"You believe this shit?"
She pulled herself up on the cushion and wiped her mouth clean of slumber.
"What's this?"
Jax stared at the small print of the paper leaned up from his lap. She swiped it to look.
"Monsters."
"April, 20th, 1999, two kids wearing Marilyn Manson t-shirts shoot up high school. Twelve students dead." She read, "there's a picture. Don't look like Manson shirts to me."
"Jesus, Sonya, what's happening in our country?"
"Let's focus on the mission at hand."
The captain spoke, the small plane finally breached the long sea and shoveled through the clouds over the African continent. It wouldn't be for another hour before they landed but once their feet touch the ground, both noted the stunning head of the countryside as the sun glared down at them.
"No wonder everyone misses the rain here." Jax jested, but both were quickly ushered to the nearest town via an old, barely suitable grey car both believed would fall apart before even turning on.
"Welcome to Sierra Leone." The driver offered the them only these words during their drive through.
Stopped only in the back lot of St, John of God Hospital, paid for the ride out of pocket, the cash American, and the two were quickly abandoned at the hospital once their feet touched the ground again.
"Things are tense here too." Sonya noted.
"Never cared for politics." Jax returned.
At the back entrance there was dirt, pavement, and chain link fencing that surrounded a sickly sea green concrete slab of a building. Rows of black windows lead them to a door where a man, dark of skin adorned in a blood stained coat with clean gloves and mask met them and opened the door wide until both entered.
"Welcome, Agent Blade, Agent Briggs. The body is down the hall, the third room to your left."
As they lead the way, he soon followed and took a few steps ahead of them to let them in. The room was nondescript. Clean, the walls caked with aged paint, and a metal table at the center with a white cloth laid over the body.
"What do we have here?" Jax pulled close to the doctor as Sonya closed the gap between her and the body, having taken to slowly walk along the right side and investigate the curves and fabric.
"Look for yourself." He insisted.
She nodded for approval, but he had already given it. Slowly she peeled back the fabric to reveal a near shriveled human form, female, African, clothing torn and dried blood stained her body, but the point of interest was not the body itself, but the cause of death.
"Two puncture marks on the neck." She noticed.
"Show me." Jax approached.
"Looks like animal bite." She suggested.
"Too clean." He knew better.
"Unless the killer had a barbecue fork."
"That's no barbecue fork, Agent Blade." The doctor took the edge of the table and insisted she look closer. "A young girl, only fifteen years of age."
"Local?" Jax pondered.
"No."
"How did she get here?"
"They all do."
Ugly pause.
Jax and Sonya looked up from the body into the beaten brow of the doctor who's age and wear had only now begun to show itself to them. So occupied with the project, they forgot their manners of introduction.
Too late now.
"Seventeen of them."
"A serial killer?"
"That is what the government believes."
"The same government currently at war with itself."
"What do you believe?" Jax asked.
The doctor stared for a moment, he dared not speak, but they insisted.
"The people are scared." He added, "they say it is a monster."
"Monsters don't exist." Sonya quickly interjected. "There's a serial killer out there. Is there any connection to the Black Dragon?"
"No."
"What kind of monster?" Jax needed to know. This was the lore of the people, and he put his ear to the ground as Sonya stared with disbelief.
"They believe a monster that flies at night is killing young girls and draining them of their blood."
"Skarlet?" He pondered to himself, but the name disappeared into the thick air around him. He realized she was gone, he had seen it for himself, but Sonya had nothing else to offer.
"I don't know that name."
"Is there someone that might know more?"
"Tell me," the doctor withheld from them, he needed to know as well, "what interest does the United States have in the deaths of these girls?"
"Nothing." Jax added, "we're the Special Forces."
"Who knows more?"
He stared, unknowing of their intention, unsure of their future. The body was covered and their eyes stared him down.
Well?