Sergeant Keensburg was no stranger to the stench of death. Spend enough years looking at corpses and plucking evidence from a scene, and eventually your nerves calm and all you can smell is iron. Damn, stick with the force long enough, and you can even have lunch before heading over to the scene—which is what Keensburg usually did before arriving. Today was one day he was glad he hadn't.
He clapped a hand to his mouth as he entered the hotel room. A clammy sweat coated his face, and it took damned everything he had not to throw up. All manner of sinew, bone, and viscera covered the walls, the furniture, the floor, even some of the leftover food.
In instances like these, it was important to remain logical and level headed. As an officer of the force, it was his job, his duty to ensure the safety of the citizens.
Keensburg steeled himself, then approached one of the few officers who was still detailing the evidence. The man's hand shook as he took notes on a pad of paper. The creases of his hand collected sweat, and he removed his hat several times.
"What have you found so far?" Keensburg asked as he flashed his identification.
The man's chest rose and fell steadily. He leveled his gaze at the room, pointing to various aspects with the eraser of his pencil while he spoke. As he detailed the pure evil and sheer brutality of the crime, the picture became clearer, but at the same time, more muddied.
"Is it true?" the officer asked when he was done.
"Is what true?" Keensburg pocketed his badge.
"That this is… part of a series of crimes?"
Keensburg paused. He was never one to divulge the details of crimes or ongoing cases, but the man was on to it. It bore all the hallmarks of the prior slaughters they'd been investigating for the last few months. To make matters worse, he'd seen this cop before. He'd been there to catalog evidence for a similar crime. It was no wonder he was one of the only officers in the room.
"I'm not at liberty to say," Keensburg said, kneeling down to examine the blood soaked into the carpet. He slapped on a pair of latex gloves and pressed his first two fingers into the substance. It squelched.
"I understand," the officer muttered.
"Were you able to identify the victims?"
"No. But we were able to find teeth. We've sent them up for analysis."
"Good. Can you have them sent to my precinct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Keensburg." A gruff voice to his right. Keensburg turned his head toward the source to see an older man with sharp gold eyes and a healthy beard that was as gray as a storm cloud. He wore a cowboy's hat that bore roses around the base, and a poncho with elaborate reds and oranges depicting flowers wreathed together by what appeared, to Keensburg at least, to be vines.
"Sheriff Krawl."
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Maxis scrolled through his history of texts with Olivier while he waited for Ren. As much as he admired Ren's, well, free way of living, he hoped that by now that he'd at least have a stronger respect for punctuality. Such things used to bother him, but after a while he'd learned to accept that Ren was never going to arrive on time. Ah, well. At least it gave him time to reflect.
The passenger door suddenly flew open, and Ren jumped into the seat. Maxis put his phone between his legs and started the engine. "Man, I should've just gotten my old phone fixed. This thing sucks."
Not even an apology.
Maxis chuckled. "Your new phone works just fine, what are you talking about?" he asked as he shifted the vehicle into reverse and looked over his shoulder.
"Dude, it doesn't even have a fingerprint sensor." He turned the phone around so Maxis could see it, but Maxis didn't grant the phone so much as a glance. Distracted driving was a very real problem that he refused to be a part of. "Bro, see those rounded edges? That's so damn stupid. My finger keeps slipping off the edge and I mistype shit constantly. How the hell am I supposed to use this thing?" He retracted his phone and began to scroll.
"Good thing there's an autocorrect for people like you," Maxis snickered. He shifted the car into drive and made a right onto the street.
"Yeah, real funny. Next time you send a ducking message, maybe then you'll get it."
"I don't rely on the autocorrect. I learned how to spell years ago. If I spell it wrong, a simple red underline shows up instead. It's an app I use."
"Dude, really? Like those document processors?" Ren said with what Maxis thought was a hint of jealousy.
"Yeah, super helpful stuff."
"Nerd," Ren chuckled.
"Just don't forget who's buying your ammunition," Maxis said before violently swerving to the left. Ren yelped and dropped his phone on the floor. "Whoops."
"Yeah, ha ha, very funny." He snatched his phone out from under the seat and wiped away the dust and dirt. "Oh hey, let's not tell anyone about this, all right?"
Maxis frowned. "You don't want to tell at least one person where we might be going? I get the whole 'trying to keep the job a secret' thing, but what if we got hurt? No one's going to know where we are."
"We'll be fine," Ren said, shaking his head. "If June or Sunny found out, they'd be on our asses before you know it and we'd never even know. I don't want them to get hurt."
"You're not even remotely concerned?" Maxis frowned. He turned on his left signal and turned into the left-hand lane, coming to a stop at the light.
"Of course, I am. But we can handle it."
Maxis wondered if Ren really believed that. Ren was rambunctious and hard headed sometimes, but he wasn't stupid. Despite his lack of book smarts, he was much more street smart than people gave him credit for. He knew which gangs to look out for, how to evade theft and confrontation. Ren tapped his left foot against the floor—something Maxis came to realize he did whenever he was nervous.
Maxis turned onto the next street and pulled into the parking lot on his right. It was dinky, and the street was in dire need of repair. But it housed one of the only gun stores nearby.
"All right, we're here," Maxis said. He turned off the ignition and retrieved his keys. "Stay here like a good little boy, and hopefully the guy'll sell us what you need."
"Bite me. He's such a tightass, anyway."
"That tightass provides the ammunition to your only useful jitter," Maxis reminded him. Ren used to shop here all the time, but after an argument with the store owner, he was no longer welcomed. He didn't see what went down, but judging from the words Ren used, Maxis assumed the store owner was in the right. "A little kindness goes a long way."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Ren sunk beneath the window so as to hide from the owner.
Maxis chuckled. "I'll be back shortly."