Ravel touched down on the sidewalk outside, crossed the street and made a run for the solitary lamp post two blocks away. He stopped under the little pool of light to catch his breath. Looking around, he realized he was surrounded by darkness and felt more at risk than ever. Any kind of horrible beast or killer could be peering out of those dark windows getting ready to lay a bullet or knife or pipe bomb or crowbar some other absurd signature tool into him.

This place really was too much for him, he should never have accepted the assignment.

He wondered just how transparent he had been for Lei to have seen through him. He had to admit he hadn’t really been acting, but he didn’t think he’d given too much away. But there was no doubt after what had just happened that she knew why he was there. Did this mean Val knew too? Val talked a lot, but Ravel had never absorbed much of what he said, his reasoning or understanding seemed to be a dimension away from Ravel’s.

He looked over the letter Lei had given him. A few words caught his eyes. But near the end the text was too small to see, and he gave up and turned to the picture.

The picture was a photograph, either monochrome or taken on a very cloudy day, but the pointed roof and large windows, reflecting pure white light in the picture, were a giveaway as to what it was. Ravel was pretty sure there was only one church that still maintained such an antiquated appearance. If he remembered correctly, it was about three stops away from where he was now, and there were no more buses.

Too far to walk. Too little time. Too many deranged killers.

He grappled with his scarf again, trying to get his nerves under control. Hoping that he was in decent enough shape not to make a fool of himself, he dialed his supervisor. It took about five rings for anyone to pick up.

‘Hello, Ravel? What is it?’ The voice was even, but a little strained.

‘Rigel. Hey. Sorry to bother you so late. This is important. I did some looking around tonight and I think I know where the suspect is.’

There was some rustling from the other end. ‘I thought you said it looked like he’d left town. What happened?’

‘His house was opened up today. Something major happened there, we’re going to need some people to look at it. And…’ He thought of Lei. ‘And I’m pretty sure there’s still somebody in the house. You should send over some officers as soon as possible, prepare them for a messy situation, because it looks pretty bad.’

‘Signs of violence?’

‘Ugh. Uh…’

There were no laughs. ‘Is it the suspect who’s still there?’

‘I don’t know. But there’s definitely somebody there.’ To hopefully mask the sound of his desperation (or sound all the more desperate, either way) Ravel began jogging over in the direction of the church. ‘It… it looked like there was a really vicious attack there, so there may be innocent people in the situation too. I couldn’t tell.’

‘Uh huh. Let me see who’s still on duty.’ Rigel didn’t sound entirely convinced, but then he did not seem to have much conviction left after chasing after the town’s killers for almost five years. He still did his job, though. Maybe he was hoping he’d earn permission to return to the city and go back to chasing down traffic violations. That kind of life sounded pretty good to Ravel too, at this point.

Come to think of it, Ravel didn’t consider himself all that motivated, but at least he had one motivation now, which was not to hang around here until he became like Rigel. He had to thank his supervisor for that inspiration. It seemed too rude to say to his face, though. It wasn’t as though Ravel disliked him, but there was something about his head officer that seemed to have just been chewed up and swallowed by the town and all its absurdity. Ravel thought he was a lot like a victim of the numerous killers. Sure Rigel wasn’t dead, but if there was anything he had learned from Val, not all them took lives directly.

With the phone still pressed to his ear, Ravel approached the lights of a four way intersection. The roads were eerily empty. He almost wished the familiar gang of motorcyclists were still here to roar by, convince him it was impossible for everyone to be dead or gone. Looking up, he could see the steeple of the old church against the twilight, a few more blocks away.

‘One more thing, Rigel. How many men can you spare?’

‘Still checking. There’s some noise disturbance going down in the suburbs that has some guys occupied, not picking up or anything – and of course, its new years so we’re a little shorthanded. How many were you thinking?’

‘Can you send a couple of officers down to the church on Laurel?’

‘Why, what’s over there?’

Ravel felt the letter getting damp in his fist and hastily dumped it into one of the many pockets in his pants. ‘I think that’s where Val is. He left a letter that said he wanted to meet up, and a picture of the place. I’m actually headed there now.’

There was some rapping away at a keyboard and offside muttering that sounded animated enough to be coming from a different person. Ravel waited silently. Finally, Rigel returned to his call. ‘You’re in luck. There’s a patrol hanging around there right now. What the hell they were doing, I don’t know, but they’re close enough to be there in ten minutes. But if you’re heading over, you’ll have backup.’

‘Thanks. I’m almost there.’

Rigel seemed to take that moment of pause to take a swig of something and take a long loud sigh. Since he didn’t hang up, Ravel assumed there was more to come. What did come surprised him. ‘You sure you want to pass up you date for this?’

‘Date?’

‘Weren’t you talking about going out to dinner with some lady tonight?’

‘Oh. Right. We had to call it off. She… she had another commitment.’

‘That’s harsh, man. On New Year’s too.’ Ravel listened to his supervisor’s voice anxiously, but there was nothing abrasive to note.

‘Nah, I didn’t mind,’ Ravel said. He wondered if he would see Lei again, and wondered how he would explain it all to Rigel, or her, or anyone else if he did. ‘She was just a friend, anyway.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Rigel yawned, ‘Hang in there.’

‘You too.’ He found that he meant it. ‘This might not be the last call you get from me tonight. Happy new years.’ He hung up and turned a corner. The church roof cut a jagged silhouette into the sky over a few row houses and storefronts, meagerly lit by dying streetlights.

This part of town was also devoid of celebration or life or light, but at this point he really would not have expected otherwise. Ravel crossed the final street and began following the black iron fence, circling around to the church entrance. Brush and tree branches reaching out between the rusty bars clawed at his face. A few bars had even been knocked, wrenched out of place and one of them dug into his knee. He stumbled and moved along. It wasn’t the last occurrence. Ravel did not remember any block ever feeling quite so long and likely to give him tetanus.

The trees began stretching out over his head. The next time he bothered to check, they were drooped over the other side of the street, branches hanging heavily with spiky black leaves. In between the thickest bunches; little beady eyes watched him with interest.

The next thing he knew, he was walking on path he could not even see. He seemed to have gone miles when a sharp rasping sound pierced his ears. He clapped a hand to the side of his head. He didn’t hit anything, but felt something tiny and brittle brush past, flitting away into the trees. He looked in the direction he thought he’d heard it go, but saw nothing. The canopy of plant life, or whatever it was, completely and utterly blocked out the light that had already been so faint to begin with. Ravel wondered how far along the block he was. It seemed inconceivable that he had not already passed the church long ago and reached the next street. But there was no looking to make sure. There was nothing to look at at all.

More bafflingly, how had he not noticed himself heading into this? Not a thing had looked out of place. It was like they had just grown as he had walked.

That couldn’t be. So what was it? He had passed by this street recently enough, if not walked it, seen it from the buses and on walks around Val’s house. He would have noticed such an unruly garden. And even if he hadn’t, shouldn’t somebody else have seen and handled it? There were so many well manicured gardens and somebody maintained the park, so there certainly wasn’t a shortage of gardeners. And it didn’t seem like something that would be left to worsen in a residential area. He could have sworn the church was still in use.

Besides that, how had these trees managed to keep their leaves throughout the winter…?

He was getting that feeling again, the feeling Lei didn’t want to hear about.

His head buzzed unpleasantly. It was the same rasping as before, but louder, from all around. That unnatural canopy must have been lined with cicadas, or grasshoppers, he thought, but no natural insect he had ever heard sounded quite so grating. The air vibrated around him, and he wondered as he trundled onward if he was slowly being turned around, pushed by the movement of the voices or the tiny feet of the million screeching black insects. He certainly felt the touch of tiny feelers all over him, brushing the tips of his neck hairs, untwisting the threads at the tip of his sleeves, his scarf– He had to keep moving. Just one foot in front of the other and he’d have to get out eventually, he’d find the end of the tunnel, but what if he only hit a wall? What would he do then?

His thoughts and extremely slow going were interrupted – something considerably larger and softer than an insect hit the back of his shin. His breath caught in his throat and he vaulted forward, hands outstretched but no longer caring where he was going.

The screeching only got louder as he flew through the pulsing darkness. He started wondering if maybe his eyes were closed. Still running, feeling nothing but the shivering air, he rubbed his eyes like there were tiny ferns or larvae growing out of them and for all he knew, maybe there were.

When he had almost succeeded scraping through the top skin of his eyelids, his toe met a small bump in the path and he went barreling out on hands and shoes and knees into the light and into a solid metallic object twice his size and even more times his weight.

His vision returned from the shock gradually. First he saw nothing but patchy light. After a moment or two of blinking, it tightened into a rectangular shape. He pushed himself off the object he was leaning on and back to his feet. He rubbed his eyes that were thankfully still intact. He took a second look at the light. It was a little plastic panel attached to a navy blue sedan with the ignition off. The panel on the dashboard was lit with a bulb, and had PATROL in all capital letters; these panels had been given to all their cars by the police force. The car had been hastily parked on the edge of the sidewalk.

Up above directly behind, the front of the church, four massive wooden doors under a gray stone arch, and above them an enormous rose window, a kaleidoscope pattern of unlit panels. Above that, the twisted tips of the spires were just visible, black against the sky.

Still a little sick and not likely to feel any more at ease with what was waiting for him; Ravel went to rest against the steps. He pressed the side of his head on one of the columns, it felt cold enough to work as an ice pack. His grandmother had always had those, for the redheads, she said, but he seemed to have been the only one who made use of them. He felt calmer remembering her voice. What other cooling thoughts could he find? Lord knew he needed them.

Right now he needed anything to put that hellish walk out of mind. He was afraid to check behind him, for the thicket he had just walked through, or felt he had walked through. He was afraid of what there was to see. He was afraid it might not actually be there when he turned around.

‘Don’t look behind you, huh?’ he murmured to himself. ‘I think I’m getting it.’

A sandy orange cat swirled around his feet and meowed, swirled around and was off again. Ravel frowned. He had to do a double take. The cat didn’t make it easy, constantly darting out of sight behind him, under the car. Finally, it stopped just short of a set of large stairs.

‘Oh, hey cat. You’re okay.’

The cat didn’t respond, but then, why would it? The thing had always been a little difficult for him to understand, but seeing as it wasn’t eviscerated and hung on a creepy railing he was pleased enough to just see it. It did look a little dirty, though. There were a lot of black flecks in its fur. In the dim light, Ravel wasn’t able to see it, but when he raised his hand, he realized they were the carcasses of some small black insect, with long, spiked back legs and large dull eyes. The one he was holding had a single transparent wing under some black casing, having lost the other. Each leg was bent at random angles and stretched out as if the thing were in pain. He dropped it as quickly as he could. The little body cracked to pieces upon hitting the sidewalk.

He held very still and listened without turning around.

The insects may have been real, but there was no noise coming from them now. In fact, there was no noise at all. Fine enough response from the bugs, real or not, he could be grateful not to hear them again. But.

What about Val? And the patrol?

The orange cat ran its spine under his outstretched leg and then darted under the car. Feeling eerily alone now, Ravel got up quietly and looked in through the tip of the nearest dusty window. He saw what might have been a ray of light or a streak of bird crap on the inside. No movement, a lot of black grime. With all the information it was giving him, the glass may as well have been painted over.

He stepped back and considered the door, considered the way back, or calling for support. He found himself surprisingly unwilling the break the unholy silence, even by breathing, and it was getting harder by the second. Something had to be done. And in actuality, there were only a few ways this could go.

—

The tall wooden door opened without much more than the click of its knob. After all that he had seen so far, this surprised him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that the church was supposed to still be in use, all the files and maps had told him that much, but tonight’s trappings had given it the impression of being completely derelict save until now. It only made him wonder harder, how could he explain the overgrowth on the sidewalk, or the dark windows?

As his eyes adjusted to what light there was, Ravel stepped in and let the door close on its own, a quickly regrettable decision. The sound rattled around the foyer, got into the central nave and continued to echo hollowly for a good long while. Ravel backed against the white brick wall and found himself pinned between a metal trash can and a locked bathroom door. Both in perfectly good condition. He inched forward and hit carpeting. Clean and straight as any institution would have.

They must not have left the door unlocked often, or on purpose.

Feeling safely muted on the carpet, Ravel walked over to one of the open arch-topped doorways and looked into the large room. It had been a while since he had anything to do with a church, and this one was certainly larger than the ones he’d visited. The dark made it all the more ominous, although not entirely unfamiliar. When whitewashed it did look like the place in the photo.

Most of the light came primarily from the neon fire exit sign at the furthest end of the room. There was only one window, to Ravel’s surprise, and that one window was the height of three men and on the same wall as the fire exit. He couldn’t see anything out of the window’s tinted glass, but at the bottom he saw some shadows on the outside – the trees, although they didn’t look particularly out of hand from here. Against the window was the silhouette of a table and small amount of fencing and poles that made up the sanctuary sitting on a stage of rostra. Facing the stage up front reverently, with their backs to Ravel, were three lines of simple, uncomfortable looking wooden pews.

Also facing forward, seated at one of the benches on the right-hand line just within range of the light, was the head and shoulders of a person.

It appeared suddenly, Ravel wondered if it had been put there if he really had just not noticed it straight away. ‘Val?’ he whispered before he had recovered from the jolt. A second after, he came back to his senses and shuffled away. But there was no response. He tilted his head for a look around the corner again. The person remained sitting in still, deathly silence.

Ravel had until now thought there was no way a room like this could look less inviting than it did during funerals.

With his back so hard against the wall the grainy brick scraped through his shirt, he took a large, awkward step around the corner and into the gloom, shuffling over to the gloomiest corner he could find, hopefully out of sight. He glanced around hastily and saw nothing, not that much of the room was visible. His view of the person on the bench had not improved much. Still hugging the wall, he moved towards the right side wall of the room. The man on the bench remained still. Out of Ravel’s sight, another visitor began to move.

When he was almost parallel to the bench, just slightly behind it, Ravel’s instinct to bolt began to kick in. He took a few moments to breathe. Just one person. He should be able to handle that, this time. He had dressed appropriately today, so that was in his favor. And he hadn’t been noticed yet. That’s what he believed. Another breath, and he stepped forward.

That was when things all dove straight to hell.

No sooner had he rounded the bench for a better look did his foot knock into something soft and lifeless. He looked down and saw the body of a man. Ravel leapt away. The body was facedown. At first glance, Ravel had been unsure it was a person at all. This was because even though the head was facedown, the torso was face up. The join between the two, hardly worthy of being called a neck anymore, resembled an overexerted rubber band. There did not seem to be blood, but nearly every limb was contorted in ways that they were most definitely not made for. He gagged and knocked against another bench.

And this was when he should have known not to look at the body sitting in the bench, but he did anyway. The face that the head of the man on the bench was on the right way was no consolation. The face, illuminated by the grey light of the exit sign, was contorted with pain and fear and massive bulges and bruises caused by fragile inner parts being crushed by some massive force. The man’s shirt was mostly intact, but there was violently creased area right in the middle of his chest, and from the way the body was caving forward Ravel had no doubt the force that had gotten to his face had also landed a hit in the gut.

Just like that, Ravel felt he had been hit in the guts himself. He stared down what must have been the two dead patrolmen and could not remove his eyes from them nor stop his feet from stumbling out into the middle of the rows of benches. He scrambled towards the table and upon backing into the table on the short stage, finally tore his eyes away from the mangled bodies. He saw the exit sign only a few meters away. Yes.

Yes, this could just be the end. He would just leave town. He bolted for the door or rather, the shadows to the left of the door. And there, like an idiot, he waited.

Being as witless as he always knew he could be, and as he was often reminded, he had to hold still a moment longer. And he heard something. A clink, a shift, someone there. And he froze a second time, just to let the monster really get him, leap out and grab him and end him if it wanted to.

But it did not.

So, only moments from the exit, Ravel turned around. Standing maybe ten meters away, behind several rows of benches, was a familiar black coated figure, knotted scarf tucked into the collar. He cut a convincing image of a priest in robes until you caught the one eerily vacant hole where an eye should have been, and the one unmoving arm was cocked overhead, readying a heavy metal implement, a candlestick the length of his arm.

Ravel squinted in the dim light. ‘Patches? That’s you, right?’

Patches did not make any sudden changes for a while, and then slowly lowered his arm. His one eye was still honed in on Ravel. ‘You haven’t learned anything.’

‘I’m sorry. What are you doing here?’

‘I should ask you that.’

‘I’m looking for Val.’

‘Ah. I was too. Did you know, I met him in a church?’

‘I remember you telling us something like that,’ Ravel said. ‘No, wait, wasn’t that where you met him the second time?’

‘Oh. You’re right. I always forget…’

‘Isn’t that something important to you, considering how you’re—uh…’ Noticing that Patches was looking for elaboration, Ravel quickly tuned that subject out. ‘But no, churches. They must be important to Val for some reason. He told us… his assistants… to meet him here. At least, I think that’s what the letter looked like.’ He wondered if he should show Patches the letter Lei had found, but something about the whole situation stopped from getting any closer.

‘The assistants? If that is so, where is Lei?’ Patches asked.

Ravel did not like how he was still gripping the candlestick. ‘She might be here later. She wanted to check the house over again or something.’

‘And you left her?’

‘I agreed to come here first.’

‘You agreed. I guess you would. And she said she would stay. Hm. That sounds like something that she would have suggested.’ Patches eyed him grimly and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that you’ve misunderstood. And you’ve made a grave mistake here, Ravel.’ He glanced over at the bodies on the other side of the room. ‘Were they with you?’

‘I don’t know who they are,’ Ravel said truthfully.

Patches nodded, and appeared deep in thought. He had still not dropped the candlestick.

Ravel took a deep breath before carrying out his next obligation. ‘But still — what happened to them? Did you see something? Do you think Val killed them?’ He took one small, conspiratorial, fatal step forward, horrified by his own daring.

‘No.’ The blankness on Patches’ face was alarming.

‘Okay. Do you think you know who did?’ He pressed on. ‘Have you seen anybody else in the church since you got here?’ No answer. ‘Did you see anybody leaving?’

Again, nothing.

He bit his lip and tried a different topic. ‘What about the house, do you know about what happened there? Did you –’

‘Let’s not waste more time,’ Patches said. Ravel stopped short of his next question. Patches did not seem keen on letting him restart. He nodded towards the exit. ‘To cut this all short, you have come to the wrong place and I have other jobs to do. I’m sure neither of us wants any more casualties. So… if you want to leave now, you are free to do so.’

The exit did indeed look tantalizing. But Ravel’s addled mind was quickly devising a very different alternative plan. He continued to stand where he was. ‘If you have any information, I need you to tell me. Something is happening in this town and I just want to know what’s going on. Please.’

‘Are you leaving?’

‘No, not yet,’ Ravel said through gritted teeth.

‘Hm. You did look back,’ Patches said so softly he may have been talking to himself. ‘Then you know what happens next.’ He then waited patiently for Ravel to gather himself. Maybe he was looking forward to what was coming. Ravel took a look at the bodies around the bench.

‘Patches,’ Ravel said, this time loudly and clearly. ‘Did you kill those men?’

Patches seemed somewhat puzzled by his change of tone, but his face quickly returned to its original, caged, downcast expression. He tossed the candlestick to the ground and strode forward, past a few rows of benches until he was maybe two rows from the exit.

‘Did you kill them?’ Ravel asked, trying to keep the hysteria from bubbling up into his voice.

Patches lowered down onto the bench behind him and Ravel saw his hands drop. He waited, stiffly. One more chance. They were supposed to be friends, or at least acquaintances, right? Patches, in turn, was giving Ravel one more chance. The situation could not end well.

Ravel felt an uncomfortable stillness, and felt the uncontrollable need to move forward. ‘If that’s the case,’ he said, as calmly as he could, ‘I’m going to have to place you under arrest-‘

His calm dissolved along with his voice as the room filled with the creak of wood and the scrape of heavy edges against the floor, tearing carpet from stone. Ravel hurtled backward, once again pinned against the stage as Patches hauled up the pew in front of him from the ground. The wooden bench lurched upward in a bizarrely elegant arc, and in less time than it took for Ravel to realize what was happening; Patches had hoisted the entire body of the bench from the ground in a shower of dust and dirt. As it reared overhead, Patches’ face was thrown under a deep shadow.

Under the shadow, Ravel saw something between an explosion of rage and quiet amusement. It was unnerving and he never would have been able to conceived such a contortion from this guy who he had never seen do anything but slump over cheap food and in front of the television.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Ravel cried, very close to screaming. ‘Did Val tell you do this?’

‘Val can decide whether his choice was a mistake later,’ Patches muttered, again seemingly to himself. He sounded so normal, like he wasn’t toting some huge load that should never have left the floor.

The bench was wound back. And maybe an actual scream did come next, but he didn’t hear it, his mind was elsewhere. His survival instincts, perhaps taking a momentary breather from the bog they were always encased in, hurled him towards the exit, but before he could lay so much as a fingernail the metal bar that would open the door, the bench came speeding his way, thrown like an enormous, rectangular spear, landing on its end less than a foot in front of him, scouring a layer of glaze from the floor and abruptly flipping upon impact. The turn landed its other end in the Plexiglas exit sign with its plastic letters, smashing it clean through and, in a shower of sparks, putting out the light. The bench skidded to a halt, jammed horizontally against the doorway.

Ravel pulled away from the tinkling shards and stones that were pelting his head. His heart seemed ready to give up on him and the nearest way out was blocked. If only I’d just taken him on when he had the candlestick, part of him moaned. The other functioning half of his mind scrambled to remember the other ways out.

His one hideously dull eye still on Ravel, Patches gripped the next bench in front of him and struck it like a wrecking ball with the palms of both hands; send it grinding it across the floor with a screech of friction. It crashed into the other bench, destroying with finality any chance of Ravel or anyone in the near future getting through the fire door.

Ravel edged further to the opposite wall and looked around frantically. The only other exit was the front, through the arches and the wooden doors. Getting there would be nigh impossible to get there if there was nobody helping him, if Patches could plow through the obstacles as he had just shown. What kind of feat had that been, anyway? It was like something out of a superhero comic, only he was the villain getting clobbered. What kind of end was that? Physically, there was just no way for Ravel to win against someone who could hurl a family-sized seat at him – someone who was now pushing those six-seaters out of the way as if they were made of cardboard.

If he ran, turned away for the time it took to get to the front door, the candlestick could come his way and crack his head open like a pumpkin without him having a chance to protest.

On bench cracked against another just a foot away from where he was, a burst of splinters splattered against his pant leg.

How could he stop a rampaging monster then? Ravel had an idea. It had been more of an idea before the rampage had started but the monster still had skin, and sense, didn’t it?

‘Is this really necessary?’ Ravel screamed as he backed further just a little and made his way as inconspicuously as he could to the bodies of the patrolmen. His voice sounded embarrassingly high, but there was no way to be heard without yelling. Patches stopped tossing benches.

‘What?’

‘Why do you have to do this?’

‘Stop screaming, I can hear you now.’ After observing that Ravel had calmed a little, he continued. ‘How do I put this… you aren’t the side that Val wants.’

Ravel threw his arms out. ‘Wants for what? Okay, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But why did he have to stick around? You know he hired me on the spot! He didn’t let me leave!’

‘You’re too deeply involved now, and I can’t risk having you interfere with a more important meeting tonight. I’m sorry things ended up this way. This was all a misunderstanding.’

‘About what?’

‘The Cake Killer.’

Ravel shook his head and groaned. ‘Seriously, it’s coming back to this? Did he even find anything out about this supposed Cake Killer anyway?’ He stepped between the benches without hesitation and did his best not to think about how close he was getting to the ruined bodies around the bench. His foot knocked into the one laying down again, but this time he didn’t recoil.

‘I’ll take that to mean you did not realize the truth,’ Patches muttered, showing faint signs of agitation. ‘The killer is real. Val knew who it was long ago.’

‘What? He knew all this time? So why did he put us through all that bull–’ Ravel paused, hand inches away from the sitting body with the mauled face. ‘What was he doing all this time?’

‘Making sure, wasting time, baiting. His plans are never clear. But the difficult part was always going to be catching the right person, not finding out who it was.’ He bowed his head slightly. ‘That’s not a discredit to you or your superiors. In fact I must give them credit for using you, and commend you for your work. But the way these killers think is different.’

‘And you’re not one of them?’

‘I don’t know what to say about myself. But the police were never in on it. They could never get close to catching a thing until you showed up.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘You were the only one of us who was not from this town, isn’t that right?’

Ravel teetered over the body on the ground and leaned on the bench to his right for support. His left arm hung against the caved body on the bench. ‘That’s right. I’m not from around here.’

‘If you had been from here, you wouldn’t have joined the law and remained as you are. No. And if you had not joined the law you’d be…’ He paused; thinking of exactly what was that special something that defined the townspeople. ‘You would be a Cake Killer.’

It came out playful and Ravel could not help but shrink away slightly. He let his eyes drop, down to the side of the body to his left. ‘And not a run of the mill bloodthirsty murderer kinda killer, like you.’

‘Don’t get hasty with those accusations.’ He blinked, or at least, his uncovered eye blinked. ‘Would you actually kill a person?’

Ravel’s loose hand rolled over the body on the bench and hit what he was looking for, something cool and flat lying by the dead man’s crushed hands. ‘I think I’ll find out tonight.’ He took a deep breath and glared upward at his target. The body tipped slightly, and Patches began to realize what his plan was. It had to be now then. Ravel straightened up, raised his arms, and took aim. His fingers clenched a very dark, very square, and very heavy handgun.

The sight shook, swayed, and grew still.

Patches looked somewhat interested but not entirely worried. However, to Ravel’s relief, he did not look likely to leap in for the kill again so soon. Staring the muzzle down, Patches whispered, ‘Again?’

‘What do you mean, again?’

‘A shootout?’

‘It’s just one gun. It’s not really a shootout. I don’t remember seeing any shootouts…’

‘Uh, you were in the bathroom the last time.’ Patches hesistated. ‘So are you really planning to kill me with that?’

He’s the one trying to buy time, now. Ravel thought. Works for me.

‘I just want to stop you. I don’t have to kill you.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Why? Are you going to make me have to?’ Ravel narrowed his eyes and tried to step away from the fallen patrolmen without disturbing them any further. The man with the mashed face had fallen over and the other had been stepped on, so he was already feeling pretty awful. But Patches seemed entirely too close for safe conversation, and now distance wasn’t such a big deal. To make matters worse, the strange buzzing had begun seeping into his consciousness again, too. It was low and stealthy, but the constant white noise tweaked his nerves a little.

‘Do you hear something?’ Patches asked, seemingly to the air.

‘What?’

‘Do you hear something?’

‘Ugh. Just stay where you are.’

Patches shrugged. Ravel cringed.

‘And put your hands up.’

‘Where do you want to wait for them?’ Patches asked, halfheartedly lifting his hands to about shoulder level. ‘In here? Or out there?’

The bodies made him want to flee for fresh air, but the return of the buzzing made Ravel wary of what he had seen and heard ‘out there.’ Trying to keep steady in the face of a mounting headache, he replied, ‘We stay.’

‘Something out there you want to avoid?’ Patches eyed the bodies. ‘Or maybe there are things in here to keep an eye on. That sounds like a fine decision. We stay.’

‘That’s what I said.’ Ravel took one free hand and pressed it to his temple. He noticed just how much sweat he’d managed to shed as he made contact. A drop fell from the cold metal of the gun. Patches noticed too.

‘Uh… Do you want to sit down?’

‘No! I’m good.’

Patches seemed skeptical of such goodness and took a step closer. If he intended to be comforting, he failed entirely. Ravel backed off further, skin crawling.

‘If you saw or heard something out there…’

‘I didn’t see anything.’ He found himself shouting over the noise filling his head.

‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry.’

‘Stop apologizing. Just… wait.’

‘What else would I be doing?’

Ravel tried not to listen to him any further, but did not take his eyes off the tip of the gun, which appeared in his sight in the region of Patches’ chest, just where he wanted it. Taking it off would mean death; he had no doubt about that anymore, but the black buzzing was doing its best to force him to the ground. It was the sound he had heard under that forest canopy growing out of the church’s fence but this time, everything seemed impossibly bright in comparison. There was nowhere for those cicadas or crickets or locusts or whatever they were, to be hiding in such masses.

Patches had his hands in pockets down. ‘You seem a lot more sensitive to the noise than Val is. I would guess Lei isn’t as highly affected by it either. Bad break. I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve done this to Val before? Wow. That’s rough.’

‘He got out of it quite impressively, though. I can’t explain how…’

‘Then it’s not my concern.’

There was an explosion of chirping. Ravel clapped his free hand to his ear. It didn’t help. He made another attempted to talk over it.

‘Wait, you’re the one controlling it? The noise?’

‘Yes and no.’

‘Is that an answer?’

‘It’s hereditary. It’s happened before.’

‘So you can control it? How?’

‘I’m afraid there’s no answer. It just gets worse with waiting, for most people. Would you rather have it end now?’

‘And what, just submit to getting crushed by a wooden bench? Let me know when you’re up for being shot in the chest and I’ll give you the answer you want.’

‘Okay.’

The muzzle of the gun began to waver a little. Patches glanced at the door, and then at the window. Ravel did too. His eyes had been watering so hard that he hadn’t noticed until then. The blue and red flashes of light that consumed the large window signaled his backup had arrived. His foot on the face-down patrolman’s communicator had been enough. Reality had prevailed over insanity, at least in part.

Through the buzzing, the sound of sirens slowly sank in. They were loud, harsh, and prying. They seemed very comforting. Ravel inhaled sharply and tried to simply block it all out and keep his attention on buying these final moments. ‘And there is what I was waiting for. Finally.’

For the first time that night, Patches looked genuinely distressed. Or maybe he looked disappointed; Ravel wasn’t feeling too sharp at the moment, but when Patches turned back to him he looked downright tearful. Ravel was already in tears, the buzzing was almost beyond human resistance. Over the static, he was dimly aware of Patches drawing closer. When his vision flickered into clarity, he found himself within battering range, staring into the horrific cyclopean face. He staggered. ‘What?’

‘Go ahead,’ Patches muttered.

‘What do you want? It’s over!’

The doors at the front cracked open.

‘You said to let you know. I want you to shoot me.’

‘What are you even talking about?’

‘Shoot me.’

The gravity of the command did not fully hit him, but he raised the gun back into position slowly.

‘Why?’

As if it were obvious, ‘Since you’ve called them already, the best thing I can hope for is a shootout.’

Ravel didn’t understand. But the buzzing was beginning to go away already. Fading out, like a rising cloud, being diffused by the entrance of the police and patrol. He shook his head. ‘No, but still, why?’ Just a few seconds more and he wouldn’t have to deal with this guy anymore! Why was this happening? ‘Why do you want all of them shooting up the place? You could –no, you will die!’

‘How long do you think it will take?’ Ravel saw Patches hand reach out and touch the top of the gun, moving the point from somewhere around his neck to his chest. Ravel noticed his hands looked coated in red and gray welts and full of splinters. The result of wrestling with furniture, he guessed. The gun wasn’t going to leave any friendly marks either, but he didn’t seem to care.’

The police had entered the lobby. The beams of flashlights cut into the nave.

‘Enough discussion for now.’ Patches looked grim and drew his hand back. It pulled to his body, then to his side and back, and finally slightly behind him and Ravel saw his hand had wrapped itself into a scarred and bloodied fist. Ravel’s eyes widened so quickly he was afraid they might have burst from their sockets. When the fist came down, he fell into a full body spasm from his neck to his feet. His hands were somewhere in between. His finger jerked against the trigger and the gun fired.

It was a bizarrely quiet sound and tiny amount of knockback. Of course, the sound of Patches’ hand laying into the wall inches beside his head was shockingly loud. The wall? He had somehow inadvertently trapped himself against the wall. He could no longer back away. He could no longer do much wandering around the room at all, he felt his legs were reduced to jelly, and his in rattled eyes, the entire room seemed to be shaking like gelatin as well. The impact, the spray of surface plaster and cracking of underlying stone made the pop of the gun seem miles away and hopelessly ineffective.

Eyes and ears roughly out of commission and legs not taking him anywhere, Ravel had little choice when Patches took a fistful of his shirt collar and hauled him off the ground. Patches did not quite lift him clear from the floor and its new coating of plaster flake and sand and for some reason this made Ravel sad and embarrassed, Am I heavier than a bench?

Those were the last coherent thoughts he put together before being pitched in a fine straight at the pews where his fallen fellow patrolmen lay. In his few moments of air he caught his foot on one of the benches, spun a little and observed that there was a nice dark stain beginning to blossom on the right side of Patches’ coat. Graciously, he noted that it did not seem to be causing him any pain, as he was quite easily distracted by the sight at the entrance and darted away quick as a horse. Ravel had travelled a couple of meters by then. Then he hit the ground, head first. His heels flew over his head and landed, and then he lay still.

About that time was when a storm of distant popping noises began.

Mercifully, Ravel was not dead, but (equally mercifully) he was close enough so that he couldn’t just leap up and inspect his body for anything to panic about. There were no particular pains to pick out, but overall he felt as though he had been run over by a snow plow. Somewhere between the officer with his head twisted backward and the foot of the man with the caved torso, Ravel lay on his side listening to all the strange unpleasant noises going on overhead and getting a cropped snail’s eye view of proceedings from the gap beneath the bench.

There were lots of shiny black shoes, blacker that the dark that surrounded them, pattering forward. There were also a few pinpricks of light flying by. There was no regular pattern to them, they swept across the floor and then flew up to the ceiling and sometimes seemed to point straight at him. The lights never touched the shoes. As the shoes pattered out of his field of view, the lights still returned for brief checks.

From somewhere behind him, Ravel heard a crash and a chorus of voices. Something shattered, it sounded heavy and the crackling that followed sounded like hail. There were some more popping cracks. The floor thundered with footsteps. Then the familiar sound and feeling of a heavy edge being scraped across the floor, and a far off boom that shook the world like an earthquake. More voices, high and panicked. The lights flashed over head and out of sight. More thunder, getting closer.

The next quake occurred not a meter away from Ravel’s ears. His misty eyeball rattled in his head, and the next thing he knew, the body on the bench had teetered over and landed right on him. The face, frozen and contorted, dropped close.

But then, in a final kindness to a fellow coworker, the man’s body tipped over Ravel’s shoulder and fell behind him. Ravel could still feel the weight of the man’s shoes on his side, pushing him to breathe. He did. The clouds in his eyes were slowly lifting but all that did was make way for more blatant confusion.

What came out of the murk was dull red. It was soft and odorless and consumed maybe half of his vision. It pressed against the side of his face firmly, tiny fibers digging into his cheek. His skin itched and bubbled at the feeling of the synthetic cotton and doubtless layers of dirt and grime that you only really noticed once your face was right up against them. The voice of his grandmother whispered to him, How dirty. Don’t put that near your face. If you love red so much, I will make you something clean.

She had been pretty thorough about the hair, he had to admit. It came in even slabs that he remembered seeing laid out evenly across the sewing table for about a few hours before use. It was washed with a light concoction of her own making, to remove parasites, with a tiny dash of alcohol to give it an even scent, otherwise it smelled a bit sugary. He did not mind the sweet smell, but his grandmother was insistent. The gleaming strands then disappeared into the bedroom and came out in a lovely soft, gleaming rectangle that his grandmother wrapped around his shoulders.

Silk, wool, and hair. Gifts from God’s living creatures. Not a life was taken for these materials, Ravel. They are clean. They will keep you safe.

Ravel’s grandmother was a God fearing woman, and did not take lives so he knew she was telling the truth. Her very own silkworms were kept in a tank in the attic with plenty of foliage for survival. She knew a farmer who owned a herd of sheep just outside the city. And the red headed children were locked safely in the basement where they could not hurt themselves. They were silenced upon induction, and were shampooed thrice weekly.

He had not realized anything was wrong until somebody called the police on them. The massive amount of soap scum had finally backed up the pipes and lather was running all over the streets.

With his eyes closed he could recall the vanilla scented shampoo and conditioner combo that filled the air. The streets were overrun with what looked like banana milkshake. The police splashed through it, followed it to the grate in front of his house and after glancing at each other, knocked on the door.

What had happened to the place after he left? Had the worms died? Did the sheep farmer finally abandon his business? And what about the children? The last question was something so many people asked that it somehow meant less to him than the others.

The red scarf that had once draped over him like a cape had long since lost its luster. The tips were coming undone and it was stretched where some angry city trainees had pulled it. It was as dull as the carpeting that was now burning a rash into his skin. But as a talisman, he had to admit it had worked well enough. He was alive. He was unharmed. He was now able to realize the latter for sure. The memories of those who had provided its substance gave him hope.

His fingers were the first parts to phase out the aching. He touched the tip of his scarf and took a deep breath. He felt as though a weight had lifted from his back. It was more than just a feeling, but he wouldn’t discover why until later.

He blinked, coughed, and placed his palm on the ground, the smell of vanilla shampoo still drifting through his veins. The world had once again been reduced to blacks and whites. Sounds sharpened into gunshots and subhuman roaring. Ravel pulled his head up.

The blinding beams of flashlights took him right in the eyes. He raised an arm up and realized the gun was still in his hand, shining like oil. Further ahead, he saw a solitary bulky shape swaying like a staggered animal in front of headlights.

His eyes hovering in and out of focus, Ravel said ‘Patches?’

Patches turned and for a second Ravel though he would fall. He did not, but it did allow Ravel to see he resembled road kill in more ways than one. For one, his eye patch had come off revealing the hideous blackened void dug into his face, his expression dull and dead. Around the hole, and what little Ravel could see of his scarf, his arms and legs were all splattered in what must have been a fountain of blood. Some of which must have been his. His hands looked like a ragdoll’s after being put through a blender, but were amazingly still functional judging by his position. His left hand was clasping his side where Ravel had shot at. The right was making a speedy approach towards Ravel’s prone person.

Ravel, throttled back to reality or whatever it was he was facing, raised the gun he was holding. As soon as it rose, Patches was only a foot away, and wrapped his free hand around the gun for the second time that night.

Ravel saw his face illuminated from the beams of maybe fifteen flashlights behind him. Patches, on the other hand, did not seem interested in Ravel at all. He looked past him, into the shadows behind him and frowned. His face slowly reduced from monstrous blankness to mild concern to a realization of pain. His hand tightened around his ribs where the small bloom of blood had grown into a giant, ugly stain. Ravel stared. Patched looked like he was going to start bawling at the sight. Whatever bug had gripped his mind during the fight had filtered down and out. He was a person again. Well, almost.

Patches’ grip on his fingers sending them numb again, Ravel was eager to get away. The gun went off, the bullet streaking past Patches harmlessly and out of sight. Patches face made one last twitch of frustration and he wrenched the gun from Ravel’s grasp as though he were dealing with a child, and dashed it against the ground, sending a final tremor throughout the huge room. The metal pieces bent, creaked, and flew apart. Twelve feed bullets bounced and rolled off into the darkness. Ravel backed away. Patches did not follow. He looked at Ravel then back at the fringes of the room dully.

‘Did I throw you that hard?’ Patches said to Ravel without looking at him. ‘I’m sorry.’

He looked like he might have begun to shed a few actual tears of despair (it could just as easily have been pain) when the officers dog piled him. Sickeningly, Ravel saw that the hole in his head gathered wetness too. When Patches hit the floor, Ravel decided with a sense of disgust and confusion that he’d rather wait outside for it all to end.

—

Patches had recovered. Save for a tinge of pain he was back to his semi-shameful calmness. He had been put into several pairs of handcuffs and tied to a car seat for good measure. Nobody had checked his injuries or wiped him up a little, but nobody was willing to undo his bindings to do so after all the effort put into safely stowing him away. The patrol and police both resolved to wait for an ambulance to sedate, clean, and treat him all at once. As far as they could see, he had only one serious injury which was the shot that had hit his side. Patches seemed okay with waiting. Through the slightly lowered window, he could be seen taking a nap, or perhaps passing out from overexertion.

Ravel sat at the church’s entrance while waiting for the officers to finish their business inside. He saw Patches get removed from the building and stowed away in a car without retaliation, but hid in the shadows behind a large pillar just in case. He wasn’t quite secure around him just yet. He saw officers then remove other officers, the injured ones, and some wooden debris. His grandmother would have thrown a fit had something like that happened in her church. It was one such fit that had stopped him from attending the first place.

The marked police and anonymous patrol cars that flooded the front lot made him feel a little better. No black cicadas were going to crowd him for the time being, bugs weren’t fond of cars as far as he knew. And the police had reason to be happy as well. A vicious police-mauling criminal had been captured. Something had come together at last. There were a lot of small cheers and pats on backs going around. Many of the cheers and pats were also directed at Ravel, who just smiled blandly and tried to reorient himself. But something was not quite right.

But when Rigel drove up in his black patrol vehicle, Ravel realized that nobody else had come out of the church. He became keenly aware of the strangeness of their congratulations.

‘Good job everyone,’ Rigel said.

‘Sorry we were late,’ apologized an officer. ‘We were sent to check on a noise report…’

‘Didn’t find anything there. Glad we came to help.’

‘A shame about the church.’

‘Luckily the damage was confined to one room.’

‘Lucky… And no casualties, too.’

‘Yeah, from the call I thought…’

Ravel leaped to his feet.

In the car, Patches’ cuffs made a clink of protest as he tilted to watch Ravel made a yelp of alarm and dash into the church. A few curious officers followed him in. Only minutes later, they had all emerged again, many of them throwing questions at Ravel, who looked like the blood had been drained from his person. He realized what Patches had seen that had put a halt to the rampage.

Ravel scrambled down the stairs and up next to the police car. He stared in with his eyes wide. Patches stared back out at him expectantly, hands shaking unconsciously. Ravel was back to his natural state as well. Guns, the car and backup weren’t enough for him to get over his regular fearful self, and an old fear was just enough to cause his regression.

Several officers were eyeing Ravel with concern, concern that he might do something to their new prisoner or the prisoner might do something to him. All Patches did was look at him carefully. ‘You saw?’

‘The bodies…’ He didn’t have to finish.

‘Yes.’

Ravel grasped his scarf and looked well prepared to throw his head against the window. ‘I should have been watching the bodies.’

‘You passed out after being thrown. It… was my mistake.’

‘I guess there’s no point asking if you saw anything.’

‘I was busy too. But I didn’t expect it either…’ Patches’s one gray eye flashed at the approaching officer. ‘Keep your head together, someone’s coming. But tell me, you know what this means, right?’

Ravel looked around, at the officers, the patrol, people he had known and thought he knew. Some were already upon him, asking if he was alright. Ravel mustered up enough courage to look like he wasn’t going to collapse on the spot. Patches wasn’t convinced.

Ravel muttered, ‘They’re here.’

Inside the church, where the bodies of the two mangled patrolmen had been laying between the wooden pews, there sat two rich pound cakes on glossy white plates, coated with equally lustrous white icing. The policemen that eventually picked up the plates would describe the icing and deliciously fragrant vanilla.