Let me just preface this by saying that I’m only in Alcoholics Anonymous as a precaution.

Alcoholism is a genetic disease that’s rampant in my family line. From college until the time I turned about 47, my life was almost entirely occupied by alcohol and getting drunk. A few weeks after my 47th birthday, I had the realization that I’m now “middle aged”, and if I keep up with the constant drinking, I might not even live to see 60. It took me a while to join AA, because I don’t have any family except for my brother, so there’s not really anything to motivate me except for my will to live. As I gradually stopped drinking alcohol, my life improved at a steady pace, and I even reentered the dating scene. Now, three years later, I still attend AA as a way of holding myself accountable to not drink, and to support others who’re enduring the same thing I did. I’m even one of the group leaders now, providing myself as a resource for those in recovery.

In AA, we get people of all ages and backgrounds: kids in college, divorcées, even those in the elderly bracket. About four months ago, a guy around my age signed up for our weekly meetings. In his first meeting, he introduced himself as David, a former architect who wanted to quit alcohol cold turkey. He’d been laid off a month before due to constantly being drunk or hungover on the job. His newfound financial instability inspired him to quit.

In our first few meetings, he seemed like a pretty nice and, honestly, funny guy. He respected everyone’s stories and time, but also told jokes in just the right spaces to lighten up the mood. It could’ve been because of us being so close in age, but I felt like we hit it off well. We both kinda had the same background: immigrant parents, no other family to speak of, just pretty normal guys. One day, after a meeting, he asked if I wanted to get a bite to eat. I didn’t have anything going on after, so I took up his offer. This became sort of a ritual between us two, and in the following months, we’d visited almost every nighttime restaurant in town.

After one of the meetings, he asked if I wanted to come over to his place for a game of pool and to watch some movies. I, of course, didn’t have anything else lined up that day, so I accepted the invitation. I stopped at Safeway and picked up a pack of Coca-Cola—I typically would’ve picked up a pack of beer, but, you know. I drove to the address he gave me, a modern cabin on the outskirts of town. The inside was relatively spotless, everything being organized into its own area or compartment. He walked me to his entertaining room, which had a big pool table in the middle. We played a couple games and snacked on a cheese platter he had out. It was shaping up to be a really chill evening, until dinner.

We sat down at the table to eat a nice crock pot dinner he’d had brewing, some kind of beef stew. After a couple bites, David stopped and said, “Alex, can I ask you something?”. “Yeah, sure,” I said, taking a sip of my Coke. “Do you ever have blank spaces in your memory from times you were drunk?”, he asked. “Yeah, I mean I can’t remember a lot of stuff from my 20s, mainly just patches of memory here and there,” I replied. He fiddled with his fork and his tone dropped, “You ever wonder if you did something bad during those times?”. I gulped a piece of meat down my throat and asked, “What do you mean?”. “I mean, I don’t know. I just—I just wonder if there’s things I did that I should remember but I don’t. Like, I feel guilty for things that I can’t recall,” he explained. I nodded, “I get that. I-“. He cut me off, “Sometimes I worry that I hurt somebody while I was drunk or blacked out. Like I did something really, really bad and I just can’t remember.” “Well, if you did something super bad, regardless of whether or not you were drunk, I’m sure you wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” I reassured him. He nodded silently. I realized that I’d drank three cans of coke in the past hour and a half, and suddenly felt the urge to relieve myself. “Where’s your bathroom?”, I asked, my words cutting through the silence like a knife. “Oh, uh, it’s on the bottom level. Go down the stairs in that hallway, turn left, and you’ll see it,” he said. “Thanks”, I said, getting up.

I felt a little unnerved by our conversation, but I brushed it off as him being nervous to have someone over his house. I walked down the steps and into the hallway, lit by overhead warm LED lighting. I opened the door to the bathroom, and suddenly felt a wave of cold hit me in the face. I looked up and nearly vomited up the stew at what I saw: I’d accidentally gone right instead of left, and had ended up in a freezer. Inside the freezer were half a dozen metal shelves, holding the perfectly preserved bodies of young women. I gasped, not being able to catch my breath, shut the door, and ran upstairs. I slowly walked down the hallway, trying to make as little noise as possible. As I peeked around the corner going into the dining room, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: an empty wine bottle on his marble countertop. I wanted to run, but he was in reach of a steak knife and the front door was directly past the dining room. I decided to try the sliding backdoor, but it was locked. “Alex?”, I heard David call from the kitchen. Fuck. I bolted back down the stairs and made the correct turn this time into the bathroom. I locked the door and huddled into the bathtub. That’s where I am now, writing this from, with shaky hands and tears streaming down my face. I hear David coming down the stairs. Somebody please use this to find me or David, if he’s actually who he says he is. There’s something seriously wrong and I need help.

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