Haunted by Screams (Jeff the Killer)

Chapter 28. Aftermath

Trigger Warning: Self harm, proceed at own risk. 

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Time is as important as it is irrelevant. It will always flow but seemingly stops for some. It freezes for those that are grieving for a loss, the insufferable ache of missing a person that is no longer there to smile at your jokes, laugh at your stupidity or help you cope with whatever type of sadness that has found its way to you. Their presence is just simply, gone. Lost without a trace.

The funeral had been down right awful. Familiar faces everywhere as-well as unrecognizable ones dried their tears on napkins or the backside of their hand as the priest spoke softly about the Taylor family who had lost their lives too soon in vain. The only survivor had been Brian's father, who'd worked late in another town and decided to stay at a motel during the night instead of driving the 1 hour and 40 minutes home. He'd been greeted with blue lights and policemen everywhere once he'd returned home before they'd told him what had happened. He hadn't been sleeping for days, and he looked as if he'd aged 20 years in just the passing of the week as he sat there in the front row. Nora nearly broke down completely when she watched him bend down to kiss his wife's cold lips one last time before the coffins were carried out and to the Taylor family's final and eternal resting place.

Even as Nora stood there while the coffins were being lowered down into the ground she still couldn't comprehend that Jim was gone, and to never be seen again. It felt so wrong and hard to grip that she was just waiting for Jim to open his coffin to happily declare that it was all just a big joke and they'd all believed in it completely.

Yet, she knew that would never happen and it pained her deeply.

It was heartbreaking seeing Jim's father clanging to what was left of his once happy family. It took several men who were attending the funeral, including Nora's father to keep him from jumping down and being buried along with his family, only so he could be with them. The police still hadn't located Jim's little sister and as much as people prayed for her to return home there were also those who whispered about her being most assumably dead too. The police had searched the entire town, parts of the huge forest and even the river, but no trace was to be found of the little girl whose family had been forcefully separated by what the media called "The short lived killing 'copycat' of Maple town". As if the tragedy hadn't been enough already, it turned out Jim's father couldn't accept the faith of his son, wife and daughter as the oppressive pain and grief of losing them was too much for him to bare.

They found his body in his home one foggy morning, hanging in a noose. Eyes wide-open yet lifeless.

The media had even gone so far as to begin accusing Jim for being the notorious killer of Maple town and although people didn't say it out loud Nora knew they all wished for the media to be right on this one, since that meant the killings then hopefully had come to an much awaited end - which it of course had. But not because the killer had been caught but rather because he was so disgustingly cunning that he took advantage out of this and kept a low profile.

But to Nora it was obvious who it had been. The police claimed it to be a 'homicide' performed by Jim by, God knows what reason, since they'd found him and his mother shot to death with a gun which belonged to his father, and since the neighbors had been awoken of screams from his mother and little-sister right before gun-shot had been heard, the police hadn't really looked any further into it. They'd found the murder-weapon in Jim's hand as he was laying in a pool of his own blood, and since no windows were opened or smashed it led to the police believing that an intruder most likely hadn't committed the crime either.

Although, Nora knew that just because a knife-wound hadn't been the source of death according to the police didn't mean that Jeff, the fucking infamous and absolutely disgusting creature hadn't murdered Jim and his mother anyway. She'd seen how cunning he was and it wouldn't had been difficult for him to find the gun in their house and kill Jim and his mother with it anyway, only to make it look like it was Jim who'd done it all along. However, Nora hadn't told the police what had happened in the cabin which dwelled deep within the forest, although she and Jim had sworn to tell them everything. She couldn't for some goddamn reason tell them what the both of them had experienced, not even when they'd interrogated her due to that the killer had been in her home and 'tried' to kill her earlier. She felt awful for not even telling them that Jim had been there too, confessing his feelings to her while he was trying to save her from Jeff.