My night started off as normal as could be. I arrived at the department, stood in formation for our nightly brief, had a quick bathroom break, and then followed Officer Reynolds to the garage to get into our police cruiser. I’ve only been a cop for three months, and in that time, I have been assigned Jeremy Reynolds as my Field Training Officer. In his near thirty years of service, Officer Reynolds has become somewhat of a staple in Crestwood. Even my parents knew him back when he was still a probationary officer, such as myself.
He was kind of mid in the ways of training, which I have always just attributed to his old school way of doing things. He would rather me figure things out on my own, and If I fail, he would rub my nose in it like a dog that peed on the floor. Despite being in his late fifties, he was still in fairly good shape, standing at over six-feet in height, and being worth probably about two of my five-foot-five stature. Not the friendliest guy in the world, but I did admire his dedication to police work.
“Do you want to drive first, or do you want me to?” he asked. It was a month before he even gave me the option. Back when I was first assigned to him, he didn’t let me anywhere near the wheel of the cruiser, saying that he would rather us get from point A-to-B in a timely manner, and would occasionally go on tirades about not trusting new officers, and claiming that he had a family to get back to.
“I got this,” I said, snatching the keys from his fingers.
I got in the driver’s seat and adjusted the seat to fit my height. He got in the passenger side and started sipping on his cup of coffee, then turned his head to face mine. His bald head seemed to be perspiring much more than it usually was, which is something that always skeeved me out for some reason. My dad is bald too, and this hasn’t bothered me with him, but with Reynolds, its just unsettling. Sorry, I ramble.
“You need to stop and get one of those girly drinks first, or you think we could just drive to the beat?” he asked. He would be referring to a Bang energy drink, which last I checked, was very much a unisex drink.
I drove to a nearby gas station, where I purchased said energy drink, then he and I stopped at a local diner to grab some dinner to be taken to our beat. We both got the bacon cheeseburger. He got onion rings, I got fries. Crestwood is a pretty sleepy little community, and when eight o’ clock hits, there isn’t many options for food. We do have The Crestwood Inn, which is the only business in town that’s open twenty-four hours, and is a local hotspot for night shift workers to grab food. It’s your typical greasy little diner that the health department should have shut down back in the 80’s, but the food isn’t bad, and its not like there are a world of choices out here.
“Thanks for buying dinner,” I said, shoving a few more French fries in my mouth. “Very…uh…uncharacteristic of you.”
“Nothing but a thing Brooks,” he said, continuing to gaze into the distance of our beat.
We always got the beat on the outskirts of town, just outside the Verdant Forest, which is a fairly large stretch of woods that surrounds Crestwood. It’s a popular spot for hunters, fishers, and weekend hikers. Its also a hotspot for teenaged thrill seekers, urban explorers, and recreational pot smokers, which is mainly why we have always been posted out here. In my three months of being a rookie for the Crestwood Police Department, we have had to break up two parties, six smoke sessions, and cite three criminal trespassers, as not all of the Verdant Forest is public land.
“Did you know that there are over four-hundred types of Australian spiders?” I asked. He looked over at me, holding his coffee cup away from his lips, and stumbled to find words.
“Why the fuck would I want to know that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just in case you visit Australia after you retire,” I said.
I played a car game once on the way to Disney World with my family when I was younger, and this became the birth of my “Amanda’s Fun Facts”, which I casually drop in conversation on a day-to-day basis. Why do I do this? I have no clue. Maybe its to defuse an awkward situation, maybe I just like to educate the masses with information that they’ll never use. It is still a mystery.
“People like me don’t retire Brooks. Not in the cards,” he said, using one of the diners’ napkins to wipe the sweat away from his head, then finishing it off with a sweep across his face.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, taking another sip from my Bang.
“There comes a time in a man’s life where he has to face the reality of the world. Most people think that if they work for thirty years, they could retire in their fifties and enjoy the rest of their lives in peace. I did eight years in the Marine Corps, and twenty-eight with the police department. That’s thirty-six years of service to everybody that isn’t me. If I were to retire, I would simply cease to exist, and I’m not ready for that. And the way things have worked for me in the past, I get the feeling that I’ll never see retirement, and I think I have to just be okay with that.”
“Dude, you’re depressing me,” I joked, but certainly wasn’t really joking. Je just chuckled while wiping more sweat away from his head.
“So, Brooks. What made you want to be a cop?” he asked.
In the three months I’ve known this man, he’s never asked me that question, or even gotten to know anything personal about me. He spent more time quizzing me on police related matters, and scoffing if I had gotten an answer wrong. I thought back to everything that played a part in me wanting to be a cop, and feared that my answer wouldn’t be sufficient enough for the seasoned police officer. Just as I had opened my mouth to answer, a call came over the radio requesting nearby units to respond to a noise complaint at 712 Lilly Court, which was about five miles away from our beat.
“Roger, good copy,” Officer Reynolds said into the radio. “Alright Brooks, lets hit it.”
I drove off from our parked position and started heading down the winding road of trees and hanging moss. It was a simple noise complaint, so there was no real hurry to get there, and it wasn’t quite 9PM yet, so there more than likely wouldn’t be any noise ordinances broken. Still, I kept a good ten miles per hour over the speed limit, slowing down on the curves, and speeding up again on the straightaways. I also kept the lights and sirens off since this was a call made to the department, and not emergency services.
We arrived on Lilly Court in about six minutes. It was a very small neighborhood, consisting of three houses, two trailers, and a small mom and pop auto shop. It was a bit off from the main town of Crestwood, and was only about a mile and a half away from being outside of our jurisdiction. The street suffered from many damages in the pavement, making driving through there a very bumpy ride. The entire street also had exactly one light post, making the entire neighborhood extremely dark.
“712,” Reynolds said, pointing at a house with the front door wide open. I slowed the cruiser down and came to a complete halt once the car was adjacent with the home. There didn’t appear to be anybody inside, as all of the lights were turned off. The trailer across the street from the house had a single light on, while the house next door had all of the lights on the back portion of the house on. This would be the only real light in this front portion of the neighborhood.
Officer Reynolds and I stepped out of the vehicle and both of us turned on our flashlights. The LED lights were probably our biggest ally on this dark property. The yard was littered with roof shingles, fallen branches from an oak tree a few feet away from the house, and random pieces of yard furniture, which was scattered only feet away from the door. In a neighborhood such as this, it was hard to tell if this was a thing that was done recently, or if it had been there intentionally. Weird observation, but this is Louisiana after all.
We approached the front door of the house. Officer Reynolds put his foot on one of the concrete steps and peered into the home, flashlight pointing at the ground. It was about ninety degrees outside with the sun down, but the inside of this particular house had to be well over one-hundred. I could feel the hot air of the house hit me like I was opening an oven.
“Crestwood Police Department. Is anybody home?” Officer Reynolds called into the house.
There was no reply. The house seemed completely empty. From the angle that I was positioned at, I could see a Tv a few feet away from the door, with a couch maybe five feet in front of it with a blue and white bed comforter balled up on top of it. There were also a few pairs of shoes by the door, an open duffel bag near an archway, which by the looks of it, led to the kitchen, which had a table with a few dishes on it. So, this house was definitely occupied.
I ran the beam of my flashlight from the threshold of the door against the far wall of the house. There was a door through the kitchen on the far wall, which must have been a bedroom, or maybe a bathroom. The house was small enough to jump to these conclusions from the outside. I wouldn’t be able to confirm that without actually going into the house. We didn’t really have any probable cause to enter, and we both ran the risk of a lawsuit if we went in without a warrant. There would need to be a measurable degree of danger present, and we just didn’t have that. Our next step would be to knock on neighbors’ doors to see if they heard anything, but something very peculiar caught my attention.
“Look,” I said, aiming my flashlight in a figure eight movement.
On the wall near the door was a large red circle, about four feet in diameter, with a red line moving diagonally from the upper right side of the circle, down to the lower left, with about a foot of each end of the line surpassing the circle. Areas of the painted design dripped down in a sloppy fashion, making it fairly apparent that it was concocted fairly recently.
“Holy shit,” Officer Reynolds said, moving the beam of his own flashlight over to the design. He moved into the home, shining his light in each direction, potentially trying to keep a would-be assailant or homeowner from creeping up on him. “We’re coming in. Nobody move!”
He drew his .45 from his holster and kept the barrel in line with the beam of his flashlight. My heart started racing. Suddenly I seemed to have forgotten all of my police academy training. There is only so much that you can be taught in a simulated and controlled environment, and even though I had been on the force for three months, it dawned on me that I had never had to enter a residence in this fashion. Still, despite the level of anxiety that I was already feeling, I drew my 9mm and followed suit behind Officer Reynolds, keeping my weapon at the low ready.
We walked through the living room, which looked like it had been occupied recently. There were a few empty beer cans sitting on the floor next to a PlayStation controller. The system also sat there with the red light on, implying to me that it had shut itself off for lack of usage. The kitchen was a bit messy, but not really dirty by the looks of it. Just a few dirty dishes in the sink and some random pieces of trash littered about the counter.
I reached the door near the red marking first. I holstered my flashlight, held my gun by my side, and prepared to kick my way into the room. Officer Reynolds placed his arm out in front of me and held me back. He then took his hand that was still wrapped around his flashlight and used his thumb and forefinger to twist the knob. The door opened and he went in, pointing his gun out in front of him, then turning towards both sides of the room. I entered in after him, keeping my weapon pointed high.
“Good God,” I trembled. On the bed was a man and a woman, both seeming to be in their early twenties. He was lying face up. His left arm and leg hanging off the bed, eyes wide open, soaking in a puddle of his own blood, which dripped onto the linoleum floor. He had a deep wound piercing from one side of his neck to the other. I would guess with a wound like that, he would have probably been dead rather quickly. The girl in bed next to him didn’t look so lucky. She was completely naked, which was barely even noticeable given the amount of blood on her. The only problem was that she didn’t have any direct wounds on her body. The thing that disturbed me about this the most, was the fact that her body was completely stiff, and her face was frozen to match something that looked like it was in absolute peril. Such a pretty girl, frozen in the state of horror that were the final moments of her life.
Reynolds shined his light along the walls of the bedroom, managing to keep a decently impressive strong face, while I was fighting the urge not to throw up the bacon cheeseburger that I had just eaten. In the lefthand corner of the room, closest to the bedroom door, was another archway that led into the bathroom. I walked in, peered my head around the corner, and entered in to clear the room, pointing my pistol at the high ready, keeping my left shoulder to the bathroom closet door.
“We need all available units in the area over at 712 Lilly Court. Send EMS. We’ve got two casualties,” Reynolds said into the radio.
Reynolds examined the body of the woman on the bed for a few seconds, then placed his finger on her chest, right above her breasts, seemingly tracing a line over her. That was when I noticed that there was something really odd about the state of her deceased body. The blood wasn’t hers. Logic would simply tell me that it was from the guy that she was in bed with. More specifically, there was a symbol drawn in the blood on her chest, which Reynolds was examining. As I got closer to examine it further, I noticed that it was a symbol not entirely different from the one on the wall outside in the kitchen. It was the same circle, but instead of having a diagonal line down it, this one had a line going through the middle, going from left to right, with a portion of each side of the line sticking out evenly on the outside of each side of the circle.
“Who the fuck could do something like this?” I asked.
“It looks like our Occult Killer strikes again,” Reynolds said.
Never would have guessed in a million years that I would be responding to a call that involved the murder victims of the Occult Killer of Crestwood. I also never thought that Crestwood would be the home of a serial killer in the first place, but yet hear we are on both counts. No evidence ever left behind, no DNA fragments, no facial ID’s, probably because everybody who sees him gets killed, but also, he is the biggest puzzle for our sleepy little community.
For about two months now he has been wreaking havoc on this town. Residents are terrified. We’ve had a murder or two in this town before, but never anything quite like this. I hate to say this, as I am currently a police officer, but the majority of the officers in this town are uneducated on how to deal with such matters as this. I think most people were just kind of hoping that he would go away and be another Parish’s problem, but as is evident, this isn’t the case.
“Should we tape off the area?” I asked.
“Not yet. Wait for more units to respond,” Reynolds paused while looking down at the woman, tracing the sign on her chest with his pupils. “I’d bet my annual salary that this guy was the one who called in his own crime.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said.
The room fell deathly quiet for what seemed like minutes. I could hear my own heartbeat through the vast silence. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I could hear the creaking of a door. I turned around to the front door, which was still wide open, but felt a violent shove throw me to the ground. The bathroom closet door swung open, just as I was falling, and Reynolds placed himself in front of me, firing his pistol. In one single second, his gun fell to the ground, and the officer fell backwards onto the bed, holding his hand over a laceration in his neck.
The dark figure stood in the doorway of the bathroom. Reynolds flashlight, which was the only source of light in the room, rolled from his hands and onto the floor. The tall and protruding figure stood frighteningly still. He had no discernable facial features that I could make out in the dark room, and his body type seemed…um…average? I guess. Big enough to subdue Reynolds apparently, but not big enough to subdue a 9mm.
I sprung to my feet, firing my weapon center mass at his chest. An entire three rounds had hit him before he even fell backwards, but even then, it seemed to mostly inconvenience him. I fired off another four rounds, two in the chest, one in the neck, and finally one extremely fatal one to the head. He fell backwards into the closet, his body weight shattering the thin wood of the door, and finally landing on the ground. His knife fell only inches away from his hand.
I ran over to Reynolds, who was biting down on his bottom lip, blood running over his fingers as he pressed down on his wound. I grabbed a portion of the blanket that was on the bed and applied pressure to it. I could tell from holding the blanket over it that the wound was deep, and the fact that he wasn’t unconscious yet was nothing shy of divine intervention. I placed my pistol down on the bed near him and attempted to use my free hand to radio in to dispatch and ask what the status on other units was.
“Brooks,” he whispered, stuttering random noises in between failed attempts at talking. I quickly put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“Its going to be okay. Other units will be here shortly. You’re going to be fine. We’re both walking out of this night alive,” I said, not sure if I was trying to reassure him, or reassure myself. He grabbed me by the collar and put his lips near my ear.
“He’s…not…dead.”
A wave of confusion washed over me as I continued to apply pressure to the slowly dying Reynolds. I looked over to the bathroom closet. My heart sank to the floor when I saw that the body was gone, and the knife wasn’t on the floor. The flashlight on the floor only offered me enough light to confirm this very unsettling revelation, but not enough to analyze any further. How the fuck could he have gotten up? I shot him seven times, all of which were highly fatal.
“Okay, fuck it. We’re leaving,” I said.
Just as I attempted to pull Reynolds up from the bed, he shoved his knee into my side sending me to the floor once again. He started grunting furiously in the dark. I rolled over to his flashlight and I pointed it towards the direction of the scuffle. As I did so, the body of the deceased male had finally rolled onto the floor, lying face down now in a puddle of his own blood. As I leveled the light, I saw Reynolds holding the wrist of the man, who was on top of him, trying to plunge a ten-inch bowie knife down onto Reynolds. Reynolds was strong, but he had lost far too much blood. I lunged for my pistol that was still on the bed, but received a swift kick from the assailant, which knocked me against the wall.
My whole world was shattered when the man grabbed my service pistol from the bed, and like the cold-hearted psychopath he was, shot a round through the side of Reynolds’ temple, finally putting the man out of his misery. I could feel all of the blood leaving my face. I felt like this would be the end of me. Probationary Police Officer, Amanda Brooks, aged twenty-two, met her demise on her third month of being on the force. Buried along with her, Officer Jeremy Reynolds, military veteran, and respected police officer, shot and killed by his own partners service pistol. One of those things was too late to fix. But I may be able to make one thing right.
The man pointed my own pistol at me, aiming carefully with a steady hand. I thought as quickly as I could. I shut the flashlight off and put my chest to the ground. A gun shot went off, flying through some of the drywall behind me. I could hear the mans boots moving towards me in the dark. I crawled on the ground in the opposite direction. He was smarter though. He could somehow navigate in the dark better than I could. As I made it through the open doorway to the kitchen, he seized one of my ankles and pulled me back towards him. His grip was firm, and kicking wasn’t working. I shifted my body around and shined the flashlight back into his face. Even with an LED flashlight, there was still nothing I could make out about this guy, but in his overly confident state, he didn’t notice that I was aiming Reynolds’ fallen .45 between his eyes.
The bullet hit him dead center of his forehead. He dropped to his knees and toppled to the ground, landing in an awkward position that would more than likely break the average persons spine. At this point I said fuck it. I scanned my flashlight along the wall until I could find the light switch. Once I found it, which was behind the bedroom door, I flipped it on, allowing me to see the bigger picture for the first time. I groaned deeply, trying my best to fight back tears. I looked at the bed, where Reynolds lay, a bullet wound to the temple, and a deep four-inch laceration to the neck. Near Reynolds, lay the body of Jane Doe, and on the floor, lay the body of John Doe. There really should have been a fourth body.
I spun around, but by the time that I did, the same mother fucker that had just been shot a total of eight times now, ran out of the bathroom, and violently shoved me. I was lifted from my feet by the blow, and flew backwards, shattering a window with my body weight. I landed in the grass, surrounded by broken shards of glass, and broken pieces of window frame. The wind was completely knocked out of me. I searched frantically for Reynolds’ .45. At this point, I wasn’t sure how much good it would do. After feeling around in the dark for a few seconds, I was able to feel the metallic barrel and grips of the fire arm. I rushed to my knees to grab ahold of it, but before I could lift it off of the ground, I could feel intense pressure on my arm.
I looked up, and could vaguely make out the silhouette of a man from a distant streetlight. Still holding my pistol, he aimed it at my head. I was prepared to die. I knew I would meet my end in that yard, and by this time, I had sort of made my peace with that. I didn’t see any use in begging, and I couldn’t do much to free myself. Thankfully, I could hear the sirens in the distance, and I could see the flashing lights of emergency medical services getting brighter. The man looked over his shoulder and saw the same thing that I saw. He casually dropped the pistol on the ground next to me, then made off in the darkness. I pulled my flashlight out and aimed Reynolds’ pistol in the direction that he was running in, but he was absolutely nowhere to be seen.
I dropped the pistol and flashlight on the ground, then allowed myself to fall onto my back. I could hear doors slamming and people yelling, but I just closed my eyes and began to drift off to sleep. As I started to drift off, I could hear the voices getting closer to me. I felt almost feverish in my state, but I remember just wanting the night to be over.
“MEDIC!” a voice yelled, standing right over me. That was the last thing I heard.
I woke up in the hospital, surrounded by my mother, father, and two of my brothers. I was still wearing my duty pants, but my vest and shirt had been removed, as well as my boots. My mom started crying when she saw me wake up. My dad said nothing, but he did join my mom in hugging me. As far as my dad goes, that’s about the best you could hope for. Apparently, I had been brought in due to dehydration and overexertion.
The commander of my relief walked in, who was Lieutenant Blake. He’s a tall man, rough in the face. When I say that, he is void of most emotions, and rarely ever smiles. He exchanged pleasantries with my family for a bit before asking for some privacy with me. I had to assure them that it was okay, otherwise my dad would have refused to leave. But they all stepped outside without incident. I was grateful for that. I wasn’t honestly sure that I could take any more conflict for one night.
“Doctors said that you should be good to go in a few hours,” he said. I stayed quiet. I didn’t really know what to say, or how to address all of what happened with him. “I had to confiscate your service weapon. Its just routine when a weapon is fired on duty.”
“When will I get it back?” I asked, hoping it would be before I left the hospital. I kind of needed that gun in case a serial killer came back for round two.
“Soon,” he said. He looked me down while I sat in the hospital bed, not even blinking. “Its not your fault, you know?”
“I didn’t mean to let my guard down,” I said, finally allowing myself to cry.
“You did what you could. And trust me, we’re not letting this one go lightly. I’ll be establishing a task force in the morning. We’re not letting this guy get away with it. It’ll end with him behind bars, or preferably in the ground.”
“I want in,” I said, hoping to avenge Reynolds. The man saved my life, and my careless action of leaving my gun unattended probably cost him his. It was the least I could do for him. Blake just sighed and shook his head.
“Brooks, you’re a hell of a police officer. But I can’t allow that,” he said softly.
“Why not? I’m the only person alive to ever see this piece of garbage, and I think I have one of the bigger dogs in this fight,” I charged.
“Brooks, I really need you to cooperate here. I can’t have you on the road for a little bit,” he said.
“No! Please, I’m fine!”
“You know that there are officers that I’ve known that have gone over thirty-years without firing their weapons? I can tell you even less that have ever encountered a serial killer. Hell, in this department, there are two. One of them is you. You’ve been on the road for three months and you’ve already done both. We need to make sure that you are fit for duty. You’ll need to go and see the departments counselor, then they’ll need to clear you. If you check out, then you should be back to work in a few weeks, tops. Until then, you’ll need to take a temporary paid leave of absence.”
I fell back onto the bed. I think the worst thing for my psychology at this point would be to sit around and do nothing, knowing that this guy is still out there, and he’s going to kill again. I’m not a detective, but I’d rather be fighting the good fight. However, with the night that I had, I didn’t feel like arguing.
A couple of days later, I attended to funeral procession of Officer Jeremy Reynolds. I appeared in dress uniform. It was emotional. I was glad that other officers were present, and it wasn’t as hard for me as it could have been. He was right about one thing though. He never retired. He was a cop up until his last breath. He was a mean old bastard sometimes, but he had a good standing on what was right, and what was wrong. In his final moments, his primary objective was to keep me safe, and judging by what people were saying about him, this was never not the case. He loved his job. He loved his colleagues. He loved the community.
I got home and stripped out of my uniform. I was standing there in my bra and underwear, shuffling through clothes in my dresser, when it hit me. How did Reynolds know that he wasn’t dead? It was dark, and he was bleeding out. How did he know that our Occult Killer was up and about? One could reasonably argue that I was pumped with adrenaline, and he was thinking maybe a little bit more rationally, but that still doesn’t fully explain how he knew that this guy just wouldn’t die that easy? Did he know?
I put on a pair of blue jeans and a white tank top. I then reached over to my sock drawer, where I pulled out my .38 special. The department took my service weapon, but not my personal one. I just can’t shake the fact that there is more to the story here. There has to be, right? Regardless, I plan on getting to the bottom of this. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines while this piece of shit runs freely. Reynolds, you were a good mentor, and I’ll forever be in your service. Fly high. I’m going to make this right. I’m going to make you proud. Your death will not be in vain