I live in a small town with a population of a thousand or so, Everyone knows everyone and most all are overly nice people. I didn’t find this strange as most small towns stuck together as a community.
There are 5 businesses in this town a gas station, a restaurant, two bars, and a butcher shop that had just opened in town this year. Everybody loves the meat from there and it’s at such a great price you can’t go wrong.
It was a Friday night, around 11pm and I seen police lights at the edge of town a horrible accident had occurred as two linemen fixing power lines had gotten electrocuted and there charred bodies laid lifeless on the ground below the power lines. The police were first to leave as after they got there details they took off. The ambulance hadn’t arrived yet, as it had to come from another city over an hour away. Only a man in a bloody white apron stood out in the darkness crouched down looking at the bodies and it was then I realized it was Marc the Butcher. I watched quietly outta sight wondering what the hell he was doing. Did he know the guys? Was it friends? family? All these thoughts kept running through my mind. Then I saw it, he took a hunting knife from his pocket, and starting carving big chunks of flesh from the charred bodies. I rubbed my eyes as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He stopped looked around then started hiding the slabs of flesh by a nearby bush. After several minutes of slicing most all meat from the bodies there wasn’t much left but bone. I couldn’t watch much more as I was so scared he would see me. Then he moved in a creature like way but super fast like a hunched over zombie from 28 days later. Super fast he zipped right by where I was and was gone.
I went home feeling dread, trying to come to terms with what I had seen. I didn’t sleep at all that night. The next day, curiosity had gotten to me so I had to go see if the slabs were still hidden off under the bushes. As I drove up I seen crime scene yellow tape was all around the power line and the bodies were gone. I walked over to where I seen him stash the flesh and it was all gone too. Only blood remnants remained and it looked like it left a trail off towards the woods on the outskirts of town. I followed the trail the best I could before it went cold.
I had to find out what happened to the slabs of meat. Did the butcher come back and make it seem like an animal did this? Did an animal or creature do this? I should’ve stayed and watched longer. I had to know, so I went by the butcher shop parked and observed for several hours. I saw nothing but the usual customers coming and going. I decided to go home and take a nap as I was short on rest from the whole situation.
I had a terrible dream, Marc the butcher was in it. He was chopping up human remains and making them into steaks, burgers, you name it. He was a bloody mess and he had me tied up saying now you know my secret you will become human meat. I woke up in a cold sweat. Thank god that was a dream, but was it a sign. Have all the townsfolk including myself been eating human remains? Is that why he has the best prices in the state on red meat? I asked myself. I gotta get to the bottom of this.
I skipped work the next day as I thought to myself I need to know what’s going on. It all seems like a bad dream and I havnt woke up yet. But I know what I saw and how Marc ran that night like something not from this earth. Like a cryptid of some sort in a human body. Whatever he is he must be stopped.
I went to the butcher shop again only to see that it was closed on a weekday how strange. I tried to break in knowing it was wrong but I knew something wasn’t right. It was an older warehouse building and in this small town with little to no crime nobody had alarms. I grabbed my ladder from home and climbed up to the roof, I searched around and found a possible way in through the air duct. It was a commercial sized system so rather large, I had no problem climbing down into the passageway. It smelled like death so bad I dry heaved a few times before I made it part of the way through. Then I broke through and fell a good 15 feet. Gasping for air, air I didn’t want to breath as I was in the meat locker. I seen the horror that I had imagined. Two policeman and a paramedic were hanging upside down with pools of blood below them as there throats have been cut nearly clean off to the spine. They stunk like they had been there for awhile. Expressionless were the bodies.
I then heard a door and a weird grunting and shrieking noise I ran and hid behind a stack of crates. Fear was filling my body now as I didn’t know what to expect. Bursting through the door, there was Marc all freakish looking and making animal like noises as he hobbled quickly over to the bodies. I was a nervous wreck if he finds me in here I am surely dead. He started sawing the bodies limbs from the bodies one by one throwing only the heads hands and feet in a black plastic bag. Then he started tasting the meat raw I almost puked as he was making ravenous creature noises as he was feasting on the remains.
He then started grinding the meat through a hamburger grinder and was packaging it and throwing it in the freezer. I didn’t know how much more I could take, his eyes were all black he had blood all over him. He was acting very strange then finally he left the room. I heard more tools grinding, cutting, chopping in the next room. Now was my chance to find a way out. The shit luck there was only one way in n out. So I was gonna have to stay until he left to go unnoticed.
It’s been hours now, It’s finally quiet, I never heard anyone leave. Trembling in fear I crawl out from behind the crates and make my way to the front entrance door. I creep as quietly as possible and I still hear nothing. I push the door slowly open peeking out in the dark front of the shop. The coast looks clear so I decide to make a run for the front door, as I do I notice a pale white skinned person out of the corner of my eye. It starts to growl. I run full speed towards the front door crashing into it. The glass breaks I’m cut all over bleeding barely conscious. As I hear something sprinting toward me from behind. It sounds like it’s from hell, I gathered myself and stumbled outside calling for help. But it’s 2am and nobody is around. I start to run best I could up the street, looking back I see Marc deformed hunched over making dreadful sounds as he starts running at me.
Then I see a man on his porch waving me over. He has a gun it appeared and he pointed it right at me shouting don’t move. I put my hands up stating there is something after me, but as I turned around to see where Marc was he was gone. Trying to explain myself the guy got on the phone with the police, not taking his eyes off me gun still pointed at my chest. Then outta nowhere the man was tackled and tore to shreds it was Marc, I took that as my chance to get away. I hobbled home not looking back, made it to my front door and hurried inside, I grabbed a bag full of clothes out of my house got in my pickup and took off fast as I could without looking back. I moved outta state leaving everything behind.
It has been six months since I left. I have browsed the web on that small town to check the status on things and in just the short six months I’ve been gone that little town has been completely erased. Unsolved disappearance of the whole city. It’s been abandoned and is now a restricted area.