Hatched

Chapter Twenty

July 1st, 2021

0600 hours

Quinn stared unblinkingly at the files strewn before him. His eyes had long gone into robot mode and scanned the pages mechanically, automatically taking in every detail on the lengthy reports.

Suspicion in his mind had begun to form tangible possibility now: every detail in this case was quickly confirming his doubt that this was a homicide. It was a notion he didn't entertain lightly. Reality seemed to move swiftly toward preposterousness, and being an incredibly realistic individual, it challenged Quinn's beliefs. However much he tried to deny it, things were beginning to feel very supernatural, and he hated it. Perhaps confusion was overtaking his intellect, but he chalked it up to sleep deprivation. It sounded less insane, to assume such plausibility, than to admit his imagination was building a terrifying possibility in his mind.

He sighed heavily, eyelids drooping. He was barely aware of the words he was reading. It had been a long shot, requesting for Shepp to procure these records. Having not made head or tails of the events up until this point, Quinn decided to branch out in a mad scramble to find anything of use. Failure to move forward sent his investigation backward, literally, to the past. Sorting through the last ten years of strange deaths along the gulf coast proved to be a massive needle in the haystack sort of endeavor. Having removed boating accidents, shark attacks, and accidental drownings still left him with hundreds of files to scour. In particular, he was interested in those that involved severe trauma or mauling. Entertaining the small, incredulous impossibility that these might indeed have been some sort of animal attack wasn't something he was overjoyed with, but even the slightest of chances indicated it was there: his answer, somewhere in these files.

Quinn hated probability and odds. It generally made him question everything he knew, or thought he knew, anyway. Yet, he never failed to solve a riddle, even one like this. No matter how crazy the outcome, he always learned, and he always won.

His tired eyes fell on the cover of a report. It looked to be promising as he scanned the cover.

Accidental Dismemberment

Male, age thirty-two. Bi-racial. Brown hair, brown eyes. Approximately one-hundred forty pounds, five foot seven inches. Mutilation of right forearm, partial severing of the joint at the elbow, complete perforation of the brachial artery. Cause of death-exsanguination by canine attack.

That wasn't it. Quinn pulled the file and placed it in a stack labeled 'utter dung'. The pile was mounting fast, while the meager stack beside it of possibly helpful files wasn't. It seemed to be shrinking, along with his spirit. There was a particular clue he was looking for, and so far, nothing had really fallen into the parameters.

Hispanic female, age two. Brown hair, brown eyes. Approximately twenty five pounds, two feet. Multiple lesions on extremities. Nematocysts present on affected area. Venom tests reveal the culprit as Physalia physalis. Official cause of death-anaphylactic shock and cardiac arrest.

Quinn realized he should have specified to have jelly-fish stings removed from the search records. He wondered how many he would have to go through to find what he was looking for.

Caucasian male, age six. Blond hair, green eyes. Approximately forty pounds, three feet two inches. Severe abdominal trauma. Slight defensive wounds on the hands and lower arms. Abrasions radiating vertically from the left elbow to the wrist, penetrating the through the dermis and underlying musculature. One hairline scratch along the ulna, approximately three inches in length, ten millimeters in width. Slight widening at the middle juncture, tapered at the ends.