“The murmuring shadow glares, motionless at its inception~”

Shadow of Innocence 

‘Illinois’s Jackman Car Crushing Services’, or better known as Ogden’s resting place. Once lively and jittering with effervescent and pure organic life, now a disquieting and fear inducing resting ground for many stolen lives. 

Bates Maloch, came to Illinois for a fresh beginning, no responsibilities or mortgages to pay off, he was free. He worked as a car compactor operator for his boss Ogden Jackson. A distraught middle-aged man with no alarm or premonition. His only employee was Bates himself and though Bates had worked for Ogden over the duration of 3 months, he was still dubious to what sort of protocol that Ogden was undergoing. The inexplicable disappearances of employee after employee didn’t seem to have an impact on Bates, he was merely a man earning a living. However, what Bates didn’t know was why he pulverized the cars he did.

During the execution of a somewhat bulkier car type, Bates detected something particularly unsettling. Upon the Rover’s rear an exuding, sanguine fluid oozed from the indented trunk. Bates terminated the compacting process and vigorously tore the trunk door open utilising a nearby crowbar. What was inside overwhelmed Bates in a nightmarish sense, a person… Arms constricted by metal wire and mouth masked in heavy duty tape. Bates extracted the endangered figure and was instantly heaved aside by Ogden.

Ogden grasped the bent iron and caned the helpless male in the back of his skull. Scarlett-shaded blood spouting from the impact point like a geyser. Ogden aggressively seized the traumatised victim only to forcefully cram him back into the jagged trunk of the mourning vehicle. Ogden melded the bar into an irregular shape similar to an iron padlock and hooked it between the crooked trunk lever and rusty outskirts of the car, escape was paradoxical now…

Bates was in a twisted concoction of solid trepidation and ballistic fury. Then it hit him. Every vehicle he had obliterated had a person inside it. He was merely the blind executioner. Bates glared at his blood-bathed hands while brokenly whispering: “I’m a murderer”. Bates embraced the final blood-curdling screech of the perishing entity and then, gone…

Shattered, afraid, and delirious; Bates lunged for a nearby tampered wrench, lashing it and striking Ogden’s forehead. Leaving an internal dent surging with carmine-tinted blood. Ogden scowled at Bates before being abruptly tossed into the car crusher accompanied by the whispering glass shards of the previous victim. Bates mercilessly activated the crusher and stared as his psychopathic employer descended into bloodied peril. But Bates was not finished, his revenge was still not claimed. Agitated and menacingly excited for the kill, Bates crunched his fists in anticipation. 

The crusher sparked and terminated it’s process, exposing only Ogden’s damaged blood soaked face. With what seemed like inhumane strength, Bates brutally hooked his fingers under Ogden’s jawline and tore it clean off, severing the spinal cord and claiming his prize. Having avenged the lives he sightlessly stole, Bates leisurely evacuates the car yard with his ornament; Ogden’s mutilated skull and cleaved spinal cord in hand.

What was once a joyful and dedicated service company, now a ghost ridden and blood scarred graveyard for hundreds of plundered lives. Before this horror epidemic, the few amber tinted trees surrounding the compound always danced gracefully in the autumn winds. The wildlife chirped and buzzed forming a revolution to serve the earth and its inhabitants. Now, remains pure and everflowing darkness. Spirit soaked fog blankets submerge the jagged metal in dust and blood. Nothing but murmuring shadows and fractured souls roaming the complex patiently waiting to stalk the not possessed. The only trace of slithered hope, are the brilliant and golden glows of the fireflies, the silent witnesses of the Jackman Car Crush Massacre.