The corpse-dismemberment case they were talking about had happened thirty years ago. The victim had been a sophomore at Westbridge University—a quiet, studious girl who vanished after her evening class.
A week later, a woman out jogging on Maddox Road discovered the first fragment.
By the time police concluded the searches, fragments of the young woman's body—each piece boiled, cooked, cut into thousands of tiny scraps—had been collected from gutters, dumpsters, and patches of grass stretching nearly two miles.
The investigation became the largest local manhunt in the county's history.
They never found the killer.
⸻
"If this guy is really imitating that case," Alex Chu said, gagging dramatically, "does that mean we're gonna find thousands of pieces of meat on campus? I read some of the internal files once—don't ask why—and the real case… the pictures… bro, that basket of ground meat ruined my life."
Damon gave his shoulder a pat.
"Funny. For a guy who keeps saying he hates being a cop, you sure read a lot of confidential material. Duplicitous much?"
"They're called hobbies," Alex said defensively.
Before Damon could respond, Alex's phone rang again.
This time Captain Sanders didn't bark at him. He lowered his voice.
"You must've found something. Otherwise you wouldn't have had the guts to hang up on me. Twice."
"Relax, bro—uh—sir. I found something."
"What? More flesh? We've collected over three hundred pieces already. Move a table, open a locker, kick a bush, open a toilet stall—there's flesh everywhere."
"What I found isn't meat."
There was a pause.
Captain Sanders' breathing stopped.
"Then what?"
Alex placed a cigarette between his lips out of habit and immediately realized he'd stomped on his lighter earlier. "A human head," he said.
Across from him, Damon suddenly crouched, clutching his chest. His breathing hitched.
"What's wrong with you?" Alex asked. "You look like you're about to pass out."
But before Damon could answer, a familiar voice—warm, deep, broadcast-slick—echoed inside his skull.
"Listeners… the next episode is being recorded. Stay tuned. See you soon."
His vision spun.
⸻
Later—
When Alex ran off to bring the head to the command post—Damon acted immediately.
He turned to Luke Hayes.
"Do you remember where Chris Chen rented his off-campus place?"
Luke froze—then nodded. "Yeah. I helped him move in."
Chris had only told Damon he was moving out, and Damon—as always—didn't volunteer to help.
"Get up," Damon Vale said, grabbing his jacket. "Chris is in trouble."
"What happened?" Luke stammered, dressing in a panic.
Damon ignored the question and dialed Chris's number.
"The number you are trying to reach is powered off…"
Powered off.
In this era, nobody under thirty turned off their phone unless something was very, very wrong.
Damon exhaled slowly. With the dismembered girlfriend found, and Chris missing…
Was Chris next?
Cooked? Scattered across campus like she had been?
Or something worse?
Luke finally finished dressing, and the two ran out of the dormitory building.
Outside, several high-ranking officers were already there—Alex included.
Alex pointed at Damon.
"That's him—Damon Vale. He provided the victim's identity and background."
Damon nearly rolled his eyes.
The way Alex said it made it sound like:
Yep, that's him, Damon Vale, veteran serial killer from our club.
Thankfully, though the club's four members had… unusual hobbies, they were all from powerful families. No one's hands were clean, so nobody pointed too hard at anyone else.
A seasoned detective with a lined, worn face approached.
"So you're saying the victim had a live-in boyfriend off-campus?" he asked.
"Yes. Chris Chen," Damon said. "He used to be my roommate. The empty bed in my dorm is his. And no—he isn't capable of this. He hasn't shown up to class in three days."
"How did you identify the victim's head?" the detective pressed.
Warden Judd—standing nearby—jumped in.
"He and I found it together. He recognized her right away."
The detective nodded. His tone toward Alex was surprisingly respectful—family connections again.
"Sanders," he said to the Captain, "take some officers to the boyfriend's rental. I'll keep coordinating the campus search."
"Yes, sir," Captain Sanders said.
He turned to Damon.
"Do you know the address?"
"Yes. I can take you."
"Good. You, you, you—and you." He pointed at Alex last. "With me."
Seven or eight officers piled into two cruisers and sped off campus.
⸻
Inside the car, Damon sat beside Alex and murmured, "Any findings on the surveillance cameras?"
It was a logical question.
Someone had dumped hundreds of body fragments around campus. With so much movement, someone should've shown up on camera.
Alex shrugged.
"It's like the guy's a ghost. They've pulled footage from the past twenty-four hours—nothing. Not a shadow. There's even a study room no one entered all day, and we still found two chunks of flesh in it."
Damon went silent.
If surveillance caught nothing…
It wasn't just murder.
It was impossible.
His eyes drifted toward the police radio.
No sound came from it—but the tension in his chest surged again.
His fear wasn't of gore or death.
It was of the broadcast.
Of the supernatural.
⸻
The cruisers pulled into an aging apartment complex five minutes later. Old brick buildings, cheap rent, cramped halls—a typical off-campus spot for broke college couples.
Luke led them to the second floor.
Bang bang bang!
Captain Sanders knocked hard.
No answer.
Damon lifted his hand to his nose.
Metallic. Thick. Overwhelming.
Blood.
Captain Sanders watched him closely, sniffed the air himself, and nodded grimly.
Damon spoke plainly:
"There's blood. A lot of it. I'm not wrong."
Being open was safer than letting suspicion linger.
Sanders' doubts vanished instantly.
He stepped back, braced himself, and kicked the door open.
⸻
The smell hit like a physical force.
Everyone doubled over retching—even Captain Sanders.
Inside the tiny two-bedroom apartment sat a single chair in the center of the living room.
A young man—Chris—was strapped to it.
Nails pierced through his forearms and shins, fixing him to the chair like a grotesque exhibit.
His chest cavity was hollowed out.
His stomach swollen—round and unnatural.
"Don't enter!" Captain Sanders barked through his nausea. "Secure the scene! Call it in. Report a second murder site."
Officers scrambled down the stairs in a panic.
Damon and Alex recovered quickly. They'd seen plenty. They'd done plenty. Gore didn't shake them for long.
Alex stared at the ballooned stomach.
"What the hell did they stuff in him? A pillow? Packing foam?"
Damon pointed at several half-empty boxes on the floor.
"If I'm right," he said calmly, "those are condoms filled with water."