Freak Show (Episode One: The Nightshade Cases) Read online

  She always wondered, even after all these years. Since the first time she asked, innocent at six years old, what was wrong with Alfred’s head. Mummy’s second husband died three days later of an aneurysm. And Mummy insisted, dressed in black with a lacy veil pulled over her face at his funeral, Ray stop telling everyone she knew he was going to die.

  Ray leaned back with a sigh, brow tight at the memory as she set the heart aside. She learned to keep her mouth shut from then on, no matter what she saw in passing strangers, the feelings and fears she harbored for those she knew had something horribly wrong with them. It drove her first to drink too much, then to retreat. By the time she was eighteen, Ray was certain she wouldn’t ever be able to live with what she knew.

  “Heart attack?” Robert Ling, her assistant, popped his head around the corner of the computer monitor where he logged his findings from another case. His dark eyes seemed bottomless behind the lenses of his trendy glasses, short, black hair spiked over his forehead.

  “Correct.” Ray shook off her past, addressing him. “As we both suspected.”

  Robert grinned, perfect white teeth sparkling in the bright lights, reminding Ray of a toothpaste commercial as the small, handsome Asian assistant rubbed his hands together.

  “We’re too damned smart for our own good.”

  Some days, she agreed with him.

  “Shall I log it?” So eager. Ray loved that about him.

  “You may have the honor.” She half bowed with a grandiose wave of her scalpel, like some gore-splattered conductor. “Proceed.”

  Robert’s grin widened. “You let me have all the fun.”

  Just that moment of lightheartedness lifted Ray’s mood. She returned her attention to the autopsy while Robert hummed the tail-end of a show tune chorus ending in a falsetto finish. She knew what killed Jacob, but orders were orders and a full forensic workup meant exactly that. His slippery, tar-smeared lungs were next on her list.

  “Can you say heart attack was a shocker?” Robert went back to his key tapping while Ray shrugged with two blackened chunks of meat in her hands. They weren’t all this clear cut, at least not to someone without her particular talents. While she might not be able to explain how she knew, knowing what she was looking for made her job much easier. Ray’s “hunches” led to solved investigations more often than not. Something she should be proud of but it freaked her out, if she was completely honest with herself.

  It was only the death of her beloved grandfather to a stroke she couldn’t prevent that pulled Ray out of her depression over her ability. Mummy had been furious when Ray decided to go to medical school in Boston. Followed her all the way from London. But, Ray’s escape into college was the breath of fresh air she’d been looking for.

  The lungs hit the pan with a meaty smack that made the chain rattle. That was the most frustrating part to Ray, the reason she gave up caring for the living. No matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, when she “saw” the source of someone’s death, it was already too late. There was nothing she could do to save them. Which meant her dream of being a doctor, of rescuing those whose fate she witnessed so clearly before it happened, only led to more darkness, more stress.

  If it hadn’t been for Kinsey and Gerri, Ray knew she wouldn’t have made it past her first degree. Four years with two of the most amazing and understanding friends she could ever ask for gave her the strength to go on, even when they went their separate ways. It was enough for Ray, as she finished medical school and finally understood there was nothing she could do for the patients she desperately wanted to save, to think of Gerri and Kinsey. They were stronger than her, far stronger. They had no idea, she’d become so good at showing the world the face of a professional. But without them, Ray was sure her life would have been over, by her own hand.

  Joseph’s liver slumped in her grip, grotesquely enlarged, marbled with fat. Ray’s gorge rose briefly, if only for a moment. She’d considered becoming a vegetarian, but she loved meat too much. Still, there were times like this, holding the engorged internal organs of the dead, she almost changed her mind.

  An internship in the medical examiner’s office in Chicago changed everything. Ray suddenly found her place, her peace. And found a use for the weird ability she had, one she never, ever told anyone about. The dead gave up their secrets to her easily, almost as though waiting for her and, within a very short period of time, Ray had her own morgue, her own team.

  But Chicago meant Mummy, and her fourth husband. The chance to relocate, to move to Silver City, was too good to pass up. Ray accepted the offer immediately, packed up and left without telling her mother where she was going. So far, so good, though Ray guessed Mummy would follow her eventually.

  She always did.

  Thing was, Ray wasn’t all that worried about it. Especially since she looked up from the dead body of a middle-aged man that day in the park and into Gerri’s startled eyes. The reunion had been heartfelt, full of joy for Ray, even more so when she discovered only a few days later Kinsey was also in Silver City.

  Reunited. Ray felt as though a part of her, long lost, came home to her.

  She set aside her scalpel to record some notes, mind barely with the body in front of her. Instead, it took her to the shore of the lake, to the night Joe Mutch died, to the creature that pulled the old detective’s remains into the water—

  She shuddered from the memory, leaning against the slab a moment, breathing slowly through her mouth to catch her breath. Ray knew there was something odd about her, but that night was the first time she considered she might not be the only freak in the room.

  It hurt her, more than she’d admit to Gerri, that her detective friend refused to talk about it. Gerri’s rejection of that night felt like a rejection of Ray, even though Gerri had no idea Ray was a freak. Irrational, yes. But she just couldn’t help feeling that way. Like the first time her mother caught her, at thirteen, kissing the new maid. The day Mummy slapped Ray and told her she was dirty and disgusting for being gay.

  Ray felt something wet on her cheek, wiping at it with the back of her glove. She was shocked to discover a tear escaped her eye. She hardened herself immediately. Ray hadn’t cried over the stupidity of her mother in years. Being here in Silver City, with the girls, seemed to trigger the past like nothing else. And though Ray was thrilled to be reunited with them, this was a side effect she wasn’t expecting.

  “Bollocks,” she whispered to herself.

  “You okay, Ray?” Robert peeked again, his round cheeks bunched as he frowned. He was half out of his chair when she waved him off with a forced laugh.

  “Something in my eye. Get back to work, you slacker, before I fire you.”

  He hesitated, but couldn’t resist a comeback. That was Robert. “I don’t work for you, bossy pants.”

  Ray smiled at him, blinking to dispel her tears. “I’m fine. I promise.”

  So protective. She wondered where that instinct came from in him. She hadn’t thought herself particularly special to him when she first came to the lab. But, for some reason, Robert had immediately claimed her as “his” medical examiner and refused to work with anyone else. Not that Ray minded. The two seemed to think alike, and there were times Robert saved her from blurting a cause of death she shouldn’t have known before autopsy by suggesting the idea himself.

  They’d only been working together a short time, but she already relied on him. And appreciated his dedication to her wellbeing.

  If only she could tell him about her ability. There had never been anyone she could confide in. At least Kinsey was on her side when it came to the “weird”, as Gerri called it. The death of Dr. Edward Gant left all of them with more questions than answers and, though Ray hadn’t witnessed his passing, she’d been in charge of his autopsy. At least, she had the body in her possession long enough Ray could tell something wasn’t right before her boss took the case away from her.

  His death was reported as a heart attack, much like Joseph on her
slab. But Ray knew the truth. Edward Gant passed away from massive cranial trauma, the likes of which she’d never seen before. As though something dug into the middle of his brain and exploded.

  Ray might have been a scientist, but the remains of whatever killed Dr. Gant still burned in her memory, the feeling of something totally foreign, organic, left behind in the mess of his brain matter. She couldn’t deny what her odd ability showed her. She’d shared her fears with Kinsey who told her she was certain she witnessed something odd in his eyes moments before his collapse.

  Without the body to examine thoroughly, the case handled by the head examiner personally, Ray was without proof of “weird”. And Gerri refused to talk about anything she couldn’t prove.

  The phone rang, Robert’s fake British accent breaking the silence and making her smile. “Morgue. She’s just finishing up. Address?” He met Ray’s eyes with a mouthed word. Gerri. “She’s on her way.”

  Ray shed her gloves, stepping back from the body. “Can you finish?”

  Robert was already on his way to her, holding out a slip of paper with an address on it, nose wrinkling as he looked up at her. “Murder waits for no one,” he said with a wink. “And, dare I say, neither does Detective Meyers.”

  ***

  INT. – SILVER CITY COLLEGE - MORNING

  Dr. Kinsey DanAllart turned from the towering blackboard, the gritty feel of chalk lingering as she set it aside with a smile for the watching class. Overhead lights caught glare on the surface of her glasses, blonde ponytail swinging as she clapped her hands together to shed the fine, white powder. So many eager pairs of eyes, so many young faces lit by the screens of their laptop computers. The bank of windows at the back of the room showed full morning had broken over campus.

  Kinsey couldn’t help the grin pulling her mouth into a curve, the slight increase in her pulse at the focus her small class gave her. While fieldwork as an anthropologist was her true passion, there was just something immensely appealing about teaching she simply couldn’t resist.

  Case in point. Kinsey gestured over her shoulder at the words she’d written on the board for them to consider. It was one of her favorite quotes, from a professor she adored when she was in college. The joy of teaching softened a little at the memory of his recent passing, but Dr. Edward Gant would have hated to know he held her back, even with his own death.

  “Follow the fear; only it will lead you to truth.” Kinsey remembered the first time she heard him say those words, in a small class just like this one. She’d already formed a student crush on the tall, older man, still handsome though bending with time, whose deep, expressive voice and love for anthropology fed her own passion for the discipline.

  “I didn’t know we were in a psych class.” The young man in the back row had athletic scholarship written all over him, from his team jacket hanging proudly from the edge of his desk to the giant shoulders under his jersey. Kinsey did her best to hold her temper, to rein in her need to make him understand. Just the reminder of how risky such thoughts could be for her pulled her back, but the tingle across her forehead didn’t fade right away. She ignored it, focusing on her irritation with the registrar. This was an advanced class, not for those looking to pad their meager grades with an easy mark. She made note of him as she spoke, crisp, but in control, the pins and needles feeling fading.

  “Everything we do—everything we study and interact with and create in our lives—is about psychology.” She pointed at his jacket. “Including football.” The class chuckled as one. Kinsey stepped forward around her desk and sank to the front of it, jean pockets digging into her thin flesh as she settled in to lecture. “And, as a matter of fact, so is anthropology. The mistake is thinking any discipline is separate. We must, instead, see them first as a whole.” She pulled her hands together, fingers weaving to form a ball. “Then dissect them to examine what’s underneath.” Her grin was back, she just couldn’t help it. “You might want to remember that when the Silver City Pythons take on San Diego State next month.” More laughter, a grin from the student.

  God, she loved her job.

  “Let’s get back to the quote at hand,” she said. “Anyone want to venture a guess as to what it means?”

  Kinsey wasn’t surprised Mitchell Harris spoke up. Her favorite student and her first pick for assistant this year raised his hand, long, dirty blond hair tucked behind his ears. “That fear is the evolution of truth.”

  Kinsey felt goosebumps rise on her arms. “Exactly,” she said. “Civilizations are built on fear. Fear of being attacked by other people, of threats from nature. Of nature itself. Our entire culture, in fact, is born from a fear-based reaction to protect ourselves from what could happen.”

  She turned and gestured at the quote again. “On the other side, of course, is love.” Some of the boys in the class groaned and Kinsey rolled her eyes when she turned back, expecting this reaction. “Wow, bet you make great boyfriends.” That shut them up.

  “Come on, Dr. DanAllart. It can’t be that simple.” Football boy again. From what she could tell, he was just looking to impress the girl next to him. If he didn’t stop flexing his pecs at her, Kinsey would make sure he didn’t come back.

  She shrugged. “Why do we go to war?”

  “Because we want to protect our people from our enemies,” he said.

  “Fear.” Mitchell flashed her a grin that shone in his brown eyes.

  “Why do we want to protect our people from our enemies?” She loved this debate and played it with the blue-eyed innocence that was her greatest weapon. Kinsey knew she was beautiful, with pale skin and the kind of figure envied by most women. And she was young, young enough some of the faculty still questioned her right to teach despite her awards and degrees and hard work. Jockboy was only a minor distraction in all that.

  “Because we care about them.” He nodded, finally smiling with her, not at her. She felt his attitude shift, watched him settle in his seat, sit back, head nodding instead of focusing on impressing the pretty next to him. Maybe he could stay after all.

  “Exactly. Fear and love, from the days of the first Neanderthal’s understanding of those concepts, to our own society, driven by the need to be younger, more attractive, to have more money all for the express purpose of finding true love.” She snorted to herself at the ridiculousness of the concept while her class nodded in slow awakening.

  “But, I digress.” She crossed her arms over her chest, glad she wore a thin sweater over her T-shirt. The prof before her left the AC on all night and, while it was warm here on California’s West coast, it wasn’t the middle of the sun for God’s sake. “Let’s go back to fear. And the objects of our fear.” She grabbed the remote as Mitchell nodded to her , rising to get the lights, the auto screens dropping to cover the windows and cut off the sun. The room, now plunged in darkness, lit up with the image she cast on the whiteboard she pulled down to hide her writing, a black and white of Max Schreck as Nosferatu, one of the first Hollywood renditions of a vampire. The bald, sharp-clawed and snaggle toothed image hunched over a sleeping woman, a classic image from a classic black and white film. Nervous giggles and a hearty chuckle from the football guy made Kinsey smile, but only because she knew they weren’t laughing out of amusement.

  “Tell me what you felt when you saw that image.” She pointed to the dark-skinned girl in the front row, curls piled high on top of her head. Her glossed lips parted as she looked around, nervous but smiling.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It kind of gave me the creeps.”

  “But you laughed.” Kinsey glanced at the image, though she didn’t need to. She’d seen it herself, a million times before. “Why?”

  “Because everyone else did.” The girl shrugged thin shoulders.

  “It’s a visceral reaction to fear,” Kinsey said. “Especially to nervousness, usually displayed by women.” She clicked the button, showed, this time, a more modern version of a vampire, handsome, from a popular TV show. While still dangerous lo
oking, he had a come-hither smile that triggered different responses. “What, no laughing?”

  The girl squirmed in her seat. “He’s hot,” she said.

  The class did laugh, then, and so did Kinsey. “Exactly,” she said. “When we encounter something we fear, as a culture, we want to alter it, to make it less frightening. As we’ve done with the vampire myth.” Another click of the controller and the medieval drawing of a cemetery appeared. “Which brings us to the topic—anthropology and the occult.” It had taken two years to convince the Dean back home at Harvard this was a great class choice, but only one meeting to impress the powers that be here in Silver City. Kinsey’s dissertation had been met with enough acclaim she got her way, usually. But she was so excited by her reception here in California, it was enough to make her move and take this job.

  And now, as she settled into a chair at the side of the room to talk, she knew from the fascination on their faces, all her hard work wasn’t in vain and nor was leaving Boston behind.

  “What better creatures to start our studies with than vampires? Our present culture certainly adores them. But, what history we are familiar with comes from Eastern Europe.” More images, the creepiest and goriest she could find, raising gasps, a few covered eyes. History was rife with artwork that vilified the undead. “But vampire myths exist around the world, from Brazil to China, Greece to Japan. Every culture has their own version of this myth. It’s only in our time, through popular culture, that vampires are no longer seen as threatening and horrifying, but as sexual creatures.” More giggles. “Anyone willing to guess why?”

  Mitchell again, who seemed unable to take his gaze from the screen. “This goes right back to fear,” he said. “Before TV and film, before books, even, there was only oral history. Sharing stories like this were warnings. Kind of like telling kids about the bogeyman.” The class laughed, but more high-pitched this time, nervous.

  Kinsey let them fall silent. “You’re right. Every culture also has their version of the bogeyman. So why do you think we universally have these evil, threatening creatures in our mythology?”