Epilogue #3
I nodded and walked over, my feet moving almost on autopilot as I ducked under the yellow barrier tape that cordoned off the scene. My heart was already pounding in my chest, preparing me for what I knew was coming.
The smell hit me first. It always did. Rot.
Decay. Copper. That sickly-sweet metallic tang that coated your throat and refused to leave.
The unmistakable stench of death—the kind that seeped into your clothes, your hair, your pores, and lingered there for days no matter how many showers you took.
I covered my mouth with my hand, breathing through my fingers in a futile attempt to filter the air, and kept walking.
My eyes were already starting to water. And then I saw it.
The bodies. Or what was left of them.
Pieces. Piled up like some kind of grotesque offering to a god I didn’t want to know existed.
Body parts scattered across the ground in configurations that defied any logical explanation.
Limbs severed cleanly at the joints, positioned at odd angles.
Torsos stacked one atop another like macabre building blocks.
Heads arranged in a semicircle, their lifeless eyes staring at nothing and everything all at once.
All of it arranged in a way that seemed almost deliberate, almost ceremonial, in a pattern that made my stomach turn and my breakfast threaten to make a reappearance.
The precision was what got me. The care taken in the placement of each piece.
This wasn’t the work of someone in a frenzy.
This wasn’t passion or rage. This was cold calculation.
This wasn’t just murder. This was something else entirely.
Something darker. Something that spoke of ritual and intention and a mind that had long ago severed its connection to anything remotely human.
A mind that had ventured into territories most of us couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and had decided to make its home there.
The medical examiner was standing nearby, his face pale and drawn, his hands shaking as he scribbled notes on a clipboard.
I made my way over to him. He’d been on the force for thirty years, seen every kind of death imaginable, but tonight something was different.
Tonight had gotten to him. “Doc,” I said quietly, not wanting to startle him.
He looked up slowly, and I saw the horror in his eyes—a deep, haunted look that I knew would stay with him for a long time.
His lips were pressed into a thin line, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead despite the cool night air.
“In all my years,” he began, his voice barely above a whisper, trembling with each word, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Not even close.”
“How many?” I asked, bracing myself for the answer.
“At least three,” he said, swallowing hard. “Maybe more. It’s hard to tell with... with the state they’re in.” He gestured vaguely toward the scene behind him, unable or unwilling to look back at it.
I nodded, my jaw tight, feeling the familiar weight of dread settling in my chest. “Cause of death?”
“I won’t know for sure until I get them back to the lab,” he said, running a shaking hand through his thinning hair.
“But based on what I’m seeing here... blunt force trauma.
Extensive dismemberment. This wasn’t random violence or a crime of passion.
” He paused, meeting my eyes. “This was... methodical. Calculated. Whoever did this took their time.”
I turned away, my hand still covering my mouth. The smell was unbearable. Death had a way of announcing itself—rot and copper and something else, something primal that made your body want to run. I’d been to dozens of crime scenes, maybe hundreds, but this one was different. This one felt personal.
An officer approached, holding an evidence bag. “Chief,” he said, his voice tight. “We found some items. Thought you should see them right away.”
I took the bag and looked inside, my jaw clenching.
A remnant of a leather cut, charred around the edges but still identifiable.
The Diamondback patch was clear as day—a coiled rattlesnake with fangs bared, the club’s colors still visible despite the fire damage.
Beneath it, a U.S. Marshal ID, the plastic warped from heat, and a silver locket, tarnished and dented.
My hands were steady as I examined each item, my mind cataloging details, making connections I didn’t want to make.
But then the officer handed me another bag.
A small piece of paper, yellowed at the edges and folded once.
I opened the bag carefully and pulled out the note. It was handwritten in black ink, the letters precise and deliberate. Simple. Direct.
Henry Amaro.
I stiffened. My heart slammed once, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to steal my breath.
Henry Amaro. I looked around the dark countryside, taking in the bodies scattered across the field, the evidence markers glowing in the headlights, the forensic team moving like ghosts through the scene, and then I closed my eyes.
“What the fuck did you do, Whisper?” I whispered, my voice breaking on his road name as the wind picked up, rustling the tall grass around us, and in the distance, I heard the faint rumble of a motorcycle engine—a sound that made my blood run cold.
THE END