One evening in April of 2006, a person sat at their kitchen table frantically cutting up the page of a newspaper with some scissors.

They were working on a very important project and it was almost done.

They finished cutting up the final letter from the page and pasted it onto the sheet of paper.

Then they leaned back to read the message that they'd assembled from the scraps.

It was a warning, and they were sure

it would have exactly the effect they were hoping for. But before we get into today's story,

if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, and you come to the

right place, because that's all we do, so if that's of interest to you, please rent a huge

billboard on the side of the highway and just

cover it in embarrassing photos of the follow button. Okay, let's get into today's story. On Sunday afternoon, March 12, 2006,

39-year-old Michael Zimiti Jr.

drove his ATV across a frozen lake in Freedom, New Hampshire.

And even though it was really cold and the air burned his cheeks and his lungs, Mike smiled as he

drove. He really just loved it here. Most of the time, Mike lived two hours away in the town of Wakefield,

Massachusetts. But he'd been coming to Freedom, New Hampshire, for years,

because his parents had a vacation house here. And so this tiny lakeside community had always felt like a second home and a peaceful retreat. And Mike had recently bought his own vacation house

and freedom just down the street from his parents. And the purchase had been a really big deal

for him. He ran a cement contracting company called Allstate Concrete Pumping, and he'd worked really

hard for many years to build up a nice life for his wife, Michelle, and their three kids.

And in many ways, the purchase of the second house was proof that he'd done it.

But his work with the concrete company had also created some issues in his marriage.

Being in charge of a company meant a lot of responsibility and long hours.

...