7:15 PM.
Martha, an older woman with greasy hair and skin weathered by the years, was driving her old truck toward the gas station in Jericho. The vehicle, full of dents and rust, squealed as it stopped next to one of the fuel pumps.
As she got out, Martha shook her skirt and noticed the police patrol car parked nearby. Next to the vehicle, Officer Ritchie Santiago, a large-built woman with short black hair, watched the scene with attentive eyes. She was waiting for her partner to finish buying his cheap cigarettes and the overly sugary donuts he always had at this time as a snack.
While Martha began fueling up her truck, she looked up and waved at Ritchie.
“Hey, Ritchie. Are you ready for the lunar eclipse?” asked Martha, her voice raspy from years of smoking.
Ritchie nodded, her dark eyes showing a mix of interest and concern.
“Yes, they say it’s one of the longest we’ve had in decades. Are you going to watch it, Martha?” she asked.
Martha shrugged as she scratched a wart on her neck.
“I don’t know, Ritchie. I’ve had a bad feeling all day. Especially thinking about all the murders that have happened in Jericho. It’s been twenty years since anything like this…”
Ritchie frowned, her expression hardening. The last person to go missing was Sheriff Donovan’s son. Everyone assumed he was dead.
“We’re all on high alert. Don’t worry, Martha. We’re doing everything we can to catch the culprit,” Ritchie said, trying to sound as convincing as possible, but her tone was doubtful.
“Culprit? I’ll tell you what I think,” Martha said, leaning forward, bracing herself on her forearms.
“I think it’s been those strange kids from Nevermore. Devil worshippers. Why do you think they steal parts of their victims’ bodies? For unholy rituals. I’m sure of it,” Martha whispered. “Satan worshippers in Jericho? Don’t be ridiculous, Martha. We all know those teenagers are odd, but that’s all they are-teenagers. They wouldn’t be able to escape our search. The killer knows what they’re doing to avoid being caught,” Ritchie replied with a slightly nervous laugh. She couldn’t deny that the eerie academy hidden in the woods gave her the creeps.
“You’re young, but many years ago, strange things happened here, and there’s only one coincidence with that time,” Martha said in a solemn tone.
“What coincidence?” Ritchie asked, growing more frightened by this wrinkled old woman. “A Poe was in Jericho…” Martha replied after a few suspenseful seconds.
When Ritchie heard the surname Poe, a famous young writer instantly came to mind. His two books had been massive successes. Even his first book was adapted into a major motion picture, grossing millions of dollars at the box office. She remembered that the writer, named Luke Poe, was a student at Nevermore Academy.
Just as Ritchie was about to ask why Martha believed Luke Poe could be involved, she heard footsteps and noticed several figures approaching out of the corner of her eye.
She turned her head and saw five figures in black cloaks and hoods. Their faces were obscured. It was getting dark, and seeing five people dressed like this didn’t seem like a good sign.
“Who are you?! Identify yourselves!” Ritchie shouted, reaching for her revolver. These people gave her a bad feeling. For some reason, she felt an indescribable fear, a sharp pang down her spine.
Could Martha be right? Was there more than one killer, and were they Satan-worshipping students from that strange school? She quickly drew her gun and aimed at the hooded figures.
“Don’t take another step, or I’ll shoot!” Ritchie yelled tensely as the figures continued to walk without saying a word.
Just as Ritchie was about to fire, a calm, firm voice broke the silence.
“Calm down, Officer. We’re just tourists, no hostility here,” said Sabrina, emerging from the group. Her words carried a hypnotic, soothing power as if she were an old friend of Ritchie’s.
The fear and sweat that had covered Ritchie vanished instantly. A wave of immense calm washed over her, easing her tension.
“Lower your weapon and come closer to me,” Sabrina continued her voice like a soft, enchanting lullaby.
Under the spell of Sabrina’s words, Ritchie obeyed without question. Slowly, she lowered her gun and walked toward Sabrina, as if hypnotized. As she got closer, Ritchie could clearly see Sabrina’s face: angelic and serene.
Sabrina extended her delicate hands, nails painted a deep red and placed them on Ritchie’s cheeks, who was taller than her.
“Very good, thanks for understanding,” Sabrina said with a charming smile, her gaze gleaming with a mixture of compassion and coldness.
“Thank you…” Ritchie replied, still in a half-trance.
Suddenly, Sabrina exerted an immense force with both hands. In one brutal, swift motion, she twisted Ritchie’s neck, making her head turn completely backward. A sharp crack echoed in the air. Ritchie collapsed to the ground, dead, her eyes wide open in an expression of disbelief.
“Hahaha… It’s so fun and easy to manipulate normies,” Sabrina laughed, her voice controlled and amused.
Martha, paralyzed by horror, dropped the fuel hose and stepped back, unable to tear her gaze away from Ritchie’s lifeless body. Sabrina turned toward Martha with a smile that now seemed far more sinister.
Martha trembled as she saw Sabrina’s angelic smile. She looked like a young girl, no older than fifteen. She couldn’t see her face clearly because of the hood.
A taller hooded figure began walking toward Martha, who remained frozen in place. Her legs felt like jelly. Was this the end of her life? Well, at least she had lived past sixty, though her life hadn’t been much.
“Please, no…” Martha begged, but the hooded figure didn’t hear her and kept walking.
Sebastián, with strength far beyond that of an average human, extended his hand toward Martha. Without any apparent effort, he grabbed her arm and, in a brutal motion, tore it from her body. A blood-curdling scream filled the night air, echoing across the gas station.
Blood gushed from the stump where her arm once was, but Sebastián didn’t stop. With the same relentless force, he repeated the process with her other arm. Martha now collapsed on the ground, and could barely breathe between her screams of pain and the rapid blood loss. Her face had gone pale, and her eyes were filled with agony and terror.
Sebastián then crouched down, grabbing one of her legs. Without hesitation, he ripped off one and then the other, leaving Martha with a bleeding, dismembered torso on the ground. The hooded figures needed her torso for the resurrection ritual of Crackstone. “Please, kill me…” Martha said with difficulty, her voice agonized as she hovered on the brink of unconsciousness from the pain and blood loss.
Sebastián, without uttering a word, grabbed Martha by the hair with force and tore her head off with the same brutal strength as before.
“Torso secured,” Sebastián said indifferently, tossing the head to the ground and grabbing Martha’s torso.
“Here too, part secured,” Amaranth said as she mutilated a part of Ritchie’s body. Sabrina didn’t want to soil her hands with the dirty blood of a normie.
“There are two normies in the gas station who saw everything,” Deacon remarked, his voice unaffected by the brutal murder. He approved of what his companions had done to the
normies.
“That’s good. They’ll alert the others, and the outcast cop in Jericho will follow our trail. The blood from this torso will lead them right to us,” Sebastián said.
Ritchie’s partner had witnessed the entire scene, his face frozen in terror. He was hiding behind the counter with the gas station employee, who was crying and repeating softly, “I’m sorry, Mom…”
–
7:25 p.m.
In a bar not far from the gas station, Anthony sat at a secluded table, drinking a beer and
smoking.
‘No movement and the eclipse is almost here. I should head back,’ Anthony thought, slightly annoyed. He’d been searching for clues around Jericho but found nothing. The murders had stopped since the disappearance of the half-Hyde.
If what the Poe kid said was true, had the Spellmans left Jericho? They no longer had Laurel Gates, the person who was supposed to take all the blame. She was dead. If they revived Crackstone and their identities were revealed (which was very likely), Anthony would make the Spellmans pay. You can’t just go around reviving demonic normies out of a grudge and drag an entire outcast educational institution into it.
If they wanted to kill Luke, so be it, but not by murdering innocent outcasts. Anthony believed Luke’s story. He had heard the incriminating recordings of that faceless one called Deacon. But with today’s technology, it was possible to create fake audios, though he didn’t think that was the case here. Still, bureaucracy was a pain, so they kept waiting for his partner Claire to arrive with the device to review the memories Luke had extracted.
He extinguished the last of his cigarette in the ashtray and was about to stand up to head back to Nevermore when the radio on his table crackled.
“I-I need urgent help at the main gas station!” said a frantic, stammering voice.
“Five hooded figures have murdered Officer Ritchie and Martha. I repeat, we need reinforcements immediately!”
Anthony’s expression hardened upon hearing the message. He quickly stood up and headed
toward the exit of the bar. As he left the bar, he began to run at an incredible speed, like a
superhuman straight out of a movie.
“Two murders… Just what they need for the ritual,” Anthony thought, his brow furrowed and
a growing sense of dread as he got closer to the gas station.
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