Killer

It was summer. The year was 2009. Back then I was living in a pretty small village, just outside of Omaha, Nebraska. For about 2 months now, a serial killer had been on the loose. No one knew who he was. The killer had been attacking people in their house at night, wearing a mask. He killed 2 people and 3 others were in the hospital. I was 16 at the time and my best friend Ryan was 17. We were reckless teenagers, doing every dumb thing we could think of, not caring about the consequences. We decided that we weren't scared of the serial killer. We both planned to go out at night in search for him. About 50 yards from my house there was a road leading uphill. There were hills everywhere surrounding our village. I decided that it was the best place to "go after" the serial killer.

One night, when my parents were at a wedding in another city, Ryan came over and at about 9:30 PM we went off on our way. I had a phone. It was one of those old flip-phones. I decided to take it with me just in case. We also got some water and chips. When we started climbing my friend said: "Maybe this is a bad idea... We should probably turn back... I mean... What if we actually run into him...?". I told him "Relax mate... we'll be fine. I don't even think there is a serial killer out here. We won't find anything, then we'll go back to my place, make something to eat, watch a movie and go to sleep. You'll see.". He said: "Ok...", but I could tell he was still a bit scared and didn't really want to keep going.

When we got to the top of the hill I said: "Look, I've been around here before. Let's start heading on this road, then we'll get to a crossroad about 10 minutes in. There, we can decide what we want to do next." We got to the crossroad and started heading on the road leading west. I had never been there before. I put on some music on my flip-phone that I had downloaded.

At this point it was about 10 o'clock. It started getting really dark. Ryan said: "Let's turn back... I don't like it here." I said: "Ok, we'll turn back..." Just as we started to turn back I noticed there was a small shack. Ryan looked at me and knew what I was thinking. He said: "Just leave it..." I started walking towards the shack without saying a word to him. He grabbed my hand and said: "NO!".

I kept walking towards it, ignoring him. When I got there, I looked inside the shack. It had big window frames but there were no windows. I could see there was what seemed to be a bed, some blankets and a lot of dust everywhere. I sighed and just as I turned towards Ryan I could hear something coming from behind the shack. I looked over. There was a man standing there, with his back turned to me, whistling and he seemed to be taking a leak. I didn't say a word. I was scared. My adrenaline was pumping. My heart was racing. As I started walking backwards I stepped on a tree branch that was on the ground and it made a loud snapping sound. The guy turned around instantly. He was tall and skinny. He wore a red t-shirt and blue jeans. He also had a red cap. You could see his curly hair coming out from under the cap. He smiled at me. It was the most sicking smile I had ever seen in my life. I yelled "RUN!" to my friend Ryan. We both took off, sprinting like there was no tomorrow.

The guy started chasing after us. I had the phone in my hand. While running, I dialed 911 without even looking at the phone and started yelling: "HELP SOMEONE IS CHASING ME AND MY FRIEND WE ARE ON THE HILLS PLEASE HELP!" After yelling like that I stepped in an awkward position, falling to one knee and dropping my phone that was still on the line with 911. We never stopped running. When we arrived back at the crossroad, I looked behind and he wasn't there. We kept running until we got to the road leading downhill. There, I looked behind me one more time and he was there again, just standing still. Just a dark silhouette on a dirt road with trees and bushes on both sides. I could hear cop cars swarming the streets down below and bright blue and red lights. Running downhill was a bit hard for me. I had a knee accident not too long ago and it hurt like hell.

When we got to the cops I hugged one of them, crying and yelling: "THERE WAS THIS GUY I THINK HE WAS THE SERIAL KILLER PLEASE HELP!" The cop calmed me down. One of them called for backup, while two started climbing the hill. About 5 minutes after that we heard a gun shot. I looked at Ryan and he looked at me. Then, the cop's radio went off. Another cop said: "10-71, shots fired, man down, we need an ambulance. He tried to attack me with a knife, he slashed Chris pretty bad, I shot him in the chest once. I think he's dead."

He was dead by the time the ambulance got there. The serial killer lived in that shack. After that night, the police started an investigation. They found belongings of the victims in the nearby woods, buried. They also found many knives and even a gun in that shack.

I still don't know how I fully feel about that night. On one hand, if we hadn't gone there they probably wouldn't have caught the serial killer. On the other hand, we both could have died or the officers could have been injured a lot worse.

Not a day goes bye where I don't think about what happened. I became a much more rational, calm person after that. Now I live with my dog in my apartment in Wyoming, writing stories such as this one. If there is one thing you can learn from me is that life is important and you shouldn't put yourself in danger for a stupid reason like finding a serial killer.