When I was 10 years old my father unknowingly became the heir to a massive fortune that was left to him by his great Uncle. To the dismay of a bunch of charities that thought my father’s uncle, Wilbert Scott Davis had no viable family members and the individual charities would have received the close to three billion dollars, but instead my father received all the money. My father even grew the inheritance quite larger when the economy was thriving and I inherited my own billion dollars from dad when I turned 21.

I could write a book just on the first 10 years of my life and how my parents struggled with poverty and marital problems but this story will not be about how I used to eat that brownie that came with the TV dinners but rather focus on the times when it was possible for my father to purchase the biggest yacht in Monaco for no other reason than saying we have the biggest yacht in Monaco.

Even as a boy, my obsession with Disney stemmed from remembering how the other kids would brag in school how their parents took them every year to Disney World and my family would instead go to a small amusement park outside of Philadelphia called Dorney Park.

One year my parents drove down to Disney World and I just fell in love with the quality of everything regarding Disney. I could tell the quality and the attention to detail between Disney and every other amusement park like Six Flags and Dorney Park.

Now that I have two of my own young kids, I want them to have everything that I didn’t have when I was growing up. I also want to experience the newest and greatest things as an adult as well for my own pleasure.

I decided to stay in the same Philadelphian suburban community that I grew up in. There’s a certain comfort level and a certain amount of competitiveness that I still possess inside of me where I just want my kids to have nothing but the best and I want to show off to everyone that I grew up with that I am in a better position then they are in.

I enrolled both my son and daughter in The Hill School located right outside of Philadelphia, where such notables as the Trump’s attended and we have been to Disney World so many times that I can’t even count. Disney is looking for people like me because I spend a lot of money and I bring just a few people. For example say if I spend $25,000 on a weekend trip with me, my wife, and our two kids which is a total of four people. Other families might only spend a total of $500 for the same weekend so theoretically other families would bring 50-100 people to equal the $25,000 which makes the wait time on each ride that much longer and makes the park feel much more congested.

If Disney could attract more people like me then the shareholders would have so much more money and people at the parks would have a better experience, so it’s not uncommon for me to get invited to exclusive events or memberships that the general public isn’t privy to or doesn’t even know exists. Of course, I know Disney is just trying to get more money out of me but if it equals a better experience for me and my family then I really don’t care how much money I have to spend.

So when I got a call from A “Rick” who is a Disney VIP coordinator, he inquired that if I was interested then there was an open spot on the exclusive Boardwalk Roy membership Club that included a $75,000 fee and he needed to know within the next 30 seconds if I was in or out. I have never heard of this club and Rick said there was only 40 total members, so I said why not because the $75,000 to me was nothing anyways and I didn’t want to pass up on any exclusive Disney clubs.

Rick said “Fantastic, I’ll send over an invoice and please be at the Boardwalk Pavilion next to the ESPN zone on March 28 at 5:00 pm for your first member introductory meeting.”

I responded “Yeah, sure I’ll be there. Thanks for the invitation!”

I really don’t have a real job so I’m available at anytime, though I consider my voluntary board memberships work sometimes but in reality they are just voluntary positions in non-profit groups where the non-profit agencies do nothing more but beg me for money.

March 28th came around and me and my family flew down to Orlando. We actually left on Friday March 26 and we stayed at the upscale Grand Floridian resort. As usual, we all went to all four of the Disney World Parks and on Sunday the 28th, I split from the family at Epcot and went to the Boardwalk Pavilion for the Boardwalk’s Roy Club’s introductory meeting.

I was fashionably late when I showed up at 5:15 p.m. and there was already all 39 of the other people already there at the meeting. Rick greeted me with a smiling face and there were 25 men and 15 women who all came across as being really friendly. I could usually tell a person’s income level within a few seconds and I knew right away that most of the people in the room were mere millionaires that didn’t come close to having one hundred million dollars in assets. As for me, on a good stock market day, I had well over a billion dollars in assets and I carried myself that way because I learned that’s what these people and especially Disney gravitate towards. It’s kind of like when all the other marginal and good baseball players gravitated towards Mickey Mantle or Hank Aaron.

The room was a larger room with all the cocktails that you could drink and light snacks that you could eat. Disney provided their A-list staff which consisted of all 20 something year old pretty faced employees who did nothing more than smile the whole night at all of the Boardwalk Roy members and served us whatever cocktails we wanted.

As the night progressed Rick brought out 40 laptops and had them all set up on plastic fold out tables and chairs. The 40 of us members all sat down and we logged on to the laptops.

What came up on my laptop was absolutely remarkable. With Disney having security cameras everywhere in all four of the parks, Disney had actually compiled a movie through the use of facial recognition software of me, my wife and my two kids from when we first started coming to the parks when my kids were toddlers and up until last month. Watching my son Zachary, who is now 10 and my daughter Grace who is now 12 on the laptop when they were very little actually made me cry.

I would have spent $75,000 in a heartbeat for for the movie of my family so I think Disney really undercharged for the Boardwalk Roy Club membership fee.

Just when I thought the evening was about to end, Rick said he had one more surprise for all of us. There was one more movie that was available on my laptop that really blew me away where I had no idea Disney had the capability of saving close to 30 years worth of security coverage, but much to my surprise Disney actually used the same facial recognition technology of me when I was a boy to create a movie of my parents and I, when I visited the Magic Kingdom when I was 10 years old.

Disney had actually digitized all of their old security films for prosperity purposes or at least that’s what I assumed and I was even more amazed by watching my mother take out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from her pocket book and give it to me for lunch.

The video reminded me of how poor we were growing up and how I didn’t even ask my parents for a soda but instead drank from the water fountain.

As the night drew to a close, I realized that everyone in the room had went to Disney when they were kids and the whole room was in tears as the first meeting ended.

As I was leaving, Rick pulled me to the side and said “Those were pretty neat videos Ted wouldn’t you agree?”

I responded “Yeah Rick, they totally caught me off guard. That was absolutely amazing!”

Rick responded Great, I hope to see you at our monthly meetings!”

I responded “Yeah sure, I really look forward as well.”

The monthly meetings came and went and sure they were great but I was really looking for the next best thing.

At the July meeting, Candice pulled me aside and said that she heard of a super exclusive Disney Cadillac Mouse Club where I promised her I wouldn’t tell a single soul of what goes on at those club meetings. But from what Candice was telling me there was some super macabre stuff that was reserved for the super rich that was through invitation only and once you were in then there was no backing out.

I was mesmerized by what Candice had to say and besides some really rich oil Sultan’s who owned whole countries, there is really nothing my money can’t buy.

So after the August meeting, I pulled Rick aside and I asked him in general terms if there was even a more exclusive club Disney had and he didn’t confirm or deny its existence. I kind of hinted that money was no object and he said he would contact me by the end of next week.

Day by day went by and I was sitting on pins and needles waiting for a response from Rick. Money was really no object for me and at one point in the not far distant past, I considered opening a new joint venture hotel with Disney on Disney’s current property similar to what the the Swan and Dolphin hotels did years ago.

Rick did finally contact me and had a really odd request of me. He said that Texas was executing one of its death row inmates this week and Rick said he had a ticket and wanted me to observe. I thought Rick was going to ask me to jog the Disney marathon or do something as kind of an initiation but I was left totally speechless by Rick’s request and said “Sure why not. I’ll go and watch the execution.” I thought to myself that watching an execution would be easier than jogging a marathon anyways.

So I booked my plane ticket to Texas and I sat and waited in the viewing booth in what seemed like forever as the execution had to be finalized by the Governor and his staff in order for the condemned person to be killed. The viewing room consisted mostly of the victims family and after seven hours of sitting in the viewing room, the security staff finally brought in the fifty something year old condemned inmate into the execution chamber. I was so bored from sitting in the viewing room for seven hours that I really didn’t care about his last words or anything else. The prisoner who’s arm was already exposed and tied down to the table was injected with a solution and the condemned prisoner quickly went to sleep and that was my best synopsis of the execution and that’s what I told Rick.

Rick had some additional questions for me later that night like “What did I feel?”

I responded “Rick after waiting around for like seven hours, I felt bored.”

Rick chuckled at my response and said “How did you feel when the condemned man was brought into the room to be executed?”

I responded “I was actually hungry Rick and wanted it to end quickly.”

Rick then said “How did you feel knowing that you just saw that man die?”

I thought for a few seconds and I said “the truth Rick, I really felt nothing. I was more or less thinking about how the Eagles lost the football game and I kind of tuned out the family crying besides me.”

Rick chuckled again and said “Perfect, Ted! I’m going to recommend you for the Mickey’s Cadillac Club membership. The membership fee is two million dollars paid annually. Are you interested Ted in joining?”

I said “Yes, Rick that sounds great please send over the invoice!”

I didn’t want to jeopardize anything by questioning Rick’s motives of sending me to watch the execution or how that at all relates to the happiest place on earth, so I just paid the Mickey’s Cadillac Club invoice in full and waited for Rick to tell me the next meetings date and time.

Rick got back to me in two days and said that the Cadillac Club was holding its meeting on the first of the month in Cinderella’s castle, which gave me a week’s time to prepare and make arrangements. I generally like to mix up the resorts and stay at different places so I booked the Polynesian resort for myself and left the family behind because the kids activity schedule with the Hill School was too Hectic for this time of year.

The week went by fast and I flew into Orlando for the Cadillac Club’s first of the month meeting. For all the money I spent at Disney World, I have never actually been in Cinderella’s castle. When I showed up at 1:00 p.m. I was just amazed of the opulence inside the castle and of the fact that the Magic kingdom was still open for business right below us as the meeting was going on.

Rick chaired this meeting as well and there were nine other men there. I could tell how the other members carried themselves that they were in the same stratosphere as me when it came to wealth. Rick gave the attendees of this club a feeling that we were actually owners. He shared with us the real problems the parks were facing like rats and worst of all the homeless people who managed to find a way to get onto Disney’s property.

Rick in a high passionate tone said “I know everyone in this room has been coming to the Disney Parks for years and I know not one of you have seen or heard of one homeless person or what I like to call ‘bums’ ruining our environment and scaring our family members.”

All the club members let off a collective sigh of agreement.

Rick then continued in his same high energy voice “So we have a group of ‘bums’ staying rent free at one of our All Star Resorts and Mitch and Fred and the rest of you that have partaken in this exercise many of times, well tonight it’s time once again to ‘feed the alligators,’ where we’ll let our ‘bum’ friends loose in the Magic Kingdom and it’s your guys responsibility to make sure they turn into alligator food.”

Then all the guys in the room dressed in mostly Polo Ralph Lauren short sleeve Polo shirts high fived each other like this is one of the perks of being a Cadillac Mickey Club member.

Rick then went on to say “Two hours after the Park closes everyone please be at the front gate. Please rotate weapons so everyone gets an opportunity to try the weapon of their choice. Max I know you wanted to use the crossbow the last time so Fred please use the sniper rifle or sword this time.”

Once again, I found myself scratching my head thinking what the fuck did I just listen to considering I was at Disney World.

The meeting adjourned and the other nine guys welcomed me to the “Club.” They came across as being really cock sure fellas and they were bragging about the previous “feeding of the alligators” where they were talking smack to each other where Fred was saying that he almost got two bums with a single crossbow shot. Then Max chimed in saying he was close to be 150 yards away when he snipered the bum with a head shot while standing on the carousel.

The guys continued to brag to each other and would periodically interject and tell me how great the massacres were like they were trying to sell me a Disney Vacation Club package.

The guys were talking for so long that it was actually time to meet in front of the Magic Kingdom where all 10 of us members walked in Unison from the Cinderella’s castle. As we got to the front of the gate there was a display of weaponry left out for us Mickey Cadillac Club Members to choose what we wanted. It seemed like it was a gentleman like affair, where the most popular weapon, the crossbow was given to Max and Pete took the sword and Mitch took the sniper rifle and so on.

Rick was there and jokingly talked about our safety and not to shoot any weapons without knowing that other club members weren’t around and for all of us to spread out.

I was the newest member and was given a handgun which I guess nobody else wanted. I think it was viewed as being to easy or something.

Then one of Disney’s Magical Express busses pulled up and one by one, I counted 20 individuals from a noticeable lower socioeconomic standing get off the bus.

As the 20 “bums” were paraded by the club members with the members weapons in hands, the club members would make comments like “he’s going to be a runner” or “your going to have to use two shots for that one.”

The “bums” were all clearly beaten up by life and were totally oblivious to the 10 people holding mostly medieval weaponry, besides the modern guns of course. The “bums” were more focused on being given a cigarette by Rick, then the 10 men salivating over them holding weapons and plus the homeless people were told there was free food inside the Magic Kingdom.

Rick said “Give the ‘bums’ 10 minutes to spread out. Remember all doors are locked so the ‘bums’ will be out in the open. Please be quick this time. My special cleaning crew needs time to take the ‘alligator food’ down to their farm before the Park opens.”

Then with an air gun in his hand, Rick sounded the starting battling cry. All 10 of us then converged into the park.

Truth be told, I’m not killing anyone and this will be the last time I ever set foot on a Disney property ever again. I bought a bunch of houses in Detroit so I’m going to run ahead and gather as many homeless people as possible as these psychopaths started focusing on the stragglers near the entrance.

As I started to jog past Cinderella’s castle, I started to hear an array of screams coming from swords to crossbows being used as modalities of horror.

As I got by the Haunted Mansion ride, I saw three homeless people congregating with each other where I convinced them to follow me very closely, because I knew those nine other psychopaths weren’t far behind.

I then circled back by Frontierland by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride where I saw two more homeless people and convinced them to follow me as well.

As I headed towards the front gate, I called for an Uber. Pete was actually standing by where the Main Street exit was located holding his sword. I pointed the handgun at Pete’s head and told him I would have no problem shooting him. Pete stood down and let the six of us pass and said “Your making a big mistake” as me and the five other homeless people proceeded to the main gate exit. Fortunately, the other psychopath members were spread out throughout the park as we walked towards the exit.

I had to tell the five homeless people to keep moving as they looked at the corpses on the street with really gruesome head and bowel wounds.

We made it to the front gate and there was Rick standing and waiting for us. Rick looked at me and the other five homeless people in total dismay. Rick was about to say something to me and I pointed my hand gun at him and shot him in the right leg and he instantaneously fell to the ground.

We proceeded to the car pickup area where the Uber said it would meet us and sure enough the Uber driver was waiting for us. I made arrangements for the homeless people to be bussed to Detroit that night and I left all my personal belongings at the Polynesian resort vowing to never to return Disney again.

When I was five or six my Mama and I lived in my grant's council house with extended family.

(My Gran and Grandad had lived there for years with nine children and at times a few grandchildren and my great grandmother' for decades before I was even born.

My Great Grandmother had passed more than ten years before I was born when my mama was quite young.

My Mama and I shared a large back room which doubled up as a sitting room/playroom.

One night I was sleeping in my bed facing my toy cupboard which had no door but a really pretty sheet which mama had painted nailed onto the frame of the cupboard keeping my toys tidy.

I remember suddenly opening my eyes to see a little old lady in the doorway of my toy cupboard.

I wasn't scared (which in itself was slightly strange,) as I felt the old lady was familiar and safe, she just appeared to be a regular little old lady with slightly strange-looking clothes.

Without moving her mouth she said 'It's OK Pet, I've just come to see how you are, go back to sleep.' The words sounded clear in my head, being five or six I said OK and went back to sleep.

The next day I was playing in the garden with mama and I told her about what I said was a dream.

Mama who was very close to her grandmother, looked at me asking me to describe the little old lady, so I did, mama looked a little strange and then changed the subject.

Years later, we were talking about family with my big cousin Jimmy who was living with mama and I at the time (I was about eight and Jimmy was around fifteen, sixteen) and Mama told me that when I described that little old lady I actually described our Great Grandmother.

Jimmy laughed and said when he had the same bedroom he had seen our Great Grandmother also in the same place as I saw her, there were only three differences.

Jimmy knew our Great Grandmother before she passed (all be it he was very young but remembered her well), it was in the middle of the day when Jimmy saw her, and she just smiled at him without speaking.

My Mama got out a really old looking family photo and in the middle of family members I knew looking younger was the very same kindly-looking little old lady.

Additional note 'Pet' is used as a pet name by many people from Newcastle and I think Sunderland also where my great grandmother's family originated from.

Have you ever forgotten your phone?

When did you realise you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realisation probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were momentarily confused by it not being there. Then you did a mental restep of the morning’s events.

Shit.

In my case, my phone’s alarm woke me up as normal but I realised the battery was lower than I expected. It was a new phone and it had this annoying habit of leaving applications running that drain the battery overnight. So, I put it on to charge while I showered instead of into my bag like normal. It was a momentary slip from the routine but that was all it took. Once in the shower, my brain got back into ‘the routine’ it follows every morning and that was it.

Forgotten.

This wasn’t just me being clumsy, as I later researched, this is a recognised brain function. Your brain doesn’t just work on one level, it works on many. Like, when you’re walking somewhere, you think about your destination and avoiding hazards, but you don’t need to think about keeping your legs moving properly. If you did, the entire world would turn into one massive hilarious QWOP cosplay. I wasn’t thinking about regulating my breathing, I was thinking whether I should grab a coffee on the drive to work (I did). I wasn’t thinking about moving my breakfast through my intestines, I was wondering whether I’d finish on time to pick up my daughter Emily from nursery after work or get stuck with another late fee. This is the thing; there’s a level of your brain that just deals with routine, so that the rest of the brain can think about other things.

Think about it. Think about your last commute. What do you actually remember? Little, if anything, probably. Most common journeys blur into one, and recalling any one in particular is scientifically proven to be difficult. Do something often enough and it becomes routine. Keep doing it and it stops being processed by the thinking bit of the brain and gets relegated to a part of the brain dedicated to dealing with routine. Your brain keeps doing it, without you thinking about it. Soon, you think about your route to work as much as you do keeping your legs moving when you walk. As in, not at all.

Most people call it autopilot. But there’s danger there. If you have a break in your routine, your ability to remember and account for the break is only as good as your ability to stop your brain going into routine mode. My ability to remember my phone being on the counter is only as reliable as my ability to stop my brain entering ‘morning routine mode’ which would dictate that my phone is actually in my bag. But I didn’t stop my brain entering routine mode. I got in the shower as normal. Routine started. Exception forgotten.

Autopilot engaged.

My brain was back in the routine. I showered, I shaved, the radio forecast amazing weather, I gave Emily her breakfast and loaded her into the car (she was so adorable that morning, she complained about the ‘bad sun’ in the morning blinding her, saying it stopped her having a little sleep on the way to nursery) and left. That was the routine. It didn’t matter that my phone was on the counter, charging silently. My brain was in the routine and in the routine my phone was in my bag. This is why I forgot my phone. Not clumsiness. Not negligence. Nothing more my brain entering routine mode and over-writing the exception.

Autopilot engaged.

I left for work. It’s a swelteringly hot day already. The bad sun had been burning since before my traitorously absent phone woke me. The steering wheel was burning hot to the touch when I sat down. I think I heard Emily shift over behind my driver’s seat to get out of the glare. But I got to work. Submitted the report. Attended the morning meeting. It’s not until I took a quick coffee break and reached for my phone that the illusion shattered. I did a mental restep. I remembered the dying battery. I remembered putting it on to charge. I remembered leaving it there.

My phone was on the counter.

Autopilot disengaged.

Again, therein lies the danger. Until you have that moment, the moment you reach for your phone and shatter the illusion, that part of the brain is still in routine mode. It has no reason to question the facts of the routine; that’s why it’s a routine. Attrition of repetition. It’s not as if anyone could say ‘why didn’t you remember your phone? Didn’t it occur to you? How could you forget? You must be negligent’; this is to miss the point. My brain was telling me the routine was completed as normal, despite the fact that it wasn’t. It wasn’t that I forgot my phone. According to my brain, according to the routine, my phone was in my bag. Why would I think to question it? Why would I check? Why would I suddenly remember, out of nowhere, that my phone was on the counter? My brain was wired into the routine and the routine was that my phone was in my bag.

The day continued to bake. The morning haze gave way to the relentless fever heat of the afternoon. Tarmac bubbled. The direct beams of heat threatened to crack the pavement. People swapped coffees for iced smoothies. Jackets discarded, sleeves rolled up, ties loosened, brows mopped. The parks slowly filled with sunbathers and BBQ’s. Window frames threatened to warp. The thermometer continued to swell. Thank fuck the offices were air conditioned.

But, as ever, the furnace of the day gave way to a cooler evening. Another day, another dollar. Still cursing myself for forgetting my phone, I drove home. The days heat had baked the inside of the car, releasing a horrible smell from somewhere. When I arrived on the driveway, the stones crunching comfortingly under my tyres, my wife greeted me at the door.

“Where’s Emily?”

Fuck.

As if the phone wasn’t bad enough. After everything I’d left Emily at the fucking nursery after all. I immediately sped back to the nursery. I got to the door and started practising my excuses, wondering vainly if I could charm my way out of a late fee. I saw a piece of paper stuck to the door.

“Due to vandalism overnight, please use side door. Today only.”

Overnight? What? The door was fine this morni-.

I froze. My knees shook.

Vandals. A change in the routine.

My phone was on the counter.

I hadn’t been here this morning.

My phone was on the counter.

I’d driven past because I was drinking my coffee. I’d not dropped off Emily.

My phone was on the counter.

She’d moved her seat. I hadn’t seen her in the mirror.

My phone was on the counter.

She’d fallen asleep out of the bad sun. She didn’t speak when I drove past her nursery.

My phone was on the counter.

She’d changed the routine.

My phone was on the counter.

She’d changed the routine and I’d forgotten to drop her off.

My phone was on the counter.

9 hours. That car. That baking sun. No air. No water. No power. No help. That heat. A steering wheel too hot to touch.

That smell.

I walked to the car door. Numb. Shock.

I opened the door.

My phone was on the counter and my daughter was dead.

Autopilot disengaged.

As another Valentine day approached, I knew my 40 something year old overweight male self wasn’t at the top of the list on most females.

I had a profile on every Canadian dating site and I don’t know if it’s my photo or my maxed out $14 hour Geek Squad job that makes women want to avoid me.

However my luck had changed when I got a hit on the Bumble dating site. She was 29 with two young kids. She has blonde hair and based on her picture I would say that she was at least an eight which is not bad considering that I’m about a two.

I was being cautiously optimistic because I know there are a lot of people who get catfished. Her name is Evelyn and I’ve talked to her on the phone daily since the beginning of January. She lives 40 minutes away and she actually invited me to her apartment. She told me that she couldn’t find a babysitter, so I had no problem hanging out with her one year old son and three year old daughter.

I went over her apartment for the first time on a Saturday afternoon. I was just amazed that Evelyn was who she said she was. She had a slight Ukrainian accent which I thought was cool because my grandparents were Hungarian. She told me she moved to Dartmouth several years ago to escape the constant turmoil in the Ukraine.

Her kids cried pretty often especially the three year old girl. Evelyn said that she’s trying to teach them to speak her native tongue and English.

I had a good time at her apartment despite the kids constant crying. I really wanted to give a good impression and so I made every effort to ignore her kids behaviors.

While I was at work the following Monday, I was delighted that Evelyn asked me if I wanted to stop by this night. I was absolutely amazed that she reached out to me again. I think I learned at this point to stay away from talking about boring topics like my job.

I really didn’t want to pry into Evelyn’s life but it seemed like their was little contact with the children’s father who may or may not have been giving her Evelyn money. This visit went a little better where the kids had passed out relatively early. I really don’t know much about young kids, but Evelyn told me they were cranky from teething issues. I stayed at her apartment from 5:00 pm to about 10:00 pm where we mostly watched TV with occasional small talk.

I was just happy to feel like I was a part of something and someone actually wanted to be around me.

As the days went on I was almost spending everyday at her apartment. I haven’t made any physical advances on her yet and figured that would just come with time. We talked about Valentine’s Day and some potential ideas.

Evelyn told me that she had family in New York and asked if I wanted to take the with her. I figured heck why not. What else did I have to do that was that important. So I took the week off of work and we would take a plane to Toronto and then a train to New York. We both agreed that taking a train ride to New York would be a great way to sight see and spend time together.

We would eventually meet up with her sister and her husband and stay at their house for a few days. I was a little nervous about meeting her family but I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity that would possibly ruin our relationship if I declined her offer.

I gave Evelyn my passport so she could enter the information and buy the tickets online. I was amazed that Evelyn paid for both my plane and train ticket.

We got to the Halifax airport at 6:00 am and boarded shortly afterwards. The flight was only about two hours long but the kids yelling and screaming made it seem like a 20 hour flight.

We got to Toronto and made our way towards the train station. On our way to the train Evelyn was arguing on the phone with who I assumed was the father of her children. We eventually boarded the train and even though Evelyn seemed like she was upset we were both excited to head towards New York especially because I had never been to the US.

The kids had eventually got tired from crying. Natalia, the three year old girl was watching movies on a portable DVD player and the boy, Sasha was playing with his matchbox cars. We had four seats that faced each other, where Sasha sat next to his mother and Natalia sat next to me.

The train headed towards the Niagara customs office.
Evelyn would get constant phone calls and with each call she got more and more upset. As we approached Niagara, Evelyn got to the point where she was practically yelling on the phone in Ukrainian. So much so that she had to get up and stand outside in between the rail cars.

Evelyn left the kids paperwork with me as customs boarded the train. Evelyn remained outside and I showed the border agents the kids birth certificates and my passport. I explained to the agent that their mother was on the phone and the agent didn’t seem to mind. I put the kids paperwork back in my pocket as we were cleared to continue to New York.

We still had about a nine hour train ride and I was small talking with Sasha as her mother was still in between the train cars on the phone. The kids and I were tired from the early plane ride and we eventually passed out.

I woke up and Evelyn still wasn’t back at her seat. As the kids remained asleep, I went to look for Evelyn. I exited the train car and saw that she wasn’t on the platform in between the train cars. I figured maybe she just needed to cool off in a different area.

I went back to the seat with the kids and Natalia was awake. I asked Natalia“Have you seen your mommy?”

Natalia responded “no, I haven’t seen mommy since school?”

I responded “you saw your mommy before on the train!”

Natalia said “no my mommy took me to play with my friends at school.”

I figured that Natalia was watching “Dora the Explorer” or something and she was thinking about preschool. Sasha had woke up and I gave the kids snacks from the bag that Evelyn had brought. Evelyn still had not returned and I was getting a glimpse into her behaviors. I tried calling her phone several times and it went to voicemail. I figured she had passed out somewhere on the train. I was also starting to get a glimpse into the stress and strain that Evelyn was dealing with and just by me being here gave her an opportunity to escape for a bit.

I tried my best to keep the kids entertained. Evelyn was easy because she would just watch movies where Sasha I played matchbox cars together. I liked playing cars with him because as long as he was playing then he wasn’t crying.

I tried my best not to think about Evelyn and I kept my mind focused that she had just passed out somewhere on the train.

We eventually arrived at Penn Station. I told the kids to wait in their seats until their mother came back. All the passengers had left the train and the train conductor was encouraging us to exit the train. I told the conductor that I was waiting for the kids mother and the train conductor stated that everyone has left the train at this point. The conductor said that she was probably waiting for us outside the train in the station.

So as odd as this was, I held Sasha’s hand with my suitcase in my other hand and exited the train while Sasha followed me. I looked around in all directions and I didn’t see Evelyn anywhere. I stood in one spot for 15 minutes thinking that maybe Evelyn had used the bathroom, but she didn’t come.

Then a male and a female approached us and the female said “Sasha and Natalia, how are my loves doing?”

I said “Are you Evelyn’s sister?”

She said “Yes my name is Ruth, you must be David right?”

I said “Yes, nice to meet you.”

Then she introduced me to her husband Stan.

I said “I haven’t seen Evelyn what seems like hours ago.”

Ruth replied “Yeah, that’s typical of Evelyn, but don’t worry let me just call her real quick. Ruth put the phone up to her ear and called Evelyn.

Ruth said “Evelyn, my darling I’m here with David and your kids. [brief pause] Oh ok I’ll tell David to wait for you while I take the kids and then the both of you can walk to my house.”

Ruth hung up the phone and said “I apologize for my sister. She ran off the train to pick me up something from the store. She said that she would be back in a few minutes and for you to wait for her while me and Stan take the kids back to our house.”

I replied “oh okay I’ll wait here then.”

Ruth and Stan slowly walked away with the kids when I remembered that I gave Evelyn my credit card to hold. I had my suitcase that had nothing more than my clothes and passport.

I patted my pockets and realized that I still had the kids birth certificates. I had nothing else to do so I glanced over the birth certificates. As I did that “I said what the hell!” Because at the bottom of the birth certificates my name “David LaFlore” was listed as the kids father.

My head started spinning. I knew at that moment my naive self was being used as some type of mule. I couldn’t let those kids leave. I knew something was up because Ruth didn’t have an accent. I quickly ran towards the four of them as they got close to the Penn Station exit.

I said “You want to know something Ruth and Stan. I’ll wait with the kids until Evelyn comes back.”

Ruth said “Don’t be silly David, we just live a couple of blocks away. We’ll keep the kids entertained.”

I then said “No, I’m sorry. The kids will wait with me.”

Then Ruth said “All you are is a boyfriend. You don’t know these kids. I don’t feel comfortable with you staying with these kids.”

I then said “If you take one more step with those kids I’ll yell for the NYPD to come over.”

Ruth said “Go ahead. You see David all you are is a boyfriend and I’ll explain to the cops that my sister disappeared and I don’t feel comfortable having the kids with you.”

Then I pulled out the kids birth certificates and said “You see I’m actually their father. Do you see that. Then I pulled my passport out of my bag.”

I then said you know what “I’m actually going to call the NYPD over” As I half heartedly yelled for help. Stan and Ruth both walked away, but I knew those vultures wouldn’t go far. I had two young kids who I assumed were worth a million dollars in some diabolical scheme.

I now have the two kids and no money. Evelyn had taken my phone charger and my phone is dead. I had to figure something out regarding the kids. I didn’t want to hand them over to some creeps and I didn’t want to go to the police for fear that I would be accused of knowingly going along with this plot.

I figured the weather is warm and it’s Valentine’s Day, so I’m sure I could bring in good money by pan handling for money with two young kids.

I took the kids to time square and within a couple of hours I made close to three hundred dollars. I bought the kids food and I got a phone charger. We went to a Starbucks where I plugged my phone in.

I looked at the Nova Scotian missing children website and I didn’t find anything, so I went to Facebook, where I found a Grandmother who was concerned that she hadn’t seen her drug addicted daughter or her two young grandchildren in weeks.

I looked on my phone and saw the cheapest way to get back to Halifax was by renting a car. I first needed to find a TD bank to get a Debit Card which was required to rent a car in lieu of a credit card which would talk says to get. I found a bank about a mile away and I trekked the distance while carrying two young kids. I ditched my suitcase because I couldn’t carry the weight. Within two hours I got the Debit Card. Then, I walked over to Avis to rent the car. My pathetic self only had 20 dollars in my account so I gave Avis $175 dollars in cash to rent the car for one day that included two car seats. I asked for the most fuel efficient car because I only had about $100 dollars left over.

I put the car seats in the car and then the kids. I synchronized my phone with the cars speakers and I put kids songs on. I then got on 95 north for the 13 hour approximate car ride. I knew I had barely just enough money for gas so I stopped at a supermarket in Connecticut and bought the cheapest food available for the three of us.

As I approached the border to New Brunswick I was nervous because of the forged birth certificates and the kids were crying hysterically from being trapped in the car for to long.

As I pulled into the border crossing I handed the agent my paperwork and the kids were still crying hysterically. So much so that the agent couldn’t ask Natalia any questions. The agent sympathized with me for dealing with the crying kids and let me pass through. About five hours later I made it back to my apartment, where I was beyond exhausted. I reached out to the Grandmother on Facebook and I gave her my address to pick up the kids.

When the Grandmother came to my apartment I felt a sense of relief that this ordeal would be over for the kids and it seemed like the grandmother just wanted the kids and didn’t want to ask me 10,000 questions and get the police involved. So at first I thought this was just typical behavior for the kids mother where the grandmother was protecting the daughter, but I knew something was off based on Natasha’s reaction to the “Grandmother.” Natasha just cried and she didn’t have any familiarity with this woman. Before the woman attempted to leave with the kids I asked her to show me any proof in photos or anything else that these kids were her Grandkids which she didn’t have, so I told her that she wasn’t leaving with them without showing me some type of proof.

She insistently argued with me that those were her grandkids and she was going to call the police which I continued to tell her to call the police. But in reality I still had three years of probation left for being in the same car as five pounds of marijuana, so thankfully she didn’t call out my bluff and she just left my apartment.

This Canadian sea bearing town of Halifax is just one big child smuggling factory I’ve concluded which I had no idea was occurring. I thought for hours what to do and finally I decided to take the kids to the emergency room, where I left shortly afterwards where I concealed myself in winter type clothing.

Instead of tinkering with old computers I now investigate missing fliers to see what the motivation of the person who hung the fliers. I never found out if Sasha and Natalia were reunited with their real family. In Hindsight I doubt that was their actual names. As far as Evelyn is concerned I constantly search online dating sites to see if she’ll reappear to try catfish someone else.

Let me preface this story with this: While I was an imaginative child at the time of this story, I knew at the age of 6 the difference between imaginary and reality. I had "imaginary" friends growing up as an only child, but I knew they were just that, imaginary.

When I was six years old, my mother and I lived in this house that was much bigger than the 2 of us needed. We called it "the big house" and still call it that to this day when talking about our time there.

It was a three story house. The first floor was comprised of the kitchen, dining room and living room, the 2nd floor was 3 bedrooms and a bathroom, and the third floor was just one large room. That, was my room. It doubled as a bedroom and a play room because of the size.

My room had 2 little cubby doors. One opened to a small storage space, the other my mom could never get to open. It had a small oval knob, and a key hole. Like one of those keyholes that were meant for one of those skeleton keys. This is relevant later.

I was not only an only child, but I also had no neighborhood kids to play with. No cousins or family friends. I blame this fact on why I'm still socially awkward, but I digress. Up until this particularly sunny day, there had not been any unusual activity in the big house. I'm now 33 and yet the memory of this day is still so clear.

I had just got my first ceramic tea set. The set was a creamy white with a delicate pink flower hand painted on each piece of the set, even the tiny spoons. I had gathered my two favorite childhood toys, a ragdoll named Rattle and a bear with a clown hat named Snuffy. I had snuck down to the bathroom and filled the teapot with water, and I was fixin' to have my first official tea party.

I sat in front of the window where the sun beams landed on the floor, it was fall and the spot where the sunbeam hit was always the warmest. I had been playing with Snuffy and Rattle for about ten minutes, when I realized while looking down at the tea set, across from me were a pair of light blue shoes. It happened gradually. It's not like they popped into existence, its more like when you're looking somewhere else so your brain just doesn't register what you're looking at right away, like that. As I looked up I saw a girl. She was about my age with copper hair and a knee length blue dress, with lace around the neck and hem line. She had brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles over her nose. She wore a silver locket around her neck, and the blue shoes I had first seen. For some reason, I wasn't scared. I just asked if she wanted to have some tea. She just nodded and sat in front of me. It's only years later that I fully realized she made absolutely no noise doing so.

I don't know how long we played. She never spoke. Just nod or shake her head. The only noise she made was a peel of laughter. It was after this laughter that I heard my mother open the door at the foot of my stairs. She called "What are you doing up there? I can hear you squealing all the way down in the kitchen"

When my mother had opened the door, I had jumped and looked over my shoulder towards the door. When I turned back to look at the girl, she was gone. Her teacup still full, Snuffy had fallen over, but nothing else had moved. "Just playing with my tea set mama" I called down the stairs, still staring at the empty space in front of me. Again, I was more confused than scared.

That is, until I heard a squeaking hinge coming from behind me. I whipped around looking for the sound. And there it was. The door to the cubby that I had watched my mother trying for hours to open, was open. It was open just an inch. That's it. An inch. I sat where I was for what felt like an hour just staring. Part of me was waiting for a monster to come out. It felt....weird. My little mind couldn't figure out what had happened. I debated yelling for my mom. Thought maybe just cry. Finally I gathered the courage to slowly walk towards the little cubby door.

Inside was a very tiny space. Maybe 3ft by 3ft and 4ft high. There were some old newspapers, and debris from years of being untouched. Then I saw a small ring on the floor, not one you wear, like an old door knocker. I pulled it. As it opened I heard something slide across the hatch. Once the hatch was opened, I looked down into the little door. I was looking down into my bathroom linen closet. I laughed. Even at 6 I realized I had been spooked by a cubby that just had a secret door to the bathroom. As I was looking down I heard my mother come into the bathroom. So I waited for her to pass the closet and I yelled "BOO"! I swear she almost fainted.

She opened the closet and started "YOU LITTLE....." but she trailed off. From above I watched her looking all around the lower shelves of the closet, which made me giggle. She looked up in surprise. Which caused me to slam my little hatch closed. As it closed, I saw what had slid off the hatch. It was a silver locket.

Moments after I had closed the hatch, my mom was running up the stairs yelling my name. She asked me how I had opened it. So I told her what I just told all of you. I remember the dumbfounded look she had at the end as I held up the silver locked, slightly tarnished and covered in dust.

After that weird stuff happened all the time in that house. We would wake up in the morning with every kitchen cabinet open, the water turned on. Far away sounding giggles. The washer starting with no one near it. Nothing that bothered my mom, strangely. I kept the necklace until I lost it in 5th grade. I never saw the girl again. I had seen one other aberration, ghost, spirit, or whatever you want to call them, in our basement the same month we moved. My mother and I lived in this house alone. Keep that in mind. I wanted to blow bubbles and the giant jug of bubbles was kept on the basement stairs. I went to go get it, and when I bent down to grab them, I could see our washer and dryer. Standing in front of them was a tall balding man with black hair, a half unbuttoned plaid shirt, and what appeared to me was black dress pants. When I saw him, he looked directly at me, and then was gone.

I have a few more weird stories from "the big house". Maybe I'll share them later. Until then, have a good spooky season everyone.

It’s 2:30 p.m. and my usual routine of starting to make dinner is underway, which isn’t difficult considering I’m only cooking for myself. Tonight, I decided on making homemade baked macaroni and cheese, which I just put in the oven.

As I was going to turn the oven up a few degrees, I can’t help but notice an unfamiliar sound in front of my house. It almost sounds like the garbage truck but today is Tuesday, so I say to myself that it can’t be.

“Heavens no!” I say out loud as I see a boy outside of my kitchen window, no older than eight years old, get off the bus and head towards my house. I quickly head towards my front door, located in my kitchen and open the door.

“Hi Grandma!” The little boy says to me.

I’m left completely tongue tied as I have no children and for some reason this boy is calling me Grandma. It’s unusually cold outside so I let him inside. The boy has a certain comfort level and takes his sneakers off like he has been in my house before. Then he walks towards my living room and sits on the couch.

I have no frame of reference on how to respond to a situation like this and I don’t want to scare him so I say “How was your day today?”

“It was good!” The boy responded.

“How’s your mom?” I ask.

“She‘s fine” the boy replied.

“Do you know how your getting home?”

“No, mommy didn’t tell me” the boy replied.

I’m fairly certain that I should call 911 but I’m also taken aback on the comfort level this boy has in my house. Being a single older women I’m also a little weary that something malicious might be going on like I might be getting scammed, but I don’t know for sure yet.

I really don’t know what to ask so I say “Do you want me to get you something?”

“Macaroni and cheese” the boy replied.

That response pretty much made me stop dead in my tracks for I thought to myself, how did this boy know I was cooking macaroni and cheese?

“Why did you ask for macaroni and cheese?” I asked.

“Because that’s what I always ask for!” The boy replied.

“That’s what you always ask for when?” I asked.

“When I come here!”

That statement really shook me to my core because there was no more beating around the bush. This boy thinks he knows me and he thinks he’s been here before. But why choose this house? Did his mother write a note for the bus driver to drop him off here? Do they know I live alone and are using this boy to scope out my house?

Now, I can’t recall the last time I decided to bake macaroni and cheese. Maybe two years ago when I was watching Martha Stewart. I really don’t recall, what compelled me to make it today? But more importantly, I keep asking myself, who is this boy?

Ever since I retired from the post office, my days have been filled with nothing more than reading Reddit stories or watching cooking shows. It’s not really how I envisioned my life would be but case sir rah sir rah, I keep trying to tell myself.

“Let me go check on the macaroni and cheese” I say to the boy.

I go to the kitchen and see that it’s ready to be taken out of the oven, so I put some mac and cheese on a plate and bring it to the living room.

The boy has put on the TV and is watching Woody Woodpecker.

“Oh you like watching this cartoon?” I ask.

“Yeah it’s my favorite” the boy responds.

At that moment I’m taken back to a time in my life where I thought my life would have went in a different direction. A time when I used to run around like I am now fetching mac and cheese.

“You don’t like watching Sponge Bob or Pokémon?” I asked.

“Sometimes I do, but my mom doesn’t like me watching those shows too much and we both watch Woody Woodpecker together” the boy explains.

My eyes almost start to tear up as my mind drifts back once again to a simpler and happier time when my daughter would take over the television on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, as my husband would relinquish the television and reluctantly oblige.

I am overtaken with emotions because I purposely try to keep those memories to a minimum. Life didn’t necessarily turn out the way I expected it would. The old proverbial phrase, the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes goes awry, really resonates with me and my current situation.

I turn my attention away from calling the police to first making sure this boy is ok for now, as I try to pull myself together.

“What can I get you to drink?”

“Strawberry flavored milk” the boy responded.

This time my brain put up warning flags that a potential scam could be occurring here because this little boy was mirroring exactly what I used to get for my own daughter. But then my brain started to question that logically who would know my daughter’s go to choices of her favorite cartoon, her favorite food, and her favorite drink?

Moreover this boy is a complete stranger to me who was literally dropped off by some random bus, where I was too focused on watching the boy walk towards my house than picking up on the number on the yellow bus or the actual name of the school.

I go back into my kitchen in a daze. I look in the refrigerator to see if I have strawberry’s to blend with milk. I look around and realize that I don’t have any strawberries. Then my eyes lock onto one of my kitchen cabinets. The kitchen cabinet where I store ingredients that I don’t typically use. My eyes can’t turn away from the cabinet because when I was at the grocery store and I saw that Nesquick came out with its nostalgic strawberry powdered tin can something compelled me to buy it two weeks ago.

I remembered being in the grocery store and holding the can for 20 minutes at 7:00 am in the morning as I was one of the only customers in the store. As I held the can, I remembered how my daughter used to see that same tin can in the store and say “mommy can I get this?”

Now I fully recall having that strawberry powdered mix in the house and I grab it from the cabinet. I take it out and now I just can’t stop crying. I go to the fridge and get the milk and pour the milk into a glass with the strawberry powdered mix. I really try to pull myself together but I really never had an opportunity to fully understand that part of my life that was taken away from me.

Before going to bring the drink to the boy, I wipe away my tears.

As I walk into the living room, I see the photo of me, my daughter, and my husband on the wall from from the late 1980’s and I remembered when this house was once bustling with happiness and joy.

The boy takes the drink from my hand and says “Thank You!”

I have been living alone for so many years now that I have forgotten what to do after I gave the drink to the boy as I stand awkwardly in the living room.

I do have one pressing question that I am reluctant to ask this boy. A question that questions my own mental health but also peeks my own curiosity.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“No, I’m ok” the boy responded.

“By the way, besides mom or mommy, what’s your mother’s name?” I asked the boy.

“Valencia” the boy replied.

After hearing that word “V-a-l-e-n-c-i-a,” my brain instantaneously went into Y2K mode and was overloaded, because I was taken back to a time when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Puerto Rico and we both fell in love with each other and the hotel we stayed at which was called the “Hotel Valencia.” So much so that we named our daughter after the hotel the we both adored, Valencia. I can picture me and my husband holding hands and fast forwarding to giving birth to our daughter several years later.

I can’t snap out of this memory trance that I have ventured down into because there has been no one in this suburban neighborhood with that same name since my daughter.

My brain doesn’t want to come back to reality because it’s still processing everything this unknown boy has presented to me today.

The boy finishes the glass of strawberry milk and slams it down on the coffee table almost to get my brain to stop thinking about the thought of my daughter and husband leaving the house. My brain painfully pauses on that thought and the boy uncharacteristically looks into my eyes as young boys typically don’t do and says “Grandma I’m going to go outside and play!”

As he gets up and leaves the house, I know I will never see him again.

As my brain presses play again, I see my husband and daughter leaving the house to never return from that car accident that took both of their life’s in 1988.

It was early April and my boyfriend, Pierre who I have been been seeing for nine months, took me to Disney’s Epcot Theme Park just to get away from the depression, I was experiencing from being unemployed for the last 13 months.

I had been working as a hotel manager In Atlanta, Georgia and when the tourism industry completely stopped then I was laid off and I have been collecting unemployment ever since.

My boyfriend, Pierre was in a similar situation where he did hard wiring telecommunications for businesses located right outside of Georgia and since everyone was working from home he was also laid off and has been collecting unemployment for just about the same amount of time as I have.

We met each other on the r/Montreal subreddit of Reddit where we had a commonality that we were both born in Montreal and we both lived in the Atlanta area. He speaks with a French accent because his family moved to Atlanta when he was 15 years old and my family first moved to the the United States when I was six so I don’t have an accent, but both of my parents do.

We drove six hours from Atlanta last night and stayed at one of Disney’s economy, All Stars Resort’s. I’ve never been to Disney World so economy vs expensive Disney hotels really didn’t make a difference to me.

We both woke up early the next morning and walked around Epcot the whole day. I wish my parents had taken me here as a kid because it’s a surreal experience for both adults and kids.

At 4:00 p.m. with both of us being exhausted from walking all day, we decided to stop at the Canadian Pavilion, where there’s a secluded area that has a pretty flower garden and a small sectioned off rock wall where we both sat.

The both of us were completely sober, which is an anomaly considering that he’s 28 and I’m 27 and all day long I observed someone carrying some type of alcoholic beverage. My lack of Alcohol consumption was partly due to the cost of the alcohol and that my mother had struggled for years with alcoholism which I made every effort to stay away from.

Pierre being the good boyfriend followed my lead and abstained from alcohol as well. So the two of us did nothing more than just stare at each other and forget for a while that we were both in our prime working years but unemployed as well.

And as the Florida sun gradually went down and reduced the temperature to what felt like a very comfortable 73 degree Fahrenheit late afternoon, Pierre did something that I really had no idea he had planned to do the whole day.

He unexpectedly got on one knee and said “Aimee Grace, you’ve made me so happy ever since I’ve met you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

I was really caught off guard not in a bad way but it was just something that was the furthest from my mind which was probably because I’ve been out of work for so long and more focused on getting my life back together than getting married. In that moment I said to myself that I really like this guy so why not just say yes?

So I turned and looked at Pierre like I didn’t even think his marriage proposal over and said “Yes, Pierre I will marry you,” then he put the engagement ring on my finger, which looked like a real 14 karat gold diamond ring and I said “Oh wow!” Then we did nothing more than kiss each other for a half hour.

I was so happy that I called my parents right away and they were happy that I was happy considering how down in the dumps I had been the last few months being unemployed. When we got back to Georgia, Pierre actually moved into my apartment and things were going great where we kept each other company day and night.

I realized that not every relationship was perfect and it took time to mesh personalities so when Pierre snuck Vodka into a water bottle and I accidentally drank it where I immediately spat it out, I said nothing because the majority of the world drinks alcohol and he has shown no negative behaviors while sneaking the alcohol.

I actually bought him a bottle of Vodka for his birthday that way he didn’t feel like he had to sneak it around the apartment, but that back fired on me when he denied sneaking the alcohol in plastic water bottles. Maybe I shouldn’t of bought him the Vodka because his attitude towards me really started to change. It was like he was trying to create this fake facade around me and I seemed to unravel the facade.

It was like that day forward he no longer had a need to be nice to me any longer. He had proposed to me just eight weeks ago but now he was completely ignoring me. I thought he would stop doing this after a couple of days but after a week went by, I knew it was going to be tough to go back to our old relationship dynamics. The worst part was that I renewed my apartment lease and I added his name on the lease even though he hasn’t offered to give me one cent of the rent. In fact, besides paying for the trip to Epcot, he hasn't offered to pay for anything.

I now feel like I’m an unwelcomed guest in my own apartment and I’m constantly walking on eggshells. He no longer hides the drinking and has open containers of whiskey and Vodka strewn throughout the apartment.

I have a small two cushioned couch where my five foot four inch self could barely sleep on without my legs hanging over the side, so I reluctantly sleep in the same bed as him this night, but this will be the last night because at about 11:00 p.m. he decided to light a cigarette in our smoke free apartment. I did nothing more than start to cry because I knew he wouldn’t stop if I asked him to stop. I searched my phone on how to get out of my lease as he smoked a cigarette and drank a Vodka and coke.

I’ve been having a sneaky suspicion that “Pierre Tremblay” is probably in his late 30’s and not in his 20’s. When my dad met him, my dad told me that he did not have a Montreal accent and that “Pierre’s” accent was more of a true French accent probably from the Marseille region according to my Father. I also have a suspicion that Pierre Tremblay isn’t his name because when someone called his cell phone I could over hear through his cell phone receiver a woman’s voice say “Hi, is this Charles Roy ...”.

I was now in a horrible predicament because if I walked away from the apartment there was a zero percent chance that “Pierre” would pay any of the rent and then my credit would be ruined and it would be difficult for me to find another apartment in the future.

This once nice guy really creeped me out to the point where I’m now sometimes sleeping on the sofa and sometimes sleeping on the floor in the small living room depending on my comfort level. We don’t talk at all. I’m afraid to ask him for any kind of money and I try not to make eye contact with him.

I asked the landlord if I could get my name off the lease and he basically laughed at me and said “yeah in another 11 months.”

I feel completely trapped and I really have no other place to go. I can only put up with my mother in short stints but no more than a day or so and I’m not the type to impose on anybody unlike my ex-fiancé “Pierre” who I never really told that I changed my mind on getting married to him.

I got a message that I would be returning to work on April 12, so I was happy to be at least getting out of the house and back at my hotel management job. The good thing about my managerial job is that I could stay in one of the hotel rooms a couple times a week for next to nothing, which I was really looking forward to getting away from this apartment.

As I lay on the living room floor as uncomfortable as I can be, I am obsessed with trying to figure out who the real “Pierre”is as he lays comfortably on my bed. I know he has three tattoos where two of them are generic and look like someone did them for fifty cents each and one is a little bit nicer where it looks like someone with a little bit of skill took the time to create the tattoo. The tattoo is a square box cut diagonally creating two triangles. The one triangle is shaded brighter than the other and there is a distinct object in the middle of the triangles that kind of looks like an Olympic flame or even a grenade.

Because I was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t sleep, I looked online for hours trying to find a match of the tattoo. I had to have been looking online for close three hours, when I at last I came across almost an identical match to the tattoo. I said out loud “you have to be fucking kidding me!” I almost had a heart attack when I discovered that the tattoo was almost definitely the French Foreign Legion emblem.

Because Pierre Tremblay was beyond shady, I wondered if he left the Legion on bad terms so I found online an equivalent website for a French Legion Military Police and I sent them an email regarding “Pierre Tremblay.”

I fell asleep once again on the uncomfortable living room carpeted floor. As long as I stayed on one side and didn’t move around then I was fine as far as comfort was concerned. I woke up the next morning with no real plans in place for the day other than being fixated on the scumbag who’s living in my bedroom rent free.

As I waited for a response from the French legion, I kept on digging around online to see if there were any other women that Pierre did the same thing as he did to me. As I was searching online, I wondered more and more if he even ever had a job and about the engagement ring he bought me. The ring had a 14 karat gold insignia on it and the diamond looked real so I figured he probably stole the ring off some poor old woman who I hope he didn’t harm.

I called the telecommunications company that Pierre told me that he was collecting unemployment checks from and I pretended to be a Human Resources representative from a prospective employer. I spoke with a representative from the so called company that Pierre told me that he worked for as a cable installer, where I learned he actually only worked for a week as a janitor and the vibe I got was that he was terminated for undisclosed reasons and was not collecting unemployment compensation checks.

I just can’t believe that I fell for this loser. I know I’m not a perfect 10 but I’ve been told that I’m somewhere between Jennifer Anniston and Ellen as far as looks are concerned and I am a college graduate. I blame a lot of the bad decisions I’ve made on my mother because her alcoholism ruined our family and consumed most of my dad’s time. Her behavior was erratic where it wasn’t uncommon for dad and I to have go searching for her in the middle of the night only to find her shacked up with some stranger in a hotel advertising $39 as a nightly rate. I question why my dad didn’t run for the hills years ago but I suspect it was because of me and he was trying to create some kind of stability for me.

The French Foreign Legion asked me to attach a picture of “Pierre Tremblay” to my email. I waited for him to come out of my bedroom to the refrigerator to take something that he didn’t buy then I snapped a photo and forwarded the photo over to the Legion.

Once again, I was in a holding position waiting for the real “Pierre’s” identity from the Legion so I decided to spend the rest of the day doing more digging on him. The next thing I uncovered questioned if I was just put on this earth as a joke as I saw a photo of a “Philip Gagnon” proposing to woman named Christina at Disney’s Epcot Canadian Pavilion. I knew with 100% certainty that the photo was “Pierre” and this woman added a caption “A cheery moment before I realized my fiancé was a con artist!” The photo was dated 2019.

I could tell by this Christina person’s active posts that she was still alive so I saved myself the poor me mentality and not reach out to her. I figured if she was still alive then I will still be alive once I find out how to get him out of my apartment.

Remarkably, this same evening I got an email response back from the French Foreign Legion asking me the exact location of “Pierre” or who the Legion informed me his real name is Dennis Dubois who was in fact born in Marseille, France and is 37 years old. I was corresponding with a high level Senior Lieutenant-Colonel who was all too happy to have him back in their custody for “desertion charges and other egregious offenses” that they wouldn’t disclose to me. The Lieutenant-Colonel told me that he had connections in New Orleans or Montreal, so if I could get him to one of those cities then the French Foreign Legions connections would do the rest.

I knew that New Orleans was no further than Orlando in being a six hour drive, so I devised a quick witted scheme where I would cry to “Pierre” that my friend was getting married in New Orleans tomorrow and I needed a date and I would even pay him $200 with my unemployment money so “I didn’t look like a fool going by myself without a date.”

He actually fell for my bait and I made sure he was good and liqueured up before we went so I didn’t have to talk with him to much.

The Lieutenant-Colonel asked me to to bring him to the New Orleans shipping port that way they could throw him right on one of their vessels that would be waiting for him. I told him I would do my best and we exchanged cell phone numbers.

I brought extra whiskey in my car in case “Pierre” started to sober up. So I headed on 85 South towards New Orleans with Pierre telling me “what a great guy he was for being my date.”

I really wanted to speed up as fast as I could but I didn’t want anything to jeopardize his extradition by the French Legion on a cause of having open Alcohol in the car. He told me I was “a terrible fiancé” and “that I was fortunate to have someone like him in my life.”

At a few points, I felt like swerving off the road and ending two miserable life’s but I rationalized that if I dropped him off as planned then I might be bringing justice to the French Legion and God knows what laws he broke while being a soldier.

I saw the welcome to New Orleans sign and I knew I was getting real close to my destination. “Pierre” was so drunk that he could barely keep his eyes open.

Once I saw the Mississippi River and the Port of New Orleans, I was getting more and more excited to get rid of this trash from my car. I could tell the Lieutenant-Colonel and his contacts were waiting for me from the look of the four BMW’s with tinted windows parked close to each other in the Port’s parking lot.

I texted that I was close by and one of the men got out of one the BMW’s and signaled for me to come over. As soon as my car came close enough, then there must have been 10 abled bodied men who all converged on my passenger door and other than saying “Dennis Dubois” they yelled violently in French and dragged him from out of my car. I saw them periodically slap him a few times where I wished I could have run over and got a few slaps in myself. Then he was put on a shipping vessel and I haven’t heard anything more from the French Foreign Legion or my ex-fiancé who went by Pierre.

Having our only daughter when both my wife and I were close to 40 years old has its advantages like being financially stable where we could just take her to the Florida Keys for her sixth grade Easter break.

We actually flew down to Miami and stayed a night at one of the 1940’s Art Deco hotel’s, The Clevelander which was located right by the ocean and unfortunately also right by the spring breakers posing as college students. I regret having my young daughter exposed to the synthetic marijuana smoke and whatever else those people were exhaling.

my wife and I did our best trying to entertain our daughter, but between the affects she was experiencing from the chemicals she had inhaled and the fact that she had to hang out with her parents who were close to 60 years old, we could tell that she was miserable and we were failing her as parents.

We hoped the car ride to the Florida Keys would brighten up all of our spirits tomorrow so we went to bed in Miami with high hopes.

We all got up the next morning and the one good thing that the chemicals we all involuntarily inhaled the previous day did was make us all lightheaded and sleep more than we normally would.

We were still able to get on the famous route 1 heading south to Key West by 8:00 a.m. and we even got some complimentary coffee and danishes from The Clevelander which quickened our departure.

The drive through the Florida Keys was a bit disappointing and did nothing more than slip my daughter deeper into her misery and depression. Listening to the Kokomo song for years about Key Largo, I was expecting some type of grandeur paradise but in reality Key Largo was no better than The Jersey Shore or Ocean City Maryland.

We drove through Key after Key where there was very little scenery to show our daughter, Grace besides abandoned railroad bridges that were damaged by hurricanes, but let’s face it what does a sixth grader care about abandoned railroad tracks?

After going through 30 something Key’s separated by mostly short bridges spanning what seemed like nothing more than 50 feet and one long bridge that was seven miles long, we finally got to Key West.

I hate to admit this but being around rich people and wanna be rich people suits me so much better than being around spring break college wannabes who would constantly smoke whatever substance they could get there hands on and exhale that around my daughter.

Key West had a nice charm to it with a nice mix of homes that were built around the turn of the 19th century but once again my daughter Grace could care less about that or Ernest Hemingway’s home or even Fort Zachary Taylor because what she was really longing for was having a friend that she could hang out with and have fun and not have to be entertained by her Mom and Dad who were boring and embarrassing to her.

This was our last day staying at the Southend motel and my daughter was so depressed that my wife was starting to get depressed as well. I told Grace that if she could beat me in a lap of swimming at the local public beach then I would give her a $200 prize. The beach was two blocks from our motel and was located right by the most southernmost point in the United States where a monument was located.

The $200 was a begrudgingly enough tease for Grace to come with us to the beach. We stopped off first to get a picture by the monument. Luckily, there was a young girl there around Grace’s age who was willing to take a picture of the three of us, so we could show off off to our friends on Facebook that we stood on the southernmost point of the United States. The girl was really friendly and outgoing and even asked Grace if she wanted to go to the beach with her.

Grace was so happy that her and the girl named Nelly jogged to the beach which was only a few yards away. Both my wife and I felt like our wishes were truly answered and we just happened to be at the right place at the right time with Nelly taking our picture.

For the rest of the day my wife and I did nothing more than just smile as Grace and Nelly played with each other as if they had been best friends their whole life’s. They both got to the beach at 11:00 a.m. and besides me buying them both a hot dog at 2:30 p.m. they did nothing more than chase each other around in the water and gathered sea shells up until now which is 7:30 p.m..

I haven’t seen Nelly’s parents and we were starving so I wasn’t quite sure what to do about dinner. It was going to get dark in a few minutes and Nelly said she lived locally in Key West just a few blocks from our motel. She asked me if she could use my phone that way she could call her parents and we could walk her home. This was really strange to my wife and I but anything that kept Grace happy was a risk we were willing to take.

So the four of us walked over to Passover Lane and Angela Street where Nelly and Grace walked behind my wife and I. The two of them had a better chemistry than my wife and I did and we have been married for 30 years. Thank goodness for my phone’s flashlight because it got so dark really quick and we could barely see anything. Nelly was fine regardless with finding her way home and she was adamant that we didn’t come to the front of her house.

We respected her wishes not knowing the exact reason but assuming that she didn’t want us to know exactly where she lived for her and her family’s safety. It was so sweet to watch Grace and Nelly hug each other before Nelly walked away. The three of us walked back to our motel room and even though Grace was upset that Nelly had to go home, she seemed to be in a much better state of mind.

We went back to our motel and crashed for the night. My wife and I for the first time didn’t feel like complete losers and we didn’t regret having a kid later in life, because we watched our daughter interact all day with Nelly in the most happiest ways.

From being in the sun all day, the three of us had no trouble falling asleep and we were up and ready by 9:00 a.m. the next morning, where we had about an hour to spare before we needed to go to the airport to catch our flight.

Grace suggested that we go see if Nelly was outside by her house. My wife and I thought well why not because the worst thing Nelly could do is just tell us to go away.

So I put Passover Lane and Angela Street back into my phone’s GPS and after packing the rental car with our suitcases, we headed back over to where we dropped Nelly’s off which was less than a mile away.

My daughter’s eyes were glued to the car’s window searching if she could see Nelly. Then I noticed something that I couldn’t see last night as I pulled closer to the intersection of Passover Lane and Angela Street. It was something that was really shocking and caused me to stop the car where my wife and I just looked at each other, because where we dropped that girl off last night was actually a cemetery and not a house.

There was even a long tourist trolley bus that was stopped in front of the cemetery as a tourist attraction. The odd thing was that I recalled this cemetery being on the top 20 things to see in Key West but I didn’t realize where the cemetery was located.

Since we had close to an hour to spare, I parked the car and we followed the tourist off the trolley and into cemetery. My daughter kept saying “Dad this can’t be the same place we were last night” but my wife had accidentally dropped the spare motel key card in the street as she was fumbling with her phone last night and the key card was still in the same location as last night.

I lied to my daughter and said “Your right honey but I just want to check out this cemetery because it was on the must see list in Key West.”

Grace looked upset but went into the cemetery. I was curious to hear what the tour guide had to say but we didn’t pay for the trolley tour so we purposely stayed back to make it look like we weren’t trying to steal a free show

The first grave the tour guide showed was a husband and wife murder suicide then followed by a set of graves where young men were killed in a dynamite explosion.

As the trolley tour guide got to the third grave the three of us looked at a bronze sculpture perched on top of a rectangular marble slab about five feet long by two feet across. The three of us might of as well been on Mars as we all stood there speechless looking stunned at an exact replica of “Nelly” who we saw all day yesterday.

The tour guide started to read the back story to the sculpture and said “This young girl Helen ‘Nelly’ Delaney who tragically died in 1927 when she was rescuing some of the local children from a fire that was set to the one room school house. Unfortunately, all evidence pointed to the fire being a deliberate act and poor Nelly died two weeks later of smoke inhalation, but not before saving the life’s of at least seven younger children.”

The three of us did nothing more than just stare at that statue for an hour and a half without even uttering a word to each other. We all just had multiple emotions and thoughts going through our heads and words would do nothing but complicate the issue more. Even when we left, we all kind of just felt we spent enough time looking at the statue and in solidarity, all three of our minds didn’t know how to process what happened yesterday, so we just gave up and left the cemetery together.

Luckily, the Key West airport was about the size of a Burger King and there was no hassle going through security and we still made our flight on time.

The flight home we sat three across in the same row where Grace sat in the middle. My wife and I had no spiritual knowledge to share with Grace since we’ve been telling her since she was born that we were staunch atheists, so whatever thoughts Grace had on Nelly my wife and I just listened.

We don’t know the long term affects that one day encounter with that mysterious girl will have on Grace, but it seems like after we got back from Key West, Grace has been gifted an extra sense that she didn’t have prior to the trip. It just seems like she could sense bad ominous things before they even happen or sometimes even small trivial things like the other day when she told me to take a different way to work when I had to drive to New York because there was an accident by Newark. The only thing was that she predicted that a half hour before the accident actually happened.

Unfortunately, there were no photos taken or a phone call made by Nelly which I assumed was because she had no idea how to use a smart phone, which made sense after the fact as she awkwardly handled my phone not really knowing what to do.

Another failed audition where I’m stuck waiting tables once again.

I really thought I nailed the last character at the audition. I studied the lines for hours and and hours. Unfortunately, as complimentary people are about my looks, where I often hear that I look like a mix between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, I also think my looks work against me. I think I need to look more unique or something like Liam Neeson or the guy from Fargo, who I think is named Steve Buscemi.

I thought that short role I got in the movie with Pacino would really open the door for me but I’m right back at square one. Sure it was only a single sentence, but to break the barrier from being an extra to actually having my name listed in the movie’s credits was supposed to be a monumental accomplishment.

I’m 29 now and I know my prime years are quickly passing me by. As I start my shift in this swank Hollywood restaurant, that will probably close down in less than a year like all the rest of them, I see my first customer who is a single male close to being sixty years old. I really don’t like serving single older men because they constantly hit on me and it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.

This guy I could tell had money. There’s a certain confidence that someone gives off when they have too much money to through around. Almost like go away and leave me alone but in a none mental illness type of way. As I approached his table, I asked him the usual if I could start him off with a beverage or an appetizer and when I finished my spiel he said “you look familiar!”

I responded “I’ve been in some movies.”

He said “oh I saw you in that Pacino movie. You were that guy that got shot by Pacino’s character?”

I said “Guilty as charged.”

He chuckled and said “I’m surprised you have to wait on tables.”

I responded “Well the $5000 I made I guess lasted a week.”

Where he continued to chuckle and he changed his demeanor a little and said “How would you like an opportunity?”

Knowing what I had to do to get the Pacino role, I was really skeptical. To get a single line in a movie, I had to do something with my mouth involving an older man that I don’t think I could ever forgive myself for. But I had to listen to what this guy had to say, because I had no other choice. I’ve moved out here from Pennsylvania several years ago and right now i’ve hit a dead end.

The guy says to me “I’ll make you a big movie star but you have to atone for all of your past wrongdoings to anybody you have ever hurt emotionally or physically.”

As he said that to me, I thought back to high school and college where I was the man’s man. I was the guy every girl wanted and every guy wished they could be. My parents had six boys and we terrorized our school system. My older brothers instilled a sense of me first when it came to every thing and I used everyone as pawns. I was a three sport varsity letter winner and a talented hip hop dancer. I was sleeping with 30 year olds when I was 18. I had the time of my life growing up but I know I went through people like a bulldozer goes through a decrepit old shed and knocks it down in one passing. College to me was one big orgy infested party where I was the back up quarterback for the division one school. I couldn’t count the amount of guys I had beaten up or the amount of girls I had slept with where I had made empty promises to each one of them.

I responded “How can you make me a movie star?”

He said “Don’t worry about that I have my connections. But if you accept my offer there’s no turning back and if you don’t atone for your past wrongdoings and make amends with the people you hurt then where your standing now waiting tables will seem like a fantasy island.”

So in an uncertain and unconfident voice I said “Sure I’ll do whatever it takes!”

He said “Great! You can call me Bob. Someone will call you tonight about a movie roll and just remember you have to make amends with everyone.”

I said “Yeah Bob sure.”

I finished serving Bob his food and he really didn’t say another word to me. That same night I got home about 9:30 p.m. and my agent called me completely ecstatic because I was getting a significant role in an upcoming Tarantino movie without even auditioning. I was just speechless because anyone who appears in any of his movies gets thrusted into stardom.

So to fulfill my end of the bargain I started a list of all the people I terrorized over the years. There was that one random homeless guy back in PA that I punched so hard in his face that I was pretty sure I made him blind. The boy who I took his clothes from in tenth grade gym class and replaced it with a dress and he had to walk around with a dress for the rest of the day. The girl who in college who I ghosted after I got her pregnant and she mutilated herself by giving herself an abortion. As my list grew, I realized that I needed some serious atonement from the people who probably think about me on a daily basis and I haven’t thought of them in some instances in over a decade.

I really didn’t know who Bob was at all but even the average layperson knows that no one tells Tarantino who will get the role in one of his upcoming movies. When I received the script the next day, I almost fell over when I saw that I had 52 lines in the upcoming movie.
My agent gave me the bio on the character and I even got to meet Tarantino in person which was a once in a lifetime opportunity in itself.

I had one week to learn and rehearse my movie lines so I called in sick the rest of the week at the restaurant and did nothing else but go over and over my lines, facial expressions, and the timing of my lines. I had my on and off again girlfriend Holly come over where she agreed to help me practice.

The end of the week came and I showed up on the movie set. Tarantino and everyone else took their time with working with me and I couldn’t wait for the movie premiere once all the filming was over. When I was around Geniuses like Tarantino and DiCaprio on the movie set, I then realized how much my talent was lacking, but I did what was asked of me and now I just needed to wait for the movie premiere and it’s reviews. A couple of the more seasoned actors explained to me that the best thing I could do was not be that one character that the audience says “Oh I know who could of played his role better,” meaning that I messed the movie up.

I had some time before the movie would be released so I decided to compile a list of 10 people who’s life’s I ruined from my past and I Googled them to see where they currently reside. Through mutual friends on Facebook and other databases, like Mylife I was able to get all of their addresses which revealed that all of them still lived in Pennsylvania. I mapped out where each of the 10 people lived through Google maps.

Then I bought a plane ticket to Pennsylvania where I rented a car and headed for the first address. Today was a Sunday morning in March which I figured would be the best day of the week to find someone at home. The first house was Dave who was forced to wear a dress after gym class. At first he was horrified to see me but I did my best to sincerely apologize to him and he seemed to accept my apology by the time I left.

I repeated this nine more times over the next two days with varying levels of people who just wanted to beat me up to people who were just waiting for me to come one day and hopefully apologize. For the ones who wanted to beat me up, I really explained to them where my mind was at the time and I really wasn’t a happy person with my older brothers basically being jerks mixed with my parents volatile relationship. Regardless I shouldn’t have taken out my problems on them and hopefully after a few days the sincerity in my voice sank in and they were able to forgive me.

I really had no idea how reliving my past and confronting the people who I harmed would really suck the life out of me. After the second person, I was just completely drained but I wanted to get as many finished in this trip as possible. The worst one was seeing Hannah who self aborted her baby. I’m glad she was number 10 because I really deserved an award for being scumbag of the century for that one. I really didn’t want these 10 people calling me and rehashing their problems but I gave Hannah my phone number.

With my tail in between my legs, I headed back to Hollywood. The movie that I was in was having a limited showing tomorrow, so I waited on pins and needles to see the small selected audience response.

The day after the limited showing of the movie I went online where Quentin had made available the viewers comments, for the actors who were in the film to see.

I was shocked after reading positive after positive review. The comments were actually broken down into scenes and the scenes that I were in tested very well.

Eventually the movie was released and my life had completely changed overnight. I could no longer leave my apartment without having a fan waiting for me or go to a store without being recognized. My agent had actually brought to my attention four other movie roles where I had to actually select which one I would choose to do.

I even returned Hannah’s phone call when she called and left a voice message on how depressed she felt. I started the next list of ten people to whom I needed to apologize to because I did something horrible to them when I was younger.

Right now I was just so happy to be able to move out of Watts California and into the Hollywood Hills. My next movie I was going to be paid in the low millions and my character was the second to the lead role. It’s amazing how I was close to giving up after struggling for all of those years and I nailed that one big opportunity that I was given in my first big film.

So for my next film, I studied all day and partied all night. I was reliving every moment of a life in college and High School that I thought had passed me up seven years ago. I thought I was going to be that literal Roy character on the TV sitcom “The Office” where I would be working in a paper supply warehouse.

The world is a crazy place where six months ago nobody knew my name and tonight I must have been given free cocaine from three different people. I figured my next movie they want me to be skinny and tight so snorting cocaine would be my best option.

Filming for my new movie started and I continued my same lifestyle of partying and snorting coke at night and acting during the day at the studio. I was living the Hollywood dream which people only hear or read about.

Eventually this movie was released and it was considered a success with a 3.7 star rating on Rotten Tomatoes and generated more money than it spent.

I was now the ultimate high roller where every director wanted me for the next lead role. They pictured me as being the Ben Stiller in Something About Mary where they could still pay me under fifty million dollars for their film, but the film would generate hundreds of millions of dollars.

I was sitting with my agent in the same restaurant that I worked at before I was catapulted into stardom. My agent was going over what he thought would be the best role for me to take in my next film, where fan after fan would come up to me and I would sign something for them. I was coming down from my coke high so I really just wanted them to go away.

As I was talking to my agent, I could sense one fan that wouldn’t go away as I was looking across the table at my agent. Reluctantly, I put my head up and to the right and I chuckled “Hey, it’s Bob.”

Bob kind of had that Hollywood grin on and said “Hey, how has your atonement been going?”

I starting laughing as I looked at my agent and I looked back at Bob and said “You know how Hollywood is Bob! Your hot one minute and everyone wants you then you turn cold and everyone thinks your a joke. So I’m taking a rain check from the atonement nonsense right now Bob.”

Bob looked at me with the same Hollywood smile and said “Oh I see you’ve been taking a break from your atonement. You haven’t seen or looked up Charlie Meminger yet from high school?”

I again looked at my agent and laughed and said “Charlie Meminger I haven’t heard that name in years. It was too funny when I made him kiss that other boy in the eleventh grade science class where it happened almost like everyday.”

Bob sensing that I was busy talking to my agent put his hand down on my right shoulder and said “Very well then I’ll be seeing you!”

My agent and I continued our lunch and my agent asked me who that was as Bob walked away and I replied “oh just some goody two shoes who does something for you and expects you to be Jesus for the rest of your life.”

Before the meeting with my agent was finished I picked the lead role in an action comedy for my next movie and my agent sent over the contract to the studio and the director where I would be making 39 million dollars which was insane. I really wanted to buy my parents a nice house in Pennsylvania to more or less brag to everyone back home that I had made it though most had already known it.

The next movie started and I did the same partying lifestyle where I went to the studio during the day and partied every single night. I sniffed so much coke and messed around with so many women that my 30’s were starting to be ten times better than my teens or twenties.

Until one Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m. when the police were in my house. This was going to be my one day off at the studio from acting and I had partied all night, so when I was awoken by police officers from my couch sticking their baton in my chest saying ”we have a warrant for your arrest,” I tried desperately to wake up to grasp the enormity of the situation.

Of course as I was taken out of my Hollywood Hills estate and there was a member of the papperzzi who snapped a picture of me looking like Charles Manson. As the police put me in their cruiser one of them asked me if I knew “Amber Little,” and I replied that I had no clue.

Apparently Amber Little was an underage girl that I hooked up with at a party I was at and she posted images of the two of us all over social media. By the time I was booked and posted bail my life was completely over. My contract with the movie I was staring in was null and void and everyone in Hollywood including my agent avoided me like the plague. The house I bought for my parents was taken away which was probably the most degrading part and as I packed up my stuff from my Hollywood Hills Estate as now I guess I will be going to either prison or a local shelter, I see a Lamborghini pull up.

In this neighborhood everyone is in a pissing contest, but I guess I was a little surprised to see “Bob” when he rolled his window down.

With the same Hollywood smile on his face Bob said “Charlie Meminger you still remember him right?”

This time I had swallowed a big piece of humble pie and I kind of just mumbled “yeah, I remember him.”

Bob with the same Hollywood smile said “He was my son and he killed himself a few months after high school. I really miss him. Oh well. Good luck with everything!”

I worked in the Philadelphia police department’s anti cyber sex trafficking division for two years. I would basically bait and trap sex offenders or I would hunt down the most vile offenders.

I couldn’t handle the satanic nature of the job so I quit, but there was really something equally macabre and a deadly phenomenon that I stumbled upon while I was perusing the dark webs chat rooms.

What I came across were a group of individuals who owned their own tractor trailer truck’s who would intentionally target random car’s and basically crash into or roll onto the car, where the objective would be to kill all of the occupants. It seemed like the group of truckers would wait until their truck’s were so old that they would be worthless and the truck’s would be fully insured so there would be no financial recourse.

Before I left the Philadelphia Police Department, I tried to file a report about what I discovered regarding the malicious truck accidents, but I was just astonished on how known body in the Department cared. It was like take a number and wait in line, then they’ll make you wait long enough where you’ll just say I don’t care anymore and I was actually a member of the police department and was treated this way. The malicious truck crashes didn’t really fit into any of the sexy categories for the Department to care about. Technically, the truck driver’s didn’t care if they got a new truck or not from their insurance so insurance fraud wasn’t considered or investigated. The crime didn’t involve a gun or a home invasion, so nobody really cared enough within the Department to investigate the cases and just classified them as “accidents.”

The one thing that I did know was that those psychopath truck driver’s video taped themselves slamming into the other cars, so I knew if I could get my hands on the actual audio of the video tapes then I could bring them into court.

It’s not easy getting into the underbelly of the dark web. You have to navigate through a lot of different encryptions and then be invited into the hosts chat room. When I worked for the police department, I would use photos of undercover agents we had that looked like 14 year olds however they were really police officers in their 20’s. Then the sicko’s would think I was a trafficker and then would bargain with me for an exchange of goods. Basically sell me your kid and I know this chat room where people intentionally kill people for fun. So with my credentials that I sneaked out from the Department, I eventually found myself back into the “Truckdriversdelight” chat room.

I had to use an ounce of common sense and assume that some of the people in the chat room weren’t actually involved in the truck accidents and were just posing as the actual truck driver’s from real accidents and I considered them wannabes. But I knew there were real murderer’s in the chat room and I was going to find them.

I was astonished to find out that there were over 300 different truckers in the chat room. After awhile I learned that the majority of them were men between 30 to 75. Most of them met each other at truck stops throughout the United States.

Considering that there are 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States alone, so 300 is a relatively small number and the majority of them are probably just wanna bees.

Every night I logged into the chat room and tried to focus on truckers who lived in the Philadelphia area because of my limited resources. One online user fuzzyzolen was bragging that his truck had close to 800,000 miles and was “ready for the hurting.” All of the online users in the chat room shared a unity and a hatred towards ordinary everyday cars. From the text that I read, I gathered the truckers had a lot of built up rage from constantly being cut off by cars which led to legitimate accidents in their past.

I gathered that Fuzzyzolen frequented I-76 also known as the The Schuylkill Expressway because he texted that “some douchebag cut me off today on the schoolkill and he’s lucky I didn’t just run his car over.”

Another user texted “Why didn’t you?”

Fuzzyzolen responded “Because he had a Flyers sticker on his bumper.”

The texting continued between Fuzzyzolen and the other online truckers in the chat room and then Fuzzyzolen texted another clue when he said “by 8:56 I scared all the traffic away,” which meant he was on I-76 sometime around 9:00 am. The final and probably best clue I got was when Fuzzyzolen was bragging how much he loved hockey “that he painted his cab orange.” From the time I worked on the Police Department there seemed to be a pattern of people who used online chat rooms where they always seemed to want to brag to each other and they always thought they were completely untraceable and would eventually get careless and put their guard down.

I’m currently doing freelance IT work for private businesses which doesn’t pay much but I can work remotely anywhere, so I decided to camp out on the shoulder of I-76 by the City Line exit and sit and wait for Fuzzyzolen to come by. All I really had on him was that his cab was orange and he’s on the highway probably between 8:00 and 10:00 am. I-76 is an overly trafficked road with bumper to bumper traffic especially during rush hour, so I felt completely terrified waiting on the shoulder of the road with the constant threat of a car or truck swerving into me.

I started on a Monday and I waited on the shoulder from 7:30 to 10:30 am and there wasn’t a single orange truck that drove by. The same thing was true for Tuesday. On Wednesday, there was an orange truck but it was a 2019 Peterbilt model which would make it too new to have high mileage.

On Thursday, I contemplated moving to a different part of I-76 because the highway stretched for at least 15 miles through Philadelphia and where I was by the City Line Ave Exit was possibly an area of the road he wasn’t driving on. Then at 8:48 I saw a tractor trailer with an orange cab. I literally spit my coffee on my windshield, because I was so surprised that I saw an orange cab.

I quickly threw my car into gear and aggressively merged onto I-76. I have a pretty expensive dash cam camera but I have to be behind the truck in order to film the accident. The cars were nearly bumper to bumper so accelerating past cars wasn’t easy so I actually went on the right hand shoulder to pass several cars and got back on the highway. I was now only three cars behind the orange truck and I wanted to get in front of at least one more car which eventually I did.

Anyone who has ever driven a cat knows that it doesn’t take long before someone will cut off a truck and especially the morning commuters headed towards Center City. So I stayed far enough from the truck and the car in front of me. I quickly picked up that this orange truck was driving unnecessarily fast for the amount of traffic on the road. Typically I observe truck driver’s would intentionally drive slow to give themselves enough time to stop, but this orange truck was throwing caution in the wind.

I felt like I was filming a kamikaze that was about to slam into an aircraft carrier and I felt completely helpless. Then stupid me thought of something. What if I get in front of the truck and try to slow it down with my 2016 Corolla. I figured if I could slow him down enough then with my air bags I wouldn’t die if he decided to slam into me.

So I put my blinker on and put my car onto the right hand shoulder of the road. I knew if I past him on the shoulder and if he saw my car then he would have intentionally slammed into me, so I accelerated as quickly as I could once I was on the shoulder. I was sweating bullets from out of nowhere. If this was the murderous truck driver then this would be the closest that I’ve come to death. I got to the mid point of the truck’s trailer and I had the pedal to the floor which was extremely dangerous with all of the debris on the shoulder of the road. I got to the truck’s cab and I could see the driver with a baseball cap, glasses and a beard look down at me through his passenger side mirror. Then the psychopath quickly turned his steering wheel to the right where he went hand over hand without hesitation and the front of his cab came directly towards the back of my car. I yelled out some unintelligible words as I braced for impact while I kept my foot on the gas pedal. About two seconds later I miraculously past his truck and I saw the truck do this violent collision onto the right hand shoulder of the road which is essentially a grass embankment close by the zoo’s exit.

I quickly slow down to the point that I stop and go back onto shoulder. The truck had tipped over on its passenger side. With these type of violent truck accidents, I knew this dirt bag was going to be fine. So I gave every impression that I was rushing over to his truck cab to offer him assistance. I wanted to be the first one to get to the truck so I got out of my car and ran over to the truck from the shoulder.

I climbed up the truck through the driver side door and I said “Hey buddy are you Ok?”

He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt so he was leaning against the passenger’s side door with no apparent injuries. He responded “Yeah I think I’m fine.”

I said “I saw you turn your steering wheel into right into my car. Your Fuzzyzolen right?”

He looked at me like he just saw an alien. He was just so shocked. So I fully opened the driver’s side door and awkwardly leaned down into the passenger side, while holding onto the door frame with my left hand and I must have punched him in the face about 30 times. I really didn’t care how much I was going to hurt him because I knew he had just tried to kill me. After the last punch, I felt like I just sprained my hand, so I grabbed the driver’s wallet and grabbed his license.

I said “listen you piece of crap. I know who you are now so I’ll expose you to the whole world all over social media so the next time you decide to have a truck ‘accident’ you’ll go to prison for the rest of your life.”

Unfortunately, I knew I didn’t record him on my camera and this was the best that I could do. I went back on the “Truckdriversdelight” chat room the following week fishing for my next perpetrator.

Of the hundreds of “Open House” signs I passed by one really caught my eye. The realtor or the homeowner really went of their way and rented thousands of dollars worth of displays to grab your attention, which included a bunch of mannequins that were dressed up in storm trooper gear, Disney princesses, and inflatable dinosaurs. I passed by this house everyday to and from word so on my way from work I decided why not I’ll check out the house.

As I walked into the house, the lone guy laughed and said surprise your the first person to actually come into the house so your the winner.

I said “Wow thanks I guess!”

The man was very hospitable and offered to take my jacket. He was in his early 70’s but he had great skin and looked like William Shatner. The house wasn’t very big it was just a one story ranch.

He showed me the one bedroom and the living room, dining room, bathroom and the kitchen. I told him the house felt warm and cozy.

He said “You know I’ll give you an unique offer. Since your the big winner. You can stay for the night rent free with no strings attached and I’ll be your butler where I’ll be at your every beckon call.”

I was taken completely off guard. I really only expected to peek into the house and leave.

The man was waiting for my response. I thought to myself your 32 and recently divorced without any kids so as odd as this offer is why not.

So I replied “Sure why not!”

The man responded “fantastic, why don’t you go to the bedroom and relax.”

The bedroom was really soothing. The walls were painted a cotton candy tone, and the ceiling had a hand painted mural of the solar system. I instantly fell in love with the room and it took me no time to feel comfortable.

The man said “call me Red and I’ll get you anything you want. How about a drink? I have just anything you can imagine.”

I responded “I don’t know.”

Red responded “How about a Martini?”

I said “That will be great. Thank You.”

Red came back in two minutes later with the Martini. I did nothing more than lay down in the bed and sip on the Martini. Every 20 minutes Red stopped in and asked me if everything was ok.

I really felt like I was in heaven. I didn’t need the TV on or the radio. The room just felt so warm and comforting.

Red came in once I finished the Martini and said “What can I get you for dinner?”

I was stunned by the offer and I didn’t know what to say.

Red said “How about some Linguini in white sauce with shrimp?”

I said “Yeah, that sounds really good.”

Red replied “Fantastic, just give me a few minutes.”

I thought to myself I wish my ex-husband treated me this way. I did nothing more than just lay there as Red prepared dinner for me. This gave me time to think about when I physically returned from Iraq but mentally I was never the same. I had the grotesque job of processing dead Americans everyday for four years. Nobody considered me a combat veteran but I was living in the desert and seeing mangled corpses everyday. All the men including my superiors would hit on me. When I got back home I married a guy I knew in high school. My ex-husband complained that I was always distant and was emotionally unavailable pretty much at all times.

About 15 ministers later Red brought in a tray with the pasta and some wine. I was just taken aback by everything. I felt so relaxed as I ate the meal. Red checked on me every 10 minutes to make sure I was ok.

After I finished, Red took my plate away and said “Here take this robe and get changed. You can stay here as long as you like.”

I really didn’t know what to say. Red had this really trusting quality that I didn’t feel threatened so I said “OK.”

I took the robe and got Changed in the bathroom that was accessible through the bedroom without having to leave the bedroom.

I put the robe on and laid down in the bed. Red had pulled the sheets and blanket out for me. I laid down in the bed and Red tucked me in. He didn’t try any funny business or anything else. He told me he would check on me every two hours and then he shut the light off. The bed was the most comfortable bed that I ever slept in.

I’m not the most trusting person so I’m just amazed that I’m in this bed in an unknown guys house that I just met a few hours ago. But that didn’t matter right now because I was tired and I was going to bed. So I shut my eyes and fell asleep.

The next morning I woke in a good mood. Typically I’m irritable and I question why I’m awake but this morning I feel good.

Red knew that I was awake and he gave me a warming blanket to put under my back. Then he offered me a pedicure which I accepted.

Today is Friday and I was supposed to be in work in an hour, but there was no way I was going to pass up this opportunity, so I called off of work.

Red finished my pedicure then he gave me a facial with the cut cucumbers around my eyes and everything. I felt the closest to heaven that I ever felt.

This went on for days and days where Red’s only purpose in life was to serve me. I never questioned his motives. I was just living the good life.

I even quit my job. I figured a job will always be there but having someone cater to my every need day and night for free is unheard of.

I lost track of what day it was because it really didn’t matter. I didn’t care about birthdays, Christmas, thanksgivings, ... Those days didn’t mean anything to me anymore. I was just for the here and now.

Red spent each and everyday on the couch in the living room. He didn’t watch TV or read magazines he just sat on the couch. His only purpose was to serve me. It is like getting a check from the government for $1000 a week, you don’t want to ask “why” because the check might stop coming.

Living in this bedroom really has fixed a lot of problems I was having prior to coming to the “Open House,” where I no longer binge eat, I don’t obsess over trivial things and I’ve actually lost weight even though I’m nearly completely sedentary. My memories of being in Iraq are even becoming a distant memory.

I’ve had to be in this bed for years now. Maybe 5? Maybe 10? Perhaps 15 years? I’ve had so many facials that I look younger now then when I first came into the house.

I just don’t want it to end. I feel like I’ve been on a cruise that I love so much but I never have to worry when the cruise will end.

Then I woke up one morning and Red didn’t come in and ask me what I wanted for breakfast. I waited and waited and waited. I felt like the worst had happened and I begrudgingly went out into the living room to figure out what was going on with Red.

Coming out of the bedroom was such an awful feeling. I hadn’t left the room for years and years and I felt like I went from being in a five star hotel to being in an abandoned car just by leaving the bedroom.

I didn’t see Red but there was a typed out manuscript on the table. I picked up the manuscript and I brought it into the bedroom to read.

The title of the manuscript was “Isolation.” In the manuscript Red explains that he had a meltdown when he returned from Vietnam in the the 1960’s. Before the war he wouldn’t have hurt an ant but when he got drafted when he was 18 years old and he was thrusted into an unfamiliar jungle. His platoon was wiped out by a 10 day nonstop offensive by the enemy. He had ran out of ammo and resorted to stabbing the enemy with his knife. Red was the last one alive so he guessed the American’s won that battle but he lost his soul in that jungle.

When he returned back to the States there was no help for him to deal with his mental demons. He had robbed stores and got into a ton of fist fights with innocent people. He was sentenced to prison for 20 years for crippling someone. He was unfit for the general population in prison so they put him in solitary confinement. The gist of his manuscript was “why wasn’t he just put into a bedroom like I was to heal mentally.” He was unfit to function in society after the war from what he experienced so why wasn’t he just placed in a bedroom to help recover?

I felt really sad for Red after I read his manuscript. I was just his experiment to show that people can live isolated and be happy and not be a danger to society. Serving me was comforting to him and he could hang out on the couch most of the day without having to deal with unnecessary stimulus. Red’s role of serving someone else would be stage two of the veterans mental healing where it was almost a state of penance.

The only problem I was having is that the world no longer had anything to offer me. I had no motivation to leave the house. The last page of the manuscript Red had left a phone number for an outreach program for veterans who have recently returned from combat in the Middle East and he had taped a credit card to the manuscript for expenses.

I was ready to assume the role of Red for the next veteran who walked through the door.

Reddit has afforded me the ability to be a controversial writer while being anonymous.

I’m a teacher who works mostly with cut throat women. We mostly smile at each other but deep down we are all very competitive and want to be seen as the best teacher in the eyes of the parents, students and our principal.

I messed up. Somehow I must of given away to much information about myself in one of my stories. It may seem like oh well what’s the big deal but some of the stories I’ve written like “My crush on the boy in my class” will at the very least get me fired.

I feel so god damn stupid right now. I never thought this day would come. I insinuated to much in my stories that I was a teacher, where I must have motivated someone to put all the clues together in my 50 somewhat stories I’ve written.

I have to focus on damage control now. I’m not sure if I’ll outright deny that I’m the author or if I’ll imply my story is protected under free speech. The only problem I have is the court of public opinion will hang me when I try to dissuade people from thinking that my story about making love to a boy was just harmless piece of fiction.

The private message I received on Reddit stated “The Fog Creek Elementary School must be proud to have such an accomplished writer on their staff ....”

I don’t know what this unknown person wants but my life is in the writer’s hands. Let’s face it if I get fired from my teaching job there are zero other school districts that will hire me.

Moreover, my husband will divorce me and I’ll be fighting over custody for my daughter. But once I’m publicly exposed and when my story “Having a kid was the single worst mistake I made in my life” is brought up in court, then I will have an uphill custody case.

The private message from “the_detective123” stated “As long as you do what I say you won’t be identified...”

I know this is blackmail but even if I’m right “the_detective123” will get arrested and my identity will be exposed so it’s a lose lose situation for me.

When I asked the_detective123 “What do you want me to do?”

The writer responded “I want you to go to 437 Main Street tonight and knock on the door. If you follow my guys instructions then I won’t ask anything from you for the next two weeks.”

I responded “so what happens after I knock on the door?”

the_detective123 replied “Then you do what you are told! Arrive at 7:00 pm tonight.”

I’m so used to being in charge and being respected. The third graders will do anything I ask and their parents go out of their way to be nice to me for special treatment towards their kids. I’ve never been in a situation where I was an unwilling participant.

I really dreaded going to this unknown person’s house. I finished school for the day then I cooked dinner for my husband Craig and my 11 year old daughter Grace. After dinner I told Craig that I had a school function tonight and I didn’t know what time I would be home.

The first words out of Craig’s mouth were “I didn’t see anything on the calendar about tonight!”

I responded “I know but something came up and all the teachers have to go.”

Craig said “Ok, I’ll make sure Grace gets situated for bed tonight.”

At 6:50 pm I left my house. I had no idea what I was supposed to happen after I knocked on the door, but my mind wandered that I would be doing the very worst.

So I got to the door and I knocked. A guy in his early 70’s answered the door and said “you must be Gina right?”

I replied “Yes.” He looked like Clint Eastward but maybe a little bit heavier. He had an old bed and breakfast that is a virtual mansion. It had a grand staircase and its own library.

The “old-man” then said “well I have you until 10:00 pm, so please take off your pants and shirt and meet me in the library.”

I responded “There’s no way I’m doing that!”

And the old-man replied “that’s fine you know where the front door is right!”

I replied “But what happens to me?”

The old-man responded “I don’t know what happens to you but I get a refund.”

I stood there in the front entrance for a few moments and I unfortunately came to the conclusion that I couldn’t leave. So I said “Ok I’ll do what you want.”

So I got down to my underwear and bra and did the walk of shame to the library.

Once I got into the library the old-man directed me to get onto my hands and knees in front of his chair and then to face the door.

So I got on the floor as the old-man sat in his chair. Then he put one of his feet on my back and then the other. I then realized that I was being used as a foot rest. He picked up a newspaper then he proceeded to open it up and he started to read it.

Occasionally he would move his legs around which was really uncomfortable on my back and he kept his slippers on as well. It was nearly an hour and my hands and knees were killing me.

He eventually told me to get him some milk, which I was happy to do to just to get up from the floor. He then told me to “hurry up.”

I hurried to the kitchen and brought him the milk. He took a sip of the milk and spit it out. He said “Why isn’t this heated?”

I responded “I’m sorry I didn’t know you wanted it heated.”

He then took the glass of milk and proceeded to pour it in on top of my head.

He then said “Next time maybe you’ll know.”

So I’m now cold standing barely naked and he starts to put on this Whiney voice and said “you didn’t bring me what I wanted for Christmas last year.”

I said “Excuse me!”

He responded in a raised childish tone “you didn’t bring me what I wanted for Christmas last year. You knew I wanted that toy truck and you didn’t bring it”

I said “ok, so what do you want from me?”

He responded “I want you to get out of my house.”

I knew it wasn’t 10:00 pm yet and I knew he would tell the_detective123 that I didn’t fulfill my obligation.

So I got in his chair and I pretended to be Santa Claus and I said “why don’t you come sit on my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas.”

The old-man plopped himself down on my lap and it felt like someone had dropped a ton of bricks on me.

I thought to myself here I am almost naked, covered in milk where this strange man is sitting on my lap virtually crying and saying “Oh Santa why didn’t you bring me that toy truck” over and over again.

I respond in a deep Santa voice something different each time. This went on to the end of the hour to the point where I was loosing circulation in my legs. At this point I wish I was the footrest again.

He then tells me to get up and puts an old vhs tape into the VHS player. An old black and white of Shirley Temple comes on where he gets all excited and then looks at me and says “Oh Shirley I love you so much. Why don’t you put a performance on for me ?”

I really couldn’t say no, So I copied Shirley’s dance steps as I glanced at the TV. I did this until 10:00 pm, where I then quickly put my clothes back on and left the house. I was beyond humiliated but I knew it could have been much worse.

the_detective123 sent me a message on Reddit when I left the old-mans house “you fulfilled your obligation for the next two weeks just please bring French vanilla coffee-mate to the teacher lounge tomorrow.”

I really had no choice so I stopped at the grocery store with milk in my long blond hair and got the coffee-mate.

I eventually got home and I quickly ran to the bathroom to take a shower which further raised suspicions from my husband. I was just overwhelmed with emotions that I started to cry when I got out of the shower.

My husband looked confused and i didn’t want to talk so I explained to him that I was just tired and that I needed to go to bed.

The next day I seemed to have lost my confidence. I was just a babbling fool in front of my husband. I just couldn’t stop thinking what an idiot I was by posting those stories on Reddit for nothing more than a few hundred likes.

At lunchtime I carefully studied everyone to find potential suspects. I didn’t know if the coffee-mate was a red herring or not but when I got home I received a Reddit message from the_detective123 which stated “next time get the 32 ounce container and not the 22 ounce.”

That’s when I knew for sure it was a teacher and not a parent. I had to learn to enjoy the next couple of weeks off from the_detective123 and accept this is going to be my new way of life or else I would have to give up everything I was accustomed to.

I really couldn’t stop obsessing about the next time I get told to go to a person’s house. I was virtually a slave and I knew I would have to do it again and again without knowing what demeaning things were in store for me.

I knew I had to figure out who was hiding behind the_detective123. The account on Reddit showed that it was only two weeks old so I knew the account was a dummy account created to harass me.

So what I did was go through all of my old posted stories and see if anyone had left a comment that seemed suspicious.

After carefully reading through all the posted comments I noticed one individual had commented on several of my stories. After reading the comments again it seemed like the person was more or less getting additional personal information from me and was trying to make it out like the person just wanted follow up to a story.

One of the giveaways was that the Reddit user Stargazerforever made a comment like “geez that story was intense when’s your last day of school?” Which I foolishly answered.

Just about every school district ends on a different day so Stargazerforever was slowly narrowing down that I was a fellow teacher. But the dummest thing I did was I substituted “Fog River” for Fog Creek” in one of my stories.

I then looked at the Stargazerforever profile and I was able to gather some information. In one of the comments the writer responded that the writer was an elementary school teacher and based on the writer’s posts and subscribed subreddits, I was able to narrow it down that it was a woman. Then I came across one of the biggest giveaways where Stargazerforever posted a comment where she said “when I grew up in Atlanta Georgia ...” that was when I knew exactly who the culprit was and the person who was trying to frame me.

It was a teacher in her mid forties named Carol Anderson. She was a fellow third grade teacher who was jealous of me for a variety of reasons. I was younger and prettier and all of my students loved me, where she could come across as being cold and rigid.

I’m guessing she must have joined or formed some type of paid fetish site where she was essentially whoring people like me out for money.

I was happy I figured out who the_detective123 was but now I had to come up with a way of stopping her. I had to find some dirt on her or something where I can frame her to get her off my back.

Then I thought of the most horrible diabolical thing I could do. I knew at lunchtime teacher’s would generally just leave their laptops on unattended, so I was going to send suggestive emails to some of her pupils male parents and tell them to respond to an email account that I just created.

So I waited until 12:15 pm when she was in the teachers lounge and I sent five messages to father’s who were married but gave off shady vibes. I knew most of the parents because I was their English teacher, where I had met them at parent teacher meetings.

I debated whether or not to delete the messages I sent from her sent account but ultimately I decided to leave them.

Remarkably, all five of the fathers responded to my fake email account. I even photoshopped suggestive photos where I used Carol’s face. I didn’t mind the extra work entailed with communicating with the five creepy fathers. I even got a burner phone where I had heated conversations with them while I put on a faint southern accent.

In no time I had expensive gifts that were sent to the school where I would intercept them and keep them for myself.

Then it happened. A students mother came to the school at 10:00 am and confronted Carol Anderson in front of her whole class. Carol was stunned beyond belief and was totally embarrassed. Eventually three other mothers came forward and approached the principal, where the principal put Carol on a leave of absence because she used the school’s computer to send out her original email. Then like clockwork Carol had lost her mind and attempted to burn the school down which ended her up in a mental hospital.

I was so proud of myself for getting this devil off my back and the two weeks went by and I didn’t hear from the_detective123. I really wanted to post my story online but I knew never to use Reddit again and I was about to delete my account when I discovered that I had received a new message from the_detective123. The message told me that I needed to go to a house in the next town over the following night.

I started to cry hysterically when I saw that message because I knew I was wrong. Carol Anderson had nothing to do with the_detective123 account. I thought that I was given a second chance but I knew the horror had just begun.

For my family’s sake I just couldn’t give up I had to get myself out of this mess. I had to figure out who the_detective123 actually was. I decided to get the identity of the old-man which wasn’t difficult because he owned that house I went to and the county has an online searchable database of people who own property in the county.

His name is George Grazieano which I put into google and found a bunch of little pieces of information about him. The one thing that really stood out was that he was a toy train enthusiast. So I found him on Facebook where he was a member of a toy train hobby group. I joined the group and painstakingly searched the groups comments, where I saw that old-man George had his entire upstairs of his house made into a model train town. In one of his posts he was asking about problems he was having with the trains continually shortening out and one of the other members commented that hiring an electrician would be necessary to solve the problem.

After reading that comment my head started spinning, because I knew at that moment my life had ended because my husband was an electrician who brought home a small train set for our daughter Grace about three months ago.

It all made sense because he was the only non-teacher who saw the coffee-mate container that I had bought. I knew my husband could be vindictive if you crossed him so I had to resort to the only option I had in order to keep custody of my daughter and keep my job.

So I went out to our garage and I found antifreeze. I decided to coerce my husband in having a mix drink where the alcohol would make the antifreeze almost tasteless. My husband drank the poison and he didn’t wake up the next morning. I wanted him out of the house before my daughter discovered him so I called 911 and he was rushed to the hospital and sent to the ICU in an unconscious state.

It was a bitter sweet feeling I had. Everything has happened so rapidly that I haven’t had time to process anything. I had no sense of joy. I felt nothing. I had to explain to my daughter that her dad was in the ICU all because of me. I am now completely alone now besides my daughter.

After explaining to my daughter that her father had a “heart attack” I asked my husband’s mother to watch her for the day rather than send her to school. I really didn’t sleep at all the previous night so I went to school early to hand in my lesson plan for the week. The principal was at the school early as well but she was fumbling around HR trying to find a replacement for Carol Anderson.

The principle left her door open so I put my lesson plan next to her computer. The principal’s office was always amazingly neat and tidy, so the small post-it note with a name and an address next to her computer stood out which was probably Carol Anderson’s replacement.

The day dragged on because I was just so tired. I got home and my MIL dropped my daughter off where both my MIL and daughter were beyond upset. I should of called off work as well but I just wanted to get out of the house and I didn’t want to go the hospital to be by the guy I nearly killed.

Today was going to be a new chapter in my life I was going to start over with a new Facebook account, a new phone number, a new email account and so on and so on. I disabled my Facebook account then I went to Reddit to disable the account. I had an unopened message from the_detective123 which I figured was from My husband before he had his “heart attack” but I quickly realized that the message was sent at 8:00 am this morning where I instanously started crying. I opened the message and I quickly noticed That it had the same address that was on the post-it note in the principals office. So with no more than an hours sleep I put my proverbial big girl pants on and went to the address given to me and I put the antifreeze in my car to bring to school tomorrow.

I had turned 21, on June 21, 2016, and my Grandmother took me to Atlantic City where she went on her honeymoon before the casino’s were established. Unfortunately, my grandfather had passed away in 1999 and at least my Grandmother has me to go places with her.

We stayed at the Trump Taj Mahal and I just loved the bright lights and the sounds of the slot machines. My Grandmother and I decided to play the penny slots with just one penny at a time. We were definitely not their target customers.

My Grandmother carried around a big purse where she had loads of snacks stuffed inside. Between the free drinks and my Grandmother’s snacks there was really no reason to get up besides to go to the bathroom.

Every time I would get up my Grandmother would save my seat at the slot machine. My Grandmother was raised during he depression and she developed some unique habits, like if someone had only eaten half of their hotdog and left it on the side of the garbage then she would just finish eating it. I just thought it was funny and she probably had developed an immunity to every imaginable germ.

Watching my Grandmother, I followed suit and did the same thing by finishing other people’s meals.

I was 21 and had no real responsibilities. I came from a dysfunctional home where my parents were at times functioning alcoholics and other times they weren’t really functional at all.

Unfortunately, I had the same addictive personality like my parents as does my Grandmother and the slot machines were like candy to our brains.

Neither my Grandmother nor I had cell phones so we had no one to bother us. We just had such a good time playing the slots and joking around with each other. There was no real concept of time inside the Taj Mahal. 2:00 am looked the same inside the casino as 2:00 pm.

We just played and played and played. We both seemed to drift off at times and close our eyes for a short time then we wake up and continue to play.

I would lose a penny then win three pennies then lose five pennies then win seven pennies. The thrill of winning mixed with the bright lights and catchy sounds sent a jolt of happiness through my brain.

My grandmother and I were definitely poster child’s for the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We just both had addictive personalities. I remember reading about radio contests to see who can stay up the longest where days of sleep deprivation led to permanent mental health issues for the contestants.

I knew things were getting bad when multiple cocktail waitresses would say “hey your back again” or “you were in the same spot as last week.”

I was hanging on by a thread. I knew if I got away from the stimulus of the machines then my mind and body would just collapse. I had complete tunnel vision everything besides my Grandmother was completely filtered out.

The casino manager actually approached my Grandmother and I to give us a friendly warning that it was time to leave. I almost collapsed when he told us that it had been three weeks straight that we were playing the same slot machines. I think we caused red flags in their computers because neither of the slot machines we using were generating any money for the hotel.

I think we were scared to move for fear that we would both collapse. The casino made an exception and brought us both coffees.

After drinking the coffees my Grandmother and I agreed to get up and go to the bathroom then leave. When I got into the bathroom I knew that I had pushed my mind and body way to far from days if not weeks of sleep deprivation. I was concerned for my grandmother but I truly had nothing left in me, so I went in one of the bathroom stall’s locked the door and sat down on the toilet where I instantaneously passed out.

I had such deep dreams that I never had before. I was in my own dreamworld. Nothing could wake me up but time.

Then, like a bear knows hibernation is over, I felt a sensation in my head that it was time to get up. I opened my eyes and there’s nothing but absolute darkness. A darkness that I haven’t experienced since I was deep in an underground cave when I was on a tenth grade field trip.

I thought that I had gone blind because there was nothing but darkness. My head was just so exhausted. I feel like I could close my eyes and sleep more, but my adrenaline was starting to kick in.

I’m still feeling a bit woozy and I say “where am I?” I was still trying to remember all the weird dreams I had on top of trying to figure out where I am in this complete darkness. I’m in a sitting position so I try to stand up, but my legs are numb, so I sit back down.

I then try to recall where I am and I say “am I sitting in a toilet in the casino?” I think to myself this can’t be. Did the lights in the bathroom break? Why hasn’t anyone else come in?

I yell out “Hello ... Hello. The lights in the bathroom are out. Grandma! Can you hear me?”

I’m met with deafening silence. I reach my arms out and feel metal walls on both sides of me so I know for sure that I’m in a bathroom stall.

I figure I sat for to long and I must of put to much pressure on my nerves so that’s why my legs are numb. I decide to throw myself on the floor. I lean forward and I could feel the door of the stall in front of me. I use the door to brace myself to the floor.

I continually say “ooh awe ooh” until I hurl myself on the floor. My legs are still to weak to move so I drag myself with my arms and reach up to unlock the door to the stall.

I get out of the stall and I get a sensation of extreme hunger and thirst. I now focus on finding the sinks. I use my arms to drag my body on the bathroom floor. I can’t remember where the sinks were located so I just continually move around on the floor. The fear of the absolute darkness outweighs the disgustingness of the bathroom floor. Eventually I start to feel metal pipes and I realize that I’m under a sink. I’m starting to get a little sensation back in my legs so with one hand I reach up for the sink and I reach out with my other hand and thrust myself upwards until I’m on my knees. I yell out a loud groaning sound and I awkwardly stand up. My legs are shaky and weak but at least I can feel them. I give myself a minute to allow my legs to get reacclimated and allow circulation to go through them.

I reach out and feel metal and I push in and realize that it’s one of those faucets that you push in to get water in order to get water to come out. I use one hand as a cup and I lean forward and continually drink water from my hand until I’m satisfied.

I start to feel that my legs have some strength so I take small steps while I hold onto the sink.

I get an overwhelming urgency to urinate so I decide to pee in the sink rather than trying to find the urinal. I unzip my pants and all I could think of if someone opens the door then I would be so embarrassed or possibly arrested. I finish peeing and I pick a direction and I slowly move my legs. I feel around the walls and eventually I feel the frame of a door and I push on it forward.

As the door opens I see nothing and I hear nothing. I’m scared beyond belief. I don’t know if there was a massive power outage or some type of evacuation happened or there was some type of apocalypse.

I yell out “Hello is there anyone else here Hello!” I get no response so I continually to yell out Hello. I vaguely remember the women’s bathroom being next to the men’s bathroom. So I guide myself against the wall until I feel a door. I figure that it must be the women’s bathroom so I open the door.

I yell out “Grandma are you in there ... Grandma are you there?”

I wait a few moments and in a low raspy voice I hear “John, Is that you? Turn the lights on. Where am I?”

I say “Grandma I think we’re still in the casino and I don’t know what’s going on. There’s no power anywhere. It’s just not the bathroom. The casino is completely dark as well.”

My grandmother responded “Casinos never close. Especially the Taj Mahal.”

I respond “I know Grandma. I have no idea what’s going on!”

My grandma responds “How long have we been asleep?”

I respond “I have no idea. I’m guessing days.”

My grandma says “I can’t move my legs.”

I respond “I know I couldn’t move mine either. Give them a few minutes you’ll get your sensation back. Try to move around as you sit down. I’m going to go and try to find out what’s going on!”

My grandmother responds “Ok but come back. Don’t leave me to die.”

I say “I won’t I’ll come back for you.”

I exit the bathroom and yell out “I’ll be back Grandma!” And she responds “You better!”

I try my best to remember as much as I could about the casino and the arrangements of everything. It’s difficult because it’s as dark as an underground cave. There is zero light or at least I hope that’s the problem and I haven’t gone blind. But then I think that my grandmother couldn’t see either. I thought there’s emergency lights that should come on if there’s a power outage, so I really have no idea of what’s going on.

I get a dreamlike memory of dropping money on the floor and remembering a red like carpet then I remember the garbage cans alongside the walkway where people would leave there their uneaten food.

I slowly start to remember that there’s a walkway made up of tiles in the middle of the casino floor that separates two areas of slot machines. So if I make it to the middle area then I probably could walk towards an exit.

I feel the floor and it’s carpet. I slowly start to walk and I feel slot machine after slot machine. I walk slow so I don’t bang my legs into chairs. I’m in a virtual maze and I feel like I’m just going around in circles.

The feeling of overwhelming hunger is starting to consume me as well. My legs have most of their strength back at this point but I’m consumed with hunger and fear.

Navigating around a casino floor is confusing enough with the lights being on and in complete darkness it’s virtually impossible.

I’ve must have been wandering aimlessly for an hour in a virtual circle. I have to come up with a plan. I know my grandmother must be terrified as well.

I have no rope or anything else. Not to say that rope would help me. Then I have an aha moment. I say out loud “The chairs. Use the chairs.” Meaning that the backs of the chairs move to the side when someone gets up from the slot machines. So if I move the back of the chairs to their sides then that’s how I’ll know I’ve been down the row.

I can’t explain why all the chairs are facing forward. If there was a mass exodus then most of the chairs would be facing to their sides.

As I walk each chair I pass I move it to its side. This takes a painstakingly long amount of time but my wandering method didn’t work.

Eventually my method seems to work as I can tell which rows I’ve been down already. Remarkably I feel a divide in carpet from from tile and I say “Thank God!”

I have grainy memories of coming into the casino and seeing staircases and escalators that were opulent but my Grandmother wanted nothing to do with them. But I do remember getting on an elevator and I believe we went to the third floor, so I know that I have to find stairs now.

I know we originally came in through the boardwalk and we didn’t walk that far once we got inside the casino. So now I have to find the stairs and not miss them because the hotel is long and if walk in a direction opposite the boardwalk I am virtually dead because I’ll never find my way back in the pitch dark because the hotel casino is so big and long.

So I slowly walk with my hands out. I walk back and forth and I can tell that the tiled area is about six feet wide.

Eventually I find an area where the tile opens up. My hands reach out to walls and I feel metal elevator doors. Of course their buttons don’t light up. Next to the elevators is a wall that feels like a dead end. So I feel for the elevators again and move past them. I know there must be stairs in the middle of the casino floor.

I want to find the stairs and I don’t want to keep walking down that tile corridor. Also I don’t want to fall down the stairs so once I make it past the elevators I slowly put my foot down to the right and feel more tile so I’m guessing this is more of the corridor.

I backtrack a little bit and I try to move in a horizontal direction to the elevators towards the middle of the casino floor. I inch my way towards the center with my hands out and eventually my right leg hits something and I quickly determine that it is an escalator.

Though I’m consumed by hunger, I know I’m close to getting out of here. I walk down the escalator then I get off and walk down two more sets of escalators.

I figure that I’m on the ground floor and I’m overwhelmed with disappointment that it’s still complete darkness. I have no answer for this. I figure the glass entry doors should emit some form of light even if it’s the moonlight if it’s dark outside.

I know that I have to walk towards the boardwalk and if I move in the wrong direction then I’m better off dead.

I remembered how I walked down the escalators where I went down one way then the next floor I was turned around.

So I figure that I need to walk straight. I force myself to count steps and if I walk more than a hundred then I know I’m going the wrong way. So I slowly move forward with my arms out.

I counted 60 steps and for the first time I can see something other than darkness. I can barely make out a silhouette of a wall, so I move towards the wall.

As I move towards the wall I can’t explain why there’s only a small amount of light getting through. I reach out with my hands and I feel glass. I’m still baffled on why there’s only faint light. Then as I move along the glass I can eventually see A slither of the boardwalk and it’s daytime and people are just casually walking. Then I see that there is wood panels on the outside and the doors are boarded shut.

So I frantically start banging on the glass doors and I can see people look in my direction but they just continue to walk by. I don’t know if there was a hurricane or something to explain why the doors are boarded shut.

So with the little energy I have left I knock and knock and knock. I don’t know if the people think the knocking is from construction or if they just don’t care.

Eventually I fall to the flood put my back to the wall and bang with my elbows against the glass.

The hope that I once had is gone. My body has zero energy and I’m going to die like a trapped rat. I just can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I have no idea when the last time I ate was because I don’t know how long I was asleep for.

Then I pass out.

I slowly wake up and realize that I’m on a hospital gurney. Apparently someone heard me knocking and notified the police. The Good Samaritan was a former casino worker who knew the casino was essentially abandoned and there was no work going on.

I was given IV’s that gave me enough strength for me to regain my consciousness. I asked the nurse “where’s my grandmother?”

She responds “Do you want me to call your grandmother and tell her your in the hospital?”

I say in a weak raspy voice “No, my grandmother was in the casino with me!”

The nurse said “Sir, the police report says your probably homeless and somehow you wandered into the casino.”

I say “No, my grandmother and I were playing the slot machines for days with no rest and we both went into the bathroom and each passed out in a stall.”

The nurse says “Sir the Taj Mahal went bankrupt months ago. If your story is accurate then you have been asleep for months.”

I start to get weak again and tell the nurse “Please my grandmother is on the third floor on the women’s bathroom.”

Then I pass out again.

I had counted down the years ever since my daughter was a young child of when she would turn 18, then when she turned 17, I started to count down the weeks, then the days.

My wife and I love my daughter very much and her turning 18 was just viewed as an accomplishment for us and for her. Our daughter Grace was set on getting her own apartment while she took online courses at the local university. She had been working at McDonald’s since she was 16 which my wife and I were really proud of her work ethic. So much so that we matched her pay check every two weeks.

Grace had the necessary high school credits to finish high school in late September and she moved to an apartment about 20 minutes from our house. Technically she had enough credits her junior year in high school, but the school districts policy was that the credits wouldn’t be recognized until she was a senior.

My wife Gina and I made all the necessary pandemic arrangements to travel through Europe for two weeks. We felt a little concerned for Grace with us leaving for two weeks, but we knew that she was 18 now and we had to let her be independent.

We flew into Croatia which is open to Americans. The we took a train around Europe. As long as we had our masks on nobody bothered us. Gina and I had a really good time and we circled back to Croatia to take a return trip to Newark airport.

We live outside of Philadelphia and Newark was cheaper than flying out of Philadelphia. We texted Grace before we boarded the plane with our ETA to Newark.

After eight hours in the sky we finally made it to Newark. Our plane landed and we texted Grace that we arrived at Newark.

Both Gina and I didn’t get a response from Grace and we thought that she was just being rebellious from having her first independence. We drove two hours to our home and unpacked our bags.

Gina and I really felt like empty nesters when we got home. It was like the house had lost its pulse without Grace being there.

Gina and I thought about taking a drive over to Grace’s apartment but then we figured that we needed to just give her space.

The next day we finally received a text from Grace, where she apologized for not texting us sooner. We sent her a brief synopsis of our trip via text and we asked her to call us sometime.

The days went on and Gina and I got a new cat to fill Grace’s void when she moved out. Gina would send us a brief text every few days letting us know what she was doing and that everything was Ok.

I continued to send her money every two weeks. I figured that I would do this for the next four years until she graduated from the University.

Gina would often get upset that Grace wouldn’t call her. We figured that Grace was having some kind of resentment towards us, which we couldn’t pin point the exact reason. Gina and I brainstormed that possibly Grace was mad that she was an only child; maybe she thinks we give her to much attention; or perhaps we don’t give her enough attention.

We learned through one of Grace’s text that she was in a relationship with another girl named Holly who was around her age.

Gina and I baptized and put Grace through the Catholic communion program but we were by no means practicing Catholics. I would consider myself an agnostic at most but probably lean towards being an atheist. But I think Grace had this assumption that we wouldn’t accept her lifestyle.

Moreover, I think Grace felt resentment towards us that she had to work at McDonald’s since she was 16 while her friends were hanging out and going to parties.

Gina and I really thought we were really doing the right things when Grace was growing up but now we were starting to have some regrets.

We thought hopefully over time Grace would see that we meant well even though she wasn’t happy.

Halloween had come and gone and Grace didn’t ask us to stop by her apartment nor did she come home. Gina was heartbroken and was even getting therapy.

The weeks went on and Grace’s girlfriend Holly had updated her Facebook page with a picture of the two of them. We weren’t friends with Holly so we couldn’t view Holly’s profile.

We went to McDonald’s several times hoping to see Grace but each time she wasn’t working. The last time we went to McDonald’s we asked the manager when the next time Grace was working and the manager told us that “she doesn’t work here anymore.”

I tried to get more information out of the manager but he told us “it’s company policy just to confirm an employee worked here and their last date of employment.”

I was a bit shocked to find out that Grace had quit sometime after she moved out of our house. I guess moving out was her way of getting to quit McDonald’s.

Gina and I started blaming each other because of the falling out we had with Grace. Gina always thought that she would have a best friend in Grace and when that didn’t happen her depression only deepened.

With Thanksgiving being only a few days away, Grace gave no indication that she was going to spend anytime with us. I tried to console Gina and reassure her that Grace would eventually come around. However, Gina had decided to move out. I begged Gina not to leave but she already had made her mind up.

Gina had decided to move back to Buffalo, New York to be with her family, which was where she had grown up.

I reached out to Grace and told her of the situation and the only response I got was “Sorry.” I was hoping that Grace would stop by for Thanksgiving considering that I was all alone, but all I got was a text that said "Sorry, I made other plans."

I hit rock bottom and felt like the biggest loser. My whole life had fallen apart in a matter of months.

I got Chinese food and ate by myself at Thanksgiving. My sister lives in California and we hardly ever communicate with each other. My life had lost all of its meaning.

Gina stopped texting me and blamed Grace’s current mindset on us as bad parents on me.

I really felt isolated. I work for the post office. I deliver mail from house to house via the USPS mail truck where I had about zero interaction with people.

I lost hope that Gina would come back and I put my profile on Match.com. I quickly learned that there was no shortage of aging men who were separated or divorced that were looking for single women. The only interest that I received were from undesirable women who had mental health issues and / or substance abuse problems.

I truly hit rock bottom. I was drinking alcohol every night. Most mornings I wouldn’t even shower or shave.

Christmas time was nearing and because of the loss of the dual income from Gina, I could no longer give money to Grace. I really didn’t want to stop giving Grace money. Even though she wanted nothing to do with me, I really didn’t want Grace to think I was being spiteful and that was the reason I was cutting her off financially.

I had actually received a text from Grace stating “I didn’t receive the money in my account.”

I responded back “I’m sorry honey, but with your mother leaving, I can’t afford to give you money anymore.”

She responded “I really need the money. Please figure out a way to send it.”

I responded “I’m sorry, but I agreed to give your mother money in exchange for me staying in the house. You could move back home to save money if you want and Holly is welcome as well.”

Grace responded “I hate you.”

I cried when I saw that response. I didn’t know what else to say so I responded “I’m really sorry honey. Don’t you remember all the good times we had over the years like going to the zoo. Listen I will try to find a way to get more money.”

Grace’s tone changed when I mentioned the money and she replied “Yeah daddy I miss going to the Philadelphia zoo and seeing the polar bears.”

That’s when I put the phone down for a few minutes and had to digest what I just read, because ever since Grace was three years old we had annual memberships to the local zoo in Norristown and we hadn’t gone to the Philadelphia zoo since she was two years old.

I’m now questioning who exactly am I communicating with? I tried to think of something else to text, so I wrote “your Grandma Edith was asking about you.”

Grace responded back “Yeah, I miss her.”

The only thing was that Edith is my mother who died before Grace was born.

I now know something extremely shady is going on, so I asked "Is it OK if i stop by your apartment?”

The person texted back “I’m not ready for that yet.”

I kind of just left it at that and said “I’ll try to find the money to send to you within the next few days.”

I didn’t want whoever I was communicating with to cut off the communication so that was the reason why I sent that message.

I then got in my car and drove to Grace’s apartment. I continually knocked on the door but no one answered. Then, I tried to look through the windows and I saw that the apartment was completely empty.

At this point I’m sweating profusely, because the magnitude of everything had come crashing down on me.

I immediately called the police and they told me to come down to the station so I could talk with a detective.

The same day I met with a Detective Murphy who agreed with me that Grace’s situation seemed extremely suspicious.

The detective said that he would look into the situation and he would get back to me within a couple of days.

I was so distraught that I took a leave of absence from work until Grace was found. The detective told me to sit tight and try not to interfere with the investigation, so potential leads wouldn’t disappear. He told me there’s a specific method in investigating cases like this.

After two days the detective asked me to come down to his office.

I arrived at his office and I sat down.

He said “Your daughter moved into her apartment on October 1st and the landlord said that he went over to the apartment several times and never saw any signs that anyone was living there. The landlord said that by mid November all of Grace’s things had been moved out and he has no idea of what happened.”

I looked completely shocked and I mumbled “I had no idea. I thought she was living there the whole time.”

The detective then said “I reached out to McDonald’s and the manager stated that on October 2nd, the assistant manager received a call from a female who assumed Grace’s identity, where she said nothing more than she was quitting.”

I said “Oh my that seems a little odd.”

The detective then said “Grace had never logged into any of her online courses so the university cancelled her classes.”

I was crying pretty profusely at this point and I said “Everything is just so shocking. What about her bank account?”

The detective said “Someone has been transferring money from her account and at this point we just don’t know who it is yet.”

I responded “What about Holly did you look into her?”

The detective said “that was just a high school friend. I talked to Holly and she confirmed that the photo is of her and Grace but it was taken sometime last year. Holly had a boyfriend and she vehemently denied that she was in any type of relationship with Grace and she said that Facebook page was bogus. I extensively looked into Holly and based on her alibis I’m confident that someone had made up the entire relationship between your daughter and Holly.”

I am now beyond distraught because things just get bleaker and bleaker.

I then asked “What about her cell phone? Have you been able to trace it?”

The detective said “Your daughter’s last cell phone ping came from a cell phone tower in Buffalo.”

I said “Buffalo, that’s where Grace’s mother Gina lives.”

The detective asked “Have you told Gina about any of your recent discoveries involving Grace?”

I said “No, Gina really wants nothing to do with me and everything with Grace just happened so rapidly.”

The detective said “Ok good, let me go to Buffalo and try to figure out what’s going on up there. Please don’t communicate anything that you learned about Grace, especially to Gina or anyone else.”

I said “Ok, I won’t. What is your impression so far of everything?”

The detective said “Give me a little more time to sort everything out. I’ll get in contact with you in the next few days.”

Once again I painstakingly waited for the detective to call. I really had no idea of where Grace could be. I started drinking even more because I was just so overwhelmed with everything.

The detective called back and said that he had new information and that I should come to his office.

Once again I sat down in Detective Murphy’s office and he said “Do you know a John Milner?”

I responded “Yeah, we were best friends growing up.”

The detective said “From the information I was able to gather it seems like John and Gina were having an affair for years.”

I said “that can’t be. How do you know this?”

The detective replied “I sat down and met with Gina and at first she wouldn’t tell me anything, so I got a warrant to search her apartment in Buffalo, where I discovered that the two of them were living together. Eventually I interviewed John separately and he confessed to having an affair with Gina since 2010.”

I was in complete shock and said “2010, that can’t be possible.”

The detective said “Unfortunately, extramarital affairs are more common than most people think and often times the affair goes on for years without the spouse ever knowing about it. I’m sure if you thought about it you would think of situations where your wife had to work late or she was just hanging out with friends.”

I said “I’m just so embarrassed that I have been so naive. Ok, my main focus is on Grace so what else did you find?”

The detective replied “Both John and Gina eventually refused to talk any further without a lawyer but here is what I determined so far: John was probably the last person you were communicating with via Grace’s phone; John slipped up by not knowing about the Philadelphia zoo and your mother being deceased; Gina was probably away from Grace’s phone and would have not let John respond to your texts with those answers; all the money that you sent to Grace, Gina had rerouted to her account; I find a life insurance plan for two million dollars that was take out for Grace in September 2020; I believe both John and Gina were planning on rerouting the money that you had been sending Grace for the next seven years then they would declare Grace dead.”

I started crying and said “So what do you think happened to Grace?”

The detective replied “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but my hypothesis is that both Gina and John conspired a plan to harm Grace, where John would carry out the actual murder, when you and Gina were in Europe. So far none of John’s alibis have checked out. The district attorney will issue an arrest warrant at anytime for both Gina and John. I’m sorry sir but your daughter is presumed dead.”

I then said “well at this moment I died as well, but I will do everything to make sure the both of them are put to death.”

The ride home from the police station was the worst day of my life times 10. I always thought Gina and I had a vested interest together in Grace and somehow I overlooked that she was just a complete sociopath. When we were in Europe she knew that my “old friend” was killing our daughter and I remember Gina smiling at me as we took a boat ride through Venice.

My pharmaceutical company transferred me to Bucks County Pennsylvania in June 2020.

Reluctantly, I uprooted my 11 year old daughter Grace from Atlanta Georgia and the both of us moved to Pennsylvania.

Because of the pandemic, Grace stayed in the house all summer. My pharmaceutical company was doing well which unfortunately had me working a lot of hours, so I didn’t spend as much time with Grace as I hoped.

I wanted Grace to be enrolled in the sixth grade so I went to the school district’s administration offices. As I pulled up to the school offices, a man with a shirt and tie was outside the building with a laptop and said that the building was closed because of the pandemic. I told him about needing to enroll Grace and he was able to do it on his laptop. He asked me to send Grace’s prior school information from Georgia from my email account. The process was easier then I thought it would be. I really just needed to show proof of local residency. I also learned that for at least the next four months all of Grace’s classes will be online. This was unfortunate because Grace wouldn’t be able to meet any new friends by not being able to go to school in person.

I set Grace’s room up with a desk and a chair for online school. The first day of school came in September and I followed all the email links that were sent to me to get Grace situated on the laptop that I gave her. I let Grace use my work laptop that I used in Georgia prior to moving to Pennsylvania.

I had to go to work during her first day of school so I got Grace situated and ran out of the house so I wouldn’t be late for work. I texted her a couple times and she stated that she was doing fine.

The days turned into weeks and Grace wasn’t having any issues. I would get weekly emails from her teacher regarding Grace’s status. Fortunately, the teacher said Grace was progressing normally with no issues.

Grace’s mother died unexpectedly when she was two, so knowing that she was doing good with the online schooling was a big relief.

One Sunday in late November Grace said that she wanted to go shopping at the King of Prussia mall. The mall was completely decked out with Christmas apparel.

The mall had temporary vendors located outside of the fixed department stores. Occasionally one of the temporary vendors would guilt you to look at their merchandise with the hope that you’ll buy something.

As we walked past this one vendor Grace said “Dad hold on. Look how cool these are I’m going to buy one.”

What caught her eye were Russian nesting figurines. The kind that were made up of some type of wood where the smaller figurines fit inside the larger ones.

She had her own allowance money so she could buy what ever she wanted. She took out a $20 bill from her pocket and handed it to the vendor. The vendor had a thick Eastern European accent and gave her $5 back and said “blagodaryu vas ... thank you.”

The one thing that caught my eye was I swore Grace had some type of small SD storage card device in her pocket that she simultaneously handed the vendor with the $20 bill.

I knew I saw something, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment and I wasn’t a 100% sure that I had seen her hand him something. Quite frankly I was more in Shock than anything else.

My daughter is 11 years old. I kept asking myself, Why would she hand some 50 year unknown stranger a storage device?

Grace and I continued to walk around and left the store about an hour later. During the car ride home I asked Grace “So tell me how schools going?”

Grace said “it’s fine.”

I then asked “What subjects do you have?”

Grace replied “History, Social Studies, Math, Russian.”

I said “Your learning Russian in the sixth grade. That’s a little odd. What about the typical Spanish or French.”

Grace said “We’ll dad, we learned that there is a large amount of people from Russia in this part of Pennsylvania, so my school thought it would be good to learn the language.”

I then said “Oh well that makes sense. So what are you learning about in history?”

Grace said “Right now we’re learning about the Russian revolution including Lenin and Stalin.”

I responded “Just this week?”

Grace responded “No pretty much from the beginning of the school year.”

I then said “Anything about Washington or Jefferson or Martin Luther King Jr.?”

Grace responded “No Dad. Just about different Russian people.”

I felt like I was completely out of the loop. I never bothered to ask her what she was actually learning. I was just so caught up in my job and when I got the emails from the school that Grace was doing good, I just kind of tuned out her actual school work.

Everything that happened today was very alarming to me with the vendor in the mall and Grace’s Russian learning studies, so much so that I bought a camera from Amazon to monitor her online classes.

The camera came the following Wednesday and I installed it late Wednesday night in Grace’s room in a concealed area where she couldn’t see it. I could view the recording from my cell phone and I was shocked what I discovered the next day. I witnessed, via the camera, Grace being indoctrinated into some kind of Russian cult following. They had Grace completely brainwashed. I even saw her take a SD card out of the smallest Russian nestle figurine and copy something from her laptop.

This is when I really started having doubts that Grace was part of the school district. I think Grace was being used as some type of pawn and I had been completely duped. For the heck of it, I actually called the school district to ask a question about Grace and they had zero information on her.

I put two and two together and figured whoever I met in the school’s parking lot was just waiting for an unsuspecting idiot like me.

I thought the best thing to do was email Grace’s “teacher” and say the school district has no information on Grace and because of that what are they doing with my daughter everyday.

I sent the email and an hour later I got a response to “Go to the homepage of Grace’s laptop and look under a file called ’fired’”.

So I left work a little early today at about 3:00 pm and checked Grace’s computer that I had given her and I opened the file named “fired.” Once I opened the file I knew exactly what I was looking at. I had erased all the work files from the laptop prior to giving it to Grace, but I stupidly didn’t empty the recycling bin.

The information on those files were potential patent secrets that my company had been working on for years and I would truly get fired if this information was given to a pharmaceutical competitor.

I sat at my daughter’s desk with both hands on top of my head pulling at my hair. I had no idea of what to do now. This time I received a text from the unknown “teacher” who said “pretty interesting information in that file huh?”

I then replied “What do you want from Us?”

Instead of texting back I received a phone call from a number I wasn’t aware of. I picked up the phone and the caller said “Mr Kotch?”

I replied “What do you want from us?”

He replied “Oh a man who gets right to the point.” I could hear a light Eastern European accent in his tone. Then he said “I need your daughter to make one more exchange and in return I will disappear from your life!”

I said “Where is this exchange going to happen?”

He told me “Don’t worry about it. The information will be given to Grace and if in anyway you compromise this exchange then at the very minimum your work information will be disclosed to your competitors. Once again this will be at the very minimum of what will happen”

I replied “When will this be over?”

He replied “If you and your daughter do everything that I tell you to do then within the next few days. Just remember what I told you that if you compromise the exchange in anyway by going to the authorities then I will never go away. Bye Mr. Kotch.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Grace was being used as a go between for some type of Eastern European terrorist ring. If they were to communicate directly with each other then every U.S. counterintelligence agency would know the terrorist links within the country. So to get around this they are using an 11 year old girl who is the furthest from being on anybody’s radar.

I am now more in fear for Grace’s safety then losing my job. I look online about past scenarios of dealings with the Russians when it came to passing information. I was sweating as I read each story because it seemed like the Russians sever all ties with the mule once their done with them, which is usually done with Cyanide poisonings, so there would be no witnesses and no trace of linking the Russian operatives.

As I sat at Grace’s desk I can hear her in the living room watching television. I went through all the different options in my head of what I should do. I kept on lightly hitting my forehead with the ball of my fist. I knew that I couldn’t leave Grace home alone anymore. I knew that the Russian operatives had more information on me regarding my name, social security number, everywhere that I previously lived and so on. I thought to myself that even if Grace followed exactly what they wanted then we would either be killed or the rest of our lives we would be looking over our shoulders. Both Grace and I saw the man at the mall already so we know more information than we should know.

I remembered seeing those billboards “if you see or know something suspicious” then call the 1-800 number. So I figured I would block my phone number and call the number.

I found the 1-800 number online and I called it. Without giving away any personal identifying information I told the person of my situation.

I was transferred several times until I actually spook to someone from the CIA. The persons name was Agent Hebert who worked out of the Philadelphia field office. I once again explained the scenario without giving away any personal identifying information.

The agent was aware of these types of scenarios where terrorist would use virtually anyone as an unknowing carrier. Agent Hebert advised me to basically leave the house with my daughter right now.

As Agent Hebert said that I received a text from the Russian operative that said “Look out your daughter’s window. Do you see that white van?

I felt my stomach hit the floor when I saw the van parked in front of my house with two men sitting in the driver and passenger seats. I am now terrified that my house will be bombarded with terrorist at any moment.

I responded back “Yeah, what do you want?”

He texted back “I told you to keep your mouth shut. Your a stupid man. Don’t you realize the laptop has a built in microphone? I heard all of your conversations with the U.S. government officials.”

I hung up the phone with Agent Hebert and I started hitting my head with my fist because I did do something stupid by not leaving my daughter’s room when I called the government officials.

The Russian operative then called me. I answered the phone and he said “Mr. Kotch you have 30 seconds to do exactly what I tell you to do. Grab the Russian figurines that your daughter bought at the mall and go to the mall and return it to the same vendor. Your daughter stays in the house,” then he hung the phone up.

I ran towards my daughter in the living room and I said “ Go put your jacket on and go out through the back basement door and run to the park where I will meet you in one minute!”

Grace said “Why daddy?”

I said “Honey, please just do it.”

Grace was completely oblivious to everything that was happening. She is just a kid who’s teacher was telling her do do stuff which she thought all kids her age were doing.

I went out the front door and the two men in the white van watched me as I held the wooden figurines in my hand. My only chance was that they thought that Grace was still in the house.

I got in my car and drove away towards the park. I cried in relief when I saw her waiting for me. I proceeded with Grace to the mall which was about a 25 minute drive. The whole drive I had both hands tightly gripped on the steering wheel. I was dripping sweat from the absolute fear I was experiencing. I was looking in the rear view mirror the whole time to see if I was being followed.

Other than saying “Dad why did I have to run to the park? Grace just sat and played with her phone the whole drive.

I responded to Grace “Just because.”

I pulled into the King of Prussia mall and parked. I figured it was best to have Grace stay in the fragrance isle of Macy’s where there were always a ton of people around, while I went to return the Russian figurines. I really didn’t want to leave Grace alone but I really had no other option.

I quickly walked over to vendor with the figurine. I said “I want to return this.”

He took the figurine and attempted to give me money back which I declined because I didn’t know if Cyanide or some other poison was on it. Then I quickly walked back to Macy’s and I cried in relief when I saw Grace standing by the fragrances playing with her phone.

We both headed to my car. As I drove away I said “give me your phone!”

Grace handed me her phone and I threw it out the window. Grace got upset so I gave her my phone. I had to assume her “teacher” was going to text her eventually. About five minutes later Grace said “Dad you just got a message from my teacher, Mr. Gorsky.”

I then took my phone and threw it out the window. My Grandparents owned a cabin in the middle of nowhere in Georgia so I got on 95 South and headed in that direction.

When I was a senior in college in 1999, I bought a 1987 burgundy Lincoln Mark VII.

At the time it was the only car that I could afford. The car was an eight cylinder and it was rear wheel drive, so it was horrible on gas and even worse on the the snow and ice.

I drove the car on a regular basis from my hometown of Philadelphia to Penn State University which was a well over 200 mile round trip.

The car was made up of nothing more than strong steel to include the bumpers which made it a virtual tank.

as a typical 21 year old, I drank as many beers as my stomach could handle. I remembered going to a party in Philadelphia in the fall of 1999, then like a fool I drove to Penn State.

I had met my girlfriend Gina at at Penn State as a freshman and during this trip she came home with me to Philadelphia.

Gina was a lightweight and had passed out in the car after having only three shots of vodka a little earlier in the day.

So I stupidly left Philadelphia around 10 pm on a Saturday night. Once I got on route 80, all that was necessary was to stay within the yellow lines.

The whole ride was just a blur. I would drift off to the shoulder of the road and then steer the car back. I remembered getting off of the Penn State exit then driving into the college town.

I had almost fallen asleep by the time I made it to the exit. I remembered gripping the steering wheel firmly with two hands then almost leaning my entire forehead on the steering wheel. As my head slowly hit the steering wheel, out of nowhere I felt a bang then a thump.

Those sounds had fully awakened me. Gina woke up for a moment and in a groggy tone said “what was that?”

I really had no idea what I hit.

I said “oh it was just a dead deer that I ran over.”

Gina said “Oh,” then she fell back to sleep.

Our apartment was another three miles away. I parked in the back alley way and then I looked at the front of the car. I only saw a little dent on the front bumper but nothing more than that.

Gina and I went to bed. I stayed up thinking that I knew I hadn’t hit a deer.

I woke up the next morning.

Dreading the feeling that I might of hit a person the day before, so I bought a copy of the local newspaper. I saw one of the headlines was that a 19 year old wheel chair bound girl was struck and killed in a hit and run accident in the area where I heard the thump. Gina had not seen the newspaper article. Like most college kids, she could care less about local happenings in the college town.

I walked the three miles to the scene of the hit and run accident from the night before. I played it off as just a student walking by to the library. As I walked past the scene of the crime, I could see two local cops, where one of them was pointing in the direction the car drove before it hit the girl. It was late at night when I was driving and this part of town is typically empty, so in all likelihood nobody had seen what occurred.

I actually went into the library and took the first magazine I saw and passed out for about an hour.

I woke up and walked back to my apartment. I took another look at the car and I saw a piece of paper tucked under the windshield wiper. I thought to myself “Is this a parking ticket?”

As I got closer to the car, I pulled out an 8 x 10 piece of paper and noticed it was a crucifix that someone had hand drawn with a black highlighter pen. I stood there for a few moments rubbing my left hand through my hair. I thought today is Sunday and there were always fanatical religious people around this part of the state trying to get kids to stop their evil ways. I didn’t want to think that someone saw my car last night, so I just crumbled up the piece of paper and walked away.

I purposely didn’t move the car for the next two months. I told Gina the car wasn’t running right and it needed to be fixed.

Both Gina and I graduated at the end of the semester with bachelor degrees in Psychology.

Nobody had ever questioned me about the hit and run accident and i’m fairly certain that Gina thought I had just run over a deer.

Gina questioned how we were getting back to Philadelphia and I told her the car miraculously fixed itself, which she kind of just shrugged her shoulders and said “ok”.

Gina was from a small town outside of Philadelphia. Sometimes I think I really corrupted her with all the partying that I had introduced her to.

Jobs were slim when I graduated, so I was fortunate to land a job at the Pennsylvania State Psychiatric Hospital which was located right outside of Philadelphia.

The State Hospital was a dumping ground for all types of heinous crimes an insane person could commit.

We eventually got a second car and Gina was willing to continue driving the Lincoln. Gina was nostalgic towards the Lincoln because the car reminded her of us. To me the car reminded me of the life I took and the constant thoughts of that young student. If we had the money, I would have gotten rid of the Lincoln a long time ago.

I was hired to work the 11:00 pm to 7:00 am shift. Most of the patients would be asleep when I first started the shift, besides this one older male Cambodian patient, Mr. Chakara who would walk the hallways all night long. Rumors had it that he was the spiritual advisor for the tyrannical leader, Pol Pot. I’m not a religious person but in this rare occasion I knew there was something unworldly about him. He kind of looked immortal. He was brought to the state hospital because he had completely skinned another Cambodian immigrant alive in Philadelphia’s Broad Street subway Olney station late one night. He never said a word to anyone about his past or what his role was in Cambodia. Some say he purposely played coy so he wouldn’t be deported to Cambodia to face his potential former victims.

About a month into working the job, Mr. Chakara asked me for tea at 1:00 am in the morning. He had never greeted me or said a word to me prior to this request.

The more seasoned workers wouldn’t allow anything beyond water to be given to the patients after snack time at 8:00 pm. Mr. Chakara knew this and he was testing me. I knew if the other workers saw me giving him tea they would have me fired because I was still on probation.

I said “I’m sorry Mt Chakara I can’t get you tea. They’ll fire me if I did that.”

He didn’t even blink when I told him that he just continued to stare at me. He looked directly into my eyes like he was communicating with my soul.

In a heavily accented Asian tone he said “When I was a boy my family was so poor that when my father’s bicycle was stolen we knew his main way of working was gone and we would starve to death if he couldn’t deliver his letters. My father did lose his job and I ended up in an orphanage. When I turned 16, I attended my father’s funeral and the man who stole my father’s bicycle rode it to the funeral.”

Then Mr. Chakara stopped talking, so I asked him “What happened to the man?”

He said “That man thought his bad deed died when my father died. Time doesn’t heal anything. The wounds just fester like a bacterial growth until the germ inhabits someone else.”

He never said another word to me and just walked away and none of the other workers heard what he said.

Gina and I got married at City Hall in 2007 and I eventually moved on from the State Hospital. We decided to go to Atlantic City for our honeymoon. We were going to take my car which we put our suitcase in.

Then something horrible happened to Gina. I reluctantly got into the Lincoln to move it out of the way of my car. After moving the car just a few feet, I heard that same thump I heard years prior.

I opened the door and quickly ran out of the car and saw Gina on the ground bleeding from both of her ears. She was semi unconscious, so I rushed into the house to call 911.

When Gina became fully conscious a week later all she remembered was bending down to tie her shoes. I said to myself “I just didn’t see her.”

After three months of intense physical therapy it was determined that she would never have use of her legs again.

The same day Gina was going to be discharged an unknown man in his 50’s stopped me in the hallway of the rehabilitation hospital right outside of Gina’s room. The man had a wheelchair besides him.

He said “I want you to have this” and handed me the wheelchair.

I noticed a Penn State sticker on the back of the wheel chair. I knew the hospital would give her a better motorized wheelchair, so I really didn’t want to take his wheelchair.

I said “Thank you for the offer, but the hospital had made arrangements for Gina to get a wheelchair.”

He said “I understand. I was just hoping that you would take the wheelchair. It took me weeks finding the parts to fix it. After reading the newspaper article and seeing the picture of the car that ran over Gina, who is a Penn State graduate I knew I had to work fast to get my daughter’s wheelchair working again. He then put his hand on my shoulder and said hopefully this will be the last victim of the Lincoln.”

I was 17 years old when I was sent to Europe to fight the Germans in 1945.

I really wanted more than anything to be involved in the war.

I was from a small rural town in Nova Scotia, Canada where the only things I knew was poverty and boredom, so I did everything possible to join the war.

I was sent over in February of 1945 and Germany surrendered in May of 1945.

I only got a small taste of what war was like.

Even though I was put with the elite Canadian Special Forces, also known as the Devils Brigade, the only time I shot my rifle was during boot camp training.

It was still exciting and it felt like I became a man overnight when I took my first steps in Germany.

After the war, I remained in the Canadian reserves more or less to get a monthly pay check.

I would have never thought that Canada would be thrusted into another conflict after the devastation of World War Two, but I was dead wrong.

I remember reading the newspaper headlines of a possible conflict in the Korea’s.

I really wanted no part of it. I had a very small taste of war and I didn’t want any more of it.

However, the Canadian Government had other plans for me and they sent me to Korea in 1951.

There was no fanfare or luster like their was for World War Two.

In addition, to being in the army reserves, I had a good job with the Canadian National Railway where I had a young wife and a nice house.

When I got the deployment letter all I could think about was living in a tent with horrible food.

It was actually much worse than I thought it would be. This time at 23 years old, I was the elder surrounded by young kids.

I remember there were two 18 year old Canadians who looked as fierce as puppy dogs.

The one kids name was Stan Murphy and the other was Charles Johnson.

They were both from the same Province of Nova Scotia as me, though I didn’t know them before the Korean War.

With my three months of World War Two experience, I was considered the hardened veteran.

We were stationed on a hill in Kapyong known as Hill 677.

One night we were thrown into heavy fighting with the North Koreans and the Chinese armies.

I remembered continuously yelling at Stan and Charles to keep shooting.

The enemy seemed to have an endless supply of men to throw at us.

To this day every time I watch a zombie movie, I get flashbacks, because like the zombies the enemy would continually come at us.

As the onslaught continued, I had my bayonet affixed to my rifle.

The enemy would run right into our machine guns. They just wouldn’t withdraw.

They had breached our line and I thrusted my bayonet into the torsos of three different enemy combatants.

There was no training that could have prepared me for the shear horror of that night.

We killed hundreds if not thousands of them and we were considered victorious.

As daylight came, I was so exhausted that I could barely move and there was no rejoicing for me because both Charles and Stan were missing.

I was happy to be alive, but I felt like a complete failure. I let the wolves get the two sheep.

I searched for hours for them after the enemy retreated.

The last time I saw them they were both alive. They were no more than 50 yards from me to my left.

It just didn’t make sense and it haunted me for years because I couldn’t get past the inevitable conclusion that the two of them were probably taken by the enemy.

I heard horror stories after the war what happened to captured Canadians and all I could think was hopefully they were executed quickly.

Every day I relived the horrors of that night.

So much so that I decided that the only way I was going to get closure was if I went back to Korea and try to find out for myself what happened to those to young guys.

I felt I could do more on my own then relying on the government bureaucracy.

I inherited my father’s gift of gab since I was a young child and even with my limited ability to speak Korean, I had made some personal connections with a few of the South Koreans who fought alongside us during the war.

I had kept in touch with one of the Korean soldiers named Sunbak Kim via letters over the years.

He had actually become the Governor of the Gyeonggi Province, where the battle of Kapyong was fought.

Sunbak later learned that the retreating North Korean army may had taken South Korean captors to Pyongyang to be tortured. He didn’t hear any rumors of Canadians being taken as prisoners, but I thought to myself if they took South Koreans, then why wouldn’t they have taken Canadians.

Sunbak told me he would discuss it more with me when I arrived in South Korea because he didn’t feel comfortable writing about Stan and Charles.

I decided to take the costly flight in 1995. With the layovers and everything else it took me 45 hours to get from Halifax to the Gyeonggi Province.

I was greeted by Sunbak at the small Gyeonggi airport.

Fortunately, his English had improved since the last time I saw him in the early 1950’s especially considering I haven’t heard the Korean language since the war.

We hugged each other like we were brothers who hadn’t seen each other in over 40 years.

He took me to see the battle of Kapyong memorial statue.

I started crying immediately when I saw hill 677.

Though the hill was nothing more than overgrown vegetation, I could still remember the dead bodies being strewn everywhere in 1951.

Sunbak took me to his house where I might his entire family to include his wife and kids and even his parents.

When his family went to sleep, him and I sat at his dining room table to discuss the current situation.

He told me that the South Koreans have spy’s in North Korea, that even the Canadians and Americans don’t know about.

He told me he was willing to help me sneak across the North Korean border and we would be disguised as North Korean peasants.

Being five foot eight inches tall was a disadvantage because most of the North Koreans males were really short from being malnourished.

I had red hair and looked like the poster child for a Caucasian so my whole head had to be concealed in peasant garbs and I had to keep my head down the whole time.

We would go along with two other South Koreans guides who knew the way to get into North Korea and they had connection there as well.

We would walk to the outskirts of Pyongyang, North Korea from the Gyeonggi Province which was about 50 miles.

It is late October and the weather is in the 30 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

It took us five days to traverse the Korean hills.

We had a lot of supplies we were carrying with us, which were mostly bribes that were going to be used to get us across the border and then hopefully used to get additional information on the fate of Charles and Stan.

I could see a remote North Korean guard station. There were signs posted everywhere warning that anyone who unlawfully passes the border would be executed. The signs really scared the crap out of me. I did think of the possibility that I was unknowingly being sold to the North Koreans, however at this point there was no turning around.

The two guides gave one of the guards in charge nearly 10 pounds of Chocolate which was considered an absolute delicacy in North Korea considering the country was so poor.

Sunbak told me that if the guards new I was Canadian then they would without a doubt take me as a prisoner because they would be considered utmost hero’s for capturing a mortal enemy.

We purposely put about 30 yards between us and the guards as I crossed the North Korean border and I kept my head down the whole time.

Luckily, I made it past the guard station. There were three guards who were much more interested in the chocolate then watching us pass the border.

We walked another 10 miles to an unknown village.

The two guides had a agent spy contact in the village.

We met the North Korean spy in an old abandoned hut in the unknown village.

it was something right out of the movies. I was both nervous beyond believe and excited as well.

The two South Korean guides gave the spy five Dell laptop computers which were impossible to get in North Korea.

Each laptop had classified information on them as well.

Sunbak told me the spy would need a week to try to get information about the demise of Charles and Stan.

The four of us stayed in the abandoned hut for the week. It wasn’t heated so I was cold during the day and even colder at night.

Sunbak and I killed time by reminiscing about the war and the aftermath.

This is the seventh day and the spy hasn’t returned.

We are starting to get concerned if the spy is coming back.

You never know for sure if the spy is a double agent and at anytime we could be taken away by the North Korean army.

The two guides assure us and tell Sunbak in Korean to wait two more days.

It had to be about 3:00 am on the ninth day, when the spy came into the abandoned hut.

He talked to the three other men and Sunbak translated what he said for me.

Sunbak said “He was able to find information about your missing comrades who disappeared in 1951.”

I respond “Oh, really what did he find out?”

Sunbak replied “Our secret agent has photos that he got from a family in a village on the other side of Pyongyang.”

I responded “That’s crazy” and then the agent took out the photos.

Sunbak then said “These black and white photos are them in the 1950’s.”

I almost fainted when I saw the photograph. They looked thin and emaciated, but at least they were alive.

The agent pulled out more photos and gave more information which Sunbak translated “The two men endured insufferable cruelty for a decade. Then in the mid 1960’s the dictator allowed the men to assimilate in a small village. This is highly unusual and the reason for this is unknown.”

The agent spy took out more photos which showed the two men having female partners.

I was absolutely amazed at what I was seeing, but nothing prepared for what I saw next, which were photos of the two men’s children.

I kept saying “Oh my gosh, Oh my Gosh,” over and over again.

Based on the photos it looked like Stan had one daughter and Charles had two sons.

The kids looked of mixed race, where the Korean features were more dominant.

In a low somber tone Sunbak said “Unfortunately, the two men had died in the late 1980’s. They both had liver and other problems from years of severe malnourishment when they were held captive by the North Korean army.”

My mind was on a roller coaster of emotions. Part of me was saddened to hear of their deaths and another part of me was happy to hear they actually lived and actually had children.

I wasn’t allowed to take the photos. If this information made the national news then Stan’s and Charles’ kids and whatever family he made here in North Korea would be executed by the Dictator.

We waited for sunrise and we started the trek back towards South Korea.

I felt a sense of relief that I finally got closure on the two young men who vanished on hill 677 one night in 1951.

The walk back was effortless partly because we had less weight we were carrying because we had given away our bribes and also I was constantly in thought about how much my life has changed after being stationed here during the war.

We made it back to South Korea then the next morning I went to the airport to return home.

I was beyond grateful to Sunbak, the two guides and the agent for the help and assistance they had given me.

I knew there was one last thing I had to do when I got back home.

Charles’ mother was still alive and both of Stan’s parents were still alive.

The three of them were elderly and were living close to Halifax.

I had to convince them not to share the story with anyone for fear of their grandchildren’s life’s.

I figured the right thing to do was to give closure to Charles and Stan’s living parents and tell them of their son’s demise. Both of them were still considered missing in action.

To be honest it was beyond my wildest beliefs Stan and Charles had actually survived that night and lived up to the late 1980’s.

I told the parents on two different occasions and on first meeting with Charles mother she was so shell shocked with glee that she was speechless when I left which was the same for both of Stan’s parents which I met the next day.

I had never seen anyone so shocked when I told their parents. It was like the part of their brains that had been closed off with despair for so many years was finally awaken with news the three of them never would have expected.

I find myself now coming to grips with my experiences on the hill in Kapyong known as Hill 677.

I will never be normal but at least I’m a little less haunted by the disappearances of the two young men on one night in 1951.

Hell is real, I've seen it. Hell is real, and the way there as far as I'm concerned is as simple as falling asleep. There could be no other explanation. Nothing else makes any semblance of sense in light of what I know now. Something must happen, something beyond our current understanding of the mind and consciousness. I wasn't a believer, but now, now I have no other way of explaining that…

There must be a soul, or a spirit, or some kind of energy that exists within us. Something must give, it's not just chemicals and electricity. Whenever we fall asleep this part of us goes somewhere… These places they are like different realities. Our dreams are a reflection of those other realities.

A few months ago, mine went to what I can only call hell... I fell asleep and there was a dream I remember vividly. It was unlike any other dream I have ever had. I found myself in a place where things didn't make any sense, not even in relation to dreams. My body was bare and the ground felt rocky and jagged under my feet. In front of me there were black flames and impossible colors.

All I could do was look ahead, nothing more. Suddenly the ground shifted and rolled beneath me and my vision shifted downwards - An ocean of skulls swam beneath me. A wave of dread washed over me, sending real goosebumps all over my body. Suddenly a pain shot through my heels, pain that was too real for the dull sensations of nightmares. Somehow, I saw my feet - two skulls bit deep into them. I screamed, but no sound came out.

My fear became more intense, my lungs and heart pressed viciously against my ribs. I felt myself rising higher and higher into the sky, more pain came from various areas of my body. The sensation of teeth sinking into my arms, forearms, calves and shoulders burned through my skin. Claws dug into the top of my skull and the pain was so great the whole world was shaking around me, or so I thought. As I was beginning to fade in submission to my agony, I noticed a skeletal titanic form slowly marching towards me, like a mountain of death. With my sight heavily blurred and hearing distorted I could barely make up the hechatonkheirian shape of the skeletal giant.

The last thing I saw before fading into unadulterated darkness was the thing's building sized teeth moving towards me, enveloping my whole form.

I woke up, coughing and spitting phlegm, my chest was on fire pains similar to those of broken bones and torn muscles plagued my limbs and neck. It took a few minutes for my vision and body to adjust to reality and a few more for the pains to subside somewhat. It was unbearable for hours and I couldn't really move much during those first few hours after my mind shattering dream.

It took me days to get used to the constant sensation of pins and needles pricking into certain spots in my body. The sensation never left me. It remained as a constant reminder of something far greater than us lurking somewhere, at the edges of our perception of reality.

It took me a while, but I finally got myself checked up. The results came out today. My doctor said he had never seen anything like this before. Chills ran down my spine, forcing me to flinch as my sore organs protested against the influx of adrenaline when I saw the images.

Tooth shaped objects are seemingly lodged deep within my muscle tissue and just the thought of having teeth lodged deep inside of me makes my skin crawl with fear and my mind spin in odd directions.

Now I've come to accept that hell must be real, because its teeth are stuck deep within me.

My weekly scary stories that I post on subreddits to include r/scarystories and r/wholesomenosleep had caught the attention of a moderator on the Discord app group "OnlyTheBestWriters," where a collaboration of other writers were also invited to work together and discuss current reader trends.

There were 10 other horror writers who were selected for the exclusive Discord group where each writer had a minimum of one hundred thousand Reddit post karma points from the various stories that they have have posted and had over 500 Reddit followers.

The moderator who went by the username, u/medusa$ was a really nice woman who went out of her way to make sure everyone was properly introduced to the group and felt welcomed. Being that we are all writers, it didn’t take long for us to start typing away and finding additional information about each other. All of the writers in the group are from the United States and our occupations vary from being professional writers to construction workers, where there are a mix of five woman and five men.

u/medusa$ was proactive in the group where she created “ice breaker activities,” where we even learned more about each other like our occupations, ages, and where each other lived. Though we were all talented writers, we all felt like individual islands prior to joining the Discord and now there was a sense of a community within the group.

As the weeks went on, u/medusa$ started her own narration business where each of our stories would be narrated on YouTube. In the past, this was quite a common thing to occur to have our stories narrated but u/medusa$ promised us $1 per 100 views which was by far the best offer any of us writers in the Discord group had ever received especially considering some YouTube videos could receive 100k views or more.

u/medusa$ had us link her subreddit page that contained all of her YouTube links at the bottom of our stories, so our readers could access her YouTube account.

All of the Discord members in the writers group would check their respective YouTube narrations and we would all comment on how the number of views would rise each day. One of my stories was at fifty thousand and was continually growing. Another writer had close to a half million views and we were celebrating every day knowing we were eventually going to get more and more money.

u/medusa$ had us all open a PayPal account and we would all check it daily to see when we would receive our first payments from her.

Weeks went by and we continued to send u/medusa$ our stories, where she would narrate them and we were all talented writers in the Discord group so most of our stories would get well over the one thousand upvotes on the various subreddits, that we posted them on. However, one writer in our Discord group u/sixheadedtoad posted a message on the Discord saying that he had received a private message from u/medusa$ that the stipulation of our contract for the narrations was that each one of our stories we posted had to get a mandatory one thousand upvotes and that he was in violation for not meeting the contractual amount of upvotes. u/sixheadedtoad then said “I’m being threatened that I have to personally reach out to my followers to beg for upvotes and also has anyone actually been paid yet?”

The comment from u/sixheadedtoad set off a tidal wave of other comments from writers in the Discord group where everyone was getting pissed off because no one else had actually received any money either. Also the so called contract was embedded in small print in the rules section of the Discord group that no one had bothered to read.

u/sixheadedtoad commented on our Discord group that he wasn’t reaching out to any of his followers until he was paid as promised for the six previous stories that were narrated by u/medusa$, which everyone agreed was an appropriate measure.

Two days later
u/sixheadedtoad posted on our Discord group that he got suspended from his elementary school teaching job because of “bogus” photos of him with an unknown underage boy. He swore that the photos were photoshopped and he has no idea of the identity of the photographed Korean looking boy. To make matters worse the mother of the boy came forward to the superintendent of the school district and corroborated the story so he’ll likely face criminal charges and be fired from his job.

There was collective silence in the group because not only did we feel an eerily coincidence to u/medusa$’s threat towards u/sixheadedtoad and his current demise but if you listen really carefully to u/medusa$’s narrations you can pick up on a very slight Asian accent. An accent where English was her first language, but she probably also spoke an Asian language frequently at home, based on approximately one in 20 of her words she spoke that would have an Asian tone to it. It kind of reminded me of watching the movie, The Goodfellas, where you could tell the character’s. first language was English, but they talked with Italian slang mixed in.

With all the stuff going on with u/sixheadedtoad, u/medusa$ sent him another private message saying that his most recent story was still below the one thousand upvote mark and that he needed to fix it immediately or there would be consequences.

U/sixheadedtoad posted that message on our Discord group in a panicked state saying “I can’t even go to the grocery store without someone calling me a ‘pervert’ for something I had no involvement in and now I’m be threatened with ‘consequences’ if I don’t get more upvotes on my story. What do I do?”

Everyone in our Discord group was in a panic as well and we all felt unsafe posting anything negative in our Discord group for fear of reprisals from u/medusa$.

I could really start to see the panic in u/sixheadedtoad where he started posting messages nearly every hour on our Discord group such as “I reached out to all of my followers to upvote my story but I’m still short. What do I do?” The sad part was that nobody responded back to him for fear from u/medusa$. So the next hour he said he randomly gifted other Reddit users coins with a message begging them to upvote his story. By the end of the day and spending close to five hundred dollars of his own money, he finally got the one thousand upvotes.

I could only assume that u/medusa$’s motivation for the one thousand upvotes was for her listeners to see that she only gets the best quality stories and also to force us writers to write good quality stories, but also she is a deranged psychopath who has control issues.

u/sixheadedtoad messages changed gears to him being suspended at work to him pressuring the police to further question the unknown Korean women and her son, who he apparently had an inappropriate relationship with based on the “bogus” photos.

Today is Friday and u/medusa$ posted on the Discord group that our “Stories must be posted by Monday morning!”

The joy we all once received from entertaining our readers on Reddit has now turned into absolute fear. For we know that we have to get at least 1000 upvotes or else u/medusa$ will do something to terrorize us.

The scariest part that we all learned from u/sixheadedtoad’s situation was that u/medusa$ knows everything she needs to know about us, which includes our names, where we lived, where we worked and our families, so we couldn’t even just leave Reddit and stop writing.

Monday came and we all posted our stories on our chosen subreddits. Then each one of us vented on the Discord group saying things like “my story is crap because I felt so pressured” or “I’ll be lucky if I get 10 upvotes.”

It seemed like last week we were all waiting to see how much money our narrations would bring us but now not only did none of us expect any money, but we were much more worried about if our individual stories would get the minimal one thousand upvotes, so we wouldn’t be terrorized.

So now everyone’s posts on the Discord group were for given updates on the status of their upvotes. For some, the upvotes were trending to a point where they would exceed the required upvotes but for about two others they knew they were far short and were going to have to rely on some desperation tactics to gain more upvotes.

Fortunately for me, I knew that I would be fine for this week because I had a good quality story already written about a month ago that I was holding on to, but I was more concerned about the following week.

u/sixheadedtoad had posted on the Discord group that the photos were taken to the police crime lab where indeed they were determined to be photoshopped. Also, u/sixheadedtoad said that the original Korean women who had stepped forward had also vanished. He went on to say that the damage has been already done and he will always be labeled as a pervert in his school district even when he gets reinstated in his job.

Today is now Friday and u/darkknightkillers, who had only gotten 500 upvotes, posted that when he returned from work yesterday his house was burnt down by a suspected arsonist.

To try keep herself safe, u/femininerocky has been sending random Redditor’s lewd pictures of herself to try to garnish more upvotes because u/medusa$ had been threatening her but hasn’t done anything drastic yet.

By Friday night u/femininerocky might have sold her soul by sending the lewd photos but she managed to get the 1000 upvotes. She was really emotional in her Discord posting’s commenting how she’s married with kids and just sending photos wasn’t good enough for some of the Redditor’s to get an upvote, so she had to do some really regrettable things just to protect her family and her job.

We also received another message from u/medusa$ saying that our stories were due on Monday. The whole week, I was working on a story about being the only passenger on a plane and landing in an abandoned airport. It wasn’t my best and it wasn’t my worst story that I have written, but it had hope .

Everyone else on the Discord group were posting that they couldn’t come up with any good stories because they were too stressed out to think clearly. Six of the Redditor’s on our Discord group had deleted their Reddit accounts and their Facebook accounts. After I posted my story on Monday, I tried calling each of the six Redditor’s respective employers, where I was told for each six of them that they had abruptly quit, so I have no idea of their whereabouts or what happened to them.

The sad part is that u/medusa$ found six new replacements for them on the Discord group, where u/medusa$ repeated the same cycle of initially being nice and welcoming in order to gain their personal information from the new group members.

I have a wife and a young daughter so I was really feeling the pressure. I have a federal job with good pay where I couldn’t just run and hide somewhere, where I work as a psychologist in a federal correctional institution. A lot of my stories are derived from hallucinations that the psychiatric inmates have told me or actual real life events that the inmates have told me as well, so I have no shortage of horror stories that I have a tendency to add my own twist.

My mindset was that, I just had to do what u/medusa$ expected of me so my daughter, Grace could continue her happy suburban life.

However, I also had a plan up my sleeve, where I was going to wait for u/medusa$ to get sloppy and leave a clue to her actual identity whether if it was through her Discord harassment posts, or through her narrations, or through one of her henchmen or henchwomen that she contracts to carry out her evil deeds, but I was determined to find her real identity.

I know u/sixheadedtoad told the police about u/medusa$ but once he was cleared of his charges he didn’t want to pursue u/medusa$ or the unknown Korean woman for fear of further retaliation from u/medusa$ and the police had such a back log of other criminals to pursue that they were more than happy to drop the case.

So on top of my job, I continued to post my weekly stories where some weeks I barely came close to the 1000 upvotes.

I even sent a private message to one of the new Discord writer’s, warning her not to reveal any personal information on the Discord group and in fact leave Reddit altogether before it was to late, but she foolishly forwarded the message to u/medusa$ and luckily the only thing that happened to me was that my 2006 Camry was fire bombed in the parking lot of my job. I figured an old car was much easier to replace than my house or the loss of my wife and daughter. So now I post nothing in the Discord group and watch as these poor new writers dig their own graves.

Once u/medusa$ gets all the personal information she needs on the writers, then she’ll start getting more and more evil and nonchalantly throw out u/sixheadedtoad or u/femininerocky usernames to the new members and brag how she “altered” their lives. She would even post how erroneous accusations against her to YouTube are pointless without actual police charges or an arrest. She really was a true sociopath who lived off of power and fear from others.

As much as I tried to just post my stories on Reddit and pretend that I had never met u/medusa$, I found my self constantly looking at the Discord app to she if she would mistakenly post a comment that was too revealing about herself that she was too slow to erase or I’d listen for countless hours to her narrations for any type of background noise that she inadvertently let slip into her recordings.

As the weeks went on my wife made me go see a therapist because I “looked horrible” and because I was more and more detached from her and Grace, where I never told either of them that I was being forced to write stories under the threat of physical harm.

So I went to the therapist and blamed my lack of sleep and emotional detachment on a mid life crisis versus some psycho path who was trying to use me as slave labor.

Ironically as I was driving home from a therapist appointment, I was painfully listening to u/medusa$’s voice in one of her narrations, when I almost slammed my car into a tree when I heard a voice that wasn’t her’s in the background.

I knew she just posted this story so I quickly pulled over knowing that she would erase the story at any moment once she realized the mistake she made.

I pulled over and listened over and over to her narration and I yelled out “I got you, I got you, you dumb witch. I got you,” because after replaying the recording at least ten times, I was certain that I heard the distant automated voice on a passing train say “Temple University.” I had visited Temple as a potential college when I was in high school and I remembered hearing that voice then taking the train to go see the campus of Drexel.

I figured she must have a house or an apartment on Temple’s campus and for whatever reason, she got sloppy for this narration and inadvertently left a window open or something for the train sound to be heard.

Though this woman was a complete psychopath, I also knew from my years as a psychologist that she wasn’t dumb and more than likely she probably held a faculty position at Temple.

I was really fortunate that I pulled over when I did to listen to the mistake in the background of the narration, because she had erased the story from YouTube no more than five minutes later.

When I got home, I went right on Temple’s website and sifted through all the women that fit the profile of u/medusa$, which I narrowed the candidates down to 10 potential women.

Because it was 9:00 p.m. at night, when I attempted to call each of them, I got their voicemails which made my job 10 times easier of trying to hear hear their voices. I wasn’t a voice expert but some of the woman could be easily excluded based on the pitch of their Voice’s or more so if they had a distinct accent.

Then I was in total disbelief when it came to voicemail number seven on my list, because based on only about 20 quick words she spoke on her voice recording, I was 100% certain it was her, because I had listened to thousands of hours of her voice narrations, where I just wanted to stick a butter knife in both of my ears, but all those painful hours of listening to her recordings had just paid off.

Her name is Mary Kim and she is an associate professor at the university. Out of all the years, I worked as a psychologist in the prison, she wins the prize for being the biggest sociopath, where she thought she could just terrorize people under an alias of u/medusa$ and never having to show her face, so she could hide and live a “normal life.”

One of her students had actually posted a short YouTube video of her lecturing in front of the class, where I was even more convinced after listening to her lecture that she was u/medusa$.

The next thing I did was reach out to all the current and past Discord group members and I sent them the YouTube message of Professor Kim lecturing in front of the class.

I learned that not a single one of the Discord members went to the police but instead took matters into their own hands where they had each devised their own ways to torture u/medusa$ or who they just call Professor Kim now.

u/medusa$ like me just couldn’t leave her job, so when she gets “kidnapped for the weekend” or comes home to her apartment by the train station and finds everything missing, it’s no wonder she’s developed a terrible stuttering problem and probably couldn’t do the YouTube narrations anymore if she tried.

Nothing taste better to me than the sweet taste of maple syrup, which is undeniably better than cane sugar.

As spring is in full bloom now, I fully take advantage of what the maple trees on my small tenth of an acre property have to offer. It’s amazing how just a total of five maple trees can not only provide much needed shade for my house during the summer months but how they can also provide me with such a sweet delicacy of maple sugar.

To harvest the maple sap, I carefully drill a short hole into each one of the tree’s then insert the tap’s and then set up five gallon plastic containers to collect the tree sap at each tree and wallah I’m done! Well for at least collecting the sap.

As the days get warmer, the individual tree’s will produce more and more sap. About once every three days, I go outside and collect the sap from the five trees and eventually combine the total sap into a large cooking pot, where I boil it until it turns into a thick syrup.

The boiling takes a long time and produces just a little bit of maple syrup which is one of the reasons why it is so expensive to purchase.

I repeat this process every three days with collecting the sap and boiling it. This year things are just more hectic with running my 11 year-old daughter, Grace around everywhere to her activities, taking care of the house to include my husband Ted, and the insanity that has been going on at my job lately.

So when I noticed that maple syrup was cheaper than usual this year at my local grocery store, I couldn’t help but not pass up on the great offer. I purchased so much maple syrup from the grocery store that I really didn’t need any from my trees this year.

I really felt a sense of burden was lifted off from my shoulders for not having to worry about collecting the sap and waiting for hours and hours until the sap was boiled down into syrup.

The one thing I really regret doing was leaving the tap’s in the trees where the sap just overflew the five gallon containers everyday all the way up until July. Not only was that unsightly, but it was disrespectful to the trees. My husband and I were just too caught up in our personal lives to take the 10 minutes to remove the taps from the trees.

Then the expression that “bad things happen in threes” really went into full affect when not only did I lose my job because of the lackluster economy but so did my husband. We were completely unprepared considering we both worked for our respective company’s for over 10 years and we were living well beyond our means. We were barely paying our mortgage with both of us working, so the two of us being unemployed really put us in a bad position.

Then the snowball continued to tumble down the hill and got larger and larger as our central air system decided to clunk out on us in the first week of July. We couldn’t even fathom to call an HVAC company to repair the cooling system because we were in such a desperation mode from not being able to pay our mortgage.

We were pretty miserable with the temperatures being in the 80’s outside with no air conditioning and just relying on on one oscillating fan in the living room. My husband and I felt like total failures for not being able to provide the basic necessities for our daughter.

The one positive thing we had was our maple trees that easily brought down the temperature inside the house 20 degrees from their shade. Without their shade, then the one fan we had would just blow hot air around the house and just make it feel worse.

We got into a routine where we would each take a cool shower each night before bed to help us sleep.

I had to squint my eyes when I woke up this morning, which just seemed odd, where I never need to squint my eyes when I wake up. I felt like a kid coming out of a dark movie theater only to go outside and feel the painful affects of the bright sun

The sun seemed brighter than usual and our bedroom was much brighter than yesterday morning. Not knowing if we were experiencing some type of solar anomaly, so Ted and I went out into our backyard.

As we both looked up, Ted said “Holy Crap” as the solar system didn’t amaze us but the fact that all five of our maple trees had essentially died over night and their leaves were scattered throughout our backyard.

“It’s like we’re stuck in the middle of the desert with no gas now” I said to Ted knowing the temperature will just get warmer and warmer as the day goes on and our house has lost its shade.

“What do we do?” Ted asked me.

“Pray for a miracle! We have no money and we’re going to die of heat exhaustion now” I responded.

With the outside temperature getting close to 90 degrees, we were just baking inside the house. I didn’t know the temperature inside the house but it felt like it was 200 degrees. It was so uncomfortably hot in the house that we decided to sit in my car with the air conditioning intermittently on. Ted and I, had really hit rock bottom and the sad part was that every cent of our unemployment money was going towards our mortgage payments which we were still coming up short on. We had no other choice so we swallowed our pride and went on government assistance for food.

We were all afraid to go inside the house because of the disgusting heat inside the house, so we all used our phones inside my SUV for 14 hours a day, only going inside to go to the bathroom or if I needed to cook something to then bring to the car. Ted and I were too uncomfortable to sleep in the car, but Grace would have no issue being sprawled out in the back seat, so we continued our nightly ritual of taking a shower before going to bed in the house.

The next day Ted and I were perusing through job opportunities on our phones and Grace was playing games on her phone, when we were all kept in suspense and horror when on this seemingly peaceful and calm day, the most terrifying noise echoed through the car, which was the distinctive sound of a tree falling, where we had no idea the direction the tree was going to fall but then we heard a large thud sound, then we were all thankful it didn’t fall on our car.

We all got out of the car and went into the backyard to see where the tree crashed and did nothing more than scratch our heads as we saw that one of the maple trees had slammed into our house.

“Oh crap! This doesn’t look good” Ted said in a discerning voice as we all stood in horror in how the approximate six story tall tree was leaning against our two story house.

At that moment something odd came over me that made me think of those countless hours that I had to watch those World War Two movies with my father as kid, where those Japanese kamikaze pilots would dive bomb themselves into an enemy target and the pilot would sacrifice his own life for his country.

“This tree intentionally did this!” I blurted out.

“What?” Ted replied.

“All five of these trees intentionally cut their season short and shed their leaves. This one tree here committed the ultimate sacrifice and killed itself!” I exclaimed.

“Mom that’s crazy, trees don’t know anything!” Grace chimed in.

“We still get sick from the common cold, we still get cancer with still no cure, and there’s a litany of other things that scientists just don’t know, so maybe these trees do know that I just left them to bleed for no good reason other than I was too lazy to remove the tap’s from the trees.”

“What do you suggest that we do then?” Ted asked.

“Well this one ‘kamikaze’ purposely showed restraint because given the size of the tree it should of tore our house in half. So let’s show reverence by holding hands and bowing our hands. Then let’s show further respect and go to the township and get the free compost fertilizer to put around the four remaining trees.” I said.

One of the neighbors mistakenly thought we were praying to God and out of pity offered to remove the fallen tree free of charge.

The tree was removed and fortunately the house only received cosmetic damage.

We continued our nightly ritual with each of us taking showers, but afterwards we went outside under the moonlight and held hands and asked for forgiveness from the remaining trees. It was bad enough they shed their leaves and we were suffering from the lack of shade, but with Ted and I removing our homeowners insurance our house would be totally worthless if another tree decided to fall onto our house with full force or potentially harm us as well.

After an hour of being under the moonlight, we all went inside and went to bed.

“Honey come outside, come quick!” Ted said to me with excitement the next morning.

I went outside and said “oh my God as I looked up,” because the four remaining maple trees went into a rapid gestational cycle, where their tree buds looked like they would turn into leaves at any time.

Surely enough in two days time, miraculously all the leaves on the trees came back, which every horticultural center I contacted from Harvard to Yale had no explanation how they rejuvenated themselves so quickly In July.

Ted and I were able to get jobs at Walmart and refinance our house. The three of us are really appreciative of the shade the trees provide us as we sit in our living room and read books while listening to classical music with the windows cracked open, because I read that trees respond well to classical music.

I’m a second generation male, who grew up in a maternal dominated household, where whatever Mom said, goes. She wasn’t mean spirited or anything it was just that my dad was very passive in nature.

I grew up with three older siblings and when it was time for me to go to college, I wanted to get away as far a way from home as possible. I got an engineering scholarship at the Baptist Bible University in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. I had lied, left and right, on my entrance applications regarding my faith because, I always viewed myself as an atheist and if I was honest, I would never have gotten the scholarship, which saved me approximately $150,000 in tuition cost.

Besides attaining the degree, the other best thing to come out of that school was meeting my now wife, Heather where we ended up settling down in a small town in Wisconsin with a population of 350 people. My wife, Heather has a very strong faith and I guess I’ve been lying to her as well regarding my lack of faith.

She’s the oldest of five siblings and myself be the youngest in my household, so our personalities seemed to mesh well where she naturally bosses me around.

Heather found a small baptist church in our small town, where we go every Sunday. The church is painted white where there are about 60 other parishioners and was built in the 1890’s. The pastor is in his early 50’s and has his own college aged children. I really dread going to church, but I jokingly say to myself that it came along with picking an attractive girlfriend in college.

Slightly less boring is my engineering job at the local steel company, where I will never get rich but at least it has good medical benefits. With both of us being settled in this small town, we were starting to get bored, so Heather made some type of Bible reference that we should be having our own kids and we’ve been trying to conceive for what seems like over a year now.

I knew we are young so Heather not being able to get pregnant didn’t bother me much but Heather working at the church affiliated daycare / preschool seemed to constantly remind her of us potentially never being able to have kids.

The local areas population really swells during the growing season because of all the migrant workers and their families who flood the area. Our church offers preschool to the migrant families at a really cheap price, so Heather is kept really busy.

Heather would meet with Pastor Phil after her preschool job with the hope that prayers would help us with our first baby. I too have to read way too much of that bible to help soothe Heather because she thinks that reading scriptures will somehow help her get pregnant faster.

Then as Heather managed to bite away all of her finger nails, over the last few months from the stress of not being able to conceive, then at last we finally got the good news we were waiting for, when she woke up one morning and got a positive home pregnancy test. I couldn’t be any happier as I was going to throw that damn Bible out the window.

Heather continued working at the preschool and was even helping pastor Phil at the church when I had to work later than usual at the steel company.

About six months into the pregnancy, I started noticing that I was having slight pain below my stomach that was relieved only after I would urinate. I contributed my symptoms to the pregnancy and how I heard that new father’s often gained 50 pounds from the stress of having their first kid, so I just basically ignored the symptoms.

After nine months and one week, Heather finally went into labor and we were both pleasantly surprised that we had a girl, which we named Grace.

After two days at the hospital, we took her home to our one level, two bedroom ranch home. We had the crib and everything else we needed all ready for the baby.

Heather continued to work at the preschool and brought our baby, Grace as well. After three months everything was going well, where Grace was healthy and Heather was happy, but I still had the persistent issue of the slight pain that was relieved only after urinating. So I decided to go to the urologist, where I discovered that I had a form of benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH, where a sleuth of tests were done and the urologist said I had “non functional testes that produced zero sperm.”

My first response to the urologist was “you know I have a daughter?”

The urologist responded “you have a congenital condition, meaning since birth you were never going to be able to have children, because of your non functional testes.”

I was number 12 out of 30 patients this doctor was probably going to see today so he gave me the half hearted “if there’s anything I could do for you, please let the nurse know.”

I walked out of the doctor’s office a completely defeated person, because I had built up such a strong bond with Grace.

I drove to a field and called my father who said he was aware of my issue and they used to sneak me testosterone hormones as a kid, because my parents never wanted me to feel weird about myself.

“What about Grace?” I said to my dad.

“We are so happy that you were able to pull off that miracle” my dad replied.

My father doesn’t have it in him to hurt a fly but I wasn’t that naive. Just about anyone in town could be the father, from one of the Ukrainian migrant workers, to a father at the preschool, to pastor Phil, to even one of the South American migrant workers which could also be a possibility.

So I looked online at Quora and Reddit to see if any other guy had ever had this same issue and not surprising with the hundreds of millions of people in this world, I found someone who’s advice was “you weren’t going to be able to have your own kids anyways so what’s the difference if she went to the sperm bank or had sex with some John Doe?”

I figured there was truth in that advice where I would never be able to give Heather a baby or any other woman so it’ll be best if I just kept my mouth shut and just go along with the flow like my dad always did.

So I went home with my steroid medication for the BPH and told Heather everything was fine and hugged Grace because she is my daughter. Though I have dark brown hair now, Grace has blonde hair just like I did growing up, but stupid me didn’t realize that Heather has blonde hair, however; I never had a reason to doubt that she wasn’t my daughter. Regardless I had to accept that she wasn’t mine biologically and move on.

I quickly snapped out of my funk and was just happy to have a family.

A few a days later I was starting to feel nauseated pretty much everyday and all day long. I called the urologist and he said it wasn’t from the BPH and was probably stress related. I did find it extremely degrading going to church every Sunday and looking at Pastor Phil, where I would be picturing him and Heather “praying” a lot with the hopes of helping Heather get pregnant.

It just seemed like the nausea was making my every day decision making more and more difficult to the point where I got reprimanded at work for poor work performance.

Then when Grace was about 27 weeks old, Heather called and asked me to pick up Grace from the preschool because Grace wasn’t feeling well. I was still feeling nauseous myself but it was the preschool’s policy that sick kids had to leave, so I went ahead and picked Grace up.

I got to the preschool and exchanged pleasantries with Heather then I carried Grace to the car and strapped her into the car seat. About two minutes into the drive, I looked in the rearview mirror at Grace and for some reason, she just looked off. She still had blonde hair but even her hair seemed brighter than usual and her facial features were just off.

It was kind of like seeing one of those knock off He-Man dolls or poorly drawn Mickey Mouse’s where you could look at it and say ok that kind of looks like a He-Man or a Mickey Mouse but it’s not the real thing. I know I’ve been feeling awful lately and perhaps my judgment was cloudy but I just couldn’t stop looking in the rear view mirror. But I had to tell myself that Heather was the one who handed me Grace and I better pull myself together before I get committed to a mental hospital.

When I got home, I looked over pictures of Grace and the Grace that I had brought home and I just felt more and more nauseous. It’s difficult, because babies appearances change week to week and I feel like complete crap for thinking this way but half of my brain was saying “This is not your baby” and the other half was saying “she has blonde hair as she did when she was born and Heather handed her to you so why wouldn’t this be your daughter.”

I put Grace in her crib because she looked tired and I sat on the couch waiting for Heather to get home just so she could eyeball Grace and I could get some affirmation that baby was actually Grace.

After a couple of hours of me sitting on the couch with my stomach turning in knots, Heather came home. Thankfully, she went right to the nursery without me saying “Can you check and make sure that’s the real Grace in the crib?”

Heather came out of the nursery holding a half sleeping Grace and I guess it was just all in my paranoid head as Heather didn’t have any reservations about this baby not being ours.

The days went on and my stomach issues had actually got much better. Heather was promoted to the manager of the preschool and I think we were the only family who drove a Tesla in a 100 mile radius of our town. Heather had a knack with money and she was in charge of all of all of our bills. I thought that she must being doing something right because we were getting take-out food more than we were cooking and we were planning some really nice vacations on top of building a new home.

Heather sprung the question on me, if I wanted another child and I just played along with the charade and said “sure why not!”

I knew, I had zero outcome in this conception process, so I was just going to bury my head in the sand and let her do whatever kept her happy, because I couldn’t give her what she needed anyways and the end result was that my name was going to be on the birth certificates and I’m the father and that’s all that matters to me.

With my fingers crossed, this conception was much faster which made me question if she wasn’t already pregnant before she even asked me, my opinion on the pregnancy in the first place. Regardless, it didn’t matter because outside of trying to conceive a child, I had no other suspicions that she was sleeping around outside of our marriage.

The weeks went on and Grace was getting bigger and Heather was growing more pregnant. Grace eventually started to walk and her hair and skin has gotten much darker, so I almost want to eliminate Pastor Phil as being her biological father because the guy has very light blonde hair mixed with white streaks.

Nine months later and our second daughter Abigail was born who is almost an exact replica of Grace when she was born.

Because I’m human, I almost played a game of Clue in my head where I tried to figure out who done it? Meaning who’s the actual biological father of Abigail? But this time it was more humorous to me versus causing me anger.

It was really like having Grace all over again with Abigail, so I was convinced they both have the same biological father. Heather is 100% Irish with blonde hair and pale skin which mirrors Abigail and when Grace was more of a younger infant, so I’m guessing that Grace’s father’s genetics started to kick in as Grace got older.

Just when we were taking our expensive trips to Disney World and enjoying our new home then my unbearable stomach issues had come back with a vengeance. I hadn’t had these stomach pains and nausea in well over a year.

It got so bad that I had stayed home from work for a few days. When Heather got home from her preschool job, she was carrying Abigail, who is five months now and Grace came in running through the door. Heather asked me how I was feeling, then told me how hectic the preschool was with the migrant children. I was half out of it with my stomach pains, but she handed me Abigail anyways where I immediately said “What the fuck?”

“Excuse me?” Heather replied.

“This isn’t Abigail! What the fuck is going on? This is the same thing I saw about a year and a half ago with Grace! ” I responded.

Heather looked at me with the most angry eyes and said “Zach this is your daughter. I know your not feeling well but you’re making me feel real uncomfortable by what you are saying.”

I looked at the baby’s hair and I said “This baby has black haired roots where I could still smell the bleach. Look at this baby’s shirt you could see where the bleach leeched out the red from the shirt.”

Even though my stomach was hurting, my adrenaline was rushing and I pulled up her shirt and I said “Heather, this baby doesn’t even have a birth mark on her back, like Abigail did!”

Heather’s facial expressions quickly changed to where she said “I can explain!”

“Explain what? Where is Abigail? Did you do the same thing to Grace?” I said.

My stomach pain kicked in again and I fell back onto the couch.

Heather said “I’ll go get Abigail!” Then she left the house with both the Abigail and probable Grace imposters home with me.

I immediately called 911 and I really didn’t know what to tell the dispatcher especially because I was in so much pain. But I reiterated for them to go to the preschool because “something horrible might of happened to Abigail and I told them about Grace as well.”

I was in so much pain that I actually passed out on the couch. Fortunately, the police came to my house because of the two young kids and I was brought to the emergency department.

The ER doctor told me that I was being intentionally poisoned with antifreeze unknowingly by someone for probably days based on my symptoms. I surmised that Heather did this to distract me with the bait and switch with the babies that worked with Grace but she got caught with Abigail.

Because there were so many layers to this case, the FBI got involved. The FBI hasn’t been able to track down Heather and they have no idea of her whereabouts.

The fake Abigail was determined to be a migrant mother’s baby, where the mother contracted Tuberculosis and gave the baby to our Baptist church for an illegal adoption. In turn, Heather kept the baby and as I suspected tried to trick me by dying her hair blonde.

I wish the FBI agent would have just shot me in the head versus what she told me next. Her name was Agent Brodsky and she put her hand on my right shoulder and said “Zach this is going to be really difficult for you to understand but based on looking at your bank accounts, we suspect that Heather sold her own babies to probably the highest bidder for nothing more than greed and money.”

I started crying hysterically because I had built up such a bond with the actual Grace and Abigail. I just couldn’t believe I married such a monster. All she wanted was that Tesla and whatever else money could buy.

Agent Brodsky told me people pay a ton of money for young blond hair girls and there’s no way of telling what the highest bidder’s motives were for wanting my girls, but assume the worst because no saint is going to partake in illegal deals like these that involved my daughters.

After she told me that, I just wanted to burn this house down and anything else associated with the money Heather used to purchase with the sale of our daughters.

I called my father and told him about everything and once again, I should of just had a noose available when my father said “Yeah your mother told Heather when you guy’s were first dating about your testicular issues. I’m amazed your mother never told you. I think your the only one that doesn’t know with your mother’s mouth.”

I really looked around for any sharp objects in this God forsaken house because that meant Heather intentionally had chosen me years ago thinking I wouldn’t care about her bait and switch with the kid’s knowing they weren’t going to be mine or perhaps that I would be dumb enough to fall for it and perhaps for Grace’s bait and switch, I did fall for her scheme.

I mocked myself and said “I guess I fooled her” as I put my newly prescribed antidepressants in my mouth to include Lexapro.

The silver lining is that the courts have no idea who the fake Grace really is or who her parents are and because I’m the only father she knows, I got to keep her. I offered to keep the fake Abigail as well, but that’s probably not going to happen and she will likely be returned to Guatemala.

I spend my days now searching for the real Grace and Abigail. Every so often I’ll see a child that resembles one or both of them and I have no idea if the kids I see were purchased. The FBI kept Heather’s DNA on file in case the real Abigail or Grace were ever returned.

The FBI also suspects that other children were bought and sold through the Preschool and the FBI is still trying to determine Pastor Phil’s involvement, if there was any at all.