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When my hip buzzed halfway through the beautiful fettuccine Alfredo my wife made for supper, my feet went cold. My wife told me to let it go to voicemail After all, she said We hadn't heard any sirens. But the thing is, Lucas County is 434 square miles, and it's not all flat farmland like most people picture when they think of Iowa. We've got hills and forests, too.
On a good day, you'd be lucky to hear a siren a mile away. I only have two deputies patrolling these 434 miles, so no, I don't think we would have heard them over casting crowns playing lightly on the kitchen radio. I swallowed a bundle of noodles then answered my phone. Wendy, one of our communications officers, spoke to me. Sheriff, it's Wendy. Sorry, it's urgent. Macy's gone quiet on a traffic stop in Warner's all the way out by Oakley Park.
Oakley Park I repeated reaching for a notepad on the counter behind me I always like to jot down details in case they're important later. That way I don't have to store them in my mind, which frees it up to receive the bigger picture. Yes, he's wondering if we should check with Wayne County to see if anyone's closer to Macy's stop. Uh-huh, where's Macy? I asked. My pen hovered, waiting to write the location.
As Wendy described it, I began to rise from my seat and made that apologetic face that all first responders spouses know too well. Wendy said. She called in a stop going south on 65, just south of town. They ended up stopped just before 148th trail. Yes, 148th trail.
I scribbled as I said. That's not far from me. Go ahead and try her one more time. If you don't get anything, call Wayne County. I'm going to start heading her direction emergent. Tell Warner if you don't hear from Macy. Lights and sirens all the way. Let's make sure she's safe. Copy that, Sheriff. One day hung up. I didn't hear back from her so I hopped in my truck without changing, ripped out of the driveway and flipped on my emergency lights.
It was just getting dark enough to see their blue and red reflections on the pavement in front of me, lighting up patches of road just before they vanished beneath me. S65, 148th Trail Stop, 8.09 p.m. I saw Deputy Macy do its vehicle long before I saw the blurred line between Highway 65's pavement and 148's gravel. Macy's lights flashed the same blue and red as mine.
The shadows cast from those lights were the only things moving there on the side of the road, right next to a dense patch of trees. Part of the Stevens State Forest, I think. I'm not sure if the trees on that side of White Breast Creek are still part of the state park.
Regardless, those trees are thick, and so is the underbrush beneath them. Neither let much of the setting sunlight through. The forest and setting sun created a black and gold backdrop for the unsettling scene that I got out and walked up on. The front door of Macy's vehicle on the driver's side was left open, but she wasn't inside. She'd left her computer unlocked, her radio mic off its mount, and, most disturbing of all, the shotgun behind her seat halfway unlocked.
I shorthanded these details into my notebook before remembering to radio Wendy and Warner that I'd arrived and that Macy was nowhere in sight. Careful not to touch or step anywhere unnecessary, I walked around Macy's vehicle before approaching the one hers was parked behind, a burgundy Ford Ranger from the mid-2000s. The truck's flashing hazards were barely visible in front of the flashing emergency lights.
i'm not sure what i expected to find in the bed or cab of that little pickup but i didn't find it i didn't find anything Keys were still in the ignition. Nothing looked to be in disarray. The glove box was open, that's all. Like the driver had been retrieving their documents to hand Macy. Had they pulled a gun out of that glove box instead? Maybe a knife? When you're not expecting it, a knife can be worse than a gun.
I couldn't find anything to indicate a struggle though, let alone bloodshed. You could have convinced me Macy and her detained driver just decided to stroll on up the road together. And maybe they did. But surely Macy would have responded to Wendy's call if all was well. And why, I wondered, looking at my notebook, did it look like she went for her shotgun?
There were no shell casings, no bullet holes in either vehicle. Macy likely hadn't discharged her service weapon. What made her jump for the big gun? While communicating with Wendy and Warner about the scene, I returned to Macy's vehicle to gather more clues.
I checked that her dashcam was recording and found it tough not to sit there and play back the footage to learn what happened. I chose not to because, for all I knew, Macy needed immediate help, and I didn't want to waste time fidgeting with the onboard computer. I'd task Warner with that when he showed up.
And speak of the devil, Warner arrived about three minutes later. He must have not let his speedometer drop below 90 even once. I had him pull Macy's dash cam while I started searching the nearby trees. Twenty-two minutes had passed since Macy first called in her traffic stop. A lot can happen in twenty minutes, but in terrain like those woods, she and her detainee could not have gone far.
I yelled out many times, hoping she might hear me. I tried her on the radio myself a few times for good measure as well. As the sinking weight in my stomach became too heavy to ignore, I said into the radio, Wendy, why don't you get an ambulance started our way just in case? It hissed with hesitation before Wendy answered, Copy that. I walked back to the road, planning on checking the trees on the other side before I heard Warner say, Ty, you want to come here? I've got the footage.
I scampered over to him, anxious to see what the recording showed. Now it's probably best for me to tell you exactly what was on that camera without too much commentary. It's bizarre enough without me adding my thoughts to the mix. So here's what the camera captured.
Macy is behind the burgundy pickup truck on Highway 65, headed south. The recording begins when she turns on her lights. We hear her call in the license plate as the truck slows to a stop on the shoulder right across from 148th Trail. Macy waits for Wendy to inform her the plate is clean before stepping out and approaching the passenger side window.
The conversation she has with the driver sounds standard based on what we can hear. Her body cam will provide more information when we find her, but it doesn't seem anything abnormal occurs during her interaction with the driver. He hands her his driver's license and vehicle registration. We hear Macy say, You just keep looking for that insurance card, alright? I'll run this and be right back.
She starts walking back to her car. She gets in and we hear her mutter to herself, let's see if he's even got insurance. She begins typing on her computer in sporadic bursts, obviously reading names and numbers off of the documents she's borrowed from the driver. After 17 seconds we see the driver of the pickup truck get out.
By the way, we know who the driver is, but I'm keeping his name out of this story intentionally. His family knows he's deceased, but they don't know he was involved in this. And I think it's best we keep it that way. Back to the video. Macy stops typing. We hear her door open and her semi-muffled voice say, Sir, please stay in your vehicle unless I ask you to... She trails off.
Maybe because of the weird blank look in the guy's eyes or the emotionlessness of his expression. He's walking like a zombie, like there's nothing going on between his ears. Or maybe Macy trails off because she sees something just off camera. something the blank man is also looking at in the trees next to the road. We hear Macy's scramble as the man walks casually but quickly around the back of his pickup and into the ditch, leaving the camera's view.
Macy begins to call out, but we hear the beep Warner and I both know as the sound our radios make when they turn off. In her haste, Macy accidentally shut her radio off. There's a pained scream from the man off camera. Macy is swearing and maybe crying and fumbling with the latch securing her shotgun. The scream stops abruptly. It doesn't fade. It stops like it's cut short. We then hear Macy whimper, Oh God.
before she stops making any sound. A few seconds pass before we hear a light rustle and boots crunching gravel outside her vehicle. A second later, we see the boots belong to Macy. She walks in front of the camera. in front of her car with the same blank expression and rapid stride as her detainee and she also walks off camera into the ditch. We don't hear her scream. Nothing else occurs on or off camera that we can detect until the sound of my own siren fills the silence.
I made Warner stay near Macy's vehicle and the pickup truck just in case she decided to wander back out of the woods with an explanation and an apology. Not expecting either of those, I set off down 148th Trail, searching for any sign of her, the detainee, or whatever they were looking for. Whatever lured them in.
Although, at the point when I started crunching gravel down 148th with my spotlight on the tree line, the idea of something hypnotizing my deputy into leaving her vehicle unlocked with a weapon half hanging out had not yet crossed my mind. I'm not sure what I thought had happened, but not that. I rolled slow to keep the engine noise down and listen.
Twice I stopped and shut it off when I thought I heard voices in the trees. Both times I radioed Warner to see if he heard anything, but he claimed he did not. I got a call from one of the deputies down in Wayne County saying they didn't have anybody nearby but would float somebody our direction at the first chance. This occurred during one of my quiet stops, and I spent the entire phone call slowly tracing my spotlight across the trees.
It felt like one of those horror movies where all of a sudden a pair of eyes appears in a bush or some large form I completely missed with one past materializes on the second. Nothing appeared by the time I hung up my phone, though. I restarted my engine and kept rolling, but not before making an entry in my notebook.
Voices to West. Warner didn't hear. Wayne floating someone. 8.42pm. nearing the bend back toward highway 65 i slowed readying for another pause my fingers were pinching the keys in my ignition when the spotlight caught a slight movement through the trees up ahead Someone was walking next to the road just around the bend.
Macy, I called out my open window. I also shouted the pickup driver's name. Let's just call him John to make things simpler. Neither shout received any response or acknowledgement from the walking figure. In this place I'm talking about, the little loop called 148th Trail off of Highway 65, there's nothing around.
Even along 65 in this stretch, once you get south of Lucas, population of 172 by the way, there's nothing but hills and fields and forests, what for a couple of small farms here and there. To me it's home, but you might call it desolate, and I don't know if I could argue against you.
All this is to say, look, maybe someone living in one of the three houses along 148th decided to take a late night stroll, but don't you think they probably would have reacted to my shouts? Maybe pause to see what all the bright lights were about. This person just kept plodding along. I watched them blip in and out as they passed along the trees following the road around the bend. I made my approach slowly so as not to spook this mystery figure.
Coming around the bend, my heart sank and my anger rose. I knew who it was, and unfortunately this was not the first time I had stumbled upon him naked, although never this far from home. Carl Dillon was a former meth dealer who got high on a bit too much of his own supply. Unable to manage the business end of things anymore, he settled into being just an ordinary meth head.
He liked to take his clothes off in the moonlight, he once told me. I didn't see any moonlight yet, so I guess the sunset did it for him too. I radioed to Wendy, letting her and Warner know I'd be out with Carl. There I was, originally off-duty, now searching for a missing deputy, and now I had naked Carl Dillon to deal with on top of it. I almost just let him go.
I pulled my cruiser right up behind him, training the spotlight on his glowing back. Still, he did not react, just kept plodding forward. Carl moved slowly, evenly, not even flinching when I whooped the siren at him. Unordinary behavior for a meth head. Let's get this over with, I muttered to myself as I stepped out of the car. Hey, Carl. No change, no response. Carl, it's getting dark. Why are you so far from home? Still, nothing. I started walking closer.
Wear your clothes, buddy. Going for another moonlight stroll. By now I was almost within arm's reach, and Carl Dillon paused, raising his head slightly, but still not looking up at me. I said, I'm going to do you a favor tonight, Carl. Since I can clearly see you're not carrying anything, why don't you just hop in the back and I'll give you a ride home real quick. I've got some other business to...
I trailed off because Carl started slowly turning his head towards me, and I didn't recognize the face he began to reveal. I mean, it was Carl alright, but something about him looked wrong. His usual toothless grimace hung open, dragging down the skin around his sunken nose and wrinkled eyes. And his eyes, they looked silvery, like the worst case of cataracts I'd ever seen. you Even the whites had gone gray.
As it struck the corner of his eye, the spotlight made him wince and hiss like a startled possum. Then he tried to run. I swore at him and gave chase. My pursuit ended only a few feet away, but Carl wasn't done fighting. When I tackled him into the ditch, he wrestled his way on top of me.
I covered my gun with my right arm and fended him off with my left. He pawed at my neck and shoulders. Whatever Carl Dillon was on that night, I didn't think it was meth, and I was pretty sure he was aiming to kill me. I realized there might be a good chance only one of us was going to walk away from that ditch. Amen.
Inches from my face, Carl chomped his empty jaws. Spit and drool wetted my neck and lower jaw, adding disgust to the overboiling emotions in my chest. I did my best not to look into his eyes, because any time I did, I felt strained. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, only I felt sort of like giving up. I risked exposing my gun for a second, it was in a locking holster anyway, to land a swift punch to his ribs. i followed it up with blows to his armpit and head none with any result
Interestingly, Carl did not take advantage of the gun's exposure, nor did he attempt to ward off any of my punches. He seemed exclusively invested in my vulnerable throat. He panted with a nearly passionate desire to strangle me. Admittedly, I started to lose the fight. Carl Dillon was not a big man, but any grown person on top of you for that long will eventually wear you down and gain an advantage if nothing else changes.
During our struggle, I also made peace with the idea I might have to kill him. Something about his eyes made it seem easier, like he wasn't a man but a rabid animal needing to be put down. I didn't take any pleasure in that thought. Let me make that damn clear. But it seemed more utilitarian than violent. He made no effort to stop my arm reaching for my gun, nor did he react when I pulled it out of the holster.
Stop or I'll shoot, I growled with what little breath I could spare. Carl did not heed my warning. Fearing for my life, I pulled the trigger. I fired four times, at least three of them going through Carl Dylan's abdomen and out his lower back. Still, he fought. I put two more in his chest, those also ripping through him and exiting the other side leaving gaping flowers of flesh.
but these deadly wounds also failed to hamper him. If anything, he became more feverish, more rabid in his attempts to clamp his hands around my neck. I heard Warner on the radio asking about the gunshots, but I obviously couldn't respond. His sirens split the night a few seconds later. It was small comfort knowing help was only seconds away. Maybe Warner would be able to pull Carl off me and together we could subdue. him.
I was also glad I'd already called an ambulance in case Macy needed one because Carl would... Carl would. It suddenly occurred to me that the man I'd shot five times wasn't bleeding. I could see the wounds to his chest and stomach clearly in the spotlight. Not one drop of blood oozed out of any of them. That's when my limbs went numb. Whether from shock, exhaustion, or a combination of the two, my body refused to fight any longer.
I made a small attempt to roll away as Carl fell on top of me, but he still managed to grab my hair. force my head to the side, and lock his empty jaws around the side of my neck. He gummed at my skin while I emptied what was left of my magazine into him, not caring where the bullets struck. His head was too close to mine, but I put holes in every other part of his body. It's still, he clung to me, masticating the muscles on my lower neck and shoulder.
Warner's shrieking sirens reached a painful volume before shutting off. I'm here, Ty, I heard him shout. I guess he lifted Carl off of me because suddenly he was gone. Dazed, I watched Warner wrestle the punctured, bloodless man back toward the road in a full Nelson hold. Warner spun him around, trying to pin him on the hood of my car. As soon as the spotlight hit Carl's eyes, though, he shrieked like a wounded crow and bucked at Warner.
Warner kept him there for what might have been five seconds. Carl shrieking and writhing in the bright white light. But eventually, Carl slipped out of his grip. He propelled himself off of my car, striking Warner with his shoulder and knocking him off balance. By the time Warner recovered, Carl had vanished into the now dark tree. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run,
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In cooperation with multiple jurisdictions, we launched a search the next morning. We'd still received no word from Macy, nor any indication of where she might be. No one reported seeing Carl since we lost him either. I fired 17 rounds in that ditch and must have hit him at least 12 times, yet not a drop of blood spilled on me or the ground on which we fought. Lucky for me, his biting and chewing hadn't done much either. I had some bruising on my neck, but Carl never broke the skin.
a chopper spotted macy's uniform in the forest half a mile west and slightly south of where she vanished a lucky glint from her badge gave it away she'd abandoned her radio her gun taser cuffs underwear boots and all none of it looked like it had been removed by force and none bore any evidence of violence or injury Her gun had not been discharged. Her body cam was still attached to her vest.
I took it off and handed it to Warner with instructions to take it back to the office and download it the first opportunity he got. A search party combed the area near the discarded uniform on foot and quickly located the clothes of Macy's detainee, John. He'd similarly gotten rid of everything on his person, including his own concealed pistol, which had not been fired. Not recently, anyway. The state patrol commander kept me under a close eye, but let me participate in the search.
The fact that there was no blood on me or at the scene plus Warner's testimony validated my account of the struggle with Carl Dillon, which I think left everyone a bit on edge. I crouched near John's clothes for some time, contemplating just why he and my deputy would have stripped naked in the middle of the woods, a state park no less, and what kept on walking.
Their clothes were found a hundred yards from each other, so if someone else coerced them into stripping, why not have them do it at the same time? Why let both of them carry loaded guns for half a mile before forcing them to put them down? It seemed to me both John and Macy came to the decision to shed their clothes while separated from one another. All indications were they walked off in different directions after the traffic stop and we'd yet to find where, if anywhere, they rejoined.
John's footprints were easier to track simply based on the muddier ground where we found his clothes. We found another pair of barefoot prints intermittently mixed with his, too, but they didn't belong to Macy. I didn't have a barefooted print of Carl Dillon's foot to compare it to, but I had a hunch they would match if we did. Only a hunch, but a hunch can be a powerful tool if wielded correctly. I pulled out my notepad.
Macy leaves uniform and equip behind John leaves clothes and gun behind go separate ways Someone meets John in woods. Carl. Carl missing. Shot. No blood. No blood on anything. Why Macy didn't call.
That last bit, though perhaps not immediately relevant, seemed like the most critical piece of the puzzle to solve If we could figure out why she didn't radio any updates, why she wandered off with an unknown subject without providing a single update, we might begin to understand the circumstances which led to the rest of the mystery. Had she seen Carl, maybe? How did he factor into this? Did he? At that point, it was impossible to say.
We lost Macy's tracks only a handful of yards west of her clothes. The short trail didn't provide much of a lead, but someone floated the possibility of tracing the direction of Macy's footsteps and that of John's and his mystery companions on a map to see where they would have intersected. We pulled out a map of the county and used a compass to orient the lines correctly before tracing them.
The intersection occurred near Stevens Forest Pond. If either Macy or John continued walking in a straight line, the water would have interrupted them, but not before they would have met on the bank. Macy's parents had gotten wind of the search by now. When they called me, I didn't have the heart to lie. I told them, yes, we were searching for their daughter, but I did not divulge any details like how she was wandering the state forest naked for some reason.
I only explained how Macy walked away from a traffic stop without calling in and that we so far had no reason to believe she'd been hurt. With no blood on any of her clothes and no signs of struggle near any of the sites of interest, that last bit wasn't a lie or even a stretch of the truth. With the extra pressure from Macy's parents on top of the burden I placed on myself, I was desperate for any leads we could drudge up.
That's why I drew a third line on the map, this one tracing Carl Dillon's approximate course had I not intercepted him on 148th. I just felt like he had to be involved somehow. To everyone's surprise, not the least my own, Carl's line crossed Macy and John's at the exact same point by the pond. Though none of us knew what this meant, it was enough to spur a small team led by myself to investigate the potential rendezvous point.
And friends, if you think what I've told you so far sounds like a nightmare, prepare yourselves. Because this is where the nightmare truly begins. Stevens Forest Pond goes by another name to folks who know it. Hidden Pond. That's because there's really only two ways to reach it and both involve a fair amount of footwork. One is a hiking trail that brushes against the north side of the water before looping around the west side.
The second is a vehicle path that ends in a circular parking area about 250 feet from the east bank, but that's a rough stretch of the bank. To access the water, you have to cut south a bit and go maybe another hundred feet through untouched forest. That's the spot where the three lines converged. So Warner, a couple of state troopers, and a gal from the DNR all huffed it out there.
I nearly choked when I saw the mess of mud footprints smeared on the rocks down along the bank. They weren't defined enough to match our missing subjects, but I knew. We all knew. I realized then I'd been hoping to be proved wrong. Looks like something happened over here, the gal from the DNR said, pointing to two fallen branches just up the bank from the footprints. These branches had fallen with some force, it seemed.
The dirt around them had been scuffed and gouged, and the branches themselves had scarred the ground with deep depressions. One of the troopers noticed and began a closer inspection of the tree. Almost immediately, he beckoned us over. Here's a description from my notebook. Footprints up the tree. Handprints, too, on many trees near the bank. Signs of descent unclear. May still be up there.
We called in more units to help search the dense treetops. Being springtime, every oak and walnut and hickory tree was stuffed with leaves overlapping one another. We all had to wonder if the people we'd been searching for had been watching us the whole time. The state troopers were too dignified to climb up in any of the trees and I'm too old, but the gal from the DNR scrambled up the tree with the broken branches to check for any more clues.
She almost immediately found a clump of torn hair, which sure looked a lot like Macy's. We all waited in emasculated silence while the DNR gal climbed around. She told us the foot and handprints spread out to the branches above the two broken ones on the ground, but they were barely visible.
she climbed higher than the previous person being careful not to touch or disturb any of the prints then climbed out above them on some thin branches my palms were sweating just watching her balance on those bouncy limbs This, though I saw the point of it, did not feel like proper police work. The DNR gal floating over us all said, Hang on a second, guys. There might be something in the water. One of the state troopers jogged down to the bank and cupped a hand over his eyes.
I don't know if you'll be able to see it down there, the DNR gal said. Then she asked, Anybody got a pair of polarized glasses? As any angler knows, polarized lenses help see through surface glare to view what's underwater. They're amazing low-tech devices. I happened to be wearing a pair, though I wasn't sure how I could get it up to her.
Here, she said, dangling a strand of paracord she retrieved from somewhere on her person. I tied my glasses to the cord and watched them levitate up into the trees. Anything? I asked a few moments later. Hold on, she replied. I haven't even untied them yet. So we waited in silence again, the trooper with his cupped hand still scanning the water, probably trying to spot whatever was possibly out there first.
With a sucking breath the gal uttered a vulgarity I'd rather not repeat lest I have to mention it in the confessional. Then she said the three words I both wanted and dreaded hearing. I found them. And worse, she said. There's a lot more of them out there. And they're... standing?
Standing? What do you mean, underwater? I asked. Everyone else rushed down to the bank. Her response came in a gurgling gag which warned me to get out from under the tree before vomit rained down where I'd been standing. Later, when she explained what she saw from up in that tree, she told me what made her puke, and I can't say I wouldn't have done the same. She was not the last person to lose her lunch that day.
There was a lot of standing around speculating while we waited for the dive team to show up. Allow me to fill that lapse of time with the description the DNR gal gave of what she saw out there in the water. Out near the middle of the still, well-shaded pond, she noticed unusual shapes a couple of feet below the surface They looked like smooth, round stones. Some were partially coated with floating moss. Others looked polished and bare.
These, the polarized lenses revealed to be the heads of six underwater bodies, all vertically oriented and nude, positioned in a circle facing one another. What she'd first perceived to be moss was really their floating hair. Their skin practically glowed it was so pale, making it easy to spot from the DNR gal's vantage point. She was unable to see their feet to know if they were standing or chained, but she said their arms were not floating limp like an unconscious dead person's would.
They were all crossed over themselves, such as one might imagine a vampire sleeping in a coffin. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to use that word. Vampire is not a term we throw around lightly anymore in these parts. Once I finish my story, you'll understand why. The DNR gal could not positively identify any of the corpses from so far away, but we later learned they included a man and his daughter from a nearby farm, a field surveyor who'd stopped in the area on a routine check.
the pickup driver John, and our dear Macy, whose parents still don't know that's how we found her. If they hear this, I guess they will. I thought about changing her name like John's, but the rest of the details surrounding her death would have given away who I'm talking about anyway. if you're counting you noticed i only mentioned five names there i saved the last one because it's what made that brave dnr gal spill her guts down the tree
It was Carl Dillon, the man I'd shot 12 times the previous night. The sight of his body disturbed the DNR gal the most. What made her lose it were the air bubbles that gurgled out of the bullet wounds in his chest and stomach. One final note about the bodies in that moment went unnoticed, but in hindsight is quite important. I'll read it from my notes. All eyes shut, heads down like sleeping.
The dive team arrived in the early evening as the shadows were just beginning to stretch. They operated on an expedited timeline trying to beat the dark. They took two rescue rafts out on the water, a prepared diver in each. to them this was a bizarre but otherwise routine mission go down photograph the scene for evidence and get the pale withered bodies out of the water
Each diver had a camera mounted to their head to capture everything they saw. I prayed that footage, plus whatever Warner found on Macy's body cam, would piece the rest of the puzzle together and let us bring a close to this horrible sequence of events. As far as my mental state at that point, I was more sad than anything. Knowing my deputy was indeed dead, my curiosity and concern took a backseat to grief.
While the recovery team operated, I didn't have much else to do but sit on the bank, shed a few tears for Macy, and wait. The others all saw best to leave me be, and for that, I am grateful. It gave me time to think.
macy was strong-willed ambitious and unflappable i found myself pondering again just what could have convinced her to abandon her vehicle without so much as a word on the radio for some reason john then macy walked into the woods going separate directions before shedding their clothes and meeting up again at the pond then there was carl already naked who apparently went to the pond as well despite my encounter with him
And then what? The three of them just walked in until they were submerged and what? Fallen asleep? and one of the others. The farmer, his daughter, and the surveyor. Where had they come from, and what made them go into the pond? Did they all drown, or... I know how ridiculous this sounds. Were they already dead? Finally, I thought about Carl Dillon's eyes and how they looked so cloudy and almost reflective.
There'd been something unnatural about them, and I also found it noteworthy he didn't react to me until my spotlight hit his eyes. The light had sent him into the frenzy that led to me shooting him a dozen times without drawing a drop of blood. No blood, sensitive to light.
As I made these notes in my pad, the word vampire came to mind again. I couldn't help it. I didn't believe in such things, but up until that point, I'd also believed 12 bullets were more than enough to kill a man, or at least stop him in his tracks. Carl Dillon traveled half a mile with his wounds, and now he was standing upright at the bottom of a pond with his eyes shut, head down, and arms crossed.
I didn't believe in vampires. Fine, I'll use the term. But I didn't believe any of that possible either. Yet it had all happened right in front of me. And my lord, in that moment, alone, I remembered Carl's attempts to bite me. His gnawing at the sinews of my throat. He'd put all he had in his effort to pierce my flesh with teeth he didn't have. Tragic, really. Cursed to execute an eternal task his body just isn't fit for.
I'm sure you've guessed how even though I didn't believe in creatures such as vampires those many months ago, I do believe now. And so should you. They pulled Macy out first. I watched the divers pass her off to those on one of the boats. Her skin glowed the same faded blue as the sky, but did not look puffy like bodies pulled from the water usually do. The opposite, actually. She looked gaunt, like her skin was stuck to her bones.
Some commotion near one of the recovery boats a couple of minutes later drew shouts and hoots from the men on the shore who all hurried to do nothing along the bank. there were screams on the water high shrill screams of life and death terror I saw one of the divers yanked up onto her boat, then both boats sped away toward the bank. I couldn't understand why they left the second diver out there until I heard the story of what happened under the surface.
Since then, I've seen the diver's footage. Their cameras would later back up what the rescued diver told us happened down there. While getting in position to drag Carl Dillon up, the divers found themselves trying not to enter the circle of stoic bodies out of a disconcerting superstition. This superstition tripled after they returned from delivering Macy and found the gap she'd left filled in. The sleeping corpses had closed in, but none of them yet showed any signs of consciousness.
With Macy, they'd had a much easier time. She was shorter and lighter than lanky Carl, despite the miracle weight loss drug that is methamphetamine. During the difficult swim, one of the divers, let's call him Jake, can be seen gesturing with one arm. Did you hear that? A moment later, he is snatched away. The second diver, let's call her Sarah, is focused on Carl at the time. We don't see what happens to Jake on her camera. Only hear it. you
Fortunately, I guess you could say, we found Jake's camera when parts of his suit bubbled up under some tree branches a couple of days later. By then, we'd already been convinced Sarah's story was true, though. Her camera didn't see what happened to Jake, but from the corner of her eye, she witnessed it. Just after asking if Sarah heard that, Jake turns his head and sees a shape reflecting sunlight cutting through the water toward him.
Before his mouth receives the signal to cry out, the shape is upon him. it is shaped like a tall person but the way it moves the slimy sheen on its skin and the alien size of its cloudy reddish eyes give it away as something else I'd have to guess it was at least seven feet long while swimming, and it snatched Jake away, a grown man with diving gear and a static wash of bubbles.
There is a frame in Jake's footage, which I didn't get to see until days later, that shows a fuzzy yet detailed look at the thing's face It's round on top with a pointed jaw, slightly parted to reveal sharp teeth. Its nose and ears have seemingly rotted away, leaving gaping holes in their wake. There's no hair anywhere on this thing. Not on its head, no eyebrows, not even eyelashes. But it's the eyes that most intrigue me.
They had the same cloudy shade as Carl Dillon's and, as I'll tell you soon, Macy's after we pulled her out. The creature's eyes were open, but even in the still frame it was clear to see opening them had caused it some level of pain. The eyes and the pale skin around them had turned an angry red that could be seen even in the relatively low light below the surface of the water. We never did find Jake. He went away with the rest of them.
I know you must be thinking, what do you mean? Did you lose the rest of the bodies? What about Carl Dillon and John? And what about that seven foot long thing that took Jake? My friend, I feel I need to warn you now. If you want a clear-cut, case-closed ending to this story, you're going to be sorely disappointed. That's just not the way it shook out.
Why do you think there's been such a huge effort to keep it covered up? But don't worry, there's still more to tell, and at least one aspect in which we found some resolution. And that has to do with Macy. I don't have much time! I am being transported by the ecclesiade vessel Markava to stand trial for heresy of the highest order. But I will not renounce my work.
And to my last breath, I will speak the truth of this plague-ridden world, that ours is not a loving God, and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Radolf Bundwein Chapter 2, now available throughout the known world. DC High Volume Batman The Dark Knight's Division DC Comics Stories. Adapted directly for audio for the very first time. I have to make them afraid. It's not a motorcycle. Get after him or I'll have you shot. You mean blow up the building. From this moment on.
None of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday. podcasts. Macy had no pulse, not that any of us expected her to. You might be surprised we even checked after we'd seen her stuck underwater for so long, but you didn't see how strangely alive she looked. I've talked about her blue skin and closed eyes, but there was something else about her that felt more than looked extremely vital. Perhaps dangerously so.
the medical team covered her respectfully and loaded her into an ambulance for transportation to the morgue i thought of the medical examiner cutting into her and had to distract myself with the menial task of wardening off the pond the body recovery had turned into
to a search and rescue for Jake, but one which moved slowly and stayed away from the circle of vertical corpses in the middle of the pond. By then, everyone knew we were dealing with forces we did not understand. No one wanted to believe it. But we all accepted fairly quickly that Jake was gone for good and ended the search for the night. Warner called me saying he had Macy's footage ready, so I left the pond to go watch it back at the station. The sun set behind me as I drove.
As I parked at the Lucas County Sheriff's office, I received a call from the hospital. It was the medical examiner. She needed me to get there right away. The ME told me Macy had been tagged and put in a drawer until she could be autopsied. The ME had been preparing to stay late to perform said autopsy. She just needed to step out to make some calls regarding child care and such. When she returned, she heard a sporadic kissing.
followed her ears to the morgue drawers than to macy's drawer specifically she placed her hand along the drawers edges to see if she could feel air coming through but as soon as she touched the drawer the hissing stopped the mortician slid her hand along the crack her fingertips brushed against the cold metal and one of her fingernails scraped it for a moment the sound her fingernail produced made her pause it matched the hissing she'd heard before, which she now believed wasn't hissing at all.
She stepped back from the drawer and waited. Seconds later, the hissing resumed. Only now, the ME pictured a cold hand running its fingers along the edge of the drawer, searching for a way out. The sound matched this visual perfectly. Braver than I, she went back to the drawer and knocked. The hissing stopped. A moment later, a rattling voice within the drawer asked, Is it night yet?
Believing there had been a terrible mistake, the M.E. pulled open the drawer and found Macy lying with her hands still crossed over her chest, but now her eyes were wide open, gray, and clouded. The second the white fluorescent lights from the ceiling met her eyes, Macy shrieked and launched herself off the drawer with unnatural speed and reflexes. The ME said it almost looked like she levitated and flew halfway across the room. She pleaded with Macy to be calm, but Macy continued to cry out.
holding her hands over her eyes and lurching around the room blindly, knocking instruments and supplies off of shelves, counters, and carts. The M.E. ran across the room shouting, Just hold on, I'll turn off the lights! And she did. Everything went still. Is that better? She asked, turning around. Macy stood across from her.
arms now calmly at her sides. She was nothing more than a dark silhouette traced by red from the exit sign above the door, her clotted hair giving the appearance of floating like she was still underwater. Macy? The ME said. She'd met Macy before. There's been some kind of accident. We're not sure what happened to you, but let's get you covered, then take you upstairs. You're at the hospital. There are people here who can... Macy took a step toward her. Help you. The M.E. took a step back.
With a shriek, Macy pounced onto one of the tables, then launched herself at the ME. She only barely dodged in time. She landed on her hands and knees and scurried around the operation tables, which Macy had knocked everything off of. Macy was close behind.
Please, Macy, nobody wants to hurt you! She begged as the red silhouette of the undead deputy loomed over her. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Macy shoved her down, maintaining a stiff hold on her lab coat even after pinning the ME to the concrete floor. What are you doing? She whispered as Macy's face dropped near her own.
felt around for a weapon she didn't want to hurt macy who she assumed to be mysteriously ill but she also had children at home to consider if it came to it she would use violence to get home to them Clamp stats, retractor, forceps. Her hands felt all the spilled tools on the floor beside her. Aspirator, clip, artery tube, saw.
she would have preferred a large scalpel or scissors but macy's face was less than six inches from her throat and she could sense her intention to bite before macy could get her teeth into the me the teeth of the saw bit into macy The ME had swung the tool with enough force to bury it in the side of Macy's neck. Nothing but a few bubbling streams of brackish water poured out of the wound.
She's already dead, she thought, understanding the impossibility of what she was considering. She was pinned to the ground by the undead. With this thought pulsing through her, the ME forced the saw back and forth, cutting through tendons, biting through bones, all without spilling a drop of blood onto herself. Macy made little protest. All the time, she remained fixated on the Emmy's throat.
she did not stop gazing at it with those clouded hungry eyes until her head turned upside down dangling from the last few strands of sinew and skin holding it on Only then did she fall on top of the ME, still and lifeless. While I was at the hospital dealing with the aftermath of the attack my phone rang with more bad news A few troopers had been assigned to watch over the pond that night.
two others left to haul in four giant spotlights used for late night crime scene investigation they wanted to be able to see of course but also my theory that the creature's eyes couldn't handle bright lights had spread The lights seemed like a good defense, and maybe they would keep the creatures, the vampires, trapped should they try to crawl out into the night. We'll never get to know if that would have worked.
When they hauled in the lights, they found the troopers who'd been guarding the pond, all standing with their backs to it, all facing trees, standing mere inches in front of them so that their noses almost touched the bark. The troopers would not move, would not respond to anything for nearly an hour. During that time, someone noticed the bodies lurking under the water had all disappeared.
A few shell casings were located around the scene leading us to believe there had been a brief struggle before the vampires somehow took control, forcing those troopers to turn their backs to allow them to escape. Why they didn't try to turn them, we'll never know. Maybe they'd already gathered enough new blood, and I mean that quite literally. They have not been seen around here since, and no one from Lucas or the neighboring counties has gone missing or experienced any nighttime attack.
I pray every day for the folks who live wherever those things went. So far, the only way we know to kill them is to remove the head, cut it clean off as soon as you can, and don't let them bite you. I'm mostly telling this story to get these warnings and tips out there. Oh, and don't ever, ever look them in the eyes. Please. If you don't believe me, let me tell you about Macy's body cam footage. I finally saw it the following day while searching for clues as to where the vampires had gone.
It starts with her approaching the Burgundy Ford Ranger. The driver seems polite, reasonable, like he knows he was doing something wrong and is ready to receive the consequence. He hands over his ID and Macy asks for his registration and insurance. He says they're in the glove box and takes out the registration, handing it to her.
He says he still needs to find the insurance card, that he knows it's buried in the glove box. Macy thanks him and tells him to keep looking for the insurance while she runs his information back in her car. Macy turns around to walk back to her car so we don't see the man in the moments before he gets out of his truck. The next time we see him, he's already standing on the shoulder transfixed by something in the woods.
Macy orders him back to his truck, but he doesn't listen. He starts walking around the truck toward the woods Macy turns just enough for us to see where the driver John is walking, or more accurately, to whom he is walking. The surveyor from the pond is standing naked, gawking at John with wide, cloudy eyes, his mouth agape, but not in surprise. It looks like it's projecting something. Like he's screaming. But on the video, we hear no sound from the undead man.
Macy is clearly spooked. She starts panting as we hear her say, Dispatch, I'm gonna need... Oh, come on, you stupid thing. We know she accidentally shut her radio off in her panicked call out. She dives into her car for the shotgun, but as she undoes the latches, we see movement through her passenger window. There is a brief squeal of feedback on the audio. Macy's movement's slow, and she exits her vehicle. Once she walks all the way around her car we see what she sees in the woods.
standing a few dozen feet from where john is now entering a seven foot tall humanoid figure is standing with the same gawking expression as the surveyor Only its mouth is open twice as wide, its teeth are twice as long, and its eyes bear the faintest tint of red. Macy approaches it. It dives upon her, knocking her camera to the side. The rest of her footage is mostly of her hand as she walks through the woods before suddenly deciding to lose her uniform.
From there we have to be creative about what happened to her. Somewhere along the line she got bit. We all saw the bite marks on her neck. Even after the ME sawed them in half, they were still easily visible. I wonder, going with the vampire theory, which I won't mention again, If the purpose of having the victims disrobe is so their clothes won't absorb any of the blood, ensuring the attacker can lap up every drop. Or perhaps the clothes simply would have gotten in the way of the water.
We're grasping at straws for a lot of explanations needed, lacking explanations, which are all reasons nobody's gone public with this for all this time. One such missing piece has to do with why they seemingly climbed trees before going into the pond. I suppose one of the trees was maybe close enough to reach the water from, but the landing would have been a bit shallow for a dive.
My theory is they all just climbed up there to stay out of sight and maybe out of some of the sunlight until, well, until whatever led them into that pool happened. I sort of imagine it was that big thing, the seven-foot-tall creature with the big eyes and gawking mouth. I imagine it creeping back to the water at dawn to lead them under for their daytime rest under the shady waters of the pond.
Be careful out there, everyone. And if you see anyone out late at night, be very wary of looking them in the eye. If they got our Macy, they can get you too. Mark my words. Don't look in the eye. Don't go near. Remove the head. Burn for good measure. That's all I had in my notes to wrap this up. Take it to heart. Watch yourself and watch your neighbors. I'll be praying. Stay alert.
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