Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Work As A Detective. I'm Chasing A KILLER Called Smiling Jack | Scary Stories

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

I'm close.    Story from SleeplessFromSundown Make sure to check out more of their work at u/SleeplessFromSundown Original Post: The Tooth Fairy Killer [Part 1] : r/nosleep                                     Original YouTube link: I Work As A Detective. I'm Chasing A KILLER Called Smiling Jack              For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every day, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

The stone cottage stood shoulder to shoulder with other houses on a quiet small town street. The backdrop of giant redwoods made it appear smaller than it was. When I woke that morning, I couldn't have known I would be here. Such is the life of a detective. I lifted the police tape and approached the front door. My father told me that doing something right one time makes you an expert. It is advice that has proved to hold water. I am an expert at catching.

killers. After solving my first homicide, more cases came my way. The latest call was an SOS from the sergeant of a small mountain town. They had their first homicide on record. Nothing could have prepared me for what was to come. I fumbled with a key Sergeant Wood gave me at the station. He'd asked if I wanted company. I shook my head. I preferred to see the scene on my own. Out on the street, a set of headlights cut through the evening gloom. The car slowed and rolled by the house at a walk. News was already spreading. I didn't turn on the lights.

I wanted to see the house as he had. The girl was taken from her bed during the night as her family slept. My knee wrapped against a small table, and I threw out a hand to catch a vase before it tipped. I turned down my flashlight. Her room was in the back corner. The parents left it as they'd found it in the morning. The bedding pulled back, exposing a small rectangle of sheet below the pillow. A lamp and stuffed bear in place on the dresser.

No sign of a struggle. When she didn't answer their calls, her parents had searched frantically until the mother spotted something. I flick through the panel of switches until I found the light for the back porch. Two bikes leaned against the back wall of the cockpit. The grass was neatly mowed. The redwoods rose as a black mass as night encroached. In the back corner of the backyard was the garden shed. Its pitched roof set just above the fence.

I directed the flashlight on the window beside the door. The stain blemished the otherwise spotless glass. A crude smiley face drawn in blood. The mother called the police as the father invested. He found their daughter on the floor of the shed. The lawnmower and wheelbarrow shoved aside to make room. Blood stained her white night clothes and her face. I pulled the photos from the folder Sergeant Wood gave me at the station.

I lined up the picture with the floor in front of me. My stomach clenched in on itself. He'd removed the front two teeth on the top row and with the blood that came. had drawn the smiley face on the window. I'd need to interview the parents. The brutality of the crime and the fact that there had been no attempt to hide the body suggested this was not random. The teeth and the smiley face meant something.

I'd quiz Sergeant Wood at the station. There was no good reason he knew of that would make the killer target this family. The father worked at the bank. The mother taught second grade at the low. local school. No criminal records, no money troubles. Sergeant Wood showed me his empty palms for the first time in his career he didn't know what to do next. I flicked off the flashlight and stepped out out of the grass. The first stars appeared in the sky. The mountain air was cold. A mist filtered between the trees behind the back fence. A full moon pushed up over the horizon

to the east. I'd hope to find something of six. significance, some small thread to pull on. I sighed, expelling a burst of vapor with the mist. I went over to the girl's room a second time before checking my watch. Time to call it a night. I gathered up the photos and reports and turned out the lights. My best guess was still the parents. A girl that age has no mortal enemy. I closed the front door and heard whispers from the road. A group of four bystanders gathered on the other side of the police tape. I called out a sharp, hey, as if admonishing a misbehaving child. The muttering ceased, and the bravest of the four asked who I was, and if the rumors were true. I snapped back

that they all had better things to do. I crossed my arms and waited for them to get back in their cars and drive away. The small town telegraph was in full swing. My phone rang. Sergeant Wood. There's another one. He said. Another what? It's exactly the same. Text me the address. I'll be right there, I said. I set my phone in the holder on the dash and started the engine. I knew where to go. I'd already been there. The town has two main shopping streets that run parallel to one another. South of the town's center, those two streets form the eastern and western boundaries of the park. The police station stands across the road from the park on the western side.

As the light from the police station window came into view, I saw flashlight beams flickering from within the darkness of the park. Half a dozen officers made a partial circle at the base of a giant steel slide. I found Sergeant Wood and tapped his arm. He waited a couple of beats before acknowledging me. The flash from a camera illuminated his pale face. He stepped back from the ring of officers and spoke in a hushed tone. Victim's names Harry McFarlane. Fifteen years old.

He has guitar lessons on Tuesday nights. and was riding his bag home, he said. I trained my own flashlight on the boy. It was almost exactly the same as the night before. Two teeth were missing again, but this time the two on either side of the front teeth on the top. The boy lay at the base of the slide where it flattens out, and above his head was a smiley face drawn in blood, dark against the bright steel of the slide.

Were there any witnesses? I asked. No one answered. I scanned the faces of the officers in the gloom. They all looked a version of dumpstruck. Were there any witnesses? I repeated. A cadet named Watts pointed to a dome-shaped climbing structure. Two teenagers stood huddled together in the darkness. I tapped Watts on the arm. Close the roads. We don't want an audience. I said. The witnesses were girls around 16. They reeked of smoke and alcohol. Their eyes widened as I approached.

What'd you see? I asked. They looked at each other. The shorter of the two stammered a response. Are we in trouble? I focused my attention on her. No. No.

We won't charge you with anything. I don't care what you were doing. you see? We saw Harry lying there, she said, pushing back tears. Was he alone? She shook her head. Who was with him? I don't know. It was too dark, she said. What did they look like? He was average hat, I guess. I don't know. Finn, he was dressed in a penguin suit. A penguin suit. I asked. Tuxedo.

Her friend whispered. Did you see his face? Only for a second. Did you recognize him? I asked. She shook her head. He was pale. His mouth was all black.

It was weird. He was scary-looking. Behind me, a woman screamed. She turned away from the slide and buried her face in her. hands. A man in a dark jacket embraced her. Must be the parents. An hour later, I sat opposite Derek and Ellie McFarlane. Ellie searched the room with red and puffed eyes. Derek sat with arms crossed and a thousand-mile stare. I slid a cup of

coffee to each of them. Neither touched it. I'm Detective Chris Hassel. I said, Do we have to do this now?" Ellie asked meekly. Yes, we do. Time is our enemy. I began. Can you think of anyone who'd want to harm your boy? Ellie shook her head.

No, no, he does fine at school. He plays football in the winter. He doesn't have any enemies. Who would want to hurt him? Witnesses say. a thin man in a tuxedo. Does that mean anything to you? Ellie shook her head.

Derek? His eyes flicked in mine. He shook his head. What about the teeth? I asked. Ellie wailed and sobbed into her hands. Derek fidgeted in his seat. He avoided looking at me.

Derek, you know Chrissy? The girl killed last night. He shrugged. Not really. Your kids went to the same school. I said. The school is bigger than two kids. He replied.

Do you know Chrissy's parents? Ellie wiped her nose. Derek went to school with Chrissy's father, didn't you? Derek licked his lips. I don't see what that has to do with anything. Are you going to find me? this guy or what?" I held up my palms.

We're going to do everything we can. There's nothing you can think of. The teeth, the smiley face. It doesn't mean anything to you. Derek crossed his arms and turned his eyes to the table. We don't know, Ellie said. I slept a few hours and was back at the police station an hour after sunrise. A place was a hive of activity.

All available officers were on deck. Sergeant Wood received a heads up that the press were on their way. Two murders and two nights in a sleepy town set in a forest was sure to play well across the country. I told Sergeant Wood to conduct a press conference that afternoon and asked for space to do our jobs. A sweep of the park in the daylight turned up nothing of use. No fingerprints in the smiley face drawn with.

blood or anywhere else. No weapon used for the beating. No shoe prints in the ground. No one else had seen a man in the tuxedo. I called all the stores that sold or hired tuxedos in the area and nothing turned up. I requested to speak to Derek McFarlane again. I was sure he was hiding something. Sergeant Wood shut me down. We had to let him grieve. By afternoon, It was clear that someone had leaked information to the press. We'd hope to keep the details of the teeth and smiley faces under wraps, but the press already knew. They even had a name for the killer.

The tooth fairy. It would catch on. It was damage control now. Sergeant Wood instilled a town-wide curfew starting at sunset and finishing at sunrise. All events were cancelled with immediate effort. Wood put in a request to neighboring towns, and we were getting four extra cars to assist with a patrol of streets at night. Wood reckoned the killer wouldn't strike again.

I disagreed. The second killing took place opposite the police station. A few cars roaming the streets would make much difference. When night came, I rode with Cadet Watts. He squeezed the wheels so hard that his knuckles turned white. I told him to relax. A heavy fog settled over the town and glowed eerily in the streetlights and the pale light of the moon.

The town mostly obeyed the curfew, aside from an old couple out to walk their dog. We crawled the streets at not much more than walking pace. Everything was quiet. The coroner put Chrissy's time of death at around 11 p.m. Harry McFarlane was earlier still. As the night wore on, I started to think I'd been wrong. The killer would not strike again, at least not tonight. And then, a little after 2 a.m., the radio burst alive.

The location meant nothing to me, but Watts knew where to go. We raced to the outskirts of town in a parking lot at the head of a walking trail through the forest. The muffled sound of dogs barking echoed off the trees. We raced up a walking trail and came across a forlorn sergeant wood. He winced. A third kid. A blonde girl named Hannah. She looked worse.

She must have fought back, I fought. The two canine teeth on the front row were gone. He left her propped against the base of a redwood. A smiley face was drawn in blood on the trunk above her head. How did this happen? Everyone in town had stayed home and locked their doors and windows. Hannah lived alone with her mother, Meredith. Officers found Meredith asleep in a recliner with a TV stall on. An empty bottle of whiskey stood on the coffee table beside an upturned ashtray. She hadn't heard the lock on the back door break. She hadn't heard her daughter as he dragged her

away. The dog sniffed at the base of the tree and pulled at their leashes and bound into the forest. If we were lucky, they would find something. I didn't feel lucky. It's someone local, I said to Sergeant Wood. No one knows anything, he replied. Somebody has to know, and we have to find out or more kids are going to die, I said. His shoulders fell. Sergeant Wood knew what was coming. Three murders and three consecutive nights was borderline unheard of. The families, the town, the press, and the country would all want answers. Whatever blame there might be would be lumped at his feet.

This was now his legacy. Not the thirty years service before this week, but this alone. It would be his to carry for the rest of his life. life. Sergeant Wood was at a loss. And so was I. On a typical murder case, the killer strikes, and a methodical investigation leads to a culprit. We had no time for process. We were in the middle of a storm and had to think on our feet. The whole situation was unfolding at breakneck speed. There was something unnatural about it. I had no idea then how right. that hunch would prove to be. We needed answers and we needed them now. There was one place I had

in mind to start. I hammered on the door of the McFarlane home for the fifth time and checked the windows. Still dark. The porch light of the house next door flicked on and an old woman stepped out. I snapped her to get back inside. A light flicked on above my head. Derek McFarlane rubbed his eyes behind the protection of the screen door. Derek ushered me to a small round table beside the kitchen. Ellie called down from the bedroom. Who was it? No one, dear, go back to sleep, he said. Derek pushed and pulled at his fingers. His eyes were on the table in front of him. His skin was pale. I propped my elbows on the table. Tell me what you know. It wasn't our fault. We were kids.

He said, Okay, you were kids. Tell me what you know. Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked them away. I can't believe it's even possible, but it has to be. It's Jack Lasseter. We called him smiling Jack. He went to school with us.

He was. He had this deformity. His gums and his teeth, they grew outwards, so much so that he could barely close his lips. You could always see his teeth. So we called him smiling Jack. You bullied him, I asked. We teased him. It wasn't anything dramatic.

He was a weird kid anyway. Even without the teeth, I doubt he would have had. had any friends, he said. And you think Jack is behind this. Where is he now? That's the thing. Jack died 30 years ago. It happened at school, the one down the road here. Someone said something to him. I can't remember what or who, but it set Jack off. He ran into the building where they teach shop class. He grabbed a set of pliers and he started yanking out. his teeth one by one. When the first couple came out, we egged him on telling him how handsome he'd be, but he kept

going. Blood was pouring from his mouth and it pooled at his feet. A couple of kids ran outside and almost fainted. By the end we weren't cheering anymore. We were just in shock. How he stood the pain, I'll never know. Derek ran an index finger over his top teeth, and then his bottom. He got all the front ones out.

Top, bottom. There was blood pouring down his chin. I remember he spat and he pulled his lips shut. He smiled. A grotesque blood soaked smile. His eyes turned up in his head and either from the pain or the blood loss he feigned then. And as he fell, he hit his head on the corner of the workbench. We called the nurse and then an ambulance, but he died right there on the floor. Did Jack have a family? I asked.

A father. Ivan Lassiter. After he buried Jack, he showed up to a football game, drunk as anyone I've ever seen. In the middle of the game, he strolled onto the field, he looked up at the crowd and he told us we were all to blame for Jack's death, that we would never be forgiven. That our time would come. Then he went to church over on Olive Street and he hung himself from the balcony above the pulpit. And that was the end of it, he said. What about other family? I asked.

Mother, brother, sisters? No, no, no. No, no, nothing. They lived alone up in the forest. As far as I know, Ivan and Father Moore were the only people of Jack's funeral. And Father Moore buried Ivan. Nobody else went. No one?

I asked. We all wanted to move on, he said. And now, 30 years later, what? The ghost of Ivan is killing kids? I asked. Not Ivan. He was a fat man. The kid said the killer was thin.

Jack was thin. They said he wore a tuxedo. Ivan buried Jack in the tuxedo meant for his prom. He said. I replayed the statement of the witnesses in my head. A thin man wearing a tuxedo. Pale face and a dark mouth. dark mouth. If he had no teeth, his mouth would appear dark. Couldn't be true, but what if it was?

A bolt of fear ran up my spine. I dealt with the worst of mortal killers, but an undead one? I pictured the battered bodies of the victims, their lips and their missing teeth. The blood. I shivered. My investigation would. put me right in the path of whatever storm terrorized this town. And I didn't know if I could stop it. I rubbed my eyes. They hurt. I needed sleep, but it would have to wait.

I pushed down the fear. This was a lead. I had a thread to pull. I pushed aside the thought that a dead boy was terrorizing the town. I wouldn't let myself believe it. At least not yet. Where can I find Father Moore? I asked.

At the western edge of town, and with an outlook over the valley and river below, stands the town's assisted living community. A single row of identical houses huddled together, all constructed from the same cream-colored brick. Father Moore lived in number seven. His board paid for by the church he served for forty-five years. The sun fought to break through a sky of bleak and monotone white. The morning air prickled the skin on my neck.

I rapped on the door and heard a faint rustling from within. Father Moore is a man of 80. Age has bent his back, and he relies on a cane to shuffle his weary frame around his home. He blinked at me through the screen door. His blue eyes bright. He furrowed his brow trying to place, where or if he knew me. I held up my badge. He opened the door. The television blared a report about the latest murder. Subtitles struggled to keep up with a live reporting. Father Moore

motioned to the small two-seater couch and inserted his hearing aids and turned up the dials. Well, what can I do for you? I pointed to the television. Father Moore narrowed his eyes, and turned to the television, and then back to me. Terrible business. You hope such things will never touch you or your community. I only know what I've seen on the TV, I'm afraid. You buried Jack Lasseter and his father Ivan, I said. He sighed.

Ah, the days are few that I do not think of those two. They're both in the ground, thirty years now. What could they have to do it? with this." The three victims have their teeth pulled out, I said. Ah, the two fairy. He shook his head. Some would call it a coincidence.

I began. Jack Lasseter dies after pulling his own teeth, and now kids are showing up dead with missing teeth. In my line of work, coincidences like that do not exist. I'm going to tell you something else. Something the press do not yet know. The three victims all had a parent who was in the room when Jack Lasseter died. Father Moore's face darkened. Exodus chapter 20, verse 5,

For I the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Ivan Lassiter carved the verse number on the gravestone of his son, he said. My brain struggled to find a foothold. God's doing this? I asked. My heavens no. Father Moore clicked his tongue.

Jesus forgave. This is not God. It is the great adversary." I clapped my hands together. People are dying, Father. The final acts of Ivan Lassiter were confined to me in confession and in confidence. It is between him and God. My conscience will not allow three dead and three nights.

I interrupted. What will be the state of your conscience if another dies because you refuse? to help. Father Moore leaned his forehead on his cane. He took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling. You won't find answers there, I thought. But I didn't say that. I let silence do its work.

What transpired on the day Ivan Lasseter died was the next piece of the puzzle. Without it, we may not stop whatever was out there killing these kids. I needed him. His town and his former congregation needed him. Father Moore shook his head slowly, almost imperceptively. A clock mounted on the wall ticked incessantly. The news broadcast rehashed a summary of known events at the top of the hour. It was a Friday, he began.

I even Lasseter came into the church and requested a confession. He was drunk that much I knew. I rarely saw him at Sunday service, but I complied. What he told me in the booth, I took to be the ravings of a grieving man infected by drink. The night following Jack's burial, so Ivan said, he'd prayed over the grave. His prayers were not answered by God,

but by the adversary. The beast. Ivan bargained. with him. He would give his blood so that his son could enact his revenge. The devil appeared before him, cloaked in black, and he accepted the deal. All it required was for Ivan to spill his own blood. What did you tell him? I interrupted. That grief passes if we give a time. I did not believe there was ever such a bargain. A dream, perhaps, or a fantasy.

But not reality. I advised him to return home and sleep and return to me in the morning. We would make better progress when we were both of clear mind. He exited the booth and I sat there for some time. I did not know what to make of it. When I left the booth, I witnessed the most terrible sleep. sight of my life. I even had slit his wrist and hung himself from the balcony with a tablecloth. His blood dripped under the pulpit from which I gave my sermons. I mourned him and I buried him.

What are you suggesting? I asked. I am suggesting nothing, Detective Hassel. You asked and I told. My conscience is clear. I stood and took a pace towards the door. I turned back. Where are they buried? I even in the town's cemetery. Jack in the forest. I don't remember the exact place I never cared to return.

Somewhere special to Jack. He counted the trees as his only friends. I even had told me that. I nodded and moved to the door. Good luck, Detective Hassel. If Father Moore couldn't remember where the grave of Jack Lasseter was, I hoped there were others who knew. It took me the rest of the afternoon to find them. Derek McFarlane and Meredith Ames, old school friends and parents to butcher children,

had gone to visit a third friend from school, the father of Chrissy, the first victim, Speaking in person to Peter Yates had been top of my priority list until two more kids turned up dead. Now the three school friends, all who were in the room when Jack Lasseter collapsed and died, sat around the same kitchen table, joined in grief. Meredith and Peter peered at me suspiciously. Derek kept his eyes on the mug of coffee between his hands. It was Derek who spoke.

Shouldn't you be searching for the killer?" Why do you think I'm here? I asked. You think the killer's in this room? No. Does anyone here know where Jack Lasseter is buried? I asked. I called Sergeant Wood and told him to patrol the streets without me that night.

He had enough boots on the ground. I did not tell him where I was going, only that I was following a hunch. And with an officer stationed outside the house of everyone else in town who had been in the room when smiling Jack died, we had our best chance of preventing a fourth straight night of horror. Meredith remembered best where to go. We drove up the head of the trails, not far from where we found her daughter the night before. She explained that kids used to go to the gravesite on dares, usually around Halloween.

No one did it anymore. The whereabouts of his grave was not passed to the next generation. Most of the kids in town had no idea Jack Lassiter even existed. The light was fading fast. The cloudless sky turned a shade of purple, and the warmth vanished from the air. It'd be another cold night. I asked Meredith if we were close. She responded by extending her arm.

In the last of the light, the dark silhouette of a gravestone rose up between the trees. We gathered around. I shone my flashlight onto the lettering carved into the stone. Here lies Jack Lassiter. And below it, the Bible verse requested by Ivan. Exodus chapter 20, verse 5. Derek asked if anyone knew the verse. I recited it as best as I could.

could remember. Something about visiting the iniquities of the father on the child. Derek shuffled on his feet. You don't believe it, he said. I didn't respond. I wasn't sure what I believed. All I knew is that the common threat in this case was the people in the room when Jack Lasseter died, and the only living witnesses of the murderer described what could have been Jack himself. And then there was Ivan's deal with the devil? I had to rule it out, as mad as it sounded. I pressed at the ground in front of the gravestone with my shoe, compared to the hard ground on either side.

It felt spongy. I dropped to my haunches and took a handful of black earth. The soil crumbled wet through my fingers. It smelled as my grandfather's vegetable garden had in the fall, a pungent mixture of life and decay. Well, what's the plan? Derek asked. I shrugged. I played the flashlight around, searching the immediate area in the growing gloom.

A stones throw away stood the remnants of a crude structure. The frame twisted and warped. What is that? I asked. Meredith said. He built himself a cubby house out here. I thought about what Father Moore had sent. He didn't have any friends, so he made his own out in the trees.

I stepped over to the structure, and the others followed. I poked around and kicked at a rusted sheet of corrugated roofing. The moon, a couple of days past full, rose above the horizon. The pale silver light cast subtle shadows on the dark forest floor. The cloudless sky and lack of wind brought in the fog once more. I sighed. This was a fool's errand. I should be back in town where I could at least be of some use.

Someone was avenging Jack Lasseter, but I didn't know who. From behind came rustling. I figured one of the parents had nipped off to relieve themselves. But everyone was close by. Meredith had heard it too. Her head turned back towards the gravestone of Jack Lasseter. She shrieked. A dark, shadowy figure stood before the gravestone.

The figure turned towards the moon and held out its arms, as if taking in the warmth of the sun. I trained my flashlight on the figure and yelled out. My voice sharp and jumpy. I caught a glimpse of black and white in the clothing. A pale face. Thin arms and legs. And then he ran, almost gliding over the ground and weaving through the trees.

I sprinted after him, but I lost him in the darkness. I waited for the others to catch up. You all saw that, right? They all stared back at me, mouths hanging open. I grabbed the radio from my belt, and I called Sergeant Wood. It took almost an hour before we arrived at the police station. The descent through the forest was slow in the dark. Sergeant Wood demanded answers.

I gave away only the details that were important. We saw someone matching the description of the killer at the grave of Jack Lasseter. and he'd run through the forest and towards the town. That it appeared he'd risen from the ground and was Jack Lasseter himself was a detail I left out. Sergeant Wood checked in again with all the officers watching the home of Jack Lassiter's former schoolmates and the cars patrolling the street, and no one reported anything. An hour dragged by and then another. I started to consider the possibility that I was crazy that this case,

was getting to me, and we were all jumping its shadows. Except I had three other witnesses who all saw the same thing. I asked to see the names of the people who'd been in the room when Jack ripped out his own teeth and collapsed dead. There were ten names. Three were with me in the station. Another three still lived in town. Their names highlighted.

Of the four remaining, one died a few years back from a heart attack. One was in prison across the other side of the country. One moved overseas, and the fourth lived a few towns over. About an hour by car. I tapped the name. Marcus Kragisak. Get the local police station on the line, I said. I spoke to a cadet on the front desk.

She explained that they were short-staffed. They'd sent a couple of cars over to help with our patrol. I asked her to send someone out to wherever, Marcus lived. Have you had any reports tonight? I asked her. A local farmer coming back from visiting his brother picked up a hitchhiker, said the hitchhiker was a strange kid wearing a tuxedo. Didn't have any teeth. Smelled the high heaven. Thought he was up to something and figured we should know. How long ago? The clock of a keyboard sounded through the receiver.

Um, 40 minutes ago. We might already be too late, I said. We were. We drove in silence, Sergeant Wood, wringing his hands on the steering wheel. The lights flashed and he kept his foot down, but it mattered little. The radio crackled to life and announced they'd found another victim. The six-year-old daughter of Marcus Cradishec. Even though we knew what to expect.

The scene was a bad one. There was a smiley face drawn on the inside of the timber siding. Again, two teeth missing, either side of the canine on the top row. I interviewed Marcus. He had no idea why someone would do this to his daughter. When I told him about smiling Jack and the other victims, he just looked down to the floor. Told me he always felt bad about it. It was one of the reasons he left town.

He always felt responsible and now doubly so. We asked local law enforcement to keep the murder under wraps as best they could, at least for a couple days. The press wouldn't be up here asking questions, not yet. The local chief asked if we had any ideas about who might have committed the crime. I nodded, but I told him I needed a couple days. Problem was, I had no idea what to do. How do you stop such a thing?

If we went back to the burial site of Jack Lasseter, what would we find? Would it be empty? Would we come face to face with an undead monster who we couldn't kill? Such things were for stories written to scare children. We gathered what we could from the site and jumped back in the car, exhausted. The sun rose as we rolled down the highway. When we reached the bridge over the river at the outskirts of town, Sergeant Wood broke the silence. What now?

We're going to need some shovels, I replied. We roped in Cadet Watts and weaved our way up the mountain between the red ones. It was mid-morning before we left. Sergeant Wood took some time to inform the gathered press that there'd be no press conference and no questions. He'd catch some blowback, but he didn't want to lie. In the meantime, we would find out once and for all what lay in the ground in front of Jack Lasseter's gravestone. All else could be dealt with after.

Sergeant Wood didn't believe me when I told him the full truth. His initial anger at my keeping him in the dark was tempered by the ridiculousness of it all. But he was desperate. And so we took a pair of shovels and our weapons, and we climbed up to the makeshift cemetery deep in the forest. As we came nearer, we heard voices from up ahead. I'd spent enough time with him over the last couple of days to recognize who was talking. Meredith and Peter leaned on shovels.

Derek cradled an axe in his right hand. Their heads snapped around when they saw us, like kids caught sneaking candy. from the cupboard. The ground lay undisturbed by their feet. We've been here for an hour, Derek said. Can't bring ourselves to start. I pushed through them and jammed my shovel into the ground and turned the first sod. I had to know, the ground gave little resistance. Someone had disturbed the soil recently. The others joined, and soon we excavated down to the coffin lid, a simple box of dark wood. I ran a hand over the smooth timber. The wood looked new, could have been put in the ground yesterday. I looked up at Sergeant Wood. He leaned

on a shovel and nodded. I gripped the edges of the lid and lifted. The coffin lid came easily, as if the hinges were freshly oiled. Inside lay the corpse of a boy dressed in a tuxedo. His eyes closed. His skin white. I reached out a finger to touch the skin and then withdrew my hand. It was the strangest thing. He could have been alive and sleeping. This was no 30-year-old corpse. There was little doubt in my mind this was the same boy I'd seen the night before. It'd been dark, but I was sure. And then I noticed the detail that put it all beyond doubt. I put a finger to the cold skin of the boy's chin and opened the mouth further to be sure.

Embedded on the top row of his jaw were eight teeth of varying shape and size, the teeth of his victims. He was collecting them for himself. What if he wakes up? Meredith said. Everything has happened at night, I said. I checked the sky and found the sun, partially obscured by the canopy of trees above. What is he? Some sort of vampire? Sergeant Wood said. I shrugged. I had no idea how this worked. Vampires were make-believe, and yet here we were, with a perfectly preserved corpse that was reanimating at night and terrorizing the community. What do we do? The thin voice of Cadet Watts voiced the question we all had.

We need a priest, Peter said. Derek scrambled into the hole and grabbed a limp arm. Help me get him out. Derek dragged the corpse to a thick fallen branch. He positioned the neck directly over the branch and told us to stand back. He lifted the axe above his head and brought it down with malice. The impact made a dull thud, and the head rolled onto the forest floor. After a brief debate, we reinterred the headless body into the grave and filled in the displaced dirt.

We wrapped the head in Derek's raincoat and made our way back to town. The plan was to separate the head from the body, and we hoped that would be the end of it all. We waited until nightfall and took the head to the bridge. We dumped a few cinder blocks in a sack, and under the cover of night, drop the head in the sack. I took one last look before we tied it off. As the moon rose and cast the first of its light, Jack Lasseter opened his eyes. The head opened its mouth and wailed. I stumbled backward and I dropped the sack to the deck.

Derek swept in as if gathering a fumbled football. He secured the top with a plastic zip tie and dropped the screaming sack into the river. It made a dull plop and disappeared under the black water. We watched the meandering water for some time. None of us knew what to expect. It felt too easy. Derek said, it's done. And we left?

The killing stopped, and the curfew was lifted. We had no killer to present to the press, But, as happens with news cycles, everyone outside the town moved on to something else and they forgot. Eventually the town will follow. I call Sergeant Wood from time to time. His small town is quiet again. I think about it often.

I have nightmares. Of Jack Lasseter's eyes and his scream. Cadet Watts called me last week. He was working at night shift and took a call. It was a kid out of breath. Him and his friends were mucking around in the forest at night, and they saw something they couldn't explain. What looked like a headless corpse roaming the forest?

Smiling Jack Lasseter is searching for his head. I fear what happens if he finds it.