by Grace, A. E.
The bear ran toward a nearby tree, small and thin. He had his mouth open, tongue a little extended, a smudge of reddish pink against the bear’s brown hues, and to a chance passerby, it might look like the bear was smiling.
Nearing the tree, the bear slowed, turned, and then hoisted himself up onto its hind legs again. At over ten feet tall, the sight was monstrous, and terror-inducing. The bear was a huge beast, his true size concealed when he moved on all fours. The bear then began to scratch himself, digging his nails into his chest and stomach. He backed up against the tree, and did the same to his back, snapping off branches and twigs as if they were made of brittle straw.
The bear groaned then, and it turned into a roar, not one of violence or ferocity, but almost an exclamation of pleasure. To someone who just happened to be there at just that time to see that sight, it might seem like the bear was playing, having fun, all alone, in the middle of the desert.
And then the bear dropped back on all fours, and lay down, relishing the feel of the cool sand. Panting, but unable to expel heat quickly enough, the bear knew it would have to lie like this for maybe half an hour to cool off and let the warmth of his spirited exertion out.
But the bear still wore its seeming smile. Lying alone in the night, fur now crimson with the desert sand, he was content.
And as the minutes passed by, and as the bear cooled, his shape started to slowly change. The bear started to shrink. His fur started to recede. Lumps of flesh began to compact, retreating inward. It might look like, to a chance observer, that the bear was being sucked into the ground, or at least into itself.
But then a new shape began to form. As the bear slowly lost its defining qualities, a man was left in its place, at first a vague outline: torso, arms, and legs. Then there were fingers, and toes. The claws receded into nails, the fur turned into body hair. The snout shrank into a mouth and nose, and the ears moved down toward the sides of the head. His eyes turned from black to a deep green, and the irises were speckled with cream-colored streaks.
And then the bear was a man, lying naked, and laughing. On his face was a look of pure and utter joy. He put his thick and veiny arms behind his head, looked up at the sky, and just laughed. His abdominals sprung out in harsh relief as laughter spilled from his mouth, and as tears streamed down his cheeks. And when it finally ebbed, he lay there smiling, happy, his white and slightly imperfect teeth almost shining with reflected moonlight.
But then even that faded, too. The feeling was gone. Like a drug, it came and went so fast, and the man, all six-foot-three of him, got to his feet. His muscles, stringy, ever-ready, rippled beneath his skin as he moved. His calves were like rhomboids, his thighs thick like a sprinter’s.
He walked, putting each of his bare feet into the large paw prints he had left behind when he was a bear. His feet, not small, looked tiny in comparison. He followed his own tracks back to where he had started, and saw there his clothes draped over desert shrubbery, exactly where he had left them. He put them back on, jeans and a t-shirt, humming to himself, something forlorn in the tune, a sadness almost.
He sighed then, as though immediately missing the time he had spent as a bear. But he knew the sun would be rising soon, and he would not be able to stay in that form. It was too hot for that. The bear could not shed that heat quickly enough. It would be dangerous.
Picking up his duffel bag, military-green and full of everything he owned, he strode toward the road, and then walked along it toward the sleeping town of Salty Springs.
*
Interviewer: What is it like? The shift?
Caleb: It’s like a drug. [Pause.] You feel high.
[Anastasia nods.]
Caleb: You never want it to end, you know?
Anastasia: It’s addictive.
Caleb: Yeah, it’s addictive.
Anastasia: You can like it too much. It’ll make you crazy.
Caleb: [Looks at Anastasia. Brow knitted.] That doesn’t happen to everyone.
Anastasia: [Folds her arms.] Yes, it does. Given enough time.
Caleb: [Voice raised.] No, it doesn’t make you crazy. Maybe you get lost, yes. But you don’t go crazy.
Dylan: There’s something about it, Caleb. I think Ana’s right.
Anastasia: See! [Looks at interviewer.] Trust me, Circe, you do. I’ve seen it happen before. I even lost Caleb to the shift one time.
Caleb: I thought we agreed we weren’t going to mention that.
Dylan: Why haven’t I heard this story before? Do tell.
Anastasia: [Shrugs.] I won’t say any more than that, Circe. But, I’m just saying, it can have a hold on you. Can change you. Can make it so you never want to be a human again.
Interviewer: Never?
Caleb: Some choose to live as their animal. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Anastasia: It’s not how we were meant to live.
Caleb: How do you know how we were meant to live? You shift as rarely as possible.
Anastasia: I am aware of the effect it has on me.
Caleb: You just seek control, like with everything else in your life.
Anastasia: [Voice raised.] Better than what you do, which is to give in at the drop of a hat.
Caleb: I’m never not in con- [Interrupted by Interviewer.]
Interviewer: [Interrupting Caleb.] Okay, I think it’s time for a short break. Cup of tea or coffee anybody? I’ve got some biscuits, too.
Dylan: Biscuits for me! But can we continue the same discussion after nap time, Ms. Cole?
- Excerpt from full transcript of Interview with a Shapeshifter, by Circe Cole. Printed with expressed permission.
*
Purple and pink smeared the sky, and clouds like freckles glowed on their undersides with an orange-red hue the color of grapefruit. Shafts of light streamed through gaps in the cloud cover at a harsh angle, and the rubicund desert sand seemed to sparkle in the morning light.
But Sasha was in no state of mind to appreciate the brilliant sunrise.
Instead, she felt tired and impatient, and just slowing down for corners in her rattling, beat up car was trying her temper. The cup of coffee she had gulped down before heading out of the door was doing making a proper effort to mimic decaf, for she found no respite from her weariness in the bitter black and piping hot liquid she had forced inside her in three gulps flat.
She barely slowed as she took the sharp right-angle bends through the suburban sprawl, and her car shook with continuous complaint. She had her lights flashing, but the siren remained mute. Even so, she was sure the blinding blue would wake kids in their bedrooms, a flare of light like the flash of a camera.
The town of Salty Springs was a small sprawl, with a city center consisting of just two ‘competing’ supermarkets, and a single-story shopping mall. Low bungalows grew outwards on a rectangular grid that spoke of planning-by-panel, and it meant that navigating the small suburbia was just a series of right-angled turns with not a curved bend in sight. To Sasha, the driving in Salty Springs was about as boring as it got.
“Damn,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head while peering out her driver’s side window at the rising sun. Cresting over the tops of the low-lying bungalows, light glancing off the slatted tiles, she could see that it was going to be a hot day. Sometimes, the sun just looked fiercer. Having lived in the town her entire life, a real desert person, her intuition was often correct. And sometimes, she hated being correct.
The summer had so far been unusually hot. The hottest day of the year had already been recorded a couple of weeks earlier, peaking at just under fifty-three Celsius, and she was fairly sure the scorching summer was not yet done. No, that oppressive bitch had a lot left in store for the residents of Salty Springs. She asked herself a question, as she had done many times before: Why the hell would anybody choose to live out here?
Blue lights flashed on two police hatchbacks in the middle of Lester Street, a narrow road lined with houses, one indistinguishable from the next, save for
a child’s pushbike here, a swing there, or a basketball hoop in the driveway.
Sasha pulled up next to the two police cars that were parked at odd angles, bonnets facing one another. She sat in her car for a minute, calming her nerves. She closed her eyes, rocked back and forth a little, the cotton-clad cushion beneath her lumpy against her bum. She was preparing herself to deal with officers she knew, but now as their superior, as well as the sight of the deceased Charlie Kinnear.
It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of seeing a dead body – though the visage was always grim, and definitely more than a little creepy in the hair-raising, goose-bump-inducing way. This certainly wouldn’t be her first. The town wasn’t known for its low crime rate – it wasn’t a place you let your kids play out in the driveway unsupervised. Well, some parts were, but most of it wasn’t.
What concerned her was that this would be her first time working a scene, and being in charge. It was daunting, and feeling tired, groggy, and very definitely hung-over, she knew she wasn’t in the best state of mind to even be doing the job, let alone a good job.
She reflected: In cases where people have been killed, no job after the fact was ever good enough.
Hearing a tap at her driver’s side window, she turned to see a familiar face. The police officer, a young and angel-faced man, moved back to a respectful distance while Sasha climbed out of her car carefully. She knew if she stood up too quickly, her headache would come heaving back in full force.
“Detective Inspector Sasha Monroe,” he said, grinning and nodding, the tone in his voice congratulatory, but with a hint of humor.
“Hey, Jack,” she said, returning the smile. The boy was in his early twenties, brimming with enthusiasm, and prone to foot-in-mouth moments. He was a nice kid, even if his edge was a little dull. “Mr. Kinnear inside?” She nodded with her head at the dark and narrow house.
The young police officer nodded gravely, the smile fading from his face as he remembered there was a dead member of the community not twenty meters away.
“Yes, he is.”
“Bad?” Sasha asked, making a face, and placing her front teeth on her bottom lip. She felt then how dry her lips were, and dug out her lip balm. She carried it everywhere. It was essential out here.
He blinked, and nodded again. “Yes.”
“They haven’t told me much of anything, yet.” She took a deep breath, her mind doing its best to run through the standard crime scene protocol. “You’ve got everything taped up?” she asked, but she could already see the police tape cordoning off the house.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Coroner on his way?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me that,” Sasha said quietly. She turned her back on the sun, already formidable. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. “It makes me feel old.”
“Should I call you sir, then?”
“Why not?” Sasha said. She smiled briefly. “It is the twenty-first century, after all. They do it in the military now.” She took a breath, and put a hand on her hip. She didn’t want to ask it, but she had to. “Touch anything?”
The young officer recoiled visibly. “Of course not.”
“Come on, Jack. I’ve got to ask.”
“Didn’t you always hate it when the D.I.’s asked you?”
“Yes,” Sasha admitted. “I did. Touch the body?”
Jack laughed, shook his head. “Just the wrist to check for a pulse.”
“Not the neck?”
He stalled for a moment, scuffed his feet against the ground, kicking up sand that drifted away like a puff of orange smoke.
“Maybe you’d better go inside.”
Sasha looked at the young man. She hated that he was being cryptic. That was always a bad sign. “Right. Who called it in?” She looked at the two flanking houses, and saw a face in the windows of both.
“Um, hold on.”
“Okay,” Sasha murmured, watching him flip through his pad. “Take your time.”
“A Mrs. Sally Clark over here,” he said, pointing at the house to the left. “Called in saying she saw a large animal outside of her house. That was at two in the morning.”
“I wonder what Mrs. Clark was doing up at two,” Sasha murmured. Her instincts told her that wasn’t a particularly useful avenue of speculation, but she almost felt put on the spot now, as though she was supposed to be doing more, considering everything.
“So we responded, my partner and I, but we didn’t find anything.”
Sasha blanched momentarily. “Wait, you were here last night?”
“Just hours ago.”
“But you didn’t see or notice anything.”
“No, sir.”
Sasha paused. Being called ‘sir’ was a bit weird. “Okay, so who called Charlie Kinnear in?”
“Over there on the right, Mr. Sands – I’m sure you know him.”
“I do.” He ran the free local paper in town.
“Called it in,” the young officer finished.
“Right, I’d like to talk with him. Could you go over there and ask him to get dressed?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I can see he’s still in his robe. I’m not in the mood to see a hairy paunch this morning, so ask him to get dressed and come outside. I want to have a chat with him.”
“But it’s half past five in the morning.”
Sasha put her other hand on her other hip, shifted her weight as though considering how she should respond to him, but was unable to stop a look of irritation from rippling across her face. “So what?”
She watched as Jack nodded quickly and then began walking to Mr. Sands’ house, nearly tripping over an empty bottle of beer on the pavement.
Sasha shook her head. Etiquette was the first thing to go whenever there was a crime scene to work. Jack should know that.
After taking a few moments to prepare herself, she then ducked beneath the plastic, reflective crime scene tape and entered the house. She nodded at a uniform, a man she recognized but didn’t know by name. They had never worked a shift together.
“In the bedroom, Detective Monroe.”
“I’m sorry,” Sasha said. “I can’t remember-”
“We’ve never formally met, but every cop in town knows you by now.”
Sasha swallowed. “Thanks.”
It was not exactly what she wanted to hear, given now that she was in charge of what was certain to be a fairly high-profile death, considering it happened right next door to the local paper merchant.
On top of that, there were usually only three likely outcomes when a body was in the bedroom, and two of them were bad. The third one was worse. The first and best case was that the death was due to natural causes. Old age or a heart attack. Then came accidental deaths. Choking, accidentally-induced heart-attack, auto-asphyxiation.
The third most likely possibility, and the worst, was murder.
At least, that was what Sasha’s experience was telling her. She ambled down an unlit corridor, the old wooden floor creaking in complaint beneath her feet. She wanted to somehow stall even longer. Maybe she should go outside and talk to Mr. Sands first?
No, she’d have to work the scene eventually. She sucked it up, took three decisive steps, had one look at the bedroom through the wide open doorway, and then turned around, hand over her mouth. Sasha wasn’t the squeamish type – she wasn’t going to vomit – but a storm of dizziness now overcame her.
“Oh my God,” she said into her hand. She fell into a squat, making sure her back didn’t press up against the wall. Old man Kinnear was missing most of his neck.
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” she said, not looking up at whichever of the uniforms had asked. “I’m fine.”
“Pretty horrible, eh?”
“Yes,” Sasha agreed. “Horrible.”
“We’ve been talking,” he said then. “It looks like an animal did it, right? Because it’s really messy. But then you look around, and nothing’s been distu
rbed, right? Surely an animal would go for the rubbish bin. I took a look, and there’s left over food in there!”
Sasha looked up at the police officer. He had his hands on his hips, thumbs tucked into his belt. “Did you touch anything?”
“No,” he said, putting his hands up and shaking his head. It was quite obvious to Sasha that he was doing his best to mask a swell of indignation. She didn’t particularly blame him. “No, of course I didn’t touch anything. It’s just weird, don’t you think?”
“How did you get in?”
“The front door.”
“It was unlocked?”
“I told you, we didn’t touch anything. It’s not my first day, detective.”
“Right,” Sasha said. “Sorry.”
“No need to say sorry.”
“So the door was unlocked?”
“Yes.”
“But you opened it?”
“I used a glove. And just two fingers.”
“Good,” Sasha said, nodding. They’d be able to print the knob. “Then why do you think it was an animal?” Sasha got to her feet, cocked her head to the side. “I mean, like you said, nothing was touched.”
“Did you see old man Kinnear?”
She nodded.
“That’s how I know. I mean, how would a man even do that? Like, I can’t really think of a tool that could do that, and the way the blood is splattered doesn’t suggest multiple wound inflictions.”
Sasha tilted her head at the officer.
“I read a lot of forensics books,” he said.
Sasha agreed with him on the splatter pattern. It wasn’t messy enough for multiple blows. “Why did you say man? Could have been a woman.”
“Just saying,” the officer said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. But rumor has it that Mr. Kinnear, uh, swung the other way.”
“What rumors?”
“Oh, you know, you hear things.”
“Really?” Sasha asked. “I haven’t heard that.” The policeman didn’t say anything, and offered only a shrug. “Right. Well, anyway, thank you. You can go now.”
