“My friend had been acting strangely these past few weeks. She had seemed more paranoid than usual. She asked me if I wanted to see something that she was working on, and I agreed. Why did she drag me into this forest? I didn’t know.

“‘Just a little farther,’ she had said. She said that about half a mile back. I was starting to think she was going crazy. I had known her for a long time. She let go of my hand and started to speed up. I tried to match my steps, but each time I did, she would go faster. We were practically running at this point. She kept making sharp turns around trees, I was starting to lose sight of her.

“‘Just over here!’ She called. But I was lost. She had made too many turns, it was dark now, I couldn’t see a thing. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight. I tried calling out for her, but she never answered. I wanted to go home, but I didn’t want to just leave her here. What if something bad happened to her? What if she fell and hit her head unconscious?

“I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I tripped over something. I fell and scraped my hands and knees. At first I thought it was a branch or a rock, but when I put my light to it, it was one of those old metal wheels. It looked like it had been sitting there for a long time. I wiped away the leaves that were covering it. It looked like a hatch to some kind of bunker. Any normal person would just turn around and go home after seeing that, right? Well, I was curious. Maybe she had gone down there? I don’t know. When I grabbed the wheel, it was already loose, like someone had just been there. So, then I really felt the urge to go inside. It made a
very loud creaking noise when I opened it. I was scared someone was going to hear me, but I reminded myself that I was in the middle of nowhere, so there shouldn’t have been anyone around. I grabbed my phone again and shone the flashlight into the bunker. It was pitch black, I couldn’t see the bottom. I grabbed onto the rail tightly and made my descent into the bunker.

“I remember reaching the bottom and scrunching up my nose. The smell was horrific. The light from my phone flooded the little room. It was such a tiny room that I could touch both walls at the same time when I reached out my hands. I didn’t have to look far when I noticed all the pictures on the wall. My God the pictures. I realized why it had smelled so bad. The rotting of dead bodies and animals. Blood was everywhere. I remember almost throwing up. There was a workbench with these tools that were drenched in blood and rust, and I just…I remember trying to get a closer look at the pictures on the wall. It was pictures of all the people she had dismembered. I guess she kept them as trophies. The smell was burning my nose. So many thoughts were running through my head. I remember climbing back up the ladder and I slammed that hatch shut. I went to my maps, and I followed the way out of the forest, and I dialed 911 as soon as I was safe out of the forest. I didn’t know what to do, I don’t know how many people she had killed. It was so awful,” his hands were shaking, and he looked up at the detective.

“Thank you for all of this information,” he said scribbling on a notepad. “I’m sorry you had to witness that sight. We’ve been trying to catch her for some time now, believe it or not. But we never had enough evidence to arrest her,” the detective put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You did the right thing to turn her in.” The boy nodded and stood up. He walked out of the police station and got into his car. He chuckled to himself as he pulled out a camera and took a picture of the woman he had in his backseat.

“Smile!”