We arrive at the cabin. The early autumn sun is peeking through the evergreen branches that tower overhead, casting a faint, cool shade across the mountainside. Brown needles and verdant ferns cover the ground. It’s a couple of minutes after ten. I pull up next to the black 1948 Ford Super Deluxe. Nice car. I didn’t know private dicks made that much.

  “Your old friend looks like he’s done well for himself,” says Joe. “Of course, you can buy anything on debt these days, it seems. Doesn’t mean they can afford it.”

  “No, but Jack’s not the type to take on debt. At least, he wasn’t when I knew him.”

  “War changes a man.”

  “Does it? I didn’t notice.”

  I open the car door and step out with coat and fedora in hand, the brown bull pine needles making their quiet crunch beneath my feet. The steel doors of my Hudson Business Coupe klam shut. As I put on my coat and fedora, Joe throws on his flat cap, covering his thin red hair. He starts looking around Jack’s car.

  While he’s doing that, I make my way to the porch. The closest thing I find to a clue is the squashed corpse of a moth plastered to a plank by the indiscriminate sole of a shoe.

  I pat my chest holster instinctively to make sure my Registered Magnum is still there; that’s when I realize there’s an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. There’s something about this place that makes me sick and angry and maybe a little scared all at once. I feel like I need to fight someone.

  “Those post-war automobiles are something else,” says Joe as he makes his way up to the porch. “Looks like they’ve got electricity up here.”

  He points at the porchlight.

  “Do you have an uneasy feeling about all of this, too?”

  “Never been to a crime scene that didn’t give me an uneasy feeling. I’d tell you it’s a lingering sense of spiritual evil, but I know you don’t believe in such things. Christ have mercy though; when you’re in this line of work long enough, I don’t see how you can’t.”

  “We’d better check and see who owns this place,” I say, dodging the impulse to start a long, philosophical conversation. I pull out my notepad and jot down a reminder. About the cabin, not the conversation on ‘evil spirits’ or whatever.

  “Quite a few of these cabins up here. Might be hard to pin that down.”

  “Yeah. I don’t see a mailbox or house numbers anywhere. Who owns these kinds of places?”

  “Socialites who think they need somewhere to escape to from the comforts of their urban life. I believe they’re usually rented out or abandoned.”

  “So, you’re saying there’s a slim chance of getting a serious record of who might have been here.”

  “Precisely.”

  “The only two we can be certain about are Clara Baker and Jack Wolfgang.”

  “Unless his car was stolen, yes. The rest is up to hearsay. Still, it’d be prudent to check and see who owns it.”

  “Well, here goes nothing.”

  I knock on the door first just to make sure no one’s home. When there’s no answer, I turn the knob expecting it to be locked. To my shock, it’s open.

  I look at Joe and raise an eyebrow, then let the door swing, expecting the chain to catch it.

  The door swings completely open. I wish it hadn’t.

  “What on God’s green Earth happened here?” asks Joe.

  The dim room is a wreck. Wreaks of ash and reefer. I pull my handkerchief out and cover my nose, afraid I might wretch over a subtler, even more rotten and vile scent I can’t identify. Maybe it’s a mix of body odor and alcohol and rotten food. Fruit flies zip through the air over the magazines and hooch bottles that litter the stained carpet.

  “Who puts carpet in a cabin?” I ask rhetorically.

  “Smirnoff. Gilbey’s Gin. Lemon Hart Rum. It’s all cheap trash,” says Joe. “Looks like some teens went on a bender.”

  “May as well be paint thinner to me,” I say as I jot down the names of the brands he mentions, fighting to get used to that wretched smell. “Not as wholesome as the report made things sound, but I’d say this lines up so far. Kind of fills in some gaps, too.”

  “What’d I say? Always go to the scene first thing for yourself when you can. Strange that this level of debauchery wasn’t put in writing. This is really something else.”

  “Not the kind of place I’d imagine Jack to hang around, especially with a bunch of kids. I’m starting to think something happened to him.”

  “Do you think he’s dead?”

  “Maybe. Something like that. Good grief! This smell is killing me. Does it not bother you?”

  “It does, but I’ve smelled worse, boyo. Let’s pick through here and talk out back.”

  “Good call.”

  I take a look at one of the magazines: Weird Tales. Haven’t read those since I was a kid. Says May 1929. Scourge of B’moth. I don’t remember this one. A man in red robes and a terrible, monstrous mask holds a horrified young lady with flaming orange hair over his head, ready to throw her to a crocodile. Her white slip reminds me of Clara Baker.

  Curious, I pick up the magazine and flip through the back of it. My eyes catch an interesting ad. I cover my nose again before reading it:

  Magic Laws of Life

  A Remarkable Book

  LOANED

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  To All Seekers

  For Power

  I slide the magazine into my coat’s inner breast pocket, wondering who would really be dumb enough to fall for such a scam.

  From the wild aether of my imagination, I then wonder if, whoever these dumpster Bacchanalians were, they might have taken a little creative inspiration from inside of Weird Tales.

  The notion is absurd; I know rationally there’s nothing to it, but I also know there’s nothing rational about kids these days. Can’t blame them; they grew up during the end of the world. I think that’d make a young man pretty strange.

  So, it makes enough sense to me to skim through a few of these later on to see if I can get any sense of direction on this winding road.

  I flip open my notepad again and scribble a note describing the scene. The cabin wreaks of reefer. Liquor bottles and magazines litter the floor. Weird Tales. Fourteen issues counted. Taking to read later.

  While I’m gathering up the magazines, including a few pieces of smut I’d rather not have, I notice a pair of women’s underwear laying out in broad daylight.

  I guess the poor girl forgot to grab those when she left. Must have really had a horrific experience.

  I almost reach for my Registered Magnum again, remembering Joe’s description of the old days, the different world he lived in, and a part of me longs to dispense justice at the squeeze of a trigger.

  Could be there was more than one girl, though. We’ll just have to keep asking questions. The thought of what might have happened leaves me more than uncomfortable.

  Is this what we fought for? I wonder.

  My stomach starts to churn between both the heinous idea and the putrid smell. I’m done in here. I decide to step outside and get some fresh air.

  No. This is a different fight. The battles to secure a great society never end. There’s always ground to gain. There’s always work to be done.

  Stepping out the back door only makes things stranger. The yard is littered with unlabeled glass pill bottles. There’s no way this was all from one night. They either have a habit of using this place, or this is all the cabin is used for. Whatever happened to just enjoying nature? Why do you have to bring hedonism into it?

  About forty or fifty yards from the cabin are the char and ashes of a bonfire. The scent of the blaze still lingers in the air here, but oddly, there’s not a trace of smoke.

  There really should still be a smolder. I’m sure they had no plan of putting that out with water. They didn’t even clean the cabin.

  I climb down the four steps of the stoop and walk to the fire site. The brown needles and a few glass bottles crunch under my feet.

  Looks like it would have been large enough to burn two or three people alive. The grim thought comes to me without warning. The longer I’m here, the more I hate this place. And the more curious I become about what happened.

  Beside the heap of char and ash, there’s a rusty cage, the kind you’d keep a small animal like a rabbit or a fowl in.

  Walking over, I take a close look at the cage. A layer of dried blood has painted over some of the rust. What on Earth happened here? Some kind of drugged-up cookout? My spine rattles with a shiver; a dark dread grabs the back of my mind, goosing my flesh as it refuses to let go.

  Almost at once, the horror of this place has dawned on me, giving rise to a powerful impulse to run, to drive away and never look back. I stand my ground, realizing it’s just my imagination getting carried away with things.

  I keep looking around for anything else of interest while I wait for Joe to make his way out back, and the horror gives way to that deep well of strength I always find within when I’m on the scene of a peculiar case: I’m excited. The mystery has gripped my mind, and I know it won’t let go until we’ve answered every question necessary to lay this specter to rest.

  Then I see it: a brown leather-bound tome lying on the ground behind a log, like it had been carelessly tossed there.

  The cover is hideously scarred in a way that seems intentional. Reminds me of this horrific photo of the back of a scourged slave I saw in a book from the library when I was a child.

  I hear the back door open and swing shut. Joe is climbing down the steps now, taking one at a time on account of his bad hip. I trot over to him, wanting to make him walk as little as possible.

  “Find anything inside?”

  “Just a load of filth. What’s that you’ve got that there?”

  “It’s a book. Found it lying on the ground behind a log. Other than that, I’m not sure.”

  “Christ have mercy, this place is a travesty. What’d that young girl get herself into?”

  “Maybe it’s time we go and ask.”

  “Aye. I’m done here, and I’d like to never return again.”

  Walking back to the cabin with the book, I remember the ad: “A remarkable book loaned to all seekers of power.” Maybe this is it. Wouldn’t that be remarkable?

  “Oh,” says Joe, “what was that idea you had there about this Wolfgang fellow?”

  “Ah, almost forgot. It’s possible he was hired to come up here and take a look at things for someone. Maybe a parent concerned about what their son or daughter was up to. I hate the idea, but it’s possible they killed him and buried him out here, or…” I turn and look at the bonfire remains, “they built a pyre to get rid of him.”

  “What a horror that’d be. I guarantee you: if it were the case, it’d only take a hard interrogating of each of the teens involved for them to break and tell us.”

  “Makes sense to me. Still, I suppose we’re in the discovery phase, aren’t we? No serious ideas yet.”

  “That we are, and our next move is to speak to Ms. Baker. I hope she’ll paint a clearer picture of things than that report has.” Joe looks at the cabin. “Hell, boyo. I’m not going back in there. Let’s walk around.”

  “Sure thing. Let me write all of this down first. I’ll catch up to you.”

  “Alright then.”

  Joe limps away, leaving me there to write before everything we’ve discussed escapes me.

  As I’m making my notes, I can’t help but shake the feeling that something or someone is watching me. I look around. My hand is wrapped around the grip of my revolver. I scan between the trees looking for the eyes of a cougar or a wolf or a bear. Maybe a man, one who has done something evil and has been driven by fear to the idea that he has nothing to lose and so has no qualms with one more vile act added to his record.

  My imagination really is playing tricks on me, I think, after taking a deep breath. I should get out of here. This place keeps putting me on edge.

  With the hideous tome and a stack of magazines, I head back to the Hudson to make my exit with Joe. As I drive back down the mountain, I can’t stop thinking about that book, and I can’t shake a sense of regret over not opening it then and there. The way the tome lingers and weighs on my attention, urging me to pull over and start reading from cover to cover: that rattles my composure.

  I consider handing the thing to Joe to have him take a look at it. I should do that after all, but something tells me it’s not meant for him, that it’s nothing more than a dead end, that we really don’t need it to solve this case. It’s just a strange bit of literature I should look into reading later.

  “Here,” I say, going against that strange idea in my head and grabbing the text from the back seat. “Take a look at this. Tell me if there’s anything worth reading in there.”

  Joe turns the book in his hands, staring at the gross cover.

  “Who would own such a thing?”

  “No idea, but I’m wondering if it’s some kind of occult text they loaned out from someone. I saw an ad for something like that in one of the Weird Tales magazines. I just assumed it was a scam. You know, ‘send us some money, and we’ll definitely send you a magic book’ kind of thing. I think they might have actually gotten a book out of this.”

  Joe cracks the thing open and starts delicately flipping through its pages. I keep driving to the mental hospital.

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