SISTERS THREE

SISTERS THREE
- a chilling novelette by Leyland Perree -
Word Count: 14,000

1

We live on the edge of damnation where cloning is both yesterday's
miracle and tomorrow's catastrophe. Things were different a year ago.
My office was decorated with photographs, my name etched in brass. Soon
I'll decorate the walls again, but in another sense.
How things change.
It is late summer and hotter than a glow-worm's ass. Today is the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the Locksley Project, and the celebrations
are set to start any minute now. The protesters are out in force at the
front of the Facility, waving their signs and hand-daubed banners like
it's the Second Coming or something, but if they really knew half as
much about the Project as I do now, they would turn right around and
run like hell with their signs tucked neatly up their rear-ends.
You see, despite the birthday banners, balloons and gaudy decorations
with their congratulating messages, the day has no cause for cheer and
goodwill. Twenty-five years ago today, the walls of the Facility rang
with their own popped champagne corks and self-indulgent applause as it
was announced that the Project was deemed a success. Twenty-five years
ago, two tiny wrinkled figures squirmed in their cots, looking up into
the faces of their creators. Wrapped around the left wrist of each,
from a single band of plastic hung a tag which held their only mark of
identity; not a name but a jumble of numbers and letters - a code. A
third cot lay empty next to the others, and lying on top of the sheets
rested the single plastic bracelet the cot's occupant had worn before
the Facility medics had bundled it away to the surgeon's knife. Written
on it was not one code, but two. On that sweltering summer day, during
the drought of 'o-nine', the Locksley Triplets, better known as the
Sisters Three, entered into a world that by all accounts should have
known better.
It has been a year since I first visited the Facility and, I might add,
first met the Sisters. All three were as uncertain of their release
into the world, as the world was of receiving them. The laws on human
cloning had long been passed but the scars had not yet healed, and
because of this the Sisters were to have lifelong security around the
clock. Only the best were employed. All three siblings were to be
separated as an extra precaution against attacks from extremist groups
such as the Motherhood, or the ex-human rights turned anti-cloning sect
OneTwentySeven. The latter outlined their belief that creation is best
left in the hands of the Divine (Genesis 1:27). Religious-scientific
bodies often quoted back the Scripture's subsequent texts; 'increase in
number; fill the earth and subdue it' - which was precisely what
mankind was doing, albeit by scientific means. OneTwentySeven simply
responded to such impertinence by exploding yet more genetic research
labs and places of worship until such questions had ceased to be
asked.
Going back to the Sisters, as with many siblings of the same birthing
the three shared not only common genes but also a strong emotional link
- a sense of togetherness. To many it was the usual triplet's bond, but
to those around whom the sisters lives revolved it was more defined,
honed even. Call a spade "a spade", I saw it as less of an emotional
tie than a sixth sense. That's rich coming from the mouth of a man who
a year ago was probably the biggest sceptic in the district, and well
known for it too. But had I known then what I know now&;#8230;
The Sisters Three also had similar characteristics; they each possessed
a sharp creative mind, offset by a tendency toward depression and
occasional memory blackouts. It was a side-product of the cloning
process, the scientists had claimed. By a remote chance, the cloned
cell was marred by that particular defect and consequently, so were the
copies. Despite that tiny flaw the project was termed 'a brave step
forward for medical science' by the tabloids and governments of the
world, and paved the way for future similar projects. The sisters were
celebrities before they could even crawl. Throughout their childhood,
private schooling, and passage into adulthood, they expressed their
talents in very different ways; Marion was the artist, Seraphine the
songbird. Jane, however, due to her crippling disabilities had no
discernible aptitude. She was the introvert, the wheelchair-bound
philosopher and, to my sceptic's mind, the most intriguing of the
Three.
They say that curiosity killed the cat. They may be right, although the
'cat' in this story had been skinned, par-boiled and served up with a
side-salad worth dying for.
Meow, how do you do and this is where it all started...

I had been working late in the office, just finishing up some outdated
paperwork which was really a veiled excuse to also finish up the
tequila I had hidden behind the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. My
telephone rang, breaking the silence. Although Private Investigation
outfits such as mine were well known for holding unsociable hours, I
hadn't received a call for over a week. The recent recruitment drive
for the city's boys in blue had resulted in an all time low for
criminal activity. To be more exact, the activity levels probably
stayed unaffected, the perps were just being more careful not to get
caught. Still, when the telephone rang it seemed alien and unrealistic.
It took a further two rings for me to react and grab the receiver from
its cradle. A dead line - just my luck! I shrugged it off and my
steered my attention back to the last inch of amber that sloshed
seductively around the bottom of my glass.
I was drinking more and more back then, as I approached the final
months of my career. I had spent a good quarter of my lifetime snooping
around the lives of the innocent-until-proven and had very little to
look forward to in the later years. My retirement fund had dwindled
away to almost nothing over time, a direct result of adding a little
and drinking a lot. What I needed was a nice little job with a big fat
cheque to see me through to the end. Who was I kidding, it wasn't going
to happen. What I REALLY needed was another drink.

2

An hour later I jostled through the door of Marci's, a dowdy free-house
that had seen better days as an upmarket pizzeria, and worse ones
during its porno bookstore era.
The Marci in question existed only in the pink neon lettering slung
above the door - the bar actually belonged to a former motor mechanic
known as Lonnie.
There was security everywhere here. I figured that Marci's was
expecting an important guest, either that or Lonnie was finally
stamping out the dealers and pimps which had become associated with the
flickering flamingo emblem pulsing out on the street front. I pushed my
way through the crowd to the bar and ordered the very poison that had
funded most of my problems, including the break up of my marriage. In
the background a soul outfit was spinning out a pretty good version of
"Rockin' Robin" and I had to admit, they got my foot a-tapping. Right
on cue my drink arrived and I weaved a meandering path towards the
stage, sitting down at the nearest free table. The group broke for
refreshments themselves and walked past me towards the bar. Somehow the
female singer looked familiar. So what of it? She could have passed me
in a thousand different places. My thoughts were interrupted by a voice
from the crowd. 'Crawl back into ya vial, ya shake'n'bake freak!' and
out of the bobbing crowd an empty Big Bud came tumbling in an overhead
arc. The crowd scattered away from the bottle as it shattered on the
hard floor. 'Whore in a jar! Frankenslut!' the voice rasped through the
turmoil like a buzz-saw. In an instant the heavy-set security guards,
guys with fists like barn-smoked hams, ploughed into the mix and
withdrew a gangly red-haired drunk who looked as if he was overdue a
session at my old rehab. It takes a boozer to know a boozer, and this
guy was the dictionary definition.
'You okay, Seph?' one of the band's musicians piped up, barely audible
above the noise.
'Yeah, fine,' she replied, 'You kind of get used to it after a while',
and with that they disappeared from view, leaving me puzzled as to why
I thought I should know her.
It was only when they returned to the stage that it finally clicked.
The girl could have been no more than twenty with long braided hair,
blacker than the night sky. Her skin was fair and clung tightly to her
frame. Between her biker's leather jeans and the glitz-spangled vest
she wore, the bare skin of her midriff hugged against her lower-ribcage
and the sharp angles of her hips. She was beautiful, if a little on the
wispy side. Me, I prefer a bit of meat on my bones, but had I been
twenty years younger I would have liked to introduce her to a bone of
my own.
'Sorry about earlier, folks,' she whispered into the mic. Then turning
towards the band, 'If that was our warm-up act, then I think we've got
our work cut out for us tonight, boys.'
It got a laugh from the crowd, followed by a short bout of applause.
She smiled and continued.
'In case any of you have just walked in, we are Lady Got Me Good, and
we'll be providing your evening's entertainment. This next song is an
old Sister Sledge funk-soul classic, and is dedicated to all those
drunken Motherhood assholes who can't seem to get it into their heads
that we are in the age of miracles, and that witch-hunts ended a long
time ago...'
Mmm. Feisty.
'..so this is for all the children of today, whether you were grown in
a plastic tube or had your features chosen from a brochure. Or maybe in
the case of our beer-swilling friend, your daddy shot off inside his
brother's sister's mothers' wife down among the human-hopefuls in their
happy-happy commune.'
Another laugh from the crowd and she moved smoothly into song.
Her voice was fantastic.
'...we are fam-ily, oo-oo-oo-yea, I got all my sisters wi' me...'
Now knew where she was coming from. Where she came from. Seph.
Seraphine Locksley. Singer of local soul band, Lady Got Me Good, and
more famously, one of the Sisters Three.
She was a little older than I had imagined, by now she should be
twenty-three, maybe twenty-four. The clone certainly looked no older
than about eighteen.
I had seen her face on the news and in the tabloids a number of times
over the last few years, ever since the Sisters had been released from
the Facility's care. The Sisters had signed themselves out to find a
life for themselves when they turned twenty-one. It was in their
interests, a spokesperson for the Project had said, to keep custody of
the Sisters until that age as they were unprepared for life outside the
Facility's gates. Since that time the Sisters had acclimatised well,
and in Seraphine's case had become better adjusted to society's slings
and arrows than the Ordinary Joe or Johanna.
She was feisty, she was street-smart. She had a smart mouth that could
land her in a whole heap of trouble unless she learned to control
it.
She gave me a glance and a provocative wink while wiggling across the
stage-front, and feelings I thought were long abandoned stirred up
within me. These days it took a triple finger of the dark stuff and a
good titty-rag to do a job like that on me. Don't ask me how but she
managed it, easy as pie.
Yes sir, Lady Got Me Horny.

That night I dreamt that I was dancing across the floor of an immense
ballroom decked out with white tile, with Seraphine in my arms. The
walls were strung with balloons and coloured ribbons, tinsel and
mirrors set against the sterile walls. Now I know that it was my mind's
rendering of the Facility's inner quarters, but back then my fuzzy old
brain had created the image by itself - and pretty much hit the
mark.
Together we waltzed across the floor to a strange and beautiful piece
of music I just could not place. No one else was about to disturb us.
After a while I came to realise that we had drawn a crowd of
spectators, all dressed in white doctors' coats and carrying test-tubes
and Big Buds. Suddenly I had forgotten how to dance and the crowd began
to jeer. They swigged at their beers and laughed at the old fool who
wanted to bone the shake'n'bake freak, but couldn't even remember
simple dance steps. I allowed Seraphine to take the lead and to my
surprise she was incredibly strong. She swung me out in a wide circle
and we spun a dizzy dance to the applause of the spectators.
Round and round we went, and I found that I couldn't stop spinning.
Then I realised that it was the room itself that was whirling out of
control, and around us the blur of white-coats laughed and sang,
'Knick-knack paddywhack, give the clone a bone, this old man went
rollin' home,' over and over again.
Seraphine was gone, but now and then her face flashed up before me in
the crowd and she sang along with the rest of them.
'...this ol' man, he played three...'
I was dizzy and ashamed, but moreover I was angry.
Someone from the whirling circle of white-coats threw a bottle and it
struck Seraphine in the back of the neck. She cracked like glass, and I
realised that I was spinning alone before one cracked mirror set
against the wall. I looked around for Seraphine and the white-coats,
but they were gone. Somewhere I could hear Seraphine laughing and it
was with a sense of horror that I realised that she was there, in the
broken mirror, reflected back at me three-fold - a fragmented image of
her with each piece animated separately from the last; three versions
of the same person. And in the background behind her, the taunting
phantom white-coats stood and mocked.
'...knick-knack, paddywhack. Knick-Knack PaddyWhack,
KNICK-KNACK...'
'Kill you all,' I hissed under my breath but it boomed loud and
menacing in the echo chamber. 'I'm going to kill you all.'
'PADDY-WHACK-WHACK-WHACK!'
I woke up with the bed sheets stuck to my chest and legs. I hadn't wet
the bed since I was seven years old - the time my older brother, Joe
(God rest his soul) had forced me to steal Grandpa's secret stash of
cream soda, and we crawled up into the attic and drank the lot just
before bedtime. Seventeen cans between the two of us. I would have
chuckled at the thought if it hadn't been for that damned bad dream,
but instead I went into the bathroom to shower.

3

The next few days passed without either a single phone call or thought
of Seraphine, so imagine my surprise when I found her in my office one
sticky summer evening.
She was sitting there trembling, when I walked in, so I offered her a
drink to conquer the demons. By that time I had restocked my secret
liquor-store at the back of the filing unit. She nodded and I poured
her a large glass. She reached across the desk for it and in doing so
she managed to knock a photo frame from my cluttered desk to the
floor.
'I'm sorry,' she apologised, and retrieved the frame from the floor.
'I'm afraid the glass had cracked. I really am sorry, detective. I'll
replace it, of course.'
I waved my hand at her. 'No, no. It was an accident, really nothing to
concern yourself about.'
I took the frame from her, shook the broken pieces of glass into the
waste-bin and slid the photograph out from the frame. On the back was
written in my late mother's neat and careful print, 'Flanaghan's Farm,
Pregnant with Baby Eddie, Christmas 1968'.
I flipped the picture over and examined the familiar front, now looking
clearer and sharper than it had when hiding behind the piece of grubby
glass.
'Family?' Seraphine asked.
I passed the picture back to her. 'Yep. Something I rescued from the
family album.'
The picture clearly held the image of my brother Joe, a sandy-haired
stick of a boy, probably about four years old by then. Behind him, his
strong hands resting gently on Joe's shoulders, was my father, a
magnificent man, who had passed away a scant fourteen years after that
photograph was taken. My mother stood at his side, one hand slipped
lovingly into the crook of his arm and the other resting proud and
protective upon her swollen stomach.
'My father, my mother, my brother Joseph and myself,' and then noticing
the puzzled look on her face, 'I'm the bump.'
Seraphine smiled and sipped her drink. Her hands had stopped shaking,
and she seemed a little more composed than she had when I had first
walked in.
'So, Ms Locksley&;#8230;'
'Seraphine, detective, if you please.'
I continued nodding, 'Perhaps you may tell me why you are here. I take
it you haven't come just to drink my stash and break my stuff.'
'My sisters are in trouble, as am I. We - that is - I&;#8230;
I&;#8230;'
Come on , baby, just say those sweet little words.
'&;#8230;I need your help.'
There we go. Kerr-CHING! Smack on the jackpot. I tried to hide my
blatant smile, but found I could not. Instead I opted for the less
noticeable option of moving it around my face a little.
'So how may I assist you. Surveillance? Protection? What is it that I
can offer?'
She managed a weak smile, 'Protection, hah! I have no shortage of that,
detective. Haven't you noticed that I cast multiple shadows these
days?'
I had to admit that I hadn't, but then that was the sign of a good
bodyguard - out of sight, out of mind but always there when the shit
hits.
'So what then, Seraphine?'
'What I need from you is trust. You can start by listening to what I
have to say - no interruptions and certainly none of your trademark
scepticism.'
'Will another drink be okay with you?'
'That, detective, will be fine.'

Slowly, mouthful by mouthful, she relaxed and spoke to me of her
sisters, all the while fixing me with those big Spanish-looking eyes. I
sat back in silent contemplation while she explained to about the
feelings they all shared; that special triplet's bond. When one got
ill, all felt ill. When one got sad, the others would too, and if
something should happen to spook one of the Sisters, they all would
feel the fear. I had heard of this ability before, it was nothing new
but it wasn't everything. The Sisters had another ability - they would
feel things, events, that they knew would happen at some point in the
future. Known as precognition in paranormal circles, and bullshit
coincidence in others, the Sisters had another name for it. They called
it 'that tomorrow place'. It was a sign, she said, to stay away - an
echo of some mortal tragedy which would rise from a particular
location, and from events that were yet to come around. And those
feelings spanned the bond, which is how Seraphine felt that her sister
Marion was in danger.
I was sceptical and made my feelings quite clear. So did she, and the
wad of notes she slammed down on my desk raised small puffs of dust
from the scrappy surface.
'I don't take bribes, Miss Locksley,' I said as sternly as I could
muster under such circumstances.
'Look on it as a bet, detective - a token of my sobriety. Believe me
because I believe myself.'
'When you've seen the things that I have seen in my colourful career,
Miss Locksley, you'll find that there's not an awful lot left in the
world to believe. Nor the belief left in you.'
'Well believe this, detective, you get to keep the money, either way.
No catches. No switchbacks.' Seraphine fixed me with those intense but
beautiful eyes, 'So are you in, detective?'
I scooped the bundle of notes to the edge of the desk, letting it
free-fall into the open drawer where it produced a satisfying thud. I
turned the drawer key, locking away Seraphine's Sobriety from the
world, and with it my self-respect.

Although sceptical, I dared not tarry, and had an ambulance and police
escort dispatched to the artist's farmhouse studio with no questions
asked. Seraphine and myself followed close behind in my own car. I
still remember her stiffening in her seat, silent and wide-eyed on our
approach to Marion's anticipated death-site - her tomorrow place. The
crunch of my tyres upon the gravel driveway broke the spell of silence,
and she jumped at the sound, or so I thought at the time. It was only
by her subsequent reaction that I knew right then how wrong I was.
Seraphine had been right and as it turned out we were too late by a
matter of minutes. As the front of the building swung into view, I
could still see the glass dropping from the punctured window, framing
the gleaming structure that had broken through from inside the
converted barn. I also knew that Marion was on the other side of that
wall, lying broken and lifeless. It occurred to me later that I would
normally have trusted my own gut feeling on such a matter, so why not
that of another person? Had I really become so closed-minded that it
meant that my failure to recognise the intrinsic importance of a hunch
had resulted in the death of an innocent? If so, then it really was
time for me to retire, along with the little self-respect I had
left.
I left Seraphine grief-stricken and fatigued in the care of the
district's lawmen, and gained entrance to the studio treading in the
footsteps of the paramedics. We found the body folded up beneath an
impressive steel structure; an abstract skeletal icon Marion had been
working for the last seven weeks. The clawing, spiralling mass of
scaffold and steel plate had pinned her to the floor under its sheer
weight. The overall effect was that of a huge distorted ribcage,
complete with Marion, curled up within; a foetus in the womb. Ironic
really, she would have found the sight inspiring.
Accidental death was the conventional verdict, but Seraphine was not so
sure.
'Detective,' she said in a tear-fractured whisper, 'you may not have
believed me before, but believe me now. We are hunted. Whoever it is
wants us dead, all of us, and I fear for the life of my other sister as
well as my own.'
I expressed to Seraphine my sorrow at her loss, and that however it
looked to her, it displayed nothing which would make even the most
unassuming copper think this was anything other than an accident.
I had spoken briefly to the farmhouse security and they had told me
nothing which suggested foul play, just a crash within the room in
which Marion had worked, and the team were there in seconds.
I asked Seraphine what had driven her to make such an assumption. What
she had to say nothing could have prepared me for.
'Because I felt her die, detective. She was rigid with fear when that
thing landed on her. I felt her terror, not of the thing that she loved
- her art - but of another presence that was in the room with
her.'
Those dark eyes drew me into their world, led me where they wanted me
to go, and I realised that this was something I could not fight. I
couldn't drop this case even if I wanted to.
Knick-knack paddy-whack. Give the dog a bone...
And with that, as if sensing my acceptance of matters, she added the
sumptuous, glistening cherry.
'My sister was murdered, detective. And I may be next.'
Now that's showmanship.
Naturally, I took the matter as being one of a serious nature. The
paranoia she exhibited was to be expected following the accident, which
is exactly what I believed it to be. An accident. And of course people
were hostile toward them, seeing as the three - correction - the two of
them were an abomination against nature in the eyes of many, but - with
the exception of the terrorist group OneTwentySeven - enough so to
kill? I had my reservations, none of which I decided to share with
Seraphine. However, they were high profile in the public eye, which was
the very reason for the big-gunned Security goons I had spotted loping
about, shadowing Seraphine everywhere she went. They had their
high-paid security, but that still was not enough for Marion Locksley.
It looked like an accident, it felt like an accident, even then fact
that there were no signs of forced entry into the studio screamed of an
accident. Yet Seraphine was insistent that I open investigative
proceedings straight away - to make it my top priority - and judging by
the little sweetener which lay amongst the chewed pencil-ends and
posting notes in my office desk drawer, I guess money was no object.
This she confirmed in no uncertain terms just as the thought had passed
through my mind. Hell, why not? Retirement was looming after all.
'I believe that you believe, Miss Locksley,' I said shaking her hand,
'and these days that's good enough for me.'

We went to visit Jane that same night and by the time we pulled up
outside the Facility gates it was dark.
'I haven't been back here in a long time.' Serpahine said looking
through the bars to the monolithic building beyond. It was said more to
herself than to me, I gathered.
'You nervous?' I asked, but she shook her head.
'Actually, I'm scared shitless.'
Just looking at that building was enough to put the willies up anyone,
myself included.
'Come then, let's get this over with.' I said. That was the one thing
about fear - sometimes it can be a fantastic motivator.

4

'Here we are,' said Laney, the Facility's Project Supervisor as he
waved us towards a wide metal door, deep within the Facility walls. His
fingers danced over the keypad set into the wall and the door slid to
one side with a hydraulic hiss.
Jane was, in terms of survival, the runt of the litter - a
wheelchair-bound wretch, locked within a framework of
posture-correcting apparatus. Her aura - as if I believed in such
things - would have consisted of straps and stirrups, braces and bolts.
A prisoner in a mobile jail cell, she looked more like one of Marion's
structures than human. Maybe the very piece that had crushed Marion was
in fact some abstract likeness of Jane.
Jane was the only Sister to stay back at the clinic, it was by choice
her home. She took residence at the Facility as it offered her the
unparalleled care and medical attention she required for her condition
which was quite terrible to behold. Other than the criss-crossing
struts of surgical steel which surrounded her, pulling her straight in
every conceivable direction, her very flesh was ridged with heavy scars
down her right side from her head to her crotch - which was where her
entire right half ended. She had no right ear, arm or leg. Her posture
was kinked to the max, forming a lazy 'S' as one looked at her from the
front. She was three-quarters of a person and one hell of a
sight.
In addition to the extensive deformities Jane had been cursed with, she
was also virtually mute, communicating by way of a text-to-speech
module that conveyed whatever she chose to 'say' in a passable
synthetic tongue.
'It has an unbelievable vocal library of curses and insults that would
give you nightmares for weeks,' warned Laney, 'so try not to piss her
off. I'll be waiting outside, call me if you need anything.' He then
left through the same hi-tech door with the sci-fi swoosh.

My conversation with Jane was indeed enlightening. She dispelled all my
preconceptions of her, with her witty, charming conversation. She had
also felt the echo of Marion's death and was glad to be able to talk
about it with Seraphine and, although to a lesser extent, myself. I
queried Jane on her feelings about external powers playing their part
in her sister's death, and she echoed Seraphine's concerns almost word
for word. She also said that she felt reasonably safe here at the
Facility. The place was high-security all right, much higher than
Marion's studio but certainly no Fort Knox. I put the suggestion to
Seraphine that she ought to stay here with her sister, but she was
apprehensive.
'I'm afraid I must insist. It's for your own safety,' I said, 'Just
look on it as a sleep-over, and it'll give you two a chance to catch
up.'
'Yeah, and maybe later on we can beat each other with feather pillows
in our nighties.' Jane said through the miracle of synthetic speech.
The voice from her wheelchair's onboard computer was designed to be as
natural sounding as possible, but did I not discern a spike of sarcasm
just then?
'Okay, detective. We'll be good girls.' added Seraphine.
They both smiled sweetly at me. It was nauseating.
Changing the subject I asked Seraphine to excuse us for a moment so
that I could talk with Jane. She did so with a smile.
I asked Jane about her life-story to date. She spoke freely about her
past, her obvious disability, and her life here at the Facility. She
told me everything I needed to know, and more. The Sisters Three were
cloned from the same cell group. That was common knowledge, it was what
cloning was all about, but from whom did the cells originate?
The answer was scrawled in a child-like script, upon a small folded
paper scrap, which Jane had pressed into my hand, a trace of a smile
straightening her twisted mouth. It was almost as if she had been
expecting me to ask.
I left shortly after that, argued with Laney until he agreed to provide
board for Seraphine until this whole ordeal was over, and then made my
way to my car. I was tired and needed a good night's rest. Tomorrow I
was to return with the girl's biological 'mother' - the fruits of my
conversation with Jane - but until then sleep was my prime directive;
sweet and dark, but most of all dreamless.

I awoke early the next morning and set the last clean bed-sheet to
work, tucking it in with hands that refused to quit shaking. Any more
accidents like the ones I'd been having lately and my bladder was quite
likely to file for divorce against the rest of my body - they sure as
hell weren't on speaking terms. I thought maybe it was time to quit the
drink again, but point one; I had been saying that to myself for years,
both before and after rehab, and still the world's most perfect poison
had beckoned me back with much repeated success. Point two; I hadn't
touched a drop during the day before. It wasn't the drink that was the
problem. This time it was the dreams.
My memory of the dream was muggy and confused in general although some
elements maintained their clarity, and I wish to God they hadn't. I was
at the family farm of my pre-teen years; the times when my family were
still living and breathing, and I could follow Joe around with the
cutesy adoration that a seven year old boy could hold for his big
brother. The time and the place were right, but there were still no
signs of life. The house was empty and the screen-door with its dented
mosquito gauze banged against its surround in the light breeze. It was
daytime, early morning by the way the sunlight painted the dusty front
yard in a fuzzy mosaic of amber-pink, and I was sitting on the front
steps watching the birds scratching at the dry dirt for spilled
grain.
As I watched I became aware of movement on the ground near the old oak
stump which my father had felled a year or two before I was born. I
stepped up on top of the darkened stump, for I suddenly found myself
there. It's funny the way you can edit out the extraneous portions of
dreams like film scenes destined for the cutting room floor. As I stood
atop the stump I could clearly see the thing which oozed and swelled
around the bared roots of the trunk on which I balanced in my chunky
red sneakers. I remembered them as a pair I had been given for my
twelfth birthday, yet in the dream I could have been no more than seven
or eight.
The crawling mass seemed to be - was - alive. It was a fleshpool; a
puddle of mutilation out of which wiry tufts of black hair sprouted at
sporadic intervals, sweat secreted from pores glistening within its
sallow folds. It crept up around the trunk, seeking me out. Horrified,
I turned to leap from the sawn-off stump to the ground behind me and to
run back to the safety of the house where nothing could touch me, but I
found that the rank and quivering mass had somehow managed to surround
the entire foot of the trunk and spread itself far and wide over the
surrounding ground. I was trapped, marooned on this tiny wooden island
amid a pulsating, living sea, like a pre-pubescent Crusoe.
(Where are you now, Friday? Where are you when I need you most?)
From out of the swirling, cyst ridden flesh, shapes formed and faces
screamed in voiceless terror.
A cluster of arms moulded out of the substance and reached toward me,
groping for my ankles. I kicked them away, but lost a sneaker in the
process. The arms sank back into the sludge with their prize, which
remained bobbing, half-submerged in the fleshpool. It continued to
climb the trunk on all sides, soon it would spill over and claim me as
well, absorb me and add me to its foul mass, as it had already claimed
the shoe I would not own for another five birthdays. I glanced again at
the red and white sneaker stuck somewhere between floating and sinking
and realised that it no longer resembled a shoe, but an object flat and
rectangular and shiny. It was the photo frame from my office
desk.
Out of the flesh the faces of the Sisters Three rose and sank, mouthing
my name with silent lips, but it was the photograph to which I was
transfixed - I was never pictured in that photograph but I was always
there - a swollen mound beneath my mother's protective hand - except
this scene was different. No more bump, no more Baby Eddie. Three minus
one equals three.
I did not even feel the hands pull me into the mire by the ankles where
I was sucked down further and further up to my chest, my shoulders, my
neck. The last thing I saw before I woke up to find my heart beating in
my chest like a piston was my family; father, brother and non-pregnant
mother. I had been erased.
Dreamless my ass.

5

It took me a little under four hours to reach my destination - The
Locksley Retirement Village, and I barely registered the passing of
time along the way. My head was filled with residual images of my
recent troubled dreaming, and the senselessness of the case I had
wandered into, as blind as the sightless fleshpool I had faced the
previous night. Just before lunchtime I pulled into the Village
driveway, its namesake and indeed that of the Sisters, was displayed
upon the hand-carved oak sign slung beneath the stone entrance archway
and echoed in the printed slip of paper which Jane had passed to me
back at the Facility. The Village was so called because within its vast
grounds little cottage-like apartments had been erected in facing rows
around a central avenue which doubled as the village's private shopping
district and the communal driveway. It gave the elderly 'villagers' the
impression of a quaint little country hamlet with the occasional
traffic passing in and out for pick-ups and drop-offs. I traveled the
length of the avenue, spying out of the corner of my eye the occasional
white-haired spook tottering from bakery to butcher shop.
I parked up at the end of the avenue where the road pooled out into a
fair-sized drop-off point in front of a large manor house, and wondered
what exactly I was going to say to the mother of possibly the most
despised sisters since Cinderella's floor scrubbing days. It wasn't
going to be easy on the old girl, and that was assuming she was still
alive.

As it turned out she was still very much a denizen of the mortal plane,
more alive than I would ever have thought a person over eighty-five
could be. It then occurred to me that she was only twentysome years
ahead of me in that game. It was the high standard of living afforded
to her by her involvement in the much-criticised Locksley Project that
provided for her health.
Once in possession of the cells they needed, the Facility Board of
Research had paid Maryjane Locksley off with a figure made up of enough
zeros to provide for the little set-up I was visiting today.
Something good had come out of something questionable, and Maryjane
Locksley was glad to put her whole involvement with the Project behind
her. 'A future this filthy should belong in the past,' she told me as
we sat down to tea. 'I'm glad to put it behind me but I don't regret it
one bit.'
I gazed out of the large bay windows, which overlooked the entire
grounds of the village and saw why; she had built her own little
empire. The Empire of the Living Dead constructed with all the set
pieces that Driving Miss Daisy had to offer.
I told her everything except my restless, fright-filled nights. I
informed her of her loss and her offspring's fears. I told her she
needed my protection and that if she wanted to see her daughters alive
she had better come with me back to the Facility. I needed them all
together, to get all the fragments of the picture into something that
resembled order. I had nothing to go on to catch the killer, if indeed
there was a killer involved. I still had my doubts, but I wasn't being
paid to doubt, I was being paid to dig up skeletons and grave-rob from
the rich. It was a dirty job, but then Maryjane understood all about
dirty jobs, didn't she?

Maryjane Locksley was reluctant to come - any contact now would be too
little, too late, she said. I stressed the importance of the visit, if
this was an extremist movement then she too could be in danger, but she
stubbornly refused. In the end I had no choice but to arrange a patrol
for the grounds and a six'o'clock curfew, just until this whole thing
blew over. While waiting for the hired security to turn up, I invited
Ms Locksley out for an evening drive, to show me the sights of her
kingdom with its blue-rinsed subjects and quaint two-to-a-room
apartments.
She gave me directions to a walkthrough garden through which a man-made
river trickled. We sat in the car with the doors open and watched a
line of ducklings' waddle after their mother into the water. They
paddled on downstream and held our attention until they disappeared
around a sharp bend to the left. After that we talked for a while to
pass the time; about the mechanics of sustaining such a haven, and
about her life in retirement. On that subject I was quite taken and
wished to hear more, maybe some tips on keeping my mind occupied and my
hands busy, but today I was here on business.
I asked about the Project and she spoke of it as if she had whored for
a living when she was younger - in a way, she had. It was on the slow
drive back to the manor house when finally she spoke of the Sisters
themselves.
'Send my regards and apologies to the girls, but I cannot see them, for
my sake as well as theirs. Though I must admit, the reunion would have
been tearful. So grown up,' she sighed, 'my four babies.'
Four!?
I'd managed to control the resulting skid, regaining control of the
vehicle, but managing to tear up the gravel driveway a little in the
process, and narrowly missing a commemorative marble bust of Maryjane
herself - these Sisters will be the death of me, I swear.
I pressed Ms Locksley to explain with some urgency. When she had
donated tissue on that historic day, twenty-four years and 11 months
earlier (gestation takes a little longer in the cloning labs, she
explained), she was told that sextuplets had been planned. Later on in
the process, two had perished, and she had been sent letters of
condolence on both occasions. She assumed that there were four
remaining. I just couldn't tell her otherwise - it wasn't my place, you
understand. It was the kind of news an individual had to find out for
herself.
I insisted that she accompany me back to the Facility; my persuasive
streak was doing overtime on this old bird, I can tell you. Just when I
felt I was getting nowhere, she conceded to a brief visit 'just to see
how they live - but no confrontations, detective, not now, not
ever.'
She was stubborn just like Seraphine; must be something in the gene
pool.
A red sneaker bobbing.
My non-pregnant mother.
Stubborn was good. I knew stubborn like my own hand, and I could settle
with that for the time being.

6

By evening we had arrived back at the Facility. I'd left Maryjane
Locksley in the visitor's lounge, while I requested audience with Jane
and Seraphine. It had occurred to me on the return trip that both
Marion and Jane had taken names from their Mother, but what about
Seraphine? It was a minor point, maybe meaning nothing, but when you
had as little to go on as I did, anything would do to start the
chambers firing. My biggest gun though was one of Fourth Sister
calibre.

I requested audience with Jane once more, as Seraphine was due to dine,
away in her own room over the far side of the Facility. Besides, rather
than wait for her to finish, I could get Jane's angle on the whole
mother-daughter issue. Maybe she could provide me with at least some of
the answers I needed. I lucked out. In little time I learned about the
passing of law on the Locksley Project and the donation of cells and
egg matter from their mother, (who was still waiting out her stay in
the lounge area). The Project was common knowledge, broadcast to the
world through the media, press releases and rumour mill. Other parts
were disclosed only to the select few; the higher ranks of the Facility
and, of course, the Sisters themselves. One such part was the elusive
Fourth Sister - now this was the sort of thing I had been waiting for,
concealing my agitation. Josephine and Jane were born joined at the
spine, and shared one set of pretty much everything. It was inevitable
that a choice had to be made and there was only one person who could
make that impossible choice; their genetic Mother. That explained
Jane's horrific injuries, and it alerted me to something else. The
wizened, frail old lady, sipping iced-tea out in the Visitors lounge,
had fooled me completely. I expressed my apologies for the
inconvenience and headed on back to the Visitors Lounge for a chance to
regroup, head buzzing with newly acquired information and probing
questions, all of which dissipated like dawn fog when I saw that the
lounge was empty.
My ears filled with white noise and I struggled to draw breath, sucking
the air into my lungs in coarse, gasping drags. I had to steady myself
against the doorframe to avoid sinking to my knees. Panic catches up
with us all, sooner or later, and it seemed to me that I was the owner
of a season ticket. The blood in my ears drained and the noise faded
only to be replaced by another sound. Shouting voices echoed from way
back down the corridor. What in God's name&;#8230;?
I ran back to check on Jane. She was still sitting in her electric
chair, shocked but otherwise okay.
She gave me a look that negated the need of a verbal exchange.
'I've no idea, Jane. Stay here - I'll find out what's going on.'
I left her there, looking more like Marion's monstrous construction
than ever before.
Alarms were now clanging all over the building, and the halls were
filled with the heavy echoes of security screens sealing down every
exit. Leaving her there I skittered around the twisting, tiled hallways
until I reached the South wing, where Seraphine now took
residence.
She was there, standing by the door of her room. Maryjane was there
also. A single security guard had beaten me to the scene and had his
pistol's sight trained on Seraphine, a single scarlet moon dancing the
jig on her pale forehead. Or maybe it was the waltz, Seraphine liked to
waltz according to my dreams. Either way the situation did not look
good.
'Drop the knife, Seraphine.' I heard myself speak the words, slowly,
firmly and with deliberation. The Mother whimpered as the point of a
steak knife pressed further into the sagging flesh of her wattle. A
bead of red welled up around the tip and traveled slowly down the
blade. Gravy and veggies dropped sporadically from Maryjane's dress
onto a battered silver service tray that lay upturned on the floor
surrounded by a wealth of broken crockery.
'I said drop it, NOW!'
'Now, now Detective,' Seraphine said testily, the syllables catching in
the back of her throat as if reluctant to come out, 'You'll get nowhere
with that attitude. Now maybe if you asked nicely, I'll kill her quick
as a blink. Or maybe I'll just screw this knife into her neck like a
corkscrew - nice . . . and . . . slow.'
She demonstrated the action by swiveling the point of the knife against
her mother's quivering neck. The blood began the run faster, dripping
onto the tray in a sobering tap-tap which echoed the quickening of my
heart.
'Don't do this, Seraphine. There's no problem that can't be worked out.
Just put down the knife, please?' I said, my eyes never leaving
Maryjane's terrified face.
'No.'
Swivel. Taptaptap.
I happened to glance down at the crimson spotted tray, its gleaming
surface, buckled and scuffed but still throwing back a reflection from
its mirrored surface. What I saw made my heart stick in my throat. A
vile hall-of-mirrors image of Seraphine, with her lips pressed together
in that thin and callous smile, stared right back at me - straight back
- which was impossible due to the angle of light reflection. I never
was any good at physics or geometry, but I knew that this just didn't
look natural. Her image, spread out over the blood-soiled and buckled
tray was warped by the dips and dents across its once flat base, and it
made her look for all the world like Jane, even down to the twisted
smile. It was too uncanny, too scary and the hairs on the back of my
neck all stood up at once.
All from the same gene-pool. All of the same flesh.
Some connection surfaced inside my head, but receded when I tried to
grasp it, and I was left only with a feeling of being led blindfold
into a cold and frightening place. A whimper of pain and terror brought
me back to reality with a snap. Whatever connection I had made in my
subconscious was the key, but right now my efforts were with getting
Maryjane to safety and Seraphine to her senses.
Beside me the guard steadied his aim, re-correcting his posture. We
could both sense something crackling in the air, something imminent. I
leaned toward him and whispered into his ear. He lowered his hands just
a fraction.
It all happened in painful slo-mo. I saw the muscles bunch in
Seraphine's jaw as she tensed, a knot of muscle tightened at her
shoulder then traveled down along her arm as she prepared to draw the
knife toward herself, opening up her mother's throat as it went. I'm
glad it was the guard who took the shot, as my reaction would have been
tragic for all involved.
Seraphine's shoulder burst open in a puff of crimson and she jerked
half-round with a surprised gasp. The knife flew from her hand and
clattered to the floor.
Maryjane moaned and pulled away from her daughter, one hand clamped
over the nick on her throat. Seraphine grimaced clutching at her
shoulder and, feeling wetness there, pulled her hand away staring
pop-eyed at the rich, thick crimson that coated her fingers and had
already soaked through the white cotton blouse in a great dark,
spreading stain. The knife lay rocking on the floor keeping good time
with the alarms as they played on and on like a fairground carousel
caught on a single note.
The guard kicked the knife away across the tiled floor, followed by the
tray. I let him pass me by, shoving Seraphine up the hallway with rough
little jabs. This was the part of the job he enjoyed, the part that
satisfied that dirty little rat hole built into every single one of us.
I followed close behind, my arm reassuringly around Maryjane's bony
shoulders.
'Don't worry, ma'am, we'll get that cut seen to - it's not so bad. But
be sure I'll get to the bottom of this.'
'I'm sorry, detective, I should never have come here. I've just made
such an awful mess of things.'
'Nonsense, it's not your fault - please don't think that! But what did
you think you were doing back there? I thought you said-'
'No confrontations?' she cut me off in mid-sentence. 'Yes detective, I
did. But never did I imagine that I would feel the way I do now.'
She wiped a tear from her cheek. I owned no handkerchief to lend her,
and for that I felt strangely ashamed.
'So how do you feel, Maryjane?' I said.
'Like a mother. An old and foolish mother, who just couldn't bear to
keep away.' She looked at me, more tears brimming in her eyes. 'I had
to see them, I don't expect you'll ever understand, but I just had to.
One of the staff let me take in her lunch. She wasn't supposed to
recognise me - I mean, how could she?'
It was my turn to interject 'But she did, didn't she? She had you as
soon as you walked through that door.'
'No detective, she had me as soon as I signed her away to these
monsters. These . . . whitecoats.'
Seraphine had led me a merry dance, just as she had done in the dream
I'd had on the first night I saw her.
The very notion of a prowling killer had disappeared from my mind. I
figured it was all a ruse to lure her mother here (with the intent of
what, revenge?) and I had followed the trail of crumbs she had left
like a good little duckling.
I decided it was time for our little talk.

7

The air-conditioning hummed overhead, blowing its cool breath into the
room. Below the whirling blades we sat, Seraphine on one side of the
table, her hands cuffed and stained with blood, and myself on the
other, my fingers laced together, stained with tobacco smoke.
'Let me out of here,' Seraphine whispered.
'No,' I replied.
'You know nothing of what you're into, cop. You're drowning in your own
worst nightmare, because you haven't got a clue as to what the hell is
going on.'
'Care to enlighten me, Seraphine?'
She threw her head back and laughed.
'All in good time, detective. All in good time.'
'Time isn't something you have a lot of, dear child. Now it'll be a
whole lot easier if you jus-'
'Having trouble sleeping lately, detective? You look very tired. Bad
dreams?'
I bit my lip in frustration, she knew how to play me alright.
'Something wrong?' she goaded.
'Alright! I'm through playing this game with you, Seraphine. I'll tell
you what I think has been going on.'
'I'm all ears,' she said coldly.
'That night you came to see me in my office, it was to lure me into
your little game, wasn't it? And with what intention, to have me track
down your mother and to bring her here for safety's sake? Easy pickings
for you, wasn't it? But you reckoned wrong, missy. You see, I may have
fallen for your little scheme but now I see things very clearly. Very
clearly indeed. You're going down for this, Miss Locksley. I'll see to
that personally.'
Seraphine sat there smiling her thin, chilling smile.
Finally she said, 'So who's the big hero, detective? You? I think not.
At least, not until you've worked out the rest of the plot. You've done
well so far, but no banana for the monkey I'm afraid.'
'So tell me.'
Seraphine sighed.
'I'm tired of this detective. I'm going to go now and finish what I
started. I'll see you in, say, three minutes.'
Her expression softened, her eyes went dim. She spoke then in a shaky,
faraway tone. 'You speak of games, oh, what games we play&;#8230;I
believe the name of . . . this one . . . is . . .
t-agg&;#8230;'
'You're going nowhere, I told you tha-'
Bang. Seraphine had slumped down onto the table, face first.
Tentatively, I reached forward and lifted up her head, checking under
her lids. Her eyes were rolled back; she was out cold - the blackouts
they were prone to.
Three minutes? What would happen in three minutes?
(I'm going to go now and finish what I started...)
Maryjane. I left the table and knocked on the door of the room I had
secured for the interview. A large security guard peered in through the
faceplate and I asked him where the old lady had been taken.
'Hold on,' he said and mumbled into the walkie-talkie he held in his
gloved hand. A voice squawked back through the speaker, unintelligible
to my untrained ear. 'Thanks Gerry, 'preciate it,' he said, and closed
the channel.
'Dey gone to the other one, you know, the cripple. D'old lady want to
see her, ask her sumfin, I dunno what though!' he grunted in his thick,
uneducated accent.
'Whoah, wait a second. Are you telling me the old lady is in with her
other daughter? The one in the wheelchair? Is that what you're
saying?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Let me out, NOW!' I yelled at the guard, who hurriedly slid back the
deadbolt and stepped aside as the door flew open.
I rushed past the surprised guard in a fluster. 'Watch her,' I said,
and bolted down towards the west wing.
Two minutes, ten seconds and counting . . .

8

With forty seconds to go, I arrived at the block where Jane took
residence. Her door was open.
Thinking back I reproached myself for being so careless; I had
forgotten to code-lock the door behind me when I left. Seraphine and
Jane must have been working hand in hand, passing me back and forth so
I would convince myself I was actually doing some detecting. I could
hear Jane inside the room, even before I reached the open doorway - I
could hear the whirring of the chairs electric motor, from within. I
had picked up another security ape along the way, and I motioned for
him to stay back. I shuffled up to the doorway, my back flat against
the wall.
(Twenty seconds)
'Maryjane?' I called out.
Somewhere beneath the heavy rasp of my breathing, there was another
sound. The electric whirr had
(Ten)
started up again in the next room, and seemed to be growing louder by
the second.
'Jane? Is everything all right?'
(Five)
From within the room (four) there came a scream (three) followed by a
loud (two) wet smack and the (one) room went quiet again.
(Zero)
From out of the doorway the flat, robotic voice that served Jane as
speech floated like the poisonous fumes of a gassing chamber.
'Heh, heh, heh. Allie allie in.'
I gave myself a count of three, then rolled myself away from the wall,
pirouetting past the doorway to the cover on the other side, my back
once more against the plasterwork.
Closing my eyes I replayed what I had glimpsed during my brief passage
past the open room.
Oh for the love of Christ.
I gave the security guard a slow, deliberate nod and he unpopped the
leather holster he wore strapped to one leg.
The wheelchair wheezed and crunched in the background, the blood rushed
back into my ears again, drowning out all but my own heartbeat.
The guard stepped out into the open doorway with his weapon drawn. For
an instant he looked like a World War I infantryman crossing over into
No Man's Land, he had that look about him; not knowing quite what to
expect - perhaps something terrible or something glorious, but
expecting something either way.
Out of the open doorway Jane hurtled, knocking the pistol from his hand
before he could even react, and slamming the guard into the opposite
wall. The whirr of the racing motor dipped upon impact and was replaced
with a nauseating whump. The plasterboard cracked around the guard's
limp form. Jane drew back, as I looked on, captivated by the obscure
scene. The guard's body fell from the bloodied dent in the wall, and
landed on his front on the floor. He managed to raise himself up on one
elbow. The whirring started again; quiet and low, picking up both in
volume and pitch until it became nothing but a raucous scream. Jane
came at him again. He looked up with an expression of resignation,
blood dropping in globs from his teeth and chin, a breath-space before
the final impact took place. His head disappeared through the wall as
the plasterboard was breached. Jane drew back again, chunks of plaster
and matted strands of hair fell from the metal framework as she wheeled
backwards through the doorway, and out of sight inside the room. And
still the screaming continued. It boiled up out from my stomach like a
gust of arid desert wind. I watched myself step back from the sticky
pool that seemed to ooze from out of the skirting, I couldn't let it
touch me just as I had tried to escape the vile fleshpool of my recent
nightmare. A kind of twisted logic told me that this was Jane's way of
helping to take the heat off Seraphine - a diversion for her to escape
custody, a misguided rescue. But she had backed up with every intention
of finishing the guy off. Once was deliverance, twice was murder.

With Maryjane out of the equation, and the guard having become part of
the d?cor, I couldn't chance leaving the corridor to call for backup. I
had to act and it had to be now.
Some of the guard's blood had found its way onto my shoe after all, and
it brought my thoughts around once more to the dream I'd had. My lost
sneaker with its flashes of scarlet along the trim. Some connection had
sparked up earlier. If only I could remember what.
I had already worked out that the fleshpool was symbolic of the gene
pool, and that the three sisters were all a part of it, hence their
bobbing faces and writhing arms trying to drag me in. Drag me into
their little game.
Oh what games we play.
The way both Seraphine and Jane had turned, played upon my mind. It was
as if someone had cranked up the tempo from 'Sagacious Seraphine' and
'Plain Sane Jane' to 'Rabid Rotweiller'. The rage was the same, as was
the twist of the smile I had caught in the reflection of the battered
service tray. If I didn't know any better I would say not only were
they both psychopathic schizophrenics but that they actually shared the
same maniacal alter ego.
How could I embrace a thought like that?
(...this old man, he played three...)
Maybe it wasn't as crazy as it sounded. Grimacing I picked the
(my four babies)
blood-slick pistol from the floor with trembling hands and, shoes
slipping on the spattered tiles, I passed the threshold of Jane's
room.
A scene which was far worse than the tiny glimpse I had caught unfolded
before me.

Maryjane Locksley was dead, crushed into the corner of the room; a
grotesque figurine hunched over in an expanding pool of blood that
welled around the tyre marks of Jane's chair. Fear encased me like
cancer-black sarcophagus. I remembered the pistol in my hand, and
trained the wavering red point of light that shone from the
muzzle-mounted sight into Jane's eyes, blinding her at least for the
moment. She hissed at me - silvery flecks of spittle streaming from the
corners of her mouth - and appeared to be in some discomfort with her
right arm, rotating it at the shoulder.
She tried to talk, but only managed to produce a sound not unlike a
babies babble-speak. It dawned on me that she was trying to sing. The
tune was somehow familiar.
I was angry beyond belief, but not at the twisted creature who had
pasted her own mother across the far wall, nor at her knife wielding
sibling
(...we are fam-ilee...)
who had threatened to slit the old woman's throat not moments ago. I
was angry at myself for failing to understand how this all could be.
Angry at the way I had been played by both of them. They had to be
working together somehow, and for whatever reason, because the
alternative was far too crazy to be true. But I had to know.
'What's going on, Jane? Why did you kill your mother?' I stammered. The
pit of my stomach had turned to cold jelly, my mouth was dry and it was
all I could do to spit out the words. I was faced with the
impossible.
Jane drew one gnarled hand, with fingers pinched, across her mouth as
if to say 'Zip. No fuckin' tell. Mum's the word.'
I was losing this battle faster than a shit down a sewer.
Jane changed before my eyes, just as Seraphine had done. Now she both
looked and felt different. The manic expression had disappeared and,
for a moment I was relieved to see her face twist up into its usual
disfigured mask before she slumped into her chair, all the fuses
blown.
Just like Seraphine, her nature had switched over into Manson territory
and back again at the drop of a hat. It seemed to me that the blood
lust was tangible, bouncing between the girls of its own accord.
(Tag)
No two sisters had displayed their formidable rage at the same time, at
least as of yet. Now it was Jane's turn to come back down to earth. She
moaned, staring pop-eyed at the carnage at her feet as if witnessing it
for the first time. However hard she tried, she couldn't seem to tear
her gaze from the body of her mother which moulded well into the corner
of the room. Jane screamed at the sight - a stomach-curdling gurgle
that made my skin crawl and a cold sweat break out across my back - and
tried to cover her eyes with her remaining hand. The result was a
hideous display of taut skin stretched across the twisted limb and a
blubbering, defecating pantomime of distress.
I heard the scuffle of feet behind me and I wheeled. Seraphine strolled
in,
(...I got all my sisters with me...)
the single bullet-wound visible in her right shoulder, oozing blood
which migrated through the linen blouse in a widening tributary of
devil red. Her hands were slick with the stuff, some of it hers.
Behind me Jane emptied the rest of her bladder with a remarkable
gush.
Things were beginning to make sense, and it was the weird kind of sense
that people shrug off as pure fantasy - just as I had done. They were
one and the same, the sisters - not the same physical person, but the
same in a way more terrifying than I could ever have imagined. Not the
same person but another person.
Lady Scared Me Shitless.
'Ss-stay where you are! Who are you? Tell me!'
I let the red dot fall between her breasts, slipping in and out of the
spattered cleavage as she slinked into the room, impassive about the
wound in her shoulder.
Smiling she continued, relishing in every second of my crumbling
bravado.
Some tiny, hibernating part of my brain sputtered into life, sparking
madly with sudden comprehension.
It was like the photograph in my office, the one she had broken. It was
a photograph of four people but a picture of three. Three people
visible, another one present but virtually undetectable. They shared an
external personality, impossible I know, but as impossible as, say,
knowing how and when you and your siblings are going to die, or as
impossible as sharing injuries?
'Don't step any closer, Seraphine!'
'I had to teach that guard a lesson, Mister Sceptic. He wouldn't let me
out so just had to teach him.'
She stepped into the room.
'Are you going to teach me now, detective? I've been ever so bad you
know.'
'Not unless I have to, Miss. But that's up to you now - not one more
step!'
'Do you know what it's like to be erased, little man? Do you know what
it is to be tossed away like an empty bottle?'
My non-pregnant mother bobbing in the gene pool.
She defied me, ignored my warning and stepped closer still, the dark
smear now down to her waist.
'Who are you?' I croaked.
'Who do you think I am, baby?'
'TELL ME!' I screeched.
'I don't need to tell you, detective, I can see that you have worked it
out for yourself.'
My left foot skidded on the urine-splashed linoleum as I tried to get
some distance between myself and the person who seemed to believe she
was sister number four. I lost my balance for a second, but even that
was ample time for her to react.
There was a blurring of air and colour, a round squeezed from the gun,
and an explosion of plaster from the ceiling. I fell and hit my head
sharply on something hard on the way down.
Jane was wailing somewhere in the background...
Then Seraphine was on top of me, pinning me to the floor, her bony
fingers clawing at my face, reaching for my throat. Those ten skeletal
digits hungry to spill my blood into her already stinking hands.
I thrashed around wildly, trying to beat her off with flailing arms.
The pistol lay on the floor a metre away but mere inches from my grasp.
My eyes bulged, my vision tunneled. My life rapidly ebbing away in the
blood-smeared grip of this crazed lab experiment.
'You...won't...deny...me...Cop...' she hissed through gritted teeth,
'I...want...a...life! I'M...OWED...A...LIFE!'
My hand was resting on something cold, hard. I gripped it, raised - and
paused.
The look on her face, as she was killing me, was rapturous glee,
resolute determination, but her eyes - those bloodshot and watery opals
- revealed unmitigated terror. It wasn't Seraphine doing the killing
after all. Only at the brink of death did I begin to understand.
She gave me no choice.
I smashed her in the temple with the object, hard enough to drop her,
but by no means a lethal blow. She sunk across me, a dead weight which
squeezed precious air from my lungs. I rolled the limp form from my
legs, glancing at the thing in my hand. It was Jane's speech module. I
must have fell back against the wheelchair during the attack, and
ripped it from its housing. It had my blood and hair on it, and my head
hurt like hell.
A dull wave of pain flamed across the back of my hand and I looked
across to see Jane wheeling her chair back and forth with an evil grin
on her face. They had switched again, that terrible version of tag that
had the two sisters batting me back and forth like a mouse between a
cat's paws. Her speech box in ruins, she opened her misshapen mouth,
'Shay it, old man. Shay my nem.'
'Kiss my wrinkly old nuts, you bitch!' I gasped.
She rolled one silver-spoked wheel across my swollen hand for a second
time. I heard a dull crack and the arteries in my forearm felt as
though they had filled with salt-water. I screamed.
'An arm for an arm, detek-tive,' she hissed, 'Now try again.'
Images of the last few days flashed through my mind as I attempted to
search for an answer. Finding none, my mind offered up a single scene
of my talk by the river with the late Ms Locksley.
'The Ugly Fuckling.' I giggled hysterically in spite, or perhaps,
because of, the pain in my arm. 'Quack, friggin' quack.'
She rolled forward, backward and forward again. There were no more
snapping sounds by the third pass, and I spied several ivory objects
poking up where my knuckles should have been. The pain was unbearable,
and just like fear, it can sometimes be a fantastic motivator.
I rolled onto my knees just as the metal leg-brace of Jane's wheelchair
impacted into my shoulder. The crushing blow knocked the breath out of
me. Jane backed her chair up for another assault, her face a reflection
of her Sister's. Same grin, same intent. We are family.
The stench of piss and the pain in my shoulder and mangled hand made my
stomach heave. I had to scrabble across the rank, wet floor just to
stand up. Whilst scrambling for the exit I managed to lose a shoe but
didn't notice until later. Behind me the chair screamed into life. I
was a metre from the door when she collided into the backs of my legs,
bringing me down once more, sprawling into the corridor. I landed on
top of the security guard's broken torso jutting out of the
plasterwork. Jane's handiwork, Josephine's will. My failure.
'Comm now, detek-tive,' she drawled without the aid of her module. 'Haf
you wokt it out, yet? Shay my nem, detek-tive, I wont to hear you shay
it.'
'Rumple-fuckin-stiltskin, how the hell should I know you twisted old
witch?' I spat, nursing my crushed hand.
She laughed that awful wheezing laugh again and I could see she was
beginning to tire of this whole charade. 'Closhe, but no banana for the
monkey.'
A shiver crawled up my spine.
'Lassht chancsh!'
I knew who she was, but I just couldn't bring the words to my lips.
Saying them would make it real, and even after all I had been through
in these last few days, in the end it was that old stubborn relic
called Scepticism who refused to put an end to this, not the withered
life-taking creature in the surgical scaffold and braces.
This old man, three played he.
'Get fucked,' I barked.
Jospephine nodded as if in agreement, 'One of the many pleashures this
morkal shell hash denied me.'
Her expression darkened. 'But no more,' she said, 'Tonight it
endsh.'
This mortal shell. Finally, she obliged me with the first concrete
evidence of what I had been thinking, fearing, all along. Ever since
the beginning I had felt it. It was subtle, so subtle that it had
caught only in my subconscious, and had emerged in my dreams. That's
the thing about dreams; they show you what you really ought to see, not
what you want to see.
Suddenly I saw everything with the clarity of ice water. All the clues,
all the hints. Everything fell into place.
'Josephine,' I spat out the name as if it was a foul taste in my mouth.
'Your name is Josephine.'
'I beleef if you beleef, bay-bee.' came the reply and her fingers
twitched over the chair's control panel.

Jane/Josephine came at me grinning triumphantly, riding Jane's chariot
like some deranged gladiator, and all I could do was watch.
In those few final seconds, I embraced the impossible. Josephine was
Jane. Josephine was Seraphine, and very likely Marion too for a while.
It was the Sisters' unnatural abilities that had gnawed at my sense of
the usual, and the sceptic within me had pushed it away, rejecting the
possibility of this case being anything other than the norm.
Still within the room although just metres from where I lay, Jane's
steering hand exploded into two obvious halves and her arm fell from
the shattered controls to dangle flaccidly by her left thigh.
'A hand for a hand, Josephine.' It was Seph's voice.
The chair swerved to one side, tipping violently. The inertia propelled
her forward into the doorframe with a crunch. Then she sat back down in
the chair and in one slow, teetering movement, the apparatus upturned,
carried passed its gravitational centre by her sheer weight and
momentum.
There was a sharp and resounding crack, like a gunshot, as
Jane/Josephine hit the floor. The straps holding her rigid flapped
loose, stainless steel rods splayed out like bright straws.
She lay still and straight on the floor next to one of my shoes. The
one with blood on it. Their posture did get corrected in the end. It's
a pity Jane didn't live to enjoy it.

9

Seraphine had saved my life, and her own. Lucky for me I hadn't hit her
as hard as I had hoped. She had recovered and, once more in control,
had reached the dropped pistol before Josephine had reached me. Jane
was the innocent in all of this, a mere vessel, just as Seraphine had
been. Seraphine hadn't wanted to kill her Sister, but to banish the one
was to kill the other. The fact that she had managed to hit her was
pure luck, but I guess that depended on which side of the doorway you
were, at the time.

Following the traumatic separation of the Twins, Josephine had remained
alive, residing in the mind of Jane. No one had even diagnosed Jane as
schizophrenic, so clever was Josephine's guise. She would come out only
to observe, never to act. But that was not enough. She craved mobility,
desired her own life and despised those who had the freedom to live.
This was sibling rivalry taken to the point of psychosis. It was
through the triplet's bond that she was able to move between
siblings.
Marion had foreseen her 'tomorrow place', but was unable to avoid it.
Once Josephine had taken control there was nothing she could do to
fight it. She had watched in horror as her sculpture bore down upon
her, pulled over by own hands, just before Josephine had leapt back out
to the safety of Jane's body. So Josephine was the presence that
Seraphine had felt.
The fourth sister had designs to destroy the family who she felt had
abandoned her. Marion was the bait, designed to bring me into the game.
My role was to provide easy access to Maryjane Locksley, which I did
unknowingly and with sprinkles on.
The mother soon to be dealt with, Josephine, under the guise of
Seraphine, had turned this into an opportunity to remove an superfluous
tick. Sent me racing to my own tomorrow place where she had met me as
Jane.
Maryjane had gone to her crippled daughter to introduce herself and
atone for the sins she was so ashamed of. I guess she had her reasons
to hide those sins from me, and they were sins so deep-rooted and
detestable that the only person she felt could forgive her was the very
person she had wronged. She had, after all, given the order of
execution for Jane's twin. Jane's side of their conversation was later
extracted from memory of the damaged module, and suggested no malice
from Jane herself. Once the personality switch had taken place,
Josephine had rammed her mother against the wall, again and again,
until she fell limp and lifeless to the floor.
I had been played, but by default I'd won.
Now Josephine was gone forever leaving behind her four dead. One for
each Sister.

Six months passed fast and without incident. My hand was on the mend,
my doctor said I could expect some pain during the colder months but I
felt I could live with that.
The whole deal with the sisters was wrapped up more or less within a
week of Jane's death. Marion ended up with the 'accidental death' that
had previously been decided - with no suspicious circumstances.
Seraphine got away with the taking of her remaining sisters' lives and
I had no choice but to log 'matricide' on Jane's file. I took the
credit for the shots fired in self-defence. Seraphine said she
understood, and seemed grateful. She must have been because I still got
paid.
I had decided to sell up the business, and a buyer, one of Lonnie's
regular heavies, bought the outfit outright in cash. He said he was
going to set up a business in home security and surveillance, but deep
down where the hunch-machine churns in the basement, I knew it was just
another of Lonnie's dubious enterprises - debt collection, protection
or maybe something else. I didn't know and I didn't want to know. It
was time for me to leave it to the youngsters. They could have the
whole damned package.
Thanks mainly to its recent press coverage in the days following the
incident, the business sold for a pretty penny - much more than I had
expected Lonnie to cough up - and what with Seraphine's fee, my
retirement fund was now looking a healthy black on my bank statement. I
anticipated that life in retirement was going to be okay. However, I
didn't think they would let me into the Locksley Memorial Retirement
Village under the circumstances, but that's okay. It's really not my
style.
Everything was going to turn out fine in the end. How wrong could I
be?
Another six months after that - welcome back to the present and a
little used storeroom deep within the Facility walls. I've been
drinking more and sleeping less of late. I bleed when I pee and wake up
shivering every single night. I've taken to setting my bed with a
plastic under-sheet and a wad of toweling to hand, ready for the grand
mop up in the morning. I'm a mess; I feel no more human than Josephine
Locksley or those human-hopefuls down in their happy-crappy cock-slappy
commune. Seraphine's birthday celebration is booming away in the summer
heat. The party is heaving. Judging by the sight and stink of me I dare
say I won't be missed.
I never would have guessed that Seraphine would have done what she has
done. The scrawny redhead goading her on I remember from that first
night down at Lonnie's seedy pink-neon booze-house. Seraphine had left
the music industry - the band was going nowhere and, as long as people
knew who she was and where she came from, it never would. So she
channeled all her creative energies into the only cause she thought
worthwhile. Prevention of repetition. Now living down in the afore
mentioned commune with the asshole who allegedly shot off inside his
brother's sister's mothers' wife, she was dedicated to ensuring that no
more like the Sisters would ever be created again. We are in the age of
miracles and the witch-hunts, my friend, seemed to have started up
again.

The party is a Who's Who of the genetics world. She had planned this
perfectly. Cunning, beautiful Seph. Seraphine Locksley. Former singer
of local soul band, what was it now, oh yes, Lady Got Me Good.
Yep lady, you got me real good.
I have the honour of deploying the device; in fact, I am the device. A
walking party-popper. The gadgetry strapped around my midriff is set
for three minutes. Oh, there's plenty of time to get out of harm's way
- just not mine - but if I don't do this, she will. In a way I'm glad
it's happening; the Sisters Three were born into a world that should
have known better. Sooner or later they will learn and maybe, just
maybe, this will help them. There's no way out of this, the
shake'n'bake bitch is holding a fillet-knife to my balls.
Still at least this way I'm in control.
So there we are, we've come full-circle, from gene-splicing to
jean-splicing. Okay, fuck you, comedy flows thick when your ol' fella
is resting on a razors edge.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - these Sisters will be the
death of me...

End