Chapter 2

A constant hurry infected the streets of Chicago. It was a perpetually

congested city with an impatient populace in need of being somewhere else
immediately just to stay up with life, a high-rent lakeside anthill with a
picturesque skyline. The noise of traffic as people went about their business
was a constant hum on any street, a droning note that the residents learned
eventually to tune out, lest it drive them mad. It had its share of multiple
millionaires and drop-outs, its hard-working people and its socialites,
celebrities, criminals, miscreants, and the maladjusted. Anything in the world
could be had within arm’s length at any time. It had traditions and folklore,
ghosts and demons in its present and past, and an underbelly that befit it all.
It was a stiflingly hot and humid day, befitting a jungle urban or
otherwise, and a faint odor of rotting hung in the air. Malcolm suspected that
somewhere in the next alley over, some rats were getting their fill of
something that was edible a day or two ago. There were plenty of
restaurants in the area, and it could be that none of them have had their
garbage picked up for a day or two. With every step he took, the smell got
worse.
The sun shone almost intolerably brightly, piercing as it reflected from the
mirrored windows of skyscrapers and the windshields of cars. Malcolm had to
shield his eyes even from the light reflected from the pale yellow brick
Chicago builders seemed to favor in a particularly prolific and aesthetically
disappointing period of urban development. Malcolm wondered if some
brickyard must have had a special on it. The streets were filled with bleary-
eyed young urbanites who sipped five dollar coffees in paper cups with
plastic lids on the way to drop the kids at daycare and get to the office.
Chicago seemed to run on high-end caffeine. Shops that sold those five
dollar coffees seemed to be on every block, and flourished wherever they
were opened.
All of this told Malcolm it was another place he didn’t fit in. He couldn't
claim to be a part of the schedules and interactions of the city. He almost
believed himself to be a guest symbiote in the great organism that is the
brick and mortar, the steel and asphalt and the people that were the
organism of the city. Sometimes he felt that no matter where he went, he
was the object of strange looks, wayward glances, and incomprehension
from first sight. Most people came to the city for jobs, or the night life, his
path to this city had been far different, but this is where he’d landed, and
where he seemed to be needed.
Malcolm needed milk, and so he headed to The Convenient Store, an
aptly named grocery that was staffed by the owner and his family. It was five
blocks from his apartment with two turns, and his route featured two blocks
on Foster. He hated major streets like Foster for the information overload, but
he had no way of avoiding it. When he made the turn, he took a deep breath,
shielded his eyes and walked on.
 A constant assault of textual over-stimulation and visual information
which barraged Malcolm’s hyperlexic mind with messages. Even simple
things jumped into his mind, had to be processed before being filed away
forever in his memory. "Closed," "Sale," and "New summer Fashions"
screamed at him, while most people completely overlooked them. Some of
these messages came from human agencies, but some of them came from a
far more occulted source that had never been clear to him. Inwardly, he
trudged, as if he was walking against a blizzard.
Along with the requisite coffee shop, this block featured a clothing resale
shop, and an almost as obligatory Polish restaurant. A Polish man with a
limited English vocabulary stood in its doorway, passing out papers
advertising the restaurant, which were mostly discarded a block ahead, most
not even hitting the garbage can, an exercise in futility. Malcolm pocketed
the one he was handed quickly, never looking at it. There must have been
two dozen in his files at home, collected while working various cases. It was
the first time he'd seen this particular man, and the momentary contact with
his hand brought Malcolm the image of him, tyrant, beating his five year old
son for wetting the bed, an act his son did for attention. The image was not
of his concern, but would never be forgotten, but filed to an area of his brain
reserved for memories that were none of his business. Malcolm had long ago
learned to keep his mind pure of problems that aren't his.
Malcolm had to walk this street with a carefully trained tunnel vision to
make any forward progress whatsoever, had to limit his intake in order to
make it all comprehensible. He needed milk for his cereal. That was all he
needed, then he could start his day and go to work. He didn’t need the
billboards, the advertisements for thousand dollar watches or overpriced
jeans for which were placed in bus kiosks. Their target market was
apparently people that are not able to afford cars in the city. He didn’t need
the neon signs in the windows of every market and liquor store, the sandwich
boards with the special of the day in front of every restaurant and bar, or a
weathered Sun-Times newspaper box proclaiming “Hospital Evacuated Due
to Mystery Illness,” (and affixed to this, the stickers for a band,
Geostationary, defunct several months ago due to band politics and the bass
player sleeping with the guitar player’s girlfriend).
Everywhere was that smell of rotting. Urban decay. Flesh being stripped
from an animal, a person, a neighborhood.
Finally he arrived at the store, walked past the front windows and their
ads for cigarettes and alcohol. The smell was now unbearable, flies swarmed
in the air near the door, which opened diagonally out to the heart of the
intersection. He made a familiar half-turn to the door, but was stopped
before entering. A pair of police officers blocked the way seeming rather
serious about keeping people out.
“Sorry buddy, store’s closed,” one of the officers said, keeping his eyes on
Malcolm.
Malcolm was confused. He wasn't sure if this was some kind of joke, or if
this was a Chicago cop feeling big today. Either way, Malcolm just needed his
milk, and didn’t need this problem. His muscles tensed a little bit more, he
was about to press past the police officers and into the store when the door
opened and a stocky man in plain clothes stepped out backwards, dragging a
whirring fan and talking to somebody inside.
The two officers at the door tried to at once cover their noses and
continue to be a physical barrier to Malcolm. They stepped aside, stretched
their arms out and carefully prevented Malcolm from seeing whatever might
be going on inside, or who was coming out. This was the first that Malcolm
knew that something was not right, the way they were preventing him from
even getting a glimpse in. That wasn't a good sign. The smell of rotting,
however, was suddenly stronger and Malcolm suspected the source was
somewhere inside.
“Okay, enough complaining,” the man in plainclothes said impatiently.
“We’ll prop the doors open, but it better not contaminate the scene.”
Malcolm didn’t want to recognize the voice, but he did. It belonged to
Detective Nami, Chicago Police Homicide division. His presence meant
something unfortunate had happened.
With the fan in position holding the door open just enough, the man
turned and pulled two rolls of yellow police-line tape from under his arm. He
handed the rolls to the officers stationed outside. Apparently in this scene,
they were the lucky ones. They looked blandly at the rolls as if he was
sticking them with garbage duty.
“Start taping off the doorway,” he said. When they didn’t jump to it, he
added, “Or I’ll make you wait inside with us.” The officers regained their
composure and started unrolling the tape.
Nami turned around, gulping air to clear his senses. He looked
lightheaded and pale. Even though the smell of rotting and death was
routine in his line of work, even he was overwhelmed by the air inside the
store.
Detective Nami was a tall, stocky Asian man. Wispy hair was slowly
vacating the top of his head, but he’d long since given up trying to find a
hairstyle that would in some way hide the fact of it. Corpses and cops didn’t
care about receding hairlines, so he figured he shouldn’t either. He was
dressed in his usual basic suit, nothing special or flashy. He chose his work
clothes to be functional, and only cops in TV shows dressed like they were on
a runway. On this sweltering summer day, he was certainly overdressed, but
the police force dictates a certain professional decorum. He caught his
breath and looked up, noticing the one person the crime scene has already
attracted. He wondered how they found these things so quickly, it wasn't like
they advertised. It took a second for Malcolm’s face to register on Nami, he
was out of context as a bystander.
“Malcolm? What the hell are you doing here?” he said, only partially
surprised. Malcolm always seemed to be around when he was needed, but
he had no idea why. He then added under his breath, “How’d you hear about
this?”
“Hear about what? I just need some milk and eggs.”
 Nami took this as one of Malcolm’s peculiar little jokes, even if it wasn’t
particularly funny. Malcolm’s delivery always confused Nami. Malcolm could
give stone face pointers to Buster Keaton.
Nami opened the door and led Malcolm into the store. Malcolm’s eyes first
fell on the body, its eyes staring back at him, open. They had sunk into their
sockets slightly. He just barely recognized its face as that of the shopkeeper,
Fadil. His body was twisted and gaunt, far more skeletal than he'd looked like
in life. You couldn’t see the hard outline of bones on him when he was alive
yesterday. Malcolm turned back away. The possibility that it might have been
Fadil that was the victim hadn't occurred to him outside. He’d been holding
out hope that Fadil was being interviewed around back by one of Nami’s
assistants, that he was just a witness to someone else’s death.
Nami caught Malcolm’s reaction.
“What is it?”
“Can we at least close his eyes?”
One of the forensics officers who seemed to be directing the detail, looked
up to them.
“No, we can’t. The tissue has dried, and won’t flex.”
Malcolm swallowed hard and looked back at the corpse. The smell was far
worse in here. The air was clogged by a stench that had driven most of the
men to wear breathing masks. The air conditioning, which had been cranked
to the fullest, couldn't filter the rot from the air fast enough. From the smell
of it, Malcolm could imagine a horde of insects, vermin and other assorted
better-not-thought-of elements of the food chain waiting for the human
intrusion to leave the buffet. He saw that they had even opened all of the
doors from the coolers to help bring in fresh air, and cool the place to slow
the decay. Malcolm didn’t think it could have helped much, all things
considered, but at least it was worth trying.
The gathered forensics officers paused in their collection of evidence at
the intrusion of this stranger, but resumed their duties when they saw Nami
had brought him in. Malcolm and Nami each took latex gloves from a box,
snapped them onto their hands and proceeded further into the store.
The soot of the dirty floor grated audibly on the soles of Malcolm’s shoes,
but it was always that way here, a friendly layer of unmoppable dirt had
always coated the floors, clinging hard to crevices in the pitted and worn
tiles. This little independent convenience store might have lacked the
modern, hospital-like cleanliness and sterility of the 7-11 down the street,
but it had character. White paint peeled from the aluminum ceiling tiles, a
holdover from the building’s early days, and a sight that was becoming rarer
and rarer in the city. Dusty abandoned cobwebs hung along the edges of the
walls. Ziggy cartoons cut from newspapers in the eighties slowly yellowed
away underneath a well-worn plastic cover on the counter. The merchandise
had settled into slouching piles with a thin coating of dust on dilapidated
shelves that were bought second-hand from a closed grocery a decade ago.
Even despite this, Malcolm felt that the store had aged greatly since his last
visit.
 Malcolm took a few more steps into the store, and this was when he first
got a good look at the horribly decomposed body, and he had to admit to the
fact that he’d lost another friend under less than pretty circumstances, and
his only thought was that everything really was going wrong for him today.
The body had putrefied for what looked like weeks, though Malcolm had
seen him re-pricing his stock only yesterday. The lips were curled back
revealing a horrific caricature of the toothy grin that had greeted customers
almost every day since the store opened. The eyes were dried and shriveled,
but they still looked back up at Malcolm, a memory that he couldn’t file away
into the unimportant parts of his mind.
“Polachek, what have you got for me?” Nami called, breaking Malcolm’s
concentration on the body.
A thin dark-haired man standing on the other side of the body looked up
through gold spectacles at Nami, then at Malcolm.
“Is he okay here?”
Nami nodded.
“Malcolm, Polachek, Polacheck, Malcolm. He’s helped me out on a few
odd cases.” Nami looked at the body and decided to add, “He might be
helpful on this one, too.”
Malcolm and Polachek shook hands over the body before Polachek
crouched back down to his task.
“Fadil Marak. Egyptian. 47,"he summarized his notes. "By the looks of
things, he was stocking the morning’s deliveries when he was attacked.
There were no external injuries, no entry wounds. According to the security
camera tapes, the time of death couldn’t have been later than 7:30 a.m.”
Nami regarded the putrescent body again, puzzled. It didn’t make any
sense.
“7:30 a.m. when? Two months ago?” Nami asks, repulsed. He'd seen
many a stinker in his day. How could the body have become like this in only
an hour?
Polachek scratched his head and glanced up in confirmation.
“That’s the last time we see him on the security tape. The rate of decay is
tremendous. I can’t explain it just yet. But that’s not the only thing I can’t
explain—his ribcage—its collapsed.”
Malcolm turned away, not wanting, or needing to see any more. Fadil was
dead, that was all he needed, or at least wanted to know on this case. His
eyes caught on a small sign in front of the register. It showed a cartoonish
teenager, holding up his I.D., and read, “FIND IT.” Malcolm stared at it until
Nami’s voice drew his attention back to the situation at hand.
“Who called it in?”
“Some kid called from the payphone by the door, then hung up and took
off. Got a couple prints. We’ll run ‘em, see what comes up.”
As Polachek replied, Malcolm turned away again, and saw a lottery sign,
featuring a rainbow and a pot of gold, and the words, “STOP IT.”
 Nami looked around. A number of fresh boxes lined the aisle, waiting to
be stocked, though a closer look revealed them to be moldering as well. A
fresh delivery receipt for all of it sat on the counter.
“Maybe the delivery driver saw something,” Nami posited, again breaking
Malcolm’s tangential attention, drawing him back to the inner circle. “Let’s
see if we can find him.”
Stepping around the body, Nami moved behind the counter, which
disturbed Malcolm even more. Fadil should have been behind there, Nami’s
presence was an alteration to his expectations that reinforced that
something in the world had been irrevocably lost. He imagined Fadil in
Nami’s place, moving just as Nami did. It seemed unnatural, Fadil moved in
different ways, the simulacra didn’t hold up no matter how hard he imagined.
The Nami-Fadil amalgamation opened the cash register, and then closed
it.
“Cash is still here,” Nami’s voice said, and then the façade washed away,
it was just Nami, irrevocably Nami.
“So it wasn’t a robbery,” Polachek theorized.
“Not a successful one at any rate.”
Nami rewound the security tape and started it from moments before the
event. Malcolm caught a glimpse of a black teenager, his eyes wide with
panic, his clothing matching the pattern of a local street gang.
“If it wasn’t a robbery, this kid has a hell of a piece,” Nami said.
Polachek looked the body over, before responding, “Sometimes its hard to
see if there’s a gunshot wound on bodies in this state of decay, particularly if
there’s no exit wound.”
Then he stopped in a sudden realization, looked the body up and down
again, “Strange that there’s no bugs.”
“Bugs?” Malcolm asked. He wasn't particularly well versed on forensic
science.
“Maggots, beetle larvae, flesh flies, blowflies, mosquitoes, the usual
things you’d expect. Flies would be able to get into a place like this pretty
easy, and the body is the most accessible host. Even just a few hours later,
untouched, there'd be bugs.”
Nami ejected the tape and sealed it in an evidence bag. He handed it to a
forensics officer.
“Get copies of this tape to robbery and street crime. See if they recognize
him,” he said.
But Malcolm didn't hear this exchange. Their voices faded to the
background, then faded out entirely. He heard whispers, half-formed words,
many voices talking to him at once, hushed voices that weren’t in the room,
but watched it nonetheless, a voice like a shrieking whisper saying, “FIND IT.
STOP IT.”
He felt light-headed, suddenly drained of even the strength to stand. He
stumbled back, his hand touched the counter, and he got a flash of a few
hours ago, of Fadil heaving, weakening, and collapsing. His lungs overflowed
with blood and mucus; it poured from his mouth. His heart stopped before he
hit the floor, and this was where Malcolm came back around, as if someone
had just administered smelling salts and he was instantly alive again.
“So what is that smell?” he asked, interrupting the further discussion.
All the eyes in the room turned to him, wondering how he missed the
obvious.
“Everything. Everything in the store has gone bad. Even today’s fresh
deliveries. Hell, even the Twinkies went bad, and I didn’t think that was
possible,” Polacheck answered.
Malcolm looked at the Twinkie display rack. The Twinkie Ranger said, “KILL
IT.”
“Anything else you can tell me yet? Cause of death?” Nami asked.
Malcolm couldn't bear to hear the answer. His throat felt as if a strong
hand was closing around it. He felt feverish and short of breath. He turned on
his heels, needing to escape the onslaught of sensations and ran out the
front door.

Nami didn't mind following Malcolm out of the store to calm his friend’s
nerves, any excuse for a breath of clean air was good enough for him, but by
the time he made it out the door Malcolm was out of sight. The two cops
guarding the door pointed in the direction of a small city playlot down the
street.
Malcolm knew that Nami was going to follow him, Nami’s human
compassion was predictable and reliable, one of his better qualities, even if
Malcolm didn’t feel it necessary in his case to be the object of the
compassion. Throughout their history of working together, Nami had always
looked out for Malcolm, while being completely unaware of how many times
Malcolm had returned the favor.
When Nami caught up to him, Malcolm sat on a bench in front of the park,
holding his head as if he had a hangover, made worse by the high pitched
laughter of the children monkeying about on the slides and swings. The kids
seemed blissfully unaware of the catastrophe back in the store. Even the
prevailing winds shielded them from the smell of the convenience store, for
the most part. I’m strong enough for this, Malcolm thought, I don’t need to
be coddled.
Usually the victim of demonic attack was someone with a questionable
background, drug addicts because their altered chemistry allows easier
feeding; or black magic users who were in over their heads when they did a
summoning; deaths that were excusable, maybe even beneficial to the rest
of us. This time, Malcolm thought, the victim was a friend, an honest man
who had no idea what was just beyond perception. He didn’t seek this out,
nor did he deserve it.
But Malcolm pulled himself together as Nami sat down next to him. It
wasn't like he could tell Nami what had really overwhelmed him in the store.
He held his breath a moment before saying anything.
“I’m okay,” Malcolm said, drawing out the last syllable like a child
emphasizing the point.
 This hardly convinced Nami. He resettled himself, unbuttoned his collar to
feel a bit more relaxed. He’d never seen Malcolm behave like he did in the
store, never seen him lose even a hint of composure, and any number of
reasons why floated through his head. He was unsure of how to begin.
Malcolm, he knew, was sometimes as obtuse as they come, and sometimes
more astute than anyone in the world. Nami knew he always had to use just
the right words with Malcolm.
“I know I usually don’t bring you to the scene, but this time you brought
yourself. You sure you’re okay?”
Malcolm didn’t have to reflect on this one long. Even though their
frequent collaboration on homicides had led Nami to receive ever more
unusual cases, Malcolm had seen far more disturbing images than this. He
didn’t want to mention this, though. That would have led to a longer
conversation of reminiscing that he wasn’t in the mood for. Malcolm
deliberated on just what course of conversation will get Nami to leave him
alone the quickest.
In the end he tersely said, “I’ll be alright.”
Nami didn’t believe him. He interpreted this as Malcolm’s attempt to
convince himself of some strength he didn’t have. He admired the attempt.
“I forget what its like, not seeing this every day. You get used to it,” Nami
offered.
In a way, Malcolm wanted to tell Nami everything, wanted to tell him
about the demons, the truth about the cases they’d worked in the past, how
he conducted his part of the investigations, the clues he found in text of
whatever holistic derivation, of evidence and testimony that would be
impossible to register in court. No, he couldn't reveal any of that. That
always led to trouble., trouble like what happened in The Convenient Store.
“I’m not so…” he started off, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want
Nami to come to harm. He negated himself, and internalized the desire come
clean. “Never mind.”
Nami reached into an inside pocket of his overcoat and searched for a
moment before producing a bottle of water. It made Malcolm wonder if it was
only he and detectives who had to be prepared for anything regardless of the
weather.
“Here, have a drink.” Nami said, offering the bottle to Malcolm. Malcolm
eyed it warily, as if its contents were suspect.
“It’s not from the store. Scout’s honor,” Nami held up three fingers,
making an oath.
Malcolm accepted the bottle, but still examined it before cracking the cap.
“It’s strange how hard it is to keep your eyes off the…victim-especially
the first time,” Nami said and, trying to breach the subject with tact and
decorum, “Is this your first time? I usually only bring you after the scene has
been cleaned up.”
Malcolm looked up at him incredulously, hoping to impart a great deal of
information about his history of dealing with sordid endings with the look of
his eyes. The gaze left too much to guesswork, or the message he read
overloaded Nami too much and so he passed over it, filtered it out, getting
only the feeling of being strangely and horrifically unsettled. He decided to
stop beating around the bush, he had to ask directly or Malcolm was never
going to figure out what he was really trying to ask.
“Of all places you could have gone to, what brought you there?”
“Like I said. Milk. Eggs. I ran out.”
“Sheesh…” Nami groaned. “How is it whenever some poor bastard finds a
really messed up way to die, you happen to run out of milk and eggs?”
Malcolm laughed slightly, his eyes lit up, having just hit on a thought that
Nami would bet was amusing only to Malcolm.
“It’s a convenient store,” Malcolm said. “I always go there. I’ve known
Fadil for years.”
Nami could tell from the tone of Malcolm’s voice that Malcolm was
amused, but finished with him. He had a way of saying when the
conversation was over without actually saying it that Nami had learned to
accept, no matter how abrupt it was. At that point, the conversation was
simply over.
“Hey, had to ask, you know?” Nami said, relenting. He put his hand on
Malcolm’s shoulder reassuringly, smiled, and got to his feet, resigning
himself to going back to the smell. The apprehension was obvious even to
Malcolm. He lingered a moment longer, taking in deep breaths of air in
preparation of going back.
“I understand,” Malcolm conceded, it was Nami’s job to be curious. It was
Malcolm’s job to protect Nami from the unseen dangers his investigations
might lead him to. After many hard lessons, Malcolm has learned it usually
worked out better for all involved that way, excepting perhaps himself.
“Look, I’ve got to get back. I’m sorry if he was your friend. I’ll call if I have
anything for you, okay?”
Malcolm didn’t even acknowledge Nami leaving. He knew the call would
be coming. He didn’t need any special ability to predict that. As he watched
Nami tread his way back, Malcolm knew that starting with a phone call in the
morning, tomorrow would not go according to schedule either.
Nami suspected there was a joke coming and that somehow he’d figure it
out, and it wouldn't be all that funny, and he'd regret even having stumbled
upon the punchline. The conversation turned over in his head. Malcolm’s
jokes almost always involved words, word puzzles, puns. Nami wasn’t good
at puns. It was one of the reasons why he wasn’t an English major.
In their history together, Nami never knew how Malcolm did it, but every
time he’d been stuck on a case, Malcolm looked at the files, went away and
came back with the answer. They left the methodology unspoken. It just
came to him, Malcolm said. He wasn’t psychic, he swore up and down, but
Nami’s buddies all joked with him about how he doesn’t do any detective
work, he just went to his psychic buddy and it was all taken care of. If they
only knew what it was like to deal with Malcolm, he thought, the jokes are
hardly worth the effort.
 When Nami got to the store, he looked up at the sign above the door,
which read in faded letters, “The Convenient Store.” Punchline. Stumbled
over. Regretted. At least he knew Malcolm was handling things.
Malcolm pulled a notebook from his pocket, and looked up to give a slight
smile to Nami as he headed back into the store.

Journal 2

Cont’d: I’d been going to that convenience store for

years. I knew Fadil - well, as much as I can safely
know anyone. I hope its not what I think. It can’t be
simply coincidence. Coincidences are just a pattern
we’re too afraid to see. I’m attracting these things
now to the people around me. I’m a danger to
everyone, but I can’t do anything about it.
Even I can't get used to waking up to a demon
attack. Mara are old demons. Every culture has some
experience with them, from the old hag of the
Scandinavians, some interpretations of the Succubus
and the Incubus (the succubus does exist in a very
real form, the incubus is an iteration of it), the Celts
had faeries that would swipe children at night, the
Philipinos have a fat naked man that stuffs his
genitals down your throat. Its name, Mara, comes
from the Norse “Mare,” and is, in part, the derivation
of our modern term, nightmare. Every culture has
them, In Poland, it's Nocnitsa, In Finland, Painajainen,
In Persia the Bakhtak. There are equivalents in
Iceland, Germany, just about everywhere.
The fact that the little thing was named so long
ago, gives me an indication that there have been
others like me in the past, and many other demons
feeding on humans.
I call them demons, but they aren't really. That's
just the best word I have for them. They're just a
number of invasive species, existing on a plane I
seem to be the only one with the ability to see. I'm
still trying to figure out what brings them over. I have
partial answers, but that seems to be the only thing I
ever get, partial answers.
The Mara is a weak demon where it comes from,
it's part of a symbiotic pair. The mara is the hunter,
selects the prey, paralyzes it with fear. Its partner is
called a garl, large, clumsy and dumb, but also
vicious and strong. It could never surprise prey, it is
too cumbersome for that. It needs the mara to
incapacitate prey, so it can mosey up and rip off its
head. The closest comparison I have for the garl is a
carnivorous giant ground sloth. I have not found an
analogue on earth.
I’m late for work and I don’t care. Its almost
lunchtime, and I should eat. But after the smell in the
store, I’m not sure I can. It’s the kind of thing that
really ruins the appetite for the rest of your life. I
suppose I have to. Just something to reset some
order to the day.
There’s a diner near here, a lounge where the
management bought into the Denny’s model a little
too much for the regulars, but they still go there.
They start making my order when I sit down, and
don’t bother me much. I’m going there for cereal.