A Serial Killer Is Stalking The Greater Paducah Area And Its Residents Are Fearful Of Their Lives

Janice was still in bed by the time I got home. School was canceled, so I let her sleep. I ended up taking a short nap on the couch while listening to a YouTube playlist of videos where a performer by the name of Myuuji played piano covers of old movie and video game themes. I woke around 2PM with Janice curled up next to me. We were a few days into our strange relationship and it already felt like we had been together for a year.

The sun was low in the sky when I woke up feeling refreshed. The police were busy staking out the school and the principal gave me the night off. I was happy to agree. The school board had given me salary a few months prior and I didn’t miss pushing the buffer around school. Janice was wide awake.

“Does it bother you that I’m sitting here watching you sleep?” she asked.

I kissed her on the forehead.

“Does it bother you that I can’t think of any place I’d rather you to be?” I asked.

We kissed and she moved to the kitchen and brought back two mugs of coffee. We moved to the bay window and I looked out to the riverfront. She sat between my legs while sipping her cup of coffee.

With lights out in the apartment and the street lights coming on below, we watched a crowd shuffle into the bar below.

“We should go grab a beer. I have the night off,” I suggested.

She agreed and we made our way down the stairs, holding hands. I strolled up to the bar and without a word, the bartender handed me an Amber Bock. Janice ordered a whiskey sour and sat next to me to tell me a story about her college days. I saw someone familiar out of the corner of my eye and I went rigid. Janice noticed and looked around.

“What’s up babe?” she asked.

“A preposition and sometimes an adverb. Stay right here, I’m gonna go check something out,” I said.

Standing in the back of the bar by the dartboards was the redheaded man I had seen twice before. With my bottle in hand, I walked up to confront him.

“Is there a reason you’ve been following me?” I asked.

He continued staring toward the front of the bar as if he didn’t hear me. I pushed him on the shoulder.

“I’m talking to you asshole. Why are you following me?”

He looked at me with a cold look in his eyes.

“I’m not following you,” he said, simply.

Not to be shrugged off, I laid into him.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“I’m gonna go for a walk, you’d be wise not to follow me,” he said.

He moved toward the back door and I followed. As soon as I was out the door, he took a swing at me. I shot to the left and it connected with my shoulder. It hurt, a lot. For a little guy, he packed a hell of a punch. We scuffled in the parking lot and I gave him a fight to remember, but it ended with me on the ground with a busted lip and a ringing noise in my ears. He stood over me and spit next to my head.

“She likes you, so I’m going to let this slide. Come at me again and I’ll fucking kill you,” he hissed.

“James, is that it? She told me you might be her brother,” I sneered.

He stared at me with a fiery look in his eyes.

“Forget you met me. Now run along.”

James walked over me and left me alone in the parking lot.

I made my way back inside with my ego bruised more than anything. Janice ran up to me and freaked out about the blood on my face. I tried to calm her down, but after a few seconds the bartender, Gil, asked if he needed to call the cops. I told him we fought it out in the parking lot and that the guy had left. Janice dipped a paper towel in her drink dabbed my lip. I winced as the alcohol hit the wound.

“I’m going upstairs if you care to join me,” I said.

She hurried behind me as I walked up the stairs and pushed through my door and fell onto the couch.

I looked up at Janice as she stared at me from the doorway. She had a sad look on her face that said, I know all I need to know.

“It was James, wasn’t it?” she ask as the tears came back in full force.

“He said you liked me and because of that he was letting me off easy,” I said. “I’d rather not fight him again,” I added.

She stepped through the door and closed it behind her.

“I don’t know what he is, but you’re not the first guy he’s roughed up. I’ll leave if you want me to,” she cried.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “You’re the most frustratingly complicated woman I’ve ever met. Leave? Only if I’m going with you. Sure, my jaw hurts, but…I know you are worth it.”

She flashed me a smile and ended up we spending the rest of the night trading flattering statements in each other’s arms until the sun crept through the blinds. Groggy, but awake, she grabbed a Red Bull from the fridge and headed to work. I slept the better part of the day away and woke up to grab the newspaper from the front door. I sat down at my table to solve the crossword puzzle. Twenty-three down’s clue was: “A 1941 Film Starring Lon Chaney Jr.” I scratched my head for a moment and was about to write something down when my phone rang. It was Janice.

“H-hello. Drew? Is that you?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s up hun?” I answered.

“I’m hiding in my car,” she said. “I’ve got my seat all the way back and the doors locked. Th-there’s something here —”

“Call 9-1-1!” I shouted.

“I will, but I just wanted to say that I love you. It’s circling the car…” she whispered.

There was a sound of glass breaking followed by a scream. I quickly ended the call to dial 9-1-1. An operator kept me on the line as they tried to find her cell phone signal. When police finally arrived on the scene, her driver’s side window had been bashed in and there was a trail of blood leading from her driveway toward the woods behind her house.

I rushed over to her place and arrive to see CSI placing numbers next to the bloodstains while taking photos of the scene. Horrified, I stood behind the yellow crime scene tape silent for the better part of an hour, not wanting to believe the situation. I didn’t want to believe she was gone. I went back to my car and grabbed a tire iron from the trunk before sneaking around to the woods behind her house. Whoever pulled her back there was going to get iron to the face if I had anything to say about it.

A few hundred yards past the treeline, I discovered a creek with high banks. I moved west along the bank until I came to a small shack. With the flashlight app on my phone I could make out a bloody hand print. It was fresh. I heard a slight rustling in the trees behind me. I turned just in time to see a large man with gray hair charging at me. I swung the tire iron blindly and it connected with his arm. He let out a grunt as he hit me in the jaw, knocking me to the ground.

My phone flew from my hand and landed a few feet away, flooding our immediate surroundings with a dim ambiance of light. The man came at me again and I threw a leg up to kick him in the stomach. He doubled over and I rose to my feet as the two of us proceeded to get into a knockdown drag-out fight. At one point, he opened his mouth and in the low light that emanated from my phone I could make out rotten teeth that seemed a bit too jagged. He came toward me face-first as if he was going to bite. I reached forward, grabbing him by the hair. I then proceeded to slam his face into a nearby rock, and then I reared back and did it again. Lost in a rage, I slammed his head into the rock a third time and with that I heard a crack followed by a low groan. He was either dead or unconscious. I ran over to my phone and picked it up to call the police.

After explaining myself and giving a statement, I rode to the police station in handcuffs. I knew what it looked like. I sat in the holding cell overnight contemplating the next 10 years in jail for killing the old man. Morning came and I was greeted by a uniformed officer and the district attorney. I was led to an interview room and the attorney was the first to speak.

“Mr. Jones, we’ve decided not to pursue homicide charges. An autopsy of the unidentified individual you killed revealed his stomach contents to be human remains from three individuals…including a sample from Ms. Stollman. Given the presence of her remains in his stomach contents and the amount of blood at the scene, we are ruling her disappearance a homicide. Her body hasn’t been recovered, but as with the other victims, we expect it will show up in the river eventually.”

I was released and sent on my way. For the next several weeks, I was bombarded by phone calls and emails wanting to interview the guy who killed The River Wolf. I took some personal time from work and the principal was happy to oblige. I spent most of my days sitting in the bay window nursing a bottle of bourbon and writing about Janice in my journal. At some point, I wandered downstairs and drank myself into a stupor. Instead of walking back upstairs, I staggered to the riverfront and walked closer to the water. I placed my journal down on the ground and walked slowly into the river. The current swept me up and too drunk to fight it, I succumbed to the murky water as the world went black.

I woke sometime later on the shore of the river coughing water up and trying to breathe. Still drunk and not particularly happy about my failed suicide attempt, I lashed out at the blurry figure in front of me. My eyes started to focus right about the time I saw James’s fist coming toward my face. He called back to someone behind him.

“What did you see in this guy?”

There was a familiar voice behind him.

“He’s really a sweetheart, James, leave him alone.”

I rolled onto my hands and knees and looked up to see James and Janice slip into the shadows. I tried to give chase, but I was far too drunk to walk in a straight line. I eventually stumbled home and chalked the events of that night up to too much whiskey and not enough sleep.

It’s been a while since then. I’ve been promoted to day shift and have an employee under me who handles my old job. My book is selling fairly well for having been self-published and I’ve even started dating a girl I met at an AA meeting. Things are going well for me. Of all the events of the past year or so, I guess you could say I have a strange life. Stranger still is that sometimes while I am sitting in my window, I can see Janice down below, if only for a moment.