Not long after my encounter with Arthur, a new case landed in my lap: Gabriela Borges. Mr. and Mrs. Borges came into the station. The Borges were an affluent family living in a recently gentrified area within the San Ysidro district, just a short drive from the border. Both seemed sleep-deprived, their clothes wrinkled and disheveled, while Mrs. Borges's eyes were bloodshot and puffy.

  Each time she tried to say something, her words would get caught in her throat, and she began sobbing on her husband's shoulder. Mr. Borges was also at a loss for words, his tired eyes were fixed on a spot on the wall behind me. It took a solid five minutes for Mrs. Borges's cries to subside. After taking a sip of water and wiping away the tears, unintentionally smudging her mascara, she finally gathered herself and found her voice: "Our daughter, Gabby, is missing."

  I began typing up the details of her story, assuring her that I would do everything I could to help them find their daughter. A glimmer of hope flickered across their faces when I mentioned that I had previously dealt with a couple of missing person cases and had successfully located them unharmed. However, in both instances, they were young children who had run away following a disagreement with their families. I was sure of myself that the Borges family would be a similar case.

  Gabriela Borges, a vibrant nineteen-year-old college student, was back home for the summer, helping out her parents at their restaurant, Borges Cucina. I had dined there a couple of times myself and recalled the remarkable waitress whose welcoming and cheerful demeanor always made customers feel at home. When I realized the missing person was that kind server, my heart sank into my stomach.

  The other night, after closing the restaurant, Gabriela didn't return home. She was expected to be home by 10. Mrs. Borges anxiously paced around the living room, occasionally glancing out the window, hoping to see Gabriela's car pulling into the driveway. But she never arrived. Mrs. Borges made over five phone calls to Gabriela's phone and sent a dozen texts, all of which had gone unanswered.

  Early in the following morning, Mr. Borges rushed to the restaurant and reviewed the security camera footage that overlooked the parking lot. He felt a sense of despair as he observed nothing unusual that could provide any insight into what might have happened to his beloved daughter or where she could have gone. Nevertheless, there was a small detail that caught his attention, which he believed could potentially be a clue. He knew he needed the assistance of another person with expert analysis skills to thoroughly examine the video.

  I agreed to stop by their business later that day to review the footage. The first thing I saw on the screen was Gabriela getting into her car, which was the only vehicle parked on the lot, but Mr. Borges insisted there was something else present, and he pointed to a spot in the background. After manipulating the brightness on the video, I was able to discern the silhouette of a tall and lanky man standing perfectly still in the dark background nearby the trees. Once Gabriela drove away, the shadow darted at great speed across the lot in the same direction as the car and vanished off camera.

  I rewound the footage and paused it on the man mid-dash. Mrs. Borges, whose face had turned white, was the one who instantly recognized him.

  “That’s Mr. Fish,” she gasped.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  Mr. Borges’s face also paled. “He’s one of our most loyal customers.”

  Both witnesses described Mr. Fish as tall and thin, estimating his age to be around 60, and they noted his grayish complexion, which gave him a sickly appearance. He frequented Borges Cucina every day at lunchtime, except on Thursdays when the restaurant was closed. Mr. Fish would enter the restaurant wearing a well-fitted dark gray suit, complemented by a matching bowler hat.

  His regular order was a carne asada burrito, and he downed it with a refreshing glass of ice-cold water. However, Mr. Fish had an unusual eating habit. He wouldn't simply pick up the burrito and eat it with the tortilla wrapping. Instead, he would delicately tear it open with a knife and fork, savoring only the raw meat inside.

  “Raw meat?” I said, raising a brow.

  Mrs. Borges nodded. She vividly recalled that Mr. Fish requested to be served only raw meat, as he claimed to have a dietary issue related to cooked meat. Other than his strange food preference, he was polite, settling his bills exclusively in cash and giving the servers generous tips, often amounting to double the total bill. Gabriela appreciated his generosity, although it did raise some suspicions in her mind.

  While I reassured the Borges that I would find their daughter as soon as possible, my ability to track Mr. Fish down was hindered. The Borges family, unfortunately, had never learned his first name, and the only information I had was his surname and estimated age. Exhausting all available public resources, including scrutinizing social media pictures, I reached a frustrating dead end. None of the individuals with the matching surname seemed to be our elusive Mr. Fish. It was almost as if he didn't exist. Moreover, since Gabriela's disappearance, he had abruptly stopped frequenting the restaurant altogether.

  Desperate and filled with despair, the Borges reached out to the local news, pleading with the public to provide any information about Mr. Fish. Their plea resonated with several individuals who came forward as witnesses. They reported having seen a man wearing a distinctive bowler hat. Their encounters took place during daylight hours, with sightings of him hitchhiking along the sidewalk.

  One of the witnesses made the bold decision to offer Mr. Fish a ride. The witness asked him where he was heading, and the aged gray man cryptically replied, "To the valley yonder." However, upon reaching the designated location, the man inexplicably vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind.

  I asked the witness to give me the location of where he had driven Mr. Fish. Along with a group of search and rescue volunteers, we set off to the valley where we found only an expansive field covered in tall, withered grass. After wandering for about a couple of miles, we came across an abandoned two-story house with Gabriela’s empty car parked in front of it. Not far from the location were three other decrepit buildings—a school, a church, a grocery shop and a few saloons. None of the volunteers, even the local historian, could recall the name of the small town that had once existed in the area.

  The house stood desolate and devoid of life. Within its walls, rusted and broken furniture lay scattered, serving as remnants of a forgotten era. Cobwebs adorned the corners while mold thrived, claiming the walls as its territory. Insects scuttled, finding refuge in the crevices of the deteriorating structure, their presence lending an eerie vitality to the lifeless surroundings. An unsettling odor permeated the air, its pungency almost suffocating me. Disgusted, the volunteers ran out of the house, coughing and gagging. Only I stayed, covering my nose and mouth with a handkerchief.

  I searched every room, and in the bedroom, my eyes fell upon a wardrobe. I cautiously opened its doors and found a moth-eaten suit and a tattered, dusty bowler hat. Determined to gather any potential evidence, I collected the clothing and took them back to the station for further analysis, though the police captain believed it was a useless effort. Indeed, he was right. There was neither blood nor other bodily fluids, not even a strand of hair, to analyze and use as proof that Mr. Fish was involved in Gabriela’s disappearance.

  Days stretched into weeks, and weeks turned into months, with no new leads emerging from our efforts, until one day the Borges received a handwritten letter from none other than Mr. Fish. The address from where it was sent simply read: the valley yonder.

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  The letter spanned a few pages, unraveling the unbelievable tale of his life, his harrowing journeys across North America in the past one hundred and forty years, and the string of murders he claimed to have committed for his own survival. Each line revealed a chilling narrative of darkness.

  It was difficult to believe. It had to be some kind of sick joke. This man was delusional. Insane.

  As the family reached the last page, their hearts were torn apart by anguish. There, in haunting detail, was an account of Mr. Fish's encounter with Gabriela on that fateful night. Mr. Borges couldn’t bring himself to finish reading it and handed the letter over to me. He wanted nothing to do with it, as it served as a repulsive reminder of his daughter’s tragic fate, intensifying the profound pain that had settled within the family.

  The letter’s contents left me feeling nauseous and disturbed. I sealed it in a secure box and stored it within the station's vault in the basement. However, its haunting words continued to torment me relentlessly. For weeks, it invaded my thoughts, infiltrated my dreams, and startled me awake in the dead of night, drenched in sweat.

  Then, one morning, as I was abruptly awoken from yet another nightmare, a surge of determination coursed through me. Instead of fear, a renewed resolve took hold. I knew that I had to track down and bring justice to Mr. Fish.

  I returned to the dark abandoned house. This time, I drove to the valley after the sun had gone down. When I reached the house, I saw the light emitting from a kerosene lamp, casting an eerie glow on the second floor. The striking silhouette of a tall and lanky man stretched across the wall.

  I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t scared shitless.

  Despite the overwhelming sense of terror that gripped me, I stepped out of the car and cautiously approached the house. Aware of the gravity of the situation, I activated my bodycam, ensuring that every moment was captured for documentation. My trembling hand instinctively sought the comforting grip of my gun, while the other retrieved a small flashlight from my back pocket.

  The front door stood wide open, inviting me into the unknown depths of the house. As I crossed the threshold, a palpable sense of foreboding enveloped me, as if multiple unseen entities lingered in the shadows, held at bay by the piercing beam of my flashlight. I climbed up the stairs, each creaking step amplifying the tension in the air. Arriving on the second floor, my eyes shot towards the partially open door of the master bedroom.

  That was the last thing I saw that night, and when I woke up, I thought I had escaped from another nightmare, and nothing had happened. However, waking up in a hospital bed hooked up to machines and wrapped in bandages, told me otherwise. As soon as the nurse saw me awake, the doctor was called in, followed by my anxious wife, who entered along with my parents.

  They filled me in on what had happened. According to them, I’d been in a coma for two weeks. Since I hadn't reported back to the station that night, the police captain immediately dispatched a search team. They discovered my patrol car flipped over, with me still inside, kept in place by the seat belt.

  I was in rough shape. My body was scratched up, a nasty gash down my back, and a broken femur. If I had been found an hour later, I’d have been dead from blood loss. Before I had lost consciousness, I tried to tell them what I had encountered, but they mistook it as nonsensical babbling, a result from a possible head injury.

  The captain visited a couple of days later to inform me that he had reviewed my bodycam footage. He saw the ruins of a bedroom and a kerosene lamp sitting on a table. He believed that I was alone in the room and speculated that the Borges case had taken a toll on my psyche, leading me to imagine things.

  I sat up quickly in the bed, wincing as my body protested against my sudden movement. I was ready to tell him that I hadn’t been alone in the house. I had seen something, but I just couldn’t remember what it was. He gestured for me to let him finish.

  After zooming in and tweaking the brightness on the footage, what he saw in the video baffled him. He didn’t see Mr. Fish. Instead, he had noticed a large shadow on the wall, cast by the flame of the lamp. At first, the captain was inclined to dismiss it as a mere shadow of one of the room's pieces of furniture. But then, he heard it speak.

  “I need to see it,” I said.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “I don’t want to see it, but I need to do it.”

  He retrieved the video camera from his pocket and switched it on, handing it over to me.

  *****

  [I rushed into the bedroom and aimed my gun at the long shadow by the window.]

  Officer M: You’re going to die right here, right now!

  Entity: [Static] [Laughter]

  Officer M: Don’t come closer! Step back! I said step back!

  [I pulled the trigger. Two shots fired.]

  [The shadow recoiled then shifted, its shape resembling the figure of a young woman]

  Entity: [Gabriela’s voice] You shot me. Why did you do that?

  Officer M: No… no… you’re not here. You’re not real.

  Entity: [Gabriela’s voice, laughing] Oh, don’t you want me, officer? I saw the way you looked at me when you came into the restaurant.

  Officer M: Don’t. Come. Closer. You’re not real.

  Entity: [Gabriela’s voice] But I’m here right now. Touch me.

  [The shadow enveloped me.]

  Officer M: No...

  [Two more shots fired]

  Entity: [roared]

  [The shadow returned to its former long shape. Mr. Fish.]

  [I ran out of the room and flew down the flight of stairs. I climbed into the car. Slammed the door shut. The car hummed alive, and I stepped on the gas]

  [Darkness consumed the screen.]

  [The sound of metal crumbling resounded.]

  *****

  I thrust the camera back into the captain’s hands.

  The memory of that night rushed me all at once:

  I peeked through the door and discovered Mr. Fish standing by the window. His posture was hunched, with arms and legs unnaturally elongated like those of a daddy long spider. Folds of gray, wrinkled skin hung loosely on his lanky, naked frame. What startled me wasn’t his lack of clothing; rather, it was his solid black eyes and wide grin that stretched from ear to ear. His grin revealed two razor-yellow fangs while a long tubular tongue slithered out.

  As I fired another two bullets into the creature's chest, it remained unfazed. It showed no signs of pain. Then, to my astonishment, it transformed into Gabriela. In that split second, my body froze, unable to comprehend the surreal sight before me. Slowly, she advanced, her hand outstretched, poised to graze my face. Her voice, a beguiling siren's call, encircled me, ensnaring my senses and luring me into her embrace. But I broke free from the trance and swiftly unleashed two more shots. The creature jerked back, visibly enraged.

  I sprinted out of the bedroom, descending the stairs as swiftly as my legs would allow, conscious not to stumble. Reaching the car, I wasted no time sliding behind the wheel and igniting the engine. Without hesitation, I pressed my foot down on the gas pedal, propelling the vehicle forward, steadily increasing the speed.

  40mph...45mph...50mph...60mph.

  The feeble glow of the headlights struggled to pierce beyond a few feet ahead. Suddenly, there was relentless pounding against the windows, imprinting ghostly handprints across the glass. Laughter and giggles echoed around me, emanating from invisible entities that encircled the car.

  And then, a colossal presence landed atop the roof with a resounding thud, denting the sturdy metal. And there it was, right before my eyes, plastered onto the windshield— Mr. Fish, with his oversized black orbs staring into my soul and his ghastly grin, stretching impossibly wide.

  .

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