Page 36 of So Dark

“She was five feet away from first aid,” Michael said.

“Hmm?”

“First aid. She was five feet away. Maybe… I don’t know, ten minutes more, and she would have had time to stop her bleeding, disinfect her wound, and maybe even call for help.”

The cabin Lisa had died trying to reach was a cache of survival supplies, including medical kits. Lisa had tried to reach it after the spear thrower pierced her liver. Liver punctures were invariably fatal unless they happened right in front of a trauma ward, so it was a miracle she’d made it as far as she did.

And anyway…

“She didn’t have a phone, Michael. There was no way for her to call for help.”

He sighed. “Right. I just…” He lifted his hands and let them drop.

“Yeah. I feel you.”

“A fucking spear thrower? Like…” Michael laughed mirthlessly. “Who is this guy? It’s like he’s a villain from some slasher movie.”

“A lot of the people we chase are like that,” Faith said. “That’s the downside of being good at finding people like that. They keep asking us to find people like that.”

He sighed. “Yeah. It just sucks. I feel like we’re the cops in a superhero comic book. Like we’re dealing with some guy with powers and gadgets and crap, and we’re just the normal beat cops trying to keep our city safe from freaks.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I realize that this is no different from any other case we’ve had. It just sucks.”

“It does,” she agreed.

The front door opened, and Robert and Wyatt walked inside. Robert looked shellshocked. He tried to smile at the agents, but his mouth couldn’t do more than twitch. Faith wondered that he would even make the effort. Maybe that was just a habit ingrained into humans as social creatures.

She wondered if those same habits were ingrained into the killer. Did he smile at people? Did he greet new acquaintances with a handshake? Did he open doors for strangers and offer to help old people cross the street? If so, was it all a ruse to hide the darkness underneath, or was it something he did without thinking, just a part of being human?

And if the latter was true, then why kill people? And why this way? What motivated him to want to kill his victims in this particular fashion?

Robert sat in front of the agents and sighed heavily. Wyatt poured him a mug of coffee, then sat next to him.

Faith broke the silence by following another social convention, perhaps one of the emptiest social conventions there were. “We’re so sorry for your loss, Mr. Blackwood.”

Robert returned the mandated response. “Yeah. Thank you.”

Michael folded his hands in front of him and asked, “When we spoke to your wife earlier today, she talked to us about her old survivalist group: Nature’s Guardians. Were you close with any of them?”

Robert shook his head. “Not really. The group was more Lisa’s thing. Even within the group, it didn’t seem like anyone was close.”

“Did they fight a lot?”

“No, not really. They just… This is going to sound mean, but it’s like you got all of the shy, awkward kids in school and plopped them in a room with one extrovert. Well, two, I guess. Kelly was pretty outgoing too.”

“What can you tell us about the group?” Faith asked. She had heard Lisa’s side, but she wanted an outside perspective. Besides, she wasn’t sure how much of what Lisa had told them was the truth.

"Um, it was basically a social media group, but they met in person instead of talking online. That's all they really did, though, was talk. I think Lisa organized three trips in the four years the group existed. A couple of them paired up for excursions every now and then, but it was really informal. Mostly, they just shared stories. I showed up to a few meetings, but I was never really a part of it."

“How did people treat Lisa during those meetings?”

“They were fine. No one was especially loving or anything, but they were polite to her like they were to everyone else. Why? Do you think someone from the group is killing the former members?”

“It’s a possibility we’re considering,” Faith admitted.

He nodded. “Makes sense. The three victims are from the group. I don’t know who, though. They seemed awkward, but no one seemed violent.”

“How many people were in the group?”

“No more than six at any time.”

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