Serial

02. Henry "Hatchetman" Harris

The first murder had happened when Henry Harris was in highschool.

Henry had always been a smart child, but his appearance was gawky and his personality awkward. He had no real friends, finding more companionship in the world of novels than in the lives of real humans. Still his parents pushed him towards trying to be more traditionally masculine, urging him to put himself out there more and “Man up.”

This shove from his parents led him to ask out Jennifer Marquez, one of the more popular girls in school, and as Henry would later think of her, a total b***h. This bold move on Henry's part led to a complete and utter humiliation of his character, followed by weeks of tormenting and snickering behind his back, until finally another poor kid in his school slipped up and Henry once more slipped into the shadows of unknown.

However even though the teasing ended Henry still felt a twitch of anger whenever he saw Jennifer Marquez. Henry couldn’t move on from the humiliation he suffered. He spent weeks planning and plotting. Hiding in the back corners of classrooms and sporting events, watching. Always watching.

The plan started out with a note slipped into Jennifer's locker. The note was a love letter from Jason Smith, a football player and a grade A douche, but a popular boy in school that Jennifer swooned over. The note asked her to meet him under the bridge before the homecoming game, but not to tell anyone as Jason was too shy to have so many people know of his feelings. If Jennifer had looked closely, she might have been able to tell the writing didn’t in fact belong to Jason, but she was too smitten by the idea of a secret rendezvous to consider the validity of the note.

Jason would not be the one meeting Jennifer under the bridge, as Jason had his own secret pre game tradition to attend to. Before every game Jason would drive his car just out of town and go for a jog alone through the woods. This jog would always take 1 hour and 45 minutes. Henry Harris wasn't entirely sure that Jason jogged the full hour and 45 minutes, but he did know that Jason always went deep into the woods, and never returned early.

This gave Henry enough time to follow Jason out of town, take his car once he had went deep into the woods, and drive it under the bridge, parked and waiting for Jennifer Marquez as Henry hid in the shadows, wearing Jason Smith's varsity jacket.

Jennifer Marquez arrived punctually, giggling and calling Jason's name out quietly. The young Henry waited until she was leaning over the car, back turned to him. He gripped a small axe tightly in his hands, and with a heavy swing brought it deep down into Jennifer Marquez's head.

After the body collapsed in a heap Henry still had his wits about him. He had been planning this for weeks, he knew his plan and had to stick to it. Quickly he dragged the body over to a metal barrel, brought there long ago by the local homeless who had since either ran off or died in a gutter. He stuffed her in the barrel, doused her in lighter fluid, and lit the match that burned her corpse, including the love note she still clutched in her manicured hands.

The varsity jacket Henry took off, and carefully placed it in the river, making sure it got caught on some roots from nearby trees so it couldn’t drift too far away. Then, as the clock ticked down and the smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils, Henry turned his attention to Jason's car.

First he wiped the handle of the bloody axe, making sure to remove any of his own fingerprints. He then hid it under the backseat of the car, covered with towels and empty soda cans. As the sun started to set he drove to the more unsavoury side of town, to a self service car wash in a neighbourhood where nobody cared enough to look twice.

Henry wasn't surprised by the amount of blood that coated Jason's car. In fact, it was a vital part of the plan to have a healthy coating. Still Henry took the time to carefully wash the blood off… Except for the bit by the rims of the car, where Jason wouldn't notice but the authorities might. With 20 minutes left Henry drove Jason's care back to where he had stolen it, quietly went to his own vehicle, and drove back into town. He told his mom he had been at the library, a lie easily believed, then spent the rest of the night watching movies.

A search team was sent out the next day to look for Jennifer Marquez. She was found later that day. It took awhile to confirm it was her, with the corpse having been so burnt. The evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Jason Smith. His jacket was found at the crime scene. The murder weapon was found in his car. There was blood belonging to Jennifer Marquez on his car. And lastly Macy Zimmerman, Jennifer's closest friend, testified that Jennifer had went to the bridge after Jason had left her a note in her locker. Jason had no believable alibi.

Getting away with murder left Henry smug, but not stupid. He didn't commit his second murder until his second year of college, at which point he did not have quite so clever a plan, just an unmemorable face and a drunk sorority girl who wandered too far alone in the woods, trying to find her boyfriend who had ran off. Instead she ran into Henry, an axe, and a hole dug deep.

That body wouldn't be found for a long time after. The girl, who Henry after a time couldn't recall the name of, was thought to have ran dropped out of college and ran off with a junky boyfriend. A story not so unusual in those parts.

The third murder was a few years after that, and more of a drunken mistake than anything. Henry Harris had been in the city, getting drunk in a bar before he was kicked out for a string of highly offensive and disrespectful homophobic slurs towards the bartender. Henry sat in the alley behind the bar, drinking one last beer out of a bottle and hatefully eyeing everyone who walked past.

It was near the end of the bottle that a young sorority girl staggered out, drunk and out of her wits, leaning against a man with a smug grin and grabby hands. Henry followed them down the dark alley, to the back where the sleazy man’s car was parked. The man led the girl to the care, pushing her and groping her there and then. Henry smashed the empty bottle over the back of the man's head, knocking him out in a small pool of beer and broken glass. Henry then looked in at the girl, her blouse ripped open exposing her bare breasts.

The sight of her brought back all the bad memories in Henry of beautiful girls berating, laughing at, and ignoring him. He felt a wave of disgust and a twitch of instinct, leading to him yanking her out of the car and stabbing her in the neck with the broken bottle.

The body slouched down next to the unconscious man, and in Henry's drunken state he felt another wave of instinct wash over him.

The corpse was found the next morning. The car and the sleazy man were nowhere in sight, but the semen found on the young woman's body soon matched a suspect to the victim. The man pleaded innocent, begging for his blood to be tested for Rohypnol, saying he had been drugged by his own date r**e pills. The test came back positive, the man was declared not guilty of murder in the first degree.

Henry Harris had soberly watched the proceedings of the case, hoping his drunken self had not slipped up to lead the police to his door. Weeks went by and Henry was in the clear. He tried to control the twitching he felt more and more as time passed, but eventually it became too much for him.

Over the next twenty years Henry killed another 17 young women. He got a job as a mailman to be able to silently observe the lifestyles of different victims, picking out which ones would be searched for and which would be forgotten. He mostly aimed for sorority girls from the local college, the types to drop out to earn a few bucks stripping in bigger cities.

Of his 20 victims, only 10 bodies had ever been found. 8 of them had been dealt the killing blow with a small axe or hatchet, leading media and authorities to refer to the mysterious killer as the unimaginative “Hatchetman.” 5 of the hidden bodies were scattered throughout nearby woods and abandoned farms.

The latest 4 bodies belonging to the victims of Henry “Hatchetman” Harris were buried on the acreage of Loretta Swann.

The last victim lay in the back of a van, registered to a John Achings, covered ungracefully in hay and manure.