Rain offered a cold benediction to the leaden skies. It was Tuesday, and a charcoal-gray Ford pulled to a halt beside a dilapidated tenement. Clad in a heavy jacket, a hat, and shielding himself with an umbrella, a man emerged from the vehicle and vanished into the building’s hollow lobby.
“Hello,” the receptionist chirped. “Good to see you again.” He offered a thin smile and ascended the stairs in a silence so profound it felt heavy.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Three rhythmic raps upon the wood. “Come in,” Ethan Paine replied, his voice steady yet laced with an undeniable weariness.
He could hear the rain drumming a frantic staccato against the office window. A dismal day, he mused. Even the heavens seemed to have lost their resolve. The door creaked open; Paine looked up and allowed himself a faint roll of the eyes. “Must you always insist on such formality? Sit down, John.”
John stepped inside, removing a waterlogged hat to reveal thinning black hair. He hung his sodden coat on the rack, shaking the dampness from his hands. It had been an age since their last case. In truth, both had begun to doubt another would ever find them.
John slid the morning paper across to Paine before wandering toward the gramophone in the corner. Paine bristled; he knew what was coming, and he knew exactly how much it would grate on his nerves. John lowered the needle, and the room was filled with an old, slow melody, crackling with the static of time.
Paine struck a match and lit a cigarette. He didn’t smoke often—he detested the lingering stench—but tonight, the boredom had finally won. “Quiet, isn’t it?” John asked. Paine exhaled a plume of gray smoke, rolling his eyes once more. “We had opportunities to take cases,” John ventured. “We did,” Paine cut him off. “And they were tedious. I saw no point.” This time, it was John who rolled his eyes.
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the music and the weeping sky. Both knew they lacked an answer to the looming question of their future. Then, at last, the rain ceased. The ensuing quiet felt unnatural. Paine rose, lifted the needle from the spinning record, and muttered, “One of these days, I shall hurl that thing through the window. I swear it.”
Donning their coats and hats, they ventured out. The pungent scent of wet asphalt trailed them to Charlie’s Café on the corner. The chime of a bell announced their arrival as they took their habitual seat by the window.
Charlie approached with a broad, welcoming grin. “Morning, gentlemen. What can I get for you?” They returned the smile. Paine, haunted by a long-standing debt to sleep, ordered an espresso. John, who seemed determined never to truly grow up despite being well into his thirties, opted for a hot cocoa.
As they sat, the conversation drifted and died, until a low whisper drifted from the table behind them. “Did you hear what happened in Wexford Town?” a man said, his loud slurp of coffee echoing through the quiet shop. “No,” his companion replied. Paine and John exchanged a look. Their pulses quickened. The man was about to continue when a third person entered the café—the storyteller’s friend. Greetings were exchanged, the momentum was lost, and the tale of Wexford Town remained untold.
Paine and John were left with a mountain of questions and a void of answers. With a collective sigh, they drained their cups. Paine drew a twenty-pound note from his wallet and laid it on the table. Outside, evening had descended with startling speed, the sky bruising into darkness.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“We need to discern what occurred in Wexford,” Paine said. John nodded. “It might prove... interesting.”
On their return, they passed the “Ryders,” a new cinema that had surprised the small town. A vibrant poster adorned the wall: Shapeshifters Part II. John’s eyes lit up, but Paine only sighed. “Sounds dreadful,” he remarked. “Dreadful?” John countered. “It’s magnificent! I’m a devotee of the series. It’s a remake of a classic I loved as a boy. It’s about an alien that adopts human forms, hunting them down to pave the way for an invasion.”
John prattled on with infectious enthusiasm while Paine barely listened. To him, such fantasies were a waste of intellect. There was no such thing as the “supernatural.” There is a killer, there is a victim, and there is a human logic to bridge the two. Always.
“Did you know,” John continued, undeterred, “that to kill a shapeshifter, you must strike while they are wearing a stolen skin? That is when they are most vulnerable. Most can’t hold a form for more than an hour.”
The rain returned in heavy droplets, accompanied by the distant rumble of thunder. “I even have a pin from the first film,” John smiled, producing a limited-edition badge. The polished metal caught the yellow glare of a streetlamp, revealing a creature with two faces—one human, one monstrous. “Lovely,” Paine said dryly, though secretly he knew that despite John’s childish whims, he was the sharpest investigator he had ever known.
They reached the apartment in silence. “What do you think happened there?” John asked eventually. Paine didn’t answer immediately, but the set of his shoulders betrayed him. He wasn’t going to let this go. He retrieved the newspaper John had brought earlier, leafing through the pages with practiced speed.
On page three, he stopped. It wasn’t a headline—just a small, easily missed column. But Paine never missed the small things.
Wexford Town, 13.09.1993 A fifteen-year-old boy has vanished mysteriously after school hours. Last seen in uniform near the old museum by the lake. Additionally, a woman’s body was discovered near the water. Authorities urge anyone with information to come forward.
Paine looked up. “A missing boy. A body by the lake,” he whispered. John didn’t like the tone of his voice. “You don’t think it’s connected to what we heard... do you?” Paine remained silent, his eyes fixed on the final line, nearly swallowed by advertisements: “Found lifeless near the lake. The body was mutilated; the heart was missing.”
Silence reclaimed the room, save for the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock. John ran a hand through his hair, trying to shake the cold dread pooling in his stomach. Paine closed the paper, his gaze frozen. “Wexford has secrets,” he said softly. “And I intend to unearth them.”
For the first time in years, John saw a spark in Paine’s eyes—not of fear, but of life. “Pack a bag,” Paine commanded. “We leave tomorrow.”
John stepped back out into the night, the excitement burning within him. He detoured to the local library. The heavy door creaked, and the smell of old paper offered a momentary sanctuary. He approached the librarian, a silver-haired woman with spectacles. “Do you have the archives for Wexford?” She pointed him to a cramped, dusty back room. There, John found a folder labeled: Cold Cases.
As he flipped through the yellowed pages, his blood ran cold. Wexford. A litany of disappearances since the seventies. Children, workers, unexplained assaults. And every single file bore the same soul-crushing stamp in red ink: CLOSED – LACK OF PUBLIC INTEREST. The town wasn’t solving crimes; it was burying them.
Meanwhile, Paine sat in his dark room, writing in his journal: Boy missing. Body by the lake. Heart absent. He drew three arrows.
- Cannibalism.
- Serial Killer.
- [Blank]
“It must be cannibalism,” he whispered to the shadows. It felt absurd, yet a serial killer had no use for a heart. If there was no logic, there was no peace. “Supernatural,” he scoffed aloud, trying to banish the chill at his neck. “There is no such thing, John. No such thing.”
He closed the journal and lay back, watching the ceiling. Outside, the rain lashed the glass as if trying to break in. For the first time in his career, Ethan Paine wasn’t sure if he truly wanted to know the truth. “Goodnight,” he whispered to the empty room, and surrendered to the dark.