car·niv·o·rous

By Harold Hoss

The Los Angeles Department of the Medical Examiner is a regal concrete and red brick building in Boyle Heights. One that is even more striking because it faces a dilapidated yellow brick flop house and a run down burger joint with suspiciously low prices. 

Detective Sam Carter isn’t a picky eater, but even he draws a line at dollar burgers in such close proximity to the morgue. He knows as well as any public servant that the city is always strapped for cash. Just like he knows that there are three reasons a body stops at the medical examiner’s office. Three reasons that all mean the same thing: there’s something suspicious about the way the person died. 

Sam climbs out of his car and crosses the grass, clearing the stairs in a few strides by taking them two and three at a time. Reaching the top, he’s reminded by flyers pasted out front to fish a mask out of his pocket, then he pushes open the heavy door and walks inside. He’s immediately met by a blast of frigid air and, as always, he thinks he should keep a hoodie in the car. This must be the coldest place in Southern California. 

He takes a breath and his glasses, still over his eyes, immediately fog up. He can’t figure out how to get around this, but since he’s only mildly near sighted, he pushes them up into his blonde hair and forgets about them. 

“You know where to go?” The woman behind the counter says after Sam flashes his badge. 

“Not my first rodeo,” Sam says with a wink, pronouncing rodeo like Rodeo Drive. 

The woman laughs and presses a button behind her desk, buzzing Sam through the turnstiles. Ever since Sam hit a growth spurt in tenth grade, stretching him to a rangy six and a half feet, women have laughed at his jokes. Even the bad ones. And he admits they’re mostly bad ones. He came out to California ten years ago to ride the bench for UCLA, liked the weather and the attitude, and decided to stay. He thought at first he might be an actor, or a stuntman, but he had no idea how to start. He went to only one audition and ended up leaving shaken after walking into a room of twenty men with the same hair, body, and build, reciting the same lines over and over. 

Eventually an old teammate encouraged him to enroll in the LAPD. He aced the entrance exam, walked a beat in Brentwood, and then graduated to Detective. A year to the day after graduation he went out to celebrate and catch the Thunder game on TV, only to watch with a bar full of confused patrons as the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid-19 and the game was canceled. Overnight, Covid went from rumor to reality. The world he had sworn to serve and protect changed completely. 

Sam hesitates at the elevator bay, a faint memory of the rickety contraption causing him to pivot to the right towards the stairwell. Only a few steps later, he’s pushing through another door, past another series of Covid-19 warnings, and onto the second floor. 

The second floor of the Medical Examiner’s office walks a strange but fine line between a reverent shrine and a morbid garage sale. Besides the rooms full of death records there are shelves holding jars of colorful pills, a museum style display case of shattered bullets, and various curiosities pulled out of the cadavers hanging on one wall. Only instead of the musty smell of a library, the medical examiner’s office smells chemically clean. Sterile. Lemon fresh. 

Sam finds the lab he’s looking for three doors down. Each of the labs looks a little like a kitchen behind a cafeteria: stainless steel countertops, scales, and shelves. The door is open, but he gives a perfunctory knock beneath the name outside: “Dr. Athena Karras.” 

“Detective,” Athena says from inside.

Athena’s wearing a clear visor that covers her entire face, so he thinks he sees the slight tug of a smile on her face, but just as quickly, he wonders if he imagined it. 

Word on the force is that the Goddess of the Underworld, that’s the name for Athena around the force, “doesn’t date cops.” Only he feels like they have something. Really. Only maybe he missed his window. Although, even now, he sometimes wonders if the window existed. It happened outside of work. He had been coming out of the New Beverly, buzzing off a screening of a Bogey double feature, when she called his name. 

She had said, “you like movies like this?” 

And he said, “I love movies.” 

They had chatted briefly, then she said: “Well, I gotta run. Feed the meter.” 

And then he had said, “you ever get a ticket bring it to me. I’ll sort it out.” 

He had meant it at as a joke. He even said it in his mock tough guy voice, like Bogey. But she had frowned, waved goodbye, and left. And the window had slammed shut. He had tried since then to talk to her about movies, but somehow always ended up lecturing her about his cases. He sounded like her father, telling her to always keep an extra gallon of gas in her car. Always check the back seat before climbing in. And so on. Leaving him to accept that his only game was limited to Dad Jokes and Fatherly Advice. 

“Doctor,” Sam says. “I hear you wanted to see me.” 

“About a body, yes,” Athena corrects, waving him inside. 

Sam hesitates. Wondering if maybe that subtle shut down is a sign. A much more obvious sign that the window is firmly, and securely, closed. Sam parses this over as she leads him over to a gurney in the middle of the room, snaps on a pair of gloves and, without any warning, pulls back the sheet. 

Sam doesn’t recoil, but his features pinch together for a second, then slowly release. 

“Christ,” Sam says, rubbing at his face like he’s checking for wrinkles in the fabric.“How the hell did he get like that? He looks melted.” 

The body reminds Sam of a life size ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David he once saw at a crime scene. It must have been magnificent when the party started, but by the time Sam got there, it had melted down, its head tilting to one side so the ear and cheek fused with the shoulder. The same way the body on the gurney’s head and shoulder have fused together, the mouth sagging open in an impossibly wide scream. Looking at his hands, Sam sees the finger tips have melted down like candles, with the tops cratering in where the fingernails should be. 

“Name Christopher Chen,” Athena says. 

“Casper Chen,” Sam says. “He was one of my CIs.” 

Sam chews on the inside of his cheek. Casper hadn’t been a perfect Confidential Informant. He is—was—a car thief. The kind of guy who drank from the same watering holes as the heavy hitters, but was careful to always wait his turn. 

“So what happened to him?” Sam asks. 

Athena nods to a report sitting on the stainless steel counter. “There’s a witness statement.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’ll let you read it yourself,” Athena says, leaving Sam to infer that whatever info the witness statement contains, it won’t crack the case. “I can tell you what the science says. Are you familiar with the pitcher plant?” 

The change in gears catches Sam off guard. He shakes his head.

“The pitcher plant—Nepenthes Distillatoria—is a carnivorous plant shaped like a pitcher. Bugs fly inside looking for something sweet only to find a stomach full of acid. If the acid doesn’t suck them down, then the walls are too slick to climb and the lid also closes.”

Sam looks up at Athena, not sure where this is going. 

“So you think…” he says, then stops, and shakes his head. “What do you think?” 

“I’m not telling you what I think. Not yet,” Athena says. “For now, I’m telling you that the acidic substance that did this? Its closest comparison is Nepenthes Distillatoria. Only it’s much faster acting.” She pauses. “Much faster.” 

Sam pictures a vat of acid or chemical waste. Only in his mind the image is distorted, cartoonishly gothic, like something out of a superhero movie from the 80s. It’s hard to imagine Casper Chen falling into anything like that. Unless maybe it was shaped like an old muscle car. Casper had a weakness for pinching old muscle cars and taking them for joy rides. Or maybe a giant pitcher plant, one overflowing with neon green acid. 

“So you have a theory,” Sam says, “but you won’t tell me.”

“If I told you now, you wouldn’t believe me,” Athena says.

Sam nods. 

“The pitcher plant,” Sam says at last, “that’s all you got for me.” 

Athena nods, “Nepenthes Distillatoria.” 

#

Sam lingers in his car, reviewing the file Athena gave him one more time. She’s right. The witness statement from a woman named Mollie Dresbach is damn near incomprehensible. The only thing that is clear is that Mollie agreed to be an accessory before the fact by acting as a lookout while Casper attempted to boost a car. She then saw Casper climb into the car, heard him scream, and rushed over to pull him out. 

Pulled him out looking like that, Sam thinks. 

Sam pulls a zippo, a gift from one of his friends (“detectives in the movies always be flicking those zippos, man.”) out of his pocket and flicks it twice. Each time it catches a flame. He watches the flame dance in the car, then closes the zippo and slides it back into his pocket. 

So Casper gets into the car, and then what? How could he not see the acid? How could he not see what was happening? Casper was hardly a genius, but he had the instincts of a survivor. He wouldn’t have walked straight into… into what, exactly? A trap? 

Sam flips through the mental Rolodex of tips Casper has given him over the last year. Mostly useless stuff. A tip about three guys knocking over a Brink’s ten minutes after they hit the truck. Never any names. Never anything good. The only reason Sam had kept stringing Casper along was for the little bits of information he let slip without knowing it. Things he overheard but didn’t understand. 

Nobody cares who killed Casper, Sam knows. Not when the hospitals are overflowing, with bodies piling up in major cities around the world.

Sam could let the case drop. That would make the bosses happy. Much happier than him opening an investigation into a case that could easily be classified as something else. 

He makes a compromise. He’ll investigate. If they try to pull him off, he’ll make it official. Until then, he’s just looking. Besides, what else does he have to do? With everyone trapped inside the city looks dead, even though Sam can sense the anger, frustration, and fear bubbling just beneath the surface. Reminders of the riots a few months back, like the boarded-up windows around The Grove, are everywhere, and occasionally souped up hot rods race through the streets on invisible circuits, but it’s like the city’s taking a breather. For the first time in the history of Los Angeles, the party is over. 

Looking through the file, Sam finds Mollie’s address listed as Mission on 5th. He sighs. That might be her address or it might be a placeholder. Inserted by the officer to speed up processing. A blank address on a witness form would mean more forms. 

Still, Sam thinks it’s worth checking out. It’s the closest he has to a lead and, with the entire city on pandemic lockdown, it will only take him six minutes to get from Boyle Heights to downtown. Which feels like reason enough to make the drive. 

Winding up the empty entry ramp, Sam can’t get over the sight of the 101 completely empty. Only a few months ago all three lanes would have been bumper to bumper traffic day and night. It’s like something out of a movie. A description which seems fitting with the Hollywood sign looming over the entire city. 

Thinking about movies, Sam’s mind drifts again to that night outside the New Bev and that conversation with Athena. He only lets his mind slip for a minute, but with the 101 so empty that he’s actually going the speed limit, he almost misses his exit when it comes up on him so fast. Fortunately, without any traffic, it’s easy to shoot over through both lanes and jump off at 4th street. Pulling off the freeway, he forces himself to stop thinking about her. After that he catches every red light, so that after the third time he hits the sirens and flies over the dry Los Angeles River and through Little Tokyo before hanging a left on Wall Street where he slows to a stop. Normally Skid Row looks like a third world country. Or, continuing the movie metaphor, like the set of a zombie movie, with the inhabitants shuffling aimlessly between tents and across trash strewn streets. 

Today, the streets are barren, although the trash and the tents remain. 

Sam circles the block twice before he sees an old man in a windbreaker moving between the tents, shaking them. Normally, Sam would never think to leave his car unattended this close to Skid Row this late in the day. An unmarked cop car, maybe even a black and white, could be picked clean within a few hours. Stripped for parts, the shell left behind like the bones of some prehistoric beast. 

Climbing out of the car, Sam mentally runs through his questions. Thinking he’ll work around to Mollie Dresbach. No need to spook the man by being direct. 

Instead, the man snarls at Sam before he’s three steps away from his car. 

“It’s about damn time,” the man says. “Theres barely anyone left.” 

Sam stops. He’s been on the job too long to let the man see the confusion in his eyes. Instead, he whips out a notepad. 

“You are?” Sam says. Always get a name first. 

“Tahramy. Dyson.” He says. “Me and my wife Glenda run the shelter. She’s the one who filed the reports.” 

Reports. Plural. Sam nods. He writes this down, then waves his pen at Tahramy. 

“What are you doing here?” Sam says. 

“I’m checking for stragglers,” Tahramy says, returning to his work and leading Sam between the tents. 

Sam leaves the silence stretching like a gaping hole between them. Tahramy fills it. 

“We’ve been keeping everyone inside at night. Everyone that’s left.” 

“How many are left?”

Tahramy shakes his head. “Not many.” 

Sam looks around. He needs to see those reports, probably complaints, filed by the wife, but it sounds like with all eyes focused on Covid, the homeless population has… what exactly? 

“At first it was only one by one,” Tahramy says. “Then there were three of them. Then four. By midnight tonight, the whole street will be lined with them. You’ll see.”

“Lined with what?” Sam says. He can’t help himself. 

“Cars,” Tahramy says. “Only they ain’t cars. They’re something else.” 

Sam doesn’t point out that come nightfall, every inch of curb in Los Angeles is always packed with cars of every make, model, and kind pressed bumper to bumper. He doesn’t even show a flicker of surprise or concern that the man might be crazy. 

“What time?” He says instead. 

“Dark,” Tahramy says. “They like it dark.” 

Sam glances at the sky. “Good. We have a few hours.”

#

Parked in a burnt red brick garage that overlooks the Skid Row, Sam watches a lone red truck circle the block twice before pulling into the garage and parking a few spots away. Looking sideways through his window, Sam sees his friend, Detective Jake Calmus, behind the wheel. 

Calmus waits a few seconds, lights up a cigarette, then finally climbs out and walks over to Sam’s car. He wears a hoodie, paint splattered sneakers, and faded jeans. 

“That’s supposed to be homeless?” Sam says when Calmus slides into the passenger seat. 

“With thirty minute’s notice? Yeah. This is the best I can do.” Calmus says. He rolls down the window so he can keep smoking. “And it’s unhoused now. Unhoused.” 

“I thought you quit that?” Sam says.

“I only smoke when I’m undercover,” Calmus says. He pauses. “On days I’m undercover. Nights too. You going to tell me what the hell is going on?” 

Sam shrugs. “I’m going to tell you what I know.” 

“That’s a start.” 

Sam tells him about Casper Chen’s burned body. About Mollie Dresbach, the only witness who gave a statement only to die of a heart attack a few days later. 

“Heart attack?” Calmus asks. 

“Way I heard it, someone saw her walking the street. Asked if she wanted company,” Sam says, letting the words trail off. "She won’t get in the car. He tries to pull her inside. She drops dead.” 

“He a suspect?” 

Sam almost says this isn’t about a dead prostitute, but he stops himself. It is about Mollie. Just like it’s about Casper. Just like, maybe, it’s about all those other people who used to call the blocks between 5th and 6th street their home. 

“Not exactly,” Sam says instead. He hesitates. “Somebody has been picking up the homeless.” 

Calmus ashes his cigarette. He lights another one and shrugs. “You must be pretty bored if you’re investigating something like that. The bosses know what you’re up to?” 

Sam might be a rookie detective, but he’s not an idiot. Crimes committed against taxpayers take priority, and the homeless do not pay taxes. Still, Sam knows not to appeal to a cop’s morality. It’s better to appeal to their competitiveness. To let them know that a criminal is out there doing something because they know they can get away with it. Nothing motivates a cop more than feeling like a brazen criminal. 

“They’ve been doing it for weeks. Multiple reports filed. Not even othering to hide,” Sam says. 

“They? Who is they.” 

“All I know is it’s multiple cars. And that they come at night,” Sam says. “I want to get a better look at them.”

“Okay if I go in hot?”

“I want you going in mic’d up and hot. These guys are bold. No need to be subtle.” Sam says. “We’ll be watching from across the street. On walkie.” 

“We?” Calmus asks and, right on cue, Doctor Athena Karras pulls into the spot next to Sam. Calmus recognizes her and squirms. “And you got me looking homeless.” 

Sam ignores him, climbing out to meet her. 

“Where’s your mask?” She says by way of greeting. “And yours?” She says to Calmus when he climbs out a second later. 

Sam laughs, but complies. He makes a show of fishing the mask out and sliding it behind his ears. Calmus only takes a drag from his cigarette. 

“I’m undercover,” Calmus says. 

“And you’re smoking,” Athena says. 

“I’m a method actor.” 

Athena’s frown deepens, but Sam steps in between them. “He’ll stand six feet away. Did you bring it?”

“I got your message,” Athena says, popping her trunk and walking back to it. 

“You said to call you if I found out anything else,” Sam says. “You ready to tell me that theory of yours yet?” 

Sam steps up to her trunk and blinks in surprise. There are two first aid kits, a gallon of gasoline, and a backpack of brackish liquid hooked up to a nozzle.

“What have you cooked up, doc?” Calmus says, standing about ten feet behind Athena’s trunk and lighting up another cigarette. 

“It’s a mixture of gasoline and weedkiller. It’s deadly to plants and very, very flammable,” Athena says, looking pointedly at Calmus’s cigarette. 

“Plants?” Calmus says.

“Are you familiar with the picture plant?” Sam says. 

“What?” Calmus says. 

“The pitcher plant,” Athena corrects. 

Abruptly, Calmus laughs. There’s something heavy in the laugh. The weight and heft of gallows humor. 

“I was worried for a minute this might be a prank,” Calmus says. “But they’re here.”

Outside the garage, through the opening between the levels, night has abruptly fallen while none of them were watching. A flapping sound fills the air as Sam and Athena join Calmus to stare out the gap between levels, covid guidelines and six feet of separation momentarily forgotten. 

They come rolling up piecemeal, in ones and twos at first, then threes and fours. They’re cars. At least, they look like cars. Sam thinks they look like a child’s drawing of a four-door sedan, generic and bland, the outline of a car, with all the right pieces, but something is off. They don’t move like cars, their wheels all moving at different speeds instead of gliding in unison. Sam watches as another three lope up the road to take their place against the curb. Watching them, Sam thinks they move like wheelbarrows on flat tires, jerking from side to side, their wheels slapping at the road. They line up along the sidewalk, but avoid the pools of light from the streetlights, as if preferring the shadows. 

“What the hell?” Calmus says. 

“Mic up,” Sam says.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees Athena move back to her trunk, where she struggles with the brackish liquid container, lifting it to a standing position then slipping her ams through the straps to lift it up like a backpack. 

Sam considers offering to help, but Athena is already carrying it around to the passenger seat of his car. So he simply climbs in the driver’s seat and grabs his walkie.“Walkie Check.”

“Copy,” Calmus says into the mic just inside his hoodie. 

“Copy,” Sam says, his eyes widening as his nostrils fill with fumes coming from Athena’s gasoline and weed killer concoction. “That stuff as strong as it smells?” 

“I hope so,” Athena says. 

Athena sees Sam looking at her and she pinches the mask covering her nose and mouth. 

“Masks stay on,” Athena says.

Sam nods, pushing his glasses down to the tip of his nose, so he can see through them without fogging up his glasses. Then he drives down to the lower level of the parking lot, so that they can watch the street through the windshield like it’s a movie screen. Watching the cars from this vantage point, Sam thinks they look oddly deflated. Like dormant rides at a carnival after hours. Dormant, that is, until Calmus enters from stage left. 

All at once, the cars spring to life. The changes are subtle at first. The outer shells, mostly dull blues and reds, slowly blossom into a lustrous, glossy coats of navy and crimson. Then the lights inside the cabins glow. The sounds of radios, snatches of conversation, and bars of different pop songs fill the air. Starting as a whisper, but slowly growing to a dull roar, like the chirping of insects. 

“You seeing this?” Calmus says over the radio.

“We’re seeing,” Sam hesitates, looks at Athena. “We’re seeing something. Over.” 

The cars rattle and shake as Calmus moves along the sidewalk, giving them a wide berth. Reaching down beneath his seat, Sam pulls out a pair of binoculars. He peers through them, then hands them over to Athena. 

“Look at that,” Sam says. He waits for her to realize what’s wrong with the cars. “The front windshield.”

It isn’t that the front windshield isn’t there. At least, not exactly. It’s just that it’s not a windshield. More like a faded painting of a windshield, one that at first glance looks like a back seat and maybe even the shadow of a driver. 

Athena purses her lips. 

“This all fitting into your theory?” Sam asks. “Cause if it is, I think I’m ready to hear it.” 

“It sounds crazy,” Athena says.

Sam almost laughs. How crazy? He wants to ask. Crazy like the guy from The Apprentice getting elected president? Crazy like a global pandemic shutting down the world? 

“Try me,” Sam says instead. 

“Remember earlier. I told you about Nepenthes Distillatoria,” Athena says. “The Pitcher Plant?”

Before Sam can answer, the walkie squawks.

“What the hell?” Calmus says. 

In unison, Sam and Athena swivel. Outside, as Calmus approaches a maroon car parked near the curb, the passenger door swings open. 

“What’s inside? Over.” Sam says. 

“It’s,” Calmus trails off into the walkie.

Calmus steps closer to the car, then there’s a barely perceptible sagging of his shoulders. He takes another, unsteady step towards the car, and then another, when Athena digs her nails into Sam’s hand. 

“We need to stop him,” Athena says. 

“Calmus! Calmus, do you read me?” Sam screams into the walkie. 

Calmus hesitates and shakes his head. Nearby, the car unfolds its back door, like a flower unfurling its petals. Seeing this, Calmus resumes his steady trot towards the waiting cabin of the car. 

“Sam!” Athena screams.

Sam gets it. Well, he doesn’t get it, but he understands enough to know Calmus is in danger. He tosses the walkie into Athena’s lap.

“See if you can distract him,” Sam says.

Athena blinks and stares at the walkie, then she snatches it up, presses down the button and screams into it. She says his name over and over, telling him to stop, to focus on her voice, to stay away from the car while Sam presses the pedal to the floor, shooting back in a three-point turn and then screeching in a loop through the parking lot before bouncing down the driveway and out into the street. 

Up ahead, Calmus is two steps away from the car, wearing the dull vacant expression of a man on the tail end of a bender. Sam hits the horn, shouting through his mask as his car skids out onto the street. Ahead of him, the cars lining the sidewalk shiver but otherwise don’t react as he shoots past them. 

Sam’s car slides to a stop in the middle of the street. He kicks the door open, yanking his service weapon free of its holster. Standing in the middle of the street, the sounds coming from the cars around him is a deafening roar. Scratches of radio static, random musical beats, and mumbles that sound almost like real words. 

“Stop,” Sam screams, leveling his pistol on the car. Calmus is dangerously close to climbing inside.

Nothing happens, so Sam rears back and kicks the driver’s side door as hard as he can. Hard enough to leave a dent, but the door bends in and out, like plastic, throwing Sam off balance. He staggers to one side before catching himself by dropping to one knee. His mask is now pressed tightly to his face and when he exhales, his glasses fog up, so that he rips the mask free with a jerk.

Behind him, the door opens and slams shut. He hears Athena’s footsteps on the concrete, accompanied by a warning shout. He sees Calmus place one hand on the open door of the car and duck his head. 

Sam first his teeth and makes a choice. He levels his gun at the car and fires off two shots in rapid succession, first at the front tire and then at the back. The shots are accurate. From this range it would be hard to miss, but there’s no hissing of escaping air. Instead, the tires crack and something milky white and viscous bubbles out onto the road where it hisses and steams. 

He isn’t going to make it, Sam realizes. Calmus is too far away. He’s about to get inside the car and—images of Casper Chen flash through Sam’s mind—there’s nothing Sam can do.

Sam will learn later when he’s getting his statement that Tahramy played linebacker, and still coaches two little league teams downtown. For now, he only hears Tahramy’s roar before the big man rushes out of the darkness, clamping one hand around Calmus’s nose and mouth and looping another arm around his waist it he yanks Calmus back towards away from the curb. 

Seeing this, Sam grins, just as the car’s driver side door swings open before him. A smell, sweet and thick as honey, fills his nostrils, and all at once Sam feels relief flood his body. He knows, for the first time since the pandemic started, that it’s going to be okay. Everything is going to work out. He’s done his part and can finally rest. Just slide into the car, settle in behind the driver’s seat, and go for a ride. 

A ride, Sam thinks. It sounds so nice. To just cruise up and down those empty streets without a care in the world. 

Athena shoulders him to the side, but it’s the sight of concrete rushing up to meet him that jars him back to his sense. He shoots out a palm and feels the skin scrape off against the concrete, but it’s better than landing face first. 

Above him, Athena is wearing the plastic backpack with the brackish brown liquid and she’s spraying it like a flame thrower into the car. 

“You got a light?” Athena shouts through her mask. 

She sprays the liquid from side to side into open doors and onto the soft, pulsing flesh inside. Sam blinks. Tries to process what he’s seeing, how the car’s four doors are now spread impossibly wide, like a four shelled oyster, only instead of a pearl at the center there’s a hideous, porcelain white eye buried beneath a spongy webbing of veins. 

“A light!” Athena screams again. 

The edges of the doors curl inwards at the tips, and something changes in the eye, like a cloud flipping past a full moon. Sam chances a shot at the eye, then reaches into his pocket for his zippo. He lights it once, then twice before a spark flies off, catching something in the pungent air. A blaze of fire splits the car down the middle and the car folds together, like long fingers drawing back in surprise.

In the flash of light from the ensuing flame, Sam sees Calmus and Tahramy illuminated on the other side. Startled but safe. 

Sam wants to catch his breath, but Athena doesn’t stop. She swivels to the next car waiting on the sidewalk, and then the next. Dousing each one in her special blend of gasoline and weed killer before Sam strikes his zippo. The final two make an effort to crawl away, but they’re slow. Never moving faster than a jog and never for very far. When they’re finished, seven fires burn in the middle of the road. 

Standing next to Athena, Sam thinks they look a little like pyres. There’s an accidental pattern to their layout, like the funeral rites for some forgotten religion.

Watching the last embers burn out, he feels an immediate adrenaline dump. They’re left standing in darkness, lit only by the occasional sputtering street lights above. Later, Sam won’t be able to remember what happens next. It’s like his brain went into autopilot while he spoke to Tahramy and Calmus, then later pointed out where the fires had been to a trio of confused firefighters.

However, he will always remember the conversation later, with Athena as he walked her back to his car. 

“So that theory you had,” Sam says at last. “Was it accurate.” 

Athena laughs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes. Yes it was.” 

“Well,” Sam says, “you want to fill me in?” 

Athena takes a breath. “I’m just going to jump right in. Studying Nepenthes Distillatoria. Pitcher Plants. Really, all carnivorous plants were a hobby in college. They’re really fascinating.” 

Sam blinks. He’s reminded of something in her voice. The same excitement from that night in front of the New Beverly. 

“And they will lure their prey in with sweet smells and perfumes and, in most cases, drown their prey. It would be like if a pond or a sinkhole called out to humans.” 

Sam blinked. “And?” 

“In the wild, pitcher plants look just like flowers,” Athena says. “They use camouflage. Blending in so the insects they attract don’t suspect anything.” She pauses, taking a breath. “Only that wouldn’t work on humans in the city. Humans wouldn’t go near a giant flower. But a car?” Athena laughs. “I know it’s crazy but…”

“No, no,” Sam says, holding up his hands. “I mean, it’s not any crazier than my theory.” 

Athena cocks an eyebrow, “which is?”

“Aliens,” Sam says. 

“Aliens,” Athena repeats. 

“Hey these theories aren’t mutually exclusive,” Sam points out. “They could be alien pitcher plants. 

Athena laughs and, for a brief second, Sam thinks the window has opened again. That maybe, just maybe, he has a shot if he acts sometimes between now and the next ten seconds before they reach her car.

“Athena,” he says. “I’ve been thinking.” He pauses. “I know you don’t date cops.”

She raises an eyebrow, apparently as confused as he is by his chosen tactic. It isn’t what he meant to say. So he pivots. 

“But what about heroes?” Sam asks.

“Heroes?” Athena repeats.

“Heroes at the end of the world, protecting the human race from giant, alien, picture plants,” he says. 

“Pitcher Plants,” she says. 

“Nepenthes Distillatoria,” Sam agrees. 

Athena laughs, hesitating just outside her car. “Maybe. Yeah. Maybe.” 

Sam smiles and reaches out to open the door for her to climb inside.

THE END