(A/N):
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By the time Jojo's car finally reached Baylean Bay, it was already midnight, and the long drive had left him wishing he had chosen to deal with the strange ice cream van the following morning instead.
Unfortunately, the thought of children unknowingly eating something that might be connected to dark magic had made waiting impossible.
Freya and Inadu had accompanied him, and the three of them had spent much of the journey discussing the possibilities, although none of their theories had been convincing enough to explain everything Jenny had described over the phone.
Sara had sent Jojo the location of the hotel where Jenny and the others were staying, and fortunately, they had been sensible enough to reserve rooms for Jojo,
Freya and Inadu before the three of them arrived.
That saved them the trouble of finding accommodation in the middle of the night, especially since Jojo had no intention of wasting any more time than necessary.
After checking in, they went to their respective rooms, freshened up and took a short break before gathering in the room Jenny had arranged for their meeting.
Jenny was the first to greet them when they entered.
Kang was sitting near the window with Alex beside him, while Cole and his mother occupied the chairs around a small table.
The two Quileute tribesmen were standing near the wall, discussing something quietly until Jojo, Freya and Inadu came inside.
A few food containers and bottles of water had been placed on the table, but nobody seemed particularly interested in eating.
Their attention was still fixed on the incident they had witnessed earlier that day.
"You took your time,"
Jenny remarked as Jojo entered the room.
Jojo gave her a tired look before dropping into an empty chair.
"It's a long drive, Jenny. Unless you were expecting me to grow wings and fly here, I don't see how I could have arrived any faster."
"Considering the sort of things you deal with, I wouldn't be surprised if you found a way to do that eventually,"
Kang replied with a chuckle.
Inadu smiled faintly while taking a seat opposite them.
"Let's hear what happened before Jojo decides that the next improvement to his abilities should involve flying."
Jojo raised his hands in surrender.
"Fine. I'm listening."
Jenny began explaining everything from the beginning, describing how they had finished investigating the haunted basement and were preparing to return to Forks when Cole noticed the ice cream van passing along the road.
At first, nobody except Cole had seen anything unusual about it, but the Quileute tribesmen had detected a foul smell that didn't resemble ordinary exhaust or spoiled food.
That was what convinced them to follow the vehicle rather than dismissing Cole's reaction as a false alarm.
"We followed it through several residential areas,"
Jenny explained.
"It stopped near houses, parks and other places where children were playing. Every time it stopped, the driver opened the serving window and sold ice cream to them."
"The strange part was that he behaved perfectly normally, greeting the children and talking to them as though he were an ordinary vendor. If we hadn't known something was wrong, we probably wouldn't have suspected him at all."
Kang took over from there, describing how the group had eventually been able to see the vehicle's true appearance.
What had initially looked like a brightly painted ice cream van had become a rusted, deteriorating vehicle, its exterior covered in stains and its interior appearing far older than the cheerful music coming from its speakers suggested.
The driver had looked equally disturbing, with an unnatural expression and a smile that seemed to grow whenever he noticed someone watching him.
"But the worst part was the food,"
Alex added, visibly uncomfortable as he remembered what they had seen.
"The children were eating it happily, but it didn't look like ice cream to us. It was this disgusting, greyish substance, and there were things moving inside it. I don't know what it was, but I wouldn't have touched it even if someone paid me."
Jojo's expression grew serious.
"Did you see anything coming out of the children? Any unusual marks, changes in their behaviour, or signs that the substance was affecting them?"
"No obvious physical changes," Jenny answered.
"They seemed perfectly happy, and none of them appeared sick. That's what made it difficult to understand. They were eating that stuff with delighted expressions, asking for more whenever they finished. We couldn't tell whether their senses were being manipulated or whether the substance itself was affecting their minds."
Freya leaned forward, resting her arms on the table as she considered the details.
"Did any of you see the driver prepare the ice cream, or did he simply hand it out from inside the van?"
"He handed it out through the serving window," Kang replied.
"We never saw where it came from. The interior was too dark, and whenever we tried to look inside, the driver seemed to position himself in a way that blocked our view."
"And he knew we could see him,"
Cole added quietly.
Everyone turned toward him.
Cole had remained unusually silent throughout the discussion, and the memory clearly continued to bother him.
He rubbed his palms against his trousers before explaining that when the van first passed them, the driver had looked directly at him and smiled as though he had been expecting someone to recognize his true appearance.
Later, when the entire group could see through the disguise, the driver had looked toward their vehicles again without displaying the slightest hint of surprise.
"It felt like he was waiting for us to notice him," Cole said.
"I can't explain why, but that smile wasn't the expression of someone who had been caught doing something wrong. He looked pleased."
Inadu exchanged a glance with Freya before turning back to Jojo.
"That could mean the disguise was never intended to conceal the van from everyone. Perhaps it was designed to hide it from ordinary people while remaining visible to those with the ability to perceive supernatural entities. If so, the driver may have expected someone like Cole to notice him eventually."
"Or he deliberately wanted us to follow him," Jojo suggested.
"If he wanted to avoid attention completely, he could have chosen a different route or stopped selling to the children once he realized we were watching. Instead, he continued doing exactly what he had been doing."
"Which raises another question," Freya said.
"If the substance is dangerous, why distribute it in such a public manner? There must be a reason he wants those children to consume it, and until we know that reason, we shouldn't assume the disguise is the most important part of the problem."
Jojo nodded. That was the part that bothered him most.
The van and its driver were certainly strange, but they might only be the visible portion of something much larger.
A supernatural creature could disguise itself for any number of reasons, yet deliberately distributing an unknown substance to children suggested a specific objective, whether that involved infecting them, placing a curse on them or using them for some ritual.
He looked toward the two Quileute tribesmen.
"You mentioned that the smell was particularly strong when the van passed. Did it remind you of anything you've encountered before? A particular spirit, a cursed object or even something connected to the creatures your tribe has dealt with?"
Both men shook their heads.
One of them explained that the smell had been distinctly unnatural, but neither could connect it to anything they recognized.
They had encountered unpleasant spiritual traces before, yet this had been different, as though several foul scents had been mixed together until they became something neither of them could identify.
Freya listened carefully before looking at Jojo.
"We should examine the substance before deciding whether this is voodoo or another form of dark magic. If we can obtain a sample without exposing anyone else, I may be able to determine whether it carries a spell or some kind of biological contamination."
"And we need to find out whether the children who ate it are still safe," Jenny added.
"Even if they appeared normal when we left, we don't know what might happen later."
Jojo leaned back in his chair, thinking for a moment before finally speaking.
"Alright. Tomorrow, we'll start by tracing the van's route and identifying the places where it stopped. Sara can help us compare the locations and check for reports of unusual illnesses, missing children or anything else that might be connected to this."
"Freya and Inadu can examine whatever supernatural traces remain, while the rest of us look for witnesses who might have noticed something unusual."
He paused, his expression becoming more serious.
"But until we know what that stuff is, nobody touches it, and nobody approaches the driver alone. If he really did notice you following him, we have to assume he knows someone is investigating his activities. I don't want him disappearing before we understand what he's doing, but I'm not willing to let anyone here become his next target either."
Nobody argued with that.
Outside, the hotel corridors had grown quiet, and the town beyond the windows lay beneath the darkness of the late hour.
They had come to Baylean Bay expecting to deal with an unusual supernatural case, but the discovery of the ice cream van had changed everything.
Somewhere out there, a man was driving around in a vehicle that ordinary people perceived as harmless, feeding children something that looked horrifying to anyone who could see through his disguise.
Jojo glanced at the clock and then at the tired faces around the table.
They had driven for hours, and there was little point in stumbling around unfamiliar streets in the middle of the night without a clear plan.
For now, they needed rest, but he knew he would have difficulty sleeping while the image of those children happily eating that unnatural substance remained in his mind.
"Get some sleep while you can," he finally said.
"We'll deal with this properly in the morning."
As the others began gathering their things, Jojo remained seated for a moment longer, staring thoughtfully at the dark window.
He couldn't shake the feeling that the driver had been doing more than simply selling ice cream, and until he discovered what lay behind that cheerful music and rotten disguise, he wasn't going to let the matter go.
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(Author's POV)
(A/N):
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