The call came in just before midnight: a young man’s voice, somewhat rattled, telling a 911 operator he’d just seen a man streaked with blood on the side of a country road, staring back blankly in the dark.
As the dispatcher in Pender County tried to pin down the man’s location — somewhere on NC 210, just over the Black River — a loud thump came over the line.
“What the [expletive]!” the caller screamed. “That’s not human! That’s not human!”…