Chapter 8

Distractions

I just sort of stared at Casey like he was crazy. "You mean... You want to figure this out?"

"Yeah." he nodded.

"But.. Everytime I get stuck in a mess it's by accident, see? And this is definetly not an accident."

"I picked up the paper, whoops, look an accident." Casey smiled. Then he grabbed my hand, "Look, we'll talk about this later. You gotta get gome."

"Yeaaahh..." I said slowly as he pulled me along. Then I said, "But what's the point of trying to be the ones to figure this out when they're running the DNA tests?"

"Well, there's no point. That's why we'll check this morning's paper to see if there is any new information." he looked down at the article clipping. "This one is from yesterday, so... Maybe there's something new? Some new information that could help?"

"Most likely." I said, still feeling like this was the weirdest thing ever. Out of all the 'accidents' in getting involved in messes like this I'd had before, this accident was the worst and the most dangerous, of course.

I had to stop a moment and question Casey's sanity. I decided Casey was perfectly sane when he said, "Sammy..? Sammy.. Sammy...! What's up? Why are you so zoned out?" and he added, just to catch my attention, "Look! There's your cat!"

"Where!" I yelped and snapped out of my zoned-out world.

Casey laughed, "I was kidding. You don't really have a cat... Do you?"

"Yeah, I do, actually." I scoffed.

"Oh then. Then maybe you had a right to yell 'Where!'. It was quite funny I must say."

"Oh, be..." I didn't finish the sentence by saing 'queit' because I caught sight of one of those outdoor, cheap chainstores. And right outside a store called 'CLEANERS' (What an original name, huh?) was a newspaper stand. "Look!" I said, "Let's get one now." so we headed over and the annoyed looking man chewed hastily on the edge of his cigarette. "Whaddaya want?"

"Um... A newspaper, please." I said.

"We ain't got none of those 'ere." chew chew chew.

"Um, sir.. They're sitting right next to you." I said slowly.

"Scram. Marcs!"

"Marcs?" I couldn't help asking.

"MARCS IS SCRAM BACKWARDS! AND THAT'S MAH NAME, YOU NUISANCE! MARC!"

"Okay, okay." I said raising my hands and backing off, "chill."

"Wait." Casey said. He held out the clipping. "Do you happen to know anything about this serial killer?"

Marc's eyes bugged wide open. "That was in today's newwwzzpaperrr." he enunciated his 'newwwspaperrrrr'.

"Well, may be buy one?" Casey asked impatiently.

"Sure thang, li'l bud." he smiled a black-toothed smiled at Casey, which made Case cringe and hand over 75 cents. Marc handed him a newspaper and glared at me. "Now scram, you li'l scumbag." he said to me, "I aint don't like no girls or fe- fe- what's it called?"

Casey rolled his eyes, "females?"

"Oh right. I said I aint don't like no girls or fe-thingies, females or whate'r not 'ere. Now scam!"

"Scam?" I asked, "Or scram?" I said it just to bother him.

It worked.

"I SAID SCRAM, SCRAM, SCRAM YOU FE- FE-"

"Female!" I said. "And bye, Marc." I turned around, but quickly turned back and winked. "See ya later."

He growled and got up to throw a newspaper at me, which made me say, "Woah!" and Casey say, "Calm down, dude! Don't hit her."

"Aw shaddap dawg." Marc said.

Casey's eyes widened for second, taking in the fact that some bony smoker who sat on the edge of the street selling newspapers and didn't even know how to say female called him a 'dawg'. He turned around, disgusted.

And, most likely, scarred for life.

So Casey and I went as faaaaaaaaar away from him as we could go and checked out the newspaper. Sure enough, there was an article in it about the killings. The case was now officially named, The Santa Martina Number-Seven Serial Murder Cases.

The Santa Number-Seven Serial Murder Cases

This just in: The DNA testing for the Number-Seven serial killer failed. They re-ran the test four times but four different people came up and no one can figure out why.

As for the murders, there has been one more murder on the night of August 12th of a young male named Landon Hall. Hall was killed by being drugged by roofies. Apparently, he was first beaten against a sink in a public men's restroom seven times, states a witness. Then he was dragged away in which to be drugged. Dr Morris Jerins states that this serial killer will surely be back, and soon.

Landon Hall, male, 14, beaten (7X) and drugged

-Reported by Delanie McDevan

Any further information, send an email at

The first thing that popped out of my mouth was, "Wow, that Doctor Morris dude is an idiot. Well of course the killer will be back! He calls himself a doctor?"

Casey laughed, "He was fourteen years old, notice."

"And, I might add, what was the point of the drugs? If he was beaten, he couldn't just died there if it was bad enough."

Casey was closely inspecting the article. "This reporter.. Delanie McDevan.. Let's meet her."

"Why?"

"Because, we need to. She seems to be the one doing all these serial killer reports so she obiously knows more."

"But how do we find her?"

"I don't know.." he said. "Honestly.. I'm lost."

"Wait! Let's first email her." I said pointing to Delanie's email. "Then we can ask to meet her. We'll have to pretend to be.. Reporters from Hollywood.. Lets pretend we want to make this news big."

"Yeah," Casey agreed, "big to them means big money. Which means Delanie'll definetly say yes."

"So.. Where do we go?"

"We can't do this at my home, my dad'll ask why you're back."

"The library?" I asked.

Casey nodded, "Sure! Let's go." he ripped out the page with the article in it and threw the rest of the newspaper away in a trash can. Then he grabbed my hand. "We have some emailing to do."

"Yup." I laughed. Then I added, "It's weird to think that the killer is loose in Santa Martina." I sort of shuddered.

"Are you cold?" Casey asks me.

"No.. Why?"

"You shuddered." he stated.

I rolled my eyes and laughed, "Weren't you listening to anything I was saying? I said it's weird that there's a kille-" just then, someone's hands clamped my mouth shut from behind me. A man's. And definetly not Casey's, because he was standing right there, and then he yelled, "Sammy! RUN!"

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