# "I'm a Small Town Cop in Rural Iowa. This is My Strangest Case" Creepypasta

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 26 Apr 2025, 29 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/65700103/i_m_a_small_town_cop_in_rural_iowa_this_is_my_strangest_case_creepypasta.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Saint Zander Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creep... ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Rural Iowa had his fair share of slow days. The
[0:06] Speaker 1: small town I worked in made you second guess whether
[0:09] Speaker 1: anything ever really happened here. My radio crackled to life
[0:14] Speaker 1: that evening, breaking the long lull of the silence officer
[0:20] Speaker 1: You there. It was Bill Hastings, a farmer whose land
[0:26] Speaker 1: stretched for miles past the town limits, salted the earth.
[0:30] Speaker 1: Kind of guy, steady, not prone to dramatics. If he
[0:35] Speaker 1: was calling, it wasn't for nothing. I think my neighbors
[0:40] Speaker 1: are missing. I let out of breath, rubbing my temple.
[0:46] Speaker 1: Who the Barnes family. I ain't seen them in two weeks.
[0:51] Speaker 1: Thought maybe they'd gone on vacation. But the house is
[0:54] Speaker 1: all let up, same as it was last night, Livestock
[0:58] Speaker 1: still penned up, car still there. Something ain't right. The
[1:05] Speaker 1: Barnes family. I knew them, or at least I knew
[1:10] Speaker 1: of them. A quiet, unremarkable household. They never caused any trouble,
[1:17] Speaker 1: at least not to my knowledge. Married couple, two kids,
[1:22] Speaker 1: always polite to the grocery store, always smiling at church.
[1:26] Speaker 1: You'd think they came straight from the normal rockwell paintings.
[1:31] Speaker 1: Not the kind of people you worried about. Maybe they
[1:35] Speaker 1: left in a hurry. Could have had a family emergency, maybe,
[1:41] Speaker 1: Bill said, but he didn't sound convinced. I wasn't either.
[1:48] Speaker 1: I assured him I'd check it out, then pulled my
[1:51] Speaker 1: cruiser onto the highway heading west. The drive was long,
[1:57] Speaker 1: the scenery monotonous, expanded of golden fields rolling endlessly in
[2:02] Speaker 1: every direction, wind, turbines slowly turning like skeletal sentinels on
[2:07] Speaker 1: the horizon. The deeper I went, the fewer signs of life.
[2:12] Speaker 1: I saw fewer homes, fewer cars, just empty stretches of
[2:18] Speaker 1: farmland and the occasional crow perched on a fence post.
[2:24] Speaker 1: As I turned on to the narrow dirt road leading
[2:27] Speaker 1: to the barn's property, a thin mist had begun to
[2:30] Speaker 1: creep over the fields, swirling in the wake of my
[2:33] Speaker 1: head lights. The sun had started dipping below the horizon,
[2:38] Speaker 1: bleeding deep oranges and purples into the sky, stretching shadows
[2:43] Speaker 1: long across the land. The house was lit up like
[2:47] Speaker 1: a beacon in the dark. Every window glowed with warm
[2:52] Speaker 1: golden light, like a dull house staged for no one
[2:55] Speaker 1: in particular. I killed the engine, the sudden silence pressing
[3:01] Speaker 1: in around me. The wind had picked up rustling the
[3:05] Speaker 1: corn stalks that stood at the property's edge, their dry
[3:09] Speaker 1: leaves whispering like unseen voices. The gravel crunched under my
[3:15] Speaker 1: boots as I stepped out of the cruiser. The wind
[3:18] Speaker 1: had died down now, leaving the air heavy and still.
[3:23] Speaker 1: Even the insects had gone quiet. There was a car
[3:27] Speaker 1: in the driveway. I came closer and inspected the old ford.
[3:33] Speaker 1: The tires were sunken into the ground below it, like
[3:36] Speaker 1: it had been sitting there for quite some time now.
[3:40] Speaker 1: Something about that bothered me. A family this out the
[3:44] Speaker 1: way would make trips to the stores and work frequently.
[3:48] Speaker 1: I justed my belt, resting one hand on the holster
[3:51] Speaker 1: at my hip. As I stepped onto the porch, the
[3:55] Speaker 1: wood groaned beneath my weight. I knocked twice, mister Barnes,
[4:03] Speaker 1: Missus Barnes. No answer. I knocked again, louder. Nothing. I
[4:13] Speaker 1: glanced at the windows. The curtains were drawn, revealing nothing.
[4:18] Speaker 1: I tried the tor knob unlocked. The door swung open
[4:24] Speaker 1: with a soft creak, revealing the dimly lit hallway beyond
[4:29] Speaker 1: a faint smell of cooked meat and something vaguely herbal rosemary,
[4:34] Speaker 1: maybe hung in the air. At first glance, everything looked normal.
[4:41] Speaker 1: The flaws were pristine, no dust, no muddy bootprints from
[4:45] Speaker 1: the farm, no signs of movement. Everything was placed perfectly,
[4:52] Speaker 1: cozy but sterre all. I stepped inside, pulled the door
[4:58] Speaker 1: shut behind me. The silence felt thick. I called out again.
[5:05] Speaker 1: My voice didn't echo. The house swallowed sound. I moved
[5:11] Speaker 1: carefully through the hallway, my boots making barely a whisper
[5:15] Speaker 1: on the polished wood. Nothing was out of place, no
[5:20] Speaker 1: sign of a break in, or at least not so far.
[5:25] Speaker 1: But the lights were on. The house was warm. Some
[5:30] Speaker 1: one had to have been here recently. Then I stepped
[5:35] Speaker 1: into the dining room and I stopped cold. The Barnes
[5:41] Speaker 1: family sat around the table, mother, father, two children, their
[5:47] Speaker 1: heads bowed forward, hands folded neatly on the wooden surface, motionless.
[5:56] Speaker 1: The food in front of them was untouched, but fairly fresh.
[6:01] Speaker 1: I felt my pulse kick up. My first instinct was
[6:04] Speaker 1: to move forward, to check their pulses, to say something,
[6:09] Speaker 1: but I didn't. Something held me in place, a pressure,
[6:15] Speaker 1: a weight in the air, like I had stepped into
[6:18] Speaker 1: something that wasn't meant to be seen. I forced myself
[6:23] Speaker 1: to take a slow step forward. I looked around the
[6:27] Speaker 1: room and above me. Carved into the ceiling above the
[6:31] Speaker 1: dinner table, deep uneven gashes in the wood, was a pentagram.
[6:40] Speaker 1: I took a slow step forward toward the table, my
[6:43] Speaker 1: pulse hammering in my ribs. Four people, but there were
[6:49] Speaker 1: five plates. I hadn't noticed it at first, not until
[6:56] Speaker 1: my eyes landed on the empty chair. The plate was
[7:00] Speaker 1: set perfectly so like all the others, but no one
[7:05] Speaker 1: was sitting there. I swallowed hard and looked at the
[7:09] Speaker 1: bodies again, forcing my breath to steady. I had to
[7:14] Speaker 1: be sure. I approached the father first, reaching out to
[7:20] Speaker 1: his wrist. His skin was cool, stiff, no pulse. His
[7:27] Speaker 1: head remained bowed. I did the same to the mother,
[7:32] Speaker 1: the same result. The kids too. They were dead. I
[7:38] Speaker 1: forced myself to stand straight, stepping back from the table,
[7:42] Speaker 1: my body itching with something I couldn't place. I needed
[7:47] Speaker 1: to call this in as soon as possible. I clicked
[7:52] Speaker 1: my radio voice tight, this is Officer Brims. I need
[7:57] Speaker 1: back up with the barn's property for the sea. No
[8:00] Speaker 1: signs of struggle, but something isn't right. Static crackled, Then
[8:07] Speaker 1: the despatcher's voice came through calm but firm copy that
[8:12] Speaker 1: brims nearest unit is twenty five minutes out. I let
[8:18] Speaker 1: out a slow breath, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
[8:22] Speaker 1: Twenty five minutes an eternity in a house like this.
[8:28] Speaker 1: My hand stareded on my belt. I had a choice.
[8:33] Speaker 1: I could wait outside until backup arrived, or I could
[8:37] Speaker 1: keep looking. I glanced back at the empty chair. I
[8:42] Speaker 1: needed to check the rest of the house. The first
[8:46] Speaker 1: law was pristine. There was no dust on the shelves,
[8:50] Speaker 1: no dishes in the sink, no coats by the door,
[8:53] Speaker 1: no toys left scattered in the den, not a single
[8:57] Speaker 1: sign of daily life. Even the refrigerator, when I opened
[9:02] Speaker 1: it was full fresh groceries. Nothing spoiled. This, at least
[9:09] Speaker 1: on the surface, did not seem like a house that
[9:12] Speaker 1: had gone through internal turmoil. In fact, it seemed like
[9:17] Speaker 1: they had been living just fine until the very moment
[9:20] Speaker 1: I had stepped in. I clenched my jaw and turned
[9:24] Speaker 1: toward the stairs. I needed to check the second floor.
[9:31] Speaker 1: As I moved toward them, my boots felt too loud
[9:34] Speaker 1: against the hard wood. The air felt thicker. I noticed
[9:39] Speaker 1: the first few steps seemed more used than the rest
[9:42] Speaker 1: of them. They were cracked, their edges smoothed out, as
[9:47] Speaker 1: if they had been used a thousand times. I climbed
[9:51] Speaker 1: the first step, then the second. I half expected something
[9:56] Speaker 1: to stop me, but nothing did. I made my way
[10:01] Speaker 1: to the second floor slowly, and that was when I
[10:05] Speaker 1: saw the first sign that this house wasn't as spotless
[10:10] Speaker 1: as it seemed. The upstairs wasn't like the first floor.
[10:17] Speaker 1: The hallway stretched before me, long and narrow lined, with
[10:21] Speaker 1: doors on either side. The illusion of a perfect home
[10:25] Speaker 1: was breaking. Whereas the first floor was maintained a perfection,
[10:31] Speaker 1: this one looked like it hadn't seen a visitor in
[10:34] Speaker 1: quite some time. Dust had settled along the base boards.
[10:39] Speaker 1: The air smelt faintly damp, like wood left a rot
[10:42] Speaker 1: in an old attic. The doors were all shut, but
[10:46] Speaker 1: summered small gaps where they hadn't been pulled fully closed.
[10:51] Speaker 1: And then I saw it, a framed photograph sitting on
[10:56] Speaker 1: the hallway table. It shouldn't have caught my tension the
[11:00] Speaker 1: way it did, but something about it immediately made my
[11:04] Speaker 1: stomach tighten. I stepped closer. It was the Barnes family,
[11:12] Speaker 1: seated at the dinner table, just as I had found them, downstairs,
[11:17] Speaker 1: but there was something else in the picture. My fingers
[11:23] Speaker 1: twitched as I reached for it. The fifth chair was
[11:27] Speaker 1: not empty. There was something sitting in it, a mass
[11:34] Speaker 1: of flesh, warped, uneven, grotesque and small, not a person.
[11:43] Speaker 1: It had the vague shape of a child, but its
[11:45] Speaker 1: limbs were swollen, bulbous, unnatural. The flesh looked stretched too, tight,
[11:52] Speaker 1: bulging in places, like something beneath the skin was pressing
[11:55] Speaker 1: outward desperate to escape. The family was beaming, teeth beard,
[12:02] Speaker 1: eyes wide. I carefully placed the photograph back down. I
[12:09] Speaker 1: passed a few closed doors, kids rooms, mostly they could
[12:14] Speaker 1: wait at the end of the hall. One door stood
[12:19] Speaker 1: slightly open, the master bedroom. The second I stepped inside,
[12:26] Speaker 1: the smell hit me. Copper, thick, sharp, unmistakable, blood, a
[12:38] Speaker 1: lot of it. My breath caught in my throat as
[12:42] Speaker 1: my eyes landed on the bed. You see a lot
[12:46] Speaker 1: of things as a police officer, but each and every
[12:50] Speaker 1: gore scene HiT's just like the first. You never get
[12:55] Speaker 1: used to seeing death, or even a place where something
[12:58] Speaker 1: had once died. It leaves a permanent mark. The sheets,
[13:04] Speaker 1: the mattress, even the floor beneath it, all soaked through,
[13:10] Speaker 1: dark and wet. The stain had spread far beyond the
[13:14] Speaker 1: door frame, creeping outward in a pattern that made my
[13:18] Speaker 1: skin crawl. But there was no body or sign of
[13:23] Speaker 1: a struggle, just a pull of blood and the overwhelming,
[13:28] Speaker 1: sickening reality that some one had bled out ear. I
[13:34] Speaker 1: stepped forward, careful not to let my boots sink too
[13:37] Speaker 1: deep into the carpet. My instincts screamed at me to leave,
[13:42] Speaker 1: to turn back, to wait for back up, but I
[13:46] Speaker 1: suppressed them. I always did. I needed to understand. I
[13:55] Speaker 1: turned my attention to the night stand. A small black
[13:59] Speaker 1: leather bomb bo sat there, open, waiting a journal. I
[14:08] Speaker 1: picked it up, flipping back to the first few pages,
[14:13] Speaker 1: March fourth. We lost him, We lost him, We lost him,
[14:19] Speaker 1: We lost him. The doctor said it was quick, that
[14:22] Speaker 1: it wasn't painful. But how would they know. They don't
[14:26] Speaker 1: know what his last breath sounded like. They don't know
[14:29] Speaker 1: how his fingers felt when they went limp in mind.
[14:33] Speaker 1: They don't know how his eyes looked, staring at me
[14:36] Speaker 1: but not seeing me. I can't do this, I can't.
[14:43] Speaker 1: The rest of the page was scratched out violently. Deep
[14:46] Speaker 1: black ink slashed through the words, rendering them unreadable. March fourteenth,
[14:55] Speaker 1: I found something. I think it will work. I searched everywhere, hospitals, therapists,
[15:02] Speaker 1: grief support groups, even church, but no one had answers,
[15:07] Speaker 1: No one had what I needed. But I found it,
[15:11] Speaker 1: guided by the grace of the Holy, tucked away in
[15:14] Speaker 1: a library archive, in a book older than the town itself.
[15:19] Speaker 1: I read the passage a dozen times, my fingers shaking
[15:23] Speaker 1: over the page. To unbury the lost, the body must
[15:28] Speaker 1: be claimed, the name must be called, the invitation must
[15:32] Speaker 1: be set. The flesh will answer if the will is
[15:37] Speaker 1: strong enough. I don't understand it fully yet, but I will.
[15:46] Speaker 1: March seventeenth. I went to his grave today March nineteenth.
[15:54] Speaker 1: The others don't understand. They say I'm losing myself, that
[15:58] Speaker 1: I need help, that I need to stop obsessing and
[16:01] Speaker 1: focus on the children I still have. They don't understand.
[16:06] Speaker 1: If this was one of them, I would never tell
[16:09] Speaker 1: them to stop searching. I went back to the grave tonight,
[16:14] Speaker 1: I dug March twenty ninth. It's working. He's come back.
[16:23] Speaker 1: I feel him stronger now, he's getting closer. But I
[16:27] Speaker 1: don't think he knows how to come home yet. The
[16:30] Speaker 1: book says The final steps requires an offering, something from us,
[16:35] Speaker 1: something our flesh. It doesn't say how much, but I
[16:39] Speaker 1: think I understand now. We will do whatever it takes.
[16:46] Speaker 1: April first, tomorrow, he's the final step. The table is set,
[16:52] Speaker 1: the house is prepared, the offering is ready. I can
[16:57] Speaker 1: feel him waiting. We will welcome him home April second.
[17:06] Speaker 1: It worked, he came back. We are whole again. I
[17:13] Speaker 1: let the journal slip from my fingers. A breath I
[17:16] Speaker 1: hadn't realized I was holding shuddered out of me. I
[17:20] Speaker 1: looked back toward the blood soaked bed. They had done
[17:25] Speaker 1: something here. That mass I had seen in the picture
[17:28] Speaker 1: crawled back into my mind. Was that the child they
[17:32] Speaker 1: had brought back downstairs? The door creaked open. I froze
[17:43] Speaker 1: for a split second. I thought I had imagined it.
[17:47] Speaker 1: Then the noise followed, a low, wet, rattling breath that
[17:53] Speaker 1: pushed through the entire home. My grip on my gun tightened.
[17:59] Speaker 1: The air shifted, not just in the room, everywhere. The
[18:05] Speaker 1: walls grown like old bones, flexing. The wooden beams above
[18:09] Speaker 1: me settled with a deep, unnatural creek. I heard something
[18:14] Speaker 1: shudder through the house, not from a single direction, but
[18:19] Speaker 1: all around me. I took a step toward the door,
[18:23] Speaker 1: gun raised. My boots felt too loud on the floor,
[18:29] Speaker 1: a disgusting version of a baby's voice. It wasn't normal,
[18:37] Speaker 1: not an actual baby's voice. It was low, warped, deep
[18:43] Speaker 1: and slow, like something trying to mimic a baby's voice
[18:48] Speaker 1: but failing. Then the entire house shook. It started with
[18:56] Speaker 1: a violent tremor beneath my feet, just one sudden and forceful,
[19:02] Speaker 1: like something massive. It shifted below the foundation, the light
[19:06] Speaker 1: bulb and the ceiling flickered. Then from downstairs, I heard
[19:12] Speaker 1: the sound of chairs scraping against the floor. The plates
[19:16] Speaker 1: clattered softly, as if something had just sat down. A deep,
[19:22] Speaker 1: nauseating instinct crawled up my spine. My fingers ached from
[19:27] Speaker 1: how tightly I gripped my gun. I kept it leveled
[19:31] Speaker 1: in front of me, moving slowly. This is Officer Brims.
[19:37] Speaker 1: If anyone is here, make your presence known, I said,
[19:41] Speaker 1: forcing my voice to stay steady. No response followed. I
[19:48] Speaker 1: descended the stairs one step at a time, the wood
[19:51] Speaker 1: groaning beneath my weight. There was a smell now I
[19:55] Speaker 1: hadn't noticed before, damp, rot and decay. I reached the
[20:02] Speaker 1: bottom step. Ahead past the archway was the dining room.
[20:09] Speaker 1: I couldn't see the table yet, but I could hear it. Wet, chewing,
[20:15] Speaker 1: smacking lips, heavy labored breathing. Something was sitting there, and
[20:24] Speaker 1: it sounded like it was eating. I rounded the corner.
[20:31] Speaker 1: Sitting at the table, hunched over a plate of untouched food.
[20:36] Speaker 1: Was the thing. A baby, but not a baby. It
[20:43] Speaker 1: was massive. It bulged and pulsed, its flesh stretched too
[20:48] Speaker 1: tight over a swollen, shifting form. The skin was pale
[20:53] Speaker 1: and slick, streaked with purple veins, quivering as if something
[20:58] Speaker 1: underneath was trying to break free. Its arms were thick
[21:03] Speaker 1: and meaty, with fingers that ended in blunt, bloated stubs.
[21:09] Speaker 1: It was bigger than it was in the picture, much bigger.
[21:13] Speaker 1: Assuming it was the same thing. It shoveled food into
[21:18] Speaker 1: its mouth, gnashing hungrily, slurping and swallowing, grease mearing across
[21:24] Speaker 1: its wet, sagging lips. I could hear it swallowing thick,
[21:30] Speaker 1: heavy gulps, like it was trying to fill an endless void.
[21:35] Speaker 1: The chair beneath it creaked, cracked, The wooden frames sank
[21:39] Speaker 1: into the floor beneath its impossible weight. It was too large,
[21:44] Speaker 1: they sit properly, too swollen to move. It was stuck
[21:49] Speaker 1: here on the first floor. That's why the second floor
[21:54] Speaker 1: was in the condition it was in. And then it stopped.
[22:01] Speaker 1: Its hand froze over the plate mid motion. Its slack
[22:05] Speaker 1: mouth stilled, the gnashing of teeth ceasing instantly. The silence
[22:11] Speaker 1: rippled through the room. Then its head began to turn slowly.
[22:20] Speaker 1: The movement was unnatural, mechanical, like the muscles in its
[22:25] Speaker 1: neck weren't working correctly. The flesh at the side of
[22:29] Speaker 1: its throat rippled, as if something inside was rearranging itself.
[22:35] Speaker 1: And then it saw me. Its black, soulless eyes locked
[22:42] Speaker 1: onto mine. It opened its mouth to scream. The sound
[22:48] Speaker 1: that came out wasn't human, It wasn't even animal. It
[22:53] Speaker 1: was wet, gurgling, thick, like something drowning in its own throat,
[23:00] Speaker 1: a bubbling, choking howl that ripped through my ear. Drums
[23:05] Speaker 1: the plate shoot on the table. The lights flickered. Then
[23:11] Speaker 1: it lunged. The table snapped beneath it, splintering into shouts
[23:17] Speaker 1: of wood as its enormous, bloated body searched forward. I
[23:23] Speaker 1: fired a direct hit, sent a mass, then another. The
[23:30] Speaker 1: gunshots roared through the house, deafening, and it didn't stop.
[23:36] Speaker 1: The bullet sank into its flesh like mud, disappearing with thick,
[23:41] Speaker 1: wet plops, like id fired into a rotten, swollen carcase.
[23:46] Speaker 1: It didn't flinch. I ran. I turned on my heel
[23:52] Speaker 1: and bolted through the archway, my boots slamming against the floor.
[23:56] Speaker 1: Breath ragged behind me. I could hear it moving, sliding, dragging,
[24:04] Speaker 1: breaking things as it followed. Walls groaned, the house shuddered.
[24:10] Speaker 1: I didn't look back, entirely focused on creating distance. I
[24:15] Speaker 1: barreled down the hall, past the stairs, toward the front door,
[24:20] Speaker 1: and the moment my fingers touched the doorknob, the entire
[24:24] Speaker 1: house shook violently once more, like something huge had struck
[24:28] Speaker 1: it from the inside. The windows shattered, the lights burst
[24:33] Speaker 1: into sparks, the walls buckled from the outside. Flashes of
[24:39] Speaker 1: red and blue adown the walls of the house. Tires
[24:42] Speaker 1: screeching back up had arrived. I felt it right behind me.
[24:50] Speaker 1: My body froze for a split second, and just then
[24:55] Speaker 1: gunfire irrupted all around me, a deafening barrage of bullets
[25:00] Speaker 1: and shock and blasts tore through the walls, the windows,
[25:03] Speaker 1: the thing itself. It screamed. Not like before, this time
[25:11] Speaker 1: it was different. It wasn't the gurgling, childlike noise I'd
[25:16] Speaker 1: heard in the dining room. This was primal, like something
[25:21] Speaker 1: realizing for the first time that it could be hurt.
[25:26] Speaker 1: And so I raised my own weapon and shot every bullet.
[25:30] Speaker 1: I had. Glass rain down as the windows exploded outward,
[25:35] Speaker 1: the walls buckled inward, like the entire structure was caving
[25:38] Speaker 1: in on itself. I hit the floor just as the
[25:42] Speaker 1: thing convulsed, a massive, bulging body rippled, as if the
[25:47] Speaker 1: fledge itself was trying to crawl away from the bullet.
[25:51] Speaker 1: But the officers kept firing round after round, shot after shot.
[25:58] Speaker 1: The air filled with smoke, gunpowder, and the acred stench
[26:02] Speaker 1: of burning flesh. The thing shuddered, twitched, spasmed, and then
[26:11] Speaker 1: it collapsed. Its enormous forms sagged, crumpling into itself like
[26:18] Speaker 1: a rotten pumpkin left too long in the sun. The
[26:22] Speaker 1: house gave one last, deep, sickening groan. I lay my back, panting,
[26:29] Speaker 1: staring at the ceiling. As the dust settled. Someone grabbed
[26:34] Speaker 1: my arm yanking me up brims. Geez, are you all right?
[26:41] Speaker 1: I turned toward the voice. It was Officer Dorgado, wide eyed,
[26:46] Speaker 1: mouth open and shock, his rifle still half raised. I
[26:52] Speaker 1: stood up and made my way out without saying a
[26:54] Speaker 1: word to anyone. I sat in my cruiser, still cold
[27:00] Speaker 1: and soot, dried, sweat, and something I didn't want a name.
[27:05] Speaker 1: The lead investigator, a man i'd never seen before that morning,
[27:10] Speaker 1: with graying hair, a stiff suit, and eyes too tired
[27:14] Speaker 1: to still be sharp, stood next to me, watching the
[27:17] Speaker 1: flames consume what was left at the Barns home. He
[27:22] Speaker 1: took a long drag of his cigarette, exhaled, and then
[27:26] Speaker 1: turned to me. Forget this ever happened. The cleanup started
[27:34] Speaker 1: before the sun even rose. By the time the first
[27:38] Speaker 1: hint of dawn broke over the fields, the house was
[27:41] Speaker 1: already a husk, hollowed out, emptied, stripped of everything that
[27:47] Speaker 1: tied it to what had happened inside. No bodies were
[27:51] Speaker 1: taken out, no coroner's reports, just unmarked black trucks rolling in,
[27:57] Speaker 1: men in plain uniforms moving with eerie recision officers who
[28:01] Speaker 1: wouldn't look me in the eye. The Barnes family was
[28:05] Speaker 1: buried within the hour and the house was burned to
[28:08] Speaker 1: the ground. The newspaper printed a quite obituary, something about
[28:14] Speaker 1: a tragic accident, a gas leak, a whole family gone,
[28:19] Speaker 1: just like that, Like whatever was inside, it needed to
[28:24] Speaker 1: be erased, scorched from the land, the very dirt salted
[28:29] Speaker 1: so nothing could ever take root there again. Years have
[28:34] Speaker 1: passed and I've buried more cases than I can count,
[28:40] Speaker 1: but this one stayed

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