Page 25 of Natural-Born Cullers

Gray crouched down between two metal dog cages, head tilted, just slightly.

Oh now he understood… why.

Ferguson and his camera man both lay sprawled out, facedown, handcuffs linking them to the cages and each other in one long line. Flies hummed and licked around the open wounds in their backs, some finding a home on the ribs that branched out like wings with only flecks of dried blood for feathers. Fine jute rope fixed the bones into position, the knots given privacy as lungs were pulled out and placed between each wing, on top of the ropes. Vomit stung the air, urine too, the latter staining the floor around the man closest to Gray, the former no doubt coming from which ever police officer had discovered the bodies. Dried blood stained the tip of one curved bone, an echo of a threat to fall onto exposed skin, down onto concrete but….

No drip of blood. No—

“Gray.”

He looked up at Cal.

“Thoughts?” Cal stayed back, closer to the entrance. Something bit into his eyes, and he seemed to fight saying something despite having cleared Forensics out for the next few minutes. It left Simon taking a few pictures, and Gray…?

Dried blood played on curved bone, leaving behind dulled copper chalk, but no…

Drip… fucking drop.

Gray played a touch around the fine jute rope, its intricate system holding the broken wings in place. Bits of dulled copper chalk stained the subtle twists and turns, taking away the fall beauty of bondage and blood surrounding it. He moved the rope knots off the lung to get a closer look, see if disturbing it would chase that…

Drip… fucking—

“Gray.”

“What?” Gray pulled his touch away, disturbed by the tick… bloody tock ofroutinein Cal’s call.

Life. It packaged itself into these sedate moments: the daily routine of working, eating, sleeping… all ticking in time to a clock. All…

Tick tock.

Tick… fucking tock.

It interrupted the natural order, pulled everyone to sleep as they walked with eyes wide open. Even the psychopaths, routine left them blind, open to faults, their flaws, the utter stupidity over how routine… it pulled everyone back into the false safety of tick… always fucking tock, counting down to the inevitable, to where ribs were pulled out of someone’s back, skeleton wings creatively cut in time to it, but no drip…

Fuckingdrop.

“Damn clever bastard,” he mumbled quietly, finding peace at least in the echo of drip….

“What?”

Gray briefly screwed his eyes shut hearing Simon. His voice grated so deep into nerve-endings, confusing signals.

Cal rested back against the tunnel and kept his look fixed Gray’s way. “Get your head back in the right bloody game.”

Yeah. To tick… fucking tock.

“Meet the Blood Eagle. A very creative adaptation of it as well.” Annoyed, Gray eased up and stepped back to allow Simon to carry on with his evidence. “Whoever did this, they really know their literature surrounding Norse mythology. Late skaldic poetry,” Gray said to him eventually, but he intended it more for Simon’s ear. With Cal’s love of literature, he’d make the connection on his own, so he didn’t insult his intelligence. “In two cases, royals were supposedly tied down. Skin incision was made in a standard cross on the back, down the spine, neck to the sacrum area, then right shoulder blade to left. Skin was then peeled open, the ribs broken, then lungs pulled through the gaps. The debate still remains on whether it’s artistic creativity, mistranslation, or an actual practice of the time.”

Cal ran a gaze over the bodies occasionally, but he never let it linger. “You said adaptation?”

Drip… fucking drop.

Gray went and leaned next to him. “No cross incision is used here. Skin is decoratively cut into wing shape, completely skinned from the body, then each side rolled back into the middle. Norse literature also only mentions breaking the ribs to extract the lungs. But this one?” He nodded over to the bodies, how red chalk on curved bone refused to bleed, to spill. Gray willed it to fucking spill. “Ribs are only partially broken, enough to allow them to be pulled out of the body and shaped into wing position. Jute rope art is bloody intricate in order to keep them in that position, with a Grog sliding splice knot. Lungs are then placed neatly between the folds of cut skin and broken ribs. This artist is very, very refined on detail, with taking time to get it right.”

“We’re not talking a human sacrifice to Odin here,” said Cal, now watching Simon. “Which is where I take the original text is argued to go?”

Tick… fucking tock.

“Argued being the appropriate term,” mumbled Gray, rubbing at his head, the confused signals. “The fictional element is still in debate.”

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