A Lullaby for Christmas. Part 1
Channel: Scary Stories
Date: 05/12/2022

A Lullaby for Christmas. Part 1

We always get the crazies on Christmas; that's what I told myself when she walked in. She looked rattled and perhaps wasted, with her wide and maniacal, light blue eyes, bushy dark brown hair lined with streams of gray, and smeared eyeliner. Other than that, she looked no different than any average, mid-thirties brunette to me. 

  Though I had no doubt she was just some tweaker who came into the station to report that someone had stolen her stash or some other dumb shit I wasn't remotely in the mood for, when she spoke, I was a bit lost for words. 

  "I-I'm here to c-confess," she stuttered in a soft voice, darting her eyes around the room.

  The fact that she had apparently asked for me specifically bewildered me as much as what I assumed she was intent on confessing to. Given that I was the head of a task force charged with investigating serial murders and the like, I was uncertain what someone who looked as though she'd seen more than her fair share of drugs would want with me. 

  'Likely', I thought, inwardly rolling my eyes, 'she killed her boyfriend for messing with her needles or something.'

  I would be mistaken in my assumptions, though I can't say I believed her at first, given what I knew about who she claimed to be. 

  "I'm…I'm the Lullaby Killer," she said, finally looking me dead in the eye, still twitching ever so slightly. 

  I had been on the Lullaby case for the better part of five years; something I had to assume this mad woman to be fully aware of when she asked for me. The station at which we were currently located was not where we had originated, but one that served as more of a central hub for such investigations. 

  Not only had everything we had learned about this killer led us to believe it was a man who had murdered eleven children and six families across the country, but this lady looked barely capable of picking out her groceries for the week, let alone evading the authorities for half a decade. In addition, Lullaby had been inactive for close to a year by this point, which led more credence to my assumption that this woman was off her rocker. 

  I was honestly not too happy about being assigned this case at first, as I had spent the previous four years tracking who we dubbed the Conscience Killer, who had tortured and murdered around fifteen people. Before that, there was a serial murderer we named Jasmine, as that was something of a calling card for that one. It only took us around six months to track him down, but Conscience and Lullaby were far more meticulous.

  While the Conscious case had gone cold a good two years before Lullaby came on the scene. The higher-ups, having assumed that they had either given up or even died, thought it was time to move on, thus putting my team on Lullaby. We had other cases, of course; one of which had us begrudgingly working on Christmas eve, but that didn't compare to what the woman before me claimed to be. 

  "Is that right?" I said with a heavy sigh, being quite sure this woman was just an attention-seeking crackpot. 

  "It's the truth!" she insisted, slamming her palm to my desk. 

  "Uh-huh," I replied, unphased by her outburst, "and what exactly inspired you to confess on this chilly Christmas Eve?" 

  Considering that I had been hoping to head home to my wife and my daughter soon, the last thing I wanted was to deal with some crazy lady looking for publicity. In addition to my inner frustrations, we were no closer to catching Lullaby than Conscience. Hell, we would likely have a better chance at tracking down Jack the Ripper than either of these two, so I was certain that this elusive killer would not so casually stroll through my door all neatly wrapped up for Christmas. 

  "It's the only way," she replied, slipping her hand from the desk, "the only way I can be safe." 

  "Ma'am, I'm gonna need you to elaborate quite a bit more; both on your 'confession', as well as whatever it is that you're afraid of." 

  "He…he told me to stop; to never pick up my tools again, but…"

  She trailed off, gazing down at her hands. It wasn't until then that I noticed the muddy, red stains on her palms. When I looked at where she had slammed her hand to the desk, I could see the faint crimson, streaked back from where she had pulled back. 

  I still did not even slightly believe she was who she claimed to be, but I was growing more comfortable in the notion she did have reason to be here after all. 

  "Okay," I said, waving to Douglas, one of our newer recruits, "how about we get some samples of that, anything you may have on your person, and get you changed into some clean clothes, huh?" 

  Again, she did not resist, only nodded her head, getting to her feet and keeping her posture somewhat hunched. I couldn't tell if it was the weight of her actions that left her looking so ashamed, that she was simply exhausted, or coming down from whatever was potentially coursing through her veins. It could be