Being a cop in a small town in the middle of nowhere was, for the most part, rather boring. There were the occasional bar fights, for course, or the drunk drivers, and every now and then someone would get lost in the surrounding woods and we had to function as a search and rescue team as well because the town didn’t need both. All of that was nothing compared to the big city where I’d worked before, but I wasn’t complaining. After many years as a cop, a bit of peace of more than fine with me.
Said peace, however, only lasted until the day I got a call on my way to work, telling me to drive out in the woods instead of going to the police station. The order made my stomach twist, considering that nothing that happened in the woods and required the police’s attention was ever good. A hunting accident maybe, or someone had gotten lost. Whatever it was, it had me worried already.
The woods surrounding the town were large enough that, if you picked the right direction, you could walk for hours without coming across any form of civilization. For the most part, people stayed out of the deep woods and stuck to the marked paths on the outskirts of the forest. As it turned out, the place I’d been called to was also located in these outskirts, so I could drive almost all the way before parking my car next to the other police vehicles that were already there and walked the rest of the way.
It was an overcast day, cold even for early spring, and I felt anything but comfortable as I walked between the trees. A thick canopy of leaves blocked out what little sun there was and cast dark shadows on the ground, which only furthered my discomfort. I reached for my gun, just to make sure it was there.
“Hey!”, someone called out and I looked up to see my colleague, Miriam Webber, walk towards me. She looked unwell, a bit pale. “There you are, Jon.”
“Good morning”, I greeted her. “Sorry I’m late, I was almost at the station when I got the call.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not like they can run away.” She pressed her lips into a thin line. Unusual for the otherwise happy-go-lucky woman. That only served to confirm my fear that whatever was waiting here for me was anything but good. “It’s not a pretty sight over there.”
“What happened?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.” She led me to a small lake not far from where we’d been standing. The water was greenish and dirty and something about that made me uncomfortable, but I didn’t get the chance to pay much attention to it. What was way more important was the tent that stood by the lake, the small fireplace where embers were still glimming, and the two dead bodies on the floor.
They were teenagers, both male, one with short blonde hair, the other with brown curls. Both lay on their backs, rigid eyes staring up at the sky, mouths open in a silent scream. Their clothes were intact and no physical wounds were visible, which made me look over to Miriam in confusion.
“We don’t know what killed them yet”, she answered my unspoken question.
“They’re children.” I could handle all kinds of gore rather well, thanks to some unpleasant experiences in my old job. Usually it took a lot to make me sick. Children, however, were the one thing that never got easier. I couldn’t stand looking at the kids for any longer than absolutely neccessary.
“Yep”, Miriam confirmed with a joyless smile. “They still had their IDs. Brandon Hayes, fifteen, and Peter McLeod, sixteen.”
“I’ll take the case, Miriam.” I turned my eyes to the bodies again.
“Are you sure? We can work together, I wouldn’t mind.”
“No offense, but you look like you’re about to throw up.”
She sighed. “Sorry, it’s just… my daughter goes to school with these two. Brandon was over at my house just a few weeks ago because they did a project together”, she told me.
“Hey.” I put a hand on her shoulder and forced an encouraging smile. “I get it, don’t worry. I’ll handle this and if I need help I can just ask you, right?”
“Thank you, Jon”, she replied honestly and seeing the relief on her face made the decision worth it.
I left the (alleged) crime scene then to deal with the worst part of these cases – telling a family that their child wouldn’t come home again. Both families were devestated, of course, cried and begged for this not to be true. Another thing that never got easier, no matter how often I had done it. The grief of a parent who had just lost their child was the most painful thing to witness.
Questioning the families yielded no results whatsoever. Both confirmed that their sons had intended to go on a short camping trip and spend one night in the woods before returning home. They didn’t know about any enemies – their sons were children, after all – and they weren’t of any drugs the kids might have taken.
A few hours later, after I had dealt with both families as well as a bunch of initial paperwork, I headed to the morgue. Right now I had not a single lead, but I was optimistic that the cause of their death would shed a lot of light on the case. For now, I suspected a drug overdose. The lack of physical injuries ruled a lot of possibilities out, after all. Disease was equally unlikely since there had been two victims that were not related at all, and that two teenagers were to have a heart attack at the same time just didn’t sound realistic.
And so I entered the morgue, where the air was even colder than outside and the smell of chemicals followed me wherever I went. Opening the heavy door disturbed the silence of the room and the coroner who had been hunched over a corpse on the metal barrel in front of her looked up.
Dr. Vivian Stone was a woman in her early thirties, who always wore her dark red hair in a tight ponytail. She wore dark clothes under her white coat and dark make-up around her blue eyes and her lips were painted red. “Jonathan!”, she greeted me. “You haven’t shown your face around here in a while. What’s up?”
“Nothing good, Vivian. I’m here because of the two kids who died in the woods.”
“Shit, that’s your case?” She sighed. “That’s a bad one, Jon, I’ll tell you that.”
I nodded. “It’s always bad when kids are involved. I’m doing this for Miriam, you know. She knows the kids, this really got to her.”
“Ah yeah, right, she mentioned that her daughter is friends with the Hayes boy. It’s really nice that you’re doing this, but honestly, I fear you’ll regret it”, she said, twisting her lips into a pained smile. Her gloved hands, stained with blood, rested atop the metal table, right next to the corpse she’d been working on.
“Vivian, it’s tragic, sure, but I promise I can handle this. I’ve had my fair share of bad cases, you know?”
She shook her head. “I know that. I’m not saying you can’t handle dead kids, I’m saying that these deaths are…” She stayed silent for a moment, searching for a fitting word. “Bizarre.”
“You know what killed them?” I left my spot next to the entrance door to approach the table. My steps echoed through the large room and that was the only sound for several seconds, until I stood directly in front of her.
“Both died shortly after one another, I can’t possibly determine who died first”, she started to explain. “There were no physical wounds, no signs of a struggle whatsoever. Drug tests were negative.” She lifted her head, looked no longer at the corpse but turned her piercing eyes at me instead. “They drowned, Jon.”
For a moment I just stared back at her, let the words sink in and took my time to understand what that meant. “Vivian…”, I started, not entirely sure what I was going to say. “We found them next to their campfire. Are you sure…”
“Yes!”, she interrupted me. “Yes, I am sure. I know it hasn’t rained in days, I know both bodies were completely dry, but I promise you, Jonathan, their lungs were filled with water and that is the cause of death.”
“Bizarre indeed…” I was wrecking my mind already, trying to come up with any explanation for the strange deaths. They had only been out there for one night, according to their families, the bodies had been completely dry so they couldn’t have drowned in the lake. If it was a freak accident, I had no idea what had caused it. But the remaining possibility, murder, was equally unlikely, since their had been no signs of a struggle and even if there had been, killing someone in that particular way seemed awfully complicated and farfetched.
I did regret taking this case now.
“Wanna hear something even crazier?” She pulled the bloody gloves from her hands. “This entire thing fits a local legend. I don’t know if you heard about her… a female spirit of sorts, who kills her victims by drowning them. Shatterface.”
She paused after that, making the last word echo through the room.
I raised an eyebrow. From all the things she could have said, that was certainly the least expected. “A ghost story? Really? You’re a doctor, Vivian.”
“These things don’t cancel each other out. Listen, I’m not saying you should hunt a ghost, but legends like this exist for a reason and maybe if you find that reason, some sort of natural phenomenon or whatever, you can solve your case.” She crossed her arms. “Or do you have a better idea?”
I really didn’t, but chasing a ghost sounded so ridiculous that I was almost ashamed to consider this approach. She had a point though, there could be a natural phenomenon behind this story and if that phenomenon was the solution for this case, I had to find it. “Can you tell me more about that… what was it called?”, I asked her.
“Shatterface”, she repeated. “But no, sorry. I don’t know anything except the drowning, but I’m pretty sure you can ask anyone who grew up here.”
“Didn’t you grow up here?”
“Yes, and I’m also a huge coward who can’t handle ghost stories. I stayed away from this shit.”
That actually made me chuckle. “Okay then. I’ll just ask Vincent about it.”
“Good luck”, she replied. “I’ll give you a call if I figure out anything else.”
I thanked her and turned to leave, but as I was halfway to the door, she spoke again. “Jon!”
I turned my head.
“Be careful.”
And I promised her I’d be just that before I finally exited the morgue, still with more questions than answers. It was late by then, late enough for me to go home, but I decided to make one more trip before doing that. I wanted to drive out to the lake again, inspect the crime scene now that everyone was gone. Maybe I could find a hint.
Night hadn’t fallen yet, but the sun was setting slowly, casting the already dark woods into even darker shadows. I parked my car as closely to the lake as possible, but the walk still felt way too long. It had all been fine in the morning, when a few of my colleagues had been there to take photos and take the bodies away, but now that I was alone, I felt paranoid between the trees, as if something was watching me. Once again, I reached for my gun.
I arrived at the lake after just a few minutes and the water lay still before me, undisturbed by any waves. The boys’ tent had been taken away as evidence, but the remains of the campfire were still there, of course nothing but cold ashes at this point. I knelt down next to it, hoping beyond reason that I would just find the one clue that would bring everything together.
There was only one option I could imagine though. A suicide. A really weird, unrealistic double suicide. Either that, or Vivian had missed something. There was simply no other possibility.
Searching the ground for whatever, I suddenly felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The sensation of being watched intensified, I could feel a pair of eyes on me and was to terrified to turn around, afraid that I might find myself face to face with something. In that moment I was frozen in the gaze of a predator.
I wasn’t one to be affected by horror stories, but apparently Vivians mention of this Shatterface ghost had shaken me more than I had anticipated.
I forced myself to turn around, one hand on my gun just in case, and for the fracture of a second, I saw a person dressed in white stand between the trees, though they disappeared so quick that I wasn’t entirely sure they hadn’t been just a figment of my imagination. Still, I stood there with a racing heart and shaking hands, suddenly vulnerable in the vast, darkening forest.
I ran back to my car. It was embarrassing, but all I could think was that I had to get out of the forest before nightfall. Only as I sat in the driver’s seat and had the doors locked, I felt safe again. I rolled my eyes, annoyed with myself that despite years of experience as a cop, I had freaked out because I may or may not have seen something stand in a forest. I felt ridiculous, but my hands were still shaking.
The drive home was mercifully short. I calmed down as soon as the trees disappeared and were replaced by houses and streetlights illuminated my entire way. I parked my car in the driveway and unlocked the front door, glad to finally return to the warmth of the small house. “I’m home!”, I called out as I entered.
“Hey honey!”, replied a voice from the living room. “Dinner is in the kitchen!”
Happy that I didn’t have to bother with cooking, I went into the kitchen and reheated the plate of spaghetti that was waiting there for me before finally entering the living room.
On the sofa sat a man with dark blonde hair and very dark eyes, whose face was marked with a birthmark that covered his forehead, about half of his nose and his left cheek. Vincent Reed, my husband. He looked up at me with a smile and I kissed him before sitting down next to him on the couch. “How was work?”, I asked.
“Pretty boring, to be honest. My coworker is sick and the office is silent as hell without her.” He shrugged. “What about you? You’re home late.”
“Yeah… nasty case. I’m honestly not sure where to start with this thing.”
“Wanna talk about it?” He put his phone on the table and turned towards me, giving me his undivided attention.
“Actually, I wanted to ask you something.” I paused, contemplating if I really wanted to bring this up. It felt ridiculous, but on the other hand what damage would it do? Worst case scenario would be chasing a dead end. “What do you know about Shatterface?”, I therefor asked.
There was a short pause after that, just a few seconds of absolute silence before Vincent shook his head in confusion. “Sorry, did I miss a part of the conversation or did you really just change the topic from work to ghost stories?”
So I told him everything, from the moment I arrived in the woods this morning to my return to the lake in the evening, though I left the apparition in the forest out. He listened quietly until I was finished, then slowly nodded and said: “So you don’t actually think a ghost killed them, right?”
“Right now I’m… how do I say this… entertain all possibilities?”
“You’re certainly entertaining me right now”, he chuckled. “Seriously, Jon, a ghost?”
“Well, it’s not like there are a lot of reasonable explanations for this.” The words came out harsher than I had wanted. I wasn’t mad at him, but rather at the weird case I was stuck with and at myself for even considering a ghost did it as an explanation.
“Hey… sorry.” He reached out and placed his hand on mine. “I get it, it’s frustrating, especially since it’s about kids. And if you and Dr. Stone think this old legend might help…”
I nodded.
“Okay then. But I don’t know too many details. So as far as I know, this story has been around for decades. It’s basically your run-of-the-mill ghost story, one that kids tell at slumber parties to scare each other”, he began to explain. “Her name is Shatterface and she’s supposed to be a young woman with long blonde hair and white clothes that are always wet. Her face is apparently disfigured and appears like you see it through broken glass.”
“That’s pretty specific.”
“Yeah, that’s the part everyone agrees on. That and the fact that she drowns people. Her victims never have any wounds, it’s just that their lungs are filled with water. The rest really depends on who tells the story. Some say she can be found in the woods, others say she’s on the cemetary. I’ve heard people claim that she hunts beautiful people because she’s jealous. Others say she will come for you if you touch her tombstone or if you go into the woods after nightfall and say her name out loud. No two stories are the same.”
I felt disappointed at first, now knowing that there wasn’t a common denominator. No certain location, no natural phenomenon as Vivian had put it, which could help me solve this perculiar case. However, I also noticed that the description of Shatterface – blonde, dressed in white – fitted the person I’d seen in the forest and despite this probably being a mere coincidence, I felt a shiver run down my spine.
Vincent gave me a sympathetic smile. “Didn’t help, hm?”
“Not as much as I’ve hoped”, I confirmed. “You know what, I really don’t want to think any more about this shit today. Wanna watch a movie?”
“Sure”, he agreed and reached for the remote immediately.
We spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching some action movie, though I couldn’t really get my mind away from the case. I was almost glad when it was late enough to go to bed, although my chances for a good night’s sleep were rather low – cases like these tended to keep me up at night. My only hope was that I’d be spared from nightmares, at least.
Before lying down I walked over to the window to close the curtains. And for only a second, I saw a figure standing on the other side of the road, a person with long blonde hair and white clothes, looking directly at our house.
She was gone after I blinked and I wasn’t sure if my tired mind wasn’t just playing tricks on me, but I couldn’t deny that I felt watched, just like in the forest, and I was very glad that I wasn’t home alone that night.
-To be continued-