This all started after I ran down the stairs to the sound of someone breaking into my house one night. In the dark I saw a man sitting at my kitchen table. I could smell that he was homeless even before I turned on the light only to have my eyes confirm it.
Homeless or not breaking into my house is not a thing I take lightly. I was about to yell and throw him out but before I could do anything I noticed that this man also had a shotgun on his lap.
I asked him what he wanted but he didn’t answer me, instead he just stared straight ahead. It looked like he hadn’t eaten in a month and after a while of sitting across from him in silence I didn’t know what else to do other than to make him a sandwich.
Prodding him with questions as I prepared what I assumed was the first thing he ate in weeks, the man claimed his name was Cole Dyer and admitted to killing twenty people.
He told me his first victim was a hooker in a flophouse who he choked to death. This one wasn’t killed like the others because he didn’t know how he wanted to do it at the time or for that matter knew that he had a taste for it.
After killing her Cole expected someone to come by to arrest him but after a while with no detectives or police coming by Cole figured he was in the clear.
Feeling more alive than he had in years Cole’s murderous fantasies eventually took on a life of its own and started to consider himself “The Pass it on Killer”.
The reason Cole liked that name could only be explained by his twisted sense of righteousness and questionable moral compass which was explained to me in great detail. The gist of it was that if he killed enough “pests” good things would come back to him. Symbolizing this he would replace the head of his previous victim with the most current.
Realizing killing people he knew was a sure way of getting caught Cole learned what questions to ask complete strangers to discover the “pests” in their lives because “who didn’t like talking about themselves?”
Cole explained that he was great at talking to people and could “talk the devil into lighting himself on fire” so learning where these people lived, worked, what they drove and more was easy.
More often than not after finding the person Cole would decide to let them live because he called himself “paranoid and meticulous, always guessing and second guessing a perfect plan”.
Since the murders were spread out nationwide and none of his victims had any connection to the others catching him proved difficult. Cole told me that he was never arrested or questioned for what he described to me as his “hobby”.
It was at this point that Cole demanded that I grab a pen and paper and jot down his tale. Who was I to say no? Even though he had his hands on the table there was still a shotgun in his lap. I didn’t want to bet that it wasn’t loaded or that I was faster. The safe bet was just to write the story he was telling me.
While scouting for the next victim Cole found himself behind a small series of apartment buildings. It was dark while he was digging through some garbage in order to collect what he could about this next potential victim when he heard a small group of people huddled around someone’s basement apartment, whispering to whoever was inside.
Cole only saw them from a distance and at the time couldn’t see their features, though he described this group as being “greasy” and “dirty” with long hair and beards.
Even from that distance Cole could see that their eyes burned like anthracite. One by one they stopped their hushed whispering and turned their gazes towards Cole whose heart skipped a beat at the sight. When he went back to his car Cole dared a peek over his shoulder and saw them following him just out of the cone of light the street lamps provided.
“It creeped me out. I was already thinking of finding someone else to kill because I don’t like killing in apartment buildings. Too many neighbors, you know? When I saw them though that sort of settled it. I wasn’t going to go back there. Kept looking back in the mirror on the way home to see if I was being followed but in the five hour drive I didn’t see a thing behind me. The next day however I noticed a car driving slowly though my parking lot every few hours. I was smoking lots of weed at the time and figured I was just being paranoid but the next night I woke up to tapping on the door”.
At first he thought it was his imagination but then he started to hear voices on the other side.
“They called my name in whispered voices from the hallway as they gently scratched the wall against the grain. When I realized I wasn’t imagining the noises I looked out the peephole”.
Cole described at least five filthy and malnourished faces partially covered by long unkempt hair that did little to hide their matching cleft chins and lips or their dark, sunken, almond shaped pits for eyes that shined with a kind of hate and sin that even the Pass it on Killer feared.
The entire night they were calling him to come out of his room and to open the door.
It was explained that it wasn’t uncommon in the building Cole called home to hear drunken exes pound on doors demanding someone to let them in so these peoples quiet begging went on for hours. Eventually a neighbor Cole never bothered to get to know but shared a thin wall with decided to open the door and ask the strangers to “shut up or something.”
“She stopped mid sentence the moment she saw them,” Cole explained. “They pushed her back into her apartment and all piled in. They were tearing through her place for a while and I could hear her cry which caused them to laugh. If I didn’t have number nineteens head in the freezer I would have called the fucking cops, man”.
Eventually they made the woman call out to Cole, begging him to come out from his apartment. Cole could hear them telling her what to say. When she did they would laugh and get her to say what they wanted louder.
When Cole refused to speak they grew bored and started getting violent with the woman. “First the sounds of punches and things getting broken, but then… Jesus. They were eating her, it was loud and lasted until the sun came up”.
I didn’t want to aggravate an already delicate situation so I remained silent and allowed Cole to go on for as long as he wanted.
Cole sounded like a man who was completely and utterly defeated. It was obvious that even if these people were all figments of his imagination he still believed it to be true so much so that I couldn’t help but to feel bad for him.
It was around noon when Cole felt confident that they were gone and that it was safe to leave his apartment. “There was no way I was going to stay there. No fucking way”.
After packing his car and making sure to remember the head of his previous victim who he kept on ice, Cole went to some army surplus store to get what he needed to “get away for awhile”. To Cole this meant staying at a seedy hotel whose main customers included hookers, drug addicts and other types of undesirables.
“About a week later I was getting some grub at some grocery store, just walking in the parking lot and minding my own business, right? That’s when I saw them again. Drove up right behind me and laid on the horn. I didn’t even bother getting something to eat. I just wanted to get the hell out of there”.
By the time Cole remembered that he left the head of his previous victim back in the freezer at the hotel he had already crossed two state lines.
At this point of the story Cole had to take a moment, and knowing that he had a shotgun on his lap I gave it to him. He ate and when he finished the sandwich I poured him some milk and gave him the rest of the baby carrots I had in the fridge.
Cole traded his car for a van shortly after being honked at because there was no doubt that whoever was following him knew what he was driving.
“At least I could sleep in the van, right? Saves money on hotels and shit”.
It only took five weeks or so after trading in for the van that Cole crossed his pursuers paths again. This time he was in deep sleep when he heard them say his name, causing his eyes to shoot open, immediately locking on the dark eyes of a woman with the same sinister resemblance as the men Cole had seen outside his apartment, but without a beard this woman’s disfiguration was more noticeable.
“When she smiled it was like she didn’t have nearly enough teeth. The few that she had were small and brown and grew fucking everywhere” Cole explained. “Like the gums and the inside of the cheeks and shit”.
Jumping in the driver’s seat Cole, even in the dark he could see their black eyes glow with hateful light. When he turned over the engine the headlights revealed dozens of “her family” standing ten or so feet apart. “Some were naked” Cole explained, “standing still, smiling and just looking at me. Like they were giving me permission to leave”.
Cole told me that he swerved to hit a few with his front tire or to at least clip them with the vans “fat ass” however they all stepped to the side, effortlessly avoiding getting run down.
When I got the opportunity to ask what he meant by “her family” he revealed that was a recent term given to them. At the time he thought they were demons or vampires but no longer thinks that’s the case for reasons he did not share.
After that encounter Cole abandoned the van and stole a car. It was confessed to me that this was done whenever he felt that they were closing in on him, usually with the sensation of a tightening of his chest or his balls. Triggered by anything from something he imagined seeing in the corner of his eye to the cries coming from a murder of crows.
Zig zagging across the country Cole made every effort to forever rid himself of these people and the hateful pulse that resonated from them.
Cole would stay inside at night and if he could he would sleep during the day. He would pass the time by listening to music. It was a surprise to me that he preferred classical considering how he looked. My shock must have been apparent in my expression because Cole explained that Vivaldi Concerto No. 5 was his favorite and thanked his mother for getting him into “tasteful music”.
While on the run Cole would take odd jobs here and there to pay for what he needed to survive. A tractor assembly line in Michigan, a toll booth operator in Florida and a semi weigh station in Nevada. Whatever job paid him in cash and as long as he didn’t have to work at night. No matter where he found work he would not stay long before feeling that they were closing in on him and would more often than not leave before getting his paycheck.
The night Cole came to my house was shortly after leaving a place he had stayed at for about three months, a loft above a bar in northern Canada. When asked why he would want to live above a bar while on the run Cole shrugged and said that he thought that a bar full of people at night would keep him safe.
When they finally arrived they softly cried out his name from the back alley under his window. With all the music being played downstairs Cole had no idea how long they had been calling but the moment knew it was them the giggling began.
They flattered Cole by saying they were his biggest fans and tried to prove it to him by telling him details that only the Pass It On killer would know.
“Cutting off a head is hard. Even if you have power tools its messy shit, man. Took awhile before I got the hang of it though” Cole confessed. “I rigged a bike pump to a catheter, snaked it through the axillary nerve until it reached the superior vana cava. It only took about two minutes before the blood stopped flowing and by then removing the head was pretty much blood free”.
Cole swore to me that up to this point he never spoke to them, but that night he finally had enough and accused them of being vampires due to the fact that they needed permission to come in.
“As soon as I said that everything went silent. I must have been used to the sounds they were making because I didn’t notice it until it stopped. That’s when someone with a strange accent told me that they were not vampires but in fact something else. Something that I—”.
Cole never finished this thought.
They then cut the power, not only to the apartment but the bar under him. “It didn’t take long before I heard the woman who was tending bar that night warning them not to come closer and them just laughing. They tore her apart and all I could do was wait until morning to come” Cole confessed with a shake of his head as if to eject the thoughts from his mind. “Thing is, Canada has some long nights during the winter and I only had enough food for a few days”.
Cole didn’t tell me how long he stayed in that room for and I didn’t want to ask. It was obvious that this was still fresh in his mind and I didn’t want to upset him with the million questions I had.
When Cole left his room he saw “gore sprinkled everywhere. Like a trail of breadcrumbs that started from behind the bar and led right to my apartment”.
Careful not to touch anything with his bare hands Cole immediately emptied the cash register and stole a toolbox from the back office so he could switch license plates whenever he felt the need to in the future to throw his pursuers off his scent.
“I don’t know how to stop them but I think I have a good idea how to slow them down” Cole said, but before he could elaborate he noticed that the sun was shining through the window and we had been talking for hours. Thankful that he went another night without seeing them and having someone he could talk to Cole thanked me for listening.
I didn’t know what to say to such a story, I didn’t have anything to compare it to so I rambled on about whatever came to mind, eventually telling him about my boss and how he is always looking over my shoulder and wouldn’t leave me alone.
As if this was at all similar to Cole’s own story.
I didn’t think anything of Cole asking me if I liked my job or where I worked at the time and soon I was answering all of his questions. Only realizing too late that I gave Cole all he needed to locate my boss and make him into his next victim.
As soon as I thought this he smiled, thanked me, then took the car keys off the counter before leaving.
When I called the police I had to be careful about what to say. Sharing Cole’s story without sounding insane or telling them about how my boss’s life was in danger would be a challenge. The more I thought about it the less likely it was that they would believe me “accidentally” giving him all he needed to kill my boss.
It might have been ten minutes after Cole left before I called the police and all I said to them was that my house was broken into and that my car was stolen. I said nothing about Cole or his story and the price of my silence was my boss being found dead two days later.
According to the local newspaper, The Whisper Alley Echo, pieces of my boss were found all over his bedroom. Most people in town considered this to be a rumor to stir up newspaper sales and I wanted to agree but it was hard to considering the tale Cole told me.
In the back of my head the idea of what Cole told me being true kept teasing me. It bothered me so much that I ended up hiring a private investigator, a decision I came to regret because it didn’t take long before getting a phone call informing me that my boss’s head was found in another victim’s house all the way in Cleveland.
Over the years I kept thinking of the story Cole told me. If those thoughts weren’t front and center they were creeping in the back, ready to pounce on a happy moment to turn it sour.
It didn’t take long before I started seeing dark patches dart from one shadow to the next, disappearing as soon as I turned to look at it.
At first I chalked this up to being a mouse or lack of sleep since I found it hard to sleep in a house that was broken into. Hoping it was the latter because I hate mice I bought some medicine in town to help with sleep. It worked wonders when it came to sleep but did nothing to stop me from seeing these shadows.
With an embarrassing frequency I would imagine seeing Coles night visitors on the side of the road when I come across reflecting eyes or think of them whenever I hear the house settle.
It was as though toying with the idea of them being real was enough to invite them into my life.
I don’t recall what came first, hearing my name being called out in public or the soft scrapping at my screen windows at night. I will say however once I started to hear these noises there was no way to block it out.
At night I could hear soft whispers that were hard to make out and the more I tried to ignore it the more it took center stage in my mind. It didn’t take long before I felt the need to know what was being said.
I could not tell you how many nights I stayed up just so I could put my ear up to the wall but I can tell you it was worth the effort because unlike Cole I know what they want.
The first night I opened the door for them was terrifying, like losing one’s virginity. Even with Cole’s descriptions there was no way I could have been prepared for their appearance because they resembled humans the same way a shark looks like a minnow.
During these conversations they instructed me to share Cole’s story with the world so some of his madness could rub off on others and “season the meat”.
If you see these shadows or hear these sounds after reading this it’s only a matter of time before they come to visit. And when they do you have a better and more successful Pass It On Killer than Cole ever was to thank.