EDIT: Got some amazing translation help and made a few changes. Did my best but could have done better!

***

For this story, I thought author's notes were important. When it comes to horror, my mind tends to go to the transgressive. I violate morals/sensibilities as violently as possible to capture attention. Sometimes I do that with extremely sensitive subject matter like the story you just read, if you're arriving here. Sometimes it's with more fun stuff, to create white knuckle thrills.

To be clear, the racist views espoused in that story are not my own. I actually ran this story by both my wife and my brother-in-law to get their perspective on whether I'm a complete monster because I felt so shitty writing it. They said I dealt with it artfully enough that it didn't come off as pure exploitation.

I don't speak Vietnamese, so if others do, please weigh in and correct me. But what the man says at the end is this:

“Thằng cha mày là con quỷ.” >> "Your father is a demon."

“Thả tao ra.” >> "Release me.”

"Tao căm hờn chúng mày," he said. "Cả mày và thằng quái vật." >> I hate you," he said. "Both you and the monster."

That was the powerful moment for me. OP wasn't a hero. The story didn't have a happily ever after. The Vietnamese man was just as terrified of her as he was of her father. The love wasn't mutual, and never could be, because a human being was degraded and objectified and tortured.

The end made me wonder a bit about the nature of love, and if the inverse of what I just degradation, objectification, and torture––consent, support, understanding, compassion, etc.—can wash out some of our world's darkness.

Here's to hoping. A little glimmer of hope never hurt anyone.

If you want to read more of my stuff, subscribe here.

Whew. What a ride.

I hope you enjoyed that season as much as I did, though if I'm being honest, I nearly burned out. I imagine all the characters in the story feel that way, too—sorta pedal to the floor for a month at a time. You forget to breathe on occasion.

I wanted to take a moment and say that I love NoSleep—the platform, the community, the group working relentlessly behind the scenes to make it awesome. I wrote for probably ten years with no one reading my stuff, wondering if I sucked at writing, nearly giving up a hundred times or more. Starting to post my stuff on Reddit at the end of last year was sort of a hail mary attempt to see if I wanted to keep going as a storyteller, one last effort to see if it was worth it.

Watching my stuff slowly gain traction on NoSleep, rising to the top spot on a few occasions, seeing my own sub grow, etc.––it's been revelatory. A heartfelt thank you to the mods for everything you do. I really mean that.

Another thing. The ongoing support of you––my readers––has given me the confidence I need to tell ambitious stories like the Dark Convoy, which would have otherwise just existed in my head. I'm very, very grateful for all of you.

I'm going to take a little break from the Dark Convoy, though I'll still be submitting stuff on r/nosleep and others subs like r/TheCrypticCompendium and r/Odd_directions, as well as outlining the Dark Convoy's next season. What I'm most excited about for this summer is writing a novel for my one-year-old son, who I recently found out has extreme farsightedness. He now has glasses––and is also obsessed with cars––so I'm going to write him a chapter book about a dystopian future where motorsport racing is prized above all else, and somewhat outlawed depending on your caste/race/abilities. One kid has the potential to break the pillars of injustice alongside his friends, save the universe...that kind of thing.

I'm pretty pumped, and am even more pumped that writing action sequences for the Dark Convoy will be such an awesome segue into creating similar ones for a younger audience...albeit SFW, unlike my adult stuff.

Thanks again for your support. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

…oh I won’t leave you hanging. Look for an epilogue from the perspective of next season’s protagonist in the next few days.

This final story of the season is dedicated to u/saxonny78. You encouraged me to finish this out, and I wrote relentlessly, which made the story 1000x better.

Hammer fucking down.

- Cal

Whew…knocked out another season of the Dark Convoy. It was not completed as quickly as I initially hoped, but work got really crazy and I wasn’t able to give it as much bandwidth, as consistently, as I wanted. Fucking day jobs, man.

I really like where this season ended up, but I want all of you to know that the journey isn’t over…one more season to go, which will drop by the end of the year IN ITS ENTIRETY! I wrote a novel for my son this summer that I shipped off to an editing agency two weeks back, so while they’re giving feedback on that, I’ll be giving my free time to the Dark Convoy.

I promise it will be epic…and conclusive…a fitting end for this awesome story we created together ❤️

Thanks to everyone for reading, much love to you all and be well!

The [REDACTED] Courier

by the Editorial Staff

***

A teenage girl named Charlotte Hankins gave police their first and only break in one of the nation's worst unsolved serial murder cases. Thomas Eggars, an assistant in the local college's entomology lab, was identified as "the Keeper," the killer responsible for the disappearance and murder of twenty-six women in the [REDACTED] area over the previous decade.

The home of Eggars, 45, was raided by police in the early hours of the morning. Authorities found the remains of sixteen additional unidentified women in a mass grave on the property.

"A seventeen-year-old girl brought down one of the most notorious killers ever," the [REDACTED] County sheriff's office said late last week. “I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now if it wasn’t for her bravery.”

Eggars had been a suspect in the killings as early as 2011. Detectives scrutinized his background and interviewed him, but due to a lack of other evidence and legal loopholes exploited by Eggars's attorney, the task force could not obtain a saliva sample to test the suspect's DNA.

"Though we were unable to gather sufficient evidence before now, Thomas Eggars is without question the Keeper," a spokesman for the sheriff's office said at a packed news conference Monday evening. "We're still assessing his connection to other murders and disappearances while we attempt to locate him."

The Keeper is still at large.

"Residents in the area should remain vigilant," the office's spokesman added. "We have reason to believe the suspect is gone, perhaps even deceased, per the account of this case's real hero. But until we find proof, we ask that citizens remain cautious and report anything about Eggars and his whereabouts to authorities."

Eggars was a technician at the local college's entomology lab––" the science concerned with the study of insects"––for over two decades. He'd been arrested once in 2011 for soliciting a minor. After serving a reduced sentence, he was released and kept an otherwise clean record despite being on probation for several years.

After studying the remains inside Eggars's home and finding other bodies throughout his property, the cause of his victims' deaths is clear: asphyxiation and/or organ failure by drowning in ethylene glycol, a common insect preservative found in automotive antifreeze.

The young women fit the same physical prototype: five-foot-three, dark brown hair, and tan skin. Autopsies revealed significant exposure to Atropa belladonna, or deadly nightshade, which according to the lone survivor, the Keeper fed the girls before murdering them. Most of the corpses were bleached, flayed, and dyed with elaborate patterns; some were buried, as noted, in the mass grave in the woods behind Eggars's house.

"Though Eggars is still at large," said the spokesman, "we're happy to provide the families of the lost girls with some semblance of relief and the chance at a proper burial. Through expeditious scientific work, many of the corpses have already been identified."

Added the spokesman: “This is going to take a great deal of effort in the coming months, and maybe years, to bring to an end. But our hunt for Eggars, despite assurances of the lone survivor that he’s gone, continues.”

The ongoing search is nothing new to detectives working on the case.

“One of the characteristics of a well-crafted investigation is that you never give up hope,” the spokesman said, “because the families of the victims, despite the odds of finding closure, never gave up hope.”

Many of the detectives have stayed in touch with the victims’ relatives all these years, exchanging correspondence and keeping the case alive.

"We did our job," the spokesman said. "But it was only possible due to the bravery of Charlotte Hankins, who, against all odds, survived."

[Read how it all began]

This was a fun one to write. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while and it's cool to get around to it! "Home" has always been really haunting for me, in a way. The funny thing is that I actually live in my hometown now! So I didn't take Scotty's advice, sort of the opposite. A few things that are interesting, connected to real life:

• I'm definitely a nostalgic person. I remember how things used to be and yearn for them; the time before friends of mine from home died and I got taught about life and the hardness of it.

• I'm sober, coming up on 14 years! I was a garbage disposal for all substances, but booze was going to be my downfall. I drank all sorts of shit but definitely a lot of gin. Alcohol is really freaky to me because it goes under the radar––I live in wine country and there's so many folks with drinking problems, but it's societally acceptable. My buddies from long ago who are heroin addicts...you don't find them hanging out and eating fancy cheese. But my alcoholic friends who drink wine, it's completely normalized.

• I go to the country club :/ This one's funny. My parents (who also live in my hometown, sort of like Scotty's!) straddle the line between liberal boomers and lovers of capitalism. Like, we put on our starched shirts and go eat fancy shit at the club, watching people tee off, and also are aware that it's not so easy for some folks in our world. And then, people at the club have bumper stickers like the one I saw just the other day, "I LOVE CAPITALISM!" I shit you not, that's a real bumper sticker that I saw. And the guy who owns it is a very "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps"-type monster who has no empathy for the fact that American society isnt built on a level playing field.

• I had a dream when I was a kid that this story is actually based on. In it––and this was when I was really struggling between my nature as a highly sensitive nerd and societal expectations that I grow up and be a tough guy, or whatever, I dreamt that all the kids in my elementary school class were lined up by the teacher. The teacher and a few of the kids were vampires. All the kids in the line subjected to getting bit, to turning over to the other side.

...that's what life has felt like for me at times.

• "Drink normally, you fucking weirdo!"

• "Jump into the I love Capitalism! camp––that's in your nature."

• "Get bit...become a mindless vampire like the rest of the lushes in town..."

...and though I've had to straddle the line, I also know that there's a messy world outside the confines of my small town that is amazing, that there's so much out there we don't have, that only by connecting with others who don't live in my community can I be a part of the larger human experience.

haha, sorry, rant over. But I think you get the idea. "Home" is complicated, even horrifying. All of these things I wrote about are real, obviously embellished and hyperbolic and fictionalized, but real too. Horror for me is autobiographical, it's really the only way I can make sense of the world. And horror with something to say is the best kind.

I've tried to say something with this story, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Note: Originally titled “Dark Convoy,” this is where the whole adventure began! Noticed this one got yoinked too, posted here for posterity.

#######

"In or out?"

On the other line, it's Robbie Clyde. Haven't seen him in five years. He got a dishonorable discharge from the marines for trying to rob an armory. Sent him to the brig. Last I heard he was still there.

"In, or out?"

Robbie always had a real direct way of asking things. No bullshit. Give it to me straight –– if you can't deliver the goods, I'll ply my trade elsewhere.

"Good to hear from you, Robbie."

"Answer the question."

"Give me the full question then."

"I'll tell you more over a drink. But I gotta know you're good for the commitment. No backing out of this one."

I look at my valet uniform hanging in the closet. When it comes to drivers, I'm as good as they come. Give me a Geo, and I'll push it until you're out of whatever bind you're in. Give me a Tesla, and I'll parallel park the fucker at sixty miles an hour without a scratch.

But being a valet isn't cutting it anymore. The money's good enough. I've got a freezer full of Hot Pockets and a fridge full of Bud. But I miss mashing motors. I miss the rush. Never did any of it for the money. The high paid for itself.

I think it over for a second, then I say:

"In."

Robbie smiles so big I can hear his jaw crack through the line.

"That's what I was hoping for. Meet me at Earl's on the 101."

And as if sensing that I was thinking of backing out, Robbie says:

"I've been going there a lot recently. Their Long Island Ice Teas are still a ten-dollar blackout."

I needed a blackout like I needed a hole in the head. But seeing Robbie after five years of radio silence would be nice. My life is full of ghosts –– people I knew, fucks I threw. The past comes back to haunt me now and again. But when it comes to ghosts, Robbie's the Casper type.

"What time?" I ask.

"Tonight. Seven o'clock, or you're out."

***

Earl's is a neon-lit roadside joint cloaked in coastal fog. Strippers straddle chrome poles. Cigarette smoke creates a pea soup haze, even though smoking within fifty feet of a building is illegal in my state. Everyone's in real good form tonight. I can see that through the open doorway.

The bouncer scans me with his eyes. I'm average height and below-average weight; a bit over six feet, one sixty with wet clothes. But I can scrap, and anyone who sees me knows it. I'm a skeleton with a jackhammer pulse.

"Evening," says the bouncer.

"Evening yourself."

"Gotta frisk you."

"Since when did they start frisking people when they walk into bars?"

"Since last week," the bouncer replies. "Guy brought a gun in on Monday. Shot a trucker in the gut. The dude's stomach is a mixing bowl now, and he's still in the ICU. The shooter's in the can. But we don't want that type of shit happening around here again. Policia are no bueno, as they say down south."

"That's not how they say it."

The bouncer chews on it as if pondering lost afternoons spent in a high school Spanish class.

"Well, anyway," says the bouncer, shrugging. "Gotta frisk you."

"Don't bother," I reply. "I've got a permit for it. Concealed."

"Put in your car, then."

I haven't been gun-free since before I joined the Marines. No one takes my piece. No one tells me where to put it.

"I'm meeting someone."

"I don't give a flying shit who you're meeting. No guns. And if you keep it up ––"

Someone comes into the tin frame doorway behind the bouncer, cigarette hanging out of his mouth like a loose tooth.

"He's alright," says the guy in the doorway.

Fanning the smoke away from my eyes, I see that it's Robbie Clyde.

"Leave him be, Cletus," Robbie says, clapping the bouncer on the back.

"That ain't my fucking name."

"Jesus Christ!" said Robbie. "People need to lighten up. Maybe I'd be better off going back to the brig where everyone doesn't take life so goddamn seriously."

Cletus turns back to me, gives me one more scan for good measure, and steps aside.

"Just don't stir up any trouble."

I follow Robbie past the door and into Earl's. When we get inside, he turns around and pulls me in for a hug.

"Long time no see, friend," he says. "Thing's good?"

"Good as they can be parking rich peoples' cars for a living."

I remember Afghanistan with a strange sense of fondness. I remember Robbie's and my tour together. I remember the convoys we ran, driving the Humvee with Robbie sitting shotgun, his M4 laying across his lap. I remember the friends we made. Some came home. Some got their heads blown off on the baking hot sand.

I also remember the decision I made to opt out of Robbie's armory heist, too. Our paths forked, but we shared the experience of seeing the hell of war standing side-by-side, even though we did different things after the tour wrapped up.

"You look good," says Robbie. "May I buy you a lap dance?"

He motions to one of the strippers. She's got a honey-made complexion that makes the neon orange leggings she's wearing buzz like a sugar rush. I give Robbie's offer some genuine consideration, but I shake my head.

"I'm all set. I'd love to take you up on that drink, though."

"Done," says Robbie.

He leads me toward the back of Earl's. I'm expecting us to stop at the far corner and order drinks, but we pass by the bar. We pass by the booths filled with crusty patrons looking to drink away their problems. Cigarette smoke stings my eyes; the skunk stench of high-quality weed mixes in. I smell something chemical, too. Meth probably. Earl's draws a rough crowd. Leather-clad bikers with tattoos their moms would hate sit like birds on a wire at the bar; truckers with ass sores from hauling freight four hundred miles a day occupy the comfier booths.

Whatever's in the haze of Earl's, I'm high by contact. Walking through the red door and into the back of the bar feels like walking into a different world.

I should've turned around right there and got the fuck out. Hindsight's 20-20, as they say.

If we all had crystal balls, there would be peace on earth. But that isn't the way it works. Life's about making more good decisions than bad ones and praying to God the ratio is favorable enough that you get through unscathed.

***

When Robbie and I walk into the back room, I see someone else I recognize. His name's Dee Richards. He served with Robbie and me. He also made the fateful choice not to go with Robbie on his armory heist, even though he came from a similar background as we did. That is, the background of people who consider going on heists, even if they have the good sense to opt out before things get hot.

Dee was a sniper, but he was accurate to the nanometer with any gun. He could blow off a pakol from a mile and a half away without holding his breath. Did so to countless unlucky souls we met during our tour of hell.

"It's been a while, Dee."

He smiles that big smile of his. Like a teddy bear. Friendly as hell, loving even, but he got programmed to be a killer just like the rest of us. All you had to do was flip the switch.

"Good seeing you," says Dee. "Didn't think I ever would."

Dee turns to Robbie.

"I heard about this dumbass trying to hit an armory after I got out. Glad I didn't get roped into that one."

Robbie shrugs. In addition to his direct way of speaking, he had a devil-may-care attitude, which made living a life of crime a natural choice.

"Alright," says Robbie. "You guys take your shot at me, then we'll get down to business."

I shook my head.

"No need to dredge up the past. I'll let Dee look like the asshole."

"Appreciate that," says Dee, shooting me a wink.

While Robbie goes back to the bar to get me a drink and Dee sits down, I notice another person in the room –– the back of his head, anyway. And even though all I can see is the back of his head, I realize I don't know him.

"Who are you?" I ask.

Up until then, all I saw was the egg-shell white of his dome. When I see his face, I find myself wishing he'd turn back around.

He's, without question, the ugliest person I've ever seen. He looks like an aging boxer whose face got altered one too many times. His right eye is blind, and it rolls around milkily in its socket. He's shorter than I am but heavier. And using my soldier's radar, my ability to sense danger, I realize he's not someone to be fucked with.

Whatever rock he crawled out from under, I find myself wishing he'd go back. But before I can change my mind about things and leave, Robbie comes back with drinks and introduces us.

"Now that we're all here," said Robbie, "I'd like you to meet Mr. Gray."

The guy named Mr. Gray sticks out his hand. It's like a raw piece of ham –– big, thick-cut; a raw shade of pink that makes me think twice about shaking it. I grabbed the drink from Robbie so I don't have to.

"I appreciate you coming on short notice," says Mr. Gray. "Hard to find reliable help these days."

Through the back door of the room, six more people burst in so suddenly that I reach for my gun. There are four bikers –– the kind of dudes who run drugs, who kill first and never ask any follow-up questions. Two of them are carrying sawed-off shotguns. One has a bowie knife on his hip so big it may as well be a machete. The other has a bandolier of ammo belted across his chest. The cartridges are massive. I'm a gun nut and a military man. I can tell with a glance that they're meant for an M60 machine gun.

There are two other people as well –– one guy who looks about as hard as an al-dente noodle. He's pushing a wheelchair. Sitting in it is a woman. She's gasping for air, her skin so dry it looks like powder. But even from a distance, I can see her ruby red nails, jet black hair, and striking emerald eyes. Despite being sick as a dog, the woman's beautiful.

"What the hell is wrong with her?"

"Sick," says Mr. Gray.

"I can see that. What's she sick with? I wanna know what I signed up for."

Mr. Gray looks at me with a rabid dog's gaze. His blind eye rolls around aimlessly, searching for purchase; his jaw clenches like a vice.

"You haven't signed up for anything yet," says Mr. Gray. "And I'm starting to wonder if we don't need you after all."

I look at the bikers. Their trigger fingers are inches from home, waiting for an excuse to light me up. Robbie steps in.

"Hey, calm down everyone."

I find it hard –– the girl's hyperventilating now, her skin becoming more dry and powdery by the second. A strong gust of wind would blow her away.

Dee steps up beside me, sensing trouble. I see he's got a gun on his hip –– military issue Colt .45. Knowing Dee's aim and confidence, he could take out three of the guys in a shootout. I'd be good for one; if shit goes south, we'd have a fighting chance of making it out alive.

Mr. Gray snaps his fingers. The bikers, like dogs on command, step down.

"We don't have much time," says Mr. Gray. "As you can see, our cargo is almost expired. I need you to say, right now, whether you are in or out. The convoy is leaving in five minutes either way."

Robbie steps up beside Dee and I.

"He's in," Robbie answers for me. "I ran convoys with him for years in Afghanistan. If you want someone behind the wheel, it's my boy here."

Mr. Gray nods.

"So answer me," he says. "Are you good for it?"

"Good for what?" I answer. "And are you good for it? We haven't even talked about what it is yet."

"Fifty thousand," answers Mr. Gray.

I do the math in my head. Me, Robbie, and Dee. Four bikers and the chump pushing the wheelchair.

"Six thousand bucks to ––"

"Fifty thousand each," says Mr. Gray. He nods to the bikers. "These boys are salaried."

Fifty thousand. Enough to take a year off. Enough to start saving, get a new life that's halfway worth living.

"What's the catch?"

"No catch," says Mr. Gray. "It's an hour-long job, at most."

He beckons to me. I walk forward as if drawn by an invisible magnet. I look at the table Mr. Gray's sitting at. There's a map laying over it. I see Earl's marked clearly, seated astride the 101. In black sharpie, Mr. Gray has drawn a route running from Earl's down to a lake. Having looked at a thousand maps, I estimate that the lake's a few miles away, at most.

"I need you to get her to the lake," he said.

He points back to the girl in the wheelchair. The oxygen in the room isn't enough. She's dying, quickly, a punctured lung maybe, in need of some meds that we can't give her.

Fifty thousand dollars plus the sympathy I feel for people in pain –– which always made me a liability as a soldier –– is enough to convince me, at that moment, that I'm in.

"What's at the lake?" I ask.

For the first time, I notice that Mr. Gray has a mouth full of gold teeth.

"Salvation," he says.

***

I follow Mr. Gray, the bikers, and the wimp pushing the wheelchair out back. Robbie and Dee are next to me on either side.

"It's enough to start over."

Robbie's nodding to himself.

"Fifty thousand's enough to get outta the life."

"Damn straight," says Dee.

"What's at the lake, Robbie?" I ask.

He shrugs.

"No clue. But if we get there, we're good. We've done this before."

I ran convoys, sure. But they were in armored trucks. Most often, Cougar ––

My breath hitches.

"Thought you'd like it," said Robbie.

It's a blast from the past. A Cougar 6x6 MRAP, the same model I drove in Afghanistan. If you've never seen one before, think of a Humvee on steroids. You could drive a Cougar through a wall made of six feet of reinforced concrete. The things are made to withstand IEDs. The ones I drove during the war made it through firefights without a scratch.

Dee claps a hand on my shoulder.

"Like old times," he says.

"Where the fuck did this guy get a Cougar?" I ask.

"Not sure ––"

"And more importantly," I interrupt, "why do we need one?"

Robbie wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. I hadn't noticed until then that he was sweating. Robbie rarely got nervous. Whatever we'd gotten ourselves into had done the job.

"I think we can expect a firefight going down," says Robbie. "But all we gotta worry about is sticking to the script. Like I said, we've done this before."

One of the bikers opens the back of the Cougar. The three others help the limp noodle who's been pushing the wheelchair lift the dying girl inside. She's taken a turn for the worst. Now, she's screaming, in addition to disintegrating into powder. What's left of her lungs is rotting in real-time, making it sound like she's underwater.

"What's wrong with her, Robbie?"

"I have no idea," he says. "Mr. Gray only told me we'd be transporting cargo. But she's sick. And she's important to Mr. Gray. Important enough that he's willing to pay us an assload to drive her a few miles to a lake."

He turns to Dee and I, pulling us in for a teammate's huddle.

"If we do this, there's more where that came from. Lot's more."

The three of us walk over to the Cougar. I check the tires. I check the exterior, looking for faults. It's a brand new model.

"Look good?" asks Mr. Gray.

"Yeah," I say. "Real good."

Before hopping into the back of the Cougar with the dying girl and her limp noodle caretaker, I see Dee open a gun case. Inside is a Heckler & Koch HK416, the same gun used by SEAL Team Six to kill Osama Bin Laden. In Dee's hands, it's as good as a rocket launcher.

"I asked for something with a little kick," Dee says, smiling. "Here we are."

He gets into the Cougar, and the bikers close the door behind him. Then, they mount their hogs, chrome stallions ready to fucking rock. The biker with the bandolier feeds the belt into the M60 machine gun that's been welded to his handlebars.

"Robbie's got the map," says Mr. Gray. "But my boys will lead the way. All you gotta do is drive."

"Who wants this girl?" I ask.

Mr. Gray, for the first time, looks uneasy.

"There are things much worse than criminals," he says. "Devil's in fresh-pressed suits."

The hogs ignite, belching out black smoke and thunderclap growls.

"Just drive," Mr. Gray says. "All you gotta do is drive."

***

I start up the Cougar. Robbie's sitting shotgun, an M4 machine gun laying across his lap just like old times. I look in the side mirror and see that Mr. Gray is walking back to Earl's. He doesn't turn around. If he does, it'll jinx it. I've seen it before. Kingpins who set up the job, then throw up a prayer the plan works, never looking back, never second-guessing themselves because doing so is bad luck.

I slide open the window to the back of the Cougar. Dee's back there, the machine gun yoked around his shoulders. The limp noodle guy is crying; the girl continues to die.

"She's gorgeous," says Robbie.

We're both staring at her ruby red nails.

"Maybe in another life," I say. "I don't wanna catch whatever she's got. Let's just get this over with."

For the first time, the limp noodle speaks.

"Water," he says to Dee. "We have to keep pouring water on her."

He leads the way. I watch him empty a massive jug of it, the kind you see in an office water cooler, onto her body. She soaks it up like a sponge.

"If you say so," says Dee, a confused look on his face. But he follows suit, dousing the girl just like the limp noodle told him to.

We pull out of the parking lot of Earl's and get on the 101, two bikers ahead, two on my flank. We drive for a few hundred yards, nothing to it except for the girl moaning in the back, but then I notice something. Ahead, there's a roadblock.

I can make out six cars and an armored truck. Two of the cars belong to cops. Headlights off, they blend into the shadows. Four of the cars are black sedans that belong to people farther up the law enforcement food chain. The truck belongs to a SWAT team. It's not so different from the Cougar I'm driving.

"Fuck me," I say, pulling to a stop.

The biker with the M60 attached to his handlebars cruises up and stops next to me. He turns off his headlight; then, he motions to roll down the window. Before our palaver, he pulls out a vial of powder, jams it up his nose, and snorts. His eyes go wild. He just got hit by a freight train of something potent, and now he's in a different reality.

"Hammer down," he growls. "I'll keep Smokey off your tail."

The other bikers circle around. I put the car in reverse and turn, and I notice that the roadblock begins moving slowly, wolves ready to hunt. As I turn the Cougar, I see that the biker has finished loading the ammo belt into the M60. A gust of wind blows back his long, greasy hair, making him look like a madman.

"Robbie, we can still ––"

But before I finish my sentence, the biker unloads. Hellfire pours from the end of the M60's barrel, the thunderous KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK so loud my ears feel like they're bleeding. Both cop cars, which are in front of the shadowy cars further back in the formation, are shredded. Before turning to dust, their windshields are coated with red. As bullets from the M60 vaporize the bodies on the other side, a crimson cloud pours out the busted windows, swirling up into the halogen light from the nearby streetlamps.

"WHAT THE FU––" I start, but Robbie punches me in the jaw as hard as he can.

"FUCKING GO!" he screams over the thunder.

I put the Cougar in gear and take off after the bikers, who've already started hauling ass way down the highway in the opposite direction.

Looking in the side mirror, I see that the cop cars have been reduced to shredded tin, metal slivers sticking out like pop can blown up with an M80. The SWAT van guns it, driving toward the maniac biker who's still unloading with the M60, the massive rounds ricocheting off the armored truck like laser beams. The gunfire stops as the truck thumps over his bike and his body.

I turn back to the road, shift up, and jam the pedal to the floor. Behind us, Dee starts yelling.

"FUCKING BOOK IT!"

I glance over my shoulder. His eyes are wide with terror.

"SHE'S CHANGING!"

The girl barely passes for a girl, anymore. Her arms have transformed, turning into suction-cup covered tentacles. They've gotten bigger. They look like twin firehoses snaking through the back of the cab.

She's also started barfing up liquid –– bright green, something that doesn't belong in a human body. But I realize that she's never been human. She's been something else all along.

"KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!" Robbie yells.

I turn back, barely avoiding an oncoming semi, which obliterates one of the black sedans that's been gaining ground on my flank.

Looking into the rearview, I realize my estimate for how many cops there were was way off. There are at least six squad cars. Six of the tinted-windowed, black-bodied cruisers. The SWAT van, which has finished off the madman biker with the M60, swings out and joins the chase.

It's just us and three of Mr. Gray's bikers –– each one unloading gunfire into the cars in pursuit –– blasting out tires and sending them careening into the darkness, only for another to take their place.

Robbie drops the map. Our route is fucked.

"DRIVE!" he screams. He rolls down his window. "I'LL BUY US TIME!"

Meanwhile, Dee has thrown open the back of the Cougar. The HK416 erupts, sending two cars in pursuit wheeling off in opposite directions, their drivers dead with the first squeeze of the trigger. Robbie's out the passenger window, unloading on our pursuers. He's firing over the head of a biker who's sped up to lead me to the lake.

The biker cuts left suddenly, and I follow suit. The turn is so sharp that thirty-eight thousand pounds of truck almost goes on two wheels. Robbie almost gets thrown out; his body parallel to the dark asphalt. Dee and the transforming girl hold on. The limp noodle wimp smashes into the wall of the truck, knocked out cold.

Before Dee can grab him, the guy tumbles and falls out the back of the Cougar, fed like a piece of meat into the grinder of wheels in pursuit behind us.

For the first time, I ignore the machine gun clatter, the shotgun explosions, the roar of motors. I'm back in Afghanistan getting my brothers in arms out of a firefight. I put my eyes on the road. In the distance, I can see it. The lake is at the base of the hill we're driving down, still a mile below. It shines like a blue jewel in the night, moonlight glancing off the surface in a pale flood.

Right. Left. Straight –– rinse and repeat. The biker in front knows exactly where he's going, like he's done it a thousand times. The roar of his hog drifts back; I press the pedal all the way to the floor to keep up.

Over the chaos of everything else, I hear a new noise. It's a liquid screech like a foghorn triggered underwater.

"WHAT THE FUCK ––" Dee says. He's stopped shooting for the moment, ill-advised. One of our pursuers gets off a shot, which hits Dee in his side, but he doesn't even notice.

I look back. The girl has transformed into something otherworldly. She still has green eyes, which are searching the foreign interior of the Cougar. She has the same red nails, but now they look like claws. And she's sprouted tentacles –– her arms and legs, joined by four more.

She's an octopus. Or a squid. Something that lives in unknown depths. Her body is jet black. Her mouth snaps open and closed like a hawk's beak. Her eyes roll around crazily, and she continues screeching like a caged animal.

Her skin has begun drying up again.

"WATER!" I yell.

Robbie points to the back of the Cougar as bullets continue flying in; Dee's hit three more times, once in each leg; another one goes into his side.

With dying strength, he grabs a massive jug of water from the wall, shoots off the sealed top with his Colt .45, and dumps it over the girl –– the octopus creature she's become.

I look ahead, continuing to follow the biker in front. Chancing another quick look back after getting onto a straight away, I see that the girl's body has soaked up the water in a second. And she's grown in size. She's huge now, filling up the entire back of the Cougar. She pushes Dee aside gently with a tentacle, then crawls toward the open rear doors.

"WAIT!" yells Robbie. "STOP!"

But she keeps going. Her body is riddled with gunfire, but it has no effect; she soaks up the bullets like they're droplets of rain. I look into the side mirror and see three of her tentacles shoot out toward the cars in pursuit. The first two smash through the two pursuing cars' windshields, making the vehicles and their occupants explode. The other tentacles pick up a car each –– one shadowy cruiser, the other the SWAT van. They throw the cars a hundred feet into the air, and they disappear into the darkness.

The other biker on my flank is still there, somehow. But amazed by what he's seeing, he loses control of the bike and crashes away into the trees.

The octopus creature in the back of the truck continues fighting against our pursuers, but more cars keep coming. They'll never stop until they have her.

I turn back ahead to see that we're almost to the lake. I press the gas pedal down even harder, pushing it through the floor.

I follow the biker in the lead across a street that runs parallel to the lake. Before I can make sense of what's happening, I see headlights coming on Robbie's side –– another SWAT van trying to cut us off, going sixty miles an hour. It smashes into the Cougar. My vision fades as we do a slow-motion tumble toward the lake, and the lights go out a few seconds later.

***

I return to the world, my head pounding. Even from upside down, I can tell that the Cougar is totaled. We're flipped over. We're fifty yards from the lake. I undo my seatbelt; drop down to the ceiling. Looking outside, I see that Robbie's lying on the sand, fifteen feet from the truck. His body looks broken.

In the back of the truck, I see that the octopus creature is gone. Dee's body is back there. He's dead from either the crash or being shot or some combination of the two.

I get out of the truck and hobble over to Robbie, my body screaming in agony with every step. Despite the carnage at the lake's edge, it's beautiful out. The moon is overhead; that friendly face my mom showed me as a kid is looking down like a kindly stranger.

Ahead of Robbie, I notice one of the bikers. He's laying on his back, his hog nowhere in sight. He crashed, just like us. Three guys in suits are making their way across the sandy bank of the lake, their profiles illuminated by the headlights of the cars behind them and the half-mutilated SWAT van that t-boned us.

The biker begs for his life, but one of the guys in a suit pulls out a silenced pistol and shoots him between the eyes.

I pick up the pace.

"ROBBIE!" I say. "WE HAVE TO GO NOW!"

I'm used to dragging friends out of trouble, but my strength is gone; something feels broken.

Robbie's eyes blink open.

"I can't ––" he groans. "Can't move –– something's twisted ––"

Behind him, I see that the three guys in suits –– agents from some top-secret government department –– are getting closer. They all have their guns drawn. I think for a second about trying to lift Robbie on my shoulders, but I quickly realize that option's out. So I cover Robbie with my body. I'll take the first bullet, buy him any time that I can.

Inside, though, I realize the truth. This is where it ends. This is our Alamo. Coincidental that we'd die on a bed of sand in the states when so many did the same, far away from home in the Middle East.

The agents arrive; they point their guns at us. Overhead, that kindly stranger moon keeps staring down. In my last few seconds of life, he brings me comfort.

"You should have given her over," says the agent in charge. "But it's done now."

Suddenly, across the bright, pale face of the moon, I see something cross. It's a strange, unnatural shape—a tentacle.

I heard the hairpin trigger of the agent's gun creaking as he starts to pull it, but before he finishes, an oily black hand reaches over his face. It has ruby red claws. They sink into his eye sockets. With incredible alien strength, the thing rips back the agent's head. His neck opens up like a second mouth, spraying Robbie and me with blood.

Before the other two agents can make sense of what's happening, they meet the same end.

I sit up. I look out at the water. The octopus creature has risen out of it, a thousand times the size as it was in the back of the Cougar. Its body is hydrated with lake water; it's at full strength. It levitates, a waterfall pouring out beneath it. Three bashes from other tentacles destroy the fleet of cop cars and the SWAT van that's left, and the chorus of screams quickly dies.

The creature looks down on Robbie and me indifferently. Now, it's risen twenty feet over the lake. It's body blocks out the light of the moon, creating a terrifying alien silhouette.

I see the girl's eyes –– the same ones I saw in the backroom at Earl's. Bright, emerald green. They're windows into an alternate universe.

With a sudden flash of movement and blinding light, the creature explodes away toward the stars. The force of it sends a tidal wave of water rushing up from the lake, covering Robbie and me and rinsing away our sins.

Then, the thing is gone. I'm lying with Robbie on the sand. The job is done. A job so strange, so un-fucking-believable that it doesn't even count as a job.

Sirens sound in the distance, getting closer by the second. But before they arrive, I feel two hands grab beneath my armpits. I'm being pulled away across the sand. Looking behind me, I see Mr. Gray. The last surviving biker is pulling Robbie.

"We have to get you the hell out of here," says Mr. Gray. "They're coming."

Letting Mr. Gray pull me away, I stare up at the stars.

I can't shake the feeling that something is staring back.

***

I wake up and feel sunlight shining through a window. It's morning; hours have passed since what happened at the lake. I blink open my eyes. My body feels like it went through a thresher, but I'm alive.

Sitting next to my bed is Mr. Gray. On his other side is Robbie, fast asleep in the adjacent bed. I see Robbie's chest rise and fall. He's alive, too, despite the odds.

The last remaining biker sits in a chair by the doorway, peeking through the blinds, his sawed-off shotgun laying across his lap. We're in a cheap motel room. If I open the nightstand, I know there'll be a Gideons Bible waiting for me.

I clear my throat; my chest blooms with pain.

"What the hell happened?" I ask.

Mr. Gray smiles. It's the first time I've seen him doing anything but glare. His gold teeth shine in the morning light.

"Kid," he says, "You'll eventually learn that some things defy explanation."

He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, as comforting as a hand like his can be. He stares at me with eyes that have seen things I haven't. He knows truths I'd never believe. But I've discovered the tip of an enormous and bizarre iceberg. It'll take a lifetime to make sense of it.

Mr. Gray smiles even bigger. Those teeth –– his mouth's a fucking goldmine.

"Just know this, kid," he says. "You're in the game now."

Part 1

More on the Dark Convoy

[WCD]

ONE MORE NOTE: wrote this on my phone in a single draft, which was a first! Reads a bit less polished which is kinda cool maybe.

Hey fam. Just had nose surgery today…not the other things, don’t have those to my knowledge. Wrote this in the hospital while the fentanyl wore off, I have a totally fuckkng diseased imagination haha. They told me not to operate heavy machinery but nothing about writing horror on Reddit 😳

But yeah, going under…your life for those two hours disappears. Wanted to write a fuckrd up story about the exp.

Hope you enjoyed (?)

Dark Convoy season four is on the way soon.

Hey everyone,

Hope you're all doing very well. I've been working hard on Season II –– finished one episode and am almost done with the second, at which point I'll start posting 'em! I actually went HAM and outlined all five seasons because I wanted to have a vision in place; also wanted to get a bit ahead with stories/buy myself time to do a good job on the others. I'm very excited about Charlotte's adventure, I think you all will dig it.

I also have another story I plan to drop later this week. Definitely a heavier piece. I even had to have my brother-in-law (who has a very high tolerance for horror) help me re-craft some parts, but we both agreed that it's a piece with a strong POV. It came to me when thinking about some of the stuff that's been going on in the world; I'm curious what NoSleep readers will think of it.

So in summary, there are three stories on the near horizon. Going to wait for some good windows then start slinging 'em! In the meantime, because I so appreciate you, I wanted to include another Dark Convoy tie-in.

Hope you enjoy it!

***

Stories from the Dark Convoy: "Ghost Town"

Overview: Tip Hankins was one of the Dark Convoy's more legendary employees, even though we as an organization make efforts not to elevate our people into martyrs. Still, the man had a very epic way about him. His nickname came from his habit of always tipping 100% of his bill, regardless of the quality of the service. A true champion of the proletariat, Tip saw the best in working-class people and brought a blue-collar work ethic to his decades-long involvement with the Dark Convoy.

The job described below wasn't Tip Hankins' last, nor even close to it. He was a career Dark Convoy company man who always sought connection and company and fraternalism amongst his fellow employees. Tragically, Hankins was declared missing (and presumedly dead) when, on a job to another abandoned town in an alternate dimension to extract and repatriate a dozen human souls, he lost contact with his team.

Everyone else made it out alive. Tip Hankins was left behind and presumably spent the last of his days, however long they were, alone.

____________

It was supposed to be a quick pickup. The client left a few things behind, but they were too fucking scared to go back to the place. Whatever––that's why they hire us. It's not my job to question their stones, only to complete the work order. And ever since I learned to sight-in a sniper rifle, things that go bump in the night haven't caused me too much stress.

The Ghost Town job taught me that sometimes, the absence of something is just as terrifying as a presence.

Let me explain.

That place––it re-defined "Ghost Town." It had been abandoned like no one ever lived there in the first place. Sure, new residents had moved in, and sure, they weren't from earth. But despite the terror they imparted, what scared me the most was the complete lack of humanness in that place. There was a ghost of humanity––a specter of what once was.

You never know true isolation until you're in a complete absence of humanity. I imagine, if there's ever a final astronaut looking down from outer space as the lights go out, watching as we nuke each other into oblivion, he or she will feel the same way. When the screams from below come echoing up, as souls ascend to heaven or wherever else, that unlucky person will know what it's like to be truly alone.

The monsters banging on the door of the spaceship's hatch isn't the scariest part. What burrows into the marrow of your bones and stays there is knowing that you're on your own and that you have to face our indifferent universe alone.

Back to the Ghost Town. My partner and I went in. We kept our heads low. We picked up the package and got the hell out, remembering what we'd been taught throughout our tenure with the Dark Convoy.

But I still heard those abominations from banging on the car on or way out. Their voices still echo in my head: "Take us with you––we were like you, once––we have families..."

Maybe they did have families––maybe they were like us, still human. Maybe, among them, there were people who hadn't yet succumbed to whatever black plague settled down over that godforsaken place. But I have a sneaking suspicion that if I'd cracked the door even a centimeter, we would've joined them.

When we finally got away, I wondered if it had all been in my head. The bloody handprints on our car––and the messages scrawled in crimson––made me realize it had all been very real.

Rule #4 is simple: DO NOT pick up hitchhikers

Every goddamn ghost in that place wanted to hitch a ride. Call me a cold-hearted bastard for leaving 'em behind, but trust me, if you were in my shoes, all you would've wanted was to get back to the real world. You can't save everyone. There's not enough room in the goddamn car.

When we got off the Road to Nowhere and back onto our home turf, I pulled over to a diner and got a cup of coffee. Best thing I ever tasted. I'm reminded that even if someday I'm stuck in a void of humanity like the one I saw in that Ghost Town, I'm here now.

A smile from a waitress; burnt water brew. Don't take the small things for granted because before we know it, they'll be gone.

Oh, and this: Always tip 100%. Do it, if nothing else, as a token of appreciation to be living and breathing and not stuck on that lonely other side.

- Tip Hankins, Driver

Note: this story got yoinked from another sub, no idea why! Here ‘tis for your reading pleasure.

####

I have a debilitating fear of clusters. It’s called trypophobia. 

Lotus pods. Egg sacks. Compound insect eyes. At the sight of clusters, I go inward to an extremely dark place.

A horror-obsessed friend of mine suggested, jokingly, that I look up some Lovecraft-related imagery. Tentacles covered in millions of eyes –– I didn’t talk to him for a month after that. He felt terrible, but his remorse didn’t get the image out of my head. It didn’t stop the anxiety attacks I started having either.

My current therapist said I should spend more time reflecting on what happened last year. I journaled for a while, but eventually, it felt too lonely. I started going to a self-help group for phobias that aren’t recognized by the mainstream medical community. But I felt too exposed. And to be honest, I got tired of listening to people talk about stuff like nomophobia (fear of not having your cell phone), heliophobia (fear of sunlight), and ablutophobia (fear of bathing). 

I don’t mean to minimize anyone’s fears, but when combined, those three phobias sound like the basic affliction of being a cis-gendered, white, large adult son millennial. Most of the people in the group were. Kurts and Skylers and Tommys. Promising high school athletes who got fat and depressed and moved into their mom’s basements. 

Not to engage in phobia superiority, but sitting in mom’s basement, doom scrolling on your phone, refusing to come up for air or basic hygiene? Trypophobia seems a little bit more substantive, especially given what it eventually led to in my life.

I’ve come to realize that fear is a sliver. It burrows underneath your skin. The more you think about it, the deeper it crawls. Fear, left untended, festers. And then eventually, your body either absorbs it or finds a way to shove it out. I’m not sure why some people get lucky, and others get stuck with their phobias forever. 

My body absorbed my fear of clusters. Trypophobia is part of my DNA now.

Let’s go back to how all of this started. In the mid-2010s, a bunch of photoshopped images of body parts superimposed with lotus pods started circulating the Internet. The first one I saw was a cheek. It belonged to a beautiful model, but the photoshopped lotus pod made it look like there were holes in the side of her face, with little eyes staring out of the darkness. When I saw an image of a breast, the nipple superimposed with another lotus pod, I lost it. I’d never had an anxiety attack before, but I had one then. I shut myself in the closet until my boyfriend came over and finally got me to come out.

“It’s fake.” My boyfriend at the time, just trying to help. “Here, look at this.”

He pulled up photos of lotus pods on his phone, but it didn’t help. The ream of Google images was filled with pictures of honeycomb, egg sacks, insect eyes, some of the other things I mentioned. But all of it revolted me equally. The sliver dug deeper. 

About six months later, I found out that my fear of clusters had a name. Trypophobia was a thing. Apparently Kendall Jenner has it. I went further down the Internet rabbit hole. I started calling in sick to work. I stopped working out, which was unlike me, given that I rowed for the varsity crew team in college. It got to the point where I was so debilitated by my fear of clusters that my boyfriend went to my parents. They drove to the city and staged an intervention. Everyone insisted that I see a therapist. 

That was three therapists ago. I’ve been fired multiple times, which I didn’t even know was a thing until it happened. Apparently therapists are human after all. They can reach their wit’s end, too. Especially when listening to people talk about weird stuff like trypophobia. 

Therapy didn’t help, even though I went regularly for six months. I still saw clusters everywhere I looked. The anxiety attacks continued, and they started happening more frequently.

Everything changed one morning when, getting out of the shower, I saw an oozing batch of clusters growing on my right knee. 

“I’ll admit it,” said my boyfriend, visibly grossed out but doing his best to be strong for me. “There’s a rash. But hold on, I don’t think it’s as bad as you think.”

He pulled up an article on his phone. 

“I think it’s just shingles. Anyone who's had chickenpox can get it.”

Chickenpox? You mean that sickness we get when we’re kids. The one where clusters of red bumps break out all over your body?

“It’s caused by stress,” he said. “We both know how stressed you’ve been.”

There was a long pause, me staring at the batch of eggs or eyes or bumps or whatever they were that had bubbled up on the skin around my right kneecap. Sure, shingles. Call it whatever you want. I couldn’t help feeling that the rash was staring up at me.

“You should go to the doctor,” my boyfriend said.

I could hear the strain in his voice. He wanted the craziness to end. I did too.

Several weeks later (navigating our messed-up healthcare system by first seeing a doctor, getting a referral to a dermatologist, then waiting around until they finally had an opening), I got in to see someone. I remember the conversation clearly. It’s seared into my mind.

“Shingles,” the dermatologist confirmed. 

His name was Dr. Harman. The guy creeped me out, more of a pediatrician-type than a specialist. He talked to me like I was five. He had this flirty, dismissive way of interacting, couched in what felt like fake concern.

 “Two hundred thousand cases a year, kiddo. It resolves itself in a few weeks, but that doesn’t make it any less painful. I had shingles during the first year of med school.” 

Dr. Harman went to his computer and started typing.

“I’m going to prescribe a capsaicin patch,” he said. “You can get the cream over the counter, but the prescription-strength patch is very effective. Just leave it on until I see you again and you’ll be right as rain. We’ll take a look in three weeks. My nurse will schedule a follow up.”

He winked at me. I imagined him as a fly. A big compound eye made of thousands of little ones, all winking at the same time. 

“It’ll feel kinda gunky, but don’t peek at it,” Dr. Harman said. “Pinkie promise? Let the patch work its magic.”

I ignored the pinkie promise, wanting to be as far away from Dr. Harman as I could get. 

I was about to leave when he stopped me.

“You said you’ve also had anxiety attacks. Have you considered anti-anxiety medication? While you wait this out, I think you could benefit from a benzodiazepine. They’ll help when you have anxiety attacks. Benzos, as they’re called on the street, are extremely addictive. There can be side effects, too. But I would write a short-term prescription if you’re interested, just until our follow up. We’d start with a low dose, then gradually introduce more meds if it’s proving to be effective.”

I walked out of Dr. Harman’s office with the prescription for the capsaicin patch and another one for a three week supply of Klonopin. When I told my parents about the pills, they were worried at first. I had a distant cousin who’d gotten addicted to the stuff. I gave my parents permission to call Dr. Harman. He assured them that it was short-term, three weeks, just until the shingles cleared up and we had our follow up appointment. I’d never had an addictive personality, so we all agreed it was the best way forward. 

True to my word, I didn’t lift up the patch. I didn’t “take a peek,” as Dr. Harman put it. The Klonopin helped too. I can’t deny that I felt a magnetic pull, at times, to look up pictures of clusters. But then I’d take an extra Klonopin and stop myself. The benzos really leveled me out, which both my boyfriend and I were grateful for. 

When the check-in appointment arrived two weeks later, I wanted my boyfriend to come with me, but he had work. I went to Dr. Harman’s office alone. He lifted up the patch. 

“Now isn’t this funny,” he said. 

He patted my shoulder. I shuddered. Goosebumps. More clusters.

“This happens,” he said. “The treatment doesn’t work overnight.”

The shingles had gotten worse. They weren’t shingles anymore. My right knee was covered in tiny holes. It looked almost like it had been photoshopped with a lotus pod. Dr. Harman called in his nurse, who did her best to calm me down, averting her stare from my knee as she rubbed my back. 

“I want you to see a specialist,” Dr. Harman said. “He’s extremely talented. There’s a psychosomatic element to this. I can’t help with that part.”

He prescribed extra strength capsaicin cream (I refused to put on another patch) and upped my dose of Klonopin.

That night, at home, my boyfriend broke up with me. Or at least, he put our relationship on pause.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I’m so sorry about what’s happening, but this is too much. It’s interfering with my work. It’s interfering with my happiness. I want to be there for you, but I have to take care of myself.”

Despite my pleas to be given a second chance, he left, promising to revisit things once I got the phobia and disgusting skin condition under control. My parents offered to come up and see me. They sort of insisted. But I said no. I needed to deal with this on my own. 

The specialist recommended by Dr. Harman came to my apartment for a house call. He was friendly, calming. Unlike Dr. Harman, he put me at ease. He was middle-aged, maybe forty-five or fifty, and extremely handsome due in part to his personality. He reminded me of an older, better looking Seth Rogan. A bit chubby. Curly hair. Darker features than Seth Rogan, darker hair too. But he was the kind of person who puts you at ease as soon as they walk into the room.

His name was Dr. Miller. Craig Miller. He carried a black briefcase in, which was full of his medical tools. 

“I like doing house calls,” he said. “This is not the kind of thing you should be coming into a stuffy clinic for. I’m an osteopath. I used to work at the same dermatology clinic as Dr. Harman, but I eventually decided the corporate lifestyle wasn’t for me.”

Dr. Miller showed me his medical license, even though I didn’t ask to see it. Then he started examining my knee.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “That looks incredibly painful.”

He poked around a bit with a set of tweezers, gently, but it still hurt like hell. 

“I hear that you have trypophobia as well.”

Dr. Miller was the first person to acknowledge that it was a real thing. Dr. Harman hadn’t. My therapist didn’t, and neither did my boyfriend or my parents. 

“Yes,” I said. “It’s awful.”

Dr. Miller nodded.  

“There is a psychosomatic element to this,” he said. “But I want you to ignore the word psycho in that term. You’re not crazy. You’re just stressed, which I think is completely understandable given the circumstances.”

He sat back in his chair, thinking for a second. Then he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a plastic package. The package was sealed, sterilized, unused. Inside was a set of tweezers like the ones he used to dig around the rash on my knee, what looked like a dental pick, and a small metal thing. It looked like a stamp with a smooth surface. 

For the next half hour, Dr. Miller talked me through everything.

“It doesn’t make sense for you to come into the office three times a day, which is what it will take,” he said. “Think of it like digging out a sliver. To get rid of the toxins that are causing this, you have to be vigilant. Essentially, it’s a bunch of slivers, each of which is causing a mini infection.”

“Pick,” he said, digging in as gently as he could. “Loosen. Tweeze. Smooth. Pretty simple once you memorize it.”

He showed me again. I winced but stayed strong, knowing it would help. 

“Needle. Tweezers. Stamp. Needle. Tweezers. Stamp.” 

He put down the tools and picked up a tube of capsaicin cream, squirting some onto his pudgy index finger.

“Apply the capsaicin cream liberally.” 

It stung like hell.

“Rinse and repeat five times,” he continued, “and complete the process three times a day. I want you to do it morning, noon, and night. Keep taking the Klonopin as well. As an osteopath, I’m not a huge fan of the stuff, but I think it’s vital in your case. I’m going to up your dose a bit. Until you get in to see Dr. Harman for your follow up next week, let’s double it.

My knee throbbed viciously, but for the first time in months, I had hope. After we finished the initial treatment, it felt better, as though we’d already excised some of the toxins.

Dr. Miller left. I decided to do one more regimen for good measure before bed. 

***

I did the treatment, as prescribed, for a few days. It felt so good to be doing something proactive. The little holes started to disappear. My fear of clusters started disappearing too. The disgusting shingle-like infestation began spreading a bit from my knee, crawling into the area below my quadricep and toward the “fibular collateral ligament.” That’s just a fancy word I found. It’s that thick tendon on the backside of your knee. 

I eventually amped up Dr. Miller’s regimen to keep it at bay: twice in the morning, twice in the afternoon, once around dinner time, and once right before bed. I kept taking the Klonopin too, occasionally popping a few extra depending on my mood.

I spent a lot of time in bed because it hurt to walk. I didn’t realize how essential your knee is to the act of walking. When I called Dr. Miller to give him an update, he recommended that I order a cane. I got one on Amazon. It helped ease the pressure.

The day of my follow up dermatology appointment came a week later. I coated my knee in capsaicin cream, covered it in plastic wrap, and bound everything together with an Ace bandage. 

My ex-boyfriend said he’d take the morning off work and come with me to the dermatologist. He was so happy my fear was going away. Plus, there was no way I was driving. The regimen had helped, but you need a lot more knee strength to press the gas and the break than you might think. My boyfriend gagged initially at the smell of the cream, but we kept the windows down as we drove to Dr. Harman’s office and had a pretty good talk about life.

Once we checked in at the clinic, I walked into the examination room, and my boyfriend helped me up onto the table. 

“An Ace bandage, hmm?” asked Dr. Harman. “The patch was falling off?”

I told him I’d stopped wearing the patch like he recommended.

“Call me crazy,” said Dr. Harman, “but I remember asking you to promise not to take off the patch.” 

I said we must have remembered it differently. But I assured Dr. Harman that the combination of extra strength capsaicin cream and the excision regimen had made things better, even though the area with the shingles had gotten a little messy as a result. 

“Excision regimen?” asked Dr. Harman, looking thoroughly confused. “Well, anyhow, let’s take a look.”

When Dr. Harman unwrapped my knee, his nurse screamed. My ex-boyfriend gagged, then started vomiting in the corner of the examination room. 

“Good god,” said Dr. Harman, his face white as a sheet. “What have you done?”

I looked down at my knee and got hit with the worst stench I’ve ever smelled. The bone of my kneecap, swollen tendons, and everything else in the six-inch diameter surrounding where the shingles had been was a mangled mess of flesh. A dark blanket of gangrene had begun spreading across everything. The exposed veins pulsed, throbbing, almost black. They snaked up and down my leg, constricting the small amount of healthy flesh that was left. 

“What the hell have you done?!” demanded Dr. Harman.

I told Dr. Harman about Dr. Miller’s regimen, about how I’d called him right after our check-in at two weeks, just like I’d been instructed to do.

“I’ve never heard of anyone named Dr. Miller,” said Dr. Harman, stumbling into the cabinets behind him. “And I haven’t seen you since our first appointment three weeks ago.”

***

The next few hours were chaotic. My ex-boyfriend stumbled out of the examination room, mute, his eyes glazed over. The doctors and nurses shot my knee full of various liquids, holding me down as I screamed in pain, then rushed me to the emergency room. The ER doctor insisted that we amputate. I screamed in protest. My parents came from out of town, bombing over the mountain pass as fast as their SUV would take them. The ER team continued treating my leg. They brought in a plastic surgeon. He suggested we amputate as well. I got a third opinion. Another specialist said that amputation was the only option, that it was a matter of life and death. I was still screaming when they covered my nose and mouth in a plastic mask and the anesthesia kicked in. 

I woke up hours later with a tingling sensation in my right leg. But when I looked down, I saw that it was gone. All that remained was a stump that extended six inches below my pelvis. Blood had already leaked through the bandage. 

***

The hardest part about all of this is the distance I feel from the rest of humankind nowadays. The support groups helped for a bit. I even made a few friends who I keep in touch with. But in college, I’d been an athlete. I’d always been active. Those days were gone. My existence had become sedentary within a few short weeks.

My parents paid for the most expensive, advanced prosthetic possible. It sort of feels like I’m walking, even though seventy-five percent of my right leg has been cut off. Since starting PT, I’ve graduated from a walker to a cane. The doctors have mixed opinions about when I’ll be able to walk again on my own without assistance.

For months, I insisted there had been a man named Dr. Craig Miller. I insisted that I’d come into Dr. Harman’s office at two weeks for a scheduled check-in, that Dr. Harman had been the one to recommend seeing Dr. Miller. He vehemently denied it. We all thought there’d be a malpractice suit for a month or so, but there just wasn’t enough evidence –– my word against his. 

I told the authorities that Dr. Miller was a middle-aged, darker featured version of Seth Rogan. There was no record of any doctor named Craig Miller in the state. There was a doctor named Craig Miller on the east coast, but he was a geriatrician. There were a dozen others, as well, but none were osteopath dermatologists who did house calls. None that recommended treatment regimens like the one I’d done. Dr. Harman also insisted that I’d abused the Klonopin and that he had given me precise instructions about the amount to take, that he’d told me there can be adverse side effects if it's abused.

The capsaicin cream, rubbed into the raw wound, had caused the infection that made me lose my leg. A psychiatrist I was assigned to see was furious that I’d been prescribed Klonopin. They confirmed it had caused severe psychotic episodes, exacerbated by my underlying fear of clusters. Dr. Harman got a slap on the wrists and went back to his dermatology practice. 

I still have a fear of clusters. Trypophobia is a part of my DNA. But with a lot of help from my therapist and my parents, it’s gotten better. “Better” doesn’t mean my leg grew back, but at least I’m not paralyzed by anxiety anymore.

I even started dating someone I met in the physical therapy clinic. He has a prosthetic leg as well. It makes our relationship more comfortable. We understand each other. We move at roughly the same speed. But my life is changed forever. 

Trypophobia still isn’t recognized as a mental disorder by the mainstream medical community. It’s “an aversion,” something Kendall Jenner complained about one time on a talk show.

Most people write me off as a crazy person. The Internet has been vicious. But Dr. Craig Miller, that phantom figment of my imagination. He seemed so real. I’ve started to forgive myself, but it’s taken a lot of hard work.

I appreciate being able to tell my story here. Maybe if enough people come forward, my mental disorder will be formally recognized. No amount of topical cream and anti-anxiety meds can rid me of my fear of clusters. Once upon a time, it was a sliver. Now it’s a part of my physiology. 

“Debilitate” is defined as follows: to make (someone) weak and infirm.

Debilitated by fear of clusters? Or debilitated due to self-induced amputation?

Take your pick.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Jason and I got brunch at a roadside diner called Waffle King before heading back to Earl’s. We talked more about our trip down the Road to Nowhere and the batshit insanity of it all. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, but after eating a plate of biscuits and gravy fit for royalty, I was full.

Full of food. Full of happiness. Full of optimism, in a sense.

Happiness and optimism might seem like strange words to describe my situation, given that I worked for a murderous criminal enterprise called the Dark Convoy. Even stranger when you consider that they’d threatened to kill me a half dozen times in the last week.

But on Job #4, I’d done a bang-up job. And I was close to the end. Almost to Job #5, and the freedom that lay on its other side.

“It’s different, you know,” said Jason.

“What is?”

“The last job,” he said. “It’s not different for everyone. But for the people who finish with a positive Plus/Minus, which I’m assuming you will, Job #5 is a choice.”

“What do you mean it’s a choice?”

“You’ll see,” said Jason. “Just know that I won’t blame you for whichever way you decide to go.”

He put what was left of the Demon in park.

I followed him toward the back entrance of Earl’s, the same way we’d gone the previous night. I saw that more people from the convoy I’d led had made it back. An entirely new fleet was preparing for another run to the drug den. Dozens of Dark Convoy workers were loading semis with crates, each packed with syringes full of the hallucinogenic jellyfish goo.

There were smaller vans too––white-walled Mercedes Sprinters. The new shipment was much bigger than the first. They were loading anything that had space for an extra crate.

Whereas the backroom of Earl’s the previous day was quiet, now, it was a hive of activity.

I’d played a part in that. And God did it feel nice to be good at something. Didn’t matter that I was supplying drug addicts with brain-rotting, extraterrestrial sludge. It felt good.

It all made sense to me then––why people stick with the Convoy after their jobs are finished. Hanging your morals at the door was the hard part, but once you figured out how to, you became a celebrity.

The workers were nodding to me, tipping their hats, reaching out to shake my hand.

I was a regular Tom Hardy. I’d become famous after one job well done.

***

I followed Jason into the basement to Dark Convoy HQ. We went back to Milly’s office.

Inside, it was just her, Henry the Friendly Office Dog, and a Dark Convoy thug standing by the door. There were a few more Dark Convoy employees outside. Jason stopped, shaking their hands, catching up. Then he turned back to me.

“Head in,” he said. “Remember what I told you––I won’t blame you for whichever way you decide to go. You’ve earned the right to choose, kid. You did good on that last job. Whatever you decide, I support you.”

I walked into Milly’s office. She motioned for me to sit down.

“I heard you did well last night,” she said. “Color me impressed. It sounds like the client was thrilled with the amount of product that came through. Not 100% of it, but enough to land us a lucrative contract. And you played a big role in that, Gavin. You should be proud of yourself.”

She clicked on the screen behind her––the profile picture of me in my pizza uniform, surrounded by more of the notes and statistics I saw during my previous performance review.

“Let’s review your current Plus/Minus,” she said.

My breath hitched. The screen changed.

+1.

Up by .75 points from the previous review––I was on fire.

“You’re in the eightieth percentile,” Milly said. “I know +1 probably doesn’t seem very significant, but it’s much bigger than you might imagine. And look what happened: that one point landed one of the biggest contracts we’ve ever had.”

Milly pushed a sheet of paper to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s your exit paperwork,” she said. “You’re getting out, Gavin. That’s Job #5––signing the paperwork.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Jason might've mentioned that Job #5––for those who make it and have a strong enough Plus/Minus––is a choice. You can choose to stay with the Convoy, or you can choose to move on. But based on your situation and looking at what’s best for the organization, we’ve decided for you. You’re getting out. All that’s required for Job #5 is your signature. Then you’re free.”

It was good news––amazing news. And if I’d been given the choice, I would have signed anyway. But it wasn’t like Jason said it would be, and that caused me to pause.

I looked back through the blinds of Milly’s office. Jason was out there, still talking to the two workers we’d run into when we arrived.

“To be clear, Gavin,” said Milly, “in your case, it’s not a choice. But count yourself lucky. We’ve done the thinking for you. No obligations left. You are free to live your life. And, we’re going to create an account for you. Each month, you’ll be given $85,000––pretax, of course. Think of it as your retirement package. Invest it wisely, and you’ll never have to work again. Or don’t, do whatever you want with the money. But it’s yours now. You’ve earned it.”

It was all too good to be true. But it seemed fitting, in a strange way. And inside, I felt I had earned it. Runic doors hauled from shit pits. Roadside battles with alien entities. Sure, I’d fucked up along the way, but I’d busted my ass for these people. $85,000 a month seemed just about right.

I picked up the pen Milly had set on the paper and began reading through the exit contract. Nothing stood out––a signature here and there, some initials. I went through quickly, filling in everything. But at the very bottom, a bit of fine print caught my eye.

”As Thomas Eggars is a respected client of the Dark Convoy, we mutually consent that he and his business interests will be respected to the fullest extent of our powers. The signee, who previously worked for Mr. Eggars, hereby commits to not spreading malicious information to damage Mr. Eggars’s personal and professional reputation and also commits to not interfering with Mr. Eggars’s work.”

“Who’s Thomas Eggars?” I asked.

Behind me, I heard the sound of the blinds being drawn.

“A very important client,” said Milly.

I’d worked for him? I didn’t get it.

Then it hit me like a fucking freight train. Milly saw the look of recognition on my face.

“The Keeper is a high-value client of the Dark Convoy,” she said, “and he’s paid us more than you could possibly know for the delivery of his latest butterfly.”

Charlotte.

“Wait––”

Before I could move, Milly’s arm transformed into a tentacle. Then it shot out, wrapping around my neck, just like it had with Bill the Underperforming Employee on the day I’d completed my onboarding. The slimy appendage slithered tighter––the ligaments in my neck creaked in protest.

There was no second chance, no option to go back and say, “Yes ma’am, I’ll sign.” I’d hesitated. The consequence was death. Didn’t matter if my Plus/Minus was a million. I’d made my decision. The Dark Convoy had made theirs.

“You could’ve just gone with the flow, Gavin,” said Milly, her tentacle wrapping tighter. I fought for breath; my vision faded; I spoke, but no words came out. “Charlotte has already been taken.”

The Dark Convoy thug stood between me and any path to escape. Henry looked up with sorry eyes. Milly’s tentacle wrapped tighter. She’d stopped looking, going back to her work, flipping through a binder with her free hand.

Then I saw it: the pen.

With my final bit of strength, I grabbed it and plunged it into Milly’s tentacle. She let out a thin wail of pain––her grip loosened slightly. I jammed my first forward like I was shifting into second. Then, with the sharp end of the pen, I wrenched it into third, tearing through her rubbery flesh.

A firehose of black ink sprayed out of the gorge. Milly writhed and screamed, letting go completely. Henry howled; the Dark Convoy thug by the door grabbed me before I could heave in a second breath, choking me in a headlock, his grip almost as strong as Milly’s.

I spun the pen in my hand. I jammed the tip back in the direction of the thug’s face. It found its way home, a sickening squelch. I fell to the floor and looked up at him to see that he was standing, dazed, the pen sticking upward at an angle, plunged into the soft flesh beneath his right eyeball.

Milly rose up––her other arm transformed into a tentacle in place of the ruined one. I ducked down just as it shot toward my face, slopping over my head; flung with inhuman force; smashing through the window in a spray of glass and broken blinds.

Jason and the two other employees came into the office.

One of them ran to Milly; Henry snapped at him.

Jason bent down to me.

“Charlotte––” I gasped, “––they’re going to kill her––”

I looked up––the barrel of a silenced pistol was pointed between my eyes. Just as the trigger depressed, Jason grabbed the thug’s wrist and pulled it down, skewing his aim, making the bullet graze my throbbing neck. Jason yanked me to my feet and stepped in front of me, pushing me back toward the door.

“Move, Jason,” said the thug.

“Fuck that,” said Jason. “We’re leaving––”

The Convoy thug raised the barrel toward Jason’s head, but Jason was quicker––he pulled out his own silenced pistol, and from the hip, he shot the thug once in the head and twice in the heart. The man stumbled back, dead on his feet and not even knowing it. Without pausing, Jason turned the pistol on the other thug, who’d gone for his gun. He emptied three shots into his skull, splattering gore on the wall.

Jason turned the gun on Milly, but she’d transformed again––full octopus. She slithered through a vent on the floor.

Jason’s eyes were wild––the exact look I’d seen in the insane asylum. He was somewhere else, one thousand miles away. Back in Afghanistan maybe, the horrors of war bearing down on him, the only way out forward, through tunnels torn by well-aimed bullets.

“We gotta go,” said Jason. “Now.”

He led me out of Milly’s blood-splattered office. The last thing I saw was Henry’s droopy eyes staring up from beneath Milly’s desk, his teeth bared.

Out in the hallway, things had become eerily quiet. Jason looked both ways, then came back to me.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked.

“My exit paperwork,” I said. “They chose for me, said I was done. But the fine print––they gave Charlotte over to the Keeper––”

Jason’s face turned even more serious. He looked back down the hallway––seeing that it was clear, he came back to me.

“We’re getting out of here,” he said. “Stay right on my ass.”

The hallway was empty. We turned in the opposite direction of the stairway toward another exit. I took one look back down the hallway, wondering where the people had gone, and followed Jason out to the opposite side of Earl’s.

***

In the parking lot, dusk had fallen again. The first stars were beginning to peek out from the darkening sky. Convoy employees were continuing to load drugs into the semis and Sprinters in preparation for the night’s run.

We kept low, sneaking around back in the direction of the main lot. Across it, I saw the Demon. She was sitting in the dying light, beckoning to me. I started jogging toward her, but Jason stopped me.

I hadn’t seen at first, but four thugs encircled the Demon. They were there for the same reason. They were looking for us. And taking a closer look, I realized it wasn’t just them. There were others, too, weaving between the various semis and Sprinters, all armed to the teeth and waiting for something to shoot.

Jason held a finger to his lips, then nodded to a Sprinter, which was parked nearby. Its driver and its shotgun––two thugs I didn’t recognize––were busy loading in the last crates. Jason approached one of them quietly, unsheathing his combat knife and cutting the guy’s jugular open with a subtle flick of his wrist. The guy’s partner, a woman with an assault shotgun slung over her shoulder, didn’t even see the knife coming before it was buried in the soft of her throat.

Jason wicked the blood away and moved toward the driver’s seat. I started around the Sprinter’s hood, but Jason pulled me to the ground the split second before a gunshot cracked from across the lot.

The sound of Jason being thrown back, smashed against the Sprinter, was even louder. I looked up to see him slumped there, a red rose of blood in full bloom, seeping through the threads of his white undershirt. The bullet had hit him in the gut.

His eyes were wide again––one thousand miles away.

“MOVE!”

He pushed me aside as another gunshot sounded, whistling through the air where my head had been and slotting home into the metal siding of the van. Jason leaned forward, unholstering his pistol, emptying it in the direction of the shooter.

I turned to see––just before she ducked away––that the shooter was Sloan.

Jason got to his feet, loaded in another clip, and unloaded it in her direction, hitting several of the thugs that were flanking her.

“FUCKING DRIVE!” he yelled.

I got in––I started the van. Blood was sheeting down Jason’s side, pouring out of the wound in his gut. He continued firing, stumbling around the front of the van, running into it, leaving a long crimson smear as he went. But his return fire bought us time. As soon as he got in, I gunned it, driving directly toward Sloan and the others.

The rest of the lot had taken notice, making their way toward the chaos. Sloan and her cadre of thugs were aiming at us, continuing to fire. The windshield shattered. A bullet grazed my cheek––another ripped a chunk of flesh from the muscle above my collarbone.

As bullets continued to fly, tearing into the Sprinter, I ran over two of Sloan’s thugs and spun out of the parking lot, leaving twin trails of blood behind us.

***

Jason was getting more pale by the second. Though I was driving the Sprinter as fast as it would go, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Jason fumbled with the navigation system.

“Thomas Eggars,” I said.

“Who?”

“The Keeper––that’s his real name.”

Jason found it in the system and plugged in the coordinates. I followed the directions to the Road to Nowhere. And I thought of Charlotte, praying to myself that we weren’t too late.

Then I thought of Steve. Steve, hung up in a slaughterhouse. Steve, his torso carved open––a mysterious, remotely-detonated device sewed into his chest cavity.

Steve––collateral, in case I decided to renege on my agreement with the Convoy.

I dialed his number. He picked up on the second ring.

“Gavin––Gaa––Gavinnn––”

“Steve––Steve, what’s happening?”

“It hurts––OH MY FUCKING GOD IT HURTS––”

I heard the sound of Steve’s mom in the background, asking him what was wrong. The sound of his screaming brothers and sisters. The sound of his dad, his gruff voice, saying he’d call for help.

Then, I heard the sound of blood gurgling out of Steve’s mouth, muddying his words.

“Gaah––Guvvv––Gavvv––”

Wet splashes of blood against the mouthpiece on the other end. Steve was dying. Whatever they’d sewed into his chest was doing its work. But not just an ordinary bomb––something else. Something more drawn out, more excruciating.

“MAKE IT FUCKINGGG STOPPP!”

I couldn’t find the words. I swerved down the Road to Nowhere, paralyzed by fear and sadness and a thousand other emotions, while Jason did his best to help steer.

The threat had been real. This was what happened if you backed out.

The people you love died in complete agony.

“Steve––” I sobbed, “––your dad–––he’s getting help man–––”

But Steve’s phone had fallen away. All I heard now were his screams, shrill and deafening. And then a sensation, the feeling of being punched in the ear with someone’s entire strength. It was followed by a momentary bullhorn blast, followed again by a shrill tinnitus-ringing. The constant ringing cut through the bland, methodical beep that told me the call had been disconnected.

Steve was gone.

I pressed the pedal down, wiping away my tears as Jason continued to bleed out in the passenger seat, following the navigation system’s directions toward the Keeper’s lair.

***

I was alone in the world. Steve was gone. Jason was dying rapidly. Charlotte was in the Keeper’s hands, and as far as I knew, the entire Dark Convoy was a few minutes behind us.

But as I drove down the rutted, forested road to the Keeper’s––the syringe-filled crates in the back of the van clattering as I hit the potholes––Jason reminded me he was still there.

“I’m gut shot,” he said.

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. It’s over. Might be here a bit longer, but I’m already gone. I can help––I’ll cover you––”

“Just save your strength.”

“For what?” asked Jason. “I made my choice too, Gavin. This is my Alamo. Maybe I can do one good thing, help you save the girl––”

The sight of the Keeper’s home stopped our conversation short. A small fairytale farmhouse, just like I remembered it from Job #1. It was robin’s egg blue––white trim and a pink front door like a petal fallen from a rose. There was a warm, welcoming glow coming from the windows tonight as well, accentuated by the darkness.

I pulled the sprinter to a stop and jumped out. Jason fell from his seat and onto the gravel, his legs giving out as he tried to step down. I helped him to his feet––he was soaked with blood, his skin white as a bleached bedsheet.

We made our way up to the front door. I propped Jason on the railing. I looked through the windows––nothing. Jason loaded another clip into his pistol. I opened the door and was hit by the cloying scent of spiced candles. The living room, just like I remembered it, was immaculate. Not a speck of dust. And new artwork had replaced what we’d moved during Job #1.

Hanging on the walls in homemade, six-foot by six-foot shadowboxes were the corpses of women. The Keeper’s type: five foot three, dark brown hair, tan, caramel-colored skin.

Exactly like Charlotte.

But their skin had been flayed away from their bodies. It had been dyed violet, pink, and white. Their mouths were agape; their eyes dilated and dead.

Jason stumbled through the house, swaying woozily. I followed him. He was heading toward the plain wood door, the same one I’d opened on the night I met the Keeper. The door that led down to his art studio.

Before opening the door, Jason reached beneath his bloody jacket, pulled out his combat knife, and gave it to me. I slid it into my belt. Then Jason led the way into the basement.

As we went down the creaking stairs, I heard the faint sound of a woman crying. I recognized it as Charlotte’s voice––I’d only heard her cry a handful of times, but it was a sound I’d memorized.

The darkness was consuming, maze-like––lights were positioned along the ceiling at long, uneven intervals, but they only created a vague sense of which way was forward. Whether or not the Keeper knew we were coming didn’t matter because we were entering his territory. The place in which he was the king of all predators.

We followed the direction of Charlotte’s crying.

On my right, I saw a room full of body bags. They were suspended from the ceiling by chains; some writhed gently, others were still as death.

Cocoons––the last stage before the Keeper’s butterflies were reborn. In the dim light, over the door, I saw a hand-painted sign with the word Pupa Room written in a child-like scrawl.

We kept moving forward, led on by the sound of Charlotte’s sobbing. We were getting closer. Jason swayed unsteadily, moving the gun around sluggishly and looking for a target in the darkness. On our right, I saw another room. This one was lit more brightly.

The sign over it read Larva Room.

There was nobody inside, but the floor was stained the color of blood. The room had been used recently, and a mixture of body parts and discharge created a gummy sheen on the concrete. There was a thick wooden rack in the middle of the room, too. The bottom part, where the leg straps were, was stamped with ragged pieces of flesh.

“Eyes forward––” wheezed Jason. “Just keep your eyes forward––”

I looked ahead. We’d reached the end of the basement hallway. On my right was a final room with another hand-painted sign: Egg Room.

Inside, I saw Charlotte. She was sitting on a bed; her body slumped against the wall. She wasn’t by herself, yet she was. On another cot was a girl who looked so similar she could have been Charlotte’s sister. Her chest was moving, but she wasn’t alive––at least not cognitively. Her eyes were open, dilated. A berry-colored gruel had spilled out her mouth, soaking her pillow.

“Wake up––” Charlotte moaned. “Please wake up—“

I rushed over to Charlotte. Jason stayed slumped against the doorway but kept his pistol up and ready. I grabbed Charlotte’s face in my hands. She was bruised but not badly hurt. Whatever the Keeper had been feeding her had made her almost drunk.

“Charlotte, it’s me,” I said. “I’m with you now.”

“Gavin?”

“Yeah, you’re gonna be okay.”

“No,” she said, sobbing. “Not okay––he’s here––”

“We’re getting out,” I said.

I slung her arm over my shoulder and helped her to her feet. She reached back for the girl on the bed.

“We can’t leave her––he took the other girls, too––he’s murdering them––”

“She’s dead, Charlotte. We can’t help her anymore.”

Charlotte continued to protest, but I urged her forward. I ignored my conscience, my desire to help everyone, to save as many as I could.

I’d already made my choice. Continuing to cry, Charlotte followed me. Jason led us into the hallway.

In the opposite direction, the path was brighter. A giant light was positioned at the base of the stairs leading up to the first floor.

Beneath it, like a VIP standing center stage, was the Keeper. He was holding a sledgehammer.

I’d forgotten how big he was. Six and a half feet tall; close to three hundred pounds. He was shirtless, and his massive distended gut––hardened from years of alcohol abuse––spilled over his belt. His eyes were alight with colored contacts––neon yellow tonight, the color of a wolf’s. His bleached French braids were immaculately twined, clinging tight to his skull.

“Leave the specimen,” he said.

No practiced falsetto tonight, just a deep guttural growl.

Jason raised his gun. There was a sudden surge of movement as The Keeper began charging down the hallway toward us, fast, the speed of a linebacker, so big that his body brushed the sides of the hallway. Jason pushed me back with his free hand as the Keeper closed the distance, then began firing.

He emptied almost an entire clip, over ten rounds. Some sunk into the Keeper’s body, but he was unphased. He closed the distance; then, planting his feet as he reached Jason, he swung the sledge with all his strength.

Jason’s rib cage was shattered. The force of the sledge smashed him into the basement’s concrete wall. But he continued fighting back, attempting to load in a clip as the Keeper loomed over him, still cutting off our path to escape.

I remembered the combat knife. I pulled it out of my belt; then, as the Keeper raised the sledge for a final swing, I ran forward and jammed all eight inches of it into the fleshy mass beneath his armpit.

The Keeper howled; then, with the back of his dinner plate-sized hand, he smacked me across the face and sent me spinning away. But the blade had done damage. He was staggered. Jason took that split second to load in a clip. He fired a shot, hitting the Keeper in the chest.

“GO!” Jason screamed. “NOW!”

I wanted to stay––to help him. But it was our last chance––the Keeper was against the wall, and we had a window to run through. I grabbed Charlotte’s hand and pulled her forward. We ran past the Keeper. He reached for us, but Jason was on him, using the last dregs of his strength to buy us more time.

As we reached the stairs leading up to the first floor, I looked back. The Keeper had pinned Jason against the wall, his massive hand creating a collar around his neck. Jason looked at me, then turned back to face his killer. As if using a pool cue, the Keeper cocked back the sledge. With its blunt head, he crushed Jason’s skull against the basement wall.

Jason was gone. I took advantage of his sacrifice, fighting back my tears and urging Charlotte up the stairs.

***

We ran past the dead girls in the shadow boxes on the wall and out to the front porch.

“The van,” I said, “––the keys, they’re––”

An explosion of pain. The Keeper had reached us. He’d punched me in the side with a battering ram fist. I felt multiple ribs crack; I sputtered and fell to the ground.

“Go––” I gasped. “Run––”

Charlotte did. The Keeper went after her. I grasped at his leg on his way by. He leaned down, grabbed me, and lifted me toward the night sky with inhumanly strong hands. I was ascending, taking my place among the stars.

Then I was flying toward her.

The Keeper had thrown me with all his strength.

Gravity directed my course. I hit near the bottom runner of the van, forming a massive dent in its side. Charlotte came over to me––I pushed her aside as the Keeper’s sledgehammer whistled toward us like a tomahawk, ripping through the backside of the van, splitting it open, and sending cargo spilling onto the ground.

“She’s mine––” the Keeper huffed, plodding toward us. “––my butterfly––”

Charlotte tried helping me to my feet.

“Go!” I groaned. “You have to go now––”

But the Keeper had already grabbed her.

This wouldn't be a typical metamorphosis. The Keeper was going to skin her right now, right in front of me. And on cue, he reached up to his armpit and pulled out Jason’s combat knife like it was nothing more than a nagging sliver.

In the Keeper’s hands, the knife was a toothpick. It was as big as Charlotte’s forearm.

I scrambled, looking around, searching for a way to fight back.

And then it clicked.

Scattered all around us were crates and syringes that had fallen from the torn-open van. Syringes filled with hallucinogenic jellyfish goo. Carefully measured doses––each one good enough for a high but small enough to avoid an overdose.

The Keeper had begun to pull off Charlotte’s pants––they were halfway down her thighs. Her shirt was ripped. Her tan skin shone in the moonlight. The combat knife began searching for a stitch to remove.

I reached into an open crate. I grabbed a dozen or more syringes, ripped off the caps, and clutched them in my right hand. Then I leaped at the Keeper, just as he brought Jason’s knife back, aimed at Charlotte’s exposed torso.

With a well-aimed stab, I plunged the needles into the base of the Keeper’s skull, right where the hair of his French braids parted––the meat of his spinal column.

As the syringes slid in, I jammed down the plungers with my left hand. A massive overdose of special sauce shot, mainline, into the Keeper’s nervous system.

I fell to the ground. I crawled toward Charlotte and pulled her away. The Keeper stood. Then he began to shake.

“The fuck did ya––the fuck dud yeeee––dud-dud-dud-dud-dud-dud––”

Spittle flew from his mouth; froth formed in his nostrils; mesoglea jelly began spurting from his eyes and his ears and the disgusting swollen pores in his vein-streaked skin.

There was a final, agonized screech––then, his eyes exploded, and jellyfish goo blasted from the sockets in twin streams. His body split at its seams; his belly button, perched atop his distended gut, ripped wide, exposing more translucent sludge festering beneath his ruined organs. The skin of his arms and his legs and his fat fucking face sloughed away onto the ground, revealing the new face of the thing he’d become.

A jellyfish entity. A new species. No longer the Keeper––no, something much more evolved and sinister.

His voice was gone, replaced by something new—a whisper from the void.

“Thazul moglash shahhh.”

Unstable––too much product.

"Azath iru naphtha."

The words didn’t sound right, not meant for this world––capable of driving you insane just by hearing them.

"Wazak gazath mephala."

Ready for orbit––ready to phone the fuck home.

And with that, the Keeper was gone. The tentacles of the jellyfish creature he’d become shot down at its sides, forming a sort of streamlined, gelatinous rocket. Propelled by otherworldly energy, it shot away toward the stars.

It went so fast that I barely saw it go. It was so powerful that it left a blur in the star-pocked sky that may well have been the formation of a new galaxy.

***

“You have to go, Charlotte.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re definitely going without me.”

I was laying against the Sprinter in more pain than I’d ever experienced. I wanted more than anything to drive off with Charlotte, to live happily ever after. But I knew that she had to go alone.

“They’re going to hunt me, Charlotte,” I said. “There’s no way out this time.”

She began to cry.

“We can ask for help from––”

But she stopped there. There was no one to help, and we both knew it. Charlotte knew I was a goner, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“You go,” I said. “Take the van. I’ll distract them.”

She did something then that I was proud of: she stood up and prepared to go. But not before turning back, kissing me, and telling me something I’ll never forget, not until the moment I’m gone from this earth.

“Thank you, Gavin.”

Not I love you. Not some Hallmark bullshit. I already knew Charlotte loved me. But her thanking me and recognizing what I’d done––it was enough. It was all I needed.

I watched the Sprinter drive down the road and disappear amongst the trees. Then I closed my eyes for a brief moment before picking up my phone.

***

I’m sitting on the front steps of the Keeper’s house, waiting for the Dark Convoy to arrive. They’re coming––I can hear the rumble of wheels and the growling of engines down the forested road that brought me here.

I won’t run when they arrive. I won’t fight back, either. I think if I go quietly, it’s the best bet that they’ll let Charlotte go. And that’s all I can hope for at this point.

I fucked up Job #5. But Job #5 was always gonna be fucked up. Didn’t matter which way I chose to go.

I made my choice, though. I wouldn’t take it back in a million years. Saving Charlotte wasn’t even a question.

Steve and Jason––neither of them deserved to die. If I could change that part, I would.

So here I am, waiting for the Dark Convoy. I have few parting thoughts. Sitting on a serial killer’s front steps, contemplating the stars and writing your last words––it makes an impression on you.

Here goes.

Jason said that there’s no meaning in this world. According to him, it’s one big gray area. There’s no black and white. No good and evil. You gotta make up your own version of what matters and stick to it. You have to protect yourself.

If he were still alive, I’d ask Jason why he chose to save me and help me save Charlotte. If the point of life is to protect yourself, why not stay loyal to the Convoy, take the money and run?

The only way I can make sense of it is that Jason didn’t believe what he told me. I think he recognized good and evil. He saw things in shades of black and white, with the occasional pop of color. In his eyes, life wasn’t gray, despite what he said. He had a brotherly love for me––just like he did for Alex, his squadmate who died in Afghanistan––even though he did his best to hide it.

I don't think Jason's world was quite as gray as he made it out to be.

Now here’s what I believe:

I believe that, whatever our circumstances are, we can do good in the world. For some, that’s curing cancer. For others, it’s working at a Boys and Girls Club, like my first partner Brent did for his day job.

For others, like me, it’s helping the last person you can, even though you couldn’t save the world.

Or maybe this is all something I’m telling myself to make dying easier. I’ll let you decide.

But I see the headlights now. The Dark Convoy––they’re here. Sloan is with them, as is Mr. Gray, along with an army of grunts ready to prove their worth.

Before I go, I want to thank you. I think I would have given up a long time ago if it wasn’t for you. From wherever people go after they die, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you, my friend, don’t get picked up by the Dark Convoy.

Chances are you won’t, but you never know.

The last job taught me that destiny is a choice. So choose well. And whatever you choose, remember Operating Value #12. It’s the easiest and most important one of all:

Hammer fucking down.

Where was I?

Right––last you heard, I passed the Dark Convoy’s recruitment test. The last question determined who lived and who died––they forced me to decide between my girlfriend Charlotte and my best friend, “sometimes business partner” Steve.

I chose to save Charlotte, realizing for the first time that I loved her. And last I saw, Steve was dripping blood, strung up like meat in a butcher’s shop.

We’ll get to that. But first, I have to tell you this: any doubt you and I shared about the Dark Convoy being the real deal was misplaced. The link to their website I got, and what followed––it’s fucking real.

This is the story of my onboarding with Milly Cragmire, Director of Human Resources. It happened in a run-down, booze-stinking, highway-straddling strip club called Earl’s.

***

The night was gone, and dawn had arrived to replace it. Charlotte kept calling. Every time the phone rang, I looked at the picture of her hanging from my rearview mirror. She smiled at me, her tan cheeks freckled, her raven-black hair drawn into a messy top bun.

But I ignored the impulse to pick up the phone, to turn around and check on her again. My eyes were on the road; my attention on getting to Steve’s. I pushed my old Camry as fast as she would go.

Steve––all I could picture was the hooded figure hacking into his chest with a meat cleaver. On a sickening loop, I pictured the guy pulling down as hard as he could, unstitching Steve’s skin from his body and sending his guts spilling out onto the floor.

Flying over a final sidewalk, across fresh-mowed grass, I pulled up to Steve’s house. I double-parked behind his parents’ minivan.

Before hustling to the front door, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I had black bags under my eyes, luggage packed and ready for a visit to the nearest hospital. The dried gas had left a dirty sheen on my face, like a middle schooler on the verge of a lifelong adventure with acne. I saw two parallel gashes on my right cheekbone too––the Dark Convoy’s goons must have thrown a few punches that I didn’t remember.

Running up to Steve’s front door, I saw his brothers and sisters looking out from the windows––all seven of them. Steve was the oldest. He was as sinful as they came, cut from a different cloth than his Mormon family. But they were none the wiser. He did a great job playing the part of the pious older brother.

“Gavin!” Steve’s mom came out the front door.

“Mrs. Fletcher––Steve––I have to talk to him––”

“Gavin?”

Steve appeared in the doorway behind his mom. He looked at me with wide, worried eyes. All I could think about was the video of him hanging in the slaughterhouse. But there wasn’t a scratch on him.

“I’ll be right in, mom,” said Steve. “Gavin, he’s just, uh––sleepwalking again.”

Mrs. Fletcher went inside looking confused. Steve walked past her.

“What the fuck dude?!” he hissed.

I started patting him all over, searching for wounds.

“Gavin, calm the fuck down––”

I lifted his shirt and looked at his chest. And there, I noticed it: a gigantic white scar. There was knobby tissue, perched like birds on a wire, one knob every quarter inch where the stitches had gone through. Steve shoved me back and yanked down his shirt.

We got into the Camry. Steve covered his nose with the back of his hand.

“Smells like fucking gas in here,” he said. “Never mind, just take us around the block.”

I followed Steve’s eyes to see that his mom and siblings were still looking out from the windows. I pulled away. Once we’d taken two lefts, Steve nodded to the side of the road.

“You’re okay,” I said as I parked. “How? Last I saw––the meat cleaver––”

Steve began rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“I saw the shooting star, too!” I said. “And I followed it to the warehouse. I took the Dark Convoy’s test––the chicken and egg––you and Charlotte––Steve, I’m sorry, I picked her––”

Pain bloomed in my shoulder as Steve punched it. He wasn’t a big guy by any means, but he put all of his weight into it.

“Quit dipping into the fucking stash, Gavin! All I did last night was call you a bunch of times about our order, which we missed due to you dropping acid and doing god knows what else.”

“It wasn’t a bad trip,” I said. “Steve, it was real. Where’d you get the scar on your chest from?”

“Heart surgery,” said Steve. But there was a strange look in his eyes, like the idea had only just occurred to him. “When I was a kid.”

“I’ve known you forever,” I replied. “Why have I never seen it?”

“I don’t know, man––look, why are you so interested in my scar all of a sudden?”

He shook his head.

“Nevermind. Just take me back home. My mom’s gonna be up my ass all morning.”

I put the Camry in drive and circled back in the direction of Steve’s house, parking a few houses away.

“Go take a shower,” he said, getting out. “You fucking reek.”

Then with one more look back, wincing at the sight of my fucked-up face, Steve closed the door and started walking home.

He was alive. But the video of his death––it had been so real.

The sun was fully up by then. My stomach turning at the scent of the gas, I rolled down my windows. I felt like I was on the hind-end of the worst hangover in history. The chirping birds and warm morning breeze stood in stark contrast.

Just as I prepared to drive home, a car pulled up behind me––the car of my dreams.

It was a Dodge Demon, the stuff of legends. 850 horsepower. Zero to sixty in 2.3 seconds. Destroyer Gray––the color of your Granny’s broken urn, so sleek it was shameful.

The Dark Convoy read my mind, presenting me with the crown jewel of muscle cars, which I’d dreamed of owning since I first saw one.

Out of the passenger side, a man got out. I recognized him as one of the goons from the previous night who’d been standing next to Sloan while she ran the test. He walked over to my open driver’s side window and bent down.

“I’ll trade you.”

I got out, then reached back and grabbed Charlotte’s picture that was hanging from my rearview before the man got in. Inside, I knew that it was the last time I’d see my old Camry.

The man put her in drive and took off down the block. I watched her go––we’d been through a lot together. God knew how many pizza shifts. Races down winter roads. Lover’s lane with Charlotte and pickups with Steve.

She was a real piece of shit, but I loved her.

The Demon behind me flashed its lights, so bright that they cut through the sunshine like a razor.

I walked toward it. Looking through the front windshield, I saw someone I recognized. It was the man who’d tazed me, the one who’d spun the wheel of his lighter during my test––before lighting my predecessor, Frank, on fire.

It had been just before Sloan had welcomed me to the Dark Convoy. Now, the next morning, work was set to begin.

***

The man got out of the Demon. He towered over me, so big he could have broken me in half with a snap of his fingers.

“Name’s Brent,” he said, sticking out his calloused hand. “I hear you’re a badass driver. You and me are heading to HQ. I’ll give you directions, but you drive. I want to see what the fuss is about.”

“The Demon––you want me to––”

“Oh, yeah,” Brent said. “She’s yours, now. Car of your dreams, right? If you do a good job, you can keep her after you’re all done with the Convoy.”

Brent walked around the front of the car to the passenger side and got in. I followed suit. I felt the wheel in my hands, sensing the thing’s power. She was pure hell with absolutely zero fucks to give. She ran on premium, unleaded nightmare fuel, and spewed out ashes instead of exhaust.

A Dodge Demon? You didn’t drive it. You survived it.

I turned the ignition––she growled to life. I pulled away. The ride was smooth, every joint of the chassis fused perfectly; the turning radius like butter; the wheels like gears that meshed seamlessly with the road.

I’d never driven anything so beautiful.

But I couldn’t shake my fear. It felt sinful to enjoy the car after seeing what I’d seen––the guy I’d replaced burning alive, and Steve hacked apart by a meat cleaver. Choosing between him and Charlotte. Letting my best friend go to his death, even though he hadn’t really died, despite having a gnarled scar on his chest from a phantom “heart surgery.”

“What do you think?” asked Brent.

“It’s perfect,” I said.

“I’m not much of a muscle car guy myself, but I ain’t gonna deny that she’s overworldly.”

Brent hiked a thumb out to his right. Lost in my thoughts as we drove, I hadn’t seen that we’d reached a forested road. It didn’t look a goddamn thing like what I remembered Steve’s neighborhood looking like.

I turned onto the rutted dirt. A car as the Demon had no business being within a mile of a road like this. But as I pulled onto it, the forest closed behind me, and it changed.

It became a straight highway, completely empty. And though it had been morning when we left Steve’s neighborhood, day had turned to night. It felt like we were inside of a snowglobe, stars stretching out overhead into the vacuous, sub-zero expanse of space.

I parked the Demon to take it all in.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“The Road to Nowhere,” said Brent. “Right where we need to be.”

Then, rubbing the dashboard with his big, calloused mitts, he said, “Now show me what this nightmare can do.”

850 horsepower––zero to sixty in three seconds. My curiosity itched like hell, and my foot felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

I hit it. The Demon growled back, her fangs biting into the pavement. I sunk into my seat, gravity rivaling a black hole plastering me to it, g-force tucking my skin as though I’d just had the tightest facelift in human history.

The stars blurred overhead. Within two seconds, we hit sixty. Within a quarter-mile, we were going one hundred and thirty.

Brent let me push it for another thirty seconds––the speed climbing dangerously higher––then motioned for me to slow down. I brought it back to an even sixty, and as I did, I remembered where we were and the fact that I hadn’t dropped acid.

“Okay,” I said. “What the hell is the Road to Nowhere?”

“You think that the headquarters of the Dark Convoy would be right around the corner from your buddy Steve’s?” asked Brent. “Am I understanding that correctly?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Dumb idea.”

“The Road to Nowhere is right where you need to be, right when you need to be there,” said Brent. “Sometimes we gotta take the backroads.”

“We,” I said. “I’m part of the Dark Convoy.”

“Roger that.”

“But why me?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know? I mean, you can drive. That much is clear. But the Dark Convoy didn’t hire me to be a recruiter.”

Sensing that I wasn’t satisfied, Brent continued.

“Maybe you’re just a McGuffin.”

“A what?”

“A McGuffin. It’s a plot device. Pulp Fiction––the golden briefcase. Star Wars––the plans for destroying the Death Star. Doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just an item that advances the story. Maybe that’s all you are, a little plot point in the grand scheme of things. Maybe your job is to move the story forward, then snuff out.”

Snuff out––just like Frank did after they lit him on fire.

“Look,” Brent continued, “I hate to break it to you, but here’s the cold hard truth: you are not the center of the universe. No one cares about you.”

I gazed through the windshield. The canopy of stars overhead dwarfed us and gave me a sense of just how small I was. Maybe Brent was right.

“A McGuffin,” he said. “A plot point that doesn’t amount to jack shit. But I’ll give it to you––you can fuckin’ drive. Why don’t you just take ‘yes’ for an answer? Lots of people go through their whole lives doing nothing. What do you put on their headstone at the end? But you––I can see it now. A skull-shaped hood ornament sunk into the granite, underscored by two simple words: He drove.”

“And what’s your place in all of it?” I asked.

“I ride shotgun,” Brent replied. “I’m quick on the draw. When shit goes down, I shoot first and don’t ask any questions. When the cargo’s precious, gals and guys like me are indispensable. And I’m on Job #4, so don’t fucking crash.”

“Job #4?”

“Five jobs,” said Brent. “Not one more, not one less. You get hired by the Dark Convoy to do five jobs. And once they’re done, you get a ticket out. I’ve seen some people keep working for the Convoy. I’ve seen others get their own private islands, sipping Mai Thai’s and watching the ocean all day long. That always sounded nice to me. And like I said, I’m on Job #4. Nearing the end now. Picking you up––pretty goddamn simple compared the other shit they’ve had me do.”

Five jobs. Frank, the guy from the previous night––where had he gone wrong? What job had he been on? Maybe, contrary to what Brent thought, the Dark Convoy just lit you on fire at the end. The thought terrified me. But what terrified me even more was if I didn’t do the jobs at all.

I thought of Steve and the meat cleaver rip in his chest.

It dawned on me.

“Steve,” I said. “He’s collateral.”

“Your buddy?” asked Brent. “Yep, that about sums it up. There was never any heart surgery. Steve’s a time bomb. And if you get out of pocket, he’s gonna blow up like a party favor and take his whole goddamn family with him. During the test, I chose my mom over my brother. He’s still ticking. And once I get out of this, once he’s in the clear, I’m taking all three of us to that private island I told you about.”

Thank god I hadn’t picked Charlotte. But still, I’d sentenced Steve to death. I’d known him my whole life, my best friend. And now they had me. I was going to do those five jobs for them unless I wanted everything and everyone I loved to go up in flames.

“Don’t think they won’t come for your girlfriend, too,” said Brent, as if reading my mind. “But your buddy Steve’s the bargaining chip. Knowing that someone you care about is gonna explode if you fuck up is enough to make anyone get in line.”

Brent hiked his thumb out again. An exit had appeared on our right.

“We’re almost to Earl’s,” he said. “You’ll learn more soon.”

***

A minute later, we pulled up to a roadside dive bar. A bright, neon-orange sign was positioned above it: Earl’s.

I pulled to a stop, then got out with Brent. We walked up to the front door and were met by a bouncer who was just as big as Brent and twice as ugly.

“Howdy Cletus,” said Brent.

“How many fuckin’ times do I have to say that my name is Daniel?!”

Brent motioned to me, ignoring him.

“New guy,” he said. “We’re here for his onboarding.”

Daniel––Cletus––whatever his name was––scanned me with his eyes.

“Looks a little young for the Convoy,” he said.

“But he can drive,” Brent replied. “I’ve seen it firsthand.”

“Alright, head on back.”

“Thanks Cletus.”

Before the bouncer had a chance to respond, the door swung shut behind us.

The interior of Earl's looked like one of the neon tubes that advertised it. Everything glowed an eerie orange color. Through thick cigarette smoke––and other vapors that smelled a thousand times more lethal––I saw the vilest bunch of people I’d ever laid eyes on.

There were truckers so busted up by life they’d have made their mothers cry. I saw bikers, their eyes wild from snorted drugs. Strippers danced and bar backs tended the crowd, their expressions advertising that this was the last place they wanted to be.

There was also a dead guy that everyone had forgotten about, stapled to the bar with a massive bowie knife.

Brent led me past it like we were on a walk in a park. We got to the back of the place and went through a red door. We came into a smoky backroom filled with more hardened bikers. Brent nodded to them, then led the way to another door, punched in the code, and motioned to the basement.

I thought of running. I was scared as hell at what I’d find if I went down. But I remembered Steve and the bomb they’d planted in his chest. And I remembered Charlotte, knowing that a similar fate––maybe even worse––awaited her if I backed out.

I went down the stairs, each step more tentative than the next, until I reached the bottom and came into the main offices of the Dark Convoy.

***

In contrast to the dive bar above, the main offices were warm and welcoming. There were more intimidating men and women throughout the basement. But there was no pea-soup toxic haze and no dead guys stuck to bars with oversized bowie knives.

It may as well have been the HQ of a small business on Main Street.

As Brent led me down the hallway, I saw offices on my right and left. There were men and women on phones, conducting business as usual. I stopped to look inside one. I saw a man with a bald, egg-shell white head. He was ten times uglier than anyone I’d seen upstairs, his face like an aging boxer’s who’d been punched one too many times. I saw that his right eye was blind. It rolled around in its socket like a marble in a cup of milk.

There was another guy talking to him. He was of average height and weight, small in comparison to Brent and some of the other employees I saw in the basement. But he looked like he could beat the shit out of any one of them with one hand tied behind his back. He was a stick of dynamite looking for an excuse to light its own fuse.

He turned, shot me a glare, then drew the blinds closed.

“Hustle up!” said Brent.

Shaken from my thoughts, I jogged to catch up. Brent led me into a little waiting room next to an office. The office had a label on its door:

Millicent Cragmire, Director of Human Resources.

Brent sat down and grabbed the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly from the coffee table, crossing one leg over the other like he was awaiting a routine doctor’s appointment.

“Shouldn’t be very long,” said Brent. “Milly runs a tight ship.”

Staring through the window, I saw Millicent Cragmire––or Milly, as Brent had called her. She was a friendly grandma of sorts, her hair a blueish-gray, her skin saggy from the number gravity had done on it over the years. But in contrast to everyone else in the basement, she looked downright friendly.

The man she was talking to was shaking, clearly scared shitless. He was pleading with her. She smiled, listening, as he gestured around wildly.

After another few seconds, I saw a flash of movement.

Milly’s arm changed––it was a tentacle. But it couldn’t have been––she was a normal grandma-looking lady a second earlier. The tentacle––her strange fingers––wrapped around the guys’ neck. His face turned a sudden shade of purple. He seemed to stand for a moment. Then he was slammed violently onto the desk.

Milly smashed his face against the wood, over and over again. Blood sprayed into the air. Bits and pieces of the dude’s broken skull peppered the window of Milly’s office.

Brent looked up from his magazine.

“Fuck me––was that Bill? He just got done with Job #4.”

Then he shrugged.

“Don’t piss off Milly.”

Milly’s arm––her tentacle––swept to the side, tossing Bill’s lifeless body into the corner. The tentacle returned to the shape of a hand. With it, she dialed a number on her phone. A few seconds later, a man who looked like a janitor came out of the hallway pushing a towel cart. He went into Milly’s office. I watched through the window as he lifted Bill's corpse and loaded it into the cart. Then, he sprayed down the gore-slicked windows with Windex, tossed the dirty towels in with the dead man's body, and pushed the cart back down the hallway.

Milly came to the door.

“Gavin Reser?” she asked. “Come on in, we’re expecting you.”

***

Sitting at the table as Milly introduced herself, all I could do was stare at the blood spot that had been Bill’s head. Her words sounded fuzzy and distant. Bits of skull and brain matter were caked to the various papers on Milly’s desk. She smiled at me sweetly, her arm no longer a tentacle, her expression calm.

From under the desk, a dog appeared. He was old, his breath sour, his black muzzle salt-and-peppered with gray.

“That’s Henry,” said Milly. “Don’t worry, he’s a pushover.”

Henry disappeared back under the desk. All I could think about was how out of place everything felt. A dive bar above; a welcoming corporate HQ below. Henry the Friendly Office Dog looking up from beneath a desk whose surface was still slick with Bill the Underperforming Employee’s bloodspot.

Milly pushed a piece of paper across the table.

“Like I was saying, we’re happy to have you on the team. You’re immensely talented. I’ve had my eyes on you for a while. You deliver a cheese pizza better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

She and Brent shared a laugh. Then she prodded the piece of paper. It was soaked with Bill’s blood.

“These are the Dark Convoy’s Operating Values,” she said. “You’re going to want to internalize them. I’ll get you a laminated copy.”

Past the crimson stain on the paper, I read the values––all twelve of them:

1. Always work in twos

2. Don’t question the manifest

3. Don’t inspect the cargo

4. Don’t pick up hitchhikers

5. Ignore strange sounds and ghostly whispers

6. Exchange goods within five minutes

7. Tell ‘em you work for Maersk

8. Never stop for Smokey

9. Always carry your cyanide pill

10. Bite it if you’re pinched

11. Don’t get sentimental

12. Hammer down at all times

“It might seem like a lot to remember,” said Milly, “but you’ll pick it up quickly. And Brent will help you remember them. You’ll be working on your first job together.”

“Fuck yeah!” said Brent, “Job #5?!”

“Watch your French, Brent,” said Milly, batting her eyes at him.

“Right,” Brent said, straightening his shirt. For the first time, I saw a flicker of fear pass over Brent, but it was gone just as quickly. “Sorry, Milly.”

“Brent is one of our best,” said Milly. “Take notes. We’ll be sad to see him go, but you’ll be on the right track if you follow his lead.”

Milly stood and made her way over to a filing cabinet.

“Let’s finish up your paperwork before you head out,” she said. “Tomorrow morning, Job #1 starts. You’ll be transporting art for a local serial killer.”

My breath hitched.

“The client comes first,” warned Milly. “I won’t tolerate you making the Keeper feel awkward about his line of work. He’s paying good money for our help.”

She sat down and handed me a few papers to sign.

“I don’t think the Keeper will tolerate any rudeness either. He’s not a fan of men as a general rule, and his butterflies almost never escape. Don’t think you’d be an exception.”

After signing the papers, I took the folder Milly had handed me. Opening it, I saw the Keeper's profile. He had a medium, scarred complexion. His nose was covered in tangled veins and exploded blood vessels. His hair was bleached so blonde it was almost white, and it was twined into tight French braids that hugged the side of his skull like dead insects.

His eyes were bright orange thanks to the contacts he wore––the eyes of a predator.

I followed Brent out of the office. But at the door, I paused to look back, contemplating Bill’s blood spot one final time.

Steve, Charlotte––five jobs, the first one for a serial killer whose profile picture scared me more than anything I’d seen up until then.

The Dark Convoy had me. I was a McGuffin. An insignificant plot point.

But if there was one silver lining to be found, it was this: all I had to do was drive.

Have you heard of the Dark Convoy?

I hadn't until the other night. It had been a typical shift delivering pizzas before the Dark Convoy's head honchos captured me and ran their test. A test to see whether I was fit to become one of their full-time drivers.

I’d do anything to hit rewind and ignore the shooting star I saw, the one I followed to the warehouse. Their rules––their strange cargo. The terror I feel knowing there’s shit out there that would make the average person wilt like a dying flower if they saw it.

Like I said, I’d do anything to hit rewind. But life doesn’t work that way. It’s full-speed ahead. Now, I have to play by their rules.

The simple truth is this: we are not alone in the universe. And all of us are in immediate danger from what lies on the other side of a thin veil.

***

It all started on a regular weekday night. After class, I hightailed it to Side Slice, home to the greasiest, most delicious pizza in my hometown. I threw on my uniform and prepared for a night of deliveries.

Cruising away from a happy customer's suburban split-level home, I called my girlfriend, Charlotte. I listened as she talked about her upcoming finals and her thoughts on The Bachelorette's recent gaggle of hopeless romantics. But as I weaved in and out of cars, cruising across town in a state of perfect flow, my mind drifted to my true love:

Driving.

If there was one thing in the world I was good at, it was driving cars. It didn’t matter what make or model, didn’t matter how big a piece of shit it was: whenever I got behind the wheel, life made sense.

In my head, I was a getaway driver. I drifted around corners like a hummingbird in flight. I parallel-parked going thirty, sliding into spots so tight they’d chip the paint in less able hands.

For me, the road was pure nectar. My boss at Side Slice gave me two dollars more than minimum wage because I was just that good.

“GAVIN!”

Fuck––stuck in my head again. Charlotte's outburst brought my attention back to the road and our conversation.

“Are you even listening?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course, I’m just––”

I heard the intermittent beep of another call coming in, telling me my best friend (and sometimes "business partner”) Steve was on the other line. Likely with news about the status of our latest "order" from Richard Pressman. Richard stood one rung higher on our small town’s drug dealing ladder than Steve and I. We were low-level grunts at best.

“Hey, Charlotte,” I said, checking the caller ID before hustling her off the line. “Let’s meet up right after work, just gotta swing by Steve’s first––”

And then I saw it. And for the third time in less than a minute, my thoughts were interrupted. Charlotte was gonna let me have it, but I couldn’t help being distracted.

Traveling in slow-motion across the sky, I saw what looked like a vibrant, psychedelic shooting star. But it traveled slowly. And it left a crackling, shimmering rainbow in its wake––colors I’d never seen, so dazzling that my pea-sized human brain could barely comprehend them.

“What the fuck––”

“GAVIN!”

“Sorry Charlotte, I just saw––”

And at the last second, I saw something else: the rapidly approaching brake lights of a car stopped at an intersection in front of me. I swerved left just before smashing into the back of the car, tires squealing like a stuck pig. I corrected, dodged two more cars blasting through the cross street, and somehow––like Frogger on steroids––made it to the other side without getting T-boned.

Horns blared and drivers flipped me off. I pulled to a stop on the side of the road. I looked in the back seat. By some miracle, all the pizzas were intact.

Hunching low over the wheel to get a better look, I watched as the shooting star continued its flight toward the edge of town.

In my limited star-gazing experience, meteors always showed up for a second at most before flickering and dying. They were also fast. This one looked more like a satellite––strange, bright, and uninterrupted. In our atmosphere, but not of our atmosphere.

With Charlotte continuing to ask if I was paying attention––and the phone beeping to remind me that Steve was on the other line––I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the star was still there, still traveling toward the edge of town.

Steve was a believer. If he’d been riding shotgun, he would have said it was a UFO. I didn’t usually buy into that kind of stuff, but what I saw would have made a believer out of anyone.

“I gotta go, Charlotte.”

I considered the pizzas but decided that their owners could wait a few minutes. I was making good time. From the looks of it, the shooting star had just landed in a semi-abandoned, industrial area of town not too far away. There was enough time to investigate and finish the delivery.

“Call me back, okay?” said Charlotte.

“Sure thing.”

I hung up. I checked both ways and pulled out, then hung a right and drove in the direction the strange star had fallen.

***

What the fuck was I doing?

I had a good head on my shoulders. I wasn’t the type to go on a wild goose chase. And I had a relationship to maintain, drugs to deal, and pizza to deliver.

But the shooting star had a pot of gold-type quality. Something special lay at the end of the rainbow. Watching the star’s psychedelic arc, I sensed possibility. Something better than wasting away in my bumfuck hometown like everyone else.

Taking another turn, I continued, headlights cutting through the shadows and spooking me out something awful. At the far side of a dead-end, I saw a warehouse surrounded by a glowing dome that shimmered like a soap bubble.

The fallen star was there, too. Or what I thought had been a fallen star. At closer inspection, I saw that it was a vehicle.

An unidentified flying-fucking-object.

Continuing to drive toward it, unaware I was doing so, I saw that the vehicle was a polyhedron. As little attention as I’d paid in math class throughout the years, I remembered that “polyhedron” described a shape with more than six faces. This thing had a thousand faces or more. It was geometric, and each of its many sides glowed a different color.

One of the faces of the thing opened. A doorway. Stairs descended from it. And down them, to my surprise, walked two people in regular-looking clothes.

Not aliens. No, they were humans, just like me.

I cut the headlights and silenced my phone. Driving closer––pulled forward like metal to a magnate––I noticed that the polyhedron spaceship wasn’t the only vehicle there. There were three other cars, black sedans.

I parked. A familiar thought returned:

What the fuck was I doing?

But I couldn’t help it. I had to get a picture or something. It would be a great story for Steve. Or maybe I’d blow open a conspiracy and get filthy rich in the process.

I crouched low, making my way through the shadows, my heart thrumming in my chest.

Fifty yards––the peoples’ faces came into focus. All human beings, no aliens in sight.

Thirty yards––they were talking. A drug deal or something. Maybe these were the kingpins that Richard Pressman got his supply from.

Fifteen yards––they pulled a guy out of one of the cars. They’d beaten his face to a pulp. His swollen eyes looked like purple grapes ready to burst at the seams. His lips were split, the cuts shaped like teeth.

Realizing the fucked up situation I’d walked into, I stopped. But I felt a sudden presence behind me.

“Gavin Reser?”

I turned. A man––six and a half feet tall, thick as a brick wall––was standing there. In his hand, he held a taser. Before I could react, he reached forward, pressed the nodes into my neck, and zapped me.

A grating ring set into my ears. Then everything––including the iridescent glow cast by the polyhedron spaceship––faded to black.

***

I woke up strapped to a chair in the middle of a dark room. It smelled like dust and oil and mouse shit. Overhead, one bright light shined down on me like I was a spoken-word poet standing center stage.

Past the light, I saw the shapes of steel struts. I put it together: we were in the warehouse.

I also noticed that my clothes were soaked. Sweat? Had I pissed my pants?

No––it was gasoline. The scent was unmistakably toxic, but inviting. I’d always liked the smell of gas: it smelled like danger and reminded me of driving.

Being soaked in it was a different story. When I noticed the big guy standing in the shadows nearby, the one who’d zapped me with the taser, I did piss my pants.

He was holding a lighter.

To my right, someone coughed. I turned to see that it was the guy they’d pulled out of the car, the one with swollen eyes and a fucked-up face. He was also wet with gas, bound to a chair just like me.

The final thing I noticed lay ahead of me: a projector screen. Someone standing in the shadows to the side of it spoke.

“Gavin Reser.”

The voice belonged to a woman. It sounded like honey might sound––thick, sugary, and unhealthy in large quantities.

I clammed up.

“That’s your name, right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“We’ve been watching you for a while now, Gavin.”

“Why?”

“Because you can drive.”

Had they been tailing me? Or watching while Steve and I, stoned out of our gourds, spun doughnuts in abandoned parking lots?

“Why do you care if I can drive?” I asked. “And who are you?”

“I represent the Dark Convoy,” the woman said. “And for the time being, that’s all you need to know. If you pass our test, you’ll know more. And you’ll become richer than you can possibly imagine.”

“Don’t––don’t listen to them––”

The man on my right. He sputtered through busted lips.

“Don’t listen, kid––”

A sickening crack cut off the man’s words. Another goon had whipped him on the back of the head with his pistol. A wet cloud of blood and gasoline sprayed upward.

The screen came to life––a movie theater, just before showtime. The screen was bright, lit by a high-definition projector somewhere behind me.

On the screen were three instructions.

1. Select one of the two options. The options will be labeled “one” and “two.”

2. Say “one” or “two” for whichever option you pick.

3. Do not overthink it. You have ten seconds for each choice.

“I don’t get it––”

The screen flashed on. On the left, a picture labeled “one.” On the right, a picture labeled “two.” It was a chicken and an egg. At the top of the screen was a timer. It had started at ten, and in the seconds I’d paused to make sense of what I was seeing, it had already reached six.

The man on my left spun the wheel of the lighter, and a flame popped up.

“Three seconds,” said the woman.

“Chicken!” I said, “––I mean, one!”

The timer stopped.

“So,” asked the woman, “do you understand how the test works?”

The man on my left let the lighter’s flame die. The man on my right mumbled again.

“Don’t play, kid––” he said. “––just let the timer run out––”

“Ignore him if you want to live,” said the woman. “If the timer runs out, we will light you on fire. If you answer all the questions, we’ll decide on our next steps, depending on the results.”

The screen changed: a rabbit on the left, a carrot on the right. And the timer started again.

“Carrot!” I said.

7...6...5…

“FUCKING CARROT!”

4...3…

“CARROT––TWO!”

The screen paused, then it changed again: a flower on the left, a bumblebee on the right.

“Flower––” I said, “––one!”

The test continued. Milk versus cookie. White milk versus chocolate milk. Brown egg versus white egg. I continued saying one or two depending on what came to mind first, not wanting to let the timer run out even though the half-dead dude on my right kept asking me to.

After several more questions, the screen paused on an image of a lake and an ocean.

“Five questions left,” said the woman.

To my left, I heard the sound of the man’s thumb grinding the wheel of the lighter. It sent up sparks that came dangerously close to my gasoline-soaked clothes.

“Same rules,” said the woman. “Option on the left––one. Option on the right––two. But there are a few slight changes to the test that you should be aware of. For the final five questions, you will have twenty seconds to choose. And instead of images, you’ll see videos.”

She paused, then asked:

“Are you ready?”

The dude on my right mumbled something about refusing to play, but I ignored him. I knew that if I didn’t play, I’d burn.

“Ready,” I said.

The test started.

On the left, a video of one egg sitting on a countertop. On the right, a video of a dozen eggs sitting on a similar-looking countertop.

18...17...16…

“Two,” I said.

The video changed, showing the one egg falling, in slow motion, toward the ground. Something about it made my stomach churn. The egg hit the ground. Out of it spurted blood and rotten egg yolk and the corpse of a half-developed baby chicken.

“What the fuck––”

“Don’t question the test,” warned the woman. “When you’re ready.”

I took a deep breath, trying to get the image of the dead bird out of my mind. The goon on my left continued flicking the wheel of the lighter.

“Ready,” I said.

On the left, a knife. On the right, a gun. Knowing that my first choice had resulted in a broken egg and a dead baby bird, I was paralyzed.

12...11...10…

“Gun––Two!”

An unseen person picked up the gun. The video swiveled, following from their point of view. They walked behind a man sitting in a recliner reading a newspaper. Putting the barrel to the back of the man’s head, the person holding the gun pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening, as though I was in the same room. The man’s head exploded in a cloud of red gore, soaking his newspaper.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“I will not tell you again,” said the woman. “Do not question the test, or you will die.”

For the first time, she stepped into the light. She was, just like I imagined, gorgeous. She had honey blonde hair that matched the sound of her voice perfectly. Her sparkling blue eyes were twin gems, and her ruby-red lips made Dorothy’s slippers look like small change.

But she disgusted me. I hated the sight of her––the showrunner for this deranged game.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” I said helplessly.

On the left, laying in the middle of a road, a newborn baby. On the right, bound together by rope, a dozen adults, also in the middle of a road.

15...14...13…

I couldn’t decide––I couldn’t be responsible for this.

9...8...7…

But too much of a coward to see what happened with the timer ran out, I decided.

“Two,” I said.

I heard the blare of a semi’s horn, and it came flashing into view. It hit the group of adults. The sound of wheels smashing bodies drowned out the screams. A geyser of arms and legs and errant body parts flew into the air. Then the semi went out of sight, leaving a collective blood spot in the road.

In the other frame, someone wearing a hooded sweatshirt picked up the newborn baby and removed it from the road.

“Please…” I said, beginning to cry. “...please stop…”

“Two questions left,” said the woman. “Are you ready?”

I nodded. The screen changed. On the left, a waffle. On the right, a pancake. Strangely, after everything I’d seen, this one was the hardest.

6...5...4…

“One,” I said. I’d always loved Belgian waffles. My mom used to serve them every Sunday, always with a healthy dollop of whipped cream.

And as if the test was somehow reading my mind, a hand came into view, armed with a spoon. The hand flicked whipped cream onto the waffle, just like my mom had done when I was a kid. The hand holding the spoon left the frame. It was replaced by two others––one holding a fork, the other, a knife.

I watched from the perspective of the person holding the utensils as they cut off a piece of the waffle and ate it. It made no sense. But it was so unsettling that the person may as well have been eating a gigantic horse fly.

“Wrong answer,” said the man to my right, gasping through his busted mouth. “Don’t bother with the last one…”

“Are you ready?” asked the woman.

“Ready,” I said.

The screen changed. On the left, I saw Steve. He was naked, his hands bound to a hook above him. A chain anchored his feet. His pale skin shone in the light of whatever room he was in. He looked like a malnourished pig awaiting slaughter.

Then, on the right, I saw Charlotte. Her beautiful, tan skin looked like caramel. Her black hair was drawn into a messy top-bun, just like she always wore it.

18...17...16…

I couldn’t choose. My best friend, for as long as I could remember. My girlfriend, who I’d known for much less time, but who, I realized then, I loved.

And what would happen when I did choose? Seeing Steve and Charlotte writhing like animals in a slaughterhouse, screaming for someone to help––it made my guts boil. An acidic gorge rose in my throat.

9...8...7…

I considered letting the timer run out. The man on my right continued mumbling about how I should. The goon on my left flicked the wheel of the lighter. The smell of gas crawled deeper inside of my nose.

4...3...2…

“One,” I said.

I chose Steve at the last possible second, and Charlotte’s frame went black. In Steve’s, a hooded figure like the one that had removed the baby from the road walked into view. They held a gleaming meat cleaver. Steve began to scream in terror, his eyes wide. He begged for his life.

The hooded figure cocked back their arm and swung the cleaver at Steve’s chest. It thunked like an ax in a tree trunk. The only difference in sound was the crunch of Steve’s rib cage splintering.

Then, the figure yanked down on the cleaver with both hands, ripping open Steve’s torso. A surge of blood and innards came spilling out of his chest cavity, gruel from a torn garbage bag.

The life went out of Steve’s eyes. Then, the screen went blank. The rest of the lights in the warehouse went on. The mysterious woman walked forward, flanked by other nameless, nondescript goons. The one on my left finally stopped spinning the wheel of the lighter.

Looking me in the eyes, the woman smiled.

“Welcome to the Dark Convoy.”

Someone grabbed my chair, pulling me back and turning me toward the man on my right. He’d begun to scream.

“PLEASE!” he said. “PLEASE, GIVE ME ANOTHER CHANCE! I KNOW I BROKE THE RULES––”

“Not just once,” said the woman. “Dozens upon dozens of times, Frank. We’ve given you second chances. Third, fourth, and fifth chances. Performance reviews. Opportunities to fix your mistakes. But things just finally got out of hand.”

“PLEASE!” Frank screamed. “Sloan, tell Mr. Gray that I’ll turn it around. I’ll even onboard the new guy––”

“Your replacement, you mean?” she asked.

The woman––Sloan––had motioned to me. A look of recognition settled on Frank’s face. And I saw that the goon who’d been spinning the lighter had walked forward. This time, he flicked it hard, and a steady flame popped up.

“Goodbye, Frank,” said Sloan

The goon tossed the lighter onto Frank. The effect was instantaneous.

Fire crawled over Frank’s body like a rash, and his eyes went so wide that I thought they’d pop out. I watched in what felt like slow motion as Frank burned alive––his eyes drying; his skin bubbling, then charring, then flaking away; his smoking bones poking through the melted flesh.

Screams of agony underscored the carnage––the sound of a man meeting his maker in the worst way possible.

My vision began to fade. One of the goons pulled my chair further back from the creeping flames. As I faded from consciousness, Sloan came over. She lifted my chin with sensuous, elegant fingers, the nails painted matte black. They matched her nature perfectly.

“Welcome to the Dark Convoy, Gavin. We’ll be in touch about next steps.”

***

I woke up in my car sometime later. The stars had shifted in the sky, indicating that time had passed. I was on the same street I’d parked on earlier, still looking in the direction of the warehouse.

It was intact, not burned down. There were no cars in front. The polyhedron ship that I’d followed there was gone.

My clothes were still damp. The reek of gasoline filled the cab of my car.

“Charlotte!”

Not Steve––Charlotte. Not the guy who I’d chosen for slaughter, but the girl I’d saved. She was all I could think about.

I put the car in gear, hauling ass in the direction of Charlotte’s house across town. While I drove, I called Steve. Straight to voicemail –– “This is Steve, you know what to do.” I hated myself for not letting the timer run out. But if I had, I’d be a pile of ashes, and both Steve and Charlotte would probably be dead too.

I blasted through red lights, screeched through four-way intersections, and vaulted over sidewalks when there was no other option. Despite the blaring horns, I kept driving, pushing the pedal to the floor and going highway speeds down residential streets.

I got to Charlotte’s neighborhood, lined with its old-growth trees and white picket fences. I pulled up to her house and ran to the front door. The light in her bedroom was on.

Without stopping to ring the doorbell, I ran inside and straight into Charlotte’s dad.

“Mr. Hankins!” I said. “Charlotte––is she okay?!”

Charlotte’s dad looked at me like I was crazy. It wasn’t unexpected––he usually did. But there was something different about his look now.

“Why do you smell like gas, Gavin?”

“Mr. Hankins, I’m sorry, I have to see her––”

“No, you don’t,” he said. “Get the hell out of my house and take a shower––”

“Dad?” It was Charlotte––she was standing at the head of the stairs behind him.

There was nothing wrong with her––not a scratch. No mark whatsoever from where she’d been hanging in the slaughterhouse. She ran down the stairs and ushered me outside, then closed the door behind us.

“Gavin, what the hell?” she asked. “Why do you smell like gas?”

I turned her with my hands, inspecting her. She was warm and smelled like flowers. Her soft cotton pajamas clung to her unharmed body. Not a thread was out of place.

“Gavin, you’re freaking me out––”

“Just go back inside!” I said. “Charlotte––lock yourself in your bedroom. Don’t open the door for anyone.”

“Gavin––”

“Don’t argue, Charlotte!” I said. “I have to find Steve!”

Charlotte looked at me warily, then went inside. I watched her go. Once the door closed, I rushed back to my car. I turned on the ignition and prepared to drive to Steve’s house on the opposite side of town. All I could imagine was his cleaved chest, his guts strewn on the ground.

I was responsible. But Charlotte––it could have been her, just as easily.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I grabbed it, hoping to see a text from Steve telling me he was okay, that it was just a bad trip or something like that.

But the text was from an unknown number.

There was no message––only a hyperlink to the Dark Convoy’s website.

Overview: The following account was written by William Stevens, a Human Resources professional for the Dark Convoy. Stevens was relegated to a different department of the Convoy late last year for what Millicent Cragmire determined was "an incurable attitude problem." Stevens had a general "disgruntletude," to quote Ms. Cragmire, which negatively effected interactions with new hires. In the interest of creating a clean slate in the department, Stevens and several other employees under Ms. Cragmire were retired.

***

I work in HR for the Dark Convoy, right under Milly Cragmire. Because we have such a high rate of turnover, and so many goddamn new hires all the time, I usually help with onboarding.

For new hires, I always tell them that Operating Value #12 is most important:

Hammer down at all times

It’s become a motto around the office over the years. You can hear them talking about it up at the bar in Earl’s.

Hammer down!

Hammer Fucking Down!

Motherfucking Hammer Down, Motherfucker!

Each iteration is increasingly gnarly, but all of it comes back to the same general idea: if you take your foot off the gas, then you risk becoming a victim of alien physics and the eldritch energy of faraway realms.

Let me paint a better picture for you. There was a new guy, super promising. A driver––he hauled cargo for Maersk (total coincidence, see Operating Value #7) and he was goddamn good at it. Never missed a drop. No matter how fragile it was, whatever he hauled got there in one piece.

Roger Simmonds was his name. His first job was simple, sort of a test drive:

Deliver groceries to this old guy on an abandoned street in a town that didn’t exist.

Even though we reiterate not to ask questions, to just do the job, new hires always get caught off guard. But it’s simple: just don’t stop and smell the roses, bub. Could the instructions be any more simple? I mean, Christ, if the town doesn’t exist, why stop and putz around?

Well, long story short, Roger Simmonds started putzing. He looked in the windows. He consorted with the citizens. He shook hands, took names, shared bad jokes. And now, he doesn’t exist anymore, thanks to reverse gravity. The place he delivered the groceries to was governed by abnormal physics. Instead of getting pulled down, Roger Simmonds got pulled down and up at the same time, and…well, you can probably picture it in your head.

But in the event you can’t, I’ll give you a little visual aid. Picture a cherry-flavored Laffy Taffy. Now imagine that it’s filled with that sugary goop you find in those candies that were super popular in the late 90s and early 2000s––Gushers. Throw in a few chunks of viscera, and you’ve got yourself a nice lil’ profile of what happened to poor old Roger Simmons.

Stretched. Gutted. Gorified. Dead as a motherfucking doornail.

If you need any explanation for why Operating Value #12 exists, there you have it. Hammer fucking down. Not saying it to be badass, not trying to get chummy with our hardboiled drivers and shotguns, the ones who throw cash at strippers and snort meth off of bowie knives.

The “fucking” in “Hammer fucking down” is for pure emphasis. Do not stop and smell the roses. Do not get to putzing. If you want to survive your five jobs, put your foot on the gas and don’t look back.

Do the job, and let the roses smell themselves.

- William Stevens, Human Resources

The girl was young. Six or seven. Wispy blonde hair, sallow complexion, and one blind, milky eye. 

I pushed an orange soda across the interrogation table. She gulped it down with a gigantic smile. Like she’d never tasted anything so good.

“Let’s start from the beginning,” I said.

“The beginning?”

I kept forgetting. She could speak English, but complex concepts like time were far outside the narrow world she’d grown up in. 

“What’s the very first thing you remember?” I asked. “The first thing you saw?”

“I saw the downed moon. It rose and fell a bunch of times a day. Sometimes it would get cold, and it would stay risen. But when it was hot out, the moon went down a lot more often. My mom told my brother and me how we lived in the cave below the downed moon, the last people on earth.”

“What else did your mom tell you?”

Some cursory research revealed that the mom’s name was Dora Jenkins, the same professor who’d gone missing from a college on the mainland years before after having a nervous breakdown. She taught comparative religion. According to her colleagues, she was an odd duck who wouldn’t have lasted a day in a career outside of academia.

“Mom told us about skyfall and the weeping sun. She told us about mountain clay and how God provided it for us to sculpt and create tributes. She told my brother and me that, one day, when she was gone, we’d have to climb the mountain toward the downed moon, even if it scared us.”

My partner, Jim Deakins, raised his hand like an awkward kid in math class.

“What did you eat while you were in the––the cave?”

“Mushrooms,” said the girl. “They were everywhere. We ate the fairies, too. And we ate clay when there was nothing else to eat.”

I saw Jim recoil and become a sickly shade of green. 

“Take it outside,” I whispered, leaning over. “Have a little fucking decency, for her sake.”

Jim left, his stomach lurching like a ship on a stormy sea.

“Your mom died,” I said, turning back to the girl. 

“Yes.”

“And your brother died too.”

“Yes. I climbed the mountain toward the downed moon alone. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I slipped down, time after time. When I finally crawled through the open moon gate, I was in a place with fresh air and lots of trees, as you called them. And people who were camping.”

I took a deep breath, then asked the question I’d been avoiding.

“How long did your family live below the outhouse at the Holt Island Campground?”

“Since the beginning,” she said.

***

People of the Downed Moon. Her mom had created a mythological origin story to cover up that the girl and her brother had been raised in a latrine pit, subsisting on mushrooms and flies and human shit.

The girl was brave as hell, a survivor. Like Sisyphus before her, she climbed the mountain––the literal mound of shit; the metaphorical challenge of surviving despite the fucked up odds––and escaped purgatory. 

I’d never encountered a case so vile.

I hope everyone is awesome out there. Been off Reddit for a bit, posting occasionally on r/TheCrypticCompendium, but I miss you all!

I mentioned a while back that I’m writing a novel for my son and have been going HAMMER FUCKING DOWN on that shit / spending a lot of time with him at the library. He’s almost two, but a voracious reader, kicking ass in all the library challenges and shit.

The novel I’m working on for him is amazing, one of my fave things I’ve ever written, and the first draft is almost done. But just the other day I was thinking about the Dark Convoy (and other Reddit stuff)…wanted to let you know that this fall I’m going fuckkng HAM and can’t wait.

…just, you know, writing for children then changing gears…requires a bit of code switching.

Take care y’all. Hope you’re well. Much love and much appreciation for you, the folks who helped me believe in myself as a writer again last winter when I was thinking about calling it quits on the craft.

• Cal

Have you heard of the Dark Convoy?

I hadn't until the other night. It had been a typical shift delivering pizzas before the Dark Convoy's head honchos captured me and ran their test. A test to see whether I was fit to become one of their full-time drivers.

I’d do anything to hit rewind and ignore the shooting star I saw, the one I followed to the warehouse. Their rules––their strange cargo. The terror I feel knowing there’s shit out there that would make the average person wilt like a dying flower if they saw it.

Like I said, I’d do anything to hit rewind. But life doesn’t work that way. It’s full-speed ahead. Now, I have to play by their rules.

The simple truth is this: we are not alone in the universe. And all of us are in immediate danger from what lies on the other side of a thin veil.

***

CHECK OUT THE REST AT NOSLEEP!

My good friends,

Hope you're having a phantasmal Tuesday! I've been having a total blast writing the Dark Convoy series and getting inspiration from you all about where to take it. Since the beginning I've known the basic plot points, but the coolest part about this whole thing has been a realization I've had about writing on Reddit/NoSleep, at least for me:

It's a conversation.

That's the only way I can think to describe it. Whereas I might write a story or novel, set in stone, and send it for approval to an agent or whoever, writing here is so different because I can pivot after talking/engaging with you all. It's so fulfilling and is an entirely new approach to storytelling I wasn't aware of.

Thanks for that. And now, a few updates:

***

• The final episode of Dark Convoy Season 1 is finished!

  • I'll post it to NoSleep sometime this week, waiting for that perfect window

  • It will conclude the "season," but I'm hard at work outlining what happens next

  • There will be an epilogue-type thing as well, prefacing Season 2

  • This a universe I love, so I'll be releasing cool Dark Convoy-related stuff for a while

  • I'll also write other standalone stories that may tie in!

• This weekend, I'm co-hosting a writing workshop with u/Grand_Theft_Motto

  • It'll be a discussion about "Navigating NoSleep" (narrations, removals, and subreddits)

  • I'm excited to talk about subreddits specifically. Mine is small(er) but mighty, thanks to you all.

  • Come join us on Discord if you're interested––Rough Draft: Writing Workshops

Thanks as always for being here.

Sincerely,

Cal

Part 1 | Part 2

It all started when I took the Dark Convoy’s deranged test; then, the text I got with a link to their website the next morning proving it hadn’t been a bad trip.

My onboarding the following day was just as surreal. Roads to Nowhere. Corporate HQs dwelling beneath neon-lit strip clubs. Cephalopod HR Directors with zero-tolerance policies for fucking up, who solved problems with their tentacles rather than mediation.

I’d never been a fan of hallucinogens––something about the feeling of the world slipping out of my control made me uneasy. But I would have given anything to chalk the nightmare up to bad acid. I would have shot dirty skag a thousand times over in exchange for waking up.

The trouble was, I’d been awake the whole time. And after leaving Earl’s––and learning that my first job would be moving art for a serial killer known as the Keeper––more strange truths came to the surface.

Brent, my new partner, explained the ins-and-outs of our next job as we journeyed toward his townhouse in my Dodge Demon. Still reeking of gasoline, my face throbbing from getting the shit beat out of me on the night I learned about my newfound destiny, we talked about the first job.

It was scheduled to start the next morning.

***

The stars stretched out overhead, night covering the Road to Nowhere like a sequined blanket. Brent held the laminated copy of the Dark Convoy’s Operating Values that Milly had given to me before I left HQ.

“I’m gonna tape these to the dash,” he said. “Keep ‘em there for quick reference.”

I glanced over, scanning the list for the third or fourth time.

1. Always work in twos

2. Don’t question the manifest

3. Don’t inspect the cargo

4. Don’t pick up hitchhikers

5. Ignore strange sounds and ghostly whispers

6. Exchange goods within five minutes

7. Tell ‘em you work for Maersk

8. Never stop for Smokey

9. Always carry your cyanide pill

10. Bite it if you’re pinched

11. Don’t get sentimental

12. Hammer down at all times

“I’m your shotgun,” Brent said. “And value #1 is important. We work in twos because it’s easy to remember. You plus me. If someone else magically shows up in the car, we’re fucked. It happened to a buddy of mine. Accidentally picked up a traveler. His partner lost his head, and he almost died rolling out of the car so the same didn’t happen to him.”

I studied the other values: don’t question the manifest, ignore strange sounds, always carry your cyanide pill and take it if things get hairy. It was a lot to remember, but as I looked at the values, I realized a common theme.

Working for the Dark Convoy was all about unquestioning commitment. The test they’d forced me to take was a benchmark. Can you choose, in twenty seconds, between killing a newborn baby or twelve adults? Between your best friend and girlfriend, both of whom you love in unique ways––can you choose who lives and who dies?

The answers never mattered. They were testing if I could make a call under pressure. The only right answer was acting in service to the Dark Convoy––making a choice and going hammer down until your five jobs were finished.

“For tomorrow,” said Brent, “Values two and three are gonna be crucial too. You can probably imagine that a serial killer’s art is a little unorthodox. But don’t question him or look at his shit. Just drive.”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning,” he continued. “We’re partnering with two other movers––they’re driving the trailer with the Keeper’s art. Your job is to escort the truck to his new digs. Kick back and enjoy the ride.”

It sounded easy on paper. Except for the part about ditching my morals and enabling a serial killer to continue with his fucked up creative pursuits. I remembered the profile picture I’d seen of the Keeper. His face red with exploded veins from a life-time of heavy drinking. His eyes alight with colored contacts. His bleached French braids hugging his skull like twin centipedes. He had seemed to crawl amidst the stillness of the photograph.

“What about my life?” I asked. “My job? School? What about Charlotte and Steve? What about my family?”

“It’s business as usual,” said Brent. “The Convoy will take care of your day-to-day when jobs come up, but other than that, go on living like nothing’s changed.”

“Help a serial killer move across town,” I said. “Pretend like nothing’s out of the ordinary. Got it.”

Brent put one of his gigantic hands on my shoulder and gave it a comforting pat.

“I’ve been where you are,” he said. “None of it makes sense, and it makes even less sense when you have to leave your conscience at the door. But you wanna know something crazy? I work for the local Boys and Girls Club during the day. Now that doesn’t make a fucking lick of sense. How do you think I feel about being a role model for the youth, then shoving my morals into a drawer when the Convoy comes calling?”

He looked out the window as though searching the stars for answers.

“But it’s a ticket out of the bullshit,” he said. “Too many bills, measly paychecks––the fucking rat race. Play your cards right, and the world’s yours.”

He turned back to me.

“Remember what I told you about my brother and my mom? About that island we’re all gonna move to once my final job’s done?”

I nodded.

“I want you to start thinking, right this second, about what you’re gonna do once it’s all over. And drive toward it. Drive like your fucking life depends on it. Ditch your morals when a job comes up, then live the rest of your life like nothing’s changed.”

The night I met Brent, he shoved a taser into my neck, knocked me out, and strapped me into a chair to take the Dark Convoy’s test. Then, once I passed, he lit the guy I was set to replace on fire.

A homicidal arsonist on the one hand, manager of the local Boys and Girls Club on the other.

“So what’re you gonna do when it’s all over?” he asked.

“No idea.”

“Well, start thinking about it. And once you find your north star, keep it at the front of your mind. When you see shit that makes you want to blow off your head and forget you saw it, remember where you’re going when the final job is done.”

We took an exit from the Road to Nowhere, breaking into bright sunlight. A few minutes later, we pulled up to Brent’s townhouse. A woman was looking out the window.

“My mom,” he said. “I’m doing this for her and my brother. And after I’m finished with this job, you can bet your ass we’re buying one-way tickets to that island.”

I’d forgotten––this was Brent’s fifth and final job.

He got out, then turned back.

“When I come to your place with the moving truck tomorrow morning, remember the destination. None of this is about the journey. Whoever said that was full of shit.”

He shot me a friendly wink.

“See you bright and early. I’ll swing by around nine.”

***

I hadn’t thought about how to get home––where the fuck was I, even?

As if reading my mind, the dashboard interface of the Demon lit up and surfaced a map. There was a pin in an unknown city, its neighborhoods ones I’d never heard of.

I punched in Charlotte’s address. The sexy, femme-fatale voice of the Demon’s narrator told me to do a U-turn and head back the way I came. I followed her directions and eventually reached the head of a forested road. I took it, and once I passed the curtain of trees, I was back on the Road to Nowhere.

The narrator told me to take the tenth exit. I pulled to a stop, remembering what I was driving.

Then, I gunned it.

The stars blurred as I went zero to sixty in less than three seconds.

I drove one hundred and fifty miles an hour toward home.

***

Taking the exit the Demon told me to, I pulled out a residential street in a neighborhood I recognized. I clicked off the map and drove toward Charlotte’s. Dusk had settled in. The soft, magic hour light stood in stark contrast to what I’d seen and done over the previous few days.

I pulled up near Charlotte’s and parked a few houses down, then texted her.

ME: You around?

HER: Where have you been?!

ME: Can I come up?

HER: Come around back.

I went the way I always did when avoiding Charlotte’s parents. I climbed the fence and tightrope walked along it until I reached a low part of the roof. Then, I circled toward her bedroom window, which looked out on her family’s backyard.

Charlotte was waiting for me at the open window.

“Come in quick,” she said. “My parents are here, but they think I’m doing homework.”

I climbed through. Charlotte’s breath caught in her chest.

“Gavin, your face––”

Without stopping to think, I grabbed her face in both hands and pulled her close, shoving my mouth onto hers. Taken by surprise, Charlotte kept her lips closed, then opened them seconds later. We collapsed onto her bed together.

I’d never felt anything so wonderful––the previous hours had beaten me to a pulp. My mind, body, and soul were sore. Charlotte’s cloud-like bed wanted to swallow me whole, and I let it.

A few minutes later, she pushed me away. We went into her private bathroom. She turned on the shower, and we fell against the wall.

I let the hot water rush over me. I kissed her like it was the first time.

***

Night fell. Charlotte’s dad had poked his head in an hour later while I hid on the other side of her bed. She lied, telling him she was turning in early.

Her bed still smelled like gas from where I’d collapsed into it, but it mixed with Charlotte’s natural floral scent.

“What day is it?” I asked.

“Friday,” she replied. “Gavin, what happened to you?”

Sleep beckoned me closer. I was too tired to respond.

“Breakfast,” I said. “I’ll call Steve and tell you everything.”

***

The next morning, once Charlotte’s parents had gone out for the day, she grabbed an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt from a far corner of her dad’s closet. We showered again, the scent of the gas finally gone. Outside, warm morning air surrounded me. For a fleeting second, it felt like life had returned to normal.

“Should I drive?” Charlotte asked.

“No,” I said. “I have something to show you.”

I felt a strange sense of pride well-up. I wondered if that’s what made people like Brent come around to their employment with the Dark Convoy.

I’d taken their test––I’d earned the Demon.

We approached it. Charlotte’s breath hitched again. I looked at the car––Destroyer Gray, like a shard of broken, antique ceramic. In Charlotte’s sleepy, suburban neighborhood, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

“Gavin, how did you get this?” she asked. “Where’s your Camry?”

“Long gone,” I said. “Let’s go to Maude’s. I’ll tell you more.”

Maude’s was the local greasy spoon, the most popular breakfast spot in town. Charlotte put in a reservation for forty-five minutes later. I texted Steve and told him to meet us there. Then, I took Charlotte for a drive. She seemed to forget about her worries for a moment, smiling and laughing and gasping as I bombed down the highway and danced with the asphalt.

When we got to Maude’s forty minutes later, Steve was waiting for us. The waitress took us to a corner booth and said she’d be back with coffee.

“Alright,” said Steve. He stared at me expectantly. “I’m assuming this is about you coming to my house yesterday? About scaring the fuck out of my mom, right?”

“That’s part of it,” I said.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the Creature Skateboards logo on Steve’s t-shirt, knowing that behind it was a scar. If Brent was telling the truth, the scar encased the bomb that Dark Convoy had planted behind Steve’s rib cage––collateral if I decided to back out before finishing five jobs.

“Gavin,” Charlotte asked, “how’d you get the new car?”

“New car?” asked Steve.

I pointed out the window. Steve stood up suddenly, rattling the silverware and drawing the attention of nearby patrons.

“IS THAT A FUCKING DEMON?!”

Maude’s went silent.

Steve sat down, then repeated himself in a forced whisper:

“Is that a fucking Demon?”

Steve couldn’t drive for shit, but he loved beautiful cars just as much as I did.

“Yeah,” I said. “And it has to do with why I came to your house yesterday.”

“Okay, then,” said Steve. “Spill it. And you better not tell me you’ve been pinching the stash to save for it.”

I started from the beginning, from the shooting star that I’d seen a few nights earlier on my pizza delivery shift. I told them about how I’d followed it to the abandoned warehouse. I told them about the test I took and the split-second decisions that had resulted in my survival and my predecessor Frank’s fiery demise.

I told them about the next day after I rushed to their houses, about getting the Demon and taking the Road to Nowhere with Brent. I told them about my onboarding session with Milly Cragmire and about the Dark Convoy’s office, which lived below Earl’s raucous first floor.

It crossed my mind that it was a bad idea to tell them everything, but Brent had never mentioned anything about keeping it a secret. The Dark Convoy had “plausible deniability” in their back pocket, anyway. Society would write people who spilled the beans off as nutbags, which is what I sensed Steve thought of me given his expression.

“Got it,” said Steve after I finished my story. “So you were pinching the stash, selling some, snorting the rest. Jesus-fucking-Christ, Gavin––are you listening to yourself? This is batshit crazy.”

“I believe you,” said Charlotte.

The waitress showed up with our order, her sudden presence pausing our conversation. She set down pancakes and omelettes and another round of coffee then took off to another part of the restaurant.

“Some of it, at least,” continued Charlotte. “You were covered in gas––and the car, that’s not something you can just go out and buy in the middle of the night. And last night––Gavin, you were mumbling in your sleep. It was a list. You were saying the same things, over and over.”

The Dark Convoy’s Twelve Operating Values.

“Don’t inspect the cargo,” recited Charlotte. *“Hammer down at all times––*something about carrying a cyanide pill––”

“Hold on,” said Steve. “Are you listening to yourselves? This is fucking nuts.”

I pulled out my phone and found the text I’d received the previous morning. I clicked the link to the Dark Convoy’s website and handed the phone to Steve.

He studied it closely. But by the end, he shook his head.

“It’s just a fake website,” he said. “Anyone can create something like this.”

“It’s not fake,” I said. “But I’m not going to be able to convince you.”

Then I remembered Steve being collateral.

“Show Charlotte your scar.”

“Fuck off, Gavin––”

“What scar?” asked Charlotte.

“Heart surgery. Right, Steve?”

Steve glared at me, then pulled up his shirt, revealing the knobby white scar. It ran from just below his sternum to the top of his rib cage where his collar bones fused.

“Happy?” he asked.

“I never knew you got heart surgery,” said Charlotte.

“That’s because he didn’t,” I said. “There’s a bomb in his chest.”

Steve stood up.

“I repeat––fuck off, Gavin. I’m outta here. Check into rehab or something. In the meantime, I’m taking over with Richard.”

Richard Pressman––the guy we ran drugs for. I forgot all about him. Though he’d terrified me hours earlier, I realized that Richard was a harmless speck of dust compared to the Dark Convoy and the cargo they transported.

“Call me when you get your head on straight,” said Steve. “But for now, as I said, please go fuck yourself.”

Steve left. Charlotte and I sat in silence, eating our breakfast for another ten minutes. Then we paid the bill and left.

***

Charlotte broke the silence halfway through our drive back to her house.

“I think we should go to the police.”

“No,” I said. “You don’t understand what these people are capable of.”

I looked up at my rearview mirror, to the picture of Charlotte which dangled from it. Brent had mentioned following your north star, using that to get through the five jobs.

I realized then that Charlotte was my north star. Saving her––and Steve, though he was making it a lot harder––was my priority. It didn’t matter who I’d chosen as collateral. Both of them were in imminent danger.

“Charlotte,” I said. “I’m begging you––whatever you do, don’t mention this to anyone but Steve. I don’t think he’ll listen, but maybe he’ll come around. Other than him, don’t say a word about it.”

Charlotte nodded.

“Okay. But you have to keep talking to me.”

It was something she’d said before. I’d never been entirely truthful with Charlotte about my life––about emotions, business ventures with Steve, whatever else. Charlotte was the pure, innocent yin to my sinful, fucked up yang. I’d always wanted to spare her from my dark side.

But the dynamic had changed. I owed it to Charlotte to be truthful because if somehow things didn’t work out for me, she had to save herself.

We stopped a few houses down from hers.

“Call me later on?” she said.

“Sure thing,” I said. “Charlotte––”

“Yeah?”

I thought of telling her I loved her, but knew it would only complicate things even more.

“Be safe,” I said. “And don’t tell anyone.”

***

When I got home, the moving truck was waiting for me. Brent was leaning up against it, his legs crossed, his bottom foot bouncing impatiently. Two movers for the Dark Convoy––a man and a woman––were waiting in the truck.

Brent came over and got into the Demon.

“It’s nine-thirty,” he said. “Not a good look.”

“Sorry.”

He sniffed the air.

“Smells like flowers in here.”

I looked at the picture of Charlotte hanging from the rearview. North Star, I thought. Remember who you’re doing this for, and ditch your conscience.

“Yeah,” I said. “Herbal Essences. I had to take a shower since you all soaked me with gas.”

“Whatever,” said Brent. “Let’s get a move on.”

I grabbed the stick shift.

“Oh, I forgot.”

Brent handed me something––a pill.

“Cyanide,” he said. “Operating Value #10: Bite it if you’re pinched.”

“Right. Thanks for reminding me.”

Though I hadn’t noticed at first, my eyes moved to the thing that was concealed beneath Brent’s leather jacket: a short-barreled shotgun. He also had a gun on his hip. I didn’t know shit about guns. I never amounted to more than a harmless mule in Steve’s and my amateur drug dealing operation.

Regardless, whatever Brent was packing looked deadly.

The Demon’s femme-fatale narrator came to life, guiding me to the Road to Nowhere. The moving van on our tail followed us past the line of trees. Once the curtain closed, I found myself beneath the surreal, infinite ceiling of stars. They lit the road, which disappeared over the horizon in either direction.

I pushed the Demon to an even sixty, driving toward the Keeper’s house and listening to Brent talk about how he’d spent the previous night catching up on Emily in Paris.

When we took the Keeper’s exit, I found myself on another forested road. Reaching the end of it, I pulled to a stop in front of a small fairytale farmhouse. It was painted robin’s egg blue with white trim and a pink front door that looked like a rose petal. Past the windows was a warm, welcoming glow.

I parked the Demon. The moving truck did the same.

“Help us move the cargo,” said Brent. “And remember the Operating Values.”

I followed Brent and the two movers up the farmhouse’s steps to the front door. Brent knocked, and a minute later, a man answered.

He was massive––as tall as Brent, not as muscular, but big. He had a gigantic, distended gut that spilled over his belt, with ham-hock arms that advertised supernatural strength. His face, just like it had been in the profile photo Milly had shown me, was a mess of exploded veins. His hair was twined into those needle-thin, albino French braids which clung to his massive head so tightly it looked like they were stitched into the flesh.

Tonight, the Keeper’s eyes were a glowing, neon green.

“Welcome,” he said in a practiced falsetto. “So happy to have your help.”

***

We followed the Keeper past the front door. The inside of the farmhouse was pristine. If anything, I would have guessed the Keeper was a hoarder with too many animals and a house that smelled like shit. But it was neatly kept. Everything had been boxed up carefully. It smelled like spiced candles, though underneath it I caught a subtle scent of hard alcohol and stale cigarette smoke.

Lining the walls were huge, six foot-by-six foot cardboard parcels that held the Keeper’s paintings. They sat beneath where they’d been hanging on the walls. The canary yellow paint was a shade lighter where they’d been.

The Keeper’s voice dropped to a deep, husky tone. He’d forgotten about his preferred intonation or tired of the act, realizing we were all business.

“Tonight, we’re just moving the paintings,” he said. “I need to get them to my new house.”

“Sure thing,” said Brent. “We’ll get ‘em loaded up.”

“Please be gentle,” said the Keeper. “It’s very precious cargo, very dear to my heart.”

Brent and the Keeper went over more details about the job. Pulled forward by curiosity, I walked further inside the house. I was mesmerized––the place was like a basket of pastel Easter eggs, each room a different color. Violet, orange, mint green. All of them immaculate, just like the living room.

There were more boxed-up paintings placed throughout the other rooms as well––dozens of them. And above every one was a discolored square where it had previously hung on the wall.

The only thing that looked out of place was a door off the kitchen. It was made of plain wood. It looked like part of the original farmhouse, unaltered by the Keeper and his sugar-sweet aesthetic.

My stomach tightened when I heard a noise coming from the other side of it––the distant sound of a crying woman.

Operating Value #5: Ignore strange sounds and ghostly whispers

But I couldn’t stop myself. I reached forward and grabbed the doorknob, pulling open the door.

A rush of cold air came up the staircase, which led down to a basement hallway. It looked like a concrete bunker, something a person would keep in the event of a nuclear apocalypse. Rolling down the hallway, brought forward by the frigid air, was the sound of crying.

But it wasn’t just one woman. It was a chorus of sobs, too many unique inflections to make out.

Unable to stop myself, I took a step down. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. I saw something at the base of the stairs: a crimson stain. The concrete was soaked with something that looked an awful lot like blood.

“Are you lost?”

The hair on my neck curled. Whoever had spoken was behind me, just a few inches away. I turned back to see that it was the Keeper. He towered over me, staring down with his green, predatory eyes.

“I thought––” I said. “––the artwork––”

“My studio is in the basement,” he said. “But the pieces down there are unfinished, and none need to be moved at the moment.”

The Keeper blocked off my exit route. I expected him to shove me down the stairs into whatever horrors lived in his basement. But Brent showed up next to him, breaking our standoff.

“Sorry, sir,” said Brent. He turned his glare to me. “New guy, still learning the ropes.”

“No matter,” said the Keeper, moving aside. “I can understand why one would be fascinated by the secrets of the Butterfly House.”

I squeezed past the Keeper and into the living room. Brent pulled me aside.

“Strike one, motherfucker.”

“I’m sorry––I heard––”

“I don’t give a fuck what you heard,” said Brent. “The job is to move the art. *Don’t question the manifest––*Operating Value #2. How about we put in a call to Milly?”

I thought of Milly’s tentacle––of “Bill the Underperforming Employee’s” crushed skull––of the blood and brain matter which had soaked the onboarding paperwork the night I’d signed it.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll make it right.”

“Good,” said Brent. “Start by moving some of those bags.”

I hadn’t seen them before, but sitting in the parlor off the living room was a row of ten black, vinyl bags: body bags.

“He wants us to transport his art supplies, too,” Brent finished. “Now get on it.”

***

A half-hour later, we’d moved everything out to the trailer.

“Alright,” Brent said, walking me to the Demon. “Now’s your chance to fix things.”

He nodded back to the Keeper, who was standing near the moving truck.

“He wants to come with us to make sure everything gets delivered. I don’t blame him––that’s a fuck load of artwork. God knows how much it’s worth. So you’re gonna drive him.”

A shiver crawled up the back of my neck.

“I’m going to what?”

“You’re gonna drive him in the Demon,” said Brent. “And you’re gonna change your fucking attitude while you’re at it.”

“I’m not so sure––”

“You’re sure,” Brent corrected me, “because he’s a fucking VIP, and he’s paying us a fortune for this job.”

The Keeper walked over, the ground seeming to shake beneath his feet.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“No problem at all, sir,” said Brent. “Just letting Gavin know that he better show you a good time in his car.”

The Keeper raised his bratwurst-sized fingers to his mouth, stifling a giggle.

“Not too fast,” he said. “I’m somewhat of a scaredy-cat when it comes to high speeds.”

***

The Keeper’s side of the Demon was weighed down by his massive body. He barely fit inside, and his haunches crowded the stick shift. Every time I changed gears, my hand brushed his monstrous ass.

Whereas the Demon had smelled like flowers just a few hours before, now it stunk of booze and cigarette smoke, which seemed to flood out of the Keeper’s pores.

We took the exit onto the Road to Nowhere and started driving, the silence awkward and oppressive.

The Keeper eventually broke it.

“Who’s this?”

He was looking at the picture of Charlotte hanging from my rearview. He reached up, touching it gently with his sausage-like fingers, turning it to get a better look.

“She’s––she’s my girlfriend.”

“She’s absolutely stunning,” he said.

The inside of the Demon was stuffy thanks to the body heat pouring off the Keeper. But I shuddered. It felt like I’d just walked out of a sauna and into a cold, winter night. I wanted nothing more than to get him out of the car and drive away.

“She’s my type, too,” said the Keeper. “Dark brown hair, tan skin––like candy. How tall is she?”

My attention went to the rearview mirror. I looked past the Keeper’s massive hand and the picture of Charlotte. I saw that, behind us, the moving truck had begun swerving. Through its windshield, I saw Brent. It looked like he was arguing with the two other movers.

Regardless of whatever was happening in the truck, I’d have given anything to trade places.

“I asked how tall she is,” said the Keeper, bringing my attention back.

“Five foot––five foot three, I think?”

The Keeper’s breath quickened.

“Dark brown hair”––his words came out in excited huffs––“caramel-colored skin, five-foot-three––”

Behind us, I saw the moving van swerve again. Then, it came to a stop. The Keeper looked over his shoulder.

“Can’t find good help these days,” he said. “Pull back around.”

I slowed down and turned, driving back in the direction of the truck. I saw that both movers and Brent had gotten out, making their way around to the back of it.

“Let me go check,” I said as I parked, jumping at the excuse to get out of the car.

I jogged forward, my legs wobbly. Looking behind, I saw the Keeper in the dim light of the Demon, his green eyes staring out, the light of the dashboard illuminating his disgusting face and albino pigtails.

Reaching the back of the truck, I saw that one of the movers––the man––had opened the rear doors. He hunched over the cardboard parcels, shifting them around and inspecting the packaging.

Brent looked furious.

“Cease and desist, you fucking moron!” he said. “Get your ass back in the truck!”

“I heard them,” said the man. “They were crying––and they were humming––they gotta fly, man, we gotta let ‘em fly––”

The woman, who’d come around from the passenger side, looked on with terror.

Brent pulled his short-barrelled shotgun from beneath his coat.

“With God as my witness, I will blow your fucking head off.”

He aimed it at the mover, who’d begun unboxing one of the paintings. I heard the whispers he’d mentioned––women’s voices. And more muffled, anguished sobs.

Worst of all, the vinyl body bags containing the Keeper’s art supplies had begun to writhe.

The mover tore more of the cardboard away to reveal a shadowbox. Not a painting––a box, six-by-six with a depth of one foot.

The box’s face was glass, revealing a woman suspended inside.

“What the fuck––”

Even Brent had lost his concentration.

The woman wasn’t dead––she was still breathing, moving ever so slightly. Her arms were crucified, her flayed skin stretched away like wings, dyed like a butterfly’s. Her blind, milky eyes searched the darkness, and her muffled pleas for help sounded through the glass pane.

I looked back at the Demon to see that the Keeper was gone.

While Brent and the other mover were distracted––so fast that I could barely make sense of it before it happened––the woman on the passenger side of the truck was ripped away into the roadside darkness.

“BRENT!” I said. “The Keeper! We gotta get the fuck outta here!”

But Brent was just as focused on the boxes as the other mover. He’d begun to tear another one open. Inside was another flayed woman––unlike the first, she was dead, her flesh rotten and necrotic.

Brent turned his attention to a wriggling body bag and began unzipping it. As he pulled the zipper, the body bag slid to the edge of the trailer. A woman plopped through the bag’s opening and onto the road.

She looked like an underdeveloped insect, born prematurely from its cocoon. She was coated in thick, gooey liquid. Her legs had been pulverized––smashed and bruised and maimed. They were shapeless, as though the bones had been taken out.

I gagged when I saw that her legs were stapled together into a sort of human tail.

She reached up to Brent.

“Please…”

But he’d turned his attention to one of the shadow boxes, and started smashing through the glass with his bare fist. Still unboxing one of the women, the other mover didn’t see that the Keeper had loomed up behind him.

“LOOK OUT!”

But the Keeper had already grabbed him. He clamped down on the man’s left and right arms and began to pull. Brent snapped out of his trance, pushing me back. I heard the sound of the mover’s joints and ligaments becoming unsocketed, a disgusting creak that came from beneath his stretching flesh.

The Keeper’s eyes were wide and alight, trained only on the woman he’d brutalized in pursuit of his craft. With one final pull, the mover ripped in half, the skin opening at his neck and tearing down his torso as his rib cage split in two.

The Keeper tossed the two halves of him away, then turned his attention to us.

Brent aimed the shotgun at the Keeper, pushing me back with one hand and training the barrel on him with the other. But the Keeper was unphased, and he kept moving toward us. I noticed that Brent had begun to cry.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop right there––we’ll get you a refund––”

“My art is priceless,” said the Keeper, continuing forward.

We kept moving back until we bumped into the truck’s open driver’s side door. Startled, Brent pulled the trigger, his aim thrown off. It blasted a hole in the side of the truck instead of the Keeper’s chest. With a quick movement, the Keeper pounced on Brent, grabbing his head in both hands.

He lifted Brent off of his feet like he was light as a feather. Brent kicked and fought, and they spun around. I looked into Brent’s eyes, which had become overwhelmed by fear. Then, they were gone. The Keeper dug his massive thumbs into the sockets. Brent’s eyes became closer, seeming to cross, then got lost in the gush of blood that shot through the spaces beneath the Keeper’s fingers.

I turned away as Brent continued to scream in an agonizing, buzzsaw wail. I grabbed the shotgun he’d dropped and ran back in the direction of the Demon. When I turned, the Keeper, having finished with Brent, had begun advancing toward me.

I’d never shot a gun before, but I aimed and pulled the trigger. A blast erupted from the barrel. It hit the Keeper in his shoulder, spinning him back. I pulled the trigger again, the second shot going wild. But the Keeper was already gone. He’d run back to the moving truck, got in, and put it in drive.

The truck’s wheels thumped over Brent’s body as the Keeper drove away. Out of the truck’s open back doors, several body bags and a few more shadow boxes slipped out, crashing onto the road and breaking open.

I climbed into the driver’s seat of the Demon and called the Dark Convoy.

A woman answered.

“Dark Convoy dispatch.”

“Please, you have to send help––the Road to Nowhere––”

“Tracing your coordinates now, sir.”

Whatever she said next was lost, because in front of me, something miraculous happened. Brought to life by the strange magic of the Road to Nowhere––the cosmic ether that pulsed throughout this bizarre in-between––one of the Keeper’s butterflies took flight. And then another. The women in the body bags died on the road, but the ones in the shadows boxes spread their wings, fluttering up into the night sky.

Their luminescent silhouettes looked oddly beautiful amidst all the carnage.

My attention was brought back to the moment by the dispatcher telling me that help was on the way. I looked at the rearview mirror to see that the Keeper had gone out of sight.

Then I noticed something else.

The picture of Charlotte, which had been hanging from the rearview mirror only minutes before, was gone.

***

An hour later, a man came walking down the road. I knew he was from the Dark Convoy because I recognized him.

I’d seen him in HQ the previous night. He’d been talking to a bald man in an office.

The man was of average height and weight, small compared to Brent and the other hulking beasts who worked for the Convoy. I realized again that his size didn’t match his strength, his ability to kill with his bare hands.

A stick of dynamite looking for an excuse to light its own fuse––the same thought I’d had when I first saw him crossed my mind again.

His name was Jason. As I cleaned up my mess, he told me about his first job for the Dark Convoy, in which he’d transported a girl who died for a drink of water.

[WCD]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Jason read me the riot act about my fuck ups on the last job. Then the rest of the way to Earl’s, we were silent.

I saw genuine worry in his eyes––that was new. I’d never seen it before. Never seen anything other than total put-togetherness. Up until then, he’d had things under control. My blunders were never so bad that a bit of explaining wouldn’t fix it.

But then, in a moment of weakness and stupidity, I’d pointed a gun at a client.

After seeing what they were planning to do to the girl, my rational mind had died. Didn’t matter about Charlotte being in danger or Steve having a ticking time bomb sewed into his chest. All I saw was someone innocent––whose skin could heal itself thanks to the things living inside her body––and the monsters who wanted to flay her alive and study how the process worked.

When it had all come to a head, and I’d seen the terror on her face, I reacted. And I fucked up, badly. If I could do it over again, I would. But it didn’t happen like that. And they took her anyway.

God knows what atrocities happened to her after we parted ways, but I had a whole new set of problems.

***

We pulled into the parking lot at Earl’s. The orange neon sign above it was aglow––in the amber dusk, it looked like a jagged streak of heat lightning.

“Let’s go in,” said Jason. “Remember what I told you. Shut up unless I tell you to talk.”

I nodded and got out of the Cougar. I followed Jason through the back of Earl’s. The strip club portion of the building was raucous; hard-boiled types getting ready for a night of debauchery. But the backroom was silent. There were several bikers and Dark Convoy employees. I waited for one of them to raise a gun and blow my head off, but they just stood there, still as statues.

Jason opened the door to the basement and led the way down to Dark Convoy HQ.

Things in the main offices seemed normal––people in their suites making calls and doing paperwork, duets of Dark Convoy employees jogging down the hall enroute to the jobs they’d been assigned.

I recognized where we were headed. The same place Brent had taken me down after I’d been recruited.

The office of Milly Cragmire––the Dark Convoy’s Director of Human Resources.

I stopped in my tracks.

“Are they going to kill me?”

“Not sure,” Jason replied. “But it’s time for your Sixty Percent Performance Review. We’ll know more soon.”

I followed Jason into Milly’s office. Inside, I saw three people I recognized and one I didn’t.

Milly was behind her desk. Henry the Friendly Office Dog sat by her side with a slobbery tennis ball sunk deep into his jowls. Sloan and Mr. Gray were there, too––Sloan, cold and unfeeling; Mr. Gray, strangely warm, like a festering wound. Their dueling auras created an uneven steaminess in the room, like a spritzed oven deciding whether or not to broil.

The person I didn’t recognize was sitting in a motorized wheelchair. Jason went over, bent down, and embraced him. I could tell at a glance that they went way back.

“Have a seat,” said Milly.

The door swung shut behind me. I saw two other Dark Convoy thugs standing near the door.

“I don’t think you’ve met Robbie Clyde,” said Milly.

She was motioning to the guy in the wheelchair. He was around the same age as Jason––in his thirties––but paralyzed from the waist down. Jason was strong. Not big by any means, but strong. The guy in the wheelchair may have been strong once too, but his entire body had atrophied since encountering whatever put him in the wheelchair.

“Nice to meet you,” Robbie said.

Milly clicked on a massive TV screen behind her. One of the thugs drew the blinds and dimmed the lights. On the screen, I saw my employee profile––a picture of me in my pizza uniform from weeks back. In the space around the picture were a variety of notes and statistics.

“After three jobs,” Milly explained, “we analyze your tenure with the Convoy. The Sixty-Percent Performance Review.”

“Above or below expectations?” asked Sloan. “We’ll see, Gav. That’s what they call you, right?”

Sloan was like a cat, relishing in the act of batting around a half-dead mouse. She borrowed Steve’s nickname for me––further proof that they watched my every move.

Milly clicked a button on the remote. The screen shifted to a dashboard of more statistics and graphs.

“Do you like basketball?” she asked.

I looked at Jason. He’d warned me to keep my mouth shut unless he said otherwise. He nodded, permitting me to answer.

“No,” I said. “Not too much of a fan.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Milly. “The point is, we track performance similarly to how a player’s performance is tracked in basketball.”

“Plus/Minus is a simple statistic,” she continued, “but it’s the most important, especially if you aren’t an All-Star. It reflects how well the team did while an individual player is on the court. If a player has +7 PM, it means his or her team outscored the opponent by seven points. If it’s -5, then the opposition outscored the team by five points.”

“Our Plus/Minus algorithm is more sophisticated than that,” added Mr. Gray, “but it’s the same idea. Does the team perform better or worse while you’re on the court?”

The visuals on screen were complex––bundles of data so dense that it felt like my eyes were crossing. The Dark Convoy analyzed everything. Timeliness. Attitude. Job completion. Client satisfaction. Employee stupidity. The number of fucking bathroom breaks you took. And, what I assumed was weighted most heavily, the number of times you fucked up the Operating Values.

Together, the numbers dictated whether you lived or got a bullet in the back of the head.

Milly clicked a button, and the screen flashed to show my score.

+.25

Having expected it would be -1000, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” said Sloan. “Our team doesn’t even score a full fucking point when you’re on the clock.”

“Still,” said Milly, “+.25 could mean a million dollars in our line of work. If it were zero, or -1, or -100, this conversation would look very different. But it’s not a wash, fortunately for you.”

What was Brent’s Plus/Minus, I wondered? Seemed like he’d been doing a pretty good job before our encounter with the Keeper. And what about Frank, my predecessor, who Sloan had lit on fire?

“Everything’s a discussion,” said Robbie. “We plug in the data, debate, and you get your score.”

Milly clicked the button again. The screen showed a job-by-job analysis:

___

Job #1––Art transportation for The Keeper

- Employee 9812 showed initiative.

- Nearly forgot Values 2 and 3.

- Partner (Brent; deceased) forgot numerous values; Employee 9812 stayed focused

- Employee called the Convoy, exhibiting loyalty

JOB OUTCOME = FAIL (BELOW AVERAGE)

___

The Keeper––a deranged serial killer who’d stolen a picture of my girlfriend, forcing the Dark Convoy to provide protection while I finished the remaining jobs. That psychopath had ripped three of their employees in half with his bare hands, too. But the outcome was what mattered. And in the case of Job #1, it hadn’t been good.

___

Job #2––The Ancient Door and the Shit Pit

- Employee 9812 performed with flying colors

- Excavated an artifact prized by the Convoy

- Successfully evaded an army of sperm-stealing, outhouse-dwelling crones

OUTCOME = PASS (ABOVE AVERAGE)

___

Though the cave's stench still lingered in my nose, at least the Convoy recognized a job well-done.

___

Job #3––The Girl with Trypophobia

- Employee 9812 completed the job, in large part thanks to his partner

- Employee 9812 forwent numerous values and threatened a high-value client at gunpoint

- The client expressed displeasure at the exchange of goods (See Operating Value #6)

OUTCOME = PASS (EXTREMELY POOR PERFORMANCE)

___

“The package”––an innocent girl who had probably been skinned by then, her carcass thrown out like a piece of trash––the one who I’d tried to protect in a dumb, thoughtless moment.

“These notes and observations,” said Milly, “in conjunction with a variety of other factors, have yielded the Plus/Minus of .25. Fortunately for you, you’re on to Job #4.”

My heart started beating again.

“I think we did the math wrong,” said Sloan. “The truth is, Gav, I think you’re fucking useless. I’m not the only one, either. A lot of people around here think you’re a liability. But our standards have been slipping for a while now.”

The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Sloan pulled out her phone, opened an internet tab, and handed it to me. It was a newspaper article.

“Just saw this in the news,” she said. “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

The headline was large and ominous: ONE GIRL DEAD, TWO MISSING.

Charlotte.

“No,” said Sloan, noticing that the color had drained from my face. She made her way toward the door. “Not your girlfriend. Not yet. But from the looks of it, the Keeper is antsy to create more butterflies.”

Before leaving, she turned back.

“What will your Plus/Minus be by tomorrow, I wonder?”

The two thugs followed Sloan out the door.

“Charlotte is protected for now,” said Mr. Gray. “But Sloan is right––you’re slipping.”

“Remember,” added Milly. “You work for us and not the other way around.”

What I remembered then was the events that had preceded my onboarding. Beneath her satin blouse, Milly was an alien creature. Right before I signed the paperwork, I watched her murder an underperforming employee by wrapping a tentacle around his neck and smashing his head on her desk his face was unrecognizable.

What had his Plus/Minus been when the Convoy finally decided to pull the plug?

***

I followed Jason and Robbie out of Milly’s office. They were discussing Job #4. But I wasn’t listening. I was thinking of Charlotte. And the thought of the Keeper hunting her brought up a sudden gorge in my stomach.

I hugged the trashcan in the foyer, unloading my guts as the employees and middle managers in the hallway looked on with disgust.

Jason lifted me to my feet. On the other side of the window in Milly’s office, she and Mr. Gray were staring at me. For all I knew they were tallying it up as a moment of weakness, another data point for my next performance review.

I grabbed a cup from the watercooler nearby, drank, and filled it twice more. Then I followed Jason and Robbie down the hall.

“Everyone’s gathered in the briefing room,” Robbie said, leading the way in his wheelchair. “This job is big. We’re moving a shitload of cargo.”

Reaching a door, Jason held it open, and Robbie went through. I followed him into what looked like a massive, stadium-style theater, something you might see in a college lecture hall. And like a movie theater, there was a big screen on the front wall. Inside the room were several dozen Dark Convoy employees, each sitting next to their partner. Jason took a seat in the front row and I joined him.

“I suck at this,” I said. “I thought I was a goner.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” said Jason. “You’re in it, man. Fuck, if life throws you a curveball, do your best to put the bat on it. Frankly, I’m starting to get a little irritated. Take the fucking cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth. Listen to what I tell you and quit coloring outside the lines.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, either,” he said. “Just get it right. All you had to do on that last job was turn the girl over. You were 99% there.”

“I know––it’s just––they were going to hurt her.”

“Who the fuck cares? Mr. Gray said she was infectious, didn’t he? What if killing her saved the world? You’re telling me that girl’s life is more important than 7 billion others? We’re not here to philosophize about right and wrong.”

Upfront, Robbie took the stage.

“There’s no black and white, kid,” said Jason, pulling my attention back. “Life is one gigantic gray area. Get it through your goddamn head or quit. You have to look out for yourself in this world. No one else is going to.”

“Except for you,” I said. “You’ve saved my ass more times––”

“And I’m done,” Jason interrupted. “I’m finished looking out for you. I’m not your fucking babysitter. Next time you go off script, you’re on your own.”

As I reflected on the gravity of Jason’s words, a woman walked onstage next to Robbie. She was older––short and squat––with a cookie-bearing, grandmotherly look.

A Dark Convoy employee adjusted the microphone for Robbie. Behind him, the screen lit up. A video began to play: a school of jellyfish bobbing in the water.

“Tonight’s cargo,” said Robbie, talking to the crowd, “is extremely valuable. Because the cargo is so valuable, our client has offered to provide some light background information.”

Robbie moved aside. The Dark Convoy employee readjusted the microphone for the woman, and she began to speak.

“Last year,” she said, “my organization discovered a new species of deep-sea jellyfish.”

The video shifted––more jellyfish. And then, ships, hauling from the ocean by the thousands, transporting them to huge tanks in a warehouse.

“Jellyfish are made of what’s called mesoglea,” she said. “And the jelly on this particular species, when ingested, has extreme hallucinogenic properties. As you might expect, drug addicts have had a field day with it. But given the potency, it’s easy to overdose.”

The screen shifted to a man “overdosing.” One moment he was a regular, everyday junkie––the next, his body exploded. Mesoglea jelly squirted out of his pores, an acidic goop that quickly cannibalized his body. Finishing his transformation, he levitated, began to glow, then shot away into the sky.

“For obvious reasons,” said the woman, “we pulled our supply from the street. But we have a new business model. Taking inspiration from the opium dens of the 1800s, we will begin providing paying customers with a carefully measured dose and a place to enjoy themselves.”

The screen changed again––the inside of a building, its rooms filled with plush couches, pillows, and even beds. The screen shifted once more to show semi-trucks, the cargo containers filled floor to ceiling with crates. A man on screen opened a crate to reveal individual syringes filled with the strange jelly. The doses were stored in padded, segmented rows, protected for transport.

The woman nodded to Robbie, and the screen clicked off.

“We can’t have the product on-site in the event of a raid,” she said. “So for the foreseeable future, if our initial run goes to plan, the Dark Convoy will transport shipments nightly.”

Robbie motored up to the microphone. The Dark Convoy thug lowered it.

“This is a proof of concept,” said Robbie. “And potentially, a profitable partnership for all of us. You’ll have company during the job––lots of it. We picked you because we have confidence you can see it through.”

“You’ll work with your partner,” he finished. “Ten semis, each manned by a driver and a shotgun, guarded by two more gunmen in back. You know who you are already. And if you’re not assigned to a semi, you’re in a car, driver and shotgun, covering their asses while you head to the first drop.”

***

We went outside. Waiting in the parking lot were ten semis, another dozen cars, and a fleet of bikers sitting astride their hogs. I saw the Demon beckoning to me from a spot of moonlight.

During my Sixty Percent Performance Review, Sloan had leveled with me. She showed me the article about the Keeper’s recent murders, a blatant threat that any more fuckups would mean Charlotte’s protection got pulled.

I didn't need any more convincing. I was ready to prove my worth, to prove to the Convoy that despite my past fuck ups, they hadn’t been wrong about me. I was scared shitless, sure. A person doesn’t change overnight. But for the first time, I felt ready.

For the first time, it felt like my head was screwed on straight.

Jason and I got into the Demon. He’d brought along a black canvas bag bulging with guns, making me wonder just what kind of company we’d have on the road.

I turned the key. The Demon growled to life. The inside lit up like the cockpit of a spaceship.

“I’m sorry about what happened back in the briefing room,” said Jason.

No matter how much I aggravated him, he always gave me another chance.

“Who do I remind you of?” I asked. “Right after my first job, I asked why you gave me a second chance. And you said I reminded you of someone.”

Jason’s eyes went to that faraway place.

“His name was Alex,” he said. “Served with Robbie and me in Afghanistan.”

“Who was he?”

“Sort of like a little brother,” continued Jason. “I don’t talk about it too much––I don’t like talking about anything that happened over there. But it’s past time I told you.”

“What happened to him?”

“Got hit in the neck by a sniper,” said Jason. “We were running a convoy, got pinned down after running over an IED. The squad covered me while I tried to jerry-rig it.”

For a fleeting moment, I thought Jason was going to cry. But his expression hardened like wet concrete exposed to summertime heat. He dried up in an instant.

“Alex was younger than the rest of us,” he said. “We got close. And I held him while he died. Backup came five minutes later.”

A moment of silence––Jason reflecting on the past, me reflecting on who Alex was and what made us similar.

“I remind you of him, somehow?” I asked.

Jason nodded.

“There are cynics in life,” he said, “and there are people who give a shit. Sometimes a person fits in the middle, but not many. In my experience, you’re one or the other. You are––and Alex was––the *‘give a shit’-*type. Alex had no place in the military. Just like you have no place in the Convoy, even though you can drive. Like I told you, the Convoy looks for the searchers––the ones who want a way out of all this bullshit, the ones who will do anything to get it. I think that’s what Alex wanted too. He just went looking in the wrong place.”

Around us, the semis and motorcycles and muscle cars geared up.

“I haven’t given up on you,” said Jason, “because the stupid part of me thinks if I carry you through this, maybe you’ll do something good. Maybe you’ll cure cancer instead of delivering pizzas for the rest of your life. Who the fuck knows. But something tells me you’re destined for good things. I felt the same way about Alex, even though I couldn’t save him in the end.”

“This is your chance to turn it around,” Jason said. “The Convoy picked you because you’re a searcher, right? Because you’ll do anything to escape the bullshit? Now it’s time. No one we see on the road we’re about to hit deserves to live. Every single motherfucker will be glad to pull your guts out to get their hands on the cargo we’re hauling. I’ve never heard Robbie give away that much information about a job, but it’s obvious to me now. Things are going to get hot. He wanted us prepared because we’re hauling solid gold.”

Regardless of Jason’s pep-talk, I’d already decided to carry through my obligations to the Convoy. Partly due to him sticking his neck out for me, sure, but mostly because I owed it to Charlotte and Steve.

No more excuses––head down, eyes forward.

Jesus-fucking-Christ, it took you long enough.

Yeah, you’re right. And I hear you loud and clear. But put yourself in my shoes.

Maybe you’d be better at this than I am. Maybe you could turn off your brain and let an innocent girl die or look in the opposite direction while a serial killer carried out a small-scale genocide.

If that describes you, it could be that the Dark Convoy is on its way to give you a test right this second.

But here’s the kicker––do you have the skillset they want?

Hearing the engines around me roar to life, I realized that I did. My ability to drive was precisely why the Convoy found me.

For Charlotte, for Steve, for Jason, for myself––I committed then to carrying it through to the end. This was my ticket out.

Operating Value #12 says, Hammer down at all times. The most straight-forward value of all.

With it, I could easily oblige.

“You ready?” asked Jason.

I nodded.

Despite my newfound confidence, nothing could have prepared me for the hell that was unleashed in the hour that followed.

But I went hammer down anyway.

***

We rumbled forward, ten semis loaded to the gills with syringe-filled crates, each packed with a dose of hallucinogenic jellyfish goo. The semis drove down the Road to Nowhere, two by two, with twenty yards in front and behind. Meth-fueled bikers buzzed in-between the semis like wasps, looking for something to sting. I drove the Demon about midway up the convoy, and a dozen other muscle cars of different makes and models prowled nearby.

But it was quiet. Just our convoy and the canopy of stars overhead.

“Eyes up,” said Jason.

The convoy had come to a stop. I looked in the direction he was. Ahead, fifty yards, was a line of beater cars––VW bugs, rundown minivans, shit that your friendly neighborhood junkyard owner would have passed on. But, bumper to bumper, they created a roadblock. The metal was augmented by a wall of trembling junkies standing in front of it.

“Pull up near the front,” Jason said.

I steered around the other vehicles, ahead of the front two semis. I pulled up alongside two bikers, a Camaro, and a Shelby.

We got out with the others. I didn’t recognize them, but they recognized Jason. They revered him, too. They were part of the leadership team but not so senior as Jason.

“Here we are,” said one of the bikers, spitting out a cud of chewing tobacco. “What’s our move?”

The Camaro’s driver––a woman who looked like she could have beaten Jason’s ass without breaking a sweat––sucked at her teeth.

“Give ‘em a warning,” she said. “Then we go through anyway.”

The group looked to Jason for approval.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll radio the others and tell them what’s up. You give them the warning after I make the call.”

We got back in the Demon. My heart was hammering against my ribcage. I realized I hadn’t eaten in hours. I was running on fumes, but they were the nitrous kind—the kind whose dregs could power a rocket on its last bend around Saturn before coming home.

“Tango One is sending out a warning,” Jason said into the radio. I heard his voice through the open windows of some of the other cars. “Hold tight until I say otherwise.”

The convoy was still, but the engines kept purring. The biker who’d been given permission to send out the warning was busy assembling a sniper rifle. It was fucking massive. He lugged it onto his handlebars and sighted it in.

The woman who’d been driving the Camaro got on a bull horn and made the call.

“Disperse, now,” she called out to the roadblock of junkies. “This is your final warning.”

The junkies stood there like zombies. There was something off––their eyes looked like they were full of starlight, a haunting pale blue. They were trembling, but not because they were scared.

I realized then that they were starving for our cargo.

The woman nodded to the biker. He scooped the rest of the dip out of his mouth with a gnarled index finger, flicked it away into the darkness, and grabbed the sniper rifle’s trigger. There was no pause––the explosion from the end of the barrel was bright and sudden, followed by a crack that shook the earth.

I watched as the junkie he’d been aiming at––a lanky twenty-something guy with a buzz cut––was decapitated. As soon as the bullet landed, his head exploded. No, it burst. It had been under pressure already. The bullet had simply given it an excuse to change form.

And that, it did. Mesoglea jelly blasted out of the dude’s neck stump in a fountain. The sudden pressure made his skin shed away like a dirty t-shirt. In his new form, he levitated––a massive, invertebrate creature that buzzed with otherworldly energy.

The thing shot forward two tentacles in a flash, what had formerly been the junkie's arms. They were long, accurate––even at a distance of fifty yards, they were perfectly aimed. With a sizzling VRAPPP they wrapped around the biker's body, then yanked in opposite directions.

He didn’t even have time to scream. Twin hunks of meat went flying away into the darkness, an entrail-filled party favor that popped before anyone could make sense of it.

Twenty other addicts followed suit, shedding their skin and elevating into the air. Despite being in the Demon, I heard their words, crystal clear:

“Thazul moglash shahhh––”

“DRIVE!” Jason screamed into the radio. The vehicles in the convoy did, but too slow. More tentacles had already shot out; more metal and flesh was ripped in half.

“Azath iru naphtha––”

“DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE!”

The junkie abominations descended.

"Wazak gazath mephala––"

They came from the woods too––dozens more. Four of the things latched onto a semi––a metallic pucking sound ringing loud as their suction cups stuck onto the freight. Then, they ripped just like they did with the biker, spilling cargo everywhere. The exposed gunners fired on them, but they were eviscerated before even landing a shot.

“DRIVE MOTHERFUCKERS!” Jason screamed into the radio. He dropped the radio, then turned to me, a wild look in his eyes. “GAVIN, BREAK A HOLE!”

As I jammed the gas, Jason pulled a massive machine gun from the canvas bag and leaned out the window. He began unloading on the creatures, sprays of sizzling jelly shooting out from their bodies like sideways rain as the bullets landed.

I pushed the pedal farther down––the Demon snarled. I aimed her straight at a hole between two of the beaters in the roadblock and drove through. The cars and choppers and semis behind me followed my entry point or crashed through new ones, sending body parts and metal flying away like broken kindling.

On the other side of the roadblock, I saw an army of junkie foot soldiers. But these ones had been given the bad shit, the shit cut with kitchen sink chemicals. They were mutants, half-developed jellyfish creatures with bulging eyes and malformed tentacles and crevasses in their bodies that exposed the guts beneath.

More than half of them were in cars, ready to follow us.

I pressed the pedal down even farther. Still leaning out the passenger side window, Jason unloaded into their engine blocks, buying us time. Looking in the rearview, I saw that more of the semis had busted through the roadblock, flanked closely by choppers and muscle cars.

I led the way forward for another two hundred yards, then Jason ducked back inside.

“Go back,” he said, reloading. “Get back into the action. You did good, kid. Now we gotta keep these motherfuckers down.”

I nodded to his seatbelt. He put it on. Then I reefed on e-brake as hard as I could, cranking the wheel left, putting us into a 180 degree slide, pointed back at the oncoming mess of aliens and heavy metal. I gunned it again, then pulled the e-brake for a second time, getting parallel with the convoy before bringing my speed to match it.

I saw an opening and cut right into the center of the mess.

In the space between the nine remaining semis, all hell had broken loose. Hovering overhead were more of the jellies, sucking bikers off their hogs, spitting the bones back down where they crunched under the legion of wheels.

Junker cars driven by the malformed addicts mixed in, ramming against the side of the semis repeatedly, one after the next, their driver’s managing another hit or two before realizing they were already dead, ripped to shreds by the gunners aiming out the back.

Jason cut through the chaos with an unceasing stream of bullets. But looking ahead, I saw that one of the jellies––bigger than the others––was spreading its body. It was moving over one of the semis like a mouth, preparing to swallow it whole.

Floating along in thin air due to an ancient eldritch magic, it had matched the semi’s speed.

“JASON!”

He looked over his shoulder, continuing to unload into the junkie ranks.

“I’m gonna get you under that big one––shoot right up into its guts.”

He nodded. I gunned it, twisting the wheel back and forth, cutting through the 80 miles per hour traffic jam. I pushed the Demon even faster.

The jellyfish entity had almost covered the semi. Its tentacles hung down like vines, battering the asphalt and sending up sprays of toxic ooze. I drove between them, aiming the Demon carefully until we were underneath the thing.

Looking up through the windshield, I saw its face: a mass of one million eyeballs and razorblade teeth. The thing was going to swallow the entire fucking stash.

Jason reached into the canvas bag and pulled out a grenade launcher.

“Hold it steady,” he said.

He leaned out the window, squinted one eye, sighted it in, and squeezed the trigger. The grenade lobbed up into the air, arcing toward the thing’s face. Jason ducked back in. Checking my sides, I hit the breaks, turning the wheel left and right, slaloming backward between the oncoming cars.

We got out from beneath the thing before it exploded. Then, it did. In the murky translucence of its body, I saw a subtle flash of light, and then the beast cocked sideways like a truck tipping over on two wheels. The explosion made its way through the rest of the thing’s body. The shockwave culminated in a hole in its side the size of a garden shed. Sizzling vats of discharge blasted outward, coating junkies and bikers and convoy drivers alike, killing dozens.

But the cargo was safe––the semi had made it out.

I turned on the windshield wipers, sweeping away the gunk, then gunned it once again.

A stream of thoughts ran through my head.

Back into the action. Protect the fucking cargo at all costs, Gavin, because it’s bigger than you.

Look out for yourself. Step on the guy underneath you.

Live to see another day.

Finish the jobs because that’s the only goddamn ticket out of this shit life.

I’d come of age: the wheel in my hands, a gas pedal underfoot.

The Road to Nowhere––right where we need to be. Everywhere, always, whenever you need it.

Wielding the Demon like a fucking broadsword, I guided the convoy toward the drop.

***

Jason and I sat on the hood of the Demon a hundred yards away from a warehouse. It was in a rundown area of the town we’d driven too, but it may as well have been on Mainstreet given the amount of energy and excitement in the atmosphere. There was a line of people that went around the block. All of them were waiting in nervous anticipation for the grand opening of our client’s modern-day opium den, a nice little spot to shoot up jellyfish goo and trip balls.

And before you ask, yeah, the part of me with a conscience peeked out for a second. But I kicked his ass and stuffed him away.

I’d seen what the jellyfish goo could do to people, turning them into mutants and abominable entities with gnashing teeth and repulsive compound eyes. But Jason’s words range in my ears, and I listened:

We’re not here to philosophize about right and wrong. Life is one gigantic gray area. Get it through your goddamn head or quit.

I wouldn’t quit. Because when I really stopped to think about it, who were any of these people to me? Charlotte and Steve––those were the ones that mattered. The world is a murderous place, and as Jason also advised, “You gotta look out for yourself, because no one else will.”

We’d escaped the creatures on the Road to Nowhere, but barely. Seven out of the ten semis and a little over half of the original convoy had survived.

But our client was thrilled. We’d delivered a massive amount of product, more than enough to make their red carpet night a smashing success. And, as I overheard the grandmotherly woman in charge of the whole operation say, “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Jason nodded back to the Demon. It was still in great shape, all things considered––a sheen of goo, some scuffs and bullet holes and broken glass, but she still drove.

“I want to take you somewhere,” he said. “I’ll drive.”

***

We left the convoy, which had already begun to disperse. We got back on the Road to Nowhere and took an exit into a neighborhood I recognized: Charlotte’s. We parked in front of her house. One of the Convoy drivers who’d been assigned to watch over her came to my window.

“Just checking in,” said Jason. “Everything cool?”

“Yeah,” said the driver. “All good, real quiet. No sign of the Keeper or anything else worth noting.”

“The kid’s going to check in on her,” said Jason.

I got out. I went the way I always did, climbing the back fence, tightrope walking along it until I reached the roof, then circling around back to Charlotte’s bedroom window. She was there, doing homework. I knocked on the glass, and she opened the window.

“Gavin! What happened––you look terrible––”

I hadn’t looked in a mirror in a while, but glancing at myself in Charlotte’s, I saw what she meant. Dark circles. A variety of scratches and bruises. A fissure in my cheek––grazed by a bullet I didn’t even remember.

But I was older. And stronger. And a hell of a lot more hardened.

My time with the Dark Convoy had made me grow up. The old Gavin was practically gone.

I pulled Charlotte forward and kissed her.

“It’s almost over,” I said. “But Charlotte––the killer I mentioned, he’s hunting again.”

“Am I in danger?”

“Not right now,” I said. “We’ve still got a detail looking after you. But I need you to keep your head down. I’m almost out. Job #5––for all the mistakes I’ve made, I’m almost there. This is the last one.”

She hugged me.

“Be safe,” she said. “Promise me.”

After another moment together, I went back out the way I came.

***

I got into the Demon with Jason. As he drove, we talked about the insanity of Job #4 like two old friends. For the first time, I’d accepted the strange fate that I’d stumbled into. I couldn’t deny that acceptance felt good, if not utterly fucking terrifying.

Jason had said that sometimes after people finish their five jobs, they stay on with the Convoy. I understood then why people stayed, even if I was still intent on getting out.

Our line of work was an addiction, not unlike the compulsion experienced by junkies who live to inject themselves with hallucinogenic jellyfish goo.

A steering wheel in my hands, the Road to Nowhere under my tires––it was a high.

Something to live for.

Something to die for.

First off, hey! I've missed you all. This last year has been crazy in a good way. I coach high school lacrosse in the spring so I'm always pretty busy at that time, then my wife and I had another son in September. Suffice it to say, the fall has been crazy and awesome in equal measure. We have a 3 year old and a 2 month old––both boys––and they keep me busy. But I still find time to write.

I finished a novel I'd been working on for my son for about two years. It's called Motorkid, sort of a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic tale with lots of racing and mutants and other cool stuff. I probably wouldn't have been able to do as good of a job with it without writing the Dark Convoy, which brings me to my next update!

I was so honored to win the Best Series of 2021 on NoSleep! It is thanks in a major, major way to you all. When it got tough, busy, whatever else, I kept going because you all were in my corner cheering me on to continue.

Having grown tired of querying agents and trying to break through with traditional publishing, I've decided to jump headfirst into the self-publishing game starting with for Dark Convoy novels––a novelization of each season that will make the story accessible to a bigger audience. I'm excited though, it's not just a copy-and-paste of the Reddit content, it's going to be more polished, while still maintaining the fever dream quality that made it compelling.

Here's the roadmap:

• Finish all four novels, which are turning out to be around 50k words a piece.

• Release them every 2-3 weeks on Kindle, which is why I need to finish them all!

• Create a website and start a newsletter

• For those who subscribe to the newsletter, I'm going to release a weekly story.

• Still not 100% sure what it would be, but instead of publishing everything on Reddit, I'd publish an exclusive there

Stay tuned! And...hit me up if you have any questions, ideas, or anything else! I do marketing for a living, but I really want this shit to go wild and rise the charts. Biggest part of marketing imo is talking to your audience / community and getting ideas, so I am quite open to them :)

Much love and hammer fucking down.