Amicia drove down a dirt road through the forest south of Walland. A part of her wanted to pull over to check her phone and find out where the path was heading. Another part of her, the one screaming at her to keep driving to get away from the chaos behind, won out. She didn’t know how things had finished in the Romero household and she had no intention of going back to check. Right now, she was focused on driving and making sure she didn’t accidentally run into a tree.
She still couldn’t believe she'd really gotten away from that. Esteban Romero. The Court of Diogenes. That variant. Was the variant looking for her? How did it know where she was? Then there was Rosa Romero and her cultist pals. Amicia didn’t know what Esteban did to that girl, but it must’ve been really bad. Only a complete sociopath would order someone to shoot her own father in the foot. She really didn’t know who to root for in that fight. If the variant won, the people it ate would make it grow stronger. If the Court won, then they’d drain the variant for its power. That sounded equally bad. If Esteban won. Well, there was no chance of that really. Amicia won a vicious fight with the man, leaving him tied up in his own hidden library. Esteban had no weapons, no mobility, no chance honestly. A part of her felt guilty at leaving him. He was fish in a barrel for Rosa and her friends, but Esteban himself was no saint. Screw it. They all deserved each other. She’d deal with them one at a time. After a nice long rest.
An hour and a half later, Amicia bounced in her seat as the van drove over a rocky patch of gravel. She continued to bounce for the next few minutes as the van rocked back and forth. Crap. Was she driving the wrong way? Where the hell was she? Amicia’s questions were answered a few minutes later. A yellow gate separating the forest from the highway sprung into being. Amicia barely even registered the gate before plowing right into it. She flinched slightly at the sound of the van hitting the gate, but continued to drive past the gravel and onto the highway. She made it back to civilization.
30 minutes of mindless driving later, Amicia got back to Walland. The roads were pretty empty. It was still late at night. The first thing she did back in town was to pull into a famous chain of diners known for their waffles. As she parked into a car, she rested her head and arms on the steering wheel. This had been a really long... she wasn’t even sure how long it’d been. Amicia opened up the car door, hopping out of the van. She looked over Esteban’s car. She guessed it was hers now. Just needed a paint job and a new window.
She walked to the back of the van, checking out the damage Hannibal had done. There were noticeable dents near the top and down near the wheel where the big brute had been grabbing. The hail of gunfire she'd received from the cultists didn't scratch the van but one man had made these dents. His strength was terrifying. She’d run over the big bastard with the van, but she got the feeling that wouldn’t put him down for long.
Amicia walked towards the diner, contemplating her thoughts as she went along. She wasn’t sure how big of a problem this Court of Diogenes was. Was it even a problem she could handle? She’d been trained to hunt variants and keep bystanders alive. Not to chase down a crazy secret society that sacrificed variants for power. She didn’t know what to do. On one hand, at least the variants were dead. On the other, what did the Court of Diogenes do with all of the power they siphoned?
The door of the diner jingled as she walked in. There was an older woman at the counter. She had dyed red hair wrapped in a hair-net, chubby round cheeks, and a pencil behind her ear. She was scrolling through her phone when Amicia entered. The woman looked up and said, “Welcome to Waffle Ho- Jesus Christ! What the hell happened to you?”
Oh right. Amicia currently looked like she’d walked out of a car crash. She'd forgotten about that. Well she had walked out of a car crash now that she thought about it. “Uhm, I had a fight with my boyfriend?”
The woman gave her a weird look. She considered whether or not to believe the young woman walking into her diner at 3:00 AM in the morning. Eventually she replied, “Well you sure know how to pick em honey. Take a seat. I’ll look in the back for the first aid kit.”
Amicia sat down at the counter. The waitress walked into the back office to retrieve the medical supplies. Amicia relaxed herself into the little stool and began to look through the menu. It’d been a while since she’d visited this particular chain of diners. Happy that the 24 hour restaurant was open, she traced over the little plastic menu in front of her. Greasy, salty food sounded just perfect right now. The waitress came back out. She put a box of bandages, band aids, and alcohol rub on the counter next to Amicia.
“Now honey, I ain’t no nurse. So you’re gonna have to put yourself back together. I’ll be happy to get started on your food while you do. What do ya want?”
“Uhmm- do you have french toast?”
“Honey, this is Waffle Home. You know we don’t.”
“Awww please?” she asked, really stretching out her please and making doe eyes.
The woman sighed. She could tell this girl would be trouble the moment she walked in that door. “Fine. But only because nobody else is here yet. What else?” she asked.
“Hashbrowns! With onions, peppers and jalapeno. A root beer float too.”
“Sure, sure.” the waitress said, writing down Amicia’s orders. “The bathrooms down there, first door to the left. You can clean yourself up there.”
Amicia got up from the stool, taking the box of bandages and things in one hand. Before going to clean up, she needed one more thing. She asked the waitress, “Can I have the root beer float now?”
***
Amicia sipped on her root beer float as she looked at herself in the mirror. She had bruises on the left and right side of her jaw from where Esteban had punched her. She lightly touched them, hissing softly at the pain. There were scratches and cuts on her knuckles. Dried blood stuck to various parts of her hands. She remembered the feeling of punching down on Esteban’s face after chucking a glass pitcher at him. She pulled up her shirt, revealing more bruising on her stomach. She felt a dull ache in her knee, probably from the crash. Overall, nothing super important was broken. She’d looked better though.
Amicia placed aside the sweet fizzy drink in her hands. She washed away the traces of blood on her body with a rag the waitress had given her. She bandaged her fists after disinfecting them with alcohol. The bruising she couldn’t do much about.
When she finished with her triage, Amicia walked back into the dining area. She could smell the scent of sizzling peppers. Her stomach growled in anticipation. She’d finished off her root beer and she desperately wanted another one. Behind the counter, the waitress was cooking up her hash-browns. At Amicia’s approach, she turned around. “Looking better already, kid. You’d be a model if it weren’t for those bruises,” the waitress commented.
“What? You think I couldn’t get into Vogue looking like this?” Amicia quipped, putting her hands behind her head to give a sexy pose.
“Hah! Not likely. Don't think battered women make alot of magazine subscriptions.”
“Pssh, their loss.” Amicia said, taking a seat down on the counter. There was a stack of french toast where she’d been sitting before. She smiled at the sight of them.
“Hey kid, catch.” Amicia looked up just in time to catch a bag of frozen peas out of midair. “Nice reflexes. The peas are on the house.”
Amicia held the bag of peas under her jaw, letting the cold sensation numb the pain away. With her other hand, she took up a fork and speared a piece of french toast. Dipping it into the syrup, she placed the delicious piece of breakfast dessert in her mouth. Mmmmmm. So yummy and sweet.
The waitress flipped over a stack of shredded potatoes on the grill. She turned back to Amicia, hearing her moan in delight. “Whew. You do that after every bite? Corporate ought a hire you to do one of the Waffle Home commercials. You’d have the fellas lining the block.”
“They could pay me in french toast,” Amicia joked, giggling at herself. “Thanks for being so nice to me. I really needed it after my day.”
“That’s what I’m known for. Nice Debra, they call me.” The doorbell jingled, announcing the entrance of another patron. Amicia didn’t pay it any mind as she continued to dig into her meal. The french toast was slightly crispy while being soft, but not mushy in the center. Amicia hated it when french toast was too mushy, often a result of using french bread instead of stale bread.
Debra was almost done with her hash-browns too and she could barely endure waiting for them. Amicia’s mom always told her to not eat dessert before dinner but her mother wasn’t here. Also she was a grown woman and could do whatever she wanted to. So there. Amicia felt a tapping on her shoulder. She turned up to see Detective Wyatt looking down at her.
The other woman looked shocked to see the injured state of Amicia. “Sweet Christmas! What the hell happened to you Danvers?”
Amicia turned to the waitress and pointed at her with a fork dripping in maple syrup. “You called the cops on me? I thought you were cool.” she accused.
The waitress shook her head. “Don’t get your britches in a hitch. Wyatt comes in all the time. Says she wants the coffee before it turns crappy. What she really means is that she wants it before the regulars come in to bug her about their problems.”
The detective in question addressed Debra, “I’m happy to help with any problem the citizens have. Right now I’d like to address the issue of your face Danvers.”
“What about it?” Amicia asked. She sounded petulant even to herself, but she needed to stall to think up an excuse.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“What happened to you? We found the car you rented at the bottom of a hill, crushed against a tree. Lennart came into the station like a bat outta hell saying you’d been run off the road and kidnapped.” Detective Wyatt demanded.
Amicia took another bite of french toast, stuffing it in her mouth. She chewed slowly as she considered what to tell the detective. Coming up black for a plausible excuse, she decided to go with the truth.
“So I got run off the road by this old dude right? It turns out he’s some kind of monster hunter and he’s looking for his missing daughter. Now his daughter is a part of, like, some cult that also hunts for monsters, but they hunt them to capture them. They use them in some sort of ritual that lets them absorb the monsters’ supernatural powers. So anyways, I kicked the old dude’s butt after he took me to his weird house. Then his daughter shows up with like a dozen guns all carrying machine guns. So I stole his van and ran off while he and his daughter were fighting.”
Amicia blurted her entire ordeal out to the detective and the waitress. Some part of her felt relieved to actually say it out loud. The waitress and the detective shared a quick look. Detective Wyatts pulled a flashlight off her belt. She reached up to Amicia’s eye, stretching open the lid. Amicia's right eye saw a searing light shining at it. She yelped and smacked the detective’s hand away.
“Ow! Agh, I can’t see. What the hell? ” Amicia said, rubbing at her newly blinded eye. She heard a clatter on the counter in front of her. The waitress, Debra, brought over a plate of freshly cooked hashbrowns in front of her. The scent of sauteed onions, peppers, and jalapenos wafted up to Amicia’s nose. She poked at the newly delivered dish even as she tried to clear her vision. Food was more important than this conversation with the detective anyhow.
“Just making sure you don’t have a concussion. Which you don’t, surprisingly enough,” Detective Wyatts answered. The older woman took a seat near Amicia at the counter. She nodded to Debra, who went to fill a cup of coffee for her. The waitress set down a concoction of Colombian coffee, hazelnut creamer, and sugar for the detective.
Amicia noticed this. She asked, “Don’t detectives drink their coffee black?”
“Only if they’re on television.” Wyatts answered. She took a sip of coffee, letting it warm her up from the early morning cold. Wyatts turned serious in tone. “I need you to be real with me Danvers. Things have been getting strange around here and I can't do my job without knowing what’s going on. It’s like things spiraled from fine to fubar in a matter of weeks and I can’t pinpoint why.”
Amicia hummed. “You want answers? I want answers. I’ll trade ya.”
Wyatts shook her head. “Why shouldn’t I take you downtown until you feel like telling me something? Maybe something about that crossbow of yours we found in your rental.”
Amicia snorted. “Please. This is Tennessee. I bet even Debra has a crossbow at home.”
The waitress looked up. After getting everyone settled, the woman had settled herself at the register. She’d been filling in the crossword puzzle in the newspaper when she heard her name. She answered, “Sure do, honey. Dale loves going out in those woods with the thing. Man never catches nothing but it makes him happy."
“See? Work with me Wyatt. If you took me in, my lawyers would have me out in a few hours. It's up to you detective. Personally, I’d take the deal. The rumors out in Knoxville are already painting your department in a bad light. Someone even told me you guys found a body outside your own station.”
Wyatts tensed up. Amicia’s off handed comment about rumors had set something off in her. Wait. Could the rumor actually be real?
“Where did you hear that?”, Wyatt demanded.
“Did some guy actually turn up on the department’s doorstep?” Amicia asked. Now even Debra looked interested in this new piece of information. The detective drummed her fingers on the counter, considering the offer. Eventually, she reached a decision.
“This is off the record and I’ll deny ever telling you.” she said. Then Wyatt turned to Debra. “You too Debs. This has to stay quiet.” Debra mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key.
The detective went on, letting the cat out of the bag. “One of our janitors. I didn’t really know the guy, but a few of the uniformed officers did. His body was found in the bushes, completely skinned. Someone left him there at some point during the night. One of the dispatchers found the body when they went for a smoke break. He ran back in blubbering about it to the overnight crew. We had to send the guy on sabbatical for mental health reasons. Something about being surprised with a skinless corpse really gets to you.”
“Wow. So if this guy was found dead, how come no one reported it? Why the cover up on his death?”
Wyatts rubbed at her eyebrows, wavering about whether or not she could tell a reporter the dirty details. Amicia placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Finally, Wyatts relented.
“The janitor was having an affair.”
“An affair?” It’d fit in with the variant’s pattern. The creature had been picking off people who’d committed adultery based on Amicia’s conversations with Jeff and Daphne. It didn’t really explain why the police had covered it up.
“Seems like an awfully thin reason to hide his death.”
“It’s not that he had an affair. It’s who he had it with. After we found the body, I was going to dig into his last known locations. Then I got a call telling me to head back to the station. When I arrived, I got walked into the chief’s office. He had a woman there. Turns out she worked in the DA’s office. She informed me that the janitor had been with her the night before.”
“So what? The police cover the DAs ass when one of theirs murders a guy? Typical.”
Wyatt pounded her fist on the counter. She yelled, “That’s not what happened!” The diner was silent for a moment.
A sigh escaped Wyatt’s lips. “I was ready to take her in for questioning, but she had an alibi. She was live streaming herself and the janitor going at it.”
“Wooo, now that’s raunchy” Debra interjected, fanning herself with her hand.
Wyatt directed a glare at her. “If I could finish Deb?” Debra raised her arms in surrender.
“Go on. She could've killed him after she finished recording right? How did that prove her innocence?” Amicia asked, directing the flow of conversation back on topic.
“It didn’t. What did was her home security cameras. The janitor wasn’t the only one to visit her that night.”
“I see. Did you check her husband’s alibi?”
“She wasn’t the one married. The janitor was. We found his car a block away from her house. His estimated time of death was maybe an hour, hour and a half, after he left the lawyer’s home.”
Amicia noticed that the detective was very light on names during her story. It seems she’d be open, but not that open with Amicia.
Wyatt continued, “It’s like the guy just disappeared. There weren't any witnesses that saw him wandering around. He didn’t go home. His wife was working the night shift and her employers attest to that. So it wasn’t her. I’m shit out of luck on leads.”
She turned to Amicia. “Why else would I be speaking with a reporter from out of town. A reporter with an axe to grind with the police to boot. Your turn, Danvers. Give me something.”
Amicia looked into the hard eyes of the detective. “Did you know Keith Duggar was having an affair with his secretary?”
Wyatt nodded. “She’s a person of interest right now, but there’s nothing connecting her to our janitor.”
“Hmm. Recently, I went to Knoxville to interview a woman about the death of her husband. She woke up with his skin draped across her and got convicted for his death. They sent her to an insane asylum for her sentence. She’s a nice lady. She confirmed to me that her husband as well as others that had disappeared around the same time were having affairs. That's the link.”
“Really? What’s her name?”
Amicia gave Wyatt a cheeky grin. “You know I can’t tell you that. Goes against my journalistic integrity.”
Wyatt grabbed Amicia's wrist. “I need to talk to her.”
Gently, Amicia pried off the fingers holding her. “You really don’t. The woman’s almost 80. She couldn’t have done that to two grown men in their prime. Besides, she already told me everything she knew. Everyone who’d gone missing was having an affair.”
Detective Wyatt scoffed. “How does that help me Danvers? If people died back then with the same MO, the killer would be a geriatric like the woman you interviewed. What am I supposed to do? Arrest every old person that disapproves of adultery? I'd be a geriatric myself by the time I finished.”
Amicia shrugged. “If I were you, I’d look back into those old files. Maybe talk to a few retired cops who were around back then. I’m sure they’d have a better idea about who could’ve done something like this. Once you get a name, you could dig into their associates.”
Amicia offered this line of logic to the detective to throw her off the scent. Wyatt was never gonna find a human responsible for all of this. The original variant had killed those people in the late 60s. The carrion variant was clearly working on taking new prey. Usually a carrion would stalk after the original victims, but most of them were already dead.
Daphne was the only one alive and Daphne had both Esteban Romero and the Court of Diogenes spying on her home, waiting until the variant showed itself. Now that Amicia thought about it. Didn’t Daphne say a teenage girl confronted her while she was shopping? That must’ve been Rosa. With all those people in play, the variant must’ve noticed something was up. Amicia chewed on these thoughts as she physically chewed on her breakfast.
Eventually the detective brought Amicia’s attention back to her. “Alright, that’s a start. I’ll get on that after you tell me what happened to you.”
Amicia took another sip of root beer float before she answered. Debby had brought another one over. “I was driving back to Walland when some guy started tailgating me. He had his high beams on the whole time. I was talking to Jeff on the phone when my car got rammed from behind. I got spun off the road.”
“And then?”
“Then the guy pulled me out of my car. I fought with him a little. Then I ran off into the woods. Must’ve fallen asleep out there. When I came to, I walked around until I got back to town.”
Amicia delivered her story with a casual tone. It was thin on details. Something that the detective had noticed. The detective glared at her. “I saw that van outside as I was coming in. Couldn’t help but notice it was a little beat up in front. Like maybe it had clipped something.”
It seemed the jig was up, short as it was. Amicia had really wanted to keep Esteban’s vehicle as a trophy. but it seemed like that wouldn't be an option. Ah, forget it. It wasn’t realistic of her to keep it anyhow. She couldn’t drive the thing all the way back to Serenity.
“Okay so I might’ve, hypothetically, stolen the guy’s van after I shoved him down a hill.”
Debra chuckled at the counter. “Knew you were a spitfire.”
Wyatt held her hands out. “Keys.”
“What? No way! It’s mine now.”
“The van belongs to whoever assaulted you. Most likely because you had information about former victims. I need that van dusted and checked for any DNA evidence. Keys. Now.”
Amicia grumbled as she handed the detective the keys to the van. “How am I supposed to get around now?”
The detective answered, “Just finish your breakfast. I’ll take you down to the station to get your things from the wreckage. Then you can get another rental.”
Amicia chuffed as she continued devouring her hash-browns. “Good thing I got the insurance for my last rental.”