FicWad

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Alvin didn’t mind his sister being out of the house. With her gone, he could finally get some work done, and invite Constantine over to help.
Constantine being there, however, meant that no work got done whatsoever.
“So tell me about this girl,” Constantine said, taking a bite of green pepper and fire sauce omelette.
“Name is Elizabeth Lavenza, approximately twenty-four--”
“Not that girl! Your girl,” said Con, waggling his eyebrows.
Alvin’s stomach fluttered. “You seem to know enough about her without my help. Or are you just looking for tips?”
Constantine snorted in derision. “Aw, you’re all wet, kid! Haven’t you learned to respect your elders?”
“It’s a tough day when I’ll have to respect you.”

Reaching over to steal half of Constantine’s omelette, Alvin mentally went over the facts. Elizabeth Lavenza, twenty-four, blood found on walls, tooth found on floor. Cousin to brilliant scientist Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein had made a name for himself by patenting the Dead Flesh Method--a practice in which an arm or leg of somebody recently deceased was amputated and preserved in a way that would still keep it viable for later use.
But that was as far as he managed to get. Lavenza’s body had yet to be recovered, and thus far, there’d been little success in finding what monster could make such a mess.

The Complete Monstrumology Anthology Vol. One was sitting open in front of Alvin, each letter nearly impossible to read. The opposite page was currently seating a half-full plate of scrambled egg and mayonnaise sandwich.
“When I asked if I could help, this isn’t really what I had in mind,” Constantine said, flipping a page. “Oh, quiet, Constantine. Everyone knows Monstrumology Anthology Volume Two is shorter,” remarked Alvin, taking a bite of sandwich. It tasted disgusting, but he didn’t mind.
“I thought I’d get to pump monsters full of lead.”
Alvin laughed. “Monstrumology is a science. Not a sport,” he said, turning a page.
“How much do you know about Dr. Frankenstein anyways?” Constantine asked, trying to puzzle through a paragraph on troll toenails.
“He patented the Dead Flesh Theory which helped--”
Constantine waved aside the pending monologue.
“Helped victims of the Wendigo Fever plague with tendular necrosis, everybody knows that bunk back and forwards and slantways. You heard the dirt? Surfaced about what, six years ago?”

Alvin glanced up. “Chin music ain’t the same as real dirt.”
Constantine ignored him.
“Apparently, Frankenstein was very close with his cousin Elizabeth.”
Alvin turned a page. “Dry up, Con. Kaylee and I are close. What’s that got to do with anything?”
Constantine sighed. “No, Alvin. They were close.”
The younger boy looked confused. “What?”
Constantine ran a hand through his hair, trying to think how to make this clearer to his godcousin.

“For crying out loud, Con! Just tell me!” Alvin said, leaning forwards.
“Well, what do you think I’m bluffing to you? But lemme tell you, it’s not the same as you and Kaylee,” said Constantine, giving Alvin a sideways look.

Alvin thought it over, and a blush crept up his face.
“Oh. Oh. Oh my God, Con!”
Constantine laughed. “Ew!”
“Blech! First cousins?” Alvin shuddered, but his mind was already including that detail into his mind. If the incest was correct, then there was a motive. Frankenstein could have been behind it.
But that's just not true, is it, Alvin?

Alvin grabbed the small bottle in the middle of the table and rattled out a blue pill. Bad enough he'd gone sober long enough to hear that little whisper.
The clock that had been moved into the hall closet boomed out four extremely loud, long clangs, just as the red door that guarded the main entrance creaked open.

Alvin watched his sister stagger inside. She looked haggard and worn down. A strap of the yellow dress she was wearing had slipped off her shoulder, baring the beige strap of her brassiere. The entire picture was unsettling. It looked like somebody else pretending to be Kaylee. That girl was not his sister. She was somebody else, wearing Kaylee’s face and different clothes, which meant that Kaylee was out there somewhere else and could not come home because of this other girl.
Alvin swallowed the blue pill and waited for his thoughts to turn back to normal.

“Been out late, I see!” Constantine noted, taking in her attire.
Kaylee made a small noise. She was clutching a wrinkled napkin in her left hand, and seemed reluctant to let go of it.
“You look like a girl I once knew. Her name was Molly, and I would buy her giggle water all day and she could do this thing with her legs...” Constantine began to launch into a story, and Alvin swiftly cut him off.
“Hey, sis. Sandwich?”

Kaylee wordlessly accepted the sandwich and began to eat. Alvin could see now that she was his sister. She looked at evidence the same way and her hair was like his, except far shorter.
“I have news,” she croaked, after swallowing a big bite of mayonnaise-and-egg.
And there she was, after all this time.

“So do we,” Constantine replied, enthusiasm coloring his tone. “But you go first.”
Kaylee reached for a napkin and wiped the corners of her mouth.
“We have a lead in the case, named Victor Frankenstein. The Dead Flesh fella, but that’s more or less common knowledge. But according to a source I tapped, he’s rolling with a joker named Twelve Ozzie,” she explained.
“Now when you say ‘tapped’...” Constantine began, but was ignored.
“Twelve Ozzie?” Alvin made a face. “Never heard of him.”

“That’s not all. Apparently Lavenza found out about this Ozzie character and got herself iced,” said Kaylee, pulling up the strap of her dress.
Alvin pondered that, before putting into what little he had left.
“There’s rumors that Frankenstein and Lavenza were ah...involved?”
Kaylee wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“Ab-so-pos-i-lute-ly Ew,” agreed Alvin. He stretched, and was surprised at how heavy his arms were. He realized he was tired. But he wasn’t done yet.

“I tried to see what could’ve caused Lavenza’s blood loss, but the only thing that seemed close was a Scotsland Cave Troll,” he explained, feeling embarrassed. After having a full night to propose an idea, the Scotsland Cave Troll now felt a bit weak.

Kaylee thought that over. “They’re light sensitive. And heavy. Somehow I doubt something that big would bust itself up to kill that chick.”
Alvin groaned. “I know. But it has to be something.”

Kaylee lifted the empty sandwich plate to put it in the sink, and her eyes grew wide.
“Alvin! Alvin. Alvin,” she repeated, waving him over.
Tired as he was, Alvin still leaped to her side. She had waved him over to a diagram of an...
“Anthropophagus,” murmured Alvin.

“Anthrowhatagus?” asked Constantine, having limited knowledge in this particular field.

“An. Throw. Pof. A. Gus. They’re originally from the Seven Isles in Lotharian. It means ‘flesh-eater’ in the native language,” Alvin recited quickly, then furiously pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “How could we’ve been so stupid? We should have known! Damn it!”
Kaylee gasped. “Alvin!”

Constantine leaned over to grab the biological diagram from under Kaylee’s fingers. The monster pictured was roughly six feet tall, with broad shoulders and other humanlike features. However, it seemed to be missing something crucial.
“It’s headless,” pointed out Constantine.
“Really?” asked Alvin, raising his eyebrows.
Kaylee stepped in to explain. “All anthropophagi are headless, Con. They have heads beneath their shoulders. See, those are the eyes, there, on the shoulder joint,” she pointed to two black orbs that bulged forwards, looking like the eyes of a shark. The mouth was located below that, a semicircular slash spreading from third rib down across where the pubic bone should have been and upwards again. The few teeth that snagged forwards looked sharp, even in charcoal.

“You really think this is what killed Lavenza?” he asked, looking at the hooked claws that extended from hands the size of human skulls.
“It has to be. It’s the only thing that makes sense, although how they managed to get up to the apartment in the first place is a bit hazy,” Alvin admitted.
“So one of these things is running around Rotterfeldt ripping open girls?” Con asked, blanching considerably.
“Quite probably,” said Kaylee indifferently.
There was a brief, shocked silence.
“Well, what’re you going to do about it?” demanded Constantine, fingers tightening on the edge of the table.
“Right now, Con, we’re going to bed. You’re welcome to stay over, but we can’t do anything now,” said Alvin, sliding out of the kitchen and slogging up the stairs.

Kaylee smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Connie, but we can’t do anything right now.”
Constantine goggled. How could somebody be so indifferent to human lives?
“They only eat once every three weeks, so we’re safe for now. C’mon, you, bedtime,” soothed Kaylee, lifting Constantine out of his chair, propelling him to the den with the most comfortable couch, then heading up to her own bedroom.

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