The timer on the car clock read 1:00 in the morning as an old 2016 Chevrolet Malibu pulled into the parking lot of a decrepit motel in Driver Roads Wisconsin. A young college student stepped out of her vehicle. The only sound in the air was the chirping of crickets, the slight hum of the old street light above her car. 

Exhausted from her trip, the young girl dragged her feet to the trunk of her car, popped it open, and carefully took out the large suitcase inside. The suitcase, decorated with stickers and pins, slammed onto the ground in front of her with a loud ‘THUMP’. Closing her trunk door, the girl let out a small sigh of relief as she began to walk to the front of the motel where she was supposed to retrieve her key from the assistant at the table. The poor girl was only greeted with pure silence as she entered the main building, not a single soul in sight to help her and tell her her room number. 

“Hello..? Is anybody there?” she called out in her confusion before letting out a small huff of annoyance. Going deeper into the building with her suitcase in tow, she pulled out her phone and began to scroll through texts with her mother who had arranged this entire trip for her in the first place. Her focus was strictly on her phone until the lights were switched off. Glancing up from her phone, her eyes narrowed in an attempt to adjust to the dark, “Um..is this some kind of sick joke..?” she questioned. Her voice was slightly shaky as the sound of soft clicking filled the room,

Click..

Click..

Click..

Terrified screams followed afterward, echoing throughout the room.

Red and blue lights reflected off of the glass of the motel, shining through the motel window and highlighting the chalk outline of the dead body. Police officers questioned the owner and the neighbors of the room while forensic photographers took photos of the surrounding blood splatter. A crowd of curious individuals surrounded the motel, only being blocked by the surrounding police tape and police officers who refused to let anybody out and anybody in. 

Standing to the side, Allani watched in silence as the body of the innocent girl was wheeled out, her body covered with a white cloth. Sipping on her cold office coffee, a sigh escaped her lips. Rapidly clicking her pen and tapping her foot, her thoughts drifted off into space.

“Poor girl…’nother victim of the Boogeyman, aye?” Brian White, a familiar friend of Allani spoke to her, his messy officer uniform, which was not up to the proper standards. Her eyes glanced briefly over to Officer White, and the clicking of her pen came to a stop. She gave the officer her full attention.

“Afraid so; she looks like just another tourist.”

“Just another tourist? She isn’t just a tourist y’know.” Officer White awkwardly warned, only to be met with a small scoff. The detective rolled her eyes in annoyance, somewhat swirling her coffee in her mug before she took another sip.

“So what? The only lead we’ve had this entire time is that this stupid serial killer goes for tourists and tourists alone! Maybe we should just close off the entire town, why don’t we?! Maybe then all these murders would stop!” She seethed, clenching her teeth as she gave Officer With a curt glare. The officer looked at her with surprise, his eyes somewhat widening as he held his hands up slightly as a form of surrender.

“Woah, woah..I was just saying that you might need a break..”

“A break..oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” she let out a dry laugh, rolling her eyes as she glanced away. “I don’t need a break, Brian. What I need is to catch this bastard and lock him up for good,” she grunted before shoving the cup of coffee into his chest. “Hold this,” she mumbled, ignoring the confused expression on his face.

“Wha– you can’t just…” His sputtering voice quickly attempted to interject, letting out a small ‘awe’ of sadness as he looked down at his uniform, a large, wet stain beginning to form. 

“Shut it White,” she snapped before turning her back on the officer. “I’m going to make my home safe again, and if that means I have to stay up all night skimming through evidence then so be it.” 

Allani didn’t even bother to turn to look at Officer White. As she began to walk over to the entrance of the motel, her gaze peered into the nearby window to reveal the crime scene. The sight of the police chalk outlining the body, the yellow numbering devices on the aggressive splatters of blood, and anything else that would be deemed as evidence.  Allani felt a shiver crawl down her spine as she listened to the clicks and flashes of the forensic photographers’ cameras. Letting out a sigh, she reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a mint, and placed it in her mouth as she mentally prepared herself to enter the crime scene. “It never does get easier..” she muttered to herself. She walked toward the opened motel door, walked in, and looked around, that familiar metallic smell filled her nose regardless of the minty smell that took over. 

“Detective Lee,” she was immediately greeted by a gruff voice. The chief stepped towards her, his big burly muscles somewhat intimidating as his gray eyes gazed intensely into her almond eyes. 

“Chief Macintosh,” Allani spoke, the tension in the air could almost be cut with a knife. She knew her performance through these couple of months had been quite...subpar, but the cases of this local serial killer have been proving to be quite difficult. The Chief’s eyes looked back at the crime scene, a disappointed expression on his face. 

“Listen, Lee, this is the third murder this month alone, making the total 25. And you’ve sat here with no leads, no clear direction, no nothing!” He let out a long, flustered sigh, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose, “At this point, my patience is running thin.” 

“I understand, sir, but you have to understand that these cases aren’t as easy as they seem. This murderer isn’t like anything I’ve seen in a long time. Listen, if you just give me a chance I can–”

“No, Detective Lee. I’ve given you far too many chances, and the public has been getting antsy ever since these murders have been happening. We cannot risk the public being harmed anymore!” The Chief was quick to cut off any of Allani’s words of defiance, “So, for now, I’m passing the case over to somebody new.”

“Somebody new?” Allani’s eyes widened at the idea of somebody new working on her case. 

“Yes, her name is Elizabeth Winstead. She’s from Marshfield.”

“Oh! So now we’re just letting anybody help us!” she scoffed, a pit of anger bubbling in her stomach, “You do know that the only reason neighboring cities even want to join us is because they want all the glory, right?” She hummed with narrowed eyes, unaware of the opening motel door and a new woman walking in.

“Speak of the devil...” The Chief completely ignored Allani’s words as a smile crossed his face. Immediately, he walked past the baffled Detective and greeted the slightly younger woman who walked in. Allani’s gaze followed the chief as he shook the hand of the new detective, a new problem. Clenching her fist in anger, she walked over to them. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Detective Winstead! I’ve heard amazing stories about your work!”

“Please, you’re flattering me!” Elizabeth’s voice filled the room, and the grizzly crime scene almost filled with a sense of hope. Yet, Allani felt her annoyance growing as she stood next to the Chief with her arms crossed. 

“So, you must be the baby detective..” Allani’s bitter voice retorted as she looked the woman up and down, her eyebrow raised

“Detective..” Macintosh sternly interrupted, somewhat drawing out his voice like a parent would to a child.

“Oh, quite the contrary. I’m not a new detective in the slightest. I’ve actually worked on about twenty-five cases by now!” Elizabeth waved her hand somewhat dismissively in an attempt to stay slightly humble about her achievements. As she looked up at the older woman in front of her, she couldn’t help but become excited at seeing such a seasoned detective right in front of her. She’ll admit that even a good detective like herself couldn’t help but gawk at the famous Detective Allani Lee. The woman was known throughout the county as an amazing detective and was now face-to-face in front of the woman herself. She had just expected a woman of her fame to be a bit more kind. With the eye bags and the rough glare; however, she was somewhat intimidated by the woman.

“Don’t give me that crap! You’re practically taking my job, my livelihood and you come to this crime scene with your positive attitude..” Allani jeered at the woman, leaning close to her in an attempt to intimidate the woman.

“Detective Lee,” Chief Macintosh attempted to interject.

“No! Sir, you can't just replace me like this. I’ve been working every single day trying to solve this case and this is how you treat me!?” Allani raised her voice. Her jaw clenched as she looked between this Elizabeth woman and her Chief. The disturbance in the crime scene was enough to catch the eyes of everybody else, and at this point, it wasn’t just Elizabeth’s eyes that were looking at her awkwardly.

“Detective Lee this is a crime scene, you cannot be acting like this. You need to leave and calm yourself,” he quickly seethed, slightly glaring down at the senior detective. 

“Fine, fine! But I can guarantee you that if I can’t solve it, then neither can this…this wannabe detective!” she retorted bitterly as she shoved past the baby detective. Her face red with anger, she could feel every single person's gaze on her. Whether that be a multitude of police officers or casual civilians who were wondering what was going on. All Allani could here was the ringing in her ear, her breaths heavy as she practically ran to her car. Muscles tensed, she didn’t realize the multitude of police officers, her coworkers, all attempting to speak to her.

“Detective Lee, are you alright?”

“Allani is everything okay?”

“What’s got you so upset this time..?”

Their words felt like aggressive mocks to her ears as she approached her car, her jaw clenched as she only saw red. As she reached her car, yanking the driver’s side of the car door, she realized it was locked and let out a noise of frustration. She fumbled into her pocket for her keys before unlocking the door and getting into the driver's seat, slamming the door shut as she started her car. Standing near the door of the motel, silently watching as the angry woman drove off, Elizabeth had a frown on her face. She knew that butting heads with the detective was inevitable, however, she didn’t expect the woman to turn around and run back. Turning back to look at the crime scene, Elizabeth went toward one of the sterile counters and put on the latex, sterile gloves. If she wanted to find the necessary information, she had better start sooner rather than later.

The investigation had concluded for the day at around 1 pm.

Elizabeth sat in her assigned office the next day, a collection of evidence for the homicide sitting at her desk. Messily shuffled around in, there were papers everywhere, however, the official autopsy of the body itself wouldn’t come in until later that day. With nothing but a cup of coffee to keep her awake from her previous nights of excitement to be working on a case involving such an infamous killer, her head bobbed slightly up and down as she attempted to keep her eyes open. Startled by the sound of her door opening, her eyes snapped completely open as she groggily looked up and saw Allani standing there with what looked like tons and tons of files in her hands.

“Here baby detective, you’ll need this if you want to keep working on the case..” Allani begrudgingly muttered, spending all morning attempting to collect all of the evidence she had gathered throughout the year of her own investigation. She couldn’t help but smirk slightly at the sight of how tired the woman in front of her seemed as she slammed down the numerous files. “You better get cracking..” she jeered, mockingly tilting her head as her smirk widened into a mocking grin. Her face fell when she saw the way Elizabeth looked at the files. Not with disdain, but instead with a look of joy. “What’s that look for..?”

“O-Oh!” Elizabeth was snapped out of thought as she looked at her senior detective. “I just..never thought I’d be able to look through official documents written by you!” she enthused as she took one of the files from the pile and skimmed through it, taking in every single detail she possibly could. That was until her face dropped upon realizing one thing, the files hardly held any cohesive details in them. It almost looked like the bare minimum, something seen by rookie detectives. The handwriting was slightly sloppy and hard to read, while the typing sections seemed rushed. Looking back up at Allani, her confused expression became very clear to the senior detective as she snorted.

“Not that impressive aye..? I warned you that if I’m not able to figure it out, I highly doubt you’ll be able to figure it out. So why don’t you run back home to Marshfield and go and help with a case that is more in your pay grade?”

“No, no these are fine..I just..” Elizabeth’s voice drifted off slightly, the clicking of Allani’s red pen quickly bringing her back to reality. She looked down at the pen, finding the clicking slightly annoying but not having the place to say anything, “Thank you,” was all she said as she let out a long sigh and began to take a crack at every file Allani had collected throughout the year. Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Allani backed up a bit and gave a brief nod.

“Yeah, yeah it’s whatever..” she grunted before heading out of the office, the sound of her clicking pen fading into the background as Elizabeth rubbed her eyes and let out a soft yawn. Reaching for her cup of coffee, she took a big swig out of it for that little energy boost she needed to continue her investigation. While she looked through every file Allani Lee created, she noticed the same as the first one she had opened. The writing was messy and quick, and the typing itself was very vague. The most detail found in the report was the one thing the senior detective didn’t write, the autopsy.  

“This just doesn’t make any sense…” she mumbled quietly to nobody but herself. Her eyes skimmed over the texts in every file. The connection of the victims seemed random, but it was clear, by the multiple stab wounds present on each of the victim’s backs that they died in the same way, with multiple stab wounds from what was theorized to be some kind of knife. She also took notice that every victim wasn’t necessarily from around the area, some of them didn’t even live in Wisconsin and instead lived in another state and, on very small occasions, different countries. 

2 pm, the autopsy finally arrived, bringing some relief the Elizabeth when she called down to collect it. The same cause of death to the other victims, the hair found at the scene was only hair from the victim, there were no clear fingerprints, nothing. She was dealing with somebody skilled, somebody who knew what they were doing. 

Something had to be missing, she could feel it in her bones. Deciding to give herself a much-needed break, Elizabeth stood from her desk and decided to clear it up slightly. Picking up some of the files, she hummed a small tune to herself and set them on a nearby chair. As she did so, one of the pictures detailing the autopsy managed to slip out of the file. Noticing this, she was somewhat taken aback as she looked down at the sketch detailing the autopsy, letting out a small sigh of annoyance. Bending down to pick it up, her eyes glanced over it just a few times, and she felt herself stop in her tracks. The markings on the victim looked a bit odd as if there was something drawn on the victim’s skin that had not been addressed in the autopsy report or the notes Detective Lee provided. Tilting her head in confusion, she carefully picked up the piece of paper and squinted her eyes to look at the text at the side to read as to what it exactly said. 

‘Victim experienced ten puncture wounds–’ not what she was looking for.

‘Experienced approximately 5 minutes of blood loss before the time of dea–’ her eyes skimmed over it immediately, her gaze laser-focused to navigate the autopsy report.

‘Victim showed deep lacerations carved in the shape of some kind of bird. The laceration was found underneath the armpit of the victim, making it hard to see and look for–’ That’s it! That was exactly what she was looking for. Immediately setting down the piece of paper, she proceeded to pull out every single autopsy report from the victims and realized that underneath each of their armpits there appeared to be an animal. This didn’t seem to be a coincidence, and despite the sudden breakthrough, she couldn’t help but question why Detective Lee didn’t find this important to report. With a wide smile on her face, she quickly rushed out of her office and straight toward Detective Lee’s office, wondering if maybe she had any idea what these animals meant.

“Detective Lee! There’s some kind of animal engravings on all of the victims!” she shouted as she practically burst down the door, scaring the poor older woman half to death.

“Jesus Christ, knock on the door!” Allani snapped at her, holding her chest as she attempted to take deep breaths to calm herself a bit. Upon realizing what the baby detective said, she perked up a bit and raised her eyebrow, “Seriously? Animal engravings..? That’s hardly anything..” she mumbled, heavily unamused by the woman’s actions. After all, why would somebody get excited over animal engravings..?

“No, no you don’t get it! All of the victims have these animal engravings on them!” Elizabeth enthusiastically exclaimed as she rushed to the woman’s desk to lay out all of the autopsy reports, almost knocking down the senior detective’s coffee in the process. “Sorry, sorry,” she apologized, “But see? These animal engravings aren’t tattoos or anything, and clearly, the autopsy reports deemed it important to make mention of, so why haven’t you been investigating them?” 

“Please, you’re acting like I didn’t see them. Believe me, I was just as excited as you were when I found out they were on all the victims at the time and for some reason is a common occurrence. Yet, I’ve looked through all of the possibilities and nothing. It just led to some kind of dead end with no lead, no nothing. Believe me when I say it won’t lead to anything..”

“But–”

“Just stop! I don’t want to hear what you have to say, just get out of my office..” Allani cut off the enthusiastic woman, motioning for her to shoo out of her office. Elizabeth’s face had fallen, not that Allani cared much for the baby detective’s feelings. Elizabeth looked at Allani, and while she wouldn’t have minded the rejection, the senior detective seemed so stern, almost too stern about the topic. She didn’t think much of it as she sighed and collected all of the autopsy reports, quickly heading out of the office in hopes not to annoy the woman any further than she already had. She looked down at the autopsy reports, disappointed that Allani didn’t want to help. However, she knew she had to continue what she was doing. She was close to making a major breakthrough, she could feel it. 

For the following months, the young detective spent all of her time in her office while on the clock. She had read up on every form of code, and every form of symbolism; however, they led to a dead end every time. Despite every twist and turn, the best way to exit the maze was to retrace her steps, and that was exactly what the woman intended to do. Even if it meant constantly having to back to stage one just to fall into another dead end, Elizabeth was determined to solve these murders and bring peace to the town. Allani had been watching the young detective closely throughout the month, the only sign of her presence being the soft clicking of that red pen she constantly kept in her pocket. She had been watching the progression, and throughout the months, the detective had to admit that the girl was remarkable. Of course, her envy was still there at the girl for practically taking her job; however, she decided to become a bit more active in the investigation with the permission of Chief Macintosh. The only exception to her retaking the case was that Detective Winstead took the lead rather than her, and while she still thought it was a tad bit silly, she accepted those conditions.

All of that changed one night when Elizabeth rested on her living room couch by herself, looking through copies of all of the evidence she and Allani had gathered. She was still hung up on the meaning of all of these animals. Why would a serial killer like the infamous Driver Roads Boogeyman leave this key detail if it wasn’t intentional, if it wasn’t important? Her eyes scanned every page, setting them all down and beginning to write a few things. At first, she wrote down all of the beginning letters of every animal before going forward or backward in their respective alphabetical placement and writing those down as well, trying to see if she could form something coherent. This went on for a couple of minutes before her eyes went wide with realization. She felt her heartbeat race as her hands shook, sweat racing down her forehead as she quickly stood up.

CRASH. 

The young detective froze in place when a loud crash rang through her home. Her mind was racing as she rushed for her phone which was still in the kitchen…

Click..

Click..

Click..

The clicking of a pen rang throughout the house as Elizabeth reached for her phone and any nearby weapon, and the sound of footsteps followed after. Her hands shook as she attempted to dial 911…

Click..

A loud sound of a gun going off followed the last click, the sound of a gun being cocked. Blood splattered on the wall as Elizabeth’s body fell to the ground. Quiet footsteps walked over to her phone, the sound of a 911 operator on the other end of the line…

“911 how may I help y–” Before the operator could even finish, a gloved hand hanging up the phone before it was placed next to the young detective's body. Footsteps began to walk over to where the living room was, a hand reaching quietly for the pieces of paper with letters on them…

A L L A N I L E E 

…before being ripped to shreds.