Hellhound (Supernatural #1)

2: Body Found in Dumpster

Newspaper, noun.

1. a publication issued at regular and usually close intervals, especially daily or weekly, and commonly containing news, comment, features, and advertising.
2. a single issue or copy of such a publication.

***

The first bell wouldn't ring for another ten minutes but I was already sitting at my desk in my first-period classroom. My eyes kept falling shut; it was like they knew that Mrs. Hill would come soon and start her usual monotone lecture. The prospect was about as tiresome as the real deal. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep the previous night that was catching up to me.

Either way, Mrs. Hill would not be any help in my battle against sleep.

Dad hadn't come home at all last night before I had gone to bed. This morning, I had found him sleeping in his armchair, looking terrible. The newspaper on the front porch had given me a hint as to why he hadn't come home. Another murder. And closer to home this time. I had managed read through the article learning that the body of the second victim belonged to a man named Mr. A. Emerson, who was the manager at the grocery store I had gone to only last night. It was kind of scary to think that he had died only hours after I had seen him.

It seemed almost surreal.

Who would want to kill a supermarket manager anyway? Obviously, Dad would be wondering the same thing. The article had held very little information about the incident; something about black fog and red eyes. Clearly, the witness was not very reliable. There hadn't even been anything about the cause of death, only that it was, without a doubt, a homicide.

I sighed and put my head on my arms. Although I wasn't entirely certain about the statistics, the number of murders in Saint Faith over the last decade could be counted on one hand. And now, there were suddenly two dead bodies in less than forty-eight hours. A supermarket manager and a... I realized I still didn't know who the first victim had been. I would have asked Dad last night if he had come home, or this morning if he hadn't been so exhausted. Still, the murder had been committed and the dead body was tucked away in a freezer in the morgue; there was plenty of time left to ask him.

Two murders in such short amount of time; were they related or was the timing a coincidence? Bad luck for both victims as well as the people working on the murder cases? Could it possibly be a serial killer? I knew there needed to be at least three murders for it to become classified as such but it could be that these two were just the beginning. Honestly, I hoped this would be as far as it went. That it would stop with these two murders. For Dad's sake, I really hoped this would be it. And, of course, for all potential victims out there.

I also hoped the rain would stop sometime soon, even though it didn't look like that was going to happen today. On the other side of the window, the sky was a gloomy gray. The thick cover of clouds had hidden the endless blue beyond it, as well as the sun, for nearly a week now. What was up with this freak weather? Usually, October did mean more rain than September, but this was ridiculous! Maybe it was something in the air; it made the clouds dump gallons of water on us and it made people want to commit murder. Maybe the rain was what had driven the murderers to kill.

"I take it you made it home okay."

At first, I wasn't sure whether I had heard a voice or if it had been my imagination. I didn't exactly have many friends - I didn't have any friends, only acquaintances -  and the people that did talk to me weren't in my first period Econ class. So maybe it had been a figment of my sleep deprived brain. How did Dad do it without collapsing? Pretending I hadn't heard anything seemed like the safest choice; besides, students wouldn't start coming in for another two minutes.