I used to work as an EMT in North Dakota.

This was before the oil boom and the place was truly a barren, empty wasteland (the North Dakota state song is “We Gotta Get Outta This Place” by the Animals). Today it is still a barren, empty wasteland, it just has oil wells all over it.

One winter night we got a call about an injured motorist along the highway and we headed out in the ambulance. Must’ve been around 1 AM. We had no info about the motorist, how bad he was hurt, nothing. The call had come in from a passer-by who needed to continue on.

When we got to the mile marker the caller had indicated, there was no wreck, no car, no people at all. We even spotlighted around, too. A suitcase was sitting in the middle of the highway, however, and after we made sure no one was around, I pulled it off the asphalt and onto the shoulder. It was unusually heavy and I struggled to carry it, even though me strong like bull.

The suitcase contained a single block of ice that was almost as large as the suitcase itself. Embedded in the ice were all these bloody, severed toes. Like, 20 of them. Some were big, some were small, some were painted, some were hairy. It was horrifying, and as I stared into the suitcase with my flashlight, I was suddenly aware of the darkness all around me.

“Holy fuck,” my partner, Shane, said. “What should we do?”

I shrugged. “I guess we better call a toe truck.”