Chapter 1
(VO) “The grass dances in the warm breeze in celebration, back lit by the waning light of an evening sun.”
(Fade into scene, close up of blood dripping on a few tufts of grass. The grass is being aggressively blown around in the wind. The sun is near setting.)
(VO) “Today is special.”
(Camera zooms out to show a dying dove (CGI or animated) with a crow pecking at the corpse.)
(VO) “After a long drought, the thirst is finally quenched with the blood of a dove.”)
Two young boys walk at dusk.
One is dressed in black with a black cape. His name is Raven.
The other boy is dressed in white with a rainbow cape of many colors. His name is Bleach.
Raven raises a hand to the air and points at something in the distance as it happens.
Equally sharp-eyed, Bleach sees it as well.
High above them in the sky an eagle is flying.
A smaller bird, a dove, flies too near and the eagle shrieks before striking at the dove and knocking it down to fall to the earth below.
“Reminds me of you,” says the boy in black. He takes a quick jump and begins to hover along the ground at great speed.
A lone crow picks at the dying dove. It stands on the dove’s broken wing, pinning it down with its crude, reptilian feet.
The crow openly rejoices at the dove’s misery, it had arrived to the carnage first and it had even beaten the flies that would have invaded such a prize.
The crow swallows a morsel, smiling in its own way to the dove’s shrieks of pain. “Thought you could soar with eagles, did you?” cajoles the crow. “Apparently old Thoragil didn’t agree, eh?”
The dove convulses and chirps curses at the crow, blood welling from its severed wing. The crow steps aside, croaking, “Fly, stupid Dove. Fly away. To your worms and play that you so love.”
The dove stands on its rickety feet and makes a last, feeble attempt to regain flight. The dove chirps one final time then dies.
The crow saunters over, cawing in its crow-laughter as it pecks out an eye and swallows it whole.
SCENE TWO.
Two men watch the scene. One is fat, white, balding, and slouched over. He drools on himself as he pokes a cigarette in his mouth. The bald man is gross, a collection of sweat, stained clothing, and general sloth. His name is KEVIN.
The other is tall, African American, and skinny. He is wearing a suit, dressed impeccably. He stands up straight and narrow. His name is PAUL.
Paul has one hand on Kevin’s left shoulder.
The two men stare at what can be termed a hologram. The room is gloomy around them, insubstantial.
Paul is chanting softly and slowly to himself: “I am Paul, me and my friend see what we wish. We see with second sight what we wish to see, a sight beyond normal sight.” It is a mouthful, but he intones each word slowly as this helps him concentrate. After a pause, he repeats the chant.
Around both men’s necks are pieces of stone which appear to be quartz on necklaces. Paul’s has a silver chain while Kevin’s is a length of twine. Both stones redly in the gloom.
At the sight of the boys entering the scene, Kevin begins to act bored and rummages through his pockets for a cigar and a match.
KEVIN: “How the fuck did you get it to talk like that, Paul? Narrate like that?”
Kevin lights his cigar, spits.
Paul is visibly angry with him. His face tenses and he slaps his hand on Kevin’s shoulder. He is in mid-chant. “WE SEE WITH A SECOND SIGHT!” he shouts this part out before going back into the soft chant.
A woman’s voice (Kevin’s Wife): “Shut up, Kevin! This is amazing you drunken fool!”
A man’s voice (Kevin’s son): “Paul, keep it up! We’re having great progress.”
At the sight of the eye being removed, Kevin shudders. He blows smoke into Paul’s face.
Paul growls with anger this time.
In the hologram, the Raven suddenly stops. The scene freezes. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at the men. He faces them (looking into camera).
RAVEN: “I see two of my enemies watching my past.” His voice is that of an adult.
Raven’s eyes turn feline and the irises glow red. His tongue comes out and it stretches a foot in length, tasting the air. The smokey aura around the hologram glows red instead of gray. It disappears. From the center where the hologram was a burst of blood splatters and the men’s faces are suddenly covered in blood.
Demonic laughter. The room around the two men becomes completely dark. We can only see their faces by the light of Kevin’s cigar.
Paul is furious. He shoves Kevin back a pace and slaps him very hard.
Paul: “Goddamn you, Mr. Foreman of MY railroad, you made a mistake!”
Kevin: “Goddamn yourself, NI---” he stops himself mid-slur.
Paul: “Knee?” His face looks like it is about to explode. “Are you calling me a KNEE or something, else, Draquil?′
Paul raises a fist and holds his arm cocked, ready to slug Kevin should he say the wrong thing.
KEVIN: “Nightbird.”
Kevin grimaces, tossing the cigar down to the floor.
(Camera follows the cigar in close-up as it falls down.)
Paul composes himself. “I am Paul and I am calm.”
SCENE THREE.
From the embers of the falling cigar, we see a closeup of another fire. This fire is inside a coffin wherein a sleeping vampire boy has come awake.)
In this scene Raven is wakened from his sleep by light. He realizes his coffin is on fire and he is about to be burned up. He says a word in a strange language. His clothing and body become fireproof.
He then says “kaboom!” and the coffin around him explodes, sending burning pieces arcing into the air.
He flies out at breakneck speed til he is safe above the conflagaration.
Adult Raven, VO (laughing evilly): “If I could of chosen a day to have been my birth, I would claim this day to be it. For it was this day I was unleashed into the world without a safe haven to call home any longer.”
Adult Raven, VO: “No rest for the wicked it seems...”
The flying boy looks around, beginning to laugh and at the same time curses.
Young Raven: “I fear for the life of whoever attacks the predator in its slumber!”
A wolf howls at a distance. Young Raven spies it, punching his fist in the direction of the wolf in anger. A line of fire spits from his hand and travels a quarter of the distance from him towards the direction of the wolf but sputters out.
Young Raven laughs. The wolf whimpers and runs away. Young Raven swoops towards the running wolf and strikes it with a burning fist. The carnage is over quickly.
Young Raven: “I am your new alpha!”
He howls just like an actual wolf.
Close up on his smiling face. Zoom into his forehead.
SCENE FOUR.
Adult Raven, VO: “But truth be told, I had a proper birth like anyone else.”
A naked, pregnant, green woman with long green hair writhes in a golden room.
Adult Raven, VO: “She has twenty nurse maids at her call and a whole slew of her animal friends from the forest watching her (two of each species) but she not once asked for help.”
Adult Raven, VO: “Esteem was her name. The Goddess of Harvest.”
One of the nurse maids exclaims and grabs at Esteem’s right leg. “Grab the other one! I think the child is to be born!” Another old woman grabs the left as ordered.
The birds begin to sing as the baby’s head starts crowning.
A baby boy is born. This one has grayish skin and a mop of black hair. The baby hisses like a snake. It is Raven. The birds lose their song disjointedly.
A moment later, a pale, white-haired, white skinned baby is born. The birds begin their song again. The baby cries. He is normal, despite his complexion. It is Baby Bleach.
Snarling, Raven baby grabs his younger brother’s throat. His brother embraces him.
Esteem: “Grandfather, what is happening?”
In the back of the room, a shriveled old gnome with glasses is wakened from his snoring slumber by the urgency in the green woman’s voice. He sees what is happening.
Grampah: “The older child is evil! He is trying to kill his brother!”
He leaps from the wooden chair he was sitting in aggresively moves towards the two babies.
Esteem: “Do not kill him! Save both children!”
She bends over and separates the two fighting children. Baby Bleach isn’t breathing. “Save my son!”
Grampah: “It is too late! He is dead...”
Esteem: “Do not tell me this, bring him from back from the dead!”
Grampah: “But... .but...”
Esteem: “Do It! Do it now!”
Grampah places one hand on the boy’s head and the other on the boy’s chest. He mutters in a strange language. “I will you to live, small one.” He frowns. “As I was telling you, the spark of life is barely in this one. He has just come into the world and his soul had just as swiftly been distinguished.”
Baby Raven laughs. It is an evil sound. The wolves howl in dismay.
Baby Bleach begins to cry again and breathe. If at all possible, he has gotten paler.
Grampah: “It is done. You have birthed a daywalker... a hollow and undead child. A child with no soul. I hope you are happy with your decision.”
Esteem shushes him. She holds the babies to opposite breasts and begins to sing. Hesitantly, the birds begin to sing along with her. Bleach is suckling immediately. Raven refuses nourishment.
Grampah sighs.
Baby Raven bites at the breast with a mouthful of sharp teeth. Esteem grimaces in pain, but the baby begins to nurse on something he finds tasty: her bloody milk.
Grampah, VO: “From that day, I knew them to be different. As different from night and day. So I decided to hex the birth to prevent the boys from being at each other’s throats most of the time. One shall sleep while the other awakens... but the boys may play only at an Equinox...”
SCENE FIVE:
The Crime Scene Has Been Tainted.
“So, you’re saying he what? He was gray? He had gills?
Fuck, that’s hard for me to understand. Was he wearing a scuba mask? I don’t see a fucking fishing boat here. This is your apartment, miss, I don’t see anything here that reminds me of a damn shark. I heard that alligators are in the sewers? Did one climb out and bite you on the ass? Did a shark bite you? Looks like you’ve got all your arms and legs.”
“No, listen. I said, ‘it was like Jaws.’ Not in the sense that it was anything like a shark. The guy had nothing to do with a damn shark.”
“You weren’t even swimming, either. You got a shower back there, but no bath tub. And you’ve got a nice assortment of rubber ducks back there. Oh, I’m sorry, not rubber ducks, but rubber dicks.”
“Jealous because you only have the one? Rubber dick I mean. Why don’t you take it out of your ass and shove it in your mouth so you can shut up for a fucking minute?”
Valley found himself thinking of a movie. It wasn’t Jaws he thought about, but Basic Instinct. But this chick wasn’t any thing like Sharon Stone. First of all, instead of being blond, this chick was a brunette. She had short hair, cut like a guy’s. Shit, she looked like “just one of the guys” if all you saw was her hair. But, oh man, if you managed to look at anything else, man, you really were sure this was a woman. One hell of a woman, too. There she sat, telling Berk to shut the fuck up, and she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Well, she did have on a pair of stockings and some high heals, but that was it. Apart from that, the only other thing covering her was that towel that she had on over her shoulders. Her hair was wet, so she occasionally lifted up the towel to wipe the water off it. Valley could sympathize with her, but she still got him. Got him feeling for her a way he’d been told he shouldn’t. Damn, she had a nice rack. Just huge, so big that Valley kind of worried that it might hurt her back when she walked. He thought about asking her what bra size she had and decided against it. Even if he could somehow work that into sounding like a legitimate question --- a question he’s supposed to ask ---, he doubted she had ever worn one.
The thing that reminded Valley about that movie was her... Damn, he couldn’t think of way to put it which wouldn’t make him sick enough to puke. He’d never said any of the obscene words in his life (had heard it called a million disgusting things) and even the “nice” things it was called sounded dirty. Regardless of what he could think of calling it, she covered it with only her hands. Both hands clasping each other, except when she shook a fist at Berk or when she shrugged. Valley loved the shrug. When she did that, both hands went up, not just one. He got to see the whole works when she shrugged and it even moved.
“… You see?”
“Yes, I do, miss. We see a whole fucking lot. Davie here probably is seeing more of you than he’d ever seen of a woman in his life. I mean, I doubt this is the first time he’d ever seen a naked woman, but he’s acting as if this were the first time he’d seen one seeing him seeing her.” Berk. Fucking Berk making fun of him again.
“That’s David Valley, please. Call me that and I’ll call you ‘Tim Berk.’ Hell, I might even call you ‘Timothy.’ But you call me anything other than ‘David’ or ‘Valley,’ and I’ll call you much worse.”
Berk smiles. “You wanna show her your fig leaf, David?”
Valley ignores that. “In what way did you mean that, ‘you see’?” he asks her, hoping she wasn’t asking him if he liked what he saw. He felt that if she had been, then he might just vomit all over that damp boy’s hair of hers and she’d have to take another shower. He might even stay to watch… Call it his civic duty to help her wash his puke out of her hair and clean it off her back. He’d love to get a look at what her ass looked like.
“I didn’t have a chance to say what I meant before this asshole interrupted. I was saying, ‘you see,’ and before I could continue, Old Faithful decided to ejaculate again. But, looking at him, I guess only his mouth could do that. He just talks so fucking much because his little buddy is shriveled little interrogatory. No exclamations out of this one. Just questions nobody wants to answer. Questions like, ‘why can’t I get the damn thing to stand up on it’s own?’ I bet he squats when he pees.”
“He sure does,” answers one of the other guys. Valley doesn’t know his name, but he’s sure it’s safe to say he can tell him and the other guy who’s name he can’t remember apart. The one who just said something Valley had wanted to say is black. The other guy, well, it’s safe to say he isn’t. Funny. Three words. So far, in the hour they’ve been here, one of them finally said something. And with those three words, Valley was sure of two things. The first that was he liked this one. This brother. And the other was that the other one must be either ten times hornier than Valley himself was, or just simply dead. He was sure if he touched that guy, he might just fall over backwards, as rigid as he’d been chiseled from stone. That brought a smile to his face. Saying a guy as fat as that was “chiseled” had to be a great joke.
Berk sneered. He didn’t look at the black guy, but he stared right at the smile on Valley’s face. Valley smiled again, and pointed at the wooden Indian over there standing next to the black guy he liked. Berk walked right up to the fat guy and slapped him in the face. Sure enough, the big bastard fainted.
No statue this one. He proved to have far less grace. He fell back, slammed the back of his head against the book case (a book case that sported no books, but a healthy collection of the articles that Berk had mentioned was in the bathroom), fell forward, and landed with head in the chick’s lap. She then kicked him in his balls and threw him down to the floor. Valley had to envy the guy. Heck, he even respected him a little. Even unconscious, he still got a chance to give her a big kiss down there. And, despite the fact she’d kicked him so hard that his balls must of detonated with pain, the guy lay there, smiling.
“Anyone, you see, I’m not saying the guy was a shark. I’m just saying that you remember when the girl got attacked? She got shaken around like a goddamn rag doll and she didn’t see what was doing it to her? Like that. Goddamn rag doll.”
“You didn’t see him?” Berk, oh fuck, that kick must of scared him, because Berk was actually writing this down. He’d suddenly dropped the pig act and was acting like he was doing his job. And forget him being a cop. This guy was suddenly a fucking police officer.
“No, I didn’t see him. Didn’t see his face. Didn’t see him at all. But I sure as hell felt it.”
“You weren’t awake during this?” Writing it down.
“I was awake.”
“He blindfold you?”
“No.”
“So how come you didn’t see him? You wear glasses?”
“Yes, but I was wearing them when it happened.” She actually reaches behind Valley, leaning forward in the bed, touching her lips to his… to him… then pulls back her arm with a pair of glasses in her hand. She puts them on. “I just didn’t want to see that ugly face of yours,” she says, and smiles at Berk.
Berk writes this down. Valley would be goddamned if he didn’t it write in third person as if she hadn’t insulted him. Something like, “didn’t want to see Berk’s ‘ugly face.’”
“I was on the phone at the time, just got out of the shower and I was calling my sister. Stupid fucking bitch mentioned her probably being pregnant. Fuck. Here I’m working for three years, not a goddamn one of them wanted to wear a damn glove, and the stupid bitch gets herself knocked up by that fucking retard boyfriend of hers. KIDS! Any way, I was talking and then all of a sudden, I get thrown right across the room and land in the bed.”
“What time was this?”
“12:01am.”
“When was this finished?”
“12:01.”
“Uh, that fast? Or that slow?”
“One second. Not twelve hours. After it happened, I asked Steph if she’d heard anything weird. She said she was talking, I’d said ‘Oh!’ and that was it. Didn’t notice anything.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. I get raped by the fucking Flash and she thinks I’m saying ‘Oh!’ Damn, I wish they were all that quick. Average jerk wants to try for fifteen minutes even though he’s done way before that. Just under one second of work, and, well, then that.” She says this, then points at the nightstand by the bed. On it, there’s the most money Valley had ever seen in his life. He was also pretty sure that it wasn’t the most this hooker had seen. Sure, when she’d been a waitress, it would have been. But now, with her current employment, he guessed she spent that much on just a couple of those toys of hers. One of them had a handle resembling a light saber right outta Star Wars. And if that damn thing didn’t glow in the dark, well, then Valley’s new friend over there was probably just a white guy pretending to be black.
SCENE 6
He sat in a furnace. He crouched in a gathering of flames so hot that they burned as they were a small pocket of hell upon the earth. He did not notice the fire, though. It did not burn him, nor did his face look as if he realized where he sat. He seemed as casual as if he’d been simply perched in the midst of a warm bath tub full of tepid water rather than in an inferno.
His hands clasped his knees and the wrists were slit with thunder bolts of incisions and blood poured freely into his lap. Once in a while, he would hold his flayed wrists to his lips and drink of his own blood. The blood flowed and was endless, an ocean of scarlet stuff that was boiled by the flames as it rested in his lap. The hairs all over his body were aflame as well, as was the hair on his head. But, instead of screams of pain, his lips only loosed giggles of satisfaction and maniacal bouts of laughter. In between giggles and laughter, he chanted the same fragment of words incessantly.
“Raven’s Feather from unwholesome fen… Raven’s Feather from unwholesome fen… Raven’s Feather from unwholesome fen… Raven’s Feather from unwholesome fen… Raven’s Feather from unwholesome fen… Raven’s Feather from unwholesome fen…”
Cackling with laughter, seated casually in an inferno of flames that did not burn him, bleeding profusely from the wrists, genitals boiling in blood, he chanted.
He stared straight up towards the ceiling. Upon it, he’d drawn a five-pointed star --- a pentagram --- with his own blood, but it wasn’t long before he saw through the ceiling, though the pentagram stayed in his vision (reflecting the flames that did not burn him) and he could see the night beyond and the moons above him in the dark.
SCENE 7
Words. He closes in his eyes and hears words in his ears. Words being spoken to him. “she looked like ‘just one of the guys’ if all you saw was.” Raven’s Feather laughed harder as he released the words were not spoken to him, but were actually another man’s thoughts. Thinking of him. No. Thinking of a woman in whose body he now resided. He opened the woman’s eyes while his own stayed firmly shut. He opened her eyes and saw another world.
Men were standing around the woman where she sat. One of them was staring intently at her hair and his thoughts were heard clearly as if spoken, and more, what he could see --- was seeing --- was painted on his forehead as if it were a living tattoo. “But, oh man, if you managed to look at anything else, man, you really were sure this was a woman. One hell of a woman, too.”
The man standing to the staring man’s left was speaking to the woman and her head moved to face him. She saw her own face on his mind. Only her face. He was looking at nothing else but her face, centering his gaze on her eyes.
The woman (“did have on a pair of stockings and some high”) lifted a hand to her face, saw her own reflection (“had a nice rack. Just huge, so big”) in the other man’s mind do the same thing. The hair was very short, as the first man had thought. From the rambling of his thoughts, she knew he was staring at her breasts even though she didn’t bother to check to see if his mind showed them. (“might hurt her back”). She laughed at this one, not even guessing what he might of meant by that. She sensed he liked it when she laughed, but he “loved the shrug.” She waved at the other man, smiling as she waved back in his mind.
She couldn’t sense the other mens’ thoughts. They weren’t a direct chain of thoughts organized as if spoken, but more like pictures of what these men wished to perform with her, regardless if she wanted to or not. Especially if she didn’t. But she wanted to.
She turned to the first man, saw her breasts focused intently upon his mind, and she raised his hands to them, caressed her own breasts. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Then, she froze all of them still with a word.
And they were all frozen as if statues, staring at the bed where she sat even as she got up from it. Not even their mind pictures changed. For all intents and purposes, they only saw her sitting in the bed and not walking across the room.
She went to the first man, kneeled before his rigid body, and took his pants off. He was much less endowed than she would of liked. She looked at the other men, still as stones, and laughed to herself.
The woman laughs in incredible good humor. She hadn’t told Berk to do that, but she now wishes she did. She turns her gaze to the first man and to the dark skinned man. She has claimed their souls as completely as she had claimed the woman in which she now breathed. She kept their minds frozen and blinded their eyes, but brought them entirely to life from their necks down. She makes them attack the fat man. Fists slam into his stomach a hundred times. Feet impact with his genitals dozens of times. They break his arms for her and she laughs. They hold him up, one man behind and the other in front, both pairs of hands strangling the fat man by his throat. Four pairs of hands lift him up and slam his head on the ceiling four scores of times. Four hands break his neck. They throw him against the wall and all freeze once more.
The fat man is as good as dead the very instant that she returns him to himself. She has the two men return to their places and the fat man slammed the back of his head against the book case fell forward (the vertebrae in his neck finally emitting the SNAP of his spine being broken), and landed with head in her lap. She then kicked him in his balls and threw him down to the floor.
Then she willed the world to unfreeze. He coerced the woman into speaking just two words: “… You see?”
“Yes, I do, miss. We see a whole fucking lot,” the other man was saying. The thing inside her asked her what he was and she answered with three words in her thoughts: “cop, fucking asshole.” The thing inside her laughed. “Maybe he’s just jealous,” it said. “Jealous of what?” the woman’s thoughts asked it, but it would not answer.
The “fucking asshole” of a “cop” continued: “Davie here probably is seeing more of you than he’d ever seen of a woman in his life. I mean, I doubt this is the first time he’d ever seen a naked woman, but he’s acting as if this were the first time he’d seen one seeing him seeing her.”
“Berk, the first man’s thoughts said. “Fucking Berk making fun of me again.” But he kept these to himself and only the thing in the woman heard him. He spoke aloud instead: “That’s David Valley, please. Call me that and I’ll call you ‘Tim Berk.’ Hell, I might even call you ‘Timothy.’ But you call me anything other than ‘David’ or ‘Valley,’ and I’ll call you much worse.”
Berk smiles. “You wanna show her your fig leaf, David?” At that, the woman looked at him, saw naked man whose genitals discreetly covered with a leaf. Ah. This one was so boring, he even censored his own thoughts.
Valley ignores that. “In what way did you mean that, ‘you see’?” he asks her. She can clearing read his thoughts: “clean it off her back. He’d love to get a look at what her ass looked like.”
The thing inside of the woman is happily surprised as the woman speaks, sharing in the conversation: “I didn’t have a chance to say what I meant before this asshole interrupted. I was saying, ‘you see,’ and before I could continue, Old Faithful decided to ejaculate again. But, looking at him, I guess only his mouth could do that. He just talks so fucking much because his little buddy is shriveled little interrogatory. No exclamations out of this one. Just questions nobody wants to answer. Questions like, ‘why can’t I get the damn thing to stand up on it’s own?’ I bet he squats when he pees.”
“He sure does,” answers a man with very dark, brown skin. She searches in Valley’s mind and only comes up with the words “black guy.”
She looks into the dark skinned man’s mind, can only find a picture of what he wants to do to her; something his mind insists on calling “doggie-style.” Other than that, only Cassius Clay seems to be the only name his mind, not even a hint of whether or not he himself is this Clay man. “Then again,” says the thing in the woman’s mind, “these are all my Clay Men!” She freezes time again while the men are in the midst of a bitter silence. She goes to Cassius, does the same thing she had done with the first man, only this time she faces away from him and bends at the waist. She forces him into her and does it like a “doggie” would to him as he stands there frozen, laughing at the joke he’d told about Berk.
When finished with the experiment, she sets him to rights and then starts to walk back to the bed. On her way, she stops. She looks at Berk. Smiling, she takes a pad of paper from a pocket in his pants and places it and a pen into his hands. She then shoots him pictures of her previous encounters with his fellows into his mind and commands him to draw them on the pad of paper. The command given, she sits down again. Unfreezes.
Valley thinks: “Saying a guy as fat as that was ‘chiseled’ had to be a great joke.” She looks up at his face, sees the face of the “tub of lard” he’s looking at in his mind and seriously doubts she’d want to do anything to him. The man is so ugly the only thing she would want to do to him is kill him.
Berk sneered. He didn’t look at the black guy, but he stared right at the smile on Valley’s face. Valley smiled again, and pointed at the wooden Indian over there standing next to the black guy he liked. Berk walked right up to the fat guy and slapped him in the face. Sure enough, the big bastard fainted. Freeze.
The woman now speaks again: “Any way, you see, I’m not saying the guy was a shark. I’m just saying that you remember when the girl got attacked? She got shaken around like a goddamn rag doll and she didn’t see what was doing it to her? Like that. Goddamn rag doll.”
“You didn’t see him?” Valley’s thoughts: “Berk, oh fuck, that kick must of scared him, because Berk was actually writing this down.” The woman considered correcting him, but was delighted with look of shock in Berk’s eyes as drew those awful pictures in that note book of his completely without his volition.
“No, I didn’t see him. Didn’t see his face. Didn’t see him at all. But I sure as hell felt it.” Raven’s Feather laughs. “I hope you felt what you just did to these men,” he says to her before he leaves.
SCENE 8
As the cops leave, a homeless woman busily inspecting a dumpster suddenly stops what she is doing. She leaps out of the dumpster and walks shakily to the edge of the alley. She quietly mutters to herself, “Please! I am not of your ilk, Satan” and then subsides.
Her eyes move of their own volition, picking out three men in plainclothes. They are all poorly dressed. She can tell just by looking at them that they are detectives of some sort. She can smell the stench of bacon upon them as easily as she smells the cheap cologne they all wear. She tries to pull herself back into the shadows more but instead walks towards the detectives. She stops, standing across the street from them.
SCENE 9
A million miles away, her controllers confer. “We have an Undesirable,” speaks one person. “We are aware of this, Alphie,” is the reply.
Alphie makes a sound of disgust.
Papa Bear, VO: “Report, Alphie.”
Alphie: “The old broad wet herself is all.”
Momma Bear: “We are not amused, Alphie. She is of no consequence. Stick to the details.”
Alphie: “Well, the Undesirable seems highly skilled. We felt a time flux. Not sure how long it lasted or what was done.”
Poppa Bear: “Have you located the Undesirable?”
Alphie: “He’s not one of ours. And I’ll be damned if I can figure out his signature. You know I’m good at that sort of thing.”
Momma Bear: “Cut the crap, Alphie. No bragging.”
Alphie: “My apologies. I don’t feel this one is of this world. I’m getting a real occult feel from it.”
Poppa Bear: “We’ve discussed this, Alphie. There are no parallel universes or wormholes. Our Undie is of this world. We have to find him & incorporate him into our way of doing things.”
Alphie: “Yes, I know. Otherwise he’s a threat to National security.”
Poppa Bear: “Exactly, Alphie.”
Alphie: “Uh… bad news.”
Momma Bear: “What, Alphie.”
Alphie: “I’ve lost the vital signs of the fourth detective to enter the residence. He still hasn’t left the apartment.”
Poppa Bear: “Shit, Alphie.”
Alphie: “Why not? This broad’s already soiled herself.”
Momma Bear: “That isn’t what we met, Alphie. Put her back where you found her and calm her down if you have to.”
Alphie: “Acknowledged.” The old woman gingerly about-faces. The detectives still haven’t noticed her. She gratefully walks back into the alley where she’d come from. Before she reaches the dumpster, she loudly shouts, “Praise you, Jesus, for rescuing me!”
SCENE 10
Valley & Berk share a look. Their black counterpart has gone back inside to retrieve Sleeping Beauty. They haven’t yet realized how deeply in trouble they are yet. But they soon will.
Valley was the first to re-enter the residence. It turned out the black detective’s name was Baker. Baker had gone back in expecting to find his sad sack of partner trying to get the whore to give him a freebie. He wouldn’t pay for anything if he could weasel his way around a bill. Turns out they found the fourth man was very dead.
The whore herself was hanging from the shower head from a pair of her own panties. An autopsy performed on her body revealed that almost all of the men who’d interrogated her had somehow taken turns with the woman. Each man denied it. One of the deceased, Jannels, had recorded the whole proceeding with a mini-cassette recorder. Each man testified that none of the lewd comments spoken or the love-making noises on the tape were made by
themselves.
The story made the papers briefly but as with all things that happen in this Rotten Apple of ours, it was soon forgotten. One thing was certain... Raven’s Feather had transgressed The Divide.
SCENE 11
Voices in the dark of the abyss:
“I have a concern, Momma Bear.”
“What is you concern, Goldilocks?”
A stream of images: sequential close-ups of Berk, Valley, Jannels, & Baker.
Upon closer reflection they might have proven to be the men’s driver’s licenses. Jannel’s face is crossed out with red ink. The others are circled with green marker.
Another stream of images: the crime scene photos. A picture of the victim is even featured. It might even be a magazine pin-up.
“Your concern is valid, Goldilocks.”
“Momma!!”
“Yes, Little Bear One?”
“I can’t tell who is talking!”
“Use tags, Poppa Bear.”
“Yes, Momma Bear. I forgot we could do that.”
LB1: “Momma Bear, this is serious! We can’t let a former bunny’s death be
blamed upon our own police force.”
GDL: “She wasn’t that good of a model. She was a page seven girl. Bikini shoot. Five years ago.”
PB: “Good memory, Goldilocks.”
GDL: “I have a good memory for the maBEEP!”
MB: “Don’t swear, Goldilocks! Bad boy!”
GDL: “I don’t see how that computes. I am officially designated Fem for this mission.”
MB: “Don’t argue semantics, Goldilocks!!!”
GDL: “My bad, Momma Bear.”
MB: “Momma spank!”
Goldilocks swears. Somewhere in the south east of the city, a waitress rubs away the pain in her tush. Her supervisor yells at her.
“Francine!!! Pick that crap up offa the floor!!! I told you IGNORE it when the customers pinch that sweet rump of yers!”
“My rump is mine and mine alone, Paulie. I quit.” Francine takes off her apron.
“Good luck finding a damn job in this neighborhood if you do, Doll Face!” Paulie puts his fists on his hips. It’s a pose of arrogance he’s used many times when talking to the goils. He wouldn’t dare do that to his wife.
Francine drops the apron & walks out of the diner.
Francine imagines how great it would feel to kick this slime bag in the nether-regions but decides not to. It would just make it harder to find a job if she were charged with assault. And he would charge her. She’d be lucky to get a last paycheck out of him even. Cup a noodle for her for the rest of the week it seems…
Little Bear One snickers. Of course Momma Bear doesn’t hurt him. He’s one of her favorites. She knew not why & knew not how, but he was.
LB: “What’s the situation?”
PB: “I think we have an inter-dimensional on our hands.”
LB: “A what?”
Papa Bear stirs slightly in his sleep. “Someone from another side of the universe is affecting our universe.” He pauses. “That’s what I think anyway.”
LB: “That’s impossible.”
PB: “Never underestimate the power of a determined mind. Psychic phenom as you know is a mental thing.”
LB: “I think you’re mental. Are you having delusions? Are your emotions right even your own?
PB: “I am aware of no other possible explanation. These high-level psychics on the Neural Net? We are their puppets, us common folk. It would take a very advanced intelligence to do these sort of things, I agree. It is possible to do things across plains of existence. Even across time. One time I made
Hitler eat his own booger.”
LB: “Hitler?” He glances sidelong at the other patrons of the particular diner he’s in to make sure he isn’t displaying any unusual behavior in the middle of this conversation. Satisfied, he continues. “He’s been dead for decades.”
PB: “Somewhere, in another portion of the universes, it is currently the 1940s. It took all the concentration I had, I admit, but booger he did eat.
Goebbels looked at him funny but continued his report regardless.”
LB: “Really? What were they discussing?”
PB: “That’s classified.” He wakes from his slumber. It is two hours past midnight in Los Angeles. He quickly initiates a pre-programmed ritual where his body goes through the motions of getting out of bed, undressing, showering, and eating cereal & eggs for breakfast while he concentrates his mind on more important matters. Matters of which are secret to even the writer.
LB: “Oh.” He scratches his chin for a moment as something occurs to him. “Does the bitch slumber well?”
PB: “Who do you mean?”
LB: “Mama Bear. Have any theories on who she really is?”
PB: “Just a moment.” He stops his body in the act of raising a cup of coffee to his lips to drink from it. Oops. “Your clearance checks out.”
LB: “As it should.”
PB: “Believe it or not, she’s Eva Braun.”
LB: “Eva WHO?”
PB: “Hitler’s wife. Don’t you read the history books?”
LB: “Didn’t she also die?”
PB: “On the books, she did. He gut-shot her. Took a bullet in the brain
himself. Unofficially, they both somehow survived. Ever wonder who the ‘Boss’ is?” He smirks, burning himself with the coffee.
LB: “Who? Boss?”
PB: “Sorry. Just re-checked your clearance. I have stricken my last remark about Hitler from your memory as well as your question.”
Little Bear sneers. The bar tender gives him an inquiring look as he pours the cup of coffee. “I think I recall the booger thing.”
PB: “Not that. We won’t discuss Mama Bear or her past any further.”
LB: “I wonder about that. You’re Papa Bear and she’s Mama Bear and you just commented that she was Eva for goodness sake. Doesn’t that make you...”
PB: “It’s a code word. I’m the Vice President of the United States of America. For reals. Not the puppet the people elected.”
LB: “They voted for the President Elect, not his baggage.” Little Bear frowns. “That isn’t the word I meant to use.”
The bar tender leans over the bar and looks Little Bear squarely in the face. He says, “At least you’re not like the other crazies who come in here. You talk to yourself without making much noise. But please don’t call me a ‘bitch’ this close to happy hour.”
PB: “Had you going there for a min, haven’t I?”
Little Bear scowls. He pays for his drinks and deposits his car key into a locked box on the wall. It’s a PROMISE BOX. The promise being that he won’t drive intoxicated. Truth be told he hadn’t drunken that much. Also truth be told he wasn’t sure who the body of the owner of the car he was driving had been found yet.
Little Bear was on the field, wearing another man’s face as well as that other man’s clothes. He felt his skin crawl a little at the thought. Then his mental conditioning re-asserted itself. Suddenly he felt as cool as a cucumber.
He doesn’t know his objective yet, he will know his target only when hissuperiors have deemed it an opportune time to carry out his objective.
He walked down one block and up the next. Something was pinging in his head, giving him a simple direction to follow. Every time he stopped to consider which direction he was actually going, he lost concentration. His thoughts got muddled a little.
Perhaps he was programmed to head in a direction but wasn’t even allowed to know where he was heading or even in which direction? The ping blipped louder in his head for a moment in assent. It hurt. Something fizzled in his brain for a moment and he stopped in his tracks.
Just at that moment he had stepped off a curb in the path of an oncoming bus, but something caused him to step back onto the curb at just the right moment.
“Careful there, LB junior!” A voice said in his head. “You’re too important to the bosses right now for you to die so soon or by accident!”
“Right. Sorry. Something in my head broke and I stopped... oh... you just healed it.”
“Nothing but a mini-stroke! Nothing to worry your little head about!” Little Bear could sense the voice turning its attention to an underling to scold them.
Little Bear was used to the scoffing & the referring to him as “little” or “small.” It was all part of his code name.
“So how is the next King of England feeling?” This nearly stopped him a second time, but he kept going.
“Which one am I supposed to be, Harry or William?” Little Bear grinned a little despite himself.
“Can’t you tell?” More scolding. “I’m sorry, just pulling your leg.”
“Are you sure?” The concept was a new one on him. “When am I by the way?”
“Good question. You’re on a little scouting mission. It has been determined
that a certain Lady’s death is might be inopportune. We’re wondering if she
didn’t die...”
“So it is 1997? Good God. We can send people back that long?”
“As perceptive as ever, Junior.”
“So I’m gonna put a couple slugs into Henri Paul?”
“You ARE Henri Paul, Junior,” was the reply.
“The freakin’ driver! No wonder I tossed the keys. Uh? How many times have well done this before?”
“More perspective than is usual in an agent on the field you are, Little Bear.” There is a pause. “We might regret losing you.” Another pause. “Six hundred sixty five times.”
Little Bear nearly stops in his tracks but continues on a few more steps because he had been in the middle of an intersection. Good thing he had or else he would have gotten hit by Porsche that came blazing around the corner too fast. It missed hitting by moments. “The mark of the beast. Damn. Why bother trying more than six hundred fifty five?”
“I was starting to like you, Little Bear. But superstition sinks ships. I don’t have the patience with you to let you persist much further... whatever you do, don’t pull your weapon on her.”
Little Bear continues his part of the conversation as he walks. “You’re kidding? You mean we actually resorted to that?”
“The last incarnation shot out her tires. He warned her not to go and she was insistent. Then he got shot and she hopped into a Bentley & crashed almost immediately trying to flee the scene.”
“Do I have right of refusal?”
“I’m scrubbing you now. This mission is a bust. I’ll tell the higher-ups we failed.”
Little Bear blanked out and fell to the ground. He reaches beneath his jacket to the holster there, retrieves a pistol. He shoots himself in the face.
SCENE 10
Three men sat in chairs facing the large desk in the crowded room. The room wasn’t large enough for all of them to fit in, so one man had to sit in the hallway and look through the open door. Behind the desk sat Sam Rain, Chief of Detectives.
Sam: “You men are a disgrace!”
Valley speaks up, “Don’t give me a hard time now, Humperdink.”
Sitting out in the hall, the black detective, Baker, says, “Yo, what did you just call him, bro?”
Sam, annoyed. “Don’t you dare explain!” His left hand clenches so hard around the pencil he was holding that it breaks in half. An errant piece knocks over a framed photograph on his desk.
Valley. “Humperdink here bats for the other team.”
Sam straightens up the photograph, showing a picture of a young, smiling man. The frame is engraved with the initials RIP. “Okay, we’re here because you men raped and murdered a Jessica Stimplton… and, might I add, Detective Silvio Jannels!”
“I never killed anyone, Dink” eggs on Valley.
“And as far as my ‘batting’ goes, my partner is dead.” Sam smiles, but the smile feels wrong on his face so he turns it into a grimace.
Berk speaks up.. “Do we have to bring this up? My career is going to be ruined and I don’t remember doing it!” He shakes his head, then holds it in his upraised hands.
“If he wants to keep it on the down-low I see no problem with that,” Baker said grumpily. Valley shoots him a sour look. “If you ask me that is…” Baker crosses his arms over his chest.
Valley has been sitting with his chair turned around backwards and leaning on the back of it with both arms. He rises.
Sam rebuffs him, “SIt down, David,” pointing a finger at him and gesturing for him to sit with the other hand.
“David of the fig leaf!” Berk says, struggling to find humor in the depths of his misery.
“That’s just I was thinking or was about to think, Timothy,” Valley says. He drops his trousers, showing his boxer shorts underneath.”
Sam makes a small sound in the back of his throat, clears it. “What…” he begins, choking on the first word in his surprise. “What are you doing, David?” There is a look of horror on his face.
The rest of the busy precinct has quieted down considerably. Some lollygaggers are standing behind Baker to get a good look at the action.
“I’ll let you play with my Fig Leaf, Dink, if it’ll get me back on duty,” Valley says with a menacing smile.
Sam rises from his chair and walks around his desk to stand next to Valley. Valley cringes a little, but keeps his place. Sam dips at knees and punches Valley in the gonads.
Screaming, Valley falls to the ground, hitting his head on the desk on the way down.
One officer in the hall says “When it Rains, it pours,” and the chant is taken up by a few others.
Baker starts to laugh. Berk starts to sob a little, not having fully noticed what just happened.
Sam leaves, pushing past Baker. As he walks out of the Sam is sure he hears someone say “It’s Raining Men,” but doesn’t turn to see confirm this suspicion of his. Internal Affairs will put in an inquiry on this one. He shouldn’t have used violence.
He gets to his car in the parking lot without incident but when he reaches into his pocket to retrieve his car keys, he finds them missing. They are locked in his desk. “Dammit, Sam,” he mutters under his breath. He can’t go back there just now. He hails a cab and leaves...
SCENE 11
Sam is lying in a cold sweat in his bed. The sheets are disarranged as he tosses and turns in a fitful sleep. In his dream, he sees Billy’s face. Billy is looking at him as they stand side-by-side with their hands against the brick wall. Billy has a nose bleed. Billy whispers to him, but Sam cannot hear the words in his dream. But he can clearly read the lips, “I love you.”
All at once the men frisking them have found a baggie of cocaine in Billy’s back pocket. The men are faceless in the dream and their skin radiates a heat wherever those hands of theirs touch. In his dream, Sam thinks these men are demons. In the background, in repetition are the words “wanna play tag, fag?” The chant is spoken from the thin air.
Sweating, Sam watches as the men, the demons of his past, knee-cap Billy with a nightstick. Billy puts his hands to his injury, losing eye contact with Sam. Sam is thrown first forward into the wall, hitting his head, then backward into a dumpster in the alley they were in at the time. Sam falls to his own knees. Before he can get back up, he is tazed in the buttocks. The demons begin to have their way with Billy. Twitching, Sam watches as they kick his partner and best friend. His lover. This is the worst night of his life. Shots ring out but Sam awakens before he sees the carnage…
Sam finally awakens from the nightmare, rolling off of the bed and onto the floor. “Thank God!” he says somewhat ironically. He said this because this time he didn’t have to see the shooting. The bullet holes in Billy’s back… The blood…
SCENE 12
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