By: Daiyu Tang
Reader, cast your mind back to April 2024 (You can do it!) and you’ll remember our article about Alice Crow’s new Chinese Medicinal Shop. That article did draw your attention to some of the past ‘issues’ Alice had suffered, which often seemed to involve her and corpses or other unsavoury things, but we had hope Reader, lots of hope. We wanted to give her another chance… I’d also like to say dear reader that I have personally tried my very very best to help Alice… a little financially, a little emotionally and some of my optimism, in so much as I wanted her to be able to get over her addictions, get over the streak of darkness that is in her and turn a new leaf…
But, it was not to be. Perhaps it was when Lucy ‘Not a Crow’ got arrested and send to the asylum, but when I saw Alice a few times more recently there was definitely less of the ‘new leaf’ about her and more of the relapse. Perhaps the dancing (so I heard scandalously naked) at Krystal’s ten year party was just a cry for attention, or more likely it was a statement of “J’emmerde le monde” as Alice reverted to type.
But whatever it was, rumours came to me of corpses and Alice again…
Traditional Medicine? More Like Traditional Alice…
I met with Detective Inspector Krystal O’Neil and Lt. Vanora Blackheart at the site of Alice’s shop which was locked up and taped with HPD markings. I had reached out to find out more about these rumours and HPD had invited me to visit the property and take in the sights (and nastily, the smells) that Alice had left behind.
With Lt. Vanora not entirely convinced in the merits of showing the Observer a crime scene (we assume because maybe we’d find extra clues overlooked due to the shadows her resplendent bosom casts) we were never-the-less much indebted to the Detective Inspector who did allow us in.
Observer: “So… Thank you for this interview. I guess I’ll start with a few things… What did Alice do now and what happened to her? I guess she hasn’t changed her spots… this place was a bloodbath I take it?”
Before Krystal responded and just as I was getting assaulted in my nose by the unmasked by incense scene of Alice’s shop (hint: rotting meat), she applied some kind of cream to her nose. Note to our readers, in the presence of foul smells, Vicks Vapour Rub…
Krystal: “Apparently a dog can’t change it’s color,…I wouldn’t say bloodbath – Most of the bodies we found were in advanced state of decay. We’re assuming that they came from morgues, from Laveau and perhaps HGH – Some body bags they were in are property of the Laveau clinic.”
So far, so Alice… Deja Vu right?
Krystal: “So this whole thing started at front of the PD, where this Alice had some kind of altercation with Lieutenant Calhern and Officer Gausman. The Lieutenant here and I were intending to provide a little backup but Alice disengaged and started to run. I bolted after her,” ‘leading from the front’ “and she ran here, and managed to lock herself… in a back room.”
The backroom, hidden behind a large steel door was dominated by a large white stained freezer, a large drain and then awful stains all over the floor. The smell was strongest here, it was simply nasty.
Observer: “So morgues like last time, also like the bodies under her trailer floor? I guess the smell got you here… Alice isn’t that sharp at this…”
Readers can digest that part of Alice’s history here…
A Sewer Monster And A Stitched Corpse
Krystal: “She got herself locked behind this. As you can see it took a while to get it open and the stink is pretty unmistakable. It’s also a probable cause, in addition of her running away, of course. In here… This freezer had a body, just one one though, but it was sewn together from… several ones.”
Vanora: “Some of the victims weren’t from the morgue or graveyard. She murdered them. Either way the woman is using her psychological ‘rabbit’ as a shield. It’s her bullshit she uses to avoid any punishment. She’s abusing the health system and taking a spot of someone who is worthy of that help, or needs that help. Clearly over a dozen stays in asylum and state pens hasn’t changed anything or fixed her.”
“Time for the needle if our system allowed. Then again with her little drug habit, I’m surprised she hasn’t flat overdosed herself already”
Lt. Vanora
Vanora was forthright in her opinion and it has to be said that even if you are not pro-death penalty, the litany of proven crimes against Alice as well as all the failed interventions (Full disclosure reader I’ve tried to help her out as well with cash, a safe place and so on…) don’t give many options… life confinement might be one of them. Finally, for those who don’t know, ‘Rabbit’ as Vanora refers to above is Alice’s phantom friend who she converses with, especially when she’s under the influence of drugs or under extreme pressure. A comfort blanket perhaps, but one she has alluded to being a very violence influence on her.
Observer: “So she’s smart enough to have a retreat, a please of safety or at least where she keeps her stuff… did anyone go down that drain there? It didn’t like seem to be her trying to make this rabbit person real? She always talks about him as if she can see exactly what he looks like…”
Vanora then interjected, reminding Krystal to not forget about ‘bombs’ either.
Krystal: “Yeah, the bombs, even though we didn’t found any Alice stated that there would be some here, threatening that they would level the whole block. But there were none. No one followed her down there, it’s a maze there, so it would be futile to attempt to follow her.”
Vanora: “She said there were bombs. There weren’t. She used the hole down there to escape. CSI later crawled down there to find discarded body parts. Rabbit is an illusion she gets in her brain. Frankly between the drug use and the brain damage she had. She’s a dead end street. She’s insane. Only place she belongs is behind bars. No doubt the families of the people she murdered will be very happy to hear how its not Alice her fault but an imaginary rabbit that doesn’t exist.”
And Opium – Alice Goes For Everything
It was somehow expected that Alice got away, this time… But in this town… she will surface somewhere, in a flophouse, in a dive-bar, in a clinic or a graveyard and the Observer suggests, that if she is seen, that she is reported to HCS or HPD. The town (and Alice) cannot go on like this – do you, dear reader want to worry that next to your home is a corpse ‘garden’ or that the next business you visit, fronted by Alice is a dark portal to sewers filled with body parts?
Observer: “You’ll get her next time… And no bombs, well that’s good, she’s never struck me as a mass explosion woman, but I’ve only known her for a bit I guess. She can’t have got far… backwaters clinic, new owner so unlikely… CU Clinic, unlikely, I’d think she is hiding out in a trailer again probably… Any known victims, or mostly unknowns?”
Krystal: “We’ll find her. Now…Speaking of drugs, here is where we found narcotics, opium, mostly…”
“We believe that she lured some… Less fortunate citizens, you know, addicts and homeless, to come here, offered them some drugs and when they were flying high… No victims have been identified as of yet.”
Krystal
So reader, if you had bought from Alice’s store, perhaps you have dodged a bullet (or rather a knife). This shows the perils of drug taking in Hathian, where your pusher might in fact be a murderer wanting to use you for their ‘stitching’ or other purpose.
Vanora: “She’s hiding in HGH. As usual. Simon is protecting her with the HGH. There was money. alot. HGH supplies as well…”
Well..
The Observer would always encourage sympathy for those in a position less fortunate than ourselves, but at some point individual responsibility, accountability and decency must exist or, if it doesn’t, we are no better than low animals. Our suggestion? If you see Alice, report her and if like me, you have in the past tried to help her with cash, shelter or kind words, perhaps reconsider… those are people she murdered again and again. They deserved more, but instead you are giving it to Alice? The world shouldn’t work that way.
