Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm A Cop. This Is The Strangest Case I've Ever Seen | Scary Stories | Scary Stories

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

You won't believe what happened...  Story from A_Hawaiian_Shirt Make sure to check out more of their work at Jesse Pullins                                    ��     Original YouTube link: I'm A Cop. This Is The Strangest Case I've Ever Seen    For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Sound Effects: Freesound Zapsplat  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new scary stories, new true stories, and new creepypasta stories every day!

I'm a peeping Tom. I've been peeping for years. I'm sure I'm not someone you want to hear from, but I don't have anyone else to talk to. If I can just get this off my chest, that'll be good enough for me. I'm not sure how much worse this is going to get. I'll start from the beginning, so I can try to answer as many questions as possible before it's too late. I don't think I have much time left. I love to watch. I haven't always been this way. It's something that just sort of happened. It started to do. innocent enough. I guess as innocent as peeping can be. It was curiosity at first, that and other people's inability to close their blinds. I've never heard anybody. I've never stalked

someone in the street, and I don't really use social media. Everything I've done has been done discreetly from the window of my home. I don't take pictures or record. I'm just there in the moment, watching other people's moments. I live in a nice condo on the second floor. My building, Everything runs parallel to the one across from me, with a little sidewalk courtyard deal filling the space between. It's a nice community, and I've lived there for a couple years now. I work remotely, freelance graphic design. I make pretty good money, and it all gets done on my desktop PC.

I don't really have friends, mostly just clients and colleagues from work. They mainly reach out when they need my opinion on a piece or want to do a co-lab, which is fine by me because I don't really like to go out. Almost everything I need can be bought online and delivered to my door. Before this started, I was totally content with my boring, introvert life. I never bothered anyone. And nobody bothered me. Plain and simple.

That was, until the Jeffersons moved across the courtyard. Their name isn't really the Jeffersons, obviously. That's what I'll call them for simplicity's sake. The Jeffersons were your average young American family. working husband and wife with a little girl. I'll call them Harry and Rebecca and the little girl Julie. When they moved in, I watched them from behind the blinds like your stereotypical nosy neighbor, just trying to see who exactly would be joining the community. Everyone does it. Before this, the only thing I would gaze at out the window was a stray cat that would linger

around. A little calico that had been there since before I started living there. I started calling him Cooper. I would have taken him in if I wasn't allergic. At first, that's all it was. My time watching the Jeffersons changed slowly over time. I wasn't just waiting there with my coffee creeping from day one. After they moved in, I would see them in passing. Out the window, of course, because I never really left my home to begin with. The sliding door to their balcony was my dominant view most of the time, as they mostly kept their blinds open to let the natural sunlight in. This would let me see their whole living room. I was very discreet when I watched, and I always watched the same way, on the right side of the window, in a crack at the very end of the blinds.

I always kept my blinds closed, mostly to keep the light out. Once I started watching them more frequently, I decided it would indeed be problematic if I was caught, hence the discretion. Harry was tall and handsome, dirty, blonde, and fairly muscular. He worked construction or something like it, a regular 9-to-5 kind of guy. His routine was mostly the same. Go to work, come home and shower, help his wife with dinner and dishes, then spend time with the family until it was time for bed. Rebecca worked from home. Some kind of online perfume trade, I think. She was a natural blonde like her husband and very fit. This, I imagine, came from from the several at-home workout regimens she followed.

I didn't watch for perversion, I watched because of admiration. I imagine I wasn't the only one watching her occasionally, but still probably the one watching the most. Julie would spend her days playing with toys and watching cartoons. It was amusing to see her on adventures, running around with her imagination going wild. Sometimes when they came home from running errands in town, Julie would see Cooper trotting from the bushes, meowing as he went. She'd stop and scratch him behind the ears before her parents called her into the house. Part of me wished they'd just adopt him. The three

of them settled in nicely, like a little puzzle piece that was missing in the community. Over time, I grew fond of this family, and what started as a glance or two turned into checking daily. Outside my private routine of online design and clients, the Jeffersons provided a great distraction from the monotony. They seemed so alive to me. I was captivated by their existence, very real people in their day-to-day lives, something Hollywood tries so hard to replicate. There was no acting here. No script. Weeks of watching turned to months. I got to know them quite well. In time, I would start to see patterns in the dinners they would make, in the TV shows they would watch. I would notice when one One of them had a particularly bad day, and eventually I would be able to see an argument coming.

But the Jeffersons were a pretty happy family from the outside view, and by the time I realized I was perhaps watching too much, I found myself unable to stop. Over time I watched them more and more. I'd try to blaze through my work every day so I could get as much viewing time as I could. I'd always break it up in segments. I wouldn't stand there all day. I would at least pretend I had interest of my own. I tried to get some other hobbies, video games, writing.

I tried to binge TV series online so I could get invested in another story. But I always found my way back to my bedroom window, peeking through the blinds. After all, I was already pulled into a story, and this one never ran out of content. I watched all the time. I monitored Rebecca and her online perfume sales. And when she seemed to do better, I found myself sharing her excitement. To my surprise, she started crocheting as well, and I got to watch her go from an amateur to building impressive skill.

When Julie would play around the house, I would sometimes play along and try to imagine what kind of story was unfolding. She started to draw colorful pictures with crayons and markers. I bought a little monocular online, so I'd be able to see the ones her parents put on the fridge. Harry picked up new hobbies as well. He started buying and indulging in more craft beers. At one point he picked up wood carving. I'd chuckle at his crude starting sculptures, and I'd wince and get saddened when he slipped and cut himself. When Julie got a little older, Harry and Rebecca started to have planned date nights, and Julie would stay the night with family.

They would get all done up and go out all excited, then come home a little drunk, and smiling. They then pop bottles of wine or have one last beer, laughing and caressing as they made their way to the couch. About two years went by as I enjoyed our little relationship. I was their little secret admirer. I know this sounds disturbing, and I do feel some guilt for seeing as much as I have. They never saw me, and I never tried to contact them. I never sent them gifts. I never tried to break the ice. Even though I knew enough about them, it would probably be easy to befriend them. I just wanted to continue my little watch from the bedroom window. This changed, however, the day I saw the moving truck parked in the lot. I grieved

the department of the Jeffersons, like the loss of a loved one. They packed quickly, and before I had time to come to terms with them leaving, they were gone, as if they were never there. All I had were the memories of the Jeffersons, and it pained me deeply when I looked through the slider, and their presence was gone. The walls bare. As the maintenance crew came in and painted and cleaned the carpets, wiping their imprint from the place, I found myself drinking, lost in a slump in the shadows of my own home. They were gone.

Therefore, my only hobby was gone. and I realized how truly alone I was. Things were dark for a time, and for a few weeks the condo across the courtyard was empty. When I wasn't slugging through work, I was laying in bed, wasting the days away without drive or energy. I felt like a piece was missing, and I couldn't figure out how to fill the void. One day, another moving truck showed up, accompanied by what looked like a very expensive moving. crew. For the first time in a while, I was back at the corner of my window, and I wondered if another tenant was moving out. The man in matching uniforms began unloading lots of exquisite furniture,

much unlike what you would normally see around here. They carried it methodically to the empty condo where the Jeffersons lived and positioned the furnishings accordingly, even brought in decorators to make sure everything was positioned just right. It was a professional movement, moving job, and as I looked from my window, I wondered if maybe a movie star had rented the place out. They unloaded and set up in a matter of hours. Once the dishes were placed in the cabinets, and the last painting was hung, they slammed the shutter on the loading truck and sped off into the night.

It was very strange. I looked into the newly furnished dark condo with my monocular, trying to check out the stuff they had set up. I'd never seen anything quite like it. Grand leather couch and armchairs, ancient grandfather clock, paintings that must have been worth thousands, all set up and perfectly level, truly immaculate. I was so focused, looking over the possessions with my little monocular, I jumped when someone turned the lights on. I pulled the monocular down and looked to see someone standing in the

condo, almost like a statue. A young man stood by the light switch, looking around the room slowly at all of his possessions, with the slightest grimace of disgust. He was wearing all black, his skin pale, his eyes sunken. He moped around the condo painfully slow, head cocked, looking at each furnishing one at a time. His face mostly void of emotion, he tucked his hands in his pockets and did this through every room. I watched with great interest, almost stunned. to see a tenant so suddenly. I couldn't deny the excitement I felt, but something was off about the guy, something that made me uncomfortable. I couldn't explain it. The incredibly odd

fellow took 20 minutes to finish his rounds, and I watched in awe throughout the whole ordeal. When he finished, he stood in a living room once more, a quivering lip drooping into a frown. He was awkward and strange, but I still stood there staring. I'd felt so starved since the Jeffersons had left, I felt like I couldn't help myself. In silence, I watched him from across the courtyard. With what looked like shaking hands, he got his phone out of his pocket and dialed, holding the phone to his ear. Whenever his call connected, he looked like he was mumbling at first.

Small words spoken slow. He started shaking his head frantically, blinking his eyes like he was trying to wake from dream. Then, without warning, he was holding the phone in front of his mouth and screaming into it. Just raw anger, shouting into the mouthpiece of the phone, spit flying all over the screen. I could read his lips so clearly, it was like I could hear him shouting in my head. Over and over again, he yelled at the person on the other end of the line. I hate you, I... And then suddenly, He looked at his cell with pure rage and threw it into the television, sending it crashing

through the flat screen. It had to be at least a 70 inch. Now it was destroyed. I jumped again and decided I'd watched enough for now. I didn't want him to see me, especially after an outburst like that. I left him to it and returned to work, hoping to get through a big project I was dragging my feet on. A local car dealership in town was going under.

with new management already looking to take over once they threw in the towel. They wanted a design for the old lot spinning billboard, something sleek and new to scrub out the mom-and-pop look it had before it. There was talk of me doing the layout of their business cards as well if I delivered. All the more reason to climb out of my slump and get back to the grindstone, it'd be nice to focus on something constructive. I sat at my computer and pushed the new neighbor from my mind, plugging away into the night. I worked into the late hours, my mouse and keyboard clicking away as I found the right color

scheme and layout on the billboard job. Time had been a blur. I had stopped eventually to brew a pot of coffee, getting up only to refill my mug. I checked the time at the bottom corner of my screen 2.23 a.m. My progress had been pretty good, so I decided to call it for the night. I stretched and headed in my bedroom, sprawling out as soon as I was off my feet. I looked up at the ceiling in the dark, feeling the caress of sleep already luring me. My eyes grew heavy, but before I closed them, I found them drifting to the blinds. I could just take a peek. What would it hurt? He probably wasn't even awake. There was no harm in checking after all. I sat up with a little excitement and creeped to the window and stood in the position I had done hundreds of times before.

I cracked the blinds ever so slightly and leaned in. As soon as I looked at the condo across the street, goosebumps crawled across my skin. The new tenant was sitting on the couch with the lights off, illuminated only by the glow of his broken TV. The flat screen was a distorted mesh of colors, cracked black and white with rainbow streaks from his tantrum earlier. He just sat there in silence, arms at his sides, as he blankly stared. The cell phone was still lodged on the screen. I rubbed my eyes in skepticism, thinking maybe I was hallucinating. I'd been sitting in front of my computer for quite some time. Surely I was just imagining it. I looked again, and he was still there, frozen on the couch.

What the hell was this guy doing? I watched for a while, going back and forth between his dead eyes and the destroyed screen. He didn't move a muscle. It almost looked like he wasn't breathing. It was hard to see with how dark it was. The seconds ticked by as neither of us moved, and a voice on the back of my mind started to nag at me. What if he actually was dead? I remembered the monocular in my desk, and I broke my gaze to go round.

retrieve it. I shivered as I walked over to it. The unsettling sight sent chills down my spine. I found myself rubbing my arms like the air conditioning had been blasting for too long. I got the monocular from the desk drawer and quickly returned to the window, discreetly angled it through the crack before looking through it. The looking glass exploded with color, and I realized I had it too far to the right. My entire view was the broken flat screen. I started panning the monoculars slowly towards the couch, carefully trying not to rustle the blinds. When I reached the couch, I saw nothing but shining leather.

He was gone. I lowered my looking glass and confusion, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Standing in front of the sliding door was the tenant, and he was looking right at me. I crouched in a panic, knocking my head on the window cell. The blinds ruffled slightly, and I cursed at myself for being so stupid. I just had to look. I couldn't just leave him alone, and now he saw me. I continued to crouch like a coward, not exactly sure what to do next.

In my few years of people watching, I'd never been seen. Not once. This guy was full on staring at me. How he knew I was there in the first place, I had no idea. There was no easy way out now. I had to deal with my situation. Maybe if I tried to play it cool, he wouldn't call the cops, I guessed. I didn't really know.

After a deep breath, I peeked as slow as I could, and he was still there, standing in the dark, staring at my window. Feeling like a piece of shit. I sighed and stood up. I pulled the drawstring for the blinds and held my hands up sheepishly. Like to say my bad. I held my breath and waited for a response. But he just stood there.

Awkwardly. We looked at each other for a time. Neither of us breaking eye contact. I waited for him to get his phone and call the police or something. But then I remembered he threw it through his TV. I couldn't really make out the details from so far away. But I swore he was smiling. When the uneasiness reached its peak,

I kind of shrugged and waved, as if to say, all right, good night then. Then I slowly grabbed the drawstring and let the blinds fall. I felt embarrassed, but I didn't know what else to do. I backed away from the window and scurried to the front door, making sure it was locked. It was. My living room is pretty bare, with a very basic couch and TV setup. The blinds to my balcony are always closed, I don't smoke, so I don't smoke, so I'm very So I've never really had a reason to go out on it.

With my lights off and door locked, I stood behind the blinds, wondering if he was still watching. I mauled it over for a while while deciding to look, and I held a breath before peeking. His living room was empty, and I breathed the sigh of relief. I wiped sweat from my brow, a bit surprised how worked up I'd gotten. It was probably just an awkward misunderstanding. feeling exhausted over the whole thing. I returned to my bedroom and collapsed on my bed. I laid there for a while, tossing and turning restlessly in the dark.

The silhouette of the man was still in my head, and I found myself picturing him every time I closed my eyes, every time I'd get close to drifting off. I thought of him. Eventually I rolled over and grabbed my phone and started scrolling online for something to give me some peace of mind. I found a set of decently priced blackout curtains and purchased them, deciding I was tired of blinds and tired of peeping altogether. I even paid a hefty amount to expedite the shipping.

The site said they'd arrive the next day, and I sincerely hoped that they would. The next morning I awoke dishevelled. Throughout the night I had reoccurring nightmares of the man across the street. him in that damn broken TV with a distorted screen. I kept seeing his shadow in the corner only to wake up to an empty room. I felt ridiculous. After years of watching people, one person watches me and I can't sleep all night. The irony was not lost on me. The vulnerability changed me. I almost cowered around the windows, and when it came time to sit down for work, I found myself looking over my shoulder. There was no one there, of course. I was just psyching myself out.

In time, I started to focus on work, and I wrapped up the design of the dealership. After sending a preview to the client, I ended up scrolling online again, this time browsing for household self-defense. I didn't own a gun or anything for home protection, really. Not even a bat. It felt stupid, but I couldn't help myself. I still felt pretty rattled. I added one of those long flashlight baton things and a taser to the cart and expedited the shipping once again. It'd be better than nothing. Later that night, I got a knock at the door. I was on the couch playing on my phone when it happened. I got up and tiptoed to the door, almost not wanting to check. Looking through the P-Pole, I saw the delivery driver impatiently waiting for me to sign. I was still on edge,

and the sight of him was a relief. I opened the door and signed for the package. The box was big and heavy, and I set it on the kitchen table. I opened it quickly, and saw it was my blackout curtains. I guess this time the extra money was worth it. A little excited, I opened him up and carried them to my bedroom. They were thick black canvas, designed to black out direct. sunlight. Hopefully they'd black out everything along with it. I got a drill from the closet and started taking the old blinds down, drawing the screws out one at a time. It wasn't until I was pulling them down. I realized he was watching me. I couldn't help but jump. I dropped the blinds in a fumbling mess at the sight of him, a grin visible on his face this time.

He was standing in the living room in front of the slider with the lights on. Like he was waiting. How long had he been there? In the background, the flat screen still had the glitched spider web from his cell phone. I gave an awkward wave and tried to go about my business, but I couldn't help but notice he was holding something. Something white and rectangular. When he was sure he had my attention, he showed it to me, holding it in front of him so I could see it.

It was a large poster board, a simple message drawn with big red letters. I saw you watching me. I put my hands up and waved them, shaking my head, as if to say this was just a misunderstanding. He shook his head slowly like I was wrong. I made some more hand gestures to try and convince him, but he started turning the poster board over, which made me stop. There was more writing on the other side. I'd like to watch too.

I felt the nuts in my stomach, and I got to chill. He was nodding slowly now, a big smile on his face. Panic started to wash over me, and I put up the blackout curtains with shaking. hands. He saw me struggle and started to laugh, grabbing a marker while I tried to do my rushed install. He started scribbling with a cap in his mouth, and I started running screws above the window to speed the process up. I ran the screws through the curtains themselves and into the drywall, whirring the drill wildly while he scribbled. It was a hack job, but it would have to suffice. He put the poster board against the glass, and he put the poster board against the

glass as I draped the curtains on the screws, and I only saw a glimpse before shutting the view completely. See you soon. I backed away from the window and did the same as the night before. The door was locked, and I shut off all the lights. I didn't want him to see anything. I thought about calling the police, but decided against it. I thought back to all the times at the window watching the Jeffersons.

Dozens of times. Hundreds. In a way, I felt I deserved this. I spent all night huddled in my bed, my desk chair propped in front of my bedroom door. I didn't sleep. Every creek in the building or gust of wind sounded sinister. I looked at the bedroom window throughout the night, wondering if he was watching behind it. The need to look nagged at me throughout the night, but I fought against him.

When daytime came, I was too tired to work and too anxious to eat. I laid on the couch for a while like a slug, unsure what to do. I moped around the house for a while, avoiding the windows. I tried to watch TV, but it couldn't hold my attention. I'm not sure how much time went by. The last thing I remember was checking the app for my online purchases, and there was an alert telling me my package was a few hours away from delivery. I snuggled up on the couch and decided to wait and ended up falling asleep.

It was nighttime when I awoke to a faint flashing light. I was in the dark on the couch, my light still off in the morning. The light was blinking from under my front door, a repetitive flash that went into my dark living room. Disoriented, I shambled from the couch and turned on the lights. Against my judgment I looked in the peephole, only to see an empty hallway. I opened the door to see what the source of the light was. There was a small black trash bag on my doorstep, shining light shooting from a small hole

where it was tied off. I stared at it for a while, the light just blinking over and over again. I looked down the hallway. There was no one there. I picked up the bag. Whatever was in there was strangely shaped and stiff. There was no way to tell what it was by feeling it. I had to open it.

I wished to God I didn't. I brought it to the kitchen table and opened it with a knife. As soon as I punctured the plastic, a foul smell filled my apartment. And the knife came back sticky and red. I didn't want to open it. My hands just did it, and the more I pulled apart the bag the worse it got. The overhead light illuminated the contents clearly. I collapsed next to the table and began to cry.

Stuffed in the bloody trash bag, was Cooper the stray cat? His jaw open in a petrified cry. There was a baton in his mouth. The lens strobing endlessly. The packaging receipt was stuffed in the bag too. A crude note scribbled in all caps. It read, Why won't you let me watch? I don't know what to do now.

I left Cooper in the sink and I'm cowering in my room. I want to call the police, but I just can't. Part of me thinks this is just punishment for all that I've done. The privacy of others I violated over the years. Maybe I do deserve whatever comes next. I thought I heard something on the balcony earlier. I wanted to look, but I was too scared. I ended up just staying in my room, and when things got quiet, I wrote this.

It was a strange sound now that I think about it. There was some shuffling, but it had to be the wind or something. I live on the second floor. There's no way. There was a loud snapping noise too, like a crackling over and over again. Very weird. It's been a couple hours. The sun's starting to come up.

I'm going to post this and get dressed. I decided I'll come clean and go to the police. I'll tell them about the Jeffersons. The guy across the courtyard. Cooper, everything. I hope they can help me. The only thing that's bothering me is I haven't used my balcony in a long time. I can't remember the last time. I hope it's still locked. Part 2. Cooper. 9-1-1. What's your emergency? Hello? I'm being stalked. I need help. Being stalked.

By whom? My neighbor. You're being stalked by your neighbor? Yes. I'm not safe. He's going to get me. Okay, sir. Where are you now? I'll send a unit right away. No, you don't understand. I'm on my way to the police station right now. He killed Cooper. He killed who, sir?

He killed Cooper. The cat. He killed the cat. He killed your cat? No. He's not my cat. He's just a cat. He's a stray. I'm bringing him with...

You have to help me. Sir, how far away from the station are you? Where are you now? Oh, no. Sir? Oh my God. He's in my car. Sir, pull over. You need to.

There was a panic scream, followed by an electric cracking over the phone. Muffled thumps and interference are all that can be heard from the caller's end, with a faint sound of squealing tires. Sir. The line goes dead. That was a transcript of a dispatch call to the sheriff's department. This was a couple weeks ago. And the man who called never made it to the station. I was not dispatched to this call, nor did I have any knowledge of it at the time.

This is the only place I can tell this story. You guys being my only possible audience. I have to tell somebody. There will be specifics I will have to leave out, but I will tell you everything that I can. Maybe those who are looking can get some closure. It's the best I can do. I'm a police officer. I've only been on the forest for two years. My dad was a cop in the big city, just like his father before him. He always said he wanted me to follow in his footsteps,

but was ultimately shocked when I joined the department in the next town over. The city was too congested and noisy for me, and I wanted to try and make my own way without working under his shadow. There's something wrong in our town. It started two months ago, like a dark, cloud that had hovered over our town and never left. The start of my career had been quiet, if I'm being honest. The extent of my police work had consisted of traffic violations and petty theft, a wellness check every once in a while, or a call for domestic disturbance. It almost seemed a little easy, like maybe I should have joined the academy in the big city instead of this sleeping town. It all seemed to start when they found that girl,

under the bridge, the first murder in our town in a long time. I drive over that bridge every night to go home, and it serves as an odd reminder of how peaceful things used to be. Ever since then, things have been chaotic. There's always tension at the station. There's always calls to be answered. Some people go missing. Others call in to report strange sightings. It's like a madness is looming in the distance. I was on the way home the night had happened. I just finished late on a night shift. I changed at the station and was driving home, long stretches of back roads through farmland. I live in the country in my grandparents' old house. It's got some land, but it's real marshy. I had to start getting in my uniform at the station because my driveway is a muddy wreck.

Most of my gear is at the station. The only things I had on me were my full. phone and a compact Ruger 9mm I carry when I'm off duty. It had been a long day, and I was ready to be home. Soon I could have a hot shower and a nightcap, and I'd be drifting off to sleep to do it all again tomorrow. I was on a very long stretch of a road. The headlights, the only light, and the vast fields on either side. I had the radio playing lightly.

It was some kind of seasonal ad for a local haunted house. I didn't care much for cheap scares, but I was listening anyway. An announcer was trying really hard to be edgy and spooky, talking of ghouls and frights, for the low, low price of $20 a ticket. I turned it up out of boredom and was surprised when it cut to loud static. I usually had good reception all the way home, so the interference was unusual. I sighed and changed the station, only to find more static. I tried them all, and they yielded the same result.

And that's when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. It was a faint strobe of light to my left, and when I first looked, I thought it was just seeing things. It was brief and far away. I found myself slowing down to see if it would happen again. I crawled to ten miles per hour, looking into the eerie darkness of the bean field. It happened again. A series of flashes that looked like they were coming from the trees across the field,

almost like a signal from a flashlight. I stopped my vehicle. My gut twisting as I watched it, meanwhile the static blasting from the dash. The lights blinked and then they were gone, and I was looking at nothing but a dark field with some trees in the distance. I checked the time. It was 1.39 a.m. I shut the radio off and sat there in silence. Aside from the loss of radio reception, something felt wrong like someone was calling for help.

Even with hunting season, it wasn't the time for hunters to be active, and nobody lived in this particular area. A few feet ahead, there was a beat-up gravel path, one of the lanes that farmers used to pull harvesting equipment in when they till the field. I grabbed my phone from the passenger seat and tried to ring the station. Holding the phone to my ear gave me nothing but a long silence. I looked at the screen to see I had no bars. There was no signal to get through. I mulled it over in my head. It was ten minutes back to the station and I was five minutes away from home.

But if someone was in danger, they wouldn't have time for me to be dicking around to find a landline. I wasn't in uniform and there'd be no calling for backup. If something bigger was going on out there, I would just be as shit out of luck as the person calling for help. I tried the station again. Nothing. With my eyes on the dark gravel lane, I felt for my 9mm and my badge. I always kept it loaded, but I checked out of habit, half cocking the slide to make sure it was chambered.

I didn't have a choice, really. I'd get my ass chewed for going without backup, and I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if someone couldn't escape danger because of my negligence. I left off the break and turned into the path, my suburban bouncing over the uneven ground. The headlights shine down the stretch of gravel, barely hitting the trees in the distance. I saw the eerie strobleed again. It was coming from the forest, near the base of a tree. I periodically checked my cell for reception, but was rewarded with the same results.

Driving down that path filled me with anxiety. I kept scanning the trees for movement, for a sign of life or struggle. I'd start at where I saw the strobe, and I'd go from there. Hopefully by then I could get some kind of signal. The gravel lane ended with a tree line. There was a gap between the trees with waste-high weeds. that looked like someone drove through them. I couldn't really see what was behind the weeds and there was no visible path from here, so I took it as my cue to get out. I put the phone

and badge in my pockets, and I grabbed the handgun. I decided to leave the car running and used the headlights for visibility. I stepped out into the chilly midnight air and felt the immediate squish of mud. I always wore my hiking boots because of my shitty driveway, And I was thankful to have them on now. I closed the door and tuck the handgun into my coat. A toxic smell wafted on the night air, like something burning. I looked back towards the dark road, wishing I could have called for backup. Leaving my truck behind, I headed towards the tracks and the weeds.

Someone had definitely been through here. My boots sucked at the mud as I approached. A head the weeds started to rustle, and I froze, pulling the gun and readying it tightly with both hands. I trailed my gun on the weeds, clicking the safety off, and lining up the sights. A white and black mass of fur slinked out, a collar jingling on its neck. It was a cat. With a sigh of relief, I lowered my weapon, and the cat meowed at the sight of me.

It was a calico cat, his marbled fur untouched by the surrounding mud. It pranced up to me and purred loudly as it rubbed up against my leg. I knelt down and scratched its chin. What are you doing all the way out here, little guy? I asked as I pet him. The cat looked at me with intense eyes, its whole body radiating and odd warmth in the chilly air. seconds of scratching and purring. I heard a loud popping in the distance, like a firecracker going off. I stood and looked into the forest down the tracks of flattened weeds. There was

a faint orange glow in the trees, but from what I couldn't make out? I decided to take the cat back to the truck, but when I looked down, it was gone. Confused, I looked around, but it was nowhere to be found. No meow, no jingle. Nothing. Suddenly, being alone again gave me goosebumps, and I gripped the gun tighter as I scoped out my surroundings. Having no choice but to leave the mysterious cat behind, I headed into the forest to find the source of the noise. Once I started down the trail, the mud lessened with the foliage of the forest floor. The further I walked. The stronger the stench became, and a faint burning started hitting my eyes. Smoke. I couldn't really see it in the dark, and the headlights weren't helping as much

as I'd hoped. I was embarrassed at my lack of preparation, but it was better than shrugging my shoulders and driving home. I followed the smoke, scanning the woods for any signs of movement. The glow ahead was slowly getting brighter, and I started walking faster. My adrenaline was rising, the gun held tight in front of me. Something was definitely burning. The smell was strong and the smoke was getting thicker. It was like smog with a hints of charred meat like a cookout in the middle of a refinery. I chanced to look at my phone.

No bars. I don't know why I expected anything different. I started running. The glow got brighter and brighter until like it's a little bit more. see it radiating. There were trees and brambles blocking the view, but I pushed on. I needed to get there. Too much time had been wasted already. I ran through the weeds, blinking at the sting of smoke. My boot snapped twigs and kicked up leaves as I went. I could hear the fire now, the crackling and sizzling of something burning hot. And I could finally see the source.

In the center of the clearing, a mini-su-v sat like a ball of fire, wicked tongues of flame licked from all sides, billowing black smoke trying to reach the sky through the crowded treetops. The twisted figure of what was once a person sat in the driver's seat, their contorted hands frozen in perpetual burning agony. Something brushed my leg and tore my gaze from the wreckage. The cat sat next to me. Its eyes locked ahead with a reflection of the roaring blaze in its eyes. It looked up at me for a moment, and then it turned to look at something off to the side of the fire. I followed his gaze. A man sat watching the fire. He was about 15 feet away, sitting with his chin resting on his knees. He stared intently into the flames,

his hands messing with something in front of him. His face was emotionless, and he sat like he was enjoying a campfire on a cool summer night. I felt a panic rise within me, and I forced it away. I ran into the clearing. Badge held up with my gun trained on him. Please, hands where I can see him. I shouted. For a moment, he ignored me. He just kept looking at the fire. What are you doing here?

I just wanted to watch. He said quietly. His hands gripping the object in front of him. It looked like a taser. I said, get your hands in the air. Now, I yelled again. And this time he looked at me. His blank face slowly turning to anger.

He started getting up. The taser held at his side. Did you come to watch too? He said, taking a step closer. Take another step and I will shoot. I'm warning you, I shouted. There was a sizzling in the wreckage, one that was starting to slowly get louder. We both looked over and right before our eyes the hood

of the SUV exploded. The sound rattled my ears, and I shielded myself from the debris as the wave of hot air through bits of glass and metal. I looked up just in time to see the man rush towards me. As I tried to raise my weapon, he slammed into me, and the gun shot into the trees. We hit the ground in a grunning mess, my hip and elbow jarring into the ground. I lost my grip on the gun and it tumbled away. With an electric crackle, the man thrust the taser down, and I put my hands up to fend him off. I grabbed his hands and held him off, the arcing tip inches from my face.

I just have to play with you next, that's all, he said, and need me in the stomach. I faltered, and he shoved the taser into my neck. The pain coursed through my body. I involuntarily spasmed, like all my veins had caught fire at once. He laughed as I struggled, and I could only shut my eyes and suffer through it. He hit me again. And through my agony, I felt through the grass for something to fend him off. My teeth rattled as they were forced together, and I screamed as I convulsed onto my side.

I felt the solid mold of my badge played in the grass, and as my twitching fingers raised, wrapped around it. I squirmed for an opening. He grabbed the collar of my coat like he wanted to slam me on the ground. I slammed my palm inside his elbow to buckle his arm, but I was too weak. He laughed and ignited the taser again. And right then, I thrust the badge upward, shoving the point of the shield in his eye. He screamed and covered his face, trying to climb off and pull the shield out. I kicked him away and looked for the shield. for the gun, I could barely make out its shape sticking out in the firelight. He stopped to pull the badge from his eye, tossing it into the weeds as I crawled for the gun.

And with all my energy I leapt for it. The man was grabbing for my ankles and trying to pull, but I whipped around and squeezed the trigger. Three shots, center mass. He clutched his stomach and fell to his knees, blood seeping through his finger. With an exasperated groan, he fell over, his dead eyes resting on the fire. I sat up. Through the sounds of the inferno, I could hear the faint wail of sirens in the distance. My skin burned. The world spun as I coughed. The fire was getting bigger and consuming the grass surrounding it.

I looked around for the cat, but it was nowhere to be found. When the cavalry showed, I was put in an ambulance and treated, minor scrapes and bruises, along with the burns from the taser. Nothing major, I'd recover in no time. I was thankful for the arrival, but I was confused on how they found me. Before the fire department drove back to put out the fire, one of the officers on the scene told me that the station had received several calls from drivers, all talking about a strobing light in the distance. Yeah, funniest thing, the officer said. We didn't think we'd find anything.

Only reason we were able to find you, well, there was a cat in the road. It just stood in the middle of the road. I almost hit the damn thing. When I stopped, it took off down the farmer's path, and I could see your car with its lights on, could smell the smoke from the street, radioed it in, and the cat practically led us to you. Like a little guardian angel. Must have ran off, though. Some of these feral cats live off the mice in the fields. We see him all the time.

Probably the most excitement it's had in a while. He chuckled, scratching his head. All I could think of was the fiery eyes of that cat as they closed up the ambulance and sent me on my way. The next day I filed the incident report. I told them about everything. The strobing light, the car fire, the guy with the taser. There was a lot of information to go over, and I struggled to retain all the details. They pressed me on why I didn't call for backup, and when I said I had no signal, they treated

me like I was lying. After some evaluations, they deemed me fit to leave. I was allowed to go, and I was given a couple days off to recuperate. While I was off, I eagerly awaited the news reports revolving around. the incident. I left the TV on in hopes to catch it and even browse the web to find an article about it. It was strange. No network had coverage. There wasn't any mention of it. Social media was quiet and there was no official statement made from the police department. I called one of my fellow officers and they said something was going on at the station, that the

Perp's family had money and they sent a representative to sweep everything under the rug. When I asked him to elaborate, he said there was some shady shit going down, and they were paying off everyone involved to keep their mouths shut. When I returned to work, it was like the whole thing never happened. Everyone kept their head down, and when I asked him about it, they made up some kind of excuse or redirected me to the chief. When I spoke to the chief, he said the investigation was no longer under our jurisdiction, and I needed to to let it go. He said an agent from the FBI turned up while I was on leave and collected all evidence that was for the investigation. When I tried to pry further, the tone seemed

to change, and there were threats of suspension and possible relocation to a different department. I was given thorough instructions on what to say if the issue ever came up again, and I was reassured that the media had been handled. The chief said both men were deceased, and as far as they were concerned, it was an open and shut case. Further attempts to get information only angered him, and I left his office baffled with my head hung low. The rest of my day was an uncomfortable crawl. Eventually I got to meet up with the officer I called while I was off, and he slipped me an envelope when we were away from everyone. He told me it was all that was left, that everything else had been pulled and labeled confidential.

I looked through the envelope when I got home. It was just the positive IDs for the perp and the victim, and whatever forensics had been able to pull off the wreckage before they were locked out. As far as I know, this is the only physical evidence remaining of the incident altogether. I can't give you names, but they both lived in the same complex and they lived across from each other. The driver who burned up in the car had lived in his condo for a couple of years, and kept to himself the whole time he lived there. The perp, however, had just moved in a couple days prior. Neighbors said he had an expensive moving crew with lots of nice stuff.

The department had gone door to door asking questions to the other tenants in the beginning, and the only thing they could tell us was that the perp was acting strange. There was no way of telling what really happened between them. But I later found the dispatch call that came from the driver in the car. After several online searches, I was able to learn more of the Perp's family. They were extremely wealthy, like Gates and Bezos wealthy. There wasn't much on the Perp himself, but I can only assume they moved him here because he was a problem child, or something like that.

The landlord said the guy didn't personally. apply for his apartment that a representative did. The landlord made a statement saying something about generous donations for the district, and it was an offer he couldn't refuse. The forensics weren't as complete as I hoped. They were leaning towards electrical being the cause of fire, but were unable to draw any accurate conclusions before the investigation was pulled. The man behind the wheel had been badly burned, but there was residue of adhesi left behind. Like he'd been duct-taped to the seat when the car caught fire. They didn't get a chance to do an airway examination, whether or not he was alive when the fire broke

out is unknown. The only other thing they were able to find was the remains of an animal on the passenger side floor. It was hard to tell with the fire damage, but it seemed to be dead beforehand. This being concluded, due to the large flashlight that seemed to be forced down the animal's throat. The temperature in the car fire had gotten so hot the flashlight had fused to the remains, and forensics were unable to remove it for further testing. If it wasn't for the file I have, and my own eyewitness account, it's almost like this whole thing never happened. Nobody had spoken since the evidence was collected. And as the days go by, I find some of my fellow officers avoiding me altogether.

Everything was business as usual at the department, and I was back to making my rounds and answering calls. Nobody ever reached out to follow up, and after a few weeks, I almost wondered if this whole thing was just my imagination. That was, until I found a post online. It was a story from the point of view. of a man in a condo, a man who loved to watch, and the cruel demise of a stray cat named Cooper. I'm going to link these stories together and save it, because I think it's the closest thing

I'll get to closure. I still take the same route home after work, just as I did the night it happened. Sometimes when I pass that farmer's lane, I'll catch static on the radio, and sometimes Sometimes I feel like I'll catch something out of the corner of my eye. If I look fast enough, I swear I can see the strobe in the trees.