Chapter 383: The Case
"If only we could figure out what he was actually saying…" Sam muttered while staring at the footage.
"Even if we don't know what it means," Frank suddenly spoke up, "we can at least confirm one thing—it definitely isn't Dutch."
"Hm?" The Winchester brothers instinctively turned toward him.
Frank rotated his phone screen toward them.
On the display was a translation app.
Technology was so advanced these days that many problems could be solved with it—including unfamiliar languages and writing systems.
There were thousands of languages in the world. No one could possibly know them all.
But technology could help.
There were countless translation apps online capable of translating hundreds of languages, even obscure dialects.
If you encountered an unfamiliar language, you could simply run it through a translator. Even if the result came out as awkward machine translation nonsense, it was still better than understanding absolutely nothing.
And modern translation software didn't just translate text—it could process spoken language too.
Frank had already tried using the app to analyze the serial killer's speech from the recording.
But the result had been gibberish.
Nothing matched.
Dean and Sam immediately pulled out their own phones and downloaded several translation apps.
The group tried multiple programs in succession, but every result was the same: random words mashed together into meaningless nonsense.
"The strange language caught Eddie's attention too," Officer Hobbes explained. "We even consulted a linguist."
"What did the linguist say?" Dean asked.
"He couldn't identify the language either," Hobbes replied. "He took a copy of the recording back for further study. But according to his guess, it might be some kind of Middle Eastern language."
Since they couldn't decipher what Reese was saying, they temporarily shelved the issue and continued reviewing the footage.
The recording itself wasn't very long.
After Reese finished talking with Hobbes in the cell, he was escorted to the execution chamber.
And throughout the entire process, the condemned killer behaved bizarrely.
"Hahahahaha! Hehehehehe!"
"It's not that justice won't come~ the time just hasn't arrived~ believe it or not~ it's not that justice won't come~ the time just hasn't arrived~"
"Believe it or not~ you keep saying you want to run away~ but I'll follow right behind you~ I'll come back for you~"
"Come on! Do it already! Send me to hell! Hahahaha!"
Facing death, Reese showed not the slightest trace of fear.
If anything, he seemed excited.
He even urged them to hurry up with the execution.
The entire thing felt deeply unsettling.
After the execution ended, the recording stopped.
Everyone watched the footage from beginning to end several times.
Aside from the strange language Reese spoke, there was nothing overtly supernatural in the video.
No ghosts.
No paranormal phenomena.
Nothing unusual at all.
"In all the copycat murders afterward," Dean said while flipping through the homicide files, "this exact message was left behind at every scene."
He pulled out several photographs from different case folders and spread them across the table.
Each photo had been taken at a different crime scene.
Different walls.
Different houses.
Different victims.
But written on every wall was the exact same three-line message:
Lyons
???
Spakowsky
"That's the creepy part," Hobbes said grimly. "Those are the exact words Reese said to me before his execution."
Sam immediately grabbed the remote and rewound the video to that exact moment in the recording.
Right after speaking that incomprehensible phrase, the condemned killer continued with the message.
"You remind me of someone, Hobbes. Really. I'm not lying."
"Do you like riddles? This one's a good one."
"Why is there a blank space between Lyons and Spakowsky?"
"You definitely know the answer. Open your eyes and look carefully."
"Hobbes, remember this. Maybe in a week. Maybe in a month. What you did to me… I'll return it to you tenfold. I'll come back for you…"
In the recording, after saying those words, Reese was escorted out of the cell and taken to the execution chamber.
And in every subsequent copycat murder scene, the message left on the wall was the exact same riddle Reese had spoken before his death.
"Who else knew about this riddle?" Dean asked.
"Not many people," Hobbes replied. "The public definitely didn't know. Only the people present at the execution and those who watched the recording."
"After the first copycat murder happened, we immediately investigated the prison guards and the documentary crew. Every one of them was questioned and cleared. None of them looked suspicious."
"Could the footage have leaked somehow?" Sam asked.
"No," Hobbes shook his head. "The documentary was still in production. Reese's execution was only one segment. They were planning to include several inmates before editing it all together into a final release."
"So this footage was just raw material. It was never made public. Only the documentary crew and the police had access to it."
"I see…" Dean nodded thoughtfully.
"What do you think we're dealing with this time?" Sam asked as he paused the video with the remote. "A possessing spirit?"
"Possible," Dean said. "The killer could've become a ghost after death and started possessing people to continue the murders."
"What did you do with Reese's body?" Sam asked.
"Eddie asked the same question," Hobbes replied. "You were thinking of burning the corpse, right? Eddie already tried that. Didn't work. The murders kept happening."
There were many ways to destroy spirits.
But the simplest, fastest, and most effective method was usually to locate the ghost's original corpse, cover it in salt, and burn it. Once the remains were purified, the ghost would disappear along with them.
If Reese truly had become a vengeful spirit after death, that method should have ended everything immediately.
But Eddie had already burned the corpse, and the killings were still continuing.
Which meant—
"It's not Reese's ghost…" Dean frowned.
"I think we've been looking at this the wrong way," Sam suddenly said, a flash of realization crossing his face as he stared at the evidence wall Eddie had assembled.
"This guy Reese… he might not be the original source at all."
"You mean…" Dean's eyes narrowed. "Reese himself was possessed too? He was another victim?"
"That's very possible," Sam said. "Whatever this thing is, it can possess people. It just happened to possess Reese while Reese was committing murders, and then Hobbes arrested him."
"If Reese was possessed by some monster," Dean continued along the line of reasoning, "then why didn't the creature just leave his body and escape prison?"