by Sergio Gomez
As he emerged out of the hiding spot, Ignacio took a backseat and let the monster take over.
Varias Caras swung the machete through the air as he charged at Chad. Despite the danger, Chad was frozen in a state of disbelief. Varias Caras hacked his head clean off his shoulders with a single swipe. The head sprinkled blood all over the dirt as it soared over the campsite. Chad’s decapitated body fell backward.
Varias Caras shifted his focus over to the woman, who’d had enough time to figure out what was going on and started running. It did little good for her, though, as she blindly ran into the picnic table in front of her. Paige tripped on one bench, flipped over the tabletop, and banged her head on the bench on the other side before hitting the ground.
She tried to pick herself up, but her limbs were jelly and she fell back to the ground. She started to crawl through the dirt, trying anything to get away, but it was futile. Varias Caras caught up to her and dropped a knee down into her back.
“PLEASE, NO! NO! DON’T KILL ME!” She tried to squirm from underneath him, but there was no give, it was like someone had just dropped a piano on her.
Varias Caras grabbed her head with both hands, and in a quick motion broke her neck. Her head was turned all the way around, so that the girl would have been looking up at him if she weren’t dead.
He looked at her face for a second. She was pretty, but she wouldn’t make a good mask. Her face was too small, and the skin was too soft. Even as leather, it would rip if he tried to squeeze his head into her face.
She’d be good for food, though.
He got off her and looked around again, making sure one last time that it was indeed just those two here. After a quick three-sixty sweep of the area, he was reassured. He picked up the girl and put her on his shoulder.
Later, he would return for the guy’s body and dismantle their entire camp setup. Tent, coolers, bags, all that. Their SUV he would drive deeper into the woods where no one would find it or to a nearby body of water where he would put it in neutral and then roll the vehicle into it, effectively erasing any traces of Chad Richardson and Paige Silver ever having been out here camping in these woods.
Of course, their families would eventually file missing person reports with the local police, but what good would that do?
By then, Ignacio would have already started to eat them.
Chapter 8
The barn door opened, and the afternoon light came pouring in, waking Nadine. She sat up, blinking against the sudden brightness straining her eyes.
Her eyes adjusted after a second or two, and she was able to make out the blobs of colors coming toward her as her captor. He was pushing a wheelbarrow, with two bodies piled on it. They were both naked, well-toned, young-looking (mid-twenties, if she had to guess), and covered in blood.
This didn’t shock or scare her anymore. After a few dozen times of watching her captor bring dead bodies into the barn, she’d become desensitized to seeing murder victims. When that’d happened, when dead bodies no longer repulsed her, no longer made her stomach queasy, she’d accepted this barn as her new reality. She was sure of two things: she’d never see the outside world again except for when her captor opened the barn door, and she would die here.
Varias Caras stopped with the wheelbarrow in front of her. Nadine saw one body was headless. The one stacked on top of it wasn’t, but the head was twisted around facing the wrong way.
“Good morning, mi hermosa.” He said to her. Good morning, my lovely. That was one of the ways he greeted her. Sometimes he called her beautiful, sometimes precious.
There was a sick satisfaction to hearing those terms of endearments. They made her feel good despite that they were coming from a person she hated, but he was the only human contact she’d had in… however long it was since she’d first woken up here. Hearing those words, and still being able to understand them, were the only things that kept her from losing her grip on the last shreds of her humanity she was holding onto.
Varias Caras bent down and planted a kiss on her forehead. His lips felt like warm, raw sausages against her skin. She shivered, and thought about pulling away anytime he did this, but she was afraid of how he’d react. She didn’t really have the energy to do it, anyway.
“I have food,” he said, looking at the dead bodies with a satisfied smile. Then he glanced over at the trough of beans and frowned at seeing it was almost empty. “I bring food for you later, okay?”
Nadine nodded.
“Have work to do first.” Varias Caras told her, tilting the wheelbarrow forward slightly. He started for another room in the barn, one that was located behind the wall Nadine was chained to.
It was the room she’d come to think of as the Butcher Room, because it was where he took the bodies of his victims to cut into pieces. He would emerge from that room with Ziplocs stuffed with cleaned, trimmed, raw meat. If she didn’t know any better, she would have assumed it was pieces of chicken or pork or maybe some wild bird. But she did know better, and she didn’t need to ever see inside the room to know that that was where he turned the humans he killed into the cuts of meat he cooked.
Nadine had no choice but to listen to the sound of a butcher knife slamming against a wooden surface in the other room. Occasionally, clumps of meat would hit the ground with wet thuds. Bones would crack as they were pulled apart from each other. A trash bag would rustle as unwanted parts of the bodies were thrown in it. Meanwhile, Nadine reluctantly pictured what was happening in the Butcher Room, and she wanted to cry, but there was no spirit left in her broken soul to do so.
Chapter 9
The Green Lizard was a pretty standard small-town bar. Most of the place was taken up by a wooden bar with stools in front of it. Small tables with silver napkin holders and condiment containers on them were crammed against the walls, and more stools sat on either side of them. There was a colorful jukebox that lit up purple, blue, red, yellow, and orange all night long that didn’t see any action until later at night, when the patrons were drunk (or close to drunk) and they wanted to sing along with “Sweet Home Alabama” or sway to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”
Luckily, it was too early in the night for the scene to turn into that and there were only three patrons in the bar when Molly and Emeril came in. The most raucous person in there was a short man in plumber’s coveralls. A big, shiny wrench hung from the side of his utility belt in comical fashion, and he was throwing his hands through the air as he complained to the bar tender about his work day. Opposite the plumber was a burly old man who was staring through the glass of dark beer in front of him. He looked like he wouldn’t bat an eyelid if you waved your hand between his gaze and his drink.
The man Molly and Emeril were looking for was at a corner table, sitting underneath a row of framed Beatles records hanging on the wall. The two of them must have stuck out as outsiders, because Harold Buckley immediately waved to them. Molly couldn’t help but notice the fingerless gloves the man was wearing.
“Hey there folks,” the lanky bartender greeted them. He seemed to be relieved at the temporary distraction from the plumber’s ear beating. “Can I grab ya something to drink?”
Emeril shook his head. “No, thank you. We’re here to meet somebody.”
“Sure,” the bartender said. “Go on right ahead. If ya need anything, I’m here all night.”
“Thank you,” Molly said.
They both went over to the table where Harold Buckley was sitting with a cold beer and a plate of cheese fries in front of him. Besides the leather gloves, Harold wore a wrinkled shirt with a faded Dr. Pepper logo on it. His shaggy hair was a disheveled mess on his head, and he reeked of marijuana.
“Hey, you the ones who were looking for me last night?” Harold asked, smiling at them.
Apparently, the bartender had told Harold about the phone call Emeril made last night.
“Yes,” Emeril said, sticking his hand out to him. “My name is Emeril Dantes.”
Harold shook hi
s hand. “Harold Buckley.”
Molly and Harold shook hands and introduced themselves. Then Emeril and Molly sat on the stools across from him.
“What can I do for you?” Harold said, picking up a cheese fry and munching on it.
“We’re paranormal investigators doing research in the area,” Emeril said, cutting to the chase. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Whoa.” Harold dropped the half bitten french fry on his plate and sat up. He looked over at Molly, then back to Emeril. This was like a dream come true for a conspiracy theorist like him. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” Emeril said. “Seriously.”
“That’s… rad.” Harold shook his head to re-center himself, then said, “Well, what’re you researching exactly?”
“The disappearances that happen in the woods around here.” Emeril left it vague on purpose, to see what he would volunteer.
“Ah,” Harold said, grinning from ear to ear. It was rare that he ever had these kinds of conversations outside of the internet forums he frequented. Most people in real life lost interest in these sorts of topics quickly. Either that, or feigned interest out of courtesy—which was just as much of a bummer. “You want to know about Camp Slaughter?”
“Camp what?” Emeril wasn’t pretending here. He didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Camp Slaughter,” Harold repeated.
“Hold on,” it was Molly who interjected. “Harold, do you mind if I record this?”
“Like video?”
“Yeah,” Molly said. “For a film we’re doing on our investigation.”
“Someone pinch me,” Harold laughed.
“What?” Emeril said again.
Harold laughed harder. “Nothing. Just, wow. I can’t believe I’m going to be in a film about Camp Slaughter.”
Molly took that statement as his agreement to being recorded and took her cell phone out. It was easier to do these types of interviews from her phone rather than with her camera, even if the quality wasn’t as good, because the camera attracted too much attention in public places like bars. Using the camera would mean she’d have to edit out all the distractions of curious passersby asking what they were doing or if they were making a movie to turn the recording into a seamless interview. The phone was more discrete and less interesting to those not involved. It was OK, though, because sometimes the spliced in low-res scenes added to the atmosphere of the documentary.
Molly pulled the plastic stand on the back of her phone case and pointed the camera at Harold.
“You recording already?” he asked, running a hand through his messy hair.
“Yeah,” she said, moving the phone to get him more centered into the frame. “Okay, go ahead. You guys can continue.”
“Mm-hmm,” Emeril said. “Let’s back up a little for the sake of the camera and introduce yourself.”
Harold’s grin somehow grew. “My name is Harold Buckley. I’m thirty-four years old. Um, I work at a mechanic repair shop. I have no kids. I own a dog—a mutt, some sort of bulldog mix, I think. I’m really into conspiracies and scrimshaw—”
“Okay, Mister Buckley. That’s quite fascinating, but more than enough for an introduction,” Emeril said, giving him a fake smile.
Harold fidgeted in his seat and let out a nervous chuckle. “Okay, okay. Sorry. That was a joke, by the way—the scrimshaw bit, I don’t actually do that.”
“Right,” Emeril said. “Try to act natural, Mister Buckley. Pretend the camera isn’t even there. We can cut out any flubs or stumbles, so there’s no pressure.”
“Sorry,” he apologized again, then fixed the glasses on his face. “Not every day you get to be in a movie, you know?”
“We know,” Molly said.
“You were telling us about a Camp something-or-other before we started filming,” Emeril reminded him.
“Ah, yes, yes.” And bringing the topic back to conspiracies seemed to be the key to Harold relaxing. “You said you were investigating the people who go missing in the woods, right?”
“Yes.”
“The word is that those people have all found a place in the woods called Camp Slaughter. It’s supposedly a campsite that’s haunted by malevolent spirits, and anyone who gets near it is killed by the ghosts.”
“Have you ever seen this so-called Camp Slaughter yourself?”
Harold shook his head. “Heck no. The woods give me the heebie-jeebies. I’ve just done extensive research on the place from behind my keyboard. Safer that way, right?”
“So, is this Camp Slaughter place real?”
“Who knows? No one’s gotten pictures of it, or if they have, they didn’t live to share them.” Harold ran one gloved hand through his hair again. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I don’t think it’s ghosts or anything goofy like that out there.”
In Emeril’s mind, Harold Buckley had just graduated from whack job to a potential legitimate source. “What do you mean by that, Mister Buckley?”
“Oh, ho, ho, are your pants on tight, chums?”
“Uh, sure,” Emeril said, questioning his own judgment for the moment.
“I think the ghost stuff is a load of bunk. I think what actually happens is that there’s some cannibal out there—maybe even a whole family—that kills these people in the woods for food.”
“What leads you to think that?” Emeril asked.
“Remember how I said there’s no pictures of Camp Slaughter?”
“Yes,” Emeril said, a tad annoyed considering the man had just said that a few seconds ago.
“That’s not quite entirely true.” Harold reached into the pocket of his dingey chino pants and pulled out his massive cell phone. He tapped a few buttons on the screen, then held it out to them.
The picture on the phone made their stomachs lurch and glad they hadn’t eaten dinner yet. They were looking at a blurry picture of a necklace made of human ears dangling up high on a tree.
“Holy shit,” Molly said. “Are those human ears?”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Harold said, pointing at her. “Someone posted this picture anonymously online. No one has any idea who the source is.”
“How can you be sure that this is even in the woods around here?” Emeril asked, folding his arms across his chest.
“I guess you never can be, but this picture was uploaded in an album with pictures from woods that are clearly the ones around here. There were multiple pictures of Willow Lake and the cliff where Hawk’s View Trail ends.”
Those were two landmarks that Andy Cameron had also brought up when he thought Emeril and Molly were trying to rent out his cabin for a summer vacation. This strange character seemed to be more and more promising by the second.
“Pretty freaky, huh?” Harold said, putting the phone down.
“What’s this have to do with the Camp Slaughter place?”
“Oh!” Harold smacked himself on the forehead. The leather from the gloves muffled the sound some. “I almost forgot.”
He pinched his fingers over the phone screen to zoom in on the picture, then turned the phone over to them. “See those blurry, squarish things in the back? People online debate for hours whether those pixels are cabins or not. Of course, the ones who think they’re cabins also think that’s Camp Slaughter back there.”
Emeril nodded. “Fascinating.”
“Indeed, it is,” Harold said.
“A campsite with stories of ghosts and evidence of cannibalism happening near it.” Emeril said this more to himself, but the next question was very much directed at Harold Buckley. “Tell me, which do you think is more likely?”
Harold stuck the phone back in his pocket and grinned from ear to ear again. “Come on, Mister Dantes, you’re the paranormal investigator. You know which one I would bet on to be true.”
“For the camera,” Molly said to him. “Can you say which one you think is more likely for the camera?”
“Sure,
” Harold said, and looked right into the iPhone’s camera lens when he said, “Methinks there’s some human eating human out there.”
Emeril didn’t respond, but he agreed with Harold Buckley—and something told him Molly did, too. But she didn’t say anything, either.
This interview turned out to be more informative than they thought it would’ve been, and there was a lot for them to process.
A lot to chew on, if you will.
Chapter 10
“Whatever, I don’t give a flying fuck!” Wayne Briggs screamed into his Xbox headset.
The friends he was playing Fortnite with laughed at his outburst, so he took the headphones off and slammed them on the floor. “You guys are a bunch of virgin pussies anyway!”
In the game sphere, it didn’t matter that Wayne himself was a virgin, too. An insult was an insult.
Today was an off day. Usually he was pretty good at the game, but he found himself at the receiving end of multiple kill streaks for the last hour or so, and his friends had been letting him know that he sucked relentlessly.
Whatever. Wayne was getting bored of the game, anyway, considering he’d been playing it nonstop since school let out. The only breaks he’d taken were to eat, hit the bathroom, watch some Twitch, or to masturbate.
As a result, his room smelled like farts, used socks, and whatever microwavable meals he was gorging on that day. It was only a matter of time until the scent would travel out into the corridor and his parents or Gavin would yell at him to clean his room. Until then, fuck cleaning, he thought. It was summer.
Now that he had the headset off, he could hear his brother talking on the phone down the hallway in his own room. Wayne couldn’t make out the words exactly, but the tone of what he was saying was upbeat. He tiptoed (though he wasn’t sure why) across the room, and slowly opened the door. He stuck his head out in the hallway to better hear what his brother was saying.
“Yeah, bro. Tomorrow at nine AM.” There was pause as Gavin waited for a reply from the other end. “It’s about an eight hour drive.”
