Close to midnight, the dispatch came over the radio: a decomposed female body had been discovered along the edge of the marshlands in Williamstown National Park.
Chloe was driving home when the call came in.
For a brief moment, she hesitated, caught between the life waiting for her at home and the job that never seemed to let her go. Then a single thought settled in her mind—the body might somehow be connected to the Biensen murder.
She turned the wheel toward the road leading to the national park.
The moment she arrived, she knew something was terribly wrong.
Every living thing surrounding the marsh was dead.
Not merely dead—rotting.
Plants sagged into themselves, birds lay scattered across the ground, and the carcasses of small animals were already surrendering to decay. Ignoring everything else, Chloe headed toward the cluster of flashing lights and investigators gathered at the scene.
Personnel wearing white hazmat suits moved methodically around the body, collecting evidence and taking readings. Under the darkness of the night, they looked like astronauts trudging across the surface of the moon, each slow, deliberate movement betraying the fear that whatever had killed the woman might be radioactive.
A technician hurried toward Chloe and stopped her before she could cross the yellow crime-scene tape. Pulling off his respirator, he revealed a face drenched in sweat.
“You won’t believe this,” he said between breaths. “Every reading we’ve taken is completely normal.”
“We still can’t identify what killed all the plants and animals around the body?”
He shook his head.
“No chemical contamination. No radiation. Nothing.”
Without another word, Chloe lifted the tape and ducked underneath it.
The victim lay face down in the mud.
Rotting fish littered the ground around her. The stench hit Chloe immediately, sour and overwhelming. She scanned the area before raising her voice.
“Hey…! Hey!”
David was already making his way toward her.
His expression was every bit as unsettled as hers. In all his years as a detective, he’d never seen anything this absurd.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
“Why?”
Dave gestured toward the shoreline.
“The place is covered with dead fish. It’s like they all died right here. Problem is, the lake’s over twelve miles away. Dozens of park rangers are willing to swear this woman wasn’t here yesterday. And yet…” He paused. “Other than the body, there’s nothing. No footprints. No tire tracks. No sign that anyone was ever here.”
Chloe tilted her head toward the night sky and silently pointed upward.
Dave stared at her.
“You’re saying… the gods did this?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Chloe snapped. “The body could’ve been dropped from the air. The fish could’ve fallen with it.”
Dave frowned.
“And they somehow managed to kill every plant and animal in the area on the way down?”
Before Chloe could answer, a uniformed officer approached.
“We’re taking the body to the morgue,” he said. “Medical examiner’s ready.”
Chloe nodded, never taking her eyes off the corpse.
“I don’t know how it happened, Dave. I don’t know how Biensen flew, either. Not a single security camera caught those hay bales getting into that building. And this woman…” She looked down at the remains. “She looks like she’s been lying here for months. According to everyone here, no one saw her arrive. There isn’t a single witness. Not even a trace.”
Dave exhaled slowly, releasing the breath he’d been holding.
“Then we’re running out of explanations, Chloe.” A weary smile flickered across his face. “Go home. Get some sleep. We’ll take another look once the autopsy and forensic reports come in.”
IV
In the moonlight, the man and the woman in the street looked nothing like themselves.
The moment Chloe saw the dwarf slip free from their shadows and make a desperate run for it, she threw open the window of her fourth-floor apartment.
Down below, the Patternmaker struggled to wrench the burgundy satin lapels of his green velvet jacket from the Illyrian’s grasp while pleading with the Tailor for mercy.
Whispers and cries ricocheted between the buildings, filling the empty street.
Chloe stood frozen.
She searched the neighboring windows, hoping someone—anyone—had witnessed what she was seeing.
No one.
The entire city seemed buried beneath a heavy black quilt, sleeping so deeply that she alone remained awake.
She gathered her courage and tried to call down to them.
No sound came.
Her voice died inside her own mouth.
She wanted to run back inside and grab her service weapon, but she couldn’t force herself to move. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horror unfolding below—not even for a second.
A mournful song drifted from the bronze statue standing in the middle of the square’s fountain, weaving itself through the Patternmaker’s cries for help.
Kristin had already accepted her death.
She knew there would be no escape.
And somehow, she also knew that God had prepared a magnificent death for her.
“There!” the Patternmaker cried, desperation cracking his voice. “Kristin’s still alive! If you want, destroy the mold and save her instead! Why kill me just to ease your conscience?”
“I’m not trying to save Kristin,” the Tailor replied quietly.
“I’m trying to extinguish the fire in my conscience.”
“Then why did you give me the order?”
“Because no one imitates better than you,” the Tailor said. “Life is meant to belong to originals. But you recreated Lake Iyem… and then you recreated Kristin.”
He tilted his head.
“Tell me, Patternmaker… what is it you don’t copy?”
“I-I-It’s what I do, Mr. Tailor,” the dwarf stammered. “I imitate.”
“And that’s precisely the problem.”
The Tailor’s voice remained almost gentle.
“Neither the Illyrian nor I have any love for imitations.”
Watching helplessly from above, Chloe saw the Illyrian reach over his shoulder.
Steel hissed from its scabbard.
One clean stroke.
The Patternmaker’s head separated from his body before his knees had even begun to buckle.
A scream tore from Chloe’s throat.
When it echoed through the street, the Tailor’s only response was to raise a single eyebrow.
“I hadn’t finished speaking,” he said calmly.
Without answering, the Illyrian crouched beside the corpse.
With chilling precision, he sliced the Patternmaker’s lips from his face.
Then he turned toward the Tailor, his eyes burning.
“If another man ever kisses your hand,” he said, “you won’t have a hand left for him to kiss.”
The Tailor instinctively looked down at her slender hands.
For the briefest instant she imagined them gone.
A shiver passed through her.
She quickly composed herself, reached into the Patternmaker’s jacket pocket, and withdrew a photograph.
Turning toward the apartment window where Chloe stood watching, she lifted the picture high enough for her to see before laying it gently across the dwarf’s lifeless body.
Then she and the Illyrian walked away.
All the while, Kristin’s sorrowful song continued to enchant the empty street.
The instant they disappeared around the corner, Chloe snatched up her phone.
“Dave! You need to get over here—now! Something’s happening. Something impossible.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m home. Please… hurry.”
When Dave arrived, Chloe was standing exactly where the dwarf’s body should have been.
She wore a white nightgown.
The wind tossed her hair as she stared motionlessly at a writhing mound of ants.
Dave hurried to her side.
Chloe didn’t even know where to begin.
All she had was the photograph of a woman she’d never seen before…
and the green velvet jacket.
“Damn,” Dave muttered. “Looks like your neighborhood’s been overrun by ants.”
When the Patternmaker’s head had come off, blood hadn’t spilled onto the pavement.
Thousands upon thousands of red ants had poured from the wound instead.
Now there was no body.
No severed head.
No sign of the Tailor or the Illyrian.
Only a crimson procession of ants marching away into the night.
Dave gently took the photograph from Chloe’s hand.
“You okay?”
She stared at the retreating swarm.
“I don’t think so.”
He studied the picture.
“Who’s the woman?”
“I think she’s next.”
The room was as cold as a walk-in freezer.
“I know what you did to the others,” Klara said, dragging her fingernails across the frost that coated the wall.
“They should have known what they were doing, too,” the Tailor replied.
Klara gathered her hair behind her head and let out a slow breath. It hung in the air as a pale cloud before dissolving into the cold.
She reached for the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table, slipped one free, and rested it between her thin lips.
“My last cigarette?” she asked.
“It will be,” said the Illyrian, “as long as you don’t light it.”
“And if I do?”
“You’ll find out when you’ve finished the pack.”
He gave the cigarette box a gentle shake before setting it back on the table.
The Tailor and the Illyrian stood in the middle of the room with unnerving composure. They were so still it seemed they breathed only when absolutely necessary.
A bead of sweat formed on Klara’s forehead.
Before it could roll down her skin, it froze.
Tiny white crystals gathered where the droplet had been.
The snow clinging to the walls absorbed the cigarette smoke like a sponge.
Then the bedroom door creaked open.
A small black kitten padded quietly into the room.
It pounced on the leather strips hanging from the Illyrian’s clothing, batting at them playfully.
“That’s Soft,” the Tailor said.
“I know who he is,” Klara replied.
Her eyes shifted from the kitten to the two visitors.
“And him?” she asked.
The Tailor smiled faintly.
“No.”
“We came for you.”
Klara reached toward the ashtray to stub out her cigarette.
Only then did she notice the box.
Her hand stopped.
“What is this?”
“The end of your cigarette,” the Illyrian said.
He leaned over the table and slowly lifted the lid.
The box exploded with movement.
Hundreds of thousands of red ants surged into the room.
They spilled across the floor, climbed the furniture, and swarmed over the icy white walls until every trace of white dissolved beneath a living crimson tide.
Then, as though answering a silent command, they all turned toward Klara.
The Tailor watched without emotion.
“Crush them, Klara,” she said softly.
“Save the white man from the Indians.”
For a heartbeat, Klara remained standing.
Then she dropped to her knees.
A second later she collapsed face-first onto the frozen floor.
The ants engulfed her.
Within moments they began carrying away tiny pieces of her flesh, each burden balanced upon countless scarlet bodies.
They disappeared through the same doorway the kitten had entered.
Home.
To their nest.
The distant wail of approaching sirens drifted through the house.
The Tailor and the Illyrian exchanged a glance.
Without a word, they turned and walked out, leaving Soft behind.
The front door had barely opened when Chloe and Dave appeared in the doorway, their pistols already drawn.
“Police!” Dave shouted.
“Don’t move!”
Chaotica ft. Lacivertiğnedenlik
ANARCHISTALES 