Mel.
Not Mel.
She smiled at the simplicity of the labels. Of course Baby would make it clear and simple. That was her way. Clicking the one labeled, Not Mel, she wrinkled her brow. She’d never heard of the song before, so she clicked the information tab. Japanese heavy metal was the category and it was labeled as a classic. A girl band. Interesting.
Baby had said this would impact her, but in a way that made her able to find the person that this song belonged to. That made it safer, but was it safe? There was only one way to find out. She pressed play.
It wasn’t what she expected. It was nice, a bit like church music the way she imagined it was back when there were choirs of high-voiced children and tall rafters built to reflect the sound. It certainly didn’t sound like heavy metal. More importantly, it didn’t do a thing to her. Closing her eyes, Mel leaned closer to the phone and tried to listen for clues.
Suddenly, the music changed. A heavy rapid banging that barely passed for music battered her eardrums. Jerking her head away, her eyes popped open and her first thought was that she was glad this wasn’t her song. It was awful.
An underlying melody appeared, followed by repeated and incomprehensible words in a deep growl. No, that wasn’t so bad. Not bad at all.
And then it happened. A tug in her middle, an invisible belt tied around her inner organs with someone at the other end giving an impatient yank. She winced, then focused. There was someone, and it was someone she knew. Who?
Listening as the music shifted again, she suddenly had the impression of bared teeth and a hungry, blood-stained mouth. A head hitting the floor. A raised hand, the fingers curled into claws and long surgical scars on the back of the hand.
She said she wanted to eat him.
That conversation had been only days ago, but it seemed like forever. Their world moved fast and there were so many victims. She’d sat at a desk and listened to Paul talk about this woman only days ago. The woman with the messy bun, a cast on her mangled hand.
This song was hers. Mel knew it like she knew her own name. Babymetal Death belonged to the woman who wanted to eat her attacker alive.
Stabbing at the phone to stop the song, which now seemed discordant and unpleasant to her ears, Mel looked at the playlist above it, the one labeled with her name.
She’d doubted herself and Baby’s strange tale while on the phone with her boss. She didn’t anymore. Maybe she was crazy and had gone around the bend into delusions, but if she had, it was a complete delusion that left her feeling very secure of the reality those delusions tried to impart.
Mel looked out across the small apartment to the window. From this angle, she saw only the buildings across the street, their fronts marred by the dirty air and the upper floors streaked in white pigeon shit. She had ad-blocker glass so there was no color anywhere. She didn’t live in the best area, but it wasn’t bad. They had a desk in the lobby with security, which made it a good place to live.
She didn’t really live here though. She never had. This was where she slept sometimes, where she stashed her clothes and took long showers that erased the grime left behind by the work she did. Her real home was the police department and the floor where her desk was. Her real home was the hospital where she met victims, the streets where she arrived at a scene and did her best to keep news drones away from someone in shock.
Was this any different? It was justice of a sort. Justice was often something she never got for the people unfortunate enough to need her help. Might this not, in some way, help to tip those horribly unbalanced scales back a little to the side of good?
Tearing her gaze from the window, Mel looked at the pile of laundry she needed to take down to the laundry room, the two pairs of black shoes she owned in a jumble by the door, and then down at her mismatched pajamas.
What does one wear to one’s first murder? she wondered.
Melody’s Melody
It was a dark night with no moon, but normally that wasn’t something Mel would notice. The city was always bright enough to get around. Not here though. Between broken and missing streetlights and the many dark windows, this area barely seemed like it could be the same city she’d spent her whole life in.
Of course, it wasn’t really the city. She’d crossed water and that was the dividing line in all things. It didn’t matter that it was no more than a few blocks away in terms of real distance. The difference was stark.
Seedy barely described the street where she huddled beneath the overhang of a closed bakery. It was only evident as a bakery because of the plastic versions of oddly shaped pastries she could see through the single, unshuttered window. The signs were illegible, as was the case on all the shuttered businesses inhabiting the ground floors around her.
There were exceptions to every rule, and in this case, an open bar a few doors down had a sign in faded English. She’d passed it to get to this darker spot, and glimpsed the kind of bar that didn’t usually have much in the way of music or entertainment. A few tables fronted the window and she saw a couple with tall, foamy beers at one of them. Young, not wealthy, probably locals. It was a bad spot for a date.
Dark and shuttered didn’t mean the street was empty, and that’s what kept Mel tucked into the shadows. This was obviously a stroll. Prostitutes plying their wares posed for passing vehicles that lit up the street
