Sonatorrek: Reginsmál - 5

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Kane follows Arnie out to a local bush party site with a grisly discovery waiting for him. Arnie reveals that all is very much not well in Aitkins.



The path Arnie took was on to a logging road that butted against the highway. The car bounced a bit in the ruts, but it was still level enough to keep them from rattling around. He pulled over and got out, less than twenty metres from the pavement.

“This the place?”

“Nah. It’s just a quick hike.” Arnie Snorinsen hitched up his belt and strode into the woods. Kane wasn’t a skilled tracker like Logan, but even he could see the tramped down underbrush and signs of dirt bikes being driven through the trees. After ten minutes, the woods opened up to a clearing, with a pile of burnt logs and ashes in the middle.

“Bonfire?”

“Bush party. Kids get together, get some of the older ones to score the booze, and come out here to party and smoke dope.” Arnie gave a little chuckle.

“Fond memories?”

“Hell, I bet my grandparents used this clearing for the exact same thing. The forest had been thinned out enough from recent logging that we used to be able to get Gary Bergson’s old truck up here and turn the radio way up.” He lit a cigarette. “We used to drink this terrible shit called Old Crow. Light a cigarette after a bottle of that and you’d go up like a firework.” He laughed again and kicked the grass. “Cheap plastic two quart things of vodka. No different.”

“So why are we here, Arnie? I don’t see a crime scene other than littering.” Garrison said, and followed Arnie’s gesture.

“Behind the firepit.”

Kane cleared past the ashes and finally saw the bloody stump. It had obviously been from a tree felled long ago, the top hard and weather beaten. Strewn around it were pieces of an animal of some type, which looked like it had been pulled limb from limb.

“What the hell?” Kane leaned closer, waving away the flies, and saw that the blood splatters weren’t random. Whoever had killed what looked like a goat had covered the stump in old symbols; runes maybe. He took a closer look at the carcass, which had been disembowelled at some point, and noticed the most jarring element; there were no knife marks on it. It had been disembowelled by hand.

“Yeah. That’s why I wanted you to take a look. The goat doesn’t worry me as much as the possibility that a bunch of drunk and high kids ripped it apart with their bare hands.”

Kane kicked over a leg, looking at the blackened flesh. “They put the pieces in the fire. Like a sacrifice or something. You got some kind of wannabe Satanists here in Aitkins?”

“Nah. Couple of kids with stupid long black hair listening to that Marilyn Manson shit, but none of them are capable of this. See, there’s another thing.”

“That tops this? Fuck me.” Barbaric was the only word he had for the carnage.

“There’s a gas station just up the road, about a half mile. Around the time this shit was happening, a woman reported two young men jumped her as she was coming out of the restroom. Grabbed her, tried to pull her into the woods and get her clothes off. Turns out she had a thing of pepper spray with her, and she broke away before they could get too far.” He took a long drag, the cigarette glowing cherry. “Thing is, I can’t remember the last time someone tried to just jump a woman out in the open.”

“I’m going to guess no one showed up to be treated for chemical burns?”

“No such luck. None of this fits Aitkin’s folk. The temptation is to say that it’s someone from the outside, or maybe a bunch of them. Maybe some group that moved through, happened to get an invite to the party and are on highway in South Dakota by now. I want to believe that, but it would be irresponsible. You ever heard of a community getting ‘wintersick’?”

“Sure. Up in some of the more remote communities.”

“Well, I got a feeling that might be part of it. It’s been a bad summer for the camps and the tourists. Lots of folks are looking at a lean winter. It’s not hitting us yet in terms of real crimes, but I’ve been hearing a lot of gossip about yelling matches in the bowling alley, lots of uncomfortable silences between couples at the diner, and Bill Foster mentioned his business is up, which means some folks are sharing a bed with someone else’s husband or wife. In a small town, those are signs something is going wrong.”

Kane held up his hands in front of his torso, palms towards the Chief. “I’ll take your word for it, Chief. It’s your town. But do you really think the signs point to some weird ritual?”

“Yeah, I can’t figure how this shit fits in.” He stepped forward and stopped when he heard a crunch. Pulling aside the bent tall grass, Arnie pulled up a small MP3 player. The plastic case had been cracked by his foot, but it seemed otherwise intact.

“Ain’t that something.”

“Here.” Kane pulled a plastic baggie from his pocket and put it over his hand, carefully taking the player from him. “We can check it for evidence at the station, and then overnight it to Milwaukee. They might be able to track its electronic footprint if there’s nothing on the case.”

Kane thumbed the iPod on and listened with Arnie for a few moments to the music. Kane plugged some of the band names into his phone, searching for their profiles. A quick check showed most of the bands were the same genre; Viking metal. "A little extreme..."

"I'm more of a Johnny Cash man myself." Arnie scratched his neck. "Sounds like the kind of shit the Hels listen to."

"The other biker gang?"

"Yeah. They're wrapped up in this bullshit white Nordic power racist movement. They like blasting this stuff going down the highway, like they're modern Viking marauders or something." He looked around. "Still, usually they make a big of a scene when they show up somewhere. Could just be some local kid who likes melting his ears slowly."

“Think they were in charge of this little party?”

“I know they weren’t. Troopers had most of them past 60 Line, trying to deke them for a border run. Could have had a couple of members here, I guess, but I doubt they’d be in charge as Hels.”

"Well, we'll see if we can get anything useful off it." Kane passed it back. “Any other fans in town you can think of?”

“Hell, I stopped paying attention to what most of the kids listened to when they stopped singing and started shouting at the mic instead. But I’ll put the word out. I’d sure like to get a first-hand account of what was going on, even if it was just a couple of assholes trying to put together some bullshit ritual crap they got off some goth site online.”

“Yeah.” Kane paused, looking around. For a moment, he had the oddest feeling about the place, like what had happened here had a resonance past its moment. Arnie jerked his head back towards the highway. “C’mon. I’ll drop you off at your room.”