A Halloween Puzzle: It Came From Outer Space

It’s a rainy cool morning so You decide to brew a pot of pumpkin spice tea and relax with a good book. But just as water in the kettle reaches the boiling point your peaceful morning is interrupted.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

You open your door and find Special Agent Jones of the CIA at your stoop. Uh oh. The CIA only stops by when they have an especially difficult code to crack. That’s when they turn to You. You are the finest cryptologist in the land.

You greet your friend Jones and invite him inside. Soon both Jones and You are seated with a cup of hot tea. After an exchange of pleasantries, Jones tells You the reason for his visit.

A CIA agent has been found murdered in the most gruesome manner. The body of Agent Floyd Cutter was discovered earlier this week. The unfortunate man had been butchered in a remote cemetery located in Northwestern North Carolina near the town of Boone.

A couple of weeks ago Cutter had called headquarters saying he might have a lead on a new spy caper. He did not reveal any details, but said he would keep in touch. Then came the government shutdown, and in the confusion no one noticed that Cutter had not reported for some time.

On Monday October 14th, a visitor to this old and rarely used graveyard in the North Carolina backwoods came upon Cutter’s body. The man had been chopped up, most likely with an ax, according to the medical examiner. Cutter’s remains lay at the base of an old mausoleum. The body had been there some days. Investigators believe Cutter was killed at this spot. Heavy rain over the past days seems to have washed away any significant clues.

It is not known how or why Cutter was in this area. It was determined Cutter was registered in a Boone Motel and was last seen on Friday October 11th. Cutter had breakfast at the motel cafeteria that Friday morning. A worker there remembers Cutter working feverishly on some notes. She also recalls Cutter receiving a call on his cell phone. As the worker refreshed Cutter’s coffee, she remembers hearing Cutter say:* “I’ll meet you there.” *Then Cutter ended his call and left the restaurant.

Jones pauses for a moment and both of you take a sip of tea. Poor Cutter. You remember having once met the man at a CIA picnic a few months ago. A loner. A secretive and pensive man, or so he seemed to You.

Jones continues his tale. No clues were recovered in Cutter’s motel room. His company car, found parked by the road about a mile from the cemetery, was clean. The CIA discovered that Cutter had stayed at a hotel in Abington Virginia earlier last week. No clues turned up at that location. Cutter’s movements over most of this period are a mystery. However a search of the grounds around the remote graveyard did yield a clue. A tiny camera of the type used by CIA agents was removed from the bushes just inside the iron gates of the cemetery. Only four pictures were in the camera.

“Let me show You those snapshots,” says Jones grimly. He hands You the four pictures. You take a quick look and your blood runs cold.

In the first picture You see what appears to be a room in some abandoned house. Cobwebs are everywhere, and a weird portrait of a man with ghoulish staring eyes hangs on the far wall. You can clearly see an object resting against the wall. It is an ax.

The next shot is fuzzy and dark— taken at night in a wooded area. A glowing figure can be seen in the distance between two trees. The figure appears to be carrying something.

A third shot shows the gates of the cemetery where Cutter was found. This shot is taken from outside those gates. The glowing figure is there, now large and menacing in the foreground. Though the figure is shrouded completely in a black robe, it is somehow still giving off an eerie light. And in its glowing bony white hand the thing is carrying a large ax.

You look at the fourth picture. It is different from the others. This is a close-up shot of a page of paper spread out on a tabletop. The photo appears to be of a coded message.

Jones has been watching You as You examine the photographs. “We don’t know where the picture inside the house was taken. We don’t know the identity of the glowing figure. Our experts have come up with nothing regarding the coded message. So now we turn to You. This case has a very disturbing feel. We only hope You can decipher the code and make some sense of what is going on.”

Can You crack the code before the forces of darkness gain the upper hand?


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Jones stops by with a bit more news. According to information from the camera, our mysterious photographs were taken in the following order:

1.** Fuzzy Glowing Figure In The Woods.** (Wednesday night October 9 – at 3 minutes to midnight)
2. Cobweb Room With Portrait And Ax. (Friday afternoon October 11 – at 2:30pm)
3.** Coded Message On Tabletop. **(Friday afternoon October 11 – at 3:15pm)
4. **Shrouded Figure With Ax At Gate. **(Saturday night October 12 – 11:30pm)

From this information it can be deduced that Cutter probably took his picture of the coded message somewhere very close to the spider web room. Also, on Friday morning, a convenience store clerk at a Sheetz gas station just off Interstate 77 in Virginia recalls seeing Cutter on the morning of Friday October 11th. The clerk, Olin Q Howard, said Cutter seemed quite nervous. When Howard asked if Cutter if he was OK, Cutter had smiled queerly and remarked, “I’m fine for a man about to visit a* haunted house*.”

What haunted house? Why was Cutter in all these locations along the Virginia/North Carolina border? What has all this got to do with some new nefarious spy plot?

“We are depending on You for the answers,” Jones smiles and puts his hand on your shoulder. “We know You will not let us down.”

You have been struggling with the coded message, but not even the hint of a solution has come your way. Of course, as usual, there are a few points of interest. But on the whole success seems far away. Sigh. If only You had another sample of the encryption. You could then look for similarities and patterns…perhaps You might gain some real insight toward the solution.

Unfortunately, more coded messages usually come with a price…

5 instances of “fox” in the message. In fact, quite a few x’s in general. The pound signs are equally suspicious as the only symbol. In past codes, it’s been used as a letter the coding schema didn’t allow for. Perhaps it changes in between capital letters, or some other thing marks where the message begins/ends? (I’m thinking that maybe not all the letters are significant, given how many repeats there are.

You decide this morning that this is a case that calls for very strong coffee. You begin brewing your darkest roast and sit down to the puzzle again.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Jones stands at your door. You can tell by his expression that the news is not good. Not good at all. You invite the CIA man inside.

“Jones, I can tell by the look on your face that something has happened. I’ve got the extra powerful coffee brewing. Tell me everything.”

Jones drops wearily into a chair. He stares forward for a moment and just shakes his head. “It is really quite unbelievable. The monumental stupidity of it…”

You wait patiently as the man gains his composure.

Finally Jones begins…

“You may recall that Russian Chelyabinsk meteor from back in the spring. It made all the papers and the video was on every news channel. You may also have heard that several bits of the meteor were recovered. But I doubt You know about what was found on the meteorites. Russian scientists studying the fragments noticed certain small pods clinging to a few of the space rocks. These same pods were all over the largest meteorite — the one that was removed from a Russian lake last month. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of pods.”

Jones pauses. You have no idea where all this is going, but it sounds ominous. You get up and return with two cups of coffee as Jones finally continues.

“This is not the first time such pods have been seen on a space rock. Several years ago a smaller meteor landed in New Mexico with a few pods hanging on. At that time these pods were studied by an elite group of American scientists and it was proposed that the pods might be some sort of alien life form. The pods were analyzed and dissected with no conclusive results. However, one of our US scientists claimed that he thought the pods should not have been cut up or even removed from the meteorite. He thought that the pods could be brought to life, much like seeds sprouting forth into plants. Now most of the other investigators thought this guy was off his rocker. This one US scientist, you see, though considered brilliant, was also suspected of being quite mad. Indeed this scientist was eventually locked away in an asylum for unrelated reasons.

“In any case, the whole matter was forgotten until the Russian meteor. When initial reports of the Russian meteor were published in scientific journals, our crazed American scientist began writing from his asylum to Russia and the people involved with investigating the meteor. These Russian scientists took the American scientist’s ideas more seriously. They hoped themselves that the pods might be space seeds that could be brought to life. There was general excitement in Moscow that perhaps the Russian scientific team could be the first to prove life existed elsewhere in the universe.

“So they made contact with the nutty American scientist in his asylum. More calls were exchanged. The Russians wanted the crazed American scientist released so that he could come to Russia and study the meteor and the hundreds of enigmatic pods. Our government denied the request. Then about ten days ago, the Russians proposed bringing a large piece of the meteor covered in pods to America and that perhaps the crazy scientist might be allowed to travel to a secure scientific research center in Downingtown Pennsylvania to study the space object. This request certainly would have been denied if things were normal. But our government was shut down at the time. Everything in Washington was in chaos. Somehow the request was approved. No one can say just how. Then, after the Government was restarted, no one realized the import of what was about to take place. Too much was going on.

“Therefore yesterday, with accidental approval from our own Government, the Russian meteor was secretly flown to Pennsylvania and the crazed scientist was taken by armed guards from the asylum to travel to this site in order that he examine the rock for possible alien life forms .

“The crazed American scientist in this tale is none other than Boris Barlow, the madman who along with the spies almost took over the world a few years ago.”

You gulp down your coffee and quickly pour Jones and You another cup. Boris Barlow! By God!

“Yesterday Barlow was brought to examine the rock. Everything was going fine, it seemed. Barlow declared that the pods indeed were the same as the ones he had studied earlier, but he now claimed that he did not think the pods could be brought to life after all.

“But as the examination was about to conclude, the building was suddenly filled with a strange smoke. Moments later several figures in swirling black robes and wearing gas masks burst into the room. They placed a gas mask over Barlow’s face and hustled him outside. They also took the pod-laced meteorite. Guards and Russian scientists in the room were overcome by the gas. Some of them passed out. Others began capering around madly laughing and gnashing their teeth. Nearby security forces who entered to try and prevent the escape were also overcome by the gas. The escape could not be prevented. And now Barlow and his helpers are on the loose. And the pod-laden meteorite is gone.

“Most everything we know is from security video of the event. Those rendered unconscious by the smoke are still unconscious. It is not known if or when they may recover. Their faces are seemingly frozen in looks of sheer horror. Those who did not pass out are now raving lunatics. Time has not helped so far. They are still crazed today. No one has yet been able to determine what was in that gas that caused this awful carnage. And no one has been able to find a hint of where Barlow and the meteor may have gone.”

You are having a hard time processing all this. Boris Barlow on the loose again. Strange space pods that may or may not be alien life. Black robed accomplices. What can it all mean?

Jones removes a paper from his pocket and hands it to You. “One of the robed figures dropped this paper during the melee. It’s a coded note, and from the looks of it we are dealing with the same code we found in Cutter’s camera shot. It appears Barlow is back working with the spies.”

Your head throbs dully. You turn to Jones, exasperation written all over your face. “I haven’t been able to get very far with the first code. I have a few ideas. The ideas have merit I believe. But I don’t know where to go next.”

“Well maybe this second message will help.” Jones finishes his cup and stands to exit your home. “I know we have asked for your help a lot in the past. But You have always come through for your country. I have a very strong feeling that if You cannot solve this soon, not only your country —but the entire world itself might be in peril!”


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Even more x’s and "fox"es. Maybe this is one of those codes that has a simple substitution cipher as one of many factors. IE “fox” = “the” (making x=e), but there’s something else going on that obscures the substitution cipher parts.

A few notes:

The poison in the gas at the Pennsylvania research facility has been identified as Radix pedis diabolic also known as "devil’s foot” and comes from the root of Mandrake plant— though according to Dr. Sam Sterndale (a respected expert on the poison) this is some genetically engineered alteration. The good doctor advises us all to be very wary of this poison as it can be lethal and there is no cure once it destroys the mind.

The devil’s foot was mixed in with a standard knockout drug and wax. It appears a temp worker at the research facility on Sunday somehow slipped a burning candle of the stuff into the air ducts. This man (who went by the probably fake name of Stephen Hallen) has, of course, now disappeared from the scene.

It appears that before Cutter was in Abingdon, Virginia (by the way, the spelling of that town in the initial notes was wrong), he was staying in Martinsville, Virginia. The desk clerk at the motel there says Cutter confided to him that he (Cutter) was about to solve a big case that would make his career.

Boris Barlow may have been communicating with the spies for several months. Asylum employees say that Boris had sent and received a number of cryptic notes over the past few weeks. None have been recovered. Doctors at the time simply assumed the writing was mad babble from a crazy man. One person does seem to recall the word “fox” mentioned several times in the notes…but nothing else. “Just a bunch of gibberish with random capital letters” a doctor is reported as saying. Boris Barlow is also known to have spent a lot of time doing various word puzzles from several *Dell * and Penny Press magazines he subscribed to…

The latest word from sources around the world is that the spies are attempting to buy uranium on the Black Market! :eek:

Jones tells You to drop everything else in your personal life. You must solve this case very soon. Boris Barlow’s birthday is October 31st. He is known to like to celebrate the day in a big way.

Some, but not all, of the random capital letters appear to be symbols for elements. Not sure if that is helpful or not.

Not sure that’s relevant if it’s not consistent. The spelling correction on “Abingdon” does, though. :slight_smile: Can anyone see any ciphertext that might somehow translate to it?

Another thought: might the multiple of the same letter in a row be an indicator (e.g. with a double letter, shift something two letters in the alphabet)? Stuff like “mmrr” makes me doubt, but there might be something there.

A daring robbery late yesterday has left several people either comatose or insane at the Griffith Research Center for the Advancement of the Sciences in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Missing after the heist is an undetermined quantity of uranium.

Last evening a scheduled science fair for local high school kids ended in mayhem and madness. As the last of the Catawba County kids filed out after the “Meet the Elements” Seminar, strange mist began pouring out of the air vents. Several scientists, two guards and even a few teachers there to help with the post-program clean-up were stricken by a dangerous dose of devil’s foot gas. Moments thereafter, at least four gas-masked and black robed individuals entered from an unlocked side door and stole the uranium sample. No other element was touched, according to GRCAS spokesperson Brenda Tregennis .

A single clue was found at the crime scene. It is, of course, a strange cryptic note somehow dropped by one of the perpetrators. The note was given to police, forwarded to the FBI and CIA, and has now been sent to You. It appears to be of the same code type as the two previous samples.


Browen# If cow Wow nOw rcee gRoss. roPer reepTile igor roood snags sin ouT of thorn. ltTtTt FaTe iuuuen q Thhiieeaa claAww demon oreo cgtt helL gGbBb. Rrrror BuSt Gq#jc ThIn Rooooor eeeee Ivy hun wiTcuh recanT puzel lotus alarm. ohhhS e used ssteew v elf eDen troll essUuUu ibbi r fox aaAaeeiiee ruFfer plead onno Pus h#ash annea rope ail. ttt limb died etttttdd Box etna iiii Bled noOse errriee ttHeni sWoop erne. Aunts fox ears ural auww on white heels ryy. CaT fox str moon BiTe Dots One bells orbs HeaT clues. ghouls fined ploTs Aaiuuoor fawns exam. Tuna Twichyy smuG That maim shehhee cheWs ears Woe hoBo MariNa. When The hexS greed Hea#d abBc ossiGon knoBs p fox le#Gs ee cult thUg ohIo Tttt iwWw lll risk hell. Ages oo ss heaven tiUo oieuaiii agave eerie ghost of norm. fox nn Wart icy hex PiTc#h Nude tst Hheetee eGo Mat fox shAdowed nhaw w Thaj eTooon sewerd ndD qrCo.


Arrgh, still not seeing any patterns. I’m getting more convinced that my theories so far are correct, but applying them in a coherent decoding isn’t coming to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

No patterns. Sigh. You have been staring at these tricky spy messages for day after day after day. And all You are is a few days older. You feel good about your theories, but it is as if You have hit a stone wall. How can You get coherent messages from this mishmash of letters? How can “eeeee” translate into anything? If there is some mechanism or key to help decipher this nonsense, why have not You been able to find it? And if there is no key, what can all these repeated letters and capitals mean? Arrgh!

No, damn it – “eeeee” can’t translate into anything! Maybe something completely different from the usual type of spy codes is going on here. But what? You know these stupid messages are probably filled with red herrings. But what is real and what is not?

“I don’t know what to do!” You yell slamming the papers onto your desk. No. You cannot let frustration get the best of You. If a message can be encoded it can be decoded. But how? Have You counted everything? Have You examined the capital letters and non-capital letters to see if there is some difference? And what’s with the words? Sure some are Halloween themed—that’s just up Boris Barlow’s alley. But what about the others? There’s nothing scary about “quail” or “ounces” or “dude.” Yet these words show up. Why? Perhaps Barlow couldn’t do any better. But why not?

Knock! Knock! Knock!

You open your door and find Agents Jones and Brown waiting outside. Both men have a moment of hopefulness as they greet You. But your frustration must be showing and their expressions quickly turn as gloomy as yours.

“I don’t have to ask if You have got anything,” says Jones. “I can tell the answer isn’t good.”

“You’ll solve it. I know You will,” chirps Agent Brown. “You are the finest cryptologist in the land.”

You nod to young Agent Brown with a wan smile. “I’m glad You have faith in me. But this time I may be licked.”

Brown again makes encouraging remarks, and You pour both men fresh coffee.

You talk with Brown and Jones and alas no one seems to have made much progress. Yet your ideas are the brightest and generate the most thought. You and Brown go back and forth with your various theories, and Jones remains mostly silent. You can see he is staring over your shoulder at the calendar on the wall. Only a few days until Barlow’s birthday. October 31st. What then? By God, what then?

Huh. Just noticed that in message 2, “nine dude” have similar letter patterns, as do “ounces neIces”. Might be something there?

And I have been thinking of the idea of just ignoring words with multiple repeated letters, but I’m not sure what the stuff you don’t ignore gets you.

Brown stops by again this morning. The young man hands you a paper. “The White House received this message today via a street urchin who was paid $20.00 to drop it off.”


I am Boris Barlow, the Greatest Scientist the world has ever known. My brilliance outshines all others. I have been subjected to inhumane treatment because I am a genius, and because others could not stand to be shown to be lower than I. Fortunately I have found a true friend, who goes by the name THE FOX. This friend has enabled me to return to my great works.

I now demand that all those who persecuted me be held accountable. I now demand to be repaid for the injustices that have been wrought upon me. That payment will be $10,000,000. The money is due this Thursday. You will pay this to a Swiss Bank Account number that will be sent to you on Wednesday.

I also WILL be absolved of all crimes as will all my friends who you derisively call spies. They are not spies. They are visionaries who believe in me. This pardon for me and my apostles is due by Thursday.

But I know how you are. You may choose not to meet my demands. In that case the ax will rise and the ax will fall upon thee. I will release upon your world a monster that will cause great destruction. Each time you refuse my demands the price will rise, and my demands will increase. More and more terrible creatures will descend upon thee. Eventually you will give in to me. You must give in to me.

For I am Boris Barlow. I am the SUPREME ONE.


You put down the paper, shaking your head.

“The Fox? Could that be who all those 'fox’s in the coded messages refer to? Arrgh. I still haven’t begun to figure out those crazy spy missives. My current thinking is to ignore some words or letters, but which ones?”

Brown shrugs his shoulders.“I’ve tried along those lines. Sigh. Maybe all the letters aren’t used, but they still serve some purpose. But what kind of purpose? Last time we added two letters together. That doesn’t seem right here. Because if there* is *some random adding or subtracting of letters, you’d think there’d be a few more 'Z’s and less 'E’s. I just don’t get it.”

You offer Brown some coffee but the Agent declines. “I’ve got a meeting this morning at work.”

As Brown leaves he turns to You. “Boris Barlow supposedly liked to work puzzles from magazines. I wonder what kind of puzzles?”

“Do you think he ripped off his code from a magazine puzzle?” You ask.

“No, nothing like that. Still…? They said he liked word puzzles. I wonder just what kind?”

The following message (which appears to be another of our coded spy communications) was posted last Sunday on a little known Eastern European web site dedicated to improving the lot of reformed spies throughout the world. The post was taken down by the site administrators, but not until several hundred views had already occurred.

“The spies have never been this brazen,” Jones remarks. “They know the internet and electronic communications are closely monitored by the NSA. That’s why they usually only pass paper notes. And yet now they are obviously so brazen, so confident in the uncrackability of their code, that they go and put it out there for anyone to see.”

“And Halloween is just a couple of days away,” You note grimly. “We are running out of time.”


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I don’t want to alarm anybody, but halloween is tomorrow! And I’ve got nothing…

What about Boris’s friend “THE FOX”? Maybe that explains all those "fox"es in the code… but it’s not much of a code if “fox” just means “fox”, is it? I think Boris is playing games with us, it’s actually a hint that “fox” = “the”. But then I look at code snippets like “The fox afF fox” and “rzer roW fox.” (where fox is immediately followed by a period) and I’m not sure I believe that either.

Other than “fox”, there don’t seem to be many words repeated from cipher to cipher. I noticed “evil” and “nude” both show up in three of the codes, but I would have expected more. Anybody notice other repeats?

Also, Brown seems pretty convinced that the puzzle magazines Boris used to like are influencing the code. Any guesses what Boris’s favorite puzzle time might have been? The only thing I can think of from those magazines would be the word search. I kinda wish Brown would get one of his detectives to dig through the trash at that asylum and see if he can find one of Boris’s magazines.

Hmm. How many characters are there in each code? Would it be possible to set up some kind of word search grid with them?

Afternoon coffee with Jones and Brown at your place.

You are all sitting around the kitchen table, notes and coded messages spread out between the coffee cups. Behind you, hanging on the wall, the calendar reads October 31st. Halloween.

Jones: We must remember we don’t know for sure anything is going to happen today. Yes it is Barlow’s birthday, but that’s no guarantee that the spies are going to strike.

You all nod in agreement. But none of you really believe that. No, something is going to occur today unless the code is broken. Something bad.

You: I’ve had some ideas about this code, but I have been unable to use them to get a solution. I keep thinking I’m close…but so far I’ve got nothing concrete. Yet…

Brown: I spent all yesterday poring over this stuff with no results. I keep coming back to the hash sign, or number sign if you will. The one that looks like a tic-tac-toe board and is located above the 3 on the keyboard. What is its purpose in the code?

Jones: Our people at the CIA have got nothing. But I don’t think they are taking the threat all too seriously. I mean, space pods? I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t know Barlow’s past history. He’s crazy… but he’s a mad genius.

You: I suppose the government refused to pay off the spies?

Jones: Right. They think Barlow and company are bluffing. It’s as if they don’t remember the great werewolf debacle from 2011.

You: Has anyone been able to find out what kind of word puzzles Boris Barlow did while in the asylum?

Brown: Yes. But I think that’s another dead end. I spoke to one of his doctors at the asylum. Boris did the usual puzzle magazine fare: Word searches, acrostic puzzles, something called a ‘laddergram,’ kriss-kross puzzles, quote boxes, mazes, and even cryptic crosswords. What he didn’t do was any kind of cryptogram. The doctor recalls Barlow sneering at the concept of cryptograms, saying that these puzzles are easily solved by current puzzle software. Boris said such puzzles were no good if someone can easily decipher them using the internet. Puzzles have to be hard, and they have to be solved by ingenuity, not by cheating with internet sites.

You: Well that’s all well and good until suddenly the fate of the world depends on one’s ability to solve a puzzle.

You are all quiet for a moment. But somehow You don’t think the day is going to end quietly. Somewhere trouble is brewing.

*The following account is based on phone calls from the scene of last night’s incident, as well as physical evidence taken from the site. However it should be noted that there are no known eye-witnesses to confirm or deny a few of the exact details.
*
Steve Andrews was enjoying his Halloween evening. He had slogged through another long day in the courtroom, and he was glad to be home with his wife to greet the few trick-or-treaters who managed to find their rural home in the tiny mountain town of Flag Pond, Tennessee. Steve was perhaps the top prosecutor in the Volunteer State. Even though some of those people he had put behind bars had threatened his life, Steve had no particular reason to be concerned last evening when the doorbell rang. After all, it was Halloween night.

When Steve Andrews opened the door at about 8pm, he found instead of a candy-demanding child, a full grown man wearing a dark robe and hood. The man’s face was obscured. He resembled the figure of death minus the sickle. The robe gave off an eerie glow.

“Trick or Treat?” said the unknown visitor in a deep monotone.

“Aren’t you a little old for this game,” Steve responded. He was trying to figure out which of his neighbors would pull such a prank.

“Aww… I guess it’s a trick then,” said the robed individual. He made a creepy laugh.

The figure then reached into its cloak and pulled out a tall metal box. He set the object on the ground and hastily strode off down the driveway and into the night.

“Hey,” Steve yelled. “Is that you Barney?” But if the figure was his neighbor Barney Tailor, the man wasn’t quite ready to give up on the joke just yet. Steve looked at the box for a moment. All right. He’d play along. Steve Andrews undid the clasp on the box and opened the tight lid. His wife came up behind him.

“Who was that dear?”

“I think it was Barney from over the hill. Well, let’s see what’s in the box he left. Probably some kind of silly scary Halloween prop.”

Steve reached deep into the container. “Uggh. It’s something gooey.”

Steve recoiled and pulled his hand out of the metal box, but the gooeyness held to his fingers. “Ohh. Honey, get me a towel. This gunk is stuck on my hand.” His wife Judi hurried to the kitchen. As she tried to determine whether to use one of her good dish towels or waste some Select-A-Size Bounty, she heard her husband scream. When she returned to the doorway she saw her husband writhing on the ground and the goo now stretching up half his arm. “Help me. This stuff is eating into my skin.” He then screamed out loud again in obvious horrible pain. Judi Andrews rushed over to her husband, attempting to wipe the disgusting growing green sludge from his arm. But she soon found her own hand and the dish towel unable to break loose from the gluey goop that now conjoined her and her husband. The tingling in her hand caused by the freakish expanding muck turned quickly to a throbbing prickly pain.

“We’ve got to get help!” The slime had now ridden up her husband’s arm and was slowly spreading over his face. Judi Andrews pulled herself and her husband over to the phone and dialed 9-1-1. Trying not to be hysterical, the woman explained to the operator what was happening.

Now this 9-1-1 operator at first thought the call was a Halloween prank. But the screams from Steve Andrews in the background were all too real. The operator tried to keep Judi Andrews calm and on the line while help arrived. But the operator soon found himself on the phone merely with a woman shrieking in obvious agony. Then the telephone line went dead.

The emergency personnel who arrived a few minutes later found an awful sight. The distressed couple appeared to be slowly being enveloped in some sort of ballooning mound of mucus. The man was likely already dead. The unfortunate woman was barely moving the few parts of her body still slime-free. During the desperate attempt to get the couple into the ambulance two of the medical team found themselves also ensnared in the rapidly expanding blob. The third technician panicked and ran to the ambulance to call for back-up. This young man was on the phone to his superiors explaining the dire situation. But, alas, they wouldn’t take him seriously. These superiors didn’t realize they had a real crisis even as the EMT dropped the phone, declaring, “Oh my God. I’ve got to run! It’s oozing after me!”

Had to just be a Halloween trick, right?

A couple of hours later reinforcements finally arrived —still expecting a prank. What they found instead was a grisly and bloody scene. The abandoned ambulance parked on the street was still running. A trail of blood ran from the front door of the Andrews home to the ambulance and then off into the bushes. The police next checked other houses in the area. Two were found disheveled and empty. There was a lot more blood in both of those locations, as well a single severed foot. A third house had no damage… but the residents there, the Ritchie family, reported that while hearing nothing unusual that night, their pet llama Mr. Butterball was missing from its tie out in the front yard.

The gruesome trail of blood and destruction appeared to lead from the small cluster of rural houses out to a small side dirt road. There it disappeared. Recent tire tracks found at the scene may or may not be related to the violence. All in all, ten people are missing, including Steve and Judi Andrews, the three EMTs, and five neighbors.

The Stevens property has a large barn in the back. On that barn, in large fresh red spray paint, was this dripping message:

“HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM BORIS BARLOW AND THE FOX”

Steve Andrews was the prosecutor who sent several spies to prison for their role in a Halloween spy caper two years ago. He had also been instrumental in getting Boris Barlow committed to the Eastern Tennessee Asylum for the Criminally Insane.