Not One of Us

Detective Regina Smalls closed the folder in front of her and put the pictures away. No need to push anymore, she had heard about enough.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

The detective tossed the pack she kept in her jacket pocket across the table and shook her head in disgust. Kelly was singing like a bird, and there was enough taped evidence to put her away for three lifetimes. Smalls would never understand this, not as long as she lived. What would make someone accept being this faltering reflection of humanity? The lesser path?

“So, you see yourself as changing, transforming into something more than what you are…What you were, I mean.”

Kelly lit one of the detective’s smokes and took a long drag. “Ahh, that’s good. First smoke I’ve had in hours. Yes, detective, to answer your oh-so boring question, it is the act that precipitates the becoming. What you do is what you are. I’m not this weak, meat creature you see before you now. I’m much more, so much more.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t.”

Detective Smalls considered her suspect. At 136 lbs and barely scraping the edge of 32 years old, Kelly McHale had confessed to being the Seattle Shrike, the horrific serial killer who kidnapped small children and impaled them on her basement wall. When the police had raided her house, they found various body parts in the freezer & refrigerator.

Some had been gnawed upon.

Her love of the spotlight had led her to inform the FBI where to find the remains of others she had hidden. As long as her name was in the paper, she would sing like the bird she was named after. She had even hinted at revealing the location of Susan Bledsoe, the nine-year old who’s remains had yet to be found…If only her parents would pay for the information.

Smalls decided to play the game, see what else she could get McHale to cop to.

“So, like…Let’s say a caterpillar that undergoes a metamorphosis into a butterfly, you see yourself becoming the greater being?”

“Yes, yes that’s it! You must try to grasp this, detective, although I’m sure it’s out of your reach to completely behold. With each step I create the cocoon, with every drop of that precious red liquor I am closer to the Gods.” She took another drag and let the smoke shoot from her nostrils “Much closer than you insects will ever be.”

Smalls could barely cover her smirk. It was so easy to lead them on, so easy to hand them the markers and just let them run with it. Pretty much point and click, really.

“Of course, I don’t expect you would know much about that, since you weren’t born true.”

“Born true? What are you talking about?”

“The gift that we have is a strange one. We can feel the presence of others like us, like a beacon of some kind. It always leads us to the blood. Always to our calling, our reasons for living.”

“Your murders, you mean.”

McHale grimaced “Ungh. That’s positively Neanderthal of you, detective, I knew you wouldn’t understand. We don’t “murder” anyone. We release others from life.”

That was new. Smalls made a mental note to add it to the report.

Kelly took another drag, exhaled and regarded Smalls with a casual look of pity. “You’ll never know what it’s like inside my head, detective” she said “You’ll never see the sights I have. You’re not one of us.”

“Explain it to me, then.”

The Seattle Shrike shook her head “How can I explain the sun to a worm? You don’t know the passion of the work, how it feels to embrace the madness, the uncertainty of life. That’s what I am, detective, and my name will be remembered with awe. That’s part of the reason, you know, fame is power. I am random chance. I am death’s advocate, and I am the one who hunts the night. I am chaos!”

Enough. Detective Smalls switched off the tape, and stood as she prepared the case file into a neat stack. Kelly grinned with satisfaction as she snubbed out her smoke. “Don’t feel bad, detective” she said, “Perhaps one day you’ll see the truth, though I doubt it. But if you learn how to embrace―”

Kelly’s body stiffened, and a stifled “ghurk!” escaped her throat before the nerve agent overtook her completely. Detective Smalls closed her eyes as a smile slowly crept across her face. “We don’t have to embrace anything, you sick meat thing” she whispered to Kelly as she withdrew the hypodermic from her neck, “We’re already there. We don’t do it for fame. We don’t do it for money. And if you really knew anything about us, you would have gotten as far away from me as you possibly could.”

Smalls returned to her seat and quickly scribbled across the top of the folder in front of her; “Subject has regressed into catatonia. Suggest electro shock therapy”

The Detective glanced at her paralyzed victim and gave her the warmest of smiles. “You want it so badly, don’t you? An all-access pass to the monster club. Well, here’s your initiation pledge.” Smalls leaned over to McHale’s ear and lowered her voice to a whisper again “Next time, choose your role models better.” Then she kissed McHale on the lips, and her tongue probed the pretend sociopaths’ mouth for almost a full minute.

There was nothing she could say as the officer wheeled Kelly McHale, the Seattle Shrike who had held the city in terror for three years, into the darkness. The paralysis was total.

A tear welled in her right eye, but it never fell.