- Published on
It’s spooky season, and stories are rising from the grave… HEADSTONES, a new horror anthology from many series across the Arcbeatle universe.
“I’ve always been passionate about this time of the year, so I lept towards the opportunity to edit a scary book for the company,” says oddly-named editor Plum Pudding. “I wanted to create something that had a distinct vision beyond simple scariness, so the book has a big focus on the underdog. These are stories about characters that don’t usually have their own stories told — and the secrets that connect them.”
The anthology features stories from the various worlds of Arcbeatle Press, including installments of SIGNET, Dionus and Coloth, alongside several other more unexpected faces.
“The variety in this book is outstanding,” says Plum. “We have medical horror, classical ghost stories, existential examinations on what it is to be human, talking benches and dinosaurs.”
There have been several ghosts in the machine, various hauntings of sorts that have resulted in the book not appearing now on this very day, but rest assured, it’s alive… it’s alive!
Featured below as an exciting Halloween treat (or trick?) is a preview of the anthology featuring the first story of the book, entitled The Waxwoven. The rest of the book shall follow shortly.
The First Headstone:
The Waxwoven
By Plum Pudding
Odette had her car parked on the side of the road, by the tall washed out yellow-grain grass of a farm. On the other side of the road, there was the restaurant, which was old and concrete and at odds with the amber waves of grain of it all. A drive-thru pizzeria on a lonely road. Behind the restaurant, there was the body.
Odette was looking at the body. It was a very difficult thing to look at. Odette had seen horrible things in her time. She had worked jobs that even her seasoned co-workers described as gnarly, but at their worst, in the end, they were all killings.
And this was something more than a killing.
The nude body was flayed, ripped, carved. It was positioned. Posed. Classical archetypes. Ritualistic murder. Someone was trying to scare people. It was working.
It was leaning against a dumpster, its arms and torso hanging there, crucified, and the legs were around five feet away. In little bits.
It certainly wasn’t ideal.
It was a typical ritualistic crime, too typical, and she rarely had time for those. Most were made up by small minded nasty people trying to use fearful iconography to make some idiot shriek that Satan did it.
But this was too efficient, too thorough, to dismember a body like this, carve through the bone, it would take hours, probably around five to six, and even in a place like this, someone would have seen. She looked at the pearly white bloodshot eyes and opened the body’s jaw, examining its toothless black mouth, as if stained by oil. Burn marks. Third degree.
One of the two cops hurried away from the crime scene and vomited in an empty evidence bag. She didn’t blame him. This was thoroughly awful. She wasn’t sure how to process it. I mean, come on.
The other cop was comforting the poor woman who found the body. She was shaking so hard she might fall over.
Odette looked at the grim scene and felt despair. A few weeks ago she had been playing baseball with Bill Murray.
Life had been fun. Life had been ridiculous. Now there was this. Even if she knew what to do — it still felt like a sick joke.
The Chief hadn’t arrived yet, and that was good. The Chief would have questions, have some semblance of authority, and until then she could flash her ID at bewildered traffic ticketers and get wherever she wanted.
Trouble was that she didn’t currently have any ideas. She would probably need an autopsy report to get more than basic ideas right now. The only thing that she was certain about at the moment was the cuts — through the bone — far too clean to have been done by human hands. And the cruelty of the killing, the joy taken in it, discounted animals too. It disturbed her. She found herself blinking for too long as she examined the body, so she wouldn’t end up having to look at it as long.
This was all a very convenient thing for her to find, her to come across. Well, maybe that was the wrong word. But it was certainly coincidental. This fit her remit all too well, and she just happened to come across it on the way out of the country. She was probably just thinking too much, coincidences did happen. But it was yet another thing that left her feeling uneasy.
Like this was made for her…
“Ms. Caron, is it?” asked a wiry man. Oh, never mind, he was here. He had a thin and callow sort of face, an unkempt and dirty looking moustache. He did not inspire confidence. Oh, and there was the badge on his chest. Delightful.
“Yes, that’s me,” Odette said, resigned.
“Mark Kinsdale, chief of police. I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing here.” He scowled. He was a scowly sort of man.
“I was in the neighborhood,” Odette said, airily. “It’s lucky. I specialize in this.”
“You do, do you?” Kinsdale asked, a sort of rhetorical doubtfulness in his voice that Odette didn’t care for. “You’re FBI? EDEM? You’re clearly some kind of spook.”
“Yes,” Odette said. “Some kind.”
“Well, Ms. Caron, if you’re such an expert, what can you tell me about the victim?”
Odette knew he was testing her. She didn’t have any time for it. “Not much,” she said, still looking at the body.
“Age, gender, name, occupation,” he continued, clearly knowing full well she couldn’t say anything.
All identifying factors were gone. They had burnt the fingertips and molars. Odette had to say something. But she didn’t have anything really to say. “Tentative guess is male from the bone structure, but these things can be misleading.”
“Miss Caron, I’m struggling to see what you bring to this investigation,” Kinsdale smiled smugly. Like it was some sort of competition.
Odette didn’t care what he thought. “They don’t want us to be able to identify the victim, it’s an intimidation tactic.”
Kinsdale nodded vacantly. “Is that an accent?”
Odette sighed. “Yes, I’m from La Rochelle.”
“What?”
“France,” Odette said, now more than a little irritated. She decided to ignore the very dumb man and continue with her examination of the crime.
This was looking like a very long day.
* * *
Papa Leonie’s E-Z Pizzeria has long offered the people of Temperanceville their own little slice of heaven. Whether you like Calzones, Lasangna or plain ol’ Pizza, Papa Leonie brings true old-world Italian classics to Virginia. Taught using traditional Roman methods, we promise our highly trained chefs deliver the goods of a high quality meal with the speed to match modern convenience. Here at Papa Leonie’s we’re a family. We’re proud to serve your family too! Our wood fire oven is well known for it’s finest ingredients. Our pizza is made by only the most trained chefs. The chefs are proud to present the taste of Italy. The taste of Italy is very good. Our—
Odette’s eyes sort of glazed over the rest of the sign. It wasn’t very well written, and seemed to get worse the more she looked at it, a veritable soliloquy of PR speak, it just degraded as it went. She would have thought it was AI if it wasn’t for the sign’s age. Additionally, it didn’t tell her anything about why this place closed down.
Kinsdale was watching her constantly, peering over her shoulder. He didn’t seem to trust her, which was fine. She didn’t trust him. There was something about his confident demeanor. Other men would have been shaken by all this, especially the small town kind.
But there was something more than Kinsdale watching, she was certain. She did feel like she was being watched.
“The town’s really called Temperanceville?” She mused, trying to understand him a bit more.
“On the nose, yes, but I didn’t choose it,” Kinsdale said. “Old name. Old name from God-fearing folk. Quakers, I think.”
Odette nodded, her brain flashing to the face of the body. That horrible un-face. “There’s a lot to be fearful of.”
A singular little man arrived, in a labcoat and rumpled sweater. He had a small case of supplies, likely for analysis. Odette knew immediately that something was off. He wasn’t properly dressed for a crime scene.
“Local Doctor,” Kinsdale said. “Small town like this, we don’t get a forensics pathologist, we have to send for one. And Waltham is trustworthy.”
“Has he done anything like this before?” Odette asked.
“One time a man died in a bar fight, Waltham took a look at things.”
So nothing like this then, Odette thought. She felt something almost like shame, though there was no good reason for her to feel it. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
“One thing I’d like you to understand, Ms. Caron, is that I’m in charge of this case. Whatever your jurisdiction is, whoever you’re in charge of, this is my town, and I’m allowing you to — I’m taking you on in a secondary capacity.” Kinsdale explained.
“I had figured as such,” Odette said, “I did sort of waltz in.”
She had met men like Kinsdale before, men that needed to be in charge. It was best not to dissuade him — especially not when he could take a look at her papers and find out that she wasn’t quite the spook he was expecting. A small research institute like C.R.U.X had little reason to be here now that the Busco business was resolved.
But Kinsdale would need her. A town this size was lucky to be as well staffed as this town’s three employees. But they’d need more for a murder investigation.
Odette decided to give the Doctor a moment, and she gestured towards the building, opening the back door of the pizzeria and walked in. The electricity was out, but the day outside was so searingly bright that the kitchen was still illuminated, even if it was in long shadows.
The kitchen was white and clinical — at least once. Now it was grey and dirtied and grime encrusted. The tile walls and floors had little cracks or missing tiles, revealing dusty concrete beneath. Pots and pans were abandoned. The wood oven still had the pizza paddle sticking into it, although there was no sign of fire, merely a pile of ancient ash. One shift, the place had evidently just stopped.
Odette peered through the slot that connected the kitchen to the rest of the pizzeria, which was decorated in classical american diner fashion. The wooden walls with their little pictures of pizza and homey wallpaper were faded by sunlight. The place was nearly as ashen as the kitchen, but simply barren, a half-dismantled jukebox one of the only concessions to former activity.
In the corner, a young PC was investigating a trash can. She recognized him from earlier, the guy who threw up. “Over here,” he said, a little panicked, and Odette came over quickly. “I’m PC Mulroney, by the way, it’s nice to have you…”
“Thanks,” Odette interrupted. This whole thing had her fairly on edge. “What do we have?”
“Murder weapon, I think,” he said meekly. “Just left here in a trash can.”
Odette narrowed her eyes. “Don’t touch it. Whoever’s done this has no reason to be so clumsy. We don’t have anything and they leave the holy grail of information at the crime — not likely a mistake when they’ve been so careful.”
“What do you mean?” Mulroney stammered.
“I think it’s a message,” Odette said sternly.
* * *
The knife, retrieved from the trash can by Dr. Waltham with a grimace, was indeed a message, or if it wasn’t, the eloquent letter beneath the knife certainly was. The butcher knife had the blood of the victim on it, it was long, practically a machete. It had been taken from the knife block in the kitchen. Two other knives were missing from that block. As if stating an intention.
“You’re kidding,” Kinsdale said when the letter was retrieved.
“It’s legitimate,” Waltham said, “no fingerprints, a sort of thin yellowish residue on it, unsure what, I’ll need to do, do, uh, further analysis. Sorry. I—”
“No… what it says,” Kinsdale murmured, his deep voice trailing off. “Let me read the whole thing.” He snatched the paper out of Waltham’s hands, who did not put up a fight, and squinted at the horrible letters.
The yellowed and frayed letter was written in spidery ink, it looked like the slithering of a quill, a gothic message from the 1800s, Jack the Ripper style. But it was new. They all knew it was new. It was written for them.
LOOK HOW I DANCE, LOOK HOW I SWIM I DO SO MUCH LOVELY WORK I DO
AND WHEN I RETURN TO THE SEA AND BATHE IT OFF, OUR SEA WILL BE CHOPPED AND CARVED AND STAINED YES, YES, YES
IT IS ALL IN THE CUTTING AND THE BURNING! GOD YES, YES
OH I MUST BE BURNED I MUST BE BURNED OH WHAT HOLY LIFE IT IS TO BURN
YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND, YOU BURN EVERY CHRISTMAS
WELL HERE IS MY GIFT! HERE IT IS! OPEN WIDE
TODAY IS SO LOVELY. WHAT A GOOD GOOD DAY. WHAT A BLESSED DAY.
“What the fuck?” Kinsdale bit his lip. “Caron, you got any clue what the hell this thing is?”
Odette paused, taking a look. There was something caught in her throat. “He’s going to do more.” She said, her lip trembling. “He’s telling us he’s going to do more.”
* * *
Blue and gentle raindrops dripped outside the internet cafe. Noémie Caron sat at her table and typed up her weekly report. She works in retail, trying to sell things all day, but somebody got it into their head to give an actual position to her. This actual position came with a miniscule payment increase and also a lot of paperwork. And so she ended up here in the internet cafe — far too late into the day — it wasn’t even day, really — and still working.
Her phone rang, and Noémie reached into her pocket and slipped out of the cafe, out underneath the awning, and answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Noémie, it’s not too late, is it?” Odette’s voice came over the line, silky, quiet. It’s analytical tone was missing. She’s nervous, Noémie realized.
“Hi, Odette, no, it’s not too late,” Noémie smiled sadly, looking at her blue city, the stream of rain onto the cobblestone pavement. It probably wasn’t raining where Odette was. It’s such a big world. “Are you doing alright?”
“Tough day at work, I just thought I’d, uh, check in.”
“Same. Anything you can tell me about?” Noémie poked.
“No.” Odette said, quickly. “You know that. I just… I miss you sometimes. And it’s very hard to deal with the Americans.”
“Well, you can call your little sister for comfort any time you like,” Noémie said, “but I will make fun of you, it’s in my contract.”
“Show me the fine print,” Odette played along, but her voice still was sad and heavy. She couldn’t hide it. It raised her spirits to think of home right now, but that only did so much. It reminded her she was far away. “Do you think, um, philosophically, people are inherently good or bad?”
“Oh boy.” Noémie said. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No.” Odette clarified. “I just saw something, something really disturbing, terrible. There was pride and great joy in everything that I considered to be malicious, vile. And maybe there’s a culture like that. Whoever did it I don’t think was from around here, I don’t know. I just… is this guy enjoying what he does? Does he really think that he’s the hero of the story?”
“I’m entirely devoid of context here, I can’t make deductions without context.” Noémie said. “Also I make terrible deductions, I got a C in Literature.”
“Yeah, I know. Still can’t legally tell you anything.” Odette trailed off. “Thanks for listening, though, I don’t know. Being in a different country, in my line of work, it’s…”
“It’s what?”
“Heavy slightly exaggerated metaphor, but it’s Russian Roulette. I was having a great time. I met new friends, I met wonderful people. Saw the most incredible things. Played baseball. But eventually you click the revolver too many times, you draw the short straw, it’s how the work works. It happens at random and it sucks and you get hurt. Bad, and there’s just the shock of it, because you really do forget not everything is wonderful all the time.”
Noémie paused to think about this. “I think that’s just how life is.”
“There’s a lot of life around here.” Odette said, exhausted.
Noémie hated the sound of her voice when Odette was tired like that. She felt the same pain as her sister spoke, even halfway around the world. Sympathy pains. She didn’t know what to say.
“Maybe I’m exaggerating,” Odette said, “I mean, bad stuff happened then, too. But this feels…”
She couldn’t say something honest — that she felt horrible too, usually when she was thinking about the news and wondering what the last good thing that happened was. It just felt trite, especially next to Odette’s very real problems. Maybe she should just let Odette vent a bit.
“Yeah,” she said, eventually, a bit feebly. Damn it.
“Sorry. I’ll probably call you again tomorrow.” Odette said. “Bye.”
Noémie heard the sound of the phone click its low beep end of call tone. She looked out at the water pouring down a storm drain. She could hear the water hitting more water below, the hollow noise of that. She sighed, heavily.
So, so far away, Odette hung up the phone, leaving Noémie’s world of blue raindrops, leaving La Rochelle behind. There was no use dwelling. Not when every second was of value. She stalked back towards the pizzeria. Towards the horror. Her break was over. She had more work to do.
* * *
It was time to talk to Marge. Marge was the woman who found the body and Marge was bereft. Marge was a strong woman, a force of nature. She was middle aged, imposing, matronly. Nothing could knock her off her horse. Yet she was falling apart now.
“I found it…” She whimpered. “I found it right there, just… just when I was driving by. I’m a bad driver, I — my eyes wander, they do, and well, oh, I was looking over near the dumpster and I saw it there and dear Jesus, I nearly crashed the van. And I thought — oh hell — I thought about driving on by, and I wish I did, lots of other people must have driven on by without seeing it really. But that was the wrong thing to do so I got out of the car and I looked and I saw it and it took me ages to even call you because I just kept looking at it. I w-wish I never ended up looking.”
“It’s all right,” Odette said, “You did the right thing — and I’m sorry that you had to—”
“There’s more to this story,” Kinsdale said, immediately, bluntly. “What time did you find the body?”
Odette turned and glared at Kinsdale, his grim face looking on at Marge, uncaring. She tried mouthing what to him but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I dun-dunno,” Marge said, wiping tears from her face. “Can’t remember.”
“You’re just the only one who happened to stop?” Kinsdale asked. “Only one who happened to see something by a dumpster in clear view of the highway?”
Odette fumed. It didn’t matter that Kinsdale’s questions were reasonable questions to ask — it was just in the way he asked them. He was paranoid. She saw that a lot. That was how people got when they saw things they didn’t understand. They freaked or they started to think everything was out to get them.
“Y-yeah,” Marge said, breathing heavily.
Odette looked at Marge and wondered if she might be in shock. There were some symptoms, she was clearly having a traumatic response, but these things varied.
She had to get through to Kinsdale.
“This isn’t the time,” Odette said to him. “It’s still too raw, we’re not going to get anything.”
Kinsdale looked at her and then back at Marge and wordlessly left the room in a dramatic huff.
“I’ll get Dr. Waltham to look at you,” Odette said quietly, but Marge didn’t seem to hear. She was still crying.
* * *
The sun set on Temperanceville languidly, as if unwilling to give way to night. But it came. The night was there. A bitter mood came onto the town with it, and all was set in place. The dough slept, ready for kneading.
It saw them. It saw the art thieves. Blasphemers in a long series of anthropoids. It saw everything, burning bright like woodstock!
And it was there in the air that night, the thing breathing. Hard to maintain. So patient. Patient! It would have it’s statuettes, the yummy dead birds of daybreak. Many murderers were things of the night, forged by the night to commit foul errands. Not so, not so! But when the sun came up, when day resumed, it would all be shaped properly. They would see.
And the burning gaze, the magnifying glass upon the insects did not blink, it’s laser drawn and pointed, but the grass did not catch fire, the underbrush did not wake. Not yet, not yet. The night passed miserably, slowly. Until morning came.
* * *
The next day, Odette was in town.
The town of Temperanceville did not have too many buildings, and its main street was really sort of half a street, buildings on one side of the road and the farmland on the other. The place was mostly farmland, really. With the sizes of properties that would make English Feudal Lords blush.
Odette looked at these soaring fields and felt a sort of awe. She never really got over it. France was huge too, but she grew up in the city, and city-life is so compressed, every space available must be used. To see a town like this was mind-boggling, even if it wasn’t her first.
“We’re looking for people who’ve worked at Papa Leonie’s,” Kinsdale told her and Mulroney. “The place didn’t have that many employees, and they all tended to stay there until it closed, so we have a list of about seven people. Not counting, evidently, Papa Leonie.”
“Papa Leonie’s a mascot?” Mulroney asked.
“Look, I have no clue either.” Kinsdale explained. “We don’t have an owner listed. The certificate for the building says it is owned by a Gianmarco Leonie, so I guess he’s not fictional. Can’t find him anywhere though. Our techies are working on it.”
“Unlikely for it to be an alias on legal paperwork,” Odette said.
“The whole thing’s unlikely.” Kinsdale said, gruffly. He passed out addresses to Mulroney and Odette. “We need to move, and quickly. We’re losing time.”
As Mulroney split off, Odette nodded and immediately began walking towards the coffee shop. She was surprised to see Kinsdale follow her.
* * *
The first name on the list was a Shaun Morrison, and he was easy to find, he owned a coffee shop now that was one of the only buildings on the street. It was, Odette supposed, one of the blissful little things about a small town. You knew everyone.
Though that also made all of this much more difficult.
Even accounting for the coffee shop, Shaun was not difficult to find. A bald man, mid 40s, he was the only employee, it seemed, in the whole place. There was a customer sitting in the corner but that was it. It only took a few moments to explain.
“Papa Leonie’s?” He made a scrunched up sort of face. “Really? Haven’t thought about it for years, the place shut down in 2009.”
Odette had thought the place had looked old, faded. She didn’t expect that it would be that long ago. “What was it like working there? Anything unusual?” She asked.
Kinsdale tapped her on the shoulder. Looked at her. Silently saying we need to focus. He was starting to seriously irritate Odette.
Shaun shrugged. These questions seemed only mildly interesting to him. “No, nothing. It was just a job. A boring, dull job that paid surprisingly well. Until one day the money dried up. No signs beforehand. They tried relaunching in 2014 but there was no money in it after Danny Deer took so many locations in the area.”
Odette pursed her lips. Didn’t give her much to go on. “Do you know of anyone who’s been missing lately? Anyone you’ve not seen in a while.”
“It’d be shorter to say the people I do see. It’s just how the world works these days, I mean, I text people but I don’t seem to see them anymore.”
Odette thought about Noémie. “Yeah. Yeah, I get it.”
* * *
Stuart McCoy was the next former employee of Papa Leonie, and they found him three doors down. He had a face that looked like it was sucking a pickle, very shallow and with ramshackle eyes that betrayed an inner intelligence. He was covered in creases, he must have been at least 80. “McCoy’s antiquery,” he said, as they walked in, not even looking at their faces. “We offer retro delights and more,” he continued, not even trying to seem excited.
“Stu,” Kinsdale said, “You remember Papa Leonie’s?”
“Sure I do,” Stu said. The country lilt in his voice was gentle sounding, but it still didn’t betray any interest. “Worked there from 07 to 09 til it closed. Can’t say it was any good as a job. Ah, did that place start up again?” He asked.
Odette squinted. It was such a small town and he didn’t know? “Why were you still working fast food at age sixty something?”
“I’m afraid I’ve not had the pleasure,” Stu said, extending his bony hand towards Odette. She shook it gingerly, and introduced herself. She wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. At this stage of the case, every second counted.
But still… what an odd place. She looked out at the antiques lining the shelves, the high quality woodwork of all this victorian and edwardian style stuff… she hadn’t seen a single piece of furniture this nice since she had come down here.
“For starting in what was basically fast food, you seem well off now,” Odette noted.
“This store is still my father’s,” Stu said, and Odette could not begin to contemplate how old Stuart’s father must be. At her expression, he clarified. “One hundred seven. Just won’t die.”
“Well, death is what we’ve come here to talk about.” Kinsdale said, with the tact of a bull.
“Oh, has he finally done it? I been aching to retire,” Stu said, with a strange sort of relish. Odette couldn’t help herself and looked grossed out, this was such a strange and disgusting man.
“I’m sorry, you’ve not heard of the body at Leonie’s?” Odette asked.
“Naw, I’m sorry.” Stu answered. “Sounds mighty awful.”
“You’ve really heard nothing? Don’t have anything to tell us?”
“Nuttin’.”
Odette didn’t believe him for one second.
* * *
As Odette and Kinsdale walked out of the coffee shop and onto the dust of the road, they walked down the street towards their next stop, Larry’s Apartment Block. Odette was struck by the sadness of the town. All of the junk on the side of the road, the old wood planks that seemed to rest everywhere. Ivy encroached up the side of some of the buildings, steadily reclaiming them.
They got into Kinsdale’s car and began to roll towards the apartment block, passing by some bleak buildings. Some stark white houses of classical Americana, some cobbled together shantytown shacks of spare wood and chicken wire. Those were ominous looking, but the worst, Odette found, were the indistinct buildings, little windowless places of beige that dotted the side of the road, it seemed to her, the corpses of many failed businesses. And with the oddest signs.
So many abandoned gas stations. So many churches — practically one for every farm.
“Was this place more alive back in the day? Before shipping apps, before modern convenience?”
“Not that I remember.”
The fields continued on uninterrupted, and Kinsdale made no effort to make further conversation. Odette looked at the paper of names that he had given her, trying not to waste time, but by the time she had read the name of their destination, “Barry Thomas,” her mind already was wandering, and that never happened. What kind of person would leave a note like that? What kind of person could even consider writing down those words?
There were people who did this sort of thing for a job, profiling serial killers and the like. She wished she had one of those with her now, who could explain exactly what this killer guy’s problems were. Sitting there, looking at the names of people they were looking for, thinking about the vile letter they had found — she did feel a little out of her league.
Yet she did know somehow that it was important and right that she was here, and not someone else. She had recognized the impossibility of the death instantly, far more than some small town sheriff would ever recognize it. By taking into account the science she knew, these impossibilities could be accounted for. She had run into this on accident, but part of her felt she was meant to be here.
Even if that certainty didn’t necessarily make her feel very confident.
* * *
The car rolled to a stop at the apartment complex, a squat little building with a crack-laden parking lot of rubble with grass growing out of it. Odette got out of the car first, seeing an old hobbled figure by a dumpster. “Over here,” she said, marching towards the figure.
It was the saddest face, hooded, almost completely drenched in mud and dirt. It gave one the idea of an old word — crone. This was a crone.
“Raincoat can’t see me,” The crone whispered.
“Lorelei,” Kinsdale said, with disappointment and a hint of condescension. “Why do you have mud on your face?”
“Camo.” The old crone evidently known as Lorelei said.
Kinsdale knelt down. “What are you on about, Lorelei? Are you okay? You haven’t been on the beer again, have you?”
“No beer. Not since Adam.” Lorelei grunted out in a little growl of a voice, still trying to hide behind the dumpster. “And it’s frightening, it’s the full new year’s ball drop, the noise of it.”
Kinsdale turned to Odette. “Good she’s here. Finding her can be a real pain in the ass, and she was on the list anyway.”
Odette looked at the poor woman. She couldn’t make out what the lady was on about. But Kinsdale seemed to be gentle with her. It was all very surprising. She didn’t think Kinsdale had a gentle bone in his body. She thought he was all suspicion and magnum, yet another Dirty Harry wannabe cop.
“Let’s get you into the car.” Kinsdale said, delicately. “No one can see you there.”
“Yes, yes. The sweatbox. Roll the handle.” Whatever she was saying he seemed to understand, and he rolled down the windows of the car for her — apparently that was what she had wanted.
Odette approached the apartment as Kinsdale took care of Lorelei. There was immediately something in the air, the smell of something burnt. The door of apartment 106 was broken in.
“Kinsdale?” She called out, realizing that as a non-commissioned officer, she didn’t actually have a gun on her. She had never worried about that before, nasty things, she had thought, but suddenly when she was near what she assumed to be a nastier thing, it very much felt rather important.
She still strode in, darting her head back and forth, trying to remember how to run in reverse in case she needed to. The apartment room was in shambles. And there was who she knew must be Barry Thomas. Standing, or sort of leaning, his head dunked in the sink, a cloud of smoke billowing out from him. She rushed to the sink and turned his body over, to see his face completely charred with brimstone, the thin layer of water in the sink resulting in the smoke and steam.
Someone had burned his face off.
* * *
“Well,” Kinsdale said, as if he was going to begin a sentence, but whatever sentence was meant to follow did not come. “Well” seemed very much to cover it, the gravity of the situation now was certainly beyond words. Maybe a “fuck” or two, at least after seeing the body, but even those were now followed by a long dreadful silence.
They were standing outside the apartment, by the car, still with old Lorelei inside it. Lorelei was looking in the little car mirror, trying to make sure the mud was even on her face. Odette wondered how on earth Kinsdale knew her, but figured that she didn’t know him well enough to ask. It was after all, the only decent thing she’d seen the man do in the past two days, and she didn’t really feel like poking the bear yet.
Not when everything was so terrible.
Odette had known from the start that this bore the methods of someone practiced at killing. But to see a second body — she reminded herself it wasn’t a serial killer until it was three or more people. She hadn’t seen that. It technically wasn’t that. But she knew from looking at the first body and now Barry that this was almost certainly a higher number than three.
“Any of the neighbours home?” Odette asked.
“Two.” Kinsdale said. “Didn’t hear anything apparently. Mulroney’s questioning them now.”
“I can’t believe no one heard the screams of that…” Odette said. “Just that— ugh — there are so many nerve endings in the face, it’s got to be one of the most awful ways to go.”
“Please stop talking,” Kinsdale said abruptly.
Odette thought some more and got back up to go into the room, trying to ignore the smell of the flesh, which was so putrid and vile that Dickens could have written three pages about it. She tried to be all business, productive, but it mainly resulted in her looking a bit nauseous. Dr. Waltham was standing by the sink, examining the body.
“This is the last one I’m looking at,” Dr. Waltham snapped, as she walked in. “You call in professionals next. I don’t care if it takes them two days to get down here, this is absolutely horrid. I’ve done dissections, I’ve done transplants, I have a stern stomach but — my god, woman, what on earth happened here? I was just getting the one from yesterday out of my mind!”
Odette let him yell a bit and get it out of his system. It was healthier than keeping it all in like she was. “I’m sorry,” she said, biting her lip. “Is there a note?”
Dr. Waltham looked at her again. “I don’t want to know if there is, alright? I just don’t want to know.”
Odette looked about the room and quickly found an envelope by the television set, neatly folded.
ODETTE CARON
It said on the address label.
* * *
“Now he’s talking to you?” Kinsdale asked, indignant.
“Writing.” Odette said, grimly, walking with Kinsdale back into the dingy police station. She still hadn’t looked at the letter. She wanted to brush it for prints — even if she knew she wouldn’t find any. “What I don’t understand is how he would even know about me. I only came to the case yesterday.”
“You know, you do attract an astounding amount of bullshit, Miss Caron.”
“I really don’t care for honorifics.” Odette corrected. “You could say Mademoiselle if you want.”
“Yeah, yeah, tomato.” Kinsdale said, lighting a cigarette. “Either way, it’s a borderline talent. I can’t think of one odd thing that’s ever happened in this town not named Lorelei or Stella.”
“Stella?” Odette asked.
“You don’t want to talk to Stella,” Kinsdale said, puffing harder on the cigarette. Probably an ex-girlfriend, Odette deduced, and decided it was best to move on. They stopped by a window and Kinsdale glared out the window into the midday sun, the crease-lines of his face all the more apparent in the light. He took a drag on the cigarette.
“Should you really be smoking in a police station?” Odette asked.
“I dunno, should you be such a smartass all the time?” Kinsdale asked. “Honestly, Caron, I think you can begrudge me some small stress relief, the fucking world’s on fire.”
As they entered the (very small) office, Odette found Mulroney. There was also the other officer whose name she hadn’t actually learned yet and which she was very self conscious about even if they had hardly interacted whatsoever. She hoped to sort of discern the name from context clues in conversation later. She waved sheepishly as she passed them, trying to keep up with Kinsdale.
She was so tired, so angry. The letter was addressed to her…
“So, what we know,” he said, walking over to a cheap dry erase whiteboard kept on the station wall. He sarcastically wrote NADA in large letters before scraping it away. He then began drawing some bullet points.
THE KILLER IS:
- Likely male, psychologically
- Highly intelligent, if completely nutso
- Sadistic
“And adaptable,” Odette said. “Most serial killers do it the same way every time. To like, sign their manuscript.”
“I think we have to suppose the first victim also worked at Leonie’s then.” Kinsdale concluded. “We have a list of seven people that worked there, three of which we’ve found, one of which is dead, two of which are no longer residing in the country, and two of which are missing. I bet if we check the data, our John Doe will align with one of the four we don’t have anything on.”
“We can’t suppose anything.” Odette said. “You aren’t making the facts fit the data, you’re making the data fit the facts.”
“Well, you gotta start somewhere,” Kinsdale said, his lips curling. “I sure don’t think it’s any of the townies we talked to.”
Odette thought for a second and shrugged. “Stu?”
Kinsdale suddenly launched into a rant. “He’s eighty five! Don’t tell me he held Barry Thomas down and burnt his face off. Don’t tell me he did whatever happened to our first victim.” Kinsdale insisted. “We’ve talked to lots of people but we still don’t have any viable suspects. You wanna solve this thing or not!?”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Odette sighed. “The letter, the everything, it’s getting to me.”
Kinsdale didn’t say anything for a bit, but Odette could tell his outburst was because of the same thing that was bothering her. The killer was getting inside their heads.
“You’re going to have to read that second one.” Kinsdale insisted.
Odette looked at the ground. “I know, I — I’ve been putting it off. I will. Just… Can you give me a minute?”
Kinsdale moved closer to her, practically up to her face. She could smell his filthy cigarette breath. “We don’t have much time. The longer this guy runs free—”
“Can you just give me a minute!” Odette snapped, pushing Kinsdale away from her face. He stumbled, recovering against a desk. “I know! I know!”
Kinsdale looked at Odette, fuming. But he didn’t say anything, even if he clearly wanted to. He stubbed out the cigarette on an overflowing ash tray, and threw it in the trash can before stalking out.
Odette stood there, trying to remember breathing exercises, but the air was still filled with his smoke.
* * *
It was night where Noémie was, and the rain hadn’t stopped. Raindrops all over the pavement outside the window. The sound of that, the relaxing noise, had lulled Noémie towards unconsciousness. She was dreaming in the dark room of her apartment, curled in a surplus of blankets. Her phone rang on the bedside table. Noémie was a light sleeper and leaned over, tapping the screen.
“Mm, hey,” she said groggily.
“Sorry to call.” Odette’s voice said, shakily. “I know it’s late.”
“One in the morning,” Noémie said, half-functioning.
“I’m trying to… I’m trying to work up some courage. So weird calling your baby sister for comfort, I thought I was meant to be strong — look. Look. It’s worse than I thought, it’s a whole thing, and I just… I miss home. I miss you and Dad and Mom and I’m just sitting here, and I’m wondering if I’ll see you again. Because I’m also thinking about death, and how death works—”
“You’re freaking out,” said Noémie, stating the obvious.
“Yes, yes, I’m freaking out, but I think it’s understandable given the — given the subject matter that life has happened to provide me with lately.” Odette said, stuttering out sentences. “Do I tell you I care about you? Do I tell Mom? I don’t think I do, I really don’t think I do.”
“Hey, hey, hey—” Noémie said, waking up a little more, snapping her fingers a bit. “You’re — you’re a badass, you got this, I mean, I don’t know anyone like you. You’re okay. You tell me all the time. You tell us all the time—”
“And if I end up disappearing tomorrow—” Odette interrupted. “If you wake up tomorrow morning and you don’t hear from me again—”
“Not gonna happen. It’s not going to happen, Odette, you’re doing what I do when I have a job interview,” Noémie said. “You’re worrying and disassociating and stuff but it doesn’t matter what colour blouse you wear, it — it matters that you go in and smile. It’s not the end of the world.”
“You don’t understand,” Odette moped. It absolutely was the end of the world. People were going to die. And then a switch flipped in Odette’s brain and a resolute calm came over her. Because even if people did die, the world wouldn’t end. The world always kept on going. It didn’t accommodate any kind of stopping for anyone.
“You’ve been a great help,” Odette suddenly said with perfect clarity. “I love you.” And then she hung up the phone.
* * *
The letter when Odette opened it, was nothing more than an address to a church. It was an invitation. Sudden. It felt like it was cutting out everything. All the mystery was gone and there was a single pathway ahead of her. It was startlingly odd. But Odette knew she had to go. She had to face the evil.
The church wasn’t particularly evil looking, not gothic and tall and spirey in the least. It was a short, squat, brick-built building with two tiny windows and a little white sign out front. There were hundreds of churches nearby, many with beautiful architecture and tall standing steeples, but this was what was happening. This is what she had.
Odette had packed a service weapon she had taken from the police station. It was Mulroney’s, and she finally had found out the name of the third officer there, because the armory had a locker marked Paxton, so if she saw him again, she would at least remember his name, hopefully, unless she forgot it again. It was a weird thing to focus on before confronting a serial killer. But she wanted to have her ducks in a row.
What was that Noémie said? A job interview. Felt like the end of the world all the time, but at the end of things, you’re still there. She would still be there. She had to plan on that.
Odette checked to be sure the weapon was loaded before leaving her car and marching towards the little red-painted church doors.
They swung open, and standing by the altar was the smiling face of an unrecognizable man in a black raincoat. His teeth were stained black with a strange oil, and his skin was yellowed and dripping. His eyelids were completely shut. “Odette. I am so glad you came,” the killer said.
Odette felt a sort of disappointment. She had hoped there would be a clue that she was missing that would have helped her identify who this killer was. This was a stranger. It was somehow infuriating, that all of the clues of the detective story amounted to nothing at all. She levied the gun towards him. “Who are you?!” She hissed.
“You would have found me eventually,” the man said, “but time is so pressing and I thought it would be very nice if we both got to catch up. So no, you don’t know me, Odette Caron. But you would have known me. You would have found me, I saw how well you were doing, after all.”
“Saw me?” Odette spat. “I don’t think you saw anything with those eyes.”
“On the contrary,” the man said, pouring a glass of church wine into a glass cup. He looked up at her with those seared shut eyelids. “All I do is see.”
Odette thought about humanoid biology — how alien lifeforms that routinely mimic humanoid bipedal shape can still have cataclysmic differences. Those may look like closed eyes, but they could be something else entirely.
“The eyelids,” he said, sipping the wine, “are essential. Because everything is so bright, the burning, the blessed burning of it. Please, sit. I do not have much patience. I have been watching for so long.”
Odette tried to put it together. She had felt she was being watched. A vision so powerful, so all consuming, that the sight had to have a barrier to see at all — couldn’t you see light through your eyelids sometimes, recognize that it was there? Something that lived like that. So blinding… Eyes so sensitive they could see that much? It was a hell of an extrapolation, but it started to piece things together.
“This is your religion, isn’t it? Well, generally, I’m aware there are others. But the peoples of the earth believe in Christianity, don’t they?”
“How is this relevant?” Odette asked, thinking about the gun she was holding and if she still remembered how to use it.
“How it always is. The European Conquistadors. I’m trying to convert you, of course.” The man smiled, placing a glass of wine for Odette on the table. “I’ve converted a few people so far. They were most enthusiastic. What’s your religion, Mademoiselle Caron?”
Odette flinched. She didn’t expect this to be so personable. “I’m a scientist, personally. So, like, not very, I guess. My family’s Protestant and so I suppose I’d say that, but like, only if I had to pick one. I like the traditions. …I also studied Buddhism for a bit in college,” she said, not wanting to disappoint the violent killer for some reason.
“You see, our people are like that, there are plenty of people who believe all sorts of things. But I know the right one. I’ve spread the word. I’ve seen God. I have the eyes for it.”
Odette was certain that this man was mad now. A religious maniac, certainly. She tried to think of what that had to do with the patterns of killing he’s demonstrated, but couldn’t remember much about violent extraterrestrial religious ritualism. Her mind was going like crazy, trying to process so much information. She remembered to keep pointing the gun at him.
He removed a candle from the windowsill. A simple church candle, a familiar decoration that Odette had not even noticed. It was thick, fat, dripping with oily maroon wax. Quite old. “This is the crux behind the grand belief,” the man said. “This is the Waxwoven.” He drew a thin knife from the small of his cloak, gesturing that he meant no harm to Odette, please don’t worry. And he pressed that knife into the candle and began carving, etching. He moved like thunder, fast as anything, but with an artist’s depth and skill. Before long he had carved the fat bulbous candle into the statuette of a beautiful woman. The skill and detail of the piece was marvelous.
“Everyone has their soul within them,” the man spoke. “Divine, beautiful. A thing beyond physicality, a great transitory wonder, and with the knife, we may set them free. We may make them anew.”
Odette shuddered. “I’ve seen what you’ve done.”
“You do not see,” the man snapped, placing several more of the carved statuettes on the table. Divine images of men and women. One after another, after another. “Only I can see.”
And drawing a match from his cloak, he lit the candlewicks, remnants of the once bulbous candle, now sticking out of his carved masterpiece’s foreheads. And the fire brimmed, the fire glowed, and the skin of the statuettes began to soften. Unresolve. The fire ate through the wick with greater speed than Odette had anticipated, and as she watched, the little people began to melt, melt into each other. Their beauty sublimating into a single bulbous half-remembered shape. “This,” the man said, “This is God.”
And Odette, with true horror, began to see.
He was showing it to her. He was probably some sort of low level psychic, which made sense, his eyes could only accommodate so much. He showed her the world of his home. And she saw. The thin veneer of that yellowish solution she had seen on his face, on the pages? How had she not seen, not recognized? He was wax, he was carved. And home, there was the carving and there was the burning.
Great spires of wax, candlesticks dotting the sky, grand lighthouses in a gothic landscape of rotten wet cobblestone. In the houses, she sees two waxen lovers and how they fornicate ablaze, melting into each other, burning into a single amniotic fluid, and outside, the streets drenched in that yellow solution, falling down and pouring into sewers, eventually onto the horrid coast, into seas of one great surging, dripping ocean. Made of so much love and so much death. God.
“I tried to convert them, I really did,” He said, breathily. “Make them believe, see the divine. By God’s grace I did, but the flesh rebels against me. You aren’t like us. And I try, and I try to cut and shape and burn and make divine, and they just — screamed!”
He was angry, disappointed in their frailty, their weakness. “Is it not the family's duty to shape our children, to instruct the next generation the proper way of things? To spread the word of God? You do this, don’t you? How do you people live?!”
Odette felt sick to her stomach. “And what on earth were you trying to do? You kept trying after you found out we — we weren’t compatible?”
“I was working my way through the family unit. They had been apart for so long, abandoned, their home left to rot. I wanted to bring them together, I did, I did, oh, oh, but they couldn’t crack it, they couldn’t do the burning or the carving, they hardly knew each other anymore.”
“The pizza employees?” Odette was baffled, disgusted.
“Is that the word for it?” The Wax thing asked. “I saw it, you know. I saw that instructional video. All the signs. At Papa Leonie’s, we’re a family. Of course they’re a family. They have to be a family. You choose your family, don’t you? Isn’t that what people say!? Oh, they saw more of each other than anyone else. They even have a father!”
Odette fumed and had enough. She pulled the trigger again and again and again and again and again and again and shot the bastard into the wall. The bullets shot straight through with no resistance, bursting him open. Sprays of waxen fluid shot out of the figure and he fell back, but he didn’t seem to otherwise react, he made no noises of pain. Like he didn’t understand the concept. The melting shape, no longer quite a man, stood. For a split second, looking almost thankful to be rendered less humanoid. But then the anger returned.
The chamber of the gun clicked and Odette stared with horror as the congealed figure moved forward, his no-eyes glaring at her. He raised the slim knife towards her, and swung it, missing her and hitting the pews. “You have to swim with us, you have to dance with us, you have to play with God!” The Wax yelled.
Odette cringed and pushed over a pew at him, trying to trip up his approach. He was coming closer and closer. She scrambled to reload the gun, but he managed to knock it out of her hands. She screamed.
The door to the Church swung open and Kinsdale marched in, shooting the waxen shape back into the wall. Mulroney and Paxton were behind him, the entire police force of Temperanceville coming to her rescue.
The Wax looked — all it could do was look — at how outnumbered it had become.
“We’re taking you in,” Kinsdale said, sternly. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say may be admissible in court as evidence. You have the right to a lawyer, if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed—”
The Wax interrupted, raising a finger, and Kinsdale looked on, confused. “Admit this to your courts. Admit the sight of God,” The Wax said, and lit a match with its protuberance shaped vaguely like a hand. Was it smiling? It’s entire body went up, burning, burning into incandescent light and flame. The fire began to consume the church and the four of them scrambled out of the building as the fire reduced the Wax down to a melted nothing.
* * *
They stood on the curb by the burning church, looking at the pyre, as firetrucks flew into view.
“That was stupid,” Kinsdale said to her, “and damned brave. What on earth did you think you were doing?”
“It wrote to me, it wanted me.” Odette said. “I thought that I could leave you out of it, solve the thing myself. I don’t know. I really don’t know. It just… it had to be that way. I’ve been so lonely for so long. How did you know to come for me?”
“Two things,” Kinsdale grunted, walking towards the building. “You took a gun from a police station. Even if the stores are halfway to giving out guns for free down here, that sorta thing don’t go unnoticed. And second, is the dumb sappy reason.”
“Uh, what?”
“You’ve been my partner. I know how you think by now.” He leaned down to a bit of flaming wood and lit his cigarette. He then backed away.
Odette still didn’t know if she liked Kinsdale at all, but she was grateful, if anything. He was probably a good man if you squinted. Maybe. Big Maybe.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Odette said, having decided. “I need to go back to France. It’s been too long. I’ve seen too much here.”
Kinsdale nodded, solemn. “Can’t say I blame you. After what I’ve seen, I’ve half a mind to go to the tropics.”
“Yeah,” Odette said, looking at the blaze.
* * *
Odette was on the plane home when she saw the next wax person. She could tell, the same yellowish condensation on the face that made them look almost slimy. This wax person was a woman. She was Malaysian, probably, and she had her hair in a slick black bob. She had sunglasses on to hide the fact that her eyes were shut closed.
Odette had a word with the flight attendant, and she got to move her seat and speak with the woman.
“Hey, I’m Odette Caron. I’m from CRUX. Sorry, I know it sucks to speak on planes, but I think you may be a…”
“Hello.” The Waxwoven woman said, smiling. “I take it you’ve had some sort of unpleasant encounter with one of my kind.”
“Really?” Odette said, playing a little dumb on purpose. She was still suspicious.
“I get it disturbingly often.” She said, sighing. “They’re all such — how do you say it — edgelords, with the cutting and the burning. I can’t say I’m a fan.”
“Do you mind answering a few questions?”
“Sure, but I don’t like dwelling on it that much. It’s sad to think about.” She said, “We were sent out into the galaxy to further the religion as very young people. In little pods, you know, like Superman. Great analogy, actually. I got the whole Clark Kent experience. Raised properly by a nice couple, taught empathy and not to horribly melt. I don’t think everybody gets that. Some of them are more indoctrinated than others.”
Odette was bewildered. She had been looking for questions to answer, and this was all so convenient. She was convinced now that this woman was actually nice. It bewildered her. “Did he really not know? Is your whole home like that?”
“Yeah, basically,” she said, shrugging guiltily. “Sorry.”
“There’s one more thing that’s bothering me. You’re dressed normally. The killer, he — he had a raincoat. It was so sunny. So hot down in Virginia, it made… no sense, it was one of the only clues we had, really — I just don’t get it. Why do you think he was wearing that?”
The Waxwoven woman looked confused, looking a far way away. “Because of the rain,” she said.
When the plane landed in La Rochelle, the blue raindrops landed on Odette’s forehead.
She looked up at the sky. It was still raining.
Look for more Headstones, coming soon....
Copyright 2026, Arcbeatle Press and Plum Pudding. All Rights Reserved.
Odette Caron. EDEM, and Danny Deer are the property of James Wylder, used with permission.
C.R.U.X is the property of Aristide Twain, used with permission.