#add to this that i got stood up saturday by yet another type of ex and really its all just very unlikeable

[e-spexially]

If you don't want to read this whole thing, I've provided the audio reading of it. I suggest giving it a listen, it adds a whole different and more unsettling mood

I’d like to share with you all an incident that actually happened in my little home town. When it first happened, I was pretty young, so I just picked up bits and pieces from hearing adults talk. But that was rare. It’s like they thought, whatever happened, there was something in it that had to be shameful. It always scared the heck out of me when they did whisper about it. Now, after what happened here and knowing more, it’s even scarier.

For me, it started when I was nearly ending my shift at the clinic one night. It was a gloomy evening. We’d had a hunting accident earlier, but otherwise it was quiet. Mitch Lemieux, this guy who owns a garage on Cartier Blvd, five-time arm-wrestling champ down at the Caribou bar, comes in panicking, looks spooked out of his mind. Never seen him so much as flinch before that. So I’m expecting some serious carnage.

He’s shouting for help, so I call two EMTs to go out with him. They come back with a half-naked girl. Her clothes are torn to ribbons and what’s left of them is soiled. She has cuts, bruises, and like pond scum or something over her. She has this deadness in her eyes like nothing I’ve ever seen.

They get her in a blanket, a stretcher and take her away. Everyone in the waiting room is standing now and the only sound is Mitch panting. Because everyone knew that girl was Chantal Norman. The same Chantal who’s been missing for twelve years.

Since then, I’ve found out a lot more details about her disappearance. I had to. I got specifics wherever possible. I’m going to lay them out here.

The Girls Who Went Away

I may have heard more talk than some as a kid because my big sister, Virginia, was friends with Chantal and the other two, Jenna and Lise. She was supposed to hang out with them one weekend. I remember she was talking about it all week. I guess Chantal’s parents were out of town, so she was excited.

When Thursday came around, she starts saying she doesn’t feel like going anymore. My Mom questions her, asks if she’s had a fight with the girls, that sort of thing. Even if she’s pregnant. Virginia got upset and left the table, saying, “You don’t understand.”

By Saturday, she was starting to cry all the time for no good reason. She finally told my parents she knew something bad was going to happen that weekend. “They’re going to die, Mom!” she said. That sticks in my memory like it was yesterday. She was so certain it gave me chills. But nobody believed her.

On Monday, Virginia came home from school hyperventilating. My Mom could hardly get a word out of her. When she did, it was, “They’re gone!”

Soon the story was all the town could talk about. The three girls disappeared that Saturday night. Had Virginia gone, she would’ve been the fourth.

The night of the disappearance, Maestro’s Pizza had a call from Chantal’s phone at 8:47pm for pizza. The driver recorded the delivery at 9:20pm. He said the girls looked ok when he delivered the pizza. All three were at the door. He said it seemed like one of them kept looking behind her, like someone else was there. He couldn’t see anyone.

A receipt from a nearby liquor store was timestamped 9:39pm. The clerk recalls only seeing Jenna and Lise. (Chantal was not yet 18, so that may have been why.) They did not seem distressed to him, although one kept checking her watch.

At 10:14pm and 10:17pm, two calls were found in Chantal’s phone records. Neither call was local. One was to a law office three-hundred miles away. The recorded voicemail was one minute and sixteen seconds of breathing. The second call was to a residence on Prince Edward Island. The woman who answered the phone said the caller asked, “Is he there?” and hung up before she could get clarification. She’d never heard of Chantal and had no idea why Chantal would be calling her. The law office said the same.

That was the last confirmed time anyone heard from Chantal, Jenna, and Lise.

At 11:29pm a 911 call was placed from an unknown phone. A woman is heard whispering, “Send someone, please.” And when the dispatcher asks where, she says, “We don’t know” and the call drops. None of the girls’ parents could say it was their daughter. It may have been a coincidence.

The next day, after not being able to reach her daughter or Chantal, Lise’s mother calls for a wellness check. At 5:45pm on Sunday, police arrive. Chantal’s home is locked up. No signs of a break-in or a struggle. The alarm system was in ‘Home’ mode. The cars were still parked outside. The girls’ phones had been left on the table, one was even left charging. Nothing had been stolen. Slices of pizza were out on the coffee table, partially eaten. Half-drunk drinks were beside the plates.

It’s like they’d just been in the middle of having a good time, drinking, listening to music, when they suddenly dropped everything and ran off. It’s not even clear how they locked up, because the house keys were found on the kitchen counter.

Nobody could understand it. But there was a bad feeling about the whole thing. Even the cops say they felt “dread” when they approached the home. They felt what Virginia had felt before: that something terrible happened.

The usual events that surround missing girls followed. Much of the community helped search surrounding wooded areas. Signs were put up everywhere, all the way to Montreal. It must’ve cost a ton. The bay was searched and a body was found. It turned out to be someone else. In fact, I believe that body was never positively identified.

Police questioned everyone who knew the girls. Family, friends, neighbors. Nobody saw anything, heard anything particularly suspicious. They questioned Virginia a few times about why she didn’t spend the weekend with them as planned and why she wasn’t helping with the searches. To the latter, she said, “It’s too late.”

The Case Gets Stranger

That’s when the weird stuff started to come out. I think every case that’s low on leads like this is going to have some degree of strange tips that go nowhere. But these strange tips went somewhere. This is the stuff that made people not so keen to talk about it.

The first strange report was from an old man, an ex-cop, in a town an hour away. The night the girls disappeared, he was having trouble sleeping. This was around 1 am, he says. While he’s taking a leak, he thinks he hears someone in his yard. It sounded like it might’ve been giggling. Figuring it was kids, he ran out with a bat just to scare them. When he got to his backyard, which backs up to the tree line, he saw three girls holding hands and running single file into the woods.

He ran after them, because there’s a lot of woods back there. He was afraid they’d get lost or hurt. When he got to the woods, he couldn’t find them. They were just gone. He felt stupid about the whole thing, so he kept it to himself. Until he heard three girls had gone missing.

A search was conducted in the area, dogs brought in, but nothing was ever found to say the girls were actually there. It creeps me out thinking about it, because, if it was them, why would they be there? It’s a long walk from Chantal’s home to this town. Why would they walk all that way to wander into the woods?

Chantal’s parents were questioned repeatedly if they’d received demands. Someone said they’d seen Chantal’s father meeting with some men in black suits the week before the girls disappeared. They were getting into a black car when he’d been spotted. Chantal’s dad was a roofing contractor, so top secret meetings wouldn’t have been his thing. He denied it at first. Later he said they were hardware salesmen. So why’d he start by lying? What hardware salesmen act like that?

It didn’t help their case that Chantal’s mother believed the girls were dead. She said it was because of something that happened while she was out of town. At the hotel where she was staying, three birds got into the lobby the same night the girls disappeared. Staff got a 40 foot ladder to get the birds down, but when they got up there, the birds were nowhere to be seen. “Why exactly three birds? That was their spirits. They’re with God now.” That’s what she used to tell people.

I guess that brought her comfort. Someone told Virginia about it once and she said, “They’re nowhere near God…”

Some people shared that opinion because, when police went through their search history, there was a lot of odd stuff you wouldn’t expect popular, cheerleader types to be into. There was a lot of occulty stuff and conspiracy theories. One weird search phrase stood out on the report, “can a TV signal make you do things” and variants on it. The last item in Chantal’s history, at 10:01pm, was for a mountain cottage in Arkansas.

They were in contact with someone with the handle ThePrince. Not many details of those interactions came out. I heard from someone in the police department that he was telling them to do things. There was only one of those he felt he could tell me: this guy had asked them to do something to Virginia. He wanted them to bring her out to this old woodshed back behind the yellow house on Nelson Rd. That was supposed to happen the night they disappeared. “Think about it,” he told me. “What do you think would’ve happened to your sister if she went that night? What would’ve happened?” His look told me this was something that kept him up at night thinking about it. I know the feeling.

They were never able to track down who this ThePrince was, from what I understand. Efforts to contact him online failed.

One of their mutual friends heard Chantal talking about some guy named ‘Vincenzo.’ How Vincenzo knew everything and told them things nobody’s supposed to know. She said Chantal told her Vincenzo took them out to a secret place. Another friend said while sitting with some other friends he saw Chantal talking on her phone at school. She was talking for five minutes or so. She came back and said it was Vincenzo. But everyone at the table swore she didn’t even have a phone in her hand. She was just facing the wall, talking. Whether real or made up, Vincenzo was another dead end.

And there were sightings of the girls everywhere. Sometimes locally, but some claims came from as far as Vancouver and even Australia. Sometimes in the woods, sometimes walking along the street, at the beach. Someone said he was sure it was Chantal who begged him for money in Toronto. Someone else said they saw the girls along the street on a vacation to Mexico. She said the girls retreated into the crowd when she called to them. “Why would they run away like that?” she asked.

Maybe the strangest was a guy who could point to some photos he and his wife had taken at a party. In the background, two girls and part of a third that looked just like them. The thing is, the photos were at a watch party for the fall of the Berlin Wall. The girls were infants at the time those pictures had been taken.

There was a lot mysterious about this case. Why’d they disappear? How’d they get where they were going? Was someone else involved? Where’d they go? Were they dead? The odds of them still being alive were extremely low. Nobody believed we’d ever see them again. With the reappearance of Chantal, the question now was: Where have they been for the past twelve years? And where are the others?

Chantal

Mitch told me, officers, everyone who’d listen, how he found her. He’d been out on his own land—his father’s land, technically, acres and acres of it going way back into the woods—hunting deer. He was up in his stand, way back there, having a few beers. He saw some movement far off in the trees. He was ready to take a shot, but something made him hold on. Just the way it’s moving. Too slow and unsteady for a deer, even a wounded one. It’s a sickly walk. He keeps watching as it comes closer. It’s a person, he’s sure. He’d normally be furious someone was trespassing. But this is too weird. She’s slowly walking straight toward the tree where his stand is and he can now see it’s this half-naked, beaten girl.

“Wherever she’s been, I don’t ever wanna go there,” he told me that night. Sent a shudder right through me. He reeked of something, like a scorched tar smell. And all I could think was that she’d been to hell and back.

The ER docs concluded she was physically ok. She needed food and warmth, but otherwise just bruised up. What she needed was psychological evaluation.

Whatever peace and quiet she had in her room ended quick. Police arrived to question her, her parents (now divorced) were called, and they all wanted to know where she’d been, if she was ok. She still had that dazed, mindless look, even with her mother caressing her.

When she finally spoke, she gave an address. They tried to get her to say more, but that’s all she’d tell them. Just the address. It was a local one, on the other side of town past the old drive-in. Not many people live out that way anymore.

Police sent someone to the address immediately, hoping the other girls would be there. I found out from a friend that they had trouble finding it because the yard was so overgrown that the house number was covered. The house itself was sagging, a rotten old house with busted out windows.

Two cops were checking it out and even with two of them, both armed, the place made them nervous. They go inside and find an old mattress and a bunch of dolls on the floor. They heard a thudding sound from upstairs. One of them went up to check it out, while the other looked around downstairs.

The one upstairs went room to room looking for the source of the noise. He comes to one room where he sees the window shutters are open. He thinks he’s seen this in the movies before: it’s just the wind. What next, a cat jumps out? So he goes and closes the shutters. Then it occurs to him. There isn’t any wind.

He searches the upstairs and finds no-one there. He runs downstairs and asks his partner if he’s seen anyone. He hasn’t. He’s been flipping through a book he found. It’s a book about the Nazis with polaroids of children between the pages. They decide to get out of the creepy place and come back in daylight. On the way out, they both notice the back door’s been opened. They were sure it was shut when they’d arrived.

Investigators looked all over the property the next few days. One of the upstairs rooms has a lot of bloodstains. They’re tested and come back inconclusive. The polaroids are reviewed, but no-one recognizes the children. There wasn’t even a hint that Chantal or the others had been in that house. They can’t figure out why Chantal was so fixated on that address.

The owner of the house, according to records, made the purchase in 1974. Nobody in town had ever seen or heard of this person. More, as far as police could determine, this person didn’t exist. Others still living in the area say they’ve seen vehicles at the home before, years back. Never the same vehicle twice. But they never met anyone.

Hospital staff left Chantal’s mother stay with her the rest of the night. She didn’t want to leave her side. She was afraid of losing her again, perhaps. One of the nurses heard her mother asking her, “Where were you all that time, Chantal?” and saying things like, “You don’t look a day older.” And Chantal said, “I wasn’t anywhere.”

Technically my shift was over, but with what happened, I stayed on to help. And I was nosey. I didn’t try to go visit Chantal. I never really knew my sister’s friends. So I was surprised when I heard Chantal wanted to see me. I figured it would have to do with Virginia and I was right. She asked me if Virginia could come see her.

I just imagined how much she missed her friends and family after all this time, so I was quick to promise I’d try my best. Virginia had left town eleven years ago. She rarely even called. Something about the incident changed her. But I had her number, of course, so I called and told her everything that happened.

Up to, “She’s been asking to see you, V. Maybe she’ll tell you more.”

I was sure she would say she’s hopping on a plane. Instead, she said, “Chantal is dead. They’re all dead. They’ve been dead all this time.”

I said, “V, I was looking right at her. She spoke to me. She’s on an IV drip. She’s alive.”

“I don’t know who or what that is. All I know is if I come home, I’ll never be seen again.”

And she hung up. I called back a few times. She wouldn’t answer. My parents couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t answer for them either. I couldn’t go face Chantal with that news, so I just went home.

I spent the night beating myself up about it. I could hardly sleep. Around 3am I heard faint knocking on my front door. All sorts of ideas went through my mind. What if Virginia decided to fly in after all?

Before I could go to the door to look, my phone rang. It was Virginia. I answered and asked right away if that was her at the front door. She told me she had a bad feeling and woke up in tears, sure something had happened to me.

“Don’t answer the door,” she said. “Please.”

I didn’t. I heard the knock again and I didn’t answer. V and I weren’t close. But I trusted her. I spent the rest of the night hiding in my own home, because she really freaked the shit out of me.

I found out the next day that Chantal had gotten out of her bed during the night, around 2:45am, while her mother slept. Hospital cameras show her walking out calmly, nobody notices. And just like that, she disappeared again. Nobody’s seen her since. No idea where she went after leaving the hospital, and still no idea where she’d been for the past twelve years. There’ve been searches, but I’m sure it’ll be all dead ends again.

#scary stories #reddit #this literally scared the shit oit of me the first time I heard it #its so good

[theshapeshifter100]

Guess What? I’m Not a Robot Ch18

Summary:Subtext, codenames and appointments oh my!

Chapter Warnings: anxiety

Word Count: 1,268

A/N I will not be able to post next Monday as I will be traveling. The next chapter will go up on Thursday

9PM Friday 5th November 2038

On the bus ride home, Megan got a text from Alex.

‘He likes you, you know’

Megan stared at the phone in shock, then looked out of the corner of her eye at Paul. He was distracted by the world going by, so she rapidly texted back.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s knows I’m Ace/Aro’

Alex’s response was annoyingly smug.

‘Love doesn’t work like that ;)’

‘He’s known me two weeks’

‘He went deviant for you <3’

‘Alex! Stop shipping!’

‘Subtext my friend. Subtext’

‘I hate you’

‘Love you too’

Megan made to put her phone away, but was distracted by another notification from Alex.

‘Seriously though. He’s good for you. Even if you don’t feel that way, he’s your safe space’

Megan relaxed a bit, and typed back.

‘I do feel more relaxed when he’s there. Although he freaks out too sometimes’

‘Everyone does, but you know how to handle that from experience, right?’

‘Yeah, I do. See you later’

‘See ya. Setting up group chat now. I’m guessing Paul doesn’t have a phone number’

‘He connected to my phone, so I can add him’

‘I forgot that was a feature! You do that’

A few minutes later Megan’s phone pinged as the new group came into being. She nudged Paul.

“Group’s up, want me to add you?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Paul sounded a little taken aback, but didn’t say anything else as Megan added him to the group.

“...Alex is suggesting code names,” he stated out loud as the chat scrolled translucently through his vision.

“And Allison is annoyed,” Megan added. “...I’m going to suggest Alex goes for ‘AAA Battery’, you?”

Paul snorted with laughter. “Do it.”

Megan did just that, and soon everyone was suggesting code names for each other and for themselves.

“Alright,” Megan declared, trying not to laugh, “Alex went with my suggestion. Allison turned down ‘Shitstirrer’ and has gone with ‘That1BikerChick’. Oscar is ‘Coubertin’. Ivy is ‘Poison Oak’. Maggie is ‘Rainbow3. Julia is ‘Captain Hardass’, which Allison is now regretting not taking. Nathan is ‘Ringo’. Lucas wanted Coubertin, but has settled for ‘Tudor’ I’m ‘Nervousness Incarnate’, and we’re waiting on you,” she looked at him expectantly.

Paul thought for a moment, and a notification popped up.

“...You went for Beep Boop?” Megan asked, incredulous.

“I thought it was funny,” Paul defended, then paused as another notification came in. “So did Alex. I think. That’s what ‘ROFLOL’ means, right?”

“It means ‘Rolling On the Floor Laughing Out Loud’,” Megan translated. “So yes, they found it hilarious.”

Paul nodded. “I think I like your friends.”

“I only met most of them a few days ago,” Megan defended. “Out of them only Alex is my friend, and sometimes I wonder why.”

“...I’m glad I stayed,” Paul said after some thought, and Megan shot her head up to look at him.

“Did, did you ever think about leaving?”

“Yes. On that first night,” Paul admitted. “But, I didn’t know how you’d react to me not being there, and... I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret, because of me.”

“Oh,” Megan said quietly. “What about, after that?”

“I couldn’t really see me leaving. It was obvious you needed someone, and, I didn’t want to be alone.”

Megan sighed, and leaned her head on his arm, in a slightly teasing manner. “You big softie.”

“And you’d like me any other way?”

“Not really.”

Paul smiled, and looked out of the front of the bus, as the chat continued to flow past his eye.

10AM Saturday 6th November 2038

Megan ended up not going to the Ace/Aro society, not feeling up to a large crowd of people. Not to mention, the next day held something rather daunting.

Her appointment at the Medical Centre.

She was already pacing at 10AM while Paul experimented with makeup and hair styles in the bathroom mirror. Currently his now red hair was standing up in all directions, and he wasn’t happy with it.

“I can hear you pacing!” he called from the bathroom, not looking away from the mirror.

“I’m nervous!” Megan shot back. “I haven’t an appointment like this in years!”

“I’m coming with you, remember?” the two had gotten him a belt, a pair of sneakers and some hair gel online with next day delivery, and with the makeup and new hair, Paul felt more confident about going out. Even if he wasn’t a big fan of the sensation of hair gel.

“Yeah, but you can’t come with me into the appointment. These things are private.”

Paul had managed to get his hair into a casual mess which he was kind of happy with, so poked his head out of the bathroom to look at Megan.

“Are they going to judge you?”

“What?”

“Are they going to judge you?”

“Well, they shouldn’t. It’s not their job.”

“And you’re going with the android counsellor, correct?”

“Yeah, although I feel bad about that now,” Megan had stopped pacing and stood with her arms folded.

“Don’t be, just be nice and it’ll fine,” Paul smiled. “And since they’ll be an android, they’ll be even less likely to judge.”

“Yeah,” Megan sighed. “Sorry, I’m just... Ah! I wish I could explain it, but it doesn’t even make sense to me! It’s just, anxiety for anxiety’s sake!”

Paul left the bathroom and stood in front of Megan. Noticing that he towered over her he crouched a little.

“Megan, you know it won’t be as bad as you think it will be. You’ve said it yourself; it’s usually fine once you start talking.”

“I know. It’s just getting there. The anticipation,” Megan started fiddling with the sleeves on her shirt. The cuts on her arm had healed by now, but Paul still felt a horrible thudding sensation in his lower abdomen when he thought about them.

“Distract yourself. Do some writing,” Paul suggested. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to go.”

Megan looked like she wanted to object, but ended up nodding reluctantly and sitting at her computer.

“I also need to call my parents,” she remembered with a groan. “Both for Alex’s thing, and just to check in.”

“How often do you call your parents?”

“About once a month, maybe? We started out once a week, but I was running out of things to say,” Megan shrugged. “Then they’d start talking about my brother, and, well, that gets old after a while.”

“What about your brother?” Paul could tell this was a little touchy, but his curiosity got the better of him.

“My perfect little brother,” Megan grumbled. “Got into college on a sports scholarship, football captain in high school. Actually had a date for prom while I had a panic attack in the girls bathroom because I had been forced to go. No mental health issues as far as I’m aware and is actually likely to give my parents grandchildren. Anything else you want to know?”

“I can’t help but think you might want to bring this up later today,” Paul noted, and Megan snorted.

“Maybe.”

“Focus on something else,” Paul reminded. “I won’t let you be late.”

Paul was as good as his word, and they were on the bus at 11AM. Megan was fidgeting with her sleeves again, this time with her coat. Paul had the beanie on this time as the temperature was starting to drop.

“Brainstorm some name ideas,” Paul suggested, as no one in the group had anything yet. Megan nodded vacantly and looked out of the window. Thankfully the fidgeting calmed as Megan thought, and it kept her occupied for most of the journey.

Sorry for such a short one today, that wasn’t planned, I swear!

Little bit of discourse that should be solved by next week or so. Game plot still hasn't interfered yet, and won't until the Stratford Tower. So, eagle eyed readers, keep an eye on the dates.

To explain some of the 'codenames' since they are Alex going overboard again. Coubertin was the French Duke (?) who rediscovered and reinstated the Olympic Games. AAA Battery for Alex, the joke is that they are Asexual, Aromantic and Agender. It's the kind of joke they would find funny... Other Options Flowchart

(Paul) Choose other code name (I can't think of any funny robot based ones, so I'll leave up to you guys!)*

(Paul) Don't get sentimental

(Paul) Comfort. Blunt

(Paul) Don't ask about the brother

*Suggestions! Mettaton/Mettaton EX and .EXE from @nightmarejim

Tags! @septicart-appreciation @nightmarejim

#Detroit Become Human #Detroit Become Human fanfic #Guess What? I'm Not a Robot #Guess What? I'm Not a Robot Ch18 #codenames #deviant android #TheShapeshifter100 writes