The Butcher of Pinewood Park

There's something unsettling about Pinewood Park after dark. The cramped trailers, stacked haphazardly along muddy dirt roads, seem to warp into a twisted labyrinth of rusting metal and dying trees as the sun sinks behind the hills. People in the small southern town of Hollow Creek have always known Pinewood Park was trouble. It was the kind of place where folks minded their own business—mostly because they were afraid of what might happen if they didn't.

But lately, there's been a different kind of fear crawling through Pinewood. It started with the disappearances. First, it was old man Rucker, who no one really missed, to be honest. But when a young mother of two, Missy Harkins, vanished without a trace, that was when people started whispering.

Whispers about a man named

Jed Sloane.

Jed was a butcher by trade.

He owned the small, crumbling meat shop right on the edge of the park, where he'd been chopping up hogs and cows for as long as anyone could remember. He was tall, broad, and his fiery red hair, matted into untamed curls, was the only flash of color about him. His pale skin seemed a most translucent under the flickering

fluorescent lights of the shop, and his cold green eyes gave nothing away. But it was his grin that stuck with people, a grin as sharp as the butcher's knives he wielded every day.

The folks in Pinewood started calling him the "Butcher of Pinewood Park"—a title that first felt like a harmless nickname, but now carried a sinister weight. Especially once the rumors started.

People said Jed had more than just hogs hanging on his meat hooks. That late at night, if you got too close to the shop, you'd hear strange sounds—whispers of voices, dragging noises, and once in a while, the soft thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

But no one had any proof. At least, not until Johnny Ray stumbled aross something horrifying.

Johnny was a local drunk, the kind of guy who spent his nights staggering from trailer to trailer, looking for a couch to pass out on. One rainy night, after a bit too much whiskey, Johnny found himself wandering behind Jed's butcher shop. He swore up and down he wasn't snooping—just trying to find his way back home through the maze of trailers—but the truth was, curiosity got the better of him.

Peeking through a grime-covered window, Johnny saw something he would never forget. Under the dim glow of a single bulb, Jed was hunched over, covered in blood. But it wasn't animal blood. It was human. Hanging from the ceiling, strung up like a side of beef, was Missy Harkins. Or what was left of her. Her skin, pale and bloated, hung in strips, and her limbs were nothing more than bloody stumps. The red-haired butcher was methodical, slicing away pieces of her with a practiced hand, humming a quiet, unsettling tune under his breath.

Johnny recoiled, stumbling backward and landing in the mud. His breath hitched as he fought to keep silent. But in his panic, he knocked over an old metal trash can, the clatter echoing through the alley. He froze, praying Jed hadn't heard.

The humming stopped.

Johnny's heart pounded in his chest as he dared to peek over the edge of the trash can. Jed was standing in the doorway now, the faint light casting his long shadow across the rain-soaked ground. His butcher's apron was soaked with blood, and in his hand, he held the largest butcher's knife Johnny had ever seen.

"Who's out there?" Jed's voice was cold, calm, but there was an edge of amusement to it. Like he enjoyed the chase. "You gonna make me come find ya?"

Johnny's legs felt like lead, but he scrambled to his feet and took off running. He didn't dare look back, but he could hear the heavy footfalls of Jed behind him, slowly, deliberately closing the distance.

The trailers loomed around him, their darkened windows like dead eyes, offering no sanctuary. No one in Pinewood Park opened their doors after dark. Johnny knew he was on his own. His lungs burned, and his feet slipped in the mud, but he pushed himself harder. He could see the outline of his trailer up ahead, its flimsy door hanging on rusty hinges.

If he could just make it inside, lock the door, maybe he'd be safe.

He burst through the door, slamming it shut behind him, his breath coming in ragged gasps. For a moment, everything was silent. He pressed his ear against the door, listening for any sign of Jed outside. Nothing. Maybe he'd lost him.

Then, a slow, deliberate knock echoed through the thin wood.

"Johnny," Jed's voice was barely a whisper now, just on the other side. "You didn't think you could run from me, did ya?"

The door creaked as it buckled under the force of Jed's shoulder. Johnny scrambled backward, his eyes darting around the room for anything he could use to defend himself. But it was too late. The door flew open, and there stood Jed, his blood-soaked knife gleaming in the pale moonlight.

Johnny tried to scream, but no sound came out. The last thing he saw was Jed's grin—that sharp, terrible grin—as the blade came down.

The next morning, Johnny Ray's trailer was empty. No sign of a struggle, no blood, no body. Just a few muddy footprints leading away, back toward the butcher shop.

And by sundown, the folks in Pinewood Park had moved on.

They always did.

Because in Pinewood, people disappeared. And no one ever asked questions.

But at night, if you listened closely, you could still hear the soft hum of the butcher, deep within the shadows of the park, waiting for his next meal.