2nd May, 1999 - Late Evening

  The call that I had been waiting for didn’t come until the next morning. This, Jane explained, was because of the state the other body had been found in. It had been lying by the side of a country road some ways out of town and there were a great many other bones found in the same place. It took her half a day just to work out which of the bones belonged to the man, and which to wildlife. By her count, there were five deer, three squirrels, a coyote and lastly a man, all found within about one hundred square feet. Every body had those same marks and although the database spat out that the bite pattern was most similar to Galeocerdo Cuvier, the Tiger Shark, it wasn’t an exact match and therefore the result was inconclusive. Sadly that was all they had to go on as the bodies were that old any saliva would have long since disappeared.

  Meanwhile I hadn’t been idle. My strategy for beginning any investigation was to ask around a bit and see if that generated any leads. Before I headed out I took a look at the missing person database in and around Gateway for the last month or so to try and see if any of them could have been the bodies that had so far shown up. Seven people had been reported missing, three women, four men. I took their names, next of kin and addresses all down in my notebook and set out into the morning chill. My first port of call was the local diner to pick up some breakfast and ask around as to if anybody there had seen anything weird in the last month. None of the patrons reported anything, but as I sat there eating my bacon and scrambled eggs the owner Molly came up to me. “Heard you been asking about any strangeness, well I got something.” She spoke in a low voice, sitting down across from me. I leaned in and said, conspiratorially, “What might that be? Tell me all that you can remember.” She fidgeted shyly for a moment, shifting her brown hair to the side, then she told me. “Well, you see, I like making sure my staff get home by the time it’s dark. What with the wildlife, and people for that matter, you sometimes get out here. So I end up doing a lot of the night shifts myself. I live in an apartment above the diner so I don’t need to worry about walking home. Anyway, for a month now, I’ve been seeing this strange man about the place. He must be new in town because I don’t remember seeing him before then. He must just skulk around because I mostly just see him wandering past through the windows. Sometimes he comes in to just sit in the corner and watch but he never orders anything and he always keeps his face wrapped up in this scarf. He wears a long black cloak and high hat like those people in old photos. I think he must live near Mesa Drive as it’s the only house that's sold around here in a while. That's all I got. Would you be a dear and check it out for me?” She finished. I said I would most certainly try, and added the house on Mesa Drive to my list of places to visit and set out towards my first destination.

  It was about midday when I arrived at the first house on my list. Mr and Miss Holmes were pleased to see that something was finally being done to locate their missing daughter, the eldest of three. They said that on the 7th of April she had offered to run down to the convenience store on the campus before it shut at 10pm to pick up some things that they had forgotten when out grocery shopping the previous day. She had not returned. Four of the other addresses I visited had similar stories. Each time an adolescent member of the household had been out late and simply vanished into the night, never to return, and all of them either were going somewhere on the campus, or would likely have taken a route that led them through the campus. Two of the missing were living within accommodation on campus and had gone missing during large scale parties or other social gatherings. Both had similar stories, the missing had simply become separated from their group during said event and, when the group had all met back up to leave and head home, the missing person wasn’t there. At the time both groups had been drunk and so assumed that whoever was missing had simply joined another group or gotten lucky, heading back without them. Now I try not to be a paranoid man but when I heard this my brain immediately picked up on the patterns. A total of seven since the beginning of April meant that roughly two young people were vanishing per week in this town, and all around the area of the campus. That was certainly a lead worth investigating. However, there was something I had said I would do first.

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  As I closed in on the house down Mesa Drive, night was well and truly upon Gateway. It was 8pm when my truck pulled up outside. I moved straight to the door and knocked confidently three times. When I didn’t get an immediate response I yelled “Hello? It’s the Sheriff, just wanted to talk to ya for a moment if you don’t mind!?” Again, nothing. I was about to knock again but just before my fist touched the wood the door opened a crack, slowly. A godawful whiff came from that crack in the door that hit me something fierce and the face that stared at me from it was pale and drawn. I could only see the man's eyes and nose between the boundaries of the scarf he had wrapped around his face and his tophat. Now I ain’t a weak man but those eyes gave me chills, they seemed to glint crimson in the dark and his skin was terribly pale. “Hello Officer. What may I assist you with?” The man spoke in a deep, hollow sounding rasp that carried a distinctive accent I could not quite place. As much as his appearance and manner unsettled me, I tried my best to be polite. “Hello Sir, I’m the new Sheriff Ben Vance and I was just wondering if you had seen anything weird going on during the last month or so?” Even though I did my best to keep my composure, I couldn’t prevent my voice from cracking slightly at the end of my question. If the man noticed he gave no sign, he simply replied in that same deep voice “No Officer. I have not. Good evening.” With that he shut the door in my face. I had to take a second in my car to just breathe untainted air again. No wonder Molly had found this guy so weird. I drove away from that place as fast as I could. Me and Jane were gonna need to have a long talk about this guy and his involvement. There was no evidence against him as of yet but his voice and manner had set all of my alarm bells right off. That odor as well, smelt for all the world like… old blood. I was back in the station quick enough, though I wasn’t down for the night shift this evening. I wrote up my report and sent off several emails to Jane and the rest of the staff. Scheduled a meeting on the 3rd to discuss the situation. This morning we had our call and I spent the day going over the information we had thus far with Jane and a couple deputies. We will certainly have to keep an eye on this strange man. We’ve sent a request for the footage from campus CCTV which is also meant to arrive tomorrow. Hopefully we can get solid enough evidence for a search warrant. I will update when I have more information.