text: This is episode one -
  Tucked in a rural setting in the southern hills of the United States, a hometown man walked the circuit of roadways around his home. The walker liked to be outdoors and enjoyed walking and thinking, breathing in, breathing out, contemplating nature, the universe, and his own part in it all. The walks were generally uneventful, running across the occasional passing car on the tree-lined lanes, but all in all, a pleasant, quiet and invigorating constitutional.
  That is until a walk almost two years ago.
  The walker saw something along the roadway on one of his excursions that looked out of place. He slowed down his pace, looked down at his feet to see a spine from an unknown creature.
  The spine had no ribs or bones, flesh or head. It was uncertain what kind of creature it was. The walker lifted his head and looked around the area for more parts of the body, but nothing was found, only a stain on the roadway.
  He also found a strangely bent spoon nearby.
  The spine was odd, but it could have been picked over by a buzzard or some creature after being hit by a car. Still, the skull and ribs, arms, legs, whatever else, were all gone from sight. There was no blood to show this creature was dismembered and spine removed there onsite.
  He continued his walk and enjoyed an uneventful evening and dismissed the spine as one of those quirks of the natural world and its predator/prey dance.
  That is, until another walk....
  This time, the walker, lost in his thoughts about the coming season and things on his to-do list, about a half mile from his home, studied the ground ahead of him as he walked. Then, something pale and delicate showed up ahead and as he came closer, he squinted down at the ground to make out something he hadn't seen before along the road; the bleached spine of a snake, and beside it, another, and then another, and then another....
  He grew up in the area and certainly knew what was the norm and this was not. Four snake skeletons all together was an odd sight, especially odd because he did not see them the day before and yet the spines were articulated and bleached. He took some pictures to document the interesting find.
  Pondering this strange display and trying to figure out the odds of how such a thing was possible to show up and happen in one area within days apart, the walker ambled off towards home with better things to do than investigate the roadway. Still, in the back of his mind, he was thinking that he needed to study the roads more closely from now on, as they seemed to contain some unusual victims he hadn't encountered before.
  The next time he went walking, the walker passed a driveway that led to an old quarry that wasn't used in the past decades, but recently had some trucks coming in and out for the first time. The sign to the gravel quarry was pulled out of the ground. It looked like someone had rocked back and forth in the ground, leaving a slot where it finally released from the soil, pulling it up and tossing it aside. That was a sign of destruction not seen in their peaceful area.
  He came to the intersection where his back road met the quarry road and stopped in horror.
  A dead baby boar, splayed out. It didn't seem to be hit by a car, but something wasn't right at all. He looked it over and saw, another baby boar that was dead nearby, its intestines dangling from the vines above it in a graphic display.
  He inspected them a little closer....
  One was pulled open, guts gone, and not a drop of blood. No blood anywhere. Something was not right at all. It was obvious to the walker that the boars weren't from around there. They didn't have them up in the hill area, just down in the swamps. Who would bring the dead boars to the area and dump them in that condition? They couldn't have killed them right there. There was no blood. They weren't decayed yet, but flies were on them and they were there perhaps a day. They certainly had not been there on the last walk. He wouldn't have missed that!
  He shivered at the thought of someone carrying the nasty carcasses there and dumping them. It was not a practical joke anyone would want to participate in, given the grotesque nature of it. The bodies seemed to be laid out for someone to find right there at that rural intersection. That is, if people frequented the quiet roadway.
  Puzzled, the walker lifted his head and started studying the trees. Was someone trying to punk him? This was obviously executed for effect. No signs of cameras were anywhere to be found and he shook his head, realizing that the odd incidents so close together had him spooked and suspicious.
  As he walked away down the road, a few dozen yards away, he came across something in the middle of the road. He leaned down to study it. The pigs' tails with mud and grass around them!
  Had they carried the pigs down the center of the road by the tail?
  The walker stood back up, took a deep breath and told himself that perhaps some kind of odd predator was afoot, and he was just seeing its feeding ground. It was certainly not looking like a roadkill situation, at all!
  As he walked away, the walker's mind churned the dilemma. The pigs were not eaten. They were messed with, but they were no signs of predators feasting. The snake spines were articulated and intact. The other odd spine had no head or other bones anywhere around....
  Bones could be scattered by wildlife, right? But, oddly none of these creatures seemed to be killed and picked apart there, but placed and within a day's time, one item was missing, another placed....
  The walker picked up his pace, certain that an explanation existed because to think otherwise was to let something dark into his peaceful countryside. He might have convinced himself it was all something natural, that is, until the next day....