I Went Undercover to a Body Farm
Every flashlight in Moreau Bay scoured the forest for my missing wife, Jemma. All except his. His light pointed to the open water and lit a path to his strange little island about a kilometer from the coast. Two weeks passed with no signs of her and all I thought about was the outcast who fled her search party. She had a funeral, a plot in the cemetery, and a headstone inscribed with her name, but she was still out there. No one is presumed dead after two weeks. I didn’t know what happened to her, I was convinced it had something to do with the hermit named Peter Vaughn. “We don’t get many pretty faces here. Gotta head down to Bécancour for that” Peter told today’s guest. His voice grated me like a fly buzzing by my ear but never in sight. The three of us huddled in the sickly musk of Corpse 14. A specimen still in the early stage of active decay despite being here three weeks before my arrival. The cold in northern Ontario froze time itself it seemed. Peter called her Carol Graham. An elderly woman who at the time of her death had dedicated her life to a small bakery in Moreau Bay which, after her passing, was operated by her daughter. I clenched my teeth when he told me the story of a corpse. Peter Vaughn, a man who gushed over the dead and abandoned the living. Even in her most dire moment. I pulled a dying flower from my pocket, encased in a plastic sleeve. I rubbed my thumb over the pistil until I was calm again. As much as I wanted to put a fist through his face, it wasn’t in her best interest to keep calm. Our guest didn’t acknowledge Peter. His knees quivered like a frightened child. He slipped his hand into his coat sleeve to scratch at the underbelly of his forearm. His eyes were expressionless and locked on Corpse 14. A typical, above-board body farm would exist for scientific purposes. They would be used to study the decay process and serve as a reference for law enforcement. Law enforcement never came to the island. Only two types of people paid for a look at Peter’s horror show. Creeps, and creeps pretending to be writers. Our guest that day was the latter. “She had a dog. Unfortunately, the dog got hungry before the cops got to her.” Peter explained. Corpse 14 had deep gashes through the face that dug into the skull. Its face was unrecognizable, something it had in common with every other corpse I monitored on the southern side of the island. Though I was never permitted to go north of the main cabin, I was sure they were equally mangled. I had no clue how one would acquire bodies donated to science but these would be the cheap ones a piece of shit farm like Peter could afford. “A dog.” The guest rattled before slowly twisting his head to meet Peter’s eyes. The guy’s gurgly voice turned Peter’s skin paste-white behind his grey-tainted beard. The sight almost allowed my sympathy to crack through my disdain for the man. Almost. “Well. Anything else we can do for you?” Peter asked. The guest locked his gaze with Peter for a few more achingly long moments before he turned and swayed southward towards the dock. His knees still wobbled with each step. “What was this guy’s name?” Peter asked me under his breath. “Jacob Highsmith,” I said. “I hope Jacob doesn’t use a pen name. I want to avoid this weirdo’s writing like the plague.” Peter said with a grin. I reciprocated with an unconvincing chuckle while watching Jacob Highsmith step further down the southbound path. The more I watched him, the less I felt his wobbly knees resembled a frightened child. It was more like a newborn fawn, getting used to the weight of its new body. He took the first turn on the path and disappeared into the trees. “Same goes for you too, Harrison!” Peter added with a chummy jab of his elbow and a cigarette-toothed laugh. Harrison was my real name. I scoured the papers before my arrival on the island to make sure I wasn’t named. Peter also wasn’t a social butterfly so I knew he wouldn’t have heard my name around town. For the first time since I stepped foot on the disgusting island, I genuinely laughed too. I knew my cover story worked. To Peter, I was another creep pretending to be a writer. “Can you paddle him to town? I’ll make the rounds on the southside this evening.” Peter asked when his laughter died down. I thought I’d rather spend time with the corpses than Jacob Highsmith, but I obliged and hurried after the creep. On the path, the trees masked most of the remaining sunlight. My flashlight gave a dim, orange glow to the dirt ahead. I knew I was only five corpses from reaching the dock, so with each plume of rotted stench I walked through, I counted. Corpse 15, 16, then 17 passed with no sign of Jacob. The man moved with the speed and grace of a toddler. He couldn’t have gone far. I flicked the light through trees and only found low-hanging branches. The path behind me was empty as well. Only the wind howling through the woods accompanied me. An urge to shout out to him was immediately squashed by a sharp snap coming from the trees behind me. I pointed my flashlight where the sound originated and found nothing. I picked up the pace. My light shot side to side to catch each snap and I only moved forward when I confirmed it was a branch. Instincts pricked at my stomach to tell me I was being watched by hidden eyes. As I walked into the sharp stench of Corpse 18 I heard a whisper. It was soft and blended seamlessly into the breeze. I couldn’t tell what it said but its pattern was human and far too high-pitched to be Jacob. I froze for an instant before frantically shaking the flashlight’s beam through the trees. A figure moved among the branches. With a full head of steam, I plowed through the smell of Corpse 18 and straight into the clearing of the coast. The water lapped against the muddy beach and the last sliver of sunlight was made a little brighter as it bounced off of the fishy lake and warmed my face. Jacob was nowhere to be found. I rationalized it must have been him in the woods. He must have been trying to get a rise out of me. “Jacob! Cut the shit man, you gotta go!” I shouted into the woods, but only silence was returned. “You’ve got five minutes! If your ass isn’t in the boat you can keep it in the woods!” I turned and stepped out onto the dock. Each plank of wood yelped under my weight. I kept my light down to avoid the holes that showed the water below. After a few steps, the dock came to an end. The cleat the boat was tied to only held a rope, severed a half meter from the knot. The small two-seater that once swayed atop the waves, sat at the bottom of the lake. Holes punctured the boat’s floor. Its edges were beaten and crushed like a soda can. I couldn’t believe it. No person could do such damage to a boat. Maybe a bear, but how? The island had no animals aside from the occasional duck stopping for a rest. I stepped off of the dock and examined the mud for a clue as to what did this. Hoof tracks strung from the edge of the dock among the cluster of shoe prints. I followed the tracks all the way to the treeline until I heard the noise again. This time it was distinct. “I’m so hungry, Dad” The unfamiliar, high-pitched voice of a young boy pleaded to me from deep in the trees behind the bushes. I shined my light over them and only caught a glimpse. A full rack of antlers swayed side to side and vanished back into the shadows. I went back to the dock in the morning. With each step, I surveyed the forest and found no sign of the antlers or children. Had I mistaken branches for a full rack of antlers? Had I hallucinated the boy’s voice? Unlikely. But I had to know for sure. I passed the unwelcoming stench of Corpse 18 and saw the dock. I searched over the bushes and past the treeline and again it was empty. Only branches, none of which resembled antlers with their movement in the wind. The frigid nights hardened the muddy grounds and preserved the evidence of life from the night prior. I searched the water’s edge first. I hoped to find the spot at which the deer swam ashore but found nothing. I searched every inch of the beach clearing and the hoof prints only started at the end of the dock’s wood planks and led into the woods. It was as if the animal docked before coming ashore. All of the surrounding shoe prints were too large to be mistaken for children. I followed my shoe prints from the night prior as they trailed beside the hoofs. They were too similar. They were spread apart in an identical pattern. The animal seemed to walk on two feet. I heard the rumble of an engine. “Hi there! Mr. Vaughn not round today?” Called a voice from over the water. I turned to see the mailman’s familiar black, unkempt beard wrapped around his jaw and topped with a bulbous, cherry-red nose. I recoiled at the sight of him. The mail man was sure to be familiar with my wife’s disappearance. It was possible he knew my face, and could blow my cover. But, nothing was around to mask myself. So I threw the hood of my coat over my head and hoped for the best. “He’s caught up in something,” I called back. “No trouble in the slightest. I s’pose I’m running pretty early this morning.” He assured me. I felt his eyes study my face. The rusted gears in his brain churned to pinpoint why I looked so familiar. I wiped my brow to break eye contact. He continued. “Anyways, I’m supposed to hand-deliver Mr. Vaughn’s mail but you’ll do just as fine I imagine.” He pulled a sealed envelope from his bag. I kept my eyes to the ground and hoped the brim of my hood masked my face as I took it from his hand. “I s’pose it fell off my desk at the office so it’s a few days late getting here. Boss said it had to get here ‘pronto’. I figure it don’t get more ‘pronto’ than the butt-crack of dawn eh?” He gave his own joke a laugh before turning his attention to the mangled boat on the lake floor. “Goodness. You know, I can have a new boat ordered for you. I don’t think Davey’s got any more in the shop so it may be a few weeks.” “That would be good,” I said as short as possible. “Yeah well… Have Pete radio in when he’s got his payment ready. And same goes for if you folks need anything in the meantime… And ‘course I’ll come round when there’s mail to bring.” “Thanks. Will do,” I said before turning towards the treeline to retreat. I heard his boat engine sputter before roaring again, ready to take him back to the mainland. I took a sigh of relief at the close call, before he screamed over the volume of his engine. “And I was real sorry to hear about your wife. It was a damn shame.” Shit. Snow started to fall on the walk back to the cabin. I hated the snow, especially on this island. It snowed about half a meter the first week I was on the island and we had to clear the snow off of the corpses for our daily inspections. I nearly vomited when my pinky slipped into one of the bullet craters in Corpse 16’s skull. I couldn’t dwell on the memory. All I thought about was how I was going to keep the mailman’s mouth shut and the contents of this letter. What was so important that it had to be brought out immediately? I considered ripping it open and taking a look, but doing so would ruin the rapport I’ve built with Peter. In the time I spent plotting ways to open the letter, I made it back to the cabin. The fireplace burned in the living room. I slipped my coat off and threw it to the standing coat rack before sitting on one of the rocking chairs in front of the fire. As I bent over to take off my boots I noticed Peter’s office door was ajar down the hall. I never stepped foot in the room until then and Peter made a point of keeping it shut. I never wanted to give Peter a reason to not trust me so I never questioned it. But I had his trust, and it was time to find answers. Hell, at the bare minimum, he might have some glue in there. If I found it, I steamed the letter open and glued it back with Peter never knowing the difference. I tapped on the cracked door. The thought of him answering didn’t occur to me until I had already tapped. I should have prepared a reason for me to knock but thankfully, it wasn’t needed. The other side of the door remained silent. I nudged it open. A solid oak executive desk sat facing the door and lit by the window light. Its surface was clean except for a small reading lamp and the CB radio. The refrigerator hum filled the room as it preserved our rations for the coming weeks. Besides it was a gas can left without a purpose since there was no longer a boat to fill. To the right mounted above a shelf was a single-barrel shotgun. On the shelf itself sat a box of shotgun cartridges, half empty. I took a step in and turned to see a large corkboard hanging beside the door. A collection of about 100 faces stared back at me. Some were sketches, a few were clearly cut from family photos, but the majority were clipped from the obituaries. The obituaries appeared to be sorted by time of death. I assumed the same order applied to the pictures not clipped from the obituaries, including the most recent photo of a boy. He couldn’t have been older than seven. He gave a bright grin with a hole where his incisor would be. The oldest picture in the lineup was the Moreau family. If you had heard of Moreau Bay, its namesake the Moreau family is likely why. They were the first family to settle in the area back in the late 1600s when a heavy snow sealed them away from their trade route. Without a high crop yield, death was a certainty. A coin flip between freezing and starvation. When the snow melted, all that remained of the family of eight was the eldest son, Louis Moreau, and his family’s bones covered in his teeth marks. Though distant family members wrote they had seen the other seven members since the incident, Louis was the only confirmed survivor. I took a step back again to gaze over the mass of paper faces when I noticed a single word above them all written in bold red ‘BEWARE’. I chuckled. “The nut job must be a ghost hunter or something,” I muttered to myself. I went back behind the desk and yanked at the drawer but it didn’t budge. Locked. As I looked around the room I caught a blur through the window. A figure walked into the northern forest, forbidden territory for me. I couldn’t tell who it was, but I knew it was human. I pulled the flower from my pocket and rubbed my thumb over the pistil. I knew if Peter had secrets about Jemma, he wouldn’t keep them under the same roof as someone he just met. He would keep them in the north woods, where I wasn’t allowed to go. So with every ounce of my being wanting to stay in the cabin, it was in her best interest if I went. So, I grabbed my coat and hurried after the figure before the heavy snow set in. The cold pierced straight through my coat. Each step I took down the northern path crunched my prints into the light dusting of snow. I told myself the figure would be around the next corner but the winding path kept it hidden. I hurried my pace, but whoever I saw stayed out of sight. Their footprints kept me from questioning their existence but it seemed I would never catch up to them. All I found were the corpses. Dark clouds rolled in and suffocated the sunlight. The snow would soon come down like a blanket and cover the tracks. I needed to catch up as quickly as possible. If the path continued to twist, it would be a shortcut through the woods before I met it again. The tree canopy would catch some of the falling snow too. I stepped into the woods and headed north. Branches of snow-capped spruce needles pricked my hands as I shoved them out of my way. The smell of evergreen trees was a far better alternative than the occasional puffs of rot along the path, but I only saw needles. A sharp snap made me jolt before noticing the crushed pine cone under my boot. I laughed it off and continued shoveling branches to my side. The snowflakes grew with each step. Their flurry filled the space between the trees. I looked all around me. Branches and snow, branches and snow. The fog from my panicked breath blurred my vision even further, adding to the suffocation. It’s like the woods swallowed me whole with no hope of escaping. Branches and snow. Which way was north? Which way did I come from? I was in a deep sea of branches and snow. A sharp crack shot to my ears. I jumped and picked up my boot to look for the crushed pinecone. But it was only snow. Whatever made the sound, was perfectly hidden by the woods. My lungs sucked in air rapidly and set off a smoke signal. A beacon for whatever staked behind the branches. Was it Jacob? The deer? The hungry kid? Had I gone mad? I was not going to move until I knew, even if it meant being buried alive by the quiet snowfall. I stood until my toes went numb. The more time passed with silence, the more I rationalized. It could have been a branch that snapped under the weight of the snow. The thought put me at ease again. A crunch of snow beneath a heavy step snapped panic through my body. I sprinted through the branches as fast as I could as they smacked against my cold, numb face. They broke as their thin arms tried to hold me back. Stomps and snaps were just behind me. It ran so close I heard it breathe. An echo of my own but raspy and guttural. The sweet smell of rot hit me. The path was close. I didn’t care how close it was or if I planted my foot through the corpse’s liquified guts, I needed out of those woods. It stomped at my heels. I felt its breath on the back of my neck. When I felt I was a razor’s edge from its grasp, the woods released me. I fell into the open space facing the wound I opened into the treeline. I scrambled backward to ensure I was safely out of reach. Not a single branch moved. The woods were completely silent, like nothing happened. I took a moment to ease my panic before orienting myself. The scent of rot was still strong and the snow wasn’t deep enough to bury the corpses entirely, but there wasn’t a body in sight. I looked around and realized I wasn’t on the path at all. It was a circular clearing with a small structure at the center. A shed with a red, rusted door. The aged hasp drilled into the door waved in the wind. The padlock, whose job it was to keep the door closed, was missing. I took a curious step toward the building. The pop of the door seal sent me into another panic. I rushed behind the foliage before the shrill squeal of door hinges revealed Peter. I strained my eyes to focus through the snow flurry. His body shielded the contents of the shed before sending it into darkness with the flick of a light switch. He shoved the door shut behind him. He pulled a padlock from his pocket and locked the door before turning and heading on the path to the cabin. The deathly odor was overwhelming. My eyes watered in the pungent stench. I must have been standing right on top of the putrid husk. I vomited. My puddle of bile spatted in the snow at the edge of the forest. It landed in a perfect divot in the snow. I looked at the strange divot closer. It was the perfect shape of a body. Posed with its feet together and arms at its side like all the others. I saw where the shoulders would meet the neck and the round imprint of its head at the top. “The dog lies.” A gurgly, deep voice lisped in a hushed tone directly into my ear and I flung myself from the woods. I turned to see the source of the words and my heart banged against my ribs. Hidden in the shadows of the tree branches and a flurry of snow was a man. The dim light showed the edge of his sunken cheek. He swayed ever so slightly in the dark before turning away to allow the light to shine on the pulpy remains of his face. Such a grisly, mutilated mess of flesh and skull could only be left by a shotgun blast. The run back to the cabin was grueling. I stuck strictly to the path and sprinted until my lungs ached. Mercifully, I made it to the cabin. I stomped the snow off of my boots at the entry door and hurried to the window to make sure the corpse hadn’t followed me. “Fire’s warm.” I jumped at the voice, the image of the man’s crater of a face was seared into my head. It was Peter who creaked back and forth in his rocking chair. He gestured to the identical one beside him. Between the boat, the whispers and the talking body I didn’t know what to tell him, or if I should at all. I wanted to slink back to my room and not mention a word to him before I dug up more information but I couldn’t deny, the fire did look warm.I took a seat in the rocking chair, removed my boots, and extended my feet as close to the flame as possible as I soaked in the smell of charred logs. “I was making my rounds this evening and I usually know where everyone is… I couldn’t find old Whittington though. He’s the last fellow on my walk.” Peter said plainly. Crater face. I gave a performative ‘hmm’ I hoped was convincing but if he saw my eyes widen, I would be caught. My mind bounced around the possibilities if I told him what I saw. Would he forgive me for being on the northern side of the island? Would he think the cabin fever got me and send me home with no answers to Jemma’s disappearance? Had I seen something he wanted to be kept secret? I stayed quiet. I pulled the flower from my pocket to calm the barbed wire that constricted my gut but kept it at my hip so he wouldn’t notice. “What you got there?” He asked. “It’s uhh…” I stalled for a lie to come in the silence. The flower still had specks of hopeful purple. They shined from the decay surrounding them. I wasn’t able to lie, not about her. “It was my wife’s… It was the last flower I hadn’t picked for her… God, she loved that garden. She could make a cactus grow on ice if she wanted… I always caught her on her knees out in the backyard digging in the dirt. When she was done she’d come in the house and have dirt packed under her nails because she didn’t wear gloves, said they made her clumsy.” This was the second time I smiled on the island. I took a glance at Peter and he had a smile hidden under his wiry beard. “What do you miss about her… You know, when you’re here.” Peter asked. I didn’t answer though. I was focused on the flower I suffocated in a plastic sleeve. It was such a vibrant purple when I cut it. Now the dots of purple were fleeting. Peter pulled his wallet from his back pocket and opened it to a picture. I squinted to see the picture in detail and I was sure it was familiar but I couldn’t make it out. “I lost my boy a while back… I uh- I remember one day he ran in the house and he couldn’t have been more than six at the time… but he comes running in and he says ‘Dad I’m so sorry. Dad, I don’t know what happened.'” He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Seems silly thinking about him so worked up now, but what he did was he’d sent a baseball straight through the garage window… he had this face though… like the world was about to end. Like he’d caused so much trouble, hell would open up and take him whole… It sounds stupid but that’s what I miss.” He stared at the small picture in his wallet before continuing, I only made out a familiar toothless grin on the boy. That’s when it clicked. It was the same boy that ended his wall of faces. “If I could just see that face again. And really know it’s him, you know? Then, he would say ‘Dad,’ -” He sniffed. “He’d say ‘Dad, sorry… sorry I’ve been gone for so long…’ and I’d just say it’s alright you know?… and it would be.” He sniffed again and remained silent. I tucked the flower back into my pocket. I was frozen. I racked my mind for the perfect phrase. A meaningful string of words to ease his burden. “I miss her hair.” I blurted out. The fire applauded my blunder. He chuckled. A chuckle that rolled into a full laugh as he slapped me on the knee. I started to laugh too. Peter sighed before he continued. “Hey, I’m going to radio the post office. Must’ve missed the mailman today.” He said. I felt the barbed wire tighten again. If he got through to the mailman he would out me for sure. As much as I wanted to see what was in the letter, I had to sacrifice it. “Actually it already came. Should be in my coat there.” I said. He felt around the pockets of my coat and pulled out the envelope with a thankful nod. On his way back to his office he placed his hand on my shoulder. “She would’ve wanted you to make good with the life you have left.” He gave my shoulder a couple of assuring pats and drug my chance at information into his office. I thought back to what the crater face whispered. ‘The dog lies.’ Peter’s door slammed open against the wall. He tore through the living room, bolted through the front door, and into the deepening snow. I stood to watch through the living room window as he cut through the snow and headed south towards the boat dock. With Peter’s office door wide open, I had to know the reason he was so terrified. The gun, radio, refrigerator, gas can and even his board of faces all seemed untouched. But the previously locked desk drawer was left open and stuffed with papers. I pulled the page on top out and read. PATRICK WHITTINGTONDECEASED: CANCERDATE: 2025-11-24 Beside the writing was a picture of an old man and below was a long string of coordinates. I grabbed another page from the drawer. CAROL GRAHAMDECEASED: SURGERY COMPLICATIONSDATE: 2025-10-13 Again, below were coordinates, and beside was a picture. Only because of the familiar chin was I able to identify her. This was Corpse 14. If this was to be believed she didn’t die at home with a dog. I rifled through the papers, paying close attention to the causes of death. HEART DISEASE, STROKE, LIVER FAILURE, OLD AGE, OLD AGE so on and so on. Only a couple of car crashes in the stack could have caused facial damage. The rest were unexplainable. On the desk was the envelope I received from the mailman. The seal was crudely torn open and its insides removed. I looked around the desk to find the letter it held until I found it alone on the floor. I picked it up and turned it over to read the message. It was the same as the others. Coordinates, a picture of a familiar face, and the message. JACOB HIGHSMITHDECEASED: OVERDOSE.DATE: 2025-1-14 A full week prior to when he set foot on the island. Knock, knock, knock. The sound was faint from within Peter’s office. I shoved the letters back into the desk drawer before I slammed it shut and stopped to listen closer. I was alone. My breath and heart worked to make the only noise in the cabin. Knock… knock…knock. This time they were followed by a muffled voice. Without hesitation, I grabbed the shotgun from the wall and stuffed a handful of cartridges into my pocket before sneaking back into the living room. It was empty. Knock…knock…knock. “It’s cold out here… I’m so hungry.” The voice ached. I snapped the gun open, slid a cartridge into the barrel, and clapped it shut again. I wedged the stock into the pit of my arm and listened. The voice had a rattle like a diamondback. It was him. Jacob Highsmith, the creep who pretended to be a writer the day before. A man who, according to the letter, was dead. Yet, he stood on the other side of the door. Knock…knock…knock. “It’s cold out here… I’m so hungry.” He pleaded again. It sounded the exact same way – like he replayed a recording. I raised the barrel to the solid wood door between us as quietly as possible. My heart pounded at my ribs as I waited for the wood door to splinter at the lock and swing open. I put my finger on the trigger. I assured myself I was ready to pull it if need be though I didn’t believe it. I pleaded again and again in my mind to hear his feet go down the steps and back to the woods, but he rattled instead. “I hear your breath…” My lungs halted. I felt my bones turn to ice at his words, and still he continued. “It sounds angry… angry for a looong time…” He said before what I only imagined was a chuckle, but it sounded closer to a rasp. “Because your flower girl is pushing daisies?” Again, it rasped. I gritted my teeth and strangled the barrel of my gun to keep quiet while he continued to rasp and hack at my misfortune from the other side of a door. I wanted to open it. I didn’t have to assure myself. I wanted to pull the trigger. A sharp crack came from the other side of the door followed by an immediate wail. “Pushing daisies!” It repeated after another crack and wail. This time he sounded different, younger even. A flurry of pops and cracks broke up his laughter. POP, SNAP, POP. Through the small gap was a sliver of its shadow. With each crack or pop it jolted from one side to another, growing, shrinking, growing again. An odor wafted under the door. It didn’t smell like death in the same way the copses did. Instead, it smelled like life. Life that should have died a long time ago. “Daisies! Daisies! Daisies!” It repeated over, and over, and over. Each time its voice groaned from youthful to old, masculine, to feminine, raspy to clear, and between each was an inhuman rumble that shook the door. “Daisies! Daisies…” With one final snap, it was silent again. The shadow beneath the door was still and thin. In a single step to my left, the shadow was gone. I followed the sound of its steps through the wall with the barrel of my gun. I pointed across the coat rack while it stepped on the other side of the wall, sounding more like the clop of hooves. Left… Right… Left… Right… I passed over a table, and a bookshelf, and turned the corner until my sighs were aimed at a frail glass window. I waited. Every ounce of me quivered in anticipation as I waited for it, whatever it was, to turn the corner into the window. All I needed was a clear shot. “Fuck. C’mon c’mon.” I whispered to myself to keep any semblance of composure. From the top of the window frame, descended an antler. CRASH A bony, tar-black fist bursted through the window sending splinters of glass across the room. I covered my eyes and bolted for the door. Without turning back, I plowed through the snow as fast as I was able, southward. Snow completely blanketed the corpses but I took no caution as I sprinted. If my foot caved through the rib cage of a dead man, so be it. As long as I put as much distance between me and whatever beast broke into the cabin. It felt like icicles formed in my lungs by the time the path ended, and I was spit out at the dock. At the tip of the dock stood Peter with his head down. He turned to me. “What’s your name?” Peter asked. The question was so unimportant I wanted to explode, but I had to let my lungs thaw before answering. “You know what my name is. Now what the hell was-” “I need you to tell me!” He demanded. “Harrison alright? Fucking Harrison Barr. Now can we talk about-” “In the cabin, what did you say your wife did?” He asked to cut me off once more. My patience shriveled. “Gardening.” I snarled. Peter paused for a moment before he nodded in approval of my answers. “And what do you do?” Peter asked. I write. At least that’s what I was supposed to say, but I couldn’t tell the lie. “Can we be done with the dumb fucking questions? Because what the fuck was that thing at the cabin?” I demanded. Peter thought before admitting he didn’t know. He said he watched it for a while. He told me the beast was as old as the town, the Moreau incident. It ate not for nourishment, but for skin. He said though it had the strength to uproot a tree, it often didn’t risk damaging its target. If it had to wear the victims’ scars too, it would be a less convincing deception to their loved ones. Ice stretched only a handful of meters from the dock before turning to a moat of cold, stinging water. Snowflakes rushed from the sky like bricks to build the walls higher. The island became a dungeon without bars and within it were two prisoners and a predator. Still, one question ate at me. “Do you know that happened to her?” Peter struggled to let a word through his mouth. “I- I don’t.” he sighed before brushing the corner of his eye with his thumb. I saw his lips turn blue. His shoulders shivered beneath his suspenders. Suspenders that ran down over his pot belly, shielded from the cold by a thin long john shirt. His grey pants were wet almost up to his knees. Seeing him reminded me how cold it was, and in our rush out of the cabin we were unprepared and likely to freeze solid soon. I hoped all that was left in the cabin was the fire, our only chance at survival if we hurried. I opened my mouth to suggest we hurry back, but another voice filled the air. A small, shaky voice from behind the treeline. “Daddy, I’m so hungry.” Out stepped a boy. The same boy at the end of Peter’s wall of faces. The same boy whose picture he kept in his wallet with the same voice I heard the first time I saw the antlers. I saw tears swell in Peter’s eyes before he pinched them away with a squint and shaking his head rapidly. He whispered to himself while keeping his eyes closed. “It’s not him… It’s not him.” “We have to kill it,” I said before raising my sights on the boy. I don’t know if I could have pulled the trigger with a child on the other end of the gun, but I didn’t get the chance. “No!” Peter shouted before throwing himself between the kid and me. “Not while it’s him… Please.” He begged with eyes as wide as lakes. It was a clear shot I needed, but I nodded and eased the gun barrel to the snow. “You’ll be hungry too.” The boy said as he stared deep into my being. His expression was empty. As if he stated a well-known fact. He turned and vanished back into the trees. Peter and I hurried back. We drug our feet through the ever-rising snow. Our bodies stiff from the element didn’t allow us to hurry. We anticipated the beast ambushing us through the trees at any second, but it didn’t. When we made it to the cabin I entered with my gun drawn. The fire still warmed the room beneath the mantle. Its heat fought a battle against the cold rushing in from the shattered window. The living room was left unchanged except for the coating of glass shards scattered on the floor. I continued my sweep of the cabin into Peter’s office. Scattered on his office floor, were the remnants of a pulverized radio and a mess of empty ration cans trailing from the open refrigerator. I stopped counting the days two weeks after the remnants of our food were taken. Shouts, gunshots, and smoke signals were all wasted as the town never acknowledged them as calls for help. Though Moreau Bay was on the lake’s edge, it felt like the other side of the world. Peter and I took turns looking for food. We would be lucky to find a goldeneye resting its wings or a trout swimming close enough to take a shot. We were luckier if we hit one. Even when we had food for dinner, it wasn’t enough to extinguish the hunger. Our duty to monitor the corpses was abandoned within a couple of days, especially when they started to disappear. When we left the cabin -whether for food or Peter’s evening walks to the dock for a mailman who never showed- we felt the beast’s eyes. I caught glimpses of it between the white-capped branches. Sometimes it was a cyclops, with a beady eye made of the background and a face-consuming socket of busted flesh and bone. Other times it was a head full of deep red smirks that sliced the natural face away. It hadn’t made contact with us since it was Peter’s son at the dock. All it did was watch. We spent time in the cabin speculating on what its plan was. Was it studying human behavior to better replicate? Was it keeping us captive to have fun at our expense? Theory after theory was considered but the circumstances brought us to the edge of madness. I started to see it in my dreams. I dreamed of Thanksgiving dinners, a math lesson in my third-grade classroom, and a boring day wasted at the DMV. Beyond the stuffed turkey at the head of the table sat a man with a gunblast instead of a face. At the doorway of my classroom was a disembodied antler and a skeletal hand with shrink-wrapped black skin waving at me. When my number was called at the DMV I walked to the desk to find the boy chanting, “You’ll be hungry too… You’ll be hungry too…” Mercifully, I stopped dreaming after a few days. The only other mercy was when I discovered a deck of cards collecting dust behind a copy of The Road on the bookshelf.The cards were arranged on the kitchen table for our nightly game of War, one of the only games Peter remembered. The window spit icy wind on the back of my neck through the crude, barricade lips I nailed to it. The fire gnawed at its wooden food in the fireplace. My winnings laid face up and paled in comparison to Peters. His potbelly was deflated. His clavicles gave a pronounced hump to his off-white long john shirt. The tendons in his neck were lift-lines that vanished behind his curtain beard. Still, he smiled through our game. He didn’t get to play games with people while alone on the island. He slapped down a jack of clubs. The club was like a bramble of ripe blackberries. The smell of crackling wood vanished behind the delectable scent of mashed berry as I ground it into a jam before spreading it on a crisp slice of toast. “Good luck with that one Harry,” Peter said. I was ripped from my day-dream. Only Jemma ever called me Harry, but I started to let it slide. I played a jack of hearts, though I saw a plump strawberry. I imagined it dipped into a rich, dark chocolate fountain. The plaps of liquid divinity drooled from the tip of the berry and onto the floor before I caught it in my mouth and tasted the wonderful concoction. My stomach growled like a cougar ready to pounce on its meal. Maybe the next strawberry will go nicely with cheese. A sharp cheddar or a- “War!” Peter exclaimed before his shrunken belly bounced with a chuckle. We put three cards face down. One, two, three, war. My fourth card placed face up was a Queen of Spades. A difficult card to beat, but he does with a king of hearts. The suicide king. I stared at it. The blade slid so peacefully through the back of his head. The framed moment before his eyes closed to a calm end. The little red heart in the corner of the card gave its final beat. Was that the escape we would get? Was death our only way off of the island? The corpses stalking the woods, the antlers and bony fist, the little boy, the hunger, and Jemma all weighed too much to carry. I broke. The cards sprawled across the table blurred as tears rushed into my eyes. I hammered the table with my fist before I covered my eyes with my palms. My nails clawed at my hairline. I wanted to dig beneath the skin. To find a way to peel my face from my skull so no one saw me break. My leg bounced desperately for relief but it was no use. I felt a warm touch on my shoulder. Peter stood with his hand stretched over the table and a look of understanding. I gathered myself with a sniff and squeezed the tears from my eyes with a squint. “Fuck.” I muttered before a slight chuckle to wash away the embarrassment and dread, but it stuck. I looked up at Peter who gave me a slight nod. “Guess I win that one.” He said and we both laughed. Knock, Knock, Knock. The sound sliced through the room before he raked in his earnings. “Hello there! Anybody round! I was waiting by the dock and nobody seemed to be coming.” My heart stopped. On the other side of the door was the mailman. I imagined his rudolph nose signalling us to safety through the door. I stood from my chair and hurried toward the door, but Peter caught my arm in a vise grip. I glared down at him before I saw his finger dividing his puckered lips, miming a shush. “What? It’s the mailman. We’re saved.” I whispered. “What if it’s not.” He hissed back. I paused. It seemed so obvious. The beast easily could have eaten him and worn his skin before he made it to the cabin. I couldn’t believe I was about to throw the door open for it, blinded by the possibility of rescue. “Oh well. I s’pose they may be…” The voice faded away, paired with footsteps. I crept to the door and cracked it open. The mailman stomped through the blustery night and onto the dark north path. I turned to Peter. “What if it is?” I asked. The mailman was our only chance to get off the island, or it was an obvious trap. With the ever-approaching reality of starvation, I was willing to risk it. Peter hesitated before speaking. “Damn it… Okay.” He stood and rushed to the shotgun and handed it to me. “Go get him. If that thing doesn’t have him yet. It will soon.” He slid his arms into his coat and stepped into his boots. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Someone has to keep his boat floating,” Peter said as he rushed around the room. He grabbed the box of shotgun cartridges sitting on the floor beside the fireplace. His finger swirled in the box before he started patting at his coat. “Check your pockets,” he demanded. I did and only found balls of lint. I cracked open the shotgun and inside was a single blue eye staring back at me. “I’ve got one,” I said. “Make it count.” He said. I swung the door open. The evergreen smell was sharp and the snow fell in fists. “Peter… don’t let it get you,” I said, and we stepped into the snow. It was dark on the northern path. The trees formed walls to block the moonlight. Only the stars reflected on the deep snow. I submerged my boots and swung them forward with each step. A crunch of ice or a plop of snow fell from branches. Each time I aimed down the sights and found nothing. There were no more plumes of rotten stench on the trails, the corpses were all gone. Ice and pine were all that my nose found. Hunger seized my stomach in brief cramps. I questioned whether to call out to the mailman but quickly decided against it. The sound of my boots as they crushed the snow was already too loud for my liking. A faint whisper snuck from behind me. A turned and threatened with the business end of the shotgun. The trees in my sight only swayed in the lake breeze. I knew it was a whisper. It was far too familiar. I was ready to fire but nothing came out of the treeline. I tucked the shotgun beneath my shoulder and continued down the path. The fight against the snow drained me. My stomach snarled and shriveled inside me. Brief cramps turned into long pains. I nearly folded into the snow. I had to stop to catch my breath and only moved once I felt my toes begin to freeze in place. Another whisper. I turned again with my finger on the trigger, ready to pull. My sights were locked onto the exact branch I thought the whisper came from. I stood there until I felt the white ground slowly wrap its jaws around my ankles. Snow piled on the back of my neck but I didn’t move. I was prepared to be buried alive until I considered I may be mistaken. My hunger and exhaustion could have caused my mind to play a sick joke. The wind could have passed over a twig at the right angle to mimic the whisper. The thoughts were comforting until the branch moved. I sprinted through the northern path. When I tripped, I swam through the snow until I regained my footing and ran again. The winter air stung my lungs. My legs were depleted of energy but still I churned them through the snow. In my mind, it was right behind me. The panic in my gut told me it could have reached at any moment and sunk its bony fingers into my throat. The further I ran down the path the tighter the tree walls seemed. It felt like I was going to be compacted by the woods until the trees fanned out in an instant and I was in a clearing. At the center of the circular clearing was the shed. On top of its roof, it wore a plump, white cap, its mouth left wide open with a drool of light running over the ground. In its puddle laid the red, rusted door. It was ripped from its hinges and dented like tin foil. I thought of the boat’s corpse and how it sank helplessly at the foot of the dock with damage I had never seen before. A snap sliced through the trees behind me. I tried to turn but my starved body failed me and I collapsed. Though I couldn’t see it through the wooded shadows, its eyes were locked on me. I felt it like the prick of a needle. With the woods all around me, my only escape from its eyes was within the walls of the shed. I stumbled to my feet and shuffled backward to the shed without turning my back to the invisible beast. I retched when I entered the shed. If there were food in my stomach it would have been spit to the dirt. The hunger pains that stabbed at my stomach were overpowered by the dense mass of stench that filled the tiny building. It was so pungent my eyes began to water. I shielded my nose into the crook of my elbow. Though the stench was loud, I heard nothing beyond my own breath. In front of me was a blue curtain, better suited to an emergency room than the shed. I had to know what caused the rotten odor before it sat heavier at the back of my tongue. I pulled the curtain open. My arm dropped from my nose to one side and the shotgun fell to the other. I didn’t look at her for long, but I saw enough. Her right femur poked through her shriveled, soured thigh. Her beautiful ring was limp at the base of her thin finger. Her hands wrapped around a bundle of purple asters in various stages of decay. Her face was spared the brutality of the other corpses. Though the skin was peeled and the maggots wriggled in her eye sockets I knew it was her. My Jemma. I threw myself to the ground outside the shed. On my knees, I screamed down at the earth. My tears fell to the snow and waited to freeze. I banged my fists into the dirt again and again and again until they throbbed. I wanted to punch a grave into the ground and bury myself alive but my starvation beat my sorrow and I fell into a somber ball. A voice called to me from the trees. “The dog lied.” I looked up and saw the mailman stalking at the treeline. I stayed on the ground and watched him. He stood entirely still and without saying a word. “What?… What do you want!” I yelled. He stayed quiet. CRACK His shoulder jutted from his torso and he groaned a guttural, unnatural wail. I didn’t see pain on its face. Its screams were a performance. An unnatural showing to burrow its claws into my psyche. POP His arm extended until his palm was the same height as his knee and the beast howled with the voices it collected. A flurry of snapped bones, popped joints, and a choir of screeches shook the woods as the mailman’s skeleton grew to lengths his skin was unable to contain. Flesh fell to the ground in chunks and shreds to show the tar black skin underneath. Its knees folded backwards and its feet curled inward and calcified into hooves. SNAP. The mailman’s jaw lurched forward and his upper lip came with it. The skin around his unkept beard began to tear. The bridge above his plump rosy nose tore straight across to make room for the pale, skeletal snout. Points grew from his scalp until a full rack of antlers surfaced. It stepped towards me. I fumbled into the shed and got my grip on the shotgun before I bolted for the treeline. I ran forever through the trees before I found the northern path again. I swayed the gun in all directions behind me in anticipation of the beast barreling through the forest before I realized it was not chasing me. It stayed at the shed. My eyes were saucers. My chest heaved desperately and my fingers constricted the snow waiting for the unbearable panic to subside. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Jemma’s last flower. I rubbed over the plastic hump. The stem was squishy, soaked in age. The petals flushed their bright purple specks for a total, deathly brown. “Make good with the life you have left,” I muttered the words with a scoff. I can’t make good without justice, and my Jemma would get her’s. I stood up and left the dead flower in the snowy divot I created before I marched back to the cabin. With the shotgun in hand, I only thought of one thing. The dog lied. The flakes fell harder with each step I took towards the cabin. My feet went blue as the snow poured over the walls of my boots and melted into a puddle. The numb scent of winter was interrupted by a subtle smoke. It was a smoke that filled the gaps in the air between flakes and trees the further I walked. A warm light made the shadow branches whip in the woods. I emerged from the path and into the bright light. The cabin was engulfed in an inferno. A beacon of black smoke stretched into the night sky. Flames crashed through the open windows and through the front door, onto the porch. The fire roared as it destroyed the cabin. A shadowed figure stood in front of the bright flame. In one hand was the gas can left next to the fridge, and in the other was a manilla folder with paper faces sticking out of the sides. He turned to face me. “Postman’s boat was all torn up. Figured this was our last chance… No way the town can ignore this.” Peter said. He stopped for a moment after looking at me. I was coated in hate. I wanted his blood on the snow. I wanted my justice. He spoke again. “That is you… right, Harry?” I stomped up to him and smashed the butt of the gun into the bridge of his nose. He fell to the ground. Blood immediately spilled from the gash. He was stunned when he looked up at me. I aimed the shotgun at his chest. “You lied to me,” I said. He thought before he hung his head. Blood started to drip from his chin. “I know this don’t look good… But I was saving her. Saving you-” “By letting her rot in a fucking shed, you piece of shit! I’ve been sick wondering where she was. Wondering what happened to her. All while sitting at an empty grave. That’s all you left me. An empty fucking-” “They’re all empty!… Every one of them is empty.” Peter snapped back. He sighed before he continued. “Every time I get a letter from the city I go to the gravesite to dig it up before… it did. I would bring it over here where I… Well, where I make them unrecognizable. So their face can’t be used to lure grieving loved ones into the woods because that’s what that- that monster does!” “Why not tell me?” I asked. “I told the city. I wanted her loved ones to have some closure… I knew it couldn’t be enough… It was all I could do.” The gun felt heavier, but still I aimed for his heart. He continued. “Whenever I got to the graveyard, I heard it. I counted on it each time… It was my boy’s voice telling me ‘What kind of sick person digs up a grave.’ or ‘I hate you, I’m glad I’m not your son anymore’… anything it could say to get in my head. To make me stop.” A tear slid down his cheek. He brushed it away quickly while clearing his throat. “How uhh..” I had to know the answer but the question was stuck in my chest. He answered it anyway. “I found her at the bottom of the hill with her leg broke real bad…She was gone when I found her…I heard my boy’s voice come from the woods around us and it was close, no one else was even in earshot. I just knew I could make it to my boat with her.” I lowered the gun. Peter whipped the blood trail from his nose with the palm of his hand. He put a hand on the ground to give himself leverage to get up, but he stopped. His eyes met something behind me. Something so foul it forced his chest to convulse and his eyes to swell with fear. A gentle hand rested on my right shoulder. “I missed you so much, Harry.” I knew it was impossible to hear it but yet it was there. I longed to hear her voice again. It was like the events of the past few weeks hadn’t happened. Like she came home after her hike like all the hikes before. The heat from the cabin became unbearable knowing Jemma was behind me. I started to turn but the illusion cracked when I saw her hand. Her soured skin retreated from the base of her nails. Each knuckle of her fingers were bold humps with splits in the skin showing the white inside, and at the base of her ring finger sat her ring. I wouldn’t dare turn all the way around. The thought of staring at maggots where her eyes once were made my stomach contort. I wanted to live with her voice for a little longer. “You’re doing the right thing,” Jemma said to me. She gently rubbed her skeletal hand against my shoulder. “Don’t listen to it Harrison. This is what it wants.” Peter pleaded. The flames roared louder behind him. Sweat beaded on my forehead. The final shotgun cartridge sat in the barrel, ready to fire. “The dog took my bones, Harry. Took them and hid them from you… He left you with only dirt to mourn.” Jemma stated. My anger returned when I pictured the empty dirt beneath her headstone. I took aim again, this time for Peter’s head. The trigger felt flimsy against my finger. Justice was a finger press away. Peter desperately shook his head as he pleaded with me to put the gun down. Sirens wailed in the distance. “It’s them, Harrison! We can make it out of here, they saw the smoke!” Peter said. I heard a guttural growl from behind me. “You must be so hungry, Harry,” Jemma said. Her words flushed the adrenaline from my body and all of my attention was back on my stomach. I wasn’t hungry. I was starving. “Put down the dog, then it is just meat… It would cook so well in the fire” It said in Jemma’s voice. It hit me. Peter’s wall of faces that dated back to the Moreau cannibal incident. It took our rations from the cabin. It kept us hungry and tried to drive us mad with the corpse stalking us in the woods. It never wanted to kill us. It wanted us to eat each other. It wanted to replicate. The sirens sounded distant. Peter had a look of acceptance. As if he knew they were too late. Peter spoke. “I knew who you were when you came here, Harrison. I was so alone after my boy passed. I just wanted to help you… I know what I did seems awful bad. I still want to help. If that means killing me then so be it, I got nothing to live for. Just please aim for my face… I can’t let it take me like it took my boy.” “Harry, please… He took me from you.” Jemma pleaded. She sounded so helpless, my Jemma. I pulled the trigger. BANG I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. I couldn’t hear the fire or the voices of Peter and Jemma. Only a ring consumed my right ear. I ring so shrill I fell onto my hands and knees. The ring rattled my brain into a piercing migraine. I tried to keep the pain at bay with my closed eyes but it didn’t help, so I opened them. A few centimeters in front of me was the shotgun lying in the snow. The gunfire smoke coated my open mouth. Beyond it, in the light of the fire was a manilla folder. Its insides of faces were free. They spread over the ground and were scattered to the wind. A firm hand grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. “We need to go!” Peter shouted over the scream of my ringing ear. I turned behind me and saw Jemma. Her femur still poked through her thigh, but her shoulder popped unnaturally far out of place. Her arm shot far beyond the limits of her dead skin. The shotgun blast left a hole in its head, but it didn’t die. It was turning again. Peter yanked me down the south trail towards the dock. I tried to keep up but the hunger made my muscles ache. The migraine made each step a sharp pain, and the ring masked the encouragement he gave me. He kept pulling me forward. When I faltered, he got me back on pace. I felt the beast’s eyes on the back of my neck. Peter felt it too. His throat strained out a yell inaudible to me. He looked more and more panicked with each step we took. I knew it was getting close. I started to see its antlers out of the corners of my eye. I snapped my head around to see only branches. Peter screamed again but I read his lips as ‘help’. I closed my eyes and only ran with Peter’s guiding hand. I ran as hard as my emaciated body would carry me, but it had enough. I collapsed and Peter’s hand released me. I opened my eyes and looked around. Peter fell a few steps ahead of me, his energy also drained from hunger. I waited for the beast to get us. Death would come with it since its plan failed. I chose to face it with dignity. I found the strength to stand. My knees nearly buckled under my weight. When I stood, I saw beyond Peter. I saw the dock. The wooden platform extended into a lake of blinking red, a pattern given to it by the three emergency boats about to make land on the island. I turned and saw inside the treeline, was a pair of antlers poking from the top of a deer skull. It watched me with its hollow, black eyes before turning and retreating into the woods. The year after we escaped the island I made a point to keep up with Jemma’s garden. I wasn’t a natural by any means but I was able to get the purple asters to bloom. Some mornings I would sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee to warm my palms and watch them. I never fully regained my hearing but I imagined the chickadees singing. Sometimes I imagined seeing her on her knees in the garden. I imagined she dug her bare hands into the dirt to give a nest to her next flower. One morning, I sipped the sweetly bitter coffee and peeked through the steam to the forest at the edge of my backyard. Something stood behind a tree trunk. I squinted to get a better look at it. I didn’t have to imagine that morning, it was her. But as she stepped into the morning light, I saw the specks wriggle where her eyes used to be. Credit: Kevin Jones X YouTube Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.