The door knob resisted as I turned it. The rust cracked off the door hinges as they screeched in a dissonant chorus as I opened the garage door. The garage was filled with a tangible darkness and nothing else besides a single light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. I walked to the center of the garage and tugged the pull cord dangling next to the light bulb. Surprisingly, the bulb still worked, but it wasn’t enough to fight off the powerful darkness. With the weak light, I noticed that the garage was completely empty. There were no tools hinged on the walls, no grease stains on the floor, not even a box of old Christmas lights. In the midst of my observations, an ominous aroma invaded my senses. The smell of burnt flesh slightly tainted the room. Something horrible happened in here, and I intend to find out.

“What’d you find?”, my partner, Agent Lamarck, asked as she entered the darkness.

“Nothing much, but I know this is where Hatch murdered his victims. He would lure them in here, tell them he’s a famous journalist, fancy them with some wine. After a few drinks, that’s when the real stuff goes down”, I responded.

A silence walked into the room and made friends with the darkness. The boisterous couple dominated the garage with their omnipotence. I stumbled through my observations trying to put together a motive for the eleven murders already committed. Eleven innocent women lured to their death by a man with mommy issues. Were these women the most gullible, did they feel bad for Hatch, or is it just random selection?

I kindly escorted the silence out of the garage, “Lamarck, see if you can get some samples in here. I’m going to check out the rest of the house”.

I left the garage and walked down the hall to the living room. The area was spacious and sunlight welcomed me through the open curtains. The aura of the room was completely opposite from the garage. The furniture was modern and centered toward the TV just like every other American household. The pastel wallpaper accented the yellow pleather couches and shag carpeting. Everything was prosaic as any other living room except for the statue crooning in the corner. An ominous whisper seemed to pour through the crevices of the smoothly cut obsidian. The chthonic statue resembled a distorted and deviant version of the Washington Monument. The whispers radiated from the object and grew louder as I approached it. A slow, steady humming vibrated through me. Louder and louder as I got closer and closer. I reached out to touch the obsidian but the humming became unbearably loud like someone pounding a chaotic rhythm in my head. I slowly started to lose consciousness as the drums turned into chants. Before the life slipped from body, I heard, “In his house at R'lyeh, he waits dreaming”.