He was sitting in front of me with his hands crossed and a solid expression of disbelief on his face. “Sir. Please go ahead and describe last night’s events once more for the record.” The moment I heard that, my annoyance gauge hit a new level. “What? Again? How many times will I have to tell the same story?” He gave me a blank and stoic expression, lifting his shoulders and correcting his posture a bit, trying to be as professional as possible, then he looked at me all squared up and said. “Be as detailed as possible. We need all the information we can get. So please let’s go through it once more”.
I took a very deep breath and paused for a bit before I started… “My name is Bret Wepster, and I’m 42 years old, I am yay high, I work as a private security guard and I like long walks at the fridge”. I said and smiled when the officer in front of me cracked a smile and chuckled a bit at my frustrated attempt at a joke. In the recent past, I was hired by the administration of a rural community center and camping grounds to keep an eye on things during the night.
I was supposed to mostly stay inside the security booth monitoring the grounds through a CCTV system and pretty much make sure that nothing or no one strange entered or did anything our employers would not approve of. But I was also required to take walks around the area periodically to make sure there is no funny business going on. The camping grounds are technically closed after the summer. But there have been people that tried to camp there for free during the off-season periods. The thing is, the nearby town was experiencing a series of violent crimes.
People were being killed. In a quite gruesome manner too. Sometimes in the streets, and other times inside their homes when they were alone. Plus there were multiple disturbing disappearances. So it makes sense that the administration decided to hire additional security to keep everything safe. They didn’t want any unwanted incident that would hurt the reputation of the area. They were old school too. They could just as easily install a few extra cameras and make the entire system remotely operated with less money than having all of us around. But they wanted real flesh and blood people.
So until that criminal spread was over, I was in for some extra money as one of the security guards. There were three of us, and we were all colleagues from the same private security company. I could say with some confidence that I was the most experienced of the three of us. We have worked before in multiple security gigs so I knew them somewhat. Well, I knew them well enough to go by first name bases with them and crack some jokes in good spirits.
Kim, who was around 26 or 27 years old, and Jessica was 34 I think. The first week passed with no incident. We had nothing to report. Everything was calm. The second week was the same. It was the Monday night of the third week at the job when everything happened. Well, it was after 3 am so technically it all happened in the early hours of Tuesday. After checking out every single division of that place, we simply sat down to take our last break before our final patrol of the grounds.
While Jessica was looking at the monitors Kim and I were having our lunch break with a side of a game of cards, of course. “This is what I call easy money”, Kim said. I looked at him while taking a big bite of my sandwich. “Sure… We get to walk around a bit and we don’t have to be human scarecrows. But what do you mean?” Before I finished speaking he threw a card on the table. “Not to mention that I am losing at cards,” I said before I laid back on my seat, throwing my cards down in defeat. “I mean the job here is easy peasy. Why would anyone come this far out of town on a closed camp at night ?”. “let’s hope it stays that way,” I replied.
Some of the recent crimes in the news were extremely violent. “I have a friend working in the emergency response. He said that some details are being kept secret from the public for now. But he mentioned that these look like some ritualistic killings. Animal mutilations, human sacrifices type of thing. There were some parts of the dead bodies, like bones and skulls, being taken and in many cases, entire victim’s bodies were taken. I don’t know if they are some kind of sick trophies or if we are talking about cannibalism or something”. “That’s insane, there are a lot of messed up people out there. Jessica said”. I nodded approvingly. “I’ve been in this line of work for a decade. At this point, I don’t think anything can surprise me anymore”. I said.
“Oh, right. Well, I gotta go to the little security” guard’s room”. “Ok Kim you are on monitor duty.” He nodded and stood up. You are playing next, right? Ten bucks bet.” “You’re on”, Jessica said. “Go on, do your thing”. Kim remarked as Jessica went to the restroom. Twenty minutes passed, but Jessica was not back yet. Eh, sometimes we need a little longer in there. Depending on what kind of fast food you are into, if you know what I mean. But rules are rules. I had to start the patrol.
I told, Kim I will take over the monitors when I returned, grabbed a flashlight from the charging station and I head out to take a walk around the camping grounds. Five minutes into my patrol I spotted Jessica by the break of the forest. She always left a few pieces of her bread to feed some squirrels she had befriended. I made a few remarks about a goofy-looking squirrel that was trying to stuff as much bread into his mouth as he could manage and then she joined me for the rest of our patrol. About ten minutes after that I broke off to release Kim from his station and take over.
On my way back, I found a weird piece of wood that almost looked like a mask laying on the ground outside of the security booth. It had a couple of holes for eyes in the general orientation you would expect for a mask and a long chin with a crease about halfway down that kind of looked like a mouth. It was placed on the top step of our 3-step ladder to the door of our booth.
There were no overhead trees in the area so this could not have fallen from above. And this thing was relatively heavy. Too heavy for the wind to carry it here. It would take something like a very bad storm or a tornado to do something like that. But we didn’t have as much as a light breeze tonight. Someone had to have left it there. But I hadn’t seen anyone around here, nor had I seen any indication that someone has been around this place. No cars were parked in the parking lot and as far as I could tell the roads around here were completely empty at this hour.
Plus Kim didn’t mention anything in the radio. I looked over at Kim through the window on the door and he looked fine. He had his back turned to me and he was manually switching cameras. As you would expect him to do. I didn’t know what to make of this. So, I picked it up and opened the door to the booth. When I opened the door Kim turned around to greet me. “Hey, how is goo… Hmm… What is that?” I lifted the weird mask and showed it to him. “I have no Idea. I found it outside of the door. It’s not yours is it?” I asked with one brow raised.
“No man… Can I look at it?” I handed him the mask and he took a quick look, turning it over a couple of times before he brought it very close to his face. “It’s a little odd…” he said with a long pause “and It smells kind of nice. Somewhat woody but also like a flower of sorts at the same time” He said while sniffing it. “Maybe it’s Jessica’s”. “Yeah, it has to be, right? … Anyway the day is almost done. You two finish your patrol and we will start closing up here”. “You got it, boss”. He turned around and walked out of the door.
I for one was curious… Too curious to wait the 45 or so minutes to find out the story behind this enigmatic piece of wood I found. Ok… Yeah ok… Fine… I was bored out of my mind by now. And everything was better than watching black-and-white night vision monitors with nothing going on for an hour. Even watching a recording of black-and-white night vision monitors with something going on was better than that.
So I scrolled back to roughly around the time I started my patrol and pressed play. Yeap there I was exiting the door. No weird wooden mask behind the door. I fast-forwarded the video until Jessica came out. Same. No mask on the top step. Something weird was going on. I kept fast-forwarding until I could see the mask. I had to do a couple of passes on the scrolling because I missed that part, but when I got it, my jaw hit the floor. It happened fast, very fast.
I saw an unknown man coming in to frame, he place the mask on the short staircase and then walked out of the frame. The entire thing took 6 seconds. I rewound the video to watch it again and stopped it to take a better look at him. He had an average build and was a little taller than Kim. His clothes were muddy and torn from place to place. But the thing that made the hair on the back of my neck stand is that he was wearing a mask like the one I found. His mask had a completely different shape but it was similar in style to the other one and although it was difficult to tell from my little monitor but looked like it was made out of the same material.
I quickly scrolled all the other cameras that were watching the roads that lead to and from the guard house. And I had nothing. This guy was nowhere to be found. Did he dematerialize or something? Where did he come from? The nearest city was a good hour away from here by car. The only road in and out of here had no traffic at all tonight. I saw the video in fast forward to make sure. Nothing. Then I had a chilling realization. Did he come from the forest?
As this thought settled in I had another frightening revelation. In my panic to find out where this guy had gotten to I forgot to radio in and notify the others about what happened. Worst still Jessica should have been back already to relieve me from my post 15 minutes ago. I grabbed my radio and said. “Hey guys, we have a situation. Report back. Over” I released the button and waited for a response. I got silence. “We have a trespasser in the property. Report back. Over”. Nothing. “Kim, can you read me? A trespasser left the mask here. Over.” The Silence was deafening.
I jumped up from my chair ready to go out and look, but I changed my mind. I called the police and told the dispatcher that we had someone trespassing on the property and that two members of my team are not responding on their radios. Unfortunately, I was told that It would take 35 to 50 minutes for someone to come out here. She instructed me to call in if anything else happens. I thanked her and I ended the call.
My mind was dazed by the absurdity of the situation and I knew I needed to take a moment and still myself. I would be of no help to anyone if I were to just run around like a panicked madman trying to find out what’s going on. I turned around and looked at my monitors again. There were no signs of anyone. Not Kim, Jessica nor our masked intruder. So that means they must be located in the places that our CCTV cameras don’t cover. So I got an idea. 40 to 50 minutes is a long time, and if my coworkers were hurt in any way this amount of time could cost them their life even if we knew where they were.
But chances are that the police would come and take an extra 10 to 20 minutes to locate them before they could even offer them any first aid. So that settles it. I shouldered a first aid kit bag and took out my telescopic baton. I wish our company would have had the foresight of having a handgun for emergencies like this. One with rubber bullets would be great. Even an airsoft gun with pepper spray paintball-like bullets would work just fine. But no. Come to think of it… I had to go through the freaking Spanish Inquisition just to get this thing. I can’t imagine what I would have to go through to get something that would even resemble a firearm. Anyways. I am done complaining.
I got out and started looking around. I started with the community center. Almost every angle of the building including the interior was covered by the cameras with one exception. The side of the building adjacent to the forest line. I had a look and nothing. But I could feel eyes looking at me from the forest. I pointed my flashlight in the thick canopy but I didn’t see anything. So I kept walking. At the farthest end of the campgrounds close to the restroom building, I started hearing a tapping noise low, somewhat repetitive, and it had a rhythmical quality to it.
So I did what you would expect me to do, I followed the sound. I went behind the building and the sound guided me into the forest. There I spotted the tree where the sound was coming from. I circled around it and my flashlight eliminated a pool of red on the ground and I traced it up the trunk of the tree. There I saw Jessica. It was hanging there lifelessly, her leg twitching and hitting the tree. She was pinned halfway up the tree with a garden fork through her chest.
The horrific scene in front of me resembled some kind of sick ritual. Who the hell did this? How could someone do this? It would take time to do such a thing, and how was this done without making noise? I didn’t know what to think. There must have been an entire group of people around here to do something like this. But where? I could not see any indications that other people were in the area.
As I was trying to make sense of what was happening around me I noticed that the blood was dripping from her wound very slowly. Perhaps by sheer dumb luck whoever did this missed all the vital parts. Maybe there is a chance to save her. I tried to sense a pulse from her legs but I couldn’t and the rest of her was too high up for me to reach her. I needed a ladder to reach her neck. So I made my way to the storage shed to get one. While I called back the police dispatcher and notified them of my gravely injured colleague. And they had some paramedics coming our way too. When I reached the storage shed I was winded and I stopped for a moment to catch my breath.
But when my breath calmed down and I lifted my head to look at the door of the shed I froze. I could see a shadow in my peripheral vision. I slowly turned my head to face whatever was next to me. And when I realized what I was looking at I was stunned. In front of me was standing the guy from the video. He was just standing there. Observing me. A long moment stood without either of us making a move. And all of a sudden he turned and started walking calmly without losing eye contact from me. Until he was out of my view. I was flabbergasted at the response. I tried to chase after him. But I was too late. When I looked around the shed the area was empty. It’s as if he vanished again. I stood in the middle of the field behind the shed for a moment until I started hearing murmuring coming from the darkness of the night. In the direction of our security booth.
I was moving slowly and carefully, trying to be as pragmatic as I could manage in the moment, and more experienced than most of them. At that point, I dared not call out to anyone. I knew my voice could attract unwanted attention. But I could feel eyes on me at all times from that point on. Fear was messing up my mind. I could not think clearly. I was making a lot of noise and I was holding the only light in a very large empty park. I am sure people could see me for miles.
And yet I could not bring myself to call out to whoever was watching me or to whoever was making this murmuring sound. When I reached the picnic area the sound grew louder and louder and I just kept walking. As more and more of the campgrounds were coming into view, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when a flashlight panned over a person out of the blue. This sudden scare blew the wind out of my lungs. When I steadied myself and looked a bit closer I realized It was Kim. He had his back turned to me and he was murmuring along in the dark in the middle of the field. I could not understand a thing of what he was saying. I called out to him and he didn’t respond.
I looked around and It was just the two of us, but something was obviously wrong with him. So I panned around slowly and it didn’t take long to see how wrong this entire scene was. He had the mark I had found on his face. He was not holding it. His arms were hanging limply by his side and the mask didn’t have any string or anything to hold it on to his face. I was in his field of view by now and he did not agnolage that I was there at all. He kept looking straight ahead and slightly up. So I slowly got a closer look at the mask. And what I saw terrified me.
From the back side of the mask, I could see small white hair growing from the mask into Kim’s face. Some of them were much bigger and they were digging into his flesh. Like some kind of parasite. When I saw that I wanted to run. But kept on passing back and forth trying to work out the courage to do what I thought that I needed to do. I used the hilt of my baton on the mask while holding his head trying to pry it off of his face. But I could not do anything.
Then I opened the first-aid bag, grabbed the first-aid scissors, and started cutting the little white hairs that were connecting it to his face. And that seemed to be working. But I found it difficult to cut the thicker ones. When my hand got tired I looked down and I saw that he was looking at me. Staring at me intently but he was still mumbling. “Don’t worry Kim. I am here baddy. I got you. I will take this thing off of you in no time.”
Right at that moment I started hearing the police siren approaching. So I evidently grabbed my flashlight and started waving it in circles to get their attention and get the paramedics to here as quickly as possible. But when I looked back. Kim was gone. He was just gone. He didn’t make any noise and I didn’t even notice that murmuring had stopped. The rest you know already.
“Yes, we could not locate the trespasser and Security Guard Kim.” He said and took a short pause. “We were not able to locate Jessica as well. Although we could locate the tree you mentioned and the garden fork, they were both covered with blood which was enough for us to make a positive ID Jessica Simons your coworker”. He stopped and flipped the page. “We got a copy of the security footage. But we could not find any fingerprints in the area”… “Your toxicology came out clean too, so we don’t have to worry about that.”
He stopped and cleared his throat. “Do you have any history of mental illness we should know about?” I looked him straight in the face with big black bags under my eyes. “You should know that already. It is in my security screening history and background checks. I am a security guard. So… No.” He stopped and smirked awkwardly at me. “Yes well we can’t be too careful, lives are at stake”. “I know,” I said. “So what now?”. He leaned back on his chair took a breath, opened his mouth, and let it hang open for a bit.
“Let’s go over this one more time”… I flipped out. “The hell we will,” I said looking at him menacingly. “Sir. We need all the details we can get”. This is un-freaking-believable… “What more do you want to know? A crazy guy with magic masks attack us and took away my coworkers. Good enough for you?”. I pushed my chair back and away from the table and I just gave up right there and then. “I want to go home, take a shower and sleep. I have no idea why you torment me like this. Just tell me. Do I need to get a hold of my lawyer?”
“That won’t be necessary Sir. We just have a few more questions for you”.
I gave a very deep disappointed sigh.
“Can you at least get me a cup of coffee?”