 I live on an island. Said island is located off the northeast coast of the United States and is relatively unknown to most, other than those who've seen that one movie that was filmed here. Sure, in the summer when it's warm, we get a rapid influx of foreign tourists who are excited to see a real beach and experience the quaint small-town American lifestyle. But for the most part, on this tiny little island, there's maybe a thousand folks who live here year round. At least that's how many people you will see actively moving about. There's probably more than that, but the rest are reserved rednecks who spend a grand total of 15 minutes a year in direct sunlight. You may have heard of this island, hell if you've vacationed anywhere in the northeast. There's a good chance you know exactly which island I'm talking about. Please, for the sake of the sanity of all the listeners and for myself as the writer, keep it to yourself. If you don't know which island I'm talking about, perfect, stay the hell away. There are many reasons I say that, but the top three would be, one, this place is boring. After the summer crowds leave, all we have here is the one movie theater, the bowling alley people like to get high inside of, and a few pizza joints of varying quality. Two, you will almost certainly get sick on the ferry ride to my island. For the most part, the employees of the ferry company are grumpy folk who have little to no interest in your comfort and live by the unofficial slogan of, we're not happy till you're not happy. End number three, if you're not a seasoned islander or exceptionally well trained, armed and smart, there's a pretty good chance you will last about three days here before you disappear. I've been working as a police officer here for a few years now. I'm by no means an expert, nor am I that old. But I do like to think I know my way around the job. And I cannot begin to count all the missing persons reports we get here. It's astounding, really. I don't mean we have a few more here and there than the national average. I mean three to four people a week disappear right out from under people's noses with zero warning in a town the size of ours. That's a pretty significant number. At this point, investigating them as an exercise in futility. Last year, we lost something like 200 people in total. Want to know how many we found three, three people. These three people were for the most part, unscathed as well. They reassembled it into society fairly easily. The only real problem with them was the fact that not one of them had any fingers. It was really quite interesting to see. I don't mean like they were cut off or anything. I mean they looked like these people were born with no fingers. I knew one of them. He used to have fingers. He still denies that and I've stopped trying to convince him. That's just one of the many strange things that happen here, honestly. Being as a cop isn't exactly easy. When in half of all breaking and entering cases, the victims claim the burglar is a lizard dog hybrid person. I don't know exactly what they mean by that, but the number of cases with that commonality is too high to not take it seriously. Makes writing reports fun at least. My partner and I have seen some pretty crazy things so weird. No people don't sound quite as far outside the realm of possibility to us as they might to others. Anyway, I wanted to start documenting some of the things that go on here. I was told last week by one of my usual suspects, Jonathan, that people who aren't from around here may get a kick out of the things we do on a daily basis. I figured here was the best place for this. I've seen how open-minded most of you are, but whether you believe any of this or not doesn't really matter too much. Hopefully you can enjoy either way. I'm not exactly sure what to start with the story. I could tell you about the time we got a call to one of our local cemeteries. Every single grave had been unearthed, and about 432 bodies were mysteriously missing. We found them a little bit later inside the grocery store when the manager came in to open it for business. They appeared as if they'd been staged to look like they were shopping. This all happened between 7 and 7.30 am when the on-site caretaker was taking his daughter to school, which seemed a bit uncharacteristically fast for most teenage pranksters. I could talk about the time when every single spoon on the island vanished, including my own set. Those, unlike the 432 corpses, were never recovered, in that case is technically still open. Honestly, however, these are just everyday occurrences for us. Normal is a relative term here. One of the stranger events happened on my last night shift. Me and my partner Colin are on from 10 pm to 6 am most shifts, so we're usually around when things go bump in the night. We got a call for just such a bump a few days back. At 3.33 am, we heard 700 to a Delta unit. Delta 27, I responded back through my cruise or mic. We have a report of an intruder, the RP states, that they've heard several inexplicable noises in their basement. I sighed and looked at Colin before answering. Received 700 myself and Delta 28 are on route. Slipping on our lights and sirens, I slowly pulled our cruiser out from where we'd been parked on the side of the road and made my way towards the downtown residence. We arrived not 10 minutes later and exited our vehicle. You want to take this? Asked Colin. He looked like shit. I suspected he'd yet to sleep since the night before, so I said, sure buddy. And knocked. I'd barely grazed the door with my knuckles. When it flew open and I nearly put my fist into the young woman's nose, thank goodness you're here. She exclaimed, I'd never seen her before, which was strange to me because I've met with most people on this rock on at least one occasion. She was short, with darker brown hair and introduced herself as Kathy with two K's. She was wearing Star Wars pajamas and looked like she was a little older than me. After introductions, she invited Colin and I into her house. I heard something moving around in my basement. I'm the only one home. My wife's at a conference off of the mainland. Kathy explained, at first, I thought it could be a small animal, but then I heard a voice. I've been too scared to go down there. So I called you. I nodded. We'll check it out for you. Don't worry. Why don't you wait outside? Is there an exit in the basement? I asked, trying not to sound as excited as I felt. I mean, maybe I'd finally get to see the lizard dog man thing who wouldn't be excited. She shook her head and nervously fiddled with her skirt. Just don't open the basement closet, please. I looked at Colin. Why? He asked her slowly and deliberately. She continued to fidget and looked at her shoes. That's just where I have a lot of things piled up in there and I just, well, they're fragile and she trailed off. Well, we may have to. Now please just go outside or in the living room away from the basement. I instructed her. Of course we had to look in the closet now. We drew our weapons and hit the basement light switch. Police department. I called down the steps. No response. We carefully made our way down the steps into the basement. Basement was, however, a strong word. This place was solid concrete, basically just the foundation, and it was littered with unlabeled cardboard boxes. I mean, stack so high, we couldn't see the whole room at any one point in time. Lots of blind spots. There was a path, sort of, leading to around the basement. Using it, we found a medium-sized wooden door at the very back wall. Well, then, stated Colin, must be the closet. Yep, I answered shortly. We waited. So, do you want to open it? I asked. No. Do you? He responded. Nope, I sent, reaching for the handle. I made eye contact with my partner and then yanked it open quickly, both of us pointing our glocks and mounted flashlights inside, where we saw several thousand glass eyes looking directly at us. Whoa, said Colin, stepping back. I'll admit, it wasn't what I expected. Maybe some bongs or a meth lab even would have been less surprising, but that wasn't what was there. It was eyes. Huh. I muttered, more to myself. We kept our lights pointed in the oversized room, looking at the many, many shelving units the eyes were placed on. This must be cut out further into the ground, Colin thought out loud. I nodded, bringing my light slowly downwards towards the table. Just at the bottom of the back wall, it landed on a small hole. I stopped. Dude, I said to Colin. Looks like something crawled in here. The hole was definitely too small for a human, but bigger than a mouse or rat hole would be. Maybe it's... He started when suddenly a small black and white creature raced past us on all fours. Oh shit, I yelled, turning around just in time to see a puffy black and white tail disappear up the stairs. Was that a skunk? Asked Colin. My shoulders dropped. Yeah, I said, holstering my pistol. I think it was. We heard a shrill scream from upstairs and looked at each other. Kathy, we both said, sprinting upstairs and finding her cowering outside the living room door. It... It went in here. She stammered. She looked pale. It's okay, Kathy, it's just a skunk, I told her. Move away from the door and we can try and get him out without him stinking up your whole house. She nodded, swallowed, and slowly moved away from the entrance. This is really going to suck if I get sprayed, I thought to myself. The sight of my partner's face confirmed that I wasn't the only one with this thought. Slowly, Colin opened the door. I opened the last one, so by the rules of the law enforcement brocode, his turn was up. Moving into the dark room, we could faintly make out a couch, a recliner, a fireplace, and a few more shelves. These ones had books on them, however, which was a pleasant change. What we didn't see, however, was a skunk. What do you want to do? Colin said, I shrugged. I say we loop around and try to force him out into the main hall. We crept into the room, moving clockwise behind the couch to the fireplace and around the recliner right back to where we started. No skunk, here skunky skunky skunky, Colin whispered, well that's rude. Said a male voice with a heavy accent. We both froze, who said that? I asked, I did asshole, what are you deaf? Calling the voice again. I drew my weapon and switched on the light. Colin did the same. Where are you? What are you doing in here? I said to the disembodied voice, I'm right here you dickhead. Our weapons turned to the floor between the chair and the couch, where the skunk was seated looking up at us. There's no way that just said that. Colin said to me. I can hear you, you know, said the skunk. Yes, it did. I answered Colin's question in disbelief. Hey, I ain't an it douchebag, I'm a he, said the skunk. What the hell, how can you talk? I asked the rodent. How can I talk? How can you talk? Shit, I thought you cops were supposed to be smart. He answered, annoyed. I didn't appreciate this skunk's sass. Well, what are you doing in this lady's house? Why aren't you huddled up in a ground hole or something? I asked, equally annoyed. That's racist. What, just because I'm a skunk, I got to live in a hole? Believe it or not, skunks also appreciate fine a household living, you know, it's cold outside. The skunk shot back, like it should have been obvious. There's no need to be rude, Colin spoke up. Well, watch how you talk to me. I ain't your pet asshole. I got three damn kids. The skunk was raising his tail in addition to his voice. Okay, I said, how about this? I'll make a deal with you. I said, looking at the skunk, he paused. What kind of deal? Well, I can't let you stay in this lady's house, okay? But what I can do, if you promise you won't stink up the car, is take you back to the station. We can get you some food and you can spend tonight there and we'll find you somewhere nicer tomorrow. I said, hesitating on the last bit. I was gonna have to help a skunk go house shopping tomorrow. The skunk thought about this for a moment. And I ain't getting arrested or nothing. He asked slowly. No, I responded. He waited for a few more moments, then said, fine, but I get the ride shotgun deal. The three of us walked out of the living room and Kathy made a little squeal when she saw the skunk. Get it out of here, get it out. She cried, damn lady. I know I didn't ask permission or nothing, but I have a name, you know. The skunk said, Kathy went pale. Did that? Did he just talk? She asked, her voice barely audible. Yes, yes he did. I answered with a smile. Oh, she muttered, just before feigning right there on the floor. I considered calling an ambulance, but decided against it. She'd wake up soon enough to a skunk-free house. I just wish I had the chance to ask her about all the glass eyes in the basement. What's your name, by the way? Asked Colin for the report, I mean. The skunk looked at him. My name, since you were polite enough to ask is Daniel Sharps the third. He responded, carrying his head a little bit higher. And you two might be? I'm Officer Colin Schaefer, and this is my partner, Officer Holliday. Colin said to Daniel, gesturing to me. Daniel the skunk looked at us both, then said, well then, please to meet you both. And that's pretty much where this one ends. There's a few more details, of course, telling our officer in charge about how we were putting Daniel the talking skunk in a holding cell and writing the report. Daniel is actually still at the station. The chief decided to let him stay as long as he didn't stink up the place, because he is actually quite an efficient cockroach killer. I've had the last two days off and have spent them quietly watching the Mandalorian, but I'm back on in a few hours, so I think I'm gonna grab a quick bite and take a power nap before my shift. I'll try to give another update soon. Until then, have a good one.