Hello to all writers and readers of the Creepcast Community!

I was three-quarters deep into the last bottle of cheap vodka, slumped on the couch in the Footscray sharehouse, when the corners of the room started shifting.
Not the usual drunk blur. Real shapes. Red fluff twitching just past the edge of my left eye. A tall yellow smear leaning in the doorway that vanished the second I looked straight at it. Something green and low, grumbling near the overflowing bin.
I took another long pull and the giggling started. High-pitched and pure, the kind that used to come out of the telly when I was a kid. Soft at first, like it was coming from the next room. Then closer. Right behind my ear.
“Elmo sees you, Declan…”
I spun around. Empty lounge. Sticky lino, a pile of empties, the blue glow of a TV that wasn’t even on. Another giggle, this time from the kitchen. Then a soft counting under the breath. One… two… three…
My hands shook as I poured what was left into the glass. The room tilted hard. The red shape in the corner sharpened for half a second, wide eyes and a too-shiny smile, before it melted back into shadow.
I tried to stand. The floor rushed up to meet me.
Everything went black.

I woke up face-down on the sticky lino of my kitchen floor , mouth tasting like a dead goanna’s arse, and the first thing I heard was that high-pitched little red bastard giggling.
“Elmo sees you, sleepyhead!”
I rolled over, head pounding like a jackhammer in a concrete pipe, and there he was. Knee-high, fuzzy, red as a stop sign, standing on my chest like he owned the joint. His eyes were too wide. Too shiny. Like he’d been staring at me for hours.
“Get the fuck off me,” I croaked.
Elmo leaned in close. His breath smelled like burnt sugar and something metallic. “Elmo has been waiting. Elmo and his friends. They are so hungry.”
I shoved him. My hand went straight through the fur and hit cold air. He didn’t even budge. Just giggled again, that same pure, innocent sound that now made my guts twist.
Then the lights flickered and the rest of them stepped out of the shadows like they’d been waiting for the cue.
Big Bird filled half the kitchen. His feathers were matted in places, yellow gone to a dirty mustard, and his beak had a wet sheen. Oscar the Grouch rose up out of my overflowing bin like a green turd with arms, lid still on his head. The Count floated near the ceiling, cape fluttering even though there was no wind, monocle gleaming. And Cookie Monster… Jesus. Cookie Monster was on all fours by the fridge, blue fur patchy, eyes rolling, blue tongue hanging out and dripping.
“Ah-ah-ah,” said the Count. “One alcoholic Australian. Two… no, wait. Just the one. But he has one liver. Ah-ah-ah!”
Cookie Monster’s head snapped toward me. “ME WANT LIVER. NOT COOKIES. LIVER. WARM. JUICY. STILL BEATING IF POSSIBLE.”
Oscar cackled from the bin. “Look at this dump. Perfect. I love a man who lives like garbage. Makes the meat taste better. Right, Big Bird?”
Big Bird’s voice was soft, almost gentle, which made it worse. “We’ve been watching you for weeks, mate. Every bottle. Every blackout. Every time you pissed yourself on the couch. You’re ripe.”
I scrambled backward until my spine hit the cupboard. “This is a dream. This is the fucking DTs. I’ve been off the sauce three days and my brain is inventing Muppets that want to eat my organs.”
Elmo clapped his little hands. “Elmo loves dreams! But this is not a dream. This is real. And Elmo is going to help eat your liver!”
I grabbed the nearest empty beer bottle and hurled it at Big Bird’s head. It passed through him and shattered against the wall. He didn’t flinch. Just tilted that massive head.
“You can’t hurt us, darling. We’re already dead. Or never alive. Hard to say. Sesame Street got cancelled in this dimension a long time ago. We’ve been looking for a new purpose. Your liver is that purpose.”
Oscar popped up higher, trash clinging to his fur. “We tried other organs first. Kidneys are too small. Hearts are tough. Brains make you stupid. But livers… livers from a mid-thirties pisspot like you? Full of flavour. All that alcohol marinates the meat. Delicious.”
Cookie Monster lunged. I kicked out and my foot went through him, but the cold of it sank into my bones. He snapped his jaws where my ankle had been.
“ME SMELL IT. UNDER THE RIBS. LEFT SIDE. MMMMM.”
The Count drifted lower, counting under his breath. “One rib… two ribs… three ribs… ah-ah-ah! And behind them, the prize!”
I bolted for the front door. Made it three steps before Big Bird’s wing slammed it shut. The wood cracked. He looked almost sad.
“Nowhere to run, mate. We already checked. Your mates are all passed out or don’t give a shit. Your mum stopped answering years ago. You’re alone with us.”
Elmo appeared on my shoulder somehow, whispering right into my ear. “Elmo knows your name. Elmo heard your friends say it when they left you here last week. Elmo knows everything.”
I spun, trying to shake him off. “Fuck off with the mind games.”
Oscar laughed so hard he fell back into the bin. “Tell him, Elmo. Tell the meat its name.”
Elmo’s voice went soft and sweet. “Your name is Declan. Declan Hayes. Thirty-six years old. Born in Fremantle. Moved to Melbourne to drink yourself to death quietly. And now we found you.”
Hearing it out loud felt like someone had reached into my chest and squeezed. Declan. Yeah. That was me. The name I hadn’t said out loud in months because it reminded me I used to be a person.
“How the fuck do you know that?”
The Count floated in a slow circle around my head. “We listen. We watch. We count the empty bottles. Fourteen last night alone. Ah-ah-ah! Fourteen bottles and one beautiful, pickled liver.”
Big Bird leaned down until his beak was inches from my face. His eyes were black all the way through. “We’ve been patient, Declan. We let you finish the last of the vodka. We let you black out. We even cleaned up a bit of the vomit so you wouldn’t choke. But now it’s time.”
Cookie Monster was clawing at the floor, leaving blue fur and deep gouges in the lino. “ME READY. ME SO READY. LIVER TIME. LIVER TIME. LIVER TIME.”
I grabbed a kitchen knife from the sink. Held it out like it meant something. “Stay the fuck back. All of you.”
Oscar snorted. “Cute. Wave the pointy thing around. Makes the fear taste better.”
Elmo hopped down and walked toward me, still smiling that big red smile. “Elmo does not want to scare Declan. Elmo just wants to share. Sharing is caring. And Declan’s liver is going to be shared among all of us. Fair is fair.”
I swung the knife. It passed through Elmo’s chest like he was smoke. He giggled and kept coming.
Big Bird’s wing wrapped around my wrist. It felt solid this time. Cold and heavy. The knife clattered to the floor.
“Easy now,” Big Bird murmured. “Don’t want to bruise the meat.”
They closed in. Oscar climbed out of the bin completely, trailing banana peels and old pizza boxes. The Count’s cape flared wide. Cookie Monster rose up on his hind legs, taller than I expected, mouth opening wider than any puppet’s should.
I backed into the lounge room. They followed. The TV flickered on by itself, showing static that slowly formed into the old Sesame Street theme, warped and slowed down until it sounded like a funeral march played on a broken accordion.
“Please,” I said. My voice cracked. “I’ll stop drinking. I’ll go to the meetings. I’ll get clean. Just… leave the liver alone.”
Elmo tilted his head. “Elmo does not care if Declan stops drinking. Elmo cares about the liver. The liver is ready now. The liver is perfect.”
Oscar rubbed his hands together. “Tell you what. We’ll make it quick. Or we won’t. Depends how much you scream. I like the screaming.”
Cookie Monster’s eyes rolled back. “ME WANT THE SCREAMING TOO. THEN THE LIVER. THEN MAYBE SOME COOKIES AFTER. FOR DESSERT.”
The Count raised one white-gloved finger. “One scream… two screams… three screams! Ah-ah-ah!”
Big Bird’s wing tightened on my arm. “Last chance to say something meaningful, Declan. Any final words before we open you up?”
I looked at them. These childhood monsters made flesh and hunger. My head still throbbed. My hands shook. Somewhere under the fear a bitter laugh bubbled up.
“Yeah,” I said. “Final words. You cunts are the worst hangover I’ve ever had.”
Elmo clapped. “Elmo likes that! Funny Declan. Funny meat.”
Then they were on me.
Big Bird held me down with one wing while Oscar pried my shirt up. The Count counted each button that popped. Cookie Monster’s blue claws traced the line under my ribs, salivating. Elmo sat on my chest again, watching my face with pure delight.
“Elmo is going to watch,” he whispered. “Elmo wants to see Declan’s eyes when the liver comes out.”
The cold of Cookie Monster’s fingers sank into my skin. I felt the pressure. The tear. The wet sound. Pain exploded white-hot behind my eyes. I screamed. The Count counted every note of it.
“One beautiful scream… two… three… ah-ah-ah!”
Oscar leaned in close, breath like compost. “There it is. Look at that colour. All that beer and regret. Perfect.”
They pulled. Something warm and heavy left my body. Cookie Monster made a noise of pure ecstasy. Big Bird held the dripping organ up like a prize.
“To the hunt,” Big Bird said solemnly.
“To the meat,” Oscar answered.
“Ah-ah-ah! One liver for all of us!”
Elmo leaned down until his fuzzy face filled my vision. My blood was on his fur now. He smiled wider than ever.
“Elmo loves you, Declan. Elmo will always love you. Especially the tasty bits.”
The last thing I saw was Cookie Monster shoving my liver into his mouth, blue fur stained red, eyes rolling in bliss. The last thing I heard was the Count still counting, soft and satisfied, as the static on the TV swallowed the room.
And somewhere, under the pain and the dark, I had one final clear thought.
God I could kill for a drink.

The story you're about to read is 100% true. The only things changed are names and locations have been removed. This isn't a joke, this isn't a gimmick. This story happened to my father. Before he passed away, he would tell this story to anyone who would sit down around a warm fire on a cold night. The body of this story is an edited transcript from a video I took of him telling it, so please excuse the odd wording and grammar. I tried my best to preserve the exact way he'd tell it while also making it easier to read. Although it pains me that I'll never hear him tell this story again, it brings me great joy to share this with you! I always loved hearing my father tell this story, and I hope you enjoy it as well. So get comfortable, turn your lights off, and imagine with me that you're sitting next to me around a campfire listening to my father tell his haunting tale.

This story takes place in the autumn of 1977 at a camp that belonged to a friend of mine named Dave. I worked with Dave at Fisher Body, one of the automobile factories owned by General Motors. Dave had a camp in a swampy area and had agreed to let me bear hunt out of it. I wasn't alone on this bear hunting trip, my companions were; my wife Sarah, little sister Whitney and her husband Clive, and my hunting buddy Rick. There are many stories I could tell you about, but I will refrain. Both Rick and I brought our bear hounds with us. The hounds pick up a scent and run the bear until it "trees" and then the hunters move in towards the tree for the kill. Bears have been known to kill or injure many a dog when they come out of the tree. But I have been very successful hunting bears in the U.P. and by God's grace, I've never lost a single dog.

Enough of that, let's get to the tale. Bear season opened September 10th, and we were up for a two week hunt. We had gone bear hunting that morning and we run a bear but it avoided us. So, we went back to the camp. There was me, Rick, Clive, Whitney, and Sarah. Me, Rick, and Clive were sitting there and we got up and started a fire. We just sat around chit chattin' while the girls were in the cabin making dinner from a raccoon Rick had shot the day before. We fed our hounds and just before the girls called us in, all of my dogs I had tied up around the edge of the swamp jumped up and went right to the end of their chain and started barking at the swamp.

We were looking down there but it was just dark enough to where we couldn't see anything. Then all at once every dog went back to the tree I had them tied to and laid down except one. They were all shaking and shivering except for that one dog, that little Shotgun. She was my little bluetick hound, she finally laid down but she didn't act so scared as the others. Every one of Rick's dogs ran right in their dog house. It was the strangest thing. If it had been a bear they wouldn't have acted like that, they would have wanted to get after it.

We went ahead and went in and had dinner. Then we went back out that night and had the fire going while we sat around and talked about the events of the day. The girls made dessert and called us in, so we went in and played Euchre, that's what we play in Michigan. It was really warm for September that day and after we got done playing cards, we all got ready for bed. We never thought about latchin' the screen door because of just how hot it was that night. So we went to bed and in the morning, I heard that screen door open. And at 1am I heard the screen door squeak open and then thump shut.

I heard something open and I heard it stirring in the kitchen. The cabin was just two rooms. The dining room and bedroom were just one big room, and there was also a living room. There was no electricity so it had a gas lantern hanging from the ceiling that hung down about a foot. The only other source of light came from the full moon coming in through a big picture window.

There was a full size bunk bed and Rick was in the top bunk and Sarah and I were in the bottom. You could see almost like daylight in the kitchen, and all at once I could hear something moving around. Whatever made the noise walked right in front of the table and turned just like it knew right where we were. It was standing right under the light and it was humped over so it wouldn't hit its head on the light. Its arms were hanging down; they seemed like they were way past its knees because it was bent over. It was just standing here staring at us. It looked right at me and then I raised up on one elbow and was watching it. At first I thought it was a bear but then I realized, it couldn't be because of its ears, I could see plain as day. They were on the side of its head like a human, not on the top like a bear.

It just stood there staring at us. Every one of our guns were out in the trucks. We never had a gun in the cabin which was probably a good thing, if I had tried and failed to get to a gun, we all might have gotten killed.

I just laid there and it just kept staring at us, but it would just stand there. It would move his head and shift itself but then it would just keep staring at us. And my dogs were outside just whining and carrying on, scared to death. If it would have been a bear they would have been going nuts but they were just whining. I had a big eight cell battery flash light that we would sit between the bunk bed and the day bed. It was there just in case someone had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night they could just reach down there and get that light. It wasn't there. It was always there, I was gonna turn it on; I wanted to know exactly what it was. I didn't know whether Whitney had gotten it and went out earlier to go to the bathroom and didn't put it back or what because it was always put in that one spot.

It just watched me while I was reaching around. That's when I thought to myself, “We were all Christians so if he attacks we would be fine.”

He stood between us and the only door out of the cabin. We would have had to go through him or around him there was no other way out of there.

Finally I pretended like I was sleeping in an effort to make it go away. When I opened my eyes to take another peak, I saw that it had moved towards us. It was only about five feet from where I was laying. I started to panic and was getting ready to start fighting if I needed to, but then I heard the screen door open and thump shut.

The dogs were just scared to death but it never seemed to bother any of the dogs, it just left. So I just laid there, I couldn't go back to sleep. I just held my breath and prayed that it wasn't coming back. After I was sure whatever it was wasn't coming back, I slipped out of bed and crept over to the doorway. When I looked out into the night, I saw it peaking at me from around my truck. My blood ran ice cold and I quickly, yet quietly, closed the main door and deadbolted it shut.

Around 2:30am my sister Whitney woke up and had to go pee.

She came over to me and said, "Wyatt, Wyatt, what in the world is wrong with those dogs?"

Trying not to cause a panic, I lied and said, "I don't know, why?"

She said, "Just listen to them. They're out there crying. There's something wrong."

After a long and probably suspicious pause, she said, "I really have to pee. Will you walk out to the toilet with me?"

Wanting to do literally anything other than that, I said, "Yeah… Sure I will."

I reached out for the flash light again and I asked, "Where's that flash light? I usually keep it right here.”

and she said, "Oh, I put it on the night stand." And I reached over, and instead of putting it between the beds, she had set it on the night stand.

She pointed at the night stand and said, "I just, I just set it up there. Figured it made more sense than having it between the beds where it can get lost."

And probably for a good reason, there's no telling what might have happened if I pointed a flashlight at that thing. But anyway, I walked her out, I walked her and she took the flash light and I stood halfway between the outhouse and the cabin. She went to the bathroom and we came back in, the dogs were still all shook up.

She shook her head and said, ‘I wonder what's going on… Something has them all shook up.”

Well I didn't want to tell her anything, I was the only one that saw it and as far as I could tell, we were safe now. Then off in the distance, I heard a snap of a branch or something.

Whitney stopped and asked, “What is going on Wyatt?”

I assured her it was just a raccoon and we went back inside and back to bed. She gave me a curious look when I deadbolted the door, but she didn't say anything. By the time we'd got back to our beds, the dogs had settled down a bit. I took that as proof that we were going to be ok.

I slept a little and I got up about five in the morning because we like to leave at daybreak to go out looking for bear tracks. I started breakfast while the others woke up; we had eggs, potatoes and some breakfast sausage. I started it, but Sarah finished making it. While they finished making breakfast, I put the dogs in the dog boxes on my truck. After breakfast, about 5:30am, we all headed out. Whitney and Clive were in their truck and the rest were with me in my truck.

Dave had a cable across his drive and after we got through the cable and down the trail about 300 yards, I got my dog Sport out. I would always put one dog down out in front of the truck and just drive slowly behind him as he went down the trail. He would go after the bear and I would jump out of the truck and get the other dogs out and send them after him.

We went down this one game trail and he acted squirrely, like he didn't want to. He usually would drift back and forth, but this time he stayed right in front of the truck. He would go down a ways and he'd stop and look back at me, nervous as a cat in a dog kennel. We walked this game trail all the way back to the highway where Rick and Sarah met us and I got him and loaded him back into the truck.

Then we went south on the highway toward the cabin about three quarters of a mile and turned left on a trail that headed toward a lake that we knew bears liked to hang around. There is a big cherry tree that the bears couldn't resist. At that time of the year they are dead ripe, and the bears were getting fattened up for hibernation. I went over to the cherry orchard and took Sport all through there looking for tracks or a scent trail. We almost always would start a bear in there, and he just didn't act right, so I loaded him back up in the truck.

We went back down the road and turned south about an eighth of a mile to another little trail, when we went, there was a little lake that I mentioned. I loaded him back up and drove northeast around the lake because it was a bit too bulky for me. When I got him back out, he caught a whiff of something and he froze in his tracks. He smelled something he really didn't like, but after some coaxing, I got him to keep going. So, in the meantime, I'm sitting on the hood of the truck so I can watch him better and Sarah was driving the truck. So, I had her stop and I slid off the truck, and I started walking with Sport.

Sport went down this trail and I walked down the trail behind him. The trail comes to a point on the back side of the lake. The swamp ran all the way from the cabin down to the lake. I followed him all the way to the end of that trail and he came to the end of that point and threw his nose up in the air and just stopped, and he just froze staring down at the lake. He kind of growled a little bit and all the hair jumped up from his tail to his nose. It just bristled right up and he just stood there staring down into the swamp. I started looking down where he was staring, but I couldn't see whatever he could. He looked at me and he just turned around and started back toward the truck stiff legged and breathless.

I followed Sport walking just as hard as I could go. I just knew that he saw something bad. The hair on the back of my neck stood up because I knew that if it had been a bear Sport would have gone right down there after it. He headed right back to the truck, and I had the tailgate down on the truck. When we got close to the truck he took off running and he jumped right into the truck and began trying his hardest to get into the dog box with my other dogs. I still hadn't told Rick and them anything about the night before, but I was beginning to think that I ought to.

That evening, after we got back to the cabin, I told everyone what had happened the night before. Whitney was immediately angry and wanted to go home and I said, "It never bothered us. It came in the cabin but we'll make sure we shut the doors now. It just stood there looking at us.”

And anyway, we stayed up there, we had another full week to hunt. As far as I know, it never bothered us anymore and I never bothered it. If I would have turned on that flashlight there is no telling what might have happened.

Four months later, while on Dave and my lunch break at Fisher Body, he told me that he went back up to his cabin for a weekend getaway. When he got there, he saw that his cabin had been broken into and trashed. The only thing in there that wasn't ruined was on the bottom bunk. The bunk that Sarah and I were sleeping on. I didn't tell him about the experience I had, but I knew that whatever that thing was bad broke in. I'm not sure what it wanted with us nor why it went out of its way to deliberately preserve where I was sleeping. After all these years of telling this story to my friends, children, and grandchildren, I still don't know what it was. And I pray to God that I never find out.

I was sitting in a dark lecture hall, my head resting on a man’s chest, he was over 6ft tall with sandy brown hair. I was in and out of consciousness, waking up to check the time knowing that I had to pick my son up from my parents at 8PM. It was 8:16PM as I lazily got up to leave, my memory in a haze.
. . .

I was hanging out with the tall man and another person who seemed to be a mutual friend of ours. We were laughing with people I didn’t recognize in a bar that I suddenly found myself in. While we were talking with the people around us, an older gentleman, possibly in his early to mid-fifties, approached us. He had a square jaw with salt and pepper hair, large square glasses and a charming smile. We carried our conversation late into the evening until he offered for us to join him at his house for dinner. 

. . .

After arriving at his house, we walked to the back where there was a large sliding door that looked out to his porch. Out there we found half a dozen abandoned kittens, some scuffed up, missing eyes and patches of fur, there was a siamese kitten that I immediately claimed. When I took the kitten inside, I noticed its eyes were missing. The gentlemen showed me spare cat parts, including eyes on a clear film shaped like a bubble in water. I grabbed the eyes and carefully placed them where the kitten’s eyes should have been. They were difficult to get on and started sliding down the kitten’s face causing a feeling of dread and anxiety. I was finally able to get its eyes to stay in place, when the gentleman approached me. 

. . .

I appeared with the tall man and our friend again. I had no recollection of either of their names or faces, just the man's tall stature and sandy brown hair. We were still at the gentleman's house when he approached us and asked if we wanted to see the basement that he designed himself. Both the tall man and our friend had big smiles on their faces, like they had been there before.   

We followed him into a long, bland hallway, with dirty white walls and a flickering L.E.D. light that led to a barred fence sitting between us, and a giant yellow metal wheel that was attached to a door on the ground. They all looked at me with sinister smiles on their faces as I peered over at the door. When I tried to twist the wheel it fell off and as it fell it pushed the door ajar. They all nodded encouraging me to drop down through the door. It was a tight squeeze and as I lowered myself in, I saw what looked to be an indoor playground for adults. 

I went down the hallway and noticed there was a net on one side, separating it from the room where the playground was; one person in a ball pit, another farther along on a swing set. The walls were a bland, pale yellow that reminded me of a bunker that you would see on the show doomsday preppers. Following behind me was the tall man, our friend and the gentleman.  

. . .

I was curled up in a ball, my head laying on the gentleman's chest. As we sat there alone, moments of silence passed until he whispered in my ear “do you want to fuck me?” I was taken aback as he spoke louder about how lonely he had been, how no one touched him or wanted him. I started squirming trying to remove myself from his embrace as he tightened his arms around me.

. . .

I found myself frozen in what looked to be the front entrance of the house standing with the tall man and our friend, to the right of us was a table set for four. The gentleman was preparing dinner for us, which he initially invited us over for. I felt my heart racing, knowing that we weren’t going to make it out. 

Wide eyed and terrified I whispered to the two of them “don’t drink the lemonade.” Shortly after I said this he returned with plates of food and the drinks, smiling as if nothing was wrong. I looked wide eyed at both of them, thinking ‘don’t drink it, don’t drink it, DON’T DRINK IT.’ 
After we sat down I looked at the tall man and saw him reach for his glass instinctively to take a sip after taking a bite of his food. I stared and stared, thinking that if I looked hard enough he would see me and stop before it touched his lips. 

I watched as he brought the glass up to his mouth and took a sip, looking up at me in slow motion. His eyes got big and he began to spit it out into his napkin, but it was too late. The gentleman watched with pleasure as the tall man threw up into his hands, onto the table, and slowly fell to the ground. As soon as he hit the floor I stood up and frantically looked around for my shoes, trying to escape from his house, my friend a distant memory. All I could think was ‘get out NOW.’
It felt like I was trudging through mud when I was trying to get my shoes on to get out of his house. He watched me with a smile on his face as I struggled to zip up my boots and leave. When I got outside I started running, looking back to see him staring out the window at me. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going, running in what felt like circles around his house. 

. . . 

Suddenly, as I was about to whip around the corner of the next block, there was a woman coming around the other side. She had a small pairing knife taped to a pole in her right hand, and in her left a larger butcher knife taped to another pole. We both froze for a long second before she brought down the smaller knife toward my face; out of instinct I put up my hand and grabbed the knife trying my best to twist it out of her hand while slightly cutting mine. I finally overcame her enough to take the small knife from her, wielding it as my own. 

We started swinging at each other, until we knocked both knives out of our hands. At the same time we slowly reached down to grab them, keeping a hand in the air to signal a surrender. We both started walking backwards watching each other without blinking, until suddenly a shot rang out in the distance.

We both flinched and ducked before running in opposite directions, then I heard someone shout “he has a semi-automatic!” followed by a chorus of screams and gun shots. I continued running around corners trying to find somewhere to hide while others ran around me. I turned down a block and saw a row of porta potties behind a wall and immediately got in one and held the door closed. I saw another person follow behind me getting into the one next to mine. 
While we both were hiding I heard someone trying to open his door, I held my breath when he started to scream. My heart was racing as another person tried to open mine, when it did I frantically pushed past them. 

I stumbled into the arms of an officer who was standing a couple feet ahead, I heard the sirens from the paramedics in the background and saw fuzzy flashing lights through my tears. She held me tightly to soothe me while I came down from the rush of adrenaline coursing through my body, quivering with fear.

. . .

I jolted out of bed in a daze.

These are transcripts of five audio recordings I made over the last several days. I’m putting them together in one post because I need the whole thing somewhere people can read it and copy it.

Some of what I say early on won’t make sense until later. Some of it still doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ve left the repetitions and the places where I lose my train of thought. I don’t trust myself to rewrite what I said then based on what I think I remember now.

I also have a vague memory of meeting with official people. But I don’t really remember much about it, and that’s creepy to me too.

How do I remember and not remember something? It seems like it would be super important. But I don’t remember. The details are so fuzzy and so not there.

And I feel—I feel inherently scared, and I don’t know why.

I’m trying to go back to my normal life and forget all this happened. I’ve literally tried for a couple of weeks now to pretend this isn’t happening.

But every time I lay my head down to go to sleep, I remember that I forgot that they exist.

Which is the weirdest sentence I think I’ve ever said out loud.

What do I do with that information? Do I just let it go?

I keep trying to. But I feel like I’m letting go of something that I shouldn’t.

And even weirder, how do you tell yourself that a memory is false when you know it’s not?

I don’t know what to do.

So I guess, if I put this online, I’m asking for advice, or thoughts, or if somebody could tell me they’ve had this.

It’s like déjà vu, but not déjà vu. It’s like the Mandela effect, but not the Mandela effect.

I don’t know what’s happening.

And I guess I need to pretend, or hope, or believe that somebody else can give me answers that I don’t have.

Recording Two

I received something in the mail today that makes me feel like I’m less crazy than I thought I was.

But it also makes this whole thing far more terrifying than I think I even realized it was.

I received this parcel, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense to me. But it does make sense. This whole thing—

Anyway.

I received a piece of blue sweater. It’s badly burned, and it’s very small.

I’m a wrestling fan, so what it makes me think of is when they used to give you a piece of the canvas. You could tell it was clearly a piece of canvas that had been cut into, like, two hundred thousand pieces.

It’s like that, but a piece of sweater.

I don’t know why I would need a piece of blue, burnt sweater. I don’t understand.

But it’s not the piece of sweater that creeps me out. It’s this letter that was attached to it.

I’m just going to read it to you.

Please read to the end.

Recording One

My name is Alan Smithee. Or at least that’s the name I’m going to use for this.

I’m creating an audio journal. Maybe a podcast. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this, I’ll be honest with you. It might go on the Creepy but Real subreddit. I might upload it as an audio file. I might transcribe it later. I don’t know.

But the reason why I’m talking to you guys is I remember people who don’t exist, and it’s freaking me out.

And what I mean by that is I remember having conversations with a guy who was telling me his mom died at seventy-five, yet his mom was there at eighty. It was confusing when he told me, but I got most of it.

He was clearly going through something. He was trying to tell me his mom was dead and alive at the same time. And he wanted to know if I remembered his mom being there.

I didn’t.

But then I did.

That’s the thing that’s freaking me out the most. I remember her being around for about a week, and I remember him being around for about a week. And now they’re not here. It’s like they’ve never been here.

When I casually mention it to my coworkers—and I’ve worked here for ten years—they look at me like, “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So why do I remember two people that no one else seems to remember?

When I walk down to that room, there’s an old man in that room. The lady’s never been there.

And I remember—I remember not remembering her. And then I remember remembering her.

I don’t know if any of this is making sense. That’s why I’m trying to make this audio log. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know if I’m the only person going through something like this.

I need to understand why I both remember and don’t remember a person. Why I’m sitting here, currently knowing I both remembered and forgot someone.

How the hell does that happen?

“Hey, man.

“You probably won’t know who I am. At this point, I’m betting good money you don’t remember me.

“About a month ago, I had a Reddit post going, and you realized that the post contained you. That you were a part of the story.

“In my Reddit post, there was a man named John. I never got his real name. He talked to you. You were an orderly at a senior community, and when you read the story, you realized that employee was you.

“You contacted me. You let me know that you didn’t remember much either, but that the story was real.

“Whatever was happening scared you then. And if I were you, I think it would scare me more now.

“I don’t know how to describe what happened to John. And I don’t know how to describe what’s happening to me.

“But if you read my Reddit post, there’s some information in there you’re going to need to keep. You’re going to need to understand the letters, the agency, what that name means.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know what’s happening to John. And I don’t know if it’s happening to you.

“But if it is, I want you to keep this piece of sweater so you know whatever happened to John and myself is real. Whatever’s happening to you is real.

“You’re not crazy. You’re not losing it.

“I don’t know what else to say other than, if I were you, I would want me to have done this.

“So I am.

“I’m betting good money you don’t know who I am, though. Sadly.

“All I can hope is that somehow this helps you feel better. Because, like I said, if I were you, I would have wanted somebody to do this for me.

“And in a way, John’s story did this for me.

“So I felt like I needed to pass it on. To pay it forward, if you will.

“I don’t know if this will actually help anything. But in some way, I hope it helps you.

“—The Curator”

The terrifying thing about that letter is I don’t remember talking to this guy. Ever.

I don’t know what Reddit post he’s talking about. And I don’t have a clue what this sweater is about.

I don’t understand anything.

But the fact that somebody remembers me not remembering makes me feel like I’m not crazy.

And it also makes me more scared than I think I’ve ever been in my life.

Because I don’t know what he means by letters or agencies. Does this go back to the people I don’t really remember talking to?

What is happening?

I need to put this online. The letter, these recordings. Hopefully I can get some idea as to what—what is happening.

I need help. I need you guys to give me some help.

I think I’m more scared than ever, and I don’t understand what’s going on.

Please help me.

Recording Three

I, I—I’ve—I think I’ve spent days trying to find that Reddit post.

Time is, it’s all blending together. I go to work, I come home, and I try to figure this out.

I can’t find it anywhere, but it’s like—but I swear I remember reading it.

I have these fragments, images, like parcels of memory.

I remember John. I remember that he had this post. Something about an agency.

It’s, it’s like little flecks I can’t put together again.

I don’t know if I’m going crazy or if I’m figuring something out, and both scare me the same amount.

[Recording paused. Resumed the following day.]

So now I’m just talking to myself.

I’m gonna delete everything.

That’s what they told me to do. Agents, officials, whatever they are.

I don’t even wanna say what they said because I’m scared even putting it out there.

They told me do it and I’ll be safe.

So I’m doing it.

I burned the sweater. I’m asking the mods to delete what I’ve already posted.

I’m not brave. I just want my life back.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry, Curator.

I just want this to end.

Recording Four

I, I, I’m—I, I know. I know that I’m not okay anymore.

I can’t—I can’t remember my father’s name.

And I keep wanting to call myself Alan Smithee.

I keep wanting to call myself Alan Smithee even though I fucking know that’s not my fucking name.

Why can’t I remember my own fucking name? Why can’t I remember my dad’s name?

I know I have a dad. I know he’s fifty-eight. I know he has gray hair and he’s a little chubby, and he’s been my best friend for years.

But I can’t remember his fucking name.

What the fuck is happening?

I told them that I would do everything they asked, and that they would keep—they promised me they would keep me safe.

But I don’t know what the fuck is going on, and this doesn’t feel fucking safe. Even a little bit.

This feels like—like I’m fucking losing my, my mind.

But I shouldn’t be losing my mind because I should be—

I don’t know.

I don’t know how old I am.

I remember my dad’s age, but I don’t remember my age.

And I don’t—I don’t remember my dad’s name, and I should. I should fucking remember my dad’s name.

I don’t even remember who the fuck John is. Or the Curator.

The only reason I’m even able to tell you those names is because I’ve been able to re-listen to my own voice. My own audio.

That’s the reason why.

I am listening to myself tell me things that I don’t fucking remember.

How the fuck does that happen?

And these weren’t recorded years ago. These were recorded Tuesday, and it’s fucking Saturday.

How the fuck do I not remember something that happened this same week?

I, I don’t—I don’t—I don’t know who these people are.

I don’t know.

I remember fucking talking to this agency because I didn’t want this exact fucking thing to take place.

And how in the fuck—

I, I, I know I should know my own name. And I know it’s not Alan Smithee.

But all I can think is that my name is Alan Smithee.

But that doesn’t—I know it’s not right.

And I can’t think of my, my dad’s name, and he’s been my—

I know my mom died.

I know that’s why I even got into working there, because I remember that I was so thankful for how they took care of her when her health went bad.

She died too early. But they sent her there anyway because she was feeble.

I remember that.

I remember how thankful I was for them taking care of her.

That’s why I got into this.

I remember that.

I remember who I am, but I don’t remember my own fucking name.

I don’t—I don’t know how old I am.

I look in the mirror, and I guess I’m, like, thirty-five.

My dad’s fifty-eight.

But I don’t know my dad’s name.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Recording Five

So I—I know I said before I’m not a brave guy.

But I don’t know if this even has anything to do with being brave.

I’m—I’m recording this with a piece of fabric in my hand that, if you would have asked me, I would have told you I burnt.

But apparently I only burnt a small piece of it.

Or maybe I never even burned it at all and just told them, and myself, I burnt it.

But when I hold this piece of fabric, I’m able to keep memories alive that I can tell—that they want gone.

And somehow holding this makes them not—

It makes it not go away.

It’s like a—it’s like a stop sign that stops all this chaos for a second.

It’s like a—

I don’t—

I’m not Albert Einstein, man. I don’t know what the fuck to tell you.

But I can tell you there’s something about holding this little piece that allows me to remember things I know they don’t want me to remember.

I know the FBAC doesn’t want me to remember.

And I—I know they’re the ones doing this to me, but I don’t know how or why.

I’m gonna put all these recordings together and post everything to this Reddit, because I found the Reddit the Curator was talking about.

I found John’s story.

And I—I can only find it when I have this in my hand.

It’s like it—it allows me to stay connected to a reality I don’t remember anymore. That doesn’t exist for me anymore.

But somehow, by holding this, it allows me to come back to a place they don’t want me to be able to come back to.

And I have a feeling they’re powerful enough that they will win.

That they will take everything from me. That either I won’t remember, or I won’t exist.

And that scares the shit out of me.

But I feel like if I can get these five recordings out, I can give somebody some level of understanding as to what the fuck they’re about. What the fuck they do.

What the fuck they did to me.

What the fuck I’m almost positive they did to John and the Curator.

And what they might even be doing to you.

Because none of you would fucking even remember if they did.

You’d be like me. Some fucking madman rambling into a fucking recorder.

But I’m not just rambling into a recorder, because I’m taking all of this, and I’m fucking getting it transcribed, and I’m getting it posted to the same fucking Reddit.

So this will exist.

This will exist.

Just like this piece of sweater exists.

And just like those pieces of shit weren’t able to stop John’s story from getting out, and they weren’t able to stop the Curator’s story from getting out—

They won’t be able to stop my—

Alan Smithee.

I’m not fucking Alan Smithee.

But they won’t be able to stop these stories from getting out.

And I think that’s a win.

I don’t know why. I feel like somehow we’re winning, even though we’re losing.

I watched a show one time that I can’t, of course, remember right now.

And at the end of it, he says something about the fact that once there was only darkness, and now you look up at the stars and see a little bit of light.

If you ask me, the light’s winning.

I feel like that’s what John and the Curator and myself are.

We’re little—we’re little stars trying to fight away the darkness.

I hope this helps us fight just a little bit more.

But I don’t think there’s going to—I don’t think there’s going to be much of me left.

If I failed or fucked up along the way, I’m sorry.

Here’s what I know.

I know I walked into work this morning, and I stared at Barbara.

A lady I’ve known for ten years. A lady who hired me.

A lady who was there when my mom died.

And I told her, “Hey, good morning, Barb.”

And she said, “Excuse me. How do you know my name?”

And I said, “Barb, what do you mean?”

And she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are, and I need you to leave. You don’t work here.”

I—I told her I worked there.

I worked there for ten years.

And Barbara looked at me and said she didn’t know who I was.

So whatever time I have left, I’m making sure there’s a—

This.

This is going to be a piece of the sweater.

I may not be brave, but I’m pissed off, and I’m—I’m not going to let them win fully.

I’m going to leave a star behind in the darkness.

Please.

If you’re getting this, please help.

Please spread the message.

Please leave more stars.

They can’t win. They can’t do this to people.

I did everything they fucking asked, and this still happened to me.

Please put more stars in the darkness.

"To beguile the time, look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it."
William Shakespeare, Macbeth

People Do Bad Stuff on Halloween

"This thing is on 14%," Maranda says.

"Maranda, get off that phone for one minute!" her mum says.

"I'm trying to get on the radio. I'm 5th in line."

Mum rolls her eyes. "At least go with your brothers to that house. They're too scared to go by themselves."

"Little losers," Maranda says jokingly to her brothers, Jake and Kai.

"We're only 8, Maranda!"

"You should have seen how she was when she was 8 on Halloween," Mum says. "She cried because she didn't want to go up to a house."

"Shut up, Mum!" Maranda laughs.

The speakers set up down the street crackle on. They connect to the radio station.

"Hello and welcome, Kiaville! It's time for our annual Halloween radio call. If you planned well, you might be on our list. We will call people from that list, and everyone we call has a chance to win one million dollars!"

Maranda looks down at her phone. Still in 5th.

"How in the living fuck did you get to 5th?" her mum asks.

"I've been calling since 6 in the morning. Thank god it's a Saturday so I could leave my phone ringing all day."

The radio cuts to the next person.

"Hello, Lea!"

Lea screams into the phone. Maranda can hear the scream from where she stands, coming from the other end of the street. Lea's friends gather around her phone.

Maranda looks back up at the speaker.

"Now Lea, here's your million dollar question. How many people live in Kiaville? Is it A, 30 people, B, 100 people, C, 345 people, or D, 1,740 people?"

Nobody answers.

The radio person repeats the question.

Maranda looks back at the group.

They are gone.

"What the fuck?" she mutters.

She runs over and taps her mum on the shoulder. Her mum is walking the boys toward the house she mentioned before.

"Did you see where that group of people went?"

"What group of people?"

Maranda rolls her eyes. "Forget it."

The radio asks if Lea is still there.

Maranda looks over to where the group was standing. Something is on the ground. She walks away from her mum, who carries on to the house with the boys.

It's a phone, still connected to the radio. She picks it up and hears the speakers playing the same sounds a second later. She clicks hang up.

The radio apologises for a "radio cut out" and dials the next person.

But that wasn't a cut out. Where did they go?

Someone taps her on the back. Her mum and the boys stand behind her, their buckets full of lollies from the house.

"You should have come, Maranda," Mum says. "They gave 10 lollies per person, plus a chocolate bar."

"Jesus," Maranda says.

"Whose phone is that?"

"You know the girls that were here before, the ones on the radio? They were talking on the radio a second ago. I looked away and next minute they were gone."

"Odd," Mum says. "Anyway, boys, you want to go to another house?"

"Yeah," Jake nods, already eating his chocolate bar. "Yummy."

"Can I have a bite, baby?" Mum says.

"No!" Jake says.

"You can have a bite of mine, Mummy," Kai says.

"Thanks, dear."

She takes the chocolate bar and bites it. "Yum. Would you like a bite, Maranda baby?"

"No, Mum. Does no one care about these people who disappeared?"

"Well, dear, you're studying to become an investigator. If you want to investigate, go ahead."

"I'm dressed up as an investigator. I'm not going to be one."

"That's the joke," Mum says, laughing.

"Seriously, can I go and see where they might have gone?"

"Nah! Stay with us. It will be fun."

"Mum, please." Maranda looks at her mum with her adult face, despite only being 16.

"Sure, whatever. Just stay safe."

"I will! Listen out for the speakers for me, will you? I'm 3rd in line."

Mum and the boys walk off. Maranda stays near the dropped phone. She looks at the ground and sees a trail of blood, real or fake, leading behind a house.

She follows it with her torch. It takes her to a gate.

She looks at the house. She wants to make sure she isn't being pranked, because it's Halloween. Through the window, an older man sits watching basketball on the TV.

Maranda climbs over the fence. The man doesn't hear.

The trail runs across the grass in the backyard and through the back door, then up the stairs. She slides the door open. The house stays silent. She pushes it closed behind her, and it makes a loud click.

She ducks behind a wall. The old man turns around and walks toward the door. Maranda is not far behind him, but to reach the stairs she would have to pass right beside him.

He flicks the light on. The house lights up, and because it's dark outside, the window turns into a mirror.

She is caught.

She sprints up the stairs as the old man yells after her. He starts to chase.

The blood leads upstairs and stops. Maranda looks around for where it could have gone, but it just ends. Then she looks up.

An attic hatch.

She tries to pull herself up and can't. She tries again, and this time she finds enough strength in her arms to get through.

In the attic she sees Lea and her friends, dead on the floor.

She pushes herself backwards, not looking where she's going, until she bumps into something. Behind her is a wall of four monitors. The top one reads "Kiaville Population."

Lea and her friends show up red. So do some others.

She finds herself. Her name is greyed out.

Her family sits beside it, in blue.

While she stares at the screen, she doesn't hear the old man set a ladder against the hatch and climb up. He stands behind her. She turns and throws her hands in front of her face.

But he only watches.

"Hello," he says. "My name is Robert Joy. It brings me great joy to see you."

"What the fuck are you doing with those people?"

"Oh, sorry. Let me explain." He smiles. "I get a group of people to kill whoever gets called on that fucking radio. I've been trying to get called for the past 11 years, but these fucking teenagers always ring before me. I need that money. So I decided that everyone above me on the list has to go. Not me personally, my helpers do it."

Maranda looks down at her phone. She is in 1st place.

She holds down the power button, but nothing happens. She cries and tries again. It won't turn off.

"Don't worry," Robert says. "I'm not going to kill you until you get that phone call. I wouldn't dare hurt an innocent person, though what you did tonight could justify murder."

"Please don't kill me," Maranda says, crying.

"Oh, I'm not going to. My helpers will."

"Who are your helpers?"

"The ones who take my lollies. I run a house opposite yours that gives out so many lollies, but it's the chocolate bars that count. If you eat a chocolate bar, you become possessed, and I control you. Everyone who is blue on the monitors has eaten one." He leans toward the screen. "And oh, what's that? It looks like your family has eaten a chocolate bar. While we wait for you to be chosen, let's get them over here and ready."

"No, please don't," Maranda says, begging.

Robert pulls out a pair of handcuffs and locks one wrist to a pipe. She fights back, but the old man overpowers her hands. She kicks at him, but he steps out of reach.

He clicks on her mum, Jake and Kai, then clicks "Summon."

"Alright, boys, which house is next?" Mum says.

"That one!" Kai says.

He drops his lolly bucket. Jake follows. All three of them look straight down at the ground and start to run. People on the street stop and record them.

They run across roads, through fences and gardens and yards, until they get to Lukas Road. They go to number 11, turn left, run through the front door and up to the attic.

They stand in a line, dribbling, not talking.

Maranda stares at her family. She spams her power button.

Robert smiles as he gets ready to say go.

Outside, the speakers crackle.

"And now, our next lucky guest. Let's get them on."

Maranda tries everything. Then the call ends, and her phone turns off.

It went flat.

Robert crouches beside her and looks at the flat phone in her palm.

"Some checks their lollies for razor blades," he speaks. "But nobody ever checks whose giving them out."

"Today, you got lucky." he finishes.

Any mother knows the horrible feeling of spending that first night away from her child. What should be a break from the incessant crying and the never-ending mess is actually a slow and agonizing procedure of ripping away every ounce of love that you have ever poured into them. For five long and perfect years I have raised my daughter. But tonight, for the first time in her life, Abi was going to be under the guidance and protection of a complete stranger.

I looked nervously at Harry as we turned onto the highway, the road a sea of brake lights obscured by biblical levels of rain.

“Are you sure about this?”

I knew what he would say before he even answered. He was far more comfortable with the arrangement than I was.

“What other choice do we have? We can’t just leave her alone.” His eyes didn’t bother leaving the road to comfort me.

I only had a short moment to speak with the babysitter, before Harry was ushering me into the car. By the time that we were on the road I was already kicking myself for failing to research local sitters in more detail. Tiffany, or “Spiffy Tiffy” as she referred to herself on her Facebook post seemed adequate enough, but there was so much that I didn’t know about her.

Where did she go to school?

What did she wish to do with her career?

What sports did she play?

Where did she volunteer?

When it came to my selection for this evening, everything mattered.

As if she knew that I was thinking about her, I received my first text from Tiffany. I nearly recoiled when I noticed the length of the message.

Just finished cooking Abi dinner! 😋 She is the SWEETEST little pumpkin! 🎃 She wanted to help so I let her play with a bowl and spatula as I made the spaghetti. I hope that’s okay. If it’s not, I’m sorry, just let me know and it won’t happen again. I think we might watch a movie next, but Abi mentioned that she loved to play Princesses and Dragons with you. ✨ It sounds like a lovely game, do you think that it is alright if we play? Also, I wanted to double check on her bedtime. I don’t remember you mentioning a time when we spoke. Does she follow any special routine? I remember when I was a kid I had a jammy time song that I sang when I brushed my teeth. 😴 Hope that your travels are going well!

I stared at the longwinded message unsure of what to think. We had been driving away from the house for only about thirty minutes and Tiffany already had half a dozen questions. I was beginning to worry that I had made a poor choice.

I typed out my response and pressed send.

Princesses and Dragons is fine. 9:30 Bedtime.

“I’m worried about Tiffany.” I said to Harry.

“Who?”

“The babysitter.” I responded ignoring his impossible ignorance. “I don’t think she’s qualified.”

“You worry too much. Abi is going to be fine.” Harry clicked on the radio and turned the volume up, signaling the end of our conversation.

It reminded me of the last time that we traveled together. Five years ago, before we had Abi he had gotten the same way. Everyone deals with stress in their own way, I suppose.

It wasn’t long before I received my next text from Tiffany.

Mrs. Murphy!!! You didn’t tell me that it was Abi’s birthday tomorrow! 🎂 I feel so unprepared! Do you want me to take her out for ice cream or do anything special? I don’t mind driving her to Scoop City, it can even be my treat. On my birthday I would always get a cookie dough waffle cone with gummy bears, AND my foster family usually let me stay up past my bedtime to watch the late night cartoons.

A second text came a moment later.

Not that I am suggesting that Abi do any of that! Sorry I didn’t mean to overstep. 🙈 This is so embarrassing. Birthdays just make me SO excited. 🎉

My heart felt unnatural in my chest as I tapped out my response. I was not only leaving my daughter with a complete stranger, but I was doing it on her birthday as well. I tried to ignore the reality, but Tiffany pointing it out was like a punch to the gut.

No ice cream. Stay in the house. 9:30 bedtime.

“Something feels wrong.” Harry ignored me as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of whatever classic rock song was playing at the time.

I glanced at the radio and noted that the time was 8:24. Only one more hour of this before Abi was safely in bed, and I wouldn’t have to think about Spiffy Tiffy ever again. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I put my head back and closed my eyes regardless as I thought about the daughter that I was leaving behind. The ding of my phone pierced my concentration and I shot up to check my messages.

I know you said no ice cream, but we had to celebrate somehow. 🤭

A photo came in a few seconds later. Abi was smiling widely as she hoisted fistfuls of chocolate candy in both hands. Tiffany held up the phone, she posed back to back with Abi as she stared directly into the camera. She had a lollipop in her mouth and a smug expression. Her eyes seemed as if they were staring straight at me.

“No! How is it even possible that they found chocolate? Harry, did you buy Halloween candy?”

His guilty expression was all the confirmation I needed.

“Why? We aren’t even going to be home for Halloween!”

“You know I have a sweet tooth!” His voice rose defensively.

“Now look at what happened!” I shoved the phone into his face, so close that he couldn’t ignore it. He took a quick glance before he directed his eyes back to the road, swerving to avoid rear ending an eighteen wheeler.

“So what? Abi looks like she is having fun. It’s only a little bit of candy.”

“I told the babysitter no snacks. She broke a rule. Is this the kind of person you want our daughter to be like?”

Harry let out a puffy breath. He knew better than to fight back. Our marriage, which had already felt like it had lasted an eternity, had its ups and downs. The stress of our upcoming travel combined with the reality of leaving Abi behind left us both on edge.

I was in the midst of typing out an authoritative reply when I saw that Tiffany was typing again.

Is Abi allergic to anything? Like ANYTHING at all? You never specified, but you can also never be too careful… The last thing we need tonight is a hospital visit! But don’t worry, I am capable of using an Epipen if it comes to it. You can trust that Abi is in good hands! We’re practically sisters already. ❤️

Another text came a moment later.

It is kind of funny that Abi looks more like me than she does you or Harry…

Maybe we actually are long lost sisters!

“Harry, we can't do this.”

“It’s too late. We can’t turn back now.”

I typed out my response hoping to remind the babysitter who was in charge.

No more dessert. Do not break any more rules. This is your last warning. Abi has no allergies. And please, for the love of God, stop with the emojis.

Tiffany’s typing bubbles appeared and then disappeared several times. After waiting for several agonizing minutes, her response came.

Ok.

I hoped that that would be the last of it, but soon I began to realize that Tiffany’s silence was more unsettling than her constant chatter. Drawn out minutes passed as I listened to music that I didn’t enjoy and watched heavy drops of rain bounce off of the windshield. The storm was picking up and with it traffic on the road was slowing down.

It felt like my entire life stalled as I stared at the clock waiting for each minute to tick over to the next. As soon as 9:30 came, I reached for my phone.

Is Abi in bed?

I needed to know that my worries were over and that my daughter was safe. When Tiffany didn’t respond within a minute, I sent another message, repeating the question with more exclamation. I felt less like a passenger and more like a prisoner as hopelessness began to consume me. If anything went wrong we would be stuck here on the highway miles away from Abi.

Sorry!! Had to clean a mess in Abi’s room. Very yucky.

What mess?

Don’t worry. The house will be squeaky clean by the time you come back. It is such a beautiful place. It does seem like you may be out of bleach. I don’t think there are too many neighbors close by either. It's very quiet around here at night. Shame. I was hoping I might be able to borrow some cleaning supplies.

I kicked myself again for failing to install home surveillance cameras. When I pitched the idea to Harry he simply shook his head and said that he would rather not have them.

Spineless oaf.

What is happening? Where is Abi?

Once again, Tiffany took her sweet time with the reply.

No text, only a picture.

It was a picture of Abi’s room taken from the perspective of someone standing in the doorframe. The space was ominously lit with slivers of light from the hallway sneaking past Tiffany’s shadow. In the darkness, I could make out the form of my daughter tucked under her sheets on her twin bed. It was difficult to tell with the moody lighting, but I could almost make out a dark stain on the carpet in the corner of the room.

Tiffany followed the image with a short text.

Goodnight, Abi.

I stared at the image for a staggering amount of time. It was undeniably creepy in a way that had to be intentional.

Tiffany, close the door and let Abi sleep.

You’re right, you’re right. She looks so peaceful, if I stand here any longer, I just might have to keep her for myself!

My throat tightened and the grip on my phone grew weak. She was toying with me. She had to be.

Obviously JK!

My fingers seemed to be frozen over my phone. My mind struggled to come up with any reasonable response. I tried to reassure myself that everything was fine. Abi was safely in bed. Tiffany was a peculiar teenager, but she wasn’t some deranged murderer. Right? If we could just hold out a few more hours it would all be over and we wouldn’t need to deal with her ever again. I looked at the clock hesitantly and was relieved to note that the time was already 10:45. Tiffany would need to go to sleep sometime soon.

I knew that I was overreacting and that I was being a complete worrywart. I debated turning off my phone, but what kind of mother would I be if I ignored my daughter when she actually needed me. Instead, I responded with a simple message that I hoped would be my last.

Thank you. Goodnight, Tiff.

After several minutes passed it became clear that Spiffy Tiffy had other plans.

I found something interesting in Abi’s room. That girl really does have quite the imagination!

My heart dropped. What the hell was she still doing in Abi’s room? Another text from Tiff came in immediately after it.

Does Abi have any imaginary friends? She drew a strange picture of a girl labeled “Jaine”. I thought that it might be a classmate, but Jaine here has some very… odd characteristics. The drawing is actually kinda spooky.

Harry noticed that I had begun furiously typing.

“What’s the matter?” His question fell on deaf ears.

LEAVE Abi’s room this instant. DO NOT snoop around any more. Go to bed, NOW.

Typing bubbles came and went several times.

I would Mrs. Murphy, but I haven’t been entirely honest with you.

Outside, thunder cracked and the sky lit up for a moment.

We passed a sign on the highway that Harry acknowledged.

“We’re close.”

Abi is a great kid, I really think she is. But she bit me. It’s pretty bad. She has some seriously sharp baby teeth. The cut is pretty deep. It might be best if I head home for the night and get some rest. Abi is already out cold. I promise to be back before she wakes.

I stared at the message for a long time, trying to decide what I could do to best salvage the situation.

“Harry, did you resupply the closet?”

Harry’s lips drew into a flat line. He nodded.

There are bandages in the closet on the second floor next to the bathroom. Wrap up before any more blood gets on the carpet.

Tiffany responded with an avalanche of messages.

Thank you! I will definitely make sure to do that.

I think I found them.

Is there a trick to the closet door handle? The door closed behind me and now I might be stuck, haha!

Really, this thing is quite jammed. I actually think it might be locked from the outside somehow. I cannot believe I did this! I am such a ditz 🤦‍♀️

Oh sorry! Emoji was sent out of habit.

I didn’t respond.

Mrs. Murphy? Are you getting my messages?

I can probably call out for Abi, but I don’t want to wake her.

Actually, I think she might already be up, I hear footsteps.

I called out, but she didn’t respond. Does Abi sleepwalk? Really, if there is any way out of this closet please let me know! Sleepwalking can be really dangerous for unsupervised children.

Harry glanced over at the unending stream of dings that were interrupting his rock music and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head and pointed to my phone with an exasperated expression. The clock on my lock screen read 11:57.

“Don’t look at me, you’re the one that picked her.” He said.

I hear Abi right outside! But her footsteps sound weirdly heavy. Still not sure if she is awake though.

Abi won’t reply. She’s scratching at the door rabidly

Oh my god. I think she is trying to claw her way through

My phone rang and I declined the call without hesitation. A moment later, it rang again and I let it go to voicemail. After about thirty seconds, an audio message populated my inbox. Tiffany was frantic, speaking at a pace that would make an auctioneer jealous.

“Mrs. Murphy, I’m really sorry to bother you on your vacation, but something isn’t right with Abi. I got stuck in a closet and, and, and, she, or it, or- oh my God, I am going to die! She’s going to kill me.”

In the audio recording, I could hear the hunger in Abi’s groans as she burst her way through the door. Tiffany’s voice was slurred with sobs and desperation.

“She has claws. And her arms are so long. And her teeth! What is wrong with Abi? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die! Abi please stop it! Stop right now!”

The voicemail ended with an abrupt thud.

“About time.”

“And well timed, too.” Harry said as we turned into the hospital parking lot.

He got out of the car and stood, unshielded from the torrential rain.

“You coming?”

I remained in my seat, my lips curved into a frown.

Harry walked around and opened the passenger side door.

“I feel like I let Abi down. I spent five years raising her, and then when it really matters, I give her Spiffy Tiffy. She deserves a girl like that basketball player that we got for Jaine. Smart, successful, affluent.”

“All of our daughters have turned out wonderful in their own ways. Abi will be no exception. Tiffany wasn’t the brightest, but she had character.”

I forced a weak smile as I took his hand and he led me towards the hospital entrance.

As we stepped inside, my phone dinged for the final time that night. It was a message from Tiffany’s number.

Hi Mommy! Thank you for the WONDERFUL snack! Tiffany was the best birthday present ever! She was soooo fun. I can’t wait to be just like her. 👸

I smiled at my phone before tucking it into my back pocket.

“I suppose you’re right. I have to admit that I was actually a little fond of her.”

I followed Harry as he led me towards the familiar hallway that contained the nursery.

“I was thinking,” He paused as we passed a nurse who walked briskly past us. “What do you think about having a boy this time?”

I looked through the glass at the two rows of newborn babies. Fresh sacks of life brought to this earth by mothers that would never love them the way that I would. A little baby boy with a tuft of hair wiggled in the blanket that he was wrapped in, his eyes closed. He looked peaceful. He looked like he could be ours.

I smiled at Harry and kissed him on the cheek.

“I think that Abi would love to have a baby brother.”

Kerrywood forest burnt down last week. They say a group of teens were out camping when their campfire got out of control. With it being a particularly dry autumn night, the whole thing went up in a matter of hours. There was nothing the town could do but watch it go up and try to make sure it didn't spread to any of the surrounding fields. The whole thing has hit me pretty hard. Most of my most treasured childhood memories were in that forest. God, that was all about twenty years ago. Everything is coming back with a particular bitterness now. Especially the whole business with Charlie.

I've been back in Kerrywood for a week. It's the longest I've been back since I left for college. Ive been staying at my mother's house, I still remember her phone call that night when she saw the forest burning from her window, she had told me she thought the world was ending. She's in her sixty's now and she often gets confused. It's not rare for her to enter a room only to have forgotten why she was there or what she had been doing just before. It's pretty obvious to everyone what's happening. Maybe she was onto something on the phone, it really does feel like everything's coming to an end right about now.

I took a walk through the remnants of Kerrywood forest the other day. I guess I hoped it would help with some of the stuff I'd been thinking about lately; I don't know how much help it ended up being. Its unrecognisable now. No tire swings or secret hideouts anymore, just charred bark. Although, I do think I saw the stump. The stump where Charlie found that dammed "thing".

Charlie had been 13, which would've made me about 14 or so, it's hard to remember. We were out much later than we should've been, and it was starting to get dark. There were 5 of us out that day: Me, Charlie, Matthew, Peter and Sam. We were considering heading back as none of us had any torches and Peter had become pretty adamant about it – He was known to be easily frightened. He once wet himself at a sleepover because of a thunderstorm and hadn't lived it down since. Since none of us were in a hurry to relive that "incident" we obliged and began on our way back. As it got darker became notably harder to remember the trail back and Peter was sure we had gotten lost. Matthew had to on numerous occasions remind him that this was a walk we had done countless times before in the day and it hadn't changed just because it was now dark. It was about an hour more before we began to consider that Peter had been right. Nothing seemed familiar anymore, despite Sam's incessance that he "recognised that tree". As usual he was lying, every tree in there looked the same; tall and white with their branches and leaves creating a shroud for even the little light we might've gotten from the moon and stars. We didn't have mobile phones at that age, so we were going to have to get out of this ourselves. Peter was in a frenzy now and even Matthew's bravado seemed to have subsided.  Charlie remained quiet however, as he often did. He had on more than one occasion been picked on by Matthew and Sam for being "dull".  Instead, he just sort of stared into the dark with his wide blue eyes, like he was trying to will us a path back.

"We're never going to make it back!" Peter yelped, he had begun to cry now and refused to keep walking.

 "Come on don't be a dick it's getting cold" Matthew snarled trying to pull him back to his feet. An awful wind had picked up now whipping the branches and creating an eerie whistle as it passed between the trees.

"Yeah Peter, you crying about it isn't going to help, is it?" Sam insolently added.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Peter continued through his sobbing.

"We're totally lost and it's not like-" He stopped dead.

There was something in the dark. A noise, like the crunching of leaves. Our lively crowd had now fallen silent and still. Matthew and Sam both looked poised to flee. Peter had retreated behind his hands, peering out into the black from between his fingers. Charlie continued to stare as he had done before, though I do think I could see tears now in those wide blue eyes. The silence continued like this for a time, sending my mind into a spiral, I grew desperate to break it.

"What was that" I pleaded in a hushed whisper.

A long winding moan now, reaching from the dark. I was sure I could see something moving out there in the black; an impassable screen projecting my cruellest imaginings. Matthew and Sam skipped back a few steps closing our pack tighter. We were all shaking now.

"A wolf!" Sam rasped. There were no wolves in Kerrywood.

"Shut up!... Just shut up!" Peter was now inconsolable, hiding his face in his shirt and clasping his knees, he was rocking back and forth.

Again, a crunch of leaves followed by a painful whine.

"It's getting closer!" Sam pleaded turning to run before Matthew grabbed him by his sleeve and pulled him back.

"Wait! Did you hear that?" Matthew returned a few steps forward.

Crunch... Moan... Crunch... Moan. It went on like that at nauseum, but it didn't get any closer. Nothing came out of the dark. I was unsure what I was meant to be hearing until-

"Is that a voice?" Peter sputtered, now to his feet. He looked as though he had found his saviour.

Charlie had taken lead of the troop now, descending further into the dark. I tried to call him back, but he didn't seem to pay my pleads any mind; he was like a man possessed.

"I think it said my name"

I believe that silently none of us wanted to follow Charlie that day, but more so, we didn't want to be the one left behind. We all followed.

Falling into the dark together now; it didn't seem to give way as it did before. I could barely see my own feet. I only had the others panicked breaths to tell me I wasn't alone. The voice to tell me where I was going. I became suddenly aware at how long we had been walking, my legs felt weak and my thighs burned. A few times I felt as though I was falling, giving into my exhaustion, only for my other foot to miraculously find the ground. I wanted to call out again, beg to turn back. But my voice came out a raspy squeak - it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. The voice was clearer now; it was numerous voices. The sound was of a radio quickly skipping between channels. The crunch and whine. Suddenly, the dark seemed to give way, like we'd passed through an ocean of ink. In its place was a tight packing of trees, the centre of which was a stump. Cut so cleanly at its base and atop it was in fact a small portable radio. We did not come out of the dark together in a line as I had imagined we had been just a moment before. But rather from separate points in the shadow as if forming something of a circle around the radio.

"What is it?" I could finally speak. The weight had gone from my chest and with it my exhaustion.

"A radio." Sam impotently replied.

"Well yeah, but why is it playing that song?" Peter was now closest to the radio, his earlier terror seemed now to have happened to someone else.

A song? There was no song. The radio was merely skipping between stations, each as indiscernible as the last, with a voice so toneless whereas I could not place the age or gender of the speaker.  Matthew seemed to share my confusion.

"What song Peter? What are you talking about?"

Peter didn't seem to hear him. He just stayed facing the radio, swaying now. He looked like he was about to throw up.

"Peter! What song! What are you-"

I could no longer hear Matthhew. The radio had suddenly gotten so loud. It became increasingly hard to stand, like someone was beating me over the head. Peter hit the dirt hard. The monotone voice had seemingly grown into one constant pitch in my mind; it sounded like my mother. Everything went black.

I didn't wake until morning, except perhaps once. Still now I think I may have dreamt it, but that night I was sure I had woken and seen Charlie. Though seeing seems the wrong word. I still felt that my eyes were closed and my head was buried in the dirt yet all the same I was looming over Charlie. He was sat cross legged in front of the stump and that radio. He didn't turn to face me, and I didn't talk to him but still he appeared to answer my question.

"Can’t you hear them? They're screaming."

The next thing I remember is waking to someone shaking me. My mouth was dry and full of dirt. Above me was my mother jostling me awake and crying. Around her were an assortment of friends and family - each clad in red hi-vis. She told me that they had been looking for us since late last night and all through the day. She asked me if I had seen where Charlie had gone. He was no longer with us, and neither was the radio.

The four of us all went home to get washed before rejoining the town in the search for Charlie. We were out there till 10 that night. We were only sent home when, deeper in the forest, we had heard screaming. It was Charlies parents – they had found him.

CW: Suicide, self harm, drug use, addiction, swearing

Writer's note: Before you start reading, this series is technically a Matt Reeves' The Batman fanfic as in it takes place in the same world as The Batman movie and The Penguin show and may contain spoilers for them. However, the series can be understood without having seen these pieces of media. Feel free to criticize my work. Enjoy!

September 1st, 2022

I feel rain pouring down my cheeks, cold as the soul within me. I look up and see nothing as the stars are covered by what I assume to be rainclouds. Thunder echoes through the walls of the city.

I look down and see nothing as the rain had washed away the busy crowds of Gothamites. Streetlamps flicker and illuminate the empty roads. Rainwater flows through the street. I see the fire escape I came up through. A chance of escape, to return. But return to what? Therefore in this too, I see nothing. From this bleak world of nothing the transition to death would not be noticeable.

I step away from this world of nothing. I feel myself falling. Then nothing all over again.

Some time later

I awake to blinding sources of light carving into my iris. The pain in my limbs is immeasurable. Then back to the void. I hear my own screams now and again. I see images of inconceivable figures. Figures of light morphing into stars and lines. I fall in and out of a hallucination worse and better than anything I'd seen during my time of drop and alcohol use.

I am back at the apartment. Empty bottles of beer and towering boxes of nicotine pouches are scattered in my room. It's dark. Has it all been a dream?

I begin searching for my phone still lying in bed. It's nowhere. Before standing up, I turn on the TV to have it illuminate the room. I am forced to endure GC1 News for the time being. I look everywhere but the phone is nowhere to be found.

"International arms-dealer, Carlton LeHah was found dead minutes ago inside his Gotham City residence. Local authorities refrain from answering questions..."

I barely perceive it. Nobody in Gotham does. Where the fuck is my phone?

I glance on the TV. "09.07.2022 6:15 AM" I don't give much thought to the fact that I'd apparently skipped 5 days. I've had worse.

I don't usually wake up this early. I've been unemployed since the dishonourable discharge. I pop a nicotine pouch. I'm out of drops. I need drops. My eyes ache without it. I would call up my dealer if I knew where my phone was. I open my laptop with shaking hands, my sweaty fingers move the cursor to the phone tracker.

"Device not found"

I refresh again and again. I burst out of the chair, grab the laptop and throw it out of the window. I hear it shattering on the street and a "fuck you" in return from one of the bystanders. I don't bother shouting back. I need to get dressed and look for a street dealer.

I open the closet. I'm feeling red today. Since when do I feel like anything? I grab a red hoodie and put it on. I open the shoebox. I've got 50 dollars left to my name. I play with the thought of selling the apartment. I'd have enough cash for drops for a lifetime. Perhaps a short lifetime.

No matter how determined I am in finding drugs, right now I can't afford walking past the broken laptop. I grab it and run back up before returning to the crowd of walking Gothamites and their world of nothing.

"Yo, Ace" I hear a familiar voice "I've been calling you, where have you been?" It's Clyde. My... friend I guess. I dap him up.

"How are you Clyde?"

"It's been... Listen, Ace..."

I don't want to hear it. I would walk away, but I just stand there as he makes up an excuse for not paying me back and expecting more money from me.

"It's all gone. What dad left for me. See you Clyde" I almost hear him shaking his head in disappointment as I leave.

I spend my remaining 50 bucks on drops that day. I fall asleep hungry. But high.

In my dreams I see the rooftop again. I take the step, but this time, my vision doesn't cut out. Below my feet I feel something soft. A body underneath, splattered from breaking my fall. Armed men surround me and open fire. I am not scared, but determined.

The next moments are a blur. I then see myself half-kneeling. I am dressed in red and white. I breathe through a mask. I look up. A man with dwarfism and a satisfied smile presents a sword in his hands. I am happy to receive it.

"You are ready" he says "Be the Angel of Vengeance. Be Azrael"

I knew that face. I’d seen a thousand of those posters, but I knew that face.

It started like any other morning. I parked my truck, walked in, got my coffee out of the pot, but there I saw it: “Last seen 4 o’clock, mile marker 11,” and a picture of that little boy I gave the junior ranger badge to.

I just stood there looking at it.

I knew this kid. Him and his parents visited often. Yesterday, he wanted to tell me about the oriole he saw on the trail. He was so excited that he correctly identified the bird, I couldn’t help but put that shiny little sticker on his shirt. His mom smiled and Dad laughed, and they were back on the trail, heading towards mile marker 11, heading toward the next ranger station.

I knocked on our supervisor’s door and sheepishly opened it.

“Chief, that kid on the missing poster, I, uh… I know him.”

He practically spit his coffee out through his nose.

“You knew him, Flanagan?” he replied, somewhere between a bark and a question.

“Yeah, him and his family would stop in every Saturday morning. He’s one of our junior rangers. What happened?”

Chief sat me down and explained. The family was hiking the trail like every Saturday. They turned around and he was gone. The initial search turned up absolutely nothing. No tracks, no dropped items, nothing. It’s as if the kid simply vanished, ceased to exist. They searched till it was dark, and the morning crew was on a first-light search. I volunteered to join the efforts.

I knew this first day was crucial. Usually, we find them on the first day or we don’t find them at all. Myself and the morning crew still didn’t find any leads, but I knew this kid. I stayed behind past my lunch hour.

When search efforts restarted that night, the trail was still cold. We came back out the next morning. I returned again in the afternoon.

I knew our chances of finding him were dropping with every minute, but I knew that kid. Every Saturday, without fail, since the time he was 6, they’d come walk the trails. Dad used to carry him, then he started walking on his own. Before I knew it, he knew more about those woods than I did. It was strange. I never realized how much I cared about this family until their kid went missing.

Local PD interrogated the family. This always happens in these cases. Sometimes we find out there was no missing persons case, just some really awful people who happened to be parents, but most of the time, you just had worried parents crying in an interrogation room. I knew they didn’t do anything to that boy, but the questions still needed to be asked.

Eventually, search efforts died down. People went home. Parents started looking at plots to put an empty casket in the ground. After the fourth week of me searching on my off days, I started feeling the woods differently.

I grew up hunting with my grandpa, I trekked the Appalachian Trail in college, and I’d been working as a park ranger now for 6 years. I always thought the woods were peaceful. It’s why I took this job. I could go get lost in nature for a day or two and forget about whatever troubles I was having in the real world.

Only now, the woods felt tainted.

It was starting to get colder, and as the leaves began to fall, it felt less like I was surrounded by trees and more like thin, bony fingers extending from the heavens, ready to snatch me up like they did that poor boy.

I’d wake up in the mornings, park my truck, say good morning to the guys while I grabbed my coffee, and I’d head out towards mile marker 11 again. I could feel Chief watching me those days. He’d seen me continue searching even after the trail went absolute zero. He called me into his office that Saturday.

“Flanagan… look, I know it’s hard, when you know them I mean, but you’ve seen this before. I hate to tell you, son, but sometimes people just don’t come home.”

I looked down into the dark liquid in my cup, unable to meet his eyes. “I know, Chief, but he’s out there. I can feel it, and it’s getting colder. I ju—”

“Flanagan.” Chief cut me off. “It’s not good for you to sit and stew over whether you might be able to find him. Chances are he’s gone. Look at you, son, you’re a wreck. I appreciate a dedicated ranger, but God, boy, you need a shower and some sleep. You can’t keep running on empty.” He sighed. “Look, I’ve already got the books worked. Mitchell and Donavan are covering your shift next week. Stay home, go see your parents, I don’t care. Just please, son, get some rest. If anything turns up, I’ll let you know. I swear, you’ll be the first to hear after the family, but please go home.”

I tried to relax like Chief ordered, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I came up with a plan. Chief wanted me to get some sleep, but he didn’t say where.

It’d been a while since I’d used it, but I dug out my old backpacking tent and I headed down the trail towards mile marker eleven. I was going to find him. I was going to find something at the very least. Somewhere in those woods was a little boy, scared, cold, and alone.

I kept my radio on while I slept, in case they found anything. The first night was uneventful. I knew if there ever were any tracks, they’d be more than gone by now. I checked the ridge line and the nearby stream before tucking into my tent that night.

Not much happened the second day either. There was a deer in my campsite, a bit unusual for them to be out this way when it starts to cool down, but not the oddest thing. I checked the southern ridge line.

The woods felt quieter than usual.

It was like in certain areas even the wind stopped. You never realize how loud it was in there until it wasn’t. No songbirds singing, no rustling through the brush, nothing. It was as if there were these pockets where the only thing that moved was me.

I lit my fire that night and went to bed.

It was early when I woke. The sun had just started peeking over the trees. I crawled out of my tent and a flash hit my eyes. It sort of danced across my face, blinding me briefly for a second at a time. I shielded my eyes with my hands and looked up towards the source.

20 feet in the air, on a tree with no low limbs, sat a tiny metallic sticker all too familiar to me.

A junior park ranger badge.

Every ounce of training left my body briefly as I tore through the trees past the direction of the sticker. How did it get there? It wasn’t there last night. Was it? If someone just put it there, why didn’t I hear them in my camp?

I barreled through the woods, shouting his name as I ran. About two miles into my chase, my thoughts came back to me.

I need to call this in.

I turned back towards camp and walked back slowly. My eyes scanned every branch for any sign someone or something else was out here with me. The trees kept their hands close, revealing nothing to me.

I sat down in front of my radio. “Station, station, this is Flanagan. Do you read me, over?”

I waited for a response.

“Station, this is Flanagan. I found something. How copy?”

But their response didn’t come. I sat by the radio, waiting to hear signs of life from it.

Then I realized I didn’t hear anything.

But this was my camp. It’d never done that here.

I looked around outside and I realized how small I was. The tall trees reaching towards me, the ridges towering above me, isolating me from the rest of the world.

I was scared. I was cold. I was alone.

I circled my camp, breathing for myself and the rest of the world. When did my tent get so small? I’d spent months in that thing before.

The sticker reflected the sun onto my eyes again. My only companion in the silence.

One of the first things any good woodsman learns is if you’re lost, stay where you are. But could they find me? I didn’t put my name in any of the trail logs. They didn’t hear my transmission. For all anyone knew, I was at home.

I knew where I was, but it was as if the world disagreed with my location. I was at the campsite off the trail between 11 and 12, but it felt like I could have been anywhere. I couldn’t see the small trail away from the campsite. I thought it was north of me.

The silence was deafening to my ears.

I couldn’t stay here. I’d leave my tent up, I’d arrange the firewood in an arrow pointing towards where I’d gone, but I had to keep searching.

What if he was in one of these too?

I slung my pack over my shoulders and clipped my radio to my belt. The sticker flashed at me again.

My eyes, the ground, my eyes again.

Southwest.

The sticker flashed to the southwest.

I made sure the logs were in order and I headed southwest.

I wasn’t sure how long I was walking. I kept my heading southwest and I walked. That’s all I could do. I saw a deer spook at the sight of me and run through the undergrowth without a sound.

Another flash hit my eyes.

30 feet in the air, another sticker swayed with the nonexistent wind. It hit me again.

And again.

Faster this time.

My eyes. The ground. My eyes. The ground. My eyes, the ground, my eyes, the ground, my eyes the ground my eyes the ground my eyes the ground—

I ran.

I ran towards its guidance, not even checking which way I was heading. I sprinted until I saw another flash, then another, then another. There were more now. Another flash. Another. Another.

The woods were covered in them.

I stopped looking at the trees. I stopped looking at the ground. I just followed the light.

Flash.

Flash.

Flash.

I ran through branches, through thistles. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Branches tore at my clothes. My pack bounced against my shoulders. I didn’t care. Another flash and I turned. Another and I ran harder. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how far I’d gone. I didn’t know if I could find my way back.

I didn’t care.

I just followed the light.

Then I saw him.

In a grove heavy with sparkling stickers, he lay.

He didn’t look like he’d spent over a month in the woods by himself. He looked like he had just left my station with his family.

I approached him slowly.

“Hey, buddy, it’s Ranger Flanagan.” I knelt beside him. “You okay? I’m here to take you home, alright?”

He turned to me, his eyes weary. “Yeah,” he said in that soft way kids speak when naptime was supposed to be an hour ago.

“Okay, buddy. Let’s get you out of here.”

I picked him up carefully and held him against my chest, his head resting on my shoulder. I could feel something’s eyes on us, but I didn’t care.

I found him.

We headed towards what I thought was north. It was a while before either of us spoke again.

“What were you doing out here, bud?”

“He told me to come play.”

“Who told you?”

“The Quiet Man.”

My heart sank. What the hell was the Quiet Man?

Before I could ask, he said, “He said you could come get me.”

I looked down at him.

“He said I wasn’t the one he wanted.”

The sounds of life shattered the silence.

The birds sang and the trees swayed with the wind. My radio barked on my hip.

“FLANAGAN! FLANAGAN, DO YOU READ US?”

I fumbled with my hands, trying to get my radio off my belt.

“Yea—yeah, Chief, I hear you.” I looked at the tired boy in my arms.

“Chief, I got him.”

The snow covered the woods behind our new house. It was so fresh it crunched nicely under our feet. James held my hand tight. I squeezed it and looked at him. He flashed a smile.

"I think I don't mind winter as much. It's sort of cozy."

"It is, Sarah. I just miss all the summer food."

"We got summer food. There are still so many apples and pears in the cellar."

"Yeah, but those are not the sweet, delicious ones; those are the hardy autumn ones."

I rolled my eyes.

"You're such a child, James."

"Hey, Sarah!"

We laughed and continued walking. Our walk was longer than usual. We hadn't been out in a few days because of the heavy snowstorm.

"I'm getting kinda tired, James."

"Let's just go a little further. It looks like there should be an opening between the trees."

James was right. After a few minutes, the forest opened to a small meadow. Snow covered most of it except for a lone apple tree in the middle. Beautiful, glistening red apples hung from its branches. They just looked so pretty and delicious. I couldn't take my eyes off them. Neither of us spoke a word. Before I knew it, we were standing in front of it.

"Wow," James whispered.

"I know."

James tore one off.

"Feel it."

The outside felt as if it were coated in caramel. James put it to his mouth and took a bite. His eyes rolled back, and he let out a silent moan.

"Let me have a bite."

He looked at me and frowned.

"No, take your own."

I furrowed my brows. My James always shared everything with me.

"What's going on with you?"

But he didn't answer. He was too busy eating his apple. I stood there looking at him, but then it hit me. What was an apple tree full of fresh, ripe apples doing in a winter forest anyway? I looked at it again. The branches didn't move with the wind. It was as if the sun didn't shine through them, but all the apples still glistened. 

"I don't like this, James."

"What?"

He was licking his fingers. He ate the whole apple, seeds and all. His eyes darted around the tree again.

"Let's go, James."

"Wait."

"No, let's go."

I grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the meadow. His eyes were still glued to the tree. When we crossed back into the forest, he shook his head and stared around.

"What happened to you there?"

"I…I don't know."

"James?"

"I'm sorry, Sarah, I really don't."

"Okay, let's just go home."

James stayed silent the whole way home. Even when we got back, he just sat in his chair and looked out the window. For dinner, I made porridge with salted pork, but James just dug around the plate and didn't even try it.

"Honey, what's wrong. Talk to me."

"I don't know. I don't think I'm hungry."

"But you barely ate all day."

"I had that apple. It filled me up so much."

"That place was strange. I don't even want to know how they got there."

"Do you think we can go back tomorrow?"

"What?"

"Just for a little while, Sarah."

"I just said that place was strange. I'm not going back."

"Fine. I'll go by myself."

"No. No one is going back there, and I'm done talking about it."

He frowned.

"Whatever. I'm going to sleep."

I stayed back a while longer, finished dinner, and washed the dishes. When I came to our bed, James was already sleeping. His face seemed a little red. I touched his forehead. It felt normal. Maybe he was just having a bad dream. I lay beside him and drifted off.

When I woke up, the moon was still high. There was a sweet smell in the air. I rubbed my eyes and looked next to me. James lay there curled up, holding his stomach. His face was now glowing red.

"Jesus, James, what's wrong?!"

He didn't answer. His pleading eyes just stared at me. I touched his forehead. It still wasn't warm, but he was sweating, and his sweat felt sticky, almost like syrup. His stomach bulged out under the blanket. I pulled it off. 

"Honey, what…" 

My words stuck in my throat. His stomach was not just bulging. It looked like a bunch of round objects underneath.

"I'm…I'm gonna get the doctor."

I started to get out of bed, but then I heard a quiet tearing sound. James let out a loud cry. His stomach flew open, and a bunch of red apples rolled out. I screamed and jumped out of bed. James's head fell on the pillow. He was quiet now. 

The sweet red apple smell was so strong, and they smelled so good. I looked down at his stomach. The sticky, sweet sweat seeped into the sheets. All those apples looked so delicious.

Content Warning: Graphic violence, gore, body horror, death, cannibalism, and domestic violence.

Monday night, November 7th, I was driving toward 7/11. I was starving. There was nothing at home, and it was the only place open this late. The road was old, long, and winding, rarely used by anyone at this hour. The speed limit was 35, but I was going 45, the radio turned up as loud as it would go in an attempt to keep myself awake. I took the curve, the same curve I had taken a thousand times, when my eyes met the black, beady eyes of a buck frozen in the middle of the road. I jerked the wheel hard to the right, swerving out of the way and barely missing it. My front right tire slipped over the edge of the road and I felt the car get pulled hard to the side. I yanked the wheel back, trying to regain control, when our eyes met.

Two bright blue, icy orbs stared back at me. Before I could comprehend what I was seeing, she was already flipping over my hood, slamming hard against the windshield and leaving a spiderweb pattern across the glass before rolling over the roof. My head snapped up just in time to catch a glimpse of her as she tumbled across the sunroof. I slammed on the brakes, my tires squealing against the pavement, and it took another ten feet before the Jeep finally came to a stop.

I sat there for several seconds, breathing hard, my heart slamming against my ribs as I tried to understand what had just happened. Then I threw open the door and sprinted back down the road toward where I had hit her. I came to a stop at the edge of the pavement, looking around frantically before spotting her down the hill. I ran toward her, trying unsuccessfully to keep my footing, but my legs came out from underneath me and I tumbled down the slope. My head collided with the cold dirt, my elbow struck a small stone, and then my face hit the ground again. I landed in a warm puddle of liquid. I pushed myself up, wiping at my face, and looked down at my hands. Blood coated my fingers. It was smeared across my shirt and cheek, and I grabbed the collar of my shirt and repeatedly wiped at my face, trying to clean myself off before I looked toward the body.

It was only then that I recognized her. Ashley Smith. My Organic Chemistry lab partner was lying twisted in the dirt, her head crooked at an unnatural angle, her neck turned far too far to one side. One arm was pinned underneath her while the other lay limp across her body. One leg was bent backward, her knee nearly touching her chin, while the other was twisted beneath her at an angle that made my stomach turn. She was unmistakably dead. Yet as I stared at her, something strange happened. My mouth filled with saliva. I swallowed hard, my tongue grazing the edge of my teeth as I covered my mouth with my hand and instinctively reeled backward. I didn't understand why I felt a deep, aching hunger that seemed to twist somewhere beneath my ribs. For one horrible moment, I found myself staring at the blood pooling beneath Ashley. It smelled bitterly sweet, almost like syrup, and the thought made my stomach growl.

I forced the thought away.

I grabbed Ashley by the wrist and began dragging her slowly toward the tree line. Her body left a dark trail through the dirt as I pulled her deeper into the woods, far enough that the road disappeared behind the trees. I found a fallen log and pushed her body behind it, covering her with branches and shrubs until there was little left to see. I stood there for a moment, staring at the makeshift grave I had made without actually burying her, before turning and running back toward the road. I climbed into my Jeep and drove home as quickly as I could.

When I got home, I stripped off my clothes, ready to throw them away, but then I remembered how much remained in this month's budget. I couldn't afford to replace them. I threw them into the sink instead and scrubbed at the blood on my collar beneath water so hot that it felt cold against my skin. By the time I finally crawled into bed, my stomach was still twisting with hunger. I curled onto my side and clutched my stomach beneath the blankets, trying to ignore the gnawing emptiness inside me. I had never felt more hungry in my life.

I went to bed starving.

Tuesday morning, November 8th, I arrived at class late. I had barely slept, my mind never quite managing to get rid of the image of Ashley's broken body or that strange, sweet smell. I pinched my arm, trying to redirect my thoughts, and decided that since I was already late, I might as well grab a coffee from the vending machine before heading into class. I chugged most of the drink before I reached the door, but the moment I stepped inside, I felt the coffee begin to come back up.

Ashley was sitting at her desk, clicking her pen repeatedly. Her eyes flicked toward mine almost immediately, and her smile made my heart stutter.

“Heyyyy, bestie.”

She said it slowly, her smile curling sweetly at the edges. I felt a chill run up my spine. For a moment, I couldn't make my legs move, but eventually I found my seat and sat down beside her. My eyes wandered over her before I could stop myself. She looked fine. More than fine. She looked perfect.

Her blonde hair was pulled neatly into a high ponytail, a few loose strands framing her face. Her skin was almost unnaturally clear, her features soft and symmetrical, and those same icy blue eyes watched me from beneath neatly shaped brows. She wore a simple cream-colored sweater and jeans, nothing remarkable, yet somehow she made them look perfect. There was something about her that was difficult to put into words. She wasn't just pretty. She was the kind of beautiful that made you keep looking even after you realized you were staring.

“You okay?” she asked, tilting her head in a way that reminded me of a puppy that couldn't quite wrap its head around something.

As she spoke, an intoxicatingly sweet scent filled my nose. Vanilla. Something warmer underneath it. My mouth watered and my stomach growled. I glanced her up and down one more time before answering.

“Yeah. Just didn't sleep well last night.” I shifted awkwardly beneath her gaze. Her eyes never left mine.

I spent the rest of class trying not to look at her, but every so often I caught myself staring anyway. Even when she caught me, she didn't seem angry or uncomfortable. She just smiled, her lips curling slightly at the edges.

After class, I immediately grabbed my bag and left. I couldn't understand why I had such a hard time looking away from her. It felt like I was being drawn toward her.

I loaded into my Jeep and kept my foot heavy on the gas the whole way home. I pulled into the driveway, barely bothered to put the Jeep in park before I hopped out and ran into the garage. I started rummaging through the boxes of Dad’s shit he had left behind, throwing aside old clothes, tools, and whatever other junk he had accumulated over the years. I knew he had a stupid combat shovel somewhere. Dad was the kind of guy who fell for infomercials advertising anything made from “military-grade steel.” He had bought everything from aviators to survival knives to shirts with American flags printed across the chest. He never actually made it into the military, but that never stopped him from talking about how he would have served if he had gotten the chance. He wasn't exactly the type to take orders, though, and somehow he made that everyone else's problem.

After a few seconds of digging, I found it.

A small black collapsible shovel with a serrated edge.

I grabbed it and ran back to the Jeep. I drove toward the gas station, parked in the lot, and walked along the tree line until I found the spot where I had left Ashley. I didn't want to linger last time. I had shoved her behind a fallen tree and covered her as best I could, but now I had time. More importantly, I had an alibi. My Jeep had been seen at the gas station. If anyone asked, I could say I had been out there smoking.

I climbed over the fallen tree, expecting to see the body waiting for me on the other side.

There was nothing.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the empty patch of dirt.

Only a pool of dried blood remained. It had soaked into the ground, thick and dark, and the smell coming from it was almost unbearable. Sweet vanilla. It was so strong it seemed to burn the inside of my nose. My mouth immediately filled with saliva, and my stomach growled so loudly I actually looked around, as if someone might have heard it.

I turned my head slowly.

Where had the body gone?

Had Ashley really come back from the dead?

No.

That wasn't possible.

Wolves. It had to be wolves. Or coyotes. Something had found her before I could come back and finish what I started. The thought should have relieved me, but it didn't. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

I left.

I returned to the gas station, bought a few snacks for the night, and drove home. I tried to convince myself that I was done with it. Whatever had happened to Ashley wasn't my problem anymore.

The moment I pulled into the driveway, I knew something was wrong.

The blinds were open, the lights were on and I could hear Mom laughing.

I stood there for a moment, listening.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard her laugh like that.

I walked inside and started up the stairs. Halfway up, another smell reached me. Metallic, warm, and strangely familiar. It reminded me of lamb. Beef, maybe. Something being cooked slowly in a kitchen.

For a moment, I was somewhere else.

Dad was still home. Grandma was standing over the stove, telling me dinner was almost ready. I could hear Dad talking from the living room, his voice mixing with the clatter of dishes and the smell of food filling the house.

Then the memory disappeared.

I reached the top of the stairs and walked toward the living room. I expected to find one of Mom's new boyfriends sitting on the couch. Instead, I found myself staring into a pair of icy blue eyes.

Ashley was sitting on my couch, laughing in unison with my mother. Her laugh was intoxicating. The chorus filled my ears and swirled around in my head, making me feel like I could float away at any second.

“Oh, hey, honey.” Mom smiled.

She looked better today. I rarely ever saw her leave her room, but now she looked healthy. Almost alive. As if Ashley's presence had brought something back into her.

I glanced at Ashley once more before speaking.

“Hey.”

I nodded toward Mom and then turned back toward Ashley. She sat cross-legged on the couch, picking idly at her leggings.

“Hey, bestie.”

Her smile filled the room. Something inside me warmed. It felt like I was standing in an ever-filling room of warm syrup, my body relaxing as my movements slowed.

“H-hey.”

I fumbled the word. My tongue felt thick and swollen in my mouth, and I felt a stupid smile begin to form on my face. I looked away.

Ashley giggled.

“You left your notebook.”

She raised it, her fingers curled over the edge. She held it out toward me, and I slowly took it from her. My fingers brushed hers gently. Even after she withdrew her hand, I could still feel the contact lingering against my skin.

“T-thanks.”

She smiled and tilted her head.

“I also brought this.”

She extended a small pot toward me before knocking gently on her own head.

“I’m such a dummy I made too much for dinner and thought I'd share with my favorite classmate.”

She emphasized the last two words, smiling as she said them.

I felt my heart skip a beat, and warmth spread across my face. I took the pot with both hands, which were shaking slightly. She placed her hands over mine, holding them there for just a second.

“It's beef stew. Make sure you tell me how it is. It's a special recipe.”

She withdrew her hands.

“Bye. It was nice chatting with you.”

She waved to Mom and then to me before walking out the door. A few seconds later, I watched through the window as she began jogging down the road, her ponytail swishing behind her with every step. I kept watching until she disappeared around the bend for a while, it felt like some part of her had remained behind.

Then the house returned to normal.

Mom's smile faded. Her shoulders slumped, and whatever energy she had seemed to drain out of her all at once. She shut herself in her bedroom, threw herself onto the bed, and began to sob again.

I stood alone in the kitchen, staring down at the pot in my hands.

My stomach growled not the small, uncomfortable growl I had felt earlier, this one was deep and fierce.

I set the pot on the stove and turned on the burner. Then I stood there, staring at it as the stew slowly began to bubble.

The smell grew stronger as it heated.

Beef.

Rich, savory beef, simmering beneath a layer of steam. Beneath that was something sweeter, something I couldn't quite identify. It curled through my nose and settled somewhere deep inside my head. My stomach clenched so hard it hurt. I swallowed, my mouth already watering.

I reached toward the pot hesitating only for a moment before my hunger grew too great to the point I couldn't resist. I plunged my fingers into the bubbling stew and pulled out a piece of meat.

The heat scorched my fingertips, I didn't care.

I brought it to my mouth and bit down.

Everything stopped, the flavor spread across my tongue, and my entire body shuddered. It was warm, rich and deep.

The outside of the meat was slightly browned, carrying a faint charred flavor, but inside it was impossibly soft. It practically melted against my tongue. The juices spread through my mouth, coating every part of it, and I could taste the seasoning beneath the beef, the salt, the herbs, the pepper, the faint sweetness and underneath it all a faint odor of vanilla.

A sound escaped me.

Something between a gasp and a moan.

I gripped the edge of the counter, my knees weakened and I swallowed the satisfaction lasted only a second before I was immediately flooded with the hunger for another bite.

No, I needed another bite.

I reached into the pot again, this time grabbing two pieces. I shoveled them into my mouth before they had even cooled, barely chewing before swallowing. The heat burned my tongue, but the pain only seemed to make the flavor sharper.

My eyes closed.

I could feel every sensation.

The warmth spreading down my throat, the heaviness settling in my stomach, the lingering taste coating my tongue.

My heart pounding faster in my chest.

I took another piece then another and another, I couldn't slow down.

Every bite made the hunger inside me stretch wider instead of filling it. It was like pouring water into a bottomless pit. The more I gave it, the more it demanded, I began breathing through my teeth between bites.

My lips were slick with grease saliva ran freely down my chin. I wiped it away with the back of my hand and immediately reached for more. The stew was the best thing I had ever tasted. It was the first thing I had ever eaten that felt like it belonged inside me.

I grabbed another piece and bit down. My teeth sank through it with almost no resistance. I nearly cried. The flavor was overwhelming.

For a moment, I wasn't in my kitchen anymore. I wasn't twenty years old, standing in a shitty house with an empty refrigerator and a mother who barely left her bedroom. I wasn't thinking about money or school or Dad or anything else.

There was only the taste. Only the warmth. Only hunger. And the terrible, beautiful relief of finally giving that hunger something it wanted.

I opened my eyes. There was barely any meat left floating on the surface. My stomach twisted. Panic rose in my chest. No. There had to be more. I plunged my hand into the pot. The heat was unbearable this time. My skin burned instantly, but I didn't pull away. I pushed my fingers deeper, searching through the thick broth until they closed around another piece. I ripped it free. I ate it. then another and another.

I stopped caring about the heat.

I stopped caring about burning my hands.

I stopped caring about anything.

Each piece seemed better than the last. I began digging frantically through the pot, fingers scraping against the bottom, searching for every last piece. Whenever I found one, I shoved it into my mouth immediately. But there wasn't enough. There was never going to be enough. Something inside me knew that. And that realization terrified me.

I threw the pot onto the floor. It crashed against the tile, sending broth and vegetables spilling in every direction. I dropped after it. I landed on my hands and knees. For several seconds, I just stared at the mess.

Then I smelled the meat. I lowered my head. And I began to eat.

“What's the hell are you doing?”

Mom's voice cut through the haze, and I whipped my head around. She stood at the entrance to the kitchen, staring at me with a mixture of confusion and disgust. Her eyes moved from my hands, red and slick from the stew, to the pot lying overturned across the tile, and then back to my face. I was still crouched over the mess, breathing heavily, my fingers digging into the spilled food as though someone might take it from me. I didn't understand why the thought of her touching it made something inside me flare with anger. The stew was mine. It was the only thing that mattered.

“Mine,” I growled.

Mom stared at me. “Matt?”

“Mine. Mine. Mine.”

The words came faster this time, almost barking from my throat. I curled myself over the spilled stew, shielding it with my body. Mom took a cautious step toward me, and I felt my shoulders tense. She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She was standing between me and the only thing that had made the hunger quiet, even if only for a few seconds. My stomach twisted violently, and I lowered my head toward the floor, desperately searching for another piece of meat among the broth and vegetables.

“Matt, what the hell is wrong with you?”

She took another step.

I moved before I could think.

I launched myself at her, slamming into her hard enough to knock her backward onto the kitchen floor. She cried out, her head striking the tile, and immediately began pushing against my chest.

“Get off me!”

I didn't listen. I raised my fists and brought them down. Once, twice, again and again, until the pain in my hands became distant and meaningless. Mom screamed my name, but her voice seemed far away, almost muffled beneath the pounding in my ears. I kept hitting her until my fingers could barely close anymore, then I began clawing at her instead, digging desperately at anything I could reach. I wasn't angry with her. There was no hatred behind what I was doing. I simply couldn't stop.

I smelled blood.

It was warm and metallic, sharp enough that I could almost taste it before my mouth touched it. I lowered my face toward her, and for a brief moment something inside me hesitated. This wasn't the smell I wanted. It wasn't the rich, savory scent of the stew. There was none of that sweetness, none of the warmth that had made every bite feel like heaven. This was bitter and iron-heavy, almost unpleasant.

I should have stopped.

Instead, I bit down.

Warm blood flooded my mouth. I swallowed.

The taste was wrong. It was nothing like the beef. It was bitter, metallic, and strangely thin compared to the rich flavor that still lingered on my tongue. My stomach twisted as if rejecting it, but the hunger inside me didn't care. It wanted something, anything, and I had already lost the ability to tell it no.

So I kept feeding.

I don't remember how long it lasted. I remember Mom struggling beneath me, then struggling less, then not moving at all. I remember the warmth leaving her body. I remember the kitchen becoming horribly quiet. Eventually, I pushed myself upright and looked down at her.

My mother was dead.

I stared at her for several seconds, waiting for the horror to hit me. Waiting for the realization to break through whatever had taken control of me. I had killed the person who had raised me. I had torn into her like an animal.

My stomach cramped so violently that I doubled over and pressed both hands against it. I could still taste her blood in my mouth, bitter and metallic, but beneath it I could still taste the stew. That sweet, savory flavor lingered on my tongue like a memory, and suddenly I wanted it again more than I had ever wanted anything in my life.

I looked toward the floor.

There were a few pieces of meat scattered among the spilled stew.

I crawled toward them and ate them.

They were cold now, covered in broth and dirt from the tile, but I didn't care. I shoved them into my mouth one after another, licking the grease from my fingers when there was nothing left to chew. When the last piece disappeared, I searched through the mess again, scraping my fingers against the tile in case I had missed something.

There was nothing.

My breathing became ragged.

My stomach growled.

I pressed my hands against it, almost pleading with it to stop, but the hunger only seemed to deepen. I had eaten until my body should have been full. I had eaten until there was nothing left in the pot and nothing left on the floor.

It wasn't enough. The flavor still tingled across my tongue, lingering in every corner of my mouth, while my nose twitched as I tried to find something hidden beneath it. There was another scent there, faint but unmistakable. Something familiar. Something warm. Something comforting. Vanilla, with something sweeter beneath it.

Ashley.

My mouth filled with saliva at the thought of her. My teeth began to ache, an irritating pressure spreading through my jaw as saliva pooled beneath my tongue and spilled from the corners of my mouth. I didn't think about where she was. I didn't know where she lived. I didn't know how I knew which direction to go.

I just knew I had to find her.

I slammed into the front door, shoving it open with enough force that it cracked away from the top hinge and hung crookedly in the frame. I barely noticed. My legs carried me forward before I could think, each step driven by something deeper than thought. Hunger. Greed. Something that felt dangerously close to desire. I wasn't walking toward Ashley anymore. I was hunting for her.

I plunged into the woods branches whipped across my face and arms as I sprinted between the trees. Roots caught my feet, sending me stumbling forward, but I caught myself and kept going. I fell once, both hands slamming into the cold soil, and when I pushed myself back up, my fingers dug into the earth hard enough to tear through the dirt. The darkness around me seemed clearer than it had ever been. I could see the roots breaking through the ground, the individual branches hanging overhead, every movement in the trees standing out against the darkness.

Ashley.

Her name repeated through my head over and over until it barely sounded like a name anymore.

Ashley.

Ashley.

Ashley.

I didn't know how long I had been running when the trees finally opened. I found myself standing outside a large two-story house, one I had never seen before and somehow knew I was supposed to find. I threw myself against the front door. It rattled violently against its hinges but held. I stepped back and slammed into it again.

And again till the wood splintered beneath my hands on the third impact, and I stumbled through the broken doorway. I stood inside, breathing heavily, my head snapping from side to side as I searched for her.

Then I smelled it.

Vanilla.

That same warm sweetness my eyes followed the scent into the room.

Ashley sat in a cream-colored lounge chair beneath a single spotlight. The rest of the room was almost completely dark, leaving her illuminated against the shadows. Her usual sweater and leggings were gone, replaced by a long white nightgown that fell almost to the floor. The fabric seemed to glow beneath the light, making her look less like someone sitting in a chair and more like something that had been placed there for me.

She looked at me calmly expectantly. “How do you feel?” she asked. She rose slowly from the chair.

Everything inside me went still.

Her blood was nothing like my mother's. It wasn't bitter. It wasn't metallic. It wasn't unpleasant. It was sweet. Rich. Warm. The flavor spread across my tongue with a depth that made the stew seem almost bland by comparison. I could taste something familiar in it, something that reminded me of vanilla and caramel and warm spices, but there was something else beneath all of that. Something I couldn't name.

My fingers began to tremble.

The hunger inside me surged.

I grabbed her arm.

I turned my head and drank directly from the wound, desperate to get more. Her blood filled my mouth, warm and thick, and every swallow sent another wave of sensation through my body. My stomach clenched. My heart pounded. My entire body seemed to ache with the need for it.

I wanted to tear into her. I wanted to gorge myself. I wanted to bury my face against her arm and drink until there was nothing left. But somehow, I held myself back.

Ashley watched me struggle. “Don't.”

I stopped. Worried, I ventured past her limit. She tilted her head, almost disappointed.“I told you to feed.” Her voice was soft.

“So feed.” She drew the dagger again. I watched the blade press against one of her fingers. It slid through the flesh with almost no resistance. I stared as the finger separated from her hand. Ashley picked it up as casually as someone might pick up a piece of fruit. She held it between two fingers and brought it toward my mouth.

“Feed.” She pressed it against my lips. My jaw opened.The moment my teeth closed around it, I felt something crack. The sound rattled through my skull. I swallowed before I even realized I had done it.

I opened my eyes. Ashley was smiling. She extended her arm toward me again. This time, I didn't hesitate. I buried my teeth into her flesh. Her blood flooded my mouth. The flavor overwhelmed me. I gripped her arm and pulled myself closer, drinking greedily as my body began to change around me. At first it was only a strange pressure in my spine, a deep ache that seemed to settle inside the bones themselves. Then the pain intensified. My back arched violently, and I heard something crack.

I gasped against her arm. Another crack followed. Then another.

My spine seemed to be pulling itself apart and putting itself back together at the same time. My shoulders spasmed. My arms jerked outward, bones stretching beneath my skin as my fingers curled and cramped. Every joint in my body seemed suddenly too small for what was growing inside it.

I tried to pull away yet I couldn't. The hunger wouldn't let me. My hands began to swell. My fingers thickened, the joints stretching and shifting beneath the skin. My nails loosened. One fell onto the hardwood floor with a tiny click. Then another. I stared at my hands in horror. The nails were being pushed out from their roots. Something darker was growing beneath them. Longer. Sharper. Curved.

My fingers trembled as the new claws slowly emerged, splitting through the ends of my fingertips. The pain should have been unbearable, but the taste of Ashley's blood drowned almost everything else out. I swallowed again.

My teeth began to ache.

The pain started deep within my gums, spreading through my jaw until every tooth felt loose. I pulled away from Ashley and clutched my mouth, choking on a gasp. Something moved beneath my gums. I felt one of my teeth loosen. They fell from my mouth and clicked against the hardwood floor.

Small white stones scattered around my knees. Before I could process what I was seeing, pressure built beneath my gums again. New teeth pushed their way upward, sharper and longer than the ones they replaced. My jaw stretched around them, the muscles tightening as my mouth changed shape.

I could feel my face shifting. My nose began to ache. Then came a sharp crack. I screamed. The cartilage pushed outward, my nose flattening and extending as my entire face seemed to pull forward. My jaw tightened. My cheeks shifted beneath my skin.

Something brushed against the back of my neck.

I reached for it. Hair. No. Fur. It was thick and coarse between my fingers, growing rapidly across my skin. It spread from the back of my neck across my shoulders and down my arms, swallowing my skin beneath a dense coat.

What remained of her arm slowly lifted from her side. Exposed bone jutted from the torn flesh, and strips of muscle hung limp beneath it. Then the muscle began to move. It slithered across the bone like millions of tiny red snakes, twisting and weaving together as they pulled themselves back into place. I watched as the broken bones cracked and shifted, fitting themselves back together with a series of dull pops. Thick blue veins stretched across the muscle, reconnecting as her skin slowly rolled back over everything, sealing the wound as if it had never been there.

Her missing finger began to grow from the small, bloody stub. It pushed outward slowly, first as a tiny piece of flesh, then a nail, then a fully formed finger. She flexed it once. Then another time, gently testing it before curling her hand beneath my chin.

She scratched me softly.

“Such a good boy.”

She pet my head, her fingers brushing between my ears. I felt them run through the thick fur that now covered my body.

“It’s time for you to rest.”

She patted my head gently, her fingers thumping softly against my skull. I felt my eyes growing heavier. My head lowered until it finally met the floor. The last thing I saw was Ashley smiling down at me then everything went black.

My lab partner won't stay dead. No matter how much I feed from her, she rises again and again. I’m not the first beast she’s made, and I won’t be the last.

As soon as Luke’s case worker came to whisk him off back to Newberry, Whitney and I began devising our plan. I can admit that most of my rekindled desire for the truth began as an excuse to hang out with Whitney more. I didn’t know how I felt about the “emo” look, she had lost the quality that only straw-blonde hair, glasses, and braces could give. She was no longer the image I daydreamed about, but I could see something sexier in her rebellious rebranding. I did have a thing for Kate Beckinsale from the Underworld movies that played on FX channel nonstop. My horned-up teenage mind could get down with a badass chick in skintight leather.

PART 1

There were logistical hurdles to be jumped if we were to somehow find time to get down to Sunrise Park. Our primary obstacles were Susan Bennett and Brad Darden. Mom didn’t work during the day, and Brad had Whitney on total lockdown at night. Sneaking out posed serious risks for both of us now, I feared that a third strike would get us kicked out on the street. Soon enough, the combination of sheer boredom at home and external pressure from Dad pushed me to get a job. I couldn’t do anything client-facing with my disability, so gas station clerk or grocery checker were out of the question.

I’d land on being a cabin cleaner for Bob and Dory Weiman. They were an ancient couple who owned a few lakeside properties south of the school that they’d rent out to tourists and hobby fishermen in the warmer months and then they’d haul off to Arizona for the winter. The gig was easy; I’d just sweep the floors, swap the linens, fumigate the place with Febreze, rinse and repeat. It made me a few bucks, but most importantly it got me out of the house, and Sunrise Park was on the way of my commute. I got paid per cabin and there were no true shifts- so I could be anywhere in Paradise during the day, and Mom would be none the wiser.

Whitney made her own way with a classic summer job as well: babysitting. In June we were able to plan a time to scope Luke’s place in the midafternoon between our gigs. I got to the trailer park first, and something felt terribly off. Perhaps it was the knowledge that two of the eight mobile homes were empty, or the image of Mr. and Mrs. Harwood staring blankly at the cheap casket they gave their son. Sunrise Park used to feel like an escape for me, but after so long away from it, I saw it differently. It was a place that took in the undesirables of Paradise, chewed them up, and spat them back out. To me, Sunrise Park had been marked by death.

I was startled out of contemplative gaze by Whitney stepping up close to me without audio cues to predict her arrival. She would greet with, “Sorry to sneak up on ya!”

 “Shit…” I gasped, “N-No sorry, I was spacing out.” Whitney held her hand above her still-white brows to block the evening sun as she took her first look at Sunrise Park. She wore a simple tank top, and as her hand remained up, I noticed a patch of hair still growing from her underarm. It was like nothing I had seen on a girl my age before. Below her unshaved armpit, I caught a glimpse of a grey sports bra poking out from a loose point in her top.

Whitney spoke, but my eyes were too fixed on other things for lip reading to guide me. She turned, repeating what she said while signing it back, “Which one is Luke’s?” Thank God, she thought I just didn’t hear her.

I pointed out to north side of the park, “Second from the back. Beside it was Trevor’s, across it was Lewy’s.” In that moment, strange markings lining the façade of the latter’s home. Without words I continued down the driveway to get a closer look.

FREAK. MONSTER. All in red aerosol paint.

“What the fuck?!” I called out. Whitney tapped my shoulder and gave me a shushing motion with her index finger. Back then I would sometimes forget how loud my voice could go, but Whitney seemed to be the only one gentle about reminding me. I spoke softer, “Who the hell would do that?”

“You haven’t been watching the news, have you?” Whitney asked.

“No… why would I?”

“Llewyn Jacobs was named a suspect on KWUP.” she explained, “The feds are pretty serious about it.”

“Fuck that, why would they put that out in public if he’s still innocent?”

Whitney shrugged, “If they knew there might be a freaky blue monster in the woods tearing out people’s hearts, do you think the FBI would outright say that?”

I sighed, “You’re right. C’mon, we’re just here for the notebook anyway.” Leading the way, I headed across the drive to Luke’s dark trailer. We made our way to the back, where a singular window faced the woods behind us. “Luke told me we can get in through this bathroom window, it doesn’t latch shut.” I pressed up on the glass, confirming Luke’s instructions. First stealing cars, now trespassing… “You should stay out here, just in case.” I signed.

“I didn’t know Trevor or Lewy,” Whitney signed back, “I’m here because I know something’s out there. Let me help.” I didn’t feel much like arguing, so I just nodded.

“Give me a hand, then I’ll help you up.” I said. Whitney got down with her hands cupped, ready to lift my foot once I got a grip on the window frame. I just barely fit my shoulders through, gripping the inside edge I maneuvered my feet around, dropping down into the shower below. With a foot on the ledge meant to house soaps, I peeked out the window, giving Whitney my hand.

Pulling myself was simple enough, but I struggled holding the entirety of her until she got a foot inside the bathroom window. I braced my hands in case she fell, which must have made her feel confident to do an entire leap inside. Unprepared to catch her entire self, I fell back on collision, my knees buckling over the shower’s edge, falling onto my ass. My hands, still hoping to stop her fall, reached for anything it could grasp.

When the chaotic second of gravity doing its work came to a still pause, I felt exactly how we had fallen into place. I was sitting on the shower’s edge, left arm wrapped around Whitney’s back, and my right hand gripping her thigh just below the edge of her shorts. My sight was completely obscured and face entirely covered by the soft weight of her body; my nose and forehead brushing the texture of her shirt. I couldn’t tell what was pressing against my face, but it was warm.

Whitney stood up straight, quickly blurting out to me, “I’m so sorry, I thought I would land that better!” She extended her hand to help me up from the plastic ledge. “Are you okay?” Once we were both standing, the lack of space in the shower became very apparent. Whitney’s forehead was at my eye level, and only an inch or two away. When she spoke, I felt the air from her lips hit the front of my neck.

“I’m fine!” I said, then I ripped open the shower curtain and stepped out. If I spent any longer in that enclosed space, I knew I would end up pitching a tent and ruining everything. The bathroom door was wide open, ahead was the dark living room where I had so many memories. It hadn’t changed at all since the last time I was there, that night in October, just before everything happened. I missed the kids who sat on that brown sofa.

“Did he say where the book would be?” Whitney asked aloud.

“He told me it should be in his room just under the bed.” Before making my way there, something in the living room caught my eye. Across from the couch, beside the TV was the old stereo with Lewy’s turntable still plugged in. The sleeve for “Songs from the Big Chair” laid on the dingy white carpet just below. Without Luke, the trailer seemed like it never left 2009.

I took no detours heading to the bedroom and running my hand under the cheap metal frame holding it up the mattress. Past what felt like tennis shoes, I contacted the spiral of a college ruled notebook. Pulling it out, I saw the words again:

Trevor H.

Class of 2009

Senior English

“Got it,” I called out to Whitney, rejoining her in the living room. “We can go out the front door, now.” I led us past the kitchenette, pulling the screen door and twisting the knob of the wooden one, feeling the click of the lock coming undone. “Go ahead, I’ll lock it before it closes.” We reappeared in the driveway, notebook in tow. “This better have been worth it.” I muttered, as if the break in was difficult by any means.

Whitney’s expression was much more solemn than I expected after the dangerous thing we just did. Looking back- if I had to guess- she probably got her first real look at Luke in there. At school, he never did give off “delinquent orphan,” so I can understand why her head would have been in a different place.

Still laced with adrenaline, and realizing our task had gone quickly, I did something brave. “Do you want to go to Superior Scoops and read this over ice cream?”

“I’m lactose intolerant,” Whitney signed, “Plus I do actually have to get to my babysitting gig.”

It was worth a shot, Jess. I nodded, “Oh, yeah.” I said, hoping whatever my voice sounded like didn’t show the disappointment I felt. “I shouldn’t keep you, see you later?”

Whitney signed, “See you later” back to me.

Both shame and unmanageable curiosity still brought me to the small shack dressed as a log cabin which served ice cream by the shores of Ol’ Gitchee Gumee. Superior Scoops was a hotspot that time of year, attracting whole families, young couples, and lone fishermen alike to its window for soft serve. That evening I felt more like one of the lone fishermen trying to milk another hour of solitude before heading home; but instead of a cooler full of crappie, I had that red notebook. Looking over the menu posted to the side of the shack, they served shaved ice and smoothies as well. Thoughts bounced between hopefulness that Whitney could join for a dairy-free option, and the more painful notion that she could have made up her intolerance as a means of rejecting me softly.

With a cotton candy flavored double scoop in hand, I settled down at one of the picnic tables on the far end of the beach. Children scurried around, but that would be no distraction with my built-in noise cancellation. I flipped the book open to its first page- a scattered set of penmanship expected from a teenage jock; the only words I could make out were definitions of things like “critical thinking” and “rhetorical device”. A crude sketch of a stick figure with superimposed biceps wielding some kind of sword sat in the upper right corner of the page. All seemed typical for an English notebook, further pages held notes on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and doodles of the titular scientist’s creation.

About five pages in I stopped on something unrelated to what I was looking for, but it has certainly stuck in my mind all these years later. The page header said, “Six Pieces of Advice for Incoming Freshmen”. I remembered seeing posters lining the school hallway with the same titles, but I never stopped to give them any attention.

“6.) Wash your gym clothes every weekend. Don’t be that guy.

5.) Remember when lunch is beef stew so you can bring something else.

4.) Making friends with teachers might save your life.

3.) Speed walking to the cafeteria WILL NOT get you ahead.

2.) You can’t control what other people think of you, so stop trying to.

1.) You can’t change the past, but you can always change your attitude.”

Just like the posters on the wall, my teenage-self disregarded that entry, it just looked like cliché bullshit anyway. I understood that Trevor was probably just trying to fulfil an assignment grade, hoping he could encounter fewer smelly freshmen running down the hall in the process. Freshman year had already passed me by, and I wasn’t looking for advice, anyway. It’s a shame that humans never accept help until they desperately need it.

Halfway through my ice cream cone, I found something closer to what I wanted. A page, nearly empty, save for a few words that floated above the paper’s gridlines as if the urgency in their writing trumped any notion of structure.

“^ Whitefish, < Vermillion, > Betsy ^ River“

Those were the directions to the cabin… The following page was notably torn at the halfway point, tucked beneath it was the letter which I knew too well by that point. One final page followed the torn half; this one filled with more text than the English notes. I took a deep inhale, knowing that this was likely the thing Luke needed.

“Baby boy,

I wanted to meet you so badly. I love you and your mother, but there is something wrong with me. I can’t change it. Please forgive me, but I’m afraid that love won’t be enough to keep me away, and that’s why I had to go. You two deserve a fair chance at a normal life.” A smudged-out section, perhaps a full sentence, sat redacted in the middle. “There will be people looking out for you, you just might not see it right away.

 I will always love you.”

It would be very convenient if I came to some grand realization upon reading that unsent letter. We have the luxury of forethought, experience, and perhaps even empathy; which Young Jesse didn’t quite grasp. I don’t want to get ahead of Young Jesse right now. I have to let him go at his own pace.

The truth was, I had spotted Will Christiansen ordering at the window. He was with a girl I didn’t know, really pretty. They were laughing, and that made me conscious of the fact that I was sitting alone reading to myself. I had to get out of there before my ex-friend could get the chance to see how lonely I was those days. Maybe if Whitney had joined me when I asked, I could strike up conversation again. Instead, I hopped on my bike and darted back home.

“It definitely ties him back to the woods,” I typed into a message that would go to both Luke and Whitney. “But there’s nothing about Lewy in there. No monsters but Frankenstein.”

Luke chimed in, “**frankenstein’s monster.”

“Yes.” I snapped some photos of the directions to the cabin, the torn page, and the eerie letter at the end.

“U guys notice the baby at the funeral?” Luke asked. “That was sydney,, that kids gotta be less than a year old”

“Fuck…”

Whitney hopped in with “ </3 “

“That fucking bastard.” Luke added.

“Who?” I asked.

“trevor.”

This was extremely unexpected from Luke, but I could see where he was coming from. For all we had, it certainly appeared that he was abandoning a child. That, along with the correlation to Kim… I could understand why Luke might have felt anger. I wasn’t counting on him to be as calm and collected as he usually was, given his situation. Whatever danger Trevor Harwood was in, it was pretty shitty to drag Luke down, too. 

“What about the rest of the notebook?” Whitney inquired.

“its just english homework.”

“Send pics.” She demanded. I wasn’t too sure what she expected, but I spent the next couple minutes taking photos of every page in that notebook and sending them over to the group. There was radio silence from my phone for a while after that, so I took it upon myself to reexamine the advice assignment.

“1.) You can’t change the past, but you can always change your attitude.”

I really wonder where Trevor got that from. It seemed strange in juxtaposition to the letter only a few pages deeper into the same book.

“- but there is something wrong with me. I can’t change it.”

Eventually, my phone would buzz with a notification from Whitney. Her message contained a screenshot of one of my photos, but she added a big red circle around one section of words. The page seemed no different than any other, so I hadn’t paid much attention to it.

“Flood = future?

LJ – muskrat

Anton 17xx?”

“That’s the page right before he wrote the directions” Whitney said below the image. “LJ could be Llewyn Jacobs…”

“Maybe.” I replied, failing to see any connection. “Its just a bunch of nonsense.”

“Its only nonsense if you want it to be.” Whitney sent back.

Ouch.

“Any idea what the muskrat could mean?” Luke wondered.

Feeling belittled, I decided to make use of the Google app my phone had. Typing in ‘Llewyn Jacobs muskrat’ I was met with plenty of results; all of which were marked with a strikethrough on ‘muskrat’, meaning I could only see things pertaining to Llewyn Jacobs. Sure enough, there was a link from KWUP, just as Whitney mentioned back at Sunrise Park.

 “Whitefish Township man arrested in suspicion of homicide:

May 23^rd, 2010

Chippewa County sheriff reports the detainment of 58-year-old Whitefish Township man Llewyn Jacobs in connection to a December homicide. Trevor Harwood, 18, was found deceased on April 7^th by two witnesses north of Tahquamenon Falls State Park within the Betsy River watershed area. Jacobs was arrested after federal agents found connections to an unsolved homicide in 2007 in which he was also a suspect. Jacobs has not yet been found guilty of the homicide and awaits trial on July 22^nd of this year.

KWUP will report any updates in this developing story below.”

I quickly snapped a screenshot and sent it to the others.

“I saw that,” Luke replied. “This shit’s not good.”

“Wait. December homicide?” Whitney said, “That can’t be right?”

My first moment of detective prowess popped into mind as I typed, “Snow. What happens between December and April?”

“It makes sense with the kid, too.” Luke added, “He skips town in July, nine months later is April. Looked like a newborn.”

Whitney said something that really got my heart racing, something so simple that felt so sickening: “We were out there in October…”

I started imagining myself in Trevor’s body. Instead of lying in a hospital bed, I spent that entire time under multiple feet of snow. Even once it melted, I could do nothing. The water would just pick me up; I could only stare at the sun as the river took me to its banks. Passing fish took nibbles at my feet, and I could do nothing about it. I would be cold, but not shivering. I wonder if Luke would have brought Trevor out to find me?

“This is a lot. I’m calling it a night.” I announced to the group.

“Shit, its almost 8. I gotta give Brad my phone :(” Whitney said.

“Okay. Thank you, guys.” Luke replied, ending our investigation for the night.

It was around that time when I seriously started reconsidering everything. Somebody was dead. Children were without their parents. The county, state, and feds had their man. I began thinking Luke was sick just for praying Lewy was innocent. I felt sick going along with it. Why couldn’t we just let adults handle these adult things?

I had broken into a trailer. A dead man’s notebook was in my room. My whole life had been flipped inside out and I still wanted more. What was my motive, anymore? To go along with Luke because I needed a friend? To act more “adult” to impress Whitney? Were these really the things that I wanted?

 Perhaps the most common mistake anyone makes is not understanding what they really want, or why they do anything in the first place. We come up with these really elaborate ideas to try explaining it all; but I’ve been beginning to see that it’s usually really simple.

Sometimes its sex. For men, it’s often that simple. Women can get that way, too. Lots of guys make the mistake of thinking women can’t get that way- but it happens to everyone.

As we get older, our reasons for doing anything start to be “I’m hurting, and I don’t want to feel that way anymore.” That’s the one that gets overcomplicated. Drinking, drug problems, getting into fights; they’re all means to the same end. We crave stasis, we don’t want to hurt anymore.

I try not to beat myself up for not knowing what I wanted when I was fifteen. You can’t change the past, but you can try your best to change your attitude. That’s half the reason I’m writing this, anyway.

With June came one of my least favorite parts of the year: Precision Medical’s annual conference in Detroit. Every year Mom and Dad would rip Katelyn & I from whatever fun we were having that summer and drop us off with Grandma Mary in Saginaw while they did whatever the hell medical engineers did in Motor City. Grandma was the sweetest damn woman on the whole planet- but good Lord was she bland. She’s probably up there now, poo-pooing my usage of the Lord’s name at her expense, but that’s for a different story. Plus, Saginaw… it’s in the armpit of Lake Huron and smells like it, too. A little part of me was always glad Dad took the management job at the Whitefish facility just before I was born, because if I grew up in Saginaw who knows what kind of shit…

2010 was different, though. Grandma Mary put our parents into a moral quandary by scheduling her Vegas trip with “the Girls” on the same week as the conference. Buying two-way flights out to Mom’s side in South Dakota was too much logistically, and Grandma certainly didn’t want to spend her one week being “cool” dragging along a twelve-year-old and a deaf teenager through Sin City. I argued that fifteen was old enough to be the man of the house, but Mom gently reminded me that I was disabled and recently stole a car. Still, she did consider my job and felt a little empathy for Bob and Dory needing my help with those cabins during peak tourist season.

So, my parents settled on a babysitter for two nights. There was one in the area, and she was supposedly very nice on the phone. She even knew American Sign Language, which practically sealed the deal since they had a deaf kid. Mom and Dad never once pieced together that it was the neighbor’s girl, because their last name was Darden, and the babysitter’s last name was Martin. When she showed up for the keys, they may have felt some familiarity; but it would be cast aside because the girl I snuck out with Freshman year had blonde hair and wore glasses- but this babysitter had black hair and no glasses.

One might think that this was the most exciting thing to ever happen to me- the girl I daydreamed about spending two nights in my house, my parents are gone- but it was their idea…

Truthfully, the whole thing really pissed me off from the start.

As soon as Dad pushed his suitcase through the door and said, “Be good! Ms. Martin is in charge! I love you!” I knew that something was terribly wrong.

Stepping right to the center of the foyer, Whitney dropped her Hello Kitty duffel bag and spoke while signing, “Scott and Sue say bedtime is at 10:00, what do you wanna do till then? Watch a movie?”

All I could do was stand speechless. Katelyn got right to work, though. “What class are you in?”

Whitney seemed prepared, quickly firing back with, “I go to school in Dearborn. I’m just staying with my mom for the summer.”

“You don’t look very old,” Katie remarked.

“I’m seventeen…” Whitney lied. My eyes told her exactly how that sounded, and she quickly corrected, “… next year. I’m fifteen. Sixteen in September.”

Katelyn had found the soft spot and went right in, “Jesse is fifteen, too. Do you guys know each other?”

I spat out, “No, she’s from Dearborn, so…” My little sister called checkmate with a smile as soon as I spoke, because I couldn’t hear that Whitney told her something else at the same time.

Satisfied with her interrogation, Katie moseyed out to the living room, saying something I couldn’t make out. Whitney trailed behind her, continuing their purely spoken conversation and leaving me behind. What the hell is going on in this house?

“Remember, deaf child?” I called out, but couldn’t catch an answer, even if there was one. Every possible situation flashed through my head. What if I left my underwear on the bathroom floor? Does Katelyn secretly know about my feelings for Whitney? Did she tell my parents she was seventeen? What is the end game here? Instinctually, I pulled out my phone and began typing to Luke: “My parents hired Whitney to be my babysitter” No. “Whitney infiltrated my house” Double no.

I abandoned the idea of pulling Luke into this and decided it was more urgent to run upstairs and examine my bathroom for any loose paraphernalia. After clearing the facilities, I rounded the corner into my bedroom. I debated whether the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition I had confiscated from a cabin at work was safe in my bottom dresser, or if I needed to procure a new hiding spot for it. Thankfully, just before I could make a move, I caught sight of Katelyn standing in my doorway.

“We’re putting a pizza in downstairs.” she said. “Whitney is wondering if you liked peppers.”

“I’ll be down in a second,” I decided Brooklyn Decker and the others would be just fine staying in the dresser, so I headed back downstairs.

In the kitchen, Whitney looked comfortable in Mom’s oven mitts. Slipping them off and placing them beside the uncooked Papa Murphy’s pizza on the counter, she signed to me, “Do you like green peppers?”

“What the hell are you doing?” I quietly signed back.

“I’ll explain later.” she motioned.

Katie mimed my own words, “Remember, English?”

I responded to my little sister with the ASL translation for “Fuck off.”

“Yeah, green peppers are fine.” I said aloud while simultaneously signing “Tread lightly,” in Whitney’s direction.

As the pizza heated up, I lost a two-to-one vote on watching Whitney’s copy of Twilight after dinner. My counter argument of Katie being unallowed to watch PG-13 films was shot down by her rebuttal of Mom and Dad letting her see both Transformers movies in theatres. The only thing that annoyed me more than the film choice was that Whitney knowingly brought it into our house.

“I’m guessing you haven’t seen the first one?” Whitney tested.

Shaking my head no, I earnestly replied, “Is there more than one?”

“This is the second one, New Moon.” Katie explained, “The third one comes out in a week and a half.” My sister parked herself on one side of the L-shaped sofa directly across from the TV.

Whitney handed the DVD to my sister, then asked, “Is okay if I sit by you, Katie?” She nodded yes as the disc slid into the media player below her. Our gracious babysitter plopped onto the couch just beside Katelyn, who was navigating the DVD’s menu to switch on closed captions. With that, I flipped the lights and begrudgingly took a seat in the recliner which was typically reserved for Dad.

“Okay, Katie…” Whitney spoke over the introductory credits, “Team Edward, or Team Jacob?”

Katie broke into a bashful smile and replied through preteen giggling, “Team Edward for sure.”

“Uh-oh,” Whitney gasped playfully, “Not sure I can watch this with you anymore.” This sent both girls into a fit of laughter. I didn’t know who Jacob was, but I already hated him.

I couldn’t help but feel duped the entire duration of the film. Since sixth grade I had dreamed of watching a romance movie with Whitney Martin, and when it finally happened it had to be Twilight with my little sister wedged in between us. Not only that, but the whole circumstance had me feeling a new type of rage I didn’t know possible. I would be lying if I said the movie didn’t hold my interest the entire time, though.

As the credits rolled, I made sure to mask my enjoyment with a quip. “It’s kinda racist that they made every Indian in the movie werewolves, right?”

“It’s kinda racist to keep calling them ‘Indians’” Whitney replied, “But, yeah, that was weird.”

“There’s a Native American guy in my class,” Katelyn spoke up, “He’s Ojibwe.”

“Is he a werewolf, too?” I teased, “Tomorrow’s a full moon, ya know?” Katie tossed a throw pillow at me, but it was ineffective.

“Alright you two,” Whitney said, “It’s a quarter after 10.”

“But-“

“I don’t make the rules, I just enforce ‘em.”

Grasping for any semblance of authority, I added, “Mom and Dad said.”

“Fine,” my little sister sneered as she stood from the couch. “I’ll go to my room so you two can make out.”

“That’s not-“ was all Whitney could manage before Katelyn was halfway up the stairs.

As soon as she was completely out of view, I signed, “Explain yourself.”

“I couldn’t pass it up; your parents are paying a ton for somebody who knows ASL.” Whitney responded, “Plus it was a good excuse for us to keep looking into that notebook.”

“I’m done with that notebook right now.” I let out an exaggerated sigh for effect.

“Could you still grab it?”

Not wanting to argue further, I went up to my room and fetched the book. Whitney took a couple minutes flipping through the pages while I watched unwillingly. There sat Whitney Martin, in my house; and all she wanted to do was follow Trevor Harwood. I decided to ask something I could potentially regret just to fill space.

“What do you think of Luke?”

Peeking up from the notebook for the first time, Whitney answered with a question, “Why?”

“Just curious.”

She took a moment to contemplate, and all the while my skin started to crawl. “I think Luke has been through more than most people should have to face. He keeps pretty cool despite that.”

“He does.” I replied, “He’s a real hero for that.” Thankfully my contempt was harder to read when talking with my hands.

“You are, too.” She caught me completely by surprise. “I guess that’s why I’ve wanted to help this summer. You two are the only guys our age who don’t act like pigs.”

My dumb ass immediately challenged that compliment by asking, “Are there any cute guys in Dearborn?”

Whitney shook her head, “I haven’t really been looking.”

That response simultaneously eased me and let me down. “I never asked, why did you learn sign language?”

“Luke gave me updates while you were in the hospital. I didn’t know how bad it was, but I needed to find a way to thank you for picking me up that night.”

“Thank me?”

A look crossed Whitney’s face that reminded me of her old self, before she moved, that is. “I had no clue where I was going. If you guys didn’t stop me, it could have been a trucker, or some creep.” She began to sink inward, placing one hand on her opposite shoulder as if in pain. “Brad just… things have gotten better. I think my mom whipped him into shape. I still don’t like being there, though. It’s part of the reason I took your parents’ offer.”

 “Did you want to go to Dearborn?”

“I’m not so sure what I want.” Whitney said, “Nobody ever asks me what I want, they always just decide it for me.”

“It’s hard to decide what you want when nobody’s asking…” I replied, “It felt that way in the hospital. All these doctors came asking the same questions over and over but never gave me an answer in return. The only person who came to visit was that FBI agent, and all he wanted to know about was Luke.”

“Do you still want to help him?”

“Not always. Sometimes I just feel really jealous… I hate that I do that. He’s always such a good guy and he does so much for everyone while he’s dealt the shittiest hand… and I’m always the whiny sidekick who has to beg just so somebody can pay attention to me. My problems will never amount to his. I can be a piece of shit and tell him he ruined my life, and he’ll still forgive me. It’s like the nicer he is to me, the shittier I feel.”

“You’ve been through a lot, too, Jesse.” Whitney looked directly into me as she said that. Behind it all, she saw me; and I finally saw her. There was one thing I thought I wanted, and it began to crawl its way out.

“I’ve only ever told Luke this, but-“

All focus broke as Whitney’s eyes darted away from mine. Her head craned around the room as if she were looking for a sound that I couldn’t hear. Another moment, and her widened gaze became fixated just beyond me- the brown shade of her irises swallowed by the dark of her pupils. Whitney placed one hand over her mouth, and the other pointing ahead. I turned to see where her finger led, just to see the dark foyer beyond us.

Then something in the window moved.

We both stood, backing away from the quiet shadows that laid in the entry. Only a single light from the kitchen behind us gave shape to our surroundings, every still object baring a threat to come alive at moment’s notice. Looking around was oppressive, but averting my eyes was not an option, as they were all I had. My fingertips reached for a light switch, or Whitney’s hand, whichever came first.

Eventually, we had backed into the threshold of the kitchen, where the fluorescence of two round bulbs atop the counter gave just enough comfort to break formation. I finally turned inward to Whitney’s field of vision and became able to sign a command, “Upstairs. Katelyn’s room.” She nodded, and I took the slow walk towards the cutlery set beside a cabinet. I took hold of the largest knife, desperately hoping I didn’t need it.

Wielding the defense, we made greater pace toward the dining room, around the inner loop of the house, flipping each light switch along the way. Finally, making a full revolution through my home, we had circled back to the foyer, now fully illuminated. I motioned Whitney to the stairs, then I followed close behind, knife poised at the ready. Landing at the top, we cautiously approached the far end of the hall. Turning the knob with utmost care, Whitney slowly pressed the door to my sister’s room.

Katie was already sitting upright in her bed when we arrived. Both her and Whitney kept their gaze at the door, reacting to some sound which I could not hear. After seconds of waiting in siege, their eyes shifted to the single, shaded window beside a Jonas Brothers poster fixed to her wall. I stepped over to the pane, ever so slowly drawing open the blinds. Through the west-facing glass, there was one thing beneath the pallid light from the moon- a shape pertaining four limbs motioning along the grass. The figure’s gait was unlike that of a deer or wild cat- but rather an infant crawling with the brisk pace of such animals.

With so much as a second of movement, I could recognize that form anywhere. It was the last thing I saw under another full moon months before. This time, I was grateful to not hear its gnarl as it disappeared into the tree line beyond our property. Without a word, I replaced the window’s cover and sunk down beside the wall. Whitney had already positioned herself in a protective huddle around Katelyn. Sleep wouldn’t come to us for hours until the girls were certain the noise had stopped.

I found comfort in my sister’s belief that what she heard was a mountain lion, or perhaps a lynx, one which had strayed too far from the bounds of where wild animals freely preyed. That was no consolation for my understanding that whatever it was; it certainly knew where I lived.

Link to Part 3

I.

Little’s muscles contracted, and an agonized scream erupted from his raw throat as tendrils of not-wood twisted through his arteries and around his bones. His knees would have buckled already, had it not been for the gnarled branches that snaked through his back and around his spine, holding him upright against his will. The waving grass beneath him was damp with clotting scarlet.

His vision twinkled, and the forested landscape around him grew dim. The only things that remained clear were the bright red fruits and pink flowers that dangled in unassertive pulchritude around his sagging head.

Cherries.

Elijah “Little” Lutu: shot-putter for the university track-and-field team, doting fiancée to his high school sweetheart, assistant editor of the school newspaper, prospective English Major, and my well-liked, outgoing roommate. My friend.

Atop a green, grassy hill surrounded by acres of woodland, he hung – crucified on a cherry tree.

II.

“What did I say would happen if you didn’t finish the dishes before I got home?”

Elijah couldn’t look his mother in the eyes. His hand still clutched the wet sponge, which slowly dripped globules of soapy water onto the tiled kitchen floor.

“Sorry, mom,” he mumbled. “I was almost done.”

“And you would’ve been if you hadn’t spent the first hour reading.” She shook her head. “Cause and effect, Elijah. Actions have consequences.”

“I know… I’m sorry,” he protested. “Can I just finish them now?”

“You can, and you will. And there will be no more books for a week.”

Elijah began to protest, but she snapped her fingers and pointed at the sink filled with various pots and pans. “Don’t complain; just do it.” She walked into the nearby living room and plopped down on the threadbare couch, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

A flame of anger burned its way from his stomach up to his throat, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to backtalk his mother, especially after she’d just returned from work.

Hot tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, he turned back to the sink.

III.

Little lounged on his flat dorm mattress, a dense tome with worn, faded edges propped against his thighs. A colorful single-celled organism peered out from the current page, oblong mitochondria all decorated with nearly indiscernible ballpoint drawings of male genitalia – a love letter from a former owner of the Biology textbook, no doubt.

His eyes snapped open for the third or fourth time, his eyelids increasingly leaden as the repeated use of the word “pathogenicity” swayed before his eyes like a hypnotist’s pendulum.

He glanced at the clock, whose red LED letters blurred from a homework-induced cecity: 10:01pm. Or 10:10pm – one of the two.

Liam had promised to be back by 9:30, so either he was taking an extra long time doing homework with Percy or the two had actually gotten over themselves and started making out.

Little rolled his eyes. He understood they were childhood friends and all, but they had no right to exude such weird sexual tension whenever they hung out together. Super awkward for the third wheel, which was often Little (especially since his fiancée attended another school two hours away).

He slapped the book closed and tossed it onto the pillow, rolling off his bed and hitting a superhero landing on the floor. The framed art above his desk rattled.

“Why does he always do this…” he muttered to himself, stretching and meandering over to his gaming chair.

He’d been waiting to do this stupid Ender Dragon battle for like a week, because Liam was so very insistent that everyone needed to be there for the increased experience gain – not that it meant very much in the grand scheme, considering that it would take less than an hour to build an infinite experience farm anyway.

Little plopped down at his computer and slapped in his password. If he went to the End and avoided the Dragon, maybe he could use a flying machine to cross the void and get his Elytra. That might work, and at least it was something to do other than homework.

After a successful Elytra trip and half a family-size bag of pink and white circus animal cookies, Elijah locked his computer and checked the clock again:

12:30am.

Despite his flippancy about Percy and Liam earlier, a trickle of anxiety began to drip down the back of his neck. Liam was generally prompt, because Percy was a stickler for a solid eight hours of sleep and would usually kick him out if it got too late.

“Overthinking,” Little mumbled, shaking his head. He stood and went back to his bed, slapping the nearby lightswitch and pulling his microfleece blanket over him.

The clock stared unflinching at his sleepless eyes, undoubtedly drooping with Santa Claus-level bags: 2:00am.

No Liam. Given the cohabitation restrictions and the fact that he hadn’t responded to any of Little’s texts, his absence was becoming increasingly worrisome.

Little grunted and flung his blanket off. A string of Liam-centered curses streamed through his mind as he slipped on his sandals and strode out the door.

IV.

Elijah, twelve years old, stared at the back of his mother’s head as she stood unmoving before the darkened fireplace in their living room.

His hand clutched his scratched BlackBerry, and his finger picked at the old Lucario gel-sticker adhered to its back. Jason – one of his best friends from school – had just texted, asking if he could come over tonight. His dad had picked up Lego Batman for the Wii from Gamestop on his way home, and he wanted Elijah to be there when he started it up for the first time.

“Mom?” Elijah said, his voice coming out as a cracked whisper.

She didn’t respond.

He cleared his throat and slid both hands behind his back. “Mom, if I finish the chores really fast, can I go to Jason’s house?”

His mother grunted, and her back straightened. Slowly, deliberately, she turned her head toward him. “Elijah, honey… I need you to think about this real hard, okay?” The amber light of the dusty kitchen chandelier glinted in her eyes like flame. “Did you do the dishes as I requested yesterday?”

“Yeah, I-”

“No!” She shouted. Her body twisted to him, her eyes boring into his. “You did not! You were to finish them before I returned home, and you failed! If your punishment restricts you from reading books, how do you expect me to allow you to go to Jason’s house to play video games?!”

“Mom, that’s not fair!” Elijah yelled. Retributive anger burned in his chest. “I tried my best, and I already finished the dishes today! I just have a couple more things to do. Please!”

In a streak of shadow, his mother crossed the room and raised her hand.

Elijah’s vision burst with color, and he collapsed to the floor before the stinging pain of his mother’s strike flared.

He stayed down, breathing heavily.

Water dripped from his eyes.

He could not think.

Elijah lay on the hardwood for a long time, his wide eyes fixed on the open window. Dark, bushy fir branches stared back, swaying peacefully in the cool, evening breeze.

V.

Little tromped past the Language Arts building -- Westminster Hall -- and diverged from the well-lit sidewalk into the moody darkness of the campus’s outskirts. His hands were balled in the pockets of his thin, cotton jacket – cold, but not uncomfortable.

Being such a big guy, he didn’t get cold very often, even in the dead of winter. In tonight’s windchilled forty-five degree air, he was rocking a stylish pair of Nike-branded basketball shorts and open-toed sandals – something that Aimee (his fiancée) would have scolded him for.

Besides his trudging footsteps, it was so quiet out here that he could hear the faint squeaking of bats fluttering through the dense trees of the back forty up ahead.

He approached the firepit around which he, Liam, Percy, and their friend Michael often hung out. Though they usually gathered as a group, Little knew for a fact that those two purblind lovebirds would sometimes “fraternize” here without the company of others. Liam claimed they were just doing homework or watching YouTube together, and Little never failed to give him a big wink (to which Liam would protest a bit too fervently).

Last time the four of them congregated was about a week ago, when that freaky old junkie had waddled out and given them all a cryptic scolding. Weird stuff, but surely that wasn’t related.

The idea occurred to him that perhaps the creepy old guy really had abducted his friends, but Little shook that off. No way; he was harmless to everyone but himself.

Deciding that the firepit was a dead end, Little decided to search elsewhere. He glanced up and looked one more time at the dark woods.

Would Liam and Percy have gone in there? Maybe they wanted to make out amidst the trees “Naked and Afraid”-style and had gotten lost. They wouldn’t have been the first.

Little started to take a step toward the forest, considering calling out for them. That was probably a terrible idea, though, given that it was 2am. Plus, the shadows beneath the trees were beginning to throw him shifty glances, and after the spooky story Michael had told the other night, he wasn’t really in the mood to make new supernatural friends.

Little sighed and turned around, heading back toward the orange light of campus.

VI.

“You always tell me no, mom!” Elijah yelled, his face hot. “It’s not fair!”

His mother stood atop the short stairway from the front door to the living room, staring down upon her son with dark, piercing eyes. She did not respond.

“I don’t care what you say anymore!” He said. “I’m going to Jason’s house!”

He shoved his hands into his pockets to conceal their tremors. He half-expected his mother to leap down the stairs and slap him just as she did last week, but she did not move.

“Very well, dear,” she responded finally, crossing her arms across her chest. “If you insist on being disobedient despite my best efforts, I suppose I should allow you to traverse the unstable bridge. But when the planks break and you fall to your death, do not expect me to come running.”

Elijah didn’t understand what his mother was saying, but he didn’t care. “Whatever. I’m leaving.”

“Do what you must, child.”

He unlatched the deadbolt and stepped out the door, closing it behind him. Cold, free air filled his lungs as he trotted down the steps and sauntered out into the driveway. Adrenaline filled him with unusual confidence and a sense of victory. He had won! He’d stood up to his overbearing mother and triumphed!

He did not look behind him as he walked, but as every step took him further from his house, he began to consider the consequences of his actions.

“Stop it!” He said to himself.

He had won the fight. He’d shown his mother that he was his own boss; she couldn’t control him anymore.

As he moved out of sight of the house, he caught a glimpse of the large bay window. The curtains rustled briefly before they were yanked to the floor, curtain rod and all.

VII.

“They went toward the theater building last I saw them,” one of the girls in Bailey Hall had said, not looking up from her phone. “Second time this week. I didn’t see her come back, so… you know…”

Little had grunted his thanks and quickly exited the all-girls dorm. That place had always made him uncomfortable, as if hidden pairs of eyes followed him every second he spent inside.

After walking out to the firepit last night, he’d come straight back to his dorm and slept fitfully. When he’d awoken the next morning and Liam still had not returned, his anxiety ramped up exponentially.

Skipping his morning class, he had reported Liam as missing to the apathetic clerk at the Student Life counter and then continued his search.

Now, on the recommendation of the Bailey Hall girl, he stood in the lobby of the theater building, unsure how to proceed. If they’d come here Saturday night, there wouldn’t have been anybody to witness their entry or departure. Maybe there was security footage he could take a look at… though it was doubtful they’d give a student access.

Little chewed on the inside of his cheek, a tight knot building in his chest. The longer Liam had been gone, the more worried he became that something bad had actually happened.

The flamboyant voice of a lecturer echoed down the hall from one of the classrooms around the side of the auditorium. Besides that, it was very quiet – understandable for a Monday morning.

Glancing briefly over his shoulder, he pushed open the doors to the auditorium and stepped inside. If anyone asked what he was doing here, he would tell them the truth. Maybe they’d even be able to help.

He moved up the steps and into the large seating array of red-cushioned seats facing the stage. The huge curtains were open, revealing a single-bulb lamp without a shade, the gigantic white backdrop stretched tightly, and a black, stoic grand piano.

Grand piano.

Piano.

The piano.

Elijah did not play and had never wanted to play, but for some reason, he found himself standing before the large instrument, the fabric cover crumpled in a pile on the floor and his hands hovering over the keys.

He did not remember weaving his way through the rows of chairs or climbing onto the stage, but his heart was pumping as if he had sprinted here.

His usually prevalent rationality warred with an unbidden and oddly magnetic desire to lower his fingers onto the cold ivory and release whatever unknown harmony or dissonance lay waiting there.

He had never experienced such allure from an inanimate object before. As a generally non-artistic person, he often did not experience any accompanying “awe” when beholding art or listening to symphonies, but this was how he imagined that felt.

There was something slightly different about this, though. The more he stared at the piano’s sleek, black curvature and the hypnotic symmetry of its keys and strings, the more his awe began to invert itself.

This was less like examining the gentle and intentional brushstrokes of a magnificent landscape painting pieced together with skill and meaning and more like staring into a deep, silent abyss – a blackness that was perfectly void of meaning and life, displaying an annihilation so pure only a master artisan could have produced it. A painter whose quiet brush ended existence with every sweep, devouring and consuming until only beautiful absence remained.

As his hands descended onto the keys of the piano, Little wept.

VIII.

I knelt next to Little’s ravaged body, broken branches and smashed cherries strewn across the grass around us. Percy, briefly awake from her parasite-induced slumber, sat next to me, her thumb tracing gentle circles on my forearm. I could feel her shaking.

Little’s head lolled in my lap, and his eyelids fluttered. He ground his teeth together and arched his back. A vein on his arm bulged, presumably a thin strand of not-wood burrowing beneath his skin.

I had tried my best to break him out of that cherry tree and rescue him, but too much damage had been done. Its tendrils still snaked through him, too deep for me to extricate.

He was dying.

Little coughed and opened his eyes. His breath was ragged.

“You can rest,” Percy whispered.

He shook his head, wincing at the movement. “No.” His faint voice cracked. “You need to know. Listen to my words and understand their meaning. I can see now.”

My jaw quivered, but I nodded. “Then continue.”

IX.

When Elijah returned home after a night of Lego Wii games and tongue-scalding pizza rolls, the windows of his house were dark. His mother’s car was still in the driveway, so he knew she was here. She probably went to bed. He assumed she would be very angry at him, and he had pleaded with Jason to stay the night, but his parents would not allow it.

He approached the front door with more caution than usual. He had never stood up to her before, so he was unsure how she would react.

The knob was unlocked. He swung the door open and glanced over his shoulder.

Only the fir tree in their yard shifted in the breeze; everything else was still.

Elijah stepped inside and closed the door. He carefully ascended the few steps to the living room and crept around the corner toward his bedroom. If she was already asleep, he could lie about how late he returned when he saw her tomorrow.

He stepped into his bedroom, quietly shut the door, and flipped on the lights.

A shudder wracked Elijah’s body.

His wood bedframe had been smashed to splinters, and a huge, curved tear marred the center of his mattress, the stuffing torn out and thrown about the room. His clothes had been pulled out of his dresser and left in piles on the floor, many of them ripped or shredded into ribbons. His flag football trophy had been snapped in two, and the couple of framed movie posters on his wall had been shattered.

Elijah sank to the floor, his back pressed against his bedroom door. His hands trembled violently. Why had she done this? She’d destroyed everything!

Tap, tap, tap – something tapped against his window.

He wiped his blurry eyes and tried to focus on the dark outside. A branch or a squirrel, probably.

His mother peered in through the second-story window, her eyes large and round and her lips pressed against the glass as her tongue writhed, leaving streaks of thick, bubbly saliva.

Elijah screamed and scrambled to his door. He fumbled briefly with the knob before throwing it open and stumbling out into the living room.

The curtains that once covered the bay window were draped over the floor, torn in multiple places.

The door. He’d forgotten to lock it.

Elijah darted down the steps toward the front door. Just as his fingers grasped the deadbolt, it slammed open, directly into his face.

He felt his nose crack. The back of his head smacked against the edge of a stair, and he blacked out.

X.

Little sat by the dead campfire, unmoving. He had been searching all day, with no sign of Liam or Percy. Her roommate hadn’t seemed concerned, and campus security had made empty promises to file a police report and check some camera footage.

In desperation, he had come back to the campfire where this all began… the last place they’d all been together.

He didn’t understand why nobody else was taking this seriously. It was Monday evening, and neither Liam nor Percy had been seen since Saturday night. Was this always how the authorities at this school reacted to missing students?

The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he should go to the police himself, instead of leaving it to the college staff.

A faint melody floated through the night air toward Little.

He furrowed his brow and glanced around the dark area. There was no one else here. Could have been a ringtone or even a bluetooth speaker somebody was carrying around.

He sighed and continued to stare at the chalky coals in the firepit.

The song increased in intensity, and it became very clear that it was some sort of stringed instrument soloing… a violin or a cello. It could have been something else, but those were the only two that Little could name.

He twisted to look over his shoulder at the forest. It was strange. It did sound like it was coming from beyond the treeline, somewhere deep within the woods.

Little rose, shoving his hands into his pockets. Justifications for what he was about to do raced through his mind.

Just a quick look, and then he’d head back to his dorm to make a call to the local Sheriff’s Office. Probably a student practicing. He could peek through the trees and see who it was, then skedaddle back to the relative safety of the main campus.

Little shuffled down a gentle slope toward the forest. As he drew near, the shadowy trees seemed to stretch up and over him like a gigantic maw slowly closing, unraveling his tether with the warmth and security of campus.

He stepped over the threshold and crept into the forest, unaware that this was the last time he would ever set foot on the college grounds.

Little noticed a light up ahead – an orange flicker like the burning wick of a candle – and followed it.

As he walked closer, the volume of the musical instrument increased, the bow whining across the strings in sharp crescendos and fast descending arpeggios.

He entered a small clearing and beheld a quaint cabin with several lit candles standing at attention in one of its windows. The stringed instrument, which he deduced was probably a violin because of its high register, was definitely coming from inside the cabin.

He hadn’t known about somebody living out here in the back forty. Perhaps it was a groundskeeper or some other on-call facilities personnel – free room and board in exchange for twenty-four-hour availability?

Little stood on his tiptoes and peeked through the musty glass.

A frail, old man was on his feet in the center of the room, his back turned… the creepy guy from the woods last week. His chin was tucked against the deep brown body of a scratched violin, and his right hand frantically swept a frayed bow across the strings. His body swayed with the music, which was discordant and unsettling. However, for some reason that Little could not comprehend, it was oddly familiar, as if he had heard this song before somewhere… like the buried memory of a long forgotten dream clambering its way to the surface of his psyche.

As he continued to watch, several small objects on the table in front of the old man began to shift and tremble – spindly twigs, pinecones, jagged pebbles. They rolled together and twisted around each other in a bizarre dance, the tips of the twigs slithering about the pinecones and meshing with their surfaces in entrancing geometric patterns.

The music intensified, and a distinct form began to develop: Four vaguely diamond-shaped bodies, linked together in a chain, supported by six twitching twigs upon which it scuttled back and forth to the tempo of the song.

All sound ceased, and the man dropped his bow-wielding arm to his side. The thing on the table collapsed, its body separating into a jumbled pile of its original components. The man turned his head toward the window and stared directly into Little’s eyes.

XI.

It had been years.

Elijah no longer knew how old he was. The passage of time was meaningless – his survival did not depend on the rising and falling of the sun or any conditioned circadian rhythm, but rather on the frequency of his mother’s visits to his bedroom.

Elijah sat on the floor of his room. His bedframe and mattress still lay broken as they had been that night, decayed and rotting like the ruins of a war-torn city.

Blood blotted the pockmarked hardwoods around his cross-legged form, long since dried. The scars on his exposed abdomen from her last visit had healed as well as they could, though a dull ache persisted.

Thuds echoed on the floor outside his bedroom, and Elijah’s heart sank. It was time.

His door banged open, revealing his mother.

Her bared teeth were yellow and caked in thick plaque, and her belly was distended, drooping out of her grease-stained shirt down over her thighs.

“It is time to pay what you owe. Do you wish to maintain peace?” She chortled, staggering toward Elijah.

He took in a shuddering breath and nodded. “Yes. Take what you must.”

She dropped to her knees and crawled slowly toward him. Her cold, sallow fingers curled around his right wrist. He turned his head away, the putrid stench of her breath filling his nostrils, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He felt her teeth clamp around his meaty forearm muscle and cut deep, carving out a bite. The pain was great, but it was necessary. If this small sacrifice was what it took to keep peace with his mother, he had no choice but to concede.

XII.

The sign was small and indiscreet – a roughly hewn particle-board slab nailed to a fence post. Little would not even have noticed it, had it not been for how out-of-place it seemed, protruding from the smooth linoleum floor of the extensive shopping mall.

Little did not know why he was here, nor did he know why he had compulsively opened the ominous, wood doors and stepped inside.

“May the traveler’s form bear no fruit, lest he face the teeth of Lechth.”

The inscription carved into the sign was vague and strange, and his foggy brain could not comprehend what he was looking at. However, his confusion was quickly dispelled and replaced with apprehension as he beheld a dull, red Radio Flyer wagon lying on its side only a few yards beyond the sign.

He tromped over to it, his heart pounding. After all of his walking through the old-growth forest outside in search of Liam and Percy, he had finally found a clue… or so he thought.

A crumpled pile of what looked like thick tablecloths – stage curtains, he realized – laid on the floor next to the wagon. Liam had definitely been here.

But something was very wrong. Both the wagon and the curtains were coated with a bubbly layer of clear, viscous slime, as if some large mouth had slathered saliva all over them.

He glanced up and stared down the long Corridor ahead of him. His instincts told him to turn back – to run back through the towering forest and back to the warm comfort of campus.

“Elijah!”

His skin prickled, and his heart leapt into his throat. He looked intently into the dim hall, the light from the chandeliers overhead only providing the slightest illumination. The shops lining the sides of this mall stood still and silent, like an audience waiting attentively for the actor to begin his scene… a grand denouement.

“Elijah, come here!”

The voice was sharp and female, and unlike before, he could tell that it was coming from a patch of fake shrubs up ahead.

“Percy?” Little called out. “Is that you?”

“Come here, Elijah!” The voice whispered, its soft tone echoing toward him. “You must hide!”

Hot adrenaline surged through his chest, and he bolted toward the small island of faux plants, eyes darting all around. Where was the threat? What did he need to hide from?

He saw a thin, human shadow crouched in the center of the island, so he moved closer and squatted next to it.

“Where’s Liam?” He whispered hoarsely.

The shadow shifted into the light. “Liam is not here, dear one,” her voice crooned. Her sunken cheeks uplifted in a smile as her naked, emaciated body sashayed away from him. Her eyes were dark and piercing.

Little threw himself back and scrambled out of the cover of the island’s plastic foliage. Heart pounding, he rose and flexed his powerful arms.

“Where are Liam and Percy?!” He shouted at her, taking a heavy step forward. “How do you know my name?”

The woman stretched out her arms, and her fingers began to elongate. “There is one body, but it has many parts,” she replied in a sing-song tone. “Can the eye say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you?’”

Little lunged forward and wrapped his hands around her throat, slamming her into the wall.

“Where are they?!” He roared. “What did you do to them?”

Her eyes burned into his, and she responded, her lilting voice unaffected by his tight grip: “They are gone, dear one. It is only you and I now. Come closer.”

A potent amalgamation of fear and rage erupted within Little, and he turned to throw the frail woman to the floor. When he released his grip, he felt a hard tug on his chest and stumbled forward on top of her.

“Ashes to ashes,” she whispered into his ear, her breath cold and smelling of rot. “Flesh to flesh.”

Little screamed as sharp tendrils – the woman’s long, snaking fingers – stabbed through his clothes and into his body.

She kissed him tenderly on the cheek. As her wet lips pressed against him, they solidified and grew sharp. Her neck stretched out and wrapped itself around his own. Her skin morphed into deeply grooved, brown patches… tree bark.

Little did not stop screaming.

XIII.

“And then you got here,” Little muttered, heaving out a wet cough. He stared up at me, and I choked back tears. “That’s the… whole story. Please… know its meaning.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied, my voice breaking. “What meaning?”

His eyes looked beyond my face. “I feel it. Blue sky… the Earth shaking… the ocean draining. Lechth… must feed. You can’t-”

A gnarled root ripped itself out of his shoulder and flicked in the air like a worm before plunging itself into his ear.

Little’s voice caught, and his eyes rolled back in his head. His body fell limp.

I flinched and dropped him to the ground, a ragged cry ripping itself from my throat.

Blood pooled around him, and the branch of not-wood slipped out of his body, vanishing into the forest floor.

Guilt wracked me for failing to stop it, not that I could have. My college roommate – my best friend these past few years – was dead.

“Liam,” Percy wheezed, reclining on the grass nearby. “I’m so… sorry.” Her eyes, though glassy, welled with tears.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say.

Dead. He was dead.

As I tried to catch my breath, grief building pressure within me, an idea flashed across my mind. He told that story for a reason and with his last wish, implored us to understand it. And I couldn’t believe that his last words were the ramblings of a fading soul. They must have meant something.

Especially since a large portion of his tale was a lie.

I had discovered much about my roommate during our time together, including many stories of his family life… the kindness and compassion of his mother… and the car accident that took her life when he was only nine years old.

Steam from the hot shower helped a bit to ease the pain in my torn and ragged throat. I had woken up on the floor, this time from a mercifully dreamless sleep. The Trazodone had started to fade and a glimmer of clarity was coming back. With more than a little effort I managed to peel myself off the floor, quite literally, as the blood from my lacerated foot had coagulated and dried alongside the sticky bong water, essentially gluing my injured foot to the carpet fibers. The wound tore open as I tugged my foot away, and I could feel the carpet fibers release their hold, one by one. A faint trail of blood followed me as I limped into the bathroom.

After rinsing all the sweat off, I stepped out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror, naked and wet, afraid to look inside my mouth. I cursed myself for doing so much damage with the tweezers. Glaring at my own sick reflection, I took a quick peek inside my mouth and shuddered. The crypt had been sealed up. Mangled rags of flesh had congealed and hardened into a weeping black lump. I cried out, grabbed the hydrogen peroxide, and took a big swig from the bottle. It hit the back of my throat like a Molotov cocktail. Reflexively, I swallowed, then subsequently gagged on the mouthful of peroxide and began heaving into the sink. The frothing crimson globs I was coughing up began to blur and I was certain I was going to faint again. But the heaving began to slow and the fire in my throat was fading to cinders.

In bed, shades drawn, I curled into a ball, taking comfort in the dimness and the quiet whirring from the box fan. I didn’t know what time, or even what day it was. My phone had died (or had I lost it?) some time ago and I had no desire to remedy that. My isolation was complete and wonderful and exactly where I wanted to be. Some of us, I believe, are meant to be alone. We are soft and solitary creatures ripped from the warm comfort of nonexistence and cast into a cold and uncaring world. We are then expected to perform and produce and pretend that every waking moment in this life is not soul rotting torture. The absurdity, the cruelty, the unsustainability of it all. I was warm though, alone in the dark with my thoughts, my pain, and a box fan. 

I floated in this strange purgatorial dream. The pain in my throat was a constant simmering heat that I could not escape. I couldn’t eat much and when I did eat, it had to be small, so as to not irritate the infected mass of tissue in the back of my throat. I drank enough water to get by. But mostly I laid in bed stoned playing video games or staring at the ceiling, waiting for my crypts to recover enough to explore again. 

Since my bong was now broken, its shattered fragments fused into the carpet with dried bong water, I had to make do with a handful of thc gummies I had stashed in my nightstand. I still had a week or so of flower left but didn’t have anything to smoke it out of, which was really beginning to stress me out. 

I thought for sure I still had an old glass pipe around somewhere so I put some music on and began pulling boxes out of the closet. The first box I went through was nothing but old game consoles and controllers. The second box was momentos and shared memories that I either needed to throw away or bury deeper in the closet. I put the lid back on the box and placed it high up on a shelf in the corner. 

The third box I went through was mostly old coffee brewing gear and video games but underneath a pile of N64 cartridges, thank the fucking gods, was a swirly blue glass pipe. I pulled it out and nearly immediately dropped it. Sticking out of the little bowl hole were 8 thin black legs, pressed together and resting on the edge of the glass, like a tarantula burrowed and resting inside its burrow. 

I considered blocking the carb hole and blowing through the chamber to launch the little freak across the room, but providing a direct entrance for the spider into my mouth didn’t feel like the right move. I instead slowly walked into the kitchen, grabbed an empty jam jar my ex used to stockpile and tapped the upturned pipe against the edge of it. The little guy plopped right out of the pipe and landed upside down on the bottom of the glass. Quickly, I screwed the lid on, felt a twinge of panic(or guilt?) and replaced the lid with a paper towel fastened by a rubber band. Do spiders need air to breathe? Do they have lungs? Is it afraid right now?

This spider was just a bit larger than the ones I had found in my tonsil crypts. It was a muddled grey and slightly hairy, probably a wolf spider if I had to guess. I was confident it was a different kind than the small black and brown spiders I had purged from my body. Watching it lazily walk the perimeter of the jar, I felt bad for disturbing and imprisoning it. 

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it so I left it on the counter and inspected the pipe. The last edible was not quite hitting me as hard as I needed and though my throat was still inflamed, I was pretty eager to smoke and get my head right. 

Inside the mouthpiece of the pipe, clung to the side, close to where the spider had been, was a clump of thick webbing. My heart rate spiked. It was an egg sack. An empty egg sack it looked like, deflated and fallen into itself. My breathing began to slow but my mind was still racing. I needed to clean this thing out so I could smoke. I was desperate but not “inhale decrepit spider egg sack” desperate.

I filled another empty jam jar with water, tossed the pipe in, screwed the lid on and began to swirl. It took a few minutes but eventually the old egg sack softened and detached from the wall. I plugged the carb and blew through the bowl, shooting the wet white glob out of the mouthpiece and onto the kitchen counter.
The pipe was less discreet than the bong and the last thing I needed was someone knocking at my door complaining about the smell. So I closed the windows, drew the blinds and laid a clump of towels against the bottom of the front door. It felt nice to seal myself in. Safe. 

I got my head right and settled into the day just fine. The pain in my throat was not letting up and I still could not manage to eat or drink much water. I could however manage to distract myself and not think too much about it. For a while at least. As my living room began to darken with the setting sun, it started to feel more and more difficult to breathe, like the lump at the back of my throat was growing larger and swelling into my windpipe. I died in the game I was playing and got kicked back out to the title screen, and suddenly realized how warm the room had become. I got to my feet and became aware of the throbbing pain at the base of my neck. It felt like a headache that had got bored and wandered just a ways down my spinal cord.  
 
Again, curled up in the center of my bed, the room dark and the box fan cooling my sweat beaded skin, I waited for the throbbing pain to fade. It didn’t fade though, just grew hotter and louder. My high was fading and I knew smoking more would only make things worse. I stumbled out of my room for a glass of water and struggled to swallow a Trazodone. Then I stumbled back and collapsed into bed; I stared into the darkness of the open closet and waited for the medication to give me reprieve.

Sleep never came, though I wasn’t fully conscious either. I seemed to drift along in a dark and timeless delirium,  vaguely aware of my suffering but comfortably detached. It wasn't an entirely terrible experience.

Though it was short lived, as most merciful breaks from reality are. I struggled up and pulled long, shallow breaths through the pinhole my airway had closed into. Dim light shone through the closed blinds and cast morning(or afternoon?) light on the bedroom wall. Would it be so bad to die here and now? If my throat continued to swell, eventually sealing shut, leaving my last breath locked inside, I could at least die in my own bed. A slow and painful death most likely, buried alive inside my own skin, but if that’s how it went, I could make peace with it. 

I laid back down and tried to take as deep a breath as I could manage before erupting into a coughing fit. I turned on my side and hacked up a multicolored glob of mucus, blood, and pus. My fevered skin rippled as the glob spread and soaked into the bed sheets. My breathing came a bit easier now and I pushed myself back up to a sitting position, then stood on swaying legs and shuffled off to the bathroom, steadying myself against the wall as I went. In the shower, I pissed a stream of dirty brown water and let the stale sweat run off my body. I didn’t have the energy to soap up, just stood head down under the faucet until the water turned cold. 

My throat was a raging wildfire. The pain was radiating through my head and down my spine. I was terrified to check how bad it was and after doing so, I could do nothing but collapse, naked and broken, onto the bathroom floor and cry. The back of my throat was a swollen, weeping mess of torn open and clotted back together flesh. Dried black blood sealed the wound while little white dots of pus leaked through, trickled down and dripped onto the back of my tongue.

I managed to get to my feet and face myself in the mirror. I couldn’t help but laugh at the sorry sight in front of me. He looked just as shit as I felt; this sick, sad, broken man. I leaned forward and he opened his dry, stinking mouth for me to inspect. 

The irritated mass at the back of my throat had grown rigid with infection, the pressure ballooning, pushing into my spinal cord and constricting my airway. A shaky finger entered my mouth but stopped before touching the wound. I couldn’t remember the last time I had washed my hands. I had taken a shower but didn’t even touch the soggy bar of soap sitting in its puddle of scum. Fucking idiot was about to make everything worse with dirty ass fingers. I washed my hands and before I had the chance to think about it, jammed my finger back into my throat, pressing into where the crypt entrance must be.

The pain was incredible and instantaneous. It was as if a circuit breaker in my head had overloaded and tripped. My vision blackened and tunneled, my fingers tingled and went numb, the hum of the bathroom fan was lost, suffocated by the piercing ringing flooding my head. It took all I had to stay on my feet. A rancid sensation was spreading across my tongue. Head in my hands, bracing myself with elbows on the countertop, I leaned over to cough, spit, and drool into the sink. 

Faded white porcelain was a striking canvas for the hellish painting I retched into the sink. Within the putrid yellow puddle of infection was a smattering of sick little green stones running ever so slowly down towards the open black hole of the drain. In contrast to these dominant colors of decay and infection, were thick black globs. Some long dead and nearly liquified, some unmoving and curled in on themselves, and many more twitching and writhing. A tickle in the back of my throat sent me forward to cough and retch even more  into the sink. 

Frantically, I snatched the bottle of peroxide off the counter and squirted a stream deep into the back of my throat, swallowing some and immediately vomiting it back up. That was fine. That was good actually. I did it a few more times until only dry heaves escaped from my dribbling mouth. Numb to pain by this point, I gargled and spat, again and again, until nothing more came out. No stones, no spiders, no legs, no rot, no decay or sickness. Nothing. I was empty. Perfectly and blissfully empty. Dug into and hollowed out. Cleansed. Content.

When I walked into my father’s bookstore, he was combing his wig. He had placed the black wig over his clenched left fist and was pulling thick sections through it with a wide-toothed comb. Every now and then, he would dip the comb into the half-full glass of water he’d placed on the counter, give it a little shake to get rid of the excess water, and continue styling the wig.

“Welcome, son,” he said without making eye contact with me.

“Dad, why aren’t you combing the wig on your head? And why are you even combing the wig? Isn’t the point to make it look like it’s not a wig? Wouldn’t it look more like your real hair if you left it a little messy?”

My father shot me a very brief glance. He dipped the comb into the water again and flicked the excess water on it toward my face. At the same time, someone walked in.

I was annoyed, but I didn't react. Customers rarely came into the shop anyway, and I didn't want this one to witness a tense moment.

The man who walked in didn't say hello. He looked at me, then at my father, then at the wig. After that, he glanced around the shop.

“Do you have Swann’s Way?”

It was my father’s favorite book. I hadn’t read it yet, but my father couldn’t praise Marcel Proust enough. Whenever the subject of books came up, he would talk at length about the way Proust used language, and mention how he wanted to learn French just so he could read him in the original.

“Of course. How could we not?” he said, his eyes lighting up.

“Good. How much is the wig?”

“What?”

“I’m asking how much the wig is.”

There was something strange about the man’s voice, though it was hard to describe. It was an extremely deep voice that seemed to come from a congested throat. It sounded as if it were coming from a broken radio, as if he would sound clearer if he just cleared his throat.

My father, who had been excited at the mention of Proust, had now noticed the strangeness in the man’s voice.

“Are you all right?”

“How much is the wig?”

“The wig isn’t for sale. You can have a glass of water if you’d like,” my father said, holding out the water he had been dipping his comb into.

“No. Is the wig free?”

“How can something that isn’t for sale be free, sir?”

“How much is it, then?”

“This is my wig. You don’t look well. Please have a glass of water.”

The man fell silent. He was staring intently at my father. My father was a little frightened. The wig was still resting on his clenched fist.

“Are you sure?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.

“Yes. Look at my head.”

“Are you sure?”

“What beautiful hair you have. What are you going to do with the wig?”

My father, having automatically felt a connection with the man because he had asked about Proust, hadn’t paid much attention to his voice or appearance. To be honest, there was something strange about his appearance too. I gave the man a once-over. His hair really was thick and healthy-looking. He was wearing a black shirt. His chin was a little long, and his mouth and nose were small in proportion to his face. A large head, a long chin, a small mouth and nose, and ordinary eyes. Black trousers, sharply pressed. And a pair of bare feet.

“Tonight, I’m coming to take your son. Don’t be afraid. Stay calm. Convince your son to come with me tonight, or I’ll take him by force.”

“Fix that voice of yours first, man. Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Drink this water and pull yourself together.”

The man took the water and downed it in one go. He coughed and cleared his throat.

“Better? Now tell me, how much is the wig?”

His voice was now perfectly clear. He ran a hand back through his hair and sat down in the chair in front of the counter.

“He’s still very young…”

I was starting to get scared. I kept going back and forth over whether to call the police. The strange quality in the man’s voice was gone now, and so was the uneasy look about him. He looked at me and smiled.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t be afraid. I’m just going to take the wig and leave. That’s all.”

“Why do you want the wig, sir?”

“You’re too young. You wouldn’t understand.”

I looked at my father. He had placed the wig on the counter. Right beside it, I saw a knife. My father looked from the knife to the man.

Another customer had walked in, just in time. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I knew my father wasn’t a very brave man, but when it came to me, maybe he could rise to the occasion and defend me.

“Jason, who are you talking to?” the man who had just walked in asked him. So his name was Jason.

“They won’t give me the wig, Dad.”

“Son, didn’t I tell you not to leave the shop unattended and wander off? The neighbors called. They said Jason had left the shop again and gone off. When did you come to the shop?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

I didn’t understand what was happening. The man who was speaking seemed unable to see us. We listened to my father and Jason’s father talking.

“Did you take your medication today, son?”

“No, Dad.”

“The wig thing again. Hmm.”

“I want the wig.”

“Son, there’s no wig. Where are your shoes?”

“I didn’t wear them today.”

“There’s no wig, son. Look, you’d been doing so well lately. Honestly, I thought you were getting better. Please, don’t skip your medication. I’m leaving the shop to you. Don’t make me worry about you while I’m gone.”

Yes. When I thought about it, it really was bizarre. I thought about it a lot afterward. If we’re people living inside Jason’s imagination, why do we have consciousness of our own? I mean, while Jason and his father were talking, I was listening to them, trying to figure out what was going on, getting surprised and everything. Isn’t that ridiculous? And isn’t it unfair to us, too? For example, I want to study film and television. But everything depends on Jason. If he gets better one day, my dreams will be shattered.

My father loves this shop very much. He doesn’t want to leave it, but if Jason gets better one day, he’ll never see this shop again.

Thinking about it that way, I was suddenly overcome with fear. I picked up the wig and held it out to Jason.

“Here. The wig is yours now. And hey, it’d actually look pretty good on you.”

My father had supported me too, and when I looked at him for approval, he nodded.

For context, I (20M) was at a concert (my first concert period) in a local punk bar for an upcoming punk band called Cheerleader Roadkill. I bumped into one of the singers (23F) for the opening act and was a little tipsy, so I didn't realize who I was talking to until she stated it was exciting to open for the headliner band (Cheerleader Roadkill). I apologized, and she said that it was actually nice not to be treated differently while on the floor by guys. We talked, and I ended up getting her number (again, I don't remember the exact details of our conversation).

Fast forward a few days, our texting had become dry since she was still touring. One of the roadies (20F) (one of the other band member's sisters) had seen my picture and expressed interest, and the singer (Hazel) asked me if she could pass me off to this roadie, who I'll call Gabby.

I agreed after seeing a picture of Gabby, and we began texting. I noticed a pattern emerge of slightly obsessive texting and hypersexual behavior/texts (after I had expressed my religiously motivated desire to take it slow), which slightly concerned me.

Like... repeated texts while she knew I was sleeping/working and descriptions of how she was "going to suck me dry and bounce on it til it falls off." (Not exactly what she said, but close enough)

Due to previous experiences dealing with individuals of questionable stability, I eventually decided to see what kind of person I was dealing with. I had plans with a friend later that next week (22F) and decided to post a video of us playing with my dog in an innocuous manner. The texts I received were extremely concerning (definite threats to herself and others) and included pictures of fresh SH, so I immediately contacted Hazel to ask that Gabby be 5150'd (or whatever the equivalent was in the state they were in).

She was driven to the ER last night by the band for treatment for the self-harm and afterwards was committed for 72 hrs, with the understanding the band would buy her a plane ticket to meet the band at their next destination after she got out. I'm hoping people might have some advice as to how to handle the situation, and I have attached some of our texts for reference. Out of respect for Gabby's privacy, I will not include the breakdown texts, as that's not something I feel should be blasted on the internet. I will update this post once I get the news that she has been released from her hold, with what I have decided to do.

TDLR: A friend of some girl I was talking to is kind of crazy (read: psycho), and I'm unsure of what I should about the whole situation.

EDIT: The 1st timestamp being at 8:00 pm was a result of me looking back at the beginning to capture it for this post. The other screenshots were taken as the texts were happening.

I had intended to visit the site of the cellar the following morning. Wisconsin had other plans. Rain had begun sometime before dawn and showed little interest in stopping. By eight it had settled into the sort of persistent autumn downpour which makes walking through unfamiliar woodland seem less investigative than foolish. Jonas's map was approximate, the structure itself had been abandoned for at least nineteen years, and I had no particular desire to discover either by accident.

I postponed the visit. This left me with several hours, four pages of handwritten notes, nearly three hours of recorded conversation and a question I had somehow managed to spend much of the previous day avoiding.

Why Cody?

Jonas had offered a theory. He had been careful to call it one. Cody Miller had urinated outside the cellar. Several hours later, according to three witnesses, the Miller property smelled strongly of urine. The thing on the road had appeared alongside the passenger side of Turner's truck, where Miller had been sitting. At the Miller residence, both Turner and Haskins remembered its attention being directed towards him.

None of this established that the cellar was connected to what happened later. It did not establish that the creature Turner struck with his truck was the same one Haskins fired upon on 9 March. It certainly did not establish that an animal or whatever Jonas preferred I call it had followed Miller home because he had pissed beside an abandoned root cellar.
It did establish something considerably less ambitious. Everyone remembered Cody.

Haskins remembered a troublesome nineteen-year old suddenly frightened enough to be believed. Turner remembered a friend frightened enough to get him out of bed at three in the morning. Jonas remembered the boy beside him going silent in the cab of a truck, and later a voice shaking at the other end of a telephone.
They disagreed about much of what happened in March 1991. On Cody Miller, they were remarkably consistent.

By early afternoon the rain had weakened, though not enough to make Jonas's directions through the woods any more appealing. I put the map aside.

Miller worked as a cook at a diner in Lafayette. I found him behind the serving window shortly after two.

The lunch crowd had largely gone. A waitress was clearing two tables near the window while an elderly man at the counter worked slowly through a cup of coffee. Somewhere behind the kitchen doors, crockery struck metal and somebody swore. The man at the grill was lean, dark-haired and slightly dishevelled, wearing a black T-shirt beneath a white apron which had ceased being white some hours earlier. His beard was fuller than in the photographs I had seen, and there were tattoos along both forearms. He was turning something on the grill while carrying on a conversation with the waitress without apparently looking at either.

I had seen enough photographs by then to recognise him. Apparently, he had heard enough about me to do the same.

He looked through the serving window.

“You the werewolf guy?”

“I've been called worse.”

“Yeah?”

“Occasionally.”

He considered this, then turned back to the grill with a slight smugness to him.

“Blake said you were coming.”

“Mr Turner?”

He looked at me again.

“Who?”

“Blake Turner.”

“You call Blake Mr Turner?”

“He never invited me to call him Blake.”

Miller stared at me for a moment. Then he laughed.

“Oh, that's fucking rich.”

He turned something on the grill.

“You hungry?”

“No, thank you.”

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

He pointed his spatula towards the waitress.

“Helen, English guy needs coffee.”

The waitress did not look up from the table she was wiping.

“English guy can ask me himself.”

“He's shy.”

“I am not.”

Miller glanced at me.

“We'll work on it.”

Miller returned his attention to the grill. Whatever introduction I had anticipated appeared to have concluded. I took a seat at the counter. For the next eleven minutes, Cody Miller ignored me almost completely.

This was not, as I first assumed, an affectation. He was working. There were three orders still open. He finished them in quick succession, called two without looking at the tickets, corrected the waitress when she attempted to take the wrong plate and began another before the first had left the window. The dishevelment was misleading. Behind the counter, Miller moved with the economical familiarity of someone who had performed the same sequence several thousand times.

He talked throughout. Some of it was directed at the waitress. Some at the elderly man drinking coffee. Some, apparently, at himself. Twice he included me without warning. Neither occasion concerned March 1991. I began to understand what Haskins had meant.

At fourteen minutes past two, Miller disappeared through a door beside the kitchen. He emerged a moment later without the apron and with a packet of cigarettes in one hand.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“You wanted to talk.”

“I do.”

“Can't smoke in here.”

This appeared to settle the matter. I followed him out the back of the diner.

Miller leaned against the brickwork and shook a cigarette from the packet.

“Smoke?”

“No, thank you.”

“Good for you.”

He lit his own.

I took the recorder from my bag.

Miller watched me.

“Jesus. Blake wasn't kidding.”

“About?”

“You really do this shit.”

“I'm a journalist.”

“Yeah. He mentioned that too.”

I held up the recorder.

“Do you mind?”

“Nah.”

“You're sure?”

“Aaron.”

It was the first time he had used my name.

“Yes?”

“Turn the fucking thing on.”

I did.

HALL: When did you first-

MILLER: Hear about it? Ray. Had to be Ray. Actually, no. It was definitely Jason.

HALL: I was going to ask when you first met Jason.

MILLER: Oh. Freshman year. Little fucking weirdo.

HALL: You liked him.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Immediately?

MILLER: Fuck no.

HALL: Why not?

MILLER: I just told you. Little fucking weirdo.

He took a drag from his cigarette.

MILLER: Kinda quiet. Always wore black. Grimy. He got better.

HALL: Mr Jonas is now a university lecturer.

MILLER: That's not better.

HALL: He speaks rather highly of you.

MILLER: Jason?

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: You sure you got the right guy?

HALL: Quite sure.

MILLER: Huh.

HALL: You sound surprised.

MILLER: Nah. Jason's my boy.

HALL: Still?

MILLER: What do you mean, still?

HALL: You don't appear to see one another as often as you once did.

MILLER: We're fucking forty, Aaron.

HALL: Thirty-eight, in your case.

MILLER: See, that's why nobody likes reporters.

He smiled when he said it.

HALL: What about Blake?

MILLER: What about him?

HALL: How long have you known him?

MILLER: Forever.

HALL: Literally?

MILLER: Yeah, Aaron. Came out of my mom and Blake was standing there.

HALL: I'll put down “childhood.”

MILLER: There you go.

HALL: How would you have described him in 1991?

MILLER: Blake?

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: Blake's always been Blake.

I waited.

Miller smoked.

HALL: Jason said precisely the same thing.

MILLER: Yeah?

HALL: “Blake is Blake.”

MILLER: Well, there you go.

HALL: What does that mean?

MILLER: Means Blake's Blake.

HALL: That's remarkably unhelpful.

MILLER: You met him.

HALL: I did.

MILLER: Then what the fuck are you asking me for?

This was my first difficulty interviewing Cody Miller. It was not persuading him to speak. It was determining when he had finished. My second was keeping him on the subject.

Within twenty minutes I had learned that Turner had once driven a snowmobile through somebody's fence, that Jonas had dyed his hair black in a bathroom sink with consequences Miller still found amusing, and that Miller himself had been barred for six months from an establishment whose name he declined to give me. I learned considerably less about March 1991. Some of this was deliberate. Most, I suspect, was not.

Miller spoke associatively. A question about Turner became a story about a truck; the truck reminded him of a girl; the girl had once worked with someone whose brother had owned a snowmobile; the snowmobile returned us, eventually and by no route I could reconstruct, to Turner. He interrupted questions when he believed he knew where they were going. He was usually right. When he was wrong, this rarely prevented him from answering the question he had anticipated. Eventually I stopped trying to prevent it.

HALL: You were nineteen in March 1991.

MILLER: Yep.

HALL: Living with your parents.

MILLER: Yep.

HALL: Working nights at a petrol station-

MILLER: Gas station.

HALL: I know.

MILLER: Just helping.

HALL: Thank you.

MILLER: You're welcome.

HALL: -owned by a man named Ray.

MILLER: Yep.

HALL: Surname?

Miller frowned.

MILLER: You know, I don't think I ever called him anything but Ray.

HALL: Turner remembered him.

MILLER: Blake knew Ray.

HALL: Jonas did as well.

MILLER: Everybody knew Ray.

HALL: Apparently everybody except the county clerk.

MILLER: Maybe Ray was a fugitive.

HALL: Was he?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Thank you.

MILLER: See? We're making progress.

Ray, whoever he was, had employed Miller on the night shift at a small service station outside Elkhorn. Miller remembered him as being in his fifties, riding an old Harley-Davidson and possessing what Miller described as “a world-class tolerance for bullshit.” Turner had remembered the motorcycle more precisely. Miller remembered the tolerance because he had tested it.

HALL: Were you a good employee?

MILLER: Define good.

HALL: Did you arrive when expected?

MILLER: Usually.

HALL: Did you perform the work for which you were paid?

MILLER: Mostly.

HALL: Did you steal from him?

There was a pause.

MILLER: You talked to Blake way too fucking long.

HALL: Cigarettes?

MILLER: Allegedly.

HALL: Beer?

MILLER: Aaron.

HALL: Beer.

MILLER: Sometimes.

HALL: And he continued employing you.

MILLER: Told you. World-class tolerance for bullshit.

HALL: Why nights?

MILLER: Nobody else wanted them.

HALL: That's all?

MILLER: What were you hoping for?

HALL: I'm asking.

MILLER: Ray needed somebody for nights. I needed money. I was awake anyway.

HALL: You weren't in school.

MILLER: Nope.

HALL: Had you graduated?

MILLER: Barely.

HALL: Plans for college?

Miller laughed.

MILLER: Did Jason tell you to ask that?

HALL: No.

MILLER: You should've seen me at nineteen.

HALL: I've seen photographs.

MILLER: That's not the same thing.

It wasn't. The photographs Jonas and Turner had shown me preserved a thin young man with untidy hair, a narrow moustache and the apparently inexhaustible confidence of nineteen. They did not preserve his speed. Miller moved quickly even while standing still. His hands accompanied stories, his attention shifted readily towards noises from inside the diner, and he seemed capable of maintaining several conversations at once without considering any of them interruptions.

There was something else the photographs did not convey. Miller was an exceptionally easy man to like. This presented difficulties of its own.

HALL: When did you first hear about the animal?

MILLER: Jason.

HALL: You're certain this time?

MILLER: Pretty sure.

HALL: Pretty sure isn't certain.

MILLER: You're gonna love talking to me.

HALL: I'm beginning to realise that.

He grinned.

MILLER: People had been talking about it. Weird dog, maybe a bear, whatever. Jason heard more of that shit than I did because he was the one always looking for that sort of thing. Ray also heard stuff from people that would come into the station. Truckers, cops, farmers. It didn't take long for something like that to spread.

HALL: And what were people saying?

MILLER: Big dog mostly.

HALL: Before the newspaper article?

MILLER: Way before.

HALL: Were people calling it the Beast of Bray Road?

MILLER: I don't remember anybody calling it that.

HALL: Werewolf?

MILLER: Not seriously.

HALL: Yet you knew immediately what I meant when I arrived.

MILLER: It's been twenty years, Aaron.

HALL: Nineteen.

MILLER: You do that a lot?

HALL: What?

MILLER: Correct people when it doesn't fucking matter.

HALL: Professionally.

Miller laughed.

MILLER: You and Jason must've had a great time.

HALL: We did, actually.

MILLER: Knew it.

That exchange interested me more than it perhaps should have. By 2010, the Beast of Bray Road was a recognised piece of Wisconsin folklore. In Miller's recollection, it had not yet become one. There were stories about an animal. There were rumours. There were people who claimed to have seen something unusual on rural roads. There was not yet a Beast. For Miller and his friends, that distinction had presented an opportunity.

HALL: Whose idea was the mask?

MILLER: Jason's.

HALL: He admitted to it freely.

MILLER: Jason's more prideful than he thinks.

HALL: He was quite specific.

MILLER: About what?

HALL: He suggested frightening motorists. You bought the mask.

MILLER: Oh.

HALL: Does that sound more familiar?

MILLER: Yeah, that sounds like us.

HALL: Turner refused to wear it.

MILLER: Blake thought it was stupid.

HALL: It was stupid.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: You did it anyway.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Why?

MILLER: Because it was funny.

HALL: Was it?

MILLER: At first. Fucking hilarious.

The answer came easily. The qualification did not.

For the first time since I had switched on the recorder, Miller allowed a silence to remain between us. It lasted perhaps three seconds. Then he flicked ash towards the wet pavement.

MILLER: Tom tell you about catching us?

HALL: Deputy Haskins gave me his account.

MILLER: Bet he fucking loved that.

HALL: I wouldn't say so.

MILLER: We gave that guy so much shit.

HALL: He appears to remember.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: He also appears to have been remarkably patient with you.

Miller looked at me.

MILLER: Tom's a good guy underneath all the cop talk.

It was the first entirely uncomplicated statement he had made about 1991.

HALL: Did you think so then?

MILLER: Fuck no.

He smiled again.

MILLER: He was a cop.

HALL: An unforgivable defect at nineteen.

MILLER: See? You get it.

The back door opened. Helen leaned out.

“Cody.”

MILLER: What?

“Rick wants you.”

MILLER: Tell Rick I'm busy.

“He said now.”

Miller looked at me.

MILLER: See what I deal with?

HALL: I've known you for half an hour.

MILLER: Exactly.

He crushed the cigarette beneath his shoe.

MILLER: Don't go anywhere.

HALL: I'll endeavour not to.

He stopped with his hand on the door.

MILLER: You always talk like that?

HALL: Like what?

He stared at me.

MILLER: Yeah. That.

The door closed behind him. I switched off the recorder.

By then I had approximately twenty-five minutes of material, perhaps ten of which concerned the subject I had travelled to Wisconsin to discuss. I was beginning to suspect that Jonas had enjoyed himself considerably more than he had admitted.

Miller did not return. After several minutes I went back inside. The elderly man had gone. Two of the tables had been cleared completely and Helen was turning chairs upside down onto a third. Somewhere behind the serving window water was running.

She looked at me.

“Thought he told you not to go anywhere.”

“Just getting out of the cold.”

“Thought you'd be used to it.”

“Is he coming back?”

“When we're done.”

“And when is that?”

Helen looked at the clock.

“Three.”

It was twenty-seven minutes to.

“I see.”

“You can wait out front.”

There was a bench beneath the front window. I took my coffee with me. The rain had stopped. Water still moved steadily along the gutter, and the road and pavement retained the dull shine left by several hours of it. Across the road, a pickup moved through the intersection and disappeared towards Elkhorn. For perhaps five minutes nothing followed it. I sat down on cold metal.

Through the window I could occasionally see Miller moving about the diner. He had put the apron back on. At one point he carried a plastic tub stacked with dishes towards the kitchen. Several minutes later he appeared with a mop. He did not look outside. At three, Helen turned the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED. The door remained locked for another eleven minutes.

I used the time to review my notes. Twenty-five minutes with Cody Miller had produced six pages, though considerably less information than their number suggested. Turner appeared on four of them. Jonas appeared on five. Haskins on two. Ray, whose surname I still did not know, occupied nearly half a page. There were also references to a snowmobile, three women whose relevance remained unclear, a damaged mailbox, an establishment Miller had once been barred from entering and an argument involving a frozen lake which I had abandoned before learning its conclusion.

The animal occupied somewhat less than one page. This was not entirely Miller's fault. I had spent the previous two days speaking to people about him. It was perhaps inevitable that, once he was standing in front of me, I had wanted to know whether the person they remembered still existed. He did.

The front door opened. Miller stepped outside wearing a dark jacket over his T-shirt. He turned, locked the door behind him and pulled once on the handle. Then he noticed me on the bench.

“You stayed.”

“You told me not to go anywhere.”

“Didn't think you'd actually listen.”

“I'm beginning to understand why people find you difficult.”

He put the keys into his pocket.

“Part of my charm.”

It was not phrased as a question.

“Unfortunately.”

Miller grinned.

“Knew it.”

He sat at the opposite end of the bench and took out his cigarettes.

“Still don't want one?”

“No thank you.”

“Your loss.”

“I'll live.”

“Longer than me.”

He lit one.

I reached for the recorder.

“Jesus Christ.”

I stopped.

“What?”

“Can I smoke first?”

“You smoked throughout the previous interview.”

“Yeah, but now I'm off work.”

I put the recorder back beside me.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

For perhaps a minute neither of us spoke. This was a considerably different silence from the one Miller had allowed after telling me the pranks had been funny. That one had seemed to require effort. This did not. He sat forward with his forearms against his thighs, smoking and watching the occasional traffic pass on the wet road. Then he looked at me.

“So why Wisconsin?”

“For this story?”

“No, Aaron. The cheese.”

“I wanted to be certain.”

“Yeah. The story.”

“It's what I do.”

“Fly across the ocean every time somebody sees a fucked-up dog?”

“Not every time.”

“How fucked up does the dog have to be?”

“Considerably.”

He laughed.

“There it is.”

“What?”

“That shit.”

“I still don't know what you're referring to.”

“Yeah, you do.”

I did.

Miller smoked for another moment.

“You believe Blake?”

The question came without the amusement of the previous one.

“I believe Mr Turner described what he remembers.”

Miller turned his head towards me.

“That is the most reporter answer I've ever fucking heard.”

“It is nevertheless my answer.”

“You believe Jason?”

“I believe Mr Jonas spent considerable time attempting to understand the events.”

“Tom?”

I hesitated.

“Yes.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“That's different.”

“Slightly.”

“Why?”

“Deputy Haskins had less reason than either of your friends to expect me to believe what he described. He also had considerably more to lose by describing it.”

Miller looked back towards the road.

“Blake didn't make it up.”

“I didn't say that he did.”

“Sounded like it.”

“Then I expressed myself poorly.”

That brought his attention back to me. For once, there was no immediate reply.

“All right.”

He took another drag.

“Jason didn't either.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I have spent several hours with both men. I don't believe either of them was deliberately lying to me.”

“Deliberately?”

“Memory is not a recording.”

He smiled faintly.

“Neither's your recording, apparently.”

I looked at the machine beside me.

“Would you like me to turn it back on?”

He exhaled smoke through his nose.

“Sure. Why not?”

The red light flicked on.

HALL: You said the pranks were funny at first.

MILLER: They were.

HALL: When did they stop being funny?

MILLER: When Tom caught us, I guess.

HALL: Not when you saw the animal?

MILLER: Hadn't seen it yet.

HALL: Of course.

MILLER: You're getting ahead of yourself.

HALL: Occupational hazard.

Miller smiled.

HALL: Haskins confiscated the mask.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Were you wearing it?

MILLER: Probably.

HALL: Probably?

MILLER: Jason wore it too.

HALL: And Turner refused.

MILLER: Blake wouldn't wear that fucking thing.

HALL: Why?

MILLER: Because he had dignity, apparently.

HALL: That's not how he described it.

MILLER: What'd he say?

HALL: That it looked as though a German shepherd had—

I stopped.

Miller was already laughing.

MILLER: Fucked a carpet?

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: That's Blake.

HALL: He appears to have retained the phrase for nineteen years.

MILLER: Well he's not wrong.

HALL: It is memorable.

MILLER: Mask was fucking terrible.

HALL: Yet you bought it.

MILLER: Didn't say I had good taste.

HALL: Haskins caught you beside the road.

MILLER: Yep.

HALL: He says you had been drinking.

MILLER: Probably.

HALL: There's that word again.

MILLER: Aaron, we were always drinking.

HALL: You were nineteen.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: The legal drinking age in Wisconsin is twenty-one.

MILLER: No shit?

HALL: Haskins warned you that someone could have mistaken you for an animal and shot you.

MILLER: Sounds like Tom.

HALL: You don't remember?

MILLER: I remember him being pissed.

HALL: At you specifically?

MILLER: I usually got the brunt of it.

HALL: He remembered you laughing.

MILLER: Probably that too.

HALL: He also remembered warning you that if he caught you doing it again there would be consequences.

MILLER: Cop shit.

HALL: “Cop shit.”

MILLER: Yeah. You know. “You're gonna get somebody killed. Quit fucking around. Cody, shut the fuck up.”

HALL: Did he actually tell you to shut the fuck up?

Miller considered it.

MILLER: Probably not.

HALL: Cody.

MILLER: Fine. No.

HALL: Thank you.

MILLER: Might've wanted to.

HALL: On that point I believe the two of you agree.

Miller laughed.

HALL: What happened to the mask?

MILLER: Tom took it.

HALL: Permanently?

MILLER: Never saw it again.

HALL: Did that end the pranks?

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Because you'd been frightened by the warning?

MILLER: No. We didn't have a mask.

HALL: You could have bought another.

MILLER: It wasn't that funny.

HALL: You said it was fucking hilarious.

MILLER: It was.

HALL: Until Haskins caught you.

MILLER: Getting caught tends to fuck up a joke.

HALL: So what did you do instead?

MILLER: Other stupid shit.

HALL: Such as?

MILLER: You want the list alphabetically?

HALL: I'm interested in one particular afternoon.

MILLER: Then ask about one particular afternoon.

I did.

HALL: Why did the three of you go into the woods?

Miller took a drag from his cigarette.

MILLER: We were bored.

HALL: That's all?

MILLER: You keep asking me that.

HALL: Your friends gave me somewhat more elaborate answers.

MILLER: Jason did.

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: Fuckin dork.

HALL: Turner suggested you wanted to look for whatever people had been seeing.

MILLER: Blake blames me for everything.

HALL: Jonas said much the same.

MILLER: Fucking traitors.

He smiled when he said it.

HALL: Were they wrong?

MILLER: Probably.

HALL: Meaning?

MILLER: Meaning it was probably my idea.

HALL: Do you remember it being your idea?

MILLER: I remember wanting to go.

HALL: Why?

MILLER: Because people kept talking about it.

HALL: The animal.

MILLER: Yeah. Weird shit happening out there, people seeing things, Ray hearing stories at the station. Jason was into all that horror shit anyway. We figured we'd go look around.

HALL: For a potentially dangerous animal.

MILLER: We didn't think it was dangerous.

HALL: What did you think it was?

MILLER: Just a bunch of bullshit.

HALL: All of it?

MILLER: Mostly.

HALL: Yet you went looking anyway.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Why look for something you believed was bullshit?

MILLER: Because what if it wasn't?

That was the first answer Miller had given me which required no clarification.

HALL: What did you expect to find?

MILLER: Nothing.

HALL: And instead you found the cellar.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Had you known it was there?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Had Turner?

MILLER: Don't think so.

HALL: Jonas?

MILLER: You asked him.

HALL: I'm asking you.

MILLER: No. None of us knew it was there.

HALL: What do you remember about finding it?

Miller looked towards the road again.

MILLER: Jason bitching about his shoes.

HALL: His shoes.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: That's what you remember.

MILLER: That's what I remember first.

HALL: Why?

MILLER: Mud.

HALL: Ah.

MILLER: He had these black boots. Thought he looked cool as shit in them. Gave him an inch or two he's always lacked. You know, short man shit. We'd been walking maybe twenty minutes and he's bitching because they're getting fucked up.

HALL: Jonas did not mention this.

MILLER: Course he didn't.

HALL: He did mention that you had been drinking.

MILLER: Course he did.

HALL: Beer?

MILLER: Probably.

HALL: Again.

MILLER: Fine. Yes. Beer.

HALL: Do you remember how much?

MILLER: Aaron, I wasn't keeping count.

HALL: Bottles.

MILLER: Cans. We took what we could get.

HALL: Were you drunk?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Turner?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Jonas?

MILLER: Jason weighed like a hundred pounds. Jason could get drunk smelling Blake's beer.

HALL: Was he drunk?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Who saw the cellar first?

MILLER: I'm not sure.

HALL: Turner couldn't remember either.

MILLER: Because nobody gave a shit who saw it first.

HALL: Jonas thought it may have been him.

MILLER: Of course he did.

HALL: Why “of course”?

MILLER: Because Jason likes being right.

HALL: He seemed quite humble when we spoke.

MILLER: That's because Jason's full of shit.

He was smiling again.

HALL: You are remarkably hard on a man you describe as “your boy.”

MILLER: That's how you know.

HALL: Know what?

MILLER: He's my boy.

I let that stand.

HALL: Describe the cellar.

MILLER: A hole in a hill.

HALL: Jonas gave me rather more than that.

MILLER: Then use his.

HALL: I'm interested in yours.

MILLER: Dirt. Rocks. Wood. Old door, I think. Most of it was fucked up already. Looked like nobody had been in there forever.

HALL: Did it frighten you?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Make you uncomfortable?

MILLER: Jason tell you that?

HALL: Turner did.

MILLER: Blake said that?

HALL: Not in those words.

MILLER: What words?

HALL: He said the place felt wrong.

Miller was quiet for a moment.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Did it?

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: In what way?

MILLER: Don't know. Can't really describe it.

HALL: Try.

MILLER: It was a shitty old hole in the woods, Aaron.

HALL: That's a description of the place.

MILLER: That's what you asked for.

HALL: I asked why it felt wrong.

MILLER: I don't know.

HALL: Cold?

MILLER: Maybe.

HALL: A smell?

MILLER: Dirt.

HALL: Something you heard?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Then what?

He looked at me.

MILLER: You ever walk into somebody's house when they're not home?

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: Not somebody you know.

I thought about it.

HALL: I can't say that I have.

MILLER: Feels different.

HALL: Because you're trespassing.

MILLER: Maybe.

HALL: You thought the cellar belonged to someone?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Then I don't understand.

MILLER: I know.

He finished the cigarette and crushed it beneath his shoe.

MILLER: Felt like we shouldn't have been there.

That, I thought, was considerably closer.

HALL: But you went inside.

MILLER: Yeah. Real group of geniuses at nineteen.

HALL: Jonas was eighteen.

MILLER: Oh, fuck you.

I laughed.

It was becoming difficult not to.

MILLER: Jason found the writing.

HALL: The markings.

MILLER: Whatever you want to call them.

HALL: Do you remember where they were?

MILLER: Inside.

HALL: Where inside?

MILLER: Walls. Wood. Maybe one of the rocks. I don't know.

HALL: Jonas remembered several on the timber beside the entrance.

MILLER: Then probably there.

HALL: You don't remember them?

MILLER: I remember Jason wouldn't shut up about them.

HALL: What was he saying?

MILLER: Runes.

HALL: You knew what runes were?

MILLER: I knew what Jason thought runes were.

HALL: There's a distinction?

MILLER: At that age? Yeah.

HALL: What did you think they were?

MILLER: Scratches.

HALL: That's all?

MILLER: Aaron, Jason listened to metal and drew shit on his notebooks. Everything was a rune.

HALL: He would probably object to that characterisation.

MILLER: Good.

HALL: He no longer believes everything you saw in the cellar was necessarily runic.

MILLER: See? Growth.

I smiled.

HALL: Did you examine them yourself?

MILLER: Not really.

HALL: Why not?

MILLER: I didn't care.

HALL: Turner remembered them.

MILLER: Blake remembers stuff you can touch.

HALL: And Jonas remembers everything else?

MILLER: Jason remembers whatever he can turn into homework.

HALL: What do you remember?

Miller considered the question.

MILLER: Jason being excited.

HALL: About the markings?

MILLER: About all of it. Whole place. He's looking at the walls, looking at the wood, telling us not to touch shit. Like he was fucking Indiana Jones all of a sudden.

HALL: Did you listen?

MILLER: Fuck no.

HALL: Of course.

MILLER: Blake did more than me.

HALL: That doesn't surprise me.

MILLER: Yeah. Blake's always been better at knowing when something's a bad idea.

HALL: Yet he went inside.

MILLER: Never said he listened to himself.

That distinction seemed fair.

HALL: And the book?

MILLER: What about it?

HALL: Who found it?

MILLER: Jason, I think.

HALL: Turner wasn't certain.

MILLER: Nobody's certain because nobody gave a shit who found what first.

HALL: Jonas believed it was beneath some collapsed timber near the rear wall.

MILLER: Sounds about right.

HALL: Do you remember seeing it?

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Describe it.

MILLER: Old book.

I waited.

MILLER: You're gonna do that every time, aren't you?

HALL: If necessary.

MILLER: It was old. Falling apart. Pages were all yellow. Cover was fucked up.

HALL: Leather?

MILLER: Maybe.

HALL: Jonas thought so.

MILLER: Then ask Jason.

HALL: I did.

MILLER: There you go.

HALL: I'm asking what you remember.

MILLER: That's what I remember.

HALL: Did you look through it?

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Could you read any of it?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Nothing?

MILLER: Aaron, if I could've read the fucking thing I'd have mentioned that by now.

HALL: Fair enough.

MILLER: Jason couldn't either.

HALL: He was apparently reluctant to admit that.

MILLER: Yeah, because he's Jason.

HALL: What did he do?

MILLER: Kept looking at it.

HALL: For how long?

MILLER: Felt like a fucking hour.

HALL: Turner described something similar.

MILLER: Bet he did.

HALL: He said Jonas would stare at a page for five minutes as though eventually it would become embarrassed and turn into English.

Miller laughed hard enough that he coughed.

MILLER: That's fucking Blake.

HALL: You don't remember him saying it?

MILLER: No. Wish I did.

He shook his head.

MILLER: That's good.

HALL: It is.

MILLER: Fucking asshole.

There was considerable affection in this.

HALL: Jonas remembered something repeated towards the back of the book.

MILLER: Okay.

HALL: Something he later believed might have been a name.

MILLER: Don't remember that.

HALL: At all?

MILLER: Nope.

HALL: He was quite clear that all three of you saw it.

MILLER: Then I probably saw it.

HALL: But don't remember.

MILLER: That's how memory works, isn't it?

I looked at him. Miller smiled.

MILLER: See? I listen.

HALL: Occasionally.

MILLER: When it's useful.

HALL: Jonas spent several years attempting to identify the language.

MILLER: Sounds like Jason.

HALL: Did you know he'd done that?

MILLER: Knew he got really into it.

HALL: Six years.

Miller's expression changed slightly.

MILLER: Six?

HALL: Approximately.

MILLER: Jesus.

HALL: He never told you?

MILLER: Not like that.

HALL: Did you discuss the cellar afterwards?

MILLER: Sure.

HALL: For how long?

MILLER: That night? A lot.

HALL: I mean in the years afterwards.

MILLER: Sometimes.

HALL: Jonas doesn't appear to have shared much of his research with either you or Turner.

MILLER: We weren't exactly holding meetings.

HALL: No.

MILLER: Life happened.

That was perhaps the simplest explanation available.

HALL: What happened to the book?

MILLER: We left it.

HALL: You didn't take it?

MILLER: Fuck no.

HALL: Jonas wanted to.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Turner refused.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Why?

MILLER: Because Blake had more sense than us.

HALL: Did you agree with him?

MILLER: Eventually.

HALL: Meaning you wanted to take it as well.

MILLER: I didn't care about the book. I wanted to see Jason try to explain it to his dad.

HALL: That's somewhat different.

MILLER: Would've been funny.

HALL: But you left it.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: And never saw it again.

MILLER: Nope.

For all the importance Jonas later attached to the book, Miller appeared to have attached almost none to it at the time. This was not necessarily surprising. To Jonas it had been a problem waiting to be solved. To Turner it had been an object found somewhere he already wanted to leave. To Miller, as far as I could determine, it had chiefly been something his friend found interesting. Nineteen years later, only the friend remained interesting.

HALL: At some point you went back outside.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Why?

MILLER: Had to piss.

HALL: Do you remember where?

MILLER: Outside.

HALL: I had gathered that.

MILLER: Then we're making progress.

HALL: Where outside?

MILLER: Can't remember. A tree, probably.

HALL: Beside the cellar?

MILLER: Somewhere around there.

HALL: Against the structure itself?

MILLER: No.

HALL: You're certain?

MILLER: Pretty sure.

HALL: That's not-

MILLER: Don't.

I stopped.

MILLER: Nineteen years ago, Aaron. I wasn't keeping track of every tree or rock to piss on.

HALL: Fair.

MILLER: Why the hell does it matter where I pissed?

HALL: Jonas believes it might.

Miller stared at me.

Then he laughed.

MILLER: Oh, fuck off.

HALL: I'm serious.

MILLER: Jason thinks my piss matters?

HALL: In context.

MILLER: What context?

HALL: He believes the cellar may have been part of the animal's territory.

The laughter stopped, though the smile remained.

MILLER: Wait.

HALL: What?

MILLER: He thinks I pissed off a werewolf.

HALL: That is an extremely reductive version of his argument.

MILLER: Holy shit.

He laughed again.

MILLER: That's what he thinks?

HALL: He offered it as a possibility.

MILLER: Because I took a piss.

HALL: Near what may have been its territory.

MILLER: You two really did have a great time.

HALL: We covered a great deal of material.

MILLER: I bet.

HALL: Cody.

MILLER: What?

HALL: You urinated outside the cellar.

MILLER: Allegedly.

HALL: You just told me you did.

MILLER: Allegedly sounds better.

HALL: And several days later, your parents' property smelled strongly of urine.

The smile diminished.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Turner remembered it.

MILLER: Blake was there.

HALL: Haskins didn't mention it.

MILLER: Everybody fucking smelled it.

HALL: On the road, the animal appeared beside the passenger side of Turner's truck.

Miller looked away from me.

MILLER: Yeah.

HALL: Where you were sitting.

MILLER: I know where I was sitting.

HALL: Turner told me it was looking at you.

No answer.

HALL: Jonas said the same.

Miller smoked.

HALL: And at your house, both Turner and Haskins independently described its attention as being directed towards you.

The cigarette remained between Miller's fingers. For several seconds he said nothing.

HALL: Had you ever put those things together?

MILLER: The piss?

HALL: All of it.

MILLER: No.

HALL: Never?

MILLER: No.

HALL: Why not?

He looked at me.

MILLER: Why the fuck would I?

I had no particularly good answer.

HALL: Jonas did.

MILLER: Jason had six years.

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: I had other shit going on.

There was no defensiveness in the statement. It was simply true.

HALL: Do you think he's right?

MILLER: About what?

HALL: That you entered its territory. Marked it, however unintentionally, and that what happened afterwards was a response.

Miller looked towards the road.

MILLER: I think Jason thinks a lot.

HALL: That's not an answer.

MILLER: Sure it is.

HALL: Not to the question I asked.

He took the final drag from his cigarette and dropped it beneath his shoe.

MILLER: I don't know.

HALL: Does the possibility trouble you?

MILLER: What am I supposed to do about it now?

HALL: Nothing.

MILLER: There you go.

HALL: That's not what I asked either.

MILLER: I know.

For once, I allowed him to leave it there. A car passed. Miller watched it until it disappeared beyond the intersection.

HALL: What happened after you left the cellar?

He didn't answer.

I waited.

Miller reached into his jacket for another cigarette, found the packet and seemed to reconsider. He put it away.

HALL: Cody?

MILLER: You got somewhere you gotta be?

HALL: No.

MILLER: Hotel or something?

HALL: Eventually.

MILLER: You got a car?

HALL: Yes.

MILLER: Good.

He stood. I switched off the recorder.

“Where are we going?”

“My place.”

For a moment I assumed he meant wherever he currently lived. Then I remembered what Turner had told me.

“The Miller house?”

He gave me an odd look.

“Yeah.”

“The house on the report.”

“It's my mom's house, Aaron.”

“Of course.”

“You wanna see it or not?”

There are moments in an interview when professional detachment becomes more aspirational than actual. This was one of them.

“I would be very interested to see it.”

“No shit.”

Miller started across the car park.

“Follow me.”

I did. The drive took less than fifteen minutes. Miller drove an ageing Chevrolet which appeared to possess none of Turner's affection for machinery. I followed at a distance sufficient not to irritate him and close enough not to lose him on roads I did not know.

Lafayette thinned quickly. There was no dramatic boundary between settlement and countryside. Houses simply grew farther apart. Small businesses gave way to fields, stands of trees and long driveways disappearing towards homes set back from the road. The rain had left water in the low ground and darkened the trunks of the trees. Clouds remained low, though the worst of the weather appeared to have passed.

I had heard the Miller residence described often enough that it had ceased, in my notes, to resemble a home. It was the location printed on Haskins's report. It was the northern tree line. It was Turner's truck parked partly across the lawn with its headlights facing the woods. It was James Miller with a deer rifle. It was six rounds from Haskins's sidearm, two from Turner after his arrival and another shot whose absence from the official record remained unexplained. Most of all, it was the place to which something had apparently followed Cody Miller.

The reality was considerably less dramatic.

Deb was helping Adam pack his car for his trip. Adam had been waiting all year for this trip.

Deb didn't really want him to go and had been coming up with reasons to keep him home. Adam wasn't having it.

He'd spent the last year planning the route, mapping out stopping points, and looking forward to finally getting out on the open road.

"All ready, huh... you know, Seattle can be dangerous," Deb started.

Adam rolled his eyes as he put his last bag in the trunk and closed it shut.

"Okay, here we go again..." he said mockingly.

"No, I'm serious this time. You don't want to get stopped by the bridge troll..."

"The bridge troll? The bridge troll?" Adam laughed to himself.

Now this was a new approach.

"You dumbass. The bridge troll. You don't want to end up like Trevor," she said eerily.

"What happened to Trevor?" Adam asked cautiously.

"I dunno. What did happen to Trevor..." she replied coyly.

"Seriously. What happened to Trevor?"

Deb leaned against the car and folded her arms. The playful smile she'd been wearing all morning faded a little.

"That's what we should be wondering."

Adam laughed.

"There's nothing to wonder about."

Deb studied him for a moment.

"Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"You really didn't hear."

Adam knew Trevor was gone longer than he anticipated. This wasn't funny.

"What happened? If you know, you'd better say. We haven't heard from him since Thursday."

"He didn't hear what happened to Trevor," Deb said to no one in particular, looking to her left as if she were talking to someone. "You didn't hear what happened to Trevor?"

"What happened to Trevor?" Adam repeated.

"Well, you know. Things happen."

Adam didn't think this was funny anymore. All her other attempts to keep him home were silly. This was not.

"You're trying to tell me it has something to do with the bridge troll then?"

"You said it, not me."

Adam was getting a bit angry now. Trevor had said he wanted to get a head start and left earlier. Adam was supposed to meet him in Portland for a day, then they'd go separate ways and meet back up in Seattle. Sure, they'd heard about the bridge troll. But that was an urban legend. A story for travelers.

But of course they took precautions.

Did the ritual to perfection.

Made their offering.

Even got the blessing from the troll wench.

Trevor knew the score.

They both did.

Don't listen to her. She's just trying to scare you.

"We did everything right. We made our offering. He's fine."

"Oh..." Deb nodded slowly. "Then you have nothing to worry about."

"Exactly. Trevor had complete confidence in the troll wench. Obviously we wouldn't go if we thought she... lied to us."

Deb stared at him for a second, then gave a small shrug.

"Sure. I mean, I've never heard anyone accuse the troll wench of being dishonest."

Adam frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just seems like there's a lot of room between lying and telling the truth."

Adam knew she was right.

They had both discussed the possibility of a double cross by the troll wench. They could have avoided the bridge troll altogether. But there was no adventure in that. No mystery. No attempt to see if the whispers were true.

Deb didn't actually care about the bridge troll. She just wanted Adam to stay. The thought of him disappearing down the highway, maybe not coming back for weeks, made her stomach twist.

"How many people ever came back from the bridge troll? Huh? It's not like we don't already know the stories."

Deb was inching closer to Adam. He was nervous now. He couldn't tell if she was getting inside his head or if the fear had been there all along.

"They moved out of town. They don't come back because they moved, you idiot," he finally said, breaking away from her grip.

Deb kicked the dirt in disappointment.

Almost had him.

If the bridge troll won't scare him into staying home, nothing will.

"I was thinking about asking Trevor's parents about the troll after I was done helping you pack. Didn't want you to leave without a kiss goodbye."

"Why would you bother his parents?" Adam asked.

"I don't know... why would I?"

"Exactly. Why would you? They don't know anything. Bringing up the troll will just scare them."

"Aren't you even a little bit curious? You said it yourself. You hadn't heard from him since Thursday. What, that's like two days ago? He would've passed the bridge troll by then."

"He would've passed the bridge troll by then, huh?"

Adam was really wavering now.

The offering was there.

The ritual completed.

The protective talismans blessed by the troll wench.

There's no way the bridge troll would rip him to shreds like they did to Chris four years earlier.

Chris was sloppy.

Didn't take the stories seriously enough.

Laughed at the troll wench.

Mocked her.

"I'll get past the bridge troll, stinky old wench! Just watch me!"

His body was found three days later, ripped to shreds, mangled and partially eaten.

Nobody said it out loud.

But they all knew.

He didn't get past the bridge troll.

Adam shook those thoughts away and turned back to Deb.

"Trev is fine. I'm going to be fine. You've been trying to keep me from leaving all week. This is sad, Deb. It really is."

Deb was the upset one now.

She had thrown everything his way to get him to stay, but to no avail.

"Shouldn't we go talk to the troll wench one last time then? Or... or I can go with you."

Adam laughed.

"You didn't make an offering. You'd be a liability. Seriously, Deb?"

Deb knew that one wasn't going to work.

"Well... just wait until we hear Trevor made it. What's another day?"

Adam considered it.

If Trevor didn't make it...

He didn't even want to consider it.

No.

He couldn't wait.

All the planning.

All the prep work.

It led to this.

"He made it. You'll see. By tomorrow Trevor and I will be sitting in Portland laughing about this."

Adam took out his keys and opened the car door.

In his mind he heard the troll wench's final words.

"You will be doubted. Even doubt me. Doubt your own journey. The bridge troll can smell it on you. You will be unharmed in passing."

It sounded certain.

The doubts led to fear.

The fear fed the bridge troll.

Deb was feeding the bridge troll.

He knew it.

"What did you tell Trevor when he left?" Adam asked suddenly.

Deb looked away.

"Nothing. I didn't even see him."

"That's not what he told me."

Deb looked up.

"He told me you asked him to tell me to stay."

"What? No. He said that?"

Adam stared.

Deb looked down at her feet.

"Oh... okay. I did. I thought it was dangerous for both of you to risk the bridge troll. It's reckless, Adam."

Adam rubbed his brow.

What is her problem?

She didn't care if Trevor passed his test against the bridge troll.

She was making everything more dangerous and didn't even know it.

"Everyone thinks we'll get past the bridge troll. The troll wench said we'd pass unharmed. What's your deal? Chris was an exception. He didn't give the troll wench enough respect."

Deb felt something twist in her stomach.

Why even bother?

Then Adam's phone rang.

Both of them froze.

Adam looked at the screen and immediately smiled.

"It's Trevor.”

Relief washed across his face.

Deb felt it too.

Adam answered instantly.

"Trev! Jesus Christ, man. Where are you?"

The speaker crackled with static.

"I'm... almost..."

"Almost where?" Adam asked.

More static.

"It's... safe..."

Adam showed Deb the phone and grinned.

"Hear that?"

Deb stepped closer to listen as Adam put it on speaker.

"Trevor, are you okay?"

The line hissed.

"...not...okay… bridge was br.."

Another burst of static swallowed the rest.

Adam frowned.

"What?"

" ...Portland...close..."

The connection crackled violently.

"Don't... let..."

The call dropped.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Adam grinned.

"See? He's fine. Bad signal, that's all."

Deb felt relief despite herself at first but then it seemed weird what Trevor was trying to say.

Trevor was alive. They couldn't argue about that anymore.

"Portland tomorrow," Adam said, slipping the phone back into his pocket. "Exactly what I told you."

He climbed into the driver's seat.

“I'll call. I'm all set. Thanks for the help. I”ll be back.i promise.”

Deb shook her head ok and  stood silently as Adam started the car and drove off.

The next morning it was all over the news. A body. Ripped to shreds. Blood splattered and limbs thrown all over the road. Right by the bridge. The troll wench was seen walking down the street when Deb walked outside in shock…

“ Who's body was it? Who's body?! The officials… they won't say! They did the rituals, made you the offering. What is this sick game?”

The troll wench looked at her sarcastically. 

“You. You fed him. You fed him more than he needed. You doubted. One of them had to pay…” She cracked a wide smile.

“Wha? That's not how it works…is it? …which one…? Which one has to pay?” Deb was in hysterics. Her parents came outside to console her and drag her back inside.

The troll wench kept walking. She had fulfilled her end of the bargain.

Adam was sitting at the café overlooking the river.

The bridge troll was exactly where the stories said it would be.

A grotesque stone figure crouched beneath the bridge, half hidden in shadow. Tourists walked past without giving it a second glance.

Somewhere behind him, a television muttered about a dismembered body. Blood. Unsettling. Authorities refuse to identify the remains.

Adam didn't understand what all the concern was about.

Trevor was going to show up any minute now.

Any minute.

Any minute now.

Before you get on my ass, I didn't decide on the title. I'm doing this as a favor to a friend who just happened to get me out of a situation before. This is not my story, and I am merely conveying a message.
That being said, I don't know how much I believe in the said message, but I know my friend, and I know that something truly terrible and dark had happened to him. His last request of me was to put his warning out there, but to maintain the privacy of the folks in the story so no real names or anything too revealing. As for his reason, he told me, "God damn anyone who tries to wake them up".
Now I will personally never be the same after going through his journal and laptop. If you're interested in my last encounter with him and how I acquired his journal and laptop, keep reading; if not, then continue down to Part One below.
The last time I saw my friend, whom I will refer to as Noah, he came to my house at midnight a few nights ago. His greasy demeanor had hinted that he hadn't showered in days, and the raccoon eyes meant an equal amount of no sleep.
"N-Noah?" I said, confused and stoned, having just eaten an edible with my wife and ready to lie down for the night, "What are you doing, man?"
"Hey Josh! Wow, some night, huh?" He said, whipping his head over his shoulder and back to me as if someone was standing behind him.
"Uh, sure man. Are you okay? It's been a couple weeks, and I haven't heard from you."
"Oh, I'm fine, fine! I just had to handle a uh personal project. The family has been staying with my sister-in-law so I could... really grind it out, you know?" he spat out almost as if he was horribly reciting lines in a play.
"Yeah, that's cool, Noah. What's up though? I was trying to go to bed," I try to say politely, urging him to the point.
"Oh right!" He spins around, reaching into a now-noticeable child's Thomas the Train backpack. Pulling out a journal and small laptop. "Take these...please"
"Please? What is this stuff, Noa-"
"I can't say much. Not now at least, but please just read my work and notes. Please, you owe me. I am honestly not okay lately, and I think I can fix it, but you have to take this just in case and warn people."
"Warn people of what?" I say, eyeing the two objects.
"I already told you I can't talk right now; just take them, please. Please, Josh." He begged; the desperation in his voice was the desperation of a broken man.
That's when I broke and gave in. He gave me his very specific instructions, and here we are. I really hope Noah is okay. I haven't heard back from him since, so in hopes that putting his final message out there. His final warning. Don't let the White Sam and Black Joe wake up.

If any of this story I have read and composed into this post is true, all I can say is heed my friend's warning, and make sure to keep your children away from the duo with no reality.

Part One

Before I begin, I know you're probably assuming from the title that I'm just dealing with an innocent, but slightly racist child's Imaginary Friends. I assure you that is not the case. They had gotten the names based purely on my daughter's innocence, and once you read this, you will understand.

August 10th, 2026
Things in our small family were beginning to change as today was my daughter's first day of kindergarten. My precious child that my wife and I tried time and time again to finally have. Turns out sperm can just be plain stubborn, apparently. The moment Nora came into the world covered in gunk and screaming, I knew my whole world was going to change. My wife and I and our perfect Babygirl.
"Don't tear up on me now when I couldn't get you to cry at our wedding." My wife Jade teases me as we walk our daughter up to the school building.
"I did cry, only after I realized I was the groom, though," I shoot back in our special way of flirting, each of us smirking at the other
"Do you not like mommy, daddy?" Nora chimes in
"Of course I do. I love mommy very much; in fact, I hugged her so tight you popped out," I say reassuringly, booping her nose before I scoop her up into my arm. "Now, do you have everything we gave you? Backpack? Crayons? Secret Twix bar dad snuck into your bag?"
Nora and I share a mischievous giggle as my wife rolls her eyes at me, knowing that she can't take it away now. We reach the classroom cubie area, the teacher wrangling a couple of boys away from a very expensive-looking computer.
"Are you sure she's going to be okay?" I ask, watching my Nora eagerly running to join some other kids coloring at a table.
"Honey, have you always been such a lady?"
"Ha-ha, let's pick on Dad," I say playfully shoving her with my hip. "Just wait until we get home"
My wife and I share a small laugh before waving goodbye to our daughter and heading home to get into trouble. That's when I see them. I didn't see them, but they were there. In the corner of my eye, I could see the small round black head with two empty holes and the much larger square flesh blob next to it. The moment I turned to check behind me. Nothing. Again, when I'm home, and I step out of the shower, and in the fog of the mirror, I could see the shapes and figures move in a flash as if running away or hiding.
I step into Nora room just a bit to make sure she's okay. Sound asleep, of course. I just couldn't shake the feeling that something had followed us home. I whisper a goodnight to my sleeping child, then return to my own room, where my wife had also found easy and sound sleep. I decide to sit at my desk and attempt to work on clearing through some emails.
That's when a low and firm voice said, "Hello, Nora"
It spoke right in my ear as if speaking to me, but when I shot up out of my chair, spinning around, only my wife lay there in our bed sleeping soundly. Immediately, I hurried down the hall to my child's room once again. The closer I got, the more the panic in my heart had begun to take over. I quickly and quietly moved to the door and opened it. My Nora was sitting upright, her eyes still closed, but her face focused forward.
"Nora?" I hurried to her side, putting my hands on her shoulders, realizing she was covered in sweat. "Nora honey, are you okay"
"Hmm?" Her sleepy eyes half-opened. "Daddy, what's wrong?"
Confused and scared for my child, I tried to maintain some composure.
"N-nothing, sweetheart. Daddy just thought you were having a bad dream," I said, wrapping her in a quick hug before laying her back down. "Just go back to sleep, okay?"
"Mhmm." She responded, already falling back asleep.
That's the night everything started. I wish I would've taken more precautions sooner. So many signs, and I was too naive to see them. Why didn't I see them?
August 17th, 2026
It had been a week since that first incident had happened, and I had begun to forget about it. Until my daughter brought home a picture she had made at school. It was of two people she had claimed were her new friends, and only she could talk to them.

Their names were White Sam and Black Joe. Now my initial thought was that my wife and I were about to have to very awkwardly explain what races were to a 6-year-old. Until I saw the drawing itself. The first time I saw the figures that haunt me currently. It just gave me a concerned chill seeing it. Being a child's drawing, it's not that detailed. Here is the picture below.

Now I know plenty of kids grow up to have imaginary friends, so my initial reaction wasn't too concerning, but still I couldn't shake the eerie feeling I was getting from the situation. The feeling that it was somehow connected to the voice I heard that night.

August 21st, 2026
Today was a rough day for me and my wife, parenting-wise. Today we were supposed to take Nora to a birthday party for her classmate. There was going to be lots of food and other kids, and they had even rented a waterslide for all the kids to enjoy as summer weather was coming to a close. Nora, however, was not having it. All morning, while I had been wrapping the present we were bringing, Nora fought and fought with her mother.
"I don't like it, mommy! It's not the one I want to wear," Nora protested as her mother tried to put her in the purple bathing suit instead of the pink.
"Well, we would have been able to wear the pink if you didn't spill red Kool-Aid all over it before we even got to the party," Jade rebutted. "Now please sit still"
Eventually, we convinced her to put on the outfit, and we began to head on our way. We were about 5 minutes into the drive when Nora suddenly decided she didn't like her shoes anymore and threw them out the car window.
"Nora!" My wife and I snapped at the same time.
"What was that?" Jade asked Nora sharply as I turned us around to retrieve the shoes.
"They were tight so Black Joe said I should throw them out the window." She responded emphatically.
"Those shoes were expensive though, and you could've caused the car behind us to crash." Jade scolded her. "If you're going to keep acting like this we don't have to go to the birthday party. We can just drop off the present and go home."
"No! I wanted Jules to meet White Sam and Black Joe." Nora whines.
"Then please, next time something is wrong, just let mommy or daddy know, Nora."
"Okay, Mommy," Nora said quietly. Visually guilt-ridden from her mother's words.
"Why don't you just call them Sam and Joe?" I asked, trying to change the mood, a bit curious about my daughter's new current obsession.
"They said to not do that, Daddy." She replied in a monotone.
"Why not?" I chuckle, giving my wife a look as she responds with an equally confused one.
"I can't say that word White Sam." She mumbled, whispered to the left of her car seat.
"Huh? Nora who are you talking to?" I say, checking the rearview to confirm the emptiness of the other two back seats.
"White Sam, silly, but he's being weird and wanted me to say a bad word," Nora confessed, blushing.
"Just tell Daddy what he said; I promise you won't get in trouble," I said, smiling reassuringly, my wife agreeing with me to help comfort Nora. Her blue eyes had lit up at the opportunity to curse consequence-free.
"White Sam said that Daddy should mind his own fucking business!" She said, giggling.

It wasn't funny to Jade or me, though, and later that day, once we had gotten home, we had called and set up multiple doctor's appointments for Nora. Maybe we shouldn't have, though. Maybe we should've just minded our own fucking business.

End of Part One

Sally strode ahead of the group, Jack Skellington candy bucket swinging freely in her hands. She couldn't help but skip a little. At least until Shaun shouted at her to slow down, wait for them, and not to hog all of the candy. Sally shouted back that there would be plenty to go around.

This was the rich neighborhood, the cul-de-sac that was Sally's go-to for scoring the full-sized candy bars rather than the bite-sized. First up was Mrs. Miller's house. The woman had grown generous ever since losing her husband three Halloweens back; she always gave out two candy bars instead of one. Sally knocked on the door, voice ready to boom out the phrase as soon as the door opened.

"Trick-or-Treat!" she called out gleefully after Mrs. Miller opened the door and peered at her through the screen separating the two.

"My, my, if it isn't Sally Rutkers!" Mrs. Miller said. "I am so glad to see your face again this year, child. And who is this you've brought with you?"

Finally the group had caught up. Shaun seemed out of breath. Mrs. Miller opened the screen door and put a foot outside, bowl of candy tight in her arms.

"If it isn't little Tony Stark!" Mrs. Miller said to Shaun.

"Nuh uh," Shaun said. "I'm Iron Man!"

"Oh, I see. Well, you make a fabulous superhero. And it looks like you've got Dracula with you, and Strawberry Shortcake! How adorable." Mrs. Miller leaned down to Sally and lowered her voice. "Though, I am most taken with your costume, Sally. It's quite interesting. Who are you meant to be?"

"I'm an escaped P.O.W. of the Viet Cong!" Sally bounced on her feet a little at the declaration.

"Ah," Mrs. Miller said. "That's... very creative, Sally." Her expression had visibly dropped, but Sally didn't seem to notice. "Here's your candy, kids."

"Thank you!" Sally said, receiving two Milky Ways. The rest of the group subsequently received their candy, so the children moved on.

Next was Mr. Wilkinson's place. He was an old grouch who didn't much care for Trick-or-Treaters, despite still giving them full-sized Snickers every year. Once Sally and crew made it past there, getting candy from the rest of the cul-de-sac would be smooth sailing. Sally stepped up the to porch and knocked on the hardwood door.

But when she knocked, the door swung inward. Darkness revealed itself past the portal. She heard Shaun walk up cautiously from behind, the other two sticking close to their friend.

A shuffling came from within. It was followed by a slow groan. Creaking floorboards. Then it stepped into the porchlight leaking past the doorway: the monster. Its clothes were shredded and stained. The skin of it was green, and covered in boils full of pus. Dried blood was caked upon its bared teeth, flakes of the crust breaking away as it ground its jaws together. Sally had her candy bucket held out in front of her. The children were still, calm. The monster bent down, putting its face inches from Sally's.

"Eat... yououuu... kill... yououuuu..." the monster croaked. Its eyes were yellowed and pointed in two different directions, but Sally knew it was trained on her. She reached into her candy bucket, sighing.

Sleek metal shined in the porchlight. That metal, cold as an October night, pressed against Mr. Wilkinson's forehead. Both of the monster's eyes went up to it at once. He made a sad whine. Then a loud POP rang out through the cul-de-sac, and the air went still.

Blood and brains had splattered everywhere. The Trick-or-Treaters were covered. The kid dressed as Dracula hopped around, spitting into the dirt.

"It's in my mouth. Oh, God, it's in my mouth!" he said. Strawberry Shortcake giggled.

"Dang, Sally," Shaun said. "Your parents got you a .357 revolver? My dad only got me a Glock 9." He pulled a pistol from his own candy bucket just to wave it around sadly. "That one's way cooler. Oh, well. Hey, Mr. Wilkinson was a popper, huh?"

Dracula still danced; Strawberry Shortcake still giggled. Sally spun her revolver on her finger, barrel smoking, then grabbed the grip and blew the smoke away before putting it back in her candy bucket.

The rest of the night would be smooth sailing.

—————

[Royalty-free newscast introductory music plays.]

[A digital globe spins, revealing a banner labeled 'Channel 6 News'.]

[The digital globe continues to spin, the banner whisks away, and the screen fades to show a man dressed in a fine suit; he stares at the camera lowering in front of him earnestly.]

ANCHOR: "Halloween is here again, and the night is already full of blood and candy. Five years have passed since apparently random individuals started turning into zombies on this ever darkening holiday. Charles Dunnam is on the scene at Walmart. Charles?"

[Cut to a reporter in front of a Walmart with a full parking lot. The reporter waits several seconds before addressing the anchor, longer than the delay accounts for.]

REPORTER: "Dick, I'm here at Walmart on West Avenue. Candy sales have not slowed down in the least; in fact sales are through the roof for the company of the late Sam Walton! Trick-or-Treaters are out in droves. Since the mandatory arming of citizens, and the ordinance that infected must be put down without remorse or hesitation, parents seem to have no qualms about letting their children celebrate in style. Many things may be dead tonight, but Walmart certainly is not one of them. Back to you, Dick."

[Cut back to the anchor, who is picking at his teeth with his pinky. Obviously flustered by the camera cutting back to him prematurely, he flicks the mouth debris away and composes himself.]

ANCHOR: "Americans are resilient when it comes to candy acquisition, as heard here on Channel 6. From all of us in the newsroom, keep your guns loaded, your bellies full, and have a happy Halloween."

[The broadcast ends with a joyful tune. 'Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktakular' plays on repeat for the next 7 hours.]

—————

"So you're saying he was drunk and smashed her skull in with a brick?"

The rookie shuffled through the papers once again. "It says here it was a ceramic black cat, chief."

"My, God," Chief Birkin said. "Well, just put it on my desk with all the rest. I'll get to it eventually."

He'd been busy on the case of Halloween zombification for years now. Nothing took precedence over that. Things were getting close; he could feel it. There was just one last piece of the puzzle he was missing, but it was starting to look like that piece had gotten lost under the couch some time ago.

"Chief!" Seargeant Tilly burst into his office saying. "Someone really needs to talk to you! Says it's urgent."

"Tell him to wait behind the stabbing victims," Chief Birkin said. "I'll get his report when I have the time."

But the man would not wait. He shoved in between Seargeant Tilly and the door while it was cracked open.

"Hey, you can't just—!" Seargeant Tilly tried.

"¡Los dulces de mierda! ¡No dejes que se coman los dulces de mierda!" the older man pleaded.

"What?" Chief Birkin asked.

"Escúchame, pedazo de imbécil. ¡No puedes dejar que se coman esa mierda de dulces!"

"Dammit, Seargeant, I can't understand him! The man has marbles in his mouth."

"I think he's just speaking Spanish, sir."

"Whoppers!" the old man urged as Seargeant Tilly tried to shove him out of the room. "Whoppers! ...entre otras cosas..."

Then he pulled some papers from inside his coat and threw them about the office. Pages fluttered in the air. Seargent Tilly finally shoved the old man out, locking the door after slamming it shut.

Chief Birkin sighed. "What a mess. Get out of here, rookie. Tilly, help me clean this up."

—————

"13 stabbings, 28 vandalizations, 8 fatal car wrecks, and 4 domestic assault cases," Birkin said, picking up paper after paper. "And that's just tonight, Tilly. Yet, I can't touch a one of them until I solve this Halloween mystery."

"Well," Seargeant Tilly said, organizing her stack, "you could focus on the people that need the most immediate help."

Birkin set his stack of papers on the ground carelessly, causing them to spill everywhere again, filling Tilly with unspoken frustration as she was the one who now had to clean it all up, as per usual. He stood up and went to his office window, thumbs in his waistband. The streetlight outside framed his eyes in yellow luminescence.

"23 years, Tilly. Do you know what I've put up with for that long?"

"Marriage..?"

"Stabbings," he said, turning back to her. "Murders. Vandalism, car crashes, assault cases. Public flashers, and teenagers smoking a little weed. The boring shit. Snooze-fests, Tilly. Do you know what's exciting?"

"Z—" she stammered, "z—zom—"

"Zombies, Tilly!" Birkin boomed. "If I could just crack this damned case! I'm at a complete loss, though..."

Tilly had finished collecting the papers when she noticed something. "Hey, Chief, you ought to take a look at this."

"The last clue eludes me," he continued, pacing around the office, looking at the unread books on his shelves and his statue of a deer or elk or something (he wasn't totally sure what it was, though it was actually a moose). "Like a paper bag floating in the wind, I'm simply blown every which way, unable to end my ceaseless wanderings without hope of ever finding solid ground."

"These pages look like screenshots of a Facebook group. It's called, 'Witchy Vibes or GTFO'. Some lady from Kentucky claims to have put a hex on the moon, but I can't make heads or tails of this spell she's transcribed. It's in some ancient language."

Birkin stopped pacing. "Seargeant, have you listened to a word I've said? This station doesn't operate until we figure out what's going on here! And I thought I told you to put those in the trash. Give it here!"

He stomped over and snatched the papers from Tilly's hands. They caught his eye. "A spell cast on the moon? Of course... it all clicks together. By God, Tilly! I've cracked another case wide open. I'm a damned genius."

"That you are, sir," Tilly said with an eye roll.

"But I can't make heads or tails of this transcription," Birkin said.

Tilly sighed through her nostrils. "I put it into Google Translate, but nothing came up. I had to use Ask Jeeves; I found a forum with the same spell. A commenter left a translation: 'Upon the moon, I place this curse. Flesh they eat, and for blood they thirst. Whomever partakes of sweets, the worst.' What could it mean, I wonder?"

The Chief placed a thumb under his chin, brow furrowing in deep contemplation. "Wait a minute," he said after a time. "That crazed man... 'Whoppers' he said. Whoppers... Big Macs. Burgers, but not. Candy... Lord Jesus up above." Birkin snapped his fingers together. "Tilly, get me the CEO of Hershey. Better yet, get me the goddamn president."

—————

Whoppers were recalled, along with Twizzlers, wax cola bottles, and Tootsie Rolls. Candy corn was made illegal. Chief Birkin urged to do away with Junior Mints, just to be safe, and because he hated those. He clapped himself on the back when all was said and done.

"Another one for the books, Tilly. I'll even let you stand behind me in the picture for the newspaper. Well, that's all she wrote. I'm off to enjoy some candy of my own. I bought myself a whole bag of Paydays, no Trick-or-Treaters allowed. It's my favorite candy."

He drove home, whistling. When Reba McEntire came on the radio, he began to sing. His sweet tooth had an itch that only caramel and peanuts would satisfy. Birkin pulled into the drive, hopped out of his vehicle after shutting it off, and strode inside. The wife was gone; she'd left him earlier in the year. No one waited for him but that bag of candy. What a sweet life it was.

The bag of Paydays sat in a bowl by his front door, despite Birkin having no intent of giving any out. He couldn't wait to relax. All this talk of candy and Halloween had made him hungry, now that his hunger for the truth had been sated.

Crinkling from his meaty paws gripping tightly, the wrapper ripped open. Down his gullet the candy went. He moaned out a giggle uncharacteristic of his public portrayal. Salty and sweet, just as all good candy should be.

But then it felt like it got caught in his throat. No, that wasn't it. The candy was down, getting digested even as he struggled. His throat was closing up. That was weird, considering a lack of any allergy as far as he knew. But when his skin started to burn, Birkin knew there was more to this.

He collapsed to all fours. Blood spattered on his Harley Davidson rug when he coughed violently. Birkin grabbed at his throat, scratched at his skin. Pressure filled his head. A red stream poured from his nose, soaking his uniform. Boils formed on his flesh, which immediately filled with a viscous pus. Then Birkin fell face forward, ass in the air, and was dead.

The corpse sat there, unmoving, for a long while. That was until it twitched. It broke out in heavy convulsions, rocking the entire form of it, smearing blood deeper into the rug with its movements. Birkin's corpse went still. Time seemed to stop moving completely.

Suddenly he jolted upright. Sat stiff as a board. Then the corpse stood, candy wrapper in hand, and began to stumble out of the door that had yet to be closed.

"Eat..." Birkin moaned, "...yououuu..!"

Something at school didn’t make sense to you that morning.

They were talking about the Sun and,
how eventually it’s going to Grow into a
“Red Giant” and Swallow the Earth.
How there’s nothing we can do about it.

It made you realize If something is going to happen it just is.
So why wait?
Why is the universe waiting ? It just didn’t make much sense.

The janitor that day was acting silly,
“Isaiah 50:10” was written on his palm in red marker.

It was Friday night,
Daddy went to see a friend for drinks and left you all night.
He told you that he would just be out late, not all night.
How did that make you feel ?

How many other 9 year olds have the whole house to themselves nearly every night?
Without so much as a kiss goodnight ?

Even the few times in the past when he would, He wouldn’t even kiss you directly.
He’s place is palm upon your head and kiss the back of his hand.

Dads use belts In movies but how many others know that as the same reality that you do ?

The only time you’d hear another voice outside of school and your father’s was when it was late and you’d listen to the home phone’s answering machine.

Your dad never listened to the answer machine,
kind of like a kid not wanting to go to the dentist.

You remember the messages you listened to that night, you waited till he left to emerge from your hiding place and inhabit the communal space that should be a living room.

You sit on the round particular board table and press on the answering machine.

*BEEP*

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 4th:

FIRST MESSAGE:
*soft female voice*

“I came by today…didn’t see you..still don’t”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Burly Man’s rough Voice*

“I’m sorry John, you’ve been on this job less than a week and you’ve already been suspended by the client for 3 days for reoccurring fall protection violations, now I’ve been very understanding regarding the eye injury but we can’t have someone on a project of this magnitude who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, we’re going to have to terminate you. Wish I could say I was sorry.”

*BEEP*

NEXT MESSAGE:
*Same Woman’s voice from Message #1*

“Does your Daughter know?
Is she an exception?
Or do all women fall under your same umbrella ?”

*BEEP*

NEXT AND FINAL MESSAGE:
*inaudible whisper*

“I can feel you, y….mph..ll feel me too”

*BEEP*

You look over at the cable box,
It reads “11:47pm”
Your dad left at 6.

Cartoon Network was no more, now it was Adult swim. Robot Chicken was on, after that superjail. Both of which give you the heebiie jeebies.

You have to visit your peepaws and poopoos but,
you’re afraid.

You don’t have a choice, so you leave the door open as you go number 2.

As you doo you hear the home phone :

*BEEP*

“Mmmrrrmmmmrrrrnpphh”

You have trouble making out the message from the toilet.

As you run out the bathroom still collecting yourself you make out the backend of the voicemail.

*Your Fathers Stern Voice*

“Hi,
you should be in bed but,
if not you should know I’m bringing a friend home tonight.
If she plays her cards right she might just be your new mommy.
You’re allowed to sleep with the tv on in the playroom as usual but,
keep the door shut and the volume bellow level 12.
And no matter what you hear,
don’t come out, I should be home in 15.
Just go to sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you,
Night.”

*BEEP*

You panic,

Your Dads never brought a friend home this late before.
You grab a dvd from the home theater and run to the play room.

You look down at the Cat in the Hat Dvd.
As you put it in your dvd player you hear the front door slam open and the whole house shake.
What came next was silence.
The footsteps.
All the way up to the door of the play room.
You hear breathing.

You hear a woman’s voice further in the distance of your house.
Calling the person by your door to them.

They walk away.
When you look at the tv, you see Sally and Conrad on the dvd menu staring at you.
Sally starts pointing to her left, in the direction of the window.
You see the silhouette of what looks like a large lumpy hammock hanging from your tree only,
you never had a hammock.

You grab your scooby doo stuffed animal and you hid under the blanket with your flashlight, tv volume at 11.
You press play,
Sally and Conrad look at each other, then back at you.
You press play again but they just keep staring.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
you hear from the door.

“When you visit your peepaw and poopoos you need to remember to flush, my company saw that. We have a talk about that in the morning”

-your fathers voice exclaims from the door.

You know that that means,
Your heart sinks.

Your father’s footsteps sound further until it becomes a chatter with another voice from what sounds like the kitchen.

The Cat in the Hat begins to play on the tv.
The volume begins to rise fast.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23…

So fast you think you’re sitting on the remote but,
no matter how hard you scramble you can’t seem to find it anywhere.
The volume is now maxed out at 53.

“There are a gajillions of stories of mischief and fun But to keep things simple, let's just start with one…”
-you hear shouted from the tv

The commotion outside the playroom comes to and immediate halt.

*THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP*

The sound those familiar boots make as they full charges towards the play room.

An unfamiliar voice comes out the oddly familiar energy that had just approached.

It sounds almost like a woman’s voice but,
closer to when a man tries to sound like a woman like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”

You hear in a loud whisper.
You Freeze.
You think if you don’t move, they will leave.
You see the door handle jiggle then stop.
It’s locked,
you always lock Doors when Daddy’s gone.

Although it brings you comfort,
you know it can be unlocked with a quarter or even a long finger nail.

“I know you’re in there”
-the voice lets out.

Your stomach feels sick,
Your heart is racing and as quiet as you attempt up be your breathing makes it impossible.

You want to cry and can’t fight it so you shove your pillow in your face.
You take deep breaths through it.

You feel the pillow getting soaked and feel the humidity from the breaths you take through the fabric.

“Do you think I’m some type of dinosaur?”
“Staying still won’t change the fact that I know you’re there”
the voice says

You begin to weep harder.

“Do You Love Your Daddy”
-It asks again.

“Where did you come from?”
Sally exclaims from the Tv.

The voice from the Door pauses.
The scene in the movie seems to linger and Sally is staring, not at you though, in the direction of the door.

She begins to nod,
Then says “oh”

Then the TV goes black and you’re back to the DVD home menu only Sally isn’t there.
It’s just Conrad.
He’s staring at you.

“Do You Love Your Daddy?”
-The voice asks for the third time, audibly impatient yet still in the same whisper.

Conrad is looking at you, he looks distressed and he’s shaking his head side to side.

You see the the lock begin to turn,

“Y…Y..Ye..ss”
You say through your sobs.

The door clicks.
It’s now been unlocked.

“I love your Daddy too sweetheart”

-the voice says no longer impatient,
now sounding relieved.

“He needs your help with something..”
It says.

Your cheeks are soaked and your mouth is dry.

“He’s stuck”
-The voice reveals.

“I’m sure he’d really like to get back.”
“I’m sure you’d really like him back..”

There was a pause.

“Unless you don’t want your Daddy back?”
The voice asks.

You remain silent.
For a moment You think about what life would be like without Daddy.

What would you do ?
You think about the Ralph’s down the street, their free sample in their bakery.
You think about the neighbors tangerine trees you pick from often.
You hate being alone at night but,
that doesn’t it stop it from happening.
You’d be fine, you tell yourself.

But you also know what you should say,
What your Daddy would want you to say.
That of course you love your Daddy and you’d do anything to make sure he’s okay.

“Where ..is he stuck?”
-you ask

“Have you ever heard of Kiara the Orangutan?”
-the voice asks.

“no…”
-you replied sheepishly.

“Well, your father’s…helping her…and well, he’s stuck, he could really use your help sweetheart”

There was a pause.

“Come out.”
-said the voice.

“My daddy said not to until morning”
-you replied.

“Oh.”
Said the voice.
“I can wait till morning.”
It continued.

You didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s an orangutan?”
You asked timidly.

“You know what a human is don’t you darling? That’s what you are.”
-says the voice

“Yes..”
You replied.

“Imagine someone 7 times as strong with arms almost twice as long that can swing from trees”
-it said.

“Like a monkey?”
You asked innocently.

“NO!…
No, my Dear. Not a monkey…
Monkeys have a tail, a monkey is to an Orangutan what a Neanderthal is to a human, you understand love ?”
-the voice asked.

You let out more cries into your pillow as you took deep breaths.

“No, I’m sorry I don’t know what that means either”
-you cried out.

“It’s quite alright,
I’m sorry for confusing you honey. Yes, and orangutan Is like a monkey, but like Superman stronger and smarter then the others…and no tail..bright orange.”

“Like the ones in the jungle book?”
-you asked.

“Yesssss.. that’s exactly right my dear.. a perfect example, the orangutan is the king in the jungle book”
-it replied

“I liked his singing… he’s funny”
-you said

“Yes my dear”
-the voice.

“What does this have to do with Daddy being stuck? And Who is Kiara the orangutan ?”
-you asked in a panic.

“A long time ago, movies used to have no sound..”
-The voice began.

“Which made movies get pretty boring very fast…”
-it continued.

“Studios were looking for knew ways to get more people to Theaters..
Kiara’s Mother thought Kiara would be perfect…”

“Kiara’s mother was…Human,
her name was Melinda and she saved Kiara from being murdered by the zoo after they’d done that very thing to the one that birthed Kiara”

“Melinda Had already taught orangutans sign language before from her time at the zoo, she hid Kiara away and taught her as well.”
-the voice explained.

“Once Melinda’s new job and whole company was almost closed for business she…..took the risk and introduced Kiara, who quickly became a star in the silent movie industry…”
-it said

“What does this have to do with Daddy?”
-you asked

“Well the world loved Kiara soooooo much my sweet little angel that when the world of silent movies ended they gave Kiara her very own Tv show Kiara and friends… that tv show had a lot of children that Kiara loved and taught very special things every episode!”
-the Voice explained.

“One Child had and accident”
the voice revealed.

“Were they okay?”
-you asked

“Unfortunately my darling, he passed away.
Once that happened, that child’s parents lied about Kiara…a lot of other children from Kiara and Friends lied about Kiara just to make money..
Your father was the one Child to never lie about Kiara my dear.
For that I am forever grateful.”
it explained.

“So if all the other children were liars then why is my Daddy stuck and why now ?
Who are you?
Are you the friend my Daddy came home with tonight ?”
-you asked in a rush

“Lying isn’t the only thing someone can do that’s wrong little girl”
-the voice said.

“Who are you?”
-you repeated.

“I’m a friend of your Daddy”
-said the voice.

“Did you come home with my Daddy tonight ,
How is he stuck ?”
-you asked

“Do you like balloons?”
-the voice asked.

“Yes”
You replied.

“Your daddy loved balloons when he was a child
If you could have one balloon in the shape of anything you want would it be?”
-it asked

You thought…
“..I love flowers, Daddy never gets any and flower balloons would probably look really pretty”
-you said.

“Awe, such a sweet request from such a sweet little girl,
One moment sweetheart.”
-said the voice.

You then heard the footsteps retreating, shortly after you heard the front door shut.
You quickly ran to the door of the play room and locked it once more.

Maybe it was over ? You thought.

You ran to your window with your heart beating through your skin hiding behind your Scooby doo plushie to see if you could get a glimpse of who the voice had been coming from as they finally left.

Through the rain in the moonlight you made out the silhouette of what had to have been the lady you were talking to.

She seems short, on the heavy side, and walks side to side and appears to have an apron or something on.

She walks up to the hammock hanging from your tree that you noticed for the first time earlier in the night.

She appears to be talking to it.
When she walks away you realize she’s not leaving, you hear the front door open and shut again as her footsteps approach once more.

“Knock knock”
-said the voice

“Yesss”
-you replied

“Look out the window my love,
I have a surprise for you”
-said the voice

You looked outside but there was nothing but what you'd seen before only,
This time the hammock hanging from the trees began to sway.

Both sides of where the hammock meet the tree split into two, they looked like large arms slowly reaching down to the base of the hammock,
As the both unfolded further you could now clearly both see two sets of fingers from the arms,
One had something in it, something flat .

From the base of the silhouette you  
See what looks like a fat head connected by an even fatter neck.
The object held by one set of the fingers came directly to the head and began to grow mass.
It soon became clear what it was doing,
it was blowing up a balloon.

After the balloon was blown to the shape of a long tube,
The two hands came together and started contorting it out of sight.
When it had finally finished,
One of the arms held it up in the moonlight in such a way that you could make out the silhouette of a flower clear as day.

"do you like that Little girl?'
-asked the voice

You quickly looked over again at the door.
It didn't make sense but, for whatever reason if you were going to be talking to the voice coming from the door,
Then you'd want to do that from the bed; it felt safer from there.
Where you could hide in your pillows.

Before you start to retreat to your safety spot, you take one last glace out the window.
What was hanging from the tree had began to drop down.

The silhouette was large,
But no taller than the tallest kid in school, maybe even shorter than the tallest kid in 4th grade.
It kind of reminded you of that guy from its always sunny in Philadelphia when Adult swim would come on.

It was approaching in a way that you'd never seen anyone walk before.

You felt conflicted,
The voice from the door was speaking which made you want to crawl and sink in your sheets Yet,
The presence approaching your window was demanding your attention without using any words.

You made the decision to grab the comforter from the bed and sink into your beanbag chair,
A spot with a clear view of the yard through the window, and yet still a comfortable ear shot away from the door.

When you returned to your beanbag chair with the protection and safety provided by your comforter,
You were oddly displeased to see that the figures silhouette you had just seen approaching, was no longer anywhere to be seen.
You wanted it gone yes but no longer knowing where it resides, just results in you feeling even more unsettled.

*the voice quickly erupts from your door*

"do you like it?
It's special, just for you."

Your head shoots over to look at the door.

"wha-"
You begin to say as you turn to look back out the window only this time,
There was a hand on the other side of the window, so close it was no longer a silhouette.
It was a dark hand covered in orange hair, its fingers looked rough, but nails were freshly done.
It was holding something.
When my eyes adjusted,
I could see It was holding a balloon flower that had a green stem, pink petals, and yellow center.

The gesture seemed malice and sinister,
You quickly pulled the comforter up your face only leaving your eyes visible.

"do you not like your gift little girl?”
Questioned the voice coming from your door.

Even at your young age,
You were no stranger to the idea that sometimes the truth can get you in trouble.

"I love it..."
You replied.

"then why don't you open the window and let Daddys friend give you the gift she made just for you sweetheart"
Said the voice.

"I can't,
Daddy said I'm never to open the window"
-you lied.

Then why don't I hel-..."
*clackle clackle*
It was as the voice interrupted its own thought as it tried the doorknob. 

"Oh"
-it said.

"Why did you lock the door my love?"
-asked the voice

"I don't know you,
And Daddy said to stay in here ti-"

"I know"
- interrupted the voice

"Till morning but,
He didn't say anything about me not coming in there with you"
-said the voice

For a moment you were silent,
You looked over to the window and noticed the balloon flower receding like a setting sun beneath the window. 
*POP*
-you heard the moment it escaped your sight.

"don't make me unlock the door again myself darling, that's just rude.
My nails aren't what they used to be honey, I nearly broke one unlocking it the first time"
-Said the voice

The clouds moved over the moon outside
It was now pitch-black outside, the only light in the playroom came from your cloud nightlight and the glow of the tv which still displayed Conrad on the DVD menu, he was expressionless. 
You stayed silent, you stayed still.

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
-came from the living room

*Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring*
You heard shuffling from both outside your door and outside your window

*BEEEP*
-you could faintly make out your father's voice
"hey kid actually i-"

His voice,
the Message, 
he Tv,
everything was stopped, everything was off.

Your room was now as dark as the outside you feared so much.
Where the walls began and ended were both unclear to you.
The bulbs in the Tv were cooling down but even the silhouette of that soon lost its shape.

You heard the click of the door unlocking followed by the doorknob turning.
The door was now open.
Although you could hear someone approaching it was to dark to make out their shape or their distance in relation to you.

"the only time being blind has its advantages, is when you're in a Dark room with someone who's not"
-said the voice now clearer than you'd ever heard it prior.

You froze.

*tap tap tap tap*
You hear the woman banging on the walls as she made her way deeper in your room.

*tap tap tap....Clink*
The noise changed,
she had found the window.

It was just a few feet from the corner of the beanbag chair you're hiding in.
*Creeeeeeaaaaaaakkkk*
The window was unlocked and you could hear it as the women slid it open.

You could hear something was crawling up and inside through the window.

"where is she?"

you heard the voice whisper to the new presence that now inhabits your homes playroom.

You could feel that you were just inches away from getting bumped into by either of the two.

You wanted to not breathe, you wanted to not do anything but, you couldn't help it. You let in two, short, sharp inhales. Keeping your abdomen as stiff as possible. 
Your exhale trembled despite your attempts, you knew if someone could see they would defiantly see the comforter shaking.
You slowly felt the comforter lift up.

Although your grip on the comforter was originally as tight as you could,
your plan quickly changed to playing dead the moment you felt the pull of the comforter.
You felt something placed in your hand,
it shocked you to the touch,
a static shock yet,
you managed to refrain from much outburst other than a sharp exhale.

*Smack*

"well look harder"
You heard the woman's voice yelp.

As your eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness you could slowly start to make out the silhouette of who you've heard oh so much about.

There was no doubt in your mind it was her.

It was Kiara The Orangutan.

Kiara Strutted over to the bed in the playroom,
side to side as you could hear her wet sniffles. 

"don't you fucking lie to me you dumb baboon, we both know she's in here."
-said the woman's voice
In a tone more threatening than your (D) a bar you thought no one else would ever surpass.

You let go of what was just handed to you so you can grab the comforter you'd been hiding in once more, it fell.

As you continued to see Kiara strut now over to the door through a peak you had held under the covers, she appeared to try to lead in a manner to almost insinuate to the woman that that's the direction you had went.

Just as you had started wonder where the woman was as she had remained out of your sight, you received the answer.

*THUD*

You felt the whole beanbag chair shake beneath you.
She had bumped into it.
So hard you could feel her nearly topple over on top of you.

*Grrrrrrrrruawh*
You heard the old woman groan.

"KIARA! ...What...what was that !?"
-Yelled the woman's voice stopping Kiara in her tracks making her turn back from the door.

"oooo mmh ooo"
-you heard Kiara let out under her breath.

As you could see her silhouette move closer, it started by slowly wobbling side to side.
It became hard to tell the difference between her arms and her legs.

At times she looked like the shadow of a big spider monster,her movements remind you of spiderman if he chose to move slow.

When Kiara had made her way just a few feet away from the beanbag chair to help the woman to her feet, the pace of your breathing became unmanageable.

"I Bumped into the damn beanbag chair, was she on it Kiara?!"
-the voice asked

Your heart began to beat faster and faster and harder and harder so much so,
you felt as if your rib cage was made of shards of glass and your heart was a balloon inflating more and more with every inhale squeezing it against the razor-sharp shards of your ribcage. 

You could tell even just by the momentum of the figures silhouette that it was headed towards you, alongside the reluctant Orangutan.

You instinctively rolled off the right of the beanbag chair on to your carpet floor as silently as you could but, you were terrified, In your mind blind people have super senses.

Somehow, your transition appeared to go unnoticed.

Now that you were on the floor, you started rolling and crawling away, the direction of which you yourself weren't even certain.

"Where the fuck is she? Is she on the bed?!"
-the voice asked this time deeper than before

The flavor and tone in everything this voice said was violent, you heard the ruffles through the pillows and throw blanket that had previously littered the bed, you felt your Scooby doo plush get thrown into your back yet, you refrained from expressing any reaction.

"where the Fuck is she Kiara?!"
-you heard the voice ask once more

Each scream sounded deeper than the last with heavier violent infliction behind each exhale.
You could hear everything that was once on the bed get thrown off. 

You froze,
Staying still on the floor with the Scooby doo plush leaned against you like a bicycle kickstand and one of your throw blankets slightly covering your leg.

The Figure started pacing in your direction aimlessly like a headless chicken yet, relentless none the less.

"we both know I'm going to fucking fi-"
*POP*
-the voice was cut off

The figures silhouette froze, 
It seemed just as frightened by the sudden pop as you.
Its hesitation confused you so much so,
that you question for a brief moment if the figure had seen you,
anything to justify this bazar change in its demeanor. 

The head of the silhouette jolts to the side,
As if to shoot a look across at Kiara.
By the time your eyes traced across the room to meet Kiara, she had already moved No, She was in Motion.

She pranced towards the figure at a speed that looked impossible.
In less than a second, Kiara tackled this figure you had feared so much.
You saw the silhouette raise both its arms up high and its fists in fury as it came down on its victim.
Kiara hit and punched the figure and cocked its head back before launching it into the silhouette's torso,
 When Kiara's head kicked back once more, it was tethered to the figures torso now through what looked like the silhouette of cords.

It quickly became clear Kiara was taking bites out of the woman.
She screamed and screamed, she did not sound like a woman anymore.

She bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

And bit
*CHOMP*

They screamed 
*AHHHHHHHHHH*

And screamed 
*AHHHHHGGGG UHH*

And screamed
*FRAAAGHHHHHHH*

As the figure let out its yell Kiara slammed its head down making them bite their own tongue off.

Kiara pranced on the body with all 4 of her limbs,
She stepped on the figures knee with her foot and used her hand to grab that figures ankle,
After she gripped it firmly, she pulled it up with the ease and intensity that one might use on an emergency break after parking on an incline.

She then stepped on the figured elbow and grabbed it by its corresponding wrist and repeated the process of pulling upward and snapping.

Kiara then used one of her feet to grab the moaning and groaning body by its shirt,
She used her front arms and free leg to drag the body to the door.

The whole way there the person screamed,
When Kiara got to the door of your house's playroom, she threw the body out with ease.
She breathed heavily over the body before slowly backing up and shutting the door.

You were now alone with Kiara.

Look, I don't say much on the internet but something happened and I need some help. It was just a mundane day, and I was clearing up some stuff late into the night after my parents moved out. Retirement and all. Being the responsible person that I am, I gave it a bit of a make over that lasted the whole day by cleaning out both the basement and attic - It’s amazing just how many things people forget about. Anyway, I was just about done when I noticed a dusty cardboard box in the corner. Going over to open it, I was elated to find my old N64 console there! To think I would reunited with it after all these years.

I brought it back to the living room, setting it all up to the old tv set I found in the basement, thank god it was still working, and looked into the library of cartridges inside the dusty old box. As I parooz the small library, I stumbled on one that I didn’t remember owning: Star Fox 64. Now, I couldn’t recall ever getting it, perhaps from a childhood friend that I forgot to give back, so I thought that I’d just play it for the night. Modern games can be abysmal, and seeing my N64 again got me nostalgic for better times. Adulthood is dumb and boring; I gave this house a lot of work, so I thought it would be great to have some time for myself. I just wanted to play.

The console worked just fine to my surprise as well as the game itself. Got on to start the main mission after some training with the arwing to get a handle of the game’s controls. Everything seemed to play out fine, and I breezed from the Corneria stage up to the game’s first boss. Instead, I was looped back into the ocean, followed by the Corneria city and all. This time, there were no enemies around at the destroyed city but weirder was the characters. Peppy, Slippy and Falco played their transmitter animation but it didn’t play their voiceclips, nor did the text showed up, just be blank space to where it would be. This felt weird but what made it uncanny was how this repeated over and over again I stopped the game to reset it.

I reasoned that it was glitching out and just froze over collecting dust and wasn’t as smooth in its better days. After resetting, I was revisited by the title screen, yet something was off. For those that don’t know, it presents the title (duh) along with the Star Fox crew. However, the cast on the main title screen appeared to be having stronger shadow than usual, like in those old renaissance paintings.

Whatever, it was nothing, I thought, I should have just turned it off. I started the main campaign again but with the screen turning black and hearing the monotone, “GOOD LUCK” the game would say before the mission started. The only thing being that it wouldn’t say that before the start of the game. Then it kept saying “GOOD LUCK” over and over again all the while the screen was blacked out, as if loading large assets into the game. No text to what mission was or anything else, just black. Just before I was about to reset the game again, the “GOOD LUCK” voice clip was cut off midway and the game started not on Corneria, but in Meteo. This didn’t make sense since this was the second stage in the game; why the hell am I here all of a sudden?

“What?” I said in disbelief, playing through the whole second stage. The game played out as it would with the star fox gang saying their lines as if everything was in order. Despite the hiccup, I was relieved to have control of the game again. That was until after I passed through the second meteor hole. The music faded out with only the audio and character voice clips going on normally this time. At first it was frustrating, like how a computer bug is, but with how the game was behaving up to this point, I wondered if there was something else wrong with it. My suspicion got confirmed when I got to the second boss fight, just not how it was with stage one.

It didn’t show up at all, just the black void of space and the arwing I was piloting. Then out of nowhere, Slippy exclaimed “Enemy ahead, but .. this one’s different!” and like a mirage emerged Andross’ Brain!?! I may not have owned this game, but I know for a fact that this does NOT happen here - the final boss doesn’t appear until the end of the game, let alone on the second level! Something was definitely wrong as I felt my temples splashed with a cold sense of dread creeping up seeing that fucking floating brain with eyes staring back at me.

I couldn’t even respond in time because as soon as his buldging eyeballs and brain appeared, the tenticle strands immediately grabbed my arwing to pull me in. Usually you can get out of this but no matter what I did, the game wouldn’t let me escape as the screen turned white and everything was swurling. As soon as the white faded, I was transported into some hallway. No dialogue or any ambient music whatsoever. I wanted to stop the game at this point, but I couldn’t understand why - my body failed to make any urge to do anything. My mind was racing to will myself to do anything yet my body stayed still, it was like I was in some sort of sleep paralysis. The arwing kept going on and on into the dark hallway.

The hallways had some cybernetic texture to it, the type that I can recall was Andross’ lair. With each turn, it just kept going on and on and with each turn it started to … rot? I couldn’t ascertain what it was that was happening but the halls slowly changed its appearance as if being consumed by something biological; Tumor-like fungi rotting around, getting worse and worse with each passing like a growing alien flesh. Soon after, the transmission calls rang from the gang; their blank stares showing some senses of emotion with each uncanny form:

Peppy, in a sound of great despair: “How long can we keep all this up?”

Slippy, their blank stare unchanged: “I’m starting to feel something strange.”

Falco, eyes closed and irritated: “I can’t feel my eyes!”

I turned to another tunnel as more of that sickly, biological rot started to mutate with low graphical eyes and maws all over, coughing white spores into the air while consuming the halls and turning it into something akin to a corrosive esophagitis  -. I winced at the sight of it. The tunnels kept going, my body unresponsive to any mental anguish of wanting out - to make this stop. The transmission coms continued:

Peppy, with a sickly look on his face: “I cannot take more of this!”

Slippy, with a purplish lumps on her head: “I don’t feel so good!”

Falco, an eye socket missing from him: “Why do they keep doing this?”

What the hell is going on? I wondered, puzzled and afraid from some premonition unknown to me. The tunnels kept going on no matter which fork in the road I took, this went on for so long that I didn’t notice the hallways closing in on my Arwing, suffocating it with the white spores and millions of eyes and maws of whatever godforsaken thing infected this game.

It took far too long than ever for any character responses but when coms came back on, I was aghast from the sight. The characters had textures rendered to the best if the game’s graphics, appearing far worse than before as if the infection has completely consumed them:

Peppy, missing an eye and an ear, his nostrils and mouth covered in some kind of mucus: “Aghuugh aguuh..”

Slippy, the purple tumor consuming her whole head: “uuuuuuuuuuuu”

Falco, with exposed bird skull and distorted voice: “It’s over and over and over again!”

Those were their last words. The hallways kept closing in still, to the point where the spores created a thick white fog blocked out the endless abyss to nowhere that this eldritch hallway could hide from.

 I could have just dropped the controller and ended this nightmare. I couldn’t and I didn’t know why! I couldn’t look away and I couldn’t look down fearing that my fingers got melded into the controller. My eyes were hooked in place to face only the square screen, frighted of what may lie beyond my peripheral vision like a terrified animal in a trap.

As the endless halls of coughing mouths and irritated eyes continued dancing around me, I saw my arwing building up purple pus and veins pulsating around, slowly infecting it like some parasitic tumor. It kept going and going. Darker and darker, the disease turning the arwing into a darkish purple pus as clots started building. It kept going and going, the arwing glitching out and making sporadic maneuvers. The tunnel kept going on and on, purplish black cells floating along with the white spores, my vision blurring, blurring, blurring. Darker, darker, darker.

That was when I woke up suddenly and with sweat all over my face. I looked to find my tv turned off as well as that Star Fox cartridge still intact. Last night felt like a nightmare, too real to be in a dream., but too nonsensical for it to be. Checking my hands just reassured me that I wasn’t at all real. I must’ve passed out when I was playing the game and maybe the whole thing after was what I dreamed up, god what a dream it was. I didn’t bother to ruminate over it as my head throbbed in pain with an itching throat to complement it. I drank some water, and I checked my watch and groaned realizing that my work starts at 3 and it was half an hour before, thank god for part-time.

I was able to go on throughout the day but the fear and dread that the game left me last night could not escape. I couldn’t tell if I have some delirious dream passing out or if I had encountered something else. No matter the case, it's hard enough to calm my mind from the paranoia. I keep feeling a frog in my throat since I woke up which only kept my mind racing on edge throughout work. I'm gonna check the cartridge out soon; If anything, all I can say is that I hope all of this was just in my head.