I saw some of the weirdest stuff, and I have seen people do some pretty weird stuff on the internet. I watch it all, and I can watch extraordinary amounts as technology attaches more gizmos and cameras to our worldwide network. News crews put up cameras you can connect to and watch actual traffic if you don’t believe their helicopters. Regular businesses have them and sometimes connect them online for their own viewing…but leave a backdoor in.

Oops.

I’ll admit, I have a penchant for watching terrible things happen. There are areas on the South Side that I watch with a passion normally reserved for Cheetos and nachos. One particular spot was a hotbed of activity, day or night. You’d think the cops would come and round people up, and that’s because you live on the North Side, in a nice studio. Often they would trade bullets and the cops would show up to clean up the mess.

On this particular corner, they were dealing drugs. This area was out of the ordinary, a shop instead of the corners where they buy and sell openly. It seemed overkill at the time. The woman received a large delivery every other day except Sundays, and the man peddled them out the front.

It started with a dealer walking into the shop. I say a dealer because a junkie has a certain gait, and usually a tic or two. This particular person had a very nice vehicle and another person with him. The deal went bad in a hurry.

The dealer pulled a gun on the man behind the counter. The man behind the counter clearly wasn’t giving the dealer what he wanted. The man behind the counter made a swift move and pulled him over the counter without a shot being fired. The dealer’s driver couldn’t see all of this, so he sat in the car. Just as he was starting to get fidgety, the dealer calmly walked out of the store with a box, and the man behind the counter resumed his position.

This was not normal, to say the least.

I knew the guy behind the counter had goons because I’ve seen them before. They’re a level up from your common street thug, too precise and well-dressed. The way they walk, the air of confidence. Even though it was a less than stellar camera, bulges at the chest and were unspoken warnings.

Tonight they came, hordes of junkies. While the shop takes the occasional junkie order, this was unprecedented.

A car full of them drove up, the driver waving them in. They didn’t even wait, lighting up right outside the shop. That’s usually a big no-no. Instead of slumping to the floor, or passing out on the spot something different happened. They stood straighter, congregated around the driver, and then took off in the car.

This repeated with another set of people, like Uber for meth addicts. Drivers were just dropping them off. The second group was much larger than the first, and much worse off. I could tell they were malnourished, barely able to walk.

When they came outside and got high, the weaker ones simply collapsed to the ground. I thought for sure they were dead, but their fate was worse. Their skin peeled off. It fell to ground in black chunks as their mouths opened and closed.

The stronger ones went into a frenzy, picking up the pieces and sticking them to their own skin where they became a part of them. The limbs were next, torn off, and I retched watching them peel apart joints like shucking corn. Their arms shivered, and when the process was complete, the stronger addicts were larger, nothing remained of the weak ones. They gathered up and simply drove off, all in the same direction.

The drivers waited around as I pondered what to do. I looked at my hard drives and pondered the mounds of stolen data, among other things, and decided that risking calling the police would not be healthy for me. That’s when they turned and stared at the camera. Staring right through the camera at me. One of them held a sign up, a sign with a pseudonym I use online.

Shortly thereafter, I had my go bag over my shoulder and my last non-portable hard drive was getting chewed up by MegaBahumut, my name for my hard drive destroyer. I stuffed an image I printed out from the camera, but I can’t upload it where I am right now. It looked something like this.

Does anyone know what that is?

Gotta go, there’s some people that have been staring at me across the street for too long. I’ll be back if I can.