After what they'd seen in that house, it wasn't just that Carl and Tommy felt sick — it was as if someone had dragged their faces across the edge of the abyss itself.

Poor Tommy bent double right there on the porch, retching onto the wet gravel. His cough tore through his throat, rough and helpless — too young, too alive to look at something like that and not fall apart.

Carl stood beside him, still gulping air like he'd just run a mile. Only the pallor of his face and the tremor in his hands betrayed that he was just as broken.

What they'd expected was another ugly find — one more grisly totem or doll like the ones paranoid lunatics leave behind when they think they hear voices. But this was no totem. Not for Carl.

Where the crude effigy lay — stitched from hair, teeth, and human skin — he saw something else. A swarm of fat, black flies. They hung in the air like smoke, writhing and pulsing, and the stink off them wasn't just rot. It carried something unnatural: sulfur, burnt bitterness, and the metallic tang of fresh blood.

And then — there were the children.

He saw them. Small bodies twisted into impossible shapes, limbs broken back upon themselves like snapped dolls. From the wounds seeped something dark and viscous, glinting red in the stuttering light. It wasn't simply a vision — it screamed. Carl heard the brittle, high cries snagging in his mind, like nails raking the inside of his skull.

Then came the whisper.

That same sticky, broken murmur — with a rasp like an old radio catching a bad frequency. It spoke in a language Carl didn't know but somehow understood. The meaning slid straight into his gut, primal and certain, like the reek of fire or the taste of fear.

When he came to, he was standing by his car, halfway through his fifth cigarette. Smoke burned his throat. His hands shook like a man three decades older.

He hated that he was afraid.

Hated it because the fear felt familiar.

The first time you're scared in war, courage doesn't come next — only habit. And that habit is the thing that whispers: You already know how this ends.

Carl muttered a curse and flicked the cigarette into a puddle.

"Christ Almighty… should've stayed back on that goddamn meat grinder. At least there you knew what kind of bastard would kill you."

A hand slapped between his shoulder blades — sudden enough to make his heart plunge to his boots. He spun around.

"Jesus, Sam! You trying to finish the job?" He pressed a hand to his chest. "You nearly gave me a stroke."

"Relax, old man," Sam said with a shaky laugh that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You're too stubborn to die from that."

"Yeah, tell that to my nerves. Forty's not thirty-one, trust me."

"For the record, I am thirty-one," Sam said, smirking. "And you look like you haven't slept more than fifteen minutes in a week."

He studied his partner more closely. Carl looked gutted — cheeks hollow, skin the color of bad wax, eyes sunk deep in violet bruises. His hair was thinning, his movements mechanical, as if something inside him had already given up.

"Ah, screw you," Carl muttered, lighting another cigarette. "You look old enough to have grandkids."

"Maybe," Sam said lightly, though his gaze stayed fixed. "You eat anything today?"

"No. Just coffee. Third day running."

"Then come on. Diner around the corner." He nodded toward a squat building with a flickering sign that read Denny's Quality Food. Warm light spilled from the window; the smell of bacon drifted out.

Carl grimaced. "Can't. Not now. We've got people to question."

"Anna's on it," Sam said, leaning against the car. "And she's better at it than either of us. Folks open up to her — especially when they think she understands."

"Unless they're from the blue oyster crowd," Carl muttered, eyes half‑closed. The weak smile that followed was painful, brittle at the edges. He realized even jokes hurt now.

"Y'know what…" Carl rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the stiffness there. "Maybe you're right. Maybe food wouldn't kill me."

Sam grinned and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

"That's the spirit. The man lives again. Come on."

They crossed the street to the diner — a narrow, rundown place that smelled of grease, burnt coffee, and too many yesterdays. The air was heavy, thick enough to chew. Somewhere near the door, a group of locals laughed too loudly, the kind of nervous laughter that dies when strangers walk in.

And die it did.

Every head turned their way for a fraction of a second, eyes shining with that small-town curiosity that blurs easily into suspicion. By the time Carl and Sam passed, the room was almost silent again, just the jukebox wheezing out an old, off-key blues tune from above the counter.

They took a booth in the back, the cracked vinyl sighing under their weight.

Almost at once, the murmurs started up again.

"I heard the cops were at the Greco place," hissed a heavyset woman by the window.

"Kids are missing, they say," replied her friend, breaking a roll in half. "Little girl was six, boy twelve… poor things."

"Mark my words," said a third, her voice rasping like gravel, "that's them freaks did it — Gatto and Heart-Eater. Those bastards get off on carving up kids. I'd burn 'em in hell myself if I could."

The chatter multiplied, a low, feverish drone, and Carl swore he could feel it crawling under his skin. The sound swelled like an itch he could never scratch deep enough. Without realizing it, his lips began to move — silent, mirroring the rhythm of their condemning voices.

Across from him, Sam sat back, calm as ever, like the noise didn't touch him. Just another day on the job. Background static.

"You know what I like about people?" Sam said, stirring his coffee that hadn't arrived yet. "They're scared outta their damn minds, but they still crave a good monster story. Even when the monster lives right across the street."

Carl gave a tired half‑smile.

His head buzzed faintly. That crawling itch again — under the scalp this time, like something dark and patient breathing beneath the bone.

A young waitress appeared by their table — red-haired, a silver chain glinting on her neck. Her badge said Susan.

"What can I get you, boys?"

Sam straightened, eyes gleaming with mock charm.

"Your voice," he said, "sounds like the kind that could make a man eat the whole menu just to keep you talking. What do you recommend, beautiful?"

Susan laughed, the sound quick and tired. She'd met a hundred Sams before.

"Sandwiches are good today. Cherry pie's fresh — baked this morning."

"Cherry, huh?" Sam dragged out the words, leaning back. "Sweet and sour, like life. That's my kind of sin. And Susan — that's a beautiful name."

"It's not mine," she said with a grin. "Badge from the last girl who quit. But thanks. So — you eating or just flirting until the kitchen closes?"

Carl groaned quietly. "We'll take two sandwiches, eggs, coffee. And for God's sake, give this Casanova a slice of your pie — maybe something sweet'll fix him."

She jotted it down and walked away, hips swaying just enough to remind them both she'd already won the exchange.

Sam watched her go with exaggerated remorse. "You just cost me true love, old man. She had the walk, the eyes, the everything."

"With that kind of flirting," Carl said dryly, picking at a folded napkin, "you're lucky she didn't call the sheriff instead. She also looks kind a young, you know?"

Sam laughed. "Maybe. Still, it's hard to tell nowadays who's a teenager and who's got a mortgage. World's weird like that. Anyway, Mari's already breathing down my neck — thinks I'm cheating every time I step outside."

Carl looked up, his expression softening — but only a little.

"Still fighting?"

"They're not fights," Sam sighed. "They're interrogations. Miss one call, she loses it. Last week she went through my mail, even checked under my pillow. I'm tempted to show up home wearing lipstick just to see if she faints."

Carl gave a humorless chuckle. "Yeah. Real funny. Until she shoots you with your own service revolver."

Sam smirked, though his eyes faltered — the joke didn't land because he felt the edge of it.

That was when Carl's gaze caught something beyond the window.

A figure. Standing by the roadside.

The shape… of it was wrong somehow. Too still. Too straight. It didn't move or breathe. Just watched.

Carl froze. His heart stuttered once, hard.

Then the figure was gone — melted into the fog like it had never been there at all.

Sam noticed the color drain from his partner's face.

"You okay, man?"

Carl blinked slow, trying to steady his breath.

"Not sure," he whispered. "Probably just— I don't know. Lately I've been seeing things that shouldn't be there."

Sam's brow furrowed. He placed a palm flat on the table. "You need a real night's sleep, brother. This case — the stuff we've been digging through — it'd screw with anyone's head."

Carl's lips bent into a thin, bitter smile.

"For some of us," he said softly, "the head's already gone. We just haven't noticed yet."

Carl picked up the napkin again and began scratching at it with the tip of a toothpick, tracing out the shape of a slow, coiling spiral. His hand moved without thought, like a habit grown out of something darker.

"Your wife…" he said after a moment, his tone too even to be casual, "she's not from around here, is she? Where's she from?"

Sam raised an eyebrow, rubbing his forehead as he tried to remember.

"Uh… definitely not local. Wait—hold on… Dunmer. Yeah. That was it. From Dunmer." He said it lightly, like it didn't matter.

The name hit Carl like a slap.

He froze, the toothpick still poised between his fingers. His face turned to stone, eyes fixing on nothing.

"Dunmer?" he repeated slowly, tasting the word. "Lucky man. Hell of a place to find a wife."

Sam frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Carl gave a dry grin that never made it to his eyes.

"You've never heard the story of Dunmer, have you?"

Sam leaned back in his seat. "Do I look like a guy who collects ghost stories? I'm from New York. The only legends I care about are ones that show up in reports. So go ahead — enlighten me, partner."

Carl took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaled through clenched teeth. The smoke rose in a ribbon and hung between them like something alive.

"I used to think it was just small‑town folklore too," he said quietly. "Until I saw the records myself."

His voice sank beneath the diner's background hum—the chatter, the scrape of forks, the lazy croon of the jukebox—but Sam felt the temperature drop a few degrees all the same.

"In 1950," Carl went on, staring through the window though the glass showed only their reflections, "something happened in Dunmer. Officially, they called it an 'industrial incident.' Factory spill, chemicals in the water—same old story. Only thing is, the birth records don't match."

Sam frowned. "How do you mean?"

Carl's gaze snapped back to him. "That year, forty‑eight boys were born in Dunmer. Every one of them deaf. Not one could hear his mother's voice. Not one. The girls—perfectly fine. Not a single defect. You see what I'm saying?"

He spoke lower and lower, like something listening might overhear. He glanced into his coffee as if it might show him the rest of the story there.

"The papers made noise for a while," he went on. "Then the fire came. County records office—burned straight down to its foundations. Whole thing wiped clean."

Sam shook his head, forced out a nervous chuckle. "Come on, man. You're buying into campfire crap. Could've been a hospital error. Bad batch of medicine, genetics—whatever."

"Maybe." Carl crushed his cigarette into the plate. The ash landed dead center of the spiral he'd been scratching all along. "Only thing is—those boys didn't live long enough for anyone to study 'em. Most were dead before their eighth day."

He paused. The café chatter seemed to dim then, or maybe it was just the blood in his ears.

"They say the infants wouldn't sleep," Carl whispered. "Just lay there, eyes wide open, until they stopped breathing. Mothers swore they heard whispering at night… something leaning close, talking into their deaf little ears." He rubbed at his temple, as if to wipe the memory away. "Locals say the town was built near the place the Salem witches fled after the trials. Some of them settled by the old quarry outside of town. Folks call it the Weeping Eye."

Sam gave a shaky laugh, though his voice cracked partway through. "The Weeping Eye? Jesus, Carl. You're laying it on thick. You trying to spook me on purpose?"

Carl leveled a look at him—flat, cold, with something brittle underneath.

"I wish to God I was. But I saw the photos, Sam. The old Pittsburgh archives kept copies. Pictures of those infants…" He stopped for a beat. "Some had markings. Not birthmarks — deliberate burns. Symbols. Like somebody cut patterns into their skin."

Silence fell between them. Long and uncomfortable. Every clink of a coffee cup in the diner landed like a gunshot.

Finally, Sam leaned back, eyes unfocused.

"You know," he said after a while, "Mari says weird things sometimes. When she's mad. Sounds Irish, maybe. I never asked. Figured it was family stuff. But now…" He trailed off, shook his head hard. "Nah. Bullshit. Just bullshit."

Carl tilted his head, a flicker of something unreadable passing behind his eyes.

"Maybe you're right," he said softly. "Or maybe she just remembers where her blood came from."

He let the words linger.

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