The Hunt for Mozom

CW: Mentions of cannibalism and murder

Between us my dear reader I think you’ll realize that my story is worth sifting through, my truth is worth learning so that you can make your own judgement of my character.

The last few months had been a blur of activity as the case of the Cannibal had consumed me and my team, not literally of course at least not yet. A small town like ours in the middle of nowhere was not that garnered much attention from the rest of the country and yet as I pulled my beat up cruiser into the station parking lot I could see the mob of reporters gathered. Hypocrites, always ignoring us but now that this tragic spree of killings had been occurring once a month for almost a year now we were somehow important? I slowly got out of the car and tried my best to sneak around them but they noticed and swung their cameras and recorders in my face.

“Chief Zeke, has there been any update in the case?” a shrill voiced annoying woman said to me shoving her mic in my face as I tried to push my way past everyone. “Will you stop the madman?”

I rolled my eyes at the incessant questions that were the same almost every other day at this point. TV crews had started to make a series out of this whole situation and it sickened me as I was reminded repeatedly of the kind of psychopath that we were trying to stop while these ingrates were trying to make a quick buck off our misery. Shoving my way past everyone I finally went through the double doors to the station where thankfully they weren’t allowed in.

I sighed and checked my watch.

“Just in time Chief,” Bill said, coming up to me holding out a mug full of coffee and smirking. “Did you enjoy the welcome outside?”

I accepted the coffee gratefully and took a swig feeling somewhat energized. “They got you too huh? I’m getting sick of this at this point. We should just not allow them within this whole city block.”

We walked through the dimly lit corridors of the old building with the occasional old cases posted on walls here and there sparsely. “Bill have you managed to find any pattern at all in how he picks the days when to attack besides the fact that it’s just once a month?” I asked him while reviewing the notes collected so far.

The younger man hesitated before finally admitting defeat. “It does seem random, there isn’t any specific pattern or relevance at all,” Bill sighed. “I don’t know what we’re going to do, there’s only a week left in this month so he will strike for sure but we can’t be everywhere.”

I looked at the letter in front of me from the law enforcement department of the state regarding the extra resources I’d asked for 3 weeks ago. “And of course they didn’t have anyone they could spare, why would they for a backwater town like ours?”

“You know Chief, maybe the killings will just stop on their own?” Bill asked, knowing it was misplaced optimism.

“Even if they did, which we can’t rely on, the culprit needs to be dealt with so we don’t have to live in this fear,” I replied tossing the department letter in a nearby trashcan.

We rounded the corner to the main meeting room and I stepped inside to see the rest of the team already digging away. For months now all 5 of us had been analyzing every loose end we could think of to try and it was beginning to all feel like a futile goose chase. The dark mood of the room could be felt despite Jackson’s occasional attempts at keeping our spirits up. They paused to look up at me hopefully.

“No, the department is not sending us any help,” I explained. The mood got even heavier as they got back to work.

“Maybe they know we’re smarter than them and have decided to leave it to us,” Jackson said with his head buried in various books of past cases that were even vaguely similar to this anywhere in the country. “We’re just that good!”

Clara shook her head and continued poring over her notes. “You know Chief, maybe Mozom is real.”

“This again?” I rolled my eyes. “You and your local folklore interests also we should stick to calling him the Cannibal, it’s more accurate. Some TV networks might sensationalize this more if they catch wind of this Mozom legend.”

I watched her get up and stand in front of us once again as she regularly did with this angle. “Look we all know this is native land that may have been desecrated by us,” she started. “There was a shrine that they bulldozed and built a playground on before the killings started, the natives used to believe in Mozom who is this being that would slip into homes and eat people. This guy eats people too.”

“You think he cooks them a bit first or like…” Jackson interjected snickering. “Sorry, genuine concern to be honest.”

She ignored him and continued. “What if we’re dealing with something supernatural?”

“I think we should just focus on what’s possible, this’ll complicate things too much,” Sam said, our main murder scene investigator.

I just shook my head feeling extra tired, more so than is normal for me and got back to reviewing the files in front of me. “I think your Mozom would have better places to haunt then our silly town, besides maybe BIll is right and he’ll stop on his own. The month is almost over anyway.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

***

The next morning I woke to the sounds of loud banging on my front door and made my way downstairs groggy and annoyed. It could only be one thing if they were at my door with such urgency. I opened the door to see Bill breathing heavily.

“Sorry to bother you and your wife chief-” he panted.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Mozom struck once again last night.”

Bill nodded quickly, giving me a chance to get ready. A few minutes later I was in the cruiser as he drove with the radio turned off. “What do we know about the victim?”

“Sam and Jackson are still combing through everything but it seems to be a middle aged man who works at the town movie theatre,” Bill explained. “Same as before, he tried to eat the victim again and the body is cold. This happened hours ago in the middle of the night.”

I leaned against the car window thinking about this senseless animal. There was no pattern at all in the victims he’d killed, it didn’t make any sense just how random he was and how he was able to circumvent everyone. “What about the patrols, is anyone missing or strange?”

Bill held the steering wheel tightly. “Chief, we handpicked these townsmen and we sent them in pairs to patrol to keep each other accountable, it can’t be one of them. Everyone is exactly where they were supposed to be.”

I sighed trying to think of who it could be, we were spread so thin with so few resources that it was impossible to get coverage of the whole town and everyone vulnerable. They just had no way of doing this in a relevant manner that could help other than just hoping that one of the patrols caught Mozom by blind luck out in the wild.

“Here this is the new patrol paths I thought of for the next few days,” Bill handed me a sheet of his ideas, concise and efficient as always. “I don’t know if it will help but when he strikes next month maybe he won’t see this coming.”

“Yeah this is good it could help,” I said handing the sheet back. “We might as well keep trying different things with this bastard. What choice do we have?”

I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that we were missing something very obvious, maybe you’ve spotted it in this retelling. But what happened next did change the situation and made it far more difficult.

***

The next 2 months were spent chasing our tails as usual, despite the new patrols and ideas this Mozom seemed immune to anything we tried, Two more murders occurred in that span and I was just about ready to quit.

“Chief, you're the only one we got that has some experience,” Carla pleaded as I paced around the room. “We’ll just be down another person if you leave us.”

She had a valid point, even if there was no progress I still had to do my best in this case. I nodded at them and finally decided to voice an idea that I had in mind.

“So far the patrols have been volunteers but what if we also patrol once in pairs,” I suggested. “Yes we’re tired form this and this will require working extra on some days but our trained eyes may see something that the others miss.”

I couldn’t voice the fact that I was concerned that Mozom may be in this room, it was one of the thoughts I’d been having when I considered how often he always seemed ahead of us. How else could he have known about the changes in patrol routes? I just hoped the others didn’t make the connection or get spooked.

Surprisingly they all nodded and agreed, which was reassuring because I’d hate for one of us to be this cannibal. So we divided into pairs, me and Bill on certain days whereas Jackson and Sam would take the other days. We could occasionally sub Clara in if needed. There’s no way he would get by us this month hopefully.

***

The light hit my face and I woke to a cold sensation, panic setting in and I looked at the room around me. It slowly came into focus, this was our small interrogation room that we never used. I sat cuffed to the chair that was meant for criminals and in front of me was a camera, an old one that the station owned to record any interrogations. It was rarely ever used and I don’t know if it even worked anymore.

Movement next to me and I turned my head to see Jackson standing next to me staring at me with horror.

“What’s the meaning of this?” I demanded. “Why am I cuffed like some criminal?”

“Because you are one,” Bill said walking into the room. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Remember what, our joint patrol wasn’t for another day and this was the last week of the month. We had to be extra vigilant so why am I restrained to this chair now?

“Ok great prank,” I said. “Now can we go back to searching for Mozom.”

The two men shared a look as Clara and Sam also entered the room staring at me with horror. What was going on? Why were the looking at me like that?

“We’ve found him, it’s always been you Zeke,” Bill said nursing a wound on his shoulder that seemed new.

I stared dumbfounded. And then I started laughing. “ME? MOZOM? You must be out of your mind, now get me out, we have our patrol tonight.”

Bill shook his head. “That patrol was last night, your memory is hazy and I’m not surprised,”

I started to tense up realizing how serious they all were, my eyes flicked to a nearby newspaper and the date was a day ahead than I expected.

What were they talking about? How could they treat me like this?

“I have raised you all, why on earth would I be a cannibal?” I said weakly, straining against the cuffs.

Clara just shook her head. “I didn’t want to believe it, Chief, but after last night when you attacked Bill…”

Me attacking Bill? How could that have happened? Even if we were on patrol together we’d never had any issues the few days a month that we did our due diligence.

“Bill what is going on I am not Mozom you know this please,” I said looking up at him. “How could this happen? I am Zeke!”

Bill quietly turned the nearby TV on and it showed a recording of the room, the date and time confirmed it was from last night. After a few moments I saw them dragging me in, cuffed and restrained while I thrashed against the 3 men.

“No, that's not me, I could never…” I didn’t have the words to deny what I saw.

Finally the struggling stopped as they restrained me to this chair and I looked directly at the camera but my eyes were filled with a mania that was uncharacteristic of me. That couldn’t be me. Even in this recording he looked at me as if he could see me and smiled wickedly.

“I AM MOZOM!” my voice boomed out and I watched in horror and then the me in the recording passed out.

“There have been sometimes cases of people with split personality disorder…” I heard Bill begin to say but I couldn’t focus anymore as I realized the monster I had living within me without my knowledge