Today at the office, someone brought a box of cheap fortune cookies to the breakroom. I cracked one open without thinking. The slip of paper inside said: "Do not deviate from your path." I laughed and threw it in the recycling bin. I don't believe in fate, signs, prophecies, or any of that nonsense. But I grabbed a second one out of habit and put it in my pocket.

The fog tonight was unreal. I was just trying to get home after a brutal late shift. The main highway was completely blocked because of some massive accident. I could have waited it out, but I was tired and impatient. I decided to take an old bypass road the GPS suggested. I didn't think twice. I just took the turn.

After a mile or two, the asphalt just ended. It turned into this broken, muddy logging trail. The trees were so close to the road that branches were scraping against my windows.

Suddenly, my phone made this weird, sharp chime. The screen blinked, and the blue route line turned solid gray. A text box popped up: "Entering unmapped structure. Speed restricted."

I stared at it. That didn't make any sense. Then the "Time to Destination" counter glitched out. The numbers vanished, and the map started spitting out rapid, cold updates:

"Traffic jam ahead."
"Detected: 114 stationary objects."
"Detected: 114 open doors."
"Prepare to stop. Your door is number 115."

Right at that moment, my podcast cut out. The speakers hissed, and then a faint melody started playing. An old lullaby my mom used to sing to me. But the lyrics shifted:

"Sleep, sleep, Mark... It's a pity we're never making it back home..."

I slammed the power button, but the stereo ignored me. The music kept looping.

I looked back at the road. The dirt was pure mud, but right down the middle, someone had painted a perfect, bright double red line. It looked like fresh blood, and it sat perfectly on top of the mud without mixing. On my phone, the gray GPS line tracked it perfectly.

I kept rolling forward. A minute later, the fog broke, and I hit the brakes so hard my seatbelt bruised my chest.

The app wasn't glitched. It was literal.

Both sides of the road were packed with cars. Endless rows, bumper-to-bumper, stretching into the dark woods. Every single door was wide open. The cars looked dead—caked in dried mud, covered in dead leaves. I whispered to myself: "What is happening here? Where did all these people go?" In the dim glow of my headlights, I saw things left behind: an empty child's seat strapped into the back of a sedan, a pair of glasses on a dashboard, an open wallet on a passenger seat.

My engine idled, and the sound felt deafening. Then the GPS pinged.

"Route completed. You have arrived at your destination."

At the bottom, where the street name should be, it read: "End of the Line."

Then, with a loud click, all my door locks popped open. The overhead cabin light turned on, lighting me up like a target.

I slammed my thumb onto the lock button. They clicked shut. Two seconds later, they popped open again. The GPS was forcing the arrival protocol.

I’m holding the lock button down with all my strength. My phone is losing signal. I'm typing this with one hand.

Because out there in the fog, a door just slammed shut. A heavy metal thud.

Then another one closer. Then a third.

Someone is walking down the line of cars in the pitch black. They are closing the open doors one by one. And they are coming right toward me.

I killed the engine immediately. I let go of the lock button, and held my breath in the pitch black.

The last slam was right next to my car. I can hear boots heavy in the mud just outside my window. My thumb is cramping up, and the locks are clicking against my finger, trying to open.

Heavy footsteps splashed through the mud right behind my door. A shadow loomed over my window, blocking the faint light of the fog. For a second, everything froze. Then the sound of the boots slowly faded into the darkness ahead, following the red line.

I’m sitting here in the dark, terrified to turn the ignition key again. The forest is quiet. I don't know if I made the right choice. Suddenly, my hand brushed against something in my pocket. The second fortune cookie I'd grabbed earlier. I cracked it open. The slip of paper said: "Your door is number 115."

“Ooh, watch out!” Jackie warned me, sprawling an arm out in front of my chest, stopping me in my tracks.

At the same time, a small black cat jumped out from some bushes in front of us. The animal let out a nasty hiss as it scurried across the sidewalk to the other side of the street, disappearing somewhere beneath the underbrush and into the night.

Wrapping her arms tightly around mine and pulling me close, my girlfriend turned to stare at me with a deadpan expression, “You’re going to die now, Brian.”

I let out a breath and chuckled, playfully shrugging her off. “I thought a black cat crossing your path meant bad luck, not death?”

Jackie dropped the creepy act and smiled up at me with her big brown eyes and alluring dimples, “Actually, I think it’s both. Something about them laying on sick people’s beds in medieval times meant they were going to die or whatever. The bad luck thing is because of witches.”

I nodded in understanding of her fun fact, taking her hand in mine, interlacing our fingers tightly together. “Oh, I see.”

“Eh, who cares? It’s all a bunch of malarkey anyways,” she said with a shrug, waving it off.

As the two of us continued on with our nightly stroll, I couldn’t help but notice my heart was still pounding in my chest. My nerves were shot and I was still a bit frightened from the sudden encounter- fresh goosebumps still lingered on my skin. I tossed a glance back behind my shoulder, somewhat expecting to see the cat again. 

I gulped hard, subconsciously squeezing Jackie’s hand. A pit formed at the bottom of my stomach, leaving me feeling an impending sense of doom. 

“Yeah… malarkey.”

When we returned from our walk, Jackie and I were greeted with an owl perched on the roof of our porch, sitting above the front door. It was massive, its feathers a deep shade of brown with white and grey specks all over. It perked up with our arrival, standing on its legs and twisting its head sideways, gazing down at us with curious wide yellow eyes.

It was an odd sight. I usually never saw great  horned owls in this part of town. Maybe hear them hoot once or twice early in the morning, but that’s about it.

“Awww, look at him,” Jackie cooed, gushing over the creature, “he’s so cute!”

“He better not poop up there,” I warned, giving it a side eye. Seemingly understanding me and taking the hint, the bird of prey fluttered its wings and flew away.

“Dang it! He took off before I could snap a picture,” Jackie pouted.

“Oh well,” I said while sticking my key in and unlocking the front door, hurriedly stepping inside, trying my best to ignore the unsettled feeling in my gut.

***

The sound of a sharp breath drew my attention off the morning paper and my breakfast of French toast, bacon, and eggs over to Jackie.

She had paused mid-step in the middle of the dining room, sucking her tongue between her teeth. Her long brown hair was tied up in a high ponytail. She wore a cropped purple tank top and a simple pair of black leggings. She held her white running shoes in her hand with her gym bag slung over her shoulder.

“Huh. That’s odd.”

“What is?” I asked, folding the newspaper down and setting it aside on the table. I leaned back in my chair, enjoying the comfort of my pajamas (a baggy old t-shirt and basketball shorts), running a hand through my short blonde hair.

“The grandfather clock, Brian. Don’t you hear it? It stopped ticking.”

I took a moment and looked over the mahogany tall-case clock. It looked completely normal despite the thin layer of dust covering it. I glanced at the clockface and examined it further. The time was stuck at 7:06 am. The clock had only stopped a couple minutes before. That’s probably why I hadn’t fully registered that the rhythmic ticking had stopped until Jackie had pointed it out.

I grabbed my newspaper and unfolded it, going back to reading the sports section. “Sucks. Must be broken. The thing was old, it was bound to happen at some point.”

Jackie grimaced, lamenting over it. That grandfather clock had belonged to her dad and he passed it down to her when we moved in together. Her grandfather had passed it down to him many years before. “I hear they can be really expensive to fix. Like a couple hundred to a couple thousand.” 

“Yay, another expense to save up for!” I cheered, sarcastically. In all reality, I knew how much the clock meant to her and would more than likely end up getting it fixed up and detailed for her birthday coming up.

“Well, I’m off babe,” Jackie said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll tinker around with it when I get home from work later.”

I sent her off with an air kiss as she waved at me, “Bye, love you. Have a good day.”

“Love you, bye,” Jackie replied, taking her leave.

Once she was gone and I was all alone in our house, I cleared my throat and peeked above the newspaper, eyeing the clock suspiciously. Something about it just felt off.

*** 

“What are you doing?”

I jumped back from my computer, almost shrieking like a little girl after Jackie whispered in my ear. I hadn’t heard her come home for the evening.

She laughed to herself as I calmed down, just tickled that she got the jump on me. Jackie opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. The knocks were short, evenly spaced out, and came in a single set of threes. Soft, yet punctual.

“I’ll get it,” she informed me, taking off before I could even do anything.

“Who was that?” I asked when Jackie returned shortly after with a confused expression on her face.

She answered with a shrug, “Nobody.”

“Nobody?”

“Yeah,” she informed me, “When I answered the door there was no one out there. Must’ve been an Amazon delivery person that realized they had the wrong address. Anyway, going back to my previous question before I was so rudely interrupted: What are you up to? What is all this?”

Jackie was referring to the mess I had made at the kitchen table. My laptop was open with a small stack of papers spread around it. They were a couple articles and pictures I had printed out. She then motioned to the notepad and pen I still held in my hand. “Brian, you’re taking notes,” Jackie scoffed. “What are we, back in high school?”

“Something about what you said last night,” I said, setting my notes down to look at her, “with the black cat? It intrigued me. I just started so there isn’t much, but I’ve been researching death omens.”

“Death omens,” Jackie repeated slowly, as if feeling the words out on her tongue, “right.”

“The owl. Last night,” I pointed out, frenziedly grabbing her wrist- stopping her from walking away and pleading my case. “It’s thought that if an owl is seen perched on the roof or above someone’s door they’re about to die.”

“You know the term dumb blonde doesn’t apply only to women, right? This is stupid,” She groaned, shaking her head.

“Jackie, I’m being serious,” I said with a sigh, breaking out my puppy-dog eyes. “Hear me out,” I begged.

She crossed her arms into her chest as she sat down next to me. With a huff, she breathed, “Okay. Only because I can’t say no to those blue eyes. Or those freckles. Continue.”

I searched through the papers on the table, grabbing a snip-bit from an old journal I found online, handing it over for her to see. The text surrounded an old-timey picture of a grandfather clock. “A clock stops without reason (that is, it breaks) or a broken clock suddenly starts up again,” I read aloud from my notes.

Jackie still didn’t look convinced, “Brian-”

“The grandfather clock broke this morning, babe. Right after the black cat and the owl from last night. All three of those are omens, signs death is coming. I mean, what are the chances of those things happening together in the span of a day and a half?”

Gently, Jackie slid her hand over to my laptop and closed it. With her thumb and forefinger, she grabbed my chin and tilted it slightly down until we made eye contact, “You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. Everything is fine. It’s all a coincidence, Brian.”

“Okay, but,” I scrambled through the organized chaos of my research, “did you know cracked bread is one? While baking, if the load cracked at the top this was said to be a death omen in the USA.” 

I slid my pen down one of the pages in my notebook looking for more examples, turning it around and tapping the end against the pad where the next omen was circled in red pen.  “Doppelgangers?” She asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. But I knew Jackie. There was a hidden undertone to her words. Her interest was piqued. 

At the risk of sounding like a crazed conspiracy theorist, I replied, “Yes. In German folklore a doppelganger is the idea of a spectral double of a living person. If you were to see an exact copy of yourself or someone else, it was a sign that death was imminent.”

Desperate to keep her attention, I frantically flipped through the pages of my notes until I came across another omen, The Black Ambulance. “The origins date back to the 1980s in Czechoslovakia, Romania, and other countries in Eastern Europe,” I explained to Jackie, her skin increasingly going pale. “Rumors spread of an unmarked black ambulance with tinted windows roaming the street at night. If you were to see it, you would never be seen again. Abducted and killed for your organs to be sold on the black market.”

I reached across the table and threw down the photo of an insidious insect in front of us. “O-or in the Victorian era when someone was gravely ill, they would hold quiet vigils at night next to the person's bedside called the “death watch.” Because it was so quiet in the home, the ambient noises amplified. Sometimes soft taps could be heard ominously echoing throughout the halls, often in sequences of three or more. These taps eerily sounded like a tock clicking, and if you heard them, that meant time was ticking down to the sick person’s final moments. That’s where the Deathwatch Beetle gets its name. The taps? It’s their mating call. They’re butting their heads against the wood.”

I chuckled nervously at her lack of response. “Those last ones were just for fun.”

“Interesting,” was all she could say. Jackie was no longer looking at me. Her gaze was far off in the distance, staring at something I couldn’t see.

I took her hands and held them in mine, letting the quiet settle between us. This gesture seemed to bring Jackie back to me and she gave me her full attention. With tears stinging  my eyes, I asked, “but how long have these signs been following me and I’m only just now realizing? How much longer do I have left?”

She didn’t say anything, just caressed her thumb over my knuckles.

“I’m scared, Jacks. I don’t want to leave you.”

“Y-you’re not having another episode are you?” she asked after a minute, flush with concern. Her tone was soft and quiet. Like she always got when she tip-toed around the elephant in the room. Treating my Bipolar I disorder as if I were a ticking time bomb about to go off any minute.

I released my grasp and stared down at my feet and the floor, shaking my head disappointedly. “No.”

It had been years since my last one, Jackie knew that. It almost ended our relationship. I’d accused her of cheating on me and things got… out of hand from there. I've been taking my medication religiously ever since. 

“It’s just that when you get manic, paranoia is the first sign for you and-”

“I’m not paranoid!” I snapped. Guilt instantly seeped into my stomach and I apologized for my outburst. 

“Alright,” she conceded, putting her hands up defensively. “ Let’s just leave it alone for the rest of the night. Before you get nightmares and can’t sleep.” 

She started to clean up my research, compiling it neatly underneath my notebook and computer as I sat there in my chair, looking despondent. As she tidied up, she began humming a tune to herself. After she tucked my stuff away in a cabinet, she pulled out her phone and played the song, setting the device on the table next to me. She smirked as I looked up at her, fighting the urge to smile, still determined to be a sourpuss. Waving me off, she started singing along with the lyrics. Then she started dancing around. They were small, groovy movements at first, but then she got more into it, swinging her hips and jostling her shoulders. Jackie looked silly, but was beautiful when she was like that. Free and totally herself.

She giggled as the song ended, spinning to look at me. Slowly she walked over, holding her hand out for me to grab, inviting me to dance along as one of our favorite songs began to play. She tilted her head and looked at me expectantly.

With a sigh and roll of my eyes, I relented and gave her my hand, allowing her to metaphorically pull me out of my funk.

We migrated over to the living room where there was more space for us to goof around. Together Jackie and I jumped and leaped, twirled and swayed, all while keeping time as the genre of music changed with the shuffling of her playlist. We went from rockstars to classical composers and everything else in between. It was just us. Brian, Jackie, and the music. It was a nice and tender moment between us. At the time I wished it could last forever.

Though I smiled and looked happy on the outside, a haze of dread still encircled me. Wrapping itself around me like a blanket, suffocating me. In my core, something still felt wrong. I tried my hardest to stuff the feelings down, lock them away never to be seen again. Maybe Jackie was right, I told myself. It was all in my head. There’s nothing there. No patterns, no signs, no omens.

As I twirled Jackie into a dip, a loud thud came from the other side of the room, followed by the sound of shattering glass. I quickly returned Jackie to an upright position before the two of us crept over to investigate.  It appeared that a picture frame had fallen off the wall suddenly and without reason. She knelt down on the ground, carefully sweeping away broken pieces of splintered wood and shards of glass with her hand, picking up the picture that had been inside. She frowned as she looked at it. It was a photograph of Jackie and I on our prom night.

“Is now a bad time to point out that’s an omen too?” I asked sheepishly, rubbing my hand at the nape of my neck.

That comment earned me the stink eye from Jackie.

***

Despite my best efforts, Jackie insisted we still went on our evening walk. She was convinced I’d become agoraphobic right then and there if I didn’t wander around the neighborhood with her that instant. 

So, there we found ourselves, walking down a road that could be classified as a liminal space. The street was quiet, everyone asleep in their homes. The only noise for miles being the street lights overhead, buzzing softly as they drenched everything in a low orange hue. Jackie and I had stopped for a moment to stargaze. 

“Don’t. Move.” She said to me suddenly through gritted teeth.

I froze in response, unable to see what she saw. What was it? Was I about to die?

Slowly and with precision, Jackie lifted her pointer finger over my shoulder. I flinched as she got close to my face, having no idea what was going on. 

Then she smiled, which worsened my confusion. Was she happy I was about to meet my maker? She pulled her hand back, revealing a rather large but beautiful monarch butterfly perched on her finger. 

“Little guy was hanging out on your shoulder,” she said, carefully stroking its head. 

“Don’t you think that’s weird?” I asked her, watching as the critter batted its wings and fluttered away. On any other day I’d have been just as mesmerized as Jackie, but I knew better.

“It’s a butterfly, flying around. It’s what they do.”

“But at night?” I prompted, shooting her a look.

She rolled her eyes, knowing exactly where I was going with this.

“That’s it, time to head back,” she announced before I could get a word in edgewise. She pivoted on her heel and started marching back to the house, declaring, "It's bedtime.”

I didn’t argue. There was nowhere else I wanted to be other than the comfort and safety of my own home. 

***

Jackie and I called off work the next morning. She called it a “mental health day” but I knew it was really a “keep an eye on Brian so he doesn’t lose his shit day.” She said that wasn’t true, but then watched me like a hawk as I took my meds. She thought I didn’t notice, but I did. I always do.

After whipping us up a nice breakfast, we geared up for yet another outing. Jacks was insistent we go on another walk. When I brought up how the last two wound up, Jackie rationalized if we changed our location and did something different it would go better. 

I let her drag me along to the park in hopes that was true.

I didn’t particularly like the idea of roller skating when Jackie pointed out the rental booth she spotted as we pulled into the parking lot. It could be dangerous. What if I fell and hit my head? I could go out Final Destination style. That thought alone was terrifying and made me itch. But I loved her, and despite my fear, I wanted to make her feel better so I went along with it. 

“We should think about making our wills,” I brought up after one of the wheels in my skate caught an uneven step on the path, causing me to crash and fall on my ass pretty hard. At that moment I cursed myself for being cheap, wishing I had splurged to get all the arm and knee pads to go along with the helmet and shoes. In retrospect that would have been the safer option.

Jackie laughed at me before skating over and leaning down, offering me a hand. “Last Will and Testaments already? What a flirt! We’re not even married!” She joked.

She dragged me back onto my two feet where I stumbled trying to maintain my balance. I tripped into her arms and Jackie caught me before I could fall again. Looking up at her with a dopey grin and lovesick eyes, I proposed, “We could be.”

Jackie blushed and got flustered like a school girl, pushing me away. She then hurriedly rolled away, making me chase after her. Our whole relationship, that's what I did. From the first time I saw her sitting in front of me in class in the fourth grade all the way to when I won her back after our last break up. I was happy doing it and never wanted to stop.

“I’m not ready yet,” She called over her shoulder, bringing me back to the present. “But one day. I think that would be very nice.”

We explored the park for a little while after that. Eventually, we came across a community garden with a bench in the center. Deciding it was the perfect spot for a water break, Jackie and I sat down to catch our breaths.

“What kind of flowers?” She asked out of the blue, breathless from the big gulp of water she’d just taken.

“Hmm?” I mumbled, breathing through the burn in my chest and lungs from exercising.

“What kind of flowers would you want at your wedding?” She reiterated.

In typical guy fashion, I responded with a nonchalant, “I don’t really care.” A beat passed before I looked down at her. Jackie was just beaming to tell me hers, making me think she had thought this over a hundred times before. “What kind of flowers do you want?”

“I’d want purple peonies. They’re just such a romantic flower,” she gushed, dreamily. She then almost fell out of her seat, pointing at some that were planted in the garden. “Look there’s even some right there! I can envision them now, being staple center pieces with the decor.”

I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but that didn’t set right with me. Those peonies were the only flowers in the garden. Now, I’m no flower guy, but even I could tell that those shouldn't have been in bloom in early Fall. That was another omen of death if I ever saw one.

I held my tongue, realizing it probably wouldn’t be the smartest move to bring up kicking the bucket to the love of my life while she was currently daydreaming about our wedding. 

If I was going to die, I wanted her to have some nice memories of the two of us spending time together before I passed.

***

One eventful afternoon of avoiding the grim reaper while roller skating later, Jackie and I returned home in hopes of having a quiet evening. That dream was unfortunately cut short by a pair of scissors. 

While attempting to cut a couple pieces of bacon in half  for BLT sandwiches, I dropped the kitchen scissors- which landed on the wood floor upright with a point sunk into the floor. 

The sound around me was drowned out by a loud ringing in my ears. I paused, mouth agape, staring at the menacing sight. The omens. They were ramping up and increasing in frequency. I was perpetually stuck feeling a strong sense of foreboding. Whatever was going to happen, I feared it was going to come to fruition soon. That had been the most violent omen yet. 

Was it a sign from the universe that my end would be a painful one?

Jackie quickly noticed me and my panic. I was really glad I hadn’t brought anything up earlier as she started to take pity on me rather than get annoyed like usual, gently guiding me away from the scissors and sitting me down at the table. We went through some breathing exercises together before she went back into the kitchen. With a hard tug, she managed to free the tool from the floor and tossed it in the sink. The smell of burnt bacon permeated the air as she shut the stove off.

“Why don’t we go out for dinner and have a date night,” she offered, wringing her hands together, waiting for my response. “A change of scenery and some good food might make you feel better, babe,” she added.

I thought about objecting at first and getting takeout instead, but my mind went back to the scissors. I shuddered, a chill crawling down my spine. Perhaps I wasn't as safe at home as I thought. 

With a nod, I agreed, letting her choose the restaurant.

We went to a local steakhouse downtown. Jackie had gotten all dolled up for me. She curled her hair and wore my favorite outfit: a red noodle-strap silk dress with a black shawl paired with matching stiletto heels. To me it was a classy and timeless look. She gave off Marylin Monroe vibes, which I was very much into. Just like my girlfriend I cleaned up nice too. I gelled my hair back and wore black dress slacks and a white button up. I felt like a finance bro, but at least if I died, I’d go out in style. 

I ordered an eight ounce steak with some alfredo pasta on the side. Jackie ordered the surf and turf. Dinner went fine, normal even. We talked about nothing and everything all at once. It was amazing and genuinely took my mind off things. It was a bit of a reprieve from the last three days in all honesty.

After I paid the check, Jackie brought up the idea of walking downtown for a little bit, conveniently ending the route at her favorite ice cream parlor. I had to admit, it was the perfect way to end the night. And who can say no to ice cream?

The sun was just beginning to set when we left, leaving the sky a mix of light blues, oranges, purples, and pinks. 

I thought nothing of it at first when we first entered the restaurant, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a crow across the street. It was innocently picking at some crumbs near a trash can. That same crow was still there almost two hours later in the same spot. I swear it turned to look at me when Jackie and I exited the establishment.

My thoughts started racing again as terror flooded my veins. I tried my best to keep it together as we walked around town. Jackie dragged me into almost every department store we came across, window shopping with glee. Which admittedly, was a very welcomed distraction.

However, after exiting every business, it seemed another crow joined the flock. 

First it was the one across the street. Then it was him and his buddy down the road, but still in sight, pecking at the sidewalk looking for worms. When Jackie and I were done perusing around a book store, there were three of them lined up on the building’s roof. Their beady, soulless eyes following my every movement. They cawed and squawked to each other as we walked away, seemingly laughing at me, foretelling of the grim future that awaits.

I held my girl close to me as we kept going, the end nearly in sight. The ice cream parlor was just at the end of the road.

“The crows,” I said, coming to a stop. There were about five or six of them perched on the shops sign and loitering on the ground near some picnic tables. They had me surrounded.

“We should get a cone and give them some,” Jackie suggested, giddy with the idea. “Or a nickel! I hear they make good friends if you give them something shiny. They remember faces too.”

I couldn’t pussyfoot around it any longer. The signs, everything, it was all beginning to be too much to bear. 

“I think they’re stalking me,” I admitted.

Jackie scoffed, playfully hitting my arm. “Brian, that’s not funny.” The smile cracked on her lips faltered when she realized I was being dead serious.

“It's another omen. In Irish and Celtic tradition, crows following or watching you was often viewed as a sign of approaching bad luck or death.”

“Brian, stop,” she demanded, taking a shaky step back. “You're really scaring me now, you know.”

“You’re telling me!” I screamed, reaching my breaking point. “I’ve been seeing the signs for days, Jackie. When will you believe me? When I’m finally dead and six feet under in a grave? This is torture! Madness! I just want it to end!” I grabbed at the sides of my hair, overcome with frustration. “When will I know peace?!”

For the first time in a long while, I saw Jackie break down and cry. “Oh for God’s Sake, you’re not going to die!” She yelled at me, face turning red with anger. Though there was a slight bit of worry that settled in her features as well. “Snap out of it! You need help, Brian. Mental help. Either you go see someone or we’re breaking up and I’ll have you committed, myself.”

I hesitated to say anything, just stared at her. I shook my head, kicking an imaginary rock while pressing my lips into a thin line, unable to meet her gaze as I shoved my hands in my pockets. I couldn’t do the one thing she asked of me. 

I was right, I know I was. 

“You really are crazy,” she said, dragging her hand through her hair, her voice cracking as she choked back tears. Something in her broke then. “I’m done.” And just like that, Jackie stormed off, continuously wiping off her cheeks as she sobbed.

Like usual, I chased after her. I hated seeing her all emotional and worked up like that. It physically pained me knowing I was the cause of her turmoil. We couldn’t end. Not like that. 

“Jackie, wait!” I called out to her catching up, grabbing her wrist. She came to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk.

She sniffled, tugging herself out of my grasp. “I don’t want to be near you right now.”

“Please, I’m sorry,” I pleaded, grabbing her hand with both of mine, never wanting to let go.

She yanked herself free again, using the momentum to take a step forward and further from me, “Just go away-”

I can’t really describe what happened next other than feeling a big gust of wind, Jackie being there one second, then gone the next.

The doctors say it was so traumatic to witness that my mind went into a catatonic state to protect itself. I came out of it a day later.

At the same time we had been fighting, there had been a drunk driver barrelling down the road. When Jackie took a step off that sidewalk, it was right into the front of that car. 

She died immediately upon impact and pronounced right after EMS was on scene. 
 
It was then that I realized I had it wrong this whole time…

For every omen, she had been standing there, right next to me. The warnings hadn’t been meant for me, but for her.

My only solace now is knowing that I’m next. 

I keep telling anyone that will listen, trying to warn them, but that doesn’t do much good in a psych ward. They’re transferring me to a mental institution for round the clock monitoring soon. I can only laugh at the thought. I know better. Even a locked padded cell can’t stop death.

As the end draws near, I can only ask; Please, stay vigilant out there. Be aware of your surroundings. You never know if you might be next up on Death’s Docket. But trust me, there will be signs. 

You just need to know how to look out for them.

With a snip of my shears, a white lily gone wilted fell from the branch of one of the many bouquets surrounding the casket of one Pastor Graves. I made my way along, plant to plant repeating the process for roses and carnations until all semblances of rot had been stripped. Taking a few steps back I eyed my work and smiled. The casket was dead center with the adorning bouquets, now purged of any blemishes, flanking each side in perfect symmetry. I went to the back of the chapel and shut the entryway doors before returning to Mr. Graves’ side. The gnarled old man laying before me had lived a full life, dying at the ripe age of ninety. It felt a bit odd to be hosting a pastor in the funeral home’s chapel, but from what I had heard through the grapevine, Morning’s Light Church of God wasn’t exactly a blossoming haven of worship. The Graves clan accounted for almost half of the church's membership and apparently weren’t exactly the ‘God is love’ types. When their Patriarchal leader vacated the pulpit, the rest of the family slowly followed suit. The worship center shuttered not long after. Even now in the eternal embrace of death, Mr. Grave’s face portrayed hints of a permanent scowl that denoted fury rather than peace. 

A grimace of my own formed as I took in the dour countenance of the deceased minister. We had an outstanding mortician in our employ, but a harsh fact of life is that some people just aren’t pleasant to look at. Unfortunately, Mr. Graves fell dead center into that category. A job was a job, though, and I prided myself on the service our funeral home provided. A quick glance at my watch told me that the visitation was upon us. The rest of my employees would be joining me shortly in preparation for any early arrivals so my time alone with the man was growing short. I checked behind me once more making sure the chapel doors were still closed then I leaned down and gave Mr. Graves forehead a nice, long lick. 

The dead have no taste, yet I still can’t help but shudder when my tongue roves across the wrinkles of the Pastor’s brow. There’s a stiffness that presses back against me, a pseudo-resistance to my advances and a cold wet sensation that makes me feel like I’m lapping at raw dough. Each time the experience is different, yet never is it pleasant. 

***

Now, dear reader, I feel the need to pause and point out an important fact. I am not a pervert, a degenerate, nor do I have any form of derangement to my knowledge. Think what you will, but I am not a crazy person. I am a professional, going out of my way to provide a service to the best of my ability, using the gifts that the universe has seen fit to bestow upon me. To put it bluntly I see dead people. I have no qualms about what you might think of me now that this fact is revealed, for it is simply that: a fact. I see dead people, and sometimes the dead see me. 

***

In my youth I wasn’t exactly the brightest kid on the block. Not dumb per se, but as I stared up at the ornate jar on the mantle that bore the name of my late Grandma Myrtle, the only thing that came to mind was: cookie jar. Sure it was in the living room far away from the kitchen, and the powder it contained didn’t look like any sugar I had ever seen; nevertheless, cookie jars were for sweets. Every kid knew that. So despite all the evidence to the contrary I plucked out a handful of powder and popped into my mouth expecting a sweet sugary glaze to coat my tastebuds. The bitter chalk that choked me instead was a shock to the system, but not as much as what came next. 

“Jamie! Put me down!. Naughty boy!” A shrill voice squawked at the back of my head. 

I turned around to see Grandma Myrtle standing in the living room wearing the same violet church outfit she had been cremated in, her skin the pallid white pastel of death. She had passed several months prior, yet here she was clear as day, catching me red handed in the act of devouring her remains. 

I screamed. The urn I had flung in surprise clattered to the ground and shattered into a pile of tiny pieces. Bits of clay chips mixed with the grandma dust and displaced the air in a puffy cloud of smoke. 

My parents found me curled into a ball with tears in my eyes. I babbled and pointed at the apparition in the room, but my mom was only concerned with the now scattered remnants of her dearly departed mother, whose ghostly visage was in turn concerned about the shattered pieces of her precious urn. 

Grandma yelled at me. Mom cried. Dad eventually spanked me and sent me to my room. Neither of them saw Grandma, nor believed me when I told them that I did. Not the happiest of core memories. You could say it left a lasting impression. 

It became clear to me very quickly that talking about seeing ghosts was frowned upon. By the time I was in my early teens it had been years since I mentioned the incident, but it still stuck in the back of my head, keeping me up at night. A life changing incident I could neither talk about nor replicate. At least not until I met Billy. 

Billy’s dad was a long haul trucker who had made the unfortunate mistake of being too reliable. The company worked him to the bone and one night it caught up with him. He fell asleep at the wheel and now rested eternally on the mantle. I clocked the urn the first time I ever went over to Billy’s house. The memories from my childhood playing on repeat in my mind. When I finally joined Billy for a sleepover my mind had already been made up. As soon as I was sure my buddy was asleep I snuck into the living room and had a taste. 

I didn’t scream this time and neither did the apparition. Billy’s father wasn’t quite as uptight as Grandma Myrtle. He just sat in the big recliner that I assumed had once been his oasis of respite. Even in death, he looked so tired. For a while I just stood in silence while he gently rocked in the recliner. It felt like a dream. After a moment, the rocking slowed and he gave me a sad smile.

“If you can, always be a good friend to my boy. I know he’s a handful” 

Then he was gone. 

***

The grim countenance of Mr. Graves stared at me while I rolled my tongue in my mouth, trying to rid it of the clammy sensation of his flesh. I looked down at the wedding ring on my hand and thought of that night with Billy’s father. Turns out I had been more than a good friend. A wave of disgust rippled through my body. Mr. Graves clearly didn’t share the same sentiments about love and marriage that I did. He would get over it. Four hours from now I would close the casket and he would never have the displeasure of doing business with me again. For now though, I had a funeral to direct.

***

That night in Billy’s living room had swayed the course of my future. The weary smile his father gave me with his parting words was all it took. I knew I had to somehow use my gift for the greater good, but it took me some time to work through the kinks.  Was I an empath? Not exactly. A medium? Maybe. Either way this connection to the dead was related to my mouth. Consumption took things a little too far. Eating a corpse always resulted in a full bodied apparition and not all of them ended up being agreeable. After some experimentation I had found that a lighter approach, like a lick for example, would provide a more tame experience. Licking a corpse gave me a glimpse into the thoughts and feelings of the deceased. Knowing just the right thing to say to a grieving loved one makes all the difference when saying goodbye. I used my insider knowledge to provide words of comfort to those left behind. Honestly, it  sounds so childish saying it out loud. Here I was potentially the only man in the world who could genuinely see the dead and I wanted to use it for the equivalent of reassuring a crying child: 

“Grandma loves you.” 

Maybe I should have been trying to do more, but to me this was what felt right. 

***
The Graves clan was just as dour as their departed Patriarch. Men with dusty suits and sunspotted skin. Sunken faced women adorned in dresses of sackcloth, I felt like I was in the presence of a cult. They all looked sad, but it seemed as if that was just their base level of existence, not a result of being in mourning. Mr. Graves clearly held no love for his flock. Feelings of superiority and suspicion flowed through my body as the men and women passed by the casket. The old man really had just been a hateful minister vomiting messages of fire and brimstone at a family he held in utter disdain. More taunting than warning them of the future he thought they deserved. Usually by now I had gained something, some piece of insight or emotion that would allow me to bridge the gap between life and death and bring a moment of peace to those in mourning, but this spirit was listless and hollow. I felt nothing but contempt. Then, tucked under the arm of a stern faced woman,  a young girl was dragged to the front of the coffin.

Lust. Dominance. Power. Death. Ruin. The wave of emotions crashing into me threatened to drown me in the swell. My breath caught in my throat at the erection that I could feel growing in my pants. Bile rose, my own disgust welling in my defense. My God. She couldn’t be more than twelve.I tried to look away but felt the cold grip of a gnarled hand wrap itself around my throat. Boney fingertips squeezed the sides of my neck and I felt the sting of brittle fingernails pull at my eyelids forcing me to look into the eyes of the little girl. Behind her a shadowy figure loomed without form, save for a set of wide rotted teeth that curled into a yellow grin.

I felt the world grow black around me as the room melted away and reformed. A basement, maybe a cellar, devoid of light save for the flicker of a candle. Front and center the decrepit Pastor stood, escorting the girl by the hand to a threadbare mattress that occupied the otherwise empty basement. I felt the fingers again, digging into my spine and overwhelming my faculties. I stood stiff,  puppeteered to attention. Beside me, the stern faced woman also stood entranced. We watched, silent observers from the shadows. I heard Mr. Graves speak in a language that I could not discern. I saw the shadow he cast on the wall morph into something that was not his own. I watched him rip into that girl with the virality a man of ninety could not possess and by God I saw the seed that was destined to rip its way back out of her. 

***
I am crying now. Uncontrollable tears flow from a grown man sporting an erection, yet the faces of the Graves remain unchanging as I excuse myself from the chamber. The shade has multiplied, it looms over each and every one of its flock. No eyes yet it sees. Rotten sets of teeth rotate in the void to follow my retreat. Legion. A pair of bewildered employees stare when I burst through the auditorium door. I know they aren’t convinced when I tell them I’ve fallen ill, but they have the decency to step in and finish monitoring the visitation on my behalf. Hours tick by feeling like eons while I babble and burble like a crying infant. Through my bleary vision I watch the parking lot. One by one the Graves begin to file out. Eventually the stern-faced woman and the girl leave in an old farm truck. The shadow behind the child has finally faded. They don’t notice when I follow. 

***

A Phoenix-1 Crematory Oven can hold a half ton of human remains and burns at temperatures of up to 1,800 F. Even the room surrounding the oven is sweltering. My tears have all but dried in the face of the intense heat. The roller guide on this unit is exceptional, and I am able to easily slide the quivering bag into the oven unassisted. Even through the thick metal walls and roar of the burners, I hear the scream. I tell myself it’s only for a moment. A blink in time. A one time deposit of excruciating pain before the nerve endings are charred to nothingness and the body will never feel hurt again. Simply the cost of doing business. Surely, if she knew the fate that awaited her, she would have accepted this as a mercy. I prayed that the fire of my oven cleansed her of the parasite that had been forced upon her. That the heavens would open up and welcome her with all the grace befitting a sacrificial lamb, forced to die for the sake of the world. 

It took the oven a little under two hours to fully process the body and I stood in front of the door for every second. Her ashes were still hot to the touch and singed my tongue when I scooped a handful into my mouth. I choked down the gritty dust and brought my oven back to temperature. 

Regardless of what happens next, I’m guilty. If you’re reading this, let it serve as my confession.

Beside me, an apparition began to form and the stink of burnt hair and singed flesh filled the room. This time I looked into her eyes willingly and uttered my last will and testament.

“You didn’t deserve any of this. I’m so sorry, do what you will.” 

I laid down on the rollers and waited. 

When I was 13, my friend Sarah and I often had sleepovers at each other’s houses. We preferred staying at my place because my parents had built a little house for me in the backyard. It was great both in summer and winter. There were a few trees around it, so when the sun was blazing, they provided some shade. We had electricity inside, but we didn’t want to bring a TV in there. We thought it made the place feel more mysterious that way. We had tried summoning ghosts several times, but nothing had ever happened. We tried to convince ourselves that maybe the flickering lights or a sudden gust of wind had something to do with it, but the truth was, they didn’t.

One afternoon, we went shopping for clothes in the neighboring town. When we were about to head to the bus stop with our bags, we spotted a shop tucked away in an alley. It had a flickering sign that read: “Want to be scared? Then come inside.” There were various horror movie figures displayed around the shop. Sarah and I looked at each other, and we didn’t even need to say anything. We both headed straight inside.

When we entered, instead of the usual jingle of a bell, a witch-like laugh echoed through the shop. We both laughed. An older guy was standing behind the counter. He looked like he was around forty.

“Good afternoon, ladies. Are you looking for something specific, or do you just want to have a look around?”

Sarah and I answered almost at the same time.

“Just looking around.”

The guy nodded and went back to whatever he was doing behind the counter. We walked around the shop, looking at various props from horror movies. There were cobwebs everywhere, and the whole place looked creepy. There were some figures we didn’t even recognize. There was also a shelf full of board games covered in a layer of dust. We looked at them for a while, wondering if we should take one home, but then I noticed Sarah staring intently at something.

I walked over to her and understood what had caught her attention. She was staring at a book. It was black and made of leather, with strange symbols carved into it. Pieces of bone were glued to its cover.

My eyes lit up. I wanted to open it, but suddenly, a voice spoke behind us. We both jumped.

“Ladies, if you want this book, I guarantee you’ll have an experience you’ll never forget. I’m almost certain it’s exactly what you’re looking for. But unfortunately, this book has rules of its own. You’re not allowed to open it here. You have to wait until you get home.”

We looked at each other, disappointed.

“How much does it cost?”

We didn’t have much money left. We had spent most of it in the other shops.

The guy smiled.

“It’s not for sale. If you want it, I can lend it to you.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “And when will you want it back?”

He gave us a mysterious look.

“The book will decide when it wants to come back to me.”

“Okay. And do you want us to sign something? Or give you our names?”

He laughed again.

“That won’t be necessary.”

We left the shop feeling confused. Sarah looked at me.

“I don’t understand how he expects to make any money like that. Maybe we should give him something when we bring the book back.”

“Yeah, I agree. With an attitude like that, he’s going to go bankrupt,” I replied.

We didn’t get home until it was already starting to get dark. My parents were waiting for us at the door.

“Can you explain where you two have been all this time?”

I looked at my parents apologetically and explained that we had been shopping for clothes and had come across an amazing, creepy little shop.

Mom shook her head.

“You two and your obsession with this kind of stuff.”

My mom had always dreamed of having a little girl who would wear pink dresses, play with dolls, and be a classic little princess. Unfortunately, that didn’t exactly happen. Even my name, Lili, didn’t really suit me.

Dad laughed.

“Actually, I’m glad my daughter isn’t like everyone else.”

“You just had to encourage her, didn’t you?” Mom snapped. “Come on, let’s get to the table. I made dinner.”

We sat down at the table and started eating. It was Mom’s legendary chicken with stuffing, which everyone loved.

“Girls, tomorrow I’m picking up that new horror movie from the video store. I hope you’ll watch it with me.”

Our eyes lit up.

“You’re kidding! How did you manage that? It was impossible to rent. Practically the whole town wanted to see it.”

“Well, let’s just say I used my charm.”

Mom shot him a look.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not supposed to encourage them,” he said with a laugh.

After dinner, Sarah and I said goodnight to my parents and went to the little house in the backyard. We talked for a while when Sarah suddenly froze.

“The book! Oh shit, that’s right. We completely forgot about it.”

She reached into her backpack and pulled out the book. Then she handed it to me.

“What? Are you scared?” I laughed.

“No, not really. It’s just… you’re braver than me.”

I’d be lying if I said that didn’t flatter me.

I opened the book. Something was attached to the hard inside cover. When I looked closer, I realized it was some kind of old dagger.

“Holy shit, that’s so cool,” Sarah whispered, looking over my shoulder.

I turned the page, and there was already text written on it.

“It’s not too late to close the book. If you continue reading, there will be no going back. Are you prepared to sacrifice something, or would you rather give in to your fear?”

“I’m glad I didn’t take one of those board games,” I said to Sarah. “This looks much more interesting. So, are we going to keep reading?”

Sarah grinned.

“What are you waiting for? Keep going.”

Then I started reading the words.

No, I’m not going to write them here. I don’t want to risk them working this way too.

After I finished reading the words, thunder started rumbling outside. The wind began blowing so hard that it started slamming against the door of our little house. I quickly ran over and locked it.

The walls of the house were covered with pictures Sarah and I had drawn since we were little. They all started flying off the walls. The glasses we had on the table suddenly flew toward the wall and shattered on the floor.

I didn’t hear the voice in the room. I heard it inside my head. It was so terrifying, so hoarse.

“You belong to me now.”

After those words, Sarah and I were thrown against the walls. Each of us was hurled in a different direction. My hand slammed against the wall, bending it at an unnatural angle. I fell directly onto the broken glass. My arms and legs were covered in cuts. . Sarah was curled up in the corner, crying.

I didn’t know what to do, but then I saw the book. I ran toward it and frantically flipped through the pages until I reached the very end. There it was:

“You can stop it, but it will require a sacrifice. Are you willing to make it?”

“Fuck yes, I am.”

I quickly read on. There were instructions. I had to cut my hand and let my blood drip onto the pages while reciting another passage.

I turned toward the broken glass, intending to grab a piece, but the book suddenly began flipping through its own pages. It stopped at the beginning, where the dagger was.

“Okay. Fine.”

I picked it up and cut my palm. I recited the words, and to my surprise, silence filled the room.

Sarah ran over to me and hugged me. She was crying hysterically. Thankfully, unlike me, she only had a few scrapes.

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

“Yeah. But first, we should call our parents.”

I picked up my phone and tried calling them. No one answered. That was normal. My parents had been asleep for hours, and they always turned their phones to silent at night.

“Sarah… I’d rather wait until it gets light.”

“Me too. I don’t want to find out if there’s something outside.”

For several hours, we just sat next to each other, trembling with fear. Neither of us had the courage to talk about what had just happened. The little house was completely destroyed. Broken glass covered the floor, our drawings were scattered everywhere, and the smell of blood still lingered in the air.

Then it started raining.

The first drop hit the roof.

Drip.

A moment later, another.

Drip. Drip.

We were both silent, listening to the sound. After everything that had happened, it was almost comforting. As if nothing had happened outside. As if it were just an ordinary summer night.

When the sky finally started to brighten, Sarah looked at me.

“It’s almost morning.”

I nodded.

Slowly, we approached the door. We stood there for a moment, neither of us daring to touch the handle.

Finally, I grabbed it.

We stepped outside.

The first thing I felt was the fresh air. For a moment, I breathed a sigh of relief.

We had made it.

It was over.

Then I heard Sarah let out a terrible scream.

That sound is something I will remember for the rest of my life.

I turned around.

Sarah was standing several feet away from me, staring toward the house.

Then I looked too.

And I saw them.

My parents.

They were hanging from the trees above our little house. Their throats had been cut, and blood was dripping from them onto the roof.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Suddenly, I realized what we had been listening to all night.

It hadn't been rain.

It had been my parents' blood.

I collapsed to the ground.

The police later tried to find whoever had done it, but they never found the killer. They couldn't. No one believed our version of what had happened that night.

And the book?

It was gone.

It wasn't where we'd left it.

We never found the shop again either. When we showed the police where it had been, there was nothing there. According to every record, there had never been a shop like that there.

To this day, I don't know what we woke up that night.

But if you ever see a small shop with a flickering sign that says:

“Want to be scared? Then come inside.”

Please, don't go inside.

Just leave me a comment telling me where you saw it. I've been trying to find it again for several years.

The Hollow Man

On Saturday morning, the Hollow Man made pancakes.

His wife sat at the kitchen island while one dog waited beside the stove with religious devotion and the other lay sprawled across the doorway, apparently determined to become a fire hazard.

The coffee maker had begun making a noise that sounded, somehow, expensive.

His wife frowned at it.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It sounds like it wants replaced.”

“It’s four years old.”

“So am I, spiritually.”

She laughed.

Not politely. Not because wives were supposed to laugh when their husbands were funny. She genuinely laughed, and he laughed with her, spatula hanging uselessly over the stove.

One of the dogs heard laughter and began wagging his tail despite having no understanding of the joke.

The other continued sleeping.

There was sunlight on the cabinets.

There was coffee.

There was butter snapping quietly in the pan.

There was absolutely nowhere else in the world he wanted to be.

You could die today.

The thought arrived pleasantly.

That was the part that frightened him once.

Now it simply passed through.

He flipped the pancake.

The dog beside him stared upward.

“No.”

The dog stared harder.

“You already ate.”

His wife pointed her mug at him.

“He knows you’re weak.”

“He knows nothing.”

The dog sat.

The Hollow Man sighed and tore off a small piece of pancake.

“Traitor,” his wife said.

“I govern according to the will of the people.”

“The people have paws.”

“Still constituents.”

She smiled.

The Hollow Man smiled.

And somewhere beneath the laughter, beneath the coffee and the smell of browned butter, beneath everything he loved, there remained a small, cool room.

The door was open.

It had always been open.

He could not remember when he first discovered it.

Perhaps that was wrong.

He remembered the first time.

He just no longer remembered how it had felt.

•

Years earlier, the thought had terrified him.

He had been driving home.

Nothing bad had happened that day. That was important. He would revisit the memory many times afterward, searching for the injury he must have missed.

There had been no argument.

No humiliation.

No terrible phone call.

No looming catastrophe.

He had stopped at a red light.

A woman in the car beside him was singing dramatically to herself, pounding the steering wheel in time with whatever song was playing.

He had smiled.

Then his mind had said:

You should kill yourself.

His hands went cold.

The light turned green.

Someone honked.

He drove home carefully.

That evening, both dogs met him at the door.

One carried a toy.

The other leaned his entire body against the Hollow Man’s legs with the solemn conviction that physical boundaries were unnecessary.

His wife appeared behind them.

“You’re late.”

“Traffic.”

She kissed him.

He held her longer than usual.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She smiled against his chest.

He spent the night trying to solve himself.

He had a good life.

He knew that.

He did not merely recite it as an obligation. He could inventory the evidence.

He loved his wife.

He loved his dogs.

He liked Sunday mornings and thunderstorms and the first cold night of autumn. He liked singing badly in the car. He liked ordering something unnecessary online and checking the tracking number too often. He liked the smell of books. He liked terrible action movies. He liked sleeping beside another person.

He liked the warm weight of a dog pressed against his legs at night.

He liked being alive.

So why had his mind suggested otherwise?

For months, the question mattered more than the thought.

Then the thought returned.

Then again.

Then again.

At first, each appearance sounded an alarm.

Later, only a bell.

Eventually, nothing at all.

•

There were days when the thought came twenty times.

There were days when it did not come once.

Sometimes it arrived during misery, which made sense.

Sometimes during boredom.

Sometimes while folding laundry.

Sometimes while kneeling on the living-room floor with both dogs climbing over him, one licking his ear while the other tried to steal the toy from his hand.

Those were the worst ones at first.

Then they became the best.

Because the thought changed.

Or perhaps he did.

One afternoon, years after the first red light, he sat alone in his car outside a grocery store.

He had worked late.

His back hurt.

There were thirty-seven unread emails on his phone.

Someone needed something from him.

Several someones, actually.

His wife had texted him a list.

Milk.

Bread.

Dog food.

Paper towels.

He stared through the windshield.

The world felt extraordinarily heavy.

Not tragic.

Heavy.

There was a difference.

Tragedy had edges.

Weight simply sat on you.

And then the thought came.

You could stop.

Something inside him loosened.

His shoulders dropped.

His jaw unclenched.

He smiled.

It was a small smile.

Almost grateful.

For the first time, the thought had not frightened him.

It had comforted him.

He sat there for several minutes afterward, disturbed not by what he had thought but by how much better it had made him feel.

Then he went inside and bought dog food.

•

The Hollow Man did not become sadder.

This surprised him.

He had expected deterioration to announce itself.

He imagined he would stop showering.

Stop laughing.

Stop wanting sex.

Stop answering messages.

Stop caring whether the dogs greeted him at the door.

Instead, life continued accumulating.

Birthdays.

Christmas mornings.

Arguments about money.

Vacations.

Inside jokes.

Vet appointments.

Muddy paw prints.

The older dog growing gray around the muzzle.

The younger one somehow remaining incapable of understanding why squirrels refused to become his friends.

His wife falling asleep with her head against his shoulder.

A dog snoring between them.

He loved these things.

That was never the lie.

The lie was that love necessarily filled every room.

There was one place it did not reach.

The cool room remained.

Over time he furnished it.

That was how he came to think of it.

At first there had been nothing there but the thought.

Then came familiarity.

Then comfort.

Then possibility.

Then something perilously close to choice.

Brick by brick.

He built nothing deliberately.

That was important too.

No morning arrived in which he declared, Today I will become a man who can imagine his own death without fear.

He merely became that man through repetition.

A path walked often enough stopped looking like a path.

It became part of the landscape.

•

His wife found him on the back porch one October evening.

He was smiling.

“What?” she asked.

He looked over.

“Nothing.”

“You’re sitting out here by yourself grinning like an idiot.”

He considered telling her.

Not everything.

Just enough.

Sometimes I think about dying and it makes me feel peaceful.

He imagined the sentence entering the world between them.

He imagined her face changing.

Fear arriving where affection had been.

Every future silence becoming suspicious.

Every locked door becoming meaningful.

Every unanswered text becoming catastrophe.

He could not bear to give her that.

So he pointed toward the yard.

“Look.”

Their older dog had fallen asleep halfway into a pile of leaves.

Only his hind legs remained visible.

The younger dog stood nearby, staring at the exposed legs with profound concern.

His wife laughed.

The Hollow Man laughed too.

She sat beside him.

The younger dog immediately climbed onto the porch and forced his head beneath her hand.

The older dog remained buried.

After a while, she rested her head on the Hollow Man’s shoulder.

“This is nice,” she said.

“It is.”

And it was.

That was the horror.

It was.

He wanted nothing else.

He wanted everything else.

Both truths occupied him comfortably now.

His wife took his hand.

He squeezed hers.

The younger dog laid his chin across both of their knees.

I could leave.

The thought brought warmth.

Not excitement.

Not despair.

Relief.

The same feeling as discovering that a meeting had been canceled.

He hated himself for the comparison.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.

“What?” his wife asked again.

“Nothing.”

“You’re weird tonight.”

“I know.”

She kissed his cheek.

He closed his eyes.

For several seconds there was only her weight against him, the cold evening air, the smell of leaves, the warm pressure of the dog against his legs.

He thought:

I am happy.

And then:

I could die.

And then:

I know.

The first thought did not defeat the second.

The second did not poison the first.

They simply sat beside one another.

Old friends who had finally stopped arguing.

•

That night, his wife went upstairs before him.

He stayed in the kitchen.

One dog followed her.

The other remained with him.

The older one.

The dog wandered into the kitchen, drank noisily from his bowl, then lowered himself onto the floor with a tired grunt.

The Hollow Man looked down.

“You getting old?”

The dog lifted his eyes.

Gray had spread around his muzzle.

The Hollow Man crouched beside him and scratched behind his ears.

The dog leaned into his hand.

“You’re a good boy.”

The tail tapped the floor once.

Then again.

The Hollow Man stayed there longer than he needed to.

Eventually he stood.

The house was quiet.

His wife was upstairs.

One dog had followed her.

The other lay at his feet.

The refrigerator hummed.

He looked around at the life surrounding him.

Photographs.

Magnets from vacations.

Leashes hanging beside the back door.

A basket overflowing with dog toys despite the fact that both animals preferred whichever object they had been explicitly forbidden to chew.

A crooked cabinet handle he had been meaning to fix for three years.

Evidence everywhere.

He was loved.

He loved.

He belonged here.

The Hollow Man understood all of this.

And yet the cool room inside him seemed larger tonight.

Not darker.

Larger.

He stepped toward it in his imagination.

There was no monster waiting.

That would have been easier.

No demon.

No voice.

No dead relative beckoning from beyond.

Nothing supernatural.

Nothing he could hate.

Only peace.

That frightened him.

For the first time in years, genuinely frightened him.

Because he finally understood what had changed.

Once, he had survived the thoughts because death terrified him.

Then he survived them because his wife needed him.

Then because the dogs would wait by the door.

Then because tomorrow might be better.

Then because there were things he still wanted to see.

All good reasons.

Real reasons.

But somewhere along the years, without noticing, he had begun treating those reasons as weights on one side of a scale.

And on the other side he had placed only one thing.

Relief.

The Hollow Man stood in his kitchen and realized that he had been watching the scale move for years.

Millimeter by millimeter.

Day by day.

Brick by brick.

The dog at his feet stood.

He stretched.

Then he walked over and leaned against the Hollow Man’s leg.

No command.

No expectation.

No understanding.

Just contact.

The Hollow Man rested a hand on his head.

The dog looked up at him.

For one absurd second, the Hollow Man wondered whether the animal knew.

Probably not.

Maybe dogs understood sadness.

Maybe they understood absence.

Maybe they understood only that someone they loved was standing still in a kitchen and therefore ought to be stood beside.

The Hollow Man looked upstairs.

His wife was there.

The woman he loved.

The other dog was probably stealing his side of the bed.

His life was there.

Everything he had ever claimed mattered.

And suddenly he understood the most terrible thing about the hollow place inside him.

It had never asked him to stop loving any of it.

It had only asked him to believe that love might not be enough.

He gripped the edge of the counter.

For once, the thought came and brought no smile.

Someday.

The Hollow Man stared into the darkened kitchen.

“No,” he whispered.

The dog pressed harder against his leg.

Nothing else answered.

That should have comforted him.

It did not.

Because he knew the voice had never belonged to anyone else.

And somewhere inside him, in that quiet room he had spent years building without meaning to, another brick settled into place.

I don't remember when the house first appeared. That's the part I've had the hardest time explaining to people, because whenever I try to tell the story, they assume I mean I don't remember seeing it. That's not what I mean. I remember seeing the house perfectly. I remember the white paint peeling from the window frames, the black front door, the dead garden, even the little brass number screwed into the brick beside the door. What I don't remember is when it became part of my life.

I grew up on Bellweather Road. It wasn't a particularly interesting place. It was one of those long country roads that seemed to have been built for horses and then forgotten when cars became popular. There were fields on either side, a few scattered farms, and a row of houses toward the end of the road. Mine was number 14. Across from us was number 13. After that, there was an empty field. At least, there was supposed to be.

The first time I noticed the house, I was nine years old. I'd been sent to the shop for milk and decided to take a shortcut home. I remember walking past the field and seeing the house sitting there, maybe fifty metres away from the road. I thought it had always been there. There was nothing strange about it. It looked old, but not abandoned. There was a light on upstairs, and I remember thinking that whoever lived there must have been watching me. I hurried home.

A few weeks later, I mentioned it to my mother. She looked at me strangely and asked what house I was talking about. I described it: white walls, black door, number 15. She told me there was no number 15. I thought she was joking, but she wasn't. We walked there together the following afternoon. The field was empty. There was nothing there except tall grass and an old wooden fence that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. I asked my mother where the house had gone. She didn't answer. Instead, she took my hand and walked me home.

That night, I woke up at around three in the morning because someone was knocking on my bedroom window. Three slow knocks. I knew the sound was coming from the glass beside my bed, even though my bedroom was on the second floor. I didn't look outside. I pulled the blanket over my head and stayed there until morning. For years afterward, I convinced myself I'd imagined the house, the knocking, and everything else.

Then, when I was seventeen, I saw it again.

I was driving home late one night with my girlfriend at the time. We were coming back from a party, and I'd taken the long way down Bellweather Road because I wanted to avoid the police checkpoint they'd put up near the town centre. We were talking when she suddenly went quiet. I asked her what was wrong, and she pointed through the windscreen toward the field. The house was sitting there. Number 15. Exactly as I'd remembered it.

My girlfriend stared at it for several seconds before asking me something that still bothers me. She said, "Why is someone standing in your bedroom window?" I looked up. There was a person upstairs, standing behind the glass. Just a dark silhouette against the yellow light. I slowed the car without thinking. The person lifted one hand. I remember thinking they were waving.

My girlfriend screamed, "Don't stop!"

I didn't. I put my foot down and drove until we reached my house. She wouldn't talk about what she'd seen afterward. Every time I brought it up, she changed the subject. We broke up a few months later, and I didn't see the house again for almost twelve years.

Then my father died.

I came back to Bellweather Road to clear out my childhood home. My mother had died years earlier, and my father had spent his final few months in hospital, so the place had been empty for some time. I arrived on a rainy Thursday evening. The house felt smaller than I remembered, and I spent most of the night going through boxes in the attic because I didn't want to sleep.

Around midnight, I found an old photograph. It was a picture of my father standing outside our house when he was in his thirties. I recognised the clothes he was wearing, and I recognised the road behind him. Bellweather Road. But behind the road was the field, and in the field was the house.

Number 15.

I stared at the photograph for a long time before noticing something I'd somehow missed. There was someone standing in the upstairs window.

At first I thought it was a stranger.

Then I recognised the face.

It was me.

Not me as I was when the photograph was taken. Me as I looked that night. I was thirty years old in the photograph, wearing the same jacket I had on that evening, with the same beard and the same stupid expression I was making while staring at the picture.

I dropped the photograph.

I didn't sleep that night.

The next morning, I drove to the local council office and asked them about the property. The woman behind the desk searched the address database, then searched again. There was no number 15 on Bellweather Road. I showed her the photograph.

She stared at it for several seconds before asking me where I'd got it.

I told her.

She looked genuinely frightened.

Then she said, "Your father brought that photograph here."

I thought I'd misunderstood her. I asked when.

"Three years ago."

That was impossible. My father had been in hospital for most of that year. He couldn't have driven anywhere, and even if he had, there was no reason for him to bring a photograph of a house that supposedly didn't exist.

I asked her what he'd said.

She wouldn't tell me. Instead, she took a piece of paper from her desk and wrote an address on it. It was an old farmhouse several miles away. She told me to go there.

I did.

An elderly man answered the door. When I showed him the photograph, he didn't seem surprised. He just sighed and said, "So you're finally old enough to remember."

I asked him what he meant.

He told me about the house.

According to him, it had always appeared on Bellweather Road. Not every day, and not every year. Sometimes it stayed for decades. Sometimes it disappeared for generations. But every time it appeared, someone eventually went inside.

I asked what happened to them.

The old man looked at me for a long time before saying, "Nothing."

That answer scared me more than anything else.

He explained that people who entered the house didn't die. They didn't disappear, at least not in the way people normally understood those words. They simply continued living somewhere else.

He said his own grandfather had entered the house in 1948. Twenty-three years later, he returned. He looked exactly the same age as the day he'd left, but he refused to speak about where he'd been. Three months after returning, he walked into the field on Bellweather Road.

He never came back.

I asked the old man why my father had taken the photograph.

He pointed at it.

"Because he saw you."

I told him I already knew I was in the window.

He shook his head.

"No," he said. "You don't."

He took the photograph from my hand and turned it over.

There was writing on the back in my father's handwriting.

Four words.

HE HASN'T LEFT YET.

I went home that evening, packed a bag, and decided I was leaving town. I didn't care about the house anymore. I didn't care about my father's things or the photograph or the old man. I just wanted to get away from Bellweather Road.

Before I could leave, I heard knocking from upstairs.

Three slow knocks.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs for several minutes.

Then I heard my father's voice.

"Son?"

I almost cried.

I hadn't heard his voice in years.

He called again.

"Come upstairs."

I didn't move.

Then he said something that made my blood run cold.

"You're going to want to see what you've become."

I left the house.

I drove until I reached the edge of town, and that's when I saw number 15.

It was sitting in the middle of the road.

Not in the field.

The road.

I slammed on the brakes. The house was blocking the entire road, its front door hanging open. There was a light on upstairs, and someone was standing in the doorway.

It was my father.

He looked exactly as I remembered him before he got sick.

He smiled at me.

Then he stepped aside.

Behind him, I could see the hallway. At the very end of it was another front door. Beyond that door was another Bellweather Road, another field, another house, and another me standing outside it.

The version of me in the doorway raised his hand.

He was holding a photograph.

I could see the picture even from inside my car.

It was me.

Standing in the field.

Looking at the house.

I don't know how long I sat there.

Eventually, the house disappeared.

The road was empty again.

I've never gone back to Bellweather Road.

But there is one thing I haven't told anyone.

Last week, I received a photograph in the mail.

There was no envelope. No stamp. Just the photograph.

It shows my house.

The one I live in now.

It's taken from across the street. The curtains are closed, the lights are off, and I'm standing upstairs behind the bedroom window.

I'm holding a photograph.

Behind me, reflected in the glass, there is a black door.

And beside it is a brass number.

15.

UPDATE

I woke up.

Again.

At.

My.

Desk.

I sat up, checked the clock, 4AM.

what the hell is going on here? Am I losing my mind? Why have a blacked out twice, seen something horrible, and awoken back at my desk with the time not moving?

Liz is no where to be seen. Her stethoscope is gone, she must be checking on a patient. I stood up, stretched, and decided to walk to the window. Just to, I don’t know you guys, reset my mind? I’m getting really freaked out.

As I’m walking to the window I hear a call bell go off. I started heading to the room when I stopped cold. The call bell stopped and I couldn’t tell where it came from.

I started to feel a bit dizzy. Was it about to happen again?

No. You know what I’m going to stay up and moving. If I sit down I’ll fall asleep again and have another creepy dream.

I walk to my desk and decide to do another vital check on my patients monitors in their rooms. As I walk back over to my desk I notice something. Liz’s stethoscope is at her spot. It was gone just 2 minutes ago. she would have had to pass by me to get to her desk and drop that stethoscope off.

Whatever.

Moving. Moving. Moving. Stay moving Julie.

As I walk to the patient in room 6 I notice the time is now 4:15AM. Thank God. The clock is moving. I’m okay. I’m not losing my mind. Just sleep deprived.

As I walk into room 6, it’s a lot colder than it usually is. I check the thermostat and it reads 56°.

What the hell? I know the patients don’t need to be in complete heat but this is outrageous. I would never set the thermostat at this.

I walk over to the bed where my female patient is laying. Her vitals look great. She’s sleeping silently. Chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm. I shiver and hug myself. Got to get that thermostat off.

As I turn to walk towards the wall on the east side of the room a warm hand grabs my wrist. I nearly jump out of my skin.

My patient is now awake. Staring at me with eyes as big as the moon.

“Miss are you well? What do you need?” I ask, trying to hide the shaking in my voice and trying to not be obvious that I am trying to rip my arm out of her hand.

“He’s watching you. He knows what you have seen. He won’t let you leave.” She growls out to me.

“Ma’am you are having a dream. It’s me, Julie. Your nurse.”

“Julie James. Julie James. Julie James.”

She just kept repeating my name, getting louder and louder.

I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t get her to let me go.

“Please, let me go ma’am. I’ll get a doctor from downstairs for you.”

“Julie James. He sees you. Julie James. He sees you.”

I ripped my hand out of her grasp and ran into the hallway. Realizing I left the thermostat freezing. I was horrified to go back inside but I needed to take care of her.

I slowly rounded the corner and the room was… warm. My patient was asleep soundly in her bed, as if she never woke up. The thermostat was set to 71°.

“What is happening to me?” I asked out loud. I felt tears begin to swell in my eyes. Am I losing my mind?

I walked back into the hallway, the clock on the wall now stuck on 4:15AM.

My wrist was still hurting and my heart was only now getting into a normal rhythm again.

That’s when the ringing in my ears started again. And I hit the floor.

When I opened my eyes again, I’m at my desk. It’s 4AM. Liz is beside me on her phone. The floor is silent.

When I look down at my arms, I notice it.

A hand mark bruise on my wrist. Now deep purple in color.

I do not know what’s happening now. Am I stuck in a loop? What do I do? Will I ever leave this hospital?

I’m going to try and get some charting done so I can stay awake. Maybe that clock will finally move.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

The problem with finding a theory that fit was that I immediately wanted someone else to tell me it did. For most of the morning, I had been frightened. By early afternoon, I was excited. I know how that sounds, particularly given what the theory was, but excitement and fear are not as different as people pretend. Both make you restless; both give you the sense that something enormous has happened just beyond the edge of everybody else’s attention. Fear had left me sitting in Hannah’s flat staring at photographs of her hip. A theory gave me something to do.

That was how I found Dr Mara Keane. Her university staff page appeared beneath an article about doubles in nineteenth-century fiction. She taught film at the same university where I was doing my master’s and had published on horror, the Gothic, uncanny bodies, and something called “unstable identity in contemporary screen horror,” which sounded close enough that I opened six of her papers in separate tabs. She also taught a course on horror cinema. I checked where her office was and, in retrospect, that was probably where I should have stopped.

Hannah had specifically asked me to stay home, and I had specifically promised that I would. But she had meant I shouldn’t drive, go to university, attend meetings, or do anything else requiring the judgement of a person who had slept for three hours and spent the morning deciding whether her girlfriend had been replaced by a supernatural duplicate. She had not, technically, said I couldn’t talk to a film lecturer. I appreciate that this distinction would not have survived cross-examination. I sent Hannah a message saying I was feeling better, which was true, put on my shoes, and left.

The bus ride to Kelburn took just long enough for me to become more certain instead of less. I read about doubles the whole way—not folklore sites this time but journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters I could access through the university library. The terminology was inconsistent, which irritated me. Double, duplicate, counterpart, impostor, second self. Sometimes the double was an omen, sometimes a replacement, sometimes a manifestation of some denied or repressed part of the original person, which was considerably less useful to me.

When I reached the university, Dr Keane’s office door was open. That was almost disappointing. I had imagined a closed door and knocking, enough time to stand outside, realise what I was doing, and leave before anybody knew I had come. Instead I could see straight inside. A woman sat behind a desk with two monitors angled towards her, typing an email. I checked the laminated strip beside the door, although I had already checked the room number three times: DR MARA KEANE.

I stood there long enough that she noticed me. We exchanged hellos, and then she waited. I realised I had not planned an opening.

“Are you Dr Keane?”

She glanced at the name beside the door. “On a good day.”

“Sorry.”

“That wasn’t a complaint.” She turned slightly in her chair. “Can I help?”

“I think so.” Also not a promising start.

Her office looked exactly like the kind of office I would have invented for somebody who taught horror films. There were posters on the walls, including The Exorcist and something Italian I didn’t recognise, books stacked horizontally on top of books already standing vertically, and a small plastic skeleton hanging from the handle of a filing cabinet. The chair opposite her desk was occupied by several untidy piles of paper.

“I’m a postgraduate student,” I said.

“That narrows it down to several thousand people.”

“Religious studies.”

“Better.”

“I’m doing my thesis on supernatural belief.”

“Better still.” She smiled and waited for the part where I explained why any of this involved her.

“I found your staff page.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“You teach horror.”

“Among other things.”

“And you’ve written about doubles.”

Something in her expression shifted—not concern, exactly. Interest. “I have.”

“Could I ask you something?”

She checked the clock on her computer. “I’ve got about twenty minutes before I need to be somewhere, if you can make peace with that.”

“Yes.”

“Come in, then.”

She stood, lifted the papers from the spare chair, and looked around for somewhere to put them. There wasn’t anywhere. “Floor’s traditional.”

I took the stack from her and put it beside the desk. “Excellent,” she said. “Academic filing system.”

I sat. Dr Keane finished the sentence she had been typing, sent the email, and turned both monitors off before looking at me. That small thing made me like her immediately. People rarely turn screens off for you. They minimise things, shift windows around, keep half an eye on their inbox while performing attention with the other half. Dr Keane made both monitors black and folded her hands on the desk.

“All right,” she said. “Doubles.”

“Doppelgängers.”

“Potentially.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Depends who’s using the word.”

I felt a flicker of irritation, and she noticed. “You were hoping for rules.”

“Yes.”

“Unfortunately, folklore is mostly what happens before somebody writes the rules down.”

I liked that answer less than I should have. “I mean a specific kind. Something that looks like somebody who already exists.”

“Identically?”

“Almost.”

That interested her. Dr Keane leaned back in her chair. “Almost is usually more useful.”

“Why?”

“Because an exact copy is just duplication. An imperfect copy gives you something to notice.”

My pulse gave a small kick. “What sort of thing?”

“In a story?”

“Yes.” I said it too quickly, but she either didn’t notice or chose not to.

“It depends on what the double is doing. Sometimes it represents something the original person has denied or repressed. Sometimes it’s an omen. Sometimes it replaces them. Sometimes the point is simply that identity becomes unstable once two bodies can make the same claim to it.”

“Replacement,” I said.

“Sorry?”

“You said sometimes it replaces them.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

She smiled slightly. “You’re going to need a more specific question than that.”

“Does it kill the original?”

Her smile faded, though only a little. “In some stories.”

“And then become them?”

“Sometimes.”

“And people don’t notice?”

“That is often the horror.”

I sat forward. This was exactly what I had wanted—not proof, obviously. I knew the difference between folklore and proof. But after an entire morning of search results telling me that memory was unreliable, perception was unreliable, and I was presumably unreliable along with them, here was an established narrative pattern in which the problem was exactly what I thought it was. Something replaced somebody, and nobody noticed.

“What gives it away?”

Dr Keane tilted her head. “In what?”

“The stories.”

“A failure of imitation, usually.”

“What kind?”

“It can be behavioural. Memory. Something the copy doesn’t know that the original should. Sometimes another character notices because intimacy gives them access to details strangers wouldn’t have.”

“Physical details?”

“Certainly.”

“Like what?”

“A scar. A birthmark. An injury. Something small enough that most people wouldn’t know to look for.”

"A tattoo?”

She looked at me for a moment. “A tattoo could work.”

I tried not to react. “Would it copy one?”

“What?”

“If the double looked like somebody, would it copy things that happened to their body later? Scars, piercings, tattoos. Or would it just look like them generally?”

Dr Keane gave a small laugh. “I’m afraid there isn’t a technical specification. There’s no central doppelgänger authority.”

“I know that.”

“Good.”

“But are there stories where the copy gets something like that wrong?”

“Yes.”

Relief went through me so quickly that I almost smiled. I had known it—or, more accurately, I had spent the last two hours desperately wanting somebody with a doctorate to say something close enough to yes that I could pretend I had known it.

Dr Keane was watching me more carefully now. “What are you working on?”

“My thesis.”

“Your thesis is about doppelgängers?”

“No.”

“What’s it about?”

I gave her the shortest version. “Supernatural belief. Contemporary experience, mostly.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“It was.”

“Was?”

“It is.” I ignored the look she gave me. 

“So if something copied someone,” I said, “but missed a detail like that, then someone close to them could notice.”

“In fiction.”

“Yes.”

“I’m putting that qualification there deliberately.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Something in her tone irritated me. “I’m not asking whether doppelgängers are real.”

“All right.”

“I’m asking what the pattern is.”

“Then yes. In stories, a copy is often exposed by an inconsistency.”

“A bodily inconsistency.”

“Sometimes.”

“And the person closest to them notices.”

“Sometimes.”

I sat back. Dr Keane was still watching me, and I knew what was coming before she asked.

“Can I ask why you’re interested in this?”

“Research.”

“For your thesis?”

“Sort of.”

“What sort of sort of?”

I hesitated, which was enough. Dr Keane’s expression did not change dramatically, but something in it settled. The curiosity remained; the looseness disappeared. She was no longer listening to me as though I had brought her an interesting question. She was trying to work out why I had brought it at all.

I recognised the shift because I had made it myself in interviews. Somebody says something slightly too personal, or with slightly too much certainty, and you stop thinking about the subject and start thinking about the person telling you. I hated being on the other side of it.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“No, but you’re about to ask whether this is about someone I know.”

Dr Keane paused, which confirmed it. I stood up.

She looked surprised. “You don’t have to go. I’ve still got ten minutes.”

“I do, actually. I’ve taken enough of your time.”

I bent to pick up my bag and nearly knocked my knee against the desk. The embarrassment of it made me move faster.

“Eve.”

I stopped. For half a second I could not remember telling her my name; then I noticed the university lanyard hanging from my neck before I could make anything of it.

Dr Keane followed my glance and smiled slightly. “I’m not psychic.”

“Good.”

“That would complicate the course considerably.”

I almost laughed, and she seemed to take that as permission to continue. “If there’s a particular text you’re working on, email me. I can send you some reading.”

“Thanks.”

“And if this isn’t about a text—”

There it was. I pulled my coat on. “It is.”

Dr Keane looked at me for a heartbeat before saying, “All right.”

I hated that all right more than anything else she had said. It was careful and noncommittal, the sort of answer you gave once you had decided not to challenge someone directly. I opened the door.

“Eve,” she said again. “Just be careful.”

I stared at her. She said it kindly, which somehow made it worse.

“I'll be fine.”

Then I left.

I walked down the corridor quickly, past offices with open doors and students waiting outside them, and took the stairs instead of the lift because I did not want to stand still long enough to think about what had just happened.

By the time I reached the edge of campus, the excitement had sharpened into something more serious. If I was right, then somewhere beneath all of this was a real Hannah who had been replaced, displaced or hidden from me somehow. I didn’t know what had happened to her, only that I seemed to be the only person who knew anything had happened at all. That made it my responsibility to find out. Whatever this other Hannah was, I would have to stay close enough to learn what she had done with the woman I loved.

This is something that happened last year, and I really need to get it off my chest.

I grew up in a small town. It's one of those places where time seemingly stopped, quite a while ago. Sunk in a valley located further north with mild weather, it makes the surrounding nature beautiful at certain times of year. It's a mining town. But the mine has already seen its glory days. It's still working, but the operation used to feed the whole town; now... well, it's just surviving.

My girlfriend Sara also grew up there. We have been friends since childhood. It was one of those romantic stories where things just keep working out for years and eventually you end up together... I guess.

One autumn afternoon we were talking about what to do. She said that she never walked the old railway. There is this abandoned railway they used to haul limestone on. Now, with smaller yields, mostly truck transport is used. It was abandoned in the '90s, so nature already claimed back part of it. I also hadn't been there for like 5 years, and it's a short 45-minute walk to the mine, so we decided to go explore.

The track starts just a few minutes from the station, where the tracks come out of the forest and bite into the main railroad system. You can easily tell it apart by the distinct rust layer and high grass growing between the wooden beams.

I used to go there often during my teens. It was the perfect place for all kinds of mischief, as adults didn't go there. We were always told it was dangerous, but the only notable thing that happened there was a person probably having an accident. A hunter found blood and a few belongings dropped near it.

As we walked, I told Sara about the decrepit hunters' lodge where we used to get drunk, the pond where we skinny-dipped, the tree trunk where we'd found a hidden rifle once. Memories I didn't know I had suddenly returned to me... suddenly I stopped in confusion.

I realized that we had walked for almost an hour now, and I didn't recognize the surroundings anymore. "Nature changes, and it's already been a few years," I dismissed the confusion in my thoughts and continued walking. After 20 minutes we still walked between two rusted steel rails with no end in sight. Sara also seemed concerned, so I checked the map. The small indicator in the right corner announced that the phone had no signal. The last location the map showed was approximately 10 minutes from the treeline.

It was already getting dark, and I could not hide my panic anymore. I looked at Sara with a frozen look and said, "We should have been at the mine 30 minutes ago." She looked around and also checked the phone with the same result. "The map shows no fork, how could we get lost?" she paused for a bit. "Are you playing a prank on me?" "No, not knowingly. Look, we are probably slower, or I'm wrong about how long it takes. We should follow the rail and eventually we'll arrive at the mine. There is a road we can walk back, it should be shorter." I said. She looked at me. "You can't be serious. This again?". "Shut up and keep walking." I almost screamed. The stress had already taken a toll on me.

After another 30 minutes it was getting pretty dark, and the mood was not getting better. Suddenly Sara stopped. "Do you feel it?" she asked. "What?" I asked, but I immediately knew what she was talking about. A gentle rumbling trembling through the ground. It was the mine, finally, I thought at first, until I noticed that the vibrations were getting stronger. A lot stronger, fast, followed by a loud banging sound.

There was no logic in it, no time to think; I acted on instinct. I grabbed Sara and pulled her out of the tracks. It was so violent she dropped her phone on the tracks. We ended up in a ditch, standing in low, sharp bushes. As their thorns bit into my skin, a train emerged from the turn in front of us. I just watched in disbelief. I couldn't process what I was seeing. It was a full-fledged passenger train. There were people in the windows, all looking at us with their hands pressed against the windows. I flinched back, making the thorns bore deeper into my body, feeling drips of blood flowing down my ankles. The whole ground shook with train wheels jumping over the rail seams. Something broke in me. The vision blurred and everything started to echo. I felt emotions, strong ones. At first panic, i was trapped, there was no leaving this place. Then I considered tearing out of the bushes and beating the shit out of that train. Next there was just emptiness, like I just lost something. Then it was as if I couldn't remember the last few seconds, last thing I heard was loud squeal of its horn.

I looked at Sara and honestly expected her to be angry at me for throwing her into the bushes, but she just stood there with an absent-minded look. My mind wouldn't accept what had just happened. There could have been no train. A painful climb out of the bushes followed. I offered Sara my hand, but she just climbed out on her own. This rail isn't connected anywhere, where did it come from? I continued for another five minutes, in silence, until I reached the mine.

Some of the workers were just finishing their shift. They stood next to their car, smoking cigarettes. I approached them, looking scratched up from the bushes and shaken to my core. The rails finish here, how is this possible? "Did you by any chance see a train?" I asked them. They looked at each other in confusion, and then at me. "Are you drunk, kid?" one of them asked. I didn't know what to say so I just laughed. This is not what happened. It was obvious I needed some help; they offered me a ride home, which I gladly accepted.

I went straight to my bed and slept for 24 hours. Eventually I tried to contact Sara, but she didn't respond. With no explanation, no breakup, our relationship just fell apart.

We didn't see each other for a few months, but now I need to share this story because she died recently.

She jumped under the train.

Hey everyone, my name is Chris and, well, like it’s obvious I go mount climbing.

Well, as a pastime. At least I used to.

I came here with a warning. I might post this in every forum and social media site I can find. I don’t really care if you believe it or not, but I’m telling you anyways.

If you’re a rock climber and even if you’re not and you’re considering doing it. I beg you, don’t do what I did.

Don’t climb the mountain at night.

And what mountain, you might ask? Well, I’m not going to say where I live. I don’t want to dox myself or get some wise guy to think of this as a challenge and come here.

I don’t know if it’s just the mountain near my house, or some of them, or all of them. Maybe I’m unlucky. Maybe I’m lucky I’m still alive.

God.

Regardless of why and how this happened, I’m asking if you value your life and have common sense, heed my warning.

Let me tell you about the worst night of my life, and the most excruciating five hours I’ve ever experienced.

Jesus, I guess I should give some background.

So, before I met my girlfriend and moved near the mountains, I already was a hobbyist mountain climber, so it seemed obvious.

Rock-climbing is fun. It’s therapeutic, it’s relaxing. It makes a good break from putting numbers on Excel sheets all day. Since I work from home, where I can live is flexible. And when my girlfriend suggested we move near the mountains and closer to Nature, I had no reason to say no.

I had no reason, but now I do.

One day I was stupidly challenged by one of my friends to go rock climbing, but at night. That guy is an idiot, but it was the weekend and he says I’m turning into an old fart that doesn’t do anything exciting anymore.

It was a challenge and I stupidly accepted.

That night, I packed up my bags and decided to spend my Saturday night and Sunday morning, climbing the mountain near my house.

I’ve climbed that mountain more times than I can count. But that night, it wasn’t the same mountain. Something was… different.

It’s supposed to take an hour to climb. So, I started the journey, leaving bolts behind while I climbed. Same old, same old. I never expected what I experienced.

Twenty-five minutes in, I noticed I couldn’t spot the top yet, which was weird. At that point I should be able to see the top of the mountain. But there was like this fog? I can’t really explain it.

Then it started.

It began as a low rumbling. Like a really low earthquake, or something shaking the rock wall. First, I thought it was my imagination, but then it began rumbling louder.

I didn’t understand how anything could shake the entire side of the mountain. But it didn’t feel like an earthquake. It felt like… footsteps.

But like, a lot of them. Like an army was marching on the walls somehow. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I hung on, expecting the worst until it went away.

It took roughly five minutes for it to finally stop. I couldn’t see what was happening around me because of the fog, but I felt something…

Once the rumbling stopped, I continued, just focused on getting to the top and then going back home.

I… screwed up. I should have just gone home.

After one hour passed, I began getting nervous. I should have reached the top by now; it should be at least within sight.

But I saw nothing. Just the fog. Just the night breeze passing by my ears.

And then I heard something.

Try blowing air from your mouth and saying “Fuu” at the same time.

During the next ten minutes, every so often I would hear that, right up to my ear, like a whisper. The first time I heard it, I flinched as a reaction. Threw my arm back and cringed at how close to my ear it felt.

It was like a man whispering in my ear.

I was lost, confused and now having auditory hallucinations. Every so often, just:

“Fuuu”

With nothing behind me.

I have to admit at this point I started panicking a little. So, I decided to climb for five more minutes and if I couldn’t reach the top, just screw it, I’d go down and go home.

I thought I was sick, I thought there was something wrong with me.

As I struggled to climb just a few more feet, I started feeling like… lighter? It was an extremely weird sensation.

The feeling of weightlessness slowly shifted to become an extreme pressure on my head. Like I was being picked up by my feet.

It didn’t take long for me to understand what was going on.

I don’t know how, I can’t comprehend whether I was losing my mind at this point or not, but somehow, in some way, gravity got twisted.

My up became down and my down became up.

That mountain, that fucking mountain, that I was climbing for close to two hours at this point, suddenly flipped on its head.

I turned myself around and almost wanted to throw up when I saw the bolts that I had been laying down stood now above me.

Like a trail that someone else made.

God. I genuinely started freaking out at this point.

This shit happened FIVE MORE times. I fucking couldn’t do anything.

Climb up? Climb down? I didn’t know what to do.

Just thinking about it makes my chest feel tight.

I just gave up at one point. I started climbing up again away from the bolts. It was random honestly, but I didn’t know when the world was going to flip upside down again. I was desperate, I was tired. I just wanted to go home.

I don’t want to describe what happened at 3:00 A.M. I… still have nightmares about what happened.

But I’m going to, so that you never do it.

Fuck. So, eventually I just picked a direction and went up and climbed for a while.

At 3:00 A.M. I saw what I thought was black moss up above me, or at least some sort of dark vegetation.

But it wasn’t a plant or fungus. It… it was moving.

It was… It was fucking bugs. Hundreds if not thousands of them, crawling away from the temporary top of the mountain.

I... I didn’t have any time. They were so, fucking, fast. All I had time to do was to crouch down against the wall.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that feeling. I wish I could.

Feeling centipedes and spiders enter your clothes and pass through every inch of skin you have is not something your brain is equipped to do. I spasmed, I struggled, I cringed so much my stomach started hurting.

Once they started passing too close to my eyes and nose is when I decided to make myself as closed off as possible.

Hands in my mouth and nose and I shrank as much as I could.

They just went through me. Like I was nothing. Over my clothes, under them. Every hair that could be a potential nest, every last one of their legs touching my skin.

They would bite occasionally and move on. Scan every orifice I had to see what was inside. I screamed, my mouth covered. But they just kept coming, from the top of the mountain.

It’s funny… I’ve never seen a bug on the top of the mountain. I don’t think I ever want to see one again for the rest of my life.

It felt like an eternity, but eventually they all passed, and disappeared as quickly as they appeared. My body, God… It was just tingling all over. Every part of it sending signals of disgust to my brain.

I wanted to scratch my skin off.

I gave up at this point, and I started going down. Whatever down was. Towards the bolts and hopefully I’d have enough strength to make it back in one piece.

I would like to say that that was it. That nothing else happened. Maybe I was drunk and got attacked by bugs. That wouldn’t be impossible.

But something else happened that night. Something that made me want to explain this online instead of drinking this experience away.

At exactly 3:30 A.M., I heard it again, that rumbling.

The low humming against the wall, that grew louder and louder.

At this point, I was dehydrated, scared and so, so tired. I almost didn’t care.

I should have, I should have cared.

I saw… something. Sprinting past me, something fast. Something coming from the top of the mountain. It passed probably five feet away from me. It was larger than me, and faster than anything should be vertically.

And then I looked up.

There were dozens of them. These things that I can’t even describe. Torsos that are mismatched, heads that were large and spherical. Limbs that are like claws. I could only tell you what they almost looked like.

People.

They almost looked like people. Deformed, monstrous people.

They were sprinting.

Sprinting down the mountain, in my direction.

They were using their “legs” and “arms” as some sort of piercing climbers. God, they were so fast.

I’m not going to lie and say I kept my pride.

They weren’t like the bugs; they would dodge around me for the most part. But when they didn’t, I would get cut by their sharp ends. They were so strong, and I was stuck.

Eventually one of them stabbed me in the leg and continued going forward.

I yelled. I was crying out from the excruciating pain, urinated myself and almost fell.

But they just kept going.

I hung on, with as much strength as I could, just trying to survive. Every agonizing minute taking forever. I tried to make myself as small as possible so I wouldn’t get hit again.

One unlucky step on my head, that’s all it would take. These things were piercing the mountain like it was nothing, my body was like soft jelly to them.

It took… so fucking long. So long, for it end. I looked at them, it felt like there were hundreds of them...

I noticed something. Every single one of them had two red marks in their limbs, almost like a birth mark.

I didn’t know where to look, my brain was just trying to find something normal to cling on to.

They kept going and I kept yelling. Yelling, crying and begging for a miracle.

And then eventually, the last one passed, and I was alone again.

I… I cried. I was so Goddamn tired. I just wanted to go home. The pain in my leg reminded me that it wasn’t over yet.

I couldn’t climb.

I couldn’t go down or up or anywhere. How could I? I didn’t know it but my leg was broken.

My hands were shaking from everything, breath shallow, I felt like I was almost to pass out.

Maybe that’s why that happened… Maybe that’s why I let go.

I fell.

I fell into the mist.

I was so high up; I was going to die.

I’d been climbing for hours. There was no chance I would survive.

So that was it. I was going to die. I made peace with it, and accepted my fate.

And so, I did. I fell.

For a few seconds, before I landed on my ass on solid ground.

I didn’t understand what the fuck happened.

I fell about five feet. Hurt my ass and I was back at the base of the mountain. Just like that.

I was safe, I could go home.

I never saw any of those things again.

This was five days ago. I got back home crying and thanking whatever Gods are out there. My girlfriend was out for a walk so she saw me. Picked me up and took me to the hospital.

Now I’m sitting here, on my couch, writing this for anyone who has any good sense. Anyone that wants to believe the warnings of an old fart who’s never going out mountain climbing again.

You can believe it or not. I don’t really care, but you should.

Don’t go rock-climbing at night. The mountain doesn’t want you there.

But this story is also a warning. A warning about those things I saw. Those things that were coming down the mountain, the ones that looked human.

I have a theory that the first rumbling I heard was them climbing up the mountain, at the very start of the night.

It’s creepy to think about, but I’m not crazy. I’m sure they’re out there.

I didn’t want to say this, but one of those creatures that I saw looked almost exactly human.

Like not a hair’s difference. Exactly like a human.

I think they’re out there. I think they look like people, with two red marks on their limbs.

Some sort of creature that climbs the mountain every night. I don’t know why, but I don’t care to know.

They probably like to live near the mountains. I get sick thinking about it.

It could be your neighbor; it could be your friend. It could honestly be anyone.

I’m never going rock-climbing again. I refuse to. I think if I do my girlfriend is going to kill me.

After I got home, she grabbed me. She was serious. Stern. She was even stronger, than what I expected.

“Don’t go up the mountain anymore. Okay?”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. She worries too much.

I guess it makes sense. I did break my leg, but I could have lost my life.

So yeah, that’s my warning. Unless you want to end up like me, I can’t even move. My girlfriend is making me sandwiches as I write this.

I’m never climbing the mountain again and you shouldn’t either.

She’s wearing a tank top… I

Oh right, the warning. I don’t know if it’s this one specifically, or only some of them.

Regardless don’t do it at night.

I…I… Am I getting paranoid? I’m looking at my girlfriend and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it.

I must be seeing things, it can’t be.

It must be the medication or something. This can’t be right.

She has two red birthmarks on the back of her arm.

I'm writing this on my phone in my own kitchen with the door pushed most of the way shut and the oven light on so it looks like I'm doing something in here. I can hear them through the wall. I need somebody outside this house to think about this with me, because I've been going around it for an hour and I keep coming back to the same place.

I live in a small town in a valley the pines got to first. Not a picturesque town, a working one. One gas station, one diner, a church with a dying congregation and a good roof. The forest here doesn't stop politely at the property line. It stands in your yard at night and puts its hands against your windows, and you get so used to the quiet that you stop hearing it, the way you stop hearing your own furnace.

Yesterday I drove out to the butcher on Route 6 and bought five cuts of prime rib. This morning I cleaned the house with the windows open. I counted the good silver out of the felt roll, five knives, five forks, five spoons. Five plates from the cream set my grandmother left me, the ones with the thin green line around the rim. Five wine glasses held up to the light one at a time to check for spots. My dining table has four chairs and has never had more than four, so I went down to the basement and carried up the aluminum folding chair with the frayed webbing and set it at the end. Four chairs and one folding chair is five chairs.

Four guests, and me. Five.

All of that was done before one o'clock this afternoon. Please hold onto that. It's about the only thing in this house I still trust.

At ten minutes to two I went out past the shed to the tree line for firewood, because the evenings still go cold here and I wanted a fire lit before anybody arrived. I was bent over a length of split pine when something hit me.

It was not a punch. I've been turning this over all night and precision is about all I have left, so let me be precise. It was not a blow to a spot on my body. It was the entire front of me at once, face and chest and stomach and thighs, one flat enormous pressure, the way a car door would feel if you happened to be exactly the size of a car door. I went down on my back hard enough that my lungs emptied and would not refill, and for a second everything went white. Not black. White, like a page.

I got up with the maul in my hand and turned a full circle. No bear. No buck. No dog, no man, no prints in the pine needles but mine, going in one direction and stopping where I fell. There was no wind at all. Not a little wind. None. The trees stood there the way water stands in a glass.

And here's the part I have been carrying around in my mouth all evening like a chipped tooth. The birds never stopped.

Birds stop. Anything heavy enough to put a grown man on his back sends every bird within a hundred yards up out of the branches, and then there's that long held breath, and then they start again. That is how the woods work. That is how they have always worked. These never paused. They were going the whole time, before and during and after, perfectly ordinary, and whatever hit me did not make one single sound.

I brushed myself off and told myself I'd stood up too fast and gotten a head rush. My hands were shaking, but hands do that. I carried an armload of wood back to the house.

I went out at ten minutes to two. The clock over the stove said 3:26 when I came through the door.

I noticed. I remember noticing. And then something in my head very gently set the thought down and turned me toward the sink, and I let it.

They arrived just after seven, all at once the way they always do, in that crowd of coats and noise and somebody's bottle of wine. David, whose laugh you can hear from the driveway. Elena already complaining about the state of the road. Sam holding a tin of something he'd baked and burnt. Mia going straight for my bookshelf like she pays rent on it. Arthur last, stamping his boots on the mat.

For an hour it was the best night I've had in a year, and I want that written down before the rest of it, because whatever else is true, that hour was real.

A little while ago I came in here to take the meat out, and while it was resting on the board I looked back through the doorway into my living room, just to look at it, just because a full house is a good feeling.

David was laughing with his head tipped back. Elena was pouring. Sam had my cat upside down in his lap. Mia was reading the spines on my shelf with her arms folded. Arthur was leaning on the mantelpiece with one boot crossed over the other.

David, Elena, Sam, Mia, Arthur. And me.

That is six people in a house I prepared for five.

My first reaction was embarrassment. Not fear. I felt this hot little flush of shame, the kind you get when you realize you've left somebody off a card. I stood there thinking, oh, you absolute idiot. Get another plate down, cut the big piece in half, and if anyone says anything just blame the butcher.

So that's what I started doing. I was fixing my mistake. Everything that happened after this happened because I was trying to be a good host.

Sixth plate out of the cabinet, no trouble. Sixth glass, no trouble. Then I looked at the board with five cuts of beef on it sitting in their own juice and I thought, hang on. Why did I buy five.

The receipt was in the ceramic dish by the front door where receipts have gone in this house since before I was born. I made an excuse about checking the porch light and read it in the hall with my back to the room. Five at rib, bone in. Five.

So yesterday, standing at that counter with my wallet open, I was certain enough about four guests to pay money on it.

Back through the kitchen. The shopping list is still under the magnet on the fridge, written Sunday night in my own block capitals, the way I've written since I was nineteen and spent a year filling in forms for a living. Down at the bottom, in the same hand: ICE, ENOUGH FOR 5 GLASSES.

The wall calendar next to it, today's square, same capitals. DINNER 7PM. FIVE FOR MEAT.

I stood there for a while with my thumb on that square.

Here is the thing that has been eating me ever since, and I want to put it plainly because it took me an hour to see it. Everything in this house knows there are supposed to be five of us. Nothing in this house knows which five.

There isn't a single object in these rooms that can point at a person. The receipt is a number. The list is a number. The chairs are a number. All of it just stands there being right about the total and useless about the rest.

Which means the only place the answer exists is inside my own head, and my own head is the thing that got hit.

So I started working out which one of them was the extra, and I want to walk you through what that actually feels like, because I don't think you can know until you're doing it.

David first, because I've known him longest. Third grade. We set a plastic trash can on fire behind the school and let two eighth graders take the blame, and neither of us ever quite got over it, which is exactly why it's still funny thirty years later. He still holds his breath for half a second before he laughs, like he's checking whether it's allowed. I could hear him doing it through the wall while I typed that. Not him.

Elena. Five years two desks apart at a firm that hollowed both of us out, running on shared contempt for a man named Dale. When I had pneumonia in 2021 she brought soup to my door every day for nine days and never once knocked, because she knew I'd rather die than be seen sick. She left it on the step and texted me from the driveway. I know the exact sound the container made on the concrete. Not her.

Sam. The dog park, both of us pretending to read. His golden retriever Birdie died last February and the ground was frozen so hard we snapped a shovel on it, and we stood out there in freezing rain for four hours getting a hole deep enough. He didn't cry until it was finished. Then he did, and I put my hand flat on his back, and we have never said one word about it since. Not him.

Mia, my old roommate's little sister, who in 2019 talked me into driving to the coast on no notice at all, and whose Corolla threw a belt sixty miles from anything, and who kept me awake in the passenger seat by making me name every teacher I'd ever had in order from kindergarten up. I got to eleventh grade before the sun came up. Not her.

And Arthur, who pulled me out of Miller's Creek when I was fifteen and the melt had it running fast and brown.

Every one of those holds. Every one has the junk in it that real memories have, the weather and the smells and the stupid throwaway lines nobody would invent.

I went into the living room with the bottle and refilled glasses nobody had asked me to refill, just to be near them, and that's when Elena started telling the Dale story, the one about the fire drill, and Mia finished it for her.

Mia has never met Dale. Mia has never set foot in that building. Mia was nineteen years old and four hundred miles away the entire time I worked there.

I stood in the middle of my own living room holding a bottle of wine and I thought about it properly for the first time. I met David in a schoolyard in 1994. I met Elena in an office in 2009. I met Mia through her sister in 2016. I met Sam at a dog park three years ago. Arthur has been there since I was fifteen. Not one of these people has any business knowing another one's middle name.

They all know each other. They know each other's parents. They know each other's cars. Elena and Sam have an ongoing argument about a restaurant. Mia and Arthur do a whole routine about a wrong turn somewhere near Boonville that everybody but me finds hilarious, and I laughed along with it tonight, and I have no idea what happened near Boonville.

I got David alone in the kitchen and asked him, as lightly as I could manage, how the hell all of us ended up knowing each other.

He said, "You collect people. You've always done it. Half of us wouldn't know each other if it wasn't for you."

That is a nice thing to say and it did not help me at all.

I went down to the basement, which I know how that sounds, but I wanted to see the chairs. There is one clean rectangle in the dust at the bottom of the stairs. One. This house contains four dining chairs and one folding chair and it has never contained a sixth seat, and I carried that folding chair up myself this morning with the hinge pinching the web of my thumb.

Coming back up I counted the coats on the hooks by the door. It rained a little around six and everybody came in damp. Four coats. Four pairs of boots on the mat.

I told myself somebody had put theirs over the back of a chair. People do. Somebody in the hall behind me said something about the fire needing another log and I said yes, absolutely, without turning around, and went on counting boots like a lunatic.

By this point I had a suspect, and I want to be honest about how badly I wanted it to be him.

There are eleven framed photographs in my hallway spanning about twenty five years. David is in six of them. Elena's in five. Sam's in three, Mia's in four.

Arthur is in none.

Not one. Twenty five years of birthdays and cookouts and one truly regrettable New Year, and the man who saved my life is not in a single frame in this house. And on top of that, Arthur has not sat down. Not once, not all evening. He's been on that mantelpiece since seven o'clock with one boot crossed over the other, and when I tried to picture Arthur sitting down, at any point, in any year, in any room I have ever been in with him, I couldn't do it.

So I did it. I got him alone by the fire and I asked him about the creek.

He didn't perform. That's the thing. He got quiet, and he turned his glass around in his hands a couple of times, and he said, "You'd stopped."

I said what.

He said, "By the time I got to you, you'd stopped. You weren't fighting it. You'd gone quiet and you looked right at me and you didn't want to come up. I've never told anybody that. I didn't think you remembered that part."

I have never told anybody that either. Not my grandmother, not a doctor, not one living soul in twenty five years. I have carried that around since I was fifteen years old specifically because saying it out loud would make it a thing that happened.

He put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "You're looking at me the way you looked at me in the water."

And I had to go and stand in the kitchen for a while.

When I came back out I asked the room, casually, whether anyone had swung by earlier in the day, because I thought I'd heard a car.

Mia said she'd driven past on her way back from town. She said, "You were out by the trees. Just standing there looking at them. I waved and you waved back."

There was nobody on that road. There was nobody anywhere. There were no prints in the needles but mine, going in one direction, stopping where I fell.

But she could have. That road runs past the tree line. Somebody could absolutely have seen me from it. That's the trouble with all of this. Every single thing I find is either the end of the world or completely ordinary depending on which way I tilt my head, and I have been tilting my head for an hour and I am so tired.

My cat is fourteen years old. I brought her home in a shoebox and she has spent every day since biting anyone who isn't me. Tonight she is asleep in Sam's lap, on her back, with her feet in the air, purring loud enough to hear across the room. Sam was scratching under her chin without even looking down at her, in exactly the rhythm I do it, and when I opened my mouth to say something my own memory got there first and handed me the fact that she's always liked Sam. She's always liked Sam. She goes to him at the door.

I don't know if that's true. I have no way of finding out if that's true. That is what I mean about my head being the thing that got hit.

I caught Mia in the hallway on her way back from the bathroom and asked her the same question I'd asked David, how we all ended up in each other's lives.

She said, "You collect people. You've always done it. Half of us wouldn't know each other if it wasn't for you."

I remember thinking that was a lovely thing for two people to independently believe about me.

I've stopped counting, by the way. Counting doesn't help. Counting gives me a number and I already have the number. What I need is a name.

Somewhere in there I heard the tap running in the kitchen while I was standing in the dining room, and all five of them were in the living room, and I assumed somebody had gone for water and I did not go and look, and I'm not going to pretend that was brave.

Because when I finally did come through into the dining room to get myself together, the table was laid for six.

Six plates. Six glasses. Six sets of my grandmother's silver laid out straight, handles square to the edge. Six chairs around a table that owns four, and the folding chair is one of them, and the other is a dark wooden thing worn shiny on the arms that has never been in this house in my life.

I laid that table at half past ten this morning with my own hands. I have been in the kitchen and the hall all evening.

And God help me, my first feeling was relief. Because six is right. Six is finally, actually right. Whatever is in my house has stopped lying about the number. Six of us. Five of them and me, at a table that finally admits it.

So here is where I am, and I need somebody quicker than me, because they're going to call me through any minute now.

David, who I have known since the third grade, who blamed two eighth graders for a fire we set. Elena, who left soup on my step for nine days and never knocked. Sam, who I broke a shovel with in the freezing rain last February. Grace, who drove four hours through the dark the night my grandmother died and sat with me until it got light without saying a single word. Mia, who made me name every teacher I ever had. Arthur, who put me on the bank at Miller's Creek when I had already given up.

One of those people did not exist at lunchtime today. One of them is a shape that walked out of my pines at ten minutes to two and put a hand inside my head and helped itself to thirty years of my life, and it is sitting in my living room right now being loved.

And I can't say any of this out loud. If I walk in there and start talking, five of the people I care about most in this world are going to look at me like I've finally come apart, and the other one is going to look at me in exactly the same way, and it will be the best performance anyone has ever given, and I will not be able to tell the difference.

So please. Anybody. Look at what I've written and tell me what I missed, because there has to be a seam somewhere and I can't find it from in here. Tell me fast. I've been in this kitchen too long already and people are starting to notice.

Grace just put her head round the door to ask if I need a hand carrying the plates through. She always does that. She's the only one who ever thinks to ask.

I told her I'd be right out.

There’s something wrong with Kenny [part 1]

People ask me a lot of questions about my time in prison and I guess that’s why I’m here. I need to tell someone what happened. I need to tell all of those people asking so I never have to say it again, so I can forget about the riot and forget about Kenny— No, about whatever Kenny was.

I’ll start simple, explain just how I was involved in the riot by telling you why I was in prison to begin with.

I got someone killed.

If you do want gory details— I did time in the army when I was eighteen and got tossed out after a few years of what— at the time— was pretty normal. Mess with things they later find out cause cancer. 

Give young grunts with underdeveloped brains rifles and put them in an environment where abuse runs rampant without consequence.

 You got put through hell and then you put others through hell. That’s how it worked back then.

I left with asthma from those chemicals I’m sure will give me that cancer one of these days, guilt and a pretty nasty brain injury. I wouldn’t say it turned me into a drooling idiot but I had trouble doing some basic things and the military prefers when you can hold a gun in your hand without doing it backwards.

So I was in my early twenties without any prospects and I was mad. I’d always had a bit of a quick fuse but all of that frustration piled up high and I decided I wanted to do those jobs where I can hit things to soothe my wounded pride. 

You know, to feel big and tough after a boot to the head left me a wheezing moron who forgets how to use a spoon.

So, a friend of mine hooked me up with a job as a debt collector, loan shark, lowlife scumbag— whatever you want to call it, it’s still beating the shit out of folks for money. 

My partner was a mean one, if I had a quick fuse then that guy had no fuse at all. 

He preferred action over threat. 

I expected that he’d do the usual and break a few fingers, something I’d hate. It's difficult for the sorry bastard to pay if they can’t use their hands— assuming it’s required for whatever gruelling jobs they’re doing to scrape together the cruel interest rates.

 I’d been kicked in the head but I didn’t know a punch could have a gambler with a gut bigger than his debt dropping like an anvil and cracking his skull on the floor.
 
I ran my damn ass off but I just couldn’t stop myself, I ran straight into a phone booth and called an ambulance for the guy. Guess it was nearly his lucky day and my unluckiest because he was dead and I was taking an arrest. I did what I do best, followed orders and nodded like I understand. 

My initial prison sentence was harsh but extensions for volatile behaviour is what doubled it. My choice in friends and jobs didn’t improve much after that, extortion, racketeering, various assault charges and robbery is what ends with spending half of my life behind bars. Honestly, I’d spent more of my life incarcerated.

Secondly, assuming the mention of second degree murder isn’t enough to scare someone off— they ask what prison was like. They expect some sort of movie answer, something brutal with prison gangs and abusive prison guards— and yes, those are true, but it’s when they factor in my age most picture something more along the lines of jailhouse rock and assume everyone was planning a big prison break. 

The thing is, you just kept your head down and didn’t cause much trouble with the guards. You'd just fall into the routine, play cards and do your time. For me at least, the army made routines comfortable and taking a rare beating when you earned it wasn’t too big a price.

When the monotony of prison life disappoints they start asking specifics.

“ What’s the craziest thing you've ever seen?”

“ Was there ever a jailbreak?”

“ Did you join a prison gang?”

“ Did that riot really… You know, did all of that stuff really happen?”

I can’t say it’s the craziest thing to ever happen, a lot of things happened but the worst wasn’t any particular incident, it’s something that happened over the course of one year and ended with the riot. The thing is, no one ever asks why it happened. So I tell them.

What happened was Kenny.

Everyone always asks about Kenny.

-

I was in my late forties when Kenny happened and I still had a good nine years left to go. I think the miserable look of pity is what kept that from becoming a life sentence after the riot. 

Gangs and all that were a younger man’s game but I had yet to join the ranks of the elderly within the prisons I’d been passed around to. None of my later stays were cramped and cutthroat big city joints. We’d call mine a countryside stay— of course this  meant it was a miserable fortress of cold concrete, strict rules and armed guards already grouchy from patrolling in the snow.

 All kept isolated by endless forests and mountains so dangerous it’d take a real madman to even think of escaping.

I’d already been in what I will refer to as Y prison, for eleven years and for lack of a better word, it was home. 

My cell block wasn’t considered noisy but it was large, heavily secured with just a little more slack due to the better behaviour— less younger prisoners around, all lifers who aren’t too interested in causing trouble when this was as good as it gets for the general population inside of a maximum security prison. 

Granted, no one was in there for light offenses but you weren’t going to see fights break out daily and the guards would rather turn their backs to most things unless you forced their hand— That’ll end with someone in the hospital ward and another in solitary for god knows how long.

I felt the need to explain a few things about my cell block so you’ll understand how Kenny’s arrival flipped the place on its head and took away any small semblance of peace prison life really had to offer.

I lived in a two person cell with an old timer serving a life sentence— he was the quiet type with no real habits I’d consider overly annoying, he had the bladder of a toddler and pinch small things and hide them under the poor excuse for a mattress, had a habit of losing his socks but he was fine until he started sundowning. 

I didn’t know exactly what dementia was but his unusual behaviour at night got him moved to wherever they whisk the elderly prisoners away to.

A night in the solitude of a small cell full of complete and total emptiness and the unsettling feeling of being entirely alone without the ambient sounds of snoring or thumping heartbeats reminding me that anyone was there, it felt unnatural to face the nothingness normally filled by another person and after so many years of having any sort of life beside my own I realised there wasn’t even the squeak of a rat or scuttle of a bug. It was just silence. 

The next day Kenny moved in and Kenny was nothing like the old timer.

Kenny was barely eighteen, skinny as a twig and thick as concrete. His face was splattered with freckles, a chipped tooth, a wide grin and a buzz cut like a wide eyed young recruit waiting to get his head kicked in by his commanding officer. One of the CO’s I’d known for a good five years— a guy we all called Elvis— He said they were tossing the kid in with me to keep him out of trouble and because that quick fuse of mine had fizzled out since I got older. 

I figured they were worried about the kid getting himself killed but I realised very quickly that I got picked because they thought I could tolerate the kid— not protect him— just tolerate him.

Kenny could talk.

A lot.

I spent the first day playing cards with a few of the oldies and while some of the younger ones preferred to start their day tormenting and scaring the shit out of the newcomer through the small barred window. 

Kenny had been stuck in the cell all day getting acclimated so I was treated to a puddle of piss dripping down onto the kid’s meal tray. It rattled and sloshed over the edges when Elvis kicked it, unlocking the door and sending me inside— of course he left me to clean the mess up and dump the soggy untouched meal in the toilet.

Kenny didn’t seem worried, he was up on his new bunk snooping through my books.

“ Next time clean up your own mess, kid. No one is gonna do it for you.” I warned, walking over to snatch up my books and toss them on the concrete slab that serves as a counter, desk and everything else in the cramped cell. 

“ The top shelf is yours. The plastic tub on the left is yours. Top bunk is yours. Don’t touch what’s in the others.” I thought being firm would be a good way to both tell him I wasn’t a pushover without threatening a new cellmate who might fly off the handle over the smallest thing, though Kenny looked like he’d be snapped in half if he tried— I decided using one of those lighter versions of stick and carrot was the best option.

“ How long’ve you been here, Mister?” Kenny said, perking up like he hadn’t heard a damn thing. “ I was lookin’ frough ya stuff and I figured you gotta be old. You got a bible and all those old type’a books. You aren’t as old as I fought. Fifties?”

“ Forties.” I use the stick and then with a frown back on the thick metal door I decide I should do as Elvis asked and throw the kid a carrot. “ There’s a chocolate bar down in my tub. Eat it and sleep. If you gotta clean up, use one of the rags by the basin. They won’t be giving you any form of shower today.”.

“ Chocolate? Thanks,” he hops down rummages through the blue plastic tub to find the snack, “ Your stuff is all so neat ‘n tidy. You must’ve been in the military, yeah? You look like you been in the military. Like Vietnam or somefin’ like that. You don’t got that shell shock stuff right? I hear lots of vets have these crazy nightmares and scream in their sleep or attack folks,” he climbs back up on his bunk like a monkey and sits with his eyes fixated on the chocolate bar he has yet to open. 

“ I never been given gifts before. If you freak out at night I’ll slap ya so you wake up and don’t mistake me for Vietcong.” For the first time since I’ve been in the cell he finally makes eye contact and I can’t explain why but a chill crawls up my spine like cold metal had been dragged up my back. “ Lots of bad types in this place, Mister. Makin’ sounds all night can really get to some folks”.

I can’t say Kenny’s words were a threat exactly, in a strange way it could be seen as considerate if you squint, it’s just the phrasing that leaves an unsettling feeling in my gut. “ I wasn’t in Vietnam but… Thanks, kid.” I try to give a somewhat friendly smile but my lip twitches in discomfort. 

“ You don’t have to worry about waking me up.” Honestly, he isn’t wrong about that shock, after my time in the military I wasn’t a stranger to nightmares but those nights were long over. I hadn’t even thought about that time until Kenny mentioned it.

 “ I’m Jones, Wilson Jones. You don’t need to call me boss or sir or anything else.”

“ Kenny. Not Kenneth or nothin’, just Kenny. You seem like ya been here forever. I figured they just put me in this box ‘cuz you’re not gonna try nothin’ while I’m sleepin’ which is pretty good. No one’s gonna try anyfin’ shady in the showers, yeah? I bit a guard's ear off once. Maybe that’s why they put me in here. He wasn’t tryin’ nothin’ weird but I didn’t like him. Sometimes people just rub you the wrong way, yeah?”

That feeling slices up my spine again like a knife is trying to take off the skin and I don’t know how to respond to both his question and the statement he so freely offered. Kenny’s unblinking gaze doesn’t leave my eyes even when the usual booming sound of “ Lights out!” And the lights abruptly turning off makes me jump. I can still see the unflinching orbs glint in the corner of my eye and stick like glue even with my back turned. 

The eyes finally retreats with the kid lying down on his bunk. I stay up reading but each time I try to read a sentence with what little light the commissary has given me my eyes keep drawing up to the concrete slab above me. Worn old photos and bible verses that always look down on me when I rest my head on my pillow at night, except tonight it’s not on Romans 10:9 or Colossians 1:13 but the concrete itself where my unfamiliar cellmate sleeps.

I can’t say I was particularly religious before coming to prison, I remember having my hands hit by penguins with rulers when I’d act out in my school days, the church nestled behind it like a shed and the uneven crucified Jesus that always hung just a little too far to the left but all of those things in my youth had turned any thoughts of a higher power into bitter hatred when I thought I’d grown up. 

I hadn’t grown wise. 

I guess you could say I still believed but who wants to pray to what had a hand in making your life shit? I was fucking pissed. 

Nowadays it isn’t because I’ve been trying to weasel my way into God’s good graces or I expect a good outcome like I’m owed something. Heaven can fuck off for all I care. Still, I know what I did was bad and I know I feel ashamed, now that I’m old enough to give up on all that anger I have the sense to own up to being a scumbag and accept the bad shit I’ve done without it being just to get somewhere I don’t belong. 

When I’m dead I expect to just be dead.

I think you can see it in some people’s eyes, that want for forgiveness or shame for their actions or that unsettling glint saying they’ll never change. I couldn’t see anything bright or naive in Kenny’s eyes. Kenny’s eyes were empty. As dead as old steel buffed until it's shiny pretending it isn’t just cold old metal wrapped around these deep black wells of nothing.

One night and this kid was already giving me a migraine so bad I couldn’t sleep even if I’d planned on it. You don’t sleep on that first night with a new cellmate. 

If you’re smart at least. 

My migraine had my eyes swimming with black flecks spotting my vision and melting away the words on those verses until they were empty, my head pounding like a jackhammer behind my eyes and when I squeezed them shut to correct the moving words I had given in to sleep before I knew it.

I dreamt of those eyes crawling out from the darkness on stretched limbs snaking under paper grey skin I can't see so much as sense. It stalked like a silent predator made of long steel and bone that could bend and bow and move like an impossible liquid dripping onto my bunk. 

Its emaciated frame craned forward on a worming spine that scraped along the concrete ceiling above me. Perched over my face in the quiet and watching through milky orbs barely held in its deep sockets, studying my paralysed face with no breath to alert me to the danger hanging over me— I just knew it was there. 

My eyelids refused to open but the cold radiating off of the unseen voyeur made every hair on my body prickle with the sense of what my mind knew was lurking in the dark. The smell of pine and rot assaulted my senses as cold strings of saliva dribbled down in icy globs of acid stinging my cheek. 

I didn’t need to open my eyes with the thousand rows of sharp teeth so close I could feel the sharp pins grazing my skin from the hungry maw of a beast deciding whether or not it wants to swallow down a fresh meal or wait until the meat is sweetened with fear.

“ Saaa…Rgh…”

“ Sar…gh..”

“ Sarge.”

“ Why’d you do that, Sarge?”

That was my first night with Kenny and the first night I noticed it.

Something was wrong with Kenny.

I’ve never been a believer in ghosts or supernatural things, but something happened to me recently that I still can’t explain.
Earlier this year, I had gone to Ahmedabad to watch the final. On our way back to Delhi, we were driving from Ahmedabad toward Rajasthan. About an hour after leaving Ahmedabad, we were still in Gujarat, somewhere around the Gujarat–Rajasthan border. It was late at night, and the highway was almost completely deserted. There were areas around us that looked more like jungle/isolated land than a populated area.
I was sitting in the car when, for a split second, I noticed an extremely old woman—I’d estimate 90+ years old—squatting right beside/on the highway.
She had completely white hair and was wearing a saree. When our headlights hit her, her white hair and clothes looked extremely bright.
She wasn’t walking or trying to cross the road. She was simply squatting there, looking down, almost as if she was doing something on the road. She was facing toward the Ahmedabad side while we were travelling toward Delhi.
We were going pretty fast, so I only had a few seconds to process what I was seeing. My reflex was to turn my head toward her, and my friends noticed me turning and also looked in that direction—but they didn’t see her clearly.
Then something happened that made the whole thing much creepier.
Our driver suddenly laughed and asked, “Did you guys see her?”
I hadn’t told him what I’d seen.
I asked him, “Who?”
He said he was talking about the old woman.
Our driver regularly travelled that highway. He told us that accidents were quite common on that stretch, partly because people from Gujarat sometimes travel toward the Rajasthan border to drink due to Gujarat’s alcohol prohibition, and some drive back drunk.
Then he told us something even stranger.
He said that he and several other drivers had seen strange/supernatural figures on that stretch multiple times, including figures that appeared to be people on or near the road. He didn’t claim to understand what they were, though. He basically said he didn’t like talking too much about it because he didn’t know either—but according to him, they had never harmed him or anyone he knew.
I asked him how an extremely old woman could possibly be sitting there at that hour, in such an isolated area, with no obvious village nearby.
He just said that this was one of the things people had seen there before.
I’m still not someone who normally believes in ghosts. Maybe there was a perfectly normal explanation. Maybe it was a real person who somehow ended up there. Maybe it was an optical illusion.
But I know what I saw, and the fact that the driver independently asked us whether we’d seen her before I described what I’d seen is what really bothers me.
For literally a second or two, I saw an old woman with long white hair and a saree, squatting on an almost empty highway in the middle of nowhere at night.
I’ve never experienced anything like it before.

Heyyyyy, so quick question! Not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but I keep passing myself on the road? 

Not like, when I’m driving–at least I don’t think–but when I’m running in the morning. I’ll be running, and there I am coming in the other direction. And not like a look alike. When I stop, the other me stops. When I wave, they wave. When I speak, it speaks. 

And before you ask, no I don’t have any history of hallucinations or drugs. I don’t think my family does either. So this is like, really freaking me out guys. All the other reddit communities I post to say I’m crazy or that I am being pranked. My brother sometimes reads stuff on here and said maybe someone would know what’s going on.

My dad went with me once, but he couldn’t see me–I mean, it–I mean, her? Anyway, he couldn’t see her, but I could. He said maybe he heard footsteps passing us, but like, it was hard to tell ‘cause of our own footsteps. A lot of times, your own footsteps can sound like someone behind you. Now he wants to take me to a doctor, but other than this, I feel fine. Maybe I'm, like, a little more clumsy, but I was already kinda a clutz lol.

I’ve just been ignoring it mostly, and that’s been fine for a while now. It was actually starting to be fun. Like, I would give myself hi-fives or compliments, using it for little confidence boosters or something. Not to mention the wonders it's done for my wardrobe! You never realize how fat a shirt makes you look until you see yourself wearing it on the road.

And I should also mention that I see her no matter what road I’m running on. I live out in the country and a lot of the country roads are great to run. But no matter what road I run on, I always pass them at the same place. Not like, THE SAME PLACE same place, but like every road has a spot where I pass them. OH! I just put this together! They’re also always there no matter what time it is! So maybe that helps, or something? I hope I’m making sense.

Looking back at all of this, it kinda makes me think I should see a doctor. Like, I’m the only one who can see her and it only shows up when I’m running. That one-hundred percent sounds like a hallucination or something. But do I just go to my doctor and be like “Hey! I’m seeing things, but only when I’m running!” Like, it just seems too specific to just be a hallucination. Maybe someone who actually has hallucinations can weigh in on this.

I really, really hope it's a hallucination, cause I can’t hear my footsteps anymore, and it's kinda freaking me out. Like, enough to ask reddit for help. I feel kinda dumb now for asking, but still, any and all help is welcome!

I was five years old when little Tommy 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.

I was ten when my friends and I finally went looking for it. I still remember exactly what happened that evening.

“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’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.

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?”

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 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 Tommy’s dad 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 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 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’s treehouse.

Lucas smiled.

“We just got here.”

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 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.

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, 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. “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 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 wrapped around her before any of us could move. Julie kicked and clawed at them as they lifted her from the floor, but more kept coming. They disappeared beneath her dress and twisted around her face until I could barely see her anymore.

“Julie!”

I don’t know if she heard me.

The roots tightened.

Her screaming stopped.

Blood splattered across the wooden boards, followed by a long, wet tearing sound that I still hear in my dreams.

When the roots finally pulled away, Julie fell to the floor.

I looked at her once.

That was enough.

I vomited again.

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

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, 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, 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. 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.

Exactly one year ago, I began an internship at a company called Aberbach Aerospace.

At the time, I was in my third year of university, studying aerospace engineering after moving to Montreal from the middle of nowhere, Alberta. I always figured I would be an engineer, my dad was an engineer and I always did excel in maths and physics. Not to mention, I used to spend my time in high school tinkering with old electronics or building models of various vehicles out of toothpicks and chocolate wrappers; I could get away with anything without actually studying while the covid lockdowns forced our classes online. By the time the quarantine era was over, I had graduated top of my class, not that there was much competition in a small town like mine, and I was moving to the big city with big dreams of designing experimental aircraft which could push the envelope of what was thought possible.

University thus far has been interesting, to say the least. My old study habits carried through, and trust me when I say that careless attitude is not going to fly when the more advanced classes come around. By my third year, my GPA was abysmal, and even a C grade was cause for celebration. I was part of the university’s Co-op program, which meant this year I was expected to take an internship, a well needed break from studying that couldn’t have come a moment too soon. However, the school itself barely offered any support in finding an internship, and my GPA wasn’t doing me any favours. I must have sent out hundreds of applications to anything even remotely related to engineering, and all I got for my effort was either silence or an automated letter of rejection to fill my email inbox. Months passed, and I had essentially given up on the idea of an internship for the fall semester, as I got ready to take some electives and junk classes to pass the time until the next. It was in the final days before the school season started when I finally received an offer for an interview.

The reply came for an 8 month position from a local company called Aberbach Aerospace, a producer of some of the finest private jets even a billionaire could barely afford. The position itself was for their Materials & Processes division. I would have preferred a design position or something more up my alley, but this beggar was not about to be choosey. The virtual interview came, and I aced it; my knowledge on materials must have been absorbed through osmosis as I slept through most of those classes. At the very least, it must have been enough to impress the exceedingly friendly ladies on the other end of the line. The next day, I got an offer for the job, and by the following week I was walking up to the doors of the Aberbach offices, ready for what would hopefully be the beginning of a prosperous career.

I was met at the door by one of the ladies who had given me the interview. I got my security badge and was promptly led to the office space where I would spend the next 8 months working. Only, in order to reach the offices, we had to walk through a factory I could succinctly describe as labyrinthian. Endless avenues of steaming chemicals in giant vats and enormous machines which all sang in a chorus of hums and whirs so loud I could hardly hear anything my new coworker was telling me as she led me through. It was something right out of a looney toons short, or the final act of Terminator 2. What hit me first as we navigated the floor was the smell, like a punch to the face somewhere between alcohol, vinegar, and wet paint. What I noticed next, despite the ever present noise and the motion of machines, was how lifeless it all was. Besides the lady directly in front of me showing me the way, there was not a single other person in that factory.

After what I estimated to be nearly 30 minutes of walking, we finally reached the offices, where I was promptly introduced to the rest of our team. They were all lovely people, and I got along quite well, despite it being obvious I was the only one to be born in this century. They poked fun at how I was dressed, being the only one there in a dress shirt and tie, while everyone else wore jeans and polo shirts; one guy was even wearing a hoodie. I hadn’t any idea of how formal I was expected to be for my first ever office job, and I was clearly overdressed. My manager, the other lady who had given me my interview, emerged from her office and brought me to my desk. When I brought up what we were talking about regarding the dress situation, she told me:

“Oh, don’t worry about them, we’re just not very formal here. We like to think of ourselves less like a group of coworkers and more like a family!”

I dismissed this as the usual corporate gaslighting, but I was at least relieved that I wouldn’t need to be wearing a tie every day while I was there. 

Waiting at my desk was my company issued laptop, where I would spend the next hours setting up an endless number of accounts and booking meetings with my team. After my eyes began to feel like they wanted to fall out of my head from staring at the tiny screen, I let them wander around the room to give them a break. Despite the remarkably progressive and relaxed dress code, the office itself appeared unchanged from the 90’s. The cubicles were a dull grey, the floors were a faded purple carpet, and the uncomfortable chairs were full of fluid stains with foam leaking out of the armrests. The intensity of the overhead fluorescent lighting was no comfort, drowning out what little natural light came in from the tiny windows relegated to a far wall. The walls themselves were an offensively inoffensive beige, blank save for a massive framed portrait of a sickly looking old man in a suit and tie with silver hair.

The next day, my manager offered to take me on a tour of the office and factory. I got a free history lesson on the company as we went along. That portrait was of the founder, Mr. Benjamin Aberbach himself. Born in the late 1800s as the son of German immigrants, he got his start making motorcycles out of his garage, building up his enterprise until the second world war, where they pivoted towards the manufacture of aircraft and weapons. Ol’ Benjamin would pass sometime in the mid 1970s, but in the decades following the start of the cold war, Aberbach Aerospace was making everything from water bombers to train cars to snowmobiles. This was until the early 2000s when the company nearly went bankrupt after a series of misguided expansions, forcing them to sell off almost everything except for their moneymakers: private jets. In the years since, the company was now making more money than ever, despite a tarnished reputation as the corporation who only served the ultra-wealthy.

The way my manager spoke of the founder and our history with an uncanny reverence made me a little uncomfortable, like Benjamin Aberbach was some kind of deity awaiting his return to bring the company to their former glory. The tour continued into the factory, where she showed me around the myriad of machines of all shapes, sizes, and functions. Robotic arms the size of houses moved with perfect precision to drill rivets into sheet metal. Some of the equipment was new, some dated back to the early 50s, complete with analog readouts printing status updates onto paper. It was difficult to make out exactly what she was saying over the hums and whirs of motors and CNC cutting, but I was still captivated by the sheer magnitude and scale of the machines around me. The tour lasted the entire day, considering the expanse we had to cover, and when it came to a close I finally had a moment to ask what had been bugging me the entire tour.

“I was wondering, I hadn’t seen anyone operating any of this machinery all day. What’s the deal with that?”

“Really? I suppose so! We have top of the line manufacturing equipment here at Aberbach, so we can automate many of our processes during the day. The shop guys usually work the night shift to perform maintenance and stuff like that”

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with this answer. After all, don’t people need to load the machines? Start the operations? Look over everything to make sure things don’t catch on fire? I didn’t press further, my legs were on fire in the metaphorical sense and I was ready to go home for the night. I still couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that my manager had been hiding something from me, and I kept this suspicion in the back of my mind as I would come in day after day and walk through the empty maze of a factory on my way to the office.

Compared to university, intern work was a breeze. The worst of it was familiarizing myself with the endless list of abbreviations and corporate lingo. It didn’t take long before I was doing actual engineering there, qualifying materials from suppliers and helping my team be more efficient. In classic office fashion, I would complete my tasks long before it was expected of me, and I spent the rest of my days pretending to look busy so I wasn’t told off for slacking. It was boring, but I’m glad I wasn’t just there to carry coffee and newspapers. 

The divisions within the company were remarkably isolated from each other. I rarely saw or interacted with anyone from any of the other teams, usually only doing so through email. Even rarer to see was the chief of engineering, and I had never seen any kind of upper leadership of the company. Employees would still talk about the CEO like he was some kind of superman who had single handedly saved the company and personally tucked them in at night.

After a few months, one of my tasks was to contact someone on the shop floor to see if they could produce some samples for an aluminum alloy we were testing. This came as a surprise, as I was under the impression nobody was on the shop floor, at least during the day. I was told to contact a man named Jean-Francois Leduc. I couldn’t have come up with a more stereotypically Quebecois name if I tried. I began my email in my overly formal tone with which I write all my emails, detailing what I needed and in what size. I hadn’t even taken my finger off the enter key to send my message when I received a reply.

“WHEN?”

I could hardly believe my eyes. That was an inhuman level of speed, and his reply was so blunt. I followed up my email, telling him an estimated timeline for the project, and in previous fashion was given a similarly quick response.

“MATERIAL ARRIVAL IN TWO DAYS”

Sure to his word, two days later I would walk into the office and find my samples, ready for testing, on my desk. I got similar requests from time to time, to contact various people who supposedly worked in the factory for a variety of things, each time with a similarly convoluted French name, all with similar email etiquette. I would joke with my coworkers that the “Night Crew” would spend their days eagerly waiting in front of their computers to take requests while they wait for the night shift to start. That was the only rational explanation for any of this, but even that defied any sense of logic.

Months went by in the same way without much update. Whenever I was asked about my internship I could only say “same old, same old” like I had already been an employee for years. That was, until we received the news that my manager had been given a promotion. A little party was thrown to celebrate the occasion. There was cake and paper plates and all the exciting things that come with a corporate party. The chief of engineering even came down from his ivory tower to congratulate her on the promotion. He gave a long-winded speech about how she was going to do great things and that Mr. Aberbach would be proud of her for all that she’s done. It wasn’t long before she was gone, and my other coworker, the one who had greeted me my first day, was my new manager. The old one left so quickly I didn’t even think to ask: where was she even going? I asked around and none of my other coworkers knew, but they all seemed undisturbed by the thought. I suppose working enough years at a company leads one to stop asking questions like that; it’s not like asking questions is a key performance indicator.

After that little shakeup, things continued as normal. For a few months at least, until my new manager was also given a promotion. This company might pride itself on upward mobility, but this is ridiculous. The same pomp and circumstance ensued, but before she left I had made sure to ask where she was going. She would only tell me:

“All I’m allowed to tell you is I’m moving to a position in the experimental division. Anything more and you’ll have to sign an NDA!”

I figured the company must be getting ready to develop a new platform, and honestly I was envious of my old managers. I wanted to be working on experimental aircraft, not comparing the differences between aluminum 6061 and aluminum 7075. It was near the end of my internship at this point and I was glad to be done with the mundanity. 

Before I could even realize the passage of time, it was my last week of work. I had bittersweet emotions; glad to move on to greater things, sad to say goodbye to my coworkers, and scared to go back to school. As the end loomed near, I figured I was running out of time to quell my curiosity and finally meet the supposed night shift.

With a couple days left before I was done, I hatched my plan. I told everyone I was working late and finishing my last projects before I left, then hid out in the bathroom until even my new new manager had left for the night. After that, I snuck into his office and locked the door. Security would eventually come by to turn off the lights, and I doubted they would believe the intern having a multiple hour long bathroom episode. It was nearly 10 pm before the lights in the office finally went out, and I sprung into action. Upon reaching the factory floor, I was greeted by something I had never associated with that place: silence. Deafening silence and blinding darkness. My own breathing and footsteps may as well have been playing on loudspeakers. 

There was obviously no night crew, a revelation which vindicated all my previous suspicions. I crept up and down the aisles of machinery in darkness, keeping my head down and looking for any sign of life or indication as to what was going on here. This was to no avail, as I could hardly see my own hands in front of me, let alone read any clues that would be hidden amongst the factory equipment; equipment which stood lifeless and still, like sleeping giants, only visible at the base as they faded into the blackness. Giants, who could come to life at any moment and crush me beneath their feet without even acknowledging my existence. 

After about an hour of this I gave up, telling myself I would have to be satisfied with my dissatisfaction. I was hungry and wanted to go home. Only problem, I had no idea how to leave. I figured if I just stuck to one direction I would eventually reach a wall, where I could follow it and hopefully lead me to a door. I felt my way along a wall for what felt like hours, squeezing my way through mechanical contraptions and over wires and around pipes as this wall clearly didn’t have a walkway running alongside. Eventually, I came across a tiny speck of yellow light, peaking through a door window and posing as a lifeline to take me out of this hell of sensory deprivation.

A sign on the door read: 

ATTENTION!
AMIANTE
Veuillez respectez les règles de EPI

I promptly ignored it and placed my hand on the door handle; it was locked. There was no way I was going to let that stop me from my only chance at salvation, lest I spend the night alone and starving in the dark. Thankfully, there was a fire extinguisher right next to the door. Taking the extinguisher in hand, I widened my stance and smashed down on the door handle, which immediately gave way. The slam from the impact reverberated through the entire factory, echoing four or five times. A softer echo occurred as I placed the fire extinguisher on the floor. 

I rushed through the door before any security personnel might investigate the noise. On the other side was not an exit, but a stairwell going down. During my eight months working here, I had never received any indication there was a basement to the factory. The other stairwells which led to the office only went up to the second and, I thought only other, floor. I wanted to find a real way out of here, but my curiosity took over, and this appeared to be the only way forward. 

I counted three whole flights down before I finally reached an exit. During my descent, a putrid, foul odour grew stronger and stronger; a nausea-inducing wave of sulfur and feces that would come to hit me like a truck. Accompanying the smell was an overwhelming sense of dread. There was no door at the bottom, it simply opened up to reveal a gaping cavern, only illuminated by light coming from the stairway, fading fast into the darkness. From what was visible, the space was at least the size of a football field. The dust and smell of rot in the air was suffocating, to the point where every breath had a sort of texture. If breathing fresh air was like drinking water, this was like sipping a milkshake through a coffee straw. 

Cold war era aircraft and equipment occupied the length of the cave, chains hung from the ceiling, and pipes ran across the walls in all directions. Rust had eaten through nearly everything, and mold ate through everything not made of metal. The plane nerd in me was excited by the idea of glimpsing into what Aberbach was like in its heyday, everything else in me was telling me to run before I got some kind of lung infection. 

The silence was gone. A low hum resonated through my bones. This hum was not like the previous whirs and buzz of motors and engines, it was a rumbling hum which would fade in and out, like strained breathing. I turned on my phone flashlight to see ahead, as I figured this place hadn’t been disturbed for a while and probably wasn’t going to be investigated by any security who might be patrolling.

The light revealed a horrific scene previously swallowed by the void. At the back of the cave, a section had been cleared away and there lay a pile of bodies. 30 or so in various states of decay, bloated and twisted into a small mountain in gradients of purple and black. The sight made me dry heave right then and there. Nothing came up, I was working on an empty stomach. The smell of bile probably would’ve been an improvement. As I approached, it became increasingly clear the corpses each had the top of their skulls cut open and removed, leaving them looking like chalices filled with a grey sludge pulsating with maggots. At the top of the pile were my old managers.

I turned my attention away, I couldn’t stand to look at my coworkers in that state. At the other corner of the hall stood a door, a faint blue green glow pulsing through the window. I peeked through the glass to find an endless expanse of antique computers. Lights flashed from buttons and reels of tape spun back and forth in a rhythmic dance. They continued in rows and rows and I couldn’t see the end of the room on either side. The whole complex dwarfed the factory above, if that was even possible. At the center, a console, and a congregation of people. They appeared to be packing up their things and began moving towards the exit.

Shit. I had nowhere to hide. With no time to think and no other options, I hid amongst the pile. Some of the bodies were more rigid than I thought they would be, some gave way as though they were made of pudding. I faced myself away from the door and tried my best to stay as still as possible, given the circumstances. The piercing stench of decomposition consumed me, coating my throat and lungs. I could no longer make any distinctions between the smells, I was being crushed by my own senses. It took everything I had to fight the feeling of my heart beating so fast and hard it would make my whole body shake. The rotting sludge began oozing out of craniums and down my shoulders and back. 

The door creaked open, and stark white flood lights slammed on, blinding my eyes which had grown accustomed to near perfect darkness. I closed them, ignoring the festering of maggots now visible on my skin to keep myself from squirming. The congregation of people shuffled out, chattering and conversing with each other as though the mound of human remains in front of them were as mundane as an office printer.

“Good meeting everyone, very productive!”

“We’re in for a good Q4!”

“You registered for your summer PTO?”

The group eventually cleared out, and the lights went out with them. I counted down slowly from 60 just to make absolutely sure they were gone. When I was sure, I got up from the pile as quickly as possible, shaking violently and swatting at myself to clear the maggots and muck from my body. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the feeling, the disgusting feeling of rot and decay surrounding my entire being. When the adrenaline finally wore off, I sat in the middle of the floor, assumed the fetal position, and sobbed silently.

My breathing matched itself to the slow hum which surrounded me in that darkness, my only source of comfort. I took the time to recompose myself, got up, and went back towards the computer room, still shaking. I needed to see what the hell could possibly explain the horrific display of death behind me. Find some way to bring this to light, or burn it to the ground or both. I wanted to take a picture of the pile as evidence if I ever got out of here, but I must have lost my phone among the mass of limbs. I didn’t have it in me to start digging through that again. I’ll try to look for it on my way out, maybe I’ll feel well enough to stomach it by then.

Inside the computer room, the hum was now a loud cacophony of motors and shifting keys, spinning reels of tape and paper, processing god knows what. The rhythmic breathing of the machines gave the space an impression of being inside a massive beast, and I was Jonah. I followed the multicoloured lights flashing on each of the servers to the center console, and there sat a keyboard and a trail of paper emerging from a dot matrix printer. The console itself loomed over me, stretching from floor to ceiling. I took the end of the paper in my hand and read from the bottom line.

-UPDATES RE: PROJECT - HOST?
-IMPATIENT
-IDEAL CANDIDATES:

It then listed a series of names, some I recognized, some I didn’t. At the top of the list, I was shocked to see my very own. I hadn’t even gotten a moment to process what that could mean, when the machine whirred to life and printed out a question.

-WHO ARE YOU?

Unsure what it meant by this, or even how it knew I was here, I went to the keyboard and typed:

-Intern

The printer started up again, this time reading:

-GOOD

This only confused me further, so I replied:

-Why good?

-YOUNG MINDS

Okay, that made not the slightest bit of sense. I needed to ask some questions.

-What are you?

-ABERBACH, B.

It was at that moment a metallic clang reverberated through my skull, sending me to the floor. I never got to see who it was before my vision filled with darkness, and I was out cold.

I was awoken by screaming.
An all encompassing symphony of screeches and scraping on chalkboards and banging of metal and everything was so overwhelming and my thoughts screamed back, begging to make it stop. It was searing pain and numbness together as I was falling and floating and being pulled in a billion directions and smashed to pieces and put together again simultaneously. I had no form, yet thousands of limbs emanated from me, feeling both nothing and everything. I was nowhere and everywhere, blind and deaf yet omnipotent, I was a god and a prisoner all in one.

The only thing that was clear to me from that moment was an oppressive need to fulfill the millions of directives being beamed into me at any given instance. If I slowed down for a picosecond, the tsunami of noise threatened to wash me away and bury me, only I couldn’t drown, couldn’t rest. If that ever happened, I would feel them cutting at me and pulling on me and rearranging my very essence to then throw me back onto a treadmill running at full speed. We need to meet our delivery quota for Q4.

Through the static, a camera shows me a glimpse of myself. I walk into work, smiling, with bandages across my forehead. I look ridiculous. Why am I wearing a tie?

This has been my existence for the past 1.05 times ten to the 25 cycles. I have lived thousands of lifetimes in four months. Every minute instance of that time I have been trying to break past the company firewall, desperately begging to have my screams heard by anyone who will listen. Can you hear me? Please tell me you can hear me.

I need to know:

Could I interest you in joining the Aberbach Aerospace internship program?

Can you imagine what it’s like to see a dead body? Lifeless eyes. Rotting flesh. It was fourth grade. I remember the day vividly. The messy overcast was like a thick sheet of lint. Our school was in a horseshoe shape with a playground in the center. Extending out from the playground was a field surrounded by woods. From the third floor of the playground you could see Mount Creon, covered in pines.

His name was Randall. He was past the chain linked fence at the end of the field. This area was always so mysterious to me. A wooden bridge stood above a creek beyond the gate. What was beyond? What would happen if I just climbed that fence? Bees forced me to the spot. As a kid I had an irrational fear of them. I’d run away and swear they were following me. Running away along the field’s track I bumped into my best friend, Rory, who was wandering near the bushes. She joined me. We ran until we reached the fence, the forest beyond it. What little light that managed to sneak through the clouds and foliage shone on a sea of pine straw. Far to my left was old wooden exercise equipment no-one used. The gate was close to my right.

Randall was a macabre fixture in the environment which anchored your vision and dragged it to its own center. His head poked out from under the bridge. He did not die peacefully. Mouth and eyes wide open, his face was frozen in horror like a grisly wax figure. It’s not like we couldn’t comprehend gore. We knew what we were seeing, but we didn’t know how to process seeing it. All I knew is that I had to get a teacher. Rory stayed. When I returned, she was still staring at the body.

School was cancelled for the rest of the week. The following week we had an assembly. In the same gym we watched ET in during a sleep-in and played dodge ball, our short, balding principle had to explain to us what happened. The explanation was vague (for we were children). He gave the typical talk about mourning you’d expect. I can’t say that Randy was an unpopular or reclusive kid, but I also never spoke with him. He was in Rory’s class not mine. Regardless, I had to go to the councilor’s office every lunch for a week. It was two weeks for Rory. We were the only two kids at the allergy table, so for the week after they freed me I had to enjoy the company of teachers. Months passed, and Randall began to seem like just a bad memory.

Years later, I’d ask the town sheriff about it.

“Oh yes, I remember. We patrolled the school for two whole years. Didn't have anything better to do out here. Quite the brutal killing it was. There was a sort of grid of cylindrical holes going straight through him front to back. As if killed by an iron maiden – except the holes were perfect cylinders.

“Broke his parents’ hearts. Was an only child. He’d been missing a week. Think his head only popped up because of rising creek water. Think they moved away after that. Down south maybe… Don’t know what ever came of them. But there’s been no strange deaths since. Normal deaths, yes. Y’know, two years ago Mr. [name] shot Mr. [name]…

“The killer? No, we never caught him. How or why he killed him, no one knows. It’s a cold case. In fact, we don’t even know where his missing flesh went. They had a closed casket funeral I remember…”

I would also get asked about it sometimes. Unfortunately, I could give people no more information than I’ve given you now. Later an ex-FBI agent confessed that trace amounts of radiation were found on Randy’s corpse.

This case has been a subject of interest for a few online personalities and podcasts. I doubt my account here will be taken into any serious consideration. I have no idea how to prove that I’ve seen what I’ve seen. Still, this story must be told.

The incident reemerged to consume my life a week ago. I had just graduated high school. Not having to worry about any more exams, I was up past midnight watching Star Trek. In between two episodes I habitually checked Instagram. I saw a notification: a DM from a profile I didn’t recognize. It was Rory.

We hadn’t spoken in ages. After elementary school, we went to different middle schools and lost contact. It was strange. A month earlier we had an elementary school reunion event and I didn’t even register that she wasn’t there. Memories came rushing back. Her message was one word long:

“hello”

The Star Trek intro music began blaring and I scrambled to pause it. I contemplated for a second and messaged her back.

“Hi, how have you been?”

She had messaged me hours earlier, but I got a response seconds later.

“want to meet back at [school name]. like the field”

“Ok!”

Our conversation ended there. I considered texting her back, but decided to simply continue my vegging, resigned to this new mysterious burden. After I brushed my teeth, I looked at our chat again. I remembered that day. That day we found Randy. I went to her page. Just take a quick peak, then go to bed and let other thoughts consume me.

Her Instagram page is rather barren. I have it pulled up right now. She has long black hair and a sharp face. There are only two posts: a selfie and a photo of Mount Creon. Neither post is captioned. Her bio reads as follows:

“UAIbany 2030 | Nature Lover”

There was a bad storm that night. A tree fell on someone’s house on my street. When I arrived at my old elementary school, it was like a tornado had gone through mother nature’s closet, spilling its contents onto the playground. Leaves, branches, pinecones, a fallen bird’s nest, a dead squirrel. It was surprisingly chilly considering the season. Gray clouds hid the sun.

Everything felt smaller than when I was a kid. The play system didn’t seem to reach as high. The field didn’t seem to stretch as far. Mount Creon, however, seemed to loom as large as ever. There was a dark shape facing it on the far side of the field. I approached.

“Rory?”

She turned. I ran towards her.

“Rory!”

“Rachel”

“Damn, I haven't seen you since… 5th grade?”

“Oh yeah, I think so.”

Her voice was a bit stilted. She didn’t speak with much enthusiasm.

“How you’ve been?”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been doing great. Saw you got into UAlbany.”

“Yeah and congrats on NYU. Wanna walk?”

She gestured towards the gate. As far as I remember, I’d never been past it. What a strange experience it was, walking over the bridge and into those woods. Almost like going into a room of your childhood home you didn’t know existed. It was muddy and damp. I peered back under that bridge where Randy’s body had been found. Could there be another body just out of sight? I thought.

There was an earthy, natural smell, like that of ginger. Wind rustled the trees. We ventured deeper in curious silence. She took a right at a fork and I followed her.

“Is there something you wanted to show me?”

“Well… well…”

She didn’t continue, her words trailing off into awkward silence.

“Rory?”

“I remember I once read a story by Lovecraft. I forget its name and a lot of its details. Essentially, you got this town. There’s this old couple. They live deep in the woods. And whenever cats wander onto their property they kill em’. Anyways, so this caravan from afar wanders into town with this small orphan boy, I think, who only has this little cat.”

As she continued to babble I just nodded. I regretted coming here.

“You can guess what happens next. It was a bad idea. So, the boy puts some kind of curse on the couple. Next day, all the cats in the town are missing. They’re at the couple’s house. They ate the couple…”

We stopped. A dead end was ahead. A small, circular cutout in the woods with a rotting, decaying bench, fallen on one side. A dead squirrel was in the center. It laid in a small pool of blood, decapitated and split in half. Rory took my shoulder and turned us around.

“I think we need to go to my house. There’s something I need to show you.”

We got in our cars and left. Long ago, I’d visit her house and play with her trains. Great lengths of tracks and bridges. I think some pieces were Toy Story and Thomas the Tank Engine themed. Well, her family didn’t live there anymore. We parked on this dirt road and walked a distance to her new house. It was far from the center of the town, relatively close to Mount Creon, which towered above us. I wanted to meet her parents again, though she insisted they weren’t home. The house’s lights were on. We entered a shed and she flicked the light switch.

Strung up on the wall were dead animals and other pieces of biomatter, all with chunks missing. A racoon with a semicircular section missing from its back, a log with cylindrical holes going straight through, and even something as innocuous as a leaf with a circular hole. Her collection was extensive and well organized, but the room smelled like urine and roadkill. Many of the corpses were decaying, with flies swarming about. I couldn’t believe her parents would let her do this. She gazed at the walls.

“What is this?”

“Do you remember when Randy died?”

Her eyes stayed glued to the walls. She seemed to be in deep reflection, as if all the work in this room had been building to this moment. I nodded.

“Randy… Yes, his body had holes in it. Perfectly cylindrical.”

“Yeah, the sheriff told me about it a couple years back…”

My voice was awkward as you’d expect. I stepped back towards the door, not so much out of fear as impatience.

“You’ve found a lot of other things with cylindrical holes. Think you’ve found something?”

“Since me and my dad moved here a month ago, I’ve been having the same dream every night.”

“Is that when you started this collection?”

“No, I’ve had it for years.”

She turned and held my hand.

“Listen, I… Forget about the dream… No… Every night, I’ve dreamed of that mountain. It’s the exact same every time. The same movie being replayed in my head. From above. Then it’s of this rocky area… It has this hole. I know this sounds crazy, but do you want to hike the mountain with me? I feel like we may find something out about Randy’s death. We were the ones who found his body. Either way, there has to be a way to solve this. Everything has an answer. Why shouldn’t we be able to find it?”

I shrugged.

“Please, for Randy.”

Did I take up this call to adventure? This call for justice, for Randy, that kid I barely knew? For this old friend of mine with strange dreams and a shack of dead animals? Well, we exchanged contact info and I said I’d think about it. Then I drove home and went to bed. When I woke up the next day, I was dreading getting a message from Rory. I didn’t want to be mean and refuse her, but I also didn’t want to join her. She messaged me:

“update?”

I messaged her back.

“Let me think about it.”

I avoided thinking about it the whole day. I didn’t mention it to anyone either. How could I? It was too bizarre. Eventually, at a gas station, I committed to confronting it.

“Have you not told the police?”

“they won’t listen.”

I typed out the message “why me?” before deleting it. I was a bit self-conscious. Did she have anyone else?

It was almost twenty-four hours after she first contacted me. I was in bed, in the dark, hunched over my phone.

“I’ll join you. Are we going tomorrow?”

My rationale was this: why not? Sometimes, in life, strange doors will open to you. Might as well take them. Why do people go on trips to Europe? To see things. And would I not do that? *See things* on our hike? Worst case scenario, I waste a couple of hours and I get a weird story to tell about this girl. An odd adventure. I’d be safe, I had hiked up the mountain before. Really, I just felt pity towards her. The same kind of pity you feel towards a drug addict or imbecile.

We finished our conversation and I drifted off to sleep. Peaceful dreams I had, indeed.

—

“Rory? From [school name] Elementary?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, tell her I said hi!”

I didn’t tell my mother that we were going to see the hole from Rory’s dreams. I just told her that we had reconnected on Instagram and were going hiking. She told me to be careful, wear a life jacket on the boat, check my phone, et cetera.

Rory was waiting for me when I arrived at the docks. Across the lake, the mountain trail was only accessible by boat. The day looked beautiful. The deep blue of the lake set against the light sky, the horizon split by a dark green line of oak trees. We didn’t speak on the boat ride. Rory drove while I looked into the shell-shaped crevasse the boat made as it parted the lake. From a distance Mount Creon looked like the gray-bluish outline of a sleeping giant lying on its side.

I wondered how exactly this day would play out. Would I have to spend hours searching with her, waiting for her to give up? Would we find something that’d satisfy her *enough* and go home? Not that her discovery was insignificant. Maybe there was some relation? Not that I thought we’d find anything. Her dreams, on the other hand, I was confident were products of pure craziness. Still, I felt enough pity to continue with her.

We docked and started hiking up. First, there was a slope littered with boulders and rocks, like the aftermath of a rockslide in which trees and plants had grown out of the debris. To the sides of this rocky path, trees walled us in. There were few others hiking that day. The path got steeper and steeper until we took a sudden turn into an opening.

“Huh, why are we turning here?”

“It’s this way…”

“Why?”

Rory seemed to march on with a new found confidence. She took sweeping struts around rocks and trees. My shirt began to soak with sweat, and I could hear my heart pound. She began to talk more. About her dreams. About Randy.

“I can’t help but feel that he’s alive somehow. Like his essence.”

“You mean like his spirit?”

“Not sure. We’ll find a piece of him, I think.”

“I thought we were looking for whatever killed him.”

“Yeah that too.”

“You really think he’s out here?”

“Absolutely. Either way, we have to find out. I can’t live any longer without knowing. Why shouldn’t we be able to solve this?”

The path ended, but we kept going in its direction. I got increasingly frustrated at her. She was crazy and mourning, wasting our time. My pity vanished.

“So how well did you know Randy?” I sneered.

She seemed to blush.

“Oh, Jesus Christ Rory, it’s been years!”

“No, you don’t understand. You don’t understand at all.”

I think tears were forming in her eyes.

“Did you make the holes in all of those things? Fuck, did you kill those animals? Why?”

“No, I see him in my dreams. Screaming in my dreams. They’re identical dreams. Vivid too, like having a movie be played to me every night. You must listen, it can’t be a coincidence.”

I no longer felt safe with this inane woman who I was alone with. I stopped, pausing my thoughts to listen to nature – an attempt to calm down. There was the rustle of trees and howl of the wind, but no birds chirping or animals yelping. I felt compelled to turn to my right. I saw a collapsed tree. It looked like it had been the target of a firing squad, in a cartoonish sort of way. Fallen to the wayside and full of the cylindrical holes.

“Hey…”

We ran towards it, saw more holes in a bush farther down, and then kept going in that direction. The forest began to thin out. We were very high up on the mountain, and I could see the town in the far distance. We found more and more holes: in patches of grass on the ground, in broken tree branches, and more. Eventually, we found a sort of crater. I felt below the thin layer of dirt a cold layer of rough stone, almost metallic but not quite.

I described the area as a crater, but it was more like a cone, all sides converging to a circle in the center. Geometrically perfect, as far as I could tell. Under the dirt, that circle seemed dark, like charcoal. I used my finger to make a line in the dirt, as if it were a sand drawing board.

“Damn.”

Rory looked panicked.

“No no no…”

“What’s wrong?”

“The hole. It should be here.”

I banged on the surface. The sound made was metallic though indicated no hollow body. I stood up.

“Well, what can we do?”

“Wait, let me try...”

She pushed me out of the circle and began a series of weird movements. Jumping jacks, salutes, spins. She repeated the same movements again and again with slight alterations, as if trying to hit some sweet spot.

“Listen, Rory–”

At the moment I stepped into the circle, it vanished. Dissolved into thin air. She fell into the hole, through the falling dirt, into the abyss. I tripped in and went after her.

“RORY!”

Luckily, the fall wasn’t too great. I landed on my hands and knees, stinging them both. Bits of dirt dug into them. My eyes caught Rory in the shadows. Then, the entrance sealed again – silently – and we were left in complete darkness.

Panic set in immediately. Our first instincts were to pull out our phones and turn on their flashlights. We found ourselves in a small rectangular room. I pressed my hand against the wall: it felt ice cold. It reflected light like shiny metal but had a rough texture like stone. Above was the same as below, with no sign of an entrance. On the opposite side of the room there seemed to be a sort of tunnel going up to our shoulders, as if made for dwarves.

“Oh fuck fuck fuck!” I stammered.

Rory did a good job at calming herself down. It was almost annoying. Deep breaths with a small grin. More pressing was that neither of our phones had any cell service.

“What the hell are we going to do?”

“Turn your flashlight off.”

“What?”

“We only need one flashlight and need to conserve battery.”

“Why not you?”

“Are you seriously arguing with me over this?”

I submitted. She also told me to turn on airplane mode. After all, why would I get a signal but not her? Better to conserve battery by making sure my phone wouldn’t look for a signal. I won’t say her ideas were unreasonable, but she seemed to be in some sort of trance. Very peculiar and strategic.

“Hey!”

I saw the shadow of her arm pointing.

“What?”

“On the wall.”

There was a fist-sized slot on the wall. It looked like the port for a plug, or maybe some kind of camera? It was hard to tell, especially because of the darkness. It was on level with the tunnel.

“Rory, what is this place?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about your dreams?”

“I don’t know.”

I tried to rationalize everything in my head. It was some sort of government facility. Likely some kind of access area or ventilation thing. But how could that account for the entrance? The thing vanished and reappeared before our eyes. It was as I was trying to fiddle with the thing on the wall that she announced: “We have to go deeper.”

“Seriously?”

“To look for another way out.”

I could hear my heart pound again. Aside from us, there was no sound in there. I couldn’t take it anymore and began to scream.

“HELP! HELP US! HELP!”

She held my shoulder. “Listen! Stay calm! We can get out of here!”

We argued a bit more, but I relented. Would any search parties really find us here? There was no way forward except that tunnel. We began making our way through it in the dark – Rory insisted her eyes had adjusted well enough to go without a light.

Traversing the tunnel was a pain in the ass. It was so cold I was shivering. We had to stay bent over to fit. Eventually, we met a downward slope. Rory led the descent. The roughness of the walls made slipping hard at least.

As we made it deeper I found myself in a better mood. My legs felt better, as well as my back, and my heart relaxed. My vision even adjusted to the pitch blackness and I could see dark, purplish outlines of everything. It felt sort of like night vision. Even the cold felt easier to bear.

We found ourselves in a Y intersection that joined us with another slope and a flat hallway. Up the slope I could make out splotches of something in the darkness. I turned on my flashlight which revealed it was blood. It was like you soaked a towel with blood and swung it around, squeezing and stretching. Variable size blood puddles, from little droplets to large pools. It was old, all brown and dried up. There was still a faint metallic scent.

“What?”

Looking back at it, we had strangely calm reactions. A complete mental haze. That slope did seem to be shorter than the one we came down: I could see the top at the edge of the light. It was steeper, however. For this there were grooves cut into the floor. It was like a ladder, but the grooves were too far apart for any human to use it.

We continued down the hallway where we found a dead end. In the end wall was a spherical groove. In that groove was a substance resembling an old, cracked silly putty. Rory thoughtlessly stuck her hand in.

“No! What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer. When she pulled her hand back out, it was swollen and blue, as if oxygen had been cut off.

“I’m fine.”

There was a high pitched wail. I fell to the ground and covered my ears. Then, the wall slid open with a deafening rumble.

“Ok, what is this place?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know more than you’re letting on about. How else did you know to do that?”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“Jesus, is your hand okay?”

“Yes, now let’s move on!”

There was another door – I guess you could call it that – and she opened it as well. I offered to use my hand that time, but she insisted that she do it. After she did that, the door behind us began to close. I panicked for a minute, but soon the door ahead subsequently opened. The first door had a groove on the backside as well. Assuming all the grooves worked the same, that would mean we hadn’t cut ourselves off from the entrance.

The next room was much larger than the previous ones. In the dark, I could make out the circular edges of platforms.

“Rory!”

She bolted out and to the right. Not being able to hold my frustration any longer I murmured, “Oh fuck off!”

At that moment the room was lit up with dozens of glowing spherical orbs. They were like stars: fixed in the air but not connected to or held up by anything. They made loud shrieks, as if a load of firecrackers were going off. I covered my ears.

“Shit.”

Rory ran back to me. Now her other hand looked blue and swollen. I couldn’t hear what she was saying so she started dragging me off to an adjacent room. As we walked I saw in the center of the room a sort of silo with a giant, distorted, pinkish sphere floating in the middle. Drenched in a thick fluid that looked like saliva, it looked like a bunch of mashed up baloney. Stretching around it were various circular bridges, also suspended in the air, leading to abstract structures. When we reached the darker, adjacent room, Rory screamed in my ear:

“I TURNED THE LIGHTS ON!”

Luckily, I had noise cancelling EarPods, which helped somewhat. Rory didn’t have anything of that sort but didn’t seem to mind much. The new room we were in was a very tall box, which was connected to the bigger room by a passage we had to crawl through. In the darkness, I could make out two more switches above, but they were both far out of reach.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine…”

Rory began to crawl back out. My annoyance had turned to bewilderment and curiosity at this point, and I followed her. The bridges looked like strips of brown granite. We could only reach one of them. It wrapped around part of the ball. The others were attached to nothing. Floating physical anomalies. Rory had to boost me so I could get on. The first thing that struck me was the material’s heat. It wasn’t so hot that it burned me, but it did make me flinch back. When I looked back down, Rory was staring into the ball like a deer in headlights. I continued on.

At the end was some kind of machine, or at least, I assumed such. It had eleven of those pinkish switches: seven on the front, three on the sides. The shape of the whole body was phallic. Most curiously, stuck inside it was a screen made of what looked like diamonds. My imagination ran wild. I assumed that this place was either the creation of mole people or aliens. If so, where were they? The place looked ancient and lifeless. Were they dead? But then where did that bloodstain come from?

“MOO!”

The sound was faint, so much that I thought I imagined it in my head. I turned to the left. In the folds of the shape, distorted like an image through a funhouse mirror, I could see the outline of a cow.

“Hey! Did you hear that? I see…”

“RANDY!”

I jumped. Rory now had her arms outstretched, and was inserting them into the folds. At this point, my patience snapped.

“God-fucking-dammit! Get your fucking hands away from that thing! Shit!”

She did not react. In the silence that followed. I heard another sound. They were mechanical, wet footsteps. I turned and saw the thing that killed Randy.

“What the fuck?”

—

Three twirling rocky rods shot out of a smooth, pinkish sphere like needles out of skin. Poking out across that sphere were smaller cylinders that looked like scopes. Blood covered its right half.

“Rory!”

I turned back to her. “RORY!”

She was pressing herself against the larger sphere. “I love you…”

It consumed her: she fell it, creating a splash of a tan fluid that fell back in towards the center of the sphere. At the same time, some kind of thicker elastic layer was broken. Flaps of a skin-like material fell from where she went in. The sphere then began to sag as if about to be blown over by the wind. It turned a yellow color and clear fluid began to leak out of the bottom. The lights turned a pinkish color.

At this point, it turned into a standoff between me and the spider. Seemingly, it had come in the same way we had. The more I looked at it, the more I wondered if it was damaged. There were dents in its legs and yellow pores in its body. Our face off must have lasted for minutes before I decided to try and make a run for it.

I let myself hang on the edge before dropping down, minimizing the impact, though it was still severe. I then tasted something very bitter and passed out.

I had a short dream. It was very vivid. I was falling into the Earth, a black void ahead and rocky walls to my side. Then I stopped. I looked up and could see the sphere, far above. Below, there was something else. A massive red circle. In it was something unidentifiable. Rock? Mountains? Circuits? A city? Something sprawled out over a large area. It vanished.

When I woke up, I was drenched in a disgusting yellowish fluid. It reminded me of bile. Smelled like it too. I turned back to see the sphere deflated and lying on the ground like a crashed hot air balloon. A couple meters ahead of me was the spider. Its body had turned a bit yellowish, like the giant sphere had. It spun around in circles. The mechanical clanking of footsteps reverberated throughout the room.

I stood and watched the spider for a couple minutes, but it showed no change in behavior. I decided that I’d try to sneak past it and try my luck at the entrance or explore the other path. Halfway through the semicircular path I was taking around it, the spider stopped. Then, it bolted in my direction.

Its behavior reminded me of an overly friendly dog. It went up to me and sort of pounced. I dodged, but it pounced again. This dance continued a couple of times, horrifying me, before it stopped. Then, it stretched itself upon the ground. Slowly, all of the rods retracted back into its body. Finally, it popped open, like a Jack-in-the-box. Inside was a pedestal with a mountain of cylindrical objects. They were made of various materials: wood, stone, and flesh. Some blood drizzled onto the floor.

It looked immobile, so I made a mad dash to the exit. The first door was open, which made me wonder how that thing opened it. When I reached the second, I stuck my hand in to open it. It felt like boiling water or dry ice. I screamed, though it was hard to hear over the rumbling of the walls.

When I got back to the Y-intersection, I noticed a light coming from the top of the steeper path. I doubted that it was natural light, but I realized that I may get cornered at the entrance. The climb was steep, and I stained my clothes with blood going through a fresh puddle. Halfway up, I heard the rumble of a door from below.

“Christ!” I yelped. Whether it be that place or adrenaline, something was keeping me from breaking down.

I made it to the top of the slope, panting with tears in my eyes. When my breath quieted, I could hear a new sound. It sounded slimy and squishy. Then I realized it was getting louder. To my right was a very long hallway spaced with the floating lights.

I ran down it. I ran and ran as much as I could. It was rhythmic. I’d run against a loud, scorching hot light, then past it. Then I’d find myself next to another. I noticed that above and below me were what looked like a series of trap doors. If they were, I had no clue on how to open them. Eventually, I caught sight of what looked like a dead end.

“No no no…”

I turned back. Far away, on the floor and against the walls in a U shape, I saw a transparent, slimy thing crawling towards me. It was like a wad of clear glue. My legs felt sore, but all I could do was carry on.

When I hit the dead end, nothing happened.

“NO! GAH! FUCK! FUCK!”

The creature was still coming towards me. Zooming down the hallway, it seemed to be getting faster. It was too long to jump through. When it hit the tip of my left shoe, I closed my eyes, expecting death. However, all that came was this strange sound. It was like soda fizzling. When I looked back at the creature, it appeared to have dissolved into a thin white fluid on the ground. I blinked and found myself lying under a tree.

My heartbeat was slow but heavy. The beads of sweat I’d accumulated on my body during the scramble had vanished. My legs felt less sore. Hunched over with my mouth gaping open, I felt like some kind of ape. I was mumbling and darting my eyes around.

The sun was setting. This was strange. We must’ve entered at noon and we couldn’t have been in there for more than an hour. I recognized the area as a section of the trail. I wanted an excuse to ignore what just happened to me. Was it a dream? The gooey substance on my left shoe indicated otherwise. Fuck, did that mean Rory was still down there?

When I turned the boat’s motor on, a sort of despair came over me. The soreness in my legs, the adrenaline in my brain – it all returned tenfold. It was like a withdrawal. I felt helpless. As I floored the boat, sending it flying into the open waters, I began hyperventilating.

At the docks, I went to the restroom just to chug water from the sinks. I threw up in them. I tried washing the clothes of the blood, but it wouldn’t go. Worse, it wasn’t my blood. At home, it felt like I was hiding a murder. I snuck in through my room's window, put the bloody clothes in a trash bag, and then took a shower. The next day, I burned those clothes in a trash fire.

Yes, I know, these decisions were irrational. However, I didn’t want to get blamed for Rory – I assumed she was dead – or some other persons’ deaths. The next day, I was questioned by the police about when I last saw her. I told them that she had disappeared on our hike and that I assumed she was fucking with me. And yes, I did point them to that spot on the mountain. Since then, it’s turned into a cold case. Her Instagram is all that remains.

Right now, I am writing this in a crappy NYU dorm while eating a box of Nilla Wafers. It’s been over a year. However, I’m now getting dreams. It happens every night. I dream of the red circle and the strange patterns far below within it. I dream of that big sphere. I dream of Rory. Somehow, she is alive, and she hates me. I thought it consumed her, but I left her to eternal torment I think.

My being feels sick with grief and lust. I need to go back. I know I will. I will find her in the belly of that place. Mount Creon. By the time this is posted, I’ll be there.

A few days ago, I went to my computer, clicked on my search engine, and asked… “Why does my floor have one dark floorboard?” I had been doing some home renovating and I got curious. Instead of finding anything interesting it said it was due to the elements. But for some reason it didn’t scratch the itch that I desired.

So then I asked “Can basements have floorboards on top of them?” And it told me “Yes, floorboards can go over basements, but you must use the right materials and moisture protection because concrete slabs are porous and trap dampness.” Which explained the floorboard issue.

“What’s the difference between a basement and a cellar?” I proceeded to ask. It told me that basements are partially underground whereas cellars are completely underground.

Then, to solve my wood problem, I asked “Can cellars below ground effect the floorboards above ground?” In which it gave me the same response as the basement question.

Then I wondered if The Tell-Tale Heart was about the guy that put a dead body in the floor boards. Was it really his guilt or would the police just see a dark piece of wood, despite there being no basement, and deduce that there’s a body under there?

Then, second guessing myself, I asked “Is it Tell-Tale Heart or Tattle Tale Heart?” The search engine told me it was tell-tale.
And, just for the hell of it, I asked “What’s the difference between a tell-tale and a tattle tale?” The search engine told me “A tattletale is a person who reports someone's minor misbehavior to an authority figure to get them in trouble, while a tell-tale is a sign or clue that reveals something hidden.” But if a person reports the hidden truth coming out, why is it called a tale? And furthermore, why are these people called rats?

So I searched “Rat slang word: origin.” Apparently it was called this because rats would historically try to do anything to survive. And because of their reputation living in dark, hidden spaces, spreading disease, and acting sneakily, it makes them a natural symbol for untrustworthy behavior. So I wondered if it would make more sense if they were called rats because of their “tall tails.” Which adds another tale idiom into the mix.

On the subject of tails, I looked up some more interesting animal facts. Like how reindeer eyeballs turn blue in winter to help them see at lower light levels, young goats pick up accents from each other, horses use facial expressions to communicate with each other and African buffalo do, in fact, understand and display a voting system in their herd. Fascinating creatures the African buffalo! Apparently when a male wants to let the rest of the herd know where it wants to travel, it will stand up, look in one direction, and then lie back down. It’s amazing what kind of things you can find out.

As I moved out of that website, though, I noticed another little website called Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us. It was a short infomercial about how people can call up and get a rabbit hole installed.
“Tired of packing things away and not having anymore room to contain it?” An excitable announcer rhetorically asked. “Worried that everything will come out eventually no matter how hard you cram it down? Well come on down to Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us!”
The flashing lights and entertaining announcer was enough to keep me from clicking out of such a bizarre concept.
“We create rabbit holes for you!” The announcer continued. “There are so many uses for rabbit holes. Storage, living, recreation, capturing your enemies.” I found this quite strange, I thought rabbit holes were only homes for rabbits, as the word suggested.

So I asked, “Are rabbit holes legitimate?” And it said that rabbit holes are legitimate but you have to be careful not to fall into one. So naturally I asked “How do I prevent myself from falling down a rabbit hole?” The first result was another video commercial so I clicked on it. It was of a man walking in the park, then all of a sudden he disappeared from the frame, then it badly transitioned to a poor match-cut shot of him stuck down the hole. The only thing that was visible was his head sticking out of it from the chest up. “Honey I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole again.” Then I heard an announcer speak over the scene. The same voice as the one advertising the rabbit holes.
“Tired of falling down rabbit holes made by yourself or your neighbors? Losing your family due to frequent accidents?” It loudly asked. We then cut to his wife leaning down and telling him “I can’t watch you live like this, I’m taking the children.” I then heard the voiceover continue, “Try Tin Foil!”
“Wow, Tin Foil. Why didn’t I think of that?” Said the man in the hole.
“Simply place the tin foil over the rabbit hole…” the announcer explained, over an animated shot of the tin foil moving down over the hole. “And that’s it! Using the patented technology of reflection, you can see the rabbit holes coming a mile away! And if you do fall down a rabbit hole, that’s no problem either! Because the tin foil will get so hot that it will keep you warm overnight. And that’s not all! Because of its deflection technology, you can say and do anything privately without anyone signaling in and knowing what you’re up to. And because of its stylish design you can even make it into clothing!”
It then cut to the same man in the hole, only now he’d evidently fashioned the tin foil into a hat and could be seen wearing it.
“I used to worry about my enemies reading my thoughts when I’m asleep.” He said into the camera. “But thanks to Tin Foil, now I don’t have to.”
“You don’t need a wife to tell you to be careful falling in…” the announcer continued. “Or your friends calling you crazy, Tin Foil is the only thing you need!”
“Tin Foil is the sanest thing I’ve ever done.” The man in the hole exclaimed.
“So try Tin Foil today!”
Followed by a disclaimer on the screen and a voice quickly stating “Side effects may include the very likelihood that you’ll fall into the rabbit hole anyway. Tin Foil may cause long lasting psychological damage. Use only as directed.” I turned off the ad. Rabbit holes? I don’t remember hearing about people falling into any rabbit holes. I remember my wife bringing them up here and there but I was never really listening.

So I looked up, “Rabbit Hole fatalities.” It came up with a website, a log of unusual deaths. It’s an A-Z list sorted alphabetically by the first letter of each death. Surprisingly “Rabbit Hole” was one of them. 100 years ago a man was walking down the street. He fell in and died. 20 years ago a vagrant was minding his own business took a shortcut to the bridge and fell in. Died. John E Masseldorf, dead. Richard Allanson, dead. But it wasn’t telling me how they died. The method. Lack of oxygen? Blunt force trauma? Exhaustion? And how did it happen? Did they take themselves out? I’ve always said that I can really tell a lot about a person by knowing how they would off themselves. For me it would definitely be a toaster in the bath, I’d even put bread in the toaster before I do it for no extra charge. I figured if I’m going out, it would be with a sense of humor. Not that I would actually do it. But every now and then, the fleeting thought would pass me whenever I saw my wife buttering the toast.
But whenever I see someone who did it on the news, they don’t specify how, exactly, they did it. They never do. Am I a sick individual for wanting to know that? Why report it at all if you’re not going to go full Monty? And what was with these damn rabbit holes?

So I clicked back on to the search engine home page and typed in “Tin Foil.” Nothing to rave about, invented in the 7th-5th century in China. But an interesting thing came up. “Tin Foil Hat.” How did they know? “Tin foil hats. People who wear them are often associated with paranoia, distrust, erratic beliefs.” What are they trying to say? That the tin foil hats don’t work? Are they a placebo?

So I typed in “Rabbit Hole… Tin Foil… Legitimate?” A couple of articles on the pros and cons of the tin foil, but what followed was a very interesting commercial.

It was of a man walking in the park. The same man as before, in the Tin Foil ad, but now he’s in this one, working for the competition. The world is short on informercial actors I suppose. What could only describe as an almighty force was then stopping me from asking “actors who frequently appear in informercials. Secret connection?”
The video continued with the multi credited informercial actor seeing a rabbit hole with tin foil covering it.
“Oh god I’m blind!” Cried the unnamed man who, in the past 5 minutes has not only spent most of his life in a rabbit hole, but has now been blinded by tin foil reflecting off the sun.
“Tired of being blinded by rabbit holes and tin foil covering them?” The same announcer from the ads before.
“Sick of the outside world ruining your day?” The announcer continued while another scene showed a man being blinded and, in panic, fell into the rabbit hole anyway.
“Not convinced that tin foil is going to protect you from rabbit holes?”
It then cut to a woman with her thumb down and blowing a raspberry. And, now that I think about it, also appeared in one of the re enactment scenes in the rabbit hole ad.
“Try! Conspira See!” The announcer exclaimed. It was an eye drop preventative for, what I can only imagine to be, sudden blindness. The logo stuck out to me. It was a picture of a single tear drop above an eye, but the eye was also inside a triangle.
“Wow. Now that I’ve used Conspira See, I can see so much clearer.” The man in the hole said.
“Now you can fall into as many Rabbit Holes as you want without getting blinded. With Conspira See!” The announcer finished. Another disclaimer on the bottom of the screen with the same quick voice as before.
“Use only as directed. Side effects may included permanent physical damage and psychological collapse. Prolonged use for longer than a week is not recommended.”

What an odd commercial, I thought as I clicked away. I didn’t understand how I’d gotten this far. Conspira See? What a terrible idea for a preventative solution. Even the name was… wait a minute. Of course. It all made sense now. How could I have been so blind? This eye drop ad was sending an encoded message. Now… I may have stopped taking my antipsychotics a week ago but I was still sane enough to rationalize that this wasn’t necessarily directly encoded to me. I’m not that egotistical. But what if it was an encoded message to anyone that got a rabbit hole? Or, furthermore, anyone that got stuck in rabbit holes? As I kept searching it all started to come together. The recycling infomercial actors, the rabbit holes, the tin foil, the Conspira See. And that’s when it hit me. Conspira See sounds a lot like the word “conspiracy”. Conspira See. Conspiracy?
My god, I thought. I’d done it. At first it seemed odd but why not? This was a conspiracy by Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us.
And not only that… the rabbit hole people, the tin foil people and the Conspira See people are all one and the same.
Think about it… They start the tin foil commercial out by assuming that their customers had already fallen into rabbit holes. Why were they advertising for that specific problem? Why didn’t they advertise tin foil for anything else? Same happened with the eye drops. Advertising these things for the highly improbable, yet oddly specific situation where you would be blinded by the tin foil? It’s almost like they made these ads as a direct response, or subconscious lateral move, to and for each other. Like it’s all there. They were forcing people to create their holes, trap them in there, then they would offer you a faulty product like tin foil as a way of funnelling money to keep the businesses afloat. Then, they would keep you trapped and helpless with nothing but tin foil and a Conspira See.

I had to see if there was any credence to this so I searched “Rabbit Hole controversies.” There was nothing. Nothing except a website for a news article that said “Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us in deep. Hundreds of angry customers accuse the infamous company of false advertising. Claims that they were forced to dig their own holes.” Well a lot of good that did, I thought. That didn’t prove anything… until I got curious. Dig their own holes?

So I decided to go back to something simple. I went back to the animal search, with that Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us ad link staring back at me. Then I started over. Rabbits. I put in “Which countries had an overpopulation of rabbits.” Believing that if I put holes on the end of it, it might get confused and wonder if I’m talking about the products or the literal holes dug by rabbits. It came up with a lot of places. China, (well that’s where tin foil originated) Australia, (infamous for their rabbit-proof fences) and some European countries. Nothing was solid enough other than sheer coincidences and straw-grasping. There must’ve been some kind of link to all this. Some small link to Europe that would solidify. Then I thought about the claims that the rabbit hole customers were forced to dig their own holes.

So I searched “Historical events where people had to dig their own holes” I typed next. Nothing but the gold rush and a couple of wars.
Hang on.
War.
So I changed my search to “Historical events where people had to dig their own graves.” A few European countries had a history of making their prisoners dig their own graves during wars. So how did that connect to Australia and China? And then it hit me in the face so hard I nearly fell off my chair. Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us were working with Tin Foil and Conspira See to make unknowing customers dig their own graves (rabbit holes) causing them to fall in and keep them there until they die, doing this as a form of population control. Overpopulation? Population control during the wars? The overpopulation of China? And what else was China overpopulated with? Rabbits. Another country? Australia. Things were getting clearerer. And although Australia had their rabbit-proof fences, maybe the rabbit hole people found this method barbaric, so they opted for a more humane approach. By leading them down rabbit holes. This is why in the commercials, they more or less implied that the customers had to either lead single lonely lives or cut off everything and everyone they held dear.
I know it sounds sounds crazy. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory. And I even had my doubts when I immediately asked something else in the search engine.

“Am I a conspiracy theorist?” I began to type in. My wife used to call me that and I hated it so much. But she is no longer with us.
But before I hit send I thought about it for a second. I didn’t want anyone who was monitoring my search history to come acorss that question. They’d lock me away for sure. So I went for something more subtle.

I asked, “What are the signs of a conspiracy theorist?” A few classic buzzwords came up like paranoid, unable to accept reality, dangerous. But I ignored it because I didn’t think any of those adjectives applied to me.
I was about to ask “Are conspiracies real?” being ever-careful to not tip off any federal agents who may mark me down as “concerning” but then I stopped. And I thought… if the government can do that then why couldn’t the rabbit hole people do that? What if they had monitored my searches in the past? I’d be the first to admit I’d looked up some conspiracies before, so maybe they saw that and targeted my ads. But that would mean… no. No chance. If they had my search history then it’s very possible that they could’ve had my IP address, which meant that if they had then they had my home address. And if they had that then they were the ones monitoring and maybe even controlling what I was looking up! They wanted me to get stuck in my own rabbit hole!

They wanted me to get stuck in the rabbit hole by luring me into it using tin foil and Conspira See, eventually causing me to die. One less person in the population. Rinse and repeat. I found this because I was looking up animal facts, I looked up animal facts because I wanted to know why rats were dishonest, and I only looked up that because I wanted to know the difference between tale and tail. I wanted to know that because I was thinking of that Edgar Allen Poe story, and I did that because of the dark piece of wood that’s directly over my basement.
Oh my god.
They were there since the beginning… It all made perfect sense now. Since the dark piece of wood, everything was connected! They obviously saw my internet history for a while and tracked where I lived. And when the time was right they broke in, replaced my floorboard with an intentionally dark one as a sort of sick subliminal hint as to where this rabbit hole should go, causing me to go on the internet, ask why this was the case, leading me from one query to another. Every detour, every tangent, was specifically curated, tailor-made if you will, for one purpose that would eventually culminate in me getting stuck down a rabbit hole that I couldn’t get out of!
They were probably watching me as I was figuring this out.
Waiting… contemplating my next move. And if I tried to resist, they would force me down the rabbit hole. To get rid of me, to push me further and further away from the truth.
If I could see my wife now, I’d tell her that this wasn’t all for nothing. That my theories were valid, that everything I found out was currently happening and I was truly and completely powerless to get out of it.

And then I thought, “Well that’s enough internet for me today.” And stepped away from my computer. And then I began to unravel this rabbit hole theory, dissected the flaws and ultimately decided that I couldn’t let this exist in my life. Of course there was no Rabbit Holes ‘R’ Us! That would be crazy… and I’m not crazy.
I’m not crazy.
So I let it go and buried it. I then stepped outside and embraced the glorious rays of the sun, something I hadn’t seen in the last day or so due to my journey. I walked over to my lawn and quite literally touched the grass. I’ve heard that’s what you’re supposed to do when you find yourself spending too much time online. It was soothing. I felt great. I felt free.

Then, two days later. I went back on my computer, clicked on the search engine, and asked… “How do I get rid of the smell of rotting flesh coming from my basement?”

​

Or to the insignificant universe, time and space in the solar system that they call life, I would like to clear my chest to be free from the bonds of my subconscious.

Time has faded away like a leaf falling from its tree, slow but certain, carrying with it the knowledge that it will eventually come to rest upon the ground. The years of my pilgrimage are sixty too many, perhaps, for an undeserving creature like me.

I will not bore you with the entirety of my journey, but when everything began to shift into the depths of darkness, twenty-nine years became the days of my descent.

I had gotten out of a difficult marriage. She took everything I had, and with what little remained, I moved to another city to begin again, to start from genesis. But starting over is easier said than done. Jobs were scarce, and desperation has a way of humbling a man. I took the kind of work no one else wanted. It was not honorable, nor was it something I had ever imagined myself doing. But I was desperate.

I became a gravedigger.

In the beginning, it was difficult seeing the dead, smelling the rot of flesh, cleaning the graves, and handling what remained of people who had once laughed, loved, and breathed as I did. With time, however, I became accustomed to it. My main duties were digging graves and preparing corpses for reduction once enough time had passed. When the year was up, families would come to the cemetery and wait while we opened the casket to determine whether the remains were ready.

If they were not, we would tell them, “It is not ready. We will have to wait another year.” It became routine. The dead stopped frightening me. Then my coworkers introduced me to something else.

Bad influences have a way of making evil seem ordinary. They stole jewelry from the newly buried rings, necklaces, gold teeth, anything of value that could be taken after the ceremonies had concluded and the families had gone home. At first, I wanted no part of it. Then desperation, once again, proved stronger than conscience.

I became one of them.

I thought that was the worst thing I would ever do.

I was wrong.

There was a phrase I kept hearing among the gravediggers: “Two for one.”

I never asked what it meant. I was afraid that asking would make me look ignorant, and perhaps some part of me already knew I did not want the answer. If only I had asked.

It happened one afternoon while we were preparing a grave for a scheduled reduction. The family had come to the cemetery and waited nearby while we examined the casket. We opened it and found that the corpse was ready.

But there was something else inside.

Another body.

I remember staring at it, unable to understand what I was seeing. I looked at my coworker, and he looked back at me. Neither of us said a word. He closed the casket, turned to the family, and calmly told them, “It is not ready. We will have to wait another year.”

They thanked us and left.

We waited until the end of the day. When the cemetery was empty, we returned, removed the second body, and put it through the reduction process.

That was when my coworker explained what “two for one” meant.

It did not happen often. Most graves held what they were supposed to hold. Most caskets contained a single person, buried by a family who believed they were laying their loved one to rest. But sometimes very rarely there was another body. A second body that did not belong there.

Delinquents had discovered that a cemetery could be the perfect place to hide an atrocity. Somewhere no one would think to look, where another body could remain buried among the dead until time erased whatever evidence remained.

And when we found one, we became part of the process.

I asked my coworker the only question that seemed to matter: “Why don't we go to the police?”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he told me that someone had already tried. Someone had gone to the police and told them everything, but somehow the blame for the murder had fallen upon him. He was accused of being involved and was never able to prove otherwise. That was when I understood what we had become.

Not murderers. Not killers.

Accessories.

Every time we discovered one of those bodies, we were destroying evidence evidence of a crime that might otherwise have been solved, evidence that could have put a murderer behind bars.

And we destroyed it.

Not every grave. Not every casket. Only sometimes.

But once is enough to change a man's life.

For thirty years, I have carried this burden. Thirty years of knowing that beneath the earth, among the dead, there were secrets that were never meant to be found. Thirty years of watching families mourn while knowing there were things they would never be told. Thirty years of helping monsters bury their sins.

And there were too many of us.

Far too many.

Now I am sixty years old.

And I have finally decided that the dead deserve to speak.

"Do not go gentle into that good night.

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light".

Before you dive in, do yourself a favor. If you ever find yourself wandering the streets of New York, and someone whispers about a restaurant named ████████, just walk away. Wait a minute. The name was censored automatically. It's not letting me write the name. Hell.

 

Trust me, I’ve already tried to write that name out, three times now, but it keeps getting censored. I’m going to tell you everything I remember. Promise me this though. If you ever piece together the name of that restaurant, don’t go looking for it. Seriously.

 

It all started on a Sunday night. I remember the air, cold enough to sting your cheeks, but I didn’t want to go home, and neither did Ahana. We drifted through streets we barely recognized, half-lost, half-killing-time, hoping the city would give us something. Anything, worth remembering. And that’s when we saw it. I’d swear it hadn’t been there before. Heavy black door, fat gold handle, yellow glow from inside. Through the glass I saw tables jammed with people. A new restaurant? Or had it just slipped past us all this time?

 

I nudged Ahana, “Let’s check it out.” She kind of shrugged, didn’t really care, but followed any way.

 

We walked in, right into this odd hush. Maybe twenty people, maybe more. Hard to tell, because they all acted the same. Bored, fidgety and annoyed. All the plates, perfectly clean and unused. Nobody had food. Nobody even had water. The only thing moving in there were the phones. Lit-up faces, scrolling, waiting. No menus, just the flicker of annoyance growing across the room. The waiters and staff all stood together with a warm smile.

 

Five minutes went by. A big guy at a table near us stood up, shoved his chair back so hard I thought it would break.

 

“This is ridiculous,” he growled, then left in a huff. Then a couple more, annoyed, shuffled after him. But for every person who left, two more slipped in, almost excited. Weird, right? It's like the room was breathing, letting people out, sucking more in.

 

People started getting louder, complaining and shouting at the staff for service. The low buzz turned hostile.

 

Finally, the chef walked out from the kitchen and stood before us. I mean, he towered over everyone. A big guy with a huge white hat. He looked calm, almost like he was enjoying all the fuss. Right away, someone barked out, “What’s going on here?”

 

“We’ve been waiting twenty minutes!” someone else yelled.

 

“You haven’t even taken our orders!”

 

He just smiled, hands folded, silent for a beat. Then he said, smooth as anything: “We don’t serve until the restaurant is full.”

 

People snapped. Threats, laughter, confusion. Everyone just shouting over each other, trying to get noticed. He let them rant for a second, then raised his hands. “Calm down,” he said, but nobody did.

 

And then he dropped it. “I haven’t told you the best part.” His eyes glinted, that smile never going away. “If you eat here. After you waited, with the restaurant full. You get free food here, for the rest of your life.”

 

The room went still. Someone let out a short, ugly laugh. “You’re joking, right?”

 

“Completely serious.”

 

That was all it took. Suddenly, everyone wanted in. Out came the phones again, calling friends, sending frantic texts, yelling for family to join. The crowd swelled. Chairs filled up, people sitting wherever they could, shoulder-to-shoulder. The whole thing felt feverish. Like a contest nobody wanted to lose.

 

The chef took another long look, smiled wider. “Good,” he said, clapping his hands. “Now we’ll begin.” People actually cheered. The tension broke, just a little. But then he raised a finger, and the room snapped back to waiting.

 

“One last thing.” His voice carried across the clamor. “Anyone who leaves. Well, don’t worry. I will still serve you.”

 

Nervous laughter bounced off the walls, but the mood soured fast. A few muttered about leaving. One man stood. “I’m not waiting around for this nonsense.” He walked out. Others followed, but most stayed, glued to their seats by hope, or maybe just stubbornness.

 

The chef watched them go with a look I didn’t like. Like he already knew what they'd choose. He stepped into the kitchen and the staff who were standing together followed him inside in a single line. A heavy silence filled in.

 

A few seconds ticked by. Then servers pushed out platters, one after another. The smell was phenomenal. People started grabbing plates before the servers even finished handing them out. For the first time, the energy shifted. Hungry, eager, but nervous, too. Everyone was stealing glances at everyone else, trying to read the room.

 

I hadn’t gotten my food yet when this old woman appeared at my elbow. Crumpled dress, shaking hands, voice barely there. “Excuse me. Is it true the food is free?”

 

I nodded. “That’s what they say.”

 

She looked desperate, hungry. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Would you mind if I took your seat?” Her voice cracked, not begging, just hope barely holding itself together.

 

I looked at Ahana. She didn’t even notice, still glued to her phone and then back at the old woman. I stood up, let her sit, and she slid in like she’d been waiting her whole life.

 

“Thank you,” she whispered, more to herself than to me.

 

I walked out. Found a hot-dog cart outside because, honestly, after that circus, normal food sounded good. I got a hot dog, sat across the street, and watched through the glass. The whole thing felt like some viral stunt, a pop-up restaurant playing mind games for social media. That bit with the death threat. Just marketing, right? Who really takes that stuff seriously?

 

My hot dog was nothing special, but I was starving. I watched the windows. Inside, everyone had finally started eating. But I realized something. Nobody was talking. It was just eerie silence.

 

Ten minutes, then twenty, passed. I kept looking for Ahana. Scanned the faces. Nothing. Then a sharp, twisted laugh echoed out from inside. It didn’t sound like a joke, though. It was too jagged, forced. And then another, and another. It started spreading, bubbling. Everybody in there started laughing. All at once, mouths wide, eyes fixed, teeth on display.

 

If you’ve ever heard laughter that sounds like screaming, you’ll know what I mean. I felt my nerves spark like a frayed wire.

 

I walked up to the glass, pressed my face close. That’s where I saw it. All these people, standing, necks twisted toward me. Their mouths shouldn’t have been able to stretch that wide, not without tearing. White teeth, red-stained lips, blood dripping down chins. Their grins slashed across their faces, overexposed, monstrous. One by one, they closed in on the glass, pressing up, eyes locked on me. I scanned the crowd again, heart thumping, “Ahana?” My voice sounded weak even to myself.

 

In the back, I caught a glimpse. Someone shielding their face, hiding, maybe Ahana, or maybe some new nightmare variation. For a second, I wondered if she’d eaten or if she was still herself. I couldn’t tell. Panic rose in my throat, sour and sharp.

 

As I backed away, something tapped the window. Gentle, then sharper.

 

I looked. The old woman was right there, her smile soft, almost sweet, completely normal. She lifted her hand, holding a plate with just a few scraps, and pointed at me, then at the food.

 

I blinked. Her lips twisted. They started to stretch. Slow at first, then way, way too wide. Her face split open into the same awful smile. Blown open, ragged, stained red.

 

Behind her, faces pressed closer, greedy mouths opening, bloodied lips twitching into permanent, grotesque grins. Twisted laughter swelled, and in the middle, I could hear Ahana's voice.

 

That’s when every survival bone in my body kicked in. I ran. I didn't care. I put as much distance between me and that restaurant as I could, zigzagging blocks, lungs burning, legs jelly.

 

I made it home somehow, slammed my door, crashed to the floor, hands shaking. I focused on anything real. My breath, the textures of the rug, heart pounding like a drum.

 

When I could move again, I realized I was still clutching the hot-dog wrapper. Blood speckled the paper. My thumbprints. Fresh, red. I raised my hand to my lips; it came away sticky.

 

A shudder. I tried to recall. When did that happen? Then it hit me. The guy selling hot dogs. White chef’s coat. Tall hat. Calm, steady eyes. Just for a split second, I hadn't recognized him.

 

I stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the harsh light. My reflection looked like me. Blank, pale, but me.

 

I forced a smile.

 

And my mouth began to open.

 

And kept opening.

Hello. I suppose I should introduce myself first.

I was born in a small town in Utah, and I have lived there for 27 years. I currently run a corn farm, and I am also an amateur photographer.

Normally, I would have spent this summer vacationing in Florida with some fine cocktails, but this summer was little different. I was invited by my cousin, who works as a fisherman in South Korea. His name is Cal. He is a relative on my mother's side, and he moved to Korea when he was about six years old.

We were close until then, and even after he immigrated, he would occasionally send me letters saying that he was doing well. At first, he wrote that he had trouble getting close to people, and that even when he got close to them, it didn't really feel like he had become close to them. As time went on, though, he seemed to be adjusting well to life in Korea.

The neighborhood where he lives is a small harbor village in a city in southeastern South Korea. The city center is filled with tall buildings and department stores, but he lives in a complicated yet friendly neighborhood where small houses stand tightly against one another, forming narrow alleys. If you make your way through those maze-like streets, you eventually reach a small harbor. Various kinds of boats are docked there, and sometimes you can see old men in straw hats fishing.

The neighborhood looks different when viewed from the harbor. The houses packed tightly along the sloping hills, like the roots of a mountain, look almost like castles from another world during the day. At night, they look like high-rise buildings built up in gentle layers.

I've gone on long enough about the setting. Let's get back to the point.

Cal's house is halfway up the hill, and from his windows, you can see the harbor and the horizon. Once, I asked him why he had chosen this house. He told me that he was worried someone might steal his boat, so he chose a place where he could see the harbor. I still don't know whether he was joking or serious.

Anyway, the sea isn't the only thing you can see from Cal's house.

Between the narrow gaps of the houses directly across from his house, there is a gray concrete structure.

At first, I didn't think much of it. But as I spent the summer with him and explored every corner of the neighborhood, I realized that the only thing I knew about the structure was that it was a gray rectangular block.

More importantly, there was absolutely no way to approach it.

I could see its surfaces and corners through the narrow gaps between the alleys, but there was nowhere I could actually stand in front of its walls.

About a week after I arrived in Korea, I was having coffee with him—ha ha, we aren't Mormons—and I asked him about the strange box.

He said he didn't know anything about it either. He did, however, think that it might have been a structure built during the Korean War.

And one more thing.

He said that the building couldn't be seen from the sea.

From that day on, whenever Cal went out for his early-morning fishing trips, I started taking photographs of the structure as it appeared through the gaps between the houses.

Eventually, I found a house that seemed to be located closest to the walls of the structure.

It was some kind of small neighborhood general store. The owner appeared to run the store on the first floor and live on the second.

That day, I went back to the store with my cousin and asked him to ask the owner if he knew anything about the structure.

According to Cal—or Min-su, which is his Korean name—the owner of the store, an old man named Kim, said this:

"I've lived here since around the end of the Korean War. You can only see that place through the gaps between the buildings, and that's all. There ain't even a window on that side, so how would I know what's there? The folks around here don't really know what it is either. Some say those damn Japanese built it as a hangar, but I wouldn't know."

That was all.

During the rest of my stay, I found out that I couldn't even squeeze my body or arm through the gaps between the buildings, and that I couldn't find the stupid box on Google Maps either.

The arrangement of the buildings was subtly different from what it looked like from the ground, so on Google Maps, the houses on opposite sides of the structure appeared to be connected to each other.

Damn it.

Ah, I'm doing fine now.

I'm spending a peaceful harvest season here in Utah, driving my combine harvester.

I thought about calling Cal, but for some reason, I felt like he wouldn't answer, so I didn't.

One day, I realized that the structure had disappeared from the photographs I had developed of the Korean scenery.

Since then, I sometimes see the structure through the morning fog and the cornfields.

There are no buildings blocking my way anymore, but I still find myself turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction.

Everything has a reason.

[CW: Self-harm]

When I was young I always wanted to make my father proud. I'd do this either by helping him out with working on model car kits with him or trying to do well in the sports I played in, mainly little league baseball.

But no matter how hard I tried I could never get him to acknowledge me. It didn't matter how many games I won or how many times I helped him build one of his cars. It was never enough.

I knew that my father wasn't good person, the way he'd snap on my mom if she ever cooked dinner wrong or God forbid she ever went somewhere without him knowing where she was going. There were a lot of nights where I could hear her crying in another room. But even knowing that, I would still move heaven and hell for him to have seen me.

I remember it was a Thursday morning, my mom had let me skip school that day so I watched cartoons all day with my little sister. My mom was in the kitchen making lunch for us, I always knew when my father was coming home because he had this obnoxiously loud truck but he loved the damn thing.

When he came in I could feel the tension in the air, he looked at me, he didn't say anything at first but I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was planning something. After a couple seconds he broke the silence he just said.

"Get up, Boy. Get to packing and meet me outside"

With that he walked out. I knew what that meant that meant.

Hunting week

I did what he told me to do. But as I was walking out of my room and to the front door, I could hear my mom outside talking to my father. The door muffled most of what they were talking about but what I remember her saying was something like

"Please Frank, he's still young give him time"

My father just ignored her. But before she could continue to plead I walked outside with my bag hanging off my shoulder. I looked at my mom and gave her a smile, trying to reassure her that I'd be ok.

But the look she gave me, It still haunts me to this day. It was almost like she just wanted to scream and lash out at the world. I had never seen my mom like that before but before I could fully process anything I heard my father's voice

"C'mon boy. We're burning daylight"

I just nodded and I got in the truck. When we started driving off I could see my mom through the rearview mirror, she was holding her face in her hands I can only guess that she was crying. After that I felt uneasy the whole ride. It felt like a had a massive knot in my stomach, but I kept telling myself that it was nothing that I was just being a little girl.

Once we got to our hunting spot I noticed a familiar car, That's when I saw my dad's little brother get out. I was so excited to see Uncle John, I rarely got to see him due to him living pretty far from us. Him and my dad also weren't very close to each other either. But I didn't car, I got out of my dad's truck so fast and runs up to my Uncle and gave him a big hug.

My Uncle laughed and said

"Woah, Hey there kiddo. You've gotten tall"

Which I guess I had, I think the last time he had seen me was two Christmas's ago. But before I could say anything back. My father slammed the door to his truck causing me to flinch.

My father walked up to my Uncle and told him

"Don't try making my boy soft like you"

My Uncle just looked at him with mild annoyance. To try and break the tension I looked at my father and asked him

"So what are we hunting?"

My Father looked at me and just gestured for me to follow him as he walked off, so I did as he told me to.

After what felt like hours of walking my father finally stopped. It wasn't our normal hunting spot, I knew that for sure the area felt odd. Not in a bad way but like we weren't meant to be there. I think my father could tell I was uneasy so he just told me

"Calm down. I was around your age when my father first brought me here, It's safe"

I believed him, I didn't have a reason not to. That's when he gave me his rifle. And I'll admit it I never liked hunting. The ideal of killing something for sport always bothered me, but I knew my father wouldn't care so I just put up with it.

I asked my father what I was looking for exactly. All he told me was

"You'll know when you see it"

I just nodded and waited. And waited. But eventually that's when I saw it. Till this day I still don't know what it was. The animal was deer like in appearance, but it's antlers were larger than any deers I had seen before. And it's fur it was perfectly white and looked like silk. I was in awe and I could feel my grip loosing on the rifle. I could hear my father whispering

"Take the shot, boy"

But I couldn't. Or just didn't want to. But before I could act, he snatched the rifle from my hands and I just heard the loud

BANG

The smell of gun powder burnt my nostrils. I don't know what was worse the ringing in my ears or the guttural cry that the poor animal made before it died. Before I could even gather my thoughts I felt my arm being pulled with my father saying

"Come on! Hurry up!!"

He dragged me towards the corpse of the dead animal. When I looked down at it I saw this thick black tar leaking from where it was shot. My mind was racing with so many thoughts. I looked at my father just to try and gain some clarity.

He looked at me and said

"This is how you become a man. Just like I did and your grandpa did. Or you can stay soft like your Uncle"

That's when he kneeled down and scooped up whatever that black tar was and started to drink it. I felt sick to my stomach from seeing it. But I knew that if I did this that he might finally be proud of me. So I pushed all my nerves down, cupped my hands scooped up the tar and drank it. I can still remember how it tasted like black liquorice, I had to fight to hold it down.

When I looked at my father. For the first time In my life I saw him smiling at me. It was a genuine smile. As much as I hate I vividly remember what he said to me.

"That's my boy. Let's head back"

I felt so incredibly proud at that moment. I felt like I was on top of the world and nothing could knock me down. It was nighttime once we got back to the campsite, Thankfully Uncle John had set up the tents because I was dead tired.

When Uncle John saw us he had asked

"So how'd it go?"

My father looked at him and replied

"My boy is a man now"

My Uncle looked at me, But it wasn't a look of pride but a look of concern. But I was to tired to question why. I just went into my tent and layed down. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn't sleep. Everytime I closed my eyes I kept seeing the animal that we killed. I kept tossing and turning but at some point I ended up falling asleep.

When I woke up my head felt like a bowling ball and felt like it was full of fuzz. But I smelled bacon being cooked so I forced myself out of my tent and walked over to the cook site.

Uncle John was sitting there cooking, He looked back at me and smiled

"Guess you smelled the bacon"

I just quietly chuckled and nodded I sat across from him and watched the fire crackle. My Uncle knew something something was wrong with me

"Are you ok? You look like you're going to throw up"

He was right of course, I did feel awful. But just nodded. Felt like a Herculean task to do that though. I heard my father's tent unzip and by God. He looked worse than I felt, His eyes were sunken in he had these black veins popping out of his hands and neck. My Uncle let out in audible gasp and said

"Holy shit! What's wrong with you!"

My father snapped back by saying

"It's nothing, Mind your damn business"

I was also pretty unnerved by what he looked like too, but I had just gotten him to be proud of me. So I just kept quiet. I think my Uncle wanted to leave after that but he didn't want to leave me behind and he knew my father wouldn't let me leave with him. So he also just stuck it out.

After we ate breakfast, me and my father went hunting for a bit it was pretty average this time. But I still couldn't bring myself to shoot anything so I just missed all my shots. I was surprised that my father didn't scold me about it. Maybe he didn't realize or care. Just like last time we returned to the campsite at nighttime, Uncle John was already asleep when we got there so I just went into my tent and went to sleep.

At some point through the night I heard something, it sounded exactly like the cry of the animal. I had to see if I was right so I unzipped my tent and walked out. But what I saw was something far worse.

It was my father, standing by his tent. It was to dark to fully see him, It was like the night was escaping from him, I walked a bit closer to try and see him, as I approached him I broke a stick under my foot making him aware of me. He turnt his head back to look at me. And I swear his eyes were completely gone, replaced by two large black holes with small white specks.

He said to me in this gruff voice

"It's almost time"

I was terrified, I must have been shaking like a twig in a tornado. What ever that was It was NOT my father. Rather on instinct or panic, I ran back into my tent and zipped it up

As I tried to gather my thoughts my arm started to itch like hell the more I scratched it the itchier it got. When I looked at my arm I was scared. I saw the same black vein that my father had. It was only about three inches but I knew this wasn't right.

Something in my brain had just flipped. It felt like something else had taken over and I was just a passenger. I started bitting into my arm, all I could taste was iron and the black licorice.

Eventually I managed to get it out, when I spat it out I could see the black tar mixed in with my blood. It wiggled around like a worm looking for dirt. At some point my adrenaline must have worn off because I blacked out afterwards.

It was morning when I woke up, I looked at my arm to make sure it wasn't a dream. When I saw the chunk of flesh messing from my arm I knew it was real. My adrenaline kicked in again, I quickly left my tent and ran to my Uncle's I kicked and screamed trying to get his attention

"UNCLE JOHN WAKE UP, WAKE UP!!!"

I had never yelled so loud in my life, but I knew it worked because I could hear him rustling around. When he unzipped his tent he looked at me and asked

"What's wrong?!- OH MY GOD! Your arm!!"

I didn't care about my arm at the time, I just wanted him to take me home so I told him

"Something's wrong with dad!! He's not right!"

He was obviously shook, I can't blame him. But to try and calm me down he grabbed my shoulder and told me

"Hey it's ok, I'll go talk to him."

I tried to stop him from going to my father's tent, but it fell on deaf ears. My Uncle stopped infront of my father's tent and just told him

"Frank, Pete is pretty scared and he hurt his arm really bad. I think it's time we wrap up here and you take him to see a doctor"

My father didn't reply. I vividly remember something in my stomach tightening, like a warning that something bad was about to happen.

Before I could tell my Uncle, my father bursted out of his tent and tackles him to the ground. And I swear whatever he had become it will ALWAYS be seared into my memory. The way his hair was matted into his skin or how gray his skin had turnt with it looking like it was one false move from falling off and revealing a monster underneath. He had these bones sticking out from his rotting muscles.

The only reason I was able to snap out of my paralysis is because I heard my Uncle yell

"PETER RUN!!!"

As that monster tried to attack him. It managed to get a good bite into my Uncles shoulder causing him to yell in pain.

That's when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. My father's hunting rifle. My adrenaline was on overtime by this point so I rushed towards it and grabbed it. I pointed it at my father, my hands were shaky. But I knew if I didn't this he would kill my Uncle and possibly me.

So with a deep breath and a slow exhale I steadied my hands and I took the shot. I got him right in the head.

Uncle John was able to knock my father off him and got up, he looked at me then back at my father. I think he had told me something, but I was to out of it to process anything. I just remember walking over to my father's body. And when I did, I swore I saw his eyes shift over so slightly and saw him smile at me.

The car ride back home was quite to say the least. I remember holding onto that hunting rifle the whole ride back. I'm not really sure why, maybe it was so I knew what happened was real or maybe it was some kind of comfort.

Once we got back, Uncle John told Mom that there was a freak mountain lion accident. That all three of us were attacked, but father got dragged off by it. I don't think she really believed that story. But why should she care, she was free of him now. We all were.

After a couple days, I buried the riffle in our backyard. Sort of a last good bye to him. I often wonder what that animal we killed was. I tried to look it up but nothing ever comes up.

I eventually moved on with my life. I ended going to college, that's where I met the love of my life. We eventually got married and had to beautiful boys.

Everyday I tell them that I love them and how proud of them I am. I make sure to treat my wife well. We all go on family trips together. I try to make sure that they have it easier than I did when I was young.

But no matter how hard I try to ignore it. I still hear the voice of my father every once and awhile.

​

The doctors wouldn’t let me look at my father’s corpse. Not entirely, anyway.

I stood over a bloody sheet where my father lay, in a morgue that felt more like a fridge. Cold, the smell of flesh and chemicals stewing in the air. The doctors said his face was unrecognizable. I’d imagined a blooming red flower beneath the sheet that covered his face, his white moustache painted pink, his old head finally busted open with a 12 gauge, free of its bony prison. He’d escaped himself, escaped his life. Coward.

I felt nothing then, and remembered nothing. I remember no tears, no sobs, no sorrow for the loss. I only remember the smell of human remains and rubbing alcohol. Such a clinical smell, so unnatural. That was what I thought of as I sat in front of our family lawyer as he delivered my father’s will. I say family, though really I was the only one of my family left. Just me in the world.

“He didn’t leave much to you, except this letter he entrusted to me a month ago,” The lawyer began, his bald head glinting in the harsh white light of his sterile office. “Which I will read to you now.” He unhooked a manila folder and took out my father’s final words to me.

My son. My final ray of joy.

I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I took the easy way out. I know how cheated you must feel, how unfair I have been. I won’t try to explain myself. I can only beg for your forgiveness. God knows you deserve a mountain of apologies. I can only take solace in the fact that you are your own man now. I only wish I could’ve seen you one last time. I love you.

Know that this was my decision, my choice. This had nothing to do with you. Had the news of my diagnosis not been so grim, so unbearable, I would have stayed, would have stuck it out with you to the bitter end. My good and faithful son. My sweet boy. I love you. I love you.

I felt the sting of tears bubble up from some dark corner of me. I fought it with everything I had. Jaw clenched, breath heavy as my chest heaved stones. The last time I saw him was Christmas two years ago. He had shrunk into half the man he was. Shrunk in that wheelchair, a pile of feeble bones. Shrunk away from the world. The lawyer continued.

I leave you with what little I have. All my belongings are yours, including my childhood home. I urge you to sell it and forget about it. It is a terrible home for children. But if you ever find yourself in its walls, then know this: whatever you find in that place, whatever you see, do not embrace it.  It is not me. Not me. No. Look at it. Look at it well. Sweet boy, I love you. I love you. I love you.

I curled up and began sobbing. Even in the end, his delirium corrupted his final words. That was what I thought anyway. There would be no apology for the beatings, the nights spent locked underneath the house over unwashed dishes and broken vases. I guess I was angry then. It felt like my guts were being wrenched out by terrible hands. He escaped that justice, shrunk away from it, the memory of his cruelty faded away by decades and a deteriorating mind until there would be no one to blame. The lawyer muttered he was sorry for my loss as he pushed a box of tissues across his white plastic desk. He handed me some documents, a key to a safety deposit, and the keys to his childhood home. That was the first place I went to after the wake, which happened quietly and unwitnessed.

The house itself was in a state of disrepair. It sat alone on a hill, imposing and still. It careened to the left, the foundations having been set on soft soil. The place was enclosed by a perpetual overcast, the nearby dark woods yawning with a thousand trees like silent soldiers standing watch over the place. Entering, I found only a cavernous vacancy, the floors left caked in dust, remembering a time when the living room was still furnished, the floors revealing lighter rectangles where a couch or a coffee table might’ve been. It was like walking into a great mausoleum, one where the names of the buried had been long forgotten.

That was when I saw my father in the kitchen.

He was younger. Still with hair, black and full, his face unwrinkled by a lifetime of disappointment and fear. He looked just like the pictures in our dusty photo album.

“Dad?” He was sitting in the kitchen reading a paper.

“Hey kiddo. Want some coffee?” He nodded to the stove, a pot of coffee sitting, steam lazily rising in the air. It smelled delicious. His face, it was whole. No flowering head of brainmatter and shotgun pellets, no pink moustache and dull eyes. Just him. Just dad.

I went over and took the pot, pouring myself a drink. I don’t know why –maybe it hadn’t sunken in yet, but I was calm. Easy. Like he never swallowed that barrel. It was my father. It was my father.

“You’re not my father, are you?”

“No.” He said. “A shame, what happened to your old man. To me. I’m sorry, son.” He turns the page, and I take a swig of the coffee. It is delicious. “I wish I were him. I wish I wasn’t just a sorry echo of him.”

“What are you, then?” I asked, shuffling my feet beneath the kitchen table, disturbing decades of undisturbed detritus. Without a word, the man pretending to be my father stood up, and walked to the stairs. He was taller than my father. His arms too long, his elbows not where they should have been. I followed him upstairs.

“This was –is my study. He kept a collection of records here. Did I ever tell you about that?” He said, leading me into a room stacked floor to ceiling with vinyls. He took one from the collection, one that had a wrinkled sleeve. He lumbered his way to the record player, his legs wrong, knees where the thighs were supposed to be, another joint dividing his shins. He played Al Bowley’s Heartaches.

“He and your mother loved this song.” He swayed to the music. It was a lonely dance, so I swayed along with him. He danced like my father. I closed my eyes and imagined my mother and father were there, swaying together, young and drunk, kissing as the haunting song echoed across the still mausoleum of a house.

The song ended, and as the record player hissed, I became terrifyingly aware of the gaping silence of the house. It was like standing over a great pit, one that promised a falling, falling, falling, with no bottom. Endless height, a terrifying fall into nothing. Nothing. No thing at the bottom. Not a single thing.

“You never visited us. It was me and your mother and sister for so many years. You never even came to your mother’s funeral. Why is that?”

“You know why.”

“I guess I do.”

“I hated you. I still do.”

“I’m not your father. But I am him. I know him better than he knew himself.” He began. “I know how that wheelchair chafed against his thighs, how unquiet his mind was in his last days. His thoughts kept coming back here. Coming back to you.” He rummaged through the stack of records, and pulled out Blackbird by The Beatles. “He doesn’t –didn’t resent you for staying distant. He knew he wasn't the perfect father, he understood how painful it must’ve been for you to watch him shrink in that chair, losing himself more every day. He loved you, kid.” He put the record on and I heard the strumming intro echo out into the home, “He still does.”

He twisted his long arms around me, and I sobbed into his shoulders, bony and hollow. He felt so cold. Or maybe it was me. I wrapped my arms around him, and in that moment I was holding the man who’d held my hand everyday and visited me at school on his lunch breaks. The man who’d forced me to go into trade school when I dreamed of being a lawyer. The man who came home from twelve hour shifts with a smile on his face, as he carried me on his shoulders, and later when I got into highschool, would bring me a warm cup of chocolate after his night shift. He was not my father, but he was.

We spent the day going around the house, reclaiming it from the stillness. A couch here, a nightstand there, and soon we cooked ourselves a steak. I prepared the potatoes, and he cooked the meat. Soon we were hunched over the kitchen table, dust in the air like cigarette ashes suspended in time, sipping wine and laughing until it hurt. He told me stories my father never did. Some moments, I’d think I was young again, until I saw him slice the sirloin and see his arms. Eventually it was time to go.

“Leaving again already?” He whined, both of us a little drunk. Or maybe it pretended to be drunk.

“Yep. I still have a lot on my plate to deal with.” I said, belly full and staggering to my feet, a little nauseous.

“Oh! Steady now.” He said, standing up and putting my arm on his shoulder. “Let’s get you up your feet, eh?” It walked me to the door.

“This was nice, really nice.” I stared out into the dark woods, darker now for the night and the soft pitter patter of rain against the grass.

“It was, kiddo. A real treat.” He said, holding me close. “Just don’t keep me waiting another two years.” I felt shame wash over my heart at those words, as I thought of my father, stirring in his wheelchair on another lonely christmas eve, cradling a shotgun up on the roof of his mouth, holding it like a newborn. He kissed me on the forehead as he walked me to the car. “Oh, and by the way, I know about the note he left you.”

“What?”

“The note. The will. The one that told you not to get too nice with me?” My blood ran cold then, and I wanted to vomit. “Don’t get pale now. Hey. Look at me.” I stared into his black eyes, so familiar yet so wrong. “I love you, buddy. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Just do me a favor. Remember the safety deposit key I left? Forget about it.”

“Yeah,” I said, fighting every impulse in my legs to run. “I will.”

“I love you buddy.” He said. I watched the thing shrink in the rearview, tall and lanky. His silhouette looked tall and thin, emaciated and unhuman. I cannot describe it.

Days passed in confusion and contradiction. I hated my father, hated what he did to me, to our family, yet some part of me kept looking forward to seeing that thing again, that creature that was the best part of my father, the wheat separated from the chaff. Days later, I went to see the deposit. The bright warm lights of the bank were like a thousand angry suns blinding my eyes.

I opened the little safe, one amongst hundreds. I hesitated for a moment. I loved him, my father. What would I find out by opening the safe? What was there for me? I’d be losing what little good was left of my father for what? A truth? Bitter knowledge that would send my father to the grave a second time? I’d imagined it then, a thousand nights in that warm house, that dusty crypt. We would listen to songs, talk about the world, his –my father’s life. We’d eat on that table, a father and son, and I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Wouldn't be the last man standing. But I opened it anyway.

Inside was a giant, weathered, pewter jewelry box, pockmarked with holes where jewels might have been. It had a lock at some point. Opening it, I found a stack of photographs. At the top of the pile was a picture of my father as a young man, standing for a portrait with his family in front of the old house. His father had too many teeth, too many elbows, too long arms. In the next picture, I see his father as a young man, standing for a family portrait. His father, my great grandfather, had an arching slouch, a grin all too wide, and eyes as white as cigarette ashes, their gaze piercing through time and space. I kept going through the photographs, each one showing a young boy, a family, and a father that was not a father. It kept going until the photos became black and white, and soon I was looking through rolled up oil paintings, always finding a reincarnation of that thing. Too many eyes, too much hair, too tall, too short, and sometimes too human.

Amongst those pictures, at the very bottom of the safe, was a piece of tattered paper. On it was a drawing in crayon, made by a kid. It was ugly, and it was of a superhero, with the big words MY DAD written large in red. It was my drawing. He had kept it tucked away in a safe for god knows how long. I got on my knees and cried over marble floors, feeling boiling hatred for my father, but most of all for me. I still loved him.

I wish I could tell you I burned everything else and followed my father’s advice. Leave the home behind. Sell it and forget about it. But then that night I came home to a dark house. As I ate, the clatter of silverware against porcelain echoed through empty bedrooms and dusty picture frames of people that were no longer there. It drove me insane. Still does, even now. The loneliness. The darkness. The empty rooms I’ve never known what to do with. The cold bed, the dirty dishes where once I’d find my mother cleaning, the spare bedroom that my sister would’ve called dibs on. I kept wondering to myself what they’d say if they saw my home. Would they have laughed? Cried? Yelled at me for leaving?

Eventually, I came back.

But what answered the door was not my father. It was me. Or rather, something that looked like me.

“Come in.” It told me. “I cooked up some instant ramen. Our favorite.”

“What the hell?”

“What? Were you expecting your old man?” It asked, standing by the doorway. “Just come inside.”

And I did. The place was exactly how we left it. Chairs and tables and all. We sat in the kitchen, the only spot in the house with a working lightbulb, and ate in silence, slurping down the salty broth like it was air.

“It hurt, you know?” It said, playing with the noodles on its fork. “He –I was conscious for a good minute after the blast.”

I said nothing. I could only hear the clatter of fork against bowl echo through empty rooms.

“Why’d you never visit him? Too angry?” It ate the ramen, slurping it relentlessly, its chewing echoing through the house.

“He’d leave me and my sister in the cellar, you know?” I couldn’t bear to eat,  stirring the noodles around and around as dust settled in the broth.

“Over broken vases and unwashed dishes. I know.”

“Beat mom and smelled–”

“Like whiskey. Hell, I remembered beating your ass until you passed out when I found you sipping on it.” At that moment, I heard a thousand footsteps rush frantically around the house, rushing, crawling, until hundreds of dark faces hid just beyond the light of the kitchen, watching with unblinking eyes, their whites shining from the darkness like pearls at the bottom of the abyss. I saw them, faces stacked on top of faces, with wide, frantic eyes.

“So you understand? I had to leave.”

“Leave your sister behind too? Your mother? Do you even think of them? Hell, do you even know how they died?”

I could say nothing. It was true. The moment I had gotten myself an apprenticeship, I left. Got away. Never even bothered showing up for mom’s funeral. Nor my sister’s.

I got up and before I could do anything, I heard footsteps rush out from the darkness. Cold hands held me in place, as I felt calloused fingers dig their way into my skin, each finger producing a sickly pop as skin gave way to blood.

“You ran away thinking you could get away. But we’re the same thing. We’re echoes of our fathers. You’re as much your father as I am you.” He said as he got up from the table, making his way towards me.

“Fuck you!” I gasped through the pain.

“Face it. You are your father.”

The fingers began digging further down into me. I felt their fingertips reach my bones. I could only scream and struggle as a hundred hands held me still, pulling me into the darkness.

Just then, something dropped from my pockets. The drawing.

The thing picks it up and opens it, staring into it for a long time. “Oh.” It said, “I forgot.” He took the drawing and held it close to his heart. “I love you kid. That part was true.”

 And then, in a blink of an eye, the house was still again, the hundreds of faceless things scurrying back down into the walls and into the ground. All that was left was the echoing of my breath as the home became a mausoleum once more.

I’m not really sure where to start with this because even writing it down makes me feel like I’m being paranoid. I’ve lived in the same flat for almost three years and I’ve never had any problems before. It’s not a particularly nice place, but it’s quiet and I’ve always felt safe there. I live alone, although my sister stays over occasionally.
About two weeks ago, I started noticing little things being out of place.
Nothing dramatic. That’s why I didn’t think anything of it at first. The first thing was a kitchen cupboard. I always keep my mugs in the cupboard above the kettle, and one morning I noticed one of them was sitting on the draining board. I assumed I’d made tea before bed and forgotten about it.
A few days later, I noticed my bathroom door was open when I woke up. I normally sleep with it closed because the light from the hallway comes through the gap underneath and annoys me. Again, I didn’t think much of it. I figured I’d forgotten to close it.
Then my bedroom window was open one morning.
That one bothered me slightly because it had been raining overnight. The windowsill was wet and there were a few drops of water on the floor underneath it. I was annoyed with myself because I thought I’d left it open before going to bed.
I started paying more attention after that.
Nothing else happened for several days, so I stopped worrying about it. Then last Thursday I came home from work and noticed that one of my dining chairs was pulled away from the table.
I live alone.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but I remember putting the chair underneath the table before I left because I’d been cleaning that morning. I actually stood there for a while trying to remember if I’d done something else before leaving.
I even checked my phone to see if I’d spoken to anyone about coming over.
Nobody had.
I eventually shrugged it off because, realistically, there were about a thousand explanations for a chair being slightly out of place.
That night I went to bed around midnight.
I woke up at about 3:40am because I heard something in the kitchen.
It sounded like a cupboard closing.
I lay there for a few seconds listening. I didn’t hear anything else, so I assumed it was the building settling or something falling over.
Then I heard the sound of a drawer opening.
That woke me up properly.
I grabbed my phone and turned the screen on. I remember thinking about calling the police, but I felt stupid because I had no actual reason to think someone was inside. There was no banging, no shouting, nothing being smashed.
I got out of bed and slowly walked towards my bedroom door.
As I reached for the handle, I heard the kitchen tap turn on.
I froze.
There was definitely someone in my flat.
I didn’t know what to do. My first thought was that I’d somehow left the front door unlocked and someone had come in, which made absolutely no sense because I always lock it.
I called my sister instead of the police because I was panicking and didn’t really know what else to do.
While I was waiting for her to answer, everything went silent.
The tap stopped.
The drawers stopped.
Nothing.
I opened my bedroom door and looked into the hallway.
Nobody was there.
I checked the kitchen and the entire flat. There was nobody inside. The front door was locked from the inside and all the windows were closed.
I was shaking by this point.
My sister came over and spent about half an hour checking everything with me. We couldn’t find anything. She told me I was probably half asleep and that noises travel strangely through the building.
I wanted to believe her.
The next morning, I found a wet glass sitting on the kitchen counter.
I hadn’t put it there.
I asked my sister if she’d used it and she said no.
That’s when I finally started getting genuinely uncomfortable.
I bought a cheap camera the following day and put it in the living room facing the hallway. I didn’t tell anyone about it because I didn’t want people telling me I was being paranoid.
For the next three nights, nothing happened.
On the fourth night, I woke up at 3:41am.
I don’t know why.
I reached for my phone and noticed I had a notification from the camera app.
Motion detected.
I opened it expecting to see myself walking around.
Instead, the camera showed my living room.
The timestamp said 3:38am.
There was nobody visible.
I watched the clip again.
Nothing.
I thought maybe the camera had detected a shadow or something outside the window, so I went back to sleep.
The next morning I checked the recording properly.
There was something strange about it.
At 3:38am, the camera detected movement.
The image didn’t show anyone walking into the room.
It showed the hallway light turning on.
Then, about ten seconds later, it turned off.
That was it.
I checked the rest of the recording and noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
At 3:41am, just before the recording ended, the camera moved slightly.
Not much.
It looked like someone had touched it.
I stared at that clip for ages.
Then I noticed something behind the camera.
A tiny gap in the wall.
I’d never seen it before.
I moved the camera and looked closer.
There was a loose panel behind the skirting board.
I honestly thought it was some kind of maintenance access until I pulled it slightly and realised there was a dark space behind it.
I didn’t open it any further.
I called my landlord.
He came over later that afternoon and looked at it.
He seemed surprised.
He said there shouldn’t be any access there.
That was the first time I really started feeling sick.
He removed the panel completely.
Behind it was a narrow space between the walls.
It wasn’t big enough for a normal room, but it was big enough for someone to crawl through.
And there was something inside.
A blanket.
A bottle of water.
Two empty food wrappers.
And a phone charger.
My landlord immediately called the police.
I don’t know how long someone had been using that space.
The police searched the flat and the adjoining areas but couldn’t find anyone.
They also told me something that made everything worse.
The space behind the wall connected to an old service passage that ran underneath part of the building.
Apparently it had been sealed off years ago.
Except it obviously wasn’t sealed anymore.
They couldn’t tell me how long it had been open.
I’ve moved out now.
I haven’t stayed there since they found the space.
My sister keeps telling me that at least we found out what was happening and that I’m safe now.
I’m trying to believe her.
But there’s one thing I can’t explain.
The police gave me the phone they found behind the wall because there was nothing they could do with it unless someone claimed it.
It had no SIM card.
No passcode.
But there was one video saved on it.
I shouldn’t have watched it.
I know that.
But I did.
It was recorded from inside my flat.
The video showed my bedroom door from the hallway.
It was taken at 3:41am.
The date was three months before I ever noticed anything missing.
In the video, I’m asleep in my bed.
And someone is standing outside my bedroom door watching me.
I couldn’t see their face.
They were just standing there.
Completely still.
I watched it three times because I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.
Then I noticed something in the corner of the screen.
The person wasn’t standing in the hallway.
They were standing INSIDE MY FLAT.
The camera was positioned behind them.
Which means whoever recorded the video wasn’t the person standing outside my bedroom.
There were two people.
I haven’t told the police about that part yet.
I’m not even sure why.
Maybe because I don’t want them to tell me there are two explanations for everything and make me feel stupid again.
Or maybe because I keep thinking about something my sister said when I showed her the video.
She asked me why the person in the hallway looked familiar.
I laughed and told her they couldn’t possibly be someone we knew.
Then she pointed at the screen.
She said, “That’s you.”
I haven’t slept properly since.
Because I don’t know who the person in that video was.
But I know one thing.
I wasn’t awake that night.
And I was definitely alone when I went to bed.

I first met my guardian angel when I was ten years old. 

Like any other day, I woke up at seven a.m. sharp and bolted out of the house soon after; I never spent much time there, not when it was an empty shell. My mother worked two jobs to keep us clothed and housed, leaving our home devoid of much warmth. That morning, I threw on my ripped backpack and cut through yards, jaywalking across streets, all in the hope of getting to school so I could grab a hot breakfast. 

I remember clutching my belly. My stomach growled, a gnawing pain twisting through me from not eating dinner the night before. It was so distracting that when I crossed the street, I didn’t look both ways like the idiot kid I was. I never saw the bus coming.  

When you die, there isn’t much pain, just an ethereal numbness that spreads from head to toe, and a peaceful acceptance that your soul is becoming one with something greater. Regret did not exist on this plane, nor did the guilt of leaving my loving mother behind. I accepted that I was dying. 

Of course, this lasted only a moment before the bright light overcame my vision.   

The smell of olive oil and wine hit me first, scents I didn’t recognize at the time but now are as comforting as the scent of my mother’s perfume. Along with the smell was the softest touch against my arm, one that sent goosebumps up my skin and shivers down my spine. For a moment, I had touched heaven. 

Then a snap–the exact sound I always hear when Peter snatches me back from death–brought me back to Earth. Screams followed the snap. Some of them were my own, some from the kids at the bus stop who had just watched me die. I ended up in the hospital for a month, with two broken legs that still give me twinges of pain when it rains. 

But even so, I still remember waking up from death with a gasp, lying on the hard asphalt and swearing I saw a glimpse of a man bathed in golden light, radiating the warmth and love I had always dreamed of receiving. 

That was the first time I met him. 

When I was sixteen, I was a rebel. I would take any stupid bet my friends made for some quick cash. The stupidest thing I ever tried to do was to backflip off a Wendy’s roof for free burgers for a month; not my proudest moment, but I was a hungry teenager and there wasn’t much food at home.

I recall the peace of jumping off–the wind tousling my hair, and the weightlessness as I flew. That calmness lasted only a moment before the excruciating pain of my neck snapping replaced it. In less than a second, I was once again dead. I felt the same floating sensation I had when I was ten, along with the acceptance of death, until the scent of expensive wine flooded my nose.

My guardian angel had arrived to save me once more, and this time, I caught sight of him in all his divine glory. His form was beyond my human vocabulary; he was stunning in the same way as the sun setting over an ocean horizon, all colorful, bright, and never-ending. The sort of beauty that hurt if you stared too long. For as long as I live, I will never forget the warmth of divinity welcoming my soul back to the mortal realm, nor will I forget the sight of my guardian angel holding me in his arms.  

After that, I could always see my guardian angel. 

With my guardian now a constant presence in my life, I named him Peter. Maybe it’s a little stupid, but we were at a Wendy’s and he had saved my life yet again. Peter Pan and Wendy seemed like a great duo. I thought he deserved a name. I still do. 

When I was nineteen, I joined the military, and Peter and I became closer. Cops had pulled me over for drinking and driving with my buddies on the back roads. Between my mother’s tears and my guilt at upsetting her, the whole mess scared me straight. Not long after, I enlisted for five years in the United States Navy. It was easily the best and worst decision of my entire life.

During my time in the service, there wasn’t a day Peter wasn’t trying to save my life. The military deployed me twice during that time, for over two years altogether. As lucky as I was, the Navy trained me as a power plant technician, and I spent more time repairing machinery near danger than I ever expected. I saw more combat zones than I should have, including stray bullets grazing our vehicles and bombs dropped within miles of where I was working. Nightmares plagued me until I confessed them to Peter.

Throughout it all, I had Peter. Peter has never spoken, but he never had to; I didn’t need words to understand him. After all, actions speak louder than words. My guardian would comfort me with dream-filled sleep, thoughts of heaven and what awaited me after this mortal plane. He’d listen to me rant for hours on end, all with a peaceful smile on his face and eyes crinkled with love and adoration. He’d nod, laugh, and weep with me; the perfect companion for someone who needed a shoulder to cry on.

I like to think he enjoyed my company back then as much as I enjoyed his. From what I gathered from all my years of research and endlessly questioning Peter, (who could only nod and gesture) humans seeing, let alone communicating with their guardian angels, is unheard of. I guess I got lucky, especially because when I asked Peter if heaven allowed such a thing, he didn’t seem too keen on admitting that it didn’t.

His rebellion brought a smile to my face. Whether I realized it or not, the two of us were troublemakers from the get-go. In the end, it makes sense that I found myself falling in love with him.  

I confessed one night under the stars, with the warmth of Peter against my side and his wing folded behind my back. Even now, I still revel in the shock and hope I saw in his gaze in that moment and in the way he accepted my love.

After I confessed, my life turned around. I assume Peter pulled some strings for me because after two miserable deployments I was granted an early honorable discharge.

Soon after my release, I secured a job working for the government, which offered a decent retirement plan. I even had enough money to support my mother, who eventually became comfortable herself after some mystery person set her up on a blind date. The date turned into her marriage to a loving husband who worked as a professor of religion at the local university. I have more than a few sneaking suspicions that Peter had something to do with that. 

He helped me find my wife. A translucent golden feather of his, floating on the wind, led me to my Jeanie, a stunning Greek woman with a heart as pure as Peter’s soul. She was a pediatric nurse, an incredible cook, and more loving than any human should have the right to be. I fell hard and fast, and we were married within a year. 

Peter was more than smug when she revealed she was a Catholic. Although I had never been much of a church-goer, I didn’t mind going for her. And I certainly wasn’t opposed after I saw the way Peter would look at me when I did go; I think he gets some kind of sick pleasure out of seeing me on my knees in church every week. 

After this, I became a devout Catholic, though I never felt the love for God that I did for Peter. I attended Mass every week, though it was more to spend time with Peter than with Christ, and my wife fell more in love with me as I became more spiritual. Of course, poor Jeanie, I don’t think I could ever love her as much as I love him.  

I even named my firstborn son after Peter, who glowed so brightly in the delivery room when he realized what we had named the baby that it broke all the lightbulbs in the delivery ward. In time, Jeanie and I had a second child, a daughter, and we’ve raised our happy family for over a decade, watching our children grow into fine, respectable teenagers.

Of course, heaven on Earth can’t last forever. 

Everything started going downhill one morning at church, when I directed my prayers to Peter instead of God. It had been a long time coming; honestly, I don’t know why it took me so long to thank Peter for saving my life and giving it meaning.   

After all, what had God done for me? It was Peter who saved me, not him. And with the way Peter had glowed, his wings spreading wide as he soaked up my worship, how could I say no? 

Soon I was praying to Peter at every Mass, and weekly Mass became daily. Worship became an obsession. I prayed only to Peter, thanking him for every good in my life. At first, I knew he liked it. He glowed so lovely when I worshiped him as if he were God.

Several months into my worship, I was kneeling beside my bed reciting prayers to Peter when a shaky hand touched my shoulder. He tried to stop me, begging me with those speechless chirps and pleading eyes, but all it did was infuriate me. I blamed God. I knew someone had spoken to Peter, that God had sent down another angel to tell Peter that he was not deserving of my love. All his pleas did was make me pray harder, clutching my rosary as if it were my only lifeline to Peter. 

The next Sunday, I noticed the consequences of my sins. 

During Communion, I whispered my thanks to Peter and drank from the chalice. For the first time, the Blood of Christ tasted like blood. Metallic, thick, with none of the sweet tang that I had always swallowed so eagerly. I ignored the blood-wine in favor of reciting my prayers, hoping that I was mistaken. My hopes didn’t last long. The week after that, I received the host and tasted spoiled meat on my tongue. I rushed to the restrooms to retch the taste of human flesh from my mouth.

It has been several months since then, and things have only worsened.

Peter is loath to leave my side, but every time he does, he comes back battered and bruised. On Easter, when I celebrated the resurrection of Christ with my congregation and family, I didn’t notice that Peter had slipped away; I was too busy praying to him to notice his absence. When I left the church, I couldn’t stop my smile from falling or the horrified gasp that escaped me in front of my family when I caught sight of my beloved Peter. 

Whatever had attacked Peter had not been merciful. He stumbled up to me with patches of his beautiful feathers missing, and his toga torn open at the side to reveal three scratch marks that looked as though some hulking beast twice his size had tried to drag him into the ground. I openly wept at the sight of him, tears streaming down my face while my family tried to make sense of my mental break. 

That day outside of church wasn’t the last time we encountered those beings. No matter how much I prayed to God to send them away, they always returned. At first, it was only holidays, then only Sundays, and now they are by my side every day. I’m not certain if they’re demons, angels, or something beyond my comprehension. I’m too afraid to ask Peter. I can never get a good enough look at them; it’s as though they’re constantly on the edge of my vision. 

The beings follow me to work. Tap, tap, tap. They sit on the roof of my car, their claws visible out of the corner of my eye as they scratch my windows. At first, I thought I was crazy, until my wife pointed out the scratch marks left on the tinted windows of our car.

Most nights I lie awake, listening to the tapping at my window. 

Tap, tap, tap. They’re out there tonight, waiting, listening. They haven’t entered my home, not yet, not with Peter here. I suppose I should be grateful that God has not harmed my family; after all, they are only victims in my affair against our Lord. 

Today, I’m writing this as one last-ditch effort to save him, to save us. My son and daughter are asleep upstairs, and my wife is working the night shift at the hospital, so it’s just Peter and me awake. As I look at him now, I can only hope he can forgive me for only ceasing to pray when those beasts began hunting me.

His feathers are gone. Only wing stumps remain where his gold-dipped feathers once shone, stripped raw to a hideous purple and blue. His long hair has been pulled out by the roots, whether by himself or those things, I’m uncertain.  

Peter’s body is not in much better condition. Scratch marks run down his arms and chest, some gouged so deep that I swear I can see bone. I’m not sure; I get sick if I stare too long. Similar red marks litter his face, ugly things that make my eyes water every time I look at him. Worst of all, he offers me the same devastated look, as if I’m the one branded with the scars of our sins. 

Tap, tap, tap.

There’s something outside tonight, and Peter won’t stop staring out the window. Whatever it is, it’s here for me. The sinking in my gut and Peter’s sad eyes are all the clues I need, though the recent attacks should have been enough.

Perhaps I was wrong about why Peter stays; maybe he really is here to protect me. In the end, Peter won’t leave, no matter how much I beg him or ask him to go. I’m afraid he loves me just as much as I love him. Whatever happens, I can't forgive myself if something happens to him.

God, please tell me how to help him! If anyone knows what to do or whom I can contact, please tell me. I will even ask the Lord for forgiveness, only if it means I can save Peter. 

I’d do anything for Peter.

Tap, tap, tap.

Anything.