This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/IamHereNowAtLeast on 2024-11-19 18:52:58+00:00.
Morning light blasted through my blinds, jolting me awake.
I had only been asleep a couple hours.
My fingers trembled as I plugged the USB flash drive into my laptop, dreading what I’d see. My laptop screen flickered, and I clicked on the file, reliving last night’s nightmare in grainy footage.
It was worse than I remembered.
The headlights in the footage were like eyes, unblinking, menacing.
I could feel being there in the driver seat again, my body shivering involuntarily. But even with the rear dash cam, I couldn’t make out his face.
He stayed in the shadows, his features blurred.
He's careful...
But the truck clicked in my mind, even if the footage was grainy. A blue Ford F-150, just like my uncle used to have. An older model. No license plate on the front, sure… but an old truck like that isn't terribly unique in the area. If we could find that truck, we might find him.
Later, I sat in the main visitor's seating area of the Meridian Police Department.
An hour or so passed before I found myself in Officer Daniels’ office. It seemed like Officer Daniels wanted to be anywhere else in the world than in his office with me.
He tossed the USB drive back to me as he sat back behind his desk.
He barely glanced at his monitor, at the footage I had from last night before smirking. “Look,” he said, leaning back, “you’re a bit of a pot stirrer. Harassing locals like this.”
“Harassing locals?” I snapped back. “That guy on that monitor fucking followed me off the road last night. He fucking sprinted at my car! At me!”
Daniels raised an eyebrow. “A blurry video of headlights blinding me... You spend too much time on TikTok. Everything ain't a conspiracy."
"I know Maggie didn't just vanish."
Officer Daniels rolled his eyes.
"Maybe Eddie Baker thought you were in trouble,” he said.
“Eddie Baker?”
My heart skipped what seemed like several beats.
“Yeah, Eddie Baker,” Daniels sighed. “His granddaddy was Edward Baker, old gold refiner. Eddie’s rough around the edges, sure, but that don’t make him a criminal.”
He gave me a thin, artificial smile.
“Drop this before you find yourself in a big pot of cream you can’t churn out of.”
His hand was on my shoulder as he ushered me gently towards the front door.
As I walked through the parking lot, I called my friend Ryan, bombarding him with a recap of the police's reaction once again. About Eddie Baker. About the corrupt world we're living in.
I word vomited for two whole minutes before I realized Ryan wasn't really responding.
I finally stopped talking.
“Do you have any idea how reckless you’re being?” Ryan finally asked me. “You’re out there alone, chasing a potential killer, someone who probably knows you’re looking for him.”
“I’m not doing this for fun. This fucker might have taken Maggie.”
“And probably you next!” He snapped. “I’m coming over with pepper spray and a gun.”
“I don’t need a gun,” I insisted, though my voice wavered. “I just need proof.”
He groaned but didn’t argue further.
“You’re in over your head.”
That night, I ate a big bowl of pho while I just Googled for hours. Looking for anything about the Baker family, but I just kept hitting dead ends. All old, unhelpful articles.
Almost nothing about Eddie. Was that even his name?
And worse…
I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Every creak or odd noise in the house made me jump.
And then it happened, a loud crash that actually shattered the silence of the night.
My heart stopped.
I dropped my phone and ran to the living room, where shattered glass lay scattered across the floor.
In the center of the room was a severed lamb’s head, a pool of blood soaking into my carpet. Its lifeless eyes stared right at me, mouth twisted in a gruesome snarl.
A note pinned to its forehead, smeared in red letters.
I KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU
THAN YOU KNOW ABOUT ME
CUNT
I stood there, numb with shock.
I stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over the glass as I grabbed my phone. My hands shook like crazy as I called Ryan, panic seeping into my voice.
“Ryan, I… bring over the gun,” I stammered, eyes fixed on the grotesque scene. “He knows. He knows I’m looking for him.”
I FaceTimed Ryan, showing him the scene.
“Stay where you are,” Ryan replied, his voice tense but steady. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t touch anything, and don’t go near the windows.”
Ryan arrived at the same time as the police. He had called them again. They took pictures of the scene and then helped me clean up the room. I didn't say much to them, other than giving them a small statement and reciting the facts of the night.
They've dropped the ball with Maggie's case so many times over the years, I've lost all faith in the police's ability to actually help the city's residents. And I honestly don't know who I can even trust.
After the police left, the events of the night looped in my mind like a horror film. I promised Ryan I'd go to the chief of police again in the morning. And call my parents to let them know what's going on.
But something about all of this felt so wrong.
The severed lamb’s head, the blood, the note. It all felt unreal, but the shattered window and the lingering stench of blood kept reminding me it was.
I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Not really.
I sat in my living room with Ryan by my side, his gun lying between us on the coffee table. The curtains were pulled tight, leaving the room in a gloom that matched my mood.
Ryan was still asleep on the couch, his arm draped protectively over his face, but I couldn’t stay still any longer. My anger and fear wouldn’t let me.
Eddie knew about me, and he wanted me scared. He wanted me to stop, but I wouldn’t.
I needed answers.
Not just for Maggie but for myself. If I was in danger anyway, there was no reason to stop now. Maybe I could find something to put me back in the drivers seat of this shit of an investigation I've been running.
Quietly, I picked up my laptop and continued digging online. Most of what I found continued to be useless. Random mentions of Eddie’s grandfather, Edward, old mining operations in California and Nevada.
But one article stood out: a small mention of a hunting cabin deep in the mountains here in Idaho, land that had belonged to the Baker family for decades.
Ryan stirred awake, yawning. He blinked, then sat up when he saw me on the laptop. “You’re not still…” His voice trailed off when he saw my face.
“I’m going out there,” I said, pointing at the screen, my eyes locked on the article I had found. “The hunting cabin. If he is hiding something, it’s there.”
“You’re insane.” Ryan rubbed his face, his eyes still bleary. “Do you even hear yourself? You believe he’s the crazy dude who threw a severed lamb’s head through your window, and now you want to walk right into his territory?”
I nodded with a slight shrug.
"You're an idiot," he said.
“I'd rather be an idiot than a coward. Our city is fucked with corruption. I'm doing this. Besides, it's not like I'm asking you to come."
Ryan sighed heavily, shaking his head.
“You know I’m not letting you go alone.” He grabbed the gun off the table and checked the chamber, making sure it was loaded. “But if we do this, we need a real plan. No rushing in blindly.”
"Okay," I agreed.
"How about this is recon? We go see what we find, but that's it. Just take notes," Ryan said aloud, forming a plan he was comfortable with.
"Deal. It's 80 miles north."
Part of me was terrified what we might find out there, but another part… the part that refused to let Maggie’s memory be tarnished by inaction… was ready.
We spent the next few hours gathering what we needed. Flashlights, extra phone chargers, snacks, and a map of the area. Ryan had insisted we stop by his dad’s place on the way out.
His dad was a retired private investigator, the type who had more surveillance gadgets than the NSA. Ryan came back with a box of cameras and trackers.
“If the coast is really clear, we can mount some of these on his property,” he explained as he packed them into the trunk.
We drove for a couple hours, the city giving way to open country, and then dense, winding forest roads. The deeper we went, the more civilization seemed to vanish. The sky above turned from clear blue to overcast gray, and soon, mist began to gather between the trees, thick and damp.
Finally, we turned down a narrow, overgrown path, barely wide enough for Ryan’s truck.
The cabin loomed ahead, a dark silhouette against the backdrop of endless trees. It looked abandoned, the kind of place that held a hundred secrets, none of them good. The windows were dark, the roof sagging in places, and an eerie silence hung over the clearing.
We parked a good distance away, hidden behind a thick line of trees.
Ryan killed the engine, and for a moment, we just sat there, staring at the cabin. My pulse pounded in my ears, and my mouth felt dry.
“Last chance to back out,” Ryan said, his voice barely a whisper.
I shook my head. I was ready.
We moved cautiously, staying low, making our way toward the cabin. The air was thick with tension, every snapped twig underfoot making me flinch. We reached the side of the building, and Ryan motioned for me to stay back as he peered through one of the grimy windows.
The cabin seemed empty, dilapidated from the outside. The walls...
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