I’m going to tell you all about the day I went insane and learned about the real world.

It wasn’t a very special day, just a Tuesday in October, the 24th to be exact. Nothing momentous happened when I woke up, no singing from the choir heavenly, no rays of sunshine through parted clouds; just a frosty morning, still dark at eight AM. A cup of coffee, slice of toast, a quick shower and a suit later and I’m out the door and on my way to work.

Let me introduce myself: I was Anthony Charles Kaleak. I’m mostly Inupiat, Eskimo for those who have never heard of the Inupiat. I was born in Barrow, Alaska thirty three years ago. I’m named Anthony after my father and Charles after one of the Great White Whaling Captains who settled in Barrow or Ukpiagvik (The Place We Hunt Snowy Owls) as we call it in Inupiaq, in the 19th century. My father married a taniq (outsider) so I have a mix of features: darker skin, high cheekbones, grey eyes, and hair that tends towards more brown then black. The expectation was that I would do as my father and his father and so on and so forth, as indeed my people have done for a thousand years, and be a whaler on the Kaleak crew and eventually take my father’s place as captain; but I had other plans. After high school I took two years of college at Illisagvik College and joined the North Slope Borough Police Department at 21. I still joined in spring and fall whaling with my father and our crew but my father knew I had other plans for my life. Things grew strained between us and eventually I left Barrow and moved to Anchorage, taking a job with the police department. I was a quick hire: a native with five years of law enforcement experience. Don’t think I didn’t work my ass off. I was a good cop, honest and hardworking. I made corporal in two years and sergeant three years later. A year later I took the qualification tests for detective and made it into Homicide, where I’ve been since.

Things might have gone differently had I stopped by the squad room first but all I did was call. The duty officer told me there was nothing new pending so I drove to Mountain View to look in on a guy we suspected was behind a string of missing person’s cases. We’d brought him a few times but had nothing to hold him on so we had to cut him loose. Virgil Edwards, two time loser from California, now in Anchorage and causing trouble. Kidnapping wasn’t on his record from California: assault, robbery, intent, those were his normal MO but he seemed to have stepped up his game once in Alaska, probably thinking we were a police force of country bumpkins, too remote for real law enforcement. Well he was going to find out differently once we had something to nail him with. I’m all for locking him up with my boot print on his ass but we do things by the book. This guy was too stupid not to screw up and I was going to be waiting for him when he did. So here I am, in front of his crappy duplex, letting him know the APD is watching him.

I take a drink of my diet Coke and wait. My eyes wander a little and I notice a black Can-Am Spyder parked down the street. It looks familiar so I spend a second or two wracking my brain trying to think of where I’ve seen it before then it hits me: Rachel Torres, former Anchorage cop turned private investigator.

“What the hell are you doing out here, Torres?” I wonder.

I decide to make sure it’s hers so I pull out my binoculars and get the tags then call dispatch to run them and sure enough, they come back to one Rachel Anne Torres.

I get out of the car, my curiosity piqued and walk over to the trike. A helmet sits on the seat and the engine is cold. I note the way it’s parked and realize she was sitting at an angle facing the duplex Edwards is in. I also notice that the front door of the duplex is slightly ajar.

Well now, as a concerned police officer of the fine city of Anchorage I feel it is my duty to make sure Mr. Edwards is safe and none of his property has been stolen.

Looking back I realize my first mistake was not calling for a uniform or two to back me up but I felt confident that Edwards, if he was even in, wouldn’t cause trouble with the detective eying him for a class A felony. With that thought in mind I started walking to the house.

My unease grew with every step closer so I eased my Glock 22 out of its holster. The hair on the back of my neck began to stand on end and chills were going down my spine.

“Shit, something is very wrong here.” I thought to myself as I made my second mistake: I kept going. I was about five feet from the house when the smell hit me. It was the smell of death, blood, and rotten meat. It was enough to make my eyes water and my gorge rise.

My third and final mistake was opening the door wider. The smell intensified and I saw the trash and rotten food strewn about the floor.

“Virgil Edwards, this is Detective Kaleak, Anchorage Police. Come out where I can see you.” Silence greeted my announcement.

I step into the house, my shoes crunching something under an old pizza box. The living area and kitchen are empty of everything but trash and tattered furniture. The smell gets worse the deeper I go in. Ahead of me is a short hallway with two open doors on the right and a closed door ahead. The first door is a junk closet, piled high with trash and boxes. The second one is a bathroom, dark stains on the floor and shower that I don’t want to think about. The shower curtain is old and torn, open halfway.

One door left: the bedroom. The smell is stronger now. Whatever is causing it is behind the closed door.

“Fast and hard or slow and easy, Tony?” I think to myself as I approach the door. “Screw it, shock and awe.”

Gun up, finger on the trigger, I kick the door open, a shout of police dying before I let it out.

Too much bad shit to take in all at once assails my senses. The blood smell is overwhelming here; it takes all my willpower not to lose my meager breakfast. The first thing I see is plastic. The room is covered in it. Floor, walls, furniture. At first I think it’s red but I realize its clear plastic and the red is blood. It drips from the ceiling, oozes down the walls, collects in puddles on the floor. The next thing I notice is a body on the bed, or what’s left of a body. I can see that it’s female. She’s been skinned and by the look of horror in her eyes and the silent scream forever locked on her face, she was alive when it happened.

This time I do lose my breakfast.

My trained mind continues to take in details as I wipe my mouth: she is completely fleshless from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. I turn around to take my eyes off the horrific sight only to see something that threatens my already tenuous grasp on both sanity and stomach.

Her skin is hanging on the wall in front of me, intact. Intact enough to see the black hair cascading down the shoulders. Intact enough to recognize the face of former Anchorage police officer, turned private investigator, Rachel Torres.

Something inside me snaps and I fall to my knees, making animal noises as tears pour down my face. I don’t know how long I would have stayed like that but a voice snapped me out of my fugue state. An impossible voice.

“Detective Kaleak, you will be dead in less than ten minutes unless you do exactly as I say.”

I turn my head slowly and look into the green eyes and somewhat insubstantial face of Rachel Torres. The very same Rachel Torres whose skin hangs from the wall.

I say the first thing that comes to mind: “What…the…fuck.”

She looks at me, unblinking, and says, “You have 30 less seconds to live, Detective. No more questions. Do as I say or your’s will be the next skin suit hanging on the wall.”

That shakes some sense into my fogged mind. “What do I need to do?”

“Take off your clothes and put on my skin.”