Dark Explorations

(Samantha POV)

I was one of the first people on the scene. When I arrived, two other local patrol officers had already set up a perimeter and isolated the sole witness of the crime. I kept my distance from the scene in proper crime scene and evidence procedure until the proper forensics team could arrive. My view though provided me enough information. The hood of the car was almost entirely destroyed, as if a tree fell on it. On top of the hood lies the body of the woman. Her head was entirely gone, smashed to pieces by the same thing that created the crater in the car. It was the definition of overkill. It was almost seemingly impossible. The amount of strength required to damage the car to such an extent was superhuman. This was going to be one hell of a story to hear from the witness.

Multiple other officers arrived shortly after. A full investigation was beginning and one of the first people to flag me down was the familiar elder Agent Zimmerman. We had no reason to suspect this was the same suspect as our serial killer case. His presence here was more of a sign of how poorly things were going. A gruesome murder in the area was enough to lure out the FBI hoping in the small coincidence that it was the same suspect as our previous case. It was hard to not have some hope after a week of nothing though. He approached from just outside the yellow police tape, the view of the car still in sight as gloved officers took photos and put into small baggies any DNA that could be found.

“I don’t remember Morgantown being so violent.”

Zimmerman joked as he approached me. Despite his tone, his face was stone cold and serious. He stared at the body as it came into his view and covered his mouth and stroked his short facial hair contemplatively.

“Jesus Christ…”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s happened in the last week for two crimes like this to occur in one week.”

Zimmerman pulled his eyes away from the scene and towards me.

“Where’s the witness?”

“Inside, in an employee room.”

“Let’s go hear what he has to say then. Hopefully something good.”

Zimmerman had effectively made me his personal assistant throughout his week in Monongalia County. The bureau had a lot of freedom to move when invited to local investigations and deciding I would be his preferred aid was one of those privileges. When I asked why, he told me it was because I immediately pointed out this could be a serial killer case. Despite my age, he thought I had some good investigative instincts.

We walked inside the gas station. The doors had been barricaded by the sole employee after the attack and as such it was a bit of a mess inside. We had attempted to contact the owner of the establishment, the father of the teenage worker, but he was unavailable for whatever reason. Luckily, the teenage worker volunteered to give a statement about what he saw. Zimmerman and I were guided to a small door marked with an ‘Employee Only’ sign. We walked in and found the employee sitting at a desk with his hands wrapped around a bottle of soda. He was waiting with a single young male officer who had spent the time calming him down. He was hysterical when the police showed up and if it weren’t for them immediately showing their badges, likely would have been attacked with a pocket knife the boy had on him. Zimmerman approached calmly and held out his hand to shake. The boy seemed like a bit of a redneck with a missing front tooth and wispy blonde hair. Despite this, he stood up politely and shook his hand back and spoke with a polite tone in his country accent.

“I’m Agent Zimmerman. What’s your name, kid?”

“My name’s Liam, sir.”

“It’s good to meet you, Liam. I hope you can tell me about what happened.”

The local officer stood up from his chair and let Agent Zimmerman sit next to Liam. He took out of his pocket a small recording device and clicked the start function on it.

“Let’s begin with describing the timeline of events, Liam.”

“Okay, the… killer arrived on a motorcycle and bought a pack of cigarettes then went outside to smoke them. Ms. McCraw then showed up to buy her usual lottery ticket. She bought one every day and scratched it at the store. When it was a loss, she walked out. The killer then approached Ms. McCraw and they spoke for a little bit. I wasn’t really paying attention until I heard Ms. McCraw scream. I looked up and saw that she was beating her over the head with a brick. I ran out to try and save Ms. McCraw, but when I grabbed her arm she just said “You got a problem?”. I ran back inside as she threw the brick behind me and missed. I blockaded the doors in case she would come after me, but she didn’t. I called the police and she hopped on her motorcycle and left shortly before the police arrived.”

Zimmerman looked towards me with a raised eyebrow, communicating the same suspicion that I had before.

“You said ‘she’. It was a woman? Can you describe her?”

I watched as he opened his mouth to speak, but stopped to think. His eyes seemed to grow foggy and for a moment it’s like his consciousness left his body. At the moment, I didn’t think anything of it. He was probably just feeling the trauma of seeing such a horrendous sight.

“I did? I… I’m sorry, I’m blanking on details.”

Zimmerman was taken aback and gave me a look of bafflement. I similarly returned one. He looked down to confirm that his recording device was still working then looked back up towards Liam.

“That’s alright if you can’t remember things perfectly. Can you describe general things? Height, weight, hair, stuff like that?”

Liam just shook his head and something similar to confusion crossed his expression. He seemed to pull at strings only to find them cut loose.

“I… I can’t remember. I don’t know why.”

His hands grabbed at his temples as he began to massage them. He closed his eyes tightly like the very act of remembering was causing him pain. Zimmerman sat up and tried to get Liam’s attention.

“Hey, let’s move on to a different topic then.”

Zimmerman gave me a look asking if I could understand his actions, but I shook my head. This was a first for me to see this kind of response to a traumatic event.

“I noticed there were cameras outside. Do you have access to the footage?”

Liam looked up from his hands and his eyes went wide and a small return to his face. He nodded.

“Y-yes! Yes there is! Over here, on the computers I can pull up the camera footage.”

On the desk he was sitting at, there was a single old computer. He scooted in his seat to face the camera and Zimmerman and I moved to get a good view from behind him. He logged into the cameras and rewound the footage until the time stamp we needed on the outside camera was found. We watched as the figure in a black motorcycle jacket walked out of the gas station with a pack of cigarettes. She leaned against her bike and lit one and took her time smoking it. Zimmerman watched closely while Liam stepped away, unable to watch what he knew was about to happen.

I couldn’t look away because something in me was realizing something. I recognized her. Her unkempt hair and piercings were unmistakable. I met her at Alan’s. She was that girl he said was a friend of his. What was her name? Sofia was it? Ms. McCraw parked her car and walked right by her. Something about her made Sofia do a double take and she seemed to panic at the sight of her. She kicked a wall and to both our amazement caused a piece of brick in its foundation to fall out. Ms. McCraw left the gas station and Sofia reached down for the brick and walked towards her. She held it behind her back so she couldn’t see it. Sofia and Ms. McCraw started talking and after Sofia said something Ms. McCraw didn’t like, she hit her with the brick. She kept hitting her. And hitting her. And hitting her. And hitting her.

I couldn’t see for a second. I felt myself collapse. My knees fell to the floor and my ears rang out in this painful noise. Like static eating away at my brain. My eyes lost all vision. It was as if they refused to open. Something told me to not look into the world. I looked away from the footage and the pain stopped until I looked back. Zimmerman had fallen in the exact same way. He remained seated in his chair, but his hand clawed at his eyes and ears to make it go away. What the fuck was happening? I kept hearing it. Like a metronome. Over and over and over. The brick hit her head and the scream rang out. Smash and the scream rang out. Smash and the scream rang out. It then went silent. I reopened my eyes and saw the computer’s screen was now only black. I pulled myself up from the ground to see that the video had been… deleted? Zimmerman’s head was in his hands as he tried to nurse away the headache we both must have gotten from the video. He looked at me with eyes that read both utter confusion as well as pain. Liam ran over from wherever he had been sitting to check on the both of us.

“What the hell happened? What happened to the video?”

I looked towards the computer and couldn’t explain it. The entire surveillance footage from today, it was gone. Like it never existed in the first place. I found myself looking at Zimmerman in shock. Did he delete it to get rid of the pain it was causing? That was our first evidence in days. He looked towards me with an equally confused expression. Zimmerman spoke first in a dry and quiet voice as he looked towards the boy.

“Something was wrong with that video.”

We couldn’t get much else out of the witness. None of us were really in the right mind to think critically after that. We ended up leaving shortly after and the kid could finally go home. I did my job at the sheriff’s office and filed my necessary paperwork for the day and was preparing to clock out when Agent Zimmerman dropped by.

“Hey Gartner, how are you feeling?”

In all honesty, like shit. My head was still cloudy and I felt like taking two aspirin and napping the rest of the week away.

“Fine, what about you?

“Fine.”

He stood there awkwardly for a moment. He kept shifting his standing position.

“Do you remember… anything from the surveillance footage?”

I tried to make my mind work. I recalled the events in order. We discussed what happened with the witness. We decided to see what the cameras saw. We pulled up the footage. My brain was nothing but static after that. I only remember the pain. Then Zimmerman deleted the footage.

“I… I can’t remember anything.”

Zimmerman was silent and stared at the ground. He stroked his short facial hair contemplatively.

“I can’t either.”

I went home that day far more tired than I have in a while with a headache like I was the one getting smashed with a brick.