Hello? Is this thing on? LOL, joking. I would love to say this is just another journal entry, just another random rambling of a boring day where I talk about the latest girl I’m into or got lucky with or the latest asshole I want to smash the face-in at my job, but it’s not. As a matter of fact, I can’t call this a “journal” entry at all, but my recollection, and hopefully written evidence, of the most terrifying event I’ve witnessed in my 24 years of existence. I tried to tell my co-workers I saw it, I even tried to tell them there was something wrong when all those cats died in the back, and I knew something, rather than someone, killed Jeffrey Fisher in a way I know I’ll have nightmares about for the rest of my life. But no one believed me, or worse, they were all co-conspirators in a tragedy of death and horror lurking in the woods of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. So here I am, because writing this is the best chance I have at informing the world how to pay attention when more than ten cats are eviscerated on your fucking back porch, and maybe to help me recover some piece of mind. But I’ll never be completely recovered. I’ll never dump my trash at night again, and will never work at the Seashell House Restaurant again, even if they paid me twenty dollars an hour and threw in a penthouse suite.
That’s how my hell began, when I accepted a job offer to be a part-time cook at that restaurant. Things would get busy sometimes, but the place was pretty laid-back, unusually laid back for the only 4-star restaurant in the downtown Cape Charles area of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. It’s an established fact the place was created to serve the rich who supposedly lived in the gay-colored houses lining the beachfront, the ones they demolished the local housing for to draw in more tourists. You know, there’s a rumor no one actually lives in those houses, that they were made for reasons ranging from alien beacons to the meeting places of a secret cult. But that’s a story for another day. Whatever the reason, unless I was doing prep for the caterers, the atmosphere always remained calm, and a small storm might excite us kitchen ants during the dinner rush if we received a twenty or thirty top. This is how things were for the first two weeks when I was on the morning shift. I made my mistake when the senior Sous chef, Evelyn Wolowitz, asked me to work on my day off for the evening shift.
On August 16th, 2015, at 9pm to be exact, I was working beside Tim Riche, another cook from the A-shift who was working B because two chefs called off sick for the week, and his best friend Jeffrey Fisher, an A-shift dishwasher who was also working into the evening because a dishwasher called off sick too… for the week. We were all part-time anyway, so we didn’t mind getting some extra hours to beef up our paychecks. Even though, now that I think about it, there was a sense of… uneasiness during our initial change from A to B shift. Tim’s usual jovial attitude would always become more solemn and dimmed the closer the Sun came to falling below the horizon, and Jeffrey, always a timid guy with bursts of bravery, would appear to develop tremors and a case of heavy sweating the closer light turned to blackness. On our second day of working the B-shift, I asked him about it, to which he simply replied:
“Just feeling a little sick, man. Don’t worry about it; I’m not cooking people’s burgers,” he said despite never displaying any other symptoms besides tremors and sudden bouts of sweat. It should also be worth nothing Jeffrey lived on the Eastern Shore all his life, while I would come and stay with family in sporadic spurts when they or I faced financial crises, and Tim was a native Georgian who followed his fiancée to her hometown. As the sun descended and the customers winded down, there were many “traditions” performed at this restaurant, and I’m sure the same tasks were performed at similar establishments. The tables and countertops were routinely cleaned, but heavily wiped and disinfected at this time, the floors were swept and the slip-resistant mats with more porous holes than a block of parmesan were replaced if they were wet or dirty enough, and the trashcans received new liners, the old ones discarded out back. Out of all these rituals, none received a change in tempo, a change in atmosphere, as much as taking out the trash after the Sun fell. All light-hearted, trivial conversations between the senior chefs, the dishwashers, and the waiters and waitresses ceased. Evelyn was nowhere to be seen, vanished in her back office. At first I attributed this to worker’s fatigue, for I have worked many different occupations, from security to custodial work to IT support, and know all of them have an unspoken “time of silence,” where everyone mentally exhales from the turbulent tasks of the day. But, as I soon horribly discovered, this was not such a time at the Seashell House Restaurant. For two nights, it was David and Moran’s turn, and they emerged the same men leaving as they did returning. On August 16, 2015, it was our turn, we not emerging nearly as fortunate.
It came like an icy, deathly wind swaying the doors of a cozy home, a thirty top consisting of council members from Northampton’s County’s political office. As per protocol, when a big wig or some known adult with the picky food habits of a 5 year-old came, the grunts, Tim and myself, were pushed to prep, and the “big boys,” David and Moran, were put on the hot line. And so when the time to pull the trash came, the preppers, as per protocol, were the ones to do it, along with a junior dishwasher, which included the ranks of Tim, Jeffrey, and me. I still remember it to this day, the echoing, booming voice of David, the oldest cook in the place, who’s voice was usually soft spoken until he commanded the line, said the first, “Trash pull!” that rang through the kitchen like a tuba ringing in a graveyard. Evelyn, the head Sous chef who only cooked when necessary and barked orders to the line and servers when things got heated, shouted: “Just don’t fuck up my orders, David,” with a smile on her face.
He grumbled, “Yeah, yeah, all ten burgers going to the floor,” through his long, gray beard before she disappeared to her back office. I was excited to get relieved from the heat of the hotline, to breathe something other than charred hamburger meat and fried fish. Tim showed rumblings of his usual, jovial nature, even though his voice quaked like a truck speeding on an overpass every sentence or two. Jeffrey, on the other hand, clearly lost complexion in his dark skin, his form shaking like a key chain of rattling bones, his hand stroking the cross end of a gold necklace he liked to fondle when we talked about cute girls or when he was at the butt-end of one of Tim’s jokes. I tried to comfort him by placing a hand on his shoulder, to which he just marched forward from my grasp after wiping a bead of heavy sweat from his brow. I asked Tim if his friend was okay, to which he simply responded:
“Probably just a case of the shivers, or signs of a summer cold.”
After we replaced the lines in the trashcans, we took all the dark bags to the porch outback that smelled heavily of seafood from the boxes of oysters we washed on the wooden, elevated platform. The ocean also wafted through the air, along with the sound of rolling waves and chirping crickets in the distance. Looking back beyond the lit porch was utter darkness, except for the lighting from the adjacent buildings on the left. Except for heavy human inhabited areas, street lights never illuminated the roadways or the back roads, for it would be too much of a financial task for the small county to undertake. Because of this, no nights are darker than those on the Eastern Shore, a blackness all men and women braved when traveling at night, or chose not to brave at all. Fortunately, before the shadowed beyond was an old truck with expired tags we loaded the trash in before driving a hundred years to the can, the Eastern Shore’s colloquialism for a large, sliding door trash dumpster. We loaded the trash on the back, Tim jumped in the driver’s seat, Jeffrey and I scrunched in the passenger’s, and with the high beams honed, the 1997 Ford puttered forward.
That’s how my hell began, when I accepted a job offer to be a part-time cook at that restaurant. Things would get busy sometimes, but the place was pretty laid-back, unusually laid back for the only 4-star restaurant in the downtown Cape Charles area of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. It’s an established fact the place was created to serve the rich who supposedly lived in the gay-colored houses lining the beachfront, the ones they demolished the local housing for to draw in more tourists. You know, there’s a rumor no one actually lives in those houses, that they were made for reasons ranging from alien beacons to the meeting places of a secret cult. But that’s a story for another day. Whatever the reason, unless I was doing prep for the caterers, the atmosphere always remained calm, and a small storm might excite us kitchen ants during the dinner rush if we received a twenty or thirty top. This is how things were for the first two weeks when I was on the morning shift. I made my mistake when the senior Sous chef, Evelyn Wolowitz, asked me to work on my day off for the evening shift.
On August 16th, 2015, at 9pm to be exact, I was working beside Tim Riche, another cook from the A-shift who was working B because two chefs called off sick for the week, and his best friend Jeffrey Fisher, an A-shift dishwasher who was also working into the evening because a dishwasher called off sick too… for the week. We were all part-time anyway, so we didn’t mind getting some extra hours to beef up our paychecks. Even though, now that I think about it, there was a sense of… uneasiness during our initial change from A to B shift. Tim’s usual jovial attitude would always become more solemn and dimmed the closer the Sun came to falling below the horizon, and Jeffrey, always a timid guy with bursts of bravery, would appear to develop tremors and a case of heavy sweating the closer light turned to blackness. On our second day of working the B-shift, I asked him about it, to which he simply replied:
“Just feeling a little sick, man. Don’t worry about it; I’m not cooking people’s burgers,” he said despite never displaying any other symptoms besides tremors and sudden bouts of sweat. It should also be worth nothing Jeffrey lived on the Eastern Shore all his life, while I would come and stay with family in sporadic spurts when they or I faced financial crises, and Tim was a native Georgian who followed his fiancée to her hometown. As the sun descended and the customers winded down, there were many “traditions” performed at this restaurant, and I’m sure the same tasks were performed at similar establishments. The tables and countertops were routinely cleaned, but heavily wiped and disinfected at this time, the floors were swept and the slip-resistant mats with more porous holes than a block of parmesan were replaced if they were wet or dirty enough, and the trashcans received new liners, the old ones discarded out back. Out of all these rituals, none received a change in tempo, a change in atmosphere, as much as taking out the trash after the Sun fell. All light-hearted, trivial conversations between the senior chefs, the dishwashers, and the waiters and waitresses ceased. Evelyn was nowhere to be seen, vanished in her back office. At first I attributed this to worker’s fatigue, for I have worked many different occupations, from security to custodial work to IT support, and know all of them have an unspoken “time of silence,” where everyone mentally exhales from the turbulent tasks of the day. But, as I soon horribly discovered, this was not such a time at the Seashell House Restaurant. For two nights, it was David and Moran’s turn, and they emerged the same men leaving as they did returning. On August 16, 2015, it was our turn, we not emerging nearly as fortunate.
It came like an icy, deathly wind swaying the doors of a cozy home, a thirty top consisting of council members from Northampton’s County’s political office. As per protocol, when a big wig or some known adult with the picky food habits of a 5 year-old came, the grunts, Tim and myself, were pushed to prep, and the “big boys,” David and Moran, were put on the hot line. And so when the time to pull the trash came, the preppers, as per protocol, were the ones to do it, along with a junior dishwasher, which included the ranks of Tim, Jeffrey, and me. I still remember it to this day, the echoing, booming voice of David, the oldest cook in the place, who’s voice was usually soft spoken until he commanded the line, said the first, “Trash pull!” that rang through the kitchen like a tuba ringing in a graveyard. Evelyn, the head Sous chef who only cooked when necessary and barked orders to the line and servers when things got heated, shouted: “Just don’t fuck up my orders, David,” with a smile on her face.
He grumbled, “Yeah, yeah, all ten burgers going to the floor,” through his long, gray beard before she disappeared to her back office. I was excited to get relieved from the heat of the hotline, to breathe something other than charred hamburger meat and fried fish. Tim showed rumblings of his usual, jovial nature, even though his voice quaked like a truck speeding on an overpass every sentence or two. Jeffrey, on the other hand, clearly lost complexion in his dark skin, his form shaking like a key chain of rattling bones, his hand stroking the cross end of a gold necklace he liked to fondle when we talked about cute girls or when he was at the butt-end of one of Tim’s jokes. I tried to comfort him by placing a hand on his shoulder, to which he just marched forward from my grasp after wiping a bead of heavy sweat from his brow. I asked Tim if his friend was okay, to which he simply responded:
“Probably just a case of the shivers, or signs of a summer cold.”
After we replaced the lines in the trashcans, we took all the dark bags to the porch outback that smelled heavily of seafood from the boxes of oysters we washed on the wooden, elevated platform. The ocean also wafted through the air, along with the sound of rolling waves and chirping crickets in the distance. Looking back beyond the lit porch was utter darkness, except for the lighting from the adjacent buildings on the left. Except for heavy human inhabited areas, street lights never illuminated the roadways or the back roads, for it would be too much of a financial task for the small county to undertake. Because of this, no nights are darker than those on the Eastern Shore, a blackness all men and women braved when traveling at night, or chose not to brave at all. Fortunately, before the shadowed beyond was an old truck with expired tags we loaded the trash in before driving a hundred years to the can, the Eastern Shore’s colloquialism for a large, sliding door trash dumpster. We loaded the trash on the back, Tim jumped in the driver’s seat, Jeffrey and I scrunched in the passenger’s, and with the high beams honed, the 1997 Ford puttered forward.
The drive was unusually silent, uncharacteristic of the usual banter between gregarious, goofy Tim and the reserved yet soft-spoken Jeffrey. Tim would start badly humming “It’s my Highway” before looking overly attentive at the surrounding area; Jeffrey looked like an ice-cold slab of stone, bleeding sweat from every pore, despite the temperature feeling a comfortable 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Their anxiety spread to me too, cold sweat forming in my palms and armpits. When Tim backed to the can, he oddly left at least twenty feet between the truck and the green dumpster. We all stepped out in unison, formed a line of three on the truck’s passenger side, staring at the black hole surrounded by chips of green paint hanging like shingles of skin from rusted metal. I stood there wondering what force kept my legs frozen, my joints locked, chest tightened. Maybe my anxiety would have been lifted if Tim made a stupid joke, if Jeffrey marched forward with his usual silent courage when dared to do something by Tim or another cook or dishwasher, but none of that happened. Maybe they were hoping something similar from me. They soon got it, for I was the one who broke the silence by suggesting we couldn’t stand here all night, or Evelyn would threaten to chop our balls off and feed them to the customers. I don’t know whether it was cowardice or courage on my part to speak those words, but they succeeded in jousting Tim into action and in propelling the nightmare forward. After mumbling something under his breath, he grabbed one of the heavy trash bags and tossed it two yards from the can, the bag landing accurately in the black pit with a sound one would expect with a bag full of leftover meat fat, overcooked sides, fish guts, and empty oyster shells. He humped his shoulders in sarcastic exaltation, then grabbed another bag to perform the same action. Whatever instinctual force that held me back before I reasoned away, grabbing a bag myself without a hint of hesitation, but I still kept my distance in a similar fashion to Tim, throwing the bags from two yards away for reasons I couldn’t discern. Eventually, Jeffrey performed the same action, and we soon resembled Olympians-in-training performing a ball-tossing event with body bags. We soon were competing to see who could get their black bags in the darker abyss fastest, until Jeffrey and my bag slammed into each other, both bags landing right before the can.
Tim yelled an, “Uh oh” like a cartoon character. Forgetting my fears, thanks to the bag tossing game we played, I proceeded to grab the bags and put them in the can’s black hole. A foot within the green box of metal, the entire can leaped as if a truck collided with it, my first assumption being that’s exactly what happened, my eyes scanning in every direction for the strayed vehicle. My senses in full alert and my eyes unable to see another car’s headlights or anything hinting the presence of one, as my eyes scanned across my field of vision, I did see six glowing lights the size of quarters, staring back at me from the darkness of the can. A second-ton leap from the can, as if the entirety of the dumpster was approaching me, and those lights were all the incentive I needed to run back to the truck, the engine already running, the truck beginning to accelerate back to the restaurant.
“Fuck,” was the only frustration I could utter from my aching lungs and automated legs as I sprinted for the thankfully down tailgate. The truck’s age made it unable to peel-off at full speed, so I succeeded in saving my life by reaching the tailgate and climbing on the truck’s bed. Hatred for Tim and Jeffrey fueled my mind into a blaze of rage, my first thought was to honestly kick-in the rear window in the truck canopy; however, looking back at the can as the truck sped off, my rage chilled to my bones. For I saw two long sticks of hair extend from the black hole in the can and lift one of the black bags into it as if the sticks had a powerful adhesive attached to them, the six shining quarters eventually disappearing with the bag.
Of course when I approached Jeffrey and Tim about the hell that happened, my passions getting the better of me when I shoved Tim, demanding to know how the fuck they could leave me back there with that thing. He laughed lightly, his voice trembling, sweat threatening to burn is empty eyes, when he choked out:
“When I heard the second jump, I thought that was you jumping on the tailgate.” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but considering I wasn’t even sure whether what I saw was real nor not, I chose to believe it perfectly possible, that out of fear he mistook the second thump for me returning to the tailgate. I glared at Jeffrey, my eyes hungry wolves for an answer, a cry, or some type of declaration. He diverted his gaze from mine, so I did the same. I asked both of them if they had any idea what it could have been, really directing my question towards Jeffrey while looking at them both. When Tim answered: “It must of been a mountain lion,” I remembered thinking the honest gregariousness I attached to his character was actually stupid loquaciousness to mask his fear, and wishing he would shut the hell up so Jeffrey would speak. The desired effect achieved, Jeffrey was able to hide behind Tim’s wall of words, so I said nothing as I returned inside the restaurant. To my surprise, Evelyn stood on the back porch, looking more elated than usual with a large smile on her face.
“You shitheads forgot to dump a few bags,” she said. I just walked past her, even though she ranked over me like an Admiral ranks over an Ensign; I was just in too much shock to care. I know Tim and Jeffrey humored her on their way in, but I can’t remember what they said. Now that I think about it, I probably should have fought through my ordeal, asked, no, demanded answers from David, Evelyn, and Jeffrey, but I think I would have actually snapped and lost my job if I got another half-assed lie about a mountain lion. I was in denial for the sake of a paycheck, but what I saw, felt, and heard weighed on my mind like a storm cloud on hopes of air. Any more that day, whether the haunting faults were imaginary or a nightmare taken physical form, would have pushed me to the brink of madness. I now look on this as a mistake, for it is always preferable to face a predator, monster, or demon while it’s confronted, than to have it stalk you, tempt your paranoia, and nibble on your mind and flesh like a protruding arrow, whether real or imaginary.
That first night I must have got two or three hours of sleep. Every thought resided on what could have created those six lights in the dark hole of the can. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those long sticks of hair grab a trash bag and pull it into nothingness, I felt the can shift twice as my slim temperature sank with drops of thunder. It must have been 5 a.m. when I called my Mom, her voice full of fatigue with a hint of frustration, and asked if she knew of any stories of mountain lions, wolves, bears, or any types of scavengers that existed on the Eastern Shore and that had enough strength to move a dumpster or to use stick-tools to retrieve bags. She said she never heard a report of any such mountain lions, but the raccoons and possums could get pretty big, and there were even reports of some the size of medium sized dogs seen in the woods, the large raccoons called silver-backs. She even suggested it could have been a freak accident: raccoons fighting in the can or a deer running from a predator or a hunter running into it coinciding with a possum inside of it. She then asked me if I was okay, reminding me of the time I called. I honestly forgot about the time, during my lost venture in my mind’s tunnel of fear, assured her I was okay, apologized for the late hour, then hung-up the phone. That night, the explanation gave me peace of mind and I was able to sleep with some comfort, but something tugged at the back of my mind, some unsettled matter kept my swimming anxiety from calming the wakes of my thoughts. It wasn’t until the next morning I realized she never gave an explanation for the hairy-sticks used to feed a bag to the can’s mouth. Back then, I wasn’t sure whether it was an honest omission by a slip of memory, or a purposeful one to conceal a truth. Now I know, and by God I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had followed my instincts, never went to work for the Seashell House Restaurant the next day, did that Google search, or called my Mom and eventually demanded answers. Those who say ignorance isn’t bliss have never wondered the lightless, dark roads of the Eastern Shore.
The drive was unusually silent, uncharacteristic of the usual banter between gregarious, goofy Tim and the reserved yet soft-spoken Jeffrey. Tim would start badly humming “It’s my Highway” before looking overly attentive at the surrounding area; Jeffrey looked like an ice-cold slab of stone, bleeding sweat from every pore, despite the temperature feeling a comfortable 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Their anxiety spread to me too, cold sweat forming in my palms and armpits. When Tim backed to the can, he oddly left at least twenty feet between the truck and the green dumpster. We all stepped out in unison, formed a line of three on the truck’s passenger side, staring at the black hole surrounded by chips of green paint hanging like shingles of skin from rusted metal. I stood there wondering what force kept my legs frozen, my joints locked, chest tightened. Maybe my anxiety would have been lifted if Tim made a stupid joke, if Jeffrey marched forward with his usual silent courage when dared to do something by Tim or another cook or dishwasher, but none of that happened. Maybe they were hoping something similar from me. They soon got it, for I was the one who broke the silence by suggesting we couldn’t stand here all night, or Evelyn would threaten to chop our balls off and feed them to the customers. I don’t know whether it was cowardice or courage on my part to speak those words, but they succeeded in jousting Tim into action and in propelling the nightmare forward. After mumbling something under his breath, he grabbed one of the heavy trash bags and tossed it two yards from the can, the bag landing accurately in the black pit with a sound one would expect with a bag full of leftover meat fat, overcooked sides, fish guts, and empty oyster shells. He humped his shoulders in sarcastic exaltation, then grabbed another bag to perform the same action. Whatever instinctual force that held me back before I reasoned away, grabbing a bag myself without a hint of hesitation, but I still kept my distance in a similar fashion to Tim, throwing the bags from two yards away for reasons I couldn’t discern. Eventually, Jeffrey performed the same action, and we soon resembled Olympians-in-training performing a ball-tossing event with body bags. We soon were competing to see who could get their black bags in the darker abyss fastest, until Jeffrey and my bag slammed into each other, both bags landing right before the can.
Tim yelled an, “Uh oh” like a cartoon character. Forgetting my fears, thanks to the bag tossing game we played, I proceeded to grab the bags and put them in the can’s black hole. A foot within the green box of metal, the entire can leaped as if a truck collided with it, my first assumption being that’s exactly what happened, my eyes scanning in every direction for the strayed vehicle. My senses in full alert and my eyes unable to see another car’s headlights or anything hinting the presence of one, as my eyes scanned across my field of vision, I did see six glowing lights the size of quarters, staring back at me from the darkness of the can. A second-ton leap from the can, as if the entirety of the dumpster was approaching me, and those lights were all the incentive I needed to run back to the truck, the engine already running, the truck beginning to accelerate back to the restaurant.
“Fuck,” was the only frustration I could utter from my aching lungs and automated legs as I sprinted for the thankfully down tailgate. The truck’s age made it unable to peel-off at full speed, so I succeeded in saving my life by reaching the tailgate and climbing on the truck’s bed. Hatred for Tim and Jeffrey fueled my mind into a blaze of rage, my first thought was to honestly kick-in the rear window in the truck canopy; however, looking back at the can as the truck sped off, my rage chilled to my bones. For I saw two long sticks of hair extend from the black hole in the can and lift one of the black bags into it as if the sticks had a powerful adhesive attached to them, the six shining quarters eventually disappearing with the bag.
Of course when I approached Jeffrey and Tim about the hell that happened, my passions getting the better of me when I shoved Tim, demanding to know how the fuck they could leave me back there with that thing. He laughed lightly, his voice trembling, sweat threatening to burn is empty eyes, when he choked out:
“When I heard the second jump, I thought that was you jumping on the tailgate.” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but considering I wasn’t even sure whether what I saw was real nor not, I chose to believe it perfectly possible, that out of fear he mistook the second thump for me returning to the tailgate. I glared at Jeffrey, my eyes hungry wolves for an answer, a cry, or some type of declaration. He diverted his gaze from mine, so I did the same. I asked both of them if they had any idea what it could have been, really directing my question towards Jeffrey while looking at them both. When Tim answered: “It must of been a mountain lion,” I remembered thinking the honest gregariousness I attached to his character was actually stupid loquaciousness to mask his fear, and wishing he would shut the hell up so Jeffrey would speak. The desired effect achieved, Jeffrey was able to hide behind Tim’s wall of words, so I said nothing as I returned inside the restaurant. To my surprise, Evelyn stood on the back porch, looking more elated than usual with a large smile on her face.
“You shitheads forgot to dump a few bags,” she said. I just walked past her, even though she ranked over me like an Admiral ranks over an Ensign; I was just in too much shock to care. I know Tim and Jeffrey humored her on their way in, but I can’t remember what they said. Now that I think about it, I probably should have fought through my ordeal, asked, no, demanded answers from David, Evelyn, and Jeffrey, but I think I would have actually snapped and lost my job if I got another half-assed lie about a mountain lion. I was in denial for the sake of a paycheck, but what I saw, felt, and heard weighed on my mind like a storm cloud on hopes of air. Any more that day, whether the haunting faults were imaginary or a nightmare taken physical form, would have pushed me to the brink of madness. I now look on this as a mistake, for it is always preferable to face a predator, monster, or demon while it’s confronted, than to have it stalk you, tempt your paranoia, and nibble on your mind and flesh like a protruding arrow, whether real or imaginary.
That first night I must have got two or three hours of sleep. Every thought resided on what could have created those six lights in the dark hole of the can. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those long sticks of hair grab a trash bag and pull it into nothingness, I felt the can shift twice as my slim temperature sank with drops of thunder. It must have been 5 a.m. when I called my Mom, her voice full of fatigue with a hint of frustration, and asked if she knew of any stories of mountain lions, wolves, bears, or any types of scavengers that existed on the Eastern Shore and that had enough strength to move a dumpster or to use stick-tools to retrieve bags. She said she never heard a report of any such mountain lions, but the raccoons and possums could get pretty big, and there were even reports of some the size of medium sized dogs seen in the woods, the large raccoons called silver-backs. She even suggested it could have been a freak accident: raccoons fighting in the can or a deer running from a predator or a hunter running into it coinciding with a possum inside of it. She then asked me if I was okay, reminding me of the time I called. I honestly forgot about the time, during my lost venture in my mind’s tunnel of fear, assured her I was okay, apologized for the late hour, then hung-up the phone. That night, the explanation gave me peace of mind and I was able to sleep with some comfort, but something tugged at the back of my mind, some unsettled matter kept my swimming anxiety from calming the wakes of my thoughts. It wasn’t until the next morning I realized she never gave an explanation for the hairy-sticks used to feed a bag to the can’s mouth. Back then, I wasn’t sure whether it was an honest omission by a slip of memory, or a purposeful one to conceal a truth. Now I know, and by God I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had followed my instincts, never went to work for the Seashell House Restaurant the next day, did that Google search, or called my Mom and eventually demanded answers. Those who say ignorance isn’t bliss have never wondered the lightless, dark roads of the Eastern Shore.
The next day proceeded pretty much like the previous at the beginning. Despite the last day’s incident, Jeffrey, Tim, and I agreed to work later the next day, again following our greed for money over what instinct in us directed, to avoid the inevitable trash pull that night. Things were casual until that time… Tim and I had a handle on the hot line, the cold line by Samantha and Mercedes; the former a quiet woman in her thirties of a Hispanic background who was attending school for culinary, the latter a black girl from Norfolk who talked as quickly as she prepped salads; and the Mexican girls, Valentina and Amelia, worked the dishes with Jeffrey while they flirted with him, to his chagrin. While we worked, as the Sun started to fall below dusk, Dave would note the growing irritation of the cats out back every 15 to 30 minutes. At first, I didn’t hear it, thinking it was a patter of the dishes or the jesting of Tim to liven up the monotony of cooking. However, a sudden rustling and kicking over of several tin, empty 5-gallon buckets used to store oil, along with the horrid scream that could only have come from the most desperate of specimens, caused an aura of silence to spread through the kitchen, I, nor anyone else, no longer able to ignore the commotion out back.
“What the fuck was that?” said Dave, his back hunched, eyes and nostrils stretched in a marks of terror I had never seen before from the man.
“Sounds like Mr. Whiskers got too friendly with Misses Snickers,” said Evelyn, coming from her den of the back office, her expression unusually jovial and relaxed, a creepy contrast to the fear and silence gripping her employees. “Why don’t you go out back, take a picture,” she said with a wink.
“Fuck that,” grumbled Dave before continuing his prep work.
“Hardcore cat action?” said Tim with a nervous laugh. “Maybe next Tuesday after I’m feeling something more real than
nekos .” No one shared his humor. Evelyn went back in her office, rolling her eyes; everyone continued working in silence, my thoughts, as well as everyone else’s I was sure, trying to decipher what in the hell could have made that animalistic scream.
I swore Satan was smiling down on us when, at around the same time as before, a thirty top from a local field trip came through the restaurant doors. I actually spoke up as Dave and Moran stepped forward to takeover our line, trying to convince them Tim and I could handle a group of teenagers, but each attempt was met with a cold, “To the back,” so cold his breath might as well have been an Arctic wind freezing my blood to blue shards. I wondered with Tim to the prep line, working like a drone to blind my mind from what I feared would come. Then the moment came, the moment Dave rang, “Trash pull,” through the kitchen. I burned a glare in the back of his fucking head, because I could have sworn I saw the bastard’s shoulders twitch in a chuckle, his hunch smiling at the relief of sending us to the can instead of him. I let my anger cover my fear, hurriedly bagged up the kitchen trash, then rushed outside before Tim and Jeffrey, who wisely let their trepidation create hesitation, which, if they were wiser, should have let graduate to full flight from the restaurant and the hellish scene awaiting us out back.
My fingers are actually numb, trembling as I write this… I don’t want to recall what I saw, have no desire to create it in my mind for translation, or to try and reinterpret it with this keyboard, my hands shaking with cold sweat dripping from my palms to the tips of my nails. The start of it was indeed horrid, but not nearly as terrifying as what lay further down the line. As soon as I stepped on the dim lit porch, my foot bumped a mass of fur, which exposed itself as a lifeless cat, its face and form frozen in the same death mask one would find with a road-killed deer or possum. This elicited little emotion from me, aside from pity for the deceased animal; it’s not uncommon to find a dead mammal after it lost a fight with a dog, silver-back, or horse on a backwoods trail or even in one’s backyard. It’s what my eyes beheld upon further inspection of the scene that caused my heart to beat furiously behind my chilled cage of skin and bone. More than ten cats experienced a similar fate, all of them strewn sporadically on the porch like periods in a Hemingway correspondence. The breadcrumbs of corpses stopped at the foot of the ramp leading up to the wooden porch as if they were running to a human enclosure, seeking salvation before something drew their tale to its end. When Tim and Jeffrey reached the outside, Jeffrey immediately reeled at the sight, spilling his lunch in one of the many spare trashcans. Tim stood wide-eyes, choking on shock, before he managed to whisper:
“The actual fuck?” Him and I looked at each other, then I at a growing pale Jeffrey, knowing what task lay ahead of us for the next thirty minutes or so. When I told the kitchen staff about the gruesome scene out back, no one looked in my direction, not Dave, not Moran, the dishwashers, or the waitresses on their break. Frustrated from my lack of acknowledgement, I screamed at them about the dead cats. I wrung my fucking lungs out. The answer I got was Evelyn, coming out her office, rolling up her sleeves.
“Why the hell are you raising such a racket in my kitchen!” she yelled.
“There are more than ten dead cats out back!” I countered back, only to get dismissed and threatened with:
“They tried to fight a silver-back and lost. So what? Get them off my porch, unless you want to turn in your apron and go home.” I should have said something, maybe marched out, or tossed my apron in her face then marched out, but my pattern of compliance with years of acquiescence in the workplace, along with me desiring continuous employment, kept me domesticated, so I bore my teeth, put on some latex gloves, then passed the order to Tim and Jeffrey, both just as exuberant about the task ahead as I. We bagged the dead cats, who all reeked of death, but I also smelled a mix of alcohol and turpentine, a mix I knew as only odd at the moment, but a smell which later revelations would seize my heart and soul if I ever encountered the scent again. The unpleasant task complete, we threw the rest of the trash on the back of the truck, then drove with silent, nervous apprehension to the can.
Our trip remained undisturbed for a time, except for the ever pervading atmosphere of lurking fear. I felt like one passing an unpleasant yet routine situation, like one about to host a rancorous relative for the weekend or passing a fence housing a loud, barking dog on one’s way home, but this should not have been the feeling I felt. It should have been one of a far greater magnitude of dread, more similar to a soldier fearing for his life and sanity at the bypassing whiz of bullets or of the dog leaping past the fence with saliva flowing freely and eyes bleeding red, as I am about to describe, if you can believe it, how the horror of the lifeless cats intensified. A minute into the drive, the headlights illuminated a trail of ten, twenty, and growing lifeless mammals, ranging from cats, to squirrels, to raccoons. Some remained as frozen roadkill carcasses, backs down with paws in the air, symbolizing the death mask of a deceased animal. Others were dry husks of skin and fur, as if something starting the labors of taxonomy before abandoning its efforts. However, the further we got to the can, the more the cadavers of the killed animals resembled such a sickening scene I will do my best to describe them here. Masses of fur meshed with blood and the innards of the animals flowed freely, in several piles leading to the can and at its base. The smell of death, the putrid scent of rising gastric acids, of decomposing meat left in the Sun for hours, along with that odd mix of alcohol and turpentine, made me withdraw my breath immediately as I rolled up my window. Once that rising putrid odor hit me, I knew I wouldn’t step a foot from the truck, couldn’t. I let Jeffrey outside as Tim stepped down to investigate, all of us holding our hands to our noses while we did the best we could to breathe from our mouths.
“What the fuck did this? Tim muffled through his hand shielding him from the mephitic odor. Jeffrey, as usual, said nothing. Kept words and thoughts to himself. I suggested we head back to the restaurant and inform Evelyn of this terrifying scene, the end to get more of the restaurant staff to help with the mess, my actual intention to get safety in numbers against whatever primordial evil or evils killed the animals. Tim reasoned if we returned, we’d just be forced to return, and possibly to gather tools to dispose of the putrid corpses under threat of unemployment, similar to how events transpired on the porch. I simply nodded my head in resignation, not desiring to increase my labors further, despite my tightening chest and heart’s quickening beat directing me to evade the scene entirely.
Jeffrey was more than happy to back the truck to the can, close to the same, safe distance we did before. If it wasn’t for Tim’s teasing to not be lazy and help us, he would have remained in the truck. What Tim and I were actually worried about was the possibility the events causing our previous flight would transpire once more, and leave us to the same, wretched fate as the plethora of animals around us. We were mammals ourselves, after all, just those priding ourselves with greater intelligence than the norm. We all played the same game as before, tossing the black bags into the deep, abysmal mouth of the can, this time aiming with accuracy and care as to not deflect our bags against each other. We were playing no games this time, only desiring to finish the damn job so we could return to one cloaked with less restricting fear. Five bags in, our trash quota 70% disposed of, my blood froze upon hearing a rustling in the forested area behind the green behemoth of metal. Normally, in the backroads of the Eastern Shore, one dismissed such a noise with triviality or astonishment, considering the variety of animals one is likely to encounter, yet the repressive atmosphere of oppressive smells and the eerie quiet surrounding our endeavor made the noise as alarming as a bullet ringing in the distance. I immediately held my bag in the air, every pore, nostril, and sense of mine awakened to what lay beyond that camouflage of green and darkness, the waving of the bush-shadows haunting my imagination in a myriad of terrifying ways, but nothing I imagined could have been closer to the horrifying truth. Two feet from the initial rumblings, in the darkened forest green, rustlings erupted more violent than before, as if a struggle was occurring between opposing beasts in the deep wood. Then, on the other side of the can, another rustling in the bushes, then another, Tim and Jeffrey now as alerted as I in the rising tension of the situation. A shrill scream, as horrid as anything I had ever heard, the screech of some dying animal I still can’t accurately delineate upon greater time of reflection, echoed far from the can’s right side, and I was certain some unfortunate creature was experiencing the same fate as the smaller ones laid before us in bloody, stinking piles of evisceration. I was also certain if we stayed longer, we’d face a similar fate. Tim and Jeffrey wasted no time in running back to the truck and starting it up; I wanted to run, every muscle and thought in my form wanted to flee to the tailgate, but my legs simply shook beneath me, cold sweat burned my frozen eyes, my breath and heart beat into a rhythm of endless acceleration as I lay stricken with fear. In the depths of the can, I saw the multitude of eyes as I did before, along with a severe rustling of brown and green bones, followed by several sets of glows emerging from the disturbances, each set of eyes standing at least two feet from the ground. Even as I stood surrounded by the horde of these creatures, the saving lights of the truck fading as it fled further away from me, it wasn’t the multitude of eyes which galvanized my legs into action, indicating something of large size unknown to me lurking in the deep wood, but the appearance of those hairy sticks. Two extended a least five feet from the can until they touched upon the ground, then I saw more extend several feet from bushes around each set of glowing lights, heard the patter of the sticks touching the concrete, the rumbling of the shrubbery echoing to maddening levels in the silent vanishing night. The orgy of hellish creatures advancing towards me drove me into a fit of shrieking madness, and in that moment I gained the greatest sanity since working at this restaurant. My legs turned, then sprinted with such fury I forgot I had lungs, muscle, or lactic acid. I sprinted until I saw the dim lights of the Seashell House Restaurant’s back porch. I don’t know whether I outpaced the creatures, or if they had a healthy fear of the light conflicting with the darkness they represented, but I was elated my lungs conceding corresponded with the stalking of the small steps diminishing in the distance. My body soaked with cold sweat, my knees supporting my hands as I swallowed air, I dared to look back, and by doing so, cursed my mind to an insatiable curiosity that may have sealed my fate, the type of curiosity plaguing one to dive into the shadows of fear to better prepare to fend against it. Standing four feet from the ground, I could barely identify one of the creatures more than twenty feet in the distance. The dark form appeared as a body split into three distinct sections, a head, a body, and a rear, each part separated by obvious sunken in joints, making it resemble the partitioned parts of an exoskeleton rather than the smooth form of a mammal, despite it covered in fur like one. The trait solidifying it as a monstrous insect, rather than a grotesque mammal beyond regular classification, was its legs. The situated form rose four feet from the ground, which appeared at least four feet in length itself, was supported by eight sticks of hair covering twice the length of the body, the sticks so thin I couldn’t fathom how they carried the mass of the top form. To darken my doubt as to whether this was the same type of creature present at the mass killing of animals we witnessed, it revealed part of its form, revealing a number of glowing eyes resembling what I witnessed inside the can and emerging from the wilderness. My eyes already glued to the horror, I squinted, leaned my head forward, trying to bury my quaking soul with understanding, or to correct my possible error in vision to reform the terror before me into something tangible, but further horrors made me abandon the effort. As if sensing the last sinews of my frail courage, a form at least six feet in height emerged heavily down the trail, the sticks longer than the previous creatures’, the enormity moving forward with the same set of hellish eyes! I had no desire to see more of them, now or ever, so my flight response reinvigorated me as I ran to the porch and back into sanctuary.
On returning to the back of the Seashell, any semblance of peace abandoned me as sanity and rage possessed me. Considering the alien, horrifying sights I witnessed: the mountains of dead animals, the enormous insects with the yellow eyes emerging from the bush, and my abandonment by Jeffrey and Tim, as well as the apathy from the rest of the kitchen staff, I was driven into a rage that had me hurling insults to Tim and Jeffrey for cowardice, the rest of the staff for being fools, and at Evelyn, when my rantings finally forced her to emerge from her office-cave, for being a bitch. She ferociously returned the same, then afterwards told me to drop her apron and get the hell out of her kitchen. I told her something along the lines of how Satan on his worst day couldn’t make a place more of a shithole before leaving out the front doors. I was pissed I not only left the job on bad terms but also future paychecks from the place. However, I was elated knowing whatever in the hell was in the can and stalked the woods behind the Seashell House Restaurant would no longer be a concern of mine. Man was I dumb, dumb and egregiously mistaken. Darker truths were already set in motion to further drive me and poor Jeffrey into a pit we couldn’t escape. Just as Adam took the bite of the fruit of knowledge and damned himself to pain and death, my foolish craving for solace against lurking clouds in my mind would tempt me past the point of madness, paranoia, and ever pervading fear.
That night, I could not sleep, but not in the classical sense of being too anxious to still one’s heart to Morpheus’s meditations. I literally could not sleep! Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the innumerable yellow eyes peering at me from the abyss of the can. I heard the rustle of the bushes echo in the silence of the room. The smell of the rotting flesh and turpentine seemed to creep lightly through the air. 3am in the morning, pure terror kept my senses cracked as gaping holes in termite infested wood. Seeking vain salvation, I foolishly did what must people do when too scared to venture into the crevices of despair: I dragged someone with me. I called my mother at 3am in the morning, to selfishly soothe myself! Now that I ponder it, perhaps my fate is the price I justly paid for my cowardice of attempting to share my despair with another…. In anycase, my sweet mother did answer the phone, then inquired as to whether I was okay. She’s such a selfless being! On hearing this, instead of wishing her a good night and assuring her everything was all right, like a good son would, I vomited questions about the history of giant, odd creatures known to exist on the Eastern Shore, especially of any resembling large insects or arachnids. At first she failed to recollect any, but she soon remembered a story her grandmother told her about a derelict ship found washed ashore on Cape Charles beach in the early 1900s, one that was immediately looted by the locals until mysterious disappearances at night stopped voyages to the beach altogether. The primal fear gripping this popular hub for the Eastern Shore ended, according to the stories, when an animal conservation group took apart the vessel and moved it to an unknown location. There were always the odd story of an eerie creature since the ghostly ship landed, but they were all later attributed to mistaken sightings of deer, roosters, stray horses, or any number of local fauna. She then told me a fact appearing trivial at the moment of revelation, but one which would keep my eyes pinned open in deepening dread as I treaded further into the depths of this peninsula’s dark history. She said many things changed throughout the stories and “eye witness” testimonies, including the size of the observed cryptids, what chimera of monstrosities they were, and whether they were placid or malevolent, but one fact remained consistent between all the tales: the origin of the derelict ship. All stories agreed the ship was an English, zoological expedition from the Congo, all the passengers meeting their end when the specimens brought aboard escaped from their cages on the night of a turbulent storm, the same storm which caused the ship to be blown off course. Unable to think of anything else to ask, and my mind tottering on the brink of collapse from lack of sleep, I apologized for waking her at such an ungodly hour, paid my salutations, then ended the call. Despite my eyes feeling heavier than a maul held by a skeleton, I felt the compelling urge to validate, more realistically to disprove, some facts regarding my Mom’s testimony with a Google search. As expected, and to my relief, there was nothing archived about a shipwreck from the Congo landing on Cape Charles beach at any point in time; however, my searches for the giant insect cryptid did not ease my fears. I found several articles about a giant spider called J’ba Fofi, whose size and features almost fit exactly the shadows of the demons I saw that night. My heart rhythm grew unsteady, but nothing prepared me for the pictures and Youtube videos I saw concerning the creatures. As if a nightmare fiend transplanted the horrid visions from my mind onto another medium… The settings were different, but the hellish form, the eyes, the legs, were all the same! The same creatures I witnessed that night, lurking from the bushes beside the can, and the shadows lurking in the Congo and Amazon’s blackest night were identical! I slammed my laptop shut, in a vain attempt to shatter the images forever behind cracked liquid crystals, then foolishly hid myself under my comforter. At 5am, only utter fatigue coaxed my mind to sleep, for I woke the next morning to a blanket soaked in sweat chiller than a skeleton’s breath.
For two days after I quite my part time gig at that restaurant of ignorant, blissful terror, I experienced true peace. I woke in the morning to cold sweats the first night, but felt a huge relief lift from my mind and soul the rest of the day and the following one. More energy invigorated my body from the anticipation of life, I called and talked with Tim and Jeffrey on the phone, bragging, even joking, about my audacity to leave the job behind me, even observed my food and drink taste better, as if a new beginning to life had been opened to me. It seemed the terror of the can, the unknown shadows and the multitude of glaring ghastly eyes, had been nothing but a passed, living night terror. My exuberance lasted two days, until Friday came, new devastating truths arising when I returned to the Seashell to collect my last check. I persisted in having my money mailed to me initially, but Evelyn would not budge on the issue, claiming for the sake of liability, if I was no longer an employee, the company who paid the restaurant would have to mail my last check to me, a process which would take two weeks! Greed sustained me during my eclipsed time at the restaurant, Greed motivated me to ignore my better instincts to returning after witnessing the worse horrors of my life, and Greed damned me, gnawed at me to not wait two weeks for a goddamn check, a day consuming every bit of sanity, peace, and tranquility I had left.
“What the fuck was that?” said Dave, his back hunched, eyes and nostrils stretched in a marks of terror I had never seen before from the man.
“Sounds like Mr. Whiskers got too friendly with Misses Snickers,” said Evelyn, coming from her den of the back office, her expression unusually jovial and relaxed, a creepy contrast to the fear and silence gripping her employees. “Why don’t you go out back, take a picture,” she said with a wink.
“Fuck that,” grumbled Dave before continuing his prep work.
“Hardcore cat action?” said Tim with a nervous laugh. “Maybe next Tuesday after I’m feeling something more real than
nekos .” No one shared his humor. Evelyn went back in her office, rolling her eyes; everyone continued working in silence, my thoughts, as well as everyone else’s I was sure, trying to decipher what in the hell could have made that animalistic scream.
I swore Satan was smiling down on us when, at around the same time as before, a thirty top from a local field trip came through the restaurant doors. I actually spoke up as Dave and Moran stepped forward to takeover our line, trying to convince them Tim and I could handle a group of teenagers, but each attempt was met with a cold, “To the back,” so cold his breath might as well have been an Arctic wind freezing my blood to blue shards. I wondered with Tim to the prep line, working like a drone to blind my mind from what I feared would come. Then the moment came, the moment Dave rang, “Trash pull,” through the kitchen. I burned a glare in the back of his fucking head, because I could have sworn I saw the bastard’s shoulders twitch in a chuckle, his hunch smiling at the relief of sending us to the can instead of him. I let my anger cover my fear, hurriedly bagged up the kitchen trash, then rushed outside before Tim and Jeffrey, who wisely let their trepidation create hesitation, which, if they were wiser, should have let graduate to full flight from the restaurant and the hellish scene awaiting us out back.
My fingers are actually numb, trembling as I write this… I don’t want to recall what I saw, have no desire to create it in my mind for translation, or to try and reinterpret it with this keyboard, my hands shaking with cold sweat dripping from my palms to the tips of my nails. The start of it was indeed horrid, but not nearly as terrifying as what lay further down the line. As soon as I stepped on the dim lit porch, my foot bumped a mass of fur, which exposed itself as a lifeless cat, its face and form frozen in the same death mask one would find with a road-killed deer or possum. This elicited little emotion from me, aside from pity for the deceased animal; it’s not uncommon to find a dead mammal after it lost a fight with a dog, silver-back, or horse on a backwoods trail or even in one’s backyard. It’s what my eyes beheld upon further inspection of the scene that caused my heart to beat furiously behind my chilled cage of skin and bone. More than ten cats experienced a similar fate, all of them strewn sporadically on the porch like periods in a Hemingway correspondence. The breadcrumbs of corpses stopped at the foot of the ramp leading up to the wooden porch as if they were running to a human enclosure, seeking salvation before something drew their tale to its end. When Tim and Jeffrey reached the outside, Jeffrey immediately reeled at the sight, spilling his lunch in one of the many spare trashcans. Tim stood wide-eyes, choking on shock, before he managed to whisper:
“The actual fuck?” Him and I looked at each other, then I at a growing pale Jeffrey, knowing what task lay ahead of us for the next thirty minutes or so. When I told the kitchen staff about the gruesome scene out back, no one looked in my direction, not Dave, not Moran, the dishwashers, or the waitresses on their break. Frustrated from my lack of acknowledgement, I screamed at them about the dead cats. I wrung my fucking lungs out. The answer I got was Evelyn, coming out her office, rolling up her sleeves.
“Why the hell are you raising such a racket in my kitchen!” she yelled.
“There are more than ten dead cats out back!” I countered back, only to get dismissed and threatened with:
“They tried to fight a silver-back and lost. So what? Get them off my porch, unless you want to turn in your apron and go home.” I should have said something, maybe marched out, or tossed my apron in her face then marched out, but my pattern of compliance with years of acquiescence in the workplace, along with me desiring continuous employment, kept me domesticated, so I bore my teeth, put on some latex gloves, then passed the order to Tim and Jeffrey, both just as exuberant about the task ahead as I. We bagged the dead cats, who all reeked of death, but I also smelled a mix of alcohol and turpentine, a mix I knew as only odd at the moment, but a smell which later revelations would seize my heart and soul if I ever encountered the scent again. The unpleasant task complete, we threw the rest of the trash on the back of the truck, then drove with silent, nervous apprehension to the can.
Our trip remained undisturbed for a time, except for the ever pervading atmosphere of lurking fear. I felt like one passing an unpleasant yet routine situation, like one about to host a rancorous relative for the weekend or passing a fence housing a loud, barking dog on one’s way home, but this should not have been the feeling I felt. It should have been one of a far greater magnitude of dread, more similar to a soldier fearing for his life and sanity at the bypassing whiz of bullets or of the dog leaping past the fence with saliva flowing freely and eyes bleeding red, as I am about to describe, if you can believe it, how the horror of the lifeless cats intensified. A minute into the drive, the headlights illuminated a trail of ten, twenty, and growing lifeless mammals, ranging from cats, to squirrels, to raccoons. Some remained as frozen roadkill carcasses, backs down with paws in the air, symbolizing the death mask of a deceased animal. Others were dry husks of skin and fur, as if something starting the labors of taxonomy before abandoning its efforts. However, the further we got to the can, the more the cadavers of the killed animals resembled such a sickening scene I will do my best to describe them here. Masses of fur meshed with blood and the innards of the animals flowed freely, in several piles leading to the can and at its base. The smell of death, the putrid scent of rising gastric acids, of decomposing meat left in the Sun for hours, along with that odd mix of alcohol and turpentine, made me withdraw my breath immediately as I rolled up my window. Once that rising putrid odor hit me, I knew I wouldn’t step a foot from the truck, couldn’t. I let Jeffrey outside as Tim stepped down to investigate, all of us holding our hands to our noses while we did the best we could to breathe from our mouths.
“What the fuck did this? Tim muffled through his hand shielding him from the mephitic odor. Jeffrey, as usual, said nothing. Kept words and thoughts to himself. I suggested we head back to the restaurant and inform Evelyn of this terrifying scene, the end to get more of the restaurant staff to help with the mess, my actual intention to get safety in numbers against whatever primordial evil or evils killed the animals. Tim reasoned if we returned, we’d just be forced to return, and possibly to gather tools to dispose of the putrid corpses under threat of unemployment, similar to how events transpired on the porch. I simply nodded my head in resignation, not desiring to increase my labors further, despite my tightening chest and heart’s quickening beat directing me to evade the scene entirely.
Jeffrey was more than happy to back the truck to the can, close to the same, safe distance we did before. If it wasn’t for Tim’s teasing to not be lazy and help us, he would have remained in the truck. What Tim and I were actually worried about was the possibility the events causing our previous flight would transpire once more, and leave us to the same, wretched fate as the plethora of animals around us. We were mammals ourselves, after all, just those priding ourselves with greater intelligence than the norm. We all played the same game as before, tossing the black bags into the deep, abysmal mouth of the can, this time aiming with accuracy and care as to not deflect our bags against each other. We were playing no games this time, only desiring to finish the damn job so we could return to one cloaked with less restricting fear. Five bags in, our trash quota 70% disposed of, my blood froze upon hearing a rustling in the forested area behind the green behemoth of metal. Normally, in the backroads of the Eastern Shore, one dismissed such a noise with triviality or astonishment, considering the variety of animals one is likely to encounter, yet the repressive atmosphere of oppressive smells and the eerie quiet surrounding our endeavor made the noise as alarming as a bullet ringing in the distance. I immediately held my bag in the air, every pore, nostril, and sense of mine awakened to what lay beyond that camouflage of green and darkness, the waving of the bush-shadows haunting my imagination in a myriad of terrifying ways, but nothing I imagined could have been closer to the horrifying truth. Two feet from the initial rumblings, in the darkened forest green, rustlings erupted more violent than before, as if a struggle was occurring between opposing beasts in the deep wood. Then, on the other side of the can, another rustling in the bushes, then another, Tim and Jeffrey now as alerted as I in the rising tension of the situation. A shrill scream, as horrid as anything I had ever heard, the screech of some dying animal I still can’t accurately delineate upon greater time of reflection, echoed far from the can’s right side, and I was certain some unfortunate creature was experiencing the same fate as the smaller ones laid before us in bloody, stinking piles of evisceration. I was also certain if we stayed longer, we’d face a similar fate. Tim and Jeffrey wasted no time in running back to the truck and starting it up; I wanted to run, every muscle and thought in my form wanted to flee to the tailgate, but my legs simply shook beneath me, cold sweat burned my frozen eyes, my breath and heart beat into a rhythm of endless acceleration as I lay stricken with fear. In the depths of the can, I saw the multitude of eyes as I did before, along with a severe rustling of brown and green bones, followed by several sets of glows emerging from the disturbances, each set of eyes standing at least two feet from the ground. Even as I stood surrounded by the horde of these creatures, the saving lights of the truck fading as it fled further away from me, it wasn’t the multitude of eyes which galvanized my legs into action, indicating something of large size unknown to me lurking in the deep wood, but the appearance of those hairy sticks. Two extended a least five feet from the can until they touched upon the ground, then I saw more extend several feet from bushes around each set of glowing lights, heard the patter of the sticks touching the concrete, the rumbling of the shrubbery echoing to maddening levels in the silent vanishing night. The orgy of hellish creatures advancing towards me drove me into a fit of shrieking madness, and in that moment I gained the greatest sanity since working at this restaurant. My legs turned, then sprinted with such fury I forgot I had lungs, muscle, or lactic acid. I sprinted until I saw the dim lights of the Seashell House Restaurant’s back porch. I don’t know whether I outpaced the creatures, or if they had a healthy fear of the light conflicting with the darkness they represented, but I was elated my lungs conceding corresponded with the stalking of the small steps diminishing in the distance. My body soaked with cold sweat, my knees supporting my hands as I swallowed air, I dared to look back, and by doing so, cursed my mind to an insatiable curiosity that may have sealed my fate, the type of curiosity plaguing one to dive into the shadows of fear to better prepare to fend against it. Standing four feet from the ground, I could barely identify one of the creatures more than twenty feet in the distance. The dark form appeared as a body split into three distinct sections, a head, a body, and a rear, each part separated by obvious sunken in joints, making it resemble the partitioned parts of an exoskeleton rather than the smooth form of a mammal, despite it covered in fur like one. The trait solidifying it as a monstrous insect, rather than a grotesque mammal beyond regular classification, was its legs. The situated form rose four feet from the ground, which appeared at least four feet in length itself, was supported by eight sticks of hair covering twice the length of the body, the sticks so thin I couldn’t fathom how they carried the mass of the top form. To darken my doubt as to whether this was the same type of creature present at the mass killing of animals we witnessed, it revealed part of its form, revealing a number of glowing eyes resembling what I witnessed inside the can and emerging from the wilderness. My eyes already glued to the horror, I squinted, leaned my head forward, trying to bury my quaking soul with understanding, or to correct my possible error in vision to reform the terror before me into something tangible, but further horrors made me abandon the effort. As if sensing the last sinews of my frail courage, a form at least six feet in height emerged heavily down the trail, the sticks longer than the previous creatures’, the enormity moving forward with the same set of hellish eyes! I had no desire to see more of them, now or ever, so my flight response reinvigorated me as I ran to the porch and back into sanctuary.
On returning to the back of the Seashell, any semblance of peace abandoned me as sanity and rage possessed me. Considering the alien, horrifying sights I witnessed: the mountains of dead animals, the enormous insects with the yellow eyes emerging from the bush, and my abandonment by Jeffrey and Tim, as well as the apathy from the rest of the kitchen staff, I was driven into a rage that had me hurling insults to Tim and Jeffrey for cowardice, the rest of the staff for being fools, and at Evelyn, when my rantings finally forced her to emerge from her office-cave, for being a bitch. She ferociously returned the same, then afterwards told me to drop her apron and get the hell out of her kitchen. I told her something along the lines of how Satan on his worst day couldn’t make a place more of a shithole before leaving out the front doors. I was pissed I not only left the job on bad terms but also future paychecks from the place. However, I was elated knowing whatever in the hell was in the can and stalked the woods behind the Seashell House Restaurant would no longer be a concern of mine. Man was I dumb, dumb and egregiously mistaken. Darker truths were already set in motion to further drive me and poor Jeffrey into a pit we couldn’t escape. Just as Adam took the bite of the fruit of knowledge and damned himself to pain and death, my foolish craving for solace against lurking clouds in my mind would tempt me past the point of madness, paranoia, and ever pervading fear.
That night, I could not sleep, but not in the classical sense of being too anxious to still one’s heart to Morpheus’s meditations. I literally could not sleep! Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the innumerable yellow eyes peering at me from the abyss of the can. I heard the rustle of the bushes echo in the silence of the room. The smell of the rotting flesh and turpentine seemed to creep lightly through the air. 3am in the morning, pure terror kept my senses cracked as gaping holes in termite infested wood. Seeking vain salvation, I foolishly did what must people do when too scared to venture into the crevices of despair: I dragged someone with me. I called my mother at 3am in the morning, to selfishly soothe myself! Now that I ponder it, perhaps my fate is the price I justly paid for my cowardice of attempting to share my despair with another…. In anycase, my sweet mother did answer the phone, then inquired as to whether I was okay. She’s such a selfless being! On hearing this, instead of wishing her a good night and assuring her everything was all right, like a good son would, I vomited questions about the history of giant, odd creatures known to exist on the Eastern Shore, especially of any resembling large insects or arachnids. At first she failed to recollect any, but she soon remembered a story her grandmother told her about a derelict ship found washed ashore on Cape Charles beach in the early 1900s, one that was immediately looted by the locals until mysterious disappearances at night stopped voyages to the beach altogether. The primal fear gripping this popular hub for the Eastern Shore ended, according to the stories, when an animal conservation group took apart the vessel and moved it to an unknown location. There were always the odd story of an eerie creature since the ghostly ship landed, but they were all later attributed to mistaken sightings of deer, roosters, stray horses, or any number of local fauna. She then told me a fact appearing trivial at the moment of revelation, but one which would keep my eyes pinned open in deepening dread as I treaded further into the depths of this peninsula’s dark history. She said many things changed throughout the stories and “eye witness” testimonies, including the size of the observed cryptids, what chimera of monstrosities they were, and whether they were placid or malevolent, but one fact remained consistent between all the tales: the origin of the derelict ship. All stories agreed the ship was an English, zoological expedition from the Congo, all the passengers meeting their end when the specimens brought aboard escaped from their cages on the night of a turbulent storm, the same storm which caused the ship to be blown off course. Unable to think of anything else to ask, and my mind tottering on the brink of collapse from lack of sleep, I apologized for waking her at such an ungodly hour, paid my salutations, then ended the call. Despite my eyes feeling heavier than a maul held by a skeleton, I felt the compelling urge to validate, more realistically to disprove, some facts regarding my Mom’s testimony with a Google search. As expected, and to my relief, there was nothing archived about a shipwreck from the Congo landing on Cape Charles beach at any point in time; however, my searches for the giant insect cryptid did not ease my fears. I found several articles about a giant spider called J’ba Fofi, whose size and features almost fit exactly the shadows of the demons I saw that night. My heart rhythm grew unsteady, but nothing prepared me for the pictures and Youtube videos I saw concerning the creatures. As if a nightmare fiend transplanted the horrid visions from my mind onto another medium… The settings were different, but the hellish form, the eyes, the legs, were all the same! The same creatures I witnessed that night, lurking from the bushes beside the can, and the shadows lurking in the Congo and Amazon’s blackest night were identical! I slammed my laptop shut, in a vain attempt to shatter the images forever behind cracked liquid crystals, then foolishly hid myself under my comforter. At 5am, only utter fatigue coaxed my mind to sleep, for I woke the next morning to a blanket soaked in sweat chiller than a skeleton’s breath.
For two days after I quite my part time gig at that restaurant of ignorant, blissful terror, I experienced true peace. I woke in the morning to cold sweats the first night, but felt a huge relief lift from my mind and soul the rest of the day and the following one. More energy invigorated my body from the anticipation of life, I called and talked with Tim and Jeffrey on the phone, bragging, even joking, about my audacity to leave the job behind me, even observed my food and drink taste better, as if a new beginning to life had been opened to me. It seemed the terror of the can, the unknown shadows and the multitude of glaring ghastly eyes, had been nothing but a passed, living night terror. My exuberance lasted two days, until Friday came, new devastating truths arising when I returned to the Seashell to collect my last check. I persisted in having my money mailed to me initially, but Evelyn would not budge on the issue, claiming for the sake of liability, if I was no longer an employee, the company who paid the restaurant would have to mail my last check to me, a process which would take two weeks! Greed sustained me during my eclipsed time at the restaurant, Greed motivated me to ignore my better instincts to returning after witnessing the worse horrors of my life, and Greed damned me, gnawed at me to not wait two weeks for a goddamn check, a day consuming every bit of sanity, peace, and tranquility I had left.
Upon my return to the downtown Cape Charles area, other than the sickening dread I felt from the previous hell I endured, everything was as placid as I remembered. After a mile drive past a small, decrepit house resembling a cottage from a fantasy novel after an invasion of a mystical army, I slowed quickly from the customary 45mph to 35, not only in respects to the speed trap from the sudden transition from a highway to a backroad, but also in anticipation of crossing deer, a family of three standing tall in the vast, grassy field on both sides of the trek. I passed the abandoned Food Lion, now an empty husk of melting red brick, its parking lot the storage for a golf cart business made for the tourist season, the gay colored carts always reminding me of a sea of ants on a week-old butterfly carcass. I made my usual right past this, drove through houses with architecture hinting of simpler times, of times more elder than I. More than a mile further down, the Sun beaming quiet rays of warmth nature, the only sounds contesting the echo of my engine the occasional barking dog and pick-up truck, I drove past a gate leading to acres of maintained, private land, which in turn led to an enormous estate which, to this day, I know only rumors about. All the beauty, yet depth, of the downtown Cape Charles area soon ceased upon turning into my destination: A practically hidden shopping center, affectionately called Mariner’s Way, a commercial square of buildings all interconnected, all as brightly colored as the empty houses on the waterfront, or the nesting of dead golf carts. I knew nothing of the stores at Mariner’s Way; I never even formally ate at the restaurant I worked at, for I knew these stores weren’t for me, the living residents of the Shore, but for the shadows of the millionaires or thousandaires I’ve never seen, but we knew existed. I pulled into a parking space, proceeded towards that place of dread, when my nervous reluctance turned into apprehensive worry upon noticing three police vehicles parked outside my destination, their strobe lights in full blare, several police officers already barricading the scene with highlighters of caution tape. I tried to approach, but the officers immediately barred my path, and refused to provide me with more information about what events transpired to put the Seashell in such a state. Even showing the idiots my I.D. badge didn’t get me anything more than scripted responses! Luckily, or rather unluckily, I found Tim riding his bike to the restaurant. Unlike his usual, calm and cheerful self, the policemen and barricade immediately sent him into a frenzy, he dropping his bike to the concrete, running for the barricade like a madman. The only balm to his fury was rough police hands and handcuffs, Tim screaming, “No! Is he all right? Is he all right!” In a desperate wail I’ve never heard before from him. His screaming encouraged a crowd of on-lookers to encroach the scene, unlocking their Iphones and Androids to record the believed injustice. The last words I ever heard Tim utter were:
“I told him not to go… I told him not to go…” as the police officers shoved him, sobbing, in the back of their vehicle. Given the spectacle, for the moment, I forgot my greed and fear as compassion for what befell one of my previous co-workers overcame me, especially since, considering Tim’s mad, grieving deportment, I had an idea whom the ill fate had befallen. Knowing the police would rejoinder my conjecture with deflection, I asked a few bystanders what happened. On the third, I got the chilling response to confirm my fears: A dishwasher of the restaurant was found dead by the dumpster when he accidentally left a cross necklace at the can around back, or so his half-brother’s third cousin who received a phone call from a staff member that morning told him. They said his body was so badly disfigured, he was barely recognizable, and that whatever killed him left such a horrendous sight it sent two of the veteran police officers in a vomiting fit upon discovering him, and a rumor is circulating even though it was the head chef that discovered him, a curious waitress, who wanted to take advantage of the situation by Instagramming the scene, instantly abandoned her venture when she reached the actual body, that she locked herself in the bathroom from fear of the “demons in the forest,” and that a psychiatric team was also en-route to admit her to the Fifth Floor. At that moment, I felt relief, which later reflection would bring me shame from my conflicting thoughts: I was sad and disgusted such a fate befell someone I worked with, joked with, and shared memories with, yet ecstatic such a fate had not befallen me, that I left the restaurant before those “demons” felt bold enough to add me among the grave of the fallen, smaller mammals before, and determined to ensure I never experienced such terror by not returning here again, even for my final paycheck! However, just as a haunter in the dark stalks its prey to an early demise, my curiosity was doomed to stalk me to the edge of madness, both literally and figuratively. Through the sea of gray-suited dogs and one-directive drones with cameras strapped to their hands, one man stood out from the crowd. He was an older man with dark, leathery skin, a head full of gray hair with a stoop in his back and a limp in his step, yet his wide solar eyes, along with the speed in which he moved through the crowd, hinted at an underlying vigor betraying the discolored hair on his head. His mind must have indeed been sharp as well, for the moment my gaze met his, his mind met mine, an immediate turn the response I received as he attempted to evade me in the sea of onlookers, a vain attempt in the small community that is the Eastern Shore. At the crowd’s edge, a few yards away, he realized I was on his trail, abandoned the evasion, turned around, and bridged the gap between us in a few steps.
“So… ya saw deem, huh? Ya saw deem, but wanna know moa. Hungrae fo it,” he said in the thick accent of an Eastern Shore native. I feigned not knowing what he was talking about, to which he smiled with a mouth of crooked, rotten teeth long neglected of dentistry.
“Da animal freaks’ll har us if we tall now. Go pas 1032 Cedar Grove, pas dat trailer in Birdsnest, a myle down de road, to an ole brickhouse at deend. An bring a memory stick.” He turned and slithered through the crowd as if he was made of fog. I asked his name, what he knew, and what happened to Jeffrey. To my three questions, he provided satisfaction to none, whispering a barely audible “3am” I nearly missed under the ocean of voices from the on-lookers. When my chase concluded at the end of the gathering crowd, my trail ran cold, no sign of the furtive old man in sight.
“I told him not to go… I told him not to go…” as the police officers shoved him, sobbing, in the back of their vehicle. Given the spectacle, for the moment, I forgot my greed and fear as compassion for what befell one of my previous co-workers overcame me, especially since, considering Tim’s mad, grieving deportment, I had an idea whom the ill fate had befallen. Knowing the police would rejoinder my conjecture with deflection, I asked a few bystanders what happened. On the third, I got the chilling response to confirm my fears: A dishwasher of the restaurant was found dead by the dumpster when he accidentally left a cross necklace at the can around back, or so his half-brother’s third cousin who received a phone call from a staff member that morning told him. They said his body was so badly disfigured, he was barely recognizable, and that whatever killed him left such a horrendous sight it sent two of the veteran police officers in a vomiting fit upon discovering him, and a rumor is circulating even though it was the head chef that discovered him, a curious waitress, who wanted to take advantage of the situation by Instagramming the scene, instantly abandoned her venture when she reached the actual body, that she locked herself in the bathroom from fear of the “demons in the forest,” and that a psychiatric team was also en-route to admit her to the Fifth Floor. At that moment, I felt relief, which later reflection would bring me shame from my conflicting thoughts: I was sad and disgusted such a fate befell someone I worked with, joked with, and shared memories with, yet ecstatic such a fate had not befallen me, that I left the restaurant before those “demons” felt bold enough to add me among the grave of the fallen, smaller mammals before, and determined to ensure I never experienced such terror by not returning here again, even for my final paycheck! However, just as a haunter in the dark stalks its prey to an early demise, my curiosity was doomed to stalk me to the edge of madness, both literally and figuratively. Through the sea of gray-suited dogs and one-directive drones with cameras strapped to their hands, one man stood out from the crowd. He was an older man with dark, leathery skin, a head full of gray hair with a stoop in his back and a limp in his step, yet his wide solar eyes, along with the speed in which he moved through the crowd, hinted at an underlying vigor betraying the discolored hair on his head. His mind must have indeed been sharp as well, for the moment my gaze met his, his mind met mine, an immediate turn the response I received as he attempted to evade me in the sea of onlookers, a vain attempt in the small community that is the Eastern Shore. At the crowd’s edge, a few yards away, he realized I was on his trail, abandoned the evasion, turned around, and bridged the gap between us in a few steps.
“So… ya saw deem, huh? Ya saw deem, but wanna know moa. Hungrae fo it,” he said in the thick accent of an Eastern Shore native. I feigned not knowing what he was talking about, to which he smiled with a mouth of crooked, rotten teeth long neglected of dentistry.
“Da animal freaks’ll har us if we tall now. Go pas 1032 Cedar Grove, pas dat trailer in Birdsnest, a myle down de road, to an ole brickhouse at deend. An bring a memory stick.” He turned and slithered through the crowd as if he was made of fog. I asked his name, what he knew, and what happened to Jeffrey. To my three questions, he provided satisfaction to none, whispering a barely audible “3am” I nearly missed under the ocean of voices from the on-lookers. When my chase concluded at the end of the gathering crowd, my trail ran cold, no sign of the furtive old man in sight.
At 2:30am, I started towards 1032 Cedar Grove from the backroads of Cape Charles, the ones past the Food Lion and McDonalds that have been a staple in the community for years. Past the Food Lion, I took a right on Highway 13, the miles per hour immediately jumping from 35 to 55 acting as the backbone to the Eastern Shore’s nervous system, the highway eventually renamed Lankford from the superstitious implications of the number. Approximately fifteen miles up the road, past the horrendous events of downtown Cape Charles, past Eastville and Northampton High School, I made my left turn by a mossy sign, covered in vine overgrowth, saying, “Welcome to Birdsnest.” After passing a degenerative building covered with graffiti and a collapsed roof on the right, I traveled deeper into the core of darkness, the backroads of the Shore always confining one with a sense of isolation far more than the lightless Highway 13, save for the small shimmer from the mysterious Celestial bodies, burning thousands of light-years of comfort from above. It didn’t take long for me to reach the trailer court he hinted at, and it took a shorter time to reach Cedar Grove and the trailer designated 1032. What took the longest, the trip well more than a mile, was reaching the destination at the end of the road. For the distance he designated, I saw nothing but forests on both sides of a two-lane road more well-paved and upkept than any backroad I had seen on the Eastern Shore. My high beams burned forward, cutting through darkness and the infinite solitude before me. A mile after that, I saw the oddly, closely guarded evidence of a residential district, gates at least ten feet tall replacing the lush forest on both sides, some houses extending over the ten-foot gates, others hinting at their existence with chimney smoke fogging through the sky as rising shadows in the night air. As a child, I remember hearing stories of gated communities concealed in the deep, black wood of the Shore, of places with rules, customs, and culture out of place, some would say out of time, or alien entirely, to the rest of the world, but never in my twenty three years of existence had I seen anything to rouse my suspicions beyond superstitions. The voluminous gates seemed modern enough, yet the houses reminded me of those field trips I took to Jamestown in middle school, the houses emulating architecture from the 16th or 17th centuries. Luckily, such a strange place wasn’t my destination; it was the brick house beyond them, at the end of the road. Upon reaching the house, and the end of my isolated drive down that forlorn road, the sight of the place failed to provide me with the hope I yearned for… The residence was a poor sight: a red, degenerating pebble in an overgrowth of green. The grass must have been given free reign for well more than a month, for it was a foot high, save for the paved pathway leading to the front doors. Vines scaled the walls with acidic claws, and the holes and gapes in the roofing would have been given the rain free reign. I proceeded up the pathway, it also slowly getting devoured by lichens, then knocked on the red and brown patched door. It took five minutes until echoes from the interior indicated this was indeed a residence, which was soon followed by the unlatching of several interior locks, something uncharacteristic in a county where the home burglary rate was so low, due to the closeness of the communities, residents often left their homes unsecured until the moments they drifted into the Sandman’s domain. But every Sun has a dark side, just as every person has a shadow, and I was soon to discover a shadow of the Eastern Shore, darker than anything I could have imagined or conjectured.
The door creaked open, and I was greeted by the same old man whom slivered from my sight the day Jeffrey was “found” at the Seashell House Restaurant. Wordless, he signaled me to enter his home; I complied, before he quickly sealed his residence again with four latches and a bolt lock. The swiftness of his quarantine chilled my blood, for I wondered: Why would an old man with a valueless home, in the middle of nowhere, take such precautions to secure it?
“Whyu loo’ so scar? I ain’t a Moccasin. Come onseen,” he said before turning his back and walking further inside. I, of course, followed behind, yet with some distance, not sure whether this old man was indeed an aged human as he portrayed himself, or a leathery snake. The interior of the home fared better than the exterior, but not by much. The floor was carpeted throughout, an unfortunately expensive one beyond repair from the lack of care and shielding from the unfixed ceiling leaks. A mold smell, slightly tolerable, permeated through the entire place, plus a horrid odor I couldn’t place at that moment, but one I placed with terrifying accuracy after I acquired the truth regarding these haunting events. A T.V. rested against a stain splotched wall, a CRT, 50” floor model, the type I hadn’t seen since the 90s. Before it was a dusty coffee table, and on both sides were leather sofas offering more comfort than the rest of the residence. My guest motioned me to sit; I did. He then seated himself opposite of the coffee table, and there he stared at me for a full minute, perhaps hoping I would be the first to break the ice. Perhaps I was frightened, perhaps I was cautious, or perhaps I genuinely was at a lost on what to do… Whatever the cause, it forbade me from speaking first, until the guest broke the awkward silence:
“I seeda cat gotcha tongue. Well, he ain’t got maine, not yet. Aye could tell bya look, you know somethin’, or at leaseenem… Naw, I can seeit now. You’ve seenem, the big ones, and you’ve seen wha dhey can do. You smell ‘em too, eh? Dhat smell of hell dhey use to kill wha dhey hunt… And you can smell it herr too.” The moment he uttered that phrase, my mind went blank as the catalyst of survival pumped my veins, and moved me to the door. A mocking laughing from the rustic old man made me ashamed despite the terror I had already seen with my own eyes, and that shame turned me back around.
“No, dhey aint herr, young man, and I promise ayell have you gone in time, or dhere be no point in bringin’ you,” the end of sentence uttered with intentional, ominous connotation. Despite me remaining, I stood for the rest of the conversation, or rather his explanation. “If you arrived earlier, ayed have time to explain mo, but you didn’t. What aye can say now ees dhey been herr sing the 1900s, ever seence dat ship from the Congo wrecked ashore on Cape Charles beach. There was a boom back dheen, with settlers and the natives creatin’ huntin’ parties to almost wipem out, and it seemed the Shore was rid of the monsters. But dhen, in de 1950s, the sightings started again, when de Animal Freaks came, and by that aye mean de people protecting animal rights. Now don’t get mai wrong, dhey done some work for de Shore, like in conserving much of the forests herr and de wildlife round de tunnels, but, you an aye know, dose thangs ain’t natural de dhis place. We know it, we can feel it. It’d be like you and aye drivin’ down 13 but instead o’ seeing a group of deer, you saw a herd of giraffe, and dhey ain’t even gonna kill ya. You’d be afraid, ‘cause you’d know somethin’ won’t right. You’d think de world was endin’, ‘cause it would be so backwards. Well, de Nature Freaks won’t see it dat way. Aye spoke to ‘em, you know? An sorry aye deed. Comparin’ dose monsters to horses and such… It’s damn crazy!” Something about the experience must have roused something rancorous in the old man, for the ferocity in which he explained his statement echoed like thunder, my body jolting from the sudden outburst. It was then I noticed an aspect of the old man, I’m ashamed to say, I easily missed until now, but I attributed this to the guarded deportment of my guest, considering the signs became undeniably clear through his crack of anger: He looked exhausted. Sweat flowed freely through every pore, dark circles formed heavy, quarter moons under his eyes, and his furrow fissured with unrelieved stress. However, after a moment of reflection, my guest recovered his deportment as an obese man sucking in his stomach: He wiped the sweat from his face, straightened his shocked gray slick and smoothed his wrinkles, and all appeared connected.
“Sorry ‘bout dat. Well, dat’s all I got de taime de say.” He stood, then pointed me to the door. “You already know what you gotta do: geet out a herr, and by dat I mean the Eastern Shore. And don’t dump your trash at cans at night.” I don’t know why, but something compelled me to remain in that position. Now that I ponder it, I believe it came from a mix of dissatisfaction in knowing this guile, old man knew more, as well as the pool of curiosity I had already dipped my toe in, feeling inclined, or maybe destined, to learn more, a decision I would soon learn to regret with every ounce of me, for what I hadn’t realized is my foot hadn’t dipped itself in a pool, but in murky, foaming storm waters, one hiding literal skeletons centuries old, and an abyss which stared back with multiple, yellow lights of indescribable dread. At my hesitation to leave such darkness, he beckoned me further with a smile.
“Not enough for you, eh? If you wan, aye can show you something.’” I carefully moved my steps after the old man, wondering deeper in his home, past the mildew-filled living room, past the dirty, roach festering kitchen and into a dark hallway, feeling as long as the lightless street leading to the backroads beyond time. At the end of the long hallway was a metal door with a punch code panel on it, the door’s heftiness reminding me of a walk-in freezer at the Seashell. He punched the code, guarding it with his form, before pushing the apparently heavy door open, as it moved with much effort. The room inside was nothing compared to the rest of the home, cleanliness wise… and technology wise. It felt as if I had walked into the command center of a space opera, the remnants of the console sealed in a box of a room: a large monitor bordered by four others, two on each side, lay at its center, a keyboard, the likes of which I had never seen before in size or length, beckoned before it. I searched for it, didn’t see a mouse, or a device like it, but I did see the actual computer: Itself an Alienware shell twice as large as a regular server case, tucked in a corner, veins of incalculable red and blue wires feeding into its back from innumerable locations, some into the backs of monitor, others into the walls… There was more to note, such as the mini-fridge in the corner, another door with a similar locking mechanism to the side, but it was the monitored feeds which garnered most of my attention. Two had live feeds for this residence, for the inside and out, while others had seemingly unrelated news articles describing disappearances at a Virginian university named Ashtrail, a group of monkeys able to imitate human speech, or a new symbiotic insect that nests within humans as they sleep. A slap on my shoulder startled me, broke me from my spell of further examination, it only coming from my rustic guest.
“Aye didn’t geet my certs in English now, though aye think life be easier if aye deed… Herr.” He pushed into my chest an unlabeled, black USB key, two inches long, well assembled, but obviously custom made. “Ade dat myself.” I unconsciously took the flash stick, yet my eyes couldn’t be taken from the camera feed monitors, some to rooms in the same condition as the rest of my guest’s home, in a degenerated state, others to rooms appearing so immaculate, so modern and clean, I didn’t believe they belonged to his home at all. This elicited another creeping smile from the old man.
“You hungry for dat fig, ain’t you, boy? What aye gave you dair, dat’ll make you lose sleep. You look back on dhose cameras, you’ll lose your mind.” I couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, but I felt I needed to speak, to ask, to say something… I couldn’t. My raving mental phantasms, mixed with the disturbing reality I already witnessed, stopped my words dead in my throat, and all I could do was croak, my eyes and expression probably as expanded as a flattened frog. As I let that horrific noise escape my lips, another sound, a low, mechanical beeping like a trouble alarm set to a minimum volume, echoed from one of the monitors. With a speed uncharacteristic of him, the old man swiftly cut my vision of the beeping monitor with his form then pressed three keys, killing the feed and the noise. He then looked over his shoulder with the graveness of a man witnessing another commit suicide, before ordering me to leave his home immediately, and with haste.
At 2:30am, I started towards 1032 Cedar Grove from the backroads of Cape Charles, the ones past the Food Lion and McDonalds that have been a staple in the community for years. Past the Food Lion, I took a right on Highway 13, the miles per hour immediately jumping from 35 to 55 acting as the backbone to the Eastern Shore’s nervous system, the highway eventually renamed Lankford from the superstitious implications of the number. Approximately fifteen miles up the road, past the horrendous events of downtown Cape Charles, past Eastville and Northampton High School, I made my left turn by a mossy sign, covered in vine overgrowth, saying, “Welcome to Birdsnest.” After passing a degenerative building covered with graffiti and a collapsed roof on the right, I traveled deeper into the core of darkness, the backroads of the Shore always confining one with a sense of isolation far more than the lightless Highway 13, save for the small shimmer from the mysterious Celestial bodies, burning thousands of light-years of comfort from above. It didn’t take long for me to reach the trailer court he hinted at, and it took a shorter time to reach Cedar Grove and the trailer designated 1032. What took the longest, the trip well more than a mile, was reaching the destination at the end of the road. For the distance he designated, I saw nothing but forests on both sides of a two-lane road more well-paved and upkept than any backroad I had seen on the Eastern Shore. My high beams burned forward, cutting through darkness and the infinite solitude before me. A mile after that, I saw the oddly, closely guarded evidence of a residential district, gates at least ten feet tall replacing the lush forest on both sides, some houses extending over the ten-foot gates, others hinting at their existence with chimney smoke fogging through the sky as rising shadows in the night air. As a child, I remember hearing stories of gated communities concealed in the deep, black wood of the Shore, of places with rules, customs, and culture out of place, some would say out of time, or alien entirely, to the rest of the world, but never in my twenty three years of existence had I seen anything to rouse my suspicions beyond superstitions. The voluminous gates seemed modern enough, yet the houses reminded me of those field trips I took to Jamestown in middle school, the houses emulating architecture from the 16th or 17th centuries. Luckily, such a strange place wasn’t my destination; it was the brick house beyond them, at the end of the road. Upon reaching the house, and the end of my isolated drive down that forlorn road, the sight of the place failed to provide me with the hope I yearned for… The residence was a poor sight: a red, degenerating pebble in an overgrowth of green. The grass must have been given free reign for well more than a month, for it was a foot high, save for the paved pathway leading to the front doors. Vines scaled the walls with acidic claws, and the holes and gapes in the roofing would have been given the rain free reign. I proceeded up the pathway, it also slowly getting devoured by lichens, then knocked on the red and brown patched door. It took five minutes until echoes from the interior indicated this was indeed a residence, which was soon followed by the unlatching of several interior locks, something uncharacteristic in a county where the home burglary rate was so low, due to the closeness of the communities, residents often left their homes unsecured until the moments they drifted into the Sandman’s domain. But every Sun has a dark side, just as every person has a shadow, and I was soon to discover a shadow of the Eastern Shore, darker than anything I could have imagined or conjectured.
The door creaked open, and I was greeted by the same old man whom slivered from my sight the day Jeffrey was “found” at the Seashell House Restaurant. Wordless, he signaled me to enter his home; I complied, before he quickly sealed his residence again with four latches and a bolt lock. The swiftness of his quarantine chilled my blood, for I wondered: Why would an old man with a valueless home, in the middle of nowhere, take such precautions to secure it?
“Whyu loo’ so scar? I ain’t a Moccasin. Come onseen,” he said before turning his back and walking further inside. I, of course, followed behind, yet with some distance, not sure whether this old man was indeed an aged human as he portrayed himself, or a leathery snake. The interior of the home fared better than the exterior, but not by much. The floor was carpeted throughout, an unfortunately expensive one beyond repair from the lack of care and shielding from the unfixed ceiling leaks. A mold smell, slightly tolerable, permeated through the entire place, plus a horrid odor I couldn’t place at that moment, but one I placed with terrifying accuracy after I acquired the truth regarding these haunting events. A T.V. rested against a stain splotched wall, a CRT, 50” floor model, the type I hadn’t seen since the 90s. Before it was a dusty coffee table, and on both sides were leather sofas offering more comfort than the rest of the residence. My guest motioned me to sit; I did. He then seated himself opposite of the coffee table, and there he stared at me for a full minute, perhaps hoping I would be the first to break the ice. Perhaps I was frightened, perhaps I was cautious, or perhaps I genuinely was at a lost on what to do… Whatever the cause, it forbade me from speaking first, until the guest broke the awkward silence:
“I seeda cat gotcha tongue. Well, he ain’t got maine, not yet. Aye could tell bya look, you know somethin’, or at leaseenem… Naw, I can seeit now. You’ve seenem, the big ones, and you’ve seen wha dhey can do. You smell ‘em too, eh? Dhat smell of hell dhey use to kill wha dhey hunt… And you can smell it herr too.” The moment he uttered that phrase, my mind went blank as the catalyst of survival pumped my veins, and moved me to the door. A mocking laughing from the rustic old man made me ashamed despite the terror I had already seen with my own eyes, and that shame turned me back around.
“No, dhey aint herr, young man, and I promise ayell have you gone in time, or dhere be no point in bringin’ you,” the end of sentence uttered with intentional, ominous connotation. Despite me remaining, I stood for the rest of the conversation, or rather his explanation. “If you arrived earlier, ayed have time to explain mo, but you didn’t. What aye can say now ees dhey been herr sing the 1900s, ever seence dat ship from the Congo wrecked ashore on Cape Charles beach. There was a boom back dheen, with settlers and the natives creatin’ huntin’ parties to almost wipem out, and it seemed the Shore was rid of the monsters. But dhen, in de 1950s, the sightings started again, when de Animal Freaks came, and by that aye mean de people protecting animal rights. Now don’t get mai wrong, dhey done some work for de Shore, like in conserving much of the forests herr and de wildlife round de tunnels, but, you an aye know, dose thangs ain’t natural de dhis place. We know it, we can feel it. It’d be like you and aye drivin’ down 13 but instead o’ seeing a group of deer, you saw a herd of giraffe, and dhey ain’t even gonna kill ya. You’d be afraid, ‘cause you’d know somethin’ won’t right. You’d think de world was endin’, ‘cause it would be so backwards. Well, de Nature Freaks won’t see it dat way. Aye spoke to ‘em, you know? An sorry aye deed. Comparin’ dose monsters to horses and such… It’s damn crazy!” Something about the experience must have roused something rancorous in the old man, for the ferocity in which he explained his statement echoed like thunder, my body jolting from the sudden outburst. It was then I noticed an aspect of the old man, I’m ashamed to say, I easily missed until now, but I attributed this to the guarded deportment of my guest, considering the signs became undeniably clear through his crack of anger: He looked exhausted. Sweat flowed freely through every pore, dark circles formed heavy, quarter moons under his eyes, and his furrow fissured with unrelieved stress. However, after a moment of reflection, my guest recovered his deportment as an obese man sucking in his stomach: He wiped the sweat from his face, straightened his shocked gray slick and smoothed his wrinkles, and all appeared connected.
“Sorry ‘bout dat. Well, dat’s all I got de taime de say.” He stood, then pointed me to the door. “You already know what you gotta do: geet out a herr, and by dat I mean the Eastern Shore. And don’t dump your trash at cans at night.” I don’t know why, but something compelled me to remain in that position. Now that I ponder it, I believe it came from a mix of dissatisfaction in knowing this guile, old man knew more, as well as the pool of curiosity I had already dipped my toe in, feeling inclined, or maybe destined, to learn more, a decision I would soon learn to regret with every ounce of me, for what I hadn’t realized is my foot hadn’t dipped itself in a pool, but in murky, foaming storm waters, one hiding literal skeletons centuries old, and an abyss which stared back with multiple, yellow lights of indescribable dread. At my hesitation to leave such darkness, he beckoned me further with a smile.
“Not enough for you, eh? If you wan, aye can show you something.’” I carefully moved my steps after the old man, wondering deeper in his home, past the mildew-filled living room, past the dirty, roach festering kitchen and into a dark hallway, feeling as long as the lightless street leading to the backroads beyond time. At the end of the long hallway was a metal door with a punch code panel on it, the door’s heftiness reminding me of a walk-in freezer at the Seashell. He punched the code, guarding it with his form, before pushing the apparently heavy door open, as it moved with much effort. The room inside was nothing compared to the rest of the home, cleanliness wise… and technology wise. It felt as if I had walked into the command center of a space opera, the remnants of the console sealed in a box of a room: a large monitor bordered by four others, two on each side, lay at its center, a keyboard, the likes of which I had never seen before in size or length, beckoned before it. I searched for it, didn’t see a mouse, or a device like it, but I did see the actual computer: Itself an Alienware shell twice as large as a regular server case, tucked in a corner, veins of incalculable red and blue wires feeding into its back from innumerable locations, some into the backs of monitor, others into the walls… There was more to note, such as the mini-fridge in the corner, another door with a similar locking mechanism to the side, but it was the monitored feeds which garnered most of my attention. Two had live feeds for this residence, for the inside and out, while others had seemingly unrelated news articles describing disappearances at a Virginian university named Ashtrail, a group of monkeys able to imitate human speech, or a new symbiotic insect that nests within humans as they sleep. A slap on my shoulder startled me, broke me from my spell of further examination, it only coming from my rustic guest.
“Aye didn’t geet my certs in English now, though aye think life be easier if aye deed… Herr.” He pushed into my chest an unlabeled, black USB key, two inches long, well assembled, but obviously custom made. “Ade dat myself.” I unconsciously took the flash stick, yet my eyes couldn’t be taken from the camera feed monitors, some to rooms in the same condition as the rest of my guest’s home, in a degenerated state, others to rooms appearing so immaculate, so modern and clean, I didn’t believe they belonged to his home at all. This elicited another creeping smile from the old man.
“You hungry for dat fig, ain’t you, boy? What aye gave you dair, dat’ll make you lose sleep. You look back on dhose cameras, you’ll lose your mind.” I couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, but I felt I needed to speak, to ask, to say something… I couldn’t. My raving mental phantasms, mixed with the disturbing reality I already witnessed, stopped my words dead in my throat, and all I could do was croak, my eyes and expression probably as expanded as a flattened frog. As I let that horrific noise escape my lips, another sound, a low, mechanical beeping like a trouble alarm set to a minimum volume, echoed from one of the monitors. With a speed uncharacteristic of him, the old man swiftly cut my vision of the beeping monitor with his form then pressed three keys, killing the feed and the noise. He then looked over his shoulder with the graveness of a man witnessing another commit suicide, before ordering me to leave his home immediately, and with haste.
I arrived home as quickly as mechanically possible, breaking the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour during my entire trip, myself frightened yet still careful, believing it would be ironic if, while speeding, down the road from fear of insectoid behemoths from Africa, a stray deer would be the end of my designs. I came to my simple apartment in the backroads of Cape Charles, shut the door behind me, in a darkened room with lungs exhausted and skin a slime of sweat. I expected nothing, had no idea my next encounter, which will appear tame to the undiscerning, was much more terrifying than the old man’s phantasmal promises and blackened monitor. Because I want the ones I believe truly responsible for the perpetuation of these horrid events brought to light, I will describe these accounts to you as accurately as I can, taking no artistic or writer’s liberty here, for I want you, the reader, to know this woman in the best way I can portray her outside a photograph or an audio recorder. My aim is now to report, not to horrify, but I still want you terrified.
“Hello Mr. Vieira,” said a flat, emotionless female voice behind me. The fact that it was a women’s voice didn’t comfort me in the slightest, for I wondered how and why she had entered my home, and for what purpose. I turned around, my hand immediately going for the light switch.
“Don’t turn on the light, or you’ll die, right now.” I quickly complied, my body frozen yet my heart running laps around speedcore. My first thought was that she, of course, had a gun, but I never saw or heard anything to indicate such during our conversation. The room was dark though, and I, not knowing what else lied within, followed her command. What I did notice was her blue eyes, only two of them, but they still appeared to have a glow to them, this possibly a trick of the full moonlight. Her dark hair was shoulder length, and she appeared to be wearing some type of dress suit with a skirt while she sat in one of the fold-out chairs I usually reserved for guests. These are all the notable physical features I could make in the dark. As for her voice… It sounded Americanized, but with a hint of British intonation, as if her parents were from England and she grew up in America, or she was indeed an American trying to feign a British accent poorly to hide her origin. We must have sat in silence for three minutes, I too scared to say anything, she probably expecting me to say something like ask “Why are you here?” or “What do you want?” but, considering my life was just threatened, I had no desire to agitate the situation, and couldn’t draw a correlation between her and my recent predicament… until she spoke. She sighed heavily, then said:
“I am a member of the HSSP, the Humane Society for Species Preservation, have you heard of us?” I didn’t provide a word or gesture in the negative or affirmative. “We’re part of the team who assisted in collecting seeds for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway and specimens for other such ‘vaults’ across the world.” She then cocked her head to the side as I heard her sniff the air. “I see, so you haven’t looked at the documents that man provided you with.” She turned her head for two minutes, as if in deep thought, then placed her blue, glowing eyes upon me once more. “There are many people, thousands of people, who have come as far as you have, some are your family members, some are your co-workers, but they continue to live their lives peacefully with what they know, similar to indigenous tribes living beside lions, or towns living beside forests of wolves in Russia. Then there are those people, perhaps ten a year, who bypass their natural instincts, travel to the lion’s den, and are unfortunately added to the circle of life, like Jeffrey Fisher at the Seashell House Restaurant…” On her next statement, she lowered her eyes, her British accent became thicker, and my pulse elevated quickly. “Then there are a select few, like that man, who want to destroy the natural world’s order, and for that, they receive a very unnatural end, and bring others to a similar end.”
“But how can something that kills on such a large scale be natural to this place!” I found myself screaming at her, in the dark. I don’t know from what wells that vigor and valor drew from, but I’m glad it was drawn, for it pulled forth an answer indicating just how twisted her organization truly was. Her eyes disappeared in the shadows, then they reappeared.
“Equus caballus,” she said, “or modern, North American horses, are not native to this continent. True, native horses went extinct on North American 7,600 years ago. They were reintroduced in 1493 during Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Virgin Islands. The species were similar enough; they have caused no harmful ecological effects on the land. The same can be said of pelinobius belua, which was hunted to extinction 5,000 years ago on the North American continent.” When she stood, not knowing what to expect, I stepped back, she unfazed by the thud my back placed against the door. She rose to the surprising height of 5’8”, and I smelled her perfume: a strong odor of peaches, something I failed to notice before due to overwhelming fear. “Pelinobius belua actual adapts pretty well to the American ecosystem; it just doesn’t get along well with cats, dogs, or humans. They are also pretty intelligent, since they have large neural networks due to larger bodies.” During this relay of information, her monstrous appearance in the dark seemed to whittle due to the lightness of her tone while she discussed those monsters. Unfortunately, she soon caught herself, cleared her throat, then cut through the black with her gaze. “Do not look further into this,” she demanded, deepening her tone. I then heard a large, thud on my apartment roof, followed by thousands of scratches along the walls, on the floor, scrapes and tapping along window panes. My eyes searched the floor, the ceiling, every inch of space, but all I could see was darkness, even as the noise grew in intensity, driving me to madness.
“You decide your fate, Mr. Vieria: Ignorance or Death!” she screamed over the scratches and tapping. “Look no further into this!” I turned around to turn the handle, but the door shook on its hinges!
“Look no further into this!” she screamed again. Trapped, swallowed in hopelessness and a sea of horrific sounds I trembled to imagine the origin of, I fell in a corner of the room, shielded my ears, shut my eyes, and ordered her to stop, but the scratching and tapping pierced my ears, placed my mind in a state of abysmal terror.
“Look no further into this!” On her last scream, I heard the window shatter and shards of glass dance across the floor, but the scratching and tapping stopped. I was hesitant to open my eyes, for I knew something had entered the room with her and me. But the silence beckoned me, provided a slither of solace in my despairing situation. I peered from beyond my cowering, to see nothing. No sign of the woman with the glowing blue eyes, no giant hell spawn with hairy, stick legs the size of dogs, just glass scattered across the floor from a broken window. A warm breeze whistled through the room, and I knew the intruders were gone. I stood with legs of rubber, with eyes wide with fear, proceeded to the window, but I dared not look through it, for fear of witnessing a sight that would possess the last remnants of sanity I had. Instead, I packed a few belongings, including some clothes, toiletries, and my computer, before leaving my apartment in its wretched state.
For three days I stayed in my new room at the Red Roof Inn, a cheap yet comfortable, clean dwelling a little ways up the road from Eastville but before Exmore. For three days my only association with the outside world was Door Dash drivers delivering me food from KFC/Taco Bell up the road or the Hardees closer to Cheriton. My mind and body were paralyzed by fear, in the lobster’s claws of despair. I not only felt helpless and alone in my predicament, but thoughts of betrayal and paranoia pervaded my every thought. After all, who else knew the dark secret regarding these clandestine creatures on the Eastern Shore? How could they live with themselves knowing these horrific monstrosities lurked in their backyards and still refused to make potential victims aware of their presence? Who else knew? Did my co-workers at the Seashell House Restaurant know? Did the rest of the community know? Did my mother know? These questions solidified me in a fortress of the mind, my thoughts iron walls, my body cold stone. I was lost concerning what direction I should go with the terrible truths I unearthed, so I went in no direction. All of this would change on the 4th day, when a new revelation placed me on the path from which no salvation existed, towards brilliants truths, yet unspeakable depths.
I forgot to mention, during my three days of inactivity, other than my food, my only other comforts were the CRT television on the large dresser before the king-sized bed, my computer I kept closed on a stand meant for a lamp. For those three days, I only looked at the computer, knowing where my resolution would lie if I turned it on, apprehensive in going in that direction. So, on the morning of the fourth day perhaps from simple boredom, I turned on the television. It was already set to Channel 16, the local news channel on the T.V. network. Somberly, the newscaster described the house fire of a local, retired electronics engineer from the Air Force, named Clarence Bailey, caused by a malfunctioning circuit he personally configured. The segment ended with the solemn proclamation: “He passed at the age of 86.” At first, hearing this put me in a state of shock, reaffirming my mind into believing my experience with the blue-eyed woman wasn’t a fading phantasm, but a living nightmare, for it seemed too much of a coincidence such a fate befell the old man soon after our meeting. You’d think I would have fallen deeper into a depression, into an unrecoverable comatose of fear and inactivity after hearing this, but, oddly, the exact opposite happened. When I thought of Jeffrey Fisher, clutching his cross in cold hands because the Seashell acted like those unnatural horrors were “normal,” and the old man, who was forced into a life of sleeplessness and solitude that ended in a fiery grave, a flare of righteous indignation replaced all the terror my predicament provided. I turned off the television, turned on my HP laptop, plugged the old man’s USB key into it, then started my descent into an even darker abyss.
Upon opening the USB key files, indexed at the top list was an all capitalized text file labeled “READ ME.” Following standard protocol for installing a program on a computer, I opened the file. To my surprise, it wasn’t instructions on installing a program, but on accessing the Deep Web, unindexed webpages not accessible by a regular web browser. I followed most of the steps highlighted in the document, playing special attention to every step on protecting one’s privacy while accessing it. As instructed, I downloaded software for the VPN, a virtual private network, which enabled me to mask my computer’s physical location by saying it was actually somewhere else, or so as I understood it. The final step I performed, anxious to fuel my righteous fire of revenge, was the download of the Tor browser. With this done, I opened the first text document under the Read Me file, simply labeled “1532142,” and copied the 1st URL I saw in the document out of list of 50, pasted it in the address bar, the pressed the Enter key, my finger a trembling twig, my heart and blood furnaces of blazing fire. On viewing the contents, I felt I was drawn into a world I had never known, an underworld of abysmal horrors and terrors no human on Earth would have dared possible. The black page of the URL I entered revealed eye witness testimonies from Africa, South and North America, some dating as far back as the 1500s. There were even carbon dating, fossil records, and ancient stories hinting at the creatures’ existence even further, as far back 3000 B.C.
The next document I barely managed to view with my sanity intact, and the one after that my fingers wouldn’t respond in opening any further files of content. I repeated the process of copying a link from the next document in the URL, this one, surprisingly, leading to a link more disturbing than the last: It was a webpage of pictures. I thank God it didn’t contain thumbnails to the links themselves but only picture names, all of them a series of numbers, followed by either .jpg, .png, or .bmp. The first image I dared to double-click revealed a full picture of the horror I never wanted to see, in reality or in my worst dreams or hellscapes. The creature did indeed resemble a spider, but with a few changes making it a farcry from the eight-legged arachnids all humans respect and fear. It possessing eight legs was the only feature it shared with smaller arthropods of the same family, yet, since they appeared way too slender to sustain the bulk of its body, it raised my curiosity as to their composition. The body appeared in four bulky sections, consisting of a head, two thoraxes, as I believe they’re called, and a bulky back-end, the head and the back-end the largest portions of the creature. The yellow eyes, which were previously the greatest items of my concentrated fear, appeared innumerable, spreading all the way across the head, making me wonder how its sight must have been, and knowing it must be impossible for prey to escape its gaze. The two front legs extended directly from the sides of the head and formed small yet capable pincers at their end, reminding me of a scorpion’s pincers if they were attached to the head. The creature’s mouth, the oddest feature of all, didn’t resemble a spider’s fangs but a protruding sabertooth’s, a face of insectoid fangs with two large, needlelike incisors extending from the front. The last terrifying facts I observed were the mammalian hair that covered every inch of its form and its size, for the one in the picture stood the same height as the Ford pick-up truck beside it! I would have thought the photo enhanced or completely fabricated if I was a regular person, but my experiences made me know better. My entire body trembled at the unnatural sight, knew that, to the contrary of what the woman with the blue-eyes believed, these things were not as natural as dogs, cats, or fucking horses! They were creatures of an era of existence long gone, had no place with humanity in this modern world!
I was in such shock from seeing the full reality of that hell, I couldn’t return to my computer for several minutes. The time had probably lapsed for half an hour to a full hour before I touched it again, a decision I would regret worse than the sum of all errors in my existence. The next file linked to a deep webpage full of not only the .jpg and .png, but also .mpeg and .mp4. Worse yet, these file names weren’t random integers, but the names of people! Allan George, Shaunte Diggs, Diane Bowens, Jaquane Brickhouse, Johnson Family, Thompson Family… I was determined not to click on any of these files, until I saw a familiar name on the list… Jeffrey Smith. My hand reacted without though, hoping to see him captive, waving hello, or just smiling with that calm, warm disposition he always rained on us. The image I saw provided no hope, no solace, no light! I screamed as I sobbed silently, my vocal chords stretched to a volume I could never, or wish to, emulate. What I saw… I can’t describe it. What they did to his body was not only inhuman, but unnatural! I can’t think of any carnivore, even the deadly house cat toying with a mouse, that would go to such lengths with its prey! It would seem preferable if a lion caught his neck, a bear swiped his face, or a pack of ravenous wolves tore him to pieces. Even worse, far worse than what they were doing to him, was the look on his face. “What the hell could I mean by that,” you fucking ask? “What variety of death masks can a corpse make?” It wasn’t a corpse! I don’t know what the hell they did to him, or how it was possible, but Jeffrey was alive! They tore him to pieces, fed on his body, and did other unimaginable horrors to him, while he was still alive!
I couldn’t even bring myself to close the screen for two days; I just placed a sheet over it, unable to steel my nerves to face those files. For those two days, I felt a conflict of storming emotions, as if a tornado and a hurricane decided to share a handshake in my mind. I felt alone after realizing many others knew of these monsters, yet remained silent while their friends, family, and loved ones were their prey. I felt sad for the fate of Jeffrey Fisher and so many others because the populace remained compliant in these creatures’ existence. I also felt enraged the existence of these demons was treated as a conspiracy, while an organization protected them under white blanket of the world’s ignorance. Many emotions mixed within me, but none more prevalent than fear, for I knew myself powerless to do anything about the HSSP or the blissful ignorance gripping the Shore. What I did know was it wouldn’t help my state of mind to keep such a horrid image up on my screen, so I rebooted the computer, then removed the sheet, uncertain of what to do next with the blazing torch Clarence Bailey, the old man, left me. Unfortunately, the iron blade of destiny would decide my fate. As my computer rebooted, instead it going to the operating system log screen, a window popped up before a black screen, saying: “You should not have looked further into this.” The window then vanished, replaced by one requesting a Startup Password. Terror and anger twisting in twain, I snatched the power chord out the wall, slapped my screen down, then smashed my laptop repeatedly against the floor. The neighbors yelled for me to stop but I paid no heed. I smashed it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again
This is my last hope, my last light, because I’m sure I won’t survive another day. I’ve thought of killing myself, but I’m too much of a coward for the attempt, or even to leave my apartment. LOL, I never knew how much of a coward I was until faced with my life looking over a dark descent. Please learn from my example. Don’t take your trash to a can at night, but if you can’t help it, carry more protection than a cross around your neck, or friends who will abandon you at danger’s first breath. Also, I beg you, don’t carry it too far unless you’re a stronger person than I. The HSSP are real, the pelinobuis belua are everywhere, and no amount of ignorance, cowardice, or hate, will change that. I can hear them now as I write this, scratching on the ceiling, testing the windows. Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry. But you, you have to stay strong. Because if you don’t… if you don’t…
Copyright © 2020 MAYJOR Johnson