La Vista Ajena Chapter 13: Hot Hot Hot, a silence of the lambs/hannibal fanfic

Author's note:

Yes, this story has arisen from the grave. A bit of gore for the gore fans…

Clarice Starling sat in a small office and glanced around. They'd gotten a call to come up here shortly after the scene at the Renaissance fair. Starkey County, Indiana. It was a small county, two towns and a little hamlet. It reminded her of the small town she'd grown up in. They were the same all over America.

The local authorities were quite distressed over what had happened. Clarice and Josh had been sent up here hurriedly, and the locals were glad to see them. In some ways it was silly; it was all over. The Homicidal Productions crew had already left town. Just as before, Clarice and Josh got to try and clean up the mess, look for some pattern that might point them in the right direction, and hope like hell that Dr. Lecter didn't find Alice first.

It was frustrating. There was a pattern, sure. They made movies and killed people in them and made snotty comments to Clarice and Josh on them. But there wasn't a usable pattern. It was a big, big country, and somewhere in it were three serial killers, banging around, having fun, and looking for victims. And Clarice knew no more about how to stop them, or catch them, than she had the day Chatiqua Miller shot her and plucked Alice Pierpont from her safe confinement and set her loose.

Her reverie was interrupted by Josh Graham entering the room. He had a TV and VCR on a cart. Behind him, he had a small blonde girl in tow. She was dressed in county jail blues and seemed frightened, as if she had undergone a shock. Clarice frowned and wondered what he was doing. She looked rather young for Josh to Clarice's eyes.

"Hey," Josh said. "Had to round up a VCR." He squatted to plug in his equipment and the screen jumped to glow bright blue. Then he indicated the young woman behind him.

"This is Michelle," he explained, and his face quirked. "She…she's a witness. She was held on the unit that…the HP crew took over."

Clarice blinked. HP? What did printers have to do with this? Then she realized he meant the Homicidal Productions crew. Probably didn't want to scar the kid any more than necessary. Clarice eyed the blonde girl cautiously.

"Hi, Michelle," she said. "What were you in for, if you don't mind me asking?"

The girl looked at her from behind her glasses and sniffled. "I…I had an argument with my mom. It just got out of hand. They were gonna release me to my mom later that day. But then…" she shuddered. "Then they came and took over the cellblock."

Clarice nodded. The girl shivered. Josh looked over at her and a sympathetic look crossed his face. "The AC is brutal in here," he said. "You want some coffee, Michelle? How about you, Clarice?"

The girl nodded.

"Cream or sugar?"

"No cream," she said. "Five sugars."

Josh's eyebrow rose. "That's a lot," he said in a tone that indicated he would prefer that her pancreas not explode on his watch.

"I like it with sugar," she said plaintively. "Can't I have it?" She shuddered and looked at the TV set again.

"All right," Josh said. He returned a few minutes later with three Styrofoam cups in hand. He handed one to the blonde girl, one to Clarice, and kept the third for himself. Clarice watched him idly. Black, no sugar; he knew how she took her coffee. The young woman grabbed the coffee cup and drank from it with gusto, as if it contained the nectar of the gods.

Well, coffee was pretty close to that, when you came down to it.

"So, Michelle," Josh said. "What can you tell us about what happened?"

The girl sighed. Her throat wobbled. "Well, I was just in the cellblock, waiting for them to come get me," she started. "I was talking with the girl in the next cell. Her name is Natalie. Then…then this woman came in. She was wearing a suit and had an axe. She killed Officer Dodson."

Clarice nodded. "What did she look like?"

Michelle swigged again from the coffee. Clarice found herself thinking the kid must be quite the caffeine addict; swigging like that would've burned her throat something awful. She put it down and stared at Clarice for a moment or two before looking over at Josh.

"She was white," she began. Clarice nodded. Alice. "She had black hair, like really black. And red eyes. And she had six fingers on her left hand. And she…wasn't right. She was all bouncy, but she killed Officer Dodson and then started chatting with Natalie and me like nothing was wrong."

Definitely Alice. "Then what did she do?"

"She said she was going to make us wear dresses," Michelle said, and sniffled. Her eyes rimmed with trauma. She shuddered, as if wearing a dress was a worse fate than being in jail.

Clarice shrugged. It wasn't a big deal. "So…so what happened then?"

"This black woman and this big tall guy came in with her then," Michelle continued. "Nat and me, we said we'd do what they said but didn't want to wear dresses. The black girl was sort of bossy and was going to make us, but the white girl said as long as we did what we were told it would be OK. So they dressed us up in jail blues and took two other girls out of the cellblock and brought us down to the exercise yard."

Clarice nodded sympathetically. "All right," she said. "Look, we have to watch this tape. You don't have to watch it if you don't want to."

The girl gave Josh a look that seemed mushier than Clarice expected it to be. Josh simply sat there and didn't seem to register it. A little grin threatened to manifest on Clarice's lips. Oh, Josh, I think someone likes you.

"It's okay," the girl said, still looking at Josh. She smiled at him and sipped at her coffee. "I can watch it. It won't be any worse than being in it."

Josh wielded the remote and pointed it at the VCR. "Okay," he said uncertainly. He pressed PLAY and the latest work of the Homicidal Productions crew began to play across the screen. The words HOT HOT HOT appeared on the screen. Clarice coughed. Oh man, what is this one going to be?

The scene cut to the side of the Starkey County Jail. Floodlights played over the wall, crawling in playful arcs over the surface of the wall. A pleasant-sounding guitar chord sounded. Clarice blinked. She knew that song. A disembodied chorus sang from offscreen.

Olè, olè, olè, olè. Olè, olè, olè, olè.

Another quick Latin-sounding guitar melody played. Colin Barksdale, dressed in a tux, emerged from a door on the left, emerging onto the catwalk on which guards had once watched prisoners in the exercise yard. In one hand he held a large martini glass. A floodlight moved to illuminate him. Clarice noticed that his hair was slicked back and up in an impossible style. She found a snicker growing in her gut and fought to keep it down.

Buster fucking Poindexter? she thought.

The guitar melody strummed again, and Alice Pierpont emerged from the door on the right. A second spotlight lit her up. She wore a dress that was covered in spangles that reflected the light back at the camera in thousands of tiny dots of light.

Slowly, the two advanced towards each other as horns played. They met in the center of the catwalk, the two spotlights merging into one. Colin took Alice's hand and spun her around. The horns continued to blast out a brassy, fun salute for the two. Clarice remembered this song.

Crazed serial killers, and they pick the cheesiest song from the 1980's to put their video to, Clarice thought, and tried to stifle a grin. Chatiqua's take on this was likely to be pretty nasty too.

"Yessah…ha-ha!" he shouted, and then the horns blasted out in full voice, the two figures dancing in a burlesque cha-cha. The camera panned down to four young women in jail blues in the middle of the exercise yard. They were shimmying and dancing in place with expressions of fear on their faces. They were linked together in coffle by a chain at their ankles. Occasionally they looked directly at the camera and blanched. Clarice supposed that Chatiqua Miller was probably a damned scary director to work for.

Michelle sniffled and rubbed at her nose. Josh patted her hand absently. Clarice eyed her carefully. Sure, she'd had a rough time of it. She'd gotten locked up after an argument with her mom. Probably the authorities had thought a night in lockdown would straighten the kid out. Instead she'd ended up a bit player in a twisted drama played out by the Homicidal Productions crew.

All the same, Clarice thought, she seemed to like getting sympathy from Josh. She wasn't a hundred percent sure – she never was, with victims—but she thought that Michelle was playing it up just a bit. What was funnier was that Josh seemed to have no idea at all she was doing it. Clarice choked back a chuckle and turned back to the screen.

"Eh-yes, girls," Colin called down to the shackled dancers below. He tossed the martini glass over the side, a safe distance away from them. Even so, two of them flinched. The glass itself shattered like a bomb when it hit the concrete ground.

Me mind on fire

Me soul on fire

Feeling hot hot hot

Party people

All around me

Feeling hot hot hot

Alice and Colin danced a fast tango on the catwalk. Clarice found herself thinking queerly that Alice could do a lot better in heels than she ever could.

What to doooo on a night like this

Music sweet, I can't resist

We neeeeeed a party song

A funnnndamental jam

Not dropping their speed a bit, Alice and Colin backed up. They could dance, Clarice had to give them that. Then she saw a figure behind them and her stomach tensed. Now it got ugly.

The camera cut and zoomed in on their fast-moving feet. At first they only had metal catwalk under their feet. Then, as they stepped backwards as one unit, Clarice saw hair and realized what they meant to do.

A human face appeared under their feet. Her stomach clenched.

So we go rum-bum-bum-bum-bum

Yeah we rum-bum-bum-bum-bum

Feeling hot hot hot

Oh Lord!

Their feet trampled the face of the bound guard under them. Colin's polished black shoes stomped mercilessly on the guard's face. His nose broke with an audible crunch. Afterwards it looked like a ripe, splattered tomato. Blood began to gush from it.

Alice's stiletto heels punctured and sank into flesh. First an eye, which took on a deflated look. Colorless liquid began to ooze out and drip down his cheek. Then she punched through his cheek, leaving a hole that bled as copiously as his nose. Finally, the high stiletto heel punctured his throat.

Clarice closed her eyes. The last guard Alice and company had dealt with was Bob Colson, back at the asylum. He had been shot, but he'd survived. So far as Clarice knew, he was still holding on in intensive care.

She found herself thinking it would be more merciful if this one died. The camera panned down to the dancing girls again. They all looked at the camera with grins that looked frightened to Clarice.

"Me la la la lum bum bum," the girls sang in high-pitched voices.

"Me la la la lum bum bum," Michelle repeated under her breath, and shuddered.

Clarice glanced at her curiously. "Huh?"

"The black girl made us rehearse that," the blonde girl explained. "She said she would be angry with us if we didn't get it right." She didn't specify if Chatiqua had threatened them, and Clarice didn't want to make her.

Boy, Clarice thought amusedly, maybe I ought to leave the room and leave her alone with Josh for a while.

The next scene wiped thoughts of amusement from her mind. The scene cut to Alice and Colin, still in a dress and tux respectively like a jailhouse Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, now down on the exercise yard. The camera focused on them dancing for a bit. Behind them, Clarice could see a man in a guard's uniform tied between two posts at wrists and ankle, as if he were a human hammock. He struggled openly in his bonds, not attempting to act any role. Clarice wasn't sure, but it looked like the guy was wet.

See people rocking – hear people chanting – feeling hot hot hot

Alice broke away from Colin, her legs working smoothly as she spun. Twice, three times, four. When she stopped, she was standing right by the bound guard. In one hand she held something small and silver. Clarice frowned. Too small to be a knife. She wondered where Alice had gotten it from; it looked like the footage of her spinning had been all one cut, and that dress didn't have any pockets. Clarice would've reckoned her total personal storage capacity at maybe a set of car keys and a couple of Altoids.

Alice flicked the lighter. A small flame bloomed into existence. Gleefully, Alice touched it to the writhing prison guard. Almost instantly, the man lit up in a huge fireball. Flames raced along his body, licking at his uniform. His body turned and writhed. It looked like he was screaming, but there was no audio on the tape.

It must've been gas, Clarice thought, and suddenly felt sick. The camera stayed on the burning man with a stark eye. It zoomed in lovingly to show his blackening features contorted in agony. A hard thump of nausea struck Clarice hard. For a few minutes, the man's death was recorded in unflinching detail. It panned up to show his hair on fire, and then back out. Next to the guard's tortured death throes, Alice and Colin continued dancing merrily, as if this horror was simply a spiffy backdrop.

They twirled and pirouetted over past the dancing girls. Two more jail guards sat shackled to chairs. Alice and Colin were in the center of the scene. They split apart, two joyful killers spreading out like a hand, and each produced a lighter this time. Clarice noticed a dark trail of gasoline leading to each bound guard. God, this murder was bad enough; did they have to seem like they were having such a good time?

Keep up this spirit – Come on let's do it – feelin hot hot hot

In perfect synchronicity, like parts of some homicidal Swiss watch, the lighters dipped to the ground. Two tongues of flame arose, and a few moments later, two more jail guards were burned to death for the audience's amusement.

Clarice didn't feel amused. Fury arose in her. They were slaughtering people wholesale; decent people who did a tough job. And they were having a blast doing it. There was no guilt or regret – just dancing, an absurdly happy and cheesy song, and brutal murders.

It's in the air – Celebration time

Music sweet – captivate your mind

The camera cut again, and in the background was another guard bound to a chair. Clarice sighed. A fifth person about to get set on fire. Alice and Colin danced towards him. Then she noticed a line on this victim's forehead that she remembered. Her stomach tightened.

We haaaaave this party song – this funnnndamental jam

Alice reached over and grabbed the top of the guard's head. Hair, scalp, and skull all came off in one fell swoop. She had not been as neat as her father had once been; blood was clearly visible oozing from the incision. Atop the truncated skull, naked brain gleamed. Clarice turned away.

Juuuust like your dad, aren't you? she thought incoherently. She would not let Alice go free, no matter what Dr. Lecter had to say. She would find her and arrest her. Or maybe just shoot her on the spot.

Alice Pierpont did not imitate her father as Clarice might have expected. Instead, she dug a hand into the fundamental jam of the guard's brain. The helpless man's eyes bulged, and he seemed to watch as Alice threw the handful of his former frontal lobe playfully at the camera. She was short – perhaps deliberately so. The gelatinous chunk landed on the ground in front of the camera with a wet splat overlaid on top of the music track.

"She got sprayed with blood the first time they did it," Michelle muttered.

Clarice looked over at her and tried not to think about the last time a dark-haired, maroon-eyed person had opened someone's skull. "Huh?"

"That." She gestured at the figure on the screen. The guard appeared to be going into seizures. Clarice wasn't sure; they had him tied down pretty good. "That was the second take." She shuddered and her lips pursed as if she might cry. "The first take she got all sprayed with blood and they had to stop filming. The black girl was mad."

Josh put his arm around her comfortingly, and she seemed to improve by that. Clarice didn't know whether the girl was honestly traumatized or playing for Josh's attention. Could be a little of both, she decided. But given what the girl had been forced to witness, Clarice thought she deserved a little bit of softness. More than one take. Had more than one guard died? Probably. Jesus.

So we go rum-bum-bum-bum

Yeah we rum-bum-bum-bum

Feeling hot hot hot

That reprised over a cut to their feet and legs dancing in a homicidal cha-cha over another guard's face. Another guard trampled for the idle amusement of the viewer. Clarice sighed. This just keeps on coming, doesn't it?

Olè, olè, olè, olè. Olè, olè, olè, olè. Quick cuts flashed: bound, trembling jail guards. A band they seemed to have put together consisting of inmates in jail blues and sombreros. The four dancing girls. Alice dancing with Colin. A group of inmates in a conga line, shackled together but still dancing. A guard's face twitching as a drill bit dug into his forehead.

There was something about this whole thing that was very Alice: fantastically gruesome and maniacally happy at the same time. Clarice sighed. They needed a break. This couldn't last forever.

People in the party – hot hot hot

Clarice saw another guard, soaked with gasoline, and realized that it didn't make her cringe anymore even though she knew what was coming. This guard was not chained, but instead was penned in one of the exercise pens. It seemed the sort of thing you would keep a dog in. A small tongue of flame touched him and he became a human fireball. This time, the screams were overlaid over the music track. He shrieked and gibbered, waving his arms desperately. His flaming hands clutched the chain-link fence for several tense minutes before he finally fell back to the asphalt. No one helped him; only the camera coldly recording his horrific death.

They come to the party know what they got

Alice and Colin danced again on the screen, merry and gleeful and not killing anyone so far. Behind them were the dancing girls, looking distinctly paler after having seen several of their guards get barbecued. The spangles on Alice's dress reflected off their jail blues and faces.

Then, a series of quick cuts.

I'm hot, and Colin's head and shoulders dwarfed the screen, grinning maniacally and swiping back at his overly moussed hair.

You're hot, and Alice appeared, grinning just as maniacally.

He's hot, and a blackening, flaming human head appeared in the screen. That hit Clarice harder than she would have thought and she turned away. The eyes were sizzling and turning gray. Clarice found herself feeling sort of gray herself.

She's hot, and a rather greenish-looking Michelle appeared. Seeing herself on the screen, Michelle shuddered. Josh patted her hand comfortingly. Then the sequence and the words repeated.

How you feeling? Hot hot hot!

There was one last shot of Alice and Colin, dancing with absurdly happy grins. Then the yard, empty and absent. Clarice sucked in breath and wondered what the finale would be.

The answer was as sudden as it was large-scale. At one moment the exercise yard of the jail loomed, a symbol of what happened to those who did not obey society's rules. In the next, there was an amazingly loud boom. Licks of flame appeared momentarily, and then, seemingly violating the laws of physics, the immense walls blew outward and collapsed. Steel girders and framework were exposed where concrete had once been. Another explosion echoed, the camera recording the ruin with a loving eye, and the walls of the former Starkey County Jail collapsed into rubble. Virtually nothing was left. There were a few faint screams on the audio, but Clarice did not know if they were real or foleyed in.

Clarice sighed. She'd seen the remnants and rubble of the jail when they'd arrived. ANFO bombs; they already knew that Alice and company had been seen buying both ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. One set of bombs had blown the walls off the one side that they'd been filming; the others had been set to explode the entire building, below in the basement.

Just for her own sake, she got up and walked back to glance out the window. There, across the way, was the smoking crater that had replaced the jail. Black smoke poured high into the air and across the Indiana plain. Oddly for them, they had herded most of the guards and prisoners out of the jail beforehand; their goal was filming mayhem, not mass destruction. Most of them had been found in a maintenance shed on the grounds of the jail.

All the same, they had to be captured. Had to be.

Without turning around, Clarice Starling vowed not to rest until Alice, Chatiqua and Colin were safely behind bars or dead.

"Michelle, thanks for watching this with us," she said, still staring at the crater. "Josh, how bout you take her down to another room and get a formal statement from her."

"All right," Josh said from behind her. Chairs scraped. Clarice still watched the crater. Okay, they hadn't committed mass murder; they easily could have. Still, the murders they had committed, and all this destruction…this had to be stopped. It could not be permitted to continue.

Still, she had no idea where they were now. Dr. Lecter was also out there somewhere, and he had the file. His goal was only to save his daughter; hers was to capture all three.

By God, I am going to catch them, Clarice Starling thought, but I'll be damned if I know how.