The alley smelled like rain, metal, and a sweetness that made Bella Sparks’ stomach tighten.
Bella adjusted the flashlight in her hand, squinting up at the figure dangling from the light pole. Wrapped head to toe in translucent resin, the man swayed gently, tethered by thick industrial cable. The resin glinted like wet glass under the flickering streetlamp. Half of him twitched. Half of him hung still. Alive? Dead? She didn’t want to know.
This was his calling card. Cocooned victims. Public places. A message meant to be seen.
Her roll of yellow tape slipped from her grip and landed with a wet thud on the slick pavement. She crouched to pick it up, teeth clenched against the urge to gag, and muttered under her breath, “Every. Single. Time.”
She looked at the cocoon again and swallowed.
“They never look real on TV,” she said quietly. “They just look like props.”
Then, more firmly:
“Okay. Don’t be weird about it. Just… tape the perimeter. Do your job.”
A soft clatter echoed from the alley behind her. Something small skidded across the wet asphalt. Bella whipped around, gun raised, flashlight stabbing into the darkness.
A granola bar rolled to a stop at her boot.
“You’re gonna need sugar if you’re gonna keep pretending that doesn’t smell like death,” a voice said from the shadows.
Her heart skipped. She exhaled, half-laughing, half-exasperated. “Crap, Spant! One day I’m going to actually shoot you.”
A figure stepped from the alley, hood pulled low. He crouched near the granola bar, gloved fingers hovering just above it. His eyes flicked once to the resin-wrapped body, then away.
“Statistically unlikely,” he said. “You miss left.”
Bella holstered her gun with shaking hands. “You’re late.”
“I was early yesterday. We’re even,” he replied, standing straight. The shadows clung to him. When the light caught his face, it was all hard angles and old damage.
Bella let her eyes drift back to the body. “Same MO?”
“Same,” he said. His gaze lingered on the cocoon. “It’s him. But…”
She was about to ask him why the ‘but’ when she realized she had stepped on something slick. Bella shone her flashlight on her feet. Her right foot stood in a sticky puddle of some kind of green slime. She shook her foot, trying to get the slime off.
Spant walked closer to the cocoon, studying it, and traced a finger down its side. When he rubbed his gloved fingers together, he noticed a sticky green residue. This was different. You could see the body inside the cocoon.
His old and faded work security badge had been placed on his neck as if the killer left it as a clue.
“Pharma,” Spant whispered.
The beam from Bella’s flashlight followed the trail of slime from her shoes back to the slow drip coming from the cocoon.
“Is it dripping?” she frowned. “What is going on?”
Spant tapped the husk with his finger. It was solid and hollow at the same time. He looked back at her. “This one seems off,” he murmured. “The others were a statement.”
He reached into a pocket on his utility belt and removed a small blade.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Spant, that is evidence. Police property. You can’t—”
He told her to look away so that she could honestly say she didn’t see what happened to it. Spant ripped through the husk with the blade.
Bella never knew what sound the husk made when it was being sliced open. Although she was asked several times, she never attended the autopsies of the bodies. Now she knew and would never forget the sound.
As he sliced, the sound was wet and resistant—like a spoon forcing through overcooked rice.
The body fell into the puddle of green goo with a sickening thud. The lower half of the victim’s body was covered in the same green slime, but there was something wrong. Disturbingly wrong. His legs were long, slender, and spiny.
Bella covered her mouth, stepping back. “That’s not. Oh god!”
Spant stayed silent. His eyes tracked the man’s body. The upper half was still human, but the bottom half was insect-like. Long legs, abnormally long tibia, the joints all barely contained by the victim’s suit pants.
“Don’t look,” he said quietly as he dragged the knife down the entire length of the soaked fabric. With the final tear, the fabric fibers let go like flesh pulling apart. Liquid spilled down the curb into a drain.
Bella wrinkled her nose before covering it. “That smell,” she mumbled.
He crouched lower, studying the corpse like it might still move. The streetlights that had been buzzing with insects fell silent, as if watching. Spant lifted the edge of the victim’s shirt. The skin where flesh ended and exoskeleton began appeared unfinished. He rolled the man onto his side. The skin on the man’s back shifted from human to exoskeleton. He scraped off a sample and placed it into a vial from his belt.
Failed experiment?
Bella stepped closer, rising onto her toes. “What is it?”
He rolled the body back carefully. “You won’t like the answer.”
Spant glanced down at the victim one last time. Then he lifted the cocoon, guiding the body back inside, pinching the seams together with care, almost like a final respect. He laid it gently on the sidewalk.
He stood. His boots slopped through the liquid. The insects began to buzz again. His gaze lifted to the streetlight above.
Bella stepped up to the cocoon and inspected it. “Thanks. I didn’t want to lie and say I found it sliced open.”
She handed him a folded cloth. “Take this. I can smell your hands from here.”
Spant wiped his hands. The wet slurp of his boots followed him as he stepped back.
“Where are you going, Spant?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to tell me what I just risked my badge for?”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Bella. This victim wasn’t someone saying look at me, like the others were. Whoever did this changed the process. His body got stuck in it.”
She grabbed his arm, forcing him to face her.
“I’m saying this one was more than a statement. It didn’t fail.”
“It stopped halfway.”