He startled awake and immediately recognized the same daze he thought sleep would disappear. I’ll just sit for a second, he thought, shake it off. The remaining sun left just a glow above the distant hills. Sleeping in the truck was never easy, especially when the cracked leather bench seat was occupied by a second body. Now that there was no circadian rhythm to speak of, any REM cycle was a minor miracle. 

That second body. A look in all directions netted no sight of Dee. Axles creaked under shifting body weight, the creep of isolation now seated alongside him. Dee isn’t one to wander off. A quick peak into the sole canvas bag on board revealed he hadn’t made off with what little cash they had, so precious as to feel like the last paper currency on Earth as far as they were concerned. 

Maybe he’s squatting behind a bush, he thought, although we have nothing to wipe with.

After a few long minutes he swung open the driver side door and fully stretched his body across the seat, everything below the knees extending out of the truck in a rigor-like pose. He rocked forward with a spring off the elbows and his feet splashed the dirt below, the puff of ochre then dispersed by the breeze. Wind was the only sound there was, even though wind has no sound at all. He stood motionless as if to get his bearings, but he knew deep down he was waiting for another noise, anything at all, to prove he was really standing there in the dry expanse of American desert.

An unseen bird finally echoed in the distance and he shut the door. Just in case, he thought with a smirk. Stepping around the chipped and dented hood of the truck he wondered if the engine would even start. This was a routine question, not only due to its age but its long experience in the elements. The metal was too hot to touch, even with the sun no longer bathing it. 

Guess I’ll let it sit to cool, I can’t leave without Dee anyway.

He had already stopped caring about the condition of the snakeskin that adorned his feet. In the duo’s effort to keep a mild detachment from civilization, aesthetics had lost its charter. And in this moment, with their existence seemingly halved, he planted his heels more firmly than ever, vainly searching for a pulse in the barren terrain. The stillness was unsettling for the uninitiated, and for the first time in his young life a yearning washed over and across his being, even the lowest murmur would suffice. A short shake of his head recovered him from this reverie, his desire for disquiet overtaken by Dee’s absence. 

Usually the first step to looking for someone is to go the way you’d go in their situation. Only problem is, this wasn’t the usual. They had only been on the run for a couple days, but being on the run starts in the first mile. At this point he didn’t even know which direction he was facing. You don’t want to be seen from the highway, so the goal is to go far enough into the wilderness to where you can’t see the highway yourself. One hundred paces in front of the truck he stopped to make sure he could see their tire tracks, the only earthen guide back to asphalt. The sleeping sun wasn’t much help. 

He called out for his companion at a volume designed to catch Dee’s ear but not attract attention. Attention of who, the reptiles and birds? He recognized his irrationality, patting himself of on the back for being self-aware. But to the predators above and their prey below, a sound is either good or bad and Dee’s name wasn’t going to endear him to them or the dynamics of their survival.

After a while each shout became more urgent, heaving breaths into the vast nothing. He stood motionless in the growing dark, looking for any sign of humanity. Returning to the truck, he took inventory of everything they had as if he didn’t already know. A couple bats of the Maglite upon his palm yielded no results. 

Wouldn’t that be a bitch, a lack of batteries being the death me. I’d make kin with this flashlight in the afterlife.

Last resort, a Coleman lantern. A lantern’s no good in a one-man search party because you can’t see what’s coming until it’s too late. Are there wolves out here? Or just coyotes. Do coyotes go after people? At least there are no carrion birds circling. Although I guess that doesn’t matter, he thought. Carrion is a well-defined word, and it doesn’t include schmucks with a twenty-dollar lantern.

With a compass on his watch, miniscule and even more so in the dark, he set out straight in the direction the truck was facing. No reason to go that way, but his mind always favored congruence. Veering off to the side could bring bad news, why else would the truck look away from it? Another pat on the back as he made his way across the blanket of hot earth.

Calling out seemed silly now, and only served to scare one’s self by breaking the silence. The light of the lantern should be guide enough, maybe too much. How big are coyotes anyway? But the dearth of life soon impressed itself upon him as if the mammalia and reptilia he was walking among were waiting for the stranger in their land to move on. Even the crickets went silent as he rustled through creosote and brittlebush and the crunch of loose caliche. The lengthening shadows had fully dissolved and a thin slice of moon was the only counter against the thickening pall of night.

Checking the compass at regular intervals to maintain a straight line, he admired the landscape in between downward glances. The sky seemed stuck in a radiant violet, as if the hills were the only thing standing between day and night. Unmistakable shapes of saguaro pierced the velvet vault draped endlessly over the distance. He had never seen sky so big, only thought of its existence in lands just out of the reach of his station in life, his mundane caste that journalists loved to call “salt of the earth.” The thought of it caused him to spit off to the side, as if they were typing their pieces right next to him in mocking tone as he ambled awkwardly over stones and clay and sunbaked thistle.

All the compass checks made him realize he had never checked the time. He could have been walking for thirty or five minutes. His thoughts had masked time’s passage and he didn’t even know if he had been looking at the compass correctly, as the checks became habit and the intent increasingly diffuse and lost in the ether. A look behind revealed the truck was out of sight. But was it long gone or just beyond the dark? Various gradients of blue-black shielded his view back towards the only evidence of him left on Earth, a villainous camouflage leaving a watch compass as his only testament. That is, unless the scaly boots remained from an ultimate fate, a pluck of Rapture leaving only a symmetrical pair of size 9s among the Sonoran flora.

I couldn’t have gone that far, he reasoned, although his boot prints seemed to have vanished. He looked at the compass again, this time with disdain and uncertainty of what his own plan was. Unsatisfied with his work thus far, he lowered the lantern and let his eyes adjust to the distance before him. With a sigh he started again. Only a few paces in, the heels of his boots chimed a clank of metal.

He froze, countless fears surfacing. One more look around, one more vision of empty dark. He slowly made his way to one knee and began tapping the opposite foot, the front of his boot clapping the steel surrounding him. With deliberate precision he began sliding his hand through the thin layer of dirt until he caught what felt like clasp of some sort. The lantern revealed a small hook latched to a perimeter of matching material, and with a flick of his thumb it popped out of its sheath and the sheet of metal still under his feet felt less firm to the ground. Putting his finger tips to the edge, the lifting of it took some effort, but putting your hand underneath a hidden hatch in the desert didn’t seem advisable. 

Dropping into the hatch feet first probably isn’t either, as the sound of boots hitting the deck below echoed into the eternity of a corridor in front of him. He cursed his arms only being arm-length as he cast the lantern as far in front him as his body would allow. Each step inched him closer to removing his footwear, he could barely accept the knocking of his heels announcing his entry, his drawing nearer. Before he could commit to socks being his only barrier to being barefoot under the desert floor, he reached a door. A door without a handle or knob, just a blank slate of steel. He gave it a push, and with a single squeak of the hinges it gave way.

He hadn’t even noticed the Coleman had been dimming, the only indicator of its battery life coming to an unceremonious end. Batteries again. In the pale light of the lantern he could finally make out a new substance, brick. The advantages of being far off the highway were mounting. You could hide in your truck long enough to sleep, and you could build a room at the end of a long hall underground, with only a hatch door to give it away, and no one would walk by and ask what you’re doing.

The walls were further apart than those of the corridor, more like a room, and uneven. The one to the right was closer than the one to the left. He followed the wall, keeping close to the safety of knowing nothing could get at him from that direction, his fingertips grazing the dusty brick that refused to reflect the light for his benefit.

At last his eye caught something, an amorphous shape breaking up the monotony of nothingness to his left. A slow turn, pivoting on his heels so as to avoid unnecessary noise. He raised the lantern back to eye level, and as it reached its apex, as if seized by the unseen, slammed his back flush against the wall. The something had revealed a corporeal form in the waning light. He could almost feel his pupils widen and the only sound was his stilted breathing as his heart outpaced his lungs. The form didn’t move. 

When his eyes had no more adjusting to do, he managed a whispered “Dee?” Nothing.

A tap of the lantern served no purpose, so he accepted its pitiful output and leaned forward, heels still against the wall, almost straight at the hips. He leaned until he saw it. Dee had a single patch on his denim jacket: Motorhead’s logo. Against the black fabric he could make out the horns and the fangs and even the umlaut gracing the second O in their name. He stopped himself from reaching out, from grabbing an arm, from moving too fast. Slower than he had yet, he moved in a circular direction away from the wall, to get in front of what looked to be his getaway partner, his friend. Standing face to face at arm’s length, he steadied the Coleman and looked into Dee’s eyes. They were open but lifeless, encased in a face that was an unhealthy pale. He didn’t even look to be breathing. 

He took a half-step forward and repeated Dee’s name. Nothing.

The silence was undone by a single squeak of hinges. 

Panicked, he flicked the light off and crouched down before the remnants of his friend. The only sound offending his ears was his own breathing, now unmistakable in the emptiness of the room. This time there was no controlling it. He patted at his pockets. Did I bring anything else, he thought. Nothing but the truck key. He looked in all directions, a useless exercise in the never-ending black. Then a whisper of his name and a soft touch upon his shoulder. He clicked the light back to life, what little it had left, to see the hand resting on him, extending from the old denim that had been riding shotgun with him through the West.

What the hell, man, was the only thing he could think to mutter as he stood back up. He had to pull the lantern up to their faces to see anything. He held the light across the distance between them to reveal a face that wasn’t Dee’s. The lantern went out.

Like any child, my daughter Maisie had quite the overactive imagination. Her mind was chock full of made-up friends that she talked to on the regular. My wife Rachel and I thought it was adorable. With that being said, sometimes we wished Maisie would get…you know…real friends. Don’t get me wrong, she was a great kid, and kids should be kids, but she didn’t have anything in terms of a social life.

We tried absolutely and positively everything, from the kids’ playclub at our church, to the neighborhood’s “mommy and me” and “daddy and me” playgroups, to bringing her to the local playground, to inviting other children over for playdates. You name it. All our efforts were in vain. Rachel and I might’ve been overreacting and we didn’t want to infringe anything on Maisie. Maybe she was just an independent kid. That’s totally normal. As are imaginary friends for kids.

Then at eight-years-old, Maisie became mute. Just completely stopped talking…but only to other people. If someone came up and talked to her, she’d either just stare at them or run away and hide. Maisie never looked scared or anxious in those scenarios. It was more like she was a statue. Frozen. No emotion good or bad on her face. Like a robot. But if she was alone, she’d be talking up a storm to no one but herself. Maisie always pretended like someone was truly there though. She’d even nod her head, wait for responses and respond accordingly, and even reach out her arm and act like she was holding somebody else’s hand.

We were greatly concerned. Children don’t exhibit those types of behaviors without proper reason. We couldn’t ask Maisie about it because, as aforementioned, she’d give us the cold shoulder. Our next safest bet was to ask other people we knew. A lot of them gave us the same answers we already knew. Rachel and I were getting frustrated until I decided to email her teacher at her school. I sent her an email that outlined my worries and asked if anything went on at school that we should know about.

I got a response at around 8:00 that night. Maisie’s teacher, Mrs. Ashelin, told me that she did in fact observe strange behavior from Maisie. Apparently, a few days prior, when Maisie was called on to answer a question, she just stared at Mrs. Ashelin and the other students, her hands behind her back, swaying slightly. Then in a calm and cutesy voice, she said “He has ordered me not to speak to anyone but him.” In her notebook, Maisie wrote and drew some very disturbing things. Some of the things she wrote are “I’ll be a good little mouse”, “be one of the good mice girls for him”, “I’ll do whatever he says without question”, “he loves me and I love him”, “but I don’t understand what love is but I understand it with him”, and “he loves to play with me”. Some of the things she drew were her, in stick figure form, with this…thing. It was drawn way more detailed than Maisie herself.

Its head was triangular and elongated into a sharp point. There were ovally black eyes on both sides of its head while two large circular ears were atop its head. Two slits for a nose and a mouth containing only two buck teeth. Skinny. Boney. You could see its ribs. Three spindly fingers were on each hand. Each tip was as sharp as a knife. Lastly, a long tail was behind it. Maisie drew her and that thing doing very…how should I say this?...inappropriate things.

I showed the email to Rachel and she was just as horrified as I was. How could Maisie know what all that stuff was? She was eight! Like any good parent we always took great strides in not exposing our daughter to anything sexual or of that nature. Early exposure can really ruin a child’s mind. That’s just putting it lightly. But this? Maisie’s whole imaginary friend thing needed to end. It was reaching a dangerous point. Was she having delusions? Schizophrenia? Or…sigh…as far as Rachel and I knew, nothing happened to Maisie, but that didn’t stop us from considering the absolute worst case scenario. I’m not saying what that is but I’m sure you can put the pieces together. As a parent, that was the last thing I wanted to think about. Actually it wasn’t even on the list of things I wanted to think about.

Mrs. Ashelin ended the email with something else that happened that day. Maisie spent long stretches of time in the girl’s bathroom. Another student reported that she went in and heard “whimpers” and “moans” coming from one of the stalls. When she looked under it, she saw Maisie’s clothes on the ground and a “moving shadow” above them. When the student knocked on the door, she all of a sudden heard one of the faucets going behind her. She turned around and Maisie was washing her hands. Like nothing happened.

Rachel and I were very confused at that last part. That sounded way too ridiculous. Like was Maisie fucking floating in the stall or something? Regardless, we treated all this very seriously. Rachel and I immediately took Maisie to see a specialist who dealt with child abuse cases. I brought her notebook along. It would most certainly be useful. I knew Maisie wouldn’t want to talk, but we had to at least try. Believe it or not, she did talk, but what she said made chills run down Rachel and I’s spines.

Maisie told the specialist that the mouse thing in her notebook was called “Bad Mouse” and that it visits her all the time no matter where she is. She said that Bad Mouse visits little girls all over the world and “plays with them”. When the specialist asked what she meant by “plays with them”, Maisie replied that Bad Mouse does “different things that make us feel tingly in preparation to be his little mice girls”.

We heard enough by that point. Rachel, the specialist, and I had a long discussion about what we should do. The specialist said she might have to put in a request to have Maisie placed in a children’s psych ward. Rachel and I couldn’t handle that. We didn’t want to do that to our little girl. By any means, we would find another way to handle this. The specialist told us to think about it and that it might do her some good. We thanked her and left.

Were we being selfish by not putting Maisie in a children’s psych ward? Rachel and I pondered that question day in and day out. We never did end up doing it because we thought it was too extreme. Also there was no evidence that Maisie was being legitimately sexually abused. The specialist’s physical exam said that Maisie was totally fine in that regard. We were allowed to see footage from the security cameras at the entrances of the bathrooms at Maisie’s school. They only showed Maisie going in, about half an hour going by, then the other student going in, then Maisie leaving a few minutes later. No one else. And no one went in before her besides a couple other girls that left before Maisie went in. Was Maisie faking it? Was she really delusional? Or schizophrenic? We didn’t know. Rachel and I needed time to think this whole thing over.

It only got worse from then on.

Maisie was never one to talk in her sleep. She was always dead silent. Not even a snore. But that night after Rachel and I put her to bed, we heard Maisie talking. I’m not talking about little quiet unintelligible murmurs. No. Full-on conversations. Except she wasn’t speaking English. It was some unknown language that resembled Pig Latin but different. Her accent changed too. This happened for three nights. On the third night, Rachel and I were in her doorway watching her talk in that strange language when she suddenly rose up, her eyes still closed, and burst into an intense laughing fit. Maisie was cackling so hard it looked like it hurt. Then she immediately stopped and did these weird movements with her lips and hands like she was kissing something. Finally, she fell back down onto her pillow and went right back to sleep.

The next day, I knocked on Maisie’s door to let her know breakfast was ready. She didn’t respond. I stood there for a couple minutes. Maisie hadn’t made a single sound. I slowly opened her door. My heart beat faster and faster. With all that was going on, I didn’t know what to expect, and that made it terrifying. Maisie was in her underwear just staring at her wall. I rushed over, “Maisie? What are you doing?” I handed her clothes back to her, “Put your clothes back on.”

“…He doesn’t want me to…he thinks I look better without them…”

We stared at each other for an indefinite period of time. I said nothing. And so did she. Then I turned my head to where she was looking. There was nothing there…obviously…but something told me I was wrong. That thing…Bad Mouse…it was staring right at me…

“Guys? Breakfast isn’t gonna eat itself!” Rachel yelled at us from down the hall. Quickly I hurried Maisie and I out of her room.

I was kind of a wreck the entire day. Thinking straight wasn’t really a thing for me. There was nothing staring at me. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. These past few weeks were just getting to my head and playing mind games. No amount of trying to distract myself would let me forget what I felt. That’s when I decided to take a drive. I didn’t exactly know where. Just away from everything. I was tempted to go to a local bar. I used to be quite the alcoholic but I’m sober. Even still, I thought about breaking my streak to relapse. I decided against it. That would be so incredibly stupid. I ended up at a park that I used to take Maisie to in a futile attempt for her to make friends. I found a parking spot and just sat there in my car. Taking a big sigh, I observed all the parents with their kids having a blast and I smiled. Good for them.

I stayed there for a while. Finally I was able to, if only briefly, forget all my troubles.

Then I saw it.

Him.

Bad Mouse.

The damned thing was underneath a big tree. Its eyes were fixed right on me and its hands were clasped together. I couldn’t do anything but stare right back. Goosebumps were forming. My breathing was really heavy. Cold shivers ran down my body. I couldn’t even blink. Petrified. That’s what I was. I watched as Bad Mouse slowly reached behind itself and pulled…something…out. At first I couldn’t tell what it was. I am not shitting you. A little girl…made of meat…her hair was meat, skin was meat, she was even wearing a meat dress. Everything about her was meat. Her head looked just like Bad Mouse’s. Long. Pointy. Angular. Big ears. Black oval eyes.

It was holding the little meat girl by the collar. Slowly Bad Mouse turned to look into her eyes. It opened its mouth. Viscous white liquids began pouring as it let out its long black tongue. First sniffing the little meat girl, it then took a big long lick of her, from her feet to the top of her head. The parts where it licked were gone, instead resting on Bad Mouse’s tongue until it sucked its tongue back in, chewed, then swallowed. The little meat girl was covered in the viscous white liquids until her missing portions slowly regenerated back into how she was before.

Then I blacked out.

I woke up several hours later still sitting in my car. In my half-tired half-frenzied state, I looked around for any sign of Bad Mouse. Nothing. There weren’t even other people. It was dark too. I opened my phone. 11:23 PM. I got to the park at 2:14 PM. Nine hours. I was expecting a bunch of missed calls and unanswered texts. Surprisingly, there was nothing besides a notification from my weather app. I went back home. Both my wife and daughter were asleep. I was so glad there weren’t any…incidents…I missed. In fact, the house was extremely quiet. No lights were on. It was a weekend. Usually Rachel was still up at this time.

“Rach?” I called out. Nothing. I went upstairs to our room. She wasn’t there. I opened Maisie’s door. She wasn’t there either. I sat down on the couch and pondered where they could be. When I couldn’t come up with anything, I got my phone out and called Rachel.

I heard ringing from upstairs.

Confused, I ran back up to our room. I called her name again. Still no answer. I realized that before I checked so quickly I neglected to look in our bathroom. The door was closed and the light was on. I was now getting this creeped out feeling. Cautiously, I approached and nudged the door.

It creaked open.

Rachel.

She was…splattered…fucking everywhere…all over the walls, floor, ceiling, window, sink, shower…everywhere. Rachel was…pureed…blended…sprayed…I just stood in the doorway. My eyes were wide. I couldn’t process what I was seeing. There were so many things I wanted to do, like crawl into a ball and cry, scream as loud as I could, and/or grab one of the kitchen knives and slit my throat so I wouldn’t have to live with this sight for the rest of my life.

What I actually did end up doing next was grab my old hunting rifle and head outside. I went into the forest behind our house. There was no thinking on my part. Just do. What was I doing? I didn’t really know. Tears were streaming down my face. I walked for what felt like forever. Sometimes I screamed. Other times I fell down onto the ground and wept. But I just kept going. And going. And going. Somehow I knew exactly where I was going without even knowing how.

I came upon a wide-open field. Dropping my old hunting rifle to the ground, I couldn’t believe what I was fucking seeing. Dark silhouettes were dancing around. Hundreds of them. Little meat girls. Bad Mouse was in the middle. The white flesh it once had was stripped away. Instead it was sacrificed for a bumpy and scabby maroon red as if Bad Mouse took a shower in blood and guts and let it dry. Tiny black bristles covered its entire body. It reminded me of insect hair. A ragged meat cloak hung from its shoulders, dragging crimson across the ground. The mouth had much sharper teeth that were poking out in rows almost like a gar. It was taller. Ganglier. So angular that it could have been accurately represented by seven straight lines. It clutched a staff in its hand.

Bad Mouse did some strange gesture and a door manifested out of nowhere. It was bloody. Constantly flowing yet retaining shape. Particles came from it. They disappeared if they strayed too far away. It opened and the little meat girls, still dancing like ballerinas, filed into it one by one. Bad Mouse reached out its hand and plucked one of them out. It held this one, turned in my direction, and held her out to me. I knew it was Maisie and wanted to shoot the shit out of Bad Mouse. Yet I couldn’t do anything. Some force was keeping me tethered to my one spot.

…I can’t describe what happened next…I just can’t…some of the things Bad Mouse did to my little girl I couldn’t understand. Other things I understood clear as day and that made me want to drop a cinderblock on my head so it would leak the hell out. When it was done, Bad Mouse threw Maisie’s limp and white viscous liquid-covered body into the blood door. It raised its staff and it disappeared.

I was released from my invisible bonds. Falling down to the ground, I cried like a baby. It didn’t matter how much I screamed and cursed at the Moon. That didn’t make it better. I couldn’t stop and truly had no idea how to make sense of any of what happened. My body tingled. It felt so heavy. So weighty. My wife was dead and my daughter was…what?...a sex slave to a demon? I almost wanted to laugh at the utter absurdity. Picking up my hunting rifle, I put the barrel in my mouth. My finger stayed on the trigger for a long time. I didn’t end up doing it and threw it away. Instead I just collapsed on the ground once more and lay there for a long time.

It’s been six months. I’m such a wreck. I admit it. No one believes me when I tell them. They say I’m crazy, a madman, a lunatic. Some people even think I was the one who killed my wife and child. Why would I do that? Seriously, why? I loved them. Still do. More than I love anything else. I can’t see them ever again. It pisses me off that they’d think I’d do such a thing. As much as I hate myself for it, I’ve gotten back into alcohol. That’s where all my money goes. I couldn’t stand to be in that fucking house anymore. So I sold it. I’ve been living in my car just drifting from place to place.

I could've saved them. If I didn't go and take a stupid ass ride in my car. Maybe Rachel and Maisie would be alright...

What was that thing? Bad Mouse?

That’s been my biggest question this whole time. I’ve been doing a lot of research but have hit multiple dead ends. I don’t know. Sure as hell wasn’t a mouse.

This is what I know:

* It is the manifestation of a sex-based demon of some kind; possibly a cross between a bogeyman and an incubus.
* Bad Mouse appears to little girls as a mouse-like entity to appear friendly and not scare them away; only visible to them.
* It prefers the young that are more developed in mind, body, and spirit; Maisie was very imaginative; thus she attracted Bad Mouse.
* Bad Mouse acts as their friend; this might appear to parents as their daughter’s “imaginary friend”; gradually coerces them to do inappropriate sexual activity.
* It has hundreds of victims going back an unknown period of time; maybe centuries.
* Does not kill its main victims; will kill parents or anyone else who tries to get in its way.
* The victims become corrupted and turn into demons that look like Bad Mouse; it takes them into its realm and…

I don’t even want to fucking know.

God…this whole thing’s insane. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and this is all a terrible dream. It’s been months though and it still hasn’t happened yet. So I’m going to end it here. I’m not looking for pity. I’m not looking for anyone to hear me out. I’m not looking for answers. I’m just…done.

Bye.

Transverberation. That was the word for it. 

It spread and was echoed and felt with the rippling tremors that were words and instincts and roiling emotions in the private heart's tumult, in the quiet stronghold of the holy place. 

The monastery. The temple place where women came to be wed to God and serve the Lord, His Son. 

And no other. 

…

There were sounds inside the haze. With the agony, with the pain that was ripped and made. Pain that was lancing. Pain that was penetration, stabbing slayment that was absolute impaled.  Through her heart, the clearest wet-sharp sensation felt in the burning after-image of the visions, the haze. It occupied her mind at all times, as she knelt and prayed in the monastery. As she went about the day and fulfilled her sisterly duties of the convent. 

The other sisters didn't understand. They were afraid, frightened of her. Of what was happening to her… that it might happen to them.

Madness. Or …

something worse. 

Something beyond the canny or the tangible. That which is unseen and can only be felt. Up until the hungry end, when it is already far too late for help by then. 

Or maybe, just maybe … these private and blasphemous few of her peers thought and felt and refused to share aloud, even with themselves… maybe. 

Just maybe it's true. And Sister Chelsi can actually commune with the divine. Perhaps one of our own humble nuns can see and hear and speak with an angel that visits her with nightly visions. Maybe. 

Maybe Saint Michael the Archangel comes to her at night amid light and fire and thrusts her with his sword… 

Mother Superior was incensed. Repulsed. Angered by the lies and the filth, the sin of this prurient heretical garbage was the stuff of decay, of ruin. Of sacramental rot. She couldn't let these blatherings go on unchallenged or unpunished. 

She chastised Sister Chelsi severely along with any others that might murmur such unholy carnal fantasies, phantasmagorical whores, the lot of em. If she and they weren't careful, God help them, then they would be confined to the chamber of reflection. 

The house of tears and prayers, the other sisters called it. Behind Mother Superior’s back. 

The visions were forbidden. Delusions, they were thus named. And further talk, further whispers of the sort was strongly cautioned against, strongly advised to go back in the other direction …

But Sister Chelsi couldn't help herself. It wasn't up to her. She was at the vision's mercy. The stabbing angel came and went as it wanted, as it needed to. It had told her this was so. The angel needed her. 

The angel was thirsty. 

…

The night was hot. Stifling. It was upon her. 

It seemed to always know when she was alone. And why not? Shouldn't the divine always possess the knowledge of when you're most vulnerable? Weak. 

Afraid. 

Sister Chelsi was bound to the cruciform shackle-table of her sweating bed and blankets, writhing sheets and fabric that was warm and slick and more like loose folds of flesh. She was bound by her holy terror. The angel of thirst was coming. The other nun, Sister Jen, that shared the room with her was absent. Gone. Like every other time. The animal sound born from both immense pain and pleasure was trapped in her throat and the sensation was not entirely unpleasant. Sister Chelsi liked the gag of the nightly thirsting angel, her forbidden archangel of the moonlight. The anticipation of him. The coming of him. 

It came down on her. 

From on high. Emerging like starlight from the disappearing void of the obsidian space now in place of the mudbrick ceiling, on wings of flame …

The body was bronzed, gold, perfectly toned and sculpted, celestial and olympian and recognizable as manshaped. The Lord's Image. But in place of a head and face of earthly aspect was a great rising pillar of blinding heavenly marble, ringed with silver bands in a flaming orbit. The pillar and the four bands running up the length of divine stone were covered in incandescent eyes, lidless and wreathed with light and great piercing gazes. Penetration. They gazed into her. Penetration. All of them at once and it was overwhelming, she wanted to cry out, all roiling and taut, she gripped herself. Her aching breath was still held. 

The angel spoke to her once again, as before, in her mind. The gold of his silken smooth speech filled her boiling skull, soothing the maelstrom though not extinguishing it. A moan finally escaped her lips. 

They were still alone. 

It told her its name. A forbidden one she might not know. 

The understanding of your sisters is limited … I am beyond them. Their scope of understanding. If you tell them my name they will fear you. As they fear me. 

Sister Chelsi was frightened, quivering. Still held. 

Then why should I want to know it? 

Because if you need to, if you want to … you can wield it like you can wield a weapon. You can use my name against them and it might wound them if you're able …

Her mind recoiled from the idea that filled her head against her will, but it was no use. She was forced to watch it. Endure it and learn to love it as she'd learned to love the flagellate whip, the burn of the binding rope … all the same. The angel reassured her. 

The warm romance of his voice filled her skull and caressed her mind, eagerly. Wanting. It told her how much it needed her again but she already knew it. She'd heard it in the voice. The hunger. The pain. 

I'd never known before that even angels could feel pain, … I'd never suspected. 

The desire that was so much a hungry ravenous want that it was more a primeval need was all about the gold silken strength of that perfect voice. Giving it humanity tinged at the edges of its divine and unearthly call. 

Is this heavenly messenger lusting for me …? 

But she already knew it. 

It had seen her unfettered and bare. As it did now. 

It came down to her in her bed. It held the long gold length of impaling spear aloft. By the shaft. Poised to strike her where it was most sweet. Where it had before. 

Cupid, strike me. 

Eros, impale me! 

But she knew now that was not its name. It had given her its name, a gift. 

She cried it out now, as she knew it wanted her too. The ringed pillar of its otherworldly visage gazed into her, bading her, commanding with its multitude of many lidless light bleeding eyes that she do so. Do it. Do it. If you want me …

Do it. If you want me to impale you, you'll have to say my name. Say it. 

Say it. 

“Iblis! Iblis, pierce me! stab me! penetrate my heart! Put it where I'm vile and cruel but also warm and giving and wet and beating for you! Pierce me here, in my breast, my heart, my soul! My tender fragile soul! Put it in me! Angel Iblis…!” 

And it did. The lance came down. And pierced the screaming girl, pinning her to the bed. The sound that was pulled from her then was an exquisite blend of deep ghastly pain and even deeper still euphoric drunken moaning, moans. They collected and accumulated about her head and sheets, the small room, as the angel inside her wrenched and worked his shaft, his lance. He worked it deeper. The length. Long…

The length was killing her. 

She loved it. Every inch. Every penetrating crawling centimeter rent tearing inside. 

It made her a slave and she loved it. 

She moaned and called out and cried its name. Like it wanted her to. It came down close and closer and closer still till they met. And he worked the length of his divinity into her, deeper and deeper and all the way through and she melted. She bled. Her love and thoughts and precious saline. 

It drank it up, all of it, all of her. The oasis of this woman. It fed deeply as it worked itself in and deeper still. Still feeding. Drinking. Needing, thirst. 

Sister Chelsi poured herself out for it, unable to control herself now. But happy to empty herself for the great angel of the thrust, her bedside …

her bed. 

It came inside to her and filled her mind then with an explosion like firelight and within the flames were visions. 

Moving scenes and people and places … other times and maybe other worlds as well … 

Fantastical. Beyond the scope of known and understood nature. 

She loved it. She begged for more. 

Give it … give me more, the sight, the eye of prophecy! Please! 

Iblis curled the caress of her mind into words once more … 

And what would you do with this gift? Should you receive it without end? 

She could not lie. Not on this landscape. And she didn't want to. Not to it, not to him, that voice, that feeling… 

She cried out on the eternityscape of her deluged and filled maelstrom sea of thought: I want to be a prophet! Yours! I want to be your disciple upon the earth! 

You wish to be my bride? 

I want to be your crawling and salivating concubine! 

It laughed and the pleasure of Iblis filled her blood and soul. She came and went with it. 

!.Good … …

It filled her more. And she cried out, more. More. 

More. 

She wept when it was finished. Feeling empty and hollowed out. But filled with vision, with purpose. 

The light was fading now from the room. It was gone. The small bedchamber was cooling now and returning to a more natural nocturnal dark, the air was thick and pungent but calming down. Chelsi could still taste the act, on the bedroom dark of the stifling air. She sucked on it and relished the flavor. Already wanting him back. Already needing him again. 

Please, please come back to me Childe Iblis of the Lord, of the thrust, I love you. You are the carrier of my heart and soul…

She shuddered in bed. Not bothering to conceal herself beneath the agitation of the sheets, she cooled and breathed deeply. Quivering and remembering the pillar of his flaming face. So many eyes, so many crowding up his great length… and all of them looking into me…

She shuddered deeply once more. Shut her own eyes. Waiting for sleep to finally come. 

It didn't take long. She was spent. 

Sister Jen still hid around the corner, at the threshold of the door to their shared bedroom. Her eyes were wide with shock. Horrified by what she had seen. 

…

Mother Superior eyed the convent temple from her place in the rectory, her private quarters. She watched the little sisters move and glide silently moving about the monastery structure, ambling along in hand clasping prayer, heads bowed and eyes shut so that distraction may be refused and you may better hear and discern and heed the light, the will of God. 

Amen. 

She crossed herself. And spat. 

Her gaze crawled across the yard to the shack. Alone in the corner of the gated land. Secluded. Sequestered away, so that what could be contained inside would be shut and locked away from a healthy and pious population. The disease of a disordered mind would wreak havoc on the patient and tender soft fragile fabric of the flock. This could not be. This could not be allowed. 

Rebellion must be cast out. Decapitated. 

She knew rebellion was natural. It was in all of us. As sure as it was the the very infectious thing that ate Lucifer's heart and led him to defiance and thus his fall. So it would be. If we were to all follow in his example. 

It would not be so. 

She'd had her own run of rebellious streak when she'd been younger, she understood. She'd had it crushed out of her then, broken as one must do to the wild heart of any natural born beast of labor. And though we were made, cast and drawn in His Image, we were all still among the dread and crawl of all of the other beasts of the earth. 

She crossed herself. Prayed. 

She wished the child well. 

Chelsi had always been troubled. Troublesome too. 

Mother Superior turned away from the shack of reflection. Trusting that the Lord would see this through. That He might fix and set right this wayward piece, this compromised component of humankind's quilted safety net. They were supposed to be the house and servants of His peace. They must all of them survive spiritual malaise and remain steadfast and true. 

As He wills it, let it be so …

…

In the black of the woe she pained, she perverted and distorted. Grew naked with fear. 

Perspired. Dripping with secreted oils and saline and the sliming filth of deep shame. Seeping off her tarnished heart and soul and out of her running open mouth pores. Hard to wash off. There was no running water in here, only the bucket she was brought in the morning. Refilled at mealtime by an unseen, unspeaking little sister that was now a stranger to her. She was a stranger to all of them now. 

In the dark of the shack she was agonizingly alone, the swelter of her torment was her only companion and answer to her constant panicky prayers. She grew eyes that grew inwards and saw their own landscape and grew more horrified with the sight as the hours broiled ceaselessly forth. Under the eye of a lonely black and heavy sun. 

All alone in here. 

She tried to hide, to blind her new found, newly grown internal gaze away from the truth: she was just a child, had always been just a frightened little girl that wanted to run and find fast and desperate shelter. She tried to turn away from the fact that this was who she really was, had always truly been. Everything else that had occurred growing up in her life had just been the lies of accoutrement. 

Her mind was filling with bad thoughts: the arcane Druidic gods arose and swallowed the light of the Christian God whole …

She stopped herself. Began to pray. Again. Anew. Begging the Lord to bring her calm and comfort in the solitude of the dark. She slowed her breath and tried to ease the gallop of her chest. Sister Chelsi didn't know what else to do. 

She didn't know what they wanted from her. 

Mother Superior and the other little sisters. And the Lord God Himself. 

If there is not an answer to be had, then let there be death! – she told the black sun in the dark there with her. 

Nothing. Nothing but more baleful stifling dark, more radiant furnace hellfire blasting heat of the black and heavy sun that had replaced her roommate. Nothing but more sounds of desperate animal panting that she was horrified to realize were her own, not the stygian furnace blast of the bestial confinement sun. Nothing. Nothing at all answered her save more pain, the one true god on the throne in this terribly small and sweaty heavy place. 

Nothing. Nothing at all. 

At first. 

Then on the fading light of her hope came Iblis. Her forbidden angel. And banished the black sun as he came in wreathed in light and flame. He banished and cast out all of the dark of the solitary confinement, the shack of woe. 

He went to her. She was prostrate on the ground. Her bladder let go, her urine went. She hardly noticed in the radiance of he save for some vague distant sensation of wet and warmth. Sensations she associated with the pleasure of him. His arrival, his dawning light. 

From the many eyes of the long length of ringed pillar face, he spoke to her through the blinding light of his lidless vision. 

“What have they done? … what have they done to thee ?” 

Her mind was always open to him for an answer but for her he bade it from her own lips. 

She told him. Everything. All that she had learned in the treacherous furnace dark of the shackbound woe-flame. All that had been derived while in the baking black of this loathsome quiet shack of silent feasting hate. 

“They are afraid of me. …” A beat. She breathed animal and deep, lusting, on the hunt or hunted or both. She said more: “I do believe they may be right to be…” 

Iblis soothed her with his spear … in the stifling dark of the shack of reflection and recompense. Banishing the pain of its ebon house even as he filled her, her watering craving need. 

But something happened then, poor lost little Sister Chelsi watched from below as Iblis, her moonlight forbidden and thrusting angel began to change. 

Transmogrify. Transform. 

The heavenly marbled surface of the pillar visage of Iblis began to crack. Wild river lines of splaying ruin began to form and splinter and run up the immaculate face of his incandescent divinity. 

It shattered. And was replaced. 

She said to her love as he changed and shifted shape before her eyes, “mother slapped me for using your name …” 

The light of her lover changed into shadow. Deeper than the banished dark and one that she could madly love because it was in the altered shape of her heart’s desire, her object of adoration that was darkening now before her watering eyes. 

In place of the pillar, in place of the tower of of flaming eyes and rings that had shattered and now lie in stoney ruin about the floor was now a triangular, pyramidal blank obsidian face and shape, in the conical pointed aspect of a long beaked bird. It was like a great smooth black helmet of glass and smooth rock in the geometric and abstract shape of a plague doctor's mask. An obsidian angular temple face with a long wide stabbing humming bird length of beak protruding violently from one side. 

 The bronze of his sculpted and heavenly body began to burn and blacken as well, like ink spilled and running down and through the heavenly flesh. Corrupting it into the abyss and void of the lost and cast out. The wings which had been flaming and as of light had turned to ash in color and tattered bat-wing leather in texture and design. 

The spear of her impaling love was changing too. Becoming dark like the rest of him in the solitude of the shack but that wasn't all. The nature of her divine amore’s unearthly tool began to change as well… it was no longer just stabbing, penetrating her, running her deep and through, pleasurably and with the ghastly horror of bodily rupture and pain, the staking spear of her forbidden angel began to pull, it began to pull deeply … of her. From her. Pulling deeply from within her impaled and spellbound form, her wide eyed and staring naked body. 

Like a proboscis, the impaling lance began to pull and drink deeply of Sister Chelsi. It ran up and through and down the length of weaponry and into the black hands wrapped tightly around its shaft. The long body pulled and sucked and drank like a straw, like a swampland mosquito born from stagnant and dead fetid water. The obsidian smooth beaked face of her lover was featureless and cold smooth as the surface of placid water. She nonetheless could still feel the intensity of his gaze upon her, through her. And when he spoke again and told her what to do, she felt that as deepest penetration as well. Deepest pain. Rapturously embraced.

She felt her body give as the instrument of her lover began to take in the dark. As he whispered everything to her, designs… shapes… everything, as Iblis whispered all of this to her and more she gave it more and more and more. And she gave it willingly. 

Crying out his name like religion. Like a chant. A litany. 

A song. 

In the place of my Father … there is you. 

There is only you. 

Good. Good. I have so much more to share, so much more to give and show you. I've so much and so many more …

I've so many more names and faces to show you, if you do right by what I've already shown and told, I'll share my other faces and names, unveiled for you …

Disciple, the prophet Islehc

… 

Sister Chelsi was eventually let out and allowed to return to the flock. She seemed to have returned to normal. She cried penance and gave confession and spent a night inside with the rest of them. Service and mass. And lessons. Cleaning. Meals. Everything seemed alright. 

She waited till the second night. When they were all fast asleep. 

The witching hours. 

Post-midnight, she crept …

She snuck about, quietly. Like a nocturnal animal she prowled through … and went out. 

She didn't go far, she found what she needed where he'd told her she would find it. And in abundance. So many …

She carried them back to the monastery and in the nighttime dark she went about the task that had been laid before her feet. She went from room to room, from sister to sister and she took them. Brained most, some she struggled with more extensively. Until her mad lusting will surged and she overpowered them. Either way she took each of them one by one, each and every single nun she had once known as family and she brought them out and into the courtyard. Where she'd left the savage implements of her dreams, of her lover's harsh commands that were yet still for her, sweet candied words. Succulent delicacies. She couldn't deny them, him. Not at all. Not anymore. 

One by one Sister Chelsi laid the implements into the little sisters and each one let out with an insane ear piercing scream. Their screams did not falter. 

But somehow they didn't wake each other. Not a single stripped and brained sister of the cloth seemed to hear the others make any sort of loud caterwauling noise. None of them stirred. Until it was their turn. 

Likewise, Mother Superior had not been awoken in her private rectory by the noise outside. And that was good. Chelsi had saved her for last. 

She wanted to relish this one particularly. 

…

Mother Superior awoke to a hard slap across her deeply sleeping face. She flew to a sitting position confused and immediately irate. She had no idea what was happening but she didn't feel any fear yet. 

She called out, cross and very sharp. 

“Who in the Lord's name was that!? How dare you! Show yourself!”

A girlish giggle floated out ghostly from the dark. 

“I didn't do it, Mother Superior, I would never dare to do that to you, you should know that. I've never hurt you at all, can you say the same?” she giggled again, childish and coquettish, "It was my husband that struck you. It was his divine hand you felt across your face." 

Chelsi stepped out.

She had a large cross in her hands. Ornate with intricate and beautiful design, old and from the ancient Roman times when their war chariots had dominated the earth. Carved and jeweled and glittering darkling with a keen and unhealthy shimmer of light. 

Ghostlight. There's ghostlight in that cross…

Before Mother Superior could say another word Chelsi suddenly charged forward and banshee screamed. The large crucifix was up and wielded and came down in a savage caveman bludgeon. 

The world went dark for Mother Superior. When she awoke she was just like the others. 

…

She awoke with a scream. 

The sharp obscene ghastly pain started in her nether region, all throughout, just behind her genitalia. Then the lance stabbed and shot through and her entire naked body came to life with the most wretchedly vivid and wild mutilating shock to her fleshen senses. The war pike traveled through her mercilessly and punched out of the flesh of her back. She was still screaming. Wildly. Lividly. Screaming. Shrill rending song.

She was hoisted up and joined the others. They were all of them a riot of noise now in the courtyard dark. An unholy discordant choir of torn impaled cacophonous pain. 

Gored nuns. All impaled. All naked and bleeding and hoisted up into the air for death and torture like their savior was supposed to have been so long ago in the bloodstained dust of the golgotha. There was bloodshed here too, their blood was pouring and running, running down the lengths and long bodies of the shafts of the spears and pooling and collecting on the stone and in the dirt. This place here would be bloodstained too. 

Chelsi looked over them all. Her own golgotha testament made to wild love. 

And her wild love came. On stygian wings tattered that had once been flame. Smoldered tattered death, dead fabric flapping in the hot nightwind.

The whole host of impaled and captive nuns, gored and wide eyed and naked and lanced through like insects in a collection, they all of them perspired and bled and gawked at the wicked shape that came in from the ebon night, the curtain above. The one many of them had spent their entire lives trying to ignore, it parted. 

It came through. 

And down upon them. 

Iblis sang praise for the renegade prophet bride and what she'd let loose on this private piece of holy land. God's House and holy temple … no more. 

No longer. Mine … now. 

Chelsi the bride bathed in the shower of his words, they were in her mind and in her ears, divergent lyrics and syllables and paths of sound but twins nonetheless all still saying the same and telling her the same thing together in two different languages that coalesced around the fever of her brain in a caress. 

!I love you, you've made blood, you've made blood for me, you've made bloodfeast for me and shot the red Lot's seed, it's all over the abattoir ground!

She went to him and he to her, in the forged carnage forest grove of spear and bleeding sweaty flesh, of screams and mutilated sound, bathing in the perspire of pure torture together and apart from the others, the rest of the lying world. Alone in their own lost worlds of private unending hellbound heaven, tormentlove of the flesh that their minds are now lost in. 

He shot his length of spear through her, though her heart, through the tender part where he'd already previously penetrated and worked.

He worked her well again, animal wrenching and thrusting deep, and she cried aloud unbridled his name as he did so. 

“Iblis!" 

And once more the length of weapon-instrument that was divine and hallowed tool became a drinking proboscis. And Chelsi felt more blood leave the galloping race of her fevered and impassioned form. She would hold him forever, he could pierce and puncture and drink from her for forever, never end! 

She moaned aloud amidst the garden made of screams and betrayal and she cried out his name once more. And then Iblis began to laugh. 

And once more the visage of her forbidden moonlight angel began to change. He began to crack and shatter and the face and body began to fall apart in black stone and dust. 

Iblis came apart in a crumble and revealed what was really beneath. 

Chelsi couldn't believe her eyes. 

It was a man and a woman. Together. Locked in an embrace. Intimately bound together with wrapped arms and hands clasped and waists met together. As if in the most intimate of dance, the most delectable and celebrated of lovers shared waltzes. 

They both looked down on her. Their cheeks were together. They both held the spear thrust into her together in their tightly clasped hands. 

He was armored as a knight of the court, but tarnished and old. She was in the white of regal flowing evening gown. 

The woman spoke. And when she did the crumbled stone pieces of the fallen lying Iblis visage turned to large writhing copulating piles of dripping angry flies. They came apart and dispersed through the air. The dripping black swarm of buzzing insects began to land on the impaled and screaming tortured nuns in the great multitudes. And then as the woman revealed began to speak to Chelsi the flies that were made from the lie of the visage began to feast on the naked and the tortured, defiled bleeding screaming flesh now caking and covered with the writhing crawl of insect bile. 

“You wished to see me and my others, lover, and now you have. I hope you aren't too distraught, my son decided to join us, together we came to you as the angel of your hidden lusts, as one we made you plead and shriek. Now you see this, the face I was made and born with. My real name is of no import to you, slave, you can call me vampiress, lord of the earth and the wolf held mountainpass.” 

The armored wraith beside her spoke then, they were still pressed in close embrace, still holding the proboscis spear that drank and pulled from her diminishing bloodwell. 

"Praise the God before you, dog! My mother and I, the new impaler. She is your mother and wife and master now too. We are both of us together, your husband. Remember?” 

The vampiress queen barked bright cruel laughter, then said: "Yes! You swore to us, to me, your flesh and soul! In the eyes and templehouse of your God, you defiled the stone of his holy home as you panted and raved and drooled for more, and swore your life to us! You gave sacred vow even as you sinned and spat in the Face of The Lord!” 

The Countess and her new impaler both shrieked laughter then. 

Below them and impaled, Chelsi didn't know what to make of any of this. Her mind was disordered and disoriented and felt rushed and fevered with rending thought, running a ragged directionless race of chaos and every idea crashing into each other at every turn and pass and every damned whichway. She didn't understand. She didn't understand any of this and she wanted it to stop. 

Reading the disorder of her mind, the Countess sang and said, 

“I can rip it out for you. Your mind, the painful thinking, your thoughts. They're filled with agony and venom now aren't they? Aren't they? Yes I see it now, plumping up lavender-black and filling with gangrenous pudding. I can pull it out like a rotten tooth if you wish, I think it best, don't you? It's filled with fouling fluid, that brain, those thoughts…” she kept on and on like that. Ceaselessly. The new impaler in her embrace began to chant along and under her words as she sang and went on: Do it! do it! do it! do it! … 

With the anguished groaning sound of the impaled forest of her sisters all around and the buzzing drone of the flies, all intermittent with sharper stabs of piercing screams, all comprising the backdrop of the soundscape filling her head, underneath the Countess' words, underneath her bastard son’s own more simple liturgical chant … all of it together and at once was a vile noise and she couldn't stand it. She couldn't run from it either. So her mind fled, took flight the only way it could. 

Chelsi went dark. Still impaled on the sucking lance. Run-through with the demon drinking stick. 

The flies buzzed and swarmed and landed and feasted on the gored forest of lances and nuns. They enjoyed open wounds and spat their fluid as they landed. 

In a swarm. In a great feasting black cloud. 

In a forest of shafts dripping with blood and bearing writhing begging human fruit. The reddening earthen stone and soil beneath it all. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

When I try to explain it, I have to wonder if I am being stalked, or just going crazy. I have had experiences before that I was convinced were born of hallucination or an overly vivid imagination, but this experience has me now believing in things I used to scoff at.

My name is Giovani and things became undeniable last October during my drive through northern Connecticut. I was returning home from visiting my brother who had been dealing with some unresolved trauma….both of us had been. My visit had dragged on longer than I intended, and by the time I was on the road it was almost midnight. I had a seven-hour drive that would take me meandering through the scenic country side.

I had been traversing passed old towns for about an hour when a deep fog rolled in. This was not unusual for this time of year so I didn’t initially think much of it. I slowed my car down to a safer speed; about 30 mph. The thickness of the fog was demanding on my eyesight, forcing me to lean forward in my seat as I attempted to peer through the obscured ambiance. At last I began to see more than just the dispersed water, but my heart dropped. Through the canopy of mist I saw the tree trunks, they were gnarled and twisted in an inexplicable manner. Like an A.I tried to render a scene of nature but phoned it in halfway through.

I shook my head violently attempting to convince myself that I must be getting tired, but the trees became no less surreal. The foliage around the trees offered no more assurance to my concern as what should have been green was now purple, blue, and floating above the ground in a eerie rhythm.

The changing of the sky arrested my bewilderment and forcefully exchanged it with shock. Below the shimmering black rays of sunlight; which began to part the fog beneath them; a being floated. It was majestic and uncanny. Humanoid in appearance, yet monstrous in its aura. Its proportions were off in a way that tingled the parts of the brain responsible for both disgust and admiration. From its fingers claws began to grow, and from its waist a tail began to form. The serpentine movements of this newly materialized appendage felt malevolent yet also somehow hypnotic.

I pulled over as my car engine began to sputter and go silent. My heart was pounding as I got out. I don’t know entirely why I did. Part of me was stricken with fear over seeing more of that being, but that same part of me had more fear of not seeing it fully.

The entire forest grew silent. The fog was now almost entirely gone. The only evidence of its evanescent presence being the humidity that clung to my cars window. The floating clumps of vegetation had also vanished leaving behind a landscape that look scraped and torn by an unsteady plow. I looked up in the sky where the being should have been. What I saw buckled me to my knees.

It was a giant circular shape that sheened with a metallic glowing hue. The formation of this shape was slightly bent giving it an eye like appearance. Inside the ring of floating steel was an “eye” of vapor. I then understood what happened to the mist, vegetation…and the sound. A vacuum was gently pulling the noise and plants lacking sturdy roots toward it, and beckoning my soul to behold it.

I remember whispering “What the hell…” under my breath, but the words fluttered noiselessly from my lips as they were fished through the air by this floating structure. I felt an urging to step toward it, but a forceful “No! You are not ready!” Echoed in my skull. I buckled to my knees cradling in my head in shock.

Immediately after, the noise started. This was not a return of the noise that I should have been hearing, but a new noise being born from this magnificent machine. A deep, reverberant hum that rippled through the ground. It traversed through my shoes, and my spine violently. It was so low that I felt it more than I heard it. The trees reacted to its utterance, their leaves shaking off their branches from the unrelenting vibration.

As I slowly reopened my eyes I saw deer, rabbits, and all manner of critters walk toward this floating structure. Their eyes glowed white and their movements were uncoordinated and jerky. Once they were in range they began to float and sail toward the center of the eye where the being resided. As these animals floated into this beings orbit, the unearthly monstrosity flayed them with its claws. The fluids of these critters exploding, but not onto the creature which somehow remained spotless, but into the eye behind it. The eye-like swell of energy would hum and glow as if in delight of being fed by the violent death of the wild life.

I anchored my hands into the dirt to prevent myself from being sucked in. Part of me wanted to run, but another part of me had to see, had to witness. I can’t explain it. Looking back there is no reasonable reason for me to have lingered as long as I did. It wasn’t until I realized I was the last living earthly thing in the vicinity did my sense of preservation begin to return. There was a bright flash and the being vanished.

The ”eye” in the sky began to rotate slowly accelerating in speed. Suddenly beams of light brimmed from it cascading beyond me, until they returned and bent around the structure supernaturally. This symphony of luminance blinded my vision. When my eyesight returned I saw the beams shifting in their patterns, creating living shapes. Like long forgotten symbols of antiquity crawling about the air.

I stood up and began to stumble backward only to trip on the berm of the road as my heart began pounding thunderously. I scrambled to get back into my car as I became more coherent of the danger I was in. I started slamming my car as I attempted to start it. Had the vacuum not been pilfering the sound I think I would have gone deaf from my car horn with how hard I was slamming it.

Finally the car started…but I was NOT in control. The colors of the light on my dashboard began to warble and form similar shapes to those in the air.

I began shaking in fear and frustration as I felt my entire world was glitching.

I then heard a whisper, that both soothed and terrified me.

It wasn’t in my ears. It was inside my skull, like someone had spoken directly into my soul. A single, horrifying sentence: “Now the chosen shall come aboard.”

The slamming on my steering wheel ceased as I was gripped by fear. The hum around me turned into a rhythmic thudding, like a creature was taking enormous footsteps somewhere deep within the earth. Was this produced by the same creature that flayed the animals, or a new one with a similar eerie allegiance? I was unwilling to find out as I began to panic again to get my car moving.

The eye above me constricted, and all the beams of light receded into it in a sharp snap. In a brazen flash the being returned. It slithered out of the eye in a chaotic yet majestic cadence. It began to lower itself to the ground as if it was dangling from invisible threads.

It was tall, far too tall to be of this earth. Its arms were the length of its standing body, It’s clawed fingers were gnarled in their shape, but smooth in their glossy complexion. What fascinated me most…was the face it lacked. Where this body feature “should” have been was displayed only as featureless oval that reflected white light like wet clay.

I could feel all the organs in my body began to pulse in rhythm with the thudding as I realized it was beckoning to me. With all my might I shook off the pull of its allure and slammed my foot down on the gas. To my amazement my car’s engine began to sputter and finally began accelerating. Frantically I made the most ugly u-turn of my life as I began careening down the road in the opposite direction I had arrived.

My car's radio turned on and began blaring in angry refusal as I created distance between myself and the entity. Only there was no melody of music from the radio. It was a cacophony of sounds too irreverent of earthly origin to describe. They wailed and thralled in my ears so viciously I had to wonder if it was actually from my radio….or from the growing madness of my own mind.

“Your destiny has been ordained. You will serve the will whether you intend to or not!” I heard that same monstrous and eerie voice in my mind again. This time it was more forceful and domineering. I felt a splintering pain grow in my skull and radiate into my vision. I almost veered off the road into the forest as I struggled to drive with my eyesight splintering like a broken computer screen.

The trees of the forest began to assist the protest of my escape as they bent inward toward the road as I passed them. Some snapped viscously as they proceeded to ooze out a black dark fluid. A fluid, that matched the luxurious sheen of that being.

The pedal beneath my foot must have been carving into the floor of my car from how forceful I was pushing into it. However to my relief I could see the hellish scene behind me grow smaller in my rear view mirror.

“Distance is temporary,” the voice was softer but triumphant when it said this, but nonetheless ominous. What it lacked in aggressive tone it made up for in psychic torture. I felt the sensation of white ripple through me; it was all I could see, hear, taste, feel, and taste. I know that makes no sense for the other 4 senses but if you had endured it you wouldn’t question this description. For a few seconds I thought had died and was ascending to whatever the afterlife has in store. However after this psychic attack faded enough for my blurry vision to return I saw a tree a few feet in front of me.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed as I knew I didn’t have time to swerve my car out of the way. My right headlight grazed it and sent the car spinning in an eerily noiseless trajectory. I slammed the breaks hoping to regain some semblance of command over my driving. With each spin I would get a few milliseconds of eerie light from the being I fled, and a few more of the utter darkness of the barren roadside. This strobe like effect was horrendous on my still recovering eyesight.

“Come on come one don’t fail me now!” I gritted with panic as the car stopped but the engine was making sounds it shouldn’t. I gave it a few seconds to recover, what little I thought I could spare without the entity catching up but then I heard another voice in my mind; “You think you could escape? You are in my grasp now!”. I knew it was now or never. Slamming the gas the car began to move albeit jerky and slower. I don’t think my speedometer was working right but at full throttle we couldn’t have been going more than 40 miles per hour.

Thankfully this was just a bit faster than the eye that chased me. Within 20 minutes I seemed to be out of range of its voice. And I exhaled in relief. Now if only my half tank of gas could get me to the next gas station. I could only imagine how much fuel I was inefficiently burning through.

The sound around me didn’t properly return for another fifteen miles. I could no longer see the being, the eye, or any misshapen trees…but I was being followed. I could FEEL it.

The radio eventually flicked on and started to broadcast the rock station I generally listened to. Despite this return to normal, I was shaking. My nerves were a wreck and I was desperately trying to process what I had seen, and why….despite being so shaken by it….I wanted to see it again.

I eventually did make it to a gas station. I not only loaded up on a full tank of gas, but I also bought some gas cans and filled them to the brim. I also bought an entire aisle of chocolate to soothe my nerves.

On my return home I was pulled over by a cop for driving too slow.

“Hey…so I don't normally pull people over for driving to slow… everything ok?” The cop asked as he looked at me through my car and onto the massive and unseemly pile of chocolate on the front passenger seat. I wanted to tell him everything, but I knew he wouldn’t believe it. Also this late at night, with the list of medications I was on… would telling him I encountered some alien or demonic being just get me thrown in jail?

I decided to tell him enough truth to get me back on the road. If that thing was actually still following me I couldn’t waste time and he wouldn’t be good protection from it anyway.

“I encountered some critters near the road and… long story short I veered off the road and hit a tree. I think my car is damaged. I have to pound the pedal to the metal to even go as fast as I was when you pulled me over. Do you know of a mechanic open this late? Just trying to get home.” I said tiredly. I was taking some serious liberty with the story but he couldn’t seem to pry his eyes off my chocolate.

“I see… you sure you aren’t having an episode of the….munchies. You know what I mean,” The cop said condescendingly. I was irritated, but I could see how the circumstances were reasonable for the cop to suspect it.

“I don’t do weed but I can take a breathe test or whatever. I am serious about needing a mechanic tho. Do you know of one? I think my transmission is damaged, my exhaust is restricted, my spark plugs are miss firing or more likely a combination of all three,” I said urgently. I had no idea if what I said made any automotive sense but luckily the cop didn’t seem too mechanically inclined and was impressed by my assessment of the damage. This was clearly not something he would have expected from someone driving under the influence.

“Unfortunately I don’t. Brent’s auto shop opens at 9 a.m. I would recommend him if you are still in the area by then,” he said helpfully. He gave one final look at my passenger seat then looked at me again. “In the meantime…be careful on the road and avoid any major roads. Going too slow can be just as dangerous as going too fast,”

“Thanks officer. I will absolutely be extra careful for the rest of the night,” I promised. The officer nodded with a chuckle and walked back to his car. I checked my phone and noticed I had a mountain of messages from both my brother and friend group, particularly from a former relationship of mine. I decided to shove my phone back into my pocket. I was too mentally drained to deal with all that.

I eventually did make it back to my house and found a mechanic to repair my cars damage.

For days afterward I tried to persuade myself that nothing supernatural had happened. That it was all either from sleep deprivation or being spooked by the dark. Any rationalization sounded better than admitting it could have been something vast, intelligent, and looking for me.

I Had almost fooled myself into this façade of security, but a week later that faith was shaken. As I was walking my dog, something I do most nights before going to bed; I was wrestling with a sense of melancholy I couldn't quite put into words. My reflection was shuttered when I noticed white clouds swirling above my house in a circular pattern. They created a shape eerily similar to the “eye”.

Then…it blinked! I was buckled to my knees again as I heard a loud: “Found you” from deep inside my soul

I don’t think it was an eye in the sky. It was something looking through it. It was that being. It knows where I live. Yet this time….I don’t know if I will run.

I’m writing this as a warning to everyone. If you ever see a sign for a town called Mercy, never stop there.

That was a mistake I made. Well, not by choice, my car broke down.

I had just gotten a new job a couple of states away, and I was making my way through the southern half of the states. I was driving on this narrow, backcountry road, choked on both sides by the endless wetlands. I had been driving about four hours that day when my car’s engine started to knock and sputter. I pulled over on what little shoulder there was and lifted the hood.

I don’t know what I expected to find when I did it. I’m no mechanic, and even if I was, it wasn’t like I was going to pull a bunch of spare parts out of my trunk. After about thirty minutes of staring at it and trying to get some cell signal, I finally saw a truck coming down the road. I frantically waved my arms, trying to flag them down. When he pulled up, a pot-bellied man in overalls stepped out.

“You need some help, fella?” he said, spitting a mouthful of tobacco onto the grass.

“Yeah, my car broke down and I can’t get any signal.”

“Well hell son, must be your lucky day,” he replied, gesturing to his truck. “I can give you a tow back to town. It’s just down the road aways.”

I told him thank you and tried to help however I could as he hooked my car to the back of the tow truck. I climbed into the cab, and we started towards town.

“The name’s Jon,” he said as he put in a fresh lip of chew.

“I’m Travis. Nice to meet you,” I replied.

“Likewise.”

“Where are we heading anyways?”

“Mercy.”

“I haven’t ever heard of Mercy before.”

He just laughed. “Most people haven’t. We like to keep it that way, the best we can. It ain’t much, but it’s home.”

After about five minutes on the main road, we turned onto a small single-lane side street that snaked further into the wetlands. The trees were tall and thick, their canopy blotting out the sun as we drove. Fifteen minutes later, a single sign broke the otherwise empty tree line.

Welcome to Mercy.

Jon wasn't kidding about it being small, but he definitely undersold it.

The town was like something from a postcard. Picturesque houses with picket fences dotted the streets. Older but well-maintained brick storefronts ran along the main strip, complete with hand-painted signs. In the center of town stood a beautiful white church with "Mercy Chapel" in bold, calligraphic font. Soon, we arrived at Jon’s garage and moved the car into the shop.

“Gonna take a day to figure out what your problem is. Then another one or two after that to get your repair done. Nothing to worry about though, I’ll get you fixed up,” he said.

“So I’m stuck here for a few days?”

“Yep. Rome weren’t built in a day and all that. There’s a motel in town though. I’m sure they can put you up there in the meantime.”

With no other choice, I grabbed my luggage and started to walk down the street towards the motel. I passed a small diner on my way that looked like it was straight out of the 1950s. It even had a sign for malted milkshakes. I finally arrived at the motel and rang the bell. Then a short balding man shuffled out of the back office. The man fixed his glasses and gave me a once-over.

“Well, hello there. How can I help you?”

“I need a room for a few nights. I’m having some car trouble.”

“Jon working on it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then you’re in good hands. He ain’t covered in grease for the fun of it. Now then, let’s see here,” the man said as he pulled out a form. I gave him my name, phone number, and driver’s license information. As he started to copy everything down, he looked up and asked,

“What brings you out this way?”

“I’m moving for a new job.”

“Sounds interesting. Is your family moving with you?” he asked.

“Oh no. I’m not married,” I replied.

The man handed back my license and a room key. “I’m Walter. If you need anything, the office number’s on the back of your key. Hope you enjoy your stay with us.”

The man smiled and shuffled back to his office as I turned and walked to my room. The room wasn’t much but appeared clean. It had a double bed, a desk adorned with a small lamp, and a small refrigerator in it. I threw my luggage into the corner and plopped myself on the bed. I lay in bed for a while before getting up to shower and change. After my shower, I headed out to the diner.

The second I walked in, I was immediately greeted by the blonde waitress behind the counter.

“Hey hun! Sit wherever you like.”

I picked a booth by the window and sat down. She then walked over and dropped a menu in front of me. I sat there for a few minutes and looked it over and that’s when something caught my eye. A big banner hung across the street that said “Mercy Annual Founder’s Festival” in big letters. The waitress then came back.

“Do you know what you would like hun? You look like you haven’t had anything but gas-station food all day,” she said with a chuckle.

“I haven’t,” I replied. “I think I’ll need another minute.”

Before she walked away, I asked her when the festival was supposed to be held.

“Oh that’s in a couple of days. You thinking about going?”

“I might. Looks like I’m going to be here for a few days anyway.”

“Oh, we heard.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “How did you hear that?”

“Jon came through earlier. Said we had a visitor. We don’t get many of those here in Mercy.”

For a moment, Jon’s words replayed in my head. Mercy really must be tiny.

“So when do you start?” she asked.

“Two weeks. I wanted to get there and get settled before immediately getting into work.”

“That’s smart. Do you still need to find a place there or did someone help you find one already?”

“No, no. I still have to find one. I don’t know anyone there so I’ll probably be in a hotel for a few days.”

“Well you’ll have plenty of time to check out our festival then. I hope you show up.” She smiled, then turned and went back to the counter.

My food arrived and I sat there eating while I watched through the window as people were busy preparing for the festival. I could see a large stage that was almost finished, and decorations being hung from streetlights. People carried tables from the church while a couple of men stretched another banner across the stage. For a diner in the middle of nowhere, the food was excellent. The waitress came back over to check on me and even gave me a milkshake on the house. Said it was for “Mercy’s newest guest.”

After finishing my food, I walked back to my room, ready to settle in for the night. I checked my phone which still had no service, then turned on the TV. Eventually I drifted off to reruns of black and white TV shows. I was woken a bit later by the sound of a knock at my door.

“Who could that be?” I wondered as I walked to the door. When I opened it, there was no one there. When I looked down, there was a flyer for the festival, just lying on the ground. I picked it up and started to look it over when I noticed the hand-written message across the top.

Welcome to Mercy, Travis.

I woke up the next morning around 9 am. I decided I wanted to go check on my car, then get breakfast.

It was clear to me on the walk that the rest of the town had been busy for a while before I got up. Kids were playing in the grass near the church. Neighbors were laughing across picket fences. Every single storefront had some type of display for the festival. Everyone was happy and smiling. They all waved when they saw me, big smiles on their faces. Honestly, the whole town seemed excited. I finally reached the garage, its roll up door already open.

“Morning, Travis,” Jon said, bent over and halfway submerged in my engine compartment. He started to explain what was going on when a young man walked into the shop. He paused when he saw me standing there.

“Travis, this is my boy, Caleb. Caleb, this is the fella I was telling you about.”

He stood there for a moment before letting out a quiet, “Nice to meet you, Travis.”

Jon then continued explaining what all he needed to fix my car. He told me the part would take a couple of days to arrive and that he would get me taken care of as soon as possible. Caleb just turned and went back outside. I thanked him for the update and headed back to the diner.

The diner was just as busy as the day prior. I wasn’t sure if there was any other restaurant to eat at, but with the size of the town, it seemed unlikely. I was about halfway through my meal when I was startled by a pat on the back.

“Travis!”

I turned around and found a towering, older man standing behind me, dressed neatly in a button up shirt and black slacks. A clerical collar poked out above his shirt.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, son. Reverend Jones. Mercy Chapel,” he said, hand outstretched.

I reached out to shake the reverend’s hand. His grip was like putting my hand in a vice.

“Mind if I sit down?” He slid into the seat across from me before I could answer. The waitress came by and dropped a coffee off in front of him.

“How are you liking our town?”

“Umm, it’s great. Everyone’s been very nice,” I said, trying to swallow the bite of food I had in my mouth.

“Good! Good. You know hospitality is a big deal to us, here in Mercy. You don’t get many chances for first impressions.”

I sat there quietly as he continued.

“I really hope you’re going to make it to the festival. It’s a big deal around here. Biggest day in town every year.”

“Yeah, looks like I’ll make it. My car isn’t supposed to be ready for a couple of days.”

The reverend just smiled, “Well then maybe there’s a reason Jon found you when he did.”

“What’s this festival for anyways?” I asked.

“It’s a celebration for the town’s history. My great great granddaddy founded this town many years ago. See he believed that the world was becoming corrupt, so he and some others founded our little slice of heaven here. Free from the corruption, violence, sinning of the outside world. Somewhere we could protect faith, family, community and our values.”

“You’ve lived here your whole life?”

“Yes sir. The Jones family has been the reverends of every generation since Mercy was founded. Bit of family tradition, I guess.”

“It is a really nice town,” I said.

“I think we’ve done well for ourselves. The town is clean and her people are happy. We protect our own out here.”

Before I could say anything else, the reverend got up from his seat. “I best be going now. I got a lot of things to oversee for tomorrow. It was a treat to talk to you, Travis. Enjoy your time here in Mercy.” And without another word, he walked out of the diner.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I wandered around town and eventually made my way back to my room. The night went on as I continued watching TV until something caught my eye. The light outside my window was flickering. At one point it went out for a few seconds and when it came back on, I thought I saw a silhouette cast against the window. Shocked, I got up to look out the window and see if my eyes were playing tricks on me.

When I looked, I saw the dark figure of a man, staring at my room.

Read Part I here.

“Might’ve been something outside. But if there had been, it’s gone now.”

“You think it could be a mermaid?” she asked. It was hard to believe she was serious. Chrissy was one of the sharpest ten-year-olds I had ever met. Well, she had been the sharpest seven-year-old I had ever met three years ago and was that much smarter now.

She didn’t believe in any of the traditional fairytale creatures. No Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Wolfman, and no Flying Spaghetti Monster. But she absolutely believed mermaids were real.

There had to be a story behind it, but I had never been able to get her to explain it to me. How a child so ruled by logic still was able to make room for not only a magical creature, but that particular magical creature. She had already “debunked” the narwhal as being the source of the mermaid mythos. I had gotten bits and pieces over the last three years, but never in a cohesive enough story that I could process. But she hadn’t stopped trying to convince me or the rest of the family.

I didn’t have to believe it, though. It was enough to believe that she believed it.

“Maybe this is it!” She turned around and charged back to the bedroom where her mother was sleeping.

“Chrissy!” I saved my breath. She already had the door open and either her mother was going to wake up or she wasn’t. That was out of my hands. She came back a moment later with a Ziploc bag of “mermaid feed.” As far as I could tell, it was a mix of trail mix and seaweed. She carried a flashlight in her other hand.

According to Chrissy, mermaids only came out at night, so she had come prepared.

Again, I was calling after her when she’d already begun to do what she was doing, namely, dashing outside with her items.

I was about to follow her when I spotted the toy soldiers she’d dropped on her way out. I thought it would be just her luck for Mary to wake up and step on one of them.

“Watch your sister,” I said to Luke, turning to pick up the toys.

Right as I got on one knee, the bedroom door opened. It didn’t immediately occur to me that it was Mary even though I had just thought about this very thing happening. I sort of... paused as she passed me. She was halfway to the door when I realized she must have been sleepwalking.

“Mary!” I chased behind her, my steps in sync with hers—left, right, left—catching her before she got to the door.

“Mom, are you okay?” Luke said.

“Where am I?” She sounded terrified. Mary turned her head and looked at him. For a second, I thought she was awake. Instead of answering him, she bare-foot kicked him in the shin.

It couldn’t have hurt, but he stepped back and looked at me, confused. I wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her in close.

“She’s fine,” I said, lacing Mary’s hand with mine. I looked into her glassy eyes. “She’s sleepwalking.” I turned her around and ushered her back to the bedroom. Of the five toy soldiers Chrissy had left at the threshold, only two were left, but only one was standing. I looked over my shoulder and spotted one against the wall and the two others weren’t in sight.

“She can’t fly,” Mary said in a dreamy voice. “Please help her swim.”

“Okay, honey.” I cooed to her as I slid back the covers. She didn’t fight, Mary had sleepwalked a few times with me present. She never resisted being escorted back to bed. Before I covered her legs I spotted another soldier on her foot. I plucked it off and put it on the dresser.

Mary mumbled. I unlaced my fingers from hers and paused before I left her.

“I wanna get in the water.” She said it sounding sort of like air being let out of a balloon. And then she was all the way gone again. “It’s spook.”

It had been like she had been fighting her way to the surface, but something had dragged her back down.

I closed the bedroom door behind me and followed Chrissy outside. Not because I was worried she was going to get gobbled up by the lake monster I hadn’t spotted, but because it was dark out and I had the same parental reaction to miscellaneous danger any parent would.

Hell, I could admit it, I loved these kids. Liked them most times, too. I didn’t want to leave them.

Chrissy was in the process of sweeping her flashlight back and forth along the beach face. I hung back, letting her conduct her investigation. It was harmless enough and I had an eye on her.

“What’s going on?” We both turned to see Mark stepping out onto the sand.

“Luke said a mermaid’s out here!” Chrissy said.

“Mermaid?” Mark said it like he didn’t know what one was. I didn’t bother correcting her. His little sister’s obsession was well known by all of us. “Did he really see something?” Mark chuffed and thumbed over his shoulder at the cabin. “He’s so white.”

I stifled my laugh and shrugged.

“Luke thought he saw something and Chrissy overheard.”

“Hey, neighbor!”

Mark and I jumped. We saw the bud of a lit cigarette in the shadows of the adjacent cabin. Someone with a cigarette sauntered down. I glanced my stepdaughter’s way to make sure she hadn’t waded too far into the water. She could swim, but again, that nascent parental instinct found in anyone who has walked into an already existing family reared its concerned head. Chrissy was only ankle deep.

“Hey,” I said to the woman as she approached. She halted and took a final, long drag off her cigarette before flicking it in a surprisingly high arc toward the water. She slid the drawer of her jaw forward and blew a column of smoke straight up.

“She’s a cutie,” she said, smiling. She was an older woman who gave too much gum when she smiled. “I saw her come chargin’ out for the water. Oo, that smell.”

We both nodded in that new-to-each-other manner between strangers.

“I’m Rick.” Old and new cigarette smell peeled off her skin and I turned my head to half cough, that familiar asthmatic itch in my lungs.

“Mary,” she said.

I laughed. “My wife’s name is Mary.”

“Mine’s Cindy-Lou Ombrageaux.”

I felt the weight of her eyes on me, examining for judgment. I cast my eyes to the stretch of water and sand where Chrissy was.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cindy-Lou.” I didn’t think I could manage that last name.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Mary. Apart from the smell of cow-butt.”

“First time up here?” I asked. She shook my offered hand, her skin papery and dry. There was an extreme lack of moisture in the air despite the cool summer, and I’d already had a nosebleed in the brief time we’d been here.

“Mine. Not hers. My wife’s family is from Up North.” I thought her face dropped a little. “She’s out to dinner with some cousins.” There was a little something there that I had a feeling would come to light if we talked long enough. “Had to have a little heart-to-heart.”

“We came up two summers ago,” I said. “Just a little family getaway.”

Luke had barely joined us outside, not more than a few feet from the door. He looked like he would take umbrage with the sky.

“This is Mark, the one up there with get-off-my-lawn face is Luke, and Chrissy’s our little fisher.” I gestured to each of the kids in turn.

“Well, tell her to save some for everybody else.” She and Mark shook hands before she looked around. “Where’s your missus?”

“Migraine. She laid down pretty much as soon as we got here.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She put the can of beer she’d been holding in her other hand to her lips and pitched her head back for a long swallow. She stumbled like she’d confused her left foot for her right but kept them both under her.

If I had to guess, Mary was working on her third or fourth of the night.

Luke had waved his brother over and was saying something to him. They both had an eye on their sister. I looked at Mary. She was a stranger and I figured there couldn’t be any harm in telling her what had just happened. We weren’t going to see her after this weekend for at least a year, if ever again. I didn’t think the story would be memorable after tonight. It was a single-serve memory. Recall once, then discard.

“Luke said he saw something in the water,” I said. “Something big.” Mary turned her head to the shore and nodded appreciably.

“Maybe it’s the Great Lakes Whale Migration,” she said.

“The what?” I had no idea what she was talking about and was on the verge of taking her seriously. The smile hanging on her face dropped when she realized I really didn’t understand.

“Kidding.” She mock-punched me in the arm. Mary had a rich baritone and could have easily been a DJ on the radio.

Mark trudged past me, an annoyed look on his face.

“He’s crazy,” he said, heading toward his sister. I appreciated that he didn’t believe his brother but could still look after his sister. Mark was the middle child and was the ever-constant bridge between siblings.

“The waves do seem a little... bigger than the norm, don’t you think?” Mary asked.

“I guess,” I said, not really knowing how to tell the difference. Then I wondered how she’d know, considering she said she’d never been up here before. “Can you tell?”

“I had a few cigs over yonder before y’all came out. Boy, you get used to the smell the longer you’re out here.” She seemed to be reading my mind and answering questions I hadn’t had a chance to ask. “I must have missed your boy, though.”

I looked at the water again. Mark was standing just outside of the water’s reach, one hand in the pocket of his hoody, the other holding his phone. To his credit, he did glance up at her every ten seconds or so.

Come to think of it, those waves did look big. But it could have been because of the moon for all I knew.

“How long are the two of you here for?” I asked Mary.

“‘Til Wednesday. I’m going to be meeting my in-laws for the first time tomorrow.”

I didn’t know whether I should have felt sympathy for her. It was strange she wasn’t out to dinner with her wife now, but I didn’t know their situation. Maybe it was completely normal. But I couldn’t help but think I would’ve been more than a little bothered if it had been me.

Mary fell down. Not hard. She just spontaneously lost her balance and sat on her butt. In true alcoholic fashion, though, she protected her beer.

She looked at me, embarrassed. I smirked, hopefully communicating I wasn’t just laughing at her, but with her.

“We all fall down.” I’m not sure why I said that, but it seemed to help. She took my hand and I helped her up.

“How about you guys?”

“Just until Sunday afternoon.”

“Where are you from?”

A sandwich had been the hinge on the closing door of our marriage.

I don’t remember what the argument was about or how it had started, only that I had made a sandwich for her that led to me sleeping on the couch.

Of course, it hadn’t really been about the sandwich, it had only been the start. It had been like a match that led to a forest fire razing a town. I can’t honestly remember a word I’d shouted at the woman I’d pledged to love for the rest of my life.

I was about to answer Mary when Chrissy screamed.

Joruhm plummeted toward the streak of shimmering black that had suddenly appeared beneath him, rising up out of the milky void.

He slammed into a puddle, and a freezing splash of watery muck washed over him and splattered his face with globs of mud. A spine rattling crunch punched the wind from his chest, and a searing, white hot bolt of pain pierced his side.

Dazed, Joruhm lay still, afraid to move and gasping for air. Every sip of breath unleashed a blade of agony that ripped through him, thrust again and again into the throbbing ache that had lodged itself in his ribs.

“Joruhm!”

Maree slipped into view. She pranced around Joruhm, shaking her head back and forth, wildly stomping the mud with skittish stamps of her hooves. The trailing ends of the leather reins brushed against him as she inched closer, nuzzling his chest with her nose.

“Joruhm!”

Joruhm groaned. This Jalen wearing idiot was going to summon the whole village if it kept crying out. Everyone knew everyone in Hobbins Glenn. Someone was going to hear it, find them, and then haul them both back to the cottage.

Granny Nyla, his mother, and his father would not be amused.

“I was trying to go to sleep, but this forgery wouldn't let me. It kept talking about ants and killing folk. It said the veiled lady didn't take Tillis. It said he's out there, buried beyond the footbridge. I was afraid it wouldn't lead me to him if I told on him. It's all his fault. Look at him. Just look. He's wearing Jalen's skin. Granny, we've got to get rid of him.”

Cobswaggle. Pure Cobswaggle. They wouldn't believe a word of it. Why should they? He couldn't prove any of it, and the fae would somehow manage to dodge the scrutiny it deserved by doing what it had been doing all along, pretending to be helpless and in dire need of the constant protection of Granny Nyla and his mother.

Joruhm finally managed to inhale more than a sip, and found the resolve to pick himself up off the ground. He carefully, and in no particular order, searched for the unwanted, but entirely expected pains that would rival the tender spot in his side. His legs wobbled, but they supported his weight. He could move his arms, and flex his wrists. It didn't hurt to turn his head.

“Joruhm!”

Blasted thing!

“Here,” Joruhm called out.

Scuffling feet trampling brittle foliage briskly bridged the distance between them.

The imposter emerged from the void. It had lost one of its shoes, and its normally flat head of hair had been rearranged into a ruffled old bird's nest, skewered with twigs that jutted out in every direction. Panting, it bent over and rested its hands on its knees.

“You trying to kill us?”

Now wouldn't that be a thought. He supposed if being launched into the fog hadn't been enough to spook the fae into relinquishing its hold on Jalen the odds of a choke hold or having its head submerged in the swampy water of Hostler's pond accomplishing the task were about the same as the donkey's plopping out a sack of gold nuggets. There were so many darned rules when it came to dealing with unwanted creatures, too many to remember, quite a few he was sure he hadn't yet learned. Guidance would be required to drive it out of his brother, instruction Granny Nyla might be reluctant to dispense without a closer inspection of this trickster or the truth about Tillis.

“Don't be dumb. She wasn't going to jump.”

“You didn't even try.”

“Because she wasn't going to jump, idiot. Weren't you, girl.”

Joruhm scooped up Maree's reins and ran a hand along her back and flanks. When it grazed the part of her shoulder that had collided with the cart, Maree flinched and tried to pull away, stretching the reins taut.

“Easy. Easy, girl.”

Leaning in, he saw a lump the size of a fist and a thin rivulet of blood trickling out of the wound.

Oh no.

There weren't enough shrubs in Hobbins Glenn to craft all of the switches his father and mother were going to break across his back when they learned about everything Joruhm had done after Granny Nyla had blown out the rushlight. Sneaking out. Injuring Maree. The damage to the cart.

The cart!

It sat abandoned in the middle of the lane, half cloaked by the fog. Its wheels and frame were there one moment and gone the next, vanishing from sight within the hitch of a single breath, creating the baffling illusion of lopsided tiers left stuck, floating in midair, when the swirling curtain of white closed in around it. The hazy light spilling from the pair of lanterns affixed to the coach box drenched the uneven planks in a poisonous shade, slathering them with the emerald glow of a sickly hemlock green. Its dislodged tailboard dangled from a short length of chain that creaked as it slowly twisted and turned in the gentle breeze.

Joruhm passed Maree's reins to the fae. “Hold onto her, and stay put.”

“Joruhm, I'm scared. I want to go home.”

Ha!

“We go home when I say we go home, and we aren't going back until you show me Tillis.”

“Tillis isn't over there. He's this way.” The fae pointed in the direction of the footbridge.

“Wait here,” Joruhm said.

Its bottom lip quivered. Soon the tears would flow. “It's just a cart.”

Except, it wasn't. There was something about it that wasn't quite right. Something that instilled an overwhelming urge within Joruhm to run away, and bolstered him with a curious courage to move closer at the same time.

Content Warning: Violence, death, firearms, disturbing imagery

I was a professional cuddler.

I know that's a strange thing to say out loud and an even stranger thing to put on a resume, but I was broke. I had lived the majority of my 20s in a beat-up Volkswagen bus, stealing breakfast from motels, begging for change from strangers, and doing shady under-the-table jobs for a quick buck.

This is what got me into professional cuddling.

Another quick-paying job. Something you'd normally see on Craigslist, or at least that's what you'd assume. But no, I had found this "job listing" stapled to a lamppost just outside of one of the busiest roads in Salem, Oregon.

At the time, I only had five dollars to my name and barely enough gas to leave the city, so I called the number listed on the paper.

A few short rings later, a lady picked up.

"Hello? I swear, if this is another prank call, I am gonna go down there myself and rip off that damn job listing."

I told her no, that it wasn't another prank call, and that I was really interested. I was desperate for a job, honestly willing to do anything.

In hindsight, that was a bad move on my part.

The woman sounded excited to hear that I was interested. She quickly gave me an address and told me to head there for further instructions. I barely had time to write any of this down or ask any more questions before she hung up.

I was surprised, to say the least, that she seemed ready to have an interview at this time of day, which was 8 PM.

So I drove to the half-written address and parked in the back. The building was old, with no signs, cracked stone walls, and a heavy metal door with a keypad on it. I looked around, I guess thinking there'd be someone waiting to let me in, but there wasn't.

So I tried calling the number back.

No response.

I knocked on the door.

No response.

Although the door did creep open slowly.

A little nervous and very confused, I opened the door a little more, seeing a dimly lit lobby. I just said, "Hello?"

My voice echoed into the building, and another voice echoed back from an older man saying,

"Come in! Don't be shy, stranger!"

Stupidly and desperately, I followed the command, heading into the building.

The first thing I noticed was how dimly lit it was, barely showing the marbled floors, lavender walls, cracked stone ceiling, and wooden front desk. There at that front desk was an older gentleman with slicked-back black hair, a groomed beard, and a finely dressed three-piece suit.

He was soft-spoken, telling me:

"Yes, this is the 'Professional Cuddling' Association. Don't be mistaken by the broken light. It'll be fixed soon. We do things here very professionally and strictly, so no client nor worker gets harmed, scammed, or anything else that might negatively happen to them."

He then reached underneath the desk and pulled out a thick contract, almost as big as a phone book from back in the day.

He then said, "Just a formality. Don't let the 40 pages of legal jargon scare you. It's just like working at a normal job."

I felt speechless for once, as I wasn't expecting all of this for a "cuddling" job. I skimmed through the paperwork, signing my name wherever it needed to be signed, noticing briefly that there was an NDA tucked in the middle.

A "formality" in most "high-paying" jobs.

Regardless, I signed away and pushed the paperwork back to the gentleman.

"Perfect! Don't worry, we won't be using your real name here for privacy reasons, so we'll have you pick a nickname."

He said this softly as he then pulled out a top hat with a bunch of little papers inside.

I chuckled at this. Everything to this point seemed so "serious," and now I had to pull a mystery nickname out of a hat like some kind of magic trick.

So I dove my hand in and grabbed one at random.

The gentleman seemed excited at this, his eyes wide with anticipation as I pulled out a small folded piece of paper.

I opened the paper and audibly laughed.

"Bear," I said, wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.

"Bear! It suits you well. No offense. I'm glad you like the nickname. Now, all you need to do is head down the hallway and enter the first door to your right."

The gentleman said this with a gentle smile, pointing toward the hallway beside him.

Compared to the lobby, the hallway was warmer lit, with lavender-painted walls, cute little patterns hung above wooden doors, and numbers written on them. The left wall had all the odd numbers, while the right side had all the even numbers.

I eventually made it to the very end of the hallway and looked at the door I needed to head inside.

Number "24."

I opened it, and what I saw, I don't think I'll ever be able to unsee.

The room was completely different from the others.

Fake wooden walls covered the room, plastic antlers hung above the bed, and fake pine trees sat in the corners. Above the velvet bed was a wooden sign that read "BEAR DEN."

There was a woman sitting on the bed wearing a business suit.

In front of her, a man was crawling around on all fours, attached to her by a chain.

He was wearing a diaper.

That wasn't even the worst of it.

He was also wearing some sort of makeshift bear costume. It barely resembled a bear, let alone a man.

I just stood there in complete silence, staring at the scene.

Before I could even say or do anything, I heard down the hall:

"OH, wrong room, sir! I meant the door to the left, the left end door. My apologies."

The gentleman said this from the front desk, staring down the hallway.

I quickly backed out of the room and shut the door.

Was this really what I had signed up for?

The pay better be worth it.

Come to think of it, I really had no idea how much I was going to get paid at that time.

So I headed into the room labeled "23" and saw the same setup as the previous room: a velvet bed in the middle of the farthest wall, soft '80s-patterned carpet on the floor, dark green neon lights on the ceiling, and an open closet filled with various outfits.

My heart skipped a bit looking at everything.

I clearly didn't know what I had signed up for.

I sat down on the bed, steadying my breath, as I then heard a few soft knocks on the door before a lady immediately entered.

She had long blonde hair fixed into a ponytail, wore a nice violet dress, and had high heels.

She then spoke almost commandingly.

"I am Ms. Vanderbelt. Most of our clients usually refer to me as 'Lilith,' but don't let the name frighten you. I am gentle, caring, and forgiving.

"That being said, I have a few rules.

"1. NO kissing the clients.

"2. NO sexual interactions, no matter how 'hot' the client may be.

"3. NO violence unless self-defense.

"4. You get paid by the HOUR. Twenty dollars an hour. That being said, some clients may be there shorter than an hour, but your time will be rounded up to said hour.

"5. ANYTHING the client says goes unless they try to break the rules.

"6. Have fun.

"Now then, come lay down with me."

I was too afraid to say anything, so I laid down and cuddled up beside her.

What felt like hours must've only been minutes as she held me close, gently playing with my hair and whispering:

"Okay, Bear. Here goes your first day. Don't be scared, okay? If anything happens, there's a button beside the bed. Press it and I'll have Phil, the gentleman at the front desk, escort the client out."

She hugged me tightly before letting go and disappearing through the door.

I didn't know what the fuck just happened, but if that was the introduction to this job, I didn't think I was gonna last a week.

An hour had passed, and I sat there on the bed spacing off toward the outfits until a meekish man entered my room. He was wearing a baggy hoodie, thick-lensed glasses, and sweatpants.

"Uh, hello? Bear?" the client said nervously. "I heard I was your first client?! That's exciting... uh, don't worry, this won't last too long. I just need a way to destress myself from work. I come here all the time, if that helps."

He paused.

"So what would you like me to do?"

I gave the client a half smile.

"Yeah... that helps. So what would you like me to do?"

The client just nodded with a soft smile before saying,

"Just, uh, lay with me. Tell me I did a-a good job at work and I am a good man."

I kinda felt bad for the guy, so I laid down and held him for a bit, giving him compliments and gently rubbing his back.

After this encounter, a few similar clients came in during the following hours. Nothing "strange" outside of cuddling with strangers.

Eventually, midnight hit, with the last client just having me hold them as they cried.

Phil gently entered the bedroom and removed the client politely from the room.

I just kinda laid in bed, emotionally exhausted. My eyes grew heavy, and I passed out.

A week went by.

I dealt with regular clients, with the occasional odd request from fancy-dressed women. Slowly, I was being eased into this idea that the job wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be.

Then the meekish man from my first night returned, seeming to be in a more disheveled state.

He immediately spoke as he entered the room.

"Everything h-has been taken from me!... Everything. But this place and you, Bear. Oh, how I-I missed you, Bear. All I've been thinking about is this room and cuddling with you!"

My hand quickly reached for the red button, about to push it.

He saw what I was about to do and panicked.

"N-no, no, n-no, don't do that. We can relax! Hey. Hey! I'm sorry."

He then flopped onto the bed, sobbing his eyes out.

My hand was still shakily resting on the red button.

"Okay, buddy. I am gonna have to ask you to leave this room, okay? Or I am gonna have to press this red button."

I said this sternly.

"B-but Bear... I thought you were the one. Remember me, Bear."

James said this, then pulled a revolver from his hoodie and pressed it to his temple.

Before things could escalate, he bolted out of the door.

A few quiet moments went by as I shakily sat in bed, my hand still hovering over the red button, my heart racing out of my chest.

I won't lie and say that I would've willingly stayed there any longer.

I took what had just happened as an opportunity and fled out of the room.

Running down the hallway, I saw various "cuddlers" getting treated as pets. As I made it to the lobby, I stopped dead in my tracks after witnessing Phil's lifeless corpse slumped over the front desk.

Ms. Vanderbelt was also there.

Just staring at his body.

Then she looked at me.

Now in a state of panic, I ran back into my room, only briefly hearing other clients call out my name as if to invite me into their currently "occupied" rooms.

I dove into my room and shut the door behind me, using my weight to keep it locked.

All I could hear was my heartbeat, in perfect rhythm with the heavy footsteps going down the hall.

"BEAR! YOU'VE BEEN A BAD BOY! I DIDN'T WANT TO HAVE TO TREAT YOU LIKE THE REST OF THESE ANIMALS, BUT YOU'RE LEAVING ME WITH NO CHOICE!"

Ms. Vanderbelt yelled as she slammed against the door.

I could also hear barking.

Before I knew it, the door got practically busted down, pushing me across the floor.

Now in front of me was Ms. Vanderbelt, holding leashes attached to two grown-ass men wearing gimp costumes and barking at me.

I threw caution to the wind as I stayed and got up like I was about to die if I didn't move.

So carefully, I evaded one of the "dogs" diving for me, shoving the other one out of the way and running for the door that seemed so much farther away than before.

I wasn't fast enough.

One of the "dogs" lunged again and caught me across the back. I felt something sharp tear through my shirt, leaving a burning scratch across my skin.

I stumbled forward, but I didn't stop.

I didn't even look back.

Ms. Vanderbelt just laughed devilishly as, in a blink of an eye, I got back on my way out the door.

My head spun while making it down the hallway, reaching the front door.

It was locked.

Of course it had to be locked.

I didn't let that stop me, though, as I ran over toward Phil's body and scavenged it.

I found a key in his front pants pocket, along with two shells for a shotgun, which was laying beneath the front desk.

My hands were very unsteady as I loaded both shells into the shotgun and raced back to the front door.

I could hear the "dogs" making their way down the hall while I scrambled for the key in my pocket.

Then everything was a blur.

I had entirely been consumed by tunnel vision.

Before I knew it, I had pulled the trigger, injuring one of the "dogs" and killing the other one.

I fled out of the building and back to my van, starting the engine and driving recklessly.

My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely keep the van on the road. I didn't care where I was going. I just needed to get as far away from that place as possible, and the last thing I could remember from that day was hearing a voice from somewhere inside the van.

"Remember me, Bear."

There once was a treehouse so big and so tall,

From which little Tommy took a great fall.

He broke all his bones with a big, loud snap,

And landed below with his neck in his lap.

But Tommy still waits there, alone in the night,

And he'll pull you down if you don't hold on tight.

~

I was five years old when little Tommy Leeman went missing. I had never met him. In fact, another five years would pass before I first heard about Tommy’s treehouse and what supposedly took place there.

What follows is my account of what happened to me and some of my childhood friends. These are not exaggerations. I will tell this story exactly as I remember it. It is up to you to accept my testimony as truth or wave it aside as another hoax or campfire story.

This is the story of Tommy Leeman’s treehouse, and what happened to us there.

~

ONE

“Come on, Mark! What are you waiting for?”

Julie stood at the top of the hill, her yellow, mud-stained dress blowing in the soft breeze. It was late August. Soon, the yellow dresses and bare knees would have to make way for raincoats and jeans.

“I’m trying! You know I don’t run that fast.”

I tried to keep up with the group, my cheeks flushed from running. When I finally did make it to the top of the hill, the surrounding fields and woods stretched out before us, glowing orange in the setting sun.

“Are we really sure this is a good idea? I mean, we are supposed to be home soon.”

“Oh, does poor little Marky need to be home soon?”

She pretended to suck her thumb and rubbed her eyes like a baby. This made me blush even more. Julie noticed, as usual.

“Where are Jackson and Lucas anyway?” I cupped my hands around my eyes and used them as makeshift binoculars to scan the fields, but I could not see them anywhere.

“They went to the treehouse.”

“No, they didn’t.” I lowered my hands and stared straight into Julie’s grey eyes.

“They did!”

“Julie, you know our parents don’t allow us there!”

“Come on, Mark! It’s the end of the summer, and we all wanted to do something special, remember? This is it!”

“We all agreed to bike to the lake tomorrow,” I tried to convince her, but I already knew that ship had sailed.

“Lucas! Jackson!” I called for them a couple of times, but a reply never came. I couldn’t tell if they couldn’t hear me because of the wind or if they were simply ignoring me.

The woods started at the bottom of the hill, where the tall grass suddenly gave way to bushes and tightly packed trees. From where we stood, I could only see a few feet past the edge before everything disappeared behind branches and leaves.

“Seems like we will have to go find them after all.”

Julie started for the woods, and I had to follow her to hear what she said next.

“If we can start school next week and tell all our classmates we visited the treehouse this summer, everyone will think we are cool!”

I couldn’t argue with that. Some other kids claimed to have visited the year before, and everyone thought they were the coolest kids in school. Rumors even spread that they had gone inside, though I wasn’t sure if that part was true.

Julie turned her head and smiled when she saw me thinking about it.

“We can’t let Jackson and Lucas take all the credit now, can we?”

Again, I couldn’t argue with that.

We didn’t understand back then why our parents did not want us to visit Tommy Leeman’s old treehouse. We knew we would get in trouble if someone caught us, but we were young. And young kids do stupid things. It’s one of the unwritten laws of the universe.

So, in our ignorance, Julie and I chased after my friends and towards the woods.

TWO

Julie and I found the others at the entrance to the forest. A locked metal gate blocked the trail, and a large PRIVATE PROPERTY DO NOT ENTER sign hung from the rusted metal. It was clear we were not allowed to be there, but few things are more stubborn than a child’s pride.

“Like I told you, I have been here before!” Lucas crawled underneath the gate in an attempt to prove his point.

“Like hell you have!”

Lucas had a tendency to make things up, so Jackson was right to question him.

“If you have been here before, then why have you never told us about it?”

“Because I promised Yoshua I would never tell anyone!”

“Yeah right.” I pushed my glasses back along my nose. “We all know your brother thinks you’re a dork. He wouldn’t take you anywhere.”

“You’re the dork, Mark!”

“You’re all dorks,” Jackson said while pretending to sound like our math teacher.

At this, we all laughed.

Jackson pulled up his tube socks and climbed over the gate instead of crawling underneath, then immediately turned around and looked at an unimpressed Julie.

Lucas and I noticed this and fought hard not to burst into laughter again.

Jackson always tried a little harder whenever Julie was watching. Back then, none of us ever said anything about it.

The woods provided us all with some welcome shade. After spending the last twenty-five minutes crossing open fields, we were all more tired than we liked to admit. I licked my lips and wished we hadn’t forgotten to bring drinks.

“So Mark, what do you think really happened to Tommy Leeman?”

Julie tried to sound ominous, and I could already feel the hairs on my arms starting to rise.

“Uh, I don’t know. My parents always told me he fell from the treehouse because one of the ladder rungs broke.”

“And do you believe that?”

I had no reason not to.

“I was told they never found a body,” Jackson said.

We continued along the narrow trail. Dry branches cracked beneath our shoes, and every so often one of us had to duck underneath a low-hanging branch.

Lucas turned around and hesitated for a couple of seconds.

“My brother told me a different story. One that explains why no body was ever found.”

“Tell us, tell us!” Julie seemed eager to learn about this version of the story Lucas was about to either invent or blow out of proportion.

“Fine, I will tell you, but only if you promise me you won’t go crying to your parents tonight.”

I shrugged. “Come on, man. It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, but it is.”

Lucas stepped over a thick root stretching across the trail and waited for the rest of us to catch up.

“Fine,” Jackson said. “As long as we keep walking in the meantime.”

“From what my brother told me, Tommy Leeman was a loner. He didn’t have any friends, and when his parents noticed, his dad decided to build him a treehouse. He thought it might help Tommy make friends if he had the coolest treehouse in the neighborhood.”

“Get to the scary part,” Jackson said.

“I’m getting there!”

Lucas walked a little faster, forcing us to follow.

“So Mister Leeman spent weeks working on it, making sure everything was sturdy and cool-looking. But when he finally showed the treehouse to Tommy, he ran away screaming.”

“Why?” Julie asked.

It was the first time I had ever seen her look nervous.

“That’s what his dad wanted to know too. He chased Tommy all the way back to the edge of the woods. When he finally caught up with him, Tommy told him what he had seen.”

Lucas stopped walking.

“There was something standing in the treehouse window, staring down at them. Something tall and shadow-like. Even from a distance, Tommy could see its white teeth and the big holes where its eyes should have been.”

Lucas covered his eyes with his hands and grinned from ear to ear, rising onto the tips of his toes.

“Stop it, man, you’re not funny,” I said, feeling the heat radiate from my cheeks.

“But I can’t stop now, Marky-boy. We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”

I wanted to ask him again to quit, but Jackson and Julie seemed eager to hear the rest of the story. So instead I stared at the brown patches on Julie’s dress and said nothing.

“Please continue, Sir Lucas.” Julie curtsied, much to Lucas’s liking.

“Naturally, Tommy’s dad didn’t believe him. So they climbed the sturdy ladder together. And indeed, nothing was there. Slowly but surely, Tommy Leeman started to like his new treehouse. He would spend hours there every day, but he never invited anyone over.”

“So he was just by himself all the time?” Jackson asked, scratching his arm.

“No. He was not.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, hoping this story would take a somewhat positive turn.

“There was something there with him.”

We all stopped walking and stared at Lucas in anticipation.

“You see, Tommy had been right all along. Something was there inside the treehouse. But it would only show itself to Tommy.”

“You’re making stuff up!” Jackson shouted. He looked genuinely scared now.

“I’m not! Tommy’s dad said that himself. He heard Tommy talking to someone inside the treehouse multiple times, but every time he climbed the ladder, the talking would stop and only Tommy would be there.”

“So what did the thing want?” Julie asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. But my brother says Tommy eventually made some kind of deal with it. It promised him he would never be lonely again.”

“I heard that he was snatched by a killer,” Jackson said.

“What if the monster was the killer?” Julie asked, looking from one face to another.

“You all know this is a load of crap!” I yelled, annoyed by their attempts to scare each other. “My parents said Tommy Leeman fell from the tree and broke his neck. That’s what happened and you all know it!”

The group started snickering at my outburst, and it wasn’t long before they were all laughing again.

“It’s not funny, guys! It’s getting dark and we have to get home.”

“But why would you want to leave now?” Lucas asked.

He pointed between the trees ahead.

At first, I didn’t understand what he was pointing at. All I could see were branches and leaves. Then I noticed the straight edges of something hidden between them.

A small square window.

And beneath it, a ladder stretching down toward the forest floor.

I stopped walking.

Tommy Leeman’s treehouse.

Lucas smiled.

“We just got here.”

THREE

I still remember how quiet we became when we first saw the dilapidated treehouse. None of us wanted to admit it, but after everything Lucas had told us, standing beneath the real thing felt different.

“It’s way smaller than how I remember it,” Lucas said, looking up at the treehouse.

“Dude, shut up. We all know you haven’t been here before. Enough with the jokes.”

Jackson was right. There was a time and a place for Lucas’s lies and jokes, but now was neither.

“So, are we going up?” Julie asked, staring at the opening underneath the treehouse.

“You’re joking, right? Look at the rot on those rungs.” I pointed at the ladder. Several rungs were missing, and the ones that remained looked ready to snap.

“Oh come on, I’m sure they’ve got some life left in them.” Lucas put his weight on the bottom rung, which creaked beneath his shoe.

“We saw what we came for. Let’s head back home before our parents get too worried.”

“Come on, Mark. Why do you always have to be such a goody-two-shoes?”

Julie grabbed the ladder and slowly began working her way up.

“If I see any of you looking underneath my dress, I’m telling everyone at school about that one time you all decided to eat worms.”

The three of us immediately looked away.

“Please, just be careful,” Lucas said, all bravado leaving his voice.

We heard the ladder creak and groan under Julie’s weight. But Lucas was right. None of the rungs came loose, and Julie made it inside in one piece.

“Wow, you guys have to see this!”

“What is it?” I asked.

No response came.

“J-Julie?”

I could hear the worry in my own voice, but judging by Jackson and Lucas’s faces, they felt it too.

“Come on, Jules, it’s not funny.” Jackson tugged at the first rung to check if it would hold his weight.

“Maybe Mark should go. You know, if it can hold his weight, it can hold all of us.”

“Screw you.” I pushed Jackson aside and started climbing the decaying ladder.

More than once during the climb, I was convinced one of the rungs would snap and I would fall to my death, just like Tommy Leeman supposedly had. But eventually, I made it to the top.

Julie stood inside the treehouse, motionless.

“Hey, Julie, you had us all worried. Why didn’t you respond?”

“What do you mean, goofball? I did respond. I even looked down the hole and waved at you guys. You were just too busy deciding who was climbing up next. Look what I found, though.”

For a moment, I just stared at her. I was certain none of us had heard her.

The inside of the treehouse was littered with old books, toys, comics and children’s drawings.

“Do you think these are Tommy’s things?” I asked, grabbing one of the comics and wiping the dust from its cover.

“I mean, they have to be, right? Who else would leave stuff here for this long?”

The comic book was yanked from my hands, and I turned around to find Lucas staring at the cover in surprise.

“No way! This is, like, so cool!”

“Leave it, Lucas. It’s not ours.”

Lucas threw the comic back onto the old floor, but something told me it would soon find its way into his backpack, which he would, of course, know nothing about.

Hands appeared over the edge of the opening. I grabbed Jackson by the wrist and helped him inside. Despite his fear of heights, he had apparently decided the treehouse was worth seeing for himself. He stayed away from the opening once he was inside.

“I told you!” Lucas yelled, holding up a piece of paper.

We gathered around him, careful of where we placed our feet.

In his hand was a child’s drawing of the treehouse. A small figure stood beneath it, drawn with little more than a circle for a head and lines for its arms and legs. But Lucas was pointing toward the window.

There was another figure inside.

Someone had scribbled over its face again and again in black crayon until the paper had nearly torn through.

“See? That’s him, The Grinner!”

“The what?”

“The Grinner. I figured every monster needs a name.”

Julie snatched the drawing from him, crushed it into a ball and threw it into the corner.

“I don’t want to hear about this Grinner anymore, Lucas. Enough.”

“Oooh, little Julie’s getting scared!” He raised his hands over his eyes again.

Julie punched him in the shoulder so hard that he was still rubbing it minutes later.

The treehouse truly looked as if no one had touched it for five years. Even I had to fight the urge to take some of the toys and comics with us. It just felt like a waste to leave them there to rot, but at the same time, we all knew it would be disrespectful to take something from a child who was no longer here.

There were some other drawings, but none were as disturbing as the one Lucas had found. Some of them showed Tommy’s dad working on the treehouse. Others showed Tommy inside, pretending to be a knight defending his castle.

Julie picked up one of these and smiled.

“This one’s actually kind of cute.”

It showed Tommy standing in the window with what looked like a cardboard sword in his hand. A badly drawn crown sat crooked on his head.

“King Tommy,” Jackson said.

“More like Sir Tommy,” Lucas corrected him.

For a moment, we almost forgot why we were there.

The longer we spent inside, however, the more it felt as if we were invading a private space. These had been Tommy’s things. His drawings. His comics. His toys. We were going through the remains of someone else’s childhood simply because we were curious.

“Hey, guys, why is there no dust in this corner?”

We turned towards Jackson.

He was crouched beside one of the walls, staring at the floor.

We had not noticed it when we first entered the treehouse, but now that Jackson had pointed it out, the difference was obvious. Dust covered almost every inch of the old wooden floor except for one small patch in the corner.

I crouched beside him and ran my finger across one of the dusty boards. It came away almost completely grey.

The boards inside the small patch were clean.

“Uh, perhaps Tommy’s dad comes up here sometimes?” I said.

“No.” Lucas moved closer. “This spot is way too small to be an adult.”

None of us wanted to admit it, but he was right.

The clean section wasn't much bigger than the space one of us would take up sitting with our knees against our chest.

Jackson stood again.

“Maybe an animal sleeps here.”

That explanation made me feel slightly better.

“Yeah,” I said. “Probably.”

Julie hadn't said anything.

She was staring at the floor beside the clean patch.

“What?”

She pointed.

Footprints.

Small, bare footprints led away from the corner.

For a few seconds, nobody spoke.

“They could be old,” Lucas finally said.

I looked at him.

“There's no dust inside them.”

Lucas stopped smiling.

We followed the prints across the floor until they reached the wall. At least, that’s what I thought at first.

Julie stepped closer.

“No.”

“What?”

She pointed again.

“They don't stop.”

I followed her finger.

There was another footprint several inches above the floor.

Then another.

They weren't leading towards the wall. They were leading onto it.

The four of us stood completely still as we followed the trail upwards. Small footprints climbed the wooden boards one after another, as if whoever had made them had simply walked up the wall.

Jackson backed away.

“That’s not possible.”

Nobody answered him.

The footprints reached the ceiling and continued across it.

Something creaked above us.

Julie grabbed my arm so suddenly that I almost shouted.

“I think we should leave, guys.”

Tears welled in her eyes. For once, nobody made fun of her.

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “I think we’ve seen enough.”

Even Lucas nodded.

I started towards the opening.

Before I could reach the ladder, something cracked beneath us.

We froze.

Another crack followed.

I dropped onto my knees and looked through the opening just in time to see one of the ladder rungs tumble towards the dirt below.

“What the hell?”

Another tore loose.

Then another.

“Get back!” Jackson yelled.

Within seconds, the remaining rungs had fallen away, leaving nothing but two rotten lengths of wood hanging uselessly beneath the treehouse.

We all screamed.

Me, Julie, Lucas, Jackson, and whatever had its hand wrapped around Jackson’s arm.

FOUR

We all screamed as the treehouse shook around us, sending dirt and dust raining down from the ceiling. Something pale had its hand wrapped around Jackson’s arm, and he frantically tried to claw himself free. He punched and flailed his free arm, desperately trying to strike whoever had grabbed him. His fist connected. The treehouse filled with a shriek, followed by sobs.

“Stop, it’s a boy!” Julie yelled.

The rest of us stopped screaming. Lucas continued for another second. We stared. A small child was clutching Jackson’s arm. The boy was crying, but he refused to let go. Jackson finally managed to tear the hand away and fell backwards onto the wooden floor, sending freshly fallen dust into the air.

“Tommy Leeman, is that you?” I asked, struggling to maintain my composure.

“I-I don’t know. Tommy. Who is Tommy?” The child looked confused, and he rubbed the tears in his eyes. “Am I Tommy?”

“This can’t be happening!” Lucas looked shaken. We all were, but as usual, he was the first person to actually say it.

Julie was the first of us to recover. She slowly crouched beside the little boy. He could not have been more than five years old. His dark hair was unevenly cut, as if he had tried maintaining it himself. He was not wearing a shirt, and cuts and bruises covered his emaciated body. Up until that point, I didn’t know humans could be that skinny. His pants were torn in several places, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. At least that explained the footprints. It did not explain how they had ended up on the walls and ceiling.

“Are you lost, Tommy? Do you know where you are?”

“T-tr-treehouse,” the little boy managed to whisper.

I found some courage and moved a little closer. He seemed more nervous the closer I got, so I decided to keep some distance.

“Hi. My name is Mark. I’m sorry we walked into your treehouse. But the stories. We thought you were... gone.”

Julie shot me an angry look. The boy replied.

“G-gone?”

“What Mark is trying to say is that everyone in Stamford has been looking for you for a very long time, Tommy. How long have you been here?”

The boy thought for a couple of seconds.

“I don’t know.”

Jackson opened the little window from the drawing, and started screaming for help.

“Stop it already, Jackson,” Lucas said. He seemed to have regained his composure, but tears still rolled down his cheeks.

“Come on man, we need to like, make a rope or something.”

“Make a rope from what?” Lucas shrugged and sat on the floor. “From scraps of paper and toys?”

Jackson sighed and joined him.

“Hey Tommy,” Julie said, reaching for the boy's cheek with the back of her hand, slowly caressing it. “Is there any way we can get down, or maybe get your parents to come over here?”

“Parents?”

“Yes,” she said. “Mister and Missus Leeman. Your mommy and daddy.”

“Mommy and daddy are with me,” the boy replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I can whisper it to you.”

The boy looked Julie in the eyes. There was something strange about the way he said it. We all felt it, but he was just a child, and Julie seemed to know how to talk to him better than any of us did.

She leaned closer.

The boy lifted his face towards her ear.

I turned to look at Jackson and Lucas. Both still looked shaken, but for the first time since finding Tommy, I felt something close to relief.

We had found him.

Whatever had happened here, Tommy Leeman was alive.

A scream filled the treehouse.

I spun around.

Blood covered the side of Julie’s face and ran down Tommy’s chin.

He had leaned in as if to whisper something.

Instead, he had bitten Julie’s ear clean off.

Jackson and Lucas started to scream again, and I fell to my knees, vomiting all over the wooden floor.

Julie screamed too, but her scream quickly turned into a wet gargle. It wasn’t until I looked up from the floor that I understood why.

Tommy stared at the blood running down his chin. Cracks appeared across his face and skull. Black roots moved beneath his skin. Then they forced their way out. They squirmed and expanded as they pulled his face apart from the inside. For one terrible moment, I could still see the little boy underneath it all.

Then the roots found Julie. They expanded as they dug into her body. They penetrated her face, digging into her eyes, replacing them with thick roots. They dug into her belly, ruining her stained yellow dress along with her body. Julie no longer screamed. She no longer did anything. She just hung there, suspended in the air, as the thing lifted her further up, and violated her even more. Blood sprayed everywhere, covering the entire treehouse. Then came a long, wet tearing sound.

Julie’s body gave way. The roots pulled in opposite directions, tearing through her before dropping what remained of her onto the floor in two separate pieces. I vomited again.

Through watering eyes, I tried desperately to get back to my feet before whatever had been living inside Tommy Leeman decided I was next.

The entire treehouse shook. A deep rumbling came from somewhere beneath us.

I tried to stand, but something slammed into the outside wall and knocked me down again. Once. Twice. On the third impact, part of the wall splintered inward. A root thicker than my leg forced its way through the broken wood. Whatever was inside Tommy was not the only part of this thing.

Tommy Leeman had become unrecognizable. He was tall now, almost touching the ceiling. Several hands and feet were visible within the tangle of roots and dirt, gripping uselessly at the air around them. They almost seemed panicked. Patches of white skin remained between the roots. Tommy’s mouth was still there too, stretched wider than it should have been. I scrambled to my feet and turned towards Jackson and Lucas. They stood above the opening in the floor, staring at where the ladder used to be.

None of us spoke. There was nothing to say. There was only survival.

The thing behind me groaned like a giant oak tree and slowly dragged itself towards us. Thick hands made of dark roots scraped across the boards. At the ends of its fingers, I could still see human fingernails. Several were broken.

“We have to jump!” Jackson yelled. “It’s the only way down.”

I shook my head.

“It’s too high, Jackson. We’ll die.”

“We’ll die anyway if we stay here, Mark!” Lucas interrupted.

Something slammed into the side of the treehouse again.

Jackson had been afraid of heights for as long as I could remember. The last time I saw him alive, that fear was gone. There was only this primal look in his eyes as he lowered himself through the opening and hung from the edge.

Then he let go.

It seemed to take forever before Jackson hit the ground. All Lucas and I could do was watch.

He landed hard.

Even through all the noise inside the treehouse, we heard his bones break.

Jackson never moved again.

He just lay at the base of the tree, with his neck in his lap.

The walls of the treehouse finally gave way as more roots forced themselves through the wood.

“There!”

I pointed towards the opening.

Through the broken wall, we could see the branches of a neighboring tree swaying wildly between the roots. It wasn't close enough to climb across, but it was close enough to jump.

Lucas saw it too.

If we wanted to get out of the treehouse, we would have to get past whatever Tommy Leeman had become and somehow reach those branches. It was the only way out.

The thing was close now.

More roots twisted around its body, pulling themselves into knots and making it larger with every passing second. Pieces of Tommy's pale skin were still visible between them. Several hands clawed uselessly at the air from somewhere inside the mass.

The treehouse groaned beneath its weight.

It wouldn't hold much longer.

Lucas pushed me aside, shaking me out of my terror.

“Come on, Mark, please! We have to go now!”

He was right.

We ran.

Tommy swung a massive arm of roots towards us. Broken fingernails scraped across my legs, and I fell hard against the wooden floor.

By the time I looked up, Lucas had reached the opening.

He didn't look back.

He jumped.

For a second, I thought he had missed. Then the branches bent beneath his weight and disappeared from view.

I don’t blame him for not looking back. We were young, and I would have done the same.

The roots came for me again.

This time, they caught me across the face.

Blood filled my eye. The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt, but somehow I stayed on my feet.

Tommy was strong.

He was heavy.

But he was slow.

In the end, I think that is what saved me.

I ran for the hole in the wall.

And jumped.

FIVE

Branches and leaves tore at my face as they broke my fall.

I couldn’t see.

Everything was red.

I tasted copper, and I was afraid it would be the last thing I ever tasted.

Poor Julie.

Poor innocent Julie.

And Jackson, who had spent the entire afternoon pretending he wasn’t afraid of anything.

I still think about you both.

We never should have visited that treehouse.

A branch snapped beneath me.

I crashed through the last layer of leaves and hit the forest floor hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe. I lay there gasping, convinced something inside me had broken. Then hands grabbed my shoulders. I screamed and tried to crawl away. “Mark! Mark, it’s me!” Lucas. He turned me around. “Get up. We need to go.” He was alive.

His face was scratched and bleeding from the branches, and he could barely put weight on one of his feet, but he was alive. “I-I can’t see, Lucas. You have to help me.” “Hold still.” Lucas wiped at the blood around my eye with the sleeve of his shirt. It helped for all of two seconds before fresh blood ran down my cheek. Above us, the treehouse groaned. We both looked up.

Something dark pushed through what remained of the roof.

More roots wrapped around the trunk and walls, bending the entire structure under their weight. Then the treehouse gave way. It crashed through the branches and slammed into the forest floor. Dust and splintered wood exploded around the base of the tree. Lucas and I stood frozen.

Something moved on top of the wreckage. Tommy Leeman, or whatever had been using what was left of him. Long arms of roots reached down until they touched the forest floor. The hands trapped inside the mass opened and closed. Searching. “Run,” Lucas whispered. We ran.

Or at least, we tried to. Lucas limped badly, and I could only see clearly through one eye. Branches whipped across our faces. Roots caught our shoes. More than once, I tripped over rocks I couldn’t see and felt Lucas grab the back of my shirt to keep me upright. Behind us, something heavy moved through the forest. We heard wood cracking. Trees shaking. A rumbling beneath the soil. I didn’t look back, and neither did Lucas. At one point, his injured foot gave way and he fell. I stopped. For half a second, every part of me told me to keep running, but I went back. I grabbed him underneath the arm and pulled.

“Come on!”

“I’m trying!”

Something moved beneath the leaves behind us. The ground lifted in a straight line heading towards us. Lucas saw it too. He got back on his feet, and we ran harder. Eventually, the tightly packed trees ahead began to thin. For the first time since entering the woods, I could see the orange evening sky again. Then I saw the gate.

“There!” I don’t remember which one of us shouted it. Maybe both. We stumbled towards it. Lucas dropped onto his stomach first and dragged himself underneath. I followed.

The rusted metal caught the back of my shirt and tore through the fabric. For one horrible second, I thought something had grabbed me.

Then I pulled free and rolled into the grass on the other side. Something crashed through the undergrowth behind us, and Lucas and I scrambled backwards. We waited, expecting the thing to burst through the trees after us, but nothing came.

The rumbling continued somewhere inside the forest. Branches shook, and something large moved in the darkness beyond the gate, but it did not follow. I still don’t know why. Maybe the gate marked the edge of whatever territory the thing had claimed, or maybe it simply chose to let us go. I have spent most of my life trying not to think about the difference.

Lucas and I stumbled across the fields without speaking. There were no jokes left, no arguing, no Julie mocking me for being afraid and no Jackson trying to impress her. There was only Lucas and me. We walked until the fields gave way to a road, where a passing driver stopped after seeing two blood-covered children stumble out of the grass.

After that, my memories become less clear. There were police and an ambulance. I remember my mother crying while people asked where Julie and Jackson were and what had happened to my face. They separated Lucas and me before questioning us, and I remember being terrified by that. I thought they believed we had done something to Julie and Jackson.

But Lucas told them the same story I did. Every impossible detail was there. Tommy. The footprints. The roots. Julie. Jackson. The treehouse collapsing. When they finally let us see each other again, Lucas asked me if I thought they believed us. I told him I didn’t know.

Search parties entered the woods that same night. The following morning, they found the treehouse standing exactly where it had always stood.

When my father told me, I thought I had misunderstood him.

“What do you mean, standing?”

He didn’t answer.

“What do you mean the treehouse is still there?”

They searched inside and found old toys, comics, drawings and dust. There was no blood, no broken wall and no hole beneath the clean patch in the corner. There was no Tommy Leeman, no Julie, and no Jackson beneath the tree.

I told them that was impossible. Lucas did too. We had watched the treehouse collapse. I had watched Julie die inside it and Jackson hit the ground beneath it. There should have been blood everywhere. There should have been pieces of Julie on the floor. Jackson should have been lying beneath the tree with his neck broken.

They found nothing.

For months, people searched those woods. Eventually, Julie and Jackson were added to the same list as Tommy Leeman. They were no longer presumed to be hiding somewhere or waiting to be found. They were simply missing children.

Lucas and I remained friends for a while after that. In some ways, we were the only people either of us could stand being around because nobody else knew what we knew. But talking to him also meant remembering. Eventually, we stopped spending time together. We went to different schools, then different towns, and years passed without us seeing each other.

Neither of us ever stopped believing the other. That mattered more than I understood at the time.

Lucas and I know what happened. We know something lives inside those woods, and years later, when we were both old enough to convince ourselves that returning was a good idea, we went back.

The treehouse was still there. Through the branches, we could just make out the small square window, and someone was standing behind it.

A little girl in a yellow dress.

Julie waved at us. She had no eyes, and when she smiled, her mouth stretched from ear to ear.

The cabin had been David's idea, though by the time they pulled into the gravel drive, neither of them could remember whose idea it had actually been. That was how most of their conversations went now, a slow unraveling of who wanted what, who said what, who was to blame for the silence that had moved into their marriage like some unwanted guest that neither of them agreed to let in.

"It's smaller than the pictures," Maya said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

David looked up at the structure through the windshield. Two stories of dark brown, weathered timber, a stone chimney leaning very slightly to the left, and windows so dark they looked less like glass and more like the cabin was simply missing its eyes. Pine trees crowded close on every side, close enough that their branches scraped the roof when the wind moved through them, which it did constantly, a low continuous hiss that never quite settled into silence and never quite rose into sound.

"It's private," David said. "That's what we wanted."

Maya didn't answer. She was already opening her door, already stepping out into air that smelled of wet bark and old snow, though it was only October and the ground was clear.

They had booked the cabin for a long weekend, four nights to be exact, no cell service advertised as a feature rather than a flaw, a hot tub on the back deck, a fire pit, a trailhead a half-mile down a dirt access road. The listing had used the word *secluded* three times. David had read that word to Maya out loud, in the kitchen of their house back in the city, three months after the funeral, and she had looked at him with an expression he still couldn't parse, it was more an absence of expression.

Their daughter's name had been Ellie. She had been four years old at the time. David still could not make himself write the word *died* in his own head without flinching, so instead he thought of it in softer shapes — *what happened*, *the accident*, *before and after*. No matter what words he used to describe it, he still flinched.

They hadn't spoken her name since they'd left the house that morning. They hadn’t talked about what happened at all for the last month.

Inside, the cabin smelled of cedar and the faint smell of stale smoke from the fireplace. The furniture was rustic in the way that furniture is when someone has decided rusticity is a selling point. A leather couch scarred with use, a deer skull mounted above the mantel with antlers that cast long shadows even in daylight, a braided rug worn thin in a path from the front door to the kitchen, as though someone had walked that exact route ten thousand times.

"There's no one here," Maya said, standing in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed over her chest.

"That's the point. We booked the whole place."

"No, I mean — " She turned in a slow circle, taking in the room. "There's no *caretaker*. No neighbor. The listing said someone checks on the property, waters plants, whatever. There's nothing alive in here. Not even a fern."

David set their bags down by the stairs. "You want a fern?"

"I want it to not feel like the last people who stayed here left in a hurry."

He didn't have an answer for that, so he didn't give one. Instead he went to the kitchen and found the note the property manager had left on the counter, a folded index card with handwriting slanted hard to the right: *Welcome! Firewood is stacked on the east side. Well water is safe to drink, may taste of minerals. Enjoy your stay. — the Hollis family.*

There was no phone number on the card.

They unpacked in near silence, the kind of silence that had become their default register since Ellie, a silence so familiar it had started to feel less like the absence of speech and more like its own kind of language, full of things they'd agreed without discussing. David hung their clothes in a closet that smelled faintly of cedar shavings. Maya stood at the bedroom window for a long time, looking out at the tree line, though there was nothing to see there but trees.

"David."

"Yeah."

"Come look at this."

He crossed the room. Out the window, maybe forty yards into the trees, there was a structure. It was small, square, the kind of thing that might once have been a shed or an outhouse, though its roof had long since caved in on one side, leaving a black wedge of open space like a mouth frozen mid-word.

"Probably from whoever had the property before the Hollises," David said.

"There's a door standing open."

He looked again. She was right. The door, or what remained of it, a few boards still hanging from rusted hinges stood ajar, and even from this distance, even in the flat gray light of late afternoon, David had the unmistakable sense that the darkness inside that doorway was facing them. Which was an absurd thing to think about a hole in a broken shed, and he told himself so, and he told Maya so too, and she nodded in the distracted way she'd been nodding at most things he said for months, and they went back to unpacking.

That night they cooked dinner together. It was the first thing they'd done *together*, rather than merely adjacent to each other, in longer than David wanted to think about. Maya chopped vegetables while David got a fire going in the wood stove, and for twenty minutes, maybe thirty, something almost like their old rhythm returned, the easy division of labor, the small jokes, the way she used to hip-check him out of the way at the cutting board.

Then, halfway through dinner, the noises started.

It began as a scraping sound, distant, coming from somewhere beyond the tree line. A slow, dragging scratch, like something heavy being pulled across bark. David set down his fork. Maya had already stopped eating.

"Deer," David said. "Probably rubbing antlers against a tree."

"It's October. Rut doesn't start till November."

He looked at her. "Since when do you know about deer rut?"

"Since I looked it up on the drive, because I wanted to know what we might see out here." Her voice had an edge to it, thin and defensive, the particular tone she used when she felt caught doing something sentimental, something hopeful, something that might be mocked for wanting the trip to be good.

The scraping sound came again, closer this time, or seeming closer, though David told himself sound did strange things in forests, bounced off trunks, or even doubled back on itself.

"I'm going to look," he said.

"David—"

"It's fine. I'll take the flashlight."

He regretted the decision almost as soon as he stepped onto the back deck, not because anything happened because nothing happened, that was the maddening part. The moment the door shut behind him, the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees and the dark beyond the porch light's reach had a *density* to it he didn't have a word for, a dark that didn't so much surround the cabin as press against it.

The flashlight beam found nothing. Trees, more trees, the pale scatter of a few birches breaking up the black wall of pine. The scraping sound had stopped the instant he opened the door, as if it had been waiting for him. He stood there for almost a full minute, listening. Somewhere very far off, an owl called twice and then didn't call again.

When he came back inside, Maya was standing exactly where he'd left her, but she had turned to face the window instead of the table, and she didn't look at him when he shut the door.

"It stopped," he said. "Whatever it was. Probably an animal that heard the door."

"There was someone standing by the tree line," Maya said. "While you were out there. On the deck. Someone was standing about where that shed is."

David felt something cold move through his chest, quick and clean as a blade. "What did you see?"

"A shape. Just — a shape, standing still, between two trees. I thought it was you at first, but you were on the deck still. This was further, right at the edge where I could still kind of see." She wrapped her arms around herself. "It didn't move the whole time you were out there. And then when you came back in, I looked again and it was gone."

"Maya, it's pitch black out there. You probably saw a stump. Or a shadow shifting when the clouds moved."

"I know what I saw, David."

"You don't, though. That's — that's the whole thing about the dark, you can't ever really know what you saw." He heard how clinical he sounded, how much like a man building a case rather than a man comforting his wife, and he softened his voice, and tried again. "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying it's dark and we're tired and we just drove nine hours and neither of us has been sleeping."

Maya's jaw tightened in a way he recognized, a way that used to precede fights about smaller things — whose turn it was to do the dishes, whether they should repaint the guest room. Before the fights had all become about one thing, disguised as a hundred different things, until eventually they'd stopped fighting altogether because fighting required a kind of hope neither of them still had.

"Forget it," she said. "I'm going to bed."

David didn't sleep well. He lay on his back in the unfamiliar bed, listening to the house settle around him, the particular language of old wood. The pops and ticks and long low groans that could have been anything and most likely, David thought, were nothing. Beside him, Maya's breathing had the shallow, catching quality of someone who was also awake and also pretending not to be.

Sometime after two in the morning, he heard footsteps.

Not outside, but inside. On the stairs. A slow, deliberate creak, then another, evenly spaced, the unmistakable rhythm of someone climbing.

He sat up. "Maya?"

She was there beside him, awake, her eyes open in the dark. "I heard it too."

They lay still, listening. The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and stopped.

For a long time — thirty seconds, a minute, long enough that David's heart began to slow, and began to convince himself that he imagined the whole thing and Maya too began to close her eyes again.

Then, from directly outside their bedroom door, they heard a child laugh.

It was brief. A single bright peal of laughter, high and delighted, the exact particular pitch of a very young girl finding something funny, and then it cut off. Not faded, not trailed away, but *cut*, as cleanly as a recording stopped mid-note.

Maya made a sound David had never heard her make before, something between a shriek and a gasp wrapped into one, and grabbed his arm so hard he'd find the marks the next morning, four small crescents in his skin.

"That's not — " she started, and couldn't finish.

David was already moving, already crossing to the door, already telling himself it was the pipes, an animal, it was anything, anything at all except the thing his mind kept trying to make it into.

He opened the door.

The hallway was empty. Of course it was empty. There was no one there, no shape retreating down the stairs, no shadow slipping around the corner, nothing. Only the hallway, the same hallway it had been that afternoon, doors closed, floorboards bare, the deer skull's shadow stretching long and strange from the living room below where the moonlight caught its antlers through the front window.

"There's nothing here," he said. His voice came out steadier than he felt.

Maya didn't get out of bed. When he turned back to look at her, she had drawn her knees up to her chest, and in the dim light her face had a stripped raw quality. For a brief moment David remembered her beauty. It had been months since he was able to recall just how beautiful she was, even when she was sitting there full of anxiety trying not to panic.

"I want to go home," she said.

"We will. In the morning. It's the middle of the night, Maya, we can't drive nine hours right now, we're both exhausted—"

"I don't want to be here."

"I know." He sat on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch her but not touching her, because touching her felt, in that moment, like it might break something that was already close to breaking. "I know. We'll go first thing. I promise."

She didn't answer. Outside, the wind moved through the pines with that same low unbroken hiss, and somewhere beneath it, so faint David told himself afterward that he'd only imagined it.

Neither of them slept again that night.

In the gray hour before dawn, David finally dozed, and when he woke the light through the curtains had the flat, sourceless quality of an overcast morning, and Maya was gone from the bed.

He found her downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee she wasn't drinking, as she stared at nothing.

"Hey," he said. "You okay?"

"I didn't sleep."

"Me neither. Not really." He filled his own mug, sat across from her. "Listen. About last night—"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I think we should talk about it."

"I said I don't want to." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed the heel of her hand against one eye, hard, the way she did when she was trying to physically hold something back. "I know what it sounded like, David. I know what you're going to say. That it was pipes, or wind, or my imagination, and maybe you're right, maybe I'm losing it, but I *heard* her, and I don't need you explaining to me why I didn't."

"I wasn't going to—"

"You were. You always do." She stood up so fast her chair scraped hard against the floor. "You've been doing it for seven months. Every time I say her name, every time I bring up something that reminds me of her, you find some way to redirect, some calm, reasonable David way of making it not be about what it's about."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Her eyes were bright, wet, furious. "You haven't cried once. Not at the funeral. Not since. You just — manage. You manage everything, you manage me, and I am so tired of being managed, David, I am so tired—"

She didn't finish the sentence. Instead she turned and walked out the back door, onto the deck, into the cold gray morning, and David sat alone at the table with his coffee going cold in front of him and the terrible knowledge, sudden and total, that she was right, that he had spent seven months building himself into a fortress with no doors, and that somewhere behind those walls a grief exactly as large as hers was sitting in the dark, waiting for permission to surface.

He gave her twenty minutes before he went out after her.

He found her at the tree line, near the ruined shed, and it was there that things went wrong.

She was standing very close to the structure, close enough to touch the doorframe, and as David crossed the yard toward her he saw that the ground near her feet dropped away to a root cellar, maybe, or an old well. Its cover long since rotted through, hidden beneath a scatter of leaves.

"Maya, don't stand so close, that ground looks—"

She turned to look at him, and in turning she stepped back, one small unthinking step, and the leaves and rotted wood beneath her gave way all at once with a sound like a held breath finally released.

David would remember, afterward, that he didn't hear her scream so much as he heard the scream cut off, the way the child's laughter had cut off the night before, an abruptness that felt like something being taken away.

He reached the edge in seconds. The hole wasn't deep, only six feet, maybe seven, an old cellar or cistern with crumbling stone walls. Maya lay at the bottom of it at a wrong angle, one leg twisted beneath her, her face white with shock, blood already welling dark through the leg of her jeans where something had torn through skin.

"David—" Her voice was thin, breathless. "David, it hurts, it hurts so bad—"

He was down into the hole before he'd consciously decided to move, landing hard on the packed earth beside her, his hands already finding the wound, feeling the angle of her leg bent in a direction that made him take a sharp deep breath before refocusing.

"I've got you. I've got you, I'm going to get you out of here, just — stay still, don't move your leg."

"I'm so cold." Her teeth had begun to chatter, though the morning wasn't that cold, and her skin beneath his hands felt clammy and strange, and already, faster than should have been possible, a flush had begun to rise in her face, a fever heat radiating up from wherever she'd cut herself on whatever lay buried and rusted at the bottom of that hole.

Getting her out took twenty minutes though he would not, later, be able to account in detail — a blur of effort and adrenaline, of half-carrying her weight up the crumbling stone, of her crying out when her leg brushed the wall, of finally laying her on the grass at the surface and seeing, in full daylight, the wound on her calf: deep, ragged, already swelling an angry red at the edges, already weeping with blood.

His first thought was the car, Maya needed a hospital. David got the passenger door open, eased her into the seat as gently as her cries would allow. His hands were shaking so badly it took him two tries to get the key into the ignition. The engine turned over once;  a dull, halfhearted cough and then nothing. He tried again. Nothing. Not even the click of a dead battery, just a heavy, total silence under the hood. He sat there for a moment with his forehead against the steering wheel, willing it to be a fluke, a flooded engine, anything ordinary, before he accepted that the car was not going to start and that whatever had brought them here did not intend to let them leave in it 

He got her inside. He got her onto the couch, elevated her leg, wrapped the wound as best he could with what he found in the bathroom cabinet. Gauze that had gone slightly yellow with age, a roll of medical tape, and through all of it Maya's breathing grew shallower and her skin grew hotter and her eyes, when they found his, had a glassy quality that frightened him more than the wound itself.

"David." Her hand found his wrist, gripped it with surprising strength. "There was something down there. In the cellar. Before I fell —” Maya closed her eyes and took a breath trying to regain her thoughts and focus. “I saw something, at the bottom, before I even fell, I think that's why I stepped back—"

"Don't talk. Save your strength."

"It was watching me." Her grip tightened. "It's still watching. It's been watching since we got here, David, you have to believe me now, you have to—"

"I believe you." And in that moment, with her fever climbing under his hands and her wound weeping, now more than blood but something that had no business being that color, he found that he did.

He checked his phone. No signal of course, not one bar, not the faintest ghost of one. Exactly as advertised, exactly as they had wanted, two days ago, when solitude had seemed like the thing that might save them instead of the thing that might now cost him his wife.

The trailhead was a half-mile down the access road. Beyond that, according to the map he'd glanced at while planning the trip, a two-lane highway, and along that highway, eventually, a gas station with a landline, or another car, or anyone at all.

"I have to go get help," he told her. "I'm going to go get help. You have to stay here, stay still, keep pressure on it."

"Don't leave." Her voice had gone very small. "David, please, don't leave me here alone—"

"I don't have a choice. I can't fix this myself. I need a phone, I need a doctor, I need—" He was already pulling on his boots, already grabbing the flashlight from the kitchen counter though it was still daylight outside, some animal part of him insisting he would need it before this was over. "I'll run. I'll be as fast as I can."

She was crying now, silent tears that seemed to cost her more than her strength could afford, and he kissed her forehead, which was burning, far too hot, and told her he loved her; the first time either of them had said those words to the other in longer than he could recount. Then he went out the front door into the gray morning and did not look back, because he knew if he looked back he would not be able to make himself leave.

The access road was easy enough to find. The trailhead sign, half-swallowed by underbrush, pointed him toward what the map had promised was a half-mile walk to the highway.

The half-mile became a mile. The mile became something longer, though David could not have said with any confidence how much longer, because somewhere along that stretch of road the trees on either side had begun to feel less like a boundary and more like a wall that was slowly, imperceptibly, closing in.

He told himself it was panic distorting his sense of distance. That the road simply curved more than he remembered, that the map had been imprecise, that he was moving faster than it felt like he was moving because fear compresses time in the same way grief does. Stretching some moments and swallowing others whole.

But when he passed, for the third time, a birch tree split by lightning into a shape like two grasping hands, he stopped walking and stood very still in the middle of the dirt road and admitted to himself what he had been refusing to admit: he was not moving in a straight line. He was moving in a circle, or something like a circle, some shape the forest was drawing around him without his consent, and each time he thought he was pressing forward he was in fact being folded back toward the place he'd started.

"This isn't possible," he said aloud, and his voice sounded strange to him in the stillness.

He tried a different approach.  Instead of following the road, he cut directly through the trees, reasoning that a straight line through the woods, held by compass-sense alone, dead reckoning, would eventually intersect the highway no matter what tricks the road itself seemed to be playing. He picked a landmark, a distant break in the canopy where the light looked different, and walked toward it without deviation, counting his steps, refusing to let his eyes wander.

Around step four hundred, he heard footsteps.

They were behind him, and to the left, matching his pace almost exactly. He knew it could not be an echo, because echoes did not crunch twigs a half-second after his own foot did. Echoes did not have a rhythm subtly, and deliberately different from his own, a rhythm that suggested an imitation, something learning the shape of his walk and reproducing it a fraction of a beat behind.

He stopped. The footsteps stopped.

He turned. There was nothing, only trees and only the gray unbroken light filtering down through branches that seemed, now that he was looking directly at them, to be moving more than the wind alone could account for. A slow restless shifting that had nothing to do with any breeze he could feel against his own skin.

"Who's there?" His voice cracked on the second word. He felt, suddenly and completely, like a child again, like a boy standing in a dark room insisting on the existence of monsters to parents who had long since stopped believing him.

Nothing answered. He made himself keep walking.

The footsteps resumed the moment he did, and this time they didn't stop when he stopped. When he turned to look he caught a glimpse of something, gone almost before he registered it, a shape pulling away from the trunk of a wide, dark pine and slipping into the shadow of the next tree over. It moved with the trees, too smoothly to be a human, too purposeful to be a startled animal. David ran.

He was not proud of it, later, when he tried to reconstruct what had happened, but in the moment there was no pride involved, no calculation at all. Only thing he could think is the certainty that whatever was matching his footsteps intended, eventually, to stop matching them and instead to close the distance, and that when it did, he would not survive whatever came next.

He ran until his lungs burned, his vision narrowed to a tunnel of gray trunks and grasping roots. David tripped and fell hard against the base of a tree and lay there, gasping, waiting for the thing behind him to arrive.

Nothing arrived.

When he finally lifted his head, the forest around him was silent in a way it had not been before. An emptied silence, as though whatever had been following him had simply stopped, or had never existed at all outside the architecture of his own unraveling mind. He did not know, anymore, which possibility frightened him more.

David sat there against the trunk of the tree, alone, in a forest that would not release him, and for the first time all day he stopped trying to explain any of it.

He thought of Ellie. For the first time in seven months he let himself think of her directly, without redirecting, without managing.  Her laugh, the exact particular pitch of it, the same pitch that had come from the hallway outside their bedroom door at two in the morning. He had told himself it was the pipes. He had told himself so many things, for so many months, each explanation a small stone laid carefully over a grave he had refused to even visit.

He was crying now, he realized. He had not cried at the funeral. He had not cried once in seven months, exactly as Maya had said, and now, alone in a forest that might or might not be closing around him. He was crying so hard his whole body shook with it, and it did not feel like breaking. It felt, for the first time in longer than he could remember, like it was all releasing.

When he finally stood, wiping his face with the back of one filthy hand, the light through the canopy had shifted, not dramatically, but enough that he could tell hours, not minutes, had passed, though his internal sense of time insisted the whole ordeal had taken no more than twenty minutes total.

And there, through a gap in the trees he was certain had not been there a moment ago, he saw the cabin. Not the highway. Not the trailhead. The cabin, its weathered brown timber unmistakable even at this distance, its chimney leaning at its familiar small angle, standing exactly where he had left. It was as though the forest had spent the last several hours walking him in an enormous, unbroken loop and had finally, having exhausted whatever purpose it held for him, decided to let him go.

He did not question it. He ran toward it with everything he had left.

The front door was still locked, exactly as he'd left it. His hands shook so badly it took him three tries to get his key into the lock, and when the door finally swung open he called Maya's name before he'd even crossed the threshold, his voice raw and cracking.

She was on the couch where he'd left her. Something was wrong, somehow, though it took his fear-scattered mind a moment to understand what was wrong about it. Her leg was no longer bandaged. The gauze he had wrapped so carefully that morning lay in a loose, undisturbed coil on the floor beside the couch, as though it had simply slid off rather than been removed, and beneath it her skin showed no wound at all. There was no gash, no swelling, no angry red edges, nothing but smooth, pale, fever-flushed skin.

"Maya."

She turned her head toward him slowly, and her eyes, when they found his, held an expression he had never once seen on her face in the years of their marriage. It was not recognition, not relief, not even confusion. It was closer to curiosity, the way a person looks at an insect they are deciding whether to study or crush.

"You came back," she said, and her voice had the same shape as Maya's voice, the same pitch, but underneath it, so faint he could almost convince himself he'd imagined it, there was a second voice threaded through the first. It was high and bright and delighted, the unmistakable particular pitch of a very young girl.

David did not move from the doorway. Behind him, through the still-open door, he heard from somewhere out among the trees, from the direction of the ruined shed, the sound of small feet, running, and running, and running, circling closer. 

“Ellie” David whispered to himself as his voice began to break. 

He was filled with an overwhelming warmth. David looked at Maya, or the thing posing as her, and he found that as he was able to explain most things, he could not explain this. Somewhere out past the shed, the small footsteps kept circling, and underneath their rhythm he could still hear it, faint and bright and unmistakable: Ellie's laugh, the one he'd spent seven months refusing to let himself remember. He understood, standing there, that some part of him had been walking back toward that sound since the night they'd first heard it in the hallway. That he had missed her enough, for long enough, to follow her anywhere, even here, even like this. So he did not run. David couldn’t fight it anylonger

The door, when it swung shut behind him, closed with the soft and final sound of the cabin settling into place. Somewhere above him, on the stairs, footsteps began again, patient, unhurried, already climbing.

David stood very still in the dark of the front room, and for the first time since he'd arrived, he felt whole again.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!  Now?"

 
He assessed the meager contents of his medicine cabinet, hoping against reason that his mother had through some miracle of precognition, thought to buy some sort of acne medication.  She hadn't. 

 
"Back on the old benzoyl peroxide train"

 
He could still take a selfie; he'd just have to edit out the angry red bump that had decided to stake its claim in the middle of his forehead. 

 
It took fifteen attempts before he finally found the right angle, the one that was all jawline and lips.  Then he realized the bathroom was probably not the best setting for a profile pic on a dating app. So, he went to his bedroom, blocked out a corner that hid the mess, found his angle again, and finally took the damn picture.

 
Face looked fat.  Do it again.  Suck in those cheeks this time.

 
He was still revising the About Me section of his profile when his mother called him for dinner.

 
"Elliot!  I made macaroni with ground beef!  Come make a plate before it gets cold!"

 
"I can't eat that stuff, Ma!  I told you.  It doesn't fit my macros!"
 

"What?!  I thought you said you were maxing?  Isn't that like carbo-loading?"
 

"What?  Carbo-loading?  What year do you think it is?  I'm not maxing, whatever that is, I'm looksmaxxing.  Part of that is not eating junk, hence watching my macros.  You get it?"

 
"No...  No, I don't understand any of that.  What do you want for dinner then?"

 
"Just... don't worry about it.  I'll figure something out."

 
"Well, there's frozen pizzas in the freezer if you get hungry later."
 

"Jesus Christ, Ma."

 
After a week, his profile had failed to gain any significant traction.  The bump on the other hand was thriving.  It had grown to the size of a pinky toe, and the tip had taken on a pearlescent yellow hue.
 

He matched with a petite brunette who liked the show Yellowstone, which he had to get the Cliffsnotes summary of from a YouTube video because he put that show as one of his interests too. 

 
They met for coffee, but the vibe was not ideal.  She was looking everywhere but his forehead and it was obvious.  Elliot didn't make it easy on himself either; kept picking at it.  It was revolting and he knew it, but he just couldn't stop doing it.  It was so itchy.
 

As the bump grew more prominent, so too did his thoughts of the opposite sex.  Sex.  It was all he could think about these days.  At 23, he knew enough about biology to know that men don't have a "biological clock"; but the "virginity clock" sure felt real to Elliot; and the daily erection that he awoke to was as good an alarm clock as any.

 
By the time his mother decided to take him to the doctor, the skin had started to peel away from the underlying structure of the bump.  The itch made him feel like a rabid animal.
 

"It looks like some sort of ossification... Hmm...  How long has this been bothering you?"
 

"I don't know.  A couple of weeks?"
 

"Weeks?  Oh, Ellie you have to tell me when things are bothering you.  Otherwise, I can't help.  And that's a mom's job, isn't it?"

 
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Ma...  I'm a grown man."

 
They left with a prescription for an ointment for the itching and a date for a follow-up.  He passed the time waiting for the script flipping between dating apps and Insta.  He got so worked up; he had to tuck it into the waistband of his jeans so his mom wouldn't see the bulge.

 
The ointment did nothing for the itch, and as the bump grew, the skin around it dried up and flaked off.  By the end of the week, he had started to call it his horn. 

 
He saw specialists, dermatologists mostly.  There was a terrifying trip to the oncologist.  She found nothing. 

 
The plastic surgeon said he could probably remove it, but he'd have to consult with his friend, the orthopedist who in turn referred him to a neurologist.  By that point, Elliot didn't care what they did; as long as they got it off his head.  The thing was killing his love life.
 

He could barely get anyone to match with him, even with the photoshopped pictures.  And once they caught a glimpse of the six-inch ochre-colored spike sticking out of his forehead, they would excuse themselves to the ladies room and never return. 

 
Sometimes, they'd sneak out before he even noticed they were there, leaving him standing around scratching his forehead like an idiot; not knowing if they stood him up or got lost or what.
 

"You just have to keep looking honey... There's plenty of fish in the sea, "

 
"I already tried that one, Ma.  I even went on ChristianMingle, "

 
"Oh, Ellie, why would you do a thing like that?  We've never been to church a day in your life.  Of course, when I was a girl I went every Sunday... But I stopped after your daddy...  Your daddy...  Daddy..."
 

"Ma!"

 
"What?"

 
"What?!  You just spaced out is what.  Right when you started talking about my dad....   You never talk about him.  He wasn't a... I don't know... a creep or something?  Was he?"
 

"Your father... was a wonderful man.  I had never met anyone else like him.  He was handsome, like you, and he was funny like you too.  He was so different than all the other boys; so confident, so assertive.  When he asked me out, it was like I couldn’t say no.  And he... he...he..."
 

"Ma!"
 

"HE WAS A SON OF A BITCH!!"
 

"..."
 

"..."

 
"Mo-mom?  Momma... it's ok momma.  It's ok."

 
By the time he swiped right on Hope’s profile, he wasn't even reading them anymore.  Wasn't really looking at the pictures either; just playing the numbers game.  He swiped left every once in a while, just to appease the algorithm; but he was just putting in reps. Eventually it had to pay off.

 
She wasn't really his type, but with a six-inch horn growing from the middle of his forehead, Elliot couldn't really afford to have a "type."

 
She was not ugly, just... plain; and with a Boho aesthetic that he hoped would not be the pillar around which she constructed her personality.

 
"... and that's when I decided to switch majors..."
 

Was she talking this whole time?

 
"...You know?  Really make a difference in the world..."
 

Oh no...

 
"My dad hates the idea of me joining the Peace Corps."

 
There it is.

 
"But I don't care.  Money isn't everything you know.  We waste so much of it on things we don't even need.  Like deodorant."

 
"Deodorant?  I don't know.  I think you'd be pretty disgusted right now if I wasn't wearing deodorant"

 
She looked at it.  Right when he said the word "disgusted".  She looked right back at his eyes, but he still saw it happen.

 
"No...  I don't mean we shouldn't use deodorant.  I mean we should make deodorant at home.  It's so easy and it's all-natural so it's way better for your body and it doesn't even leave that gross chalky residue.  See?"
 

When she lifted her arm, he could indeed see no residue.  It was what he did see that bothered him.  The aesthetic matched the personality.

 
So, she had a little hair in a place he wasn't expecting.  Big deal.  Her profile said she does yoga.  I wonder if she could do a split.

 
"...always been into them, ever since I was a little girl..."

 
"Ohhh, yeah?" 

 
Definitely not wearing a bra.  I wonder if she even owns one...

 
"...and I was always into mythology and like dragons and princesses, so...."
 

What is she talking about?
 

"Well?  Can I?"

 
"I'm sorry, what?"

 
"Can I touch it?"

 
Holy shit, it's happening!

 
"I... excuse me... I... You want to touch it?  Like now?"

 
"Sure now.  Now's good... We can do it later if you're self-conscious..."
 

"Now's great!"

 
That was too enthusiastic.  Act like you've been here before.

 
"Ok... Cool...  I'll just go ahead and... Wow!  It's so much harder than I thought it would be!"
 

Her eyes went glassy and unfocused when she touched his horn.  Then Elliot did feel self-conscious.  His mind had been so preoccupied with creating a mental blueprint of Hope's naked body that he had almost forgotten about the six-inch bony protrusion growing from the middle of his forehead.
 

How could he have been such an idiot.  She wasn't into him.  She was one of “those” girls; a hippie of a different color.  She probably had a pair of Ren-fair elf ears hanging in her closet.

 
"Alright... Got it out of your system?"

 
"Oooooh!  It feels... so...."

 
"I said alright!  Please...  It makes me feel uncomfortable."

 
"Oh no! No! Don't take it away!  Please, I... I... I'm sorry.  That was inappropriate.  I crossed a boundary with your body and that is not cool...  It's just... well I've never seen anything like that.  And as an anthropology major, it's fascinating.  I mean, that's kind of why I got into the field in the first place..."
 

"You switched majors so you could study guys with horns growing out of their heads?  I thought it was about saving the children."
 

"Who says I can't do both?  All the interesting archaeological sites are in war zones."
 

"Soo, you want to look for the missing link while setting up Wi-Fi for orphans?  Something like that?  You think he's out there?  I don't hear too many bigfoot sightings coming from the Middle East..."
 

"Stranger things have happened.  I think I just found a unicorn in Gainesville."
 

It's a good thing that the table was there.  He pre-tucked just in case, but still...  This was it.  He was so close, he could smell it.
 

Hope had Ubered to the coffee shop, but Elliot had the foresight to borrow his mother's Honda.  It was a tip that he learned from a now defunct subreddit devoted to gamifying your own love life. 

 
The logic was sound: always control the exits; for you and your opponent/date.  It was the Prisoner's Dilemma put to practice. 
 

You're both going to meet there, and you're both going to leave.  If you arrive in your own vehicle and your date does not, it would be impolite not to offer a ride. 

 
And if the date went well, what reason would she have to say no?  It would be just as impolite to decline... if the date went well that was.  If she declined the offer, it could give a guy a complex; make him think he did something wrong.

 
“You want a ride home?  I mean… uh, that way you don’t have to Uber…. You never know with those Uber drivers, right?”

 
“Right.  Right…. Look, Elliot… I think you’re really… fascinating, but I don’t want to lead you on.”

 
Fascinating?

 
“I’ll let you drive me home, but that’s it.  I want to see you again, but I’m an old-fashioned kind of girl.  I hope you understand…”
 

“Sooo, do you want the ride or not?”
 

“I do.  I do.  Thank you.  I’m just saying don’t expect me to sleep with you just because you gave me a ride.”

 
“Why would I?  I wasn’t even..  And even if I was… I mean…”

 
She didn’t live far but the silence in the car made it feel like an eternity.  The tension was so thick he had to lower the windows.  He knew that she was thinking about what he was thinking about.  They were locked in a psychic ouroboros.

 
"This is it on the left... building J."

 
"Is there a visitor's area or can I park anywhere?"

 
"You can park anywhere.  It's after 6.  It's officially the weekend."

 
He pulled into a spot just to the left of the beige building, identical to all the others but for the giant letter J on the front of it. 

 
"Well..."

 
"Well..."

 
"I should... walk you to your door....  I mean, it's what a gentleman would do, right?"
 

"Sure.  That would be sweet."

 
Her apartment was on the first floor, so his escort service was completely unnecessary.  Escorts.  Sex.  What was this girl's problem?  She was liberal in every way but the one that mattered; conservative below the belt.

 
"I had such a nice night, Elliot.  Can we... do it again?"
 

We should be doing it right now.

 
"Sure."

 
"Ok... Good... Well.... Bye..."

 
Hope turned to open her front door, but before she could go inside, Elliot said:

 
"Wait!  I-I-I... Can I give you a hug at least?"

 
"Oh, Ellie, of course you can have a hug."

 
Why did she use that name?  The only person that called him that name was his mother.  It made the hug awkward.  Or rather, it made the hug more awkward. 

 
It was too long and he knew it, but her tits felt amazing against his chest and he couldn't help himself.  He had to be careful to avoid skewering her with his horn, but when it made incidental contact with her head, she didn't pull away in disgust.  Instead, her body kind of went limp, and her eyes looked like they were searching for something that wasn't there.

 
"You smell so good"

 
It was a lie, but she seemed receptive.

 
"Ooooo"

 
Her pupils were the size of quarters.

 
"I wish we could...  You know.  But I want to respect your boundaries."

 
No, he didn't.

 
"Aaaahhh"

 
Not exactly the response he was expecting, but not a no in the strict sense either.  It was now or never.  He licked his lips in anticipation.  She was smiling, but it didn't look like the smile she had at the coffee shop.  It was toothy and plastic. 

 
He went for the kiss anyway.  She wasn't an enthusiastic kisser.  Maybe it was first date nerves.  God knew he was feeling them.  His heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest like the gingerbread man and take a lap around the complex.
 

After a minute and a half of one-sided making out, Elliot decided to shoot his shot one last time.
 

"Soooo, you going to invite me in or what?"
 

"Mmmm"
 

He took that as a yes and followed her inside.  She still had that faraway look in her eyes, but Elliot pushed it to the back of his mind.  She was just nervous was all.
 

"Nice place you got here.  You all alone or do you have roommates?"
 

Hope just grinned back at him with that smile that was all teeth and no eyes.

 
"You want to listen to some music or.... We could do other things... If you would like to, that is...."
 

"Aaaahhhh"
 

Her voice was soft and childlike.  Before the horn, it would have been a turnoff, but now?  Game on.
 

He took her by the wrist and led her to the first doorway he found in the small hallway of the apartment.  Bathroom.  You would think she would have said something.

 
The second door he tried was a bedroom, and from the Free Palestine poster on the wall and the fading aroma of Nag Champa he could reasonably assume it was hers.

 
They both just stood there.  He was too shy to make the first move, and she seemed agreeably indifferent.  It was a stalemate.  Mate.  Sex.  It always came back to that. 

 
She kept cooing like she was into it.  Why wouldn't she just give him a signal?  Something he could use as justification for doing what he wanted to do anyway.

 
He kissed her again; and again, she did not stop him.  Emboldened, he took it a step further and let his hands explore the contours of her chest.  She said nothing.

 
He didn't really know what he was supposed to do.  He had never gotten this far before.  The forums said that women like foreplay, so he extended it for as long as he could hold out, about two and half minutes.  By that point, he had grown another protrusion a couple of feet south of his horn.
 

Elliot's first sexual experience was a brief but noteworthy affair.  It hurt more than he expected it to.  It wasn't supposed to hurt at all, right?  At least not for the guy.  But there was so much friction he felt like he must not have done it right. 
 

He couldn't read Hope's expression.  It was all oooo's and aaaahhh's from her, but not in that flat monotone.  It still looked like she was looking for something that wasn't there.

 
It bothered him, but he didn't let it get in the way.  For forty-five seconds, Elliot felt like a man.  He knew he should have withdrawn, calmed down, savored the moment, but by the time he made up his mind, it was too late.  Waves of a pleasure he had never known before pulsed through his body.

 
"Ugghhh, uhh, Oh, FUCK!  Fuck, I didn't... Please tell me you're on birth control."

 
But if Hope responded, Elliot never heard it.  At that moment, with a sound like a green tree branch snapping, his horn broke free from his head.  Sleep swallowed him whole. 

 
He awoke the next morning in an empty and unfamiliar bed.  His face was hot and sweaty, and it took a minute for him to notice that he had been sleeping on his belly.  He had been a side-sleeper ever since the bump started growing, but he really preferred to sleep face-down.

 
"It's gone.  Halle-fuckin-lujah!  It's really gone!"  
 

He quickly composed himself, just in case Hope really did have a roommate.  Where was that girl?  For that matter, where was the horn?  It may have been a hideously disfiguring growth, but it was his hideously disfiguring growth.
 

He helped himself to a K-cup in the kitchen.  Hope was still nowhere to be seen.  He worried that he had done something to offend her, but not for very long. The world felt different to him now somehow.  Or maybe he was the one that was different, like he had crossed an invisible boundary.
 

He waited three days before texting her; that was industry standard, according to all the forums.  On the third day, he had his openers narrowed down to "Good morning, beautiful", "Hey baby girl," and simply "Sup?"  He went with "Sup?"
 

She never responded.  He tried again with "Hi, Hope.  Hope all is going well with you, lol" Again, there was no response. 

 
So, he addressed the elephant in the room: "Listen, if I crossed a boundary the other night, I'm sorry.  I know you said you were saving yourself for marriage, but then after we hugged it was like you were a different person."
 

No, not after they hugged.  It was after the horn touched her head.  Only then did she start acting so strangely, the same way she did when she touched it in the restaurant.  It had been like she was high on something, all giggles and dilated pupils.
 

One last text.  If she didn't respond to that one, he'd go back to the apps.  "I just don't want to leave things this way.  If I offended you, I am sorry.  Truly... But it takes two to tango and if you didn't like it, you should have said something.  You girls think you can just wave it in our faces, and we have to pretend like we don't want it.  It's such a stupid game.  You're not even my type.  I like girls that wear makeup and shave their body hair.  Call me old-fashioned too, I guess.  Anyway, if you're not going to see me again, can I at least have my horn back?  I know you took it.  I don't know why.  Maybe your daddy never bought you a pony, so you became fixated on unicorns.  Whatever the reason, I would like to have it back.  My doctor wants to do a biopsy on it."
 

It was the last message he ever exchanged with Hope, but not the last time that he saw her.  Within a week of losing his virginity, the horn had started to grow back again, only bigger and darker now.  Elliot hit the apps with a vengeance, driven by a near-constant state of lust.

 
It was even worse than before.  Even though he had optimized his profile to appeal to the widest swathe of potential dates as he could, he was receiving absolutely no matches. 

 
He tried his luck at the bars and nightclubs, to the extent that they would even let him in. Most nights, he didn't even talk to anyone, just nursed his dollar drafts in the back of the room. 
 

The first time he saw another guy with a horn was outside the Orbit Lounge.  The bouncer assumed they were together.

 
"Nope!  Sorry fellas, but the boss man says no horns allowed.  Too many complaints about you guys from the ladies."

 
"Ladies?  What ladies?  You think a lady would give me the time of day looking like this?"

 
"Look man, boss man says no horns, that means no horns.  Simple.  Take your asses to the Palomino.  Them hipsters don't care what you look like over there."
 

Elliot power-walked to the Palomino since it was only a few blocks South, and he didn't want to risk getting his mom's Honda towed if he tried to find a closer spot. 

 
He stopped at the intersection of Main and 13th st and waited for the signal.  Across the street he could see the open-air patio of the Palomino.  It was indeed populated mostly with ironic mustaches and septum piercings.  But amid the band tees and thrifted ensembles was a familiar face.  She wasn't ugly, just plain, but even from this distance, he could see she had an audience. 

Hope looked different than the last time he saw her.  She was in a form-fitting red dress that showed off her legs.  Legs that as he drew closer, he could see she had freshly shaven. 
 

She was playing a musical instrument, some kind of flute or recorder that looked like it was made from a long narrow bone.  The young men surrounding her hung on every note.  The melody was seductive, but sad; a song that weaved longing and regret in equal measures.
 

Not all the guys had horns.  Some had just a little bump on their heads.  But they all had one thing in common; she was their queen. 

​

The next morning, Alice’s face looked so pale that Calen was starting to get worried. Alice barely talked, and getting up from the bed was out of the question.

Calen himself felt quite tired. He didn’t remember when he fell asleep or if he slept at all. When he had found himself awake, sitting next to Alice, his whole body was aching. Strangely enough the most painful thing indeed were the nail beds on his fingertips. Edges frayed they stared at back at him, with dirt and bits of soft bark under them. He ran to the washroom to clean them, as well as himself, finding wet soil on his knees and elbows. He was quite sure he had washed himself after they came back from their trip to the bushes, before cooking dinner. But with every bit of soil that he washed away, his confidence about that very fact was vanishing with it.

He chose not to share this with Alice.

When Alice woke up, she cried for a bit, and Calen couldn’t get any articulate answer from her. Just that she felt sick. She fell back asleep after demanding some food, and eating it when Calen brought it for her, in bed.

Calen tried to contact Ruslan over the two-way radio he had left, believing it would be prudent to get Alice back in the states. He had no idea if Tiksi or Yakutsk had reliable medical services.

“Ruslan!” he shrieked when he heard the radio finally throw something at his ears that wasn’t static. “Can you hear me! Alice needs to be taken to Yakutsk. She needs medical help!”

“Ameri… You… It’s been three…!”

“I can’t hear you. Listen!” Screamed Calen trying to get in his instructions before the radio turned back to the usual spitting of white noise, “Alice needs transport. Can you come?!”

“Yes!” Ruslan said, “Two in the afternoon, tomorrow!” Elated that finally his message was through, Calen smiled for the first time since the morning and told a half-awake Alice, the news. Even being sick as she was, she was able to garble the words, “I can stay. I don’t want to leave you this time.” Calen was quite surprised. She usually preferred being at home when she was sick.

*

The next day came and went, but Ruslan didn’t arrive. Alice was up from the bed and said she felt a lot better, even though the aching had not subsided much. She limped through the house trying not to put much pressure on her sprained ankle that was as swollen and round in shape as the deep brown bread they had for breakfast.

Alice kept saying she didn’t want to go throughout the day and was visibly happy when Ruslan didn’t come.

*

“Why didn’t you come?!” Calen was quite angry at Ruslan as he screamed into the radio, for not having arrived the day before. “Alice is sick! She needs help.”

“I am not- ouch” Came the Alice’s voice from the bedroom. She had tried to get up to prove she was feeling fine but immediately stepped on her sprained ankle, making her fall back into the bed holding it in both her hands, massaging the pain away as it spread through her leg and pulsated right below the knee.

“I was there Amerikosy. Vy Ver you not…” static noise invaded the conversation yet again. After a while Calen heard Ruslan’s voice, “I vill come again today!”

Calen went to see Alice. She was still holding her ankle, clearly still in pain. So, when he saw her laughing, he didn’t understand what was happening.

She refused to answer his questions and fell asleep after a while, still holding her leg.

*

The plane landed bumpily and Calen, watching from the window as the noise in the valley bumped against it, finally, felt relieved. He ran out as Alice looked at Calen’s back morosely. She was not happy to be going back.

“Thanks for coming!” even though you are one entire day late. Calen thought in his head but didn’t say it out loud.

“I vas here on that day as vell. You-” Ruslan threw the blame at Calen with a pointed finger. “ver not.”

“What?” Calen was surprised at this barefaced lie. Was Ruslan lying. Was he angling for more money or something?

A flash of images passed through Calen’s head. He and Alice were making love in the cave. Alice was covered in dirt, her swollen ankle resting on the root cage, her eyes completely white. No pupils visible. The small black log inside the cage was throbbing slightly. A nauseating smell of decaying flowers filled the cave.

Alice came out limping by herself, fully dressed.

“Hang on!” as the flash of images subsided, “Did you say you were here that day?” Calen whispered as Alice was getting quite close and he didn’t want her to hear this particular bit of the conversation.

“Yes” Ruslan mirrored the whisper instinctively. “A veek ago.”

Alice had arrived and both of the men broke off the conversation as Ruslan addressed Alice, “Oy… ty óchen’ plókha vȳglyádish’. Pómoshch’ nuzhná.”

Calen ran back to the cabin to get Alice’s bag. When he came back, Alice was sitting on the landing gear. Tears streaming from her eyes as Ruslan was doing something at the back of the plane.

“Hey..” Calen said, “What’s up? Why are you crying?”

“I don’t want to leave you here alone!” she replied through her tears, voice wavering every other syllable, “I wanted…” she sniffled, “to leave together.”

“It’s okay, I will come back soon.” Calen said holding her face in his hands and wiping away her tears with his thumb, caressing her soft face. He pushed the thoughts bubbling up inside him until Alice left. Alice didn’t need to know what he had heard. But what he had heard was terrifying. What he had seen, more so.

“I need some footage but as soon as I have it, I will be back.” He said, trying to keep his voice calm and loving.

She kissed him deeply and stared at his face for a long time. Ruslan had come by with a box full back and cleared his throat audibly, breaking Alice’s stare.

“Ve lieve now?”

“Yes,” said Calen, “Yes, of course.”

It took them quite a few minutes to help Alice up and into the plane. Once she was sitting, tears still streaming down her face, Calen had found the moment he had been waiting for since he had heard that Ruslan was here a week ago, something he had believed was yesterday.

“Hey, so before you leav-”

“I vill come back tomorrow, yes? For you?” Ruslan cut Calen off.

“What? No.” Calen replied, the question still burned in his mind.

“No?” Ruslan’s face was so contorted with confusion. Fear mixed with anger, palpable in his tone, “Vat do you mean no?”

“Dude, I need to stay. I will let you know on the radio when you can take me from here.” The urgent need to ask the burning question in his mind broke out of the dam finally while Ruslan stood there, looking at Calen silently, confusion and anxiety dripping from his face.

“Hey, what month is this?”

The confusion on his face tightening somewhat he said, “May. Twenty of May.”

Twentieth of May? Calen’s hand reflexively jerked up so he could check the date. He had forgotten that his watch had stopped working. When he looked at it he found the secondhand twitching between five and six. Everything inside him was trying to retreat, pressing against each other in their hurry t to hide itself. His hands felt cold and numb. He stared at Ruslan. Dumbfounded, not able to talk.

Ruslan had noticed it all.

“Amerikosy” Ruslan said finally, “You need to lieve soon. I can come tomorrow.”

But however much Ruslan insisted, it fell flat on Calen’s ears. So, there was something odd happening here! Here was proof!

“Listen don’t-” Calen found his voice finally. His eyes darted towards Alice.

Her eyes were closed, her face shining brilliantly in the sun, every teardrop stuck to her face glistening like dew drops. “Don’t tell Alice that we are in May.” Ruslan looked almost offended but said nothing. “Also, can you make sure she gets on the plane.” Calen handed a card to Ruslan. “My manager can get her the ticket. Can you stay with her till she boards the plane.”

“Of course.” He said shortly. Then he ran to the back of the plane and brought with him a box. “Is SatLink .” He said handing over the box to Calen, “Internet” he pointed to the sky. “Better than radio but expensive. I need it back ven ve return.”

“Of course!” Calen said quite surprised by the gift, “Thanks!”

“You haf food?”

“Yeah.. yeah..” Calen said absent mindedly as he looked at the box. He had never seen one before. “Just out of bacon but it’s not a problem.”

“Fine. I vill say agyain Amerikosy.” Untrammeled fear spouted from his eyes as he said the next part, “Lieve. Is nut good here.” And with that he got up on the plane and took off with it in seconds. Just before the bumpy, tugged-up-by-rope takeoff, Calen saw both Alice and Ruslan look at him with huge concern in their eyes, and then, they were gone. Dissolving in the shine of the sun on the horizon.

Calen felt a little sad, but if he was honest, he was hugely relieved. He had the island to himself, and it had just started speaking. There indeed was something strange going on that Calen was not able to pinpoint.

He went through his head, trying to see the flash of image in the cave he had seen. He didn’t remember it having happened at all, and now that he searched for it, it seemed to stubbornly refuse to come out of its hiding place. Only the smell returned. The nauseating smell of decaying flower.

His stream of thoughts seemed to bounce back and forth between the mountains and his own head, all mushing together, creating more noise with each pass. What was really happening here? How could it already be May? What exactly had he seen in his head?

The sun never left the horizon but shone for a long time. The sky was a pastel shade of pink when Calen started with trying to set up the SatLink device, but by the time he had set it up, the sky had chosen a tint of pale gold that enticed Calen’s eyes.

He sat on top of the cabin hut; he had climbed to set up the dish antennae and looked at the Sun slowly descending and dip beneath the horizon. The pale gold tint turned to steel gray-blue, and a chilly wind descended into the valley, forcing Calen to finally get off the roof and back into the cabin.

Alone again. But he didn’t feel lonely.

Alice’s presence had been a welcome change since he had started the journey months back. He was completely alone then. And frustrating though it had been, being alone had its own advantages.

Calen sat smoking a cigarette and remembered the moment when this entire adventure started.

*

“So, I had a bizarre dream this morning,” Alice said quietly.

“Oh yeah?” Calen said, putting his legs through a pair of jeans. “What was it about?”

It seemed like Alice had been waiting a long time to share it with him. She spoke in a hurried tone.

“Well, I was in this hospital, and I guess I was giving birth, and you were there.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t come true,” Calen said humorously. Alice already knew how that conversation went, so she pushed through, trying to get her story out.

“I said you were there, I didn’t say you were of any help.”

“Makes sense,” Calen said, grinning. “I don’t see what’s weird about that.”

Alice huffed. “You aren’t letting me get to the weird part,” she said accusatorily. “Anyway. I was having a really tough time, and the doctor, I think he looked like someone I knew, I can’t really recall who it was. But he was whispering like a weird little poem or something, I don’t remember that’s not even the weird part.” Now that Calen was silent, she capitalized on it, “While all this is happening, you kept running around the bed, screaming my name—like you couldn’t see me at all.” Alice’s eyes went wide as with her right arm she made a circular motion, “You went round and round, and you kept running faster and faster, until you were basically a blur. I could see your face whiz past my line of sight every few seconds. And then…” she looked at Calen, her arm dropped limply, and Calen heard a distinct twinge of fear in her voice as she said, “You hit your head on a coatrack and dropped.” She ended her story abruptly.

It took a moment for Calen to comprehend that the story had ended.

“So-” He didn’t know what to say. He was saved from the trouble of finding a response, as Alice said.

“I woke up feeling all shaky.” She said, “Also,” she added indignantly, “You made me feel nauseous, running around me in circles like that.”

“Um…” Calen began with the air of a man preparing to defend himself, “It was your dream. I was just sleeping.”

“You were of no help at all!” she said, anger palpable in her tone.

“Hey!” Calen said sheepishly, “Didn’t you just say I was screaming your name like I couldn’t see you? I can hardly be of help if I can’t see you. You should have called me or something.”

“I think you were being an asshole,” she said, crossing her arms across her midriff, as her stomach gave another groan. “Like you are being one now!”

“Weirdo…” Calen said, starting to change his shirt as Alice looked at him, tapping her right foot impatiently.

“Have you decided where you want to eat?” he asked, changing the topic.

“No,” she said in a tone that suggested that Calen should have known the answer. Still angry.

“So, I have to choose, and then you get to judge that choice?” he said, a playful smile on his lips.

“Oh, you know me so well,” Alice responded sarcastically.

Alice’s phone rang, and she picked up the phone with a bright smile developing on her face the instant she realized it was her mother. “Mom!” she said excitedly. Calen felt envious.

Calen did know Alice very well. In the years they had been together, Calen had almost figured her out. Alice had a loving father and a mother that Calen wished he had.

Calen was raised by a father whose catchphrase was-

“We’ll talk once I am back,” with no context for when ‘back’ was.

And with his mother, Calen had learned quickly that answering her questions that sounded like she was asking them out of concern was a territory fraught with the risk of losing sanity.

Alice had apparently forgotten her anger and was completely locked in on an animated conversation about how she wanted to clean the apartment today, but couldn’t, as she had woken up late from a weird dream. Calen only heard around five words of it as his mind was on things he rarely shared with her.

He had deliberately put his computer to sleep as soon as he saw an email from his sponsor arrived in the morning. He didn’t have to look at it to know it was unwelcome news. He had received enough emails in the last year with similar subject lines. Bennett Island was slowly but surely becoming a deadline.

His previous attempt at going to the Manikarnika Ghat in India to interview the Aghori ascetics had been quelled immediately and mercilessly by Alice. At that time, it had felt like an unfair imposition. Calen thought he would pay it back with one of his own. All he had to do was wait for the right moment. And it arrived, a few hours later, once Alice had hung up the call with her mom and they had walked to their favorite restaurant.

“Are you listening to me?” Alice scrutinized Calen’s expressionless face. He had been so busy anticipating the correct moment, that he had almost missed to recognise he was in it.

“Of course!” he lied. He had been distracted by the cry of a baby, somewhere behind them. The baby’s sustained wails had been drilling straight into the back of his skull for the past fifteen minutes.

He looked at her suspicious face blankly for a second before he admitted the truth, “Okay, I wasn’t listening that well. What were you saying?”

“I was saying,” Alice repeated slowly and deliberately with playful anger in her voice, “What’s that place you have been looking up on your computer obsessively since last week?”

“It’s an isolated island in the Arctic,” he said. It was evident in his voice that he was hiding something, “called Bennett Island. Quite a bit above Russia, actually. Very cold and empty. No reason for anyone to be there.” He finished his thought in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Why do I have a bad feeling that you are planning to go there?”

“Maybe because I am planning to go there,” Calen said.

“Calen!” she almost screamed. People walking ahead of them turned around to look at them, concerned. Even the crying baby stopped for a second. But then it resumed wailing louder than ever, leaving Calen feeling cheated. He sucked his teeth resentfully.

“What!” Calen said, mimicking her urgency but quieter.

“Why would you want to go to an abandoned island in Russia, of all places? Especially when, as you put it, there’s no reason for anyone to be there!”

“Well, first of all, it’s quite far away from mainland Russia. And secondly,” Calen paused for effect, “no one lives there. So, it’s as safe a place as it can be.”

“I don’t care if it’s safe or not!” she said, exasperated, “You promised we were done with the site visits!” She glared at his dumbfounded face for a second and then said, “And what about the fact that I will have to stay alone for God knows how long while you traipse along on some godforsaken, barren island looking for spooky stories. Are you crazy?”

Calen had been waiting for this exact moment. He didn’t want to go alone. Selfish though the thought was, he really wanted Alice to come with him, so he said with a note of plea in his voice that he knew Alice didn’t generally deny.

“Come with me?”

“Oh, I get it, you are crazy!” she said and then added, “Hell would freeze over before I agree. NO!”

It took Calen the rest of the afternoon to wear Alice down.

Alice had lived with her parents her whole life. Even after she moved to her current place, her Sundays were mainly spent with her parents, who stayed in Staten Island.

Calen’s feet still itched every few months, and he would go and live for a month or two in strange places where most people would run away from the first chance they got. Alice sometimes followed him, away from the comfort of her home, but she rarely stayed as long as Calen would stay, running away in a week or two.

In a last-ditch attempt, she had said she would go with Calen on condition that she was not going to live in a ‘camping’ situation, hoping that Calen would have no other option but to either go alone or not go at all. But when Calen smiled brightly and said “Deal!”, she shook his hand, disgruntled at the cost of the defeat she was surely about to pay in a few months.

Content Warning: Graphic violence, gore, death, and disturbing imagery.

“They will fear you unlike anything they have feared before.”

—The Judge

The wind blows through the sandy dunes, passing over corroded debris from where buildings used to stand. The smell of rot and decay now lingers through the air. Those buildings used to belong to a sanctuary called Trinity, but now it’s a wasteland of maggots.

As I take each step through the ruins, the footprints I leave become deeper and heavier as the journey doesn't seem to have an end. I have become lost as the days go on, no longer worried about what time of day it was, but rather when I’m going to find shelter from the weather and food.

My clothes are tattered and covered in sand, my feet bruised and blistered, my mask out of filters, and I was running out of time.

I traveled to Trinity seeking shelter and safety, but what I found was rather horrid and nightmarish.

Bodies stacked in piles and burned in cages. Heads on pikes. Entrails stretched out for miles. Women and children nailed to crucifixes, their blood drained into now-broken jars.

No one was left alive in the wake of man's wrath. A never-ending, always-hungry destruction that will continue to grow.

It doesn't matter, though. Now that this sanctuary was culled, I must travel onwards via the entrails that run along the old railroad.

It was one of many structures left of the old world…

As I took each step through the sand, I watched as the train tracks slowly became engulfed in the terrain. My feet started to ache less once the sun began to set for the evening.

I knew I needed shelter before the night came. I wasn't scared of the dark, but rather the creatures that lurked in the shadows.

This moment of thought quickly gets snuffed out as I hear the sound of a muffled gunshot ring out in the distance.

My footsteps quiet down as I approach, the smell of iron becoming more present in the air as I step closer to a train inspection booth. These were common in the old days when stowaways became more frequent and dark zones started forming continuously like a plague.

Here I am now, standing in front of a door covered in rot, puss, and leaking blood from underneath.

A sense of dread festers in my soul like a mosquito to blood.

I decided to get rid of the feeling by opening the door and witnessing the dread that was behind it…

A body of a guard falls out of the building as the door opens.

I quickly look inside and see a mechanism that was rigged to shoot anything that opened the door. I took one large step in and went around the trap.

There were wires hanging everywhere and papers scattered all over the floor. A light hung in the middle of the room, barely keeping it lit.

There was also a body inside the building with half a face gone.

It was a suicide.

Or maybe another person did this.

There was writing on the wall stating:

“Like a moth to a flame. Today's count is 3. I wonder what horrors await.

—The Judge.”

I didn't think too much about it since my main concern was to block the door for the night.

I scanned the room to see if there were any other entries into the building. There was only the front door and the service window, but the shutters were bolted down.

I didn't have to worry about the window, so I wrapped some of the hanging wires around the door handle and tightened them.

I thought I could breathe easily…

I was wrong.

Guttural screaming could be heard outside. If you didn't know better, you'd think it was someone being murdered.

But no.

It's something worse.

A horrifying creature called a Lurker.

The guttural screaming is their way of calling others for a feast.

I am their feast…

Pounding.

Scratching.

Screaming.

Slamming.

Ramming.

They wanted in the building. They could smell me.

The screams only got louder and started sounding more human than before.

I took my revolver out.

I only had one round left.

Pound.

Pound.

Pound.

The door begins to crack and splinter as the Lurker continues to pound and claw its way in.

My heart beats loudly in my ears as the door slams into the lightbulb and falls to the floor.

The last thing to be seen in that room was the muzzle flash of the revolver….

—10 Days Since Train Inspection Booth—

The wind blows softly on the sand, slowly moving over the partially buried train tracks. It looks like waves passing through an endless sea.

It felt like the world was finally at peace…

My feet begin to give out, and I collapse onto the sand.

Blood pools beneath me.

I was fatally wounded on the night of the inspection booth. I thought if I stuffed the wound with cloth, I would have lasted long enough to see a doctor.

In hindsight, I should have realized the wound would have bled through the cloth.

As I lay in the sand, the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes for good was a person in a long black cloak dragging a wooden wagon from behind.

The person was headed towards me.

I felt too weak to get up.

Too close to death.

The sand comforted me like a warm blanket as the person approached me.

The person then lifted me effortlessly into the wagon and put ragged blankets on top of me.

I finally closed my eyes as they dragged the wagon through the sand…

The world had become a place where even hesitation was a luxury. The things people once considered cruel had become practical. The things they once considered impossible had become routine.

He had followed the animal for nearly an hour through the frozen remains of what used to be a national forest. The trees stood like skeletons reaching toward a gray, empty sky, their branches twisted and bare, carrying only a thin layer of frost that glittered briefly whenever the weak afternoon sun broke through the clouds.

The cat had been fast. Smarter than most things still alive.

But starvation made every creature predictable.

Now it hung over a small fire, slowly turning above the flames. The smell was unpleasant, but unpleasant was better than nothing. The world had not ended with fire and screaming. It had ended quietly. It ended with empty houses, silent highways, and people learning that a full stomach mattered more than pride.

He sat beside the fire, his rifle resting against a fallen log within arm’s reach.

The snow around him was untouched except for his own tracks. Each step he had taken through the woods had left a perfect trail behind him, a line of evidence that he was alive. The snow betrayed everything.

That was why he heard it.

At first, he thought it was the wind.

A strange sound drifting through the trees.

Not an animal.

Not the groan of branches shifting beneath the weight of ice.

A voice?

He froze.

The fire popped softly in front of him as the embers danced in the air like fairies.

He slowly turned his head slightly, listening.

There.

Again.

A faint noise carried through the forest.

Almost like words.

Almost like someone whispering from somewhere beyond the trees.

He reached for his rifle with practiced precision.

The old instincts returned. The ones that kept people alive before the world became a graveyard.

He covered the fire with a handful of snow, grabbed his weapon, and moved.

The forest swallowed him.

The crunch of his boots against the snow seemed impossibly loud. Each step broke the frozen surface with a sharp, hollow crack that echoed between the trees.

He moved carefully, placing his feet where the snow looked less disturbed, avoiding branches that might snap beneath his weight.

The silence was wrong.

Before the collapse, forests had been full of life. Birds, insects, distant cars, voices from people hiking trails and children laughing.

Now the sounds were different.

A single animal crying somewhere far away.

The rustle of something moving through dead grass.

The distant howl of a creature that had learned the world belonged to it.

Nature had survived.

Humanity had not been so lucky.

He moved deeper into the woods.

The voice came again.

Closer.

Or maybe... it wasn't?

The forest had a way of twisting distance. A whisper could sound like it came from beside you while actually being hundreds of feet away.

He stopped.

Listened.

Nothing.

Then...

"ara... ara..."

His grip tightened around the rifle.

The sound was soft.

Almost playful.

Almost impossible.

He scanned the trees.

Nothing.

A normal person would have walked away.

Normal people, however, had mostly disappeared.

He stepped forward.

A twig cracked beneath his boot.

He froze.

The sound echoed loudly.

Nothing moved.

He waited.

Five seconds.

Ten.

The forest remained still.

He continued.

Another step.

Another crunch of snow.

Another distant whisper.

"ara... ara..."

But this time, he noticed something.

The voice wasn't coming from ahead.

It wasn't behind him.

His eyes slowly lifted.

The branches overhead were thick with snow, creating a tangled ceiling of darkness.

Something moved.

A small shift.

A shadow.

Then a twig snapped.

Not beside him.

Not behind him.

Above him.

He was being hunted.

His rifle came up instantly.

The barrel tracked toward the branches.

For a fraction of a second, he saw nothing.

Then something dropped from the tree.

A shape.

Dark.

Human.

Impossible.

The figure fell directly toward him, surrounded by a storm of loose snow and broken branches. Frilly fabric fluttered through the air like something from a world that had never known hunger, war, or extinction.

A face appeared.

Pale.

Smiling.

Eyes wild with unnatural excitement.

And in a voice so cheerful it felt like a crime against the ruined world around them, the figure screamed:

"UwU!"

The last thing he felt was confusion.

The rifle slipped from his hand.

The snow rushed upward.

The sky disappeared.

And as the cold took him, his final thought was not fear.

It was a simple question.

What the hell was that?

Most childhood memories fade with time. But some linger, sitting in the back of one's mind until something brings them rushing back to the surface like a hollow ball released from underwater.

One such memory recently came back to me. It originates from when I was seven years old. Back then, my mother volunteered to water the plants at my elementary school every Saturday morning. She usually brought me with her.

An empty school on a weekend is a strange place. Without any kids or teachers, the dark hallways always felt enormous and eerie. The overhead lights were left off, leaving the long corridors that stretched along each of its three floors in shadow. For much of the time, the only consistent sound was the wet slosh of mom’s large green watering can as she worked her way from the classrooms up to the new glass solarium on the third floor.

Mom usually did all the work. Sometimes, I’d help out a little, but the plastic watering can was heavy and awkward for me to carry. So, I was usually left to my own devices. While she watered, I’d generally have my nose buried in a Redwall book, and then I’d trail a few paces behind her as she moved from one room to another.

If I strayed from her or let her get too far ahead of me, her voice would echo down the hall, “Bailey, come back, stay where I can see you.”

I always listened and stayed close to her. Until that rainy Saturday I stopped trailing my mother, and instead started following the figure wearing her coat.

~

Mom offered to let me stay home that morning. She’d never done that before. I imagine she wanted to give me a chance to avoid getting soaked in the storm. Plus, my stepdad was down in the basement tearing out drywall for a remodel, so, while he wouldn’t be watching me, I wouldn’t be alone.

I jumped at the chance, eager to watch TV while curled up on the couch instead of returning to school on a weekend.

I watched as mom zipped up her oversized yellow rubber raincoat – the classic kind with a corduroy collar and heavy brass snap buttons – and stepped out to her station wagon.

As I sat there, a strange wave of unease hit me. Something quiet told me that I’d rather be with her than without her. Acting on impulse, I grabbed my own raincoat, sprinted into the rain, and tapped on the car window. She unlocked the door, and I scrambled inside.

I rarely picked up on adult emotions back then, but the way her eyes lit up stuck with me. Even at seven, I could tell how much my choice meant to her.

The driver over felt safe despite the storm. With mom behind the wheel, the thunder outside was just background noise.

We pulled into the school’s empty parking lot and used the side entrance near the cafeteria. Mom used a key from the heavy brass keyring the principal let her borrow to unlock the heavy metal door. She held it open for me as I rushed into the cold air inside.

Once we were in the building, mom stepped into the custodial closet at the end of the first-story hall to fill one of the school’s large green watering cans at the mop sink. “Stay right next to me,” she called out over the sound of the running faucet.

“I am,” I said, leaning against the doorframe and looking down to shake the rain off my jacket.

When I looked up a second later, a figure in a wet yellow raincoat was already walking down the corridor toward the main stairwell, its hood pulled up high, the green watering can swinging from one hand.

I remember thinking it was strange that mom was still wearing her raincoat inside, but that didn’t seem important at the time. It was the same yellow coat she'd worn into the school, and I assumed she had just stepped back out into the hall while my head was down.

I fell into step a few paces behind the yellow coat, exactly like I always did. She moved at her usual steady, rhythmic pace. As she did so, I kept my distance, about five paces back. I kept my copy of Mossflower clutched against my chest as I watched the hem of her raincoat sway above her boots.

We soon reached the first stop, the planters outside the main cafeteria. Mom lowered the watering can while I leaned against the cinderblock wall and read a few lines of my book. Next, we visited the cast iron plants inside the front office before heading to the staircase.

Mom paused at the large potted ficus sitting in the dark alcove near the main stairwell before heading upward. The heavy brass keys on her belt clanged with every step. It was the exact same metal chime I had followed a dozen times before. I pushed myself off the wall and followed her up the stairs, exactly like I always did.

We reached the second-floor landing, where the long hallway stretched out into shadow. My mom kept moving toward the classrooms, her boots squeaking softly on the polished linoleum.

We passed the music room. Through the small square window in the door, the upright piano looked enormous and dark in the corner, totally silent without Ms. Jenson there to play it.

During the week, that room was full of noise, but my favorite part was when Ms. Jenson had all twenty-five of us hide behind the piano and the risers to ‘trick’ our homeroom teacher into thinking we’d all gone home early. Back then, sitting in the dark, holding our breath, and trying not to giggle felt eerie and thrilling. But looking through that glass now, with the room completely empty, the quiet felt heavy and cold.

I kept my head down, flipping to the next chapter of my book as I walked. The brass keys just kept clanging against her hip, a steady rhythm guiding me as she turned down the corridor toward the library. I adjusted my grip and kept pace a few steps behind her.

Mom pushed through the library door and headed for the tall potted fern tucked beside the checkout desk.

In the dark, the room felt huge. Looking at the reading carpet, I could almost hear Mr. Hinkle’s booming, ridiculous voices during story hour, followed by the chorus of giggles echoing off the tall shelves. But, today, the empty beanbags and shadowy aisles had a lonely, desolate aura to them.

My mom reached into the fern's fronds, her yellow coat rustling in the dark. She kept the watering can tipped over the soil for a long, quiet stretch – far longer than usual. At first, I figured the plant was just really dry, but as the seconds dragged on, a small prickle of unease set in. “Mom?” I asked, stepping closer. “Isn't that enough?”

She didn’t turn around, but her voice came from beneath the high hood, low and coarse, roughened by something in her throat. “Almost done, sweetie. Stay close.” She lingered there, frozen over the plant, before abruptly snapping back to her full height.

At this point, I started to grow concerned. Her voice sounded strained, like her throat was raw. I wondered if she was coming down with something, or if sprinting through the cold rain earlier had already made her sick. Her movements, too, seemed ‘off’. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

She didn’t say anything else, just turned and walked back out into the hallway toward the next row of classrooms. I followed, opening my book and trying to focus on the paragraph I’d been reading, but the words wouldn’t stick. Every time I looked up from the page, my eyes went straight back to the yellow coat swaying ahead of me.

As we moved down the hall, the uneasy feeling in my stomach only grew. As we passed the second-floor classrooms, I realized I hadn’t actually seen her face since we left the custodial closet. Every time she reached for a planter or turned a corner, her body was angled just enough away that the deep yellow hood blocked my view, casting her face in complete shadow. Was she doing this on purpose? If so, why?

I hesitated, unsure of what to do. I knew that I didn't want to go up to the third floor. But where else was I supposed to go? Back down to the dark cafeteria by myself? Outside into the freezing rain? I took a small step backward, my eyes locked on the empty landing above, waiting for her boots to stop moving.

“Bailey.” Her raspy voice echoed down the concrete well. I looked up. She had stopped on the landing above, her back turned to me, her deep hood casting a shadow that completely hid her face. She held the heavy door open, waiting. “Come on,” she called.

“I…um…can I just sit in the library and read?” I asked.

“Please, honey,” she implored, “Stay with me. Stay where I can see you.”

The familiarity of her words soothed me, or at least some small part of me. That was what Mom always said when I wandered too far away. I took a deep breath and began climbing the steps.

The third floor was even quieter and darker than the rest of the school. Just outside the staircase sat the closed metal doors of the building’s old elevator, its floor indicator resting silently above the frame.

The air here felt cooler and carried a faint damp smell from the glass solarium at the far end of the hall. The figure moved ahead of me down the corridor, her boots making a soft, sticky sound against the tile.

We moved into the first classroom, a fourth-grade room. Mom headed for a tall pothos sitting on top of a filing cabinet in the corner. I stayed back by the door and flipped open my book.

That was when the silence of the room really hit me.

Down on the first and second floors, every time she lifted the watering can, I’d hear the heavy slosh of water shifting inside the plastic. I’d hear the quick, wet patter as it hit the soil. But here, as she tilted the green spout over the leaves, there was nothing. No sloshing. No dripping. Just the scrape of rubber sleeve against plastic.

The can had gone empty, and she’d never refilled it. Yet, she leaned it over the plant for ten long seconds, as if watering it, before pulling it back.

She turned and brushed past me into the next room, her head tilted slightly as if listening for something. I felt a wave of panic as it dawned on me that something was deeply wrong.

A thought crossed my mind: What if this isn’t mom?

I dismissed it quickly. It had to be her. After all, who else could it possibly be? But, why was she acting so weird?

“Um, mom, are you okay?” I asked.

She ignored me as she stepped into the first fifth-grade classroom, where a small, shriveled African violet sat on the teacher’s desk.

I stopped a few paces inside the doorway. For a moment, I reassured myself that I must be wrong. I must have imagined her doing things that made no sense. Surely, mom wasn’t pouring imaginary water from an empty can. I had to be mistaken, right?

Then, I watched, holding my breath, as she tilted the green spout over the leaves, holding it there for several long seconds. But, again, no water came out. There was no sloshing inside the plastic can, no wet trickling into the dirt, no sound at all. Just an empty container over a dying plant.

She pulled the spout back, her body pivoting toward me with a stiff, mechanical turn. As she adjusted her grip on the handle, the pale light from a window hit her hand. The skin wasn’t smooth. It was bloated and greyish, completely waterlogged and wrinkled, like fingers that had been soaking in a deep tub for days. Soft, water-heavy creases bunched around her knuckles, looking loose and ready to tear.

My stomach dropped. I took two quiet steps backward toward the open doorway, easing my weight onto my toes to keep my sneakers from squeaking. My hand reached behind me, searching for the frame so I could turn and run.

“Bailey.”

The voice rasped out from deep inside the hood. She hadn’t turned her shoulders, but her head jerked sideways at an unnatural angle, fixing the dark void of her hood right on me.

“Stay close,” she said, her voice as gravelly as before. “Stay with mommy.”

She stepped out into the dark hallway, her boots dragging heavily against the floor. I fell into step behind her, but kept three full yards of distance now, my eyes locked on the back of that yellow coat. We entered the art room, the last room before the end of the hall. The air inside carried a sharp, damp breeze. In the dim light, the high counter tops and rows of tall wooden stools looked like strange, crouching shapes.

I imagined the forms of my classmates sitting on those stools, their eyes trained on me in judgment as Mr. Jones gave me a stern lecture. I’d gotten in trouble in this classroom recently, twice, actually. The first time, I’d drawn my dad, translucent and in hospital garb, hovering above my mom and I as we ate at the dinner table.

“It’s supposed to be a realistic image of your family,” Mr. Jones had chided. “Not something weird that you made up.”

“It’s not imaginary,” I’d pouted. “He visits us as a ghost.”

“Your dad’s alive,” he’d retorted. “Right?”

“Yes,” I conceded. It would remain true for nearly a year. Soon, he’d start showing signs of being sick, but hadn’t done so yet. As far as I could tell at the time, he was perfectly healthy. “So, how could your dad be a ghost if he’s alive?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Nor did I have an answer for the counselor I was required to visit for the next few weeks.

The second time, Mr. Jones prompted us to draw something from our dreams. I’d sketched a burly man with an angry face covered with splats of crimson. When asked, I explained it was the man I’d seen on the news, who’d murdered a child and was widely believed to be hiding out in the woods. That got me several weeks of counseling as well.

Mom, meanwhile, walked toward a hanging spider plant near the far window, her movement stiff and robotic. As she lifted the empty watering can to it, I tried again to make sense of the situation.

I kept trying to explain it to myself, but nothing I came up with made me feel any better. If the person wearing that coat wasn't my mom, then where was she? Had she stepped out of the custodial closet while my head was down? Was she still downstairs searching for me in the dark, calling my name? Or had something happened to her in that back room? The thought of her lying hurt on the wet concrete floor sent a surge of panic straight to my chest, far worse than the creeping fear of the coat ahead of me.

This was my last chance. Down on the second floor, I had hesitated. But now, standing near the open door with the dark staircase behind me, my heart raced.

I didn’t watch her reach for the plant. I didn’t wait for her to lift the empty can. Instead, I took a breath, turned on my heel, and bolted for the hallway.

My sneaker caught the metal doorframe with a loud, hollow thud.

Before I could take a single full stride into the hall, a long shadow stretched across the linoleum ahead of me. The figure was already standing in the doorway, blocking the exit entirely. She hadn’t made a sound moving across the room.

The dark void of the hood tilted down toward me.

“Not yet, Bailey,” the voice called softly. “We haven’t done the solarium yet. Please, stay with me. I want you here with me. Please.”

The double doors to the solarium stood open at the far end, framed by glass walls that rattled softly against the storm outside. Rain hammered against the sloped roof, sending shadows dancing across the concrete floor.

Mom glided past the threshold, the yellow coat glistening under the gray light. Rows of metal shelving held crowded trays of ivies, overgrown spider plants, and heavy clay pots.

She closed the door behind us, turning the opposite way from me as she changed direction, before returning to the center of the room, where she stood in front of a collection of plants.

The large, circular clock above the closed double doors drew my attention. Its black frame was dusted with a thin layer of grime. During the week, amid the chaotic roar of over two dozen kids, shifting desks, and squeaking sneakers, you never heard it at all. But on a dead silent Saturday, its long, red hand emitted a heavy, mechanical “clack” that reverberated around the room.

But, something about it felt ‘off’ today. I had to stare at it a moment to figure out what it was. The red hand was changing direction. It would go one way for five or ten seconds, only to then reverse and travel in the opposite direction.

I chalked it up to being broken, or low on battery. I didn’t have time, or the mental bandwidth, to think about it further. I was too fixated on mom, who stood perfectly still under the skylight, her yellow back turned to me while she aimed the empty watering can at the plants.

This is my best chance to get out of here, I told myself. I took a slow, agonizing step backward, easing my weight onto my toes the way I did when playing hide-and-seek. Reaching behind my back, my fingers found the brass handle of the double doors and pressed down.

Clack clack clack sounded the broken clock as I pressed my shaking hands against the handle.

It didn’t budge. I realized, to my horror, that it was locked.

Mom had locked me in. If I needed any final confirmation that the figure I was following was an imposter, this was it. Mom would never do that.

I turned to the figure. The bits of light that made it through the thick clouds illuminated the heavy brass keyring hanging from her left hip. If I wanted to get out, I had to take it.

I stopped breathing. I took one step forward, then another, moving with absolute stillness. Mom moved slightly, shifting her empty can from one plant to another.

I reached out a trembling hand, my fingers hovering an inch from the metal. Squeezing my palm tightly around several keys to deaden the sounds they might make, I slipped the clip off her belt loop in one smooth, agonizing pull.

Clack clack clack.

Keyring in hand, I continued holding my breath as I turned back to the door and tiptoed toward it. The keys were labeled with plastic tags, and the one for the solarium was easy to identify. Like the room itself, it was newer and cleaner than the keys for the rest of the building.

Steadying my hand, I inserted it into the keyhole and turned. The bolt retracted with a heavy thud. I yanked the handle open.

Instantly, I heard thud of the empty watering can against the floor. The sound drew my attention. When I glanced back, the figure had moved. She was right behind me now.

The movement pulled her hood back just enough for the gray light from above to wash across her face. My jaw dropped as I gazed up at it.

Her face was swollen and water-softened, the gray skin sagging loose around her jawline and mottled with deep bruises. The water had eroded the soft tissue around her cheeks, leaving raw, darkened patches. Her eyes were sunken and milky, fixed in an unblinking stare. As her blackened mouth opened, heavy water spilled over her torn bottom lip.

I let out a ragged shriek and sprinted into the corridor.

My sneakers hit the wet linoleum with a fast, heavy slap as I ran down the corridor.

“Bailey,” it growled from the dark as it pursued me. “Please, stay where I can see you.”

Hearing that familiar, desperate voice coming from that terrifying creature made my chest lock up.

I took the turn toward the stairwell too fast, my foot catching the edge of a raised floor tile. I went down hard on my knees, landing a short distance from the elevator landing.

Before I could scramble up, a thick, freezing hand closed around my left ankle. The cold soaked straight through my sock. It didn’t pull me back at first. It simply held on. I kicked wildly with my free heel, trying to wrench myself free, but the grip only tightened.

“Bailey,” rang its distorted voice, “I can't let you go.”

The indicator arrow above the elevator turned red, and the metal doors parted. Standing inside was my real mom.

“Bailey!” she yelled, her eyes locking onto me sprawled in the hallway.

She lunged across the threshold. Reaching down, she hooked both hands under my arms, bracing her boots against the doorframe, and pulled with everything she had.

For a terrifying second, I was the rope in a tug-of-war. My mom leaned back, her teeth clenched as she strained against the brute strength holding my ankle in the dark. With a harsh grunt, she threw her full weight backward, ripping me clean out of the yellow coat’s grip.

We both tumbled onto the elevator floor. My mom scrambled up, hit the door-close button, and jammed her hand onto the ground floor switch.

The last thing I saw, before the steel doors snapped shut, was the figure, her arms extended outward, making one final, desperate lurch toward me.

As the elevator dropped, mom dropped to her knees beside me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I buried my face into her jacket, my chest heaving. She held me tight, her hands warm, her breath ragged in my ear as she kept repeating that we were safe.

We ran out the side entrance into the freezing downpour, scrambled into the station wagon, and tore out of the parking lot. My mom drove three blocks down to a well-lit gas station before pulling over to the payphone. Her hands trembled so violently she dropped the receiver twice before dialing 911, looking back into the backseat every few seconds to touch my shoulder, her voice shaking as she reassured me that whatever was in that building couldn’t reach us now.

When the squad cars arrived, we both sat in the back of an officer’s cruiser under a heavy wool blanket while they took our statements. We repeated our stories: my mom describing a tall intruder who had cornered us by the elevator, and me trying to explain the bloated, gray face that had stared down at me in the solarium. But as the officers cross-referenced our timelines, a discrepancy emerged that was never fully resolved.

From my mom's perspective, the whole encounter lasted only a couple of minutes. She had stepped out of the first-floor custodial closet with her filled watering can, turned around to find the hallway completely empty, and called out my name.

When I didn’t answer, a sudden thumping commotion echoed down the central shaft from the third floor. She panicked, took the elevator straight up to investigate, and the doors opened right as I came sprinting toward her with the figure on my heels.

But, I had spent what felt like twenty agonizing minutes trailing that yellow coat across three entire floors, moving through classroom after classroom and the library. To this day, I can’t explain why it felt like so much longer to me than it did to my mom.

The police, for their part, searched the building floor by floor, but they found nothing unusual. The glass solarium was empty, and no sign of an intruder could be found.

No culprit was ever identified. For the rest of that school year, a cruiser was stationed outside the cafeteria entrance every Saturday morning while my mom finished her routine, but no one ever saw the figure again. As the months turned into years, the event settled into the quiet background of my childhood, a strange, unsettling mystery that we eventually stopped talking about. My mom and my stepdad divorced a few years later, and after that it was mostly just the two of us.

We may have stopped discussing it, but the memory of what I witnessed on the third floor never faded. I can still feel the icy pressure of those cold fingers clamped around my ankle and, in silent, dark rooms, I sometimes imagine that pale, waterlogged face staring at me from the shadows.

Mom retired a few years ago. When she did so, she bought a small secondhand motorboat and spent her weekends cruising the quiet inlets near home. She'd kept that old yellow raincoat all those years, and I still saw her wearing it whenever the weather turned cold. She invited me out with her half a dozen times, but between work and family, I always made excuses.

Looking back, the silence was the first sign. My mom checked in on me constantly, so when three days passed without a call or text, an uneasy knot formed in my stomach. I started calling around to her friends and neighbors, but none of them had seen her since Friday morning.

I called the local authorities and set a search into motion. Because she had gone out alone without leaving a specific navigation plan, the search area was vast. It took nearly two weeks of scouring the dense, tangled marshlands and winding waterways before her boat was spotted jammed in a secluded patch of reeds.

The investigation pieced together what happened. While attempting to clear a tangled line from the propeller, my mom had slipped and fallen overboard. The engine was cut, but the impact against the hull had knocked her unconscious, and the tidal current swept her deep into the brackish marsh before she could climb back aboard. Though her life jacket kept her afloat, the head injury left her incapacitated, floating alone in the water until her body finally gave out. When the report came back, the official cause of death was drowning following an incapacitating injury.

When I came to the viewing room, the medical examiner placed a heavy hand on my shoulder and urged me not to see the body. He warned me that nearly two weeks in the brackish water had severely altered her features, and that the way she looked now was not how I would want to remember her.

I insisted. When he finally pulled back the sheet, the man stepped to the side, watching my face carefully for the breakdown he clearly expected. But the sharp panic he braced for never came. Amidst the heavy grief of losing my only family member, and the guilt for all the times I had turned down her invitations to join her on that boat, I didn’t scream. I didn’t turn away.

I wasn’t shocked, because the sight resting on that cold metal table was entirely familiar.

Standing in that quiet room, I realized I knew two things that no investigator could ever piece together, two things nobody else in the world would ever know.

I knew that in her final moments, as her life slowly faded away in the quiet waters of that marsh, my mother had been remembering those rainy Saturdays walking through the school with me. The classrooms, the plants, and, most importantly, me following a few steps behind her. It was a memory of a time when nothing in the world existed except the two of us together, and somehow, in those final moments, that memory had reached backward through the years.

And I knew, too, who it was that had led me through the empty building. For decades, I had believed that whatever had followed me through that school had been wearing my mother’s coat, and that it had wanted to hurt me. But now, looking down at the water-softened face beneath the sheet, I found myself remembering the things I’d been too frightened to understand at the time.

The way she had stopped on the stairs when I fell behind. The way she had waited for me. The way she kept telling me to stay close, even as I was desperate to get away.

And then there were those last words: “I can’t let you go.” I’d spent my entire life remembering them as a threat, but they sounded different now. Because, as I peered into that familiar ruined face resting on the stainless steel, I recognized it immediately.

It was the same face that had turned to me in the dim light of the third floor, the same face I had followed through the school all those years ago.

The first time I saw it was on my bus ride to work. Unremarkable on its own but – like with most things – the context creates a shift to the obscure. Because, what I saw through the dirty bus window (with a crudely constructed penis carved into its glass), was not just a van. It was not just a Jonesy's Cabaret van. It was a worn down, brown Ford with a gaudy logo printed upon its side in the oldest part of Chause Cemetery. 

It immediately struck me as odd, I mean, why wouldn’t it? Most of the time you pass by a cemetery, especially that cemetery, the cars that are parked there are bleakly modern. A shiny show of mourning, perhaps flanked by a grieving daughter or son, not a lone, mobile advertisement for the scantily clad club across the street. I could tell it had been parked there for at least a night, the layer of leaves from the storm was evidence enough, and that no one was near it that I could see. Unfortunately, as soon as I got a good look at the damn thing, I was jolted by the bus's clunky engine to the next stop.

Being as stubborn and curious as I am, I didn’t want it to be the last time I saw that van. So I did what any sane working-class American might do; waited until after my shift to pay the spot a formal visit. Of course, the van was gone, with no tire marks left to its name in the overgrown grass. You see, the Chause Cemetery had two parts to it divided by a rusted fence much older than I was. The northmost part was for newer graves while the other was for the older, ones stained with gray lichen and overgrown with grass. It was clear that there was none tasked to upkeep this part of the land. 

I wouldn’t stop my search though, I had been thinking about the van for damn near my entire six hour shift. I couldn’t let an opportunity slip, especially when the cemetery was still open as the old part had odd hours. So I started to comb the overgrown landscape for anything suspicious. Near the front, my search was futile but as I approached the graves farther from the road, there was a sudden shift in the air. Even the humid summer air of the city turned toward a slight chill in attention. I looked back and it was as if the trees crept close enough to embrace, close enough to isolate me from the road and leaves brushing the overgrown grass like the soft fingertips of a lover. It became a stale quiet, like being in a library with not enough people in it. Instead of the smell of old books, the stench of earth permeated into my pores. Fresh dirt, not the kind simply upturned by the rain. Dug dirt. 

Sure enough, four moss-covered graves lay before me, upturned and empty with wet soil turned up at the sides in puffy mounds. Four girls with four names. Della Owens died in 1921. Amy Zhao died in 1997. Ivy Pritchard died in 1898. Cecilia Romano died in 1952. All were 19 years of age on the day of their last breath, and all of their bodies were gone.I wondered where the police were but quickly realized that if they had come to address this blatant grave robbing – just like the van– they would be long gone. And yet, there were no obvious tire marks in the long grass, much like my footsteps made no traction on the stringy green carpet. In any case, despite the morbidity, this discovery only added to my curiosity. 

Was the Jonesy’s Cabaret behind it? Their van was certainly close to the scene of the crime. Perhaps a black market human remains deal or an old fashioned robbery. Cynicism stopped my racing thoughts like a traffic conductor. It wasn’t new for me to connect stories that weren’t remotely intimate, concoct tall tales out of thin air. A tedious and irritating downside to stunted potential. I worked at a shitty sandwich shop for a poor excuse of a paycheck, at least until I paid off my loans. I wasn’t the detective I thought I was in my head. Hell, I probably never would be. 

But then I saw the van again. About five days later after my closing shift, almost one in the morning. I could hardly make it out in the oppressive dark, hell not even the gaudy logo was visible and that could make it seem like it was simply a keeper of the grounds. But somehow I knew it was that van. However, it wasn’t the first thing I noticed. It was the flashlight of a balding man weaving in and out of the graves, and the glowing light of the van's window idling in wait. This stranger's grease emanated off of him through his polo shirt and khaki shorts. Again it was dark but the light of the streetlamps cradled into view hands that had been stained with mud. He seemed to notice the rush of traffic and hurriedly shuffled back to the driver's seat. The bus moved much faster past the cemetery this time. 

I booked tickets for a cabaret show the next day. It started at 9pm so I decided to head there after my shift which ended about an hour prior. The bouncer took the ticket off of my phone easily enough which somewhat ruined the subtle air of running an operation. The inside of Jonesey’s Cabaret was a classy mix of old and new. Red LED lights and the smokey film of a fog machine carpeted the 1920’s era velvet and lacy tablecloth of the small seating areas. The darkest parts of the theater, up in the balcony boxes cloaked in midnight, seemed to be an origin point to a void-like energy bringing down each and every heart into the pit of their pelvis. Even mine, despite myself. I had reserved a seat at a table closest to the stage with much hesitation and a rebelling bank account, but was reassured by the necessity. I knew I had to be close enough to those at the top of the cabaret, perhaps not the owner but maybe the stagehands would be visible in their complicity. 

While I was alone at my table - habitually early - I stared at the crystal ashtray as opposed to my feet. I wasn’t a smoker, but the dish seemed so empty without a half-smoked cigar or a Marlboro Red tilted with an orange spark. Everything seemed empty, which gave the theater an eerie feeling. I supposed it was normal to be fashionably late to these sorts of things when you weren’t staff. I scanned the curtained walls and ornate wood of the space with a silent reverence, grateful to have the theater mostly to myself for the time being. 

Until I saw him, well more I felt him, standing in the corner of the theater. That greasy, balding gravedigger was blatantly flaunting himself at the true scene of the crime. His beer belly was even more noticeable in the clean pressed shirt he wore with black dress pants that were far too long. I tried not to look surprised and swallowed hard. I had changed into one of my nicer outfits so an approach like this one would be manageable, albeit I wasn’t used to fussing with my hair or face this much. So I did what I had mentally rehearsed for the past three hours. Depending on how well the mental laps had exercised me this could either go very well or very poorly. But there I was, confidently sauntering toward a stranger like I knew the secret I had come to find. 

“Excuse me sir,” I said, with less than enough conviction, but there was music playing quite loud now to preface the show, so I repeated myself and straightened my spine. 

“Yeah? What do y’ want?” The man replied gruffly. He had an usher’s name tag on that read in gold font; ‘Richard’. He seemed a bit riled by my presence, so I swallowed hard and changed my approach. 

“Slow night eh?” Flippant as I could. 

“I guess, what's it to you?” Still apprehensive and sweaty. Richard looked at me with a jumpy apprehension that made his pupils jump this way and that. His hands fiddled with the insides of his pockets and up close his shirt collar seemed far too tight on his red bulging neck. 

“Well it’s perfect don’t ya think? For the business I mean,”

“The business?”

“I’m an interested party. ‘Been keyed in on everything,”

I gave this shit-stain of a man a fabricated knowing look. I was sure to flash the small amount of expensive jewelry I had on my fingers and in my ears. Richard looked me up and down as if he didn’t think it was precedent to find someone like me intimidating or respectable until now. Or perhaps I was misreading skepticism.

“Right… well I don’t think it’s right to be talkin’ too much about that now,”

I turned to him as eloquently as I could and scoffed.

“Do you people not own this place? As long as the cover isn’t here you should feel comfortable speaking about your supply at least. I mean, that’s what I’m here for,” I reached into my wallet and sifted through a couple hundred bills that were most likely going right back into my savings after this excursion, “Perhaps someone should take the business you hide off your hands.”

Richard stammered clumsily. I knew it, behind his tough bouncer demeanor this man was flopping in my hands like a slimy bluegill bottom feeder. 

“Well no I-I was just- the market is so new, and our boss only recently talked about sellin’ to other clientele. The work has been weighin’ on me, that’s all.” 

He was being so vague that I could barely gather any assertion about what this business was. But it did confirm my suspicions that whatever illegal activity was going on, they were getting sloppy with the operation due to demand. The new market comment made it seem like it was something ingenuitive though. I had heard of wealthy individuals taking bone ash in supplement form but why would they operate out of a cabaret? Was it just proximity to the cemetery? I knew he wouldn’t give me the answers I needed.

“Right, I will be in contact with your superiors. Make no mention of our conversation should you save yourself from any more embarrassment.” 

I sauntered off back to my seat without taking one look back. Once the show started, Richard was gone from the side of the stage and two lonely strangers were smoking thin cigarettes at the table with me. Ash and sparks collided as the curtains opened before my eyes in a velvet red. The announcer said much about nothing short of a bore. The first act was full of dancing with vivaciously bright young women with no light in their eyes. And I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense. I actually didn’t notice it until the third act, but the shine of the spotlights never hit any part of their corneas. It deeply unsettled me, chilled the hot laughing air around me. I also couldn’t help but notice all the women were incredibly thin. Not in all of the parts of their body, and it varied from woman to woman, but the more you noticed it the more you couldn’t stop. You could see the skin and muscle cling to tibia, fibia, spine, and skull.

Then came the fourth act. A lone woman. Standing in front of a vintage looking microphone. She had blonde hair cut in a bob and styled to the 1920s alongside her dress. Rhinestones and tassels lit up a smile that never reached her eyes despite it being so wide. Eyes that, even now, did not shine. She sang in a stringy chord with a raspy rhyme;

The showgirls have their secrets
Their sweet lips lie to you
They never take kind to meekness
She knows just what you do
Her perfume tastes just like sweet gin
For it hides the deepest spell
She knows that love lies therein
But a showgirl will never tell

She never stopped smiling. Not once when she sang that song. And, just like those strange optical illusion paintings, it looked like she was staring right at me no matter what. No matter how much she swayed to the rhythm of the saxophone and clarinet. She was staring right at me. Boom. Boom. Boom. To the beat of the drum. Even then, I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t stop scanning her body and the shoulders that seemed to be stretching against the skin. I imagined hearing the bones click instead of the tambourine jingle and I almost vomited. She saw it all, with dark pools of nothing this woman saw my face turn a pale green, before I had to excuse myself and leave the show. 

I took the bus home from the cabaret with my headphones blaring loud. Just so I could get the song out of my head. Just so I could get her face out of my mind. Once I got off of the bus outside of my apartment I was finally able to turn my headphones off. The street was dark and quiet. I looked at my phone to see that it was around 11pm, just when the cabaret was supposed to officially end. While pulling out my keys I sighed and regaled myself with the facts I had learned. It wasn’t much, but there was definitely an illicit business going on of some sort. The showgirls were a strange new element that made me shiver. Perhaps it was a new type of drug? Maybe they were strung out on it. I scoffed as I opened my suite door and dismissed that idea, reasoning that I had been listening to Zydrate Anatomy far too often, to come up with that theory. 

I hung up my blazer on the coat rack and ran a hand through my hair. My roommates were out that night and would be until the early morning, assuredly. So the house was dark and quiet, stale air feeling strange on my skin. I wondered if it was just lingering unease from the cabaret but something felt off. I tried to ignore it and let the silence wash over me instead of immediately retreating to my musical safe haven. Pacing to the bathroom I don’t know what made me turn my head but once I did I wish I hadn’t. In the dark, at the end of the hall, I could see the whites of eyes seven feet off of the ground. I blinked, squinting, an act I regret even now. After that I could make out the wide smile lined with lipstick and short hair. A face stretched to unfamiliar proportion. She was strange now, the singer, naked and warped with a distortion that made me want to run far, far away. But I couldn’t, the hair on the back of my back stood up against my blouse as I stared in silence at the showgirl. Limbs too long, barely bending into the corridor and much too thin and brittle not to break. 

I stood there, at the threshold of the bathroom, frozen in terror. This thing, whatever it was, didn’t move at first, it just stared at me. Just like it had on the stage. And just like under the spotlight of my phone flashlight, she began to sing. 

The showgirls have their secrets…

It almost looked painful, her lips moving to articulate each word. She sounded different, like a hive of droning bees making all the right sounds. Like a radio with the speaker filled with dust. The showgirl began to move in flickers, small cracking movements. Finally my body snapped out of it’s stupor and I ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. My socks slipped on the tile floor and I almost fell face first into the bathtub. Even then my legs wouldn’t stop shuffling in vain on the floor against the bathtub lid. 

They never take kind to meekness

She seemed closer now. I could hear her bones clicking like footsteps. I imagined her limbs snaking across the walls with incredibly fast yet minute movements. Their ligaments stretching the skin even further like a latex suit. I had no idea what she would do when she reached the door, but I had a feeling that she could easily break it. There was no window in the bathroom, no threshold for my escape. I was genuinely convinced that whatever this monster was, it would be what killed me. 

Her perfume tastes just like sweet rot 
For it becomes her truest stench
She knows that it’s all for naught
But a showgirl lies within a trench
And a man will never get caught

The banging started after that. Slow, deliberate. Not a rushing threat but a drumbeat for when she repeated her song. I had left my phone on the countertop outside and knew my roommates wouldn’t be home for hours. I was trapped. Shaking with fear and cowering in the farthest corner of the bathtub. It was only hours but it felt like days, listening to her song over and over. The thrum of her enlarged palm laughing at the fast timbre of my heart. 

I don’t remember when I fell asleep but I do remember when I woke up. Manic and screaming as my roommate gently tapped my shoulder. I remember thinking that it was the showgirl who came to take me and almost clawed at my roommates, but once I calmed down all I could do was look at their shocked faces in confusion. I could feel the dried mascara trails on my face from hours of tears and my neck stiff from the lack of a pillow. Both concerned parties agreed to give me some space as it was evident that I had obviously had a rough night. Even when I searched the apartment from head to toe for the showgirl, they didn’t question it. They thought I was strung out from a bad trip, they probably still do. First trips can be rough for people, which they knew due to their veteranship, but I swore to them that I would never –will never– do drugs. 

Perhaps you will deem me a coward, perhaps not, but I did not go back to Jonesey’s Cabaret. Whatever was happening there was even deeper than my wildest theory. Besides, I could tell that whatever business it was, it would fall over like a flimsy house of cards soon enough. But I still  think back to what happened that night, and I am haunted by the showgirl’s song. It repeats in my head and I often can’t be alone in the house without locking my bedroom door behind me. I fear she’s still there, at the end of a hallway, in an alleyway, under a bridge.

Just the other day I decided to look up the names of the girls whose graves were empty. Most were easy to find obituaries from local county records but once I landed on Della Owens, I stopped short. My heart sunk deep into my stomach. Della Owens had short blond hair, a beautiful smile, and bold lipstick. But this was when her eyes still shined.

Content warning: graphic violence

---

Bernard Piat’s mud-cracked boots are kicked up and crossed over his desk. He’s leaned back in his chair, holding the killing book up to his eyes. His office is quiet. 

At the top of the blank page, letters begin etching themselves, black ink swooping and arching in cursive. Bernard reads it aloud.

“Edmund Weight. Traveler. Currently at the Broomwick Inn.”

His assistant, Duncan, is bent over a map table in front of his desk. He scratches the information down on parchment. Then he shoves it aside, digs an iron pin from a tin cup, stabs the map. 

A second line takes shape.

“Elizabeth Hazel. Prostitute. She’s at the local pleasure-house, located in—”

“I know the location, sir,” Duncan says, writing it down. 

Bernard smirks. “Yeah, you do.” Duncan pushes the pin. A third line writes itself. “Fabian Gwen, blacksmith, Brussels.”

“Yessir.” The quill scratches. A pin drops. 

A fourth line curls across the page.

“Final man, Hubert Pax. Lumber yard worker at Flickwood Lumber.”

Duncan stabs the final pin, then steps back, scanning. His mind calculates the fastest route possible, combing through side-streets, backroads, alleyways, until a single route carves itself into his mind. He sharpens it, punching in a shortcut here, a detour there, shaving minutes, seconds. Then—click.

He gives a faint nod. “They’ll be here by sunset.”

Bernard slaps the book shut. “Then they’ll die at sunset.”

***

Town square.

Bernard stands center stage before a crowd, clutching his sword handle, tip-to-the-ground. Blood and brain matter from the last three executions drip down the steel. As the sun sinks toward the horizon, it glints off the blade at a hundred different angles. 

From side stage, the execution crier recites the death sentence, his wispy voice echoing off nearby buildings.

Next to Bernard’s feet, Hubert Pax sits on his knees, head hunched over the chopping block. Sobbing. He’s the last man to die. 

His weak little whimpers make something in Bernard’s stomach curl up and twist. A vein under his eye twitches. Nothing—absolutely nothing—irks Bernard more than a man who dies crying. 

Hubert cranes his head sideways, and Bernard feels his eyes needling him.

“Sir?” Hubert whispers. 

Bernard shakes his head. 

“Sir,” Hubert says. “You don’t have to do this.”

 Through the side of his mouth, Bernard says, “Shut up.”

“Right hand to God, I didn’t do anything.” 

“Book has spoken. Just be a man and shut up.” 

For dozens of generations, Bernard’s family has possessed the killing book. On page one, it is etched in permanent ink that the Piat bloodline is the only bloodline permitted to view its pages. Should anyone else lay eyes on its ink, it stops working. And so long as that bond remains unbroken, and the four names that appear each day are faithfully executed, the human race will never see another war.

There hasn’t been a war in a thousand years.

“Listen,” Hubert says. “I’ve got a wife at home. And a little girl. They think I’m about to come home. I mean, if I’d known this morning would be the last…” He trails off, choked by his own sadness.

Bernard flicks his eyes down, grinding together his crooked teeth. Hubert’s teary eyes aim back at him, snot streaking down his nose, wetting his chin. Shameful, Bernard thinks. Absolutely shameful. 

“I’ll pay you,” Hubert says, his bottom lip quivering. “Everything I’ve got.”

“One more word,” Bernard says, “and I will make you suffer.”

“Have mercy, man. Please—”

“There it is,” Bernard says. He tightens his gloved hands on the sword handle. The leather crackles. 

“And with that,” the crier concludes, “we execute our final, future offender!” He grips the podium and peeks over his bony shoulder at Bernard. 

Bernard nods. He rotates on Hubert. 

As Hubert’s eyes follow, his entire body breaks into a tremble. “Please,” he says, teeth clicking. The front of his trousers blooms with a dark stain. 

Bernard taps the glistening-wet blade to the hump of the man’s neck. Aiming. Then he jacks it up over his shoulder, feeling out his swing. He slackens his grip just enough for a half break. He breathes. Narrows his eyes. Swings.

Crunch.

The blade sinks halfway in and stops. Hubert’s chin dips down and slaps the chopping block, his head held on by a stringy hinge of skin.

The pain arrives quietly. A shudder falls through his shoulders, torso, legs, calves, and ends with his toes performing a little twitch. His face crinkles. Blood dribbles off his neck and forms a little red puddle beneath his eyes. When Hubert catches sight of his own blood, he begins to cry.

Some in the crowd scream out. Others stand still, watching in fascination.  

“That should do it,” Bernard whispers. He plants his boot on the man’s shoulder and wiggles his blade loose, one torque at a time, creating a back-and-forth crunch. From the back of Hubert’s neck, a moist gurgle leaks out. Bernard finally rips the blade free, heaves it up, and slams down. 

Thock.

A crisp break.

The crowd goes still. Dead silence. 

Bernard wipes his blade clean on the dead man’s back.

***

Cecily strolls out from the restroom into the royal ballroom, yanking down the tight sleeves of her silk dress. It won’t quit riding up, the damned thing. She hates dresses. She hates ballrooms. And above all, she hates the stuffy-ass “nobles” in it.

Cecily darts her eyes around the crowd in search of her husband. 

Across the room, by the spiral-staircase, she spots him. He’s delivering a joke to a group of nobles. Cecily rolls her eyes, but her mouth tightens with a smirk. She bets it’s the one about the headless horseman. 

When Bernard hits the punchline, the group bursts into laughter. Cecily feels a dull tingle. She studies their faces, their eyes. That’s not real laughing, she thinks. That’s polite laughing. But Bernard doesn’t notice. He laughs along with them, bouncing a little on his feet as he watches their reaction. Cecily feels her heart sink. Why is it Bernard never notices these sorts of things?

Bernard slides a hand in his jacket pocket and slips out a long-stemmed pipe. He hooks a thumb toward the balcony door.

They all shake their heads.

Bernard nods and wanders off the second Cecily steps up behind the group. And right then, their conversation sharpens in her ears. 

“Alright,” one of the men says. “Raise of hands. Who else hates him?” 

Laughter spreads around the group. Hushed, restrained. But real laughter.

“I even hate his teeth,” another man says. “I have this dog that chews rocks? Yeah, even she has better teeth.”

“Donkey teeth,” the first man says. “That’s what comes to mind.”

“A serious question,” a woman says, her feathered hat shuddering with each twitch of her head. “Is it just me, or does every descendant of that book get a bit more…”

“Trashy,” an old, drunk gentleman says, his speech slightly slurred. “It’s alright. You can say it.”

“Yes,” she says. “Trashy.”

Heads nod.

She continues. “Well, half the blame falls on him. But the other half? Thank that—” She curls a gloved hand around her mouth. “—wench of a woman. That tangly-red hair. Those pond-scum eyes. If the book can end wars, why can’t it select proper owners?” 

“Elections,” the drunk man says, pitching up his wine glass. “That’s how it should work. A whole hodgepodge of individuals could fit that role wonderfully. With honor. Dignity. But that man? With his teeth? And his wenchy wife? And his botched executions? Bah! The whole thing feels like a middle-class, field-worker’s, pub-crawling hoo-rah.”

“Oh, sire,” the feather-hatted woman says, laughing. She touches his arm. “You do have a way with words.”

Cecily’s nostrils flare. She sucks in a sharp breath. Fire burns in her eyes.

A server glides by balancing a tray of wine glasses. She plucks one off, gulps it half empty, and swipes the back of her hand across her mouth. A burn settles in her gut. She knows she shouldn’t do what she’s about to. But they opened this damn door. As Bernard’s wife, it’s her job to slam it. 

Cecily clears her throat. 

The feather-hatted fuck catches her eye and whispers, “Oh, God.” All twelve eyes dart up. Fear strikes every last one of their hearts.

“Evening, my lady,” feather hat says. “Didn’t see you there.”

“Evenin’, madam,” Cecily says, punching the title off her tongue. The woman’s eyelids flutter. “Question. Has anyone seen me husband?”

“Ahhh, yes, my lady,” the drunk man says. “Believe he went out for a smoke.”

“Thank you,” Cecily says, smiling. “Because I’m about to make him add every last one of your names to the fuckin’ book.”

Fear detonates across everyone’s face. The man who made a dig at Bernard’s teeth says, “My lady. We meant no—”

“You—what’s your dog’s name?”

“Princess, my lady.”

“Well, Princess is going on, too.”

Cecily turns, then turns back, jabbing a finger. “I’d better not hear that talk about him ever again. Not from none of you’s. Not from no one.”

“Y-yes, my lady,” the drunk man says. “Never again.”

Cecily walks backwards, giving the group a death-stare, then spins around and swaggers off draining the rest of her wine. When she reaches the balcony door, the doorman pulls it open for her. She shoves the wine glass into his chest and steps out onto the balcony.

She glances left.

A line of empty chairs stretches to a dead-end balcony wall.

She glances right. 

At a table on the far end, Bernard sits alone. He’s leaned back in his chair, hitting his pipe, the bowl glowing and fading cherry-red. He gazes into the night sky. 

Cecily breathes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Bernard cannot know about what just happened. It would crush him. She eases her shoulders, smiles, and wanders over to him. 

Bernard glances over.

“Why you hiding out?” Cecily says. 

“Eh, just…you know.”

“You wanna be alone?”

“No,” he says, pointing his pipe stem at the chair next to him. Cecily steps around the table and sits in his lap. Bernard chuckles, biting back down on his pipe.

Cecily’s eyes drift to the sky. “What are you looking at?”

“Well. There’s a thing I’ve been doing lately. But…you’d think it’s weird.”

“How do you know what I’d think?”

“Because I know you.”

“I command you to tell me,” Cecily says. “Out with it.”

“Fine,” Bernard says, pointing his pipe to the sky. “I’m drawing pictures. With stars.”

“Okay, yeah,” Cecily says. “That is weird.”

“Go inside,” Bernard says, trying to push Cecily off his lap. “Get.”

She grips the arms of the chair and doubles down, laughing. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Bernard gives up. She sinks back down. A beat of silence falls between them. “So, what do you draw?”

“Here.” Bernard takes Cecily’s finger and aims it up to the sky. She watches him trace stars with her fingertip, connecting lines and loops, and before her very eyes, a flower blooms.

Cecily’s mouth clicks open. She lets out a laugh. “Do it again.”

Bernard takes her finger again and arches it up and down, using the stars to paint a swan.

Cecily turns in Bernard’s lap to look at him. “You’re weird as they come,” she says. 

Bernard returns a crooked grin. 

Cecily leans back into Bernard, feeling everything around her melt away. The wine warms her belly. The cool night air prickles against her skin. Bernard’s hands around her stomach make her tingle all over. If I had a magic bottle, Cecily thinks, this moment is what I’d put in it.

Then Bernard sighs, and she’s snapped back into reality. She knows that sigh well. “Why are you doing a huffy breath?” Cecily says.

“I’m not sure they like me.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Has it ever occurred to you,” Cecily says, “it’s not a good thing being liked by everyone?”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

“How about your enemies?” Cecily says. “You wanna be liked by them?”

“These aren’t my enemies,” Bernard says. “These are nobles.”

“They’re bloody idiots, Bernard. But…they like you well enough. So why are you worrying?”

“Well, I’m probably wrong,” Bernard says. “But sometimes, I think—that they think—I don’t belong. Like I’m not cut from the same cloth. Like I’m…unworthy.”

“Unworthy?” Cecily says.

“Just a feeling.”

“Bernard?” Cecily says. “My sweet, sweet Bernard. May I tell you something?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck that feeling.” Bernard laughs. “No, I mean it. You have every right to be here. Most of them folks has done nothing to be considered noble.”

“Those folks.”

“Don’t correct me. Even if I say it wrong, I’m right. You stop wars. What do they do? I’ll tell you. They wear fancy clothes, look all pretty in their feathery hats and silky robes, and they gossip.”

“Who gossips?”

“That’s not the point,” Cecily says. “The point is, they’re not special. You’re special.”

Bernard tilts his head sideways and looks at Cecily’s face. She keeps her head leaned back on his chest, eyes on the stars. 

Through the ballroom window behind them, a string quartet plinks a waltz. Couples on the dance floor step in time. “Cecily…” Bernard says. “I am sorry, you know.”

“It’s alright,” she says. “Just don’t correct me, ever again.”

“Not about that,” Bernard says. “I mean, the ballrooms. The hand kissing. The politics. I know, when you married me, that wasn’t the life you wanted.”

Cecily rolls her head off Bernard’s chest and stares him straight in the eye. She squints. “Are you serious?”

Bernard shrugs. 

She lets out a little laugh into his face. “You,” she says, tapping her finger on his chin, “are all I ever wanted. So if all this comes with you? I will make this trade, every day, for the rest of me life. Happily.”

Bernard’s eyes dance around Cecily’s face, her features glowing in the warm window light. He pulls her in.

They kiss.

***

The next morning. 

Bernard leans back, boots kicked on his desk, holding the book beneath his eyes. Duncan leans on the map table, quill in hand. 

The first name glides across the page. 

“Timothy Gilmore. Employed as a…oh.” Duncan looks up. “Royal guard. Castle.”

“That won’t be pretty, sir.”

“No, it will not,” Bernard says. 

Duncan scratches in the name, jabs a pin. 

The next name etches itself. 

“Giovanni Wolfgang. Painter. Market square.”

Duncan writes it, stabs the map.

“Adam Bovine. Clothier merchant. Also in market square. Oh, hey, before you arrest him—could you do me a favor and get this hemmed?” Bernard pinches the torn seam of his hood. 

Duncan’s mouth twists. He continues writing.

The final name scribbles across the page, and as it does, all the feeling crawls out of Bernard’s body. Jacob Piat. Schoolboy. Northern district. Cottage. 

This is Bernard’s fifteen-year-old son.

“Problem, sir?” Duncan says.

“No,” Bernard says. He swallows against the tightening muscles in his throat. “Last one’s just…delayed. We’ll wait a minute.” Bernard pretends to watch the page. He fights to keep his face flat. His heart punches in his chest. 

“Yeah,” Bernard says, his voice squeezed thin. “That is so odd.” 

“What is, sir?” Duncan says. 

“This, this last name…it’s not writing. Hang on.” A blurry ring clamps down on his vision. His ears ring. Bernard makes a show of rubbing his thumb across the page, as if that’ll wipe the name out. 

Duncan blinks. “Still nothing?”

Bernard forces himself to meet Duncan’s eyes. “No. Nothing.”

“That is…extraordinary,” Duncan says, his eye narrowing a touch.

“Truly,” Bernard says. He lets out his breath. “Maybe, huh, I don’t know, maybe you should just go out and…start with the three?”

“Sir…the king will have to hear about this. Immediately.”

“Of course,” Bernard says. “But I almost wonder if it would make more sense for you to get a head start.”

“A…head start?”

“Right,” Bernard says. “And when the final name pops up, I’ll ride out, get him myself.”

“Sir?” Duncan tilts his chin down, keeping his eyes up. “Are you sure there’s no name?”

Bernard checks the page again. He shakes his head. “Positive.”

***

Bernard drags himself up to his cottage door. Inside his head, a war rages. He hears cannons fire. Chain mail armor rattles. Swords chink. Horses whine. Men scream. 

Today’s executions have been postponed. Tonight, there will be a hearing. Bernard will have to appear in court, before the king, and recount exactly what happened.

Bernard pushes the door open. Across the cottage, Cecily is framed in the backyard window, staring out. As the door scrapes shut, she glances back. Her eyes crinkle into smiles. She crosses the cottage almost skipping and approaches Bernard with open arms. She laces her fingers around his neck, stands on her tippy-toes, gives him a kiss. 

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

She pulls away. Her eyes dance around his face. “What is it?”

“Just…long day.”

Cecily shakes it off and breaks back into a smile. “Come look.” She tugs Bernard by the hand, leading him up to the window. 

Across the yard, Jacob stands in the shed doorway. A line of men ten deep funnels up to him. As the front man speaks, Jacob writes on a piece of parchment. 

“You know how he’s been iron working?” Cecily says, squirming with excitement. Bernard nods. “Well. Apparently, word’s come round. He makes ’em sooo well that instead of ordering from the old blacksmith in town? They’re ordering from him. He’s that good.” 

“Wow,” Bernard says. “That’s great.”

“It really is.” Still peering out, Cecily reaches down and takes Bernard’s hand. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. And…Bernard. Look at what we have.” Cecily’s eyes lift to him. “We have everything.”

Bernard snaps his head away.

“Bernard?” she says softly. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s…something I need to tell you.” 

She tilts her head forward against the glass, trying to see his expression. Bernard breathes in. Out. Then he turns, looking her in the eyes. Cecily gives her head a tiny shake, still smiling. “What is it, Bernard?”

Bernard tries to speak. No words come.

Cecily’s smile wavers. “Bernard?” 

“This morning,” Bernard says, “I received the list of names. And…”

Cecily tilts her head forward. “And?”

Bernard glances back through the window. 

The smile melts off Cecily’s face. “And?” 

Bernard swallows. 

Cecily follows his eye-line out the window—to Jacob. Her breathing quickens. “And what, Bernard?” Cecily says. “And what?”

“Honey,” Bernard says, trembling. “It was Jacob.”

The name sends a convulsion through her entire body. She claps both hands to her mouth and slumps sideways, her shoulder bumping the glass. She shakes her head. “It has to be a mistake,” she says through her fingers.

“Cecily. It was right there.”

“Who knows?”

“No one,” Bernard says. “Duncan was in the room, but I told him it was a name short.”

“A name short?” Her face tightens with fear. “Who’ll believe that?”

“I know,” Bernard says, struck with shame. “But I was so…thrown off…so stunned, it took everything in me to keep a straight face.”

Cecily checks out the window, making sure Jacob hasn’t been snatched. She turns back. “What now?”

“I go to court. Tonight. And there’ll be questions.”

“What questions?”

“What did I see? What did the page look like? Duncan, who was in the room—what did he see?” Cecily squeezes her eyes shut. “Cecily. They’ll try and catch me in a lie. But they can’t really prove anything. So as long as I stick to my story—”

“They will know,” Cecily says, opening her eyes on Bernard. “They will know, the second they see your face. You have to give another name. Someone else in the family. Someone you’d actually lie about.”

 

Bernard stares at Cecily, waiting for her to continue. She doesn’t. “What name?” he says.

“I don’t know. Just pick one.”

“Pick one? Who…who do I pick?”

“I don’t know,” she says, letting out a little sob. “Just pick. You have to pick.”

“No, I, I can’t do that.”

“You can’t do that? You kill people every day, but you can’t pick a name?”

“I don’t kill at random. I swing the sword based on the book’s prophecy, which prevents war. To choose someone at random…it would be murder.”

“Killing our son is murder.”

“I know,” Bernard says, his voice growing distant. “I’m just saying, there’s layers to it.”

“Pick a second cousin and be done with it,” Cecily says. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“This could start a war, Cecily…” Bernard says.

“No, it will not,” Cecily says.

“It could.”

“You think killing our son, our little boy, will stop a war? You honestly believe that? Really?”

Bernard shakes his head. Blinks. “Yes. I do.”

“How.”

“It’s a ripple effect. If Jacob lives—” Cecily huffs her breath. “—he might do something, which might cause something else, which might then cause something else, which, eventually, starts a war.”

“Might, Bernard. Might.”

The first page flashes in Bernard’s mind. Scrawled in permanent ink: And so long as that bond remains unbroken, and the four names that appear each day are faithfully executed, the human race will never see another war.

So long as that bond remains unbroken.

“Give my name,” Cecily says, ripping Bernard out of his thoughts. 

“Cecily—”

“Give. My. Name.”

Bernard watches Cecily. He presses his lips together. Shakes his head.

Cecily scrunches her face, fighting tears. “Coward,” she says. 

“Cecily…”

“If you give his name,” Cecily says, “you are gonna burn in hell.”

“If I don’t give his name,” Bernard says, “I might kill thousands. Then I’ll burn in hell for that.”

“Look outside,” Cecily says. “Go on. Look.” Bernard peels his eyes off his wife and stares out at his son. “Are you gonna stand up there, sword in hand, and take his head? Really? I mean, really run that through your thick skull. Then look me in the eye, and tell me that’s what you’re gonna do.”

Bernard glares out the window. Blinking. He can’t bring himself to look back at her. “It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done…but…it’s only right.”

Cecily crunches her teeth together in a flash of rage. She draws back her hand, tightening her fingers into a fist, wrist tendons bulging. Her eyes glisten with tears…

Then she drops her hand, all the fight draining from her body.

Bernard reaches out to touch her shoulder. She smacks his hand away and faces forward, out the window, hugging herself.

Bernard keeps his eyes on her, watching her cry, watching as the world around him crumbles. 

Cecily blinks, as if she’s been touched by a revelation. “If you really think this is right,” she says, lifting her eyes back to Bernard, “why did you lie?”

***

The next afternoon, rain clouds darken the sky. Bernard stands on stage by Jacob, his glassy eyes fixed over the crowd. He can barely hold onto his sword. 

The crier announces the death sentence. These words he once considered meaningless now take on the weight of the world, each syllable pressing in harder. 

“Father,” Jacob says, his sweet voice stabbing Bernard right in the heart. Twisting. His vision blurs. 

“Executioner?” the crier says, turning. He gestures toward Jacob. “Whenever you are ready.”

The wind stirs. Overhead, flags flap in the breeze, their ropes pinging on steel poles, chiming like church bells. 

Then the wind goes still. Everything falls quiet. The crowd stands motionless. Hundreds of eyes, watching.

“Father,” Jacob whispers, cutting the silence. “Please.”

Bernard shuts his eyes.

Khadijah’s curiosity peaked at her parents' door standing slightly ajar—a room always kept firmly closed for guests. She tiptoed toward it. Peeking through the crack, she saw her father on his mat beside a timeworn teapot and half-filled glasses, chattering to two disinterested visitors.

The first was a ragged old man in tattered clothes, chewing a kola nut as sweat glistened on his oddly shaped bald head. Beside him sat the most striking man Khadijah had ever seen. Lanky and tall, he towered over the others even while seated. His smooth dark skin radiated a sheen, accentuating angular cheekbones and deep-set eyes. Draped in a black Kufi hat and a grand boubou of rich fabric, his attire outshone even the wealthiest men in town. He whispered to the old man, both ignoring her father’s lively chatter.

Khadijah watched, mesmerized. What was this tall, elegant stranger doing in their impoverished home, and with such an uncouth old man?

Suddenly, the stranger cut off his whisper. His piercing eyes locked onto Khadijah through the crack, as if seeing right through her thoughts. He flashed a row of marble-white teeth, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Rude girl!” the old man pointed angrily.

Her father’s initial confusion turned to pure fury as his eyes followed the old man’s finger. 

“Assiatou!” Get this girl out of here before I do something I regret!”

Khadijah froze; eavesdropping carried ten swift lashes in their household. Suddenly, a firm grip yanked her away. "You can't hear, little girl,” her mother said in a weary tone, pulling her toward the kitchen.

As she was dragged off, Khadijah glimpsed the stranger one last time. He flashed his bright smile again, causing her to shudder. 

For the next few days, the old man and his tall companion stayed at Khadijah’s home, sleeping in the cramped living room alongside her and her three siblings. The companion’s indifference puzzled Khadijah the most. Each night, it was a strange sight to see the tall, elegant man, dressed in attire suited for fine estates in the capital, sprawling like a long-legged spider on an undersized cot. She couldn’t fathom why a man of such wealth would subject himself to such lowly conditions.

The days blended together in a stark routine. The guests rose before dawn, departing into town long before the family gathered for breakfast. They returned only late in the evening, slipping into their places just as dinner was served. Their erratic eating habits persisted: the old man devoured his meal while food spilled from his mouth, eventually finishing the untouched plate of his quiet, engrossed companion. Afterward, they stepped outside to whisper privately until bed, repeating this pattern without deviation.

Eventually, the stay of the two guests at Khadijah’s house came to an end, though not as expected. Unlike previous guests who left with warm gratitude, their departure was abrupt and unceremonious.

It began on a humid Friday evening. As the family gathered around the platter, the old man and his tall companion did not appear. Portions of food sat untouched on the side of the platter. Moments later, a young neighborhood boy rapped on the open door frame, breathless. He relayed the news without mincing words: local police had arrested the old man in town.

In these uncertain economic times, local authorities eagerly targeted foreigners to arrest and deport. Khadijah’s father knew this well, keeping his citizenship papers in his pocket at all times after previously being accused of harboring illegal immigrants. He closed the door with a heavy sigh. “It’s in God’s hands now.”

Khadijah’s mind raced. Had the tall stranger also been apprehended? Or was a man of his status using powerful connections to intervene?

Later that night, piercing screams abruptly awakened the family. Heavy boots slammed against the pavement outside alongside shouting and police whistles: “Look for them! They’re not far!” Sudden cracks of gunfire echoed through the dark, shaking the small home’s foundation.

Huddled low, the family quickly gathered into the sole bedroom, locking the door tight. Memories of past civil war chaos—rioting, gunshots, and burning homes—resurfaced as they lay awake until dawn while the ruckus outside slowly abated.

When it was quiet, her father stepped into the living area. The children’s floor mattress and the guest’s cot remained completely undisturbed. Outside, the street was still.

Following morning prayers, the family was started by a hard knock. Khadijah’s father opened the door and exhaled in relief: “Thank God, you’re safe.”

Standing in the entrance were the old man and his tall companion, their silhouettes contrasting against the morning light. The family stared as if seeing the dead. No one had expected to see the old man again.

“I came to get my things,” the old man said irritably, barging inside to grab his two plastic bags. Chewing a fresh kola nut, he turned and exited without a word of goodbye, his tall companion trailing behind.

The family gathered at the doorway, watching them disappear down the road.

“What’s a rich man doing with that dirty geezer anyway?” Khadijah blurted out.

“What rich man?” Aliyu asked, looking puzzled.

“The rich man with him. He follows that geezer everywhere. You can’t see him?”

Aliyu sighed. “Khadijah, there’s no rich man with the old man.”

“Yes, there is! The tall, dark rich man. He was staying with us the whole time.”

“Crazy Khadijah seeing things again,” Jaye said, making a face and sticking out his tongue.

“I am not crazy, stupid boy!” Khadijah pointed emphatically. “How could you not see the tall man in the black gown?”

“Crazy Khadijah!” Jaye continued on, causing Aliyu to chuckle.

Khadijah turned to her father, on the verge of begging him to prove she wasn’t crazy. But the intense look in his eyes stopped her short. As Jaye continued to tease her, Khadijah stayed silent. From then on, she would mention nothing about the old man and his companion… 

the tall man in the black gown.

THE NIGHT BLOGGER -'Demon In Lace' by Al Bruno III

March 24th: It was a slow day at the pawn shop. Sara was watching the cash register. Mrs. Vincenzo had given her a crash course in running the shop and kept her on a very short leash. Technically it was a one-person job, but in reality we spent most of our time behind the counter together, flirting, sharing Harlem Shake videos, and somehow getting paid for it.

I’d told her about my meeting with Ashley Fowler, albeit a much more positive, hallucination-free version of it. She was relieved to know we finally had a plan, even if she didn’t know about the various felonies I’d have to commit to pull it off.

For the moment, she was content dusting the counters and straightening the used DVD and VHS rack while I chatted with a few friends on the FEAR AND TRUTH message board. There was an entire subforum devoted to Lost Media. Buried inside it was another dedicated to disruptive legacy media knowledge.

Or, as H. P. Lovecraft called them—blasphemous tomes.

That was because one item on Ashley’s to-do list required me to find a copy of the Eternal Codex of Tovit -no small task. You aren’t going to find many seven-hundred-year-old books on Facebook Marketplace—especially not one that most reputable scholars insist doesn’t exist.

Which was fine. The moderator of the Lost Media subforum, Atwater—better known as GonePostal—had never been all that concerned with rules and regulations.

As it turned out, he’d dealt with the book a few years earlier… or at least its aftermath.

Here’s what he told me.

###

...Foster, I should begin by telling you that everything you know is wrong. Don’t take that personally. You’re doing admirable work. You’ve stared down things both living and dead, and you’ve survived encounters that would have killed most people. That’s genuinely impressive. Unfortunately, the scale of your ignorance remains breathtaking. You insist on treating each new horror as though it were its own phenomenon. Gorgo? Mormo? The Thousand-Faced Moon? It’s all the same. There is only one darkness—so immense that every civilization has mistaken a different facet of it for the whole.

They give it different names, invent different histories, fight different holy wars, but they’re all describing the same thing. The Cross and the Pentagram are the same symbol viewed from opposite sides. There are a thousand words for fear, but only one thing being feared. Maybe you have blundered into the Mire of Nix but tell me Brian… can you even begin to understand what the mere existence of such a place implies about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organization?

No, of course you don’t. It’s the kind of thing that only someone like me, a high-ranking employee of the United States Postal Service, can truly comprehend.

You ask whether I know the Eternal Codex of Tovit? I’ve read portions of it. A doctoral candidate in philology procured a handwritten German translation of the Prayer of Alick several years ago.

I was fortunate enough to obtain a copy. Normally, documents of this nature circulate through encrypted forums or private couriers, making them difficult to intercept. Fortunately for me, this one passed through the United States Postal Service and was selected for routine transcription under standard departmental protocols before being forwarded to its intended recipient.

As for the history of the book itself? Its beginnings were humble enough: the Latin-inscribed peregrinations of a fourteenth-century alchemist named Tovit. It concerned itself primarily with blasphemous evocations and abhorrent dismissals. Athanatoi. Barghest. Domini Candelarum. Each received an entry that fit comfortably on a single page. There were even a handful of named daemons scattered throughout the text. But this was more than a book. The components of every incantation were bound into the vellum itself.

Can you comprehend what that means, Brian? Each page a ritual in totality. All any user had to do was burn the page itself. So simple. So dangerous. Tovit was both a genius and a madman. He could have brought sorcery to the masses a century and a half before Gutenberg printed his first Bible.

Predictably, when Tovit finished his masterwork, he was set upon by a pack of Greater Zoogs. While they did not kill him, whatever they made him into didn’t live very long. The forces of the Inquisition, those blood-soaked defenders of mediocrity, seized his papers and burned them.

Impossibly, the book resurfaced at a gathering of warlocks in 1318. It was in pristine condition. At the end of the convocation, the assembled warlocks decided to divide its pages among themselves. Twelve each took a handful back to their respective countries. The host of the gathering, Osmund Hutchmen, kept what remained.

Over the next half century, those warlocks used their pages to summon and cast out all manner of beings that make up the metaphysical gestalt you people insist on calling the Forces of Darkness.

But here’s the important thing—the mind-boggling thing. Osmund Hutchmen eventually realized he always knew when one of the pages had been consumed. Within a few months, it would simply return to the book. Regrown, the way a lizard regrows its tail.

Now that was your history lesson. Let me move on to the story of my encounter with the Eternal Codex of Tovit.

It was a glorious time for the Postal Service. Times of war usually are. It was also a glorious time to be a Postal Inspector. We’d only just begun dipping our toes into internet fraud and cybercrime, but my team spent most of its time chasing unpleasant missives and troubling artifacts making their way back from the Middle East thanks to foolish soldiers, shady contractors, and—of course—Hobby Lobby.

My story begins with a dead man named Cyrus Fingal. A man who forgot the four basic rules of life.

Forgive and forget.

If you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut.

Patience is a virtue.

Never hit Reply All.

His is a tawdry tale of eldritch horrors and local politics. A tale of a man who treated life as a series of entitlements.

He got into a good college, so naturally he expected a good job.

He made a lot of money, so naturally he expected women to flock to him.

He became a highly paid member of the local political machine, so naturally he expected the path to public office to be an easy one.

And who knows? He might have gotten exactly what he expected. If only he hadn’t forwarded those racist emails to everyone he knew—and a lot of people he didn’t.

As I said, never hit Reply All.

Such behavior might have been brushed off in some of the more, shall we say, bucolic parts of our nation. Indeed, in some places it might even get you elected. But not in Albany, New York.

The long and short of it is that Cyrus Fingal found himself out of a job faster than you could say “Rush Limbaugh.” But Cyrus Fingal was not one to vanish quietly from the public eye. In fact, for an entire news cycle, he was ubiquitous.

He said he had been hacked. He said he’d been set up. He said those heavily photoshopped images had been sent to him directly by the governor’s nephew. Then, finally, he blamed a cabal of homosexuals and minorities. As a member of both groups, I assure you we have much larger concerns than Cyrus Fingal.

So much for “if you can’t say something nice, keep your mouth shut.”

As you know, individuals who find themselves suddenly unemployed have many options. Updating their resumes. Applying for public benefits. Or moving back in with their parents.

Cyrus Fingal didn’t bother with any of that. Orthodoxy was not among his vices. Instead, he decided that exacting revenge upon those who had wronged him through demonic summoning was the next logical step.

Forgive and forget? No, not at all.

Unfortunately, my team did not realize that a single page from the Eternal Codex of Tovit had been sent to Parkwood Towers in Albany, New York, until it was too late. I don’t blame them. The shipper had hidden the page beneath the false bottom of a box containing bootleg Magic: The Gathering cards. By the time the disparate pieces of evidence came together, the situation was already well out of control.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me simply say that while we know where Cyrus procured the page, we never discovered how he obtained a saint’s bone and the tears of a jackal.

What I do know is that once he had gathered the requisite materials, he locked himself in his apartment and, after properly defiling himself, began the dark chant to summon Druaga the Possessor.

When the chant was completed, all Cyrus Fingal had to do was wait. He did wait—for nearly forty-five minutes—before deciding to begin the chant anew. Neighbors on either side of his apartment later reported that the chanting stopped and started repeatedly over the next twenty-four hours.

After twenty-four hours, Cyrus Fingal fell silent. “Fell” being the operative word, as he’d hanged himself using a crude noose fashioned from his draperies.

Things might have gone differently had he read that fateful page from the Codex more carefully.

Or perhaps if he’d remembered that patience is a virtue.

My condition leaves me loath to venture far from my office, but after the deaths of three local politicians, I felt it best to return to the field. While I may enjoy a certain degree of respect within the Postal Service bureaucracy, my predacious reputation has left me with little choice but to work alone.

You know my situation, Brian. You know what I endured. But the rumor-mongering hoi polloi occupying the lower rungs of the United States Postal Service are small-minded, judgmental, and, frankly, exhausting. Once you’ve been accused of cannibalism, there are no HR solutions. No sensitivity seminars. No mandatory inclusivity workshops.

Enough of that. Back to the case of Cyrus Fingal. Even before I got on the plane, I was doing research and making preparations. One must never go into the field unprepared, a lesson fate has endeavored to teach you on more than one occasion, Brian. Once I touched down at Albany International Airport, I checked in with the local law enforcement. Specifically, Detective Philip Bradshaw.

I know your opinion is clouded by your acrimonious relationship, but he is a good man with a clear, if single-track mind. He wasn’t assigned to the Cyrus Fingal case, but he was more than willing to help me sift through the mundane details while he was off the clock.

The death of Cyrus Fingal was the most straightforward aspect of the case. As I stated previously, he’d hanged himself—and done a sloppy job of it, to boot. The coroner estimated it might have taken him as long as twenty minutes to die.

But as always, the devil was in the details, and the subtext is frequently text.

So I made my way to Parkwood Towers, flashed my government credentials, and spent far longer than any civilized man should have explaining to the pimple-faced, slack-jawed wage slave manning the security desk that, yes, a Postal Inspector is essentially a policeman for the mail.

I weep for the future. We all should.

I instructed the so-called security guard to remain at his post and hand over a passkey so I could let myself into Apartment 229.

The décor of Cyrus Fingal’s apartment was as generic as they come, but only on the surface. What an untrained observer might have dismissed as kitschy, out-of-season Halloween decorations and unpleasant-looking antiques, I recognized for what they truly were. Nor was I surprised to discover the absence of a television. In its place stood an impressive collection of books. One cannot serve two masters, and it was obvious that Cyrus Fingal was far more interested in plumbing the preternatural than keeping up with the Kardashians.

In the center of the dining room table sat a punch bowl full of ashes. Doubtless the page from the Codex. Doubtless it had been put to use. Thankfully, the local authorities had overlooked it, leaving me free to pour the ashes into the evidence bag I carried. I found myself wondering whether the ashes would vanish as the page reconstituted itself. It was a disconcerting thought.

Equally disconcerting was the data regarding the murders of the three local politicians I mentioned earlier. All of them had been strangled. All of them were found slathered with traces of human bile and strands of animal protein fibers.

I spent the next hour exploring the apartment, searching for genuine arcane artifacts hidden among the dime-store statues of Baphomet and mass-produced Tarot cards. I checked behind every solid object for a hidden recess that might conceal something of real value. But it appeared that the page was Cyrus Fingal’s first brush with a truly otherworldly object. I did, however, uncover a single scrap of notepaper that proved highly illuminating. I pocketed it.

Then I sat upon his couch and considered the scene. I examined the living room again and again until I finally realized what was missing. I left the apartment, conscientiously locking the door behind me, and knocked on the door of Apartment 231. Cyrus’s neighbor—the one who had reported the marathon of chanting.

I knocked on the door of Apartment 231 and was greeted by the now familiar face of Blake C Rivers. “Inspector Atwater,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“I need to resolve a few inconsistencies.” I shouldered past him into the apartment. “I need a little more of your time.”

An annoyed look crossed his features, but he closed the door behind us and followed me into the living room. “I’m not sure how I can help.”

There was a slight sneer on his face when he spoke next. “I didn’t realize being a postal inspector was such serious business.”

“Deadly serious,” I said, my smile well rehearsed.

On one wall, there was a reproduction of Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet. A nice choice. Blake C Rivers said, “I don’t think I can tell you much more. I started to smell something foul. I knocked on his door. It was unlocked, so I went in and found him hanging there. He’d tied the drapes to a ceiling fan. I pulled him down, but he’d been dead for days.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary while you were there?” I asked. “Something that didn’t quite seem right?” I crossed the room over to the sliding glass door that led to the balcony.

“No. Nothing.”

The sliding door was unlocked. I turned my attention back to him. “Did you see his enemies list?”

“Enemies list?”

I pulled out the piece of paper I had found and handed it to him. “Before the end," I said, “he wrote down the names of everyone he believed had wronged him.”

He didn’t bother to read it. He didn’t even give it a cursory glance. “Am I on here?”

“Do you think you should be?”

I went on to explain to Blake that a good portion of that enemies list had died recently. “It’s really quite bizarre,” I concluded.

“I don’t see what that has to do with me. I barely knew the guy.”

“True,” I said, raising a finger. "But you were the one who found the body, “and the police report also stated that some things were missing from the apartment.

As expected, that angered him. “I think you should leave.”

“Understandable, but first I’d like to read you the list of stolen items."

“Look, asshole, I’m not going to…”

“One laptop. One iPhone. A complete collection of Radiohead’s discography. And the very set of draperies Cyrus Fingal used to kill himself.” I folded my arms. "Quite the eclectic mix.”

“The drapes?” Confusion flickered across his face, followed by the slightest twitch of fear. I didn’t steal his drapes.”

“Then perhaps, his drapes stole you.” I paused, watching numerous emotions parade across his face like a vain teenager trying on outfits for a Saturday night. I let the pause linger. “ Come on,” I said, “This little charade is over, and we both know it.”

There was a wet, gurgling sound. Blake Rivers’ mouth cracked wide open, and his eyes rolled back until only the whites remained. Curiously, the rest of him remained almost perfectly still. Save for a faint tremor passing through his frame, he might have been mistaken for a statue. His torso convulsed once. Then again. And then a tendril of yellow fabric wormed its way from between his gaping lips. It was slick with bile. Some parts were twisted and knotted. Other parts were frayed. Each loose thread made skittering motions in the air like the legs of an upended millipede. It was a parasite. A parasite made from fabric and a curse. It seemed unlikely that either Cyrus Fingal or Druaga had anticipated such an arrangement. Parasites, after all, have a vested interest in the continued health of their hosts.

I reached into my other jacket pocket and pulled out a flask. The top popped open easily. “Hear me, Druaga,” I said. “The supplicant is dead. You have no purpose on this mortal plane.”

Blake C Rivers toppled over. His face had turned purple, and he was convulsing. I liberally splashed the contents of the flask over the unclean spirit and its host. Then I muttered the exorcism rite I had long ago committed to memory.

Regrettably, the entity proved unpersuaded. The only response I got was a scream of outrage.

Then the scream was replaced by a wet sound. A tearing sound. The entire length of the drapery tore itself free of Blake Rivers’ body. Long, ugly bits of the man’s digestive system were dragged out along with it. It would have been an agonizing death, but by then Blake C. Rivers had been dead for quite some time.

The creature darted cobra-like toward me.

I had to throw myself across the dining room table to escape. I gave the holy water and the exorcism rite one final attempt. The creature reacted only with renewed aggression. I tried to throw myself back the other way over the dining room table, but my most agile years were far behind me.

One end wrapped my throat. It reeked of intestinal juices and brimstone. I kicked and pulled, but it held me fast. I tried to find some kind of hold on its bile-slickened body, but could not.

When I gasped for air, the creature immediately slid upward, making for my face. I knew then what it intended. It was going to force itself down my esophagus and into my stomach.

My dignity finally abandoned me. I began caterwauling for help—for anyone who might hear me. The effort was short-lived. The creature dove in.

It didn’t get all the way down my gullet, but it got deep enough that even now my palate is forever damaged. Miraculously, in that moment of near-certain doom, my desperate clawing fingers found purchase in the moist, tattered fabric.

Once I had a grip on the creature, I somehow found the strength to yank it away and hurl it across the room. It smacked wetly against the wall. Then I ran. I stumbled onto the balcony and slammed the sliding-glass door shut just as the creature righted itself and lunged. It smacked against the sliding-glass door with a satisfying sound.

Thankfully, Druaga, Thrall of Mormo, possessed an even smaller reserve of patience than the man who had summoned him and gave up after ten minutes of trying to get through the sliding-glass door I was desperately holding closed.

I suspect the fact that I was not among those on its hit list also contributed to my survival. After one final thump on the door, it slithered back into Blake C Rivers’ body. After a brief period of convulsing, Blake C. Rivers sat up, got to his feet, and walked toward the sliding-glass door. I must admit that, despite being two stories above a concrete walkway, I was more than prepared to throw myself from the balcony. The creature wearing Blake C Rivers' body merely paused to lock the door before leaving the apartment and disappearing, never to be seen again.

Brian, I have little doubt this thrilling missive has left you with more questions than answers. That is, of course, to be expected.  How did I get off that balcony? I called Detective Bradshaw, of course. Why didn’t my exorcism work? There is no easy answer there, but perhaps Father Vincent of St. Casimir’s Church lacks either the skill or the faith to truly bless water. Alternatively, perhaps my own skill at performing exorcism rites has diminished since the career-ruining incident in Centralia, Pennsylvania.

As for the entity itself, while I am sure you have noted parallels between it and the Vorvolaka that upended your life in 2009, I can only tell you there appears to be no meaningful correlation between the two cases.

But what of Druaga, Thrall of Mormo, and Cyrus Fingal? Perhaps Druaga cannot leave this plane of existence until it has completed Cyrus Fingal’s bidding, and as I may have noted earlier, his enemies list was extensive; it ranged from his prom date to actor David Carradine.

Neither I nor the United States Postal Inspection Service would have the displeasure of encountering Druaga again. I did, however, keep tabs on Cyrus Fingal’s enemies list. A surprising number of those individuals suffered premature or otherwise unpleasant deaths, and asphyxiation proved to be a ubiquitous—if not universal—theme among them.

I do sometimes wonder if, despite the various governmental oaths I have taken, I should reach out to the individuals that have not fallen prey to this situation, but what would I say?

Beware of individuals with the shambling gait like something from a cheap zombie film?

Get in the habit of carrying around holy water with you.

Or, if I may indulge in a lamentably sophomoric turn of phrase-

Be aware of every room you enter. Examine the décor carefully, especially if the drapes clash with the rug. It might be curtains for you.

###

When the story finally ended, my mind drifted back to the reality of the pawn shop. Of the 80’s classic radio drifting from the overhead speakers. Of the high school kids looking greedily at the case full of used video games. Of Sara negotiating over the price of a rock tumbler with a man who seemed to want to be anywhere but here, of the afternoon sun doing its best to shine through the front windows crowded with merchandise and signage. Despite the completeness of Atwater’s narrative I still had one lingering question.

HOW THE HELL WAS THIS STORY GOING TO HELP ME FIND THE DAMN BOOK?

And that is what I typed for my reply—all caps and everything.

Atwater must have either realized he had been so busy talking about himself that he'd forgotten the reason I'd asked him for help, or he simply remembered what I'd actually wanted. He responded to my email with an explanation that six months earlier a friend working in Customs had flagged a shipping crate going from an estate sale in Prague to a mobile home park in Bridgeville, Delaware. The crate turned out to be full of old books, fossils, wax cylinders, and—of all things—dirt. Atwater explained that while it might be perfectly legal to ship fossils of Devonian arthropods, Mamluk astrolabes, and ancient tomes, heaven forbid you try to mail some dirt from Timbuktu to Las Vegas.

The dirt had to stay behind but the other stuff? Including a book that matches every known description of the Eternal Codex of Tovit? Those got sent along to an address in Bayard Estates.

Now that I had the address my next question was how was I going to get the book from Delaware to here. I needed to think of something and think about it fast before something else went wrong.

There was a crash and a clatter, the sound of a formerly mint condition rock tumbler falling to the floor. Sara made a pained sound and practically ran to my side. No strike that, she stood behind me.

I looked up to see a well-dressed, well-kempt couple entering the Pawn Shop with an expression usually reserved for vegetarians entering a slaughterhouse. When the man spoke his voice was refined and cold, “We’ve spent a long time looking for you.”

“Me?” I said. When in doubt, play dumb.

Now it was the mink-coated woman to say something, “Are you the freak that likes to take advantage of mentally unwell people?”

“Me?” I said again. More dumb.

The man was at the counter now, actually trying to reach past me and grab her. I swatted him away with more force than I expected. He made a pained and angry sound. The woman fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a bedazzled container of mace.

She sprayed and I dropped to my knees.

“Mom! Dad!” Sara shouted, “Stop it!”

Of course. If my eyes hadn’t been on fire I would have rolled them.

I've been dwelling on that day and that feeling hasn't ever fully went away, it's been causing me some issues as I write other stories from my childhood. I don't know what it is but my eyes can't seem to stay on the screen for more than a couple of minutes before I go staring off towards the window, I know nothing is out there and yet I am glued to each shadow that passes by. For context I live in an apartment in a small town in Oregon, far away from that park yet I practically have all of my neighbors routines down, call paranoia if you will but better safe than sorry. It eases my mind slightly just knowing for example apartment number #46 would always take their dog out around 9pm for a restroom break and so on and so forth but other news I have also been losing sleep between thinking about that "thing" and work taking any ounce of soul I had left. Leaving me restless in bed even if I am exhausted maybe just maybe I should go back to Silver Falls State Park and just see that part of my mind... I am sure that's just tiredness talking to me. I'll continue to write if there's more updates...

Mark it as my 6th sleepless night, one day away from a full week of no sleep and the thought of going to the park grows even larger in my brain, it's a stupid idea yet it won't leave my skull. I swear it's making it even harder to sleep but fuck it if it'll shut my brain off just for a night I'll gladly take it. I know, I know it's dumb to even have that idea of going out but I'm running out of options to distract myself and I am not gonna dive into hard drugs. Fuck it... let's see, what is an hour away? I got the gas, the next couple of days off and small supply of hiking gear. Now the question is whether I should call my friend to see if she wants to see that park again... fuck, no, no I shouldn't do that she's probably better off not reliving that even if she didn't see that "thing". It's all just blur really and I don't even know what I saw or if she saw it while she was on the ground but fuck does it give me a headache. I'll sit on this idea for another night...

Ugh, I am so stupid, why am I doing this... currently sitting in my car at the park, Silver Falls State Park, feeling real dumb in early hour of 7:15 in the morning. I bet I also look strange too just watching as all the couples passing by and the families... god, it remains when I was a kid but no time like today, right? At least it's a beautiful day, nice breeze as well. Luckily or stupidly I packed light, only carrying a rechargeable flashlight that has an annoying little crank, some protein bars, full water bag attached to the backpack, compass just in case and, a portable charger for my phone so I can write notes as I walk. I don't know how long I'll be out here, most likely until the sun goes down as that's when the "thing" came out... well I suppose in some ways I needed this, you know, get out of the house, enjoy the fresh air and a nice walk. Although somethings different since last time, could be that I am older, that or the abundant of tents or maybe the rampant homeless population that's overcrowding the trails asking folks for change. Something is off though. I am trying my best to avoid the crowds of people as well as remembering where I had walked when I was 14. It's hard to tell, most of the trails have so much overgrowth that I am not even sure if I am on the "right path" so to speak. I do know however that I need a break, I am unhealthy that's fact but hey I found a little pond on the outskirts so I am gonna take a breather here.

I kinda lost track of time, I think thirty minutes have past? The scenery was calming and I had small chat with a woman who was walking her dog, she had mentioned something odd though. Something about how it's strange that when you get further into the trails there's a lot of tents with no one around and the ambient noise is almost silent. I am not gonna lie after hearing that my curiosity got the better of me and I got off the grass patch I was sitting on and headed in the direction the lady had came from. Add this to the list of stupid ideas I have had but I had no other ideas, no exact plans to go off of beside retracing vague steps from my younger mind, could've asked her if she's seen anything weird but I probably would've looked strange asking that. So, onwards onto the trail, hopefully finding some sort of clue. I grasping at straws at this point and damn how far did this lady walk? She must've been here earlier than me and not afraid to get mauled by the wildlife around... shit. That's what I forgot, a defense item of the sorts, come to think of it I don't actually own bear mace or anything to defend myself if I get attacked. Why do I gotta think about this now. No point in returning this far in even though I am knee high in foliage, how did she do this? I am basically shoving my way through thorn bushes and branches. Could I be going the wrong way? No, that wouldn't make much sense as she came from this way unless there was a different path I wasn't paying attention too, wait. This could be the right path? Nature as been quieter the further I push in so it has be, right? Though I don't see any tents anywhere. I'll update once I find something of interest.

I had to of trekked miles out, it's currently 5pm and I completely forgot about daylight savings as the sun is starting to go down. I am gonna keep trekking and once it gets to dark I am gonna turn around. I am sure the tents are around here somewhere. Right? Okay, yeah, I found some tents. I think the lady forgotten to mention that they're torn up, nature's practically claimed half of them. Nothing of use from what I can see, some old photos of families, ruined sleeping bags, nonfunctional flashlights and weird drawings. Just a bunch of circles with X's threw them and oh. An phone number with a note attached "call me if you get lost". I reluctantly called the number trying to see if there was answer to what went on around here and of course... it went straight to voicemail and this is what it said:

"Sorry but if you are out there, there's no point. The forest will eat you alive. I got out luckily, hopefully you will too. I am so sorry. I really am."

What... what have I gotten myself into? Darkness came rather quickly and for some odd reason my compass is spinning wildly. Then to add on top of my luck I have no reception out here, and this stupid.... Fucking flashlight won't stay on. Oh I've lost the trail. Great, fuck. Where's the trail? Okay I think I found it.

Shit... almost lost my phone, a damn tent peg tripped me but I think I may have found a way out, bushes look similar. What am I saying, everything looks similar. I am gonna keep pushing my way through. I swear if this flashlight keeps going out I am gonna use the phone's and I swear I keep hearing twigs snapping near me. It could be me, I am gonna hope it's me. I am feeling overwhelmed right now between getting sliced up from the thorn bushes, my head pounding and the ever growing sounds of footsteps, I don't know what to focus on. I haven't had this bad of a headache since... Fuck. Fuck. Okay, I am okay. I am okay. I think I see "it". I don't know if "it" sees me. It doesn't have a face. Fuck it I am gonna make a run for it.

I think it's gone... but god my arm hurts, I don't know what happened. I am so shaky I can barely hold the flashlight still... is that bone? Looks like I stuck my arm through razorwire... It hurts so bad. I am gonna have to use my shirt to keep pressure on it till I can get to a hospital.

Oh god my head is spinning. I think I am almost out though. I think I can see trail markers... please, please tell me it's trail markers.

Fuck, my luck is just getting worse by the minute... I swear I see it, it's just standing there, even taller than before. I can't even see its head anymore, just its body up into the tree line.

Why did I have to do this?

It doesn't matter does it? I am here now and I gotta survive.

Shit. Is that blood all over those tents? Fuck, I think it got that couple of the homeless. Their tents look worse than the ones I left.

Fuck, no, no, (battery low) no, not now.

(1% battery left currently charging)

Come on. Come on. The engine won't start. I am almost home free. Please. I feel so woozy. I just wanna go home...

(Part 3 Coming Soon...)

A Perceivable Reality Story.

I slapped another magazine into my rifle and charged it, the barrel immediately began glowing blue. Next to me, a headless body fell to its knees, then toppled. Sanderson was gone now, too. Damnit. I crawled closer and lifted the flaps on his mag pouches, finding nothing but dirt. Red beams of light shot over my cover and I ducked involuntarily. I put my back to the dirt wall and raised my rifle, feeling it grow almost uncomfortably warm as I pulled the trigger, spraying blue orbs until I felt the gun go cold. I brought it down to my lap and pulled out the mag, dropping it to the ground next to me. My hand went to the empty mag pouch on my chest. I could hear them, the creaking of their exoskeletons as they grew close, the clicking of their mandibles in anticipation. I wondered if Sanderson's demise was preferable to what I was about to experience.

I was jarred out of my dream by the sound of tapping on my front door. I shot upright, running my hands over my body in a subconscious check for holes. The tapping came again.

"Just a second!" I called to the door and rolled out of bed. I stumbled over and cracked the door.

A girl in a cream turtleneck sweater and pleated skirt was standing at my door. Her name was Kathy, or Katie, or something. She lived a few doors down on the opposite side of the hall.

"Oh. Hey, uh..."

"Lucy."

"Lucy. Right. Hi. What's up?"

"Uh, the guy in the suit that hangs around the elevator said you could help," she said nervously as her hands fidgeted with her bracelet. "I locked myself out...again...and my boyfriend is already at work, so..."

That's right. Jared, or James, or something. They'd moved in about a month after me. I didn't see them much, we'd passed in the hall or at the communal mailbox, but we hadn't talked at all. She smelled like rosewater and hand lotion. Jared or James or whatever, usually smelled like a machine shop, metal and chemicals and acetylene.

She snapped me out of my contemplation. "So, um...can you--?"

"Yeah, yeah, one second." I closed the door and went to my desk, collecting the small nylon case that held my lock-pick tools.

I wasn't a professional or anything, but I'd gotten into a lock-picking obsession a while ago after I found a guy on the internet. I slipped on flipflops and went out to the hall. She was waiting in front of her door. I knelt down and got out my Lishi tool. I had the door open in about 10 minutes. She thanked me profusely and hurried inside.

I was walking back to my door and heard my work phone ring from inside. I lunged for the door and started tossing blankets until I found it.

"Yes, hi, Calhoun Executive Transit... 1225 Bayside Avenue, yes, I can be there in about half an hour. Great, thanks."

I stripped and got into a dark forest green suit with a cream button-up and a muted rust tie, finishing it with a pair of oxblood wholecuts and my new Seiko Presage.

I hurried out the door and jogged lightly to the elevator, taking it down to the garage.

I pulled up to the gate. The house was slightly visible through the wrought iron bars. Tall stone walls wrapped around the property, ivy and various vines like green veins on bone. A security guard in a suit stood just on the other side of the gate, both of us seemingly waiting for the other to move. I wasn't about to step out into the hot sun, and he didn't seem to want to leave the shade of the wall.

Finally, his hand went up to the clear earpiece. He nodded, then made a hand motion to someone I couldn't see. The gate opened inward and the guard waved at me. The circular driveway was surrounded by extravagant landscaping that probably accounted for half the water usage in the city to maintain. The house was ornate, Modern-Victorian, or maybe Victorian-Modern. Roman columns stood on either side of the large wood double doors that were carved with medieval-looking filigree. The whole thing wound up looking more camp than impressive.

A tall man in a sport coat over a half-open white shirt and blue jeans stomped out of one side of the double doors, followed by a harried assistant. She had an armful of scripts and folders, chasing him with a cellphone extended. Two pens were stuck through her honey-colored bun. She had on a two-piece slate suit with a pencil skirt, and her ivory blouse exposed a tasteful but not immodest amount of decolletage. Her black mid-height heels accentuated her pale, toned legs as she chased him at almost a jog. I caught myself and started memorizing my odometer.

One of the guards opened the rear door and he tossed himself in, sans assistant, to my dismay.

"Hey, buddy." He snapped his fingers. "Get me to 48th and Carnegie, and make it quick. I'm late."

"Sir." I put the car in drive and gave it enough gas to push him into the seat a little bit.

We rode in silence as we left the neighborhood.

He finally spoke, his head facing the side window.

"Good thing my manager found you." I mouthed along with the script verbatim. "My driver quit this morning."

"They want me to be the next Alan Steele." He said, and I knew he was waiting for me to be impressed.

I'd seen the originals from way before I was born, and I'd read the books. I'd heard that they were remaking it. Again. But the last one had bombed so hard that I figured they'd retire the name and hope everybody forgot.

I made a noise of polite acknowledgement. The leather creaked quietly as he shifted in the seat.

It was quiet again. The trip to the production office was thankfully short. I pulled up, got out, and went around and opened his door. He got out and flipped his hair, checking himself in the long side window. He played with his hair a little more, then stood up straight, towering over me by at least a few inches.

"I don't have any cash on me," he said in a voice that was trying to sound posh, "But I can give you one of these." He pulled a signed photo out of a large pocket inside his sport coat and extended it to me. My hands tightened their grip on the door.

When I didn't take it, he shook it slightly. "For you." I caught annoyance buried under the faux generosity.

"I appreciate the gesture, but that's not necessary, sir." He was standing in the way of the door, preventing me from closing it and making an escape.

He shook the picture again. "Hey, buddy. I don't just go around giving these out to people. I said thank you, now take it." He leaned towards me and I fought to keep myself from shrinking.

"Your fare is paid, sir. No other payment is required. Have a nice day." I started to slowly push the door closed. He didn't get the hint.

"Listen here, fucker. I'm about to become a beloved celebrity. Show me some goddamn respect."

There it was. The edge in his voice was sharp enough to shave with, and it was genuine, though where it came from, I had no idea.

I nodded and kept slowly closing the door. He stepped out of the way and tossed the signed glossy inside the door as it shut. He stood there, and I could feel the heat of what I assume was a glare. I waited silently.

After a beat, he deflated with a puff of hot air from his mouth.

"You're not faking. You really don't recognize me." He sounded deflated.

I shook my head. "I don't really watch movies."

He huffed again and put his hands on his hips. After a moment, he dropped them and turned to walk inside.

"Sir," I called after him. He stopped and turned back to me. I pulled out my gold card carrier and extended one of my business cards between two fingers. "Should the need arise."

He snatched the card and flicked it back at me. It bounced off the front of my chauffeur cap.

"Screw you, jerkoff." He turned and stormed into the office. A small group of girls walked by, chittering to themselves. He called to them and waved, and the volume of the chittering increased, nearly turning to squealing, as they bounced, holding each other's hands. He said something else and they retreated back the direction they came. That seemed to pump him back up. He squared his shoulders, flexed his neck, and turned his head towards me before continuing inside.

I let out a victorious chuckle through my nose and got back in my car.

I was sitting at a red light, zoning out, when I heard the back door of the car open and shut. I jumped. I turned my head to look in the rear view mirror and felt something cold and hard at the nape of my neck.

"Just keep your eyes forward, friendo, and this'll all be over soon." His voice was strained and raspy, and it shifted as if he was turning his head side-to-side as he spoke.

The light turned green and I pulled away from the light as smoothly as I could.

"Where would you like to go, uh, sir?" I tried to keep my voice calm.

The thing at the back of my neck pressed harder against my skin. "You just keep driving until I tell you not to."

We rode in a straight line for several lights. I'm usually pretty lucky, but today it was nothing but reds. The pressure on the back of my neck started to relax, then it jabbed me again.

"Go left here."

I swung the car over and barely made it into the left turn lane in time, just for it to turn yellow when I was halfway into the intersection. I got a few honks and finished my turn, sticking an apologetic hand up.

I kept driving with him giving me turn-by-turn directions until we were heading out of the city. The pressure on the back of my neck returned.

"I don't wanna hurt you, I just need you to get me somewhere and we'll be done."

"Until you decide you don't need a witness." I said before thinking.

He laughed, a wheezing, choking sound. "Hey, friend, you can call the cops if you want, soon as I'm out of your car. I don't give a shit."

I wasn't sure what to do with that, but it was almost reassuring. The city became a distant gleam behind us as we moved inland away from the water. He'd settled into the back seat with a canvas duffle bag that I hadn't noticed he'd had before. It was dark around the bottom, as if the contents were wet and soaking through. He held the straps tightly in one hand, even going as far as to set down his gun instead of releasing the bag, in order to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket and cough into it.

"Are you ok, sir?"

"Hu? Yeah, yeah, fine. Just keep going."

"...Is there anything I can do to help?"

"What? No! Just drive."

I nodded and kept driving. We were well into the woods when he finally sat forward and waved the gun at me.

"Stop. Stop right here."

"Where?"

"Just stop. Right here. Park it."

I got on the brakes, probably a little harder than I should have, and got the car stopped. He threw the door open and stumbled out, pushing the door shut with his foot. He came around to the driver's side and tapped the window with the muzzle of the gun. I cracked it and he motioned to keep going. I rolled it down all the way.

"If you do call the cops, just give me a head start, ok?" His voice was still raspy, but there was less anxiety in it than had been there before. In a quick motion, he thrust his gun into his duffle bag, his hand coming back out with a fistful of wadded bills that he tossed into the open window. I opened my mouth, not entirely sure what I was going to say, but before I could get a word out, he started limping quickly towards the tree line. I got out and put a foot down, half-standing in the open door.

"Sir?" My voice came back with a slight echo off the trees.

He didn't reply, only waving a hand over his shoulder. I waited there until I lost sight of him, then slowly got back into my car. I pulled my phone out and dialed 9-1-, with my finger hesitating over the screen. I stared at it for a long moment, then locked the screen and dropped it onto the seat next to me. I had to drive another 30 minutes before I found a place big enough that I could turn around it. The ride back to the city took two hours, which felt like an eternity longer than the trip out had.

I got back into the city and drove the speed limit, feeling a bit like I was in a trance. At one point, the car behind me honked and I realized I’d been waiting for a stop sign to turn green. I looked over at my watch; I was supposed to be at Dion’s in about 45 minutes for our biweekly poker night. I had a six-pack of beer in my fridge that I’d planned on bringing, but I decided to try and find a case instead. It had been a case kind of day.

I pulled into the apartment parking lot, centering the car in two parallel parking spaces. Normally, I'd get a nasty note or a fake parking ticket pulling this kind of stunt, but I'd been parking here every other Friday for a few months now, and the apartment management didn't seem to care. You can get away with it if you look important enough. Sometimes, anyway.

I grabbed the case of beer out of the trunk and hustled across the lot to one of the lower-level doors. I don't like being late, but I'd hit traffic on my way here and my usual liquor store was out of my favorite brew, and it'd taken me two other stores to find one that stocked it. I knocked twice then let myself in. Dion never seemed to lock his door. I rounded the kitchen into the living room which was completely dominated by Dion's Vegas-spec poker table that was worth my car insurance policy. His head came up from under his cards.

"Carter! Hell yeah! Now it's a party!" He dropped his cards and hustled over to me, giving me a one-armed hug. The hug made the case clink against my leg, which caught his attention.

"Oh, fuck yeah. Hey, can I have one of those?" He asked, pointing at the case.

You're not supposed to crack another man's case, just like you're not supposed to ask for someone's last cigarette, but Dion had this charm about him that just made you want to do him favors. Even I wasn't immune to it.

"Yeah, sure."

"Bitchin'!" He relieved me of the case and set it on the ground between us. He completely avoided the perforated "party flap" and ripped the entire top off the box. It bothered me, but not enough to say anything. He plucked a beer from the center, bit the cap off, and guzzled it at inhuman speed. He stuck out his tongue to catch the last drops, then chucked the bottle into his industrial-sized metal trash can he kept in the kitchen. He grabbed another from the corner.

"One for the road." He said and bit the lid off. He drank this one slower as he walked back to the poker table.

"You know Skyler, right?"

"What's good, Hound Dog?" He asked with his voice that sounded like honey being poured over gravel. He'd started calling me "Hound Dog" because Calhoun sounded like "Cal-hound", which transformed into "Hound", which inevitably ended at "Hound Dog". It didn't bother me much, and having a nickname went a long way to making me feel included.

He'd become a regular at poker night, and I'd driven him around a few times. I don't know exactly what he does for work, but I'm pretty sure he's a male escort or a male stripper or something along those lines with all the women I always see him with. He also only ever seemed to bet with small bills, which didn't help his case. He had well-tanned skin that didn't look like it came from a booth, and his half-open white button-up shirt exposed a gym rat build.

"And you've met Jacks, right?" Dion continued.

Jacks, or I think his full name is Jackson, is Dion's neighbor. He didn't speak very much, but it was weird when he did. I think he's slow, but he's nice enough. He waved and I shot him a two-finger "Han Solo" salute.

I took my spot at the table and Dion pushed a stack of chips towards me. I got my titanium money clip out of my pocket and threw down $100 to start, the entry fee.

"You ladies ready to lose your shirts?" Dion asked as he performed a perfect one-handed riffle shuffle.

"Just deal, buttercup." Skyler grumbled.

Dion performed his trademark one-handed deal, and I got a pair of 2's that took me as far as the turn before I folded.

The next two hands weren't much better and, despite my careful betting, I lost both hands on the final card.

The next hand, I got dealt a six and a Queen, with a Queen and another six already on the table from the flop. I relaxed my shoulders and made a concentrated effort to keep my hands from fidgeting. I bet high, but not aggressively, tossing a few extra chips only when someone else raised as well. I looked around the table. Jackson scratched his ear when he had something good, and Dion subtly checked his cards constantly if he was bluffing. Skyler was harder, with his only tell, that I could find, being that his voice got just a little bit deeper if he was trying to make you think he didn't have anything. I kept my tone bored and my posture relaxed. It was just me and Skyler by then. The river card was another Queen, and I slapped mine down with a victorious exclamation, only for Skyler to quietly flip over two 10's for four-of-a-kind.

I tossed in the small blind and got dealt a pair of Aces, with the three of them folding before Jacks could bury a card and deal the flop. I chucked the Aces to the middle and blew a noisy breath out between my lips.

"Every goddamn time, you guys. Seriously, it's like my cards are see-through." I got myself a fresh beer from my case as a consolation prize.

"Hey, man. You win some, you lose some." Dion said with a shrug as he shuffled.

My $100 entry fee got whittled down to just a couple chips that I lost to Dion's flush. I hadn't even tried to raise once.

"You marking these cards?" I shot at Dion.

"Do you see me lifting a leg?"

I shook my head and looked at my watch. I'd only been there an hour and change. I thought about leaving early. Skyler pushed a few chips at me and patted my arm. I sighed and slid them closer, then fished a $50 out of my wallet and slid it over to Skyler, who put his hand on mine and slid the bill back to me.

"I know you're good for it, Hound Dog." He said with a nod.

I sat out a few hands and sipped beer while I watched Dion bleed chips to Jacks and Skyler. He pushed the last of his chips into the middle and rolled his shoulders.

"Carter, ol' buddy, you're pretty stacked. Can you lend a losing man a couple bucks? ...And another beer?"

I scoffed and split my loaned chips, pushing the smaller pile of chips at him, then got a bottle out of the quickly dwindling case and handed it across the table to him.

I played a hand or two over the next few hours, taking more interest in watching Jackson slump further and further in his chair in time with the fluid level in the bottle of Maker's Mark next to him.

By the time the lights in the complex came on, my case was completely empty and Jackson could barely hold his cards. I watched him sway in his seat as he tossed the last of his chips vaguely towards the pot. The last card came out and he put his hand down, pushing the cards towards Dion, who stopped them.

"Wait, wait, you can't just fold on the last card."

Jacks motioned to the empty table in front of him and shrugged. Dion pushed the cards back.

"You don't have anything?"

Jackson thought for a bit, then dug around in his pockets, coming out with a few coins, his now empty billfold, and a punch card for a free smoothie, with two punches left. He shrugged again and pushed the cards away.

"Ah, hang on. I've got it. Owe me a favor."

Jacks seemed to mull this over for a second; he hadn't wanted to relinquish the punch card. He finally nodded and took the cards back.

"Ok, but I need you to agree. One favor, right?"

Jacks nodded again, the motion almost tipping him out of his chair.

"I need a yes or a no, buddy."

"Organic caps." Jacks slurred.

Dion cleared his throat. "Yes. Or. No."

Jacks waved a drunken hand at him. "Protest become letterhead. Ya'know?"

With that, he laid his head down on the table. Dion let out a pained sigh and slowly collected the cards from under Jacks' dead weight paw.

With Jackson down for the count, and me admittedly not far behind, I put a hand up as Dion dealt me more cards.

"Nah, I'm done." I glugged down the last of the mojito I'd been nursing for the last few hands. I had to focus pretty hard to get the glass to land in the middle of the marble coaster.

"Hey, wait. You're gonna have to stay over anyway. Why not make it worth the trip? Skyler, make him another one."

Skyler silently stood and collected my glass, moving to the kitchen. I heard bottles and ice clink.

"With what chips? I'm cleaned out." My words were coming out fuzzy and they sounded distant.

Skyler set the fresh drink down in front of me, then dropped himself into his chair. He pushed the rest of his chips at me, then gripped the back of my neck and rocked me side-to-side. The beer in my stomach gurgled against the rum and the motion made my eyes heavy. Skyler's hand was shockingly warm, even after having just held a cold glass. He let my neck go and leaned back in his chair.

"I've had my fun." He turned his head to me. "Smoke'im, Hound Dog."

I turned my head to Dion who sniffed, then sighed. He scratched at his neck and said something under his breath to Skyler, but my woozy brain made it sound like a different language.

I picked up the cards, a two and a seven, black and red. I set them face-down on the table and pushed Skyler's chips back towards him. He reached over and lifted the corner of my cards, turned his head towards Dion, then pushed the chips back to me with a nod. I snorted and shook my head.

"Guys, we gonna play or what? Let's go." Dion called from his side of the table, his voice weirdly anxious.

Skyler pushed the chips to the middle and leaned back. Dion started setting down cards.

"Ah, ah, ah, no. Noooooo. That's not my bet."

Dion set his cards down and huffed. "Would you two figure yourselves out? Let's play some cards before we lose another one." He stuck his hand out in my direction and said more words that sounded made up.

Nothing happened for a minute as I tried to keep myself upright. Dion finally broke in.

"Fine, fine, you don't wanna play with somebody else's money. I get it." He paused. "So bet with what you do have."

"Eh?"

"Put down a freebie." He said, tapping the table with a straightened pointer finger.

"A free ride? Sure." I picked my cards back up. He didn't pay his "tab" half the time anyway, so I wasn't about to lose anything.

The three cards he'd put down didn't help me at all. I didn't bother checking mine.

"Well? You betting?"

I shook my head and tapped the table twice to check.

"Tough tits, broski, because I'm raising." He thrust chips into the pot.

I rolled my head around on my neck, then settled it on my shoulder.

"Ok, how about a free day?"

"Ooohh-hooo! Now this is getting interesting!"

Another card down on the table. I couldn't read it from my side, but it was red. I checked again.

Dion shook his head and clicked his teeth, tossing in more chips. I sighed.

"Ok, one weekend."

"A free weekend with the car?"

"Sure. You get it for a whoooooole weekend for freeee." I hadn’t realized how sloshed I actually was.

Since the majority of my clientele were businesspeople who could afford to be on their own schedule, weekends weren't necessarily more or less advantageous. I'd miss out on a couple hundred bucks, which was about what was in the pot at this point. Dion made a noise like he was sucking back a mouthful of spit. It made my stomach turn over a little bit and I started to lean. Skyler caught me and pushed me back upright. There was a pregnant pause and all I could hear was my own heavy breathing.

"Ok, ok...Whatcha got?" Dion's words sounded...soggy? His voice was strained, anxious, with an undertone that I hadn't heard before.

I lifted the corner of my cards again.

"You first, antsy-pantsy." I slurred at Dion, who made the spit-sucking noise again.

"Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, y-you first."

I turned my crooked head at Skyler who shrugged.

"Hey! Flip his goddamn cards over!" Dion's scream hurt my ears.

There was another pause. I watched Dion’s cards vibrate as his hands shook.

"GOD-- FUCK--!" Dion suddenly slammed his hands on the table as he shot out of his seat. He bent the edge of his cards up one more time and slapped a hand down on top of them, pushing them away face-down.

Skyler erupted into a deep laugh and reached over, flipping one, then the other of my cards.

"WHAT?! ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!"

He reached for his own cards, but Skyler slapped his large hand down on top of Dion's.

"You folded, hoss."

Dion ripped his hand out from under Skyler's and swung hard, his hand sailing over Skyler’s head without contact.

"I think we're done." Skyler stood slowly and grabbed me under my arms, lifting me out of my chair and onto my feet as if I weighed nothing. He threw one of my arms across his shoulders and started leading me to the door. I caught a whiff of something sweet. It made my exhaustion double.

"Hey!" Dion shouted in that other language I couldn't understand.

"Enough, Gwyd!" Skyler bellowed in a voice you'd use to silence a barking dog. His next words were normal volume but equally commanding. "There's always next week."

I heard the sound of exploding glass and felt something land in my hair.

I don’t remember making it out of the apartment or out to my car. I vaguely remember going horizontal, and smelling the familiar smell of my car air fresheners, and the feeling of thick carpet against my cheek.

Entry 32- Current status of Phonovirus pandemic: 

Many of the details surrounding the pandemic are lost to me, but I promise I will never forget the screams. 

It started a few weeks ago when the news broke that a new airborne illness was beginning to reach epidemic status. It started on the West Coast and was spreading eastward across the continental United States. Called phonovirus, it had so far left the medical community at a loss. It looked like it could become a potential pandemic. The strangest thing about the whole virus was that it was mostly asymptomatic. Externally anyways, if that makes any sense.

It’s hard to describe so bear with me. I’m honestly still processing it and as of now we are still treating some of the last remaining patients.

The symptom I am referring to is a new one for me, and as a long standing medical professional these things rarely take me by surprise. Symptoms don’t typically manifest as entirely new. Usually they are a variation of a preexisting symptom. Something I can handle. Context.

This was a truly shocking one. 

A patient affected by phonovirus only experienced one symptom. Any open wound on the body would no longer fully heal, as if there was some sort of barrier preventing the skin from closing  up, and any open wound on a patient affected would produce horrifying guttural screams. Multiple wounds, multiple screams.  

If you need to reread that, I understand. It didn’t make sense to me at first either, and I saw it firsthand. It still doesn’t but at least I understand as much as understanding is possible. The screams come from inside of the body. Inside of the body. 

The intensity of the screams wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it wasn’t just an indecipherable cacophony of noise. It didn’t sound like the way your blood sounds when you hear it outside of your body during an ultrasound. It didn’t sound like gibberish. The voices were coherent. 

It was as if a demon was speaking to the victim. From inside of themselves. Telling them the worst things they could possibly imagine. And they shifted. The voices I mean, not the patients. They would change, become different people. Always people close to the victim that had passed, and always the darkest messages from the depths of hell. 

Your mother telling you that she should have cooked you and eaten you instead of raising you.
Your maternal grandmother telling you she can’t wait to eat your eyeballs when she sees you in hell.
Your first child telling you that you are a worthless piece of shit and you deserve to be impaled and covered in honey until the insects consume all of your sweet sticky flesh.
 
So many terrible images and messages that the final stage of phonovirus has consistently been suicide.

The affected patients are so disturbed by the messages that they just can’t take it anymore.
The voices drive the patients to suicide in 100% of affected patients. 

We frantically searched for some sort of cure, but any attempts at closing up the wounds using traditional medical methods failed and the voices continued to slowly kill their victims. Nor could we do anything about the voices. We tried covering them with bandages and they only screamed louder. We tried talking to them, tried to reason with them and find out how to stop them. 

They told us of the horrors of hell that we would soon face if we tried to interfere.  

At this point, there are no options left. The disease is rapidly spreading across the globe and the suicides continue to rise. Nobody knows if they are a carrier and there is only one way to find out. Very few are willing to risk this and those who have tried have done nothing to further the research. They just proved the disease is hopeless.

We are advising people to be very careful conducting themselves as they attempt to function daily without inadvertently puncturing their skin. This has proven to be very difficult. All we can hope is to make it through this unscathed and hopefully find a way to beat this baffling disease.

Oh my, would you look at that? Seems I just got a paper cut. 

And no mother, I am not the whore of Babylon sent to destroy the earth. 

Grandma, I loved you, I miss you, why would you tell me that my dead son hates me? 

End of transcript.

“Order for Morgan Fatah?”

Morgan looked up from her phone.

The girl behind the counter held up a small brown bag.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

Morgan walked over and checked inside before leaving. Setting lotion, disposable mascara wands, a new box of sectioning clips and two packs of wedges. Everything was there.

“You do hair?” the girl asked.

“Hair and makeup.”

“Oh, nice.”

Morgan nodded. “Trying to get more practice in.”

The girl glanced at the bag. “Well, you’re stocked.”

Morgan laughed, thanked her, and headed outside.

The practice head was buckled into the passenger seat of her car.

She had put the seat belt around it mostly as a joke, but it also kept the hair from rubbing against the door. The head leaned slightly toward the window, a bath towel wrapped around the base of its neck.

Morgan looked at it before starting the car.

Even in daylight it was remarkable.

The face had none of the exaggerated features most cosmetology heads had. The nose wasn’t perfectly straight. The lips weren’t identical on both sides. There were faint creases near the eyes and subtle variations in the skin tone. The brown hair was thick and fine, with a few lighter strands around the front.

Whoever had made it had cared about details.

She had almost not gotten it.

The woman she’d gotten it from had been strangely attached to the thing.

Morgan remembered that much.

She had gone there expecting to look through several old heads and salon supplies. Instead, the moment she saw this one, she stopped caring about the rest.

“I want that one.”

The woman hesitated.

“I don’t know if I want to get rid of that one.”

Morgan had assumed she meant it was valuable.

She’d offered more.

The woman still wasn’t sure.

Morgan couldn’t remember exactly how long they’d gone back and forth. She remembered getting annoyed. She had driven all that way after work and wasn’t leaving without it, especially after seeing the face in person.

The hair was real human hair too. Morgan could tell immediately.

The owner kept saying she couldn’t have it.

Morgan kept raising the offer.

Eventually, somehow, it came home with her.

She couldn’t remember what she’d paid.

More than she should have.

She looked over at the head again.

Worth it.

That night Morgan set it up in the spare bedroom.

The room had slowly become her workspace. Her folding light stood in one corner. Brushes filled glass cups along the vanity. Hot tools, sprays and bottles crowded two shelves she’d mounted herself.

Her old practice head was shoved underneath the desk.

She’d never liked that one.

Its face was hard and shiny and every makeup look sat on it like paint on a toy.

This was completely different.

Morgan tightened the clamp around the new head.

It didn’t fit very well.

She tightened it again.

“There.”

She stepped back.

The head drooped slightly to one side.

Morgan straightened it.

“Work with me.”

She started with the hair.

It was easily the nicest part. It responded to heat well because it was real hair, It even had slightly different textures underneath than it did around the crown.

She dampened it and practiced a blowout.

After that she moved on to makeup.

Primer.

A thin layer of foundation.

Concealer.

Morgan found herself leaning closer and closer as she worked.

There were pores.

Not an embossed texture pretending to be pores. Tiny, irregular ones.

She ran the pad of her thumb across the cheek.

The material gave beneath it.

Morgan stopped.

She pressed again.

For half a second, it felt exactly like touching someone’s face.

She smiled to herself.

“That is weird.”

She checked the other cheek.

Cool and rubbery.

Whatever material they had used was incredible.

Morgan worked until after midnight.

When she finished, she took pictures from several angles.

It was the first practice look she’d done in months that she actually wanted to keep.

The next morning there was moisture around the clamp.

Morgan noticed it because one of her makeup sponges had fallen onto the floor underneath it.

When she picked it up, one side was damp.

She touched the towel she’d wrapped around the bottom of the head.

Wet.

“Seriously?”

She looked up.

The ceiling was dry.

Morgan picked up the head and carried it into the bathroom.

She must not have dried the hair properly. Water had probably gotten inside somewhere and settled near the base.

She held the head over the sink and tilted it.

A thin, cloudy liquid ran from underneath the towel.

Morgan grimaced.

“Okay. That’s disgusting.”

She let it drain, wiped down the neck and washed the towel.

Whatever was inside the head smelled a little strange.

Old water, maybe.

Like something that had been sitting inside a washing machine too long.

Morgan sprayed the sink with cleaner and left for work.

Two days later, the face had changed.

Morgan didn’t notice immediately.

She was practicing contour placement when she kept getting annoyed with the right cheek.

Something wasn’t matching.

She pulled up one of the pictures she’d taken the first night.

Looked at the phone.

Looked at the head.

The face seemed fuller now.

Especially around the jaw.

Morgan turned it toward the light.

Maybe she had been storing it too close to the heater.

She pressed a finger into the cheek.

It sank farther than before.

Morgan pulled her finger back.

The indentation remained for a moment.

Then slowly disappeared.

She stared at it.

“Cheap shit.”

That irritated her.

Whatever soft material was beneath the outer layer was probably degrading.

For what she’d paid, it shouldn’t have been doing that.

She tried searching for the manufacturer but there was no markings or anything on it.

Morgan wondered if it had been custom-made.

That would explain a lot.

By Friday she had stopped keeping track of how many hours she’d spent in the room.

She went to work, came home, ate something if she remembered and went upstairs.

There was always something she wanted to try.

An updo she’d seen online.

A new foundation technique.

A different brow shape.

The practice head was becoming difficult, though.

Certain parts of the face didn’t take makeup correctly anymore. Product collected around the nose and along the jaw. The skin had developed faint patches underneath that foundation wouldn’t completely cover.

Morgan compensated.

That was what makeup was for.

The smell had gotten worse too.

She washed the hair again.

That helped for a few hours.

Then it came back.

She put a small fan in the window and blamed the old material inside the head.

Saturday afternoon, while removing makeup, a section of the cheek shifted underneath her cotton pad.

Morgan stopped.

She touched it.

The outer surface moved slightly over whatever was beneath it.

“Fuck.”

She’d rubbed too hard.

Morgan tried smoothing the loose section back down, but the edge wrinkled.

She pulled open the drawer beside her and found her adhesive.

A tiny amount beneath the lifted edge.

Press.

Hold.

Powder.

She leaned back.

You could barely tell.

Morgan smiled.

“There we go.”

Her phone started vibrating on the vanity.

Maya

Morgan let it ring.

She was lining the lips.

The phone stopped.

Thirty seconds later it started again.

Morgan sighed and answered.

“What?”

“Morgan?”

“Yeah?”

“Why haven’t you answered me?”

“I just did.”

“You know what I mean.”

Morgan tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear.

“I’m doing something.”

“I’ve been calling you since yesterday.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

“Practicing.”

There was a pause.

“Practicing what?”

Morgan looked at the brush in her hand.

“Hair and makeup.”

Maya didn’t say anything.

Morgan continued carefully around the bottom lip.

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“You need to move on from that.”

Morgan stopped.

“From what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The school.”

Morgan stared at herself in the mirror.

“What about it?”

“They already told you that you couldn’t go back.”

“That isn’t what they said.”

“Morgan.”

“They said I couldn’t come back there. That’s different.”

“No, that’s not—”

“And I don’t need them anyway.”

Maya went quiet again.

Morgan could hear something in the background. A television.

“You haven’t worked with anybody in months,” Maya said.

“Yes, I have.”

“Who?”

Morgan’s hand tightened around the brush.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mom’s worried too.”

“Then tell Mom I’m fine.”

“I want to come over.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m busy.”

“Morgan, you’ve been ‘busy’ for four days.”

Morgan looked at the head.

One side of the lipstick was slightly higher than the other.

She reached for a cotton swab.

A fly landed near the edge of the mirror.

Morgan waved it away without taking her eyes off the lip.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Morgan—”

She hung up.

She didn’t call tomorrow.

Sunday morning, Morgan decided to practice a French twist.

She had just finished separating the hair at the crown when several strands stayed between her fingers.

Morgan frowned.

She wiped them onto the vanity and continued.

Another few came loose.

This time she stopped.

She ran her fingers through the section again, very gently.

Three more hairs slid free.

Not broken ends.

Full strands.

Morgan leaned closer to the scalp.

There was a small thin spot above the ear that hadn’t been there before.

“Seriously?”

She put the comb down.

For the next hour, Morgan watched videos about repairing and rerooting practice heads.

Most of them dealt with cheap vinyl heads, but the principle seemed simple enough.

She found a pack of individual extension hairs left over in one of her drawers and laid them across a white towel.

Then, one at a time, she began filling the thin section.

Separate a hair.

A dot of adhesive.

Part the existing hair.

Press it into place.

Hold.

Move to the next one.

It was tedious.

After forty minutes Morgan had replaced maybe thirty strands.

She brushed over the spot.

Still thin.

She kept going.

By the time she finished, her back hurt from leaning over the vanity and there were loose brown hairs stuck to her shirt, her forearms and the damp skin around her wrists.

Morgan ran the comb through the repaired section.

It covered nicely.

She smiled.

“See?”

The practice head looked back at her.

“Not that hard.”

Monday morning, Morgan noticed the mouth wouldn’t stay closed while applying foundation around the chin.

Every time she tilted the practice head backward, the lips separated slightly.

She pushed the jaw upward with two fingers.

The mouth closed.

She let go.

A moment later it eased open again.

Morgan frowned.

She worked the jaw gently from side to side.

There was more movement than she remembered.

Whatever held it in place must have loosened.

“Of course.”

She had spent half of yesterday fixing the hair.

Now this.

Morgan opened the mouth a little wider and looked inside.

The teeth were surprisingly detailed. Individual pieces instead of one molded row, each slightly different from the next.

She tapped one gently with the end of her fingernail.

Hard.

Maybe porcelain.

That would make sense. Whoever built the thing had clearly spent money on it.

Morgan opened one of the drawers and found her super glue.

She didn’t want to glue the lips together. She still needed those for makeup.

The teeth were hidden when the mouth was closed anyway.

She pressed the jaw shut, pulled the lips apart with her fingers and put a thin line of glue where the upper and lower teeth met.

Then she held them together.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Morgan let go.

The mouth stayed shut.

She gave the chin a small push.

Nothing.

“There.”

She turned the practice head toward the mirror.

From the outside, you couldn’t tell she’d done anything.

“Fixed.”

Later that afternoon Morgan came back upstairs and stopped in the doorway.

The mouth was open again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She walked over to the vanity.

So much for the super glue.

Morgan tilted the head back and reached for the jaw, then stopped.

The bottom teeth were gone.

For a second she just stared.

Then she saw them.

They were still glued to the upper teeth.

The whole lower row had pulled loose from the gums and stayed attached where Morgan had glued the two rows together. With the mouth hanging open, it made the upper teeth look bizarrely long, with nothing underneath them except the bare lower gums.

Morgan stared at it.

“Oh my God.”

She grabbed the small mirror from beside the brushes and angled it toward the mouth.

Every bottom tooth seemed to have come out together.

The glue had held fine.

Apparently the teeth hadn’t.

She sighed and reached for the tube again.

“You know, for what you cost, I really shouldn’t have to fix this much.”

Morgan carefully separated the lower teeth from the upper row.

A few resisted before finally coming loose.

She cleaned off what glue she could, then started putting the bottom teeth back where they belonged.

A small dot at the base.

Press it into the gum.

Hold.

Then the next one.

She had to keep checking the alignment because some of them wanted to tilt forward.

By the time she reached the last tooth, her fingers were sticky and cramped.

Morgan sat back and inspected her work.

One of the lower teeth was a little crooked.

She considered pulling it back out.

Then decided against it.

It looked more natural that way.

By Monday night the face had begun changing color underneath the makeup too.

Purplish around one eye.

Greenish-gray near the jaw.

Morgan spent almost an hour correcting it.

Peach under the eye.

A little warmer foundation.

More blush than usual.

The result was surprisingly good.

She took a picture.

Then another.

She was getting better.

That was the important part.

Tuesday afternoon someone knocked on the front door.

Morgan ignored it.

The knocking came again.

Then harder.

“Morgan!”

Morgan closed her eyes.

Maya.

“Morgan, open the door.”

She put down her brush.

“I’m coming.”

She hadn’t even noticed how dark the room had gotten.

When she stood, her legs felt weak.

Probably because she hadn’t eaten yet.

She went downstairs and opened the door.

Maya stared at her.

Morgan waited.

“What?”

Maya’s expression didn’t change.

“What?”

“When was the last time you slept?”

Morgan rolled her eyes and stepped away from the door.

“I sleep.”

“Can I come in?”

“You already drove here.”

Maya entered.

She was still looking at Morgan strangely.

Morgan touched her hair.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

Maya shut the door.

“I’ve been calling you.”

“I know.”

“You said you’d call me.”

“I forgot.”

“For two days?”

Morgan walked toward the kitchen.

“I’ve been practicing.”

Maya followed.

“Again?”

Morgan opened the refrigerator.

She didn’t know what she was looking for.

“Yes, again.”

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“I meant what I said the other day.”

Morgan shut the refrigerator harder than necessary.

“And I meant what I said.”

“You can’t just stay in here doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This.”

Morgan looked around the kitchen.

There were a few cups on the counter. Some mail. Nothing unusual.

“I’m practicing.”

“For a school you aren’t allowed to go back to.”

“I don’t need to go back.”

“Then what are you practicing for?”

“For work.”

“What work?”

Morgan stared at her.

Maya immediately softened.

“I’m not trying to be mean.”

“It sounds like it.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be.”

“I haven’t seen you in almost a week. You barely answer your phone. Mom said you missed dinner Sunday, and now I come over and you look like—”

She stopped herself.

“Like what?”

“Nothing.”

“No. What?”

Maya looked down.

Morgan followed her eyes.

There were stains on the front of Morgan’s shirt.

Some yellowish.

Some brown.

She’d been using that shirt all week because she didn’t care if makeup got on it.

“What?”

Maya shook her head.

“Have you showered?”

Morgan laughed.

“Oh my God.”

“I’m asking.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday.”

Maya rubbed both hands over her face.

The gesture irritated Morgan.

“Can you please stop treating me like I’m crazy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to.”

A fly buzzed past them.

Maya watched it.

Then another.

She looked toward the stairs.

“What is that smell?”

Morgan barely noticed it anymore.

“Oh.”

“Oh what?”

“One of my practice heads is going bad.”

Maya looked at her.

“What do you mean, going bad?”

“The material. I don’t know. It’s old.”

“What practice head?”

“The one I’ve been using.”

“You bought another one?”

Morgan nodded.

“When?”

“Last week.”

“From where?”

Morgan opened her mouth.

She couldn’t remember the name of the site.

“Online.”

“What site?”

“I don’t know, Maya. Marketplace or something.”

“You don’t know?”

“Why would I remember?”

Maya was staring at the staircase again.

The smell was definitely stronger upstairs.

Morgan saw her wrinkle her nose.

“It’s gross,” Morgan admitted. “I think whatever they used inside it is breaking down.”

“Throw it away.”

“No.”

“Morgan.”

“I’m still using it.”

Maya looked back at her.

“For what?”

Morgan laughed incredulously.

“I just told you. Hair and makeup.”

Silence.

Then Maya said, very quietly, “Can I see it?”

Morgan’s annoyance eased.

“Sure.”

Maybe that would finally make her understand.

Morgan headed upstairs.

Maya followed more slowly.

At the top of the stairs she stopped.

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“There are flies everywhere.”

“There are like five.”

“There are a lot more than five.”

Morgan looked around.

A few clung to the hallway window.

More sat against the ceiling near the bedroom.

She shrugged.

Morgan opened the bedroom door.

Maya stopped behind her.

Morgan went inside.

The vanity lights were still on.

The practice head sat exactly where she’d left it.

She’d done a loose curled style that covered the thin places surprisingly well. The skin needed work, but the discoloration was almost completely hidden.

Morgan went over and picked up her brush.

“This is what I’ve been doing.”

Maya didn’t answer.

Morgan looked at the reflection in the mirror.

Her sister was standing in the doorway.

One hand had gone to her mouth.

“What?”

Maya backed away.

Morgan turned around.

“Maya?”

Her sister hit the wall behind her.

The sound she made didn’t sound like a word.

Then she screamed.

Morgan jumped so hard she dropped the brush.

“What the fuck?”

Maya screamed again.

“Maya!”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Oh my God, Morgan.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Maya was crying.

Morgan looked behind herself.

Nothing.

She looked back at her sister.

“Maya, what?”

“Get away from that.”

Morgan frowned.

“From what?”

“Get away from her.”

Morgan stared at her.

“Her?”

Maya reached for her phone.

Morgan shook her head.

“Are you serious right now?”

Maya’s fingers were trembling so badly she almost dropped it.

“Maya.”

“Don’t touch her.”

“I’m not touching anything.”

“Please.”

Morgan looked toward the vanity again.

The practice head stared forward beneath the lights.

The makeup still looked good.

Actually, from a few feet away, the skin looked much better than it had that morning.

Morgan looked back at her sister.

“Maya, it’s a practice head.”

Her sister started sobbing.

Morgan’s irritation disappeared.

She genuinely didn’t understand anymore.

“What are you looking at?”

The television in the county jail common room was tuned to the morning news.

Morgan wasn’t watching.

She sat at a table in the corner, pulling loose threads from the cuff of the gray sweatshirt they’d given her.

Behind the anchor, a photograph appeared on-screen.

A smiling young woman with long brown hair.

TAMMY GRACE, 25

“Police say the six-day search for 25-year-old Tammy Grace came to an end Tuesday afternoon after her remains were discovered inside a Dearborn-area residence.”

Morgan looked up when she heard the name.

“Grace had last been seen Thursday evening. Investigators now believe she was killed shortly after her disappearance.”

Another photograph appeared.

Morgan Fatah.

It was an old driver’s-license photo.

Morgan stared at it.

“Twenty-seven-year-old Morgan Fatah remains in custody and is expected to be arraigned later today in connection with Grace’s death.”

Morgan stood.

Nobody else in the room paid attention.

“Police have not released a suspected motive. Court records show Fatah had previously been removed from a local cosmetology program following several incidents involving students and staff.”

Morgan walked closer to the television.

That wasn’t right.

She hadn’t been removed.

She had been told to take time away.

Those were different things.

“Grace was enrolled at the same school.”

Morgan stopped.

The screen returned to Tammy’s photograph.

Morgan knew that face.

Of course she knew it.

She’d spent all week studying it.

“According to investigators, Grace had suffered extensive injuries prior to the discovery of her remains. Police confirmed that her severed head was recovered from an upstairs room in Fatah’s home.”

Morgan stared at the television.

The photograph was similar.

Very similar.

But whoever had put the story together had clearly made a mistake.

Tammy’s nose was a little wider.

The eyebrows weren’t shaped correctly.

And the makeup wasn’t nearly as good.

Morgan turned to the guard standing near the door.

“Excuse me.”

The guard looked over.

Morgan pointed at the television.

“They have the wrong person.”

The guard said nothing.

Morgan looked back at Tammy’s photograph.

“They’re talking about my practice head.”