There is a terrifying presence in the town of Wakewood, a blackness of the cruelest evil.
That should be a sufficient enough warning, if you take my word for it, but I’ll go ahead and get this on paper before I forget certain details, some of which will be more gruesome than many are used to.
A few hours ago, I found myself in a room with a detective at the Fairview Police Department. I won’t state her name, but I told her exactly what I’m about to tell you. By the end, it should become apparent why you must do everything in your power to avoid Jake 18 if you are currently delving into the world of dating apps.
I am aware of my stupidity and ignorance. I agree that a seventeen-year-old shouldn’t actively seek out other guys online to fool around with, let alone meet. This world is rotten -it gets more so day by day, the same mantra- and I won’t apologize for trying to bide my time on this rock. I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my youth for the benefit of some preconceived notion that people are out to harm, because most aren’t. Truthfully, I’m writing this to inform others, not inspire pity, okay? Neither am I looking for the type of holier-than-thou intervention I endured after coming out as gay to my parents last year. Catholicism isn’t the easiest background to break out of, I don’t care who you are.
I started engaging with Jake 18’s profile last night on Grindr. Grindr is a crude gay dating app for one-night stands, sometimes half-night stands. Every once in a while, you’ll find someone steady, maybe even a gem, but it’s beyond the point. I’ve experienced a great deal of frustration over the app, and I should point out that, again, my stubborn proclivity to continue pursuing such adventures hasn’t been my grandest hour. I’ve inserted myself into questionable endeavors before, but nothing like this. Nothing like Jake 18. Nothing like RVG-666. God, I feel so goddamn stupid.
In his profile picture, Jake had blue eyes, and brown hair shortened around his ears and combed across his brow. His smile was broad, teeth without the faintest ting of yellow or stain, and his jawline sharp, neatly permeated with light stubble. On his left earlobe was a tiny black gauge that could have been mistaken for a large freckle upon initial inspection. He wore a white Nike T-shirt, a silver-tone chain necklace obscured beneath the collar. In addition, there were three other pictures linked on the profile of him and two other dudes: two taken on a cloudy beach somewhere and the last picture with all three of them sitting around a round table. I thought it looked like an ice cream parlor in some hippy college town or something.
He was five-foot-ten, one-hundred and seventy-five pounds, sexually versatile, and had a slim body type.
The profile description read:
Give me your best pick-up line
I don’t want to see your junk
No pic = No chat :)
The archetypal Grindr biography, if there ever was one. Personally, I won’t chat with profiles with disclaimers such as ‘No fats or olds’. Or: My Venmo is etc. I won’t chat with profiles that proclaim they have substantial endowments, either. There’s never a shortage of assholes in any one community, and you’ll find quite a few in the gay section. But, hey, Jake 18’s seemed okay.
The profile reached out to me shortly before ten o’clock last night while I was preparing for bed. I heard the distinctive ring of the notification on my phone while brushing my teeth. I never want to hear it again.
What followed was a torrent of sexual anticipation I would be embarrassed by if not for the current circumstances. I won’t divulge the details.
He told me he was currently dog-sitting at his employer’s house in Wakewood, about thirty minutes from Fairview where I live. He had been there all week and would continue to be there all weekend until his employer returned early Monday morning from a vacation in France with her husband. Could I stay Saturday night? He’d love it if I could. His boss had a large in-ground pool (even though it was too cold to go in), and we could grill out. Since sex wasn’t all that was on my mind, I said I was down.
The following morning, I asked for his SnapChat user, a gesture to verify his identity. Initially, I received a picture through the chat function, which I thought was annoying considering that I had just sucked in my pride and sent him one of my face in real time. The chat picture was a standard selfie that, for all I knew, could have been selected from a camera roll and taken weeks or even months in advance. Also, it’s easy to merely screenshot a picture of someone else in this day and age. People on Grindr, in particular, do it all the time.
There was no way I intended on being catfished, so I responded with more real-time snaps. Each time he opened them and didn’t reciprocate. I began to brood over the fact that this meeting might not happen after all, that Jake 18 was either fake or a flake. Life would go on though.
Nearly an hour later, a yellow icon notification appeared on my screen.
“Too dramatic,” I remembered muttering, staring at the screen, promptly expecting something along the lines of:
Hey, man. So. Something came up, and I can’t have you over today. Sorry.
Jake’s eyes were closed in the selfie, a thick blue blanket pulled up just past his chin. He was lying on what I supposed was a black leather couch. He appeared sickly, and I felt a knot tighten above my navel. Fighting off a cold? That would be just my crackerjack luck, wouldn’t it? The text at the bottom of the screen read: Sorry, haha, I’m napping.
A shadow sat in his face, a slight but distinct sheen of otherworldliness I am hard-pressed to describe fully from memory. Recalling this now, it almost appeared as if it were a paper-thin mask that fit perfectly over all the bony grooves of his face.
I know this should have been a red flag, and some may wonder why I didn’t just call it off. I don’t think we are entirely sane when searching for companionship. We constantly see and filter out only what we want to see, a flaw that makes the human organism so miserable at discerning the obvious: Danger.
That inherent fallibility now scares the fuck out of me.
But was I horny? Longing for companionship?
Yeah. So yeah.
Our plans for that afternoon were still on. Fast-forward a few hours.
I’ve grown accustomed to lying to my parents. I informed them I was going to hang out with a friend from school; I would tell them I was staying the night later that evening while in the company of Jake. My parents were out, you see, but they’d throw a tantrum if they came home and didn’t see my car in the driveway.
I packed a few clothes in a small duffle bag, my computer, and a toothbrush, making sure to grab a few condoms. At around 2:30, I took off in my shitty Toyota Camry. I decided to take the scenic route to bypass the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading out of North Raleigh. Thank God for Google Maps. It took me forty-five minutes to get to the house in Wakewood, arriving just before 3:20.
I missed the destination twice because I was gut-wrenchingly nervous. On the third pass, I spied the number on the mailbox and let out a shaky breath as I signaled left. I messaged Jake that I had arrived, stopping directly at the foot of the driveway. It took him a few minutes to reply. When he did, the message read:
Park car in the front yard next to the big tree. Take the pathway around the right side of the house to the back. Sit by the pool. Be out in a min.
I crept up a steep incline that had me gripping the steering wheel tight. The old, white two-storied house sat atop the slope straight ahead, partially masked by foliage. Like reaching skeletal fingers, branching vines clung to a sizable portion of the peeling exterior. Evenly-spaced bushes lined the front of the house, beaten and tainted by the forces of nature and fall’s ebb. A wire mesh fence snaked away from the house’s left side, and a steep slope fell into a small plateau next to the pathway on the house’s right.
Dense woods on both sides shaded the place and created an aura of isolation.
I parked in the paved space beside the gigantic tree. Its long, ancient branches brushed the roof of the house, twigs contorted in between the crumbling shingles. I remember thinking its sheer might and orientation could have been a formidable presence to anyone who looked outside one of the second story windows at night.
The seclusion made me uneasy, but I stepped out into the mild afternoon and marveled at the towering white oak tree, a trunk so large I would be unable to link my hands around the thing. A worn-out water hose was strewn against its gnarled roots. Pockets of stubborn grass persevered through the dry dirt.
I meandered around the side, following the pathway. There was loud music. Bass punctuated the air as I walked alongside the house. When I got around the corner, I immediately saw the in-ground pool thirty or so yards to my right. The pool was decked-in spaciously.
Various species of withering potted plants sat on wooden rails along the deck’s perimeter. A small bar area and a few high chairs occupied the far left corner. Pool chairs and glass tables were set up around the clear moving water, a few soggy leaves bobbing on the surface at the deep end. Some tables contained more plants nestled in ceramic or plastic pots. The earth sloped downward from the deck posts, and I realized that the property owners owned many acres of land beyond it.
I had left my backpack in the car -unbeknownst to me at the time- but I was preoccupied with a dizzying anticipation. I saw two vehicles parked in front of another wire mesh fence that ran perpendicular to the house. Then, on my left, I saw more mulch heaps scattered on the pavement from overturned potted plants.
This is when, if I weren’t so goddamn stupid, I should have run back to my car.
I’m confident the car on the gray Honda Accord’s right was an old white Buick Riviera. It had a scattering of rusted dents and places where whole paint sections were missing, especially from the rear bumper. In addition, its left rear tail-light was busted to shambles like a dump truck had given it a friendly kiss on the ass.
The Buick’s windows were sheets of nighttime sky, impenetrable to reflection.
My arms prickled, but I inched closer. I assumed it was one of the owner’s cars, not Jake’s.
A sticker on the lower rear glass window read:
NOT THIRSTY, BUT HUNGRY.
I smirked. It was a fun little sticker.
Another one, this time on the ancient bumper in faded print, read:
I Was Made For Lovin’ You.
Closer still, I inspected the tags. It was a New York plate.
RVG-666
Satan with his pitchfork hurriedly plotting inevitable misery on newly-acquired Hell inmates came to mind. That was kind of funny, too.
RVG-666, I thought. Some dark shit.
Something moved in my peripherals to my left, a fleeting shadow. There was a glass door to the house wide open to the world, locked at the bottom. I expected Jake at any moment to greet me with that broad smile and alleviate all of my nerves. Shouldn’t he have come out by now? I was sure about that dashing shadow.
The main door was pried inward by a cinder block. A dimly-lit hallway no longer than ten feet in length branched into what was perhaps a kitchen on the left and a dining room or lounge on the right. A tall, frail greyhound sat in a large frame on the wall at the far end; the picture was on a tilt. The rug nearest the door was coiled in disarray. I stared at the heaps of spilled mulch again, thinking.
I looked over the Buick’s license plate and followed the large cobblestones to the decked-in pool. There was a horrid smell in the stagnant air as I got closer to the pool. Someone on the radio was singing about how he was finished with his woman because she couldn’t help him with his mind. I noticed two heaping trash containers swarming with flies by the fence and made a natural deduction. Still, I would ask Jake why it smelled so fucking bad.
I remembered thinking: Like a rotting body, sitting on the edge of one of the elongated pool chairs. At the time, it warranted a snicker. Jesus Christ, did someone butcher a cow out here?
I scrolled through my phone in an attempt to distract my olfactory senses. It smelled so damn terrible. I shoved my face inside of my shirt. My body odor was a good reprieve.
The hosts were introducing the next tune for the evening on the radio. Oldies station. A groovy bass line pumped from the speakers shortly after. Percussion and piano followed, then the guitar, kicking the melody into full gear.
A man was leaning against the backdoor frame in the distance. Thick white powder caked his face, allowing his eyes to bulge from darkened sockets. In his left hand was the end of a long handle he rested over his corresponding shoulder. In the other was what I thought was one of those expensive Party City Halloween masks they usually mounted on the walls. He held it by a fistful of its dark brown hair.
The mild December air dropped five degrees instantly, shrouding me in a temporary chill despite my jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. From afar, I could see his lips curling upwards.
“Jake?” I shouted. I was on my feet at once. My inner voice, now hot and turbulent:
Oh, yeah. That’s Jake, alright. That’s Jake, and you’re Frosty the Fucking Snowman.
The figure at the door arched his back and laughed at the question, a jarring explosion of noise. The mask-like object swayed with the sudden movement, and I knew then that I did not want to know what he was holding, even if my life depended on it. That vile thing might put me in a nuthouse.
He hopped over the cement step at the door and wobbled into full view. He had me trapped at once. He was smiling. There was something unimaginable underneath that smile, something like a white sheet over a corpse. You didn’t want to see it.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He wore a robe covered in leopard spots, knotted loosely and carelessly around his skinny waist. Underneath, I could see he was shirtless and hairy, flat-chested and thin to the point of malnourishment. He was not wearing any pants. Instead, a pair of bright red speedos barely contained his enormous erection, and on his feet were old white sneakers yellowed with wear.
As he got closer with that corpse-under-the-sheet grin, I found the word I seemed to have misplaced: Blood.
Yes, blood here and there. Blood splattered everywhere, across the robe and portions of his neck and face. His hair was wet and mottled with it, too, slicked back and seemingly combed.
A chorus started to undulate through the speakers under the patio behind me, and it is one I will never forget as long as I live:
“Rock me gently. Rock me slowly. Take it easy. Don’t you know? That I have never been loved like this before?”
The stranger skipped forward, poorly lip-syncing the lyrics, attempting an abrupt side-to-side dance move that made me recoil in fright against the chair. He mouthed the offset lyrics, and I saw those crooked, dark yellow and brown teeth for the first time. They were obtrusions he would have been better without, apparent from their obvious decay.
The cobblestone pathway seemed miles away. I clenched my phone.
You’re a fucking fool. You know that, don’t you?
The song went into its second verse. The enthusiastic, rail-thin man slung the object at me, crouching and extending one leg forward like he was aiming a bowling ball for the trembling pins that were my legs. It didn’t roll far. The unevenness of the cobblestones caused it to move back a few inches. I gawked. It was a mutilated severed human head; worst of all, it was one I recognized.
Jake’s head halted on the right cheek. It had a used look. The facial muscles were contracted to their fullest capabilities, and the left eye was almost entirely white save for the iris oriented toward the temple. Its jaw bones were broken and hyperextended, and its raw, gaping mouth could have housed two fists. Folds of yellow, fatty flesh draped over the exposed, hacked cervical bones.
Hello, Jake. Nice to meet you. Hello, Friend. Nice to meet you, too. Now get on over here and give me some smooches.
“Oh, fuck,” I said, but it might have been more of a whisper that took its time.
Another chorus:
“Rock me gently. Rock me slowly. Take it easy. Don’t you know? That I have never been loved like this before?”
There was another problem. The fucking guy was holding an ax.
The ax blade struck the pavement, and the man raised his eyebrows. Not-Jake 18 lifted it again and nestled the weapon in both hands. The edge, plastered with coagulated blood and gore, had the coarseness of drying mud. And there, in its shape and texture, it had a face of its own, a reputation attained time and time again buried in the delicate flesh of juvenile life.
“Is that who you came to do the hanky-panky with?” He motioned towards Jake’s head with the ax.
It was the dirt-choked voice of an underground creature. The grin slipped away, and so did the white sheet concealing what-should-not-be-seen. In all that wild whiteness, his stare was black and void. It was death.
I took off, forced along the pool’s perimeter, and knocked a high chair off its legs at the bar near the radio. I was faintly aware of blasting my hip into a ceramic pot containing withered leaves moments later. If I didn’t do everything perfectly, I would be both very dead and a well-deserved head trophy.
Axeman’s torrent of excited footfalls made it extremely difficult not to take a glimpse over my shoulder. Still, I demanded myself to focus on the objective: that sweet pathway around the house. And nothing more.
Fast, a voice blared from some other alien plane of consciousness. Quick! Quick! What was the point of two years of cross-country if you can’t out-run a middle-aged man in a robe?
It was a ridiculous idea because I had just started running. I had to outrun him.
I was far from out of shape. The thirty or so pounds I gained since the end of sophomore year was more muscle than fat. Still, those extra cheeseburgers and double chocolate shakes all of a sudden wanted to taunt me from beyond the sewage grave. I could’ve groaned.
Guess what? The inner voice continued as if on autopilot. And it’s a simple one: Don’t trip. Wrong thing to do right now. Focus on your feet, like a baby learning to walk. Easy peasy. Or like riding a bike, if you prefer.
The axeman was laughing. He sounded closer.
“Cute, stud! Lemme eat some of that cupcake!” he mocked, perhaps emulating what I feared was Jake’s long-gone accent. He did not sound out of breath at all. It was all in fun.
Yeah, okay, you fucking son-of-a-bitch. I’ll stop right here and let you chop me up into a million little pieces. Sounds like a plan, I thought. I was a nipple’s hair length away from tottering over into the clear, cold water, I realized.
“Psycho!” I screeched.
I zipped around the pool and back over the cobblestones, jumping over Jake’s severed head, frozen in that silent contortion of agony. I caved and looked back. I didn’t scream then, but I came pretty close. A low, guttural moan came out. He was only about six feet away and somehow gaining, blue eyes bulging and wet. He held the bloodied ax near the blade as he tailgated, murderous fixation on me.
The pathway slanted off to the right up ahead. Instead, I cut a sharp left turn towards where the land plateaued out on a whim, kicking a ceramic pot of flowers out of my way and hopping over the ragged remains of what was once the rim of a bird bath. My car would be the other way, but the maniac was practically humping my leg. I needed to slow him down. I needed to wind him along for a while, achieve a greater separation, and then could I finally get to my car without him breathing down my neck.
I started down the shallow embankment and skidded near the bottom on my heels. The dirt was wet. Mud splashed onto my jeans and coated my sneakers. Hauling my sloshing shoes forward, I felt one thousand pounds heavier sprinting across the grassy field a few hundred yards out to the tree line behind the deck. I pushed on painful puffs of breath. I prayed my shoelaces wouldn’t betray me because falling in this field was suddenly scarier than anything else. Any misstep or fall ensured a brutal death.
Axeman broke into intervals of wheezing laughter as he stumbled down the tangled embankment seconds later and fell onto his knees, then his chest, and tumbled over into a puddle of rainwater. Looking back, he was already steadying himself up with the ax. A mixture of frustration and exhilaration had spread across his face.
He was fast. He was lurching forward again without a skip in his homicidal heart. A bib of mud and blood pancaked his chest.
I batted an onslaught of flies that came out of nowhere.
Through a mouthful of zeal, I heard him scream:
“THAT TASTY RUMP!”
The stench of rot was overwhelming. There was a dirt pile ahead. My innards rolled over. A fly kamikazed into my mouth, lodging itself in my throat. I gagged.
Axeman growled. It was an extraordinary effort despite his harsh breathing.
That was when I came across a stiff human leg peeling in the short grass, the thigh obscured by the dirt pile. I made a wide detour around it, failing at my efforts to steal my gaze from the blackening toes. Black specks swarmed over the exposed flesh like ants over a discarded piece of bread. Behind the dirt pile were three corpses leaning on each other, each with their heads missing. The regions of hacked skin where they were removed were mottled mush, purple and swollen. Maggots writhed inside the neck stumps like contorting brains.
That was when I began to scream, and I think I did it for some time.
They all ran, you know, my mind informed me through the screaming. They all did exactly what you are doing right now.
“That’s Moody Cody! And that’s Jakey Poo! Here’s Joking JOSH!” the axeman said, emphasizing the last name.
Cody, Jake, Josh. God help me.
I cut a large circular swath around the field, aware of my depleting energy, legs feeling as if they were slowly being lowered into a vat of industrial acid. The axeman had unloosened the leopard robe and then discarded it. His hairless arms were devoid of color -nearly albino- and appeared baby smooth. Contrarily, his chest hair was an amalgamation of sweat, mud, and dried blood. Liquified white powder ran in fresh rivulets down his face, and the bony prominences of his cheekbones reminded me of Voldemort.
He was getting tired, and he knew it. That was good.
A burst of residual energy supplemented this observation. I galloped along the tree line and clambered up the slope again, pulling at any object within reach. It was like climbing Everest. Axeman’s rattle of exasperation drifted from below as I tore into the dirt.
“YOU LITTLE COCKSUCKING SHIT!” he shrieked.
His cackling had ceased and dissolved into a silence that chilled me. I almost wanted to tell him a joke.
What is it called when Santa runs someone down with his sleigh? A Ho-Ho-Homicide!
I pushed myself up at the top and got onto my wobbling knees. Everything was moving so damn slow. My leg muscles were jelly, but somehow I managed to get to my car. We don’t even need to talk about the part where I nearly tripped over the exposed roots by the trunk of that fucking oak tree and went head-over-balls. I briefly struggled with the keys and wondered how in the hell I was going to get my hand to stop shaking for even a split second. Then, I remembered I had gotten a new key fob the week before and didn’t need to open the door manually.
Jesus Christ, thank you, I thought and got inside. I automatically pressed the lock button and fumbled for the seatbelt, securing it.
For a terrible moment, my mind fought aimlessly for any direction on how to operate a car. Ignition, I knew. Key was another word I knew. There was a hurricane whipping up the thinking juice in there; that was bad news.
The axeman hammered his fists into the rear right window. He threw a jab at the glass and so on, and I hoped he was breaking every goddamn bone in his hand while he was at it. That excited a doomed wire somewhere in the mush of my brain.
“Key in the ignition!” I said, shaking with joy at the revelation.
I turned the engine over. No growls. No squeaks. Divinity in its purest form to my ears. Hallelujah. I disengaged the emergency brake and put it into gear. Let the maniac be behind the car. That would work out even better.
Something tore through the ceiling.
The sight of it blinded me in an existential moment of mortality. The grimy, blood-stained metal nearly splitting my head open like a watermelon was somehow a meaningful sign of my coming end. Axeman shouted indecipherable curses as he worked to free it. I floored it in reverse -ax still lodged in the roof- and came close to nailing the tree.
Axeman jumped, smearing blood all across the rear window. Not only was he insane, but he was also agile like a cat. He crawled forward. I fumbled with the gears. His weight popped the flimsy roof out of frame as he went to work on recovering his weapon.
I switched gears and pushed the accelerator down to the floor.
The resulting whiplash knocked my skull against the headrest, but I’m pretty sure the maniac got the worst of it. His body floundered loudly, screams of rage, surprise, or both as we went down the hill.
SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. FUCK. What now, what now, what now, WHAT NOW?
But it was obvious. I screamed out in triumph.
“Physics, you sick son-of-a-bitch,” I said, bracing my forearms against the wheel and squeezing my eyes-lids shut in a half-assed prayer:
Lord, please afford this maniac the courtesy of flying into the next century. Thanks.
I planted both feet on the brake pedal and couldn’t help but gulp in surprise as the seat belt depressed my stomach and went taut into the side of my neck. All at once, the air inside of my tortured lungs evacuated, and I briefly saw stars soon replaced with grayish floaters. In a particularly awful vision, I was being decapitated by the seat belt, an arterial gush painting the odometer.
Like a bear tumbling over a cliff, a fleeting scream arose over my head. I looked up knowingly. The ax was still buried in the ceiling frame, but its proprietor went head-first across the front windshield and hood like a thrashing human sled, impacting the asphalt ten feet ahead. There was a loud pop. If that was his skull cracking open, good, but I was still going to run the motherfucker over. And I would do it with a smile on my face, too.
He propped his elbow up for leverage, a thin sheet of bloodied flesh draping over his forearm, and began wiggling his body. I could have only imagined his agonized moan. He rolled onto the grass just as I punched the accelerator. There was a mushy puddle on the asphalt where he had been, and I briefly caught the look of indignation on his drooling, pained face as I went by.
I wanted to turn my head -look at that thing in my ceiling- but I wouldn’t let myself. If a car had been approaching when I turned back onto the town road, I might have had more troubles than I do now. Perhaps I would be dead. Nonetheless, I sped down Wayne Road and did a quick California roll at the next intersection. I was crying when I blasted through the first red light. When I passed the first gas station, I finally found the courage to look into the rearview and saw blue lights flashing.
God, I’ve never been so delighted to have been pulled over.
The cops have been watching the house per my request, and my parents have been worried, obviously. According to the detective working my case, there’s been a history of missing boys in this state. She’s got a hunch, she says, and when I first heard the phrase “homicidal scamming” come out of her mouth, I shook with uncontrollable laughter.
Jesus, I remember thinking to myself, she’s got a sense of humor. Even in all of this shitty work she has to do.
In recent days, the forensic DNA analysis of the blood on the ax has verified the identities of more victims.
How many more? Let’s just say the gal with the badge didn’t want to say.
I’m glad she hasn’t told me because I’ve thought about those three headless corpses near the dirt pile every day since.
Fright doesn’t dilute with distance or time; for some, it becomes increasingly concentrated through the power of worry. Instead of trying to explain it to you, I’ll try with my therapist next week.
I’ll tell you what I know just in case you’ve skipped everything else I’ve written above.
There’s an app called Grindr. You may see a young man with a teeth-filled smile, and you may be tempted to initiate a conversation with him. He will be five-foot-ten, slim, and one-hundred-and-seventy-five pounds.
This person is dead. I don’t even think Jake saw my profile. I’m thinking now I never even talked to the living Jake. If you see this active profile, block it immediately. I repeat: Do not respond to Jake 18.