The smell of copper hit me first. You never really get used to it - that metallic tang that sneaks into your nostrils and crawls under your skin. This morning, it clashed with the scent of wet autumn leaves as I ducked under the yellow police tape.
“Jeez, get a whiff of that,” came Luis’s voice behind me. “Smells like an electrical fire over here, right, Matt?”
Seven years on the force with him, and I still hadn’t adjusted to his poorly timed enthusiasm. I'd seen enough death in my fifteen years of police work to know better than to get excited about scenes like this. “Yeah, it’s... pungent,” I muttered, bracing for the conversation I didn’t have the energy for.
Luis wasn’t deterred. “I mean, I know the chief dragged you out of your beauty sleep for this, but it has to be a bloodbath up there. First serial killer in town history, man!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Gonzalez,” I said, stepping carefully over a root. The morning fog hung to the ground like a veil. “For all we know, this could be a hiker who got unlucky with a bear.”
“So no imagination today, huh?” he mumbled.
We rounded a bend, and the quip I had ready died in my throat.
The young woman’s body lay on a flat stone. Her skin looked like it had been bleached in the sun. No decomposition, no bloat—just eerie stillness. Her arms lay parallel to her sides, legs straight as if someone had arranged her like a mannequin.
Luis swore under his breath.
“This wasn’t an animal,” I said, pulling on my gloves. “Let’s start the preliminary examination. Maybe we can—”
I stopped mid-sentence, noticing Luis hadn’t moved closer.
“Matt,” he started, voice uneasy.
“What now?”
He sniffed the air. “Everything still smells like blood.”
I shot him a withering look. “Thank you, genius. We’re standing over a dead woman.”
“No, seriously. Look at her. Do you see any blood?”
I hesitated, then crouched closer. He was right. There wasn’t a single drop. No wounds, no stains, nothing. She looked like she’d simply decided to lie down and die.
“What the hell killed you?” I murmured, leaning in to examine her face. As I looked, a single drop of crimson fluid snaked its way out of her mouth, a dark river enclosed by porcelain banks.
I pulled her jaw downward and a wave of putrid breath evacuated her mouth. I recoiled, suffocated by my gag reflex. Luis staggered backwards, hiding his face in his arm.
“Holy crap,” I gasped, steadying myself. The source was obvious now. Her mouth was filled with dried blood, thick and dark, staining her teeth like a grotesque ink spill. The contrast was jarring—her teeth were pristine white beneath the crimson coating.
“Luis,” I called. “You need to see this.”
“Hell no,” he shot back.
“Just get over here, coward.”
Reluctantly, Luis shuffled over and peered into her mouth.
“What am I looking at?”
I shone my light. “There. On her tongue.”
He squinted, then froze. His eyes finally focused on the scene.
Carved into the woman’s tongue was a symbol: two curved lines meeting in an almond shape, with a circle in the center. The blood around it was still moist, glistening in the dim light. The more I stared, the more it seemed to glow on its own, sending needles through my temple. I stepped back to force down the nausea.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“What could even do that?” Luis exclaimed, his voice echoing through the clearing.
“Subtle, as always,” I muttered, glancing at the curious stares of other officers. “Look at the blood though—it’s fresh. How long has she even been dead?”
Luis grimaced. “I have a better question: What killed her?”
I stood, brushing off my gloves. “That’s for the ME to figure out. Our job is to find out who brought her here and why.”
Luis smirked. I knew that look.
“If you say the word ‘serial killer,’ I swear—”
“Relax, man,” he said with exaggerated innocence. “I’m just calling the ME. Maybe they’ll help us find our person of interest.”
I shook my head as he walked off, his grin visible even from behind.
I turned back to the body, and shook my head. “I hope so.”
...
The cold morning air nipped at our skin as Luis and I entered the precinct. The Jane Doe case was already a top priority, a stark reminder that the usual quiet of our town had been shattered.
“You think it’s some twisted group?” Luis asked, breaking the silence. “You know, ritual marks, cryptic symbols, all that creepy cult stuff?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “We need facts, Luis, not conspiracies.”
Luis had always been the more imaginative one, his mind racing with wild theories. We'd been partners for years, so I’ve grown accustomed to being the grounded one between us. But even he seemed unsettled by the case. Despite his bravado, the weight of the body’s strange condition and the carved symbol hung heavy between us.
"I can’t stop staring at it.” He said, staring at the crime scene photos. “It’s like it's trying to crawl off the page.”
I looked at the strange markings, a knot tightening in my stomach. Something felt off about this case that went beyond a simple homicide.
Suddenly, the room jolted. A low rumble shook the building, making windows rattle and chairs clattering.
Our town of Greystone sometime in the last six months has experienced several small tremors. Originally, they drove the townsfolk into hiding. Rural Massachusetts isn't exactly known for its regular earthquakes. But as time goes on, we have grown accustomed to the strange occurrence.
"Good lord," Luis exclaimed, steadying himself. "That's the third one this month."
"Yeah," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "And we're in Massachusetts, not California."
"Unnatural," Luis insisted. "What if it's connected to the group?"
"It's not the group, Luis!" I snapped, frustration boiling over. Luis may have been my friend, but sometimes his wild theories drove me to the wall.
"So you admit there's a group?" he teased.
I ignored him, the strange occurrences gnawing at my mind. There was more to this case than met the eye, and I was determined to uncover the truth, no matter how bizarre it might be.
Luis put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Hey, as long as we work hard, and study all this,” He said, gesturing to the board of evidence we had set up, “I’m sure this case will get solved in no time.”
...
Hours later, the precinct was quiet, the kind of silence that sinks into your bones. Luis had fallen asleep in his chair, head tilted back, mouth open. I couldn’t blame him. We’d stayed hours after our shift ended, going over the evidence again and again, only to find ourselves tangled in more questions.
Our Jane Doe had no visible wounds, no signs of a struggle, and no decomposition. The symbol carved into her tongue didn’t match any known religion or cult. And the blood filling her mouth? We wouldn’t know its origin until the ME’s report came in.
I was debating whether to wake Luis when Detective Tom from the night shift approached, his phone in hand.
“You and Gonzalez are leading the murder investigation, right?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
I nodded. “What’s the issue?”
“The ME finished their report. They want one of you to head down to the office. Now.”
I frowned, pinching the bridge of my nose and squeezed my tired eyes shut. “At three in the morning? Why? Can’t they just meet with us later?”
Tom hesitated, his expression uneasy. “Apparently, the autopsy took a lot longer than it should have. They have had the body for 10 hours. I don’t know what happened, but they sounded… scared.”
A chill ran down my spine. I glanced at Luis, still snoring softly, and sighed. “I’ll go. Let Gonzalez sleep. The man runs on caffeine as it is. Another sleepless night might kill him.”
Tom nodded, stepping aside as I grabbed my coat. The precinct’s fluorescent lights buzzed faintly as I made my way out, the night air biting at my face. Something about this case had me on edge, a gnawing feeling I couldn’t shake. And if the ME was scared, I had a feeling the worst was yet to come.
