December 17, 2020
It was an absolute bloodbath. The light barely illuminated the corpses that were strung up to the wall. Their noses and ears were cut off, hair and eyebrows shaved, eyes and mouth sewn shut, and their skin painted a chalky white.
"Four dead, two missing, and one woman who has lost her mind. What do you make of this, Andrews?" Detective Steven Birke asked.
Detective Ernest Andrews analyzed the bodies and pressed his fingers through his shaggy blonde hair and said, "I think that we've got a really sick son of a bitch on the loose."
As he glided his hands from his hair and rubbed the stubble growing on his jawline, Andrews began thinking about why anyone would do this. There were all sorts of freaks out there, but this one... this one was new to him.
Andrews pulled out a notepad from his large tan jacket, worn over a black vest and red tie, jotting down notes on the descriptions of the four bodies. Behind the bodies was a mirror with blood painted over it, reading: "THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL. CAN YOU SAY THE SAME?"
He stared at himself for a while, looking at the way his nose was slightly crooked, the way his eyes drooped down, and the confident pose he always maintained.
"Has the rest of the house been searched?" Andrews asked, looking away from the mirror.
The sheriff looked at Andrews and walked up to him. "It has. My guys found nothing else except for some dusty furniture and rats running around. The men you're looking for aren't here, Detective."
Andrews rubbed his chin. "How about that tunnel passage in the basement that I've been hearing about?"
The sheriff looked at him with his eyes more dilated. "That passageway is locked up. There ain't no way he coulda got in there and locked it back up."
Andrews gave the sheriff a curious glance. "I want you to get your boys to search the forest, both around this manor and that house over on Waterworth Drive," Andrews said. He turned his head to Birke. "Get a hold of the captain and tell him we need more men here to aid with the search."
Birke shook his head and began dialing his phone.
"What will you do, Detective?" The sheriff asked.
"I'm going to go search those tunnels," Andrews said.
"You'll need some lock cutters, detective. Ain't nobody seen the key for it in years," The sheriff said as he spit out a wad of tobacco.
"Do you have any?" Andrews asked.
The sheriff nodded. "Of course I do."
"Good, meet me down there in ten minutes then."
The sheriff gave him a puzzled look. "You want me to join you?"
Andrews lit up a cigar and looked to the sheriff. "That's right. You're not scared, are you, Sheriff?"
"Of course not. I just well..." He looked over to the bodies that hung on the wall. Andrews followed his gaze, unable to even distinguish between the victims. "It's just that this place is said to drive men insane. Said to be haunted."
Andrews smiled and sucked in on his cigar. He pointed towards the bodies strung on the wall and puffed out the smoke. "There's your haunting, sheriff. I don't believe in ghosts, but I do believe we have a psychopath on the loose and those tunnels may be a sure way to catch him. So meet me down there in ten minutes. Got it?"
The sheriff turned his head and walked out the front entrance with his two deputies.
"Bunch of superstitious folks," Andrews said to himself. He looked up to the bodies again, puffing out smoke, then chuckled. "Faceless, they say. I guess they're real after all."
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