I Live For The Chase

Chapter 1

Seven people were murdered last week. All men in their fifties. One man was choked to death, another stabbed 15 times and the rest shot. No one knows who did it or why they did it, we just know that he is out there.

We have had plenty of terror attacks, homicides and other crimes at Oakwood valley but none compared to this. My town is not a safe one and because of my constant awareness of the horrors that lie beneath it, I have learnt to never be scared. I never have been, none of us have. Until now.

We call him The Grey Devil. We call the murderer a him because it was just always established from the start that it was a male. There is no evidence that would go to proof that this is true, there is nothing, but we just know that he is a man. We call him The Grey Devil because that's what he is. No one knows who he is or what he is. No one knows what he's doing or why he's doing it or when he will do it next. We know nothing about The Grey Devil. He is invisible—grey like the sad clouds that cover the sky always. The Devil because there is no way to describe the things he is doing other than satanic and barbaric.

The Grey Devil is the first thing in a long time that has truly scared us.

Our terror lies in the fact that he is amongst us. I have seen him before and so has everyone else but we don't know when.

He is the true monster in disguise.

His trail of murders all have one clear connection that makes it blisteringly obvious that they were committed under his hands. And that is his trademark; an engraving carved on each of the victims chests with a knife. The engraving is clear but the meaning isn't.

The engraving is a curved line with two ends, almost like a squiggly branch with two ends. The mark is on all seven of his victims' bodies. It is how the police know that the murders are connected and how they know it's him. His confidence in not getting caught is another reason for this town's fear because we fear that we won't catch him.

The scary thing about The Grey Devil is his unpredictability and creativity. At school I heard someone call him a genius. It hurts me to say but it's true. The Grey Devil is a fucking Matermind. When the police find the bodies and an autopsy report is done on them, most of the bodies have been dead for more than a month, some up to three months. He thinks of the most unexpected places and puts the bodies there. We know that he has killed more than 7 people, everyone knows that. We just haven't discovered all the bodies. Five people are missing already and it's pretty clear that they aren't coming back.

Curfew is at 6 for everyone, meaning we have one and a half hours of free time after school before we become prisoners to our home.

It is currently 12am.

I may have fucked up.

For a few hours I managed to completely forget about the curfew. So did Honey and Asher, who are my two best friends. I only just remembered now that I have sobered enough to have a clear vision of the poster on the tree in front of my house.

It warns us of The Grey Devil but of course they don't use that name because it's just a nickname gossip has created on its own.

I swear to myself and then stumble my way up the pathway to my hell hole of a home.

Home sweet home is what we say. We say it because 'home' is a place of comfort, shelter and security. Home is more than just a house. Home is a place where you can refuge after a hard day at school or work. Home is where the horrors of existence cease to exist. Home is not just a shelter from rain and the cold, home is a shelter from everything.

We say home sweet home because returning home can more often than not be the best part of our day.

Home means peace and solitude.