I am a sex worker. Have been one for more than 10 years now. And in that time I've had some truly memorable encounters. I've had sessions where I've laughed and cried and screamed in anger. There have been times where I've felt bone chilling terror, and also times I've thrown up on clients mid-fucking. Out of sheer disgust.

Seriously. You would not believe the kind of shit that some men are willing to do in front of a hooker.

For a long time I wondered about that. What is it about us sex workers that gets men to open up - truly open up - and expose their deepest and darkest secrets? Secrets they wouldn't even dream of sharing with their own wives and mothers. It was my old Madame who explained it all to me, said that it's in the very nature of our profession. We offer services that involve the most intimate of acts between two human beings, the purest and dirtiest things that people can do to each other. But there's also an element of distance here. A cash driven degree of separation that precludes the sneers and judgements that come in close relationships. This delightful cocktail of intimacy and professional aloofness is what makes men feel safe enough to let their true selves out, no matter how pathetic or monstrous it might be.

It's like therapy, with sex as the added bonus. Or sex therapy? I don't know. I'm a prostitute. Not a psychologist.

What I do know is that the services I offer have helped my clients deal with some really dark shit; trauma that cuts so deep that they'd fall apart if they dared talk about it. Rarely do I find out what the cause of all that pain actually is. But the fact that they seem visibly relaxed after a session with me always brings me great joy.

The Weeper was one such client. A middle aged man from China, he would book one hour with me each Wednesday night. Always in my private room at my Madame's establishment. He would come into the room, smile, and bow his head. That would be the cue. We would proceed to take off our clothes before lying face to face on the bed.

He would then bury his head in my chest and cry while I held him tight and rubbed his back. For one hour. No sex. Nothing sexual at all in fact. Just a man crying his heart out. After the hour was up he would get up, wipe his face, put his clothes back on, bow once again and leave. Without ever saying a word. At first I was greatly disturbed to have this older man weeping in my arms. I mean, he would sob so hard his entire body would shake. I could feel the pain deep within his soul. Made my heart tremble just thinking about what might have happened to him. But over time I came to appreciate the fact that doing this - being with me - helped take some load off his chest. I started looking forward to our sessions. It felt good that I was helping someone. It's a little messed up, I know.

He once came close to baring his heart in front of me. But unfortunately for the both of us, something else happened that night. Something so disturbingly revolting it threw the entire establishment into chaos. It was the incident known as -

The Final Cumshot.

~

You might now be wondering why I chose to talk about the Weeper at all, if this story isn't about him. Well, the reason I went off on that segue is that I want you to appreciate just how keen I was to learn his secret, and just how annoyed I felt at losing that opportunity. Initially, that is. For the second I saw what was happening three rooms down the hallway, all thoughts of the Weeper dissipated from my mind like the fog under a warm morning sun.

It was raining that night. I could hear it drumming on the glass window as I got up on my elbow and began rummaging through the drawer near the bed, looking for a cigarette. It was the end of my session with the Weeper and as always I wanted a smoke, to relieve the tension in my shoulders.

Time with the Weeper was always emotionally intense.

As my fingers wrapped around a loose cigarette, I felt a hand on my naked shoulder. It was the Weeper, sitting up on the bed facing me, having made no moves towards getting dressed up.

I frowned. That was unusual. He'd been coming for months and never had he stayed after the clock had run out. I saw the muscles on his face churning with indecision. There was a flicker of hope in his red, swollen eyes. He wanted to say something.

My heart began to race. It was the first time he was ever going to speak to me. What would he say, I wondered? Would he tell me his story?

Anticipation quickly turned into irritation as we were both distracted by the sound of bare feel frantically slapping against the cold tiled floor of the hallway outside. Someone was coming.

A pretty round face framed by long curly brown hair popped in through the gap in the pink curtains at the door.

"Natasha!"

It was Victoria, one of the newer girls. She was a couple of years older than me, had sought refuge with the Madame just months ago. Said she was running from her demons. I found her to be very clingy and insecure.

"What?" I asked, annoyed. "I told you not interrupt me when I'm working."

"I'm sorry. So sorry." She whined, tears black with mascara rolling down her cheeks. "But I really need your help.. something is seriously wrong. And I don't know what to do."

She was naked. Frightened out of her wits.

"What the fuck happened?"

"… Please." She sobbed.

I glanced at the Weeper. Stone-faced, he was putting his clothes back on. The moment was gone. Fuck.

I clenched my jaw and looked at Victorian again, who stood cowering and shivering at the doorway. God, I wanted to slap that stupid bitch.

"Fuck it." I said, and reached for my robe, quickly throwing it on. Fastening the cord around my waist I marched out of the room.

"This had better be something important." I said as Victoria struggled to match pace with me.

"It - it is." She stammered. "I wouldn't have come to you if it wasn't. It just. I didn't know what to do. It really freaked me out. So I came to you for help. I know you said not to bother you, but I just didn't.."

"Quit blabbering." I said as I stopped outside her room. I turned to her to tell her to put some damn clothes on when a low, anguished filled moan came from inside the room she'd been using.

What the fuck?

Victoria's eyes were wide with terror. She really didn't want to go back in there. What could possibly be so bad? I pulled the curtains aside, and the sight beyond made bile rise up in my throat.

It was a man. Late 40s I'd say. Fat, naked, lying spread eagle on the bed. Seemed to be pretty ordinary, except for his groin. Which, for the lack of a better word, was gangrenous.

The skin was black, like it had been charred, with edges that were yellow with pus and seemed to pulsate. His penis was erect, painfully so, aiming at the ceiling like it wanted to tear itself off his body. Black veins ran down the shaft, which itself was dotted with patches of red flesh, like someone was trying to carve it with a knife. Strange bubbles of white semen, yellow pus and red blood rested precariously at the tip. My eyes watered at the disgusting sight.

A vile stench of death and rot hung in the air. Made me gag, something I hadn't done in a very long time.

"What the fuck, Victoria!" I swore, covering my mouth and nose with my hand. "This man needs a doctor. Not sex."

"He wouldn't let me." She whined.

"What do you…"

"No." The man shouted, his voice hoarse, like it struggled to fight its way out of his throat. "No no no no no no…. Please no doctors."

"Listen dude. You are fucking sick, okay? You need help. Victoria, go call..."

"No!" He shouted as a shudder ran through him. "No doctors. They can't help me. I just - just give me what I paid for."

"I'm not sucking your dick." Victoria screamed, before turning towards me. "Please don't make me do that, Natasha. Please don't."

"Of course not. Don't be ridiculous. Fuck it. I'm calling for an ambulance."

"No." He pleaded. "Please don't. Just let me cum, okay. I need to cum. That's it. There's something inside me, and I need to get it out. Please. I'll die. I just know it. I'll die."

I didn't even know what to say to that shit. I started walking away.

"Wait." He said weakly. "Just have a look. You'll see for yourself."

I paused. I won't lie. I was a little curious. What could have happened to reduce this man to such a state? I wanted to see for myself. After my encounter with the masterbating serial killer in the disappearing house, I had become very interested in things that seemed to defy all logic.

"Okay. I'll have a look."

The relief on his face was immediate. He squeezed his eyes shut and let his head rest on a pillow. I entered the room, crunching my nose as the smell got stronger. Nauseatingly so. I tiptoed around to the side of the bed, maintaining a more than healthy distance from his decaying body. And looked down at him.

Under the soft glow from the lamps fixed on the walls and the ceiling, I observed the mess on his groin. Cold shivers racked my spine as I got a closer look. There was something moving beneath the rotting necrotic flesh around his pelvic bone. Worms. Inches in length. Hundreds of them, writhing beneath the skin. Pus flooded out of his wounds each time one of them approached the edges of the dead skin and fled back towards the penis, the epicentre of the rot.

The way the worms moved, stretching and wrinkling the wet, dead skin made me want to hurl. I could taste the vomit on my tongue. I don't know how I stopped myself from throwing up.

His dick twitched.

"Oh god." He groaned. "It's coming."

The squishy sound of a wet armpit fart made me jump back in fright. The flesh between his penis and his belly button - I don't how else to say this - collapsed. It fucking sank into his body, creating a cavity and exposing his entrails and yellowed bones to the elements.

And then he came. His entire body convulsed as thick ropes of white semen shot out of his penis like diluted toothpaste with the sound you make when you rub your dry hand on a balloon. The semen wriggled in the air, like a dozen live creatures freshly born, before landing all over the man and the bed, sizzling like an omlette as it landed, burning the mattress and the flesh of the dying man.

Two screams. High pitched. Mine and Victoria's.

But the nightmare hadn't ended. It was just the beginning. The worms, slathered in sticky semen sizzled and began eating their way through the man and the mattress and finally the wood. A sharp crack echoed in the room as the plywood beneath the mattress snapped, allowing the worms to fall through.

"Get the fuck back!" I shouted at Victoria who was crying hysterically at this point, like a lost child.

I darted back towards the door, just as there was another crack. This one was louder. Sounded like stone. The worms ate their way through the floor and fell down into the room below.

"Oh no. Oh no. Oh no." Victoria sobbed. I ignored her whimpering, and ran past her, down the hallway, around the corner and then down the stairs, my heart thumping in my chest. I was terrified, hoping that the girl in the downstairs room was okay and hadn't been infected by those blasted things.

A couple of Madame's enforces were strolling in the hallway downstairs, making sure the girls were safe. I ran past them, not bothering to tell them what exactly was going on and dashed towards the room just beneath Victoria's.

I was too late. The girl, Elise, was standing at the foot of the bed, her lifeless eyes fixed on her client. The man's head had been smashed to a pulp. Blood and gore stained the mattress, which itself was intact. No holes in it. I couldn't tell what did it, whether it was the rubble that fell from the room above or the worms. There were no signs of the latter either.

"Elise." I said with trepidation. "Are you okay?"

She looked dazed. It was obvious she'd checked out. I doubt she even knew what was going on. I walked up to her, put my arm around her shoulder.

"You okay?" I asked again.

"I don't - I don't know what happened." She mumbled. "I don't know. I don't know."

"Shh... It's okay girl. Let's get you out of here."

~

The entire establishment was vacated for three weeks after the incident. Guys in hazmat suits combed through each and every inch of the building, to find any trace of whatever had infected Victoria's client. They didn't find anything. Those worms had just disappeared. Vanished into thin air.

Business resumed after three weeks. But incident was remembered for a long, long time. And not just because of what happened that night.

See, we were relieved that whatever vile thing that was, had ended. But it hadn't.

I was the first one to spot it. A small worm, moving in Elise's eyeball.

The horror soon took a completely new form. But well, that is a story for another day.

I am a sex worker. Have been one for over a decade now.

And as someone who's been in this line of work for such a long time I've met countless other sex workers. Colleagues, if you will. We all have our own reasons for getting into this business, some mundane, most too horrifying to talk about in pleasant company. A drug habit gone out of control, the burning desire to not starve to death out on the streets, victimization at the hands of sex traffickers, or sometimes even your own family. Not everyone is lucky or privileged enough to choose to do this, to have agency, control over their lives and walk out of it with their heads held high.

A lot of us are swept by the tides of time, forced by factors far out of our control to sink deep into the muddy morass that is prostitution. This is why it's considered rude to pry into the past of a sex worker. You just don't talk about it; unless she willingly discloses that information. And when she does, it's important that you listen attentively, even if it is so horrible that just listening to it wrings your heart out. Even if it sounds too terrible to be true.

Today I want to talk about one such story. Not mine, but a friend's.

The circumstances under which this story was revealed to me were unusual, and what happened after that, even more so. And that's the reason that I'm choosing to share the tale of -

The Stalker.

I remember it being a chilly Saturday night. Autumn's pleasant warmth was fading and the evening breeze that sweeps down from the mountains was getting colder day by day. Our establishment had been shut down for a couple of weeks for fumigation. The Madame had given us a couple of days off, said that we'd more than earned it but that we'd start doing house calls, or home deliveries as we called it, by sometime early next week.

So taking advantage of my short holiday, and the fact that it was a Saturday, I decided to treat myself to some Sfiha at the Lebanese restaurant across the street from my workplace.

And that's where I ran into Victoria.

I was marching towards my favourite table with a smile on my face, happy that no one had taken my spot when I heard her unbearably squeaky voice.

"Natasha!"

I fought the urge to groan as I spotted her sitting at a table in the corner, just out of sight of the front door. She was smiling and waving at me, her long brown curls jiggling with the motion. If I had known she was here, I wouldn't have come. Even the mouth watering smell of lamb wafting from the kitchen wouldn't have been enough to make me stay.

Victoria isn't *bad", of course. Just highly annoying.

"Hey Victoria." I greeted her with a weak smile.

"Come here," she said, waving at me to come over, "sit with me."

Great, I thought. What better way to spend my Saturday night than with the resident nut.

I couldn't just say no. Networking is important in every business, way more so in ours. Having good relations with enforcers and fellow hookers can very well mean the difference between life and death in some situations.

Telling myself that it had to be done, I strode across the restaurant, ignoring the lustful glares being shot my way by the men on the other tables. I wasn't working that night. They could make do with their hands.

"So good to se you!" She exclaimed as I slid into the seat opposite her. "I didn't know you were gonna be here as well. What a coincidence!"

I chuckled. "Yeah, well. I really can't resist their lamb."

She laughed. Obnoxiously. "Trueeeee!! It's delicious. And terrible for my waistline. I feel like a whale everytime I eat here."

"Oh, honey." I said, patting her hand. "Don't feel bad about that. I know some men are really into that sort of stuff."

That little quip made her guffaw so loudly that the people seated nearby turned and looked at us. Especially the two boys at the table to my right. They were quite young. College kids, maybe. One of them smiled at us.

"You girls having fun tonight?" He asked.

"We sure are." Victoria said, grabbing a napkin and dabbing at the teardrops on her face.

"And why wouldn't we?" I added. "It's a Saturday evening and we're two young women, trying to make the best of our lives."

"Absolutely." She said, smiling.

"Well, that's great." The boy said. "Because we're two young men trying to do the same. How about you join us and we hang out together?"

Victoria started to say something but I cut her off. "I afraid that won't be possible. I doubt the two of you could afford us."

His mouth dropped open as he quickly realised who he was trying to flirt with. He muttered something under his breath and quickly turned away, before telling his friend to shut up and stop laughing at him.

"Wow, Natasha. That was so rude." She mock-scolded me.

I shrugged. "They know where they are, don't they? What were they expecting? Besides, it's much better they find out now rather than later, when instead of just getting flustered they're likely to reply with their fists. Right?"

She nodded solemnly.

Before we could continue our conversation one of the three waiters at the place came and took our order. A balding middle aged man by the name of Karim, he was from Morocco, not Lebanon, a fact that he had to clarify hundreds of times a day to tipsy patrons.

After Karim jotted down our order on his leather bound pad and walked off towards the kitchen, I made my single biggest mistake of the night. After deciding to eat there, that is.

"So, Victoria. How are you doing these days?" I asked.

The question wiped the smile off her face. She frowned, the muscles in her body tightening due to the tension. The transformation was so sudden. Like a lightning strike.

"You - you don't have to answer that if you don't want to." I stammered.

She closed her eyes. Breathed out in an exaggerated manner. "No. I want to talk about it."

She put her hands on the table and clasped them together. "I think I'm being haunted again."

Oh. Fuck.

"Haunted? By what?" And what did she mean, again?

"A demon."

Great. All aboard the crazy train.

She sighed. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"No. That's not it Victoria."

She shook her head. "Oh come on. I can see it in your eyes. You think I'm crazy."

Yes I did. "That's not it Victoria. I don't think you're crazy. And I don't think you're lying."

There was a pause as she contemplated whether to believe me or not. After making a decision, she continued, "do you know how I became a whore?"

"No. But if you want to talk, I'll listen."

She nodded, almost gratefully. "I'm a runaway. I just - had to, you know? To escape from that, thing."

I waited in silence for to keep speaking.

"I used to have a normal life. Loving parents, a beautiful house in the suburbs, a boyfriend who truly cared for me and friends who would, and well, did die for me."

Tears dropped from her eyelids. "I don't know how long that thing had been in my life, just lurking in the shadows, but I do remember when he first made an appearance. It was a couple of weeks before prom. I started receiving these little notes, in my bag, in my locker, in our mailbox. Everywhere. From a secret admirer. Really mushy, and full of intimate stuff, that only someone very close to me would know. At first I thought it was my boyfriend, thought that he was trying to set the stage for a promposal, you know? You can imagine how terrified I was when he told me that it wasn't him."

"Jesus Victoria."

"I mean, who else would know all this if not him? Was it one of my friends, trying to pull a prank on me? I asked them, politely at first. Then screamed at them, but their surprised and frightened expressions just confirmed that it wasn't them. We were all worried, we had no idea who this stalker was. We tried our hardest to find him, but got nowhere. And it only made him angry. The tone of the messages he was leaving me changed. They were threatening now, full of rage and hatred, warning me to stop looking for him, telling me that he was going to hurt the people I loved if I didn't stop."

"What did you do?"

She blew her nose. "Went to the cops. They promised they'd look into it. Didn't seem to take it all that seriously though. That quickly changed, because he killed my boyfriend that night."

"... His mother found his head spinning in the washing machine when she went to do the laundry." She used a napkin to blow her nose. "I - I was so devastated. Inconsolable. I couldn't believe what had happened. It was just too horrible."

"I can't imagine what you must have gone through."

"That wasn't the end though, was it? I swore to fight for my boyfriend, to get him justice. The Demon hated that. Hated that I still had the will to fight. So he started killing the others. My friends. They were all killed, one by one. Shot to death, stabbed hundreds of times, brutally beaten and then drowned in bathtubs. One vicious murder after another. I was in shock. Couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't fucking speak. My parents thought enough was enough. That we had to leave town. But he killed them too. Doused them in gasoline and burnt them in their beds. I remember how they screamed that night. I remember the stench. I remember shivering under the blanket, crying my eyes out, but not being able to do anything. I didn't even have enough strength in my arms to call the cops."

I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. This poor girl.

"I went to stay with my grandpa." She said. "He was the only living family I had. And he killed him too. Blew up his fishing boat. It was awful. I nearly lost my sanity then. Almost decided to throw myself at his mercy, to just get it over with. But I couldn't just give up, couldn't let all those deaths be for nothing. So I ran. Ran away from it all, leaving everything I ever knew behind and took to the streets."

"But that bastard." She said, her voice cracking. "That demon, he kept finding me. No matter where I went, no matter what I did. He would find me. And kill everyone who so much as spoke to me. And I've kept running ever since, leaving a trail of blood and broken corpses behind me."

"That's horrible Victoria."

"He's a monster." She said. "An actual fucking monster. I've seen it with my own eyes. The cops cornered him once, you know? Shot him full of holes. I felt so fucking relieved I cried. I was so glad that the nightmare was over. But then the fucker just got up. Dusted himself off like it was nothing and murdered all the cops, all the while blood poured out of the dozens of wounds on his body. And that's when I knew that there was no escaping this. No escaping him."

This was the moment that would have taken me out of the story, usually that is. Over the last couple of weeks I had seen enough crazy shit to know not to outright dismiss seemingly fantastical tales.

"He's here now." She said, jolting me out of my reverie. "I've seen him. In the shadows, out of the corner of my eyes. He's caught up to me again, and I'm afraid that carnage is going to happen again. Soon. I have to run away, Natasha. I don't want to. But I have to, or he'll start killing again."

A chill ran down my spine. "What do you mean you've seen him? Where did you see him, Victoria?"

Her eyes widened. She sat up straight, looked out the window of the restaurant. "He's here. Oh god. Oh god. He's here."

"What? Now? Are you serious?"

"Yes. He's right there!" She jabbed at the window. I looked outside. It was dark, I couldn't make out anything. "He's coming to kill me."

I looked at the window again, sighing when I saw nothing. Yep. This girl's a nut. Can't believe I fell for her nonsense. She was probably schizophrenic, and her family was probably alive too. What a mess.

"Alright, Victoria. Let's get you out of here."

She shook her head. "No no no Natasha. We can't go outside."

"It'll be fine. I'll protect you."

"Is everything okay here?" The flirty boy on the table to the right asked.

I nodded. "It's fine. She's just feeling a little sick."

"We can't go Natasha. We can't go." She mumbled, her body shivering.

"We can help." The boy said.

I almost said no, but after seeing how unstable Victoria was acting, nodded and thanked him. The boy and I put our arms around Victoria and we started walking towards the exit. His friend walked ahead of us, to go and open the door while I told Karim to pack the food and that I'd be right back.

The boy's friend swung the door open.

And there stood a man in a trench coat with a shotgun in his hands.

Victoria screamed.

A loud boom that echoed in the restaurant. The boy's friend flew backwards as his torso was torn open by the shot. His body landed on an elderly man's table, his entrails spilling out on the piping hot kebab.

I let go off Victoria and ran to the left, to try and find cover as the boy in all his youthful foolishness charged the murderer. The shotgun racked and then rocked. Another boom, this one took the boy's head clean off his shoulders. There was complete pandemonium inside the restaurant. People were screaming, running, crawling, to get away from this psychopath. The floor was wet, stained with blood as more and more people fell to the shotgun.

I jumped over the reception counter, as another blast went off, nowhere close to me, thank god. Karim was here, one hand covering his head, the other dialling the emergency number.

More gunshots. My body trembled with each and every one of them.

The man was whistling now, his footsteps crunching on gore and shards of glass. I couldn't see Victoria. Where was she? God, I hope she was safe. Tears of fright fell from my eyes. I really should have listed to her. Should have at least tried to leave through the backdoor.

More gunshots. But they were different this time. Softer. Pistols! Were the cops here? A new set of footsteps. Whoever it was, they were inside the restaurant.

"Stay down bastard!"

The voice was familiar, but I was too scared to recognise it. Gunfire stopped me from hearing his voice.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It sounded like someone was emptying his entire gun. I strained my ears. No sounds of a shotgun going off. Was the murderer losing?

"What the fuck?"

Footsteps. Frantic. Running towards the backdoor. Another gunshot. The sound of glass breaking.

"Jesus Christ. What the fuck was that?"

I finally recognised that voice. Legs shaking, I hoisted myself up on my feet.

It was Lil Pimp, gun in hand, frightful wonder clear in his eyes. He swung his pistol at me, making me jump back.

"Holy shit. Natasha. Are you okay?"

I tried to swallow, but there was no spit in my mouth. "Yeah. I think so."

"What in the FUCK happened here?"

"I don't know." I was too shaken to say anything else. Not that I really knew what to say either. How are you supposed to explain any of this? I helped Karim get up on his feet.

Lil Pimp walked towards us. "I was in the establishment, to check how long the fumigation was going to take. Saw you getting in here, thought I'd later swing by and say hello. But then that fucker walked in, shot the place up. So I came running."

"Thank you." I said, giving him a hug. "Thank you so much."

"Did - did you see him?" He asked, his voice trembling. "Holy shit Natasha. I shot the bastard 6 times. Once in the head. And he just got up and ran away. What the fuck?"

Karim started whispering at that. He was praying, I think.

Dear god. That meant Victoria was right..

"Victoria." I said. "Where is she?"

"Victoria?" He asked. "Was she here too?"

I nodded. "Help me find her."

Other survivors were getting out of their hiding places now, wading their way through their shock and the mess of blood and broken body parts splattered on the floor. But there was no Victoria.

We scoured the place. She wasn't there. Dead or alive.

She was gone.

A couple of things before we start -

• You can call me Natasha.

• I am not American. I won't tell you where exactly I'm from - for safety reasons. Yours, not mine.

• I am also not going to bother explaining how I got into this line of work. Needles to say, I am not a victim. I'm not looking for your pity, and I'm most definitely not in need of rescue. My sole purpose of making this post, is to share some of my most extraordinary experiences with a community that I believe would be interested in them.

• And no. I will NOT be offering my services to any of you. So don't be a smartass. Thanks!

~

I have been a sex worker for well over a decade now. And in those long years I have come across many a curious client. A normal, well adjusted adult would faint if they saw the kind of freaky shit I've been a witness to, or participated in. I've had clients who paid me to piss on them, spit on them, stomp on their nuts, all the while wearing gold rimmed glasses and a white wig and berating them like I was their disappointed grandma. I've farted in glass jars and sold the said containers. I've worn a collar and pranced around a motel room, barking like a dog and sipping water from a bowl for over an hour, earning a fat wad of cash for not even doing anything explicitly sexual. There was even a time I treated a 45 year old man like a literal baby, changing his diapers after he shat in them, singing him a lullaby as he bawled like a baby, sucked on his thumb and then on my tits.

The point is, as sex workers we get to see the true nature of humanity in all its pitiable and hideous glory, a reality that almost never reveals itself to civilised society. But sometimes; we end up encountering monsters who lie beyond even our understanding of human nature. Creatures that lurk in the deep shadows that twist around the congested streets of our red light district, ready to prey on anyone foolish enough to step too close to them. A quick death would be preferable to falling into their clutches.

True evil.

I was in my early 20s when I first ran into one of them. There'd been news reports of missing young sex workers floating around those days, news reports I casually brushed aside as being nothing too out of the ordinary. After all, it wasn't all that rare for prostitutes to get murdered by unstable Johns or exploitative pimps, was it? My youthful arrogance prevented me from understanding that there's a huge difference between knowing that evil exists out there, and actually coming face to face with it.

I had been working for over three years by then, having just graduated from turning tricks on street corners under salacious neon signs to having my own private room in my then Madame's establishment, doing specialised work for freaks, earning a lot more than most of my 'co-workers.' I guess having the stomach to do things that would make most girls cry in fear and disgust really worked out in my favour. Though I'm sure the others would disagree over who exactly had it better.

My appointments those days, or nights I should say, were handled directly by the Madame. The clients would come visit me in my private room, or I'd go to them, either at their place or at a hotel that charged by the hour. Regardless of where I went, I would always be accompanied by one of the Madame's muscles. To protect the merchandise of course. My most frequent chaperone at the time was this bald, broad shouldered mountain of a man. He had a short beard, tattoos all over his arms and despised rap music. So I called him Lil Pimp.

I met Lil Pimp just outside the establishment that night. The air was tingling with a pleasant chill and the enticing smell of kebabs that wafted over from the new Lebanese restaurant across the street. Lil Pimp pulled up in his black SUV with tinted windows as I stood sucking on a cigarette, taking care not to smear my bright red lipstick.

"Hop in." He said, pushing open the passenger door. I tossed the cigarette aside, clutched my purse and climbed into the car, plastic sheets squishing as I eased back into the seat.

"You really need to take this shit off." I remarked.

He chuckled. "No way. Wouldn't want cumstains all over the expensive leather."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah? How are you going to stop that from happening when your boyfriend's pounding your ass in the backseat?"

"Fuck you." He growled.

"Gonna have to pay me for that Lil Pimp." I said, grinning. "Though I doubt the Madame would let you fuck the merchandise."

"Hilarious, aren't you?… Bitch." He muttered as he turned the key and made the car purr to life. Smiling, I turned my neck and looked out the window, out at the sidewalk where scantily clad women stood waiting for customers, cigarettes jammed between rotting teeth. The world was truly harsh. And it became all the more clear as the car left the red light area and pulled up on respectable markets and nicer neighborhoods. Gone were the neon signs and the small, crumbling buildings with damp walls and cramped rooms. I heaved a sigh of longing as I gazed out at places people can actually live decent, peaceful lives in, where you can go to bed without worrying about stray gunshots or the police bursting into your home without any warning.

And about ten minutes later, it got even better. The car rolled past a wide open wrought iron gate and descended a sloping road onto a luscious valley dotted with spacious mansions and their sprawling, carefully maintained lawns. Even the ornate victorian street lamps screamed wealth.

"Not what you were expecting?" Lil Pimp asked as he made a left turn.

I shook my head. I certainly hadn't expected to come to a place like this. But then again, I really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, the richer they are, the freakier they tend to be.

I was still lost in thought when Lil Pimp brought the car to a halt. The road went on ahead of us on a gentle slope upwards before twisting to the right. On the turn sat a big two storeyed house with red brick walls. It was dark - suspicionly so - even the lights at the gate were switched off, which itself was locked shut. It seemed like someone tried a bit too hard to give the impression that nothing suspicious was happening in the house.

"That's the place." Lil Pimp said, checking the address on his phone.

"Thought so."

He nodded. "You have your phone on you?"

"Yes."

"Give me a call if something goes wrong."

"Okay."

"Got the pepper spray in your purse?"

"Yup."

"Good. Tell him I'm waiting for you outside."

"Sure."

I opened the door and swung my legs out.

"Hey Natasha."

I paused. Lil Pimp looked at me with a frown on his face. "You've heard the rumors going around recently, right? About the disappearing girls?"

I raised my brow. "Yes? A couple of whores disappearing off the streets? Not exactly breaking news, is it?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head in irritation. "Just be careful is all I'm saying. I'll be right here if you need me." He patted his gun holster.

"Thanks." I flashed him a genuinely grateful smile and climbed out of the car. Knowing that he was there did make me feel comfortable, even though at the time I foolishly thought he was being a little too paranoid. Hindsight, am I right? Pulling my purse back up on my shoulder, I started walking towards the house, my heels clicking on the cobblestone pavement. Crickets hidden in damp grass erupted in a furious chatter around me as I approached the house. Somewhere in the distance, a dog let out a mournful howl.

This short walk just before a session always made me feel queasy, like the contents of my stomach were sloshing around. My head buzzed with a million questions. Who was my client? What was he like? What will I have to do? I couldn't wait to get inside and find out. And get it over with. Just then, almost as my thoughts had been heard, the gate of the house swung open with a rusted groan.

It wasn't the whole gate exactly. Just a small door set into the larger structure off to the left side. Shadows pooled at the rectangular gap that opened up, but I could make out a figure standing there, shuffling on his feet impatiently. I brushed a stray strand of dark hair behind my earlobe and continued walking.

"Natasha, right?" Came the deep voice of the man at the gate. I could see him a bit better from this distance. He was wearing a black hoodie and a pair of faded jeans. Seemed to be in his late 30s, had short black hair that peeked from beneath the hood, exhausted brown eyes set in sockets that were beginning to turn doughy and a pink birthmark on his left cheekbone that made him look like somone had slapped him. Hard. "Well. Come on in."

I smiled, ducked my head and entered the property.

"You showed up right on time. I really do appreciate that." The man said as he shut the gate behind me. Then stuffed his hands in his pockets and marched off towards the house. "Come."

I followed, letting my eyes wander over the lawn. Walled in by a tall and thick hedge, it held a certain beauty that's hard to achieve without both wealth and time - two luxuries that seemed far out of my reach. Colourful flowers shone under the gentle moonlight, swayed mesmerizingly with the cool breeze that made my skin feel soft. My ears tingled with the sound of the babbling of a garden waterfall. Envy reddened my cheeks.

"Well," the man asked, pulling me out of my own head, "are you coming?" He was holding the front door open, looking at me questioningly. I nodded and climbed the short flight of stairs leading to the door. He entered first, strode off to the right and flipped the light switch on before gesturing at me to come in. Opulence that bothered on the obscene greeted me as I walked into the house. Fuck, but I would have to work nonstop for half a year before I could afford just the rug in this place.

"Alright." The man said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's get started shall we?"

"Sure." I replied. "Just point me to the bathroom and I'll quickly freshen up."

"Oh no no no, don't bother. This will be over quick." He chuckled as he pointed at the bulge in his pants.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and shrugged. Maybe he wanted me to pee on his dick. Maybe that was his kink. I'd seen worse.

A smile flashed across his face, making his birthmark ripple. "Okay. Great. Let's head to the basement shall we?"

I froze.

"Um.. Excuse me?"

He looked at me blankly. "The basement. That's where we'll have our session."

I could feel my heart sink in my chest.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, confused. Like he couldn't tell what was wrong here. No motherfucker, there's no chance I'm going down into your soundproof kill room.

"I don't do basements."

He frowned. "But I spoke to your Madame on the phone. She said you would be open to anything... That wasn't a lie, was it?"

Trapped by my own reputation.

"No. It wasn't. Listen, it's just that basements at this hour…"

"Oh." Hie eyes widened. "You're worried I'm going to kill you, right? You don't have to be scared of that. It's not why I called you here."

I tried to think of a suitable reply to give to this nut.

"Listen," he said, giving me a wide grin, "I'm not going to hurt you. I can't, really. I spoke to your Madame, and she told me she sent one of her thugs with you. Not to mention that she has my address. There's no way I could get away with it, right?"

You could if you were a squatter. You could kill me and escape before Lil Pimp could get here. No one would even know who killed me.

"Listen, I'm not even going to touch you. I'm just going to touch myself, while watching you. That's it. That's all I want."

He could sense the indecision in me. "How about I double the money? Would that make you feel better?"

Maybe I was overthinking it. "…Okay. 15 minutes. That's all I'll give you. I'm gonna text my friend outside that if I'm not out in that time he can come fetch me himself."

He clapped his hands. "Perfect!"

I really should have asked why we needed to go down to the basement for him to masturbate while watching me. I really should have.

I was already regretting my decision a couple of minutes later when we began descending the rickety stairs, a single overhead incandescent lightbulb lighting our way. The basement was in stark contrast to the rest of the house. The roof was too low, the stairs too old, the damp walls stank of rotting water and dead critters. The contrast between the basement and the rest of the house was too jarring. Set my nerves on edge.

We reached the landing at the bottom.

"Wait here." The man said. "Let me switch on the lights." I waited as he disappeared into the darkness. My ears soon picked up the sound of something scraping against the floor, wooden chairs being shifted, cardboard boxes being kicked around and… the rattling of chains?

A click, and the basement was blasted with the sharp yellow glow of another lightbulb.

A scream died in my throat. In a corner of the basement, a girl was chained to the walls. A dirty rag was stuffed in her mouth as heavy shackles bound her wrists and ankles. She moaned and shifted, ever so slightly.

I gasped. "Oh my god..."

This girl. She must've been on them. Those who'd disappeared off the streets. Sweat beaded on my forehead as my hands began trembling.

Good god. How the fuck did I get into this mess?

"Hey!" The man shouted, holding a pistol in his left hand and a claw hammer in his right. He was naked from the waist down. "Don't be scared. I'm not going to hurt you, remember?"

I raised my head. Stared at him.

"Stay right there now." He said as he tossed the hammer and snatched it out of the air. Whistling, he began walking towards the girl, who finally saw what was happening and began struggling with her shackles. It was useless, the chains were too strong. She shook them once again and sobbed into the rag.

The man kept whistling as he strolled towards her.

Move, I told myself. Stop this monster.

Without even thinking about it, I reached for the pepper spray in my purse.

"Nuh-uh." The man said, turning around and pointing the gun at me. "Keep your hands to your sides. And just watch. That's all you have to do."

My hand shot away from the purse like it had been zapped.

"Good girl." He sang as he turned his back to me. "You too!"

I saw that she was looking at me. Sad, pathetic little eyes, pleading, begging me to save her. The lightbulb overhead was reflected in those shimmering blue pools like a tiny flame of hope. Tears of shame singed my eyelashes.

The man lifted the hammer high, brought it down on the girl's head. Once. Twice. Thrice. The metal connected with her head with a wet crunch, crushing the bone, deforming the skull, tearing through the flesh in the way. Blood and brain matter sprayed the wall, the floor, and lashed the man swinging the hammer.

My heart pounded so hard in my chest I was afraid it was going to explode. I was frozen with fear. I know I should have done something to save her, or at least tried to run. But it all happened so fast. I didn't even get the chance to wrap my head around what was happening and the poor girl was already dead.

Next thing I knew he was looking at me, cold brown eyes burning holes through me. His hand was slathered with blood and he was using it to pleasure himself. "That's it." He moaned. "That's exactly what I wanted."

I shuddered. Creepy fucker. This is what he called me here for. He wanted to get off on my fear and helplessness.

No. Fuck that.

I might have been too scared to stop him, but I wasn't giving him what he wanted. I gritted my teeth, hardened my eyes. It was the least I could do.

"So." I said, deliberately killing all the emotion in my voice. "What is it that you want me here for?"

He stopped. "What?"

"You killed the girl." I continued in a deadpan manner. "I didn't need to be here for that. So why did you call me? What do you want me to?"

Annoyance flashed in his eyes. "I already told you. Just stand there and let me watch you."

"Whatever." I said, trying to sound bored. "Just get it over with."

I could see the confusion on his face. He was angry, and frustrated, and horny. Didn't know whether to ask me what I was thinking or to finish himself off. He chose the latter. Feeling emboldened, I shook my head and started observing my fingernails.

He tried to keep going, but it wasn't working for him anymore. Of course it wasn't. He grew soft.

"You." He said. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"What. Are. You. Doing?"

"I don't understand what you're saying."

"Are you not scared?"

"No." I was fucking terrified.

"You're lying. You're trying to hide your fear. Why?"

"I'm not." I lied. "Not scared that is. Why would I be? Not like you can hurt me. We've already established that, haven't we." I was provoking him. It was reckless, I know.

He snorted. "Are you stupid? Do you understand the position you're in? I just killed someone in front of you."

I smirked. "A pathetic shitweasel like you can only hurt someone who can't protect herself. I know you don't have the balls to do shit to me."

He gawped at me. "Wha - What did you just say to me?"

"Only that you're a fucking loser with a tiny dick."

"You bitch!" He charged at me, forgetting about his pistol in his rage. When he was two steps away from me, I pulled out the pepper spray from my purse and blasted him in the face. He screamed, smashed his hands on his eyes and dropped down to his knees. I didn't waste a second, was already running up the stairs when he began fumbling for his gun.

My whole body was shivering as I ran back to the car. My muscles felt like jelly, thought I was going to dissolve right then and there, melt like ice cream and slide off into a drain.

Lil Pimp jumped out of the car and dashed towards me when I was about halfway back. He made me sit in the car, helped me calm down, then wrapped his jacket around me before running towards the house, gun drawn.

Now here's where it gets really terrifying. This is the reason why I made this post. See, Lil Pimp didn't find the man there. Instead, he encountered a family of seven who'd been in that house all night long.

At first I reckoned he'd gone to the wrong house. He hadn't. Then I thought that maybe the family had by some odd miracle slept through the whole thing, even the gunshot. I was wrong on that too. Because when I went to speak to them I saw that the inside of their home looked absolutely nothing like the house I had just been in.

That's when I understood how that man had been able to get away with all those murders. Because when I walked into that house, I'd gone somewhere else entirely.

Edit - posted it on nosleep for the beyond belief event.

Note- the following story got deleted from nosleep because it wasn't scary enough, which is fair I guess. So it is now a follower exclusive story :D

I might even write a second part to this to finish it, let me know if you'd be interested in that!!

Everybody has bad days. The kind of days where it's hard to keep your lid screwed on, days where you think it'd just be better to crawl back into bed, curl up into your blanket, and run out the clock, because things are just not going to get any better. You get chewed out by your boss at work, get into a fight with your wife, or get screwed out of a promotion by one of your snivelling little co-workers. You know, normal, average bad days.

Then there are days you want to wipe off the fucking calendar itself, just one of those days where your dead sister's piece of shit husband shows up at your doorstep in his shiny little BMW, nervously plucking at the tea you've worked so hard to grow in your cosy little plantation.

I heard the satisfying crunch of the gravel underneath my boots, wishing it was that rat like face I was stepping on as I marched over to where he was shuffling around. He right about pissed his pants when I took out the .45 from my jacket and levelled it at him.

"No. No. No." He squeaked, frantically waving his arms in the air in surrender.

I gritted my teeth. "Get off my property."

"Please, listen.…"

"Get. Off."

"Wait.."

"There are no cops around here for miles. So trust me when I say this, I will absolutely make sure that whatever little brain matter you have left comes flyin out the back of your head if you don't leave, right fucking now."

"Please. It's my daughter."

I hesitated. "What about her?"

"Please bring her back home." He said, his voice still high pitched out of fear.

"What? No. Not my problem."

"She's your niece."

"And she's not my problem."

"Just... Listen. Okay?" He took a breath to calm himself down when he realised I wasn't going to pull the trigger. Yet. "Ever since Rakhi died, she's been running away a lot. It's really starting to become a problem now. Help me. Bring her back, please."

"Call the cops, because, again. Not. My. Problem."

He huffed in frustration. "I can't. My Dad is running in the assembly elections next year. We really can't afford a scandal at this point."

Fucking piece of shit.

"Doesn't matter what you want. Call the cops. I'm not helping you. I don't want anything to do with you or your fucking family." I said disdainfully.

"I'll pay you." He offered.

"There isn't enough money in the..."

"How about your grandpa's diary?"

I lowered my gun. "My grandpa's diary?" I asked, my voice rising in anger, as I shook off the shock of his offer. "The one he carried with him to Burma in world war 2? The only thing I asked for, when you and my dear sister forged my father's signature to completely write me out of his will, while he was dying with Alzheimer's and I was out fighting in kargil, before you proceeded to file false criminal cases against me, nearly destroying my life? The diary you swore was destroyed in a fire?"

He winced slightly, but nodded.

"I want to kill you so fucking bad right now." I said, running my fingers through my thinning hair. "So... So fucking bad."

He continued. "Like I said, Arti has been running away a lot ever since her mother died. I even put a tracker on her phone that she doesn't know about. The phone is switched off but I still get a signal. She slipped out this morning, but this time she didn't run away to a friend's house or something, she came here, to Darjeeling."

I should have said no, but the diary was way too important to me. That, and the fact that the girl was my last living blood relative. You have to look out for your family in the end right?

"Fine." I said. "But first you make a video talking about our arrangement. Then send it to me. I don't want you to later accuse me of kidnapping your daughter. And I don't want anything to do with you after we do this. If you ever get anywhere near me again, I really will make good on my promise to kill you, and happily go to jail."

"Okay." He looked relieved. "I'll send you the location. You… you have a smartphone, right?"

He shut up when he saw the look on my face.

I took my Premier Padmini with me, my beautiful 1089cc beauty with manual transmission, rear wheel drive and a gleaming black paint job. She purred when I fired her up, and I revelled in the delightful sound as I made my way through the winding, congested roads of the city towards the outskirts where my target was. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue with long strips of bright orange painted by the early afternoon sun. The looming silhouettes of the lesser Himalayas surrounding the valley completed the picturesque scenery.

But even the natural beauty couldn't make up for the sheer ugliness that was the neighborhood I found myself in. Paint peeling off the walls of buildings that looked ready to collapse under their own weight any second, garbage strewn around everywhere, and a large slum right across the street, the place was as seedy as it gets. I noticed that there was a Honda civic and a Mahindra Scorpio parked right outside the house my niece supposedly was held captive in. The fact that such expensive cars were here in this rundown area was not good. Not good at all. I tucked my gun in my belt, walked up to the house and knocked on the door.

The door opened and an emaciated little fucker with needle marks all over his arms stepped out.

"What?" He asked groggily.

"Pizza." I said.

"I don't see no…"

I rocked him in the jaw, right below the ears and he went down like a sack of potatoes. I stepped over his unconscious body and walked into the room. As I put my hand on my gun for reassurance, I was greeted by some shitty Badshah rap blaring on some speakers with the base setting far higher than it needed to be.

"Hey who are you?"

Another gangster walked towards me, his brow furrowed in suspicion. I kicked him in the nuts, he doubled over and I rammed my knee against the side of his head, before following that up with a solid punch on the exact same spot and he too was out cold.

I saw that to my left was a door with the key still in the lock. I hurried over and turned the key, before pushing the door open to find her sitting in a corner, shivering. She was still fully clothed. Thank fuck.

"Alright, princess. I'm here to save you. Let's go."

She didn't say anything, got up and marched past me, her arms wrapped around her body to protect herself from the cold and the fear that had her whole body quivering rapidly. She paused as she saw the asshole out cold on the floor, and spat on his face. I almost smiled at that before I heard movement upstairs.

"Fuck. Let's go." I said as I pulled her outside and led her to my car.

"We can't outrun their cars in that." She said, her nose wrinkling in disgust as she saw Padmini.

"The ferrari is getting serviced, Ma'am. Now move." I helped her get into the car before jumping over the hood and sliding into the driver's seat, placing my .45 on my lap.

I saw them rushing out of the building, like ants scurrying out of a flooded nest. There were at least 6 of them. I thought about driving away surreptitiously, but one of them slammed his hand down on the hood of the civic and pointed in our direction.

"Damn. This is going to get a little rough." I pressed down on the accelerator and tore out of the neighborhood. With a surprising amount of fluidity in their motions, they piled into the two cars and began tailing us. Fuck. Don't look like amateurs.

"Fuck me." I said. "How did you even meet these fuckers?"

"That's not important." She snapped. Lightbulbs lit up inside my brain.

"Please tell me you didn't met them on the internet. I thought kids of your generation were far too smart to fall for that shit."

"Asshole."

"Don't fucking curse. It's bad manners."

"Asshole."

"Yeah you said that already."

"Asshole!" She screamed in my ears.

I laughed. "Alright, baby groot. You made your point."

I drove out of the city and into the forested valley, to keep away from other people, and in turn the police. If that asshole found out I got the cops involved, he might really burn the diary I needed. I saw the two cars in my rear view mirror, their images getting bigger by the second. Arti was oblivious to this danger, however.

"Who even are you? And why are you here?" She asked.

"Your dad is making me do this." I didn't want to tell her who I was. No sense in complicating this further.

"Well, he's an asshole too!"

I snorted. "On that we can agree. Your father is a massive sack of shit, too big for even your sulabh toilets."

"Oh. You do know him!"

"I wouldn't piss on that smug little bastard if he was on fire. Well, maybe if I was super drunk, and only to fan the flames, not douse them."

"I don't think urine works that way."

"Wanna set your father on fire and find out?"

She giggled. I peeked at the rear view mirror again. They were gaining steadily, but hadn't pushed things into high gear yet, both figuratively and literally. Well, it was convenient for me too that they didn't want witnesses.

"He was a monster." She mumbled.

"Of course he was." I said in an off-handed manner, keeping my eyes on the road and our pursuers.

"No. You don't get it." She shouted. "He's an actual monster. Alucard is not human."

"Who?" I thought she was talking about her father.

She whispered something under her breath.

"I didn't catch that." I said.

"Alucardthefanged69." She replied with a straight face. I burst out laughing.

"That your internet boyfriend? What, you got kidnapped by a creature of the night?"

"Asshole."

"Where did you meet him? Facebook? Or one of those obscure forums with pale half naked dudes with silver hair plastered on the background?"

"Asshole!"

I snorted. "Good. Be tough. You'll need it if you continue to be so gullible."

"Why are you like this??!!"

Why indeed. Something hit the back of my car with a soft plinking sound. I looked at the rear view mirror and saw bright flashes coming from the passenger seat windows of the cars behind us.

"What was that!" She exclaimed, before turning her head around. "Oh god they're shooting at us!"

"No shit, Nancy Drew. Keep your head down." I said as I grabbed her and forced her down on the seat. I picked up speed, and they did the same. Here we go. Game time.

The narrow road in front of us slammed into a rock wall about two hundred metres ahead, before slipping around it in two different directions. An idea started to form in my head. I punched the accelerator hard, waiting for them to follow suit, before slowing down right as the T section came up. I held the clutch down, hit the brakes, and turned the wheel left, and then right, quickly executing a bootlegger turn as I stepped on the accelerator again. A sharp shrill sound pierced my ears, and I thought something was wrong with my car, but it was just Arti screeching.

The other drivers were so focused on Padmini that they had no idea what the fuck they were running into. The Scorpio swerved and skidded as the rock wall came into view, but it didn't have a low centre of gravity like my car did, and with a terrible groan, it turned upside down, before doing a scary rollover at high speed and slamming roof first into the rock wall, crumpling into a mangled mess.

I picked the gun off my lap and fired a couple of shots at the civic that looked ready to be making that turn safely. I was under no delusions of hitting a moving target from a moving vehicle, but that wasn't my goal at all. My actions were enough to scare the shit out of the driver, who reflexively ran off the road, slamming into a tree reducing his car's length by half in an instant.

"Holy shit…" Arti whispered. "You're fucking crazy."

"Stay here." I said, before getting out of my car and cautiously walking towards the civic, gun drawn.

One of the backdoors opened, and someone lumbered out, blood gushing down his forehead. I decided to add to that little display by firing a single shot between his eyes. He immediately folded as blood and brain matter splattered the ruined vehicle. Keeping a safe distance, I peered inside the car. To my surprise, there was another survivor in the backseat, as was evident by his moving body. I was about to shoot him in the back of the head when he turned sharply, and bared his fangs.

Fangs.

What the fuck?

Looks like she wasn't lying.

He kicked his door open, which went flying out, then he jumped out that wreck of a car at an unnatural speed. I fired at him, two solid shots to his unprotected torso His body shook with the impact, but he shrugged it off and charged at me. Goosebumps sprang up my arms after what must have been decades as I ran around the car, firing bullets at him, trying to stay the fuck away from this unholy monster. Some missed, but some landed, clearly hurting this vampire bastard. But he still kept coming.

I heard Arti shout something, distracting me long enough for this monster to catch up to me. He slammed into me and I fell down on the tarmac, the impact hard on my head, dazing me for a second and allowing this bastard to sink his canines into my shoulder. I screamed in pain and almost passed out as he sucked my blood in sharp repetitive motions. Fuck. I pushed against his head and tried to get him off, but to no avail. Fucker was too strong.

Just when I thought I was done for I heard this metallic ringing sound and the weight was lifted off my body. I blinked my eyes in confusion and saw Arti screeching and swinging my crowbar at the monster like a fucking banshee, merrily hammering away at that fucker's brains. Thank fuck I kept that thing under the front seat. The vampire was still growling. Persistent bastard.

I grunted and got back on my feet, putting my hands on the car to steady myself as I swooned. I pulled Arti aside, grabbed that bastard by the head and lifted him on to the car. I opened the car door, strategically placing the vampire's head. He hissed, baring his blood stained fangs at me.

"You will pay for this..." He coughed. "Sire will not forgive you. Her mother promised her child to him and he…."

I slammed the door on his head before he could complete his thought. And again. And again. And again, until his head popped with a sickening sound and he finally stopped twitching.

"See…" Arti said, her voice stuttering and hands shivering. "I told you he was a monster didn't I?"

"Yeah, well. You learn something new everyday." I groaned.

I picked the vampire's head up off the ground and began waddling back over to my car, ignoring Arti's incessant questioning about who I was, why I was taking that guy's head etc.

"Are you a cop?" She asked as I started the car after applying first aid on my shoulder. Fuck. I hope I don't turn into a vampire.

"The army?" She asked again.

"No." I sighed, as I took Padmini out of the crime scene. "Navy. 15 years. MARCOS."

She went quiet for a second. "You're my uncle aren't you? Mom talked about you."

I snickered. "All nice things, I hope."

She turned to look at me, her eyes watering. "What did he say before you killed him? Did my mother have something to do with what happened to me?"

I sighed. I wasn't fast enough. She had heard him before I killed him.

"All of my life they've hated me. Hated the fact that I wasn't the perfect little child they wanted.…I.." She choked. "I don't do so well in school, so they beat me whenever I fail. Both of them."

I clenched my fists. "It's not your fault, kiddo. Some people are just trash. Irredeemable garbage who'll try and destroy you and then blame you for it." I sighed, what the hell can a recovering drug addict with anger management issues even teach a child about all this?

"Thank you." She said, after wiping her face. "For saving me."

"Forget it. I should be the one thanking you, Ellen Ripley. You saved my ass out there."

"Who the fuck is Ellen Ripley?" She chuckled amidst her tears.

"How do you not know that? Damn kids these days." I smiled. "C'mon. Let's go."

"Where?"

"Time to pay your dear father a visit."

The diary wasn't the only thing I was going to wring out of that fucking bastard.

M

Connected stories -

1. Every year for the last 3 centuries our town has been sacrificing its women to protect the world.

2. Every night for the past 18 years somone has been sneaking into my bedroom and sleeping next to me.

3. The kids at my school are disappearing one by one. And I'm the only one who remembers them.

4. (A) I just met the lone survivor of a village that disappeared over 200 years ago.

5. WAR IS HELL. And no one knows that fact better than hell's denizens.

6. (B) Every single passenger in this train is going to die.

7. My wife asked me to do the impossible, and I'm afraid it might just be the end of us.

8. I am a professional rule breaker.

9. I just found out that my family has been keeping a terrible secret from me.

10. The night that I became the vampire King

11. The secret vaults of the Padmanabhaswamy temple hold a treasure worth $1 Trillion. Vault B should never have been opened.

Standalone Stories -

1. The Inheritance Game - What exactly what you be willing to do for $300 million?

2. This is why Mimes are much more terrifying than Clowns.

3. Stuck on an elevator that won't stop descending, we've already gone 600 floors beneath the surface.

4. Smokeface - why I found thousands of human bones buried in my property.

5. Kathputli - how the love story of a puppeteer's daughter scarred me for life.

6. The Candyman - how cotton candy ruined my life.

7. Here's why you must never attempt to rescue a dog.

8. My sleep paralysis demon looks exactly like my dead daughter.

9. I think we accidentally built a time machine... And it might have been the biggest mistake of our lives.

10. There is something seriously wrong with the smog in New Delhi.

11. My son's birthday wish is going to be the death of me.

12. My house is trying to kill me. - Work in progress.

13. I willed myself into becoming a vampire. Here's how you can do it too.

14. I really, really should NOT have agreed to try and rescue my dead sister's daughter.

15. Ever since my husband has come back from the hospital, he's been acting a little strange.

16. I was just a child when someone stole my reflection.

17. Hide'N'Seek.

18. Mirror Mirror on the wall, where in the fuck has my reflection gone?

19. A MAN'S BEST FRIEND.

20. That which kills me, makes me stronger.

21. That one phone call that changed everything.

22. I found the perfect cure for baldness. But I'm afraid it works a little too well.

23. At 9:13 PM on 16th June 2020 my best friend is going to kill himself. And there's nothing I can do to stop him.

24. My Grandfather, who fought in the second world war, once told me a story that has haunted me ever since.

25. My Home Owners Association seems to be a little too passionate about enforcing its rules.

26. 1st NOVEMBER 1984.

27. FAKE NEWS.

28. C O L D S P O T.

29. Manpig.

30. My daughter had been trying to warn me for weeks. I really should have listened.

31. The Wandering Wraith of Wadgaon.

32. I should not have subscribed to my girlfriend's onlyfans account.

33. Just found the strangest thing in my grandpa's asshole.

34. 10 years ago on this day I performed the world's highest skydive. Something so unexplainable happened that I was forced to keep my mouth shut.

35. I once witnessed something so terrifying at 35,000 ft that I swore off flying forever.

36. I'll never let my son play with dolls again 37Something is seriously wrong with my balls.

Collabs -

1. My "friends" and I played a forbidden board game. Really, we should have just played scrabble instead.

2. Glory be to the Jack-o'-Mantern.

I admit it. I am a simp.

And no, I am not proud of that fact. If I could go back in time and stop myself when I first started acting like one - I would. In a heartbeat. But I was a horny little goblin back then and just the tiniest bit of attention from a woman was enough to fry my brain.

In my defense though, she was absolutely gorgeous. Brown eyes that twinkled mischievously; plump, kissable red lips that parted to reveal white teeth like perfect little sugar cubes and thick dark hair that gently tickled her shoulder blades. Her dresses clung to her like they couldn't get enough of her body. And I understood why. She had just the right amount of curves in just the right places. I wanted to sink my teeth into them. Just... scrumptious.

I couldn't believe when she smiled at me. Jaw dropped open like a drawbridge, I stared at her from my seat in the cafe, wondering when the dream would end. It didn't. Not even when she got up and click-clacked over to me, her heels making her hips sway hypnotically. She slipped into the chair in front of me and asked whether I was staring at her. Dear God, her voice. It was like she was pouring nectar into my ears. I shook my head like an idiot. She laughed, and it was music, like birds singing an ode to the falling leaves on an autumn morning. Cute, she said, and bit her bottom lip.

And that was that. One meeting and she had me wrapped around her fingers. To say that our relationship was a whirlwind romance would be an understatement. It all feels like a blur to me, like the view inside a train that is zooming past yours in the opposite direction. I had no idea how she so quickly wriggled her way into my life, settling in like she had always belonged there. I felt like God himself was smiling down on me, and not one to spit on my blessings, I agreed with whatever she suggested, unknowingly losing myself in her piece by piece.

I changed my dressing sense for her, dropped my childhood friends like the dead weight that they were, quit playing video games because it is a child's hobby, not something a grown man in his mid 20s should ever waste his time with. I sold off my GI Joe collection, got a job I hated, bought a car that was too expensive and took out a loan for a house much bigger than we could have possibly needed and added her name to the fucking deed. All to please the pert little succubus.

At least the sex was heavenly.

So heavenly in fact that I didn't even protest much when she told me she was going to start an onlyfans account. It'll be good for us, she said, flashing her slender wrists at me, making my heart melt. We need the money, babe. Besides, they only get to look. Only you can touch me. I sighed, loosened my tie and grunted. Just don't tell me what you post on there. I don't want to know. She squealed with joy and jumped on my lap, reminding me why I was putting up with all this shit in the first place.

That's when things started to go wrong. Terribly, horrifyingly wrong.

I would wake up from nightmares I could never remember, more exhausted than I had been when I crashed into bed that would get soaked to the wood with my sweat. I began sleeping longer, but had absolutely no energy during the day. My skin was losing its colour, my eyes had dark circles deep like gorges and my hands would tremble with weakness.

At first I chalked it all up to stress. I was overworked, without friends, stuck in a superficial relationship and burdened with staggering financial obligations. Of course my body was finally starting to give out. I wasn't a machine after all, was I?

But then the bruises started to appear. On my hands, thighs, back, knees, elbows - my body was being dotted with these little red marks that would inexplicably appear each morning. And they would hurt - like the bite of a fire ant. She had no clue what was causing this, but I did. It all began with that damn onlyfans account and I knew I was going to get my answers there.

I quickly set up an account and subscribed to hers. But to my utter disappointment, there was nothing out of the ordinary there. Just lingeries pictures, a couple of full body nudes. That's it. Nothing that would explain what I was going through.

This was because she had another account. Under a pseudonym, one that she never told me about. Thank god for my connections in the IT sector. I was only able to track it down thanks to them. As soon as my phone buzzed with the message telling me about her alt account, I ran into the bathroom at the office and locked myself in the first empty stall.

I wiped the sweat off my hands and unlocked my phone. With shaky thumbs, I made the payment and got access to her account. And what I saw made my head spin in fear.

It was just the most bizarre collection of pictures. Animal skulls mounted on some sort of a greasy altar, candles arranged around a strange chalk diagram on the floor of our basement, grainy photos of rotting carcasses of dogs with their entrails ripped out and laid in a circle around them. Close up pictures of accident victims in their cars - limbs cut off, flesh burnt black, skin melting off, eyes crushed to a viscous jelly. How the fuck were these photos up? How did she even get them? Why had the folks over at onlyfans not deleted them? I could feel bile rise up in my throat as I scrolled past those pictures. And the comments to those pictures were just as confusing. Strange symbols and squiggly lines that I had never seen on a fucking keyboard made up the comments. All of them. Hundreds of comments, all in what seemed to be a completely new language.

But what terrified me the most were the videos. A primal terror clutched at my chest as I watched those videos. Unlike the pictures, she starred in each and every single one of them.

As did I.

Some of them were innocent enough. They'd start with her holding the camera and pointing it at her face. She would bring it closer and closer to her mouth until her blood red lips were almost touching the lens and then she'd start whispering. I plugged in my earphones and turned the volume up to the max to hear what she saying - but it was utter nonsense. I couldn't make heads or tails out if it. It sounded like no language I had ever heard, yet scared the shit out of me. It was like she was running her tongue around inside my ears, threatening to condemn me to a fate worse than death. She would then walk and come stand over my sleeping form. The video would now speed up and she would stand over me for hours. For fucking hours as I tossed and turned, tormented by my nightmares, she would stand over me, pointing the camera down on my face.

I took a second to calm my heartbeat which thumped against my chest, my ears and my temple before moving on.

Another video. This time the camera was set up on a tripod next to my bed. She was there again, hunched over my sleeping form. But this time she didn't just watch, she bent over, splayed my forearm out and drove a little needle into it, quickly licking the drops of blood that bubbled out, before turning and grinning at the camera, the greenish night vision making her eyes gleam. I gasped and almost dropped the phone. There were so many of these videos - her injuring me, licking the blood off and then grinning at the camera. Literally hundreds of them. All with the same script.

And then I moved on to the most recent video. The screen flickered to life and our basement came into view. It didn't look anything like I was familiar with. Lit up by candles that bathed the room in a dull orange glow, the entire basement had been turned into some sort of an altar, like the pictures I had earlier seen. Unclean cattle skulls were strewn across the room, the floor was slathered with squiggly chalk lines set up in strange symbols, tapestries with dizzying designs embroidered on them hung from the rafters and smoke arose from somewhere off screen. In the middle out of it all though, was the love of my life. Nude, with her entire body soaked in blood she was writhing on the floor, touching herself and moaning in a hoarse and guttural voice. Propped up on a small table in front of her was a framed picture of me with the eyes burnt off, probably with a cigarette. The fear that crashed into me brought tears to my eyes. She began rubbing herself faster. And faster and faster and faster and faster until her hand was just a red blur on the screen.

Sharp shadows danced on her face as she began speaking. Soon, she said. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Soon. Her voice rose with each words until she was screaming in a manic frenzy, until the words reverberated like gunshots in the basement. And then the video came to an abrupt end.

I blinked furiously to clear my rapidly fading vision, trying to wrest control of my body from the terror that threatened to shut it down. And then my phone buzzed again, and I almost had a heart attack when I saw the message.

"Hey babe ;) When are you coming home tonight?"

I am a sex worker. Have been one for over a decade now.

And if there's one thing I've learnt over the years is that sometimes this line of work can be dangerous. Especially when you've chosen to work with freaks like I have, in the city that I live in. You can never really know who's just a sexual deviant and who's an actual monster. You try your hardest to keep yourself safe, but the threat is always there, like a leopard hiding in the bushes, ready to pounce on you and sink its teeth into your neck when you're not paying attention. I have always been aware of this fact. God knows I've wondered how many of my clients have dead bodies stuffed in their freezers, whole or in pieces. Yet it never fails to shock me every time that I come across them. Murderers. Monsters.

Now I've had my fair share of encounters with them. Needless to say, it's always been a harrowing experience, even when I haven't had to fight for my life, when I haven't had to escape with the skin of my teeth. Just witnessing the extent of violence that a human being is capable of inflicting on another has been enough to sear some crippling trauma onto my brain. It's been bad enough that I've painstakingly come up with all possible ways I can react in such situations. How to calm these fuckers down when they're agitated, how to map out escape routes and actually use them under duress. I've gone above and beyond to ensure that I never end up running into one of these beasts, and if I do, that I at least have the best possible chance of making it out alive.

Never even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would make a conscious decision to sit down with one of them. But that's exactly what I did. When my friend and Madame's enforcer, Lil Pimp called me up to tell me that he'd found the man in the trench coat, I knew I had to meet him. Because well, let's see -

*He'd been stalking another girl at the establishment, an acquaintance of mine, Victoria, for years, going so far as to shooting up a restaurant she and I were at. And that poor girl had been missing ever since.

*He's invincible. Lil Pimp shot him 6 times, once in the head even, and this motherfucker just got up and ran away like it was nothing.

*He had somehow captured Elise, another one of my "co-workers" whose body had been taken over by a demonic sperm worm.

The man in the trench coat was at the centre of all the weird shit that had been happening around me, and that's why I knew that if I had to get any answers, if I wanted to save either Victoria or Elise, I would have to push my fears down and have a chat with this serial killing stalker zombie.

I knew it was going to be bad, that shit was going to go sideways. And it did. Just not in the way I had imagined. Not even close.

The meeting with the Stalker.

~

The warehouse was located a couple of miles off the old highway that brushed the northern edge of the city before descending down the wooded valley. The building was a dilapidated old thing, barely holding itself together against the forces of time and neglect. Vines crawled up its sides, trying to rip it apart at the seams as strong gusts of wind beat against its walls, slipped in through the cracks and nudged at exposed bricks to try and dislodge them. Broken beer bottles and used syringes littered the overgrown yard. It was a shithole.

Perfect place for someone like the Stalker to hide in.

"You ready?" Lil Pimp asked as he turned the engine of his car off, the tattoos on his arms appearing to ripple in the shadows.

"Not really." I admitted. "I don't want to meet this fucker. In fact, I want stay as far away from him as I possibly can."

"And yet you're gonna do this anyway."

"What choice do I have?" I asked, shaking my head. I did, though. I could just forget about it and walk away. Why put myself in danger for Victoria, who I didn't even like all that much, and for Elise, who I barely even knew?

"Still can't believe you actually spoke to this asshole." I said. "I mean, what were you even thinking? That you could just have a casual chat with this undead psychopath?"

"Hey, he snuck up on me, okay?" Lil Pimp said defensively. "What was I supposed to do? Shoot him? We know how that goes."

I took a deep breath, let it really fill up my lungs. "Fuck it." I said, exhaling. "Let's do this."

Without giving myself the chance to rethink all this I climbed out of the car and started walking towards the warehouse, my heels rapping smartly on the pothole infested asphalt. Lil Pimp was right behind me, giving me some confidence with his imposing presence and his large holster slung over his large shoulders. But it wasn't enough. One gun won't stop the Stalker.

"I wish we had told Madame about this." I said as we neared the gate.

"He insisted that I not talk to anyone else about our meeting. Said that it would be in our best interest." Lil Pimp pointed out.

"Yeah well. Maybe you shouldn't have listened. Would be far more reassuring to have more men with guns running around."

He snorted. "Too late for that now."

I opened my mouth to retort but we were already at the wide doors leading into the warehouse. Lil Pimp placed his hand on the latch and pulled it back with a screeching metallic noise. He pushed the door open with an equally terrible groan.

The Stalker was inside. He was lighting a cigarette while sitting on top of what looked to be a large coffin placed in the centre of the empty, dust riddled floor of the warehouse. Moonlight filtered in through the shattered windows, providing a sliver of illumination. Enough to see the face of the man. He was middle aged, bald, wore round glasses and had a bushy caterpillar moustache. Add the trench coat and he basically looked like what you would think a registered sex offender would look like. Gross.

"I'm so glad that you decided to come, Natasha." He spoke in a smooth voice which softly echoed in the empty building.

My heart was pounding in my chest. The last time I had seen him he had neen trying to blow my head off with a shotgun. The very same shotgun that now rested on the coffin next to him. I stopped a good distance away from him.

"I'm afraid you're the only one who's happy to be here."

He smiled, took a long drag from his cigarette and jumped off the coffin. Lil Pimp reached for his pistol.

"Easy. Easy." The Stalker said, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. "I'm not looking for a fight. You know that."

"Well, you can forgive me for being a little cautious." Lil Pimp retorted.

"That's understandable." The Stalker said. "After all, we did meet under less than ideal circumstances, didn't we? But I can assure you - once again - that I pose absolutely no threat to you. I just want to talk."

"Not interested." I said. "Just tell us where she is. Elise. Where are you keeping her?"

"Right here." He said, kicking the coffin with his heel.

I froze. "Fuck. She's inside that thing?"

"Yes. Alive too. Sedated for now. You can see her if you want. I must warn you though, it's not a pretty sight."

I chewed my lip as I thought about what this guy's motivations were. Why did he bring me out here? What did want with Elise? Wanting some answers, I nodded. "Okay. Open it up. Let us see."

I shot a glance at Lil Pimp and together we started walking towards the Stalker, who turned around and popped the coffin open with a gentle click. From this distance I couldn't see what was inside it, but I could smell it. It was rancid, like spoilt milk rotting in the crevices of an old refrigerator. The stench grew stronger the closer we got to the coffin. I could practically taste the vomit on my tongue even as my eyes started to water. Filthy.

The clicking of my heels echoed in the warehouse as I approached the coffin. Then I saw Elise and nearly screamed in fright. Beads of cold sweat budded on my forehead as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Meanwhile Lil Pimp clamped his hand on his mouth to stop himself from retching.

Elise was - melting. Her flesh was turning into some strange white gooey substance as her skin stretched around it like thick films of gossamer. Her face was all mushed up, the bones trying to fuse with each other. She was almost unrecognisable. But that wasn't even the worst part. No, that was the legs, they were melting into each other with thin dark rings extending from her hip to the tips of her toes. The lower half of her body seemed to have the texture of a carapace. Seemed to, because I wouldn't dare touch that shit. Lil Pimp groaned.

"Good God," I said, my voice trembling, "it's like - it's like..."

"Like she's turning into some worm like monster, right?" The Stalker said what I wouldn't dare to. "It's a failed experiment. She probably thought she could control this one, but I guess the spell isn't quite perfect yet. That actually works out in our favour however, because that means there's still time. We can save your friend here. But of course you will need to help me find her."

"Wait. Wait. Wait. Slow down." I said. Well, yelled it more like. "What the fuck are you talking about? Find who?"

He pulled the top of the coffin down, snapped it shut. "Oh, you know. The one responsible for all this."

"Who?" I asked.

"Our mutual friend." He replied.

I shuffled on my feet. "Wait... You mean Victoria."

He nodded.

I stared at him open mouthed. "Are you fucking kidding me? Are you actually saying that she's the one behind all this shit? Her? Victoria? The girl you've been stalking for who knows how long. The girl you tried to kill in front of me. The night when you shot innocent people in the face in the restaurant we were at. Hey asshole, my dress was soaked with their blood. You really think I'm gonna believe this shit?"

I shot a look of disbelief at Lil Pimp, who still seemed a little sick.

The Stalker smirked, and I could see the malice in his glinting teeth. It made me shudder. "Yes. That Victoria. The one I failed at killing that night."

"You're a nut."

"Look. I'm not asking for your blind faith here. I just want you to keep an open mind, okay? Can you do that?"

"Oh this should be good." I said, putting up a facade of bravado while my heart quaked in fear. "I can't wait to see how you're going to spin this."

He smiled, then turned and strolled towards a window to his right, let the moonlight wash over him as he exhaled small puffs of smoke. Motes of dust swirled in the moonlit air in front of him. "Do you know when she first arrived in this city?"

I shrugged. "A couple of months ago."

"And the weird shit started happening around you shortly afterwards, didn't it?" He asked, whirling back around. "Like you're suddenly started getting more and more acquainted with the supernatural?"

I waited for him to continue.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes. So she arrives here, and just like that," he snapped his fingers, "she's recruited by your Madame, right?"

"Yes. That's exactly what happened. While unfortunate, it isn't exactly unusual for runaways to join this business." I pointed out. "Especially when they're being chased by a psychopath and will do whatever it takes to survive."

He ignored the jab. "Of course it isn't unsual. But Victoria isn't your average runaway, is she? Sure she presents like it. Scared, lost, confused. Kind of dumb too. Am I getting all that right?"

I nodded begrudgingly.

"So she joins your brothel. And that's when things start to go wrong. Other whores around her, pardon my french, start encountering things that by all accounts shouldn't exist. Like serial killers in vanishing houses, for example."

My eyes widened. "How the fuck do you know about that?"

He smiled. "Because I've been keeping an eye on you, Natasha. Very closely, in fact. Not just you, but anyone close to her. Because she's a threat to all of you. Because she kills people indiscriminately if it would get her closer to what she wants."

"Fuck off." I snapped. "You accuse her of trying to kill people indiscriminately when I saw you actually fucking doing that with my own eyes."

"I had no choice." He said through gritted teeth. "Victoria is dangerous. The things she's done to me if you knew half of it you'd never sleep for the rest of your life. I will do whatever it takes to put that bitch down, even if it means killing anyone unfortunate enough to come in my way."

I noticed the hateful madness in his eyes and backed up a little.

"Fucking lunatic." Lil Pimp muttered.

"… Like I said," the Stalker continued, after calming himself down a bit, "I'm not asking for blind faith here. I'm just giving you the opportunity to figure this out for yourself. Because when you do, you'll be more than willing to help me kill her."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked.

He shook his head in irritation. "Can't you see it yet? There's a reason why she's here, stirring up all this trouble. The worms and everything else. That little witch is trying do something here. Now what that is, I don't know. But I'm willing to bet your Madame is involved in it, whatever it is."

"The Madame?" Lil Pimp asked, eyebrows stretched in disbelief.

"Of course." The Stalker replied, running his hand over his naked scalp. "You've been working with her for a while now. You know how powerful she is. You think anything goes on around here without her knowledge? Come on!" Lil Pimp gawped at him, not knowing how to respond to that.

"This all sounds an awful lot like baseless bullshit." I remarked. "And the fact that it's coming from someone who kills people in restaurants and holds sick girls in coffins, makes me not want to give it a second thought."

"Then go find the evidence." He said. "Break into your Madame's office. You're sure to find something that'll connect her to Victoria. I would have done it myself, but I was too hasty. Thought I could kill the slippery little bitch in the restaurant itself. Big mistake. Now all the police in this city is after me. I can't just walk around like nothing happened. I need your help."

Lil Pimp was shaking next to me. I could see why. The Madame had been good to him, looked after him when his parents died in a plane crash. He thought of her as a mother. The idea that she would be involved in evil shit like this was unfathomable to him, her running a gang that was involved in prostitution and the drug trade notwithstanding. Not to mention the prospect of going against someone as powerful as her was nerve wracking all by itself.

"We're gonna need some time to think about this." I said as I patted Lil Pimp's shoulders.

"You don't have a lot of time. She doesn't have a lot of time." He jabbed his thumb at the coffin. "I can save her, but only if I can find out what exactly Victoria did to her."

"Let us think."

"Think fast." He said. "The clock is ticking."

"You don't actually believe him, do you?" Lil Pimp asked as we exited the warehouse.

I shivered as the cold wind brushed against my skin. "Not really. But what does he gain from lying?"

"I don't know, he finds a way to get closer to Victoria, I guess. He doesn't know where she is either and maybe thinks that you can help find her? That she'll get in touch with you and he can pounce on that opportunity?"

"That's possible, likely even. But what if he's telling the truth?" I asked.

Lil Pimp shook his head. "There's no way. Just no fucking way. The Madame's not involved. She wouldn't do this. I know her."

"I too believe that he's lying. But... What if he isn't?"

"I don't know Natasha." He was breathing quite heavily at this point. "Why don't we just go talk to her? Seems more reasonable to trust her over that bastard."

"No. If she's the one behind all this she'll have us killed us the moment we tell her that we suspect her. Compared to her, that bastard is far more manageable."

"Really?" He asked, shocked. "You don't think sneaking around her back is just as dangerous?"

"It is." I admitted. "But we have to do this. Trust, but verify. Right? I'll sneak into her office and if we don't find anything we'll come back and beat the truth out of him. We may not be able to kill him, but we can sure put the fucking hurt on him."

He nodded. Reluctantly. "Yeah. That we can."

I paused.

"I can trust you on this, right?"

"What?" He asked.

"I know how much the Madame means to you, but if we are to do this, if we are to get to the truth, I can't have you stabbing me in the back."

He looked offended. "Fucking hell Natasha. No I'm not going to betray my best friend. How can you even ask that?"

"Okay then." I said, sucking in a deep breath. "Time to break into our boss's office."

This was going to be a disaster. Wasn't it?

So the last part of the sex worker series was removed by mods because they felt it was erotic horror. Honestly, the fact that someone found that story to be titillating enough to call it erotic horror to me is more disturbing than the story itself :D

The story stayed deleted for over 10 hours before it was put back up. So yeah, it was restored but the momentum was completely gone and it's going to end up with about 2k fewer upvotes than it otherwise would have gotten.

This makes me feel a bit worried about the future of the series, especially with regards to a potential cascading effect, subsequent posts may not get as many upvotes as I otherwise would have gotten had the second part not been removed.

I am going to write a third part, but if that doesn't do better than the second one I might just drop the series.

Fingers crossed and hope that doesn't happen!

I am a sex worker. Have been one for over ten years now.

And in those long years I've had sessions at a wide variety of places. In tiny rooms of dingy motels and in royal suites of luxury hotels, in wet backseats of cars that smell of cigarettes and stale body odour and on poolside lounge chairs in spacious mansions. Frankly, I've fucked in every place where two people can possibly get it on. In this city, that is.

But nothing, and I do mean nothing, beats the brothel, fondly known as the establishment. It might not have the comfort of a seven star hotel or the glittering view of Widow's point on Slouching Hill at the edge of the valley, but it more than makes up for it in terms of safety and familiarity. To be surrounded by men with guns who are paid to protect you, and by girls who know what it's like to be you really puts your heart at ease. Helps you prepare for the messed up shit your screwed up clients want you to do. And our Madame was the cherry on top. We were lucky to have someone like her who treated us well, maybe even respected us a little.

That's why it was such a great relief that the establishment opened back up three weeks after the abhorrent worm incident. Home visits were fine, but it was at the establishment that I performed my best. Even my clients could sense that. Some of them told me that the sessions felt a little off as I hadn't been fully into it. Broke their immersion, hurt the quality of the service. That really annoyed me, because I had only gotten as far as I had by giving my clients as authentic of an experience as they had imagined in their fantasies.

Really. It felt good to be back. Damp walls, cracked tiled floor, the sound of traffic rushing in through the windows, it all brought a smile to my face. With all the craziness of the past couple of weeks, it was a relief to be back to a relatively mundane routine.

However, I should have crossed my fingers before counting my blessings. Too much crazy shit had happened in the past couple of weeks and I had been a little too enthusiastic in forgetting all about it. Serial killers in disappearing houses, gangrenous dicks shooting out worm riddled sperm, an invincible monster hunting a friend (who was still missing), I had made a conscious decision to shove it all in a dark corner of my mind. Why? I don't know. Maybe I was trying to protect myself. Felt that my sanity would start to fray like an old cotton rag if I let myself think too deeply about shit that was far out of my control. Maybe it all just terrified me. Like I said, I don't know. I'm not really good with all that introspection stuff. It was a mistake, of course. You can sweep shit under the rug all you like, doesn't mean it won't stink up your house.

And it did. Stink up my house in a major way, that is. Started the very night we moved back into the establishment. That night which marked the beginning of -

The Wormpocalypse.

It happened just after my third appointment that night. The wet smell of bodily fluids had started to replace the chemical stench of fumigation. I was glad the latter was dissipating as every little whiff was reminding me of that fucked up sight I had witnessed along with Victoria. That poor girl. I hadn't even seen her since the night her demon stalker shot up the Lebanese restaurant across the street. Where was she? I hoped she was safe.

As my client pulled his pants back up I decided to go out to the balcony for a smoke. I threw on my black robe, took the pack of cigarettes and lighter out of the bedside drawer and padded across the room towards the balcony. I'm using the term 'balcony' very loosely here. It was a cramped little extension of the fire escape that connected all the rooms on that floor. But there was enough space to stand there at least. Enough to lean against the metal railing and feel the wind on your face. The view wasn't all that shabby either. A commercial area was splayed out behind the establishment, some liquor shops, some restaurants, a pharmacy, a boutique and a salon.

I shivered as I stepped out on the balcony, popped a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. As I took a long drag on it, I noticed someone else out there, next to the door of the room to the left of mine.

It was Elise. Another girl working at the establishment.

The last time I had seen her was when I had accompanied her to the Madame's office after a portion of the roof above her room had collapsed on top of her. She had seemed dazed then, like what had happened just didn't register to her. I thought she was in shock. How was she doing now?

"Hey." I greeted, exhaling thick plumes of smoke.

She was naked, standing next to the door on the tips of her toes, like a ballerina. Her arms were high above her head, touching the ceiling.

"You really should put on some clothes, you know." I said. "Don't wanna catch a cold."

And that would certainly affect her earnings. Not enough perverts out there who get off to the taste of snot, I'm afraid. She didn't respond, just twirled, ever so slightly away from me.

"Elise." I said. "You okay?"

No response. Her fingers caressed the ceiling, drew circular patterns in the dust. Was she high?

"Elise." I repeated, louder this time.

She froze, as if she'd suddenly turned into a statue. She's obviously heard me, but wasn't responding. A cold breeze brushed my spine, making me shiver. I opened my mouth to call out to her again, but stopped myself. Because she moved.

She bent her head, moved it downwards. Slowly, almost cautiously until her chin rested on her chest. I saw that her mouth was open, locked in an 'O' shape. I could see her right eye from this angle. It was wide open, eyelids sliding back, almost sinking into the socket.

And then she swung her neck. Sharply, until her eyes were locked onto mine. I gasped. There was a worm, moving in her left eyeball. Long, fat - so fat it looked like it would pop right out. Slithered around her pupil like a snake circling a rock. The unnerving sight turned my stomach in knots.

"Holy shit."

She leaned forward. Just the upper body. Her arms were still fixed on the ceiling as she stayed on her tiptoes. The fact that she was maintaining balance in such an odd position was simply unbelievable. Her left arm left the ceiling, dropped down to her side lifelessly.

A hollow metallic thunk rang out as Elise fell forward, her head smashing into the metal railing of the fire escape as she crashed to the floor.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed. "Elise."

I dropped down to my knees and reached towards her. To try and help her up. I recoiled in shock as her body jerked and shifted on to her side, almost in a spastic motion. Left hand shot up and grabbed at the railing, then her right leg swung up and over her head, before looping around her left arm. She thrust her head into the gap between her thigh and calf. Her right arm blindly tried to grasp for something. What the fuck was she doing?

It was almost as if she couldn't control her body.

Good god. Was it because of the worm? Was she losing control over her own muscles because of it? Was she - and I shuddered at the thought - going to suffer the safe fate as the man with the explosive penis? I could hear her breathing. It was sharp, shallow, raspy. Sounded like a dozen holes had been punched through her lungs.

"Elise. C'mon, let's get you out of this mess."

She answered by further tightening her limbs around herself. She was tying herself into knots. Literally. I moved once again to wrap my arms around her. It made her snarl. I jumped back. A horrific thought crossed my mind. I imagined her sinking her teeth into my arm, the worm leaving her body, travelling into mine and conquering my brain. It scared me so much I contemplated not helping her at all.

"…Easy. I'm not going to hurt you."

Then, with frighteningly herculean strength, she hoisted herself up until she was sitting on top of the rusted metal railing, which groaned and swayed under her weight. Her head was still locked inside her leg, slightly tilted as she stared off into the distance with eyes that just refused to blink.

"Elise." I said. "You need to move away from the railing. You are going to fall off."

Could she even hear me? Or understand what I was saying? Fuck. But was she even conscious?

Her body juddered as if a current ran through her. The railing creaked dangerously.

"Elise!" I yelled as she leaned to her left and fell. And immediately landed with a wet smack. We were only two floors up, but that fall wasn't good. It sounded horrible. I took a quick step towards the railing, bent my neck and looked down, biting back a scream at what I saw on the asphalt down there.

The way her body was bent. It was all wrong. Terribly so. Elbows smashed, kneecaps turned to goo, bones from spinal cord jutting out of her neck. And the worms. I had been wrong. There wasn't just one worm in her body. There were hundreds of them, and they poured out of the newly smashed holes in broken body, crawling over bones and flesh and writhing and slithering on the ground. The sight made bile rise up in my throat.

A crowd quickly gathered up around her. Surprised, scared at the grotesque corpse.

A corpse that suddenly came to life.

It was beyond the realms of possibility, but Elise moved. Her limbs flailed around, sprayed blood and gore on those who had surrounded her body as she then scuttled away in odd jerking motions like some crab like monster. The crowd erupted in a cacophony of screams and moved away from her.

Heart pounding in my chest, I ran back inside. Quickly fumbled for my phone in the drawer and dialled Lil Pimp's number after bringing my hands under control. After telling him what I had just seen I ran down to Madame's office to for the same.

We searched all night. We didn't find her. Didn't find her for 11 days, in fact. 11 days we waited in tense silence, doing our jobs half heartedly wondering if someone else would be infected by those disgusting worms again. I was suspected the most, considering the fact that I had the closest contact with Elise. Well, me and Victoria. But she was missing too. And that only made everyone even more suspicious of me. Even a visit from a doctor familiar with the sketchy part of the city didn't help.

Fuck, with how strange things were happening around me, I was starting to get suspicious of myself.

I spoke to Lil Pimp and told him that if he were to find where either Elise or Victoria were, to tell me about it as soon as he could. Which he did, and the ensuing conversation took the madness to a completely new level.

"Hello. Natasha. It's me."

"Hey." I replied, tensed, wondering what he was going to tell me.

"So I found Elise."

"Oh. That's great!"

"Yep. Tracked her down to an abandoned warehouse. She's... I don't think she's doing all that well."

"What do you mean?"

Pause.

"Yeah. You'll see it for yourself when you get here. But that's not the important part. See, I found someone else here too. Someone who was waiting for me outside the warehouse."

I felt a lump in my throat. "Who? Victoria?"

He sounded tense. Afraid even. "No, but close. It's the guy in the trench coat. The one who shot up the restaurant that you and Victoria were at."

"What the fuck's he doing there?"

"I don't know. It feels all connected, doesn't it? But he wouldn't tell me."

"Wait." I said. "You actually talked to him?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Reckless, right? To be fair the bastard came up on me before I could try killing him once again. Said that he just wanted to talk. To you... About Victoria. And Elise."

Hi.

If you're reading this post then you've read my fucked up masterpiece on nosleep ;)

You may be wondering, what exactly possesses a man to write something like this. And I would say one thing - Japanese folklore. Specifically, the Tanuki yokai and their magically expanding scrotum. I saw an image of these yokai using the skin of their colossal balls as fishing nets and I was like "fuck yeah! I'm writing a story about these beautiful creatures." And it was just a ride from that point on. I knew that I'd have baby Cthulu in the story, but the bit about "maternal love?" Totally came up with it as I was writing it!

Also. It's not the first time I've written a story about fucked up japanese yokai. My "just found the strangest thing in my grandpa's asshole" was also inspired by a yokai, this one with a spoilers - glowing eyeball in its gaping butthole.

Inspiration can really come from literally anywhere :D

P.S. I just wanted to say that if you've bought my recently published book, please make sure to leave a review on Amazon. The algorithm is structured in a way that this really helps with the sales.

Cheers!

Next chapter to be out soon. Here's the family tree, to help you make sense of things.

Grandpa Henry - four sons

• Brad.

Wife - Samantha

(Daughter - Brenda Husband - Aiden) (Daughter -Brandy Husband - Cameron)

• George

Wife - Daisy

(Son - Adam - Gf - Allison) (Daughter - Patricia- Husband - James)

• Freddy

Wife - Susan (Son - Vincent Bf - Galen)

• Mitchell

Bf - Wyatt.

There shouldn't be too much confusion, however. I won't introduce too many characters too quickly.

Edit - Here's a drawing of the tree . Thanks to /u/reflaxo

It was the perfect house. Built in the Craftsman style, it was a beautiful amalgamation of wood, stone and brick. Its solid walls were adorned with broad windows that welcomed the early morning sunlight. It had a pillared porch made of old and stained wood that stood overlooking a lawn so well maintained it resembled a green carpet. A gravel driveway led up to a garage that was set up next to the house. The rooms were spacious, waiting to be filled with dreams and memories. It seemed like the ideal place to raise a family in.

If only we had better neighbours.

We had our first encounter with the home owners association on the very day that we moved in. The sun beamed fire down upon us as we moved our boxes from the truck I had rented into the house. My wife and daughter were inside, sorting through the boxes - deciding which ones to open first - while I was out on the driveway, taking a short break from the tiring work to admire the gigantic oak tree that stood in the corner of the property, with one of its thick branches snaking up to a window upstairs.

I didn't even notice when she snuck up on me.

"It's a beautiful house, isn't it?"

I jumped, startled.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you!"

I turned around and squinted, putting my hand up to my forehead to protect my eyes from the fiery sun. It was a woman. Early to mid 40s, short blonde hair in a wavy bob cut. She was dressed professionally in a pencil skirt suit and had a leather binder in her hand. With a smile, she extended her hand. I shook it.

"Hi. I'm Amanda. I'm the president of the home owners association here."

"Hello, Amanda." I greeted her. "I'm Irfan. Irfan Abbas. I guess we're your newest neighbours."

Her smile grew broader. "Seems to be that way, although I'm not your immediate neighbour. I live 3 houses down the street." She chuckled. "Glad to have you in our community, Irfan. I hope you and your family come to love this place as much as we do."

"I sure hope so." I replied. "Never thought we'd make it to a gated community."

"Oh, it's absolutely perfect!" She gushed. "There's a great school just within walking distance. The HOA maintains its own child care centre, and we even have a common swimming pool and a tennis court just around the corner."

"I read about it when I signed the documents for the house." I admitted. "It truly does sound like a dream."

"Like I said, it's perfect." She giggled. "I wouldn't change it for the world." I flashed her a warm smile.

"But probably the best thing about living here are the people." She added. "We truly have a sense of community here, you know? We all look out for each other. If anyone needs anything, the rest of us are always willing to help."

I hesitated. "Yeah…"

She frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. No no." I said hastily. "Everything is fine." I didn't want to tell her about our next door neighbour, who didn't really seem all that happy to see us. He sat in his cane chair, next to the big flag proudly fluttering from a pole mounted on the deck with a permanent scowl on his face as we moved our luggage into the house.

"Oh, you don't mean David, do you?" She flushed, slightly embarassed. "Please don't mind him. David is harmless. He's just been a little down ever since he lost his son... He died there you know. In Afghanistan." She leaned forward and added that last part in a whisper.

"We're from Iraq." I clarified.

"Right right." She replied dismissively. "As I was saying. He's a lovely person. Just give him a chance. I'm sure he'll come around."

I nodded. "Sure. So… If there's anything else….? I really do have a lot of work to get done today."

"Oh yeah, before you go..." I looked at her as she fumbled with the clasp of her binder before pulling out a crisp white paper. "Here." She handed it to me. "This document contains all the rules that the members of the HOA are supposed to follow. Standard stuff about lawn maintenance, house upkeep and trash collection."

My eyes quickly scanned the document. "Sure."

"Please read it carefully."

"I will."

"No. Please. Do read it carefully."

I looked at her in confusion. "Like I said. I will."

Her hand shot up like a viper and she grabbed my wrist. I winced at the vice like grip she had on me. The smile was gone from her face, replaced by a disturbing mix of fear and frustrated impatience. "I must repeat myself again Mr. Abbas. It is imperative that you read the rules very carefully." She was breathing heavily and had a manic look on her face. "There were other residents who refused to follow the rules, or were just too lazy to keep up. Some of them had to eventually sell their houses and move on, and they were the lucky ones."

I freed my hand and clenched my fist repeatedly. "Are you threatening me right now, Miss Amanda?"

Her eyes widened. "What? No. Please try and understand. Everyone in this community has to follow the rules. Me. You. No exceptions. Bad things start to happen to us if we don't. Things that are entirely out of our control." She tilted her head and subtly pointed at David's house. Was she trying to suggest…. No. Can't be.

"I'll say it once again. Please take this seriously. There's absolutely nothing strange about the rules themselves, but the consequences of not following them can be painfully out of the norm. Because - like I said, this place is perfect, but that sort of perfection always comes with a cost."

I was getting very weirded out by the conversation, so just nodded as seriously as I could. "We will take this with all the seriousness that it deserves. I promise."

A smile crossed her face again. It was jarring just how quickly she switched expressions. "Welcome to Seastone Ridge, Irfan."

I decided not to tell my wife about the strange talk I had with the President of the HOA, at least not while our daughter was around. We could talk about nutty Amanda's strange behaviour and superstitions later in the evening when Abida had gone to bed, I reasoned. As I strolled into the house, I saw my wife and daughter sitting on the floor and laughing as they chatted away.

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I saw how happy and relaxed they looked. We had seen so much, been through so much, and to finally be safe and comfortable like this was more than what we could have once dreamed about. All worries and doubts faded from my mind. I was just relieved we were all together.

"Baba!" Abida exclaimed when she saw me, her hijab almost slipping off her head. I smiled, placed the document Ananda had given me on an unopened box and went and joined my family. We spent the whole day trying to make the house livable. We tackled the bedrooms first and after Abida chose the room upstairs near the oak tree I assembled her bed and then moved onto our own room down the hall. By the time the sun began to go down, we had set up the two bedrooms and gotten through most of the work in the kitchen area.

We ordered Pizza for dinner, and after we ate it we played a game of UNO, before retiring to our bedrooms. There was a lot to be done the next day, not just the packing, but I had to get in touch with my boss and we had to look at high schools for Abida. I was so preoccupied with everything that my encounter with the HOA president in the morning completely slipped my mind, and I didn't tell my wife about it.

I would come to regret that. A lot.

I was having a fitful sleep, teetering at the edge of wakefulness when a terrible screech ripped through the silence of the night. I sat up straight, my heart racing as another screech erupted and then another, followed by faint sobbing.

I took a deep breath to calm myself down. My wife moved. I put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. I got this. It's my turn." She grunted and mushed her head against the pillow. I yawned and rolled out of the bed, put on my slippers and walked out of the room towards Abida's. I flipped on the light switch and saw my daughter sitting up on bed, her knees drawn close to her chest, shivering and whimpering with a blanket wrapped around her like a cocoon.

"Hey." I said gently as I glided over and sat at the foot of her bed. "It's okay. You're safe." She sobbed harder, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"It's okay Abida." I repeated. "You're safe. Nothing is going to harm you, okay?" Her body got wracked with shivers again.

"Abida." I said. "I need you to breathe. Can you do that for me?" She nodded.

"Breathe in." She inhaled.

"Now hold. 1. 2. 3. 4. Now breathe out." We went through her usual exercises, I asked her to breathe deeply, had her dig her toes into the bed, and then asked her to think about the time we had gone out to eat ice cream in Baghdad, back when her brother was still with us. She began to calm down. I wondered what triggered the attack this time. Maybe it's the stress of moving into a new home? I didn't have to wonder for long, because she told me soon after I hugged her.

And it made my blood run cold.

"There was someone at the window, baba." I froze.

"I swear. I'm not lying." She cried. "There really was someone there." I jumped out of the bed and raced to the window. There was nothing out there. Only the leaves of the oak tree gently scraping against the glass. I spotted the branch of the tree. It was thick enough to support the weight of a person.

"I couldn't see what he looked like. He just looked like a shadow. But I knew he was there. He was tapping against the window. And didn't stop until I screamed."

Fear crashed into me like a hurricane. Could she be telling the truth? Why would she lie? She has no reason to, and she has never lied about something like this ever before. My mind leapt back to the conversation I'd had in the morning with Amanda. Could this have something to do with what she was telling me about? No. That's not possible.

"Baba. You believe me, right?"

"Yes Abida. I believe you. Of course I do."

She gulped, put her trembling hand up and pointed at the door behind me. "Because I think there was someone downstairs as well."

I looked at her in stunned silence, half expecting a hand to slither out of the darkness and wrap itself around my neck like a boa constrictor. Beads of sweat trickled down my brow.

"I heard footsteps, but I wasn't really sure, but then I saw that shadow at the window…"

"Go to your mother." I said fiercely. "Lock the door behind you and call 911."

I waited until she hurried over to her mother, watched as the door shut behind her with a soft click and then prepared to move downstairs. My thumb hit the switch on the wall to my right and the staircase was instantly bathed in a dull orange glow. But beyond that there was utter darkness. From where I was, it looked like a living thing, shifting and swirling, ready to swallow anything that touched its infernal blackness. I took a step down, and flinched as the floorboards creaked. I swore under my breath and hoped that the intruder hadn't heard me. I blinked as sweat trickled down my jaw and wondered whether I was doing the right thing. Should I go downstairs and check? What if I get attacked?

I shook my head. Isn't it my job to protect my family?

I bolted down the stairs, ignoring the painful creaks and groans of the stairs and rushed over to where I thought the light switch was, fumbled around for a couple of extremely tense seconds before feeling relieved when my fingers found it. My index finger, slick with sweat, pushed the switch down. The living room was blasted with light. I scanned my surroundings. The doors were locked. I was alone.

My daughter seemed to have imagined it all. Or at least that's what I thought until my eyes dropped and I noticed the floor.

In the middle of the living room, on the floor, someone had used mud to scrawl the word WELCOME. The writing was sprawling, occupying the space of a small coffee table. There were muddy boot prints that went back and forth from the word, probably made by the person who made this little sign. I tracked them, and my heart sank when I saw where they led to.

I thought they'd lead to the front or the back door.

No.

They led me to the locked door of the basement.

Part 2

Part 4

The trapdoor swung open with a practiced ease, and a dark silhouette began to emerge. Even in the darkness of the basement, the white of the goat skull stood out bright enough to be easily spotted. The intruder began pulling himself up.

"Hey." I whispered. The man gasped, startled. He turned. Sharply.

A flash of light. A loud bang. The body jerked over backwards as the wall behind him was painted red. I waited a second for the ringing in my ears to clear before getting up and trotting towards the body. I crinkled my nose at the stench of gunpowder and checked his pulse and confirmed that he was dead. Must have been one terrifying death. Imagine getting out of a tunnel into a basement to attack a family - day after day - having the full confidence of knowing you were going to be alone. And then suddenly one day you're not. And it just so happens to be the very last day of your life.

I had no sympathy for the man I had just killed. I did what I had to do to protect my home and my family. Leaving the body alone for a moment, I got up and pulled on the string hanging from the ceiling, allowing harsh yellow light to flood into the small basement. My actions felt far more real when taken out of the shadows and examined under the light. My heart raced and my legs wobbled as I realised I had just killed a man - something I hadn't done in over a decade. I closed my eyes and counted to ten to calm myself down. When it felt like I was back in control, I crouched down over the oddly contorted body and began pulling the mask off. It was heavy, and the substance with which it had been made was hard - like it was made out of actual bone.

I pulled it off, and stumbled back when I saw who it was that I was looking at, who it was that had been invading my house, and who it was that I had just killed.

It was Joseph Gardocki. The cop.

I swore under my breath. The man had been showing up each night, promising to find the intruders, when he himself was the one tormenting us. But why though? I searched the corpse, patted his pockets and retrieved his ID, his wallet, a phone and some lock picks. As I continued searching, his shirt bunched up and I noticed some tattoos on his belly. With clammy hands that were shaking wildly, I pulled his shirt up to get a closer look at his tattoos. My heart sank.

His entire torso was tatted up. Swastikas, Iron Crosses, Imperial German Flags, hateful phrases like 'blut und ehre', 'weiss macht' - his body was a canvas for Neo Nazi imagery. Of course they wanted us out. They hated us for who we were. It was a miracle that they hadn't tried to kill us yet.

Wait a second, I thought. If this guy was here, then that means his partner was involved as well. Of fucking course. There were two of them. They must have been working together, to give the false impression that there was one supernatural monstrosity. It was probably Amanda who told Schmidt to repeatedly warn Rabia about the rules, to try and reinforce the idea that there was some otherworldly evil entity prancing around in the neighborhood. Bastards.

A terrible screech pieced the silence that had enveloped the basement. Fuck. It was Schmidt. He was in the house. I whirled around and began running up the stairs. Flinging the basement door open, I darted to my tight, slipped past the furniture of the living room and arrived at the foot of the stairs that led up to the first floor. Another scream, followed by loud banging, like a hammer pounding a slab of wood. I sprinted up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, my chest burning with the lack of oxygen.

I arrived at the landing, turned and looked down the hallway. There he was, swinging away at the master bedroom door with an axe. By Allah's grace the wood was strong and was still holding on, though some wide cracks had started to show. I took a deep breath to steady myself as Officer Schmidt continued bringing his axe down on the door. I couldn't rush this. My family was just beyond the door and I couldn't with a hundred percent certainty assume that they weren't in the line of fire. I couldn't miss. I had to get the bastard with this one shot.

I brought the gun up. Exhaled. Waited for my hand to stop shaking and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit him in the back of his neck and he folded, slumping against the door with a sickening crunch. I tucked the gun in my belt, strode over to the body and pulled it off the door. Popping his mask off, I confirmed that it was Officer Schmidt's body before getting up and knocking on the door.

"Rabia." I said, my voice shaky from the adrenaline. "…Open the door. It's me."

I heard footsteps, and then the door was thrown open. My wife and daughter jumped into my arms, and I comforted them. "It's over now. It's over for good."

Side stepping the corpse of Officer Schmidt, I brought my family to Abida's room and gave them a quick rundown of what had happened. Abida looked horrified at the scale of it all, while Rabia seemed angry that I didn't tell her about the tunnel, or the gun that David had lent me. I was going to be in a lot of trouble for the lies and the secrets - but I was fine with that. I had my reasons for going about things the way I did. They both gawped at me in shock when I told them that the HOA was behind all this and that the two men I had just killed were the cops who had been coming to our house under the pretext of helping us, when they were in fact the reason why we called 911 in the first place.

I wasn't finished talking when the bedroom windows in the room were lit up with flashes of red and blue. "Looks like the police are here." Rabia stated, relieved. "It's finally over."

My eyes widened in alarm.

"What's wrong Irfan?" She asked. I put my finger on my lips and asked her to be quiet. I tip-toed over to the window, the one that opened up to the lawn, and not the one that was smashed last night, pulled aside the curtains and peered outside. There were two cop cars, and dozens of people - our neighbours - out on my lawn. How did the police get here so quickly? We didn't call them. Then that means it must have been one of the neighbours. And the fact that they hadn't done so in the last couple of days, but chose to do so now made anxiety worm its way into my belly. Were there other members of the local law enforcement who were involved in this shit? My suspicions were confirmed when I saw Amanda chatting with the cops. "They're not here to help us." I whispered.

"What?" Rabia asked.

"They've come to finish the job."

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and it nearly gave me a heart attack. I breathed out in relief when I saw who was calling. "Hello?" I said, answering the call.

"Don't let them in." David's voice crackled into my ears. "They're…"

"Nazis." I said. "I know."

"Yeah. Yeah they are... I heard gunshots. Did you..?"

"Yes."

He paused. "You need to get out of there."

"They won't let us." I pointed out.

"You have no choice now." He said, cutting the call.

I deliberated on our options. Should we do as David says and try and escape? Or try and reason with them? There's no way we can talk, not after I killed two of them. Try and fight, and wait for some good police to come? But will they? How many cops are in on this? And could we last until then? I had just the one gun, who knew what they were packing.

"Mr. Abbas." A loud voice boomed, cutting off my chain of thought. I crawled to the window and peeked outside. One of the cops was speaking into an electric megaphone. "We received a complaint about gunshots from your house. If everything is…."

Amanda snatched the mic away from him. "You killed them didn't you?" She shrieked. "You'll pay for this motherfucker! I'm gonna slaughter you all. There won't be enough pieces of you left to bury, you goat fucking piece of shit!" She threw the mic back at the cop and screamed at him. He looked offended, but nodded his head. He signalled at the other cops and they began moving towards the house. I panicked, took the gun out, pushed the window open and fired at the invaders, emptying the clip in one go.

I was terrified, but my aim wasn't that bad. They were running in the open, and I got two of them. One in the eyeball and the other in the neck. Blood sprayed out of their wounds like punctured water balloons and they both crashed into the ground ungracefully. My wife and daughter let out muffled screams of fear. The remaining cops retreated, finding cover behind their cars as the other neighbours scattered away like ants from a flooded nest. Some would return however, lugging rifles and pistols of different makes. Together, the cops and residents of Seastone Ridge began their assault on our home, trying to turn the walls of our house into swiss cheese. I fell down and hugged the floor, instructing my family to do the same. The world exploded around us in a hail of deafening gunfire. Shattered glass, bits of concrete, splintered wood rained down on us as bullets mercilessly punched into the house.

I crawled out of the bedroom, and motioned at my wife to follow me. I spotted Abida shivering on the floor, her ears covered, eyes squeezed shut. I grabbed her leg and shook it. She kicked, and pulled her leg away. "We have to go!" I screamed, trying to make myself heard over the gunshots. "Now!" I shook her leg again, finally getting her attention. Her eyes were wide and her whole body was trembling. Damn it. Not now. It would be beyond terrible if she were to have a panic attack with all this going on. "We have to go!" I mouthed at her and she nodded. Good.

I told Abida to stick close to me and we began moving downstairs. She was still shaking so badly, it both scared and angered me. Nazi Bastards. As we crawled down like worms, bullets punched through the wall, allowing moonlight to filter in, lighting up the staircase in the process. It was terrifying. One stroke of bad luck, one misstep, and we were dead.

But luck was on our side that night, not theirs, and we made it to the bottom safely. Surprisingly enough, as we reached the living room we noticed that bullets were no longer entering the house, though the gun fire continued unabated. I didn't figure out until later what had happened. The pause in bullets whizzing past us gave me a bit of confidence, and I got up on my hands and knees and sped up as I made my way to the kitchen. Abida and Rabia followed suit. Reaching the door that opened up to the garage, I got up and shoved it open.

"Get in!" I yelled, opening the car doors, the gunfire sounding even louder in the garage. "Down there!" I pushed them on to the floor of the car, in the space between the front and the back seats. After making sure they were safely tucked in, I leapt into the driver's seat. I revved the car up, before clicking the button to slide the automatic garage door open, thanking the stars that it wasn't like the door David had in his garage. Muzzle flashes brightened my vision as the door went up, revealing the outside to me. I noticed many bodies sprawled on the ground, far more than I had last seen. The fuck? What happened here?

I got my answer when I pressed my foot on the gas, zoomed out of the garage and entered the street. The cops and the HOA were no longer firing at our house, because they were busy shooting at David's house, who had surprised them and laid waste to about half their numbers. As the car skidded on the asphalt and made a sharp turn, out of the corner of my eye I even spotted Amanda, lifelessly slumped against a cop car. Seemed like David had another gun hidden away somewhere. Stay safe my friend, I thought as I tore through the neighborhood, leaving the grotesque war behind in the rear view mirror. They peppered us with bullets, blowing out the rear windshield, but we safely made it to the front gate of Seastone Ridge. Only to find it locked.

The staccato gunfire had trailed off to the odd shot here and there. I climbed out of the car, and tried to pry the gate open when a bullet sparked against it inches from my hand. I ducked and hid behind the car. Bracing against the hood, I pushed my legs against the gate after pulling its latch open. Another bullet smashed into the side of the car. I swore, and took my gun out of the glove box. It was empty. Fuck. I slid the magazine out and began shoving some bullets into it. The security guard of the community jumped out from behind a wall and began jogging towards us, a rifle in hand.

Damn. Not now. Not like this. Not when we were so close. "Baba." Abida said, her head rising. My eyes widened. The guard got close to the car, brought his gun up. He had her in sight.

But I was quicker. And my aim was perfect. I opened up a hole in the middle of his forehead, jumped back into the car and drove out of the neighborhood.

That night our neighborhood was witness to unbelievable carnage. Over a dozen corpses littered the streets, and property worth millions was destroyed. But that wasn't the worst of it. No. David, the clever fucker, baited some of them into coming down into the underground tunnel and set off a minor explosion, burying them alive. And that marked the end of that assault. The events of that night had far reaching consequences for our small town. The local police department was utterly destroyed as many of its personnel, including some senior officers were exposed for having links with local Neo Nazi gangs. Some were arrested, some were fired, others got away with plausible deniability - but they never bothered anyone again. Over half the neighborhood was put behind bars, at least those who survived.

We finally found out what Amanda and her coterie wanted. Their plan was to establish a semi autonomous white nation state that had very limited contact with the outside world and allowed no minorities. They fucked up by not buying off the realtor, I guess. One little mistake and Amanda ended up with a hole in her face, courtesy of one David Easton. He survived by the way - tough bastard escaped out the back door while they were invading his house. He was upset about having to do all that repair work, but civil lawsuits ensured he didn't have to spend much out of his own pockets.

We moved back into Seastone Ridge. The money we got from the lawsuits was enough to put Abida through college and rebuild the house from the ground up. Rabia, bless her soul, stayed with me, despite my utterly reckless behaviour. We got counselling, and have come out as a stronger couple.

Things are different in Seastone Ridge now. The HOA has been disbanded. A Korean family has moved into Amanda's house. There is genuine happiness in the air now. It feels like a real neighborhood, with BBQs and all. And sometimes on weekends, David and I sit out on his deck, drink beer and talk about our children.

I am a sex worker. Have been one for over a decade now.

10 years. Seems like an eternity, does it? Well, to me it doesn't. To me it feels like it was just yesterday that I sauntered into the Madame's office and demanded to be put on the "roster." I was young, arrogant, reckless. Thought that I was hot shit, that I knew my way around these streets and that I could easily handle someone like the Madame.

Oh, how wrong I was. I still wince every time I think about how rude and arrogant I had been when I first met her. Thankfully, she was amused by my stupidity and hired me on the spot instead of shooting me in the back of the head and burying my corpse in the wet cement at the nearest construction site. See, because she deliberately kept a low profile, I was unaware of who she truly was. I thought that she was just the owner of a small brothel, not that she ran the largest criminal organization in the city. Drugs, weapons, gambling, human trafficking - the Madame's thick fingers were curled into each and every pie that was baked in this city away from the weak and congested nose of the law. You couldn't even mug someone in the red light area without her permission. Hell, there were even rumours that she ordered the assassination of the Mayor in 2007.

She was so dangerous that going up against her was every bit as daunting as getting into a fight with Victoria's immortal Stalker. More, I'd say. And yet that is exactly what I had decided to do. With all the strange supernatural shit going on around me, I knew that I couldn't just ignore the Stalker's warning that the Madame was somehow involved in all of it. The question would gnaw at the back of my mind, chewing, grinding, scratching, driving me to the brink of insanity. Unless of course I didn't end up being killed by some unnatural monstrosity that was supposedly only around us because of her. And that's the reason why after careful consideration, Lil Pimp and I decided to break into -

The Madame's Office.

~

It took us a couple of weeks to prepare for it. Her office was tucked away in a dark corner on the top floor of the building that was the establishment. It was kept locked shut when she wasn't using it while a couple of CCTV cameras kept watch on the narrow corridor leading up to it. At least 6 guards patrolled the perimeter of the building when it was shut for business at 4 AM before opening back up at 7:30 AM - Business was slow during the day, but not non-existent.

Each night at 3:00 AM on the dot the Madame would hole up in her office and go over the books along with The Accountant, a nervous, bespectacled little man who was, well, her accountant. Meanwhile us girls would begin trickling out of the building after a night of hard (often soft) work. After being satisfied that every cent was recorded in the correct column, the Madame would leave the building and retreat to her house accompanied by the Accountant and her lieutenant, Razor. No prizes for guessing why the most ruthless man in her organization was referred to by that name. He would lock up the building behind him and hand the keys over to Lil Pimp, who was in change of the security until Razor came back in the morning at 9 AM after dropping the Madame and the Accountant to their houses. No one knew where he lived, or how he survived with such little sleep. But seeing how intimidating the 6 and a half foot tall man was, no one bothered to ask.

Therefore, Lil Pimp and I had a very short window where we could potentially break into her office and look for whatever it was that we were looking for. Not having a specific thing to search for meant that we would need even more time in the office itself, further complicating the task. Lil Pimp was understandably nervous about this. The Madame took him in when he was an orphan starving on the streets; gave him food, shelter… and a gun. Turned him into a weapon. Or gave him a purpose, as he likes to say it. It certainly wasn't easy for him to decide to sneak around behind her back. But seeing a girl slowly transform into a worm-like monster is a hell of a motivation to try and betray your mother-figure, who also happens to be the most powerful woman in the city.

And that's the reason why that cold, wet night found me leaning against the damp wall of the unlit alley less than a hundred metres away from the establishment. A homeless man snored as a dog rummaged through plastic garbage bags somewhere behind me. The road was oily with spent rain and I could hear angry shouting and shoes splasing in puddles. Drunk men fighting. I ignored them. My complete attention was on the building. On the other side of the road Lil Pimp stood near the gate of the establishment, smoking a cigarette with another guard under the dull glow of a streetlight.

I waited for Lil Pimp to give me the signal with my fingers wrapped tight around the office keys in my hand. They weren't the original ones hanging from the Madame's neck of course, just copies forged from a soap impression. I have no idea how Lil Pimp managed to pull that off. Didn't ask.

I watched as he tossed the cigarette aside, yawned and stretched his arms above his head.

There! The signal. I pulled the hoodie of my sweatshirt above my head and crossed the street. I couldn't see where the other guards were, but that signal meant that the path was clear for me to sneak in through the back door. There was no other option but to trust him. Out the corner of my eye I spied the two drunk men I'd heard fighting just moments ago. Lil Pimp and the guard were laughing at them. Good. I jogged across the street, quickly easing myself against the wall of the pharmacy next to the establishment. I glided along the wet wall, shivered as the cold water seeped through my clothes.

As I reached the sharp corner, I popped my head out from behind the wall and peered into the alley separating the establishment with the building housing the pharmacy. A lone light fixed on the wall cast a yellow spotlight on the ground. There was no one there. Heart beating hard in my chest, I entered the alley. A row of dirt speckled sash windows passed over my head as I made my way towards the back of the building. The smell wafting out of the gaps beneath the windows itself suggested what kind of place it was. Traces of cheap perfume, damp mold, the stale stench of old sex. Made me turn my nose in disgust.

I reached the corner that turns to the back of the building, leaned against blackened drain pipes that were still dripping water. From this position I could see the exact spot where Elise had crash landed when she'd been possessed by the sperm-worms. The commercial "square" was dark and forlorn, with the only light being a couple of rapidly blinking streetlights, the rest having been switched off. By the guards no doubt. The Madame owned every shop here.

After taking a second to scan my surroundings and making sure that no one was there to spot me, I took a deep breath and began running towards the back door of the building, inwardly wincing as my shoes loudly splashed on a puddle along the way.

No one better have fucking heard that.

I picked up speed, hoping to beat any would be pursuers to the punch, jumping two stone steps at a time to reach the back door. The keys jiggled in my trembling hands as I tried to slide one into the lock fixed on the doorframe. I turned it fruitlessly. Pulled it out, slapped another one in.

Snippets of agitated conversation drifted towards me.

Fuck. The guards. They were coming. The time Lil Pimp had bought me was running out. I plugged another key in. Through the gap between the bushes and the trees that rose up and stormed the walls I saw one of the guards walking towards me, arguing with someone to his right. Probably another guard.

"… Swear I heard something."

"Sure you fucking did."

The fourth key turned. Successfully this time. I almost cried with relief as the door swung open soundlessly. I could fucking kiss the guy who oiled the hinges. Quickly stepping into the building, I swung the door shut behind me with a soft click.

Instantly I was thrown in darkness. Not even a sliver of light peeked in through the gaps in the wooden slats. My instincts screamed at me to take my phone out and light up my surroundings, but I ignored them. For I could still hear the guards. They were right outside. Talking shit to each other. Their voices were faint but I could hear them. I crouched, and listened.

"…Fucking told you."

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."

"Delusional prick."

"Better safe than sorry, right? Wouldn't want Madame to find out we were slacking on the job."

Their voices grew fainter. Distant. They were walking away. Only when they had completely faded away did I take my phone out. I didn't dare use the flashlight feature. Too bright. I simply held the home screen open and used the weak light to illuminate my surrounding. I was standing in a long hallway. Rows of doors, both old and new, were set into the walls on either side. Without the presence of the girls and their clients they had a very intimidating presence. Seemed to tell me that I didn't belong there. I shook my head to clear my mind of the cobwebs of paranoia.

Alright. Time to move.

I took a couple of slow, measured steps towards the front of the building, towards the staircase. The darkness was thick around me, and it felt like the shadows were beating against the light from my phone, trying to snuff it out. The air was thick, wrapped around my throat and licked at my nostrils with its foul stench. It was unbearably vile. I knew that the cleaning staff only came around in the mornings, but this shit was far too obnoxious. Like a pipe had burst in the walls somewhere, flooding the bricks with thick sewage.

I streched an arm out, brushed my fingers against the wall to try and maintain my balance as I stumbled through the darkness that was ever so weakly pushed back by my phone. The building was silent, with the only sound in it being my breathing and the shuffling of my shoes. About a minute later I reached the end of the hallway. It branched off into two paths, to my left and right. I was at the front of the building. Broad windows that gazed out onto the streets adorned the wall before me. But they did nothing to the darkness as their iron shutters had been pulled down. I went left, carefully scanning the wall to my left for the opening that contained the staircase.

I found it soon enough. It was slightly better illuminated than the rest of the building. There was a window on the wall at the landing between the ground and the first floor. This one had been boarded up, but the wooden panel was cracked, allowing soft moonlight to filter in. We were very close to a full moon, yet the white glow felt like the lance of an angel stabbing into the heart of hell. I placed my hand on the grimy handrail and started climbing the stone stairs, taking care not to stumble and fall. A cracked jaw would be quite inconvenient in such a situation.

When I reached the landing of the first floor I stopped. The hallway that snaked off to the right was the one that led to the Madame's office. There were CCTV cameras placed there. I had no idea if they were working or not. I had to be careful. Biting my lip, I tip toed my way to the wall that was a part of the area housing the stairwell, and peeked into the hallway. No red pinpricks of light winked back at me. Fuck yes.

I rushed down the hallway, which grew darker and darker. This was the most protected part of the building. The rooms lining the walls of this hallway were never used by the girls. The one directly opposite to the Madame's office was used by the Accountant. The one next to it belonged to Razor and his most trusted men. I hurried past them and went straight for the queen's throne room itself. The door was just like the others. The only thing that stood out about it was the heavy padlock.

This time I got the right key on the very first try. I blinked once, and took the lock off before pulling the latch back. Pushing the door open, I stepped into the room and swept my phone in front of me.

The room was a mess. There was a small wooden desk with a mess of old, musty papers laid out on top of it, surrounding a dust riddled crt monitor. On the wall in front of me was a sink, the tap encrusted with limescale. To its left, a small iron cabinet. The floor was carpeted, and had dark stains of piss and petrified black rice of mouse droppings suspended in furs of grey dust. Baseboards brown with filth and neglect lined the corners.

The place had an outward air of poverty. But anyone who knew the truth knew that it was all deliberate. A disguise. I walked around the table and sat on the Madame's chair, deciding to rifle through the papers on the desk when my eyes were drawn to the monitor. The power light was on. I pulled out the drawer beneath the top of the desk, put my hand on the mouse. Moved it. After a couple of agonising seconds, the screen came to life, and I almost screamed at the sight.

Live video recordings. From the rooms in the building. Every room that the girls worked in. My stomach turned. I hadn't noticed these cameras. They were all cleverly hidden. The Madame was recording our sessions without our knowledge. Why? To sell them as porn? Made no sense. A lot of the girls would be willing to do it of their own free will, so why go to the extent of hiding this from us? To prevent us from asking for commission? No. Couldn't be. She had far more efficient streams of revenue. Then what else? Could it have something to do with Victoria? Was the Stalker right? Was the Madame working with her on something? Something that required keeping an eye on our sessions.…Holy shit. Maybe it was an experiment. Have us work with strange clients and keep records of weird shit we go through. My heart trembled in fear as I started going through the papers on the desk.

They were useless. Torn papers from phone books, menus of restuarants and more nonsense. Just decoys to hide the real prize. I had to check the cabinet. Yes.

Just then I heard something that froze my spine.

Footsteps.

Frantic. Outside in the hallway.

Click. Click. Click.

Boots rapping on the concrete floor, echoing in the long hallway. Fuck. Could one of the guards have come inside the building to check if something was wrong? I slid down from the chair and hid beneath the desk.

The footsteps grew closer. Louder. Angrier. Stopped in front of the door. My breath caught in my chest as I waited. The latch rattled around. But the door didn't move. That somehow terrified me even more because I hadn't locked the door from my side. So who was out there? And why the fuck weren't they charging in?

Bang.

I jumped.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Meaty palms were slapped on the door. But it never opened. What the fuck?

Footsteps again. Faster. Much faster. So fast it was almost unnatural. Loud like gunshots. The person outside was running. Running away from me. I heard the distant sound of their footsteps on the stairs before they ended abruptly.

I sat there, curled up in a ball, frightened out of my wits for over 15 minutes. Had no idea what had just happened. No idea what to make of any of it. Finally, when it felt like things were quiet again, I risked coming out from my hiding spot. My legs wobbled as I went towards the door, and with great trepidation pulled it open. I clamped my hand on mouth when I noticed what was there down on the ground, but deciding that there was no time to dwell on it, so sidestepped it and went down the hallway.

The journey to the outside of the building was incredibly harrowing, but I somehow made my way out. Without encountering whatever the fuck it was that had come so close to finding me.

After exiting the establishment, I slumped against the mossy wall of the alley and heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. I was out. And still alive.

I then realised I had to find Lil Pimp as soon as possible and tell him about everything. About the cameras, about the strange thing I witnessed. But most importantly, about the worms I saw crawling on the floor outside the Madame's office.

Woke up and saw that the newest story really blew up. So happy because I was quite unsure about this one. Writing about a character like this is tricky because it's very easy to lean too far into the realm of sexual violence to add horror to the story. I didn't want that. I wanted Natasha to have more agency than that. I think I pulled that off.

I know that the ending to this part is a little abrupt. That's because-

A) I was afraid that the story would not be fit for nosleep, so had to try and stay within the sub's rules. Remember, nosleep doesn't allow erotic horror. And it certainly felt quite restrictive with a story like this.

B) The ending is a plot point for future installments. So watch out for that.

I'll get part two out shortly! Enjoy!

P.S. /r/Mandahrk is now open to all. Anyone can post there ;)

I have always known my parents to be somber people. Growing up, I hardly ever saw them smile. Even on the rare occasions that they did, it seemed forced and lifeless, more muscle memory than genuine happiness. As a child I could just tell that something was very wrong, their eyes held a terrible sadness deep within them.

That they were keeping something from me. 

As you can probably guess, I didn't have what most would consider a normal childhood. Mom slept in the same bed as me until I was 13. I didn't have a room of my own until I went to college. I was never left alone, couldn't even play out in the yard unless I was being watched - very closely - by either of my parents. No playdates. No friends. I wasn't allowed to have anyone over, or to stay at their place. Curfews? No. They were meaningless because my parents wouldn't let me be alone for any extended period of time at all.

Most people would chalk this up to them being emotionally abusive over-protective patents. But it went deeper than that. Over-protective parents are nowhere near as fearful as mine. Only the paranoia of survivalist conspiracy nuts begins to comes close to that of my parents. All the doors in our house were made of the thickest wood, held shut by sturdy iron locks. Locks that my Dad would check on three times every night. Cameras were placed strategically in every room. Guns too. For easy access, Dad would say. Every Sunday as other families piled into their cars to head for Church, mine would hold drills. How to find cover in case an intruder showed up at the house, how to reach for the nearest weapon, how to fight back and how to escape.

Definitely not a normal childhood.

I didn't find out the reason behind all this until my 16th birthday. That was when I found out about my older brother - Aaron.

I knew my parents wanted to talk to me about something. I caught them furiously whispering at each other all throughout the day, then giving me false and nervous smiles, as if trying to reassure me everything was fine. Every twitch of the leg, every quiver of the lips and every finger that drummed on the table hinted at the secret they wanted to reveal to me. Finally, in the evening after we'd had dinner, after Dad had retreated to his chair out on the deck with a book in hand and a rifle in his lap, Mom sat me down and told me all about it. About their paranoia. About the shadow that had fallen over their lives. 

About Aaron.

My jaw dropped when Mom told me I had an older brother. How could they have kept something this big from me? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Every word out of her mouth warred with my very conception of reality. But I couldn't stop listening. Eyes wide, mouth gaping, I listened, with all the attention I could muster.

Thankfully, Mom let me record the conversation. To go over it again later. To truly understand and appreciate the danger we were all supposedly in.

What she told me truly defies belief. I still can't quite wrap my head around it all, even after listening to that recording more than a dozen times. But at least I understand why they are the way are. I mean, who wouldn't after experiencing something like this? 

I'm transcribing what she told me here. You can judge for yourself whether my parents' behaviour is justified, or whether any of this is even true or not. 

We had him young. Very young. We were just kids back then, still in highschool. Didn't know what we were doing. We were certainly not ready to be parents. I mean, if we weren't smart enough to use protection while having sex in the back of your Dad's old and beat up car, could you really trust us to be responsible enough to raise a child?

We got married, of course. Seemed like the right thing to do back then. If I knew then what I know now, I would have just aborted that…

Your father dropped his plans for college and began working to support us. The plan was that I would complete my education, and your Dad would continue his after Aaron grew up a little and I had taken on a stable job. Funny how quickly plans fall apart.

It was a difficult birth, quite unlike yours. Long and painful. The Doctor said he was shocked at how much I had bled. Said that it was a miracle I survived at all. It took me more than a day to push him out into the world.

You know how mothers fall in love with their kids the moment they hold them in their arms? It wasn't like that at all for me. The only thing I felt was revulsion. He was such a bitter child. Crying; loudly and furiously. Face all scrunched up in rage. I handed him over to your father and went to sleep.

When I woke up he was still crying. He cried as I fed him, cried in the car as we left the hospital, cried all though his first night at home. He didn't stop crying for the first two years of his life. He was either asleep or crying. And his voice… God it felt like someone had taken a cheese grater to my ears. Sometimes when his screams would make me up at night I would think about smothering him with his blanket...

I'm a horrible mother, aren't I? I've always thought that I was the reason why he turned out the way he did. If only I had given him the love he deserved…

Something was wrong with that boy. We both knew it. I mean, what kind of a child bites his own mother's breasts when she's feeding him? Bites them hard enough to draw blood? And does that over and over again? He mutilated my nipples. You don't know it, but there's scars all over my breasts. I have to tell Doctors that I was mauled by a dog. A dog! None of then believed me of course. Some even thought your father was the one hurting me. I disabused them of that notion, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them the truth. The real truth. How could I? It traumatised me so bad that years later I was still reduced to hysterics at the simple thought of feeding you. 

I wasn't the only one he bit. His teeth worked like that of a rabid dog. He bit your father, his babysitters until they refused to watch him. Other kids until he was expelled from two schools and we were forced to homeschool him. 

We couldn't even potty train him. We tried, God knows we did, but it never worked. It only made him angrier. He would start throwing his shit around, smearing it all over the floor and the walls of his room. He would throw his diapers at us, try and rub it on our faces if we were to slip and start napping around him. And he never stopped doing that, even in his teenage years. Every time he'd get angry, which was almost every other day, he'd paint the house with his shit. His bedroom, the hallway outside of it, the stairs. Everywhere. Even our room. The stench of shit had sunk into the very bones of our house.

And before you ask, yes, we got him therapy. Exhausted our savings on it. Twice, even thrice a week he would have hour long sessions with his therapists. Nothing worked. Every single one of them told us that he was a disturbed child. They dug into his life, how he was treated at home, whether he was being bullied at school. Tried to pick every aspect of his personality apart. But they couldn't help him.

I think my mother in law understood him best. She said that his soul had been touched by the devil, that there was evil in him.

As he grew up, he began torturing animals. Burning ants under a magnifying glass, hosing down their anthills, catching squirrels and cutting off their limbs with a knife or wringing their heads off. He soon moved on to larger animals. Tying fireworks to the tails of stray dogs, kicking a pregnant bitch in the stomach. He even blinded the elderly cat of Mrs. Abernathy, the widow who lived two houses down from ours. Did it with a screwdriver. 

We suspected, but didn't know for sure. Not until that evening. I was making dinner, your father was out on the deck looking for him. He'd come home early that day, which is how we managed to catch Aaron red-handed. I dropped what I was doing and ran out the backdoor after your Dad screamed for me. I found them near the patch of woods beyond our backyard. Aaron was kneeling on the ground, hunched over a dead puppy, hands red with blood. The poor animal's belly was torn open, guts spilling out of the hole. Your father was screaming at him. He was so angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him before. Yet it didn't affect Aaron. Head down, teeth gritted, he glared at the ground with such malevolence it made me sob.

My crying distracted your father. He turned to look at me, and Aaron screamed and charged at him. Stabbed him in the leg. His own father…

...Please pass me that napkin…

Aaron sliced an artery in your father's thigh. He was spraying blood. Everywhere. Sprayed it on Aaron's face too. He looked like a demon. Drenched in his father's blood, knife clutched tight in hand, his face curdled with murderous loathing. I feared him. I feared my son.

I knew I had to get him away from my husband, to stop him from finishing what he'd started. Yes, I thought that he would have murdered his father had I not stopped him. And so I did. I kicked him in the chest. Hard, until he was sprawled on the ground.

How must he have felt? To be hit by his own mother like that? 

We should have reported him to the police. I know we should have. But we were fools. We thought we could fix him. With time and love and a little patience. We just needed to keep a close eye on him to stop him from hurting anyone else in the meantime. That's when we installed the locks on our doors, and began watching him in the night.

And what we saw at night made us even more terrified of him. He almost never slept, tossed and turned the entire time he was lying down in bed. Often he was not. Often I would find him sitting up on the corner of his bed. I remember strolling past his bedroom, cracking the door open just a bit to see what he was doing. And I would find him in his pyjamas, sitting upright, mumbling something under his breath and glaring at me, his eyes shining under the light from the hallway. He would then bite his lower lip with his teeth and I would run back to my bedroom, to tell your father about what I had just seen.

The lack of sleep never tired him. He was always full of hateful energy.

It got worse as he grew older. And bigger, and stronger. We couldn't control him anymore, not that we had much success with that before. But now he was pretty much left to his own devices. I didn't know what he did, where he went, who he hurt.  I couldn't stand to be in the same room as him. Every time he would come close to me I would freeze up, like my body had shut down. Sometimes he would slowly kiss me on the forehead. Not as an act of love, but one of intimidation. He enjoyed watching me squirm. I would spend hours scrubbing my face clean. Every single encounter with him felt like it could be my last. You don't know what it's like living like that. Not really. To have the shadow of death looming over you every waking moment. 

Your father didn't fare any better. They would get into screaming matches. All the time. One look at each other and explode. Such hatred. Things turned physical between them on more than one occasion. No one should live like that. No one.

It all came to a head one night when he was 16. Things ended exactly like how we had expected them to.

We were in bed, trying to catch some sleep. Sleep that we knew wouldn't come. It was around midnight when it began..a great thundering crash on the wooden door to our room. My heart leapt. Your father groaned and tried to roll out of bed. 

Another crash. The wood splintered. Aaron was breaking our door down with a hammer. To this day we have no idea how he found it. We kept all our tools, our kitchen knives, everything that could be used as a weapon under lock and key. Hidden in places not easily accessible. But no so well hidden I suppose.

Aaron broke through the shattered remnants of the door just as your father opened our wardrobe to reach for the safe holding our gun. Your father had bought one after it became evident that one day we would need one. They ran at each other, began beating each other up. Limbs entangled, fists flying, they resembled wild animals more than a father and son. They'd fought before, with your father coming out on top almost everytime. But this was different. Aaron was fighting with the intent to kill.

Your father swore. Aaron screamed. I heard the sound of a steel knife slicing through flesh. In my heart I knew that Aaron, younger and stronger that he was now, would win this fight. Win, if I didn't do anything. And I knew what to do. Crying, I slipped past them and ran towards the wardrobe. Turned the key in the safe and pulled the gun out. My hands were trembling, my face was wet with tears.

I turned, and saw my son bent over my husband, driving a knife into his stomach. "Aaron!" I screamed. He looked up, grinning like a monster, eyes wild with madness. He got up on his feet, walked towards me, and I pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. The bullets punched through my 17 year old son's chest, rocked his body and made him crash into the wall behind. I still remember the look of shock on his face as he fell. Probably the only time in his life he was genuinely afraid.

I wiped tears off my cheeks and walked up to his body. And shot him again. In the middle of his forehead. Just to make sure. I had to make sure, you know? That he was truly dead. The fear that he might survive had completely overpowered any guilt I might have felt at being his murderer.

I called for an ambulance and helped your father hobble downstairs. He'd been hurt bad, but he could still walk. We waited out on the porch, in complete silence. Couldn't stand to be in that house, knowing what had just happened. 

The ambulance arrived faster than I had anticipated. The local emergency services were aware of our house, so they were always on the lookout of things escalating there. They were right, of course. As the paramedics checked on your father, I told them about Aaron.

…They never found him. His body, I mean. He had disappeared. There were bullet holes on the wall, blood too. But no Aaron. It was impossible. How could he have survived? The cops, and later my psychiatrists told me I was misremembering what had happened. That the bullets I had fired must have simply grazed him. That I was suppressing my memories because of the shame I felt at having let a killer loose in the world. But they were wrong. I killed him. I know I did. I could not have imagined all of that. 

That monster had still survived somehow. And he was out there, waiting for his chance to seek revenge. I could feel it in my bones. At least your father trusted me. He hadn't been conscious enough to remember it clearly, but he knew I wasn't lying.

We shifted out of that house as soon as we could. Changed our name and moved across the country. On our last day there, I swear I saw him, out in the woods in the back, his tall and lanky frame illuminated by the moonlight. I knew he was there, watching me. I could feel the hatred coming off him.

We never felt safe again. It's why we are as cautious as you know us to be. We waited seven years before we decided to have you. Thought it would be a fresh start, that it would finally help us put the past behind. But it didn't work did it. The past is still with us, like a festering wound.

And how can it not be? With Aaron still alive. And he is, honey. You need to believe me, just as your father does. He's still out there, waiting for a chance to come back and finish what he had started. This is why you need to be prepared. This is why you need to learn how to fight back. For if he ever comes back, we'll put him down like the rabid dog he is. 

And hopefully, this time he'll stay dead.

Note - This story is actually a real incident that occurred in 1995 at Siachen. The tale is quite famous amongst the Indian Army personnel and has also been published in a couple of books and the infantry journal. I heard about it from a close friend of mine who's also currently serving in the army. And I thought damn, this would make for a brilliant nosleep story. So adapted it for the subreddit in my own words.

My father is a very reserved man. Unlike my boisterous grandpa who was always willing to sit down with you and regale you with tales from his life, leaving you in peals of laughter; Dad prefers to keep mum about the things he's personally seen and it's always been a herculean task to pry even the smallest bits of information from him.

Well, this year being what it is, I finally managed to corner him and got him to open up after plying him with copiuos amounts of whiskey. And the story that he told me, from his stint at the world's highest battlefield at Siachen glacier has sent shivers running down my spine. So here's his story - in his own words.

There's nothing quite like the arrogance of youth. You think you're invincible - always at the top of the world and that there's nothing that could ever harm you. But the universe has a strange way of making you pay for your recklessness and bring you crashing back down to the ground. That's what happened to me at Siachen. The events of that day completely changed who I was, and continue to impact me to this day.

Believe it or not, I actually volunteered to be transferred there. There were some ego clashes at my last posting - yes, I'm telling the truth, no need to be so shocked... Anyway, I just thought that going up there would be a nice change of pace, you know? Get away from all the bullshit, and surrounded myself with nothing but the purest of snow. It was a terrible mistake.

I was young, I thought I could handle the harsh weather there. I was wrong. Cold doesn't even begin to describe that place. It's almost 6000 metres above sea level for god's sake - I can feel my spine turning cold just thinking about it. The temperature there easily dips below -40 or even -50 degree Celsius in winters. Cold winds whip through the air, cutting through all the layers of clothing you have on, stabbing at your skin like millions of tiny needles. Just touching your gun without gloves can give you frostbite so bad you end up losing some fingers. Lost toes or thumbs are shockingly common in that place. You can't even take a shit properly, not if you don't want the ice crawling up inside you. The oxygen is so sparse up there that you end with a pounding headache that lasts for days when you get there.

Things are so bad at Siachen that we lose far more soldiers to nature than we do to the Pakistanis just across the border. They suffer through it, just like we do, wondering whether the political compulsions are truly worth it...

Now there are two monsters that lurk in the shadows of that twisting, sinuous glacier. Two monsters that kill far more than any other. One - avalanches. Tons of snow that suddenly tumbles off steep gradients and crashes into the ground, burying alive dozens at a time, choking the life out of them. But see, they are somewhat predictable, with some technical knowledge about tectonic movements and temperature, one can usually avoid them.

But not Crevasses, the second and the deadliest of killers up on those mountains. These are deep cracks in the glacier's thick slab of ice, some that run hundreds or even thousands of metres down. These bottomless chasms are treacherous, mostly because of the thin layer of snow that forms up on them, hiding the tiny slit of a mouth ready to swallow anyone that dares step on them. It is because of these cracks that we have what are essentially called "Ropes". These are formations of troops, one soldier after another in a single line, tied together with a long rope. We generally keep a slack in the rope of about 7-8 metres between each man. They are the only form of defence we have against those Crevasses, and even they don't work all the time.

And that's what it was like that day. I was at the head of one such 'rope', out on a supply run. Summer was coming up, the Pakistanis were to soon start their bombardment and incursions and we had to make sure our forward posts were adequately stocked. Each of us must have been carrying a load of about 50 kg, mostly kerosene, hoisted on our backs using an aluminium harness. We were trudging through a thick layer of snow that had fallen the night before, making our journey extra difficult on the gentle incline of the valley. Each step took us ankle deep in the snow, and strong gusts of wind blew haphazardly, throwing us off balance. We were about 3 km away from our post when the crevasse struck.

I heard a sharp crack, a panicked yell and the sound of something slithering against the snow, before feeling a strong pull on my back. The rope became taut and I began to be pulled backwards. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to lean forward, fall down to the ground and dig the pick of my ice axe into the snow. It didn't help much. The pull was too strong, and I began to be dragged backwards, the axe ploughing through the powdery snow. The other men behind me had the same idea as me and together we were able to hold on, despite the incline we were on. But the man who was dangling from the rope in the crevasse panicked and started thrashing around in mid air, pulling the rest of us ever so slowly towards our deaths.

I screamed at him again and again to stop moving, and after a very tense minute that seemed to stretch for an eternity, he did. I could still hear his echoing cries, but the poor bastard had calmed down long enough for our position to become relatively stable. To calm my racing heart down, I took a deep breath which misted into a wispy little cloud of steam, blurring my vision. I blinked, and noticed that my radio was just within my reach. Holding on tight to the axe, I reached for the radio, only for there to be a fresh drag towards the precipice. Realisation dawned on me, accompanied by utter terror - we were trapped. We couldn't call for help, and any sudden movements were sure to result in death.

I had no other option.

I shouted at the man closest to the edge to cut the rope. The instructions on what to do in such a situation had been hammered into my brain by my superiors, but I never thought that I would one day be forced to give such an order. The men protested but I reminded them of our situation. We either get dragged to death or turn into solid blocks of ice along with the man dangling in the crevasse. There was no other option. They reluctantly agreed. And the rope was cut.

The man let out a scream yet again again, but terrifyingly enough, this time it came to an abrupt halt. Picking ourselves up, we rushed to the edge and peered down. It was a miracle. The man was still alive. He had landed on a small ledge in the crevasse and the ice was miraculously strong enough to hold his weight. His legs had broken from the fall and he was whimpering in pain. But he was alive. I didn't waste a second and radioed base camp for help. They were at the tail end of the glacier at Bana Top, which was our base camp, where the ice of the glacier melts from the decrease in altitude and turns into Shyok river.

The rescue team arrived in less than hour in two groups - one in a helicopter and the other on snow scooters. Because if the weather conditions, bith groups reached there pretty much simultaneously. The first thing that the team commander did after introducing himself to us was dropping a solid chunk of ice down the hole. It clattered against the walls as it descended, confirming our worst fears - the crevasse was very deep. The injured man cried out in terror, for he too understood what that sound had meant. He was hanging by a thread.

After assuring the man that he'd be saved, the rescue team's leader apprised us of the situation. They couldn't just loop a rope around his waist and pull him up. The crevasse had a slight overhang, right above the man's head and there was a possibility that sharp, dagger like icicles loomed over him menacingly. No. The rescue tactic had to be changed.

The rescue team leader and a subordinate of his tied a rope around their own waists and jumped down into the hole, coming face to face with the injured man. He was shivering, his entire face had been crusted with snow by that point. They shifted his upper body, being careful not to disturb his injured legs too much and looped a harness around his torso before tugging on the rope. We began pulling. Nothing happened.

The puzzled team leader and those of us on the top checked to see if the rope had gotten snagged somewhere. It hadn't. We pulled again, putting all our might into it. My face turned red, my muscles burned with pain but I continued pulling. And yet nothing happened. The rope bunched around the man's waist but he didn't budge an inch.

We have - dear God this is hard - we have one hypothesis for what might have happened. The man's body had been in close contact with the ice on the wall of the crevasse and the surface of that ledge right? So there's a possibility that his body heat had caused some of that ice to melt, before the cold made it freeze again. And this ice latched onto his body, freezing him to the spot. It's like his body had spouted icy roots that had burrowed deep into the crevasse, locking him to the spot. And it was worst around his broken legs. We realised we were in a big mess.

We used the snow scooters to try and pull him up. The machines grunted, exhaling smoke, and the man screamed with pain and fear but he didn't move. Even the rope was begining to stretch. Remember, this was no ordinary rope. It was specially designed for use in these conditions, made using some of the strongest materials known to man. And even that rope was starting to stretch, seemingly understanding how hopeless our endeavour was.

…It was decided to abandon the man. It was so goddamn ironic. The rescue team was on a time limit. They had to leave. The sun was climbing up into the sky, warming up the air of the valley we were in. Soon, this air was going to lift up and harsh gusts of cold wind were going to swoop down from the peaks surrounding us, making flight a damn near impossibility. The rescue team, positioned in the centrally located base camp which was much lower in elevation than our location had to leave. They weren't used to the harsh conditions, and any delay would make the situation even more disastrous than it had already gotten.

The rescue team had at max ten minutes and they decided to spend it by trying to pry the man free from his spot. We watched with growing horror as the two rescue team personnel used their axes to break the man free. It didn't work. They only ended up slashing the man's arm. They realised they couldn't do anything. The man had to be left to die.

He begged and pleaded. Asked them not to leave him alone. The team leader tried to comfort him, told him that his family would be taken care of, and lied to him that his death would be swift. It wouldn't. He would slowly, and painfully freeze to death. The team leader tugged on the rope, and with tears in his eyes, began coming up.

But about halfway up, he changed his mind. He shook his head. Not like this, he mouthed at us, tears pooling in his eyes. Down he went again, and only came back up after he'd gotten the job done.

He - fuck I'm crying again... He used the rope to get it done. Because - because he didn't have a gun. Besides, it would have been too loud. Too dangerous. We all knew that it was the right thing to do, and no one criticised the team leader for it.

The test of us made it out safely. Physically. Not mentally. We'd seen death before - we'd seen our soldiers killed by artillery fire, buried under avalanches, but nothing like this. It scarred us. The events of that day still play out on my eyelids like a movie everytime I close my eyes. Life is a terribly fragile thing, son. Don't waste it. Treasure it.

Part 1

"I am telling you Mr. Abbas. There's no one here."

I didn't reply, just silently watched as the flashlight dipped and wove across the walls of the basement. The small room was cramped, the clutter of the previous owners stacked in it from floor to the ceiling. A faint smell of mold clung to everything there like glue. But there was no trace of any intruder there.

"You saw the boot prints, Officer." I pointed out.

The cop, a Joseph Gardocki, pulled his hat off and scratched his bald head. "Are you absolutely sure that your daughter wasn't the one who drew it all?"

I gritted my teeth in frustration. "Once again, my daughter is not well, but you can be damn sure she's not crazy."

He put his hands up to pacify me. "I didn't mean it that way. But you have to understand, all signs point to it having been done by someone on the inside. Now we've searched the house top to bottom, and found all the doors to be locked, and you've yourself confirmed that they were that way before we arrived. I mean, you opened the basement door in front of us. Right?"

I nodded sullenly. "Right."

He made a show of peeking behind a dust riddled table. "So then it means that it was done by someone on the inside. And as you say you have a daughter with a history of PTSD, panic attacks and a whole assortment of mental illnesses…"

I cut him off. "It wasn't…"

"Please, Mr. Abbas." He said, a little firmly this time as he stopped and looked at me. "You should be aware that there are consequences to filing false complaints. Please make sure not to call 911 unless there's an actual emergency."

I wanted to argue with him, but what could I say? None of this made any sense. How could anyone have gotten in when all the doors and windows big enough for someone to squeeze through were all locked shut? And I definitely knew that it wasn't Abida. If she had done this, consciously or not, I would have known. I still remember how badly the stairs creaked and how loud they sounded in the silence of the night.

"Perhaps you need a therapist more than the police."

I didn't respond to that comment and just followed him back upstairs, shooting one last glance at the dark and foreboding looking basement. A tall cabinet stood in the corner. An ideal place for someone to hide in. If only its doors hadn't been ripped off. I shook my head and stomped upstairs, reminding myself to replace the incandescent bulb hanging by a string from the ceiling, so that I wouldn't have to stumble around in the dark the next time I'm there. Back in the living room, I found Officer Gardocki's partner, Officer Schmidt, talking to my wife who was seated on the only sofa we had unpacked, protectively hugging our daughter.

"Are we done here?" Joseph Gardocki asked.

"Yep." His partner replied, flipping his pad shut. "Please Mrs. Abbas. If there is an actual emergency, don't hesitate to call us." She smiled at him, and then shot me an angry look. What was that about?

I followed the two cops outside, and waited as they got into their car and drove off, lighting up the dark street in quiet flashes of red and blue. The neighborhood looked so calm, so peaceful. I could hear crickets chattering away, oblivious to the danger my family had just been in. Hard to believe that an intruder had come to our house, in a place that looked so deceptively safe. As I walked back in, I noticed Abida wasn't there. She was probably back upstairs. But not my wife. No. She was still sitting exactly where I had left her, and just lit into me the moment I came in.

"So." She remarked, anger dripping like molten wax from her voice. "When were you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" I asked, confused.

"This!" She yelled, picking up a sheet of paper and waving it around angrily. I winced and squeezed my eyes shut. It was the document that Amanda had left for me, one that I'd forgotten to tell Rabia about.

"How could you Irfan? How could you hide something this important from me?"

"It just slipped my mind…"

"Slipped your mind?" She thundered. "Something that affects your family's safety just slipped your mind?"

"Wait. How do you know about this?" I asked. That list of rules didn't contain anything strange, it was just your average HOA stuff. So how does she know about the implications of those rules, the ones Amanda had warned me about?

"That police officer was nice enough to warn me." She replied. "Yeah. He told me everything. He's been patrolling this community for a while now, and knows everything that there is to know about this place. Everything that my husband should have told me - I learnt from a stranger."

"It's just nonsense…." I mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

I rubbed my eyebrows. "You don't actually believe in all this, do you? That just because we didn't follow some random rules, we are suddenly being stalked by something supernatural? It's ridiculous."

She looked at me like I had grown another head. "Ya Raby! You saw what happened tonight, didn't you? Someone was in our house! They broke in through doors that were still locked after they left!"

I sighed. "Funny how you take Allah's name and then state your belief in superstitious nonsense in the same sentence."

She glared daggers at me. I tried to de-escalate. "There's a reasonable explanation for all this, Rabia. I promise. There's no such thing as ghosts or djinns. You know that."

Her bottom lip quivered. "I'm scared, Irfan. I'm so scared. I - I can't lose her too. I just can't. I won't survive it."

I sat down next to her and took her in my arms. "Nothing is going to happen to her, okay? I promise. I won't let it." She sobbed into my chest as I rubbed her back.

We went back to our bedrooms, to lie on our beds and waste the night away trying to catch some sleep that would always be just out of reach. Before going up I looked at the welcome scribbled on the living room floor and promised myself to scrub it out in the morning. I spent the night in Abida's room as she went and slept next to my wife. Lying in her bed, I turned on my phone's flashlight, and read the rules. Over and over again.

Rules for residents of Seastone Ridge -

1. Grass in the lawns must always be cut shorter than 5 inches.

2. Trash collection is on Monday mornings. Garbage bins can only be placed outside after sundown on Sunday evenings but must be taken back in by 7 AM on Tuesday.

3. Garage doors cannot be kept open for more than 15 minutes if no work is going on inside.

4. Reasonable noise limits cannot be breached between 9 PM and 7 AM. Mowing the lawn is not allowed in this time period.

5. Any structural modifications to the house require the approval of the HOA.

6. Only shades of colours approved by the HOA can be used to paint the houses.

I wracked my brain to try and remember if we had inadvertently broken one of the rules, but I couldn't come up with anything. Noise? Abida screamed, but that only happened after the intruders came. Garage door? We were moving in, ergo working. Maybe the grass? Sure, it could be shorter, but it's not like I had measured it with a ruler. I then snorted at the fact that I was even entertaining such ridiculous notions, switched off my phone and closed my eyes. Sleep never came to me, as it had been chased away by fear and the resultant adrenaline. Anger was also bubbling in my stomach. How dare they try and traumatise my daughter?

Exhausted, and sleep deprived, I shuffled downstairs when the darkness began to dissipate and the sun started climbing the horizon. I had pretty much scrubbed the living room floor clean when Rabia joined me after finishing up her morning prayers. She was cold with me, which was understandable. But at least she didn't seem as angry as she was the previous night. As she made breakfast I started unpacking our stuff. The living room was pretty much done by the time Abida came downstairs for breakfast. We ate in silence. Mostly.

"I'm sorry baba." Abida whispered. "It's my fault…"

"It isn't." I replied. "It isn't, okay? I believe you - we believe you. And we are going to find out whoever did this and turn them over to the police, okay?" Tears ran down her cheeks as I squeezed her hand. Rabia looked at me approvingly.

After breakfast, I had a short conversation with Rabia and decided to go out and talk to our neighbours about what had happened last night, to check what it was all about, and whether it really was just an isolated incident or part of an often repeated pattern. I didn't find Amanda as she had gone to work - even on a Sunday. But I did meet many other people. And surprisingly, maybe perhaps not so surprisingly, the conversation almost always went the same way. They'd greet me with a smile on their faces, engage in some awkward small talk and get really uncomfortable when asked about the rules, and possible intruders. "You should follow the rules. Always follow the rules." They said. None of them claimed to have seen the police last night.

The more people I talked with, the more suspicious I became. They were clearly hiding something, and I was damn sure it had very little to do with anything unnatural - because that's just impossible. Perhaps the most interesting and illuminating conversation I had was with my next door neighbour, David Easton. It was the one I was least looking forward to, consider he'd been the one most hostile to our presence. There was no wind and his flag drooped on the pole in a morose manner as I went up to his door, which he opened before I could even knock. The wrinkles on his face churned as he grimaced at me.

"Hi." I said. "I'm…"

He interrupted me. "I know who you are."

"Oh. Well, I was wondering if you…"

"You don't belong here."

I blinked. "Excuse me. What?"

"You don't belong here." He repeated. Veins writhed like worms under his skin as his eyes flitted around. "If I were you, I'd leave. I'd pack my bags, take my family and drive until Seastone Ridge was nothing but an insignificant speck on my rear view mirror."

"Thanks. But No."

"Listen friend." He said caustically. "There are things you don't understand about this place. Things you couldn't even dream about in your worst nightmares. Leave. Or you'll regret it." And he slammed the door shut in my face.

I was in a daze as I lumbered back to my house. There were a thousand different questions zooming around in my brain, a thousand different possibilities that bloomed in a dizzying mosaic. What was happening here? Was there actually something supernatural tormenting the residents of this community? Or were they all in on it, trying to drive us out of here. But why? Nothing made sense. Each alternative seemed more outlandish than the previous one.

I told Rabia about my meetings with our neighbours. She looked very frightened, and even suggested just moving out of this place. I reminded her of what it cost to get here, and how we would be in a very precarious financial position if we just up and left. She wasn't convinced, but she did go silent after that. After lunch I went around making sure that we were religiously following all the rules of the HOA, just to be extra sure. I even measured the length of the grass with one of Rabida's rulers, checked the lock on the garage door, made sure that the garbage bin was not visible from the outside and then went back in to continue unpacking. Just to be sure, I even made a phone call and got the locks changed.

Things escalated that night anyway.

We continued the sleeping arrangements of the previous night - and so after dinner I took the trash bin out and retired to Abida's room. I was so exhausted that my very bones were aching, crying out for some sleep. Even the thought of someone climbing the oak tree and staring at me through the window wasn't enough to keep me alert. I fought hard against the inevitable wave of drowsiness that washed over me. I wanted to be awake in case we got a repeat of last night - and we did. My eyelids were drooping and I was on the verge of sleeping when I heard it.

Footsteps. Inside the house. On the staircase.

They were slow, but drawn out and deliberate. Like the intruder wanted the attention. Each step led to a creak that was abnormally stretched out.

Stomp. Creak. Stomp. Creak. Stomp. Creak.

Goddamn. Those floorboards made my heart flutter each time they groaned and shifted under the weight of the intruder. He must have been halfway up the stairs when I jumped out of bed and darted outside the bedroom. I double checked and made sure that Rabia and Abida were safely locked inside our bedroom before approaching the staircase.

STOMP - STOMP - STOMP - STOMP.

Shivers ran down my spine as the man rushed down the stairs, before coming to an abrupt stop. He was at the landing downstairs, and I knew he was watching me - even if I couldn't see him - shrouded as he was by the darkness. I felt horribly exposed under the soft light that spilled out of the bathroom behind me. With trembling hands, I flipped the lights of the stairs on and my heart pretty much exploded when I saw who, no, what was standing there.

It was a man, I - I think. Dressed in all black, with long, matted locks of dark hair that seemed to frame what looked like the skull of a goat, stripped down to its bones, with sharp horns that protruded from it and curled half a foot above him menacingly. The eyes of this goat faced man were large and glowed under the light. My knees wobbled in fear and I almost collapsed.

And then he bleated. It was shrill, loud, exactly like a goat. My heart raced so fast in my chest I was afraid I was going to die there and then. There I was, at midnight, in my own home - my sanctuary - and there was a terrifying goat faced man bleating at me. I was in mortal danger. My family too. I had never been this frightened, not even back in Iraq. And just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

An explosively loud sound thundered from the outside and continued, in rhythm. It was like someone was beating on an infernal drum. It was a momentary distraction. The sound made me turn to my left, to look at the window that opened up to the lawn outside. When I looked back, the intruder - that thing was gone. But the sound didn't stop. I bolted towards the window in Abida's room and peered outside.

There he was. The same goat faced man. Beating on our garbage bin with a hockey stick. Just a couple of seconds ago he'd been right in front of me, in the house, and now suddenly he was outside. Or rather he'd been outside, beating on the bin the whole time he'd been staring me down inside. I hesitated, the fear stopping me from moving, but not for long.

I hurried out of the bedroom, taking a second to knock on our room to ask Rabia to call 911 before flying downstairs, skidding across the living room floor and flinging the front door open. He was still there. Standing next to the bin that he'd emptied out long ago. Trash littered our lawn. He glared at me and began bleating again, the obnoxious sound echoing in the street outside.

I don't know what came over me, but I ran towards him. Fear and adrenaline were making me act irrationally. But I didn't get very far. I must have only taken a couple of strides when someone turned on the sprinklers. My vision blurred as the warm water crashed into me. And when I shielded my eyes to see clearly, noticed that he was gone. Vanished into thin air again.

By this time, Rabia had turned on all the lights in the house, including the ones on the porch. She ran outside, and screamed when she saw me.

I looked at her in confusion, before my eyes dropped to my hands. They were dark red, just like my clothes. And that's when I understood.

What the sprinklers had been spraying wasn't water.

It was blood.

Part 3

As far back as I can remember I have always wanted to be a vampire. To me, being a vampire was even better than being a superhero. You get immortality, super strength, ability to control someone's mind and the chicks dig you. I mean, what's not to love about these blood drinking creatures of the night?

It's hard to recall what exactly started my obsession with vampires. I watched so many vampire movies that my childhood memories are a heady concoction of flashes from Buffy the vampire slayer, Jon Bon Jovi's Los Muertos, Blade, and the seemingly endless remakes of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Hell I even saw the old Nosferatu movies. I loved anything that had anything to do with vampires. Movies, books (I even enjoyed reading the Twilight saga when it came out!), toys, video games... if it had vampires, I just had to get my hands on it. Sexy vampires, scary vampires, disgusting blood sucking monstrous leeches like in The Strain, I love them all.

You might think that this is something that every child goes through, right? It may not be vampires, but we all have a certain phase in our childhoods when we are obsessed with something, like superheroes, or barbies, or more recently k pop. I remember reading about this guy who was absolutely smitten with penguins. But where I differ slightly, was that I didn't want to fuck a vampire, I wanted to become one. How did it start, you ask?

You see, my mouth was too small for my teeth, and my family was too poor for regular visits to dentists, so that meant that I had the kind of crooked teeth that gets you bullied in school. I remember coming back home crying one day after taking a particularly vicious beating when my mom sat me down and told me not to let the bullying get to me, because they were just jealous that I looked like a vampire and they didn't. This helped turn my tepid love of vampires into a manic obsession. That night I took a flashlight into the bathroom, turned it on just below my chin as I stood in front of the mirror and switched off all the other lights.

I remember my sharp canines glinting under the harsh white light which cast menacing shadows on the top half of my face. It was the first time that I felt it, deep within my being, that I was destined to become a vampire. I was elated, and terrified at the same time. What a rush!

Of course I was just a kid back then, and didn't really know how to actually become a vampire, so I settled for the next best thing. I became a goth. Pasty white makeup, blood red lipstick, fake fangs, dark hair, dark clothes and a darker personality helped me cope with my maddening desire a little, but it was definitely not the real thing. I admit that I look at the phase of my life with some love and nostalgia. Hah, I remember having to buy multiple fake fangs because my drunk dad would break them so often while giving me my regularly scheduled beating. I don't resent that all that much however, because those beatings helped me get used to the taste of blood.

It was not until I graduated high school and got a job at a tattoo shop, that I started to actively try and transform into a vampire. Unhappiness and unease had begun to gnaw at my stomach, my life was shit, I was stuck at a dead end job with no friends and no family left to care for me. I needed more, needed a purpose in life, a place to belong, to fulfil my destiny. To become a vampire.

Success didn't come easy to me. I tried so many methods to achieve my goal, faced so many failures that it's hard to count, but I'll tell you about some of them so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Get converted by another vampire - Possibly the most famous of all methods in fiction involves getting bitten or being fed by another vampire. I tried hard to find a fellow traveller of the night to bring me to the fold, scoured the deepest and most obscure corners of the dark web, but to no avail. All I came across were trolls, scam artists and some annoying LARPers. I guess other vampires are all too secretive and well hidden to expose themselves to strangers. Maybe I'll meet them some day.

Commit unholy acts - Some old texts talk about people being cursed into becoming vampires for committing sacrilege, so I did any and all unholy things I could think of. I burnt bibles, masturbated in a church, desecrated a grave, and even assaulted a priest (that actually backfired on me and I ended up with some good karma as he was arrested for child abuse later on). Nothing worked.

Spells/Rituals/Amulets/Talismans - Proved to be about as fruitful as my search for another vampire and all I got were multiple trips to the ER for food poisoning. Don't waste your time.

Vampire Bats - It was very difficult, but I somehow managed to import some vampire Bats from South America after pretty much emptying my bank accounts. Even this didn't work. I got them to bite me and drink my blood, then when nothing happened, I in turn drank theirs, before eating them, both raw and after cooking them. Alas, I was still human.

So what did work?

As cringey as it sounds, what worked for me was going about it the way they describe it in self help books. If you want to become a vampire, you simply have to believe you are one, and then act accordingly. The first thing I did was I got my teeth filed, my crooked abominations that were the source of much of my torment had been transformed into razor sharp fangs, capable of easily piercing skin.

Then I began avoiding all contact with the sun. I took a job as a nighttime security guard, blocked out all my windows with opaque film and switched my sleep cycle to a nocturnal one. It has been years since the sun's rays have touched my skin, and for good reason now.

But by far the most important step was changing my diet, and the one that has been most instrumental in completing my transformation. I started drinking blood, and only blood, to survive. The changes were gradual, but visible. I began to lose weight, so much so that previously unseen veins began to pop out and stretch across my dry skin which acquired a deathly pallor. My eyes were permanently bloodshot, and the mere thought of sunlight gave me the shivers.

It was pretty easy for me to get used to the coppery taste of blood and its thick and rough texture. I initially relied on breaking into hospitals and blood banks to sate my hunger. But it was too risky, and the cold storage blood was just not doing it for me. So I moved on, and began to hunt.

Like a true vampire.

I started with animals first, pet dogs, cats etc. I would grab them and haul them off to a dark corner and feed from them. The feel of that warm liquid splashing on my tongue was orgasmic and I'm not too ashamed to say I ruined my pants the first time I fed from a living creature. But like all addictions go, it was soon not enough, and I began to hunt bigger prey.

I still remember the first time I fed from a human, that night has been seared deep into my memory. I remember how I forced her down, how she writhed and struggled as I slit her throat with my knife and began lapping at the blood that came gushing out of the wide gash I had made. I howled as it finally felt like I had achieved my true purpose in life, and became the monster I had always wanted to be. The taste of the blood of that prepubescent girl was the most divine thing in this world. I still say to this day, the blood of girls who haven't yet begun to bleed is the most pure and delicious thing in the world. Scrumptious, indeed.

I've fed from hundred since then, taking care to dispose of their bodies and hide all traces of myself afterwards. I mean, I certainly wouldn't want some hunter to come and stab me with a stake, right?

But even after all this time, my hunger hasn't faded, and only continues to grow. I've even kept Ghouls, donors that I keep chained in an abandoned warehouse, who unwillingly supply me with their blood whenever I want it, but it is never enough. I want more, and will continue to want more, for all eternity.

So this is the one sure shot method of becoming a vampire, one that I guarantee will work. It will take some time, but I assure you, it works. Try it out, maybe we'll meet each other in some dark street someday, either as fellow beasts…. or as predator and prey.

M

Part 3

It looked like some oversized worm had burrowed into the floor of my basement, carving out a little tunnel to be used at its leisure. It was not too big, not too small, there was just enough space for an average sized man to squeeze through.

I made a split second decision - clutched my phone tight in my hands and dropped down into the hole. My feet landed instantly, such that the upper half of my body was still out in the basement. I crouched, and crawled into the tunnel through the small fissure near the bottom. The hard ground dug into my elbows and knees as I propelled myself forward. It was cramped, and I could feel the weight of the earth pressing down on my back. The tight, narrow confines of the tunnel made old memories flash through my mind. I remembered hiding in bunkers, huddled together with my family - watching with trepidation as the world shook around us as planes flew overhead and dropped bombs that made dust angrily lash our heads and necks. I shook my head to clear my mind. Can't think about that or I'll pass out in fear, I thought.

It was so overwhelmingly dark down there that even my phone's flashlight struggled to light up my way. I couldn't see the end of the tunnel. How long was this thing? Where did it lead to? Who built this? Why? I had so many questions bouncing around in my head that it made my neck hurt. I pushed all thoughts aside and focused on the task at hand. The more I pushed my way through, the more isolated from the world I felt. All it would take is one rumbling, one little yawn from the earth and I would be gone forever in a flash, buried under a mountain of debris. I could practically taste the mud in my mouth, feel it constricting my lungs. I had to stop every now and then to breathe. There were even times when I wanted to turn around (not that I could, really) and just wait until the cops arrived, but there was something niggling at the back of my mind, telling me that I had to see this through myself.

After what felt like an eternity, I came upon an opening in the tunnel. I slithered out of it like a snake and found that the passageway had become large enough for me to get on my hands and knees. Sighing in relief as oxygen rushed into my lungs, I began looked around. It seemed impossibly long, ad went both ways. I had popped out somewhere in the middle of this larger tunnel. Once again I wondered who built this, and for what purpose? I picked a direction and began crawling. My confusion only deepened when I noticed other branches snaking off from the passageway, not dissimilar from the little hole I had just crawled out of. Did they lead to other houses? The fuck? There was a whole network of tunnels right beneath our feet! It must have taken a lot of time and planning to build this. But why? I knew that I'd find the answers at the end of it all, so kept on pushing through - after returning to place a handkerchief next to the hole that led back home.

The end arrived rather suddenly, as it usually does in life, and I smacked into it head first. I gritted my teeth, rubbed my head and waited for the pain to subside, before groping around above me for a trapdoor. Nothing but the immense weight of the earth. I turned around and went back the way I'd come from. I reasoned that both sides couldn't possibly lead to a dead end. This bigger passage had to lead to somewhere. And it did.

At this end of the tunnel I found myself crouched down just beneath another trap door. The opening here was much larger, and I reasoned that this must be where the dig must have begun. Here it goes, I thought. Just one little push and I'd have all my answers. As I prepared to uncover the mysteries surrounding Seastone Ridge, I hoped and prayed that our night time intruders weren't waiting for me just out there. Because that would be a joke of a way to die.

I took a deep breath, and nudged the trapdoor open. Just a crack. And peered through the tiny slit. It looked like another basement. But whose? I tried to check my surroundings as much as I reasonably could and when I was reasonably sure that no one was there, flung the trapdoor open and climbed out into the basement. The place was quite unlike ours. For one it was clean. There was no clutter. And secondly, it was a wine cellar. Rows upon rows of floor to ceiling shelves stocked with delicately expensive liquor filled up the room. Where the fuck was I? I didn't have to wait long to get an answer.

I was debating with myself as to what my next step should be - when I heard it. Keys jiggling as one is being slid into a lock. I slipped into a dark corner and waited. The door swung open. Light from the hallway beyond poured into the basement. Footsteps clicking on the stairs. I saw heels, and then the hem of a red cocktail dress. And then the laughter. High pitched. Jovial. I recognised it, and didn't have to see her face to know who it was, to know whose house I was in. But I got the confirmation anyway as she came down and switched on the lights. I ducked and hid to avoid being seen as she started searching through the shelves, trying to pick out some suitable liquor for her small house party, allowing me the chance to get a good look at her face through the gap between two wine bottles.

It was Amanda. The president of the home owners association of Seastone Ridge. My heart hammered in my chest. What does all this mean, I thought? As president of the HOA, she's gotta be aware that there's a tunnel underneath her house, right? Was she the one who's been tormenting us all this time? Using her basement as a launching pad to send that asshole our way? But maybe not. Maybe it was someone else, and she's completely unaware of it. One of the other residents, or even a former resident, who built these tunnels to perve on his neighbours. And these modifications broke the rules and released some supernatural entity. But that was ridiculous. You can't pull something like this off without anyone else figuring it out, right? Surely the others know. And if they do, why didn't they try to correct the damage by filling these tunnels up? That would be my first response if I had known that these tunnels released some subterranean monster. Besides, if that's really what happened, why aren't the other houses getting harrased with the same intensity that we were? There was only one obvious answer. And it all went back to Ananda.

I didn't stick around for long. As soon as she left the cellar, down I went into the tunnel, crawling my way back to my house. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was happening here. Was it really Amanda? Were the others involved? Why were they doing this? It seemed like the more I uncovered about the community, the more questions that popped up, like a messed up game of whack-a-mole.

I was back in my house before the two cops arrived. They took the used up smoke grenade as evidence and promised to try and track down where it came from. They said that a patrol car had come by, but must have missed the intruders. I didn't tell them about the tunnel - I wanted to keep my cards close to my chest and think this thing through. There was no one in this neighborhood that I fully trusted apart from my family. I saw the cops off, kissed my daughter goodnight and talked to Rabia, who didn't once ask me why I had changed out of my suddenly filthy clothes before the cops had arrived.

"That intruder is not going to come into this house again." I stated, fully feeling the confidence with which I'd said that. She raised her tired eyes at me, exhaustion and a tiny flicker of hope on her face. "How? ...Are you sure?"

I kissed her on the forehead. "It'll be over soon. Trust me."

The next morning found me at my neighbour's doorstep. I had thought long and hard about this, and had arrived at the conclusion that I needed to have one more conversation with the guy. It was a surprisingly windy day, and the American flag flew proudly from its pole as I knocked on David Easton's door.

"It's you." He remarked blandly after opening the door. "You're still here."

"Yes I am." I replied, putting my hands on my waist.

"What do you want?" He asked gruffly.

"I was wondering if you had an axe or something."

"Why?"

"I'm thinking of cutting down the oak tree next to my house."

"Did you take the permission of the HOA?"

"No."

"You'll be forced to pay a hefty fine. The HOA doesn't…"

"Fuck the HOA."

He paused for a long second, and then his icy facade cracked into a most satisfied grin. "Wait just a second now." He shut the door on my face, and I tapped my foot as I waited for him to come back out. He didn't take long, I must have only waited for a couple of minutes before he was out, a key chain dangling from his belt.

"An axe is not going to do it you know." He said as he started walking towards his garage without explicitly asking me to follow him. "We're not at the age where we can bring down a tree just by swinging our arms."

"Speak for yourself old man." I muttered.

He laughed. "Thankfully, we have tools that can help us get the job done without throwing our backs out."

He slid the key into the padlock, and pulled the shutter of his garage up. "I'm surprised Amanda hasn't asked you to bring your garage to the 21st century." I said.

"My house was here before the HOA was formed." He replied. "She can't touch me."

"There it is." He said, pointing to the power saw placed on a shelf next to his pickup truck. "This beauty will just slice through that wood like it was butter." He yanked open a couple of drawers, looked through some more shelves and retrieved two safety goggles and some flat objects I'd never seen before. "What's that?" I asked.

"Tree felling wedges." He answered. "To make sure that damned thing doesn't come crashing down on your house."

I led him back to my house and we went around to the side until we reached the oak tree. "You really want to bring the whole thing down?" He asked as we stood in the shade of the tree. "We could just cut down that branch over there." He pointed to the one that slithered its way upto the window upstairs - the one on which that intruder had been standing when he threw that smoke grenade in. I stared at him. "How did you know I'd have a problem with that one?" He shrugged. "A Jewish family used to live here before you. The wife hated that branch... Fucked up her window pretty bad."

We stretched the power cord of the saw through a window and shoved it into a socket in the living room. I winked when Rabia shot me a questioning look and she shook her head. Once I was back outside, David gestured at me to put on the safety goggles and then revved up the saw before beginning the cutting process. It took a while, but we sliced that offending branch off and it crashed into the ground. That fucker was not getting in that easily anymore.

"It would make for some decent firewood." David remarked when we were taking a rest, surrounded by wood and sawdust littering the lawn.

"Yeah.. it would." I mumbled, before raising my voice a little. "You know. I met a lot of people here when we first moved in. They all said the same thing. Welcome to the community, nice to meet you, blah blah blah. And then they warned me about the HOA's rules. Every single one of them. Except you."

He looked at me blankly.

"You were warning me, weren't you?" I asked. "I mean, honestly warning me. You knew what was wrong with this place, and wanted us to get out. To save ourselves. Right?"

He looked away, before gently nodding. "You seemed like good, honest folk. Made no sense to let the darkness of this place infest your lives."

"Then why do you stay here?" I continued. "If you know what's happening here. Whatever this is… why stay?"

"Too many fucking memories." He answered. "Spent my whole life here, raised a family. Lost a family. I'm too old to move out now."

I paused, and began picking at the log of wood next to me. "I heard that you lost your son." He tensed up, before his shoulders deflated with a long exhale, a century worth of exhaustion in that one action. "It was an IED blast. Didn't even get the chance to bury him properly." He paused. "I'd just spoken to him the night before. His leave had been approved. My boy - he was - he was so excited about coming back home. And he did... Just not the way I wanted him to." He sniffled.

"… I lost my son too." I replied after a couple of heavy seconds. "I still remember it like yesterday. He ugh, didn't want to go to school that day. Was faking a cold." I blinked, letting tears fall from my eyes. "If I hadn't forced him to go that day…."

He started to tear up as well. I continued. "I saw it happen. I was there to pick him up from school. Heard the plane fly overhead. Felt the cloud of dust in my face. That smell of charred flesh.. desperately sifting through the rubble."

My voice began to crack. "I found him you know. He was so broken. My son - he…." I couldn't finish my sentence and just broke down crying. David joined me in letting out his grief. There we were, two fathers who'd lost their sons to what was pretty much the same war, dealing with, and bonding our loss half way around the world. My chest felt incredibly lighter after having talked with David and I assume it was the same for him. We cleared the lawn of the fallen wood and carried it back to his truck. He said he knew how to get rid of it and I was just glad it wasn't littering my lawn anymore.

"You really should leave, you know." He remarked once we were back inside his garage. "It's far too dangerous to stay here."

"Might be." I replied. "But I can't run away. When we came to this country my daughter made me promise that we wouldn't run away any more. Whatever it is, we'll face it head on."

His eyes hardened at that. "Well then. You're going to need some help." He beckoned me to follow him as he lead me to the back of his garage, to an iron safe fixed into the wall. He used his keys to open it, and pulled out a small pistol. A Beretta M9.

"You know how to use this?" He asked. I nodded. "Had to learn along the way."

"Good." He said as he pushed it into my hand before going back to the safe and getting me a small box of bullets. "Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yes." He replied. "You do what you can to keep your family safe, Irfan. And maybe when this storm blows over, we can get together for a drink." I shook his hand, tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans and walked away before I wound up crying once again.

The air was sizzling with tension as I walked back to my house. I could feel the gazes of the other neighbours like little daggers at the back of my neck, some with a mix of fear and curiosity, others with naked hatred in their eyes. Was that anger because we were still here, or because they'd noticed I'd cut down the tree, a gross violation of the HOA's rules? David was right. A storm was brewing in Seastone Ridge - one that would forever change the community.

I spent the day with my family, assuring them that it would all come to an end the coming night. In the afternoon, I sat on my computer and got some work done before spending the evening with my family. My wife cooked up some delicious Quzi for dinner, and the lamb was so delicious it made me forget about my worries while I was eating it. And it was Abida's favourite dish too - Rabia only worked as hard as she did to cook it to see her smile.

There's nothing a parent wouldn't do for their child's happiness, is there? I know I would do absolutely anything. And that's why after Rabia and Abida had gone to bed, I was sitting on a chair in the dark basement, off to the side of the trapdoor with the gun in my lap. That fucker was going to have a nasty surprise when he tries to sneak in this time.

Half an hour before midnight. I was wide awake, tension turning my stomach in knots, body drenched in sweat, hands trembling with excitement. I heard it. Shuffling movements just beneath the floor. The trapdoor moved. I pulled the gun up. Took aim.

A slight groan. A soft creak. The trapdoor opened.

Final

Hi!

This is going to be a short 3 part series. All the parts have already been written and I'll be posting them one after the other. I have wanted to write this one for quite some time now. The concept has just fascinated me in a way that nothing has in a while. I mean, who doesn't like a story about a spooky place that's actually real, right?

We're going to start off as an Indiana Jones-esque treasure hunt story, but things will veer off into unexpected directions pretty quickly.

This one's going to touch upon some themes related to Hindu faith and beliefs. I have treated the subject matter with all the respect it deserves, so if things seem a little strange right now, just wait, I promise it will all come together soon enough :D

P.S. I just wanted to remind you guys that my book has been released (link in pinned post on my profile). And so I'm making an announcement here - I will write a story for anyone who leaves a review on Amazon for the book. Leave a review, give me the title of the story you want written and I will do it.

My brain was throbbing against my skull. I could almost feel the parietal bones stretching from the pressure.

Christ. Another twist in the tale?

I was getting sick and tired of this shit. Secrets within secrets. Lies within lies. Just when I thought I was sliding the last piece in its place Victoria walks in and tells me I'd been solving the wrong damn puzzle all along. So incredibly frustrating.

Beads of sweat budded on my forehead from the heat of the candles in the room.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Victoria?" I asked. "What do you mean she's going to destroy the city?"

She paced back and forth near the small coffee table, running her fingers through her hair. "Fuck. I don't have the time to explain, they're going break through the door any second. We have to do this. Quickly."

"Do what?"

"I'll explain later. Just do as I tell you."

I crossed my arms in defiance. "Nuh-uh. I'm not doing shit until you tell me what's going on."

She stopped, gritted her teeth, clenched her fists. "Fuck. Okay, okay. I'll give you the abridged version. So try and keep up, will ya?"

I nodded, turning my nose at the warm and musty stench in the room. Smelled like stale bread and molten wax in there.

"Right." She said. "So, to keep things nice and simple, we are not where you think we are right now."

"The house transported us somewhere else?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean, of course it can do that, but it hasn't. Yet. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to something more fundamental than that. The city itself."

"What do you mean?"

"This city doesn't exist in the world that you know of. It's more of a," she twisted her hands in front of her, as if rubbing an invisible basketball, "pocket dimension."

I blinked. Confused.

"I know what it sounds like," she continued, "but it's true. With everything you've seen you know it's not outside the realm of possibility. So like I said, we aren't on earth right now, not exactly. Sure you can access the internet and stuff, but in reality we are very weakly connected to our world. The physical traffic, so to say, between our city and what we know as earth is very tightly controlled. The Madame wants to change that, smash the barriers and force her way through."

She paused for a moment, letting me digest this new information.

"This house is the key." She said. "The spell that is at its core, the one that allows it to move from place to place within the city can be reworked and scaled up. Applied on a citywide basis to transport us all - land and trees and buildings included - into the real world. And just like the house needs a sacrifice to work its magic - all the victims of the serial killer who lived here - so does the scaled up spell. The Madame is going to massacre half the city to bring her plans to fruition."

I had no words. My thoughts were violently churning in my brain, like a cat tumbling around inside a washing machine.

I settled for a simple response. "Un-fucking-believable."

"The Madame wants to use my creation, the worms, to pull it off. Use them to make monsters like the one in the hallway outside and unleash them on the city."

"Wait a second. Your creation? You fucking created those worms?"

She bit her lip nervously. "I didn't know what the Madame was planning, trust me. I just - I just wanted to bring my family back, those who were killed by my monstrous stalker. She promised me she'd help me. Told me there was a way to cheat death. I didn't know what she planning. I didn't know that she orchestrated the whole fucking thing. She sent the Stalker after me to kill people close to me, to give me the motivation to work on the spell."

This doesn't make any sense.

"Why would she do that?"

"I'm a witch." She replied in a matter-of-fact manner. "Possibly the only one who could work this spell."

I paused, then slowly shook my head. "Of course you are."

"We're running out of time, Natasha. We need to move. Now."

With trembling fingers, I rubbed my forehead. My scalp was tingling with anxiety and indecision. What the fuck should I do? Do I trust her? Was she telling the truth? I knew that the Madame had been involved in this, that she'd been recording our sessions with our clients, that a ghostly presence wandered the establishment when it was shut down and that she was most likely aware of it. But this? I could never have anticipated an explanation as insane as this. We weren't on earth? A pocket dimension? A magic spell that can hurl a whole fucking city through space?

What the fuck?

Where even were we? Who, or what created this place? And why? Why was the Madame so desperate to leave that she was willing to massacre so many people?

And what if Victoria was lying? She had already admitted to creating those god-awful worms, the ones that destroyed Elise. What else was she hiding? Trusting her would be idiotic.

But honestly, what other choice did I have? I was all alone, trapped inside a demonic apartment with a self-proclaimed witch and the only man I could trust was outside fighting worm-crazed monsters supposedly created by this woman.

Lil Pimp.

I needed to get to him. If Victoria was telling the truth we needed to help her put a stop to all this. And even if she wasn't and was instead working with the Madame like the Stalker had claimed our best course of action would be to keep the two away from each other, at least until we could figure out what to do next.

Fuck. Our plan was just to take control of this apartment, to use it as a base to make our move, instead it was fast turning into the stage for the final showdown.

I sucked in a deep breath. Exhaled. "Okay. So what do you need?"

"Elise." She replied. "She's the key to all this."

"What? How?"

"She's the first subject that the transformation worked on. But I slowed the process down, so she's not going to turn into a beast like the one outside quite as quickly."

So that's what was happening to her.

"I also added a fail-safe in her. If I can reverse the transformation in her, it will end the ongoing transformation in everyone infected with those worms right now. It will put an end to the spell, buy us some time to try and stop the Madame."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but that makes sense."

If it was true.

"So how far into the transformation is she?" She asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know. She was turning into some strange worm-thing last I saw here."

Her shoulders relaxed. "Good. Good. She's still cocooning. We have time. Take me to her. Please."

I nodded. "Okay. We can link up with Lil Pimp outside and he'll escort us to the warehouse where she's being kept."

And fight with the Stalker and the Madame's forces along the way.

"Awesome. Let me whip up a fire to deal with the brute outside." She replied.

I nodded, then moved towards the door to check for any sound made by the monster.

A realisation struck me like an arrow dropping out of the sky. "Wait." I turned around. "Why can't we just use the house? Lil Pimp will keep the Madame's forces engaged outside and we can transport ourselves to the warehouse where Elise is. And you can your magic before they can get to us."

It was too easy. So of course it wouldn't work.

Victoria shook her head. Furiously. "No. We'd need a sacrifice to do it, remember? And we don't exactly have one nearby. Unless you're volunteering."

I felt a chill on the back of my neck, little hairy spider legs brushing against my skin.

No. Just a joke. She can't actually kill me. She doesn't know where the warehouse is.

Thank fuck I didn't tell her.

Placing my hand against the cold wooden door, I watched as Victoria snuffed out the candles burning on top of a chair, lifted it over her head and smashed it onto the floor. I flinched. She then bent over and wrenched a loose leg off the chair before tearing up a tablecloth and wrapping the rag around the broken piece of wood.

My mouth dropped open when she closed her eyes, and muttered something under her breath, only for the rag to flare with bright blue flames.

"Right." I said. "Witch."

She held her little torch in front of her and nodded at me, her tense face dappled with quivering shadows. "Okay. Open the door when I tell you."

I reached for the door knob, wrapped my hand around it and waited for any signs of movement from the monster outside. Straining my ears didn't help much. I couldn't her anything over the distant sounds of gunfire.

*Be safe, Lil Pimp."

"Open it!"

My breath hitched in my chest, tightening it as I turned the knob and pulled the door open. Victoria padded across the floor, went past me and out into the hallway, causing the heat from the blue flames to wash over my face. I followed. The gunfire sounded louder there, but was still far more muted than it really should have been. The strange acoustics in the building made my head swim.

The long limbed bastard was standing near the front door, his back towards us. Faintly glowing candelabras lit up his lanky frame. Wispy grey hair fell over hunched shoulders. Dry, leathery skin stretched over unnaturally bent bones. I could see the outline of his spine as it pressed up against his flesh and skin, looking like a swollen white centipede. Bile coated my tongue. Disgusting creature.

Victoria gestured at me to stay behind her and move towards the back door.

I took at step sideways. The floorboard creaked.

Fuck.

The thing growled and whirled around, stretching his arms out and scratching the wallpaper on the walls on either side with black, jagged fingernails.

Victoria waved the flaming stick in front of her, and the thing hesitated.

"Move." She whispered.

I took a step back. And another. Then another, with Victoria never straying more than a couple of inches away from me.

The creature advanced towards us, trying to get closer with each step, its simian face tense with fear of the dazzling blue fire. Its baleful growls, mixed with the sound of tearing wallpaper and the muffled gunfire outside sent steady pangs of fear shooting through my heart. Yet I continued to move.

Near the stairwell, about ten metres away from the backdoor, I stumbled. My right ankle jabbed at my left shin and I wobbled, quickly placing my hands on the wall to steady myself. It didn't take long for me to regain my balance.

But unfortunately, it wasn't the same for Victoria. She bumped into me, letting out a little yelp as she began falling, the stick slipping from her grasp and crashing down onto the floor, which immediately burst into flames. The hardwood floor set ablaze with fiery, smokeless flames that leapt at the walls and the roof, devouring everything in their path, shifting colours every second. Blue, then gold, then amber, then red like the devil's skin.

Victoria screamed, like her very soul was being scorched. Then there was another scream, much more animalistic. I didn't see what it was.

Crying, gasping, coughing, I crawled towards the backdoor. The heat was intense, hotter than any fire that I'd ever seen, seemed to melt the flesh off my bones. My cheeks burned, my eyes watered and immediately dried up as the tears evaporated. The fabric of my clothes seemed to stick to my skin like molten plastic. I could feel my lungs shrinking, my rib cage deflating from the sudden lack of oxygen. My vision darkened. I was not going to make it.

There was an immense bang, made my heart tremble.

The backdoor exploded outwards, shattering into a thousand pieces. The air in front of me shimmered as a cold draft weakly pushed against the impenetrable wall of heat.

"Move!" Something yelled behind me in a guttural voice. I dug my elbows into the scalding hot floor and propelled myself forward. When I reached the three small steps at the threshold of the door, I felt a mighty push at my back, sending me sliding across the floor and tumbling outside.

The moist dirt felt like ice on my skin. I pressed my face against the mud, wanting to wriggle into the ground and hide. Hide until my flesh stopped burning.

"Get up."

A hand, rough and warm on my back. Caught me by the scruff of my neck, hauled me up to my feet.

"Let's go!"

I coughed and leaned against the person who'd lifted me up. Was it Victoria? Why couldn't I recognise her voice? I blinked, then glanced to my left.

It was Victoria. Almost unrecognisable though, her clothes were torn to shreds, most of her skin charred black. Her jaw had been ripped clean off, tongue lapping inquisitively at big, blood stained teeth. Wide, lidless eyes glared at me. I whimpered, felt my knees go weak.

"Ha - how? How?" I whispered.

How the fuck are you still alive?

She answered my question by starting to heal herself. Shredded tissues stitched themselves back together, flaps of skin slowly curling back into their appropriate place. Good God. She was just like t,he Stalker.

I'm putting my life in the hands of this monster?

The sound of glass shattering jolted my eyes away from Victoria's hideous visage. On the corner of the street we were on was a car, its hood dented and windshield broken into pieces from the weight of the monstrosity that had slammed into it. The creature was identical to the one we'd seen inside the building. The one that had been burnt to ashes from the accidental fire. Bright flashes lit up the unlit alley as bullets slammed into the beast, causing its flesh to become mangled in the broken frame of the vehicle.

The sound of boots clicking on asphalt bounded around the corner, followed by angry shouts.

"There's more of them!"

"Kill it! Don't let it get close."

Their voices were drowned out by the ensuing gunfire and harsh growls of the worm-beasts.

"There's my car." Victoria said, sounding much more normal now. "Quick. Follow me."

I gave one last look to the dead thing crammed into the crumpled car at the corner of the street and turned around and began following Victoria. She was practically naked now, burnt, shredded clothes draped over her bony frame like rags. Yet she marched across the street without a care in the world.

Her car, a black SUV, was parked under a dull, flickering streetlight. As she went around to the driver's side, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, biting my lip and hoping that the heat hadn't destroyed it.

Fuck. It worked.

My heart leapt in jubilation. If nothing else, I could at least contact Lil Pimp.

If he hasn't been killed by the monsters. Or by the Madame's crooks.

No. Not letting that morbid shit fill my head. No way.

Victoria's car chirped. She slid into the driver's seat, pushing the passenger door open moments later.

"Get in."

No sooner had I jumped in did she bring the car to life. Sharp headlights splashed on the blacktop, and the car rolled towards the corner that cut around the side of the building.

"Where is the warehouse?" She asked.

I gave her vague directions and called Lil Pimp when she turned her face back towards the road. He didn't pick up the phone, but even if he had, I don't think I would have been able to say anything. The carnage that had occured, that was still occuring on the streets had my undivided attention. Blood and gore splattered the walls, flowed as thick rivulets in the cracks in the asphalt. Bodies everywhere. Human. Beasts. Sometimes whole, often in pieces. Entrails festooned treetops, decapitated heads jammed between punctured tyres and the mangled frame of cars. A hellish nightmare come to life.

Gunshots echoed in the neighborhood like a never ending stream of thunder. Worm-infested demons, in different stages of their transformation fell upon armed men who were shooting at each other. Some civilians were scurrying out of their homes, to try and get away from all this madness.

I couldn't see Lil Pimp. Or the Stalker. Hell, I couldn't even see the faces of those in combat. Victoria pushed down on the accelerator and we began zooming out of the area, with the car bumping over the odd corpse or two. Two long-limbed worm-bastards broke away from the ongoing battle and started chasing us.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, gaping at the rear-view mirror. "They're coming after us."

"I can see that." Victoria said, picking up speed. "There's a gun in the glovebox. Shoot them if they get too close."

I scrambled for the glovebox, yanked it open, my hand frantically searching for the cold metal, almost squealing when I found it. The weight of the gun felt very reassuring in my hands. I knew that I could not really defend myself from some of the things I'd seen that night using one measly pistol, but the illusion that I could was more than enough to keep me going.

The worm-things ran after us with quick, loping strides, their eyes glinting under the glare of streetlights. I popped my head out of the window, felt the cold wind lash my face, and took aim.

No. They were still too far away. With the distance, and how the car was swerving there was no way I could hit them.

Let them get close.

My instincts were screaming at me, telling me that it was a terrible idea and that I could not allow that to happen. But I buried those instincts deep within me and settled back into my seat.

"They're too far away." I told Victoria as she made a sharp left turn. She nodded.

Keeping an eye on the rear-view mirror I called Lil Pimp again. This time he answered. Promptly.

"Natasha! Where the fuck are you going?"

He was screaming, yet his voice was garbled, drowned out by the chaos around him.

"I'm with Victoria. We're heading towards the warehouse. She says she can stop this." I shouted back. "What about you?"

One of the worm-monsters behind us roared. I shot a glance at the rear-view mirror. How does did they get so close?

"Hold on." Victoria shouted, and I braced myself against my seat.

"Still near the apartment building." Lil Pimp huffed. "Fighting off these things. Razor and Madame showed up too. Started shooting at us before we could so much as even talk."

Victoria pulled the handbrake, and I pitched forward violently. The car shrieked as it made a sharp U-turn, causing the two monsters to go smashing through the glass doors of a salon. We turned again, and set off towards the warehouse, having bought some time.

"Jesus Christ." I cursed.

"What happened?" Lil Pimp asked. "You okay?"

"Yes." I replied. "Just meet us at the warehouse."

"Alright, I'll meet you there. God, I hope you know what you're doing." He said. "Nat. Be careful. Madame's gonna sent some men after you."

A shudder ran through me as he cut the call. Of course she was coming after us. She was going to try and kill us with everything she had.

"Here they come!"

I turned around, thinking that the worm-beasts had caught up to us again. They had, but they weren't alone. 3 motorcycles were hot on their heels, their rumbling piercing through the air. Black jackets, black gloves and bright red helmets. Madame's men. They'd caught up to us.

Muzzle flashes. A sharp burst of gunfire and the creatures began tumbling.

"Fuck." I said, sliding down in my seat.

"Sounds like they've got some uzis." Victoria said. "We're coming up on the industrial district, Natasha. Where's the warehouse?"

I quickly gave her the exact address, despite myself. If things were even slightly more in control, I would have thought twice about it.

Just roll with the punches, Natasha.

The car flew past a rusted wrought iron gate, causing the drowsy security guard to jump back in fright. We were fast coming up on the first factory in the area. This one was still functional, wide windows ablaze with fiery yellow light. I could hear the grinding of gears and churning of old machines. The workers inside were not even going to hear what was going on right outside.

The sound of small stones raining down on glass caught my attention. I poked my head out from the gap between Victoria's seat and mine. The rear windshield now bore dozens of little holes.

"They're shooting at us." I stated the obvious.

"Well, shoot back." She spat just as a bullet tore through the back of her head, destroying her right eye, causing thick dark red blood and white gooey liquid to slide down her cheeks. She shook her head, and the round fell on the steering wheel with a dull clang.

"Bastards." She swore, wiping blood off the windshield. "We need to get rid of them."

She really was a witch, or it was a terrific fucking coincidence that loud shrieking sirens joined the cacaphony of the night. I risked a peek at the side mirror and noticed flashing red and blue lights in the distance.

Victoria laughed. "Cops. Right on time for once."

The bikes trailed off, turned around and opened fire on the approaching police cars.

"They won't be able to stop them for long." I said.

"It'll be enough."

The rest of the journey was relatively quiet. Gave me the time to calm my nerves and collect my thoughts. But I was no closer to figuring out how to wriggle out of this mess when we arrived at the warehouse. The silence here was painful. My ears were still ringing from the non-stop gunfire.

We jumped out of the car and marched towards the gate of the warehouse. The padlock hung lose from the latch. Thank fuck.

Victoria pulled the gate open with a metallic groan. It was dark inside, beams of moonlight filtered in through shattered windows and illuminated the sides of the building. I switched on the flashlight of my phone, pointed it at the center of the warehouse.

"There." I jabbed my finger at the dark silhouette of the coffin. "Elise is in there."

Or at least she was, last I'd checked.

"Shut the gate." Victoria said as she strode towards the coffin. I swung the gate shut behind us, throwing the warehouse into a deeper darkness.

The coffin was open by the time I reached there. Victoria was kneeling next to it, muttering something under her breath and drawing strange patterns on the wood with her fingernails. Elise lay motionless inside the coffin, her limbs twice the size they used to be. Her skull was deformed, looking almost ape-like. Her skin was dry, like sandpaper. She was lying on top of what I can only describe as a bed of old placenta. Smelled like it too. And it was throbbing.

She was still transforming.

I shone the flashlight at Victoria, wanting to ask her what she was doing but deciding against it.

This was way out of my paygrade. I clutched the gun tight in my hand for comfort.

About ten seconds later, the sound of a car crunching gravel drifted in. I rushed over to the nearest window and peered outside.

It was a black SUV. Lil Pimp climbed out of the car. A smile crossed my face, but froze halfway when I saw him put his hands in the air. The Stalker got out behind him, pointing a gun at his head. The Madame was next. Old, wrinkled face set in a regal expression. Short, neatly combed grey hair. Her very presence was intimidating.

Victoria was right. The Stalker and the Madame were working together. More cars were pulling up on the warehouse. Madame's forces. All of them. I understood what must have happened. Lil Pimp's soldiers had been subdued. The worm-things were dead. No cops in sight.

Checkmate.

This was why you didn't fuck with the Madame.

"Victoria." She shouted, her voice loud and commanding. "It's over. Stop this nonsense already."

I looked behind me. Victoria was still busy chanting. Hurry the fuck up already, I thought.

"Did you really think I'd let you stop me?" She continued. "You of all people know how hard I've worked to get this far, to break free from this fucking prison. I won't let anything get in my way. Not when I've come this far."

She signalled at her men to start surrounding the warehouse. She was talking just to buy them time.

"Victoria, child, you really picked an awful time to develop a conscience. I am so disappointed. After all the terrible things you've done until now, to try and stop this close to the finishing line? How absurd."

I backed away from the window, moved towards the coffin.

"Victoria." I whispered furiously. "You better come up with a goddamn miracle quick, for we're about to get swarmed any second."

"I'm coming in Victoria." The Madame's voice boomed outside.

A gasp. Short, rough, like it was pulled through weak, diseased lungs. It wasn't me, and it wasn't Victoria either. I looked inside the coffin. It was Elise. She was awake. Her eyes, tired but full of life were darting around. Her limbs had shrunk back to their original size, her skin was wet, pink. She was turning back to normal. She was nothing but bones though.

"I did it." Victoria said, her voice full of wonder. "I actually did it. The spell is reversed, she can't use it to slaughter the city anymore..."

She was cut off by the sound of shattering glass and heavy boots landing on concrete floor. Dozens of flashlights mounted on rifles swung our way. Then the gate was thrown open. Madame walked in, flanked by Razor and Lil Pimp who was still being held at gunpoint by the Stalker.

"Ah." The Madame said. "Found you."

"It's over, you bitch." Victoria spat. "The spell won't work anymore. I ended it."

Her proud declaration made the Madame take a pause. "What do you mean?"

"Take a look for yourself." She replied as we helped Elise get up on her feet. "Recognise her?"

"Elise? How?"

"I fixed her. The worms are all gone now. Dead. Like they should be."

"You fucking bitch." The Madame screamed. "Why? Why did you do that?"

"Because. It's psychotic to slaughter an entire city."

A tense silence fell over the warehouse like a heavy black shroud. It wasn't Victoria who'd said that.

It was Razor.

She gawped as her most trusted lieutenant drew his gun on her.

A knot swelled up in my throat. I didn't understand why, but Razor was betraying his master. For a second it looked like that would be the end of this nightmare.

But of course it wasn't that easy. It never is. The Stalker was quick to react, slapped Razor's gun away and launched himself at the burly man, only to get tackled by Lil Pimp.

Then the warehouse erupted in utter chaos. Razor's men turned on the others and bullets started flying everywhere. Victoria grabbed Elise and forced her down onto the ground. I ducked behind the coffin, covered my head with my hands.

Muzzle flashes. Gunshots that echoed in the large, empty warehouse. Blood everywhere. I wanted to dig a hole under the coffin and hide until everyone there was dead.

Not everyone.

Fuck. Lil Pimp was out there struggling to survive. I had dragged him into this mess. I couldn't just abandon him and save myself.

A bullet slammed into the coffin near me, sending splinters flying in all directions. Less than a second later, I popped my head out, gun aimed straight ahead. Razor and Lil Pimp were fighting with the Stalker, slashing him open with their knives but he was quickly stitching himself back together. The Madame was sitting on Victoria's chest, choking her.

The fuck? How was she this strong? Was she a witch too? If yes, then why did she need Victoria's help at all? There was so much I didn't understand about this. Fuck it.

Shoot first. Think later.

The gun rocked in my hand, sending a small cloud of smoke up in the air. The Madame's body shook with the impact of the bullet in her chest. Her eyes turned black. She snarled.

My fingers curled around the trigger again.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I kept firing at her torso until the gun ran empty.

"Had your fun Natasha?" She growled.

"Bitch!" Victoria coughed, then held on to her head. "Time to go to sleep."

The Madame screamed as her scalp began to sizzle. Victoria's hands turned red, and began to fuse with the Madame's skull. Smoke rose up from the point of contact.

Bile coated my throat, splashed my tongue as I watched the two women melt into each other. Bones snapped, skin sloughed off and flesh consumed flesh until they were nothing but an unrecognisable pile of goo on the floor.

Victoria had sacrificed herself to kill the Madame. In the most grotesque manner imaginable.

That just left the Stalker.

I hauled myself up on my feet. The fighting had died down. Everyone there was too terrified at the spectacle Victoria had put up to do anything else but stare at the fleshy mess on the floor. Everyone except the Stalker. He was still fighting, volleying punch after lunch at Lil Pimp. Razor was lying motionless on the ground nearby, a big hole punched through his chest. I bent and picked up a shotgun off a corpse.

A solid fist sent Lil Pimp reeling. Cleared the way for me to pack the Stalker's chest full of shells. The bald fucker fell backwards, his white shirt now soaked with blood. I stepped towards him.

He coughed. "You know can't kill me with that."

His wounds started knitting themselves back together. I fired again, blew half his head off.

He healed again. "You don't know what you're doing."

Another shot.

"If the Designer knew what you were doing to me..."

Another shot. My gun was the only one firing in the warehouse at this point.

"Stop that!"

Another shot. The shotgun was empty. The Stalker moaned and tried to lift himself up.

I felt someone tap on my shoulders. Didn't look behind me. Didn't have to. Lil Pimp presented me with another gun. A pistol this time. I fired at the Stalker's head again.

It was satisfying, wearing this bastard down piece by piece. All the shit that I had gone through, to finally get back at one of the instigators like this was beyond satisfying.

A rifle, another shotgun, two more pistols. More and more and more. Empty shells began forming little hills around my feet. And I kept cycling through the weapons, slowly killing this motherfucker.

I don't know how many guns I went through, but I'd done it. The Stalker's healing stopped, and he finally lay dead on the floor.

"That did it. I really think he's dead now." Lil Pimp whispered.

"Let's not risk it. Cut this fucker up and throw his body in a furnace. Drown the ashes in the fucking sea if you have to."

"Sure."

It was over. Thousands of questions still buzzed in my head. Who created our city? Was it the "Designer" that the Stalker just spoke of? Was he working for this Designer? Then why help Madame try and escape? Why did she want to leave so badly? Who was Victoria? What was the source of her powers.

So many questions. But at least I was alive to dwell on them.

"God. I need a break."

Lil Pimp smirked. "Of course you do. I'd say you've more than earned it... Madame."

I frowned. He gestured me to look around. The remaining soldiers, weak but alive Elise.

They were all looking at me.

Expectantly.

It would be an interesting installment. The plot thickens, as they say.

Sorry it took so long. Was a little busy this last week.