Marks

Rowan poured a splash of milk into his tea and shut off the electric kettle. He stirred in a spoonful of sugar absentmindedly while rain tapped steadily against the window. It was late afternoon, and the rest of the staff had gone home for the day. He exited the small employee break room at the city morgue and headed back to his desk.

He sat down, shoving candy wrappers and clutter out of the way for his teacup. Reaching over, he turned up the music on his Bluetooth speaker, pumping out a rock song.

Rowan fixed his ponytail while softly singing along to the lyrics, “Shadows crawl where the streetlights die, whispers howl under blood-red sky. Teeth and claws in the midnight choir, breathing fear like smoke and fire. Yeah.” He let the guitar solo play out as he sipped his tea.

Finally feeling ready to handle the next load of work, he reached over to a stack of files. The top folder was stamped with the usual intake label: Unidentified Male, Approximately 60–70, Brought in from South Point, No Known Family. Scheduled for Cremation.

Rowan opened the file. The photo inside showed a profile of a haggard-looking homeless man. Cause of death was a stab wound. Probably a mugging. Poor bastard. The city wasn’t always the kindest place to live.

He flipped to the next image, and his stomach clenched. Torn skin. Deep, ragged claw marks stretched across the chest like a wild animal had tried to peel him open. There were punctures near the collarbone, too deep and too far apart for any dog or coyote.

He leaned in, heart picking up pace.

“No way,” he muttered to himself.

How the hell had the coroner written this off as a stabbing? This wasn’t a mugging. He’d seen knife wounds. Seen violence. This was an animal attack.

His eyes flicked to the date on the corner of the form. Exactly ten years. Almost to the day.

He reached slowly into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out an old manila folder. It was worn, the edges soft and curled from handling. His mother’s death certificate was still inside, paper-thin and over-handled. It might seem weird that he had it lying in his desk, but it had been one of the things that led him to becoming a morgue technician.

Ten years ago, Rowan had been thirteen when his mother was found dead. Suicide. They said she jumped off a bridge and landed on rocks before drowning.

She hadn’t always been the best mom. Often she worked late to cover his alcoholic father’s addictions and took out her frustrations by berating him. But she always made sure he had food, clothes, and a place to lay his head. Mom made sure Rowan had a Merry Christmas and birthday presents. The trailer he grew up in was always clean.

Her death had overturned his entire life. His father went from being a drunk to a full-time drug user. Rowan was left on his own and raised himself through his teen years. He fell into the punk rock scene. Did his own share of drugs before Al pulled him out.

He’d been a local mortician whose own son was headed down a dark path. Al set him straight, did what his father didn’t have the balls to, and got him his first job.

It hadn’t been until he was much older that he had taken the time to look more closely into his mother’s death, and what he found made him angry. It had never been a suicide. There was no way those marks on her body were from blunt force trauma. Since thirteen, Rowan had been angry at his mother for leaving him, and yet here was evidence she was murdered. Why?! Why was this covered up? Who was responsible?

Rowan had done his best to search, but every trail went cold, so instead, he left the envelope in his desk hoping someday a clue would appear.

And today it had.

He shakily pulled out the images of his mother’s injuries and set them side by side with the homeless man’s. They were nearly identical.

Rowan stared at the two photos, his tea forgotten, cooling in its chipped mug.

It wasn’t just similar. It was the same. The same jagged gouges, the same inhuman spacing, like the claws of something massive had shredded through both victims without mercy.

He swallowed, the taste in his mouth gone sour. His fingers trembled slightly as he traced the wounds in the photos. A part of him had always clung to the hope that maybe he was wrong. Maybe his mother really had jumped. That maybe grief had twisted his memory, made him see things that weren’t there.

But now?

Now it was staring him in the face.

He shoved the photos back into their folders and stood up abruptly, the chair rolling back with a loud squeak. The music was still playing, the last verse of the song repeating, “These monsters wear a human face tonight.”

Rowan turned it off.

The morgue suddenly felt too quiet. Too still. He glanced toward the door, half expecting something to be standing there. Watching.

He was being paranoid.

…Wasn’t he?

He gathered both files, his mother’s and the new John Doe, and locked them away in the cabinet beneath his desk. He needed time. Time to think. To breathe. And maybe to dig deeper.

Because if what happened ten years ago was happening again, Rowan needed to know the truth.

***

Two days later, Rowan was staying late again, digging through the archives. Most records were digital now, but the oldest ones were still kept in the basement in rows of heavy metal filing cabinets that stood like tombstones against the back wall. The air down there always smelled faintly of mildew and disinfectant, like it had been scrubbed a hundred times but never quite cleaned.

This time, Rowan brought coffee instead of tea. He needed the kick. Sleep was a luxury he hadn’t had in days, his mind constantly spinning.

He found the drawer labeled South Point Incidents, 1990–2015, and yanked it open with a metallic screech. Inside, the folders were packed so tightly they had warped. He ran his finger along the tabs until he found the one dated October 2014—the month his mother died.

He slid the folder free and set it on a nearby rolling cart. A few pages in, her name appeared in the top left corner: Lena Rouke.

And just below that…

Transferred to Federal Holding for Cause of Death Review – Case #AX-773

“What the hell…?”

Federal holding? Why would a local suicide be transferred to the feds?

Rowan flipped to the autopsy report. It was the same as the one he kept in his desk: blunt force trauma, water in the lungs, probable suicide. But the full file contained something else—lines blacked out like classified military documents. Whole pages were missing.

His hands clenched. Someone had intentionally removed information.

He went to return the file when he noticed the one beneath it was redacted in the same way.

Viktor Fridric – Transferred to Federal Holding for Cause of Death Review – Case #AX-774

Photos showed similar deep gouges and punctures. He had been found less than a mile from Rowan’s mother, just a week later. The creature, because that’s what it was, had struck again.

Ten years ago. Two victims.

On a hunch, Rowan pulled the folders from 2004. It didn’t take long. Same pattern: minimal details, photos of maimed bodies, and in bold red ink: Classified.

Every single one labeled an “animal attack,” twisted into something else.

His heart thudded as he yanked out the 1994 folders. More reports. More strange deaths. Each one, carefully buried.

He spread everything out on the basement floor and stepped back. The undeniable truth stared up at him.

Every ten years. Two victims. A week apart. Always in October or November.

If the homeless man was the first… someone else was going to die by the end of the week.

And someone knew. Someone had been covering this up for decades. But why?

A sudden clatter made him jump. He spun around, heart in his throat, only to see a mop bucket tipped over near the doorway.

Rowan let out a shaky breath, collected the folders, and tucked them under his arm. He cleaned up the mess and headed upstairs.

He needed to speak to Al. He would know what to do.

***

Al had been retired for three years. He was usually found sitting on the porch of his modest townhouse with a beer. When Rowan pulled up in his truck, that’s where he found him. Walking up to the front door, he could hear Al’s wife singing to the radio inside.

“Hiya, Rowan,” Al greeted with a warm smile peeking out from under his thick mustache. “What are you doin’ here so late? I’ll tell Barb to set another plate for dinner.”

Rowan shook his head. “No, Al. I’m not here for dinner. I’ve got something important to tell you. Is there a place we can talk?”

Al’s smile faded as he sat up a little straighter. “Sure. You alright, son?”

Al didn’t answer right away. He stood slowly, the old porch boards groaning beneath his weight, and gestured toward the side gate.

“Come on,” he said gruffly. “We’ll talk in the shed.”

The shed was a simple wooden structure with a rusted lock and an old bench inside, surrounded by jars of nails and weathered tools. Al flicked on a single hanging bulb and closed the door behind them.

Rowan pulled the manila folders from under his jacket and laid them out on the bench.

“Someone’s covering this up,” he said, flipping through the pages. “The wounds. The victims. Every ten years, Al. My mom wasn’t a suicide. She was the first victim in 2014. And it’s happening again. A homeless man. I saw his file a couple days ago.”

Al stared at the photos in silence. His face was unreadable. He reached down and started hurriedly stacking the files into a pile. “You need to leave.”

Rowan froze. “What?”

Al reached in his pocket and pulled out a lighter. “I saw the pattern. Back in ’94. I was just starting out at the morgue. We had two bodies come in, same kind of wounds. Didn’t look like any animal I’d ever seen. Didn’t match anything local.”

He shook his head as he grabbed a rusty metal watering can and started shoving the files inside. “I started digging. Found the same thing you did. Cases from ’84, ’74. I thought I was losing my damn mind. Then one night a couple fellas in suits showed up. Said they were from the federal government. Showed me my own personnel file. They knew Barb’s name, my son’s school. They told me to shut up. Told me if I so much as whispered about it, they’d ruin me.”

He met Rowan’s eyes, and for the first time, the old man looked tired. Not physically, but deep down in the bones kind of tired.

“I should’ve warned you,” he said quietly. “I should’ve burned the files when I retired. But I won’t make that mistake again.” He lit the lighter.

“No!” Rowan said, trying to grab the watering can. “What are you doing?! This is evidence.”

Al suddenly grabbed his collar and shoved Rowan against the door of the shed with surprising strength for a man his age. “I get it. It’s your Ma, but trust me, Rowan. She would not want you gettin’ messed up in this. So drop it.”

Rowan didn’t move as Al let him go. He watched, feeling conflicted, as Al poured some lighter fluid on the files and set them on fire. The shed filled with the crackle of burning paper and scent of betrayal.

Rowan stared at the fire, heart pounding. “What about the next person? The one who’s going to die?”

Al didn’t look away from the flames. “I’ll pray, for their sake, it’s fast.”

Rowan didn’t say another word. His jaw was clenched tight, and he threw open the door of the shed. He stomped back out to his truck.

Al didn’t follow.