Page 19 of Girl, Deceived

But what caught her attention immediately was the giant red letters painted on the wall.

I AM IN HELL HELP ME.

‘Jesus,’ said Ripley. ‘That wasn’t on the crime scene photos.’

A familiar line, written in a style to resemble blood, just like the original.

‘It’s from the Hellraiser sequel,’ Ella said, struggling to fathom the brazenness of this unsub. And Mia was right. That chilling message had not been there in the initial crime scene photos. Someone had tampered with the scene, almost certainly the killer – at some point in the past twenty-four hours, no less. Ella snapped a picture of it with her phone.

Mia stepped closer, shining her flashlight along the baseboard. ‘There's some paint smudging down here. It's still a little wet,’ she observed, touching it and showing her red fingertip to Ella. ‘This might've been done recently, maybe even a few hours ago.’

Ella’s gut tightened. ‘He's playing with us. He wanted us to see this.’ She gazed at the message, each word screaming at her, both a taunt and a confession.

The agents began their meticulous examination of the cabin, checking every corner, every surface in the hopes of finding something, anything, that would lead them closer to the perpetrator. The solitary window, though filthy from years of neglect, still held a few clear spots. Ella scrutinized them for signs of fingerprints but came up short.

‘We’re wasting time,’ Ripley said. ‘Forensics have already swept this place dry.’

Ella tested every floorboard for creaks, and every wall for possible hollows. She checked for hidden compartments, loose panel. In horror movies, secrets were often hidden in plain view from the beginning.

‘I am in hell, help me,’ Ella said. She repeated the line in her head. In the context of the movie, the victim’s physical self was literally trapped in the underworld. Was this killer comparing his mental struggles to that of someone stuck in hell? Was it a cry for help, a plea to be caught? She thought of past serial killers who’d done the same but found no comparison. Historic serial killers who’d begged police to catch them had all been lust murderers, unable to control their urges. This killer was far from that.

No footprints, no secret notes.

In the dim light, the floor of the cabin seemed uniformly dusty – a testament to years of neglect. But as Ella's flashlight beam drifted over to one corner, she noticed a peculiar detail: the corner area was covered in a thick layer of dust, except for four small, impeccably clean, circular spots.

They were arranged almost in a perfect square, equidistant from each other. She crouched down, motioning Mia over. ‘Look at this,’ she whispered, her voice betraying her intrigue.

Mia squinted, her own flashlight joining Ella’s. ‘What am I looking at?’

‘Four clean spots in a sea of dust,’ Ella replied, tracing the perimeter of the voids with her finger. They were almost the size of bottle caps, and each one was devoid of even a single dust particle. It was clear that something had been placed there, but what?

‘Props?’ Ripley asked. ‘We know this freak has a flair for the theatrical.’

‘These spots, I don't understand them. They're not random. He doesn’t do random.’

Ella stood up, her head throbbing with the weight of her thoughts. She started pacing the cabin, her flashlight beam flitting here and there, as if searching for an inspiration hidden in the gloom. ‘We've seen horror movie references, crime scenes that mimic iconic film sequences, but this...’ She gestured towards the dust-free circles, ‘This doesn't fit. Or if it does, I can't place it.’

Ripley sighed, running her fingers through her hair. ‘Maybe it’s a message we aren’t seeing yet, something that needs context. Or maybe it's a clue to the next scene he’s planning to set up.’

‘Exactly. These circles might be a hint to where we need to look next. Maybe we need to look outside this cabin. In the movies, the trail doesn't end at one location. The protagonists move from one scene to another, uncovering the story piece by piece.’

Mia nodded slowly, ‘The breadcrumbs in the fairy tale.’

Ella's gaze wandered back to the wall with the scrawled message. The wordsI AM IN HELL HELP MEfelt more significant now. This wasn't just about recreating movie scenes; it was about leading them on a journey, forcing them to play a part in his twisted narrative.

‘It's a puzzle, a challenge,’ Ella murmured, the realization sinking in. ‘And those spots might be our first tangible clue about where to go next. We just need to figure out how to read them.’

Ripley's phone pinged. She read a text message. 'The chief has set up our stations at the precinct. Are we ready to head there?'

Ella took a deep breath, trying to harness her racing thoughts. ‘Ripley, we need to go back to basics. This is about horror films, iconic sequences, legendary villains, and tortured victims. We need to decipher his storyline.’

Ripley raised an eyebrow, ‘How do you suggest we do that?’

‘We research. We go back and watch every iconic horror movie that could possibly inspire a deranged mind. Look for patterns, dialogues, settings. I remember the ones I’ve seen, but there’s gotta be thousands I haven’t,’ Ella explained.

Mia frowned, ‘It could take weeks, even months. There are countless horror movies.’

‘We need to narrow it down,’ Ella said with determination. ‘We look at the patterns from the scenes he’s already recreated. Locations, type of victims, methods. If he’s following a specific genre or timeline, it'll give us a starting point.’

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