The docks smelled like rot the day they found the body of Josias Garcia. That was about the only thing that made sense to Officer Portillo since the moment he woke up. Marta had been paranoid all week, raving about mysterious figures who were lurking around the house and staring at her through the living room window. She was worrying over it again that morning, spilling her coffee due to how intensely her hands were shaking. Marta was convinced there was some sort of serial killer on the loose since Marcella died and was convinced their Marcella was just his latest victim. Officer Portillo withheld any judgement for his wife. It was painful to accept the cruelty in losing a daughter. It was even more painful to accept that the person who took her was Marcella herself.

Whatever happened to Josias Garcia’s body was beyond cruel. Autopsy would later note that he’d suffered decompression sickness and severe pulmonary barotrauma. Some time before his body was found, he’d been dragged down to the depths of the ocean and then came up rapidly, the difference in pressure causing lethal air bubbles to form in his blood and rupture his lungs. He’d died within moments. Whatever mercy that may have awarded him was not apparent from the exterior.

Rounds of flesh had been taken out of his limbs and torso, like every aquatic predator in the north Pacific had taken their bite out of him. His skin was discolored with overlapping purple splotches, battered to the point of internal bleeding. Small needle-like holes were dotted all along his face and shoulders, which would later reveal to be the entry points where lethal amounts of stonefish, pufferfish, and other natural venom was injected into his veins. There were ten ways to hell this boy could have died.

Where was he even supposed to start with an investigation? The academy never trained him for this. The only things that could possibly be counted as evidence were the fisherman’s clothes on his body, the pile of rope he’d been dumped on, and the wet remnants of his blood that trailed back to the edge of the water.

Wailing echoed across the docks. Mrs. Garcia was kept well away from the sight of her son. The sight of a deceased child, especially one so gruesome, was far too much for any mother. Marta had night terrors for weeks. She lost herself in looking at Marcella’s empty chair at the dinner table and sat at the far end of the couch to watch TV, as if their daughter was still laying there to have her head scratched.

Officer Wilson marched over, lifting the yellow tape over his head. They were the only two officers assigned, and it was clear on Wilson’s face he was not happy about it.

“Anything?” Wilson asked.

Portillo shook his head. “Not much else to find. The bite pattern looks the same as all those fish we found yesterday at the beach, but I don’t know what kind of animal could possibly do this and there doesn’t seem to be any signs of any other activity. No footprints in a two-hundred foot radius–”

“–Okay, well if you have nothing better to do than stand around, go do interviews. I can’t understand a goddamn word coming out of their mouths.” Wilson squatted down to examine Josias further. He didn’t compliment his request with a please. He didn’t even meet Portillo’s eyes for the whole exchange. Typical. Wilson had half Portillo’s experience and still felt it was his right to speak to him like his senior.

Frustration made it difficult for Portillo to focus and not only due to his full day of patrol duty with his pleasant partner. He still found it ridiculous that almost the entire department and its resources were being allocated towards investigating the disappearance of Martin Gillman. Portillo thought himself a better man, a man who had the capacity for more empathy, but to have the entire department in a frenzy searching for a boy who most likely was off somewhere high out of his mind proved to only worsen his mood. There wasn't that kind of fanfare when his daughter was missing for days on end. And there was none for Josias. There was some solace in knowing his whole side of town would show out for his vigil as Marcella’s did only a year ago.

Beyond the yellow tape, Nelson and Antonio, the two dock workers who found Josias and Mrs. Garcia all looked haggard–for obvious reasons. Mrs. Garcia came to the scene in slippers and satin pajamas. Antonio had wrapped his fishing coat around her shoulders for warmth, leaving Antonio shivering in the wind.

Before he approached, Portillo grabbed an extra jacket from the patrol car and offered it to Antonio. He declined. Portillo flipped open his notepad, ready to translated from Spanish to English.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Garcia. We have to do our investigation before you can see your son,” Portillo said.

“¿Qué le pasó a mi hijo?” she screamed.

‘What happened to my son?’ The desperation clung around her throat. She’d been begging God more than him for an answer. Even so, he regrettably couldn’t offer one to her.

Portillo hesitated before putting his hands out to comfort her. He wasn’t Rafael the man, Rafael who saw the same thing these men did, or Rafael the father who knew what it was like to grieve, who was still grieving. When he was in uniform, he was Officer Portillo. “We don’t know yet what the circumstances are. For now I just need to know what you witnessed–”

“I already told your compadre what I just fucking saw, motherfucker.” Nelson almost motioned to push Portillo away, but must have considered the consequences mid-action. Instead he waved him off. “I don’t want to have to say it again.”

“I’m sure it’s frustrating. Officer Wilson’s Spanish is shit.” He could see on Nelson’s face that quip did little to build a rapport. Straddling this line between serious and safe was hard the last time he wore the badge but he didn’t remember it being this difficult. Somewhere in the last three years of his short time away, trust in the RCPD had sunk low. It seemed the town's trust in him sunk even lower. “All I need is for you to quickly run me through what you saw one more time.”

“Fine,” he relented.

Portillo got the details he needed. Josias’ body was found at 11am, they were the only two men who saw it since his body was so out of the way from the common footpaths. The only shred of helpful testimony was that in the murky water, they heard some sort of moan. Maybe a fish or marine mammal. Maybe whatever did that to him. Josias was a hard worker, he always showed up the earliest out of all the fishermen to set up the boats and do any logs. However it happened, if he fell into the water and was attacked by an animal, being alone so early in the morning meant no one was there to help. No one was there to watch him suffer. Maybe that was for the best.

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Wilson concluded that Josias must have climbed back onto the docks and dragged himself to where he was found. It wasn’t convincing, but there wasn’t any other theory that made much sense. In the end Wilson wanted to rule it an accident, just a freak animal attack. Still, a feeling in his gut told him there was something more he was missing.

“This might have something to do with the Gillman case.” Portillo voiced his thoughts aloud.

“Hrmm?” Wilson was still kneeling by Josias’ body, prodding the open wounds with his ballpoint pen. “If you’re finished with witness testimony, then I’m gonna pack up. Chief wants me back on patrol. The county is sending their medical examiner. You’ll wait here until they arrive, got it?”

“I got it,” Portillo confirmed, straining to maintain a professional tone.

After a while, Nelson and Antonio had gone to work and so it was only Mrs. Garcia and him. He stayed with her, at first as a comfort to the grieving woman, but soon more as a comfort to himself. He couldn’t look at Josias’ body anymore. The boy had to have been Marcella’s age, or rather the age she would have been. Portillo resolved to ask Victor and Javier what they wanted to do when they grew up and make sure it wasn’t boat fishing or packing at the docks.

The sloshing of waves usually faded into background noise, but as Portillo waited, he was unbearably aware of it.

“I’m sure he was a good kid,” Portillo offered, trying to take his thoughts away from the ocean.

Mrs. Garcia wiped at her cheeks and sniffed her runny nose several times, but clearing her sinuses amounted to little. Composing herself didn’t seem to be in the cards and so she continued crying and Portillo returned to staring at the wet dirt beneath his boots. He should've known what to say. He’d heard every combination of sympathetic phrases and he knew that none of them ever made it easier.

“We argued a lot,” Mrs. Garcia said, shakily. “He sold his car to get his fiance a ring. I tell him, she isn’t worth your sacrifices. But Josie was so sure about her. And then she ran out on him. He told me it was my fault, because I wasn’t welcoming to her. And before that, we argued about him getting that car at all. I already had a good car for him to use but he said it wasn’t reliable. We argued last night. My car broke down so he had to stay up fixing it so he could get to work early…”

The ambience of the ocean seemed to still. The quiet was worse. In his mind, Portillo couldn’t unsee Josias’ body bathed in the shining sun.

Mrs. Garcia sniffled again. “He was a good kid.”

Then a moan came from somewhere off. Not the moan of an animal, but a man. Antonio described the sound like someone in pain. He’d been right. Someone or something cried like they got the wind kicked out of them.

“Stay here,” Portillo instructed.

Mrs. Garcia nodded, but ran off towards the parking lot instead as soon as he’d stepped away.

He followed the noise around the corner of packing facilities and sheds until he came upon the source. It was the missing boy, Martin Gillman. He was barely recognizable. Portillo could only identify him since he had seen his picture plastered all over the station.

Brown curls hung off Martin’s head like seaweed, drenched and dripping. The pungent scent of brine struck Portillo’s nostrils. The boy was breathing heavily. He heaved his chest as if it weighed twice as much as it should and when he exhaled, water trickled from his lips. Then the boy spoke, broken and struggling, as if the effort was killing him.

“Help me…” he said and his next words were garbled, dampened into obscurity by the liquid pouring from his mouth.

“Martin Gillman? My name is Officer Portillo. I’m gonna get you help, okay?” Something about Martin’s posture put him on guard.

Martin was a known drug user and the department had swept under the rug any suspicion he was also dealing, but whatever he was on was unlike anything Portillo had ever seen. His eyes were open unnaturally wide but he seemed to look through Portillo instead of at him. The boy hobbled forward like something was constricting his muscles.

More words attempted to escape his frothing mouth. Portillo stepped closer. Closer. The closer he got, the more his panic rose. He’d later feel ashamed of his instinct to pull his gun from its holster, but in that moment, he decided to wrap his fingers around the grip.

Still, he walked. With every step, the sound of waves got louder and louder. Like he was walking into the ocean instead of towards the person the entire Redwood Cove precinct had been so occupied with finding. He found himself cheek to cheek with the boy, drawn in before he knew how he had gotten so close.

Portillo could finally understand the wet gurgles of what the boy had been trying to say. “Help me, Annabelle,” he said.

“Help me, Annabelle,” he repeated. “I need you Annabelle, please.”

Then Martin’s voice changed into an unsettling baritone. “I’ll find you. Your latina lap dog– that’s what Julie always called her …haha… She’s back from the dead just to stop me. Well, this time she can’t get in my way. Now I can show you just how perfect we are for each other.”

“Y–y–you! You were the one who desecrated my daughter’s grave. Latina lap dog…I–I knew it had to be one of you,” Officer Portillo said shakily.

Standing so near this boy made his legs feel heavy and his thoughts slow. His muscles were locking and his attempt at moving, even getting one foot away from Martin, felt like wading against a rushing current. Portillo forced himself through that resistance and shoved himself away.

Even though Martin’s drenched hair obscured his face, Portillo could still see the look in his eyes. And he would never forget it. The look was one of terror, pleading, and a mournful apology. Martin’s body started to contort. The only way Portillo could describe it, and what he would later note in his official report, was that his body began to slither. His spine undulated like he was a shark attempting to swim using nonexistent fins. Martin lunged towards him.

Just as he swung his gun out of its holster and just before Martin reached him, something came out of nowhere and jumped on the boy. Several dogs rushed from out of the shadows of the dock buildings, snarling and gnashing their teeth. One wrapped its jaw around his leg, another two around both his arms. A fourth pounced into the air and clawed at his back. All the sense Portillo could make of the situation was lost as one dog after another ravaged the boy.

Portillo would spend several weeks making fruitless attempts to forget the sounds of the attack. Dogs barking. Flesh tearing. Teeth clamping together like vices. Water spilling to the ground from the boy's mouth. Shifting ocean waves. But there was one sound in his memory that should have been, but wasn’t. Maybe Portillo had the fortune of forgetting this one detail.

Martin Gillman’s jaw stretched open so wide it was about ready to pop out of its socket. Yet, he did not scream.

Portillo found the strength to run. He ran as far and as fast as he could. He should have returned to the station. More so, he should have waited with Josias’ body. But fuck duty.

He didn’t know where he was even headed as he bolted from the cluster of warehouses, past the parking lot, and away from the docks entirely. His thoughts were all clouded and wrong. He wanted to go home. His thoughts first went to his wife and children, safe at home, but dissuaded himself against leading those animals right to them. Instead he let his legs lead him to someone else he could trust.

Fear for his life had carried him all the way to Jacinto’s apartment complex. He had no idea where the energy or endurance had come from, but all of it was draining out of him the moment he stopped to slam his fist on his brother’s front door. When the door swung open, Portillo collapsed.