Note: *=Name changed to protect the innocent
Mr. Miller's pet goldfish Jaws* had been acting very strangely lately. He wasn't eating well. According to Mr. Miller, he seemed restless and depressed. He didn't associate with his tankmates. Something was very wrong. Jaws was taken to the County Hospital, but turned away because... well, he was a FISH. Sadly, Mr. Miller discovered Jaws' dead body floating belly-up in his home last Thursday. Jaws was flushed shortly afterward. However, this was not to be the end of him.
It started with loud splashing in the middle of the night. Mr. Miller arose to find some unseen force splashing water out of the fishtank with shocking force. Everything in the room was drenched. And the tank was still completely full. Freaky enough. But this was only the beginning. Muffy and Spitz, Jaws' tankmates, were found dead, their gills duct taped closed. What possible motivation could anyone have had to do such a thing? (they're FISH!!!) Furthermore, a message was scrawled in blood on the mirror behind the fishtank: "I know." What could this mean? Clearly, Miller was shaken by these events. He had a theory... Jaws was haunting him. If he was correct, the ghost might stop at nothing... Miller could be next. Clearly, he had to do something. He called the police, who laughed at his theory and asked to hear another joke. The pharmacist down the street, who told him he had the wrong number. Finally, he got ahold of an exorcist, who came to his house and announced that Miller was definitely possessed. Hours after the exorcist recovered from being thrown out onto the sidewalk, Miller decided to handle things himself. Which meant he yelled obscenities at the air and went to bed.
The next morning, Miller awoke to find himself suspended in the air a foot below his ceiling. Creepy, huh? "I know what you did" was written in blood on the ceiling. Miller screamed a little girly scream and fell down onto his bed, shaking in fear. This is all from his own report, and according to his neighbor Mrs. Harrison he ran screaming across his house at about this time. Picking up again with Miller's version, he skidded to a stop in horror in front of his bathroom door mirror. "Confess or die," it read. At this point he passed out.
When he awoke at the hospital, all anyone could manage to get out of him at first was "Confess or die, confess or die..." repeated over and over.
From an interview with Police Chief John Blevins:
"The guy must be crazy. Maybe he was all along. I mean, he claims to have killed his fish to keep it from 'telling.' It seems the fish belonged to his last victim. And he was scared of because it saw its mistress murdered, so he overfed it. On purpose. Crazy, huh? It gets better. It seems the fish came back to haunt him. And to scare him into confessing. (laughs) We found no evidence to support his bizzare story, and we're not gonna. A load of bullshit, in my opinion."
Mrs. Harrison, on the other hand, believes Miller. "I've been visiting with the new residents, and strange things happen," she says. "Dishes break when no one's in the room, and both their pets refuse to go anywhere near the fishtank. Yes, it's still there. The Robertsons bought a fish because they liked how the tank looked in that room... And one time I found the fish jumping happily, all around in the tank. The food had spilled onto the floor, and traced in the pile were the words, 'She is at peace now.'"
"...Frankly, the hospital figured he'd lost all his marbles and they'd have to institutionalize the poor fellow. Fortunately for Miller, he seemed to snap back into reality the next day. He calmly ate breakfast and asked to speak to a police officer. And he confessed. To every one of the Slitthroat Murders. And in such detail we knew it had to be him. For three years he had stalked rich old women, slit their throats, and stolen their valuables.