Haunted by Screams (Jeff the Killer)

Chapter 9. A Clue

All is as if the world did cease to exist. 

The city's monuments go unseen,

its past unheard,

and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea

 - Nathan Reese Maher 

* * * * * 

The Chief of Police John sat at his desk filling in reports, a common habit since the first killing was reported in Maple town. Every single move they made became quickly outmatched due to the killer's extreme cleverness. John and his colleagues worked like crazy trying to puzzle the pieces together and at the same time try to find a pattern in the killings. Every single victim had been given the same treatment. They all had been executed from what the police assumed to be a kitchen knife. Every victim wore signs on being stabbed to death and had all been given a "new" form of appearance to them. John felt shivers run down his spine as he examined the photos of the victims injuries. This town had never experienced such bloodshed before, and the people living in it truly didn't deserve any off it. He rubbed his tired eyes and took a sip from his coffee before he returned to his report.

If this continues at this speed, we will not have any other choice but to start interrogating everyone living in this town...

Such a burden that type of work would have on him and his colleagues. But anything in order to prohibit this killer from continuing snatching lives like apples. He couldn't understand this murders. There hadn't even been one single eyewitness to any of the cases. Someone must have seen something...

"Hey, Sir!"

John looked up from his papers and was greeted with the new intern Sebastian, who had just started working in their town a few days before the first killing happened.

Poor kid.

"There's been another case"

John closed his eyes and rubbed them further with his fat fingers. 

"Another one?" he said as the young man walked up to him, looking extremely eager. 

"Yes, but you'll never believe what a colleague just told me -" 

"May I just have the report son?" Officer John said tiredly as he snatched the papers from the young lad. 

"Ye-es-, Sir" 

He opened the folder and was greeted with what he by now began to get used to. A man in his later 40, blue eyes, brown hair. No eyelids, a Chelsea smile running from one cheek to the other. The sight was disgusting at least to say and it didn't look like the remains of a human anymore. 

"Do we know his name?" John said as he covered the picture up with some other papers on his desk. 

"Martin Anderson, he works down at the local store and he-"

"Yeah, yeah I know who he is." John sighed and sadness filled him "His son goes in the same class as my own" 

What if it had been me that had been gutted open like that? What would happen to my son and family then...

"Same treatment as the other ones had" John said and hit his fist in the table, making the intern jump a bit surprised by his action. 

This fucking killer deserved nothing more than to be chained and locked up in an asylum while someone threw the key away. But since John was the Chief of Police and therefor served justice, he knew something like that wouldn't be possible. Even the most gruesome murder had the rights to a trial and a lawyer. 

Justice up my ass. 

"Ehm, Sir. There's actually something that came in just a few minutes ago if, you of course would let me-"

John looked at Sebastian.

"Yeah sure, what?"

"Well, we sent some of the cases to the police station in Greenwich town, who later sent them to Carolina falls and who later sent them to-"

"Yeah Yeah, Sebastian just get to the point will ya?" 

Sebastian fixed his glasses.

"Ah yes of course Sir. It seems that these aren't the first cases involving victims being molested in this particular way, you see." 

"What do you mean with not the first cases?"

"Well, Sir from what I understood there has been several, if not hundreds, thousands murders were the victims have been executed and treated the exact same way as those in this town. All the victims' eyelids had been removed, their cheeks had been cut open and they all had that sentence on the stomach.

"Go to sleep?"

"Yes exactly. And they all showed signs on having been stabbed to death by a knife."

"But do they know who this killer is?"

Sebastian's eyes glowed with eager.

"Well they haven't made it official yet but they do have a suspect"

John tensed in his chair. Could it be possible? 

"A suspect? Who?"

Sebastian turned around and looked to see if someone was eavesdropping on their conversation before he spoke a bit low.

"They say a boy a few years ago went berserk and killed his entire family for reasons unknown in a town across the country. Apparently the police thought it was an intruder who'd been behind the event but when they noticed that the family's oldest son weren't among the victims and had instead gone missing, they became suspicious about it and understood that he must've been the one behind the slaughter"

"Have they caught him?"

"No, Sir. They've not"

"And you said this happened a few years ago?"

"Yes, apparently he was in the age of 14 or something when he committed the crime" 

"But if that was a few years ago," John said  "then that would mean that he must be in his twenties or something now, if he still lives and still is active?"

"Yes, and if we were to assume that that killer back then is the one stalking and killing people in this town now, that would explain why the killer in this town is so experience-"

"- because he's been doing this for rather a couple of years."

"...yes" Sebastian said as he lowered his gaze to the floor. Silence fell in the office.

Could this really be the work of a past deluded teenager and now a young adult?  

"However Sir, these are just speculations, but the similarities are far to lookalike to just be ignored in my opinion" 

John stared at the intern before he turned around and faced his desk filled with reports once again. 

"Yeah, the only problem with this speculation son is that there's a quite big possibility that someone else mimicked those things in order to get attention drawn to it. It wouldn't be the first time"

John fell silent as Sebastian looked down in the floor, almost a bit ashamed. 

Jesus, I'm not the cold-hearted killer here. 

"So, do they have any clue what his name is then or?" John asked, while trying to sound a bit nicer.

"Yes!" Sebastian nearly shouted out of joy. 

John turned around and faced Sebastian.

"His real name is Jeffery Woods, however now he goes under the name Jeff the killer..."