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It’s been years since I read of the Magnolia Lane murder, but one detail I do recall was that those who committed the murder were seen on security camera wearing goat skulls. The media turned it into some dog and pony show that resulted in a number of unwarranted attacks on the few locals known to practice voodoo.
What happened at that Estate that night was not rooted in voodoo, something that was later explained in a special news report that described evidence of what was deemed part of satanic rituals, determined by an expert from the university. It turned into some cautionary tale to stay away from these extreme religious groups.
Unpausing the video, I tip back a sip of my drink, while the cameraman circles the group, capturing small details from the surroundings, like objects made of sticks hanging from tree branches. What looks to be an inverted ‘A’ within a circle, and other symbols painted in red on the trunk of a nearby tree, bringing to mind the word Antitheus. Various bones and feathers appear to be purposefully scattered alongside sticks on the ground.
Muffled feminine screams seem to draw the camera toward the circle, where two of the figures step aside to allow the observer passage.
Stretched over a patch of fallen brush, a woman with large breasts and a patch of dark hair between her thighs lies completely naked, tied by her wrists and ankles to wooden stakes hammered into the ground, her face concealed by a black hood. Blood, burn marks, and bruises across her body suggest she was tortured, for quite some time, too, given the yellowing state of a few of them. Low chanting can be heard beneath her tormented screams, and it’s then a figure, wearing a long black robe and one of those goat skulls, steps into view from the right of the screen.
A naked blonde woman steps into the frame and kneels down on all fours, overtop of the bound victim. The robed man lowers himself behind her, and by the forward jerk of her body, he looks to have notched himself inside her. The telling movements of sex follow, and when the blonde, still hunched over the woman on the ground, attempts to look away, the robed man grips the back of her head, forcing her to look down at the female beneath her. Minutes later, he shudders behind her, then pushes to his feet. As he moves out of frame, the blonde clambers to her feet, as well, hand pressed between her thighs, as if in pain. Body trembling, she whimpers and scampers away toward someone in the crowd, who wraps a robe around her, pulling her into an embrace.
What I’m guessing is the same robed man as before enters the frame again, until standing over the woman, who’s now writhing and squirming on the ground. A scream tears out of her, followed by deep, throaty sobs. She shakes her head. Screams again.
Removing the robe entirely reveals his pale, tattooed body, and exposed cock adorned with some spiked contraption along the shaft.
“Fuck, no,” I mutter, rubbing a hand down my face.
The title of the video suddenly makes sense. One girl impregnated. The other sacrificed.
Pausing the video again, I clench my jaw, steeling my nerves for what comes next, and that’s when something catches my eye. As I zoom in on the screen, the tattoos on the naked man come into view. Tattoos I’ve seen before. Symbols and words I didn’t understand. Just like those on the robed man I saw back at Julio’s. The one who seemed to terrify Castellano.
I press play again.
He falls to his knees before the woman.
One of the watchers standing over them blows what looks to be a ram’s horn.
The tattooed man climbs over top of her.
Screams pierce the air, and I have to look away, because, fuck, this shit is hard to watch and listen to at the same time. I’ve seen a man’s skull split in half by a machete, and I’ve personally disemboweled a complete stranger with my own blade, but this is something else entirely. It’s intimate and vindictive and designed to gut-punch the senses.
Her screams die to a long, drawn-out whine, and daring a glance, I find the man rutting against her like an animal, the slapping of skin punctuated by the wet sounds of her blood. The chants grow louder, drowning out her mewling.
Fast forwarding the video shows the naked goat man wielding a machete that he whacks down on the girl, and that’s when I click out of it.
Fuck.
Snuff is nothing new in my world. Though many of the videos I’ve stumbled upon in my lifetime looked to be staged, this one was undoubtedly real. So real that a tremble of rage hums beneath my skin.
Beside the video icon is an Excel file labeled The Book. I click on that, and a list pops up on my screen. Names, from what I can gather, and as I scroll down the page, the list grows longer and longer. There must be thousands of them, with what looks like accompanying IP addresses, along with physical addresses.
I click on one of the names, copy and paste it into a search engine. The results spit back some government official out of Pennsylvania.
Another name is a lawyer in Oregon. Another is a school teacher. A coach. A fucking pastor from Kentucky.
Who are all these people? And what the hell does Céleste have to do with them?
In the search bar, I type Magnolia Lane murder, seeing as the goat mask is a similarity. A few articles come back, none of which I haven’t read before. Except, this time, instead of just perusing the articles, I’m looking for details.
One article goes on to describe the murder of the doctor and his housekeeper, who I recognize as Brie’s grandmother, whose bodies were mutilated and missing organs.
It happened about the same time my old man skipped town, and for the longest time, I wondered if he’d played a role in the murder, seeing as he spent some time in prison when I was a kid. But then, my father wasn’t ambitious enough to pull off a murder like that. He was a gambler and a womanizer who more likely fled with some cheap piece of ass he suckered into coming with him. I just know he left my mother and me to deal with all his shitty debts.
Was the murder random, then? Or was it, as the media pointed out, that the good doctor had gotten wrapped up in something he shouldn’t have been? The presence of trinkets and bones left at the house, along with symbols painted in blood, suggested black magic. Authorities also retrieved books that seemed to be part of Doctor Pierce’s own library. Ones that detailed satanic rituals and altered Bible verses. The article described him as a man who had spiraled into madness--a dark paranoia--prior to his murder. Which ultimately gave rise to all of these theories about what happened and the house being haunted.
Even now, folks avoid the estate in fear of its ominous history. Some have reported seeing a lady in white roaming the grounds.
A former groundskeeper for Doctor Pierce was quoted as saying he’d encountered a few ghosts while working there. “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” he reported. “But it’s unnerving, hearing voices in the walls.”
