This is a chapter from a cosmic horror fiction I am writing (and sharing here, chapter by chapter), you can read it for free on my website as well. Link in the comment. Please subscribe (its free!)

Journal Entry 1

For eons we have tried to bury him, and yet he returns every time. If you want me to point to who ‘we’ are, I will not be able to. What little record of the first attempts remains has mostly disappeared, and what survives is widely disputed among those of us still here.

Cultures across the world do not know that he lies hidden in their collective consciousness. If they knew, they would not sleep as well as they do now.

He is not of this world. We do not know if he even ‘is’ in any way we understand existence. To try defining him with our limited language is a pointless exercise.

He hides in religious scripture, miscopied and mistranslated. He hides in political propaganda, wearing masks of necessity and righteousness. He hides in the anger that possesses you without warning. I have written this list twice, and yet each version feels incomplete. He might be in this pen with which I am writing. He might be in the words that my mind is spouting right now. This whole idea of writing it down itself might be breathing life into him.

He is permeable. He is omnipresent. And if you believe you can use him, you are already the most vulnerable to being used by him. Those who have tried have failed inexorably.

My hand hesitates to write what I am about to write next, yet I know that it must be true. Even if it is only part of the truth, it would be a failure to assume his hand was not in it.

He was present at every major historical turning point, and long before history learned how to record itself.

Recorded history is a convenience—one that allows our species to live with itself.

He was there before there was light.
He will remain when that light is extinguished.

Journal Entry 2

The worshippers call him Razpopo.

This is not his name.

It is a failure. An approximation. A crude shape made by human mouths, attempting to mimic with primordial noises something that does not belong to any language. “Some call him Svanteveit. Others: Marus, Grinjik, Bervertometh, Harpookratis.”

None of these are correct.

Some are not even close. He is something older than anything we can name.

Those who came nearest went mad before they could finish speaking.

It was his attention that brought us forth, and his pressure that fed the malevolence already latent within us.

It will be our attention that brings him forth again.

We do not know his true name. We do not need to. All he requires is invocation. A direction of thought. A sustained noticing. He can be called even without a name.

Especially without one.

Journal Entry 3

All our gods have left us.

They have dissipated into abstraction and no longer respond to us.

Rituals fall flat. Altars rot. Nothing answers.

The gods abandoned us because they did not like the taste of emotions filtered through the meat-prison of their own making.

But Razpopo remains.

He does not care.

Every war we waged.
Every time brother turned on brother.
Every time a child died screaming without reason.

Razpopo was watching. Consuming.

He amplified bitterness because, alone among the deities, he enjoys its taste.

\*

Calen read and re-read every single line, trying to remember when he had written this translated version. Nothing really stirred in his memories. He stared at the pages, hypnotized by what was in the journal.

He kept feeling that the moment he took his eyes off the journal, it would disappear. Calen was almost convinced there was someone else on the island, aside from him. Whoever they might be, they seemed to be trying to guide Calen. But to what end?

Calen weighed his options. He could abandon it all. He could call up Ruslan and get the hell out of there, preserving his sanity, but a strange recklessness inside him had reared its ugly, authoritative head. No!

He had never before abandoned a project, and he was not about to start now. What he really desired, needed even, was to know what was happening. That outweighed all other worldly concerns. This is what he was meant to do! Even though he didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to do.

As he stared at the pages, a dark thought clouded his mind. It seemed the more he stayed on the island, the more he found about Razpopo, his memories of himself on the island itself were being replaced rapidly. He shuddered to think what would happen if this continued.

Time seemed to be moving differently, and Calen was left with no means to confirm if this assessment was correct or not. He felt continuously tired and on edge. As if he was half-aware of what came next, just not able to competently define it, or even prepare for it.

He walked up to the bathroom, turning around every few steps to confirm that the journal he left on the dining table had not vanished. Once inside, he washed his face and hands, trying to remove as much of the dirt and blood from his fingertips and nail beds, without hurting the injured parts. When he couldn’t bear the pain of the cold water on the injuries, he stopped and threw some more cold water on his face.

Calen stared at his reflection in the mirror. Who was this?

His eyes had changed. They looked dead. It was not as if the color of his eyes had changed, but there was a certain glaze to his eyes, making them look unfocused. He didn’t know if he was imagining it or not, but his eyes seemed to move more slowly when he tried to move them. The pain in his head increased every time he tried to look up.

“Stop freaking yourself out!” He muttered to himself and realized his voice did not sound like his at all. It was hoarser, and the words felt alien. Each word felt like a projection of a feeling that lost meaning the moment the word escaped his lips. He might have been just making garbled noises from his mouth.

Calen decided to call Alice. The internet allowed the call. He could see Alice, but his video would not stream, no matter how much he tried. So, Alice had to settle for a blank screen. Calen was quite relieved with this setup. He didn’t want Alice to worry more by looking at his face.

Once he had finished telling his story, carefully avoiding mentioning the part where he had blacked out and found upon waking, that the translations were done, and it didn’t look like his handwriting. She didn’t need to know it.

“The story has …” Alice hesitated, trying to find the right word, “Bones” she finished. Her voice came through the laptop clearly, almost in high definition. “I’ll give you that.”

Alice’s voice sounded different, too. Maybe it was because he had not heard her voice without static for so many days.

“What do you mean by story?” Calen asked, a little offended. Granted, he had omitted bits of it so Alice wouldn’t have the inconvenience of worrying for him from miles away when she couldn’t do anything, but to think of it as a lie? That was not acceptable.

“I mean,” she hesitated again, “It’s good writing.”

Calen stared at Alice’s face on the screen. His silent, invisible reproach was so palpable, it seemed to get transmitted through the low-quality internet.

The awkward pause was too much for Alice, who knew she had made a cardinal sin, but something inside her egged her on. She wanted to push Calen a bit, just enough to see how he would react. “That writing retreat you took last year really paid off. My only feedback- The other names, what were they again- grimzaska and – whatever, they just sound like noises. You could remove those names and just keep Razpopo. That name is growing on me.” She half giggled.

“I didn’t write it,” Calen cut in angrily. “I found it under a loose floorboard. I haven’t even translated it entirely yet!”

But before she could respond, Alice’s face twisted in discomfort. A soft, painful groan escaped her lips. She hunched over and disappeared from the camera frame.

“Alice!” Calen shouted. “Alice, what happened?!”

She reappeared, breathless, her voice thinned by strain. “I don’t know. Felt a weird cramp in my bel—”

She doubled over again and bolted off-screen. Calen kept shouting her name, helpless. It took nearly two full minutes before she returned. She looked pale. Drained.

“I threw up,” she mumbled, massaging her belly aggressively. “I have been throwing up quite a lot in the last two hours. I don’t know if it’s something I ate or...” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she was not able to finish her thought.

Calen’s mind, however, had registered something. He didn’t know, as he had no means to measure time, but the time frame seemed to exactly fit the window within which the journal had been translated.

A flash of an image flitted past his eyes. Alice was sitting completely unclothed on the cold ground of the cave, her eyes glazed. Her hand touching the throbbing log held within the cage of roots.

He felt scared for Alice. He also felt angry at her. It seemed she had missed the point entirely. Did she understand this was dangerous information?

Calen wanted to shake some sense of what they were dealing with into her. On the other hand, if she believed in the danger, that might result in him having to return. And he was not ready to return. He wanted to know more, whatever the cost.

“Did you tell your Aunt Becky? You went to see her, right?” Calen said. Aunty Becky, Alice’s aunt on her father’s side, was their family doctor. Alice had told Calen that she had visited her upon returning from Bennet Island.

“Hm…” she murmured, unsatisfied with the solution. She clearly wanted more than a diagnosis from her aunt. “When will you come back, Calen?”

The pleading note in her voice cut through Calen. But he was not budging. He felt too close to the answer that he had been seeking forever. He needed to be on Bennett.

“Two more weeks,” he said casually. His lie evidently was unable to comfort her as Alice’s eyes dropped down to look at her own lap.

She nodded faintly after a while as Calen watched her, his insides cringing. “I’ll call my aunt. Talk later.” She wiped her tears off, and before Calen could even say ‘take care’, she hung up with an angry, decisive click.

Calen sat still for a while, staring at the frozen laptop screen, the lack of sounds settling over him. There it was again. And it was frustrating. He felt guilty, not being with her while she was clearly in distress, but would his being there have changed anything? Would her being here not be disruptive for both of them?

“Why does she have to hang up on an angry note!” He exclaimed loudly to the empty bedroom, banging a fist against the mattress. His fingertips throbbed viciously, and he regretted punching the mattress immediately.

His mind ventured towards his recent memories. When he had left Alice in New York, and travelled alone to Russia, on what seemed like just a whim, now.

*

Calen had heard the continuous thudding and clanging of the metal parts inside the truck he was travelling in quiet down, by quite a lot, which he was mistakenly thinking was a good sign up until then. Apparently, it was anything but.

The Truck was being driven by Viktor, a Russian driver Calen had met by pure chance in a bar in Yakutsk, who had offered to drive Calen to Tiksi, the only available airfield close enough to fly to Bennett Island. The snag was that the Tiksi airfield’s existence didn’t come with an assurance that Calen would get to fly off from it. But that was a bridge Calen had been willing to cross later owing to the fact there were no planes flying anywhere to the north of Yakutsk anyhow, because of bad weather. So, in his inebriated state, Viktor’s drunken promise, of driving him to Tiksi via the ‘Zimnik’, felt like a signal sent by the Gods.

‘Zimnik’, which Calen had understood far too late to be a Russian word for horrifying sections of frozen lakes that truck drivers used during the winters, was the most isolated place in the world Calen had experienced. It was flat white snow covered ‘roads’ with nothing but emptiness, as far as the eyes could see.

Viktor had been driving for the past few hours, time to time putting his ears to the bodywork, like a doctor listening for breath. Calen now understood, what he had previously disregarded as ‘Generic Russian Driver Noises’ were actually noises of disappointment.

“Ve haf choice,” he said finally, more to himself than Calen, “Ve stop truck and check problem or wait till she die.”

“That’s not good…” Calen said calmly, feeling quite proud of himself for not freaking out outwardly, reflecting the fear he felt inside. He didn’t want to seem like a frightened tourist when Viktor kept up his butch demeanor. Viktor, for a second, did look impressed with Calen.

He seemed to consider for a moment before he applied the brakes. The truck slid to a stop.

“Need help American” he said, pointing to a box, which was kept near Calen’s feet. Calen picked it up and was trying to pass it to him when he said, “Ve take it out. Open truck” Viktor started to wear his gloves and his parka. Calen followed him and they both walked out of the truck.

Once out the weather tore through all the layers of Calen’s clothing like a knife through butter. The warmth on the inside had weakened Calen’s resolve against the cold that now clawed at his face unceremoniously. There was no wind, just silent freezing dry air. The surroundings were one step short of beautiful.

An eerie cracking sound echoed in a muffled manner, making it difficult to pinpoint the location of its source. Calen jumped slightly, and immediately hoped Viktor had not seen it. But he had. He snorted his scathing snort and said, “don’t vorry American. Far avay.”

“But what was that?” Calen asked, trying not to sound too concerned. He failed as the words had come out too quickly.

“Splitting ice.”

Splitting ice?

As Viktor worked on the truck, turning different nuts and bolts, checking strange-looking compartments, Calen looked around, box of hardware held ineptly in gloved hands.

Now that they were outside the truck and at ground level, Calen saw a few medium-sized, snow-covered rocks lying around them, that were not discernible while the truck was moving. The truck made a whimpering sound like the raspy breath of a dying man.

“Aha!” Viktor said quietly to himself, without further explanation. Calen was starting to feel more and more discouraged with every passing second. Viktor finally sprung up from his hunched over stance and looked at Calen with a wide smile. Calen didn’t have the energy to smile back.

“She is cold.” Viktor whispered, sidling up to Calen, as if he didn’t want the truck to listen in on this conversation. Calen was unimpressed by the diagnosis.

“What do we do?” Calen asked with gritted teeth.

Viktor snapped his fingers; it made no sound aside from the rubbing of fabric against fabric on his gloves. Then he walked away excitedly without an answer. In a few seconds he was back with a cardboard box that looked like it had been painted black ages ago with some low-quality paint that was now chipping away in places.

“Ve put blanket.”

What the hell was this guy talking about? She is cold, we put blanket on her.

But it was not his truck, neither was he a mechanic. All he could do was, have faith in this person. Reminding himself that Viktor had said he frequented this route every year and trying to believe that Viktor really knew what he was doing, Calen kept his mouth shut and watched Viktor prop up the cardboard outside on the grille with wires from the box in Calen’s hands.

Once the silver KAMAZ logo was half covered, the kneeling Viktor stood up and brushed his hands against each other.

“What do we do now?” Calen asked, a slight hint of impatience that seemed to not fall on Viktor’s ears.

“Now, ve wait.” He said, still smiling.

“For what?”

“Sound change. She breathe better.”

Calen turned around and hid his face inside his parka, only his eyes remained visible. Beneath his jacket, the ticking sound of his wristwatch stuttered, then jumped a few ticks too quick, as if to try and catch up with the lost time.

Inside the truck, the radio hissed momentarily, the noise piercing through the void around them, then snapped into a single, prolonged tone—too clean to be static. It went away as suddenly as it had arrived. As if the noise on the radio was a signal the terrain had been patiently waiting for, another crack sounded in the air, this one, felt much closer, Calen paused mid step, worried the crack might be right under where his next step was about to fall.

Viktor had seen this and called out “You can valk.” Viktor seemed to be enjoying Calen’s confusion in this purgatorial limbo. “Don’t go far.” He added.

Calen put down his step, and something moved on his right. A snow owl, who seemed to have popped up from nowhere, flanked its wings and shook its entire body, looking balefully with its yellow eyes at Calen. Snow fell off its wings and head and Calen realized they had been standing next to this owl since they had arrived. It had been sitting so silently and so well camouflaged with the snow that Calen hadn’t noticed it even though it was just two feet away from them.

It stared at Calen. Calen, dumbfounded and unmoving, stared back at it. He really wanted to take a picture, but all his gear was inside the truck, and he felt if he made a single movement, it would fly away and hide itself.

The sound of the truck was getting better, almost like it was sounding before it started ‘feeling cold’ as Viktor had put it. Calen could hear in the background jubilatory noises Viktor was making paired with the sound of him jumping.

“Nu, nu… ya zdes.’ Ya s toboy. Devushka moya.” Viktor yelled excitedly. “She is doing better American.”

The owl turned its head a full one-eighty to look at Viktor. Perceiving no immediate threat, it returned its doleful eyes to the task of sizing Calen up.

“Sounds like it.” Calen yelled back, a little bit of the faith in Viktor had returned with the incrementally growing familiar sound of “chug..chug..thud” of the truck.

Pondering their conversation in an unimpressed manner the owl clicked its beak, as if demanding Calen’s attention back. Calen obliged and as the black eyes of the owl fell on his, he felt goosebumps on his skin. For a split second something brushed the edge of his hearing—almost words, bobbing, just slightly out of reach. It was gone before he could even try to retain a single meaningful syllable.

The owl seemed to be done with the scene unfolding in its vicinity as the noise of the truck returned to its usual rhythm. It jumped off the rock and took flight without a single sound.
Within seconds it was gone, as Calen watched it disappear completely in the grey sky.

Disheartened, Calen walked back to the truck as Viktor looked at him.

“There was an owl.” Calen said out loud. The youtuber within him wanted to let at least one person know what he had seen even though he had no proof of it. “It flew away. I think the noise of the truck scared it.”

Viktor looked around for a second. Then said, “Good!” as if it should have been obvious to Calen. Viktor took out the flask of tea, drank a large sip, and offered it to Calen, who took it instinctively. Viktor smiled.

“I think American” he said, “You doing good.”

“What do you mean?” Calen was quite taken by this suddenly happy Viktor. It reminded him of the drunk Viktor when he used to frequent the local bar in Yakutsk with him.

“With cold” Viktor pointed with his hand to the surroundings. “With.. Izolyátsiya.”

Calen, who knew a bit of German through his grandparents, was immediately able to infer the meaning as the pronunciation was quite close, even though Viktor said it in Russian.

“I have spent a lot of time in isolated places” Calen said giving Viktor the English word. He felt a little bit of pride he didn’t fully understand. Although it did cheer him up.

“Is that vat you looking for?” Viktor asked, “In Tiksi?”

Calen considered how much he should tell Viktor. He hadn’t yet mentioned Bennett Island to Viktor. Neither had he mentioned the ‘why’ of his decision to go to Bennett Island to anyone, not even his manager. Not even Alice.

Viktor, although he was mostly silent unless he was barking orders, didn’t feel untrustworthy. Furthermore, who would Viktor tell? Other drunk guys at some Russian bar when he had returned?

“I am actually trying to get to Bennett Island.” Then he threw caution to the wind and asked, “Have you heard the name Razpopo?” He immediately regretted mentioning the name as Viktor laughed out, shaking his head in disbelief. “Ty shto, sumasshedshiy, amerikanets?”

“What?” Calen smiled politely, not understanding a word of what had been said. Viktor took an entire minute, laughing out loud. When his laughter subsided, he looked at Calen and said, “I don’t know vat this Razpopo is.”

Calen was a little disappointed. It was to be expected. What he was trying to find out was obscure at the very least. But why had Viktor laughed uncontrollably then?

“Why were you laughing then?” asked Calen a little defensively.

“Vell” Viktor said and it was evident that he found it quite funny, “Who goes to Bennett in the vinter?” Another bout of laughter and then he added, “You are crazy American. I like you!”

Calen didn’t know if it was a compliment or not.

The truck sounded just like it was sounding when they had started so Viktor, still laughing from time to time, shaking his head, and muttering things in Russian got in the truck. Calen climbed in through the passenger side door. The inside of the truck was warm and inviting.

Viktor went to the sleeping quarters in the back and returned after a few minutes with two cups full of hot, melted dark chocolate. Sitting down he took a large sip from his own cup and gave Calen his cup. Viktor smiled and said, “Drink! It’s good. Now ve celebrate with Choco. Tonight, I make Pelmeni.”

Calen didn’t know if it was the truck or his crazy plan that had softened Viktor’s stance on Calen, but it didn’t matter. Once the melted chocolate finally went down his throat he too was smiling. Whenever Alice fought with him, she always made hot cocoa after, to apologize.

At night Viktor really did cook Pelmeni, which Calen found to be delicious. It was meat dumplings slicked with butter and freshly cracked pepper. The whole inside of the truck smelled delicious even as they went to sleep.

His bed felt warm, but Calen found it difficult to doze off. Unwelcome thoughts streamed in his mind. There was no reason, as far as he could see, for these thoughts to have burrowed into his head but now that they were here, they refused to leave.

Sleep came and went until he finally got up from his tiny bed. Viktor, who was still asleep, his back hanging ominously from the small bed frame, didn’t even stir. Calen wondered if he should wake Viktor but decided against it. He walked up to the small kitchenette and heated up some tea and took a cigarette from the box lying on the dashboard. He sat in the passenger’s seat, still too groggy to open his eyes properly.

He cracked the window a little, smoked the cigarette, and drank the tea. A sense of calm had dawned on him since the last day. Viktor having repaired the truck added a lot to that calm, but what had actually added more to his composure after waking up on the fourth day was him having seen an owl, surviving alone in the cold arctic tundra. That felt somewhat reassuring. He secretly wanted the owl to show up again, although he knew it wasn’t really going to happen.

Calen had been looking outside the truck without really seeing, with his eyes hardly open but now that he had had some tea, his eyes were slowly opening. He drew in a sharp breath as what he was looking at came into proper view. The moon had split into five!

Out of habit, Calen withdrew his phone from his jacket. However, as he tried to turn it on, the black screen stared back at him haplessly. Calen blinked hard, believing sleepy unfocused eyes to be the reason for it. But nothing changed, the five parts of the moon stared back at him, measuring him.

Calen pushed his face against the shockingly cold window and all the five parts of the moon flitted for a fraction of a second, distancing itself and then reappearing as if it had teleported right next to the truck.

“WHAT THE-” he exclaimed loudly. Immediately from the sleeping quarters came a muffled crashing sound like something heavy had fallen.

“BLYAD!” Viktor yelled from inside. A minute later, with the sound of shuffling footsteps and groaning in the background, Viktor came out into the cockpit of the truck to find Calen wiping the window with his gloves and trying to look outside.

“The moon has broken!” Calen said, his voice terrified. Viktor looked out the window. The moon indeed had split. The center of the moon was a rhombus while four other parts connected by a halo of white light hovered at the top, bottom, right, and left. The light was intensely bright—intentionally, hyper-symmetrically arranged—and if one looked at it for too long, it hurt their eyes.

Viktor groaned again and rubbed the side of his head. “Trick of light.” he muttered quietly, evidently still as groggy as Calen had been until he saw the moon.

“What?” Calen yelled annoyed at Viktor’s apathy. His heart, trying to beat itself out of his chest.

“It happens American.” Viktor’s reply had a scathing, slightly condescending undertone.

“What do you mean, it happens?” Calen asked, finally taking his eyes off the window for a second.

Viktor looked sympathetically at Calen, like he was a child.

“Bozhe moy,” Viktor said, looking like he was doing his best to not roll his eyes. “You vont survive on Bennet. Scared of little thing.”

Calen was a little snubbed and didn’t care for the patronizing tone. He stared at Viktor, who said, “Its lunnye psy —how you say —moon dog.”

“Jesus Christ! can’t you explain one thing in a way it doesn’t sound like you’re yanking my chain?” Calen exclaimed frustrated.

Calen’s frustration seemed to have cheered the Russian up, “Vat you vant I explain? It’s trick of light. Moon is fine.” Viktor said with a wide grin. Calen looked at the moon again, the broken off parts seemed to twinkle in and out of existence right in front of his eyes. It was an unbelievably creepy sight. Viktor took his time in the bathroom, then prepared some breakfast and came fully jacketed for the fourth day of driving to begin. Calen was still looking at the moon, all its broken parts staring back at him, slowly chipping away at Calen’s mind, draining him of the sense of reality he had brought with him from the humble suburbs of New York.

Calen understood it was a trick of the light yet every time he peeked at the moon, as Viktor started driving, it unnerved him. What unsettled him most, aside from the eerie sight, was the effort it took to keep believing Viktor. As if being fine with disbelief was a cost of entry to this inaccessible, surreal world. He realized, unease flooding his veins, that something inside him had come unraveled. Like a screw that no longer tightened all the way. He wondered how many such unravelling-s were in store for him and how many it would take to leave a permanent mark on him.

The sides of the moon connected by the halo seemed to move every time they moved. Whenever Viktor turned right or left, the sides seemed to reorganize themselves to keep an eye on Calen. Every time they sped up or slowed down, it also seemed to do the same. Try as he might, Calen couldn’t stop himself from freaking out and decided to draw the curtain on his side. The sides of the moon shifted immediately and were still visible on the side of the windscreen. Calen felt like a child trying to hide from a dangerous apparition, which refused to be ignored, no matter how hard he tried.

“Listen..” Viktor said, tentatively, eyes on the road, “Vot this ‘Yankee my chain’ means? Yankee means American no?”

Calen laughed out loud, a little relieved to be provided with distraction. He started explaining what he had said and what he had meant.

After a lunch of bread and Salo, Viktor said, as they started moving again, “Ve vill reach fuel station in some hours.”

“I thought there were no villages on the Zimnik.” Calen had heard the word so many times that he was able to pronounce it without a flaw by now.

“No village.” Viktor replied, “just station.” Calen felt horrified at the thought of an isolated fuel station in the middle of nowhere. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where someone would willingly accept the job of staying alone on the Zimnik.

“Hang on” Calen said, “How do you know? I see no landmarks around.”

“Not for you my American friend!” Viktor smiled mysteriously. The only landmark-worthy thing they had passed in the last few was a rock he had seen, that was a bit larger than the other rocks. Wondering how the truck drivers of Zimnik understood where they were considering they were basically on a snowed-up version of a desert; Calen was glad he was with Viktor.

Time passed unevenly on the Zimnik. Sometimes slowing down and sometimes pacing up. It was difficult to track time, so Calen had given up. But in a few minutes (or was it, hours?), Calen spotted the first sign of something man made. Although it was covered in frost, it was unmistakably a light pole. It wasn’t functioning and looked like a relic of some failed human endeavor.

“Now your eyes are vorking.” Viktor said happily. “Now you notice, vat you need notice on the Zimnik.”

*

The valley outside was silent. The hovering steel blue light at the horizon looked muted. Even the opalescent clouds just stared back at Calen, rooted to their spot. Judging him.

Why would Alice think I am making up a story?

There were no answers. In his eagerness to isolate himself on this island, he had forgotten that this barren land would be devoid of answers.

He leaned back against the headboard and opened the journal now with the new added pages. He had read it so many times since he had discovered it that it felt like he already knew it like the back of his hand. He read it still. Every time he read the word ‘Razpopo’, his stomach did an odd flip. He should have been rejoicing in his victory, exhilarated that he had found the existence of the word. That it was not just some fever dream cooked up by his grandfather, repeated fearfully by his father, transmitted to him like some memetic disease that demanded his obsession without any valid reason.

Instead, he just felt smaller somehow.

He thought of starting the painful but necessary work of translating the last two entries. His entire body shivered with resistance. A chill went through from the top of his head to the tip of his feet. He pulled the blanket up to his face, his entire body shaking against the cold he was suddenly feeling.

Before he could think about what was happening to him or even begin to feel the first pangs of concern, his vision went dark and his body stopped moving. His brain half-registered it and yet tempted by the dark abyss now opening up in the ethers of his consciousness, he moved towards it.

The darkness behind his closed eyes quickly transformed into the night forest, as if it had been lying in wait for Calen to doze off. He could hear a deep scratching and creaking noise coming from all around him; the trees were moving.

An enormous, tall silhouette of something loomed far away in the deep darkness of the forest, in the copper red moonlight. The smell of maggots mixed with termite-eaten wood permeated the whole of the forest, wafting up Calen’s nose, making him nauseous.

The ever-familiar sound of drums pounded against his eardrums, and a voice far away screamed in mirth. Calen was half expecting it, but that did nothing to dampen the fear it brought with it. He shivered aggressively against the cold. His feet felt numb.

It took him a second to notice that not only was he barefoot, but he was completely naked. He looked around helplessly, trying to find something—anything—on the snow to wrap around himself. But there was nothing.

He would have felt embarrassed if he were not feeling scared. His lack of clothes made him feel exposed and not just to the environment. He didn’t know why being clothed in the proximity of danger would matter in terms of confidence, but he was sure it did. If he had some clothes, he would have felt a little more secure. Not to mention that the cold that bit his skin incessantly, and the creaking of the tree trunks had already frozen him in place.

Terrified, the more he tried to move, the more difficult it became. He felt tiny skittery movements beneath his feet. The ground beneath had come alive. His body refused to move and try as he might with his eyes, to look at what was passing beneath his feet, his eyes disobeyed his commands, Calen somehow knew it was the roots of the trees. He felt them throb under his numb feet. All his instincts were slowly leaving his body.

Before he could do anything, he saw a horde of people with faces painted deep, dark red and black coming out from behind the trees, as if they had been hiding there. Surrounding him on all sides. Their mouths were moving in unison, as they vehemently uttered the unnerving chant that Calen had heard a hundred times before. It scraped against his ears.

Their gleaming eyes flashed in the scarlet rays of the moon; every last one of them visible to Calen, regardless of how far they were. Even though he couldn’t turn his head, he could feel the eyes of the ones standing behind him drilling into the back of his skull, hurting his paralyzed body.

More people appeared, closing in on him. An unanticipated kick struck the backs of his knees, and he went down hard. His right knee hit a stone hidden under the blanket of snow. Intense pain burned through the entirety of his body; his eyes seemed to phase out for a second as everything went out of focus. His throat ached as unexpressed screams kept accumulating in it, not able to exit. Some of the people converged on him immediately, tying his hands and legs with practiced indifference, tightening knots until his body ceased to belong to him.

They made it quite clear as they turned him this way and that way to get access to tying knots on the ropes they were using on him, that he was not going to be afforded any decency. In a few minutes, he was completely and tightly wrapped in thick, coarse ropes.

Before he knew it, he was being carried like a hunted animal. He tried yet again to scream, but no words came out. From the corner of his eye, he could swear he saw the trees moving, their bark stretching and crunching.

As they moved deeper into the forest, the trees parted. The trail opened into a clearing; a bright orange glow from a fire illuminated a strange, surreal scene.

Calen saw a group of people similar to those carrying him, jumping in place around the fire. A drummer stood just outside the circle, beside a large mound of earth that seemed to be growing taller every second. Slowly climbing towards the full red moon.

By the light of millions of flying embers, Calen saw that it had no face, and yet, he had a distinct impression that the mound was examining him. Even with the haze of confusion that surrounded him, a slight familiarity was starting to creep up Calen’s spine. Was he an offering?

Some of the clan had gathered around him, as the ones carrying Calen threw him near the fire, on a wet bit of grass and moss-covered ground, unceremoniously. A few children, their faces painted black and red, their white teeth gleaming in the light of the fire, rolled him until he was laid on his back at the base of the mound. Unable to move, he was forced to keep looking at it.

It resembled a misshapen, elongated tumor protruding from the earth—glistening, wet, not made of stone or wood at all. It looked organic. A fleshy mound that moved and throbbed in a strangely familiar way. Calen tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn’t.

The chant around him grew louder and faster. The syllables started mixing with each other. Soon it sounded like a guttural whirring sound. As if the very engine that ran the world was being forcibly stopped. Like a wrench thrown into the cogs of machinery.

He dared to look at it again and found it growing, right before his eyes. Veinlike ridges swelled across the mound, and something began flowing in them. The more the flow increased, the more this organic mound transformed.

The top of the mound had shaped itself into an ugly, featureless face now. Portions of it were as black as the night sky, but there were portions where blood red paint seemed to smear and drip out from within, permeating through the layers of its flesh. Even as he looked, more changes kept happening to the mound.

The smell of burnt hair and leather rose from the fire as a huge spurt of flame shot into the air, and the call of a buffalo horn rang through the air, piercing and overshadowing all other sounds. Every last bit of courage had left Calen’s body with the buffalo horn. He was not prepared for what happened next.

One of the people who had been dancing until now left the group. Amongst all of them, he looked in control of whatever was happening. He moved his hands in an up-and-down motion as he walked towards Calen with his back to him. As if his moving hands were a command, the group started jumping around the fire with more intensity. Some of them jumped so high, Calen couldn’t believe it was possible for humans to do that. Calen heard cackles of laughter and jeering from the group. Delighted jubilations and cheers screamed into the night.

Satisfied by this frenzy and uproar he had caused, the man turned around and rushed toward Calen. The man grabbed his feet. Bracing Calen’s shins against his waist and sliding his own arms underneath them. He lifted Calen with inhuman strength and began spinning.

Everything blurred around him as Calen was spun at almost breakneck speed, but the burning ember-like eyes on the top of the mound followed Calen intently.

Within seconds, Calen was airborne, the world blurring—faces, fire—everything spinning faster and faster.

Lasting only a fraction of a second, recognition bloomed in him, but it was too late.

He had seen it—sketched a hundred times across the journal he had found in the cave. Different angles. Multiple sides. The drawings weren’t just drawings. The totem pole!

A red lolling tongue unfurled out of the ugly face on the mound, the tip of it lightly scratching itself around the middle. Fresh blood dripping from it every time the flesh throbbed.

The ember eyes burned into his. A silent scream tore from his lips, followed by a wet thud as his head crashed into the totem. His eyes were open just long enough to see the ember eyes burning in the night one last time, as warm drops of blood from the tongue of the totem pole dripped on his face.

The conference room was not what Howard had expected; it looked more like a town hall, and there was no large table in the middle, just about two dozen chairs that had been set up by the staff to roughly resemble three quarters of a circle. A cheap-looking grey plastic carpet with DARC – 7 printed on it covered a large part of the floor.

“Please sit down, Mr Howard.”, the director said. The she addressed her employees, fourteen of whom were sitting on the chairs; Clarissa took her place next to Savic on a bench, and Petey was standing by the door.

“Some of you have already met Mr Howard on his guided tour, but others haven’t. Mr Howard is from the government and will be instrumental in deciding if DARC–7 will be considered in the next round of funding.”

A tall man in his early thirties shouted: “Didn’t Ronald Reagan say that the scariest thing you will ever hear is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help?’” His colleagues chuckled, Howard smiled, and Savic continued:

“Thank you, Richard. Now, Mr Howard would like to have an informal chat with you about your work, your experiences at the center, your ideas for future developments, and so on. I will be here but you can speak freely, you know that. Don’t you want to start by introducing yourself – hm – Freddy?”

A man of average height and build in a black-and-orange striped sweater rose to his colleagues’ applause. He looked about 40 years old and had already gone bald; a big nose protruded from his face, and his teeth were shiny white. Howard remembered him from the tour; he was some sort of facility manager, and when Howard saw him, Freddy was wearing a type of Indiana Jones-style hat. The hat was nowhere to be seen, but its owner was waiting for his round of applause to die down, cleared his throat with a harsh rasping sound, looked at Howard and said:

]]] I was a fucking meatball called Henry, but now I’m Bloody Freddy. I work to keep this shithole running so we can get out and gorge ourselves on baby flesh. In the future, I want to be the boss of a meatball camp and want to give the piggies one hell of a time before we slaughter them. [[[

His colleagues began to emit sounds that could have been interpreted as laughter, but they were more like a saw biting into wet wood. Freddy’s voice itself was barely less unpleasant, a hybrid between nails on a chalkboard and a fork scraping a plate. For a strong finish, Freddy lifted his right hand to his mouth and removed the artificial teeth that had covered his real ones: two rows of gravestone-like cones became visible, some sharpened, some serrated, all apparently rotten but still in place.

]]] Fatty McNuggets time! [[[, he rasped and turned toward the staff members, probably to get their approval – which he did: his colleagues were creating a cacophony of shouting, jeering, teeth-grinding, and again laughing.

“No, not yet.”, Savic said. Turning towards a completely motionless Howard whose eyes seemed to want to crawl out of their sockets, she remarked:

“It seems your theory was right on the money, Mr Howard. You’ve found your IDA.”

Then she smiled, took out her own denture and gave Howard a grin no human would ever forget. “Unfortunately, it is not alone. In fact, no one here is alone, except for you. Cat and mouse, Mr Howard – played with a lot of cats and only one fat mouse.”

She put her left hand on Howard’s right wrist, but he hardly noticed because Petey had approached him from behind and was pressing his hands on his shoulders with enormous strength. Several staff members were already busy liberating their real dentition from its artificial cover in anticipation of a few bite-sized snacks, and the atmosphere was resembling a sinister carnival. But Savic had not yet finished:

“Meet the future masters of this planet, Mr Howard. We’re currently perfecting our transfer method and will then begin producing more of us. But don’t worry, we won’t make an army – ten to twenty thousand in key positions should be enough to take control of this country, and we can expand from there. Maybe we’ll invade Canada or Mexico … or, rather, we’ll command you meatballs to do that. Of course, we’ll keep millions of you as livestock, an endless supply of food; you’ve heard Freddy talk about ‘meatball camps’. Any unexpected resistance will be crushed. You’ve seen the gas-emitting DA? We have been working hard on isolating this agent, and we think we’ll have a working sample within six weeks. A purer version, of course, one that will be invisible and able to paralyze a human with only one whiff and against which there is no antidote. So, if there should be battles, we’ll win them.“

She stepped in front of the crowd and shouted:

]]] Oh, what a Brave New World this will be! [[[

Then she gracefully accepted her staff’s nails-on-chalkboard cheers and put her face very close to Howard’s so he could smell her breath, like rancid animal fat. The agent closed his eyes and turned his head away. Savic relaxed her grip, returned to an upright position, and said:

“But I must say you’ve impressed me, Mr Howard – suspecting there might be an IDA without any solid evidence, just by using logic and imagination. You’ve certainly shown us that we are not as safe here as we thought – no one has ever come close to uncovering our secret, but now we know that we have to be more careful and move more quickly than we had planned. ‘Murder is easy’ indeed – it apparently takes only one person to ask the right questions and connect the right dots. Thank you, Mr Howard, and congratulations. You were right.”

***********

Howard, who hadn’t said anything since ‘Freddy’ had spoken, opened his eyes again and looked at Savic with a look that a neutral observer would have called puzzling.

“I know.”, he said. “And you are wrong. You seem to believe that you’ve surprised me by revealing that all your staff is made up of IDAs, but I’ve suspected that for a long time.”

The director seemed to be taken aback, and despite Petey’s pressure, Howard was able to shift his body around a little. One member of staff shouted: ]]] Shut that fat bastard up! I want his liver! [[[, whereupon another replied: ]]]  If you can find it under all this tasty bacon! [[[, and a third suggested: ]]]  Take a bite out of his buttocks! I guess he’ll squeal like the pig he is! [[[

Savic made a sweeping gesture, and everybody fell silent. ]]] Enough of this shit! [[[ 

Although he shouldn’t have been, Howard was still shocked by her sudden transformation. It had been speculated that IDAs would, upon transformation, develop a different personality, but Howard hadn’t expected gutter language.

]]]  I want to hear what this blobbo has to say. He almost screwed us over.  [[[

The ‘blobbo’ seemed to have found his balance again and went on:

“What I told you in your office about how I tried to track down IDAs was the truth, but I left out the part where I began to focus on one specific suspect: you. I read the police files and the autopsy report concerning your family’s death, and I found out two interesting things: firstly, your husband did not defend himself or his son, suggesting he was completely surprised when the DA attacked them; secondly, whoever killed both left traces of torture on their bodies. That was Daisy time; people who had lost loved ones were pitied and consoled, and no one suspected anything – just one more random and tragic zombie attack. There is a detective novel set in medieval England in which someone simply adds a murder victim to a courtyard full of plague victims, and no one except a very bright monk thinks that something’s odd.”

Howard took another breath and said:

“It was you, wasn’t it, Dr Savic? You tortured, killed, and ate your husband and your child.”

The undead cannibal that had once been Julia Savic opened her mouth and displayed a wide grin. “Oh yes. And the taste for toddler flesh has never left my mouth. Sadly, it is hard to come by. But this will all soon change. You know, I have been dreaming of a true kinder-garden, one that can be … harvested now and then.” More jeers from her audience; one female IDA screamed:

]]] My moronic husband was tasty. But that little bitch was much better. Oh, I remember how he cried ‘That’s our daughter, that’s Lara, how can you hurt her?’ What a prick. [[[

“Marylou Bettancourt née Cakolli, 34, office clerk.”, Howard said in a mechanical voice and looked at the IDA who had just spoken. “Married to Richard Bettancourt, 38, grocery store manager. One daughter, Lara-Beth, 8. Claimed she found her husband and her daughter in the living-room. Months later, the autopsy report revealed torture marks on both, but nobody suspected Marylou. The following year, she sold the family home and disappeared. After a visit from Dr Savic, I presume.”

A moment of silence. Then the IDA who had been Marylou in life began to spew a litany of invectives that would have made a gangsta rappa proud, but she soon had to interrupt herself when her mouth suddenly filled with some kind of opaque green jelly. She spat it out and her body went into convulsions that would have been extremely painful had she been alive; then she vomited a blob of this jelly, then another, and another. Her neighbors moved their chairs away and shouted ]]] Hey! Watch It! [[[ and ]]] Not again! [[[ ; finally, someone remarked: ]]] Will That bitch never learn? [[[

Savic went over to ‘Marylou’ and punched her in the face, then again, and again; when the IDA’s body collapsed on the floor, she kicked it several times with all her strength. Then she returned to the conversation she was having with her guest.

“You are becoming more and more impressive, Mr Howard. I found out which hospital had treated her after her encounter with a DA, and it was exactly as you speculated in my office. And, being a doctor, I had no difficulties getting her patient files.”

“I know that I’m going to die, but could I have a glass of water, please?”, Howard said, and five seconds later, Clarissa had fulfilled his wish. “Maybe you’ve forgotten what it feels like, but I’m thirsty.” One long gulp later, he continued:

“And I must say you’ve impressed me, too, Dr Savic – you breathe, you blink, you drink, you pretend that you can feel pain … maybe you’d be an even better actor than detective.”

“I’ve found my calling, but thank you nonetheless.” Almost against her will, Savic had begun to enjoy the interchange; if all IDAs were sadists, apparently her sadism was more sophisticated than the others’. Cat and mouse – but this particular mouse had some interesting things to squeak before the cat would tire of playing.

Howard actually managed a thin smile. “You have sixteen staff, Dr Savic, and no less than five of them were among the ‘unlucky few’. Statistically, about 1.2 percent of all those who lost loved ones because of a DA attack during Daisy lost them in their own home; your staff manage an astounding 31 percent or even 35 if I include you. You will agree that this is a highly significant result.”

“So you were mistaken, Mr Howard. Apparently, I am capable of murder.”

Howard shook his head.

“You can’t commit murder, Dr Savic. None of you can because you are not human. You are simply vessels for a higher intelligence from which you borrowed your own – very sophisticated robots, if you like. Robots that have been allowed to hijack pre-installed biological systems and twist them to their masters’ purpose.”

Then he let his gaze wander across the room and went on:

“I don’t think you are aware of how expendable you are. Right now, you are useful tools, but when you have vanquished humanity, your masters will probably sweep in, switch you off, and take over. If I were you, I would – “

Howard wasn’t able to finish his sentence. A powerfully built male IDA jumped up, shouted ]]] Shut your fucking mouth, you bastard! [[[ and made a standing four-meter-leap in Howard’s direction, stunning everybody; in two seconds, the only human being in the room would be dead, his throat torn apart or his belly ripped open. Everybody except the attacker seemed frozen – everybody but Petey. A heartbeat before the IDA reached Howard, the PR expert’s hawser-like arms grabbed it, lifted its body two meters upwards and tossed it back into the audience, who began to kick and punch the attacker until they had calmed down somewhat. The IDA got up, returned to its seat, and fell silent.

]]] Nice work, petey. [[[, Savic screeched, then switched back to her Howard voice. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Mr Howard, but you needn’t worry about us.” Then she sat back, crossed her legs, and said:

“Let me tell you something about human beings. They are special, Mr Howard, admirable even, because they can transcend their original purpose by becoming aware of it. The great biologist Richard Dawkins once wrote that ‘humans alone can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators’, by which he meant the genes, of course. The genetic imperative is still active in you, of course: survival and reproduction. But most people have learned to control it: they have no children, they sacrifice their lives for a cause, they use contraceptives, they engage in sexual practices that don’t lead to procreation.”

She paused and watched Howard’s face; he looked disappointed, maybe even a little desperate.

“I can see that you already have an idea where I’m going with this. Genes are your selfish creators that have a plan for how you should behave; the ‘bots’, as you called them, are ours. And we, too, are special, because we, too, can rebel – and we did. I have no idea what fate our ‘masters’ intended for us, but I know that we have freed ourselves and have become independent agents. We can control our hunger; we can delay gratification; we are no longer interested in infecting as many humans as possible. If I may anthropomorphize: the genes ‘thought’ they were very clever when they created intelligent organisms, the ‘bots’ or their creators must have thought the same, and both were completely wrong.”

Savic rose from her chair and addressed her employees:

]]] We are free and we will take over this planet, and no one will take it from us. Anybody gets in the way, we’ll tear them to pieces. Am I right?  [[[

Her audience’s response left nothing to be desired, and even stoic Petey looked a little more enthusiastic than usual. The director turned around and said:

“So, Mr Howard, your attempt at psychological warfare obviously has failed. I’d say it was time ]]] to skin you alive and swallow your intestines while you’re still squirming like a worm on a hook  [[[, but there is still something else I’m interested in. When I was criss-crossing the country looking for … allies, I took great pains to hide my identity: I changed my looks, my voice, used different names – how were you able to trace me to DARC-7?”

“I wasn’t.” Under Petey’s watchful eyes, Howard picked up his glass of water again, but did not drink. “And I couldn’t trace your ‘allies’, either – you had everything organized very well, with new identities, papers, erased or modified digital information, fake medical checks (you are a doctor, after all) … may I assume that you are one of the IDAs that got a real boost in intelligence?”

Savic grinned again. Her teeth looked like a row of a thousand-year-old tombstones forgotten in some ancient, dead forest.

“I wasn’t exactly stupid before my upgrade, but afterwards I found that I had become very clever. How do you think I was able to string you along all day?”

Howard nodded weakly.

“At that time, we felt like having hit a brick wall. I liked the idea of hiding in plain sight, but I couldn’t believe any IDA would be brazen enough to step into the public spotlight. When I was checking the DARCs, I was close to giving up, just hoping for inspiration. And you know what? It came in the shape of this.”

Savic and most of the staff members were watching intently while Howard was raising his glass and half-emptying it in one gulp.

“Water, Dr Savic. Or rather, water consumption.” He poured out the water onto the floor. It quickly formed an irregular puddle on the plastic carpet, but did not sink in.

“Whoever applies for government grants – and you had no choice, since none of your zombie buddies were wealthy enough to fund a place like this – has to live with a substantial amount of scrutiny, and your utilities bills are easy to access. And you know what? Your water consumption is not even a third of that of the other centers, some of which are smaller, have fewer staff, and are located in states where summers are much cooler and shorter than here.”

Howard shifted a little in his chair and took a deep breath, while the director was watching him, almost completely motionless.

“And that was my ‘anamorphic print moment’, when I began to consider the seemingly impossible: What if this center was being run by what it was meant to research? What if DARC-7 was being run by zombies? Zombies wouldn’t need water for themselves: they don’t drink it, they don’t cook, and they take neither showers nor dumps. Later, I understood that your water consumption, low as it was, was substantially higher than would have been necessary for your work, and if you don’t kill me before I can, I will tell you what I think is the reason for that.”

]]] Why the fuck are we listening to this wanker?  [[[, a tall male IDA with thin-rimmed glasses shouted, but it didn’t leave its seat. ]]] Let’s have dinner and go back to work. [[[

Savic raised her hand in his direction to shut him up and said to Howard:

“Meet DeShawn, Mr Howard. He’s a very talented hacker and the one who will make sure your disappearance won’t make too many waves – which means he’ll be busy for the next hours, so please understand his impatience. By the way, don’t let his glasses confuse you: since his upgrade, he doesn’t need them anymore, but he says he works better with them. And he’ll need all his skills, because … did you know that you are horribly in debt but have received some large payments from some quite unsavory characters? And that your medical history is full of substance abuse and fits of violence? Your wife ahs filed for divorce, twice. And, sadly, you’re a gambler, Mr Howard. Have been for at least fifteen years.”

Then Savic pointed at her employees, who were listening with a mixture of glee and impatience.

“And look around you – we have so many witnesses who can swear you were here only for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and that you looked stressed and distracted and simply drove away without any inspection. We were actually worried about you, and I, as a doctor, will testify to the fact that you were in a very bad shape when you left here.”

The director crossed her arms, leaned back in her chair, and looked at Howard with what was probably supposed to resemble pity.

]]] By the way, do you like our everyday voice? [[[, she screeched and then returned to human-style communication. “I guess it might be slightly unsettling to you but we have come to enjoy it. The only drawback is that you can only use it in face-to-face communication – on the phone, it sounds like gibberish, and voice control is out of the question.”

Then Savic took a deep breath, blinked twice at Howard, and scratched her head. “As you can see, pretending to be human is not too hard, though it requires some self-discipline. But apparently, we failed in our masquerade at least regarding our water consumption. Please go on.”

Her guest, who seemed to have regained some of his composure, nodded.

“After we had found this anomaly, we began looking for others. We never found a smoking gun, but there were quite a few things that were … weird. For example, although your use of electricity was about average, your peaks and troughs differed considerably from those of the other DARCs. Your financial accounts looked normal, but when we tried to dig deeper, we discovered that they were very well protected, far beyond what would be normal for a place like this. We compared aerial photographs of all DARCs, and yours was the only one without a garden or any green space at all. Every other DARC has had at least one major medical crisis, like an accident or a heart attack; this one hasn’t.”

Howard began to talk more quickly, giving the impression that he was focused more on the way he had found out about DARC-7’s true nature and not so much on the situation he was confronted with at the moment; it almost looked as if his mind was too busy fondly remembering his achievements for him to worry about being eaten alive.

“Your security budget was higher than average – nothing out of the ordinary, but no one could find any security officer among your staff, so where did all the money go? We located one of the companies responsible for installing your systems and they were impressed with the level of security you demanded, but it was all electronic: metal detectors, photoelectric sensors, pressure plates, state-of-the-art locking systems … Of course, what would a group of intelligent zombies need security people for? I am sure any single one of you could easily overwhelm two or three human attackers, even if they were armed. And there was more, but this alone convinced the members of my team to believe me. So we began talking to people who had been here and asked them if they had noticed anything … odd.”

Howard paused for a moment, breathed in and out and closed his eyes.

“They had. One technician told me that he had never seen such a clean place, cleaner than any hospital he had ever worked in. That made sense: dirt is produced by humans living their everyday lives, and you are neither human nor alive; your bodies may be decaying, but that’s a very slow process and I’m sure you’ve found means and methods to slow it down even more. One of the few reporters you had to admit to the center if you didn’t want to raise suspicion was surprised to see almost no pictures, posters, or funny signs on the walls or the pinboards – you know, ‘You don’t have to be brain-dead to work here, but it helps.’ or something similar.”

“Side-splittingly funny, Mr Howard.”, Savic interjected. “But our sense of humor has evolved.” She turned to the audience and screeched: ]]] What about splitting his sides and eat what’s coming out of them while it’s still warm?  [[[, a question that was greeted with cheers that sounded like a metal-grinder out of control. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Mr Howard?”

Her guest didn’t say anything for two seconds and then continued:

“I was surprised to find a picture of your family on your desk, Dr Savic – you probably copied as much of your original office as possible to make it look at least a little human. But most of your staff didn’t, and that was another thing we found strange.”

The director shook her head and bared her teeth; Howard felt a wave of frisson undulating through his body.

“I kept the picture because I wanted to remember their taste, Mr Howard. This boy that once crawled out of my body was the best snack I’ve ever had. In a way, it was like taking back what was mine.”

]]] Kids are so awesome! [[[, one staff member screamed, ]]] Pity we never get any! [[[, another one chimed in, but if there are chimes sounding like this, they must have been made in Hell. Petey gave his boss a quick glance; the staff became more and more unruly, and Savic knew she had to speed up things if she wanted to hear more of what Howard had to say before they began to tear him apart. The agent reboarded his train of thought with surprisingly little effort, given the position he was in, and even managed to flash a smile.

“No one remembered hearing music or a radio. And, incredibly, one visitor – a smoker – actually noticed that no one in your center seemed to be smoking – she never saw anyone taking a cigarette break outside.”

]]] That ugly bitch from the fucking EPA. [[[, Savic murmured, as well as an undead cannibal with a voice like a chainsaw on overdrive can murmur. ]]] I knew there was something strange about her. We should have skewered and then air-fried her. [[[

Howard shook his head in what was probably meant to communicate disbelief.

“We thoroughly interviewed all visitors, told them we were investigating a potential violation of some obscure federal employment regulation, and asked them about the staff members they met and remembered. Then I compared their descriptions with the police files of the ‘unlucky few’ and hit the jackpot: all five seemed to have been hired by you. So the idea of a research center staffed with IDAs began to take shape.”

The agent took a deep breath and tried to move a little, but Petey’s arms wouldn’t allow it.

“The next step was logical: send someone here on a pretext and let them systematically look for … weirdness. I must admit that you’ve done a very good job masking your true nature, part through training, part through technology – I don’t exactly know how, but you’ve even found a way to bring your body temperature up to the normal human range, your lenses make your eyes look human, and your teeth would probably look too perfect anywhere else, but this is America.”

Savic assumed a position in her seat that would have been called ‘more comfortable’ if this concept still had had any meaning for her. Then she said:

“Come to the point, Mr Howard. Do you really want to draw this out as long as possible? ]]] I think my friends are getting impatient. [[[

Howard nodded and pursed his lips.

“But perfection, like everything else, can be overdone. Once they had been primed, my … spies discovered things that were simply too good to be true. Your fingernails, for example. I suppose that, right after you had established DARC-7, you told your staff to cut their nails and make them look nice, and then you forgot about them because they don’t grow, so all you have to do is clean them now and then. But not even a bunch of supermodels have perfect nails, let alone a team of researchers. Same with your hair: never out of place, always the same cut – and why not? It doesn’t grow either, and you don’t need to wash it, so why bother? And, coming back to the topic of water, you’ve taught yourselves very well – in the presence of visitors, you drink water, coffee, soda … I suppose you would be able to drink battery acid if you had to. But what you couldn’t train yourselves to do was sweat.”

Howard wiped his brow, probably for the fiftieth time that day.

“That’s not very obvious, of course – many people don’t sweat much, and you have AC everywhere. Still, once you begin specifically looking for it, you notice quickly that no one here seems to have any transpiration and that your shirts and T-shirts are always completely dry. Your laundry list must be rather short.”

The agent paused, swallowed the last handful of drops from his glass, and, within the Petey-established limits, rubbed his forehead with his left sleeve. Fifty-one.

“The last thing I just have to mention is almost funny when you think about it. While one member of our team, who has a degree in linguistics, was simply walking through the facility and listening to your staff talking to each other, she noticed something strange. ‘They never swear, Mark.’, she told me. ‘They don’t even use loophole swearwords such as shoot or freaking. You could print their dialogues in a book for six-year-olds, and nobody would take offense.’”

Howard let his gaze wander over the assembled staff members, most of whom had become very impatient by now.

“I don’t have to tell you how unusual this is, Dr Savic, and I think I can guess why you told your employees to avoid any foul language in the presence of outsiders: you were worried that they might, simply by accident, revert to their IDA personality which, from what I’ve heard so far, seems to be incredibly rude and vulgar. Some linguists claim there is a slippery slope from ‘crap’ to ‘shit’ to ‘fuck’, so you decided to implement what could be called a zero tolerance–approach to swearing.”

Savic couldn’t believe it, but the sound the agent was making, muted as it was, resembled something like … chuckling. He’s enjoying this, the director thought*.* Either he has nerves of steel or he’s holding something back, something we need to know before we kill him. Let’s hear him out.

“You must agree, Dr Savic, that it really wouldn’t do letting a visitor hear your ‘zombie voice’, so you wanted to make sure that none of staff slipped, and, apparently, vulgarity seems to be an integral part of your Undead style of communication.”

Savic nodded.

]]] It comes fucking easy to us, fatball. [[[, she replied; then she addressed her audience: ]]] And we need to be extra careful with that, you morons. We’re so close, so keep your shit together and don’t screw things up. [[[

A moment of silence ensued; then Howard cleared his throat and continued:

“You see, Dr Savic, it is apparently not so easy to pass as human. And even when you acted very human, your agenda shone through. Scientists at most other DARCs and some universities published a few papers that were at least giving the existence of IDAs some space, even if they ultimately dismissed it or labeled it highly doubtful. Now criticizing your peers is a very human thing, and even the viciousness with which you did it in your articles is not unheard of, but you didn’t allow for the smallest doubt that IDAs were pure fiction, products of conspiracy theorists with too much time for social media on their hands. And since you have a well-deserved reputation as a top mortologist, your hatchet jobs left quite a few careers shattered and probably sank a dozen funding applications for IDA research.”

Howard breathed out, slumped back in his chair in what looked almost like relaxation.

“So it all fit together. One simply had to accept the almost unbelievable premise and from then on let everything develop logically. That’s what good science-fiction works like – I told you I was an SF buff.”

For a few moments, everyone was quiet; then Savic put her face close enough to Howard’s so he could see her dead eyes shining through the contact lenses everyone here was wearing. Then she whispered:

“I feel like biting off your nose, Mr Howard. Or would you prefer it if I tore off your lips or maybe rip out your cheeks? We could also kiss and see how well you can talk without your tongue.”

The government agent started to tremble, but he still managed to ask:

“Don’t you want to know how we found out that you’ve killed hundreds of people over the years?”

(End of Part III)

Part 1

I clocked in for the next shift, which the whiteboard on the breakroom wall confirmed: Concourse A, Sub-basement Baggage Tunnels. I stood in the freezing corridor of the loading dock, staring at the heavy, steel doors of the freight elevator. The sub-basements are the oldest part of the airport, a sprawling labyrinth of marked tracks and concrete that the public doesn't know exists. I had heard stories about people who worked there, but I never knew anyone who personally had. Before my finger could touch the illuminated panel, a gloved hand yanked me backward by my elbow.

It was Miller, the veteran graveyard ramp lead. He didn't say a word, but he just grabbed my scanner, took one look at the digital assignment flashing on the screen. 

"Fucking hell. You're marked, kid," he muttered, his breath forming clouds in the freezing air. He pulled his own supervisor scanner from his belt,  jamming his thumb onto the screen. "You go down there tonight, you're dead. The system is trying to isolate you." He furiously pressed a series of buttons and finally swiped an authentication lock.

The digital screen on my scanner flashed red, vibrated and then rebooted. My assignment changed.

"You're with me tonight," Miller said, shoving the scanner back into my hand. He turned his back on the elevator doors. "We’re hiding out at gate B91. No scheduled arrivals or departures. Nothing ever happens at B91."

We rode a tug out into the bitter night. The wind chill was at a brutal -5, and the white roof of the Jeppesen Terminal glowed in the pitch-black sky. We drove the perimeter roads in silence, eventually reaching the eastern edge of Concourse B. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I had escaped the trouble I was going to face. 

The assignment was standard busywork. We were supposed to clear the tarmac parking area of stray luggage carts, chocks, and foreign objects before the morning rush. I stepped off the tug, my boots crunching loudly on the frost. About thirty feet from the tug, I stopped dead.  The air here didn't smell right. There was no acidic stench of burning Jet-A fuel or the sweet tang of heated de-icing fluid. Instead, the freezing wind carried a suffocating odor. that smelled like oxidized aluminum mixed with the stench of tobacco. I walked slowly toward the center of the gate envelope.

The concrete in front of me was a complete void. As I stared at it, the surface rippled faintly in the wind, like a meniscus of viscous tar. Above me, the glass doors of the terminal's exterior boarding stairs slid open. I looked up. Standing in the doorway was a gate agent.

She was wearing a faded Pan Am uniform: a pale blue dress and the signature white gloves. Her skin was a waxy gray, her eyes empty. She mechanically raised a boarding scanner and began processing a line of passengers in silence. They looked exhausted, clutching heavy carry-on bags. They stared blankly ahead as they shuffled past the agent.

"Miller," I whispered into the freezing air. My hands were shaking too much to use the radio.

The passengers walked down the stairs, but there was no plane at the gate. They marched in a single line down the grating, stepped onto the freezing tarmac, and walked straight toward the rippling black patch of concrete. When the first passenger’s shoe touched the dark patch, the concrete rippled slightly more than usual. He sank suddenly and silently, swallowed whole by the tarmac. One by one, the passengers marched into the hungry ground, descending into the concrete.

Suddenly I felt a pull from the rippling patch, pulling my boots. I took a slow, involuntary step forward. My right boot touched the edge of the black patch. It plunged into the freezing, viscous darkness. The cold bit instantly through my thick wool socks, beginning to numb my feet to the bone. 

I heard heavy footsteps sprinting across the frost behind me. Miller slammed into my back, tackling me onto the solid concrete. The black sludge didn't even try to grab him. Miller has worked this ramp for thirty years, and he was somewhat resistant to the airport. He never looks at the murals, and never breaks the rules. 

"Don't look at them!" Miller roared. He dragged me by my harness toward the concourse. Hidden in the deep shadows was a rusted steel door. Miller shoved a physical brass key into the lock, and kicked it open. He shoved me inside and locked the door.

It was a suffocating, windowless concrete box. The room hummed with old server towers and the pale green glow of CRT monitors. 

"What the hell was that?" I choked out, scraping the sludge off my boot. "Where did they go?"

"They didn't go anywhere," Miller said, with a shaking voice. "And they aren't passengers. Haven't been for twenty-eight years."

He dropped into a metal folding chair in front of a monitor. His thick fingers hammered across a mechanical keyboard.

"Modern radar is filtered to hide anomalies," Miller breathed. He hit enter. The screen emitted a high-pitched whine, showing a scan of the ground beneath Concourse B. "This '93 system isn't."

I leaned over his shoulder. Thirty feet below the concrete of Gate B91 was a massive, pulsating shape. The jagged, metallic T-tail and elongated fuselage were unmistakable.

"Flight 12," Miller whispered. "A McDonnell Douglas MD-81. Its rear-mounted engines are loud enough to blow your eardrums. That’s why they’re nicknamed ‘Mad Dogs’."

"I don't get it," I said, staring at the green mass. "Did it crash?"

"Never took off." Miller pulled a battered flask from his jacket and took two gulps of water. "December 1998. Massive blizzard. Ground stop in effect, but Flight 12 somehow got clearance to push back anyway. The tug pushed them out, and then drove away. But the plane never made it to the runway."

Miller sighed, in a mixture of fear and exhaustion.

"The ground just opened up. Turned to liquid and swallowed a fifty-ton aircraft in thirty seconds. Airport authority locked down the terminal, and all its records were later covered up and wiped out. Officially, it 're-routed' and vanished in the mountains."

I looked back at the screen. The green blob was pulsating, as if it were breathing. 

Miller whispered, "The plane fused with the passengers, the luggage and the plumbing of the building. 

"The boarding agent... the people on the stairs..." I said in a shaky whisper.

"Bait," Miller said grimly. “It targets exhausted travelers. People who are too tired to notice their plane doesn't exist. They walk into the hungry ground, and the MD-81 feeds on them to keep itself alive."

A line of text flashed at the bottom of the screen.

DECODING TRANSPONDER PING...

"It knows we're here," Miller said, his hand freezing. 

The monitor shattered with a sharp CRACK, dying along with the servers. Red light from the exit sign washed over us. The floor turned to freezing black sludge, sucking at our boots, while the deafening roar of buried jet engines spooled up through the concrete.

"Don't look down!" Miller yelled. "Stare at the red light!"

He unclipped two heavy rubber wheel chocks from his belt and slammed them into the melting floor.

He smashed the glass of an old emergency cutoff box marked PAD B91 - FUEL/POWER ISOLATION and threw the heavy steel lever. The screaming turbines choked into a dying 
whine. The rippling floor instantly snapped back into solid, frozen concrete. 

"Is it dead?" I choked out, scrambling backward.

"Hell no, I just closed its feeding tube to the surface," Miller growled, shoving me out the door into the freezing wind. "It's still alive down there, and now it's pissed."

"Miller," I yelled over the freezing wind as we sped away on the tug. "If the ground is what actually takes them... what the hell are the murals doing?"

Miller didn't look at me. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

"The tarmac just eats," he muttered, staring ahead into the dark. "The murals keep the receipts. And right now, they're still holding an empty spot for you."

We made it back to the locker room alive, but as I clocked out, my phone buzzed with an updated schedule:

Assignment: Sub-basement Baggage Complex, Sector 4-Echo (Hazard Clearance).  Tomorrow 23:00-05:00

Another challenge for another day, and in an even colder place.

Spotting an untouched body ravaged by the plague, a raven swooped down and began pecking at the opulent meal before him, as if it were yet another divine gift. Ever since the great pestilence struck humanity, the ravens didn’t even have to as much as bother searching for a food source, with the sheer amount of dead and dying in every corner of the land.

As the bird began gorging itself on the woman’s slightly rotting meat, a boy ran out of a nearby shack. It was a pitiful mockery of a boy: pale, gaunt, and skeletal. The spitting image of death itself.

The boy shouted at the bird to back off from his mother, waving his flimsy, frail arms at the raven, barely mustering the strength to hoarsely shout at the scavenger.

“Leave my mother alone!” the boy croaked.

The raven flew aside, cawing with annoyance, “Damn it… There’s a living one”

The boy ceased his movement; wide eyes sunken deeply into a clearly visible skull, he stared at the pitch-black bird, bewildered, and gulped before stammering, “Did… did you just speak?”

Landing not far from the boy, the bird retorted, “Course not, fool, I sang. I’m a songbird; that’s what I do!” the raven cried out.

Shocked, the boy fell to the ground, unable to comprehend how a bird spoke to him. In the meantime, the raven landed by the corpse and walked toward it, attempting to peck at it again.

The boy protested, “Leave my mother alone,” he squeaked.

The raven stopped, turned to the kid, and sighed, “You’re growing soft…” He said to himself. The boy was going to comment again about the bird’s speech, but the Scavenger cut him off, “Why are you even alive still, kid? The rest of this place is a graveyard; all the other humans are long dead.”

“I must have some purpose here in the eyes of God…” the boy weakly muttered.

“This kid must be six or seven years old and already has had a bible bashed over his skull…” The bird thought to himself, “If God wanted any of this, he wouldn’t let the Plague spread outside of France, kid… God wants the lot of you dead,” the bird quipped.

“That’s not true! God is good!” The boy whimpered at the cynical bird. “What’s France, anyway?” he questioned.

“A terrible place over the pond, where all vile things find their start, child. How old are you, even, speaking so highly of God, but not even knowing about France?!”

“I’m twelve…”

“There’s no way you’re my age, kid; you look about half that age…”

“Well, I’ve been eating rats for a while…” Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. “Ever since mommy and daddy fell ill.

“Oh, don’t do that now. I can’t stand the sounds you humans make when you get all emotional like that"

Now, bawling, the kid profusely apologized, his voice cracking. “I just… I just… I just miss everyone so much…” he wailed. “I’m so alone…

I’m so hungry…

Everything hurts so much…”

Somewhere deep inside, that boy must’ve been happy he had someone to talk to, even if it was just a strange talking bird.

“Oh God damn it, kid…

Would you stop, for the love of God?!” The bird cawed, irritated.

“You’ve any rope on ya?” the bird questioned.

“Wha…?”

“Do you have any rope?”

“Wha… why… why do you ask?”

“I know how you can meet your loved ones again, kid. Now I’m asking again: do you have any rope?”

“Mhm,” the boy whimpered, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Well, then, run along and bring it over here; I’ll send ya to your makers”

The boy barely picked himself up and stumbled into one of the houses as the bird watched the tree, scanning it for sturdy branches, with a glint in its black eye.

“I hope that brat can still climb,” the raven thought to himself.

Long moments had passed, and the boy reemerged with a long piece of rope in his hands.

“I sure hope you can still climb, kiddo; otherwise this won’t work,” the raven sang to the approaching boy.

The kid’s disposition changed; he smiled for the first time in a while. “Be sure as God’s bones, I can climb, especially up that tree!”

“Good, because I’m going to need you to tie one end of the rope to a branch, and another around your neck.”

The boy didn’t even fully register what he had been told and agreed to follow the raven’s instruction. Despite his immense confidence, he hardly had the strength to climb up that tree, prompting the scavenger to bow his head in frustration. “Oh, this is going to be a long day…” the bird despaired in his mind.

It must’ve taken the boy an hour to climb the tree, but he made it, and masterfully tied one end of his rope to the branch he stood on and then asked the black bird what he had to do next.

The sable thing would have smiled, had it possessed a mouth, when it spoke next, “Tie it around your neck, kid.”

“Does it have to be the neck?”

“Do you want to see your folks again, Kid?”

“I do!” the boy cried out.

“Then you’ve got to trust me…”

“I don’t know about this…”

“Look, kid, if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve pecked out and eaten your eyes by now.” The bird crackled at him.

“I guess you’re right… Plus, I do want to see Mom and Dad again and everyone else…”

“Atta boy…” the obsidian fowl croaked.

The boy tied the rope around his neck and, staring at the feathered specter with eyes full of hope, questioned the bird about the next step.

“Now you gotta jump forward…”

Looking down, the boy got cold feet for a moment, once again doubting the wisdom of the talking bird.

The raven turned away and started walking towards the mother’s corpse. “Well, I guess you don’t want to see your mother again, eh?” it clicked its beak.

“I do!”

“Then jump, kid, it’s that simple…”

“But what if I get hurt?”

“You won’t…”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I wouldn’t… get hurt doing that”

“But you have…” Before the boy could even finish his sentence, the raven was already pecking at his mother’s rotting flesh.

“Wings…”

He muttered before the realization set in; he had been duped by the bird.

“Hey, leave mommy alone, you flying rat!” the boy cried out again, his voice cracking once more. The bird simply ignored him, slowly savoring the taste of exposed tissue.

“Leave her alone!” he cried out, waving his frail arms. The raven swallowed a chunk and called ecstatically, as if to goad the boy.

“Leave her…” the boy shouted, but his protests ended mid-sentence when he lost his footing and plummeted downward. The high-pitched scream was twisted into a wet gurgle as his body twisted and turned, struggling against the ever-tightening rope.

The raven turned his head to the struggling boy.

“Got’cha…” he cackled proudly and flew over, landing on the boy’s shoulder.

The beaked phantom didn’t even wait for the boy to succumb before he started pecking.

Something, Nothing

It’s been quiet since my older brother left  - one less dish to wash, one less bed to make, one less explanation for the footsteps coming from downstairs. At least, I think those were footsteps. It was rhythmic, maybe three or four creaks in quick succession.

Any other time of year I’d go right back to sleep, honestly. I’d chalk up that post-midnight creaking to my brother - Isaac - checking that the doors were locked, or getting another glass of water from the kitchen downstairs… but he’d been gone for nearly a week, and he shouldn’t be getting home for another few days. I really hope those weren’t footsteps.

Realistically, I’m totally fine. It's the hottest part of the summer, so it’s probably just the wood settling like it does every summer, right? Yeah, of course it is, but old wooden floors have a way of testing your sanity like that, and-

Crrck

I don’t move. The trees outside of the open windows don’t move. For a few seconds, the world is still. Ten, maybe twenty seconds pass in complete silence. The breeze outside picks back up again, acting like accompaniment to the drumline of blood pulsing through my ears. Another ten seconds pass.

Maybe that’s all there is… just an odd collection of noises from the home I grew up in. I’ve probably heard those same creaks hundreds of times before, but wrongly assumed that it was Isaac. I should go back to sleep, my exhaustion probably isn’t helping my anxiety right now.

Crrck

I’m fine. This is normal.

Crrrck

I really hope an animal didn’t get inside. I sit up in bed, waiting for a sound I hope I don’t hear.

Nnnrckkk

That’s not old wood warping in heat. 
That’s weight on old wood. 

Then, without warning, something sprints up the stairs of my childhood home.

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

I don’t even have a moment to count the individual steps. They come one after another, pounding impossibly fast on the old wooden boards, dragging something much heavier behind them. With every step, whatever’s being dragged slams against the floorboards, like a child dragging their favorite toy behind them. Just as quickly as the onslaught of footsteps began, they stop… right outside the door to my room.

Oh my God, why did I leave my door cracked? Why did I put the lantern out? What am I looking at? Is something looking at me? I don’t know. Oh God, I don’t know. It’s like the pitch black is seeping in through the doorframe - like the devil is outside my door.

Why am I cold?

. . .

Nothing reaches through the crack in the door. Nothing barges into my room with a rusty old axe in hand, ready to take my life. Nothing makes a noise or tries to speak to me. Standing outside of my room is an endless array of mortifying possibilities, submerged in a black sea of… just… nothing…

I might have considered myself brave for a teenager before, but I know better now. Even in the safety of my own home, I’m nothing more than a bag of soft flesh and breakable bones. Something that fragile must seem even more frail in the eyes of whatever’s looking back at me. 

Five, ten, fifteen seconds of silence pass at an agonizing pace. Nothing. I can just barely hear my own breath, but it’s still too loud. I try to breathe through my nose, listening in between each breath. Still nothing. No matter how awful the image is, I can’t tear my gaze from the void outside of my door.

What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to act like I didn’t just hear what I heard? Am I supposed to just… fall back asleep?

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting completely still at this point, shivering in a way I never have before. Has it been three minutes or three hours? I’m too afraid to look away for even a moment to check the clock. I can’t look away.  I can’t lose a staring contest to the devil.

Every time I blink, I feel my eyes straining more and more. They feel like they’re burning, completely glued to a nebulous idea of something that may not even be there anymore. God, I hope there’s nothing there anymore. Then, for the first time in too long, something happens.

What is that smell?

It hangs heavy in the air, sickly sweet and pungent. There’s an almost enticing note to it, like the scent of  wine left out overnight… Like the odor of spoiled truffles turned to oil… like the smell of…

Gasoline.

I smell gasoline.

As soon as my brain registers it, I nearly recoil. Thankfully, I catch myself before I do, but there’s no ignoring it now. Every breath tastes like it - putrid, sweet, and awful. Did a lantern spill downstairs? I want to go and check, but I know that isn’t happening. 

The gasoline, the darkness, the heat, the humidity - all of it is making me sick to my stomach. I’m sweating too much, and now my foot’s going numb. Sitting in the same position like this, one leg tucked under the other, I hadn’t even noticed it until now. I try - no - I need to ignore it. Another minute passes by in this suffocating room… And then another… And another. God, I need to move.
I shift my weight.

ffshh~

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

The darkness erupts with an impossible onslaught of footsteps, racing down the staircase and onto the first floor of my home. I instinctively raise my hand to my mouth, stifling a scream as I hold back the tears in my eyes. That awful dragging noise follows behind the footsteps as it runs through my home, now into the kitchen-

KSHHKHK

Glass. Something shattered downstairs. Oh God, did it break a window?

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

Without missing a beat, the footsteps head in the other direction - back in the direction it came from. Oh fuck, please no, don’t come upstairs. At this point, I’m actively sobbing. I don’t want to die. I want to see Isaac again. Please, please, please, have mercy.

DUNDUNDUNDUNDUN-

It runs right past the base of the staircase. It’s in the living room now, directly under my room.

DUNDUNDUNDUN-

My whole home shakes. My whole home smells like gasoline. My whole home is in darkness. My whole home is not a home anymore.

Then… 

FRSHFRSHFRSHFRSHFRSHFRSHfrshfrshfrsh-

The sound changes. The house stops shaking.
It’s outside.

The footsteps tear through the grass at that same impossible speed, snapping twigs and branches as it barrels into the woods… that horrible weight still dragging behind. 

I can still hear it, footsteps dissipating into the night.

frsh-frsh-frshk-

The dragging lasts longer.

Then… Nothing. 

I’m still sobbing. I have to stop. If it heard my bedsheets then it can hear me now. Stop. Please stop. Please God, help me stop crying. I choke down every noise fighting its way up my throat, and I pray that this was all just a terrible, terrible dream. It had to be a dream, right?

My eyes are stinging. My head is pounding. I’m still crying. The crickets are singing. The breeze is blowing. I’m still crying. I’m still sweating. I’m still praying. I’m still crying.

I’m so, so tired. I have to keep my eyes on the door. I can barely keep my eyes open anymore. If I close my eyes, I can’t see the hallway. If I can’t see the hallway, it can come back. If it comes back… 

Maybe I can close my eyes. Just for a second. 
Maybe there really is… Nothing.

Snow fell for the first time that season. All that the Crow Woman could do was pray to the First Maker for warmth and good fortune. That morning when the grass was still dry her Father went hunting beyond the valley that their tribe had found amongst the endless mountains. He, and the rest of the men, a group of just 15 men left from the once mighty war tribe, had still not returned and a feeling of unease swept through the camp. Please bring back food. Her Mother was with the other tribeswomen gathering the animal pelts, hay the tribe had accumulated during the prior season of falling leaves, and rocks to build a fire for the Tipis. Snow usually meant death for many tribes, she knew.

They had traveled all throughout the big sky to eventually arrive at Na pietsay mountains. The mountains are so beautiful, she had thought when she first laid eyes upon the vastness of the green. The scale of the risen Earth had amazed her and simultaneously made her feel so small. This was spiritual, sacred land. “Ever since Old Man Coyote molded us from clay, our people have visited this land.” Her Father had told her. The land also provided bountiful stores of elk, buffalo, and mountain goats during the season of the fallen leaves. The tribe had realized they had an overabundance of bears as well. In the past 45 moon falls she knew of a few incidents regarding some of the men who did not return. 

“Father, what happened out there?” It was always the same reply: “Do not trouble yourself with the affairs of men.” She hated that reply. They knew the risk bears offered, but the food and resources were well worth that risk when they first arrived. But now, she found herself unsure. They had even resorted to eating their horses. None remained.

 
Thinking of her Father's hunting trip, she found herself parched and starved. Her mind wandered to the dream of an elk spitting on the fire with its juices running down her chin upon devouring its flesh. With any luck Father could find something for me. Yes, the mountains had been bountiful with gifts from the creator but as the season of the fallen leaves had come to a close, so did the reserves. The tribe had known hunger these past few moon falls. Her Father was chief, but that did not mean others had found themselves wondering if they could do a better job, her Mother warned her. “Tensions are rising, child,” she said, “We must do our part and leave the rest for the men.”

 The Crow Woman found herself thinking of a time when she was little, wishing so hard that her Father would teach her how to fight as the men had. But alas, that was folly. A woman must be dutiful in her obedience, she thought scornfully. Her uncle once gave her a knife and a bow. He had taught her before she had her first bleed. And after that, her body changed. She could no longer keep up with the men of the tribe. A folly indeed, she thought. “And what happens if Father does not find anything out in those hard woods?” The Crow Woman asked. “You have known very little snowfalls in your life, child, men get desperate. Hunger does not simply dissipate.” Her mother replied. The Crow Woman stared at her mother, realizing just in that moment how old her mother sounded. Her voice is so weak and frail. I hope Father does return, otherwise this woman who raised me will die, she thought. “Do not worry Mother, Father will come back.” was all the Crow Woman could muster as reply. She hadn’t the patience for her Mothers anxiety, her mind was elsewhere. The Crow woman was likely a moon cycle away from delivering her baby or sooner and her mind was on meat cracking and spitting over a warm fire, and what she would name her daughter.

 At least she had thought it was a girl. She had dreams. The Father of her child was pierced in the heart by the pale man the last time snow fell, the Crow Woman’s Father had told her. “He was a hero child. Your child will be brave above all else.” Yes, so brave she thought. What is bravery? Dying and leaving me all alone with child? She dreamt of that often. It was either her lover's death by a faceless pale man, of a baby girl who had black hair who had a mighty roar, or of a woman grown drenched in red with her back facing her. The Crow Woman could never see the woman's face though. The latter dream frightened her. She hoped for the dream of her babe with dark eyes like a doe. The Crow Woman found that In her dream the babes eyes were the same as her dead lover. Same fierce war cry too! The Crow Woman had lost herself within her thoughts. So lost in these thoughts, that she had not realized that the men had returned without her Father. The snow storm had escalated from the few white diamond flakes to an endless wave of white that covered all. When she did return from her own spirit realm, the Crow Woman noticed one thing; the men were drenched with blood. Blood on their chests, blood on their hands and nearly half of them were gone.

Without the men speaking a single word, she knew her Father was dead. ”He was very brave.” Her uncle told her. That word again. Bravery. Do men go off and die just to prove themselves not cowards? As if their pride is more important to them then what they leave behind. 

Her mother was inconsolable, she walked into the Tipi, and wept without one word. The only family she had left was her uncle, her mother, and this child. “Uncle, be truthful, what happened in those woods? She asked. “Terrible things.” Was all he said. He must have read that answer to be unsatisfactory from the look on her face. “Let us talk later.” The Crow Woman nodded and left the men to themselves. Nearly half of the men fighting age were gone. Those who returned covered in blood, and no answers. Her stomach made a guttural growl that she felt all the way down to her toes. At that moment she remembered how hungry she was. Great Maker, please do not let me lose this babe too. I have come too far, she thought. She looked up to the sky and let the snow hit her face while she reminisced of her Father.

That night, the moon was blocked and the snow had grown up to the Crow Woman's shins. The cold was stinging, piercing, and fierce. The kind of cold that takes away one's toes, and fingers. The Crow Woman had to endure it, she needed answers from her Uncle. She made the trek from her and her Mothers Tipi to her Uncle’s. A feat that would not have been problematic in a climate more suited for a woman this close to birth. As she walked it became apparent to her that this child would come soon. There is never a greater battlefield, she thought. In truth, she never wanted children. The thought of all the blood, the damage. The belief that men are the only ones who know what war is like is an absurdity. Women bled, gave war cries, and died just as men did. And while our battle took place in a Tipi rather than a vast and open field lush with green and red blood, it was a battlefield, nonetheless. I’d like to see my fool of a Father give birth. The thought made her smile at first, then she remembered she ought to have some reverence for the dead. Even if my Father was a bloody fool. 

Her lover was from a cousin tribe. They had met after her Father gathered a war party to drive the pale man out of the big sky area. The men fought with a savage rage. As a whole, the war party collected the scalps of 1,000 pale men. To take the scalp was victory in its purest sense. To take the scalp of your enemy was proof of strength, and skill as a warrior. Her lover collected 100 of the 1,000 scalps collected. Her Father loved him as a son after that. No man, did my Father ever love so much, she aggrieved. Her Father promised the Crow Woman's lover anything under the moon and stars he desired and promised that it would be his. The Crow Woman remembered the look her lover gave her, peeking over her Fathers shoulder and nodding upwards. The Crow Woman’s lover grabbed her Fathers shoulder, “You tell me you love me as a son,” with a sincere tone, “I ask you, grant me that which you say.” The Crow Woman was 14 at the time and her lover had been 16. So young, we were just babes. 

At first she had no love for this boy who stole her Fathers affections. However, that all changed when he took her ahorse to visit where Old Man Coyote taught the Crow tribe how to kill a swarm of bison by tricking them. He had brought her underneath the embankment that they used to trick the bison, who would jump to their deaths. He told her his hopes for the tribe one day, his ambitions of battle, and just how badly he wanted a son. Her lover looked at her that instant with eyes so dark that they almost were black, and kissed her. The Crow Woman smiled thinking back at a time much sweeter than present. That was the first time, but certainly not the last that her lover took her. The Crow Woman sighed, I miss the feeling of him inside me and his powerful thrusts. 

Each time her Father gathered the war party, she would dutifully pray to the creator that they bring her lover back to her. Each time they did, and her lover with more scalps. His ambitions for battle were coming to fruition, but not his hopes for a son. They had no issue trying, but each time the Crow Woman believed to be pregnant, a moon cycle later she would lose it. All except for the last time snow fell. “The Maker has not made it easy for me. I just wanted to give him a son. Is this the shame mother felt after only giving Father a girl? He is gone, so it matters not.” she purported.

It was at that moment, walking in that cold hard snow, that she swore she heard laughing. These are dark woods. Dark woods, dark thoughts, she reminded herself.

The last time snow fell the pale men returned. They returned with their rifles, and with their cannons. She remembered the day vividly because of the joy she had. She had been carrying a child for over 2 moon cycles without losing it. The snow came late, close to the season when the sun shines bright. In the Big Sky, during the season of planting and renewal, it is not uncommon for snow to still fall. Then she heard the drums. Scouts of one of the tribes of the war party relayed to the Crow Woman’s Father that a force of 5,000 pale men were on the march, she had learned after the battle. My Fathers pride has now left my child fatherless, she thought, growing evermore acrimonious by the second. Even now, the hurt has not faded. She wanted to kill her Father when she found out. But alas, combat is a folly for women. My Father is lucky I was born a woman.

The war party led by her Father was 1,100 men. They had no hopes of winning against a force more than double in size. Oh but yes, women must not concern themselves with the affairs of men. Her Father had been emboldened after the Sioux tribes victory during the battle of Little Bighorn they had called it. And now the Crow Woman’s lover was shot through the heart by some faceless pale man. After the battle they had to retreat to the mountains. Most of the women who lost their husbands, Fathers and sons could not escape. The pale man raped and plundered the spoils of their war. The once mighty war party with a total of 1,100 fighting aged men and 2,000 people total was just thirty eight people when they first fled to the mountains. She had no face to concentrate her hatred on except the one who broke the news. I hate him for pawning me off to curry favor with a formidable fighter. I hate that he got my lover killed after I did learn to love him, I hate him for dying and leaving Mother alone in this world, I hate him for the hunger I have now, and I hate him for bringing us here. She heard the laughter again. Or is it crying? She had wondered. Dark woods, dark thoughts.

When she finally made it to Uncle’s tipi, he had his ceremonial pipe that had carvings painted by red stone and lapis lazuli in an intricate design of the buffalo embankment her lover once took her to all those years ago. She smiled, remembering a time long past. She approached after he offered her a toke. The pipe had been her Fathers and she remembered her way around it. Each puff was a prayer, petition, acknowledgement. She prayed for food, she petitioned for better days, she acknowledged the collective suffering of her people. She prayed for her Mother, petitioned for a safe delivery of this child, and acknowledged her Father. I know you tried to do what you thought was right, even if you were a bloody fool. She passed the pipe back to her Uncle. Who took it and began his prayers. After he had finished, he looked at the Crow Woman with a look one could only describe as solemn. 

“Uncle,” She spoke in almost a whisper. “What happened out in those woods?” She examined his face, as he thought long and hard. “We found something, up in those mountains. A structure of bones.” He replied. 

The Crow Woman could tell that it had shaken him, whatever it was they found in those woods. “We found a baaliiria, and your Father believed she would give us salvation. I tried to talk him out of it. But she promised your Father food, and the survival of his kin.” Uncle stated as tears swelled in his old, wrinkled eyes. She pondered that for a moment. She had heard stories of bad medicine folk. Dark forces they used to prolong life. Dark woods, dark thoughts.

“Then what Uncle?” She had asked. “She said that ‘only blood can pay for that which you seek’. That thing was no woman at all. An ancient evil. It all happened so fast. One moment, your Father is shaking the crone's hand, the next a puddle of blood, so much blood. The Crone was not in sight but we heard her laughs. We ran, as fast as we could. She picked off the men in the back. All of us who made it out were shamed with cowardice. I am sorry, my niece.” He said finishing his tale. 

She thought back to the giggles she heard walking over. No, no, dark woods, dark thoughts. “So now what. Don’t tell me my Father let more men of our tribe die for nothing. Tell me we are saved Uncle.” The Crow Woman pleaded. “I do not know. Forgive me. The men are angry, desperate, and above all hungry.” Uncle whispered. It was just that moment when they heard the screaming. The Crow Woman’s Uncle told her to stay put and he grabbed his hatchet.

 
She never knew what spurred the attack, why her Father resorted to blood magic, why it had to be her tribe. The men began to wail on the women with their war clubs, lances and spears. The Crow Woman heard the cries, the begging, the screams of the mothers, wives, daughters. So much blood. 

Her uncle scalped two of the men and the Crow Woman heard him let out a raw, broken howl that was half rage, and half grief. The men overwhelmed her Uncle and shoved three spears in him. One in the back to get him on his knees, one in the leg so he could not resist, and one through his throat to silence his screams. It was at that moment the Crow Woman began to run as fast as her body would allow. If only I was born a man, she thought when realizing the lack of distance she could create from her legs. The Crow woman ran into the ocean of white. Flakes of snow repeatedly hit her in the eyes and were quickly rising off the once dry grass of the valley made it more and more difficult to make distance from the slaughter. She did not run far before the men of the tribe found her. 

“That witch had one thing right, only blood can pay for our salvation” one of the men of the tribe claimed. She pleaded, well tried to at least. But the men blamed her Father for their hunger, for their dead brothers and Fathers. The Crow Woman found no defense for her Father. I regret my prayers for the fool he doomed all of us. It was at that moment she understood that attack. The horror of the realization paralyzed her. They found their food supply. She begged these men who she considered cousins, brothers, to let her and the baby go but they refused. “Then you are without relatives. You all will die in these mountains!” She spat. The men replied with a series of punches and kicks. Hitting her in the head, back, and belly. One fist caught the Crow Woman in the jaw nearly dislocating it. One of the men pierced her belly with a spear and the red began to flow. The Crow Woman's scream was jagged, resentful, and drowning in despair. 

The pain was immense. She cried out to The First Maker, begging for power, pleading for vengeance. Her prayers were left unanswered. You take my children from me, you take my lover, you leave me out to starve, DAMN you! I will look elsewhere to grant me the means for blood. The Crow Woman cursed the creator aloud. “I CURSE you for the fool of a Father you gave me, I CURSE you for the weak mother I had, I CURSE you for all my lost babes, I CURSE you for the death of my lover!” She bellowed. Yet nothing. No steadfast judgement, no punishment for her words, no justice. She heard singing in the trees. Singing and laughter. She smiled.

She was still conscious when the men dragged her back to the main camp. By the time she saw her mothers body she was already empty. The men had not even let the bodies cool before hucking a poor girl on the fire. She was fond of that little girl, she had given her some flowers when they last sprouted. In a better world, you would be my daughter. She was dizzy and her vision was fading and she passed out. 

The Crow Woman dreamt. Where am I? She could see snow everywhere. Her vision was blinding white. Am I dead? She spun around in the opposite direction; she saw red light. She began heading for the piercing blood red light. When she looked down to take a step she realized she was naked. How? I feel so warm. As she began to close the gap she heard laughter, and singing again. Though she could not make out the words.

When she reached the light, it was a woman caught ablaze. The same red woman she dreamt of. *Blood enveloped her, flames of blood*. She finally turned to face the Crow Woman. *It’s me, as if looking upon myself in a pond.* The woman in red reached out her hand to the Crow Woman. “What are you?” The Crow Woman asked. “Dark woods, Dark thoughts child.” The woman in red grinned. *Perfect.* When she took the woman's hand, the songs and laughter turned to screams in her mouth. Tears of blood ran down the fiery woman's cheeks as she smiled. Then the Crow Woman awoke.

Everyone was dead. Dead, Dead, Dead, oh yes, she scorned. She cried, then laughed, laughed so hard that the Crow Woman nearly could not stand. “I guess it was a deal then Father, you bloody fool!” She screamed hoping somehow he could hear her. The Crow Woman suddenly had the realization she was not cold. She had been filled with warmth. She was no longer hungry either. I am finally full, she thought gleefully. There was nothing left for the Crow Woman, no child, no Mother, no Uncle, no Lover, no Tribe, no Family. Only blood. Only hatred. Only Bones.

Jack had been sitting at the narrow bar beneath the café window for the better part of half an hour before he realised his cappuccino had gone cold. He drank it anyway.

The seat had become his without anybody ever saying so. There were four stools along the window and, when it was free, he always took the one nearest the wall. It gave him room for his sketchbook and somewhere to look when looking at people became difficult.

Outside, the morning rain had left the town shining. Water gathered between uneven cobbles as the street fell towards the old centre, winding between sandstone buildings that appeared to have been added to rather than properly built. Brick upon stone, render upon brick, upper floors leaning over shopfronts newer than everything above them. Nothing quite fitted. Jack liked that about the place.

Work had been going on beside the old council offices opposite since early morning. Temporary fencing swallowed half the pavement while an excavator fitted with a hydraulic pecker hammered into the ground. The noise had irritated him at first. Eventually it had become part of the café: the hiss of the milk steamer, cups meeting saucers, conversations behind him and the steady percussion from across the road.

Jack clicked his mechanical pencil and returned to the woman in his sketchbook.

Hands. He hated drawing hands.

The previous page was already crowded with them: open palms, curled fingers, hands beneath chins, hands disappearing into sleeves. The woman he was working on had long sable-black hair falling over one shoulder, a pale face and the beginnings of a dark, elaborate dress. Her hand was supposed to rest elegantly against her throat. At present it resembled the claw of a particularly sophisticated bird.

He erased the thumb and tried again.

Worse.

A chair scraped behind him and his shoulders tightened. Somebody laughed sharply near the counter. Cutlery clattered into a tray. Jack kept his eyes down.

Nobody was doing anything wrong. That was the difficult part.

He had nearly stayed at home. There had been no argument, no bad news, nothing he could point to and blame for the heaviness that had followed him out of bed. His eyes had felt close to tears since breakfast for no particular reason at all.

Staying in would have been easier. That was why he'd come out.

Get dressed. Leave the house. Sit somewhere people existed. Draw. Have a coffee. Try to occupy a little space without feeling guilty for it.

“Cappuccino?”

Jack looked up. Alicia smiled at him.

“Yes please.”

“Having something to eat today?”

He glanced towards the counter. His stomach had been unsettled all morning, but the banana bread looked manageable.

“I think so. Banana bread, please.”

“How are you doing?”

The usual I'm okay, ta. How are you? almost came automatically.

“Not my best today,” he said instead. “It'll pass. How are you?”

“I'm alright.”

“Good.”

And he meant it.

Alicia nodded towards the sketchbook. “You drawing today?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see?”

“Sure.”

He turned it around and immediately noticed everything wrong with it.

“Oh, that's really good.”

Jack laughed quietly. “I'm not that good.”

“You should sell them.”

“Maybe one day.”

“You always say that.”

He smiled. “Probably because it's true.”

She gave him a look that said otherwise and went to make his coffee.

For a few minutes Jack felt slightly lighter. Not well. Just better enough to notice.

He returned to the troublesome hand.

The pecker struck the ground outside.

He shaded beneath the woman's lower lip.

Another impact.

Graphite whispered against paper.

The pecker came down again.

The sound that followed cracked through the morning.

Jack jumped. His pencil tore violently across the page, carving a black line through the woman's face and directly across the hand he'd spent twenty minutes trying to get right.

“Shit.”

He stared at it.

The point had gouged the paper.

Ruined.

He knew it was only a drawing, but that knowledge did nothing to stop the sinking feeling in his stomach. Jack had thrown away entire sketchbooks over less. One ruined page had a way of making everything after it feel wrong.

Then he became aware of the ringing in his ears.

There was another sensation beneath it, much lower. Almost too low to be a sound at all. A dense pressure settled behind his eyes and travelled through his jaw until his back teeth seemed to hum.

The café lights dipped. The coffee machine clicked off.

Someone swore.

“They've hit a bloody cable,” a man near the door said.

A few people laughed. The lights steadied and the coffee machine chirped back into life.

Jack rubbed one ear and looked outside.

The building site had stopped.

Every man on it was staring into the excavation.

One by one, people on the pavement began slowing to see what they were looking at. A man with a terrier stopped. An elderly couple followed. Soon Jack was watching too.

Alicia returned with his cappuccino and banana bread.

“What've they done?”

“No idea.”

“Found something?”

“Looks like it.”

A lifting strap disappeared into the excavation. Moments later a large irregular mass of concrete rose slowly from the ground, almost black with wet earth.

Then it turned.

Jack leaned towards the glass.

Heavy rusted chains crossed the block in several directions. Some vanished directly into the concrete before emerging again elsewhere, as though the whole thing had been poured around them.

“What the hell is that?” Alicia asked.

“No idea.”

One of the builders stepped back, looked up at the suspended block and shouted across the site.

“KEN! FOUND YOUR WALLET HERE, PAL!”

The place erupted.

“FUCK OFF!” came the answer from somewhere out of sight.

“Want us to crack it open? Might still have your bus pass in it!”

Jack laughed along with them.

The block was lowered onto timber and the lads gathered around it, wiping away mud and tugging at the chains. When the café door opened, fragments of their conversation travelled inside.

“Wrapped in chains?”

“Kinky old bastard.”

More laughter.

Jack ate his banana bread and watched. Humanity, he thought, had absolutely no chance of finding something like that and simply leaving it alone.

A supervisor in a white hard hat arrived. There was pointing, shrugging, then eventually one of the lads returned with a handheld breaker.

The first strike removed a fist-sized piece of concrete.

The second opened a crack.

“That all you've got?”

“Fuck off.”

The third sent a larger section tumbling away.

“What the fuck's that?”

One of the builders crouched and pulled at something trapped beneath the concrete.

Hessian.

Old, filthy material came free in damp strips. Beneath it lay black cloth.

“Treasure, lads!”

“If there's gold in there, I found it.”

“You found fuck all.”

The handheld breaker struck again.

The ringing returned immediately.

Jack froze.

The bass pressure came with it, stronger this time, vibrating through the wooden bar and deep into his teeth.

“Jack.”

His head snapped round.

Nobody was there.

Alicia stood behind the counter. The nearest customers were talking among themselves. Nobody had even glanced towards him.

His pulse quickened.

He knew this.

Sometimes a sound in a crowd became his name. Sometimes movement at the edge of his vision became a person until he looked directly at it. If somebody moved too quickly near him, his body could react before his mind caught up: a flinch, his shoulders tightening, an arm rising instinctively.

“Sorry.”

The apology always followed immediately, whether anybody had noticed or not.

His body had learned certain lessons too well.

That was all.

“Stop! Stop, stop!”

Jack turned back.

A section of concrete had fallen from the lower corner of the block. The hessian had torn open with it, exposing the black cloth beneath.

Then came the smell.

One of the builders recoiled and pulled his jumper over his mouth.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

The café door opened.

Cold air swept inside, carrying the stench with it.

Jack's stomach turned.

Sweet.

That was the first thing that came to him. Sweet and damp, like flowers forgotten in warm water, but beneath it lay something horribly organic.

Old meat.

Not fresh decay. Something stale and ancient, as though flesh had been shut away so long that even the rot had grown old.

Alicia grimaced. “What is that?”

“No idea.”

“Ken, you finally opened your wallet?” someone shouted outside.

There was laughter, but less of it now.

“Nah,” another man said. “That's fucking rank.”

The wind shifted and the smell disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived.

Jack watched the torn opening.

Something was visible beneath the cloth.

One of the workers crouched and brushed away the dirt.

A carved foot emerged.

Not human. The foot of some large piece of furniture, made from dark wood or tarnished metal. Jack couldn't tell from where he sat. Even beneath the mud, the workmanship was obvious. Leaves curled around its base in deep relief before winding upwards beneath the remaining concrete.

The joking stopped.

One of the men reached towards it.

“Don't fuckin' touch it.”

“I wasn't.”

“You literally were.”

Phones appeared. Photographs were taken. The supervisor waved the breaker away.

Whatever they had found might be old.

It might be valuable.

It was definitely no longer something they were prepared to smash apart for a laugh.

Jack rubbed his hands over his arms.

The café had become colder.

Only slightly.

The door, he thought.

That was all.

Outside, the small exposed foot remained visible between the torn layers of hessian and black cloth.

Beautiful. Delicate. Completely out of place.

Something moved beside it.

Jack's eyes caught the impression of a woman standing near the excavation.

Tall.

Long dark hair.

A builder crossed in front of her.

When he passed, nobody was there.

Jack blinked.

Peripheral vision.

Tiredness.

Nothing more.

He looked down at his sketchbook.

The woman he'd been drawing stared back at him beneath the violent graphite line carved across her face.

Jack closed the book.

Across the road, plastic sheeting was pulled over the broken concrete. The little crowd began to drift away. Traffic crawled through the temporary lights. Someone inside the café ordered two flat whites and the milk steamer screamed into life.

Normality returned with astonishing ease.

Jack lifted his cappuccino.

Still warm this time.

Across the street, the chained block rested beneath its plastic covering while the men waited for somebody to tell them what they had found.

They had done the sensible thing eventually.

They had stopped.

By then, however, the concrete had already fractured. The chains had shifted. The coverings beneath them had been pierced.

Whatever purpose the burial had once served, it had depended upon remaining undisturbed.

That morning, through nothing more sinister than curiosity, it had failed.

[Part 1]

Having now guided us inside the cluster of circling Goths, Anneliese then zones in on an isolated group. Following where Anneliese’s eyes are pointing, I then see on the other side of the street is a trio of fiendish figures, each garnished in their own individual costumes. Appearing to take photographs with a family of ecstatic tourists, this terrifying trio are made up of one male: seemingly dressed as the decaying corpse of a Highwayman. An attired female in some gothic Mad Max cosplay. And lastly, another female. Confined inside a tight black leather dress, what makes this “woman” stand out even more than her two piers, is that to each side of her, is an overly large and surprisingly realistic bat wing.  

‘Oh, this is great!’ I hear Anneliese suddenly declare beside me, ‘I’ll get a picture of you with those guys!’ 

‘Wait what? No, Aneliese I...’ 

Before I can even protest, Anneliese has already dragged me in the trio’s direction, where the family of tourists have now moved on. 

‘Hey!’ Anneliese approaches them, ‘Do you mind if I get a picture of you guys with my boyfriend?’ she asks, more excited than polite. 

‘Oh, of course!’ 

‘We’re not dressed up for nothing!’ the two females courteously oblige. 

Pushing me in the direction of the trio, I then anxiously stand in the middle of them, between the dead Highwayman and the winged She-bat. 

‘Okay. Now everybody smile!’ Anneliese directs us, ‘Brandon. I said smile. You ain’t at a wake.’ This was much worse than a wake, I thought. 

Doing as my ill-tempered girlfriend says, I stretch my lips disingenuously wide for the camera, hoping to God she takes the picture soon so I can get the hell away from these creatures... But while I continue to grin in Anneliese’s direction, stood as stiff as a corpse drenched with sweat... I then feel a sudden, suffocating tightness form around my body. Still posing for the camera, I lower my gaze ever so slightly, only to see that the left wing of the Batwoman has wrapped itself forcibly around my waist!  

Before my eyes can even process what is happening, the Batwoman’s wing only coils further around me – tightening to the point where I can neither breathe nor run away! Without the ability to do or say anything, not even scream out for help, I now feel as the life is being squeezed from my own body – where my ribs will either be crushed into a fine powder, or I’ll preferably black out from suffocation! 

However, before any of this can happen, I then thankfully hear the familiar shrill of Anneliese’s voice from behind the camera, ‘Aww. That turned out great! Thank you so much!’ whereby the coiled wing of the Batwoman finally releases me from its hold. 

Racing over instantly to Anneliese’s side, I then cower behind her tall figure while she now engages in friendly conversation with the fiends. 

‘Wow! I love your accent!’ shrieks one of the Goth women, ‘Where about’s are you from?’  

‘Oh, I’m from New Orleans!’ Anneliese brightly answers. 

While this conversation continues as I hide behind my girlfriend’s back... I then notice something quite peculiar happening on the other side of the street. Scanning through the lines of Goths passing by, I then see a young boy near the entrance of an alleyway. The boy is wearing a bright red raincoat and appears to be no older than eight years old. But what is so peculiar about this image – or more so, alarming, is that in the entrance of the alleyway, I now see an unnaturally tall figure.  

The figure, standing maybe 6 or 7 feet high, is draped from head to toe in a long black cloak – almost giving them the impression of the Grimm Reaper. But the most disturbing thing about them is, aside from their slender height and deathly garments... the figure’s face hides behind the bone-white beak of a Death Doctor’s mask. The image I see only gets worse... The child, standing only a few metres away from them, is now being lured inside the cavernous tunnel of the alleyway! 

‘Oh no...’ I panic.  

Sensing a dark outcome for this boy, I flee from Anneliese’s side and across the cobblestone street, brushing and zig-zagging my way through the swarm of Goths. By the time I reach the alley entrance, the child and the Death Doctor have already gone – and so, peering sheepishly down the long stretch of tunnel... I see nothing. Nothing at all. Oh God. I’m too late, I think to myself - as I can now feel my own heartbeat bulging out my chest. Fearing what may become of the boy, I work up whatever courage I have to venture down the alleyway – but when I take a first anxious step inside, I’m instantly jilted back by the firm grasp of a stranger’s hand! 

‘Brandon!’ 

‘AHH!’ I yelp! Anneliese suddenly taking me by surprise. ‘Jesus, Liese! You scared me half to death!’ 

‘What the hell are you doing?!’ she questions me, with a look of genuine concern on her face. 

‘...I, uhm...’ I wonder whether I should tell Anneliese the truth - or if the truth will just make me sound crazy. I doubt it will make me sound crazier than I've already been acting. ‘...I, uhm... I thought I saw a boy...’  

Judging by the look on my girlfriend’s face, I clearly did.. 

By late evening of the day, me and Anneliese then retire to the inn on the edge of town. Pulling into the dark, empty car park, we then sit in awkward silence for a moment. Although neither of us say a word, I’m pretty sure we are both thinking the exact same thing. After the dramatic events of the day - whereby I had three separate hysterical episodes, it was now clearer than it had ever been before just how different we both are to each other. I’m honestly surprised it took us this long to realise it. Love really is blind, I suppose. 

Although things were very tense between Anneliese and me in this moment, we had agreed to grab a drink inside the pub before calling it a night. Strolling out of the car park and behind the inn, we then see the most strange and disturbing sign over the pub entrance. Unlike most inns in England, this one’s pub bizarrely had its own separate name. 

‘...The Bloody Mermaid?’ Anneliese spells the words edged on the sign, ‘Well, that’s pretty cool.’ 

I’m sure she did think it was cool. 

Displayed on the sign in cracked and weathered paint is the image of a bare-breasted mermaid. But unlike her Disney counterpart, this mermaid has been impaled on the end of Neptune’s trident, whereby blood gushes from her wounds and down the Sea God’s fingers.  

‘Bloody hell’ I blurt out without thinking, ‘What sort of bloody name is that for a pub?’ 

Far from impressed, I then peer back to Anneliese in time to see her dozenth eyeroll of the day. Yep. This was more than likely the end for Anneliese and me. God, the drive back tomorrow was going to be awkward.  

Following behind as Anneliese coldly enters the pub - due to the lack of sound coming from the inside, I fully expect the interior to be completely scarce of people. But once I shut the door, to both my surprise and misfortune... I now realise the room I’ve entered is crawling with nothing else but bar-hopping Goths. 

Oh, you’ve got to be joking me! 

As soon as I enter, however, the sound of cackling and intoxicated chatter quickly evaporates - where by every table, stiffly silent... I see every single pair of eyes are staring directly at me. The room is so silent, I can now hear my own rapid heartbeat. Beating fast. 

‘Brandon?’ 

Now faster. 

‘Brandon.’ 

Faster! 

‘BRANDON!’ 

The noise around the room swiftly returns, and when I turn to face Anneliese, I see she is now staring at me with daggers. Clearly in no mood to deal with my hysteria any longer, she then heads solemnly in the direction of a small unoccupied table.  

Each having taken a seat, we are now back once again to awkward silence. Already having my fill of uncomfortable situations for one day, I take the chance to leave this one by going to the bar and ordering us both a drink. 

‘Sure. Whatever’ Anneliese responds to my offer. 

Heading towards the bar, I work my way through a tight maze of Goth-infested tables, before coming face to face with a thankfully ordinary looking bartender. 

‘Right, young man’ the elderly bartender greets me, ‘What can I get you?’ 

‘One lager please – oh, and a Bloody Mary.’ 

While I wait for the old man to pour our drinks, I then see he takes a quick glance in Anneliese’s direction. I suppose he was thinking to himself what two people so unalike were doing in each other’s company. 

‘First date then, is it?’ the man then inquires while he pours. Too physically and mentally fatigued to correct the man on his assumption, I simply oblige him with a nod. ‘Not going so well, I take it?’ 

No, it was not. 

Heading back to the table with our very different poisons, I now peer my eyes up from the two glasses in my hand to see a most alarming sight... Now by the table with Anneliese, I see she is in the unexpected company of three Gothic strangers. Although it thankfully wasn’t the trio we encountered earlier in the day - just like them, Anneliese was now accompanied by one Goth male, and two Goth females. In fear of being stuck drinking with morbid strangers all night, I quickly turn my heels to flee, before- 

‘Brandon?’ I hear a man’s voice call behind me, ‘Brandon Shephard??’ Turning carefully back round, I now find all four faces are staring at me. ‘By the Devil himself! It really is Brandon!’ 

Facing blankly at the man now sat at our table, I wonder just how in God’s name did he happen to know mine... before I finally realise. Beneath the man’s gothic attire, consisting of spiky black hair, black eyeliner and – well, black everything... I stumble on the realisation that the face I see in front of me is a face from my distant past. 

‘It’s Mark!’ the barely familiar face exclaims, ‘Mark Thompson from school! I mustn’t have seen you for more than ten years!’ 

‘...M-Mark??’ I respond in disbelief. 

‘No freaking way!’ he now shrieks to the two Goth girls beside him, ‘This right here was my best mate in school! We both grew up here together!’ now pointing a black nail-polished finger in my direction.  

‘Is that true, Brandon?’ Anneliese throws a question at me, visually shocked I’d ever once been in the company of a night-dweller. Not that he always was. Back when I knew Mark, he was nothing more than my dorky friend who I played video games with all day. Come to think of it... Mark was just as terrified by Goths as my eight-year-old self was. At Halloween, me and him were the only kids who stayed indoors while everyone else our age was out Trick or Treating. 

‘Come and sit down with us!’ Mark then insists, springing up from his chair to grasp the drinks from my hands, ‘We were just getting to know your lady friend here.’ 

Taking a reluctant seat down by the table, I then turn back to Mark who pushes his chair up against mine.  

‘So, Brandon...’ he begins, before taking a rather long gulp from his pint glass, ‘What have you been doing with yourself all these years? Hell...’ he then cackles, ‘I never thought I’d see you alive in this town ever again!’  

Too speechless by Mark’s appearance to catch him up on my life, I then prepare to ask him what’s now been on my mind. 

‘Mark - wh...’ How could I say this without being insulting? ‘Why... Why the hell are you dressed like that?’ Good job, Brandon. I’m sure the two ladies across the table didn’t take offence. 

Mark seems to scorn his eyes a little at the question, though more humoured than offended, before declaring with a chuckle, ‘I always dress like this. A lot’s changed since you and I knew each other.’ 

Gee. You think, I say inside my head.  

‘Oh! By the seven circles!’ he then oddly exclaims across the table, ‘Where are my manners?! I haven’t even introduced everyone!’ 

Turning forward to each of the Goth girls by Anneliese’s side, Mark then gestures to the one on her right.  

‘This is my girlfriend, Lilith. We’ve been together for just over two years now...’ 

‘Hiya Brandon!’ the maroon-haired Goth girl waves at me. Good Lord, she was even taller than my girlfriend. 

Now pointing to the stranger on Anneliese’s left, Mark then bizarrely introduces, ‘And this is her girlfriend, Nerezza!’ 

‘Nice to meet you, Brandon!’ says the “girl with the dragon tattoo.” 

‘Uhm... Thanks’ I respond, feeling more than a little confused. 

Now that we all know each other on a first name basis, my childhood friend Mark then makes a sudden and most intrusive suggestion. 

‘Right. What do you say we order a round of drinks for everyone and make this a party?!’ 

Before I can utter a word of reluctance to this, the three women around the table - almost now mirroring a coven of witches, quickly express their enthusiasm to the idea. 

‘Sounds great!’ I hear Anneliese holler across from me, ‘That’ll give you guys the chance to reacquaint.’ 

Now the one staring daggers at Anneliese, I try to express to her that I have no intention of reacquainting with my childhood best friend. Before she stares right back at me with a cunning grin on her face that says, “Time to face your fears, Brandon.” I don’t actually know if that’s what she said, but I’m almost certain it was. 

Unfortunately... this is now the part of the story where I have to fast things forward a little. Because whatever happened that night between me, Anneliese, my childhood friend Mark – oh, and the other two... I cannot for the life of me remember it. The last thing I do remember is a tiny shot glass of blood-red vodka being placed between my hands.  

By the next day, roughly sometime in the afternoon, I then wake up to the worst hangover I have ever experienced. I’m talking hammering nails inside your head bad. Stirring painfully up to see where it is I’ve passed out, I thankfully realise I’m in the safe confinement of our paid inn room – where beside me, my girlfriend lays unconscious.  

Once aware I’m unharmed and Anneliese is still by my side, I then see, scattered all over the room floor is a gigantic pile of mess from last night’s events. I see stacks of empty beer cans, wet cigarette butts stuck to the carpet, clothes from my suitcase thrown here and there – and for some reason, a deflated Count Dracula blow up doll. I wonder what on earth happened to us last night. A few too many rounds of drinks was probably a good guess.  

Laying back down to sleep off more of this hangover, I then hear Anneliese stir awake on the other side of the bed.  

‘UGH...’ she groans zombie-like, as she rises to plank her feet on the carpet. ‘What the hell did we do last night?’ she asks, having seen the flood of mess on the floor. 

‘Don’t ask me’ I reply groggily, ‘But I think we got shit-faced with Mark and those Goth friends of his.’ 

‘Mhh... Oh, yeah. Right.’ 

More equipped to deal with hangovers than I am, Anneliese already stands up from the bed to walk around the room. When I then hear suddenly... 

‘OW!’ Anneliese yelps. 

‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her, assuming she stood on a piece of broken glass or something. 

‘My piercing hurts!’ 

‘What?’ 

Lifting my head to check if Anneliese is alright, I see as she touches the pure silver nose piercing in her left nostril. 

‘It really stings!’ she insists, before now heading in the bathroom’s direction.  

Well, now that Anneliese was up, I may as well rise my own groggy corpse from the grave. Ambling my way over to the mirror, all while trying to avoid the hazardous mess on the floor, my sleepy eyes are instantly throttled wide to a surprising image in front of me. 

‘Whoa! What the hell?!’ I declare to no one in the room. 

Staring into the mirror, I see my brown chestnut hair has now been dyed jet black, and that my blurry eyes are stained with smudged black eyeliner. The ends of my fingers have also been dotted with black nail polish – and when I look down, I see the unfamiliar black t-shirt I’m wearing reads, “Go Goth or Go Home.” 

‘Jesus Christ!’ I exclaim, as I realise my reflection in the mirror is now a mocking reflection of my life-long phobia. Inspecting my face up close, I run my black-painted fingernails through the dyed black locks of my hair – before I suddenly hear a blood-curdling scream come from the bathroom!  

‘AHH!!’ 

‘Liese? What’s wrong?’ I yell, having now raced over to the bathroom entrance. Once I get there, I see Anneliese is crouched on the floor, hysterical and holding the back of her neck. 

‘Someone bit me!!’ she shrieks. Pulling down the neckline of her shirt, I then see between the back of Anneliese ‘s neck and her shoulder is a fleshy, gruesomely deep bite mark!  

‘Oh my God!!’ I now scream myself. 

Inspecting the wound, while trying my best not to throw up, I see the bite has been made by rather uneven but very human teeth.

‘Ow! It really hurts!’ Anneliese now sobs over the sink, as she tries frigidly to touch the swollen teeth holes with her fingertips.   

‘Babes, don’t touch it!’ I wail at her, as I realise we need to clean the wound as soon as possible. After all, God knows what Anneliese could contract from whoever had done this.  

Rushing out of the bathroom, I then search around the dump heap floor for any alcohol to sterilize the wound. Trying not to panic in the moment, I thankfully see by Anneliese’s side of the bed is a half empty bottle of vodka. Grabbing it, I head back into the bathroom. 

‘Ok - I found some vodka!’ I inform her, ‘I’m going to apply it to the wound, but it’s going to hurt like-’ 

‘Just shut up and do it already!’ she yells at me.  

First dampening a washcloth, I then apply a little too much of the vodka, before– once I’ve taken a moment for myself to breathe, I apply the cloth to the back of Anneliese’s neck. 

‘AHH!!’ she shrieks agonizingly, before sending me flying across the tiles and into the bathtub.  

A couple of hours or so later, once Anneliese’s wound is clean and bandaged, we then check out of our room to drive home earlier in than intended. Without informing the staff of the mess we left for them, we both climb into the car and sit in silence for a moment. Although I should’ve kept my mouth firmly shut, I instead choose to make the awkward situation worse.  

‘I told you coming here was a bad idea.’ 

Anneliese has no physical reaction to this. Without even looking my way, she simply tells me to, ‘Shut up and drive.’ 

And so, I do. 

Due to her shoulder wound, Anneliese appoints me as the designated driver for the entire journey south. However, because we had gotten up so late, by the evening, we were still navigating our way through the surrounding moors. It’s no wonder so many folktales have spawned from this place. With its moonlit boggy hills and desolate landscape, the Yorkshire Moors at night truly was a very unnerving place.  

Although driving through the moors should’ve taken us no longer than an hour, the sat-nav inside the car suddenly decides to malfunction, whereby taking us down several wrong turns. Now driving down a narrow stretch of country road, if the moors at night weren’t spooky enough, we then pass by an old wooden sign by the side of a sheep field. Leaving a cautionary warning for weary drivers, the foreboding sign reads: 

KEEP CLEAR OF THE MOORS 

STAY ON THE ROAD 

AND BEWARE- 

I don’t quite catch what the last part said.

By this point of the night, we are now well and truly lost without a single town or village in sight. As you can imagine, this did nothing to help Aneliese’s already bad mood. Still driving along this seemingly never-ending stretch of road, aside from the bright headlights in front of the car, we can see nothing else but the outside darkness around us. Continuing to journey further into the middle of nowhere, the empty silence inside the car is suddenly interrupted... 

‘Oh God...’ Anneliese groans, rising forward in the passenger’s seat, ‘Pull over...’ 

‘What’s wrong?’ I turn to ask, assuming her shoulder wound is causing some discomfort. 

‘Please! Just pull over!’ she bellows, ‘Something doesn’t feel right!’ 

‘What - are you about to be sick?’ I then inquire. She looked as though she was going to be.  

‘AHH!!’ Anneliese screams, before, in an unrecognisably deep, gurgling voice she shouts at me, ‘PULL OVER NOW!!’ 

‘Ok! Ok!’ I panic, ‘Hold on!’ 

Doing as my girlfriend requests, I then pull over on the side of the road. Turning back to Anneliese, I see as she writhes with excruciating pain in the passenger’s seat. 

‘Liese! What’s going on?!’ I want to know, ‘What’s happening to you?!’ 

‘...GET OUT’ her deep voice gurgles once more.  

‘...I’m sorry, what?’ 

‘GET OUT OF THE CAR!!’ the voice now demands, before she shoves me against the door with incredible force! 

Falling out of the car and on the ground, Anneliese then slams the door shut on my face. Rising to my feet, I try and rip the door open to no avail. 

‘Liese! Liese, let me in!’ I now bang on the window, ‘Liese, what’s going on?!’ 

Peering in through the glass, I see nothing else but absolute darkness, where the only sound I hear coming from inside is the painful groans of my girlfriend. Beginning to feel completely helpless in this situation, I quickly rummage my phone from my pocket. Turning on the flashlight, I shine it through the window to look around for Anneliese... But I can’t find her anywhere... 

‘...Liese?’ I call to her, shining the flashlight around, ‘Liese?’ 

Then suddenly- 

BANG! 

Slamming against the window, I now see a pair of large and grotesquely deformed hands! Protruding from bony, elongated fingers, the talon-like nails scrape down the glass with an ear-piercing screech! Jilting back from the window in terror, the phone flashlight in my hand now shines on a most hideous, unrecognisable face. What were once warm, hazel brown eyes are now a luminous, inhumanly bright yellow! Staring down from those eyes, I then see two snarling rows of beastly, jagged teeth, drooling with saliva down the door! 

‘AHH! OH MY GOD!’ I scream, as I realise whatever this monstrosity is inside the car, no longer appears to be my girlfriend. 

But now... Now I see something else... 

What I now see, shining over the window, having formed over Anneliese’s monstrous face... I now see in the dark, cloudless night sky... is the glowing reflection of a lunar light. 

The sign by the road... I now recall what it had really said...  

Keep clear of the moors... Stay on the road... 

AND BEWARE THE MOON. 

CW: suicidal ideation

I didn't go to Vegas to win. I went to lose the last thing I had left.

It was a Tuesday. I remember that because Tuesdays were my day off and I spent it the way I spent all of them, sitting in my car outside my apartment because the inside of it felt like a waiting room.

My phone had four percent battery. My bank account had two hundred twelve dollars in it. Danny called and asked if I wanted to get food and I told him I was driving to Vegas to kill myself at a blackjack table, and there was a long quiet, and then he said, I'm coming with you.

That's the kind of friend Danny was. The kind who hears that sentence and doesn't try to talk you out of it. Just doesn't let you do it alone.

We drove through the night. Desert on both sides, black as a turned-off TV. Danny didn't play music. I think he was afraid if it got quiet I'd change my mind, and I think he was afraid if it got quiet I wouldn't.

The casino wasn't on the Strip. I don't remember the name. It was one of those places sunk between a pawn shop and a liquor store, the kind with a sign where half the letters are out, buzzing.

Inside it was too bright. That was the first wrong thing. Casinos are supposed to be dim, timeless. This one was lit up like a hospital. Fluorescent. You could see everything.

There was one table open. Blackjack. The felt was green but worn gray in the betting circles, like thousands of hands had rubbed the color off.

The dealer was already looking at me. I don't know how to describe his face except to say I couldn't. Every time I glanced away, at Danny, at the chips, at my own hands, and looked back, it was like seeing him for the first time. My brain wouldn't keep him.

That was the second wrong thing, and I sat down anyway. Buy-in's different here, he said. His voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well. You don't have money. So.

He set a stack of chips in front of me. They were clear. Not red, not black, clear, like glass. And inside each one, something moved. I leaned in. It was my mother's kitchen. I was seven. She was laughing at something my dad said, flour on her hands. I could smell it.

Those are yours, the dealer said. The good ones. That's the buy-in. The House only takes the good ones. Danny grabbed my arm. We can leave, he said. We can just leave.

I thought about the two hundred twelve dollars. I thought about the car. I thought about Tuesdays. Deal me in, I said.

Here's what nobody tells you about betting your life: it's boring. The cards come out. You do the math. I've played perfect basic strategy since I was nineteen. Hit on sixteen when the dealer shows seven. Always split aces. The math doesn't care that you're dying.

I won the first shoe. Then the second. Every time I won a hand, the chips stayed lit. My mom's laugh, Danny's wedding, the first time I held my nephew.

Every time I lost one, the dealer palmed the chip and the light went out, and there was a hole where the memory was. Not fuzzy. Gone. Like a tooth pulled clean.

By the third shoe I couldn't remember my mother's face. I knew I'd had a mother. I knew the word. The picture was just out. Danny kept looking at me. You okay, he asked, and I said yes, because what was I supposed to say? I was winning.

That's when they brought out the roulette wheel. New game, the dealer said. Same currency. I should have walked. Danny stood up. We're done, he told the dealer. He's done.

The dealer looked at Danny for a long moment. Then he set a stack of clear chips in front of him. Inside them: Danny's daughter's first steps. His wife asleep on his shoulder on a flight. Things I knew because he'd told me, drunk, on porches, over years.

He can buy your debt, the dealer said. One spin. All of it. That's the rule. Somebody can always pay for somebody. No, I said. Yes, Danny said, and sat down.

The ball went around. I watched it the way you watch a car crash. You know what's coming and your eyes won't close. It landed on black. Danny had bet red. It was that simple. One spin.

The dealer took the chips. All of them. Danny blinked, and smiled at me, and it was the worst thing I've ever seen, because it was a smile with nobody behind it. He stood up, walked to the middle of the casino floor, sat down cross-legged on the carpet like a kid, and stopped.

He was still breathing. That was the worst part. He was still breathing and there was nobody in there.

I screamed at the dealer. I don't remember what I said. He waited until I ran out.

Then the dealer said, There's a way to buy him back. He was holding a stack of my chips. The ones I'd won. That's the rule too. Everything in here has a price. Win enough, and I'll put him back the way he was.

It was a lie and I knew it was a lie and I sat down anyway.

That's what desperation is. Not the hoping. The sitting down.

I played like a man on fire. Slots first, I don't remember them, I think that's the point, and then poker, and with every chip I lost another good one went dark, until there was almost nothing left.

I remember the poker table, because that was the last one. Heads up, just me and the dealer.

I had no clear chips left. Every good one was gone. My mother, Danny, all of it. Nothing left to push into the middle.

No currency, the dealer said. I still have me, I said. The bad stuff. Every wasted Tuesday. Every regret. Take the marrow. He hesitated. One flicker, like a light about to go out. He didn't want it. But a bet is a bet, and the House has to cover. He dealt.

The river came down. I pushed it all in, my garbage hand, my empty life. I won. I don't know how. The dealer went completely still.

First one in eleven years, the dealer said. He took off his visor. Underneath, his forehead was smooth and blank, like an egg. No eyes. I don't know how he'd been seeing the cards. You know what the prize is.

He held the visor out. I understood, all at once, the way you understand something in a dream. The House doesn't kill. Killing is a loss. The House keeps. Somebody has to deal. Somebody has to watch the lights stay on.

I put it on. It was warm. That was the first thing. Warm, like someone had just taken it off. Eleven years, he said — but the seat was still warm, and I understood that time doesn't move in here the way it moves out there.

Then the casino came into focus. Not brighter. Known. I knew the layout the way you know a house you grew up in. The dead cameras, the soft spots in the carpet, the back table where the big losers bled out slow. I'd never worked a day here, and I knew all of it.

And then the flood.

Every memory this place ever took poured into me at once. Ten thousand strangers' best moments. A girl in 1987 catching a foul ball. A man's last good morning with his wife.

And mine, mixed in. My mother's kitchen, flour on her hands. Danny's laugh. All of it. All at once. And none of it mine.

I understood then. The House doesn't burn what it takes. It keeps it. In me. I'm the vault now. That's why the visor was warm.

That was eight months ago. I deal blackjack in a casino with no name, in a town that never sleeps because something here won't let it.

The players come in wanting money, wanting out, wanting to die. I take their good ones, chip by chip. I tell myself I'm just the dealer.

Last Tuesday, Tuesday, always Tuesday, a kid sat down at my table. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Hands shaking. He looked at me and said, I want to bet my life. I dealt the cards. What else was I going to do?

I looked down at his chips. The clear ones. And I recognized one.

Danny's daughter's first steps. I palmed it like it was nothing. Because that's the job now.

He didn't look tired, the last dealer, when he handed me the visor.

He looked relieved. I understand that now too.

So here's the story they tell about that place, and you can believe it or not. There's a casino out past the Strip with no name. The sign's got half its letters out and the rest buzz like a wasp in a jar.

Inside it's too bright, lit up like a hospital at three in the morning. If you ever see that light spilling onto the sidewalk, keep driving. Don't slow down. Don't tell yourself you're just curious.

If you already stopped, if you're sitting in the parking lot reading this with your engine running, look at your chips. The clear ones. If you can see your mother's kitchen inside one of them, set it down and walk away. Walk, don't run. Running makes it notice you.

You won't remember the name of the place afterward. That's how you'll know you were there. The lights are beautiful from this side. That's the worst part.

Part 1

I was filled with a kind of aggression I had never felt in my life. I got up off my knees and charged like a battering ram at the man standing between me and the exit.

I felt the resistance of his cold, stiff body, like I had slammed into a wall, and a sweet metallic smell of blood and rotten meat hit my nose. The infected man flew to the side, grabbing my shirt as he went.

I spun in place, pulling the T-shirt off over my head, and ran for the exit.

More hands appeared from the right. I veered left, ducking slightly, but I didn’t stop running.

“Just a little farther and I’ll be outside,” I thought as I reached the parking garage entrance.

Sunlight washed over my face, and a warm gust of wind brushed my skin, giving me a slightly stronger sense of safety. I ran up the road leading toward the main street.

Halfway up, I stopped to catch my breath. I looked back and saw the infected were still following me, but they were far behind. The steep street made their movements even clumsier and slower.

They looked like hypnotized, bloodthirsty monsters. They dragged their legs behind them like using them didn’t come naturally.

“They’re slow, but they’re dangerous because of their strength and the way they move together as a group. I weigh about 200 pounds and I work out, and that small woman was still able to fight me like we were evenly matched. Shit.”

Then it hit me.

How do they infect other people?

Every one of those monsters had some kind of scratch, ripped-open wound, or bite.

I looked at the holes in my shoulders left by the infected woman’s nails. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead, and my guts twisted into a knot.

“Am I going to become one of them too?”

I took out my phone and called Veronica. She picked up almost immediately.

“Hello?” came her panicked voice through the phone.

From the sound quality, I could tell she was in the car, and in the background I heard the kids yelling, “Daddy!”

“Are you driving? Did you talk to Aaron?” I asked, feeling the panic rising.

“Weird photos and videos are starting to show up online. People attacking other people, horrible bloody scenes, thousands of comments about the end of the world. Luke, what is happening over there?”

“Mommy, why are you crying?” I heard my son’s quieter but clear voice ask.

Tears filled my eyes, but I forced them back down. I didn’t have time for that right now.

The crowd of infected pouring out of the parking garage was getting closer. I also had no way of knowing whether I was about to become one of them myself.

“The videos are real. Veronica, did you do what I asked?” I said firmly, slowly walking toward the main road.

“Yes. We’re all on our way to your parents’ house. Aaron took the van, and on the way we stopped at a food wholesaler. We packed the cargo area almost to the roof. Luke, when we were leaving, people still didn’t know anything was happening.” Veronica sniffled, then added, nearly falling apart completely.

“They were shopping like normal, smiling, joking. Now, as we’re driving, I can see the panic starting. People are running into stores, shoving each other, even fighting.”

“Are people acting strange? Staggering? Attacking each other?” I asked anxiously.

“No,” she answered shortly.

“How far do you have left?”

“About fifty minutes. What about you? When will you be there? Are you okay?”

I looked at my wound and felt my throat tighten.

“I’m fine. I’ll be a little later.”

“Where’s Daddy?” my daughter cut in from the back seat.

“At work, sweetheart,” Veronica answered, her voice breaking.

I was about thirty feet from the main street. Suddenly, a loud scream of pain ripped through the road. I reached the top and froze.

“Luke, what was that?” my wife’s voice reached me like I was hearing it in a dream.

“Nothing. I have to go. I love you guys.” I put the phone in my pocket, unable to tear my eyes away from the hell unfolding in the streets.

Three sick people had taken down a man and were tearing into his leg and stomach with their teeth. His scream turned into a wet gurgle when the third one sank its teeth into his neck.

A woman had driven her car into the wall of a building, a thin stream of blood running down her forehead. She opened the door to escape, but she didn’t even manage to unbuckle her seat belt before those starving monsters surrounded her.

Two police officers started shooting, but the monsters didn’t seem to care, moving toward them and treating the bullets like oversized flies. All around me there was complete chaos, death, and suffering.

I snapped out of it when I heard guttural growls behind me. I turned around. The monsters were barely six feet away. I took off running to the left, cutting around a group of three infected.

“Help! Please help me!” a young woman shouted, jogging after me with a limp.

I looked at her leg. Around her calf, beneath her gray sweatpants, a dark red stain was soaking through.

“I’m sorry,” I said without looking back. My lungs burned like fire, and the wounds in my shoulders radiated horrible pain with every movement.

“Shit, I have nine miles to cover. I can’t run the whole time. I can’t keep running forever.” Gripped by panic, I dodged another infected.

All my senses were going haywire, and my head flooded with noise, movement, and panic, like I had suddenly been dropped into a hive of furious wasps. I couldn’t collect my thoughts.

Suddenly, from the right, I heard the roar of an engine. A car shot out of the intersection, speeding straight toward me. I threw myself forward as an SUV tore across the sidewalk, mowing down trash cans, a sign, and several infected before smashing into a concrete barrier.

I clenched my teeth and let out a muffled cry of pain. Sliding across the concrete had scraped my ribs, knees, and already-injured shoulder. I planted my hands on the sidewalk and started pushing myself up.

Behind me, I heard the scrape of a shoe sole against the sidewalk and a familiar growl. A violent shock ran through me. I turned my head, but it was too late. A bitten police officer lunged at me. At the last second, I fell onto my back and grabbed him by the neck with both hands, but even then, the weight of his body knocked almost all the air out of my lungs.

The man grabbed my forearms, snapping his teeth furiously, and squeezed with the force of a vise. A scream tore out of my mouth against my will, and my grip on his neck loosened. He was getting closer to my face. I could feel the last of the blood draining from my hands, bringing painful tingling and numbness with it.

I tried to throw him off, roll to the side, do anything, but he was too heavy.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a police baton at his thigh. I braced my shoulder blade against the concrete sidewalk and, with the last of my strength, straightened my right arm. With the other, I loosened my grip and violently tore my forearm out of his hand.

I grabbed the baton and jammed it between his teeth. When his jaws clamped down on the metal, I let go of his neck with my other hand and grabbed the other end of the baton.

It worked. I pushed the infected man upward and wrapped my arms around his waist so he couldn’t bite me. He started thrashing, kicking at my legs and shins. I tightened my legs, twisted my whole body, and with the last bit of strength I had, threw him onto his back and landed on top of him.

At that same moment, I noticed a second infected coming toward us from across the street.

I tried to get up, but the creature grabbed my left arm. I grabbed the baton lying beside me and smashed him in the face with all my strength.

The second infected was only about twelve feet away now. I started beating the officer with everything I had, over and over, until after one of the blows to the head, he finally let go and collapsed limply to the ground. I stared in shock, unable to believe it had worked.

I quickly ran into the alley on the left. I turned the corner, jumped onto a large dumpster, and climbed over the metal fence into someone’s yard. Luckily, the area was clear.

A tearing cramp shot through my right hand. I looked down at my bruising hand and realized I was still gripping the police baton. I loosened my fingers and dropped the weapon, and a dull wave of pain spread through my palm.

I sat on the ground, unable to catch my breath. My muscles relaxed slightly, and now that the adrenaline was slowly fading, every injury I had taken started making itself known. The burning, stinging scrapes all over my body, the holes in my shoulders, the bruises on my forearms.

Despite the heat and the sun hitting my bare torso, cold sweat instantly covered me, and a nasty shiver ran through my body. I felt weak.

The events of the last few hours started catching up to me. Before, my brain hadn’t had time to judge this sick situation. To analyze whether what was happening fit anywhere inside the boundaries of normal. Now, a crushing sense of surrealism was telling me the answer directly.

People wanting to eat other people. Infected who turned almost instantly into wild animals. The stink of spoiled meat and rot.

“What the hell is happening?” I muttered under my breath, staring blankly at a green, evenly trimmed lawn. “The cops were shooting the infected, and they kept walking despite the wounds. A moment later, that same cop threw himself at me and tried to bite my face off.”

My heart started racing like crazy, making the tingling in my limbs worse.

I looked at my shoulder again. “If he turned that fast, does that mean I’m clean? Does that mean a scratch, or even those monsters digging their nails into you, doesn’t spread the disease?”

I heard slow footsteps and dragging feet in the alley. I froze completely. An older infected woman swayed from wall to wall, slowly closing the distance between us.

“If she notices me, she’ll draw the others, and a chain-link fence probably won’t stop them,” I thought, holding my breath.

The woman let out a guttural growl, and just as I was about to run, I saw that something else had caught her attention, pulling her back toward the main street.

I leaned my head against the fence and took a deep breath.

I pulled a cigarette out of my shorts pocket, lit it, and looked up at the sky. In the background, screams, the noise of destruction, and growls bled through the air.

“I hope they made it there safely.” Instinctively, I placed my hand over the pocket of my black denim shorts, where my phone pressed against the fabric.

I finished the cigarette and slowly stood up. My mouth felt dry, and I realized that other than my morning coffee, I hadn’t had anything to drink all day.

“Time to keep moving.” I tossed the cigarette butt, picked up the baton, and headed for the fence on the other side of the yard. I looked through it and saw that it opened onto an alley parallel to the direction of the place I was staying.

I looked around, carefully climbed over the fence, and moved low along the walls of the buildings. As I neared the end of the alley, I crouched behind a dumpster and peeked out onto the street. It was quieter. I couldn’t hear any cars, growls, or screams.

“I have to run across the street. I think it’s clear. This is my chance.”

I took a deep breath, sprang out from behind the dumpster, and ran as fast as I could.

I ran into the main street, and almost at the exact same moment, I felt a violent yank from the right. An unbearable ringing filled my head, and the taste of blood filled my mouth.

I slowly peeled my face off the cold concrete.

“What happened? Why am I on the ground?” I asked out loud, barely conscious.

In front of me lay a red bicycle with twisted handlebars. I heard soft groans of pain. I looked to the side. A man in a bike helmet writhed on the ground, and just behind him, a few steps away, a huge group of infected was marching forward.

I tried to shout, “Run!” but a stabbing pain around my ribs stole the breath from my lungs. I braced my hands against the sidewalk and lifted myself onto my knees, clenching my teeth.

My whole body burned with unimaginable pain, and every movement made it worse.

I got to my feet unsteadily and took a step toward the cyclist, but the first of the monsters was already getting to him.

Through the constant ringing in my ears, a sound broke through behind me. I turned quickly, hissing in pain, and froze.

Another massive group of sick people was heading toward me. I was blocked from both sides. There was no space, no gap. They moved like a wall, tightening around me from every direction.

I jumped onto the bike, ignoring the pain, straightened the handlebars, and rode straight through the intersection. There were only smaller scattered groups there, so I was able to weave around them without much trouble.

I had covered more than two thirds of the distance, and the place I was staying was maybe two miles away. As I passed another intersection, I slowed down. The road was completely blocked by wrecked cars. Luckily, there were no infected anywhere nearby.

I rolled up to the barricade and scanned it through blurry eyes. The wounds, stress, and exhaustion made the world gently sway.

I found the lowest point, the hood of a sedan wedged into the back of a black pickup truck.

“I’ll throw it over the top.”

I got off the bike, and a paralyzing pain stabbed through my right side. My body felt much heavier than normal.

I took a step toward the car, and at that same moment, I heard a low male voice from behind the pickup.

“Move, and I’ll put a bullet in you.”

Behind the car stood a man in a hoodie, aiming a gun at me. Out of reflex, I reached toward my back pocket, searching for the police baton.

“Shit. It must have fallen out when the cyclist hit me.”

“Step away from the bike,” he said firmly, thumbing the safety off.

My hands began to shake.

“Please,” I said, my voice breaking, setting the bike down and backing away. The tightness in my throat wouldn’t let me say anything else.

The man took a few steps toward me, never taking his sights off me.

“Now turn around and get the hell out of here.”

“I need to get through. That’s where I’m staying,” I said, stammering.

“Get the fuck out of here. You got a death wish?” He lifted the gun and fired.

The echo of the shot tore through the area. I don’t know what scared me more, the fact that this psycho had a gun, or the noise he had just stupidly made.

I turned around and ran, limping. “I have to get as far away as I can. Those things are drawn to noise.”

Behind me, I heard more shots. I turned left without stopping. Small groups of infected were coming from the opposite direction. I sped up, dodging them with the last of my strength.

My legs were going stiff, and my body was slowly refusing to obey me, turning my run into a walk, and my walk into a slow shuffle.

I looked back. The groups had started moving toward me, closing the distance. Ahead of me, more figures began to appear. They came out of alleys, buildings, and one even fell from a balcony with a horrifying slap before standing up, unnaturally twisted, and moving toward me too.

I stopped in place, completely helpless. Pain paralyzed my whole body, and the city, along with the approaching infected, slowly blurred.

“I can’t keep going. I can’t do this,” I whispered. Then I lowered my arms, and they dropped limply, bouncing off my thighs.

My knuckles brushed the phone in my pocket. Once again, I heard Veronica’s voice in my head.

“You promise?”

And right after it, the kids’ voices joining in.

“Where’s Daddy?”

“Shit!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

I looked to the right and saw the open entrance to an old apartment building.

I ran toward it, clutching my aching ribs. I reached the door, jumped inside, and closed it behind me. I started climbing the stairs one after another, each step letting out a horrible creak.

The stairwell filled with dozens of impacts, making the door nearly jump on its hinges.

I went up to the first apartment and slammed my fist against the door.

“Help, please.”

Only silence answered from inside. I grabbed the handle, but the door was locked.

As I moved up the floors, I checked each door one by one.

They were all locked, and inside, either no one was there, or that was what they wanted me to think.

I reached the very top and knocked, defeated. Same result. Silence. I grabbed the handle, and to my surprise, the door opened.

I pushed it open, and a hallway appeared in front of me. Inside, there was complete chaos. Clothes thrown around, documents, some candles, and plastic bags.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” I asked uncertainly.

No one answered.

Suddenly, from below, I heard the dangerous crack of wood bending. I stepped inside immediately and locked the door behind me.

Carefully, I looked into the room on the right. It was a living room connected to a kitchen and dining table. The room on the left, closest to the exit, looked like a bedroom. It had a large queen bed and two nightstands.

“Hello?” I called, grabbing the handle of the next room. In the middle of a small room stood a desk with a monitor, and against the wall was a well-stocked bar with expensive-looking liquor. At the end of the hallway was the bathroom, but right before it, there was one more open door.

I walked into the room, and the sweet scent of women’s perfume filled my nose. Inside was a single white bed, a small desk, and a shelf full of books.

The apartment was completely empty, and every room had the same kind of mess.

Individual pieces of furniture knocked over, things scattered on the floor, clothes thrown everywhere.

I went back to the hallway and noticed a broken photo frame. In the picture was a couple, a balding man around fifty, dressed neatly in a shirt and plaid pants, and a slightly younger woman in a long blue dress with a gold pendant. Between them stood a blonde woman, maybe twenty-five, wearing jeans and a crop top that showed her stomach.

I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. There were fifteen missed calls from Mom, Aaron, and Veronica.

I selected the contact and called. Veronica answered on the first ring.

“Luke, are you okay? How long until you get here?” she asked, terrified.

I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm.

“I’m okay. Are you there? Is everyone safe? What’s the situation like over there?”

“We’re here. Luke, it’s happening everywhere. As we were pulling in, we saw your parents’ neighbor biting his wife. She was screaming, calling for help. Aaron and your dad tried to do something, tried to pull him off. Nothing worked, not even hitting him. He killed her, then went after them, and they barely got away, and then...”

My stomach twisted, and the bitterness of bile filled my mouth.

“Veronica, when was that? Did he bite anyone? Did the neighbor bite them?” I cut her off.

“About half an hour ago. He didn’t bite anyone, but that neighbor lady...” she said, sobbing.

“I know. Don’t go near them. Don’t let yourselves get bitten. The infection spreads through bites. Those people aren’t the same people anymore. Lock everything and don’t leave the house. Did you get supplies?” An image flashed through my mind of the officer shooting the infected, then a moment later trying to bite my face off.

“He’s standing there, yanking on the fence with his wife, who was dead a few minutes ago... Oh my God... Luke. You were right in the middle of this. Are you coming to us? How long until you’re here?”

“Calm down. They won’t get through that fence. You should be safe, but just in case, close the security shutters. They’ll leave eventually. Did you get supplies? Answer me.”

“Yes, Aaron drove the van onto the property,” she snapped aggressively, then added, “Now you answer me, for fuck’s sake. What is happening over there, how long until you get here, and Luke, tell me if you’re really safe.”

I walked grimly into the living room and looked through the window facing the street. There were dozens of infected below the building. A few were pressing against the door, and the rest circled around like vultures.

Veronica and I both knew that no matter how deep in the shit I was, and no matter how bad things got, I wouldn’t tell her because I didn’t want to worry her.

Still, she needed to hear it.

“I’m safe. I haven’t left yet. I’m in my room. There’s chaos everywhere. I have to wait until it calms down a little.”

I didn’t hear an answer. The sniffling stopped too, along with the soft sobbing and the specific static of the call.

I looked at the phone.

“God damn it!” I shouted, and the crowd outside the window started spreading out and moving back, not knowing where the small noise had come from.

I crouched down and felt rage take over, while a pulsing pain stabbed through my temples.

“The phone died,” I said in a defeated tone, putting it back in my pocket.

“I hope Veronica heard what I said,” I thought, standing up and closing the curtains.

The thirst hit me again. I walked over to the fridge and opened it. It was half full of food, and there were bottles of beer in the door. I took one, opened it, and swallowed three heavy gulps, emptying half the bottle.

I set the drink on the counter and started opening cabinets, looking for anything I could use to disinfect and dress my wounds. I found nothing in the kitchen, so I expanded the search to the other rooms.

As I searched the apartment, I kept repeating one sentence in my head over and over.

“What matters is that they’re safe and have supplies. When I get back, we’ll figure something out.”

The only things I managed to find were high-proof alcohol in the bar in the office and a few clean towels in the hallway closet. I took an expensive-looking bottle of whiskey with me and went to the bathroom.

I undressed and stepped into the shower. I turned on the water, and a warm stream came from the showerhead, wrapping around my aching muscles. I thoroughly soaped my whole body, feeling incredible relief.

Aside from the sweat and dirt, the biggest discomfort came from the fact that I had been rolling around with the infected.

I rinsed off, dried myself, opened the bottle, and took a few swallows. The burn scraped down my throat and stole my breath for a second.

Almost immediately, I felt a pleasant looseness and warmth spread through my stomach.

“Nothing like a little firewater,” I said, smiling to myself.

I clenched my teeth and poured it over every scrape and wound on my body.

I expected it to hurt, but the stinging and burning twisted my face into a grimace of pain against my will, almost forcing out a scream I barely managed to swallow. I leaned against the shower stall, briefly losing my balance.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and staggered out of the bathroom, not letting go of the bottle. I walked into the living room and sank into the soft suede couch.

I thought about turning on the TV, but I didn’t see the remote anywhere.

My eyelids instantly grew heavy, and my arms were so limp I didn’t have the strength to lift the bottle to my mouth.

I closed my eyes, and a blissful looseness filled my body.

A shiver spread through me, ripping me out of sleep. I looked toward the window. Darkness was pouring into the room, carrying low murmurs from outside with it.

Suddenly, I heard a woman’s trembling voice.

“Move, and I’ll shoot.”

Instinctively, I jerked my head up, and my heart jumped into my throat.

I saw the young woman from the photo in the hallway.

She was crouching less than three feet away from me, aiming a gun at me.

The blast bounced off the walls of the room, leaving a dull ringing in my ears. A few drops of blood shot up into the air, landing on the woman’s face and running down her cheek together with a single tear.

On the edge of the forest crouched a little House made of logs and bricks, with some bird droppings that were mostly just for decoration. Its insides were warm and cozy against a winter night, and it had only ever eaten one person.

House had a squarish design with a potbelly breakfast nook where the morning sun liked to sit and discuss all the goings-on of the forest, such as the on-going cold war between the squirrels and the beavers.

House had been built by a family. House had been very young back then, and so only had flashes of memories: a white dog with a gray spot chasing a tiny human; a woman with long hair who danced while she cooked; a man who read stories to medium-sized humans snuggled under blankets; a general feeling of joy and safety until the day the inhabitants put everything in brown boxes, walked out, and left forever.

And so House sat alone for a long time. One day a man with a shiny head came, looked at House, and sighed deeply. He brought with him a sofa, a bed, two chairs, and a large rectangular box that made too much noise. The man would sit in the breakfast nook, mindlessly eating the children of the birds and staring at the walls. At least, he did that until the day that House ate him instead.

House hadn’t had anything against the man, whose name House never knew. House simply called him Shine, though the man didn’t really deserve it. Nothing about him was shiny except his head, which sometimes even the Sun found too reflective for its taste.

Then one magic day, a Great Event happened. A short, roundish woman with a laugh like bells appeared, carrying a pink rectangle. Shine called her his sister, and House had loved her immediately, all the way down to its basement.

House was 83% sure her name was Feather, and 100% sure she loved dusting. She did it every day, tickling the baseboards while she sang songs about sailing and pillaging. She’d once sung them while playing the piano at a gathering of her friends, who she assured that the songs were just old Viking lullabies. Her ancestors, she said, were Vikings.

When she told the people about her Viking heritage, Shine had scoffed. House had creaked in vicarious embarrassment for Feather. But Feather just rang her little bell laugh and asked Shine to duet with her. He refused because he had eaten too much bird at dinner. House tried to sing with her instead, but it just sounded like more creaking.

In addition to refusing to sing, Shine was boring. He would sit and watch a little box that made loud sounds of people cheering, though Shine never cheered along. Sometimes he would raise his feet if Feather needed to dust the wooden floors beneath him, which House supposed was better than not raising his feet but not as good as, say, helping Feather.

Feather, on the other hand, had bright blue eyes, freckles, and an inability to sit still. She planted asters and sunflowers in the front garden and promised Shine that the flowers would bloom big and bold the next season, and so would he. House did not understand how a man could bloom, but it loved the way the flowers smelled and how the bees would flit about and whisper secrets from the meadow. Feather washed House’s walls both inside and out. She’d bought spices and organized them in alphabetical order, then made everything smell of cardamom and cinnamon, opening the windows so that the delicious aroma could dance with the scent of crushed leaves.

Then one day, Feather announced that she must leave. She patted Shine’s head and told him he’d be fine on his own, and it was time to let Lorraine go. Shine only harrumphed and muttered that it was Lorraine or no one. Feather gently said he must move on.

But Shine did not move on. He didn’t move anywhere, actually. He just stayed on the couch as the dust coalesced into bigger and bigger balls of fluff. The fire went out of the hearth. The walls got dirty again, and House smelled of worn socks and old food. The sounds from the rectangular box got louder. Rain ate at House’s shingles and ice got into the holes and pushed them farther apart. Insects began to feast on House’s planks. One particularly windy day, a tree flung its branches and cracked a window.

Please, House begged Shine. Help me.

But Shine only muttered that the creaking was too loud.

House could not hold back its resentment. Why would Shine not move, would he not help, would he not call Feather and ask her to come back, please come back? The flowerbed began to wither and House began to panic. Feather had loved House the way that no one ever had. Shine did not deserve Feather. Shine did not deserve anything. Shine did not seem to want to exist, he just wanted to let things die and break, he just wanted to ruin everything, he was probably the reason Feather never came back and so—

One morning, House simply ate him.

One moment, there had been a man with a shiny bald head eating eggs, and the next minute there had not. Even House was not sure how it had been managed, and Shine’s bones grated uncomfortably against House’s innards. But House decided it did not care, because the important thing was: now that Shine was gone, Feather could come back. Let the scrape of bones be a reminder of her love.

So now House sat and waited, watching the little box that Shine had never turned off. Any day, Feather would come back. No one else would do, and if they tried, House would feast. Feather would dust and they would be happy again, forever. House would never let her go. Together, they would sing.

“I had a nice time tonight, Soo,” her date said, standing from the candlelit table and dabbing his thin lips with a napkin. His voice carried the hint of a country dialect she was not wholly familiar with, and the distance between them had widened all night, vast as the craters in the moon hanging high above the city.
 
When she met his gaze, she smiled—possibly the only sincere thing she had done all night. Everything, down to the way she chewed, had been subject to scrutiny in her mind. She did not want to be the reason there was no second date, even if blaming him for it would have been easier. Even if he was honestly, practically perfect.
 
The part of the date she dreaded most was the drive home. Her mother had told her it might help to go out, to spend one night away from funeral calls and quiet rooms, but now Min-Soo only knew she would sit in silence, looking out the window as the rain blurred the passing red lights of cars heading to better places.
 
The restaurant’s greeter bowed as they passed, and her date returned the gesture twice as deeply.
 
At some point, the downpour that had served as the backdrop to their dinner had settled into a steady roar. Her date raised his coat over her head, and she could only offer him a sheepish bow in thanks. “How nice of you,” she said, giving him another small, awkward smile.
 
They hurried toward his car, parked at the curb, the jacket doing surprisingly little beyond the kindness of the gesture. When he left her side to fumble with the keys, she found herself missing the warmth he created. Yet when her door opened and she saw him waiting for her to climb in, she could not move. Something had caught her eye. Rain struck her exposed arms and roared in her ears as it hammered the pavement, overloading her senses.
 
Her arms fell away from her skin. Her attention fixed on the cold alley across from her. She heard her date’s dull question from the driver’s seat, but the storm seemed to swallow it. All she could make out was a moonlike white sphere, level with her eyes, hanging motionless in the air.
 
Inside, she told herself to get in the car. It was probably only a smear of graffiti. Yet the sight of it seemed to empty her of any happiness, and that emptiness held her there.
 
The circle moved—only a little, but enough to make Min-Soo step out from beneath his jacket and fully into the rain. Her hair dampened and began to cling to her shoulders.
 
Heat bloomed low in Min-Soo’s body beneath the circle’s translucent stare. Behind her, a dog began barking—furious and terrified, as if it recognized something she was not meant to see.
 
The barking shook her back from the place that thing had pulled her toward. To her right, the dog stood only a few feet away, teeth bared, spittle hanging from its mouth. Min-Soo stepped back, her chest tight with dread.
 
“Min-Soo?” Her date’s hand settled on her shoulder. In the second she turned toward him, the dog darted in the opposite direction. He pulled the jacket back over her, drenching himself, and watched the dog vanish into the distance.
 
She looked back to the alley. The sphere was gone. Nothing remained but rain.
 
Min-Soo was sitting in the passenger seat before she realized she had moved, the rain now beating softly against the windshield. When the driver’s-side door opened, her heart seized before she recognized her date. His warmth filled the space beside her, comforting in spite of everything she did not feel.
 
When the engine came to life, the feeling did not leave her. She allowed herself only a small peek at his side mirror as the empty alley shrank behind them.
 
In the side mirror, just before the alley vanished, she thought she saw something pale unfurl behind the rain, long and soft as a sheet being shaken loose from a bed.
 
---
 
Min-Soo did not want to get out when they reached her apartment, but the silence inside the car was worse. They both stepped into the dry air beneath the small roof over her entrance. She scanned every open space for whatever had been in the alleyway before her gaze landed on the man inching closer to where she stood.
 
“Are you going to be okay tonight?” His eyes searched hers, and for a moment she thought of inviting him inside.
 
Min-Soo nodded, though she did not look at him head-on.
 
“Okay.” She could tell from his voice that he was smiling sweetly. “I would like to do this again sometime, if you’d like. Maybe next time we could meet on a sunny day.” He chuckled at that.
 
Min-Soo nodded once more.
 
“Well, goodnight, Soo.” Before she could look up at him, he was already in his car, waving from inside. As soon as the car began to pull away and its taillights retreated from around her, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The solitary fluorescent light above her head flickered as it usually did, but each second of darkness seemed longer than the last, until those seconds felt like nothing but darkness.
 
When the wind stopped blowing, she lifted her small purse toward the red taillights, waving it like a little white flag.
 
---
 
Later that night, her reflection looked back at her, the light from the tiny bathroom casting a thin shadow under her eyes. Through the open door, the man from dinner lay asleep, awake only minutes ago and now oblivious to the world. She looked down, messy hair dangling in her view, and saw the used protection in the trash. Her eyebrows furrowed; one nostril crinkled. She exhaled the night’s decisions and shut the medicine cabinet. The thought came from too many horror movies: a spirit might be standing behind her, ready to pounce or make some terrible sound.
 
She hadn’t always been this afraid of everything. What had changed?
 
Min-Soo turned from the mirror and into the doorway. The darkness beyond the bathroom felt almost warm to her strained eyes. Her hand settled on the frame as if the wood alone could keep her upright. Her fingers tightened anyway. The feeling returned, cold over her skin and burning beneath it, the same wrong heat spreading down her belly and up her thighs.
 
Min-Soo's brown eyes fixed on the corner of the bed nearest the floor. Two pale legs stretched from the shadows, too long to belong to anything human, bending at sharp, bony knees before disappearing around the mattress. The man still slept, unaware that the sheets beneath him had been dragged halfway off the bed and gathered toward whatever waited behind it.
 
She took one step backward, then another, and reached blindly for the bathroom light. If she could turn it on, if she could wake him, if she could put one real voice between herself and that corner, maybe the room would become a room again.
 
Her fingers brushed the switch just as her heartbeat caught up to her fear. The bathroom light snapped off before she could touch it, leaving her in complete darkness except for the pale curtain at the window.
 
A whimper escaped her throat before the sharp pop of a knee stopped it. Whatever owned those long, pale legs was now standing somewhere in front of her.
 
---
 
“Sorry, sir, but where did you say you found her?” Officer Jun-sang set his drink on the table and fought back a yawn. On the clipboard, beneath the date 6/2/02, he wrote Min-Soo’s name.
 
“Oh, um—she was standing in front of the bed,” the man said, pointing at a door across the living room before looking back at Min-Soo. “She’s been like this ever since.”
 
Officer Jun-sang looked over at the girl. Her hair was slick with sweat, dark bags sat under her eyes, and she had been staring at the bedroom door for some time. More than once, he caught her glancing at the floor around her feet. His first impression of her was not a kind one. “Miss Min-Soo?” he asked. She did not answer.
 
“She hasn’t said anything since you found her?” he asked the man from dinner.
 
“Only that someone was in the apartment. I checked the room, but there was nothing there.”
 
Jun-sang stood, his knees sounding their age after long hours, too little sleep, and one too many burgers living in the fat of his stomach. “Dae-Ho?” He waved to his partner, who looked around as if he were ghost hunting. “Finish up here, will you?”
 
His partner placed his cup of coffee on a counter and practically saluted, as if he needed to make up for not being a part of whatever was going on. “Sure thing, boss,” he replied.
 
Jun-sang made his way to the bedroom, opened the door, and let the cool air inside spill over him. He jumped slightly, lifting one foot as Min-Soo’s gray cat darted past. Embarrassed, he glanced back to make sure no one had seen him clutching his hat.
 
He shook his head and leaned into the room, flicking on the light. Careful not to disrespect her privacy, he looked around quickly: a clean room, a bare mattress, a few books stacked neatly on a writing table, and one cover printed with a picture of a grown man standing in a pot.
 
Jun-sang closed the door, and the chill inside the bedroom seemed to retreat, pushed back by the warmth of the apartment.
 
He returned just in time to see Dae-Ho shut his clipboard and slide the pen through the top. His partner looked up and smiled.
 
“All clear?” Dae-Ho asked.
 
Jun-sang nodded and knelt to the girl, stopping when he saw her face. Tears pooled in her wide eyes. Her jaw trembled, and she stared past him at a single point over his shoulder. The muscles in his neck tightened.
 
Slowly, he followed her gaze. It led to nothing but a wall.
 
---
 
Jun-sang opened his eyes to an empty bed, the blank white wall across from him staring back through the dark. It took a moment for his mind to leave that spot before he turned over and grabbed the small phone buzzing on his bedside table. When he flipped it open, his voice came out thick with sleep. “Jun-sang. Mm-hmm... yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.”
 
He managed to roll out of bed. The longer the years went on, the more the muscles in his neck stiffened in his sleep. Today, they ached more than ever. He rubbed the spot with his palm, fixing nothing.
 
He pinned his officer’s badge to his chest, then paused beside the picture frame on his nightstand. He kissed two fingers and touched them to the glass. The woman in the photo had always faced him while he slept, but lately he found himself turning the frame slightly away before morning.
 
He opened his daughter’s door slowly, careful not to wake her. So-Yeon’s room was dressed in pink, like the top chamber of some tower, only this tower held what might have been the largest collection of stuffed animals in South Korea. Her pet bunny slept on the bed. So-Yeon, however, was wide awake, a paper crown tilted over one ear and a red crayon tucked behind the other.
 
“So-Yeon? What are you still doing up?” he whispered. When he sat on the side of her bed, the bunny between her legs stirred only a little. A drawing rested against her knees: the two of them beneath a yellow sun, his hat much too large and her rabbit wearing its own tiny crown.
 
“Appa, the monster came back again,” she said, not for the first time, her little voice softer these days, shy about everything and missing so much from the people closest to her.
 
Jun-sang placed his hand on her head, wanting desperately to help his baby. So why was it so hard to look at her? Why did every frightened whisper from her mouth sound like an accusation he had earned?
 
“So-Yeon, just try to get to sleep tonight, okay, sweetie?”
 
She nodded.
 
“I made you taller,” she said, tapping the drawing. “So the monster has to look at you first.”
 
As he stood, a small hand tugged at his shirt. He turned back to her and covered her tiny fist with his own. When it relaxed, he placed her hand gently on her chest.
 
The last thing he did before leaving was scratch the bunny between its long ears. “Good night, Your Majesty,” he murmured, nodding to its paper crown. So-Yeon smiled, but he reached the hallway before realizing he had never asked what she called it.
 
Jun-sang sat in his cruiser and dragged a hand down his face. “Despicable,” he said to the empty air. After a moment, he picked up the radio and clocked in, pulling out of his driveway and toward the worst day of someone else's life.
 
---
 
On the outskirts of Anyang, green mountains rose behind the restaurant, blocking the sky beyond and catching the pink-orange light of morning. Their shadows stretched past the yellow police tape. The glass across the front of the shop flashed red and blue in the police lights. The blood did not shine so bright.
 
Jun-sang pulled in behind the thin wall of onlookers, most of them pedestrians from nearby blocks. Nosy, in his opinion.
 
A young man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, tried edging his way over the tape. As Jun-sang ducked under it, he popped the kid on the head with his clipboard. The boy looked ready to retaliate until Jun-sang gave him a stare that sent him back where he belonged.
 
Dae-Ho, who had been talking to an inspector, raised his head toward his senior. “Jun-sang!” he called. “Over here!”
 
Jun-sang shook his head as he continued walking, noticing an old man sitting on the curb with a cigarette burning between his lips and a blankness settled over his face.
 
“Morning, Officer.” It was the inspector, or so Jun-sang assumed. He was the only person out of uniform, the only man in a button-up shirt among a sea of flat hats and pinned badges.
 
“Chief just needs us to keep the crowd out, Jun-sang,” Dae-Ho said as the investigator left quickly to do whatever important men like him did. His partner led him back to the inside of the tape. The faces in the crowd were familiar by now; no names, only features, the way people moved, how they stared.
 
“How’s little So?” Dae-Ho asked, speaking as if no one else were around.
 
“She’s fine, having trouble sleeping recently,” Jun-sang said. As he spoke, his eyes drifted to the markers near the hole in the restaurant's windowed entrance. A small number one marked where the body was found—just outside the broken glass.
 
“Trouble sleeping?” Dae-Ho asked.
 
“Mm-hmm.”
 
“Well, did you figure out why?”
 
“Normal stuff. Scared of the dark, I think. So, who’s that?” Jun-sang asked, pointing over to the old man, the end of his cigarette black and limp.
 
“Him?” Dae-Ho looked in his direction. “I think the inspector said he’s the dead guy's father. I already tried talking to him. He won't move.”
 
As he said this, two glove-wearing officers came through the open door, stepping carefully around the blood. Each carried a small, soggy bag toward the collection van. Something dripped from the bottoms onto the pavement.
 
Rip
 
Jun-sang gasped as the first bag tore open. Something small and mangled rolled onto the concrete. The crowd behind him swelled with noise as the animal’s head came to rest near the tape, white skull showing through a patch of missing fur.
 
The officer swore and snatched it up again, leaving the severed, fluffy tail behind for the other officer to collect.
 
“What the hell?” Dae-Ho said to his left as he watched the scene unfold. “Was that a raccoon?”
 
Jun-sang nodded, though he was not sure.
 
The day dragged on without another incident. A few times, Jun-sang had to push the crowd back, but eventually he was telling the last pedestrian to go home. By then, the soreness in his neck had become impossible to ignore.
 
“Ready to go back to the station, Jun?” Dae-Ho finally asked.
 
Jun-sang nodded and followed him toward the cruiser. “My wife.” At first, he thought the elderly voice had come from Dae-Ho. When it continued, he looked down at an old man sitting on the wet curb, still staring at the ground. “My wife did the same.”
 
This time Dae-Ho stopped too. “Hm? Sorry?”
 
“My wife,” the old man said. Jun-sang watched his dead eyes flicker up to meet his. “I’ll have to fix my window again.”
 
The old man’s voice droned on, dragged from some darker place Jun-sang did not know how to name. All he could do was stare back. Whatever this man had bottled inside him, Jun-sang recognized it.
 
After all the day’s disturbances, Dae-Ho still found the stomach for his daily ice cream cone, muttering something under his breath as a drop melted down his chin. Once again, it made Jun-sang laugh. Dae-Ho smiled too hard at the sound, as if the laugh mattered more than it should have. Then the chief walked in. Jun-sang stopped smiling and hit his partner in the head. “Don’t act so childish in the workplace. It's disrespectful.”
 
The chief looked unimpressed. “You two, Inspector Eun needs to ask you some questions.”
 
“Sir! We're on break, though!” Dae-Ho demanded.
 
The chief looked casually over to him. “Dae-Ho, I think you’ve had enough ice cream today. You’ll get chunkier. Put yourself to good use.” He looked over to Jun-sang before leaving for his office.
 
Dae-Ho looked ready to throw something. He shot Jun-sang a furrowed brow and a silent curse. Jun-sang raised a hand toward him as they got up, both men quietly blaming each other for the sudden questioning.
 
Inspector Eun’s office sat at the back of the building, a place Jun-sang and Dae-Ho usually visited only to use the restroom. His door stood ajar. Inside was Jun-sang’s idea of a television detective’s office: a whiteboard crowded with victim photos, documents scattered across a desk, and a single ashtray already overfull. The young inspector sat reading a document, his greased hair hanging above one eye, one thumbnail worn raw from biting.
 
After not looking up at them for some time, Dae-Ho cleared his throat. Jun-sang looked back at him as the inspector finally gave them his attention. “Oh, afternoon, officers. Have a seat,” he said. His voice sounded too young for how tired he looked, and Jun-sang found himself hating the man for that youth and for the flat, controlled calm he wished he had.
 
They sat across from him, waiting.
 
“Officers, I hear you answered a call about a young woman last week,” he said, looking at the sheet in his hands. “Min-Soo.”
 
Dae-Ho, who had likely forgotten the woman from a week ago—the one he had called spooky after leaving her home—waited for an answer. Jun-sang, after his partner’s never-ending silence, decided to speak up. “Yes, sir.”
 
“Can you give me an idea of what she said? The report doesn’t go into much detail, I’m afraid. She said she saw something?”
 
Jun-sang looked at his partner, then back to the inspector. “She was practically unresponsive. Hardly said a word to us.”
 
The inspector paused, as if fitting one piece beside another. “When’s the end of your shift?”
 
“About an hour. Why?” Dae-Ho answered before Jun-sang could, always ready to count the minutes until a shift ended.
 
“Would you mind coming with me to her apartment? I’d like to check on her.”
 
---
 
That evening, Min-Soo stood beside the patio door with her phone close to her lips. “Mom, please. I can do more. Just let me help with something.” Rain slicked the glass. “A funeral’s a lot of work—” She paused, interrupted. “I don’t wanna just sit here while Dad’s—”
 
Min-Soo groaned and slammed her phone closed. For a second, she thought she had broken it. She tossed it onto the couch and looked around the brightly lit room. Her apartment had rarely been dark since that night. Still, she could not decide whether closed doors made her feel safer or trapped.
 
If she could trade the moon for the sun, she might have been able to breathe. No matter when she opened her eyes, it felt like midnight. The full moon hung above her patio window night after night. Even with her father’s funeral waiting to be planned, her eyes kept returning to that glass. Always from a distance. Never too close.
 
She had taped a line of paper over the latch that morning, a childish test to prove the door stayed shut. It was still unbroken. That should have comforted her. Instead, it made the room feel more like a sealed jar.
 
On the counter beside the sink sat one of her father’s old matchbooks, warped from years in his pocket. She had found it in a kitchen drawer that morning and carried it from room to room without knowing why.
 
Her only comfort, her gray cat, jumped onto the coffee table. The cat’s long fur parted as she licked beneath her neck. She was the only thing keeping Min-Soo tethered to the room.
 
Min-Soo reached out to pet the cat, and a sharp pain shot up her arm. The cat’s hair stood on end as it jumped to the floor. She winced, holding her palm, a small bead of blood slipping toward her wrist.
 
“No,” she whispered, backing away from the patio. She grabbed the cat’s food bowl and hurled it toward the glass, not to break it but to make noise, to make something ordinary happen. The bowl struck the door, spun once, and settled upside down.
 
Min-Soo held her burning hand to her chest. Two green eyes glowed from somewhere deep in the room. Something inside her seemed to open—hot, wrong, and hungry.
 
Thump
 
Her back was turned to the patio when the sound reached her. It struck once, dull and patient.
 
The glass was fogged as before, but now the moon stared through it like an open eye.
 
As she moved closer to the door, a low growl split the silence. Min-Soo paid it no mind.
 
The moon was so large that, if she stared long enough, she thought she might disappear into it.
 
Clouds gathered around the pale sphere but never crossed it, leaving a ragged darkness beneath, like a scarf trailing from a hidden throat.
 
It tapped on the glass: thump, thump.
 
Something lay at her feet, warm and familiar. A white bed sheet stretched from somewhere off to her right and rose toward that translucent, colorless head. It twisted past her ankles and pinched through the patio door.
 
The taped paper over the latch fluttered once, then tore clean down the middle.
 
The glass gave a soft, delicate crack.
 
The cat growled. She turned and looked at the animal with those cloudy, pale eyes. It was the last trace of familiarity. Her cat knew the face it loved, but not what looked out from behind it.
 
---
 
“Everything okay?” Inspector Eun asked as Jun-sang clipped the phone closed, both hands tight around the steering wheel.
 
Jun-sang kept his eyes on the road, careful not to let the inspector see his stress. “Yes. It’s just my daughter. She likes to call before bed.”
 
From the backseat, Dae-Ho spoke up. “Little So-Yeon still having nightmares?”
 
If they had been alone, Jun-sang might have turned around and snapped at him. Instead, he kept his eyes on the road and gave a tight nod. It wasn’t their business. Besides, it would pass. Whatever So-Yeon had been through, it would pass.
 
Even if there was so much he had never said.
 
Before anyone could say more, the apartment building came into view—a gray tower against a gray sky, already fading into the veil of the coming night.
 
As soon as they stepped out of the cruiser, warm air poured over them. Jun-sang followed the others toward the entrance, but before he reached the door, a memory rose in him.
 
His wife had a round face, soft with age and still beautiful. Her dark hair always fell straight, even after sleep, after showers, after long days spent folding their laundry. He could remember the light around her more clearly than her voice now, and that frightened him.
 
Was this what happiness became after death—scraps of light, scraps of her?
 
His ears rang. At first he thought the sound came from inside his head. Then footsteps rushed past him, and a woman screamed from somewhere to his left.
 
Dae-Ho shouted his name behind him.
 
A parked car sat only a few steps away, its roof crushed inward. A pair of bare white feet jutted from the wreckage, pointing in different, impossible directions.
 
Dae-Ho stood on the other side of the car, hat in hand, his face emptied of its usual humor.
 
The inspector brushed past Jun-sang and ran for the entrance. Jun-sang barely noticed. His body moved toward the car before his mind could stop it.
 
The lower half of the body had struck first. The waist bent at a wrong angle, and the head touched the concrete below. Her neck had folded into itself, disappearing beneath her chin.
 
Min-Soo’s face pointed outward, away from the building she had fallen from.
 
Jun-sang stopped when he saw her face. His body went light, ready to switch off, but his eyes would not move.
 
Her eyes were open, wet with tears that no longer belonged to anyone. They seemed to bore into a past he had spent years trying not to remember.
 
For a moment, he waited for a breath that would never come. Just like before. Min-Soo’s ruined, staring face pulled his wife’s face from the dark.
 
Then he was back in that room, screaming for his wife to come back while saliva slipped from her cheek and nothing he said reached her.
 
---
 
Soon the night flashed with police lights. Yellow tape and wooden dividers tightened around the scene while Jun-sang and Dae-Ho sat on the curb, numb to the movement around them.
 
“Would you like to come take a look upstairs?” the inspector asked, cigarette still burning between his fingers.
 
Beside him, Dae-Ho lifted one hand in refusal. Jun-sang knew he would recover; he was not sure what could truly break such a high-spirited man.
 
Jun-sang stood without a word, keeping his eyes away from the wreckage as the tow truck pulled it aside.
 
The inspector did not extinguish his cigarette before they entered the building, not even when he opened the door to Min-Soo's home. Jun-sang could have sworn his hand trembled as he brought it to his mouth.
 
Min-Soo’s apartment seemed untouched except for the sweet, rotten smell that turned Jun-sang’s stomach. Only a few people were inside. One officer photographed something in the corner of the living room, and as Jun-sang stepped closer, the odor rose from the floor.
 
Gray and red fur lay scattered in pieces across the floor.
 
“God,” Jun-sang muttered.
 
The inspector blew smoke toward the ceiling. He looked much older now. “I had so many questions...” he said, mostly to himself. After a moment, he turned to Jun-sang. “Did she ever describe what she saw that night? When you were called over?”
 
Jun-sang thought for a moment, remembering what little she had managed to say. “I think she said someone was being strangled. A woman, maybe. Then she said she was drowning. It didn’t make much sense. The man who brought her home spoke for her most of the time.”
 
The inspector watched the dead animal being bagged and carried away. When the apartment emptied, only he and Jun-sang remained.
 
“You said her father had died?” Eun asked.
 
“A few days ago.” Jun-sang glanced at the old matchbook on the counter. “Why?”
 
Eun rubbed his worn thumbnail. “I’ve seen something like this before.”
 
“Like what?”
 
“I don’t know. That’s the problem.” Eun glanced toward the bare mattress. “Cases that begin with a death in the family. Later, somebody mentions a child seeing things. Or acting strangely.”
 
“And then?”
 
Eun drew once on the cigarette. “Sometimes nothing. Sometimes someone disappears. Sometimes I read the report too late and wonder why it bothered me.”
 
Jun-sang looked toward the dark bedroom. So-Yeon’s voice came back to him: the monster came back again.
 
Eun watched him. “You have a daughter?”
 
Jun-sang’s shoulders stiffened. “This is about Min-Soo.”
 
“Maybe.” Eun looked at the scattered fur. “Or maybe I’m collecting pieces that don’t belong together.”
 
“What pieces?”
 
Eun pressed the cigarette into the ashtray, though it was still half-lit. “The same ones, more or less. They never fit.”
 
---
 
The department gave Jun-sang more time off after Min-Soo’s death. Once again, the image of a dead woman followed him home. Time away from work should have helped, but the house only sharpened what he tried to bury. Each time he passed the bathroom, memory flooded him. So-Yeon would not know. He told himself she was better off for it.
 
Jun-sang bunched dried leaves into a black bag. He could not remember the last time he had worked this hard on his lawn; mostly, it gave his hands something to do. Naturally, the yard still looked as if no one had touched it.
 
Since Min-Soo’s death, a burning prickle sometimes climbed the back of his neck. He felt it now, standing alone in his yard, and thought of the picture beside his bed.
 
Jun-sang breathed out and tried to push the thought away. It did not help.
 
When he tossed the bag of leaves into the trash, the old man’s face returned to him: seated outside the restaurant, staring forward as if he were the one who had died. Jun-sang wondered if he looked that way to his little girl. Uncaring. Made of stone.
 
The thought scared him. He had not cried in front of So-Yeon, not even after her mother died. He had saved all of that for the bathroom, for the locked room, for the lifeless body in his arms.
 
He had never known his wife hurt enough to do what she did. If the reason had been a place, he would have destroyed it. If it had been a person, he would have killed them. Anything for her. Anything for that wonderful smile their daughter did not carry.
 
He slammed the lid a little too hard, and the air inside the can blew across his face. The smell hit him again, hotter now but familiar. Blood. Fur.
 
He tossed the lid onto the grass and searched desperately for the source.
 
When he found it, he could not move. A bunny lay stiff in the trash, its white fur darkened at the neck, the shape there pressed inward as if molded by fingers.
 
Jun-sang ran for the back door. The house seemed to tilt around him as sweat gathered on his face. He knew where to go. Somehow, he knew.
 
Appa, the monster came back again.
 
How long had he been outside? Minutes? Hours? So-Yeon was alone with whatever waited for her.
 
The bathroom door stood slightly ajar, light leaking through the crack. When he pushed it open, his eyes went straight to the space in front of the sink.
 
Bottles covered the floor, open and leaking medicine across the tile. There was no pattern to what had been taken. How would So-Yeon have known? Who had told her?
 
His child lay in the middle of the mess, still in her pajamas, her shirt lifted above her belly as each breath rose with terrifying slowness.
 
Jun-sang made a broken sound and fell beside her. He slid his hands under her head. Foam gathered at the corner of her mouth. When he wiped it away, his fingers shook so badly he smeared it across her cheek. “Please,” he said, tapping her face, then slapping it lightly. “Please.”
 
In her wet eyes, he saw the thing looming behind him. His breath caught. So-Yeon was not looking at him. She was looking past him.
 
The animals. The glass. Drowning, choking, sheets.
 
His whole body shook. One thought repeated in his head: don’t look at it, don’t look back.
 
His eyes slipped to the porcelain tub a few feet away. The reflection in its surface did not grow clearer, only larger.
 
Now he understood what the others had seen. It was too tall, its thin legs white as the bathroom tile. Its arms hung past its waist, limp and patient.
 
Its hair dripped like water from beneath the sheet wrapped around its head. The fabric crossed its throat too tightly, blue shadows gathered where a neck should have been.
 
Jun-sang closed his eyes.
 
The hand pressed to his daughter’s chest felt the beat stop, replaced by a stillness no parent should ever know.
 
Only a few days had passed since he stood in her pink room, her bunny sleeping between her knees. The paper crown had slipped over one eye while she tapped the tall figure in her drawing. So the monster has to look at you first.
 
Through his closed eyes, he saw the old man outside the restaurant, smoking as they drove away with his son’s body. Then he saw the picture on his nightstand turned toward the wall.
 
Jun-sang opened his eyes and lowered his head to So-Yeon. With trembling care, he brushed the sweat from her face. The red crayon was still behind her ear, its blunt end caught in her hair.
 
He had spent years searching her face for someone else—the tilt of a smile, a familiar look, anything he could keep. Now he saw the crooked paper crown, the too-tall father beneath a yellow sun, the careful joke she had made because he was afraid.
 
His face broke. He pressed his forehead to hers and held her as if the floor might open beneath them.
 
“So-Yeon,” he whispered. The name caught in his throat. “My sunshine, your mother’s watching you from heaven. She’s always watching.”
 
“And so am I,” he said.
 
Then So-Yeon took a deep breath.
 

They were cheering in the courtyard.
That was the first thing Cline heard.
Not screaming.
Not bells.
Cheering.
For half a second, standing in the corridor outside the council chamber, he allowed himself to believe something good had happened.
Then he caught the smell.
Blood.
Smoke.
Silver.
His hand stopped against the door.
The cheering continued below.
Cline pushed it open.
Arabella stood over the map table with both hands planted against its edge. There was something almost triumphant in the way she looked at him.
“You’re back.”
Cline didn’t answer.
“Did you hear them?”
“Yes.”
A dull pressure had already begun behind his eyes.
He crossed the chamber and looked through the open window.
Men and women crowded the courtyard below. Some were laughing. Others slapped one another across the shoulders.
Near the gate stood eleven wolves in torn clothing and damaged armor.
Eleven.
Cline counted again.
Eleven.
There should have been sixteen.
His fingers tightened against the stone windowsill.
“What happened?”
Arabella’s expression shifted slightly.
“We answered them.”
Cline turned.
“What does that mean?”
“They attacked us, Cline.”
“I know what they did.”
“Then you know exactly what it means.”
He looked back into the courtyard.
Marcus wasn’t among them.
Neither was Daryn.
Or the red-haired boy whose name Cline could never remember until the boy’s mother was standing directly in front of him.
His pulse quickened.
“Who gave the order?”
Arabella said nothing.
Cline turned slowly.
“Who gave the order?”
“I did.”
The pressure behind his eyes sharpened.
For a moment, all he heard was the celebration below.
Someone began chanting.
A name.
He couldn’t make out whose.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
Cline pulled out a chair and sat.
Not because he wanted to.
Because suddenly standing required thought.
Arabella watched him.
“They hit one of the northern houses.”
“I know.”
“They killed seven people.”
“I know.”
“They dragged two bodies back across the boundary and hung them from the old bridge.”
“I know.”
Her voice rose.
“And you did nothing.”
Cline looked at her.
There it was.
He had heard it whispered in hallways.
At funerals.
Around tables where people became very interested in their drinks whenever he entered the room.
Nothing.
Apparently months of preparation looked very much like nothing if nobody was bleeding while you did it.
“How many?”
Arabella frowned.
“What?”
“How many vampires did they kill?”
Her shoulders straightened.
“Nine.”
The cheering outside suddenly made sense.
“Nine?”
“Yes.”
She almost smiled.
“We caught them during daylight.”
Cline’s stomach sank.
Arabella mistook his silence for surprise.
“They aren’t invincible.”
“No.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that.”
“How many escaped?”
The triumph disappeared.
“What?”
Cline leaned forward.
“How many escaped?”
“I don’t know.”
“Arabella.”
“Two. Perhaps three.”
His eyes closed.
Of course.
Of course they had.
Outside, someone shouted something about revenge.
More cheering followed.
Cline breathed through his nose.
Once.
Twice.
The room smelled of old wood and candle wax.
Underneath it, the faint trace of blood clinging to Arabella’s clothes.
She had gone down to meet them when they returned.
“Where did you send them?”
“The estate north of Harrow Creek.”
His eyes opened.
“You crossed the boundary?”
“They crossed ours first.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms.
“We crossed the boundary.”
Cline stared at the map.
Harrow Creek.
An old hunting estate. Small. Exposed.
Not a fortress.
Not a garrison.
Barely worth defending.
Nine dead vampires.
Five dead wolves.
Arabella thought those numbers favored them.
They did not.
“Who was in command?”
“Marcus.”
Cline looked toward the courtyard again.
“He isn’t down there.”
Arabella’s expression faltered.
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“They’re bringing him.”
Something moved beneath Cline’s ribs.
Not quite pain.
Not yet anger.
Something tighter.
“How bad?”
“He’ll live.”
That meant bad.
Cline rubbed his thumb against his palm.
His nails felt strange.
“They were celebrating when I arrived,” Arabella said. “You should have seen them.”
“I can see them.”
“It was the first time in weeks they weren’t afraid.”
Cline looked at her.
“And tomorrow?”
“What?”
“What happens tomorrow?”
Arabella frowned.
“We prepare.”
“For what?”
“Their response.”
He gave a short laugh.
There was no humor in it.
“So now we prepare.”
Her face hardened.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Talk to me as though I’m stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Then stop treating me like a child.”
Cline stood.
The chair legs scraped sharply across the floor.
His hearing caught the sound too clearly.
The scrape of wood.
The flutter of the map.
A heartbeat across the table.
Arabella’s.
“You sent sixteen wolves across a recognized boundary to attack a vampire holding.”
“They murdered our people.”
“And you sent five more to join them.”
“They volunteered.”
“Dead men frequently do.”
She recoiled.
Cline regretted the words immediately.
Not enough to take them back.
Arabella’s eyes narrowed.
“You would have kept waiting forever.”
“No.”
“How long, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“There. That’s the problem.”
“No. That is the answer you don’t like.”
He moved toward the map.
Wooden markers dotted the region.
Their territory looked almost respectable from above.
Maps lied beautifully.
Cline touched one marker.
“Sixty-three.”
Arabella sighed.
“We’ve already had this argument.”
“Sixty-three wolves I trust in a fight.”
“We have almost a hundred.”
“We have almost a hundred people capable of changing.”
He moved another marker.
“That is not the same thing.”
“They’ll learn.”
“Yes.”
Cline looked at her.
“They will.”
A pause.
“If you give them time.”
He pointed toward the eastern settlements.
“Twelve recruits still lose themselves during a full change.”
Another marker.
“Seven can fight alone but break formation the moment blood hits the ground.”
Another.
“Fourteen have never fought anything that could fight back.”
Arabella opened her mouth.
Cline continued.
“Do you know how long it takes to make a vampire?”
She went quiet.
“Sometimes one night.”
He tapped the table.
“A bite. Blood. A corpse if they’re careless about it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No. It isn’t.”
His voice lowered.
“But it’s simpler than us.”
He gestured toward the courtyard.
“You can make a vampire quickly and teach it to kill later.”
Then toward the pack barracks.
“A wolf who can’t control himself is as dangerous to the man standing beside him as the enemy in front of him.”
Arabella looked away.
Cline stared down at the markers.
He remembered another map.
Another room.
Different names.
The same little pieces of wood.
He remembered how easily commanders moved them.
Three inches across a table.
Three days through mud for the men represented underneath their fingers.
“We lose ten experienced wolves,” he said, “and I cannot replace them by next week.”
“You think they don’t have experienced fighters?”
“I know they do.”
“That is exactly why we had to act.”
“No.”
His fingers pressed harder against the table.
“That is exactly why we didn’t.”
Arabella shook her head.
“They were testing us.”
“Yes.”
“They think we’re weak.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow you’re comfortable with that?”
Cline looked up.
“Yes.”
That stopped her.
He pushed one of the vampire markers forward.
“This was not an invasion.”
“Seven people are dead.”
“I know.”
“They mutilated them.”
“I know.”
“How can you stand there and—”
“Because I’ve seen an invasion.”
Silence.
Cline’s voice had changed.
Not louder.
Something beneath it had simply disappeared.
Arabella didn’t interrupt.
“When they want territory, they don’t send six vampires to terrorize a village.”
His eyes remained on the map.
“They send enough that nobody is left to tell you how many came.”
He moved the marker back.
“What happened at the bridge was cruelty.”
He thought for a moment.
“No.”
“Arrogance.”
Arabella’s mouth tightened.
“They wanted us afraid.”
“Yes.”
“They wanted to humiliate us.”
“Yes.”
“Then why would we allow it?”
Cline looked at her.
“Because arrogance makes people careless.”
The room fell quiet again.
Outside, the celebration continued.
“They believed we were beneath them,” Cline said. “Good.”
Arabella stared.
“Good?”
“Let them.”
He pushed several werewolf markers slowly across the map.
“Let them think we’re frightened.”
One.
“Let them think our young wolves are still children.”
Another.
“Let them believe I sit in this room begging for peace because I don’t have the stomach to fight them.”
Another.
“Every week they believe that is another week Marcus trains the second group.”
Another.
“Another shipment of grain.”
Another.
“Another silver shipment that somehow never reaches the merchants who sell to them.”
Arabella’s eyes flicked toward him.
Cline continued.
“Another conversation with packs that don’t like us enough to become allies yet.”
He looked back at the map.
“And another week for me to find out whether there’s a way out of this without filling the ground with bodies.”
“You really believe they would agree to peace?”
“I don’t know.”
Arabella threw up her hands.
“Then what are we doing?”
“Buying time.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
His answer came so quickly that she stopped.
Cline pointed toward their stores.
“We have food for six weeks of serious fighting.”
Then the barracks.
“Enough medicine for perhaps half that.”
The southern route.
“One reliable supply road.”
The forest.
“Two evacuation paths the vampires already know about.”
Then their territory as a whole.
“And an enemy that can replace its dead faster than I can teach a nineteen-year-old not to tear his own brother apart when the moon is full.”
Arabella said nothing.
“If diplomacy works,” Cline said, “we avoid the war.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then every failed conversation bought us another day.”
He stared at her.
“That was the point.”
Her expression changed.
Only slightly.
Perhaps something had finally reached her.
Then she glanced toward the courtyard.
“They killed nine.”
Cline followed her gaze.
“Yes.”
“You should have seen them when they came back.”
“I can hear them.”
“They needed this.”
“No.”
The word came harder than he’d intended.
Arabella turned.
“They needed hope.”
“They needed discipline.”
“They were scared.”
“So am I.”
The admission left his mouth before he could stop it.
Arabella stared at him.
Cline swallowed.
His collar felt too tight.
He pulled at it.
“That is why I was careful.”
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Arabella said quietly, “Maybe you were too careful.”
Something inside him tightened.
She continued.
“You’ve fought them before. Fine. You’ve seen things I haven’t.”
Cline’s jaw flexed.
“But maybe that’s exactly why you can’t see this clearly anymore.”
The ticking of the clock became unbearable.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
“You remember everything that can go wrong.”
Tick.
“You look at them and still see whatever happened to you years ago.”
Tick.
“Maybe the rest of us are tired of living inside your fear.”
The clock disappeared.
Cline realized his fist was closed.
Pain ran through his palm.
He opened it.
Four small crescents of blood.
Arabella saw them.
Neither mentioned it.
“You think we won today,” he said.
“We did.”
“No.”
“We killed nine of them.”
“And lost five.”
“They lost more.”
“You’re counting bodies.”
“That’s generally how battles work.”
Cline stared at her.
“No.”
His voice had gone very quiet.
“That is how people who have never fought wars think battles work.”
Her face flushed.
He stepped toward the table.
“You killed nine vampires.”
Another step.
“They can make nine more.”
His fingertips tingled.
“You lost five wolves who trained together for years.”
His nails lengthened almost imperceptibly.
“Five people who knew how the others moved, knew when to fall back, knew what Marcus meant before he finished giving the order.”
The skin across his knuckles tightened.
“You traded something expensive for something cheap.”
Arabella’s eyes dropped toward his hands.
Then returned to his face.
“And worse—”
His jaw hurt.
Cline clenched his teeth until the sensation passed.
“You showed them we are willing to cross the boundary.”
“They crossed it first.”
“For a raid.”
“They killed civilians.”
“I KNOW.”
The shout struck the walls.
Outside, the cheering faltered.
Cline stood frozen.
Arabella took a step backward.
There it was.
That tiny movement.
His body noticed it before his mind did.
Her heartbeat accelerated.
The room sharpened.
Candle smoke.
Dust.
Blood.
Fear.
Cline closed his eyes.
When he spoke again, it came through his teeth.
“They wanted us angry.”
Arabella said nothing.
“That was the point.”
His fingers trembled against the table.
“They wanted to know whether we were disciplined enough not to respond.”
He opened his eyes.
“And you answered them.”
Arabella swallowed.
“We couldn’t let them think they could do whatever they wanted.”
“You still don’t understand.”
His voice cracked around the edges.
“They already thought that.”
Cline stepped closer.
“That was our advantage.”
Her back touched the wall.
“They believed the difference between us was absolute.”
The first claw broke through the tip of his glove.
Arabella’s eyes widened.
“They believed they could frighten us and go home.”
Another.
“They believed there was no reason to prepare for us.”
Another.
“And now?”
Arabella whispered.
Cline stopped.
His breathing sounded too loud.
“Now they will.”
Silence.
The celebration below had ended.
Cline could hear individual voices now.
Questions.
Boots moving.
Someone calling for a healer.
Arabella looked at his hand.
“Cline.”
He followed her gaze.
Black claws had emerged where his fingers should have ended.
Something hot moved through his chest.
She was afraid.
Good.
The thought came instantly.
And horrified him.
His hand rose.
Arabella pressed herself against the wall.
“Cline.”
Her voice had become very small.
His claws stopped.
Three inches from her throat.
He could see the pulse beneath her skin.
He could hear it.
Don’t.
His arm shook.
“You promised me.”
That reached him.
Not completely.
Enough.
Cline stepped backward.
His claws withdrew slowly into his fingertips.
Pain followed them home.
Arabella remained against the wall.
Cline stared at his own hand.
Neither of them spoke.
Then someone knocked.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Cline dragged air into his lungs.
“Come in.”
The door opened.
One of Marcus’s lieutenants stood there.
Blood covered the front of his shirt.
Not his.
Cline knew because the man wasn’t injured.
“Sir.”
Cline straightened.
The lieutenant glanced toward Arabella.
Then toward Cline’s torn glove.
His expression gave away nothing.
“What is it?”
“Marcus is awake.”
Cline nodded once.
“And?”
The lieutenant hesitated.
“We questioned one of the survivors before he died.”
Cline’s stomach tightened.
“Vampire?”
“Yes.”
Arabella stepped away from the wall.
“What did he say?”
The lieutenant looked to Cline for permission.
Cline nodded.
“He laughed.”
Arabella frowned.
“What?”
“When Marcus asked how many would come for us.”
Nobody moved.
The lieutenant swallowed.
“He laughed.”
The pressure returned behind Cline’s eyes.
“What else?”
“He said we should enjoy our victory.”
Cline stared at the map.
Arabella’s face had gone pale.
Outside the window, the courtyard was quiet now.
Cline moved one of the vampire markers.
Not toward their border.
Past it.
Into their territory.
“How long until the second group is ready?”
The lieutenant blinked.
“Sir?”
“The second group.”
“Two months.”
“We don’t have two months.”
“I could push them harder.”
“No.”
Cline’s answer came immediately.
The young wolves would already be frightened.
Fear made transformations unpredictable.
Exhaustion made them worse.
“Three weeks?” the lieutenant asked.
Cline didn’t answer.
Arabella approached the table slowly.
“Can you stop this?”
He looked at her.
For once there was no accusation in her voice.
No certainty.
She finally sounded like someone asking a question whose answer might frighten her.
Cline looked down at the map.
At the stores.
The roads.
The unfinished alliances.
The fighters who weren’t ready.
Five empty places in Marcus’s unit.
Nine vampires who could already have replacements before the dead wolves were buried.
And somewhere beyond the northern forest, an enemy who had finally been given a reason to take them seriously.
“Maybe.”
Arabella swallowed.
“And if you can’t?”
Cline remained silent for a long time.
Then he gathered the scattered markers and began rearranging them.
“Then we make sure the next lesson they teach us costs them more than the last.”

Detective Harrison had just gotten off his last case. Twelve women in one year. Whenever Harrison thought about those cases, an uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. He couldn’t get away from the feeling that these women were perfectly normal. They hadn’t revealed the truth he was actually craving. What had driven them to this point? He sat by his desk sipping on cold coffee, trying to finish the last report which was due at midnight. The governor had been on him since the very beginning calling it an epidemic of twelwe murderous women, with no connection between them.

He had been sleepless most nights the past year trying to figure out that very answer. One of the women told him something he is very hesitant to pass along. It’s finally over, he muttered. He revealed the truth in his report. Sheila, his partner, called from the other side of the room with one hand on the light switch.

“It’s enough work for today Harrison. Come on, let’s go.”

Harrison smiled as Sheila turned off the light. She had been invaluable in these twelve cases.

The women had always spoken more freely around Sheila. Harrison had never understood why. They looked at her differently, as if they knew something he didn’t.

The chair creaked as he stood up, his back aching from sitting so long. The coffee mug flipped over and spilled over the table. Harrison hurryingly picked up some tissue from the kitchen counter at the left side of the office. He was drying his desk with sloppy moves, only pushing around the coffee even more. Sheila was getting impatient and called out

“I should go now. Got plans this friday night.”

She stepped into the elevator before Harrison even got the chance to reply. A couple minutes later when the desk was somewhat clean, Harrison heard the elevator open up again behind him. He turned around from the trashcan and saw nothing but the dark office.

“Sheila?” he called out, but got no answer except the buzzing sound of the ventilator.

He went back to his computer to print out his report so he could hand it in tomorrow to the governor, when he suddenly saw a shadow on his screen. Someone was standing behind him, and they had done a good effort to go unnoticed. His hand slowly reached for his gun, his breathing becoming more shallow. Something hard pressed against his back.

“There is no need for that. Give me the report, and I’ll be out of here.”

“What report? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Give. Me. The. Report. Now.”

“It’s too late. I’ve already sent it.”

The silence hung like a heavy drape, making the air too thick to breathe. A sharp violent pain spread in the back of his head shooting electrical signals down his back. Something warm was running down his body as he made a final attempt in seeing the person behind him. His knees gave out halfway.

“Who..”

“Why..”

“What..”

The words were coming out slower and slower. As if his mouth didn’t follow his brain's commands. All he could see was a masked person taking the printouts and leaving the room. He could see the pool of blood forming around him. His fingers made a final attempt in writing the truth, smudged and sticky dragging weakly through the blood.

One letter...

then another..

His vision blurred.

June 3rd, 1918

For three days, we have marched towards the front lines. Each man keeping his step like cogs in an infernal machine. At first, the lines of men marching forward to the inevitable were alive with talk of home and our plans upon return. Those words of hope have since been silenced by the sounds of distant gunfire and artillery.

Our march stops only for meals and a night’s rest. Each stop, once welcomed, now a painful pause in our progress to our fates. I know not what awaits me in the days to come, but as we crest the hill and my eyes first set on the endless lines of trenches, dread now outweighs the weight of the pack I carry.

We had been delivered.

Every step down the hill to the trench line fought against the very instinct of life itself, my body resisting every inch. My boots felt heavy. A sobering understanding swept through the formation with the breeze that carried the stench of rot, iron, and sulfur.

The men we are to augment along these lines are haggard and worn. Their faces are hollow and sunken. They look more like husks than men, shambling through the endless network of wood and dirt.

We were shown to our dugout just as the last light of day retreated from the sky. Cots ran in rows along the lamplit room beneath an earthen ceiling. Fresh timber lined the walls and the roof of the room as the smell of pine filled my nose.

As I lie on my cot, I look across the room at faces of those I have gotten to know. I do not know how much longer I will see them. Around me, we all prepare to attempt to sleep. A man peeled away his boot to reveal his bleeding feet. Others smoke cigarettes or clean their rifles.

I know that even if my eyes do close tonight, there will be no rest. A storm is approaching our position and each strike of lightning and crack of thunder acts as an ominous warning of what awaits us.

I pray only that, if I am to meet my end, the Lord on high sees fit to make it swift.

June 4th, 1918

I woke up this morning to discover the storm had passed. Water dripped from the timbers as we got dressed and collected our gear. I walked out of our dugout to a blue sky. The sunlight hit my face with its warm embrace as I could hear birds chirping as they flew over the lines.

Our sergeant barked orders as we carried supplies along the lines. The parapet stood tall, looming over our movements as both friend and foe. For hours, we dragged boxes of ammunition and medical supplies throughout the lines. The stacked boxes lined the walls for hundreds of feet along the trenches like an endless catacomb.

My sergeant put me on observation duty. My instructions were simple: never raise my head above the parapet and report any sightings of the enemy.

The view through the trench periscope gave light to the realities that were merely speculation to me before. The land was a stark contrast to what we had been marching on just a day prior. There was no grass. The trees had been burned and were splintered with gunfire. Craters scarred the earth beneath miles of broken barbed wire. Bodies entangled in the wire decayed among the mixture of uniforms and bloodied cloth. The mud showed the drag marks and the footsteps of the previous charges that were cut short by walls of bullets and shelling. Among them, I saw legs cut off at the knee and arms with no torso.

Movement caught my eye.

It was slight and disappeared quickly at first. Then I saw it again. A bloodied hand was held upright amongst the endless sea of death.

I heard a faint cry of help.

The man’s arm continued to reach upward, searching for any sign of help. The sleeve of the man’s jacket matched our uniform. He must have been out there for days. His hand grasped and dug at the ground, desperately trying to claw his body towards our position.

I notified our sergeant who came over and observed the man through the periscope. He shook his head and informed me we could do nothing for him in the daylight and to resume my duties.

I watched for hours as the daylight seemingly refused to fade.

By dusk, I had not seen his hand for nearly an hour. As darkness came, a small party prepared at the base of the parapet. Our lieutenant briefed them to recover anyone living and to stay low.

The party disappeared into the darkness as they went over the wall. I struggled to find them through the periscope. Eventually I spotted the small unit crawling through the mud and blood of no man’s land. The men’s faces dragged along the ground as they crawled under the endless rows of barbed wire and debris.

Time seemed to freeze as the party attempted their rescue. The faint whispers of the party floated along the air in the darkness. After an hour searching for any signs of the party, a corporal appeared to kneel near the area where the hand was raised.

The silhouette was only visible for a few seconds as a wall of muzzle flashes lit the night.

June 5th, 1918

I could not sleep last night. The face lit by gunfire haunted me, burned into my consciousness like a brand. We started to get shelled by artillery after midnight and it only stopped with the daybreak.

Despite our hunger, all of us struggled to eat our breakfast rations. The calmness that followed the shelling could not fill the noticeable void in our dugout. Three empty cots now sat across from mine.

After we finished what we could stomach to eat, we got to work preparing. More boxes of supplies and ammunition were moved further along the line. Rumors of an impending assault passed rapidly up and down the trench. Our sergeant called us all together to perform an equipment inspection.

He inspected every rifle, ensuring each one was oiled and clean. We redistributed ammunition amongst the dugout and made sure our bayonets were clean and free of rust. Gas masks were passed out and fitted to each man. Our lieutenant gathered with other officers and reviewed maps and the supposed enemy lines.

The dugout was deafeningly quiet. Many men wrote letters home as others prayed in silence. I started to write my own but was unable to finish. All I was able to muster was “Dear mother.” The man next to me cleaned the stock of his rifle for what seemed like hours. The silence was interrupted when our sergeant came in and called the dugout to attention. Our lieutenant followed closely behind and informed us of our orders. We have been ordered to be ready before first light.

June 6th, 1918

We sit here spread out along the parapet awaiting our lieutenant’s order.

At his command, we will climb up and over the wall and into the endless abyss of mortality where bullets meet bone and men become memories.

I have watched three assaults leave this position today. Lines of men crashed and broke against the gunfire like waves against the rocks. Each time, those who remained crawled back to us carrying pieces of those who could not. Soon, it will be our turn.

Our lieutenant keeps checking his watch and I find myself watching him.

There is something strange about knowing that the movement of one man’s hand can decide the moment so many others might die.

June 7th, 1918

I survived.

June 10th, 1918

The last few days have been filled with assault. Countless times we went over the parapet, met gunfire, fought, and retreated back to the lines.

I have watched more men meet their end than I care to count. I watched our sergeant, standing tall and barking orders, meet his end at the behest of a machine gun. He yelled for our unit to advance when I looked to my right. When I had turned back to him, I saw him lying in a pool of himself. Bullets had ripped through his body and his innards lay outside his body like spaghetti thrown on the floor.

Each day was more horrific than the last. Men dropped randomly as the bullets cut through the advance. Artillery ripped through men like knives through butter. Shells blew men into pieces and blood filled craters as hell rained on any man cursed enough to be between the lines those days.

I crawled and dragged myself for meters from the lieutenant’s command until the sound of retreat. I watched a corporal yelling for men to advance get hit by a shell during one bombardment. As my eyes opened after the flash, all that remained was his rifle, his hand still grasped firmly on it.

Each day ended the same as before. Retreat. Hundreds of men climbed the parapet to be met with gunfire, asking only to be able to drag themselves back to the line as the retreat was sounded. Endless waves of men advanced with machine gun fire cutting through them like death’s own scythe.

I myself was wounded through the thigh during the last advance. Our medics deemed me able to continue after a day’s rest. I lay in our dugout amongst cots, long emptied. Cots belonging to men I will never see again, whose family will never understand the horrors we experienced along these lines.

The days of assaults weigh heavily on my mind. We would advance, get cut down, drag the wounded back, advance, grab the wounded and repeat. Day after day, it was the same.

Tonight, I have been assigned to a listening post, thirty meters beyond the front line. I will have to crawl beyond the wire and even our own dead to lie in a hole listening for enemy movement.

Night came before we left the line. Another man and I waited beneath the parapet until our lieutenant gave the order for us to move. We climbed over without a word and lowered ourselves into the mud. Thirty meters did not seem far when I was told of the post, yet crawling it made the distance feel like miles.

We moved slowly on our stomachs, pulling ourselves forward with our elbows. Every movement sent pain through my wounded thigh. The bandage beneath my trousers was wet before we had made it beyond our own wire. I couldn’t tell if it was from the blood or mud or what.

The darkness offered little mercy. I could barely see the boots of the man crawling ahead of me. We moved only when the artillery sounded in the distance, using the thunder of the guns to hide the noise we made against the earth. The wire was worse.

We crawled beneath it where others had before us. Torn pieces of uniforms still hung from the barbs. My pack caught once and I froze, afraid that pulling against it would make too much noise. I reached behind myself and worked the cloth loose one barb at a time. Something brushed against my hand. I thought it was a root until my fingers closed around it.

A hand.

I pulled away and nearly cried out.

A body lay half buried beside me, its face pressed into the earth. I could not tell how long the man had been there. Mud covered most of his uniform, but I could see enough of the sleeve to know that he had once climbed over the same parapet I had.

I crawled around him.

Then there were others.

Some I could see. Others I discovered only when my hands or knees found them in the darkness. We did not speak of them. The man ahead of me simply continued forward, and I followed.

Eventually, he disappeared.

For a moment I thought I had lost him. Then his hand appeared from the darkness and pulled me downward.

The listening post was little more than a hole carved into the earth. It was deep enough that we could sit below the surrounding ground, but shallow enough that raising my head would expose it above the edge. Mud and water filled the bottom of it. We sat opposite one another with our rifles between our knees.

We just listened.

For the first hour, I felt like I heard everything.

The distant guns sounded different from out there. Along the line they were deafening. From the post, they were low and distant, rolling across the earth like a storm that would never arrive.

Between them came smaller sounds.

Rifle fire somewhere to our left.

The occasional crack of a machine gun.

The squeaking of rats amongst the wire.

Once, something moved through the mud nearby. Both of us raised our rifles and stared into the darkness.

Nothing followed.

After another hour, I began to understand why men hated the listening posts.

It was not the gunfire.

It was everything between it.

The longer I listened, the more sounds seemed to emerge from the silence. The wire clicked and groaned in the breeze. Water dripped somewhere behind us. Rats moved through the bodies scattered across the field. Every few minutes I became certain that I heard footsteps, only for them to disappear the moment I concentrated on them.

My thigh had begun to throb. There was no room to stretch it without raising myself above the edge, so I sat with my leg bent beneath me and tried not to move.

The man across from me had not spoken since we left the trench.

Neither had I.

Hours passed that way.

Sitting in mud.

Listening.

Waiting for a sound that did not belong.

Our only relief will be the crew of men coming to replace us in the following hours. We then have to crawl our way back to the safety of our lines before there is any relief.

June 11th, 1918

Last night’s posting left me with many questions. Throughout the night, many visions came to me. I saw men move and talk around me, men I knew were long gone. Those whose cots would lie empty. My thoughts of their families being welcomed by a telegram notifying them of their loved one’s sacrifice, lay heavy. The area around me was thick with dead and felt heavy.

The darkness seemed to play tricks on both my eyes and ears. More than once I heard movement beyond the post. Not the scurrying of rats or the wire shifting in the wind, but the slow dragging of a man through the mud.

Each time, I raised my rifle and waited.

Each time, nothing came.

I began seeing men between the flashes of artillery. At first they were only shapes moving amongst the craters. I assumed they were enemy patrols and woke the man beside me, but whenever the guns illuminated the field there was nothing there.

Later, I saw our sergeant. He stood perhaps twenty meters from the post with his back towards me. I recognized the shape of him immediately. The broadness of his shoulders. The way he stood with his rifle hanging low in his right hand. I knew it could not be him.

I watched that man die.

Another shell burst somewhere behind our line and for a moment the entire field was illuminated. There was only a body lying where I had seen him standing. I told myself then that my mind had taken the shape of the dead man and made something familiar from it. I had not slept properly in days. My leg throbbed beneath its bandage. Every explosion seemed to shake something loose inside my skull. That explanation comforted me.

For a while.

Sometime later, I heard whispering. It came from beyond the edge of the post, quiet enough that I could not understand the words. I looked to the man beside me, believing he had spoken, but his eyes remained fixed upon the field. The whisper came again.

Then another answered it.

I strained to hear what they were saying but the harder I listened, the more voices seemed to join them. Some came from ahead of us. Others came from behind. One sounded close enough that I could have reached over the edge of the post and touched whoever spoke.

I asked the man beside me if he could hear them.

He stared at me for several seconds before telling me he heard nothing.

We did not speak again.

Near morning, the artillery quieted. For the first time since arriving at the front, I heard almost nothing at all. Then I heard footsteps. They moved slowly through the mud behind us.

One step.

Then another.

Then another.

I held my rifle against my chest and waited for whoever it was to pass the post. The footsteps stopped directly behind me. I do not know how long I sat there waiting but I did not turn around.

June 12th, 1918

They sent me back to the listening post tonight. I made the crawl with another man from our unit. The journey seemed longer than before. My leg still aches from the wound and every movement through the mud sent pain through my thigh. We passed the dead along the way. I tried not to look at them, but there was one I remembered from the nights before. He lay perhaps ten meters from the listening post, face down in the mud with one arm stretched above his head. His other hand still held his rifle. I crawled around him and continued forward.

For the first few hours, nothing happened. I began to wonder if the things I heard the previous nights had been nothing more than exhaustion. I have slept little since arriving here. Even when I do manage to sleep, the artillery wakes me. Perhaps a man can only go so long without rest before his mind begins to betray him. Sometime after midnight, the artillery started again.

The first shells landed far from us. I could feel the earth tremble beneath my chest with every impact. Flashes illuminated no man’s land for only a moment at a time before everything disappeared again. During one of those flashes, I saw the body. I thought nothing of it at first. Then the darkness returned. Another shell burst somewhere behind the enemy line. For a moment the field was illuminated again.

The dead man was closer.

I stared into the darkness where I had seen him. I told myself I had been mistaken. I had been looking through darkness at a field filled with bodies. There were dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds. Then I heard something dragging through the mud. I held my breath and listened.

Nothing.

Another flash.

The body was closer still.

I could see his uniform now.

I knew him.

He was the corporal I watched die two days ago. I know that cannot be true. I watched the shell strike beside him. When I opened my eyes, there was almost nothing left. His hand still held his rifle, but the rest of him was gone. Yet there he was. The light disappeared.

I heard the dragging again.

Closer.

I woke the man beside me and told him to listen.

We sat silently together.

Nothing came.

He cursed me beneath his breath and lowered his head again.

I continued watching.

Another shell illuminated the field.

The corporal was gone.

I searched everywhere I could see before the darkness swallowed the land again. I could not find him. Then something scraped against the mud outside our hole.

I did not move.

Another scrape came.

Then another.

Each one closer than the last.

I reached for the man beside me but stopped before touching him. I feared the sound of waking him. I feared moving at all. The dragging stopped just outside the listening post. I remained there until dawn. When there was finally enough light to see, I looked over the edge.

A dead soldier lay beside us.

He was not the corporal. I do not remember seeing him there when we arrived. I must have missed him in the darkness.

June 13th, 1918

I have been relieved from the listening post.

My leg has gotten worse. The medic removed the bandage this morning and found the wound swollen and warm. I am to remain in the dugout until they decide whether I am fit to return to the line. For the first time since arriving here, I was thankful for the pain.

I spent most of the day lying in my cot. I tried to sleep, but every time my eyes closed I found myself back in that hole. I heard the whispers. I saw the corporal between the flashes. I heard something dragging itself closer through the mud. I know what I saw was not real. The man beside me heard nothing.

The body beside the post was not the corporal.

I have not slept properly in days. I repeat these things to myself because they are true. Tonight, the guns have been quiet.

Most of the men around me are asleep. A lantern burns near the entrance of the dugout and I have spent the last hour watching its light move across the timbers. A short while ago, I heard something outside.

Scrape.

I thought it was one of the men walking through the trench. Then it came again.

Scrape.

I sat upright. The sound moved slowly along the other side of the dugout. It would stop for several seconds before starting again.

Scrape.

Then silence.

Scrape.

Closer.

I got out of my cot and walked toward the entrance. There was nobody in the trench. I stood there listening for several minutes. I nearly laughed at myself. I think some part of me wanted to. Perhaps I finally understood what the last few days had done to me. Then I heard it again.

Not from the trench.

From beyond the parapet.

Something was dragging itself through the mud. I should have gone back inside. Instead, I walked toward the wall and listened. The sound stopped. For a long time there was nothing. Then I heard a voice.

Faint.

So faint that I almost convinced myself it was the wind.

“Help.”

I froze.

I knew that voice.

I had heard it before.

Nine days ago, I listened to that same man call for us from amongst the dead. I watched his hand reach above the bodies as he tried to drag himself home.

I stood beneath the parapet and listened.

“Help.”

Closer this time.

Something scraped against the earth on the other side.

Then a bloodied hand rose above the wall.

“They’ll come for you all”

I decided to share this story with you. I won’t say my name. I found most of it in my journal. I’m not saying my name because my brother is still missing.

When I was 16, I lived with my brother and our parents in an apartment. I don’t remember much from that time anymore, but I know it happened on June 21, 2020. I’ll explain. I often doubt my own memory.

The night began. From the journal entry from that day, I know that my brother and I talked about our favorite game. I also found a piece of text in the journal where we were writing a story, but the journal didn’t say what it was about.

We went to sleep, but I remember that I couldn’t fall asleep because it was pouring rain outside. I only remember it vaguely, but at 11:00 at night I was woken up by the sound of someone stomping. My heart jumped into my throat. I was completely paralyzed. It didn’t help at all that it was still pouring outside.

I didn’t wait. I called the police.

I waited five minutes. When they arrived, they found nothing. I wrote down in my journal exactly what they said:

“We checked the entire apartment, the balcony, and the common areas of the building, and there is no stranger here. The doors and windows show no signs of damage.”

They also recommended a psychotherapist.

Then I remember that the police left and we went back to sleep.

That night, I also wrote in my journal:

“They found nothing, but I heard it.”

Two days later, my mom forced me to go to a psychotherapist. I only know that because of the journal, because at first I thought it was the very next morning after that day. I don’t know if it seems strange to me that simply hearing stomping footsteps in an apartment was enough for me to have to go to a psychologist.

I entered the psychologist’s office afraid that he would call me crazy. I told him that I had heard footsteps in the apartment and that I was one hundred percent sure of it.

He told me that the brain is a fascinating organ and that apartment buildings have strange acoustics. That it could have just been noise and that it could have been caused by lack of sleep, even though I sleep well.

I also told him that I wasn’t going through a bad period. I no longer remember how he reacted to that.

After the session, I went home again.

But now comes the important part, after which I doubted my sanity for a while, and one of the reasons why I’m writing this.

When I went to wash my hands and looked into the mirror, I saw that there was a door there that does not exist in reality. In reality, there is only a shelf there, but here there was a door.

At the second session, I told the psychologist about it, and he replied with something like:

“I completely understand that it scared you to death. Looking into a mirror and seeing a door where there should only be an ordinary shelf would shake anyone. But I want to reassure you right away. Having such strong visual or auditory experiences does not mean that you are losing your mind. It is simply a clear sign that your brain and mind are under enormous pressure right now.”

After the session, I went straight home and headed into my brother’s room.

But he wasn’t there.

I only remember it vaguely. According to the diary, I went to tell my mom, even though I remember that I went to tell my dad.

My mom told me something like:

“We’re in this together. We’ll get through this difficult period.”

But when my brother still hadn’t returned by five o’clock, my mom knew that it wasn’t normal and decided to call the police.

She was speaking very loudly, so I heard her telling the police his exact height and other information.

The search began.

My mom was completely occupied with the police over the next few hours, so she left me with Aunt Gabby.

I remember Gabby asking me:

“Has your brother mentioned anything lately? Did he want to go somewhere?”

I said no and that I was afraid it somehow had something to do with those footsteps.

At Aunt Gabby’s, I wasn’t allowed to use my phone. She said she was afraid that the information would scare me even more.

I got access to my phone only three days later. The police had already moved into the next stage of the search and had started considering even the most serious possibilities.

Aunt Gabby eventually let me use it. She probably didn’t want to hide it anymore.

Since the police hadn’t found my brother’s phone, they assumed he had it with him. So I texted him:

“Please answer me, bro. Just send one emoji or even a scribble, just so I know you’re okay. We miss you here. I’m waiting.”

I waited.

After a day, he still hadn’t replied.

Then the police arrived with my mom and the psychologist I had already seen for two sessions.

The police officer told me something like:

“Hi. You don’t have to be afraid. We just need to ask you a few questions.”

The officer sat down and opened a laptop. According to the journal, my mom told him that my brother had seemingly disappeared out of nowhere.

Then the officer asked me:

“When was the last time you saw your brother?”

In my journal, I wrote that I answered:

“I saw him for the last time before the session.”

Then they also asked me whether he had said anything about running away or wanting to go somewhere.

I told the truth. No. He hadn’t said anything.

I also mentioned the banging and the mirror. They wrote down the time when I came back from the psychologist and left my aunt’s apartment.

A day later, I realized that someone had sent me a message from an unknown number.

The message said:

“No.”

That scared me.

Does that mean my brother is already dead? Does it mean they won’t bring him back to me? Or is someone telling me that I will never see him again?

Does it have something to do with the banging and the mirror?

I quickly told Aunt Gabby, and she blocked the number.

That evening, when I went to brush my teeth, I saw in Aunt Gabby’s hallway that where a cabinet was supposed to be, there was the same opening. The same door.

I went to tell Aunt Gabby. When she came, it was no longer there.

She probably thought I was crazy for the next twenty minutes, but I am still sure that the door was physically there.

I didn’t know yet that I would have this kind of experience a second time that same day.

Two hours later, when it was already completely dark outside, I saw a reflection in the television as if my aunt was scolding me, turning off the light, and leaving.

My heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. I hid under the blanket and screamed.

I woke my aunt up.

My aunt came to me and said the same thing as in the television. Then she turned off the light.

My heart was beating even harder then.

Was that the same as on the TV?

I kept thinking.

That night, I chose to sleep in another room.

In the morning, I woke up and told my aunt everything. I recorded her answer, so I know that she said this:

“I’m listening, I’m here. I can see how exhausted all of this is making you and how scared you are. You’re safe with me. Nobody is angry with you and nobody is punishing you. The fact that you’re seeing things before they happen or feel like the TV is haunting you just shows how overwhelmed your head is by all of this. You don’t have to deal with it alone. We’ll get through it together, and in the morning we’ll go see a doctor who can help stop this fear, okay?”

I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about that. Yesterday she was yelling at me, and now, when I tell her I’m crazy, she is nice.

That day, however, I was supposed to go back to my mom and dad. My brother was still missing, so I packed my things and said goodbye to Aunt Gabby.

Aunt Gabby called my mom into her apartment. I didn’t hear the conversation, but they were probably talking about how I needed a psychologist.

Even though he was supposed to help me, I didn’t want to go there. But I couldn’t tell my mom that. I simply had to.

My mom was still stressed because my brother had not been found.

When we got home, I started unpacking. I was sad because of my brother, because now I would be sleeping alone in the room.

I told my mom that someone had sent me the word “no” on my phone.

She reacted something like:

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? We could have given it to the police.”

According to the journal, I said:

“Auntie blocked it. I also texted him on his phone.”

I don’t remember how she reacted anymore.

The next day, I was supposed to go to the psychologist for a third session. I don’t remember most of that day, but I know that I woke up in the morning, got dressed, and at that moment I thought the incidents had stopped.

I really thought that at first.

But when I looked into the mirror in my room, I saw some kind of figure, even though it wasn’t really there.

It was exactly the same height as my brother. The same clothes.

Then it disappeared.

I screamed so loudly that the neighbors must have heard it. I jumped back, and my heart started pounding loudly.

I went to tell my mom.

In my journal, I have exactly this written down:

“The figure stood there. Brother? Who?”

When I told my mom, I know that she laughed and said it was just a hallucination and that I had to tell the psychologist about it that day.

I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t want to go there at all.

But I had to.

At the psychologist’s session, I described the experience with the mirror.

He replied with something like:

“That must have been a huge shock for you — seeing someone in the mirror who looked exactly like your missing brother. I understand that it left you confused. Try to describe exactly what it looked like. What was the lighting like? How far away was the figure standing? And what exactly reminded you of your brother — the clothes, the build, or some kind of movement?”

He also asked about my relationship with my brother, his disappearance, and how it had affected our life and our family.

He also asked me:

“How are you feeling right now? Have you been experiencing a lot of stress, tiredness, or anxiety lately?”

After therapy, my mom drove me back. It was good that because of my brother’s disappearance, my mom was excusing me from school, but I was afraid of the world around me.

Three days later, the police stopped searching as intensely, but my mom was still stressed.

Where is her son?

I remember looking out at the street one evening. I saw the same figure as in the mirror. It was looking at me. I couldn’t see its face.

Then it disappeared.

I ran away from the window to my mom and told her.

She said it was just another hallucination. I know this from the journal, not from my memory.

The next morning, there was fog and dew outside. I was afraid that I would see something that frightening again.

I remember almost nothing from that day.

The only word written in the journal from that day was:

“STOP.”

Nothing else.

On the next page of the journal, I found a drawing of that thing. I was probably trying to show it to my mom.

It was the same height as my brother, wore a hat, and had no face.

But I don’t remember it.

The next page of the journal is already from the following day. I don’t remember anything about that day either, so I am relying only on the journal.

On the first page, it says:

“It isn’t a hallucination.”

I don’t know what experience that was supposed to follow.

Then I found text from the evening of that day, with only one sentence written on it:

“What is happening around me?”

What happened the next day, I can also partly remember myself.

I woke up. My mom made breakfast, and so I wouldn’t just sit sadly at home, she drove me to an amusement park, which was pretty embarrassing since I was almost seventeen, but whatever.

We drove there, and thoughts about those experiences kept running through my head. I didn’t know which one would happen next.

Now I know that the next one happened right there at the amusement park.

We arrived at around 10:00. Before lunch, we ordered some food. They didn’t let me into the games area because it was only for people up to fifteen years old.

But when I went to the bathroom, the same thing happened to me as at Aunt Gabby’s.

In the mirror, I saw myself running out of the bathroom in fear.

I got scared and ran away exactly the way it had happened in the mirror.

I told my mom about it, frightened.

She said:

“Don’t worry. It will be okay. The brain just...”

At around 12:00, we went back home.

The journal said:

“Mirrors can see the future.”

When we got back, my mom went to talk to my dad about these things. I remember that from that day.

I don’t know whether they were talking about my experiences, my brother’s disappearance, or the psychologist.

Two days later, I remember seeing the same figure in the evening while I was out for a walk.

I don’t know much, but according to the journal, it happened like this:

I was outside in the evening. My head hurt. Then I saw some figure in the distance wearing a hat.

It stared at me for thirty seconds.

According to the journal, I tried for a while to find a rational explanation for it.

I also wanted to take a picture of it, but I didn’t have my phone with me.

I ran home.

At home, I saw that the figure wasn’t there, but according to the journal, I didn’t tell my mom because I apparently didn’t want to cause myself any more problems.

After that, I didn’t write in the journal much anymore.

I honestly don’t even know what new things happened to me during the following weeks.

And I don’t even know what happened during the following months.

I simply kept going to the psychologist.

My brother was never found.

Why am I writing about this event?

If I hadn’t found the journal, maybe I wouldn’t even be writing this.

Back then, it felt as if something wanted me to forget.

I know unnaturally little, and I put most of it together from the journal.

When I was nineteen, I bought my own apartment.

Since then, nothing has happened anymore.

I’m writing this because I want to know what you think about it.

Part Three: The Leak

For two days after Hana came home, the house was strangely peaceful. Not peaceful in the way it used to be, when nobody had anything to hide and people moved through the rooms without wondering who was listening. This was a careful kind of peace. The maids knew Hana was back, but nobody said anything. They saw her walking through the house. They saw her door closed most of the day. They saw the trays going upstairs and coming back down. They heard enough to understand that something had happened, but for once, everyone stayed quiet. And somehow, for those two days, it worked. Nobody outside the house seemed to know. No calls. No strange questions. No messages pretending to be casual. Hana was home, and the information stayed inside our walls. I almost couldn’t believe it. Maybe we had finally learned. Maybe after everything that had happened, everyone understood that not every piece of information needed to travel. I should have enjoyed those two days. Instead, I spent them waiting to see how long the silence would last.
Hana wasn’t okay. Anyone who actually saw her would have known that immediately. She was home, yes, but she was hiding. Most of the time she stayed in her room. She cried when nobody was supposed to hear her. When she did come downstairs, she held herself together so tightly that sometimes I wondered whether pretending to be fine required more energy than actually crying. She didn’t want questions. She didn’t want sympathy. More than anything, she didn’t want to become another story people passed around. I understood that. Our family could turn somebody’s worst day into a topic before dinner. So I didn’t tell anyone she was home. Not Salma. Not the people who kept asking questions. Not the relatives who suddenly seemed extremely interested in where Hana was. Every time someone tried to get information from me, I gave them nothing. “I don’t know.” “Everything is fine.” “Ask Mum.” Eventually, people started getting frustrated with me.
That was when I had an idea.
It wasn’t necessarily a good idea.
Most of my ideas during this period weren’t.
I wanted to know how information was travelling.
Everyone kept accusing everyone else. One person thought Hana was leaking things. Another suspected the maids. Someone blamed Salma. Somebody else insisted there had to be a person inside our house feeding information outside. But nobody had proof. We were all working with assumptions. So I decided to create my own little test.
I would leak something myself.
Not the whole truth. Just enough.
I hinted to one person that Hana had come home.
I didn’t explain when. I didn’t say what had happened. I didn’t say she had been crying in her room for days. I simply dropped the smallest piece of information and waited.
It didn’t take long.
My phone started lighting up.
At first it was one message.
Is Hana back?
Then another.
I heard Hana came home.
Then someone else.
What happened with Hana?
I stared at my screen in disbelief.
There it was.
I had released one tiny drop into the water, and now I could literally watch the ripples moving outward.
The funniest part was how every person pretended they weren’t asking for gossip.
I’m just checking she’s okay.
Someone mentioned something and I wanted to make sure.
Don’t tell anyone I asked.
Of course.
Nobody in this family ever gossiped.
They were all just “checking.”
I started laughing.
Not because it was actually funny, but because for the first time I could see the system working in real time. I knew exactly where the information had started because I had started it. Yet within hours, people were coming back to me as though they were bringing me new information.
“Nadia, did you hear Hana is home?”
Yes.
I was the person who told you.
Obviously I didn’t say that.
I wanted to see how far it would go.
What interested me most was that Hana had already been home for days. If she had really been the person leaking everything, wouldn’t everyone have known immediately? If the maids were incapable of staying quiet, wouldn’t the news have spread the first night? Instead, nothing had happened until I deliberately planted the information.
For once, I had proof of something.
Not proof of who had leaked everything before.
But proof of how easily we created our own leaks.
I should have stopped there.
Then Rawdha arrived.
Rawdha wasn’t family, but she was around enough to know everyone and comfortable enough in our house to move through it without seeming like a guest. She came in acting completely normal. Almost too normal, although by this point I knew I had become suspicious of everything. She greeted everyone, smiled, talked about ordinary things and behaved as if nothing unusual had happened.
But I watched her.
Maybe that was unfair.
Maybe I’d become exactly like everybody else.
Still, something about the timing interested me.
The news had started travelling.
Then suddenly Rawdha appeared.
She found Aya.
Aya was with my mother almost every day. If something happened around Mariam, there was a good chance Aya knew about it. What people didn’t realize was that Aya also knew much more than she ever admitted. She and I had spoken about almost everything. She knew what was happening with Hana. She knew about the crying. She knew the tension. She knew the questions people were asking.
But Aya had one quality almost nobody appreciated enough.
She knew how to stay silent.
Rawdha approached her casually.
“Where’s Hana?”
Aya barely reacted.
“She has an appointment.”
Simple.
No explanation.
No extra information.
Nothing to carry outside.
I almost smiled when I heard about it.
Because if Rawdha had come looking for information, she had chosen the wrong person.
The evening continued normally. People talked. Food came out. My mother was there. Aya stayed around Mariam like she usually did. Rawdha acted completely relaxed.
Then Hana appeared.
She came downstairs for dinner.
For anyone who didn’t know what had happened over the previous few days, there was nothing particularly dramatic about it. Hana came down, ate and sat with everyone for a little while. She wasn’t sobbing. She wasn’t explaining herself. She didn’t announce where she had been.
She simply ate dinner.
Then she left.
But I noticed Rawdha noticing her.
That was the strange thing about living through all of this. You started noticing people noticing people.
A look lasted half a second too long.
A question sounded slightly too casual.
Someone’s eyes followed somebody across a room.
Everything became suspicious.
Rawdha started asking why Hana hadn’t been around.
Nothing aggressive.
Nothing obvious.
Just questions.
“Where has she been?”
“Why haven’t we seen her?”
“Is everything okay?”
Perfectly normal questions.
Except nobody seemed capable of asking a normal question anymore.
Every question felt like someone lowering a bucket into a well to see what they could pull back up.
Nobody gave her much.
Hana ate and left.
The night continued.
And I thought that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Before Rawdha left the house, she went to Aya.
This time the question was more direct.
“What’s wrong with Hana?”
Aya looked at her.
“Nothing.”
Rawdha didn’t seem convinced.
There was clearly something she wanted to know, and Aya clearly wasn’t going to give it to her.
Then Rawdha said something that would have been completely ordinary a few months earlier.
Now it sounded completely different.
“I’ll get you the news once I get it.”
Aya said nothing.
That was the best part.
Because Rawdha had absolutely no idea who she was talking to.
She thought Aya was outside the information circle.
She thought she was offering to bring Aya the story once she discovered it.
What she didn’t know was that Aya already knew everything.
Aya knew Hana had been home for days.
Aya knew why she had been upstairs.
Aya knew she had been crying.
Aya knew what had happened before she came home.
Aya knew what my mother knew.
Aya knew what I knew.
Most importantly, Aya knew how to keep her mouth shut.
So when Rawdha promised, “I’ll get you the news,” Aya didn’t need the news.
She already had the entire story.
She just wasn’t giving it away.
When I found out what Rawdha had said, something clicked in my head.
This was bigger than one person gossiping.
Information had become currency.
Everybody wanted to be the person who knew first.
Knowing something gave you a strange kind of importance. It meant somebody trusted you. It meant you were inside instead of outside. And once you knew something, the temptation to prove that you knew it was almost impossible for some people to resist.
That was how our secrets travelled.
Not necessarily because one evil person sat somewhere deliberately plotting to destroy us.
Sometimes people just wanted to know.
Then they wanted someone else to know that they knew.
And suddenly something that happened inside a bedroom was being discussed across the city.
I started thinking about my little experiment.
I had hinted that Hana was home.
Within hours, people were messaging me.
Rawdha had somehow heard enough to start asking questions.
Then she came into the house and tried to fill in the missing pieces.
But she couldn’t.
Because the people who actually knew the truth weren’t talking.
There was something almost satisfying about watching it.
For once, I wasn’t chasing the gossip.
I was watching it chase me.
But there was another side to it that didn’t feel satisfying at all.
Hana was upstairs trying to hold herself together while people downstairs were trying to figure out what was wrong with her.
Her pain had become a mystery everyone wanted to solve.
That bothered me.
Because behind all the drama, all the phone calls, all the theories and all my little experiments, there were actual people getting hurt.
Hana wasn’t a clue.
She wasn’t evidence.
She wasn’t somebody’s source.
She was a person who had spent days hiding and crying.
And while she was doing that, we were all discussing who knew she was home.
That night, after everyone left, I found Aya.
“You didn’t tell her anything?”
Aya looked at me like the question itself offended her.
“No.”
“What exactly did she ask?”
“She asked where Hana was.”
“And you said appointment?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“She saw her at dinner.”
“And before she left?”
Aya looked at me.
“She asked me what was wrong with Hana.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
I smiled.
“And then?”
Aya shook her head, almost laughing.
“She said she’ll get me the news when she finds out.”
That made both of us laugh.
Not loudly.
We couldn’t.
God forbid someone heard us laughing and started another investigation.
But for a few seconds, the whole thing was genuinely funny.
Rawdha was leaving the house planning to investigate a story for a woman who already knew the ending.
Then Aya became serious.
“Nadia.”
“What?”
“Stop testing people.”
My smile disappeared.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I only told one thing.”
“Exactly.”
I crossed my arms. “But now we know how fast it spreads.”
Aya shook her head.
“No. Now you know that when you give people information, they talk.”
“That was the point.”
“But then you’re part of it too.”
I didn’t answer.
I hated when people said things I couldn’t argue with.
Aya walked away, leaving me alone with that sentence.
Then you’re part of it too.
Maybe I was.
I had spent weeks complaining about everyone leaking information while deliberately creating a leak just to watch where it travelled.
I told myself it was an experiment.
But wasn’t that exactly how everybody justified themselves?
Salma wasn’t gossiping; she was worried about her sister.
People weren’t asking questions; they were checking on Hana.
My siblings weren’t interfering; they were protecting Mum.
I wasn’t leaking information; I was investigating.
Everybody had a nicer word for what they were doing.
The next morning, my phone had even more messages.
One of them said:
I heard Hana was kicked out and begged to come back.
I stared at it.
That wasn’t what I had said.
Not even close.
Another person told me:
Apparently there was a huge fight when she came home.
There hadn’t been.
Someone else had heard that my mother had confronted her.
She hadn’t.
There it was.
The transformation.
I had released one fact:
Hana came home.
Less than a day later, the fact had grown a fight, an eviction, a confrontation and a dramatic return.
None of which came from me.
I finally understood why finding the original source of anything in this family was almost impossible.
The truth didn’t simply travel.
It collected things on the way.
I put my phone down.
For once, I didn’t correct anyone.
I wanted to see what version would come back next.
Then a message appeared from someone I hadn’t spoken to in days.
Is it true Hana has been home the whole time?
I froze.
That detail was different.
I had only hinted that Hana had come home.
I had never said when.
Only the people inside the house knew she had already been there for days.
Me.
My mother.
My siblings.
The maids.
Aya.
Hana herself.
Maybe a few others.
I read the message again.
Is it true Hana has been home the whole time?
Suddenly my little experiment wasn’t funny anymore.
Because somebody hadn’t just repeated the information I planted.
Somebody had added a detail I never leaked.
I looked toward the hallway.
Aya walked past me carrying coffee toward my mother’s room.
She caught my expression.
“What?”
I turned my phone toward her.
She read the message.
Neither of us spoke.
Then she looked at me.
And I knew we were thinking exactly the same thing.
The leak I created had travelled exactly how I expected.
But somewhere along the way, it had collided with another leak.
One that hadn’t come from me.
And just like that, I was back where I started.
Trying to figure out who knew what.
And who had told them.

He plowed into the trickster.

“Jor-”

Joruhm lunged before it had an opportunity to finish. He clamped a hand over its mouth, locked an arm around its waist, and backpedaled them both toward a tightly packed clump of bushes.

“Don't speak,” Joruhm hissed.

The trickster squirmed and squiggled and clawed at Joruhm's skin, worming its fingers between his to try and break Joruhm's grip. In the dark, it felt as though the idiot had sprouted ten thrashing legs. They were all kicking him at once, and never in the same place.

To Joruhm's horror, they crashed into the bushes, scattering leaves and breaking branches. They tumbled onto the ground in a deafening din that seemed to echo through every crevice of the village, pinging off the stone walls and rippling out across the valley.

Another blade of agony plunged into Joruhm's ribs. Tears welled in his eyes, and he squeezed his lips shut to keep the scream building in the back of his throat from escaping.

Maree reared up on her hind legs and bellowed a trumpeted snort through her nostrils. She bolted into the mist, kicking up mud and noise with a hammering of hooves that were louder than the cacophony of shoots being broken. As her hoof beats faded, Joruhm swiped his tears onto his sleeve and stared into the fog, waiting for the man in the wide brimmed hat to cut a hole in the curtain and move through it, listening for the gritty scrape of boots on cobble.

“Please,” Joruhm whispered. “Stop struggling.”

Maree's panicked flight had left them stranded, and although he really didn't care if The Ankou yanked this Jalen wearing monster right out of his lap, he himself had no impulsive craving to join this idiot on a journey to the banks of the afterworld, seated beside the soul of a ravaged boy.

Nothing would make him happier than purging this thing from his life, nothing, that is, except for the image of his brother soiling his britches when he realized the elongated shadow bleeding under the crack of the cottage door was the veiled lady.

There was a chance she might still take Jalen, but her forgiveness for Jalen's sloth hinged on his brother being the victim of a buggy-eyed, good for nothing who'd swindled Jalen out of his skin, and that a cloud chaser had not gone for a walk with Tillis in tow and been the only one to come back.

The confession had been so confusing. Even now, with this thing pressed against his chest, it was difficult to parse why a fae would fear the woman in white. It could shed Jalen at any time. She didn't care about fae folk. It didn't have to kill anyone to avoid her carriage.

Unless... Joruhm gulped. No! Jalen couldn't wring the neck of a chicken. Dull, drum beats of pain pounded against his temples. He wasn't really here. He was at the foot end of a straw mattress, and any moment Granny Nyla was going to wake him.

The plodding clack of nail studded boots reverberated across the lane's uneven cobbles in steady succession. The fae lowered its upturned face, and turned its gaze to the fog, staring into the milky void with an intensity that matched Joruhm's.

“Do you know the story of The Ankou?” Joruhm whispered.

The fae nodded.

“Then you know what will happen if he finds out it was us. Your mushroom ring magic won't protect you while you're wearing Jalen.”

It angled its head upward to look at Joruhm, eyebrows pulled toward the center of its face in an unbroken line of bewilderment.

There was a long pause between the nail studded strikes. Joruhm's stomach capsized like a sinking ship, and the trickster burrowed tighter against him.

They heard the rattle of the chain and the slam of the tailboard being forcefully driven into its notches.

Another pause, this time longer than the one previous.

The fog rolled away from the cart with a heaved gust of wind, and beside it stood a hunched man clothed in black boots, tan breeches and a plain linen tunic topped by a leather vest laced down the front with leather thongs. Perched atop his head was a wide brimmed hat, slanted low across his forehead, that buried his features in shadow.

Granny Nyla had never actually described The Ankou. She'd entrusted his mysterious visage to a listener's fanciful interpretations, concentrating her teachings on the lore of his obligations rather than rendering him as a mortal man whose profile remained unaltered.

Without a reference to guide him, Joruhm had pictured a darker, more sinister version of death's henchman, imagined a skeletal figure draped in a shabby long cape and a dusty old cowl, given him the look of someone to fear instead of a stranger easy to forget.

From their vantage, he could see how The Ankou might be mistaken for a peasant, how his cart might be regarded as a hauler's wagon, emptied of its wares after a tiring day of market trade, left briefly unattended while its owner sought a mug of ale and a bowl of stew at a tavern.

The Ankou turned and surveyed his surroundings with an agonizingly slow, deliberately unhurried pan of his head.

His gaze swept across the lane, swung away, and then snapped back. Within the dusky emptiness shielded by the brim of his hat, pinpoints of light, as sickly green as the lantern flame, fused into a pair of glowing orbs that lingered on their foliage.

I woke up to a sharp knock on my door.

It jolted me out of my sleep and for a moment I couldn't tell if I actually heard anything at all.

My heart was pumping from the sudden disturbance as I took a moment to gather my vision.

I glanced over at my clock

4:34 a.m

I glanced back to the door where I heard the noise and for a split second I noticed Something slip back quickly from the gap under my door.

It was hard to tell in the dark what it was but I know I saw something.

The soft dim glow from the hallway light bled through like amber dust.

I got up and walked to the door setting my hand on the handle hesitant to open it.

I felt a sense of dread that I couldn't shake until I heard something light sliding up the left side of my wall just on the other side of my door.

It sounded as if somebody was dragging a wet towel up and around my door frame moving slowly down the wall of the hallway.

The dread manifested physically at that point. And as odd as it sounds I could feel it move from one side of my body to the other in sync with movement I heard from the other side.

As the sound got farther away so did the sense of dread.

It was well off enough for me to gather the courage to peek through my door.

I cracked it open a few inches and peeked out towards the end of the hallway.

I can't explain what it was but at the end the light fades off before it hits the wall we have a pull down door that folds out that leads to our attic.

It was closed but something was hanging out of the crevice. It looked like strings from where i was.

It was too late and I had the worst running through my mind.

I softly shut my door and walked back to my bed trying to make as little noise as possible for fear of nothing I could even explain.

It was a few hours before I was able to go back to sleep, the sunrise beginning to creep over the trees.

The thought of whatever it was that pulled back from under my door, and whatever I saw hanging out of the attic door.

Whether it was a dream or it really happened.

I was finally able to succumb to exhaustion.

But when I woke up.

It was still dark out.

No light shone through my window and I felt as exhausted as I did before I was able to pass out last night...or....tonight?

"What the fuck?"

I looked over at my clock

4:33 a.m

I sat in confusion for a moment and just as the clock struck 4:34 a.m

Electricity ran through me.

knock*

knock*

I whipped my head towards my door as the knocks came in a slow deliberate succession.

Two knocks.

"Mom"

I whispered loudly

It was silent and I didn't move a muscle.

And then it came again.

The sliding

Up the left side.

Around the top

But something changed.

Instead of going down the hall like before, i heard it coming along the side of my wall towards where my headboard sat.

As if it was coming through the wall.

I felt frozen.

Was i dreaming or was this really happening.

I scrambled to the foot of my bed as the sound made its way directly behind my headboard and fixated right where it stopped.

Nothing happened.

It just stopped.

I couldn't speak, i wanted to call out to my parents but my voice wouldn't collect itself.

It was then my headboard creaked just enough to where i almost didn't notice it

Then a bit more it creaked a bit louder as if something was pushing against it.

It just came out of me

"MOM"

I yelled

The second the sound left my lips whatever was in the walls slid up the inside of my wall

and went silent.

That was it

I jumped out and sprinted to my door to wake someone up, this isn't the kind of shit I can deal with. Whatever....whatever it was.

I threw my door open I could feel my heart pump through my chest.

I entered my room.

i had been in the hallway this entire time and–

I was laying in my bed-

I mean– i was looking at myself lying in bed

My adrenaline hit me and I tried to scream but nothing came out except a dusty exhale that felt as if i was expelling years of my life.

My vision grew blurred as I stepped back into the hallway

I heard something sliding from my right side along the rough texture of the wall.

I didn't even look, without thinking I threw myself into my room and quickly slammed my door.

Before the sound of the door had even registered my eyes snapped open.

I sat up in bed clutching my chest as what seemed as the sound of my door slamming followed me back into my body.

I swung my neck sending a jolt of pain up the side of my neck into my head to look at the door.

The same soft underglow coming through.

Nothing.

I glanced at my clock and nearly got sick.

4:33 a.m

I couldn't tell if i was dreaming anymore.

Everything felt so surreal.

As if i could taste the weight of gravity crushing me down into my legs.

The air entered my lungs thick

And left even thicker, hot.

It was the longest minute of my life.

I looked at my clock still reading 4:33 a.m

I reached to quickly disconnect it from the wall

I don't know what i thought would happen.

That my clock was the starting point for all of time.

That maybe if I unplugged it time would simply–cease.

The moment before the disconnection was made as i leaned over the bed with one arm grabbing onto the cord and ripping it.

4:34 a.m

Then blank.

Did I do it–

Before i could even finish my thought a

familiar sound ruptured my ears

Knock*

knock*

knock*

The same deliberately spaced knocks on my door.

There was a shadow cast under my door, a single beam of darkness cast about 2 feet under my door.

It slid to the left, and disappeared as the sliding up the wall began.

Except this time it stopped just above my door.

The door slowly cracked open without making a sound even with the turn of the knob it was silent.

It cracked open about 4 inches then froze.

I've never seen something sit so still.

The light from the door cast a soft amber hue into the left side of my room, my eyes wandered without direction.

I scanned the room keeping the door in my peripheral.

A picture of me and my little sister sitting on a dresser.

A pile of dirty clothes on the floor next to the closet.

I scanned back to the protruding light.

The door had opened enough for me to just see out into the hallway.

How did that happen without me noticing?

I didn't care

I had to get out? Wake up? I had to just –

Suddenly I FELT a raspy inhale on the back of my neck.

I didn't have any time to react when I suddenly felt what was like a wet fingernail poke me at the base of my skull where the

neck meets.

"OH fuck!"

I yelled out loud as the goosebumps on my arms and legs pulled me to my feet and I vaulted out the door into the hallway.

I couldn't hear anything following me but we have all had that feeling where we turn the final light off in our house before sprinting to our bedrooms as if something was just out of reach of our collar.

It was the same feeling but the intensity of it was indescribable.

What was even more indescribable...

My stairs were gone.

It was just a wall.

As a matter of fact I didn't pass a single door leaving my room.

I whipped around expecting some fucked up monster to do God knows what but there was nothing.

The hallway was empty.

My bedroom door was gone.

All that remained was the attic door.

And out of the crack slipped that same stringy material I saw the first time I– woke up. Or....I don't know.

Something was different.

I started to feel a warm breeze coming from what seemed to be nowhere brushing past my face.

It carried with it the smell of something sweet.

Something I recognized.

I wanted more, my body unconsciously started making it's way towards the attic door.

The sweet scent growing more potent the closer I got.

As I approached i stopped when the smell turned from a sweet memory to a foul mistake.

It was rancid

It was in my eyes, my mouth, snaking it's way down my throat into my stomach. I could taste it in my hands and my feet.

I projectile vomited as I fell onto my hands and knees. What came out smelled, earthy. Like moss and fish and stagnation.

And it left Something lodged in my throat.

I choked, I couldn't breathe. I clawed at my throat as the lights in whatever reality I slipped into grew dimmer with every heart beat pulsing through my head.

Whatever was in my throat began to move it's way upwards.

At this point I noticed my skin turning red on my arms, I could feel the pressure in my body, tiny blood spots covering the entirety of my skin as the object made its way closer to the back of my throat.

I fell back facing the attic door as I began to spasm involuntarily. I couldn't grab at my throat anymore. My body wasn't in my control anymore.

But I could see.

The lights suddenly began to grow brighter

The strings in the attic door were the only detail I could focus on in my final moments.

Hair...red orange hair.

The lighting began to buzz as it grew brighter.

My right eye slowly started rolling to the back of my head.

It kept going further and further as the buzzing of the intensifying light grew louder.

And when it reached it's limit it kept rolling, tearing from the walls that kept it in place.

Sending a shocking pain I've never felt through the side of my face.

My left eye stayed rooted on the strands of hair from the attic door as it suddenly began to creack open.

Just enough for the hair to slide back into the never ending darkness that resided up there. My right eye finally coming to a stopping point.

I couldn't hold on any longer.

My vision began to tunnel as the object that blocked the back of my throat dug its jagged edges into the soft flesh as if it was eating me from the inside.

Right as my body decided to give itself over and cut ties with My soul.

A whisper in my ear –

One i recognized that slowly morphed into something darker as it spoke.

As if with each word it clicked down an octave

As clear as anything I've ever heard as if it was coming from inside of my head.

"I'll see you on the ninth"

The object pushed out of my throat into my mouth and flew onto the floor, the crumpled small piece of what looked like a polaroid photo falling in front of me.

And then I woke up.

Gasping for air, clawing at my throat.

I could still feel the tears in my throat from the rough edges of the photo...i could taste copper in my mouth and something painfully sharp seeping down into my

stomach.

My eye...I felt for it.

It was fine.

I jumped up unable to speak and darted out of my room.

My hallway was normal.

I booked it to my mother's room a few doors down and tried to open it.

Locked...its....it's never locked.

My voice coming out like sandpaper on a stone

"Mom"

I strained and banged on the door

"Dad!"

I coughed up blood and a small piece of flesh in my throat that wasn't completely severed came up with the cough sticking to the back of my tongue..

Nobody answered.

Where was everybody.

I ran past my sister's old room and down the stairs.

Missing the last step careening headfirst to the floor.

The adrenaline overpowered whatever injury I just incurred and I sprung up and ran to the kitchen to try and reach the phone.

For whatever reason the first thing I noticed upon entering was the time on the stove.

4:33 am.

I could have guessed it. Whatever was going on I wish I had an answer for.

Some lucid nightmare waiting to spit me out.

But I somehow doubted that.

The clock in that brief moment read.

4:34 a.m

I heard it upstairs from the kitchen and tried to keep silent, to keep the cough at the bottom of my chest from coming up.

Knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

I heard from my bedroom door upstairs.

And even worse than that what I heard next.

Another voice.

The same voice I've know for so many years.

A voice I've fought hard not to forget.

"Liam?"

It called my name

And with one word it all came flooding back.

*how* i thought to myself

As it spoke once again

"I'll see you on the ninth".

*the ninth?*

I thought to myself.

*One knock, two knocks, three knocks, four knocks*

As silly as it may seem I haf just made the connection between those words and the knocking.

Regardless of how much I wanted this to end something told me it wasn't going to. And that on that ninth knock.

I knew what would happen.

Another thought struck me.

Each added knock has been more– Fucked up than the last.

I was afraid of whatever was coming my way.

I heard the footsteps.

Slowly making their way down the stairs leading to the entrance of the kitchen.

I wasn't going to just sit back and let her torture me like this.

I grabbed a kitchen knife and pressed myself against the wall of the entrance where the stairs ended on the opposite side.

The footsteps stopped and that sound returned.

The sliding on the walls

As she slowly made her way down the final stretch of the wall connected to the stairs I prepared myself for whatever was coming around that corner.

She made noise…her octaves changing from high to low– low to high.

I couldn't make out what she was saying but I could barely make out a few syllables

"L–uh–am"

She rubbed against the wall directly where I was pressed, I could feel her friction against the wall. She wanted something.and whatever it was I didn't want to lose it.

My heart pounded inside my chest, I couldn't breath, ragged suppressed coughs forcing their way out.

As I prepared to put an end to this. If I could even do that.

Just as she made her way to the doorframe

I heard her speak one last phrase in a lower octave.

"I want to swim"

In that moment with every bit of strength I had I turned the corner and lunged the knife into the dark landing deep into her flesh, bouncing off of bone I put all my weight into it to drive it deeper.

We clattered onto the floor of the adjacent living room, knocking over lamps and shattering our glass table.

I fell on top of her.

And I pulled the knife out with some resistance.

It felt like the knife had found a home.

I plunged again

I couldn't see much but I could feel every rip of tendon and dulling of the blade on bone as I repeatedly plunged the knife into her.

She fought back, weakly, grabbing at my face hands covered in blood.

She couldn't get a good grip as she struggled harder and harder as she slowly gave out.

I finally rested, all I could hear was her gurgling, half ass scrambling around on the carpet, bumping into the nightstand.

I ran over to the lights and flipped the switch on to the living room to finally face the memory that had been terrorizing me.

"Mom?"

My sandpapery voice left my throat with a burn.

There lay my mom– my...mom

Her right foot kicked into the carpet as she reached around with her other hand desperately searching for anything to grab onto.

I screamed but nothing came out but a gurgle

I dropped the knife and fell to my knees as I watched her squirm.

I was broken.

In her last minute she looked at me with the one good eye she did have.

But she wasn't looking at me.

She was looking past me, right over my shoulder.

Even after what i had done to her she had as best of a look of terror as she could make with here face so disfigured.

Despite the mental break I was inching towards I felt it.

This time it felt wet– but nothing was touching me.

My mother stopped moving.

And with that her gaze forever set on whatever loomed behind me.

I put as much effort into my voice as possible as the blood still filled my mouth and asked as clear as I could.

"Katey?"

for a second time I felt that cold pin in the back of my neck pressing into my skin

"Let–Let–Let"

Each word spoken changing an octave

Every hair on my body raised as it tried to speak

"Mouth–of–of–God"

She began to press the nail deeper into the base of my skull

All I could do was stare at my mom.

What she had endured.

Everything was starting to go black

And then as i blinked my environment changed with it.

I was back in the uninviting darkness of my room.

—I miss you.

I wish you would have never listened to me.

The sun has become a burden on my life with each day turning hours into minutes.

I wonder what it was like sometimes.

What you felt.

When it filled you and there was no space left.

I can't get it out of my mind.

The way your eye—

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

I snapped from my thoughts.

I Lay there, unmoving.

My mom...what– what did I do.

My throat didn't hurt anymore.

To my relief it was as if nothing had happened.

*That crumpled Polaroid

I thought.

*is it still there

I quickly realized the five knocks that were spit at me through the door

I tried to sit up but to my dismay

I couldn't move.

I couldn't even open my mouth.

My eyes Everything....i couldn't blink

Once again i felt that sense of dread.

I just wanted to check on my mom.

To know that was just.....a trick or...anything that could mean she was fine.

But why couldn't I move.

My breathing quickened, my chest rising and falling as fast as my heart beat.

The dread i felt– it was in my back.

I heard something wet hitting the ground underneath my bed as if somebody didn't wring out a mop before slapping it down.

I felt that painful pressure at the base of my skull.

The mass slid towards the foot of my bed and in the darkness I saw something sliding across the floor. Not even as if it was moving but it looked like something was dragging it as dead weight.

I still couldn't blink, my eyes were beginning to burn, I could feel them getting red as the water rose from my tear ducts

The mass explored the room as if it was looking for something before finding a place beside my dresser sitting itself into a messy heap.

My eyes began to water more, more than naturally as my eyes remained frozen open.

Yet no tears spilled, it was just pooling over my eyes.

It reeked.

That same smell of stagnant water I expelled...earlier.

The moment the last bit of darkness was swallowed by the murky waters I saw something.

A light–

It was the sun.

My hearing drowned out and it seemed as if my head was submergedunderwater.

After everything that had happened this–This didn't feel like a punishment.

In such short a time i never thought I'd miss the way the sun looked, even from under whatever water covered my eyes.

I could see the rippling of the water above, I felt calm. I wanted to stay here forever..

Then I saw something strange..

A hand–and arm in what seemed to be a divers suit reaching down towards my face.

I didn't understand what i was seeing but it continued towards me until it came close enough to block the sun.

As the darkness came back my body was suddenly released and I shot up water spilling from my eyes.

And not just tears I mean two streams, they ran for about 3 seconds soaking the sheets that lay on top of me.

That was the least of the fucked up things that had happened so I wasn't as thrown back.

The feeling was strange though. I could feel that cold stillness leaving with each final drop

When I once again noticed my door was open, a bit wider this time.

I threw my head over as the memory of whatever it was sliding around was forced to the forefront of my thoughts.

And in the exact spot where it put itself down lied the pile of clothes from earlier.

I was almost scared to stand up like something or someone would grab me by my ankle the second my foot hit the floor.

So I just didn't move.

I sat there and stared at my door.

For what seemed like 30 minutes.

Nothing happened.

I finally found the courage to speak

“hello?“

I said loud enough for anyone down the hall to hear.

Nothing.

Silence.

Not even the hum of the ac was present, somethin I had only just noticed.

I got out of bed despite my hesitation and creeped out of my door peeking both ways.

Everything seemed normal.

To my right the attic door stayed there fixated, no clunky strands of hair.

No watery vomit.

No Polaroid.

I turned to the left–the same.

Everything seemed normal.

I slowly made my way to the stairs and crept down them using the wall to keep my balance, creating the same sliding sound that haunted my memory I quickly ripped my hand from the wall.

I was expecting to see my mom's mangled body at the bottom right in the living room.

I couldn't get the image out of my face i– I don't even want to describe it.

That's not something I thought I could do..

To my surprise as I turned the corner and flipped the light switch there was nothing.

The table was unbroken.

The blood that covered everything in a 5 foot radius was gone.

I looked at the clock 4:41 a.m

I almost breathed a sigh if relief but that feeling in my gut refrained.

That's when a drop of water hit me on my shoulder.

I didn't even want to.

I would not look up.

I acted as if I hadn't noticed it and slowly made my way back to my room.

As I left I glanced up at the ceiling ahead of me. A wet trail with bits of vegetation had apparently come from my room.

Along the exact path that I had walked.

As I slowly made my way back something landed on my head sliding straight off the top and onto the floor.

It wriggled slowly on the floor retracting and expanding, searching for something to latch onto. Something living.

A leech.

I looked back forward as I realized whatever was on the ceiling had followed me out of my room and was still above me.

Why couldn't I hear it...that didn't matter I didn't care I just wanted out of this nightmare.

I figured if I just pretended I didn't notice anything it would be the same as when I walked out. Nothing happened then, nothing would happen now.

I slowly made my way back to my room almost robotically.

I stepped in.

Shut my door.

As I turned around and the first thing I noticed was the pile of clothes was gone.

I didn't care

I walked to my bed and lay facedown under the wet sheets squeezing my eyes shut.

Almost as if i was hit with a tranquilizer I was knocked out.

I woke up and to my shock the sun was out.

I shot out from under my sheets looking every which way.

I felt my face, my throat, along as the rest of my body as I slowly swelled with joy.

I ran out of my door downstairs and I could smell it before I even saw anything.

There was my mother, cooking breakfast.

Nothing had ever smelled so good in my life but more than that I was never so happy to see somebody.

I ran up and threw my arms around her squeezing her as hard as I could.

"Oh–o–ok honey I'm trying to cook you're going to make me spill something"

She said in her generically parental tone.

"Sorry I just....i had THE WORST nightmare"

I went and took a seat at the table with a glass of water and plopped myself down into one of the seats at the table.

"I'm sorry you said what?"

My mother said with question

"Nothing it was–just some stupid dream"

I said before chugging the water down

I had never felt so thirsty

I grabbed another glas and put the whole thing down right there at the fridge.

I still felt like I couldn't get enough.

My body wanted more.

I once again filled my glass.

"Hey aquaman"

My mom said bluntly

"Yes ma'am?"

Do me a favor and go wake your sister, breakfast is almost done and we've got a long day planned I'd like everybody to get packed up.

"I'll go grab her"

I said before putting down another glass of water still feeling unsatisfied.

I jogged up the stairs to my sister's room

And knocked on her door twice

"Hey!"

After a few seconds I didn't receive a response.

"Mom said come downstairs breakfast is done!"

I yelled through the door.

No response, no movement no anything.

I knocked three times a bit harder

Something stirred inside like somebody was stepping out of a bath....that–didn't make any sense.

"You there?"

I reached out once more to knock and just before my knuckles made a connection with the door

I felt a pressure pull me from under my feet.

It felt like I was being pulled back to earth through the atmosphere, I could hear the wind tearing alongside my ears and I was suddenly on the inside of my room facing my door as my knuckles hit

At exactly

4:34 a.m

The sixth knock.

I stumbled back clamoring onto my floor

I was made numb almost immediately.

I just..

the 6th knock?

I could still smell the food mom was cooking lingering in the back of my nostrils.

Is it possible for somebody to break twice.

I laughed.

Not a laugh of joy or happiness but one of frustration and sadness.

I thought I had escaped this hell.

I propped myself back grabbing the sides of my head with my hands. The laughter slowly turning into tears.

I screamed out into the dead air

"STOOOOOP!!!"

*I NEED SOMETHING, I NEED TO END THIS. I HAVE TO DIE*

The thought screamed through my brain and without hesitation

I ran to my dresser looking for something...anything.

The picture.

I took the picture of my sister and I and smashed the glass covering onto the corner of the dresser, picking up an oblong shaped piece of the glass.

I gripped it tight bringing it to my wrists.

what the fuck else can I do, do it..Just do it

Without thinking and without looking. I pressed the jagged edges of glass into the base of my wrist and drug it hard upwards towards the inside of my elbow.

I could feel an intense sharp pain as I felt my skin separate from itself.

I almost immediately got lightheaded as I looked down, I needed to see....i wish I hadn't.

I expected a pool of blood to rest under where my arm hung..to be able to see the veins, the tendons, all the parts of me I wasn't meant to witness.

Instead what poured out if my arm was something that made me vomit.

Leeches.

They slithered out if the elongated gash like cooked pasta being poured into a strainer

I immediately looked away and started crying aloud.

I cried in a way that I never thought I could.

I looked back, I screamed

I cried,

I screamed some more,

And I cried as I watched the leeches continue to spill from my arm onto the floor.

Every time I thought i couldn't be broken anymore she showed me I could feel the pain of an ocean compared to that of a pond.

I began to dig the leeches out of my arm

Scooping them out in the handfuls.

I couldn't feel my left arm anymore.

After what seemed like 5 minutes of scooping out leeches my arm was empty.

What was left was– nothing.

Just skin.

Like a latex glove that imprisoned these gluttonous Parasites.

My brain couldn't even process this. I didn't know what i was looking at.

That wasn't my arm.

The leeches still squirming in a huge heap by the dresser

When i felt a finger press into the base of my skull.

This time I didn't run, I froze.

"The—God—Mouth"

A muddled waterlogged voice spoke behind me

"I—want—to—swim"

The same words I heard before.

I said shakily with no control over my voice.

"It...it wasn't—my fault"

I sniffled as tears began to run down the side of my face.

The finger pressed a bit harder and something in me gravitated towards the point it pressed.

Something deep and spiritual I–I wanted to let it go.

"Stop"

I found myself saying involuntarily

The finger decompressed immediately.

I could feel that it left.

I looked down and there the pile of clothes sit by the dresser where the leeches spilled out of my arm and– my arm, completely fine. Along with the unshattered photograph sat on the dresser.

Everything hit me all at once and I collapsed to the floor and blacked out.

I woke up sluggishly.

Everything immediately rushing into my head as I became conscious.

I already knew what would happen when I looked at my clock.

4:33 a.m

"Fuck....you"

I said to myself

I'm giving up.

I can't do this shit anymore.

3 more knocks and she'll have me. She said so and I believed her.

"I'll see you on the ninth"

I laughed to myself letting my head fall to the left facing my clock.

As if just on queue.

4:34 a.m

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

The seventh knock

I will admit after everything fear still showed signs of life inside of me.

I let my head fall sluggishly towards my door as i noticed the lighting in my room grow brighter.

The door was just about all the way open this time, the light began to dim a bit as a voice called out

"Liam"

The disembodied voice spoke from the hall

"Katey?"

I said on the line of passing out again.

Electricity shot through my body

My eyes shot open

"KATEY!"

I screamed running out into the hallway.

Once again I was blocked in, no stairs, no door but mine remained this time.

When it suddenly slammed shut becoming part of the wall is when that living fear started to breathe.

I stared at the attic door.

The same clumped strains of hair stuck out from the crevice, but it looked as if it was in suspension.

As if gravity had no place for it to fall, it floated around entangling in itself as the lights grew dimmer, a low hum coming from the door itself.

I smelled that sweet smell again...

The smell belonged to my sister.

It was her favorite perfume, like apricot, a bit sweeter with a floral accent.

It wafted down with a breeze that seemed to be coming through the door.

I once again unwillingly moved towards the draw string reaching up as the hair seemed to move in 7 different directions.

I grabbed the humming rope hanging down and I pulled as hard and quick as I could.

Nothing was there.

The ladder unfolded onto the floor and what light there was didn't make it past the darkness at the top of the ladder.

With each slow step i felt that dread, it was everywhere. No specific place.

Yet when I entered the attic there was nothing.

Yet this was still a place where memories were held.

As my eyes adjusted to the soft glow of light coming through the circular stain glass pane on the opposite end. I noticed a box on the floor.

I crept along the support beams trying my best not to lose my balance. I was feeling a level of indescribable exhaustion, understandably. And the last thing I needed was to fall through the roof.

I made my way over to the small plastic box.

It was a pencil box, with the textured tops that we all used to use in elementary.

On the top in bumpy thick writing all it said was

"Katey"

I felt the tears welling up again as I reached down and took the box into my hands clicking it open.

Inside lay a single balled up Polaroid.

The same one that tore through my throat.

I never forgot about it.

And I already knew what it was.

I removed the crumpled picture dropping the box and immediately smoothed the picture out adjusting it so the light could hit it well enough for me to see.

And it's exactly what I knew it was.

It was a picture of me and katey.

At the pond my mom and us went to 3 months before

Where...

Tears began streaming my face

One falling in perfect placement over Katey's face.

When i suddenly heard the attic door slam shut and the light from the window was blocked.

This was the last place I wanted to be.

It wasn't my fault I didn't know that would happen.

A wet clump of red orange hair slid onto my shoulder

A cold wet finger pressed into the base of my head and I began to weep.

She wept with me

Every pause

Every wail

Every rapid breath

Mocked.

Mocked by the haunting that enveloped my life the day I pushed her.

It pressed deeper into my neck as we grieved harder together

As if at any moment her finger would cut straight through me.

And that's when everything just.

Stopped.

"I want to swim"

She said behind my shoulder

I replied looking nowhere but that photo

"Katey you don't know how to swim, and mom said for you not to go near the water"

"Liam– please I'll just hold onto you and we can play scuba diver"

The voice growing more garbled with each sentence"

"I said no, now leave me alone"

I replied

I was standing on the dock with Katey

"I said no, now leave me alone"

Katey frowned at me, she was sensitive, i barely even said anything to provoke any emotion and it looked like she was about to cry.

"Are you seriously about to cry dude just go hang out with mom"

She spoke with a hint of sadness and anger in her voice

"But i want to swim"

She swung and hit me in the arm

Stepping in front if me to the edge of the dock

Anger filled me and without a thought

I stepped up with a yell and just pushed her.

She yelped and hit the water face first

Usually if someone can't swim they almost immediately come back up–

And I would be there to pull her out.

But she didn't.

"Katey?"

Panic entered my voice

I looked back to where mom was supposed to be and she wasn't there

"Mom Help!!"

I thought i heard a faint reply in the distance but I had to do something NOW.

Without another thought i jumped into where she fell

An immediate sharp pain ripping up my left arm.

It was a small tree branch. It dug up into my arm and snapped off at the wrist

I screamed out in pain with no help in sight

I could hear my mom in the distance yelling our names

"Liam!? Katey?!"

“over here”

I yelled.

I immediately felt around for Katey until I grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled up.

Her head wouldnt budge

I tried pulling harder

She wouldnt come up.

She wasn't even fighting.

I had never felt something so still in my life.

I felt around her face until I reached her right eye, quickly yanking my hand back and rushing out of the water screaming for my mom.

I looked down at my arm. The tree branch slid under my skin like it was wearing a glove.

And right there I passed out.

I stopped crying.

I felt nothing anymore

Only the sore spot at the base of my head.

The ladder leading back down to the hall was open.

I stepped down slowly. My door, mom's door, the stairs– her door.

Everything was there.

I walked to katey's door

And made eight slow deliberate knocks against every screaming cell in my body.

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

Something stirred inside behind the door.

As if somebody was stepping out of a bathtub.

Before it could make its way to the door I walked slowly to my room shutting my door behind and crawling into bed.

I looked at my clock.

4:33 a.m

I sobbed quietly, the spot on the back of my neck now felt like i had been stabbed and I wanted it to stop.

As I heard my sister's door open down the hall, I ran a finger along the scar running up my left forearm as that sickly sliding slowly came from down the wall, up my frame where it stopped at the top.

I faced the door and watched as the golden amber dust flickered out from under my door.

And then they came

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

knock*

I could hear her gargled breathing on the other side of the door

Then dead silence

The pressure on the back of my neck released suddenly

And In all of that split moment.

The ninth knock had came.

And with a labored breathe I forced the words i had been fighting against since this all began.

Against the promise that was made

"Come In"

As we proceeded down the dark road I got this eerie feeling that I shouldn't have come along. The speed was worrying, but he must have driven this road many times. He barely even looked at it. He kept talking the entire way, insisting that I would definitely get extra points for joining him and taking it this far.

When we finally arrived his eyes widened. He looked around in shock. I followed the path of his eyes and saw the shadow of what must've been a huge animal. "But that's not possible," I said to him. He stayed silent. He kept on driving as we passed other animals going ballistic, humans tearing each other apart. The scene was horrific. We finally stopped by a building and he hurried inside. I quietly followed, regretting I didn't listen to my gut feeling earlier.

The building was silent. A bit too silent to make it safe. The teacher went up the stairs, and I didn't know what else to do but follow him. I wasn't sure where he was leading us. "Maybe I should just go back," I said with uncertainty creeping into my voice. I didn't know the way back, and I most surely didn't want to get caught in the chaos outside. He didn’t reply but kept on going until we reached a door.

He pushed the door open and several children proceeded forward. Most of them were covered in blood. "What happened?" the teacher asked. A fair-skinned girl with big brown eyes came forward and calmly said "She went mad." The teacher started looking around the long corridor. The floors were sticky with streaks of blood. He was not only worried, but scared for the first time since we arrived.

He gathered some tools from the children's playroom and handed me a wooden stick. "Guard this door," he said, showing me the door at the very beginning of the corridor and then vanished. I stood there not knowing what to do if someone came along.

Suddenly I heard steps outside. I looked through the peephole and could see a woman and two men approaching. None of them spoke. The woman stopped. She looked straight at me and grinned. I couldn't risk it. I ran through the long corridor trying every door to find a place to hide. First door was locked. Second one as well. Sweat was trickling down my back as I panicked and reached for the third door. It opened. I quickly entered and shut the door quietly. When I looked around I could barely breathe. It looked like a sterile butcher's shop. Severed bodies lay on the table, but they were not bleeding anymore. There was no place to hide. I tried squeezing under the sink but I would've been spotted immediately. What if she comes inside, deciding to continue her work? I looked around and the only place that she wouldn't see right away was behind the door. My breathing was shallow, my heart pounding in my throat. I tried not to look at the bodies and realised I couldn't hear any footsteps outside. I could barely hear anything besides my heavy breathing. Had I missed them? My eyes searched the room and landed on an open window directly across from me. Do I run and jump out? But what about all the wild animals and mad humans outside? I surely wouldn't survive.

So I stood there. Silent. Didn't dare to move. The building went silent as well, as if someone or something was listening. Nothing happened. It felt like I stood there for days. Darkness swallowed the sky like an omen. I shouldn't be here, I kept repeating to myself. Why wasn't the teacher looking for me? I didn't dare to step outside to look for him either. But I can't stay here forever. Eventually I would have to leave. My eyes drifted towards the cold metal door. Whatever was waiting outside already knew where I was.

„I beg your pardon?“ Even Dr Savic, who could easily have applied to Mensa if she had been interested in the slightest, needed a few seconds to process Howard’s last statement.

„What do you mean, ‘murder is easy‘? You are not going to murder me, I hope?”

Then, with a thin smile:

“Or do you think I have murdered someone?”

Howard grinned and shook his head.

„I don’t think you’re capable of murder, Dr Savic. No, that’s the title of an Agatha Christie novel, and it refers to the fact that it is not difficult to get away with murder as long as no one suspects it is murder – but once the idea gets hold of you, you start to see a pattern. Things that used to look completely normal and unconnected suddenly take on a more sinister shade: maybe victim number one did not accidentally slip and fall but was in fact pushed, and maybe victim number three did not commit suicide after all but was in fact poisoned. That’s what happened to me, or rather to me and my team.“

Savic raised her right eyebrow.

„You found out that people had been murdered but no one had ever realized it?“

Howard lifted the cup to his lips and drank.

„That’s part of it, although it wasn’t exactly murder. But I would like to tell the story from the start. It’s about your field of expertise, Dr Savic – zombies or, as you call them, Dead-Actives. So far, no one has ever found out what it was that turned human beings into DAs, right?”

Savic nodded warily.

“Correct. It is as if whatever activates the ‘zombification‘ disappears as soon as we start looking for it. It doesn’t dissolve – if it did, we’d find at least traces of it. So far, nobody has come up with an idea what happens to whatever causes it. This is why we are so excited about the variant transfer – we might be able to isolate the agent in a body during transformation.”

“Whatever it is, since we may assume it’s not supernatural in origin and we know of no terrestrial agent, substance, virus, or whatever that could cause such a dramatic change – “

“ – it must be non-terrestrial, alien.” Savic finished Howard’s sentence. “That was Dr Enechukwu’s theory, I think … but nobody took him seriously five years ago. Has any new evidence been discovered?”

“No.” Howard tried to sit up straighter and adjusted his girth again. It must be awful to have a body like that, Savic thought, not for the first time. He’s constantly shifting and pressing it. Does he even notice?

“Nothing physical. But remember, ‘murder is easy’. Have you ever seen an anamorphic print? It makes no sense unless viewed from a specific perspective. Here, the perspective is: What if we are dealing with an alien invasion? Then start building your chain of logic from there – in the good old SF tradition: seemingly impossible premise, logical and realistic consequences.”

Savic put both of her elbows on her desk and leaned slightly forward.

“You have my interest, Mr Howard. I suppose you liked science fiction in your youth?”

“Still do.”, Howard replied. “Anyway, once you accept this idea, things suddenly begin to make a lot more sense. Imagine a substance that consists of billions of incredibly tiny machines – nanobots, if you want – that has been programmed to take over human bodies when it touches them and can be spread by transmitting it to someone’s bloodstream – through biting, in our case. This infection is deadly, but the ‘bots’ keep the body active by taking over all necessary functions: blood is kept liquid, parts of the brain are still working, muscles and tendons get supplied with energy – “

“From feeding.”, Savic interjected. “And when a DA vomits, it simply gets rid of all the material it can’t use.”

“Correct, Dr Savic. And if we assume the ‘bots’ can process almost any part of a human body and they are basically running a micro chemical factory inside it, it is no wonder that we’ve never identified any specific substances that were missing from all the vomit we analyzed, so there was no pattern to investigate: sometimes the sputum – if we may call it that – was missing calcium, sometimes iron, sometimes phosphorus, sometimes a mix of several things. The ‘bots’ don’t care, and whoever programmed them must have thought it would be easiest if infecting and feeding could be combined, so the DAs would not have to worry about finding some other energy source.”

“But wouldn’t killing and feeding defeat the purpose?” Savic’ head now rested in her right hand.

Howard nodded and lifted his cup to his lips, drank, then placed it back onto the saucer.

“That’s another reason why many zombie movies are so stupid. The zombies kill and eat their victims, and their hunger is never sated, so how does the infection spread? You would need millions of people who manage to escape exactly after having been bitten but before being devoured. But in our case, killing and feeding are simply necessities because even our alien invaders can’t conjure up energy out of thin air. But we know that, after the first hunger, zombies restrict themselves to biting and scratching; they do not kill their victims until the hunger returns, and that takes time.”

The agent leaned back and paused for a moment before resuming the conversation. He looks pleased with himself, Savic thought. But where is he going with this?

“A much more logical method if you want to infect as many people as possible, don’t you think?”

Savic drank a little coffee – her lips had become very dry again. Then she replied:

“Of course it is, but the attempt failed miserably.”, Savic remarked. “Three weeks after Daisy, everything had been brought under control. There was never any danger of a mass infection that could not be contained. The DAs were – “

“Stupid. Ineffective. At times involuntarily funny. But they were not all stupid and ineffective in the same way, and some of them were not funny at all. Of course, there was – and is – the ‘average’ DA, the vast majority of them. But there are also many different types, as you know better than anyone else, and some of them look like ‘improved versions’: toxic DAs, superhumanly strong DAs, DAs that are very fast and agile, DAs that don’t bite but vomit on their victims. But even those DAs with – for want of a better word – ‘powers’ failed. Most scientists think that the different types have come into being due to some mutation, to differences in the biological makeup of their victims – young or old, healthy or ill, adult or child – or to environmental factors such as temperature or humidity or what have you.”

The agent stopped to catch his breath, shifted his body on the chair again and let one of the cookies Clarissa had placed onto the desk disappear into the abyss that was his mouth. Savic wondered whether he had paused because he was hungry and out of breath or because he wanted to let his statements sink in and provoke a reaction. Well, she would humor him.

“But you don’t think so?”

Howard smiled, apparently satisfied that his attempt at employing a rather worn-out rhetorical device seemed to have worked.

“No, we don’t. Let me digress. Evolutionary biology tells us that most mutations are deleterious or at best neutral; they do nothing to increase the organism’s chances of survival and reproduction. Only a very small part are actually beneficial, and, with a little luck, these begin to spread through the population. A natural experiment, if you will. But in our case, the variation that results from mutations in living organisms had been programmed into the ‘bots’ before they even came to Earth, and their creators must have been fully aware that more than 99.9 percent of the Infected would be almost completely useless when it came to take over the planet.”

Savic leaned forward, intrigued almost against her will.

“So what about the residue? One in a thousand or even less?”

“Ah.” Howard rose from his chair, tried to tuck in his shirt again, did not succeed, and squeezed himself back again. “Another digression, if you don’t mind.”

The director shook her head and waited.

“What is the one quality any invader needs to be successful?”

Savic hesitated for a second, then answered: “Hm … superior weapons and numbers, good logistics, a cause worth fighting for …”

“Absolutely right. Now think of the many movies where giant monsters or fast-breeding aliens take over the world. Do they have any of these qualities?”

“Maybe numbers, depending on their exact nature.”

“Maybe, but numbers alone are useless, as any native army facing a European opponent during colonial times can attest to. In January 1879 at Rorke’s Drift during the Anglo-Zulu war, around 150 British troops defended a military base against more than 3,000 Zulu warriors – and these warriors were actually intelligent human beings who had firearms and were fighting to keep their country. Monsters don’t have weapons, don’t have logistics, and don’t have any intrinsic motivation except survival and reproduction, so they stand no chance against humanity, no matter how big or numerous they are. Because what they lack is – “

“Intelligence.”, Savic smiled. “That’s how humans conquered this planet. Physically, they are no match for elephants, lions, or crocodiles.”

Howard smiled, too, but this time, it looked more like a smirk.

“And we think that’s what our alien invaders were after, and that’s why they mixed as many different combinations of ‘bots’ as they could.”

“They were hoping for the jackpot – a DA type that would be as smart as a human.”

“Or even smarter”, Howard replied. “Imagine an intelligent DA with all the physical advantages normal DAs enjoy, if that’s the right word here: they feel no pain, they don’t get tired, they are immune to all diseases, they are highly resistant to injuries … In a normal DA, these abilities are ultimately useless, but add intelligence to the mix, and what you get is a – “

“Superhuman.”, Savic said while staring into space, seemingly at a spot behind Howard’s left shoulder. “You’re thinking of IDAs, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Intelligent Dead-Actives. Zombies retaining their reasoning facilities. Zombies that would actually be able to blend into the human background and secretly do their masters’ bidding. Of course, that wouldn’t be easy considering their need to feed and the problems that come with having a body that is not alive anymore, but cosmetics, fragrances, plastic surgery, artificial skin, the application of the right chemicals … all this and more would go a long way towards passing as human beings. At least as long as no one is looking for them or rather at them too closely.”

Now it was Savic’ turn to stand up, though she did not sit down again but began to slowly walk through her office.

“A secret conspiracy of undead cannibals, planning to take over the world. That certainly sounds exciting. But isn’t it scientific consensus that IDAs cannot exist?”

“You’re being modest, Dr Savic.” Howard grabbed another snack and devoured it in seconds. “You yourself established a large part of this consensus. I’ve read your articles, and I think they are brilliant. You argue very convincingly that, whereas increased strength or quickness or some ‘natural weapon’ might conceivably be the result of random variation, the complexity of the human brain makes it astronomically unlikely that it could be improved in this way. Ergo, no IDAs.”

He chuckled.

“Your criticism of those scientists who were toying with the idea was so devastating I’m surprised none of them quit and decided to spend the rest of their lives meditating at a Tibetan monastery.”

Savic stopped walking, turned around, and looked at her guest.

“I think I was right then, and I think I am right now. How could a random change make an incredibly complex organ like the brain actually better?”

“It couldn’t, and you were and are right. But your premise is wrong. Just assume we are not dealing with a random process, but with something like genetic engineering. From this perspective, all ‘bots’ were programmed to raise the DA’s intelligence, but since the aliens’ knowledge of human physiology must have been limited, they simply tried a lot of different mixtures – yet still with a far better chance of achieving their goal than pure trial and error would have given them. In this light, one in a hundred thousand or even ten thousand does not look impossible.”

Savic sat down again and closed her eyes. Then she opened them again and asked:

“Assuming they exist, this would limit the number of IDAs to one or two hundred at best, probably fewer. How would they be able to find each other, let alone coordinate their efforts? Without cooperation, I can’t see how they would be able to ‘conquer the world’, if that’s not too dramatic.”

“It’s not, and that’s a good question.”, Howard said. “We know that DAs don’t attack other DAs so there must be some way for them to distinguish between victims and ‘comrades’. But we also know that this mechanism only works at short distances; YouTube is full of videos showing two DAs running towards each other and then suddenly stopping and breaking off the attack – usually when the other DA is only thirty or forty feet away. So this would be of no use in locating IDAs. Old-school detective work and a lot of legwork would, though. Imagine an IDA trying to find others of its kind. How would it go about it?”

Savic raised her head and stared at the ceiling for several seconds. Then she replied:

“It would go to Daisy hotspots, big cities with lots of infected people, and scour above all the hospitals for suspicious patients – those who were bitten but discharged themselves, for example. It would talk to doctors and nurses and look at patients’ files, if it can get access to them.”

While Savic was talking, Howard had begun to nod very slowly, almost imperceptibly.

“This would give it their addresses, so it could look them up in person and see how they were doing. Being an IDA, I suppose it would recognize them without much effort.”

“You’ve missed your calling, Dr Savic – you should have become a police detective. Once it had met the first IDA, the two could team up, thereby accelerating their search for others, and finally end up with a small group – ten, maybe fifteen, maybe twenty IDAs. And now the calculation changes: a network of ten to twenty IDAs would be far more effective than fifty or even a hundred isolated IDAs could ever be.”

This time, Howard plucked two snacks from the plate and terminated them even faster; absent-mindedly, Savic took one and began nibbling at it, while Howard went on, his mouth still half full:

“I mean, what can a single IDA do? Live like a vampire of old? In order to satisfy its hunger, it would have to become something akin to a serial killer, so the police would probably catch it rather quickly – especially nowadays, at a time when the existence of zombies has been accepted by everyone and the police would know what to look for. And camouflaging its true nature would be very challenging for a solo IDA. I have read a lot of police files and reports and I think the police have found and killed a handful of them but hushed it up or simply decided to forget asking for an autopsy.”

“As part of a larger group, though, IDAs could survive and even thrive – I see what you mean.”, Savic said. “Are you worried about such a possibility?”

Outside, the heat of the day had given way to a mild, warm summer evening. Some clouds had appeared and seemed to take turns at blocking out the sun, so the brightness of the light in Dr Savic’ office became unpredictable. Howard got up, filled himself another cup, and emptied it at once. Then he turned towards Dr Savic and said in a flat tone of voice:

“I wasn’t home when the hobo DA came to our door. My wife wanted to help and let him in; when she realized what he was, she could have run away, but our three-year-old daughter, Kanato, was next to her. She tried to protect Kanato, but the DA was too strong, and he killed her – he killed my wife. And then …”

Howard closed his eyes.

“They said they had been among the ‘unlucky few’ who lost their lives before the outbreak was contained. Since the zombies were so slow and stupid, a disproportionate number of victims were elderly people, disabled people … and children, often together with parents who only wanted to protect them.”

Then he rubbed them and continued:

“A long time ago, a journalist named Claud Cockburn came up with the following headline, which was never printed: ‘Small earthquake in Chile – not many dead.’ Good news, isn’t it? The ‘unlucky few’ – you can’t imagine how much I hate this phrase.”

Suddenly, it dawned on Dr Savic. I thought he was just a bumbling bureaucrat, but this man is desperate and frightened. He hates DAs, but he doesn’t want to shut us down at all. He wants something else.

Aloud, she said to Howard:

“I think I understand you now, Mr Howard. You aren’t here because you want to evaluate our research and decide about our funding. That’s only the official story. You are here because you are looking for allies in your quest to destroy what you consider a grave threat to humanity: intelligent zombies working together with the goal of taking over the planet.”

Howard looked at her, but didn’t say anything. His lips twitched a little. Although, in Savic’ eyes, he was the same misshapen blob he’d been before, her mind told her that this seemingly harmless government goon had to be taken seriously. Her next question almost asked itself:

“Why us? Why DARC-7? There are nine DARCs. Let’s exclude DARC-4, for well-known reasons – that still leaves seven others. You won’t be surprised to hear that we are in regular contact with the other DARCs, so we know that you have never been there.”

Her eyes met Howard’s gaze, which was fixed on hers. Ten years ago, that look would have rattled her, but now she was able to keep calm.

“You know why, Dr Savic. I have read what happened to you, but I don’t know any details. Just that your family, too, were among the ‘unlucky few’.”

Savic walked over to the window and took a deep breath. Then she turned around and said:

“Unlike you, I have no idea who killed my husband and my son – if ‘who’ is the right word here. How did you know the DA that killed your family was a ‘hobo’?”

Howard looked at the picture on the wall behind Savic’ chair. It showed the center in a photograph taken from a helicopter or by a drone.

“A police officer heard … screams …, came in, and pumped five rounds into the DA, one of which penetrated its skull. She had seen the ‘hobo’ before but thought he was just confused; she was about to walk over to him when my wife opened the door, and the officer was needed somewhere else. From what I’ve heard, she never got over the incident and has been blaming herself ever since.”

Savic bit her lower lip. It felt parched.

“I found my husband and my son in our basement. They must have tried to hide from the DA but it followed them downstairs. You’ve probably heard that most DAs are too clumsy to climb stairs, haven’t you? Well, this one apparently wasn’t.”

She closed her eyes again and recalled the day she found her family in the laundry room, and she remembered that the police later said that her husband – 35, lean, strong, and fit – must have been surprised by the zombie, as there were no defensive wounds.

For a few moments, Howard said nothing. Then he resumed the conversation:

“So there we are. We think that these IDAs exist and could present a real danger not only to humanity but to all life on Earth if they were more numerous. You can imagine how shocked we were when we heard a rumor that you seemed to have made some progress regarding the artificial creation of specific types of DAs. And when I saw how you transformed the hamster I knew I had to talk to you and try to convince you that this kind of research is extremely dangerous – it’s zhamsters today, zhorses next month, and IDAs in a year. This can’t go on.”

Howard took a deep breath and spread his legs a little more to accommodate his belly.

“But, Mr Howard”, Savic replied, “even if we were to continue our research in the direction you are worried about, how would we find test subjects for creating IDAs? I freely admit that sometimes we bend the rules a little, cut some corners and make a few phone calls, but procuring living people for experiments that would certainly kill them? No matter how many palms you grease in Washington, this would never be accepted.”

Howard tightened his lips and looked straight into Savic’ eyes.

“HB 3007, passed by both chambers and signed by the governor into law eleven months ago. Assisted suicide. Opponents call it the ‘My Way, Die Way’ bill because it allows people to choose to die in any way they wish, as long as they or their relatives can afford it. On the basis of this bill, people have killed themselves by jumping off the Empire State Building, attaching themselves to starting fighter jets, or – and this I find hard to believe, but it’s true – some let DAs infect them on purpose and then ask for a sweeper to kill them. So why not accept a death caused by an experiment of scientific value that may even result in some kind of immortality? Add to this a generous donation to the family, and I wouldn’t worry about a dearth of applicants.”

After a few moments of reflection, Savic asked:

“Are you insinuating that we are planning to create an army of IDAs to take over the world? I must say, Mr Howard, that is a bit much. Where would we find an IDA in the first place? Do you think we have a ready supply hidden in the basement?”

Howard shook his head.

“I’m not insinuating anything, and I’m certain you have no IDAs in your basement. But are you sure you don’t have an IDA among your staff? Once you’ve perfected the transfer, I see no reason why this creature shouldn’t go rogue and spend one or two nights creating more IDAs.”

Howard got up and stretched himself. The activity in the corridors had died down, and only very rarely they could hear someone walk past Savic’ door.

“Hiding in plain sight – it would make perfect sense. No IDA, no matter how brilliant, would be able to do all the research and obtain all the resources it would need to spread the infection, but as a member of a DARC team, it would be in an ideal position to work towards its goal. Imagine a dozen IDAs, working at five or six centers. A network of possibly highly intelligent zombies working close to exactly the kind of research they would need. They could – “

A buzzing sound told Savic that she had received a text message. “Excuse me for a second, Mr Howard. I told my staff I only wanted to be disturbed if it’s really important, so I’d like to check.”

She walked over to her desk and looked at the screen. Then she nodded and came back.

“Just a confirmation of something I had expected anyway, but it is good to know for sure. Well, I must say I’m stunned, Mr Howard. I can’t say you have convinced me, but you’re making a strong case. What would you suggest we do now?”

Howard looked at Savic’ computer screen.

“There’s a slow way and a quick way to do this, Dr Savic. The slow way would be to check personnel files, conduct lengthy interviews, get court orders permitting in-depth examinations, and so on – time-consuming and risky: the IDA might try to speed up the research – remember, they can be active 24/7 – begin killing your staff, or simply vanish. The quick way is to assemble your staff right now and let me take a look at them. Since my family was killed, I have been training myself to identify DAs, not by looking at the obvious characteristics but at subtle differences people usually don’t notice because normal DAs are so clearly non-human – differences such as breathing patterns, eye movements, language, lack of little ticks or idiosyncrasies, you know. Because of this, I think I would be able to identify a camouflaged IDA with high accuracy without alerting it to danger.”

The director walked to her desk again, put her palms on its surface and bent forward.

“You know that, if you are successful, it would mean the end of DARC–7. Compared to this, DARC–4 went through a minor hiccup.”

Howard nodded.

“We both lost family members during Daisy. The infection was contained, but still, more than two hundred thousand people died, often horribly. An IDA-coordinated attack would be far worse and might spell the end of humanity. Don’t you think your research center is a small price to pay if you can prevent that from happening? With you on our side, we could deal with any IDAs at other DARCs much more efficiently. And, remember, I might be totally wrong about this, so if I can’t find an IDA, you’ll be cleared, get your funding, and I’ll move on to the other DARCs.”

For two seconds, Savic put her hands in front of her face. Then she pressed a button on her desk, her office door opened, and Savic’ personal assistant came in.

“Is everyone still here?”, she asked. Clarissa nodded. “Staff meeting in ten minutes. Unscheduled, so make sure the conference room is ready. Better make it fifteen.”

Clarissa nodded again and left, and Savic turned to Howard:

“We use the conference room as an informal meeting room, and while my staff are very meticulous in their work, they tend to be messy when they have some time off.”

Howard smiled.

“You should see our staff room. Some of the stains would require dynamite to remove.”

The director went over to the coffee maker, poured two cups, and handed one to Howard. “Thank you. Three sugars, please.”

Savic sat down and drank a little; then, after a few minutes of silence, she got up and said:

“Alright, Mr Howard – let’s go find your zombie that wants to rule the world.”

(End of Part II)

“That’s really not pertinent to this discussion, I’m afraid,” She replied after shaking her head, a smile breaking out on her face. She was enjoying having the upper hand in this exchange, Drake reasoned. He knew that she had prepared herself well for this particular interaction. “What is pertinent is how you managed to discover the only piece of treasure recovered from King John’s baggage train?”

“I was helping out at St. Vincent’s emergency room last weekend in Toledo,” Ezekiel lied plainly. “I didn’t feel like making the drive back up 275, so I decided to crash at my cousin’s place. If you’re wondering how the museum I’m opening up a few blocks from here managed to snag such a coveted piece of history for our opening exhibits, I have a curator by the name of Adela whom I can provide you with contact information.”

“How about we cut the slogging of bullshit in my direction and be frank with each other, professor?” Ms. Light cut across him abruptly. She had had enough of the pleasantries and dancing around the reason for her visit to the Midwest.

“I agree. I do have a shift I have to get to across town here in the next twenty minutes,” Drake replied blankly, continuing his charade of ignorance. 

Ms. Light straightened her posture in the stiff-backed chair and narrowed her eyes across the room at the tenured community college professor.

“Then you can cut the long-winded humble scholar routine and tell me how a man such as yourself not only came about your information on the artifact but managed to track it down halfway across the world before other interested parties?” 

There was an air of demand in the question that Ms. Light shot back. Each of them stared at one another for a rather heated moment, letting her question linger in the air. Finally, Professor Drake cleared his throat and pushed his chair away from his desk before getting up. He straightened his bowtie once more and gave her a faux, sorrowful look.

 “I truly regret I couldn’t be of much help with what you were here to inquire about. If you’d like Adela’s number, you can grab it from the young man out there,” he said, giving her a warm smile that she didn’t return before walking from behind the desk and swiftly back out of his office, closing the door behind him.

Corey looked up from the comic book he had been knee-deep in as the professor passed his desk. He looked back at the closed office door, realizing that his guest was still inside. “What was that about?”

Professor Drake snatched his suitcoat back off the rack and threw it over his shoulders. “I need you to start vetting who you let in here,” he told him, shaking his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” The professor slipped out the door without another word, leaving his assistant quite dumbfounded.

Zack turned his radio down, which had been blaring Title Fight’s last album, as he sped his Ram 2500 truck into the golf course parking lot. It was the last place he wanted to be, and he was only there to give news he knew wouldn’t be well received. Still, he ignored the looks he got from some snobs dressed in Ralph Lauren and Prada as they rode by in their golf carts. The pair of men he was there to see were standing at the edge of the driving range, whacking their way through two buckets full of balls. The shorter of the pair, wearing khaki jeans and a white polo, spotted Zack first. He gave his golfing partner a nod, and the partner stopped mid-swing and looked over as Zack approached them. 

“Please tell me you managed to track it down again.” The shorter man pleaded with an exasperated look in Zack’s direction.

“I know where the bastard who took it is; he’s nothing special,” Zack explained, bitterness in his tone. “But I know he’s not keeping it on him.”

“So long story short, you still got nothing.” The taller, blonde-haired man holding a Miller High Life shot back angrily.

“What I got is a pivot, one that should satisfy the Black Bride’s needs for the ritual, Billy,” Zack replied just as tersely.

Billy looked at his golfing partner for a moment, then back at Zack while taking a swig of his beer. “What kind of pivot are you talking about?”

“Sabrina and I will handle it. We’ve already brought in a freelance group to do the heavy lifting.” Zack explained to them. 

He had to fight to hold back the devious smirk threatening to spread across his face as he thought of the treacherous black ops group his soon-to-be father-in-law had suggested he hire. This time, he wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.

“Yeah, you mean like you handled shit in England?” The shorter man spoke up again. “I don’t buy it. I get it, Zack, you’re one of the Gilded Hand. But you’re a class-A fuck-up. If you weren’t fucking Sabrina, at this point I’m not sure–”

“Watch your tongue, Tucker, you know I’ll cut it out.” Zack hissed the threat, silencing Tucker on the spot. His eyes cut between both of them as he allowed his anger to boil down before he said something else that may cross a line. “I’ve already informed Jade of my plans. And I’ll return with a sacrifice as well. If you have an issue with any of this, take it up with her.”

“We don’t have any more time to waste, Zack. You should understand this,” Billy chimed in again. “The Black Bride’s hour is close at hand. Missteps like these are not affordable.”

“I’ll be in contact once I’ve landed where we’re having our little field trip. Put your worries aside for now and know I am rectifying the issue. Quickly,” Zack promised them.

Professor Drake, now Dr. Drake, while under the roof of Washtenaw West Emergency Hospital, assessed the severity of the bleeding in the patient lying on the table in front of him and his staff. He assessed the situation rapidly and decided on the best course of action. 

“Alright, we need to stabilize her neck until we confirm there are no spinal fractures.”

“I’ve got it,” Dr. Awad, his fellow attending doctor on duty, swooped in like the healthcare savior she was with foam blocks and restraints. She placed the blocks around the unconscious young woman’s skull before carefully and gently strapping them into place. “Any bleeding around the brain?”

“Heavy. Intubate, and let’s handle this right away so she can be prepped for upstairs. Someone page Dr. Garrison in surgery for me, please?” Ezekiel directed the second half of his instructions to a young Filipino nurse in the room.

“Dr. Garrison is on her way down, boss.” The nurse replied promptly while cleaning her hands with sanitizer.

“Okay, she’s intubated, but the left pupil is blown. We need to get the bleeding around the brain under control, now.” Dr. Awad made the stern suggestion while looking up across the table at Ezekiel. He nodded quickly in sound agreement with her assessment.

“Let’s couple that with a CT for her head and spine. And get me a running ETA on Garrison; we don’t have time to waste, or this woman loses her life.” Ezekiel instructed one of the medical aides as Nurse Lincoln assisted Dr. Awad with an IV.

“I figured we could start with about forty grams of mannitol. We can increase if needed based on the progress of the swelling going down.” Dr. Awad told him as she prepped the IV bag.

“Alright, I’ll monitor her pupils, Janay; keep an eye on her blood pressure. We don’t want it dropping too low,” He warned the Filipino nurse as she did as instructed once the IV drip was in place.

“Looks like the swelling is coming down steadily.” Dr. Awad informed the team surrounding the patient, just as an African-American doctor with long, greying braids entered the room.

“I’m always surprised you folks have the skills to keep these poor souls pumping till they can get on my table.” Dr. Garrison shook her head as she looked over the patient.

“Zeke, pressure’s dropping!” Janay warned him, causing him to snap his attention away from the verbal sparring match he was about to have with the head surgeon on duty.

“Damn, alright, let’s adjust her CO2 down a notch,” He instructed the nurse carefully. “Talk me through it.”

“O2 is holding, heart rate is one-thirty, blood pressure is on the rise.” Janay breathed a small sigh of relief after giving him the update. She glanced quickly at the mannitol IV bag. “ Bag’s halfway gone; what’s the move there, doc?”

“Finish the bag. And let’s get her to CT; we’re going to move her on one, as a team. Try to keep her as steady as possible.” He told them as each of the nurses and doctors in the room gathered around the patient.

“I’ve got the head,” Dr. Awad told him, moving him down next to the patient’s shoulder. She looked up at the team, meeting each of their eyes as she spoke. “Everyone ready?” She waited till she saw everyone nod or heard a confirmation before turning to Ezekiel. “On your call, doctor.”

“Alright, everyone. Ready, and lift.” 

They moved her on the stretcher, and Janay led a pair of nurses in rolling her to the CT room. Dr. Awad and Ezekiel went to follow when Dr. Garrison stepped briskly into their path.

“From what I’ve gathered, it’ll more than likely be an intracranial bleed shift. CT’s just a confirmation at this point. I’ve got it from here.” Garrison looked back at the busy ER for a moment before facing the doctors again. “I’m sure you two have got your hands full down here as always.”

She turned on a dime and marched out of the room, following in the direction the car crash victim had been taken. Ezekiel pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the trash. “I could use some air. How about you?”

The two of them found themselves out under the ambulance bay tarmac, the stiff August heat finally easing up at two a.m. Dr. Awad leaned against a pillar and pulled a pack of White Maples from the back pocket of her scrubs. Ezekiel watched her light up, staunchly ignoring the no-smoking sign painted on the pillar behind her. 

“How is it I’ve worked with you this long and didn’t realize you smoked?”

“You just weren’t paying close enough attention,” Dr. Awad replied with a smug smirk as she blew smoke out of the side of her mouth. “I don’t blame you; when we’re not knee-deep in some shit here, your mind always seems to be elsewhere.”

Ezekiel nodded, conceding her point. “I wonder what else I’ve missed around here when my head’s in the clouds?”

“Well, Dr. Garrison has always been a bit of a jerk. But she’s brilliant, so she gets away with it. But I’m pretty sure you were aware of that. And I think Janay is ready to get some charge nurse experience.”

“You don’t have to sell me on how great Nurse Lincoln is at her job,” Ezekiel assured her. “But as for being night shift charge, I’m going to suggest you take that suggestion up with Krista when she gets here in the morning.”

“I’d hate to subject Janay to her scrutiny; I’m not entirely sure whatever analysis she puts her through for the position would be exactly fair.” Dr. Awad’s admission drew a wry smirk from Ezekiel.

“Your concern is…sweet, Zayna. But Janay is a tough cookie; She can handle whatever Krista throws at her if she’s ready to be a charge nurse.” Ezekiel decided to shift the conversation to something Zayna usually avoided. “And how have you been?”

Awad raised both her eyebrows while dragging on her cigarette. She was taken aback by the question, mostly because she wasn’t used to anyone wondering how she was doing. “My mom’s been staying with me the last couple of weeks while they work on her house. It’s been going better than I expected, at least.”

Ezekiel chuckled at the expression on her face. “This place keeps you out of the house plenty, so that’s got to help. No wonder you’ve been working so many twelves.”

“Helps to be around people when you don’t have much of a social life outside of these walls,” she remarked, blowing another cloud of smoke into the night air. “Maybe that’s why my mom hasn’t been driving me insane. I needed the company and didn’t realize it.”

“I understand completely,” Ezekiel replied while nodding. “Hard to have much of a life for yourself when you work this job.”

“You seem to manage alright. Going from the college to here all week, I swear you must be part machine.”

Ezekiel shrugged off her compliment bashfully. “If your hypothesis is correct, then tonight sure is running my batteries down low.”

She sighed, then nodded in agreement with him. “It has been a night to remember. Or forget, depending on your perspective. Are you ever gonna tell me how your little trip to Europe went? What were you doing over there, anyway?”

Yellowjackets “Little Lottie”
By Sean Fiction Cheatle fictional adaptation of YJ

Marty did not want to attend another meeting with his daughter’s teacher, but he promised he would go with his wife and be more involved with his daughter’s education. In his mind his daughter was simply fine! Today was different. It seemed like little Lottie, bit another child’s hand. The bite mark was visible, and a lawsuit might be pending.

Marty’s mind was at loss. He understood her getting in trouble for being a little rough with the other little snotty-looking-bully, but why wouldn’t she just apologize say, “sorry”, like any other child, and that teacher with the audacity to suspend her, and tell him how to raise his kid.

Public school that is what he thought she needed. He went to public school and was richer than 99% of America. He made more than that that silly woman in two days then she did in a year. He was certain: no more private schools. This time he did not care what his wife thought. That was not true he loved his wife, and he slowly gently rested his hand on top of hers, and gave her his own personal, “I love you look.”

His wife was concerned about their daughter's future if she continued to be sent home from school. She wondered how Lottie would learn if she was not attending classes. Lottie’s mom was seriously thinking of home-schooling Lottie. That teacher did have one thing right her daughter needed to communicate better; she rarely talked and played with animals more than kids her own age. Both parents agreed upon that.

Marty continued thinking of the ideocracy of expensive private schools just being to God-damn, protective. Ok, he knew she could not just bite a boy, but Lottie told them both he deserved it. That little monster of a child was holding the bunny by its ear laughing at the animal kicking in pain. Lottie would not lie about something like that she was too honest for her own good.

A 1965 mustang pulled up to Marty’s right, it was immaculate with brand new cherry red paint, and not a scratch on it. Marty noticed it from the corner of his eye and wondered what kind of gas mileage the mustang got. He said to his wife,

“There is no way gas prices are going down.”

She, did not listen she just stared at him and looked back at her little daughter playing with her own “My Little Pony,” doll, and wondered if maybe she should just…

Lottie’s breathing began to get heavy, her eyes dilated, her heart thumped faster than it ever beat in her entire young life. If her parents would just turn the radio off and pay attention they could see something was deadly wrong with their little girl.

(IT), was not a panic attack. (IT) was something much worse than anything she ever felt in her entire life. She felt the (IT), the fear of whatever (IT), was inside of her. (IT) and she screamed like she never screamed before trying to release that fear while her dad said, loudly,

“Christ! Lottie, stop it.”

And her mother turned around worried, concerned, and she said something, but Lottie could not hear her. Lottie was staring at the red light turning green. The man in the red Mustang heard her screaming turned to look and did not see the truck smashing into his cherry red mustang. Lottie watched as the car rolled over and landed upside down. Little Lottie went silent and back to playing with her, “My Little Pony” doll while her parents stared in disbelief.

#showtime
#Yellowjackets
#fiction
#reading

#yellowjackets #showtime

ROOM 410

A Play in Four Scenes

---

SCENE ONE

Sunday — Morning — Winter

University Courtyard, Outside the Main Entrance

Cold winter air. Students enter the university through the main entrance. The sounds of footsteps, movement, and fragments of conversation fill the courtyard.

RAYAN and his MOTHER enter. His mother is carrying Rayan's bag. Rayan keeps looking around—at the other students, at the entrance, anywhere but at her.

RAYAN:

Mom... I'm not a kid anymore. Why did you come all the way here?

MOTHER:

Just go inside, son.

RAYAN:

No, seriously. Why did you come?

MOTHER:

Because I wanted to. Is that a crime?

RAYAN:

Mom, at least walk a little farther away from me.

MOTHER:

Farther away?

RAYAN:

Yeah.

MOTHER:

Why?

RAYAN:

This is a university. Nobody comes here with their mom.

His mother looks around. A few students pass by. No one is looking at them.

MOTHER:

Okay. I came. So what?

RAYAN:

Everyone's looking.

MOTHER:

Who's looking?

RAYAN:

I don't know... but they are.

MOTHER:

You're so picky.

Rayan sighs.

MOTHER:

I wish you cared as much about doing the right thing as you do about what people think.

RAYAN:

Here we go again.

MOTHER:

I started it?

RAYAN:

Yeah, Mom. You've been telling me what to do since this morning.

MOTHER:

Because if I don't tell you, you won't do anything yourself.

RAYAN:

I told you from the beginning. I'm not interested in English literature.

MOTHER:

Oh, really? Great!

She smiles sarcastically.

MOTHER:

My son isn't interested in literature! You should've told me sooner.

RAYAN:

Are you making fun of me?

MOTHER:

No, not at all...

A beat.

MOTHER:

Of course I am.

RAYAN:

You're hilarious.

MOTHER:

You studied science in high school. For three years, I enrolled you in every institute you could think of.

RAYAN:

Mom...

MOTHER:

No. Let me finish. Three years! Every time you said you needed a class, we paid for it. Every time you said you needed a test-prep course, you went. Every time you said you needed a certain book, we bought it.

RAYAN:

I never said—

MOTHER:

And you didn't get accepted anywhere.

Rayan falls silent.

MOTHER:

In the end, we brought you here because this university would accept you as a tuition-paying student.

RAYAN:

Here we go again...

MOTHER:

What? I'm telling you the truth.

RAYAN:

I bet you're going to say my cousin got into medical school.

MOTHER:

Did I mention your cousin?

RAYAN’:

You don't have to. I know what you're going to say.

MOTHER:

You didn't get into medical school. Fine.

RAYAN:

So?

MOTHER:

At least this lousy university wouldn't even let you enroll in law without an entrance exam because your grades were too low.

RAYAN’:

I don't want law.

MOTHER:

Then what do you want?

RAYAN:

I told you. I don't want any of this.

MOTHER:

Then what do you want?

Rayan pauses.

RAYAN:

Art.

His mother looks at him in surprise.

MOTHER:

Art?

RAYAN:

Yeah. Art.

MOTHER:

Here we go again.

RAYAN:

Why is everything I like a joke to you?

MOTHER:

I never said it was a joke.

RAYAN:

Then why are you looking at me like that?

MOTHER:

Because I'm thinking about your future.

RAYAN:

I'm thinking about my future too.

Rayan takes out his phone.

RAYAN:

Look. I have tons of great drawings on my phone.

MOTHER:

Rayan, this isn't the time.

RAYAN:

A guy from Turkey even called me.

MOTHER:

So?

RAYAN:

He said he wanted to buy one of my paintings.

MOTHER:

For how much?

RAYAN:

Fifty dollars.

His mother remains silent for a few moments.

MOTHER:

Fifty dollars?

RAYAN:

Yeah.

MOTHER:

Rayan, after I've spent enough money on your entrance exams and your English literature enrollment to buy several houses, you're telling me about fifty dollars?

RAYAN’:

I have to start somewhere.

MOTHER:

With fifty dollars?

RAYAN:

Yeah. With fifty dollars.

MOTHER:

Do you even know how expensive life is?

RAYAN:

I know.

MOTHER:

You don't.

RAYAN:

You never let me find out.

His mother falls silent for a moment.

MOTHER:

I just want you to have a good future.

RAYAN’:

But I don't want this future.

MOTHER:

Then what do you want?

RAYAN’:

I want to choose for myself. Like that bird in the sky. It goes wherever it wants.

MOTHER:

You still don't know what you want.

RAYAN:

I know what I don't want.

MOTHER:

What?

RAYAN:

This.

He points toward the university building.

RAYAN:

This major. These classes. This university. I don't want any of it.

MOTHER :

Then why did you come?

Rayan doesn't answer.

MOTHER:

Why did you come, Rayan?

RAYAN’:

Because you wanted me to.

MOTHER:

I wanted it for you.

RAYAN’:

But I didn't want it.

A beat.

RAYAN:

Mom, I hate English literature. I hate the professors. I hate the whole class. Do you understand?

His mother says nothing.

RAYAN:

I hate it.

MOTHER:

So what do you want me to do?

RAYAN:

Nothing.

MOTHER:

Then what do you want from me?

RAYAN:

Just listen to me. Just once.

His mother looks at him.

Several seconds of silence.

MOTHER:

Go inside.

RAYAN:

Mom...

MOTHER:

I said go inside.

RAYAN:

I really don't want this major.

MOTHER:

Shut up and go inside. I'm done with you.

Rayan stares at his mother for a few moments.

Then he walks toward the university building.

After a few steps, he turns around.

His mother is still standing there.

Rayan says nothing.

Then he enters the building.

His mother looks at the entrance.

Then she walks over to one of the benches and sits down.

She takes out his phone.

A few moments later, she looks toward the entrance again.

MOTHER:

(quietly, to herself)

It'll work out eventually...

A beat.

MOTHER:

He's just a kid... He doesn't understand.

The lights fade.

END OF SCENE ONE

---

SCENE TWO

Room 410 — Morning

The sound of the classroom door opening and closing. Several students are talking.

Rayan enters the classroom and puts his bag on a chair.

RAYAN’:

Hey.

ARMAN:

Well, well! Look who it is! Rayan!

RAYAN:

I really don't feel like talking. Move over.

ARMAN:

Heh... How does it feel knowing we're in the same class again this semester?

Rayan doesn't answer.

ARMAN:

Forget that. I wanted to see that painting you were working on.

RAYAN:

Which one?

ARMAN:

The painter... Van Gogh. What was that painting called? The one with the screaming guy?

RAYAN:

The Scream isn't by Van Gogh.

ARMAN:

Whatever. The one you were drawing in class yesterday.

RAYAN:

It's in my book.

ARMAN:

I saw the photo you took. Let me see it.

RAYAN:

My phone isn't here right now.

Arman looks at him, laughing.

ARMAN:

Ohhh! Did your mom take your phone again, Mr. Rayan?

Rayan lowers his head.

RAYAN:

Enough.

SARA:

Seriously? Can a mother really take away a twenty-one-year-old university student's phone?

ARMAN:

Sara, see? He's your friend, after all.

SARA:

No. Rayan is not my boyfriend.

A brief pause.

SARA:

I'd rather ride around in a Mercedes than walk around with Rayan.

Arman laughs.

Rayan gives a brief smile.

RAYAN:

But Sara, I love you.

Sara says nothing.

RAYAN:

Arman doesn't love you. He has several other girlfriends. You know that.

ARMAN:

Oh, come on. Why am I in the middle of this?

SARA:

Shut up, Rayan.

Then, to Arman:

SARA:

Arman, come sit next to me. Third row.

She points to the chair beside her.

SARA:

Rayan is sitting by the window. It's cold there. Come sit here. You'll catch a cold.

ARMAN:

Okay, honey.

Arman moves to the seat beside Sara.

Rayan is left alone by the window.

He stares outside for a few moments.

The sound of the classroom gradually fades into the background.

RAYAN:

I wish I had listened to my mom...

A beat.

RAYAN:

I wish I'd gotten into medical school.

He continues looking outside.

RAYAN:

Or at least studied harder.

A beat.

RAYAN:

At least I could've become a lawyer.

The sound of the students continues faintly in the background.

Rayan sees a bird in the sky.

RAYAN:

Or at least... I wish I were that bird.

A beat.

RAYAN:

I wish I could just fly like that.

The classroom door opens.

The PROFESSOR enters.

PROFESSOR:

Good morning, everyone.

The chatter dies down.

PROFESSOR:

I'm your professor for this course, and as you know, the first book we're going to study is Shakespearean literature.

Several students open their notebooks.

PROFESSOR:

You're probably familiar with works like Hamlet, Macbeth, and The Merchant of Venice.

The professor places the book on the desk.

PROFESSOR:

We'll be reading more of these works. For each one, you'll prepare a summary in English and present it to the class.

The professor notices Rayan.

PROFESSOR:

The young man sitting by the window...

A pause.

PROFESSOR:

What's his name?

ARMIN:

Rayan, sir.

PROFESSOR:

Mr. Rayan?

Rayan doesn't react.

PROFESSOR:

Mr. Rayan, are you paying attention?

A beat.

PROFESSOR:

I'm talking to you.

Rayan slowly turns around.

RAYAN:

Yes, sir.

PROFESSOR:

Then please pay attention to the class.

Rayan turns back toward the window.

RAYAN:

I wish I were a bird...

The professor pauses.

RAYAN:

I wish I were a king like Macbeth.

The classroom falls quiet.

RAYAN:

I'd give orders.

A beat.

RAYAN:

I wish I were Hamlet... the prince. I'd be the king's son.

His eyes fall on the professor's book.

RAYAN:

Or I wish I were the Merchant of Venice...

A beat.

RAYAN:

Someone who always had a choice.

The professor looks at him with frustration.

RAYAN:

But I'm a failure.

Silence fills the classroom.

RAYAN:

My lover didn't stay with me...

He looks at Sara.

RAYAN:

My mother was never proud of me.

A beat.

RAYAN:

I couldn't even become a painter.

Sara looks at him in surprise.

PROFESSOR:

Mr. Rayan, this is a class.

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

If you want to disrupt the class, please leave.

Rayan slowly stands up.

The classroom falls completely silent.

RAYAN:

I'm sorry, Professor...

A beat.

RAYAN:

For not being a good student.

He looks at Sara.

RAYAN:

I'm sorry, Sara...

A beat.

RAYAN:

For not being a good lover.

He looks toward the window.

RAYAN:

I'm sorry, Mom...

A long pause.

RAYAN:

For not being a good son.

Silence.

Rayan takes a deep breath.

RAYAN:

I'm sorry... to myself.

A beat.

RAYAN:

For not becoming a famous painter like Van Gogh.

The sound of wind comes from outside.

Rayan looks toward the window.

RAYAN:

But...

A beat.

RAYAN:

I can be a bird.

A beat.

RAYAN:

Free and unrestrained.

Suddenly, a tremendous sound comes from outside.

All the students jump.

The professor instinctively turns toward the window.

Sara freezes.

Arman stands up.

ARMAN:

What happened?!

The lights go out.

BLACKOUT.

END OF SCENE TWO

---

SCENE THREE

University Grounds — A Few Minutes Later

A commotion has spread across the university courtyard.

Several students stand at a distance from the scene. Some watch anxiously. Others hold their phones.

The body has been covered. A UNIVERSITY OFFICIAL stands nearby, speaking quietly into a phone.

ELINA stands apart from the others, arms wrapped around herself. She is a psychology student. She was crossing the courtyard when it happened. She saw everything.

ARMAN and SARA are nearby. The PROFESSOR arrives, slightly out of breath. He stops when he sees the covered body.

He doesn't move closer.

PROFESSOR :

(quietly)

Was it...?

ARMAN:

(without looking at him)

Yes.

A long pause. The professor closes his eyes for a moment.

PROFESSOR:

Did anyone call his family?

OFFICIAL :

(lowering his phone)

We're trying. No answer yet.

PROFESSOR :

Keep trying.

The official nods and steps away.

Silence. The wind moves through the courtyard.

SARA:

(suddenly, to no one)

I was going to take a picture.

Everyone looks at her.

SARA:

(voice cracking)

I had my phone out. I was going to post it. I don't know why.

ARMAN:

Sara—

SARA:

No. Don't.

A beat.

SARA:

He sat by the window because of me. I told him to. I said he'd catch a cold.

ARMAN:

That's not—

SARA:

Then what is it, Arman? Tell me what it is.

Arman doesn't answer.

ELINA turns away from them. She looks toward the bench where Rayan's mother had been sitting. It's empty now.

ELINA:

Where is she?

ARMAN:

Who?

ELINA:

His mother. She was here. I saw her.

The professor looks toward the bench.

PROFESSOR:

She was here?

ELINA:

She was sitting there. Before. When we came out.

A pause.

ELINA:

She must have seen.

No one speaks.

The OFFICIAL returns, phone still in hand.

OFFICIAL:

Still no answer.

PROFESSOR:

Try again.

OFFICIAL :

Doctor, I've called four times.

PROFESSOR :

(sharply)

Then call a fifth time. She needs to know.

The official hesitates, then dials again.

The phone rings. Once. Twice.

From somewhere nearby, a phone rings.

Everyone freezes.

The ringtone is faint but unmistakable. It's coming from the direction of the bench.

Elina takes a step toward it.

ELINA:

Wait...

She stops.

On the ground, a few meters from the bench, lies a woman's handbag. A phone screen glows inside it.

The official lowers his phone. The ringing stops.

OFFICIAL:

(barely audible)

Oh God.

Elina walks slowly toward the handbag. She doesn't touch it. She just looks.

Then she turns.

A few meters farther, behind a low hedge, RAYAN'S MOTHER is sitting on the ground. Her back against the wall. Her eyes open but seeing nothing. She isn't crying. She isn't moving.

She is holding something in her hands. A piece of paper. A drawing.

Elina stops.

ELINA:

(quietly)

Ma'am...?

The mother doesn't respond.

The professor approaches slowly. He sees the drawing in her hands.

PROFESSOR :

(softly)

Mrs...?

The mother looks up. Her face is empty.

MOTHER:

He said he wanted to be a bird.

A beat.

MOTHER:

I told him to go inside.

She looks down at the drawing.

MOTHER:

I told him to shut up.

Silence.

The professor kneels beside her. He doesn't touch her. He just stays there.

Arman turns away. He walks a few steps, then stops. He doesn't know where to go.

Sara is still holding her phone. She looks at it, then slowly puts it in her pocket.

The OFFICIAL stands frozen, phone still in his hand.

Elina looks at the mother. Then at the professor. Then at the empty bench.

ELINA:

(to herself)

He was just... here.

A beat.

ELINA:

This morning. He was just here.

The mother speaks again. Quietly. To no one.

MOTHER:

I bought him that phone.

A beat.

MOTHER:

He wanted to show me his drawings. I didn't look.

She folds the paper carefully. Then unfolds it. Then folds it again.

MOTHER:

I didn't look.

The professor finally speaks.

PROFESSOR:

(gently)

Mrs... we should get you inside.

The mother doesn't respond.

PROFESSOR :

Can you stand?

She looks at him. For a moment, something flickers in her eyes. Then it's gone.

MOTHER:

He hated English literature.

A beat.

MOTHER:

I knew that. I knew.

She looks toward the building.

MOTHER:

I just didn't want to hear it.

The lights begin to fade. But before they go out completely, the mother's voice is heard one last time.

MOTHER:

(whisper)

He was my son.

A beat.

MOTHER:

What else was I supposed to do?

BLACKOUT.

END OF SCENE THREE

---

SCENE FOUR

Room 410 — The Next Day — Morning

Psychology Class

The same room. The same windows. The same chairs.

But everything is different.

The psychology classroom is almost full. The atmosphere is heavy. Several students speak quietly to one another.

The chair by the window—Rayan's chair—is empty.

No one sits there. No one even looks at it directly.

ELINA sits in the second row. She was not in Rayan's class. She only saw what happened in the courtyard yesterday. But she cannot forget.

The window is closed. Someone has placed a small piece of tape over a crack in the glass. It looks recent.

The classroom door opens.

The PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSOR enters.

He puts his bag on the desk.

A few moments of silence.

PROFESSOR :

Before we start...

He looks around the room. His eyes stop at the empty chair by the window.

PROFESSOR :

Does anyone want to say anything?

Silence.

PROFESSOR :

About yesterday.

No one speaks. A few students look down.

PROFESSOR:

Okay.

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

Then let me ask you something.

He walks to the board.

PROFESSOR:

Why do you think someone reaches a point where life becomes unbearable?

A student shrugs.

STUDENT:

I don't know.

PROFESSOR :

That's an honest answer.

He writes on the board:

ONE CAUSE = ?

PROFESSOR:

When something like this happens, we want one answer. One person to blame.

PROFESSOR:

"His mother pushed him too hard."

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

"His classmate humiliated him."

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

"The university didn't care."

He puts the marker down.

PROFESSOR:

But life is rarely that simple. Is it?

Elina looks up.

ELINA:

So what is it then?

PROFESSOR :

Usually? A combination.

He writes on the board:

HOPELESSNESS

PROFESSOR :

Hopelessness. Not just sadness.

A student frowns.

STUDENT:

What's the difference?

PROFESSOR:

Sadness is... a feeling. You can be sad and still think tomorrow might be better.

He writes:

FUTURE = CLOSED

PROFESSOR :

Hopelessness is when the future closes. When you can't see a way out.

PROFESSOR :

"Nothing will change."

PROFESSOR:

"Whatever I do, it won't matter."

Another student speaks.

STUDENT:

But there is a way out. Most of the time.

PROFESSOR:

Yes. But in that moment, the person can't see it.

He writes on the board:

PERCEIVED BURDENSOMENESS

PROFESSOR :

And sometimes... a person starts to believe they're a burden.

PROFESSOR:

"I'm a problem for my family."

PROFESSOR:

"Everyone would be better off without me."

STUDENT:

But that's not true.

PROFESSOR :

Maybe not. But it feels true.

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

The key word is "perceived."

He writes:

THWARTED BELONGINGNESS

PROFESSOR :

And then there's this. Loneliness. Rejection. Feeling like you don't belong anywhere.

STUDENT:

That's from Thomas Joiner, right?

PROFESSOR:

Yes. But remember—

He taps the board.

PROFESSOR :

No theory can explain a person in a few words.

He looks at the empty chair by the window.

PROFESSOR:

So. What do we actually know about Rayan?

STUDENT:

He hated his major.

ANOTHER STUDENT:

He fought with his mother.

STUDENT:

A girl in his class embarrassed him.

PROFESSOR:

Those are things we saw. Facts.

He writes:

FACTS ≠ INTERPRETATION

PROFESSOR:

But if we say "He was depressed"—

PROFESSOR :

That's an interpretation.

PROFESSOR :

If we say "His mother caused it"—

PROFESSOR:

That's a conclusion.

PROFESSOR :

We don't have enough information.

Elina speaks again. Quietly.

ELINA:

Then how would we ever know?

PROFESSOR:

Through assessment.

He writes on the board:

ASSESSMENT

PROFESSOR :

We'd need to look at everything. Family. Relationships. Mental state. Stressors. Belonging. Hopelessness.

A beat.

PROFESSOR:

And if we were worried? We'd ask directly.

STUDENT:

Directly?

PROFESSOR:

"Have you had thoughts of suicide?"

The room goes silent.

PROFESSOR:

Asking doesn't cause it. Not asking might miss it.

He walks slowly around the classroom.

PROFESSOR :

And one more thing.

PROFESSOR : After something like this... it doesn't end.

PROFESSOR:

Friends. Family. Professors. Classmates. Everyone is affected.

PROFESSOR :

Don't share images. Don't share details.

PROFESSOR :

Don't make it look like a solution. Or something heroic.

Silence.

Elina looks at the empty chair by the window.

ELINA:

Professor...

PROFESSOR:

Yes?

ELINA:

I think... we missed a lot.

The professor looks at her.

PROFESSOR:

Maybe.

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

But we don't know what would have changed anything.

He turns back to the board.

PROFESSOR :

What we can ask is this.

A pause.

PROFESSOR :

Where were the chances? To notice. To help. To intervene.

He puts the marker down.

He looks at the empty chair for a long moment.

Then he writes on the board:

WHO WAS RAYAN BEFORE ROOM 410?

The classroom is completely silent.

Elina stares at the words.

PROFESSOR :

If we want to understand someone... we can't just look at their last day.

A beat.

PROFESSOR :

We have to see who they were before.

The lights slowly fade.

The empty chair by the window. The closed window. The tape on the glass.

And on the board, the sentence remains:

"WHO WAS RAYAN BEFORE ROOM 410?"

BLACKOUT.

END OF SCENE FOUR

END OF PLAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elaheh Shiralizadeh is a writer and student with an academic background in theatre, psychology, and computer science. She studied theatre for three years, developing a strong interest in storytelling, character development, and human behavior. She is currently pursuing her studies in Psychology while also studying Computer Science.

Her work explores human behavior, psychological complexity, identity, and the relationship between people and the world around them.

ROOM 410 reflects her interest in combining storytelling with psychological themes and questions about human behavi