The Serial Killers (Complete)

Raelyn04/05 9:13 PM

"Sheriff Marks, please. You don't understand what's going on here," I pleaded, as the door to the interrogation room slammed shut.

He didn't answer, choosing instead to examine the flickering overhead lights. "Damn it, Jerry." He turned to me. "I told that fat ass to fix the light last week and guess what? It's still not fixed."

"You don't understa-."

He held up a hand. "You know what, missy? I don't appreciate your kind coming into my town and telling me what I should do about our problem. Tourists, the FBI, the whole goddamn town on my back about that putrid family." He leaned across the table and positioned himself directly in my face. "You don't know what I've seen."

"Just tell me what's going on. My fiance was murdered by a psycho who's still out there; the same psycho who has my friend right now." I choked on the word fiance and ended up dry-heaving by the end. The sheriff handed me a trash can.

Sheriff Marks' face lost its red luster. "I'm terribly sorry, miss. I have my patrol out looking for your friend, but no leads have surfaced other than the Paxton boy."

I let him set the empty can back against the wall and began to spin the ring on my finger around in circles. Outside, the plummeting temperature finally gave way to fat snowflakes. "Why do you assume it's him?"

"No offense, miss, but this is my interrogation."

"Sheriff, please."

He sighed heavily, stressing his reluctance to divulge any key information, but ended up sinking down onto a hard metal chair. "It started a long time ago, I was a new cop, fresh out of the academy."

Sheriff Marks disappeared into his own thoughts, as if sinking below the surface of a lake. "The Paxtons and Carsons were well respected families. In fact, the first thing my commanding officer told me was that you don't mess with Grace Carson's family.

"Well, it wasn't until my third week on the job that I received the first distress call about the Paxton property. A young woman hiker and her group had disappeared two days beforehand, the entire state was looking for them. I almost didn't believe it when she told me her name, Mary Hillard.

"It was about two in the morning when she called me from a convenience store downtown, so the sheriff was already home for the night." He swallowed, suddenly pale. "She was standing out front, coated in blood from head to toe, shaking like a leaf. As I was pulling around the corner a black sedan sped past the store, it's tires making black skid marks on the pavement as it came to a sudden stop. She made a sprint towards my patrol car. Never made it.

"Those fuckers threw a molotov cocktail out the window and set her on fire. I'll never forget the way she screamed."

I cleared my throat, choking down the tears that threatened to escape for poor Mary HIllard. "What did you do?"

"What do you think I did? I tried to put her out."

"That was brave of you," I whispered, thinking of the smell of burning flesh.

He choked on a sob, but kept his composure, inspecting the callouses on his hands. The next time he spoke, his voice was gruff. "She died before we had even gotten to the hospital. It wasn't until the next day that I received my first letter. I was a lowly cop who had messed with the business of the most prominent family in town and they made sure that I knew it."

"What do you mean?" I prodded.

Sheriff Marks took a swipe at his eye impatiently. "I had been engaged to the love of my life, then. She was the reason I had taken the job in backwoods town that I did, her family lived there. Grace made her disappear, along with every other good thing in my life."