grunted. Then again, if he was mutant pig strain, he’d be strong. He’d be stubborn.
Briefly, despite myself, I wondered what pig would be like in bed. They say after you’ve tried a beast, it’s impossible to go back to regular human sex.
Fahour leaned forward. I could feel the heat from his body. And smell a subtle pig skin odor.
‘You didn’t answer me,’ he said. ‘The shootings. Who started it? Was it your gun?’
‘Sure, ‘I replied. ‘I like to be on top - of things. And the rats attacked first. It was self defense. Pure and simple.’
Fahour twitched. Kept going on about the phone call I’d logged in when I realised we were under fire. Kept going on about time discrepancies. There was some sort of delay between when I called in the attack and the round I emptied into the mutant. And all I could say was, ‘My partner’s head had been ripped from his body - what did you expect me to do?’
His fingernails were definitely longer, and his hands were turning into claws as he interrogated me. This was not a good sign. Werewolves I could handle, they are very specific with their metamorphosis, but mutants, there’s never any warning about when they’ll turn.
‘You and Ralph - you were lovers, right?’ asked Fahour. ‘I mean, the camera doesn’t lie, does it?’ he pushed a series of photos across the table.
Incriminating ones, I admit. Ralph’s wife wasn’t going to like seeing those, but I guess that was the point.
‘So what? We got the job done.’
‘You know who this is?’ Fahour waved a glossy crime scene still at me. It was going fast but I knew right away it was the mutant I’d emptied the rounds into. ‘Like I said, the mutant attacked first.’
‘You know who she is?’
I shrugged. ‘A mutant.’
Fahour held out another photo. A wedding photo.
At first, I didn’t recognise Ralph. Back then he had a mullet and a trim waist. And the woman in the wedding dress next to him, must have been...
It hit me hard.
A cold slap in the face with a bucket of reality.
The woman next to Ralph was the woman lying bleeding in the gutter.
I’d killed his wife. And she had killed him.
It was making perfect, horrible sense.
I thought of the last night I’d spent with Ralph. A quickie in a motel room. But if Ralph had been sleeping with his wife who was a mutant, that could only mean...
I looked at my hands. A soft down of hair had already started to cover them, and my usually bitten fingernails were long and sharp.
‘So you see,’ Fahour said. ‘We didn’t bring you in because you killed a mutant. We brought you in because you are turning into one. You know how fast the virus spreads. You know what we have to do now.’
My hand reached over to my leg. He was quick, but I was quicker.
You don’t spend years Xenos training for nothing.
I walked out of that building with a spring in my step. The sun on my face, a fat hairy claw sectioned off as a trophy in my pink Louis Vuitton bag. I was hungry. For meat. A little pork perhaps.
But first, I needed a leg wax. I grunted. It was so hard to look remotely human when you’re undercover.
<
Check-Out Time
Rowena Helston
It was 10.30 am. All of the guests who were due to check out had called into reception, except the couple in Cabin Four. No big deal; they’d paid on arrival the previous afternoon. The man said they would probably be leaving early. As long as they hadn’t kept the key.
Rae Cameron pushed herself up from the reception desk. The wings of flesh jiggled under her arms. Lately she’d noticed the drooping skin had begun to pucker. Over fifty and it was all downhill from here.
Outside the clouds were starting to break up, as the buffeting breeze whipped the sky. The yard was littered with fallen gum leaves, damp from recent rain and springy underfoot. She could already see the car was gone from beside Cabin Four. In the distance, past the perimeter of the
holiday park, the waves were choppy in Bass Strait.
The key glinted in the door of the cabin. Good, they must have read the reminder notice on the fridge. The curtains were tightly drawn, as if the couple had risen when it was still dark. Rae turned the key and pushed the door ajar, releasing the bottled-up remnants of old cooking fumes.
The contents of the cabin were askew, like an earth tremor had rippled through in the night. The padded vinyl chairs were pulled out crookedly from the table-for-two. A jumble of spare blankets and pillows had fallen from the open closet onto the floor, blocking the path to the ensuite bathroom.
On the double bed, against the nearest wall, was a mound of bedding. But it was not quite the casual mess that it seemed at a glance. There was something elongated beneath it. Then Rae spotted the pale toes protruding over the edge of the mattress. The delicate button toes of a woman, with glimpses of purple chipped nail polish.
An echo sounded from the dripping tap over the miniature kitchen sink. Rae bent closer to the fawn-velour bedspread. She knew she had to be sure before raising the alarm. Heart thumping, she pinched the bedspread and pulled softly, far enough to see the gaping mouth. It was the same woman who’d checked in the previous afternoon; a small, wispy creature with untamed hair and a vague expression.
Rae encircled the cold wrist, pressed firmly and waited for a pulse, but there was nothing.
She locked the cabin and hurried across its wooden deck. The breeze swished in the ragged paperbark next to the empty car space. A backpacker was striding in the direction of the laundry block with an armful of washing. Rae put on a brave face and gave him a tight smile. Stacey, the girl who cleaned the cabins, came trundling down the path with her trolley, stacked with clean sheets, towels and toilet rolls. Rae intercepted her and told her to skip Cabin Four.
Back at reception, she rang the local one-man police station and the call was automatically diverted to Sergeant Bruckner’s mobile phone.
‘Paul Bruckner,’ he answered gruffly.
‘It’s Raelene from Shearwater Holiday Park.’
‘How’s business?’ His voice boomed above the din of a confined space, like a shopping arcade .
‘Probably about to take a dive. I just found a body in one of the cabins. Dead, I’m afraid.’
Half an hour later, two detectives arrived from Burnie CIB. Detective Inspector Ogilvie was tall and dark with quizzical eyebrows, ghostly skin and a thin slash of a mouth. The younger one, Detective Senior Constable Boyd, was stockier, with spiky orange hair and freckles. Rae recognised, in their names and faces, the Scottish pioneering heritage of many of the locals, including her husband Neil.
She let the detectives into the cabin. It looked even smaller with two beefy men in it. Boyd stood next to the table while his superior poked around. Rae hovered outside the doorway, watching.
‘Could be a domestic, and the bloke’s done a runner,’ Boyd suggested. ‘Things disturbed in the struggle.’
Ogilvie nodded at the open cupboards under the kitchen sink, crockery in disarray. ‘Sure, if they’re chucking plates at each other. But this looks more to me like someone’s searched the place. And I don’t think they found what they were after.’
Ogilvie bent over the bed and drew the blanket further back with a plastic-gloved hand, revealing more of the woman’s greyish pallor. A few strands of her hair were caught in a crooked tooth.
He looked across at Rae. ‘You said you felt for a pulse. Touch anything else?’
‘Just the blanket.’
‘Anybody else been in here?’
‘No.’
Next the detectives asked to see the guest records at reception. Rae fished the registration form out of the filing cabinet. The husband’s name was Martin Fletcher. Detective Boyd jotted down the contact details provided on the form.
‘Credit card receipts?’ said Ogilvie.
Rae shook her head. ‘Paid in cash.’
‘Do you remember what kind of car he was driving?’
Rae had only seen the car briefly and could not remember the make or model. ‘It was a smallish sedan or a large hatchback. Reddish in colour, I think.’
Ogilvie said, ‘How would you describe their manner? Did they strike you as typical holidaymakers?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I got the impression they were just passing through. They didn’t act like tourists; didn’t ask about the sights or anything. Only thing he asked me was where he could buy cigarettes last night.’
Rae detailed what had happened.
She’d told Martin that the shop down the road might still be open. He’d come back 20 minutes later, skulking past the window, empty-handed as far as she could see. So she waved him inside.
‘No luck?’ she’d said to him. He’d wagged his head; sharp face, shrewlike features, the kind of bloke who could turn nasty.
‘I just remembered while you were gone, I’ve got a pack of ciggies in lost property. Have those if you like. Someone left them behind in the laundry but the price they cost these days, I hung onto them in case the owner came looking.’
‘I’m game,’ he’d said. Rae fetched the cigarettes and showed him the pack; an obscure brand. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ he’d said, reaching out. ‘Thanks.’
Ogilvie wanted the contact details for all of the guests who had been at the holiday park the previous night but had since checked out. Then the detectives went to interview the longer staying guests - the campers and caravaners - to inquire if they had seen or heard anything suspicious overnight. Secluded in the owner’s residence, Rae had not been aware of any disturbance.
The forensic team dusted, mapped and photographed their way through and around the cabin. The woman’s body was taken away. Rae tried to calm down with a cup of tea. She massaged her fingertips in circles on her temples, and slowly rotated her head. Her chin was hanging downwards, accentuating the jowls, when the labourer who was working on the demolition of the old recreation room slouched into the office. Just what she needed, some problem with the job. Replacing the dilapidated and hardly-used rec room with another paying cabin was her first initiative since Neil died.
The labourer hitched up his sagging shorts and crinkled his leathery face to speak: ‘Sorry, love, but I’ve struck a snag.’ He led Rae to the rear of the holiday park, where the broken shell of the rec room stood. Sheets of corrugated iron roofing leant against the jagged brick walls, awaiting disposal. A wheelbarrow of debris was parked next to a big yellow dumpster.
The labourer pushed together a couple of bricks for Rae to stand on. Barking eagerly, the labourer’s kelpie darted back and forth. Rae’s stomach lurched as she gazed over the edge of the dumpster at the sprawled figure. He was face down, dotted with chunks of rubble. There was something familiar about the straggly hair and the checked green shirt. It was the husband from Cabin Four.
Rae returned in a numb trance to reception and rang Detective Ogilvie, reading the number off the business card he’d left on the counter. He answered through a mouthful of food.
‘Sorry, am I interrupting your lunch?’ asked Rae.
Ogilvie smacked his lips. ‘It’s okay, just finishing.’
She told him the news.
The air whistled through his teeth. ‘What is it, open season on guests down there?’
The police and forensics were still in attendance for the second time when the tourists started arriving back from sightseeing for the day. They gawked at the police vehicles and loitered outside their cabins. A young couple with toddlers drove up to inquire about the rates but decided against staying.
As soon as Rae had the chance, she rang her brother-in-law, Lindsay, to fill him in on the situation so it wouldn’t be a shock when he arrived to do his shift in the morning.
‘I’ll come straight over,’ he said.
‘Nothing to see now,’ Rae said. ‘The bodies have gone.’
‘Why didn’t you call me earlier?’
‘There wasn’t time. It was go-go-go.’<
br />
‘What do the police reckon?’
‘Looks like someone’s bumped off the couple and taken the car.’
‘Who’d want to do that?’ Lindsay asked.
‘Apparently it’s more likely to be someone they knew, rather than a random psycho.’
‘That’s comforting,’ he said dryly.
‘I’ve been thinking whether one person could’ve done it. Killed the husband outside first, then took their time with the wife in the cabin. Or vice versa. Found her alone in the cabin, then tracked him down outside.’ Rae wondered if the husband had gone for a wander to have another cigarette, as the cabins were strictly non-smoking.
