A small cabin on stilts stood at the foot of a mountain, right on the edge of the sea. Yellow police tape cordoned it off, its periter marked by footprints in the sand. The only sound was the constant murmur of the surf.
"Whew... here we are," Richard said, catching his breath and tugging at his collar. "Any longer, and... and the rats... those damned rats would have devoured what was left."
For a police officer, he was surprisingly out of shape.
"What was this place before?"
Lu Li gazed at the silent mountains in the distance, where a few birds circled high above the peaks.
"A guard shack. Hey, you lot! Don't wander off!"
Richard suddenly yelled at so children playing on the shore. With a peal of laughter, they scampered back.
He shook his head and explained to Lu Li, "Wild animals used to co down from the mountains and wander into town, so they built a few of these shacks as watch posts to give a heads-up. Eventually, the animals got wise and stopped coming around. The shacks were abandoned and beca shelters for the holess."
He ducked under the police tape, gesturing for Lu Li to follow. "One of the victims was a transient," he continued. "He'd been squatting here for so ti, right up until he was murdered a week ago."
Richard lifted the tape, glanced at the wooden steps to make sure there were no new footprints, then climbed up to the cabin and pushed the door open.
Creak.
The piercing shriek, far louder than the groaning steps, ended abruptly. Swollen with moisture, the door protested as it opened, scraping heavily against the floorboards.
Lu Li remained at the foot of the stairs, his eyes scanning the area. There was nothing remarkable, just an overturned boat on the beach.
Richard glanced back, and Lu Li climbed the steps into the cabin. It was as small as it looked from the outside. A bed, a table, and a wardrobe consud most of the space, leaving only a cramped walkway between them.
A charred patch of floorboards marked the space near the entrance. Above the table, a single window looked out over the sea.
"We only discovered the cri scene a week after the fact. aning, when we found this place two days ago, the people inside had already been dead for a week."
Richard remained by the door, careful not to disturb the scene, as did Lu Li. "It started when a local reported his father missing," he continued. "The old man went hunting in the Fallen Leaves Mountains and didn't co back. That was over a week ago. We searched the mountains with a volunteer party but found nothing. Then, one of my officers was passing this shack and caught the sll of decomposition. We broke down the door and found three bodies inside."
Richard gestured toward the bed, the charred patch on the floor, and the half-open wardrobe. "The mailman—the killer—the missing hunter, and the holess man."
The sea breeze had cleared out the stench of rot and damp. At least, Lu Li couldn't detect a thing.
"It was a grueso scene. The hunter's charred remains were on the floor. A torch had been shoved down his throat with enough force to pierce his chest. We found scraps of rope nearby. From the looks of it, he was bound before they set him on fire."
[I set the hunter on fire, he laughs joyfully]
Lu Li silently compared Richard's account with the entries in the diary.
Richard consulted his report, continuing, "Next to the bed was the mailman's body, completely dried out. His feet were nailed to the floorboards with a fishing harpoon."
[The bed is drowsing. I want to sleep. The hunter wants to sleep, too. I get into bed, the bed shoves
away.]
[Shadows writhe all around. I stab them with the harpoon. They quiet down.]
"His eyes had been gouged out and stuffed inside an alarm clock. His ti of death is close to the hunter's, but it's clear the mailman died later."
[A knock at the door. The alarm clock returned. I told it to go away, or morning will never co. It wanted my eyes. I gave them to it. It tricked .]
"The constant rain made the cabin damp. A week's worth of mold grew over everything, which made evidence collection a nightmare. After carefully examining the scene, we found another corpse in the wardrobe—the holess man." Richard paused, his tone shifting. "He was wearing a sweater. I think you understand what that implies."
[The sweater is peeking out of the wardrobe. It's knitting another sweater. It's not my size. It's for the other sweaters.]
"The body was too decomposed for a positive ID. We could only tell it was a man wearing a brown sweater. A local rembered seeing the transient wearing one like it, and since no one else was reported missing, we assud it was him."
"Now, about the killer—the mailman." Richard pointed to a dark stain on the floor near the bed.
"He worked at the post office. According to his father and neighbors, he was perfectly normal until a few days before the murders, when he found a diary in a cabin on the beach. Yes, this cabin. And that sa diary."
"The mailman's father rembered the night his son was reading the diary. He thought the boy was hallucinating—said he could hear whispers. The father brushed it off, thinking it was just the neighbors or the radio. But then his son's condition worsened rapidly. He started talking to himself, saying he heard the sea and the whispering. The next day, he was gone."
"His father wasn't worried, since the mailman was often away for days on his route. Not until we knocked on his door."
The investigation stalled. On the surface, it looked like a simple case of a man going insane and killing two people. But the police had a hunch it might be connected to a cult, or sothing supernatural. They contacted Mistress Marylin at the House of Spiritual Divination, and she passed it on to the United Exorcist Organization.
"My colleague—the one who lost his mind after reading the diary—noticed sothing odd," Richard said, holding the report out to Lu Li. "It's the last line."
Lu Li took the report and flipped to the last page. A note was scrawled in the margin with a marker, ending in a heavy, deliberate period, as if the officer who wrote it had been deeply perplexed.
[Odd. Why no signs of decomposition on the suspect.]
"The photos and autopsy results are next," Richard said.
Lu Li turned to the appendices at the back of the report. It contained cri scene photos, pictures of the suspect, and the full autopsy findings.
Given the supernatural elent, the local police had clearly taken the case seriously. The detailed photographs and thorough forensic report were proof of that.
After scanning the report, Lu Li handed it back to Richard and surveyed the cramped cabin once more.
"Where are the Bloody Tentacles?" Anna asked.
Lu Li frowned and shook his head.
The Bloody Tentacles were lurking on the roof, but Lu Li couldn't see them from inside the cabin.
Reviews
All reviews (0)