He nods and lets go of my hand. I miss his touch the moment he lets go. Turning, I grab my bag and my shoes and get the hell out of there, not slowing down until I get into my car. The tires slip in the muddy driveway, making my heart race all over again. I rev the engine, not breathing until the car lurches forward and makes it onto the gravel road. I speed away, and once a mile has been put between us, I slow, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
A hundred years ago, when the house was built, there was nothing around it. Over the years, the city has stretched its limits, and I’m not too far from civilization. I pull over in a Walmart parking lot and enter the crime scene address in my GPS.
My hands are shaking and my heart is beating too fast. I can’t show up like this. My mental state is all over the place, and this dress is terrible. Everyone will wonder, and more importantly, I won’t be able to concentrate if I’m freezing cold.
I put the car in park and lean back, closing my eyes. Images of the gargoyles flash before me and I sit up, still trying to make sense of it.
“They’re men in costumes,” I say to myself. “Movie-quality costumes. I’ll go back and arrest them for…for…uh…freaking me out.” I turn off the car and grab my bag.
“Which doesn’t explain how they flew.”
Rushing through the rain, I enter the store, well aware how fitting I am for aPeople of Walmartfeature. Keeping my head down, I delve deeper inside, grabbing new socks, black leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, and a raincoat. I change in the restroom and toss the ugly black dress in the trash. I rake my fingers through my hair, then pull it into a messy braid over my shoulder.
I’m not one to put much effort into my appearance. If I had someone in my life to dress up for, it’d be a different story. But since my days are spent investigating grisly murders, I don’t see the point. Satisfied I look put together enough not to raise questions, I flip the hood up on the raincoat and go back to my car.
* * *
“And you didn’t seeor hear anything out of the ordinary before you found the body?” I ask the clearly shaken twenty-one-year-old boy who found the body.
“The storm was pretty intense then,” he says, arms wrapped around himself. “All we heard was wind and rain.”
I motion to his camera. “Were you recording the whole time?”
“Yeah.” He brings the camera strap over his head and hands it to me. We’re standing under a gazebo in the park, just yards from the body. I rewind the last video he took, going back a few minutes before they stumbled upon the body. I watch first, and don’t see anything out of the ordinary. The screen is small and the filming is jumpy. I rewind again and bring the camera to my ear, listening to the background noise.
“I need to take your memory card for evidence,” I tell him.
“I, uh, have some personal photos of my girlfriend on there.” He meets my eyes then looks away.
“Is she over eighteen?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’re fine. I’m not interested in them, just the clip of you finding the body.” I pop out the memory card and bag it. “You already gave your statement, so you’re free to go. I’ll make a copy of the clip and you can get this back in the morning.”
He gets off the bench, face still pale. “There’s one more thing,” he starts.
“What is it?”
“It’s probably nothing, but you asked if I saw anything out of the ordinary.”
“Did you?”
“No.” His brow furrows. “I smelled something. Like rotten eggs. We thought it was a backed-up sewer, you know, from all the rain. But I don’t smell it anymore. And it got stronger the closer we got to the…to…tohim.”
I go back to the body, which appears to have been dragged from the parking lot into the tall grass.
“Stupid rain washed away all my blood,” Tiffany says, coming up next to me.
“There might not have been much from the start,” I tell her, crouching down. I pull on latex gloves and carefully move the victim’s head to the side to look at his neck. “Puncture wounds, just like the others.”
“What could have done this?”
“Who, Tiff, who.” I stand, feeling a little dizzy. For the first time, I feel unnerved. I’ve always been confident it was awhonot awhatwhen it comes to murderers. But after what happened tonight…
Nope. Not going there right now.
I move to the other side of the body, imagining myself as the killer. I’m in the middle of pulling out this poor guy’s bones, sucking up his blood with something in the process. It’s dark and stormy, and I’m not expecting anyone to interrupt me. Then two idiots trying to record a viral video stumble upon me.
