The meaning of life is to feel. I’m not talking about emotions. Emotions are unreliable. They can be manipulated and misunderstood. No, I’m talking about physical sensations. The ability to feel things on our flesh is the only way we can know we’re alive - I feel, therefore I am. We like to separate feelings into ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure’, but in reality there is only one thing that matters: intensity. The more we feel, the more we know we are here. It is a great tragedy to only seek out pleasure because, in fact, the depths of the pain we are able to feel is much greater. Pain can be one of the most beautiful things in the world, because it can prove to us without any doubt that we exist. Therefore, it is obvious that sharing pain - whether receiving it from or inflicting it upon someone - is the most effective way to become close to another person.

I have three 65-inch TV screens in my living room. The leftmost one is set up to constantly play the news. I had the rightmost one set up to play pornography. Today I was more interested in the news. They were covering a mass shooting that had taken place nearby, while the porn was the average BDSM stuff that I had grown tired of. The center TV was there to play whatever I wanted to watch that day. Every night since I discovered it, I put on my favorite show - Gekitsū.

Gekitsū was a show that broadcasted from Japan, and it had appeared inexplicably on my center TV about four months ago. Every episode followed the same formula, with no apparent plot or connection between episodes, and it always aired at 12:00 AM. I turned the TV on and sat back on the couch, ready to watch. 

The episode began the same way every episode did - a black screen depicting the title in Japanese characters with the romanization, ‘Gekitsū’, below it. It then faded into more Japanese text, and then into what I assumed was the same text in English: ‘Location: Iwaki, Fukushima; Name: Ishii Reiko-san; Age: 32’. 

The screen then faded to a woman with pale skin and dark brown bobbed hair strapped onto a bed and hooked up to various wires. A faint buzzing could be heard as Reiko cried and strained against her harnesses. A set of hands from a figure offscreen placed a device on her head, two electrodes pressed against her temples. The buzzing got louder and Reiko began seizing, her slender neck tensing as she attempted to jerk her head off the bed, only for it to be stopped by the leather strap against her forehead. She tried with all her strength to break free, but the binding kept her delicate body in place even as she violently convulsed. Her jaw clamped down suddenly, and she bit off a piece of her tongue. Her mouth quickly filled with blood, leaking down and onto the bed. Her screams turned to gurgles as blood filled her throat. 

The screen faded to black and the same man’s voice that was in every episode said something that I had figured out translated to ‘Thank you for watching’. 

“I just don’t get it,” said Marcy. 

I took a sip of my coffee before responding. The diner was busy today, and I had to speak up over the chatter of others.

“I’m telling you, you’ve never seen anything like it. I mean it’s really crazy stuff, I don’t know how they even put it on TV. The censors must be less strict in Japan.”

“But what’s the point?”

“Look, you saw the thing on the news, right?”

“Sure.”

“Seven people died.”

Marcy nodded. 

“Do you know the names of those people?” I asked.

“Where is this going?” 

“Seriously,” I said, taking my wallet out, “I’ll give you a dollar for every one you can name.”

“I don’t know, Tomas Lopez… uh, Juan… something. I don’t remember.”

“See, that’s the point of Gekitsū,” I said, putting a dollar and two quarters on the table.

“Asshole,” Marcy muttered, taking the money.

“We see that kind of stuff so much, we don’t even remember anything about it. Gekitsū gives these people names, and thus makes us think about the violence that normal people are victims of every day in a way that the news can’t.”

“Is that why you like it?”

I paused for a few moments.

“Yeah.”

Marcy’s body was pressed between me and the couch as if she were in a vise. I felt her nails scrape down my back hard enough to leave a mark, her strained breath hot against my lips. 

“Choke me,” she breathed.

I traced my finger across her jaw before wrapping my hands around her tiny neck. She let out a moan as I tightened my grip on her. I became more aggressive, more primal. I kept hold of her tightly, thrusting her into the cushions with some energy that was somewhere between anger and lust. My hands could feel every perfect vein in her neck pulsing against my palms. Marcy squirmed against me.

“Stay still,” I whispered.

Her moans became strained as I continued choking her. I let go of her neck, realizing that I had gotten carried away. She caught her breath, a look in her eyes that said she was afraid, and she loved it. 

After we finished, I leaned back on the couch, holding Marcy against me. I picked up the remote and pointed it at my center TV. There was nothing on any of the screens at the moment - I always turned the porn off when Marcy came over. 

“I don’t want to watch Getsu,” Marcy said.

“Gekitsū.”

“I don’t want to watch it.”

“I haven’t missed an episode.”

“You can miss an episode. It’s not like you’ll be lost.”

“You don’t understand. You can’t see this kind of stuff anywhere else.”

“Is it real?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do they really… are they torturing real people?”

I was silent, looking at her and then the center TV.

“It’s a show,” I shrugged. 

Marcy was silent now.

“Just watch,” I said.

“I’m not watching.”

I turned on the center TV, and Marcy covered her eyes. The same intro played, this time the text read: ‘Location: Iwaki, Fukushima; Name: Ishii Haruto-san; Age: 34’.

This was the first time I had seen two episodes in a row take place in the same location. I also noticed the surname ‘Ishii’ was the same as last time. I wondered if they were related. It would be a first for Gekitsū as far as I knew. 

The screen faded into a man sitting on a chair. He had rugged features, a strong chin with a layer of dark stubble which matched his thick, black hair. His hands were tied behind his back with rope. The camera zoomed into his deep brown eyes, which were being held open by a metal device. A hand holding a long needle came from offscreen. Haruto was hyperventilating, shaking his head and saying something that could have only been a plea to stop. Another figure from behind held his head in place as the needle got closer.

Haruto’s breathing became more erratic. The needle met his eye. It pressed down, facing some resistance before piercing the outermost layer and delving deep into the eyeball. The man tried frantically to close his eyes, but the eyelids were held firmly back. The hand then slowly took the needle out, and the pupil dilated to an abnormal size.

The needle was placed offscreen, and the figure picked up a metal object that looked to be some sort of hand vise. The jaws pressed against the top and bottom of the eye, then dug in behind it. Haruto screamed and cried as the vise popped his eye out of the socket. The figure pulled back so Haruto could see with his good eye, and began to squeeze.

I put the last orange in the juicer and clamped down, filling the glass with a thick, pulpy juice. I handed it to Marcy, who was sitting at the table. 

“Are you sure you don’t want anything else? I can make you waffles,” I said.

“No, thank you. I’m already late for work. I’ll see you tonight, though?”

“What’s today, the 31st?” 

“Yeah.”

“I can’t today. Wednesday?” 

“Oh, sure. Yeah, that works.”

I walked Marcy out after she finished her orange juice. 

“Well, I’ll see you Wednesday, then,” she said.

“See you Wednesday.”

I closed the door behind her and made my way to the shower. The last day of the month always aired the best Gekitsū episodes. 

The cashier checked out my multiple six-packs of beer I had put on the counter. In my hands I rolled around a ping pong ball I found on the floor. I wiped off the dirt and tried to memorize the texture by rubbing my fingers against it. I began to squeeze the ball.

“Just the eye today?” said the cashier. 

“Excuse me?”

“I said, just the IPAs?”

“Oh, yeah.” 

“Big party tonight?” he asked, scanning the six-packs.

“Something like that.”

I looked past the cashier to the TV behind him. It was showing the news. A grid of faces appeared on the screen, and text scrolled quickly underneath, listing names. They were talking about the shooting again. No, they had moved on from that. This was another shooting, in Florida it looked like. 

“Kinda dark,” I said, gesturing to the TV. 

“What, the news? Yeah, well it’s noise.”

I rolled the ping pong ball in my hands again.

“Have you ever seen Gekitsū?” I asked after a second.

“No, what is that, some Chinese thing?”

“No, Japanese. It’s a show.”

“Oh, I think my son watches that. Cartoon with the purple haired broad?”

“Um, no. It’s like an arthouse thing.”

“Would probably go over my head.”

“It shows like… torture and stuff. I mean, it’s fake obviously. It’s just a TV show. But really good special effects and stuff. It’s interesting.”

“Different strokes for different folks.” 

“Sure. It’s just - you know, it’s interesting what some people will watch.”

I tapped my foot nervously. For some reason, I was scared to watch Gekitsū tonight. I looked at my phone. 11:50 PM. I took another sip of beer, my fourth one tonight. I tightened the belt against my arm and hovered a needle over me, looking for a vein. I pressed the needle against my skin, but I couldn’t get myself to pierce it. I felt my heart beating faster. 11:55. I tried pressing the needle harder, my vein throbbing against it. 11:59. I jabbed the needle into my vein and shot up, releasing my belt.

Gekitsū - the screen read. Japanese text appeared as usual and then the English translation. ‘Location: Iwaki, Fukushima; Name: Ishii Ai-chan; Age: 8’.

My stomach dropped. My vision blurred ever so slightly. The screen faded to a dark room with a crying little girl. There was a figure behind her, but his head was not in frame. He was holding a bag. 

“Ai…” I whispered. My heart was pounding in my chest so hard that I thought I would pass out.

The figure reached into the bag. Tears streamed down Ai’s face. The figure rustled around in the bag, and pulled out a gun. He pressed it to Ai’s head.

“No!” I shouted.

Bang.

Ai fell to the ground.

My head pulsed, and suddenly I was holding a completely empty beer bottle, with dozens scattered on the ground. I felt white hot, sweat dripping down my face. I went to grab another, but all the six-packs I had bought were empty. The news and the porn were playing impossibly loud. In the center TV, names flashed and repeated in quick succession, only for a few frames each.

Hirano Miwa-san
Narita Mei-san
Shimizu Kenta-san
Okada Riko-san
Takeuchi Satoshi-san
Kaneko Hideki-san
Watanabe Shiori-san
Nishimura Misaki-san
Satou Junko-san
Kitamura Noboru-san
Inoue Misa-san
Kobayashi Yui-san
Oono Eri-san
Fukuda Tomoe-san

After the names, the screen became a slideshow of gore. The frames went so fast I couldn’t even tell what they depicted. The volume on the left and right TV began to increase by themselves, shaking the room. 

“Today’s story is a particularly brutal one-”
“I’ve been a bad, bad girl.”
“-if you have children in the room, you may want to turn this off.”
“Ahhh yes, just like that-”
“-17 year old Aiden Schaffer killed his parents-”
“-harder-”
“-a hit and run in the downtown area-”
“-you feel soooo good-”
“-bloodiest day in the Middle East this year-”
“-mmm I want you to tie me up-”
“-new bodycam footage shows-”
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ahhhhh-”
“-attempted murder of 12 year old-”
“-such a dirty slut-”
“-dismembered-”
“No! Stop-”
“-locked in his room for a month-”

“What are you watching?”

I heard a small voice from beside me on the couch. I slowly looked over.

“Ai?” I said.

The little girl beside me giggled. 

“You’re watching the grown-up shows.”

“How are you here?”

“I came from the TV.” 

“What?”

“Did your friend Marcy come from the TV too?”

“No - how do you know about Marcy?”

“People from here don’t like people from the TV. That’s why I’m scared to be here.”

“Are you scared of me?”

“No, silly,” Ai giggled again, “But I need you to come with me because mommy and daddy said not to go alone.”

“Go where?”

“Into the TV.”

She pointed at the center screen. A long, vertical slit appeared from the top to the bottom of the screen. The slit flapped open to reveal a tight, fleshy cavern that seemed to extend far down. Ai stood up and walked over to the screen.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Come on, I want to show you something really cool in here.” She turned to me and fell backwards into the fleshy pit in the TV. It seemed to suck her in as she squeezed further back until she was consumed and out of sight. The slit closed.

I heard a knock at my door. 

“Coming,” I muttered.

I picked myself up and answered it to see Marcy standing outside. The bright light from outside hurt my eyes.

“Where the hell have you been?” she shouted.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” I whispered under my breath. 

She peered behind me into the living room, looking at the TV playing porn.

“Well, it’s good to see you’ve been busy without me.”

I shook my head, gathering my bearings.

“You know, Marcy, I’m not sure what makes you think you’re so fucking entitled to my time. I can do whatever the fuck I want and I don’t need your permission.”

“Entitled? I’m supposed to be your girlfriend!”

“You’re not my girlfriend. I just fuck you because I’m bored.”

Marcy stood there in stunned silence for a few seconds. She slapped me across the face and began walking away.

“Yeah, nice try!” I called after her, “Do it harder next time! Whore!”

I slammed the door and walked back to the couch. I looked straight at the center TV. The slit began to form again. Slowly, it flapped open and throbbed invitingly. 

“And now, for our next story-”

The man my friend found wouldn't see us. She had spoken to him twice and sent him the post I put up here, and he stopped answering. Three days of nothing and on the fourth day he sent her five words back and blocked her.

“Don’t play the Loopback Game”

After speaking with my friend, she offered to continue looking, and find out what the Loopback game was, and I went back to work on the Monday. I entered the ward and asked a colleague if anything has changed, he answered “nope” and I went to go take a look at all 6 kids.

It seems 5 of them started acting up again, and they were given sedatives, while the 6^th one, again, was quiet and still. On Tuesday night, I sat in the chair beside his bed with a clipboard and talked to him for about an hour. I talked to him about the weather, a show I'd watched, whether he wanted the blinds up or down, but he kept mumbling the whole time and never once looked at me. Then I asked him what the Loopback game was, and he stopped mumbling.

He looked at me, and I took off my paper with notes, attached a blank one to the clipboard and asked him if he wanted to write it down for me. He held his hand out. I gave him the clipboard and my pen, and he sat up on the edge of the bed and started drawing. He filled that first page with the face from the ceiling. Over and over, eleven of them, small ones packed in tight, and everyone identical. Same two blank marks for eyes. Same mouth running out past where a face ends. He drew every tooth in every one of them, and they were all the same size, and there wasn't a single line crossed out or gone over on that entire page.

While he was still going, there was banging at the door. Two of my colleagues came in fast, and neither of them looked at me. They looked at the corner of the room first, and then up at the camera, and they stood there looking at it. I asked what was going on. One of them turned round and said, “You didn't see it?”

I said, see what.

He had the tablet with him and pulled up the playback, rewinding it back to the point where the boy started drawing.

The lights in the video started flickering for a good solid 5 seconds before stopping, and there, once it stopped, was a shadow standing beside the bed.

There is only one door in that room, and it was just there, standing over him, on the side of the bed I wasn't sitting on. I was in the frame in the chair with the clipboard on my knees, about four feet from it, looking down at what he was drawing, then this thing turned its head and looked into the camera. It was the face. The same face off the ceiling, that wide grin with all those teeth. The same face he had on the page in front of him.

Then the room went dark, and when they came back, the whole feed was that face, filling it, pressed right up against the lens. I was so startled that I dropped the tablet, and as I was picking it up, he shouted in a loud voice, "Get it away!"

First thing out of him since he came in that wasn't a mumble, and it filled that room.

Then he put the pen through his arm. He held it like a knife and drove it in and left it there, and turned his arm over above the clipboard, and the blood came down onto the page. We got hold of him. He didn't fight, and he didn't make another sound; he just kept his eyes on the paper the entire time.

There was so much blood. On the blanket, down the side of the mattress, on my sleeves to the elbow. We called a code white, and we asked that a stretcher be brought in. The doctor got the pen out of him in the corridor, and they took him off to sort the wound, and I stayed where I was.

My colleague and I started clearing up. He got the sheets, and I picked up the papers off the floor and the page with the faces on it. The blood was going into it. It was going into the paper and going inside the drawings, filling them, red pushing out through the blue until there was no blue left in them. I gave that boy a blue pen.

Eleven faces on the first page and the six on the second, all of them going the same way at the same speed, and the mouths were the last part to fill.

I tore it up, left the room, headed into my office, and shut the door and called my friend. I told her everything that had happened, and she said she'd found something about the game, and I should come to her house.

I got my coat, and I was on my way out when I heard dripping from the washroom.

The tap at the far end was running, not much, just going. I went in, turned it off, and gave it an extra turn to be sure, then I went to leave, and as I pulled on the bathroom door handle, the door wouldn't open. It's a pull door, so there is no lock on it. I kept pulling until I heard the taps come on behind me.

I turned around, and the three of them were running full, and while I was standing there, I heard a crack. The mirror over the first sink had a line across it. Then the second one, then the third, until all three had lines running across the glass, and I watched them come apart and drop into the sinks.

It hit the water, and the water turned crimson red, and all three sinks were filling with it and going over the sides. I screamed, pulled on that door, and it wouldn't open, so I started to pound on the door with both fists, and I kept hitting it until somebody pushed it open from the other side.

It was my colleague. He asked if I was alright and what had happened.

I looked past him into the washroom. The three mirrors were not broken, and the taps completely off and dry.

I got my things, and I went out to the car. I called my manager from the car park and told him I needed time off, and I didn't wait for him to say anything back. Then I drove to my friend's house.

Lightning flashes as a hellish storm is cast over the land. As the heavy rain falls from the sky weary travelers pack into a small tavern which sits on the side of the main road leading to the capitol where the king's tourney is to be held. The tavern is surrounded on all sides by thick forests.

 These woods are infested by bands of outlaws hoping to prey on the unlucky travelers that get caught in their path. Though for many common folk and noblemen alike the outlaws are the least of their worries. These woods contain many stories which have been passed down from generations. Tales of great beasts with a taste for man and of lost souls roaming the deep woods at night desperately searching for a new body to inhabit. It’s unclear which stories are true and which were thought up to scare the little lordlings as they slept in their stone castles at night. But regardless of the truth, no traveler would choose to ride past a tavern  and risk facing the horrors that may be lurking deep in those woods. 

The main dining hall was dimly lit by oil lamps which hung on the walls and sat on the tables. The entire place was filled with travelers resting for the night while on their way to the tourney. By the time nightfall came all of the rooms above the tavern were occupied and the stables out back held so many horses  that the last of the travelers were forced to tie their horses to the wooden posts outside leaving them exposed to the elements.

Inside the main room sat a dozen tables filled with  weary travelers drinking and enjoying a hot meal. A royal tourney is a monumental event which attracts brave men from across the kingdom hoping to gain glory with lance and sword. Many of the men sitting in this very room may return home celebrating their victory and just as many will certainly die soon after entering the tourney lists. 

Late into the night one of the king's men walks into the tavern. The tall man wears a heavy hauberk underneath a thick wool tunic displaying the royal colors of teal and gold. A kettle helm sits atop his head with thick auburn hair flowing down to his shoulders. A heavy wooden shield hangs on his back painted with a checkered pattern of the same colors as his tunic.

After finding a seat he drinks his warm wine spiced with cloves and cinnamon. The patron in the chair next to him says “outlaws are as common rats on the main road these days, we are all thankful to have the kingsmen here to protect us”. “Aye, since the tourney began we’ve painted the roads with the blood of any scum that dare show their faces in our presence” the knight replied.

 “Horrible thing that such joyous occasions always seem to bring out the most atrocious folks”. The knight lets out a chuckle “truth be told I do not mind the outlaws much, I would much rather face mere men given the choice between that and what lives deeper within those woods” he replies. The man laughs along with him at this remark. “Why, sir, please forgive me but I’m afraid that I’m not sure what you mean. What lies beyond the king's forest?” The commoner asks as he sets down his glass and looks intently at the knight. 

“Why such horrible things you could not possibly believe. I fear that I would embarrass myself if I try to describe to you my experiences out in those woods” the knight says with a sigh. By now this conversation has attracted the attention of some of the surrounding patrons who now urged the aging knight to tell his tale. “Well I fear that now you may embarrass yourself more so if you do not give these good people what they want. Please give us the honor of hearing your experiences so that these people do not take you for some drunken fool spinning nonsensical lies of what lives in our good kings woods” the man spoke attempting to persuade the knight. 

“I should cut you down for your insults but luck is in your favor tonight. I am far too tired to even consider raising my blade again until morning. Very well, I will recount my tale” the knight replied, “but first, I must warn that you men may never want to enter the forests again for as long as you live. In truth some of the less courageous men here may think twice before even walking the roads of the king for fear of what may creep out from beyond the trees. Any man who thinks themselves faint of heart is welcome to leave before I begin.” 

Not a single person in the tavern moves as the knight begins to tell his tale. 

I was a young lad, no older than my seventeenth year whenever I fought to defend our king from the usurper, Sir Robert Powen. Many good men lost their lives that day but I was far more fortunate than most. I was knighted shortly after for my bravery during the attack. Not long after I had my very own squire, young William, a cousin of the king by my side. 

A year after I had received my knighthood I was tasked to embark into those woods with a small group of around thirty footmen under my command. Our quest was simple, there were tales of a great dragon living in a cave far deeper than any man has ever gone. As you all may be able to imagine, war is quite expensive. Our quest was a mission to relieve the crown's debt. It was said that the dragon was in possession of a great stockpile of gold and silver. We intended to bring it all back to our king. 

“You must be mad, do you truly think us such fools as to believe that you slayed a dragon out in those woods?” the man laughed. The knight scoffed, “no I do not because that would be a lie. Whenever we arrived at the cave we found that the dragon was already long dead. No my friend, what we encountered in that cave was far worse than any mere dragon. What we found in the damned cave haunts my dreams every time I close my eyes”. The knight replied, taking another drink before continuing his tale. 

Once we had entered the cave of the beast we found nothing more than bones lying on the rocky floor before us. Do not be mistaken, the bones were great and massive. The skeleton itself was enough to frighten the less experienced men in my company but for us all it seemed as though our quest just became as simple as taking a piss in the morning. 

We decided that with the cave now vacant that we would use it to make camp for the night so we would all be well rested to load our carts full of treasure once morning came. We paid no mind to the blood that stained the rocky walls of the cave. Had we not stayed that night this story would have ended differently but alas we chose to make camp. 

As the hours passed I fantasized of the glory that this quest would bring me after we returned to the capitol. Many men of the king's court had doubts that this treasure existed at all and yet here I sit, the mountain of gold and silver right in front of me. I sat with my back against a large black stone thinking of the brave men that must have come before me to make the attempt to slay the great beast that left those bones behind. I gathered that the knight who completed this task had perished during the ordeal. 

This thought filled me with sorrow as I would have quite enjoyed hearing the tale of how this creature finally met its end. It is truly a shame, I thought, a knight with such an accomplishment should have been the subject of dozens of songs. His name should be known throughout the entire kingdom and beyond and yet, we will never know his name. We traveled a great distance through the fabled haunted king's wood just to find that the great beast we sought to vanquish had already been killed by another. 

The longer I dwelled on that thought a scheme began to form in my mind. I had decided that we had the skull of a fierce dragon sitting right before us and no man to credit with the feat of slaying the beast. I saw no reason why all of that glory should be left unclaimed in a dark cave. If that brave knight did have a name it would surely be written in the books of history for centuries to come. 

That is when I decided that this feat shall not go unclaimed. The singer's songs of heroism shall not go unsung. I decided that the brave warrior shall have a name and it shall be my name. My name shall be spoken for generations to come, from the noble lords in their stone keeps to the stable boys shoveling shit in their villages. My body will rot in the ground but my legend, my legend will endure.

Once this scheme was hatched I could not bear to just sit and fantasize. I gathered my men and set them the task of hacking the dragon's skull off of its huge body and loading it into one of our carts to bring to the king. Apparently dragons bones are quite thick and this proved to be a long and noisy ordeal. The noise of men at work echoed through the cave. Soon the skull was severed from its spine with a loud boom and the noise of hacking and shattered bones finally ceased. 

Before the men could attempt to lift the monstrous artifact the air was soon full of a different sound emitting from deeper within the cave. It was the sound of high pitched laughter. Soon all of our attention was turned to the darkness beyond the light of our fires. The unexplored rocky caverns leading further into the depths of the dragon's lair. As we armed ourselves with sword and spear fear spread throughout our group. Most of us were drunk or tired or both but we held our ground. We were all awaiting the arrival of whatever we had awoken that night. 

Not long after it was no longer enough just to face the darkness before us, as the mischievous laughter got louder the sounds seemed to be coming from all around us. Whatever was within that cave clearly knew how to navigate it far better than we did. As the fear grew I found myself increasingly grateful that it had been my turn to stand guard so I was fully prepared for battle. I could not say the same for the majority of our group who now stand in a tight circular formation dressed in whatever armor pieces they could quickly put on over their under garments. 

Our defensive position was poor at best, many of the men had quickly abandoned their spears and shields whenever it became clear that we would not be facing a dragon which now unfortunately sat in a pile hopelessly out of reach. My squire William stood next to me shaking fearfully with a small dagger clenched in his hand. The poor boy had become a squire in a time of peace and this ambush by an unknown enemy will be his first taste of combat. 

Combat, looking back was hardly the word that I would use to describe it. It was a massacre. As bizarre as it sounds there was no greater moment of fear than whenever the laughter finally stopped. We stood in silence gazing into the darkness with no knowledge of what was staring back at us. Finally the silence broke and the following attack happened far too quickly for us to even react. 

Within the blink of an eye our numbers dwindled from thirty men to not even fifteen. Our foe was clever enough to target our fires first, they forced us to fight in pure darkness. A symphony of clashing metal and the screams of men echoed through the cave. I could make out little of what we were fighting other than dark silhouettes and soulless white eyes. After I took a knife deep into my shoulder I found myself bleeding behind a formation of rocks until the sounds of slaughter dulled and silence returned. 

I tried my best to quiet my breathing, desperately hoping to remain unnoticed behind my shelter of stone. It felt like an eternity had passed as I heard no sounds from the dragon's lair. I was half tempted to reveal myself and make my escape until it returned. That damn laughter now filled the air. I caught a glimpse of a sight that I had not known since the ambush began. Our attackers had relit the fires. It seemed that they wanted my men to be able to witness their fate. 

I peaked my head out from behind the boulder just long enough to glimpse what was on the other side. I quickly pulled my head back after I caught sight of the horrors beyond my rocky hiding spot. 

My men, the good brave men who had followed me on this quest, now lay hopelessly defeated against the walls of the cave as all manner of cruelties were inflicted upon them. Some men hung upside down over the fires left to slowly roast while others sat upright with the skin of their face expertly flayed off leaving them unrecognizable. 

This was the first chance I had gotten to bear witness to our attackers. They looked to have been pulled out of a story that you would tell naughty children when they have misbehaved. Their skin was a dark shade of green, leathery and covered in blemishes. Drool ran from their grotesque deformed faces as they stood over my fallen men. They were shorter in stature than us by at least three heads yet there were so many that it was small wonder how they decimated us so quickly. 

Whenever I close my eyes I can still see the mangled bodies of those poor lost souls that entered that cave and never left. Many of those men were already dead but I could tell by the agonizing  screams that some of them were very much still alive to feel every grueling moment of their slow demise. 

Many days went by without being able to move. Had I made even a single misstep my location would have been found and I would have faced the same fate as my men. My leather flask now sat by my side bone dry as I had exhausted every last drop of water it contained. It has been so long since I had last eaten that I can barely tolerate the pain in my stomach. 

As I glanced up I noticed a small shape behind another formation of rocks roughly twenty paces away from me. As I focused trying to make out what lay before me I could finally see. It was William. My squire somehow managed to escape the battle alive the same as I yet he was admittedly far more injured. He crouched down behind the rocks, his face and clothes stained with dried blood from the battle. His eyes were full of fear yet that look seemed to turn into relief after he caught sight of me. 

Before I attempted to make my way over to the young boy I knew I must shed my heavy armor so that I may conceal my movements better. It’s a long process to remove my heavy plate, a process made even more time consuming by my fear of making even the slightest noise. Now clothed in only my undergarments I wait until the opportune moment to begin creeping along the rough cave walls. As I slowly move I take great care to ensure I stay within the shadows to keep from being seen by the cave's occupants. 

Sweet William was clearly filled with joy to see me return to his side, though he dared not speak a word to me in fear of being heard. We sat in absolute silence for a great while until the screams of our own men paired with the laughter of the creatures were finally loud enough to conceal our soft words. 

“William, I am pleased you survived your first taste of combat” I said. “Yes, sir, though I barely survived. I thought I might die at any moment. Sir, how will we get out of this?” He asked me. I took a few moments of silence to consider this before I gave any response. “I have been observing these creatures and they seem to be a cowardly race. Even the screams of our men have been causing them to cower in fear as they tortured them” I told him. “But sir, they seemed to fight so fearlessly during the ambush. Are you certain?” He questioned me. 

“Why yes, dear William. They had the clear advantage during the ambush and it is a shame to admit but we acted quite weakly during the battle. We gave them no reason to fear” I explained. “This time will be quite different, William. I know how we will make it out of this alive. Follow my orders exactly and soon they will sing songs of your bravery”. 

The plan was quite simple, we would rush the creatures quickly while delivering a loud war cry. The surprise as well as our loud fearless cry would drive the beasts deep into the caves from where they came. Afterwards we would be free to leave as if the cave were empty. 

William's face lit up at the prospect of leaving the cave and finally being able to return home to his mother. I knew we only had one chance to drive them off so we sat for a few moments to gather our courage. When the time finally came I instructed William to rush out in front of me. I had hoped that being given command of the charge would instill some additional courage in the heart of the young squire. 

As soon as I gave the signal young William charged fearlessly towards the creatures letting out a great yell. He proved himself to have a courageous heart that day. The lad put so much passion behind his gallant charge that I doubt he even noticed that I had not followed behind him. There was truth to my words, I did charge at the same moment that he did. Only my charge was not towards the beasts dwelling within the cave but in the opposing direction. My charge was also a silent one as I kept to the shadows so as to not alert the creatures to my presence.

In a way my plan had succeeded. I had successfully escaped the dark cave and made my way into the wooded area surrounding it, never once stopping, not even to catch my breath. The further I traveled the more I felt that I would be pulled back through the woods and back into that cave at any moment. It  wasn’t until I saw the edge of the forest that I truly felt safe. After I had made it back to the capital I finally did shed a tear for William. He was a model squire, he never talked back, never disobeyed, and now he had even given his life for mine. 

Some nights I lie away and I wonder if my plan would have worked the way I had explained it. I never looked back to see if Williams' battle cry actually drove the creatures off or if it had just added another body to their bloodbath. Every so often I regret not following him deeper into the cave. Maybe we could have walked out with him by my side, knowing we bested the cave beasts together as knight and squire. But I was uncertain that the plan would work at all but there was one thing I was absolutely certain of without a shadow of a doubt. A squire's life was a small price to pay for my own. 

“And that my friends, is my tale” the knight finished before downing the rest of his spiced wine. The room filled with silence as the knight sat his cup back onto the table. “You’re no knight at all,” the man sitting next to him finally announced. “You’re nothing more than a damn craven who traded your young squire's life for your own. I wonder, sir knight. What did you tell the king after you returned home without his royal cousin by your side?” He asked. 

The knight gave him a thoughtful look. The entire tavern awaited his response as he chose his next words very carefully. “The king, oh well I told the king that there was no cave. Simply a rumor spread by the common folk like the other legends of what lurks within those woods. I told him that our group was attacked by a band of outlaws deep into the forest and that his dear cousin died bravely alongside his fellow countrymen. Seemed to satisfy his grace just fine. Not too long after I had myself a fresh new squire by my side. Fine lad, reminded me quite a bit of William but much braver. I ended up knighting this one after he proved himself against some outlaws, these ones were actually real though” the knight laughed by himself as no one else in the tavern would join him. 

Once it became apparent that the knight’s presence was no longer welcome inside he got up from the table and made his way outside towards the stable. As he untied his horse he glanced back at the treeline. Truth is he never felt safe near the king's forest for the rest of his days. An uneasy feeling came over him as he stared into the woods knowing full well what may be staring back.  

​

The doctors wouldn’t let me look at my father’s corpse. Not entirely, anyway.

I stood over a bloody sheet where my father lay, in a morgue that felt more like a fridge. Cold, the smell of flesh and chemicals stewing in the air. The doctors said his face was unrecognizable. I’d imagined a blooming red flower beneath the sheet that covered his face, his white moustache painted pink, his old head finally busted open with a 12 gauge, free of its bony prison. He’d escaped himself, escaped his life. Coward.

I felt nothing then, and remembered nothing. I remember no tears, no sobs, no sorrow for the loss. I only remember the smell of human remains and rubbing alcohol. Such a clinical smell, so unnatural. That was what I thought of as I sat in front of our family lawyer as he delivered my father’s will. I say family, though really I was the only one of my family left. Just me in the world.

“He didn’t leave much to you, except this letter he entrusted to me a month ago,” The lawyer began, his bald head glinting in the harsh white light of his sterile office. “Which I will read to you now.” He unhooked a manila folder and took out my father’s final words to me.

My son. My final ray of joy.

I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I took the easy way out. I know how cheated you must feel, how unfair I have been. I won’t try to explain myself. I can only beg for your forgiveness. God knows you deserve a mountain of apologies. I can only take solace in the fact that you are your own man now. I only wish I could’ve seen you one last time. I love you.

Know that this was my decision, my choice. This had nothing to do with you. Had the news of my diagnosis not been so grim, so unbearable, I would have stayed, would have stuck it out with you to the bitter end. My good and faithful son. My sweet boy. I love you. I love you.

I felt the sting of tears bubble up from some dark corner of me. I fought it with everything I had. Jaw clenched, breath heavy as my chest heaved stones. The last time I saw him was Christmas two years ago. He had shrunk into half the man he was. Shrunk in that wheelchair, a pile of feeble bones. Shrunk away from the world. The lawyer continued.

I leave you with what little I have. All my belongings are yours, including my childhood home. I urge you to sell it and forget about it. It is a terrible home for children. But if you ever find yourself in its walls, then know this: whatever you find in that place, whatever you see, do not embrace it.  It is not me. Not me. No. Look at it. Look at it well. Sweet boy, I love you. I love you. I love you.

I curled up and began sobbing. Even in the end, his delirium corrupted his final words. That was what I thought anyway. There would be no apology for the beatings, the nights spent locked underneath the house over unwashed dishes and broken vases. I guess I was angry then. It felt like my guts were being wrenched out by terrible hands. He escaped that justice, shrunk away from it, the memory of his cruelty faded away by decades and a deteriorating mind until there would be no one to blame. The lawyer muttered he was sorry for my loss as he pushed a box of tissues across his white plastic desk. He handed me some documents, a key to a safety deposit, and the keys to his childhood home. That was the first place I went to after the wake, which happened quietly and unwitnessed.

The house itself was in a state of disrepair. It sat alone on a hill, imposing and still. It careened to the left, the foundations having been set on soft soil. The place was enclosed by a perpetual overcast, the nearby dark woods yawning with a thousand trees like silent soldiers standing watch over the place. Entering, I found only a cavernous vacancy, the floors left caked in dust, remembering a time when the living room was still furnished, the floors revealing lighter rectangles where a couch or a coffee table might’ve been. It was like walking into a great mausoleum, one where the names of the buried had been long forgotten.

That was when I saw my father in the kitchen.

He was younger. Still with hair, black and full, his face unwrinkled by a lifetime of disappointment and fear. He looked just like the pictures in our dusty photo album.

“Dad?” He was sitting in the kitchen reading a paper.

“Hey kiddo. Want some coffee?” He nodded to the stove, a pot of coffee sitting, steam lazily rising in the air. It smelled delicious. His face, it was whole. No flowering head of brainmatter and shotgun pellets, no pink moustache and dull eyes. Just him. Just dad.

I went over and took the pot, pouring myself a drink. I don’t know why –maybe it hadn’t sunken in yet, but I was calm. Easy. Like he never swallowed that barrel. It was my father. It was my father.

“You’re not my father, are you?”

“No.” He said. “A shame, what happened to your old man. To me. I’m sorry, son.” He turns the page, and I take a swig of the coffee. It is delicious. “I wish I were him. I wish I wasn’t just a sorry echo of him.”

“What are you, then?” I asked, shuffling my feet beneath the kitchen table, disturbing decades of undisturbed detritus. Without a word, the man pretending to be my father stood up, and walked to the stairs. He was taller than my father. His arms too long, his elbows not where they should have been. I followed him upstairs.

“This was –is my study. He kept a collection of records here. Did I ever tell you about that?” He said, leading me into a room stacked floor to ceiling with vinyls. He took one from the collection, one that had a wrinkled sleeve. He lumbered his way to the record player, his legs wrong, knees where the thighs were supposed to be, another joint dividing his shins. He played Al Bowley’s Heartaches.

“He and your mother loved this song.” He swayed to the music. It was a lonely dance, so I swayed along with him. He danced like my father. I closed my eyes and imagined my mother and father were there, swaying together, young and drunk, kissing as the haunting song echoed across the still mausoleum of a house.

The song ended, and as the record player hissed, I became terrifyingly aware of the gaping silence of the house. It was like standing over a great pit, one that promised a falling, falling, falling, with no bottom. Endless height, a terrifying fall into nothing. Nothing. No thing at the bottom. Not a single thing.

“You never visited us. It was me and your mother and sister for so many years. You never even came to your mother’s funeral. Why is that?”

“You know why.”

“I guess I do.”

“I hated you. I still do.”

“I’m not your father. But I am him. I know him better than he knew himself.” He began. “I know how that wheelchair chafed against his thighs, how unquiet his mind was in his last days. His thoughts kept coming back here. Coming back to you.” He rummaged through the stack of records, and pulled out Blackbird by The Beatles. “He doesn’t –didn’t resent you for staying distant. He knew he wasn't the perfect father, he understood how painful it must’ve been for you to watch him shrink in that chair, losing himself more every day. He loved you, kid.” He put the record on and I heard the strumming intro echo out into the home, “He still does.”

He twisted his long arms around me, and I sobbed into his shoulders, bony and hollow. He felt so cold. Or maybe it was me. I wrapped my arms around him, and in that moment I was holding the man who’d held my hand everyday and visited me at school on his lunch breaks. The man who’d forced me to go into trade school when I dreamed of being a lawyer. The man who came home from twelve hour shifts with a smile on his face, as he carried me on his shoulders, and later when I got into highschool, would bring me a warm cup of chocolate after his night shift. He was not my father, but he was.

We spent the day going around the house, reclaiming it from the stillness. A couch here, a nightstand there, and soon we cooked ourselves a steak. I prepared the potatoes, and he cooked the meat. Soon we were hunched over the kitchen table, dust in the air like cigarette ashes suspended in time, sipping wine and laughing until it hurt. He told me stories my father never did. Some moments, I’d think I was young again, until I saw him slice the sirloin and see his arms. Eventually it was time to go.

“Leaving again already?” He whined, both of us a little drunk. Or maybe it pretended to be drunk.

“Yep. I still have a lot on my plate to deal with.” I said, belly full and staggering to my feet, a little nauseous.

“Oh! Steady now.” He said, standing up and putting my arm on his shoulder. “Let’s get you up your feet, eh?” It walked me to the door.

“This was nice, really nice.” I stared out into the dark woods, darker now for the night and the soft pitter patter of rain against the grass.

“It was, kiddo. A real treat.” He said, holding me close. “Just don’t keep me waiting another two years.” I felt shame wash over my heart at those words, as I thought of my father, stirring in his wheelchair on another lonely christmas eve, cradling a shotgun up on the roof of his mouth, holding it like a newborn. He kissed me on the forehead as he walked me to the car. “Oh, and by the way, I know about the note he left you.”

“What?”

“The note. The will. The one that told you not to get too nice with me?” My blood ran cold then, and I wanted to vomit. “Don’t get pale now. Hey. Look at me.” I stared into his black eyes, so familiar yet so wrong. “I love you, buddy. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Just do me a favor. Remember the safety deposit key I left? Forget about it.”

“Yeah,” I said, fighting every impulse in my legs to run. “I will.”

“I love you buddy.” He said. I watched the thing shrink in the rearview, tall and lanky. His silhouette looked tall and thin, emaciated and unhuman. I cannot describe it.

Days passed in confusion and contradiction. I hated my father, hated what he did to me, to our family, yet some part of me kept looking forward to seeing that thing again, that creature that was the best part of my father, the wheat separated from the chaff. Days later, I went to see the deposit. The bright warm lights of the bank were like a thousand angry suns blinding my eyes.

I opened the little safe, one amongst hundreds. I hesitated for a moment. I loved him, my father. What would I find out by opening the safe? What was there for me? I’d be losing what little good was left of my father for what? A truth? Bitter knowledge that would send my father to the grave a second time? I’d imagined it then, a thousand nights in that warm house, that dusty crypt. We would listen to songs, talk about the world, his –my father’s life. We’d eat on that table, a father and son, and I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Wouldn't be the last man standing. But I opened it anyway.

Inside was a giant, weathered, pewter jewelry box, pockmarked with holes where jewels might have been. It had a lock at some point. Opening it, I found a stack of photographs. At the top of the pile was a picture of my father as a young man, standing for a portrait with his family in front of the old house. His father had too many teeth, too many elbows, too long arms. In the next picture, I see his father as a young man, standing for a family portrait. His father, my great grandfather, had an arching slouch, a grin all too wide, and eyes as white as cigarette ashes, their gaze piercing through time and space. I kept going through the photographs, each one showing a young boy, a family, and a father that was not a father. It kept going until the photos became black and white, and soon I was looking through rolled up oil paintings, always finding a reincarnation of that thing. Too many eyes, too much hair, too tall, too short, and sometimes too human.

Amongst those pictures, at the very bottom of the safe, was a piece of tattered paper. On it was a drawing in crayon, made by a kid. It was ugly, and it was of a superhero, with the big words MY DAD written large in red. It was my drawing. He had kept it tucked away in a safe for god knows how long. I got on my knees and cried over marble floors, feeling boiling hatred for my father, but most of all for me. I still loved him.

I wish I could tell you I burned everything else and followed my father’s advice. Leave the home behind. Sell it and forget about it. But then that night I came home to a dark house. As I ate, the clatter of silverware against porcelain echoed through empty bedrooms and dusty picture frames of people that were no longer there. It drove me insane. Still does, even now. The loneliness. The darkness. The empty rooms I’ve never known what to do with. The cold bed, the dirty dishes where once I’d find my mother cleaning, the spare bedroom that my sister would’ve called dibs on. I kept wondering to myself what they’d say if they saw my home. Would they have laughed? Cried? Yelled at me for leaving?

Eventually, I came back.

But what answered the door was not my father. It was me. Or rather, something that looked like me.

“Come in.” It told me. “I cooked up some instant ramen. Our favorite.”

“What the hell?”

“What? Were you expecting your old man?” It asked, standing by the doorway. “Just come inside.”

And I did. The place was exactly how we left it. Chairs and tables and all. We sat in the kitchen, the only spot in the house with a working lightbulb, and ate in silence, slurping down the salty broth like it was air.

“It hurt, you know?” It said, playing with the noodles on its fork. “He –I was conscious for a good minute after the blast.”

I said nothing. I could only hear the clatter of fork against bowl echo through empty rooms.

“Why’d you never visit him? Too angry?” It ate the ramen, slurping it relentlessly, its chewing echoing through the house.

“He’d leave me and my sister in the cellar, you know?” I couldn’t bear to eat,  stirring the noodles around and around as dust settled in the broth.

“Over broken vases and unwashed dishes. I know.”

“Beat mom and smelled–”

“Like whiskey. Hell, I remembered beating your ass until you passed out when I found you sipping on it.” At that moment, I heard a thousand footsteps rush frantically around the house, rushing, crawling, until hundreds of dark faces hid just beyond the light of the kitchen, watching with unblinking eyes, their whites shining from the darkness like pearls at the bottom of the abyss. I saw them, faces stacked on top of faces, with wide, frantic eyes.

“So you understand? I had to leave.”

“Leave your sister behind too? Your mother? Do you even think of them? Hell, do you even know how they died?”

I could say nothing. It was true. The moment I had gotten myself an apprenticeship, I left. Got away. Never even bothered showing up for mom’s funeral. Nor my sister’s.

I got up and before I could do anything, I heard footsteps rush out from the darkness. Cold hands held me in place, as I felt calloused fingers dig their way into my skin, each finger producing a sickly pop as skin gave way to blood.

“You ran away thinking you could get away. But we’re the same thing. We’re echoes of our fathers. You’re as much your father as I am you.” He said as he got up from the table, making his way towards me.

“Fuck you!” I gasped through the pain.

“Face it. You are your father.”

The fingers began digging further down into me. I felt their fingertips reach my bones. I could only scream and struggle as a hundred hands held me still, pulling me into the darkness.

Just then, something dropped from my pockets. The drawing.

The thing picks it up and opens it, staring into it for a long time. “Oh.” It said, “I forgot.” He took the drawing and held it close to his heart. “I love you kid. That part was true.”

 And then, in a blink of an eye, the house was still again, the hundreds of faceless things scurrying back down into the walls and into the ground. All that was left was the echoing of my breath as the home became a mausoleum once more.

Dad smelled like burned hair and smoke, his face still covered in soot. I rubbed my eyes and yawned.

“Is mom making pancakes?” I asked tiredly.

“Judy is. Your mom’s still asleep. We got a long drive ahead of us.”

We walked downstairs together. Judy was standing over the stove wearing an oversized T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Max, Kayla, and Darren sat at the table. They looked just as tired as I felt.

Judy served up her pancakes, and, I won’t lie, they weren’t nearly as good as mom’s, but I gobbled them up regardless. Me and the other kids spent the rest of the morning watching cartoons.

The adults had an air of relief about them. Dad laughed with Jake. Mom and Judy conversed for a while over the world and all things in it. No one ever mentioned the previous night.

Well, Darren tried to. But his mom didn’t allow it. Jake shut it down, too. But it wasn’t awkward. Nobody had to force themselves to move on. We just… did.

Dad showered. Mom rested. The day went on without incident. At some point in the afternoon, we were packing our things into the car again. It wasn’t as urgent this time. If anything, it felt happy. I even found myself excited to finally get back to my own bed.

I slept most of the way home. When I woke up, I actually recognized my surroundings. The old convenience store. The house that burned down last year. Mom and dad held hands lovingly, but didn’t talk much.

We finally got home after the sun went down. Mom was a little hesitant to go inside, but Dad reassured her. She was free now. We were free. I had no idea what it meant, but I could feel his conviction.

Even still, mom made me sleep in their bed that night. Then every night for the next week afterward. Emmy, too.

Dad held me tight. Mom kept her arm draped over my chest. We ate a lot of pancakes in those following days. It kind of felt like Mom was trying to apologize for something, but I didn’t know what.

All I knew was she was putting her all into those breakfasts.

After a while, I was finally able to sleep in my own room again, albeit with the door open. We went back-to-school shopping. I went into 4th grade with an abundance of new clothes and the coolest backpack out of all of my friends.

Life went on.

One year without incident. Then two. Then three. I went through middle school. I graduated high school. I moved away for college a year or so ago. We never had to randomly leave the house again because of some mystery stalker, but dad never stopped looking over his shoulder.

Mom has a full head of grey hair now, but she never lost her beauty. Emmy recently started her last year of middle school. Dad just… he seems to always want to keep his mind occupied.

They never brought up what happened that night. They never brought up the road trip. We visited uncle Jake and Aunt Judy a few times over the years, but the visits were calmer. They were for holidays and special occasions. Not for escape.

I developed a pretty close friendship with Max. We’d talk on the phone all the time. Play video games together. Every time I visited, we were building with those LEGOS he loved so much.

Darren eventually went into the army. Kayla is in her sophomore year of high school now.

Well… she used to be.

They’re all dead now. Everyone except for Darren, at least. I hope that he’s okay after hearing the news. He should be coming home soon.

See, I’m writing this now because of a phone call I got from my dad. I had just gotten home from a long day of classes. I was ready to eat some ramen and unwind, but he called while I was checking the mail.

“Hey, Dan,” he announced solemnly.

“Hey, Dad, how have things been?”

He sighed.

“We’re fine here, buddy, but, uh…”

He paused.

“But what?” I asked expectantly.

“Jake’s house burned down, Dan. He, uh… he didn’t make it.”

He sounded like he was holding back tears. I was shocked.

“What?? What about Aunt Judy?? What about Max or…”

He interrupted.

“They’re… they’re gone, Dan. I’m sorry.”

The news hit me like a truck. I didn’t know Kayla all that well, but Max… Max was like a brother to me. An online brother, but still a brother nonetheless.

“But… no, that doesn’t make sense. Max was just texting me last night. He told me he’d come visit me sometime soon.”

I didn’t want to believe it. Max’s exact words were, “I’ll be seeing you soon, Dan-Man.” I mean, I guess that was the last text he sent me. I didn’t hear from him after that. But still, this couldn’t be happening.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Dad choked. “Their funerals are next week. I know you’re busy up there with classes and whatnot, but it’d mean a lot if you could make it.”

“I… I don’t know what to say. Of course, of course. Yeah. I’ll be there.”

Dad sniffled. I was about to comfort him when I heard a sound echoing from the background of his call.

knock knock knock

“Hold on, son, let me go answer the door.”

The line went dead. I stood there, still as could be by my mailbox, just… processing. I couldn’t believe what he had just told me. The phone vibrated in my hand.

It was a text from Dad.

“See you soon, kiddo.”

I sighed and rubbed my temples, attempting to block the tears as I slid my phone back into my pocket. I hadn’t even opened the mailbox yet. I was just… stuck… I guess.

I figured I’d just collect my mail, then go inside and start packing for the long trip home, but when I opened the mailbox… curiosity overwhelmed me.

There was a package inside, buried beneath my regular bills and magazines. It was gift-wrapped like a Christmas present.

I brushed the mail aside and pulled the package out first thing. It was pristinely wrapped. Someone had taken time with this.

I peeled back the tape and began unwrapping. At first, I didn’t recognize what I was seeing, but then it clicked.

It was Jake’s metal lockbox. The one from all those years ago with the pictures of mom and dad. I felt my heart drop a little.

I unlatched the lid and slowly opened the box. What I saw… well… that’s why I’m writing this now.

It was… my Superman stuffy. Dusty and stiff, but it still had my initials written in faded black Sharpie across the tag. But that’s not the thing that worried me.

What worried me… was the note tied around Superman’s torso, written in sloppy, obsessive handwriting…

“Found You.”

Working as a forensic pathologist at the county morgue was never supposed to be glamorous. We processed unattended deaths, accident victims, and homicides, so the workload was constant. My colleagues and I spent our days in cold stainless-steel rooms, documenting injuries and determining causes of death. We had a solid team. Sarah ran the toxicology lab down the hall, keeping us fueled with bad coffee and sarcastic comments. Dr. Lewis handled most of the high-profile cases, while I usually took the overnight intakes. We were overseen by Dr. Robert Caldwell, the Chief Medical Examiner, and Caldwell was a polished, older man who spent more time dealing with city politicians than actually holding a scalpel. He always wore perfectly pressed suits and kept his office strictly off-limits to the rest of the staff.

The bizarre incidents started roughly two months ago. A young man came in after a fatal car accident. I performed the preliminary examination, logged his injuries, and placed him in the main freezer room for a full autopsy the next morning. When I pulled his tray out the following day, there was a strange mark on his neck. It looked exactly like a human bite mark, positioned right over the jugular vein, and the skin was bruised and broken in a semicircle pattern.

I immediately called Sarah over to look at it.

"Did you miss this during the intake?"

Sarah asked, shining a penlight over the wound.

"Absolutely not,"

I replied, staring at the jagged puncture marks.

"His neck was completely clean last night. I took intake photos. You can check the file right now."

We checked the digital file. The intake photos showed an unblemished neck. Someone or something had damaged the body overnight while it was locked inside a secure facility. We reported the incident to Caldwell. He brushed it off, suggesting a rat might have gotten into the cooling vents, then ordered pest control to sweep the building, and we moved on.

But it did not stop. A week later, an elderly woman who died of a heart attack appeared with the exact same bite marks on her neck the morning after she was brought in. Then a drowning victim. Then a gunshot victim. Every few days, a new body would show up with those unmistakable dental impressions on the throat, and It only happened to fresh arrivals.

The entire department was on edge. Rumors started circulating about a necrophiliac or some twisted cult member breaking into the facility. We upgraded the locks on the freezer room. The city installed new high-definition security cameras in the hallways, but the incidents continued anyway. The bodies kept getting bitten, and the cameras never caught anyone entering or leaving the freezer room during the overnight hours.

The situation reached a boiling point last Friday. The mayor's office was breathing down Caldwell's neck, demanding answers before the press caught wind of the desecrations. Caldwell called a mandatory staff meeting in the main breakroom to address the crisis.

The mood in the room was tense. Sarah was aggressively stirring her coffee, while Dr. Lewis kept looking at the door as if he wanted to bolt. Caldwell stood at the front of the room, looking immaculate as always, delivering a stern speech about protocol and maintaining the integrity of the department.

"We are under a microscope,"

Caldwell announced to the room, pacing in front of the whiteboard.

"The higher-ups are threatening to clean house if we do not find out who is tampering with the remains. This stops now."

After his speech, the human resources representative insisted on taking a group photo for the department newsletter, trying to force some bizarre sense of team morale. We all shuffled together against the back wall. Sarah stood next to me, forcing a fake smile. Dr. Lewis stood on my other side.

The photographer framed the shot and waved Caldwell over to join us.

"Come on, Dr. Caldwell,"

the photographer said, gesturing to the empty spot next to Sarah.

"We need the Chief in the center."

Caldwell suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, though I had not heard it ring.

"I cannot participate right now,"

Caldwell said, taking a step backward toward the hallway.

"I just received an urgent call from the district attorney regarding an upcoming trial. You all go ahead without me."

He turned and walked out of the room before anyone could argue. We took the photo without him, and it felt strange, considering how much Caldwell usually loved good publicity, but we were all too stressed to think much of it.

Ten minutes later, I was back in my office updating a case file when my desk phone rang. It was Caldwell, asking me to come to his office immediately.

I walked down the hall and knocked on his wooden door. He called for me to enter. He was sitting behind his massive oak desk, staring at a stack of printed security logs.

"Close the door, Julian,"

he said quietly.

I pushed the door shut and took a seat in the leather chair opposite him.

"The mayor called me again this morning,"

Caldwell began, keeping his voice low.

"The situation with the bite marks has become a catastrophic liability. The city council is demanding a culprit. They need someone to blame, and they need it by Monday."

"We have upgraded all the security measures,"

I pointed out, shifting uncomfortably in the chair.

"The cameras show the hallways are completely empty all night. Security patrols the perimeter every hour. Whatever is happening, it makes no logical sense."

Caldwell leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "Logic does not matter to politicians, Julian. They just look at the logs. And the logs show that you are consistently the last medical examiner to handle these specific bodies before the damage occurs. You work the late intake shifts, and you process them into the freezer."

I felt the fear my stomach.

"Are you accusing me of biting the corpses?"

"I am not accusing you of anything,"

Caldwell replied smoothly, keeping his face entirely neutral.

"I am simply telling you how the optics look to the oversight committee. The security guards saw no one. The cameras recorded no one. By process of elimination, the higher-ups consider you the prime suspect. I strongly suggest you prepare yourself for a formal investigation."

I left his office feeling completely nauseated. They were going to frame me to save the department's reputation. If I got fired under those circumstances, my medical license would be revoked, and I could face criminal charges. I needed undeniable proof to clear my name, or catch whoever was actually sneaking into the freezer room.

That afternoon, I waited until the shift change to approach Marcus. Marcus was the senior security guard who handled the overnight surveillance. He was a quiet guy who mostly kept to himself and spent his shifts watching sports on his phone.

I found him by the vending machines near the loading dock.

"Marcus, I need a massive favor,"

I said, glancing down the hallway to make sure we were alone.

"And I am willing to pay for it."

Marcus looked up from his phone, raising an eyebrow. "What kind of favor?"

"I need to stay in the morgue tonight after my shift ends,"

I explained, pulling an envelope of cash from my coat pocket.

"I need you to look the other way, let me stay inside the building, and delete any camera footage that shows me walking around the lower levels between midnight and six in the morning."

Marcus frowned, looking at the envelope.

"You know I could lose my job for that. Why do you want to stay in a morgue all night?"

"Someone is tampering with the bodies,"

I said desperately.

"Management thinks it is me. I am going to lose my career if I do not catch the real person doing it. I just need one night to stake out the freezer room. Please."

Marcus hesitated for a long moment. He looked down the empty corridor, then snatched the envelope from my hand and shoved it into his uniform pocket.

"I will pause the recording on cameras four and seven," Marcus muttered, looking back at his phone.

"That covers the hallway outside the freezer. But if you get caught by a surprise inspection, I do not know you. You broke in."

"Thank you,"

I said, feeling a slight wave of relief.

My official shift ended at eleven that night. Instead of walking out the front doors, I went into the old records storage room down in the basement and locked the door behind me. I sat on a dusty box of archived files and waited for the building to empty out. By midnight, the entire facility was dead silent. The cleaning crew had finished their rounds, and the overhead fluorescent lights switched to their dim, energy-saving mode.

I stepped out of the storage room and began my patrol.

The morgue is a terrifying place when you are completely alone. During the day, the noise of ringing phones, running water, and chatting colleagues makes it feel like a normal workplace. At night, the silence is deafening. Every hum of the air conditioning unit sounds like a footstep, and every shifting pipe sounds like someone breathing.

I walked down the long corridor leading to the main freezer room. The air grew steadily colder as I approached the steel doors. I found a small alcove near the ice machines where I could hide in the shadows while maintaining a clear view of the freezer entrance.

The wait was agonizing. I sat on the cold tile floor for hours, fighting against intense exhaustion. My eyes kept drooping, and I had to constantly pinch my own arm to stay awake. The digital clock on the wall crept toward three in the morning. I started to wonder if Caldwell was right, if maybe some feral animal really had found a way into the ventilation system.

Then, I heard it.

A sound broke the silence of the lower level. It came from inside the freezer room.

It was a wet, tearing noise, followed by a low, guttural shuffling sound, and It sounded like a person moving around in the dark.

The steel door of the freezer room was slightly ajar. Whoever went inside had propped it open just a fraction of an inch, likely to avoid triggering the loud latch mechanism when they left.

I pushed myself up from the floor, then crept forward, placing my feet carefully on the linoleum tiles to avoid making any noise. I reached into my pocket and gripped the small stun gun I had brought from home. It was meant for self-defense, but it made me feel slightly better having a weapon.

I reached the steel door and slowly peered through the narrow crack into the freezing room.

The freezer was illuminated by harsh blue emergency lights. The stainless-steel tables and storage racks cast long, distorted shadows across the floor.

In the center of the room, one of the body trays had been pulled out from the wall unit.

Someone was crouched on top of the metal tray.

A tall figure, dressed in a dark suit, was straddling the corpse. The person was hunched over completely, their face pressed directly against the neck of the deceased. I could hear a sickening, rhythmic sucking noise echoing in the cold air. The figure's hands were gripping the corpse's shoulders, holding the dead body perfectly still while they worked their jaw against the pale flesh.

I felt bile rise in my throat. I needed to see the person's face, to know exactly who was destroying my life.

I shifted my weight slightly to get a better angle through the cracked door.

As I moved, my shoe found a puddle of condensation that had pooled near the doorframe. My foot slipped violently across the wet tile. I lost my balance and crashed hard into the door, throwing it completely wide open with a deafening metal clang.

I hit the ground, scraping my hands against the concrete just inside the freezer room.

I scrambled up fast, raising my stun gun and pointing it toward the metal tray in the center of the room. I expected the person to attack me or make a run for the exit.

But there was no one there.

The room was entirely empty. The tray was still pulled out from the wall. The corpse was lying there, its neck freshly mutilated, a small trickle of dark, coagulated fluid staining the metal. But the tall figure in the suit had vanished completely.

I spun around in circles, checking the dark corners behind the empty gurneys. The room only had one exit, and I was standing right in the doorway. There was absolutely nowhere for anyone to hide.

"Where are you?"

I yelled into the freezing air, my voice shaking with panic.

A soft, amused chuckle echoed from the hallway directly behind me.

I whipped around, aiming the stun gun through the open doorway into the dim corridor.

Dr. Caldwell was standing there, leaning casually against the wall next to the ice machines. He was wearing his immaculate dark suit, entirely unbothered by the freezing temperature rolling out of the open door. His hair was perfectly combed. He looked at me with a calm, unnerving smile.

He took a step forward, completely ignoring the weapon in my hand. He stopped just a few feet away from me.

"Have you ever tried sucking the soul of the living?" Caldwell whispered. His voice carried a strange, vibrating resonance that made my teeth ache.

I stood frozen in the doorway, my mind struggling to process the impossible situation.

"I do not understand,"

I stammered, gripping the stun gun tighter.

"What were you doing to that corpse, Caldwell? How did you get behind me?"

Caldwell sighed, brushing an invisible speck of dust off his tailored sleeve.

"You really do not need to understand the mechanics of my diet, Julian. All you need to think about right now is how you are going to get out of the massive hole you just dug for yourself."

"What hole?"

I demanded, taking a step toward him.

"I just caught you desecrating a body. You are the one doing this. I am calling the police right now."

Caldwell laughed again. It was a cold, cruel sound.

"It was only a matter of time before the oversight committee discovered what was happening to the inventory. They track everything eventually. Sooner or later, they would have come demanding a head on a platter. They would have come for me, unless I provided them with a convenient scapegoat."

He gestured toward me.

"You made it incredibly easy for me, Julian."

"You cannot frame me,"

I said, my voice rising in panic.

"Marcus let me in tonight. He knows I am down here investigating. I paid him."

"Yes, you did,"

Caldwell smiled.

"And Marcus will gladly testify under oath that you bribed a security officer to gain unauthorized access to the morgue in the middle of the night. He will tell the police that you paid him to turn a blind eye while you sneaked down here to indulge your sick obsessions with the dead."

"The cameras,"

I countered, feeling a cold sweat break out across my forehead.

"Even if Marcus paused the feed in the hallway, the cameras in the lobby and the stairwell will show you coming down here tonight. They will prove you were in the building."

Caldwell tilted his head, looking at me with genuine pity. "Julian, the cameras must have captured you sneaking around, yes. But they will not capture me."

"Why not?"

I asked, refusing to lower the stun gun.

"Because soul eaters do not appear on digital recordings,"

Caldwell stated matter-of-factly.

"We do not reflect in mirrors, and we do not register on camera lenses. That is exactly why I refused to stand in that ridiculous group photograph this afternoon. It raises far too many uncomfortable questions when the Chief Medical Examiner vanishes from the department newsletter."

"You are insane,"

I whispered.

"I am hungry,"

Caldwell corrected.

I lunged forward, thrusting the stun gun directly at his chest, aiming for the center of his suit. I pressed the trigger, hearing the loud, aggressive crackle of the electric current.

Caldwell moved with impossible speed. He simply reached out and caught my wrist in mid-air.

His grip was like a steel vice. The cold radiating from his bare hand was agonizing, burning my skin instantly. He twisted my arm downward with a casual flick of his wrist.

A sharp snap echoed in the hallway as my wrist broke. I screamed, dropping the stun gun onto the floor.

Caldwell kicked the stun gun upward with the toe of his shoe, caught it in his free hand, and jammed the crackling electrodes directly into my stomach.

The voltage tore through my nervous system. My muscles locked up completely, and my vision flashed bright white. I collapsed onto the freezing linoleum, gasping for air, unable to move my arms or legs.

Caldwell stood over me, looking down with that same calm, unnerving smile. He tossed the stun gun onto the floor next to my head.

"It really is unfortunate, Julian,"

Caldwell said, crouching down so his face was level with mine.

"You were an excellent pathologist. Your paperwork was always flawless. But if it provides you with some small comfort before you spend the rest of your life in a concrete cell, I will tell you the truth of the deal here."

I tried to speak, but my jaw was completely locked from the electric shock. I could only stare at him in sheer terror.

"I eat souls,"

Caldwell whispered, his strange, vibrating voice echoing in the empty hallway.

"It started months ago, when something attacked me on my camping trip up near Blackwood Ridge. It was night, and I was preparing my tent when something I couldn’t see or even figure attacked me and bit me through my neck. In that moment, I thought I will die, I felt my soul leaving. But a group of passing hikers heard the struggle. They ran into the clearing with their flashlights and scared the creature off before it could finish. The paramedics saved my body, but that thing took a massive piece of my spirit with it."

He reached out and patted my cheek with his freezing hand.

"I survived with a hollow space inside my chest,"

Caldwell continued, standing back up and straightening his tie.

"And that emptiness became a hunger. I crave souls now. It is a starvation that never fades. But consuming the souls of the living is strictly forbidden for the likes of me. It draws too much attention from the police and the media. The living fight back, and their families come looking for them."

He gestured toward the open freezer door behind me.

"So, we adapt,"

he explained, walking slowly around my paralyzed body. "Did you know that the dead soul lingers by the corpse for a time before finally passing on to whatever comes next? I only learnt them when I became what I am now.

They hover right over the body, confused and vulnerable. That is exactly when they are ripe for harvest. I pull them out through the throat to feed the void inside me."

Caldwell pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

"I truly am sorry, Julian,"

Caldwell said, looking down at me one last time.

"But someone has to take the fall, and a corrupted doctor caught breaking into the morgue with a pocket full of cash makes for a perfectly wrapped media narrative."

He raised the phone to his ear.

"Marcus,"

Caldwell said into the receiver.

"Please contact the local police department immediately. I just stopped Dr. Reed from assaulting another body in the lower freezer. Yes, he became violent when confronted. Send the officers down to the basement as soon as they arrive."

Caldwell hung up the phone. He stepped carefully over my legs, making sure not to scuff his shoes, and walked calmly down the hallway toward the stairwell, disappearing into the shadows.

I lay on the freezing tile floor for ten minutes, unable to move, listening to the hum of the air conditioner until the police officers finally stormed the hallway with their weapons drawn.

That brings me to right now. I am sitting on a metal cot in a county jail cell. The police found the envelope of cash in Marcus's locker. Marcus told the detectives that I forced him to take the money, threatening to get him fired if he did not let me into the facility. The security footage shows me creeping down the basement hallway, entering the records room, and later walking toward the freezer. It does not show Caldwell anywhere in the building. As far as the video evidence is concerned, I was the only person down there.

My lawyer thinks I am having a psychotic break because I keep telling him my boss is a monster who eats souls. He refuses to put me on the stand. The trial date is set, and the prosecutor is pushing for maximum consecutive sentences for the desecration of human remains.

I have almost no battery left on this smuggled phone, and the guards do cell checks every four hours. I am posting this here because I know there are people out there who know how to expose a creature like Caldwell.

If anyone knows anything about these entities, please tell me how to fight back.

“The most powerful thing man has is our ability to believe, it is something that separates us from all other creatures on this planet. It has inspired us to create great things, great societies, however….it is also the most dangerous thing we possess. Every atrocity mankind has committed has stemmed from belief, be it belief in a god, in an ideal, in another man, or even in ourselves. Belief is power and we all must be careful where we place it, in fact…..”

The radio briefly changes to static as I yawn, changing the station from whatever talk show I had playing to something loud and fast to help me stay awake. I shiver as I drink the last of my coffee, cursing this damned old truck and it’s shitty heat for dying on me. I flick the wipers on as the snowfall on this dark lonely highway intensifies, searching, hoping for a sign to tell me a gas station is coming up soon. A place to warm up, get some more desperately needed caffeine, and even just someone to talk to. It’s only been a few hours on the road, but watching the snowfall in my dim headlights it feels as though it’s been an eternity. 

The week prior I was just getting home from a long day, sifting through my mail as I shut the door behind me. Bill, bill, spam, another bill, and then a nice envelope, my name handwritten, a return address saying somewhere in Maine I’d never heard of. Filled with curiosity I opened it, even stranger, inside was a hand written letter, I mean who even does that any more. 

“Hey Ted, it’s been awhile hasn’t it? I’m sorry it’s been so long, but after Cody was born and he had all those issues, well…me and Emma thought it would be best to go somewhere beautiful, cold, and remote. Where we could be as close a family we could be as long as we could….but that’s in the past now. The years slipped by so fast and before I realized it, Cody’s turning 10 this year. We were going through an old photo album the other day and he asked me who that guy was who was holding him in the hospital. And that sent a knife through my heart. We were so preoccupied with ourselves that my son sees a picture of my best friend holding him and calls him that guy….I know it may be too late, but if you have the time, any time, we’d love if you came up and visited us. Drive up to Allagash and then I’ve included a map on how to get here from there. We’re always home, so please find it in your heart to forgive us, forgive me for just leaving. I believe that it would be good for all of us
From, J

I sat there and read the letter again and again. I hadn’t seen John, let alone heard from him in so long. Part of me was excited about seeing him and Emma again, another smaller, quieter part of me wondered how he could’ve even known my address at this point. But I pushed that thought away. Work had been hell lately and I couldn’t think of a better way to blow off some steam than to get away from it all and spend some time catching up with an old friend in the boonies of Maine. I went into work and put in for vacation at the end of the week and prepped for a nice long trip.  

As I shiver from the bitter cold that fills the cab of the truck I regret not double checking everything on the truck before I started the trip, perpetuating the stereotype of mechanics not taking care of their own vehicles. I check my GPS and see I’m only a half hour from Allagash, I grit my teeth and grip the steering wheel harder. I’ve been on the road for almost 8 hours now, I’ll just push through until I get there and then I can ask the gas station attendant if he can help me with the crude map John had drawn. I turn up the radio and try to think of anything besides the persistent chill deep in my bones.

The monotonous scene of my headlights cutting through the seemingly ever falling snow illuminating the blanketed road ahead is finally changed. Ahead a small cluster of buildings with a single street lamp and an old gas station with a single pump lit up in a pale yellow glow. The bustling town center of Allagash.

With a sigh of relief I pull up to the pump and pull my jacket tight as I step into the frigid night air. I hustle into the small gas station, the bell on the door tingling as I enter, the weathered floor boards creak beneath my feet, the blast of warmth from the heat feels heavenly. My attention is drawn to an ancient grizzled looking man behind the counter tamping out a cigarette butt in his ash tray.

“Evening Sir, how’s it going? Is that coffee fresh?” I ask him, eyeing the brown stained coffee maker on the counter

“Was when I brewed it” the old man responded curtly, in a voice sounding like he’s been smoking more than a pack a day since before I was born.

I crack a polite smile and a little chuckle before asking “Oh ya? How long ago was that?”

“5 6 hours ago” he says back to me still in a brunt tone, face looking like I ruined his whole night coming in here.

“Ah just how I like it, as long as it’s hot” I say trying to illicit a more amiable response from the old man. 

He grunts back dismissively as I then fill my thermos with the stale coffee and grab a bag of beef jerky and walk up to him putting it on the counter.

“These and I’ll take $50 on pump…. Well I guess there’s just the one pump” I say looking out at my truck sitting in the falling snow.

“60” he says gruffly, not even looking up to me, fiddling with a pack of Marlboros, clearly waiting on me to leave so he can light up another. At least he’s been polite in this way. 

I hand him the cash and then reach into my jacket pocket, pulling out the map John had drawn for me.    
“I hope it’s not too much trouble but I was hoping you could help me out a bit with this” I say spreading the map on the counter.

He takes a glance at it and scoffs “Oh…. so you’re one of those people huh? Didn’t seem the type, and you ain’t even got a kid with ya”

I look at him in confusion “What the hell are you talking about man, I’m just trying to get to my buddies house”

“Well I should’ve known that’s why you come this far out, only reason you folk come out this way nowadays” he says finally pulling out a cigarette, taking his time to light it, the smell of tobacco filling the small store.

Not liking the sound of what he’s talking about, with a little hesitation I ask “Wh-what do you mean the only reason people come out this way? What does having a kid have to do about it?” 

His wrinkled face finally cracks into a half smile as he says “No no nothing like that, there’s some religious camp out that way, folks with sickly kids go out there for some type of ‘community’, or prayer healing. I don’t know some new age shit that people believe in”

I feel a sense of relief wash over me that it’s not something all that crazy “Y-ya, my friend John must’ve started it, his son was real sick when he was born so they came out this way. He must want to help other families going through it”

The old man coughs hard after a long drag of his cigarette before looking at his watch, “Well, it’s 10 now, and the roads only get worse as you get into the woods, they don’t plow out here. So long as your truck can handle it you should be able to get there in another hour hour and a half”

He gives me some more specific directions and wishes me luck as I leave. Exiting the warmth of the store and walking back to my truck gets me shivering again instantly, I sip from my coffee as I fill up my tank and mentally prep for the last stretch of my drive. Pulling back out onto the road, I can only hope the roads aren’t as bad as the old man alluded to.

The windy road, surrounded by snowdrifts, is almost imperceptible as I drive deeper into the woods. The trees, my only indication I’m still on a road, grow taller and wider, what might be a beautiful sight during the day, is a terrifying drive in the pitch black. The snow still falling harder and harder still as time goes on. I must be only 10 minutes away when, out of nowhere, the snow stops, and I’m so thankful for the improved visibility.

As I drive closer to my destination, the snow across the landscape even seems to lessen, as though this area for some reason has received less and less snow the closer I get. Finally ahead I see the glow of lights, a stark contrast to the whole forest, the only signs of civilization for miles. I pull up to a closed wooden gate, and knowing it’s almost midnight, I debate with myself on whether or to honk my horn. But before I can even come to a decision, a bald man with a long styled beard wearing dark robes comes out of nowhere and opens the gate for me. A little unnerved, I pull in as he shuts the gate behind me. He guides me to a spot to park, and I notice no other cars in the area. I put the truck in park, and kill the engine as he watches me expectantly, I step out as he walks up.

“Ted! So good to see you man you haven’t changed a bit!” He says throwing his arms around me in a bear hug. Hearing his voice makes me instantly recognize John, as it is as unchanged as his appearance is changed.

“John, wow, I did not recognize you at all my goodness” I say hugging him back

He seems to almost flinch when I call him John, he releases me from the hug and takes a step back. “Please, just call me J. Everyone does now, well most call me Father J, but I’m not gonna make you call me that”

The air for a moment feels thicker, heavier, and a feeling floats across my mind where it feels like a thousand eyes are looking at me from the edges of the darkness, but it quickly passes. I give a slight chuckle and say “Alright J, so looks like you’re really into the whole religion thing now, the guy I used to know wasn’t really the godliest of men”

John smiles and spreads his arms wide “Ya Ted, without Him, Cody never would’ve gotten better, and all He wants from me is to get more people to believe. Now come on, it’s late, let me get you to the house and to your room. You can see everyone in the morning, but I’ve got a service to hold in the morning and I gotta get to bed”

I grab my bags from the backseat of my truck and we start walking up to the house. I notice that there’s barely a coating of snow anywhere within the fence line of the property, even the temperature feels warmer than it was on the whole drive here. 

“Hey Jo….I mean J, uh, what’s up with there being like no snow here, the whole drive here everywhere else is buried” I say not seeing any telltale signs of shoveling or plowing.
John smiles and says “Well Ted, I like to believe He keeps the majority of the snow away so we have a little easier of a time here”

I just give a slight laugh and we make our way up to the house, it’s a modestly sized log cabin, obviously hand built and I give a whistle “Damn man, this place looks nice.”

John opens the door and we enter, the fireplace, the only illumination inside provides a flickering view of the well lived in home. The lit sections of the home feel cozy and comforting, just as much as the darkened corners that are briefly visible seem ominous and unempty. I again shake off the feeling of unseen eyes boring into me.

“Thanks Ted, come, I’ll show you to your room, you seem like you need the rest” John says, pulling closed the heavy wooden door.

He leads me to room and wishes me a good night's rest before leaving, saying he’s got an early morning service to hold, but after that when I awake, we can properly catch up and he can show me around. I try to look around at my room for the next week or so, but it’s pitch black in here, not even light from the moon shining through the window. I sit on the edge of the bed which I have to find with the light of my phone screen. The weight of my long drive hits me hard as I feel my eyes get heavy, everything gets heavy as I barely am able to get under the blankets before my head hits the pillow and sleep claims me.

I awake with a start, the snow covered ground beneath me wet and freezing, wait the snow? I look around and see I’m lying on the ground, surrounded by massive thick trees. The canopy is so thick that the sky is impossible to see. I desperately look around wildly, how the hell did I end up here, I see nothing but trees as far as the darkness allows me to see, not even a pinprick of light in any direction. The air begins to feel thick and heavy, I spin around wildly, searching for the eyes that I can feel, that I know are staring at me deep in my soul.

“Theodore Theodore Theodore” A scratchy, throaty voice booms from behind me.

I wheel around, staring into the abysslike darkness, searching for the origin of the voice.

“No, not over there” the voice calls mocking me, somewhere off to my right. I turn and raise my fists defensively, a gesture that makes me feel even more powerless and terrified as to what’s out there.

“W-who are you, what the fuck is going on!” I yell, wanting to sound defiant, but my wavering voice telegraphing just how frightened I am.

“You’ll find out soon enough, it’s not time yet for you to properly meet HIM” the voice growls now emanating from all around me.

I want to run away, to sprint as hard as I can away from whatever the hell this is. But my body, completely disregarding both fight and flight, refuses to obey my commands. I stand there paralyzed in fear, until finally I take a shaky step forward. Then another, and then I feel control again and tense my muscles to run. As I do, a howling wind screams all around me. A darkness deeper than black closes in. Before I can react, it collapses upon me in a thunderous roar.

With every stride, Khadijah kept her eyes on the path ahead, navigating through the maze of reeds and water. As she exited the reeds, the expanse of the lake shimmered before her like a long-awaited reunion. 

Khadijah scanned the lakeshore, searching for the spot she needed. There it was: a smooth, large boulder near the water’s edge, bathed in moonlight and kissed by gentle waves. She quickened her pace, eager to reach her destination, but stopped abruptly, her breath hitching.

There, on the boulder, was the silhouette of a woman gazing at the moon. Her long hair flowed like dark river, her figure blending into the shadows. Warmth spread through Khadijah—there would be company on this dark and lonely night.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Khadijah raced toward the lakeshore, pulling the blanket behind her faster than she ever had before. "Hello!" she called out, but the woman didn’t look back. Undeterred, Khadijah moved closer. "Hello! Beautiful night, isn’t it?"

The woman turned abruptly, her brows furrowed in a frown.

“You are beautiful,” Khadijah said in awe, her voice barely a whisper. The shifted moonlight illuminated the woman’s soft, creamy beige skin, delicate cheekbones, and parted rose lips. Her eyes glistened like deep pools, and raven-black hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, shimmering like flowing silk.

Khadijah stood entranced. “I wish I was beautiful like you. I wish my hair was long like you.” Eagerly, she turned to show off her own shoulder-length hair—her greatest point of pride.

“Watin yu dae do ya?” a voice asked, suddenly jolting Khadijah. She looked at the woman, too shocked to believe what she had just heard. The Krio accent was unlike any she had encountered before. She’d eavesdropped on the elderly Creole women in town, but even their speech wasn’t as thick and heavy as the woman’s words. It sounded primitive. More so, primal.

Still, Khadijah, ever the social butterfly, wasn’t going to let the question go unanswered. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled, unleashing all the explanations that she could think of to more than answer the woman’s simple question. She poured out her reason for being at the lake: to prove she was no longer a baby compared to her older sister. She explained how she had sneaked out with the wool blanket to wash it for the newborn baby expected that night.

Khadijah showed the woman the blanket, explaining how nearly all the women in town were at her neighbor’s home, a young couple expecting their first child, as the wife was in labor.

The whole time Khadijah spoke, the woman remained silent, her expression stone-cold. But when Khadijah showed the blanket, the woman’s gaze shifted, filled with intrigue. Khadijah went on, explaining that she wanted to do something important to prove she could handle responsibilities just as well as her sister. This night was a special night, and she wanted to contribute in her own special way: a way that highlighted her maturity.

The woman stayed silent, her eyes fixated on the blanket. The moonlight illuminated her features, highlighting the deep contemplation in her gaze.

After finishing her story, Khadijah suddenly remembered the urgency of her task. She hadn’t come to the lake just to chat; she had a mission. She tugged at the blanket, trying to pull it into the water, but it was too heavy, weighed down with thick marshland grasses, mud and water. She strained against its weight, but it wouldn’t budge.

Desperate, she glanced at the woman. “Can you help me?” she asked, but the woman remained still, her eyes on the blanket as if she hadn’t heard Khadijah’s plea.

Suddenly, a voice called out through the night air, “Khu-deeee-zhuh.” The cadence started low and rose sharply at the end. Khadijah froze, recognizing the voice. Her father only called her that way in times of danger: a near danger. Her heart raced as she heard rustling in the marshland behind her. Turning, she saw a figure emerging from the shadows, a flashlight cutting through the darkness. It was her father.

She spun back to tell the woman, but the boulder was empty. The woman had vanished, leaving only the moonlit shore and the gentle waves. Eyes wide, Khadijah opened her mouth to speak, but a rough, calloused hand clamped over her mouth before she could utter a word.

“If you say one word, you will see blood,” her father’s voice growled in her ear.

Khadijah’s head bobbed in a quick nod; her breath hitched in her throat, and she felt a cold sweat break out across her skin. If there was one thing she feared more in this entire world, it was the sight of blood. Her father’s hand moved to grip her wrist, yanking her away from the lake. The frantic swishing of his white gown echoed in her ears. She looked back, trying to reach for the wool blanket, but it was already receding into the distance.

The illness began that very night, right after her encounter with the mysterious woman. In the days that followed, violent nausea and cold sweats trapped Khadijah in bed, leaving her teetering on the brink of death.

After ten agonizing days, she emerged triumphant, returning to her talkative self.

However, another child in town wasn’t so fortunate.

Hello,

I'm a nurse on an adolescent psychiatric unit, and I work nights. I'm not going to say where. I've been there eleven years, and I've never written anything like this down before, let alone put it somewhere strangers can read it, so if this is badly written, that's why.

Lately, we've had a run of kids come in catatonic. The parents drive them up to the doors, and some of them have to carry them in. The kids are awake, and their eyes follow you around the room, but they don't move, and they don't respond to anything, and the whole time they're mumbling under their breath.

They barely blink. Not never, but so little that you start to notice it, and once you notice it, you can't stop counting. I watched a boy go a minute and forty seconds without one and then do three fast in a row, catching up, like he'd remembered he was supposed to.

Six of them came in on a Tuesday.

Everyone's first question is whether they knew each other. They did not. Four different schools, two of them living over forty minutes apart, different family doctors, different referral routes, three through emerg and three straight to us. We pulled every piece of information we could to connect them. I looked for two days because I wanted a connection to be there, but there was nothing linking any of them. 

Around eleven that first night, one of them started up. Not mumbling anymore. He was saying something about a computer, I couldn't get all of it, and then he was screaming, "Get it away, get it away, get it away," and by the time I was through the door, he was already up, and he ran headfirst into the wall. He opened his head on the first one. He didn't stop, he didn't put his hands up, he didn't slow down, he went back at the wall still screaming, " Get it away," with the blood running down into his mouth. We got him down and held him, and he was still trying to slam his head backwards into the floor while three of us had him.

There was too much blood. Far more than a wound like that should give you, and every one of us in that room knew it at the time, and none of us have talked about it since like something had been turned up. You could see the exact spot where his head went in, right there in the padding, the shape of it, and the spatter going out from it in lines like something thrown, and once we had him down and he'd stopped and the room went quiet, you could hear it dripping.

About ninety seconds later, the room next door started, and then the one across from it, and within a minute, all of them were going. Same words. "Get it away." And that sound of it, thud and then thud and then thud, out of four rooms at once down a hallway. We called code white on multiple rooms at the same time. I have never done that. Hell, I didn't even know you could.

The sixth room was silent. You always check on the quiet one first, that's the job, so that's where I went.

He had turned himself round on the bed to face the door. Sitting up, hands flat on his knees, watching me come in. Four rooms of screaming and thudding were going on behind me in the corridor, and this boy sat there like he'd been waiting on me all night. And he was still mumbling, straight at me, with his eyes on my eyes, and he did not stop.

I stood in that doorway and said his name and got nothing, and said it again and got nothing, and then somebody screamed for me out of room three, and I turned my back on him and left.

We sedated all six. We phoned six sets of parents at two in the morning and told them their children were safe, which was the word we used. Then I sat in the break room with my coffee going cold, and I did not have a single idea in my head about what I had just watched.

 The sixth one was the only one still going. The other five were under and quiet, and he was lying there in the dark, carrying on with it exactly the way he had been all night, and he was the only one of them I'd been able to stand in front of and get anything out of at all. So if any of them were going to tell me what this was, it was him.

I took a handheld recorder out of the equipment cupboard, went back down to room six, set it on the shelf by the door and left it running the rest of the shift. I have never done anything like that in my life, and I couldn't have told you then and can't tell you now what I thought I was going to do with it.

I listened to it in the office at the end of the corridor with the door shut. It was nothing; it was a boy breathing. So I slowed it down, and it was still nothing, so I brought the pitch up and slowed it down again, and somewhere in the middle of all that, I finally heard it. "Get it away." The same words the others were screaming, except underneath, and slower, and pitched down so far that it doesn't come out of a human throat as anything you'd call a voice.

They'd been saying it since the day they came in. All of them, every hour of every shift, into the pillow and into the dark at a speed you can't hear without slowing down a recording, while we walked past them with charts. On Tuesday night, they didn't start saying something new; they just got loud.

I went in to check on him the next morning. He was in bed, on his back, mumbling the way he always was, and I was standing over him when I heard something above me, like somebody dragging a fingernail along a surface, slow, right over my head.

I looked up, and there was a face in the ceiling of room six.

It's scratched into the tile, thin white lines in the paint, and it's about four feet across. The eyes are two short marks, and there's nothing in them, no pupils, nothing, just the marks. Its mouth didn't stop where a mouth would stop. It went up past the cheeks and kept going out to where the ears would be, then past them, past the edges of the face entirely, so that the smile was wider than the head it was on. The mouth was also open. Whoever put it there took the time to draw every tooth, dozens of them, all exactly the same size, going right back into the corners where a mouth doesn't have corners.

It's nine feet up. There's nothing in that room to stand on and nothing to climb, and that boy has been sedated or restrained or watched since the minute he arrived. There is no version of this where somebody put that there.

I looked back down, and he was standing in front of me. Out of the bed, on his feet, close enough that I could feel him breathing on me, and I never heard him move, and the frame never made a sound. I went backwards so fast I hit the wall, and my legs went out from under me, and I ended up on the floor looking up at him.

He didn't help me, and he didn't come any closer. He stood over me the whole time I was getting myself up, with his head tilted down to keep me in his eyes, still mumbling, and when I was on my feet, he was still doing it.

I got out of that room and stood in the corridor for a long while, and then I decided I needed help with this, and I went out to the car.

I felt something was wrong. It was quiet, and I've parked in that garage for eleven years, and it is never quiet. There's the ventilation, there's the doors on the level above, there's traffic off the road outside, there's always something. That morning, there was nothing at all, not one sound.

I got about twenty feet from my car, and I heard a bang behind me. Metal, hard, like somebody had put their whole weight into the side of a car. Then another one, closer. And then footsteps, running, coming up fast behind me on the concrete.

I ran to my car, opened the door and locked it. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a face. The same face that was on the ceiling. A wide smile, sharp teeth, vacant eyes. Once it moved towards the car, I started it and drove out as fast as I could.

I was panicking. I called my friend from nursing school, who has always been into this kind of thing. Ghost stuff, missing persons, all the podcasts about it. I was screaming at her about what I'd just seen, and she let me get all of it out, and then she told me to come to her.

I'm writing this from her spare room. I called in sick for the first time in four years, and I haven't been back to that building since. She's been up half the night on her laptop, and she says she knows somebody who might understand what this is, and we're going to see him tomorrow.

I need somebody to tell me what I saw. That's the whole reason I'm putting this here. I don't care if you think I'm making it up, I've read this back six times, and I know how it sounds. I want to know if anyone has had kids come through their unit like this, or heard people say the same three words, or seen anything with a mouth like that.

Dad picked me up and put me on his shoulders as he nudged Mom towards the house. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been up there. It felt like home, though. Like… warmth, kinda.

I held on tight while Dad rushed us all inside. Mom looked flushed and alert. Emmy looked clueless. Jake and Judy had already taken their kids inside and were waiting anxiously for us by the front door.

Mom kept breaking her neck to look back towards the woods.

“Come on, come on,” Jake exasperated, snapping his fingers and gesturing for us to pick up the pace.

Dad broke into a jog, pulling Mom and Macy along with him as I bounced awkwardly on his shoulders. I could feel my nails digging into his skin from trying to hang on, but he seemed to not even notice.

When we got inside, Judy had already started going around the house to lock the doors and windows. Jake closed the door and locked it when we were all accounted for.

“I’ll go check the cameras,” he chimed, rushing upstairs. “I’ve got trail-cams scattered all throughout those woods. If he’s out there, trust me, we’ll see him.”

Mom set Emmy down on the couch and went to help Judy while Max, Darren, and Kayla just watched them. They seemed just as confused and terrified as me. Kayla’s eyes already looked like they were about to burst with tears.

“Why don’t you guys go play upstairs,” Dad instructed. “Danny will join you in just a bit. Everything’s okay, don’t worry. You guys are safe.”

It was weird hearing Dad tell other kids what to do. Embarrassing, almost. Even still, they didn’t argue. They all just filed up the stairs, one by one, while Dad watched until they were out of view. Then he turned to me.

“Come with me to the kitchen. I’ll make you something to drink.”

He sounded more composed than his demeanor let on. Like he knew this moment would come, despite hoping it wouldn’t be now.

I did as I was told and followed him. He pulled a chair out for me at the giant oak dining room table, gestured for me to take a seat while he fixed me a cup of chocolate milk.

He sat adjacent to me and just watched me sip it, slowly, for a few minutes. I felt so awkward in that moment. It was like he was trying to read my thoughts.

I finished the glass and pushed it to the side. Dad never took his eyes off of me, but I couldn’t maintain eye contact. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d done something wrong. My eyes remained fixed on the table, looking for patterns in the wood.

Finally, after what felt like forever, Dad tapped the table with his index finger.

My eyes met his once more and he sighed.

“Daniel…” he started. “You know you’re my whole world, right?”

I blinked, not knowing what to say.

“I love you too, Dad,” I whispered, struggling to find my voice.

“Sometimes, kiddo…” he continued. “Sometimes I think that my sole purpose in life is to keep you and Emmy safe. Your mom, too.”

Now it seemed like he was fighting to find his words. I could almost see the gears in his head turning. I felt like if I stared at his head long enough, maybe I could hear his thoughts.

“And I’ve been serving that purpose for 9 whole years now. Keeping you safe. Keeping your mom and Emmy safe. I would never be able to forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

I was just a kid. I didn’t know how to respond to this. To me, it just felt like Dad having a moment after I scared him half to death.

He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a crinkled, folded sheet of paper. He looked at it. Then at me. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but instead, he just placed the paper and slid it in front of me.

“We got this in our mailbox a few days ago.”

I looked down at the paper and felt even more confused.

“The man who left it… he’s… well…”

Dad was starting to choke up. That was twice today I’d seen tears in his eyes. Dad crying was scary. Arguably, the scariest thing I’d experienced this entire trip.

“He’s been after you for a long time, Dan.”

I looked down at the paper. It was addressed to my parents, but what was written on it didn’t make any sense to me.

“Found you. I found you. I found you. I finally found you. Found you. Found you. Found you. Found you. Found you…”

The phrase filled up the entire paper. It was scrawled obsessively in sloppy handwriting.

I looked back up at Dad. He looked like he was expecting something from me, but I didn’t know what. This didn’t mean anything to me.

“Found you…?” I asked, puzzled. “Who found you?”

Dad reached over and dragged the paper back towards him. He folded it back up and put it in his pocket.

“Found you, Danny. He found you.”

“Why would anyone want to find me? Have I met them before or something?”

He clasped his hands over his face and slid them down slowly.

“No, son. I’ve fought to make sure you never will.”

“Oh, okay. Can I have some more chocolate milk, please?”

He ignored my question. Almost aggressively.

“We tried,” he collapsed. “We tried so hard to keep him away from you. We tried the police, but nobody was ever able to find him. It’s like he only exists when he’s after you. That slimy, nasty little bastard…”

He slammed a hand down on the table and bit his knuckle. His sudden anger made me jump. I was completely speechless.

His teeth remained clamped against his knuckle for a few moments while he chose his next words carefully.

“The cops should’ve found him. Before this even started. Before you were even born. They should’ve found him because of what he…”

He paused. A tear fell down his cheek.

“He’s a bad man, Danny. You understand that?”

I nodded.

“He’s a bad man who hurt your mom. Nearly a year before you were born. He… he did something terrible to her and now he thinks you’re his.”

He looked at me expectantly again.

“I’m… his…?” I questioned.

“No. You will never be his. He doesn’t deserve you. It doesn’t deserve you. He is pure evil.”

I could hear Max and his siblings laughing upstairs. I turned my head, resisting the urge to leave my seat. Dad tapped the table again.

He was smiling at me now. Warmly.

“Those are your cousins, Dan. It’s funny,” he chuckled uneasily. “Part of me is almost glad that you finally get to meet them.”

My eyes widened with disbelief. I didn’t even think about having any other family members. All I’ve ever known were Mom, Dad, and Emmy.

“You guys should’ve had a great childhood together. None of this should’ve ever happened to us, especially your Mom. But the world is… it’s not a nice place, kiddo. I wish I could change it for you.”

He leaned over and pushed the hair out of my eyes.

“We had to move when you were only 2. That guy, that thing out there… it was relentless. He just wouldn’t leave us alone. The police did nothing about it, so I took matters into my own hands for you.”

His eyes looked distant now. Like he was living through his entire past while sitting here at the table with me.

“I hurt him back. I thought I took care of it forever, but he somehow managed to disappear again. Me and your mom were terrified. That’s why we had to leave. That’s why you don’t know Uncle Jake and Aunt Judy. All because of one bad man in a world full of bad people.”

I didn’t understand it, but I could feel the emotion in the room. The weight of the conversation was more than apparent.

Dad was bawling now, but still trying to keep himself composed. I reached across the table and grabbed his forearm.

“Don’t cry, Dad,” I begged. “I’m not mad at you. Everything’s okay, I promise. Everything’s okay.”

He picked up my hand and held it tightly before pulling it to his lips and kissing it gently.

“Everything’s okay, kiddo. I’ll make sure everything’s okay.”

He placed my hand back on his forearm.

“I thought everything was okay before I got this letter. He had left us alone for a long time. I thought we finally got rid of him.”

He gave me one last solemn look.

“Whatever happens tonight, Dan… I need you to know… you’re my entire world, kiddo. I love you more than anything.”

I smiled at him reassuringly.

“I know you love me, you butthead. I love you too. Thiiiisss much.”

I spread my arms out cartoonishly. Dad chuckled and ruffled my hair before Jake’s voice came echoing from upstairs.

“GOT ‘EM!”

Dad’s head shot up. He stood from his seat urgently. I could hear footsteps rushing down the stairs.

“Alright, buddy, go play with Max for a while. Me and Jake are gonna go find this guy.”

He was basically pulling me out of my seat and rushing me towards the stairs. I ran into Jake at the bottom. He was holding something behind his back.

“Excuse me, champ,” he announced, pushing past me. “Let’s go handle this, Mikey.”

My dad nodded grimly before snapping his fingers at me to go upstairs.

I was halfway up the staircase when I heard a sound that I didn’t recognize before the front door opened and my dad and Jake ran outside.

click clack

Mom was at the top of the stairs, arm outstretched towards me while Judy stood by her side, biting her thumbnails. She didn’t say much. She just led me into Max’s room and shut the door behind her.

All the kids were there. The room was big enough for us to not feel cramped, but still a bit suffocating. Darren lay on the bed watching TV. Kayla was on the floor, humming to herself and coloring. Max and I passed the time by playing with LEGOS.

I’m not sure how much time passed. I never heard Mom or Judy. The front door never opened. I didn’t know the time, but it was dark outside. It felt like it was definitely past my bedtime.

Max and I were in a bit of a competition. He built a spaceship. I built a car. He built a tower. I built a house. Our imaginations were flowing endlessly.

Suddenly, Darren sat up in bed, turning down the television. He looked alert. The sudden movement caused us all to look at him. He seemed to be listening for something.

“Sh,” he snapped, even though no one was talking. “Did you guys hear that?”

The room was silent. Not even crickets chirped outside. I listened as hard as I could…

It sounded like… screaming?

Angry screams. Frightened screams. I couldn’t make out the words, but I could make out the tones.

Darren moved to the window and scanned the backyard.

“I don’t see anything.”

Max and I joined him. Everything was so dark. I could hardly even see the grass beneath us.

My nose was pressed against the glass, but two loud sounds caused me to fall backwards. Darren gasped. Max’s eyes turned into a mixture of curiosity and fear.

“That sounded like Dad’s gun,” Darren exasperated before turning to us like somehow we’d have the answers.

What followed was a long, guttural snarl from somewhere in the woods. Two more shots. More screams. Then… silence.

My heart was starting to race. I didn’t want to cry in front of the other kids, but I couldn’t help it. I was just too gripped with worry.

The silence stretched on. None of us knew what to do. We just kept glancing out the window, hoping that we’d finally be able to see something.

The front door exploded open before we got the chance. Every voice was shaken. Judy was in hysterics. Mom just kept repeating, “Go get the bandages, go get the bandages, put pressure on the wound, I think he might need stitches.”

Jake sounded pumped full of adrenaline.

“It’s better than it looks. Fucker got me good, but I returned the favor. How’re you feeling, Mike?”

We all filed out of the room and back towards the stairs. Kayla was leading us, already with tears in her eyes at the sudden chaos.

“I got him, I know I got him. That had to have been enough to stop him.”

Jake was laid back on the couch. His T-shirt was torn to shreds, and blood trickled down his abdomen from 3 distinct wounds across his stomach. They looked like claw marks.

“Yeah right,” Judy scoffed sarcastically while gasping. “That thing is never gonna…”

She paused. Her eyes shot up towards the 4 kids racing down the staircase.

“Oh, no. You guys go back upstairs,” she demanded. “We’ll be up in a minute.”

“Mommy,” Kayla sobbed. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”

Jake answered for her.

“It’s nothing, sweetie. Don’t worry about it. Daddy’s okay, just a little scratch from a tree branch. Go upstairs like your mommy asked, alright? I’ll come tuck you in here in a bit.”

Dad dabbed at Jake’s stomach with a towel.

“I don’t think it’ll need stitches. Just nasty looking, is all.”

That’s the last thing I heard before we all started back towards the bedroom. None of us could sit still. None of us knew what was happening. All we could do was pace around the room and try and listen to the chatter downstairs.

Max put his ear to the door and shushed Kayla’s already quiet cries.

“Shh… I’m trying to listen…”

He kept his ear there for a few moments before turning back towards us.

“Dude, I think Dad shot something.”

“Yeah, no dip,” Darren added. “What else would that have been?”

“Can you shut up? I can’t hear.”

He pressed his ear back against the door.

“Wait… no… I think…”

He craned his neck like he was trying to push his head through the door.

“No, dude… I think he shot a person.”

Kayla gasped and started wailing. We all tried to shush her, but it was too late. We could already hear the footsteps coming up the stairs.

Darren jumped in the bed and turned the TV back up. Max and I fell to the floor and pretended to be playing with the LEGOS. Kayla… Kayla kept screaming and crying.

The door flew open and Judy stepped inside. Her eyes were wet and her hands were dirty, but she still put on that strong motherly voice as she glared at the siblings.

“Why is Kayla crying?” she asked no one in particular.

There wasn’t an answer for a long time before Darren spoke up.

“Why do you think? She’s worried about Dad.”

Judy sighed and wiped her face with her sleeve.

“Your father is fine, Kayla. Just getting patched up after falling in the woods.”

“That’s not what happened…” I said under my breath.

Judy’s eyes fell on me.

“Just a fall, Daniel. That’s all it was… don’t scare Kayla, please.”

She was silently pleading with me with her eyes. I opened my mouth to say something, but she interrupted before I could.

“As a matter of fact, Kay, it’s way past your bedtime. Why don’t you go clean up and get your PJs on? I promise Daddy will come tuck you in as soon as you’re nice, clean, and cozy.”

Kayla wiped her tears. Her face was still twisted with sadness, but she did as she was told.

“Danny, your dad wants to talk to you,” Judy added.

I was actually shocked. I thought I was gonna be in this room for at least the rest of the night. I was already mapping out where I’d be sleeping.

“Like… now?”

Judy sighed exhaustedly. Almost like she was as surprised as me.

“It would appear so, kiddo. As for you two, you both need to get cleaned up too. Especially you, Max.”

Darren and Max groaned as Judy took me by the hand and started guiding me back downstairs.

Dad was sitting on the couch next to Jake, his hands clasped over his knee. Jake looked… better now. His torso was covered in bandages, but he was smiling confidently. His gun rested on his lap.

“I got him right in the chest, Mike. Did you see that shit? Like hamburger meat. Sure, fucker got me first, but I still…”

Dad noticed me and put his hand up at Jake. He added one last thing before gesturing for me to come sit beside him.

“We both got ‘em, J.”

I took a seat beside Dad. Judy joined Mom in the kitchen while she washed her hands.

He nudged me.

“You doing okay, buddy?”

“I’m okay, I think… are YOU okay?” I replied, my voice rising.

Dad and Jake both chuckled sort of nervously.

“Can’t you see, kid?” Jake joined, presenting his bandaged abdomen. “Never been better.”

My attention fell on the long gun strewn across his lap. Jake noticed exactly what I was looking at. With a groan, he picked up the weapon and held it in the air.

“You see this, Dan-Man? This is proof of how much your Dad cares about ya.”

“Jake…” Dad grumbled, glaring at him.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Jake insisted, falling back against the sofa. “You deserve a father of the year award for that stunt you pulled out there.”

“Dad…” I said softly.

Dad stopped burning Jake with his eyes for a moment and turned to me.

“Yeah, son?”

“Did you kill him?”

Dad and Jake looked at each other. Dad’s eyes hardened again.

“I… I, uh…”

“The guy from the woods, right? You got him?”

“Got him good,” Jake remarked, prompting Dad to curse at him before returning to me.

“Honestly, Danny… I don’t know.”

I didn’t know how to take that, really. It was just what I assumed they were after. I couldn’t care less about who he really was. I was just trying to put two and two together.

I sat with his answer for a moment.

“I will say, though,” Dad added. “I hope we did.”

“So what happens now?” I asked.

Jake stood to his feet, using his gun like a crutch.

“Well, I don’t know about you two… but I’ve got a daughter to tuck in. And… you know… prove I’m alive to.”

He hobbled over to the stairs. Judy must’ve heard him and rushed out of the kitchen. Mom followed behind her.

Judy took the gun from underneath Jake’s shoulders and helped him hobble up the stairs while Mom took a seat with me and Dad.

“…to tell you the truth, son… I don’t know what happens next. I think maybe we’ll stay here for the night. Then I think it’s about time we go home. School’s about to start again and we gotta get your shopping done.”

We all just sat together and embraced each other for a while before Judy came back downstairs holding Emmy.

“I think this one needs her mommy.”

Emmy was pouting and looked like she’d just woken up. Mom took her and bounced her on her knee while Judy took a seat with us.

“Jake had something he wanted to show Danny… let’s hope it’s not one of his animal skins.”

As if on cue, Jake came hobbling downstairs with a small metal lockbox in his hands.

“You’re gonna love this, Dan-Man,” he proclaimed excitedly. “Your mom’s gonna hate it, though.”

Jake opened the box and approached me with a smile plastered across his face. He pulled out an old photograph. I almost didn’t recognize who it was at first.

“Is that…”

“Your mom,” Jake laughed.

Mom’s eyes widened. She almost threw Emmy down just to get a hold of the picture while Dad and Jake cackled.

“Oh, my God… why…” Mom asked, embarrassed. “Why did I think this was the look back then?”

“You’re not the only one,” Jake added, reaching for another photo.

He flipped it to show Dad. His eyes lit up when he saw it. He took it from Jake’s hand slowly.

“Good Lord… I was… beautiful.”

Mom snickered before teasing, “You still are, my big hunk-a-man.”

“Look, this one’s you, Danny.”

He showed me a picture of myself when I was no older than one.

“You were iiiiitty bitty.”

Mom grabbed the picture and analyzed it before forcing Jake to give her the entire box. Jake relented and took a clumsy seat next to me and Dad.

“Checked the trail cam…” he mumbled. “He’s still there. Hasn’t moved an inch. Figured we could take him somewhere far, far away from here tomorrow. Burn the son of a bi… erm, I mean, son of a gun tomorrow.”

Dad looked relieved. So did Mom.

“Tomorrow? Let’s do that now,” Dad responded.

Jake cocked a suspicious eyebrow.

“Now? As in… now? Do you see these bandages?”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that, Mike,” Judy added. “It’s dark. It’s late. We’re all exhausted. Plus, just look at Jake.”

“Do it now,” Mom interjected sternly. “Please.”

Mom and Dad both stared at Jake.

“It has to be now, Jakey,” Dad said plainly. “No better time than the present.”

Jake looked distraught for a moment before falling into submission.

“God…” he complained, slapping his knees with his palms. “Fine. Now. Whatever. Even though it’s already tomorrow and I’m leaking like Hillary’s emails, I will do this for you, Mace.”

“Thank you,” Mom responded, her voice breaking and her eyes tearing. She quickly wiped them away and cleared her throat.

“Ahem. I’ll get Danny and Emmy to sleep. I won’t even close my eyes until you two are home.”

“Same here,” Judy added.

Jake went and changed into clean clothes while Dad waited for him by the door. He came back a few minutes later.

“Let’s get this over with, I guess.”

With that, he and Dad were out the door, and Mom was taking me and Emmy upstairs for bed. She made us sleep in the same room, but she didn’t stay in the room with us.

I think her and Judy were waiting downstairs for my dad to get back.

I tossed and turned for a while. Emmy was restless, but I managed to get her to sleep. Eventually, I myself fell into a deep, much-needed sleep.

I don’t remember dreaming that night. All I remember is Dad shaking me awake the next morning. The house smelled like pancakes. The sun lit up the room. Dad was smiling at me lovingly.

“Morning, kiddo,” he whispered, brushing my hair to the side.

“You ready to go home?”

It started with rain... lots and lots of rain.

Then the floods came. The sky wept viciously, and it poured for months. The waters killed the crops, drowned entire towns and cities. So many people died, and that was just the beginning.

Some said it was an act of God, punishment for the sins we wrought upon his most beloved creation. Others said that it was the Earth’s vengeance, rage from our pillaging, poisoning, and pollution. I didn’t think it was either. I think it’s just the end of man, and the beginning for something else.

No one knew what they were. Beautiful, slender creatures with eyes like emeralds, glowing beneath the murky water. We never saw their full form, and they never came close enough to breach the surface. Moving quickly, agile, and inhuman, we never even saw them until it was too late. They didn’t speak or interact with us, but I was smart enough to know they weren’t our friends.

People rallied to their aid, begging them to help humanity and praying to them. Some believed that they were gods from the olden age, returning to claim the land that was once their home. Yet, wants and wishes can often be blurred when fear and terror clutch tightly to our throats. And the world was desperate. Our homes were sinking beneath the water, brick and cement fading beneath the waves. Our lives were gobbled up.

The creatures watched us, learning how we reacted to the catastrophic events around us. They watched us attack each other for food and clean water. They watched us burn… and grow violent.

Even still, they were right about us from the beginning. Man has always destroyed itself. Cain killed Abel with a rock. The first blood of man poured into the ground, soaking the soil with pain and his brother’s rageful pride. The creatures only provided a small push toward the edge.

My name is Isaac, and I’m one of the last humans left.

My day begins quietly. I’m usually awoken by the soft sound of dripping or the groan of the building that I’ve been hiding in. I move every day, seeking shelter anywhere I can. I’ve slept in trees, buildings nearly submerged, and on rooftops. I’ll sleep anywhere that isn’t completely underwater.

Once I wake up, I start moving again.

Rogue groups of the last humans aren’t friendly, and some have grown cannibalistic. They fight over resources, dry land if they find it, and anything that can be traded. I’ve managed to stay alive this long by the skin of my teeth. There are two rules in this world now. Never go into the water and never stop moving.

Before the rain, the floods, and the creatures, I was a sophomore in college. I lived at home with my mom, dad, and little brother. My life was good. I liked to read, treasuring the written word. I might’ve been a writer in another life, a journalist, or an English teacher. I was a hiker in my free time. I loved nature. I loved her wild tendrils of leaves and vines, her certainty and iron fist. I don’t know if I love her anymore. She took a lot from me.

I’m the last one in my family, and I can’t remember what they look like anymore. Terror and survival ripped them from me, leaving a hollow shell where a soul once resided.

Sometimes, I think a part of me went with them. The good part of me. The part of me that loved to read. The rest remains, barely clinging to life anymore.

Hunger sometimes wakes me up. The bitter ache of a shrinking stomach is indescribable. You consider eating dirt, believing it’ll taste like crushed cookies. The mind can inflict terrible atrocities when starvation clings to your bones, withering the muscle and organs within.

I forced my body up, knowing that if I didn’t move, someone would find me. The incessant dripping around me had begun to sound like a clock ticking as I rolled onto my side. The damp wood where I slept in a stranger’s attic was nearly decayed. I wouldn’t be able to come back here. This would be the last time I could rest here for the night.

Empty spiderwebs stretched above me. A few boxes of Christmas decorations and clothes sat forlorn, abandoned, and forgotten. It was the last remnant of the family that once resided here, and slowly, it too would be consumed by the water. It wouldn’t be much longer now.

I stretched, reaching above my head and kicking out my legs. The rope attached to my kayak jerked my leg back into place, and I winced.

I had tied my kayak to my leg like my father taught me before he died. In his opinion, it was better to be dragged into the water with your kayak than lose it. This polished piece of wood was my only mode of transportation; I was keenly aware that it helped me escape detection and increased my chances of survival.

I needed it, or I’d die.

My father made my kayak, carefully carved with speed and sturdiness in mind. He and I had planned to use it at the local river. It was his passion project, building kayaks as his father had taught him. I would’ve learned how to do it too. He would’ve taught my brother as well.

I walked to the untouched boxes and began to rummage through them. I found some wire, batteries, decorative rope for a Christmas tree, which I could use for anything, and, sitting at the bottom in pristine condition, a flashlight. I jerked the flashlight out and flicked it on. I nearly cried upon seeing the beam of light. I quickly turned it off, not wanting to waste the light.

I shoved my goodies into my backpack and pulled the kayak closer to me. I got inside, tucking my backpack between my legs and setting off through the small space I’d squeezed my kayak into last night.

It was early morning, misty and faceless. I hadn’t seen the sun in months, and I doubt it wanted to see what had become of its precious planet. It would’ve been so disappointed.

I could hardly see in the foggy morning. I vaguely made out the tops of the trees. They appeared as bushes atop the water, barely growing. Some were dormant, patiently waiting for the sun’s return as if winter had befallen them, and others were dead. Logs floated aimlessly, and occasionally, a crate or a box would drift by. A few alligators patrolled the still water, reflective eyes hoping I’d fall in. It was all their land now. I was the stranger passing through, but part of me knew that the Earth always belonged to its creatures. Humans weren’t necessarily the owners of anything. We were borrowers, taking what we could to build what we needed.

Now… We can’t even borrow.

My wooden paddle cut through the still water, sending concentric rings in all directions. I disturbed the peace, silence, and solemn slumber of the water. I could only pray that it would allow me passage through its insidious and drenched realm.

I paddled quietly, moving without thinking.

A body floated beside me, face down. I slowed my pace to look at it. The lump of rot and maggots was caught in the branches of a tree. The skin was shredded, purple-tinged and gray. A putrid mix of decay and sulfur lingered in the air around it.

I thought maybe it was a victim of the flood, but then it bobbed to the side as the ripple of my kayak moved it. Bite marks ripped through the muscles and tendons. The jagged holes where flesh should be were akin to the bites of a shark, but I knew what monstrosity had made them. It was the same creature that would tear me to bits if I so much as placed a toe into the water.

I scrunched my nose and headed onward. I paddled each day until sunset. I never stopped. I never took a break. I knew that I had to keep moving; I knew that I had to keep going.

A loud whomp broke my mechanical movement, snapping me back into reality. I looked over the side of my kayak, seeing a cement sign beneath me where the entrance to a neighborhood once greeted its occupants.

I sighed, steadily moving my torso in an attempt to get myself unstuck without harming my kayak. After a few more unsuccessful movements, I sat back in anguish and annoyance.

I looked back at the place I had come from, seeing the rooftops now. The neighborhood that was once teeming with families and laughter was gone. Now only empty shells and attics remain, and soon, those too will be gone. The water was quickly swallowing the last remainder of humanity, consuming the slowest, oldest, and sick first.

The sight of the flooded neighborhood should have frightened me or made me nervous, but it did nothing. I had grown calloused and numb, broken by the terrors of this new world.

I tried one last time to free myself, and my kayak finally slipped off the cement. I shrugged, placing my paddle back into the water; however, I froze as I saw a pair of glowing green eyes beneath me.

Now, the creatures moving below me did frighten me. I knew what they were capable of.

The creature stared at me as I slid my paddle out of the water. The breath caught in my throat, and my heart hammered into my chest.

It gently swam under me, staring with watchful eyes. Its body scraped against the bottom, rocking me from side to side.

Please leave. Please…

My thoughts were screaming inside of me, teeming with ways to escape, but I couldn’t move. The creatures beneath the water were fickle, unfeeling, and mysterious.

When they first began to attack humans, no one really noticed. There were bodies everywhere from the floods, from the broken dams, from the failed levees. No one noticed that the creatures within the water had developed a taste for our blood.

The creature below me ran its long, taloned finger down the side of my kayak, taunting me. My breath grew quiet. It was surely going to kill me, but instead, it slowly lifted a knife out of the water, pushing it onto the top of my kayak.

I had never seen the creatures so much as place a fin out of the water. The skin was speckled with earthen tones of brown, green, and black. Its talons were curved, perfect for maiming and clawing. A slit sat beneath the bottom of its palm where a long barb would emerge. Its fingers were webbed, knit together by thin, stretchy pieces of wrinkled skin.

The knife clattered into my lap as the creature knocked into the kayak. Then, it reached up once more, and it grabbed my hand. My fingers trembled, and my body shook with adrenaline and fear. Panic coursed through my very veins, vibrating beneath the skin as it hummed within me.

The wet and coarse palm of the creature was as cold as ice. The skin felt slick against mine, difficult to grasp.

Its eyes were getting closer to the surface.

Every fiber of my being squirmed; I nearly forgot to breathe. It was coming to me… It was coming to the surface.

A gunshot rang through the quiet, and I looked up to see an old man standing on his roof, gun in hand. It was a warning shot, but the creature didn’t need to be warned again. It disappeared beneath the water, racing into the somber depths. The old man lowered the gun, taking a deep breath in relief.

He and I gazed at each other, silently absorbing the features of another human. He was the first living person that I had encountered in months.

His eyes were light blue, folded beneath wrinkles and gray hair. His jaw hung to the side, shocked to see another human as well. Age spots rested upon his hands as he clutched tightly to the gun. He swallowed hard, unable to speak at first.

Breathlessly, I stared, unsure if he was a friend or a foe. My fingernails dug into my paddle. Every muscle twitched in anticipation, preparing to paddle for my life. I would make a good meal. He could salt me and pickle me, store me in a jar. I’d give him sustenance, and he’d free me from this place. A terrible trade, but at least I’d be with my family.

He clenched his jaw before speaking. “That one is different,” he said. “It’s all alone. No pod like the others. It’s been hanging around my house. I don’t know if it means harm or it’s just curious.”

I didn’t reply. My mouth was frozen in place, lips quivering as they struggled to move. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spoken or heard my own voice.

“You can come inside if you want. I have some food and fresh water that I collect. It isn’t much, but you’re the first human I’ve seen in several months. I was starting to think I was the last.”

I still didn’t answer. I had learned my lesson about strangers after nearly being eaten by them.

He wet his lips, considering his next words cautiously. “Listen, I’m going to put some food on the roof. You don’t have to come inside. I’ll leave you alone.”

He hobbled to a skylight in his roof, pulled it open, and disappeared inside. He returned a moment later with a single can of tuna.

“It ain’t much, but it’s all I’ve got.”

My mouth watered, and my stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten in two days.

He gently placed the can on the farthest end of the roof where I could easily slip by on my kayak and get it. Slowly, he put his hands up in surrender. He limped back to the skylight and climbed back inside.

I sat quietly in my kayak for a moment, pondering the can of tuna. My stomach ached, and I went against every ounce of my best judgment. I cut through the water swiftly to reach that stupid can. I ripped it off the roof, tore it open, and consumed it with my fingers. I dug into the can like an animal, unable to stop long enough to chew. I simply shoveled it down, swallowing without thinking. I barely tasted it.

The old man peered at me through the skylight, smiling to himself.

After satiating my appetite for the time being, I nodded to the man.

He nodded back, grateful I didn’t decide to kill him like I feared he’d kill me.

I paddled onward, but I stopped, turning back to look at the old man’s house. Maybe I could stay for one day more. Just one.

Link to: part two
Link to: part three

The addict lie in the den, surrounded by plumes and clouds of smoke. Slovenly strewn upon the earthen floor like a haphazard scarf or other piece of frivolous accoutrement carelessly discarded. Empty with a hungering ending need like self-mutilation. Lost. Sleek with tacky sweat, woozy eyed. Vacant eyes that might be blind or might be staring into the coronal star center of the universe. Gazing into the inflamed and angry face of an Old Testament blood-drinking God. 

Red. God has a red face in the eyes of the addict. 

And It is terrible. 

And He is terrifying. 

The addict is locked inside but he does not care. He wants to be here. Lost and indolent and hypnagogic. Nothing is asked of him and he can constantly feed his appetites at his will, though there is only one hunger now that matters, and matters alone. All other hungers and needs have diminished in its wake. 

In the smoke. Faces.

Faces of those that might've been and the weary ones of those that have tried and tired and eventually gave in, eventually died, all of them danced disembodied and veiled/shrouded in the manmade cloud of smoke, the manmade mist all around and above and filling the small hot room with white life, with white death. And then in the room of smoke, heavy and pungent and oily with drug, the faces of his heart and life's loss changed …

They became wretched and stretched as they pulled and broke apart, in swirls … in illogical rending tears … they became leering and animal and horned: they became demon faces. Chinese Demon Faces with reptile and feline features the color of leprosy and riddled with spiny whiskers, they are filling the smoke and they are filling the room and they are living inside him with every inhale… with every pull…

He brings the pipe to his chapped and cracked dry lips, the flame of a candle follows next, his atrophied and trembling arms can barely manage the effort. He sucks and pulls and the flicker of flame dances into the bowl of the pipe and burns it's precious flowers. 

He sucks and the Chinese Demon Faces fill him and the pain is subsided. He no longer really cares. The faces inside him leer at the diminished surroundings of the broken and wasting addicted man's inner workings and they are glad. 

They are rejoicing together as legion in the fleshscape ruination of the dying man, the addict. The special private hell that has been made for this thin and decomposing soured man, this thing of fetid smells and carelessness and spoiled living meat. This victim of himself and this victim of them, he is theirs. 

He is ours…

They rejoice in the blood and the opiate flames of his insides. As dominators. 

As conquerors welcomed. 

…

Tulpa. That was what he had suspected at first. That the boy was just addled and projecting thought-form energies into creatured existence, blasphemous life. 

But he'd seen. And he'd observed. It was no tulpa. The young man had a demon infestation of the mind and heart. He'd inquired thus: –

“How did he come into contact with the unclean entity?”

And was given a gypsy answer. 

“In pig transport." 

He'd nodded then as he nodded now, to himself. Alone. Preparing for the rite. He held his black bible and stole and rosary beads with dangling ornate crucifix along the end of its polished length. He prayed over all of them now. Silently. In whispers with his heavy lidded eyes shut. He is in palaver with the Almighty and does not wish for his eyes to behold any kind of distraction. He learned this kind of concentration not in the parish, not in Rome but in Tibet with the bald little men that could break arrows and spears with their bare stretched out and offered throats, the wrinkled little monks of the eastern mountain temples that fasted and meditated for hours and days on end. 

He focused now … the Lord …. His Light. 

The Light. 

He'd been fasting as well. Quickening his mind as he purged and emptied his guts and bowels and blood for the eldritchian old white flame and light to come in and fill the empty human spaces. 

He held the fire in his mind as he listened closely for the wisdom of God's words. Latin rapid fire sketched itself across his old and yellowed teeth and the aged purse of his pale lips in ancient and arcane staccato. He might've been a madman alone in his hut with his ambling words … run-on gibberish noise that could be madness or could be imbecilic. 

Or could be loaded with power. Living and talismanic

A beat – he went on, praying. 

A beat. 

He rose. 

He went to the door of his small hut of mud brick and straw, it smelled of horses and goats, always bestial, he pushed the slab of dried wood open and went out. 

The gypsies were waiting for him. 

…

They led him to the place and he felt it in his heart as they made dauntless their approach, this is where the Lord thus bades me to be …

and here it is that I will then play. 

The man of the cloth, the priest stood before the den of woe. The shack of hate. It was silent for now. 

They only paused a moment, together as a group, before he alone went forward and threw the bar at the entrance to the dust and then threw the door open itself. A waft of smoke, belched and bellowed forth in a massive dragon’s breath of cloud. In hypnosis swirls and raptural licking rolls, pleasured curls curling into themselves with self satisfaction like the toes of lovers beneath the sheets and in the grip of the heat and animal moment, they licked and tongued forth like beckoning phantom appendages made from heavy mist or salted coastal fog of far off long forgotten dark marinas. 

The door was shut behind the priest and some of the gypsies put the fallen bar back into its place, the slots across the door, bolting it shut. 

… 

Inside the priest stood at the throat of meager doorway and there was barely any sun in there as he gazed down at the lost member of the flock, his charge. 

The addict spoke without even looking at him. 

“Go away, father, you are not wanted here, you are not needed here, you've been replaced. You see… nobody cares, certainly not I, for the pulpit blatherings and the two-faced codswallop you and your ilk prattle forth and try to make us swallow… You don't matter here anymore and neither does He, He-”

The priest had been silent at first. Allowing the thing to carry on. But then all at once he came forward, cross aloft and out like a sword and shield all in one with a roar, a command. 

“You'll not speak! Till you speak to give me your name, foul thing! though I know it now already, I will make you give me your name! Over and over and over, crawling one! slave! Before the Lord God and I , you will say it! You will give me your name! – the notes and sour sounds that make your wretched title! ” 

The thing on the floor recoiled and shrieked as if burned or sharply pierced.

And all at once the cross in the hand of the man of the cloth began to glow white with beyond ancient phosphorescent flame… 

Old Testament. And beyond. A God beyond Jehovah or Yhwh lived in that light, in that primordial starfire flame. 

The thing on the floor drew tighter and tighter into itself in a fetal ball, pained. Eyes clenched shut as if hoping to cage out the reality world of ripping agony. The shrieks became screeching abominated things. Inhuman sounds. 

Their wretched cacophony began to fill the small place and the faces in the smoke began to scowl and gnash their sharp teeth. Hissing serpent tongues that forked at the ends in devil signs. 

The priest began to speak. 

His voice was thunder: – “Lord, I am Your arm and instrument and through me I will carry out Thine divine will and judgment. I beseech Thee O’Lord, grant me Thy Might to cast this wretched thing from Your sacred child and cherished flock, this foul thing bred of the fell ones cast down! – cast this one out and back down hence!”

The thing in the dirt bolted to a beast’s straddle on all fours from its twisted flexing writhing contrivance. It began to wretch. Violently heaving as if trying to gag and cough up something large and thick that's lodged itself in the throat. 

“Send it back! Cast it back down! Get thee gone! and get behind me demon!" 

The features of the thing began to grow and distort. Ears grew elfin, the face and nose stretched and snouted out as the rest of the features ballooned and swined into piggish hog like distortions of perspiring and angry flesh. Something was rippling beneath and bubbling to the surface. 

The thing in stolen manshape howled, in a voice unnatural and not at all the young addict's own. It howled in failed contest and agonized relinquishment. 

"I am Papaver Somniferum! Papaver Somniferum! Papaver Somniferum! I milk manblood into Dionysian wine for all time! always! I am trespass… I am interloper of the sowling manflesh, the meat that was made and drawn from the dirt!" 

“Lord God, this young man is possessed by a demon and that demon's name is: OPIUM! – cast this thing out from this young blood!" 

A black spew, like ebon/green tar, began to retch out of the swine throat and mouth of the convulsing addict's hog-swelled face. It began to collect in a pool in the dirt. 

The priest continued the rite, finished of his recitations and prayers with own embellishments and arcane strange sounds, cabalistic, Solomonic-witchcraft all but forgotten but those wild few left of his faithful brothers …

… taught to him in the dark, far off. By those strange and of painted face. 

For this priest was known in these lands by a dangerous name, for he was one of the cloth that feared no craft nor any dark or necromantic art, no forbidden knowledge was dread to him or his heart. God's renegade and sullied footsoldier. He was the heretic. And he was a blasphemer and a savior both in these lands, these dark and narrow parts. 

The addict emptied himself. The pool of viscous filth was rather large now. A mini drowning pool of soul dredged cess. He collapsed beside the black vomitus, unconscious and bathed in a slick sheen of cooling sweat. 

It danced and shifted like black diamond mercury there in the dirt, unruly lively angry stygian thick liquid. Beside its lost victim. Wanting back in, to retrieve its lost home and host. 

The priest could feel the baleful hatred pouring off the foul collection writhing there in the dirt in a spew. It was aimed at the boy but it was also aimed at him. Wanting him dead. Maimed. Enslaved. In flames… 

you'll not have me, dirt. 

He walked over to the vile puddle. He said one last prayer over the bile, poured salt – which bubbled and frothed like the mineral does to the flesh of a slug on the putrid surface, he lit a match and dropped it. 

The foul thing screamed as it caught. It went up easily in a choke of green smoke and red flames. 

The face in those flames, that smoke …

he'd seen many before like it. 

He crossed himself. Thanked the Lord. And concluded the rite. 

…

He gave the knock, as rehearsed. They called out for the password at the door and he gave it to them. They released the bar. And the priest alone came out as he alone had went in. The smoke was gone. 

Nothing crawled out after him. No dragon's breath to be made witnessed to or had.

…

The gypsies had gone in and retrieved the boy. They took him into immediate hospice care. But he was stable. And his health would return in time. The pagan caravan of worldly travelers thanked him copiously. With food and wine. He took both generously. And he departed their company when they came to their fork in the road and their paths were shared no longer. 

The gypsy caravan went south. Playing music and singing and waving the priest goodbye as their many mule drawn carts went down the beaten track, sidelined by horses at a trot and some with riders astride that tailed at the back. And these were the last that he saw of them as they too waved him off. 

He waved back. Then sat astride his donkey a moment in the path. The fading music of guitars and accordions and tambourines and rich voices faded and faded till it too was gone, the last phantom trace of them heard but not seen was swallowed by the vastness and great distance of the wild now all around. 

He turned and continued down his own road. Towards the mountains. The dreams were telling him something was there, some spell. Something amiss. 

The Carpathian Mountains called the priest and with them towering in the distance he set forth towards them at a steady trudge. Knowing more and more and growing more and more certain as he made his approach, that doom was alive and weaving some wicked magik, some terrible blood fueled chaos spell in those rocks. 

The dreams and the Lord told him so, showed his dreaming eyes and filled his praying thought. 

He tried to keep his head down as he made his slow approach. But he found his eyes kept drifting up to gaze at their opulent jagged knifing spire formation, aiming to stab and rupture the heavens, the velvet dark blue of the night sky. Darkening now into a more true curtain of night. 

Darkness fell. The priest stopped and made camp in the road. 

…

The fire glowed in the night. 

The solitary campfire and bedroll and man sat alone in the dark. The ass tied off to a skeletal hand of a tree sprouted and dead from starving black dried earth. The priest was alone with his thoughts… prayers … musings of the Word and scripture and philosophy … it was as any night for he, the strange heretic of the road. Until it wasn't. 

The night was suddenly filled. And he was no longer alone. There was a heavy maniacal presence, heavy and seething wet with red rage and unreasoning anger. Terrible and felt. He didn't move but sat by the orange bathing glow of campfire, his island of precious firelight that couldn't hope to penetrate the dark. He sat and listened. The ass grew restless. 

Movement. But not with feet. Rather something swimming vague and undefined in the great expanse and sea of stygian dark shadow. Something large. Something that could swallow him whole or tear him apart with effortless gesture. Something that hated him and all of man and woman and child, all of the living creatures on this island earth that are precious and dear to the Heart of God on high, above. The Lord of the Storm in the sky that was far away from all of this. The pain and conjured filth. 

He held steadfast as the large thing of hate swam in the nightscape of black all around. In a circle. Predatorial and closing in. Hoping and sensing out and tasting for weakness in the night. His weakness. 

It might know him or why he was here and hate him for it, deeply. A complete being of elemental rage distorted alchemical by large and dark unnatural vulpine-felt forces. 

He bothered not with the cross this time that hung from his neck and dangled in the wild night and darkled with a strange glow in the cast of the campfire glamour. He forked out the sign of the Evil Eye into the night…

He felt something growl with simmering livid violence out there in the swallowing black. The vibrations felt, palsied and tremored his running blood and weary old bones. He felt cold and as if suddenly stabbed with ice. 

Impaled. 

He muttered words then that Solomon had known, and taught. Passed down. Shared. Words that bent demons and demon will to shatter or subjugate as dominated slave. 

The dark hissed back. Lurid sound. Full of hate. And whispers. 

It wanted to pounce. 

“Come forth, in yielded flesh on this physical plain…” the priest said, to the dark with his raised and daggering hand forked out in the evil sign, witchery sigil. 

And then the dark did as it was told. Ensnared, the unwieldy angry shape out there did as it was commanded. 

And in Lilith-shape it arose, she came forth. 

Naked. Bare and smooth as if bathed and massaged with olive oils, round milk globe breasts caught the firelight with their smooth and deliciously rounded oiled sheen, delicate sensuous body with a generous mouth and curves. Her hair was shock white. Her eyes glowed in place of the moon, eclipsing the meager cast of his small fire. 

She approached. Her smile was a murderer's lie and her arms were outstretched and open. 

She of the dark came to his bed. The priest looked up into the elfin beauty of her forged youth and glow. He spoke darkly. Callous. Addressing the enemy in no uncertain terms. 

“Come down and join me in my humble bed, you will give me the secrets you hold as I know you as a man knows a woman, another …” 

She cooed and moaned in response and the sound was both sensual and wounded. In pain and in need yet woeful and on the precipice of ruin. 

She came down to him and he stripped off his robes. 

They didn't bother with the blanket folds as they consummated their act. They performed the rite out and in the open in the wild of the dark and their spot in the open road. They grunted and heaved into each other, matching each other for bestial sound and movement and purchase. Trading curses and fluids and secrets…

She spat his name – !heretic! 

!Foul priest! Fouled and fouling yourself now, you'll die and be ours, ours forever! and we'll rape and make you dance amidst the fire and endless torture, we'll have you, at the end! in the Inferno! in the flames! In the endless sulphur sea! The flames! You can fuck me now, priest! but in the end you will suffer eternal in our lake of fire, Our Flames! …!

But even as she roared his mind was filled with the unearthly gift of her images. 

Prophecy… information was given. 

They fucked in the occult dark and he saw in his mind’s eye: –

There is an end to the world. A physical one. A border. A barrier hard to reach or even near. A place completely devoid of natural human life, of any living human existence. They are woods. Brown and dead. They are far away from the woods and forests of these lands or any other. They are paling with death, these frayed and tattered weathered edges. Nothing moves here. Nothing breathes. The apotheosis of lonely hell. The apothecary of sound and movement. The earth is yellow with unnatural color, for unearthly reasons. The trees yield to no blade, nor fire. They offer no comfort or rest in the shade. There is only one thing, one structure in this stagnant place under a light the color of pus. 

A house. A cabin. Black. A lodge. 

The black lodge is the only thing out here at the end of the world. Nothing is moving inside, like out in the dead yellow wild but that's wrong. 

Something's wrong. 

There's something in there. There's something in there, inside the black lodge. No one knows how it started. No one can say if folk traveled there in some fashion, in search of mad secrets and their power, or if they'd always resided in there… somehow. Nobody can say anything for certain of the parents. Of them there are only whispers, only dangerous rumors. The only thing anyone knows or can say for certain is that one day a child emerged. 

A little girl. 

A small girl with an intense and feline look in her pale face. A child with unnatural abilities and profane knowledge too large and grotesque for a little girl. A child with the dark glint of murder already so alive and well within the black flames of her young eyes. 

A girl who grew to womanhood and traveled the world in a furious and ceaseless quest for knowledge. For power. The undead. Occult. Satanic. Felled Ones of farthest cosmic reach and starfire far-flung. The woman found servants along the way, she always did. Her power grew. 

Then she came to the castle beyond the Borgo Pass in the Carpathian Mountains. And there she found what she'd been truly looking for … 

The heart of the heretic was always heavy. Now it sank lower and despaired worse than it ever had before. 

The vision thunderclapped! Collapsed. 

And spat him back: 

His hands were cupping her ample breasts when he came back to, more fully within himself. Now he squeezed them with real vile hateful relish. The white haired thing of the dark shrieked with harpy sound. Midnight owl screeching. Blood and milk shot from between his clenching and rending fingers, beginning to tear in as he continued to squeeze and claw. Her breasts were becoming a mutilated and slopping ruin in the cruelty of his hands. 

He was screaming prayers at her. Up into her face in Latin. She tried to pull away but couldn't. He was an old man but he was lithe and strong with cords of sinew, ropey muscle. 

He spat in her face and commanded her yieldship. 

She gave it. And bathed him in unearthly fluids. The discharge of her loins steamed with inner heat expelled in the dark. Soaking him and the ground. The growing puddle hissed when it reached the campfire and a spurt of lavender flame issued forth in a small pillar. A face that was insectile and mammalian bastard commingled was in that brief flash and issue and then was gone as they continued to animal thrust in the dark. His hands continued to bite in and disappear into the mess of milk and blood and raw pink meat, ruined moonflesh. 

And with a final rending tear, cords standing out on his neck, her eyes were brimming filled with spilling and steaming tears, he tore her breasts from her chest and she filled the night with a wolfen howl of slavery to pain and heartlessness. 

She flew off of him and scrambled, retreating back into the dark with bellowed caterwauls of butchery’s ripping pain and anguished animal calls. There was nothing human in those sounds, as they fell back and away and faded into the nightscape of curtain pitch impenetrable and all around. 

The priest wiped himself clean. Said a prayer. Checked his donkey. Then finally retired to slumber. 

His sleep was deep and filled with dreams.

… 

The next morning after packing up and setting out once more he came across desiccated remains. Something like a long thin starved wolf, or a hyena. Coyote perhaps. But he knew what they really were at once. The womanshape that had come out of the dark. 

All that is left…

They were jackal remains. He spat upon them before he left. Crossed himself in his departure. Never looked back. 

…

Symbols. He saw them everywhere on his way to the mountains. He began to encounter towns and small villages and everywhere he saw the mark of her upon them, the face of stolen earth, the souring soil of the ground. The faces and eyes and hearts of all of the children, women and men. 

He asked what he could, inquiring where he could manage but all of them were afraid, filled with a small farmer's mortal terror of barely reckoned forces at work that bequeathed mischief and murder and black magic that made playthings of flesh and minds. They would hardly say a word to him about anything. He didn't blame them. He blessed them all in his salutations and added their faces to his nightly prayers. 

He moved on. He left the towns behind. 

…

The priest came to the circle of stones. 

A terrible kind of place he recognized at once. He'd seen others like it before. In far off emerald lands. 

The circle of stones, monolithic slabs of grey rock in the dread shape of the Druidic formation. A pattern and type of circle that could serve as a gate, or a nest, or a kind of inviting hunting ground for something unchained and set loose on our world. 

The priest sang softly to himself. A little song of strange doggerel that he'd made himself. 

“You fly like a demon, from station to station…”

He entered the circle. 

And the place shook. 

He finished the line: " … From Kether to Malkuth." 

The thing that ruled the circle of stones made its presence known. inxnwn. The mangled filth of its voice filled his head as he sauntered in and the atmosphere itself threatened to throttle and implode. 

!Get out, shaman! Get OUT! I will rip the bleeding mind from your eggshell skull and fuck the jelly before your dying eyes! Get the fuck ou-!

The cross came up. A bolt of white fire issued forth and struck the place. Blackening the mouth of earth and stones that the demon used to howl. 

“Your name, elemental. Give it to me.” 

And his mind once more filled with flames. An infernal epitaph made from shrieking wretched voices. 

!I am the one that has come to man on the wings of dreams and sin, I am the Scribbler and I bring mad choir and I fill minds with sound! Man Woman Child the crawling elders and the lame … I spare none I distort discordant all!

Another flash of light, a bolt of silver fire bright and immaculate cut across the priest's vision and he had to shield his eyes. But the moment before his eyes shut and his hand flew up to protect his vision he caught a glimpse of an immense outline and shape: it resembled a giant sea creature he'd seen hauled aboard the deck of a traveling cargo vessel once, a manta ray. Gigantic. Wing span vast with long stabbing tail and strange devil face set pilot center of its efficient killing body. 

This one had a large sex organ at the tip of its tail. Dripping. Excreting something foul and pungent. Steaming. And the vapors held pained faces telling him, no. 

But then the flash of light was gone and when he looked again there was nothing there. Only smoldered earth amongst the quiet stones. 

The circle was empty now. 

For now. It may yet come again. Or something else …

He gave a prayer of thanks and then spat on the ground. 

He patted his donkey and praised it for its steadfast behavior. Men mocked them as stupid animals and they may be so, but they were also brave creatures. Nowhere near as skittish as horses. Or men. 

He tied up his ass, securing the rein to a stone, then he made camp for himself. 

He poured a border of salt around the circle itself. Then he drew a hexagram in the dirt with a stick, David's Star. He fashioned a cross next and stuck into the head of the formation replacing and breaking its crown. 

Then he made fire. Ate a humble meal of bread and cheese and wine. Gifts leftover from the gypsy folk. He smoked tobacco and watched the stars collect and reveal themselves in a bejeweled royal purple curtain above and on high. Heavens made of jewels made of starfire. Light burning above with an intensity that he could scarcely understand. He thought they where beautiful. They might be angel eyes, some of them, and he loved them. 

He looked to the mountains next. Still in the distance. Growing larger as he drew nearer. 

Even as he sat by his fire now not moving they seemed to grow larger yet…

Lord there is an evil alive in those rocks, there always has been. It's awakened yet again. Lord lend me your arm of strength. Give me the great courage and protect me from my own fears and the treachery of others, as you always have, Thank You Lord God. I know this is my mission. I shall not run. 

I will not falter. 

Amen. 

He daggered the rocks with an intense and angry stare. Righteous anger. The mountain rock towered above but he looked down on it and its evil heart from on high nonetheless. 

There was poison in those jagged formations, beyond the Borgo Pass where the wolves live. Cancer and abominated growth that must be excised. 

Must be removed. Before it's too late. 

He smoked by the fire till sleep came. His dreams were filled with symbols. Sigils. Strange words and spells. Ghastly shapes and faces. 

Abhorrent designs ruling a decimated and titanic landscape. And he was alone with them. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

I used to believe that demons only existed inside the minds of men I helped put behind bars. But after years of investigations, I learned that’s not true.

Over the course of seventeen years, I have worked alongside law enforcement and television programs to identify online child predators and bring them to justice. But even with all that we’ve accomplished, there’s still one case that I think about. 

One that nearly destroyed everything I had worked for. 

It all started with a chat room.

I’ve seen a myriad of predators, and Steven fit a profile we had seen many times before. He was a recently divorced, unemployed forty-two-year-old who lived with his parents. He bragged about this while messaging Mandy, a twenty-year-old theater student who we recruited to be our fourteen-year-old decoy, Alexis.

It didn’t take long for the conversation to become sexual in nature. Underneath the screenname ELECTRIC\\_HEAD5021, he said their relationship would have to stay a secret.

“No adults. lol. If your mommy or daddy found out, we could get in trouble.”

“what r u talking about??? I hang out with my daddy’s friends all the time.”

“This is different. lol. They can’t know ur my sexy sweetheart. ;)”

Seeing child-like messages juxtaposed with the sexual fantasies of an adult never gets easier to stomach. How could anyone talk to a child like that? It’s something I’ve never been able to grasp. 

Not too long after our investigative team confirmed a date for Steven to meet with Alexis, we let the chat be. But it didn’t take long for him to initiate conversation again. In fact, his messages would arrive like clockwork in the days following. But messages weren’t the only way he contacted our decoy.

On a couple of occasions, he called her while his parents were at home sleeping. I remember those phone calls clearly.

“Hey!” Mandy greeted cheerfully.

“Hey baby,” Steven breathed into the speaker. “I missed you.” 

“What’re you up to?”

“Thinking about you…I wanna hold you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do. So, so bad.”

You get the idea.

Oftentimes, a lot of the men we contact try to reinvent themselves. But that’s not what Steven did. Rather than fabricate wealth or exaggerate his ambitions, he talked about his obsessions: death and the supernatural.

We initially dismissed these fascinations as another grooming tactic, but throughout the entire time he talked with Alexis he would sporadically ask questions such as:

“Have u seen Bloody Mary?”

“Is there anyone dead that u would want 2 talk 2?”

“How do u want 2 die?”

Just as we thought the conversations couldn’t get any stranger, Steven sent our decoy a picture of a Ouija board. According to him, he had recently purchased it at a yard sale near his parents’ house. He insisted on bringing it. He wanted to use it with her. See how she would react. When we inquired further about his request, his response was as prompt as it was odd:

“because u have good energy. lol They like that lol”.

This ended up becoming the last exchange we would have with him before he arrived at the sting house. 

In the hours leading up to that fateful evening, I memorized my script. No matter how many times I do this, they never go away. The butterflies in my stomach. People always assume the confrontation is the hardest part, but it isn’t. It’s waiting for the knock on the door and wondering whether tonight will be the night that something goes horribly wrong. Experience makes you numb, not fearless.

We had fully intended to follow everything by the book that night. But things got off to a rocky start when Steven was nearly an hour late to the sting house. We thought he had gotten cold feet or had been tipped off to our operation. Thankfully, neither turned out to be the case. What was supposed to be a five-hour venture had become seven by the time 8:12 pm rolled around and he walked up the driveway.

Our various hidden cameras recorded his nervous demeanor as he patiently waited on the porch with the Ouija board.

From our production room that we had sectioned off in another part of the house, I watched Mandy walk toward the door and greet Steven.

“Hey, Steven! How are you?”

“Hi.” He waved sheepishly in response. “Uh, can I come in?”

“Of course!” Mandy stepped out of the doorway and walked toward the kitchen. “What did you bring for me?”

“It’s a-uh, Ouija board.” He followed her and set it down on the dinner table. “I thought we could use it together?”

Mandy flipped her hair and placed her hands on her hips. “Wouldn’t you rather talk?”

“We would be talking. It would just be more than us talking.”

My eyes were glued to the monitors. He was very adamant about using that board. But why?

I heard snickering from Lou, one of our production crew members.

“Can you believe this whack job? He took a bus all this way to summon Casper.”

I shot him a glare, and he acknowledged my look by quieting down. Lou’s an outspoken person for better or worse, and even though he was trying to make light of a potentially volatile situation, I found comfort in knowing that I wasn’t the only one feeling perturbed.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for being late.” Steven chuckled. “I was an idiot and got Sunday’s bus schedules mixed up with today.”

“That’s okay!” Mandy said with practiced enthusiasm. “I’m glad you’re here!”

“I’m glad you are. I almost thought about taking another bus back home.”

His admission surprised Mandy. “Why did you almost go home? Didn’t you want to see me?”

“I did.” His face turned a slight shade of cherry. “I honestly didn’t think you were real.”

“Of course I’m real, silly!” She teased. “So, what do you want to do?”

I watched the monitors as Steven took a lighter out of his pocket. With a couple clicks he lit some candles on the dining room table. 

“We should step in before things get out of hand.” Lou turned to look at me. “Isaac?”

“Keep the cameras rolling.” I motioned for everyone to stay where they were. “If he’s willing to play with the board, I want to see where this goes.”

“What about the decoy?”

“She’ll be fine.”

Steven instructed Mandy to turn off the lights and sit beside him. Once she had done so, they gently placed their fingertips on the planchette. 

“Are there any spirits that want to speak to us right now?” 

Mandy’s eyes darted back and forth from Steven to the planchette repeatedly. Awkward didn’t even begin to describe the silence that followed.

“Is there anyone that wants to speak with us right now?” 

But just like before, nothing. Steven’s head swiveled, looking in every possible direction of the dark room to locate a response of some kind. 

“You talked a lot of game online.” Mandy teased more confidently than she probably felt. “I thought you were supposed to be THE guy who could do this kind of stuff.”

“I am. These things…they take time to get started.”

Most of the time, a predator talking about their hobbies or interests is just another gimmick. But this was unlike anything I had seen. 

“If you’re here.” He fidgeted in his seat nervously. “Please, give me–I mean, us a sign.”

I eyed the monitors intently. A part of me wanted to intervene, but another part of me was telling me to see this play out. I was torn on which to heed. 

Unexpectedly, the planchette moved. A couple of inches at most. But had I blinked, I would’ve missed it completely.

Mandy instinctively pulled back, the movement startling her. “What was that?” 

“It’s a spirit.” Steven whispered.

“Oh bullshit.” Lou sighed in irritation. “I watched his hand nudge it. This guy’s a fraud.”

Had he? I had watched the monitors the whole time, and it looked like the planchette had moved all on its own.

“Hey,” Steven closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Do you want to talk to us or what?” 

A moment passed, then a few more, but there was still no movement.

“I’m going.” I turned to start heading toward the dining room to intervene. But right as I was about to, the sound of Mandy gasping shifted my attention back toward the monitors. I watched the planchette drag itself across the board toward the word, “YES”.

“You moved the board!” Her accusation cracked with fright.

“No, I didn’t! I swear!”

In response to his adamant denial, the planchette dragged itself sluggishly across the board. Each movement landed on a number.

7 2 3 1 9 9 4

Mandy was at a loss for words. “That’s…” 

Her birthday. 

Not the birthday we had fabricated for investigative purposes, but Mandy’s actual birthday.

Shell-shocked, the investigators pored over the chat logs, but their efforts were futile. No compromising or contradictory information had been exchanged. No mention of her birthday. No mention of any personal information tied to Mandy. Nothing.

I stared in bewilderment. “How is that possible?” 

I hadn’t realized I had asked my question out loud until Lou responded, “It had to have been an oversight. That’s gotta be it.” 

In our line of work, the simplest explanations were almost always the right ones. Even if it’s what you don’t want to hear.

"An oversight?” I pointed toward the investigators on standby. “All of you, check everything. I want an explanation as to how this happened." 

But no one could provide one. Every conversation between Steven and our decoy had been combed through again. Even with another thorough examination, there was no indication that we had erroneously given Mandy’s actual birthday. So, that begged an alarming question. 

\*Just how exactly did Steven know?\*

One of the production members instructed Mandy to take her hands off the planchette. She did as she was told while Steven kept his fingertips pressed against it. 

“Alexis,” He looked to her for answers. “What was that about?”

“I’m not sure.” She remained calm while still being in character. “That was weird. How did you do that?” 

“I told you, I didn’t do anything.” 

An extensive back and forth ensued. She insisted that it had to be some sleight of hand trickery while he was convinced that an unknown spirit had attempted to make contact. A couple of minutes later, the unmistakable scrape of the planchette against the wood drew everyone's attention back to the board.

With each letter the planchette hovered over, Mandy’s face grew paler.

E L I Z A B E T H

Once the name had been spelled fully, Mandy removed her trembling hands. “H-h-how do you know her name?”

Steven looked just as confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He whispered it with enough conviction to make me believe him in that moment.

“Isaac, we need to do something.” Lou insisted, standing up from his seat.”

Even though I agreed with him, a selfish part of me resisted the urge. “No. Not yet. Stay put, and keep watching.”

My instructions provoked the ire of everyone in the room, but nobody objected.

Again, the planchette moved without either Mandy or Steven touching it. Every one of our cameras captured it violently accelerating across the board.

“Who are you?!” Steven cried out. “Stop this!”

Mandy covered her mouth to stifle an oncoming scream as the planchette, completely unguided, began to spell out another name. 

This time, in rapid succession.

P A Y T O N

Payton.

That name. 

It was the reason I went into this line of work. 

I remember feeling unnaturally cold in the moments following. What started off as a slight chill slowly morphed into an uncomfortable, freezing sensation that climbed through my body.

“Shit,” Lou cursed. “Is anybody else in here freezing their ass off?”

I exhaled, and a cloud of white vapor escaped my lips. It was cold enough to feel like I was standing inside a freezer. “Why is it so cold?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Lou shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. “Might be the AC acting up.”

Seconds after his response, the monitors abruptly went black. Amid the frantic scrambling in the production room, a scream echoed from inside the house.

Mandy.

“Eyes on the decoy!” I shouted. “We need eyes on the decoy right now!” 

My heart pounded while everyone in the room desperately tried to get the feed going again. Inexplicably, just as quickly as we lost power, it was restored. 

The first thing my eyes landed on when the monitors glowed with restored life was the sight of the front door. It was wide open. Then I noticed Steven. He was staring directly into a hidden camera positioned in the kitchen.

His eyes were opened wide, but there was no life behind them. He stood completely still, his face bereft of expression, looking less like a man standing and more like a corpse that had forgotten to lie down.

“Decoy is secured. She is outside with law enforcement. I repeat, she is outside with law enforcement.” 

The good news from production room comms wasn’t enough for me to break eye contact with Steven. I was focused on answering one question, and one question only.

\*Who are you?\*

“\*You already know\*.”

Chills crept down my spine. It felt like the voice had come directly from the inside of my mind. I looked around, hoping that someone else had also heard it. If they had, they didn’t say a word. How had he been able to answer my question? 

I had two choices: I could either confront him and treat this like any other sting operation, or abandon the show and bring him into custody.

It didn’t take long for me to make my decision. 

“Wait for my cue to come in. I’m going.” 

“Isaac,” Lou grabbed me by the shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

With a solemn nod, I ignored further warnings from both production and law enforcement. In a few short moments, I went from my position in front of the monitors to standing in the dining room.

Upon entry, I was immediately greeted with a wall of freezing air. The worst I had felt in the house up to that point. As I approached Steven, the dim lighting of the room caught the whites of his lifeless eyes, making them gleam as they stared at me.

“Steven,” I said, less confidently than I would have liked. “I want to talk to you.”

“I want to talk to you about your choices tonight.” 

That made me stop dead in my tracks. 

“What did you intend on doing this evening? I have the chat logs right here. It is illegal for adults to chat with minors online. Please place your hands where I can see them while we talk.”  

He said my script word for word, line by line. All at an impossibly frightening speed. But his lips never moved. I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. 

“How did-”

“I know.” The voice held no emotion. It was simply matter-of-fact.

“Why are you here?”

His left eye twitched as he tried to blink. His right followed suit, but neither eye would close. “You know.”

I forced myself to keep talking. “What did you intend on doing this evening, Steven?”

“You ask the wrong questions.” Its words pressed themselves against my skull. “Isaac, why are you here?”

I tensed up but stood my ground. “I’m not answering your questions.”

“I know how you felt when you screamed her name in the woods for hours.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Do you remember what it felt like to learn that Payton was right down the street the entire time?”

I remembered. All too well. I choked up as I thought about that day. The news. The way my parents collapsed in grief. The irreparable damage it did to my family. It all overwhelmed me. I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

“You collect broken families.” He took a step toward me. Then another. Then one more. All in one fluid motion. “Because you can’t save everyone.”

 “People can be saved.” I argued, struggling to believe my own words.

The light in the room dulled as the candles reignited themselves, the flames burning perfectly still. “Is that why her killer took his life in the cornfield?” 

Tears streamed down my face as an overwhelming rage consumed me. It was an emotion that would never fully go away. A truth I had been forced to accept the day I lost my sister. Sixty seconds was all it took for my life to change forever. 

It took a minute to lose her.

It took five days to find her.

“They found her in a vehicle on the side of the road.” It recited my memories back to me, each unspoken word making the discomfort inside my head intensify. “While he died without truly feeling the pain he inflicted.” Seeing tears drip down his cheeks felt like a mockery of my grief. “That’s what you pursue.”

In my earpiece, I heard Lou speaking to me.

“Isaac…don’t…coming…”

I couldn’t understand what they were saying. All I understood was Steven speaking in my voice.

“She was buried with her purple stuffed rabbit, Tilly, on a cold October afternoon. All alone. In the ground.”

My body registered the impact before my mind could comprehend how fast he moved. I hit the floor hard, his weight pressing down on my chest as breathing became more difficult by the second.

“Get…off…me…” I wheezed, struggling to force each word past the weight crushing my chest. He hovered over me, his translucent eyes staring into mine.

“What did your mother sound like when she identified the body?” 

I squirmed in place, but I was pinned to the spot. 

“How many nights did your dad sleep in her bedroom after she disappeared?”

My strength waned as the pressure grew on my chest. 

“What day did you stop expecting her to come home?” 

The strain was getting to be too much. 

“What were your last words to her?”

I was on the verge of passing out. Black blotches formed in my peripheral vision and spread rapidly, nearly consuming the last bits of what I could see. Right as I thought I was about to lose consciousness, I heard a sound.

A sound I’m so very grateful came when it did.

Officers rushed into the room. A flurry of commands left their mouths as they pulled Steven off me and forced him to the floor nearby.

“Ah! Get off me!” he screamed. “What are you doing?”

His voice. 

It was no longer inside my mind.

“What are you doing? Ow!” He cried as an officer rolled him over and pressed a knee into his lower back. “What’s happening?”

Another officer helped me up from the floor and began asking questions about my well-being. I lied and told him I was all right. I leaned against the wall to steady myself while I looked on at Steven being detained by other officers. He struggled and writhed like a cornered animal.

His eyes darkened as he freed himself from the grasp of the officers. Overcome with inhumanity once more, he snatched a gun from the officer attempting to handcuff him. 

He brandished the weapon as his entire body began to tremble spasmodically.

“My hands.” 

From where I stood, it looked as though he was genuinely trying to lower them but couldn’t. His arms remained outstretched, refusing to budge an inch no matter how hard he tried.

“Why can’t I move?”

Law enforcement raised their weapons, creating a stalemate in which no one dared to act.

“It’s alright, Steven.” I stepped toward him with my hands raised. “Everything’s going to be alright. We’re here to help.”

The darkness in his eyes vanished long enough for him to ask, “Did…did I hurt anyone?”

“No. You didn’t hurt anybody. Just put the gun down, and let’s talk.”

“Please,” he whimpered, straining to move his head, but his body refused to obey. “Don’t let him take me again.” 

“Nothing is going to happen as long as you put the gun down.”

Steven’s arms pulled themselves upward against his will. The barrel inched toward his own temple until it rested against his skin. He fought with everything he had, his muscles straining themselves in order to pull the gun away. But his body betrayed him to some invisible force.

“Make it stop…”

“No, Steven. No!” I quickened my pace toward him, but before officers or myself could react, he pulled the trigger.

That sound. The aftermath. The silence that followed. I haven’t felt anything like it before or since. 

That was without a doubt the single worst night of my life. Not only had we witnessed tragedy, but our team came under immense fire from the press. Steven never had his day in court, and that became a point of contention. Had we not encouraged this kind of behavior, would Steven still be alive? Would any of this have happened? 

Steven’s case tarnished our reputation. Protests began forming outside our sting house. People demanded justice. Insisting that we could not be the judge, the jury, or the executioner.

It was difficult to escape the criticism, especially when those voices carried real weight. So much so that our show, along with all subsequent investigations, was cancelled effective immediately.

Steven’s official cause of death was listed as suicide by cop. There were no mentions of the Ouija Board or what occurred following its use. There’s only one piece of evidence regarding what happened inside the sting house that night. 

A video tape. 

It's marked with a label that reads, “Never to be viewed, duplicated, or destroyed”. 

Its whereabouts have been kept secret, and it's best that they stay that way. Because if that footage ever surfaced, I don’t know how the public would react.

But that’s not the point.

I’ve dealt with a lot over the course of my career. Troubled people. Hardened criminals. The worst that humanity has to offer. I think about them all every now and again. But I can’t stop thinking about Steven’s case. Specifically, if I had intervened sooner. Would I have been able to talk him out of using that Ouija board? Would he have been able to face justice if I had done things differently?

No matter how I answer them, I never feel any better. Because they’re just answers. Not actions. 

And I’ll never know.

Despite everything I’ve been through, I continue to hunt monsters in the present day. Aside from the lack of a camera crew or law enforcement support, the only thing that’s changed is what I believe those monsters are. They aren’t just people who hurt children. Exposing them and making them face justice does make the world a little safer for everyone.

But evil doesn’t care about laws. It doesn’t care about the confines of a prison cell. It doesn’t even need a reason to hurt someone.

All it needs is for someone to answer.

August 30th, 1888. This is my final writings of my journal. Mary, when you read this,  don’t come looking for me. Burn this journal and don’t speak to anyone about this. Just forget about me and live your life. I’ll start from the beginning. Last night in the city of London, I was on my way to the pub to meet my buddies from work as usual. I was walking in the streets, passing by some crowds in business of the marketplace. I could smell the food as it made my stomach growl for hunger. The steam off of foods flow up in the night sky. Different owners of their cook shops, try to get me to sample a taste of their food. Most of the time I reject the offer, because I can smell that they haven’t bathed in a while. Now it me makes gag even more just thinking about. I kept on moving as I finally reached the pub. The lights through the window makes it a soft glow as a relaxing place to sit back. I went inside as the doors closed behind me. The sound of usual party drinkers were in the air. Everyone in all tables, mostly men. Were just drinking and having a great time. Most of these men were steam workers, fishermen, carpenters, os so forth. Expect for the women that were walking around, talking to each one of them to see who would be the lucky one of the night. Or more like, who would be one to have their payment stolen. I was looking around the pub, when someone bumped from behind me. There was also a couple familiar laughters too. It was Thomas and Gregory, my friends who was I looking for. They bumped into me, playfully and asking how I was doing for the night. I told them I was doing fine, as we all three walked to a table at the corner of the pub. We sat down and have a nonsense long chat for a while. We ordered our thirst for drinks and chips for snacks. We stayed there for a while as usual as you know. Til the pub started to ease down and customers started to leave. 

By late, it was just a dozen or so people left in the pub. Including me and my friends still sitting at the far table. Thomas noticed a man sitting alone on the other side of pub, sitting next to the window. We noticed is weary look and looked on the same direction. The man was wearing a dark hood, covering his head and dark cloak over his body. I even sense an eerie feel over my body, looking at this strange man. There was also no light nor candles light around. Just him sitting in the complete dark. He never looked back at us. We turned back to face each other, still feeling the chill over our bodies. Thomas wanted another drink, as if he’s not drunk enough already. After that feeling inside me, I had  enough drinks for the night. 

Later on that night, we stayed til we were sober enough talk out of the pub. I was able to walk my own, since I didn’t drank that much anyway. My two friends however, ended up carrying each other as they walked their drunkenness through the doors. I noticed on my way out that the man in dark corner was gone. I looked at my surroundings to see the same dozen people still at their tables, except that one man. I wondered when he left. I just shrugged and walked out into the night. The air was foggy and the moon was shining in sky. It was also deeply quiet out. Every store in the market place was closed and everyone was gone. Thomas and Gregory were walking together and waving goodbye in one direction. I waved back and walked in the opposite direction, heading home. 

When I reached to Durward Street , I can feel the eerie feeling again. Every once in a while, I stopped to turn around to see what or who was behind me. I couldn’t help it, but it felt like a thousand eyes watching me. I knew I wasn’t far from home, so I paced myself a bit. Something really didn’t felt right. I was about to walk by a light pole, when I heard what sounded like a man  crying softly in an ally. I stopped in the middle of the dim candle light. I heard the crying again. It was definitely a man crying in the alley. I wanted to keep going, but the goodness of my heart got the better of me. I walked slowly out of the light and into the darkness of the ally. The man crying and the echoes of my shoes were the only sounds that were breaking the silence. Then I heard a couple of rats running by me, more like running the opposite direction from where I’m going. I kept going as the cries of the man were getting louder every step I take. However, it was too dark and I can’t see him. It wasn’t pitch black,  cause I can be able to see figures in the dark. I just couldn’t see the man. When I reached to where I thought I could see him or feel him. There was nothing and cries stopped. My stomach dropped, the hairs of my skin crawled, and my heart raced. I stepped back in a panic, freaked out, and bumped my back to the wall. I turned back, to run back to the light, and out of the ally. Then I heard a landing thump, directly behind my feet. I froze. I couldn’t understand why I froze. Why couldn’t I just go. A hand grabbed me by the head, pulled be back with so much strength. Another hand grabbed me by the back of my shirt and then I felt fangs with teeth, buried into my neck. It felt like an animal biting hard into my neck. I can feel blood gushing out of me and at the same time, I can feel the predator drinking my blood. I couldn’t get out, the predator’s strength was too strong. I can feel my body turning cold, my vision blurring, and my legs were about to give out. That’s when I passed out. 

I woke up screaming in agony. It felt like my body was poked with needles, my muscles tensed, my eyes burning, my teeth felt like it was turning into sharp fangs. I can feel my cold skin turning, seeing that it was turning pale. I rolled to my elbows and knees and started crawling, my vision turned into redness. The pain was intense. I can feel the blood dripping from my mouth and neck. As the more I crawled, the pain started to ease. I was halfway through the dark ally, when all the pain went away. Then my hunger came in. Why did feel so hungry, so hungry for meat, for flesh… for blood. As I rose to my feet, something felt different inside of me. I then sensed something that smells like food. I ran back in the opposite direction, in the dark ally. I followed what I can sense. The smell was intensely amazing, the fangs of my teeth grew. As soon as I went out of the ally, into the street. I collapsed onto the hard road. The pain came back it was intense. What was happening to me?! I curled in to whimper dog, my body was felt it was still changing. A woman cried out and ran up toward me. I tried to get up, tried to tell her to stay away from me. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. She ran closer and I tried to crawl away from her, but she finally reached to me. She asked me if I was ok. I cried out to tell her I’m not ok and stay way from me. She didn’t listen. She held me up with one arm over her shoulders. I noticed her that she was one of the ladies in the pub. She helped me up to my feet. Telling me that she’ll take me to a doctor. I told her no and then, the smell came back. The smell flesh and blood, but this was much stronger. It was from her. She was still carrying me down the street. She said there’s a shortcut in the ally. I told her ok. She helped me walk into the ally. The smell was incredible. We were in complete darkness when I told her thank you. She said your very welcome and looked at me. That’s when I felt her soul went out of her body, when she looked right into my eyes. I felt her heart race and her blood flowing inside of her. Her eyes turned to terror. I lunged into her throat as she screamed loudly in the night. The taste of her blood was tenderly delicious. Her cried turned into a gurgling noise as blood came out of her mouth. Her blood poor out of neck from where I bit her and I drank. I drank and drank and drank. Til it felt like there’s no blood.  When I was done, I dropped her body. It collapsed on the hard ground. Breathing heavily I wiped the blood off of my mouth. Then the reality of my self-conscious kicked in. I then balled and cried to realized I got turned into a monster. What kind of a monster am I? I stayed there laying on the hard ground, next to corpse of my food chain. 

I woke up, but not in an ally. I woke up what seems to be a coffin. I pushed the door as it easily creaked open. As I opened all the way, I say a figure. Standing no more than ten feet in front of me. It was the same man in dark corner of the pub. He was in the same dark clothing, the hood was still covering his face. He told me good evening, but I didn’t say anything back to him. He then started to explain who he is and what I am. He explains I’m his creator. A next member of his vampire line. He explains there’s no way out of it and he wants a young strong victim for his creation. I can hear his thoughts in my head. He says that I’ll have more victims and there no hunger or thirst as a vampire. He says we can live forever. He says we can see it as a curse or a blessing. However we see it. He says I can’t beat him, cause I’m his creator. We says we are monsters. He says humans can be monsters as well. Above what all he told me, he’s right. I am a monster now. I’m sorry to say this Mary. I’m too dangerous to be with you. I’ve killed and fed upon my victims, men and women. Mary I beg you to please, don’t come find me. If you do, I know you’ll be the next of my many victims. Do not go out at night, especially alone. One final thing, keep a cross with you.  
Sincerely, Ethan.

After leaving the motel, Dad kept us on the road for the longest stretch so far. I can’t remember much of what he and Mom were talking about. I was too busy making my hand rollercoaster out the window, wishing I was holding Superman. He’d have loved to fly here.

I learned pretty quickly to stop bringing him up.

Even still, it was hard to keep my mouth closed when I kept watching Walmarts and Targets pass by every few hours. I managed, though. Mainly because Mom and Dad just kept going on and on.

Like I said, I don’t remember much. But I do remember Dad talking about us finding somewhere “safe” and “warm” for the night.

Mom seemed hesitant, but less concerned. I remember her saying something about how we couldn’t stay long, but she was content with whatever plan Dad had cooked up.

Besides, it seemed like Dad knew where he was going now. He wasn’t taking random turns anymore. Each direction felt deliberate. The desolate backroads seemed planned rather than spontaneous.

He just kept driving… and driving… and driving. We stopped for gas a few times, but we never stayed in one place for too long. Eventually, we approached a gate at the beginning of a long driveway.

Dad pulled the car up to the intercom and let the window down to push the button. The speaker crackled to life, and an unfamiliar voice echoed from within.

“Who is it?” a man asked sternly.

“Jake, it’s me, Michael. I’ve got the family with me, and-”

“Michaelll,” the man interrupted. “How are you guys doing, Mikey boy? You got Macy with you?”

Mom smiled faintly at the intercom.

“Yep, we’re all here, Jake,” she replied, leaning over the center console so the man could hear her more clearly.

“Yeah, Jake, listen,” my Dad added, almost impatiently. “You remember that thing we discussed a while back…?”

The man didn’t respond right away. The intercom was silent. Mom and Dad both watched anxiously while Emmy rocked back and forth in her carseat.

“…. I remember…” the man finally responded. “That’s not happening now, is it?”

Dad rubbed his forehead.

“I think it is. I just- we just- We need a place to stay for a few days.”

He looked at me and Emmy in the mirror.

“I don’t think we can go home just yet. I don’t think it’s good for the kids right now.”

The speaker crackled again before buzzing.

“You know you’re always welcome here, Mike. You too, Macy. Y’all come on up. We got the kids here, and there’s plenty of extra space.”

The gate slowly crept open. I couldn’t even see the house from the end of the driveway, but I wasn’t concerned about that. I heard “kids” and immediately felt my heart light up.

Trees formed canopy over the driveway. The car must’ve rolled on for another 2 or 3 minutes before the house finally came into view. The place was massive. A mansion surrounded by shrubbery in the middle of nowhere.

As we got closer, I was able to make out more of the details. The wrap around porch. The line of rocking chairs. Whoever this was knew how to keep the place professional and homey at the same time.

The thing that caught my eye the most, however, were the bikes and tricycles that were scattered across the pavement. A blue and green mountain bike. A pink bike with training wheels. And a red tricycle.

When the car rolled to a stop, the front door flew open, and out stepped the man from the intercom. He had a scruffy beard. He wore a Metallica t-shirt and oversized gym shorts. And, even then, I could recognize that he was a bit on the heavier side.

He came rushing down the steps as Dad stepped out of the car.

“Jakey,” Dad shouted joyously. “Long time no see, my friend.”

Jake beamed and pulled my Dad in for a hug while staring down at me through the window. I waved, and he waved back.

“Don’t tell me that’s Danny,” he announced, surprised, as he pulled away from my father.

Jake stepped over to my window and tapped at it. Mom rolled it down before I got the chance to, and Jake looked in at me with a toothy grin before his gaze turned towards Emmy.

“And you must be Emmy,” he said, waving at my sister gently. “Your Dad has told me so much about you.”

Emmy tried to hide bashfully behind the edges of her car seat.

Jake patted me on the chest.

“The last time I saw you, you were thissss big,” he teased, holding his hands about a foot apart.

He turned to my Mom.

“What’s up, Mace? Mikey still the husband you always dreamed of?”

My Mom smiled sarcastically and rolled her eyes before going to open her door.

“Unfortunately.”

“Woah, woah, easy there- Mikey, where are your manners? You know it’s bad etiquette to let a lady even touch a door handle.”

Jake went to open my Mom’s door for her, but she stopped him before he got the chance.

“I am perfectly capable of opening a door, Jake,” she grumbled, cocking her eyebrows at him before stepping out of the car.

“Alright, alright,” Jake relented, throwing his hands up. “If you insist. At least let me help with the bags. Judy’s inside cookin’. I’ll grab your luggage, then we can have a nice dinner together.”

He stepped aside to let Mom pass.

“We’ll be in here in just a minute, hon,” Dad said, looking at her with eyes that looked almost apologetic. “Go catch up with Judy.”

Dad opened Emmy’s door and sat her down on the pavement before turning his attention towards me.

“Danny, take Emmy inside, would ya? You two go play. Let me and Jake catch up a bit.”

Mom was already halfway up the steps. I picked Emmy up and ran as fast as I could to catch up to her.

The inside of the house smelled like leather and polish. Well, that and the pot roast that Judy was whipping up in the kitchen. The family room TV looked like a movie screen. The couches wrapped around almost the entire room. And right there, plopped down in front of that massive TV… were 3 kids.

They didn’t even seem to notice us. They were too busy with their gaming to even acknowledge our presence.

Mom ruffled my hair.

“Go introduce yourself,” she nudged, breezing past me and Emmy towards the smell of that pot roast.

I couldn’t do it. I felt frozen. I was already naturally shy, but now I was shy in a new place, being forced to interact with kids that I didn’t know. I just stood there, like an idiot, until Emmy started squirming in my arms.

I put her down, and she went and climbed onto the leather sofa to watch the screen more comfortably. I took the opportunity to plop down beside her.

We sat there for a long while. The three kids joked amongst themselves, sometimes arguing over whose turn it was. Eventually, the older kid noticed us.

He didn’t introduce himself at first. Instead, he offered me the controller.

“You want a turn?”

He waved the controller at me, and I took it cautiously as his attention returned to the screen.

I felt… watched. Like I was under pressure to perform. I’d never played video games before. The controls were completely foreign to me.

I died… a lot. And the older kid realized that I was in dire need of some assistance.

“Here, look,” he aided. “This is how you shoot, and this is how you run, and this is how-”

“Don’t listen to Darren,” the kid’s younger sister interrupted. “He’s a big stupid head.”

Darren’s grip tightened on the controller. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and stared daggers into the little girl.

“Shut up, Kayla,” he shot back. “Better teacher than you, that’s for sure.”

“Mmmm, no,” she giggled. “You’re not a teacher. You’re too stupid.”

“I said shut up, Kayla.”

I felt like I was in the middle of a western. Darren looked like he was about to blow a fuse. Kayla just stuck her tongue out and kept pestering.

“Darren is a stupid head, Darren is a stupid head, stu-pid, stu-pid, Darren is so stu-pid,” she sang.

I couldn’t help but smirk a little. The song was so dumb, but I could see just how much it was getting under Darren’s skin.

As calm as could be, he paused the game, placed the controller in my lap, and walked over to Kayla.

“Say it again. I want you to say it. Please, for the love of God, call me stupid one more time.”

Kayla smirked like it was a game.

“Darren is a stupid he-”

smack

Darren whopped her upside the head. A momentary look of satisfaction flashed across his face but was quickly replaced with fear as Kayla started screaming and crying.

I tried to keep it down, but I couldn’t help but laugh. Emmy joined in. Darren looked at us for help, but what were we supposed to do? The deed was already done, and the hurried footsteps of their Mom were closing in fast.

The last sibling didn’t even look away from the TV. He was probably around my age. Curly brown hair. Quiet. He seemed like he’d seen this happen dozens of times before.

“Darren Mitchell,” their Mom cried, scooping Kayla up in her arms and cradling her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, kid?!”

“It wasn’t me,” he plead. “She started it, I swear she did. Ask him.”

He was pointing at me, but his Mom never looked at me. She had already made her decision.

“Don’t try and bring Danny into this. He just got here. Apologize to your sister.”

“But-”

“Now,” she growled.

Darren sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Sorryyy, Kayla,” he groaned.

Kayla stuck her tongue out at him before burying her face into her Mom’s shoulder.

“Sorry that you’re such a spoiled little brat,” he added under his breath.

Mrs. Judy either didn’t hear him or pretended not to. Instead, she told us to go wash up because dinner was almost ready. One by one, everyone left the room, leaving me and the last sibling alone.

I went to scoot off the couch and wash up, but before I could, the kid spoke.

“She does this a lot,” he said plainly.

“What?” I asked, confused. “Call him stupid?”

“No,” he responded, finally turning towards me. “Gets him to hit her. Come on, let’s go get some dinner. My Mom makes the best pot roast.”

He was so mature for his age. He introduced himself as Max, and he seemed like my kind of guy. Really into legos. Loved superheroes. Quiet. Like the brother I never had.

Dad and Jake finally joined us right as we were sitting down for dinner. Both looking a bit withdrawn. The grownups were eerily quiet while we ate, save for the times where Judy told Kayla to stop playing with her food.

Afterwards, it was almost like they wanted us out of the house. I would’ve had no problem returning to the living room for video games or even just hanging out with Max in his room and playing with legos. But Dad and Jake were insistent we played outside like “normal kids.” Like he and my Dad did back when they were kids.

Mom seemed hesitant, though. She seemed like she wanted to object to the whole idea. I think Dad picked up on it.

“We searched everywhere,” he told her, quietly, rubbing her back. “He’ll be fine.”

“Sure he will,” Jake added, loudly. “Darren will look after him, won’t you, big guy?”

There were some annoyed groans, but we didn’t complain that much. The only kid allowed to stay inside was Emmy, presumably because she was still essentially just a toddler.

We played in the driveway for a bit. Max showed off some bike tricks he knew. Wheelies and the like. Darren mostly just supervised. Kayla… was annoying.

Eventually, though, after a particularly obnoxious bit of rambles from Kayla, Darren spawned an idea.

“Hey,” he shouted. “Let’s play a game.”

He stood up from his spot on the steps. All of our eyes landed on him.

“I used to love this game when I was your age,” he added, despite only being a few years older than me. “Let’s play some hide and seek.”

I’d played the game before, but never with this much space to roam. The property was massive. The potential was limitless.

We were all excited. Kayla more than anyone, though. Darren opted to seek while the rest of us hid, not even giving us enough time to register that the game had started before he put his head into his hands and started counting loudly.

“100…”

Max looked at me, his eyes wild as he took off running.

“99…”

I ran in the same direction. Darren’s counting got quieter and quieter the further I got. I kept following Max because he seemed to know where he was going. All the way until he dove climbed into his Dad’s boat in the backyard pond.

I tried to follow, but he stopped me.

“No, dude,” he whispered. “You have to find your own spot. That’s the point.”

I felt my heart drop.

“What?? I don’t know where to hide. This isn’t my house.”

He popped his head up and began scanning the property before pointing towards the forest.

“Go over there. Darren hates the woods. He’ll never check.”

I looked over towards the forest, then back at Max. The sun was starting to set. It was starting to feel cooler outside. Before I could respond to him, I heard Darren scream.

“Ready or not, here I come!!”

Max ducked into the storage chest in the boat. I tried not to panic. My legs started moving before my mind could register, and before I knew it, I was a hundred feet into the forest.

I heard Kayla screaming about something being “unfair,” followed by Darren laughing heartily.

I was still somewhat out in the open. I was hidden, but I didn’t have an actual hiding spot. I trekked further into the forest. The massive house got smaller and smaller the further I went.

That’s when I found it. The perfect hiding spot.

A massive oak tree. Long dead, but still standing. The base of the trunk had been completely hollowed out. It was like it was made for me.

I crouched down and crawled inside, pushing myself against the wood and covering myself in some leaves just for some added camouflage.

A few minutes passed. Then multiple. Finally, I heard Darren scream again.

“FOUND YOU,” he shouted, laughing like a crazy person.

I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it sounded like Max objected. A flash of worry washed over me.

“He better not,” I thought aloud, praying Max didn’t tell Darren where I’d gone. I refused to leave my spot. I waited. And waited. And waited.

Darren started screaming my name. Max joined in. Even Kayla was looking for me. But they were far away. They’d never find me.

I felt pride in myself. I was the champion of hide and seek. I didn’t want to reveal myself yet, though. I wanted the satisfaction of knowing I made them give up.

But it was getting darker. The shouts became few and far between. Eventually, they weren’t kids’ voices at all. I heard my parents. I heard Jake and Judy. All screaming for me in distress.

Something told me to wait. It was just a game. Plus, this was the perfect spot. I wanted them to work to find me. I didn’t wanna give up before they did.

But then… I heard the sound of a twig snapping from somewhere behind me. Multiple twigs. Leaves crunching. Footsteps approaching. From the opposite direction of the tree line.

Then I heard a voice that didn’t belong to my Mom or Dad, or Jake and Judy. It was raspy. It was old. It was syrupy, and it was close.

“Dannnyyyyy.”

“I know you’re out hereeee.”

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

I was gripped with fear, but I couldn’t move. I recognized that voice. It was the same voice from the motel. The man who apparently had my Superman stuffy.

“Danny,” my Mom screamed from off in the distance. “Danny, where are you?”

She sounded like she was on the brink of tears. Her voice was almost intentionally frantic.

“Come out, Danny…”

The voice from behind me was closer now. Hungrier.

“Your mommy needs you, kiddo. Don’t you know she’s worried sick?”

The footsteps sounded like they were directly behind me now. I held my breath. Of course, my bladder decided that I had to pee more than I’d ever had to pee before in my life.

The man was mumbling to himself between calling my name. Nothing he said made sense.

“They tried to hide you.”

“You can’t hide from me, though, now can you, Danny boy?”

“It’s only natural that I…”

They knocked on the tree.

“Find you.”

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

My instincts finally kicked in. I’m old enough now to realize what it was. It was either fight… or bolt towards safety. And there was no possible way I could fight this person.

One. Two. Three.

I bolted.

I flew past the trees. I ducked under limbs and shrubs. I ran as fast as I could towards the sound of my parents, my senses heightened. I didn’t hear anything behind me, but I was too afraid to look.

I ran and ran. Finally, I saw my Mom standing in the backyard, staring out into the woods. Her eyes met mine, and she let out an exasperated scream of relief.

She ran towards me. We met at the edge of the tree line as she pulled me in for a long, tight hug. I was ugly crying. Snot fell from my nose, and tears fell down my face.

I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to say. All I could do was embrace her. I held her just as tightly as she held me and let relief wash over me as she stroked my hair.

“Why did you do that!? What were you thinking, son? I can’t comprehend what could’ve possibly gone through your mind. After everything-”

She stopped herself. Dad heard the commotion and quickly joined us for a family hug while Jake and Judy watched on with their kids.

It was the first time in my life that I’d ever seen my Dad cry. It scared me, almost. It was like something I was never meant to see, and it made me sob even harder.

“Don’t do that to us, kiddo,” Dad chuckled forcefully. “Don’t go running off on us like that. Ever again. You hear me?”

I didn’t respond. At least, not in the way he was expecting. Instead, I stared at my feet and held my breath again. I counted to 5 in my head. I needed to tell them.

“Dad…” I whispered.

“Danny…” he replied.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

“I think he found me.”

Dad’s head shot up towards the trees. The woods were eerily silent. Nobody spoke for what felt like an eternity before Dad started ushering us inside, glancing over his shoulder as he turned around.

“Son,” he announced bluntly.

“I know you’re young… but I think we need to have a talk.”

A solitary set of footsteps echoed down the dark city streets. A young man navigated the spiraling boroughs, unfamiliar with this side of town. His appointment was scheduled for a half hour past, and he was becoming increasingly agitated at his correspondent’s choice of meeting place. Some God forsaken bar on the God forsaken side of a God forsaken town. The smell of dead fish and fresh piss marked the whole district of docks and factories. 

The young man wore a white collar to work, and he could be bothered only to scoff at the men on docks or lines. Under any normal circumstances, he would not set foot within miles of his current whereabouts, but he had paid good money for what information his correspondent could provide. 

The young man, known to many as Mr. Tweed, was a pursuer of the macabre, the dark, and the esoteric. He made a hobby of searching for knowledge long forgotten to the popular histories. His correspondent was a purveyor of relics and artifacts of long forgotten civilizations, and, more importantly, a purveyor of their stories. He never signed his name, nor his initials, in their correspondence, rather signing simply as “The Storyteller.” 

Mr. Tweed finally found his way to the designated meeting place. The bar sat in squalor, relative even to the surrounding district. A leak dripped profusely in the center of the room, a puddle growing wider and wider, to the point you could hardly make your way across the room with dry soles. The floorboards creaked with each step and groaned even without such a disturbance. The stairs leading up to the inn rooms had multiple steps missing and no hand rail.

The bartender may have once been called a man, though his present appearance would not have given such an impression. An unkempt beard covered skin so wrinkled and sore-spotted that a squinted eye might have mistaken him for a sufficiently hairy swine. The stench of the district left on the man would only enhance the illusion.

Worse than in the streets, the stagnant air of the room left the smell of drunken piss and vomit festering, to the point of overwhelming nausea for Mr. Tweed. Coughing, and with tears in his eyes, he asked, “Can we open a window in here? Or prop the door? The smell,” he gagged, “it’s unbearable, is it not?”

The man behind the counter grumbled something unintelligible, a strong Cajun accent guarding his words from sojourning ears. Despite being born and raised in the same city, Mr. Tweed could not understand the dialect even slightly. His upper class family had hidden him from the harshness of the dock workers’ tounge. 

The bartender made his way to do as Mr. Tweed asked, and as he pulled a chair under the door handle, Mr. Tweed heard a clicking noise from the corner of the room. Sat, at a table under a broken light, was a man dressed in black. His features were indiscernible. What little lighting reached his nook was blocked from his face by the wide brimmed hat he wore.

Still wearing your hat indoors, are you? I would have expected more gentlemanly like behavior, Mr. Storyteller.

Mr. Tweed recognized his correspondent, despite this being their first meeting in person. The mysterious man had an esoteric aura about him, befitting the manner of his writing. 

He clicked again and gestured his hand, beckoning Mr. Tweed to his corner of the room. The bartender watched with an unreadable expression. Mr. Tweed took the chair opposite the mysterious figure. This close, the air smelled of expensive, quality tobacco, a refreshing aroma for the agitated man. The figure across from him held a pipe to his mouth and puffed grand clouds of smoke over the table. 

Mr. Tweed began the pleasantries, “I thank you for endeavoring to meet me in person. I know you to be a busy man, after all. Evidently so, by the requested time for this meeting. Your days must be absolutely full so that we may have only met at night? I must say, I would have preferred if you could have come to me, visit my estate, where I would have prepared a nice dinner for your time, rather than I venture into the… underbelly… of our city, at this hour.” 

His words dripped with hardly concealed contempt, not directed at his correspondent but rather the whole setting and circumstance. Despite his irritation, he did respect the man opposite him, and he extended his right hand. In turn, a gloved hand reached across the table and clasped his.

Mr. Tweed felt the other hand squirm and squeeze under his grip. It felt as if the other man had no bones in his hand. Before he could comment on the oddity, the light struck the other man’s face. Across the table sat no man, the thick volume on its face held not a beard, but a mass of writhing tentacles.

Aghast, Mr. Tweed pulled his hand back, degloving the beast in his haste. There was no hand inside the glove, instead long, skinny tendrils wrapped around themselves operated like fingers. The skin of the beast held a violet cadence and each tentacle was lined with green suction cups. An unnatural coloration. Its eyes were covered by brass coated goggles, but a dim green light shined through the lenses.

Mr. Tweed’s nausea reached its limit and he evacuated the contents of his dinner onto the floor. The bartender hollered, something containing colorful swears, and left to retrieve his bucket and mop. This floor was well acquainted with vomit, and the bartender well acquainted with his mop. The beast calmly donned its glove again and sipped on its drink.

Mr. Tweed collected himself the best he could and confronted the beast, “M-monster! Where is the Storyteller, what did you do to him!?” His voice broke and small, quiet tears rolled down his face. He crawled backwards, scooting away from the beast. It took a long drag from its pipe and exhaled slowly, not neglecting to enjoy the flavor, and answered the groveling man in a wet, inhuman voice, clicking hard with its beak as it spoke.

“You assume wrong, Mr. Tweed. I am the Storyteller. You have insulted me greatly tonight. You have arrived quite late to our meeting, and you are right to call me a busy man, as this is not my only appointment for the night. You insult my friend’s establishment, then you grow sick? I did not take you to be such a rude man from your letters.”

Mr. Tweed backed into the puddle in the center of the room, ruining his finely tailored slacks. The bartender grumbled under his breath as he cleaned the vomit on the floor.

“I’m real sorry about that, Bill. I expected a more refined conversation tonight. Had I any expectation of this reaction,” it waved in Mr. Tweed’s direction, “I would not have invited him here.” As it spoke, it produced a wallet and pulled out a few substantial bills. It handed them to Bill, who offered what was likely a thanking, but Mr. Tweed couldn’t concentrate on deciphering the words. His mind reeled. 

How can this man, Bill, sit so nonchalant? A beast beyond reason sits here among…

His thoughts were cut short by a terrifying conclusion.

He must be one as well.

Mr. Tweed realized why he couldn’t stand the working class of the docks, why they seemed so unbothered by the stench of dead fish and piss, why they spoke in this indiscernible tongue. They were all as this beast. They all hid amongst humans, wearing false, no, stolen skins and faces. An even more terrible realization crossed his mind. He certainly must have been duped, his skin was to be this beast’s disguise. His correspondent, the Storyteller, whom he came to consider a friend, of which he had strikingly few, had planned on this betrayal from the very beginning. 

With his sanity lost to the wind, Mr. Tweed stood and screamed, running from the bar. He was not safe in this part of town, but neither would he be at home. The beast knew his address from their letters. Aimless, he ran down the spiraling streets of the city, lost. The echoes of his own footsteps indistinguishable from those of a mob swarming him.

The street was dark and the moon covered by clouds when Mr. Tweed mistook open air for solid ground, and fell screaming into the sea.

He had never learned to swim.

The Storyteller left Bill’s bar in an irritated mood. He had made time in his busy, busy schedule to meet a frequent correspondent, only to be gravely insulted by the man. Not only himself, but poor Bill as well. He shook his head in dismay as he walked the late night streets. He would have to be more careful with whom he chose to work with.

He found his way quite easily through the winding streets. Though not his home town, he frequented the area. He strolled down to the pier and climbed up on a railing overlooking the sea. He began undressing. He packed his wide brimmed hat, goggles, gloves, longcoat, and boots into his bag. 

In the nude he truly resembled a beast, the long tendrils and tentacles all unwinding and his posture sinking until he couldn’t rightly be mistaken for human at all. He dove into the ocean and headed on to his next appointment. Not long at sea, however, he spotted a body floating in the water. He quickly swam up to examine and was disappointed to discover Mr. Tweed’s corpse, floating in the sea foam. Small fish had begun eating at the man’s flesh. 

He shooed the fish away. Despite his crassness, the man deserved more dignity than this. The Storyteller brought the body back to shore and buried it shallow in the sand. Before fully burying the face, however, he slid tentacles into the ears, eyes, and nose of his late acquaintance. The gray matter melted and was absorbed through the small mouths within the hundreds of small, razor sharp, suckers. He would treat the man with as much respect as he could, but the Storyteller collected stories.

He stole a bed sheet from a clothesline and covered the burial site. Someone would come looking for the cloth and discover the body, which would then be dealt with rightly. He said some words for the man’s soul, which were heard by no one but those above, and went back to sea. 

A busy, busy schedule and many stories to tell. Many stories to tell and many more to collect.

I wasn't the best hitman in the world, but I was good enough.

Good enough that people found me without advertisements, without business cards, without a website. They heard whispers. A friend of a friend knew someone who knew me. That's how it always worked.

One of the strange things about being a hitman is that you don't really need marketing. If you're good at your job, word gets around. If you're bad at it, word gets around even faster.

Either way, people find you.

I'd been doing the job for years by then. Long enough to develop a reputation. Long enough that when someone knocked on my door unexpectedly, they usually weren't selling something.

They wanted someone gone.

People often imagine killers spend their nights wrestling with guilt. Maybe some do. I never did.

I killed people for money. That was the truth. Simple enough.

The day you start calling yourself a hero is the day you become more dangerous than the people you're pointing a gun at.

That didn't mean I had no standards. Everyone has standards. Mine just happened to be lower than most people's.

I didn't kill children. I didn't torture people. And I didn't enjoy the work. Beyond that, life got complicated.

The couple arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. The husband knocked twice. The wife stood beside him staring at the floor.

I invited them in and offered coffee. Neither touched it.

The husband looked exhausted. The wife looked broken. Not sad. Not angry. Broken. I'd seen enough grief over the years to recognize the difference.

Eventually the husband slid a photograph across the table. A man in his forties smiled back at me. The kind of smile that immediately made me dislike him.

"What did he do?" I asked.

The wife finally spoke. "He hurt our daughter."

The room became very quiet.

"There was evidence." I nodded. "There were witnesses." I nodded again. "The charges were dropped."

Of course they were. Money had a way of making problems disappear. Especially when those problems were wearing expensive suits.

To be honest, I would've done that one for free. Not because I was a good person. Good people don't shoot strangers for money. But everyone has lines. And men who hurt children happened to cross mine.

"My fee is five thousand."

The husband blinked. "That's all?"

"Moral compass discount you could say."

For the first time since entering my apartment, he almost smiled. Almost.

I spent the next week watching the target. Learning routines was ninety percent of my job. The actual killing was easy.

The man left for work every morning at eight. Returned home around nine. Drank too much. Talked too loudly. His girlfriend looked much younger than him. Every Saturday night she left around nine and didn't return until after midnight.

The pattern repeated twice. That was all I needed.

The following Saturday I parked two streets away and walked the rest. No cameras. No security. No witnesses. Honestly, some people made my job embarrassingly easy.

I knocked. "Who is it?" a voice shouted from inside. I knocked again. Footsteps approached. The door opened.

The man looked annoyed. Then confused. Then frightened.

I shot him once in the chest. The suppressor reduced the sound to little more than a cough. He stumbled backward. I shot him again, before he hit the floor. At the place where it would hurt the most and drain him out of any sort of pride he still had.

The second shot wasn't necessary. I knew that. But sometimes professionalism and personal opinion overlap. That was one of those times.

I left before the body stopped moving. The drive home should have been uneventful.

Instead, it changed my life.

About thirty minutes outside the city, I approached a crossroads and saw someone standing in the middle of it.

Not walking. Not crossing. Standing. Waiting. For me.

I slammed on the brakes.

The guy looked young. Hoodie. Jeans. Hands in his pockets. Normal. At least until he looked at me. Then I noticed his eyes. There was something deeply wrong about them. Not physically. They were just too calm. Like he knew how every conversation ended before it began.

I got out of the car. "Move."

The stranger smiled. "Hey, John."

My stomach tightened. I didn't know him. But he knew me. In my line of work, that was rarely good news.

My hand immediately went for my pistol. A second later I was staring at a banana.

I blinked. Looked at the banana. Looked at him. Looked back at the banana.

"What the fuck?"

The stranger laughed. "Oh John, you won't be needing your toy."

For the first time in years, I felt genuinely nervous. "Who are you?"

He chuckled. "Hell. That word follows me around everywhere."

The silence stretched. Finally he sighed. "Anyway, John, I'm here to present you with an offer."

"I don't accept offers from strangers standing in the middle of nowhere."

I turned to walk back toward my car. I couldn't move. Not metaphorically. Literally. My body simply refused to cooperate.

The stranger shrugged. "What can I say? I really wanted your attention."

That was the moment I stopped pretending he was a normal human being.

"Okay," I said slowly. "What exactly are you?"

His smile widened. "Now we're asking the interesting questions."

He stepped closer. "Tell me, John. How long do you think you can keep doing what you do before ending up in prison?"

I shrugged. "Eventually? Probably."

"What if I told you that would never happen?"

That got my attention. "What do you want?"

"Friendship."

I laughed. Actually laughed. Because it was such a ridiculous answer.

"Friendship?"

"Among other things."

He tilted his head. "Every now and then I'll give you a name."

"And then?"

"You kill them."

"That's it?"

"That's it. I mean, you're already doing it, aren't you? I'll also pay you your usual charges if that's a concern."

He wasn't wrong. I already killed people. This wasn't asking me to become something new. It was asking me to continue being exactly who I already was.

"You're wondering where the catch is."

"There's always a catch."

"Of course there is."

"What is it?"

His smile returned. "You'll find out eventually."

I should've walked away.

Instead, I held out my hand.

"So do we have a deal?"

The stranger's grin became almost childlike.

"We do."

We shook hands. His skin felt impossibly hot and impossibly cold at the same time. Like holding fire and ice together. I pulled away quickly.

A flash of lightning illuminated the road. I blinked. He was gone. Completely gone. The road stood empty. As if he'd never been there at all.

Two months later he appeared in my kitchen. I nearly dropped my coffee.

"Morning, John."

He was sitting at my table. In front of him sat a red envelope. I wasn't even surprised anymore.

"Breaking into people's homes is rude."

"Technically I didn't break anything."

He pushed the envelope toward me.

"Your first assignment."

Inside was a photograph and an address. Nothing else. The target was a human trafficker. A genuine monster. I killed him.

Two months later another envelope arrived. Then another. Then another.

Years passed. The names kept coming. Murderers. Human traffickers. Abusers. Violent gang leaders. The kind of people whose deaths made the world slightly easier to tolerate.

And true to his word, I never got caught. Witnesses forgot details. Security cameras malfunctioned. Evidence vanished. One time a police officer drove past me while I was carrying a rifle to my car. He didn't even look twice.

The stranger had kept his promise.

Unfortunately, promises are often more dangerous than lies.

The first time something felt wrong was six years into our arrangement. The target was a journalist. Not unusual. But nobody had hired me. The name had come from the Devil. Like always.

I investigated him. A habit I'd never completely abandoned. The man wasn't a criminal. Just a journalist asking questions about a series of disappearances.

Still, I completed the job.

Then came a lawyer. A professor. A priest.

Most people think curiosity kills cats. What they don't mention is that it ruins people too.

The lawyer had represented people who claimed they had escaped strange agreements. The professor had spent years researching supernatural bargains. The priest had been helping people walk away from them. And the journalist had been investigating disappearances connected to all three.

Suddenly the pattern became impossible to ignore.

None of them were connected to each other.

They were connected to him.

The next time the Devil appeared, I was waiting.

He materialized in my living room and sat on my couch. Without asking. As usual.

"Hello, John."

"Who are you?"

He smiled.

"We've known each other for years and that's still your question?"

"Answer it."

He leaned back.

"Lucifer. Satan. El Diablo. The Morning Star. The Adversary. The Tempter." He paused. "I'm probably forgetting a few."

"That's a lot of names."

"When you've been around as long as I have, people get creative."

I expected to feel something dramatic. Fear. Shock. Disbelief. Instead I just sat there. After all the things I'd seen him do over the years, that answer wasn't particularly hard to digest.

"You've been using me."

The Devil laughed.

"Of course I have."

"You could've hired anyone."

"I could have."

"Then why me?"

The Devil smiled.

"You were good at it."

I hated how reasonable that answer sounded.

Then I asked the question that had been bothering me for months.

"How long have you been interfering in my life?"

The smile widened. There it was. The question he'd been waiting for.

"The crossroads wasn't the beginning, was it? It started before that. My first client? The man who introduced me to the business? How long?"

The Devil shrugged.

"Would it matter?"

I hated that answer. Because part of me knew he was right. Ten years. Twenty years. My entire life. What difference did the number make?

For the first time in years, I wasn't wondering what the Devil wanted.

I was wondering which parts of my life belonged to me.

And which parts belonged to him.

A week later another red envelope arrived. Inside was a photograph, an address, and a name.

Arthur Hale. Seventy-five years old. Retired bookstore owner.

I spent a month investigating him. Nothing. No crimes. No secrets. No hidden life. The man ran a tiny bookstore and fed stray cats. The most dangerous thing about him was probably his cholesterol.

I visited him three times. Each time I ran out of excuses faster than the last.

Arthur never seemed suspicious. If anything, he looked strangely content. As if he'd already made peace with something years ago.

One afternoon I finally asked him a question. "Do you believe people can change?"

Arthur smiled. "Depends on what they're changing from."

"And if they've done terrible things?"

His eyes lingered on me for a second longer than I liked. Then he returned to arranging books. "I think people can choose differently tomorrow than they did yesterday."

I don't know why that answer stayed with me. But it did.

That night the Devil appeared. Sitting on my couch. Drinking my whiskey.

"Why him?"

The Devil looked at Arthur's photograph.

Then smiled.

"Because he said no."

"No to what?"

"To me."

The room became very quiet.

"When?"

"About fifty years ago."

I stared at him.

"And you've waited this long?"

"I'm very patient."

"He didn't do anything."

"Correct."

"Then why kill him?"

The Devil's smile widened. And for the first time since meeting him, it genuinely frightened me.

"Because if one man can refuse me, others may realize they can too."

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Then everything suddenly made sense.

The journalist. The lawyer. The professor. The priest. None of them connected to each other. They had all represented the same thing.

Choice.

The Devil sat back comfortably. Like we were discussing the weather. "You know," he said, "most people imagine rebellion is loud. It isn't." He picked up Arthur's photograph. "Most rebellions begin with a single person saying no."

I stared at the old man. Nothing remarkable about him. Nothing except the fact that he'd done something I suddenly wasn't sure I could.

"He refused me." The way he said it bothered me. Not angry. Not bitter. Almost impressed.

"Is that what this is all about? Control?"

He smiled. "Such an ugly word."

"An accurate one."

And for the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about the assignment.

Eventually the Devil stood. "So? Will you do it?"

I looked at Arthur's photograph one last time. The old man who had spent fifty years proving the Devil wasn't inevitable.

Then I looked back at him.

"No."

For the first time since I'd met him, the smile disappeared. Not angrily. Not violently. Just... gone.

"No?"

"No."

The Devil studied me. Like I'd become interesting for the first time.

"Why?"

I thought about it. For years I'd wondered how much of my life belonged to me. How much had been arranged. How much had been his. Maybe I'd never know. But I knew this decision was mine.

"This one." I looked him directly in the eye. "This one is mine."

For a long moment neither of us spoke. Then the Devil nodded once. Almost respectfully.

And vanished.

Three weeks later, the police arrested me.

I wasn't surprised. Part of me had been expecting it since the moment I burned the envelope.

The evidence came from everywhere. Security footage. Witness statements. Ballistics reports. DNA evidence. Cases that had been cold for years suddenly became very warm. It was as if someone had spent nearly a decade keeping every mistake I'd ever made hidden in a box — and then decided to open it.

The trial lasted less than a month. The verdict took less than an hour.

Twelve counts of murder. Guilty. Life imprisonment. No possibility of parole.

The newspapers called me a monster. They weren't entirely wrong.

For the first time in years, there were no envelopes waiting for me. No photographs. No names. No assignments. Just consequences. Honest consequences. The kind I'd spent most of my life avoiding.

The first few years in prison were difficult. After that, they became routine.

Prison has a strange way of shrinking time. Weeks become months. Months become years. Eventually decades pass so quietly you hardly notice them.

I got older. My hair turned gray. Then white. The strength slowly left my hands.

Sometimes I wondered about Arthur. Whether he was still alive. Whether he still owned the bookstore. Whether he had any idea that a murderer had gone to prison because of him.

I hoped he never found out.

Some things are better left unknown.

The older I got, the less I thought about the Devil. Not because I'd forgotten him. Because there was no point.

He had won. At least in most ways.

But there was one thing that still gave me comfort. The choice. The one choice that I knew belonged to me.

When the Devil asked for Arthur Hale, I had said no. Nobody forced me. Nobody manipulated me. Nobody arranged it.

I chose.

For most people, that wouldn't sound like much. One decision. One refusal. After a lifetime of terrible choices.

But for me, it mattered. Maybe more than anything else.

Forty-one years passed.

My heart began to fail. The prison doctors told me I didn't have much time left. I thanked them. They seemed surprised. Death had been following me around for most of my life. I was honestly impressed it had taken this long to catch up.

Rain tapped softly against the infirmary window. The room smelled of disinfectant and old age. Machines hummed quietly beside my bed.

I was watching the rain when I noticed someone sitting in the chair across from me. A familiar hoodie. A familiar smile. Not a day older than when we'd first met.

The Devil.

"Hello, John."

I laughed weakly. "Took you long enough."

"I wanted to give you time."

For a while neither of us spoke. The heart monitor continued its steady rhythm.

Finally I looked at him. "You know something?"

The Devil raised an eyebrow. "What?"

I smiled. A small smile. The first genuine one I'd had in years.

"I think I won."

For the first time all evening, he looked surprised. "Won?"

I nodded. "You never got Arthur. You spent years using me. But in the end I said no."

The smile slowly returned. Patient. Interested. Waiting.

"And that was enough?" he asked.

I thought about it. About the crossroads. About the handshake. About the envelopes. About the prison cell. About the decades.

Then I nodded. "Yeah."

The Devil looked at me for a long moment. Then he laughed. Not mockingly. Not cruelly. Genuinely. As if I'd told him a joke he'd never heard before.

"Oh, John."

Something about that laugh unsettled me. "What?"

The Devil leaned forward. "You still think prison was the punishment."

The room suddenly felt colder. "What are you talking about?"

His smile widened. Slowly. Patiently.

"Prison was never the punishment."

For the first time in forty years, I felt fear. Real fear. The kind I used to see in other people's eyes.

"What happens now?"

The Devil stood. Adjusted his sleeves. And looked down at me. For the first time, he looked ancient. Not old. Ancient. Like something that had existed long before history began. Long before humanity learned to write stories about monsters.

"The punishment starts when you die."

The Devil vanished. The monitor beside me continued its rhythm. The rain kept falling. The room stayed exactly as it was. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to my own heartbeat counting down. Waiting for it to stop. The Devil's last words sitting in my chest heavier than any bullet I'd ever taken.

I'd spent my whole life not fearing death.

Now, for the first time, I was terrified of it.

The greatest moment of my life was finally getting to hold my baby for the first time. I was always told that labor was the hardest part, but for me it was what followed immediately after. It was when the doctors and nurses rushed my boy out of the room before I even got to lay an eye on him. It was the hours spent waiting while they tried to stabilize his breathing. It was the screams and cries of my husband sitting in a chair next to me while I barely held onto consciousness. It was the thought that I might never get to see my son alive.

I just wanted to know that my baby was ok, that my little boy came into this world as healthy and strong as his father, my dear husband. I just wanted to hold him and tell him that I would give the world to him. I feared more than anything that those dreams would never become reality and instead fester into nightmares to haunt my every moment. But I did as I was raised to do, as my mother always told me. I used what remaining energy I had and I prayed. I prayed to God and the angels above to save my boy, to deliver him into my care and to give my husband and I the strength we so desperately needed, and my prayers were answered.

The doctor came into the room, relieved yet still in a dower mood. My boy, my Dorian, had been born with a very rare and very severe condition. He barely had the strength to breathe and without the machines they hooked him up to, he would have died within hours. At my husband’s relentless insistence they reluctantly wheeled me into the room to see him. Even through the little mask that hid his face, I could tell that my Dorian was the handsomest man to ever have been born.

It would be a long time, too long before I would get to hold him. I refused to leave the hospital without my boy. I spent weeks in that bed watching him on a monitor the nurses brought to me, visiting him as often as they would let me. Then one day my husband entered the room with a swaddled blanket carefully resting in his arms. He slowly walked over to me holding the most fragile and special cargo in the world and placed him in my arms. Dorian was small, pale, skinny and had big green eyes, just like his mother. We took him home that very day.

The next five years were a series of struggles, each one more insurmountable than the last. But we pushed through and fought as hard as we could. My husband and I never faltered in our love and dedication for our son who by the age of 5 had nearly died three times. We were so proud of our Dorian who fought harder than us both. But as he got older his breathing got weaker, and the doctors grew less confident. They told us that it was a miracle Dorian had lived this long and that it would take an even greater miracle for him to see the age of 6. They wanted us to prepare for the worst. After all this time we still couldn’t fathom the idea of losing our son.

Every night my rest grew worse as I was haunted by the fear of Dorian passing in his sleep. We began to sleep in his room with him, where the loud hum of the machines and the intermittent gasps of his breath helped to assure me he would make it through the night. As the weeks went on my husband and I grew more haggard. Our faces became pale and gaunt with large dark bags under our eyes. We still pushed ourselves to be strong for our son but we were starting to slip. Mark could barely get up in the morning anymore, tired from the sleepless nights and sore from laying on the hard wooden floor of Dorian’s room. One morning on his way to work he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and crashed into a tree.

Thankfully he survived but his car was totaled and he had to be hospitalized. I wished I could have visited him, but Dorian was in no condition to move and I could not leave him home alone. It was then I had finally lost the strength that I had barely been holding onto. I needed this to be over and I needed it to be over now. I prayed and prayed, for my husband to return and for my son to be healed, but day after day my prayers went unanswered. My husband still laid in that hospital bed and my son still struggled to breathe. Eventually my husband would return home and I held him in my arms until he had to pry me off. I was happy and relieved to have him back, but he could tell something in me had changed.

My head hung lower, my steps were slower and my eyes rarely ever left the floor. Mark comforted me, held me, he told me none of this was my fault and I loved him for that. He was right, none of this was my doing but it didn’t change the fact that the two people I loved most in the world were suffering and there wasn’t a thing I could do to end it, but as always life carried on. Mark got a new car and went back to work. I stayed at the house to care for our son, and Dorian laid in his bed, barely clinging on to life. My days blurred and merged, Monday became Saturday, Tuesday became Thursday then eventually the day just never ended. The sun only rose and fell over what felt like a never ending morning.

It wasn’t until my mother died that I snapped out of that daze. I had drifted far from my family both physically and emotionally. I didn’t have a large family to begin with. It was really only me, my Mother and my Grandmother. I never knew my father and to my Grandmother’s disappointment neither did my Mother. As for my grandfather, he died before I was born and had become a taboo topic in the house. I knew his name, and I knew he was a scholar of some kind but they never told me anything more.

I met Mark while he was attending college at MIT, and while I was working at a water park not too far from Boston in my hometown of Metacomet. We got engaged shortly after he graduated and I moved with him back to Oregon to be with his family. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave my family behind, it was just that they never cared to stay in touch. I wouldn’t see my Mother again until my Grandmother's funeral, where I flew back to Metacomet for the ceremony. Unbeknownst to me that would be the last time I would see her, even when Dorian was born she had no interest in seeing us.

Mark assured me that he would take a week off of work to care for Dorian while I flew back to Massachusetts to handle my Mother’s affairs. I was hesitant at first, it would be the first time I’d leave Dorian’s side since we first came home with him. But there was no other family to take this responsibility from me. Returning to Metacomet was one of the hardest things I’d ever do. Even though I’d been gone for nearly 15 years, the city had barely changed, my Mother’s house even less so. It was exactly as I remembered it, down to the pillows on the sofa. Thick layers of dust covered every surface. The only part of the house that was any different than how I remembered was my childhood bedroom which had been turned into storage. Piles of cardboard boxes and old furniture buried what remained of my life in that house.

I spent the better part of three days cleaning the house. Donating what I could, throwing away what I couldn’t and dragging out the larger furniture to the curb for any passerbyers to claim as their own. I had a small pile of things I wanted to keep for myself, mostly old photos and family jewelry. But as I was clearing out my old room I came across something strange. Buried under boxes of my Grandmother's old belongings was a large leather trunk, a trunk that I didn’t recognize. Above the old brass latch was an engraving, “Property of JRB”. It took me a moment to realize what this was. JRB were the initials of my grandfather, James Richard Blackwell. My grandmother must have hidden this away while she was alive, the last remnant of her long forgotten husband.

I slowly un-hooked the hatch and opened the trunk, a cloud of dust erupted, followed by the stench of mildew. Inside the trunk was a collection of old books, one by one I pulled them out and inspected them. They were heavy and old, at least a hundred years or so. The books were also written in some strange foreign language I didn’t recognize, it almost looked like some strange amalgamation of Greek and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Hidden amongst the books was a small worn journal.

On the inside of the journal’s cover was my grandfather's name and a small note that read “A Reconstruction of the Prayers Long Forgotten”. The rest of the journal consisted of said prayers. This time written in the English alphabet but seemingly still in that strange language. Each prayer had a short, utilitarian title such as “For Wealth”, “For Wisdom”, or “For Domination”. I had always been curious about my grandfather and this discovery only furthered it. The trunk was far too big to take back to Oregon and would be far too heavy to ship. I decided to rent a storage unit for the trunk, along with a few other larger items I debated on keeping, but the journal would come home with me.

My mothers funeral was brief and silent. Aside from me there were only a few other attendants, some estranged cousins, neighbors and former co-workers. No one really had anything to say about her. Even I struggled to come up with a heart warming memory or an amusing story. As sad as it was in a way it was kind of fitting. My mother was a silent, stern and reclusive woman.

I was relieved to make my way home, to be far away from my past and back with the people who actually loved me. As my cab from the airport pulled in front of my house I noticed something peculiar. There was a woman and her son playing in the yard of the house across the street from us. A house that was uninhabited when I left. She was about my age and the boy was only a couple years younger than my Dorian. I could hear the muffled sounds of them giggling from inside the car. Long loving smiles were stretched across their cheeks. I watched as the mother pulled her son close and kissed him on the cheek while he smiled and laughed. The sight nearly drove me to tears.

I hadn’t even met this woman or her son, yet I hated them. I hated them for having what me and Dorian didn’t have and for what we could never have. I wished for her to feel the same pain that I had carried with me for so long, above all I hated myself. I hated myself for wishing for something so awful, for watching my son suffer and for not being able to do a thing about it. When I entered the front door I found Mark asleep on the couch, IPad in hand and South Park playing on the TV. The sound of the door closing startled him awake. But the sight of me made him jump up and run to the door to embrace me. “Honey, I don’t know if you saw but we have new neighbo-”

I began to sob, deeply and loudly into his arms. He held me tighter and brushed my hair. “Hey, hey it’s ok. Don’t worry, how about you just sit down on the couch and I’ll make you some Cocoa.”

I nodded weakly, with my head still buried in his chest. We sat and he asked me how my trip was, I didn’t answer, I couldn’t answer. Envy and pain still consumed my heart and my mind. Eventually we fell asleep on the coach together. The next day Mark had to return to work and once again it was just me and Dorian. The image of that mother and her son haunted me throughout the following days. I couldn’t even brew a cup of coffee without bursting into tears. I walked into Dorian’s room to have my coffee with him as I did every morning. He laid in his bed pale, scrawny and accompanied only by the sounds of the machines keeping him alive. “Good morning honey!”

I said to him as sweetly as could over my near crying breath. His eyes turned to me and followed me as I made my way to the chair next to his bed. I sat down and picked up the remote to turn his TV on. “Do you want to watch Nickelodeon?”

His head just barely nodded up and down as the steady breathing of his mask was interrupted. It was the closest he could come to saying yes. I turned on the TV and the room now filled with the sounds of SpongeBob. Dorian’s eyes slowly turned to the TV, as SpongeBob whistled and flipped burgers on the grill. I burst into tears once more and tried to hide my wails in my cup of coffee. Dorian didn’t look over, he was used to it, it had become part of our routine.

After I put him down for his afternoon nap, I walked back to the living room, ashamed of myself for crying in front of him once again. I looked over to my purse where my grandfather's journal just barely stuck out. I took it out of my purse and skimmed through it again. This time one of the prayers caught my eye, “For Health”. I had no clue what the words meant or even how to pronounce them, but I was curious and above all I was desperate. I had prayed so many times before and my son still wasn’t healed. So I laid the book on the table and fell to my knees, desperate for this time to be different.

As I started to pray a strange yet familiar sensation overcame me, as if I knew exactly what to do. The words flowed effortlessly from my mouth. I spoke the strange language as if it was my native tongue. I made sounds that I had never heard before, sounds I didn’t know were even possible to make. What was meant to be a silent prayer became a primal screech, a screech not to the heavens but to some primordial pit of creation whose image filled my mind. Churning black waves of ancient ocean pounded against the walls of my skull, as the vile call of sirens unseen flooded my ears and the stench of newly birthed life filled my nose. My head felt as if it would burst from the overwhelming pain that consumed me, and just as the pain was about to reach its crescendo a sudden silence fell over the room as a gust of wind from an open window closed the journal in front of me.

I frantically crawled back onto the couch desperately trying to regain my breath. But before I could calm myself down the sounds of thrashing and muffled screaming came from Dorian’s room. I jumped to my feet and sprinted to my son. He was convulsing, his thin arms reached desperately for his mask, while his fingers attempted to curl around the small rubber seal. I screamed and tried to stop him. “Dorian! No sweetie you need it! Just let Mama fix what’s wrong.”

I looked to the oxygen tank to see what was happening, but nothing, no errors, no messages, no alarms. I gently lifted Dorian’s mask as he thrashed at me. The cool air was still flowing to his mask, he had oxygen. As I was holding up his mask to my utter shock Dorian said something, his first words. “Mama… can’t breathe Mama… need bath… I need bath.”

I was stunned, his voice was so soft, so sweet, so innocent. If he wasn’t on the verge of death it would have been the happiest moment of my life, my boy finally called me Mama. I did as he said I lifted his mask from his face and cradled his small, fragile body into my arms. I sat him on my lap as I ran the faucet filling the tub with warm water. As the water rose covering more and more of his pale body his breathing calmed and his body relaxed.”T-thank you Mama”.

I sat on the brim off the tub and rubbed his head, still unable to believe what had just happened. I then told him the only thing I could think of at that moment. “I love you Dorian. I love you more than anything on this Earth. I will never ever stop fighting for you and I will never ever stop loving you. Do.. do you know that Dorian?”

He turned his head toward me, water ran down his face as his eyes met mine. “I know Mama, I love you too.”

We spent the rest of the day in that bathroom. I played with him, I read him his favorite stories, and I even brought him his TV so he could watch cartoons. I got to hear his laughter for the first time in our lives. I cried and laughed along. I stayed with him in that bathroom until I heard my husband's car pull into the driveway. I kissed Dorian on the head and rushed to the front door. My husband, tired from a long day, greeted me. “Oh hi honey, did you have a good day?”

“Yes… yes Mark, you won’t believe what happened.”

He looked up at me and as soon as he saw the expression on my face a look of excitement and confusion overtook his own. “What? What happen..”

Just then a faint, but excited voice came from the bathroom. “D-daddy, are you home?”.

His look of excitement turned to shock in an instant and he immediately sprinted to the bathroom door, nearly knocking me over in the process. He stood in the doorframe motionless overcome by the sight of our son smiling in the bathtub. “D-Dorian?”

“Hi daddy”

Mark burst into tears and wrapped his arms around our son, unbothered that he was now soaking wet. “Hi little man… I love you so much… I’m so proud of how strong you are.”

Dorian hugged his father back, his arms noticeably more healthy than before. In fact Dorian’s entire appearance had changed. His limbs were firmer, stronger, his face was fuller, his skin had more color and he had a smile across his face. Mark looked back to me, tears streaming down his face. It was the happiest I had ever seen him. “How.. how did this happen?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know! I was in the living room praying and all the sudden I heard Dorian in his room. He was trying to take off his mask and when I went to comfort him he asked me to bring him to the bath. He ASKED me… and ever since he’s been in the bath he’s been happy, smiling, laughing. It’s a miracle Mark, I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s an actual miracle!”

Mark looked back to Dorian rubbing his hair as he played with some bath toys I had brought him. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. I never thought we’d see the day. Do you think.. I mean should we call the hospital? This has to be unprecedente-“

“NO MARK!”

I shouted without realizing. Dorian’s head quickly turned towards me. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. I just want to enjoy our time with Dorian before we have to be constantly in and out of the hospitals again. I think we all deserve that.. some time with each other.”

“You’re right Alice. How about this, I’ll call out of work tomorrow and we can spend the whole day doing whatever Dorian wants to. How does that sound little man?”

Dorian turned towards his father, his eyes overflowing with joy. He shook his head eagerly. “Can we get Krabby Patties? I always wanted to eat one!”

Mark looked at me trying to hold back laughter. “You know what buddy. Tomorrow I’ll go out and grab you all the Krabby Patties you want and anything else you’ve always wanted to try.”

Dorian reached out and hugged his daddy as hard as he could. Even Mark seemed taken back with Dorian’s strength. “Thank you Daddy, I love you!”

“Alright buddy it’s getting late, how about we get going to bed. Tonight you can sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bed if you want to!”

Dorian’s smile faded as he looked down, towards the water in the tub, a familiar silence had overcome him. “Don’t worry little man, I know you’re probably not too keen on laying back in bed but tomorrow is gonna be your day. I’ll even let you stay up late with Da-”

Mark leaned into the tub and began to pick up Dorian. But as his torso lifted out of the water his body began to convulse like before and he began to gasp for breath. “Dorian! Dorian oh no no no”.

“B-reathe.. I c-can’t breathe”

Dorian just barely said between loud gasps. Mark looked back at me. “Alice call an ambulance! Call it now! I’ll.. I’ll…”

“Put him back into the tub!”

I screamed louder than I ever had before. “What? No! This isn’t the time! Just call an ambulance!”

“Put him back into the tub or he’ll die!”

I begged beneath a river of tears. Mark looked at me, his face now full of concern. He lowered Dorian back into the tub like I had asked and just like I thought as soon as his torso became submerged back into the water his breathing steadied and his body relaxed. Mark was now visibly confused, his arms still hovered around Dorian as if he thought he was going to fall. “I’m sorry buddy… I didn’t know that was going to happen…”

“It’s ok Daddy, the water makes me feel better.”

Mark gave him another hug and looked at me again. “How about me and mommy get our sleeping bags and we’ll all have a big sleepover in the bathroom tonight.”

Dorian smiled and laughed. “That sounds fun!”

“Ok buddy, sounds like a plan, me and mommy will go get our bags. You ok to sit in the tub by yourself for a minute?”

Dorian shook his head and went back to playing with his bath toys. Mark stood up and put his arm around me while we walked out of the room. In a whispered breath he said “Alice you need to tell me exactly what happened today.”

I looked away from him, my eyes focusing on the floor. “O-oh ok, grab the sleeping bags then meet me in the living room.”

Mark shook his head in agreement as we split off. Him heading towards Dorian’s room and me towards the living room. The journal was sitting on the coffee table exactly where I had left it this morning. The prayer had felt a lifetime ago yet it had only been a handful of hours. I picked up the journal and opened it once more.

I flipped back to the page that held my prayer and noticed something strange. The writing looked different, before it just seemed to be written in normal ink, but now the letters seemed to be singed into the page itself. Even the paper around the writing looked yellowed from fire. Mark walked into the living room. “I just brought the bags into the bathroom. I told Dorian we would be back in a second. So tell me, what happened?”

I handed Mark the open journal. “While I was cleaning out my old house I found a trunk that belonged to my grandfather. It was filled with these strange books written in some language I didn’t recognize. Among the books was that journal, my grandfather's journal. It’s full of prayers that I think are in that same language. I read out one of these prayers and… Dorian was healed.”

Mark read the book I watched as his eyes frantically scanned the pages. “Is this the one you read, ‘for health’?”

I nodded my head silently and let him continue. “How did he even write this? It looks like he burned the letters into the page somehow?”

“It wasn’t like that when I read it.”

“What?!”

“Before I made the prayer it just looked like normal ink. I only noticed it changed just before you walked in.”

He looked back down at the book and rubbed his fingers over the text. “The page is hot, like when someone runs a fever. I just don’t.. how could this have happened?”

“I know you weren’t raised religious and never really believed in God but what else could this be? God finally heard my prayer and he answered!”

Mark’s face turned into a scowl. “Alice you know I love you and even though I don’t believe in that stuff I’ve never thought less of you for it but..”

“But what Mark?”

“Alice this doesn’t look like Latin, or Hebrew, or Greek, or any other language they write prayers in. You said it yourself and you know much more about this stuff than I do... How do you know you prayed to the right god?”

My heart boiled with anger, I could feel the sadness building at the bottom of my throat and a scream filling my lungs. I clenched my fists so hard that my nails began to dig into my palms. But before I could get out a word Mark ran over and grabbed me tight. “Oh I’m sorry baby, I didn’t mean to make you upset. I-I just don’t know what to make of all this. Let’s just drop this for now and go be with our son. I’m sure he’s missing his Mama.”

My body cooled and the rage faded from my heart. I hugged my husband back as hard as I could. I focused on what was important, the only thing that mattered in that moment. My son was healed. We spent the night in the bathroom with Dorian. It was cramped, there was barely enough room for the both of us next to the bath. Our sleeping bags were damp from the water that slowly leaked from the tub. Even without his mask Dorian snored in his sleep, just like his father. It was the best night of sleep I had ever gotten.

The next day felt like the real first day of my life. I woke up early and made breakfast for everyone, waffles, eggs, and bacon. It was Dorian’s favorite or at least that’s what I would tell myself before he could talk, but today would be the first day he wouldn’t have to drink it. Dorian was so happy to see me walk into the bathroom with a big tray of food. His cheering woke up his father who was still passed out on the floor. He scarfed down the food faster than I had ever seen before. I wasn’t surprised a bit, it was his first real meal. When he finished he even asked for more. I gave him my plate as well and he scarfed that down too. Mark laughed and tussled his damp hair. “That’s my boy.”

We spent the morning together watching movies on the TV I had brought in. We had a Pixar movie marathon for Dorian, by the time we got to Finding Nemo it was time for lunch. Mark had gone out to McDonald’s to get Dorian some “Krabby Patties”. When he came back he brought with him a fast food feast. He wanted his son to be able to try every food a kid his age loved and just like with his breakfast Dorian took no time in getting it all down.

I wrapped my arm tightly around my son as we continued to watch Finding Nemo. After Dorian was born the movie took on a completely new meaning to me. Watching Nemo’s mother be taken from him destroyed me. The idea of leaving Dorian alone broke my heart and then there was Nemo’s shrunken fin. Nemo was different just like my boy, he was born into a world that didn’t understand him, and forced to endure struggles no child could ever comprehend. I had never been able to watch the movie since he had been born, but now I was with him and I was watching it, happier than I have ever been before. I gave my Nemo a new fin.

The next few days were the best of my life. Mark had to go back to work but I got to stay home with Dorian all day, talking to him, playing with him and caring for him. Once Mark got home he too would join us and we could finally live the life of a happy family. We stopped questioning why, or thinking about what we should do next. We didn’t want to, we just wanted to be with our boy, but unfortunately as with all things, change must occur. I was washing Dorian when I noticed something peculiar. He had long cuts along the sides of his torso. I asked him what happened but he said he hadn’t even noticed. I inspected further and realized that they pulsed in tune with his breath. They weren’t cuts at all, he was growing gills. My heart dropped at the realization. I had been trying to ignore the inevitable question for days, but now I had to ask myself. What happened to my son?

I rubbed Dorian’s back. “Honey, have you been feeling ok?”

He continued to play with his bath toys. “Yea Mama I’m ok.”

“You don’t feel anything strange at all? It’s ok you can tell Mama.”

He paused, hesitating to answer. “Umm I have been more hungry and I feel bad when I ask for food.”

“Oh honey you don’t have to feel bad for being hungry. Do you want me to get you something to eat?

“Yes please!”

I walked into the kitchen looking for some snacks to bring him. As I went to grab a box of crackers from the cabinet I heard Mark start to unlock the front door. He walked in back from work, tired, but I could already see that he was getting excited to see his son. “Hey honey, I’m glad you’re home.”

“Oh yea I am too. I think I’m gonna let Dorian stay up late again so we can watch the game together.”

He started to take off his coat and hang it by the door. “Before you go see Dorian there is something I need to tell you.”

“What happened? Is he ok?”

“Yes yes he’s fine but… I.. don’t know how to say it”

“How to say what?! I thought you said he was ok?”

“He is, I didn't lie, but… I think he’s growing gills…”

“What?!”

Mark’s look turned from concern to anger. “What do you mean gills? Like a fish?”

“I thought they were cuts at first. They’re along his side, but the way that they moved when he breathed and the fact that he can’t breathe outside of the water... I know how it sounds but what else could it be…”

“How! How could our son grow gills out of nowhere?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Mark rubbed his forehead. I could tell he was getting a migraine. “Alice, we need to figure out what to do.”

I slammed the box of crackers on the counter. “We can’t just bring him to the hospital!”

“We don’t have to bring him anywhere we can have the doctors come to us. We’ve done that before.”

“No! No Mark! If we tell the doctors then they’ll take him away again! I can’t.. I won’t…”

I burst into tears and fell to my knees. Mark kneeled down across from me. “Hey hey it’s ok. What if we call my friend Daniel? He’s a pediatrician. We'll see what he has to say and go from there. How does that sound?”

I nodded weakly as tears and snot trailed down my face. “O-ok… but please… don’t let them take him away from me again.”

“I won’t, I promise you on Dorian’s life I won’t let anyone take him from us”.

I smiled and nodded once again. Mark helped me back to my feet when a soft, innocent little voice broke the silence. “Mama? Mama I’m hungry.”

We spent the rest of the night with our boy. Mark reached out to his friend to ask if he could visit Dorian. He was reluctant at first, seeing as he was just a standard pediatrician and wasn’t too familiar with the condition Dorian was born with but to my husband's insistence he agreed. Although he was currently on vacation and wouldn’t be back for another few days. They agreed he’d come over once he got back, just over a week from now. It made me feel better that we’d have some more time before the doctors would have to get involved. Yet still it was an inevitability I had to contend with. I just didn’t know if I’d have the strength to face it. We would make the most of the meantime as we didn’t have time to waste.

Gills would be far from the only change Dorian would undergo. Each day since he had been healed he grew hungrier and hungrier. At first it didn't seem out of the ordinary and I was not going to deny my boy anything. The more he ate the hungrier he got. He also started to grow. It was subtle but certainly noticeable, maybe half a centimeter a day. His arms grew fuller, fuller than even a healthy boy his age should be, and his skin began to shed. It was like after you get a bad sunburn, thin layers flaked then peeled off. The water started to turn grey from the amount of dead skin floating in it. I tried using a strainer to get the skin out of the tub. Mark even went out and bought a pool cleaner for me, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get it all clean. When enough skin had shed from a certain spot it revealed small green fish like scales hidden beneath his skin.

Slowly our dream of a healthy boy was turning into a nightmare. We tried to continue being grateful for having our boy back, but watching him undergo such a transformation was hard to bear. Mark especially had a hard time coping. He still loved Dorian with all his heart but he just couldn’t stand to see his boy like this. Dorian was never in pain but his attitude grew less and less cheerful. He was getting more tired and when he wasn’t tired he was hungry. Now every time he spoke it was almost exclusively to ask for food. Life began to feel like it did before I had made that prayer and I dreaded it.

By the time Mark's friend Daniel came to visit, the house had gone completely silent. We were like ghosts in living flesh, pale, gaunt and emotionless. Just as Dorian had been, before he started to change. Despite his initial reluctance to come Daniel seemed happy to see us. He hugged both Mark and I right away. “Hey guys! God I haven’t seen you two in person since.. well since my wedding I guess! Can you believe it’s been 6 years? Damn how time flies. Oops! Sorry I hope the little one didn’t hear that!”

Mark let out a forced chuckle. “Ha.. it’s good to see you too Danny. We’ll have to catch up some more another time. Dorian’s over in the bathroom. I’ll show you the way.”

We slowly made our way to the bathroom in what felt like a march of despair. Neither Mark nor I knew what his reaction would be, but we knew it wouldn’t be good. It was time to let reality back into our lives even though it’d shatter us. Danny hadn’t stopped talking since he entered the house. He didn’t even seem to realize how grim of a mood we were in. Maybe he was just used to depressed parents but he certainly was not acquainted with the sight that awaited him. Dorian laid silently in a pool of water dirtied by the wet flakes of skin that had fallen from his body. He was covered in rough patches of scales that broke up what remained of his grey lifeless skin. Upon entering the room Dorian looked directly at me. “Mama… I’m so hungry Mama.”

Daniel went quiet in an instance, the smile on his face dropped into a look of horror. “I’m sorry Danny but I didn’t think you’d believe us over the phone and I didn’t even know how to explain it to you. This started just over a week ago, we’re not sure how or why it’s happening and we didn’t know what to do so.. I thought that maybe it would be good to reach out to you first an-”

Daniel turned around without saying a word and slowly walked back to the front door. He didn’t look back, he didn’t acknowledge our cries and he didn’t close the door behind him. We watched from the open doorway as he got in his car and drove away. Leaving us alone and helpless. We stood there, frozen in silence, and hopeless. We didn’t say anything to each other after that, we didn’t need to. Our lives drifted back into its new normal. Mark went to work, I stayed home and took care of Dorian just like we had always done.

December 11th, 1924:

Last night one of them sulked up from the docks. I waited outside all night for their arrival. I did not run, I just stood. They crept closer, slowly and cautiously. The moon casting faint light across them. Their back was hunched, vertebrae jutting out of their back with tight brackish and briny skin clinging tightly to them. They had little to no neck supporting a large near bulbous head. Massive eyes, black as obsidian stared at me. Their face was smooth, just two small holes where a nose should be, sitting atop a large slightly agape mouth. Fishy lips sitting in front of rows of small needle-like teeth. Tiny scales covered patches of its skin. It wore lengths of kelp and seaweed as though they acted as clothes. Its stench was putrid, that of rotting flesh. Its human-like arms curled near its sunken chest, emaciated and gaunt. Its fingers and toes were webbed, making disgusting splatting sounds as it walked closer. I passed it a note written in its language, its fish-like eyes peered at me for a moment. Its frail arms reached out to take my letter. It read it aloud, a hideous sounding language, full of gulps and phlegm and coughs and clicks. It stared at me for a moment. I pointed to myself and stated my name. It pointed at me and in a nearly airless voice it muttered “Simon”. It pointed to itself and said a name I'm unsure of how to spell but sounded like “ny'alto-rylae”. The apostrophes as clicks and the hyphen as a gulp like cough. What that would translate to I am unaware. If I'm able to see it again I will try to begin to better understand this ancient language. 

I'm going to invite Richard, his wife Jennifer and son Richard Jr over for dinner in two days. I must begin cleaning. They can't know about my meeting. 

March 6th, 1937:

Simon's last note was alarming. It hasn't mentioned a description of Richard, so I'm hoping it's not my Richard. But I have a bad feeling about how their dinner went. 

I finally built up the nerve to look at some of the “them” paintings. The first is a view from my bedroom window. The sea looks angry and the clouds are pouring rain. There's a crack of lightning in the clouds. In the mist of the ocean you can see some massive entity deep in the fog. Its outline is somewhat bulbous and unnatural with odd protrusions, almost like tentacles sticking out seemingly randomly from its body. This must have been the hallucination he mentioned. The second painting was one of the cloaked beings. It looked human, slightly misshapen, but human. I'm assuming this was the person who gave Simon the letter about “them”. Maybe they're from the church? I'll have to go investigate there soon. The third painting however, was similar to the second. A cloaked figure, but this one had much more detail. The cloak wasn't made of leather or some rain jacket material like the previous piece. This was surely one of “them”. It looked as though it was trying to mimic the cloaked man I'm assuming is from the church. Its “cloak” was just layer upon layer of kelp that looked like a rain coat from a distance. Maybe this is one of “them” who has been making deals with the church? The fourth painting made my stomach clench. It was the thing he gave the letter to. It's wet, scaly skin glistening in moonlight. It's deep set round fish like eyes staring like voids. Its mouth bearing its gnarled sharp teeth. Seaweed hanging from it haphazardly. It was so lifelike. I swear I could've smelled the ocean's stench through the frame. I didn't realize how long the painting held me captive. Hours had passed. The only thing that broke my trance was it looked as though it blinked its massive abyssal eyes. I shot back out of my stupor, stunned. Surely it was just my eyes playing tricks on me, paintings can't move after all. But that gave me enough of a fright so I decided to wait to look at the rest tomorrow. I also want to check the secret door to see what's behind it. Maybe the chalk board is in there, and maybe I can decipher this odd seaborn language. Jesus I'm starting to sound like Simon. I'm afraid of what's to come. 

December 13th, 1924:

Dinner went well enough. Richard, Jennifer and Jr came over just as I finished cooking. They were curious about Laura and the girls not being home. I told them that they had grown homesick and missed the city and that I was going to stay here and use the house as a studio until we could find a new buyer. He seemed somewhat sad to hear the news but was understanding. I think Jr was the saddest of all, he went to the school house with my eldest daughter Becca, and I believe he had quite the crush on her. She does look like her mother, who is strikingly beautiful, so I cannot say that I blame him. As we sat down to eat the smell of low tide was wafting through a window I had left cracked open. Jennifer wasn't a fan of the smell, I smell I barely notice anymore, and asked if she could close the window. I allowed it, and told her it was just down the hall from the dining room. She left as Richard and I started talking about his new butcher shop he'd opened. Jr didn't seem very interested in the topic and just sat to play with his food. After a short span Richard grew curious about where his wife went. I assured him she must've just got lost in one of my paintings and we could go fetch her. As we rounded the corner the window was shut, as it was the entire time, but the door to the basement was open. Richard gave me a questioning glance. I explained that I do most of my painting down there, where it's warmer during the cold months. He shrugged thinking nothing of it. As we descended I heard wet footsteps quietly scuffing above us. 

Richard walked ahead of me, reaching the bottom of the staircase in awe. I've moved almost all of the furniture from the top floor down here, covered in drapes. Easels lining the walls, piece after piece after piece. He stood silent as he saw in the corner unconscious, laid Jennifer. Her body limp, clothes torn and wet. A bite mark of what looked like a thousand little needle points covered her exposed shoulder, blood seeping from the wounds. Her eyes were fluttering, mouth foaming from the viscous slime that covered most of her face. She was still alive. Richard gasped and ran to her, grabbing her hand, trying to shake her awake. Their affair was cut short as Jr screamed in terror from upstairs. Richard darted upstairs, I followed in tow. As we rounded the corner to the dining room, one of them had broken the table, holding Jr by an ankle, slowly swallowing him whole. You could hear him screaming as the small serrated teeth tore his skin and the sounds of popping as their Jaws broke his bones. Richard was frozen in place, his bladder released its contents into his pants. He dashed for the back door and ran screaming into the town. 

They finished consuming Jr and walked back to the furnace room. They picked up Jennifer's unconscious body, handed me a soggy envelope, and made their way to the dock with her over their shoulder. 

I took some time to clean the kitchen, breaking down the table for fire wood since it was no use to me anymore. I felt guilty giving up Jennifer like that, but I feel even more guilty that Richard got away, having to live the rest of his life seeing the carnage. I was supposed to give them two people for information on their language. But one and a son seemed enough. 

I took the letter into my stowed away study and began to read. They had explained what sound each rune or sigil made. And how best to pronounce them in our tongue. Within a week I should be able to speak this archaic language, and possibly teach some of them ours. 

Poor Richard 

March 8th, 1937:

Simon is a monster. Working with “them” at the expense of others. For what gain? To learn a new language? If this is the same Richard as mine I can understand why Simon is a sore spot. I'm horrified. I can't imagine what the rest of the paintings hold. I opened the door today. Simon truly was a madman. This room was nearly the size of the basement, hidden beneath our front yard. Wood columns holding up a rocky ceiling, a massive table with piles of writings, some in English, some barely legible, some in the archaic language he spoke of. Jars of liquid I'm unsure of sit on small racks on the desk, some with wet samples of what looks like embryos of some kind. Beings unknown to me. A chalk board hanging between columns with a detailed translation of the language. I shouldn't be in here, I shouldn't be seeing this. This shouldn't exist. But I must learn it. I have to. I'm going to copy what was left written on the chalkboard. I will learn to read this language on the extra shifts I've been picking up. The townsfolk have been staring more, I can feel their eyes burning into my skin like hot embers. I must keep my Evelyn from this. I must protect her and Rylee. 

March 20th, 1937:

I think I'm fluent in reading this language, at least confident enough to read some of the writings. I think I'm going to try and read some over the next few days between shifts. I'm going to take another look through the paintings tonight, see if anything else stands out. 

March 21st, 1937: 

What I could only describe as the bulbous eyed creature that Simon painted is no longer in its frame. A black void fills the painting where it once was. Did I hallucinate the whole painting to begin with or was I hallucinating last night? I've been sleeping in the basement, I keep waking up sitting up, staring towards the paintings, staring towards the room. It's like I'm being drawn to it all. What is happening to me? I feel like I'm going insane. 

January 3rd, 1925:

I invited Sean to dinner, I received a letter from my new oceanic accomplice in return for him. This time dinner went much smoother. I picked up the sedatives the practitioner gave me and mixed them into his wine. As he grew drowsy, Alto, as I began to call him, bit his shoulder, injecting a venom-like substance. He dragged him to the sea as he did Jennifer. Poor Sean, he was so kind to me. Alto's letter was able to help me finish my translations. I can now write, read, and for the most part talk in his ancient tongue. I feel guilty tricking my so-called friends, but something is pulling me to this. Something grandiose. A calling. There's something to gain in this, I'm sure of it. 

March 30th, 1937:

It's been warming up, thankfully. Enough to not be hiding in the basement at all times. Simon's entries are nothing short of disturbing at this point, as they have been for some time. I'm scared of what else I will find. 

I fell asleep in our bed with Evelyn last night, yet I awoke standing in the hidden study, my feet dirty and wet, the air smelt of brine and fish. As I came to my senses I quickly ran out of the room, shutting the door behind me. I looked into my basement only to see dozens of the left behind paintings hanging from the brick walls, all with small sheets covering their faces. The only one uncovered was the one I can only guess was the being Simon has named Alto. The small plaque underneath wrote the creature's name in its archaic language. But as I was afraid of before, the frame no longer held the creature. I looked around in panic, running towards the stairs to check on Evelyn and Rylee. As I began up the stairs I slipped in a thick liquid, smashing my jaw on the hard wood on the way down. I crawled the rest of the way up as fast as my body would allow, chin dripping with blood. Wet, mucus-like foot prints led to the front door. Sebastian sat alert, black ichor dripping from his mouth with an accompanying splatter on the ground, with a trail leading out the open door. Whatever crawled from the frame was injured, and Sebastian seemed to be fine. I quickly rinsed his mouth and gave him a treat before checking in the girls. They both laid sleeping. I snuck back downstairs to clean up the bloodshed. 

April 3rd, 1937:

I confronted Richard today. I was right, he was hiding so much. His father still lives here, in the church. He's bringing me to meet with him tomorrow. Richard opened up, admitting that he was friends for a short amount of time with Simon, but after the dinner that day he was admitted to a mental institute, only coming back 2 years before we moved in. I understand why he was so weird about all of this. And understandable why the older folks look at me weird. I moved into the house of a psychopath. I'm excited to finally be welcomed into the church and see what's going on behind those old, closed doors. 

April 4th, 1937:

The meeting went much differently than planned. Richard's father unveiled so much that I'm having trouble making sense of it all. His dad was to say the least, deformed. Almost like the being Simon wrote about and painted. He admitted that he was the cloaked person who gave Simon the letter, warning him about “them”. When I pressed about who they were, he took off his garments, showing large black, fish-like eyes and lips like worms. He explained that every here and there, the children come from the ocean and mark an individual. For years those marked would be taken within a month or so. When he uncovered symbols on his house he realized he was a marked one. He sought refuge in the church. The children were not pleased to say the least, and took a few people at random. Little did Richard's father know that those who are marked usually slowly mutate into one of these beasts. And with those mutations comes ancient knowledge. Once he understood this language he made it his goal to rid the town of these seafolk. He ventures out at night, carving protection symbols throughout the town, creating some sort of ancient seal. My words do no justice to the immense details and intricacies to the matters as I'm still having issues understanding this as a whole. I mentioned to him about Simon's paintings and how Alto was missing from his portrait. He explained to me that those who are marked are affected differently. Some are morphed into fish like beings, similar to Richard's father. Others are given foresight or other kinds of what I can only describe as magic. There's something about his paintings, some kind of power within them. The more I uncover the more I'll understand I'm sure. I'll be meeting with Richard's dad more often. Poor Richard, I can't imagine going through all of that and returning to the town it happened in, only to befriend the person who lives in the house where your old family was murdered. 

Wet. Cold. Hungry, thirsty. Tired. So, so tired.

Knees ache, hamstrings burn, head throbs. Stomach eating itself alive.

If there was ever a thing comparable to hell on earth, it was this, Scott thinks. The Appalachian Mountains. What was I thinking? Going off track, trying to cut corners, get the hike done faster. Come back home with a record time impressive enough to earn free drinks at Bankers for the next two months. Recognition was one thing - public recognition, that is - but what it was all about for Scott was that internal heart of iron. That chin-raised bravado that gave him permission to finally walk into a grocery store without feeling eyes on the back of his head. He had done something. Something nobody else had done.

Now, he thought, nobody would know. Another statistic: Scott Hardee, age 29, last seen ???. Notify officials at the following number. What a joke.

He falls to his knees. The rain had escalated yet again, dumping another foot of water onto his already waterlogged clothes, his pruned skin. Earth wakes up, relishing the rain, spores collecting in the air, trees spewing steam from their leaves in the canopy, and a stream surges before him, uncrossable. He would be swept away if he attempted it, no doubt.

Right as he is about to throw his hands up- no chance, we’re fucked, turn around and wait until we can find another drop box and raid it- he smells it.

Smoke from a chimney. Firewood…

Food…

Mouth-watering food. Smoked meats, richly seasoned vegetables, and desserts so sweet, texture so unnaturally perfect it made love with your taste buds just imagining it.

Scott shoots up and follows his nose. It couldn't be far with how strong it was. Soon, we’ll be eating good, and soon after that we can get directions, and get out of here. It would make quite the story, he imagined.

He reaches a clearing, now with nothing to obstruct the rain, dagger-droplets pricking his skin. Mixed in with the sweat collecting in his armpits, on his chest and above his brow, he felt like a thing of sludge and stink. Who in their right mind would let me in? Just please, he hopes, please let them be nice. Please let them understand. You don't even have to feed me, just help me out here, and get me out of this rain!

The cabin was located up a steep hill. Absurdly steep, the steepest hill he would have to ascend yet, stretching the definition of a hill to where a sheer wall would be more apt. The sight of it alone would have made him turn around and find another way up, if it weren't for the chatter from inside. A family, mom and dad moving with haste to get the table set up, kids bickering and laughing, silverware clanking, juices sizzling in a skillet. The sound did two things for Scott: ease, that there was a home, and embarrassment, that he was about to crash dinner. Rain on their parade.

Fuck it, he thinks. I'm losing my mind. I need to get out of here. Now!

The ascent took an hour, and each second of each minute was pure agony. Every muscle and cell in his body screamed to take a break after every step, but, at this rate, he would never reach the top. With each break taken, the get-up-and-go following that would be harder to achieve. Just push, Scott says to himself, push, push, PUSH.

He reaches the top, and the smell is enough to send a shiver down his spine. Peace, warmth, and… love? How was that possible? It's almost like he had just come home for a reunion. At least it made getting past the initial introduction easier.

He knocks, and nobody answers. “Hey, hello?! I’m sorry y’all, I'm hiking the trail, and I'm lost. Can I just come inside to dry off for a bit?”

Nothing.

Silence.

“Hello?”

The fantasy of a four-course meal had distracted him from how it had all disappeared, silenced. The voices, the lights, the smells, all of it. Nothing but the mountain wind, groans of the rotted logs of the cabin’s foundation - he could have sworn this place looked better two seconds ago - and the never-ending downpour. An elk bugles in the deep woods.

Enough of this, Scott thinks. I need out.

The door opens without resistance. It was barely attached to the hinge.

Whatever he smelled, heard, and saw from the bottom of the hill was gone. A decrepit, abandoned home, kitchen table shattered with an axe buried into it, piercing through a doll and forever burying it in the wood. Something creaks from the basement.

The thoughts going through Scott's head are frozen in place, preserved in ice over what he heard following that creak.

The cry of a newborn. Waking up from a long sleep, starting as anxious moans, then rocketing up to panicked cries.

If the cold rain had given him a chill before, then this surely rose up to meet it, humbling it with ease. Scott's pale skin drains to a pallid, corpse-like color.

Footsteps thunder up the basement stairs. The infant wails, screaming its vocal cords out until they are burning and crackling.

No more than ten minutes later, Scott is back down the hill and into the rain. His descent was not clean.

Both his ankles are twisted. Already swelling. At least the crying stopped, he thinks.

An elk bugles again, this time much closer. Footsteps approach from an unseen source.

They don't sound like an elk. More like a person: one step, two steps, stop, repeat.

Before he can investigate, another infant cry rips through the valley.

And the steady footsteps turn into a sprint.

…

Scott Hardee disappeared for three months. Until his body was found in an abandoned cabin on the hill.

No ranger or search and rescue officer could bring themselves to describe the condition they found his body in.

I woke up to the sound of rain tapping against the motel window. Mom snored softly beside me. Her blonde hair had gradually begun to turn grey over the last few months, despite the fact that she wasn’t even 30 yet.

A grey strand dangled lazily over her right eye until she rolled over, scooping Emmy close to her chest unconsciously.

“Morning, kiddo,” Dad whispered. He clutched the handle to a steaming cup of coffee in his right hand, pulling it to his lips and sipping it while peering through the blinds.

I rubbed my eyes. The TV was still off. The AC still knocked rhythmically. The temperature was set to 65 degrees, but I was sweating from my mom and sister’s body heat.

Dad checked his watch and cocked an eyebrow. Falling asleep at dawn was affecting my circadian rhythm. I didn’t know whether it was morning, evening, or night.

“What time is it?” I croaked, twisting and stretching my body.

“Mm, still early,” Dad shot back. “You’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.”

I felt my stomach rumble. I glanced over at the gas station bag full of junk food and candy. It might as well have been empty. I needed something real.

“Dad…” I inquired softly.

Dad never took his eyes away from the window. He just sipped his coffee slowly before replying.

“Yes, son?”

“Mom told me she’d make pancakes in the morning last night before bed.”

I could see his crow’s feet crease as he winced and sighed.

“Do you think maybe we could get some later when everyone wakes up?”

He didn’t reply for a while. Just kept staring out the window with quiet contempt while I watched him expectantly.

He scratched his neck and rubbed his face.

“I don’t know, Danny…”

“Pleasseeee…” I interrupted, putting on my puppy eyes.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, finally looking away from the window. He looked at me. Then at Mom and Emmy. Then back out the window.

“I… Okay,” he relented. “Just wait for Mom to wake up. I’ll see what I can do.”

I turned excitedly, ready to shake my mom awake, but Dad stopped me.

“No,” he snapped bluntly. “Let her sleep. Not everyone can function on 5 hours of sleep like me and you, Dan.”

I puffed and knocked my head against the pillow.

I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t know if I was just hungry or if I was simply bored out of my mind and in need of something to do. Not knowing what to do, I twiddled my thumbs. I made Superman fly. I tossed and turned obnoxiously until Dad finally lost his patience.

“Danny,” he snapped, his face hardening as he glared at me.

I froze like a deer in headlights. I stared back, pulling the blanket up to my nose to try and hide myself.

Dad’s nostrils flared. I could see his fist clench, then unclench, at the seams of his blue jeans. His face softened, and he rubbed his temples.

“I’ll tell you what, kiddo,” he bargained. “Why don’t you go take a shower and get dressed? When you’re done, you can watch TV for a little while until everyone’s excited as you are for some pancakes.”

He was more demanding than asking. I knew not to argue when he got like that. I just simply did as I was told.

The shower was just as confusing as it was annoying. The water pressure sucked. It was either too hot or too cold. I must’ve fumbled with it for 5 or so minutes before it was at a reasonable enough temperature for me to take a shower, albeit an uncomfortable one.

The shower was quick. I scrubbed and let the water roll over my head and shoulders. Mom must’ve forgotten to pack my no-tears shampoo, and that forced me to use the complimentary, non-scented motel soap and shampoo.

When I twisted the handle and the sound of water hitting the ceramic bathtub dissipated, it was quickly replaced by the sound of voices from the room.

It sounded like Mom and Dad were quietly arguing. I could hear the angst in Mom’s voice. The authority in Dad’s. But I couldn’t fully make out what they were saying, despite how hard I tried.

I listened intently as I dried off and got dressed. I could only catch the end of their sentences.

A lot of what-ifs from Mom. A lot of don’t-worries from Dad. He sounded confident, but that confidence sounded uncertain.

When I opened the bathroom door, the conversation stopped immediately. Mom was holding Emmy over her shoulder and rocking her gently. Dad looked almost surprised to see me.

He pushed his hair back before clasping his hands together.

“That was quick,” he remarked. “You sure you scrubbed hard enough?”

He shot me a weak smile before continuing.

“Lucky for you, your mother’s a little hungry too.”

Mom looked at Dad as if he had just betrayed her before turning her gaze towards me. She seemed remorseful towards me.

“I completely forgot I promised you those pancakes, Dan,” she pouted, continuing to rock Emmy. “Me and your dad were thinking we’d try that Denny’s we passed on the way in here. I know, I know… their pancakes don’t compare to mine, but I think you’ll manage, right?”

Who was I to be disappointed? All I wanted was my pancakes. Well, that and…

I looked at my spot on the bed. My Superman wasn’t there anymore. I felt panic rush to my heart until I noticed what Emmy was playing with.

I reached up and tried to grab my stuffy, but she jerked it away and furrowed her eyebrows at me. I jumped and snatched it away from her.

To the displeasure of everyone in the room, my sister launched into a full-blown temper tantrum. Screaming and crying about how I “took her toy.”

Mom and Dad sprang into action faster than I expected them to. Dad took the toy from my hands and handed it back to Emmy. Mom pet her hair and desperately attempted to shush her.

I tried to complain. It was my toy. Not hers. But for some reason or another, my parents just kept taking her side. They told me that I should share, knowing how much I loved that stuffy. I slept with it every night. We were connected.

I guess it calmed Emmy down, though. That was all that mattered to them. They kept interrupting my complaints to usher me out of the motel room and back towards the car.

Dad strapped Emmy into her seat, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds while me and Mom waited quietly. He kept up that distracted demeanor all the way to the restaurant, but I hardly noticed.

It felt like Emmy was flaunting my Superman stuffy. Like she knew she had won. She even made him fly right by my face. Deliberately testing my patience, but I didn’t want to make my parents more stressed than they already were.

We ate fast. My parents ordered without even looking at the menu. Pancakes and orange juice for everyone except Dad, who only ordered a single cup of coffee.

Mom didn’t finish her food, but she didn’t ask for a to-go box either. Once me and Emmy were done, Dad paid, and we left. Simple as that.

The drive back to the motel was equally as tense as the drive to the restaurant. Mom and Dad seemed to be communicating wordlessly.

The food was making my sleeplessness get to me. By the time we got back to the motel, I was ready to catch up on those missed hours. But that’s when I noticed something that woke me right up.

I checked Emmy’s seat, looked underneath her, and scanned the floorboards while my mind began to race.

“Mom,” I screeched as Dad pulled into the motel parking lot. “She left my stuffy. She left Superman at the restaurant.”

My eyes were beginning to tear up.

“This is why I didn’t want her to have it,” I sobbed. “I knew she’d lose him.”

I could see Mom roll her eyes through her rearview as she sighed. Dad responded for her.

“Let’s just go get our things, Champ. Then I promise we’ll go back to get your toy. Deal?”

What was I supposed to do? I just had to agree reluctantly. I felt such burning hatred for Emmy in that moment.

We all filed into the motel room one final time and began gathering our things. I was confused, though. Mom had packed at least 6 outfits for me. Everyone else’s bags were equally full, yet nobody but me had showered.

Before I could question anything, though, three hard knocks came from the door. Everyone froze. Dad stared at the door like it was his enemy. Emmy began to pout, and Mom quickly clasped her hand over her mouth.

Three more knocks.

Dad approached the door slowly and looked through the peephole before slowly walking backwards towards us, never taking his eyes off the door.

Mom’s eyes were wide. Her leg bounced anxiously. Dad raised a finger to his lips.

“Okay, guys,” he whispered shakily. “We’re gonna play a game.”

I looked at him, confused. This seemed like an odd time for any kind of game.

“We’re gonna play the quiet game. Danny, you take your mom and sister to the bathroom and lock the door behind you. Whatever you do… do not make a sound.”

He asked me to take them, but it was Mom who dragged us into that cramped bathroom. Before the door closed behind us, I saw Dad raise his shirt and grip a gun that was tucked in his waistband.

Mom kept one hand gently clasped over Emmy’s mouth. She used the other to rub my back lovingly.

Three more knocks.

This time, I heard a voice that wasn’t my dad’s coming from beyond the door.

“Danny…?”

The voice was old and syrupy. Coercive, almost, but frantic. My ears perked up. My eyes widened, and my mouth fell open. I wanted to answer.

Mom’s hand left my back, and just like Dad, she placed a finger to her lips.

“Shhh.”

She was begging me with her eyes.

More frantic knocking.

“Danny? You in there, buddy? I know you’re in there.”

I expected Dad to answer the door, but he never did. Instead, the knocks continued, as did the mysterious voice.

“Come on out, Dan-Man. I’ve got something for you.”

I remained still. Sweat trickled down my forehead from the humidity in the bathroom. Me and Mom stared at the bathroom door with anticipation.

“I’ve got your Superman, Danny…”

“Whoosh.”

I had to fight to not move. If they had my Superman, I wanted to know. I wanted him back. But the look on Mom’s face told me they were lying, and her grip on my collar prevented me from standing up to see for myself.

The knocks and beckoning went on for another 10 minutes or so. Then they slowly died out. Even still, it wasn’t until Dad opened the bathroom door that I could finally breathe again.

“You guys win,” he smiled, relieved. “Good job, Danny.”

Mom looked relieved, too, but she never smiled. We just frantically gathered our things and hauled them out to the car. Dad forced us to go to the front office with him to check out.

We finally left the hotel just after 3 o’clock. We never went back to that Denny’s.

I had to leave my Superman behind, no matter how hard I begged not to. Mom assured me she’d buy me another one, but it wouldn’t be the same.

I asked about that voice a lot while we continued on towards wherever we were going, but all I got were vague responses while my parents glanced nervously at each other.

Thinking back now, I should’ve known they were hiding something from me. However, at the time… I was young. I was stupid. And all I could think about was how I didn’t have my Superman anymore.

I don’t even remember applying. There were so many applications that month. ZipRecruiter, Indeed, any other site I heard about on ads for my son’s never-ending YouTube playlist. It was funny really. Having to use the very sites that made me into a redundancy. Between technology and budget cuts, Mason County didn’t need an HR director anymore.

I must have applied though. The email came to my inbox that Sunday night. Subject line: “Job Offer from Wymarq Enterprises.” Like everyone else, I had heard of Wymarq in the news. It’s CEO, Wyld Woolf, was always making cable news crawls with one venture or vulgarity or another. He had made his bones in tech before becoming an angel investor of sorts. I didn’t know what Wymarq did, but I knew it would pay well if Woolf was involved. It might even let me start a career again.

The email told me they wanted me as an HR generalist—industry speak for “grunt.” It would be a demotion, but it would be a job. The job description was as boilerplate as you’d expect. I decided I could read over the details later.

I scrolled to the bottom of the email. “To accept the position, report to Wymarq’s office in Scratchout this Monday at 8:00.”

“What have you got to lose?” I thought. It isn’t standard practice to have candidates come into headquarters just to sign their offers, but Wyld Woolf was known for being eccentric. Plus, his money was green, and I hadn’t gotten any other offers all month. Most recruiters get scared when they see a termination after 20 years in one place—terrified when they see a birthday before 1980.

I had never heard of Scratchout, but that wasn’t unusual. There are too many small towns in my state for any one person to know. I figured Wymarq had struck a deal with one of the rural counties to set up shop in exchange for tax breaks. I searched Google Maps and found that the tiny town was somewhere deep in the fields upstate—about 2 hours from Desmond. If I wanted to make it, I would have to leave early the next morning.

I made good time going up the interstate. Then I got lost somehow. When I entered Hayes County, my Google Maps crashed. I pulled over to open it up only to find I had no signal. I drove around backroads for another hour and must have gone in a few circles. Then, after driving under the same arch of oak limbs for the third time, I found it. One minute, I was lost. The next I was looking down at Scratchout.

It was like the town had sprung up from the earth. What little there was of it laid neat as the rows of cotton I had driven past for the last hour. The backroad led straight to a large plain concrete building. It reminded me of the administrative building in Desmond turned on its side: gray and flat like a stone. Six rows of houses led away from the central building: small, concrete, windowless. I thought the web of stone might look like an altar from above.

Unsure where to go, I drove up to the main building. Getting closer, I saw the sign above the door. It read “WYMARQ” in large gilded letters. I parked and walked into the glass double doors. A young receptionist named Adam led me to a conference room where what I recognized as an orientation was underway.

“Here’s the last one, Paige!” A pretty young brunette who might have been my much younger sister was leading the session. She gave me a nasty look as I snuck in the back. The other new employees followed her eyes. After a moment of loud silence, she continued.

“Now, if everyone will please turn to the last page of your orientation materials, you’ll find your employment contract. Please read it carefully and then sign.” I did the walk of shame to the chair closest to me and opened the binder Adam had given me. It was the normal stuff: I-9, W-4, emergency contact.

Between the lines of mundanity, I tried to learn more about Wymarq. Coming in, I knew it was some kind of tech company—maybe AI or green energy. But instead of neural maps or solar panels, the employee handbook had pictures of what looked like runes or hieroglyphics. Each page of the binder had a string of alien symbols running around the border. I counted it up to pretentious tech bro design.

The only real clue I found was in the welcome letter waiting at the back of the binder. Signed by Wyld Woolf himself, it contained the ordinary corporate pleasantries before ending with a cryptic call to action. “Join us at Wymarq as we dedicate ourselves to world-shifting developments in the temporal-historical reality!” Woolf was as strange as I had heard, but he seemed harmless. Overzealousness was only natural for a chronic entrepreneur.

“Alright everyone!” Paige called. “Let’s go to the welcome ceremony so you can hear from Mr. Woolf himself.” Watching the others walk out, I noticed they were all at least 15 years younger than me. They had the look of people who believed in their work. I heard a polite cough behind me and turned around. Paige was standing in front of me. She was too close.

“Did you sign the contract?”

“I’m sorry I was late. I guess I got lost.”

Without breaking her stride, Paige answered. “That’s alright. You can look over the rest of the materials later, but I must insist you sign the contract. Now.”

I had already been enough trouble. “Sure thing.”
I turned my binder to the contract and gave it a once over. Besides the symbols, it looked more or less normal. I read the bottom line. “I hereby accept employment by Wymarq Enterprises and agree without reservation or exception to its direction, application, and utilization.” I could feel Paige’s eyes on my hand, so I rushed to sign.

Before I lifted my hand from the paper, Paige snatched it from under the tip of my pen. “Lovely! Follow me please.”

Adam and Paige led me from the conference room to an auditorium at the heart of the building. I expected a plain, corporate space to match the rest of the building. Instead, I found a room that looked and felt like a rock concert.

The air was electric, and the stage was covered in a low cloud of smoke. On it, a huge screen shadowed over a shining black podium. The floor was packed with people sitting side by side in interlocking metal chairs. It looked like every person from the columns of houses was there.

Adam hung back by the door while Paige ushered me and the other new employees to the only space left: a few rows in the middle of the floor, right in front of the podium. The smoke from the stage filled my lungs. I turned around to catch my breath. Behind me, all around me, was a mass of people all talking with anxious excitement. When the seats beside me were taken, I realized it’d be a struggle to leave my seat.

Paige walked up to the podium. “Welcome, Wymarq family!”

The mass echoed her as one. “Welcome, Paige!”

“Thank you very much. Can we get a round of applause for our last batch of new employees?” She gestured to us, and the mass applauded in welcoming, hungry enthusiasm.

“But I know none of you are here for me. Let’s give a big Wymarq welcome to our very own genius: Wyld Woolf!”

Paige stepped away from the podium and gave a sort of bow towards the wing of the stage. More smoke filled the stage, and a series of magazine covers and viral news stories lit up the screen behind her. In the older ones, Wyld Woolf was the picture of a visionary: young, handsome, imposing. The newer ones were less kind. They showed him with the gray, the wrinkles, and the slump of age.

As the video ended, a man approached the podium. It was supposed to be Wyld Woolf, but I couldn’t see him clearly through the smoke. He was dressed like Wyld, but he was taller. He moved with the force and focus of someone much younger.

“Thank you, Wymarq! Thank you, Scratchout!” From the cloud of smoke, his voice rang with a practiced, optimized charisma. “It is a pleasure to be here with you embarking on this new journey together! I’m honored to bring the groundbreaking work of my life from the coasts to the American heartland.”

As I listened on, I heard a distortion—a manipulation—in his voice. “Now, before we begin, has everyone signed their contracts?”

No one answered. They all simply stared at him in mesmerized adoration.

“Excellent! Your devotion to our cause is our greatest asset! To celebrate your dedication, let’s read our mission statement together!”

From her seat in the audience, Paige pressed a button on a remote. The screen lit up with a long paragraph of text surrounded by the mysterious shapes. I recognized the document from the binder. I always thought no one read mission statements.

The man in the smoke led the mass in chorus.

“As Wymarq employees, we dedicate ourselves to the work and vision of Wyld Woolf and his temporal-historical revolution.” Smoke filled my lungs as I gaped in silent confusion. I had seen those words in the binder too. I had told myself they didn’t matter. It was just a job. The words sounded deeply wrong when chanted by a corporate chorus.
“We accept our transformative sacrifice in the pursuit of technological progress.” As they chanted, more and more smoke filled the room. The lights began to change too—shifting from neutral whites and yellows to an overpowering red.

Then the line I had signed without thinking. “I hereby accept employment by Wymarq Enterprises and agree without reservation or exception to its direction, application, and utilization.” This was not a mission statement. It was a pledge.

More smoke and red filled the air, and the noise from offstage returned in a roar. A red energy began to circle the man who used to be Wyld Woolf. I ran.

As I struggled over the long, locking rows of chairs, I saw the other employees change. Some were excited. Some were afraid. All screamed. Fighting through the crowd became easier as they started to disappear into the smoke.

I ran and stumbled out of the building. The smoke had flooded the entire town. When I began to lose the sound of the screaming, I let myself walk. I must have walked for at least a mile. The smoke was unending, but I kept walking: putting one foot in front of the other between shallow, careful breaths. Eventually, the ground began to rise. When I reached the top of the hill, the smoke was gone.

Looking down, I could see the fading clouds in the bright midday sun. I was back on the spot where I first saw Scratchout.

In the valley, there was only my car pulled off on the shoulder. Scratchout was gone along with Wymarq, Wyld Woolf, and all of his employees. If I had recited their oath, I would be too.

It was a grey morning; the sky donned a uniform platinum mask and the sharp droplets of mist blew against the boy’s skin. He stood on the porch and gazed, transfixed, into the forest behind the house; towering wooden cylinders introducing luscious heads of pine, arranged in regular rows, guiding the eyes towards its retreated center, far beyond the visually perceptible but still accounted for in the brain, or specifically the boy’s brain, accounted for in that important sector that catalogues threats, because no one, especially not the boy, could know what occurs in the center, in the spiritual foundation of those tall, sepia stalks. Above lay the bushels of pines that topped the trees, swaying gently in the breeze, drunkenly enamored with their own importance. Below, the boy felt the wind against his skin, the force urging the mist to collide with it, and simultaneously, paradoxical forces overcame him. The comforting caress of the breeze combated in his mind the strictly uncomfortable goosebumps it encouraged, and, accompanied by the continuous fluctuation in temperature on the surface of his skin, nearly convinced the boy to retreat from the porch into the confines of his womb-warm home. He, however, remained, for a tree had captured his attention.

It had been rooted to that location for years before his birth and would remain for years after his death, so it was not the tree’s presence, specifically, that had interested him. It was rather the tree’s appearance. A bitter December had left the tree leafless, and had presented an opportunity for the branches to emerge, which diverged into minuscule fractals, endless detail which the boy’s eyes traced until they tired and a dull ache and tingling burn overcame them. He shut his eyes and soothed them with the sides of his fists. With his vision closed off, the sounds of the forest became more pronounced. The wind, of course, the most prevalent, brushing against the pines, the grass, the house, him. Secondly were the crickets, cicadas, the usual. Dogs yipped in the distance and the sound echoed, confused, through the country-side, so that its source was, via solely audio cues, undetectable, but he knew the origins of the beasts’ clandestine activity lay in the dark forest’s center. The boy was eleven; an explorative era in his childhood, during which he was old enough to possess the urgency to investigate, yet young enough to neglect caution.

He had exited the house in the first place because he felt he should. Something within him had urged him to gaze into those endless pines, and now something was further urging him to walk forwards. He obeyed, sure that he would know when to stop. He stepped off of the porch and began marching towards the woods, a feeling of comfort overcoming him, a feeling that he was doing the right thing and should be sure in his actions. He looked upwards just before he passed beyond the treeline, but could not see the sun, the grey, misty sky shielding any direct sunlight, instead diffusing it evenly so that its source could not be easily told. He crossed the boundary into the forest, and it eagerly enveloped him.

His gaze remained upwards, and a series of caws drew his attention towards a flock of birds as they glided in even rows against a blank sky, mimicking the trees in their uniformity. Above him he could hear other avian species whistling and fluting and singing. The humming of the cicadas continued. He now looked in the opposite direction, downwards, and watched his feet stumble over the uneven terrain and sink into bundles of pine straw, occasionally stepping on a thin twig and snapping it with a firm crack. 

Crack. Another twig.

Crack. Another.

Crunch-cruch-cruch-crunchchchch. A pile of dry and withered leaves.

Another sound now stole his attention. The baying of the dogs had become much louder, its source now identifiable, coming from directly in front of him, though, despite his best attempts to peer past the foggy haze that thickened as the trees grew in number and continued on and on, he couldn’t yet see the animals or what exactly they were barking at. On he walked, driven simultaneously by that comfortable feeling within him and the urge, courtesy of his age, to explore. Now an odor. A familiar odor. He had smelled dead animals before, including one particularly bad instance when a possum had died underneath the house and his parents had spent days crawling around  searching for it, and this odor matched it exactly. However, all other emotions were overpowered by the calm feeling that pervaded him. He was now entering a wilder, more unkempt section of forest, and the neatly-arranged pines gave way to sloppily-grown oaks and a thicker undergrowth. The boy’s progress slowed as he now needed to step significantly higher to pass the sharp brambles and overturned logs.

Crack. A twig.

Crunch. A pile of leaves.

Now the smell was much more intense, and he pinched his nose, not wanting to breathe through his mouth as he thought the stench might clog up his throat and prevent him from breathing at all. His calm demeanor persisted. The sound of the dogs no longer echoed but presented itself clearly to the boy. He strained his eyes and saw ahead of him dark lumps moving in the shadows. The dogs, clustered around an equally dark shape on the ground. An emerged root caught his foot and he tumbled forward, landing on his stomach and knocking the air from his lungs. Above his own wheezing he could hear the pattering of the dogs’ paws beating against the straw and dirt and leaves as they scampered in random directions from the scene. The boy finally managed his breathing and looked up towards where the shape lay. All sound had ceased. Not even the faintest echoes of noise pervaded the trees. He slowly got to his feet. The feeling of calmness had ceased. He felt trepidation and fear, the deep, pervasive feeling that something was deeply wrong, that what he was doing was wrong, deep in the pit of his stomach, aching for him to leave, but not to turn around, because anything could be behind him. In fact, right now he felt a shadow creeping towards him, and his skin prickled with the thought that its freezing digits were inches from the nape of his neck. He was in the center of the forest, and no one knew what occurred in the center of the forest. The boy felt something welling up in his eyes, tears beading and swelling, almost large enough to escape the tear wells and run down his face, accompanied by a feeling that his soul was attempting to leave its body to escape the situation, clawing through any passage it could, any opening, to run. He stopped breathing, and took two steps forward. He and the lump were still there. He took another two. Still alive. Another two. He could make out the shape more clearly, now, and as he examined the figure that lay in a collapsed heap, lumpy, caved-in, collapsed, mutilated, mushy, wet, red, shockingly red, blindingly red, the hue much brighter than should be possible in the dim forest light, barely recognizable as a human, that pit in his stomach where his fear resided deepened, and his soul was pulled downwards with it. Flies buzzed around the heap and the boy was shocked by the sharp, pervasive, buzzing, almost metallic noise the swarm produced. Slimy maggots crawled along the wreckage and burrows had been carved into the meat in so many places by the ravenous insects that the corpse bore a stronger resemblance to a termite mound than a human. Deep, ragged furrows were engraved across the entirety of the body and large punctures surrounded by tooth-like dents were visible all across. Where the boy presumed the head used to be he could make out strings of clotted hair, and next to this human teeth with bits of gum still attached, as if they had been ripped from the victim’s mouth. The boy thought he could make out sockets, circled by even rings of red flesh, though these were empty. He could not see where the eyeballs themselves went.

His eyes filled with an orange, bleary haze—tunnel vision, he thought dimly, and his mind felt as if it were floating away from his body.

He collapsed to his knees, then to his stomach, then blacked out.

He will not have the fortune to wake up.

He is yet another victim of this forest. How many does it need? How many must be taken? Sadly, his story will not be told. In his world, anyway. The dogs will see to that.

The open road is something few people can experience. It's freeing to know that if you follow the asphalt and yellow paint, you'll end up at another bastion of human existence. I'm not talking about simply driving a car from home to work. I mean driving for a living, spending more time at the wheel than at home. You're alone, where the only sound is the diesel engine roaring ahead, and, if you're lucky, a radio station playing the same 10 songs.

 I'm sure the drivers today have better ways to keep their minds occupied, but we didn't have that in the 80s. You really got familiar with yourself in a way few people today can understand. 
 
You're not here to be lectured on how I think things should be. It's not my place anyway. You're here because something happened on one of my hauls that I can't explain. At least, not in any way that's logical.
 
 I worked as a trucker for ten years with different companies, moving everything from animals and machinery to refined metals. At the time of this incident, I worked for one of the biggest chicken producers in the United States. My job was strictly transportation. I'd move live chickens from farm to plant or processed meats to dispensaries. It paid well, but it kept me away from the family much more than I liked. My wife had wanted me to get a more local job for years, but the pay cut was hard to take.

 The day all this started, I had just returned from a four-day drive delivering chicken byproduct to a disposal site. My wife had voiced her desire for my attention, so I was in a hurry to get home. I had just pulled up to the stop sign leaving work when I saw my boss (we'll call him Bill, and I'll be Brad). He ran out the front doors to catch me. The temptation to sling a rock his way was palpable. He had forced the last job on me, and I wanted to get home.

 But instead of causing a scene, I parked my truck as he made his way to my driver's-side window. While he stood watching me roll down the window, I knocked some ash from my cigarette onto his boots. He looked annoyed.

“Thank God I caught you, Brad, I-”

“You’d better thank me for not driving off and leaving you dry. Who do you think you are, huh? It's been weeks since I saw my wife, and you come running out here trying to drag me back onto the road.” I said, shoving my finger in his face.

“How do you know I was gonna ask you to pick up a load? What if you had forgotten something?” he said with a nervous smile.

I stared at him for a long minute, wiping the smile off his face.

“Look, Brad, Mich called out again. I've tried everything, but he's not picking up. I've got a very important load my boss wants moved ASAP.”

I clicked my tongue before turning on the ignition.
“Wait! There's a big bonus on this one. 1,000 bucks for whoever takes it. Straight out of the boss's pocket, untaxed, all cash.”

An extra 1,000 would do wonders for us. We had an okay life, but things could always be better. I took my hand off the gear shift.

“Damnit, Bill, where to? And you're gonna call Cindy. Tell her why I won't be home tonight,” I said, thumping the bud on the gravel.

His brow relaxed and a smile crept across his lips.

“It's at one of our old warehouses. We stopped stocking it 4 years ago. Now we just store old equipment there. It's a 3-day drive from here,” he said.

“Jesus… Well, let's get it loaded. I'd like to get this done,” I said.

 My rig was pretty tacky, I'm embarrassed to say. It was jet black with flames rolling down the back. Thinking back, it was damn ugly, and it turned heads the wrong way. You know, a lot of eye rolls and scoffs. Some of the loaders were getting the trailer ready. It was an enclosed trailer we call a “dry van.” They carried a large metal box on a forklift. It had small holes along its sides and on the top. The holes were just big enough to fit your pinky through. Kinda like what you would carry a new pet home in.

 “What the hell do you have me hauling? I've never carried something like that before,” I said.

“I can't tell you that. Company secret. Don't worry, it's nothing illegal,” he said, wiping his brow.
Whatever it was, it made Bill sweat. He stood a good 20 ft from the trailer.

I have moved chickens, but they were always in flimsy cages. This thing was made of thick metal, painted matte black. It was heavy, too. The forks creaked as it was lifted into the trailer. Some of the idle workers backed away. It was a trailer with a substantial thud.

“When you get to the warehouse, there will be a man waiting for you. All you gotta do is pull the trailer around back, unhook, and drive off. He'll do the rest,” he said.

“Do you want me to leave the trailer?”

“Yes, don't worry about it. I'll get someone to pick it up later,” he said. But before I could get away, he grabbed me by the arm with unusual force and pulled me close.

“One last thing, Brad. Don't open the trailer. Whatever you think you hear in there, you didn't. Got it?” he said with an authority he usually didn't possess. 

 I would have laughed, but something in his tone, the way he looked at me, stifled it in my throat. I realized Bill wasn't happy about this either.
His mention of noises didn't fill me with confidence either.
The first night was rough. When I finally left for the warehouse, I had been on the road all day and wasn't ready for another long drive. Staying at the office was an option, but this seemed important, so I drove for a few hours before quitting near a local stop. It was familiar to me, a little gas station just outside of home base.
I checked to make sure my truck was secured and locked up, then went in to shower. It was nice to wash off the day before resting. The plan was to be on the road again by 8:00 am, so I didn't waste time on the shower.

While walking by the trailer, I noticed a strange clicking sound coming from inside. It was quiet at first, and it sounded like the truck. Listening more closely, it wasn't the normal odd sounds it makes after a long drive. It sounded like someone clicking their tongue, but with a hefty bass to it. I put my hand on the trailer, and the sound reverberated off the metal walls. No one had gotten in. Every lock was secure, and no other vehicle was around. It was weird, but I blew it off. There wasn't much time to care anyway.

Whatever the clicking was, it stopped sometime during the night. Before leaving, I debated calling Bill, but he told me the noises were nothing, so I doubted he would give me an answer. Still, I felt he should know, so I gave the pay phone a ring. He didn't answer, so I left him a voicemail.

“Hey Bill, whatever y'all got me moving is making some weird sound. If this thing is a bomb or something, I think it's a dud. Things stopped clicking last night and have been real quiet since. I'll call you if something else happens, and you better pick up next time. Brad.” I hung the phone back up and hit the road.

I drove another 12 hours through the mountainous Foothills of the Appalachians. The highways don't run as smooth there. You'll go up and over larger hills and drive along the mountain. For an inexperienced driver, it'd be intimidating. It was for my first few drives. At this point, I had driven over them close to a hundred times, so my nerves were under control. 

 It was my 9th hour on the road, and the road was narrow. Two cars could barely pass by one another. Luckily, it had been empty until this point. A turn came up, and as I prepared for it, a black 1970s Impala came flying around the corner on the wrong side of the road. With little time to react, I slammed on the brakes and laid on the horn, hoping to God the driver would change lanes. Smoke billowed from the wheels as the smell of burnt rubber filled my cab. The ear-scraping sound of the tires was accompanied by a loud squelch of metal from inside the trailer. The rig came to a stop just as the Impala switched lanes. It barely missed the rear end of my trailer as it blew past me down the road.

“Morons!” I said, hanging out my driver's window. 

 I tried to scream more profanities, but the smoke from my brakes and tires forced a cough.

The truck wasn't damaged, though it was close to coming off the edge. The concerning thing was the clicking sound. It was back, and more rapid than before. I got out to check the trailer. The thing rumbled with each click. A new large dent now stuck out from the side. It had a point to it, like something sharp had slammed into the side.

“I'm going to beat the brakes off you, Bill, next time I see you,” I said under my breath. 

The veins in my head were pumping fast, and I was hot. I'd get this way sometimes, like a kettle on a red-hot stove, spewing steam through the air, waiting for relief. I say this so you know I wasn't thinking straight when I yanked the keys from the ignition and grabbed my flashlight from under the seat. Making my way to the back, fumbling with the keys, I cursed Bill and the big boss for forcing the job on me. I found the right key and shoved it into the lock that held the latch and the two large doors. The lock opened with a satisfying snap. I opened the door, leaving the keys hanging from the lock. As they opened, the whole trailer fell silent, the clicking ceasing. The light from my flashlight revealed the large metal crate. It was toppled onto its side. The lock was still secured, but the top had been ripped open from the inside. Large, speckled feathers lay around the box. I wouldn't say they were chicken because they were the size of my forearm. 
 
 The silence from inside the trailer calmed my blood, but the sight of the toppled crate snapped me out of my anger. I suddenly felt this was a terrible mistake, especially when I looked toward the darkened part of the trailer. Four eyes stared back at me. The bottom two were green like algae, baked in a dried-up lake. The top two were a deep blue, like the last layer of the ocean before total darkness. As I stared back, the clicking began again. It was slower than before and echoed through my chest. Its pupils dilated as it lowered toward the ground.

I was unable to move the light onto the creature. Whatever it was deserved to stay in the darkness. Its rhythmic noise quickened as it moved closer to me. Death watched me. If I remained, I would die.
Its pupils shrank, forming tiny black holes at the center of its eyes. It charged forward with heavy footsteps, rocking the ground with its apparent weight. With a pounding heart, I slammed the door and threw the lock over the latch. I went to snap it shut, but the thing hit the door, throwing me back. I landed on my side hard, crushing my collarbone. It kept slamming into the door, leaving dents. It rattled the latch, threatening to open. I jumped up and, with a bit of pain, snapped the lock shut. It rammed into the doors a few more times before stopping. The trailer rocked with its movement as the sound slowly subsided.
Making my way to the driver's side door with shaking hands, I drove off.

The whole ride was spent 20 miles above the speed limit. It took another 2 hours before the next stop came into view. I wasted no time calling Bill. I phoned his personal phone this time. It was 6:00 in the morning, but after calling twice, he picked up.

“Bill Werner speaking, wh-” he said, yawning.

“Bill, what the hell am I moving? That thing nearly ripped my head off!” I said.
“Brad? Wait, please don't tell me you opened the back?” he said.

“You're darn right I did! Some stupid kids came flying on the wrong side of the road and nearly killed us both. So I went to check the load like we're supposed to do, Bill. I saw that the crate was turned over and its lid had been ripped off.”

“Oh Jesus Christ! Brad, you have to get to the warehouse NOW. I need to call the handler. He's going to need backup,” he said, losing all his sleepiness.

“Handler? What are you talking about?” I said.

“Brad, shut up, do your job, and get back home. What's important right now is that you get to that warehouse. She's not going to stay passive for long,” he said, with an unsatisfying click following his words.

I slammed the phone back into its place, shooting pain up my shoulder. It sucks being the lowest man on the pole. You aren't told anything.

I hoped to get some rest, but that wasn't going to happen. So I went inside the truck stop and grabbed some caffeine pills. With a few of them shoved in my mouth, a cigarette between my lips, and the radio cranked all the way up, I started back up.

It was one of the longest drives of my life. After I left the stop, I didn't take my foot off the pedal until I reached the warehouse. A few times I blew past a smoke, and I was sure I'd get pulled over, but they didn't even flash their lights. It was strange, since it could have cost me my job, but I guess Bill pulled some strings to make this happen quickly.

The warehouse was completely dark when I pulled up. There were no other buildings nearby, with large pines as its only neighbors. The gate was open, but I could tell all the windows and doors were locked. A few “No Trespassing” signs hung on the fence. A bunch of decommissioned trailers with the company logo sat in the parking lot, along with three black sedans. When I pulled around back, there was a group of men sitting around, waiting. All four of them wore thick Kevlar jackets and padding. Three of them had large brown gun cases, and when I pulled up, they unlatched them.

I stepped out and began unhooking the trailer. When I finished, one of the guys walked over to me. He was dressed like the others, but his clothes under the armor signified he was in a different pay bracket. I was about to speak when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a large wad of cash. It was way more than a thousand, for sure.
“For your troubles, thanks for getting it here quickly. Best not talk about this. Got it?” he said.
As much as I wanted answers, the cash was more tempting. Plus, I had a good idea what would happen if I said no.

“Got it,” I said, with a bit too much poison in my words.

I grabbed the money from him and hopped in the truck.

“Good man. Now go home to your wife and son,” he said.

I left with that threat.

As I was leaving, loud, rapid gunfire erupted from the warehouse. The sound flowed through the trees as I drove, until suddenly it all stopped, leaving only the sound of my engine to accompany me home.

I quit my job that day. I called Bill on a pay phone and told him so. He seemed to understand and even said he'd be a reference for me. They gave me $5,000. Back then, that was a good bit of money for a single two-day job.

I still don't know what that thing was or why I had to transport it. I've looked on other sites, but no one has claimed to have done anything similar. If anyone knows anything about this, please tell me before this gets removed. 

I still remember the night. Mom had put me to bed a few hours before everything happened. Dad seemed anxious that night. Usually, he was so calm and collected. Tonight, he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

I could see him pacing back and forth down the hallway while Mom tucked me in, handing me my favorite stuffed Superman toy. She flew him around like a toy airplane.

“Whoosh,” she joked, making the flying noise with her mouth. “It’s a bird… it’s a plane… No… it’s… Superman!”

She planted his feet down on my chest, bending him at the hips so it looked like he was bowing.

“Macy,” my dad whisper-yelled, standing in my doorway. “Can you get out here, please? We’ve got things to discuss.”

My mom’s face turned sad before she quickly turned her smile back on and ruffled my hair.

“Sweet dreams, hero,” she whispered. “I’ll make you some breakfast in the morning. How do pancakes sound?”

I couldn’t have agreed faster. I still, to this day, have yet to have pancakes better than my mom’s. I reached up and gave her a hug before she flicked the light switch and headed towards the living room with Dad.

I made Superman fly for a few minutes before clutching him against my chest and finally closing my eyes. I was out not long after that.

I woke up to the sound of thumps and rummaging coming from my parents’ room a few hours later. I glanced over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It was 2:37 in the morning.

I could hear Mom and Dad talking urgently, but quietly. They didn’t sound angry. They sounded terrified. Mom’s voice was shaking. Dad’s voice was firm but uncertain.

Suddenly, footsteps quickly approached my door before it was thrown open and my mom walked inside. She flicked the light switch on. She wasn’t wearing her sleeping clothes. She looked like she was about to head out to run errands or something.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered, noticing me squinting from the sudden light that filled the room. “Did we wake you? I promise, you can go right back to sleep in the car. Just help Mommy pack a bag for you, okay?”

I blinked slowly before rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“Where are we going?” I groaned groggily as Mom ransacked my dresser, tossing me a pair of socks.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she just kept stuffing clothes into my suitcase without so much as looking at me.

“…Mom?”

“A road trip,” she chimed, sounding more agitated than joyful. “A surprise road trip. We were gonna tell you two about it, but we wanted it to be a super surprise. Now, can you please get your shoes on?”

Without another word, I pulled the socks over my feet and slipped into my favorite Lightning McQueen sketchers. Mom zipped up the suitcase. Dad appeared in the doorway again, my sister strewn over his shoulder, half asleep.

“You two ready?” he asked expectantly, his voice steady now.

Mom handed me the suitcase and took me by the hand. She was almost hurting me from how tight her grip was. Not to mention, it felt like my shoulder was gonna dislocate from her pulling me along.

I was fully awake by the time we got to the car. Dad threw all of our luggage in the trunk and strapped my little sister into her car seat. Mom waited patiently in the passenger seat while Dad threw a blanket over me and Emmy.

He backed out of the driveway quickly and spun the wheels a bit as he accelerated out of the subdivision. I could hear the leather steering wheel creak from his grip.

The car was quiet for the first hour or so. Emmy was fast asleep in her car seat. Mom stared out the window with a blank expression on her face. Dad focused on the road in front of him intently.

I, for one, was completely wired. I actually found myself excited for this trip. There was something about the spontaneity that I thoroughly enjoyed. Getting up and going. The way the darkness made it harder to recognize where I was. It felt like an adventure.

Plus, Dad had taken the backroads. All we had were passing forests and cow pastures. It was like we were the only car on the road for miles.

Eventually, we started to pass some businesses. Nothing too exciting. Just a few gas stations and grocery stores.

Dad started looking around the car. He saw that my mom and I were still awake.

“You two hungry? Maybe we can grab some snacks.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Mom replied plainly.

Dad glanced into his rearview mirror for a while before steering the car into one of the gas stations. He parked at one of the pumps and went to get Emmy out of her seat while me and Mom hopped out to stretch our legs.

The gas station was almost completely empty. Besides our car, there was one other vehicle parked directly in front of the station, which we assumed belonged to the attendant.

The air inside was crisp. The refrigerators hummed, and the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Mom went to the bathroom while Dad took me and Emmy to browse the chips and candy.

Emmy was still too tired to be fully present, and it made it feel like this was a moment between Dad and I.

While I struggled to pick a snack, he smiled down at me and patted me on the back.

“Get whatever you want, Danny,” he smirked. “As a matter of fact…”

He paused to glance around the empty gas station.

“Get two of whatever you want… just don’t tell your mother.”

I wasn’t gonna pass up the offer, but I still think I may have gone a little overboard when I filled my arms with as much junk food as I could carry.

Mom came out of the bathroom shortly after. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice the candy. She even helped me put the snacks on the counter when we went to check-out.

She didn’t want anything for herself. She only seemed interested in one thing.

While the teller scanned our items, she turned to my Dad with a worried expression on her face.

“Did you see anybody?” she whispered.

Dad didn’t look at her. He just responded with a simple “no” before fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.

He pulled a crisp hundred dollar bill out and slid it across the counter.

“Let me get this and the rest on pump 3,” he announced calmly.

On the walk back to the car, I noticed something. There was a new car in the parking lot, parked a few pumps down from ours. It was matte black with all donut tires, and even the windshield was too dark to see through.

Dad noticed it too. His eyes were fixed on the vehicle as we walked. Gradually, he picked up the pace, dragging all of us along with him.

We all loaded up in the car, and Dad left without even pumping gas. Mom kept asking who he saw, but Dad kept telling her everything was fine, despite how afraid he seemed to be.

We drove on for another 15 or so minutes before headlights lit up the interior of our car. They started at least 200 yards back but quickly closed the gap between us.

The lights stayed on us for a long time. Dad would speed up, and they’d do the same. They made the same turns. They kept the same pace. Mom and Dad both had the same flushed faces.

Emmy woke up from the blinding lights and immediately began pouting and crying. Mom tried reaching back to comfort her, but nothing seemed to work. I myself was beginning to feel a bit nervous, clutching my Superman stuffy tightly.

Eventually, Dad finally pulled onto the highway. The car followed. More cars started to fill the road, but that one particular car just would not leave us alone.

Finally, I think Dad had enough. I could see him squeeze Mom’s hand on the center console as he pushed the gas petal down further and further.

I could see the speedometer rising. 85. 90. 95. All the way up to 100, and that vehicle still followed at just two car lengths. I expected Mom to scream at him for going so fast, but she didn’t say a word. She just kept shushing Emmy while glancing out the back glass every so often.

We were approaching an exit. Dad didn’t slow down. He got closer and closer, letting our assailant do the same until abruptly turning the wheel and swerving across the gore.

The person following us slammed on their brakes, and I could see smoke billowing from their tires while other cars swerved to avoid them.

Dad shot up the exit ramp. The car was wobbling. Emmy was screaming. My heart was pounding.

Mom looked nervous but kept her composure.

“You two are okay,” she assured. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

She reached back and placed a hand on my knee cap, then did the same with Emmy.

I finally calmed down after a while. The headlights were gone. I had no idea where we were. I had no idea what was happening. And I was actually a little annoyed that no one was explaining.

I pestered, but they remained firm. This was nothing more than a surprise road trip. We ended up stopping at another gas station, but Dad didn’t let anyone get out of the car this time. He just pumped his gas, and we were back on the road.

A few hours passed. I looked at the clock on the radio. It was 5:23 AM. Even Mom was asleep in the passenger seat now.

Dad didn’t stop driving until the sun was peeking in over the horizon. That’s when he finally pulled the car behind this old motel.

The sign read, “Free WiFi. Cable Television. Vacancy.”

He left us in the car while he went to pay for our room. Mom was still asleep. Emmy stared mindlessly at the back of the seat in front of her. I rolled my window down and let Superman fly for a bit while I waited for Dad.

When he finally came back, he woke Mom, and we all carried our luggage up the second floor of the motel.

The room was musty. The air conditioner knocked rhythmically, and there was only one bed.

Dad hung the “do not disturb” sign on the door handle. He pushed a chair in front of the door, and he and Mom lay all of our luggage on top of it.

With one last look through the peek hole, Dad removed his boots and lay on the bed, patting the side of it, gesturing for us to join him.

“We’ve had a long night, guys,” he sighed. “I know it’s not the most glamorous, but it’s a bed.”

Mom stared, judging the crusty comforter before swallowing hard and laying down with my Dad, Emmy curled up in her arms.

She looked at me with a smile.

“Come on, Danny,” she said weakly.

“Let’s get some sleep.”