Hsa-871: Wolf Statue of Accalia

The diner looked as if it had been somehow exempt from the progression of time. Wilson noticed a greasy film on everything he touched. While not desirable, he did not find it intolerable. The diner had a certain charm. Around him, several locals hunched over their morning meals. Most of the conversation was confined to one or two tables of old men who had likely been having the same conversation for twenty years or more.

From his booth, Wilson could see out of the broad windows. The cracked and sun bleached pavement had already begun to radiate a haze as the desert sun rose. Beyond the few buildings in the town of Newton sprawled the empty, reddish American West. It had its own beauty, but not to Wilson's liking. To him, it was dead land and the little town that hosted him was the last of the necrotic bacteria being baked away like everything else.

Wilson's attention was drawn back to the diner by a sweet voice asking, "What can I get you?"

He noted her name tag, "Lauren." His mind spat out a series of information as he looked the girl up and down. Lived in Newton most of her life. Father was a trucker who bought a maintenance company and set up shop on what he thought would continue to be a major thoroughfare. Lauren had attempted to leave for college, but ran out of money and didn't fare as well in a bigger pond. Wilson had watched people for many years and seen many things. Though he doubted anyone else in the diner or town would notice, the young woman wore a constant expression of panicked desperation. Could be her, he thought.

"Coffee, no cream," Wilson said, politely. "Eggs with toast."

Lauren scribbled down his order, "Funny way of saying that. Most people just say coffee black. Not sure I've heard someone specify no cream before."

Wilson's lips tightened, "Occupational quirk."

Lauren started to ask what exactly that meant, but the girl knew better than to pry too deep into the lives of the diner's frequent travelers. Wilson did not look like the usual kind of man that frequented the establishment, but she was able to keep her curiosity in check. "I'll get that coffee for you right away, and the food will be out in a moment."

Before she left, he added, "And a glass of water please. Tap, no ice." Lauren nodded, now positive that the stranger was indeed odd.

Wilson went to reach into his jacket pocket, but remembered that he was not wearing his usual suit. Instead, he was dressed in a button up, short sleeved shirt and blue jeans. He had no trouble remembering that his feet were squashed into a pair of work boots that were a size too small. The outfit made him feel foolish and out of place, but it seemed to be doing his job. The town saw him as an outsider, but not one unfamiliar with their lifestyle. He could pass easily for a trucker or a migrant worker so long as no one asked too many questions.

Fishing into his jean pocket, he withdrew a small box, not much larger than a pack of chewing gum. The box was divided into two compartments. Wilson opened the one on the left and looked at a thirty or so small white pills. He looked for Lauren who was still preparing his coffee behind the counter. Idle, he flipped open the other compartment and looked at a different pill. It was red and quite large. He'd always had a strange feeling that he would choke on it. He closed the second compartment after a brief consideration and took one of the white tablets out as Lauren dropped a glass of water on the table. In a quick motion, he popped the pill in his mouth and took a swig of the water to wash it down.

"One cup of coffee, no cream," Lauren said in a sweet voice. "Sugar is on the table. Comes in packets if that's another one of your...quirks." She fumbled the sentence out, realizing that what was meant to be polite had sounded quite insulting. "Say, uh, mind if I ask what you're in town for? Driving a rig?"

Wilson slid the saucer bearing his coffee cup over in front of him. "I'm here looking into something for a friend. Daughter went missing a few months back." Wilson watched carefully as he stated his purpose, but saw no hint of recognition on Lauren's face.

"Oh, gosh," she muttered. "I haven't heard of anyone going missing," she said, a genuine tone of concern in her voice. "Course, we have people pass through all the time. I suppose it's not uncommon for this to be their last stop. Nothing between here and the state line except Merle's gas station."

"Assuming she would be heading west?" Wilson asked between sips of his coffee.

Lauren put her hand on her hip, delighted at the chance to gossip. "Sure. We don't get many travelers at all, but when we do, they're from the east and heading west. Trucking routes work out that way since they all cross the mountains then swing down towards the border."

Wilson nodded. "This gas station you mention. The owner live out there?"

Lauren furrowed her brow. "I'm not looking for anyone to get in trouble. Merle's as old as dirt and everyone's known him for twice that long."

"No trouble. Want to find the girl is all." Wilson made an unconvincing effort to soften his tone. A bell rang in the window to the kitchen and Lauren floated away. Decent person, Wilson thought. Protecting her own. She returned a few moments later with his breakfast.

"Merle lives out there. Comes to town once or twice a week. He usually doesn't go out to meet anyone who stops at the station. There's no store or anything. Two pumps one regular and one diesel. Try not to spook him if you go nosing around. He's not overly fond of strangers."

Wilson nodded. "I"ll keep that in mind. Thanks."

As she left, he turned his attention to his breakfast. The food was surprisingly good for something so simple. His mind turned over each flavor as it touched his tongue, making certain that nothing out of the ordinary lurked in his meal. He didn't expect anything, but could never be too careful.

***

Wilson grimaced through the short walk from the diner to his car. The temperature was increasing rapidly, but that didn't bother him as much as the sun. The heat was dry and sort of a welcome relief after his last assignment. Why doesn't this sort of thing happen in a decent climate? he wondered as he took shelter in his rental car. The air conditioning provided some relief, but the sun continued to bake down on him through the windows. Noting that the majority of the diner was still looking out at him, he decided to find elsewhere to consult his notes. As he pulled away, he noted Lauren standing at one of the windows, a coffee pot in her hand. She looked sweet and innocent. Wilson found himself wondering how often she had considered taking a ride away from Newton with one of her customers. Maybe that is what happened to Eva.

He drove on past his hotel to where he knew he could find some shade. An abandoned drive in movie theater stood on the outskirts of town, a relic from a more prosperous age. The screen still stood. Many of the panels had rotted away and even the metal girders had started to give way to the sun and heat, but it provided a giant shadow where the weary traveler could find respite. Wilson pulled into the empty lot and parked as close to the center of the shadow as he could. Free of the sun, he unlocked the glove compartment and pulled out a black notebook.

Opening it up, he took a pen and started to note down his conversation with Lauren. Writing more than he thought was necessary, he included everything he'd ate or drank that morning. He also noted the time of his last dose. Once that was done, he flipped back a few pages and looked at a picture taped inside the notebook, beneath which was scribbled "Eva Miles."

It was a candid shot taken of her at a bus stop. Eva looked to be in her mid twenties, white, with very few distinguishable characteristics. In a lineup of average women, she wouldn't have stood out in the least, except for one thing. On her left wrist was a mark. The quality of the picture was awful, but the mark was a clear as if it had been superimposed over the image later on. The symbol was simple, an X with two parallel lines drawn across it. It would have been a harmless doodle if it had not looked like it was branded into Eva's skin with a hot iron.

Wilson closed the notebook and put it back in the glove compartment. From beside it, he took a pistol and placed it on the seat next to him. Putting the car in drive, he headed west.

***

Wilson knew what the police lines meant. He recognized many of the men in black suits. They turned to look at him with dispassionate eyes as he approached the house. Neighbors were being pushed back, told lies, and sent off to their homes where they would wake up on the morrow with a different version of events in their head. Wilson approached the man standing closest to the door.

"Agent," the man said in greeting as Wilson approached. Wilson recognized him as one of the nameless men. The nameless men were rarely seen and rarely spoke to anyone. Wilson was not happy to see his employer.

"Sir," he responded, curtly. His eyes turned towards the house and a chill went up his spine. Above the door, someone had carved in an X with two parallel lines across the top and bottom.

The nameless man spoke, "The house is contained. We are preparing for shipment. You are to report to Site-44. You will be debriefed, but in the meantime, I have an informal question."

"Of course," Wilson said. His voice was strained. The nameless man did not look away from him and Wilson wondered if the man could see at all.

"The item from your last assignment, the Corvus, do you recall it?"

Wilson pictured the small figurine in his head. A wolf made of stone with eerily black eyes, etched into the surface over and over again, as if branded there by hot iron, was the same symbol as appeared above the doorway. "Yes, of course."

The nameless man nodded. "It has vanished during transport. We believe that we have misunderstood its properties." The man pointed to the mark on the house. "How do you estimate that symbol came to be here?"

Wilson swallowed, forcing the lump in his throat back down. "The ones affected by the Accalia tend to replicate the image in many fashions. Marking of the domicile is not uncommon. It can lure the weak willed in much the same fashion as the idol itself."

"Correct," the nameless man said. "Would you like to go inside? They are still within. Four subjects."

Wilson wanted to leave the place and never think of it again. "I believe that it is necessary," he answered. Clenching his teeth, he strode past the guards and approached the front door. The nameless man followed silently after him.

Other men in suits guarded the door and occupied the house. They carried strange implements and many of them had the same hollow eyes as the nameless man. A familiar smell greeted Wilson as he entered the house. The pungent, wet smell of sex was all too common to him. For a moment, he stopped in the hallway to look at the family portraits on the wall. A smiling family of husband, wife, and daughter looked back at him. The familiar face of the woman made guilt rise up in his throat. He felt the empty gaze of the nameless man on his back and moved on into the house.

As they neared the bedroom, the guards grew more harrowed and gaunt, as if the life had been drained out of them. Nevertheless, they were burly and grim and eyed Wilson as he walked past. The door of the bedroom opened and he stepped inside.

The bed had broken and the shattered wood cast aside. On the mattress were four bodies, writhing in copulation. At the center was a woman. Though she looked very little like the one in the hallway pictures, Wilson knew it to be her. He watched as his friend's body bucked and writhed in pleasure. She no longer looked the demur housewife that he'd known her to be. Instead, she was a glorious visage of sex. Mountainous breasts jutted up from her chest, wobbling as she moved. Her hair was no longer a graying blonde, but a rich black which curled down around her shoulders, sticking here and there to her sweat. Though his view was obscured, he knew from previous experience that her hips were wide and her ass was swollen to lewd proportions.

Around her hovered three men, though it was difficult to call them men any longer. They were hulking monstrosities which lived only to pleasure the woman before them. One, the woman's former husband, had positioned himself between her legs, shoving his cock into her with reckless abandon. The other two stroked their inhuman lengths over her chest as she craned her neck to take them into her mouth. Her hands encouraged them by grabbing and tugging at their balls while her husband started pumping cum into her.

The four of them shared one other trait. Across their whole bodies, the Accalia symbol appeared again and again. Some of them had been made and others had just appeared. As the man in the woman's pussy finished grunting and let his cock slide out of her well used snatch, a new symbol glowed into existence on his back. The man shuddered as even more muscle grew, his tendons lengthening slightly more as he stood up to a full height. Another of the males pushed him aside and happily sheathed himself in the cum drenched pussy.

Wilson spoke, "They'll start to change soon. They should be separated."

The nameless man answered, "We have taken that into consideration." He turned away from the wretched scene. Wilson continued to watch, hoping to see a glimmer of humanity left in the eyes of the creature that was once his sister. The nameless man spoke again, "From your notes, you mentioned that you stopped to visit your friend during the second week of your original investigation. Do you recall any event where this family may have been contaminated? Further, do you recall any sign that the Accalia may be sentient and intended you harm for interrupting its plans."

Wilson finally looked away as one of the males started to ejaculated onto the massive tits. "Yes, and no. My journal was left accessible during the night of my stay here. It is possible that someone else in the house read it and pursued more information on the details found within. We know the Accalia to have incredibly persuasive effect." Wilson finished his comment with a pointed glare at the nameless man. The statue had not vanished from HSA control by accident, but he did not know how it could have returned to his sister's home.

The nameless man nodded. "As I said, clearly we have underestimated the item's potential. We will offer these subjects all the care we can. Though, as with the previous incident, we have yet to find a method of reversing the process."

"Who are the other two?" Wilson blurted out. He knew the neighbors here as well.

The nameless man looked over his shoulder briefly. "Stray dogs, Agent," the man said, yellow teeth appearing in a failed attempt of mirth.

Wilson scowled. "Where is the statue now?"

The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a picture. "With her, most likely," the man said as he handed Wilson the picture of Eva Miles. He looked at the picture of his friend's daughter and his stomach dropped once more. On her wrist, he saw the mark.

***

All around him spanned the open desert. As far as he could see in any direction was a flat wasteland, spotted only with thorny shrubs. Wilson's care zipped down the highway towards the only thing in site, a small house and two gas pumps. Several signs along the way had warned him "Last Gas for 100 miles, stop at Merle's."

As he approached, he saw a rickety sign hanging from a wooden cactus, the weather worn ornament yet another relic from more prosperous days. Beyond that, he saw another car already at the pumps. The door was ajar and no one was in sight. He parked and exited the car, discretely tucking his pistol under his shirt.

"Anyone here? Hello?" he called, but no one answered. After a quick inspection, he knew that the gas station was abandoned. He didn't recognize the car and it had local plates. Not Eva's. Moving around to the drivers side, he found the keys still in the ignition. A film of dust had settled inside the car's interior. He tried the ignition, but was greeted with only a rapid clicking sound. Battery is dead. It's been here a while. His eyes turned towards the small dilapidated house about fifty yards away.

Wilson approached the house. The floorboards of the porch creaked as he moved along, but the noise was drowned out by the loud whir of air conditioning units along the side of the building. After attempting to glance in through the windows, he moved to the front door and tried the knob. It gave way with a loud groan and the door swung inward. Wilson listened carefully for the sound of anyone coming, but nothing greeted him other than a refreshing breeze of cool air. Determined, he stepped inside the house.

The interior looked worse than the outside. Stacks of old magazines covered every inch of the room other than where an old recliner sat in front of a television. Wilson glanced into an adjacent kitchen where stacks of dishes sat unwashed. Had it not been for the heat scouring the smell, he was sure the stench would have overwhelmed him. A soft noise drew his attention and he moved down the hallway, the sound becoming too familiar for comfort.

As he reached a bedroom, he peered through the cracked door. On the bed a young woman sat, entirely naked. She was cross legged and eating some type of ice cream bar. Wilson felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle and he realized his mistake. He spun around just in time to pull the man forward, using his own attacker's body weight against him. They crashed into the bedroom as the door shattered underneath the attacker. In a quick motion, Wilson brought his pistol around and fired twice into the behemoth. The bullets staggered him, but Wilson was pleased they even managed that. The man's wounds were rapidly healing. Instead of continuing to fire, Wilson rolled over to the bed, grabbing hold of the young woman and putting the gun to her temple. The man bellowed an inhuman roar, but held his spot.

Wilson breathed a sigh of relief, "Now, I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"Then why did you shoot Merle?" the girl asked with a giggle. Her hand was moving down to Wilson's crotch, exploring for a new thing to play with. "How come you're not hard? Merle is hard all the time. Aren't you boy?"

The man-beast growled in approval and Wilson knew he wasn't in nearly the playful mood as the girl. Merle was not a decrepit old man as Lauren said. Instead, a seven foot tall, muscled behemoth stood opposite Wilson. Merle's body was covered in Accalia symbols. Wilson tugged back on the girl's neck, causing her to bend outwards. Her full breasts made it difficult to see, but Wilson was allowed a better view of her torso. He noted a few of the symbols on her as well. She was a recent addition, but Merle had been under the spell for a while. The woman had also not been lying about Merle's current condition. A huge cock jutted out from him, rock hard and pulsing as precum oozed from the tip. Even in a fight, his sexual hunger wasn't diminished.

Wilson brandished the gun as the hulk tentatively inched closer, "Look, I don't want to hurt either of you and I'm not here to take your woman. I need information about how this happened to you. This won't do much more than slow you down, Merle, but I'm pretty sure it will do some lasting damage to your mate.

Merle responded with a low growl, but seemed to understand. He dropped to his knees on the opposite side of the room. As a show of good faith, Wilson lowered the gun, but kept it close it hand. The girl remained unfazed by the event other than her confusion about Wilson's lack of arousal. "What's wrong with you? How come you're not sniffing my pussy like a hungry dog?"