For the sake of anonymity, call me M. I'm an officer in the Pennsylvania state police department's highway patrol, & being one for as long as I have, I can say I have plenty of experience in seeing some weird shit.

Car crashes ending in decapitations, naked drifters, assholes throwing garbage out their fucking minivans... you know, decent human behavior.

 Saw a shootout once, even chased a few of those scumbags down the road before Their car eventually crashed over an off ramp. So I can say I've had experience in getting my heart racing & yeah, sometimes shit hits the fan  & I can get a little irked.

But after tonight, I am, for the first time, honestly fearful for my well being. 

A few days ago, I stopped a man who was walking down the side of the highway & asked him if he was alright. He looked disoriented & desperate, a look I usually see among junkie's high on glue or meth, so for safety's sake I put some cuffs on the poor bastard & brought him in to the station. He looked around & kept asking us about some people he kept referring to as "Reds."

"What the hell are Reds?" My partner, let's call him J, asked.

The man went on to explain that he just got out of Tatama. We asked him if he meant Tatamy, a nice cozy little Suburb in Easton.

He shook his head no.

He then told us about this place, a city hidden in plain sight. A city with houses, stores, police stations & even a city hall. A city that puts a real effort into making itself 'look' normal, but is anything but.

A city called Tatama.

He told us about the 'reds' a group of unsavory bastards hired by the Mayor to 'clean' the city. 

People deemed unfaithful. 

Specifically, those who attempted to leave the city, or those who made the city look less than favorable in any way. 

We listened to this guy babble on about how he was a bureaucrat, in charge of keeping tabs on certain members of the city. Months before he attempted to leave, He wrote the supposedly true accounts of twelve of those poor bastards in an attempt to better understand all of the aspects that run the town he slowly grew to despise. He said he intended to take these stories, leave the wretched town & expose the mayor & his city. To expose some evil secret corporation named 'Rozentec'? To help the people trapped their in perpetuity, due to ignorance or other reasons.

We laughed it all off & called him a quack. 

He handed me a binder that he took out of his knapsack, told me to hide it, to share it with as many people as possible, & then looked around in the knapsack some more, growing more desperate as he looked.

"I... I just had it," The man began to mumble as he searched, "I know I took one before I left. It'll prove to you that I'm not making this up."

"Sure pal," My partner J said, "Let's just give you a nice bed to sleep in tonight. Just follow m..."

That's when the son of a bitch conked my friend over the head with a stapler. Bastard must've found it on one of our desks. He then took the gun from my partner's holster & proceeded to point the damn thing to his head.

"This... this is your problem now," he began, "I did all that I could. You need... You need to tell everyone we exist. You need... You need to help us. Share the stories I gave you. Tell everyone that Tatama exists, & it is a city of pure evil. I'm sorry I put this burden on you, I'm... I'm not strong enough to know what'll happen if the Reds find me. I'm sorry."

Then the crazy bastard pulled the trigger, spraying blood all over my face a little on the binder he gave me.

I checked on my partner who came to, & i told him what just happened.

We agreed to call it another case of suicide by cop, ran the paperwork, cleaned up the fucking mess, & had the coroner come by to claim the body.

The last thing I told my partner before we headed home was that I would be taking some of my Paid time off to relax for a bit, maybe see a shrink.

as I drove back towards where I first saw the man on Route 22, I noticed a rather colorful looking booklet on the side of the road, blowing with the breeze. I parked the car near it & walked up to see what it might be.

My mouth dropped. It was a brochure, looked like any other brochure from a city, but the damn thing said:

Greetings From Tatama: An Introduction by the mayor.

I opened it & began to squirm in my pants as I realized that the crazy bastard who just moments before blew a hole through his head... was telling the truth.

This is a transcription of the brochure I found on route 22 near Easton PA.

________________________________________________

From the office of the mayor:

Greetings!

I am honored & pleased to announce that we are happy to welcome you to our fair city.

I know I tend to ramble, but I simply love to extrapolate my greetings in an effort to secure all exits in case you make a futile attempt to leave!

But...

Why would you leave?

We have everything you could ever need my newest & most dearest citizen!

Need shelter?

We have plenty of beautiful homes & apartments available for "sale" or rent!

Need money?

You can choose one of our many [MANDATORY] professions conveniently available to you!

Food maker

Store clerk

Prostitute

Corpse remover

Police officer

Enforcer (For the Mayor)

Bureaucrat

Cleaner (good)

Cleaner (red)

Doctor (good)

Doctor (other)

Secretary

Breeder

Programmer

Broadcaster

Indentured servant (in lieu of being discarded)

...& as always, we strive to constantly "find" scientific researchers for our friends (And biggest financial contributors) Rozentech Industries, so that they may use their priceless research & information to continue to hurl our humble city towards the path of true greatness!

Feeling lonely? Our "workers of the night" are more than happy to appease your naturally lustful desires of companionship. Just drive on down to crescent street & say hello!

We have three supermarkets for all your dietary needs, & for further convenience, they are all named "supermarket!" No more confusion about deciding which place to shop at, we took care of that for you by no longer offering you a choice!

Our school system is also convenient! We use a complete Television based curriculum that is broadcast twenty four hours a day, 5 days a week! The classroom is in your own home, no need for social interaction of any kind! Just click on channel 10 to just learn & learn again!

While it's true that you cannot find our city on any U.S. map, or even a world map or GPS for that matter, we are still very PROUD Americans, & we wave our flag proudly, watching it as it waves at us from the sky, displaying those reliable forty-eight stars & thirteen stripes we love so dear.

We salute you old glory!

As you made it to our fair city recently, consider yourself very fortunate, & not at all "trapped..." or "lost." We welcome everyone!

...

((We don't know why they brought you here.

We honestly don't know why any of us are here.

Pick your job, do it well, & most importantly DON'T COMPLAIN, or you WILL be "reassigned" or worse still: "discarded."

I promise you... no I swear to you... you DO NOT want that.))

...so please make yourself at home, accept your new life, & remember to enjoy being here in the great "Emerald town of eastern Pennsylvania..."

TATAMA!

________________________________________________

...So yeah, that's why I'm a little uneasy.

I've been thinking about what the hell I was supposed to do next. Do I share the contents of this binder with the local press, or bury it somewhere & pretend I didn't hear a word from that poor bastard?

Or do I... Post it here?

I have a few weeks off. They gave me a month. More if I want it. That's the perks of never taking a day off.

I'll put 'em out, post 'em here one by one. At least People'll get a kick out of these stories. Some are creepy as shit. Some are just odd, but the most common thread I've seen in reading these things so far is that they are all... pretty damn tragic. 

Or depressing. 

Or just plain miserable.

The man said these were all residents of this city, & I can only assume that some of them are still there.

Eh, I don't see the harm in sharing.

No one ever believes in these silly scary stories anyway. I just hope to God that I never find myself face to face with one of those "Reds" he kept yappin' about before he did himself in.

Here goes nothin'.

Welcome to Tatama folks, I'll guess I'll be your narrator.

You can call me M.