The Stonebrook Slayer

Author's Notes:

I had intended to write one more but I haven't gotten to it yet. My kids gave me hand foot and mouth to kick off plague season and it made me less productive than usual. This story was the first short story I wrote, on a whim after I asked my brother his favorite creepy tale. It's based on the urban legend of the licked hand. If anyone can tell me the book it's in, I would love to read it again. Content warnings include death, animal death, gore, blood.

Happy Halloween!

Stonebrook Times Exclusive:

Campus Killer On The Loose

The Stonebrook Slayer continues to elude law enforcement and remains at large after a gruesome string of killings.

 Months after Alice Childs, a student at Stonebrook University, was found murdered in her dorm room bed, the Stonebrook University community still lives in constant fear. After the third murder just weeks ago, and despite continuing outrage from the victims’ families, police are no closer to apprehending the culprit. The university administration released a statement yesterday outlining additional security measures.

"They still aren’t doing enough. I just can't understand how this keeps happening," comments Frankie Childs, mother of the first victim. "I'm calling on the public to take action if the police and university of Stonebrook will not. The school needs to be shut down until a suspect is identified. Especially when all signs point to the killer being a fellow student. Someone should be held accountable for the death of my daughter and the rest of the victims, Lauren Stanford and Callie Brown."

Childs fears the latest killing will not be the last. She has expressed her dissatisfaction at the handling of the investigation and lack of investigation of the student body. Her theory holds merit as the killer has passed among the students unnoticed by any potential witnesses. Despite brutally strangling and stabbing the three victims in the dead of night, police claim to have eliminated the first round of suspects.

The killer gained access to the victim’s rooms using their roommate's key cards. All three roommates have verifiable and well-documented alibis. All three victims were well-liked, with no known enemies. Most worryingly, the time between murders shortened significantly with the killing of Callie Brown less than a month after Lauren Stanford. The university community worries that the killer may strike again, and soon.

Frankie Childs continues her crusade for justice, “My daughter mentioned a strange incident in her Biology class- Continued pg B7

 

The newspaper goes right back into the trash where I found it, along with my empty coffee cup. The last dregs of coffee leak out across the words, blurring and obscuring the details. I take one last look around; the normally bustling campus feels abandoned at only 8 pm on a Friday. A lone figure hunches against the wind and walks in the opposite direction, towards the boy’s dorms rather than the girls’ where I’m headed.

A gust of long dead dry leaves swirl inside with me when I open the door to the dorm where I belong. The earthy smell of rot wafts over me as they settle to the floor. I wrinkle my nose, wishing I still had a coffee to sip to overpower the taste of decay that slides down my throat. It’s been an unusually warm winter, and it still feels like September instead of December. The air feels like everyone and everything is desperately trying to cling to a time long dead and gone. It’s eerily still and quiet inside the where the atmosphere should be filled with the sounds of covert hookups and poorly disguised parties. A shrill burst of nervous laughter from behind one of the doors is quickly stifled.

No one wants to be the next victim, but I don't understand why anyone is worried about being out and about. No harm has befallen anyone in public. The three girls were all murdered in their beds while they slept. No one died out getting a coffee, but my professor might kill me if I miss another assignment. My biology teacher in particular has taken a liking to me, I think. Her questions about my life, my work, my problems are bordering on obsessive, if I’m being frank. She’s too nosy. So that's why I'm out, braving the dreary December wind and sporadic icy rain. The caffeine boost to get me through my assignment that’s due tomorrow. I can’t afford to stop trying now, I need her off my back. If I can make it another two weeks, I’ll be able to leave for the semester. Safety and rest feel just around the corner.

The girls in my dorm are always analyzing the killer's type and looking for reasons to say they won’t be the next victim. I get it, my mind strays there too in what little free time I have. Morbid daydreams where I’m the one who dies. I don’t have many friends but I have enough acquaintances that I’ve had more conversations than I’d like about the Stonebrook Slayer. All of it feels rather over the top and unreal to me. Even the name seems too theatrical to be a real thing, a real person. The talk usually centers on the grisly details of the cases or amateur sleuthing theories about the killer and the victims.

Everyone is most curious about how the killer chose their victims. If you know why someone was targeted, maybe you can avoid succumbing to their same fate. Bullshit, in my opinion. I doubt the killer even knows themselves. I usually resist pointing out the fact that the killer's type seems to be no type at all. The only connecting factor between the three is their attendance of Stonebrook, a residence in the dorms, and being female. The dead girls bear no other resemblance to each other that anyone can connect. They didn’t run in the same circles. Physical features are all over the place. None of them had enemies, as far as anyone is willing to say. Deep down, I feel safe, content in the knowledge that I won’t be next. I just can’t be. I have that invincible feeling you get simply from being unable to imagine your own nonexistence. I feel a twinge of something. Danger, maybe. Some baser desire urging me to seek warmth and comfort inside my dorm room.

My roommate, Chelsea, is already asleep as I pass the keycard labeled with the name and photo, “Andrea MacKenzie” across the lock and slip inside the door. She’s an early to bed and early to rise type of girl which I just can’t relate to. The quiet beep of the keycard and smooth snick of the deadbolt sliding into place behind me don’t wake her. They’re the normal safe sounds you hear every night around here. I don't bother with the lights either; the streetlamps outside throw just enough light in through the window. Chelsea hates closing the curtains. I keep saying someone could be watching her at any time but she doesn't listen, even with the threat of the Stonebrook Slayer plastered all over the news and social media.

The lump in the top bunk that is Chelsea whimpers in her sleep and turns over, drawing the blanket up higher. I freeze as she stirs, but she doesn't wake, so I gently ease myself onto the bottom bunk. Despite my bravado about my late night wanders, I'm not stupid. There's a switchblade in my hoodie pocket that I pull free and set gently on the nightstand. I'm not tired yet. Even after the coffee I can’t handle my stupid biology assignment. So I pull up more articles on my phone about the Stonebrook strangler.

The details are straight out of a horror novel. Alice Childs was the first to die. Her murder happened only two weeks into the fall semester. She was in my biology class. She sat in front of me. always flicking her long blonde hair back, leaving strands strewn across my work. Not to speak ill of the dead, but she was kind of inconsiderate, I think. Despite how it annoyed me, I envied that hair of hers. Growing up, I had always wanted hair like that, long and blond and pin straight. Not my own curly dark hair. When they found her, her nearly waist length blond hair was gone. Well, gone from her scalp at least. It had been lopped off roughly at the base of her nighttime braid, the fine white strands flung across the room like confetti. There are quietest of rumors that she was strangled with it before the killer tore the braid apart. No one seems to know if her cause of death was strangulation or one of the 37 stab wounds she suffered. But either way, it’s common knowledge that it was overkill. Her funeral was closed casket. Someone pushed past a “normal” murder into something more unhinged and gruesome.

I knew the second victim, Lauren Stanford, peripherally too. It isn’t surprising, really; the campus is small and tight-knit. Although if I fell victim to this killer, I doubt anyone would care or remember my name. I'd simply be another generic college ID picture neatly slotted in next to the other 3. Under a headline, “Stonebrook killer Strikes Again!” Or something like that, with equal clickbait lure and salacious potential.

I didn’t really know Lauren, but I feel like I knew more than a stranger would. She wasn’t in any of my classes but I saw her around campus all the time. I feel a little worse for her than I did for Alice. I have an idea that she was a nicer person. When I think about Lauren, I think about the solitary time I spoke with her. I asked where she bought all her lipstick. She changed the shade daily, but they all suited her somehow. Bright jewel colors against dark skin were her favorite, judging by the frequency she wore them. But she also wore bright candy pink, baby blue, neon green and goth black. When I’d asked about her lipstick, she looked taken aback at first. Then this tiny little smile crossed her face. She had dark blue glitter on her lips that day. I couldn’t read her expression fully, but she seemed smug. And I ran because I was embarrassed. Looking back, I think she might have just been flattered by my question. But I’ll never know because she died later that night. Surely, she didn't deserve to die. Lauren’s body showed evidence of just as much overkill as the Alice’s body had. Although the police were sure she’d been strangled before the 41 stab wounds.

In the end, I found out where Lauren got her lipstick. The brand is a well-known public detail now. Her killer decorated her room and body with swirls of lipstick in a rainbow of colors and designs. I wonder what color the killer placed on her lips that the funeral director scrubbed away and replaced with a demure petal pink.

Callie Brown, the third victim, I never interacted with directly. But I recognized her on sight. She always wore scarves. Light decorative ones in summer and early fall. Then warm fluffy ones when the weather turned darker. She was strangled with one of them. I imagine it was the one she was wearing that day, a purple paisley one she favored. I always liked that one and wondered whether it would feel as soft as it looked. The rest of her collection of scarves was spread across her dorm room. Rumor has it they were splayed across every surface and splattered with blood. I found out Callie’s name when I saw it splashed across campus papers and the internet, attached to the photo of her face. I wonder what they did with that purple paisley scarf that killed her. Surely it’s in police custody now, evidence. How strange it would be if they chose to bury her with that one.

The details, hair, lipstick, scarves, were the kind of details that continued to be widely speculated about. Because they were so senseless but specific and personal; the kind of thing that must either be imbued with deep meaning or a sign of utter random madness. I can’t decide which camp I fall in but I’m not sure it matters either way.

I come back to myself, startling out of my reverie, at the sound of scratching at the window. Two little reflective eyes glare through the glass at me. It's the stray black cat that's been creeping around this room all semester. Chelsea calls him Angus for who knows what reason. She feeds him and leaves him water on the windowsill. She’s a sucker for innocent need. I hesitate for only a second before cracking the window to let him in. Cats aren't strictly allowed, but he’s Chelsea’s any way you look at it. The wind is starting to howl, spare raindrops splattering the window. Angus is looking particularly pathetic and there's a serial killer on the loose and it’s as good a time as any to break the rules.

Angus gratefully weaves his body through the cracked window. I shut it just as quietly as I opened it and Angus settles on my chest as I lay back down and turn back to my nightly reading. I know I should stop thinking and reading articles on my phone about the murders. Chelsea is a bookworm, her head is always bowed gracefully over some paperback or another. She wouldn’t mind if I borrowed one. I tried to ask her for recommendations once, but she blew me off. I guess I don’t look like a serious reader. Angus is less than pleased to be disturbed when I creep out of the bottom bunk to grab a book off the shelf at random, but he gets over it when I explain the alternative.

The book is, unfortunately, full of scary stories and urban legends. I read about a killer on the loose, a girl home alone with her dog. The dog that cowers under her bed but licks her hand when she requires comfort. Spoiler, it’s the killer, not the dog. A legend I’ve read before, but it rings differently in these circumstances. I give up on reading and place the book on the nightstand next to the switchblade.

I about what it might feel like to wake up with hands at your throat. Or a knife sliding deep into your chest, snagging on a rib as it goes in. I'm thinking of how long the seconds would stretch. The weight of another person, immovable, as everything fades to black. Angus lets out a muffled yowl and I feel a sharp pain in my hand. I hiss in shock and push him off my chest. He lands with an angry hiss of his own on the blankets next to me. I must have squeezed him a little too hard while I wasn't paying attention. He's bitten me and left a bloody scratch, claw marks across my arm and the impression of teeth across my hand.

The top bunk creaks and a hand snakes down and Chelsea makes that universal cat calling noise.

Pspspsp.

Angus glowers at me with only the disdain a cat can muster before leaning towards the outstretched hand. I don’t want him to go; I want the comforting weight of him on my chest. But Chelsea makes the noise and gestures with her fingers again as I grab at Angus before he can go to Chelsea and hold him tightly to me, trying to suppress his struggles.

Pspspsp

            Again, I just keep Angus from escaping. But Chelsea is moving more. The top bunk creaks as she shifts. So I gently lift Angus, let her fingers card through his fur before she withdraws her hand once more.

            Angus is still struggling half heartedly. But as I clasp him firmly, he settles and stills on my chest.

I glance toward the nightstand to make sure the switchblade is still there. It is. Resting just there, close enough to grab if I were to wake with a killer looming over me in the night.

My sleep is uneasy. I toss and turn, my head full of dark dreams. I imagine that something is clawing at my hands, biting my arm. Like Angus had earlier, but over and over and over. The pain finally rouses me into awareness momentarily, but it's only Angus again. A heavy weight on my chest, chewing at my already injured arm. I regret letting him in the room, but I'm too groggy to do anything more than push him away again.

I dream about the dead girls. I'm by Alice's bedside, watching as her blonde hair is cut away in chunks, a hand sprinkles it across the dorm room floor. It falls as light as feathers, as white as snow.

Then I'm with Lauren. Watching a hand swirl strange pictures across the walls in all her colors of lipstick.

Finally, I visit Callie, in a room full of scarves, fluttering like butterfly wings in a breeze. Like birds set free as they're thrown into the air and strewn across the room.

I can no longer tell if I'm awake or asleep, but I think I hear a whisper, a small terrified voice calling, "Angus, is that you?"

Angus is curled on my chest, silent. I meow quietly instead. I'm not sure what propels that decision. But Chelsea must realize it’s me, because I could swear I hear a soft giggle and the purring of a cat.

One last glance at the nightstand for reassurance. The switchblade is still there. I reach out and flick it open. You can never be too careful.

Once more, I drift into oblivion, the safety of dreams and sleep.

When I wake, it's with the abruptness of awakening after a nightmare, the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. Brilliant sunlight streams through the curtainless window. I can immediately tell I’ve overslept. Panic shoots through me like a lightning bolt. Someone is pounding on the door.

"Hey, roomie, let me in!"

My blood turns to ice. My roommate? It can’t be Chealsea at the door.

"I got held up last night and stayed with friends. I didn't want to leave after dark."

I draw in a shuddering breath and stare at the mattress above me. If that's my roommate, if that’s Chelsea, then who is in Chelseas's bed?

The human size lump in the bed, hidden under covers. The hand snaking down to reach for Angus. Did I hear Chelsea’s voice? Did I ever see her face?

"Chelsea, open the door! I'm sorry I lost my key card but please let me in."

My blood is on fire instead now. My mind racing trying to parse the sense from the nonsense. What are the facts? A girl outside the door calling for Chelsea, claiming to be Chelsea’s roommate. No, that's not right, I’m the roommate and I’m inside the dorm.

"You're starting to worry me, Chelsea."

I realize Angus still hasn't budged. He is cold. I flinch as something cool and wet and red drips from the top bunk. The bloodstain that spreads across my field of vision as I look up. It's with shaky hands that I move Angus' cold, limp corpse from my chest. His head lolls awkwardly as I set him aside. Someone snapped the fragile little bones inside his neck. My hands are like strangers, but the scratches and bite marks scattered across them hurt enough to assure me that these hands belong to me.

I pull myself up, scattering torn book pages across the bed and onto the floor. They cover the bunk I’m lying it. I glance at the bookshelf, no longer full, a lone book lies open, half its pages gone.  They’re everywhere. Pages full of words, broken and empty hardback spines in a layer across the floor.

I force myself to peek into the top bunk. It's Chelsea there in the bunk all right, but she’s not going to answer a door anytime soon.

"If you don't open the door or answer one of my texts right now, I'm getting an RA."  The voice outside calls.

Chelsea's roommate. Andrea. Her name comes back to me now as I picture the keycard in my hand. The one with a name and face that don’t match my own. The keycard that I used to get inside this room last night.

The bite marks on my hands. They aren't all from Angus. Unmistakably human teeth marks mar my arms. And the scratches, so many more than Angus alone gave me.

Chelsea fought me harder than any of the rest. That's why I was so tired and I laid back down to sleep. I don’t usually do that.

Angus, he kept yowling, and I wanted to sleep; I didn't want anyone to check.

I’m starting to panic now. What did I do? What do I do?

"Chelsea!" Andrea says sharply, "One last chance."

I muster up my voice, "Coming," I call softly. I think I do a passable impression. I've spent weeks watching Chelseas's every move through those curtainless windows after all.

The switchblade on the nightstand catches my attention. In the sunlight shining through the window, the blade glints weakly, the faintest hint of silver shining through the red.

I stumble forward through the sea of paper on the floor, scattered with words and bloodstains. My hand closes over the handle as I move to answer the door.