THE HALLOWEEN MURDERS: PART TWO

"Let the black knight mount his mare
And thus bring forth the continuous Nightmare." - Edgar Allan Poe

A year had gone by since the murders of my family and Gene. My brother Cory, still hadn’t been found and Nancy Grace was ready to release her latest book surrounding the case on the upcoming anniversary. I had taken refuge in France with Agent Oliver Benson. We had apparently grown close over the past year even though it just seemed like moments before that I was dealing with the murders. I was hoping to avoid the media attention surrounding the anniversary but Nancy Grace was having nightly shows about the murders leading up to Halloween.
I awoke early that morning with disturbing news. Benson had received a call from the States informing him that Cory had posted a You tube video of my mother’s murder. I could feel a deep stab in my chest penetrating my soul at the thought of millions of people downloading the video footage of my mother’s death and it only got worst from there…
Every hour on the hour a new video was posted online of the murders. Another victim, another gruesome death and another spike in video downloads. It was disgusting and vile and I hated the core of humanity for the need to feed into this horrific story. It was late in the evening when the last video posted and I prayed that it would end there. I was cuddled on the couch with Benson when the telephone began to ring. Benson quickly grabbed the phone as he talked quietly into the receiver and I knew the news wasn’t good. Benson told me that another video had posted of a new victim and they needed me to identify who was in the video.
“What!” I screamed. I pushed myself off of Benson and the couch and ran over to my laptop to find the video. I reached the site and saw that the video had already been downloaded thousands of times. I hit the play button as I saw a camera come into focus. It seemed that Cory was outside of a large window looking into someone’s house but I couldn’t tell who’s home it was until I saw the victim walk out of his bedroom. It was Jason! “OH MY GOD!!! He’s outside Jason’s house!!!” I screamed back at Benson, who was relaying the message into the phone. “Jason Casteel, he’s Chad’s best friend of about twenty years. He’s in Amarillo, Texas.” Benson continued to give the FBI information about Jason as I continued to scream, “OH MY GOD!!!” I grabbed my cell phone and hit the speed dial on the phone to reach Jason but the voice mail continued to pick up. “Answer the fucking phone Jason,” as I redialed his number. “Damn it!!! No!!!! He won’t answer his fucking phone!” The tears began to swell up in my eyes as I looked back at my computer screen to see the very large kitchen knife stabbing deeply into Jason’s stomach. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! He can’t be dead too, please God, he can’t be dead too!” I felt Benson’s arms around me like the way I use to feel Gene’s arms and everything around me began to fade to black as I felt myself falling.
When I opened up my eyes I was on a airline flying back to the United States. Benson was holding my hand as the image of the knife going into Jason played endlessly in my head. I couldn’t quite remember when I had discovered the news about my other friends but I had also learned that Summer, Nora and Marleo had been murdered that very day. Confusion about my blackouts and the knowledge of my friend’s deaths had cause my head to pound. I focused on my heartbeat as I held Benson’s hand tighter. It was my fault that they were all dead. I should have been there to stop Cory when he killed my family and it was Gene that paid the price when Cory came after me. This entire year, I had been in hiding and because of my inability to confront my brother the rest of my friends died.
I had nothing left but my insanity. Suddenly I found myself standing in a white room with Gene and Jason. They began talking to me in unison as I attempted to walk towards them but I couldn’t manage to get any closer to them. “Chad… Chad… Chad…” They repeated my name over and over as I tried to reach out to them. “I’m so sorry he killed you… I didn’t mean for either of you to suffer because of me!” Tears once again began to fall from my eyes and it seemed that crying was the only thing I knew how to do… the tears kept falling as my insanity took a hold of me.
I gave the eulogy at Jason’s funeral but I couldn’t recall what I was saying. I knew I was speaking but I couldn’t hear any of the words coming out of my mouth. It seemed to me that I was still in the white room but I was also in the church at the same time. The only thing I could focus on was the image of Jason and Gene standing in the back of the room softly whispering my name. Everyone else in the church were glaring at me with hatred and accusation in their eyes. I glanced over to the right, back corner of the room and saw Nancy Grace taking notes as she shook her head in disapproval and I wondered why nobody in the room was paying any attention to my two dead friends in the back.
“Your going have end this you know.” I was sitting at the end of a bed as my dead friend Gene spoke to me. It seemed like I was sitting there with him forever but I had just given the eulogy at Jason’s funeral and I somehow was back in my parents house in Litchfield. I knew he was dead but somehow he was right there with me. He continued his matter of fact conversation with me, “He’s going to kill every single one of us until you take control.” I turned my head to see Jason sitting on the right side of me, “He’s right. You have to do something so this will all end or Cory is going to discover your little secret.” I thought about the secret and a rare smile formed on my face. I finally realized what I had to do and I would do whatever it took to protect my secret. I knew right then with Gene and Jason’s apparent ghost that I was insane and I was going to use my insanity to get to Cory. This wasn’t going to end until Cory stuck his knife into me or I forced him to take his last breath.