The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 451: Half a Tentacle

The Coastal Town police station was on the other side of Sea Breeze Street, the same one they had passed on their way into town.

Lu Li parked the carriage by the station, and he and the invisible Anna went inside.

A midday lull had settled over the station; only a few officers were inside.

Lu Li approached the officer at the front desk, who was in the middle of a late lunch. He presented his badge. "Investigator. I need the details on a death that occurred two days ago."

"Ahem... o-of course. Richard! An Investigator's here! You've got work!" the policeman mumbled through a mouthful of food, turning to shout toward the back of the room.

Bam!

The words had barely left his mouth when the archive door in the corner of the room flew open, and a disheveled figure emerged, clutching a stack of papers.

He was carrying too much, and after stumbling into the doorframe, he lost his balance and dropped the entire pile onto a nearby desk.

"So much for the convenience of sitting next to the archives," a colleague at the next desk quipped.

The unshaven Richard sighed, ignoring the papers scattered across the desk and floor, and made his way over to Lu Li."He's an exorcist, sent from on high. Wants to know about the case," the desk officer explained.

"I'm investigating this unofficially; the exorcists haven't arrived yet," Lu Li said, studying Richard. Men this unkempt were usually either stubborn fools or obsessive workaholics.

In other words, they were the ones who knew what they were doing.

"Doesn't matter. I'll just explain it again," Richard replied nonchalantly, catching his breath. "My partner and I were on the postman's case... until it got... complicated. Want to see the diary first?"

"Mistress Marylin said the diary is the source of the contamination," Lu Li answered calmly.

"Sure, but you're an exorcist. You must have ways to protect yourself, right?" Richard said. "Or I could just tell you what's in it, but you might miss some of the hidden meaning."

"You know what it says?"

"Only the people who read the diary go mad. We lost one of Coastal Town's best officers because of it. But before he lost it, he told me what it said, and I didn't go mad."

"I can read the diary."

Anna's voice echoed from the empty air. As a ghost, she was immune to such sources of contamination.

The desk officer's face twisted in terror, while Richard discreetly took a step back.

"Where is the diary kept?" Lu Li asked calmly, his eyes fixed on the retreating Richard.

Richard composed himself, but still gave Lu Li a wide berth as he walked to the door and picked up an oil lamp. "Follow me."

Lu Li followed Richard out of the station and deeper into the town.

"Isn't the diary kept at the station?" Lu Li asked.

"The police chief and a few others decided the evil thing could bring misfortune even if you don't read it, so they put it in an abandoned house," Richard answered, a hint of disdain for his colleagues in his voice.

"I hope it hasn't been stolen," Lu Li said.

"Don't worry, no one's going to steal a useless diary from an empty, abandoned house," Richard replied.

Lu Li's concerns proved unfounded. As a dilapidated house came into view, he saw that the bloody tentacles descending from the sky were pointing directly at it.

Richard kicked the wooden door open, motioning Lu Li forward before handing him the lamp. "It's on the table."

"Stay outside. I'll go in myself."

Anna's voice came from the empty air. She took the lamp from Lu Li's hand.

Richard stared at the floating lamp and took another step back.

"The tentacle is touching the diary. Stay back," Lu Li warned.

In the silence of the abandoned house, through clouds of dust, thin bloody threads stretched toward the diary lying on the table.

"Alright."

The lamp floated into the house and stopped beside the diary.

Rustle.

The ordinary-looking diary opened to its first page, as if stirred by a breeze.

[the cigarette in my hand is laughing at me rain again the sound of rain is loud louder than yesterday they're floating outside the window calling me to play I draw the curtains it's a trap claws reaching from under the bed again I set the hunter on fire he laughs with joy the room is bright the claws go away fire is important it's dangerous without light light is light dark is dark shadows darting everywhere I spear them with a harpoon they calm down the bed is dozing I want to sleep too the hunter wants to sleep too I get on the bed the bed pushes me off the sweater is peeking from the closet it's knitting a sweater again it doesn't fit me it's for other sweaters a knock on the door the alarm clock is back I tell it to leave or morning won't come it wants my eyes I give them to it it tricked me it didn't leave the sky is always dark it's hiding I can't find it]

The diary was filled with an incoherent scrawl, devoid of punctuation and riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. The words twisted together like mating snakes, a mad fantasy given textual form.

Keeping her distance from the diary, Anna painstakingly read and memorized the entry. Then she closed the book, took the lamp, and returned to Lu Li.

As Anna emerged from the house, Lu Li took his hand off the butt of his revolver.

"What does it say?" Lu Li asked.

"The twisted words cloud the mind. The first line is: The cigarette in my hand is laughing at me," Anna recited uncertainly. Seeing that Lu Li was unaffected, she relayed the rest.

"I thought it was just the ravings of a madman at first, too, until I connected it to the crime scene," Richard interjected, having grown accustomed to Anna's presence.

"What else struck you as odd?" Lu Li asked, probing for more details.

Though invisible to Lu Li, Anna frowned. "The words are repulsive. It feels as if they were written in blood and flesh."

"Let's go to the next place the tentacle is pointing," Lu Li said, nodding. He turned to Richard. "Please, take us to the crime scene and tell us what happened."

He had no doubt they were one and the same.

By then, the scattered fragments should finally form a complete picture.

Richard closed the door again and waved them on. "I'll tell you on the way."

With that, he led Lu Li and the invisible Anna toward the coast.

A few minutes later, Richard stopped at a set of steps by the road, took off his shoes and hole-ridden socks, and stepped onto the soft, damp sand with his bare feet.

He glanced at Lu Li's waterproof boots, said nothing, and started walking along the shore toward the northern mountains.

The walk was a long one, taking them almost to the edge of Coastal Town. Lu Li gazed into the distance, where a black dot had appeared on the horizon, just where the pale brown sand met the sea.

And the bloody tentacle descending from the clouds was pointing directly at it.