Author’s note:

Hey Everybody!

            This has been a project of mine for the last six years or so. Some of these characters have even been lurking in the back of my head since Middle School! Below is a short story that ties up the story arc of Autopsy and The Murmuring Shadows, and serves as a more formal preamble to the characters of my first book, “The Dreaded.” I hope reading this story will intrigue you enough to pick up the book!

            On the blog side of things, I have Chapters 5 and 6 of Sprint and Blackthorn on the stove top, and I hope to publish them soon!

-Ty

…

Under a light drizzle in the dead of night, the New York Aquarium sat beside the boardwalk, fatigued from the day’s foot traffic. Its surrounding plaza and pavilions were drowned in shadow—quiet and drowsy, like the sleeping wildlife within their enclosures. An unmarked white cargo truck was parked along the rear of the shark exhibit, where staff seemed to be working through the rain beneath the lonely exterior flood lamp—unloading bleach, ammonia-free solvents, and surgical tools from the vehicle and hustling them inside.  

The halls, entrenched with plaques designed to educate and enlighten, were dark—lit only by the rippling, muted blue of saltwater through glass. Illuminated silhouettes of sharks and other aquatic creatures dimly glowed on the ceiling, while an enormous window overlooking a fish tank lined the wall. A hammerhead, with thin scars from an old wound blanketing its gills, glided past some artificial coral reefs huddling over the left post of the basin.

Watching the shark intently with her icy blue eyes from underneath the cloak of her hood, a pale-faced woman scowled. The belt around her waist was brimming with a cache of varying weapons while she mindlessly twirled a knife in her hand. An embroidered patch depicting three daggers positioned in a way that resembled a triangle adorned her shoulder—the letters ‘T.F.B.’ were embossed directly below the emblem.

Behind her, toward the center of the shark exhibit, an unconscious man in a grey polo shirt and khakis was duct-taped to a chair. He stirred, panic immediately gripping his bruised face as he surveyed his surroundings.

“Marc Mansen,” the woman addressed her hostage in a British accent, continuing to spin the knife around her fingers while the hammerhead made a second pass.

“Wh…” Mansen slurred, his brown beard was partially stained red. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“Nowhere and doesn’t matter,” the woman replied. “You have something we want.”

“Something you want…?” Mansen repeated with a cough. He paused for a moment as he processed the demand with a fogged mind. “Even if I tell you the code, they’ve already changed it.” The woman turned around, a tuft of dark blonde hair escaping the edge of her hood as she tucked her knife into a holster around her forearm.

“Is that why you think you’re here?” she asked. “We don’t want your money.”

“Then what do you want?” Mansen demanded.

“Calvin Schneider was a business partner of yours, wasn’t he?” the woman asked.

“Y-yeah?” Mansen confirmed with a quivering voice.

“Your deal with O&M blew up in your face,” the woman curtly explained.

“Huh? What, what does that have to do—” Mansen stammered.

“Because when it leaks, information sells fast on the black market,” the woman interrupted. “And AB Negative blood sells faster.” Mansen gritted his teeth, swallowing nervously.

“…W-wait,” he rasped. “That’s my blood-type!”

“We know,” the woman responded, running her tongue over her teeth—revealing a pair of fangs as the hammerhead completed another lap.

“Cal would never—” Mansen started.

“It wasn’t your business partner; we actually killed him to get to you,” the woman asserted. “You should have been more careful with the people you trust over at O&M. There’s always some bloke with secrets to share at the right price.”  

“What do you want?” Mansen questioned, prompting the woman to roll her eyes.

“Your blood, you blithering idiot! And here I thought insurance brokers were smart. The only common ‘cents’ you have is in your pocket, isn’t it? We—” she exclaimed, abruptly stopping herself as one of the light fixtures above flickered. “Bollocks!”

“Monica,” A pale, burly man, a little over seven feet tall, stepped into the shark exhibit from the shadows. “They’re here.”

“I can see that, thank you,” the woman grumbled as a startled scream echoed down the shrouded hall. The scream was unceremoniously snuffed out with a reverberating snap as the unnerving sounds of iron chains scraped against the ground. A desperate, despondent cry for help followed some distant gunfire, while a few distressing thrashes of a skull against concrete was underscored by a sputtering, gurgling whimper.    

“Have you heard from Larry?” she asked.

“No—his secretary told me he was meeting with a delegation from Vietnam. Haven’t heard from Jerome, either. Ivan believes he’s down in Clifford to see Simon Répage,” her colleague grimly answered. The woman scoffed.

“He’s too preoccupied looking for the Book!” she seethed.

“I, I don’t know,” the burly man admitted. “But we’re on our own.”

“Son of a…,” the woman muttered scathingly, shaking her head. “I am getting sick and tiredof fighting that twat’s battles.”

Some more indiscernible, frantic shouts accompanied another few gunshots before a revolting crunch plunged the room into silence. A sudden chill seeped over the space. The hammerhead shark jerked away from the perimeter of its habitat as frost coated the glass of the fish tank. With a soft screech, a message was written into the condensation:

“Let him go.”  

“Monica?” the burly man pressed, looking over at the glass and the warning scrawled onto it with woe. The woman huffed irritably, her breath visible in the frigid air as she unholstered a handgun from her belt.

“Stall them!” she barked.

…The Next Morning…

“…And welcome back to D.W.E., The Dead Wandering Eye, the podcast for true crime enthusiasts and supernatural fanatics. I’m your host, Roger Majeski, and this is my partner in crime, Ethan Waldron.” Roger Majeski exclaimed over the car’s radio.

“Hiya!” Ethan Waldron responded gleefully.

“So what have you been up to since our last episode?” Majeski asked.

“I went to the museum,” Waldron replied.

“Nice! American or Natural History?” Majeski pressed.

“Natural History,” Waldron answered. “What about you?”

“I went down to Florida, just to get away for a while and eat some good food,” Majeski replied. “It was a nice break from things, but I’m ready to get back into it!”

“Same here!” Waldron asserted. “Did you hear about the Medical Examiner from Polk County?”

“I did not,” Majeski admitted.

“He was about to start an autopsy on a body found in a cemetery outside a church fire. He went to check some lab results or something on his computer, and when he turned back around, the body had disappeared from the table.” Waldron explained.  

“Disappeared?” Majeski repeated.

“Disappeared!” Waldron confirmed. “Poof! Vanished!”

“Wow. That’s insane,” Majeski beamed.

“Yeah,” Waldron agreed.

 “Funny you should mention that, though,” Majeski commented. “Here’s a story for you I heard this morning.”

“Let’s hear it,” Waldron piped.

“Guy sent me an email late last night—one of our listeners. He got on the subway in New York around three a.m.” Majeski described.

“Ok,” Waldron stated.

“The way he tells it: he sees this man—a sketchy character in the back of the car, with the train swaying and the wheels lurching and screaming. And the man doesn’t have any eyelids,” Majeski continued.

“…What?” Waldron exclaimed in bewilderment.

“I said what I said. This guy has these almost inhuman eyes. Bloodshot, green. The rest of his face is burned half to hell and hideously scarred. Practically looks like a corpse. And he’s wearing an overcoat with one of those military hats.”

“Like a beret?” asked Waldron.

“No, one of those ‘Army Veteran’ hats…like Vietnam or whatever,” Majeski specified.

“What happened?” Waldron demanded.

“Our listener said in the email that the zombified military veteran disappeared into a crowd after the train pulled into the station,” Majeski replied.

“Wow,” Waldron asserted in awe. “…You don’t think it’s the same person, do you?

 “…Oh, what, like the same body the Medical Examiner was investigating in Polk County?” Majeski asked.

“Yeah!” Waldron exclaimed.

“Dude! I don’t know,” Majeski admitted as the podcast was abruptly shut off by the driver of the car.

“Hrmm…” Greg Brostead sighed, exhaustedly scratching the stubble on his chin as he drove under the canopy of South Mildred Street in Charles Town, West Virginia. “Why the hell is he in New York?”

He turned left down East Washington Street and parked his sedan in front of a peculiar building. The private investigator climbed out of his car and closed the door. He hopped up onto the sidewalk and promptly rolled his eyes at himself. Brostead returned to his car, reached in, popped open the trunk, and collected its contents.   

The private investigator ducked down a cramped alleyway and ascended a dilapidated staircase sheltered under the shadows. Opening the door atop the stairway, Brostead ventured down the vacant, floral-scented hallway past Rooms 906, 907, and 908. He had some dry cleaning draped over his shoulder with a hatbox tucked under his right arm. A leather satchel hung around his other shoulder, while a firearm case occupied his left hand.

He tiredly exhaled as he approached Room 909. Meridian Surveying Technologies: McLloyd & Associates was inscribed on a sign next to a door, alongside a logo of a black-and-yellow surveying tripod, situated in front of a globe with a grid pattern laced over it. With some difficulty, the private investigator grabbed the handle and attempted to open the door. With a low rattle and a hollow shunt, the door remained locked in place. Rapping his knuckles on the door, Brostead was met with only the sounds of a passing car outside. 

“Oh, come on, guys!” the private investigator complained, placing the firearm case on the floor and fumbling to get a set of keys out of his pocket before proceeding to unlock the door and swing it open. Inside, the room was shrouded in darkness.

“…Edith?” Brostead quizzically stated. After collecting the case from the ground, Brostead stepped through into the space, flipped the light switch on with his elbow, and checked his watch. “Edith?… And surprise, surprise. No one’s here…”

A neatly organized receptionist’s desk guarded the door while a second desk, cluttered with stray papers over a map, sat in the back. Two curtained windows looking out over East Washington Street faced Brostead. Beneath the windows, a bookcase and a filing cabinet, stocked with an extensive collection of maps and other surveying documents, lined the wall. A tripod sat sleepily atop the filing cabinets, while on the far side, an out-of-place grandfather clock fought against the room’s silence with its escapement and pendulum. Two maps of the Shenandoah Valley and an oil painting of a street corner in Harpers Ferry, doused in a late-night storm, adorned the warm walls.

Brostead strolled over a creaky floorboard toward the untidied desk. He placed the firearm case on the floor, the hatbox on the desk’s surface, and dispatched the dry cleaning on the back post of an unused chair before he happened upon a note:

“Change of plans. Got a call from the aquarium. Text/call us when you’re back in the office. -Edith.”

“Oh geez,” Brostead huffed, laying his satchel next to the hatbox. In a panic, he patted his pockets for his phone, before sheepishly pulling the device out and dialing a number.

“Greg?” A voice answered almost immediately as the private investigator pressed his phone against his shoulder and opened the curtains.

“Hey, I need you in here—” Brostead started, walking over and unsealing the flap of his satchel. He pulled out a book called Exorcisms and Demonology by Father Stephen Turner, an old Polaroid camera, and a bottle of melatonin.

“Yeah, everyone’s up at Coney Island,” the voice answered. “I’m on my way from the dentist.”

“Don’t tell me that fortune-teller machine is causing problems again,” Brostead grumbled.

“Faustina? No, no, you’re thinking of Ocean City,” the voice answered assuredly. “Remember those papers Robin swiped from Dr. Gile’s office? Your hunch was right, vampires killed Calvin Schneider.”

“Well, I could have told you that,” Brostead sardonically commented. “Hrmm…let me guess: Monica?”

“Or at the very least, the T.F.B.,” the voice confirmed.

“Great…” Brostead quipped.“What does Calvin Schneider have to do with any of this?”

“Some medical records from Sabastian were sold to the T.F.B., and Anne and Edith think Calvin had information they wanted. That’s why they killed him,” the voice informed. “Ted and Robin have been staking it out all night, and Anne gave the green light around six this morning.”

“Why am I just finding out about this now?” Brostead asked, checking his watch. It was five after eight.

“You got in late from Des Moines, and Anne wanted you to sleep,” the voice bluntly explained. “She wanted me to tell you they forwarded the phones until you got in.”

“Ahh, cool, cool, cool, cool,” Brostead sighed, unzipping the dry cleaning. Nestled on a wire coat hanger was an unblemished Transylvanian cloak. “Hey, err, some podcast bros are getting pretty close to figuring us out.”

“I know,” the voice responded reassuringly, “Alex has a plan to deal with it.”

“All right,” Brostead huffed. He carefully hung the Transylvanian cloak on a discreet hook attached to the back of the door. “We really need a coat rack in here.”

“And our own printer,” the voice nonchalantly added. “I’ll be there in a few.”

“Alright, thanks, Jonah.” Brostead hung up the phone. He hesitated over the name ‘Jazz’ before scrolling up his contact list, dialing another number as he stooped down over the firearms case. Flipping open the lid, a pristine white vest lay snuggly inside. The phone rang and rang and rang.

“This is Anne,” the voicemail finally announced as a Nightjar perched itself on the windowsill. “Please leave a message.”

“Anne, it’s Greg,” the private investigator said after a shrill beep, glancing over at the Polaroid, the book, and the melatonin. He gently kicked the lid of the firearms case closed before he surveyed the mess of papers scattered over the desk; a newspaper clipping reported the closure of Swallowing Sands Mini Golf in Ocean City, Maryland, while another described the arrest of Ernie Roscoe. There were folders brimming with immutable cold cases, stapled booklets of forensic data, and a photocopy of an 1872 circus sideshow flyer that read:

 “Come one, come all! Harold Horowitz proudly presents, ‘Dazzling Spectacles of Wonder and Curiosity. Monica Kilgrave: the Ageless Beauty‘.”

 Pictures of cemeteries, abandoned schools, and insane asylums sat next to articles detailing the disappearances of two congressional reporters and the election victory of Senate Majority Leader Lawrence Strange. An opened copy of the Old Testament was flipped to an ancient sketch of a one-horned demon, while beside it was a photo of a solemn, moss-stricken 18^th-century building in New York with an equestrian statue and ornate stone carvings of wheat, wine, and olive oil. Another photo on the other side of the desk depicted a pale-faced woman in a black dress speaking with a man in a silver suit at a gala—adorning the bottom of the picture was a sticky note:

“Kilgrave & Strange—Del Rio. Where’s the Book?”

Brostead subconsciously centered his attention on a final document as he mindlessly multitasked. Lying atop the pile was a crumbled draft of a police report hastily written by an Agent Daryl Atwater:

“Agent Avril appeared disoriented, manic, and delusional. He was unable to answer any questions intelligibly—specifically, what he had seen and who assaulted him and his detail the night of January 14^th. Agent Johnson and I determined Agent Avril could be of no further help to us and our investigation. We handed Agent Avril back over to Secret Service custody for disciplinary action.”

“Of note, Agent Avril seemed to confirm rumors circulating around the criminal underground that an active group of yet-to-be-identified suspects remains armed and dangerous. And much like the rumors, he also referred to them by name as, ‘The Dreaded’.”       

 “I’m back at the office. The errands are done,” Brostead spoke into the phone. “The cleaners managed to get the blood out of your cloak, and I picked up Alex’s camera from the post office. Alonso left a note saying that it’s going to need more film next time any one of us are at Vey’s. I also picked up Ted’s vest from him…still don’t want to know how that works. Anyway, I err, I grabbed some melatonin for Edith to try, and got that book Ashley needs for demonology. My hat guy also fixed Robin’s old hat from the fire, so he can try and stop freaking people out on the subway at o-dark-thirty.”

A hollow, unseasonable breeze scratched at the windows, prompting the Nightjar on the windowsill to take flight. Brostead swiveled his head abruptly at the commotion, watching the bird fly a wide arc over East Congress Street toward the quiet cemetery with an unplaceable familiarity.

…Where have I seen that bird before? The private investigator thought to himself.

“I’ll send you an update on Simon when I get one,” Brostead promised aloud before hanging up the phone. He lifted the top off the hatbox and checked its contents. Inside, with a receipt taped to its side, was a freshly repaired U.S. Army Veteran cap.

The Dreaded is out now!

Photo by Tormius on Unsplash