Horrifying True Stories From Reddit

Hey what's up guys and welcome back to the channel and today we're getting into some horrifying true stories from Reddit and oh boy these are some of the best stories I have ever read from Reddit hands down they're scary they're creepy and like the title says they are horrifying so you're gonna want to make sure to stick around and I appreciate it by me as a world and make sure you like the video and subscribe to the channel the channel subscriber goal is one million subscribers before the end of the year so please subscribe and alright I am super excited to get into these stories they had me on the edge of my seat the entire time so without further ado let's get into some horrifying true stories from Reddit children on my street used to go missing I found them in the walls of my house brand by let's split up the head in the wall was crusted and decayed mummified in its plastic shroud the withered face opened mouthed in a scream or maybe the jaw had loosened as the muscles decayed the plastic is what held in the smell though I do vaguely remember sometimes in odor permeating especially during steamy summers I was always told this smell was garbage alongside the head other parts that similarly stored in plastic bins when I finally saw the corpse from the wall reassembled it was hard to believe that anyone would do this to another human being harder still to imagine it was my own father who committed such horrible acts before I continue a warning if you are triggered by graphic descriptions of abuse or death do not read further mine is a harrowing account I grew up in a house surrounded by bodies the bodies of childhood playmates and acquaintances when asked why he done it my father always gave the same answer as I recount the story now I picture him in that interview room how he must have looked facing the police Victor Chen was a small nervous almost delicate man he must have been petrified his eye swollen shot and his lip bleeding his hands rubbing and rubbing nails digging deep into the flesh of his wrists and palms as they peppered him with the same questions over and over again why why children why in the walls why I had to tears running down his cheeks this was all he had to say I had to why little kids you sick bastard I imagine the officer sneer imagine how my father coward as the man struck him we know what you did to them why you wanted to kill them no no I never did anything to them I just killed them you just killed them yes you expect me to believe I had to piece it shit if the interrogation went anything like my father said that officer beat him with an inch of his life only after he was on the floor groaning and at the brink of unconsciousness did the second officer intervene pulling back the violent one they hustled my father back into his chair the calmer officer spoken measured tones now mr. Chen tell me what happened to Mary Lewis Kaylee Jensen Kylie Sanderson Terry Choi every Connor you obviously put a lot of thought into everything packing them into the walls takes a lot of materials and preparation you must have had a reason for choosing them what was it but he would not say when I confronted him it did not go much better at first he wouldn't speak for ages just sat there with his head down and tears dripping from his eyes finally his gaze lifted I suppose you think I'm a monster he whispered are you I asked he burst into sobs through his hands his muffled repeated line I had to my father's crimes were not motivated by any of the reasons commonly ascribed to serial killers they were not intimate in nature and while most of the victims were minors they ranged in age from eight to eighteen and he had also murdered his own brother regardless of who they were all bodies received the same treatment dismemberment plastic wrap concealment in the walls somewhere childhood friends of mine though none of them close he chose carefully it seems meticulous with his murders as with his blueprints he was an architect they trade that served him well and yet growing up I never had the slightest inkling of what lay within our walls indeed I could not have imagined it my father was shy and soft spoken in public warm and kind in private what I remember most about him is his laughter the way his eyes would crinkle he was devoted to the memory of my mother who passed away when I was so little I could not remember her in later years I often saw him with dark circles under his eyes and his smile became rare our relationship was strained by my teenage rebelliousness but one thing I was certain of growing up he loved me more than anything or anyone in the world yet when I look back now I can see that there was always hints of his darker tendencies for example when I was seven years old he taught me to butcher a pig now to my mind this is not something to expose to a small child but there we were a pig sprayed out on the basement table it's eyes glassy and mouth gaping blood dripping from its severed head onto his shoes he explained that rather than by meat and expensive packaging we could save money by butchering and freezing the meat ourselves of course I shriek to sterically he clicked his tongue chopping off its trotters and dropping them in a bucket as he reminded me of how I loved bacon and pretending the bacon just magically appeared in an aisle in the grocery store was a kind of dangerous magical thinking that allowed all sorts of atrocities you can do anything evil he declared if you sanitize it in plastic a chilling statement in retrospect then there was the time my uncle came to work for us my father did not like uncle Rudy I have a better understanding of why now but at the time all I knew was that uncle Rudy was perpetually borrowing money at the urging of my grandparents my father who was never rich but made enough to live comfortably hired uncle Rudy to do some work on the exterior of the house there were strict parameters my uncle had to follow some of these were sensible such as not to consume alcohol but other precautions struck me as a specially harsh for example my uncle was only briefly allowed to come inside for bathroom breaks and at all other times even for lunch or water breaks he had to remain outside in the swell terrain sun but as was often the case in those days my father was not always present to enforce these rules one day when I got into trouble at school my father could not be reached it was uncle Rudy who picked up the phone and agreed to come get me at home he gave me a coke my father only let me have soda occasionally claimed me it was bad for my teeth and told me the girls who bullied me were a bunch of shitheads I giggled reveling in his rebellious language and feeling immediate kinship with him thereafter while my father was away at work I would invite uncle Rudy to sneak inside to watch tv with me he was always smiling and chummy and when he started drinking beer while I had a soda it was our little secret we were both breaking my father's rules then one day as we sat watching tv on the sofa he squeezed me and told me what a special little girl I was didn't die know how special his breath stank of beer and his sweaty hairy arm draped over me I didn't like his face so closed but didn't know what to do or say and he kept rubbing my back his hand sliding under my cotton shirt his fingers hot on my skin he leaned his head close to mine his lips against my ear Speaking softly like he was trying to make me feel better. Only he made my inside squirm. That was when my father came home. Uncle Rudy withdrew immediately as the door opened. But my father must have suspected something because his eyes narrowed to slits. He sent Uncle Rudy outside to finish working and right away sat me down to ask me what had happened. Oh, he was just, um, asking about school. For some reason, I felt compelled to protect my uncle. My father's eyes honed in on the beer. Was he drinking? Only a little. Sadie. Love. I promise you are not in any trouble. No, no, no trouble. You hear? But it's very important that you tell me the truth. Did he was he sitting very close to you, violating you? I couldn't meet my father's keen eyes. I nodded, biting my lip, feeling like I betrayed Uncle Rudy. But also I had not liked his closeness, his beer stinking breath. My father was always at clean and smelling of cologne or aftershave and not sweaty and breathy like Uncle Rudy. I explained he was rubbing my back like this. My father rubbed my back under my shirt, I admitted. He went pale, but just as quickly, his expression smoothed over. Well sweetheart, we'll talk a little more later, hmm? Thank you for telling me, you're a very bright girl, and the girls at school who've been bullying you are all stupid heads. I giggled. They are big dumb stupid heads. The biggest and dumbest. My father poked me, which made me squeal. And then told me to go on up to my room, read some books and we'd go get ice cream later. I just need to have a quick word with Uncle Rudy about the yard. Alright, go on then. I went upstairs, smiling, but I knew he was putting me on. And so I snuck back downstairs to eavesdrop. As I neared the office door, I caught my uncle's booming protestation. What? Jesus Christ. I was comforting her. That's all. What do you think I was doing? Jesus bro. The screech of a chair against the floor. Through the gap in the door, I could just see my father lunge. Gripping my uncle by the shirt. My father was, as I've mentioned, a slight man, especially compared to my bullish uncle. And yet, whatever it was, my father hissed into his face, it made my uncle go pale with fear. Recoiling as if my father were a spitting cobra. "Crazy," burst Uncle Rudy, breaking his grip and storming out. Both of them saw me. But Uncle Rudy just flared his nostrils and bolded past. I stood awkwardly in the hall, trembling. The feral rage vanished from my father's face, and he rushed over. "Oh, Sadie. I'm so so sorry. I should have known better. Your grandparents begged me to help him. I thought if I had rules, I'm so sorry. I'm my darling." I didn't really understand at the time why he was so distraught. My uncle had done nothing but rub my back and tickle my ear with his whiskers and disgusting beer-breath. I didn't know about the other things my uncle had done that my grandparents had hushed up, protecting their eldest son, and even though I'd come out of the encounter unscathed, I think my father still felt the deepest regrets. Things became very strained between him and my grandparents after that. He stopped taking me to visit them. We were isolated, a family of two. Another reason perhaps that no one suspected what he hid in those walls for such a long time. There was no one in our lives except us. If it's hard for you to reconcile this paternal figure with the bodies dismembered and wrapped in plastic, well, imagine how hard it is for me. Then I finally figured out what he'd been hiding for all these years. The first disappearance happened when I was in second grade. I had a sleepover just before my eighth birthday, celebrating early because my birthday fell on a school night. And my father was very strict about the importance of school. Four friends came over and we were sliding the cake when a little girl knocked on my door. Her name was Mary and she lived up the street. During summers when schools out in my friends were on vacation, there weren't many other kids on our block, so Mary and I sort of stuck with each other's playmates. But once school started up again, I'd usually shun her in favor of school friends until the next summer. She knocked on my door to invite me over, but seeing I was having a sleepover, she got very excited. I didn't want her joining us and gave her some white lie about how we didn't have enough cake. I'm not sure how, just I have eight years old. I already had a facility for white lies. Or what this says about the example my father said. Mary's face reddened at my rejection and she was about a sulk away when my father told her, of course, she could join the party. When she refused, he offered to at least get her a party gift bag. Where he looked at the toys, my school friends had gotten in their gift bags, and temptation won over pride. She waited while we prepped the bag. He gave me a look. The look he'd given when I hadn't done my chores or did poorly on a test, or otherwise disappointed him. Then he brought out the gift bag to Mary. Certain he'd reprimand me later, I stuffed myself with cake as if by eating as much as possible. I was somehow proving my right to have everything my way. Later, my friends and I were in the room in a sea of beds laid out on the floor, with a tent for me. And fairy lights strung up all around. I was feeling in good spirits by then. So when my father came into wishes good night, I asked him if Mary liked her gift bag. Rather than re-approach I was expecting, he actually flinched, mumbled the good night, and served us all bedtime hot cocoa. I didn't finish mine because I'd had so much cake. In retrospect, this is probably the reason I woke up. It was the scream that jolted me awake. I shot up, gasping. Eyes wide, goosebumps prickling my arms. Negally, I wondered if I'd only been having a nightmare. Pushing the covers off, I set my feet on the floor. My friends were all sound asleep. Light shone under the bedroom door. Careful not to step on any of my cocoon friends, I tiptoed to the door and peeked out into the brightly lit hallway. Dad? Silence. I padded down the staircase. In the shadowed living room, remnants from our party lay scattered around the sofa. That was unusual. My father was very tidy and never left a mess overnight. Light poured from the kitchen door and I went in, observing the amount of dishes stacked by the sink, caked crumbs and frosting, crusting the plates. At the far end of the kitchen, the basement door was ajar and from below, rustling, the crackle of plastic. The chest frees are opening and closing, then the tread of footsteps on the stairs. I stood frozen, a deer in the headlights as the door hinges creaked and my father emerged. He was dressed in what looked like baggy, throwaway clothes from Goodwill, with an apron tied around his waist, an apron soaked in red. And his face, born expression, I had never seen before, a peculiar, manic gleam in his eye. Dad? He stopped in his tracks, voice hoarse, saidie? I just looked up at his bloody apron. He quickly removed it and bunched it into the sink, saidie, what are you doing awake? That's three in the morning, is that blood? His eyelids fluttered, then he said, go sit at the table, I sat, I heard the kitchen faucet turn on and the sounds of scrubbing, the flicker of the stove. A few moments later, my father came in with a cup of hot cocoa, which he insisted I drink. I became drowsy even before I finished it, and all but collapsed in my chair. Only vaguely aware as he lifted me and carried me upstairs, I remember feeling sick, partially from the drink, but mostly from the smell. He smelled so strongly of blood. in the morning. I woke to an empty bedroom. My father told me my friends were all at school, but he hadn't wanted to disturb me. I was feeling groggy and unwell, so I believed him when he said I had a fever. By afternoon, I was better, and the next day went to school as normal. You might wonder why I never suspected anything, but when I saw all my friends the next day, they all teased me for being a gluttonous and eating too much cake, and they exclaimed about the fairy lights and gift bags. That was all. Everything seemed normal. Besides, it was not long after that incident. The very day after the party, in fact, that my father showed me how to butcher a pig. And so the image of my father in a bloody apron became firmly associated with pork and an arch-hast freezer. If I had any recollection of screams in the middle of the night, well, I assumed it was a pig. A few days later, my father did some renovations, tearing up in the space under the stairs and patching it up over some leaky pipes, when a garbage smell permeated the walls. He told me it was sewage, that it was the pipe problem, but that it would soon go away. It did. And when I finally wondered about Mary again, after she didn't turn up to play for weeks, well, the story of the girl who went missing on her street seemed a tragic cautionary tale. Sad, but unrelated to our house, my father acted very sorry when he found out. He sent flowers to the family, and always referred to her as "that poor sweet girl." And wouldn't let me wander our neighborhood alone because of what happened. Is it any wonder I was completely taken in? I had no idea until the day her mummified corpse was discovered in our house. And the decade-old missing person's case finally solved. But why did my father butcher my playmate? Please remember her, and rapper and plastic to putrify behind the floral wallpaper. There are many theories. Some claim my father had dissociative identity disorder, a classic split personality, the meek-sensitive father, who was a good man, and his evil twin, killing as a means of a certain control, breaking all the taboos that held meek-victor in submission, a domineering hide to his cowering jackal. Or another theory, Victor Chen suffered some form of psychosis and was given to visual and auditory hallucinations. He heard voices dictating what he should do, and believe that if he did not obey, terrible things would happen to his family. And so he succumbed to these violent delusions, though they were merely products of a damaged brain. Or the most popular theory, that he was just evil. That his mild-mannered persona was a front, beneath which lurked a scheming Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. This theory, by far the most popular, is the one that makes the least sense to me. Because you would not think such a predator would make an exception for his own daughter. Typically, abusers target those closest to them. And yet, I never saw the side of him that people claim was his true self. Only the occasional, mysterious glimmer of desperation, in the sense, especially throughout my teenage years, that some sort of shadow was devouring him from the inside. The next two disappearances happened in my tweens. The first was a girl from school who was supposed to come over for a project. She never showed. Police interviewed me in my father several times, but since I, truthfully, reported that I never saw her, I think the suspicion that my otherwise have settled on my father was deflected. The second was the first and only boy among his victims. Kyle Sanderson had been blowing spitballs and pulling my hair on the bus to school. When I complained about it in my father, he questioned me intently. The boy's name, where he lived, where he was picked up by the bus, he said he would call the school. A few days later, Kyle was not on the bus. I assume my father had somehow made arrangements to rearrange our bus pickups, but when I asked, my father admitted he'd been too busy and hadn't contacted the district. He promised he would soon. But of course, Kyle never returned to the bus. We children were once again put under strict watch and ordered never to walk alone on the streets. Mary Lewis, Kaylee Jensen, and now Kyle Sanderson, somewhere in our quiet burb lived a predator. Each time a disappearance happened, that garbage smell would return. Just a faint whiff that wouldn't let up. And my father would forbid me having friends over. Make excuses that the pipes were bad or an animal I had died in the attic. Soon enough it would fade. It wasn't until the most recent time when my father was finally caught. That I saw his true monstrous nature because I was the one who caught him. I was 17, and excited for a weekend trip with my best friend Mickey. We were planning to go swimming and have a bonfire at Mickey's cousin's house. My overprotective father had never once allowed me to stay out past 11pm, curfew. So to the go unchaperoned through the whole weekend felt like the most liberating thing in the world. Frankly, it was odd he'd agreed to it. But I figured all my rebellious snipping had finally worn him down. His manner was almost mechanical when he warned me against the use of alcohol. He reminded me to text him when I arrived. As he was walking me to Mickey's car, he also warned me to be careful about boys at the party. Plenty of friends, he said, had dark secrets and couldn't be trusted, especially after a few drinks. Rolling my eyes and promising for the umpteenth time that I'd feel safe, I laughed. But during the long drive, Mickey and I got into a heated argument. I don't remember what it was about now. Just that I called her silly and shallow. And she called me selfish and melodramatic. Before I knew it, I was on my way home. In a taxi, since I couldn't bear the shame of both bailing on the trip and having to be collected like an immature baby by my father. I cried all the way back, so I suppose yes, I was being pretty melodramatic. It was well after midnight by the time I finally entered the house, and I was greeted with the sound of banging, thud, thud, thud. I stopped in the door, mouth agape. My father hadn't told me of any renovation plans, but the lights were on upstairs. The banging sounds coming from my bedroom. "Dad," I called, immediately the banging stopped. The rustle of panic and hurried footsteps. My father came out, shutting the door to my bedroom just as I reached the top of the stairs. "Sady, he looked panicked. What are you doing here? Why are you in my room?" All I wanted was to fling myself on my bed, scream into my pillow, and cry about my spoiled trip. The last thing I needed was my father to be in one of his house rearranging moods, especially not in my room. Renovations, you weren't supposed to be back until Monday, Mickey was being so annoying. I tried to push past him, but he blocked my way. No, there's a spedus, it's dangerous to breathe. You're not wearing a mask. Suddenly suspicious, I felt a flash of anger, incensed he'd been violated my privacy by entering my room, and maybe, just maybe, the suspicion of some darker secret sparked in me, a spark of fear, uncertainty, because why was my father lying about a spedus? What was he hiding in there? I grabbed the knob, no, his hands gripped my arm. Go back downstairs, take your bag and leave, out, dad, leave. His grip was like talons, so tight it felt he might break the skin. Tears started in my eyes. His brisk manner, the wild gleaming his eye, all of it set my heart hammering. Renek gave me strength to break loose and shove him. He slammed, hard against the wall. the knob and rushed in, "No, no, no, don't know." His warning dissolved into a whale, and I glimpsed him biting his fist to control sudden sobbing. I slammed the door and locked it behind me, terrified. I had never seen him in such a state, and then I turned and saw what he was hiding. My eyes raked across my belongings, arranged in one corner of the room. These were all the items from my closet. I realized carefully sorted and stacked, far neater than the slowingly pile I usually left. The closet door was open, and the framing of a false wall lay partially constructed at the very back. Chorning the walk, in space by about a foot, shoved into this area where plastic bins and plastic bags. But my father had not finished stuffing them all back there. One of the bags, tightly wrapped and swadden layers of plastic, lay on the floor at my feet, as if hastily dropped when he heard my call. I bent down to lift it, turning it in my hands, and then I gasped. The bag fell from my fingers. Hair was that a head of black hair? There was another bag nearby, a simple plastic shopping bag from Hot Topic. It contained a rumpled girl's tee, torn jeans, a jacket, none of them mine. Another bin contained a pair of Doc Martin's, well worn. I looked down to the bag I dropped with the hair, pushed it with my toe. Through the thick plastic, I could just see the wide eyes gaping out at me, the ghostly impression of a face. I screamed. I don't know how long I stood there, screaming. Before my father's hands, try to pull me away. I broke free and ran out of the house, up the street. I should have pounded on my neighbor's door, should have screamed the whole quiet little cul-de-sac alert. But I didn't. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, I sobbed over and over, trying to come up with a plan, trying to conceive some explanation other than the obvious, something that might account for the strange smells, the walls torn open and replaced, a hallway shorned here, a closet sealed there, the rotting garbage smell. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. In the end, I went back. Because as shocked and stupid fine as I was, even then, with the proof right in front of me, I never believed I was in any danger. It didn't even occur to me, he might hurt me. I walked right upstairs, the bedroom door was closed, from beyond the whore of a drill, rustling, shuffling, more drilling. He must have heard my return, yet he continued his work. I sat down with my back against the door, picked up my phone from where I dropped it in the struggle and dialed 911. Speaking very quietly, tears dribbling down my face, I related what I'd seen to the dispatcher. When the police arrived, my father promptly surrendered. I went to stay with my grandparents while the house became a crime scene. Ultimately, seven bodies were found in the walls. Most of them miners, though, there were two adults, hot topic girl, just turned 18, as well as my uncle Rudy, the fates of Mary Lewis, Kaylee Jensen, and Kyle Sanderson were at last known. While the community reeled, all eyes turned to me, wondering, how could I have lived in that house and not known? Had I been in an accomplice? Like father, like daughter? How could I have grown up surrounded by the bodies of my playmates, wrinkling my nose at the smell of their corpses, putrifying in the walls around me, and just not known? I cannot tell you anything beyond what I already have. I believe the lies my father told me I have wrestled with myself every night since I found out. Over my complacency, my childish faith, my sheer stupidity, as I repeat to myself the same question everyone else has asked over and over and over. How could I have not known? But there's another question, the more important one. Why? Why did he do it? My father wouldn't tell anything to the investigators, to his own attorney, to the psychiatrist who evaluated him for trial. He neither confirmed nor denied his crimes. He wouldn't speak. He just sat in his cell and cried. And the only phrase he uttered, "When pressed was I had to." There was only one person he finally consented to speak to, and so I was summoned. After I breathed with police and prosecutors, after assuring them of my cooperation that I too wanted to know the truth, that I would do anything to try and understand. They arranged for me to visit with my father the first time I saw him since his arrest. When I came into the small spare room for our interview, I was shocked at the sight of him. Filthy, battered, his face a bloodied mess, one ice hole enclosed, and his arms raked with scratches that he seemed to have put there himself, dragging his nails on his skin. He was fidgeting when I entered, head down, unwilling to make eye contact. Finally, his head lifted, just a little. He blinked, slowly wiping the tears from his eyes, dropped his gaze again. I suppose you think I'm a monster. He whispered, "Are you?" I asked. He burst into Psalms, but after they'd passed and he composed himself, after he'd asked how I was doing and whether I was going to finish school and how my college applications were going. After I finally told him, none of that was why I was here. Finally, finally, he told me why. And that was part one of the story, so let's get into part two. It reads as follows. Contrary to rumor, I hadn't had the slightest inkling about the true source of the garbage smell when I was growing up. I believed my father when he told me it was just the pipes in the walls. You see, I had a very ordinary girlhood, playing with other children in our quiet little cul-de-sac and our sleepy neighborhood, shaded by oak and sycamore trees. There were whispers, of course, of a predator, and an undercurrent of fear. But like most children, I remained blissfully secure in my certainty that the adults in my life would protect me. Indeed, in all my wildest imaginations, I couldn't have conceived that behind my father's gentle smile was a man who could murder my playmates in cold blood, chop apart their bodies, and stash them behind the walls. But there were signs. He kept an axe downstairs in the basement, always sharp, yet we had no chimney or fireplace or any wood to chop. Our home underwent frequent renovations to fix leaky pipes or add improvements like false walls. Strangely, it was often after these adjustments that a rank rotting odor would permeate. When my father finally confessed, I learned that the murders began long before my first memories of the disappearances began before I was born in fact. It was my mother who was afflicted. He never knew where the affliction came from. Just that after I was born, mere days after, in fact, she tried to strangle me. He saved me just in time, and she was hospitalized for post-partum psychosis. My father bottled fed me, my sole caretaker during my mother's intensive treatment. She came back restored, and their lives returned to the normal joy of newlyweeds with a cherished infant. Until the evening we found her bleeding out in the bathtub, and me unresponsive, drowned beside her. Frantic, he scooped me out and rushed to revive me, wept when I finally coughed and drew breath. Screamed at my mother, while desperately trying to bind her wrists. But she grabbed hold of him and said, sobbing, I tried, I tried. All I wanted was an and ordinary normal life. Then she whispered something to him that, in the moment, he assumed it must have been a sign of madness. She died before he could save her. What did she say, I asked, sitting in a cross from him in the cramped interview room when he confessed to me? That she said sorry, but it wouldn't let her die without. His next words were mumbled so quietly I missed them. It, I echoed. It made me do all this, I had to or it, it wanted me to hurt you. Dad, what is it? You're saying you're possessed? That it's some kind of demon? He sighed, ran his fingers, dark with blood from picking at these scabs of his arms through his unwashed hair. He was strange to see him in such a filthy state. He was normally so well kept, almost a fat, a demon, yes, he said tiredly. So why didn't you try an exorcism, call a priest or something? The whole demon excuse sounded like BS, I tried he burst, don't you think I tried? It started right after your mother died, these small, tiny urges, almost insignificant, I'd see you sleeping so soundly there, and I'd think, what if I put the pillow over her? What if I squeezed her tiny little hand until it bled? What if instead of tickling those little toes, I just bit them off? Dad, I recoiled, disgusted. I didn't want these thoughts, he shouted, fingers curled into claws that he raked across the back of his neck, I didn't want them, they came in and they got louder, more incessant, I couldn't tune them out, I don't know what it was, or I thought it was just a sickness in me. I went to doctors, hi-trists, I doped myself up, I tried priests, prayer, and yes I did an effing exorcism, my father never swore. It was strange to hear coming from his mouth, I tried all of it, but it wouldn't stop. The only thing that made the voices still was, was what I asked, as he got this far away, haunted look, and I knew he was reliving something, reliving what though, killing people, taking apart their bodies, burying them in the walls, I shuddered, sickened, was what dad, giving in, he said, finally, eyelids fluttering closed. He dropped his head in his hands, giving in, I repeated, so what, you just started stalking kids? No, it was gradual, I started with animals, the pig I said, colored draining from my face as I remembered his first attempt to teach me butchery, at age 7, no, no, long before that, I started with chickens, he sighed, I discovered that killing, any kind of killing, left me free for a while, but within a few months, the whisperers would come back louder and I'd have to escalate, like up in a dosage, he rubbed his eyes, finally I understood the strange black moods that gripped your mother, brewing until she, she, don't blame her I growled, clenching my fists, what happened to her was tragic, don't you dare pretend you're like her, oh sadie, he shook his head, of course I'm not like her, if I were, you'd be just another family secret, buried like your dead aunt or like what Uncle Rudy did to that girl, conveniently forgotten so your grandparents could pretend to have perfect families, your mother was a pretty picture on your dresser, tragically passed from illness, they always said, but it wasn't like that when she was alive, she was funny, charming, but also deeply, deeply difficult, since you're asking for a confession, Sadie, the murders in our family didn't start with me, everything began with her, my father met my mother at an event at the Chinese culture center where both their families were occasionally involved, neither my father nor my mother were much interested in the goings on, and the pair of them escaped together to spend the evening walking and chatting, lost in each other's company, they fell very quickly in love and conceived me out of wedlock, much to the chagrin of both their families, they married to appease the older generations, but by all accounts, they were happy, happy that is, except for the shadow that descended over my mother, one night my father told me, as she lay in bed beside him, her belly round and heavy with me, she asked him if he was superstitious, did he believe in spirits, demons, what about the idea that twins could feel each other after death, no, he said, I don't believe in any of those things, why are you asking, I bet she said, with a strange and strained smile, you didn't know I had a twin sister, he didn't, in fact, he thought she was joking at first, he only confirmed that the existence of her twin later, speaking with her grandmother, who admitted that the twin had drowned tragically at the age of 12 in the neighbor's swimming pool, the family was devastated, how she drowned in relatively shallow water, with a floating pool toy nearby, one by all accounts, she was a skilled swimmer, was a mystery, it was also strange, she'd been found alone, given the twins were usually inseparable, asked for my mother, to have her twin, wrote the way from her at such a young age, was like losing half her soul, she birthed in tears whenever her sister's name was spoken to her, yet once she finally recovered, she blossomed like they'd never seen, and then she met my father, dad, really, I said, he never spoke of my mother much when I was growing up, and though I knew she died young after a struggle with mental illness, this was the first thing I've heard of a sibling, a twin, a twin you've never told me about, who you're implying she drowned, Sadie, I could have smacked him, I glared instead, annunciating each syllable, bull shit, as his brow knit, I added, even if mom had a sister, why would you assume there's some deep dark secret here, you haven't told me anything that would imply it wasn't an accident, mom probably wound up with postpartum psychosis, because she had unprocessed grief from losing her twin, not just hers, he said, his voice suddenly devoid of inflection, what, I blinked, when he did not explain, I demanded, what do you mean, who else has a, I paused, blood running cold, family secrets, his dark eyes leveled with mine, dad, I said, heart quickening, dad, who else has a, check your birth certificate, your line, I would have known, he would have told me, someone would have told me, this all had to be some elaborate concoction, warping our family history to shift blame, she didn't have postpartum psychosis, he said, my cotter just in time, to save you, just you, your line, I don't know why I fought so hard to discredit this particular part of his account, especially when it could be so easily verified by a glance at my birth certificate, which I had at home, I suppose because it shattered the image, pre-children in the walls, that I'd had of our family, like biting into a perfectly red and beautiful apple, only to find that inside it's black and rotten, everything I knew about my parents was lie, really, was a carefully curated image, and while I'd already given up on having a good father, I didn't want to lose the ideal I had of my mother too, I couldn't actually remember her of course, there were only photographs of a beautiful young woman with an angelic smile, always with a flower in her long, glossy hair, growing up I used to kiss her picture good night, entranced by the tale of a young woman, dead of a tragic illness, I suppose I imagine that she would have been the perfect parent, had she lived, my father who raised me with enough loving kindness to almost match my imaginary version of my mother, never disillusioned me about her perfection, until now, his lips burst, head cocked at my denial, then he said, excuse me, turning away he slammed his fist so hard into the table that I heard the crack of his knuckles as he broke them. I gasped for coiling. As he hunched over his broken hand with his teeth clenched at the pain, eyes tearing, saliva and blood bubbling at its mouth. Then he sat up, cradling the broken hand and said it was telling me to smash your face in. Fuck, I breathed. Now then, the children. Why did I start killing people? That's what you really wanna know? I didn't. I didn't want to know. But the officers who were monitoring our discussion would be appalled if I had abandoned the interview now. Just as he was approaching the critical point. So I told him I needed a bathroom break. I fled and leaned over the bathroom sink, splashing cold water on my face from the faucet. I closed my eyes and put down my head. Pretending for a few minutes that I was anywhere but here. Interviewing my axe murderer father about secrets I wished I'd never unearthed. Finally, I forced myself to look in the mirror into the face that had my mother's high cheekbones in my father's narrow eyes. The pair of them really had been a picture perfect couple. What other wrought would I expose if I dug deeper? Finally, I marched back out to the interview room to face the monster in my father. I nearly suffocated you. When you were five years old, he set without preamble. What? I had no memory of this. You were asking me a question. Just some innocent question. You had thousands of questions in those days and sudden rage sees me and I just grabbed your face, cupped my hand over your nose and mouth like this. He mined the action. His broken hand cradling the back of an invisible head and the other hand a cupping over an imaginary mouth and nose. The voices, they were loud that day, deafening like church bells. They kept telling me to squeeze so I held you when you flailed and turned purple until you were a limp. His hand squeezed tighter. In spite of myself, I felt my heart pounding. Felt myself counting the seconds. He kept squeezing, not looking at me but at some distant memory. And then abruptly, he let go. I exhaled, not even realizing I'd been holding my breath until his eyes flickered up to meet mine again. You woke up in just a couple of minutes. I don't remember any of this. Well, you were only five years old, he paused. And I comforted you right afterwards and told you that you'd had a bad dream. You lied to me, I said, accusing. He gave me a look. Yes, sweetie, I lied to you, rather than explain to you that daddy was possessed and purposefully suffocated to you. I glowered and crossed my arms. Yeah, sure, good call, I guess. Dad of the year. He actually laughed, just a short little laugh. But it was the first spark I'd seen of the man I knew before he retreated into a shell again. I didn't trust myself with you after that. So I dropped you off with your grandparents then I tried to commit S word, but it wouldn't let me go through with it. I finally understood what your mother went through. Went back to your grandparents and picked you up. Just like I said, I was going to, to his voice cracked. He'd been numb telling me about the loss of my mother. But as he described his plans to kill me, a motion finally broke through, he put a hand over his mouth to hold in the sobs and said, because of how I choked you, I was expecting you to be afraid, ready to have to coax you, but he shook his head. The moment I arrived, you just flew into my arms. You were so happy to see me, daddy, daddy, and you said. So so so excited to be coming home with me, beaming and smiling and I just, he blinked quickly. I knew that I was going to fight it for a little while. Just you were enough to keep away the darkness. He was crying now. I reached a cross and he squeezed my hand. His fingers dirty and his nails crusted with blood. Then he let go, reached down and grabbed his shirt, pulled it up over his head. I gazed, shrinking back. He'd always been so proper, always in a button down and usually a tie. I'd never seen him shirtless, not even at the beach. His entire torso, front and back was covered in crisscrossing scars. Some deep, some shallow, some very fresh, but most quite old. Hearing me suckin' a breath, he pulled his shirt back on. I did try to fight it in all kinds of ways, but he shrugged. It stopped working. And then, having finished the account of our family, he told me about how his own murders began. If you are here for all those grizzly specifics of each particular murder, which while he tore open and which implements he used to take which bodies apart, you are in the wrong place. My goal isn't to titillate with a gruesome recounting, but to understand why. Why in the walls? Why specifically children? In any case, my father spared me the worst details. That part of his confession, he saved for the police. But as the matter of why, I must begin with Mary Lewis. Her murder was unplanned. The voices were particularly loud that day. He said of Mary. I really did mean to send her straight home, but she mentioned her mother was napping, how bored she was, so she came over. I realized no one was likely to notice her missing just yet, and he rubbed his face, unable to look at me. I strangled her, hit her in the bushes behind this house until you were asleep. And then I chopped her up and put her in the freezer. That's when you caught me when I was cleaning. Did you black out, I interrupted? Try not to listen even as every detail burned into my mind. No, he admitted. No, no. It was, it's more like a light swish turns off. I part of me just dims while the voices turn up. Sometimes it's hard to know what is me and what isn't. The fact I can't distinguish, it makes it worse. This explanation didn't inspire much comfort. Once the part of him, that was himself switched back on, and the voices dimmed down, he panicked. Her body could remain forever in the freezer, nor did he want to risk burying her in the yard and leaving it freshly disturbed soil. But of course, my father was an architect. He was very, very good with the compartments and compartmentalizing. As soon as I was back at school, he cleared out the closet under the stairs, walling it in so that the space was a foot shorter on the interior. A difference so subtle, you couldn't even see it with the usual boxes and bins stored under there. What he didn't mention, but that I remember growing up, is he'd been genuinely fond of Mary. He kept drawing, she'd made of him, and a little jar with feathers and some pretty stone she'd collected. I believed it was genuine. When he sent flowers and letters of condolences to the family, but at the same time, as he appeared to mourn her, he stepped over her body every night, going up and down that staircase, as did I, unwittingly. Eventually, the horror faded, he said. I realized I wasn't going to get caught, and I, I could almost pretend it was someone else who'd done it. For the first time, the very first time in years I had quiet, he closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the ceiling. The absolute perfection of that quiet, you have no idea, Sadie, how blessed that quiet was. I didn't speak. His eyelids fluttered open, and he returned his gaze to me. Afterward, when the voices came back, I started to plan the murders. Whenever the voices got loud, the rest I think you can put together. I sat there. Perfectly still. Now that he'd stop talking, it hit me all at once. Horror at the nature of his crimes. Horror at the reason behind them. I couldn't process it all. Not right then. There. In that room. And finally I said, I need to go. I need to go. I need to go. Sadie. He called after me as I stood up. I looked back. Sure that he was going to once again apologize. That he was going to tell me that he loved me. That he was going to say he tried and he was so sorry and beg my forgiveness. But he didn't say any of that. He was smiling. And he said with the most terrifying expression of anticipation that I had ever seen. I was saving you for last. I gassed in fled. Despite his attorney's incessance on a mental health evaluation, my father was declared a competent by the courts. He entered a guilty plea and seemed unsurprised, relieved even when he was issued a death sentence. His time on death row was mostly spent in isolation. I was permitted occasional visits. But during those brief breaks from a solitude, we conversed very little. He'd ask how I was doing, trying to make sure I was keeping my grades up as I entered college. But then he'd go quiet. The rest of the time would just be the two of us sitting in silence while he bowed his head, slumped against the table. On my last visit, my father asked me if I believed his account. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't in the habit of lying and he almost always saw through me anyway. I just looked at him sadly. Finally I said, I don't know dad. Am I just a monster? Are you? I wondered. He sighed and whispered. I don't know either. But if it's genetic, you should probably go engage yourself regular visits with a psychiatrist, given the affliction of both myself and your mother. I already seen someone. Did he think I wasn't after all of this? He rubbed his eyes. He seemed very tired. Finally he said, you know, Sadie, through everything your mother went through, and now me, the doctors told me demons can't be real. That if there were ghouls, demons, spirits, ghosts, there'd be evidence. But murderers, abusers, delusional psychopaths, serial killers, these are all real. And so I must be one of these evil men. But he sighed. It seems such hubris to think that if we haven't scientifically proven something, that means it isn't real. I mean, supposing there were things beyond our understanding. Things like I've told you, what do you think would happen when someone who's got what I've got told the world? No one would ever believe them. And do you know Sadie my love? That's the worst part. He put his head in his hands. It always distressed him very much when I didn't believe him. Dad, I sighed. What is it what you want redemption forgiveness? It's not like I could give him those things. You still don't understand he burst. You think this is about evil. This thing in me, it didn't want those children. Then why did you kill them dad? If it didn't make you do it then why? What do you, what does it want? The same thing he sobbed that I've won for years and years and years. As he spoke for the first time in my entire life, I felt a chill in his presence. A chill that started at my nape and trickled down my spine like ice water. Deep, gut clenching, heart racing fear. Every instinct screamed. I leaned back. And that's what saved my life when he lunged howling. You, I fell over backwards, scrambling away while the guards rushed to restraining him. He rived, screaming at me, spit all up, flicking his lips. Get back here, bitch. Fucking bitch. You're a terrible daughter. Get back here right now. He spewed invective words that no man should say about his own daughter. In my last look at him, it almost appeared as if he was tearing himself apart. Blood running down his face from where his hands tried to restrain his mouth. His fingers jabbed into his eyes, blinding him so that he couldn't see me. So that when he shook the guards off, burly though they were. He groped sightlessly for me. I shrank against the wall as he just barely missed my foot. Blood streaming from his eyes like tears until the guards caught hold of him again. And I fled. Victor Chen never completed his sentence. Nobody likes a child violator, which he wasn't. But that was the prevailing assumption given the ages of his victims. He was found beaten to a pulp and dead. Probably the guards looked the other way and let it happen. To be honest, I think it was a mercy for him. His long ordeal was finally over. But I do think often about what he said at the end. If hauntings are confined only to the experiences of the haunted, how can we ever know? How can we tell the difference between a haunted man and a madman? I'm not sure you can. Certainly the courts and doctors couldn't. But whether it was real or not, I finally understand what he meant when he said it didn't want those children. I showed her figured it out sooner. Simply based on what he told me of my mother. First, she killed her twin sister. Then her own children, my twin. And very nearly me. All those she loved, as for why she never tried to kill my father. Well, I think it's because she did something much worse, cursing him with the most terrible fate of all. It was in her final words. The ones he mumbled so I couldn't make them out of first. Her last words to him were "I'm sorry. It wouldn't let me die without someone new." Which brings us to my father's turn as host. All the people he killed. The ages ranged from 8 to 18. The last one had recently celebrated her 18th birthday, just as I'd been about to. They were nearly always in fact girls my own age. You see, this is what he meant when he said it didn't want them. It wants what you love. It wouldn't let them die. It wouldn't let him rest. But while he succumbed to its evil in every other sense, committing the most terrible of acts and becoming a quite literal monster. Still, sometimes I think about the fact that in the end, he managed never to give it what it really wanted. That in his own warped way, he continued protecting me. Because everyone of my father's victims was really just a stand-in. Like killing a doll instead of the real thing. Each murder just a substitute for me. I'd like to think he won. That he prevented it from getting what it wanted or passing on to anybody else. That even though he couldn't commit S word, it lost when he died, eliminating both him and it from the world. But a couple of weeks ago, I saw in the newspaper that a pastor from one of the local churches, a progressive-minded, good-hearted woman known for making prison visits and helping the most unfortunate society, had been arrested for the abuse and murder of two elderly left in her care. When asked why she committed such a crime, this woman who for decades had served the community with kindness and charity, who by all accounts loved her clients very dearly, covered her face and said, with apparent confusion, a phrase that gave me chills in its terrible intimate familiarity. I had to… fogman written by saturday. My husband Chris and I moved to South Dakota the year our oldest son turned six. It wasn't an easy decision. I had had a career on the East Coast, but we both had family in the Midwest. It was also part of a promise we'd made to one another when we got married. We wanted to raise our kids with the kind of small town living that made the both of us who we were. Big cities are great for work, and studies, and fun, but not so much for quiet Saturday nights and affordable housing. We tried to hit the ground running. We'd saved up for a cheap house on a really nice street. Our neighbors were mostly old folks, so they were easy to impress. I just had to show up at the kiddos running laps around my legs, and I'd see face after face light up. It didn't take much for us to feel welcome. Chris had a cousin in town that introduced him to all kinds of friends. Before I knew it, he was off playing pool after work or going magnet fishing. I wasn't mad at him going out. He does his fair share of work around the house and with his kids. I think I was mostly frustrated about how easy he made friends. He just had to cheer for the Vikings and someone would hand him a beer. For me, it was a bit more complicated. I had a part-time job at the DMV, but people didn't really come there to socialize. Then I met Mallory. Mallory or Mal lived four houses down. I met her one day when I got home from work. She'd just rung the doorbell and wasn't expecting someone to pull up the driveway behind her. She was short, a bit round, and had a braid that reached halfway down her back. She had this smile where she didn't just move her mouth. Her entire face scrunched up. It's like she could smile with her whole body. "Hey neighbor," she called out, waving at me. I heard some wild rumors about another mom moving in. I'm afraid it's all true. I shook her hand and she helped me with my groceries. She had three kids of her own and was a stay-at-home mom. Her husband worked at the local school, so there was a good chance he'd have to educate my boys someday. We ended up spending a lot of the day together, talking about the neighborhood, our kids, and the careers we stepped away from. She'd worked in marketing for a brewery, mostly doing graphic design. She still did some at work from home deal, but it was mostly a side gig. She couldn't believe I had the time to hold down a proper job, but a lot of folks were struggling to make ends meet, so every bit helps. I think the worst of it is the boredom. She can find it in me. I get bored out of my mind. The same walls, the same sounds, the same people. Sometimes, I wish the old bag across the street would go belly up just so I could say hi to the folks coming to pick her up. You're terrible, I laughed. It's really that bad? Yes, by God, yes. Let this be a lesson. Get out of the house. A job, a hobby, a lover, whatever you gotta do. Don't let yourself get cabin fever. I'm guessing grocery runs ain't doing it for you. Are you kidding? She laughed? I space my shopping out so I can get a little every day. Whatever gets me to stretch my legs. No offense, but I hope I never get like that. Oh, I hope so too. Now she offered me her hand in a season seer look. Let's be best friends, so I can live vicariously through you. Deal. We shook on it. We tried to keep a straight face, and neither of us let go until we burst out laughing. I had finally made a friend. Mal and I got along surprisingly well. My oldest son was about the same age as her youngest, and the two of them became best friends overnight. Within a couple of weeks, we had shared family dinners, sleepovers, and water balloon fights in the backyard. I got to meet Mal's husband, Ollie, nice enough fellow, not quite the kind of guy my Chris hangs out with, but pleasant enough to hang around, a bit pretentious perhaps. One night, the whole family was invited over, Mal and Ollie wanted to host a proper dinner party. They'd set up this huge projector screen in the living room with a bunch of party games for the kids. It was an instant hit. Mal made her own spaghetti and meatballs, fancy enough to raise an eyebrow, good enough to get the kids on board. While they played, Chris and Ollie spent some time in the yard discussing God knows what. As Mal and I finally got a chance to talk, we settled down with a glass of wine. You know, there are things going on around town, she mumbled. You into true crime? I watched making a murderer I said, with an honest shrug, not really my thing. What about scary stuff, hauntings, possessions, ghost hunters? I mean, for a laugh, yeah. You don't believe it? Nah, I don't know, I said, giving her a rice mile. I don't have time to think about that. So you can honestly say you've never seen anything you can't explain. I mean, I both could and couldn't. We all have a couple of stories we can't make sense of. A shadow outside the window, a strange sound being carried by the wind, a sunflower that turned blue when he picked it up, a truck driving past with no one in the driver's seat. As the kids sugar crashed, and the house quieted into a whisper, Mal and I ended up in the yard finishing our third class of white wine, talking in hushed voices. Chris had taken our kids home to sleep, while all he was making sure the others were getting ready for bed. There's this one thing I keep hearing about, Mal mumbled, but it's not a joke. You can't think of it like that. Promise? Sure. Yeah. It's the fog. She said, pointing at me knowingly, there's something dangerous in the fog. What? Like big foot? Not a joke, she said, poking me on the cheek. This isn't just me telling you, there really is something in the fog. What do you mean? The fog here gets so thick in the morning that sometimes that people get lost, right? The old folks are drunk, but sometimes people just disappear. That usually happens when you can't see anything. Alright, just do this one thing. Look up what happened on this street July 18th 6 years ago. Google it. You'll see what I mean. I wasn't expecting to go home with homework that night, but Mal made me promise. I have to admit, it was a bit exciting. It felt like I was playing detective. Getting to the bottom of some mystery swept under the rug. I figured that was sort of the point. Before I went to bed that night, I looked up the article. It was easy enough to find. There weren't many articles written about anything even remotely near the street. It was an article about a woman going missing on the morning of July 18th, at the height of a nasty fog coming in from the east. What surprised me was the missing person herself, a young woman in her early 20s, who went that same route every morning. Not any of the old folks, or some random drunk, she was a runner. There were no witnesses who'd seen her out and about that morning, but there were plenty who had seen and heard something else. One anonymous witness described, "There was someone standing in the field, and they just kept screaming, screaming like their life depended on it." You think it was her? The missing woman? It was not a woman's voice, not a man's voice either, not a. I don't know. Sounded like the fog's voice. The article ended with a hand drawn picture of what looked like a person walking through the fields with a trail of tendrils lagging behind. The text at the bottom red, "Artists rendition." Over the next couple of days, Mal and I texted back and forth about this. I kept asking her questions, like, who the missing person was, and what people knew about what happened. She was surprisingly honest about it. The main theory was that she'd been attacked by one of her axes. And after all, a lot of people knew about her morning jog. It wouldn't be that hard to set up an ambush. Others weren't so sure. There'd been other instances where people had gone missing in the fog. There was one article about a car being left wide open on the road, with no one in it. The driver was presumed missing, and they'd opened a tip line for the public. Mal explained that she knew one of the guys working that tip line. And more than one person had called in about, "A strange man in the fog." There were only a couple of articles spanning 10 years. but they were consistent, people going missing, and witnesses talking about something moving in the fog. Mal explained that there were a couple of people from around town who kept an ear to the ground and shared interesting tips and sights. It was a sort of impromptu digital neighborhood watch, but with so little going on, they mostly devolved into sharing memes and rumors. I was invited. I wasn't sure about whether to accept or not, but I must admit. I was curious, and they had a lot to say. There were about half a dozen people posting regularly. There was Mal, of course, and two retired women who lived on the other side of town. There was a younger girl who worked as a farmhand, and what looked like the town's only two openly gay men in their 50s. It didn't take long to find the posts about the so-called "fog men." While there had been only a couple of articles, there were several rumors of the would-be "fog men." There were sightings and, by the looks of it, even a couple of pictures. Most of them were just pictures of foggy fields, but if you looked close enough, you could imagine seeing something out there. Little black bumps in the distance. Could be a bush. Could be a person. They really do scream. One of the commenters had posted. But not like how people scream. It's something different. A couple of days later, when I had a moment to myself, I gave Mal a call. We ended up talking for well over an hour. At some point, we drifted in on the topic of the "fog men." Some people really believe in this stuff. Don't they, I asked? Yeah. Don't you? It's just stories and blurry pictures. Hard to believe in that. A lot of things are just stories and blurry pictures. Don't mean they don't happen. I mean, it's kinda spooky, but come on. Monsters in the fog? Not monsters. Fog men. Sure. That. Look, all I'm saying is, if you see something, say something. See something like, like what? Oh, come on, she laughed, exacerbated. Just keep an eye out when the fog rolls in. It was early morning in late July, when I saw the fog for the first time. I was on my way to work, but it was hard to see the road. The fog had got so thick that I could barely see what was right in front of me. After almost missing a turn, I decided to slow to a crawl. There's this big field on the right hand side when I drive to work. You can usually see for miles, but now I couldn't even see the edge of the road. Despite crawling along, I managed to dip the front wheel off the side and something popped. I slammed my foot on the brake and went out to check. Yeah, a flat tire. Great. I didn't have a jack. So I couldn't fix the damn thing myself. I called Chris and asked him to come help me. He didn't mind. If anything, I think it boosted his ego a little. While I waited, I decided to humor Mal. I took out my phone and scanned the fog for anything that looked even remotely human, hoping I could get a pole or something at a good angle. While I didn't see anything, I got this weird sensation in my chest. Like something growing cold inside me, a creeping pain reaching into my lungs. And as I looked up from my phone, I realized that while I wasn't seeing anything, I was definitely hearing something. Something in the field, making a kind of sound I'd never heard before, something raspy and shrill, like the vibrating echo of a distant groan. By the time Chris got there, the fog had cleared up. There was nothing in that field. If there had been, I would have seen it. As I said, it was empty for miles. I had managed to record a video, but it didn't pick up on that sound. I sent it to Mal anyway, hoping she might be able to get something out of it. She didn't, but she was ecstatic about the prospect of me taking the infamous fogman a little more seriously. And while I was, her enthusiasm was a bit off-putting. She had the energy of someone waiting for an adventure to drop her in her lap. And I wasn't feeling it. What I'd heard out there wasn't an adventure. It was danger. I didn't like it. Despite that, Mal was happy to share what I'd sent her in our social media group. All of a sudden, my experience wasn't just a conversation between friends. It became an open forum. She shared the video and forwarded what I'd said. It was a bit of an overreach, but I wasn't about to get mad about it. She meant well, and she was just excited. That's a good problem to have. That's where they found the car. The farmhand wrote as a comment on my video. Anyone got Harriet's socials? She lives nearby. Maybe she saw something. Harriet is down and floored to see her sister, someone responded. Won't see her for weeks. New girl, did you hear anything? Like, really hear it? They were waiting for my reply. I wrote one edited, rewrote, and then just canceled the whole post. After back and forth with myself, I took the bull by the horn. I had to be honest. Not only with them, but myself. Yeah, I wrote. I definitely heard something. Over the next few days, I was glued to my phone. Whenever I had a moment to myself, I was talking to the fog watch, our unofficial group name. The more we talked, the more I recognized myself and what they were saying. The sound that wasn't really a scream, but sort of reminded me of one. Something in the fog, only to disappear along with it. The big thing now was to see if anyone was missing. Someone always went missing when the fogman rolled around. The following Friday night, as I was about to go to bed, I started getting notifications on my phone. When I read them, my hands started shaking. I rushed into the kitchen to show Chris, but he was barely paying attention. There was an old man missing. Last they'd seen him, he'd been parked outside a gas station, about a 10 minute walk from where I'd stopped that morning. The fog watch went into a frenzy. They were already coming up with theories about the origins of the thing out there. They were talking about weaknesses and strengths, ways to defend yourself, and getting equipment to capture it on film. Meanwhile, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. For all the excitement, and if you looked past the giddiness, there was really someone missing. And that person had gone missing minutes from when I'd stopped the car. Fogman or not, that was terrifying. As July crawled into August, the foggy mornings grew more common, but less dense. You could sometimes see the fog rolling in over the fields. I could see it just fine. And there was never any noise. Not that it didn't stop to listen. I would stop to film it every time I saw it. Just in case I caught something. Sometimes I'd pull over to the side of the road with the kids still in the car, asking them to wait a minute while mom filmed the fog. They didn't mind. They thought it was cool. They'd stop to look as well, mistaking the occasional cow for a monster heading our way. While I never caught anything on video, or felt anything similar to like I had that one morning. I could see why people got it so into it. The area had a lot of open spaces and the fog rolling in was straight out of a gothic horn novel. This white blanket swallowing up the green and turning the houses dark along the way. No wonder people looked for monsters. The countryside was practically built for hiding things in plain sight. But life lulled on. And the fog watch got distracted by the next shiny thing. Rumors about someone poisoning the neighborhood cats. And rumors about unruly teenagers busing up mailboxes. Mouse kids and my oldest got along great. They had a couple of sleepovers every now and then, staying up late and playing games. All he was a trooper. He loved making up things for them to do. Anything to keep them from begging for more screen time. One morning when I was going to pick up my boy. I stopped. It was just a couple of steps out the front door but I couldn't help myself. Something made me stop and I didn't even know why. I clutched a hand over my chest and got back in the house, peering out the window. I was cold. I could see my breath on the glass. I could feel the fog rolling in. Not the usual fog. The unusual one. I called Mal. It's right here I said. Look outside. Aren't you coming to pick your boy up? Just look. I could hear a laughter and little feet pitter pattering in the background as she moved closer to one of the windows. I could almost guess which one. But she was just a little too far down the street for me to tell. It's thicker I continued. Like when I was out by the fields. Doesn't look that bad. Just wait a minute. Alright, we'll come to you. No. I don't know why I let that know out as hard as I did. But something inside me was screaming for me to keep my kids indoors. I could feel my heart beating it through my chest. Are you okay? Mal asked. You were the one who didn't like this stuff. Remember? I know. It's just I don't know. I don't know. It's wrong. But I don't like it. Can you please just keep them inside a little longer? We sat there. Keep in the line open as we sat by the windows. Me in my place. Her just down by the street. The kids could feel that something in the air was different. They grew quiet, concerned. Didn't matter that we said that everything was fine. They could tell it wasn't. Once the fog had engulfed our street. I couldn't even see my car on the driveway. You can't tell me this is normal I said. It's less like fog and more like a cloud. Yeah. Mal agreed. Can't even see the chairs in the yard. You hear anything I asked? Anything at all? Just someone asking if he can have another ham and cheese sandwich. You know what I mean out there? Anything? There was a short pause as we both stopped to listen. I leaned to my head against the window, letting my breath rest on each glass. I was shivering. Why was I shivering? We sat there for a full minute, letting the air out of the conversation. Looking out, I can imagine all kinds of things just outside of reach. Maybe something resembling a person. Maybe something else. Something being trailed by tendrils and screaming in an alien lung. Once everything else got quiet, your mind fills in the blanks. I think there's something there. I whispered. I really do. Once the fog cleared, I stepped outside. I could see mal in the kids coming down the street. But I took a moment to stop in the driveway. Looking down the road, I could see the tail end of the fog dissipating. As it did, I could have sworn I heard something. Not as much heard as felt, but there was something. My heart was pounding through my chest and my fingers were going numb. As I was overrun by a parade of eager children, most of my worries evaporated with immediate needs. As I ushered them inside, mal stopped to check on me. Her braid half undone and her face curled into a frown. You sure you're okay? Turning to face her, I considered just nodding and being done with it. But mal was genuinely asking, "This wasn't a casual you good. It was an open invitation." What if there's really something out there, I asked? Not a boogey man, not a big foot. What do you do? I understand you're worried, but no mal, listen, I said, just play along. What if there's, what if there's something out there? What do you do? She looked down, tapping her foot, looking down the street, then back at me. She nodded. "I need proof," she said. Not a group chat. Actual proof. All right, I agreed. Let's get some proof. Mal and I decided we'd take it a bit more seriously. If only to make me feel a bit better about it. She had Ollie bring home a camera from school. They had an older one they used for graduations and social media posts. I looked up a couple of tutorials on how to set up trail cameras. I wanted to see if I could get my hands on a thermal camera. But even renting those things was way out of our price range. We got some things up and running. Mal had a camera set up in her yard facing the woods. Chris managed to borrow a couple of trail cameras from some of the new found pool buddies. It took some time to set it up, but we managed to get a little up makeshift surveillance system going. Next time that fog rolled in, if there was something in it, we'd catch it. I could tell Mal's heart wasn't really in it, but she was a good sport about it. She didn't complain or question it. If anything, she was concerned. But that's as far as she'd go. It's strange how easily our rolls had shifted. Now she was the grounded one. Asking me to keep my head above the clouds. Hadn't this been her thing not that long ago? Wasn't she the one who pulled me into it to begin with? For two full months, we got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Deadly squat. Two months of everyday life, like nothing was happening, like nothing was scratching at the back of my mind, demanding that I consider the worst case scenario, like there wasn't an outline of a threat, be it man or otherwise. That's what the fog watch was considering. A man. Some kind of murderer, or kidnapper. They'd moved away from the idea of the mysterious cryptid fogman and moved to pointing fingers at strange loners who lived on the outskirts of town. Didn't matter that they had no motive or plenty of alibis. These people were hard-coded to grasp at straws and their grip was like a vice. I didn't bite, and neither did Mal, and apparently neither did our cameras. Mal's kids came over for a sleepover one night. Chris was trying to one up Ollie by putting on a goose bumps movie night, complete with whore theme snacks and games. I helped out here and there, but it was clear that this was his thing. He wasn't about to let some pretentious wannabe principle upstage the working man. One of Mal's kids had forgotten their glasses, so I decided to be kind enough to go get them while they settled on what episode to start with. I wrapped myself in a coat and put on my loafers, heading down the street. The further I got from my house, the more I felt something. Looking down on my fingers, I could see the fingertips turning white. I was shaking a little. My teeth chattered. By the time I got to Mal's place, my heart was already racing. I could feel it. When she finally opened the door, I rushed inside and closed the door behind me. It's here, I said. It's here. Right now, it's here. Slowed down, she said, grasped me by the shoulders. What do you? She turned around, looking out into the yard. Oh, it was so sudden, the fog rolled in from nowhere. It was already covering the yard, but it was only a matter of time before it'd cover the entire street. The wind had been blowing just a moment ago, making the old branches crackle and creak. Now it was quiet. Still. Check the camera, I said. Just in case. Yeah, she said, nodding. All, uh, do that. As she wandered off, her husband came wandering in from the other room. He gave me a casual wave and stopped to look out the window. Scary, he admitted. What's up? Glasses, I said. Your kid. Yeah, glasses. Right, all he nodded. He's still getting used to them. Want me to get them? Yeah, just give me a minute. I can run over with them, no problem. I shook my head, but he was already up and about. Mal came back, showing me a screen she'd set up for remote viewing. Meanwhile, all he was already halfway out the door. I asked him to wait, but he insisted that it wasn't a problem. Meanwhile, Mal was trying to show me the screen. There was nothing on it, but I suspect that's what she wanted me to see. Assurance. "We're good," she said, giving me a paddle in the shoulder. See? Nothing. All the wave did us as he held up the glasses. Back into jiffy. I didn't know where to look, but I could tell I didn't like any of this. Part of me wanted to nod and go on with my evening, but another part of me wanted to scream in. Dragging back in the house. Mal's assuring Hannah, my shoulder, made me sit down in her kitchen island for a moment as she invited me to have a drink. But the moment she got the bottle, she stopped. The corkscrew clinked against the counter as she looked up at me. Her eyes wide. What is that? She asked. What's. You feel that? Yeah. I nodded. I do. We got up and walked up to the front door. We both looked out, watching Ollie walk down the street with a pair of children's glasses in hand. It didn't take long for the fog to completely swallow him. Seconds later, we hear it. This awful, shrill, death-shreaking scream. Like something gargling a word until it becomes a noise. Mal was out to door in a flash with me trailing behind by a breath. She didn't even bother to put her shoes on. She was screaming for Ollie, flailing with her hands forward, hoping to find the white picket fence lining the front of her house. If she could grab a hold of that, she could find her way around no matter how thick the fog was. There it was. That scream again. Closer now, a broken voice trying to recall a baby's babble, a wawa. I was right behind Mal, making sure not to let her out of my sight. With every step into the fog, I could feel my fingers growing numb, and something in my chest aching. My lungs were growing cold, making my breath join the white of the fog. Something moved up ahead. From a distance, it looked like a person, but when he got a little closer, you could tell something was wrong. All around the edges of their silhouette, there was this bubbling, roiling, motion, bubbles growing and popping, letting out puffs of white smoke, like the shape of a boiling man. The body making itself move while standing still. Skin hung from the sides like torn wallpaper, dangling in the open air. It wasn't just a scream, it was a death rattle, it wasn't just random noise, it was a cry. The most basic cry that I would recognize anywhere, at any time, mama, mama, mama, a pair of children's glasses clattered to the ground as these shape in front of us dissolved, piece by piece. I was trying to pull Mal off the ground when I realized I wasn't breathing. I could feel my heart and my throat, but I couldn't move my hands. There were no frogmen, there was no monster, it was the fog itself, and there was something in us. Mal's hair was moving on its own, and I could see something rolling on her skin. It was happening to me too. That aching cold in my chest reached all the way to my heart, and I could feel this intense fear, like I was being stared down by a predator, like something was hunting me. Seconds away from biting down and severing my organs from one another. Something in me was tightening, getting ready to snap like a rubber band. I grabbed Mal by the arms and pulled her back, away from the street, away from whatever, to wherever. I didn't care what we did, or where we went, I just cared that we didn't stay put. My vision was blurry, and I had trouble closing my eyes. Something on my left arm stretched the skin out, like a gas bubble. Mal had screamed out the air in her lungs, she was barely conscious. Looking around I could only see the white of the fog. I could be 10 feet from a door or a hundred feet into the middle of nowhere. I couldn't tell. I dragged her until I snagged my feet on a rock. I tipped over, collapsing to the ground with her right next to me. I couldn't get my legs to move, I wasn't going anywhere. I was going to stay right there, in the middle of someone's lawn, and I was going to die from something I didn't understand, something that was dissolving me. In that moment, as I saw smoke and bubbles rise from my hair and scalp, I heard a noise escaped me too, a noise that I could now understand. In that moment of fear, in that one moment where you stare mortality in the eye, and it stares back, you're just begging for that one thing. You let your chattering teeth form the words for you. Mama, mama help, mama. It doesn't sound like a human noise, it's the sound you make as your lungs boil and your throat closes. I remember hearing a door open, an old man yelling for someone, an old woman making a panicked phone call, something grabbing a hold of me as I'm dragged into the warmth of a home. Mal is next, but she's unconscious. I don't know if she's breathing. Someone's trying to warn us, covering us in blankets and hot water. My mouth is moving on its own, my teeth chattering. Even then, I can hear the words rolling out of me, like it's the most natural thing in the world. Mama, mama, mama. By the time the paramedics arrive, I'm catatonic. Someone is performing chest compressions on Mal. I see her lips moving just like mine, we're saying the same thing. I fall in and out of consciousness as strange faces pass me by, worried faces, some apologetic and concerned, others disgusted. I'm rolled down a corridor and catch a glimpse of myself in a shiny plastic cover. My arm is a strange color. My one eye won't close, it looks dark. There's needles and bags and lights, something stings my retina, then grows distant. You're gonna be okay, someone says there's a hand on my head. And for a moment, I believe them, I really do, enough to let go and rest. The damage was mostly concentrated on my arm. They called it an extreme reaction. You know how some people can choke just from the smell of a peanut? What happened to me medically was something similar. It also burst a blood vessel in my eye, but it was nowhere near as painful as the many stitches I had to get to keep my arm from breaking apart. Mal made it through the night, but it was touching go for a while. They had to shave her head, the worst settled in her scalp in the back of her neck. She would have to wear a neck brace to make sure these stitches didn't pop. They were in a really bad spot. She never looked the same without her braid. After the doctors ran their tests and explained what happened, they seemed just as clueless as me. Not only was this something they hadn't seen before, it was something they couldn't explain. Part of it was a kind of allergic reaction, causing a massive burst of histamines that resulted in both anaphylaxis and painful hives. But there was something else, something akin to a bacterial infection. The working theory was that a colony of bacteria was traveling through the water droplets of the fog, causing massive allergic reactions in those sensitive to it. But that didn't explain what we'd seen, allergies don't dissolve someone into thin air. And no matter the explanation, no one could tell what really happened to Oli. He was deemed a missing person, not dead or dissolved, missing. There was no world where they would accept someone disappearing into nothing. Chris and I moved north as soon as I got out of the hospital. Mal moved west to be with her family. She couldn't afford to be a stay at home mom anymore. And it could take a long time before Oli was presumed dead. There'd be no insurance payout until long after the damage was already done. We kept in touch for a while, but I couldn't bear to look at the fog watch anymore. I kept getting panic attacks whenever there was a notification, and Chris made the executive decision to pull me from social media altogether. Honestly, it was the right call. It's been some time now since that night when Oli disappeared, and I don't know what frightened me more, that there are forces at work that can turn a person into nothing, or how stupid I was to be fascinated by it to begin with. There's a reason we stay inside when the wind blows, and the rain comes down. Even animals take shelter. So why are we the only ones to go looking in places that we shouldn't. But I think what finds me most is that nine feeling that remains, that in a while, when that certain darkness comes to collect its toll, I know what I'll say. I've said it before. It may have been the first thing I said and it may be my last. What's more natural than asking for help? The most haunting murder case I ever worked. Next Friday, I'll retire after 23 years as a police detective in Northern New York. Most of the cases I worked gradually disappeared from my mind with time. A few never did. Not because they were especially violent, but because they left behind the feeling that something in the world was slightly out of place. One that made me completely question reality. I've decided to come forward with a story about the latter. On Thanksgiving in 2008, a young nurse I'll call Ellen spent most of the holiday in what her family later described as a nervous stupper. Something about her behavior unsettled them enough that before she left that night, her mother quietly asked if everything was all right. At first, Ellen tried to dismiss it. Then, after more prodding, she admitted that, for the past week, she had the constant feeling that someone was following her. Most of it was purely bad feelings, but the night before, while laying awake in her bedroom at the front of the house, she said she heard pacing outside her window for hours. Slow, steady footsteps, moving along the sidewalk directly in front of her home. When Ellen finally forced herself to look through the blinds, the street was empty. But she added that she did hear frantic footsteps fleeing down the street. Her mother found the story unsettling because Ellen lived in a rather affluent part of town. Before Ellen left, both of her parents insisted that, she called them the moment she got home. She never did. About an hour after she should have arrived, her parents drove to her house themselves. They found her car idling in the driveway and the front door standing wide open. The lights inside were on, but Ellen was nowhere to be found. At least that was the situation when I arrived with a couple patrol officers a little after 11. One officer stayed outside with Ellen's parents to get their statement while his partner and I cleared the house again. From the moment I stepped inside, the house felt wrong. The decor itself was warm and cozy, earth tone walls, dim lighting and rustic furniture, years later, I learned that the style of decor was called Tuscan. Everything about it should have felt inviting. Instead, the house carried the same bleak atmosphere I had only before felt at murder scenes. Not violence, exactly, but the feeling of something already ruined. With every step I took, I couldn't shake the sensation that someone was walking directly behind me, matching my steps perfectly. At the time, I blamed nerves, but considering what was about to happen, I do wonder if that really had been the case. Sean, the patrol officer with me, went into the kitchen while I continued down a hallway that felt longer than it should have been, leading to the master bedroom. I was trying to make sense of the house's layout as I walked, half focused until I passed the open bathroom door, and something there finally registered a moment too late. Just as I reached the bedroom door, something in my mind snapped back to the bathroom. In the moonlight, spilling through the small window, I had clearly seen a man sitting on the toilet. He looked to me in his 80s, completely unclothed, hunched forward, his head buried in his hands as if he were in severe pain. It took a second for my body to catch up to what my body said registered. Then I turned back and moved quickly into the bathroom. I called for Sean as I went. The room was empty. I told Sean to keep an eye out for someone moving through the house. He asked me if I had seen someone, and I said that I wasn't sure, but this still keep an eye out. I quickly realized the parents hadn't fully checked the house, likely out of fear of what they might find. Because when I opened the door to the master bedroom, I was met with the unmistakable, sickly sweet stench of death. I scanned the room. Nothing seemed disturbed, just the usual clutter of a lived in space, ordinary in every way it could be. I reached for the light switch out of habit. Of course, despite every other light in the house working, it did nothing. So I pulled out my flashlight and stepped inside, already knowing what I was going to find. Now, before the obvious, something happened that I had never been able to get out of my head. Above the bed, hung a framed photograph of Ellen standing beside the Grand Canyon, pointing out toward the landscape. She looked, even in that still image, like the kind of person hospitals were built around, kind, steady, and the sort of presence you trusted without thinking. As I stepped into the room, the frame shifted on its hook. It didn't fall, not fully. It tilted downward, hanging half loose against the wall. In that angle, Ellen was no longer pointing out at the canyon. She was pointing down at the bed. I cramed my neck to scan the bed and let out a small breath when I saw it empty, but that relief immediately melted. A moment later, a rough horse giggle came from my left. I turned and saw the faint outline of a figure standing in the dark corner. Despite my heart jumping into my throat, I drew my weapon and ordered the figure to raise their hands. They complied and stepped forward into the moonlight. My mind, at the time, stalled completely. It refused to form a coherent description of what I was seen. Only years later, with distance, have I been able to put it into words at all. It was the same old man I had seen in the bathroom, still completely unclothed. His skin hanging off of him in loose folds, as if he were wearing a suit several sizes too large, but that wasn't what short-circuited my brain. His head had changed. It stretched outward into something like a clustered frame of faces. Four of them, at least. All identical. All sharing the same maniacal stare. As if each one were a separate version of the same man displayed on different screens. The eyes of each face bulged outward like something within a skull was pushing against them. A rictus grin spread across each one. Each had sunken cheekbones I gave him a skeletal appearance. He shuffled toward me slowly at first. Then, without warning, he took a sharp, aggressive step forward. My mind didn't keep up. I fell backward like a child trying to get away from a monster in its closet. When I hit the floor, the smell of death intensified. Thick enough that it felt physical. I turned my head to the right. Under the bed, I saw where it was coming from. The body of a young woman lay there, bloated and swollen. Her face distended beyond recognition. Her limbs looked wrong. Twisted back behind her, as if they had been forced into a position they were never meant to take. Her skin had taken on a pale green cast, with dark lines running thinly beneath it. Like something had begun to spread through her from the inside. The moment my mind fully registered what I was seen under the bed, I heard a woman scream outside. Then the other officers shouting, "Stop." Followed by the sound of someone running over hard gravel. I would later learn that it all seemed a "unclothed man" outside the house, moving fast away from the property. It's body loose and wrong in motion. The other officer later described it like the man's skin was moving, as if it was underwater. I tore my eyes from the corpse and grunted in frustration after finding that the old man was gone. one. Sean rushed into the room a second later, asking what was happening. I couldn't answer him. I just pointed beneath the bed. The other officer never caught the figure. After a few turns through the surrounding streets, he lost it and eventually stood down. After that, the case turned messy. I was criticized for letting the suspect slip away. In my description of what I had seen in the bedroom was declared as unhelpful. The part about the faces was written off almost immediately. Even the idea of the man being somehow deformed was brushed off. Then the Courtenor added another problem. He was firm in his opinion that Alan, who was found to be murdered by strangulation, had been dead for several days, based on the state of decomposition. Because of this, the investigation shifted toward the entire family, but that line of inquiry collapsed when surveillance footage surfaced, showing Alan stopping for gas alone, only 55 minutes before the 911 call. We weren't sure why her body was that decomposed, but we knew it somehow happened in that short span. Alan's murder remains unsolved. It is easily the case that haunted me the most. Because I know what I saw in that house, and I also know it cannot be possible. We spent years following leads rooted in reality, each one ending exactly where I expected it would. No where. Because the truth of it sits in complete unreality. And alright guys, that wraps up some horrifying true stories from Reddit, and these were truly some of the best stories I have ever read. So I really hope you enjoyed it. Go show some love to the authors of these stories. You can find their stories in the description. And thank you guys so much for watching. I really, really appreciate all the support and just comment down below. I read every single comment. So yeah, comment down below your reaction, your feedback, or whatever you want to say to me. And also make sure you like the video and subscribe to the channel. The channel subscriber goal is one million subscribers. Before the end of the year, so please subscribe. And alright, once again, thank you guys so much for watching. It truly does mean the world. And this was Snook. And I'll see you next time. Bye.