"Good morning Gibson! You back already?" The store owner of 'beds and blankets' asked me, giving me the same wide smile as always and tipping his little black hat that clashed horribly with his hair, and pretty much everything about him. His store was homely, despite the constant smell of beer and old floorboards.
"Good morning sir. Well, so it seems. You see, me and my wife think it'd be a good idea to get little Percy another blanket. The poor devil's got chicken pox from hell."
"Oh, bless him. Well, at least he's getting them young. I had chicken pox when I was nearing twenty. Here, let me take your hat for you, detective." With a large grin as always, he held his hand out. I handed him my cap and smiled back at him, nodding.
"Nearing twenty? Wow, and I thought seven was old to get them." The owner chuckled quietly to himself, looking down at his catalogue.
"Yes sir, it was hell. Had spots everywhere. It was a good excuse for a break from work, though. Wait, he's really seven? Wow, they sure do age quickly."
I nodded, adjusting my glasses and laughing quietly. "Indeed. Could I have a look at that red quilt behind you?"
"Of course. Do you mean this one?" He asked, pointing at a small woven blanket sitting alone on a shelf of other similar sheets. I nodded, and he reached up, groaning.
"Are you okay, sir?"
"Oh I'm fine. It's just my back. This one here is... well, it says £10, but I'll sell it to ya at £5."
"Are you sure? I can pay full price." I asked, looking him in his eyes and adjusting my glasses once more. For an ugly man like the store owner, he had the most beautiful deep eyes. Gibson examined his hair, or what he had left of it. It looked more like silver strands of hay rather than hair, and his roots were an obvious grey. To be fair to the bloke, he was almost 50. He'd been running this family business for most of his life. That is, of course, when he wasn't out getting piss-faced at the bar.
"Of course, for you, sir. And plus, it's been up here for a long time. It's not making money up there now, is it?" He chuckled, exchanging the quilt for a £5 note.
"Why, thank you, Wilbert. I appreciate it. See you later." I waved, and stepped outside of the door.
The stench of sewage and dead pigs filled my nostrils once again within just a second of stepping outside. I sighed, trying not to gag. This job would be the death of me. Of course this case had to be in the middle of nowhere in a town that stunk of feces.
The phone rang.
"God, can't a guy get a bit of peace?" I said to myself under my breath, before remembering that this was the reason I was over there in the first place.
"Detective Gibson. Yep. Okay. Alright, I'll be right there." I rolled my eyes, and hung up.
Another murder.
As I arrived at the site, to my surprise it didn't seem to bother me. When I first became a detective at 21 I could never see a dead body or even a wound without wanting to throw up. But maybe I had just gotten used to it.
"Is it the same man?" I asked Detective Watson, examining the man who lay just a foot away from me.
Detective Watson was an expert at his job. I counted on him and I knew many others did, too. He seemed to be able to almost read this killer's mind. Able to take a guess at his next move. The scariest part was that he was right most of the time.
The detective just stood, not taking his eyes off of the body and nodded. "I think so."
This was an oddly blunt response for him, he was usually a cheery man. Very bubbly and a little camp. But now he just stood there and looked at the body thoughtfully. So deep in thought his brow twitched every so often like as if he was contemplating something. I didn't know weather to confront him about his seemingly low mood or to just let it go. He'd been working on this case for over a year now, and still he had no evidence or even the slightest clue of who the killer could be. They were obviously extremely careful with their killings, cautious not to leave even the smallest piece of evidence. And they were successful. We had nothing to work with but a handful of dead people with nothing connecting them, or at least what we knew of. They hadn't even left a hair or a footprint.
"God, Gibson." Watson finally spoke up out of the blue. He still hadn't looked away, not even for a second. But it didn't seem like he was thinking about the person anymore. Or of anything at all, really. "I've been working on this case for over a year. This bastard has taken over a year of my life, without us being able to find so much as a connection between the victims. It's not because we're incompetent, or he's some sort of mastermind. I'm pretty sure it's just because he's a little-over average guy with a lot of luck and even more hiding places. We just need to know where to look. Maybe we're missing something simple here. It could be something like a link between the victims, but I've checked them over and over again. I haven't found anything." He sighed once more, and at last looked away and up at me. I nodded. Which was probably annoying to him as he had just spoken for around 30 seconds and hardly stopped to breathe. But I was still taking everything in. Everything he had said. Maybe he was right; we hadn't been very creative with where we looked. Heck, we hadn't even looked deeply into any of the victims. The country was completely taken over by shock at the murders, so we needed to solve them and damn it it needed to be fast. It seemed like the killer had no boundaries- there were all kinds of victims. Men, women, children, you name it. So of course, nobody thought they were safe. They all feared they'd be taken by this new murderer who had been given the nickname of 'the masked rabbit'. As a name it didn't sound threatening, but if you said it around anyone in the whole of England they'd shiver just at the sound of it. Not many knew, but the reason they were called this was because the victims were forced to swallow rabbit food laced with poison. But this was twisted into some sick game. There were two pieces of rabbit food: one free of harm, and one laced with poison. The victim had to chose one for themselves, and then give the other to their partner. I never knew why the theme was rabbits; I'd never been too interested in them myself. They were just like big rats with long ears and shorter, more fluffy tails. But that was just one of the many questions that were still unanswered. And the least of my worries right now.
