The flashing blue and red lights painted the street outside The Rat’s Nest in a chaotic, strobing pattern, a stark counterpoint to the grim silence that had settled over the crime scene. Inside, the air hung heavy with the lingering scent of stale beer, vomit, and the coppery tang of blood that no amount of industrial cleaner could erase.
Detective Morse, a man whose weary eyes had witnessed more than their fair share of human darkness, surveyed the scene with a practiced detachment. The partygoers, their faces pale and drawn, had long since been ushered away, their drunken revelry replaced by the cold, sterile procedures of a homicide investigation.
"Alright, Davies, let's go over what we know," Detective Morse said, his voice rough with exhaustion. He rubbed a hand over his weary eyes, the fluorescent lights of the Rat's Nest buzzing overhead like a swarm of angry wasps.
Davies, still pale from the shock of witnessing the aftermath of the night's horrors, flipped through his notepad, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Two confirmed fatalities: Sarah Jennings, multiple stab wounds, pronounced dead at the scene. Unidentified male, cause of death unclear, pending autopsy, but suspected gunshot wound. Witnesses claim they saw him get trampled during the panic."
He paused, his gaze flicking towards the hallway where Chloe had last been seen. "And then there's Chloe Walker. Last seen heading towards the back rooms with Sarah before the first scream. No sign of her since. No body. No leads."
Morse grunted, his gaze sweeping over the scattered debris, the bloodstains that seemed to mock their efforts to impose order on the chaos.
Davies continued: "Witnesses say she and Jennings were… close. Part of a group that kept to themselves. Some talk of strange rituals, weird interests. Occult stuff."
Morse shrugged, his expression a mixture of skepticism and weary acceptance. "Kids these days. They dabble in anything to feel edgy, to chase a thrill. But this…" He gestured to the bloodstains, the overturned furniture, the lingering sense of violence that permeated the air. "This isn't some teenage goth phase gone wrong."
Davies nodded, the blacks of his eyes wide with a mix of fear and morbid fascination. "The ME said the wounds… Sarah's wounds… they were… savage. Overkill. Like an animal attack."
Morse frowned, a chill crawling down his spine despite the stifling warmth of the basement. "Animal? No animal I've ever seen uses a blade." He paused, his gaze sharpening as a thought occurred to him. "And there's something else. No weapon. Forensics found traces of blood on the floor, on the walls, but no sign of the murder weapon itself. It's like it vanished."
Davies shifted uncomfortably, his gaze darting towards the darkened hallway, as if expecting the shadows themselves to offer up an answer. "What do you think happened here, Morse? Was it some kind of cult thing? A sacrifice? I've been reading about those online…"
Morse cut him off with a weary sigh. "Let's stick to the facts, Davies. We've got two dead kids, one missing, and a whole lot of questions. It’s a regular murder until we have something more concrete," Morse continued, his voice firm, "let's leave the occult theories to the internet. Right now, we need to focus on finding Chloe Walker. Dead or alive, that girl holds the key to this whole mess."
He ran a hand over his tired face, his gaze hardening with a grim determination. "Talk to the other students. Dig into their backgrounds, their social media, their friends. There's something going on here, Davies, something darker than a few kids playing with Ouija boards. And I intend to find out what it is."
A young officer, his face pale beneath the flashing red and blue of the squad car lights, appeared at the basement door. "Detectives," he said, his voice hushed, a tremor of unease running through his words. "We found something in the woods nearby. I think you should see this."
Morse, his instincts already on high alert, straightened, a knot of apprehension tightening in his gut. "What is it?"
The young man swallowed hard, his gaze darting towards the shadows that clung to the edges of the street, as if even the night itself held unspoken terrors. "It's… it's hard to explain, sir. It's like… a cave-in, but…" He trailed off, shaking his head, his expression a mixture of confusion and something akin to fear. "Just come see for yourselves."
Morse exchanged a look with Davies, a silent acknowledgment of the shared unease that had settled over them. Whatever awaited them in the woods, whatever had sent that look to the young officer's face, wasn't going to be easily explained, easily forgotten.
"Lead the way," Morse said
The woods, usually just a dark backdrop to the town's bustling life, felt different tonight. The air hung heavy, thick with a humid stillness that seemed to press in on them, the usual nocturnal symphony of insects and rustling leaves replaced by a disconcerting silence. The flashing lights of the squad cars, slicing through the darkness, only intensified the unsettling atmosphere, painting the trees in a chaotic, strobing pattern of light and shadow.
Morse, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered weapon, followed the young officer's flashlight beam, its pale circle a meager defense against the encroaching darkness. Davies, his youthful face drawn and pale, stuck close to his partner, his gaze darting nervously at the shadows that seemed to writhe at the edge of the light.
"It's just up ahead, sir," the young officer said, his voice tight with a nervousness he couldn't quite conceal.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
They emerged into a small clearing, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and pine needles, and Morse felt his breath catch in his throat. The ground before them was a jumbled mess of earth and stone, a gaping chasm ripped into the forest floor as if some huge hand from the sky had torn the earth asunder.
"Jesus…" Davies breathed, his voice barely audible above the sudden rush of wind through the trees.
Morse approached cautiously, his gaze scanning the debris field, searching for any sign of… anything. A body. A clue. An explanation for the unnatural violence that had been visited upon this seemingly peaceful patch of woods.
"It's like… an explosion," the young officer said, his voice filled with awe. "But there's no scorch marks, no sign of explosives. It's like the ground just… opened up."
Morse knelt down, his hand hovering over a jagged shard of rock, its edges sharp as a razor. It wasn't just any rock. It was obsidian, blacker than night, its surface shimmering faintly in the flashlight beam as if imbued with an unnatural light.
He picked it up, turning it over in his hand, the cold, smooth surface sending a shiver down his spine. He'd seen obsidian before, in museums, in dusty anthropology textbooks. It was volcanic glass, formed in the heart of the earth, a substance both beautiful and dangerous.
And it didn't belong in these woods.
He stood, his gaze sweeping over the debris field.
"Any idea what could have caused such a thing? A cave-in maybe. There any old mines or caverns in this area?"
"Cave-in?" Davies echoed, his gaze sweeping over the unnatural sharpness of the obsidian shards, the way the earth seemed to have been ripped apart from rather than collapsing inward. "Don't think so. This... this feels different."
He turned to the young officer, "You check with the local geological survey? Any records of old mines, caverns, anything like that in this area?"
The young officer shook his head, his face pale in the strobing light. "No, sir. This part of the woods is mostly bedrock. No history of mining or anything like that."
Morse grunted, his gut clenching with a sense of unease that went beyond the unsettling scene before him. The Rat's Nest murders, the missing girl, the whispers of strange rituals and occult practices... and now this, a chasm ripped into the earth, spewing forth shards of obsidian as if the very ground itself had been possessed by something dark and evil.
The pieces didn't fit. Not yet. But as he stood there, the scent of damp earth and something else, something metallic and vaguely unsettling, filling his nostrils, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were standing on the precipice of something far bigger, far more dangerous, than they could possibly imagine.
"Get more men out here. I want this entire area cordoned off," he barked, his voice sharp, cutting through the uneasy silence. "And someone call the University. See if their geology department has any records of this area. I want to know everything there is to know about this… anomaly."
He paused, his gaze fixed on the jagged maw of the chasm, the darkness within seeming to beckon him.
The scream, sharp and piercing, sliced through the tense silence of the clearing, sending a jolt of adrenaline surging through Morse's veins. He spun towards the sound, his hand instinctively going to his weapon, Davies and the young officer right behind him, their flashlights cutting through the darkness, searching for the source of the commotion.
They found the young female officer, barely out of her early twenties, sprawled on the ground a few yards away, her face pale, her eyes wide with terror, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her flashlight lay beside her, its beam casting an eerie, elongated shadow that danced in the darkness.
"Officer Parker!" Morse barked, rushing to her side, his gaze sweeping the surrounding trees, searching for any sign of a threat. "What happened? What did you see?"
She just pointed a trembling finger ahead.
The three beams of light converged on the scene beyond the fallen officer, illuminating a tableau of carnage that sent a wave of nausea rolling through Morse's gut. The ground, once a carpet of fallen leaves and pine needles, was now a macabre mosaic of animal carcasses. Deer, rabbits, foxes, owls, even a wolf, their bodies grotesquely contorted, limbs scattered, entrails spilling out like spilled paint on the forest floor.
But it wasn't the sheer number of dead animals that turned Morse's blood to ice. It was the way they'd been killed.
The flesh was torn, yes, but not in the ragged, haphazard way of a predator's feast. These wounds were precise, surgical almost, the limbs severed cleanly, the torsos opened with a chilling efficiency that spoke of a knowledge of anatomy, a deliberate cruelty that defied any natural explanation.
And there wasn't a drop of blood.
The carcasses, pale and drained, seemed to have been emptied of their vital fluids, the earth beneath them dry, as if whatever had taken their lives had also consumed their very essence.
"Jesus," Davies choked, his voice barely a whisper, his hand instinctively going to his mouth as if to stifle the bile rising in his throat.
The other police officer looked pale and shaken, his flashlight beam trembling, casting erratic shadows that danced over the gruesome scene.
Morse, his mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the carnage, the unnatural precision of the killings, felt a chill crawl down his spine, a primal fear that had nothing to do with the sight of death and everything to do with the chilling awareness that they were dealing with something far beyond their experience, far beyond their understanding.
"Fuck," Morse quietly muttered.
"Fuck," Morse agreed. It was all he could manage in the face of the carnage, the sheer scale of it pressing down on him like a physical weight. This wasn't just some sick prank, some twisted act of animal cruelty. This was… something beyond that.
He forced himself to move, to take a step closer, his gaze sweeping over the scene, trying to analyze it, searching for a clue, a pattern, anything that could offer a sliver of understanding in the face of the inexplicable.
His eyes caught a glint of something metallic amongst the scattered carcasses. He knelt down, carefully parting a tangle of bloodied fur and broken bones, and felt his stomach clench as he saw it.
A metal spike, twisted and barbed, its surface dull and stained with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.
He looked back at the young female officer, still huddled on the ground, her eyes wide with terror, and then back at the gruesome tableau before him, the silent scream of the slaughtered animals hanging heavy in the air.
His gut, hardened by years on the force, years of witnessing the darkest corners of the human soul, told him he needed to hurry and get to work. Otherwise more corpses would pile up.