Ch. 1 / Pt. 1 : When They Wear the Mask
Matthew leaned into the mic, continuing the afternoon’s recording. “Sidetalk aside,” he said, “a lot of which we’ll have to cut, by the way…today we’re going to cover our first unsolved case since we did Jack the Ripper.”
“Don’t make this Michael Myers wannabe sound fuckin’ cool,” Harry spat.
“The Oceanrest Slasher killed eight people between 1979 and 1993.”
“While wearing a mask,” Harry added. “Like, was it actually a Michael Myers mask?”
“While Halloween debuted only a scant thirteen months before the killings began, both the Oceanrest Metro Police Department and the general true crime community tend not to call it a direct inspiration.”
“Oh, so it wasn’t actually a Michael Myers mask,” Harry pouted, faux-disappointment.
“I’m glad the guy respected copyright law, at least,” Bushel chimed in.
“Jesus, Ken,” Harry replied. “He killed eight people.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“He killed eight and grievously injured three more,” Matthew continued. “All in the small city of Oceanrest, Maine.”
“I’ve never even heard of the place,” Bushel said. “Uh…but I’m sure it’s great.”
“It’s not,” Matthew admitted.
“Don’t—people could be listening!”
“Like he cares,” Harry over-acted for his mic. “Like he even knows! Bushel, where is Oceanrest?”
“It’s, uh…” Bushel flipped some papers around for foley. “In Maine?”
“That’s my fault. I set the bar too low.”
“The case interested us not only because of its unsolved status,” Matthew maintained control of the narrative. Of the trio, his job was to remain focused, to stabilize the core of the how. “But because of the huge gap between the Slasher’s first series and his second. The Slasher claimed his fifth victim in 1981 and his sixth in 1993.”
“Oh, he did a Grim Sleeper thing,” Bushel said.
“Oh, look, he got one right!” Harry laughed.
“He did do a Grim Sleeper thing,” Matthew confirmed, grinning. “After the first Oceanrest Slasher book came out in 1992, both the writer and publisher received threats from someone who may have been the Slasher, himself. In 1993, another publisher released a second book. Two weeks after the second book’s release, the Oceanrest Slasher claimed a sixth victim.”
“Wait…are these the books we used for sources?” Bushel asked.
“Um…yes?”
“But—okay, you see how maybe someone a little more superstitious might think that’s a bad idea?”
The studio door banged open. Trent, their sound engineer and producer, stepped in with an uneasy glance, cheeks scarleted. “Uh, guys? There’s a phone call we just got that is, uh…that I think you should listen to.”
“Really? We’re already running late with the—”
“I really, really think you should hear this guy.”
Matthew stood up but didn’t start walking. “Uh…okay. Sure.”
A confused, hesitant moment passed before they all followed Trent into the offices on the other side of the soundproofing. Everybody felt it but none of them recognized it. It stimulated a sense they didn’t know they possessed.
Trent handed over the studio phone, a decade-old landline handset.
“Hello?” Matthew asked the receiver.
“Are you people stupid!?” an older man snarled on the other end of the line. Matthew imagined spittle spraying from his lips. “If you talk about It, It’ll hear you.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Did I fucking stutter!? Shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up!”
“Can I ask what you’re calling about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me you geeky little shit. Just don’t talk about it anymore or I’ll—I’ll—” the man started coughing and hacking. Interference shrilled over the line. As Matthew pulled the handset from his ear, the pitch crescendo’d and crescendo’d until the phone itself seemed to shriek. Abruptly, the call disconnected.
Silence enveloped them.
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