[The following is an account given by a Wyoming farmer who shall remain anonymous to a local news agency in 2011. The agency shut down two months later.]
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“My wife and I have always lived a kind of secluded life on our farm with our child. We aren’t terribly far from any town or accommodations but we’ve been proudly self sufficient for the most part. We thought it’d give us some peace and quiet.
This was until a couple months ago.
Our crops and livestock were dying left and right. The cows were dropping like flies. I still remember talking with my wife, at the very start of this, thinking it was some stroke of bad luck and how it’d all blow over soon, but then it kept on going. Cattle kept on dying. Plants kept on withering. She promised me that she would help “make things right”.
We called family friends one after the other. Maybe they had the same experience and had a better clue on what was happening. Weird weather, plague, contaminants, anything. Nothing. We were alone and there was nothing about this the news that could clue us in either. Odd.
Later the same day, we decided to finally look around our land. Whatever was doing this had to be in there, but it was already becoming difficult to search. Whatever caused this had done so much damage to our farm that it was almost completely unrecognisable to us. The ground was black as tar and rotting plant matter was sparcely coating the dirt. Dead cows we had yet to clean up layed across the strangely wet soil.
(In hindsight, leaving the cows be probably saved my life. Something was definitely wrong with them. Even after all the interventions, nobody dared touch them. I don’t know why. Doubt I ever will.)
My wife continued to insist that she would “make things right”. She was always a determined woman. Much more determined than I was.
As we searched, it was hard to even recognise what was supposed to be there from what could be a contaminant. It all looked the same.
Soon enough, I heard my wife calling me to come look at something.
The dirt around her looked soaked. More damp than usual. Beside her slowly drifted a tiny stream of.. something. It looked strange. Pale red, with the texture of egg whites. It smelled strongly of undercooked meat and felt to be radiating a slight warmth. We moved away.
We didn’t know what this was. I still don’t. We immediately called the police and hoped that after some chemical clean up we could get back to normal. Maybe it would take weeks. Months. Years, but we would surely get back to normal. Surely.
The police came around later that day. Inspected the scene. Had no clue what they were looking at. Then came the scientists and men in hazmat suits. They took samples, told us to quarantine for a couple days and left. Something about the way they behaved was unnerving. This wan’t right.
They knew it wasn’t right either. They knew this needed to be handled more delicately but for some reason they had to rush through this. At least that’s what I’m assuming. They were forced to do a botched job.
It was around this time that my wife started feeling ill. The following day the scientists came back and took her away. Examinations, hospital visits, research. All I was told was that they couldn’t make sense of it. They were flying the poor woman around the country because no lab could find out what this contaminant was.
I don’t want to imagine what this must have been like for her.
I kept asking about her as the situation worsened.
I was trying to follow the situation as closely as possible. I talked to scientists involved, I had to learn what was going on.
“All we know its that the contaminant is some sort of strongly toxic animal tissue.”
“It appears to contain both cow and sheep cells, however the cells are heavily deteriorated so this assumption may be mistaken.”
“Whatever it is, it seems to have been heavily genetically altered in a way that none of the labs we have cooperated with can replicate even on a theoretical level.”
Everyone was scratching their heads at how this had even happened.
The more I learned about the contaminant, the more unbelievable it sounded. I reached out to police departments but all I could ever get was a cold “We’re investigating the source of the contaminant”.
The same non answer from every single call. I wondered if there even was an investigation. If there wasn’t, why? Why weren’t they investigating this serious contamination? I was left to fend for myself like this.
A week later I got a phone call from a laboratory telling me my wife passed earlier that morning. Her final moments were spent being frantically shipped from facility from facility. I didn’t even get to tell her goodbye.
They sent her to a morgue nearby to prepare for the funeral. That same day I got a letter from the morgue. They couldn’t keep the body. Wouldn’t explain why. I assumed it was some sort of contaminant concern. Whatever it was, I knew that something shady was going on. The letter said the dead body would be returned to MY residence due to “no available facility willing to accomodate” it.
The body was brought in an hour later with no warning. All I could do for now was hide it somewhere and hope for the best. Maybe it was how long it had been since I had even last seen her but something about her face looked different. Not in a “dead body” way different, either. I couldn’t describe it but it felt as if her entire skull had changed shape.
I left her in the shed and reassessed my options.
I was stuck with a corpse in my house, frantically trying to navigate this mess. Whatever was going on just below the surface here, I knew it wasn’t right.
At this point, I had connections to every damn laboratory in the mainland. I was reaching out left and right in hopes that someone could do something about this. Nothing. People told me with certainty that nobody would take her in. Nobody would even attempt to dispose of the body. Burn it. Something.
I was furious.
By sunset I knew what I had to do. I didn’t want to and it wasn’t exactly the burial she would have wanted, but it was the best I could offer. I spent a few hours digging a makeshift grave in my backyard. It was never something I thought I would be doing and I wasn’t terribly sure it was exactly legal either, but it was all I could offer.
After all this, the least I could do is let her find peace.
Just as I was finishing digging, I heard something. First there was the sound of something heavy banging against a wall. Then screaming and then some strange grotesque dry crackling sound.
It was coming from the shed. I didn’t know what was happening. I froze as I stared into the shed, it’s door violently shaking back and forth as whatever was behind the door tried to push it open. The door was ready to pop off its hinges or snap its locks any second. I had to think.
I had to keep that door shut somehow. I knew it wasn’t going to work but I didn’t know what would happen if the door opened.
Before I could reach the door, I was pushed back. The whole weight of the metal door landed on me. I was on the ground.
I looked up. It was her. What I could only assume was her.
She appeared to be 7 ft tall, her bones stretched out and her skin looking as if it was melting off and simultaneously flaking to dust. She stood over me, her vacant eyes staring down. I could hardly breathe.
It was as if time had paused and I was waiting to die, but she kept staring. Why?
I was reaching for my shovel, slowly until she moved again. She turned her head away to look towards the rest of the farm, all the dead crops and animals. It felt as if something was going through her head. It was hard to tell, but I feel as if I know what that was. At least what option would comfort me the most.
She ignored me and shambled into the forest where the stream originally came from. All I could do was watch.
It has been months and I haven’t seen her again. I wonder if I ever will. I wonder if the same will happen to me after this.
God knows.”