Fear in the Air

This story explores how a single, ordinary sentence—spoken at the wrong moment—can’t be taken back, and how its consequences ripple through a relationship and an entire town.

Reuben Ortiz and Chantelle Beaudoin had been together for four years—long enough for their hopes to harden and their habits to settle into something that looked like certainty from the outside. They had been prom king and queen once, the kind of couple that still photographed well, the kind that suggested permanence even when it wasn’t true anymore.

Chantelle wanted to marry him.

Reuben didn’t.

Four years had taught him what mattered to him. Marriage felt ceremonial, like repeating something he already understood. While he talked, Chantelle smiled and turned her head the way people do when they are deciding what they will remember and what they will forget.

She didn’t argue.

She didn’t correct him.

She didn’t ask questions.

She acted as if she accepted it.

Her breath shortened. She pressed her tongue to her teeth until she tasted blood, grounding herself in something physical. Silence took over where conversation used to be.

Without anything left to argue about or fix, the space between them expanded until it became routine.

When it came time to separate, neither of them was ready to be single—but only one of them understood how quickly a story could move once it started.

***

The town of Havenwood grew uneasy without knowing why.

Porch lights stayed on after sunrise. People locked doors that they had previously left open. without comment. When a stranger walked into a room, conversations paused—not stopped, just softened. No one said what they were listening for.

No blood dripped on the sidewalks. The coffee shop still smelled of burnt toast and over-brewed coffee. Routine held what fear couldn’t say aloud.

Then a voice began breaking up the days.

It slipped between weather reports, farm updates, old rock songs, and jingles. The music dipped. The voice cleared its throat. No one mistook the tone.

The sheriff’s office has this message regarding public safety. The suspect in connection with the recent murders remains at large. Residents are advised to lock all doors and windows and avoid going out alone after dark…

The message returned every hour. It remained even after they had turned the radio off.

After the third broadcast, Reuben lowered the volume.

***

The Main coffee shop filled faster than usual. The bell over the door rang until the spring inside it snapped. Bodies pressed close. The smell of body odour replaced toast. Aprons stiffened with old spills. The dishwasher rattled behind the counter, not much louder than the talk.

“They’re saying he’s still out there,” a man said, stirring sugar into already-sweet coffee.

“Of course he is,” a woman replied. “In places like this, it takes time.”

Someone by the wall snorted. “Always does.”

Cups collided with saucers. Heads nodded. The word "male" landed heavily, like a verdict.

“They should lock him up and throw away the key.”

“Good people shouldn’t have to deal with people like that.”

Chantelle held her cup with both hands and watched the surface cool. She didn’t speak.

A man crossed the street outside the window and turned the corner. No one followed him with their eyes. The radio behind the counter hissed.

Havenwood looked unchanged, but people leaned toward one another as if closeness could offer protection.

Three dead women. There were no obvious suspects. The police were uncertain about whom they were searching for; they only knew what they feared.

***

Two federal agents sat across from the police chief. Old coffee cooled between them.

One profiler opened and closed a file. “The scenes show control. Planning. Degradation.”

The other said, “This wasn’t about killing. It was about power.”

The chief swallowed. “She didn’t suffer long?”

No one answered.

***

Chantelle moved through the town as if she belonged there, because she did. She waved to passing cars. Children still call her name at the pool in the summer. Lights flicked on when she reached the dance hall in winter.

She smoked unfiltered Camels and drank her whisky straight behind her house after dark, standing still until the burn settled. People didn’t stay long enough to see it.

Her phone rang throughout the night after the breakup. Messages are stacked without replies.

Women asked her out. Men offered drinks, rides, and plans already imagined. She let the phone ring while she stood at the kitchen sink, then set it down and walked away.

Under her bed, her University of Georgia textbooks remained stacked and organized.

Criminal behaviour. Pattern escalation. Victim response. Not keepsakes—references.

She knew how stories progressed after they started. How investigators mistook planning for loss of control. The situation escalated after a period of restraint. The violence escalated as entitlement met rejection.

She understood what people expected to see.

The breakup spread throughout the town like a wildfire in a parched forest.

“That’s a strange time,” Sandy said. “The murders started the same week.”

“In a town this small, everything lines up eventually,” Shawna added.

Chantelle finished her drink and left first.

Sandy called the police.

***

The Goose’s editor agreed to an interview request before considering what it meant to report on a serial killer in a town that reads its paper.

Profiles arrived. Language sharpened.

These individuals ranged in age from their late twenties to early thirties. Social withdrawal. Control issues. Recent rejection.

One name surfaced more than once.

Reuben Ortiz.

It was crossed out.

Cell-tower data placed him at home or downtown during each murder. There was no movement toward the victims’ neighbours. No gaps.

No deviation.

The police released him.

Chantelle read the article twice and noted its assumptions, its repetitions, and why no one thought to challenge it.

***

Without arrests, routines fractured.

Ride programs expanded. Officers worked double shifts. Clipboards filled. Patrol cars lingered after closing hours.

Women counted steps, doors, and messages home.

Then the police discovered Rhonda dead in her house. There were no signs of forced entry. No struggle.

“She trusted everyone,” Cruise said.

Duff stood at the board, watching magnets shift.

“Let’s go through it again,” Duff said.

Cruise hesitated. Then complied.

Cleared names slid aside. Only addresses remained. Access points surfaced—familiar knocks—doors that opened without question.

“Who didn’t need an invitation?” Duff asked.

Two names remained.

One belonged to a reporter who lingered too long in other people’s lives.

The other belonged to a woman who knew how suspicion moved.

Duff didn’t say her name. He didn’t have to.

***

Chantelle didn’t resist when they came for her. She set her glass down, as if finishing a thought.

In the back seat of the car, she folded her hands in her lap. Through the window, she watched the town slide past—porch lights still burning in daylight, doors half-closed now instead

of open.

Reuben’s name would come up again. It always did. She knew how that part worked.

She smiled once and looked away.

***

The paper published the arrest along with a photograph of Main Street taken years earlier, at a time when no one had considered locking anything or had thought to lock anything. The interview never ran. The editor said later that the story resisted being contained.

Reuben declined to speak. He left Havenwood within the month.

The radio kept its tone, even after the warnings stopped.

The townspeople, out of habit, huddled together, listening for something unnamed, as silence no longer felt safe.