Slosh. Slosh. The swish of his feet in the muddy water was just one of the few sounds on a rainy, dark night. Mr. Klavic, the owner of the most popular restaurant in town, Shooting Star, was searching for the one ingredient that made all the food taste so wonderful. Flashing his light around, he searched for hours. At last! The blue-gray caps and reddish stalks of his secret ingredient stood out against the mud-slathered ground. He knelt down and picked the delectable mushrooms. He got a couple handfuls, and then decided to go home and grind them into “stardust”, as he called it to fit the theme of his restaurant.
Mr. Klavic put on his well-known bright smile as he flipped his restaurant’s sign to “open”. The first few customers came in almost immediately. He went into the blue-walled kitchen to prepare their orders. He picked up a jar of stardust, his homemade natural sweetener, and found it almost half gone with the lid screwed on wrong. That’s weird, thought Mr. Klavic. What thief would break into a kitchen and steal half a jar of sweetener? Shrugging, he moved on, unaware of the malicious eyes watching him from the back window.
That night, during his routine ‘shroom hunt, something was following Mr. Klavic. It lurked in the dark, watching his every move. Mr. K never suspected a thing. He just went along, picking his precious fungi. The friendly, warm-hearted man never even had time to shout.
“Gee, something has to be up. Mr. Klavic’s never late like this!” murmured a girl named Kayla.
“I hope everything’s okay,” whispered her friend Jack.
“Relax, kids, he’s probably redecorating to fit the holidays!” someone told them. The handful of morning customers soon grew into a small mob as the day ticked along. The puzzlement showed on everyone’s faces. Where was Mr. Klavic, and why was his restaurant, Shooting Star, closed?
Eventually, everyone wandered away, except for Kayla and Jack.
“Something’s wrong, I can feel it. I’m checking around back,” announced Kayla. She tiptoed around to the back door. “Hey, come see! There’s a dash of red on the back door! Do you think it’s…?”
“Blood? Maybe. It kind of looks like it,” Jack replied, coming around the side.
“Oh. My. Gosh. I’m going to hyperventilate! What if something happened to Mr. Klavic?” Kayla said in a high-pitched, panicky voice. She pulled out her phone and dialed the number for the police.
Later that day, they were standing around the back door with 5 policemen.
“You kids did the right thing. We’ll track whoever did this and take care of him pronto. Don’t get too worked up, this is the only thing we know about his disappearance. Hundreds of reasons could explain this, but we’ll still investigate.” They had already searched for hours for some kind of clue, but they hadn’t even found a fingerprint. Whoever had done this must have known what he was doing.
Let’s get some bloodhounds on this,” announced the leader.” They should be able to track where Mr. Klavic’s body is.”
All of a sudden, his walkie-talkie turned on.
“Krzzt...We got another missing person in sector 7...krzzt...This isn’t good...Third one in B6. Over.”
“I guess this killer wasn’t after just Mr. Klavic. It’s not a cold case just yet.”
The next day, everyone, including Jack and Kayla, was gathered up around Shooting Star. The police pushed through to see what they were looking at. Mr. Klavic’s body lay on the front step , with a note in his front pocket. The leader of the police squad, Tom, picked it up and started reading it aloud.
“To whoever reads this,

My name is Sir Grimwald Reaper. I am the one who killed the heart of the town. By the time you read this, I will be well out of the country. I hope this town suffers ten times the amount I did!
Love,
Holloway Town’s worst nightmare
P.S. I stole the secret ingredient!”
“What a loon!” exclaimed Tom. “Wait a minute...Wasn’t this the guy who broke out of the mental hospital a few years ago? We never did find that guy, did we? I guess that explains why he killed them, poor troubled soul. All right, go home people, no loitering here.”
With teardrops falling from the sky, the crowd solemnly dispersed, feeling in their hearts exactly what the murderer wanted them to.