Dark past 01

Let me tell you a story

Dark Periods

Between the years of 1997 to 1999 in a small town there had been cases of mysterious disappearance, people missing this has been going on for a while the sheriff of the town had tried everything in his power but was yet to find a single clue, the family of victims and everyone had been on his neck lately asking him for answers, the towns people were filled with fear, anxiety and anger which had all been directed towards the sheriff for his lack results in solving the case, even though a curfew had been put in place by the sheriff but yet the disappearances continued, it had come as an understanding to the people that every week a person went missing and the bodies were never found, it continued up to the point the sheriff took his own life

But everything was about to change with the appearance of a new sheriff

"As the new sheriff, I promise to get to the root of the problem" said the new sheriff 'Jacob'

"Better get to it, am counting on you" said the mayor with a cozening smile

Jacob was a young lad, he was new to the town, he had heard the town was in need of a sheriff, so he applied for the position and luckily for him it was given he was told about the calamity that had befallen the community, Jacob being a strong willed man dedicated himself to solving the mystery of the disappearances, after one full month of working his ass off there had been 3 missing person cases which had happened right under his nose

"I don't understand I had patrolled this town day and night"

"How come there is no single clue as, nobody saw nor heard anything"

"There has to be a pattern right, I think I will start by questioning the families of the victims"

And so Jacob began his investigations, he did so by questioning the families of those that had been recorded missing both recently and before he became the sheriff, he was able to get somewhat of information to work on, firstly was the time most of the victims were last seen where around the night time some were during the evening but the number of those taken during that time were of minimum which meant the culprit most likely operated at night time, the second thing he realized was the fact that more than 90% of them were last seen at the edge of the town near the forest or places that were less populated

With these new information Jacob had asked the mayor for funding but the mayor seemed to be reluctant and was even questioning Jacob on what he planned to do with the money, regardless from his pay Jacob hired men mostly outsider's to work as guards he had set up guard posts in the places where most disappearances had occurred and places where he suspects the culprit might hit next

His tactics were actually making a difference a week had passed but there were yet to be any missing person cases, during Jacob's time in town he had fallen in love with a girl, she was an orphan whom Jacob had taken a liking to she lived with him he had decided to marry her after he was done with the case…

"You promised us that no one would disturb our operations, we spared you and even decided to only take a minimal amount" a voice said with clear authority

"Am sorry I didn't know he would go that far, I was just giving the people what they wanted, please have mercy on me" the mayor said as he was on his knees with his head faced down

As he could not look at the individual

"Please I will do something about it" the mayor said with traces of fear in his voice

"So this new sheriff, does he have a family or someone dear to him"

"He doesn't have a family although there is someone I heard he cares about, whom he wishes to marry"

"That will do, now let's see if he would rather have someone he loves disappear or maybe some random person" the voice said with a little cackle

It was a new week and there were yet to be any news of missing individuals, but this didn't mean the end of Jacob's search he still was curious as to what had been happening he had been searching some parts of the forest where the last set of missing had been said to have been last seen, he was able to find foot prints that led further into the depths of the forest, he had only started planning to lead a search party through the thick forest but when he got home that night his precious was gone with a piece of note left on the table which

Was written "follow the lake, north of the forest upstream if you want to see her alive"

The moment Jacob read these words he grabbed his revolver which was on the table and dashed out of the building, he started running towards the lake without looking back as his mind was filled with thoughts

"How could I let this happen, I should have known if pushed to the wall the culprit might try to get me out of his way, even though it could be a trap I have no option but to jump right in"

Under a few minutes Jacob, following the instructions on the note Jacob made his way towards the stream as he got to the entrance of a cave

Entering the cave he could see two people standing one was someone he knew someone dear to him but the other was a total stranger to him

"Let her go" Jacob said

"And why should I do that" the man standing beside her said

"You know everything was going on just fine before you arrived at this town" the man said

"Fine you say, you mean all this people going missing is fine" Jacob replied

"I meant fine for me, you have no either what you're doing, I don't want to kill you but here's how it going to go down, you're going to go back into town disband all those guard posts and watch towers, then you'll get this little missy back sounds fair right"

As Jacob listened to the man rambling on he was slowly reaching for his revolver, which was on his belt

*bang* a loud noise echoed as trails of smoke left the barrel of Jacobs revolver