Twelve bodies in the last month with the same MO. Each victim had blunt force trauma to the back of the head, indicating a surprise attack. Once stunned, the brutal attack continued. The autopsies showed multiple broken bones, ruptured organs, and, in one case, a heart attack. The bruising on the skin indicated that the same weapon used to hit the head was also used to beat the victims to death. The murder weapon was still unknown after twelve murders. Hoofprints were all over each crime scene, which indicates the killer knows how to handle a horse. In a farming community like this one, that offers almost no help.
These clues infuriated the lead homicide investigator, Harry Newsome. Every new homicide that fit this pattern only further proved, in his mind, how he was a complete failure at protecting the community. Harry was the top homicide investigator in all of Crater County before he was asked to move here to Lima County a few months ago to start a new homicide division. Shortly after starting the division up, twelve people were murdered with no apparent connection to each other. These homicides have had the sheriff and the city of Westerfield breathing down his neck to catch the killer. It’s not the job he’s worried about, though. It’s his fellow citizens. He knows a thirteenth victim is coming, and he has no idea who it will be. With no similarities between the victims, there’s no way to predict the next one. Harry doesn’t drink, but he’s thinking strongly about starting.
It wasn’t long before a new body was discovered by some Amish kids playing in a field not far from their community. Harry cordoned off the scene, and his team started collecting evidence. The victim was a blonde female in her early 20’s. Her skull was caved in, and her exposed skin was a patchwork of deep purple and black bruising. There were a couple of places where the bones had broken through the skin, and blood had pooled in those areas. There wasn’t any dirt around, so no tracks were there this time. The surrounding grass, however, was pressed down in a way that indicated a heavy animal. Harry would have to wait for the autopsy to confirm his suspicions, but this seemed like the work of the same horseback killer.
Later that night Harry got a call from the medical examiner. The blow to the back of the head happened first, followed by the bludgeoning from the weapon that left her body riddled with head-to-toe bruising, dozens of broken bones, and internal injuries. Her cause of death was subdural hematoma—brain bleed. Same MO. Same killer.
“Dammit. Thirteen victims,” Harry said as he backhanded his coffee cup across the kitchen. “This son of a bitch won’t stop!”
The violence of his anger had knocked some photos out of the case file. As he picked them up off the floor, he saw something in one of the photos of the young lady’s body. Her hand rested next to a small clump of gray hair. Harry rushed to the precinct to see if his boys had bagged that as evidence.
“Gotcha,” Harry said as he held up the evidence bag marked 2b.
The next day Harry submitted the clump of hair for DNA testing. Results would come back later to indicate it was inconclusive. The hair was a 24% match for a mule and 12% match for a bat.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Harry said, staring blankly at the results.
“It means the test was wrong or we have a witch on our hands,” Sheriff Walker said as he came up behind Harry.
“Don’t make jokes, John. I’ve had it with this asshole.”
“Sorry. It does mean we have nothing to go on, and the worst news is, the DNA sequencing process destroyed what little hair we had to test with, so we can’t try again.”
“Not surprised. There wasn’t much hair. I’ll keep looking at the case and see if I can find something else we missed,” Harry said with a somber tone.
Back at the murder scene, Harry walked around the area, hoping to find something he had overlooked. After about an hour, he came across a bundle of sticks wrapped tightly together. As he picked it up, a shadowy figure stood a ways off in the field, motionless.
“Hello,” he called out, but the figure didn’t respond.
Just as Harry walked toward the figure, it faded into the horizon. He stopped in his tracks.
“Well, if that ain’t some weird shit,” he said out loud.
Harry continued in the same direction, hoping to see who it was. After about 20 minutes of walking, he gave up and headed back to his car. He flipped open his government laptop and reverse image searched the sticks. The sticks were identified as Wormwood. The main uses were in absinthe and beer. Further down in the search, Harry came across a link about witchcraft uses. Following that link led to spirit, divination, and shadow work.
Harry closed the computer and thought hard about what he’d read. Why would someone around here make Wormwood beer? This is a dry county. Is a moonshiner responsible for these murders? Maybe it was that creepy fella out in the pasture.
Early the next morning, Harry pulled out the case files and studied them for new information. A loud braying sound from outside his front door startled him. Out by the road he saw the figure again. This time Harry could tell it was a woman. She had greasy-looking gray hair, wrinkly skin, and wore a black robe.
“Can I help you?” Harry asked, loudly.
“You will see the face of death tonight,” she croaked.
Harry reached for a gun that wasn’t there as he moved quickly in her direction. Unphased by this, he barked orders at her. “Get on the ground!”
As before, she faded into the background.
Harry stopped and rubbed his eyes. He looked around the area for her but came up empty. What the hell was that?
Flipping open his cell phone he called Sheriff Walker, “John, that creepy figure showed up at my house and threatened me. Elderly female in a black robe.”
“Arrest her? I tried. She disappeared on me.”
“No sir, I’m not drunk. Please put out a BOLO.”
Harry hung up. “Asshole.”
Harry spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what she meant. What could a geriatric do to a trained officer? He thought about what that lady said and decided to carry his 9mm sidearm around the house, anyway. Maybe she packs heat.
Upon exiting the house, he saw something moving in the distance. As it got closer, he drew his gun and readied it. It was a donkey. Shit. I thought it was that lady or a wolf or something. Harry put his gun away.
“Shoo, you big dumb ass,” he said. “What farm did you escape from?”
The donkey ignored him and kept approaching.
“Look, you better not eat my roses or my trash. If you do, your ass is grass.”
The donkey had gotten within ten yards of Harry when it charged him. It brayed loudly as it tried to hit Harry with its hooves, but Harry was quick and managed to dodge out of the way. Harry fumbled to pull out his gun, but finally managed to get off a few rounds at the donkey. Unfortunately for Harry, he missed and the gun was knocked out of his hand. The donkey’s eyes were red with madness as it stomped and bit at Harry, who was agile enough to roll out of the way for most hits.
Harry made an awkward dive for his gun in the midst of the attack, grabbed, rolled around to face this hairy attacker, and fired three rounds at him before he dropped. Harry reloaded while the donkey bled out.
“You crazy ass…ASS,” he exclaimed.
The donkey moved no more. He was dead. Out of nowhere, the old lady who had threatened him previously lunged at him from the side. She had a Kriss-style blade in her hand, and she stabbed him repeatedly. Harry had no time to fire his weapon or fight back before she had pierced vital organs.
As he bled out next to the donkey, the hag uttered words that sounded evil and filled with hatred. He felt his body go cold first, then he felt something deeper inside him burn. The pain was excruciating. He could hear the witch croak about her donkey and how his soul now burned.
The pain from the fire never ended, but what was worse was spending eternity with an ass that would bray at him forever.
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