A black sedan drove down a long winding road that led just outside of town. The driver was focused on the road ahead of him, relying heavily on the high beams of his car to illuminate the pitch black darkness he drove in. Sitting in the passenger seat next to him was Detective Holland, holding his phone in hand, nervously eyeing the gps back and forth.
“It says we’re about a minute away,” Holland said, pointing a finger at the treeline that veered to his right.
The driver made a sudden right turn on the road, nearly steering the car into a ditch. Slamming on the brakes, the driver brought the car to a halt. “Sorry,” he said looking over his shoulder at Detective Holland.
“I’m driving next time,” Holland growled.
The two turned their attention to an old decaying house still surprisingly held up by its foundation, in front of them. Holland opened the door on his side and stepped out of the car. The wind was nice. It blew through his long and wavy ginger hair, but with the wind came a nauseating stench of rot. “Fuckin’ hell that stinks,” Holland said, covering his nose.
The driver stepped out of the car and was immediately bombarded by the same stench that hit Holland. “You’re right. Stinks like a body, we gotta be in the right place.”
The driver was Holland’s best friend; James Steering. The two of them were co-owners of a private detective agency located in town. While most of the time their cases usually involved stalkers, or domestic issues, this was their big break. An unsolved murder case. While on the case, a letter was sent to James’ house threatening to kill him if the two didn’t cease their investigations. Of course, James did the opposite and tracked down the original sender's address, leading him and Holland here.
3177 Mulberry St.
“You sure this was the place?” Holland asked.
“Hrm. 3177 Mulberry Street. Yup, this is the place,” James assured.
“Well, I’m bringing my pistol, this place looks beyond creepy,” Holland added, opening the door and reaching under the passenger seat, grabbing his pistol.
“Good idea with the pistol,” James waited till Holland was done to lock his car. “Alright, let's go knock and see who our friendly mailman is,” said James, walking through the tall grass of the house’s front lawn.
Holland lifted the front of his shirt and tucked the pistol firmly on his waist, resting it perfectly between his belt and gut. He pulled his shirt back down and over the pistol, covering it. When Holland was done, he followed James through the small stretch of tall grass.
James stopped about halfway through the tall grass, peering down at the ground in disgust. “Ew. What is that?” he sneered.
Holland cut across the tall grass to reach James and peered down at what he was looking at. A rancid sludge of black ooze bubbled in the grass. It was warm and it stunk beyond belief. Holland knew what was the cause of the smell now. “Fuck man…lets hurry this up. I can’t stand this smell.” Holland pinched his nose and fought the urge to puke.
Agreeing with Holland, James nodded. The two made their way to the old creaky porch of the house. The wood was old and wet, obviously never seeing a day of maintenance.
James went to the door and knocked, while Holland waited nearby..placing a hand near his pistol. The house had an unnerving atmosphere to it. It was so quiet, but yet so loud. Every individual creak the wood made sounded like a bomb, even the wind howled louder out here.
‘Knock Knock’, no answer.
‘Knock Knock’, still no answer.
“Maybe if we go aroun-” Holland flinched to the sudden sound of wood smashing to bits. It was James bashing his shoulder into the old door, ripping it off its hinges in a single attempt. “Got it,” James said, with a childish grin plastered on his face.
“Dude, that's breaking and entering,” Holland barked, untensing his body.
“Pfft, you think somebody ACTUALLY lives here? Come on, if anything this place is just used as a hideout,” James protested, walking deeper into the old house.
“Why do I let you drag me into this shit?” Holland muttered, stepping over the broken wood to walk inside.
The moment Holland stepped inside, he felt he was being watched. A shiver ran down his spine. He was ever watchful of his surroundings, something…wasn’t…right.
James on the other hand was entirely oblivious to what Holland was feeling. He went right to work, investigating the living room, but nothing was out of the ordinary in James’ eyes. It was all just dusty furniture with bad taste. There had to be something. James lifted chairs, couch cushions, and coffee tables.
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Holland shook the feeling off as much as he could. It lingered in his mind, but he couldn’t let James do all the heavy lifting. He noted stairs to his right that led upwards and gravitated towards it. “Hey, I’m gonna go check upstairs.”
“Alright, let me know if you find anything that might link to the letter,” James replied, patting his hand on a dusty top shelf.
“Yeah, I’ll holler if I see anything,” Holland said, walking slowly up the creaking stairs. He walked ever so slightly with every step, not trusting the wood of the stairs.
Holland reached the top flight of the stairs and peeked his head ever so slightly around the corner. A single hall that led to an opened room just at the very end was all he could see.
Cautiously, the detective stepped forward and around the corner. He walked down the eerie hall, jetting his eyes from wall to wall. Holland reached the room and peeked inside,“What the fuck?” he muttered.
Inside was a king sized bed perfectly pristine. It lacked the dust of all the other furniture in the living room downstairs. On top of the bed at the very edge was a stack of letters, all folded into small white envelopes.
Holland furrowed his brow, he was more confused than anything. The bed in such a well maintained state compared to the decaying house, brought more questions than answers.
Holland, determined to get to the bottom of this, approached the stack of letters and reached for one. He opened the envelope and read the letter inside.
You’re beautiful…
I’m watching you.
You will be able to do nothing.
The contents of the letter sunk his stomach into a pit. They HAD to be dealing with a serial killer.
A bump was heard downstairs, instantly the hairs on Holland’s neck stood. He instinctively reached for his pistol, but didn’t draw it yet. Peering out to the hall, Holland squinted into the dim darkness of the home. “James?”
“I’m fine, just hit my head,” James laughed out.
Holland shook his head, taking a deep breath and untensing his body. James was also so damn reckless with the investigations. Holland turned his attention back to the letters.
He placed the letter he had in his hand down, and glanced at the other notes that were in the pile. He noticed each envelope in the stack had a different address, which peaked his interest to say the least. Holland grabbed another letter and opened it, but inside were the same words as the one from before. “He’s sending these to various houses and schools in town..why?” he muttered to himself.
He took a few more minutes to scour the letters, hoping to confirm his theory. Yup. He was right, every letter said the same thing and was addressed to a location in town.
“Holland!” James yelled from downstairs.
“Yeah?!”
“Come look at what I found!”
Holland had nothing else to really even look for. Upstairs had no answers for him, only an abundant amount of questions. However, Holland wanted to share what he saw in the letters with James. Maybe he would recognize the handwriting as the letter that was sent to his house only days ago.
He grabbed a letter from the stack and made his way downstairs. James made a huge discovery and was crouched next to it. It was a cellar that was covered by the living room carpet. Holland widened his eyes seeing the cellar, “woah” was all that escaped his lips.
“Woah indeed,” James said, eyeing the letter Holland had in his hand. “What’s that?”
“Creepy letter. I wanted to see if you recognized the writing,” Holland said, handing the letter to James.
James scanned the letter quickly then glanced at Holland. “Yeah, this is the same writing I got the other day.”
The sound of a quiet groaning coming from down in the cellar was suddenly heard. Both Holland and James froze in fear. Their blood ran cold..there was someone down there.
Holland pulled his pistol from his waist and glanced down the gaping hole that was the cellar. His hand was unsteady and shaking. “You heard that too?” Holland asked, hoping it wasn’t his imagination.
“I did.”
Holland nervously looked over his shoulder at James then back at the cellar. He hesitated, but knew what he had to do. He was the one with the weapon after all. Holland took a step forward and planted his foot firmly on the stairs that led down into the cellar. He gulped and looked at James one more time.
“You don’t have to do this if you’re scared, Holland,” James assured.
“I’ll go first,” Holland volunteered. He knew James had a baby on the way, and if something really was going to happen down there, at least James had a chance to escape. “If there's someone trapped down here, then we have to try and help them,” Holland replied.
James agreed with a single nod.
The two of them slowly made their way down the cellar with James right behind Holland.
The cellar was hot, and stank more than the outside, with a large main room held by four stone pillars. All around the room were curtains that hung from hooks. Off to the side was a smaller room concealed by even more curtains, only evident by the small glow of the light that came from inside. Another groan came from the small room. This time it was louder.
Holland and James cautiously walked across the large main room, but stopped when they noticed a splatter of blood smeared into the wooden flooring. Then they noticed another…then another…the entire room was smeared in blood. This was a kill room. “I’m gonna be sick..” James whispered.
They had to press forward. Holland quietly walked towards the small light emitting from the room covered by curtains. He raised the barrel of his pistol and aimed it directly in front of him, with his freed hand he grabbed the curtain but flinched to its touch. It was rough and coarse. Skin. Holland had to suck it up and continue moving. They had to help whoever was in the room.
He grabbed a hold of the curtain once again and pushed it violently off to the side. Inside the small room was a man laid on top of a cold metal table usually found in hospitals. The man’s body was entirely absent of skin, but yet he was alive. Holland approached the body in horror, but the sheer lack of blood was entirely surprising to him.
“Hello?” whispered Holland.
The skinless man jerked his head to glance at him. His eyes eternally widened with the lack of eyelids, but yet somehow…Holland could see the fear in his eyes.
“Run..Holland, that isn’t me,” the skinless man pleaded.
“What…”
If the man laid on the table is James…
Then who is standing behind me…
Holland felt a warm stink on his left shoulder. Slowly he turned to see what the stink was. It was the same black ooze they saw outside, it was burning through the fabric of his shirt. Holland’s spine tingled when he felt a faint breathing on the back of his neck. It was too late..
“You’re beautiful…” the creature dressed in James’ skin said, drooling a black ooze from his crooked lips.
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Three days later the news urged for schools, public offices, and postal stations to close down due to an influx of strange mail being delivered to those addresses. Creepy and threatening letters that the police would have to take charge in investigating.
It didn’t take long for the police to track down the address of where these strange letters were coming from. 3177 Mulberry St.
The end :)) I hope you enjoyed my story. I did it all in one sitting and will never do that ever again because my back is killing me.