A/N: Warning reference to Sexual Assault, Murder, and Suicide!

Part 1: Ghosts 'N' Stuff

——Vincent——

"Vincent, how long do you think this hunt will be?" Sammy asked as he sat across from me, buried in his phone, reading messages from his followers. His legs dangled over the chair side as he awaited my answer.

"Depends," I replied, looking down to the scattered mess of microfiche scans, photos, and police reports spread throughout my side of the coffee table. "He could make this easy." I said, turning back to Sammy when he spoke.

"They never do. Though you just love the buildup to the confrontation." I smirked at his answer, thoughts of my plan for my target playing through my mind as I leaned back on the couch.

"Yeah, of course I got a plan to piss him off and get him to come to me." Sammy nodded, still undeterred from his phone screen as the clicks and clacks echoed throughout the living room. His fingers froze. The room went silent.

"Wait," His head turned towards me. I had caught his curiosity. "This is the ghost in the condo that Cami bought for you? Right?" He asked when the sound of his typing occupied the awkward silence between us. 

Why does he have to say it like that?

"She's buying the place." My hand tightened and shook in anger as I continued. "But." I paused, letting out a small chuckle. "I'm going to buy the place off her one day." With my correction, he looked at me, his lips perking up.

"Between Cami's patience and our abundance of time, I suppose that works." His sarcastic words made my eyes narrow and lips tighten.

"Listen here Sammy, I'm trying to invest in my best life, or at least that's how Cami sold me on this!" I said in defense of myself as I threw my hands up. "Okay?" I watched him, waiting for a response.

"Alright then." Those two indifferent words hit hard enough to make me look down at my files, resting on the table letting out a growl. My eyes shot back up to his. 

"I'm going back to school in the fall and I'm using the rest of the summer to fix the damn condo up." My irritation hitting a peak, I watched Sammy. More typing followed a faint movement of his head.

Was that a subconscious nod to me? Or directed at whoever he was replying to? 

His minimal attention had made my blood boil as I stared him down and let out a frustrated sigh. Sammy's eyes darted to me a moment before returning to his screen.

"How many days has it been since your last kill? You seem a little on edge." Sammy paused and watched me. "Do I need to crate you until you head to the condo?" Positioning himself upright in his chair. Sammy set his precious phone down and fixed his slicked back hair to give me his full attention.

"It's been almost twenty-three days since my last hunt. I'm losing it, but soon enough I'll be able to fix that." Sammy nodded, returning his focus to my pile of papers. 

"Alright then, what did this one do?" I jumped on the change of topics his question brought and grabbed at the corner of one of the pages to free it from the clutter.

Once again, I looked at the picture of the disgusting bastard, his thinly combed over, greasy hair failed miserably at its task. His square glasses did nothing to complement his bloated, wrinkled skin. I pushed it to Sammy's side of the table.

Alright, time to run him through the situation like a true crime podcaster.

"Alexander Waters, the local media, referred to his crimes as The Hammer Homicides. They also nicknamed him the Hammer Man." I said as Sammy remained unfazed by the picture.

Give Eunie some time and she could come up with a way better nickname for him.

I stared at Sammy, hoping he would look back at me and ask why. Instead, I only received irritating silence.

Wanting to end the pause, I spoke. "He used a hammer."

"Really," Sammy said, filled with sarcasm.

Not wanting to lose my momentum, I ignored his comment and continued on. "What made these crimes so heinous was his process. Forensics had some decent leaps between the murders, but from what was determined, it seems first he'd break their jaw to silence them. Once they couldn't call out for help, Alexander then shattered their kneecaps so they couldn't run either." I paused and allowed Sammy to share his thoughts when he gestured for me to proceed.

Ugh, I know this isn't that crazy from what we've dealt with before, but can't you ever be fun and play along?

"Once his victims couldn't flee or scream out for help, the sick fucker would violate them. After that, he would bash what remained of their skull in. His first victim had five blows to her head while the second had ten. Based on that, it seems he grew more brazen between the killings." I again gave Sammy a moment to speak.

"Seems pretty methodical for someone with only two victims." His response matched my thoughts on the murders, though I had nothing to back up our suspicions.

I went back to my pile and pulled the next three sheets needed for my presentation with my reluctant audience. The first was a picture in black and white that had yellowed with age, showing a beautiful woman with her curly hair in an afro.

"He killed Tonya Watts in the woods on the outskirts of Castle Hill Condominiums in sixty-six." I pushed a newspaper article towards him to look over. "Despite the brutal murder, she barely made the news. My guess is the Castle family used their presence over the town to suppress the murder. They were making a fortune off the land, particularly the expansions of Castle Hills Condominiums, right on her death site," I explained, noticing Sammy set the papers down.

"It would make sense for the people with a financial interest in the land to keep it out of the news for murder," Sammy said, confirming something I needed to investigate after I cleared my condo of its spectral squatter. 

"Yeah, regarding the Castle family and all my current research of the town, it seems they had an iron grip on it until the late seventies. Business, housing development, philanthropy. You name it, they either ran it or had some control over it." With that tidbit added, I presented another photo, with another young, beautiful woman who met a gruesome end at the hands of the same monster.. While this one was in color, it had also been touched by time and faded before being scanned into the microfiche.

"They found his second victim in the summer of eighty-two. Victoria Brawn. Unlike in the sixties, the Castle family had already sold off or closed the vast majority of their properties. The family that had built this town were now looking at the beginning of the end of their empire," I said before another pause.

A few of their abandoned businesses, such as the mill, were some of the first places I wanted to investigate once I've dealt with Alexander. Fortunately, it was within walking distance of my condo.

As I resumed, Sammy eyed his phone. To pull him back, I tapped my hands on the table to direct his attention back to the second victim. 

He apathetically complied as I resumed. "Victoria was a very well known woman throughout the condominium complex, when the news of her grisly murder hit the public. It prompted dozens of people to figure out what happened and bring her justice. Eventually, they pieced together that Alexander was following her the day before she disappeared." Sammy nodded along with the events that lead to Alexander's undoing.

"Did Alexander kill himself in the condo before they could arrest him?" 

I smiled and gave him a nod, pointing my fingers at my head before pulling them away to mimic a gun going off. The gesture made Sammy roll his eyes at me.

"Yup, the bastard blew his brains out when the police arrived to take him in for questioning." 

"Of course he did," Sammy said, keeping consistent in his enthusiasm towards my current target. With my pile of papers dwindling, I slid over all but one of the remaining papers to Sammy.

"Cami and I got this inspection report a couple of weeks ago. There's a fascinating picture in there." I gave him a teasing smile as I awaited his discovery of the horror that lurked in the report.

Most of the report was pretty boring, slow drains, peeling yellowed paint on walls, settlement cracks on the ceilings, and floors covered in decades of dust. However, one picture of the bunch had something interesting in it.

"The inspector got a picture of Alexander," Sammy said as he turned the sheet towards me to show a photo of the master bedroom. In the picture's edge, a doorway with a strange, dark shape showed despite the light coming in from behind the shadow.

If a person were to glance at the photo quickly, they would think something obscured the lense. Looking at it closer, you would swear there was a face looking right at the camera.

"He died in the bedroom, so he won't like anything stepping into his death spot. Here are my notes on him." I slid over the last of the papers and provided Sammy my final findings.

"The last of my research leads me to believe Alexander is bound to the unit. Over the last twenty years, the police have been called to the unit several times. All for the same thing; A woman walked by alone at night, only to spot a man in the window smashing his hands against the glass. But no one was in there when the cops came to take a look around the building. Management has always advised they locked the door tight and that no one is living there, so there's not much anyone can do about it." With the last piece of my presentation given, I cracked another smile. "Well, not much anyone can do besides someone like me or you." I fell back on the couch and took a breath.

"Okay, I'm done talking like a true crime podcaster and you saw all the papers. He's trapped in there. It's been that way for nearly forty years." I paused for a moment as my smile twisted. The plan I had put together to damn him was nearly upon me. 

The Hammer Man would soon suffer for everything he thought he could run from in death.

I let out a happy sigh. "He can't run from me." A chuckle followed. Sammy did what he always did when I became overzealous about work. He rolled his eyes. I turned to him, my smile intact.

Of course, I never pass up a chance to point out his lacking work ethic.

"We're hunting the wicked! It's our job to send them to eternal damnation for their sins!" I chuckled again, though more frantic than before. Sammy added a head shake to his usual eye roll. "Oh c'mon, you're a professional streamer. I'm taking a page from your book and making my target audience feel what I want them to as I perform," I said as he put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.

"That's different." His tone was cool and balanced.

"Different? Different how?" I asked, my tone a stark contrast to his.

"I'm not attacking my audience." His words only made my smile grow and show my teeth before I threw my hands palm up to the ceiling and shrugged.

"Either way, we do this for eternity, so I'm gonna do it with a smile, and you can just do it the Deadpan Dan way." With my point made, I took a slow breath and calmed myself down, as the rush I was riding subsided. 

An easy enough plan, keep it together until I get everything in place at the condo.

"That works for me," Sammy said, taking his phone back as the sound of clicks and clacks returned to the living room. "When do you head out for this?" His full attention now back on his phone, he awaited my response.

"In a bit, I got almost everything packed up. Oh, I promise to message you and Eunie on your stream tonight when it's all set," I said.

As I made my way towards the few things I had prepped for the night, Sammy spoke. "Try not to break a sweat." Sammy's sentiment made me chuckle. 

What's the worst that could come from that?