I can still recall, vividly, the news reports talking of bodies found with the heads of animals sewed on. I think they said somewhere upwards of thirty have been located. In fact it’s been a few months now and the number steadily increases. This killer is just too elusive, it seems they’ll never get him.
It’s all anyone’s been able to talk about lately, media outlets just won’t shut up about it. It’s even found its way into my friend Shane and I’s conversations. No one has taken lightly to the news. As if it couldn’t get any worse, what with the town running rampant to find the killer, my friend Alisha’s brother has gone missing.
He’s been missing for about three weeks now and they’ve begun to lose faith in the search. Alisha seems to be his only hope because she’s the only one who is still adamant that he could be alive. I’m not so sure though, but I haven’t told her that because I wanna keep hope alive.
She doesn’t seem to be getting much sleep, thoughts of her brother, possibly dying, keeping her awake. She constantly watches the news and follows the updates on the situation too. She surprised me today though. She told me they found him, but the surprise quickly died when I heard the shape they found his body in. All the while she was crying while telling me this. He had become yet another victim for the crazed animal head loving killer.
Through her telling me this I could see she craved vengeance as the tears went from sadness to anger. She began to tell me she knew what to do in order to stop this guy once and for all. I humored her, asking how she was gonna do it, she just said, “Trust me.” After about two weeks, the funeral service had come and gone, closed casket of course.
Later that night I decided to turn on the news. The story was about an apparent grave robbery that had happened not long ago. It looked like Alisha’s brother’s grave. It was strange. It had some sort of writing crudely etched into it. It gave me a chill to know that someone could desecrate a grave in that way.
I tried texting her to see if she was watching the news, but no response came. After about twenty failed messages I thought I’d pay a visit, can’t ever be too cautious with this sort of stuff. When I got to her house I knocked on the door but no one answered. No sooner had I begun to leave than Shane called me.
He sounded frantic, almost like he was being chased. He told me to come quickly, he needed my help with something. I asked where he was at, he told me he was at the town’s old power plant. “Why the hell would you be there?” I asked. He said, “Just trust me.”
Intrigued by this scenario, I agreed. Upon arrival I did my best to find an entrance. It wasn’t ideal, but I wound up choosing a broken window. Upon entry I realized that something seemed off about this place, I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Maybe it was the smell of nickel in the air. I looked around for a bit, calling out to Shane, but I heard no response. I began to grow uneasy.
It wasn’t long before I happened upon a set of stairs, the smell of nickel growing ever stronger. I made my way down, still calling for Shane and still getting no answer. At the bottom I found double doors. Upon walking in, I found out what the smell was, not nickel but blood, it was dripping from the walls, pooling into a drain in the middle of the floor. The sight of the bodies it came from was even worse.
They were hung on the wall by hooks. But their most prominent feature? An assortment of animal heads were sewn on to each one. There were also numbers beside them, ranging from one to thirty-one. Though, number thirty-one was missing. I scanned the room a bit more and found someone lying on the ground. “Are you OK?” I asked and got no response.
I walked over to them and checked their pulse, there wasn’t one. I decided to turn them over to see who they were. To my horror, I found that it was Shane. He had a note lying beside him.
It read, “I plead that you give me forgiveness for the atrocities I have committed in this world. It is with my dying breath that I confess to the murders of these thirty-one victims, their lives were cut far too short by my hand, do with me as you must heavenly father for I have unleashed a great evil upon this world and fear I must be punished.” The note ended there, I couldn’t believe it, Shane was always so nice, how could he do this? I didn’t have enough time to dwell on it. I began hearing what sounded like footsteps behind me.
I turned to see what it was. There it stood, a tall, muscular humanoid looking thing. But there was something not so human about it. In place of its head was the decaying, maggot infested remains of a dogs head with brains poking out one side while the other was intact. More terrifying than that, in its hands was a giant sledgehammer.
It began to approach me. I bolted out of the room, only to find that, on the outside at the top of the stairs, stood Alisha. I asked what she was doing there. She said, ”Checking on that worthless slab of meat lying dead in that room down there.” “How do you know about that?”, I asked.
What she said next shocked me, ”My brother told me.” I told her that’s impossible. “Not when I work my magic,” she said. I asked what she was talking about. She then brought up her brother’s grave robbery. She said, ”See, it wasn’t a grave robbery at all. In fact, that’s just what I wanted them to believe.
Truth is, I resurrected my brother, but he’s still technically dead, so I don’t think you stand a chance against him.” She then said, ”Well, I think you’ve seen enough, I’ll let him have his fun, after all, he’s exceptionally angry right now.” I was gonna ask why she was doing this, but she cut me off by closing and locking the door.
No sooner had she done that than her brother, or what was once her brother, stepped out. He began running towards me, sledgehammer drawn. He was stopping at nothing to kill me, solely because I was acquainted with the man I didn’t know had killed him. I tried running past him, but he pinned me to the ground. I struggled for a few seconds, losing oxygen with every passing one.
I managed to break free just as he swung the hammer. I wasn’t out of the woods yet though, I had to find a way out, and fast. I was already running to the room by the time he began giving chase again. I quickly scanned to find anything that resembled an exit.
To my surprise, I actually found one, a small vent tucked away at the top left corner of the ceiling. I ran over to it, took the cover off and climbed in, but as soon as I did, he grabbed my legs and began pulling me back. I kicked like a damn mule but he was still holding on tight. Then I decided the right place to kick him would be his exposed brain.
It only managed to stun him for a moment, but it was just long enough for me to break free. I crawled as fast as I could, all the while, he was screaming in a deep, guttural, inhuman voice, ”I’ll find you, no matter where you go, your blood will be mine. I’ll never stop hunting.”
I went till I saw light, crawled out and ran to my car and sped away, knowing now, I’d always have to look over my shoulder from now on.
