This story is part 3 of The Pine Creek Murders, a 6 part series that started in The Girl In The House
Levi Basso walked along the cliff side. It had been one week since his sister’s body had been found, battered and broken at the bottom of the cliff. The police didn’t even know what killed her; the fall, or the knife wound in her chest.
What they did know was that her death was not an isolated incident. Her’s was the fourth body found, a week after the search began.
No one had been worried when she didn’t show up for work, but after five days with no call, her co-workers became concerned. Floyd Hamilton volunteered to check on her, and that is when they found Thor
After calling the police, who could find no trace of Katie, Floyd decided to check on his sister, who had seemingly disappeared. Upon entering her house, he was greeted by a horrific sight. His brother in law was sitting in his favorite chair, his chest cut open and his entrails covered the room.
The sight when they found Mary was just as gruesome. She had been gutted on her bed, killing not just her, but also her unborn child. More then one officer had gotten sick at the sight.
The police had searched the entire town until they found her body at the bottom of the cliff. Like Thor, she had been stabbed. How she ended up at the bottom of the cliff, no one knew.
There was one thing that connected all the murders; the mark on their foreheads. Each of them had the same mark branded on them, a cross with the cross beam connected to the bottom by a curving beam on each side.
The same brand that Erik Ullrich placed on the foreheads of his family as he killed them.
The police investigation had been inconclusive. They knew that the victims had been murdered, but all efforts to find clues to the killer’s identity had failed. As the police struggled to find the killer, rumors had all ready started spreading.
That Old Man Ullrich had returned from the grave to continue his murderous rampage. That for some reason he had return to kill again, joining his daughter Lyne in terrorizing the village of Pine Creek.
With the police investigation stalled, Levi decided to start an investigation of his own. He started in the bathroom where Thor had been killed. While his death hadn’t been nearly as gruesome as the Armstrong’s it had been no less brutal. The killer had severed several major arteries, and Thor’s blood sprayed against the walls as he bled to death.
Levi’s past as a crime scene photographer, the first job he had gotten out of college, had been enough to convince the police to allow him to see the pictures taken at the scene. He had spent three days studying all of them, except those of his sister. As much as he wanted to find the killer, he couldn’t bring himself to look at the pictures of her body. They had always been close, and he knew that it would be hard enough for him to see her in a casket tomorrow at the funeral. He wanted the last time he saw her to be there, with her laying peacefully in a coffin, not of her broken and twisted body.
His investigation had failed as well, and he found himself retracing her final steps. The rain the day before had washed away her footprints, but he had followed them from Katie’s house so many times since they had found her body that he knew the route by heart.
As he walked in the failing light of day, Levi couldn’t help wondering what Katie’s final moments had been like. What had she felt as the killer plunged the knife into her chest? What she had been thinking of as she fell, and if she felt anything at all when she crashed into the jagged rocks below. The police said that she may have been alive on impact, and survived for several minutes before dying from her wounds.
Levi wondered if she had died a painful death, or if she felt anything at all as the life slipped from her body.
As he approached the site of her death, Levi saw a woman wearing a white dress. Her hair pulled back, Levi instantly recognized the earrings she wore.
They were the earrings that Grandma had given Katie on her twelfth birthday.
Levi shook his head. They couldn’t be the same earrings. Katie was wearing them now, as she lay in her casket at the Church. It was obviously the dieing light playing tricks on him.
Levi walked up to the woman, intent on finding out why she was there. As he got closer, she looked more and more like Katie. He stood beside her and was about to ask why she was there when she turned towards him.
From the side she looked perfectly normal. When he saw her face, Levi took a step back in horror. Her nose had been shattered, her jaw hung open on one side, as it had been nearly ripped off her head. An eye hung out of its socket, thanks to a shattered orbital bone. A nasty gash had opened on her forehead, and blood flowed down her face, staining her cloths. What was left of her once beautiful face, as well as the blood covering her chest, confirmed his suspicion.
It was Katie.
An unearthly moan emanated from her useless mouth as she reached towards him for help, one of her hands crushed beyond recognition. Levi continued to move away from the horrifying specter as she stumbled towards him, dragging a shattered leg behind her.
Katie reached out to him and Levi stepped backwards once more
Before falling into the void.
Few people venture hear the Basso cliffs, least of all at night. But the few who do always come back saying they heard screams bouncing off the Barrens, and tell tales of the woman in white.
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