Chapter Text
Mariana Fernandez was the resident animal control officer, and Center City's one woman ASPCA. A bystander had called about a cat stuck in a drainage pipe. The man on the phone had been one Mr. Johnson. He considered himself something of a neighborhood watchmen, and frequently contacted her about strays. According to him, the feline in question was located on the thin stretch of shoreline that followed Pearl Avenue. She'd scrawled out the address onto a hot pink sticky note, which was currently flapping in the wind where it had been slapped onto her dashboard. She had the drivers side window rolled down as she sped off toward the west side in her very own family minivan. The evening air was too warm and muggy to be trapped in a sealed van that smelled too strongly of wet dog, spilt apple juice, grass stains, and melted crayons. Earlier that week her daughter's drawing supplies had been left in the van. Within a forgotten school bag, the September heat had made short work of them.
Johnson had warned her that the cat had been startled by a car alarm, and had decided the pipes were the safest hiding place.
She pulled over and parked the sight of the first... disturbance. There was a large crowd standing in the middle of the road, blocking the way to the shore. It was late in the tourism season, strange that the waterfront was still packed with activity in this relatively subdued area. There was more visible chaos than was typical of laid back vacation goers. Voices were raised to match the alarms of several shrieking cars. People gestured at one another in movements that spoke of anger, fear, and excitement.
Mariana exited her vehicle and approached; the shouting grew louder. Sand crunched under her shoes where it had been cast upon the road by high winds. The black top was smooth as a river rock after decades of seaside weather.
She couldn't quite wrap her head around how a cat could cause this much trouble. A pack of panicked people in flip flops, sunglasses, colorful loose cotton shirts, and cargo pants— clustered around several... wrecks. If that was the right word. Each vehicle had been neatly parked beside the curb, an equal distance between the faded white lines on the pavement. The damage couldn’t have been caused at speed. Someone looked to have smashed all the windows on the street side. Maybe with a baseball bat? The carriage of one vehicle had caved in, as if a heavy object had landed on top of it; Loony Toons piano dropped off the second story balcony style. One of the doors had been completely torn off. It lay on the asphalt, crumpled like a sad piece of paper.
She privately wondered where the local police officers had gotten to, if she was the first on the scene. She had with her only a net, catch pole, flashlight, and cat treats. Although she’d wrangled rabid dogs, she wasn’t so confident she could subdue a vandal with treats and a humane snare.
If this was a cat, it was an escaped tiger with the arms of a gorilla.
The street was lined with townhouses painted in bright, solid colors. Blues and reds, yellows and purples. Ever cheerful despite the disquieting scene. As she traveled down the street the cracked road abruptly ended in a series of three Jersey Barriers, and she continued onto the soft, loose beach sand. The ocean stretched out before her, a calm expanse. It met the sunset pink of the sky at the horizon. In the distance seagulls called, seeming undisturbed by the troubles of the humans.
It was here she noticed a public bench had been overturned. Especially odd, because it had been buried in the sand using concrete ballasts around the legs. Ballasts that would prevent the high tide from washing it out to sea. The steel frame itself had been broken and twisted. Mariana was growing increasingly nervous at the prospect of meeting this ‘cat’.
On her left was the drainage pipe in question. It was a little over two feet in diameter, and normally kept the roadway from flooding, but at times like these they were a curse. Frightened animals often crawled inside. This one seemed a bit large to trap a cat, but the poor thing might have been too scared to be convinced to leave.
“There ya are Fernandez!” said a balding older gentleman. His arms were crossed in front of his plaid work shirt and protruding beer belly. He stood proudly in front of the old drainage pipe as if he were its owner and proprietor. He was chewing loudly as he spoke, and in one hand he held a half eaten Snickers.
“Mr. Johnson.”
“Have a look, the beast is in’ere.”
She walked toward him and crouched in front of the pipe. Mariana tied up her dark curls with the scrunchy around her wrist to keep them out of the way. She placed down her tools and unhooked the flashlight from her belt. Upon depressing the switch, the pitch dark interior lit up.
Mariana gasped at the face that appeared like a ghostly apparition. She had to do a double take, because he was so pale she thought she was looking into the glassy, shining eyes of a corpse. He bared his teeth and made a noise, like a hiss, confirming that he was a living being and not the reason for her latest call to her therapist. She sighed in relief— shoulders sagging.
“Mr. Johnson... that’s not a cat," she stated the obvious.
"Well, it sure as hell sounds like one!" he contested. “You know, my eyes ain't what they used to be.”
"It's quite alright, anyone could have made the mistake." She assured him in her kindest most pleasant, 'helpful service woman voice'. All the while thinking I don't know how anyone could have made this kind of mistake.
Yes, the man staring her down from within the darkness of the drainage pipe was making an audible growl— one that might have been construed as a purr , albeit a disgruntled one— but he was most assuredly not an animal.
The sand at the entrance to the pipe clung to the knees of her uniform pants. As Mariana pressed onward it was quickly washed away by the murky saltwater sitting at the bottom of the cylinder’s curve. She felt the uncomfortable sensation of wet fabric clinging to her skin. The strange man retreated impossibly further into the darkness. She was not qualified to handle this. The pipe, although sizable for a cat, was too narrow for her to fit her broad shoulders through. She had no idea how this adult man had managed to cram himself inside. She reasoned he might have injured himself in the effort. She thought perhaps it was the hospital that needed to be called. This might have been a job for paramedics— even firefighters with the tools to break apart the iron pipe if necessary.
“Sir, are you stuck? Do you need help?” She called out to him. Her voice echoed strangely off the rounded walls, accompanied by the gentle sound of moving sea water. "It’s alright, I don’t mean you any harm." She tried to reassure him, but he didn't appear at all convinced. He continued to growl and stare unblinkingly at her, eyes glowing with a cold blue light in the beam of her flashlight — much like an actual cat’s, now that she thought of it.
His shoulders were drawn in close to his head, his arms pressed tight to his rigid body. He was coiled as if to spring and looking for all intensive purposes like a wild creature that had been backed into a corner.
She wasn't going to be able to pull him out with a snare like she might an animal— human necks were fragile. And if he was the cause of the carnage up above on the street, she didn't believe she would be getting all of her limbs back afterward.
"Do you think you could try and come out of there?" She asked, sending him a bright, hopeful smile. She was fixed with a glare that radiated suspicion.
Mariana sighed.
"Can I at least have your name?"
" Rin... zler ." The voice that echoed out of the blackness crackled like a radio signal heard out of range, or Rice Krispies dropped into milk. He struggled even just to form those two syllables. The throat that spoke them sounded like it had been worn down to nothing, as raw as if someone had taken to the inside with sandpaper. Was the man sick? Did he have bronchitis? Was that somehow related to the rumbling?
Rinzler? That was an unusual name if she had ever heard one. Maybe it was foreign.
Mr. Johnson knelt at the entrance behind her, ducking his head to get a better look at the anomaly.
“Gosh you're right Fernandez, that ain’t no cat.”
Said catman made a new violent sound, like a chainsaw coming to life; it startled both of them.
“Ow! Jesus Christ,” Johnson shouted as he knocked his head against the unyielding ceiling. He raised a hand to rub his bruised scalp.
Rinzler must have liked Mr. Johnson even less than he did her. That was before he caught sight of what he was holding in his sticky, chocolate smeared fingers. Rinzler's eyes widened and he raised his head, like a dog that had just caught the scent of a squirrel. Dead silence fell as the rumbling cut out. Mr. Johnson was holding a Snickers bar.
A second Snickers bar. Different from the one he had been finishing as Fernandez had arrived. This bar had been unwrapped mere moments ago, and the soft unbroken chocolaty surface shone golden in the sunlight at the entrance to the tunnel.
"Do you like chocolate Rinzler?" She asked.
Rinzler nodded vigorously.
"Give me that please." Mariana reached out to take the candy, she would pry it from Mr. Johnson’s fingers if she had to.
"Hey! No way lady! This is mine!" He cried. He gave her a horrified look like she was a stranger who had just tried to take his newborn child from his arms, and raised it high out of her reach, above his head.
"The Center City Animal Control Office has the right to confiscate any and all objects being used to obstruct the rescue of any being in need," She rattled off as if she were quoting a manual. This wasn't at all true of course, but Mr. Johnson didn't know that.
"Yeah, great. What does that have to do with my Snickers? I'm only eating it, very happily and not in any obstructing manner." He said, flippant.
"By not handing it over, you are endangering this man's life. I... I could report you!" She threatened. “Give that to me and do something useful, like call an ambulance.”
Scowling at her, he reluctantly passed her the candy.
"You owe me one Fernandez."
He gave the Snickers one last regretful look before he vanished from sight.
Fernandez held the chocolate out in front of her, offering it toward Rinzler. It couldn't reach, not by a long shot, she realized he must have been some ten or fifteen feet further down the tunnel.
"You want this? You can have it. All you have to do is corporate. Please leave the pipe, if you can do so safely. If anything hurts, stay put. An ambulance is on the way," She told him; that was the ultimatum.
Rinzler shifted a few inches closer, crawling on his elbows. He was wary, but little else seemed to exist for him other than the treat.
"That's it." She encouraged him. "You’re doing great. Look at this chocolaty goodness, with its peanut and caramel center."
Many minutes of careful coaxing later and the catman was standing on the beach beside her, free. Mariana could see the flashing blue and red of ambulance lights out of the corner of her eye, in the direction of the street. An EMT appeared over the incline, running toward them across the beach; she had somehow procured a giant clean towel. It was wrapped around Rinzler’s shoulders, and this time there wasn’t a single growl.
The EMT was a big woman with short cropped hair, and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. She was handsome, with her uniform sleeves rolled up to her elbows, revealing impressive arms. Mariana ducked her head to try to hide the fact that she had been staring. The woman looked like she could pick up most people and carry them off without difficulty, and that was probably in her job description too. Rinzler looked short and slight next to her.
In the sunlight Rinzler looked almost transparent, he was so pale. His lips were a purple-blue. An ugly, twisting, veiny scar bisected his face. Horrific, like he'd run into a chop saw head on, the kind of wound she'd only heard about people surviving but had never actually seen. He was missing most of one cheek. It cut a diagonal path from his shoulder, across his neck and throat, and over the bridge of his nose toward his opposite ear. Not a recent injury, something old. It was partly healed, but not well, the scar tissue was still pink and inflamed. She could only guess that this was what caused his difficulty speaking, and perhaps the odd sounds.
His clothes were soaked with muddy pipe water. His dark hair clung to his scalp and he shivered, even under the fluffy towel.
Despite all this, Mariana didn't think she had ever seen anyone happier. He was grinning like a fool, oblivious to the rest of them. He didn’t quite eat like the average person. He gnawed on the chocolate with the side of his mouth, using his back teeth and was making pleased chirping noises. It reminded her of her toddlers, before they had achieved any finesse in the eating department.
“Hello sir, I’m Becca. Can I get your name?” The EMT asked Rinzler. When the silence had stretched on for far too long, Mariana answered for him.
“I think talking might be painful for him. He told me his name was Rinzler.”
“Is that right?” Becca asked.
Rinzler nodded.
“It’s nice to meet you Rinzler, how about you ride with us to the hospital? We’ll get you checked out and see if we can’t find your home.”
Rinzler hummed in the affirmative.
Becca had been talking to the witnesses up on the street, and she relayed to Mariana more of the story. Apparently this Rinzler had leaned on a parked car. He had been so startled by the resulting alarm that he'd gone into some kind of panicked fit, and had attacked the vehicles. When the sound still did not cease, Rinzler hid from it underground.
There were no weapons involved, and when asked how the perpetrator could have possibly totaled a number of cars otherwise, one tourist could only tell her 'Man, he was like a freaking ninja. Went psycho on that Miata.'
“Crazier things have happened,” the EMT said.
“They have?” Mariana asked, eyebrows raised.
“In this town? For sure. In emergency services you see some wild shit. Well anyway, I turned off the ambulance siren as soon as I’d heard what went down, just to be on the safe side. Wouldn’t want to cause any unnecessary stress.”
Rinzler eyed her, but didn’t comment.
Mariana didn’t think anyone should be able to rip the door off of a car with their bare hands. It was incredibly hard to believe, and she wondered at the fact Becca took the situation at face value. Even with so many witnesses, wouldn’t a better explanation be... a mass hallucination or something? The tourists might have all been high after a beach party gone too far.
Looking at him now, Rinzler seemed harmless, just a disabled man who’d had a nasty panic attack. Maybe he’d scandalized a few tourists, but it wasn’t like that was difficult to do. They were scandalized by everything. Nothing too unusual, all things considered. She was glad he was calm regardless. Rinzler let Mariana guide him into the ambulance with a gentle hand between his shoulders.
Becca didn’t object when Mariana moved to sit beside Rinzler on the gurney. In fact, she seemed glad for the help.
“You’re the ninja tamer, I’m not going to question it,” she said.
“We good Becca?” A man’s voice could be heard calling from the front seat.
“Go easy ok? And keep the siren off.”
“You got it!”
“We’ve been working with a skeleton crew all week. It’s just me and Guy,” Becca told them. “I’m going to check you over for injuries Rinzler, is that ok?”
Rinzler grunted in the affirmative.
“You know, you are very polite for a car destroying criminal," Becca said as she felt along Rinzler’s arm over his shirt.
Silence.
“Tough crowd.”
Becca tsked.
“Your shoulder’s dislocated and you’re not even complaining. That chocolate must be real good.” Rinzler didn’t look at her, and she continued when he didn’t seem to understand what she was implying. “Did you take any drugs? I’m not a cop, you won’t get in trouble. I need to know so that I can help you.”
Still no response. Becca produced a small silver light from her pocket. He hissed and turned his head away when she shone it in his eyes.
“No dilated pupils. Wow, you’re irises sure are bright though, like neon. Are those contacts?”
Rinzler blinked at her in incomprehension.
“Any nausea?” Becca asked instead.
“Your heart rate is normal,” she said, pressing her fingers to his wrist. “You’re really just non-verbal, aren’t you?”
No answer, not even a nod.
“You said he spoke to you though?” Becca turned her head to ask Mariana.
“Only his name, one word, that’s it,” she answered.
Rinzler began feeling around his own distorted joint, grasping his upper arm. Becca’s head whipped around when she recognized the gesture. Her hazel eyes were wide in alarm.
“No... Rinzler, what are you doing? Stop. You need X-rays. You could cause more damage. There could be other broken bones. You can’t just— “
He grimaced and with a sickening crunch, shoved his own shoulder back into place.
Rinzler grinned with too many teeth and gave her a look that said ‘Shows what you know.’ He stretched his neck, and it cracked. He extended his arm, and tested it’s range of motion, swinging it around.
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe you should be the medical professional then. Wise guy.” She placed her hands on her hips, unimpressed.
He just stared at Becca again. Mariana noticed he didn't blink... quite as often as a person should. It was unnerving.
“Ice it is.”
Becca dragged over a nearby cooler and opened it. She felt along Rizler's previously dislocated joint, and huffed when she realized it had been set adequately at least.
“Good news, you’ll live," she said, before handing him the plastic bag of ice. Rinzler unceremoniously dropped the now empty candy wrapper onto the floor, in order to take the bag instead.
"Don't— yeah ok, that's fine. I'll clean it up later."
He was able to infer what to do with the ice, and pressed it against his shoulder.
Their ride pulled into the hospital parking lot, and swung around. Guy backed up to the ramp to the ICU. As soon as Becca had unlatched the doors, her patient sprung to his feet.
"Rinzler wait— "