Chapter 22 Murder in Massachusetts
It was a nice, sunny day when Crystal and her best friend Maya went hiking through the woods, they were on their way to their favorite secret swimming hole. They were excited because it was a long weekend, they both were looking forward to some down time. They both lived the small town of Blight Falls. The town they lived in was small and quaint and everybody knew everybody, that town consisted of businesses, diners, banks, a movie theatre, a roller rink, bars, and an arcade. The town they lived in was rural and quiet and there hasn’t been a murder in the town of Blight Falls since nineteen-twenty -six when a drifter came through town whacking anyone he could, his murder count was over one hundred local townsfolk. He ended getting caught and hung in the local town square, and according to locals there’s a tree that’s now the town park stands the same tree that hung the drifter, drifter is known to haunt the woods and the old abandoned mine. There hasn’t been a murder in the town of Blight Falls since nineteen-twenty -six when a drifter came through town whacking anyone he could, his murder count was over one hundred local townsfolk. A drifter who went by the name of John Coldwell he was born and raised in small town in Buckhorn, Iowa, he was born in 1895 and died in 1926 at the age thirty-one he was caught by local police and a neighbor reported screaming coming from a neighbor’s house the police went to check it out and caught John in the middle of a murder, luckily the police was to apprehend him arrest him ad tried him for murder and the judge based the evidence gathered sentenced John to be hung. He ended getting caught and hung in the local town square, and according to locals there’s a tree that’s now the town park stands the same tree that hung the drifter, drifter is known to haunt the woods and the old abandoned mine. According to the urban legend the drifter had a girlfriend who he got pregnant, but he didn’t know his girlfriend was with child and was born after he died, and that child now lives and resides in the town of Blight Falls but he said to live in the woods in cabin that’s secluded and only comes into town for supplies. Rumor has that the girlfriend ended up having a boy, raised him on her own she ended up being diagnosed with brain cancer and died when the boy was a teenager, he went on to school raised himself and somehow went crazy and now he lives in the woods. Crystal couldn’t believe her best friend was dead it was all too real, she see murder playback in her mind like bad movie that she kept reliving, she watched him stab her over and over with a pickaxe, but first he tortured her, I stand her yelling in pain, begging him to stop because she couldn’t take it anymore, it made me sick to my stomach to watch him smile and sneer. There he was all high and mighty acting like so immortal god that couldn’t be killed, he was tall and wore jeans and white tank that was now stained in blood, he wore black cowboy boots and ski mask covered his face, and he looked fit, but I saw his brown eyes. I couldn’t tell what color his hair was. She couldn’t believe she was finally free of the crazed man that held her. The last thing she remembered was being at the swimming hole her and her best friend swimming, laughing, and talking about boys, they had come back to their towels to dry off fell asleep tanning themselves and woke up to being tied up and gagged in a strange cabin They didn’t know how they got there or how long they were there, No one knew they had been missing. Then she recalled feeling groggy after waking up, and she was her and best friend drugged and brought here to this cabin? She recalled being fed food and water. She watched him kill her friend that was tied up her forcing her to watch, she screamed “No, please don’t”, he plunged the pickaxe into her soft, delicate, body, she choked the blood as she coughed it up, she called my name, he stabbed her again over and making me watch I just stood there and cried and screamed. I looked her bloody lifeless body just laying slumped on the floor I ran over to her holding her and saying my goodbyes. My captor was in the bathroom cleaning himself I grabbed the bathroom key from the table, creeped to the bathroom door, locked the door from the outside. I took my moment I unlocked the cabin door, and I ran, I ran for hours, I ran as far as I could, making it into the woods. When my captor realized he was locked in his own bathroom he was furious and was pounding on it yelling, screaming, cursing, he had no idea that I was gone. The man took his knife and unscrewed the screws from the doorknob and opened the door, he saw that the door was opened, and he wasn’t happy. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he was on my tail, I hear his heavy feet close behind me he was so close he almost grabbed me I grabbed the nearest branch on the ground I could and turned and swung it; I hit him on his head knocking him, he fell to the ground and he was unconscious. My captor woke up confused and feeling groggy and unaware of where I was, for all he knew I was long gone, he made his way his way back to the cabin to nurse his wounds. He had been in the cabin cleaning up the blood and wrapping poor Maya’s body in a shower curtain and drug her lifeless body into the woods leaving her there for nature to take its course. He was angry because I had escaped and I was strong and I overpowered him and he didn’t like that, it made him feel weak and powerless and like the narcist he was he loved having power. That’s why it was so easy for him to kill Maya she was too weak fight back he knew that, so he took advantage of that. I kept running until I made to the next tree when I fell into a big hole that was covered by leaves and branches, I felt myself fall until I hit the ground, luckily I was unhurt, I looked around trying to get my bearings, then I felt around my back pocket and reached for my phone and turned on the flashlight and got up, my best chance of survival was to keep moving, I moved down through the darkness lighting my way with my phone and felt through the hole I was in reaching for a doorway or opening, when I felt the it felt cold and hard like was I touching stone or rock, then I forgot there was an underground mine that had been closed up for years after the whole incident in back in the early 1900s. This mine lead into town and was there was an opening somewhere now where the park is. She kept following the path using her phone to guide her. Crystal walked further down the dark cavern, she began to hear moaning behind her, and it was getting closer at first, she thought it was her captor and her fate was sealed, but the moaning sounded to ghostly and for all she knew her captor was long gone and was out searching for another victim. Then she remembered the urban of the legend of the drifter that was hung in her town and how he haunted the nearby woods and mine. She heard many stories of her friends who came down here during Halloween and one of almost was murdered. She continued walking and she turned her head and swore she saw someone with a pickaxe. She looked again and the apparition was gone she definitely feel him following her, she wondered if he was looking for his long child he didn’t know about and now he was searching and thinking that it could be me he didn’t know if his child was girl or a boy. Back in town my best friend’s parents realized that Maya and myself hadn’t been back from the swimming hole and it was dark, Maya’s parents were at the police station filing a report about their daughter being missing. It had only been four hours since we had been missing it to be twenty-four hours before the police to anything about it. Maya’s parents weren’t happy and asked the police to do a search. The police gathered a volunteer search full of towns people and the police force, they began the search. They called Maya’s name over and over, and nothing, the team continued to search until one of the officers tripped of Maya’s body, he looked down at her, Maya’s parents were close by and saw what happened and came running over. “Oh, Maya no” her parents cried over and over and were crying hysterically. The other team was searching the south side of the woods and they began disappearing one by one as if something pulled them under the ground, they found themselves in a dark cave and claim to see a ghost hovering over them with a pickaxe and then boom with single swing they be dead, Crystal was in the next cavern over and she swore she could hear screaming she picked her pace trying to find her way out. She feared her captor was in the cavern after her or it was the ghost picking off his next victim, but Crystal being a local believed in the urban legend she knew someone was in this cavern with her, Crystal pushed praying her phone wouldn’t die on her but what she didn’t is that she had a guardian angel watching over her. There in a cavern down from hers a young woman all in white was watching her from a distance every so often she’d follow close behind her, the ghostly young woman knew of evil a presence that was after Crystal anytime the presence would close to her the good spirit would lure it away from her. The spirit had been a victim of John Coldwell the murder she’d been hanging with friend when she mysteriously disappeared and when her friend went looking for her, they couldn’t find her; her body had been drug into the cavern where she bled to death. Meanwhile back at the cabin my captor had heard the yelling and the party search outside, one of the officers had come across the cabin and saw lights and knocked on the door. My captor answered, “hi officer how can I help you? Hi, he said, were looking for a missing girl that was last seen in the woods by the swimming the hole this she’s missing have seen her? She’s 5”6” brown, hair, blue eyes, she was wearing a swimming suit? Sorry officer I haven’t seen anyone in these parts or by the swimming hole for years, he lied. Ok, thank you for your time the officer said before leaving, before the officer could one step, he felt a sudden pain in his back, he reached his hand behind his back and he felt a wooden handle then he fell face forward into the ground and he was dead. My captor pulled out the pickaxe cleaning the wet, dripping, red blood off it as he licked off his fingers one by one, he drug the body into the woods and left behind a tree and propped it up and went back to his cabin. When the sergeant was walking through the woods to go back to his squad car, he found one of the officers, at first, he blamed the drifter from the urban legend, he has seen his ghost around town and even here in the woods, he knew it couldn’t be possible after all it was just a ghost of a stupid ghost story. He examined the body and wound mark it was the same M.O. as John Coldwell and it looked the same murder weapon too. “Looks like we have ourselves a copycat killer, the sergeant said to himself.” The killer who had been Collin Coldwell who had been the son of John Coldwell the serial killer had been reading the all the old news reports on his father and now was following in his father’s footsteps, though raised his mother he still had a rough time in high school, kids would tease him about his father, bullied him all the time. He eventually grew very angry and hateful and was full of resent. His mother who he loved dearly never told him about his father, but he didn’t know she only trying to protect him. He hated not knowing who his father was, but also at the same time he understood too, she was doing for his own good. But she didn’t she think that I would find out about it someday, he wondered to himself as he sat in his chair? He often wondered if he family beyond now his father it didn’t matter the life, he’s in isn’t good and now he’s in too deep. He killed more than one police officer and now it was a matter of time before he gets arrested. Back in the mine Crystal kept moving and still be followed the footsteps got closer and closer she feel a cold breath on her neck it gave her a chill, she turned around and right before her was John Coldwell he was in full spirit form, he was there holding a pickaxe. He held it high in the air and was about to swing, Crystal screamed waiting for the impact, just then another spirit from out of nowhere jumps into between Crystal and the drifter, she looks oddly familiar as I looked at her; the spirit pushed Crystal out of the way and