16
October 28th, 7:39 AM
Police tape was stung all over the Willow Tail apartment building. Some cops were outside, holding off the media, while others were inside, snapping photos. A coroners van sat in the parking lot next to an ambulance and a fire engine.
Sheriff Carter pulled up to the scene and walked heavily into the building where an officer in bloody latex gloves awaited him.
“Good morning, Sheriff,” the young officer said.
“I don’t think it is, is it?”
“Uh, well, no. Not really,” the officer stuttered.
“What do we have?”
The officer began to explain the scene to Carter as they hopped on the elevator and rode it to the fourth floor. “It’s a single victim – as far as we can tell. Her name was Ashley Penner.”
Carter cringed, already expecting it to be a familiar name.
The young officer continued, “Her neighbor went for an early morning walk and saw Ashley’s apartment door was kicked in. She looked inside, and well, called us.”
“What kind of condition is the body in?” Carter hesitantly asked. By this time, they had reached the outside of Ashley Penner’s apartment. The officer lifted the crime scene tape over Carter’s head.
“Why don’t you look for yourself?”
Carter entered the room and stopped. It was appalling - absolutely unspeakable. The room was soaked in blood. The walls, the couch, the carpet – all of it was stained dark red. Carter walked in, strapping on a pair of latex gloves. He approached the back of the living room where the main attraction was. Ashley Penner was sitting straight up in a wooden chair. Her head was missing, but propped on top of her torn up shoulders was a carved pumpkin. The face of the pumpkin was nightmarish. Blood dripped down the smooth, orange sides and onto the floor next to her.
Carter turned his attention to the wall behind her. Sketched in blood on the wall, were the words: A DWELLING HAUNTED…
What could that possibly mean? Carter turned back to the young officer who subtly refused to enter the room again. “Where’s her head?”
The officer pointed to the trashcan in the kitchen area.
“And where is Mark Jenson? He’s Ashley’s boyfriend.”
The officer responded vaguely. “The same neighbor said Mark left a few days ago. No one has heard from him since.”
“Another missing person?” Carter began to feel overwhelmed. He felt like quitting right then and there; leave it all to someone else.
There were literally hundreds of photos snapped at the latest crime scene. It stuck with killers’ signature – Halloween themed. Besides her head being replaced by a carved pumpkin, toss in the fact that is was an employee of the community center and festival worker, and the answer was simple – it was the latest work of the Harvest Slasher.
Carter and Dart flipped through the hundreds of crime scene photos looking for anything. The most interesting pictures to Carter were the ones of the writing on the wall.
“What do you think that means? ‘A dwelling haunted’?” Carter asked, sort of intrigued by the newest addition to the legend.
Dart grabbed a photo and looked at the words. “Something about a haunted house I would guess. I mean, dwelling means house or home. Haunted is, well, haunted. He might be saying that since Ashley Penner was murdered there, her dwelling might be haunted now? Is he trying to create a landmark?”
Carter didn’t answer right away. He just thought. He also thought about the three dots at the end of ‘haunted’.
“This is part of a message,” Carter said. “The three dots at the end suggest that there is another part to it.”
“So what do we do? Wait for the next message?” Dart asked, hoping that’s not what Carter meant. But it was.
“We’re going to have to. Unless we can catch this guy before he needs to make it known.” Carter stood up. “Dart, get an officer over to Bruce Slater’s house and have him keep an eye on the place. Bruce is one of the last one’s that could be on the hit list. Mark is missing, Brandon is missing and Deputy Reed is missing. Either something horrible has happened to them, or one of them might be involved or at least know something.”
“You would consider Deputy Reed a suspect?”
“At this point in the investigation, Dart, I would consider you a suspect.”
Dart was shocked.
“No one is off the hook at this point. No one.”
The next day, zero progress had been made. The investigations continued, as did the search parties. The missing persons were broadcasted around the country just to be safe, but everyone knew they had to still be in Stewart Hollow somewhere.
Bruce Slater was ordered to stay in his home for the remainder of the month. There was twenty-four hour police protection in front of his home.
Sheriff Carter also assigned police protection to guard the Becker house. Aiden was alone and afraid for his brothers safely.
The investigations on the 29th turned up nothing new for the case.
October 30th arrived and the Mayor made a public announcement that trick or treating would be cancelled – the first time in Stewart Hollow’s one hundred and seven year existence. The killer was really making an impact on the community.
The children were disappointed that there would be no costumes, candy or pranks, but the parents felt relieved. They wouldn’t have to worry about their children out at night or keeping an eye on them in the dark streets with a serial killer possibly eyeing them from behind a house or the bushes.
The day ended and the night began. It was cold. There were few clouds in the sky, and the moon was so bright that it made the streetlights in town redundant. Small gusts of wind kicked up dead leaves off the grass and hurled them into the streets. The grass had been damp from a light rain earlier in the day, and the air smelled of pure autumn. The night grew menacing as the crickets sung until the early morning hours. Halloween was upon the town.