Young Blood

 

  It was a chilly December night, cold and severe, not a soul in sight, everyone being at their respective homes. So crude was the North Wind in its misery that even the most daring of wanderers strayed to seek shelter: a perfect scenario for any wrongdoer hoping not to be discovered with blood on his sturdy, worker’s hands.  Besides, it was a small town, no one would notice. Dark intent filled the wrongdoer’s mind as he remembered why his victim had to be killed.

 

It was already midnight when Carol Oates stepped outside her house, smiling briefly at the amusing memory of the party that had ended just a few minutes ago, wrapped in a fluffy pink sari, waiting for her roommate, who had left the party halfway. She sighed in relief as a warm tide, a stark comparison to the savage wind blowing in a couple hours ago. She sighed nervously as the clock struck twelve, "Where are you Nina?".

 

A big burly boy stood a few blocks away, his knuckles white as he muffled his victim’s screams, guilt shadowing his boyish face. “Is this necessary? he inquired as a small man, his bushy mustache almost hiding a malicious smile that now spread on his face, suddenly reached into his pocket and smiled, now sporting a kitchen knife in his pudgy hands “ It must be done”.

 

             It was about dawn when Mr. Donnelly hit the sidewalk. He’d tried to get some sleep, in vain, he just could not shake the feeling that something was amiss. Always the observant detective �"even though he’d been heavily considered retiring- Mr. Donnelly’s consistent urge to fix things had now hit a dead end, mysteries and puzzles were extremely rare in small towns. According to Hollywood, small towns were perfect stages for a serial murderer to satisfy his grisly desires. Nothing ever happens in small towns, or so they tell you, or is there more to it than meets the eye? So much for movies.  He was bored. Deathly bored. Nothing ever happened in Springwood, Ohio except an occasional burglar breaking in into some old lady’s cat infested house. The cold weather had finally passed, yet this led Donnelly to consider it a perfect chance for a conspiracy to take place as it was rarely cold in Ohio, and when it was cold, people preferred to stay at home.

 

As he once again turned a corner, a man with a mustache, a cap set low over his mean little eyes caught Donnelly’s eye. The mustached man’s jaw was set, determined, while a young man, whom Donnelly hadn’t noticed before, whose age Donnelly estimated to be in his early twenties, was white as a sheet. Just like if he’d just seen a ghost. The mustached man casually walked up to Donnelly, his sly mouth lifting up into a seemingly kindly smile,  “Hello Mr. Detective, Tim here is a little upset, we’ve just come from the hospital. He was visiting his sick mother…” Donnelly failed to listen to the mustached man’s voice as he looked closely into the boy’s haunted eyes. His look communicated much more than grief, it was as if… “Maybe you can help us, the hospital system is so unfair, you see” the man stared at him, his eyes grew hard, annoyed at Donnelly’s persistance. He was hiding something, and was doing a good job, save the boy. A group of killers, the mustached Ted Bundy and the unwilling Norman Bates.  “I’ll try my best” he smiled absently, still looking at the boy. Did he just imagine it, or had he just seen a look of disappointment flicker on the boy’s face? No, he must have imagined it. He passed a hand through his thinning hair, he must be so desperate that his mind was creating puzzles. He soon left the mustached man and Tim behind. Suddenly, he heard a faint inhalation of air, a croak followed. He opened a nearby garbage can to reveal the body of what appeared to be a young woman.

 

 He had been right, he thought, as he stood perched on the side of the road like a raven, signaling a pitiable death; the sad and mutilated corpse of Nina Franco, a lively young girl only a few minutes ago. Mr. Donnelly´s right hand, which was white in shock, still grasped limply on his cellphone even as the police swarmed into a crime scene he had grown used to seeing like ants, blabbing out questions like: Where, How, Why, When, and most importantly to the him: Who?

              Daniel?" he heard the feeble voice of his old comrade behind him. “I’m so sorry Arthur,” The words where initially hard to find, but he soon found himself uttering the same words he’d uttered only a few years before, the code name given to horrorific murders committed by a mysterious culprit who went under the nickname Hal the Ripper, back to the times when he’d still worked as a full-fledged crime scene investigator "Young Blood has stricken again, Arthur" he laid a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder, "I’ll find who murdered your daughter, Arthur, I promise".