A GIFT OF HAPPINESS

Book cover by: @uncomfymira

BEFORE YOU READ

This is the free-online version of my first ever novel. You are more than welcomed to read and share this publication with your friends. Since I am a newbie author, it is fair that I make my writing available to the broadest audience posible, this includes those who can't buy my books. For those enjoying my work by means of this version please share with your friends and family, there is an spanish version of this book present in this blog as well. The links to the amazon page of this book is available in the bottom of this post. Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

This is my very first fully realized book, a very big personal achievement indeed and the beginning of a long and extensive career in writing. Because of the nature of this book, this being my very first published work, writing and composing this story was indeed a big learning curve.

Despite this, I can and with all confidence say that the following story that you are about to read will be a very entertaining read regardless.

What is “A Gift Of Happiness?” This story is meant to be a murder mystery, but it can also be categorized as a slice of life as well. This story will be narrated to you by our main character, Zoe Townhouse which is a 23-year-old woman living in Brooklyn New York in the present time.

Zoe is a very lighthearted and very energetic person, as a result her narration style tends to be very fast paced. This will make for a very fast read. If you decide to read this whole novella in one single seating, it will take you about 1 hour and 40 minutes on average.

Despite the fast-paced nature of this story, there are plenty of details and characters that may at times be easy to miss but no less important.

I designed this story to be easy to pick up and easy to read in order to encourage the reader to pick it up again another time.

The first five chapters will be brief and short and will serve to firmly stablish the context, after the first five chapters, the latter half of this book will feature longer and more extensive chapters, changing the tone of the story to be a little darker and serving as the “meat” of the story sort of speak. Chances are, if you are able to read through the first two chapters of this book, you are going to love the rest of the story and will probably keep coming back every once and a while. Thank you so much for picking up my book, may this read be a source of entertainment for you. May this also mark the beginning of a long and extensive relationship of reader and writer between you and I.

CHAPTER 1

A THROWBACK TO BUFFALO

I find the duality of fiction and nonfiction to be fascinating. Even though both categories of literature are so distinct from each other yet, they can't exist without one another.

Non-fiction focuses on reality, on topics that are grounded in the state of the reality of things. Fiction in the other hand focuses on everything else, including on what's real, but with a twist and even a little exaggeration as well. The honest truth is that both categories borrow from each other a lot and we can't have one without the other.
Why do I bring this up in a manner so sudden and so randomly? You see, sometimes reality can be so abstract, so bizarre, and so odd that at times we may be left wondering whether what we just experienced or are currently experiencing may be fiction or not.

At times people may say, specially when they are retelling an experience: "just like it happens in a fiction novel [...]” Because of this, in my opinion, everyone has had or will have an experience that will leave them wondering and sometimes even leave them confused on whether what just happened to them is real or not.

An experience such as this befell me about six years ago in the fall of 2017, when I was still a college freshman pursuing my computer science major, while living on Buffalo. This is my story.

My friends, Bella, Kate, and Lilith have come over to my place to spend the night and to have fun together before their midterm exams, this is while my roommate Jazmin is out at work in the hospital. In essence, this whole get together is originally intended to be an extended study session, and at first, we do study a little. But before we know it, we are suddenly streaming movies and shows, drinking a little booze here and there, and of course, we are ordering a lot of takeout food.

This little reunion is not the best occasion to study, I do admit, but the occasion leads to us seating in a circle while we are talking about life and other deep things.

While we are conversating, Bella suggests that we should tell stories to each other. And to be frank, at the moment, I really don't feel very thrilled about telling stories, the only thing in my mind right now is to party and have fun, maybe play a few video games on the meantime as well, but not telling tales. I mean at the moment I don’t have nothing interesting to tell in my mind. Because with all honesty, right now, nothing interesting is going on my life.
But after a little while, and as I listen to my friends tell their particular experiences, rumors and stories and of course, their juicy gossip, I start to remember something that happened to me back in 2017 when I used to live in Emerson, Buffalo. So, in the end, I opt to relate that story to my friends, with the hopes I can get a solid spook out of them.
When my turn to tell a story finally comes, I introduce my story by saying:

"Guess I'll just have to tell you the story of when I met and befriended an active serial killer while working on a pizzeria."

The air suddenly turns cold after I say this, everyone suddenly goes into a brief and awkward silence. I mean of course, no one ever expects to hear that all out of the sudden, even less from a close friend, so I do agree with them in the sense that what I just said is a total mood breaker.

But the truth is, that back in 2017 I did meet and interacted with an active serial killer right until "they" got busted and we all found out what was really happening in the background. Once again, this is how the story goes:
This story takes place back in the late summer of 2017, back then I lived in the city of Buffalo, New York in a neighborhood called Emerson. At the time I was 17 years old, and I was quiet the edgy girl. I loved listening to black metal bands and would rock their t-shirts all the time.

I would dye my hair blue and sometimes purple and wear all black most times, most times in a gothic style for example. Back then my parents were going through a nasty divorce and my mom had to raise us all by herself, since I am the oldest, I was asked by my mother to go out and find myself a job. So, I did, and the best place I could find work at the time was in a place called: "Joe's Pizza and Burgers."
Working at Joe's Pizza wasn't the most glamorous job in the world of course, but it helped me with paying the bills and it didn’t get in the way of my college life, since the job was a part time job. And in the end, I always had a little money left to waste and to burn, much to my regrets right now at the moment.

To tell you the honest truth though, the best part of working at Joe's was the fact that while working for him, I learned how to cook, and I don't mean cook as in throw whatever into the pot and light up the stove, I learned how to cook like a professional. But most importantly, I learned how to learn how to cook. This on itself is not a luxury many young people my age get to boast about now a days in the digital era.

The first day of work we and I do mean we because I was hired alongside another person named Leslie, we'll get back to her in a bit, we didn't have much to do but to watch the other employees, especially the guy named Chris who was our unofficial manager whenever Joe wasn't around to boss and order us around.
Chris who the workers liked to refer to as "the bomber," don't ask me why, taught us how to prepare the dough, how to ferment it using yeast, how to divide the dough in equal pieces and more. He then taught us how to apply the tomato sauce and the shredded cheese and the toppings into the dough. Overall, we learned a lot of things during our brief training.
Another good thing about working at Joe's was that us the female employees didn't really have to get our hands dirty that often. More often than not, the guys were on charge of the heavy-duty work. They had to work back in the kitchen preparing the orders and taking care of the deliveries.

Us the ladies were to be in the front, handling the cash register and keeping the place nice and neat. We were not allowed to do deliveries either because of the neighborhood we lived in. Despite this, occasionally we were required to do kitchen work, especially when it was overly busy or when we were understaffed.
Joe's Pizza and Burgers is currently located in the front a massive housing complex called the Maple Hill houses, a place that is notorious for its gang activities. But because we worked right by the projects, we had a lot of traffic into our restaurant.

This public housing complex is composed of four massive buildings, one lengthy courtyard with benches and trees, two parking lots, and one basketball court. This sounds good on paper but all of those luxuries would come back to bite the property in the butt later.
You see, during those years, the neighborhood was going through a homeless crisis. There was a lot and I mean a lot of homeless people hanging out in the surroundings. Eventually they moved in and started camping in the premises and the streets nearby and of course, in the Maple houses courtyard.

The result was a lot of trash, a lot of waste, a lot of biohazardous waste, a lot of drugs and a lot of very unhappy locals. You would see these individuals lying flat on the pavement and on pathways. They would do their physiological necessities in the stairs of the buildings, in the courtyard behind the trees and most importantly, on the elevators in which our boys had to access and use to do deliveries in.

They would take over the benches and a lot more.  From what I heard and saw, the local authorities were not much help either. No one felt safe back then. Those homeless folks made an already trashy place into an outright dump.
          Our customers in the pizzeria where very diverse, as I previously mentioned, we had lots of traffic, so money was not an issue for us. Joe, the owner of the place was very generous too, because of this, sometimes he would add bonuses to our paychecks whenever the restaurant had done very well. Because of that, we lovingly referred to Joe as: "the godfather, or the kingpin."

My coworkers were very cool as well. Back then we had the aforementioned Leslie who got hired alongside me, we used to refer to her as " princess,” because she was a girly girl, and she was also very attractive. We had a guy named Franco who we referred to as "machete," because he knew how to handle knives very well. We had Phillie who we called "grandpaman," because he always dressed like an old man.

I believe I have already gone over Chris, but I know that I have failed to mention Joan. Joan had been working for Joe on and off for a long time until that point. She was very sweet but extremely quiet most of the time. We used to refer to her as "the OG." More about Joan later.

Lastly, we had me, Zoe, and my alias for this job was "thundergoth girl,” because I loved a band named Thundergoth back in the day and I would often rock their t-shirts at work. In retrospective that must have been a very bizarre sight, an almost 6-foot-tall emo gothic looking white girl working at a pizzeria dressed in all black with long hair dyed blue, how silly was that.

CHAPTER 2

ON A PARTICULAR OCASSION

On one particular occasion, Leslie and I where on our way to the pizzeria to work when we passed by what the locals used to call "Homeless Street." That place used to be a haven for the homeless people back in those days.

That part of the street used to function as the business district of the area, but it’s been long abandoned by that point. Because of that, the homeless used the abandoned buildings as a refuge. While Leslie and I were passing through the area, Leslie turned towards me and said to me:

"With all honesty Zoe, I feel a little jealous of you, you know?"

Taken aback by what Leslie said to me, I asked her: “What? Why? Why are you jealous of me?"

Leslie smiled and closed her eyes and looked down briefly: "Because you are always complaining about how hard and stressful college is. And that they give you too much work to do in the classes."

"Uh huh?"

"On the meantime, here I am wishing to go to college."

"Oh yeah? For real?"

"Yes! Going to college is one of my long-term goals!" Said Leslie to me while laughing.

At this point, my eyes were wide opened after hearing this from Leslie, I shrugged my shoulders and said to Leslie: "I'm sorry about that, please don't take it personally, I like to vent my frustrations out loud like that."

"Don't worry about it Zoe" Said Leslie while tapping my shoulder. "I find it funny that's why I mentioned it to you, you know? How different can perspectives be depending on people."

"What major do you want to pursue?"

"I'm thinking of pursuing medical sciences. How about you? What major are you currently on?"

"I am a computer science major; I do a lot of math and a lot of coding."

"Oh, Okay, that’s way out of my league, since I always been horrible at math. Oh, by the way, changing topics briefly, I don’t know if you know, but did you know that Phillie is moving down to Florida soon?"

"Uh, no? I don't be talking to Phillie like that, so I never heard that from him."

"He told Joe, but Joe did not keep the confidence. He wants to do him a goodbye party on his last day."

"That's so nice of you guys, that says a lot."

"Yea, Franco asked me to tell you. Also, we are not supposed to tell Phillie for safe keeping okay?"

"Of Course, no worries. The secret is safe with me."

Upon saying that, a random homeless man interrupted us with a loud scream. He started screaming and singing random things like a mad man. We both felt startled by him, but Leslie quickly tapped me on the back and told me: "Don't look at him, you might catch his attention."

As a response, I stopped looking at the homeless man. "Who's that guy anyway?"

"That old man used to live in the projects with his wife back in the day, until he later got kicked out of his apartment after he started experimenting with drugs."

"Okay?"

"He later started acting like this randomly one day out of the sudden. So, we all assumed that he tried something very strong that made him that way."

"Yea, it looks like it."

"For that reason, we all refer to him as Boxerman, because he's known to sleep in boxes."

"That's tragic."

I said to Leslie in response.

Leslie then leaned towards me and whispered to my ear: "Look over there on the other side of the street, you see him?"

I looked at the other side of the street, there was a particularly rough looking homeless man. He had a beard and was bald and was laying his back on one of the abandoned bricked buildings while seating in the pavement. He was messing with some weed as we passed by him on the other side of the street.

"That guy over there is Mr. Martinez. stay away from Martinez because he's very nasty with people. Because of that, nobody messes with him."

Upon hearing this, I raised my eyebrows as I discreetly glanced at him. But apparently, I wasn't discreet enough because he noticed me watching him from a distance. Because of this Martinez then yelled at us from the other side of the street:

"What is yawl looking at? Did ya’ll lose something?"

We did not respond to him in return, instead we walked away a lot faster. As Martinez kept yelling at us: “Ya’ll think because you got money and jobs you better than us?! We belong here as well!”

After a short while, we soon arrived at our workplace. In front of our pizzeria there was another homeless man of African descent. His name was Luis, and he was known for being nice and kind to the locals.

He would often say hello to people and wished them well. We would sometimes give him a slice of pizza and a bottle of water since he always stood in the front of our restaurant and opened the door to people who were walking in.

That same day after we started our shift, Chris told us that that particular day we were going to have who was then our highest paying customer coming in, an older woman named Lizbeth Chidgey. She was known by my co-workers for buying a lot of pies in one order once or twice a week.

We always assumed that it was in order to share it with the locals. She would often show up by our place by 5:40pm so Franco and Phillie would start preparing the orders earlier so that when she came over, she just had to pay and pick up her pies.

Leslie and I were taken aback by this by a mile. "That's insane! She probably hosts pizza parties on her house or something." Leslie and I said.

That day, we had a customer named solidarity come over. She's a mother of three kids and she would often show up to our pizza place to order a large cheese pie for her kids. Often, she didn't want to cook and would opt for buying her kids pizza for lunch and dinner instead.

That day we also had a guy named Jeff who was a truck driver who would often show up to our restaurant in the afternoon hours and always bought two slices of pizza. He would eat the slices alongside with a can of beer which he always brought with him from outside. He probably had nobody to cook for him back at home.

Among all the customers that showed up that day, one in particular stood out for me and for bad reasons.

It was this young-looking teenager who always had his hood up. He looked very dirty, like he didn't shower for a long time. He had a vertical cut scar on the right side of his lip. He was what you would call an edgy looking person but not in a cool gothic way like I was. Overall, I had a bad gut feeling about him, something about his vibe spooked me at the time, maybe because of all that was going on in the neighborhood back then.

This kid, who I later found out was 14 at the time, would come every once in a while, to our restaurant and order a pepperoni slice with a ginger ale soda. He never ate at our restaurant, instead he would order his food and beverages to go. After the strange boy left that day, I turned around and asked Franco: "What's the deal with that boy?"

Franco looked at me and said in response:

"No one knows who he is or where he came from, that boy just showed up in the neighborhood one

day and has been coming here periodically ever since."

"He gave me the chills." I uttered as a response.

"You just got to watch out, never hang around outside here after 6:00pm and you should be fine."

Franco said then added:

"There's a lot of homeless people in this neighborhood."

"Yea, that's why people are complaining so much." I added in response to Franco.

It was five in the afternoon, this meant that both Franco and Phillie had to start preparing the order for Mrs. Chidgey. That day she ordered 14 pies. No, no kidding. They were hoping to complete the order by 5:40 pm so that Mrs. Chidgey could simply walk in, pay, pick up her order and walk out. It was a routine for the guys. Both Leslie and I were still a little skeptical about this, I mean to order that many pies, that is just something that is unseen.

"Does she always do this?" I asked Franco.

"Yup, almost every week, multiple times a week." Franco responded.

"She probably shares it with the neighbors, she's known to be an extremely generous old lady." Phillie added in response to me.

“She probably got a pretty good pension coming in every month.” I said in response to Phillie. Both Phillie and Franco smirked as a response to what I said and then responded: "Yeah, probably."

At around 5:35pm Mrs. Chidgey arrived at our restaurant with her trademark pushcart. She was a nice tall and healthy-looking old lady. She wore a blue dress and had a ponytail. She also wore glasses. She looked at me with a very nice and warm smile and said: "Good afternoon, I never seen you two before, you must be new workers."

Leslie and I politely said hello to Mrs. Chidgey in response. "Is my order ready for me to take boys?"

Franco then came from the back and asked Mrs. Chidgey for one or two more minutes. Chidgey was totally fine with that. She didn't seem demanding at all. "How long you two been working here?"

"About a week." Leslie replied while locking eyes with me for confirmation. "Yes, about a week and a half." I added.

"How do you like it here?" Chidgey asked in response to me.

"Is fine I guess." Both Leslie and I responded while once again, locking eyes with each other. Chidgey then turned towards me for a second. "You have a magnificent long blue hair, what's your name?"

"I'm Zoe." I replied, at that moment I was a little uncomfortable by that compliment, you see, I'm not used to be complemented that way by anyone, not even boys and that applies up to this day. Chidgey then turned towards Leslie and said: "You seem very familiar despite being new here, have I seen you before?"

Leslie responded to Chidgey by saying:

"Yes probably, I live in the area. Despite being new here, I'm not a stranger. I used to be a customer here for a while."

Franco and Phillie then came out from the back with the pies. They loaded the pies into Mrs. Chidgey's pushcart. Chidgey then paid a very hefty $210 dollars plus tip and then left. After meeting her all I could say is that she left a strong impression on Leslie and I.

"What a strangely well-mannered, super odd, insanely sinister looking but yet super nice old lady she was." That’s what I thought to myself as Mrs. Chidgey walked out of the restaurant and left. After all, she was our highest paying customer at that time.

CHAPTER 3

THE FIRST TO DIE

It was early in the morning; the sun wasn't done rising yet. Over at homeless street there was a large crowd of police officers and detectives. Crime scene tapes were surrounding the area and in the middle of it, a body lying on the side of the street. It was about 5:40am.

His eyes were wide open and his pupils were completely dilated. His hands were pressing on the middle of his chest. His mouth was wide open as well. The dead man was a homeless man, Luis who was known to be the nicest among the homeless people. Luis was now dead.

I actually walked by the crime scene later that morning. By the time I passed by at around 7:30am, the crime scene tapes were still there, as well as some officers. Some locals were also there observing for curiosity’s sake. Because of this, curiosity kicked in within me as well, so I approached one of the locals and asked her:

"What happened here?"

"Someone died."

"Someone died? Who?"

"One of the homeless guys, a lot of them have been dying suddenly for a while."

“A homeless man died? Oh, okay, oh well, that’s unfortunate, thanks." Upon finding out that the person who died was one of the homeless people my worries left, I did try to take a closer look, but the body was no longer there anymore. Because of this I continued to be on my way to work. To continue on with my day. Once I arrived at my job, I noticed that the place was very quiet, something that was out of the ordinary.

Joan was there sweeping and cleaning the tables. She was usually a quiet person but that day in particular she was particularly quiet. Franco and Phillie would usually be telling jokes to each other, but that day they were just working quietly preparing the pies. Because of this, I approached Franco discretely and asked him: "Why is everyone so quiet today?"

"The homeless guy that used to stand outside, Luis died."

"Oh, so it was Luis?! What happened to him?"

"They found him dead earlier this morning, no one knows what happened to him." Upon hearing this, I also started to feel a bit weird. To think that the day before Luis was standing outside our restaurant as usual and that now he was gone forever and, in such manner, so suddenly. To think that I was never going to see him again standing outside our premises was a little spooky to me.

Even though he was not supposed to be standing outside our restaurant, we were used to his presence there and we even started to like him a little. He was always smiling and making others smile. He was a happy fellow despite his circumstances.

After putting all of my stuff in the locker room, I quietly walked over to the cash register to wait for some customers but of course, it was too early still.

I then turned my eyes toward Joan, I could then see that she looked very sad, a little sadder than what I would have expected for the death of a homeless person.

At the moment, I opted to not say or ask anything to her. Something told me that it was better for me to wait till lunch time, so I decided to give Joan her well-deserved space.

Around that time, Chris came up from the basement with the dough. Upon seeing him I asked him if Joan and I could go to lunch together. Since Leslie was going to show up later Chris said that it was fine for both Joan and I to go to lunch at the same time.

Something that I haven't mentioned so far is that Joe was known to be very generous to both his customers and workers. In our case this generosity came in the form of two pizza slices of our liking for free as well as a free can of soda once a day. So, after grabbing my two pepperoni slices and my soda can, I went towards the back. Joan followed shortly after grabbing her slices and soda as well. We ate together for a bit, but I then suddenly broke the silence and asked Joan as we ate: "Hey, what's going on? Why do you look so sad?"

Joan stood quietly for a few seconds, she then swallowed the food she had in her mouth, then, she turned towards me and then told me: "Didn't you find out? Luis died earlier this morning."

"You're this sad about him?"

"Of Course, I am..." Said Joan in a gentle but firm way, I was a little confused by this, I understood that Luis was a nice person but as far as I knew he had no family nor friends. Joan took a deep breath and said: "I guess you don't know, don't you?"

"I guess not. What is it?" Joan paused for a second and then said: “Luis saved my life once not so long ago."

Upon hearing this from Joan I was extremely shocked and taken aback as well. Thinking back on this, I know that what Joan said may sound generic but, there was a reason why Luis was well regarded by the locals, and I was about to find out.

"I... I didn't know that about Luis, nobody ever told me that."

"Of course, Zoe! No one ever talks about that, also that's not the best subject matter to talk to a new employee. The truth is, I felt a deep gratitude for Luis, although I didn't always show it."

Joan began to sob a little.

"I'm so sorry for questioning your feelings, Joan."

Joan smiled a little as a response. "Is okay Zoe."

"What happened though? How did Luis save your life?" Joan took another small pause after hearing this. Because of this, I then added: "Is okay Joan, if you don't want to answer that question is okay."

Joan tapped me in the shoulder and then said: "No is okay, I'll tell you, just give me a second and promise me you will never tell this to anyone outside of this store or from this area."

"Okay I won't spread this around, I promise."

Joan closed her eyes and smiled and then she began telling her story by saying:

"This took place about two years ago when the homeless people started moving into the Maple houses:”

CHAPTER 4

THE STORY ACCORDING TO JOAN

It was about two years ago that things started to get hectic in here. By that time, we already had some issues with crime, but everything went further out of control when the streets started to get populated by homeless people.

We had homeless people before then, but it wasn't as bad as it became then. They started populating the abandoned business center by staying inside the abandoned buildings, they would also build tents and sleep on the benches.

Yet the place that suffered the most because of their presence was the maple housing complex. The homeless people started getting into the property and they would stay in the open courtyard spaces. They would do their physiological needs on the stairs and hallways. They would also consume drugs and leave the garbage lying around.

On one occasion a kid got pierced by one of their needles and had to be taken to the hospital. It was no longer safe for the kids and locals to spend time outside in the courtyard or in the basketball court. Thankfully the needle wasn't infected with HIV or Hepatitis. No one felt safe, the police would be called multiple times, and they would kick the homeless people out, but they would just come back in after a little while.

Maple houses became something resembling a dump with people living on it. Things became very scary specially at night.

Since the homeless obtained the drugs from the gangsters, sometimes their drug deals would go wrong which let to shootings and fights.

It seemed like everyday someone would get killed, not only the homeless, but gangsters as well. Since other gangs would take advantage of the situation and attack the local gangsters.

This meant danger to the locals not just from the homeless side but also the gangsters. It was not safe to be outside after 6pm.

On one occasion the locals got together and started a protest, but it did little, the news outlets did get involved but the major did very little to solve the problem.

We were still selling pizza back in those days. By that time Franco was not around yet, we only had Phillie, Chris, Myself, and another guy named Jorge and Of Course Joe. Almost every day we had to deal with homeless people coming into our restaurant to beg for food and ask the customers for change. Joe had to put up signs banning begging.

One night, we got a phone call from the other side of the neighborhood. It was a customer ordering one large pepperoni and sausage pie with a two littler ginger ale and a cola. I was asked by Joe to go and deliver the order and of course I got straight to it since back then I was the one that did the deliveries.

Once the order was ready, I loaded it into my bike and proceeded to head to the stop. Because the customer lived in the other side of the neighborhood, I had to traverse through the abandoned business center which by then was already known as "homeless street."

As I was passing by, I ended up being stopped by one of the homeless men his name was Henry. He got in front of my path and ended up catching me and my bike. That particular homeless man was known back then for causing problems. He was a straight outlaw.

"What are you doing?! Stop!"

That homeless man, Henry did nothing but smile at me. When I fell to the pavement other homeless folks came and stole the food and left but Henry stood there watching me and smiling at me.

"You're coming with me pretty girl I got business with you." He said to me. At hearing this I tried to get up and run, but he quickly grabbed me by my arm and started pulling me into an abandoned building. I then started screaming very loudly but nobody came. Then I started hitting him so that he could let me go but he was way stronger than me. He then hit me in my face and took out a knife.

"Please don't do this."

I begged him as he would forcefully pull me into the abandoned building nearby. "Do not worry beautiful, I will make this quick."

I continued trying to pull myself away from him but once again, he was way stronger than me and I could not do anything.

Suddenly though, someone came running from behind Henry and hit him with a trash- can in the head. It was Luis. Henry quickly got up and launched at Luis, but Luis was able to grab him and slam him into the floor.

At this point, more homeless people started showing up. They at first were observing from afar as Luis and Henry fought. At one point Luis punched Henry in the face and he started bleeding, Luis then turned to me and shouted: "Why are you still here?! Get away from here fast!"

I then grabbed my bike and fled the area and fled back towards the restaurant. As I peddled my bike as fast as I could, tears would fly off my eyes and after arriving at the restaurant, I immediately started crying and shouting at the guys, who quickly came to my aid. Joe then approached me and asked me: "Joan what happened? What's going on?"

"Someone tried to hurt me."

"Who?"

"One of the homeless people, the tall guy with the beard."

"Chris call the police!" Chris called the cops who didn't take long to show up and they made a report. Thankfully I did not get hurt beyond some scratches, but I did have a bruise in the side of my face. So, I was taken to the hospital to treat it.

The police went to the area and found the homeless people still fighting and brawling at the scene. Upon seeing the police arrive, all the homeless people cleared the area. Henry also managed to get away that night.

The next day Joe called me while I was still in bed resting. "Hello?"

"Hey Joan, is Joe."

"Hey boss."

"I just wanted to check on you and see how you are doing."

"I feel slightly better, I don't think I want to show up to work today. I am going to stay with grandma Chidgey today.”

"It's alright, I understand, if you want you can take a short vacation, I could pay you for the week."

"I appreciate it boss."

"I'm sorry for sending you out on a delivery at such a late hour."

"Is okay Joe, we didn't know better.”

Upon hanging up I cried a little, but I was able to compose myself soon after. At about a week later I left the restaurant and found a job elsewhere in a clothing store. But soon I ended up coming back to Joe's after being fired from there.

The whole neighborhood was in a state of alert after that and mysteriously, Henry was found dead not long after, his cause of death was poisoning. No one knows who poisoned him, but no one cared to much about it anyways. Up to this day, his case is still open. But no one is talking. This is the reason why Joe doesn't allow for us the female workers to do deliveries anymore.

CHAPTER 5

ARRIVAL OF JAZMIN

As of now, it's about 12:30am. Just after narrating Joel's experience to my friends there is deep silence in our small apartment living room. Bella, Lilith and Kate are all filled with awe and shock, as I sit there among them in our little circle. Bella goes on to say:

"I honestly didn't expect that, that homeless man, Luis seemed like a good person. I'm sorry for her, for having to go through that."

"The part where the big brawl broke out in that abandoned street and then the police arriving and breaking it up was very shocking to me."

Says Kate.

Lillith stands up and stretches her back by raising and spreading her arms, she then lets out a loud yawn, after letting out a deep sigh she then says:

"That issue that neighborhood was facing at that time, I could never imagine living like that. I don't know how you did it but I'm glad you turned out okay Zoe."

"Eh, I didn't live in that neighborhood, I lived not so far from there though." I said to Lilith in response.

Lilith goes to the kitchen to grab a drink; Kate lays her back in the couch while sitting in the floor and rest her head on it. Kate then looks at me and asks me:

"Wait, you're not done telling us the story, haven't you?"

"Yeah, we still don't know who the killer is and the motive behind the killings." Bella added.

After hearing that from Kate and Bella, I take a deep breath because narrating all of this is a lot of work for me, I then tell Bella and Kate in response:

"Of Course not, I'm about halfway done with it, things will start picking up from here and on though. Are you girls ready to put up with it?"

"Of Course, we are Zoe,"

Says Lilith as she comes back from the kitchen with a few vitamin waters.

Lilith sits back with us in the floor in our little circle and passes us one vitamin water each.

"This should keep us awake for a little while longer." Lilith says.

"I mean, is only 12:34am right now so it's not a big deal." Kate says to Lilith in response.

This is when I suddenly remember that Jazmin, my roommate is still not home, she usually arrives from her shift at the hospital at about 12am in the morning but today she's a little late, 45 minutes late to be specific. So, I decide to make a quick call to Jazmin, just to make sure that everything is okay with her. Once I dial up Jazmin's phone number, and proceed to call, the call immediately ends. It seems Jazmin has rejected the call, after rejecting the call, Jazmin proceeds to send me a quick text message saying: "I am already in the building. I am already coming up."

"Okay." I texted her back in response. So, I than turn towards my friends and tell them: "Jazmin is about to arrive."

"Wait does she know we are here?" Bella asks me.

"Does it matter?" I ask Bella in response. Upon saying that, Jazmin opens the door with her keys and walks into the apartment and sees us all seating around in a circle in the floor. "Oh, so you girls are here." Jazmin's says to us upon seeing us. "Yes, we are!" Bella, Kate and Lilith respond to her.

Jazmin then goes ahead and places her bag- pack in the couch, she then looks at all the food we have with us and proceeds to ask: "Did you save some for me?"

"Of Course, we did, we saved you some take out and put it in the fridge for you."

Jazmin smiles at the prospect of not having to cook tonight and goes to the kitchen, she than throws her coat in the table and goes to the kitchen, opens the fridge door and grabs her food, she then puts her food inside the microwave and heats it up. We saved her some Chinese food and some fried chicken and fries.

After she is done heating up her meal, she comes over to sit down with us, and as she takes her first bite she asks: "So, what's the topic of today's little 'meeting'?"

Bella in response says to Jazmin: "In essence we are telling stories and experiences, we are actually listening to Zoe's experience right now and is really good so far."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, you just missed a really good part but is alright, we are still halfway done through her story."

Jazmin turns toward me while raising her eyebrow and smiling. "Is that so? I guess you won't mind me joining you girls, nothing like an interesting story after a long shift at work and a nice meal."

Now that everyone is here, and all eyes and ears are locked into me, I start resuming the final part of my experience. "This took place shortly after the death of homeless man Luis.”

CHAPTER 6

A BOY NAMED FINN

It was about a month after Luis was found dead and Joan had told me about her experience with him and her incident involving the homeless men. I remember that it was very rainy, morning, homeless street looked very desolated.

Corpses of homeless people would pop up almost every morning, which lead to an intense police presence in the area. These detectives would approach the locals and ask them questions. Among these detectives that would be seen patrolling the area and asking questions to the locals was the head detective and the one on charge of dealing with this case in particular, Mr. Hanks and his young assistant Zarin.

Despite this, no leads were found at that point yet. The detectives and the locals were baffled:

“how can the homeless people be dying like this and so suddenly?” –They asked amongst themselves. As a result of the heavy police presence, the homeless people started hiding in the abandoned buildings of the old business district to avoid contact with the police and would only come out at night. But the fear among them and the locals could also not be ignored.

Due to the heavy police presence in the area, the Maple projects were completely cleared of homeless presence, the whole courtyard was desolated of them and at that point the complex was going through an intense cleaning process. The whole complex was filled with city workers and volunteers from both the city and the nearby area.

During that time, I was very busy with a lot of schoolwork, so my hours were reduced in the restaurant. Whenever I did show up in the area, I could not help but feel awe when looking at the buildings and how different the complex looked compared to when the place was being invaded by homeless people.

I could not fail to also notice the heavy police presence as well, and the lack of homeless people around. It seemed that the homeless people were completely gone since you would no longer see them in the streets, not even in what we know as "homeless street."

When I went into my workplace, I also noticed that a great part of the clientele were police officers. Because of this, the stereotype of policemen that like doughnuts was changed in a way for me, I guess police really like Pizza as well.

Certainly, having the police as our frequent guest provided a well needed boost of morale to the store and to the locals as well. During those days clientele was very good, the restaurant was doing fairly well.

I remember that Joe was even considering giving us a raise, but of course, that never came to be. Sometimes we would chit-chat with the police, and they would tell us very interesting stuff about their jobs.

For a short time, the sudden deaths among the homeless people stopped. They were still around, but you would not see them as often as you did before the cleaning project and the police presence.

One of the homeless people that would show up often in the "outside" world was the man known as 'Boxerman.'

Boxerman would walk the streets surrounding the Maple projects yelling on the top of his lungs, sometimes during the early hours of the morning and sometimes during the afternoon and yet, sometimes during the night.

The presence of the police did us and by us, I mean both of us the workers of Joe's Pizza and specially the locals good. As good as their presence was though, it did not last forever, not even for long. Despite that, police presence in the maple projects gave us all a sense of hope and change. The prominent feeling during that time is that things would finally change for the better.

Once the police stopped showing up though, things started getting back to "normal." Obviously, the homeless people kept their protocol of staying within the abandoned sites. But they would come out more often, the once cleaner streets would start seeing litter being thrown on and about, both by the locals and by the homeless people who searched through the trashcans.

But going back to Boxerman, at that point he was acting a bit, interesting. As far as I knew back then, the middle-aged man was always a little interesting to begin with, I heard that back in the days of his sanity, he was a devout Christian of the Pentecostal denominational church. The man would never miss Church, he never missed a single service during his years of sanity. Which is why, it was not very surprising to the locals, especially those of the veteran class who knew the man, when Boxerman started acting like a "prophet" among the people of the neighborhood.

At one point, on a particularly rainy morning, Boxerman came out and walked through the streets surrounding the Maple projects yelling at the top of his lungs and spreading his arms far and wide while holding a bottle of tequila in his right hand.

"There's a fallen angel among us! There's a fallen angel among us! An angel of darkness that is taking us away one by one."

Boxerman would do this often, and he would not stop even when it was pouring down. This certainly raised an eyebrow to most listeners, but once again we all brushed it aside. We all dismissed it as one of Boxerman's many shenanigans and antics.

The belief among the locals at the time was more leaning towards there being some kind of disease outbreak among the homeless, which in turn caused the sudden deaths. That thought made sense in a way, but further events would prove that theory wrong. You see, in just four days later, eight new bodies were found, among those bodies, Boxerman's body was found as well.

The morning after the bodies were found, I was walking around the neighborhood on my way to work of course. This morning was particularly rainier than the others. The season was already changing from Summer to Fall and therefore there would be a lot of rain because of it.

While I was approaching the Maple projects I saw the strange boy, the one that I saw when I was starting out working in Joe's Pizza. He was just seating in a bench while the heavy rain fell upon him. He seemed very relaxed, very calm and somber as the water would pour down on him. My intentions were to pass him by and keep going but unlike before, that day, I kind of felt bad for him.

I already was wearing my raincoat, so I didn't necessarily need my umbrella. So, I decided to go ahead and give that boy my umbrella so that he didn't continue to get wet. "Hey, are you... okay?"

The boy looked at me quietly and nodded.

"I saw you seating in the bench here in the rain and well, would you like my umbrella?"

"Uh, no, is okay, I like the rain anyways, but thanks though."

"You sure? I already have my raincoat, you can keep my umbrella, it's totally fine, I could always buy another one."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, totally, here, take it." The boy grabbed the umbrella and started protecting himself with it. My curiosity kicked in and I took advantage of the situation to ask him some questions. At the time I could not help it, when it comes to me, curiosity always gets the best of me. "How old are you by the way?"

"I'm 14 years."

"14 years?" I uttered in response to the boy as I gently sat on the bench besides of him. The boy didn't seem disturbed by me doing that. So, I continued asking:

"My name is Zoe, what's your name?"

"Finn, I'm Finn, that's my name."

"Finn?" Hearing Finn's name for the first time made me feel at ease with him. Now he wasn't that odd, weird looking boy that sometimes would pop up and sometimes no.

"Finn... Why are you homeless? Where are your parents?"

"I don't talk to my parents, I, I left my house to live in the streets."

"You ran away? Why?"

"I'm scared of my father and stepmother; they are really mean to me." Hearing this from the boy made me feel so sad for him to the point that I started feeling deep compassion for him, at the same time, I started feeling bad for judging him the way I did. "Are you hungry right now?"

Finn turned his head towards me. "No, not right now."

"If you want you can come by our Pizza spot and I can give you a free slice and a soda." I really wanted to help him in any way I could. Finn started smiling while closing his eyes for a bit. "I appreciate it, I will come by sometime when I want to eat."

After Finn said this, he stood up from the bench with the umbrella I gave him and started walking away. "Where are you going Finn?"

"I'm going to go for a walk, see you later."

"Later!"

I said to Finn in response as he walked away in the rain protecting himself with the umbrella, that I had gave him.

After my conversation with Finn ended, I also got up and continued to be on my way to the restaurant, if I didn't hurry up I would of wind up late that day. That was the last time I saw Finn, after that morning I would never see him again.

At around that time, the news of Boxerman's death started spreading around the area and the locals.

CHAPTER 7

THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 6^TH

The death of the homeless man known as "Boxerman" marked a before and after in the history of the streets of Emerson. They said that the morning they found his corpse, a rainy morning, Boxerman was found in the back of an alley in between buildings. He was found with his eyes wide opened as well as his mouth, it was wide opened. His hands, both of them were holding tightly his chest. The body had been there for a few hours.

At this point, the locals of the area started to find his and the death of other homeless people suspicious. The consensus until this point was that there was a disease plaguing the homeless but after Boxerman's death the locals started leaning toward there being a killer among their midst. The locals started to remember Boxerman's behavior prior to his death and when he started shouting as if he were a prophet:

"There's a fallen angel among us! There's a fallen angel among us!"

And reached the consensus that Boxerman was silenced by someone, most likely the culprit himself. The hot topic of the area was that there's a homeless men killer living in the neighborhood. Rumors about a shadowy figure coming out of the Maple projects at night to kill homeless people started spreading around the area at the time. But most of us dismissed them as a sign of public hysteria from the weak minded.

Because of the idea of there being a serial killer that targeted solely homeless people, people started becoming hostile towards the remaining homeless people that would come out. On one occasion, a homeless man named Xavier an older man was seen entering the Maple building project's courtyard to lay down on the benches. This caused the locals found there to panic and started throwing rocks at him, the result was that the homeless man left there running away.

The deaths stopped while the police presence was heavy but as the days passed the police presence also started to diminish. Because of this, slowly but surely, corpses started to pop up again. The locals started to believe that the killer was one of the homeless people and that he would hide inside the Maple building projects. Because of this, the ambience in the buildings was very tense. The locals were very even more weary of strangers at that point.

Some locals would tell anecdotes of a tall shadow walking through the streets at the late hours of the night, others would contradict those stories by saying that there were in fact three or even five shadows instead of one. but these stories were considered as simple urban legends among the locals. Some locals even spoke of a ghost that would haunt the homeless and kill them as some sort of divine punishment.

On an occasion Leslie and I and Joan were conversing about the recent events. And well, I found Leslie’s commentary on the subject a little outlandish. Leslie genuinely believed that there was a ghost killing the homeless people.

"Ever since I was young, I have believed in ghosts, ghosts are real Zoe! And one of them is coming here to kill the homeless people."

"Leslie, you have to be crazy to believe in that sort of thing." I said to Leslie in response.

"Then why, whenever there's a new corpse found in the area, the corpses never show any signs of violence, and they always are found in the same way?” How can you explain that?”

"You are referring to the 'official' cause of death?" Joan asked Leslie.

"Yes, how come all the corpses that were found a few weeks ago, were all declared dead for natural causes? Mostly heart attacks and some due to strokes? Obviously, they saw a ghost and were so spooked that they died of a heart attack or stroke. Or maybe the ghost caused them to die that way."

"Leslie, dead people are dead for a reason, if they could come back as ghosts and kill people then they would not really be dead." I uttered loudly to Leslie in order to discredit her believes. Then I added: "So, the idea of a dead person coming back to kill people of any kind is kind of outlandish for you to say Leslie."

"I say that it is better for us to wait for the official report, I genuinely believe that they are dying that way due to some kind of drug overdose type of deal." Said Joan in response to Leslie and I.

"You really think that, Joan?"

"That actually makes sense, but wouldn't they know better by this point?"

"When addiction is the topic that's being discussed Zoe, logic is thrown out the window, an addicted person just wants to indulge and that's that. Indulge first and ask questions later."

"Only that they don't get to ask questions, they straight up die for it."

"Then why are some locals saying they see a tall shadow walking through the streets towards homeless street at night?"

"People make things up all the time Les, stop believing in that stuff. You are going to go nuts if you do.”

"You guys will see, when the evidence shows up." Joan then raised her eyebrow upon hearing this and turned toward Leslie and asked her:

"How can you even sleep at night with that sort of belief Les?"

"I keep a nightlight on in my room every night just in case."

"That would not make any difference at all Les!" Both Joan and I started chuckling at Leslie because of what she said.

"What do you mean? I keep the nightlight on so that if a ghost pops up, I can then run away immediately."

"You can't run away from a ghost Leslie; ghosts can pass through walls."

"I could at least see them and react to them."

"There's no use Les! If a ghost wants to kill you your dead."

Joan could tell at that point that our discussion was slowly turning into an argument so she said: "Girls, girls c’mon let’s start getting ready, our break is almost over."

When we came out of the locker room right into the kitchen, we noticed that the guys seemed a little annoyed and frustrated and upset, you name it. "That's a lot of pies, those three orders will keep us busy for at least two hours or so." Said Phillie as he grabbed a can of soda and started zipping on it.

"What's the deal with these people, this store is not going to go away any time soon, why do people keep ordering so many pies like this." Said Franco as he was applying tomato sauce to the dough.

"Wait is it that old hag again?" I asked with slight curiosity.

"If it was just her it wouldn't be a problem, we got her and two more people ordering about ten pies each."

"You mean we have to work on Thirty pies?!"

"Essentially." I turned back and locked eyes with Joel's and Lesley and they locked eyes with me as well back briefly.

"You girls are going to have to do kitchen work today as we prepare these three orders." Said Franco.

We all let out a deep sigh because of this.

“Well, it seems that we are going to have to take turns on the registers as the other two of us are going to prepare whatever customer orders come after the ‘big three’” Said Joan. The ‘Big three’ was how we liked to refer to these three orders at the time.

"What kind of pies are they asking for?" Leslie asked.

"They are all Pepperoni pies with extra cheese, at least is not that hard." Phillie answered.

"Yea, is only going to be time consuming to prepare those." Franco said in response.

"Maybe we should ask Chris if we could close up the store for an hour or so, so that we could all help with the orders."

"I don't know if Joe and Chris would want that."

"Where's Chris?"

"Not here right now, he went on his break a while ago and hasn't come back."

"Call him then."

Franco let a deep sigh out and proceeded to call Chris, but Chris did not answer. Franco called him again but once again; Chris did not answer once again.

"How can you be sure that Chris is going to want to close the store up?" Leslie asked Phillie.

"We done it before when we had large orders and there were no customers coming." I then took out my phone and sent Chris a quick direct message:

"Yo Chris! We got three orders of 10 pies each coming in, that makes it 30 pies. Can we close the store up for an hour so we can start getting ready?"

It took about five minutes until I got a message back from Chris.

"Close the store only for an hour, and as long as there are not too many customers, I'll be back in a few."

"Okay, Chris said we can close the store up for an hour."

"Okay."

After hearing this, the guys went ahead and closed the store and immediately we all started working on the orders. We decided to work on them one at the time. Mrs. Chidgey's orders we left for last because she always had a set time to pick up her orders. At this point, it was about 3:30pm so we had time, if we could knock out at least two of them in an hour, we could take care of Chidgey's while keeping the store opened.

Contrary to what you would believe, cooking up those orders was quite fun. Since we didn't have to deal with any customers, we could all strictly focus on preparing the pies. The first two orders were going to be picked up by a delivery driver which is why we had to also focus on these two orders first. While making these pies we were also joking around and chatting.

At about 4:35pm on that day of September 6th, the first order had been complete, and it was ready to be delivered. It seemed that the people that made this order didn't live so close to the area which is why they sent someone with an SUV to pick the order up. The second order was about halfway done when the first order had been picked up.

If you are curious, the first order was exactly eleven large pepperoni pies with extra cheese. That made the first order about $330 dollars and some cents. Absolutely insane. The second was ready at about twenty minutes later it was about sixteen large pepperoni pies, this time no extra cheese. The second order came at about $400 dollars and some cents. After we finished loading the food into the car of the second driver, we opened the store back up.

The smell of cheese and dough was very intense inside the store which was good for the customers but a little sickening for us since we had to smell it continuously for hours. The kitchen looked as if there was a massive brawl in our place. There was indeed a battle there, a war of dough and cheese sort of speak.

Since we were entering into the fall season, it was starting to get dark at about five. We called grandma Chidgey to tell her that her order was being prepared and that she could come down to pick it up at around 6:15pm. Mrs. Chidgey was very polite as always; she was our best customer after all. The night of September 6th had a full moon, I remember.

As the sun began with its resting routine and the moon took over the light deprived skies, winds started to blow strongly. It was a rather cold night that night as I remember. I remember that no one was out. Some police officers would drive by the area but nothing else.

Jeff actually showed up at about 5:45pm to order the usual, two large cheese slices and he brought a beer. He was rather easy to deal with. Chris shift ended at about 5:15pm, Joe was supposed to show up to do the overnight shift, by himself but Chris did say he would show up earlier during the morning to help him out.

Opening the store though almost made no difference. Apart from grandma Chidgey as the guys called her, we had three other customers who didn't even buy a whole pie.

The events that took place on this night, the night of September 6th set a before and after in the history of the streets of Emerson.

That night was a rather "peaceful" night at least at first. Grandma Chidgey was our last customer. She came into our store with her signature push cart to pick up the food.

We helped her load the pies into her pushcart which barely fit in. That night, grandma Chidgey purchased 8 pies and some sides. Her order came to about $176 dollars. Genuinely though, I could not feel any more concerned for her. She was wasting her pension away on these large orders.

"Hey, eating so much pizza can be unhealthy, you have to be careful grandma Chidgey." I said to her before she got out.

"I know, I have a gathering with my friends today and I want to have plenty of food for them."

"Really?"

"Yes, they spend a lot of time with me, and I would feel bad if I didn't have nothing to offer them."

"Okay, despite this, make sure to reduce your consumption of high calorie foods a little, especially pizza."

Upon saying this to grandma Chidgey, she looked at me straight and deeply into my eye and smiled at me. This smile was a little different than her usual. I could tell she appreciated me watching out for her but in the back of my head, I could feel some malice behind that smile. I attributed that feeling to the high sense of suspicion that was reigning in the area at the time.

"I'm going to be fine." Grandma Chidgey said to me while smiling at me.

"Don't worry about me."

Chidgey then left the store while pushing her cart away. This was the last time I met her on person. Our boss, Joe showed up shortly after our last customer, Chidgey left. He dismissed us, Leslie, Joel and I and he stood with the boys cleaning the store.

That night we walked together, Leslie and Joel walked me towards the train station and then I parted ways with them. Joel and Leslie continued walking away into the distance, into the darkness. I had a lot of college work to do on the next few days. So I would not show up to work for some time. What I will tell you from this moment and on is based on the testimony of an eyewitnesses at the time, this is how the events of the night of September 6th unfolded, a night that would go down in infamy not just in the history of Emerson but of the city of Buffalo as a whole:

As Joel, Leslie and I were leaving work to our homes, detective Hanks, his assistant and two other men where "casually" strolling by Homeless Street. It turns out, Hanks and his assistant had been routinely passing by Homeless Street in order to see if there's someone suspicious. So far at that point nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Since it was getting kind of cold Hank and his companions decided to leave the area for the night. They saw the area was dark, cold and dead and considered that nothing out of the ordinary could possibly happen there, at least for that night.

As Hanks and his companions were strolling by Homeless Street, two men, two homeless men were observing them from a window of an abandoned apartment building. Hanks and his companions failed to notice them while they were there. One of these men's name was Jared. This homeless man, Jared was not one of the local homeless people, if not he had come there to "indulge" with the other homeless people whom he knew at the time. This is the eyewitness who’s point of view I am retelling to you. After seeing that the detectives had left the area, Jared along with his companion alerted the other homeless people about the detectives leaving.

According to Jared, some homeless people were discussing about a certain meeting taking place after 10:00pm that night where the ‘disciples’ would show up and give them gifts. Whenever Jared would inquire about this "disciples" these men and women would not answer, this was what seemed a secret among some homeless folks of the neighborhood.

Jared said that he didn't know much about the killings at the time except that he knew they were happening. One of his friends named Mark approached Jared and told him to stay away from that bunch. Upon asking Mark who were they and what they were up to, Mark told him that they are a weird bunch that have some type of religious group going on. People that hang out with them and that group would wind up dead shortly after.

Upon hearing that, Jared felt scared. Mark told him not to worry, that he would be safe as long as he stays inside past 10:00pm. Jared and some of his friends entered an apartment in the abandoned building, the apartment was on the 6th floor. In there, Jared and his companions started indulging in their addictions mostly powder based drugs. Jared then asked his companion where the crazy man was at? Referring to the homeless man that we knew as "Boxerman."

Mark and the other companions told Jared: “Oh, that guy? He won't be joining us no more.”

“What? Why? He doesn’t mess with us anymore?”

“No, he died not so long ago.”

Upon finding this out about the devout Boxerman’s death, Jared asked his companions about what was exactly going on in the neighborhood and that if the rumors of a killer being lose in the area were true or not. Jared's companions remained silent for a second as they locked eyes with each other.

Then they told Jared: “The truth is Jared that, there is not a really a killer among us from what we can see, there’s just this group of people that has been doing some very shifty things in the background.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yeah, I myself don’t know much but there’s a weird bunch among us and every time they agree to get together, someone is found dead the next day.”

“Wait so they are killing people?”

“We don’t know, but they are doing something alright, we just don’t know and we don’t ask questions either.”

Jared turned towards Mark upon hearing this and gave him a cold and intense look. Then Jared asked him: "Are they a cult?"

"I don't know man, are they? What part of we don’t know don’t you understand?”

“Think about it man. They have their little get togethers, they probably got some weird belief about whatever and then people be popping up dead every time they have a get together.”

Xavier, then added: “That old guy, the crazy drunk man, he was hanging out with them a few days before he was found dead in the back alley of that building over there.”

"So, they are a cult then."

“They certainly doing more than drugs alright, that stuff must be really good.” Xavier replied in response to Jared.

Mark shakes his head and placed his large thick hand on his face as an act of shame. "I guess they are, stay away from them so that you don't become next."

"Why you don't tell the police then?! They were literally right there?"

"Those guys are here to kick us out! we don't talk to them because of that!"

Jared explained that after he knew that there's some sort of cult thing going on with apparently a considerable number of the local homeless people, he wanted to book it out of there. As soon as he got up to leave, some sort of commotion started taking place in the lower floor of the building. Upon hearing the commotion and the screaming that could not be distinguished between panic or laughing, Mark told two of the companions:

“Hurry! Lock the door! We don’t want them coming in here with their nonsense!”

Outside the apartment in the dark and decrepit hallways the bunch of friends could hear the commotion getting closer and closer to their door. This was because whoever was causing the commotion was knocking on every door in the building. As the men inside the 6^th floor apartment grew silent, they heard loud knocks and bangs in the hallway.

"Hey! Hey! You have to get out!" As the person knocks loudly on one of the doors.

"What is going on! I was sleeping!"

"The ceremony! The ceremony is about to start!"

"Leave us alone! Get out of here with that devilish cult of yours!” The knocking started to get closer and closer to Jared and Mark's door. As the knocking on the doors would continue to get closer and closer, people residing inside the abandoned and decrepit apartments nearby started coming out of their apartments.

"Get out of here you fanatic! Stop knocking!"

"What is going on here?! Who’s making all that noise?!”

"Is that cult member guy, he says they got service tonight outside the building!" Suddenly whoever was starting the commotion started knocking on Mark and Jared's door. Mark whispered to everyone as a result: “Shhhh quiet down, they are here, they are looking for people.”

The knocking would persist for a few minutes until someone yelled at the person knocking at their door to get out of the sixth floor. Suddenly stuff started being thrown at whoever was the one knocking and soon enough running was heard from multiple directions. On the far distance, screaming and what seemed to be a scuffle and then, a deep silence.

Jared was terrified at this point and started crying, the man suffered from PTSD after he was involved in a gruesome car crash in 2012 back in Florida before he became homeless.

"What's going on in here?! Why is everything so chaotic?"

"CALM DOWN!"

Yelled Mark in response in order to calm down Jared. Mark briefly looked at Xavier with a serious grim."Go get me the bag."

Xavier got up and started searching through the many pushcarts full of stuff that was inside the apartment. Xavier found Marks bag and tosses it at him. Mark with a very serious expression opened up the bag and took out some sleeping pills with his thick hands, a pack of them to be specific. Mark then passed it to Jared. "Swallow these, these should keep you sleeping till tomorrow." Jared took the pills from Mark and proceeded to swallow them.

"You okay now?" Asked Mark to Jared.

"Better, I still got to wait till the effect kicks in."

At about 11:30pm the companions started to notice a large group gathering outside the building. The small crowd was surrounding what appeared to be a large, squared container that wasn't there before. Close by there was a campfire in a metal barrel nearby to light up the surroundings. Nothing strange seemed to be happening with the crowd, they seemed to be just standing there, conversing amongst themselves and having a good time outside.

From the window Jared and his companions had a good view of what was going on below. Jared explained that from the distance he and his companions that were still looking outside could notice what appeared to be not one nor two, but three shadowy figures coming from the direction of the projects. This of course intrigued the men who were watching.

Upon closer inspection and as the shadowy figures got closer, Jared and the men started noticing a few things about these individuals. First of all, they were wearing all black, not black shirt and black trousers, no. They were all wearing what seemed like two black cloaks. One small black cloak or vail covering the face and upper torso and another larger one covering everything else. This made them look like ghosts. Furthermore, the strangest thing about their outfits was their masks. They were all wearing a pale white happy face mask, but the middle and tallest figure had a straight happy face. The other two had their happy faces inverted clockwise and counterclockwise making their smiles look deformed.

At this point Jared's memory becomes foggy as the effects of the medications kicked in. But he still was able to gather the strength to watch the "spectacle" for a little longer. The crowd outside upon noticing the figures approaching started to shout and cry in what it seemed like some sort of devout sadness as if they were crying and shouting out of remorse and repentance. The figures then approached the crowd and started to bless them by putting their palm of their hands on their forehead and making strange signs.

Jared turned back to Mark and Xavier and asked: "What in the world is going on here?!”

"They were having their service; they do this every week on different days of the week."

Jared then turned back to watching them and noticed that now the homeless people were confessing their sins openly to the crowd as the figures simply stood there quietly behind them and listening to them. The last thing Jared heard before he lost consciousness due to the medication was the shout of religious singing, as his friends were all smoking and sniffing substances. Jared fell sleep in the floor. Everything suddenly went dark from his point of view.

In what seemed like an instant to Jared, he suddenly woke up to screams and moaning of pain although he could not discern them at the moment of waking up. As the light of the full moon shone into the small sixth floor apartment where Jared was laying on, Jared noticed that the scream and moaning came from outside. Jared wasn't sure at this moment what time it was or how long he was out for. He with the little strength he had he poke outside the apartment window to see that the figures were no longer present in the area, as well as the crowd. Instead, he saw a few men and women laying in the street and the pavement, the container was no longer there.

Jared shouted for Mark and Xavier and the other men, but none responded. Jared noticed that the illicit substances him and his friends were consuming still were there but he's friends were not in the living room with him.

Jared at this point assumed that they were all sleep since the main door that leads to the apartment and the hallway was still well shut and all other doors that lead to the rooms were also shut. Jared also thought that the people lying motionless in the pavement and the street, were unconscious or passed out also due to indulgence or to being drunk, Jared's mind at the moment wasn't in its best place.

Jared though didn't have much time to dwell on the matter too much, he had taken far too many sleeping pills for the night and the drowsiness still hadn't gone away. As a result, Jared fell sleep again, this time in the decrepit and dusty couch that was in the living room.

Jared woke up at around 5:15am, the sun had not come out yet. At this point, with a little more energy he started checking the rooms inside the apartment to see if his companions were okay, but to his surprise, none of his friends as in, Mark, Xavier and the other men were there. The apartment was completely empty aside from him. Jared opened the door very easily, it turns out that the main door wasn't locked after all, it was just shut. This told Jared that his friends did come out outside and left the door unlocked. Upon accessing the hallway, he noticed that an eerie silence dominated the surroundings and the inside of the building. Only the sound of the cold and strong breeze could be heard.

At this point, Jared already had enough, so he decided to leave and to never come back again. As he descended the stairs, he also noticed a smell that he could not describe at first. At the moment, he thought it was a smell of malice or evil. Later he found out that it was a smell of decay. Upon arriving at the lobby of the building Jared was met with the worse surprise of his life.

The lobby was full of corpses, most of them with their eyes still wide open and with an expression of horror, panic, confusion and distress frozen in time in their faces. Jared fell down as panic built up inside his chest. All he could do at the moment was hold his chest tight and try to calm down his breathing. Jared understood, the cult killed them, or did they? soon he noticed that some of the same people that he was told to stay away from were also among the corpses outside in the pavement. Jared cried briefly but profusely, then he asked to himself:

"Did Mark and the guys abandon me here?"

Jared decided to abandon the area before the cops arrived. As he ran down the street, he saw a familiar person lying face down in the street. Upon closer inspection, Jared noticed that it was Mark, still with his eyes open with an expression of shock in his face.

"What could have possibly happened here?!" Jared uttered as a response to the trauma he was experiencing and upon seeing the lifeless body of Mark.

Jared did not stay around too much after finding Mark’s body, because soon, he could see red and blue lights in the distance, it was time for him to go.

What I just told you was Jared's testimony, although not all of the homeless people were involved in what took place that night, Jared is considered the only surviving witness to the incident of September 6th to testify in court. most of them actually ran away upon hearing and seeing the commotion, never to be seen in the area again. The total body count that night was initially around 40 to 55, but more bodies would show up as the days went by.

To this very day there are some questions left, such as were was the poison obtained from and who were the other two shorter individuals wearing the masks. The master mind of the massacre of September 6th and many other deaths starting from 2014 has not let lose any additional details. The night of September 6th as it is now romanticized as, went down in history as one of the bloodiest nights in Buffalo.

CHAPTER 8

A MACABRE SCENE IN THE DUMPSTER

It was a rather quiet and peaceful morning, on the day of September 16th. Two days prior it was pouring down so the change of weather was pretty nice. That day, Leslie and I made it to work pretty early, so we had time to sit down and relax in a nearby bench and chat a little. I remember that that day we went into a local bodega operated by Latinos and got ourselves a nice, mashed plantain breakfast with passion fruit juice. That morning Leslie and I were reflecting on the recent events that had taken place on the neighborhood.

"So, Les how do you feel about there being a killer among us out here?"

"To tell you the truth, I was a little scared at first but now I kind of feel thrilled, is like I'm in a slasher movie sort of speak."

"You don't feel scared that you might get targeted next?"

"So far it has only been homeless people that have been dying so I'm good."

"Yea but what if the killer gets tired of killing homeless people and decides to go for locals?"

"I'll book it out then. I can't help but wonder though,"

"What?"

"The elephant in the room? You know, who the killer is and why he does it?"

"Yea I can't help but to wonder that as well, like, is it one of the locals? does he or she comes from another neighborhood? Is he or she working alone? Can't help for this mystery to be resolved."

"I haven't heard of any killings lately. Have you?"

"Not at all, as far as I know, ever since the 6th no more bodies have popped up. But yet again, I might be wrong so don’t quote me.”

"Yea, maybe the killer finally decided to leave."

"He probably took a vacation. After all, killing is a lot of work."

After I said this, both Leslie and I chuckled a little at the thought of the supposed killer taking a vacation. We chuckled and laughed while zipping on our juice. While we were doing so, Joan happened to be passing by. We waved at her and called her so she could join us by saying:

"Hey Joan! What's up? Come and sit with us!"

But Joan only looked at us, gently waved at us back and continued walking quietly and in a hurry. This is not rare for Joan; she's known to have her social battery go down every once and a while. That time though, I wondered what was troubling her.

At that point it was almost time before Chris arrived and entered the store. It was about 7:45am, Chris would often arrive at 7:55am and the store would open at 9:00am. So, Leslie and I got up and started walking towards the pizzeria as well.

As a consequence of what had taken place on the 6th, people started showing up to the pizzeria less. Because of this, during that brief period, our hours had been reduced a little.

Something else worthy of mentioning is that news outlets at the time would frequent our streets in order to follow up with the story. Out of these, a couple of two, a young woman with long red hair and a blonde young man serving as a camera man would frequent the neighborhood the most. They didn’t seem like they belonged to any news outlet, they were most likely true crime YouTubers. The woman’s name was Margarita and the man’s name was Joseph. These couple would go around interviewing the locals and exaggerating whatever stories or rumors that were going around in the area. Later I found out that they actually lived nearby and whatever social media they had had boosted in popularity due to this case.

The case of the “homeless men killer” was not only the hottest topic in the Maple projects and in Emerson as a whole, nor either it was only the hottest topic on the internet but also at schools as well. Every kid in the lunchroom had suddenly become little detectives trying to solve the case. Everyone wanted to know who was the “Homeless men killer.”

At the time, I didn’t know who the killer was, all that I did know that the streets where relatively safe due to all the attention his killings had brought to our neighborhood. There was no way that this killer would strike again, at least until the waters came down a little. That was if, of course, this person didn’t want to be caught, that what I would say to myself.

Going back to the morning of September 16th. That day I had to do some cleaning in the back, it appears that the day prior someone ate a rather large meal in the back and did not clean up after himself, I wonder who that was? Anyways, as I was cleaning, and Joel was helping the boys with some of the orders and Leslie was at the register, when the true crime YouTubers came into our spot.

Initially, we gave them bad looks because we thought that they were coming here to cause a ruckus early in the morning. The truth was that at this point, all they wanted was a slice of cheese pizza, which we gladly served.

But at some point. The ginger lady, the one named Margarita had the good idea to interview us. None of us wanted nothing to do with that but there was a problem, Joe was there at this point and something you must know about Joe is that yes, he may a bit rough with his personality, he may look a little uncared for at times also and yes, he would sometimes be smelly, especially when work was though, but the guy was an entrepreneur, he was really good at taking advantage of whatever opportunity came across his path. Guess who was more than happy to have a small interview with the couple?

The interaction which later became an interview went a little like this. Leslie was casually looking at her phone while waiting for the next customer, something that you shouldn’t really do but whatever, Joe was there, and he didn’t care as long as the customers were being served. Margarita approached the register and asked:

“Hey is your boss here?”

“Yes, why you need him for?”

“We are true crime YouTubers and we been consistently following the case of the homeless men killer which is still loose in the area, and we are wondering if he would like to have a little interview with us if he doesn’t mind.”

Leslie a little frustrated called Joe who was placing a large sausage pie in the oven,

“What!”

“Come over here, some people want to see you!”

“I got no time for detectives send them home! Don’t they see I’m working here?!” Said Joe as he was shaking the flour of his hands and throwing a small rag into the sink.

“Is the news outlet couple! They are here!”

“What! Hold on a second!”

Joe then upon hearing that the ‘news outlet’ couple was at the shop, he went to his locker and grabbed a chef hat and put on his apron. He was not going to let this chance; he knew that him coming out in the ‘news’ would bring him customers.

As Margarita was conversing with Leslie Joe comes out of the back abruptly.

“Hey! Good morning!”

“Hi, are you the boss of this store?”

“That’s right! I sure am ma’am how can I help ya?”

Margarita reached to handshake Joe and upon noticing, Joe did as well. Joe gave Margarita a nice and firm handshake and proceeded to give her what could probably be the roughest polite smile on earth at that time. Joe had a thick greasy beard which was uncared for, and his smile showed two golden teeth in different sides of the mouth.

Now I know what you are thinking. And no, our place was super clean despite Joe’s appearance, the guy knew how to take care of business but not of himself, but he did know how to keep a place clean. While this interaction was happening, we were all busting out laughing in the back while we stared at the interaction. We knew that what we were about to witness was going to be pure gold. These true crime YouTubers had no idea what they brought to themselves, more like, they were not ready for it and yes, we were not ready for it either.

“So, are we having the interview?”

“Uh, yes. Joseph.”

Margarita then turned toward Joseph, her camera man and husband which he then turned on his Panasonic GG5 video camera and prepared himself to start recording. The video would begin when Joseph gave the signal.

The importance Joe gave to this interview could not be understated. During the time that Joseph was preparing to record. Margarita told Joe to get himself ready the best way he could as she took handy compact mirror and started adding some minor touch-ups to her face. Joe went ahead a closed the shop briefly since it was still very early and no customers where around at the moment, the interview would only last a few minutes.

Joe went into the back and entered the restroom to look at himself in the mirror one last time. We were just looking at him and chuckling among ourselves. Joe noticed us and simply ignored us. He seemed so eager. Joe then came out from the restroom and met the Youtuber couple, and the interview began.

"Good morning, everyone! This is Margaret and Joseph here and we are back in the Maple projects in order to continue updating you about the recent murders that have been happening in this area."

"This right here is Mr. Joe and he's the owner and boss of a small pizzeria right in front of the Maple buildings."

Joseph upon Margarita mentioning the Maple projects briefly pointed the camera at the buildings and then pointed the camera back towards Margarita and Joe.

"So, Joe, it is a pleasure for us to meet you, how have you and your workers dealt with the recent developments and how have the recent developments affected your business?"

"We here at Joe's Pizza and Burgers feel very distraught because of what's been going on, despite this we have done our best to continue serving the locals our delicious food."

Joe then added: "We have also taken precautions in order to ensure the safety and well-being of our workers, for example, we only do deliveries during the day, and we don't allow our female employees to do the deliveries. As of how the recent events have affected our business. Well, as you can see, the sales and traffic have declined by a lot ever since the bodies started popping up but we still in good spirits here at Joe's."

"Based on what the locals have told us, we determined that not everyone believes there's an actual killer out there, for example some say that all the homeless people have been dying due to sickness and overdose, do you believe that there's a killer lose in the area or do you believe otherwise?"

"Nah, there's definitely a killer out there, whoever that person is been doing a good job at staying under the rugs sort of speak. There's definitely someone killing them homeless people out there and he's killing them good."

"Are you satisfied with the way the secular authorities are handling this matter?"

"Satisfied? They barely been doing anything; I think the locals and you guys are doing more work than they are. So no, I am not satisfied at all."

"Why do you think the homeless are the ones being targeted by this killer?"

"I think they are the ones being targeted because

they the easiest victims since they don't have

families and people that would search for them."

"Do you feel that you and the locals are safe

because only the homeless are dying?"

"Nah, is only a matter of time before that psychopath starts targeting the locals here, that anti-social is probably planning his next kill right now as we speak."

"Thank you so much Joe for your time, we had some slices here before we did this interview and we can say that this is the best pizzeria in this area, so if you crime enthusiast is passing by the area make sure to stop by Joe's. Until next video, see you!"

After the interview with Joe ended, Margarita and Jospeh left to another area, apparently to conduct more interviews. Their channel became popular after the Maple killings became known. Nothing remarkable happened in the Pizzeria after the couple left, but not so far from us, in the confines of Homeless Street Mr. Hanks and his companions were performing an inspection in the area.

More bodies were being discovered even after the events of September 6th, bodies that remained hidden from even before that infamous night. Hanks and his team entered an abandoned apartment. Earlier, an inspector reported a horrible stench coming from the back alley of the building.

Upon accessing the back door at the end of the decrepit lobby, rats started flooding the area. There were so many rats. Hanks’ assistant Zarin panicked and went upstairs to avoid the rats, some of the men started shooting at them. The shots startled the rodents, and they cleared the area. Despite this, the scene itself was a little too traumatic for two of the officers. Hanks and another man named Hopkins continued to the back alley of the building.

The back alleyway was T-shaped, one side lead to the back exit of the building, all the way to the end of that same hallway, there was an exit that would lead to the street. Turning 90 degrees from the alleyway that leads to the back of the building, it was the door that led to the super as well as the dumpsters. The stench became more and more intense as the two men approached the massive dumpster. At some point the smell became unbearable and the two men had to take a small pause. After about Two minutes of this Hanks turned towards Mr. Hopkins and told him:

"We have to be strong partner, hold your breath and let's eat this frog already."

The dumpster had three openings, obviously there was the massive opening at the top which was shut and there were also two small trap doors in the middle of the container in order to make it easier to access the dumpster's inside.

Mr. Hanks and Mr. Hopkins tried opening the small doors in the middle, but they were stuck from the inside, the situation got solved very quickly after the men forced the door. Upon the trapdoor being forced open by the men, a small colony of rats busted out of the container and started running around in panic. The men stepped back while kicking the rodents in order to keep them away.

In the moment of panic, Hanks could not help but notice that these rats were particularly fat, a little too fat. Suddenly a particularly large and morbidly obese rat came out of the dumpster and started squeaking aggressively at the men. Upon seeing this, Hopkins and Hanks immediately drew their guns. In what it seemed like a second, the rat launched towards the men, but Hopkins quickly shot the rat two times and blew a hole through the animal.

The two men approached the animal to inspect it. Upon taking a closer look at the animal, the two men locked eyes with each other.

"Looks like them rodents been eating well."

Hopkins took a closer look at the dumpster and called Hanks.

"Hey Hanks come and see this."

Hanks approached the dumpster and noticed that there were a lot of equally large and obese rats, except that they were dead. when they turned on their flashlight to look deeper into the dumpster. Their hearts stopped for what it seemed like a long second. The smell didn't matter to them anymore at that point. All of their thoughts, emotions, and energy were dead focus on their sense of sight. It was a horrible sight indeed.

The man was already in an advance state of decomposition, the diseased was later identified as Mr. Martinez the homeless man that was known to be nasty with the locals. There was a massive hole in his abdomen and his insides where mostly gone. His eyes sockets where empty and his lower right arm was completely consumed, only the bones were left. The man's tongue was also gone.

Hanks described in his testimony that to him it seemed like the body was seating in front of an audience of dead rats. Very close to the body was a Pizza box that at the time of consumption would have contained a large pie. Obviously, whatever was in that box was completely gone by that point.

Hanks and Hopkins took their heads out of the dumpster and walked away towards the nearest wall. They both puked profusely, they could not help it. The other assistants approached the men to see if they were okay.

"Guys are you okay?"

"You won't be okay after you see what's in there."

Said Hanks to his other companions while trying to incorporate himself.

The two men approached the dumpster and peeked, before Hank's assistant Zarin did the same, Hanks held her hand and told her:

"Save yourself the trauma girl, you don't have to see what's in there."

The two men upon turning towards Hanks, immediately called for backup. Mr. Hopkins turned toward Hanks and asked him:

"Do you think he also died on September 6th."

"Most likely, although is strange that this man ended up inside this dumpster."

"He either came to this dumpster to hide from the other homeless people while he ate the Pizza, or came here after he started feeling the effects of the poison."

"Or he was probably brought here by the other homeless people after he died."

"In that case, if that truly happened, then this man was one of the very first people to die."

"After all, the people that perished that night didn't all die at the same time. Some of them where alive still by the time 5am arrived."

"Yes, they started dying off one by one and this in turn caused the mass hysteria that led to the rest of the homeless people to clear the area."

"All of the homeless people that survived that night are now spread throughout all of the city by now, finding them won't be easy."

"The autopsies show that these people ate Pizza before they died. The pizza was contaminated with rat poison."

"This is different from all of the prior bodies we found. Prior to that night."

"Yeah, before the 6th - all of the deaths were due to either heart attacks or stroke. But once again, these people's last meals was in fact Pizza."

"Heart attacks and stroke due to high cholesterol?"

"Yeah, their arteries where completely clogged for the most part."

"The thing is, we managed to find most of the bodies that perished that night and prior, but we never found any Pizza boxes up until this point."

"Except that we did now, that box seems to belong to Joe's Pizza and Burgers of all places."

"Are you suggesting that someone from that Pizzeria was the one who fed them all of that Pizza?"

"Who else can? Who else can feed Pizza to all of these people? Unless a customer is the one doing it."

As the rest of the police and detectives arrived, Hopkins asked Hanks:

"Has anyone died after the events of the 6th?"

"No, from what I can tell, the killer or killers have not been active after that night. Perhaps that night was their retirement sort of speak. That would explain why they used rat poison instead of just feeding these people to death as they were doing before."

"Feeding people to death, I never seen that methodology before."

"We are certainly dealing with a special killer or special set of killers."

"So, what are we going to do now?"

"We are going to pay a nice visit to Joe's Pizza."

CHAPTER 9

SOME FLOWERS ARE VENOMOUS

It was Sunday September 17th, early in the morning. Like usual, Leslie and I met up while on our way to work. Up to that point we had been texting each other a lot, this on itself was not a rare thing for us. Ever since we started working at Joe's we kind of became best friends. Joan was also a good friend of us, but she mostly minded her own business and would not reply to all of our text messages.

That time though, we would text each other a lot because at that point, both Leslie and I were experiencing some novelties in our personal lives. My mom who was and still is a veteran nurse had found a good job at as a head nurse at the John R. Oishei Children's Hospital. She was making good money at the time and as a result, she suggested me to focus all of my energies on my college career. My mother ensured me she could care for me and my two other siblings. Since I did college mostly from home, I could then take care of the kids and I could get some allowance on the side.

When it came to Leslie, her prospective was a little more exciting at the time. At the time, Leslie had met an Austrian man and they started corresponding with each other recently. It was not a surprise to anyone; Leslie was a very pretty looking girl and has become a well-formed young woman.

It turns out that the guy had asked her to go on a trip to Europe with him. This trip though, was not a regular trip, they were going to so a tour of Europe and this meant that the trip would last more than just a week. Because of these novelties going on in our lives, both Leslie and I had decided to put in our two weeks' notice.

That morning happened to be a very beautiful morning. Very sunny and barely any clouds floating in the sky. The weather was neither cold nor hot so you could wear a sweater if you wanted or not. The ambience at the Maple projects was very lively, the kids were playing in the courtyard again. Even grandma Chidgey was spotted in the courtyard watering flowers and plants which was an extremely rare sight ever since the homeless took over the place.

Perhaps, something that has helped this to happen was the police presence around the area at the time. Although not as heavy as before, seeing police officers patrolling the area was a common sight. People most likely felt secured by them being in the area.

When we arrived at Joe's and got ourselves ready to work that day. Both Leslie and I asked to talk to Chris since Joe was not there. Chris was busy in the basement preparing and dividing the dough together with Joel. Chris agreed to talk to us after he was done. So that morning we did the routinary. Leslie stood in the front to cover the cash register and I started cleaning the floor and the tables and filling the fridge with more beverages.

At about 10:15 am Joel and Chris came up from the basement with the fermented dough into the store. Joel was helping him with the containers. Upon seeing us Chris told us to wait a minute while he and Joel went to the back. After a few minutes Joel came to take over the cash register and we went to the back to the small office room to talk to Chris. Upon entering the small office room Chris took off his apron and took a zip from his soda can, and after turning toward us and leaning on the desk a little bit, Chris asks us: "What's up? how can I help you gals?"

Leslie stepped forward and said: "So basically, we uh have some novelties and, well..."

"We are submitting our two weeks' notice." I said to Chris.

This took Chris out of guard for a second.

"Why? we aren't good enough to you?"

"Yes you are! Working here has been great but both Leslie and I have had some changes happening in our personal lives and can no longer work here."

"Well, it certainly is a shame to see you girls go. Actually, Joe is scheduled to show up later at around 3:30pm so I can just tell him and let him know that he has to start hiring again."

"I'm sorry for any inconvenience we've caused you guys."

"Not at all, we've just grown accustomed to you girls and is so sad for us to lose you."

"I'm sure you guys will be able to find a good replacement for us."

"I mean finding a replacement is not a problem but I'm sure things won't be the same after you leave, it never is."

Certainly, that meeting with Chris made us both feel bad, but we understood that it was a must. People eventually have to spread their wings and seek out better opportunities for themselves.

At about 4:30pm after Joe had shown up to the store, the detective, Mr. Hanks and his young assistant came over to our store. The sight of them was a little odd since we are not used to having detectives come into our place. Mr. Hanks came over to the cash register where I was and calmly asked me: "Is Joe here?"

I did my best not to look nervous nor act nervous. Is not like I had done something wrong or anything but when you're dealing with detectives at-least in my case I feel like I may be suspicious to them.

"Uh yea, he's uh in the back."

"Can you get him for me?"

"Sure."

I turned toward the back and started calling Joe as I approached the office door.

"Joe! The detective is here!"

Joe didn't appear to hear me so I knocked gently at the door which Joe quickly opened.

"Hey, what's up?"

"The detective guy is here looking for you?"

"Is he?"

After I let Joe know that Mr. Hanks was looking for him, he let out a deep sigh.

"Tell him I'll be right there in a minute."

"Okay."

At this point the whole crew was staring at the scene with confusion, none of us knew why the detectives were here, all we knew is that we needed to be polite and provide good customer service to them. Though in the back of our minds we knew that, if the detective was here was because something was up. Leslie was also a bit nervous by the sight of Mr. Hanks. He's a tall and large figure with a very intimidating and penetrating look in his eyes. Anyone with confidence issues like Leslie and I would feel that there are the primary suspects of whatever just by being looked at by him.

Mr. Hanks took a seat in one of the tables and started looking at some documents, his young assistant named Zarin went to the cash register and ordered a mushroom slice, she apparently was hungry. Joel helped her out with her order and started having a nice chit-chat with Zarin. At this point the guys just went back to work as well. Leslie and I also started to feel a bit relieved, we upon seeing the officers immediately thought of the worst-case scenario.

Joe then walked out of the office and greeted Mr. Hanks.

"Good afternoon officer, how can I help ya?"

"Hey good afternoon, seat down, you have a minute to talk?"

"Yea I have time, but can we talk outside? I don't want to have this type of chat in my business."

"Understandable sir, let me collect my papers."

Joe went to the fridge and grabbed two Cola cans and offered one to Hanks. Mr. Hanks politely refused the beverages by saying:

"I prefer Ginger Ale and Root Beer."

So, Joe opened up the fridge again and grabbed a can of Grandpa's Ginger Ale soda and passed it to Mr. Hanks, this time he did not refuse the courtesy. As Joe and Mr. Hanks walked out Joe told Chris to take charge for him as he spoke to the detective. Zarin, Mr. Hank's detective stood inside the restaurant eating happily eating her food.

At this time the weather was getting cold and windy but not so much to cause discomfort. Joe and Hank stood outside by the sidewalk away from the door, and close to the window so that customers can still pass. As they both zip from their soda cans Joe proceeds to ask the officer:

"So how can I be of help for you sir?"

"Well, before we even get there, I just want to ask you. How's business doing so far?"

"So far we been doing fairly well detective, sells have increased slowly which has provided us with a steady income so far."

"That's pretty good to hear, I'm glad things are working out for you."

"Anyways."

Hanks added:

"As you may be well aware sir, there's been a lot of suspicious deaths among the homeless taking place in these streets for the last three years. Recently culminating in the onslaught that took place on the night of the 6th."

"Yes sir, that is pretty tragic what's been going on with those individuals, I genuinely hope that the justice department of Buffalo is able to solve this crime and bring the person behind these deaths to justice."

"Yes, indeed, in a matter of fact we are working on that."

Upon hearing this Joe's right eyebrow raised with suspicion.

"You see Mr. Joe, for the vast majority of these three years, all of the diseased being among the homeless of course, have all died of natural causes, which is not suspicious on itself, I mean, people die of

natural causes all the time after all."

"Can you be more specific as of the kind of death though sir?"

"Yes, of course. There are two main causes,

yes some of the victims may have had very specific health conditions which I am sure contributed to their deaths but the consensus is that pretty much all the victims died of either a heart attack or a stroke caused by high cholesterol in their system."

"What you trying to say sir?"

"Wait Mr. Joe be patient."

"Upon investigating further, we were able to find out that pretty much all of the victims up until September 6th which we will get to in a minute had a high calorie, high sugar diet. We would even find fragments of cheese and dough in their stomachs, consistently."

"So, you’re saying my food killed them?"

"Yes, but there's a big 'but' in this sentence if you know what I mean."

After hearing this from Mr. Hanks, Joe started breathing heavily and sweating.

"Calm your horses sir. We just want to ask you a few questions that's all."

"That is outrageous! How can you say that my food is been killing people?!"

"Listen sir, as I said, calm your horses, I'm not even done explaining my point nor the situation so please, just follow along with me, yes?"

"Okay, I'll listen."

"Before I continue, I just want to ask and I will explain to you why in just a bit."

"Uh huh."

"What exactly do you do with your spare food items at the end of the day?"

"Well, it depends. Some of it we freeze and store, some of it we take home and eat it among ourselves and the rest we just throw away."

"Okay."

"But even if the homeless people eat from the food we dispose of, that would not be enough for all of them to die that way."

"Of course not! surely these homeless men and women that have died over these past three years have had this food given to them by someone, someone that obviously you don't know but someone we might."

"Really?"

"It can't be one of my employees, isn't it?"

"It certainly is not you, you have too much to lose, and it would be too obvious."

"Yeah."

"If it was one of your employees, it would be too hard for them to do this without anyone else noticing. I mean after all, they are using your food, your money."

"Of course."

"Why would you use up your money or let someone else use up your money and your goods to kill people that never done nothing to you?"

"Yea, that makes no sense."

"So that rules you out as well as all of your employees. None of them are involved in the killings."

Joe now felt very relieved. Obviously, he knew it wasn't him to begin with but for a brief second, he thought that it could have been one of his employees. Knowing that neither of us were the culprits took a weight off his heart.

"So, who exactly is it? If I can ask."

"Can't tell you that just yet but I do have a favor to ask."

"Yes, go ahead."

"Can I speak to the girl in the cash register, I think her name is Joel."

"Yea, why?"

"I just have a curiosity, nothing else out of the ordinary."

"Okay."

Joe and Hank both walked into the restaurant, Hank once again greeted Joel and discretely asked her: "Hey, got a minute?"

"Yes of course why?"

"No worries, your good, I just want to ask you something."

Mr. Hank and Joel then walked toward one of the tables and both of them sat down. Joel at this point was looking a bit nervous. Mostly because she didn't know what Mr. Hank was going to ask her about. But deep down she knew that she had nothing to do with the killings.

"How are you feeling right now? Are you okay? Is it a good time to talk?"

"Just a little nervous, I'm not used to being asked to step aside by a detective."

Mr. Hank gave Joel a warm smile to reassure her that everything was okay with her.

"No worries young lady, I just want to ask you about your past a little bit."

"Okay, what do you want to know?"

"I was looking through the records and I found some interesting things. So, you were a victim of an assault about two years ago by one of the homeless, wasn't you?"

"Yes, he had very evil intentions towards me but thankfully I was saved by one of the homeless."

"Do you remember his name?"

"No sir, but I do remember his face."

"No worries. Who did you talk to about this subject."

"I've told a few people ever since, the most recent has been my friend Zoe but besides her, the workers here know and also some of the people in the neighborhood as well."

"To be more specific, who was one of the first people you ever talked about this matter, who were the first to find out about this?"

"My family of course, Joe and Chris and the people who worked here at the time, Phil was among them."

"Uh Huh, anyone from the buildings?"

"Yes, back then I got along very well with Mrs, Chidgey, who is a frequent shopper here."

"Okay, and why did you stopped talking to her?"

"I just didn't feel comfortable anymore, she was becoming toxic."

"Okay. Thank you for your time, I hope you and everyone you care for have a great day today."

"Thank you."

Joel left to the back and met up with Leslie and I, we quickly started asking her questions as we walked to the locker room. Mr. Hank walked towards Joe once again.

"Hey, I just need one last thing from you and sorry to ask."

"No worries, you can ask me anything."

"Can I have a look at your transaction records? How far back do you keep them?"

"The earliest I have been three years back."

"Good, can I take a look at those?"

Joe at this point was able to discern what were the intentions of Hank.

"Sure thing. Come with me to the office."

As Joe and Hank walked to the back office, Chris ordered us to get back to work and focus on the job. There were not many customers coming in at this point, we had Zarin in the floor as a guest and some locals would come to get slices and leave and would take note of the police presence in the building. But still, we were working after all, and we had to be attentive to our job. After like about half an hour, Mr. Hank came out of the office being followed by Joe. And as he once again greeted all of us and wished us all a good night, he left alongside his assistant. This was the first and last time Mr. Hank and I met in person. I know I sound like a broken record when saying this but is true.

About a week passed after Mr. Hank and his assistant came to our store, that day was Sunday the 24th of September. Our last day of work was going to be on the following Wednesday, the 27th of September.

At about 1:00pm Mr. Hank arrived alongside his trusty friend, Mr. Hopkins in the premises of the Maple projects. They walked towards the building in the south and went towards the 17th floor, apartment 17L and proceeded to knock on the door. The one opening the door, was grandma Chidgey herself who kindly let the men into her moderate apartment.

"Good afternoon gentlemen." Said Chidgey, "How can I help you today?"

"We'll get to that in just a moment, right now we just want to know how you are and how have you been?"

"So far so good, life is pretty good, and I can't really complain, do you guys want some coffee?"

"Yes, of course,"

"Please take a seat, I'll be there with you in just a moment."

Hanks and Hopkins both took a seat in the large couch. Chidgey's apartment was fairly clean and well decorated. The walls were full of family photos and paintings. She had many plants which she would take care of and kept inside the apartment. The windows were covered with luxurious thick curtains with beautiful plant and flower patterns. The walls were painted ocean blue, and the floor was a carpet floor. A nice navy-blue carpet.

Where Hanks and Hopkins were seating there was a small coffee table with a plot of flowers full of roses. There were smaller pots full of incense. These were common throughout the apartment; the apartment was engulfed with nice subtle smells.

Among the many photos being displayed throughout the house, there was one featuring a young girl with red hair with who appeared to be her family. Another had a tall young teen with black hair seating in a park. But the one photo that called Hank's attention the most was a picture of a group of nurses in what appeared to be an encampment.

Mr. Hopkins briefly asked Mr. Hank:

"Any updates on the homeless guy that got captured running away from the scene on the 6th?"

"Yes, he's currently in custody right now, he seems to be a survivor. But he refuses to talk, we will have to deal with him later."

"Yea, from what I see, he seems to suffer from some kind of mental issue, he probably thinks he's going to go to jail."

"He's going to be instrumental for us, depending on what he saw that night but more of that later."

After a few minutes of being in the kitchen, Mrs. Chidgey came out of the kitchen with a large coffee cup and two demitasse cups for the men. Mrs. Chidgey then gently placed the coffee in the coffee table that was in front of the men and then she proceeded to take a seat in the chair in front of the two detectives.

Mr. Hopkins was a bit reluctant to take from the coffee, Mr. Hanks noticed this and as a result, proceeded to pour some of the coffee to his cup, he then took three tablespoons of brown sugar and added it to his coffee, he then introduced the tablespoon into his coffee and started moving it in circle in order to mix the sugar with the coffee. This while both Chidgey and Hopkins stared. Hank then put the tablespoon down and proceeded to take a zip of the coffee. Looking rather pleased by its taste, Mr. Hank said while nodding his head.

"This is pretty good, one of the best coffees I have tried recently."

Mrs. Chidgey politely smiles as Hopkins proceeds to the same with his coffee, now feeling relieved. As Mr. Hank drinks his coffee, Mr. Hank politely asked Chidgey:

"So, Madam, do you know why we are here for?"

Mrs. Chidgey for a slight second seemed to glare at the men but swiftly changed her expression to a polite smile. Even though she was smiling politely, you could tell she was holding something back, her eyes, something evil.

"No, I don't know why you are here but I always appreciate a visit."

"That photo over there, with those nurses, was you among them?"

"Yes, I served as a nurse for some time during the war of Vietnam, those there were my friends at the time."

Hank took a look at a younger Chidgey. A beautiful looking young lady with bright eyes. Deep inside he wondered what could of lead someone with such eyes to turn into such an evil heartless killer.

"Well Mrs. Chidgey as you know, there's been a lot of death among the homeless community for the past three years."

"Yes, it's rather unfortunate those individuals have been pulling the short stick for a long time."

"How do you feel about the homeless? I know they have caused you and the locals of this area a lot of trouble, I know you may have strong opinions about them."

"Well detective, it is quiet unfortunate for them to live the way they do, If I was in their situation at least when it comes to me, I would consider my life to not be worth it."

"You know, those are people too, yes, they are in a very unfortunate situation. But they are human beings none the less."

"What are you trying to say detective?"

"Well Madam, we the police department have reasons to believe that you are the one behind these deaths."

"How could this be detective? How could you believe such about me sir, I would never do such a thing, why would a kind person like me decide to harm so many people in such a way?"

"We are not here to argue with you in any way, shape or form with you madam, we just here to go over the evidence and then to proceed to take you with us to start the process if you know what I mean."

"What kind of evidence do you have against me?"

"These people who are now uh, diseased have a lot of communalities if you know what I'm say Ma'am."

"Go on."

"All of these homeless men and women have been dying of pretty much the same cause, that being

heart attacks or strokes mainly due to high cholesterol."

"Uh huh?"

"For these past three years, these homeless men and women have been dying of exactly the same thing and all due to their diet."

"And what kind of diet we are talking about here?"

"These men and women were frequent consumers

of fast-food items, mainly Pizzas, Pastas, and high sugary drinks such as sodas."

"Yeah?"

"These people are homeless for a reason, that being that they don't have money on them, how exactly are they getting access to these foods?"

"I don't know. Go ask the owner of the Pizzeria in the front."

"No need Ma'am, here are the sell records for the past three years ever since 2014 where the first deaths were reported."

Hank places a very thick document like about 200 or so pages detailing every transaction involving Madam Chidgey. Chidgey took a quick look at the document but didn't bother to look too much, she knew she had been caught. She lifted a few pages with her hand and then let's go of the paper and threw it back on the coffee table. She then locked eyes with the two men in a deep silence. The air in Chidgey's house became tense as Mr. Hank and Madam Chidgey would gaze at each other. Hopkins started to sweat and with no avail wanted to dissipate the waters, but he couldn't, for those brief moments, he could not speak.

"Obviously someone had been providing these men and women with these food items."

"I only wanted to help them, to feed them."

"Yes, but you were also aware that these men and women were dying, also you were a nurse for a few years back in the 50's, you obviously now that consuming these food items excessively for a prolonged period of time would cause problems."

"I didn't kill them; they took the food. I only gave it to them."

"Of course, they would take it, they no choice. I'm pretty sure you were very well aware of the deaths as they were happening wasn't you madam?"

Chidgey glared at Hanks for a second, silently. "You knew what you were doing."

"And we even haven't gotten to what happened on the 6th of this month. Tell me Madam, who exactly helped you with these orders and how did you get your hands on the rat poison?"

"No one did."

"Lies, you certainly had helpers, we'll find out whether you talk or not, you may as well tell us."

"I'm not telling you nothing, I'll use my right to remain silent."

"Great. Guess we don't need to talk any longer. You're coming with us Madam."

The two men and Chidgey stood up. Mrs. Chidgey placed her arms forward so that Mr. Hopkins would place the cuffs on her. After that the men locked the apartment and took Mrs. Chidgey to the police station. Police came later to seal the apartment, as Chidgey's apartment became property of the police department.

News spread really fast; everyone was on shock. The homeless men killer was finally caught and taken to jail.

CHAPTER 10

THE FINAL CHAPTER

It's about 1:15am right now. My friends which are seating with me in the living room are starting to feel drowsy. At this point I already have finished telling my story. But Kate, Lillith and Bella want to find out further about what happened.

"It can't believe that it was the granny all along." Utters Kate.

"I really thought it was one of the guys from your store." Lillith says.

"No way girls, there's no way Franco and Phillie or Chris would have done that."

Jazmin is already sleep. She's in a seating position while resting her head in the cough. Despite feeling drowsy, my three friends still want to stay up a little longer, this was supposed to be an all-nighter after all. But I'm already feeling tired, yes, I'm currently off tomorrow so I can afford the luxury to sleep in but at this point I'd rather go and get some rest. Because of this, we decide to go to sleep.

Since my friends are over, we decide to all sleep in the living room, in sleeping bags. We briefly wake up Jazmin to help her get into hers but in the end, she decides to go to her room and sleep in her nice comfy bed. After I shut the lights, we all go to and fall sleep.

Now it's about 11:30am, Jazmin is still sleep. My belief is that she's going to have to do another evening shift at the hospital. My friends are currently sleeping and snoring. The night was heavy for all of us, especially Jazmin. I gently pull myself out of my sleeping bag and go right ahead to the bathroom to start my morning routine.

After leaving the shower, I go right ahead to the kitchen and start preparing breakfast for me, Jazmin and my friends. Since I am the first one to wake up I figure that I may as well do that.

I grab some eggs and start frying them with low fire so as to not make much noise, I then grab some pieces of bacon, enough for everyone and place them in the air fryer. Bacon is very tedious to fry and I'm not in the mood to fry Bacon in the traditional oily way. To accompany the eggs and bacon I start making some pancakes. In the end it takes me about an hour to finish cooking everything up.

Upon finishing up cooking I quickly divide the food and place all the plates in the table found in the kitchen and seal them by putting another plate on top. Then I grab my food, some orange juice and some gravy and head right on to my room to eat.

2023 has been a tough year for me. I lost my job earlier in the year and it took me a few months to get a job as a front desk receptionist in a private building. After I graduated college, I was disappointed to find out that my bachelor's degree was not enough to land a job as a software developer in any of the big companies. Ever since I been getting jobs as a retail store associate and as a receptionist.

While I peacefully consume my breakfast while watching some blog videos, Jazmin knocks on my door. She then let's herself in and asks me:

"Which one is mine?"

"Uh, you can take whichever. They are all the same."

"Great! Thank you for cooking, you saved me a

lot of time."

"No problem, we girls need to have each other's backs."

Jazmin than seats in my bed and turns towards me while smiling.

"I have a favor to ask."

Upon hearing this I let out a deep sigh. I mean, I kind of expected this. "What is it?"

"I have some arrangements today at about 5:00pm and I won't be able to go get the groceries for next week. You think you can help me out by going to get them yourself?"

"Sure, why not? After all, I don't have plans for today besides staying home and watching movies."

"Thank you so much Zo! Here's the list."

"Where are you going now?"

"I'm going to the carwash to wash my car and then I'm going to my mom's house to spend the day."

"Okay, be safe out there, see you either later tonight or tomorrow."

"Okay."

After Jazmin grabbed her food and left, Bella and the others wake up as well. Because of this, now that I finished my food I go to the kitchen and let my friends know that breakfast is on the table. Then I went ahead to wash my ditches. While I do so I hear my friends talking amongst each other, because of this, while feeling curious I go ahead and ask them what's the chit-chat about.

Kate turns towards me and shows me her phone. To my surprise is Joe, this is the interview that the youtuber couple did to him back in 2017. It has millions of views. Apparently, Joe's sincerity accompanied with his rough appearance had turned into a phenomenon, a meme. After the waters came down and Mrs. Chidgey had been condemned to life inside an elderly asylum. People started visiting the neighborhood to see the site of the events and to pay a quick visit to Joe's Pizza and burgers as well. Because of this, Joe became a local star in the neighborhood which obviously boosted sales and customer traffic to his Pizzeria. "What do you think Zoe?"

"I don't think nothing at all to be honest, I'm happy for the dude."

"That guy Joe must be pretty rich right now."

"He probably is, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case."

"I can't believe that someone would kill people by feeding them Pizza."

"Yea, is very unorthodox to be frank but evil always finds a way."

"Did you had to go to court because of what happened?"

"No, I never had to go to court thankfully, but Joe did. Despite this, I feel a guilty in a way."

"Why so? You didn't do anything."

"Yea but I still helped prepare those orders which eventually helped killing the victims but whatever, that's in the past right now."

"After looking up Lizbeth Chidgey it says she still alive and is currently staying at the Rosa Coplon Jewish Home and Infirmary."

"Really?"

"Yea, only two people two people would come to visit her every once and a while."

"Really? Who are they?"

"Not much is known about those individuals, all is known as they had nothing to do with the 2017 killings."

"Okay, that's oddly strange."

"It is, that's some dark stuff. Who would want to go see someone like that."

"Probably some family member or friends."

"Zoe, what happened after Chidgey was taken away? Can you tell us that part of the story?"

"I don't know much about what happened in the court case involving Chidgey besides that Joe and the homeless guy named Jared having to testify in the case and Mrs. Chidgey being sentenced to spend life on the Rosa Coplon Jewish Home and Infirmary. But I did go back to visit the neighborhood back in 2018 just to check on Joe and the rest. I can tell you that."

"Sure thing, go ahead, we are all ears."

After hearing this, I take a brief deep breath, close my eyes for a second as memories of the past once again come to me. June 2019, a year after the Homeless men killer was caught and a year after the court case was settled sentencing her, the killer to life in a nursing home.

At about 11:30am I passed by the streets of Emerson. At this point I was already living with Jazmin and another friend in Brooklyn NY. The reason of me being back in Buffalo was because at the time, my mom till had not moved away to Connecticut yet and therefore, she still lived in Buffalo. Since I was already there, and the Maple projects were just a few train stops away from the train, I decided to pass by and say hello to Joe.

At the time I got to Joe's was fairly busy, a few orders had come in. Something I noticed upon arriving is that the placed looked slightly different, and none of my co-workers were there, instead, the whole crew was made up of new faces, faces that I was not familiar with. "Is Joe here?"

One of the guys, a Hispanic guy who was at the cash register told me that he was on the basement and that he should be back here in a minute or two. Because of this, since I wanted to seat in the tables, I decided to order a cheese slice and grabbed a bottle of orange juice along as well and sat in one of the tables to wait for Joe.

After what seemed like five or six minutes, Joe came back up with the fermented dough. Upon entering the restaurant, he glanced at me and noticed me and with a polite smile, he signaled me with his left hand to give him a minute.

After leaving the dough with one of his employees, Joe came back to greet me and to have a quick chat. Obviously, he and I were very happy to see each other. We walked outside to the front of the store and started chatting. "It's a pleasure to see you, you all grown up now."

"Come on boss, you know I haven't changed that much I only have shorter hair now and wear glasses."

"Yea but you seem more mature to me, which is good, you dress like an adult now."

"I see that you have a lot of new people now, what happened to Chris, Frank and Joel?"

"They are all gone their own ways, Chris has his own Pizza chain now."

"Is that so?"

"Yea, I became really popular after the waters got settled and the rise in sales enabled me to have a few more locations opened up, Chris is one of the owners and he's restaurant is not so far from here."

"That's amazing. I know that that was his dream to own his own Pizza restaurant."

"Yea, he's an amazing manager and chef, just like me."

Both Joe and I started laughing after Joe said that. "How about Franco? I know Phillie went ahead and moved to Florida, right?"

"Yea he did. Franco in the other hand went and moved to Cincinnati and from what I know, a family member got him a job as a truck driver."

"Good for him, I know that job brings a lot of money."

"Joel decided to leave as well after the court case got settled."

"She did? I lost contact with her so I don't know where her whereabouts are."

"She moved back to Iowa where her family lives. An aunt of hers married a man that has a clothing business and they offered her a job as a manager there. I can give you her number if you want, she still calls back here every once in a while."

"For real?"

"Yes, she's like a daughter to me, I saw her grow from a shy teenager to very mature young woman."

"I would appreciate that."

Joe then asked me: "What happened to that friend of yours? What was her name again?"

"You mean Leslie?"

"Yes, what happened to her? I never heard back from her after she left."

"Oh, she's married now, she married an Austrian man and now lives in Austria and is currently going to college there."

"I heard college is free there."

"Yes, that's why she moved there."

"That's pretty nice to know, that everyone is doing okay."

"So, what happened in the court, I know you had to go there and testify."

"Yea, I got asked a few questions about my sell history and the transactions involving the granny. I had to talk about my interactions with her and even got to express my opinion on the matter a little, but nothing much."

"I heard another person had to testify, one of the homeless people that survived."

"Yea, he was there on the 6th and got to see some of what happened that night, but he did not provide that much. He's testimony did help on putting that murderer where she is right now."

"Good."

"I'm essentially a meme right now, did you know that? I mean look up."

After I looked up I saw that the logo of the restaurant had changed from a generic chef to Joe's face.

"Impeccable."

"That news couple really did a lot to further my business."

"I'm sure you did as well boss, they got popular because of you and because of what happened here."

"I heard they are now going to other states chasing crimes."

"You have to be really dedicated to do that."

"Have you checked Homeless Street yet?"

"No, what's going on there?"

"They demolished all the abandoned buildings in there and are now rebuilding the whole area."

"For real? Waw that good, is a good time to leave the past behind."

"So, tell me, what's going on with you? Why haven't you come by more often?"

"I don't live here no more."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, I moved down to New York with some friends, and we are now going to college there."

"How is it down there?"

"Expensive but good, everything is close no need for cars."

"Of course not."

After chatting for a while Joe and I said our goodbyes. I promised him I would stroll by again next time I would come and see my mom but that never happened. My mom moved to Connecticut shortly after and as of now I don't have a reason to go to Buffalo anymore. So that was really the last time I ever saw Joe, but from what I heard from, he's doing okay.

As of Leslie and Joel I'm currently still in contact with them. We don't chat too often, but we send each other messages every once and a while. Hopefully you guys can meet them one day. But when it comes to this story, and the killings that took place that's pretty much over. From what you tell me, the old hag is still alive there at the nursery home, but she is not going to kill anybody there, and if she does, I'm not going to be there to see it.

"Of course, not Zoe."

"Well girls, that's about it. I never thought that I would wind up telling such a long story but here we are."

"We've known you for about two years and we never knew this about you."

"I never gave this too much mind after it happened. After I left Buffalo, I got too busy and involved with college and life in New York."

"That makes sense."

"Anyways, who wants to help me out with the groceries?"

THANK YOU FOR READING MY BOOK!

If you can summarize this whole read in one single word, which word would it be? My word would be: “surprising” or “Unexpected.”

Because you have reached the very end of this book, I decided last minute, a couple days before publishing this manuscript to reward you with some trivia and some cool facts about this story as well as the writing process behind it as well.

Who are the characters based on? Zoe Townhouse which is the main character of this book doesn’t have a direct inspiration of a real person but, when drawing sketches of her in my sketchbook, I modeled her after the stereotypical image of a 23-year-old journalist. Initially I wanted present day Zoe to be a journalist but during the writing of this book, I went back and changed her major to that of a software engineer for “reasons.”

Zoe’s 2017 appearance, that being of a goth girl, with blue hair and with all black clothes is meant to serve as a direct counterpart to her present self.

Phillie and Franco are based of two co-workers of mines that I worked with on a retail store back in 2018. Chris is literally based of another co-worker of mines when I used to work on a book store, I would always joke around with him.

This is a secret, but Joe, the owner of the Joe’s Pizza and Burgers is based of a Pizza shop owner that works near my house, although I don’t always go to that particular Pizzeria, I believe his appearance is perfect for the job. That being of a tall, robust middle age man with a thick beard and a rough and stern attitude but nice and kind on the inside.

Zarin which is Mr. Hank’s intern assistant is an homage to another co-worker of mines that also worked with me when I used to work in the book store, although Zarin from my novel and the real one are different in appearance, they still share the same name as well as their personalities.

Lizbeth Chidgey is modeled after a third age nun. The reason I wanted Lizbeth Chidgey to not only be the main villain of this novel but also to be old is because that would make the ending where it is found out that she is the master mind behind the deaths to be more surprising.

The original concept behind a gift of happiness was to make a murder mystery book where the killer would kill their victims by constantly feeding them high calorie, highly saturated foods on a daily basis in order to provoke heart attacks or strokes on them.

Because of this, I decided that the killer in order to go undetected, not only to the characters in the book but also by the reader’s discerning eyes, the killer then must be and elderly, innocent looking old lady that is portrayed as being nice to the locals and to be very generous as well.

Lastly, Jazmin’s character is based of an acquaintance of mines, I told her that she will be the coolest character in my book just to let her accept me modeling my character after her. In the end, she is still cool after all, since she is Zoe’s friend. Zoe only hangs out with cool folks.

Something that came to my mind during the writing of this novella was the idea of a sequel. Although I am not very sure if I want to give this particular story a fully realized sequel or even a series of sequels, I decided to just in case leave the door open for a sequel, in case that I decide to revisit this story in the future.

For example, I decided not to reveal who were Lizbeth’s helpers. I only gave brief hints of who they are. Also, I never dwelled too much on Lizbeth’s motives for the killings, instead, I only gave some indirect hints.

The reason I choose homeless people to be the victims of Lizbeth is because of the nature of the killings caused by her. A common person won’t accept to be given fast food every day in the same manner that Lizbeth did unless they are desperate. That is why homeless people made the perfect victims for Lizbeth.

I believe I might revisit this story in the near future, if that’s the case, then I will further develop the character of Lizbeth Chidgey as well as reveal more of what went on in the background. Zoe will also return one day in the future as well if I choose to revisit this story.

The reason I chose the city of Buffalo as the setting for my story is because a story like this one would never work in a setting such like New York. Originally, I wanted the events of this novella to take place in the city of New York but then I thought to myself that that would not be a good idea.

The reason for this being that there are just way too many people living in New York city. That is why I chose the city of Buffalo, NY as the setting.

The Maple houses and the abandoned business center called Homeless Street are not real places, but they are inspired of real places.

The Maple houses are inspired of a public housing complex in the Bronx called the Forest houses. I would often visit these buildings back when I used to do voluntary work there in 2015 and 2016.

Homeless street is inspired of the Hunts Point business center also located in the Bronx, although I only been there once, the place left a big impression on me and I decided to use it as a basis for Homeless Street.

So do not bother to look for the Maple houses and Homeless Street on any map of Buffalo, because they are not going to be featured there.

Lastly, depending on how well the readers react to this novella, I might wind up adapting this into a short graphic novel. I am a visual artist as well as a writer, so turning this story into a comic is not out of my realm at all.

As of right now I already have some character sketches on hand as well as some setting designs. For the time being please follow me on my Instagram in order to keep yourself up to date with the newest developments regarding this story.

Thank you so much for reading this book, I hope that my story was a source of entertainment for you. May we meet again next time within the pages of my next manuscript.

Amazon links:

A GIFT OF HAPPINESS (KINDLE VERSION): Amazon.com: A GIFT OF HAPPINESS eBook : Campusano , Franklin : Kindle Store

A GIFT OF HAPPINESS (PAPERBACK VERSION): Amazon.com: A GIFT OF HAPPINESS: 9798327432710: Campusano, Franklin: Books

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NEW WORLD STORIES

A GIFT OF HAPPINESS (New Upload)

A THROWBACK TO BUFFALO

ON A PARTICULAR OCASSION

THE FIRST TO DIE

THE STORY ACCORDING TO JOAN

ARRIVAL OF JAZMIN

A BOY NAMED FINN

THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 6^TH

A MACABRE SCENE IN THE DUMPSTER

SOME FLOWERS ARE VENOMOUS

THE FINAL CHAPTER

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Popular posts from this blog

FRUSTRATION (New Upload)

UN REGALO FELIZ

A GIFT OF HAPPINESS (New Upload)

A THROWBACK TO BUFFALO

ON A PARTICULAR OCASSION

THE FIRST TO DIE

THE STORY ACCORDING TO JOAN

ARRIVAL OF JAZMIN

A BOY NAMED FINN

THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 6TH

A MACABRE SCENE IN THE DUMPSTER

SOME FLOWERS ARE VENOMOUS

THE FINAL CHAPTER

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FRUSTRATION (New Upload)

UN REGALO FELIZ

THE NIGHT OF SEPTEMBER 6^TH