Freaks: A Rizzoli & Isles Short Story

it seemed solid. She inched forward and stood on the threshold, trying to peer inside. Seeing nothing.

A sound in the darkness raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The sound of quick, desperate breaths. They didn’t come from the shed, but behind her.

She swung around and spotted her quarry, crouched and cowering in the shadows. It was garbed all in black. As she shone her flashlight in the eyes, the arms came up, shielding the face from the glare.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“I’m nobody.”

“Show yourself! Stand up!”

Slowly, the figure rose to its feet and lowered its spindly arms. The face that stared back at her was an unearthly white; the hair gleamed jet black. The same color as the hairs they’d found on the coffin pillow.

Chapter Four

“Man, he sure looks like a vampire,” said Barry Frost, staring through the one-way mirror at the pale young man sitting in the interview room.

The subject was eighteen years old and his name was Lucas Henry. Transpose the first and last names and it became ominously familiar: Henry Lucas. Did his mother realize she’d named her kid after one of the most prolific serial killers of all time? But the boy in the next room looked more frightened than dangerous. He sat huddled at the table, a black forelock drooping over his white brow. With his jutting cheekbones, his deeply sunken eyes, he looked like a living skeleton. Multiple studs pierced his lips, nose, and God knew what other parts of his body—so many studs that he’d set off the metal detector when they’d brought him into Boston PD headquarters.

“Why the heck do kids poke holes in their skin?” said Frost. “I never understood that.”

“It’s a Goth thing. You know, death, pain, oblivion.” Jane snorted. “All that fun stuff.”

“He’s sure not having any fun.”

“Let’s go make his night even more enjoyable.”

As Jane and Frost walked in, Lucas snapped straight in his chair, eyes wide with apprehension. Despite his grotesque piercings and the black leather jacket with the death’s-head decal, Lucas looked like just a scared kid. A kid who may have wrapped his skinny hands around Kimberly Rayner’s throat and squeezed the life out of her.

Jane sat down across from him. Noticed that the boy’s eyes, heavily rimmed with black eyeliner, were bloodshot from crying. “Are you sure you don’t want an attorney?” she asked.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I take it that’s a no.”

“She was alive when I left her. I swear it.”

“Tell us how you came to know Kimberly Rayner.”

The boy took a deep breath. “I first met her a few months ago, when we were both hanging out in Harvard Square. We recognized each other immediately.”

“I thought that was the first time you met.”

“What I mean is, I knew at once what she was. And she knew what I was.”

“And that would be?”

“Different. We’re different from other kids. From everyone else.”

“Every kid thinks he’s different.”

“I mean really different.”

“Like how?”

He took a breath. “We’re not human,” he said.

Chapter Five

There was a long silence. Frost, standing in the corner, rolled his eyes.

“Funny,” said Jane. “You look human to me.”

“That’s just on a superficial level. But if you examine my cells, if you look at them under a microscope, you’ll see that I’m different. Since I was just a kid, I’ve known that I wasn’t like everyone else. I don’t need food like you do. I can survive perfectly well on just air and …”

“Wait, don’t tell me,” Jane said. “Blood?”

The boy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”

Oh, you think?

“Are you telling us you’re a vampire?” asked Frost, managing to keep his face perfectly serious.

Lucas looked at him. “If that’s what you want to call us. We’re a subspecies of human, nocturnal and hemophagic. That means we devour blood.”

“Yeah, I got that. So whose blood do you devour?”

“We don’t kill people, if that’s your question. We’re the pacifist branch of our subspecies. Sometimes volunteers will donate a few tubes to feed us.”

“Volunteers?”

“Friends. Classmates. Or someone will smuggle out a bag or two from the local blood bank. But mostly, we consume animal blood. You can buy it, you know, from any good butcher shop.” He sat up, puffing out his thin chest. “It gives us superhuman strength.”

Jane looked at the anemically pale face, eyes sunken in hollow sockets, and thought: What he’s got is a superhuman case of the crazies. “So Kimberly Rayner was a vampire, too?”

“Yes. A few weeks ago, she ran away from home. I invited her to crash with me, in the church.”

“You slept together in that coffin?”

“No! We were, like, totally platonic. I found an old shipping carton for her to sleep in. To block out the light.”

“I thought vampires were supposed to be immortal. So what happened to her?”

“I don’t know. I woke up, and she was screaming. She was rolling around on the floor, saying her stomach hurt. Even though it was still daylight, I went out to get her some Pepto-Bismol. When I got back, about an hour later, there was a police car parked at the church.” His head drooped. “I didn’t know she was dead.”

“How about telling us what really happened?” Jane said.

“I told you.”

Jane leaned closer, her gaze hard on the boy. “Here’s how I think it went. You wanted sex. Or maybe you wanted a taste of her blood. Or maybe something ticked you off, and you attacked her. And she started screaming.”

“No, that’s not how it—”

“She wouldn’t shut up, so you grabbed her by the throat, just to quiet her down. She kept screaming, and you pressed harder. And harder. And suddenly she wasn’t screaming anymore.” Jane paused and said quietly: “It was an accident, wasn’t it? Isn’t that how it happened?”

“You’ll never get me to say that, because it’s not true.”

There was a knock on the door, and Detective Darren Crowe stuck his head in the room. “Hey Rizzoli, the girl’s father just arrived. I’ll have him wait in—”

A man suddenly shoved past Detective Crowe, into the room, and stood staring at Lucas Henry. “You freak,” he said. And he lunged at the boy.