The Loneliest Road In America

U.S Route 50 is a highway that crosses from West Sacramento in California over on the west coast all the way over to Ocean City, Maryland all the way over on the east coast, but it is the Nevada portion of this journey that is really of interested. There is a point on this route in the centre of Nevada that is known as The Loneliest Road in America and with good reason to be of service to such name.  For miles all that can be seen is the seemingly endless road surrounded in the never ending distance by mountains and the ever present blue sky up above. If you like your own company or just wanna get away from it all then this might be a place you gotta one day check out but then again, this is a horror story!!

These desolate areas often bear home to the bizarre and anomalous, they don't get judged out here and can do whatever they want, for one man this provided all that he sought out in life. Dan The Drifter was what he went by; he didn't want what he would call a "real name" or a "label", he seen this as a way for the people to keep an eye on him so he drove up and down this part of the lonely highway for years, trying to lay low but at times the memory of his parents death haunted him to the point of retaliation.

Aged 10, he lived in this beautiful ranch house with just his parents. The front porch was where he spent most of his days, playing with toy cars and using his wild imagination that boys his age had. His mom was a beautiful blonde lady, a housewife and her boy was her world. His dad was his idol, a proud family man that worked as a trucker endlessly to provide the best life that he could for his family. They talked about adding a new member to the already perfect family, but this all changed one morning. David (which was his birth name) woke to the usual sound of the cock-a-doodle-do of the rooster, the sun shining blindingly through his bedroom window he went downstairs awaiting his parents to make his breakfast. After some time he got impatient and went to wake them up, running up the stairs excitedly he pushed open their bedroom door. What he had seen through that door was horrific; his parents lying one over another in the shape of an X, blood all over them, they had been stabbed to death by an intruder that had escaped his transportation on the way to prison.

For the next fifteen years he lived with his aunt and uncle but never was the same, he struggled to connect with people and understandably so. His Uncle tried to put him through college but he wasn't interested , he just wanted to be alone. On his 25th birthday some visitors and locals arrived over to celebrate but David didn't take to this at all, his anger at all the happy faces looking at him took over. He could see right through them; looking at him with fake smiles and pitying him, it made him sick to the point where his rage broke out. Smashing all he could get his hands on, even punching those that tried to stop him, he was like a bull after seeing red and couldn't calm down. He needed to get away so he ran and nobody ever seen him again.

He lives on his thirst for revenge on humanity, with the odd bite to eat in the diners he past up and down the highway. His vehicle of choice was a large truck which he decorated the cargo to his own taste; the skin from each of his victims. He lived in here, he killed in here, he loved it in here. Whilst driving he would pick up hitchhikers as he pleased, the severity of how he murdered them was dependent on how much the flashbacks affected him that day, some were killed with objects varying in shape and size, some were killed with his bare hands. The bodies were never disposed of until he got at least two together and placed them in an X shape before skinning them.

He didn't have an end game he just wanted the anger he felt to go away, killing was a sort of relief, it provided him with a release from the pain he felt and he didn't care about the pain he inflicted on others. The flashbacks of his parents death were soon controlled by images of his victims pleading for their lives before he murdered them, the final look of fear and helplessness on their faces brought a sadistic smile to his toothless face. There was a time where he was an innocent kid who was the victim of a brutal murder that denied him lf his parents and a childhood  but now he became the exact thing he hated - A taker of life.

For years there was talk of a serial killer on this section of the highway but it was more of a legend that was told to scare well in fact there was someone out there that took the lone wanderers and they were never seen again.  Dan the Drifter was arrested one day when he drove to the closest police station and handed himself in. He told of when he took a young boy no older than he was when his parents died,  this made him realise what he had been doing. Looking into the boys eyes as he was about to deliver one of his trademark killings when memories of how he felt as a kid seeing his parents murdered started to flood back before he asked the kid does he have both parents still alive and when the kid replied yes then Dan dropped the knife, set the kid free and drove in to confess.

Racks of skin of every race and colour were found inside his truck, along with a name tag on each victim.   Dan was sentenced to death by lethal injection on a hospital bed inside a prison in Nevada. He died alone, a picture of him and his parents when he was younger by his side as he lay in the shape of an X as he passed away. The biggest serial killer along the loneliest road in America was now gone.

The Creature of the Everglades

In the Florid Everglades is said to be a Bigfoot  like creature known as the Skunk Ape. An average male stands between 6-8 feet tall and weighs somewhere in the region of 450/500 pounds, with the females being a little bit smaller. The name was given because of the awful odor it gave off, reminiscent of a burning carcass in the daylight sun or even its namesake animal - the skunk. It was a disgusting smell and often the smell was what gave the creature away. Often criticized as just a legend that people who live out in the Everglades used to ward off people from their land but with every legend there is an element of truth to it and this one is no different , it all started with two decapitated heads of the Florida Black Bear.

A young woman named Stella recently started a job s a ranger in the national park here. She just graduated from college and working with wildlife was always her passion so spending the day with alligators, hogs, wild turkeys and even some snakes just to name a few of the wildlife out here, was a dream come true for her. Mostly her job was guided tours as she worked towards the role of park ranger but she was curious by nature and often wandered around parts of the national park when it was quiet hoping to come across something exciting and one day she was not disappointed.

While walking through a bushy section of the Everglades she got a strange smell so decided to follow her nose. It led up to a swarm of flies, thousands of them buzzing around something on the ground. As Stella got closer she could make out black fur through the swarm of flies, she waved around a stick she picked up from the ground and as the flies started to disperse she seen that the black fur was in fact two mutilated heads from the only two black bears they had.

In bewilderment to what could have done this she radioed back to the rangers station, telling them of what she had seen. When the rangers had arrived they too had no idea to what could have happened and closed off this section of the park until the people better equipped arrived. Over the next few days Stella continued her walks into the wild, not put off by what she had seen a few days previous. Down where the alligators were she had a safe spot where she sat and watched them in their natural habitat for hours, it was calming. By the mud banks where he alligators lay in rest came a loud growling noise followed by another noise. Stella recognized one of them as the noise alligators made when in a fight so she got herself closer to the scene but again was hit by that strange and awful odor. Covering her nose she arrived to where the noise came from only to be shocked to see the head of an alligator lying there, ripped clean off like the black bears a few days earlier.

Over the next week there had been several killings like this including; Deer, Hogs and the feathery carcasses of numerous birds scattered around. The park was closed off to the public until the matter was sorted with only the rangers left inside. None ventured outside without a rifle and never alone but what they didn't know was that as they were hunting what was killing the animals they were also being hunted by the very same thing.

Stella was advised to stay behind but she insisted that she came along. They went out in two groups of five covering the two points where the most killings took place. Stella and her group went west  while the others headed just up north from them. Everyone was trepidatious as to what to expect, the biggest animals they had were the ones that were beheaded and maybe the black panther but there was no way a panther could have done that. Stella and her group searched the area extensively, finding more dead bodies but no foot prints from whatever killed them. One of the rangers tried to radio a member of the other group to update them but no one responded, it was silence on the other end.

Suddenly they could hear screams coming from that direction, human screams of fear. They raced up to see what was going on, knowing deep down that whatever killed the animals had got to their comrades. The sight of their friends dismembered made them all stand still in fear and shock but not for too long as the sudden realisation that what done this is probably watching them right now. That sickening smell was lingering around which meant the creature wasn't far. The people alive ran back to the nearest base and locked the doors pondering what their next move was.

Outside there was a rustling through the trees, followed by a strange woomp sound. Stella aimed her gun out a small gap in the front window along with another ranger, the other three took up the back way and the side of the small hut they were in. There was no sign of the creature but it could be heard and worst of all smelt, it was hiding, waiting for one of them to appear out of safety. An hour passed and neither side showed itself, it was a game of cat and mouse, well it was until the creature leaped onto the roof of the hut causing it to shake uncontrollably knocking everyone inside to the ground.

It then smashed through the roof dropping to the floor, picking up a ranger and throwing him to the other side before tearing another one apart. The other two and a dazed Stella fired bullets at the creature , weakening it a bit but they were in too close a proximity and it grabbed the two men ripping them to pieces. All that was left was Stella, who looked up at the towering monster swallowing in fear. She put her gun to her head and finger on the trigger, she didn't want to die in the same fashion she witnessed her friends die, but as she closed her eyes about to pull the trigger everything went silent. She opened them to find that the creature had left.

Months later Stella still gets flashes of that hideous smell every now and again, along with nightmares of the creature. No one has spotted or seen it since, it's like it has disappeared but whatever happened to this creature the events that took place out in the Everglades of Florida haunts the life of Stella for now and forever.

Mr.Match

He sat with an aura that demanded respect, his demeanor was relaxed yet focused, steely eyes that glazed deep inside you. Left hand overlapping his right with his index finger on the bottom hand tapping constantly as if working to a constant beat. He dressed in all denim except for his brown boots, his grey hair was long and tied back reaching down to his shoulder blade and he had a beard of similar colour and length that resembled Saint Nicholas himself. Every evening when daylight was diminishing  he would sit here on the park bench with a leather strapped bag, no matter what the weather was he would sit here and reflect. Reflect on what he had done or what he was going to do as he lit a match and watched it slowly burn out.

Around the park he was known to the locals as some sort of a local character, a guy people all talked about; calling him crazy but never to his face as they were wary of interacting with him. Mr. Match was the name he was flippantly given by the kids of the park which then caught on by the adults. Rumors began circulating about who this guy actually was and why he was this way, with some saying he just gave up on life after losing everything and everyone and others saying he was just a down and out, a no good waste that never wanted to work in his life, neither of these were true of course.

He never made eye contact with anyone unless you stared at him for longer than was socially acceptable. He had some cracked corn in his jacket pocket that he fed to the excitable sord of mallards that gathered at his feet and he made sure each one got their share of corn, none to be left out or given preferential treatment. He would never show any emotion, he seemed unfazed by the world around him, except when he seen people out power walking in their "Walking Clothes", this amused him as he would have a quiet chuckle to himself.

The bench was big enough for two people but no one ever sat next to him. Everyone wondered what was in the bag, it was the curiosity of the parks people. Every evening for twenty two years his routine never changed, until recently where he had not been seen for a week. The locals talked about him in passing and the authorities were aware of his sudden no show. Another week passe and still no sign of him, calls were made to his house over the phone and eventually in person by the police but what they found shocked them completely.

Mr. Match was found hanging from the rafter in his sitting room. Beside him was the bag that everyone wondered about, the police decided to open it and take a look in. What was inside was limbs of people, fingers, toes, ears, noses, eyes, the whole lot and attached to each body part was a note with a name on it, the name of the person who the parts used to belong too. The police identified each person as a degenerate, all of them involved in some sort of scumbag behaviour whether it was wife-beating, drug dealing that lead to peoples lives being ruined or underage sex with a minor. These were just some of the disgusting habits of the people Mr.Match killed.

Public opinion was divided about the man, some saying he was a murderer and who knows who else he killed. Others say he was the sort of vigilante that was needed, getting rid of the scum of the earth. Whatever your opinion on Mr.Match, he died by suicide, taking his own life because he didn't wanna be part of a world that had these sort of sick people in it. Hanging from his sitting room roof with a row of burned out matches on the table beneath his feet he left this world the way he lived it, alone and on his own time.

Reap What You Can See

The summer always passed without anything to note. People flocked here to enjoy the benefits that a seaside town provided, then most left when the weather did. It was in the end of autumn/start of winter when the tragic supernatural events took place. No one could get to the bottom of what caused these horrific disasters in the amusement park, no police man, no detective, no special agent. It was one of these horrific unexplainable events that shook the town but there was a greater meaning behind it all, it just had to be discovered.

The town was small, population was very low in the cold and wet months but heightened in the summer with all the holiday people coming down to the south to get a break from the city life. In terms of area it basically consisted of a few small housing estates up on the hill that ran through the centre of the town, and then apartments when you get down closer to the beach that was opposite to the amusement park. There was the usual coffee shops, restaurants and dodgy arcade venues that took in most of the towns revenue.

For most of the winter the amusement park was closed, except for one weekend at the start of october which was like a local festival where everyone gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the town. A small parade and fireworks provided some street entertainment, music was played by some local artists, there was a  narrow laneway off the side of the beach that was full of food and drink stalls and also there was always a lovely low fog that always floated in to give a great scenic look to the place. People were happy, every year this was something they would look forward too, but this year no one could have predicted what would happen.

Over forty people died this year at the festival, ranging from kids to adults. Another ten were reported missing and never seen again, presumed dead but no one knows for sure, they just seemed to vanish off the face of the earth. It was necessarily that they died but it was how they died; they all died from malfunctions on the rides at the park- people were flung from roller coasters, trampled on by inanimate statues, electrocuted by wires, spun around continuously and in such a speed that made their heads fall off and even choked to death by seemingly harmless gas that was there just to give the funhouse amusement a cool look. These were just some of the brutal ways in which people lost their lives that evening.

A few weeks after and no one could determine the cause of the accidents. The town was in mourning, amusement park closed down but not removed for evidence reasons, people didn't wanna just give up on what happened, they wanted to get to the bottom of it no matter what it took.  The streets were mostly empty from then on in, no one wanted to be out walking around when the reminder of what happened was still fresh, it really did resemble a ghost town.

A man named Peter Robinson had a small apartment here overlooking the ocean that he bought but never used, he rented it out mostly during the summer. He lived up north in the City now due to work but when he heard about the tragedy he moved back here, leaving his dead end job that he hated anyway to come back to where he called home. Something about these events took his notice, he was always a skeptik and believed in supernatural forces since he was a kid. When he was seven he saw a shadowy spirit come in through his bedroom window and hover over his body, paralyzing him while whispering the saying "The rapture will come to this town". This continued every night until the family decided to move out, for other reasons though, they didn't believe young Peter at all. It traumatized him for life, he could never get the idea that bad spirits are out there out of his head.

It was thirty years since he had lived here, thirty years since he was haunted nightly by the shadowy figure. Everything brought back childhood memories; the swings at the playground, the sounds of someone winning on the slot machines and the pestering by the seagulls as people tried to eat their chips from the well-known takeaway. Wandering around the closed off amusement park he could feel a chill come over him, the chill of death was very much alive here. At the scene of every tragedy he inspected it closely but not like a police man would or a detective, he inspected it as someone who believed in other forces, forces that were far worse than anything human. He scanned thoroughly with infrared goggles but was surprised to what he came across.

Since he was a kid and the visits began he would spend most of his time as a child and spare time as he got older researching about supernatural forces. Most was complete and utter crap but along the way he came across people and websites that seemed to match up. Everyone of them had told of how when a spirit attacks it leaves small white granules resembling salt at the scene that could only be seen with an infrared light but at the amusement park there was no white granules, there were only green patches. Green patches that looked slimy but wasn't, Peter took a few pictures from his infr-camera and went back to study them. He spent all that day researching spirits and green patches but nothing came up, except some crazy reddit user posting about a green slimy ghost in the shape of a football that attacked his pet cat. Peter widened his search and through tiredness he clicked on the wrong website named "Reap what you can See" a play on words no doubt.

On the website it gave detailed evidence that reapers do exist. All across the world since the beginning of time there have been people reporting the work of reapers, the same scenario and events took place on each occasion every few centuries. Under the section - "How to spot a reaper" it said that "When a reaper comes to you there will be a mark left behind, a green mak that cannot be seen with the naked eye".  Peter was amazed at what he had come across and it didn't stop there, as he scrolled through the website further he found the biggest revelation yet. It read "The job of a reaper is to rapture, to cull mankind and speed up the process of death in order of balance on Earth. It takes place when a reaper visits chosen young boys/girls and then thirty years later the rapture of people happens. Not everyone is wiped out, just enough to restore the balance and the people who are chosen will be called upon".

Peter checked strange accidents that took place on the same day as the one here. He found that over fifty people mysteriously died in  a village outside Mumbai, another 35 in Sweeden with similar occurrences taking place in Peru, Kenya and Mexico. Peter knew these had to be related, nothing was on the website on how to kill a reaper, it seemed as if when a reaper had a job to do then nothing could be done about it. The next day he returned to the amusement park, the chill became colder, followed by the howling of the wind getting louder. Sand was blown up from the beach front, a fog started to seep in from the distance but the sea remained very calm. This was the first fog that had been seen since the deaths. As it drew closer Peter noticed shapes in the fog, shapes that were all joined together. It now sat above Peter's head, directly, before it broke apart into hovering shadowy figures, the exact same as Peter remembered from childhood.

He was frozen in awe and also a strange sort of relief that he finally figured out what it was that had tormented his childhood. Reapers gathered around him, their faces hidden by a long cloak and all armed with a spear. They pointed their spears and bowed their heads in his direction, Peter couldn't move now even if he wanted too, he was bound in the circle of reapers. Looking scared he was hushéd as he tried to speak to them, they spoke in a sort of white noise whisper that rang around in your head, disorientating you. They swármed upon Peter before merging together back into a fog bringing Peter up into the sky with them.

Peter woke to find himself and five other chosen people in a dark room somewhere. The líghts sprung on and out walked the reapers, heads still bent down as if paying their respects. Peter and the five others asked repeatedly what did they want with them, one of the reapers answered back; "You were all chosen, chosen to be the next, but there can only be one and now we must decide which one will be the next and for the rest of you your time has ended". The people all looked at each other, scared and confused to what the reaper had meant. It was Peter who raised his head, puffing out his chest and asking "The next what" which was met by the opening of a hole in the wall, similar to that of an aeroplane door opening and out walked a large dark figure, much bigger than the reapers and he didn't have a spear he had a scythe in his hand before the reapers responded to Peter "The Next Death!!"