(Content warning: Grisly murder) 2,744

Moose

Spider-Buddy
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
  3. Prestige
  4. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Primarily Prefer Male
He wore a hooded crimson jacket, that was a bit large on him despite clearly being carefully tailored, even in the dim light it was apparent with the unique design. It was modeled after an Ulster coat, cape included, though it extended just far enough to cover his pelvis. Thin black leather gloves hugged his hands tightly, thick black pants lay loosely on his legs, hemmed up by hand. The dark obscured his face under the crimson hood, and around his neck he had a bright red bandana. He held a few sheets of paper in his hand and was turning them over and over. Cardstock, folded up so that the writing was not visible.

He heard the bus stop above and pulled the bandana up over his mouth, putting the paper away, and began walking up the path, the trees on the path obscuring what little light there was from the shipping yard across the way. He listened carefully for voices, and there they were, two of them. A pair, he listened to them talking, a supervisor and a loader, working for the UPS shipping facility just past the navy facility down the hill. They spoke of their upcoming shift, complaining of boredom and soreness from their respective jobs. When they met on the path he walked past them, nodding at them. Once they continued walking he pulled his knife out of his pocket and turned on his heel, flicking the blade open.

He stabbed the younger one first, in the neck. A liquid gurgle came out of his mouth in place of a scream as the man used the crook of his foot to hook the supervisor's leg, pulling back and causing the man to fall down. As the supervisor fell he pulled his knife out of the young one's throat, and he turned to see the man's dark colored complexion before falling himself. The man with the knife then turned his blade on the older supervisor, going down on one knee and grabbing the man's head and smacking it against the concrete before stabbing him in the neck as well. The man's groan was cut off by a bloody gurgle before he even knew what was going on.

His two victims now silenced, he set to finishing the job, rolling over the younger man so his front was on the ground. He grabbed the man by the hair and slit his throat, soon doing the same to the older compatriot, allowing their blood to spill over on the ground. He lifted their jackets and stabbed under them a few times for good measure, never allowing his sleeve to be in the path of any blood spatter. Some of it got on his gloves but he wiped it off on their clothes before wiping the knife off on them as well.

He went through their pockets and pulled out their wallets and phones. He pulled the money out of their wallets and pocketed it. He paused for a moment, it was a windy night and he left a big mess for the note to get ruined in. He thought of it and pulled the note out of his pocket, seperating the individual pages before folding them back up and putting some of the sheets in each wallet. He took the hand of the younger one and forced his index finger to extend, swiping on both phones and calling 911 on each of them before setting their phones on the respective corpses. He stood up and began to jog carefully back down the path, going along the tracks of the railroad once at the bottom.

******************************

Samuel sat at his desk at home, making puttering noises with his lips and playing with his fidget spinner. He had worked late that night and was trying to puzzle out what he wanted to eat now that he was home. He wore a blue button up short sleeve shirt, his badge strapped to his arm, and khakis with tan doc martens, blue laces. He spun in his chair repeatedly until his cell rang on his desk. He planted his feet and picked up the phone, the contact number said "PD27" and he sighed, picking up the phone, expecting them to be asking about his paperwork.

"Umm... Sir... Did I wake you?" He asked.

"No, no you did not, I got home just a few minutes ago, what's up?" He asked, relieved at the tone in the man's voice, indicating that there wasn't any paperwork that they needed to do.

"We uhhh... We got two bodies here..."

"Well, get forensics there, why are you bugging me about it?" Samuel asked, deciding he wanted a bloody steak.

The man gulped nervously on the other end, "I'm here with forensics and well... We found a note..."

Samuel sighed and looked at the time on his phone, "It's 11 at night, is this really the time to be calling me for a murder-suicide? They'll still be dead tomorrow. Do you really need a detective now?"

"The note was left by the killer... At the top is Two-Seven-Four-Four-"

"Wait, two thousand seven hundred forty-four? Is there a comma indicating it's two thousand?" Samuel interupted.

"Yes sir." The man replied shakily.

"I'm on my way, where is this?" He said, the steak could wait, he would grab a burger somewhere on the way.

"Swan Island, Waud Bluff Trail." The man said softly.

"Call my partner, I'll be there in 20 minutes." He said hanging up. He grinned widely and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and headed out.
 
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When his phone went off Edit was two feet away and staring into his open fridge, soft light pooling around him in the otherwise stagnant dark. A pre-programmed jingle roused Edit from his contemplative stasis, and he realised he had been at the fridge for 15 minutes as it was beeping away in the background. He closed the fridge as he picks up the phone. He didn't really have an appetite anyway.

"Ciaran speaking," his english ancestry showing through.

[...]

"I was already awake - I couldn't sleep," he palms at his returning stubble.

[...]

"There's a what?? Oh good grief, just what I needed. Txt me the details, I'll be there ASAP."

"I can't believe this..." he mutters to himself. Edit flips the phone closed and makes for hasty preparations to a funeral at the Waud Bluff trail. All black should do. "...Getting pulled into duty at 11pm at night. I could be...". But for the life of him he couldn't bring anything to mind. One final look in the standing mirror and he was out the door and adjusting his scarf. An existential crisis could wait.​
 
By the time Ciaran arrived, Samuel was giddy, grinning from ear to ear as he looked over the note, occassionally looking over at the bodies he was standing over. He looked almost as if he had done the murders and was proud of it, the cops looked nervous and had been slowly backing away from him, one of them even going so far as to stand on the bridge above the tracks.

"Ciaran!" He shouted with excitement, "The killer decided to call the police on both of their phones before leaving their corpses so that their GPS could lead us to them. I figured out the order the notes are in." There was grease on his shirt from his burger and fries that had clearly been mopped up with a napkin, but it wasn't nearly enough. He shuffled around the notes so that it was in order, "Now, this guy used block calligraphy, a very simple technique, you just get one of those big sharpies and instead of using the point, you use the broad part and make long strokes. He also didn't round his letters, making sure each letter was exactly the same size, in all capital letters, his handwriting is virtually untraceable. I can't even figure out what hand he wrote this with because of the deliberate nature..." He cleared his throat, noticing the people from the middle class neighborhood at the top of the hill peering down at him.

"I'll just..." He held out the letter.

2,744
IF YOU'RE READING THIS, I WASN'T CAUGHT IN THE ACT. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A SHAME IF I WAS BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE MISSED OUT ON ALL THE FUN. I AM 2,744, IF YOU CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT THAT NUMBER MEANS, YOU CAN RELEASE IT TO THE PRESS, BUT I WOULD RECOMMEND NOT RELEASING A COPY OF THIS LETTER. COPYCATS CAN GET MESSY AND IT WOULD BE ESPECIALLY ANNOYING HOW WELL THEY WOULD COPY ME, IT MIGHT EVEN FOOL YOU. I WILL TAKE CARE OF ANY COPYCATS, I'M SMARTER THAN YOU, AND I DON'T NEED A WARRANT.

RULES: I AGREE NOT TO KILL CHILDREN AND MAKE ORPHANS AND IN EXCHANGE, I WOULD LIKE A BIT OF COOPERATION WITH THE PRESS. SIMPLY DO NOT RELEASE THIS LETTER, AND ANNOUNCE COPYCATS TO THE PRESS. TO ENSURE YOU CAN TELL ME FROM A COPYCAT, I WILL END EACH LETTER WITH THE WORDS: RULE ONE.

FOLLOW THE RULE AND MY ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE WILL BE NATURAL, AND I WILL GO AWAY THE SAME WAY I CAME, WHEN I GET BORED. NOT BORED YET.
RULE ONE
 
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Ciaran peered down at the notes in hand with a small grimace. Most days on the job came with their own internal conflict about whether it was humane to cage a criminal. But this posed a new level of choice.

"Jameson, I see it two ways" he gestures with the paper "we can do as the killer requests and not get the press involved - which already like chasing flies from horse shit - and then I suppose they keep killing, because we've got nothing on them yet. I don't like standing around. The other option is to deliberately release the notes to the press in an attempt to draw out a copycat killer. We might be able to manufacture a note so that we can predict the time and place of any copycats and try to nab our killer when they swoop in.

If this killer starts killing copycapts then they're almost like a psychopath exterminator. The only problem being, if we deliberately create copycats there's no telling who they will kill, and at least this killer has sworn off killing parents and children...yet if we do nothing its like we're saying to them that they've outsmarted us and they will likely try for something bolder. I feel they're setting us up for a lynching with this 'RULE ONE' business and there's bound to be more rules down the line.

The killer made a point of calling them self '2,744'. They're definitely leading us here. Any idea what it means?"
 
He paced back and forth in front of the bodies, "The note itself means the murders were premeditated, the cuts show that he gave an overwhelming amount of force from the beginning, but the placement of them shows some expertise. We're looking for someone extremely knowledgeable, and big. Not tall, the cuts weren't at the right angles for that... The note does say what they want from us when talking about the press, it doesn't forbid outright, in fact, he states he would..." He gritted his teeth, "Allow us to come out with the 2,744 thing... It means, whoever this is, intends to be a serial killer... And a good one. Before our man, there was two thousand, seven hundred forty-three serial killers. He calls himself that number because he knows he is the 2,744th..." He shook his head when Ciaran suggested there might be more rules down the line.

"To him... He's playing a game... There wouldn't be a point in him changing the rules... But I think..." He thought about the letter again, the wording and all that, "Why make no orphans, nor kill children?" He thought aloud, "He could have just given a number unless... That's..." He put a hand on his chin, "I don't think he would break his one rule anyways. At the very least, the note suggests that he finds the idea of killing children or making them orphans to be worse than just killing."

"We should release the number, and announce the reason." Samuel concluded, "But we won't know for sure if this is to throw us off the trail or not yet... So we release the statement, but ask around for anyone who could have killed these two. Who knows, maybe our killer is just trying to hide an ordinary murder." He said, a glint in his eyes, trying to prevent more grinning as he did, he certainly hoped that wasn't the case.
 
"Sammy, hold on. I think there's something you're overlooking here" Edit caught Samuel with a wide-eyed worry, hand raised in effect to halt the man.

"They said he wouldn't kill children and parents in exchange for following this Rule One and not releasing the information in these notes to the press - and that includes their claim as the 2,744'th serial killer, if that is indeed what this means. It may be a statement of omission, but I think this killer is threatening to indeed kill parents and children if we publicly release the the wrong thing. You think they're a very good killer at that. I just don't think we want to them to be killing more people than we can keep up with."
Edit relaxed his posture as though he found some sort of resolution.

"I think we'd better keep this contained for now until we have a better idea of who and why they are killing. We need to know their hunting grounds and look into any suspicious persons present. They have deliberately contacted us, and I think they can be trusted to do so again as long as they think we're following the trail they're setting out for us." Edit stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and exhaled a squall of air visible in the Portland chill.

"Let's go over this with HQ and make a decision then. In the mean time I think the forensics guys can handle this crime scene from here. It's too blimen cold..."
 
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He grumbled as he realized caution would be better than pressing forward as he wanted to, as excited as he was by the prospect of being able to deal with a serial killer. He sighed openly, "I guess you're right, we lose nothing if we don't disclose anything to the press... This man clearly wants his work to be recognized, but that doesn't necessarily include the press on this..." He said looking over the crime scene.

"One thing is clear from this scene, he's new to this, cautious but confident, he didn't wait for one of them to be alone, he felt he could take them both out at once, and he was smart enough to surprise them... This isn't the mark of a guy who does a one off..." He looked to Edit, complaining of the cold and nodded, "Let's get back to HQ."

****

He paced around his shop, looking at the scattered papers of his discarded note, the words of the paper that he delivered to the crime scene stained in his mind. He fidgeted as he paced, his hands balled up into fists and occassionally hitting himself, whether by accident or on purpose, even he didn't know. He went to his back room and found the pill bottle, he read the label, lorazepam. He poured out three pills and took them dry, the panic taking him over as he worried that the note that he left wasn't the best. His hands shook as he took a clean sheet of cardstock paper and a king sized sharpie, not confident enough for him to use the flat felt tip without ruining it.

He decided this was a time for priorities, his hands shaking violently as he scrawled out the note, the ink bleeding through the paper, staining his gloves. He growled as he made a personal note to make a new set of gloves. At the end of the note he squeezed the pen so hard that it popped, spreading an explosion of ink on the page. He shook the ink off and picked up the note, making sure the words were intact before going back to his back room, tearing his gloves off his hands before grabbing a pair of his disposable work gloves. He put the latex gloves on, scowling at his own hands that were visible through the sheer gloves.

He held the note up to his light until the ink somewhat dried and then he shoved it in his pocket and ran out the door.

****

Samuel walked up to the door of the police station in the dimmed light and stopped on the stoop, looking at the piece of cardstock paper that was crumpled and shoved into the door, the black ink visible on it. He blinked at it, recognizing the cardstock to be identical to that which was left on the corpses. He grabbed the note, unfolding it the black scrawl barely recognizeable including random case changes, "DO NOT! Let ME be known to the PRESS aS anyTHING oTHER Than 2,744" was on the first half of the page, and there was a large ink blot from the exploded pen on the second half.

He looked around and drew his gun, "Ciaran." He said softly, stuffing the note of his pocket and spinning around, "He was here..." He said, gritting his teeth and pointing his gun into the darkness, staring, trying to make out any shapes, seeing none. He tried the knob of the door of their station, relieved that the lock was still secure. He holstered his gun, "Was." He said to himself definitively. He pulled his ID out of his pocket and scanned it, the light above the knob turned green and he let himself in. As he walked in he pulled out the new note and held it out to Edit, "He's highly prepared but unsure of himself." He stated softly.