Amicia was in a small conference room in the city hall connected to the police station. She hadn’t had a chance to speak to the captain about what Susie told her. Why did the police just ignore Emily Jacobson constantly disappearing from her home? This went on for at least a month before Emily, her brother, and Blythe Dannelly were found in the waters.

Then there was the fact that Susie heard a baby’s cry out there in the water. Did it plan on taking Susie as well? Maybe if Susie hadn’t kept outside of the park that day, the Variant would’ve taken all of the Jacobson children. Amicia had to get out to the state park today. It was time to check the waters for herself. She’d have to prepare a few things first. A gun wasn’t bad, but she’d need something stronger to fight a variant. It was always difficult to locally source what she needed, but maybe at the least maybe she could find peach wood. The properties of peach-wood were said to help ward spirits. Weapons made from it could sap a spirit’s strength and sculptures carved from peach wood could hold their attention, distracting them from their would-be victims.

Right now, the conference room was filled with a smattering of reporters. There were also police officers loitering around. It seemed that the conference was open to the public too. She saw Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson sitting in the back. Mr. Jacobson seemed like he wanted to talk to her, but hesitated at seeing the other people in the room. Stevie was in the corner of the room, talking to her fellow officers.

It seemed like there was a lack of press here. Amicia didn’t know if that was because they didn’t care or if the town just didn’t have many news outlets. After the captain’s announcement, Amicia imagined quite a few more would fly into the city. Serial killers always got good press coverage.

The captain came in after another half hour. Immediately, photographer’s started taking pictures of him. He came in with another well dressed man in tow, along with a bevy of other officers. The well dressed man stood behind the podium. The officers stood in a row behind him. He tapped gently on the microphone and began speaking. “Good afternoon everyone, I am Mayor McCory and here with me are Captain Fellows and his fellow officers. I have an unfortunate but important announcement to make. Effective immediately, the city of Pocatello will be enforcing a curfew. Everyone must be at home and off the streets by 8:00 PM. In addition, anyone found in the Massacre Rocks State Parks will be taken in for questioning.” The crowd bursted in chatter at the Mayor’s announcement. The public in the back had worried faces. The reporters in the front all had their hands raised for questions.

The mayor went on. “I’m sure you all have questions and we’ll get to each one at a later portion of this conference. Right now, Captain Fellows will fill you in on more details as to why we have to put this curfew in place. Captain Fellows.” The mayor stepped back and gestured to the captain.

“Thank you Mayor McCory.” The captain took the mayor’s place on the podium. “This is hard to say. As you all know, the bodies of Emily Jacobson, Sam Jacobson, Blythe Dannelly, and Frederick Mondat were discovered. In the following days, we’ve had search and rescue crews combing the area. There have been a number of additional bodies found since.”

The crowd exploded. There were questions being thrown all around from every part of the room.

“Captain! Captain! How many bodies?”

“Captain, who else was found? Were they from the town?”

“Captain, how is it you were unaware of all these disappearances?”

“Captain, is it true that all of the bodies had markings? Are we facing a serial killer in Pocatello?”

The captain continued on, “Please everyone. We’ll have everything answered in just a few moments. If you all would just-”

Suddenly, the mayor behind him started coughing. It started as a small sound, but it kept escalating. From a small clearing of the throat, He was now fully hacking and wheezing as he grasped at his throat. He was choking now as he started coughing up water. He collapsed on the floor as people around gasped in horror. Everyone seemed frozen as they watched the man kneeling on the floor, desperately trying to find air. He had his mouth open and he was now clawing at his throat. His eyes were wildly bouncing around looking for anything that could help him.

Amicia ran up to the podium. When she moved, everyone seemed to unfreeze. The captain yelled out “Someone get a doctor here, now!” Amicia knew the doctor wouldn’t make it. It wouldn’t matter if he did. One of the officers rolled the mayor on his back. His eyes were bloodshot. His arms and legs were flinging around in his panicked struggle. The other officers tried to hold him down as one of them started to perform CPR. The mayor threw up more and more water from his mouth.

Amicia kneeled next to the mayor. She ripped the tie off his chest. Then she tore his shirt open. She saw them now. Dozens of markings on his body. They started from his neck and started spreading across his form. Tiny little hands the size of an infant’s. It was as if an invisible child was climbing across his body. The marks were blue-ish black like the mayor had started bruising wherever they went. She could see it in the mayor’s eyes. He could feel the marks as they seem to just appear from nothing. He flinched in pain whenever a new one came into being. He would’ve screamed from them if he wasn’t desperately trying to breathe.

The officer kept pressing down on his chest. She even tried to blow air into his mouth, but she got a mouth full of water for her trouble. She started coughing then too. A cough that turned into her emptying her stomach on the floor. Another officer took over her spot on the mayor’s chest. People in the conference room were screaming and yelling. Everyone was up on their feet. A few had already run out, including the Jacobsons. A few brave or perhaps stupid reporters were still taking pictures. Deputy Stevie Fellows was in the crowd, ushering people out. The room was a frenzy of movement as everyone watched the mayor slowly drowning.

The officer’s tried their best. They did as they were trained to, but nothing could train them for this. The mayor was fading. It was a horrible way to go, but that was the norm when dealing with Variants. More officers from the police side of the building rushed in. They took over the scene with Deputy Fellows directing them. Soon enough the room was empty of civilians and press. An ambulance team came in to check over the mayor. They made it official. As of this afternoon, the mayor of Pocatello was dead by drowning.

Amicia was sitting in the same meeting room the first time she walked in. She was given a T-Shirt and some jeans to replace her shirt and slacks that had gotten soaked by the mayor’s retchings. Thankfully the station also had a shower room. She pressed her hands on her head. It had only been a day since she got to Pocatello, but she knew time was running out. This started months ago. She was honestly surprised that it took this long for the Variant to evolve. Surely the Variant could’ve taken more by now. It could’ve evolved and left already but it didn’t. No, instead it was taunting the town. It murdered the mayor right in front of a crowd of people and the press. The Variant was enjoying this.

Amicia wasn’t sure if she was good enough to take it on now. She had fought Variants before, but she was alone now. She didn’t have a team. She didn’t have Araña in her ear. She didn’t even have her knife! The one her brother had left for her. She’d been forced to leave it in Serenity. All she had was a gun and her promise. A promise she made to her brother and to herself. She’d find that brighter tomorrow her brother searched for.

The captain and deputy came in. She looked up to the pair. The captain was very distressed. The weight of the city was on his shoulders now. His deputy was stressed too, though she hid it behind a stony face.

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“How is it out there captain?” Amicia said. The captain had started pacing back and forth as soon as he came in.

“It’s bad, agent. Really bad. Everyone wants an answer from me and I don’t have any. They all just saw the mayor drown in a room without a bit of water. How the hell do I explain that?” The captain threw his hat down on the table. He ran his hands through his hair. Stevie stepped up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder in solidarity. He reached up and squeezed her hand.

Amicia got up from her chair. “I know times are difficult, captain, but the best thing we can do is focus on the case. Find whoever killed the mayor.”

“I knew Joe before he became mayor. I know his wife, his kids. His little boy just started middle school. What am I gonna tell Kathleen?”

The deputy gave her father a side hug. “Dad, maybe you should sit down.”

“No, no. I’m okay. I’m okay.” He shook his head. “I got this. Okay.” The mayor turned back towards Amicia. “Stevie looked at all those credit card statements you got me from the hotel. We got a good amount of names that matched up to some of the bodies based on the time of death.”

The captain regained his composure as he fell into his work. “We also arrested that hotel manager, Mortimer Stephens. I interviewed him personally. He swears up and down that he didn’t know any of them died. The guy was practically throwing up and crying when I showed him one of the bodies we found. I don’t think he had anything to do with this.”

Stevie spoke up. “I took a look at his bank account statements. I think he was skimming money from the hotel and using the people’s disappearance as a chance to overcharge their credit cards. He was probably hoping to make up the difference. Turns out Stephens has a nasty gambling habit.”

Amicia nodded. “Well, at least that’s one loose end we can tie up.”

“My people are calling up the victim’s families right now. Maybe we can give them a bit of closure.” He sighed. “I got a lot of families flying up here to identify the bodies.”

Amicia remembered her conversation with Susie. “I talked to Susie Jacobson this morning.” Amicia said. “She told me that Emily had been disappearing into the state park for weeks before she turned up. She also told me that the police had been ignoring the situation and were outright hostile to her. Care to explain that to me, captain?”

Both Stevie and Scott Fellow seemed stunned at her words. Stevie was the one who answered “Emily was my friend. If Susie had called me to help look for her, I’d do it in a heartbeat.” Stevie turned to her father. Had he prevented her from learning about this too? ”Dad, did you know about this?”

He shook his head vehemently. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m gonna look in the dispatcher’s who took the call. We take every call seriously in my station.”

Stevie looked outraged that her friend had been suffering for so long and she didn’t know. The captain seemed angry as well, but then his eyes sparked as if he remembered something.

“I had the search and rescue crews back in the state parks this morning. They found something.”

“Another body?”

“Yes. They finished combing the entire area. I think this is the last body we’ll find.”

“Good news and bad news, I guess,” Amicia said.

“This one was different from the others. There was blood near the crime scene. The body also had physical signs of a struggle. It also didn’t have any of the weird marks we’ve been seeing.” the captain elaborated.

“Serial killers can develop their methods and signatures over time. Based on how the mayor was killed, I believe it’s possible a combination of drugs were used to poison him. A paralytic to inhibit his ability to breathe. There are drugs known to cause lesions on the skin as well. If this one didn’t have any marks, it’s possible you’ve found the first victim captain.” Amicia said.

The captain nodded his head. “That’s what I was thinking. I had the coroner do a rush job on this particular body. The rest weren’t giving us much to go on.”

“Was there anything else about this body?”

In answer, Stevie rushed out the door. A few minutes later, she was back with a file. She opened it up to show a picture of the deceased. It seemed the first victim was a woman. The picture showed her head had been bashed in.

“She died by blunt force trauma on her skull?” Amicia asked.

Stevie nodded at her question. “We found her wallet nearby. I guess the killer wasn’t as careful as he is now. Her name’s Gracie Espinoza. We looked into her. She went to high school in Salt Lake City. She was reported missing there 6 months ago.”

“What was she doing in Pocatello?”

“She had family here, her grandma. Gracie visited every summer. Last summer however, her grandma passed.”

“So why did she come back to Pocatello?”

The captain and the deputy looked at each other. There was an uncomfortable silence that came into the room. Amicia waited for an answer to her question. The captain finally said “The coroner found signs that she had been pregnant.”

“Pregnant? How far along was she?”

“5 months is their best guess.”

“It’s June right now. So last summer, Gracie Espinoza came to visit her grandmother but her grandmother passed during her trip. While she was here, she got pregnant. 6 months ago sometime in December, she was murdered and ditched in the Massacre Rocks State Park. What about the father? Any leads on him?”

“We’re checking her social media now.” Stevie said. “Dad called her parents and they agreed to send us her laptop and all of her devices. We’re thinking a teenager has to have photos of whoever they’re dating. Hopefully who she was last with.”

Captain Fellows slammed his hand on the table. “We’re gonna find this piece of trash. The team found a pair of gloves near the river. He must’ve been trying to throw them in. I got the labs dusting both the wallet and gloves for fingerprints right now.”

Amicia started thinking about the entire situation with Gracie Espinoza. There was something she was missing. The grandma. She asked the captain “ How old was Gracie Espinoza’s grandmother?”

“At least in her 80s according to our records.”

“Did Gracie have any other relatives in Pocatello?” A shake of the captain’s head was her answer. “Did her grandmother own a car?” Stevie pulled out her phone and started texting someone. Both Amicia and the captain stared at her. A moment later, there was a ding on her phone. She looked up and shook her head no.

“So who picked Gracie Espinoza up at the airport?” Amicia asked. The captain and his daughter looked at each other in realization. “If we can find them, maybe we’ll find our killer.”

“I’ll get on it. There’s only one airline that flies to Pocatello from Salt Lake. I’ll call them to see when Gracie was supposed to get in. I’ll call the airport for the CCTV footage once I find out.” Stevie said. She left in a rush then. The possibility of finding the killer renewed her energy.

Captain Fellows had a smile on his face. Now that there was a solid lead, he could tell the mayor’s family and the Jacobsons that progress was being made. Amicia,however, knew that the killer had most likely only murdered Gracie Espinoza. In reality, whatever killed the others wasn’t human. There was something else too. Gracie Espinoza had been pregnant.

“Captain, what happened to Gracie’s Baby?” Amicia asked. The captain’s happy expression slid away. His eyes were dark and grim. He struggled to say his next words. They were laced with disgust as he answered her.

“The baby wasn’t found with Gracie Espinoza.”

“You said she was pregnant right?”

The captain nodded. “Her abdomen was empty when they did the autopsy. We think the sick son of a bitch cut her open and took it with him. Like some sort of sick trophy.” A green hue came into the captain’s face. He was struggling to not throw up at the thought.

Amicia remained calm. There it was. She had her answer as to what started all of this. A poor teenage girl and her baby. Someone had murdered her and the trauma allowed the dark powers to manifest. It transformed Gracie’s unborn child for a terrible purpose. It most likely tore its way out of Gracie’s corpse and started taking tourists that visited the state park not long after. Now it was up to her to stop it. To give both Gracie and her child’s spirit the chance to rest.