My husband and I owned a dacha outside the city, and we often spent our weekends there—gardening, picking vegetables, or simply getting away from the noise of everyday life.
Lately, however, he seemed to always have a reason to avoid going. Work, fatigue, or some other urgent matter. At first, I didn’t think much of it; everyone goes through busy or stressful periods.
Then, one day, while talking to a neighbor, she casually mentioned,
“I saw your husband at the dacha yesterday.”
I froze.
“That can’t be right! He said he was at work,” I replied, feeling a rush of confusion.
“No, no, I’m sure it was him,” she insisted.
After hanging up, a terrible thought crossed my mind. “Could he be seeing someone else? Maybe he’s meeting her there, in secret?”
The following weekend, my husband again said he wouldn’t be going.
“How about I go alone?” I suggested.
“No!” he responded sharply. “I’ll worry. You shouldn’t go by yourself.”
His sudden insistence made my suspicions even stronger. Once he left, I decided to follow him. As I suspected, he drove straight to the dacha.
I waited a little while, then headed over there myself. My heart pounded in my chest as I approached the house. When I opened the door, I froze in horror.
I could have handled anything else, but what I saw was beyond belief.
Inside, there was silence, but a strange, sickly-sweet metallic odor lingered in the air, coming from the shed. My legs felt heavy as I walked toward it.
What I found inside made my blood run cold. Animal pelts were hanging from the beams, but amidst them was something that looked all too much like human skin.
I stood there, unable to comprehend what I was seeing.
At that moment, my husband appeared in the doorway. When he saw what I had discovered, his face drained of color.
“It’s… hunting,” he stammered. “I just started… I didn’t want to scare you…”
I stood there silently, screaming in disbelief on the inside. But I forced a smile and replied,
“Alright, I understand. It’s just… unexpected.”
He seemed to relax, his posture softening, and we left quietly. Yet I could feel his eyes on me, measuring whether I truly believed his explanation.
That night, I couldn’t sleep at all. The next morning, as soon as he went outside, I shakily called the police. I knew it was safer to have them investigate than to risk uncovering something even worse on my own.
