GRIN

Jeff Franklin, 17, grins from the backseat of a police car after using a hatchet and sledgehammer to murder his parents and critically wound three of his siblings. March 10, 1998.

THE SOAP MAKER

Leonarda Cianciulli (November 14, 1893, Montella, Province of Avellino – October 15, 1970) was an Italian serial killer. Better known as the “Soap-Maker of Correggio,” she murdered three women in Correggio between 1939 and 1940, and turned their bodies into soap. Having been born the child of a rape, she led a sad childhood with a hateful mother. 

 ...

In 1939, Cianciulli heard that her eldest son, Giuseppe, was to join the Italian army in preparation for World War II. Giuseppe was her favorite child, and she was determined to protect him at all costs. She came to the conclusion that his safety required human sacrifices. She found her victims in three middle-aged women, all neighbors. After murdering her first victim with an axe she got rid of the body in this way (her own words):

“I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until the pieces dissolved in a thick, dark mush that I poured into several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic tank. As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated, dried it in the oven, ground it and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk and eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, kneading all the ingredients together. I made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit, though Giuseppe and I also ate them.”

Cianciulli’s second victim was killed in exactly the same manner. Her final victim, opera singer Virginia Cacioppo was killed in the same way but with one twist:

“She ended up in the pot, like the other two…her flesh was fat and white, when it had melted I added a bottle of cologne, and after a long time on the boil I was able to make some most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbors and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were better: that woman was really sweet.”

Cianciulli was caught due to an eyewitness and found guilty of murder. She was sentenced to thirty years in jail where she died of a brain hemorrhage.

Story source.

SUN-DRIED

Finnish soldiers displaying the skins of Soviet soldiers near Maaselkä, on the strand of lake Seesjärvi during Continuation War on the 15th of December in 1942. Original caption: “An enemy recon patrol that was cut out of food supplies had butchered a few members of their own patrol group, and had eaten most of them.”

OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM

Back in 1994 my brother Josh was working as an on-site technician for a large phone company. His role was twofold: Firstly to set up new lines, and secondly to find the problem with and fix broken landlines.

He was based in a small town, but most of his time was spent catering to farmers in the nearby areas. The problems were usually hard to find but easy to fix. Sometimes Josh had to walk half a mile up and down dusty roads to find where a particular cable was broken – and the repair didn’t even take ten minutes.

One of those calls, in August of 1994, led him to a rather large family-owned farm. A girl called Kasey had called in from a neighbors’ house, saying that the family’s phone was dead. Josh drove out the next day.

I don’t know how it’s done now, but back then Josh told me that phone cables are buried together with other cables, sometimes even together with piping, in hollow tubes of either hard plastic or cement. In areas where that wasn’t possible the cables were usually placed on high poles. But in rural areas where not all houses were connected to the electric grid, it was sometimes more cost effective to lead the wire, covered in a thick plastic coating, simply along a road.

When Josh was called out to a farm those ground-led cables were usually at fault. A machinery drove over the cable, an animal ripped it or maybe some bored kid cut through it. Either way, those jobs kept Josh employed and so he didn’t mind slowly driving along country roads, stopping every few meters to stop potential breaks.

The MacDonald farm was an easy case. Already while on the route to their house Josh spotted the ripped cable. It was a clean cut and the separated ends had been pulled apart for several meters. Josh figures it was likely from a plow or similar device, a simple accident, likely done by the farm owners themselves.

He had all the right tools and Josh fixed the cable break within half an hour. Then he drove to the farm to tell the family the good news and make sure that the problem was fixed.

He arrived at the MacDonald farm around 4pm. The heavy wooden gate was open and so Josh drove his van straight inside to drive up to the house.

When he turned into the gate Josh saw a cow lying on the driveway. He was used to that. He honked the horn to shoo the cow away. Usually that worked but this particular, all-brown cow refused to move.

Josh slowed down, drove closer and tried the horn again – longer, this time. Still the cow didn’t move.

There was no way around the cow, other than to drive into a ditch next to the driveway and Josh didn’t want to risk breaking the car. Finally, just a few steps away from the cow, he stopped and let the motor roar. When the animal still didn’t react Josh carefully and well-aware that a diseased cow might attack him without warning, got out of the car. He grabbed his toolbox from the back, then slowly walked around the car to pass the animal from behind.

Only then, two steps in front of his car, did he notice the puddle of dark brown, dried blood around the animal.

The animal was lying, with its head on the floor and towards the direction that Josh had come from. He saw a large, gaping cut through the brown throat and three long slits through the enlarged stomach.

Josh was on edge, but not seriously worried. Occasionally farmers have to put pregnant cows down when the calf refuses to be born – and to get rid of a cow’s body is not easy and it can take days for the specialist to arrive.

Josh figured the MacDonald family or the veterinarian had tried to save the calf by cutting open the mother’s body, like a cow’s C-section, just without the anesthesia that humans would receive. Likely they killed the mother first, by cutting her throat, then, when the animal sank on the floor, they cut the body open.

From the looks of it, Josh concluded, they hadn’t succeeded. The bulge in the cow’s body was clearly visible; the calf without a doubt still inside. The skin had been placed back into its original position, only the cuts and a small gap between skin flabs was still visible. Josh resisted the urge to look inside the animal’s body.

Holding his nose, Josh walked around the cow and further towards the farm. The driveway was long. To his right was a pasture with several cows, some were standing, but most were lying on the grass, probably chewing the cud. To Josh’s left was a thick corn field that made him feel slightly uneasy.

Josh reached the farmhouse about five minutes later. He called out and rang the doorbell but there was no response. He knocked against the wooden door and called out again. He thought they might be out, trying to organize the removal of the cow’s body in the driveway.

To make sure that they weren’t just not hearing him Josh turned to the right and circled the house. He glanced through the windows while he passed them, first the kitchen, then a living room window, but everything inside seemed calm and dark.

At this point, before he saw it, Josh told me, he began to feel uneasy. There was nothing unusual, except the dead, pregnant cow, but still he felt a tingling in his legs and back, like a warning of bad news.

Then he turned the corner.

Josh only saw the scene for a few seconds, but he says he still remembers it today in vivid detail; like a photograph burned into his brain.

A large dog lay on the back porch. His body was slit open lengthwise and the organs and intestine were pulled out.

Right next to the dog’s body laid the bodies of an older couple. The man’s body was naked, his head separated from the body and placed between his leg. Two large cuts went through his body, one from the throat to the groin and one from left to right through the abdomen. His intestines were pulled out and placed to the left of the body, near the dog.

The woman’s body was dressed, but the clothes were cut open. A deep cut went through her throat and a large sideways cut through her abdomen. She too was gutted. But what Josh remembers the most, the thing he still has nightmares about, are the bloody spots where her breasts should have been. There were two straight cuts, as if someone had carefully sliced the breasts off her body.

Both, the man and the woman’s eyes and mouth were sewn shut with a thick, dark thread. The man’s lips were split in several places, as if he had forcefully opened his mouth, but the thread had been stronger than his lips.

Josh threw his toolbox on the floor and ran.

He turned back around the corner, ran back onto the driveway towards the dead cow.

While running he saw that some of the cows on the pasture were looking at him, following his movement. But most of them were still on the floor. Most of them still hadn’t moved. Around one of them he noticed a large, dark puddle on the grass.

Josh ran so fast that he twice nearly fell over stones or potholes. He stumbled towards the cow, curved to the left around the body and ran around the back of his car to get to the driver’s seat.

Just before he reached the driver’s door Josh stopped dead in his tracks. The cow was still there. But the flap of skin was pushed further open. The bulge was gone. Inside the cow’s abdomen, where Josh had thought was a calf, was now just a large, gaping hole.

Panicked Josh ripped the car door open. He screamed when he felt the thick, brown-red liquid on the door handle. Still he pulled the door open, looked inside the car and jumped on the driver’s seat. He felt a large, squishy ball exploding when his feet pressed on the accelerator.

He looked down to his feet to see what it was – and just in that moment noticed movement in the corn field to his left. He slammed the key in the ignition, turned it, heard the motor howl, threw the car in reverse and hammered his foot through the squishy mass back on the accelerator.

The movement in the corn field came closer. The car moved backwards and swerved; Josh was barely able to avoid driving into the ditch at the side of the driveway. He slowed down to regain control over the car, saw the corn being pushed aside, then pushed again hard on the accelerator.

The car sped backwards, through the wooden gates and back on the country road. Back in the driveway, just when he was out of the driveway and backing onto the road Josh saw a figure emerging out of the cornfield, a few steps away from the cow. He swears the figure looked like a teenage girl with dark hair, covered from head to toes in dried blood.

Then Josh sped off.

Josh walked into the police station with the cow’s heart still stuck around his right foot.

The newspaper articles said that the MacDonalds didn’t have any children. 

Story source.

MYSTERIOUS STATUE

A mysterious statue placed quietly at a construction site has employees of a New York Library asking a lot of questions, and appealing to the public for help solving the mystery.

The director of the East Hampton Library, Dennis Fabiszak, told Patch that the strange statue was left on an old fountain in the library’s construction area sometime in the wee hours of last weekend, but they haven’t the slightest clue who it could have been or why. It’s fairly light for a statue, weighing in at about 50 lbs, and seems to be made out of red clay that has been painted over. It’s not a particularly new creation either, as at one point a piece had broken off and birds made a nest in the back. It could also be hollow.

But perhaps the most intriguing part of the odd find is the inscription on the back of the statue, a well worn and barely visible cursive scrawling of the words ”My Wife Forever Della Penna”.

The library staff have reached out to the public via their Facebook page in an effort to see if anyone might have any clues about the disembodied gift, and one of the possible answers is certainly an eerie one.

Local man Steven Rothman pointed out that the name Della Penna matches the victim in a grisly murder that occurred just a few hours away in the 70′s, a murder that to this day has not been solved. 

From wikipedia:

Dolores Della Penna (December 13, 1954 – July 1972) was a 17-year-old Philadelphia schoolgirl who was tortured, gang raped, murdered by dismemberment and beheaded in the Kensington neighborhood in July 1972. Della Penna’s torso and arms were later located in Jackson Township, New Jersey, while her legs were found in neighboring Manchester Township near the border with Jackson. 

The young girl’s head is believed to be located within a wall in “Turtles” former home in Tacony and the house has yet to be searched by law enforcement, and no bikers have yet been arrested in the case.

Official police reports state that Miss Della Penna was killed by drug dealers who believed that her boyfriend had stolen some of their drugs, but as the crime has remained unsolved this version of events will not be verified by law enforcement and is hotly contested.

Please note the fact that the girl’s head is still missing. The library might want to go ahead and have that statue x-rayed before they decide to put it up for display. Maybe it’s a stretch, but bodies encased in statues are nothing new.

Story and images source.

GOOGLE DEATH

Type 52.376552,5.198303 into Google Maps. 

You'll find a man dragging a body into a lake.

Just kidding. Turns out it was Rama the Dog.

ENDINGS

Jesse flipped through the records in the clearance rack at Second Spin, one of the many stores down on Main Street. He had recently gotten into older music, and further, collecting it on vinyl. There was something mysterious about vinyl records that Jesse found intriguing, precisely because the end of the record era pre-dated Jesse’s birth by thirty years, give or take. He spent much of his free time searching through the many vinyl crates in Second Spin. Every record he pulled out and examined was like a treasure—forgotten for years until he came along to discover it.

While on one of his routine searches, he pulled out a record that had an interesting design. Its entirely black cardboard folder was in pretty flawed condition, as if it had been in many homes over the years. There was no title on the front, and when he flipped it over, he saw the record contained only three songs:

  

1. Demon of Darkness

2. Invoke

3. Endings

  

Jesse was annoyed by the lack of information on the album, such as the record company that had produced it, or even the name of the band that had recorded it...but there was something about it that compelled him to bring it home. The vinyl at Second Spin was cheap, so he decided to take the risk and give it a try.

After getting home, Jesse nudged the front door open with his shoulder – a daily necessity – and made his way into the cluttered house he shared with his father. Jesse’s mom was no longer in the picture, and a true bachelor pad their household had become. If the pizza boxes sitting on the couch were only a week old, then they considered the place to be squeaky-clean.

He threw his backpack on the floor and ran up to his room with his newest acquisition. He slid the record out of the folder and held it up under the light. The entire record was black, and there was no label. He plopped the record on the spindle of his record player, dropped the needle in place, and impatiently waited. It began playing so he lay down on his bed, listening to the music slowly pouring through his crackling speakers.

Not bad, Jesse thought to himself as the first song ended and the next began. And it wasn’t. It didn’t bring the house down, but it wasn’t entirely incompetent like some of the other stuff he’d brought home before. And each song sounded pretty different from the one previous.

It was good. Not great.

Jesse had the feeling he had bought yet another record that would end up in his trade-in box—a hazard of being a collector. He sat up in bed to retrieve the record from the player when the last track began—the one called ‘Endings.’

Jesse had never heard anything like it, and he sat very still, as if moving even an inch would interrupt this strange feeling that had come over him. Then, very slowly, as the song continued to play, Jesse stood up, went over to his desk, and opened the drawer. He rifled through the drawer until he found what he was looking for. He leaned his head back and drew the scissors’ blade over the taut flesh of his throat. Blood dribbled immediately down the front of his shirt, and the flesh of his neck tore open with ease, widening quickly in a muddy, red smile. Jesse even made it as far as slicing another gash through his throat before he fell back onto the floor, blood gushing out of his wounds with such intensity that it splattered the ceiling above. As Jesse lost consciousness, and as the final song faded to a close, his own blood dripped down on him from the ceiling, splotching him and the floor around him with crimson dots.

* * *

Shelly excitedly tore the wrapping paper from her newest gift as her grandparents looked on. Her gift had an odd shape: big and square, but very thin, like a giant cracker. She had no idea what it could have been. She ripped off the last of the paper and held her gift in her hand. And she still had no idea what it was.

Her grandfather chuckled. “Now that you’ve seen the gift, it’s time for a history lesson,” he said.

“Oh, no. No stories, grandpa,” Shelly said, pouting.

“We didn’t have CDs in my day—back when horses pulled carts and we communicated by tapping rocks together,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “We listened to these—they’re called records.”

“Well, how do I listen to it?” Shelly asked. She took the record out of the folder and held it up. “It looks like a tire,” she said.

“They’re not all that different from the CDs you listen to these days,” said Shelly’s grandmother. “They were just bigger, that’s all.”

“You’ll need what’s called a turntable to play it, honey,” Shelly’s grandfather said.

“So I gotta spend money to use one of my own birthday gifts?” Shelly asked. “That’s stupid!”

“Who said you had to spend money?” her grandfather said, bending down and lifting a turntable – decorated with a single colorful bow – onto the table.

Shelly looked at it, utterly confused. “How does it work?”

Her grandfather chuckled and took the album from her, laying it carefully down on the player and placing the needle at the record’s very edge. The music began to play out of the modestly sized speakers that were hooked into the back of the player.

“See that?” he asked. “Neat, huh?”

“I guess...” she said, her disappointment in the gift more than obvious.

“Well, it won’t hurt you to experience a little culture,” he said, upset by his granddaughter’s attitude. He slid out his chair with a screech and stood up to make his way into the kitchen. “I’m getting some more coffee.”

“Did I make him mad?” Shelly asked her grandmother, frowning.

“No, of course not, honey,” her grandmother lied. “He just gets frustrated sometimes because things are so different now than they used to be.”

Shelly lowered her chin to the tabletop so her eyes were level with the needle’s point. The second song had ended and the third was just beginning.

“What band is this?” Shelly asked.

“We don’t know, actually,” her grandmother answered. We found the player in a pawn shop and this was the only record the man had.”

“Why did you buy it if you didn’t know who the band was?” Shelly asked, confused.

“Well, your real gift was the player, sweetie. Not the record. We both saw it one day and thought you would really get a ki—” The words droned to a halt in the old woman’s mouth and she began staring off in the distance, as if immediately stuck in a trance.

“Grandma?” Shelly asked.

Shelly’s grandmother turned her head and stared at her granddaughter for a moment before picking up the empty cake dish in front of her and smashing it into several sharp pieces, one of which she then drove into the young girl’s right eye. Shelly shrieked in pain, but her cries were cut short by another slash with the shard, this time across her temple. The gash left behind was deep. The C-shaped flap of skin hung down over her ear, revealing a patch of her light-brown-colored skull, which was barely visible through the thin membrane surrounding it. Her blood flowed like a river, and soon she became limp in her grandmother’s arms. Shelley’s grandmother dropped her small body fall to the ground with a hard, sickening thud before walking into the kitchen. Her husband was in the process of rushing out to see what had happened when he stopped in his tracks, seeing the blood on his wife’s white sweater and the blank look on her face.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Is Shelly hurt?”

She didn’t respond, but instead pushed him roughly back against the kitchen pantry door and grabbed the large cake knife from the empty platter on the kitchen table, which she stabbed with great force into his throat. The blade easily plunged through the man’s skin, muscles, and bone before splintering the wooden cabinet behind him. She let go of the knife, which easily supported the weight of her husband, and held his face in her hands. A single tear fell from his left eye as his last breath left his body. She left the kitchen and walked into the bathroom where she turned on the bathtub faucet at full blast. She lowered herself into the tub until she was flat on her back. She then waited patiently for the water in the tub to rise—to invade her body and take her away.

And in the dining room where the family had convened to share the joy of Shelly’s tenth birthday, the last track on the album ended, and the needle fell into the last groove – the gutter – emitting nothing but static...letting any listeners know that there was nothing more to come.

* * *

Kirby walked in, wearing his tacky, punk-rock jacket, smiled a suspicious smile, and tossed the record at Sarah.

“Oomph,” she said, catching the record without trying to spill the coffee that was on the desk next to her computer. “Thanks for that,” she said finally.

Kirby smiled again and sat down next to her, kissing her once on the cheek. “Got you a present.”

Sarah held up the album and looked at it questioningly.

“Song list is on the back,” he told her.

Sarah flipped over the album and read off some of the titles. “What band?” she asked.

“No idea,” Kirby said, shrugging.

“Where’d you get it?” Sarah asked, taking the record out of the folder. She turned it around in her hands to search for a label and found none.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, grinning devilishly.

“I’ll believe anything you tell me because you’re crazy enough to do anything,” Sarah replied.

“My brother came across it at work and gave it to me...” Kirby said, coyly looking down at the desk, along which he absent-mindedly dragged his finger.

“No way, really?” Sarah asked, looking at the album again, as if its lineage would now be more obvious. “Won’t he get in trouble for that?”

“Nah, are you kidding? That’s been sitting in the evidence room for years and years. No one’s going to notice it’s missing.” He grinned again. “So...are you going to play it?”

“I can’t play it if I don’t even know who recorded the thing,” Sarah said, pretending to dismiss the record altogether.

Kirby flashed Sarah the smile that made her fall in love in the first place.

“I’ll think about it,” Sarah said, smiling scornfully.

Kirby laughed. He bent over her desk for a quick kiss. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Sarah watched Kirby walk out the door before turning her attention back to her computer screen. After another hour’s worth of typing, she printed her work and then walked out of her office with the mystery album tucked under her arm. She nodded hello to the radio DJ as he made his way out of the studio after having finished his set. She slipped through the door, took her seat, and lifted the headphones onto her face after the commercial break was through. She slid Kirby’s record into one of the station’s many players and prepped it for broadcast.

“I have a special gift for you, boys and girls,” Sarah said into the college station’s bright red microphone. “A mysterious record hit my desk tonight. I know nothing about it—not even the band that recorded it. Three songs total...and here they come.” She dropped the needle slowly in place to play the album. As the record began spinning, she leaned into the microphone one more time.

“Let’s hope this brings the house down.”

 

Image source.

FAN RAGE

Soccer Referee Killed And Quartered By Fans In Brazil After Fatally Stabbing Player 

SAO PAULO -- Police say enraged spectators invaded a football field, stoned the referee to death and quartered his body after he stabbed a player to death. 

The Public Safety Department of the state of Maranhao says in a statement that it all started when referee Otavio da Silva expelled player Josenir Abreu from a game last weekend. The two got into a fist fight, then Silva took out a knife and stabbed Abreu, who died on his way to the hospital. 

The statement issued this week says Abreu's friends and relatives immediately "rushed into the field, stoned the referee to death and quartered his body." 

Local news media say the spectators also decapitated Silva and stuck his head on a stake in the middle of the field. 

Police have arrested one suspect.

Story source.

Image source.

MARLBORO SLAUGHTERHOUSE

The Slaughterhouse is located on land, which used to be a farm, but was long ago incorporated into the property of the nearby asylum. How this land became hospital property is where this chilling tale begins. Apparently there used to be a farmer named Mr. Allen who once worked the land, raised and slaughtered livestock there, and generally lead the life of a normal, rural New Jersey farmer. His family, I've been told, had owned and farmed the expansive tract of land for generations. 

Then, one day the State came along and seized his land, telling him that they needed it for the mental institution, and that they had the authority to take it under their right of eminent domain. So they forced the farmer off of his own property, and began using the fields that he had cultivated to grow food to feed the asylum's inmates. 

Naturally the farmer was furious, and did not vacate his property without a fight. He would often be seen wandering the fields he once worked, hollering threats and cursing at any hospital employees who came into his sight. After hospital officials padlocked his house, he would repeatedly break in and continue to live there. When they called the police on him, the authorities had to drag the farmer away kicking and screaming. In a rage he vowed revenge against the hospital staff, and anyone else who dared trespass on his land. 

Eventually, out of sheer anger and frustration, the farmer went completely insane. Then, in an ironic twist of fate, Mr. Allen was committed to the very mental institution, which he so despised and had sworn vengeance against.

As the story goes, the farmer spent many years at the asylum, keeping pretty much to himself. After awhile, the aging Mr. Allen seemed to no longer be a threat to himself or anyone else. He had even gained enough of the trust and confidence of the orderlies to be allowed to join inmate work details outside the asylum's walls. Being a farmer by trade, it was not surprising to any of the officials at the hospital that he volunteered for duties in the institution's gardens and greenhouses, and he even tended to the institution's livestock.

Then one day, after working in the same fields, which he had once owned, the old farmer was nowhere to be found. The overseers rounded up all of the inmates to go back to the asylum, and Mr. Allen was just gone. A massive manhunt ensued, but after several weeks of searching, there was still no sign of him. It was as if he had just been absorbed back into the landscape that he was once so much a part of. Now at this point in the story you might be thinking "good for him, he sure showed them." But the legend doesn't end here, in fact it is really just beginning. You see, apparently farmer Allen had never really forgotten what the State had done to him, nor had he forgiven them for stealing his farm. 

Several weeks had passed since the old farmer had made his escape, and things around the asylum grounds had pretty much gone back to normal. Then people started to report hearing horrible animal noises coming from the Slaughterhouse late at night. Witnesses said that the unearthly racket sounded like the death squeals of pigs being butchered. Although people at the hospital were used to hearing these noises during the day when the Slaughterhouse was operating, it was quite unusual to hear them at night when no one was supposed to be there. Patients were starting to become disturbed due to the ghastly sounds, and many inmates had to be restrained or sedated at night to keep them from totally freaking out. 

Although the hospital sent police out to investigate the Slaughterhouse, no one was ever found trespassing. However, it was soon discovered that some of the farm animals were missing. Then one day something happened that would change the course of everything at the institution forever. 

Workers arriving at the Slaughterhouse early one morning were shocked when they entered the building to find the carcasses of various pigs, sheep, and calves strewn around the killing room floor. To make the gruesome discovery seem even more eerie, the walls were smeared with the blood of the animals. Scrawled across the white brick walls were warnings like "I SEE YOU" and "TONIGHT ALL WILL DIE."

The butchers at the Slaughterhouse notified the superintendent of the hospital, and a decision was made that that night an armed guard would pull an all night security shift at the Slaughterhouse, just in case the unknown intruder returned. That evening the blood curdling squeals of dying pigs once again echoed over the fields of Marlboro, yet no call was made to police from the night watchman, so everyone at the asylum felt confident that all was well. 

The next morning all seemed quiet and normal as the butchers approached the old Slaughterhouse for another day at work. There were no dead animals laying around, and no new bloody graffiti, but there was no security guard to be found anywhere either. The men called for him, but there was no answer. Then, one of them saw something unusual – a small stream of blood, which ran across the killing room floor, then trickled down the drain in the middle of the room. The men followed the tiny red river into the next room, then traced it right under the huge steel door of the meat freezer, which was still locked. 

I can only imagine what went through these men's minds when they swung back that enormous door and caught their first glimpse of the grisly spectacle within. There, hanging by a hook from an overhead meat rack, was the blood soaked body of the night watchman, still in uniform, frozen solid, with the decapitated head of a large pig where his own head used to reside. All around the wall of the freezer were writings on the walls – ramblings about greed, and pigs, and revenge. 

Around town the gruesome discovery was kept as quiet as possible, but in a relatively small community such as Marlboro it is hard to keep such a thing a secret for long.  No one was ever convicted, or even charged with the crime, yet everybody around here had a pretty good idea who the killer was, though nobody will talk about it openly to this day. The Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital has since closed its doors for good, and the old Slaughterhouse has stood abandoned and open to the elements ever since the whole incident took place. Crazy farmer Allen was never heard from again, though legend has it that he still roams his fields in search of trespassers. I was told that he even goes back to the old Slaughterhouse at night, where he sits in the attic staring out over his land through a hole in the building's crumbling roof. I've been told that sometimes people who live close to the old farm still hear the faint sounds of animals in their death throws emanating from the ruins of the Slaughterhouse.

Story source.

Top image source.

NODS

You volunteer at the mental health clinic. Given the dangerous nature of the residents, they assigned you the rooms of the less violent patients. The suicidal. Those who hear voices. Those that don’t say anything at all. 

You become close to a mute man named Arthur. He is a rapt listener, willing to nod his head for hours as you tell him the story of your life. You mention your past, your present. The people involved in both. Your hopes for the future. 

Arthur just nods. 

After several months of listening, you figure that you owe it to Arthur to get him out of the clinic. He can’t be happy sitting in a room by himself nodding at interns everyday. You talk to the supervisor of the clinic. You argue that he isn’t harming anyone. That he grooms and feeds himself with no problems. That perhaps his condition is a physical aliment. 

The day comes when your arguing pays off. The supervisor has agreed to let Arthur go. You rush to his room to tell him the news. “You’re free!” You shout. “Isn’t that great?” 

Arthur just nods. 

You write your name and address on a piece of paper. Hand it to him. “I’m going to miss having someone to talk to.” You say. “But now you can write me. I can learn all about you. Like why they were so insistent in having you in here, pal. I had to fight Dr. Thanner everyday to get you out.” 

He looks at you and takes the paper. Just nods. 

You go home, feeling good about yourself. You brag to everyone you can tell, friends, family, classmates, co-workers, about how you came through for Arthur. You even fall asleep with a smile. 

That night, your eyes snap open. Screams, unearthly screams wake you up. 

Then you see them. Your mother. Your father. Your friends. Your classmates. Your co-workers. Lying on your floor, their blood soaking into your carpet. Your walls stained with carnage. Their heads bashed in, their eyes missing from their sockets. Everyone you know dead or dying. 

You whimper and see a man standing in the doorway. 

It’s Arthur, holding the piece of paper you gave him. 

Your entire body shaking, you choke out. “Are you here to kill me?” 

Arthur just nods.

THE TAPE

During the summer of 1983, in a quiet town near Minneapolis, Minnesota, the charred body of a woman was found inside the kitchen stove of a small farmhouse. A video camera was also found in the kitchen, standing on a tripod and pointing at the oven. No tape was found inside the camera at the time. 

Although the scene was originally labeled as a homicide by police, an unmarked VHS tape was later discovered at the bottom of the farm's well (which had apparently dried up earlier that year). 

Despite its worn condition, and the fact that it contained no audio, police were still able to view the contents of the tape. It depicted a woman recording herself in front of a video camera (seemingly using the same camera the police found in the kitchen). After positioning the camera to include both her and her kitchen stove in the image, the tape then showed her turning on the oven, opening the door, crawling inside, and then closing the door behind her. Eight minutes into the video, the oven could be seen shaking violently, after which point thick black smoke could be seen emanating from it. For the remaining 45 minutes of video, until the batteries in the camera died, it remained in its stationary position. 

To avoid disturbing the local community, police never released any information about the tape, or even the fact that it was found. Police were also not able to determine who put the tape in the well, or why the height and stature of the woman in the video didn't come close to matching the body they'd found in the oven.

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THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

One school day, a boy named Tom was sitting in class and doing math. It was six more minutes until school let out. As he was doing his homework, something caught his eye. His desk was next to the window, and he turned and looked to the grass outside. It looked like a picture.

When school was over, he ran to the spot where he saw it. He ran fast so that no one else could grab it. He picked it up and smiled. It had a picture of the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had a dress with tights on and red shoes, and her hand was formed into a peace sign.

She was so beautiful he wanted to meet her, so he ran all over the school and asked everyone if they knew her or have ever seen her before. But everyone he asked said "No." He was devastated.

When he was home, he asked his older sister if she knew the girl, but unfortunately she also said "No."

It was very late, so Tom walked up the stairs, placed the picture on his bedside table and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night Tom was awakened by a tap on his window. It was like a nail tapping. He got scared. After the tapping he heard a giggle. He saw a shadow near his window, so he got out of his bed, walked toward his window, opened it up, and followed the giggling. By the time he reached it, it was gone.

The next day he asked his neighbors if they knew her. Everybody said, "Sorry, no."

When his mother came home he even asked her if she knew her. She said "No."

He went to his room, placed the picture on his desk and fell asleep.

Once again he was awakened by a tapping. He took the picture and followed the giggling. He walked across the road when he was suddenly hit by a car. He died instantly, picture in hand.

The driver got out of the car and tried to help him, but it was too late. He saw the picture and picked it up.

He saw a beautiful girl holding up three fingers.

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CREEP

So a few years back I was visiting some friends in a nearby city. The night went well; it was good to catch up with them again, as I hadn't seen them for a while. As the hours wore by, we began to walk towards one of their houses.

Which would be when we heard a blood-curdling scream coming from a side-street. Now, normally in a strange city, I wouldn't investigate this - but we were in a vaguely suburban area, it was relatively well lit, and there were a few of us. So, the girls in the group stayed on the main road, and the guys went to take a closer look.

The screaming did not stop. It sounded like it was coming from a nearby house, and it sounded like the screams of a woman. Maybe a child, perhaps. The lights in this house were on, and as we approached it I vaguely considered calling the police.

But the scream was not coming from the house; it was coming from the garden in front of it. In the gloom I could not see anything distinct, but I could now tell that the scream was coming from the branches of a tree. Something inside that tree was rustling violently, although thanks to the darkness I could not tell what. I exchanged glances with my friends, we paused, and suddenly the shaking - and screaming - stopped.

Silence for a moment. My friends and I exhaled.

And then something moved through the trees, rapidly, and before we could react it was gone. Glances exchanged again, but we were quickly satisfied that whatever it was had left. We walked back to the girls, and continued the evening as planned.

The next morning, I walked back past that same street.

On the road, there was a fresh chalk outline of a body.

Creep source.

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