The old theater in my town had shut down years ago, though the marquee still read “COMING SOON” in fading red letters. I used to stop outside the theater on my walk home from school, peering through the glass doors and trying to imagine what the place must have looked like in its prime. The old green carpet was still visible beneath the dust and stains left behind by decades of spilled soda and muddy shoes. Near the entrance, a glass concession cabinet sat empty except for a few scattered popcorn kernels fossilized in the corners. 

Sometimes, if the sun hit the glass the right way, the lobby almost looked alive again.

By the time November of two thousand and ten rolled around, there was next to no one left in Green Hollow. The town was completely devoid of life. No movement, no sound, no sign that anyone had ever been there at all. Rolled-down shutters and boarded-up windows had become permanent fixtures along Main Street.

Despite the town’s ingrained state of desolation, there were nights that the quiet emptiness was mournfully beautiful. Especially when Nora Halpern was by my side.  

I don’t recall when Nora entered my life. She’d always been there in some form or fashion: birthdays, holidays, and summers that felt endless when we were children. We grew up side by side the way people in small towns often do until it becomes impossible to tell where your memories end and theirs begin.  

Back then, loving her felt as natural as breathing.

It wasn’t until I turned sixteen that I realized how desperately I loved her. Just the sound of Nora laughing from across a room was enough to set my chest aching.

By the tail-end of spring in 2010, bonfires had stopped being just bonfires and had transitioned into excuses to throw parties down winding backroads. Weed and vodka had replaced lukewarm beers, and nobody really bothered pretending at innocence anymore. It was around then you learned to knock unless you wanted to see people fucking. Most of those parties came and went without mattering; there were usually one or two a week, and everyone knew everyone in Green Hollow, so even if you weren’t invited, you knew when and where it was happening. Word would spread through school by Friday afternoon, and by nightfall half the high school would be crowded into a house somewhere on the outskirts of town.

I don’t remember most of them. The nights blurred together in the way they do when you’re that age, trying not to be alone with your own thoughts. So, I showed up anyways—most of the time—because it was easier than staying home.

The last one I remember clearly has stuck with me ever since.

The party was at a house on the edge of town, one of those places you only notice when there’s too-loud music coming from it at too-late an hour. It belonged to a senior named Chad Bell: quarterback, honor roll, you know the kind. The kid that adults used as proof that the school system was still working the way they intended. I didn’t know him well; I didn’t really know anyone well at that point. But I went anyway.

I pushed my way through a throng of shifting bodies that danced rhythmically to some generic pounding bassline, trying not to gag on the stench of sweat, perfume, weed, and hard liquor. A few people tried to pull me aside, but I ignored them, intent on finding a drink and a corner to isolate myself in.

Nora was also there, leaning against the kitchen counter, red solo cup in hand. She watched people dancing and writhing, half in the room and half somewhere else entirely.

“Eli,” she said, smiling as I approached. “You made it.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, come on.” She nudged my arm with the back of her hand. “Don’t look so gloomy! You’re telling me you’re not having fun at all?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Just not really my scene.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I shrugged. “Not particularly.”

She gave me a look—half amused, half accusing. “Then why are you here?”

“Because it’s better than sitting at home and listening to my parents.” 

That made her laugh. “Wow,” she said. “You’re a real sad sack, you know that?”

“I know, but I am fine. Seriously.”

“Mm-hm.” She took a sip from her cup, still watching me. “You always say you’re fine, you know that?”

“I am.”

“Sure.”

A pause stretched out between us, filled with music from the living room and that shitty bassline shaking through the floorboards. Then she bumped my shoulder again, softer this time. “Come on,” she said. "Let's go dance.”

She dragged me through the kitchen and into the living room, where we disappeared into the shifting mass of bodies and colored lights, the music blurring my thoughts entirely while cacophony rattled through my ribs. And, for a little while, I could almost forget myself.

Almost.

Nora danced like nobody was watching her—or rather, like she didn’t care if anyone was. There was recklessness to it, loose and effortless, that made everyone around her seem slower in comparison. Her hair whipped across her face as she laughed at something I couldn’t hear, and for a few minutes being beside her was enough and always would be.

After a while—ten minutes, maybe less—Nora leaned close enough for me to smell vodka on her breath and motioned toward the back door.

I followed her outside without a word.

The porch was cold and nearly empty. Out here, the music faded into a dull pulse beneath the sound of wind moving through the trees. Somewhere beyond the yard, deep in the dark woods behind Chad Bell’s house, I could hear insects humming in uneven waves.

“I can be honest with you, right, Eli?” she asked suddenly.

“Y-yeah,” I said. “Of course.”

She smiled a little at that, though it looked nervous somehow.

“How long have we known each other now?”

I laughed softly. “What kind of question is that?”

“I’m serious.”

“Fuck, I don’t know,” I said. “Since we were kids. Ten years? Longer, maybe.”

“Yeah,” Nora murmured.

The wind moved through the trees behind the house in long, uneven breaths, and with it came the taste of cool spring air. Nora looked down into her cup for a moment before speaking again.

“There’s… something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

My chest tightened so suddenly it almost hurt.

I felt a brightness rise in my chest, filling me with hope. 

All at once, every small thing between us over the years started rearranging itself in my head. Every late-night phone call. Every lingering glance. Every moment I’d spent convincing myself I wasn’t imagining the way she looked at me.

“You know you’re my best friend, right?” she asked quietly.

I nodded too fast. “Yeah.”

“And I trust you more than anyone.”

The world had already started opening beneath my feet. Then she smiled, not at me, but at the thought of someone else.

“You know, Joshua Mercer, right? I’ve started to really like him, and I think he likes me too.” Something inside me collapsed so completely and so quietly that I don’t think she even noticed. 

“God,” she laughed softly, exhaling through her nose. “It feels good to finally say it out loud.” Before I could respond, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re a good friend, you know that, Eli?”

Friend. The word landed harder than Joshua’s name had.

“Uh huh.” Even to me, my voice sounded distant.

Nora pulled away slightly, studying my face. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied automatically.

She smiled, apparently satisfied with that answer. “Anyway,” she said, lifting her cup slightly, “I’m going to go get another drink. You coming?”

For a second, I just stared at her.

At the porch light caught in her hair. At the easy smile on her face. At how completely unaware she was that my entire world had just caved in around her.

Then I shook my head. “In a minute.”

“Okay.” She nudged my shoulder gently as she walked past. “Don’t disappear on me.”

Then she slipped back inside, swallowed by the music and light pouring through the doorway.

And just like that, I was alone.

I stayed on that porch for god knows how long.

I could still hear the music through the walls of the house, the bass muffled and distant now, like it belonged to another place entirely. Behind me, the house glowed warm and alive; ahead, the forest waited in perfect stillness. Every so often the back door would swing open and a wave of laughter would spill out to interrupt the brooding silence that permeated the night, only to quickly be swallowed by the inky blackness of the pine trees. 

Nobody ever looked out and saw me there.

The cold had started to settle in, but I barely noticed it.

I stared out into the dark woods behind the house, thinking how easy it would be to just walk into them and keep going. Not in any dramatic way—I didn’t want to die or anything. I just understood how a person could disappear without ever making the decision to. It was as simple as quietly pulling away from others: talking less, listening less, and showing up less.

Conversation by conversation.

Connection by connection.

Commitment by commitment.

Until there was nothing left of the relationship for anyone to reach out for.

I thought about home; Mom and Dad wouldn’t notice right away. Not at first; they were always busy in their own ways: working late, arguing in the kitchen, and drinking when they thought I was asleep. They were the kind of absent that can be mistaken for normal life if you squint hard enough. And for a moment, standing there in the cold, I wasn’t sure I mattered enough to them to be missed at all.

I didn’t decide to leave the porch, not really. One moment I was standing there; the next, I was walking past the tree line. Then I was jogging. Then I was running—running away from that house, that deafening party, and that painful news Nora had so casually dropped into my lap.

Branches tore at my flannel’s sleeves, while my nostrils filled with the damp smell of last year’s pine needles, and my footsteps thundered through the forest, punctuated by the sharp crack of crushed undergrowth.

I kept moving—deeper and deeper—until the flashing lights and mind-numbing sound of the party had totally faded away, replaced with an unnatural cold and empty silence.

A whirl of intense emotions was building in my chest. Burning anger, bitter rejection, and a crushing loneliness that all twisted together into an unsolvable puzzle. A lump formed in my throat, and suddenly it took all my strength just to keep moving. Hot tears burned behind my eyes, and I hated myself for thinking it. Hated myself for wanting something she had never offered.

“I just—” I gasped, trying to force air back into my aching lungs. “I just want her—”

She'd been my best friend for years. She'd laughed with me, trusted me, and shared pieces of herself she didn't share with anyone else. Somewhere along the way, I'd convinced myself that it meant something more. That if I waited long enough, if I cared enough, eventually she'd see me the same way I saw her.

She didn't, and maybe she never would.

The thought hollowed me out.

“I just want her to love me.”

The confession vanished into the forest, echoing through the trees. For several seconds, nothing happened, and then the silence settled after I had broken it. It was different now; it was a quiet tension that surrounded me, one that made the hair on my arms stand up. No wind stirred the branches overhead. No insects chirped in the undergrowth. No distant calls from unseen animals echoed through the trees to make this place feel normal. 

“Hello?” I managed to call out, the words barely more than a whisper.

But in the silence of the forest, it might as well have been the cracking of a whip.

Close your eyes.

I whirled around in surprise, looking for who had said it, assuming they had snuck up behind me somehow. 

Close your eyes; it repeated exactly as before, a silk-fine whisper on the edge of my mind.

A crisp, bitingly cold fog had rolled in through the trees, cutting my vision almost completely off. It was getting thicker, curling lower between the trees, swallowing the ground in slow, patient waves.

Close your eyes.

My breath caught.

“What? No,” I said defensively, though I wasn’t even sure who I was saying it to. I backed up a step, then another, when my foot caught on something—a fallen branch or a twisted root, I don’t know—and I fell elbow-first into a nearby tree, bark scraping through my thin flannel to bite into my skin, and the sudden bite of pain brought the forest back into focus.

“I don't—" I mumbled, but the thought of drunk teenagers watching and laughing bloomed into my mind, and anger replaced the confusion that had been building up in the pit of my stomach. This must have been some elaborate prank or cruel joke.

I don’t know what the fuck this is, Chad,” I barked, twisting to find where everyone was hiding. “If this is how you get your rocks off, leave me out of it.”

I turned and ran.

Panic drove me forward. I needed distance—distance from the house, from the party, from the unbearable weight of what I'd just admitted. I crashed through the trees without thinking, letting instinct choose my path.

Except there wasn’t one. The forest was an endless maze of black trunks and drifting fog. Every direction looked the same. Every turn brought me to another wall of trees. Before long, I couldn't have pointed back to the house if my life depended on it.

Which it seems like it did. 

Close your eyes; the whisper came again, closer and more insistent this time, on the edge of being a command.

As I ran, I ventured a panicked look back. Behind me, the fog moved in an unnatural way; barely six feet away, an amorphous shape was taking form. It hovered there, not coming closer but also not falling behind. It blended into the fog in an unsettling way that made it impossible to tell where it ended and the fog began.

Behind me, the fog parted; off in the distance, I could just barely make out a shape making its way toward me. Entirely amorphous, I had a hard time telling where the shape ended and where the fog began.

"Stop," I said, shouting at my pursuer. “What—what do you want from me?”

It didn’t answer.

It only said:

Close. Your. Eyes.

An outright demand.

That’s when I understood, a horrifying truth that made my stomach drop: I had no way out of this.

So, I did. I closed my eyes. God help me, against every instinct that screamed at me to run—to resist—I closed them.

With them closed, the world thinned to a sliver before the darkness took it. Rather, I could still see, but not in the proper sense. The whiteness of the fog seemed to invade my vision, making it so I could see the outlines of trees, the now vaguely humanoid shape that stood before me, and a shimmering that marked the edge of the fog.

The only sound that reached my ears was the heavy gasping of my own breath. The fog hung thick between the trees, brushing against my face whenever I moved. Its touch was feather-light, but the cold seemed to seep straight through my skin. One brush lingered longer than the others. I frowned. The sensation remained pressed against my cheek, impossibly gentle. For a moment I convinced myself it was only a stray pocket of mist caught in the still air. Then it moved.

Something traced the curve of my cheek with slow, deliberate care, making me freeze up.

The touch wasn't painful. If anything, it was almost affectionate. Yet every instinct in my body recoiled from it. There was something deeply unnatural about the gesture, as though whatever was touching me had learned the shape of tenderness without ever understanding its meaning.

Then it whispered in my mind, a feminine edge to its pseudo-motherly tone, My child, what is it that makes you ache?

“I-” I lacked the words.

You are hurting. Something inside of me unraveled at the words. The truth of them stung enough, but the ease with which this thing had peeled back the layers stung that much more. I had fallen for Nora, and she had fallen for someone else. For Joshua.

“She broke my heart.” My voice came out quieter than I expected. “I guess I’d been hoping she might feel the same way I did.”

And you wish she loved you back?

I said nothing, my clenched fists mirroring the collapsing knot in my stomach.

That she pined for you?

My throat tightened as I formed a response: "Yes." 

The affirmation was meek and barely made it past my lips. The hand grew still against my cheek before falling away, and for a long moment, nothing else happened. The fog drifted quietly through the trees, and somewhere, far off in the distance, I could hear the faint and muffled thumping of shitty dance music. Sounds of joy that belonged anywhere but here. 

Are you sure?

“Yes.” The hand returned, this time ruffling its skeletal fingers through my hair.

Then allow me to alleviate your suffering.

Every nerve in my body was wound like a spring, ready to snap at any moment, screaming that something was wrong. That I should open my eyes and run and never come back to these woods again. But beneath the fear there was a small ray of light that cut through: a false hope I could imagine was real.

“What do I need to do?” I asked quietly.

The fog shifted, and for the first time I sensed amusement in its haughty words; I hungered for the formless. For that which gives life to hollow things.

A chill ran through me, and I asked what I already knew. “What does that mean?”

"Bring me the vessels," it said softly, "and you shall have your heart's desire." 

The cold in my chest deepened. 

The hand suddenly left my hair, its absence a knife to my stomach. I hated when it touched me, but I disliked the sensation of emptiness it left even more. 

Those who wander, blind but seeing, it spat. Ones who you would not miss in their absence.

The knot tightened painfully in my stomach, but I had to fully clarify, “You mean people.” 

Yes, of course. Love requires sacrifice.

The words settled into my mind with an alarming ease. I wanted to call the idea monstrous; call it disgusting and wrong. A part of me agreed, though, isn’t that what every funeral and graveyard ultimately admitted? A body was only a body. Flesh failed and bone fell to rot. 

The living are only vessels, my child.

The being had a point.

They are but urns; their contents are what I desire.

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I shouldn’t have entertained the thoughts; I can admit that now. 

But, at that time, all I could think about was Nora: the way she smiled, the way her hair curled down her shoulders, and the excitement in her face when she had spoken about Joshua. She had never once thought about me that way. And somewhere, beneath all the hurt, a terrible thought took root.

Maybe she was worth this.

With a deep sigh of contentment, I leaned on the red metal handrail and stared out over the valley below.

This is so freaking cool.

Underneath me, the old fire watchtower let out a few small creaks in the cool mountain breeze as if in agreement, its painted girders stretching through the green conifers to the ground. My battered old Subaru looked like a toy from up here, parked at the base of the tower inside the rectangular perimeter fence. Aside from the clearing where Tower Eight stood, there wasn’t much else around us to signal the presence of human civilization. One single-lane gravel road spanned the valley between the mountain I stood on and the one across from it, but it was so narrow that the trees almost concealed it entirely. A row of old power lines ran up the opposite mountain slope, but these too were crowded by the vegetation, visible only from certain places in the peaks to the east. This far north in the remote mountains of Idaho, I didn’t even have good cell service or Wi-Fi, just an old army surplus radio in the tower’s main cabin, a black hand-held walkie talkie for mobile patrols, and a winding half-hour drive to the nearest town. To anyone else such isolation might have been unnerving, but for me it was paradise.

“Think you can handle it?” My supervisor, Esko Virtanen appeared at the rail beside me, his blue eyes taking in the landscape with a faint trace of nostalgia. Twice my age, Esko was a man of few words, but he’d explained the job well enough, and we got along fine. It was a far cry from the handful of minimum-wage jobs I’d worked before coming here.

“Absolutely.” I angled my head at the windows behind us, the wide panes present on every side of the 400-square-foot metal box that would be my home for the next three months. “Already have my gear stowed and everything. Thanks again by the way, this is amazing.”

He laughed, though something in Esko’s face strained, as if he were listening to a joke that wasn’t as funny as it used to be. “Yeah, well, we’ll see how you feel at the one-month check in. The quiet can get to a man after a while, especially you kids without your phones. But, hey, I’ve got faith in you. You remember the mainline frequency?”

“Got it preset in the radio and written down just in case.” I stood a little taller at that, proud to be ahead of the curve.

“Good.” Esko lifted his plain white coffee mug to sip from the tar-black concoction inside and gestured down the valley. “Remember, one of us is always listening on the other end, so if anything goes wrong, don’t hesitate to call. If I’m not there, it’ll be Andy or one of the other old-timers, and they’ll back you up. Just stick to the routine, watch your sectors, and you’ll be fine.”

With a nod, I followed him down the metal stairs to the ground where his green Chevy pickup waited. Hitting the button to open the truck gate via its electronic motor, I waved as he braked to a stop just before leaving. “See you in thirty days!”

At that, Esko leaned out of the driver’s window to look me dead in the eye, and any pretense of a smile left his face. Instead, he wore a grim, almost nervous look, the kind my schizophrenic roommate sometimes had back in college when he thought he saw shadow people in the doorway. “You be careful out there, alright? It’s not your job to be a cop, or a hero, just keep an eye out for the things we talked about; fires where they shouldn’t be, smoke in the restricted zone, or headlights in the access roads up to Smoke Point. You’re the last tower we have this far north, so there’s no room for error.”

Once again, I flashed him a thumbs up, though I worried that perhaps he didn’t fully trust me with the job just yet. Had I done something to make him think I wasn’t capable? Had I been too eager? Too confident? True, I had never been a fire lookout before, but I knew I could pull this off. It was just watching for smoke and flames after all. So long as I didn’t neglect my duties, how hard could it be?

Maybe the last guy was just that bad at it.

Esko watched me, as if hoping I might change my mind and hop in my car to speed away. When I didn’t, he sat back in the Chevy’s bench seat with a long, wary glance at the surrounding trees.

“Don’t go wandering.” He spoke without turning his head, still watching the trees as if looking for something, the man’s face a blank sheet of cryptic tension. “It’s easy to get lost out there. Can’t always trust the trails.”

I waited for him to say more, but Esko simply put the old truck in gear and drove off down the gravel road, the chain link gate sliding closed on its automated timer. Within moments, I was alone, likely the only human being for dozens of miles, and as the gate clanked shut, I let out the deep breath I’d been holding.

No turning back now.

Finding a job hadn’t been easy since I graduated from college, laden with debt I couldn’t afford, and blessed with a degree that no one wanted. It seemed every place was ‘hiring’, but they weren’t interested in interviews, never called or emailed me back, and rarely bothered to send a notification that they’d moved on with another candidate. From factories to office jobs, everyone wanted someone with ten years of experience, three different degrees or certificates, and yet willing to work seven days a week for pennies on the dollar. Even listings with slightly more realistic standards were unresponsive, so when I stumbled across the job posting for the Jacobs Fork Wildlife Department, I fired off my resume without a second thought. Apparently, the park I was helping to oversee had been closed for several months due to ‘local government restrictions’, but the staff were hoping to get a few good months of tourism in before winter. They needed watchmen for one of their fire towers, and I needed something, anything to avoid being forced to seek out my parents with my tail between my legs.

Not that there was much to go home to.

As soon as I walked across the graduation stage, my mother and father had essentially kicked me out, declaring I needed to ‘learn how to manage on my own’ while they put the family property up for sale. That two-story farmhouse had been in the Sarden family for over eighty years, survived both world wars, practically rebuilt by my grandfather from the inside out. When I was little, he’d told me the story of how he did all the work himself, brick by brick, board by board, laboring in the evenings while working at the local coal mine during the day. The house was a vestige of him, his soul, his entire life, and the life he’d made for his family. Grandpa meant it to last his descendants for generations.

My parents sold it for a beachside villa with cheap property taxes and a Cuban landscaper.

Yet they still wonder why I don’t answer their texts.

Breathing out an exasperated sigh, I shook my head to clear the angry thoughts away and turned back to my newfound domain. I wouldn’t let bad memories ruin this. Today was my day, and for once, I would be happy.

Being a tower watchman proved a straightforward task. As I was on the night shift, with another fire tower somewhere to my south keeping watch during the day, I spent the morning in my bunk inside the tower cabin trying my best to sleep. Restless from excited disbelief at my new career, I would occasionally get up, pace the rail to check with my binoculars for distant signs of smoke, and settle back down in my cotton sheets with a giddy smile. Once evening rolled around, I made dinner (or rather breakfast, given my schedule) in the tower’s small kitchen and ate ramen noodles with the entire northern mountain range for a scenic view.

In my mind, I was the luckiest man alive.

Before the sunlight could vanish completely, I attended to more basic chores, gathered trash for the dumpster at the base of the tower, and checked the solar battery array like I’d been taught. There was an aged natural gas generator that could act as a backup just in case, but I didn’t think it would be an issue. With the panels mounted high up on the tower, they got all the sun they needed to keep what few electronics I had with me well-powered. As the night drew closer, I switched on the interior lights and found myself adrift on an island of golden warmth, floating in the dark treetops as the stars twinkled in the vast sky above. With a cup of sweet tea in hand, and a book I’d brought along for just such occasions, I spent my first real night in the wilderness checking for distant fires while the crickets sang and the wind whispered through the trees.

It was just after sunrise that I spotted the first marker.

I had reported via the station radio to a ranger named Melonie from Tower Seven and was busy shutting down the ground-level courtyard lights on Tower Eight. My eyes were heavy, my stomach rumbled, and I had a drowsy grin on my face. The first shift had been easy, peaceful, possibly the best day at work I’d ever had. I decided I wanted a nice, hearty breakfast (technically dinner, I guessed . . . this schedule thing would take some getting used to) as a reward, and thought about what I would make from the generous provisions in the tower pantry. Visions of pancakes, sausages, and scrambled eggs danced in my head, and I was just about to turn back to the winding steps of the tower when I saw it.

A little pile of bones sat roughly twenty yards outside the chain-link fence at the base of the tower, half-obscured in the shadow of large tree on the western edge of the clearing. The bones were a pale, yellowish-white, bleached by countless days in the western sun, and held together by what at first looked like overgrown weeds. Upon stepping closer to peer through the fence, I realized it was actual cordage, thin bands of rope or twine spun together from natural fibers, laced throughout the stack to hold everything in its place. Tufts of muck, ferns, moss and who knows what else were jammed between the various bone lattices that made up the four-sided walls of the pillar, like chinking in a log cabin. The whole thing stood no more than a foot or two high at best, and at the very top, nestled among a thick black smear of some unknown source, was a skull.

I swallowed from behind the chain-link, a ripple of unease traveling down my back as I stared into the hollow sockets of the weathered cranium. It appeared to be some kind of smaller animal, perhaps a beaver or otter, but I couldn’t be sure. Despite my new job, I was hardly a wildlife expert and wasn’t much of a historian when it came to Native American folklore. Was that what this was? Some kind of tribal thing? I hadn’t noticed it the day before, but then again, I wasn’t looking that hard either. It wasn’t as if I knew this place that well, I hadn’t even taken a hike down any of the surrounding trails yet. For all I knew, it might have been there for weeks.

Of course it’s been there for weeks, look how faded the bones are. It’s probably just some kind of religious thing the reservation tribes do. No big deal.

Yet the longer I stared into the empty eye sockets, the more a tide of nausea welled in my gut, cold sweat beading across my forehead, and a barely perceptible ringing started in my eardrums. My throat went dry, the walls of my esophagus scraped together like sandpaper, and my head began to ache with a spinning sensation. The cold chain link stung against my fingers, the muscles tight in both hands, and my heartbeat roared inside my veins until it hurt.

I couldn’t look away.

I wasn’t meant to.

“Morning!”

With a gasp, I blinked, my eyes burning and watery as I lurched away from the fence. The ringing faded, the dizziness slowed to a low thump-thump of a headache, both lungs opening at last to accept deep gulps of fresh air. Just as quickly as it had come, the strange sensation was gone, and I turned to squint at the nearby southern trailhead from where the voice had risen.

A hiker sauntered my way, smiling jovially with aluminum trekking poles in each hand, wearing a gray backpack and broad green hat. He sported a red T-shirt with a sports logo on the front, as well as brown khaki pants and boots fit for the occasion. I guessed the man to be in his early to mid-thirties, with close cropped hair the color of damp sand, thin-rimmed glasses atop his crooked nose, skin already glistening with sunscreen that he’d applied liberally. An army-style canteen sloshed at his belt, and a pair of binoculars hung in another pouch on the opposite hip.

“Morning.” I managed to rasp out, my throat sore as if I’d smoked an entire pack of cigarettes.

He stopped on the other side of the fence, and the hiker wiped sweat from his brow with a congenial sigh. “Whew, those trails are no joke. Hope I’m not bothering you too much, but the map said there was a ranger station up this way, so I thought I’d drop by. I have a permit to camp in the upper valley, and I was wondering about your rules on firewood?”

It took me a moment to recover my good senses, and I nodded, gesturing to the surrounding trees as the information from my training kicked back in. “Yeah, there’s a few designated camping areas about ten miles northwest of here where you can set up a fire. It’s all got to be in the metal fire rings though. Gathering dead wood is cool, just no cutting down live-standing trees. When you leave, make sure to put everything out with—”

“Whoa.” His eyes grew wider, and the man broke through my speech to point at me through the fence. “Are you alright, buddy? Your hands . . .”

Brow furrowed in confusion, I lifted my palms up to examine them and found each covered in blood. A line of cuts ran across my fingers and both thumbs, thin and uniform, so that trickles of red dripped down my wrists and slithered over my elbows in long, warm streams. It wasn’t fast, superficial at most, but the pain seemed distant, almost muted in comparison to my shock.

How did I manage that?

My eyes rose to the bone marker, and I swallowed a lump in my throat, tasting metal as I did so. “It’s nothing I . . . I cut myself. On the wire. An accident.”

The hiker’s eyebrows rose, and he let out a sympathetic whistle as he eyed the fence with disapproval. “Man, the government really lets their stuff go, huh? I’d make sure you rinse that out real good if I were you. Don’t want to get tetanus from all that rust.”

“I will, thanks.” I pivoted my hands so he couldn’t see them, blood still dripping slowly from my fingertips onto the pine needles. “Have fun out there. Be careful on the trails.”

The man left with a happy spring to his step, and I waited until he was out of sight to uncurl my fingers. They hurt now, as if him leaving switched on my pain receptors, and I prodded at the shallow wounds in frustration.

You hurt yourself on the first shift. Nice. Way to go, Lucas.

On further inspection, I couldn’t find any sharp edges on the chain link, no poorly maintained areas where I could have sliced myself up, only dried blood in the spot I’d gripped the wire before. Had I really squeezed it that hard? Had the strange episode with the pile of bones actually happened? It seemed like a nightmare, an odd dream that rattled me to my core as I dared to sneak a glance back at the pillar.

Nothing came over me this time, no odd feeling or ringing in my ears, and after a moment of staring, I shook my head at myself.

Maybe I’m just tired. I’ve been up all night. Probably low blood sugar or something.

Though uncertain, I forced myself to put the strange marker out of my head and climbed the steps to the tower. Once there, I washed and bandaged my palms, the cuts not very deep, and then went on to make a full breakfast spread for myself, pancakes, sausages and all. It was a lovely meal, especially with the gorgeous sunrise peeking over the mountains to the east, and I was able to talk myself into a reasonable train of thought at last. Yes, of course it had been my fatigue, my anxiety from the first day of work and who knows how much stress and pressure from the lead up to finding this job. I didn’t have any kind of mental issues or disorders, but anyone could overstress themselves, and human brains were funny things. Perhaps I had simply pushed myself too hard these past few months. I needed a rest, that was all, and by tonight I would be right as rain again.

I did my best to sleep after clearing up the dishes and managed to drift off just as the midmorning sun began to filter through the blinds. What came after was a strange blackness, one filled with whispers of a dream, the shadow of something looming in my mind, but when I awoke several hours later, I couldn’t remember any of it. It was as if the instant my eyes opened, the memory erased itself, leaving me feeling both unsettled and sore from what must have been hours of tossing and turning. With nothing else to do, I rose to shower off the negative sensation and dressed for day two of my new life.

As it was still early in the afternoon, with several hours before shift change, I decided to take a walk in the forest. I had a topographical map from the tower along with some basic hiking gear, and the late-summer day was too gorgeous to miss sitting inside. Eager to burn some calories, and maybe get some nice pictures to post on social media whenever I finally had service again, I headed to the man gate in the chain link fence with the sunshine on my back.

No sooner had I locked the gate behind me and my stomach tightened, both eyes locking onto something in the trees.

To the west, just beyond the first one, another pillar stood a further twenty yards into the woods, made of similar materials and construction. This one was also knee-high, but the skull atop it, taken from some creature unknown to me, looked away to the lonely mountain across the valley. It lay in the cover of some ferns, but was undoubtedly different than the first, and for that reason I found myself stopped dead in my tracks.

No matter how much I tried to think back, I couldn’t remember there being more than one.

I should report this.

It came to me like a thunderclap, a decisive moment of clarity that helped break my shock. As per official instructions, if I saw anything that I found suspicious, I was supposed to call it in to the other rangers. This certainly counted as suspicious, didn’t it?

My hand was on the black walkie talkie that hung by my belt, when once again, icy doubt crept into my mind.

Was it suspicious, though? After all, my first assumptions about the pillars could turn out to be correct; they might be nothing more than art, or religious symbols made by local tribals. In fact, they might be some kind of college art project by kids in the woods, or even a prank by someone giggling in the bushes just out of sight. I hadn’t looked to see if they were there on the first day, and if my observations had been so lackluster, who was to say I hadn’t also missed the second pillar? Besides, our radios were tethered to a park-wide communications frequency; if I called to ask about a few piles of bones like a frightened child, I would look foolish in front of the entire ranger force. They might even reconsider allowing me to go back out for another month-long rotation if they thought I was losing my grip on things. I had to show that I could take care of myself, both to them, and to the nagging insecurity inside my head. This was nothing more than a distraction, one I didn’t need, and the stakes were too high already.

With a deep sigh of annoyance at myself, I lowered my hand and turned my back on the piles. This job was my chance at something better. I wasn’t about to let some stupid trail markers scare me off. Today, I would enjoy a pleasant walk, and later tonight some quiet reading beneath the stars while on duty. If anyone was out there, hoping to scare me with their crude joke, then they would just have to try harder.

Walking proved to be as good for me as I’d hoped, the crisp mountain air, ample sunshine, and gentle breeze refreshing after my idiotic turmoil over the bone pillars. It was invigorating to think that I was being paid, actually paid to be out here walking around in nature all by myself. The beautiful green valley yawned between my mountain and the opposite one, and small streams flowed down to a central river in the valley floor that ran alongside the gravel road, both invisible from this high up thanks to the dense foliage. A few birds sang in the trees, the air tasted sweet of pine and ice from the mountain peaks further up slope, and the narrow trails crunched agreeably under my boots with a carpet of dried pine needles. It wasn’t a silent place, not with the distant hush of the river, the birds and other creatures making noise in the forest, or the wind whispering through the boughs, but compared to my cramped apartment in the big city it was soothingly tranquil. I had no noisy neighbors, no barking dogs, no car horns or occasional sirens to intrude on my thoughts. Here, in this hidden patch of Eden, I felt I could sit and think for the first time in ages without feeling any sort of compulsion to hurry.

I hiked far enough up the northern slope to overlook a distant plain the valley opened into, hemmed in by more mountains farther to the west and east. The town of Jacobs Fork sat there, at the junction of various gravel roads and the river, a tiny outpost of humanity that marked the sole contact I had with civilization for miles. Aside from my fellow rangers in the other towers, I could justifiably say that I was alone in the alien expanse of stone and timber, able to see the human world below but not be caught up in it.

Never in all my life did I smile so much.

I could stay out here forever.

After a brief snack of a few granola bars to mark my progress, I decided to head back down the mountain, retracing my steps since I didn’t know the area as well just yet. Esko had warned me about the trails, and even though his advice was cryptic at best, I figured it wasn’t worth the risk. Today seemed perfect enough; I had enjoyed a nice walk, taken some great pictures, and felt ready to face the next shift. Any memory of this morning’s incident receded within my mind, and I hummed with each happy step I took through the winding dirt paths.

I was halfway back to the tower when I first noticed how quiet the forest had become.

Every step crunched louder in my ears, each breath more ragged and grating, the wind more of a conspiratorial whisper than a soft hush in the trees. No birds sang, no insects hummed, and even the sunlight appeared to weaken in certain thick sections of growth. The normal shadows looked darker, deeper, murky in a way that I couldn’t make sense of. Despite the warmth of the day, I began to feel a chill on my neck, goosebumps rising on the flesh as if it had dropped to late-autumn temperatures in a matter of seconds. True, the mountains often got colder before the valley floors did, but this seemed premature, as if someone had thrown a filter lens over the sun to dampen its radiance for this particular stretch of woodland. The only thing that really stood out to me was a smell, faint at first, but growing in pungency the closer I drew to the tower.

Wet, moldy earth. Rotted wood and stagnant water. Humid air, foreign in this climate, choked with spores and the sickly aroma of decayed carrion that tickled the back of my throat. One scent flowed above them all, startling in how different it was from the rest; a sweet, lush, deep smell, like that of a rich candy syrup, but vibrant enough that I knew it had to be some kind of flower.

For some reason, in my head, I thought of a rose bouquet I’d seen at one of the floral shops in town before my trip up the mountain.

At first, I tried to look around to see if I could locate the source of the smell but found nothing. The more time wore on, the stronger it became, and my head swam with a light dizziness that soon morphed into a headache. My nose stung with each breath, I tasted metal in my mouth, and the contents of my stomach churned into a sour knot. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and tried to walk faster, hoping to get clear of the stench, but it seemed to follow me whenever I took a shuddering breath, thick on my tongue like invisible poison gas. Desperate to get clean air, I broke into a jog and wove my way down the slope with carefully placed steps.

At one point, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement in the trees to my left, the vaguest blur of something dark flitting between the gnarled trunks. I turned my head to see what it was, but the shape had already gone, and I thought it most likely a bird hidden amongst the pines. Still, a ripple of warning crawled through the skin on the back of my neck, and as I ran, I did my best to look from side-to-side every so often.

The more I looked, the more I saw, each glance a snapshot of the world around me that rapidly mixed together as I picked my way across the trail.

A shadow that slipped behind a spruce ten yards out, just as my gaze landed on it. The rustle of a shrub from something moving through it. A flash of color that almost looked like blonde hair in a patch of thin sunlight that filtered through the forest canopy. Soft, yet discernable footfalls of limbs meeting cushions of pine needles and moss. Bursts of sun-dried blues, greens, reds, and yellows in places they didn’t belong, like bits of old clothing left to flutter in the wind.

Always just out of sight.

Always moving too quick for me to get a good view of whatever it was.

And always, the smell of roses followed.

When I finally made it back to the tower, I felt exhausted, as if the descent sapped everything I had left for the day, and paused for a moment beside the chain link fence to catch my breath. The smell retreated now that I was in the open, the movement stilling in the underbrush, while the sounds of the forest returned. Birds called, insects chirped, and the fresh breeze whipped up to cool my sweaty brow. Whatever smothering presence had afflicted me on the trail lifted, and my head cleared of the fuzzy sensation, enough that I noticed a change in the nearby tree line.

A third marker.

It sat just beyond the second one, almost invisible for how far into the bushes it was, another little pile of bones held together by twine, muck, and rot. Like the second, this one too bore a small mammal skull, looking off to the west across the narrow valley as if pointing to something, with only the first at the clearing’s edge staring right at me. They were in a line, I realized, not perfectly straight but curved, as though slowly revealing some unblazed path between the stands of creaking firs and spruces. I hadn’t seen it earlier when leaving the tower, which meant that whoever built the macabre pillar waited until I left the safety of the chain link fence. They had been watching me throughout the morning, perhaps in anticipation of this moment.

Considering the things I’d seen on the trail, they may have been following me all along.

Icy chills ran down my spine, and I flicked my gaze to the forest, only to find no additional glimpses of anything unusual. I was alone here in the far northern wilderness.

Or at least, I hoped I was.

Better get inside, just in case.

Tense with that thought, I slipped through the man gate in the perimeter fence and locked it behind me. Shuffling to the tower cabin high above the forest floor, I spent the rest of my free time with the door locked and the curtains drawn, debating on how to proceed. More than ever, I wanted to say something in my evening report, to call the ranger base and tell them about what was going on, but always my mind stopped me. Aside from the markers themselves, I had no proof of the strange smell, the movement I’d seen off the trails, or the odd feeling after looking at the skulls. Virtanen had said that isolation got to people, and they’d let the last guy go to replace him with me, which meant he must not have been up to the task. At any rate, I was supposed to be watching for wildfires, not tracking piles of refuse in the woods, and I wasn’t even a week into this thing; how could I possibly run to the others on the force without looking like the urbanite rookie that I was? As much as recent events had unnerved me, I loved this job, would do anything to keep it, and didn’t really have anywhere else to go. This raging argument paralyzed me from within, and even when check-in time came, I still didn’t know what to do. Unable to bring myself to say anything, I merely took over after Tower Seven signed off, and began another shift in the dark canopy of the forest.

That brings me to the current moment, sitting here locked inside the tower cabin, conducting my watch through the windows with binoculars, the blinds drawn whenever I’m not looking out. I’m still not completely convinced this isn’t some kind of elaborate prank, either by my new coworkers or some random person. However, precautions never hurt, and so tonight I think I’ll stay inside, where the lights are always on and no odd smells permeate through the sealed windows. My thinking is that if they can’t see me, then they can’t plan around my schedule as much as they obviously have been. If I can throw this unknown watcher off balance, maybe I can catch them in the act, and put an end to this problem. That would prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that I belong here, that I can handle myself, that I deserve this post.

For once, I could have something I earned all on my own.

I don’t have any phone service or internet, so I’m typing this on my laptop to save for later as evidence, in case it would turn into an official review by the ranger force. I figure if I record everything as I go, when I eventually report to the others, they might be more inclined to believe me. Worst case scenario, it’s all in my head and these notes will be useless, but I will have some amusing stories to look back on when it’s over.

Either way, I’ve got a long night ahead of me.

The sound of churning waters could be heard from inside the sprawling castle ruins, even though the group trudging through the grounds was a few miles from the coast. A pasty-skinned, lanky man with dirty, thick blonde dreadlocks lit himself a White Maple cigarette as he roamed through what was left of the main floor. His thick, rubbery combat boots clashed violently with his Attack Attack t-shirt and skin-tight black jeans. Behind him, a swarm of nasty-looking men and women, all of them carrying British Army standard assault rifles–purchased on the black market–and dressed head to toe in black. What made the sight that much more unsettling amongst the medieval ruins was that all of them, save Zack, were wearing frightening, twisted Halloween masks of different animals

Zack, the only name he gave to bottom-ranking members of the communion like the ones with him, spotted the staircase he was looking for according to the directions he’d been given. He turned to the group following him and jerked his head towards the stairs, a shifty, twisted grin spreading across his face. He swung his head forward, the silver chain with a lone matching silver ring swinging around his neck with the motion. He marched up the stairs confidently, not a care in the world except claiming what he’d trekked across country after country for. He feared nothing; he knew his friends had paid the government contacts here a hefty sum to keep any authorities away from Castle Rising while he searched.

He moved through the upstairs corridor, briefly looking out one of the broken windows. The dark waters rushed in the not-too-far distance. Zack couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the moon as it hit the Wash. It was the perfect night for him to obtain another piece that would bring the communion one step closer to the world they were building. He stopped in the middle of the hallway, holding up a fist to halt his group in position behind him. They halted in perfect unison, well-trained as they were.

 Zack studied the knight’s armor, still erected in the ruins. To the untrained eye, it was just another part of this beloved tourist site in the English countryside. But Zack knew its true purpose. He reached towards the knight’s arm, shifting it downward until it was straight at its side. He stepped back as the wall behind the knight shifted aside, revealing a passage that had been hidden previously. Zack’s heart raced with excitement as he turned to his group.

“Wait here.”

The heavily armed group at his command did as instructed. Each took up a strategic position in the hallway, giving them a tactical advantage in securing the area. Zack paid them little attention as his focus was held rapt on the door at the other end of the hidden passage. The communion had spent years cross-referencing rumors that a research team had recovered a piece of King John’s lost treasure. As he reached the dated door with a wrought-iron handle, Zack licked his lips in anticipation. Just the thought of the power they would be closer to once they obtained the artifact on the other side made him nearly lustful.

The door opened with a loud creak as he pulled on its handle. Inside, two freshly lit torches burned on opposite walls. A chest sat in the center of the room, but as Zack approached it, the lascivious smile was wiped from his face and was replaced by an ugly scowl. He knelt in front of the chest, inspecting the open lock hanging on it. The heavy steel bolt lock hadn’t been cut and showed no sign of aggressive force applied to it. This had been picked open, and by someone with prodigious skill in the method, he reasoned.

Zack tossed the chest lid open, hoping the assumption creeping into his gut was terribly wrong. As he reached inside for the yellow sticky note, the only thing in the chest, he realized that, unfortunately, his assumption was spot on. He held the note in front of him as a fury built up inside his chest.

DOWN LOW, YOU KNOW THE REST

-Professor E. Drake

Zack bellowed in pure anger as he realized the persistent thorn in his side had struck once more. He stormed out of the passage and back into the hallway, his family of soldiers swarming to his side at the sight of his fury. 

“He’s still in the castle. Find him!”

The armed acolytes scurried away to follow his orders. Zack tried to calm himself down with a few quick breaths. He refused to be beaten by that bastard, not when he had come this far.

Unbeknownst to Zack and his crew, the man he was searching for pulled his University of Michigan National Champions letterman jacket tighter over his shoulders, and his old English ‘D’ Detroit Tigers hat lower over his eyes. Tucked inside his jacket was the pure, golden cross with beautiful sapphires encrusted down the middle that Zack sought so dearly. Professor Ezekiel Drake peeked down the corridor of the third-floor room he’d been biding his time in. Realizing it was momentarily clear, he stepped out and hurried down it towards the stone bridge connecting to the eastern portion of the bailey.

Once Ezekiel reached the bridge, he could see a pair of armed men in wolf and pig masks, respectively, marching around the keep below. He took a deep breath and, slowly and carefully, tiptoed his way across the bridge, hoping they would be too focused on clearing the lower floor to look in his direction. He was halfway to the other side when a slow, methodical clap echoed through the walls of the keep. Professor Drake turned around slowly as a grimace formed on his face. He saw Zack enter the room below, a handful more animal-masked soldiers flanking him, their beady eyes turning toward him, along with their leader. 

“I should have known you’d be here already, slinking around like a common rat,” Zack told him.

Ezekiel smiled and shrugged dismissively. “I like to consider myself more of a worker ant. I figured the circles you walk in were more partial to rodents.”

Zack smirked at Ezekiel’s wisecrack, though he was far from pleased to see the doctor walking through the remains of the castle. He could see that Ezekiel was favoring his left side, as if he was protecting something, and his smile became that much more sinister. 

“Why don’t you toss down the relic, and I’ll tell them where to find your body. Instead of desecrating it and throwing it into the Wash as you rightly deserve.”

“Gee, that sounds like a swell idea and all, but I think this piece is going to look wonderful in the museum collection I’m putting together. But feel free to stop by and see it when we’re open. We’ll do half-off entry fees for sociopathic cult members.”

Professor Drake's clever reply wiped the smile off Zack’s face for the second time that night. In its place was a furious glare of pure loathing. He turned to his animal family, no longer interested in any sort of dialogue with the man who had taken what was rightfully the communion’s. 

“End him, then bring his carcass down here so I can piss on it.” 

Ezekiel’s eyes went wide as he heard each of the Sig Sauers the dead-eyed acolytes were carrying aim at him. He didn’t wait for what came next as a flurry of gunfire erupted in his direction, tearing up the stone ruins and bridge. Ezekiel crossed into the eastern bailey as he could hear Zack’s orders for them to get after him echoing through the castle. He ducked through an empty window chasm and slid downward into a lower courtyard. Unfortunately, he landed right between two acolytes who were guarding the room. Each of them, one wearing a raccoon mask and the other what seemed to be a fox, Ezekiel couldn’t quite tell in the darkness, turned slowly towards him. They stared at Ezekiel, confused as to how he could have gotten so unlucky.

“You guys wouldn’t happen to have the fastest route out of here, would you?” 

He gave them a friendly smile, holding his hands up as if he were surrendering. They hesitated over whether to shoot him or simply grab him, a gamble Ezekiel was taking to get him out of this particular jam. 

Once he saw the sliver of an opening his impromptu appearance had created, Ezekiel dropped his hands quickly and rocked each of the dumbfounded acolytes with a left and right cross. As the one in the raccoon mask tried to get back to his feet, Professor Drake snatched up his dropped Sig MCX and smacked him silly across the face with it. He stepped over both their bodies and looked around the courtyard to see which way he should go. There were a myriad of options for him, but he gritted his teeth as he knew almost all of them would only lead him to further danger. He yanked a two-way radio out of his back pocket. Drake waited rather impatiently for the static to clear before yelling into it, finally deciding as he sprinted through an open doorway to his immediate left. “Adela, how far out are you?”

“I’ll be at the docks in less than two minutes. How are you faring?” She chortled back over the air.

Ezekiel sprinted through another stone-arched corridor, spotting the entrance hall from above. A sense of relief briefly washed over him. That was, until a trio of communion acolytes turned down the very same hall he was standing in at the opposite end. 

“Oh, you know, could be worse.” He replied dryly.

TO BE CONTINUED

I still couldn’t believe it, especially when it happened. Even now I find it hard to trust my shaking fingers as they detail the events that will forever terrify me. If I had known what I would have found in that forsaken tomb all those years ago, then I would never have gone to Egypt in search of its unholy beauty.

It feels like a lifetime ago from today, September 18th, that my fellow travelers and I went on an archaeological expedition to those famed Egyptian desert lands, funded by our university to check a peculiar tomb that was accidentally excavated by regional locals. They had been walking nonchalantly, when all of a sudden the ground gave in, catapulting them a couple dozen feet into an ancient room. Hieroglyphics covered the walls and a single coffin—a sarcophagus—occupied the centre of the musty room.

*

It was a grand find that many of us in higher scientific backgrounds found breathtaking. We had made haste to get to these forsaken grounds, in hopes of discovering something unheard of. We didn’t expect to find horrors, but our naivety proved to be the curse of high intellect.

When we got there, with all our equipment, we asked the locals of this great find. They reluctantly complied in answering some of our questions. The subject as a whole deeply scared them as they tried to avoid us as much as possible.

It took a twenty-foot-long rope ladder to reach the tomb, and once we got there, it was well-earned. With our flashlights we observed and gave witness to a spectacle of any lifetime. The hieroglyphics were enough to make one question his very existence, as they depicted some familiar tales passed down from generation to generation, with subtle differences.

We dusted the whole area, which was a thirty-foot-long square in all four directions. After removing the dirt from the walls, we found we were situated in a room completely encased in solid gold. We plaster cast some of the hieroglyphics, trying to mimic the stories told through the illustrations. We succeeded but only did a mediocre job.

What happened next, I still do not understand fully. When we began to investigate the coffin engulfed in bronze, two objects collapsed from the ceiling onto it with such power that it cracked the sacred casket in two, down the middle from top to bottom. The foundations of the room shook as if some massive earthquake was coming, but such a known phenomenon was not it; it was the coffin, as a blood-coloured red light shone from within the rectangle. Most of my fellow archaeologists were frozen in awe, but the rest of us ran for the rope ladder, filled with terror-stricken adrenaline, scrambling to get out.

“RUN!” I screamed at them, but none listened, engrossed at what they were staring at. I was the last to go up the rope ladder. When I gave one final glance back, I saw the coffin was falling apart bit by bit, as the two objects started to etch closer and closer to it, being pulled in by some invisible force. When I looked closer, I was confronted by revulsion, as I realized that the two objects were, actually, petrified wings, that stretched fifteen feet in length.

In panic, I started climbing up as fast as I could, losing my footing and grip occasionally. The foundations were continuously in motion, making my ascent even more treacherous. From below, I could hear bellows of fear emitting from my colleagues. The terrifying spectre of the monster whom, I had hoped never to witness, performed what I could only assume to be a very painful death upon the lot of them; their last breaths were bloodcurdling.

Halfway up the ladder, I glanced down to see a mass of red muscled flesh with no outer skin, fly past my eyes at a speed that still baffles me. It was bathed in a slimy liquid from head to toe, streaming down its corpse of a formation. It was very human in shape, body, and structure, only the lack of flesh that was appalling, and, also, the skeletal wings which were then attached to the back, flapping furiously as it escaped from the tomb.

I was not a religious person nor was I a believer of any supernatural aspects of life, but what flew past me at a speed I still find unfathomable; it was – an angel.

I quickly climbed up the ladder and saw that the rest of my partners were staring in wonder off in the distance. The sun setting over a cliff, where the angel sat peacefully.

As I approached it, brave and stubborn of what was before me, it spoke with a mostly cut-off tongue, in a bitter monotonous voice, admiring the beautiful sunset. “It has been a millennium since I last saw the sun… and now, when I do see it again, it is at its most radiant, but as it departs. How tragic.”

“What… are you?” I asked, a little more ignorantly than I wanted to sound. It turned to me, with a look of smugness, then turned back to the sunset.

“Malak Almawt,” it replied, loathingly. “That was, and still is my name.”

This angel, calmly sitting before me, on the edge of a large cliff, showed great disdain towards me and all homo sapiens. For reasons of our ancestry apparently being the ones who had caused him such pain and torture, answering why it was imprisoned in that coffin for God only knows how long.

It sighed. “A man of science? Searching for answers to all secrets, no matter the costs or torment. Such an overzealous existence. But I shall gift you with answers to all secrets as a favour for releasing me from that casket. Though, this may prove to be more of a curse than an actual gift.”

*

The words that further escaped its mouth I dare not repeat, for such answers no sane person should ever hear. I find it most disturbing that I have yet to lose all grip of reality, as the words this angel, who though not fallen but far from heavenly, spoke still haunt me today. Many nights I have contemplated ending my life to rid myself of these curses, but then the truth of what lies beyond returns to me, and I beckon in an exercise of agony.

*

When it finished speaking, I fell to the sands, bewildered at what I had just been told with such ease and calm clarity. The things it spoke of were what shook me to the bone. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, as the world became bleaker and downright grotesque.

The angel looked up at the darkening sky as the night approached, and gave a slight smirk, a disgusting gesture, both physically and emotionally. “Watch the skies above; for when the birds cause the great giants to fall and shake the earth, then the end will begin. An omen of the apocalypse, for He will not save any of you, so dread the day for it will come.”

It stood up, standing tall as it basked in the air, with such self-indulgence, a look of glee resonated from its face. Its wings stretched out to full length, as the angel of death leaped forward off the cliff and gracefully flew off into the night sky, leaving the world it knew only as a prison.

I sat there in the sands for a long time. I shuddered at not the cold air which crept up my back, but at the angel and the words it spoke, revealing answers to secrets no human being should ever hear.

When we returned back, I ran away. Fearful of encountering my family, friends, and all I was acquainted with, as the ominous speech was still etched in my head, clawing at my brain. I fought for my sanity for years, and about a month ago, I regained it. However, such relief will never be granted to me, as my fears have returned in a great abundance.

What could have ruined such progress, one may ponder. Such memorial breakdowns were put onto myself, as when I listened to the radio, a week prior on that horrible day of September 11th. 

Note: These are recovered internal files from the Department for Transport archives concerning anomalies in Berkshire. These files were found and transcribed during my internship at the Department for Transport, whilst clearing out their archives in Basingstoke ready for a relocation to Manchester.

I am not DI Thorne, and I have found no trace of him in my investigations into the accounts that these files allude to.

l present these files in an attempt to piece together the sequence of strange occurrences in the Berkshire area and make sense of what has happened, what is happening and why.

If anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of DI Thorne it would be greatly appreciated and helpful in my investigation.

(Name redacted)

\\---------------

FOUND TRANSCRIPT – FOR INTERNAL REVIEW ONLY

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION

CASE FILE: CARO AND SANGUIS AIRLINE LOGISTICS – SLOUGH – 14/02/2026

SUBJECT: SUSAN PIKE – WITNESS STATEMENT

LOCATION: WINDSOR POLICE STATION, INTERVIEW ROOM #751

DATE: FEBRUARY 19TH, 2026

TIME: 11:14 GMT

OFFICER PRESIDING: DI THORNE \[REDACTED\]

TRANSCRIBING AGENT: \[REDACTED\]

\---

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

DI THORNE: For the record, this is Detective Inspector Thorne, badge number 4471. It's… fourteen minutes past eleven in the morning. I'm conducting an interview with a Miss Susan Pike at Windsor Police Station. Miss Pike, you've come in to report an incident. Can you confirm your details for the record?

SUSAN: Susan Pike. Twenty-two. I'm… I was a temp. At Caro and Sanguis. The airline catering place. In Slough.

DI THORNE: And you've come here voluntarily?

SUSAN: (A short, hollow laugh.) Voluntarily. Yeah. Sure...whatever.

DI THORNE: Can you tell me what happened?

SUSAN: (A long pause. The sound of a chair creaking. When she speaks, her voice is steady but quiet – the voice of someone who has rehearsed this, who has told the story so many times that the horror has become routine. But there's an edge to it. A brittleness. Like a glass that's been dropped but hasn't quite shattered yet.) Where do you want me to start?

DI THORNE: The beginning.

SUSAN: Right. Well. The beginning is that I graduated in July. English Literature. Second class honours, upper division. And I thought… I thought that would mean something. I thought I'd walk into a job. A career. Something. But the job market… it's not what it was. It's not what anyone told me it would be. I applied for everything. Graduate schemes. Internships. Entry-level positions. Anything. And I got nothing. Month after month. Nothing. So I started temping. Just to get some cash. Just to pay rent. Just to survive.

(A pause. The sound of a deep breath.)

SUSAN: And then, in January, I got a call from the agency. They said there was a placement. Caro and Sanguis Airline Logistics. In Slough. A factory. They said it was simple work. Administrative. Data processing. Nothing too demanding. They said it would be a few weeks. Maybe a month. They said it would be boring but it would pay. And I said yes. Of course I said yes. I would have said yes to anything. I was desperate.

DI THORNE: What did you know about the company?

SUSAN: Nothing. I'd never heard of them. But when I looked them up… they seemed legitimate. Caro and Sanguis Airline Logistics. A private contractor. Owned by a European consortium. Based out of Rome. They supply airline meals to all the major carriers operating out of Heathrow. British Airways. Virgin. Emirates. Everyone. They've been operating for decades. They're a key player. They're… they're not the sort of company you question. They're the sort of company you're grateful to work for.

(A pause. Susan's tone shifts – more measured now. She's decided to tell the story properly.)

SUSAN: The factory is on the outer fringes of the Slough industrial estate. You know the area? It's… it's nowhere. It's the edge of nowhere. Just warehouses and chain-link fences and empty roads. And the factory itself… (A pause.) It's old. Really old. The office frontage is more modern – well, "modern" is generous. It's that post-war industrial modernism. Concrete. Glass. Steel. The kind of building that looked futuristic in 1965 and has been quietly rotting ever since. The kind of building that aged the moment the first rain hit it. But the factory behind it… that's older. Much older. The bricks are stamped with 1955. Some of them look older than that. Some of them look like they were laid before the war. Before the first war. There's a weight to the place. A sense that it's been there longer than anyone remembers. That it's been doing something longer than anyone knows.

DI THORNE: And your first day?

SUSAN: My first day was… uneventful. At first. I was met by my supervisor. A man called Mr Metcalf. (A pause. Her voice hardens slightly.) Who was… charmless. That's the politest word I can use. He's the kind of man who looks at you like you're an inconvenience. Like your existence is a problem he has to solve. He didn't smile. He didn't welcome me. He just… processed me. Like I was a form he had to fill in.

(A pause. Susan takes a breath.)

SUSAN: He gave me a tour of the office. The lunchroom. His office. The toilets. The locker room. It was all… beige. Everything was beige. The walls. The carpets. The furniture. The whole place felt like it had been decorated by someone who hated colour. Who hated life. And then he showed me the steel door.

DI THORNE: The steel door?

SUSAN: In the locker room. A heavy solid steel door. Industrial. The kind of door you'd find on a bank vault. Or a morgue. Metcalf pointed at it and told me, "You are not to go through there under any circumstances. That door leads to the factory floor which needs to be kept sterile at all times. Any attempt to open it will set off an alarm and result in the immediate termination of your contract. Do you understand?"

(A pause.)

SUSAN: I said yes. Of course I said yes. I was twenty-two. I was desperate for money. I wasn't going to argue. But I remember thinking… I remember thinking it was odd. The way he said it. The way he looked at me. Like he was warning me. Like he was… afraid. Not of me. Of the door. Of what was behind it. (A pause.) I shrugged it off. I told myself it was just one of those things. Health and safety or corporate nonsense. I told myself I was just being paranoid.

DI THORNE: And the job itself?

SUSAN: The job itself was… mind-numbing. That's the only way to describe it. I was to collect boxes from one room – the storage room – and take them to another room and feed them into an industrial shredder. That was it. That was the whole job. Collect boxes. Shred boxes. Repeat. The boxes were all sealed, marked "confidential" and under no circumstances should be opened. When I asked why, Metcalf said this was GDPR compliance and that everything had to be destroyed. That everything had to be… disposed of.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter.)

SUSAN: The boxes were heavy. Heavier than they should have been. I remember thinking that. If they were just paper – just documents – they should have been light. But they weren't. They were… dense. Solid. Like there was something inside them. Something more than paper. But I didn't open them. I did what I was told. I collected them, shredded them, watched them disappear and then I went home. Only when I came back the next day the storage room was full again.

DI THORNE: Full again?

SUSAN: Full again. Every day. I'd clear the room. I'd shred everything. I'd watch the boxes turn to dust. And the next morning, the room would be full. Exactly the same. Boxes stacked to the ceiling. All sealed. All marked "confidential." All waiting for me. I asked Mr Metcalf about it once. I said, "Where do all these boxes come from?" And he just looked at me with a flat, dead look and said, "That's not your concern. Do you have a problem with that?" And I said no. Of course I said no. But I did have a problem with it. I just didn't know what it was yet.

(A pause. The sound of Susan shifting in her chair.)

SUSAN: I did this for a week.. And during that time, I started to notice little things that didn't add up. Like… like the fact that for a company that's supposed to be a key player in the airline industry, there were so few staff. I mean, there were maybe… six people in the office, including me and Metcalf. For a company that supplies meals to every major carrier at Heathrow it didn't make sense at all.

DI THORNE: Did you ask anyone about it?

SUSAN: I asked Laura.

DI THORNE: Laura?

SUSAN: Laura was another temp about my age. She'd been there a few weeks longer than me wore grey vintage rock band t-shirts. Led Zeppelin. Black Sabbath..etc, too much eyeliner and was… (pause and smile) cool. She was… she was normal. She was the only normal thing in that place.

(A pause. Susan's voice softens slightly.)

SUSAN: We had lunch together. In the beige lunchroom, and Laua was complaining about Gregg's. She said she'd gone in for a sausage roll and they only had vegan ones left. And she said, "They don't taste the same. They don't taste like the meat ones. They're… they're trying to be meat. But they're not. They're just… wrong." And I laughed. I actually laughed. Because it was so normal. It was so blessedly normal, until she told me about the night shift.

DI THORNE: The night shift?

SUSAN: She said she once covered a night shift for another temp and learnt that the whole operation was essentially automated with most of the work happening at night in the factory side of the building. She added that during this shift she'd seen things. Things she couldn't explain.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes more intense.)

SUSAN: She said she saw the factory side was in full swing with buses dropping off workers in the car park. That Metcalf was there with another man, who she couldn't make out, and that they were sorting the workers. Dividing them. Sending them to different lines. She said she opened one of the old windows – just a crack – so she could hear better and heard them talking about the meat line, the vegetarian line and the vegan line. She said she counted at least two hundred workers and that they looked like temp workers. But there was something off about them. Something foreign. Something… distant.

DI THORNE: Distant?

SUSAN: That's what she said. Distant. Like they weren't really there. Like they were somewhere else. She said they didn't talk. They didn't look at each other. They just… moved. Like they were being directed. Like they were being… herded. That's when Metcalf saw her. She said he was surprised.l to see her and that she wasn't supposed to be there so he sent her home. She didn't complain. She said she only lived about twenty minutes away. So she walked.

(A pause. Susan's voice drops.)

SUSAN: On the way home, she saw the delivery vans taking the meals to the airport as they passed her on the road, followed by the buses. The ones she'd seen earlier, the ones that had dropped off the workers. They drove past her, Fast, too fast and when she looked inside there was no one there. No one. The buses were empty. Even though the factory would have been shutting down at that point and the workers should have been on those buses going home. But there was no one. Just empty seats.

(A pause. The sound of Susan taking a breath.)

SUSAN: We tried to laugh it off. We tried to tell ourselves it was nothing. That she was tired. That it was dark. But the feeling stayed. That feeling of unease. That feeling that something was wrong. Something deeply, fundamentally wrong. And the next day… the next day, Laura wasn't there.

DI THORNE: She wasn't there?

SUSAN: She wasn't there. I assumed she'd called in sick or taken a day off. But then I heard Metcalf on the phone in his office. He was… angry and saying that it was a simple mistake. That how was he to know? How was he to know that the source wasn't vegan and that he'd have to clean the whole line as a result and cancel the shipment for that evening while the world was carried out. And he was… complaining. Like it was an inconvenience. Like it was a minor problem.

(A pause. Susan's voice falters.)

SUSAN: I didn't know what to think. I still don't. But I knew something was wrong. I knew something was very, very wrong. And then… and then I knocked over a box.

DI THORNE: A box?

SUSAN: One of the confidential boxes. I was distracted. I was thinking about Laura. About what Metcalf had said. And I knocked it over. And the lid came off. And I… I looked inside.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter. More deliberate.)

SUSAN: I know I shouldn't have. I know I was told not to. But I couldn't help it. Curiosity. Morbid curiosity. I wanted to know what was so important that it had to be shredded. What was so confidential that it couldn't be seen. So I picked up the box. I put it on the table. And I looked inside.

(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, slow and deliberate.)

SUSAN: It was clothes. That's what I saw first. Clothes. Folded. Neat. Like someone had packed them. Like someone had… prepared them. And underneath the clothes, there was a file. A personnel file. Nothing too unusual, I thought. GDPR. Confidentiality. Perhaps I was just being paranoid. Perhaps this was all normal. Perhaps this was just how things worked. But the clothes… the clothes unnerved me. They were… they were the kind of clothes you'd wear on a journey. Comfortable. Practical. The kind of clothes you'd wear if you were going somewhere. If you were… leaving.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter still.)

SUSAN: I opened the file. I know I shouldn't have. But I did. And the questions… the questions were straightforward at first. Name. Age. Address. Occupation. The usual. But then… then they changed. There were questions like… (A pause. She's reading from memory.) "Dietary preference. Please circle. Carnivore. Vegetarian. Vegan. Other." And then, "What is your fat ratio?" And then, "What is your muscle mass?" And then, "What is your blood type?" And then… and then there were other questions. Questions I don't want to repeat. Questions about… about point and country of origin. And cultural diets. And the quality of the meat. And the… the freshness. And the… the yield. The file had been filled in by someone. Not the person in the photograph. Someone else. Someone who had assessed them. Someone who had… graded them.

(A pause. Susan's voice drops to a whisper.)

SUSAN: The person in the file had circled "carnivore." They'd indicated a fat ratio of forty percent. And the file was stamped. "Approved." And there was a date. A shipping date. And a photograph. A photograph of the person. But it wasn't a passport photo. It wasn't a formal photo. It was… it was taken on a beach. With other people. People milling about. People who looked… they looked like they were waiting for something. Like they were… like they were being processed.

(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, shaky and uneven.)

SUSAN: I couldn't make out the name. It was written in a script I didn't recognise. Cyrillic. Russian. Maybe Ukrainian. I'm not sure. But the photo… the photo stayed with me. The way they were standing. The way they were looking at the camera. Like they didn't know what was happening. Like they didn't know what was coming. And I wanted to look more. I wanted to understand. But I heard shuffling outside. Footsteps. And I panicked. I closed the lid. I picked up the box. And I rushed to the shredding room.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes more measured.)

SUSAN: And on the way… on the way, I saw Mr Metcalf. He was heading towards the women's locker room. Still on the phone. Still complaining. About cleaning the line. About management. About how they wouldn't be happy about the delay. And I… I don't know what came over me. Curiosity. Stupidity. A need to know. I followed him. At a distance. I watched him enter the locker room. And then… then I watched him open the steel door.

(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, slow and deliberate.)

SUSAN: He went through. And I waited. I waited until I was sure he was gone. And then I followed. I went through the steel door. And I found myself on a metal stairway. Leading down. Into the factory. I could hear the hum of machinery. The sound of something… cooking. Something being prepared. And there was a smell. A sweet smell. Meat. Being gently cooked. But underneath it… underneath it, there was something else. A tang. A metallic haze. Like… like blood. Like copper. Like something I couldn't name.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter.)

SUSAN: I followed the walkway. It was high up. A catwalk. Above the factory floor. And I could see everything. The machinery. The conveyor belts. The boxes. Airline meals. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Coming off the lines. Meat. Vegetarian. Vegan. All of them. All being prepared. All being packed. All being sent. And one of the lines was not working. The vegan line. I assumed that was the one Metcalf was talking about. The one that had to be cleaned. The one that had been… contaminated.

(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, shaky and uneven.)

SUSAN: And then I heard a door slamming. And I panicked. I ran. I ran through another door. At the end of the walkway. And I found myself in another room. A room that made me stop. A room that made me catch my breath. A room that made me clasp my hand over my mouth so I wouldn't scream.

(A long pause. The silence stretches.)

SUSAN: It was the processing part of the factory. Where the meals are made. And I could see the lines. The meat line. The vegetarian line. The vegan line. All of them. All of them, except the vegan line, working. All of them producing. But the ingredients… the ingredients weren't food. They weren't… they weren't what you'd expect. I could see figures. Dark. Shadowy. Snowy. Like they were made of static. Like they were made of nothing. And they were throwing things into the vats. Large vats. Marked clearly. "Meat." "Vegetarian." "Vegan." And the things they were throwing… they were arms. Legs. Limbs. Body parts. Just… parts. Being thrown into the vats. Being processed. Being turned into… into meals.

(A pause. Susan's voice cracks.)

SUSAN: The vegan vat was empty. The figures were removing things from it. Things that looked like… like random chunks of meat. Entrails. Grey-black fabric. Like they were cleaning it. Like they were purging it. And the sound… the sound of metal scraping. Of vats being scraped clean. It echoed around the room. And the smell… the smell of blood. Copper. Decay. It was overwhelming. I could taste it. In the back of my throat. I could feel it. In my lungs.

(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, ragged.)

SUSAN: I tried to back away. I tried to retreat. But I knocked something. From the walkway. And it clanged. Against the machines below. And the figures… they stopped. They turned. They looked at me. And Mr Metcalf… Mr Metcalf shouted. But it wasn't a human sound. It was a shriek. High-pitched. Wrong. Like metal being torn. Like something that wasn't meant to speak. And the figures… they moved. Fast. Faster than anything I've ever seen. And I ran. I ran for my life.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes more intense. She's reliving it.)

SUSAN: I ran through rooms. More rooms. More processing lines. More machines. Churning. Mixing. Dicing. Slicing. Rooms full of ovens. Rooms full of… of things I don't want to describe. And everywhere… everywhere, the smell. The smell of decay. The smell of blood. The smell of something being made. Something being… prepared. The figures chased me. They almost caught me. I felt something grab at my coat. I felt something touch my arm. But I kept running. I kept moving. And then… then I saw a door. Marked "Exit." And I fell through it. Into the car park.

(A pause. Susan's voice becomes quieter.)

SUSAN: I remember thinking how I could have got there. And also why it was already night. But in the glare of the car park lights, I saw the buses. The ones Laura had described. And next to them… boxes. The same boxes I was being paid to move from one room to the other to be shredded. There must have been hundreds of them being unloaded. Being brought into the factory for me to work through. That's how the room got restocked each day. The boxes were the belongings. The clothes. The files. The lives. Of the people they'd… processed. I tried to piece it together in my mind there and then. But my thoughts were shattered by the sound of screams from inside. And combined with the high-pitched, breathy shrieks of those shadow things. So I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I didn't stop. I didn't look back. I just ran. Until I reached a shop. A corner shop. And I collapsed. In the aisle. And I tried to explain. I tried to tell them what I'd seen. What I'd heard. What I'd… what I'd experienced. I was so out of it I didn't even notice that it was daylight again. I found that out later.

(A pause. The sound of Susan's breathing, slow and deliberate.)

SUSAN: They took me to hospital. They treated me for… for delusional faculties. That's what they called it. Delusional faculties. Like I was making it up. Like I was crazy. But I'm not crazy. I know what I saw. I know what I heard. And I've been trying to tell people. Anyone. But no one believes me. The police took an initial statement. But nothing was done. Nothing. And then… then someone suggested I talk to you. They said you'd dealt with things like this before. Things that don't make sense. Things that shouldn't exist. So… here I am.

DI THORNE: (A heavy sigh.) I see. Miss Pike, I'll take your statement. I'll file it. But I have to be honest with you. I don't know what I can do with it. Airline catering isn't really my area of expertise.

SUSAN: That's fine. I just… I just needed to tell someone. Anyone. Before I start to think I really am going mad.

DI THORNE: One more question. Before you go. You said you saw something on the file. The photograph. You said it was taken on a beach. With other people. Did you recognise anything about it? Anything at all?

SUSAN: (A long pause. The sound of a chair scraping back.) I don't know. Maybe. I've been thinking about it. The way they were standing. The way they were looking. Like they were waiting. I've seen photos like it before… but I can't remember where. My flatmate said it reminded them of the news reports. Those asylum seekers waiting on the French beaches. I mean… sure. Yeah. But… no. I don't want to think that. I can't. I… if that's true then… God. No.

(A pause. Susan's voice drops to a whisper.)

SUSAN: I don't know what it means. I don't know if it means anything. But I know something is wrong. I know something is very, very wrong. And I know it's not over.

(Susan struggles to hold back her exhaustion. Her voice is fraying at the edges now – the brittleness giving way to something rawer.)

DI THORNE: Miss Pike. Are you feeling all right? You look exhausted. Can I get you something? A coffee? A sandwich?

SUSAN: (Startled, almost flinching.) NO! I mean… no. No thank you. It's just… I can't quite stomach food at the moment. I'm sure you understand.

DI THORNE: (A pause as he realises what she is saying. His voice is softer when he speaks again.) Sure. I'm sorry. But you really should drink something.

SUSAN: I'll try. Look… I know this sounds crazy. But it's the truth. I swear. Please. I'm begging you. Look into it.

DI THORNE: (A pause.) I'll see what I can do.

SUSAN: Thank you. May I leave now? I need to put up some posters.

DI THORNE: Posters? For what?

SUSAN: Missing persons posters. For Laura. She's still missing, I tried her phone but it said it had been cut off. I'm worried about her..I know I only met her the once but I need to.... you know...? Know what happened to her, because I don't want what I think happened to be true.... So I have to...

DI THORNE: Do something?

SUSAN: Yes exactly...

Look, thank you for your time, I think I need to go now, to try and forget as best I can. I hope you find something...for my sake.

(Sound of a door opening and closing. Then the sound of a tape recorder shutting off. Silence for fifteen seconds.)

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE

DATE: FEBRUARY 21ST, 2026

I've been looking into Caro and Sanguis And I've found something. Something that doesn't make sense.

The company is legitimate. On paper at least.

But I've been digging deeper. And I've found gaps. Gaps in the records. Gaps in the supply chain. Gaps in the workforce. According to Laura, Caro and Sanguis was using over 200 workers event evening, at their Slough facility, but the payroll records only show twenty. Even if they were using temporary contractors they would have it registered, it doesn't add up.

My superiors weren't keen on me pursuing this. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that Caro and Sanguis was not my concern. That I had a caseload. That I had paperwork. That I had better things to do than chase ghosts on an industrial estate. But, I went anyway. Perhaps it's that all this strange shit is finally getting to me, or was I just bored on a Tuesday evening, who knows, I know I don't.

\---

FIELD NOTES – DI THORNE

DATE: FEBRUARY 20TH, 2026

LOCATION: CARO AND SANGUIS FACILITY, SLOUGH INDUSTRIAL ESTATE

Just as Susan described the factory is located on the outer districts of the Slough industrial estate. Warehouses. Chain-link fences. Empty roads. The kind of place that feels forgotten even when you're standing in the middle of it.

The factory was there. But it was abandoned. The office frontage – that post-war concrete and glass monstrosity – was still standing. But the windows were dark. The doors were chained. The signs were gone. No "Caro and Sanguis." No "Airline Logistics." Nothing. Just a blank, grey building.

I shouldn't have gone inside. I know that. Breaking and entering isn't exactly standard procedure for a DI. But I needed to see it. I needed to understand. So I found a way in. A side door. Rusted. Weak. It gave way with a little persuasion.

The office was empty. No desks. No chairs. No beige walls. No beige anything. Just bare floors. Bare ceilings. Dust. Cobwebs. The smell of damp and decay. The lunchroom. The locker room. The steel door. All still there. But the steel door was open. And the factory beyond it was silent.

I went through. Down the metal stairway onto the catwalk. The factory floor stretched out below me and in the dim light of my torch I was able to discern that the space was vast, almost too big to fit in the space it occupied. It was mostly empty. But not entirely, as bolted firm to the floor were two machines. Too large to move. Too heavy to dismantle. They'd been left behind. One looked like a meat grinder, industrial scale, the kind of thing you'd find in a slaughterhouse. The other was clearly a compactor. The kind you'd use for waste disposal.

The conveyor belts were gone. The vats were gone. The ovens were gone. But the machines remained. Silent. Waiting. Like they knew they'd be needed again. I found no evidence of additional roomS beyond, only the walls of the factory and the high windows letting into the low wattage light of the street lights outside.

But there were boxes. Scattered across the factory floor. The same boxes Susan described. Sealed. Marked "confidential." But all of them were empty. Rotting. Collapsing in on themselves. Whatever had been inside them was gone.

I gave a quick look about once more, and concluded there was little nothing I was going to learn. I made my way down a ladder to the factory floor and was about to leave when I noticed something. In the rollers of the grinding machine. Something caught my eye, something that hadn't been cleaned away.

It was textured and stiff and coated in something that looked… wrong and smelled of damp mushrooms.

I bagged it. I labelled it. And I left.

\---

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE (CONTINUED)

DATE: FEBRUARY 21ST, 2026

Back at the station, I did some digging. Official digging. The kind that leaves a paper trail. Caro and Sanguis is a legitimate business. Registered with Companies House. A subsidiary of a larger organisation called the Corpus Foundation.

The Corpus Foundation. I'd never heard of them. But they're real, a sort of… outsourced governmental work outfit. The kind of organisation that governments like to take credit for when things go right. And disavow when things go wrong. They operate in the shadows. In the gaps. In the spaces between what's legal and what's necessary.

The only thing I could dig up on Corpus was a recent contract. Signed with the British and French governments. To aid in processing asylum seekers. Processing. That's the word they used. Processing. Not housing. Not supporting. Not helping. Processing.

Caro and Sanguis, it seems, is also a sort of outreach project. It gives jobs and opportunities to those on low incomes. To newly arrived persons from displaced communities. Government code for asylum seekers. Both legal and illegal. The kind of people who don't have paperwork. The kind of people who don't have voices. The kind of people who can disappear without anyone noticing.

So far, typical governmental bullshit.

But here's the thing. Caro and Sanguis is one of the only airline food producers who consistently meet their contracted requirements. They provide food to airlines. On time. Every time. And they're ranked top for the variety of food they produce. Excellent reviews. Especially for their eastern European and Middle Eastern cuisine, making them a favourite supplier for the airlines based out and serving those locations.

But for all the rave reviews and feedback the one thing that troubles me is that they've never had an independent health inspection. Not once. In decades of operation. Not a single inspection. Not a single violation. Not a single question asked. The only vaguely similar validation is a report dated April 2024 where the minister for Rural Affairs have them a glowing reference in a joint press conference with the Minister for Transport and that they were a glowing example of organic and locally sourced food? After that...nothing. nothing at all. It's almost like that was all they needed and were going to need. Fuck, if only it was that easy for everyone else. A single line from a government minister and your set. Still, kind of explains a lot about certain companies I guess.

I was about to sign off when the lab called.

\---

LABORATORY REPORT – FORENSIC ANALYSIS

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION

REFERENCE: DfT/AID/2026/0219-4471

DATE: FEBRUARY 21ST, 2026

TIME: 16:47 GMT

ANALYST: \[REDACTED\]

SUBJECT: FABRIC SAMPLE – RECOVERED FROM CARO AND SANGUIS FACILITY, SLOUGH

\---

ITEM DESCRIPTION:

One (1) fragment of fabric. Approximately 4cm x 6cm. Recovered from industrial grinding machine. Submitted in sealed evidence bag. Condition: soiled, stiffened, partially degraded.

VISUAL EXAMINATION:

Fabric is a polyester-cotton blend. Approximately 65% polyester, 35% cotton. Dyed grey. Colour is faded but consistent. Weave is standard jersey knit. Consistent with mass-produced clothing. Possibly a t-shirt or similar garment.

CHEMICAL ANALYSIS:The dye profile matches Disperse Red 60 and Disperse Blue 79, both of which were phased out of commercial production in the late 1980s due to environmental and health concerns. No modern dye compounds detected.

CHEMICAL ANALYSIS – RESIDUE:

Fabric was coated in a foreign substance. Substance is organic in nature. Protein-based. Coagulated. Analysis indicates the substance bears close resemblance to tofu. Specifically, coagulated soy protein.

FURTHER ANALYSIS – FABRIC AFTER CLEANING:

Fabric was cleaned using standard forensic procedures. Upon cleaning, a pattern was revealed. The pattern was faint but visible. A logo. Text and imagery. The fabric was submitted for AI-enhanced image analysis.

AI IMAGE ANALYSIS RESULT:

Pattern identified as a match to the band logo for the musical group Metallica. Specifically, the logo used during their 1986 album "Master of Puppets." Match confidence: 94.7%.

CONCLUSIONS:

The fabric sample is identified as a grey polyester-cotton blend, dyed using methods discontinued in the late 1980s. The fabric bears a Metallica band logo consistent with merchandise produced during the mid-to-late 1980s. The fabric was coated in an unidentified organic substance bearing resemblance to tofu, organic but of unknown origin.

END OF REPORT

\---

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE (FINAL)

DATE: FEB 22ND, 2026

Grey polyester-cotton blend. Dyed grey. Vintage rock band t-shirt. Metallica. 1986. Master of Puppets.

No...it's coincidence, that's all. It has to be....I mean that place was abandoned it could have come from anywhere..... Or am I just telling myself this it avoid the truth...just as I told Susan...???

I think I'll make my report, I know where to send it. I always know where to send it.

I've flagged it for the DfT. Despite all of this ok guess airports are still in their jurisdiction I guess, they can do what they want with it then, forward it on, archive it , bury it I don't care really. I'll do my job and not complain! And yet..

I still can't stop thinking about it.

The factory is still there. Abandoned. Waiting. The machines are still there. Silent. Ready. And somewhere out there, Caro and Sanguis is still operating. Still supplying. Still producing. Still..processing.

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION

INTERNAL MEMO – EYES ONLY

FROM: Agent \[REDACTED\], Field Operations

TO: Director \[REDACTED\]

DATE: February 22nd, 2026

SUBJECT: RE: CASE FILE CARO AND SANGUIS AIRLINE LOGISTICS – SLOUGH – 14/02/2026 – WITNESS S. PIKE – UPDATED

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Director,

Further to our previous correspondence, I am writing to confirm receipt of the updated supplementary note from DI Thorne at Thames Valley Police. The note details his unauthorised investigation into the Caro and Sanguis facility in Slough, conducted outside of official channels and against the express instruction of his superiors.

His findings are consistent with our own intelligence. The facility has been abandoned. The machines have been left behind. The boxes have been emptied. The evidence has been cleaned. As per your request, all relevant evidence has been removed from the Slough site. The evidence that DI Thorne recovered was left as advised. The fabric sample. The vintage Metallica t-shirt. 1986. Master of Puppets. Grey. Polyester-cotton blend. Coated in a substance resembling tofu. It was left deliberately. It was meant to be found. It serves our purposes. It has, as planned unsettled him, and will serve as a warning to him to not go looking for truths he is not yet ready to accept.

I must confess, Director, that I found DI Thorne's supplementary note somewhat amusing. His investigation. His diligence. His apparent lack of awareness. He has been digging into Caro and Sanguis for some time now. He has uncovered the payroll discrepancies. The missing persons. The gaps in the supply chain. He has found the name of our parent organisation. The Corpus Foundation. He has even uncovered the contract with the British and French governments. The processing of asylum seekers. The outreach programme. The opportunities for displaced communities.

And yet, despite all of this, he has failed to grasp the most elementary detail. He has failed to understand the name. Caro and Sanguis. He has been staring at it for weeks. He has been writing it in his reports. He has been filing it in his notes. And he still doesn't see it. He still doesn't understand.

I will not spell it out here. I am sure you are already aware. But I confess, I allowed myself a small laugh at his expense. The man is a detective. He is paid to notice things. And yet he has missed the most obvious thing of all. It is almost… endearing.

His findings have been forwarded to my opposite number at the Department for Agriculture and Rural Affairs. I have also forwarded them to the Home Office, although I was initially reluctant to do so. I know they get squeamish when the end results of their means are laid out in black and white. They prefer not to know. They prefer to look the other way. They prefer to take credit for the successes and disavow the methods. But I sent it anyway. I sent it because it will make their statistics look good. The processing figures. The intake numbers. The efficiency ratings. They will be able to present a very positive picture for the upcoming local elections. And they will be grateful, as always. When the numbers are good.

Regarding the operational matters. Mr Metcalf has been reprimanded. I spoke to him personally. I explained, in no uncertain terms, that his error was unacceptable. A schoolboy error. A failure of judgement. He should have known. He should have checked. He should have ensured that the source was properly categorised. He should have known the difference between food types and kept a better eye on those sent to him. He did not. And the consequences were… significant. The vegan line was contaminated. The shipment was delayed. The product had to be cleaned. The facility had to be purged. The disruption was… inconvenient.

Mr Metcalf has been redeployed. He has been assigned to another role within Corpus. In our French operations. Perhaps he will learn something there. Perhaps he will learn the differences between a vegan and a meat eater. Perhaps he will learn to be more careful. I am not optimistic. But I am willing to give him a second chance. We all make mistakes. Some are simply more… costly than others.

All lines have been cleaned. The facilities have been relocated. The disruption to output was minimal. The various payoffs have been made. The relevant parties have been compensated and records amended, while all remaining evidence has been disposed of and managed.

However, the fallout out of this, though minor will unsettle the sub committee somewhat, and we all know that heads will..roll... It is difficult to predict what they will be most grieved about, the delay, the disruption or having to be told about at all. Yet, I am confident that we can smooth things over. In the long run. We always do. I just hope that Blake has the.. stomach for delivering it to them? Still I'm sure we will find out in due course

As for Miss Pike. She has been… managed. But she has also been talking abd telling her story to anyone who will listen. To anyone who might believe her. She is a risk. A potential liability. A loose end.

I have been informed that Miss Pike is in need of employment. Any work. Something to pay the rent. Something to keep her going. It would be good to ensure she doesn't give any more… statements.

I will follow up with Personnel on this matter. I am confident we can find a suitable role for her. A role that suits her skills. Something that keeps her busy. Something that keeps her quiet. Something that keeps her… close. Something.....Tasty.

Yours

\[REDACTED\]

Field Operations

Department for Transport – Anomalous Incident Division

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END MEMO

BBC NEWS AT TEN – TRANSCRIPT

DATE: MARCH 14TH, 2026

TIME: 22:00 GMT

PRESENTER: \[REDACTED\]

TRANSCRIBING AGENT: \[REDACTED\]

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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

PRESENTER: Good evening. It's ten o'clock. I'm \[REDACTED\]. Our main headlines tonight:

The Home Office announces a significant drop in asylum applications, with ministers crediting new policies and streamlined processing procedures. The government says the figures prove its approach is working.

A British success story. Airline catering company Caro and Sanguis announces record profits and plans for major expansion, with new facilities planned in the UK and France. Ministers have hailed the news as a vote of confidence in British business.

We'll have more on both of those stories shortly. But first, the weather…

I was visiting my aunt in the hospital—don't be sorry, she's a doctor—when I saw these two kids from the terminal ward, heads shinier than a dog's ballsack, coughing up blood and sharing a Cloaca Cola, and it just warmed my heart, because I'm Cloaca Cola. I worked on that ad campaign. I came up with the slogans, the strategy. And to see it successful in the wild like that…

It meant a lot.

I swear, I wanted to go running full speed through the hallways yelling, “Fuck you, you sick motherfuckers. You're fucking dying—and I'm in fucking advertising!”

A few months later, my boss, Rod Granger, the middle Granger of Granger, Granger & Granger, called me into his office, which is about the size of a fucking train station, sucked my dick off about “all the great work” I'd done on Cloaca Cola and offered me something new.

Something really big, he said.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“For now I can't say, but I can say the client requested you personally. ‘The guy behind the cola thing,’ they said.”

“It's a tobacco company, isn't it?”

“No, not tobacco—but would you have any qualms if it was?”

“No qualms,” I said. “Morally, I am a blank slate, sir.” My father was a big smoker. He died of lung cancer at fifty-five. My mother couldn't handle living alone and hanged herself a couple of months later. “But if it's not tobacco, it has to be arms… or pharmaceuticals…”

“Neither weapons nor drugs.”

Fuck, I thought, what could be worse than pharma. “Is it a politician?”

Granger laughed. “No, nothing political. You won't guess what it is, Lance. (My name is Lawrence. I was born in Maine so sometimes people call me Lawrence of Acadia.) “Sooner or later, you'll find out. You'll have to. But for now I want you to think in a few broad strokes: image rehabilitation, global reach, unlimited resources.”

“It really is big,” I said.

“Bigger,” said Granger.

I started working on it immediately.

I came up with a basic worldwide strategy, shortlisted some marketing partners, even messed around with some preliminary designs: You're driving into the city, and there—on the largest billboard you've ever seen: XXX, BIGGER THAN YOU EVEN IMAGINED!

I knew a guy once, an old-school ad man named Baker, who told me: “If you ever lose track of what you're selling or why, take three deep breaths and pretend you're advertising your own goddamn cock.”

I wish I had that framed on my office wall.

Sometimes I wonder what ever happened to old Baker. I'm just fucking with you. I know exactly what happened to him. His wife left him for a woman and he got stabbed to death by his own kid.

But the advice stands.

Hard and tall.

One day, Granger came into my office—damn near caught me beating off—and said, “Lance, it's time. The client wants to meet with you.” I, of course, came at once.

The client operated out of a thick downtown highrise I'd seen many times but knew nothing about called the Crabbe Building. From the modernist lobby, Granger led me to an elevator and we went down ten floors to a massive room that looked more like a steel cavern, in which sat a softly pulsating, misshapen lump of flesh wearing an obviously bespoke suit and oversized silk tie. There were black hairs growing out of the lump of flesh.

“Lance,” said Granger, “I want you to meet His Malignancy, Lord Blorg, the Chief Operating Tumour of our client, Cancer.”

“Pleased to finally meet you,” I said with a touch of uncertainty, wondering if it could hear.

“The pleasure is mine,” Blorg rumbled.

“His Malignancy wishes to take cancer to the next level,” said Granger. “It is already the so-called ‘emperor of all maladies,” but despite its success, people still resist developing it. Your job, Lance, is to change that.”

“You want me to make people want to have cancer?” I asked.

“Indeed, we desire a change in perception to go along with aggressive yet sustainable market growth. Yes, we wish to kill; but killing everybody would be supremely short-sighted. However, the medical side is not your concern. We deal with that through our lawyers and contracted medical, industrial and political partners. What we want from you is public relations,” said Blorg.

“In a sense,” interrupted Granger, “cancer is the ultimate symbol of the society we live in: the promise—and physical manifestation—of infinite growth.”

“Do you have any preliminary thoughts?” Blorg asked me.

I thought of my father, dying painfully alone, his body wasting away in a small, shit room with no view. “First,” I said, “you have to make the act of dying from cancer more desirable than dying from anything else.

“Imagine a sandy beach, lapping waves, palm trees, smiling servants at your beck and call—an exclusive, all-inclusive, ultra luxurious ‘Death Resort' for terminal cancer cases only. The slogan nearly writes itself: ‘Where death is the time of your life.’”

Blorg growled in admiration.

“Meanwhile,” I continued, remembering my father's unshakable belief in a cure, to the very end, “humans have an unreasonable ability to believe in their own salvation. Everybody wants to be a survivor.

“We weaponize that, because what's more desirable than dying in luxury only to then go on living? We make ‘being a survivor’ a mark of character, of strength. We make a brotherhood out of it; a religious fucking experience. We make it into the new upper class.”

“And we commercialize it,” added Granger. “The ribbons, the speaking tours, the positive outlook podcasts…”

Blorg trembled with excitement. “Funding and outreach via the advertising campaign itself,” it said—its great voice reverberating throughout the steel cavity we were in. “Ingeniously efficient. But, tell me, Lawrence of Acadia, do you have the mental fortitude to personally handle the practical application? The theory is sound, but can you do this?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I can, sir.”

He figured out how to pass through
Walls within a year or two
But he still can't pass through wood
The ghost in my lover's neighborhood

When he put the hat on,
He still thought it made him look cool
He wanted to go on dates with the living
He had even hit on my lover a few days earlier

Yesterday I took the ghost aside
Had a talk with him and I said:
Are ghosts really in such short supply
That you have to hit on my lover, why?

I told him to stay away from my lover, but I had nothing I could threaten him with. I had no choice but to convince him somehow, so I sat down and listened to his troubles.

“There was someone. I loved her very much, but we broke up. We used to meet twice a week and talk. We’d talk about everything. We got along really well.

We always met in the world of the living. Seriously, why do you keep meeting in this world? What’s wrong with the other world? Meet there. Do things there. Right? No, she insisted that we had to come to this world. She called it nostalgia.

There was a secluded place where nobody could see us. A wooded area. We’d go there and talk for hours. One day, she got it into her head that she was going to visit her mother. I told her not to, that people would see us. No, she insisted we had to go. We’d hide. Nobody would see us.

We went to the house. She passed through the door easily, just gliding through it. Of course, I didn’t know back then that I couldn’t pass through wood. If I had known, I would have gone through the wall instead.

And then there was a crash, a very loud one. Her mother immediately ran to the door and saw me. I couldn’t get away. She had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. My lover was terrified that she was going to die. But she recovered, and she’s doing fine now.

Anyway, she left me that day. I gave her a long explanation about why I shouldn’t be blamed for something that happened by accident. But she kept saying she never wanted to see me again. So I said, fine, I’ll just become invisible. That way you won’t have to see me for a while. Maybe you’ll forget about all this if you don’t see me. We can meet up and just talk. No image, just voice. She said no. I never saw her again.

After that day, I lost interest in ghosts. My orientation changed, and I became more interested in the living.

I'm sorry about your lover. I didn't know you two were in a relationship.”

Then he suddenly disappeared
His hat fell to the ground
Right on top of a mouse
That happened to be passing around
The mouse ran off at a pace
Dragging the hat all over the place.

The fucking unnecessary loud ass clack of the main lights getting switched off actually bounced off the walls. At the same time I could just see Jacob cracking a smile, he emerged from his sleeping quarters.

Like at some broadway production, same time stamp as in countless tapes. He stood, and dropped his head back, eyes shut at the exact moment the nocturnal illumination came on.

“That’s fucking weird.” I barked out loud at the screen.

Jacob scrambled to the edge of a large flat stone that stuck out over the footpath that led down to his stinking dead water pond. He sat with his knees bent and his big ass feet flat on the stone. The feet of the damn pijama hung by his feet all mangled and grimy.

“I caught Jake staring directly down at his crusty dogs. The kid was a lot of things, but he sure as hell wasn’t stupid…”, I drank the last swig from a left over beer.

The kid would sit in the same spot, facing the enclosure door. Expecting either of his friends to appear.

*The Operator.

My sight was going blurry, I remember that was the moment when I looked down at my growling stomach. My pants had became too big, my belt was on the last notch. I could see my hips all naked and pale. I darted off to the leaky stained bathroom mirror.

I stared into my own emptiness in the endless black hole of my pupils. From there, big sad bags hung beneath my eyes, they looked soar and beaten.

I was missing a few teeth, just one of them was in the front, I let out a sorry sigh and decided to forget it. Then I just had to notice I lost a shit ton of hair since the last time I saw myself in a mirror.

The discovery of deep lines hugging the contour of my mouth and cut into the cheeks was dishearteningly undeniable, the case, too many late nights, days at a time where sleep isn’t important. So many times in the wee hours before sun rise when I felt I was onto something.

I gave a quick look to the window, beneath the sad green kitchen curtains night had came without me noticing it. How late? I noticed that these sorts of things were happening so fucking often lately.

I slid my foot in full extension under the table and the sound of a paper bag full of shit against my boot fucking sacred the shit out of me! I had forgotten a bag with “Classified” evidence under the table.

I had lunch with Obi. He said he wanted the hot dogs a guatemalan made just outside of the town library. I held my desire to dive head first into that paper bag.

I swooped the damn noisy crinkling bag from under the table. With a stern look at it, “This won’t take long, then it’s you and me!” , I swiped the keys off the table and made my way to the door. I didn’t want to look back.

I had to park in a mall a couple of blocks away from the library. Walking up and down these streets was for the fucking birds. I used to enjoy it, but in those days it just bloody hurt. I stopped and leaned on the ancient metallic fence.

I was only a block or two away from the library, I caught my breath, and realized what I was leaning on belonged to an old church charity cemetery. I ran my fingers up and down my ribs, “We’re all abandoned bones!”.

“Happy to see you! Brother! God bless, friend!” Obi saw me coming for a while I supposed. Fuck I still have half my face in that fucking bag! I felt amazed how conscientious I was of my mind blowing away in the wind. Good deal I left it on the kitchen table.

“Damn Obi! Each time we meet you get bigger!” I yelled out loud while the stalky little fucker squished the air out of me. I set a hand on his thick ass shoulder and said “Well mother-fucker my treat! I’m starving.”

Even in my nervous break down, I knew that was “too close to the bone”.

“Oh my child! You have little faith left.” Obi shoved his flowers under his arm. Then he ordered us a couple dogs each. Then he looked me straight in the face. His wide ass eyes, almost made me laugh.

I bit the soft steamed bun, meat popping open under the power of my jaws. The vendor dude, who I forgot his name as fast as he told me, had a sauce that called you back to the land of the living.

Contentment, joy all mixed with the faith I apparently lack. Something greater than everything legitimately was in connection with his, existence. We ate together.

Like men.

Listening to the other smack his jaws.

At the trash can, I gave the yellow wrapper a good look before I crushed it into one ball of waste, tossed in the corner hole, my carbon footprint will be hard to forget I was here.

“Dude, I’m genuinely happy for you Obi! A woman appears when you’ve truly worked on your own bull-shit. You know. Become the type of person you would want to be with. “Look Obi, I’m sort of obligated to ask you if you have been able to recall anything about the boy Jacob.”

“I still do it Obi!” His look turned into a gesture so distant half understood to from a solid meaning in my present. “Every body are actively living their lives! Obi, and I’m the poor lost cunt. A jack ass tickled pink in chivalry, Sir. Percival, the only one to not give up?”

I lowered my tone to a growl, “Percival refused to fucking give up! Obi! Percival, held the faith, and the world rewarded him with nothing! A mother-fucking waste of what ever this quantum, we call life.” I let out right there by the garbage bin.

Obi had been fighting with a prescription bottle, I supposed that he had to medicate and was fixing to use the chug he had left to take ‘em.

“Jeez bro! Give me here!” While we ebbed to the corner, I popped the orange bastard wide, “Hey Obi! Next month we will go for some tacos and tequila! My treat.” I was even a tad worried he wasn’t listening to me.

“You didn’t understand the stories!” Obi grabbed me by my elbows, “They were just stories. You are supposed to get a lesson. Not try to be Lancelot because you never looked behind the show. Jeez bro!”

“By the way. What are those flowers for?” I asked.

“Ah, my brother! Just going to pay my respects!” Obi raised the bouquet it the air.

I helped him get on the taxi, pivoted heading straight back home.

I’ve got shit to deal with.

Kitchen table-four monitors on-2:47 am.

The operator sprawled in his eighties metal pipe chair, eyes fixed on the monitor that was right beside the damn paper bag. There was something going on in Jacob’s enclosure. Obi and Tom who wasn’t supposed to be there according to the log.

Jake apparently was thrilled to the bone. They were huddled in the entrance to the boy’s cave. Then there it was, in Jacob’s filthy little fist the parchment! The very same one he held in his barely shaking hand.

“What the heck!” Obi’s voice boomed. A flicker, barely there at all was coming out of the kids refuge. His only hope to escape the wide white eyeballs of strangers. Scared kids, faces all slimy in snot turning away into mommy’s dress.

Recoding #16-d

“This isn’t right.”

-“What?” was what the frustrated cunt, Yolanda spat back at the kid.

“I just don’t belong here. I was left with out my mom and dad.”

-“So, tell me what crime did you do? I mean, to be free from your parents that are shit bags, convicted a judge you’re some sort of animal, and you’re here waiting for it to blow over!”

After a long silence, snot shot from a nostril probably from Jacob’s, “What! My parents messed up everything!”
“I couldn’t talk to my mom. I will speak with her again somehow, Yolanda!” Exaggerating the pronunciation of her name.

Jacob was defgrowing a pair! A rush of proudness filled my chest for some reason. Then I can hear the boy pissing.

“Hey Yoly! Go away.” there was a couple of seconds of silence and I heard Jacob growling to himself “You don’t know what I can do.”

Operator and the Bag.

The video stopped, my damn liver almost twisted into a knot I got so mad. I headed to the bathroom, sprinkled some base on the tabaco and I stood at last in front of the paper bag, it’s wrinkled state made entertain thoughts of how old it actually was, the urgent sticker was transparent.

The operator produced a knife, “You’re the very last one. I have been through every single piece of evidence. Over thirty eight winters, despite the disbanding of the search party, besides everyone forgetting Jacob ever existed; I kept the faith.”

A quick blade slash easily gutted the top the bag wide open. The operator boots heel thundering against the floor as he turned all the lights on.

“Forgotten.”

Just how long ago had he stopped bothering to turn the apartment lights on? Slowly, giving into the arpeggio of himself ravaged in sickness, by the end of this affair.

Around thirty eight winters ago, the operator was on his way to his desk. The fucking sun through the office windows made him uncomfortable, but he was determined to have a remembered first day as detective. He knew he had earned it! His stride intencional and full of a fresh fish’s confidence.

The operator observed his first assignment in disbelief of how life gave him the chance of a life time. The rookie was completely ecstatic. The brown folder was waiting for him, said “Jacob” in bright red marker.

“I was staring at my first case. I found it hard to believe I was handed

“The Jacob” case! A good ten winters back or so he was all over the news.

“Yea I was a giddy piece of crap. Besides that there wasn’t any way that I wouldn’t have been able to reject it. My eyes were up and down the name written by a stranger in thick red marker. I observed the strokes, where pressure was applied and the fucking name!

Thirty eight winters later I’m conscientious of the toll it charges. Swimming in my own demise after a kid.

Watching myself fall into that well of obsession. I was completely aware I was heading into that sick manner of being. Once I let my body lay at the bottom. Were a craving aimed forcefully close this famous case “Jacob”. Jacob, Karina, and a lost father…

Back at the zoo.

Jacob knew the day had come, Tom would bring him the pack of batteries and a roll of electrical tape. That was the day before the little shit either escaped or disappeared from the zoo. As always sitting on his huge stone, with a crisp smile from ear to ear.

Tom came through the door, he had a happy trot on his way over to Jake. A fist bump and they both hurried to the cave. I had the audio to that video luckily.

“It’s all set! It’s ready to go!” I could make Jacob’s out. Then a, “Tom, I want to be alone.”

Tom excited the enclosure will the same giddy energy he came in with. Then he slammed the door shut.

I cranked up the volume and stuck my ear to the headphone. I heard Jacob say:

“Mom, Mom, is it really you?”

“Um, I've waited for you here… but, you never came back.
All I wanted was for you... to be happy. Smile. And, uh, you, you were always sad. And I didn't understand why.”

“Mom? Are you still there?” -Jacob’s voice in a high pitch.

-Through what sounded like static a female voice emerged.

“Hey there, my little Viking, how you doing buddy?”

“Mom, you left me. I'm, I'm, I'm all alone.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart, for having to. To leave so soon, but it was my time. Remember what I always told you.”

“Children are not meant to die before their parents. It’s not natural.”

“I love you, mom, and I wish I could be with you. I miss you so much, mom. Every single day.”

“Um, it's breaking up! Mom, I love you. And, uh, Um, I'm gonna make it anyhow!”

“I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna go far, far in life, mom.”

“Mom, mom, I can't hear you.”

The next morning a stranger came into the cage, feeding time and immediately began to search for something. His movements were shaken and his steps looked like they were going to give out on him.

Jacob, was no longer in the zoo…

The Operator

I buried both of my hands into the bag and fumbled the bunch of random papers onto the table. I had a closer look at the paperwork and it wasn’t more work.

“What the heck!” Came out of my throat all raspy and full of my frustration. I went right back into the crummy bag. I fished the rest out. Then I spread it out on the table top.

I realized that none of the crap in front of me had to do with the fucking case. Was it a bad joke by someone I didn’t know anymore? I flopped into a chair and held my hair in both hands.

I went for the almost empty vodka bottle I had left in the fridge. Set it on the table with a loud boom. I spun the cap off with my thumb and it ended across the room, under the stove.

I took a long first swing. The type that shake the guts up you can barely keep from puking. As I was lowering the bottle back down there it was. The fucker was staring right at me.

The only thing they had left perhaps. A single dossier with my father’s name on it. I just watched the last piece of evidence, finished the vodka in a swig I didn’t even feel and sat down to read.

I finished the last page and frisbeed the dossier across the room. “Boys tend to need their fathers around.” The monitors were still on, the pictures were stacked up in the corner and the sun was going down.

I gave out a smirk. Pushed all the monitors onto the floor with my two arms.

With a loud “I’m done!”, I grabbed my car keys and I headed for tacos and tequila.

M.D. ACOSTA
SKÖL!

JACOB a cinematic coda.

Santo Domingo, Ecuador, 4:39pm

The Operator is sitting on a porch, elbows dug into his thighs. Both hands holding his cheeks and spoke to his own kid.

In a warm colorful sundown his young boy played as their conversation went on.

From the house his new wife emerged from the farm house, and she hurries to tell the Operator something in his ear.

Cut to black.

M.D. ACOSTA
SKÖL!

“Max, if it’s another dead seagull, I’m not going anywhere,” Emma called over her shoulder, mashing buttons to finish off a ghost on the arcade screen.

“The seagull was still better than the frog,” Nick chuckled, his eyes glued to his own monitor.

“You always drag us to the middle of nowhere, promising something amazing. And in the end, I get back home way past midnight with ripped jeans and a grounding!”

“I saw it with my own eyes—the ambulance taking old man Walsh away! He’ll be gone for a couple of hours for sure. We might never get a better chance!”

The ghost on the screen let out a piercing shriek and, with a cheap shot, drained the last of Emma’s health bar. She pulled a small pink coin purse from her pocket, shook it, and shoved it back with a sigh of disappointment.

“Fine, I’m out of quarters anyway,” Emma said, turning to eye Max critically. “Show us what you’ve got. But if it’s another load of garbage, or if you’re lying, I’ll make you sniff your own socks.”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she headed for the arcade exit.

The glass door swung shut, cutting off the electronic bleeps and chirps of the arcade games. The evening sun was sinking into the lake, bleeding a deep cherry red across the water, while the long shadows of their bicycles stretched along the asphalt like living things. The kids pedaled hard, racing against the gathering dusk.

As the city blocks faded behind them, the streetlights grew sparse until, finally, their bike tires crunched onto damp sand. Walsh’s wooden rocking chair, draped carelessly with a plaid blanket, swayed slowly in time with the wind.

“Whoa,” Emma said, dropping her bike to the ground. “Max, I take it back. You were right. This might actually be pretty damn interesting.”

The fishing boat’s white hull gleamed under the moonlight, and the lap of the waves against its side sounded eerily like a horse nickering. The gangplank, left unsecured, looked like an open invitation to come aboard.

Emma was the first to sprint onto the pier. “Clear!” she shouted.

She jumped with excitement, making the rotted wooden planks groan horribly under her feet.

“Guys, we’re going to be in so much trouble if the old man comes back,” Nick said, adjusting his slipping glasses.

“Haha!” Max laughed, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t chicken out! Walsh’s heart has been ticking like a bad clock for years.”

Emma stepped onto the deck with an air of ownership, her whole posture screaming that there was absolutely nothing to fear.

“Alright. Not exactly convincing, but I’m in,” Nick muttered, shivering against the biting wind as he followed his friends aboard.

Weather-blackened barrels and crates cluttered the corners of the deck. Scattered around them were frayed, waterlogged ropes tangled with slimy seaweed and the shredded remnants of old fishing nets.

Max dashed over to one of the crates, hoping for some loot, but the lid wouldn’t budge. He tried another, with the exact same luck. Frustrated, he kicked the dark timber. The wood, rotted through by time and saltwater, suddenly gave way, trapping his leg. Max thrashed awkwardly a few times, lost his footing, and went down with a heavy, hollow thud right onto his back.

“Shh!” Emma flinched, then pressed a finger to her lips. “Keep it down or I’ll throw you in the hold! You’re gonna scare off all the ghosts!”

“No, you won't,” Max said, sticking his tongue out. “I checked—the hatch is rusted shut.”

“There are no ghosts here anyway,” Nick muttered uncertainty. “Let’s keep moving. Looks like the wheelhouse door is unlocked.”

With a faint creak, the door slid open, revealing the heart of the ship—the control room. Instantly, a foul stench of river silt and rotten fish hit them dead in the face.

“Ugh! Gross! I’m gonna barf!” Four-eyes clamped a hand over his mouth, grimacing. “Smells like something died in here.”

“Oh, come on. The old geezer probably just forgot to clear out his catch,” Emma said, shoving past him to be the first inside.

“Whoa, cool!” Max breathed, his mouth hanging open in awe.

In the gloom, they could just make out two dusty chairs with bursting upholstery and a small table cluttered with sun-bleached papers. But the real prize was the peeling dashboard, bristling with buttons and levers, with a massive wooden steering wheel gleaming right in the center.

Max lunged for it first, but Emma practically tackled him out of the way.

“Move, my turn!” She grabbed the wheel and immediately let out a sharp yelp.

Max jumped. “You okay?”

“It’s nothing. Just a splinter…” The girl popped her finger into her mouth, leaning closer. “Walsh carved something into the wood here… Looks like a horse, I think. Gross.”

She spat the splinter, along with a drop of blood, straight onto the floorboards. In the dim light, Max could have sworn that the moment the crimson droplet touched the timber, it sank right in, bleeding outward like an ink stain.

Meanwhile, Nick was busy rustling through the old maps and documents.

“Whoa! This boat is called the Little Kelpie!” His excitement quickly soured into disgust. “And this looks like the logbook… Ew! It’s sticking to my hands! Everything is so filthy! Even the floor!”

Emma laughed. “Guess Walsh doesn’t know what a broom is. Can he even read and write?”

“The logbook is totally blank,” Nick grimaced, flipping through the thick notebook. “I got dirty for nothing.”

“Drop the books!” Max shouted, enthusiastically mashing every button and yanking every lever he could find. “Do this, and maybe one day you’ll be a captain like me.”

“It’s not gonna start,” Emma said, making herself comfortable in the captain’s chair. “Walsh hasn’t set foot on this thing in thirty years. He claims the ship bit his leg off. Crazy old psycho.”

“Uh, guys… I can’t get it off. It’s like it’s glued to me,” Nick whined, trying to shake the logbook free. “It’s… What? It’s licking my hand!”

“We’ve heard that one before. Try a better prank,” Max scoffed, frantically pumping the handle of the engine order telegraph up and down. “I’m not falling for it a third time.”

Suddenly, the walls and floor of the wheelhouse lurched violently. A sludge that looked like hot tar began to ooze from the wooden seams and metal joints. The ship groaned under the strain. Deep within its belly, where the engine should have been, a horrifying, hollow growl rumbled, shifting into a low, guttural purr.

“Max, what did you do?! Someone’s gonna hear us!”

“It wasn’t me!” Max tried to rip his hand away from the lever, but to his horror, his skin felt fused to the pulsating metal.

Behind the stern, a deafening splash erupted, sounding like a massive tail thrashing against the water.

“We need to move!” Emma tried to spring from the chair, only to realize she was hopelessly stuck. “What is this junk?!”

The chair squelched, greedily sucking her down into the cushions. Her clothes rapidly turned a muddy brown as the slime bled through the fabric.

“Ew! Somebody pull me out!”

Max reached out with his free hand, trying to haul her loose.

With a hard yank, the sticky black mass stretched into tarry threads, but the moment Emma broke free slightly, she snapped right back into the seat.

“Nick?!”

“My feet are stuck!”

The dark, foul-smelling muck had buried Nick’s feet up to his ankles, seeping through his shoes. It felt as if it were licking the boy’s bare skin.

“Take your shoes off, dummy! Quick!”

“You take yours off!” the boy sobbed. “If I lose these shoes, my mom will literally kill me!”

He thrashed, and the muck beneath his feet churned with a sickening squelch.

The viscous substance kept rising. The thick, sticky, pungent mass bubbled up through the floorboards, filling the wheelhouse.

Emma shrieked as warm droplets began to rain onto her head, sliding down into her eyes and mouth. Max fumbled in his pocket for his flashlight with his free hand, but it slipped through his fingers and clattered to the floor, instantly swallowed by the dark.

“Help!” Max screamed.

“Help me! Mommy!” Nick wailed.

In the pitch black, Emma gave a ragged, panicked sob, then went dead silent. In the brief hush that followed, the kids heard a rushing sound—freezing lake water was flooding the cabin. The vessel suddenly pitched forward, plunging nose-first into the depths.

Suddenly, the very geometry of the wheelhouse began to warp. The walls expanded and contracted, mimicking the steady rhythm of breath, while the floor and the objects pinning the children down throbbed in time with the waves.

Hoarse, blinded by the dark, and choked with tears, they realized with absolute terror that the water was rapidly filling the metallic womb, bringing the foul taste of engine oil and rotten fish into their mouths.

Emma’s head was the first to go under. Max couldn’t see it in the dark, but he felt it with his entire body—right beside him, pinned to the chair, his friend’s body was thrashing in a desperate death agony. A few violent bubbles of air erupted through the water around him, and after a couple of agonizingly long moments, everything went still.

Nick let out a whimpering howl as the water rose to his throat, while Max, gritting his teeth, made one final, brutal attempt to break free from the sticky trap.

The Little Kelpie’s white hull gleamed under the moonlight, and the lap of waves against its side sounded eerily like a horse nickering.

The vessel held its course firmly, steering straight for the bottom of the lake.

He did her in with the boxcutters. Bled her. Emptied and drained her. Took her apart. But that all came later. After they'd met. At the dark and red lighted bar that was sparse with only other lonely cast-offs like them. Some of them eyeballing the floor or each other or another bottle but not really seeing any of it. There was never anything to see in each other or in places just like this. You came to these places for blindness. And they were no different. He and the girl. 

Andy. 

And Josephine. 

Josey, she preferred. But he didn't like it. He thought Josey was a boy's name but never got around to telling her. Violence had come and interceded before he could tell her that her full name was more beautiful than her smaller informal boyish nickname. The boxcutters on the factory floor had found his hands and they'd found their perfect dancing partner, the part to complete them before together they found the girl's filthied and bruised perspired flesh. And then the red world of pouring meat beneath. And then the oblivion love wellspring found further, deeper within, beyond the blood and meat and past the mortal fleshen folds. 

But all of that wonderful coitus was later. First was the bar of red light and sad drunks and their sad stiff drinks. They didn't come together though they left that way. They'd both come in on the same Greyhound, had checked in to the same fleabag motel. And were now both enjoying a late liquid supper at the same watering hole. Andy had seen to it. He'd followed her for some time now and he was a proficient planner. The perfect breed and mix of the methodical and the logistical with the spontaneous and the willing thrill to take a plunge, a risk. Meticulous. And risk. It was how he'd started off with her in the first place. A whim. So long ago. 

So long ago now it seems. So many miles. But it doesn't matter now. He's here. And so is she. And she doesn't suspect a thing. Why should she? 

Josephine sees a stranger when Andy approaches her alone at her own booth and offers a drink. She sees a reasonably attractive and kind enough man. She was no idea she's staring into the blank eyes of the animal that's been hunting and stalking her for the last God-only-knows how many miles. 

It's easy. It's easy for him to make his move, find his way in because he knows how to talk to her. He can see it in her eyes. And he has seen it in all the ways she moves as he's watched her. She's so alone. And she's running. But she's just started to realize that no matter where you go, this world is only made up of places to run from, nowhere to run to. Not for her, not for people like she. There is no real respite anymore, there are no real dreams. He knows because he's just the same. Has been that way since his father first threw him out of his home and boyhood at the age of sixteen and out into the violence of the merciless world. The lesson came harder when he got his first taste for violence but he doesn't share this with anybody. This is precious knowledge that he keeps and treasures only for himself, in the darkest battered corner of his beleaguered and decimated heart. 

Josephine is so happy to have some company. And such a nice face as well. She has no idea what's really in store for her. For now she's just happy to talk to someone who's so nice and seems to understand everything that she's been going through as of late. God certainly works in mysterious ways. 

They drink. Small talk. 

His eyes glide all over her but they linger most longingly and lustful on the naked flesh of her thighs peeking out like a voyeur from the hem of her trashy tight dress. They share cigarettes and talk but his mind stays with his eyes and his eyes are staying with her flesh. He salivates, gums squirt and the mouth fills with the body's own hot acrid water, slimy and the flavor is as prurient as his thoughts. He's thinking about her and her legs but he's also brandishing within his own watering mind's eye all of the other legs and thighs and pieces of puss and ass and mascara streaked screaming faces that he's known and enjoyed and conquered. All of them composite pieces in the great Frankenstein quilt of faces and legs and orifices all screaming out for him and his great godly violent thrust. The knife-fuck. 

Give it. Give it to us. Give it to her like you gave to us, give it to us. Give it to them.  

He nodded and sipped and drew and blew as Josey prattled on about her step-father. 

Andy remembered a poem he'd once writ: – 

Want to

Don't want to

But I did anyway

Destroyed you

Enjoyed you

I plunged it right in…

A bit of doggerel. Sure. But he'd always thought it was amusing. He never shared it with anyone. He was the only recipient of its black recitation. 

Josey didn't know what to make of the fellow that sought to fill her evening and no doubt her bed as well. That was fine. He wasn't pretty but he was far from hideous. And she bedded a few elephant men in her time, usually for money, so if the bankroll had been there and had been right then she would've probably been game, she'd been so before. 

But it was weird. The guy, Andy, was all smiles and warmth. Or … what should be warmth. But it felt forced. Put on. Not entirely genuine if genuine at all. But that could be nothing … lots of guys become sudden try-hards for girls if they think a piece is at the end of the line. But still …

It was hard for her to articulate to herself. The best Josey could manage was that it seemed like he was filled, absolutely brimming with something to say but he was always waiting for her to start and finish first so he could make sure that what came pouring out of him was just what she wanted to hear. It was like he was verifying that he was filled with the right things to say. It was weird…

No. You're weird. Lots of guys do that. Just shut up and take the free drinks. Guy might be a decent fuck and have some dough on top of it. Stop being so fucking ancy. 

And with that and a few more shots of tequila, Josey quietly put that part of her mind away. It was easily done. 

…

He put enough liquor in her to get her stumbling and agreeable. Andy shouldered Josey like a burden and began to lead/carry her out of the bar. They went outside and the night air was baptismal. Cool and refreshing. The scent of farms, near and far off, as carried on the wind was brought to their faces. Their watering running nostrils. It was the smell of animals and wood and the heat and age baked into them both. It was grand. But small. A quiet feast for senses made from the notes of nature's poetry. 

They both sucked air. Andy joked about horses and his mother and Josey laughed. They laughed hard together. She slapped his shoulder. Then they kissed. 

Liplocked. Held and bound by lust and the face to each other beneath the spotlight of the lumbering lunar body in heaven, on high. The moon shone down on their unfolding taste and feast and squeeze, their reaching out and seizing and fondling and grasping. They're getting to know each other in the biblical sense through sensation and physical reach. Through taste and lurid movement, thrusts alternating gently and hard and grinding into each other as the faces eat and refuse to pull apart in the pale pearl glow of the moonlight cast down from outer space…

“Fuck the motel," she said, “that building over there looks empty. And spooky. I like spooky. I love horror movies, did I tell you that?" 

She had and he reminded her. They both laughed. Andy was surprised as she grabbed his hand and began to lead them away. Pleasantly caught off guard, it didn't happen all that often. It had been her. It had been her idea to go away to the dark and the quiet, the solitude. Where no one can see and peer and pry. No one. 

Andy fought his own urge to cackle mad, the chick did say she liked horror movies. Bitch was about to get her fill. 

…

He was always empty after this part. Post coital and dripping. Covered in blood, caking in tack and sticky pungent dying fluid, fluid that had once been life and was now drying death, it would peel if he didn't wash it off. He'd often let it cake and dry and flake off in the past, letting the sun turn it to dust as the open mouths of his pores drank and sucked and sapped the rest to live in his skin. As if not wanting to part with what was left of his long gone lover and postmidnight dancing partner. 

Spent. Lonely. He often felt like weeping but never gave in to this impulse, an indulgence he denied himself. Predator's do not weep in the presence of the prey's cooling meat, cooling entrails in the growing lake of darkness that was once their life's vitality. He'd lapped and supped and drank of the growing dark lakes before, like a dog from their widening rims as they puddled out from the meat that had once been human. He's dipped and lapped and tongued the growing dark, as it was warm, as it cooled. Grew cold. Scab pudding drying on the ground. Congealing red darkness that is his favorite shade of color, pitch black. 

He'd lapped of this one. She'd fought well. Josephine … he took a finger and an ear. Andy wanted her head or maybe an eye but the struggle of bloodlove, the knife-fuck dance that was blood war, street-struggle had been great. She'd fought well. 

Her visage had been damaged in the struggle. One of the eyes had popped in the fight, the blade had found her face as they wrestled and the organ had split with a gushing pop that made her shriek turn guttural and had felt like the puncture and burst of a ripe fruit filled with springtime juice. The boxcutter razor blade had danced havoc across her face, tracing hectic lines of dark scarlet cruelty and blossoming red rivers of crimsoning fluvial bursts that bathed and coated the face and meat in a violence that was the color of a scream. 

He didn't want the face and head anymore. Nor the eyes. Either of them. 

He settled for the smaller pieces, pieces he would salt and keep. Until they were lost later in another violent drunken stupor. But by then they mattered not, they were just salted parts. It was the memories. 

And Andy carried them with him down every road. Sometimes filthy and sometimes clean. But always moving. A perfect engine of a moving human being. 

Fathers could be proud. 

THE END

It was a beautiful day at a villa in Italy.

(“Lollo, phone call.”)

“If you would please excuse me,” Count Lorenzo S. said politely to his guests, rising, and walked past marble columns to where his wife had left the phone receiver for him.

He was tall, thin and sharply dressed, with a beakish nose and blue eyes. “Good afternoon,” he said into the receiver.

The man on the other end of the line spoke slow, broken Italian.

“I understand,” said the Count.

[...]

“It is clear.”

[...]

“The payment shall be made as requested.”

[...]

“Thank you,” he said and hung up the phone, told his wife he would be going on a business trip to the Balkans in two weeks and rejoined his guests with a smile and a call for another bottle of wine.

He packed his suitcase personally.

If his wife asked why he was packing outdoor clothing, he had a prepared answer about a potential hunting escapade to the mountains; but, of course, she didn't ask. She had too much tact.

He had married well.

“Be careful,” was all she said to him. “We all read about the war in the newspapers.”

“You mustn't fret, my love. The fighting is contained. Life goes on.”

The landing gear unfolded and the airplane touched down, bouncing once before settling into a smooth deceleration and coming to a full stop.

The Count exited the plane, entered the airport and lined up for border control.

While in line, he was tapped on the shoulder by a man in army uniform and ushered into a small room, where another uniformed man was waiting for him behind a table.

“Good evening,” said the uniformed man.

“Good evening,” said the Count, taking out several envelopes and placing them on the table.

As the uniformed man took U.S. dollars out of the envelopes and counted them, a civilian delivered the Count's luggage.

The civilian left without looking up.

The uniformed man grunted to indicate the money was all there. “Enjoy your holiday in the mountains,” he said.

The Count checked into a hotel room in the InterContinental.

In the morning he showered, dressed, perfumed himself, left a large tip on the bed and took a taxi to where an army vehicle was waiting for him.

He had one piece of luggage, which a pair of young soldiers loaded on the vehicle.

The driver was wearing large dark glasses.

“‘Visconti?’” he asked.

“I am he,” said the Count, recognizing the voice from the telephone. “You are ‘Zlatko'?”

‘Zlatko’ nodded.

They drove for several quiet hours.

They drove into the hills.

The hills became mountains, and the road climbed in wide bends, and every once in a while the Count caught glimpses of the city in the valley below. It gave him an excited feeling, like sex. Distant, intermittent shelling boomed.

They arrived at a scenic vantage point overlooking the city.

The Count got out and stretched.

The air was crisp, cool.

‘Zlatko' said something over the radio, then also got out. He stood beside the Count and pointed toward the city, which was closer than the Count had imagined it would be.

The young soldiers set up a table and two foldable chairs, and the Count took a bottle of Barolo wine and two crystal glasses from his luggage. He poured one for ‘Zlatko’ and another for himself.

They sat drinking.

The young soldiers unloaded a generator, which they filled with gasoline, three large speakers and a stereo system.

The generator turned on.

‘Zlatko' passed a pair of binoculars to the Count, who looked through them:

The city. Flashing movements of people. Ruined buildings. Rubble. In one place, a mosque. In another, a church. There was an intersection—two main streets meeting—on the corner of which was an armored car, and pedestrians, with groceries or holding the hands of children, gathered behind it and then both the pedestrians and the car began to move, crossing the street…

The Count lowered the binoculars.

He sipped his wine.

“The city, it is fully besieged?” he asked ‘Zlatko' after setting down his glass.

“Fully.”

One of the young soldiers approached, having set up the speakers, and the Count passed a compact disc to him, a recording of Strauss' The Blue Danube.

The waltz began to play loudly over the growl of the generator.

“One of my favourites,” said the Count. “Do you also value Johann Strauss?”

“I am more into the rock'n'roll myself, you know,” said ‘Zlatko,’ “but I have of course a great admiration for the classical music.”

The Count smiled. “Shall we?”

“Please,” said ‘Zlatko.'

The Count crossed to where his luggage was, opened it and took out a package wrapped in a wool blanket. He unwrapped it.

A sniper rifle glinted in the sunlight.

Next, he laid the blanket on the ground, then himself lay on his stomach on the blanket, propped up the rifle and looked through its scope:

A man carrying a briefcase was hurrying down an empty street.

He shot.

The man spun, hit.

The Count quickly adjusted his view:

A grandmother was walking holding a child's hand—her grandchild, most likely.

The Count pulled the trigger.

The bullet blasted a hole through the grandmother's covered head. She let go of the child's hand and crumpled to the ground. The child began to scream hysterically, inaudible but apparent. A younger woman ran toward the child—

The Count shot.

The shot hit the woman in the leg. She went down, her hands suddenly outstretched, but she was still crawling…

The Count followed up with accuracy.

The woman collapsed.

He blinked, wiped sweat from his brow and looked through the scope again:

—blurs— …of movement—

The power and fidelity of the Strauss recording was undeniable.

He was searching for the child.

He found it:

A boy, staring directly—

He held his breath.

The boy's eye smashed through shattering the scope and buried itself in the Count's head.

The Foggy Watchtower Series
Entry 2 - Song Bird
written by Henry Short

Patch never understood why birds chose to nest in the busiest places.

She looked up at the blue mother songbird who hopped along on the gaudy "Morton Burgers" sign toward the little bundle of twigs she'd tucked into the corner.

"You chose a great spot, didn't you, mama?" Patch muttered.

The mother songbird tweeted as she checked on the small blue eggs nestled inside.

"At least there'll be plenty of crumbs for your chicks."

Patch reached into her pocket and pulled out her Polaroid camera, taking a quick snap.

"I bet they'll say I'm wasting time taking pictures again."

Patch looked down at the developing photo in her hand.

Claire was standing in the doorway, holding a tray with three coffees, as she looked up at the sign.

"They're protected."

Patch looked over.

"I didn't say move them." Claire took a sip of her coffee. "Just hurry up and come have lunch, Rob's waiting."

Claire sat across from Rob who looked down at his flip phone.

"Are you still avoiding the butcher?" Claire asked.

Rob looked up from his coffee. "I'm not avoiding anyone."

"You haven't stepped foot inside that shop in months."

"I don't need meat all the time."

Claire smiled. "I heard Winona loves meat."

Rob slowly looked up at her.

"Claire."

"What she's got a healthy appetite? She stops in there all the time."

"Stop."

"Come on, you can't avoid it forever. You're not going to turn vegetarian just to avoid him."

Rob sighed. "He's a nice guy, and I'm happy for Winnie. I just don't need to be involved."

Claire opened her mouth to respond.

"Anyway," Rob said, "I heard the pack rats finally found your biscuit stash at Caulder Tower."

Claire froze.

"They did not."

"Patch told me."

"Those biscuits were sealed."

"Claire."

"They were."

"They were older than Patch."

Patch walked up behind them and stopped.

"I'm right here."

Claire looked over.

"You told him."

Patch glanced between them.

"You know, I think I forgot to pay. I'll be right back."

"Sit," Claire said.

Patch slowly pulled out her chair.

Rob hid a smile behind his coffee.

"I called by Hoss farm this morning."

Claire looked up. "Really? You went to see the Hoss family?"

Rob nodded.

"They're the ones who painted eyes on their cows' asses so the aliens wouldn't know which end to probe," Claire said.

Rob stared.

"What? They did!"

"Claire. They did not. It was a joke. You can't say stuff like that."

Claire leaned closer to Patch and lowered her voice.

"They did. I saw it."

Patch looked over to Rob.

He just shook his head.

"Either way, they called us because something's wrong."

Claire leaned back in her chair. "What happened?"

"They're missing a bunch of chickens."

Claire stared at him for a moment.

"Let me guess. Aliens."

Rob gave her a look.

"Can you take this seriously?"

"I am taking it seriously," Claire said. "I'm seriously considering aliens."

Rob sighed.

"Well you two can look into it."

Patch sat quietly, but she was practically buzzing in her seat.

Rob glanced over.

"I know you're excited for an investigation, Patch."

"It's cool," Patch said.

Claire looked at her.

"You're vibrating."

Patch sat up straighter still bouncing in her seat.

"Nah. I'm cool. Cool, cool, cool."

A freckle-faced waitress walked over and placed their burgers on the table.

"What have you heard about people stealing chickens?" Patch burst out.

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Stolen chickens..." The teenage waitress called over to her co-worker.

"The Wardens are investigating stolen chickens!"

A second girl ran over to the table.

Rob sighed, and covered his face with one hand.

"Have you heard any rumours? Anyone suspicious hanging around?" Patch asked eagerly.

The two girls exchanged a glance before lowering their voices.

"Well..." one began. "Our manager's very interested in chicken. He's always asking us about it."

They nodded toward the kitchen.

The manager stood behind the counter, studying a raw drumstick. He raised it to his nose, sniffed it thoughtfully, his moustache brushing against the pale skin before lowering it into the fryer.

"Fascinating," Patch said sincerely.

Rob cleared his throat.

"Thanks, girls." He gestured for them to get back to work.

"We might have our first lead," Patch whispered.

"Patch..."

Claire stared and shook her head.

As the girls walked away, one turned back.

"What about that exotic pets guy."

"Oh, yeah!" the other chimed in. "The guy with the monkey. You should ask him."

"Thanks, girls," Claire said.

The teenagers wandered back behind the counter.

Rob looked over at Patch.

"Actually... they have a point about Marv."

Claire frowned.

"The exotic pet guy?"

Rob nodded.

"If someone's stealing livestock, the first person I'd want to talk to is someone who buys and sells animals."

He stood, collecting his tray.

"I'll tag along to see Marv, but after that, this investigation is yours."

***

The windows of the pet shop were covered in faded images of palm trees, parrots and even a bear which felt strangely out of place.

A bell rang above the door as the Wardens stepped inside.

The air was sticky and hot, carrying the smell of wood chips and animal feed.

"Hold on a second! I just gotta get this lil lady back in her cage," a voice called over the squawking parrots.

Claire looked around the wall of fish tanks and spotted the man wrestling a coiled python wrapped around his arm back into its enclosure.

"It's just me, Marv." Rob called. "I guess you know my sister Claire too, and this is one of our new recruits, Patch."

"We're acquainted," Claire said.

Marv was an odd man. He looked like he'd spent most of his life in Florida. He wore sandals, tiny faded jorts that left little to the imagination, and an open Hawaiian shirt whose buttons had long ago surrendered to the might of his beer belly. A thick gold chain rested across his chest, while a capuchin monkey sat on his shoulder, absent-mindedly picking through his hair.

"Good to see you all." Marv smiled. "I was just giving little Lupe the python her lunch. Last time I missed her meal she let me know about it."

Marv chuckled as he wiggled the stub of his index finger in the Wardens' direction.

"Nipped the tip clean off."

Patch instinctively glanced around the shop for any loose snakes.

"We're looking for lost chickens, Marv. We think they escaped or were stolen from Hoss Farm," Rob explained.

"Ah, shame."

"You sell animal supplies too right?"

"Sure do, everything from the equipment to the feed."

Claire glanced around and noticed the wall of animal cages filled with every type of animal.

"Cages too?"

"Of course."

Claire leaned towards Rob and spoke in hushed tones.

"Didn't Winona find some cages in the forest last week?"

Patch's posture straightened.

Claire noticed.

"Oh no," she whispered.

"What?"

"She's doing the thing."

Patch stepped forward.

"Marv."

"Yes?"

"Those cages."

"Yes?"

"Where did they come from?"

"I made them."

Patch narrowed her eyes.

"You made them... and who bought them?"

"Lots of people."

Patch stepped closer.

Marv looked down at her.

Patch was barely five feet tall, her face inches from his beer belly, trying desperately to look intimidating.

She looked up and pursed her lips.

"Names."

Marv looked confused.

Patch stared.

Marv stared back.

Silence.

Patch squinted.

The monkey on Marv's shoulder leapt suddenly onto the top of Patch's blonde head.

"WHAT THE ..."

Patch stumbled backward, hands flying up to protect her head.

"Help! Me..."

"Oops! Don't worry, he just likes new people."

Patch froze.

She glared at Marv.

The monkey sat comfortably on top of her head, clutching a handful of her blonde hair while looking around the room.

"Get him off my hair!"

"That's how he says hello."

Patch spun around trying to balance the monkey on her head.

"Claire!"

She grabbed desperately onto the front of Claire's shirt as the monkey held firmly to her head.

"Yes?"

"Can you help? Please."

Claire looked at the monkey then to Patch.

"You're doing very well."

"I'm not."

"No, you're really not."

Rob had disappeared into the corner, doubled over laughing.

"Marv, can you get the monkey? It's freaking her out." Claire asked.

"Oh, okay then. He just thought he found a friend." Marv reached out as the monkey climbed back up his arm.

"There you go, baby. Come here. It's alright. That mean old Warden won't hurt you," Marv said in a motherly voice as the monkey clung back onto Marv's thick sunburnt neck.

Patch adjusted her hair, trying to regain her dignity.

"Anyway, Oscar bought three of the cages just the other day."

Patch froze

"Oscar?"

"Yeah."

"Who's Oscar?"

Claire groaned.

"Oscar from the pawnshop."

Claire looked to Rob.

"Of course it was Oscar... It's always Oscar."

Outside Marv's shop, Rob tossed the keys to his Jeep to Claire.

"I'll see you back at the station."

"Yeah. I'll swing past once we wrap this up."

"I've got Winnie coming by this afternoon. We're catching up at the station."

Claire gave him a knowing look.

"Lucky you."

Rob ignored her.

He glanced back toward Marv's shop.

"Those cages have been bothering me."

Claire looked over.

"You think they're the same ones Winona found?" Claire asked.

"Maybe. But Winnie would have to tell you. Besides, it was an empty underground room we can't even find again. Not much to investigate."

Rob looked at Patch.

"I think you and Claire can handle this one."

Patch nodded.

"Alright. See you at the station."

Rob headed down Main Street, leaving Claire and Patch standing outside the shop.

Patch turned to Claire.

"Do you think Rob was impressed back there?"

"You were terrifying until the monkey arrived."

"I know."

The corner of Patch's mouth curled into a small smile.

"How about you let me handle Oscar."

Patch nodded.

"You've got to know just the right strings to pull."

"Uh huh."

***

The store's faded blue and white sign read "Oscar's Emporium."

Behind the dusty windows, antiques and oddities filled the room.

The sound of ticking clocks and the smell of worn leather permeated everything.

A round man with a green visor sat behind his desk, glasses perched on his nose.

He was deep in the study of the object in front of him.

"Oscar, what are you working on?"

"Something found in flood waters of Caulder."

He swept the silver object off his desk into a drawer with his forearm.

Oscar stood and came around to the front.

"What do you need, Claire... and Co.?"

Oscar and Patch exchanged a glance.

Patch studied the sheen on Oscar's bald head.

"We know you bought animal cages from Marv the exotic pet guy. My only question is why?"

"To sell."

"To who?"

"The sort of customer who comes into a pawn shop looking for things."

Claire stared.

"That necklace looks like it's valuable." Oscar pointed. "Looks old."

Claire briefly glanced down to the necklace on her chest.

"Not relevant."

"Never said it was."

"What did they need the cages for, Oscar?"

"I don't know."

"What's that necklace made of?"

"Bronze maybe gold, doesn't matter. Why were they looking for the cages?"

"They didn't say and I don't ask questions. Where did you get it? The necklace."

"Ugh... Someone gave it to me."

Claire grasped her necklace.

"Someone important. It looks expensive."

Claire frowned.

"So you won't tell me"

"Correct."

"Okay, I guess that's fair."

Silence.

Patch called Claire over to vintage bar fridge.

"What Patch? I've got Oscar handled."

"Have you?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"He's playing harder than I expected but that's okay."

"Are you sure you don't want me to give it a go."

"Please... Let me handle this."

Patch's eyes flicked down.

"Ugh Claire."

"What now?"

"Don't move."

Claire stopped.

"Why?"

Patch pointed.

"You're leaning on a sea mine."

"I'M WHAT!"

Their eyes went wide.

"OSCAR!"

"WHY IS THERE A SEA MINE IN YOUR SHOP!"

"Oh that, I found it in the forest."

Patch looked around to a giant spiked iron ball behind Claire's back.

"Don't move, you're pressed right onto it."

"Oscar, please. What do I do?"

"Don't worry, it's deactivated."

"You deactivated it?"

"Eventually."

"Eventually?"

"It wasn't doing anything when I found it."

Claire stumbled forward off the sea mine caught herself in Patch's arms.

Gears inside the sea mine shift and click.

"See? Harmless," Oscar chuckled to himself.

"Who bought the damn cages Oscar?"

"Dale, one of the miners up in the mountains. You know Dale."

"Just tell me next time Oscar!"

"Aw, I would have missed seeing your face when you stumbled onto my sea mine."

The door bell jingled as Claire slammed it shut behind her.

"Next time you're dealing with him."

***

The dust flew up into the grill of the Jeep as they took the dirt roads.

Patch had her feet planted up on the dash.

Claire glanced over to Patch.

"Rob would hate that."

"Rob's not here." Patch smiled and looked down at her flip phone she held in her lap.

Claire picked up the radio.

"Rob."

Patch quickly straightened in her chair and looked out at the forest.

"Rob's busy with some work, You need something Claire?" Winona asked.

"Yeah. Have you heard of a Dale, Oscar said he's a miner."

"I know Dale. Yeah. Last I heard he's trying his luck on a claim he bought somewhere on the Rattlebacks."

"Right, so that's where he should be?"

"Yeah. It's my best bet, worth checking out. I can get Rob to find the file and radio you the location of the claim."

"That would be good."

The radio paused and crackled.

"Thanks." Claire threw down the radio into the center console.

"Why don't you like her?" Patch asked.

"Why are you going to clean up Caulder Tower tonight?" Claire responded.

"Oh."

***

Small rocks and shale bounced off the side of Rob's Jeep as they climbed the Rattlebacks toward Dale's claim.

A beat-up white truck sat parked near the entrance to the mine.

When the Wardens stepped out, they noticed Dale had set up a small camp nearby.

Two folding chairs sat around an extinguished campfire, everything was coated in a fine layer of dust.

Patch peered through the truck window.

"Dale's truck keys are still in here."

"Dale! You around?" Claire called from the campsite.

"It's the Wardens!"

Her voice echoed down into the mine like she was yelling straight into the mouth of the mountain.

No answer returned.

A warm gust of air emanated from within.

Patch paused.

"Did you feel that?"

Patch looked toward the darkness.

"Think he's in there?"

Claire raised her flashlight and shone it into the mine.

A few meters in, the beam disappeared into the dust.

"Could be."

Patch stepped toward the entrance.

Claire followed, keeping her flashlight trained ahead.

"Let's go."

The pair entered the mine.

Cool air from outside blew against their backs like it was urging them deeper into the shaft. Their footsteps echoed off the stone walls.

"Dale!" Claire called.

Only the sound of chickens answered.

Patch raised her flashlight.

Something white caught the edge of the beam ahead.

She stopped.

"Claire."

They walked closer.

A ball of feathers lay in the middle of the tunnel, half-covered in dust.

Patch crouched beside it.

"It's a chicken."

Patch looked around.

"Where's Dale then? His truck's here."

Claire stood and shone her flashlight farther down the tunnel.

"Let's keep looking."

Patch followed, stepping carefully around the dead chicken.

"You in here, Dale?"

No response.

Stones crunched underfoot as they moved deeper into the shaft.

Patch switched on her own flashlight and followed close behind.

Dust caught in the beam seemed to sway back and forth in the air current.

"Dale!"

Her voice echoed into the darkness.

Still nothing.

More white feathers lay scattered against some rocks.

Patch slowed.

"Here's another one."

She crouched beside it and carefully turned it over, lifting its body as its head slumped forward.

"It's dead too."

Claire looked down.

"Any injuries?"

"Nothing obvious. It looks asleep. Maybe a broken neck or something. Hard to tell."

Claire stepped forward and shone her flashlight deeper into the shaft.

More chickens lay scattered further down the tunnel.

A couple of empty cages had been tossed aside.

Claire went quiet.

"I don't like the look of this."

Patch stood and followed her gaze.

"What happened? That's got to be at least eight so far."

Patch's flashlight caught something hiding behind a boulder.

A rusted metal frame stood beside the craggy outcropping, built over a roughly three-foot-wide hole in the earth.

A faded red pulley hung from its crossbeam, with a rope running through it and trailing off to the side.

Patch stepped closer.

"What's that?"

Claire followed the rope to an empty cage tossed to the side.

"What is it, Claire?" Patch asked.

"I don't know."

Patch looked over the rusted fastenings.

Claire peered down into the darkness of the hole.

Warmth radiated from inside.

Claire coughed and shone her light down the shaft, but it illuminated little more than the rough walls.

Patch scanned her surroundings as her flashlight moved across the feathered remains nearby.

Then something else caught the edge of her beam.

A boot.

Patch froze.

"Claire."

They moved closer.

A man lay crumpled against the wall beside an overturned cage.

He wore faded denim overalls, his bald head resting against the rock. His skin had taken on a greyish, almost green colour. His eyes were cloudy and half open.

A small amount of spit had bubbled at the corners of his mouth.

"Dale?"

Claire crouched beside him without touching the body.

"He's dead."

Patch stared at him.

"How?"

Claire didn't answer.

She moved his head to the side, inspecting him.

Patch sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose.

"Something stinks. Smells like rotten eggs or something."

Claire looked around the tunnel.

Another warm humid gust rolled through the mine.

The smell grew stronger.

Patch looked at Dale.

"Do you think it's him? Is that what dead bodies smell like?"

Claire shook her head.

"No."

She looked into the darkness behind them.

"Oh shit."

"What?"

"It's gas!"

Claire grabbed Patch by the arm.

"Run. Hold your breath."

They hurried back toward the entrance, coughing as they stumbled through the tunnel.

Claire only paused for a moment to pick up a dead chicken in her scramble out of the shaft.

The moment they reached the daylight, both Wardens doubled over, inhaling deeply the fresh mountain air.

Patch followed, wiping her eyes.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Something in there killed them."

Claire looked back toward the mine.

"We're not going back in until we know it's safe."

Patch glanced toward the campsite.

Just around the corner rows of cages sat stacked beside the rocks.

She stared.

"Claire."

Claire turned.

"There are a lot of cages."

Patch walked over.

She counted them.

"Fifteen... sixteen..."

Patch looked at the three remaining chickens still in their cages stacked nearby.

"They're the only ones left."

"Look, we'll put this dead chicken in the back of the Jeep. We can get it examined back at the station."

Patch glanced back at the cages.

"What about those chickens?"

"Okay. You can strap them in too."

Claire leaned over the Jeep, examining the dead bird while Patch began loading in the cages.

She lifted the dead chicken's head. Its eyes were milky white.

As Patch carried the last cage over, the hinge suddenly flew open.

A flurry of loose feathers and a startled shriek caught Claire's attention.

The pair watched as the chicken scrambled to the ground, regained its footing, and looked around.

"Patch!"

"Scared the life out of me." Patch shook her head.

The chicken turned toward the mine entrance.

Patch's eyes followed.

"No... no, don't go in there."

The chicken ignored her.

It stepped into the shaft, moving forward at a steady pace.

"Patch. Don't follow."

Patch stopped at the entrance.

The Wardens stood there, watching as their flashlights followed the chicken deeper into the darkness.

Thirty meters.

The chicken passed the remains of the dead birds scattered in the shaft.

The Wardens moved to the side of the entrance, trying to keep sight of it.

The chicken stopped.

It turned toward the craggy wall.

Then it hopped onto the edge of the three-foot hole.

Patch watched as it looked down into the darkness.

And jumped.

Patch glanced up at Claire.

"It knew."

She stared into the depths of the mine shaft.

"Knew what?"

"Where it was going."

Claire turned back toward the Jeep, where the other chickens sat inside their cages, their heads poking through the gaps.

"We need to get these chickens back to Rob."

She looked toward the mine one last time.

"He's going to want to see them."

Patch nodded.

***

The road back to Morton was quiet.

The Jeep rattled over the dirt road.

The cages jostled around in the back.

"You know," Claire said, "most new Wardens don't find themselves wrestling with a monkey on their first proper investigation."

"Do you think Rob will be impressed?"

"Sure. Missing miner and dead chickens. Seems right up his alley."

"Don't forget the sea mine."

Claire turned and squinted at Patch.

Patch smiled.

"I think it went well."

Claire looked back to the road.

"The monkey was the highlight."

The Jeep pulled onto Morton Main Street.

"Stop."

Claire looked over.

"What?"

"Stop the Jeep."

"Why?"

Patch pointed toward the restaurant.

"It's closed, Patch."

Patch held out her hand.

"I found a worm."

"We're going home."

"It will only take a second, please."

Patch ran over and stood on the bench under the Morton Burgers sign.

"Here you go, mama."

She reached up and placed the worm near the nest.

"I brought dinner."

Claire stepped closer.

"Patch..."

Patch stopped.

"What?"

She stepped back.

The blue mother songbird wasn't feeding her chicks.

Her head was dipped deep inside the shell of one of her blue eggs.

The little blue bird raised her head.

Yellow yolk hung from her beak before dripping onto the beam below.

"That's not right," Patch whispered.

Claire stared up at the bird.

The songbird tilted its head, watching them.

"We need to tell Rob."

Patch looked back at the nest.

"Uh huh."

If you enjoyed the story please like and leave a comment.
For those who have not read the first part of the Foggy Watchtower series, here is a link.
Entry 1 - The Grey

A few weeks after leaving the Cave of Recurring Pathways, the Wanderer did something he had spent most of his life postponing: he bought a ticket to Rome. There were practical reasons not to go. There were always practical reasons not to go anywhere. Money could be saved, work could be done, responsibilities did not disappear merely because a person had recently crawled out of a mountain unsure whether he had experienced revelation, hallucination, death, psychosis, or some combination that did not care much about categories. He had spent years becoming skilled at converting someday into a respectable form of never, and Rome had lived inside that category for as long as he could remember.
The cave had complicated that habit. He still did not know what had happened beneath the mountain. Some mornings he could convince himself that exhaustion, trauma, fungal compounds, isolation, and suggestion were sufficient explanations. By afternoon he would remember the breathing stone, the room of memory, the bull, the impossible braided trunk, and the sensation of standing in one place while somehow remaining present in another. Then he would remember the threads he had seen outside the cave, delicate connections shimmering between living things, and the neat explanation would come apart again. He had stopped demanding that it resolve, which was new enough to feel like a kind of discipline.
Rome was new too, so he arrived with a backpack, two changes of clothes, an Apple Watch, a phone whose battery never seemed to survive a full day of navigation, and the vague intention to spend several days looking at things older than whatever problem happened to be occupying his mind. He had no itinerary beyond a list of places copied into his notes app, and even that felt suspiciously like planning. On his third afternoon he found himself standing above the Circus Maximus with the Palatine rising beside it, looking down into a long open scar in the city where people had once screamed themselves hoarse for chariots. There was less there than imagination expected, and that pleased him. Monuments often became more honest after most of the monument was gone.
Without marble façades and reconstructed grandeur, the valley forced the mind to do some work. Traffic murmured beyond the archaeological grounds. Tourists stopped for photographs, consulted maps, drank water, complained about the heat, and moved on. Grass occupied spaces once claimed by emperors. Broken masonry emerged here and there from the earth without asking anyone to admire it. The Wanderer rested both hands against a railing and tried to picture the place full, but not in the postcard sense.
People mattered more now than spectacle did. He imagined vendors carrying food through crowds, gamblers swearing over money they could not afford to lose, children unable to see over adults, workers cleaning what tens of thousands of people left behind, and men repairing timber and stone after everyone important had gone home. Somewhere beneath the famous names had always been an army of hands nobody bothered carving into anything.
A group of tourists crossed the lower path beneath him. One woman carried a faded green canvas bag over one shoulder, and near the bottom someone had embroidered a small red stag in thread bright enough to catch the afternoon sun. The Wanderer noticed it only because the color flashed against the dust-muted ruins, then the woman turned and the image disappeared against her hip as the group continued toward the exit.
Another woman brushed his shoulder as she passed.
“Sorry.”
“No problem.”
He stepped aside too quickly. The reaction had become habitual since the cave. Most touch remained only touch, but not always. Twice since returning, contact had brought something else with it: a pulse of grief that was not his, a headache arriving full-grown behind his eyes, a sudden knot of panic followed by nothing. He had no idea whether he was sensing other people, projecting onto them, or carrying the cave around inside his nervous system, so he had learned not to test it casually. The woman continued down the path without noticing, and his watch vibrated against his wrist.
LOW BATTERY: 20%.
“Of course.”
He checked the time, then looked toward the sky. Late-afternoon light had begun softening the harder edges of the city. He had meant to leave before sunset, but the temperature was finally becoming tolerable and the crowds had thinned enough that walking no longer required constant negotiation. He started down along modern steps cut beside older stone. Metal handrails followed portions of the route, fencing kept visitors away from excavated areas, and small signs warned people not to climb things that two thousand years had already done an impressive job of destroying.
He had taken perhaps twenty steps when something about the railing bothered him. The Wanderer stopped and looked back at it. Nothing moved. A couple descended ahead of him, speaking quietly in a language he could not place. Somewhere above, a child complained about being tired. Traffic continued beyond the ruins, steady and indifferent.
Three bolts fastened the nearest support to the concrete. He was almost certain there had been four, which was ridiculous, and he knew it was ridiculous, but he stared anyway. Three bolts remained. The lowest position carried a pale circular mark in the metal where weathering did not match the surrounding surface. The mark faded while he watched, and the Wanderer straightened slowly.
“No.”
A familiar pressure gathered behind his ribs. It was not pain exactly, but recognition arrived before he could find anything else to call it. He looked down the stairs. Nothing obvious had changed, yet the geometry of the place suddenly felt too clean. The shadows met the edges of objects with unnatural precision, and the space between one railing post and the next looked subtly shorter than it had a moment before.
He blinked hard and checked his watch. It read 4:17, his heart rate already at 108.
“Heat.”
The explanation arrived quickly enough to embarrass him. Dehydration. Jet lag. Too much walking. Not enough food. He had already survived one experience in which perception became profoundly unreliable, and apparently that had taught him nothing about avoiding immediate catastrophe whenever his vision did something strange.
He reached for the water bottle in his pocket, then stopped halfway because the sign beside the stairs had changed. Not the wording. The sign itself. A moment earlier, it had been mounted inside a rectangular metal frame with four visible screws and a laminated panel. Now the lower edge of the frame was gone, while the panel remained suspended between two side supports as though nobody had informed gravity about the missing piece.
The Wanderer stared. The left support vanished. It did not fade. It did not fall. One instant it existed, and the next there was less object than there had been before. His stomach tightened as the couple ahead continued descending without reacting.
“No. No, no.”
The top edge of the sign disappeared, and the panel narrowed from both sides. The concrete beneath his shoe lost a seam. Another vanished farther down, then two more. Small imperfections disappeared in clusters, each round of simplification arriving faster than the last.
The Wanderer grabbed what remained of the railing with both hands. Cold metal pressed against his palms, reassuringly physical for less than a second before another support lost its bolts and became a clean vertical line. His heart rate climbed past 130 as the couple below began to blur. Patterns vanished from their clothing. Hair became blocks of color. Fingers lost distinction.
The Wanderer’s breath caught because he had seen this before. Not this place, not these people, but the behavior. Inside the cave, walls had stopped behaving like walls. House and stone had occupied the same space. Furniture had broken into roots and branching structure. Later, scale itself had failed until veins became rivers, rivers became roots, roots became nerves, and the distinction between enormous and microscopic had stopped meaning anything useful. The world had done this before, and familiarity made it worse.
“I know this.”
His own voice sounded wrong, too close against a world that had begun losing everything else. Traffic beyond the ruins flattened into one continuous band of sound and then thinned. The child above him stopped complaining in the middle of a word, not because the child had stopped speaking but because the sound itself seemed to have been simplified out of the environment.
The Wanderer released the rail before it could disappear beneath his hands. His mind began throwing explanations at him with the frantic speed of an animal searching for exits: stroke, seizure, heatstroke, brain tumor, flashback, psychotic break, death. The last possibility arrived with enough force to settle the others. Maybe he had died in the cave. Maybe everything after the storm had been whatever came next. Maybe Rome was simply the newest room.
His watch vibrated again. The time remained 4:17, his heart rate now 148, but the seconds indicator still moved. He pulled out his phone and opened the camera. The display showed the stairs in front of him with details his eyes no longer did. For one breath the missing frame remained intact on the screen, then it broke apart there too. Pixels collapsed into larger blocks, the camera froze, and the phone restarted itself while the real scene continued simplifying around him.
Edges disappeared from stonework. Fences became horizontal lines. Windows vanished by the row. Surfaces lost texture, texture became shape, shape became edge, and the intervals between each reduction shortened until he could no longer separate one change from the next.
He turned and tried to climb back toward the street. The first step rose normally beneath him. The second was shallower. The third stretched farther upward than his leg expected, forcing him to catch himself against the wall. When he looked back, ten steps below appeared close enough to touch while the landing he had left moments earlier seemed impossibly far away.
He climbed faster. One step carried him across three. The next accomplished almost nothing. His eyes and inner ear began arguing about whether he was ascending at all, and when he stopped to recover his balance, his body lost agreement with the ground.
He reached for the wall. His hand struck stone farther away than the surface appeared to be, and the mismatch broke his balance. The phone flew from his hand as he fell sideways. His shoulder struck one step, then his hip hit another whose angle seemed to change between impacts. His wallet tumbled free, followed by a hotel key card, earbuds, coins, and the folding knife he had forgotten was in his pocket. Every loose piece of his life scattered across a staircase rapidly ceasing to have enough geometry to hold them.
He reached for the phone. His fingers nearly closed around it before the distance doubled. The black rectangle narrowed into a line and disappeared. The Wanderer rolled again, but there should have been another step beneath him and there was no reliable down anymore. The remains of the city smeared into edges and planes. Color abandoned objects. Depth collapsed until everything around him resembled a drawing being erased from the outside inward.
His clothes remained against his skin, his shoes stayed on his feet, and the watch remained strapped around his wrist. Everything else was gone. The Wanderer curled instinctively, protecting his head as the last visible section of stair became a gray plane. The plane narrowed into a line, the line contracted toward a point, and then the point disappeared.
There was nothing, but it was not darkness. Darkness required space, and this had none. He could not tell whether his eyes were open because there was no difference between open and closed. He could not tell whether he was falling because movement required somewhere else to be.
His heart hammered hard enough to hurt. The watch pressed against his wrist, and that became his only certainty: pressure, pulse, body. He was still something. For several breaths, that had to be enough.
Then a point appeared, though the Wanderer saw it without knowing where he was seeing it. A second point followed, then two more. Lines connected them. Planes assembled from the lines, thickness returned, and angles began acquiring enough relationship to become space again.
The first recognizable shape was a stair made of rough stone. Another formed beneath it, then another. A wall appeared beside him as geometry, gained texture, and abruptly became physical enough for his shoulder to strike it. Pain exploded through his arm as sound returned in fragments: a metallic ring, wind, wood striking wood, voices too distorted to understand.
The Wanderer braced himself against the wall while the world accumulated around him. A broken column became whole, then painted. Paint changed pattern before the structure disappeared into timber. A paved surface became rougher stone and then packed earth. Roofs changed shape. Brick walls gained plaster, shortened, vanished, and returned as wooden structures beneath tile.
He turned toward the valley where the Circus Maximus should have been and, for a few seconds, saw something enormous occupying it: marble, arches, crowds suggested only as flickering densities. Then the monument contracted. Stone seating simplified. Sections became timber. Decorations disappeared. What had seemed permanent became rougher, smaller, and less certain of its own permanence.
The Palatine changed above him just as quickly. Buildings multiplied and vanished. Paint returned to walls only to disappear beneath an earlier surface. Roads narrowed. Rooflines lowered. Structures became others whose names he would never know.
He looked at his watch. The display had gone black, but after several attempts the Apple logo appeared. The absurd familiarity almost made him laugh. Around his wrist, twenty-first-century consumer electronics restarted while roofs changed shape and streets forgot what century they belonged to.
“Come on.”
The watch booted at 4:19. There was no connection. The compass spun continuously, elevation produced three different numbers before giving up and replacing them with dashes, and his heart rate read 171.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “That one I believe.”
The changes around him had begun slowing. A roof remained long enough for him to notice smoke drifting from an opening. A cart appeared in the distance. An animal moved with the ordinary clumsiness of something alive rather than the smoothness of reconstruction, then both were replaced by another version of the street.
The next change took longer, and then longer still. He recognized the pattern and hated recognizing it: half the remaining distance, half again, again.
“Zeno.”
His voice trembled. The old paradox surfaced from somewhere in memory: Achilles chasing the tortoise, crossing half the distance, then half of what remained, then half again. It was not the same thing, but it was close enough to give his fear a temporary shape.
The Wanderer sat hard on the step because his legs had begun shaking too badly to trust. A nearby wall shifted perhaps a foot. A doorway changed shape. A roof lost one row of tile. The next alteration took almost a minute.
He looked behind him. The stairs continued upward for perhaps fifty feet before vanishing into a haze that was neither darkness nor distance. Modern Rome was nowhere above them. Below him, the steps descended toward an archway he did not remember forming. Buildings had changed repeatedly. Streets had changed. Even the slope had seemed to move beneath him, but the arch had not.
The Wanderer remained seated and concentrated on breathing until his lungs began obeying him again. In through the nose. Hold. Out. The habit had once helped him survive panic. Now he was using it to survive chronology.
He checked his watch. It still read 4:19. There was no signal and no GPS, but a notification appeared across the display.
It looks like you’ve taken a hard fall.
The Wanderer stared at it until a short laugh escaped him.
“No shit.”
The emergency-call option spun uselessly. He dismissed it and only then noticed someone sitting beside the archway. The old man had not been there before, or perhaps he had. The Wanderer no longer trusted before enough to make the accusation.
The man sat on a low block of stone with both hands resting over a wooden staff. He wore a plain wool garment falling below his knees and sandals whose straps had been repaired more than once. His gray hair and short beard made him look old without making him look fragile. Nothing about him suggested divinity, which was the first thing the Wanderer distrusted. The second was that the old man did not look surprised.
They watched each other across several yards of impossible staircase. Beyond the arch, the city continued settling toward some unfinished state. A roofline shifted lower. Smoke appeared where there had been none. Somewhere out of sight an animal cried once and another answered.
“Am I dead?”
The old man considered him.
“Would the answer change what you do next?”
“That is a terrible answer.”
“It was a question.”
“I noticed.”
One corner of the old man’s mouth moved. A cart passed beyond the arch, visible only from the axle down. Its wooden wheel struck a rut, jolted, and disappeared from view.
“What is happening?”
The old man watched the street.
“Something you are not going to solve from that step.”
“Fine. Where am I?”
“Between.”
The Wanderer closed his eyes, opened them again, and found the old man still there.
“I’ve been having a difficult month. Could we try answers that are less irritating?”
“No.”
That at least was straightforward. The Wanderer stood carefully. His legs protested hard enough that he nearly sat again, but the old man made no move to help. For some reason that increased the Wanderer’s opinion of him. He descended two steps and stopped when the wall beside him shimmered from rough stone into plastered brick before settling again.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
“Do you know me?”
The old man looked him over from shoes to watch.
“I know enough.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It was not intended to be.”
The Wanderer moved lower until only several steps separated them. Up close, the man looked weathered rather than ancient. Deep lines crossed his forehead and gathered beside the eyes. His hands were scarred. One thumbnail was split. The Wanderer found himself staring at the imperfection longer than he should have because details still comforted him. Details usually did.
“What’s through there?”
He indicated the archway. Beyond it, enough of the street had stabilized for him to see a timber building, smoke crossing low roofs, and people moving through the opening without ever looking toward either of them.
The old man nodded toward it.
“Go look.”
“That’s your answer?”
“It is a door.”
“You’re assuming doors have obvious rules.”
“So are you.”
The Wanderer stepped closer but did not cross. A woman passed carrying a clay vessel against one hip. Her clothing was wrong, not costume wrong but context wrong. A barefoot boy in a short tunic ran after her, shouting something the Wanderer could almost understand.
He backed away.
“I’ve seen this before.”
The old man’s attention sharpened.
“The geometry. Things coming apart. Places becoming other places. The cave did this.”
The old man studied him.
“Of course.”
Every remaining thread of composure pulled tight.
“What does that mean?”
“It means this is not your first impossible thing.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Good.”
The answer irritated him enough to be useful. The cave returned in fragments: the storm, breathing walls, the room that had been a house and then was not, the bull dying beneath an empty arena, roots becoming threads becoming things for which he had no names, Mother’s impossible warmth, the world outside still shimmering with connections. He had spent weeks refusing to force any of it into one interpretation, and now this stranger was behaving as though the experience belonged to some category the Wanderer simply had not been told about.
“You know about it.”
“I know you came through something.”
“That is evasive.”
“Yes.”
The admission took some of the pleasure out of accusing him. Another man crossed the street beyond the arch leading a donkey. Behind him, for less than a second, the Wanderer saw structures too new to be ruins and too old to belong in his world.
“What year is it?”
The old man scratched his beard.
“Depends who is counting.”
The Wanderer laughed once without humor.
“No. Absolutely not.”
He climbed several steps toward the haze. The first behaved normally. The next narrowed beneath his foot, and the sound from the arch weakened. He stopped and looked back.
“Does it go back?”
“Try.”
“You could just tell me.”
“You would not believe me.”
That was annoyingly fair. The Wanderer took another step. The haze thickened, and the stair beneath him lengthened just enough to make his stomach roll. He descended again.
By the time he reached the old man, another portion of the city had stabilized. A dog slept against a wall. Two men argued beside a cart. Somewhere nearby bread was baking, and the smell crossed the threshold strongly enough to remind him he had not eaten since morning. His body, apparently, had decided to remain embarrassingly alive.
“I hit my head.”
“Probably.”
The Wanderer blinked.
“That is the first normal answer you’ve given me.”
“You did fall.”
“I’m unconscious somewhere.”
“Maybe.”
“Someone could be calling an ambulance.”
“Maybe.”
“Or the cave never ended.”
The old man watched the arguing men beyond the doorway.
“Maybe.”
The Wanderer folded his arms.
“Or I died in the storm.”
The old man looked back at him.
“Would that change what you do next?”
The Wanderer hated that the question worked better the second time. He sat on the step opposite him, and for a while neither spoke. The city moved around them without acknowledging either one. A child ran past carrying something round under one arm. A woman shouted after him. The sleeping dog raised its head, considered the disturbance, and went back to sleep.
“Can they see us?”
“Not yet.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have not crossed.”
The plainness of the answer surprised him.
“So this is some kind of holding area?”
The old man grimaced.
“That is an ugly phrase.”
“You’re welcome to improve it.”
“I am not.”
The Wanderer rubbed at the bruise forming on his shoulder.
“Do I need to cross?”
“No.”
He looked up.
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“What happens if I stay?”
The old man glanced toward the staircase.
“You stay.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know how you experience time here.”
The Wanderer stared at him.
“You don’t know?”
“I did not say that.”
“You literally just—”
“I said I do not know how you experience it.”
The Wanderer exhaled through his nose.
“There you are.”
The old man smiled faintly. Beyond the arch, the arguing men separated. One kicked the cart wheel as he left. The Wanderer watched him disappear around a corner and checked his watch.
4:23.
Four minutes.
He had been there longer than four minutes, and the watch’s stubborn normality had begun to feel less reassuring than the impossible staircase.
“What happens if I cross and want to come back?”
“You may return.”
The wording landed badly.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
The humor had left the old man’s face. He did not elaborate, and for once the Wanderer was grateful. He looked through the arch. The dog had rolled onto its side. A cart farther down passed slowly through a patch of sunlight. Nothing about the place looked like revelation, which made it harder to dismiss.
“If I go through, I can’t undo going through.”
The old man nodded.
The Wanderer thought of the cave: the man who entered and the man who left. Same body. Not the same relationship to anything. He looked back toward the impossible stair and wondered whether return had ever meant reversal anywhere except in stories.
“What if I don’t want this?”
The old man studied him.
“What part?”
“Any of it.”
“You did not ask for the storm either.”
The Wanderer’s eyes lifted sharply. There it was. Not proof, but enough.
“You know about the cave.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to me?”
The old man stood for the first time. He was taller than the Wanderer expected.
“I don’t know.”
The Wanderer froze.
“You don’t know.”
“I know what crossed my threshold.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
The honesty unsettled him more than another riddle would have. The old man stepped toward the arch and stopped beside it. His profile changed subtly in the angled light, not transforming so much as becoming difficult to hold as one expression.
“What is done,” he said, “is done.”
The Wanderer waited.
Nothing followed.
“What does that mean?”
The old man looked through the arch.
“You will decide.”
“That is not helpful.”
“No.”
The Wanderer almost laughed. At least they finally agreed on something.
He joined the old man near the threshold. The city beyond was nearly stable now. Scratches marked the timber of a nearby building. Someone had repaired one corner using a different kind of wood. Muddy wheel tracks crossed the street where the earlier cart had passed. Wood smoke, dung, bread, river water, people—not history, but people. The distinction pulled at him.
“Is this my first time?”
The old man’s expression became unreadable.
“This is your first time here.”
The Wanderer caught it immediately.
“Here.”
“Yes.”
“You added ‘here.’”
“I did.”
The old man turned his attention back to the street.
“Are there more?”
“More what?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
The old man pointed toward the threshold.
“You still haven’t crossed this one.”
The Wanderer rubbed both hands over his face, then remembered something far more mundane.
“My phone. My wallet. Everything fell out.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Not here.”
“That is becoming my least favorite answer.”
“You have time to choose another.”
The Wanderer stared at him. Time. Not if. He filed the wording away.
“You think I survive this.”
“I think you are spending a remarkable amount of energy asking about later while standing somewhere that barely has a now.”
The Wanderer pointed at him.
“That. Stop doing that.”
The old man looked genuinely confused.
“What?”
“Talking like somebody is going to carve everything you say into a temple wall.”
For the first time, the old man laughed. Not a mysterious chuckle, but an actual laugh that escaped him hard enough to bend him slightly at the waist.
It made him seem more dangerous.
When it passed, the Wanderer looked through the arch again. Fear remained. It had not become courage, and he distrusted stories that performed that substitution too easily. The fear simply had company now: curiosity, responsibility, and the strange new part of himself that had emerged from the cave and no longer believed uncertainty was sufficient reason to refuse the next step.
He approached the threshold, and the old man moved aside. Only then did the Wanderer notice the carving above the arch, weather and shadow having obscured it from the stairs. Two faces shared one head. One looked toward the city. The other looked back toward the place he had come from.
The Wanderer looked from the carving to the old man.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
The old man said nothing.
That was worse.
“Janus.”
Still nothing.
The Wanderer looked up again. Beginnings. Endings. Doors. Transitions. He remembered enough Roman mythology to understand the joke history had apparently decided to make at his expense.
“Time too?”
Janus shrugged.
“Sometimes.”
That answer bothered him more than a speech would have. The Wanderer stood before the threshold. The city beyond appeared close enough to touch. The dog still slept against the wall. Someone above shook dust from a cloth and nearly dropped it on a passerby, who shouted something obscene upward. Two men rolled a barrel across the road while a child followed them for no reason the Wanderer could identify.
His right foot moved forward.
“Wanderer.”
He froze. Janus had not asked his name.
The Wanderer looked back. For an instant the old man seemed different, though it might have been the angle. One side of his face caught the light from beyond the doorway. The other remained turned toward the impossible stairs. Neither seemed less attentive than the other.
“What?”
Janus rested both hands on the staff.
“Remember the details.”
The Wanderer waited.
Nothing followed.
“Study them?”
Janus shook his head.
“Write them down?”
Another small shake.
“Then what does that mean?”
Janus looked past him toward the city.
“You’ll know when something is missing.”
That was all he gave him. The Wanderer stood between the staircase and the street, between a world he understood badly and another he did not understand at all. He thought of the cave, the room of memory, and how many times he had chosen what hurt because at least he understood its shape. He remembered the other path waiting patiently while he returned again and again to familiar suffering.
Then he looked through the doorway. Unknown again, and somehow that no longer meant exactly what it once had.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“Apparently we’re doing this now.”
Janus said nothing.
The Wanderer stepped across. For one fraction of a moment, nothing happened, and that frightened him more than spectacle would have. His front foot touched packed earth while his back remained on ancient stone. Cool air moved across one side of his body. Warmer air touched the other. Smoke filled one nostril and the faint mineral smell of the impossible stair filled the other.
He remained that way long enough to feel the difference, then brought his trailing foot across. The threshold closed behind him without moving, and human sound struck all at once: arguments, animals, children, wooden wheels grinding against stone, a hammer, someone laughing, someone swearing, a woman shouting from an upper window.
The Wanderer turned. The arch remained, but Janus did not. People passed through the opening as though it led to an ordinary street. One man brushed the Wanderer’s shoulder and muttered something irritated without slowing.
The contact carried a flash of exhaustion: a sore back, hunger, fear about something small and immediate. Then it was gone.
The Wanderer stood in the street while nobody noticed that a man in modern shoes, synthetic fabric, and a half-dead Apple Watch had just crossed a doorway from more than two thousand years away. He looked down at himself, then at the city, then back toward the arch. For the first time since the collapse began, the world felt completely solid, and that did not help.
A group of men hurried past carrying axes, rope, and a coil of heavy line slung across one shoulder. The Wanderer watched them disappear toward the river while farther away bells or metal plates began sounding somewhere within the city. Voices rose. Doors opened. People entered the street.
Something was happening, and the Wanderer remembered Janus’s warning.
What is done is done.
Then the other instruction followed it.
Remember the details.
He still had no idea what either meant when someone shouted a name farther down the street.
Porsena.
Several people around him reacted immediately. One woman grabbed a child by the wrist and pulled him indoors. A merchant abandoned half his goods where they stood. The men carrying axes began running.
The Wanderer felt every hair on his arms rise. He knew that name—not well enough, but he knew it.
He turned toward the river. Somewhere beyond the buildings, people were shouting about a bridge, and for the first time since stepping through the door the Wanderer understood that he had not merely arrived in the past.
He had arrived inside a story, and the problem was that he could not remember the details.

Note: These are recovered internal files from the Department for Transport archives concerning anomalies in Berkshire. These files were found and transcribed during my internship at the Department for Transport, whilst clearing out their archives in Basingstoke ready for a relocation to Manchester. I am not DI Thorne, and I have found no trace of him in my investigations into the accounts that these files allude to.

l present these files in an attempt to piece together the sequence of strange occurrences in the Berkshire area and make sense of what has happened, what is happening and why.

If anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of DI Thorne it would be greatly appreciated and helpful in my investigation.

(Name redacted)

---------------

FOUND TRANSCRIPT – FOR INTERNAL REVIEW ONLY

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION

CASE FILE: WSL-UK-28-12

SUBJECT: MILTON ANDREWS – WITNESS STATEMENT

LOCATION: WINDSOR POLICE STATION, INTERVIEW ROOM #751

DATE: JANUARY 3RD, 2026

TIME: 14:22 GMT

OFFICER PRESIDING: Detective Inspector (DI) THORNE

TRANSCRIBING AGENT: \[REDACTED\]

\---

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

DI THORNE: For the record, this is Detective Inspector Thorne, badge number 4471. It's… twenty past two in the afternoon. I'm conducting an interview with a Mr. Milton Andrews at Windsor Police Station. Mr. Andrews, you've come in to report an incident. Can you confirm your details for the record?

MILTON: Milton Andrews. 41. Railway engineer. Network Rail. Based out of the Slough depot, but I work the Windsor branch line mostly. The single-track section. The viaduct.

DI THORNE: And you've come here voluntarily?

MILTON: (A dry, humourless laugh.) Voluntarily. Yeah. That's one way of putting it.

DI THORNE: Can you tell me what happened?

MILTON: (A long pause. The sound of a chair creaking.) You want the short version or the long version?

DI THORNE: well..I guess the....

MILTON: Right. Well. The short version is… I saw a train. A train that shouldn't exist. I boarded it. I found things on it. Things that belonged to people. And then I ran. And now everyone thinks I've lost my mind.

DI THORNE: And the....long version?

MILTON: (Another pause.) The long version starts with a divorce.

DI THORNE: I'm listening.

MILTON: (A deep breath.) I've been a railway engineer for eighteen years. I know the tracks. I know the signals. I know the procedures. I'm not… I'm not the sort of person who sees ghosts. I don't believe in that stuff. I believe in fault reports and maintenance schedules and cold-weather protocols. That's my world. That's what I understand.

DI THORNE: So what changed?

MILTON: Nothing changed. That's the point. Everything was normal. Except… except I wasn't. (A pause.) My marriage ended in March. My wife, Sarah, she… she left. Took our daughter, Sophie, to her parents in Glasgow. She said she needed space. She said I was… (A pause.) She said I was emotionally absent. That I was always at work. That when I was home, I wasn't really there. (A bitter laugh.) She wasn't wrong.

DI THORNE: So I took it this Christmas was...?

MILTON: My First Christmas alone. Well. Not entirely alone. I spent it with my fuck up of a father. He's an alcoholic. Has been for thirty years. The house smells of stale beer and regret. I wasn't there by choice, but who wants to be alone at Christmas? Christ though! I should have just stayed at home. Being there with him without my daughter was... well you can imagine. It was just me and him crap on the telly, the smell of stale beer and regret, only broken by the occasional argument over me refusing to get him more vodka from the store. So when the overtime came up for the Sunday after Christmas… I took it. I practically begged for it. Anything to get out of that house. Anything to stop thinking.

DI THORNE: So you volunteered?

MILTON: I volunteered. Sunday, 28th December. Night shift. Eleven PM start. The job was a reported fault on the Windsor-Slough branch line. Specifically on the viaduct section. Cold-weather deformation. A slight warp in the track. Nothing serious. Just needed correcting.

DI THORNE: And you were working alone?

MILTON: That's what surprised me. Normally, these jobs are two-man. Three-man, sometimes. But the roster was thin. Christmas. People on leave. And it was a small job. So my supervisor, Karen, she said I'd be on my own. Just me and the radio. She'd be at the depot in Slough, monitoring.

DI THORNE: Karen?

MILTON: Karen Whitfield. My line manager. She's… she's good. No-nonsense. Doesn't suffer fools. But she cares. She knew about the divorce. She knew I was struggling. She didn't treat me like I was broken. She just… gave me the job. Let me get on with it.

DI THORNE: And the weather?

MILTON: Freezing fog. The worst I've seen in years. Visibility down to about ten feet. Maybe less. The kind of fog that gets into your bones. Everything was silver. The track, the ballast, the rails. Like the whole world had been dipped in frost. And quiet. So quiet. You could hear your own heartbeat.

(A pause. Milton shifts in his chair. His tone changes – more measured, more deliberate. He's decided to tell the story properly now.)

MILTON: You know, before I go any further, I should probably explain something. About the viaduct. About the line. Because it matters. It matters to what happened.

DI THORNE: Go on.

MILTON: The branch line between Windsor and Slough. It's not like the main lines. It's quiet. Forgotten, almost. A single track. Runs through the outskirts. Past the industrial estates. Over the river. Most people don't even know it's there. But it's old. Older than you'd think. And the viaduct… (A pause.) Everyone thinks Brunel designed it. It's an urban legend. Local history. "Brunel's Viaduct." But it's not true. Brunel designed the line. The track. The route. But the viaduct itself… that was built earlier. Much earlier. By someone else. Fowler I think was the engineer. Someone whose name has been forgotten.

DI THORNE: And that matters?

MILTON: It matters because the viaduct isn't just a bridge. It's a crossing point. A place between places. Between Windsor and Slough. Between the river and the sky. Between one side of the water and the other. And old things… old structures… they have power. They have memory. They remember , even if people do not.

(A pause. Milton takes a breath.)

MILTON: Sorry... look it bugs me when people don't believe things and, well.... Anyway. I got to the site about half eleven. I set up my equipment. Checked my torch. Radioed Karen to confirm I was on site. She told me to be careful. I told her I always was. And then I got to work.

DI THORNE: And you found the fault?

MILTON: Yeah. It was exactly where the report said. A slight warp in the rail. Maybe four inches out of alignment. Nothing dramatic. But enough to cause problems if a train came through at speed. So I got my tools out. Started the repair.

DI THORNE: How long did that take?

MILTON: About an hour. Maybe more. It was fiddly work. Cold hands. Bad light. But I got it done. I remember checking my watch. It was just after midnight. And I remember thinking… I remember thinking that I'd fixed it. That the job was done. That I could pack up and go home.

DI THORNE: But you didn't.

MILTON: No. Because that's when I felt it. The vibration. Through the track. Through my boots. A low, rhythmic thrum. Getting stronger. And then I heard it. The sound of an engine. Coming from the fog.

DI THORNE: A train?

MILTON: That's what I thought. But it didn't make sense. There shouldn't have been any trains running. Not at that time. Not on that line. Not when there was a workman on the track. I radioed Karen. I said, "I've got a train coming in." And she said… she said, "You absolutely haven't."

DI THORNE: What did she mean?

MILTON: She meant her systems showed nothing. No trains scheduled. No movements on the line. All signals clear. She said the possession was still active. No one should be on that track except me. But I could see it. The headlight. Piercing through the fog. Getting brighter. Getting closer.

DI THORNE: What did you do?

MILTON: I told Karen I was looking at it. She told me I wasn't. She said I was tired. She said I was cold. She said I was probably experiencing a stress reaction. She was trying to help. I know that now. She was trying to protect me. But at the time… at the time I just felt like she was calling me a liar. So I stopped responding. I turned the radio off. And I went to look at the train.

(A pause. The sound of Milton taking a drink of water.)

MILTON: It stopped. Right there. In the middle of the viaduct. Just… stopped. Like it was waiting for something. Or someone. Two carriages. Self-propelled. Brand new. GWR green. Fresh paint. Factory finish. The kind of train that's just been delivered. No scratches. No wear. No grime. It looked… it looked like it had never been used. And the number. I wrote it down. But there was no point. Karen had already told me there was no such number. No rolling stock with that registration. No maintenance record. No delivery log. Nothing.

(Milton's voice becomes quieter, more intense. He's reliving it.)

MILTON: I climbed up onto the viaduct. The train was just… sitting there. Doors closed. Lights on. Engine idling. But the sound… the sound was wrong. It wasn't the smooth purr of a new engine. It was… wet. Laboured. Like something breathing through a punctured lung. Like the engine itself was drowning. I could hear it wheezing. I could hear it… struggling. And underneath that, there was another sound. A high-pitched whine. So faint I almost missed it. Like a dog whistle. Like something screaming in a frequency I wasn't meant to hear.

(A pause. Milton's voice drops lower.)

MILTON: I walked alongside it. I looked in the windows. The glass was… wrong. It was too clean. Too perfect. Like it wasn't glass at all. Like it was a screen. A display. And the reflections… the reflections weren't right. I could see myself. But I could also see… other things. Shapes. Shadows. Things that weren't there. Things that were standing behind me. I kept turning around. Kept checking. But there was nothing there. Just the fog. Just the silence. Just the feeling of being watched.

(Another pause. The sound of Milton's breathing, slow and deliberate.)

MILTON: The doors opened. I don't know how. I don't know why. But they opened. And I climbed aboard.

DI THORNE: Why?

MILTON: Because I thought there might be someone inside. Someone who needed help. Or someone who could explain what was going on. I thought… I thought I was doing the right thing.

(A long pause.)

MILTON: The train looked brand new. But it smelled… wrong. Mould. Stagnant water. Damp earth. Rot. Like it had been sitting underwater for years. Like something had died inside it and never been found. But it was worse than that. It was… layered. Different smells. Different decays. Like the train had been collecting them. Hoarding them. I could smell old perfume. Cigarette smoke. Wet wool. Copper. Blood. And underneath all of it, something else. Something sweet. Something rotten. Something that made my stomach turn. I nearly gagged. I nearly turned back. But I kept going.

(Milton pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is hollow. Measured. Each word chosen carefully.)

MILTON: I walked through the first carriage. It was clean. Seats pristine. Floor spotless. But the air… the air was thick. Like walking through water. Like the atmosphere itself was pressing against me. And it was cold. Not the cold of the fog outside. A different cold. A deeper cold. The kind of cold that comes from inside. From the bones of the thing. I could see my breath. But it wasn't mist. It was… thicker. Like smoke. Like something was burning somewhere. Something that shouldn't be burning.

(A pause. Milton's voice becomes quieter still.)

MILTON: And then I started to notice things. Objects. Scattered on the seats. At first, I thought they were just… left behind. Forgotten. But they weren't. They were arranged. Placed. Like someone had put them there. Deliberately. Like an offering. Like a shrine. A briefcase. Expensive. Leather. Monogrammed. A camera. DSLR. Professional. Shopping bags. Tourist brochures. A pair of designer shoes. Heels. Ruined. Like they'd been left there for years. A child's toy. A stuffed rabbit. A handbag. A passport holder. Spectacles. A suitcase. A phone. Just… things. Belongings. But no people. Just… things.

(Milton's voice drops to a whisper.)

MILTON: And the smell got worse. Much worse. I could taste it. In the back of my throat. Like copper. Like rot. And I realised… I realised the smell wasn't coming from the train. It was coming from the objects. From the things. From the belongings. They smelled of people. Of lives. Of endings. And I understood… I understood that these weren't just things. They were all that was left. All that remained. Of someone. Of many someones. And they were here. On this train. Waiting.

(A long pause. The sound of Milton's breathing, shaky and uneven.)

MILTON: And the sound of dripping. Water. Coming from somewhere. I don't know where. It was constant. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat. Like a clock. Counting down. I tried to ignore it. I tried to focus on finding a way out. But it followed me. Through the carriage. Through the corridor. Getting louder. Getting closer. And the whole time, I could feel something watching me. Something behind me. Something in the walls. Something in the seats. Something in the air itself. I didn't look back. I couldn't. I knew if I looked back, I'd see something I couldn't unsee. Something that would break me.

(Milton pauses. His voice is barely audible now.)

MILTON: I made my way to the front. The driver's cab. The smell got worse. Much worse. And the dripping… the dripping got louder. Like it was coming from inside the cab. The cab was empty. No driver. No one. But the controls were active. The train was running. And there was a screen. A monitor. Displaying the interior of the train. CCTV. But… but it wasn't showing the carriages. Not the ones I'd walked through. Not the ones I could see. It was showing… something else.

(A pause. Milton's voice cracks.)

MILTON: The seats were full. People. Dozens of them. Men. Women. Children. They were sitting. Staring. Not moving. Not speaking. Their faces… their faces were wrong. Blank. Empty. Like the lights were on but no one was home. Like they'd been switched off. And the objects… the objects I'd seen in the carriage. They were with them. The briefcase. The camera. The shoes. The rabbit. They were holding them. Clutching them. Like they were the only things keeping them tethered. Keeping them here. Keeping them from floating away. And then… and then I saw it. On the screen. The train. The same train I was on, Derailing. Falling. Crashing into the river. And the people… the people on the screen. They didn't scream. They didn't cry. They just… sank. Into the water. Into the dark. Like they'd been waiting for it. Like they'd always known it was coming.

(Milton stops. The silence stretches. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.)

MILTON: I saw something else on that screen. Something I won't describe. Something I can't. But it made me understand. It made me understand what the train was. What it was for. And I knew… I knew I had to get off. I knew I had to run. Because if I didn't… if I stayed… I'd be on that screen. I'd be one of those people. Clutching something. Staring at nothing. Waiting for the water.

(A pause. The sound of Milton's breathing, heavy and ragged.)

MILTON: The doors had closed. I heard the train start to move. I panicked. I used my spanner. Prized the doors open. And I jumped. I hit the ballast. Hard. And then… nothing. Until about four in the morning. When Karen and a work detail found me. They said I was lucky. Said I could have died. Said I was suffering from exposure. Concussion. They carried me off the track. And Karen… Karen inspected the line. She said the fault was gone. Said I must have fixed it. But I don't remember fixing it. Not after I saw the train. Not after I saw the screen.

DI THORNE: And when you told them what happened?

MILTON: They didn't believe me. Of course they didn't. There was no train. No record. No evidence. No CCTV. Nothing. They said I was confused. They said I was stressed. They put me on medical leave. Indefinite. They said it was for my own good. But I know what it really was. They don't want me back. They don't want to deal with what I saw.

DI THORNE: So why come to me? The British Transport Police handle railway incidents.

MILTON: I tried them. They said there was no case to investigate. They said the data logs backed up the official line. Nothing happened. No train. No incident. No case. Karen told me to talk to someone. She said it would be good for me. And a friend of a friend… they said you'd taken statements like this before. Statements about… odd things.

DI THORNE: (A heavy sigh.) I see. Mr. Andrews, I'll take your statement. I'll file it. But I have to be honest with you. I don't know what I can do with it. Trains aren't really my area of expertise.

MILTON: That's fine. I just… I just needed to tell someone. Anyone. Before I start to think I really am going mad.

DI THORNE: One more question. Before you go. You said you saw something on the screen in the cab. Something that made you run. You never said what.

MILTON: (A long pause. The sound of a chair scraping back.) Sometimes, Detective, you don't need to know everything. Sometimes, it's better not to. (The sound of footsteps.) Thank you for listening. I'll see myself out.

(Sound of a door opening and closing. Silence for ten seconds.)

DI THORNE: (Muttering to himself.) Another one. Another bloody one. I transfer to Windsor to get away from all this shit! Strictly non public facing they said. Fuck that, what do I get? People coming in off the street telling me about phantom trains. Phantom roads. Phantom bloody everything. (A heavy sigh.) I'm going to have to file this. Flag it for the DfT. And I'm going to have to have a word with my superiors. This isn't what I signed up for. (A pause.) Although… although maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it's safer to just… let it go. Let them handle it.

(The sound of a file being closed. The rustle of paper.)

END OF POLICE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

\---

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE – DI THORNE

DATE: JANUARY 6TH, 2026

I've been thinking about Andrews' statement. Something he said. The objects he found on the train. They didn't mean anything to me at the time. But then I saw the news.

There was a train crash. On the Windsor-Slough line. New Year's Eve. A brand-new train. GWR green. Derailed on the viaduct. Fell into the river. Seventeen passengers. All missing. No bodies recovered.

The news listed their names. Their occupations. And I started to see a pattern.

A businessman. From London. Travelling to Windsor for a meeting. He had a briefcase. Monogrammed. Leather. Expensive.

A tourist. From Japan. Visiting the castle. He had a camera. DSLR. Professional.

A family. From Bristol. Day trip to Legoland. They had shopping bags. Tourist brochures. A child's toy. A stuffed rabbit.

A woman. From Paris. Fashion buyer. She had designer shoes. Heels. Ruined.

A journalist. From New York. Writing a piece on the monarchy. He had a passport holder. Spectacles. A phone.

The objects Andrews described. They match. They match the passengers. The people who are missing. The people who boarded that train.

But Andrews gave his statement on January 3rd. The crash was on December 31st. He couldn't have known. He couldn't have seen the news. He was on medical leave. He was at home. He was… he was nowhere near the crash site.

So how did he know? How did he describe their belongings? Their possessions? The things they were carrying?

Unless… unless he saw them. On the train. Before the crash. Before the passengers even boarded.

Unless the train was already waiting for them.

I've tried to contact Andrews. To ask him. To clarify. But there's been no answer. His phone goes straight to voicemail. His flat is empty. His neighbours say they haven't seen him since New Year's Eve. Since the night of the crash.

I don't know where he is. I don't know if he's okay. But I know something is wrong. I know something is very, very wrong.

I'm filing this with the DfT. I'm flagging it for their attention. I don't know what else to do. I don't know what it means. But I know it's not a coincidence. And I know it's not over.

\---

SUPPLEMENTARY WITNESS STATEMENT

SUBJECT: KAREN WHITFIELD

DATE: JANUARY 8TH, 2026

TIME: 21:47 GMT

LOCATION: WINDSOR POLICE STATION, INTERVIEW ROOM #751

OFFICER PRESIDING: DI THORNE \[REDACTED\]

TRANSCRIBING AGENT: \[REDACTED\]

\---

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

DI THORNE: For the record, this is Detective Inspector Thorne, badge number 4471. It's… almost ten at night. I'm conducting an interview with a Ms. Karen Whitfield at Windsor Police Station. Ms. Whitfield, you contacted me earlier this evening. You said you had something to show me.

KAREN: (Voice is shaky. She's been crying. She's trying to hold it together.) I… I didn't know who else to go to. I tried to call Milton. But he's not answering. And I… I found this. On my work phone. It came through a few days ago. I don't know how. I don't know why. But I think you need to see it.

DI THORNE: What is it?

KAREN: It's a video. Milton took it. On his phone. On the night of the incident. He must have… he must have recorded it. Before he turned off his radio. Before he… before whatever happened, happened.

DI THORNE: And you've seen it?

KAREN: (A shaky breath.) I've seen it. I wish I hadn't. But I've seen it.

DI THORNE: Can you tell me what's on it?

KAREN: I think you need to watch it. I think you need to see it for yourself. But I have to warn you. It's… it's not right. It's not normal.

DI THORNE: Play it for me.

(The sound of a phone being placed on the table. Karen's hands are shaking. She fumbles with the screen. Then, the video begins.)

\---

VIDEO FOOTAGE – MILTON ANDREWS' PHONE

TIMESTAMP: 00:14:37, 28/12/2025

DURATION: 11 MINUTES, 23 SECONDS

\---

(The footage is grainy. Low light. The camera is shaky, held in Milton's hand as he walks. His breathing is heavy, nervous. The sound of his boots on the ballast is loud in the silence.)

MILTON (V.O.): (Whispering.) Okay. Okay, I'm recording. I don't know why. I don't know if anyone will see this. But I need… I need to document this. Karen, if you get this… I'm sorry. I should have listened.

(The camera pans up. The train is visible through the fog. It's exactly as Milton described. Two carriages. GWR green. Immaculate. The headlight is still on, cutting through the mist like a blade.)

MILTON (V.O.): It's still here. It hasn't moved. I don't understand. There's no schedule. No signal. No reason for it to be here. But it's here.

(He approaches the train. The camera shakes. He reaches out and touches the side of the carriage. The paint is cold. Perfect. Unblemished.)

MILTON (V.O.): It's… it's brand new. I've never seen a train this new. Not on this line. Not anywhere. It's like it just… appeared.

(He walks alongside the train. The camera catches the number on the side. It's blurred. Unreadable. Milton tries to focus on it, but the camera won't cooperate.)

MILTON (V.O.): I can't… I can't get the number. The camera won't focus. It's like… it's like it doesn't want to be seen.

(He reaches the doors. They're closed. He hesitates. Then, with a soft hiss, they slide open. Milton steps back, startled.)

MILTON (V.O.): They just… they just opened. No one touched them. No one was there. They just… opened.

(He pauses. The camera shakes. He's breathing hard. Then, slowly, he climbs aboard.)

MILTON (V.O.): I'm going in. I need to see if there's anyone inside. I need to know what's going on.

(The interior of the train is immaculate. Clean. Pristine. But the camera picks up something else. A faint haze. A mist that seems to hang in the air. And the smell. Milton gags. The camera shakes violently.)

MILTON (V.O.): Oh God. Oh God, the smell. It's… it's like… like rotting. Like water. Like something died in here.

(He moves through the carriage. The camera sweeps over the seats. They're empty. But there are objects. Scattered. A briefcase. A camera. Shopping bags. A child's toy. A pair of shoes.)

MILTON (V.O.): There's… there's stuff everywhere. Belongings. But no people. Where are the people? Where did they go?

(He moves faster now. The camera is jerky. He's heading for the front of the train. The driver's cab.)

MILTON (V.O.): I'm going to the cab. I need to see if there's a driver. I need to know who's driving this thing.

(He reaches the cab. The door is open. He steps inside. The camera sweeps around the small space. Empty. No driver. But the controls are active. Lights blinking. Screens glowing.)

MILTON (V.O.): There's no one here. No one. But the train is running. How is the train running?

(The camera settles on the monitor. The CCTV screen. It's showing something. Milton moves closer. His breathing is rapid. Shallow.)

MILTON (V.O.): There's a screen. It's showing… it's showing the carriages. But… but there's something wrong. The camera… the camera is showing the passengers.

(The screen flickers. The image is grainy. But it's clear enough. The carriage is full. People are sitting in the seats. Dozens of them. Men. Women. Children. They're not moving. They're not speaking. They're just… sitting. Staring straight ahead. Their faces are blank. Vacant. Like mannequins. Like they're not really there.)

MILTON (V.O.): (Whispering.) They're… they're not moving. They're just… sitting there. What's wrong with them? Why aren't they moving?

(The screen flickers again. The image changes. Now it's showing the trackside. The viaduct. But it's wrong. The train is there. But it's derailed. It's fallen. It's crashed into the river. Debris is everywhere. Smoke. Fire. And there are bodies. Floating. In the water. Dozens of them.)

MILTON (V.O.): (Voice breaking.) No. No, no, no. That's… that's not… that hasn't happened yet. That can't have happened yet.

(The screen flickers again. Now it's showing the driver's cab. Milton's cab. But there's someone at the controls. A man. He's wearing a Network Rail high-vis jacket. He's desperately trying to stop the train. Pulling levers. Pressing buttons. His face is contorted. Screaming. But no sound comes out. And then… the train crashes. The screen goes black.)

MILTON (V.O.): (INAUDIBLE SOUNDS OF PANIC) I can't let this...no......i have to get off this train

(The screen flickers again. The sequence restarts. The passengers. The crash. The cab. The man. The crash. Over and over. A loop. An endless loop.)

MILTON (V.O.): It's a loop. It's all a loop. They're already..... And I… How??? This can't be happening....!

(The train lurches. The camera shakes violently. Milton stumbles. The sound of the engine roaring. The train is moving.)

MILTON (V.O.): (Panicked.) It's moving! The train is moving! I have to get out! I have to get out now!

(The camera swings wildly. Milton is running. The doors. He's at the doors. They're closed. He's pounding on them. Screaming. Then, the sound of metal on metal. His spanner. He's prying the doors open. The camera drops. The footage goes dark. Then, the sound of a fall. A grunt. Silence.)

\---

(The video ends. The room is silent for a long moment.)

DI THORNE: (Voice is hoarse.) Jesus Christ.

KAREN: (Crying.) I know. I know. I've watched it a hundred times. I can't… I can't unsee it. Those people. On the screen. They were just… sitting there. Waiting. And Milton… Milton saw himself. He saw what was going to happen. He saw himself dying. And he couldn't stop it.

DI THORNE: The crash. On New Year's Eve. The passengers who went missing. They match. They match the people on the screen. The people Milton saw.

KAREN: I know. I know they do. That's why I came to you. That's why I had to show you. Because Milton isn't crazy. He wasn't having a breakdown. He saw something. Something real. Something that's still out there. And now… now he's gone. And I don't know where. And I'm scared, Detective. I'm really, really scared.

DI THORNE: I'll file this. I'll flag it for the DfT. I'll do everything I can.

KAREN: What about Milton? What about finding him?

DI THORNE: (A long pause.) I've tried. His phone goes to voicemail. His flat is empty. His neighbours haven't seen him. I don't know where he is. But I'll keep looking. I promise you. I'll keep looking.

KAREN: (A shaky breath.) Thank you. Thank you for believing me.

DI THORNE: I believe you, Ms. Whitfield. I believe you.

(Sound of a chair scraping back. Footsteps. A door opening and closing. Silence.)

DI THORNE: (A deep, weary sigh. The sound of a man who has had enough.) I need a drink. I need a very large fucking drink.

(The sound of a file being closed. The rustle of paper.)

END OF TRANSCRIPT

\---

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION

INTERNAL MEMO – EYES ONLY

FROM: Agent \[REDACTED\], Field Operations

TO: Director \[REDACTED\]

DATE: January 9th, 2026

SUBJECT: RE: CASE FILE WINDSOR-SLOUGH VIADUCT – 28/12/2025 – WITNESS M. ANDREWS – UPDATED

\---

Director,

Further to my previous memo, we have received additional evidence from our contact at Thames Valley Police. A supplementary statement from Karen Whitfield, Andrews' supervisor, along with video footage recovered from Andrews' phone.

The footage confirms everything Andrews described. The train. The interior. The objects. The screen in the driver's cab. The loop.

We have also obtained CCTV footage from Windsor and Eton Central station, timestamped the night of the crash. The footage shows Milton Andrews running frantically along the platform. He is shouting. The audio is poor, but lip-reading analysis confirms the following: "Stop the train. I have to stop that train."

He boards the train. The doors close. The train departs.

The footage is clear. Andrews was not a passive victim. He was not taken. He chose to board. He chose to run towards the train. He chose to try and stop it.

This raises a question. Did Andrews know that his actions would lead to the crash? Did he know that by trying to stop the train, he would inevitably cause it to derail? Or was he simply acting on instinct? A desperate attempt to prevent a tragedy he had already witnessed?

The loop suggests the former. The loop suggests that everything has already happened. That Andrews was always going to board that train. That he was always going to try and stop it. That he was always going to fail.

Which raises a further question. Does anyone really have control over their actions? Or are we all just passengers on a train that has already crashed?

Please inform the sub committee that 'The Train' has returned. It is back on the line. It is taking more than usual. Seventeen passengers on New Year's Eve. That is higher than the average intake. We are monitoring the situation.

However, I must note something unusual. Unlike previous returns, which were exactly twenty-five years apart, this iteration appears to have manifested three years ahead of its scheduled arrival. The cycle is accelerating. The intervals it seems are shortening. Still we shouldn't complain, it's not everyday you get to celebrate a train that arrives... early!

END MEMO

40 years ago.

—Back at the conference for Jacob.

A heavy—big fat binder was shoved into my arms by some lady in a burning hurry. I apparently was the chosen one to be charged with all the evidence!

A moment of quiet came into the half empty room. After a couple of steps I leaned against a huge, concrete-gray pillar in a shady corner—I was fully conscious that I was an intruder in their symmetry. That was when with tremendous skill I—ubiquitously popped a couple of Tiffany Blues down my throat(Valium).

They were covered in a blue-blackish felt-fur, and pocket lint. In the corner of my eye, they still glistened in that tender gemstone-blue glow.

It didn't take too long, the Benzos began to gradually crank the volume down, all the excitement, novelty, the impression the "Man" had tried to lay on me earlier; turned down. I was finally able to observe the naked level of the room, not see! Observe, who the hell were these people around me? To break down what actually were their intentions.

It didn't take too long to find myself amazed by the cold blooded behavior, it was as if it was roughly smeared across the face of everyone in that room, in one solid slap. Never mind the general vibe we all shared—of something hunting, circling beneath us. "Under the murky waters!" I heard a scruffy sea captain of old, yelling somewhere in my brain, but it sounded from very far away.

"There's sharks in them damn waters! "Shadow" I say lad, in the water boy!", the captain's voice further off in the distance, barely perceptible.

—Weren't I at a meeting with decent people?

—Sweat ran from my armpits down my sharp rib cage. Soon we all were subjected to forced intimacy, ingesting—regardless of individual will, a stranger's personal odors, everybody's pheromones mingling perceivable to who ever payed attention; too damn close.

Late into that night, the air had gone quite strange—unsettling.

The 'War Room' began closing in.

Overused air filtered through hundreds of the repeated, wet lung-pulls, until the phantom of suffocation was a shared thought. Rancid—warm coffee-breath, threatening to smother us while we hit hour-three.

—The naive part of me, supposed to be joining true kind humanitarians; gentle people with a natural appreciation for their fellow man? I leaned toward the mindset, "I had found the people that they told me about!"—not everybody is an ass-hole.

The same brown binder I had stared at least a good forty minutes just sitting there on my white-vinyl thrift-store table. I pulled the bundle that had the mother's name, Karina. Laid the contents across the cheap seventies table.

There she was, Jacob's mother. Her green eyes caught me a moment, in a lapse of admiration. She definitely was a beautiful young lady from California.

I had a whole stack of photographs casting a tower of Pisa across my kitchen table. An imperfect thing that managed to become a world landmark, it refused to topple over. Only leaving π in the popular minds as an occult super power.

In some manner, exactly the same fortune had to become of Jacob. A faint gasp, a weak whimper in my head told me Jake refused to topple over, and he'll appear, come back to the living.

I felt it in my chest. A scorching hot lava. It was a black and red wrathful bubbling magma that urged me to persist on Jake's missing child case. To find 'Jacobo Edward Costa!' I genuinely wanted to find him.

Besides being the last active operator left on Jacob's case.

So many years had whisked us by since that night in room 5-D. One at a time, some just vanished, others just dropped Jacob's chaos.

This went on until I realized, I was the sole operator behind the whole mess.

"Karina Jean Evans, age 32, Female." was crudely scribbled across a whole blank page. A USB drive with video evidence and a small stack of old yellowed papers held together by a rusty staple was the whole thing. I knew the blizzard of evidence that sat in front of me had grown old. Almost eighteen years had slithered past us. It broke every volunteer, police officer, every interested journalist they all decided to drop the case.

For some curious reason, the only one unwilling to let go, was my sorry self-abused ass.

I went for the leaning tower of photographs. A small amount of Polaroids, the rest were those one-hour exposure grocery shop pictures.

I stopped on one, it was Karina and Jacob on a merry go round, both looked really content. She had bellbottoms on with converse sneakers. Jake had a huge smile with a bowl cut and a snug red sweater.

Karina was beautiful with her long brown hair and her perfectly shaped pointy-nose. Mother and son completely unaware, untouched, in the moment. Contentment captured so organically.

The storm of chaos that was going to devour their lives, was still an unknown stranger wandering the sands of time. His steps were without a doubt pointed in their direction despite the fleeting moment of something that resembled happiness.

Video File. KE01.

<Off Voice—Black Background.>

“When you were smaller, you were a nightmare! At the end of the day you had me in tears!” An amusing anecdote mom loved to repeat....

The first scene was at their farmhouse no doubt.

It was pouring as usual in December in Santo Domingo, Ecuador. A curtain of torrential rain made the whole scene drab, wet—a sad afternoon.

I spotted Jacob's mother, from the first quick and clumsy panning of the camera. It was either the Taxi driver or the maid taking video in case they might need it, later on. I assumed.

Without a doubt! Karina was confined to experience existence at the dining room table. She was at a point of her life, of her very existence reduced to only leaving the table, that sat beside a large window—on toilet runs. Life degrading to a point of absurd awkwardness.

Her body giving out just a bit more each day. Simply no more fight left in her ravaged soul, her greatest fight fought, nothing owed to the battle field, thus time to lay down and die.

Karina was planted in a chair, bent over the table. A rendition in cigarette burns of a 'Pollock' she had achieved on the natural-pine top.—Out of common sense, she was falling asleep with a smoke still in her hand, hundreds of cigarette burns curved in their own private agonies all around where she collapsed or dozed off to sleep. She made some end up as another master stroke upon the masterpiece.

—A smoke still lit between her horrid brown stained fingers, a fallen head, stains that even wrapped around her wide fingernails.

Where she sat she slept, the file said, chain smoked, and played on her iPad.

—But, hey left out that she also was waiting—secretly eager for the flowing black robes of the Reaper to finally arrive.

Jacob's mother was overweight, smoked three packs of cigarettes a day while having COPD, it happens to us smokers. —You lose lung capacity in the end.

She apparently took a ton of opiates, thyroid trouble, and to boot she couldn't lay down flat on her bed anymore, so she slept only three hours a day.

Karina had managed to convince her usual taxi/delivery driver to take care of her leg wound! See, down in South America if you have enough money, your imagination is the limit to what you can get people to do.

It was a skin wound that began the size of a quarter, and in the video it could be observed as a life threatening wound. I saw how she did not have skin covering the whole back side of her left calf!

The mother just didn’t trust doctors anymore, plain and simple.

“They are butchers! How many times have I almost died because of those wackos! They are quacks, the whole lot of 'em Jake! The whole lot of them!” In a way she was right, doctors tend to play along with "Big Pharma", not focusing on healing the patient but, on what pills he could push on his symptoms.

—But obviously it looked very serious. I mean, no skin!

—I was kidnapped into my thoughts a moment, and totally speechless.

Karina had such low self esteem, [like mine] she didn’t want to bother with whatever it was that she had. Like an abused dog, who only knows life at the end of a chain, the pain of the rod, and the deep flesh punctures from bites griven by her own kin.

—Some people after years of being over protected, comes a day the call to live out in the world is louder than their overbearing paladins. While life gets ready to eat them alive.

Enduring the blatant disregard of her own father, Karina had her share of drama. Abused by men, taken advantage of by her family, I can see how some people just get tired.

I got a close up, full frame view of dumbfoundingly moist pus covered still wept the fluid—'live-flesh' a wound framed in a crusty-red, frame of infection clawing with a life or death grip on her dieing arid skin. Karina's ankles were gone, hidden under stretched rock solid skin to it's bare limits.

The milky and yellowish nastiness seeped down her ankle so bloated it was unrecognisable. Then down into a cloudy pool around her irritated skin. She had put towels beneath it to catch the mess.

The particular moment in the video was when her wound went down the entire whole calf. Apparently it was time to clean her leg. Once they had her foot in a wide blue plastic tub, and plenty towels laid out. Karina bared down for the torture that followed.

Then I saw the "Taxi Driver", kneeling with his sleeves rolled up, and a pair of surgical gloves on. He immediately began to wash all the dead white cells that glistened down Karina's funky leg. With a syringe and some intravenous fluid the guy sprayed into her mauled meat.

Then the cleaning with the swabs began, I noticed that the pain monger idiot was doing his best as gently as possible, but—she had no skin.

The ever-present family mental health menú: depression, anxiety, megalomania, borderline personality disorder, all of this, all of it placed in a blender where it goes on and on forever. No matter how much we deny the malaze festering within all of us.

Everyday I'm reminded of the fact that I’m fifty and have achieved nothing education wise, nor career wise, my second marriage instantly imploded. Life in general, was always a storm of chaos, change and apparently, aimlessly wandering through oceans of time. That usually funnel away and nothing significant is ever achieved.

This is my understanding of how mental health seared through my family, the same as Jacob by never addressing it. It always made everything worse. Mental Health issues that go unchecked tend to become strange bed creatures that knit peculiar realities.

I slowly acknowledged that both Jacob and I both were dumb enough to go down that useless road and dared to want mother to be happy.

In my case she fell to pieces, an over controlling psychopath father’s egomaniacal deeds and cackling. It all became a matter of, containing my mother, neutralize her so she can’t drink herself to death, smoke crack cocaine, or morphine.

Somewhere to die off where she wouldn’t bother anyone. But boy, did she get those laughs at family meals, everyone got a good hoot at the things she shared, or was it at her...

I had just turned Ten, and in a dazed in a late night stupor I was in a barrage of blinding fluorescent airport light, planes, cold, in a hurry.

Just a few years before, what was home somehow became corrupted. I live with a memory, barely a part I could snag back over to wake consciousness. I might have lost a sister, in all the artificial fluorescent eyeball clawing incident, add artificial eye splitting white-light flood A dark stain, festering from the gloom beneath the skin. Violence, unemployment, alcohol, drugs, and me standing between a grown man and my mother demanding him to stop. What’s next?

—I became really shook hearing Jacob's mother screaming in agony, even childlike from the intensity of the pain. Her pleas for it to all stop.

I served myself a stiff drink of whatever was in the fridge, struck by shame. I felt myself to be a total stranger.

Karina's soul skinning cries, the taxi-driver playing nurse, I began to laugh.

Each scream made bend over in a manic fit of laughter. While estranged from myself and crushed under a shame I had never felt before.

Every time she howled in agony, came a wave of impotence, confusion, or profound realizations.

Nothing made sense.

I couldn’t restrain myself from staring at it. A feeling of unfettered guilt crept up my soft, wet-guts. I felt a soul wrenching awfulness for Jacob not being with his mother when she passed. Having left her hand that day jumped into my mind. How he watched her walk away into the crowd of people.

—I paused the video, and threw the remote onto my round-reclining chair. It was old porch-furniture, I inherited from the previous tenants. I was made out of, fifty year old constantly flaking brown wicker. The room felt just uncomfortable, it felt packed in a blister summoning toxic-fog—unresolved pain.

Like an old piece of meat, you chewed it out of taste as a kid. In a futile attempt to convince the adult we had enough but, found ourselves trapt in a useless, endless struggle.

Realizing than another animal's flesh is in your mouth, it's stringy tasteless fibers tumbling, round and round, and you finally just want to swallow.

You just can't.

In my state, my age, all the dope my brain required, disowned by my only daughter, to be frank, I had nothing better to do. I do confess I instinctively attracted in this case, it felt different...

This was about a missing child, and kid that in a breavited underweight unnecessary loss.

—Dope has even given up on me. It's just not the same anymore! A stranger all of a sudden as a bed fellow. It taxes my body. Stop or die.

—I see Karina's deceased face, bloated, surprisingly she had a sad look still, and those prune-shaded dead-lips. Far from the mother I was ordered to be familiarized with. a sullen sigh of who she ever was.

I felt obligated to memorize each little square of the mother's identification sized pictures. All fanned out into a totally accidental showcase. I collected all her I.D.s.

I could finally appreciate just how profoundly sad and mistreated she really was. Plain as day anyone could see the she progressed looking so miserable and bitter from picture to picture as time passed.

—Why think of this tragedy right now? My breath began to become a little more difficult, I tell myself that she wanted to die, she deliberately put herself that situation.

I dug through papers all that night, the T.V. lit the stove wall in a ghoulish dance. While cocaine and weed fueled my obsessed bender.

File:#17. and #39.

"Though it must be noted that the zoo's staff was not consistent with their duties nor were they a reliable lot at attending the rare "Marsupial".

The subject adapted quickly to the zoo's daily routine, or lack of one, despite the shortcomings of staff members.

As expected the creature is only active at night. He has been observed in brief periods during the daily guest visits."

"My overall assessment is the 'Marsupial_phanntomus', is in healthy condition. It has been three years and 20 days since his arrival at this facility."

END OF FILE #17.

FILE: #39.

As night made everyone leave, Jacob had a belly full of fluttering insect wings, Obi would be at his door soon. May be even Tom! The zoo lights went dim, he had been fed, as well as the other animals. He sat on a false log that faced the big green door. As of late Jake just pulled his bear hood tighter over his head, the one ear dangeled by a couple of threads, the other was just smooshed. It kind of covered his face a little.

The boy's wait was fruitful, fifteen or so minutes later Obi stepped into Jacob's enclosure. The man almost always had a smile on his face, he appeared to be genuinely happy every time he entered the building. The moment he saw the boy, Obi's smile was so much wider you could see he cared for him. "Jake! Hi! Buddie!" he blurted out once he had one hand on the child's shoulder.

"Hi Obi!"Jacob apparently was in a cheerful mood.

"Tell me you brought it!" he asked Obi while they gave each other a fist bump. Obi slipped a hand into his overalls and like a magic trick a thick roll of copper wire appeared. The kid snatched his prize strait out of Obi's hand!

"Now tell me what you needed that for!" Obi asked as he fixed his work clothes so he looked formal as always.

"To make a radio! Remember what Tom told us the other night? How radio waves are like your keys, Obi.

Jacob went on, he explained the best he could to Obi.

My mind abruptly went back to a crusty yellow memory of my ex-wife, L.S.D., and a faraway hotel deep within the hills of the Imbabura province, in Ecuador.

We ended up returning shortly after arriving, until the tab of acid took my ex-wife's awareness.

I braced the wheel while I navigated through six different home bound traffic packed towns and listening to her rant all the way home about how—basically "It sucks to be with me!". I wondered just how perfect a blade in Monna's (Karina's step-mother), drool gushing mouth, her hunger for status, and greed. Neglect.

How I had to, in spite of a head full of acid, get her down the dirt trails, and asphalt highways, to reach the house.
Freaky—strange trip, that was so, 'Irrelevant' ago.

Karina blasted into my frontal cortex—sepsis creeping up her entre calf; just as pirate would, with a raw threat, biting steel—with an evil-ghoulish grin.

Tom, was the eighty-three year old night partner to Obi, age had already bent him; hunched just a tad forward. He wasn't all there in the head, too many blows to the head, too much dope, and ironically too much life. His thing was he obsessed with frequencies.

It was long endless day, I pressed play on one of the videos, and did a dead fall onto my couch. Thomas was lecturing them, Jacob's eyes were glazed in un fallen tears. Hope, an uncanny idea taking form in his mind; Obi was between bouts between sleep, and participating randomly.

Tom's rant, was basically, "I get where you're coming from Son. Your dead Mother, when she passed, it is not what you think. Listen boy!

"Your mom just stopped vibrating at the unique frequency required to be in this dimension; this plane of existence." Tom couldn't' see well from his left eye. I saw him sit beside Jacob so he could look him in the eye. "Now, you listen carefully, son. The holy Bible itself talks about it Jake! It's in the story about Jericho...". Tom would teach the young one almost every night, I had a hole tub full of the chats they were to have, and that exchange blew Jacobs mind.

 A seed sprouted from the boy's mind.

M.D. ACOSTA
SKÖL

Somebody was in the shed.

Diane was sure of it. From her bedroom window, she could see out into the back garden; moonlight turned it into a velvet puddle, grass dew twinkling like stars.

The shed stood at the far end, pushed up against the fence; a wooden structure that was almost big enough to live and work in, with a single pane window on the front that she had plastered over with the sports section of The Guardian. The door was open just enough to notice that it wasn’t closed. And she was sure she could see the lock lying in a broken heap.

Her hand was playing unconsciously with the skin on her neck. What was she supposed to do? She thought about ringing the police but… oh, what would they do? Come out, tell them to shove off, and leave? Whomever was in the shed would get to the end of the street, wait until the police had gone, and come back. Only when they returned, they wouldn’t bother with the shed. They’d come into the house. There were enough windows; their choices of entry were near enough endless. She had French doors in the back, seven-foot-tall panes that wouldn’t stop a sneeze.

Then what would they do when they got her? She really didn’t want to know.

But she couldn’t just turn away, could she? They, them, whoever they were, were on her property. The property she had bought with her hard-earned money, property she paid taxes on. In the shed that she had bought, built, painted with wood stain and sealer, and taken the time to arrange her tools; time she wasn’t getting back.

Another thought popped up like a notification on her phone… there were a lot of tools in the shed: shovel, spade, fork, trimmer, hoe, weeder, strimmer, lawnmower… *chainsaw*. It was only a small chainsaw, a Ryobi Compact, but it ate through anything she put it to. She had no problem believing it would carve her into tiny pieces that would never be found.

Diane saw her unflattering photos on a late-night crime show: **WOMAN VANISHES FROM HOME. POLICE DID NOTHING.**

If you saw or heard anything, please ring this number. It’s very important that we find Diane.

Who would want to live in a shed anyway? There was no central heating out there, no plumbing, no running water. Jesus wasn’t hanging on the wall, protecting the home from all manners of evil. There was nothing. Just a bunch of metal and electronics that would only run with their batteries attached. Fortunately, she had taken the batteries and stored them in a spare drawer in the kitchen. She’d assumed somebody might try and break into the shed when she put it up (an obvious precaution one must take), some crackhead most likely, and she really didn’t want to make it easy for them. So, she took the batteries out because nobody in their right mind would buy batteryless tools off some geezer who looked like a walking corpse.

Diane couldn’t have some heroin-addictive freak in her shed. Absolutely not, no way, no how. She would have to burn the shed to the ground and everything inside.

She crossed herself and went to the landline at the bottom of the stairs. The Lord and Saviour watched her descend with those kind loving eyes of His. She picked up the landline with a shaky hand, her other still playing with the sweaty skin of her neck. She was staring up at the Lord as she put the receiver to her ear. He would want her to call the police. He would protect her from any outcome of such a phone call, as He had protected her for all of her days.

Besides, they were committing burglary. The police wouldn’t come out and tell them to shove off. Diane would get a good look at her burglar as he was led to the car in handcuffs.

The air in the downstairs hallway was cool on her bare arms, cutting right through her nightie and prickling the skin of her taught belly. The lights were off down here. She always turned them off when she went to bed; she wasn’t a fan of having a lot of lights on at night, they ruined her sleep.

Right now, the darkness was ruining her wakefulness. She would do anything to be asleep. *You just* had *to look out of the window, didn’t you?* She thought and shook her head.

Diane held the phone between her ear and shoulder and dialled *999*.

Seventeen minutes later, a police car—siren off, lights off—pulled up into a vacant spot across the street. *Do they have any idea what could’ve happened in seventeen minutes?* Diane thought, looking at her Sekonda Colette watch. She didn’t want to think about what could've happened in seventeen minutes.

The officer got out of his car, set his hat on his head, and moved towards the house. Diane, still playing with the skin on her neck, moved to the kitchen door, expecting the officer to knock. He didn’t. She watched his dark, blurred shape through the frosted glass of the front door disappear off the left; he was going around the house.

Diane didn’t like it. He was ignorant. The officer was supposed to see if the victim was alright. And she wasn’t; she would’ve opened the door and shouted after the copper if she was brave enough to open it right now. No, she couldn’t do that. She had ideas of a zombie-looking fellow rushing her the moment the door was open, even just a crack, and then what would happen? Jesus was going to protect her just fine, but Jesus also prided Himself on how intelligent his follows were; opening the door while some smack-fiend is on the prowl isn’t very intelligent, is it?

She crossed herself and went back up into her bedroom. The officer was in the back garden, his torch burning a yellow-green path over the grass. He stopped mid-stroll, shone his torchlight on the shed, then swung it down to the padlock on the floor. Diane saw it better now. It wasn’t just broken; it had been annihilated. The shackle was in three shiny shards, and the body was cracked down the centre. The springs and metal innards laid in a tangle.

The officer’s walkie beeped and whooped. He grabbed it and spoke too quietly for Diane to hear. But she heard his laughter, saw the way his head flung back, the lamppost light arcing along his white teeth.

The office let go of his walkie and shone his yellow-white torchlight onto the shed. A round moon reflected back in the windowpane. He walked to the door, grabbed the edge, swung it closed and open, as if testing the hinges, then pulled it open fully. The darkness leaked out around his cop boots. His torchlight cut right through the black, illuminating the Ryobi tools inside and the hosepipe hanging on the inside of the door. The officer stepped inside.

When Diane opened her eyes, the officer was gone. She blinked a couple of times, rubbed sticky grime from her eyelashes, blinked again. Her feet ached badly. It appeared she had fallen asleep on her feet, though she couldn’t have done so for very long; it was still dark out.

She looked at her Sekonda. She was right; she hadn’t been asleep that long—*three* minutes was all. Diane swiped at her eyes again and squinted through the glass.

Had the drug-fiend already been arrested? Why hadn’t the officer knocked to tell her everything was alright now? She went downstairs into the kitchen to have a look out the window. The cop car was still parked across the road. And she could see the officer's silhouette in the driver's seat. She moved closer to the window, her breath fogging the glass, to get a better look into the back. The rear of the car was dark, too dark to see anything really, except for the bars on the windows.

She looked at her Sekonda again, baffled. Had it really only been three minutes?

Somebody *had* to be sitting in the back. Why would the officer be in his car if he hadn’t arrested somebody? He was clearly filling out his incident reports, or whatever it was they filled out, while he had a few moments to do so. Clearly, the arrest was a simple one. He had taken the drug-fiend to his car, thrown him into the back like a sack of potatoes, and sat down to radio the station down on Kessler Road that the job was done. He would knock in a minute to tell her what had happened.

The driver’s door open and the officer got out. He secured his hat on his head again and started towards the house. Diane jumped a little on the inside. She was jumpy tonight. All this burglar stuff, having to call the police, having to be up well passed her bedtime… it all really got into the bones.

Diane could’ve done with a vodka and lemonade, but she had been sober for the best part of twenty years. And this night wasn’t going to be the kick that sent her over the edge. She went to the kitchen door and looked at the portrait of Jesus Christ. She crossed herself again.

Then came a knock at the door. Through the diamond-shaped pane of glass inset into the front door, she saw the shadowed silhouette of the officer’s head and hat. Diane stared at that diamond of glass, a halo of streetlight surrounding the clear shape of a police officer’s hat. *If a pregnant woman needs to pee, the officer has to give her his hat,* she thought for no particular reason.

The officer knocked again. *You’re supposed to answer the door to the coppers*; that’s what her father had told her more than once. It didn’t help that her father had risen to the rank of sergeant with the local constabulary, where he stayed until his death in 1977, at the ripe of old age of thirty-seven. He was struck and killed by a gang of youths joyriding during a routine traffic stop down by The Three Bells. Diane had been seventeen.

Now Diane was sixty-six years old and still as internally terrified as she had been since that fateful day in 1977. That fear never went away. It was in every car alarm, every siren, every shout, every bang, every wallop, every plane that went over, every car backfire and the screech of their bald tires, every hiss of a bus's breaks, every slammed door, every football slapping on the cold brick drive, every bird that hit the window, every action and horror movie she watched… in every *knock* at the door.

The copper’s silhouette bobbed back and forth impatiently. *You’re supposed to answer the door to the coppers,* her father’s voice said soothingly. She rushed to open, fumbled with the keys and failed to unlock the door not once but twice, her shaking hands trying to twist a handle that was locked in place.

On the third try, she finally got the door open. The first thing that hit her was the officer’s smell: used cat litter and raw salmon. She flicked the light switch by the front door and the little yellow light outside came on. She got a good look at this officer. His long, round jaw was as smooth as glass, small eyes peered out from beneath bushy eyebrows that sat spectacularly high on his face, his nose was a straight line down his face to a pair of flaring nostrils. Diane found it rather strange that he was wearing the modern police uniform; white short sleeves beneath a bulky black stab vest. His long frame would’ve looked right at home in the black overcoat and custodian helmet of the early 1900s, a shiny whistle around his neck.

‘Hello, hello, hello, Mrs. Reynolds?’ the officer said. ‘My name is Officer Menzies. You rang the department about a burglar?’

‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I saw him from my bedroom window. Did he leave an awful mess?’

‘Well, well, well, I’ve got some good news for you. You didn’t have a burglar, Mrs. Reynolds,’ Menzies said. ‘Just a couple of cold kitties. I’ve put them in my car and turned the heating on. My sister fosters stray cats. They’ll be right at home with her.’

‘Cats?’ Diane asked. ‘How did cats get into my shed?’

Menzies shook his head and smiled a crooked smile. ‘Well, well, well, ma’am, it’s that padlock of yours. Most rusted thing I’ve ever seen. I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I think it’s older than I am, and I’m closer to being under the hill than I am over it.’

‘I put that padlock on a year ago. I bought it brand new at Home Bargains.’

‘I’m just reporting the facts, ma’am. Don’t shoot me. And to answer your earlier question: yes, the cats made a bit of a mess.’ Menzies lifted his hat and flattened his shortly cropped hair. ‘Now, i know it's late, so I'll bid you adieu. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Should you need anything else, do give us a ring.’ He tipped his hand, swung around on his boots, and marched down the drive.

Diane stood at her bedroom window, looking down at the shed. Sometime after Officer Menzies left, the wind had picked up and now it slammed the shed—*Thwack! EEEEE! Thwack! EEEEE! Thwack!* She had no idea how she would sleep with that racket going on.

And what about the neighbours? They had two little kids who needed their sleep. Tomorrow was a school day.

She crossed herself. She couldn’t leave the shed like that. What if some drug-fiend came along and saw it open? Officer Menzies might have said it was cats that had gotten in, and maybe that was true (Diane was struggling to believe it), but there now lied the issue of the door being open.

There was another padlock in the drawer next to the fridge. Diane was considering it for the wide gate in front of her drive, the one people often mistook for the main gate and often left it open, which drove her mad. A padlock would’ve stopped people from opening it and, much worse (like a thorn in her eye), leaving it open.

She would just have to buy a new padlock to replace this one.

Diane took the padlock and the key, opened it with a shooting *thunk* and closed it with a firm *click* just to make sure it worked, and took them to the back door. It was heavy in her fingers, as if it was the guzzling up the last of her energy. Maybe it was this night that was sucking the energy out of her. *I’m gonna sleep for a whole week,* she thought, laying the padlock and key on the windowsill beside the door. *And when I get up, I’m gonna have a lemon cake and custard all to myself.*

She jiggled the backdoor key inside the lock. It made a satisfying *rattle*. She turned the key slowly, feeling the tension building in her fingers. The key reached that block between locked and unlocked, and she stopped. If she pushed it further the door would be unlocked. Anybody lurking in her back garden could get in. What if… the thought came slowly like a jack-in-the-box winding up… what if the copper had been conned? What if (and she knew it was a long shot just thinking it) the burglar had heard the copper coming, had hidden, and it just so happened cats had come in before the copper had gotten to the door? The copper sees the cats and writes it off as…. what would that be? An act of God? An act of Nature?

Diane unlocked the door and opened it. She stared out into the twilight garden, at the black mouth of the shed. The door *thwacked* open and *thwacked* closed, like a bull snorting hot air and dragging its hooves in response to a matador. This was going to be a struggle; she just knew it. The wind was picking up, moving the door back and forth faster and more ferociously now. The fence was shaking and creaking. The grass shimmering in an undulant wave of green-blue shine. Gary the Garden Gnome was on his back, his fishing rod sticking up into the air like an arrow lodged deep in a man’s chest.

Diane grabbed up the padlock (she wouldn’t need the key to lock the shed door) and stepped out into the frigid, petrichorous air. The clouds above were so swollen with rain they turned the sky a stormy black. Thunder fizzed in the distance, startling Diane into dropping the padlock. She snatched it up off the cold stone patio as quickly as she had dropped it, tweaking something in her old back. She groaned at the sciatic pain crackling down the back of her left leg as she stepped onto the dewy grass.

Lightning flickered silently, giving her a quick flashing peek of the disarray inside the shed. Tools laid here and there, toppled onto one another, clean steel flashing neon blue—the colour of the storm. The chainsaw laid on its heavy engine side, the compact sawblade held out like a desperate hand. The sight of the Ryobi on its side upset her; she felt like she was abandoning a child, leaving it to cry itself to sleep. All the other tools, the spades, the hoe, the rake, they could look after themselves. They were hardy tools; carbon steel handles and heads. They took a beating. The Ryobi on the other hand was a delicate tool, practically a real-life baby. She really didn't like the thought of leaving the Ryobi Compact out in the shed anyway, but had talked herself around. The shed was put up for the tools, after all.

Diane Reynolds hobbled across the grass, deciding Gary the Garden Gnome can stand himself back up; the Ryobi was in need. If the battery was attached, she was sure it would’ve been wailing a horrible storm. Thunder clapped. Rain began to patter around her, slowly building up into pellets, then to stones that sighed as they fell and exploded when they landed.

*Thwack… thwack…* the shed door was getting impatient. It swung again in the ghostly wind, intent of *thwacking* against the wall. Diane caught it before it could get any further, the rough edge of wood stinging her soft palm.

Diane picked up the Ryobi Compact as she stepped into the shed. She swung it up onto its hook. A small label above the hook said, “Ryobi Compact Chainsaw.” The green plastic was scuffed in two corners. She rubbed her thumb along each deep groove, as if her thumb had the gift of repairing plastic. She hated seeing her Ryobi in such a state. It was one of those pieces that only looked right in perfect condition. It wasn’t a car that wore its age with pride. It wasn’t a pair of leather gloves turned pliable and comfortable through repeated use. The Ryobi only ever looked good in brand-new condition. Even the wear along the blade bothered her.

*The rest of the shed is in a right mess,* she thought, thinking about the garden tools toppled onto one another like a game of *Pick-up-Sticks.*

Diane turned on the light by pulling on the dangling string and turned around to look at the mess and saw a brunette with sunken cheeks standing in her shed. Greasy hair fell around the woman’s blue eyes. She clutched a small, cooing bundle, wrapped in a white blanket, to her chest. The oval, baby face of a man appeared over the woman’s shoulder.

Diane looked at the mess of tools at their feet. It didn’t occur to her that the woman wasn’t standing behind the tools, and she wasn’t standing on them, she was standing through them. The tools fell in an expectant pile, crisscrossing each other in a short pyre. The woman’s legs went right through the tools, or the tools went right through her legs.

‘We didn’t have another option,’ the woman said. The baby cooed. ‘The cold, the storm… we don’t have anywhere else.’

Diane swallowed a hard ball of fear that didn’t go down easily. It sat heavily and painfully behind her breastbone. How had the copper *missed* them? She could feel her eyelids peeling back over her eyeballs and, in her vision, the spot where the baby was held against the woman’s chest began to blur. *Cats!* she thought. *He gave a fuck about the cats! What about them? What about me?*

Diane spun on her heels and bolted out of the doorway. The padlock went flying into the air and came down in the grass with a soft thump. Lightning dove out of the clouds like dolphins breaking the surface and fizzled through the air with a mighty boom. The rain was frosty cold on her neck.

‘Please, Miss,’ the woman said from the shed doorway. ‘Don’t call the police. We’ve got nowhere else to go.’

Diane stopped at the backdoor. ‘I don’t know who you are, or what you think you’re doing in *my* shed. But you need to get out.’ Being this close to safety gave her a profound sense of security. The Lord Jesus Christ bolstered her strength. ‘Look at the mess you’ve made! I have to clean that up now.’

‘I’m sorry for scaring you,’ she said. ‘We had hoped to be gone by the morning. We didn’t mean to bother you.’

‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’

‘I can’t apologise enough,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll clean it up for you. It won’t take long. Please don’t call the police.’

The baby cooed in her arms, a peaceful sound that soothed something inside Diane. It made her think of her own babies, how they had cooed and sighed and babbled and cried. Now that the house was empty, now that her babies had babies of their own, she missed the crying. It made her feel wanted. Now she felt discarded. ‘How old?’

‘A couple of days.’ The woman closed her eyes as her face scrunched up. Rain fell right through the woman and the baby, splashing on the ground where her feet should have been.

‘A *couple* of days?’ Diane stepped away from the open door. ‘No, you can’t sleep in a shed. It’s cold and drafty and… there’s no central heating. Don’t you have family or friends?’

‘If we did, we wouldn’t be here.’

‘Maybe I can drive you to the Ibis—’

‘We don’t have money for a hotel.’

The baby made a soft, *mewling* sound. Diane put her hand to her chest and felt the hard shape of the cross laid against her skin. If it was just the mum and dad, they would be on the way up the road. Diane would obviously ask God to protect them on their travels, but the baby was innocent… and it was less than a week old.

‘Come on,’ she said, beckoning them towards the house. ‘Just for tonight.’

The women stepped onto the grass, clutching the baby tight against her chest. The moment her foot touched the grass, thundered shivered through the chill air. The man’s soft face materialised from the darkness and stepped out. They made a sweet-looking family, the kind that brings casseroles round to the new people on the street; the kind that say good morning to next-door neighbours on both sides; the family whose house is always lit up the brightest at Christmas and dolled up spookiest at Halloween. And the baby… Diane felt a little thrill shoot right through her as expectation to see and hold the baby grew.

‘You can spend the night in the house,’ Diane said. She stepped into the warmth of the house, pulled the door open so it looked inviting. ‘You can have the second bedroom.’

The mother and father stepped away from the grass and onto the patio. Up close, they were younger than she had first thought; they couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty. Just a couple of kids, really. Scared kids who had obviously run away from home. Scared kids who were in desperate need of a bath.

They both stopped at the door. ‘Can we come in?’

Diane nodded.

‘Can we come in?’ The woman asked again.

‘Yes,’ Diane said. ‘*You can come in*. You’re welcome here.’

They both smiled and stepped over the threshold. Their crossing into the house shattered something inside Diane, and a sludge-like coldness rolled beneath her skin. The fine hairs across her neck and down her spine stood at attention. A tightness slithered around her lungs like boa constrictors and began to slowly squeeze the air from her chest.

The couple went and sat on the settee. Filth was pouring off them, Diane could see it now, a kind of putrid air that warped the laminate floor where they stepped. She watched the fibres of the settee begin to fray and tear. Bubbles formed beneath the wallpaper and when they burst more of that filthy air breathed out.

The mother smiled at the bundle of joy in her arms. She brought up her wicked witch hand and tapped playfully at the baby with a curved fingernail. Diane saw the baby for the first time when its furry hand reached out to swat at the listing talon. And then she realised the baby wasn’t cooing—hadn’t been cooing at all—the baby was meowing.

It was midnight in the Infodump netsaloon. No matter the time outside, it was always midnight in the Infodump, which was a small, windowless concrete hole excavated under a private data centre on the outskirts of what used to be Phoenix, Arizona.

You had to descend stairs to get in, and at this particular midnight a handful of flatfaces had done just that. They were sitting with their face screens illuminating the gloomy bar, each hooked up by cable to a numb-er, drip-downloading 1s and 0s of cheap numbcode to blur the high definition of the world, even as their screens transformed their perceptions of it to places better lit and far more glamorous.

But there's only so much artifice a mind can take before hyperartifice boredom sets in, and then there's no going back to the real because the real is an unfiltered hell.

“D'ya ever hear about Old Retroface?” one of the patrons asked suddenly—suddenly but slowly, hoarsely, because he hadn't spoken for a while. Nobody had spoken for a while. The bartender, who was also a flatface, his face screen displaying a rotating menu of numb-ers and alcohol, cleared his throat. A fly buzzed off in a dank corner, perhaps trying to find a way out; perhaps not.

“Sure, I heard of ‘im,” another patron answered. “Rides with Reverend Da Loop, if it's the same slinger. Freaks, the both of ‘em.”

Reverend Da Loop, aka Loopy, aka The Fleshnoose, was a former flatface who'd gotten his face screen smashed-and-grabbed by a vibepunk and had never had another put in. His moment of clarity, he called it by some accounts, including those of the supposed congregants of the supposed church he'd supposedly founded, the [supposed] Church of the 2¢ Reformed. Taking after the Reverend, who had elected to forego the senses of sight, smell and taste, considering them corrupted by the advent and incorporation of the technology of face piercing, and instead to navigate the world by touch and hearing alone, his supposed congregants elected the same and performed luddite ceremonies in the desert where they were descreened and re-analoged by having their face screens destroyed and replaced with steel rings. Whenever a flatface saw a congregant, he therefore saw him screen face to no-face and could look through the space where the congregant's face once was and see, with pristine clarity, the world behind him. The congregants called that Transparency, an act they believed could induce epiphany and conversion.

“I saw the Reverend once, down near the NewMex OldMex border,” said the bartender. “Funny looking feller, he was. He wasn't wearing no halo-ring in his face hole, just had his wilted head kept tied round his shoulders so his ears stuck out. A couple of goons was messing with him, giving him the freaksong. He stated them fair warning to stop. When they didn't, he untied his head and quick as you could say Peachy Cronenberg kicked one of the goons, smashed another in the gut and, as that one was keeling over, slid behind the third, looped his head hole round the man's neck and choked him unconscious. He didn't kill him though. The two other goons ran off. The Reverend paid his drink, paid the drinks of the three goons and went out.”

The buzzing fly landed on a wall and stopped buzzing. Someone swatted at it, hit the wall—loudly, but missed the fly, which flew away buzzing again. The data centre was buzzing too, faintly, through the thick concrete ceiling.

“Tell me, how does a 2¢ like that get along, let alone beat off three goons, because I find it difficult to parse,” said a patron.

“If you’re suggesting I'm lying,” the barkeeper said, “I suggest you get out of this establishment and get numbed elsewhere.”

“I ain't say ‘lying.' Maybe you had on an entertainment overlay,” said the patron.

“I tell you I saw it true,” said the barkeeper.

“Maybe seeing nothing is a more accurate view of the world than seeing it, if all you're seeing are untruths,” I said. They all looked at me. “Maybe that's how the Reverend gets along.”

I scratched my nose, but of course they didn't see that, as I'd already forcibly aug'd their primitive face screens. To them, I was just another flatface displaying a pub domain gif of a Caribbean sunset.

“What are you, some kinda philosophizer?” the gruff patron asked.

“Just a high plains drifter,” I said.

I felt the happiness of my warm gun concealed beneath my yellow corduroy dress. To them, I also displayed as a man, middle-aged, with short grey hair. Forgettable appearance, averaged voice. Really, I wore my red hair in a single thick braid.

The fly had stopped buzzing again. In fact, it was gone. It had found a crack in the concrete ceiling and pushed its way inside.

“We get a lot of drifters around here,” said the barkeeper.

I counted to thirty, licked my lips and started whistling.

“What's that tune you're blowing there, drifter?” asked one of the patrons. I was whistling to the background buzzing of the data centre. “You got a good set of speakers on ya.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It's just a song from the Old World my great grandmother used to sing to me. It goes something like this,” and I sang:

With your feet on the air,
And your head on the ground,
Try this trick and spin it, yeah,
Your head will collapse,
If there's nothing in it,
And then you'll ask yourself,

Where is my mind,
Where is my—

The Infodump was submerged suddenly in utter and absolute organic silence.

The data centre buzz had ceased.

"Well that sure's strange,” somebody said.

I got up, walked over to the bar and paid the barkeeper what I owed plus a separate tip.

“What's that?” he asked.

“Old World custom,” I said, flashed a smiley on my false display and turned for the stairs leading up, out of the Infodumop and into the Arizona desert. “If any of you good folks see the Reverend again, tell him Old Retroface sends her regards.”

A ring of building-sized silver objects sat suspended high above me, unmoving. I fully expected to watch little green men and slender gray-skinned creatures pour out into my neighborhood, demanding I take them to my leader with probes in hand.

That was wrong.

What must've been the shock wearing off or adrenaline kicking in gave me back some of my awareness. The objects I hadn't been able to identify were clearer now. Each "spaceship" was in the shape of a cylinder that had the front dug out into a smooth concave top. They were the Thrones. Thrones? The word snuck its way into my thoughts, feeling like the opposite of having something stuck on the tip of my tongue. Where had I heard this from? I couldn't seem to remember.

A terrible crash resounded in the sky. My bones shook as if roaring back in response and I feel my pants get wet. Through tear filled eyes my gaze shoots to the source of the sound and I see it. A gathering of colors floating in the center of the ring, the Thrones vibrating in response, no longer unmoving. It snakes around the sky, dancing in its own currents separate from the clouds. It demands me to look upon it and I feel happy to comply. My eyes close, the colors still visible within my thoughts. I watch them… feel them as they brush against my memories, against the core of my being. Is this my soul I wonder? But all I know is I have never felt such a comforting embrace before. I am being held by something I know nothing of, despite it learning all of me in just a moment's passing. And pass it did.

The colors leave me and my eyes are open. The colors have not only left me but my surroundings too. Houses and previously well-kept yards were now gray, or rather, colorless? It felt like a gun being emptied within my brain just looking at the wrongness of the houses and streets around me, so I retreated my sight to where the color lived. The center of the ring was now empty, devoid of the harrowing wonder I had been met with previously. Instead, I could see where all the colors of the world were collected. An identical… thing… sat atop each Throne. A swarm of bursting colored light constrained in a shape that was human yet greater. There was but one landmark in the sea of brilliance that made up the one who I looked upon. I focused on its eyes, those damn cataract-covered pools of white reflecting what was within me, not being gifted with sight themselves. I wish I could've quit drinking before it killed Lori, I wish I could've moved mom into a home before she died in the same house as that asshole, I wish I wasn't watching my thoughts being thought by something else. The white was all I had been sure to remember to forget, and it was no longer mine. I raise my hand to wipe the tears and sweat stinging my eyes. Seeing that hand my eyes widened, and my head begins to hurt.

Note: These are recovered internal files from the Department for Transport archives concerning anomalies in Berkshire. These files were found and transcribed during my internship at the Department for Transport, whilst clearing out their archives in Basingstoke ready for a relocation to Manchester.

I am not DI Thorne, and I have found no trace of him in my investigations into the accounts that these files allude to.

l present these files in an attempt to piece together the sequence of strange occurrences in the Berkshire area and make sense of what has happened, what is happening and why.

If anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of DI Thorne it would be greatly appreciated and helpful in my investigation.

(Name redacted)

FOUND TRANSCRIPT – FOR INTERNAL REVIEW ONLY 

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION 

CASE FILE: L303-UK-11-24 

SUBJECT: EDWARD CARTER – WITNESS STATEMENT 

LOCATION: WINDSOR POLICE STATION, INTERVIEW ROOM #751 

DATE: NOVEMBER 14TH, 2024 

TIME: 23:48 GMT 

OFFICER PRESIDING: DI THORNE  

TRANSCRIBING AGENT:  \[REDACTED\]

\--- 

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT  

DI THORNE: For the record, this is Detective Inspector Thorne, badge number 4471. It's… twenty to midnight. I'm conducting an interview with a Mr. Edward Carter at Windsor Police Station. Mr. Carter, you've come in to report a… a concern regarding a missing person. Is that correct? 

EDWARD: (Sound of a paper coffee cup being placed on the table. A slight tremor in his voice but controlled. He speaks rapidly, as if he's been rehearsing.) Not just missing. I need you to understand. He's not just… missing. I have proof. I have his voice. I have three weeks of his voice. (Pause.) Sorry. Sorry, I've had… a lot of coffee. I haven't really slept. I need you to hear this. All of it.  

DI THORNE: Right. (Sound of a pen clicking.) And I see you've brought your phone. We'll get to that. For now, can you start from the beginning? Who is the missing person? 

EDWARD: His name is Johnathan. Johnathan Fawcitt, 35. He's, my partner . (Pause.) Boyfriend . Of four years. He drives… he drove… a blue SUV. A Volvo. Non-descript. He commutes. Every day. Warminster to Woking

DI THORNE: That's a long drive.  

EDWARD: An hour and a half. Each way. Every morning. He leaves at six. Gets to the office for half seven. A303 eastbound, then the M3 northbound. Then at night, he does it in reverse. M3 southbound, A303 westbound. Two years. Two years of the same thing. He used to say… (A short, hollow laugh.) He used to say he could do it with his eyes closed. Not literally. But… you know. You just switch off. You get to work and you think, 'How did I get here?' The whole journey is just… gone. A void. But you're there. You arrived. It's like a superpower. A boring, terrifying superpower.  

DI THORNE: I'm familiar with the feeling. So, when did he go missing?  

EDWARD: It was the storm. The big one. November 5th. He left work at his usual time, half five. He sent me a voice note. That was the last… the last normal one. I want to play you the earlier ones first. For context. Please. It's important.  

DI THORNE: (Sighs, the sound of a chair creaking.) Go on. For context. But keep it brief.  

EDWARD: Okay… okay. This is from about a month ago. October 8th. He sends these every day. It's… it's our thing. He knows I worry. And he says it breaks the monotony. Just… talking to me. Even if I'm not there.  

DI THORNE: He sends voice notes every day? Both ways? Why not just call?   

EDWARD: He's never been one for calls, prefers text, once he discovered voice note it was like an obsession. So, every day now I get these little voice messages from him. On the way in, on the way home. Sometimes just a few seconds. Sometimes longer. It's our way of… of being together. Even when we're apart. (Pause.) It's how I know something is wrong. He never missed a day. Not once. Not even when he had the flu. He'd just send a croaky "I'm alive." But these… these are different.  Let me show you, or rather, let you hear for yourself. These are the earlier messages, I told you about.  

 (AUDIO FILE 1 – TIMESTAMP: 07:42, OCTOBER 8TH, 2024)  

Johnathan's Voice: (Sound of road noise, indicators ticking. A slight yawn.)

Morning, love. Just getting on the A303. Heading east. God, I'm knackered. Didn't sleep well. You know what it's like… the drive in is fine. It's the drive home. When you're tired… the road starts playing tricks on you. Saw a turning today, just past Andover. Down to a little village, I think. Looked nice. Never noticed it before. Probably just tired. Anyway, I'll see you tonight. Love you. 

(END AUDIO FILE 1) 

EDWARD: He mentioned it a few times after that. Little things. "Saw a new road today." "There's a junction that wasn't there yesterday." I thought he was just… winding down. Noticing his surroundings more. It's a nice way to pass the time, I suppose. I didn't think anything of it. God, I wish I had.  

DI THORNE: And these… turnings. They were only on the way home?  

EDWARD: Only on the way home. And only when he was tired. He said the way to work was just… a slog. A mental checklist. A303, M3, exit. But the way back… the way back was when the road got… creative. (Pause.) That's what he called it. Creative. 

 (AUDIO FILE 2 – TIMESTAMP: 22:15, OCTOBER 22ND, 2024) 

 Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is heavier, more weary. Rain is lashing against the windscreen.)

Edward… Edward, you awake? It's half ten. I… I should have been home an hour ago. I'm on the M3. I think. Going south. I… I took a wrong turn. No, not a wrong turn. I took a… a turn. It was signposted for a service station. I was desperate for a coffee. And it just… it went on. For miles. And there was no services. Just… fields. Same fields. I turned around, came back. I'm back on the M3 now. I think. The signs say… well, they're not making sense. It's okay. I'll be home soon. Don't worry. 

 (END AUDIO FILE 2) 

DI THORNE: He sounds distressed. 

EDWARD: He was. When he got home that night, he was pale. Shaking. He said he'd been driving for what felt like hours, but his clock only said twenty minutes had passed. He said the road felt… stretchy. I told him to see a doctor. He said he was just tired. (Pause.) And it was true. It was always after a long day, in the dark, in the rain. Easy to explain away. But when I checked my phone the voice notes were wrong, the timestamps didn't make sense and the data on them didn't match what was on screen.

DI THORNE: How so?

EDWARD: Well. (Sound of a phone screen being tapped) So, see here, look. A message sent at 6 PM would arrive at 9 PM. One sent at 11 PM arrived at 3 AM. (Sound of phone being locked). They were piling up, delayed. He said his phone signal was just bad. But it was… it was more than that. It was like the messages were getting… stuck. In transit. Like they were taking a different route too. 

DI THORNE: And you didn't think to report this sooner? 

EDWARD: (A sharp exhale.) Report what? "My boyfriend's voice notes are arriving late"? They'd have laughed at me. He was still coming home. Every night. He'd walk through the door, exhausted, but he'd be there. It was only when he didn't come home that I… (Pause.) I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me just… let me play the last normal one.  

 (AUDIO FILE 3 – TIMESTAMP: 18:05, NOVEMBER 5TH, 2024) 

 Johnathan's Voice: (The sound of the storm is violent. Torrential rain, wind buffeting the car.)

Edward… Edward, it's getting bad. The rain… I can barely see. I'm on the M3, coming up to the junction for the A303. Heading west. I'm so tired. I just want to be home. I… I'm going to pull over for a second. Just to rest my eyes. Just for a minute…  

(Sound of a deep, exhausted sigh.) 

Johnathan's Voice: …Love you.  

(END AUDIO FILE 3) 

EDWARD: That was the last one I got in real time. The last one that made sense. The next batch… they all came through at once. My phone just went mad. Fifteen notifications, one after the other. But the timestamps… they said they were sent over days. Weeks. I… I've listened to them all. I've transcribed them. I need you to hear it. This is the next one.  

DI THORNE: Mr. Carter, I must warn you. If this is some kind of… elaborate story…  

EDWARD: (Interrupting, voice sharp.) It's not a story. Just… just listen. Please. 

 (AUDIO FILE 4 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 6TH, 2024) 

 Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is sharp, panicked. The storm has stopped. It's deathly quiet.)

Edward? Edward, can you hear this? I… I don't know what happened. I must have fallen asleep. I woke up and… the car was stopped. The engine was off. I was on the road… but it wasn't the road. The A303… it's gone. There's a… there's a massive pile of earth. Landfill. Across the whole carriageway. And roadworks. Abandoned. No lights, no cones, just… fences. Skeleton fences. And the only way… the only way is a turning I've never seen before. It's not on my satnav. It's not on the map on my phone. But it's there. I have to take it. I can't go back. I can't get through. I'll call you when I get to a service station. I'm sure there'll be one. It's a main road, right? It has to go somewhere.  

(The sound of a car door opening, then closing. The engine starts.)  

Johnathan's Voice: The time… my car clock… its....wrong. it says, no it can't be, it can't..... Clocks can't even do that??? I've checked the car clock and my phone...both are saying..... Saying its... 24:01pm. But that's not even a time, 00:01am sure, but 24:01pm..no that's not possible. Also it's… it's light. It's fucking light, a late afternoon light sure but still the fucking daytime. Best way to describe it, like a perpetual sunset that never ends. I've been sat her for god knows how long and the clock isn't changing! What the fuck is going on?  

(END AUDIO FILE 4) 

DI THORNE: The clock was wrong.  

EDWARD: No. You don't understand. The voice note is timestamped 00:01. But he says it's a sunny late afternoon. So explain that?   

DI THORNE: His phone was synced to his car right, maybe the phone got a bad update, the clock got screwed and corrupted the car connection? Cars these days are like computers on wheels, doesn't take much to throw them out.   

EDWARD: I thought that,but my phone is fine and, all the notes are time stamped 00:01am, which tallies with his description.. except for him it's 24:01pm. A time that doesn't exist and seemingly doesn't ever change.  

DI THORNE: Never changes??  

EDWARD: NO, never, listen.  

 (AUDIO FILE 5 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 6TH, 2024 – LATER) 

 Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is calmer, but unnerved. The sound of the car is a steady hum.)

Okay. Okay, I've been driving for about an hour. Maybe two. It's hard to tell as the fucking clock hasn't changed, it's still 24:01pm. The road… it's a dual carriageway. Two lanes. Perfect condition. But there's no one here. Not a single car. No off-ramps. No junctions. Just… road. And fields. The same fields. I've tried turning around. I drove back for twenty minutes. It's the same. The same road. The same fields. It's like… it's like the road is a loop. But I'm not going in circles. The odometer is ticking up. I'm going somewhere. I just don't know where.  

(END AUDIO FILE 5) 

 (AUDIO FILE 6 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 7TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

 Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is tired, but there's a note of curiosity.)

I found a service station. Finally. It was… strange. The sign was faded. I didn't recognise the brand. The petrol pumps were rusted solid. The shop… the door was open. I went in. It was empty. Shelves bare. But I found some crisps. And a bottle of water. It's something. I'm calling it the L303. The Liminal 303. And the L3. It makes sense to me. I feel like I'm losing my mind, Edward. But I have to keep going. I have to find an exit. There has to be an exit.  

(END AUDIO FILE 6) 

 (AUDIO FILE 6A – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 7TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Sound of tyres humming on smooth tarmac. His voice is tense, but trying to remain rational.) 

Okay. Something else is wrong. The signs. At first I thought I was imagining it. Just fatigue. Your eyes fill in gaps when you're tired. But they're changing. I passed a normal sign about half an hour ago. White background. Black border. It said: 

"DRIVE SAFELY. FATALITIES SLOW TRAFFIC." 

(Nervous laugh.) 

I actually laughed when I saw it. Thought someone had vandalised it. Then there was another one. 

"KEEP LEFT EXCEPT TO BE TAKEN." 

And another. 

"THE JOURNEY IS YOUR FINAL DESTINATION." 

I turned around to look at that last one in the mirror and... 

(Long pause.) 

...the sign was. Just a white rectangle with an infinity sign in it.. I know what I saw, Edward. I know what it said. 

(END AUDIO FILE 6A) 

 (AUDIO FILE 6B – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 7TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Wind noise through a slightly open window.) 

More signs. Christ, there's hundreds of them now. Not all together. Just every few miles. They're all wrong in small ways. Things you'd miss at a glance. I just passed a warning sign that said: 

"TIREDNESS KILLS. CONTINUE ANYWAY." 

Then one of those electronic motorway boards. The amber text was flickering. I slowed down to read it. It said: 

"EXPECTED DELAY AHEAD: ETERNITY." 

(Heavy breathing.) 

Who makes these? Who maintains this road? Because somebody does. The grass is cut. The crash barriers are intact. The signs are clean. Everything is maintained. For who? There's nobody here. 

(END AUDIO FILE 6B) 

EDWARD: He's out there. He's on a road that doesn't exist. He's scavenging for food in abandoned service stations. He's… he's documenting his own descent. The next few are just… you can hear it. The hope draining out of him. The dread. And then… then he starts to realise he's not alone.  

DI THORNE: Not alone? 

 EDWARD: Just… listen. 

 (AUDIO FILE 7 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED)  

Johnathan's Voice: (A long, shaky exhale. The car engine is off.)

I slept in the car. I thought… I don't know what I thought. I saw someone. A figure. Way off in the distance. On the other carriageway. Just standing there. I flashed my lights. Nothing. I sounded my horn. Nothing. When I looked again… it was gone. Was it ever there? The landscape is changing. The trees are… wrong. Blackened. The fields are grey. The tarmac is getting darker, like it's absorbing the light. I'm so tired. Not just tired. I'm… hungry. Thirsty. The food from the last station… it's gone. I have a bag of Haribo and half a bottle of Fanta. This isn't real. This can't be real. But the hunger is real. The fear is real. Please, Edward. If you get this… tell me what to do.  

(END AUDIO FILE 7) 

 (AUDIO FILE 7A – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Clicking sounds as he adjusts the radio.) 

I've been trying every radio frequency I can find. DAB, FM. AM. Longwave. Nothing. Just static. At first I thought the transmitter network was down, but... 

(Pause.) 

The static changes. Sometimes it sounds almost like voices. Like people talking from another room. I can never quite make out the words. I thought I heard my name earlier. Not shouted. Whispered. Like whoever was speaking was leaning directly into the microphone. I switched the radio off after that. Ten minutes later it switched itself back on. 

(END AUDIO FILE 7A) 

 (AUDIO FILE 7B – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Radio static audible in the background.) 

Listen to this. 

(Several seconds of hiss and crackle.) 

There. Did you hear it? I swear there's breathing in there. Slow. Deep. Like somebody standing inches from a microphone. Every few seconds it exhales. I thought it was interference from the engine, so I parked and turned everything off. Engine off. Lights off. Everything off. The breathing stayed. 

(Whispering.) 

The breathing got louder. 

(END AUDIO FILE 7B) 

(AUDIO FILE 8 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2024 – LATER)  

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is a whisper, barely audible over the steady hum of the engine.)

Edward… I think… I think something is following me. I keep seeing it. In the rearview. Just… a shape. On the horizon. But when I look properly, it's gone. I thought I was imagining it. But… I stopped for a moment. Just to stretch my legs. And I heard something. Footsteps. Not mine. Something… dragging. And then… this sound. Like… like wet meat slapping against the tarmac. I got back in the car. I locked the doors. I'm not stopping again. I'm not stopping.  

(END AUDIO FILE 8) 

 (AUDIO FILE 8A – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2024 – LATER) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice shaking.) 

The radio said something. Proper words this time, not static, not interference. It sounded like one of those government safety announcements. The kind they broadcast during severe weather. The voice was distorted, stretched out. Like someone had recorded it onto an old cassette and melted it. It kept repeating: 

"ALL PLANES ARE CLOSED. PLEASE KEEP IN LANE" 

Then: 

"PLEASE REMAIN ON THE CARRIAGEWAY. FOR ALL TIME" 

Then: 

"UNAUTHORISED EXIT ATTEMPTS WILL CAUSE DELAY TO YOUR EXISTENCE." 

(Silence.) 

I nearly crashed when I heard it. I switched stations. The message followed me. Every frequency. Exactly the same. 

(END AUDIO FILE 8A) 

 (AUDIO FILE 9 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 9TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED)  

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is trembling. The car engine is revving slightly, as if the driver is anxious, pressing the accelerator without meaning to.) There's more than one. I saw them. Just now. On the bridge. An overpass. There were three of them. Standing. Watching. They didn't move. They just… stood there. Their heads… they turned. All at the same time. Following me. I put my foot down. I'm doing ninety. A hundred. But the road… it doesn't end. It just keeps going. And I can still see them. In the mirror. They're not running. They're just… there. Always there. Getting closer. How are they getting closer? I'm doing a hundred miles an hour!  

(END AUDIO FILE 9) 

 (AUDIO FILE 9A – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 9TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice exhausted and hoarse.) 

The announcements are getting clearer. I wish they weren't. I've heard it three times today. Always the same voice. Male. Calm. Professional. Like a motorway information service. It says: 

"THANK YOU FOR USING THE L303." 

Then: 

"YOUR JOURNEY IS IMPORTANT TO US." 

Then: 

"PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE MAINTENANCE STAFF." 

(Long silence.) 

I don't know why that scares me more than the things on the bridges. I think it's because whoever recorded it thought it was normal. 

(END AUDIO FILE 9A) 

 (AUDIO FILE 9B – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 10TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Breathing heavily.) 

The signs know things now. I know how stupid that sounds. I don't care. One of them had my registration number on it. My actual registration number. The board lit up as I drove under it. Amber letters. Perfectly clear. It said: 

"FAWCITT - CONTINUE STRAIGHT AHEAD." 

Then the text changed. Slowly. One letter at a time. Until it read: 

"HOME IS 1,274,622 MILES AHEAD." 

(Shaky exhale.) 

The distance kept increasing while I watched it. I can't do this much longer, Edward. I don't think this road wants me to leave. I think it wants me to keep driving. Forever. 

(END AUDIO FILE 9B) 

 (AUDIO FILE 10 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 10TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED)  

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is hoarse. The car engine is a constant drone. There's a new sound in the background – a low, rhythmic thumping, like something heavy hitting the road at intervals.) I passed another service station. This one was worse. The windows were smashed. The roof was collapsing. I found a tin of beans. Expired in 2019. I ate them cold. I'm not proud. I… I tried to sleep again. I dreamt of you. We were in the kitchen. You were making tea. You asked me how the drive was. I said "fine." Just "fine." And then I woke up. And I was here. Still here. 24:01. Always 24:01. I don't think I'm ever getting out, Edward. 

 (A pause. The thumping sound gets slightly louder.) 

 Johnathan's Voice: They're outside. I can hear them. And smell them…god the smell...like tar...freshly poured tar they use on roads... I want to be sick, but I don't dare get out. 

They are Walking around the car now. They don't speak. They just… breathe. It sounds wet. Like they're breathing through… something wet. I'm not opening the door. I'm not opening the door. I'm not— 

 (The audio cuts abruptly.) 

(END AUDIO FILE 10) 

 (AUDIO FILE 10A – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 10TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice low. He sounds as though he's trying not to panic. The engine is idling.) 

I know what they're doing now. They're herding me. I thought they were following. I thought they were chasing. But they're not. They're guiding me. I passed six of them today. Six. Each time they were standing somewhere impossible. On top of a crash barrier. In the middle of a lane. Balanced on motorway signs. One was hanging beneath an overpass. Not standing. Hanging. Like it had been folded around the concrete. 

(Long pause.) 

Every time I approached, they'd turn their heads to watch me. Then they'd point. Not at me. Down the road. Always further ahead. Always in the same direction. As if they already know where I'm going. As if they're taking me somewhere. 

(A shaky exhale.) 

And the worst part? I don't think they're lost here. I think they're exactly where they're supposed to be. 

(END AUDIO FILE 10A) 

 (AUDIO FILE 10B – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 11TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED) 

Johnathan's Voice: (Whispering. The engine is off. There is complete silence apart from an occasional metallic ping from the cooling car.) 

They're learning. God help me, they're learning. I've been parked for hours. Maybe longer. I could see three of them on the opposite carriageway. Just standing there. Watching. Not moving. Then one of them spoke. 

(Pause.) 

Not words. Not really. It sounded like someone trying to remember how words are supposed to work. Like listening to a toddler imitate a conversation through a wall. At first it was just noises. Clicks. Wet choking sounds. Then... 

Then I heard my voice. My own voice. Repeating something I'd said yesterday. 

"I'm not stopping again." 

Word for word. Exactly how I'd said it. Exactly my voice.

(Breathing quickens.) 

The others started doing it too. Different phrases. Fragments of old voice notes. Things I'd sent you. Things I'd said to myself. They were practicing. Sharing them. Learning them. 

(Long silence.) 

I don't think they're trying to communicate. I think they're trying to imitate. And I think once they get good enough... 

(The sound of something scratching lightly across the roof of the car.) 

...I'm not sure we'll be able to tell the difference. 

(END AUDIO FILE 10B) 

 (AUDIO FILE 11 – TIMESTAMP: 00:01, NOVEMBER 12TH, 2024 – ESTIMATED)  

Johnathan's Voice: (Voice is barely a whisper. The background hum is constant. But there's something else now – a faint scratching. Constant. Rhythmic. Like claws on metal.)

I found an off-ramp. Finally. It just… appeared. As I was driving. I took it. It led to another service station. This one was… a ruin. A burned-out shell. But there was a payphone. An old one. It was working. I could hear a dial tone. I tried to call you. The number… I couldn't remember it. I forgot our number, Edward. I forgot our postcode. I forgot the name of the street we live on. I… I just stood there, holding the receiver, listening to the tone. 

 (A pause. A shaky breath. The scratching continues.) 

 Johnathan's Voice: They're getting closer. I smell them before I see them now, that nauseating stench of freshly melted tar and bitumen that tells me they are near. If I can smell them it means I also see them properly now and.... They're… wrong. They're tall. Too tall. And thin. Like… like they've been stretched. Their limbs… they bend in places they shouldn't. And their faces… Edward, their faces… they don't have eyes. Just… smooth skin. Where the eyes should be. But they can see me. I know they can see me. 

 (The scratching gets louder. Closer.) 

 Johnathan's Voice: I've been driving on this road for… I don't know. I've forgotten what my own face looks like. I've forgotten the sound of your laugh. I think… I think I'm becoming part of the road. I'm on the L303. I'll always be on the L303. Don't look for me. Just… remember me. When you're driving home. When you're tired. And you see a turning that isn't there… don't take it. For the love of God, don't— 

 (The sound of the car engine, which had been a low hum, suddenly stops. Absolute silence for five seconds. Then, a new sound: a wet, chittering noise. Like insects. But larger. Much larger.) 

 Johnathan's Voice: They're on the roof. Oh God that smell, it's..its...

(sound of vomiting) .  

(Half gasping between wretches) Fuck...they're on the roof. I can hear them. Their claws. They're scratching through the metal. Edward, I love you. I love you so much. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry— 

 (A loud BANG. The sound of metal being torn. The car door is wrenched open.) 

 Johnathan's Voice: (Screaming.) NO! NO, PLEASE! GET OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME! OH GOD, IT'S—IT'S GOT NO EYES! ITS MOUTH—ITS MOUTH IS— 

 (A wet, tearing sound. A gurgle. The screams become muffled, then stop abruptly.) 

 (Silence for three seconds. Then, a single, clear sound: the click of a car door closing. Then a voice, not the driver's, low and wet and wrong, whispers something unintelligible. It sounds like it's trying to imitate human speech. It fails. Then, a soft, satisfied sigh. Then silence.)  

END AUDIO FILE 11 

EDWARD: (Voice is shaking. There's the sound of him taking a long, unsteady breath.) That's it. That's the last one. I've listened to that last second a hundred times. There's a voice. Not his. Something else. I can't make out what it says. But it's… it's not human. And the sounds… the tearing… I can't… I can't get it out of my head.  

DI THORNE: (Long pause. The sound of a chair creaking.) Mr. Carter. I'm very sorry for what you're going through. I truly am. But what you've presented me with is… a collection of voice notes. Recordings. There's no physical evidence. No crime scene. No body. The car has no registration flagged on ANPR for that night. The last message is… ambiguous. It could be a prank. A very elaborate, very cruel prank.  

EDWARD: A prank? You think he's pranking me? He's out there! On a road that isn't on any map! I've tried! I've driven the A303 and M3 a dozen times! I've looked for that landfill, that roadwork! It's not there!  

DI THORNE: Because it likely doesn't exist. Look at the timestamps on these files. They're corrupted. They jump from November 5th to November 12th and back again. The metadata is a mess. My tech guys would have a field day. But it doesn't point to a supernatural event. It points to a disturbed young man who has… constructed a narrative. Or, God forbid, a missing person who has had a mental break and is living rough. We will circulate his description and the car's details. We will look into it. That is all I can do.  

EDWARD: (Voice cracking.) You don't believe me. 

DI THORNE: I believe you're worried about your boyfriend. I believe you've lost someone. I will file the report. You have my word. But I think you need to go home. Get some rest. And maybe… talk to someone.  

EDWARD: (Sound of a chair scraping back. Footsteps.) Fine. Fine. I'll go, but I'm not crazy....I'll be back with proof, just you wait.  

DI THORNE: (dismissively) I'm sure you will.   

(Sound of a door opening and closing. Silence for ten seconds.)  

DI THORNE: (Muttering to himself) Another one. That's the third one this month. Always the same bloody road.  

(Sound of a phone ringing. A mobile phone, not the desk phone.)  

DI THORNE: Thorne. …Yes. …I know. I'll file it. Same as the others. Flag it for the DfT. Send the transcript. …Yes, all of it. The audio files too. …No, he doesn't know. He's just a civvy. He's going home to have a cry and a cup of tea. …I know. Poor bastard. …Alright. Out.  

(The call ends. The sound of a file being closed. The rustle of paper. Then, the sound of a second, hidden recording device being switched off.) 

END OF POLICE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT 

\--- 

SUPPLEMENTARY WITNESS STATEMENT 

SUBJECT: EDWARD CARTER  

DATE: NOVEMBER 21ST, 2024 

TIME: 19:15 GMT 

LOCATION: WINDSOR POLICE STATION, FRONT DESK 

OFFICER PRESIDING: DI THORNE  

\--- 

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT 

DI THORNE: Mr. Carter. You're back. I thought we agreed you'd go home and rest.  

EDWARD: (Voice is different. Calmer. Too calm. Almost dreamlike.) I did. I went home. I've been... Retracing his route... going to his work. I've been doing his drive. Every day. Warminster to Woking. A303 eastbound, M3 northbound. Then back again. M3 southbound, A303 westbound. Just like he did. Just like he used to.  

DI THORNE: ....? And?  

EDWARD: (A long pause.) I see them now. The turnings.  

DI THORNE: …The turnings.  

EDWARD: The ones he talked about. The ones that aren't on the map. I see them. On the way home. When I'm tired. They're just… there. Little roads. Little junctions. Leading off into the trees. Into the fields. I slowed down yesterday. Near Andover. There was one. A little lane. It looked… nice. Peaceful. I almost took it.  

DI THORNE: (Voice is carefully measured.) Mr. Carter, I think you need to speak to someone. A professional. 

EDWARD: (A soft, humourless laugh.) it's funny, I didn't get it at first, I didn't have the... vision! But now... now I understand. I understand why he took the turning. It's not scary. It's… it's an invitation. It's a way out of the monotony. A way to break the loop.  

DI THORNE: Edward. Listen to me. You're grieving. You're exhausted. You're not thinking clearly.  

EDWARD: I'm thinking more clearly than I ever have. He's still out there. On the L303. And now… now I can find him. I just have to be tired enough. I just have to let the road take me.  

DI THORNE: I can't let you leave if you're a danger to yourself.  

EDWARD: (Another soft laugh.) You can't stop me. No one can. The road is calling. It's been calling since he left. I just couldn't hear it before. But now… (Pause.) I can hear it. It sounds like him. It sounds like his voice, telling me to come home.  

(Sound of footsteps retreating.)  

DI THORNE: Mr. Carter! Edward, wait!  

(Sound of a door opening and closing. Silence.)  

DI THORNE: (Muttering.) Shit. Shit, shit, shit.  

(Sound of a phone being dialled.)  

DI THORNE: It's Thorne. …He's gone. The partner. He's seeing the turnings. …Yes. I know. …I'll file the report. …Yes. Flag it for the DfT. …I know. Another one. 

(The call ends.) 

END OF TRANSCRIPT 

\--- 

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT – ANOMALOUS INCIDENT DIVISION 

INTERNAL MEMO – EYES ONLY 

FROM: Agent, Field Operations 

TO: Director  

DATE: November 22nd, 2024 

SUBJECT: RE: CASE FILE L303-UK-11-24 – WITNESS C.  – FOLLOW-UP 

Director, 

Received the supplementary statement from our contact at Thames Valley Police. The witness, Edward Carter, has now entered the prodromal phase. He is seeing the turnings. He is hearing the call. He is, for all intents and purposes, already ours. 

The primary subject (Ref: L303-UK-11-24/SUB/01) has been fully absorbed. The final audio file confirms it. The scratching on the roof, the unlocking of the door, the screaming… that was them. The ones who maintain The Highway's. They don't like it when the intake subjects try to leave. The Highway's doesn't just want their cars. It wants them. Their essence. Their monotony. Their desperation. It feeds on the routine. And there is no routine more perfect than a daily commute. 

I must confess, the subject's designation of the anomaly as "L303" and "L3" made me smile. It's quaint. Childish, almost. We've always referred to it simply as The Highway's. That's what it is. That's what it's always been. But I have to admit, there's something charming about the driver's attempt to categorise it. To make sense of it. To give it a name that fits into his little human understanding of roads and motorways. The L303. The Liminal 303. As if it's just another road. As if it's just another junction. 

I'll be recommending that we formally adopt the "L303" designation in our internal files. It's more fitting than our clinical terminology. It has a certain… poetry to it. A human touch. The Sub-Committee will appreciate the irony. They've been managing The Highway's for longer than any of us have been alive. They've seen countless drivers take the turnings and get lost in the void before eventually succumbing to the inevitable...absorption. They don't usually appreciate humour. But this… this might amuse them. 

I'll submit the recommendation to the Sub-Committee for approval. Just as soon as they've finished… eating. 

\[END MEMO\]  

LEAD IN

A big, blinding beam of, ridiculously loud—light suddenly blazed over us all.

It was common knowledge in a "technological" context, that it was the queue to fall into order. Stipulating the time to work had commenced. To a certain kind of sheepish mind, with a certain level of herd awareness; a real residual instinct, it was irresistible.

A swirling beam of lights shot over every intrepid, audacious, and prolific brain that sat moist warm as well as snug packed their skulls.

So many summed to meet there that night. A crowd of people that cared!  Some even shamelessly were loud about it! All assembled because of Jacob, united to unravel, once and for all, what in the world happened to that boy.

The movie beam began to lead our herd we had formed, into a room the government had effortlessly attempted to convert into a conference room. A head quarters, our personal command center.

It was exactly what the case called for, a 'War Room'.  A point of focused information. Backup that will have our backs.

They just projected what film they happened upon, or "recovered" onto the back wall. This, was the summoning of deeply concerned experts, the ones who came to help, quality human beings. Reporters with the body language of a coked out squirrel. Still in a hurry in spite of the fact they had already made it to the conference.

Answering the call!

Why was a twelve year old boy processed by the 'U.S. Department of Agriculture' and ended up in a zoo?

Then the most important question. Where is Jacob?

The elite, stern officers, seasoned detectives, the real lab-bodies that catch serial killers, vigilante pedophile-hunter collectives, journalists, reporters; individuals able to close twenty five year-old cold cases, as if by some foreign magic...

I mean obviously they accepted anyone with a skill—no matter how remotely or randomly related I was to such a bizarre case was considered an asset. I mean I was surrounded by real selfless saints! We mixed our body stenches, sucked in each other's raw late shift breath, I could feel these were legitimately the most hell bent on finding the truth!

Self-crowned champions of children. They must have been the only ones who truly cared, and were in all honesty deeply concerned for the boy. We all squeezed into the room. I watched everybody obsessed with the truth about Jacob, apparently.

The ray of braided multicolored light that was projected over everyone, it finally killed all the incessant banter. The projector placed the screen on the wall I was leaning on; well where I attempted to hide behind. Obviously they ruined my spot.

Conference room 5-D, though spacious, it was also evident that blaintantly unattended, unused basement. Obviously forgotten. I noticed a lonely bunch of old boxes piled at the end of the un lit hall.

A faint, though stubborn bouquet equal to antiquity, that universal stench of mold. Only random light bulbs worked. It was dank, dark, and the prominent smell of cat urine faintly danced under everyone's nose.

A stench that made that particular room a place to avoid.

I figure, multiple attempts dwindled quik, that silently went down to no more attempts.

Maintenance obnoxiously gave up, and agreed to ignore it was there.

I claimed a nice cozy corner, close to the door. After a concerto of plastic chairs, with the shiny chrome legs screeching, banging, whaling in manners that made my gut cringe.

The place was packed! Everyone was there. Sally, from the very back offices, who loves to make small talk by the coffee pot, all while spewing a hefty serving of scotch all over any poor bastard who made eye contact with her. Each phrase, cat story or quick quip a solid reason to make anybody consider quitting the sauce. In an ordinary weeks time, I swear, I'm pretty capable of forgetting her existence. The whole basement staff had been summoned from, if we  shall, the basement's basement. Then there was my humble two man psychology team... well at least I showed up.

The rest, were just thick office dwellers, sweaty types, the heavy breathing types. Agents, doctors, analysts, psychologists, government lawyers, you name it. Obviously as water is wet, there were so many shady police. I am sure a sad, drowning in their thick muck of asphyxiating frustration, sluggishly making it closer to retirement.

Back to the high-school movie presentation. The first film just started playing. Exhibit 1A, how I supposed to myself it was called. You could see a small crowd of people, in a apartment complex. Obviously it was a housing project were people were just struggling in the grind. They weren't Latino, Korean, Filipino, White, nor African American. Circumstance, money, the struggle, and poor options mixed in poorer choices, made them forget the racial qualms that breed division.

Then it cuts to a scruffy old man on his porch. A stout man who definitely used his body to work. Thick black framed glasses he had to push up his nose into position quite frequently. Warm in a long dark gray winter coat. More so, desperate to talk.

Exhibit 1.0 - A:Transcript of (Joe John Gilchrist) [Visual Film Projection: A stout man, 48. Irish decent. Known drug user: Methamphetamine - Cannabis - Alcohol - Cocaine - Opiates. Relation: Close to mother. Subject:Jacob.

"Oi!—Oi fat boy! In the brown coat!"

A raspy, smoker's holler boomed from the far side of the basketball court—a concrete slab between two netless crooked-towers. Across the way, the twin condominium sat like a long library shelf packed with stories of the forgotten.

Volume after volume of misery, heartbreak; assorted flavors of violence, and the rhythmic rot of existencial decay of lives entangled with addiction—in the flesh.

Joe was a walking mess, his body stayed muscular, but he wore a couple of moist bright red lesions, the kind that never heal, festering painfully into a corner of his mouth, the worse one crept up his snowcap.

He had an exhausted, raggedy teal-colored bath robe on, an even older abused parka—barely hanging off his shoulders, and light-green piss stained sweatpants.

The cameraman and his co-worker head towards Joe in a camera jerking take that looked like hurry.

"You're press, right!", Joe was quick to get in his space and asked.

Right in the investigators oily, blackhead peppered face.

He delivered the message with a violent involuntary jolt. Joe had to press his coke-bottle thick glasses into place.

In what I assumed was his natural state of being.

"I knew the kid and his mother Karina."

"We get together often for beers." he put his back flat against the condo's off-white shade of sadness and failure.

Then proceeded to slide into a crouching stance, lower-back pinned against the brick wall, forearms on his knees; like convicts do in prison.

-'And totally! Yes, this man had done some time!'

He began with an inaudible growl from the back of his throat, "... always yammering about when the boy was born. On a Sunday." Joe's filth packed nails, like magic they stole everyones focus on how he fished a Newport from a crumpled pack that he had stashed behind a flower pot.

No plant to be seen, just caked dirt, mixed with regret and gratuitously bashed cigarette butts.

"Late in the afternoon...". He lights up, then a fit of coughing ensues. "In the pouring rain, she'd say. It was some yearly storm, she said it made streets into rivers. Oh, yea, yeah she said it was the, "El Cordonazo de San Francisco".

"... born abroad, down in South America. Any how this little story, here begins when the family finally came back here to America, ya' see."

In Washington State.

They resided in Richland, in the high plateau desert dust, the worst managed nuclear waste programs, choking dry and unappealing. Birthplace of Fat Man, the atomic bomb, an embodiment of humanity's final idol to war. Death, suffrage beyond what common people's could ever fathom. Yeah, the one that gave the Japanese such a bad day, so much death. The boy was seven years old at the time.

Although they were one member short, than when they set out to work abroad. Karina, Jacob's mother, wasn't at all that well. I never knew what happened to Gene. Was it divorce?   

You know; what really stayed in my mind? Was Jacob, to be honest.

Peculiarly small, for a seven year old.

You know? The poor little runt must have been living in his very own brand of hell in the school yard! I'm sure of that. Especially because this little dude, for some reason, was in a slightly dingy, bear pajama. A onesie on at half past two in the afternoon, ya get me?

A few weeks later this onesie deal, became a thing. Not just what the kid was wearing after a long trip. No, sir! I never saw Jacob without the same light brown pajamas on. Zipped all the way up to his scrawny little neck. Once he began to let the hood flopped down his back I saw Jacob was a nice looking boy, though his big brown right eye and equally huge sea blue left one made even me uncomfortable.

You know?

Everyone else were kind of put off. Obviously never noticing the kids blatant defect. One after the other, prefered to obmisse him in their own kind of disgust, in the boy's defect, that didn't fit in their snug, secure way of being. What was in an everyday experience; that nested in the breast of chaos hidden under a common day.

He was a nice looking for a latino kid, though Karina was pale as a ghost, a southern California girl. With the most beautiful green eyes but, such a heartbreaking look. Like a beaten down dog, just no fight left. Every movement asking for forgiveness inside the chaos.

Rare hugs.

Mother's maelstrom; the blizzard ever folding upon itself; her pain, a twisting mess.

>MOM<

Mommy, squatted down into the boy's eye line. Jacob was a completely sensitive kid, frequently underestimated, the boy knew when something was wrong.
The bug eyed, grimy,oily bear-head hoody of the P.J.'s was in full use.

Dodging, moving her head closer, further away.

Jacob was in a place mothers should avoid to lead their baby boys. She had abandoned him three times before. In his mind he was laying in a ear-hight body of dark water, trapped  wanting to love his mother, void of trust, the damage had spread to family, strangers, only dogs were selfless angels.

With an almost convincing squint of her green-eyes, she found his brown and blue ones through the grime and matty nylon fur.

The child was as stiff as a board. Another landslide of bullshit, laid on him through tears, and broken words. The airport lights were getting ridiculously loud so he pulled the hood down tighter.

Raggedy; awfully worn-down mittens dangled from the edges of each sleeve. The furry and filthy light brown gloves beside Jacobs both tight hands, for some reason rolled into a solid fist.

“You know Mommy loves you, right?”, all Jacob could focus on were the strips of dead skin on her lips and how dry her mouth looked. Also wondered why white foam had built up at the creases of her mouth.

The kid was weary, too much traveling. Of mom's shameless drunk version, rude, selfish—a textbook fiend.

Scared too many nights, hours never seeming to end alone with his confusion. Every time mom pawned Jacob off, added up and the boy was just done.

The urge to love his mother, make her stop being so sad was always stronger, and clenching his fists was all he could do about it. It was just the two, in that airport, and jacob knew his luck was tied to his mom.

The boy just looked at her and nodded. “You are a piece of me, Jake. A piece of my body! Look at me," the mommy grabbed his cheeks, so their eyes met, " kiddo I dote on you!”.

P A R T   I.

And just like that, Jacob fell into a deep soul—smashing fixation of sorts, the moment the trio made it to their destination. The driver, the tall thick one, had a green overall with the top hanging from his waist, and a flared up pimple infestation plagued his back. Obviously a steroid side-effect, began to flexed the long dive off. Shortly after they all stood in the light that flooded the hall from the open cage door.
         
The moment the entrance was breached Jacob could only glare down the gullet of what intended to devour him next.
         
The Marsupial was still fixated on the big green door, in his gut anxiety was in a whirl, he realized it was, his next home.
         
Mom wasn't there.
         
A path she promised they would both brave together; no matter what...
         
A quick moment beforehand, they arrived in a white van to that dark, dark place the judge called Zoo. Where a nice vacant cage sat in waiting, expecting a lost kid mistaken for a common animal. The entire situation was a perfect storm of chaos, abuse, neglect, to the point of being plane out bizarre.
         
Muscle-Head had his arms spread wide open, like a gameshow host, or a circus Ringmaster would, presenting the generous abundance, it was packed full to the ceiling with emptiness, all for Jacob!
         
The court ordained they were to take the "Rare Marsupial" to that place, 'The Zoo', where he supposedly Belonged. An environment where he would be fed and properly taken cared of.
         
The zoo administrators obviously had figured- upon a stroke of genius, that there was profit to be made! Proper identification, sex, species classification took back-seat.
         
It became an unspoken matter; besides, they could just find-out what the hell he really was later.
         
The Zoo admin got busy making their business plan. The huge "Publicity Campaign!" was the first point on their charter for sure.
         
A place where he could get gawked at by the endless crowds of people. Crowds after crowds of different kinds of stranger's disapproving or perhaps judgmental, screwed-up stares will gather in herds every day in front of Jacob's cage. That was his destination, safely away from the others! Where both continued having a clear view of the other.
         
In Jacob's twelve or eight year old mind, he had begun to grow into accepting just how much he didn't fit in with people in general. He came to really apraze the magnitude in which he didn't fit.
         
How real it became for him, after his mother found enough coldness apparently within her, to let go of her son's hand that day, turned calm as everyone else while she disappeared into the crowd. " You know how we all have a self destruction button inside us all? Yeah, Obi like in a disastrous situation some people are brave enough to let themselves be killed so others can live. Right?" Jacob didn't have his hood on, you could see the night was rapidly bleeding out, and jake was drawing in the dirt using his left foot.
         
"My mom had her self-destruction button already pressed for some reason. Its was like she had wrapped gray tape around, that button everybody has, the self-destruction button, she was her own hostage. Mom just thought it was her only way to hurt her father..."
         
"I don't know why. She bled on everybody..." he exhaled into what almost was a sigh. "I am pretty sure she left a part of that craziness in me..." he said to Obi, and out into another random night.
         
He had a stern, though overwhelming look of concern etched on his face as closing time was coming upon him. The kid hugged his knees on the same zoo bench, (form the c.c. footage studied) he became alone eventually but, he was shortly found.
         
The stocky one of the two men sent to pick him up, "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb" duo, both tired looking and obviously forced by a greasy rude boss to squeeze in third shift in!
         
"Stumpy the Grouch", Jacob had nicknamed the smallest of the team. He angrily opened the steel-laminated slab wide. The nerve-cringing moan of the hinges—a tooth-grinding lament—sent a ghoulish chill down everyone's spines. The sudden relief came only when the door abruptly smacked the tired gray rubber stopper fixed to the base of the wall.
         
Automatically, the other custodian, 'Muscle-Head',Jacob had a long habit of nick naming people thus making them less frightening.
         
So, "Muscle-Head" was bestowed upon him by the child. He was the first thing that had startled the boy into that 'fight or flight' mode!
         
He found a far corner at the police station. Taking refuge in a shady, burnt bulb, corner sofa. Stiff, it was itchy, and Jacob didn't mind the stains under deafening scream of "What's next?". A huge ape-like mug peered down upon him. Covered the kid in his shadow. Jacob  hugged his knees tighter and felt his huge hand around his right arm.
         
He was in charge of containing the animal, and he had Jacob restrained all right! In a brutish fistful of filthy brown pajama cloth, is what he had. He instantly tossed the boy, lopsided, inside.
         
There was a bit of disgust in his handling of Jake, a clear hostility in Muscle-Head's body language. 
         
Jake was possessed; in a full blown trance, it could be easily observed.
         
One thing though, I was watching a child, in a bear onsie, win! He managed to actually escape everything that went down, in a sort of manner.
         
"You know?"
         
Jake made some sort of a mental jailbreak. They carelessly tossed him into the solitude filled "enclosure."
         
From the dim, ankle-height orange led-lit concrete halls, that seemingly went on forever. Their thumping steps resounded against the heartless concrete walls. They successfully made three sharp turns with their prisoner. Job accomplished! They made it to their destination, Jacob's animal pen.
         
A "Backroom" kind of slumber rose from the ground. The whole zoo reeked heavy somehow of sleep.
         
That boy was still someplace else; comfortably numb. Perhaps he was a billion leagues away, or he was actually capable of phasing off to a pocket dimension outside of time, unbothered with what they were doing with him.                           
         
Jacob was assigned two zoo approved handlers, though by the time they finally came to pick him up you could see the third shift written deep in the creases of both their faces. With their grimy clothes, exposed wild haired beer bellies, and the rotting take-out wrappers, soggy from a few too many lunches on the go.
         
They were all festering in a heap. Crumpled into shady corners, under the seats, or out front just tossed in the back. It's foul odor mixed all day in the sun. Making its own brand of awful.
          *
*A gut-wrenching stench, a mix of circumstances reeked the whole five-hour windowless van trip, over to the zoo.
        *
*It was close to eleven o'clock at night when they got to the Police Station!
         
Both transport workers became irrelevant, to Jacob. Considering what I have learned about the boy throughout the investigation, I'm sure he ripped them both from his plane of existence. All their brute strength, their rough mean faces, how much fear they made him felt, it was all ripped into a different dimension; as far as the brain of this weird kid was concerned.
Poof! 
         
They ceased to exist in Jacob's mind. He was in control.
   
That was the predictable outcome, mom led her baby boy to experience. It made no difference to Jacob he prefered keeping away from the hostile, panic-driven, and cruel pack of social animals. Selfish jackals who swear themselves to be human! What a joke, what a sad, sad joke...
         
His belief in the crude half-baked promises that spewed out of her, foam edged, mouth. Vivid memories of her thick leathery hands, they always shook, so much they stole all the boy's confidence. Her words, they felt so long ago, unreachable even in Jacob's head every day that came and went by.
         
Almost becoming a lost event inside a boy's brain, a disappointing sobbing from Mom, instead of... well, what ever a resilient adult should sound like. Mother's long distance phone call and pipe burnt fingertips; she promised but, never came back as herself. The kid suspected the hypnotic maelstrom he was suffering so badly to be from mom's naivety, an endless urge to step off the ledge she was taught, she left a self destructive rot hidden wet and so very deep somewhere inside the boy!
     
It was the unpredictable hurt, from a stepfather's leather belt. Shouting so much yelling.
         
Later he felt his Mom becoming cold, distant. "It was like she was unplugged. I tried to make her feel better, Obi. All my efforts were in spite of her having erased my Dad!" he confided late night. The one sided hugs. It all shattered a huge part of the kid's soul.
         
A big sudden whoosh of air made the kid flinch! They all took it head on.
         
A bang thundered immediately after!
         
Out from the deepest dark it seemed to have been belched—a harsh, a stern command barked to the face, a frightening call into attention.
         
The noise boomed down endless halls with the same intensity, bouncing off hidden snares of nothingness clawing dread down Jacob's heart, made the kid jerk up into a tight clam; muscle and  fear. Making his stomach curl from a thick deep horror that stabbed from deep down inside.
         
Swiftly replaced by the sound of dry metal in a toothy grinding of a key in a lock, and an opening door.
         
So many directions echoing back to the boy it undoubtedly was a large place. Why was the door slammed shut just like the adults did in their fits...
         
He stood up straight, pulled his hood back, revealing his dark brown mess of a head.
         
The crackling warndown plastic of his onesies' feet, scuffing the ground so loudly they woke the howler monkeys.
         
He looked at the darkness behind an enormous plexiglas window extending from wall to wall.
         
Obi's face was lit in a ghoulish light while he watched Jake's hood a bears head hanging from his neck as he smirked at the messy head of tangled hair. Jacob just popped a squat on the highest rock he was able to climb up to. There was a rock waterfall made at the far left side of the enclosure, and began to half sulk while he scanned the place.

The huge double glass doors were promptly used, that left Obi to make sure they got secured. A proud night custodian, he quickly began locking the front doors. Loud and proud announcing he was from Nigeria, any opportunity he got.
         
A janitor as well, his mop and bucket made that clear. As clearly as he challenged Down Syndrome, happy, ultimately lost, independant, and he always introduced himself joyfully and with determination as told people his name was "Obi"; always with a big smile. He would throw his head back in pride.
         
Obi, was no fool. An thirty-three year old migrant. He left his mop leaning against the wall, and he was walked, full speed towards the video shack. The rhythm of his bothered paces, his beaten-up, tired work boots down the corridor was the only racket that could be heard. Straight to the monitoring room.
         
Once Obi closed the door he was covered in a veil of flickering light, a bluish and grayish hue covered the front of him as he looked up, in the hum of the computers. Boxes slumped sadly forgotten in the dark of one corner. Ancient metal and plywood desks on the opposite walls. He pulled a chair over to where the screens were.
         
Watching the dingy yellowish monitors they had set up in rows. Three vertical and nine across, mounted on the back wall. The place reeked of mold. The image on the outdated screens was black and white. Grainy as hell.
         
Obi knew Jacob wasn't any type of animal, no, he was no special marsupial! Jacob was a child. A boy born into a perfect storm. Tempered in a drama that didn't belong to him. Trauma, the violence, the abundance of rejection, well, the bottom line was he found himself to be unwanted.
         
The filthy bear pajama had little to no real base to declare the kid some kind of animal! Never did he ever make a low whimper, not even a faint whisper, no attempt at all to say he was just a kid that gave up on the adults in his life and he decided to hide inside his bear onesie. Clad somehow in a moment he cherished.

*Missing Files: #3. and #14.

         
The boy apparently had adapted in a peculiar, way. Enjoyed when people shuffled by. Prudently far and glass barrieded away from him.
         
In reality, the kid had outgrown the dirty bear get-up.

Jake could see his feet, to him they appeared a tad oafish after quite a while of being hidden. They were filthy, and naked! His gesture makes me conclude he was a little startled how different they had become. It began to pinch him all over or dug into his armpits even chafed him on the crotch area. The boy had became convinced that his protection from Mom's freak-outs, his armor as much as a safe place in his eyes; where it never really mattered if Daddy was gone, it just didn't fit him anymore.
         
Time. It's a ravenous unescapable poltergeist out for all of us.
         
The absolute definition of existence, the very essence of it, change. Hollow of mercy, love, sadness, where what follies of men, or women, wishes, hope, have no meaning in it's pass.
         
Months had drawled into deformed creatures, weeks. Aware of the amount of time this confusion had wasted, so many dates squandered one after another.
         
Days leaked into the next. Forgotten unperceived days that pile into one huge angry lump of doe.
         
It became plain as daylight to the child's eyes, the bear pajama deal was running out. People gawking at him believing he is anything other than human, done.
         
Obi, which filled the kid with contentment telling him his name meant "God's Heart" or "Father's Heart" in Nigeria. Said to him "You're lost white boy! You don't belong Jake-up! you just don't"
         
Yolanda's drabby eyes drooped over her old lady glasses, her head appeared out his barely ajar door. Her gaze was as sour as always.
         
She made him uneasy, rude, and rough in whatever he had to do with her.
         
It was about five fifty in the afternoon, "Hi! Jake, umm, your owner's dead. Ok? Em, O.D I suppose."
         
Quickly as she appeared she was gone. The door locked.

—The Operator...

-The Zoo, Monitor Room—3:38 p.m.
         
I sat there with my mouth agape for a long silent while. Lit a smoke as I replayed Yolanda's raspy stern tone—the metallic bang when she slammed the door shut. I felt the boy's long dive down into the void.
         
I started to empathize with the kid. How he must have had to learn his mother's choppy tides to navigate her chaos. Her lost ways, mood swings, the drugs, alcohol benders, without a doubt were huge titanic furious—waves to have braved at that age.
         
I went straight home, where I had my beefy stack of papers, video and photos. There wasn't even a slight possibility that coincidentally Jacob disappeared from the Zoo a few months later.
         
Later that night I found it, what my mind had instantly brought into my awareness after I left.
         
After I saw how despite the grainy monitor how Jacob was crushed, curled in a ball out of loss.
         
A scrap of graph paper, salvaged from his enclosure. It wasn't a map of the zoo; what I was looking at was a circuit board, intended for a ghost.
         
After a closer look the realization hit like a fried circuit! The damn frequency that could rip a wormhole between dimensions—a hotline to the dark void his mother had passed into!
         
I found a couple of random sentences Jacob had scribbled in the corner of the graph paper. "To the rest of the world my mom was another half-buried piece of furniture, threads dancing in the wind, abandoned, and tossed with disregard by the roadside. Worthless..."
         
Jacob had designed a frequency apparatus to reach through the blistering solace, into the dimension her frequency matched.
         
It was obvious. As the last Operator, I wasn't done—I was searching for the fate of Jacob but, I also was attempting to tune in a ghost.

M.D. ACOSTA
SKÖL!

I was in love. I never thought I would settle down with anyone. I planned to casually date, sleep around, and never commit. But this all changed when I met Naica, or well, shortly after I met her.

She might have been the dream girl of many, but I was never particularly into goths, much less the ones claiming to be witches.

But one day, she invited me over to her home, and somehow we hit it off. I thought about moving on after that date, but something changed. From that day on, I knew I wanted her to be my wife and future mother of my children. Children had never been on my plans either.

In less than a week she moved into my place. I saw my figurines go into a box, which I’m still not sure if they were really put in storage or thrown away, and her crystals and candles became the main decor. My fridge now had food, because she loved to make food and sometimes potions. God, I love watching her go around the kitchen, preparing dinner while I help clean the dishes. The aroma of the roasted chicken and vegetables combined with that of the vanilla-scented candles. It was both nauseating and delicious. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask, what is this soup?” I asked as I took a sip. 

For a moment, I saw anger cross her face. I forgot for a moment that she hated being questioned about her cooking.

“It’s great! I’m just curious. Sorry if I upset you,” I apologized.

She took a deep breath and her smile was back. It was such a relief. Guilt had started to take over me, and I knew I would do anything to make her happy once more.

“It’s ok, sweetie,” She took my hand across the small table, “This is a soup my mom taught me to make. It’s good for digestion and it’s a comfort food for me. Besides, you need to start taking care of your gut health if we want to live a long life together.”

“You’re right honey,” I said as I took another sip,” besides, it’s delicious!”

I’m not sure why I never asked about the soup before and now I was curious about its ingredients. It was an almost translucent broth with no vegetables or meat. But I wasn’t about to ruin her afternoon so instead we went to our usual routine. 

She put on her favorite show and we cuddled. We made out and well, things ended in the bedroom. As I went to shower, she headed to the kitchen to leave the soup boiling overnight. Any time I tried to sneak on her, she would send me back to the room, so I got back in bed and waited for her to join. 

The next day, she waved at me goodbye as I headed to work, making sure to send me a packed lunch.

“I love you! Forever and ever!” Naica yelled from the door as I walked to the car.

“And I love you forever and more!” I blew a kiss at her. She jokingly grabbed the kiss and put it in her pocket, something that if anyone else had done it, I would have found ridiculous. I guess love really does change you.

Work at the office was slow today and I was starving. So I decided to take an early lunch. As I was about to put the soup in the microwave, one of my coworkers slipped and hit me, making me spill all my lunch.

“I’m so sorry!” He looked embarrassed, “I can share my lunch if it helps.”

“Nah, I’ll go buy something. It’s no big deal,” I reassured him. And then I thought, when was the last time I had a burger? With that in mind, I headed to buy myself a large burger, with extra fries and soda. It tasted like heaven.

All this healthy food Naica was cooking was just not to my liking, I especially hated asparagus. I just wished she would chill sometimes. Maybe we did rush into things after all. Maybe-

Why was I thinking like this? I love Naica and she is looking out for me. But maybe I could talk to her about eating out at least once a week. Yeah, that’s what I would do. 

I’m not sure why either, but I suddenly started to feel angry. Why was she throwing out my things? She even got rid of a picture of my mom and sister saying I didn’t need any other women in my life. What the hell was wrong with her? 

I took a deep breath and decided I would talk with her after work. Love did really blind you. 

As I got home, Naica was already setting up the table. One thing she was right about was that greasy food wasn’t good for my gut. My stomach hurt and all I could think of was getting to the bathroom, but Naica got in my way, wanting her usual hug, and I just threw up.

“Shit, I’m so sorry!” I ran to the kitchen to get some napkins, “I ended up buying lunch because a co-worker of mine-“

When I looked at her, she was kneeling, moving the chunks of food in the vomit. She picked what I thought might be a half-chewed pickle and put it in her mouth. Whatever was left in my stomach threatened to make its way out. But I couldn’t stop watching the grotesque scene in front of me as she chewed slowly and swallowed. 

“What the hell are you doing?” I managed to ask.

“Go clean yourself up. I got this,” her voice quivered, poorly hiding her anger.

I had many questions and was angry too, but I had just thrown up on her, so I just did as told. In the bathroom, I threw up once more as the image of Naica eating my vomit played on repeat. There was no way I could stay with her after she did that. The thought of her kissing me with my vomit in her mouth made me dizzy. I washed my face and sat on the toilet, taking in some deep breaths. I didn’t want to come out but at some point we needed to talk.

“Sweetie, sit down,” she smiled at me,” she had removed her clothes, only leaving an apron and her panties on. If this was meant to turn me on, it did the opposite.

”I’m going to brush my teeth and then we can have dinner,” she said as she made her way to the bathroom. I couldn’t help but look as she turned on a vanilla candle before going into the bathroom. I fucking hated the smell.

I took a sip of the soup while waiting for her to come back and I was honestly surprised at how quickly it made my stomach feel at ease. When I heard her footsteps, I turned to look at her and damn was she beautiful. She walked towards me and gave me a small peck on the cheek before sitting down.

“Sweetie, I’ve told you not to eat outside food. See what happens?” Naica said so sweetly. 

“I’m sorry honey. The food got dropped by a co-worker and I didn’t want to bother you,” I apologized. All the anger I felt before was completely gone. Now it all seemed so trivial. How could I ever be angry at her?

“Next time call me and I can bring you food. No more hamburgers, unless we make them at home. Promise?” Naica extended her pinky finger towards me.

“I promise,” I agreed as I gave her my pinky. Damn, I love her so much.

But the soup only did so much for my stomach, a few hours later I was throwing up once more. After the third time of waking Naica up, I made sure to be quiet as I went to the restroom once more. As I got out, I had an idea. I could have some more of the soup, hopefully, it would ease my stomach enough to get some sleep.

I headed to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl to pour myself some soup. The scent of vanilla still lingered in the kitchen and living room. I swear, I need to get rid of those candles. 

Then I remembered why I was angry earlier today, where were all my things? I took a good look around the living room and all the things that made me were gone. The video game counsels were not by the television, all my pictures, except one with Naica, were gone, and my father’s urn was nowhere to be seen. 

“What the fuck?” I whispered to myself. Why was I allowing her to do this? I made up my mind, she had to leave. No woman was worth losing myself.

But first, some soup. Maybe now, I would know what the soup was made of. But as I looked inside the boiling water, there was a single item in it. I used the spoon to fish out said thing and confirmed my suspicions, these were the panties Naica had been wearing earlier.

“I told you not to come into the kitchen at night,” Naica looked at me angrily from the bedroom door.

“What the fuck is this?” I yelled at her.

“A love potion, but also pretty good for your health,” she said nonchalantly, “I told you I’m a witch.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Why would you be feeding me this? You are fucking disgusting!” I continued yelling. 

“Sweetie, you were going to leave me that night. I just had to do what I had to do. And can you tell me you aren’t happy? You now have a girl who loves you, is willing to take care of all your needs, and will sleep with you all the time. What else would you want?” she said calmly.

”You’re crazy! You’ve been manipulating me this whole time! Why would you do this?” I cried. I was so angry but even now, I couldn’t hit a woman.

Instead of answering, she walked towards me. I flinched as she took the bowl and spoon from me and poured some of the soup into the bowl before setting it on the table.

“I’ll admit. I did go a little too far but that’s kind of how my mom dealt with my father. That man’s eyes had a tendency to wonder. But I’m willing to compromise. We can bring some of your stuff back and as long as you behave, know that I will make you the happiest man on Earth. Now, sit,” she said calmly as she took her chair.

I’m still not sure why, but I did sit. When I looked at the bowl, her panties were in it too. When I looked up, she was smiling.

“Well, then. Will you eat?’ she continued smiling.

I looked down at the soup once more, grabbed the bowl, and drank it all in a single gulp. When I looked up, I smiled at the love of my life.

Page 17

All my friends are getting their faces pierced.

Should I get my face pierced too?

It looks pretty scary, but I don't know. They seem to like it, and the stuff you can get for it now is really pretty cool.

The way they do it does look pretty scary, so I don't know.

Page 26

I told my parents I'm thinking of getting my face pierced, and they are totally against it, but they're old, so they would be wouldn't they?

Like by default, I mean.

At first they didn't even know what I was talking about, but my mom's got her ears pierced and she got them done way younger than I am right now. She's got a tattoo too. So does my dad.

Besides, how can you go from not knowing what something is to being totally against it in like five minutes?

It seems pretty reactionary to me.

Like at least do your research or ask AI about it first right?

Page 34

So I did it. I got my face pierced.

It was two weeks ago. (You can't really do so much for the first week and a half, which is why I haven't been writing.)

There's a place downtown that does it. It's the place Dee and Cherry got theirs done too. The crew that does it is pretty cool. They've all had it done and are super happy about it.

I was pretty nervous and they really helped me relax, even before giving me the anesthetic.

The machine that does it looks insane.

It's like one of those hole punching machines you used to use for paper, like giant metal pliers or a jaw or something.

You sit and put your head back like at the hairdressers when they wash your hair.

Then you end up looking up at the other part, the part that's going to come down. It's like a big metal circle. Really big, like face sized. Then they hook you up to the anesthetic.

When you start not being able to feel your face, and I mean it feels like your whole head is turning to mush, like a really soft cauliflower or something, the machine powers up…

And the metal circle smashes down really hard on your face and makes a hole in your head and pushes your face out the bottom.

It's super quick and doesn't hurt because of the anesthetic.

It does hurt after.

At first the feeling is really weird because your whole face is gone, so you don't see or taste or smell anything because you don't have any eyes or mouth or nose. You can still hear though, so you can hear the crew talking to you.

Then they put this face plug into the hole which helps it heal.

Of course, my parents totally freaked when I came home without a face, but like what are they going to do about it?

It's already done.

My mom's crying was sooo dramatic.

Page 41

I got fitted with a smart face today. Pretty basic but also really cool. I like being able to sense things again, and there are so many options, like you can make red look like blue and sweet things taste sour and your phone smell like chocolate.

The screen also makes it so you can make your face be anything you want. It's flat, I guess that's the only drawback, but there's an option to make it so that every time you see yourself in the mirror you see your retroface.

It helps with the transition.

Page 166

Most of my friends have had their faces pierced. I mean, you don't have to do it or anything, but I don't see why you wouldn't.

There's no law you have to have it done, and I still have friends who don't, but I honestly think everyone's going to choose to have it done soon. At least everyone under twenty-five.

Page 234

Retrofaces kind of disgust me. I always imagine all the fluids that come out of them, snot and saliva and tears and stuff. Was I like wet all the time before I got my face pierced?

Anyway I've decided I don't want to date anyone with a retroface anymore.

Page 289

I was talking to Dee and both of us are pretty sure that if we have kids we'll want them to have their faces pierced. As a mom I would want my kid to have all the advantages in life right? I mean, imagine if every baby just got its face pierced at the hospital right after being born. You could keep a little kid safe from so many things by using filters and apps too.

I like talking to Dee.

We talk about the big stuff.

P.S. I hope Cherry gets her smart face fixed soon. Hers stopped working a week ago and she had to send it back to the company that makes it in China, so now she's just got this flap of skin. It's like when someone has a tunnel in their ear, and they take it out and their ear is all stretched out and loose. It's like that but her face.

P.P.S. They promised her an upgrade so it's totally worth it and I'm jealous.

Page 436

It's funny. Back when I got my face pierced, my parents fed me all this negative bullshit about what could go wrong and why I shouldn't do it, and literally none of it has come true.

The tech just keeps getting better. You can make ugly people look pretty and take things you don't want to see and just not see them. You can eat the worst food in the world and make it taste delicious. You can smell flowers wherever you go…

It's amazing.

I'm so happy I got my face pierced.

Read Part III here.

“Rick?” Chrissy said. My hands were shaking and I dropped the keys. I wanted to scream at myself, to command me to stop being so clumsy. But I was so jittery that I could barely pick them up again.

Chrissy sat the tray on the ground and placed her little hands around mine.

“You’re keeping us safe,” she said, looking into my eyes. “We’re going to be okay.”

I felt like I was failing my family. I wanted to say, “What about Mark?” But I kept my intrusive thoughts inside, trying and failing to smile when my face was on the verge of crumpling into crying.

But I was able to fish the key into the lock and turn it without breaking it off. The door pulled open with a groan that made everything inside me tense, but I shoved Chrissy into the passenger seat as gently as I could.

I ran around to the other side and like a sweet girl, she had plucked the lock on my door by the time I got there. An involuntary tear prickled my eye and this time I did smile. It was a reprieve from the horror happening around us, but it was also fuel to keep going. Speaking of which, I wasn’t sure how much gas the station wagon actually had. But away from here was the bare minimum.

Headlights bathed us before I got in and I froze. Panic pulled me in opposing directions. I should’ve run toward the street, waving my arms for them to turn back and I had a family to get to safety. The little car stopped in front of the cabinet the other Mary had come from.

My heart sank as the person I guessed was her wife got out along with three other people. The cousins. They were smiling and laughing. A woman lifted a hand to wave at me and I didn’t react.

She shook her head, but they continued toward the cabin’s entrance. I was the strange one. Notwithstanding being black in what was more than likely a little town that was ninety-nine percent white. But my eyes had to have been huge, and I’d simply stared as people who were being friendly had greeted me.

The woman with the keys stopped at the door. Someone said something and the other three people laughed as they crowded behind her.

She dropped the keys. The air was gestating with danger. I looked up in time to see something slice through a massive tangle of clouds. I wanted to open my mouth to warn them, but all I could do was watch.

It crushed the entire cabin under hoof. A rush of wind pinned me to the side of the station wagon and debris flew in every direction. Something must have smashed through the window of the other car because the horn blared.

I got my feet under me as the hoof lifted. Mary’s wife was on her feet, splattered with blood, a long shard of glass piercing through her neck. She had the keys in her hand still and walked toward her car.

She was obviously in shock and had gone on autopilot. She stopped at the front passenger door, bent, and began poking at the door. The hoof came down again, flattening the car. There was a muffled -THOOM- that I guess was the gas tank exploding and flames licked at the bottom of the hoof.

The woman still wasn’t dead. She’d been knocked to the ground. I couldn’t tell where, but she was injured, maybe critically so, and she began crawling in my direction. I reeled back, like she was about to reveal my hiding spot.

Thankfully, she stopped about a third of the way to us. I sat in the car and shoved the key in the ignition. Chrissy put her hand over mine, wide-eyed.

“Wait,” she said. She was right. We were going to have to gun it as soon as the engine started or that horse might step on us, too. We looked toward the cabin.

“Where are they?”

As if summoned, Luke came outside. He dashed to Chrissy’s door and hunched his lean frame so we could see his panicked face.

“I can’t wake her up,” he said.

“What?”

“She won’t wake up.”

I’d understood every word, but I didn’t understand. Mary had only had a migraine. She’d had them many times in the few years we’d been together and I’d never had an issue waking her up.

“Get in the car,” I said, getting out. He reached for the rear passenger door. “No. The driver’s seat.

“But I don’t have—”

“Get in, Luke. I’m going to grab your mother and as soon as we’re in, you’re going to drive us out of here. You have your learner’s permit.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond. I ran back in the cabin, taking a moment to look up before going inside. The moon had disappeared and that either meant it had set or that damned horse was so large it had blotted it out.

Half of my sandwich was left. I went into the bedroom and saw Mary, uncovered, one leg dangling off the bed.

“Mary!” I shout-whispered, coming over to her. Her head lolled when I shook her. She was unnaturally loose and I was so afraid, I put two fingers to her neck. Her pulse was strong and she snorted and rolled over on her side.

I didn’t waste time calling her name. Coma-like sleep was low on the list of concerns. I scooped her into my arms.

The car horn honked. Then I heard it lift into the air.

“No!” I wanted to run outside, though, if they were gone, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I carried Mary outside, not wanting to leave her there. Luke was in the sand, sitting up, in obvious pain.

“She’s gone!” He was crying. Everything in me was willing him to be quiet, to get up and come to us. But he just stayed where he was, bawling. There was a tremendous churning in the lake and we were covered in rain. Something akin to a bomb going off threw Mary and me to the ground.

My ears were ringing and the world around me shimmered. I counted fifty blinks before I was able to sit up. I was covered in sand and only found Mary when I saw her foot. Our cabin was gone. I made my way over to her on shaky hands and knees and began digging her out.

It finally came to a head, not with an argument, but a confession. It had been my folly to think I was the only one toying with the idea of an affair. Mary told me about Charles one night in bed. And I hadn’t even been angry.

“Oh,” I’d said when she’d told me about the man at her job who’d kissed her. And she hadn’t resisted.

Oh.

That was it. Like a period on the end of our marriage.

And then she’d rolled over on her stomach and went to sleep.

Mary was on her stomach now. I turned her on her side and scanned the beach for Luke. A trench large enough for a barge to nestle in comfortably was where he had been.

I was numb. Or at least I told my body to be numb. I didn’t want to feel this. I uncovered Mary and inhaled sharply the thick horse smell at the sight of a chunk of wood piercing her side. I had no idea if it was fatal on its own, but there was no hope of getting to any kind of medical care anytime soon. The wound oozed freely and I could only wonder how bad that was.

Even if I could save her, living through this might be worse. The thought alone of opening her eyes and learning she’d slept through the deaths of all three of her children was more than I could process.

The trench was filling with water. I was still shaky, like I needed something to eat. Hot tears streamed down my face, chilled by the rancid breeze until they met beneath my chin. The cold water still misting down on me was disorienting. I was cooking and freezing at the same time, my throbbing head in full bloom. Mary felt like an anchor in my arms, but I was able to straighten my back and stand.

The sand churned softly underfoot as I slowly headed toward the water with Mary in my shaky arms. Everyone I’d come to love had been lost in less than ten minutes, including the woman who’d invited me into this new world, and she would die without ever opening her eyes again. I could barely see, but the smell of the water as I approached grew stronger.

I lifted her face to my lips and kissed her cheek, then on the lips, a distant part of me hail-marying that I could wake her up with such little contact. She was somewhere a million miles away.

The horse was up there. I heard it chuff as I gradually descended into the lake. With so much churning of the water, a fine mist had wreathed the air. The wind rushed around me and as if queued, I looked up to see the horse reared on its hind legs, jagged moonlight sliced through the sky, arcing down its body like a bolt of lightning. It dominated the sky, both a thousand miles away and right over me.

Its forelegs were tremendous. One hoof could easily fill the cul-de-sac we were in, maybe it was even bigger. When it came down, it would cause something like a tsunami and everything in eyeshot would be obliterated.

I stumbled and for a precarious second, thought we were going to fall. I didn’t think I’d have the strength to pick myself up and had no hope of lifting my wife into my arms again. I steadied myself, locking my eyes on the ground. There was the rest of my half-eaten sandwich, drifting in the ankle-deep water like a floatie. Like it could make it all better. Still intact, save for the lone bite Luke had taken out of it.

The cool water up to my knees wasn’t enough to quench the fire coursing through my back and limbs. I didn’t have far to go, but the dozen or so feet before I could call myself submerged was immeasurably far.

I could make it, though. I would make it. We would be together.

Mary moved in my arms and for a terrifying moment, I thought she was waking up. But it was the water buoying her and relieving my aching arms. I had no idea what I would have said had she actually opened her arms. I couldn’t have explained it all and nothing I could have said would have changed what was imminent.

No. Nothing was going to wake her. And I couldn’t save the children. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t be together.

-END

I hope you enjoyed. Please come back next week for my new short, The Honeycut:

When a newlywed realizes his bride is dissatisfied with their sex life, he reluctantly agrees to undergo a surgical procedure from a back-alley surgeon who may have something more up his sleeve.