Chapter 1

The Paddle Boat bar was quiet on a Thursday evening. It was a slow day in this part of Acre City. The bar was in a tourist spot by the Acre River, but the recent quarantine has closed the borders of the city from the rest of the world. People were getting sick and the government was scrambling to find the cause of this sickness. 

I was wearing a black overcoat over a blazer, a white shirt and cream pants. The shirt had a little stain of coffee that I tried to hide with my blazer consciously. As I entered the Paddle Boat bar, the bell on the top of the bar jingled, announcing my arrival. There wasn't much of a crowd, a couple in a corner booth to the back and 2 old men, seated a seat apart, sipping some beer. The bar was designed with a vintage look, with the seats sporting a dark green leather. 

As I approached the bar counter, I noticed 2 paddles crossed on top of each other hanging on the wall, a few trophies and what looks to be the bartender with another person holding a trophy in one of the pictures framed up on the wall. 

“Kayaking champion eh!?” I said in a gruff voice as I took a seat on one of the bar counter stools.

“Aye back in the day with my husband” the old bartender replied with a smile. His hair was much more gray in comparison to his photo in the picture, as well as the big potbelly on his abdomen. “What can I getcha? You look like you would enjoy a good stout!” he said with a big grin. 

“Ah! No alcohol for me! On the job you see!”, I said as I pulled out my detective badge from under my blazer for a moment and slid it back in again. “I heard the fish and chips here are to die for. I’ll get one of those and a glass of water.” 

“One number 12 please!” he calls to the back kitchen and a voice echoes back from behind the order. “Is there anything I can help you with, Mr Detective?” he said, keeping his smile. You glanced down to see his hands were rubbing together nervously but he quickly put them away as he noticed your eyes looking at them.

“Ah don't be nervous!’ I said with a friendly smile. I pulled my dark brown hair back and relaxed a little into my stool to ease his nervousness. “I am looking for a missing person, someone said she visited your bar last friday. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about her. I have a picture to help you remember.” I pulled out a picture of a woman in work overalls exiting a pale green van and slid it across the counter towards him. He looks at the photo for a moment and his shoulders slouch a little and sighs under his breath.

“Aye I remember her, she was here around 4.30 p.m. before the rush hour on the friday. She  was a little nervous lass. Didn't peg her for one of those shy types but she wasn’t really up for a conversation that night. Though there was something a little off about her. She ordered 2 glasses of pretty strong whiskey and gulped it down like water. Could’ve tried to enjoy the drink at least eh!” He tried to joke. “She was looking at the clock quite a number of times before she finally got up and rushed out.” He stroked his grey goatee in deep thought as he recollected his encounter.

“Anything else you could tell me about her?” I said in an impatient tone.

He ponders for a moment before his eyes open wide, “Ah! I remember why she looked a little off. She looked like she hadn't slept for weeks. Phoo... The bags under those eyes looked like they were carrying some heavy weights.”

“Number 12!” the voice from behind shouts, calling for the bartender to pick it up. However, when he returned, I was already long gone. Under the empty glass was a twenty dollar note for the food.

I was pacing down the pavement beside the river to head back to my car when I received a call. It was Anya, a fellow detective colleague of mine who was helping me with my case. “Hey Gale, we got a report of an Axon Chemicals van parked in the forest on the hills outside the city. I’m sending you the pin on the location.” I thanked her for the information and a moment after ending the call a pin on my phone’s map was dropped. 

I wasted no time as I reached my car, a silver second hand sedan, and began driving to the location. I zipped through the city and reached the border where the roads were blockaded by the military. No unauthorised people were going in and out of the city until the quarantine ended. As I arrived at the checkpoint a young man in military uniform stopped my vehicle. He was wearing a mask and stood a distance from my vehicle. He signaled me to bring down the windscreen of my side door. I complied accordingly.

“Hello officer, I’m travelling to the hills, chasing up a case.” I said as I pulled out my detective badge.

He looks at the badge and analyses it, “Stand by detective, we will run your badge ID.” he said as he recited my badge number into his walkie. A few minutes later his walkie comes to life giving me the all clear. The barrier lifts, letting me through it and out of the city.

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I continued driving for another 20 minutes, as I left the scenery of the city behind as it was replaced by open meadows. As I arrived at the foot of the hill, the meadows were left behind as towering pine trees lined the sides of the road as it meandered and sloped uphill. I finally came to a stop by the side of the road in the forested hill to find that there was no route for my car to turn to drive on. The forest was too thick for my car to drive through the bush as well.

“Strange…” I muttered to myself. How did this van end up inside such a place. I was confused as I looked at my phone to show it was at least a kilometer of walking into the forest. I got out a bag of gear from the trunk of my car and began walking into the forest. At this point of time it was almost 6 p.m. and the sun was setting. I needed to confirm the lead and call in the department quickly before it gets dark and I become a missing person as well.

As I walked through a gust of wind pushed through the the trees from behind me and a low fog swept in. A strange feeling of static rushed through me for a moment as my vision blurred. I stumbled a little but stabled myself against a tree. I rubbed my eyes and scanned my surroundings. The strong gust  had vanished and the fog had completely vanished. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. "I need a fucking coffee…" I mutter under my breath and kept walking.

I walked for about 10 minutes through the shrubbery before finding a clearing within the forest. I found the van, but the scene was unbelievable. The van sat in the middle of an unnatural forest clearing. It was as though a sphere sat where the van was now sitting. The ground caved downwards in a perfect half sphere. The Van sat right in the middle of the perfectly spherical hole. Some of the trees had chunks of themselves missing as something cleanly cut through the trunks in a perfect curved angle, the edge where the tree trunks were missing were so clean that there was not even any sawdust.

I pulled out my phone and dialled Anya’s number. The phone rang and she picked it up, “Di… ..ind …it? He… o! ...le!” Her voice was interrupted by some heavy static.

“Anya! Can you hear me! The van! I found it! Bring down forensics!” I shout through the static before the line cuts itself. I was unsure if she got the message. Like a cruel laughter, a thunderous rumble resounds overhead. I had not realised as dark clouds began to roll in from a distance. “Shit! I need to preserve the evidence.” I drop my bag of gear and pull out a new pair of latex gloves. I also pulled out a torchlight and turned it on. I slowly neared the edge of the hole, the slope down was still gentle enough to climb back out off.

I slid down the dirt, creating a trail in the perfectly cut out dirt hole. I shone the light of the torch at the van and began examining it. It was the same van in the picture you had. A pale green van. On the side in big fonts were Axon Chemicals printed onto them. 

It was baffling. There were no tire tracks from the outside of the hole to the inside. It was as though the van popped out of here from thin air. I pulled at the door handle on the driver’s door and found the keys still in the ignition. The dashboard was completely empty and looked like it was cleaned out and wiped, and so was the glove compartment. I had to be thorough and check under the seats. As I did, I found a torn blue piece of paper which looked like it was from a corner of a book or larger piece of paper. On the edge it had the number 19 in gold imprinted onto it. I picked it up and slipped it into an air seal bag to ensure it doesn't get contaminated. There was nothing else I could find at the front. I tried to see if I could look in the back but there was a wall between the front and the back portion of the van.

 I closed the front door and walked around to the back of the van and pulled at the door. It was not locked as I could pull it out a little but there seemed to be some sort of resistance. I put my back into it and pulled it harder before I heard a crack and the door swung open. Black particles swooshed out as I fell back. A giant mass fell on top of me and rolled over to the side.

That’s when the putrid smell hit me. I turned to my right where the mass laid to find myself staring at a corpse. It was a skeleton covered with burnt marks but I saw rotting flesh still clinging onto the bone. The bones there were meant to be its fingers were shattered laying around me and at the foot of the door in the back of the van.

My gut tightened at the sight but I had to recompose myself. I needed to collect the evidence before the rain rolls in and destroys everything. I began pulling out my phone and taking photos of the corpse. I turned to look at the interior of the back of the van to find the walls completely scorched black.There seemed to be some kind of melted plastic on the base of the van and some shards of glass among the rubble and ashes.

I swore under my breath as I analysed the scene before me. I tried sending the pictures via text to Anya just in case, but the photos were not sent despite having full bars.

I then heard a twig snap and I turned my head to the direction of the sound. Oddly enough I thought I saw a green figure move between the trees, but I shook the thought away. “ I must be going crazy.” 

The rain clouds began to roll over my head and the sound of thunder echoed through the empty forest. It was too dark to do anything but I couldn't leave the body. I needed to identify it at least. It grit my teeth, thinking about the scolding I was going to receive from the chief but I used my index finger and my thumb and gripped onto a tooth from the skull. I moved around the jaws to find a loose bottom canine and pulled it out. I slipped it into another air seal bag and put it in my gear bag. I quickly began to pack up when I began to hear the crunching of footsteps and light shining from the forest, but it was hard to see outside the hole. Maybe it was the forensics that Anya called, she must’ve heard what I said I thought to myself. 

“Hello? Anya is that you? Forensics team?” I called out. The footsteps stopped for a moment and a dead silence filled the air.

The silence broke before the footsteps began to move quicker towards me. I could tell that there were more than one person but no more than that. I was hyper alert, why didn’t they respond. I pulled my pistol slightly out from the holster under my blazer ready for anything and hid behind the body of the van, giving myself cover between these unknown people and me.

A bright white light filled the hole as two figures stood at the edge staring down on me. The torches they held were so bright it felt as though there were flood lights shining down around me. A low hum fills the air around me. Goosebumps raised up on my skin as an air or feeling of electricity hang through the air.

“Show yourself!” a female voice calls out. We have this area surrounded. As she said that more footsteps began surrounding the hole, getting louder by the minute. 

“I am Detective Gale from APD, I am unarmed and will shoot. Identify yourself!” I called out from behind the body of the van.

I heard the female voice and another male voice mumble and talk with each other before the male voice speaks out, “Detective! Please stand down, we are law enforcement as well. We mean you no harm.” As he finished his sentence I heard the hum lower in intensity to a faint buzz. I felt a heaviness lift off my chest as I slowly got up. With my gun pointing down, I looked up. The light that was there before had paled to one as strong as the torchlight in my hand.

I squinted to see a man and a woman in a maroon suit standing at the edge looking down at me. They were holding onto torchlights pointing down, no they weren’t torchlights… they were sticks, like tree branches and they were emitting light from the end of it. 

What kind of nonsense did I get myself into?