Chapter Twelve: The Sheriff Knocks
355 Words
Sheriff Halvers had seen bodies before.
He’d worked Detroit in the ‘90s. He’d seen gang hits, drug house massacres, suicides that left nothing but teeth. But this? This was different.
This was intentional.
Eleven bodies in twenty days. All posed. All marked. All silent.
No witnesses. No suspects. No noise.
Just blood.
And symbols.
Halvers stared at the corkboard in his office, red strings connecting crime scenes like veins. The Mercer house sat dead center. Not because he suspected them. But because the pattern wanted him to.
He drove out at dusk.
The house looked normal. Quiet. Porch light on. Curtains drawn. Jesse’s truck in the driveway. Caleb’s cleats on the porch.
Halvers knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
The door creaked open.
Inside, the house was dark. The air smelled like copper and mildew. The walls pulsed faintly, like something was breathing behind them.
“Jesse?” he called. “Caleb?”
No answer.
He stepped inside.
The living room was empty. The TV was on—static. The couch cushions were torn. Symbols were carved into the hardwood floor, deep and fresh.
He followed the sound of dripping.
Into the kitchen.
The sink was full of blood.
Not water. Not rust.
Blood.
Thick. Dark. Still warm.
Halvers reached for his radio.
It didn’t work.
The static grew louder.
Then he saw her.
Mrs. Mercer.
Standing in the hallway.
Still in her chair clothes. Still barefoot. Her eyes were open now—wide, glassy, wrong. She held a hammer.
Halvers stepped back.
“Ma’am,” he said. “I need you to—”
She moved fast.
Too fast.
The hammer hit his temple. Once. Twice. Then again.
He dropped.
She dragged him into the crawlspace.
No one saw her.
No one suspected her.
She was the quiet one.
Jesse and Caleb returned an hour later.
They didn’t ask about the blood.
They didn’t ask about the smell.
They just added the sheriff’s badge to the dining room altar, beside the jawbones and teeth.
The house pulsed.
The walls whispered.
“Twelve.”
“One more.”
“Then the mouth opens.”
- Writer
