Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16f9nsx/my_town_is_a_slaughterhouse_part_2/?sort=new
I thought the story had reached its end by then, and for the next decade or so, it did. I returned to writing textbooks and history books as a ghostwriter. The pay was great as usual, and it kept me busy. Of course, the series of X murders stayed at the back of my mind. I debated quietly researching it, but I didn’t want to be pulled back into that trap while my daughter was around. I lived a normal life as a single father, and Stacey grew up to be a wonderful young woman. Parenthood proved to be an even greater challenge than finding information on crimes that had happened nearly a century ago. Ever since that note came in, I had been scared of leaving her alone.
Around 2010, when she went to prom, I had one of the most frightening experiences in my life. She left with her date, and from what I recall he was a decent kid. I hesitantly decided that I would be ok with him taking her to prom. Stacey had known about the note and the threats since she was ten, and although she wasn’t as worried as I was, she still seemed concerned. She always carried pepper spray and a whistle on her. When she left with her date, I went to the living room, and sat on the couch with my phone on hand.
At that time my mother was hospitalized, and my daughter was going through the trials and tribulations of being a teenager. I layed down on the couch to take some deep breaths, and closed my eyes. I set a timer on my phone, and woke up after two hours of rest. I woke up in a cold sweat, and walked over to the bathroom to splash some water on my eyes. My jaw was sore, and my gray shirt was a darker color from all the sweat stains. I opened my phone and texted “r u doing allright” to Stacey. I waited anxiously for the next ten minutes, and she finally responded “yeah”. I told her to be back before eleven, and she responded with “fine”. I wondered if I had to be this protective considering the threat came in over ten years ago, but even without the threat, I still worried about teenage boys.
I expected her to be home around ten, and I waited in the living room. Not a word came in. I tried calling her several times, but she never picked up. Anxiety turned into a full blown panic attack, and I rushed to get the car keys. I had gotten the address of her date from his parents, and I headed there first. I had the car radio turned down, and I nearly ran a red light a couple of times. My car’s tires skidded in the puddles, and I made it to their address. There was no car parked out front, besides the parents’ car. I ran up to the door, and started banging on it like a lunatic. His dad came in and I asked him where he went. He gave me this look like I was a fucking madhouse patient, and then he told me that he said that he was at my house. We both knew that something was wrong, and he went to get his car keys. I drove back to my house to check if she had been dropped off, but there was no one there.
I scrambled to think whether I should go and look for her, or whether to just wait it out. I paced back and forth in the kitchen, and slowly dialed nine one one. I told the operator that my daughter was missing, and waited for a response. I described in detail what had happened and how long she had been missing, and all I got was “we’ll call you back if we can’t find her”. I had given him the license plate and the type of car her boyfriend had, hoping that they would find her. I had that terrible gut feeling, the kind that makes you want to vomit and scream simultaneously. After waiting and violently fidgeting for the next thirty minutes, I headed out to try to find my daughter. I drove and patrolled the streets like a fucking vigilante. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I should have been more protective, and I kept my eyes peeled. While driving past the fields, I saw a car that looked like his, in the middle of the empty field. I felt a sinking feeling like no other.
I swerved down the dirt road, racing past weeds and wild crops. When I made it to the car, I parked, got out and looked in with a flashlight. I saw no one in there, and I screamed “Stacey” at the top of my lungs. I yelled her name a second time, and I decided to rush into the field. I brushed through the tall grass, and to the forest-like area, and I saw two figures in the dark. I rushed over, nearly tripping on the roots of the trees. I shined the flashlight, and caught my daughter and her boyfriend. I’ll spare you the details, but I felt terrible. She looked at me and said “Dad, what the fuck is wrong with you”. I stepped backwards, and saw a look on his face. It was a look of fear, shame, and anger all mixed together. “Fuck” I muttered under my breath. This was going to require a family therapy session or two.
After that, I realized that I should have given her more privacy, but she still gave me sour looks every now and then. It took time to accept that she was her own person, and that I wouldn’t be able to protect her. She was strong for sure, but the world is a dangerous place, and from a young age she had been exposed to that danger. I told her that nothing scared me more than the thought of losing her. “Ok dad” she said to me.
Around 2013 she was off her way to college, all the way in New York. The first couple of months alone in the house felt more lonely than anything before. I considered resuming the investigation, even though Henry Vanguard had passed away the prior year. I knew that there was an answer, but I didn’t know how far I would have to go to get the answer. I decided that I would have to look through every local murder, and every missing persons case I could find. I turned the living room into my workspace and began digging.
Across the border, there had been several missing persons cases, one of which involved an entire construction team. Most of them were prostitutes and low income workers it seemed. I didn’t know what to make of them, but I had a feeling that some of the disappearances over the border were related to the local murders. After the corpses and skeletons had been uncovered, it had been speculated that Scott Anderson was part of a scalp hunting gang. I couldn’t figure if this had any correlation to the local murders, but everything had to be considered.
Scott Anderson had supposedly died of natural causes in his bed. No funeral was held, and very little was heard from him during the last couple of years of his life. This was unexplained, but it didn’t seem like it would be relevant.
Upon looking at the murders of the Morrison family, I found that they had last been spotted heading out of town. The car was found and the tank was empty. The police speculated that they were picked up by a person pretending to be a good Samaritan, but no tracks were found. I looked at the crime scene photos, and noticed it was next to a small field. I looked and saw trees in the background, and five rocks, all of equal size in a circle in the background. I decided that I was going to set out to find this field, and what was near it.
I drove for hours, listening to The Downward Spiral on repeat. I had to get gas once, and my hands were sore from driving. When I saw the rocks, I pulled over, and cheered to myself. The only problem was that there wasn’t anything near it that seemed important. I walked across to the rocks, and I found that they were just rocks. I sighed in disappointment. All I could hear was the chirping of insects, and running water. I wondered if there could be anything near the river. Nothing but a drainage pipe and an empty shack. The shack looked fairly newer, and had some fishing equipment inside. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I took pictures anyway. The drainage pipes however, were awfully suspicious.
I reluctantly stepped inside, and found them to be empty tunnels of concrete at first glance. My phone was at ninety five percent, so I wasn’t worried about running out of battery. I heard my footsteps echo through the cavernous tunnels, and I slowly trudged through the rainwater. After heading down a couple of turns, I realized that if it were not for my phone, It would be almost pitch black. The dust filled up my lungs, and I had to put my shirt over my nose. Still, I was desperate to find something of meaning down here.
I heard nothing but my footsteps and the occasional sound of water dropping. I checked my phone, and it was currently four thirty. I decided that if I couldn’t find anything, I would head back by six. The loneliness became unbearable, but I knew that there had to be something down there. The sound of shoes against concrete and water splashing felt like it came from all around me. Some of the dust blurred my vision, and I could only see a couple feet in front of me.
I checked my phone to see if there was any service, and of course there was none. “Fuck” I mumbled under my breath. I could tell I was getting closer to the town because I felt a rumbling in the tunnels, most likely from cars or something. I stopped moving to see if I could hear anything, but it was pure silence. I continued walking, and once again, pure silence. I tried this five times, and during the fifth time, I heard a couple of footsteps, but then silence. “Must be maintenance or something” I thought to myself.
I could not tell whether I had been where I was before since everything looked so similar. I decided I was going to head back, and on my way I saw something strange. I couldn’t figure out why there was a security camera in the middle of the drains. Either I was in the middle of someone’s lair, or I was below something important. Either way, I needed to head back. It took me seemingly two hours to get back, and when I finally made it out, it was nighttime. I carefully moved through the fields, and found my car in the exact same spot where I left it. I checked to make sure that nothing was different about it, and I headed home to plan my next venture into the drainage pipes.
I decided I would use a spool of red wool so I could trace back my steps. I had a military grade flashlight, and a small handgun. I was venturing into the bear’s den, and I knew that I could cross the very worst that humanity had to offer. I decided not to text my daughter, since I wanted her to have nothing to do with this. By now, this wasn’t just a curiosity as much as it was an obsession. I barely got any sleep the night before heading down.
When I headed back, my hands were shaking. I reminded myself that whatever was down there was probably gone or damaged sense it had been decades since the murder of the Morrison family. I got back into the pipes, and continued walking, until I heard the familiar sound of cars driving overhead. The spool of wool slowly unraveled, and I headed deep into the tunnels. It had been around thirty minutes, and then something was noticeably wrong. The wool wasn’t unraveling anymore, it was just dragging. I pulled the string towards me. It seemed to have about three hundred feet of damp wet wool. At the end, there was a little note tied. I panicked, hoping it was just teenagers. I opened the note, and it had a red X marked to it. It read “leave”.
I had decided that it was time to leave, and I was not going to take any risks. I ran down the tunnels, and the sound of water splashing became deafening. I couldn’t find my way back though. I was caught in a labyrinth with the minotaur, relying on the light of my torch. I stopped running to see If I could hear anything. I heard what sounded like faint screaming of some sort. I needed to find where the screaming was coming from. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave behind these people. I braced myself, and headed towards the sound. I took a few wrong turns, but eventually made it to a ladder leading down. As I climbed down, the screams became louder at every rung. I felt my heart burn, and the blood was sucked right out of my face. My fingers shook and my grip was strong as iron. At the bottom, there was a metal door, and when I opened it, the sounds of screaming flooded into my ears. It led into a hallway made of stone, with stains of blood that looked like they had been there for centuries.
It was more screaming than you could possibly imagine, I couldn’t even hear my own voice amidst this chaos. I held my pistol, and didn’t dare leave an entrance out of my sight. I held my back against the wall, and had my finger on the pistol. I tried to take in every little detail I could. I realized the door to the entrance had a lock, and I locked it shut to buy myself some time. I finally made it to the other door on the other side of the hallway.. I opened it, and found myself in a room full of desperate people in cages. The lights overhead were blinding at first, and I could see everything in its brutal detail. They looked like skeletons, with rings around their eyes. The place was filthy, and the smell nearly made me vomit. The floor was mushy, and the whole place felt hot and wet. I looked behind me and saw someone heading down the hall. I held my pistol to the door, and got up against the back of the wall. The man that entered looked like a living corpse. His skin was a pale gray tone, and he was bald and blank. The legend became fact, and I braced myself to shoot.
When he walked towards me, I got ready to shoot. “Who are you?” I yelled. I hoped he could hear me over the screaming. “WHO ARE YOU” I yelled a second time. He looked at me, and let out a toothy grin, showing his dark yellow teeth. “You’re not going to get out of here if I’m dead,” he said. I had no time for his mind games. “WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU” I shouted at the top of my breath. He walked closer. My finger was ready to fire at him. “I told you, you’re not going to get out of here If I am dead” he said, in an eerily calm tone of voice. “I’m not alone you know” he said, smiling that wretched grin. He took a step towards me, but I hesitated to fire. He posed no immediate threat, but I knew that he could kill me if he wanted to. He put the gun against his forehead, and looked me dead in the eyes. “If you shoot me, they will find you, and they will kill you and anyone you love” he said, grimacing. He looked and smelled like a corpse. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot him, with or without the threats, I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I instead hit him in the teeth with the pistol, and then knocked him on the forehead. He scowled in pain. I was ready to do the worst.
Torture was not out of the question. I couldn’t bring myself to kill him, but I knew that I was going to have to hurt him if I wanted some answers. I started by twisting his fingers, and he shouted in pain. I was recording the audio with my phone, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to miss a second of what he was saying. “Tell me who you are,” I said to him. He looked me in the eyes and said “I have been around for centuries. I am the winner of every game, and you are just an expendable piece. I have killed thousands, and I will continue to do so. You don’t know the power I have. I control the flow of the rivers of this world. You are a piece of driftwood that happened to wash on my shore. All of the people in this room are nothing to me but pieces to my collection. You don’t know how long I’ve been here. I have been here longer than you ever will. I am immortal. The world does not know my name, but they know of my presence”. To me this felt like the type of thing you would expect to hear from an insane narcissist.
“Why the X?” I asked. He looked at me with a puzzled look at first, then opened his mouth. “If you look at the wolf, the eyes face forward. If you look at mankind, our eyes face forwards, yet we chose to live as scavengers or dependents, like dogs. Even the most useless and inbred dogs were once powerful wolves, but man shaped them to fit his desires. When we choose to ignore our predatory instincts, we become just that: subservient dogs. ANYONE in history that is worth something is a predator. We must become the apex predator to fill our highest purpose. What is man, if it is not the most dangerous prey and predator. Whatever is counteractive to my instincts, will be my prey. You are a wolf in a sense of your own, but even the wolf has a greater predator. I am, and I will be the greatest predator. The people in those caves are not predators, to me they are dependent scum. I feed them, I provide, and when it is time, I will dine on them. I am the hunter that I have set out to be. I did not become great by simply floating down the river. I chose to swim against the current towards greatness. I am-”. I kicked him in the crotch, and yelled “shut the fuck up”. He was certainly out of his mind, but I could tell he had prepared this exact speech.
“I HAVE OUTLIVED EVERYONE ON THIS EARTH, BECAUSE I CHOSE THE PATH TOWARDS GREATNESS” he yelled at me. He stood up, and I held the gun to his forehead. “If you shoot me, you and your beautiful daughter will fall prey to my pack” he said. I didn’t put the gun down. “What pack”, I said, looking eye to eye with him. “I have raised a family, and they have all failed me and my pursuit towards greatness. They hunt, but they cannot feast. I am the wolf they feed, and you are a lamb who chose to enter the wrong cave” he said. He gripped the pistol tighter, and pressed it towards his forehead. “Even if my family are not willing to kill, I have enough wealth to hire people who are desperate enough to do it for me” he said, clenching the gun. “What family?” I said, pressing it to his head harder than before. “Ah, I forgot. You never got my name. I am Scott Anderson”.
I couldn’t figure out how he had lived this long, and how he had kept this a secret for so long. “YOU KILLED YOUR FUCKING DAUGHTER” I said, astonished at his depravity. He simply shrugged it off and said, “Julia to me was like a gazelle calf that was raised by the lion. She could never keep her legs shut, and when the time came, she couldn’t run with the pack. Became too squeamish by the sight of blood and threatened to tell. I didn’t enjoy it, but I did what I had to”. “Besides, wouldn’t you do the same if you were in my position?” he said. I was revolted by this comment, and proceeded to jam the pistol in his eye. He let out a shriek like nails on a chalkboard. “Everyone will know what this place is,” I said to him. “Nobody knows who you fucking are,” I yelled. He looked back at me. “Everyone knows what I am,” he said. I fired a bullet right next to his feet, and he bent over to pick it up. “I know this gun,” he said, eyeing the bullet. “And by the looks of it, there are seven bullets left”. “You can kill me, but in return, you and your family will die. Regardless of whether I am dead or alive, I will remain legendary. You will die a pathetic man who stumbled across something greater” he said, almost laughing. I held the gun against his head, and said “YOU ARE COMING WITH ME”.
I grabbed him by the back, and shoved him forward. He stumbled, but kept at a decent pace. “What will happen to you if you lose me?” he said. I didn’t respond, and shoved him forward. “Think about it, you caught a man who doesn’t exist, in an underground area, that nobody knows about”. I couldn’t handle his bullshit. “SHUT THE FUCK UP” I yelled. I debated killing him right then and there. “By the time we exit, they have probably started looking for your daughter”. I looked at him and said “Where does she live?”. I gave him a smug look. “Yeah, you talk a lot of shit but I know you’re bluffing”. He silently stood there. We made it down the hallway. “Up the ladder I said with my pistol pointed towards him. He reluctantly climbed up, and I said “don’t try any smart shit, you don’t have a flashlight”. He climbed up, and as soon as he made it to the top, he ran. I climbed as rapidly as I possibly could, not looking down as I prepared to run. Then it happened. A foot hit me straight on the forehead and I fell back. My back crunched, and I faded into black.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital with a back and neck brace. I could remember everything though. I tried moving, but it hurt too much. The doctor came into the room with a clipboard and a sheet of paper. “Says you were found right next to a ledge. Better be more careful next time you go exploring” he said. I was confused. “Let me speak to an officer,” I said, clutching the edge of the bed. “Sir, they say they saw you as you fell off this ledge”. I groaned, and opened my mouth. “Let me speak to a fucking officer” I said. The doctor gave me an unhappy look and said “if you insist”. A police officer came in, and I told him the whole story. “I doubt that happened, it’s just your mind playing tricks on you after the fall. I don’t think something like that can go unnoticed either. If you can tell us where this was, I can have them search the area.” I told him about the area in the drainage pipes, but I doubted they would be able to find it. I wanted to get up out of the bed, but I simply didn’t have the strength. I sat there like a vegetable, wondering what would happen.
I called Stacy, and explained to her what happened. She came to visit me, and to my luck she was fine. I had my friend Kenny look after her. Kenny was a gun nut, and despite his strange and often stupid political views, I could count on him. I checked in with Stacey twice every day that week, and she reported nothing out of the ordinary.
When I was fully recovered after my week long stay at the hospital, I finally made it home. Everything was perfectly normal, besides the lingering threat of Scott Anderson. I checked my mail that following morning, and I received an envelope without an address. It read:
“I will return eventually, but until then, rest. I assure you your daughter will not be harmed if you let me go. My family proved weak against the threat of arrest, and thus I have decided to eliminate them from the competition. I assure you we will meet again, and if you agree to meet, I will explain everything that you have been wondering. I assure you once again, she will be safe provided you follow the following protocol”
1 - Do not report my whereabouts to anyone. I will know thanks to insiders if a search has been set out for me. I can not stop you from revealing information that you know about me, but I assure you that I can find if police reports have been filed on me.
2 - I have chosen to take on a new identity, and information regarding this new identity will result in the punishment of you and your daughter.
3 - When discussing me in your writings, please emphasize my attributes. I will be able to find everything you write, so I will know what you have mentioned. Please share my story, and make sure to paint an honest picture of me with little hyperbole. I am to be described honestly, as this will help share the true portrait of myself to the reader.
After reading that, I felt that I had been truly defeated. He even went as far as to include the address of my daughter and several pictures of her. I headed over to the state she was in just to make sure she was safe. We both had a feeling that he could have been lying, but neither of us were willing to test this.
The murder of the Anderson family was done in the same fashion as the other murders with the X on them. He had likely killed hundreds more, but only chose to paint an X when he believed he was “eliminating competition”. The members of the Anderson family were found guilty for human trafficking, but you couldn’t arrest dead people unfortunately. The two children were innocent however, which gave the whole scene a feeling of true brutality.
As of now, I have received a letter giving me the exact location where he plans to meet me. I have moved to a location where I could be closer to my daughter a couple years ago, so I don’t know how the hell he managed to find me. Me and Stacey have gotten closer to each other and she knows about this man. I don’t worry for her, she knows what to do if the threat grows closer. She also married a man named Derek, and I think he has her best interests at heart. I don’t know if this meeting with him will end well, so I have written a goodbye note just in case. Scott likely has access to assassins, so I cannot hurt him. I am prepared to take a bullet if I need to. If this story has been published, I am likely dead or missing. I’ve left a note for Stacey to publish this story if I am missing. I know she will be safe. I hope she will be safe.
-Mark Rivers