The shout startled George, and his worry for Andi reached new heights. He had known things were getting worse, but until this moment he had clung to the fragile illusion Andi had woven for him that it was manageable, that he had it under control; all he needed to do was meditate more. Looking at his partner’s pained expression, George knew this wasn’t something more meditating could alleviate. They were firmly in doomed territory, and he couldn’t do much except try to help Andi to find his way back to himself.
“Yes, yes, you’re Andi. You’re here with me. I’m here, Andi, I’m here. Concentrate on my voice. You can do it.”
The grip on George’s biceps got more painful. Andi’s eyes latched on to George’s face. His gaze was strangely empty, so empty it made George shudder. He grabbed Andi’s lower arms, dug his fingers in so violently, he was sure there would be bruises. The pain seemed to snap Andi out of whatever daze he was in. His gaze became focused again, and he loosened his hold on George’s arm yet didn’t let go, as if he needed the contact with human skin to stay anchored. George didn’t let go either, providing all the help he could in an attempt to not feel useless.
When Andi’s breathing finally started to even out, George took him in his arms, held him close, simply glad to have him back. “You have to stop doing this.”
“I wish I could.” Andi didn’t try to wiggle out of George’s hold.
“You said your grandmother was like you. Was it as bad for her?”
Andi shrugged. “I didn’t know her that well, and we never really talked about thegeschenkbecause she was a nasty old woman and I was a traumatized yet arrogant young man who had neither the intention nor patience to listen to what she had to say. I got the cliff notes—this is your destiny, it makes you special, use it as you see fit, blah, blah, blah, and I know she relied more heavily on her arthropod senses the older she got and the more her human senses deteriorated. I think she got more receptive over the years, but I have no idea if it came in waves as it does with me or if it intensified steadily or if she managed to gain any real control over it.”
“You had episodes like this one before?” George couldn’t hide his horror. And he hadn’t been there to protect Andi. Nobody had been there!
“Yes. Not as bad, obviously, because my senses weren’t as strong as they are now. The last one was while I was still a beat officer. It lasted four months, and at the end, I had already started as detective, my more astute perception helping greatly with the cases I was assigned to. Since then, I had good days and bad months, though nothing as intense as this. I think it started during our first case, when I tried to find Castain and had to connect to all the arthropods in the area.”
That Andi was so forthcoming with information showed how rattled he was and in turn worried George even more. Right at this moment, his partner should resemble a hedgehog, rolled up in a ball, blocking everybody out, stubbornly declaring how fine he was. Andi showing his soft underbelly made the problem appear even graver.
“You should be trying to convince me everything is fine.”
Still in the circle of George’s arms, Andi snorted. “Believe me, I would try if I thought I could get away with it. But you heard me. You saw what happened. No sense in keeping up a lie I can’t convince you to swallow.”
“So what do we do now?”
“What we came here to do.” Andi slipped from George’s embrace, leaving an emptiness George didn’t like but had to accept. “We’re taking a look at the cabin. Then we call CSI to go over it with a fine-toothed comb. They were roofied and abducted here, and since the persons who did it were inside the house, we can hope for some traces.” As if an internal switch had flipped, Andi was all business again, stomping toward the porch of the cabin/chalet. Shortly before he reached it, he veered to the left, where the garage was located. Following his partner, George reached him at the same time Andi opened the garage doors. Three cars were inside, a Jeep Wrangler, a Mercedes SUV, and a BMW X6. George whistled. “I’m not sure it still counts as a hunting trip when you arrive in this type of car and stay in a little mansion.”
“Apparently it does.” Andi entered the garage, stopped next to the BMW, and crouched. “There’s an oil leak here.” He extended a hand under the car, brought it back glistening with an oily film. “Fresh.” Andi wiped his fingers on his jeans, at the same time venturing farther into the garage, to the back where George spotted a heavy steel door with a wheel for a knob. Andi turned it until the door swung open, revealing a cooling room with several deer carcasses hanging from hooks.
“Let me guess, the room with no entry and food in it.”
Andi nodded. “Cooling rooms are notoriously well shielded against insects, for obvious reasons. This one is even better than most I have seen. They hate it.”
“I can imagine.” George watched while Andi closed the door again. They went back outside the garage and around to the front porch. The door was closed but not locked, another sign that things were wrong. Inside the air smelled stale. The huge living room with decadent leather couches arranged in front of an open-hearth fireplace was in disarray, bottles of beer standing and lying on the mahogany coffee table, pretzels and chips scattered on the ground.
“Looks like they had quite the party going.” George was careful where he stepped as to not disturb any evidence. Andi’s movements were more careless, indicating his channel to the arthropods was still opened wider than George would have preferred. His partner knew where the potentially important bits of evidence were located. He stared at the beer bottles with his head cocked to the side.
“I think the ketamine was given to them via the beer. It’s the most logical course of action.”
“Question is, how did the ketamine get into the beer, and how did the beer find its way here?”
“We can safely assume the victims didn’t do any major cleaning or stocking of their own. We have to ask who prepared the cabin for their stay and who would have been responsible for cleaning it up afterward.” Andi looked around the obvious chaos.
“It also gives us a timeline that fits the time of death. Their wives said they left for the cabin early on Thursday and were supposed to return tomorrow, so a full week of hunting. They spent the day killing those deer in the cooling room and then started to party. At some point they drank the roofied beer, which was the moment the killer or killers had been waiting for.” George furrowed his brows. “The only thing I don’t understand is why they would go to the trouble of herding them all the way out to Swamp Fox Trail when they could have drowned them right here in Lake Moultrie.”
“The danger of being found out.” Andi shrugged. “Think about it. Three pillars of society go missing during their hunting trip close to a lake. How long would it take until the first divers would be sent out? Plus, Lake Moultrie is comparatively crowded: fishermen, divers, people who go swimming or boating. You heard Berta, the forest ranger. The lake we found the victims in is too small for any of that. I’m just wondering if the killers were aware that the rotting corpses would poison the area and draw attention to it, thus wanting the bodies to be found at some point, or if they simply didn’t know.”
“As thorough as the whole operation seemed to have been, I’d say the first. They wanted the bodies to be found, but only after any kind of evidence was gone. Which awakes the small hope in me that thereisevidence we can work with.” George was inching back toward the entrance door. It was best to leave the crime scene to the pros. Andi followed him, getting out his phone to inform CSI they had another place to go over.
Instead of heading back to the car, Andi was walking around the cabin toward the woods, stomping over small bushes and into the gloom of the cypress trees. George followed hastily, Andi’s swaying gait telling him his partner had been hit by another wave of information and would need George soon. Andi was mumbling, the words becoming clear once George reached Andi’s side. “…too much input, no chance to find what I’m looking for, I don’t know what it is anyway, information twisting and tumbling, all too complex, can’t pull it apart, too many variables in that box, like a web, only stickier, I’m a fly, aren’t I? Trapped, too many layers, holding me, can’t get away, leave me be, need to find something, anything, not in the box, plop, heavy, strange smell, food, sex, where, down, up, outside, blobs here, three, no that was a week ago, two, yes, that could be the right day, something strange about them, something artificial overlaying something else, focus harder, it’s important, moths are so difficult to read, see everything different than other species, must be the ketamine, I know what it looks like for them, what is this other thing, I can almost taste it, slippery, the moths know it so well, what could that be?”
Andi kept walking, farther away from the cabin, George glued to his side, trying to swat twigs and branches out of the way because his partner clearly didn’t realize they were there. George wondered if he should try to snap Andi out of it, then dismissed the idea. Andi would never forgive him if he had to dive back in just because George was too chicken to listen to his ramblings, even if they were getting crazier by the second.
“What’s that, metallic, there’s more of the ketamine, click, click, all night long, where, it’s close, need to find it, click, click, sharp, stay away, ah, over there, it’s all here, the ketamine, the other thing, the females, the sharpness, metal, click, click….”
George had enough. He decided he could live with Andi’s wrath, but not with the strange sounds he was making, no doubt trying to imitate whatever sonic input he was getting from the arthropods. Sometimes the difference between the worlds humans and creepy crawlers lived in was more horror story than anything else. George grabbed Andi’s shoulder harder and shook him.
“Andi, snap out of it! Why are we here? What did you find?”
