Buried

CHAPTER 18 | the fourth estate

📎A/N.  Hello dear friends,  I hope you are all well...

Don't forget to vote if you enjoy this chapter.   You know the drill... just click the little star :)

Thanks for all your support and encouraging feedback. It really does make a difference in my small corner of the universe :)

❤ ℳ

❧ ⚛ ✺ ≋ ≋ ≋ ≋ ≋ ✺ ⚛ ❧

"I'm telling you, there is something to this," Drew cried out in exasperation.

Peter Elliot, his editor at the Boston Globe, sat back in his chair and contemplated one of his star investigative journalists' request. The man was a loose cannon; he drank too much; partied too hard - but was a reporter that wielded results.

Rubbing his nearly bald head in frustration, he cast an angry glance in Drew's direction, "You do realise that this is not the National Enquirer?"

Drew's face grew red at his boss's implications and waived the folder he had been holding towards Peter. "This is a real story. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

Peter leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest so that it now appeared to be resting on his portly stomach. "You have ten-seconds to pitch it to me," he growled, "and it better be good!"

Drew pulled out something from the folder he had been brandishing and placed a grainy colour printout on his bosses desk.

Peter glanced at the photo and frowned, "Every fucking news outlet, channel and blog in the country is covering that."

The now familiar image was of an animal standing over the remains of a dead body. The image was grainy and dark. It had been taken with a cell phone camera, outside - at night. In fact, a number of videos had gone viral from that evening. All from different angles, but each telling the same story, with the exact same ending.

A wolf had burst into a party full of college students and viciously attacked and mauled eight of them. By the time it had desecrated the gathering into a war-zone, two members of the local campus's Football Team, and a Freshman were dead. The remaining five were in hospital, one still in critical condition.

The police were not releasing details, but were warning locals to stay indoors until the animal could be located and contained.

The press had descended on the local authorities like locusts. Champing at the bit to appoint blame and sensationalise. Many questions had been posed to the various agencies involved in the matter. The only resulting response was - 'No comment' or 'We cannot comment on an ongoing investigation'.

Not able to make inroads to the information via this avenue, left the media no other alternative but to to speculate.

Wolves did not appear out of nowhere and attack a group of people in the suburbs. The press were having a field day, with each correspondant posing the exact same question:

Was this the Boston Wolf Killer's - Wolf?

After the furore that had erupted upon his return, the general public had settled down after its initial panic. The fact that he appeared to be only targeting criminals and organised crime, almost placed a romantic twist on the killer.

As far as John 'Q' Public were concerned, this placed him firmly in the 'Vigilante' category, rather than the 'Serial Killer' category. While Massachusetts could not cope with a Serial Killer, it could most definitely put up with a Vigilante.

What was most surprising was that a number of polls were indicating that people believed the Wolf Killer was doing a better job than the police of cleaning up the city.