crates, finding them empty—albeit with obvious signs of past occupancy.
“It’s as though they’re abandoned and yet still part of some experiment,” Mariska said, and frowned as they approached the aquariums, slowly coming to a stop, her entire body a signpost of reluctance. “Ruger—”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff—agreeing with her, seeing what she saw. This, then, was part of the reason for the odor that permeated this place, interlaced with the misery he’d felt until he could barely tell them apart. It wasn’t an odor of death so much as it was an odor of dying.
The first aquarium held a flat rock that barely rose above several inches of water. A limp form sprawled on the rock, its fur mattered and coming away in patches; sections of rotting skin peeled away from beneath. The animal’s head was under water, its eyes huge and dull, its gills expanding and contracting as if it gulped for air, never quite getting enough.
“Is that…” Mariska’s voice grew tentative; she blew out a breath with an uncanny resemblance of sound to the frightened black bear in Katie’s vision. “Is that a squirrel?”
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