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I drive trucks for a dairy farm in northern Alberta, something strange is going on up here.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a biogas plant is, how it works or what they're actually used for allow me to educate you. A biogas plant produces natural gas, or rather a substitute for natural gas, from fermented corn silage as well as other agricultural waste products. Farmers, such as myself, would bring in silage which we would unload into a large concrete bunker silo, basically just a big walled in pit. The plant I delivered to used a modified snowcat to push the silage around and pack it down evenly in the pit. Once one pit filled up they would tarp it and leave it to ferment and move on to the next pit. Once a pit was fully fermented they would uncover it and use a large wheel loader to shovel the fermented silage into what's called an anaerobic digester. It's basically just a big tank with an agitator that you fill up with a bunch of organic matter and heat it up which produces methane gas as the microorganisms inside begin to break everything down. This gas is then captured and can be used for basically everything natural gas is used for already but it's supposed to be better for the environment or something. These plants are way more common in Europe but they have started to pop up here in North America as well. And yes, before you ask, these places smell worse than you could possibly imagine.
I always thought it was a little bit weird that they built one way up here in Northern Alberta but since the large dairy farm I worked at pretty much always had an excess of corn silage every year, we certainly welcomed another place to sell it to especially since they're not picky. Trying to sell to another dairy farmer is always a hassle because they're always concerned with the quality, as they should be if they're feeding it to their cows, but the biogas plant basically just needs organic matter, it doesn't really matter what it is. If it can decompose you can make gas out of it.
Last fall we had an exceptionally good corn harvest to the point where we still had 4 more fields still to harvest by the time we had enough to feed the cows for the next year. As I said this isn't uncommon. When you're harvesting corn for silage you use a totally different harvester. Rather than a combine that separates out the actual corn kernels from the rest of the plant you use a forage harvester which is essentially a giant woodchipper on wheels that takes in the whole crop and shreds it up. Since corn can easily grow 10 feet high and you spread that over a few thousand acres you get a crazy high volume of silage coming in. Upon realizing how much excess we had my boss did what he always did and called up the plant who as always agreed to take in what we didn't need. The next morning rather than trucking back to the farm we were instructed to head straight over to the plant once our trailers had filled up.
I arrived with my first load at the plant around 10 am. A man wearing a high vis jacket directed me onto the large scale they used to weigh the trucks coming in and out. "Good harvest this year Jim?" The friendly old lady in the scalehouse said as she took down the weight of my loaded truck. I felt bad as I had been delivering to this plant on and off for the last 8 years I had worked on Mr. Baker's dairy farm but I couldn't remember, or I'd just never learned her name. Oh well, I certainly wasn't going to out myself now. "Well if we're delivering here you know it's a good one," I replied. "And there's plenty more where this came from." "Glad to hear it!" She smiled back at me handing me my paperwork. "Now you just head right on down to the back there and the boys will show you where to dump" "Thank you," I said taking the papers from her and putting my truck back into gear.
I pulled off the scale and made my way to the back of the plant where the big concrete pits are. Some more men in high vis gear directed me to back into a specific one. The giant pit was only about half full at the this point but the mountain of silage in my rear view mirrors still looked to be about 30 feet deep at its highest point. As usual they had me back up until my trailer started to climb the pile a bit. this way there were no gaps in the pile and the snowcat wouldn't have to do as much pushing. As I watched the back wheels of my trailer roll on to the silage pile in my mirrors I heard the unmistakable sound of a tire blowing out. A loud pop and then a slow hiss that quickly dissipated. "Shit!" I thought to myself as I hopped out to inspect the damage. One of the workers had also come to see what had happened.
"Must be one of your inside tires" he said to me as I approached, "all the outside ones look fine." I bent down and looked under the truck, sure enough he was right. The inside tire on the right side of the rear axle was completely flat. "Well I suppose that's why semi trucks have dual wheels," I said trying to sound unfazed while simultaneously preparing myself for the ass chewing I was bound to receive for this later. I walked around to the back of the truck to inspect the damage further and saw what had punctured my tire. I stumbled back a bit as I realized it was what appeared to be a broken bone sticking out of the tire. "What the..." I said mostly to myself but the worker must've heard too as it caused him to look down at it as well. When he did his face went white for a second then he composed himself. "Well I'll be damned," he said, "I've been here since the plant opened and I ain't never seen that before, some uh, poor animal must've gone through the forage harvester, or uh, some farmer's dog must've dug it up and dropped it in their silo." He seemed real shifty as he said this and almost seemed like he was trying to convince himself of what he was saying but I brushed it off as I figured he was probably just as shocked as I was.
While I was still able to unload I did have to leave the truck and trailer at the plant that night. A mobile tire repair service would be out in the morning to get it all fixed up. I got a ride back to the farm with our next truck to arrive at the plant and finished out the day pressure washing the manure spreaders. No doubt a reward for my efforts that day. I had to take a good long shower at the farm office before getting in my truck to head home for the night. As I started the engine I went to pull my phone out of my pocket to plug it in to the charger and realized that I didn't have it. I padded all my other pockets, nope definitely not there. I then realized that I had likely left it in the semi which was now at the plant, probably locked behind a gate for the night. Logically I could have just waited till morning to go and retrieve it. I was probably just going to go straight to bed when I got home anyway so what did I need my phone for? But because humans now have separation anxiety from their phones burned into them at age 3 I found myself pulling out on to the road in the direction of the plant rather than home. I hoped there would be some friendly night security guard that would let me in to grab it and I'd be on my way in 5 minutes.
I reached the plant just as it was getting dark and indeed there was a security guard standing at the gate as I pulled up. A very heavily armed security guard. He had what looked like a military rifle slung over his back and I wondered what on earth he needed that for. They were very illegal for civilians to own here in the great white north so they must've had a damn good reason to arm their security like this for the government to let them do it. He looked rather intimidating but surprisingly was not at all antagonistic when I rolled down my window. "Are you lost partner?" He said in a rather friendly tone. "No, no, I work for one of the farms that delivers here," I said, "My truck blew a tire on the trailer earlier today and it's still sitting over by pit 3 and I think I left my phone in the cab, do you mind if I go check?" He gave me a suspicious look, then he peered into the pickup bed and generally looked over me and my truck, then he gazed off down the road and looked at his watch. "Alright you got 10 minutes, and try and stay out of the night shift's way" he said in a much less friendly tone.
A loud click and then a buzzing sound came from the gate as it began to move and I drove through it. By now it was almost completely dark but the large spotlights of the plant made it easy to navigate. I came around the corner and saw my truck still sitting across from pit 3 and I pulled up in front of it. As I got out I noticed that there was a large excavator up on top of the pile in pit 4. I knew it was digging into the silage but I couldn't really see what it was doing properly because the concrete wall that separated pits 3 and 4 partially obscured it. I could also see the roof of the snowcat peeking up over the wall. It must've been parked a little ways away on top of the pile and I figured it must've gotten stuck and they were using the excavator to try and get it out. I paid it little attention as I entered the cab of the semi truck and quickly found my phone in the cupholder. I grabbed it and just as I was climbing down a voice called out to me.
"Hey who the fuck are you?? And what are you doing here???" A disgruntled looking worker wearing the same high vis gear was running towards me. "I just left my phone in this truck here, the security guard let me in to grab it" I stammered backing up towards my pickup. "Of course he fucking did" the man grumbled and he snatched his radio out of his jacket pocket. "Peter what the hell did you let this dumbass in here for you can't be doing that!" He shouted into the radio. "Relax they're not even here yet" the guard's voice crackled through the radio. "Umm actually I see headlights if he's got his phone tell him to get out of there." The man looked back to me. "You heard him son get lost and don't come back here after delivery hours again you got it?" I nodded and climbed back into my pickup truck and began to drive back towards the gate. As I exited the guard waved to me from behind the big black GMC Yukon that had pulled up to the gate. He appeared to be talking to the driver. There was a large U-Haul truck behind it followed by another black Yukon. As I passed the last vehicle I noticed in my rear view mirror the 3 trucks enter the plant ad the guard shutting the gate behind them.
That whole situation did not sit right with me. On the drive home I contemplated everything that I had seen and heard from the guard and the other worker. They were up to something in that plant at night that maybe even the bosses didn't know about. My best guess was it was some kind of drug operation. If movies have taught me anything drug kingpins always drive black SUVs. I know I should have left it alone but life up here in Northern Alberta was so boring my curiosity ended up getting the better of me. I thought that I could help bring down some kind of criminal organization and be a local hero, and that worst case scenario nothing was happening and nothing would come of it.
After harvest concluded I had a couple of days off to rest as we'd been working pretty crazy hours lately. I however did not rest. I was trying to find out everything I could about the plant and the people who ran it. I really couldn't find anything about it, in fact it was as if the place didn't exist. You would think there would at least be a news story from when they built the place what with it being the biggest boost to the local economy and job market our town had ever seen and all but there was nothing. Finally I decided the only thing to do was to see if I could observe what those black SUVs and the U-Haul truck were doing in the plant at night. Maybe get some photos of the exchange and hand them off to the police. I did some poking around on Google maps and found an old logging road that ran across the ridge behind the plant. There was a little dirt area where people often parked to unload their ATVs to go riding in the woods up there that was maybe only a kilometre or so from the north side of the plant.
I drove up there just before dark and hiked down through the woods all the way to the north fence of the plant. It was just a chain link fence like you'd see around a schoolyard not a barbed wire prison fence or anything so I made quick work of climbing over it. Luckily for me there was a lot of equipment and old dumpsters and shipping containers in this part of the plant for me to hide behind as I made my way towards where the main gate was. I crouched down behind one of their company trucks parked near the gate and waited about 20 minute before I saw the black SUVs pull up. This time though they didn't have a U-Haul they had a much larger yellow Penske box truck. They must be hauling some serious product to be renting that thing. I watched as the trucks rolled through the gate and much like they had done with me a few days prior the plant workers in high vis gear directed them back towards the pits.
I began to sneak my way over there being careful to stay out of sight. I realized very quickly that I wouldn't be able to get very close while still remaining hidden. The area around the pits was largely wide open to allow to turn around and back in so there was nothing to conceal me as I approached. I noticed the office nearby and had an idea. I snuck over to it and tried the door. It was open but the lights were off inside. Luckily no alarms went off and I found what I came for quickly. A high vis uniform and a white hard hat laying on the break room table. I also grabbed some safety glasses and a dust mask as it wasn't uncommon for the workers to wear them, there was a lot of dust around the pits, and I figured it would help conceal my identity.
After putting on the uniform and sneaking back outside I observed the workers for a few minutes to see what they were doing and how best to blend in. Most of them appeared to either be standing around watching the trucks pull up or walking somewhere so I figured just walking like I was on a mission was good enough. Turns out I didn't need to fake it for long. As I neared the yellow Penske truck I saw some men getting out of the black SUVs. They were dressed in what looked like church robes but definitely not Catholic since they didn't have the collar. One of them turned to me and I froze. "Hey buddy, we got a pretty big load tonight, mind giving us a hand?" Realizing my cover was working I decided to play along and just leave the part about me helping the drug lords out of my statement to the police. I nodded and walked over with the other workers and awaited instructions.
I heard the sound of a diesel engine coming closer and looked over to see the excavator I had seen coming around the corner and begin to climb the silage pile in pit 4 again. The snowcat was behind it but instead of following the excavator up the pile it came towards us. It had some kind of large metal box attached to the blade that was about the size of a small car. The operator set the box down next to the Penske truck and hopped out. The same disgruntled man I had encountered the other night got out of the cab. "Jesus man, that's a big truck you got there, probably gonna take a couple trips to unload this thing," he said to the men in robes. One of them opened up the back of the box truck and where I expected to see a giant pile of cocaine bricks or something there was something I never expected.
Bodies, and lots of them just thrown haphazardly into the back of this truck. I had to fight the urge to fill my dust mask with vomit as I saw them. The workers began loading them into the box on the blade of the snowcat just tossing them on with little regard for how they landed. No one seemed to notice me just standing there so I slowly backed up into the shadows and made my way over to pit 3. It was almost full by now so I climbed up the pile to a spot where I could look over the concrete wall into pit 4 where the excavator was without being spotted. Once up there I saw the snowcat climbing up the pile towards a large hole the excavator had dug in it. There were some more workers up there who began throwing the bodies off into the hole as one of the men in robes climbed out of the passenger seat in the snowcat. He just stood on the track watching as the bodies were piled into this impromptu mass grave they had constructed. He stayed up on the pile while the snowcat went down for the second load.
This was all starting to make sense now. This was the perfect cover for disposing of bodies. They would get broken down in the piles same as everything else and because they were constantly being emptied into the digester the evidence would only be around for a few months, and the horrific smell of the plant would conceal any foul odours produced by the dead bodies. But there was one question left. Where were they coming from? This was way too many bodies for this to be the mafia or something killing off problematic individuals. By the time the truck was totally unloaded there must've been 100 dead people in that hole. No this had to be some cult activities of some sort and the robes the men from the black SUVs were wearing backed up that theory. Maybe these were just what was left over from some sort of ritual sacrifice or something? Whoever these people are they must have some kind of deal with the plant's owners because I could tell the workers had done this before. From the time the truck had arrived to the time the excavator started burying the corpses in rotting corn silage it had only taken about half an hour.
I didn't even bother ditching the uniform I got out of that plant as fast as I could. I sprinted up through those woods back towards my truck with my heart beating so fast I thought it would explode. As soon as I was in the truck I locked all the doors and dialed 911 on speaker as I peeled out of the forest. I told the operator everything that had happened over the last couple of days and what I had seen that night. I practically begged them to send someone there right away which the nice lady on the other end of the line promised they would. She asked for my name and contact information so they could get a hold of me for a statement which I gladly gave them. She assured me they would investigate the matter and I thanked her and hung up the phone. I then pulled over and got out of the truck and proceeded to finally let out all the vomit I had been holding in for the last hour or so. I ditched the plant uniform on the side of that old forest road and made my way for home.
As I was approaching my house I saw a car up ahead. As I drew closer I could make out the distinctive reflective tape they put across the back of police cars. I slowed down as I had come up on him pretty fast and I didn't want to get a speeding ticket after all I'd been through that night. I followed the cop a few more kilometres towards town. My house was on this road coming up shortly. As we approached my driveway the cop put his signal on to turn in. I breathed a sigh of relief as I guessed they had sent someone out to check on me and I was about to put my signal on as well when I noticed the black GMC Yukon parked in my driveway and the man in robes standing next to it with a gun. The cop turned in and parked next to him. Given that the cop had basically zero reaction to the man standing there with a weapon my heart sank as I realized whatever this is runs much, muh deeper than I thought and revealing who I was to that 911 dispatcher had just dommed me. I kept on driving praying that neither of them recognized me and thanking the Alberta government for not requiring front license plates that the cop would have totally seen on the drive over otherwise.
I just kept on driving, expecting at any minute to see police lights behind me or a big black SUV blocking the road ahead of me and men in dark robes coming out of the darkness to get me, but nothing happened. I don;t even know how long I drove for I just drove until I had to pee so badly I was forced to stop at a truck stop and realized I was somewhere in Saskatchewan. I've been on the run so to speak now for about 6 months. I don't know if anyone's even following me but I have to be sure. I'm writing this all out to get it off my chest and out there as a warning before I ditch this phone and start my life over in another province as far away from there as I can get. I don't know what's going on up there but there is something very dark happening in northern Alberta and I've probably only scratched the surface of it. Either way I want no part of any of it.
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For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a biogas plant is, how it works or what they're actually used for allow me to educate you. A biogas plant produces natural gas, or rather a substitute for natural gas, from fermented corn silage as well as other agricultural waste products. Farmers, such as myself, would bring in silage which we would unload into a large concrete bunker silo, basically just a big walled in pit. The plant I delivered to used a modified snowcat to push the silage around and pack it down evenly in the pit. Once one pit filled up they would tarp it and leave it to ferment and move on to the next pit. Once a pit was fully fermented they would uncover it and use a large wheel loader to shovel the fermented silage into what's called an anaerobic digester. It's basically just a big tank with an agitator that you fill up with a bunch of organic matter and heat it up which produces methane gas as the microorganisms inside begin to break everything down. This gas is then captured and can be used for basically everything natural gas is used for already but it's supposed to be better for the environment or something. These plants are way more common in Europe but they have started to pop up here in North America as well. And yes, before you ask, these places smell worse than you could possibly imagine.
I always thought it was a little bit weird that they built one way up here in Northern Alberta but since the large dairy farm I worked at pretty much always had an excess of corn silage every year, we certainly welcomed another place to sell it to especially since they're not picky. Trying to sell to another dairy farmer is always a hassle because they're always concerned with the quality, as they should be if they're feeding it to their cows, but the biogas plant basically just needs organic matter, it doesn't really matter what it is. If it can decompose you can make gas out of it.
Last fall we had an exceptionally good corn harvest to the point where we still had 4 more fields still to harvest by the time we had enough to feed the cows for the next year. As I said this isn't uncommon. When you're harvesting corn for silage you use a totally different harvester. Rather than a combine that separates out the actual corn kernels from the rest of the plant you use a forage harvester which is essentially a giant woodchipper on wheels that takes in the whole crop and shreds it up. Since corn can easily grow 10 feet high and you spread that over a few thousand acres you get a crazy high volume of silage coming in. Upon realizing how much excess we had my boss did what he always did and called up the plant who as always agreed to take in what we didn't need. The next morning rather than trucking back to the farm we were instructed to head straight over to the plant once our trailers had filled up.
I arrived with my first load at the plant around 10 am. A man wearing a high vis jacket directed me onto the large scale they used to weigh the trucks coming in and out. "Good harvest this year Jim?" The friendly old lady in the scalehouse said as she took down the weight of my loaded truck. I felt bad as I had been delivering to this plant on and off for the last 8 years I had worked on Mr. Baker's dairy farm but I couldn't remember, or I'd just never learned her name. Oh well, I certainly wasn't going to out myself now. "Well if we're delivering here you know it's a good one," I replied. "And there's plenty more where this came from." "Glad to hear it!" She smiled back at me handing me my paperwork. "Now you just head right on down to the back there and the boys will show you where to dump" "Thank you," I said taking the papers from her and putting my truck back into gear.
I pulled off the scale and made my way to the back of the plant where the big concrete pits are. Some more men in high vis gear directed me to back into a specific one. The giant pit was only about half full at the this point but the mountain of silage in my rear view mirrors still looked to be about 30 feet deep at its highest point. As usual they had me back up until my trailer started to climb the pile a bit. this way there were no gaps in the pile and the snowcat wouldn't have to do as much pushing. As I watched the back wheels of my trailer roll on to the silage pile in my mirrors I heard the unmistakable sound of a tire blowing out. A loud pop and then a slow hiss that quickly dissipated. "Shit!" I thought to myself as I hopped out to inspect the damage. One of the workers had also come to see what had happened.
"Must be one of your inside tires" he said to me as I approached, "all the outside ones look fine." I bent down and looked under the truck, sure enough he was right. The inside tire on the right side of the rear axle was completely flat. "Well I suppose that's why semi trucks have dual wheels," I said trying to sound unfazed while simultaneously preparing myself for the ass chewing I was bound to receive for this later. I walked around to the back of the truck to inspect the damage further and saw what had punctured my tire. I stumbled back a bit as I realized it was what appeared to be a broken bone sticking out of the tire. "What the..." I said mostly to myself but the worker must've heard too as it caused him to look down at it as well. When he did his face went white for a second then he composed himself. "Well I'll be damned," he said, "I've been here since the plant opened and I ain't never seen that before, some uh, poor animal must've gone through the forage harvester, or uh, some farmer's dog must've dug it up and dropped it in their silo." He seemed real shifty as he said this and almost seemed like he was trying to convince himself of what he was saying but I brushed it off as I figured he was probably just as shocked as I was.
While I was still able to unload I did have to leave the truck and trailer at the plant that night. A mobile tire repair service would be out in the morning to get it all fixed up. I got a ride back to the farm with our next truck to arrive at the plant and finished out the day pressure washing the manure spreaders. No doubt a reward for my efforts that day. I had to take a good long shower at the farm office before getting in my truck to head home for the night. As I started the engine I went to pull my phone out of my pocket to plug it in to the charger and realized that I didn't have it. I padded all my other pockets, nope definitely not there. I then realized that I had likely left it in the semi which was now at the plant, probably locked behind a gate for the night. Logically I could have just waited till morning to go and retrieve it. I was probably just going to go straight to bed when I got home anyway so what did I need my phone for? But because humans now have separation anxiety from their phones burned into them at age 3 I found myself pulling out on to the road in the direction of the plant rather than home. I hoped there would be some friendly night security guard that would let me in to grab it and I'd be on my way in 5 minutes.
I reached the plant just as it was getting dark and indeed there was a security guard standing at the gate as I pulled up. A very heavily armed security guard. He had what looked like a military rifle slung over his back and I wondered what on earth he needed that for. They were very illegal for civilians to own here in the great white north so they must've had a damn good reason to arm their security like this for the government to let them do it. He looked rather intimidating but surprisingly was not at all antagonistic when I rolled down my window. "Are you lost partner?" He said in a rather friendly tone. "No, no, I work for one of the farms that delivers here," I said, "My truck blew a tire on the trailer earlier today and it's still sitting over by pit 3 and I think I left my phone in the cab, do you mind if I go check?" He gave me a suspicious look, then he peered into the pickup bed and generally looked over me and my truck, then he gazed off down the road and looked at his watch. "Alright you got 10 minutes, and try and stay out of the night shift's way" he said in a much less friendly tone.
A loud click and then a buzzing sound came from the gate as it began to move and I drove through it. By now it was almost completely dark but the large spotlights of the plant made it easy to navigate. I came around the corner and saw my truck still sitting across from pit 3 and I pulled up in front of it. As I got out I noticed that there was a large excavator up on top of the pile in pit 4. I knew it was digging into the silage but I couldn't really see what it was doing properly because the concrete wall that separated pits 3 and 4 partially obscured it. I could also see the roof of the snowcat peeking up over the wall. It must've been parked a little ways away on top of the pile and I figured it must've gotten stuck and they were using the excavator to try and get it out. I paid it little attention as I entered the cab of the semi truck and quickly found my phone in the cupholder. I grabbed it and just as I was climbing down a voice called out to me.
"Hey who the fuck are you?? And what are you doing here???" A disgruntled looking worker wearing the same high vis gear was running towards me. "I just left my phone in this truck here, the security guard let me in to grab it" I stammered backing up towards my pickup. "Of course he fucking did" the man grumbled and he snatched his radio out of his jacket pocket. "Peter what the hell did you let this dumbass in here for you can't be doing that!" He shouted into the radio. "Relax they're not even here yet" the guard's voice crackled through the radio. "Umm actually I see headlights if he's got his phone tell him to get out of there." The man looked back to me. "You heard him son get lost and don't come back here after delivery hours again you got it?" I nodded and climbed back into my pickup truck and began to drive back towards the gate. As I exited the guard waved to me from behind the big black GMC Yukon that had pulled up to the gate. He appeared to be talking to the driver. There was a large U-Haul truck behind it followed by another black Yukon. As I passed the last vehicle I noticed in my rear view mirror the 3 trucks enter the plant ad the guard shutting the gate behind them.
That whole situation did not sit right with me. On the drive home I contemplated everything that I had seen and heard from the guard and the other worker. They were up to something in that plant at night that maybe even the bosses didn't know about. My best guess was it was some kind of drug operation. If movies have taught me anything drug kingpins always drive black SUVs. I know I should have left it alone but life up here in Northern Alberta was so boring my curiosity ended up getting the better of me. I thought that I could help bring down some kind of criminal organization and be a local hero, and that worst case scenario nothing was happening and nothing would come of it.
After harvest concluded I had a couple of days off to rest as we'd been working pretty crazy hours lately. I however did not rest. I was trying to find out everything I could about the plant and the people who ran it. I really couldn't find anything about it, in fact it was as if the place didn't exist. You would think there would at least be a news story from when they built the place what with it being the biggest boost to the local economy and job market our town had ever seen and all but there was nothing. Finally I decided the only thing to do was to see if I could observe what those black SUVs and the U-Haul truck were doing in the plant at night. Maybe get some photos of the exchange and hand them off to the police. I did some poking around on Google maps and found an old logging road that ran across the ridge behind the plant. There was a little dirt area where people often parked to unload their ATVs to go riding in the woods up there that was maybe only a kilometre or so from the north side of the plant.
I drove up there just before dark and hiked down through the woods all the way to the north fence of the plant. It was just a chain link fence like you'd see around a schoolyard not a barbed wire prison fence or anything so I made quick work of climbing over it. Luckily for me there was a lot of equipment and old dumpsters and shipping containers in this part of the plant for me to hide behind as I made my way towards where the main gate was. I crouched down behind one of their company trucks parked near the gate and waited about 20 minute before I saw the black SUVs pull up. This time though they didn't have a U-Haul they had a much larger yellow Penske box truck. They must be hauling some serious product to be renting that thing. I watched as the trucks rolled through the gate and much like they had done with me a few days prior the plant workers in high vis gear directed them back towards the pits.
I began to sneak my way over there being careful to stay out of sight. I realized very quickly that I wouldn't be able to get very close while still remaining hidden. The area around the pits was largely wide open to allow to turn around and back in so there was nothing to conceal me as I approached. I noticed the office nearby and had an idea. I snuck over to it and tried the door. It was open but the lights were off inside. Luckily no alarms went off and I found what I came for quickly. A high vis uniform and a white hard hat laying on the break room table. I also grabbed some safety glasses and a dust mask as it wasn't uncommon for the workers to wear them, there was a lot of dust around the pits, and I figured it would help conceal my identity.
After putting on the uniform and sneaking back outside I observed the workers for a few minutes to see what they were doing and how best to blend in. Most of them appeared to either be standing around watching the trucks pull up or walking somewhere so I figured just walking like I was on a mission was good enough. Turns out I didn't need to fake it for long. As I neared the yellow Penske truck I saw some men getting out of the black SUVs. They were dressed in what looked like church robes but definitely not Catholic since they didn't have the collar. One of them turned to me and I froze. "Hey buddy, we got a pretty big load tonight, mind giving us a hand?" Realizing my cover was working I decided to play along and just leave the part about me helping the drug lords out of my statement to the police. I nodded and walked over with the other workers and awaited instructions.
I heard the sound of a diesel engine coming closer and looked over to see the excavator I had seen coming around the corner and begin to climb the silage pile in pit 4 again. The snowcat was behind it but instead of following the excavator up the pile it came towards us. It had some kind of large metal box attached to the blade that was about the size of a small car. The operator set the box down next to the Penske truck and hopped out. The same disgruntled man I had encountered the other night got out of the cab. "Jesus man, that's a big truck you got there, probably gonna take a couple trips to unload this thing," he said to the men in robes. One of them opened up the back of the box truck and where I expected to see a giant pile of cocaine bricks or something there was something I never expected.
Bodies, and lots of them just thrown haphazardly into the back of this truck. I had to fight the urge to fill my dust mask with vomit as I saw them. The workers began loading them into the box on the blade of the snowcat just tossing them on with little regard for how they landed. No one seemed to notice me just standing there so I slowly backed up into the shadows and made my way over to pit 3. It was almost full by now so I climbed up the pile to a spot where I could look over the concrete wall into pit 4 where the excavator was without being spotted. Once up there I saw the snowcat climbing up the pile towards a large hole the excavator had dug in it. There were some more workers up there who began throwing the bodies off into the hole as one of the men in robes climbed out of the passenger seat in the snowcat. He just stood on the track watching as the bodies were piled into this impromptu mass grave they had constructed. He stayed up on the pile while the snowcat went down for the second load.
This was all starting to make sense now. This was the perfect cover for disposing of bodies. They would get broken down in the piles same as everything else and because they were constantly being emptied into the digester the evidence would only be around for a few months, and the horrific smell of the plant would conceal any foul odours produced by the dead bodies. But there was one question left. Where were they coming from? This was way too many bodies for this to be the mafia or something killing off problematic individuals. By the time the truck was totally unloaded there must've been 100 dead people in that hole. No this had to be some cult activities of some sort and the robes the men from the black SUVs were wearing backed up that theory. Maybe these were just what was left over from some sort of ritual sacrifice or something? Whoever these people are they must have some kind of deal with the plant's owners because I could tell the workers had done this before. From the time the truck had arrived to the time the excavator started burying the corpses in rotting corn silage it had only taken about half an hour.
I didn't even bother ditching the uniform I got out of that plant as fast as I could. I sprinted up through those woods back towards my truck with my heart beating so fast I thought it would explode. As soon as I was in the truck I locked all the doors and dialed 911 on speaker as I peeled out of the forest. I told the operator everything that had happened over the last couple of days and what I had seen that night. I practically begged them to send someone there right away which the nice lady on the other end of the line promised they would. She asked for my name and contact information so they could get a hold of me for a statement which I gladly gave them. She assured me they would investigate the matter and I thanked her and hung up the phone. I then pulled over and got out of the truck and proceeded to finally let out all the vomit I had been holding in for the last hour or so. I ditched the plant uniform on the side of that old forest road and made my way for home.
As I was approaching my house I saw a car up ahead. As I drew closer I could make out the distinctive reflective tape they put across the back of police cars. I slowed down as I had come up on him pretty fast and I didn't want to get a speeding ticket after all I'd been through that night. I followed the cop a few more kilometres towards town. My house was on this road coming up shortly. As we approached my driveway the cop put his signal on to turn in. I breathed a sigh of relief as I guessed they had sent someone out to check on me and I was about to put my signal on as well when I noticed the black GMC Yukon parked in my driveway and the man in robes standing next to it with a gun. The cop turned in and parked next to him. Given that the cop had basically zero reaction to the man standing there with a weapon my heart sank as I realized whatever this is runs much, muh deeper than I thought and revealing who I was to that 911 dispatcher had just dommed me. I kept on driving praying that neither of them recognized me and thanking the Alberta government for not requiring front license plates that the cop would have totally seen on the drive over otherwise.
I just kept on driving, expecting at any minute to see police lights behind me or a big black SUV blocking the road ahead of me and men in dark robes coming out of the darkness to get me, but nothing happened. I don;t even know how long I drove for I just drove until I had to pee so badly I was forced to stop at a truck stop and realized I was somewhere in Saskatchewan. I've been on the run so to speak now for about 6 months. I don't know if anyone's even following me but I have to be sure. I'm writing this all out to get it off my chest and out there as a warning before I ditch this phone and start my life over in another province as far away from there as I can get. I don't know what's going on up there but there is something very dark happening in northern Alberta and I've probably only scratched the surface of it. Either way I want no part of any of it.
#entertainment
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