The crashing waves raged against our boat through the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. We were five hours off the coast of Florida. My name is detective Nash, Victor Nash. My partner and I were on our way to Strader’s Island, a United States penitentiary for the criminally insane and mentally disturbed. Strader’s has been the alpha for prisons of the United States built after the closing of Alcatraz, just off the San Francisco bay. Strader’s was a government secret. The citizens of the United States weren’t supposed to know anything about Strader’s or if it even existed, but after the events of that I am about to tell you, the secret came out. The press called it “The Slaughter of Strader’s Island.” The American people went into a frenzy. They hadn’t lost this much faith in their government since Nixon and the Watergate scandal broke in June 1972. Strader’s was on a very small island about ten hour sail from the Florida coast.
The horrific events that occurred on Strader’s, even before I got there, were described to me as “nothing less than a blood bath.” I was a detective in Washington D.C. I was personally selected, as well as my partner, by the president himself to travel to Strader’s island and discover what was happening, and bring a stop to it. “By any means necessary.” He told me. From what I was told, a large number of those incarcerated on Strader’s had been brutally murdered, which was a mystery because the prisoners on Strader’s weren’t allowed to leave their cells or strait jackets. Security on Strader’s was extraordinary. “The best money could buy.” The president told me.
My partner and I were personally chosen because we were the best detectives Washington D.C had to offer. My partner Brianna Wilson and I had been partners since 1976; Twenty six years working with each other we became best friends.
I won’t lie to you, we were nervous. We had dealt with plenty of murder cases in our time but this one struck us with a terror I cannot explain.
We left at dusk on October 5th. The waves were violent; rocking our boat back and forth through the ocean’s current. No one found it necessary to mention to us that a hurricane was forming in the Caribbean and making its way towards America. We were heading straight into the eye of the storm.
The waves were vicious. Water poured over the sides of the boat. Through the thick blanket of fog we could faintly see Strader’s Island. We could see spotlights circling the sky around the prison.
Our boat barely made it to the docks before the water destroyed it. A monstrous wave crashed down our ship and tore it to thousands of pieces. The downpour of rain descending onto us made it hard to walk or see anything. We walked towards the spotlights and found the front gate of the prison. The guards let us in and we were escorted a car that brought us to the Warden’s quarters.
The warden introduced himself to us. He said his name was Johnson. He didn’t tell us his first name, just asked to be called Johnson. He explained to us that the murders were happening in the prisoner’s cells. Most of them had their throats slit with a sharp object. The prisoners were in their cells twenty three hours a day and in the one hour out of their cells they were under tight supervision as they worked. He also explained to us that all of the victims had a six letter and number combination branded into their left side of their chest. He pulled out a small stack of Polaroid photographs and handed them to me. Brianna and I looked at the bloody combinations inscribed into their chests. She read them aloud.
“A7X80B,
W4Q19Z
Y5T2CU
M360FH.”

I asked if he had any suspicion of what the combinations meant. He said no, that they weren’t cell numbers or anything else affiliated with Strader’s Island. I handed him back the photographs and he told us that a guard would escort us to our room. We laid in the two beds provided to us. Brianna was asleep while I starred at the cement ceiling above us, listening to the rain and thunder roar outside. The combinations ran through my mind. I couldn’t come up with anything and somehow I remembered them all, I’ve never had a photographic memory but I could remember all the combinations. I whispered them to myself.
“A7X80B,
W4Q19Z
Y5T2CU
M360FH.”

I fell asleep about three hours after Brianna and we awoke the next morning very early, my watch said 12:00am but it wasn’t moving, it somehow died at exactly midnight. We weren’t sure what time it was but it was very early. It was still pitch black outside.
A blaring alarm ripped through the silence, echoing throughout the prison. We jumped from our beds, got dressed, and ran outside. Security was all running past our building and into the prison. We followed behind them and stood behind a large crowd of security, standing outside an open cell. We pushed our way through the crows and walked into the cell to see paramedics trying to get a prisoner that was handing on a steel chain, untied from the chains.
The prisoner was a white man. The skin from his neck and face were pulled over his face and pierced with steel hooks attached to the chain clung to the ceiling. They managed to release the man from the chains and pulled his skin back over his face. The laid his dead body on the cell floor and paramedics began washing the extensive amount of blood off the body. After ten minutes of rigorous scrubbing of the dried blood off the man, we discovered yet another mysterious combination branded into his chest. “XB4CS9”.
Before the paramedics were going to take the body away I noticed a small cut on his back, covered in blood. They washed the blood away and a thin sentence was carved into his back. It read, “Leave, Nash!”
Brianna looked at me in terror. I ordered the paramedics to take the body away and all the guards ran back to their stations.
I walked back to the Warden’s quarters to explain everything that I witnessed, but he wasn’t there. I found it unusual. Anyone not being where they need to be during a crisis is something to take note of. As of right now, Warden Johnson was my prime suspect. I went back to my room to find Brianna, Disgruntled. She was pacing back and forth. She asked me if it was a good idea to stay.
I told her I wouldn’t leave until the case was solved. I would not be intimated by threats from this psychopath. I walked back to the Warden’s office. I knocked on the door to see if he had returned yet and from behind me I heard someone say my name. It was the Warden. He asked what I needed and I reported everything of the murder. He was anxious when I told him what I found.
I asked him what was bothering him and he said nothing and waked into his office and closed the door behind him and locked it. I stood in the quiet hallway with many questions going through my mind. I wanted to take a look inside the Warden’s office so I hid behind a large plant on the far end of the hall and waited for him to leave.
I hid behind the plant for hours before he finally left. I ran down the hall and turned the knob. Locked. I took a pen out of my pocket and took it apart; I bent the spring into a point and began picking the lock. It clicked and I opened the door and walked inside, closing the door behind me. I started going through his desk. I went through everything and found nothing suspicious until I found a false bottom in one of his bottom drawers. I lifted it up and found an envelope. I opened it and found a prisoner’s incarceration information.
William Johnson was arrested for forty eight counts of first degree murder and seventy counts of rape, sent to Strader’s island to continue his life sentence. His mug shot looked familiar, as did his name. He was arrested and convicted in D.C. I was the arresting officer. I remember him now, he was known as the D.C Slasher. I took a closer look at the mug shot; he had to be the Warden’s son. They looked very similar.

I put everything back in its place and proceeded to walk back to my room. Outside of my door I heard a gunshot from inside. I opened the door and saw the warden with his back to me. From behind him I saw Brianna collapse, blood dripping from the bullet hole in her head. She looked at me and closed her eyes. The warden turned to me and fired and I felt a sharp pain in the left side of my abdomen. Blood was pouring from the impact. I fell to the ground. The warden walked towards me, he let out a maniacal laugh and kicked me in the head. I regained consciousness in a dark cold room. My vision was blurred but I could see the warden and an inmate standing about ten feet I front of me. They walked closer and I could see it was William. The warden laughed and walked away into the darkness.

William punched me in the face. I was constrained, arms bound by chains hanging from the ceiling. My legs tied together with another chain.

William pulled out a knife from his sock and slashed my chest. Blood oozing from the laceration, I yelled in pain. He gave me a sadistic smile and slashed me four more times. I was losing a lot of blood. He put his disgusting fingers on my face and I spat at him. He jabbed his fingers into my left eye and he ripped it out and began to eat it. “Delicious” he said. He took his knife in my mouth and cut my cheek from lip to ear. He began carving away at my abdomen. I kicked him in the knees and he fell to the floor. He picked up his knife and began to rise to his feet. I kicked his arm in an attempt to disarm the knife. His arm thrust upward and the knife impaled his throat. He ripped it out but blood poured out like a fountain. He lay motionless on the cold damp floor. I heard a group of people yelling and soon saw the guards come into the room and release me from my restraints.

I passed out from blood loss and woke up in a hospital and needed one hundred twenty six stitches. The carving he gave me read

“TDMMDI”

I asked the nurse where I was and she told me I was airlifted to Miami general. I was in critical condition but going to be okay. She left the room and a police officer came in, followed by the secret service and the President of the United States. He explained the warden was to be executed for his crimes and the Strader’s was to be shut down. “Brianna?” I asked. He said “unfortunately it was too late to save her.” the officer said.

The president called me a national hero and that the country was in my eternal debt. “I’m not a hero.” I said. The president said if I ever needed anything, I got it.

I retired from the force and live alone in a D.C suburb with my dog. After months of recovery and six surgeries I was back to normal, except for the numerous scars. I woke up one morning and saw blood all over my wall. “It’s not over” was written. I got out of bed to see my dog carved to pieces lying in a pool of her own blood.