Melodie Jenson's Story

Melodie was in her office, bare feet atop her desk, when the call came in. Sighing, she reached over and reluctantly lifted the phone off the reciever.

"Melodie Jenson speaking." The voice on the other end was silent for a moment, before explaining the situation at hand.

"I see," She mumbled into the speaker, "Another body's been found with the same markings, but is there anything NEW?"

"Nothing else, Mel." Melodie rolled her eyes.

"Then please give me a call when you find something that's actually helpful." With that, she tossed down the phone and missed the reciever by a long shot. Instead, it landed in the wastepaper basket by the window. She didn't even bother to pick it up. She laid back against the plush office chair and ran both hands through her long hair. The constant attacks by the local press and the calls from her supervisor were enough to drive anyone crazy.

The case papers were scattered about the room, thirty-seven to be exact. In all her years as a part of the Lakeview Investigation Force, she'd never had more than one incident left unsolved at a time. Yet somehow, a madman was able to walk free, killing tourists and leaving two holes on their necks. Soon enough, reporters began to regard the man behind it as "The Vampire Killer".

Melodie laughed humorlessly at the notion and stood, grabbing her shoes before leaving the office. It was time to examine yet another crime scene.

Pulling up in her beat-up car, she could tell that it wasn't going to be a good day. Despite how early it was, there were already swarms of reporters at the scene. Melodie did little to hide her irritation when they surrounded her vehicle.

"Mrs. Jenson! This is the fourth murder that you've been called to investigate this month with no obvious leads; would you say that this is due to the intelligence of the culprit or an error on the part of the police handling the case?"

"Rest assured, the Lakeview PD is doing everything in their power to see this criminal brought to justice." She replied through gritted teeth. Even though Melodie wanted nothing more than to knock every single press reporter to the ground, there was a certain professionalism that had to be maintained. The questions only became worse as they progressed.

"Is it true that the department is bringing in a senior investigator that they believe to be more capable of tracking down a suspect?" Turning on her heels, she faced the questioner.

With icy glare, she replied for a final time. "No comment. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a job that needs attending to." Pushing her way through the crowd, she finally reached the taped off crime scene.

What she saw was predictable. A middle-aged man was sprawled out on the floor, a few drips of blood splattered across the pavement by his head. She slowly crouched down by the victim to get a closer look. Scenes like this no longer shocked her. She reached out to move the head, but was stopped by a nearby officer.

"We're still photographing the body, Mrs. Jenson. Please refrain from moving it for now." Seeing the face she gave him, he pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his bag and handed them to her. "You can take a look at the rest of the scene though. Not that there's much to see." Melodie sighed and stood. She didn't need to see the body, they were all the same anyways.

Her search of the rest of the scene turned up nothing new. There were no footprints, no fingerprint, not a single thing that could be used to track a culprit. Calling over her shoulder, she shouted, "Call me when I can get a look at him."

As Melodie crawled under the yellow caution tape, she was relieved to notice that all the press agents had been shooed away. She stopped for a moment to fix a stray strand from her ponytail and was approached by one of the force's senior officers.

"Nothing new to report on?" He asked cautiously. Everyone knew better than to mess with Melodie after a failed investigation.

"Nope."

He nodded thoughtfully and was silent for a moment. Thinking aloud, he sighed, "What sane person feels the need to mutilate a body after a murder? It's cult activity if you ask me."

Melodie sighed, "Probably."

With that, she found her car and crawled into it. Before she could even muster up the strength to stick the key in the ignition, all of the anger that she'd been concealing for months came pouring back out. "Dammit!" She shrieked, pounding her hand against the dashboard. She could see her fellow officers watching in shock, but she no longer cared. "I'll find you eventually, you bastard!"

Melodie looked up at the woman in disbelief. The thought of another person assisting her in the investigation wasn't exactly thrilling.

"The details of this case are classified to the public, so I don't see any room for a schoolteacher to get involved." She muttered grumpily. "But suppose that I DID do all that. Like with the teeth marks and stuff." All traces of professionalism faded as she clutched desperately to the steering wheel for support. "What do you suppose my next course of action is, get a dentist to measure the mouth of every damn person in this town?" She sighed for a moment, staring silently at the woman for a moment and regaining her composure.

Looking around to see if there were any other officers around, she leaned out the car window and whispered. "Look, we already know it isn't the mountain cannibal. We actually ruled that out a while ago. The problem is finding a guy that punches two holes into the necks of his victims. Probably some sort of cult thing." She peeked over at the crime scene before continuing, "There's no way that human teeth could do something like that, so right now we're searching for some sort of artificial fangs." Melodie wasn't permitted to share these facts with anyone outside of the case, and she wasn't exactly sure what possessed her to do it now.

Leaning back against the seat, she silently thought to herself, 'Measuring the distance between them might not work so well, but if I measured the depth of the puncture wound I might be able to track it with with a specialist.'

Melodie glanced over at the teacher once more before starting the car. Suspicious of the woman, she spoke once more before pulling out of the lot.

"How do you know so much? This is classified information."

She wasn't sure why, but Melodie suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

"So, you think the force will take me seriously if I suggest that the murderer is a vampire?" She asked, trying her very best to avoid the nausea. "I believe in those creatures about as much as I believe in Bigfoot and aliens. People like to claim that they're real, but there's just no substantial evidence." She sighed for what felt like the hundredth time in the past hour, "I DO believe that the culprit might think he is a vampire. Like I said before, some sort of cult is probably involved."

Melodie glared down at the jerky in the woman's hand. "That thing smells disgusting." Plugging her nose, she continued on the subject, "Anyways, even if you have been the one to discover many of the bodies, I don't see how that qualifies you to give insight on an investigation. Thank you for your input though." Shutting her eyes, she began to roll up the window, but stopped halfway.

"Didn't you say that you were a teacher? I imagine you'll be late if you stick around here for too long." Melodie just wanted to get back to her office and look over the case files. She needed to find some other plausible motive. The idea that vampires existed was just too insane to accept.

Melodie watched the woman walk away before jotting the name 'Karea Vilnessen' down in her pocketbook. Although she didn't plan on calling the teacher, her intentions did include keeping an eye on Miss Vilnessen. Exhausted, she drove back to her office.

The rest of the day was anything but relaxing. From the moment she returned up to the very moment that the sun disappeared, she sat on the floor rifling through old case papers. There had been nothing drastic, as she expected. All of the victim's had the same cause of death; loss of blood. In addition, every single one had two puncture marks visible on their necks. At one point, Melodie was convinced that somebody in the station had messed up and photocopied the same report thirty times.

Although she'd spent an enormous amount of time going through piles of paperwork, a majority of it was actually spent trying to find out more about Karea Vilnessen. While it was true that she could be found in the phone book, Melodie found it nearly impossible to locate any other information on her. There was a record of employment from a local high school, but that was about it.

"So you teach literature, huh?" Melodie mumbled to herself, leaning over her laptop. With great disappointment and heavy sarcasm, she added, "That REALLY helps me find 'The Vampire'." She let out a humorless laugh, "If only you had some sort of criminal past, that would've at least made things a little more interesting for me."

Conversations with herself actually seemed to be the only thing keeping Melodie sane on days like these. After a seemingly-endless day, she finally drove to her empty home.