I made this account to ask for help. Yes, the title is real. Well, I guess it’s real in that I’m genuinely starting to believe my neighbour might be a cannibal. The whole reason I'm here is I hope a rational user here can dissuade me, because my brain can't find a logical answer that doesn't leave me with a creeping sense of uneasiness.
Let me explain my situation. I currently live out in a small town in the northeast US. I don't think the specifics are really too relevant, and I'd like to keep my personal info off the internet so that's all you get. It's your classic Twin Peaks-esque woodland town that's about as far away from civilisation as possible without getting in a boat. I moved here a few months ago from the UK to look after my grandmother and grandfather who weren't doing too great. I’m 23, and my job is all online, so as long as I could get a connection it was a done deal. (the connection thing was an issue for the first couple weeks) A month in, my grandfather passed from a heart attack, so it's just been me and my grandmother ever since. She's a great person, but she isn’t really relevant to what’s going on.
Fast forward to the 12th, and one of the neighbours (his family is a 10 minute walk away, but that's still apparently neighbours here) has got a bunch of people in the town over at his place for a barbecue. He's some family values christian dude with a pretty cliche nuclear family unit. Wife, 2 kids. Anyway, he knows (and knew) my grandparents and was really nice in helping me get settled. I kinda blanked his advances on going to church every now and again, but I don't think he really minded. Again, I'm getting offtopic. But I kinda wanna paint you guys a picture of how normal this dude is. As normal as some guy who looked like the textbook definition of rich white catholic could be. (I dunno if he's catholic or whatever else)
We were at the barbecue - me and my grandmother - and it was honestly a pretty good time. I'd say about thirty to fourty people were there, almost all of them I'd come to recognise since I got here. Seemed like a majority of the town has shown up, but that's probably not right. A majority of the social happy neighbour types did, definitely. The neighbour - I'm now gonna call him by the fake name Adam to make this easier (get it, adam? like from the bible?) - was grilling up some mean burger patties, sausages, etc. with some of the other guys there. I was chilling with one of his kids (the kid was 16) and I offhand asked him if the burger was beef because it tasted kinda unfamiliar. The kid looked at me for a second, and said "Dunno, ask my dad." So I did.
I went up to Adam, and first made sure to compliment the burger before asking what was in it (gotta be polite), and his response was "That's a venison burger. You know, deer." One of the other guys chimed in with "You hunt this one yourself too Adam?" to which Adam laughed and confirmed. So, nothing out of the ordinary. It's a deer burger and Adam the ultimate dad hunted it in the woods nearby. I know a number of you are already suspicious (probably because of the title of the post lol) but at this point I genuinely wasn't. Never had venison before so sure, it's venison.
I returned to sitting next to his kid, and started the conversation back up. I asked him the following: "So I never knew your dad went hunting. Does he take you with him?" and this kid just sits there for about five seconds before saying "Nah. I don't go." What's weird about this, is this guy is usually really quick witted to bounce the conversation around. The fact he took so long just to say "no" weirded me out a bit. Course, it was nothing concerning. Adam then yelled from across the yard at his son, asking him to go fetch another plate of patties from the refrigerator. Dude was prepared, already had his patties good to go.
Alright, I'm gonna have to give the 16 year old son a name too. I'll go with Isaac. He was in the bible too, I guess. Got a theme going. Isaac got up and left for the house, going in through the screen doors to the kitchen. He looked in the fridge, and pulled out a plate of six patties covered in cling film, and brought them back to Adam. I was up and ready to get another burger, so I could hear their conversation pretty clearly.
"Great, could you get one more plate of patties?" Adam asked Isaac.
"None left, only sausages."
Adam, sort of comically, played it off like he'd forgotten to prepare enough, and left the grill to some other dad to handle. He went down into the basement, and we all sat around while the new guy cooked the patties Isaac had brought. I got my burger, but the beer I was nursing was all finished, so I headed into the kitchen to grab one from the cooler. (Adam was bringing the beers before, but he was down in the cellar still) Adam's wife - and yes I'm going with Eve - called out to stop me as I opened the screen door. She said she'd get it, but I insisted and went in anyway, grabbing a beer from the cooler and cracking it open with the bottle opener nearby.
It was right as the sound of my beer hissing open went off, that I heard it. Yup, this is why I'm writing this post. I heard a scream. It was super muffled, but it was definitely coming from below the kitchen. I immediately took a step towards the door and asked Eve, who was now one foot inside the kitchen, if she heard that scream. It was like a yelp of pain. She looked pretty pale, but pushed past me and slightly cracked open the door to the cellar.
"Honey, are you alright? There was a noise!" she shouted through the tiny gap between the door and the frame.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just nicked myself." was Adam's response from the cellar. It was hard to hear, but thanks to the slightly open door it was audible.
Whatever worry I had subsided, as this was a completely reasonable explanation. A few minutes later, Adam came out the cellar with another plate of patties and a band-aid around his left index finger. He said he'd cut himself while preparing the venison, but that it was the shock that made him shout and that the cut wasn't anything to be concerned about. So I wasn't concerned. The rest of the barbecue was completely normal. But I was now conscious that only Adam's family ever went inside. They always made some polite excuse to get something themselves if it had to come from there. And right they were, I guess. Their house. Honestly it was kinda rude of me at the time to just waltz in for another beer. But it was this, combined with one other detail, that's terrified me.
As everyone was packing up, my grandmother had an indigestion issue. I didn't know it was that at first, and thought her sudden need to sit down was way worse. Adam quickly calmed me down, and said it would be best to let her relax for a quarter of an hour or so. So everyone else left, and it was just me, my grandmother, and Adam's family. Eventually her indigestion went away and we made to leave. As I got my grandmother in the car (even a ten minute walk can be a bit much for her, especially after a meal), I saw Adam talking to Eve through his front room window. Of course, I wouldn't have any clue what they were saying. But what's important was that - as they talked - Adam ripped off the band-aid on his finger and there was no cut. Nothing. I have good eyes, I wasn't just seeing things wrong.
Trust me here. The "nick" Adam talked about, which was the source of the yell of pain I heard, didn't exist. He covered his finger in a band-aid to make it look like he cut himself. I don't know if Adam was still the source of the scream, it was definitely male and deep like Adam's voice, but as I think more about it I get more paranoid about what was going on. Isaac's weird pauses about the meat and the deer, and the fact Eve only went pale when I asked her about the scream. Seriously guys, I'm starting to think my pleasant christian neighbour was cutting meat off of a live human and serving it as venison. I know that's a complete extreme but... I'm considering it. Whatever the case, he had to have been aware of that yell (whether it was him or not) and wanted to make a fake excuse for it. That's sinister enough to start getting paranoid I think.
I'm hoping you guys can come up with a much more reasonable explanation for this, please. I know this isn't the best place for reasonable explanations but maybe someone here can ease my worry. If anything else happens I guess I'll keep you posted. But I don't expect anything to and I really don't want to go "investigating" or any of that shit.
Submitted August 19, 2017 at 07:19AM by AParanoidNeighbour http://ift.tt/2vLxRnu nosleep
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