Resembling Lepus

By Amanda Kool and Grey Matter Press

Earth's sixth mass extinction has ended, and in its wake a post-dystopian civilization has struggled to rebuild after a global cataclysm shattered its ecosystems and propelled all life to the brink of eradication.

In a world where the air is unhealthy, food is strictly rationed, and the energy consumption that triggered the destruction is highly regimented, scientists experiment with artificial biospheres to secure survival and techno-mimicry to breathe life into long-dead species. It's an unavoidable surveillance state where every living thing is tracked, numbered, and categorized.

In this fledgling society born out of catastrophic loss and now challenged with a new reverence for all life, a lone detective is haunted by a series of murders traumatizing the populace. Assisted by a medical colleague, she finds herself entangled in a crisis with far-reaching consequences and dangerous repercussions that threaten the fragile balance of all existence.

What is the impact on humanity when mankind is required to play god to the creatures they have all but destroyed?

 

 

Praise for Resembling Lepus:

 

"Amanda Kool asks difficult questions here, about life and conciousness and about rights and privilege..." — Alan Baxter, multi-award-winning author of The Gulp, The Fall, The Roo, and the Eli Carver Supernatural Thriller series

 

"Kool's Resembling Lepus is a self-contained novella that intermingles identity, human nature, and a reverence for all life in a murder mystery that says more about the systems humans put into place to define what "life" or "murder" is.  Cool, deeply imagined speculative fiction." — John FD Taff, multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Fearing and The End in All Beginnings

 

"Resembling Lepus is a timely futuristic crime noir tale, set in a very different place—a world like no other—and deals with the complex lives of the creatures upon it. Hauntingly realistic, Kool masterfully tackles the issues and outcomes of our world of today, and provides a frightening glimpse into the very real possibilities of our future." — Steve Gerlach, author of Love Lies Dying and Lake Mountain

 

"Resembling Lepus is a disturbing dystopian noir that takes us into a future we should hope never comes to pass. With climate change having wrought havoc on the planet, what remains of humanity faces a reckoning: what kind of value do we place on life, and what kinds of lives do we actually value? Amanda Kool sketches a complex, confronting world within this tightly plotted novella—if we're lucky, we'll see more stories from her that explore its dark and ethically tangled depths." — Kirstyn McDermott, author of Perfections and the Never Afters series

 

"A detective story for animal lovers, keenly aware of the sacredness of life. Alternately gentle and empathetic, creepy and tense, with a dark climax to savor. A futuristic novella for our times." — Rjurik Davidson, author of The Stars Askew

 

 

Proudly presented by Emergent Expressions from Grey Matter Press, the independent publishing home of multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated titles.

Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive

 

 

 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grey Matter Press
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201873240

Book preview

PRAISE FOR RESEMBLING LEPUS

“Kool asks difficult questions here, about life and consciousness and about rights and privilege...â€

image019.jpg

This novel remains the copyright of the author.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or Grey Matter Press except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This novel is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

RESEMBLING LEPUS

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-950569-09-0

Paperback ISBN-10: 1-950569-09-0

Grey Matter Press Emergent Expressions

First Electronic Edition - April 2022

emergentexp.jpg

Copyright © 2022 Amanda Kool

Cover Artwork Design Copyright © 2022 Grey Matter Press

Book Design Copyright © 2022 Grey Matter Press

Edited by Anthony Rivera

All rights reserved

image019.jpg

Grey Matter Press

GreyMatterPress.com

Grey Matter Press on Facebook

Facebook.com/GreyMatterPress

Grey Matter Press on Twitter

Twitter.com/GreyMatterPress

DEDICATION

This one's for Phyllis, my Nan, who encouraged me to read her murder mystery collection at an early age (way too early!) and formed my love of all things both cosy and heinous.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About Amanda Kool

About Emergent Expressions

Preview THE DARK MATTER OF NATASHA from Emergent Expressions

More Dark Fiction from Grey Matter Press

---

Chapter 1

One of Us

---

The figure lay still and strangely flat against the grass, as if death had somehow deflated it.

I stared, not quite accepting what my eyes would have me believe. When the call first came, I assumed it was an alarm falsely raised. I assumed a natural, end-of-life event, confused for something more diabolical. I assumed someone, somewhere had made a mistake.

In the Auto on the way to the scene, watching the quiet streets slide past, I waited to be proven correct and routed back to District, heart intact.

Arriving at the sanctuary, passing through the police barrier tape, all my petty assumptions were torn. I swallowed repeatedly against a tightening throat until my mouth became too dry and my throat began to tickle. I crouched and tried not to cough.

Wet fur darkened and tapered to perfect points; light brown marred with red, turning dark. A flash of blue. There was no smell. It was a bitter, cold morning on which to die, but the cold kept such unpleasantries at bay. I cleared my scratchy throat. Who found her? I asked. I didn't know if she was a doe by looking but calling the slight figure 'it' didn't sit right.

The uniform—young, new—pointed. Yonder in the gathering crowd. Red knit cap and scarf.

I shifted on my haunches, my left hip protesting with a sharp jab of pain. A group of children milled behind the barrier. In the middle stood a small girl, with about five different hands on her shoulders and back, rubbing, patting. Her wiping tears away. Red knit cap.

My own eyes stung. You could hold yourself together until another, proximate someone came apart. That was my experience.

Poor child, I said. My voice cracked, and again I coughed it clear.

Aye. Hell of a thing to discover in so pristine a place. A long pause. What think you, Detective? Natural causes? Predation, I mean? His voice lifted, high and childlike at the end. Like a child's, it was full of hope.

I turned back to the rabbit, curled on her side and almost serene.

I had already ruled out canine, feline, avian. No tell-tale teeth or claw marks—a bird of prey would have taken the body with it. Moreover, most non-human animals didn't use tools. They certainly didn't use ribbons. When the breeze wafted exactly right, I could see a gleam of blue beneath the fur. She might have been a permitted animal. Perhaps once owned and loved, but I doubted it. Something—something other than her death—wasn't right.

I lifted my chin and looked across the sanctuary; from the distant rolling greens to the dark silhouettes of the trees, to the shadows deepening slightly as the sun struggled to break through the clouds. Thickets, briars, low stone fences. Home to an unseen multitude that, until now, had been safe.

I let my breath out, pushing with it words I never thought I'd utter. No. This was one of us.

Oh no. Oh my. Oh no.

I tuned out his litany and concentrated on the victim, already filling out the forms in my head. Time, date, sensory information, ambience. It had just gone 0700. Then the unwanted details that I could not help but commit to memory: the soft fur of her belly rippling in the morning draught, the slight grimace at her jaw, the veins in her ears translucent and perfect in their asymmetry and function.

Past function.

The doctor comes? I asked, in hope my question would stop his recital.

His patter of disbelief stopped mid-Oh no! Yes, ma'am. His eyes unfocused to the middle-distance as he checked his personal Heads-up Display, blinking, scrolling, his gaze tracking unseen data. He looked at me. She's at the bridge. Be here in a few.

I nodded. I wanted to turn the body over, see where this blood came from, but I couldn't, not yet. I stood, heat running into my ankles and feet with needling pangs. Morning mist layered the air, adding an element of gravitas to an already heavy scene.

Grainsgill River Sett Sanctuary, known to locals as simply 'the Sett', was the third largest sanctuary in the region, comprising 125 hectares of walking paths, ponds, forests, and fields. Fifty-five minutes from London by Auto.

Incorporated in its design was one of the largest air purification nets ever constructed. I read the information sign on the way in. It was why I could smell the grass so keenly, the peaty leaf litter, the clean, misty air. It was why I unhooked my discreet filtration cannula from my ears and nose, leaving it to hang loose about my neck. Fresh air.

We were about 400 meters from the south entrance, on the main path that people used to cut through to work and residence. It was well travelled. She was left here to be found.

The birds above, and in the surrounds unseen, continued their morning chorus, their songs soaring, yet muted by the mist. I wondered what, if anything, the birds had witnessed. I wondered whether they were as offended by the killing as those standing in the cold, amid the slow-flashing lights. I couldn't tell. Their song sounded the same to me as any other morning, but what would I know?

When I first saw it, I didn't think it was real. I thought maybe it was an imitation.

I shrugged. "Imitations have feelings too, remember? And how can you know she is not an imitation?"

I can't. I mean... It's just...the blood, right?

Indeed. Imitations bled as surely as we, but I didn't have the energy to school him on proper conduct regarding them.

Rabbits and mice were the first mammals to be artificially emulated. They were appealing, non-threatening, and in the case of the former, good for the general environment. They were also good PR for what was to come. Once we perfected them, it wasn't hard to begin the imitation program in earnest; create helpers for other species, including or own. Create those who could thrive in pockets of bad air quality or who could work in conditions we could not. But they were as real as we and were to be treated as such by law. He should know that.

I looked at the sky, uniform grey, and heavy. Rain was forecast. I hoped it held off.

She's arrived, he said.

I turned to see the doctor walking through the thin, holographic barrier. It briefly flickered green as her chip was identified and cleared, then settled back to yellow and black. District