Dark Explorations

(Alan POV)

“How long does this usually take?”

Sofia was smiling quizzically as she watched me pull out a large rolled-up map of the United States. I kept this thing in my closet for moments just like this. Sofia did her best to create a list of times she fought Roxane and where they occurred. She stated it was likely not a perfect record, but she could remember quite a few incidents. I laid the map out on the living room’s coffee table and grabbed a small container of thumbtacks.

“The whole process of research? A week or two. Then the videos take another week or two to write, then edit, and create any 3D scenes. The hardest part is what Alice is doing. Her speed will make this go so much faster.”

Sofia sat down on the couch as I rested on my knees on the opposite side of the table. She had two pieces of paper that she spent compiling since last night. Meanwhile Alice and I spent a majority of yesterday compiling as much information as possible. Alice was able to find within minutes Roxane’s foster care records which tracked the many households she jumped between; it was twenty-one. She also managed to locate her medical and psychiatric records. Those records turned out to be rather unremarkable and disappointing. Anger issues were noted by every doctor she had visited and many had also suggested bipolar disorder as a possibility. She had been prescribed with a mood stabilizer when she was sixteen, but refused to take it due to it causing her to become depressed. Alice was currently working to compile Roxane’s internet activity. I hope to find weird habits, strange obsessions, or outright images of self-harm or other drastic behavior which can show her thought process ahead of the Huntsville High School Shooting.

Ironically, that type of internet behavior is what led me to suspect Sofia had committed many of the sadistic murders shortly after escaping death’s claws at that bridge in Memphis. She was obsessed with Sadism and Masochism and showed it to her online boyfriend all the time. He was equally into it, but definitely didn’t know the extent she was. Her movements through Tennessee showed consistent experimentation, like she was exploring her own fetishes and realizing how deep it went. When I first noticed it, I began with this same map. It had many tiny holes in its thick paper showing both my map of Sofia and others before her. I grabbed the first thumbtack and hovered over the map.

“Hit me with the first.”

“I’m pretty sure it was in August of ‘23 somewhere around here.”

She pointed towards a portion of Pisgah National Forest south of Asheville, North Carolina. I placed a thumbtack where she marked.

“Four months after Roxane ‘died’. What happened between y’all?”

Sofia took a moment before responding. She looked up, recalling the events.

“The boss wanted me to attack a base or something that her rival had. I think she was being trained or something. When I got to the log cabin, it was empty except for a god damn shotgun trap.”

I was taken aback by the statement and felt myself recoil at it.

“A shotgun trap?”

“Yep, I was lucky to not be standing in the doorway when I opened it. Damn thing probably would’ve killed me. A couple minutes later, I heard two people approaching and hid and waited. One of them was an older bitch that I knew well. She didn’t even get to fight when I got her in the neck! Roxane saw it happen and she tried to shoot me, but I was too fast. Knocked the pistol out of her hand, but she was fucking strong. I couldn’t get her to fold and she managed to escape.”

This was the first I had ever heard of any soldiers in this war dying. I was a bit surprised for some reason. Of course they die, they’re trying to kill each other. I made a mental note that even my protectors are mortal and I should practice with the rifle a bit more. My next thought shifts toward Roxane and Sofia’s fight as she described it.

“Wait a second, she was as strong as you?”

Sofia gives me a wide eyed smile and nods.

“Surprised me too! If she has that type of strength, she shouldn’t be using a gun for all her killing. Those things take out the fun of it. A knife or even your bare hands are far more fun. You can even see the panic in their eyes as they realize this is their last moment.”

I decide to ignore her sadistic tangent on the subpar nature of killing with firearms. I find myself thinking and trying to justify the possibility. I didn’t doubt she could be strong, I doubted she could match Sofia’s strength. Sofia is around six foot tall, muscular with well toned abs, back, arms, legs, everything. Not to mention the bonuses given to her by her contract, she could easily shatter bone with a single punch. Roxane was not that. I couldn’t know how muscular she was under her hoodie, but she was five feet two inches and clearly skinny. Someone of that height must be physically large if they had that type of strength. My first thought went to her contract, but the problem was Roxane still favored firearms. She got hit with a flesh wound in her firing arm and retreated. If she was confident in her ability to fight us, she wouldn’t have run.

We’ll need to return to this subject if we hope to ever catch her and bring her in as their boss asked. Right now, we need to focus on the map. We continued down Sofia’s list and managed to pin almost thirty locations across the eastern United States. What formed was a line along the Appalachian mountain range as the two battled in varying situations with varying levels of assistance. Sofia often worked alone during these excursions, like a military force disattached from its supply lines and sent to destroy whatever it can in the backlines. She would be told where to find her opponent or their base and then destroy. Roxane seemed to do the opposite from Sofia’s perspective. She was a sniper waiting in her nest for the enemy to approach so she could kill their attack before it even began. She would remain in these isolated cabins or buildings, usually in the many National Parks or Forest criss crossing the Appalachian mountains. What we had created was effectively a map of old enemy outposts as well as a tracking of Roxane’s movements. I needed to know more. Not just about Roxane, about how this works.

“Why does territory matter?”

Sofia thought for a moment, gave a faint smile, then shrugged.

“It doesn’t.”

“Huh?”

I let out a dumb response and Sofia laughed at my confused expression. She finally stopped after a few moments before gesturing at large to the map, particularly emphasizing the patterns formed by the thumbtacks.

“These borders or whatever, they don’t matter. The boss and all her rivals are obsessed with ‘owning’ territory. She thinks of herself as some medieval queen. She tells us, “All of the Appalachian mountains are mine.””

She performed an overexaggerated British accent as she mocked her boss. She continued after a few giggles.

“The reality is that I can go wherever and do whatever. If I wanted to go into Roxane’s or Vikky’s territory, they wouldn’t care. Their boss might care, pretending it's her kingdom, but no one will do anything unless ordered to.”

She pointed towards Lynchburg, VA after looking for a few seconds for it.

“The boss says she owns this city. Alice has all the tech needed to see the cameras. I regularly go and do whatever is needed. If Roxane showed up without telling the boss though, no one cares.”

I think about it for a moment and begin to understand.

“If your boss is like a demon and she wants her own section of the world to rule, even if she can’t literally rule over humans, she can stake a claim among her kind.”

Sofia nods and gives me a cheeky smile.

“Now you’re getting it. To them, humans are just sheep and she’s the shepherd. And the boss has me do the killing.”

It’s interesting to think about. Sofia, Alice, Roxane, Victoria, Doctor Marusic; they’re all fighting a pointless war. Sofia doesn’t seem to care though. To her, it's funny. I guess I can somewhat understand why. She didn’t sign up or get drafted like a normal soldier to serve some cause greater than herself. She did it for the opposite reason, to serve her own sadistic desires. She got what she asked for in a sense. It was a war with a high body count that never ended. Sofia was in her own personal heaven, created by demons. Sofia leaned back into the couch now that we had finished.

“So now how will this show us what we need?”

I point towards a few areas without thumbtacks. These areas follow the pattern, but have odd gaps between. If you were to create a dot plot, it would be the easiest line to form.

“These areas are logically where Roxane could be right now. I need to find some crime scenes recently to determine exactly where though. Our best bet though is here.”

I point towards an area north of Lynchburg at a portion of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.

“It would explain why she retreated to Lynchburg if she had a base nearby which Victoria was likely waiting at.”

Sofia gave it a moment to think before she nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, that would be in line with the usual spots. The problem is that’s a huge fucking forest. We can’t search there without knowing the exact spot. She’d dome you if she saw you searching.”

She made a finger gun in her hand and pointed it towards my head.

“Boom! Just like that.”

The thought gave me anxiety, but I pushed through the cold sweat forming on my forehead. Sofia was obviously right, I needed to find something more specific. I sighed out loud and leaned back on the carpeted floor behind me. I didn’t have enough information again. I needed to research both the forest and any bodies found there. Maybe she was kind enough to take some pop shots at a hiker then leave them there. Unlikely, but would be the best evidence I could find.

“Is that all you need from me?”

“What? Oh, I guess.”

I looked up towards Sofia who gave me a look of boredom. Unless she hid skills for research, I really couldn’t think of anything else I could ask of her. She was never very interested in helping in the first place. I’m sure she was happy to be free of my requests.

“Now if you don’t mind, move. You’re in front of the tv.”

I picked myself off of the floor and moved to the side. The TV remote was laying on the coffee table next to the map. She picked it up and immediately pulled up my list of streaming options. She selected Netflix and chose a recently created new account. She decided to help herself to my Netflix account last night and created her own user. I honestly didn’t care much and let her use it as she pleases.

“So what did you start watching?”

I watched as she scrolled through a long list of shows and finally landed on her recently watched list. It had only one show listed.

“You’re watching Stranger Things?”

She looked over to me, a little confused and a little insulted.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Nothing, just kind of surprised. Did you hear about the last season?”

Sofia shook her head and motioned for me to go away.

“No and don’t spoil it. I hadn’t gotten a hold of a Netflix account in years.”

I shot my hands up in mock defense.

“I won’t. I hadn’t seen any of the latest seasons either. I might join you if you’re binging.”

She gave me a confused look, as if I just said I wanted to be her next victim.

“Do whatever you want, I guess. Just don’t spoil anything.”