(CW: contains gore, body horror, and depictions of transphobia/homophobia/racism)

CHAPTER 1

When the bright yellow Buick Regal came barrelling out of the darkness, speeding past him with a predator’s roar, Officer Dougie Harper nearly pissed himself in fright. 

“Sweet baby Je-SUS!” he shouted, practically leaping out of his seat. With his heart still racing, he glanced out his window for another look, but that accursed chromium devil was already long gone. He might’ve dismissed it as a freak hallucination, if he didn’t know better. Whoever had been behind the wheel, they couldn’t be going less than 30 over the speed limit. 

Probably some reckless teenagers, out for a joyride. “Disrespectful brats,” Harper muttered. He chastised himself for taking the Son of God’s name in vain a moment ago. “As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate tonight.” 

This was the last turn. Following the current road, he had a straight line to the town of Hildridge, Oklahoma, and what he hoped would be a straightforward murder investigation. I’m owed one of those by now, right? Harper thought bitterly. 

Besides the screaming car from Hell, the streets were empty as he pulled into town. That was to be expected: it was the middle of the night, and Hildridge was a quiet, rural getaway by anyone’s standards. Its people kept to themselves, and most were content to ignore them in turn. 

Most people. But an interloper had been disturbing the peace lately, and the local police seemed able to do jack shit about it. And that was how Officer Harper from the next town over had been called out of his sleep, at eleven-goddamn-fifty pm (Lord, forgive me once more) to clean up his neighbours’ mess.

He didn’t need to see a sign to know he’d crossed over into Hildridge. Some intangible force sent chills up his spine, and he caught himself glancing between barren streets, at pleasant brick houses with one or no light in their windows. It only took a second, but Harper already knew he didn’t like this place. 

Was his instinctual dread because of the killer he’d been sent to catch? He doubted it, as he’d hunted no shortage of depraved crooks in his twenty years of service. Not much was gruesome enough to faze him anymore.

Perhaps it was simply the sense something in Hildridge was wrong, didn’t obey the ways life was meant to follow. Harper was not an unbiased observer: he’d heard the stories that came out of the town. Most residents were good, kind, God-fearing men and women. Others … were not so inclined. 

But was there any truth to those tales? S’pose I’ll find out soon enough, Harper thought, double-checking the destination on his GPS: C-A-S-S-I-L-D-A. Huh. Weird name for a bar, but at least you can’t mistake it. 

He heard the place before he saw it, turning the street corner to face a cacophony of both sirens and blaring, profane music. Even with a murder on the premises, they apparently couldn’t down those insufferable beats. Whatever the hell kids called that crap - techno, dubstep, psycho-fuckin’-delic - Harper thought it might kill him as surely as any nut with a knife.

Bar Cassilda, from the outside, looked innocuous enough. It could even be mistaken for an office building at a glance. But right now its doors were flung open, letting out an array of bright strobe lights from within. Their blue and red hues were eerily reminiscent of a police siren - yet, when Harper looked around, he saw no sign of any cops here besides himself. There were only some ambulances whose drivers attended to witnesses and the injured. 

Who exactly am I supposed to report to? Harper wondered. He spotted a crowd of the bar’s patrons, who’d gathered outside and near the crime scene. Well, might as well start there. 

Cassilda’s people turned to him as he stopped his car and got out, approaching them. In the dark and the blinding lights, Harper couldn’t get a good look at their appearances, but he saw what was on their faces: fear, disgust, apprehension - as if he was the one who’d intruded upon this sanctuary. Those looks were another thing he, after a long career of fighting for the sanctity of law and order, was well used to. 

“Hey,” Harper said, showing them his badge and ID. “Officer Douglas Harper, OCPD. I’m new here, but I’ve been sent to help. Can someone be so kind as to show me where the crime scene is?” 

Rather than respond, immediately, the kids ignored him and began muttering among themselves. Most of it was inaudible to Harper, but even above the music, he could make out “we’re not gonna trust him” and at least one “fucking pig”. Overall, a warmer welcome than he’d expected. 

“Over there by the alleyway,” a woman spat more than said to him, pointing in its general direction. He saw her arm inked with black rose and thorn tattoos. “Sick bastard got Carmine and Leon … heard the meds say they don’t know if Will’s gonna pull through, either. Fuck’s sake … if only I’d been with them-”

“Don’t talk like that,” her companion said, placing a hand on her shoulder. Cloaked by shadow, it was difficult to tell if he was a man or a woman. “You couldn’t have known this would happen. This … shouldn’t have happened. It was supposed to be safe here.”

“Nowhere’s safe. We know that now.” The woman wiped away her unseen tears, then glared at Harper through shadowed eyes. “Why the fuck are you just standing there, huh? Think there’s something funny about us?” 

“Not at all. Just-”

“Then leave us already. Go do your cop things. And you better not take any stuff you’re not supposed to.” She whirled around and stormed off, her friends hurrying after her with worried cries. 

Harper exhaled deeply. Took me two whole minutes to get accused of being a crooked cop this time, he thought. Tonight might not go so bad after all. 

Harper went over to the alley entrance, where more of Cassilda’s patrons had gathered. As the paramedics struggled to keep onlookers away, Harper showed his badge and was let through. Various people grumbled and jeered at him as he walked past, except for one young woman who seemed separate from the crowd. Harper noticed her crouching silently, half-illuminated by a streetlight, ignoring the rest of them.

“How are things going?” he asked the medic standing over the bodies. “None of the freaks tried touching the evidence?”

The young man looked nauseous as he shook his head. “I doubt anyone would want to get near a scene like this,” he whispered. 

When Harper glanced down, he understood what he meant. The two dead lay in a state of brutalization that was hard to fathom. Both victims had been struck by some terrible and violent impact: the woman’s entire torso was flattened as its contents spilled out, guts and bone fragments rupturing through her shredded skin. The other victim’s features were so mangled that even gender was hard to tell at a glance: his or her chest had been caved in, like a fall from a great height; the face was little more than a platter of raw hamburger meat, with only the outline of a skull to prove this had once been a human head. 

Harper could only hope these poor souls had died quickly, as those wounds were not even the last of their bodies’ desecration. Their limbs had not merely been snapped but twisted out of place: the woman’s left leg was sprawled at an almost obtuse angle, as if her tormentor had pulled on it just to see how far he could get before it went pop. Her companion’s hands were bent entirely backwards, like the body had been forced to gruesomely contort itself as it was squeezed tighter and tighter. 

And then there were the “bite” marks. Though Harper knew of no man or beast with such large jaws, he knew no other term for the way chunks had been torn from the victim’s bodies. Some thing had dug deeply into them, scooping out flesh like carving meat from a turkey leg, leaving nothing but gaping, blood-drenched holes. 

Harper had seen many horrible crime scenes before but this … for the first time in decades, he fought back the urge to vomit. Every time he thought himself sufficiently jaded, the world saw fit to remind him that there were some sick, sick fucks in it.

Worst of all, though, was knowing that these two weren’t the only ones who’d met such a violent end. The victims’ states matched all the previous reports: the Hildridge Ripper had struck again. 

“So what have we got?” Harper was happy to avert his eyes; at the same time, he felt almost unable to look away. “Any trace of, uh … the murder weapon?” If there’s even a weapon on Earth that can turn a living, breathing human being into … this. 

“No, sir. We’ve got nothing at all.”

“What about witnesses?” he demanded. “Even if the crime took place outside the bar, someone must have seen something.” 

“Um … I was there.” A dark-haired youth pushed his way to the front of the crowd, waving to Harper. “I didn’t see what happened to … the two who d-died … but …”

Harper sized him up. He had an unusually thin face, and wore that stupid black eyeliner that looked ridiculous enough on girls, let alone on a boy. Between his pierced ears, skull-patterned black T-shirt and ripped short jeans, the kid was a walking microcosm of how this generation’s youth - and their fashion - were going to shit. Suddenly, Harper wished he’d had a coffee before heading out.

“Well, alright,” he said, re-focusing himself. “Tell me what happened here tonight.”

“I was with Will. We were leaving for the night, and he went ahead to cross the street when …” The boy gulped. “I heard this … horrible scream. I-I thought it was, like, a coyote howling or something, one of those animals with really freaky cries. Only this was way too loud - too close. Then I saw the headlights out of the corner of my eye, and next thing I knew …” His voice cracked; he sounded on the verge of crying.

“Keep going. However slowly you want; I’m listening.” 

The boy sniffed, rubbing his eyes. The eyeshadow trails he left behind looked like tears. “I didn’t process it at first. I could see Will being flung several feet in the air, there was blood, there was a sharp crunch … all I knew is that I screamed. I ran to him, and I could hear the car speeding away, faster than they’d even allow on the highway. S-Several more people were hit, but it was so dark, nobody got a good look at the culprit.” 

So this started as a hit-and-run, Harper thought, writing the details down. This also seemed consistent with the Ripper’s MO. “Got it. And this Will guy, he was taken to the hospital?”

“Y-Yes, sir. Aside from … those two … he was hurt the worst. He might be in a coma, and-” The boy stopped abruptly, a shuddering gasp escaping his throat. He collapsed with hands covering his face, heaving as his sobs drenched the pavement below.

Harper sighed, scratching his beard. This was the part he hated the most about his job. Murdered corpses and severed limbs all looked the same after a certain point, but the grief of those left behind - witnessing their raw, unvarnished trauma … frankly, he hoped he’d never get used to it. 

In any case, the poor guy likely had nothing else to give. No use prodding him for clues that might not exist. “Okay, that’s all.” Harper coughed, turning to a blank page in his notebook. “I’ll just need your name, so I can have this on the record.” 

The boy flinched, his gaze darting around as if searching for affirmation. “Um,” he said, his voice even meeker than before. “My name is Hannah Shipley. I’m a regular here, so-”

Harper tensed, an unpleasant jolt running through him. He stared intently at the boy, causing him to stop mid-sentence. Some things came into clarity, details he’d previously paid no heed to. The boy’s earrings, the green highlights in hair that stretched too far past his shoulders, that garish red stain that might be lipstick … Hell, even his voice sounded like he hadn’t gone through fucking puberty yet. 

A light breeze blew past, and Harper shivered - but not because of the cold. This was the same force, that dread of some unholy presence he’d felt upon entering Hildridge. 

He realized he’d been standing silently for too long. “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I asked for your name?” 

“I gave it, sir. I’m Hannah-”

“Is that your name?” Harper asked bluntly. “As in, if I look up your birth certificate, that’s what I’ll find on there?” 

The boy’s eyes flared in anger. “Well-”

“Because it’s important that any testimony I gather can be usable in court. And that’s gonna be pretty tough if the guy telling the story can’t even be trusted to be who he says he is.”

The boy’s face was stained and red from crying, but he still glared defiantly at Harper. “Any legal record worth a shit is gonna have my real name on it, you fucking asshole,” he spat. “Go and look for it right now, since you have so much free time.” 

He was backed up by cheers from the onlookers, who now beheld Harper with open hostility. Somehow, even while standing next to their friends’ murdered corpses, he’d become the main enemy here. He couldn’t escape their looks of condemnation: those faces, those bodies, each one more unnatural than the last. That was just what Harper could see, on the surface. Who knew what grim sights were hiding under clothing, beneath the human skin? He imagined traces of mutilation, body parts mixed and matched like some sick Build-A-Bear project … fabric stretched tightly over places it was never meant to fit … there seemed no limit to the possibilities of madness. 

Without meaning to, Harper took a step back. His heart was pounding, even though he had a gun at his belt and the biggest harm these freaks posed was to themselves, under a surgical knife. In an absurd moment, he looked down at the two corpses for comfort. There was no such unpredictability in the dead: they could only look exactly how they were meant to. Dead men could no longer debase themselves in the eyes of God. 

Suddenly, Harper’s fury was swept away. What the hell am I doing? he thought, realizing his exhaustion - and the futility of it all. There’s no use wasting time on … whatever this is. Get it together, Dougie. 

He cleared his throat, hoping he could pretend the last half-minute had never happened. “Okay. Fine. Er, moving on. Anyone got a closer look at the car, or who was driving it?” Predictably, that inquiry didn’t net him a positive reception - or any answers. The prior tension was now giving way to just plain awkwardness.

Harper tried a different approach. “I’d like to narrow down the exact time the attacks took place,” he said, trying to sound more friendly and reassuring. “It could help to figure out how far the culprit might’ve fled.” 

To his immense relief, an older woman with dreadlocks spoke up. “I was looking at my watch the moment it started,” she said. “That was 11:15pm, so … about an hour and a half ago?”

Had only that much time passed? Harper wondered. It matched up with when he’d been called, but … once again, he pondered the state of the victims’ bodies. The sheer depth of the violence inflicted on them surely couldn’t have been done in mere minutes? Instinctively, he knew it was possible, yet he struggled to picture it. To carry out such a feat would require so much preparation … so much vindictiveness …

So much hate.

At least this progress was encouraging. “Who here personally knew the two victims?” Harper asked next. “Right now, we believe this to be the latest crime of a rising serial killer, but it’s still open that there might have been personal reasons to target these two.”

The bar patrons, now thankfully cooperating, began to whisper to each other. Harper caught small bits of their conversations: someone mentioned “those fuckers in white”, while from another’s lips he heard something about a “Pale Sign.” He frowned; why did that name sound vaguely familiar? 

Finally, someone spoke up. “Everyone knew Carmine and Leon,” the man said, making a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Many of us were introduced to Cassilda through them. They helped us feel … like we had a family here. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to … to hurt them.” 

“Oh, but we can imagine that, can’t we?” another patron shouted, her voice trembling in fury. Her? Or his? The tone was too deep to tell for sure. It was a messed-up world when even such basic things were no longer obvious. “Those two had the same enemies as all of us. People we pissed the hell off.”

There came murmurs of acknowledgement, and more than a few cheers. “Yeah, they were fucking legends!” someone else cried out. “It was Carmine and Leon who organized us when we fought back against-”

“Stop it, all of you! Why are you acting like he’s on our side?” 

A single voice cut through the din. Harper turned and saw the lone young woman he’d noticed earlier, now standing up. Formerly still as a statue, she marched toward him with vigour and purpose, the streetlamps shedding dim light on her features. 

She looked a bit too old to be in college - maybe mid to late 20s. She had strawberry-blonde hair that fell in curls around her neck, with little streaks of red hair dye. Her eyes were - absurdly - a brilliant shade of lilac purple, which Harper assumed were from contact lenses. He took less issue with her dull beige T-shirt and baggy cargo pants, which were among the most palatable clothing he’d witnessed tonight. 

What struck him most about the girl was her expression. There was no redness nor any signs of crying around her eyes, yet they were open wide and manic, like an eternity existed between her every blink. Her teeth were clenched so tightly he feared her jaw might just snap. It was a grimace that held back so much anguish, so much suffering, Harper thought the murder victims must have worn similar expressions in their final moments. 

There was plenty of anger to go around at Bar Cassilda tonight. He’d endured plenty of it already. But what he saw in this girl’s face - and the ferocity he’d heard in her voice - was somehow a step above. 

“Wait, Alina,” one of her friends said, reaching out to stop her. “Let’s not get carried away. We have to catch the guys who did this-”

The girl brushed their hand aside. “We do, which is exactly why we can’t allow him to get involved!” She turned her piercing gaze back onto Harper. “You’re not welcome here. You got that? This place is not for you.”

Trust me, I’d rather drown myself in a ditch than be caught within fifty feet of here, Harper nearly replied. But he refused to let this odd young woman disarm him. “Just doing my job,” he said as politely as he could. “Once I’ve got all the info I need, I’ll be outta your hair.” 

“We don’t need to tell you anything,” the girl fired back. “We’re not stupid. All of us were taught early on to never talk to cops - at least, that’s what I thought we knew!” She glared at the other patrons, some of whom actually appeared shameful. 

“You’re talking to me now,” Harper said flatly. 

“Only to tell you that this isn’t your place to interfere.” She stepped closer, pointing her finger - coated in varying shades of blue nail polish - at him. “It’s no secret where the Hildridge Police Force’s allegiances lie. You weren’t there for us back then, and you definitely don’t have our best interests in mind now!” 

Harper frowned. “There, uh, seems to be a misunderstanding here.” He cautiously pulled his badge out, wondering if this crazy gal might try snatching it out of his hands. “I ain’t local police. Hildridge’s folk have been spread thin lately, covering all the Ripper’s attacks, so I got brought in as backup.”

“ … What?” Her eyes widened. “But why would they … oh. Oh, of course. That makes so much sense.” She took several hoarse, shallow breaths, and Harper realized she was holding back laughter. He’d often seen her kind before: people in fight-or-flight mode, repressing every emotion that wasn’t immediately useful for survival. “I guess I am fucking stupid, not seeing this coming.”

“There’s no need for such pessimism,” Harper said. “The police haven’t abandoned you. You can’t imagine how busy they are.” 

“Oh, they’re ‘busy’,” she scoffed. “Yeah, the HPF are always hard at work. They were ‘too busy’ that time Professor Evans got a bomb mailed to her for teaching gay history to kids. Scott Spencer and his boyfriend getting beat half to death in broad daylight ‘wasn’t top priority’. And it would’ve been ‘a waste of resources’ to investigate when the Pale Sign tried to burn down the one pharmacy in town giving out puberty blockers. Never, ever enough cops on duty.

“But when five people get chopped up in the span of a month, they’re all in on getting justice, no expenses spared … until, conveniently, it’s our turn to be the victims again.” The girl stopped to catch her breath. “And now … what? They’d rather dig some boomer out of retirement than do their own job for once?” 

“I’m not that old,” Harper said, taking offence. “But fine: point taken. If there’s nothing more to be gained here, I’ll leave you folks alone. Maybe the rest of Hildridge will have more clues for me.” He turned away, heading back to his car. “Leave the poor medic boys alone, alright? Just go back to … well, go back to living your lives.” 

But the girl wasn’t done with him yet. “Wait,” he said, sounding genuinely curious. “You’re … gonna stay? You’ll keep investigating?”

“Obviously.” Harper was starting to get annoyed with her. “As I said, I’ve got a job to do. Even if I don’t like it, that’s all the more reason to see it through to the end. Leave no loose ends.” 

“You don’t even know the first thing about this town,” she scoffed.

“Well, then I guess I’ll start learning.” Harper glanced back and smiled at the girl. “Is that so surprising? Sometimes an old dog can learn new tricks.” 

“ … So you admit you’re old,” the girl muttered. She was looking at him in a different way now: not friendly, far from it, but … cautious. Like two paths lay before her, both leading into the same suffocating darkness. She was weighing which road to walk. 

Then she took a step. 

“The car,” she said. “The vehicle the killer drove in. I got a look at it. I … saw it take Carmine and Leon away.”

Harper stared at her in astonishment. Luckily, he didn’t have the energy to shout: Why didn’t you say so from the start? He opened his book again to start writing. “O-Okay. That’s great! Tell me the details.”

The girl swallowed. “It was only for a moment, before they sped off … but I’ve never been more certain of anything. I’d seen that car before. I’d recognize that fucking Buick anywhere.”

Suddenly, Harper froze. “A … Buick?” he repeated. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. A rickety old Buick Regal.” She nodded. “With the most hideous shade of piss-yellow you’ll ever see.”

---

Harper was swearing the whole way back to the police car.

“The motherfucker passed right by me,” he growled, grabbing the door handle. He knew it wasn’t a sure thing: Buick Regal models were dime a dozen, and he’d only glimpsed it for a second in the dark. His eyes could have been mistaken. But here Harper’s intuition as a police officer outweighed evidence and even logic. That had been his guy, earlier tonight: the speed demon who’d nearly run him right off the goddamn (Lord I’m sorry again, it’s been a rough night) road.

“Hold up! Where are you going?” The girl with the red streaks was still following him, and had stopped right next to the passenger door. “You said you passed the yellow Buick on your way in? Is it even worth chasing them at this point?” 

Likely not, he thought. The trail will have gone cold by now. But he was furious: he didn’t like being so close, yet so far. He’d seen enough unsolved cases in his career that haunted him. Each one left Harper wondering if he’d walked next to the killer on the street; if the fucker was still out there, laughing at him from just out of reach. 

Those were the worst kinds of failures - the what-ifs, the roads not taken that he looked back on years later, marvelling at his own cowardice. 

The guy was speeding. Speeding like hell. I could’ve stopped him, taken him in to the station, or at least given him a ticket. Just a good look at his face would’ve been enough. And now … he might just get away. 

But it wasn’t time for “what if?” yet. This case wasn’t dead yet. And so Harper said: “He could’ve stopped somewhere along the way. Maybe to fill up on gas, or take a leak in the woods. That’s where I can grab him.” 

“ … Would someone fleeing a murder scene really stop for a piss?”

“Trust me, kid, I’ve seen some pretty stupid crooks in my day,” Harper replied, then scowled at her. “Now hang on. What’s the meaning of you shadowing me like this, Miss …?”

He was half-sure she wouldn’t give him her name, but she surprised him yet again. “Rhodes. Alina Rhodes.” Alina tilted her chin up, as if she’d said something he might deny. “And don’t call me ‘kid.’ I’m halfway through my medical residency.”

“Well, that’s very good for you, Miss Rhodes. But I fail to see how it answers my question.”

“If you’re so serious about solving the case, then I’m tagging along,” Alina said. “This is personal to me. I can’t just stand by while Carmine’s killer is still out there - I have to take action. If our places were switched, she’d do the same for me.”

“You do know it being ‘personal’ doesn’t make this any safer for you, right?” Harper asked, exasperated. “I’m aware of your opinion on the police, but we have our codes of honour. I, at least, try to keep civvies out of danger as much as possible.”

“I understand the risks,” she insisted. “And I can be helpful! I know Hildridge and its surroundings like the back of my hand. I can patch up wounds. And, um … I’ve won every murder mystery party I’ve ever been to.”

“You’re making a strong case for yourself,” Harper said wryly. Then he had a troubling thought: “Don’t tell me … if I’d gone home, washed my hands of this whole affair, did you plan on finding the culprit yourself?”

“That’s right,” Alina said immediately. “And I’m still willing to go solo, if that’s what it takes.” 

Good grief. Harper realized he was about to do something extraordinarily stupid … but he trusted his own stupidity far more than some young brat’s. “Fine. Get in,” he snapped, unlocking the car doors. “But while you’re with me, I’ll be prioritizing your safety over all else - and that includes catching the perp. So you’d better not compromise the investigation, got that?”

“Of course!” Alina smiled. Harper hadn’t been prepared for that. He was still reeling from that first look he’d seen on her face, that pallid mask of rage and sorrow, so much that it nearly didn’t register for him that the girl could smile. 

And she was beautiful when she smiled. Harper was too old to appreciate her beauty in any carnal way, but he admired it the way a painter might behold a vast, vibrant landscape. Whatever part of her soul the Hildridge Ripper had taken away, she still had some small trace to hold onto. 

With the argument settled, Harper and Alina got into the police car, and soon they were on the road. Harper retraced his path into town, and he soon saw the first signs of hope. Small puddles of black fluid had spilled on the street, and they looked fresh. Oil, no doubt - and there’d been few other cars around. The list of suspects for these traces was small, to say the least. 

“I’ve got your tail now, you son of a bitch,” he muttered. 

Hildridge proper had disappeared behind them. All that remained was a single, winding road, and the endless expanse of forest on either side of it. Harper followed the trail of oil - which almost looked like blood, illuminated by in his headlights - and wondered where it would lead. 

“Time to put that expert knowledge of yours to use, Miss Rhodes,” he said. “Can you think of anyplace our target might’ve fled to? Any hideouts along the way?” 

In the rearview mirror, he saw Alina shake her head. “Not that I know of. This route’s just a straight drive without detours for a half hour at least, until you get to a rest stop with a really shitty Burger King.”

That sounded about right to Harper. The drive up to Hildridge hadn’t been perilous by any means, but there didn’t appear to be obvious detours where some vagabond could travel off the beaten path. No, by any stretch of logic, if they caught this guy they’d catch him the old-fashioned way. Ordinarily, that suited Dougie Harper just fine - no subterfuge, no mind games, no moral or political hand-wringing from compromised higher-ups - just one evil jackass against the full force of the law. But things were different when he had a plus-one. 

“If we find him,” Harper said to Alina, “there’s a good chance he won’t go quietly. I want you to stay in the car and let me handle any fight. Got that? I’ve seen enough operations ruined by some dipshit trying to play hero.”

“I understand,” Alina said. “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal.” Harper did not like how she felt the need to specify that, nor the long pause before she’d said it. “That’s not me bluffing, by the way: I’ve fought my way through dangerous situations before. You can trust me to keep myself safe.”

“Uh-huh.” Harper kept glancing back at Alina as she spoke. He still couldn’t fully get a read on her - and not just because her behaviour mystified him. The longer he looked, the more he took notice of the girl’s quirks: the rough angles of her cheekbones, her unnatural lashes that made her look almost pixie-like … even the way she’d unconsciously rub her chin, the way Harper stroked his beard when lost in thought. 

And her voice … nothing about it was instantly off-putting, and it sounded feminine enough. Besides, who was he to judge what “girly” sounded like? Vanessa, that two-timing bitch, could growl as deep as Keith fucking David after a few dozen smokes. Maybe the atmosphere around Cassilda had poisoned him, clouding his judgement. No, he wouldn’t make … accusations based on such nebulous feelings. That would not fly in the interrogation room, and it would not fly here.

He’d been careless, though. At some point, Alina had noticed his frequent, near-voyeuristic glances, and he sensed her put the pieces together in her mind. Their gazes locked via the mirror, and she rolled her eyes with a sigh. 

“If you’re thinking of asking, don’t bother,” she said. “Yes, I’m trans. Bisexual, too, if that makes things better or worse for you.” She placed her hands in her pockets - an innocuous gesture, yet Harper couldn’t help but notice. “Hope that isn’t a dealbreaker, Officer, but there’s still time to kick me out onto the road.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harper growled. “I agreed to look after you, and that ain’t gonna change.” But he already could no longer look at Alina in the same way; he felt an invisible wall grow between him and “her” (he supposed he might as well keep using that). The person sitting behind him would now forever be, not less than a human being, but a distorted image of one. 

Harper did not see himself as a bigot. No true bigot did, of course, but he’d always tried to view his fellow man with grace and compassion. That included those he disagreed with, even fundamentally. He had only contempt for brutes who were motivated to harm those they viewed as deviant, whether physically or through the machinations of government.

No, it was neither hate or anger that left him offended by communities like Bar Cassilda’s. They offended him because they had violated his world’s boundaries, sneered at the rules that kept him safe and his mind resolute. They were a disturbance of the idea that he could glimpse a person, just for a moment, and feel secure in a few key assumptions. 

The world had felt secure, once. Even during turbulent times, there were self-evident truths that could anchor one to reality. It was true that dresses were intrinsically female, that love was tied to the need to reproduce and carry on the species, that you could know yourself just from a glance between your legs. People needed rules to hold onto their sense of reason, or else their existence became a void of chaos and uncertainty. 

And that was how it felt sometimes, like living in a world losing its reason, day by day. When men fornicated with other men, were those fleeting moments of pleasure worth upending the natural order? What about young, confused folk scarring, mutating their own bodies, just to fulfill a delusion? As these anomalies spread, the world that Harper knew was becoming unrecognizable, and it broke his heart to see. And yes, he was frightened, too - frightened about what place he had in this new world. 

In some ways, those like Alina Rhodes were the worst - because she’d fooled him, hadn’t she? He hadn’t even realized something was off; unlike others, she could conceal herself successfully. How many more were out there, with him unable to tell? 

It’s not right. It’s unfair. How-

Harper stopped himself. His hands, clenching the steering wheel, were drenched in sweat. He’d nearly driven off the road. Enough, he thought. This isn’t like you at all.

He had to focus on the job. Two people were dead, a dozen more were injured, and there was a madman behind it all. Remembering that calmed him: he found comfort in its logical chain of events. 

“Are you okay?” Alina asked.

“Yes, of course,” Harper snapped. And he thought: The closer I listen, the easier it is to tell-

“Anyway, I have more questions for you,” he said, bringing both himself and the car back on track. “That yellow Regal. You said you’d seen it before?” 

“I sure have.” Her gaze darkened. “And it’s not just me. For certain people, there’s an unwritten, unspoken law in Hildridge: if you see an old yellow Buick Regal with the licence number O4Z0B89, you stay the hell away from that area. That’s the car owned and driven by the Pale Sign.” 

There it was - that oddly familiar name again. “What exactly is the Pale Sign?” Harper asked.

“The short answer is, they’re a cult. Long answer: they’re what happens when grumpy fundamentalist Christians get really buddy-buddy with the local KKK chapter. Turns out both groups hate a lot of the same kinds of people, and each had plenty to offer the other. Soon we had pundits with no right to a platform speaking before entire congregations, and old white guys fantasizing about the Crusades had access to huge caches of illegal guns and ammo.” Alina closed her eyes, exhaling through tightly clenched teeth. “Nobody was shocked by what came next - least of all the people who stood by and let it all happen.”

That stirred Harper’s memories - some meeting at the precinct a few years back. A name brought up, discussed for several minutes, then dismissed. “Huh. Yeah, I remember something about that: higher-ups were worried a new grassroots religious movement might stir up trouble.”

Alina laughed bitterly; whether it was “religious movement” or “trouble” she found especially funny, Harper couldn’t tell. “Oh, I’m sure that’s how you talked about it. Me, I’ll never forget that first sign the cultists put up, right outside the biggest church in town. In big bold letters: ‘ALL GOD-LOVING WHITE PATRIOTS CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE ANTI-J.F.N. ALLIANCE - SUNDAY 8PM.’ The ‘J’ stood for ‘Jew’. I think you can fill in the rest.” 

Harper grimaced. What she’d described sounded deplorable, to be sure, but he feared she was leaving out some nuances. “Rowdy groups like that pop up all the time. They’re usually honest folk, bit rough around the edges, trying to have their voices heard. It doesn’t make them evil - and it doesn’t mean they’re murderers.”

“I’m sure you believe that, Officer,” Alina scoffed. “But you weren’t there for those years. Hell, I wasn’t there for a lot of it. Mostly I just hid: hid while the Pale Sign recruited more members by the day. Hid while people I loved were attacked, threatened, made to feel invisible. It felt like Hildridge was falling under some dark, terrible spell, and there was nothing we could do to save ourselves.

“Only a few places were left as refuge. Places off the grid, that you wouldn’t hear about unless you were in the know. That’s how Cassilda started out: a safe haven to gather, love, live, out of the watchful eye of the Pale Sign. For a while, it seemed like enough.” She paused, and Harper saw her mouth trembling - a reminder that this girl was barely holding herself together. “It was Carmine Winters who convinced us that we needed to do more.”

One of the victims. Things were starting to make sense. “This Carmine Winters,” Harper said. “You and her were close?” 

“She was my best friend,” Alina whispered. “I always … we’ve always been there for each other, ever since we were kids.”

Something within Harper - call it police’s intuition again - sensed that wasn’t the whole story. But he said nothing, and let Alina vent her grief.

“Carmine was really amazing, you know? In her, I saw everything I ever wanted to be. She was one of the first to see what Cassilda could be, helped spread the word around.” She paused, sniffled. “Her and her boyfriend, Leon Harris. God, they were such a power couple. Who wouldn’t be jealous?”

“They were boyfriend and girlfriend?” Harper frowned. “What the hell were they doing at a queers’ hangout, then?”

“Okay, I’m just gonna gloss over that,” Alina said with obvious disgust. “My point is they were charismatic as hell, and we all listened when they spoke. It helped that most of us already knew, deep down, that we couldn’t just hide forever. Cassilda had to be more than a shelter - it needed to be a fortress of war.” 

Harper tensed up, and not merely because of her ominous words. They were entering a stretch of road with no street lamps, and only the car’s headlights lit up tiny spots in the darkness. “You … went to war,” he said incredulously.

“We sure did. The Pale Sign’s attacks were only gonna get more violent, and we knew the cops would do nothing to stop them. Some of them were almost certainly on the cult’s payroll. So we took matters into our own hands.” She smiled for the second time that night, and it was just as dazzling. “Cassilda’s regulars were the first to be organized, but we didn’t stop there. We even reached out to other communities the Pale Sign had targeted, and soon our alliance marched right to the cult’s doorstep. Funny how they preached about what an existential threat we posed, but they weren’t at all prepared for that. 

“It was like a goddamn rally - with all of us, we had their HQ as good as surrounded. The Pale Sign were stockpiling weapons, but we weren’t helpless, either. We brought mace, pepper spray, homemade Molotovs and smoke bombs … we wore defence vests … some of us were even legal gun owners. Not that we planned on using them: our goal was just to make our message to the Pale Sign loud and clear. They were the ones with no place here, not us - and we wanted them to leave and stay gone.” 

Harper swallowed, taking it all in. “That … sounds very illegal. An armed militia with no state sanction -” 

“Well, fight fire with fire right?” Alina cut in. “And nobody got seriously hurt - a miracle, I’ll admit that. What mattered most is that we scared those motherfuckers - they couldn’t handle the idea that we could actually fight back. So we drove them out: some cultists fled in their stupid cars like the yellow Buick Regal, but many just ran away on foot. Looked like the pathetic little bitches that they are. By sunset, the Pale Sign’s reign in Hildridge had ended.” 

“And the cops?” Harper snapped. “Surely they didn’t think what you people did was okay.”

“Nope,” Alina said cheerfully. “But the HPF getting involved meant betraying how long they’d let the cult get away with their shit. So they left us be - for once - and quietly cleaned up the empty offices. I’m guessing they disposed of any remaining contraband, too. Once it was all over, things calmed down surprisingly quickly. After months without any more trouble, we started to believe the Pale Sign were gone for good …”

“Until tonight,” Harper said.

“Until tonight,” Alina agreed. 

“There’s just one problem with your theory, miss.” Harper turned to meet a curve in the road, leading down the hill. “You really think a member of the Pale Sign is the Hildridge Ripper?”

“Of course! What other possibility even makes sense?”

“But your friends from Cassilda weren’t the first of the Ripper’s victims,” he pointed out. “And when reading the full list, there’s no indication he’s specifically targeting minority groups. There’s no pattern to his choices of victims at all.”

Alina bit her lip. It seemed clear from her expression that she’d thought of this, but wouldn’t let it change her stance despite her lack of a counterargument. “They’re supremacist freaks. They’ll find any reason to brand someone as inferior and worth exterminating. Besides, it’s indisputable that their car was used in the attack.” 

“I have only your word on that, Miss Rhodes,” Harper muttered. But on this, he was no more rational than Alina - otherwise, he wouldn’t be following the trail. “I’ll wrest the truth from our man once we-” 

He suddenly slammed on the brakes, cursing under his breath. Alina yelped, her seatbelt keeping her in the passenger seat. “What happened?” 

“It’s … nothing,” Harper said. Quite literally, in fact. The black oil, which had marked the yellow Buick’s path, simply stopped up ahead. There was no intersection, no offroad route - just a random spot on the street. Nothing but dead plains for miles around. It was like the car had sprouted legs and ran off, leaving no trace behind. 

“Could he have driven onto the grass instead?” Alina suggested. 

“Unlikely. There should be tire marks if that were the case.” Harper blinked furiously, wondering if he was hallucinating or even more sleep-deprived than he’d thought. No dice. There remained no sign of where the car had gone, and he’d driven out here in the ass-crack middle of nowhere.

Harper’s shoulders slumped, and he found himself overwhelmed by the absurdity of this whole situation. How the hell did I get here? He’d gone on this wild goose chase for a car that might be driven by a serial killer, all on the word of some sharp-tongued tr*nny - who’d somehow ended up under his wing, lecturing him as if she understood anything about the world …

No, that hadn’t even been the start of it. He knew this case had been dumped on him because it was throwaway - not worth caring about. The “real” experts were busy with “real” work, but a washed-up old has-been could be saddled with this so HQ could pretend they gave a shit. And all the while, he heard the mockery of those younger cops who were in charge these days, patting themselves for not being “out of touch” or “behind the times” like poor, misguided Officer Harper. Dougie Harper, who could catch baby-killers and domestic terrorists but couldn’t hold down a marriage. Who felt increasingly alone as the good old traditions and values seemed to matter less and less by the day. 

To his horror, he realized tears were welling up in his eyes. Was he really about to have a breakdown? Here in the car, in front of her? 

“Hey, um, don’t lose hope,” Alina said. Damn her - even now she saw right through him. “There’s gotta be some other clues to follow.”

“Where?” Harper glared at her. He found her half-assed encouragement more aggravating than her earlier rants against him. “None of the previous murders had any witnesses or evidence left behind. The same would be true here if you hadn’t seen the Buick - and now that’s been lost.” 

“True, but …” Her eyes lit up. “Oh! I’ve got an idea. You said you weren’t convinced that the Pale Sign is behind the murders, right?”

“Right …”

“Well, why don’t we go look for proof?” She nodded, as if the decision was already made. “I mentioned the cult’s old HQ in town - it’s still there, abandoned. If we head there, we might find something that ties them to the current case!”

Harper was doubtful on how much that would really help. Not only had the Pale Sign been forced out months before the Hildridge Ripper’s killings, but even evidence of a connection wouldn’t bring him closer to finding the perp. As for the yellow Buick … it could’ve been stolen at some point, couldn’t it? The one lead he had wasn’t irrefutable proof that the cult was behind this. 

At the same time, there really was nothing else to do. He needed to try. Wasn’t that how he’d pulled through all those other dark hours, when cases hit a dead end or his personal life was falling apart at the seams? He found a thread - however thin and flimsy it seemed - and held on tight, trusting it would take him somewhere. Not his destination, maybe, but a spot along the path. 

“Okay,” he said, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. “Okay. Let’s do that. Their old offices, right? Could you show me the way, miss?” 

“Gladly,” Alina replied. “Honestly, I planned on going back there myself at some point.” 

And so, with his heart not quite filled with resolution, but containing enough fuel to keep going, Harper turned the car around. Back to Hildridge, to continue the hunt. 

But before he set off again, Harper saw something in the corner of the mirror: a faint white light, blinking on and off. Like it was watching him. 

He froze. What? When he turned to get a better look, the light was gone. That had been no mirage, though: something was out there. 

“Are we going?” Alina asked.

“Yes, yes. Just be patient.” Harper began to drive, returning to the darkness and the town it had engulfed. Every now and then, he glanced back, expecting some terrible creature to jump at him. 

(To be continued...)