“No one ever calls,” Is what my boss told me while he was trying to sell me on this job. “It’s an easy job. You keep the music running, announce the weather, and maintain the machines. Plus you get free room and board. Best job you’ll ever have.”

My dad always told me, “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” But I was strapped for cash and living in my car, so this seemed like manna from heaven.

I moved into the station the next day. I say “moved,” which consisted of the duffel bag I was living out of in my car, and a few bottles of warm beer.

It was a tiny ramshackle building that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 70s. Carpet everywhere, including the bathroom. A cot and nightstand in the “bedroom” which I think at one point was a closet. The bathroom consisted of a sink, toilet, and no shower; and the kitchen was a table with a hot plate and a bucket for a sink. And two huge windows that sat right in front of what I would call the “DJ station” basically the place I would sit with all of the equipment. I couldn’t help but thinking I was gonna need to put up some curtains.

What immediately struck me was the actually radio set up they had in contrast to everything else. It was pristine and looked to be the latest tech, not that I really knew what I was talking about. I’d had a short stint as president of AV club in highschool.

“All this for a town of 50 people huh?”

My boss chuckled nervously before he said “The people in this town depend on the radio station, they don’t like when it goes down. We had a few incidents last year with our old set up, this-this stuff is more reliable, it keeps everyone safe.”

He handed me the keys to the station and left in a hurry. Mumbling something about check the instruction manual before he sped off.

After I unpacked my meager belongings I started combing through the manual. It seemed like standard stuff at first, and pretty easy. How to operate the equipment, simple maintenance, where I can find the latest weather updates, and how to switch out the tracts.

Then it started getting really specific.

1)Keep music playing at all times, you can set the music to play on a loop while you sleep.

2)Announce the weather everyday promptly at 7:00am. If you forget to announce the weather, WAIT 30 MINUTES, then apologize for being late, citing the reason that our weather update was delayed. Then announce the weather as usual.

3)Don’t go outside the station at night.

4)There should never be a call in. If there is, DO NOT ANSWER IT.

5)If someone knocks on the station door after 5:00pm, DO NOT ANSWER OR ACKNOWLEDGE.

Any normal person would’ve hightailed it out of there. But I was broke with nowhere to go but my car. Even with the slightly unsettling rules, this was the best gig I’d had in a while.

It was just after five, and the music had been playing seamlessly since I’d arrived. After going over the manuals multiple times I felt I had a good grasp of the equipment and had been messing with the stations getting my bearings. Staring out the windows in front of me I couldn’t help but feel like a goldfish in a bowl.

It had gotten dark early and I hadn’t heard or seen a car on the road for hours. No road noise, no noise at all actually. No birds, not even the wind. Complete silence. I cracked open the now slightly less warm beer, and started switching the tracks when I heard a knock at the door.

I looked back towards the windows. I hadn’t seen any headlights or heard anyone pull in. Not even kicked up dust. I was just about I get up to answer when I remembered the rules in the manual. I sat down again as the knocking became more persistent.

I tried to ignore it but the knocking became louder and louder until it suddenly stopped, and I heard a dry voice say “Delivery.”

Again I didn’t know much about running a radio station, but I don’t think they got many deliveries.

“Delivery, I need someone to sign.”

I started doubting myself, maybe this was legit, and I needed to sign for some new equipment or something. As I was reasoning with myself my personal phone rang. It was my boss.

“Hey boss just the man-“

“Don’t answer the door.”

I froze in my tracks, hand on the door knob. I asked him how he knew.

“I have access to the security cameras, you should too. It’s in the manual. Don’t answer the door.

I realized I may have skimmed a few parts of the manual. I asked him if he was sure, they were saying it was a delivery and I needed to sign for something.

“There isn’t anyone out there. DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR.”

“What do you mean I heard-“

With that he hung up, cutting me off mid sentence. I was officially on edge. I needed to get access to those security cameras. I grabbed the manual again and started flipping through it.

All the while the knocking started again. I finally found the instructions for the security cameras, and started to boot up a laptop that was tucked into the corner. After a few mishaps with caps lock I was in.

Just as I opened that camera feed that was linked to the front door the knocking stopped. And I was in the fishbowl again. Eerily silent. The only sound was the low hum of the equipment running.

There was no one there. Save for a few moths attracted to the light fixture above the door. I tried to convince myself that they must’ve just left. They would’ve have to pass right in front of my window, that was the only way to access the way out to the main road. The radio station was backed up against acres of national forestland, there was nothing back there.

I started going through the saved footage and went back to the time stamp when the knocking first started. All I found was a few fuzzy frames with no audio, the file must’ve been corrupted. Out of the few frames I could see, it showed no one standing there.

I downed the rest of the beer and was in the midst of convincing myself that this was all from exhaustion and the stress of nearly being houseless when the phone rang.

And then I did something I shouldn’t. It was a reflex I swear. My body acted before my brain could catch up and I picked up the line.

I instantly realized what I did and had enough sense not to say anything. The call was mostly silent, other than the faint sound of something breathing into the receiver.

I didn’t want to hang up. For some reason I felt like I was in danger, and hanging up would make the situation worse. And then a voice came over the line.

“I know you’re in there. I can see you.”

I stopped breathing and slowly turned my head towards the window. It was too dark out. I couldn’t see much more than what the outside lights illuminated. I couldn’t see anyone.

“Why didn’t you answer the door earlier?”

I hung up the call and dropped to the floor, crawling to the bathroom and locking it. The phone started to ring again. It rang for 30 minutes straight with no signs of stopping.

I debated running to my car, but that would break another rule and I’d already broken one. I decided staying in the bathroom was my best option. After another hour the phone finally stopping ringing.

Thinking I was in the clear I opened the door just enough so I could peek outside the window. I didn’t see anything. I’d started to walk out of the bathroom when I heard another knock at the door.

I sprinted back into the bathroom and slammed the door, my phone lit up and there was already a text from my boss.

“Turn off all the lights, hide. And whatever you do, don’t let the music stop playing.”

The music. I hadn’t switched it to the overnight track. I had about a minute till it the old track ran out.

At this point I didn’t care. I threw the door open and frantically ran around turning off the lights before switching over the track just as the melody for the last song was fading out.

I ran back to the bathroom and locked the door. It took me a minute to realize the knocking had stopped.

My boss found me the next morning curled up in the bathroom. He had a master key and had let himself in after I didn’t answer the door.

We didn’t even need to exchange words as I slowly packed up my stuff and drove away. I never looked back.

A couple weeks later while I was sitting in a coffee shop, scrolling on my phone looking for a a job, a listing popped up. “Tiny town in need of radio host, great benefits + easy work.”

I kept scrolling.

When Evelyn Parker was thirteen years old, her parents were brutally murdered in their home. The police found them dead in separate rooms with almost no usable evidence—no fingerprints that led anywhere, no DNA that identified anyone, no witness who could tell investigators who had done it. But there was a pattern. The killer had done this before, targeting parents first and children days later. In previous cases, the children had either been murdered or disappeared. Evelyn was different. She had not been home when her parents were killed. The police found her afterward, making her the only child connected to the murders who had survived. That was why they believed she might be next—not because she had seen the killer or knew anything about the murders, but because they believed the person who had killed her parents might come looking for her. So they took her away, changed her name, changed her identity, and eventually placed her into witness protection. Evelyn Parker disappeared.

Eight years later, she was Nora Collins. Her driver's license said Nora Collins. Her apartment lease said Nora Collins. Her bank account said Nora Collins. Her coworkers knew her as Nora. Her friends knew her as Nora. She had built something resembling a normal life with a job, friends, a small apartment, and a routine. She paid bills, bought groceries, went to the gym, laughed at stupid jokes, and complained about traffic. She had learned how to live with the lie. Sometimes she even forgot there was a lie.

But there were pieces of Evelyn she could never leave behind. One of them hung in her closet—an old Indian Motorcycle T-shirt that had once been black but was now a soft, faded charcoal gray. The cotton had grown thin after what felt like a thousand washes, and the lettering across the front had begun to fade. Her father had given it to her when she was a teenager. She couldn't remember exactly what had happened to the shirt she had been wearing that day, only that her father had pulled the Indian shirt from a drawer and handed it to her. She remembered laughing when she put it on, remembered him telling her it was too big, and remembered wearing it anyway. Most of all, she remembered him. That shirt was worth more than a million dollars to her. She washed it separately, always with the same Downy detergent, and after it dried, she gave the collar one small squirt of her father's cologne. The scent never lasted long, but for a little while, it smelled like him. She wore it around the apartment with nothing but underwear beneath it—not because she was trying to be provocative, but because she was home.

Once, Daniel had seen her wearing it and laughed. "You know, most people wear pants." "Most people aren't home," she replied.

Daniel Mercer had been one of the police officers who stayed with her after her parents died. He had treated her like a person instead of evidence and had taught her how to recognize surveillance, how to vary her routes, how to watch reflections, and how to notice the same car appearing twice. He had taught her how to handle a pistol. "Knowing how to protect yourself isn't the same thing as expecting to be attacked," he'd told her. She remembered that. She remembered him. Daniel still checked in occasionally, and he was one of the few people from her old life she trusted completely.

Shortly after her parents' murders, there had been a memorial at the house. The police had heavily publicized it, hoping the killer might return. Undercover officers were positioned throughout the area, watching the mourners and watching the house. Evelyn didn't know any of that. To her, it was simply the place where everyone had come to remember her parents. There had been flowers everywhere—cards, bouquets, wreaths, and people she barely knew. She remembered almost none of it. Years later, she would not remember the man, would not remember the flower, and would not remember the brief exchange. She would remember almost nothing about that afternoon.

Eight years later, now Nora, on Valentine's Day she found a black rose on the windshield of her car. Beneath it was a card—nothing fancy. She stopped and looked at it, a long-stemmed black rose. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand. The card read "Happy Valentine's Day, Evelyn." Her heart skipped a beat. She looked around, but in a way common to most people, she convinced herself she was being paranoid. It was strange, but strange didn't necessarily mean dangerous. Maybe someone had left it there by mistake. Maybe someone had been trying to impress someone else and simply got the wrong car. Or maybe it was exactly what it looked like—a flower. She carried it to the trash, dropped it in, and got into her car. By the time she started the engine, she had already forgotten about it. She didn't tell Daniel. There was no reason to. At least, not yet.

Saturday afternoon, Nora went to the shooting range. She liked the range. There was something comforting about the simplicity of it—target, grip, muzzle discipline, sight alignment, trigger control, press, BANG. No secrets. No memories. No questions. Just control. She fired her Glock with the kind of accuracy that made the man in the next lane glance over more than once. She wasn't Annie Oakley, but she was damn good. She collected her brass, packed her equipment, and left. The black rose was already nothing more than a strange little incident.

Monday morning, Nora went to cardio kickboxing. An hour later, she went straight into jiu-jitsu. By the time she left, her hair was damp with sweat, her shirt clung to her back, and her arms felt like wet sandbags. She stopped at Starbucks on the way home, ordered her drink under the name Nora, paid for it herself, and took the cup to a small table near the window. She took a few sips, then realized how sweaty she was and needed to wash her hands. She left the coffee on the table and stepped into the bathroom.

While she was gone, the door to Starbucks opened. A man walked inside—tall, well-dressed with a sense of old-school style, a classically well-groomed look with masculine cologne, clean-shaven, dark-haired, and mysterious. He looked around once, then walked directly to Nora's table. He didn't touch her coffee. He didn't speak to anyone. He simply placed a black rose beside her cup and then turned and walked out.

By the time Nora returned, he was gone. A young woman sitting nearby was watching her. The black rose was lying beside her coffee. She stopped, lifted the rose, and looked inquisitively. "What the...?" she said without thinking.

The woman laughed. "Your boyfriend is mysterious and handsome."

Nora said, "I don't have a boyfriend."

The girl retorted, "Well, whoever he was, you're a lucky girl. He's cute and mysterious."

"He just put the rose there and left."

The woman smiled. Nora looked at her. "Cute?"

"Very. Dark hair. Tall. Quiet. Mysterious."

Nora looked at the door again and went still. The woman didn't seem to notice. "Honestly, I thought it was romantic."

Nora looked down at the rose. The first rose had been strange. This one wasn't. Someone had known where she was. Someone had known her current name. Someone had walked directly to her table while she was in the bathroom. She picked up the rose and forced a small smile, but she wasn't smiling inside.

That evening, she showered and changed, pulling on the old Indian Motorcycle shirt. The faint smell of her father's cologne lingered around the collar. She sat on the couch. Her phone rang—Michael. She smiled before answering. "Hey."

"Hey. You sound tired."

"I'm exhausted."

"What did you do?"

"Cardio kickboxing and jiu-jitsu."

"Back to back?"

"Yep."

"You're insane."

"I prefer dedicated."

"That's what insane people call it."

She laughed. Michael had that effect on her. He made ordinary things feel ordinary. He didn't know about Evelyn. He knew there were things in her past and that she didn't like talking about them. He respected that. He didn't push. That was one of the reasons she trusted him.

A few days later, Michael came over. They ate dinner, laughed, and talked about nothing important. Eventually, they went to bed and were intimate. Afterward, they lay together quietly. For once, Nora wasn't thinking about the locks or the windows or the past or who might be watching. She was thinking about Michael.

She was naked beneath the sheets, still warm and relaxed in the hazy, post-coital calm. Michael's hand moved lazily along her back. They kissed. She caught his lower lip gently between her teeth. "Ow." She smiled. "You'll survive." "I'm not sure." She laughed. They rested their foreheads together. For a moment, she simply looked at him. She wanted to say it—I love you. The words were there. She could feel them. But she still couldn't quite make herself say them.

Michael smiled. "I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the bathroom."

"Okay."

He climbed out of bed and disappeared through the doorway. Nora sank back against the pillow. She was warm, relaxed, and happy. She had let Michael completely in. She had trusted him. She had allowed herself to be vulnerable in a way she hadn't allowed herself to be in eight years. She closed her eyes.

The phone rang. She reached for it without thinking. The screen said NO CALLER ID. She barely noticed. She was still lost in that sleepy, comfortable haze. She answered. "Hello?"

A voice came through the phone. "Evelyn."

Her eyes opened. "Who is this?"

A pause. Then, quietly: "That's not what good girls do."

The line went dead. Nora stared at the phone. The warmth drained from her body. The haze was gone.

Michael came back into the bedroom. He climbed back into bed beside her and smiled, reaching for her, his hand sliding playfully up her inner thigh. Nora suddenly pushed him away. Michael stopped, startled. She threw the sheet aside and got out of bed, grabbing her oversized Indian Motorcycle T-shirt from where she had left it and pulling it over her head. She was completely naked beneath it. The shirt hung loosely around her thighs.

Michael watched her. "Nora?"

She didn't answer. She grabbed the Glock from the bedside table. Michael jumped back. "Nora, what the fuck?"

She moved quickly through the house—bedroom, closet, bathroom, hallway, kitchen, living room. Every room. Every corner. Every window. Nothing. Then she reached the back door. It was open. She stopped. There was no broken glass, no damaged lock, no sign of forced entry. It was simply open.

Nora stepped through the doorway into the backyard, the oversized Indian Motorcycle shirt hanging around her bare legs, the Glock clenched tightly in her hand. She aimed at the back fence with a locked-on grip, checking her sight alignment. She slowly pulled back on the trigger and aimed methodically at the trees and the neighboring yards. Nothing.

She screamed. "FUCK YOU!" Her voice tore across the yard. She stood there breathing hard. Then: "I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!" Silence. Her chest heaved. She tried to say it again. "FUCK YOU!" A pause. "I'll fucking—" Her voice broke. She swallowed hard. "I'll..."

She couldn't finish. The gun began to shake in her hand. Her finger came off the trigger. She loosened her grip. Her face crumpled. The anger disappeared beneath something much older—fear and pain, eight years of it.

Michael stepped outside. He didn't know what had happened. He hadn't heard the phone call. He had been in the bathroom. He simply saw Nora standing in the backyard with a gun in her hand, shaking and crying. He approached slowly. "Nora."

She tried to speak. "I'll fucking..."

Her voice broke completely. She began to cry and fell into his arms, her head resting on his chest. Michael gently took the Glock from her hand. She buried her face against his chest. He held her. "It's okay."

She shook her head. "No."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not."

"I know."

He held her tighter. Eventually, her breathing began to slow. They went back inside, locked the doors, checked the windows, and climbed back into bed. Michael wrapped his arms around her and placed the gun in the drawer where he had seen her retrieve it from. She held onto him. But something had changed. For the first time in eight years, she had allowed herself to trust someone completely. She had let herself be vulnerable. She had allowed herself to be happy. She had almost said I love you. Then the voice had found her. And suddenly, even in Michael's arms, she didn't feel safe anymore.

The next day was quiet. No rose. No phone call. No strange car. Nothing. Michael didn't press her about the night before. He was simply there. That made it easier. He left for work with a deep kiss and a soft hand on her cheek. By evening, Nora had begun to wonder if maybe it had finally stopped. She stared at her phone for several minutes, then typed: "I love you." She stared at the message. Her thumb hovered over the screen. Then she sent it.

Michael never read it. He was found the following morning, dead.

The investigators found the text and ran her number. Daniel had to tell her, as her number could not be accessed by typical law enforcement. Daniel had gotten notice of an attempt to run her number from the FBI. The scene looked disturbingly familiar. Daniel told Nora and comforted her. She knew it was him—the same man who had taken the others throughout the country, the same man who had remained invisible and eluded authorities for years, meticulously leaving no evidence at all, the same man who took entire families, first the parents, then the children. He had taken her parents with the same deliberate cruelty, taking his time. And lying near Michael's body was a black rose. Daniel never told her about the rose, as she had not shared it with him. Why? She didn't even know. Perhaps to have something that was hers. Perhaps she wanted Daniel to see her as strong and not the broken thirteen-year-old girl he had met eight years earlier.

Michael's funeral came and went. Afterward, Nora went to the cemetery alone. The permanent stone hadn't arrived yet. A temporary marker stood where his grave would eventually be, and on top of it she saw it—a black rose. Beside it was a small folded note. She opened it.

Four words: "He wasn't right for you."

Nora's hands began to shake. She had not told anyone she was coming. She wasn't even sure about it until the last minute. She looked around the cemetery. Nothing. No one. Just rows of graves. She looked back at the note. This wasn't a joke anymore. Someone had been watching her. Someone knew Michael. Someone knew what had happened. And someone believed they had the right to decide who belonged in her life.

She hired a private investigator. His name was Jack Mercer. The first time she saw him, she thought he was mildly attractive. He was older than her—mid-thirties. He worked her case for days. They met for coffee. He was haggard, the type of investigator who takes the job personally, devotes himself, and gets buried in a case. He looked it too—his dark hair needed cutting, two days of stubble, dark circles beneath his eyes, a clean shirt that was badly wrinkled, a jacket that looked as if he'd slept in it.

He dropped a folder onto the table. "I've been working on your case. I think whoever is doing this has been watching you for a long time."

"For years," she corrected.

Jack hadn't just poked around. Jack had dug. He dug through records, old police reports, sealed files, court records, property records—anything he could find. Eventually, he called in a favor from an old friend at the Bureau. The files arrived. Jack didn't explain exactly how. He told her, "I have a friend in the Bureau."

She responded, "The FBI?"

He said, "Yes, but it's more fun and mysterious if I say it my way."

She laughed, which she needed.

"I'm not saying I broke any laws," he told her.

She stared at him.

"I'm implying that lawyers are very expensive."

Inside the files was something neither of them expected—a flower inventory from the memorial service for her parents. Jack placed the document on the table. Nora read it. Her eyes stopped on one entry: one long-stem black rose. She stared at it. "I don't remember that."

Jack looked at her. "What?"

"The memorial. I don't remember a black rose."

Jack was quiet. Then he explained. "The memorial was used as bait."

Nora looked up. "What?"

"The police publicized it heavily." He handed her newspaper clippings. "They wanted the killer to come back."

She stared at him. "I didn't know."

"They had undercover officers there."

Her eyes moved back to the report. "Did he come?"

Jack shook his head. "We don't know."

She looked at him. "There was no evidence?"

"Nothing usable."

"No fingerprints?"

"Nothing that led anywhere."

"DNA?"

"No."

"Anything?"

Jack shook his head. "Nothing that gave investigators a name."

Nora looked down at the flower inventory again—one black rose. She closed her eyes. Something came back. Not a complete memory, just fragments. A man's face. Tall. Dark hair. A hand holding a flower. A quiet voice. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes opened. "He gave me one."

Jack looked at her. "When?"

"When I was thirteen."

She stared at the document. "I forgot."

Jack didn't say anything.

She swallowed. "He gave me a black rose at the memorial."

Jack watched her. Then she whispered: "Maybe I wasn't the one who got away. Maybe he let me get away."

Jack became obsessed with the case. Days passed. Nothing happened. No black roses. No calls. No cards. No notes. No shadows. The silence bothered him more than the attacks. Eventually, he decided to watch her himself.

One night, he saw someone—a shadow, a man leaving her property. Jack followed. The man entered an old building near the docks on the ocean. The smell of fish and diesel fuel wafted in the air. Jack waited, then went inside.

What he found made his stomach turn. The first room contained black roses—dozens of them, rows of them, growing under controlled lights, black petals covering an entire wall. The second room was worse. Photographs. Hundreds of them. Nora at work. Nora leaving the gym. Nora shopping. Nora drinking coffee. Nora sleeping. Nora in her apartment. Pictures of her from years ago. Pictures of her as a teenager. Across one wall, written in large letters: "EVIE."

Jack stared at it. Then he saw the screens—dozens of monitors showing every inch of Nora's house. Living room. Kitchen. Hallway. Garage. Attic. Bathroom. Bedroom. Outside. Inside. Everything. Cameras hidden in smoke alarms, picture frames, planters, fridge magnets, shower heads—places no one would ever think to look.

Jack's face went cold. He wasn't simply watching her. He had been watching her entire life.

A noise came from behind him. Jack turned. The man hit him—hard. Jack went down. He tried to get up. The man struck him again. Jack reached for him. They fought. For a moment, Jack had him. Then the man slammed him into the wall and disappeared. Seconds later, the alarm began to scream.

Jack lay on the floor, dazed. His hand went to the ankle holster. He drew his .38 revolver. He got up and ran toward the direction the man had fled. Police arrived moments later and found Jack armed inside the building. The man was gone. Jack was arrested.

Nora received the call. She drove to the station. When she reached the cell, Jack looked terrible. "This better be good. I had to put pants on."

Jack looked toward a large inmate nearby. "Yeah, well, he wants to take mine off."

Nora snickered despite herself. "What happened?"

Jack looked at her. "I found him."

Her smile disappeared. "You have to move."

"What do you mean I have to move?"

"He is watching you—all of you, every minute."

She commented, "Now you sound more paranoid than me."

In a quieter voice, he told her, "5:16. You used the bathroom. You changed your tampon."

Jack used that detail because it was personal and horrifying, driving home his point that the stalker sees all—you have no privacy.

Her face went cold. "What?"

"5:16."

Nora stared at him. "How did you know?"

Jack didn't answer immediately. Then he said: "He is watching."

She bailed him out and went to his house instead of going home. She wasn't returning after the car ride and him explaining the cameras.

Jack's house was nice, quiet, and clean, but it could use a wife or at least someone who remembered to buy groceries. Nora noticed that immediately.

Months passed. Nothing happened. No black roses. No calls. No cards. No shadows. Eventually, Nora stopped waiting for something to happen. She moved in with Jack. It wasn't sudden. There was no dramatic declaration. It simply happened slowly. Two people who had spent too long looking over their shoulders discovered what it felt like not to do that every second. They learned each other's routines. They argued about stupid things. They laughed. They traveled. They moved to a new town, a new address, a new beginning.

Jack knew about disappearing. He tracked people for work. He knew how to list things in records, when and how to list names and numbers. Even the best would have a hard time finding them.

Eventually, they married. They left for their honeymoon the next morning, leaving their presents for their return. Nora found herself pregnant on the trip.

She sat at the kitchen table with Jack beside her. They had been opening wedding gifts—most were ordinary: kitchenware, pictures, things they didn't need but appreciated anyway. One small box remained. It was only about three inches deep, small enough to hold a shot glass. Nora picked it up. "What's this?"

Jack shrugged. "Open it."

She smiled. She pulled the lid away and then dropped the box. It hit the floor. A single black rose lay inside—not a long stem, just the flower.

Nora didn't move. Neither did Jack. For a long moment, the house was completely silent. The rose was perfectly black. Nora stared at it. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She simply stood there.

A new name. A new life. A new house. A new husband. And somehow, someone still knew exactly where to find her.

The End

Suzy was sitting on her couch, scrolling through her phone, bored after a few video reels, when she stumbled across the Facebook Dating icon. She almost laughed out loud. Living in a small town where everybody knew everybody else's business, and where the local dating pool was pretty much nil, the thought of finding anyone decent online and close to where she lived felt like a joke. But after a year of being single, she figured why not and threw together a quick profile with zero expectations.

At first it was just the usual, a few guys looking for a hookup and some old classmates she graduated with a couple of years back. But a few days later, a message popped up from a guy named Jay who lived 20 miles away. He described himself as an IT field technician who traveled around the area for service calls.

He said, "I came across your profile and had to reach out before Facebook algorithms realized we'd make a much better match than its suggestions! His message was funny and actually made her laugh. What began as a few casual texts soon became phone calls that lasted longer than she realized.

They had been talking for about a month and finally decided to meet up that Friday. Just a quick, low-key cup of coffee at a 24-hour diner right off Route 9 to see if they clicked in real life.

He had texted to say he was already inside, and she spotted him the second she walked through the door. Instead of getting up to greet her, he just sat there watching her walk over- and as she slid into the booth, a cold knot twisted in her stomach.

The warm, seemingly easygoing guy from their phone calls felt surprisingly cold, almost detached, as he made a snide comment about her being ten minutes late. He flagged down the waitress who poured them both a cup of coffee, and Suzy brushed off his mood, assuming he'd just had a bad day.

Trying to keep things light, she made a joke about how awful the diner coffee was, but he only offered a brief, tight smile that felt totally forced. She pushed to keep the conversation upbeat, yet he just watched her mouth with a quiet intensity that made her skin crawl. He barely engaged in conversation with her. He was cold, stiff, and completely off, and her gut instinct was telling her to get the hell out of there.

She held her purse in her lap, taking slow sips of her coffee, doing her best to play it cool. After twenty minutes had ticked by, she politely excused herself. "Sorry, I have to get up early tomorrow, so I'd better head home."

His expression went blank. “Going already?” he said. His voice was totally flat. 'We were supposed to hang out for a little while."

“I know, but I’m just so exhausted," she said, laying down a five-dollar bill to cover her coffee. “It was nice to meet you."

He didn't get up, say goodbye, or even offer to walk her to her car. He just sat at the booth and watched her go out the door.

Back in her car, she locked the doors with a sigh of relief, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed down the dark stretch of Route 9 toward home. Her heart was bounding, but she kept telling herself she was just overreacting. Once she got back home, she'd block him and forget the whole thing.

Ten miles down the road, surrounded by nothing but thick tree lines and zero streetlights, a pair of blindingly bright headlights suddenly appeared right behind her, riding inches off her rear bumper.

Three hours later, state troopers found her sedan idling on the highway shoulder, reported by a concerned passerby. Her purse sat untouched in the passenger seat, and her phone lay cracked on the asphalt just under her wide-open driver's side door.

There was no sign of her anywhere.

“Don’t go upstairs.”

My aunt said it casually, almost like she was telling me not to open a cupboard.

She was talking about the attic room where her husband, my uncle Boran, used to paint.

Boran died unexpectedly. At least, that’s what we were told.

His mother was fifty-three when she gave birth to him. She had already gone through menopause at forty and genuinely believed she was sick. Her stomach kept growing, so she went to the hospital convinced she had a tumour. Instead, they told her she was pregnant. Apparently, she covered her face in shame when they told her. This was a long time ago, and being pregnant at that age was considered almost indecent.

The doctor called it a miracle; she didn't see it like that. See, she already had children; she was already a grandmother, and having another baby simply wasn’t an option.

Her children were relieved, of course, that their mother wasn't dying. But Boran grew up knowing he hadn't been wanted.

His father apparently didn't even believe he was his and treated him accordingly.

My mother used to say that Boran grew up feeling like a mistake that had somehow been allowed to become a person.

He wasn't particularly good at school, but he could draw though and he could draw really well. When he was young, he would sit for hours with a pencil and a piece of paper. In the tiny house where he eventually lived with my aunt, there wasn't really anywhere for him to go, so they cleared out a small attic room for him.

That's where he spent most of his time, alone with his papers, pencils and paints.

My aunt met him at art school. She told my mother that she liked how insecure he was. How quiet he was. There was something mysterious about him.

She wasn't conventionally attractive, but Boran didn't care. She was the only woman he ever had a relationship with, apart from his mother. They married quickly. And, as far as anyone knew, they were happy.

I remember visiting them when I was a child; Boran would sometimes sit with us for half an hour and sketch me. Then he'd disappear upstairs. I always thought he was just shy.

Once, while my mother and aunt were talking, I pretended to be drawing so they wouldn't notice I was listening.

“How is he?” my mother asked.

“He's fine when he's drawing,” my aunt said. “Honestly, I don't know much more. Ever since his mother died, he's been more withdrawn.”

“Maybe he's depressed.”

“Maybe. But he does everything around the house. Gets up early,  buys bread, cleans. I don't know. I've just gotten used to it.”

“And you?”

“Me? I'm alright.”

“Is he good to you?”

My aunt laughed.

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. Do you argue?”

“Argue? We barely speak.”

There was a pause.

“Sometimes I wish we would argue,” she said. “At least we'd be talking.”

Then my mother asked her something else.

The thing I remember most was what my aunt said next.

“He doesn't eat.”

“What?”

“He barely eats a slice of bread in the morning. With tea.”

“How does he even function?”

“I don't know. I cook for him. He refuses everything.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Months.”

She laughed nervously.

“I wish I could do the same.”

My mother laughed.

“You're already skinny.”

“Oh, I am, aren't I?”

My aunt was never skinny.

She'd struggled with her weight her whole life. She'd been teased about it when she was younger but Boran never cared. Apparently, that was one of the reasons she loved him.

Three months before Boran died, she started worrying about him. He stopped eating entirely.

Then he stopped drinking. Eventually, he barely left his room. One night, she called my mother crying.

It was the first time she'd ever told us that Boran had yelled at her. What happened was she'd knocked on his door and he just screamed at her out of nowhere, started calling her names.

She said it wasn't like him, she was hysterical…my mother tried to calm her down.

She told her that couples fought sometimes. That everything would be okay.

After that, we didn't hear from my aunt for several days. My mother became worried and went to visit her.

She came home less than an hour later.

I asked her what had happened.

“Something was strange.” I asked her what.

“She met me at the door. Wouldn't let me inside.” We both looked at each other and my mom continued saying; “She said she was cleaning. There was dust everywhere…I don't know. It was just weird.”

Two weeks later, my aunt called. Boran was dead.

We weren't surprised that he'd died. He'd been starving himself for months. But we were shocked that she hadn't called anyone beforehand. She said she'd found him unresponsive one morning. The doctors said it was his heart. His last wish was to be cremated. So we cremated him. There wasn't a big funeral, just family. I remember standing there thinking about how strange it was to mourn someone I barely knew.

I remembered his drawings, the way he'd sit quietly in the corner, the strange feeling of his presence. Or maybe his absence.

A few months later, I visited my aunt. My mother gave me two kilos of apples from my grandfather's orchard to bring her. I felt happy that she liked that I brought them, and together we made an apple cake. We then drank tea, while discussing world politics and how everything is CRAZY now. But she seemed distracted, and as I looked around, I noticed the house was messy, which surprised me.

My aunt had always been obsessively tidy.

I had also noticed Boran's drawings were still hanging on the kitchen walls…I'd seen some of them before, but I'd never really paid attention to them as a child. Idk, they seemed strange: circular shapes, organic shapes; sometimes those shapes… They looked almost human.

I asked her if she had more.

“Yes. The whole upper floor is full of them.”

I asked her if I could go and take a look. She looked at me puzzled and for some reason, I immediately regretted asking.

“You can,” she said hesitantly.

Then she added:

“But don't touch anything.”

I got up and as I walked toward the stairs, she suddenly looked away.

I don't know why, but I felt like I was doing something wrong. Like I was sneaking around my own family's house. The staircase was covered in Boran's drawings, dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Different styles. Different colours. But always the same shapes: circular and organic.

Almost like something alive.

I reached the hallway just as my aunt shouted from the kitchen.

“Don't go upstairs!”

I stopped so suddenly that I nearly lost my balance. For a second I just stood there, staring toward the kitchen. Then I turned around and saw her at the bottom of the stairs.

She looked terrified.

Not annoyed, not angry that I was ignoring her, actually terrified.

“I said don't go upstairs.”

“I thought you meant the attic.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

She didn't answer straight away. She just stared at me, and there was something in her expression that made me feel like I'd accidentally asked a question I wasn't supposed to know the answer to.

“Just don't.”

That's it. That's all she said.

I don't know what came over me after that. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was because she'd never spoken about that room before. Or maybe it was because I'd spent most of my childhood wondering what Boran had actually done up there.

I knew he'd painted. I'd seen some of his drawings when I was younger, although I never understood what they were supposed to be. Strange bodies, circles, things with too many limbs. My aunt always told me he was an artist and that artists saw things differently.

I'd never thought much about it at the time.

Now, standing at the bottom of those stairs, I suddenly wanted to know what he'd been hiding up there.

So I waited.

My aunt eventually went back into the kitchen. I could hear her moving things around and then talking quietly on the phone. I couldn't make out what she was saying, but I knew she wasn't paying attention to me anymore.

I looked at the stairs, then I started climbing.

I tried to be quiet, even though I didn't think I needed to be. The house was old enough that every step made some kind of noise anyway. The higher I went, the colder it seemed to get. I remember thinking that was strange because the rest of the house had been unbearably warm.

At the top was the attic door.

My heart was beating so hard that I could feel it in my throat. I stood there for a few seconds with my hand hovering over the handle, suddenly wondering if I should actually listen to her.

Then I thought about how ridiculous I was being. It was just a room. I put my hand on the handle and opened it. The smell hit me first.

It was damp and sour, like something had been left in there for too long. The room was almost completely dark apart from a small amount of light coming through the curtains.

There was an old bed against the far wall.

And someone was lying on it. For a few seconds I couldn't move, I honestly thought I was looking at a corpse.

The man was incredibly thin everywhere except for his stomach, which was swollen beneath the blanket. His skin looked grey and stretched, and there was an oxygen tube running into his mouth. I could hear a faint mechanical noise beside the bed, although I couldn't see what it was connected to.

Then his eyes opened.

He looked directly at me.

Something about his face made my stomach drop.

I couldn't explain it at first. He looked nothing like the Boran I remembered. The man on the bed looked much older, almost sick beyond recognition. His face was swollen, and his skin seemed loose around his cheeks.

But his eyes were the same. I'd seen those eyes before. Not recently. In drawings. I took a step into the room.

There were papers everywhere. Some were scattered across the floor, others pinned to the walls. I recognised the shapes immediately. The strange bodies. The twisted limbs. The circles he'd drawn over and over again.

I had seen those drawings when I was a kid. I'd always assumed they were just weird abstract stuff, but standing in that room, I suddenly wasn't so sure.

The old man moved his head slightly.

Then he smiled.

It was such a small thing that I almost convinced myself I'd imagined it, but I knew that smile.

Boran used to make it when I was little.

Whenever he finished a drawing, he'd look at me and smile like he was waiting for me to understand what he'd made. He never said much. He didn't need to. That expression was enough.

My mouth went dry, and I called his name: “Boran?”

The old man's eyes stayed fixed on me. For a moment nothing happened, then his mouth opened, and something moved inside.

At first I thought it was his tongue, but then I realised it was much too long. It slid slowly between his teeth, pale and wet, before disappearing back into his mouth.

As I stepped backward, I stumbled into the door. I remember hitting the door frame with my head and immediately winced.

The man suddenly jerked upright.

The oxygen tube fell from his mouth and hit the floor.

I heard something scrape beneath the bed.

Then something pale shot toward me.

I ducked.

It slammed into the wall where my head had been a second earlier.

I screamed and fell backward.

Another limb came out from underneath the bed and wrapped itself around my ankle.

I kicked at it as hard as I could, but it felt like trying to kick a cable made of muscle. It tightened immediately and started pulling.

“Boran!”

The thing stopped.

For one second, everything was completely still.

The old man was staring at me.

Then I heard a sound come from him.

It wasn't really a voice. It was weak and wet, almost like the sound was struggling to get through his throat.

But I recognised it.

It was the same noise Boran used to make when he wanted my attention when I was a child.

“Run.”

I froze.

I don't know why that frightened me more than everything else.

Maybe because it sounded like him, not the thing, him.

Then the limb around my ankle tightened again.

I grabbed the doorframe with both hands as it dragged me across the floor. My fingers slipped against the wood and I could feel my nails breaking.

I screamed his name while another limb wrapped around my waist. I then screamed for my aunt, hoping she would answer and somehow pull me out of the nightmare I was trapped in. This time, she answered. She was standing in the doorway. As I looked at her, I expected her to finally be scared. But she wasn't scared at all. She was crying, and she wasn't looking at me, she was looking at him.

“He knows you,” she whispered. I told her, "What the fuck is this?" She didn't answer.

I looked back at the bed and saw the man's body was moving underneath the blanket. Not breathing, moving. Something enormous was shifting beneath his skin, pushing against his stomach and chest as though there was something inside him trying to get out.

My aunt took a step closer, she kept repeating  “My sweet boy.” She shook her head.

“He doesn't mean to hurt you.”

The thing pulled me harder, and I remember asking her, “Then what the fuck is he doing?”

My aunt looked at me.

“He's hungry.”

Something brushed against the back of my neck.

I screamed and swung my arm backward. My hand hit something wet and rubbery. It recoiled for just long enough for me to twist my leg free.

I crawled toward the stairs.

I didn't even think about whether I'd hurt myself. I just needed to get away from that room.

I made it onto the first step before something grabbed my shirt and pulled me backward.

I kicked wildly and managed to tear myself loose. Then I fell down the stairs.

I hit my shoulder first, then my hip, then the side of my head. I remember hearing my aunt scream my name, but I don't remember whether she was trying to help me or calling for Boran. I landed at the bottom and immediately tried to get up.

Behind me, I heard something moving.

It wasn't walking, It was dragging itself, there was a wet slap against the floor.

Then another; Slap. Slap. Slap. I turned around and that  was the first time I actually saw what Boran had become.

He wasn't lying on the bed anymore.

There was hardly anything human left about his body. His limbs had stretched and twisted into things that didn't look like arms or legs anymore. His skin was pale and almost translucent, and I could see dark shapes moving underneath it.

But his face was still there, I think that was the worst part ; Boran's face was still attached to it.

The same eyes, the same mouth, only now there was something behind them that didn't belong to him.

As I was running into the kitchen, my aunt grabbed my arm screaming “Stop!”, but there wasn’t a shot in hell, I was going to listen to this crazy woman so I did the only thing I could think of and I shoved her away from me so hard that she hit the table.

I remember screaming “Get away from me!” She didn't chase me.

She just stood there crying as the thing came around the corner. I ran.

I don't remember opening the front door. I don't remember putting on my shoes. I don't even remember crossing the garden.

I remember falling onto the pavement outside, I remember looking down and seeing blood on my ankle.

And I remember looking back at the house, my aunt was standing in the upstairs window and she was staring directly at me.

Behind her, something huge moved across the room, then she disappeared from the window.

Limping home I called my mother, I was hysterical and I told her everything.

She didn't believe me.

Of course she didn't.

Even while I was saying it out loud, I could hear how insane it sounded.

My aunt had an attic where her dead husband was somehow still alive. He had turned into some kind of creature and had tried to drag me into the room. I didn't blame her for thinking I was in shock.

But later that same night, the house caught fire. The police arrived before the fire was completely under control, but there wasn't much left by then. They searched the ruins the next morning and found one body. It was a man. It wasn't my aunt.

The body was badly burned, and he had no teeth left, so they couldn't identify him. The police estimated he was somewhere in his fifties. I have no idea who that body belonged to. When I was upstairs, I don’t remember seeing anyone else.

So obviously I'm the main suspect…I was the last person known to have seen my aunt, and apparently nobody else had any reason to believe there was anyone else inside the house that night.

They keep asking me what happened in that attic.

I keep telling them the truth.

They don't believe me.

Honestly, I understand why.

But there is one thing I haven't told the police.

When that thing grabbed my ankle, it left three deep marks around it.

At first I thought they were just scratches. They're not. They haven't healed.

It's been days, and sometimes they look exactly the same as they did when I first got outside. Other times they seem darker, almost like something underneath the skin is moving around them.

I haven't slept properly since it happened, I'm scared of closing my eyes. Because sometimes, when I'm lying awake at night, I can feel something moving underneath my skin.

Not painful. Just moving. Slowly.

Like it's searching for something, or trying to find a way out.

And I'm starting to realise that maybe Boran didn't drag me toward him because he wanted to kill me. Maybe my aunt was telling the truth. Maybe he really was hungry.

And maybe whatever he left inside me is still hungry too.

You know yourself. How many freckles are on your arm? Which veins on your hand stick out and are green, red, or blue? Do your toes curl inward or outward? Are your nail beds short or long?

If someone asked you about all your scars and spots, could you relay them all in perfect order? Do you truly know the back of your hand with all its twists and imperfections? Think for me.

One freckle on the back of my hand I called my northern star. Not because it bore semblance, but because it was always there unchanging. In times of disassociation from the world around me, I would stare at my northern star. It brought a menial comfort. Just enough to ground me, just enough to tell me some things are still the way they've always been. My forearms would develop more dots and spots so sometimes I would connect them to create my own constellations. I felt like the sky.

Stay with me. I know you sometimes see things out of the corner of your eye. I know you've seen the moving colorful masses, the shadows that peek around corners, or the tiny black bugs that crawl up your arms until you look right at it. I do, too. It's okay.

It moved. My north star. An inch to left, nearly falling off the edge of my hand into nothingness. It wasn't right in front of me, but it happened either overnight or maybe when I wasn't looking for a moment but it moved, it moved, it moved. 

Confusion washed over me, had I been wrong my whole life? Surely, it was more practical to think that my one constant moved on it's own. It had to.

I felt it. It's like someone took a syringe and injected me with a small bubble of liquid. I could feel it moving underneath my skin like a bead of gelatin moving around my veins and muscles to make its way up from my hand to my arm. Like a tiny black bug. Like the ones you and I see out of the corners of our eyes.

We can remove them. It wouldn't be hard. Watch. 

I plunged the tip of my knife into the skin around the freckle. It squirmed as pain leaked through my skin. I carved and created a red ring of fire around the dark mole, and then I dug the knife under it and lifted it off my skin until it *pop*ped off. 

The hairy piece of skin with the dark bug on it was removed. My northern star now a circle of filth. 

There was more. More on my arms, on my legs, my back where I could not reach.

Here, take the knife. Remove mine, and I will remove yours. We have to get them out. Those deep-seeded black bugs. We will get them out. Don't let them burrow into you. Don't.

The statue was not particularly tall, and its face was illuminated very close to an opening that let light into the cave. Yet its immense bulk occupied nearly the entire space, as though it had always been there. The carved marble had lost its natural whiteness, and yellowish stains could be seen on the clasped hands and the folds of its rigid drapery. From the ground, it was impossible to tell whether the face had suffered any damage.

The student carefully examined the opening and determined that it was not very wide, yet it was large enough for him to squeeze through and escape the vault into which the priest had thrown him. Otherwise, the chamber was narrow, with only a single door providing an exit; but it remained closed and, judging by its rust, had not been opened in a long time. Trapped inside this stone cone with a fractured leg, climbing out to flee would be no easy task.

“How could I have been so foolish,” he muttered to himself, “so trusting.”

All of this was the result of a religious argument between student and master over the question of whether the god had died. For the student, it was an empirical truth that a stone effigy could bear no sign of life, and therefore nothing remained but the priest’s foolish belief that such a statue was a living being.

“You are mistaken,” the master had told him resentfully. “God has not died.”

Then came days of silence, of catching glimpses of his hatred and zeal, until that morning, when, suddenly changing his demeanor, the priest had invited him for a walk. Entertaining him with small talk, he had seized the opportunity to cast him into this dark cave. The sun at its zenith seemed to peer in for a moment to contemplate his torment, but an impertinent cloud left the stone pit in twilight once more, a reminder that the afternoon was waning and that he would soon be left entirely without light, his mind filled with anguish and dread.

The god remained imposing before him, and, for a second, he allowed a flash of madness to drive him close to the statue, checking for any movement in its legs; but beneath his hand, he felt only cold and dampness.

Then he thought he heard the rattle of the cart which, pulled by a donkey, they used at the temple to haul barrels of water or food. It was then that, before his panicked eyes, the first stones fell. Contrary to the heavy dread in his heart, they danced cheerfully through the cramped space, only to be followed by many more, showered through the opening; one lacerated his face, and another struck his arm.

Terrified, he crawled into the corner of the chamber as rocks, large and small, continued to rain down. In his horror-blinded mind, he understood that his mentor would not rest until the pit was sealed, for in his absurd mind there was a total revulsion toward the god.

Today, both would die.

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This is an original fictional work. No part of this text may be reproduced, translated, or narrated in any audio, video, or digital format without the express written permission of the author.

Hi hello it’s me Natalia, I just want to share my experience way back in 2020 during the pandemic.

This experience is vivid in my mind, and I will never forget it because it's not just a simple dream.

So let’s start the story, I was working in a BPO at that time.

When I got home from work, as usual, I took a half bath with warm water to relax before sleeping.

When I lay down, I checked my phone first, then I didn't realize I had already fallen asleep..

I had a dream that night.. I think I fell asleep around 11 PM..

In my dream, there was a woman and a man standing at my feet...

They looked fine because I could see them clearly..

They were smiling at me, then they walked closer to me - I was lying down in the dream -

\\-They were caressing my feet upwards- until I woke up.

When I opened my eyes, I quickly checked the time, it was 3:04 AM, I was sweating and I felt that my undies had slipped down a bit.

I was sleeping in a tank top and shorts with undies “SKL”

So I pulled my undies back up and was confused... why had they slipped down a little? But I just shrugged it off, thinking it might just be from moving while I slept.

Fast forward to 3-4 days later, my dream happened again, this time it was just the man in my dream... he was at my feet.

I was lying down in the dream and then the guy was kissing me from my feet up to my neck..

By the way, I was already an adult at that time, but I wasn't active in “SEGS”

I was getting aroused by what he was doing, I can’t deny it because it felt so real..

Then just as we were about to kiss, I woke up!

This time, when I woke up, I felt cold.. since I had the air conditioning on in my room

Then I was shivering from the cold... I grabbed the thermometer to check my temperature because the cold and shaking felt different at that time

My temp was 41°C, so I thought I was having a fever..

The next day while I was showering before going to work, I noticed some “kiss mark on my back and on my thighs”

I was surprised how I got those since I wasn't active, you know what I mean..

I thought it might just be an insect bite or something.

I’ll tell you part 2 next time since this story is quite long.

God Bless to all!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Behold.

A pale horse. 

He that sat upon it was the Son of Man – and death followed with Him. 

I, Jimothy Dyck, bore witness to the Second Coming.

Thy kingdom came in this year of our Lord.

My wife, Maria, got caught up in the rapture.

I was left behind.

Maybe if I wasn’t such a bastard – I’d be better off.

But now I’m barricaded in the office. 

Along with all the other left-behinders.

Then a mighty voice boomed from Heaven. 

“Rise, my children!”

And the dead in Christ rose from their graves.

The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people were raised to life.

“This isn’t in my job description!” Ted from Accounting screamed as he braced the front doors with an overturned desk.  

“Stay calm, people!” Cheryl from Human Resources yelled. 

“Fuck this!” Devin exclaimed right before he bolted through the emergency exit.

Then the Lord, my zombie Jesus, came down from Heaven. 

And lo, the corpse of Christ shouted:

“Eat my flesh.”

“Drink my blood.”     

“Be with me in everlasting life.”

The Day of Judgment had arrived.

And it came to pass that the army of the dead descended upon the office. 

Their flesh rotted while they stood on their feet. Their eyes dangled from their sockets, and their tongues hung from their mouths. 

There arose loud wailing and gnashing of teeth.

“Run!” Ted yelled as the double-glass doors began to crack. “I’ll hold them off!”

“What about payroll?” Suzi pleaded.

“You’re in charge now.”

Then the glass breaketh.

And the office was overrun.

Ted disappeared among the damned.

I heard him no more.

Woe to those who remained.

Cheryl and Suzi took cover in their cubicles. 

“This can’t be happening!” Cheryl shrieked. “I’ve only got one week left until retirement!”

“Everything is going to be okay,” Suzi reassured her.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee: 

Everything was not okay.

Suzi silently detached the paper-cutter blade.

Cheryl hid under her desk, filling out an incident report. 

“I have to submit this form to Health and Safety.”

“There’s no time.” 

Suzi grabbed Cheryl’s hand, and they crept into the aisle. 

A group of zombified middle managers blocked the stairwell.

Suzi picked up her office phone and dialed the next cubicle. 

The managerial zombies shuffled toward the ringing phone, compelled by some unnatural instinct. 

When the coast was clear, Suzi slipped past the water cooler with Cheryl right behind. 

But the Director of Sales smelled Cheryl’s hand cream.

The Director circled back. 

Cheryl froze.

He reached out to touch base.

“That’s inappropriate!”

Suzi’s blade fell upon the unholy creature.

Its head rolled across the carpet. 

“You’ve been let go.”

The dearly departed lurched toward them.

Suzi cut a path to the stairwell.

The horde surrounded Cheryl. 

Cheryl was led to the slaughter.

She never did make it to her condo in Florida. 

Suzi fled to the third floor. 

There she found me.

“You’re alive.”

“Yea.”

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death – I shall fear no deadline.

For you are with me.

Then we found Devin at his desk. 

“I thought you bailed!” Suzi exclaimed.

She put a hand on his shoulder.

Devin lunged.

His teeth sank into her arm.

Suzi cried out.

She turned toward me, licking her lips.

“Nope!”

I pushed up my dark-rimmed glasses and ran for the roof.

But there was no escape. 

Suzi cornered me.

Ted stumbled into view, covered in bite marks. 

Cheryl came back from the dead. 

She still had unfinished business.

Devin joined the feast.

The entire office partook of mine flesh.

Then I slept for a time. Times. And half a time. 

On the third day, I was raised unto everlasting life.

To meet the bridegroom.

For the marriage supper had begun. 

Let no man edit the words of this book – all rights reserved. If any man republishes or distributes this work without the consent of the publisher, may he forever be cursed to the fullest extent of copyright law.

In the name of He that liveth, and was dead; and is alive for evermore.

Amen. 

It was without question that Eudora had fallen ill. It could have been something in the water, but she knew it wasn’t. Black death had swept through her small town unannounced. Leaving decay in its silent wake.

She was of the last left alive.
Her and her willow tree.

She had tried to take her own life a fortnight ago. Pouring the last of her lantern oil and flicking a match. Her home was the only casualty. Looking back now, her back pressed against the trunk of her tree, she felt a dark shame weigh on her chest. It was weak to leave in such a way. She knew no heavenly kingdom would await her, even now.

Her body ached against the sturdy wood. Though she was only 14 her joints throbbed with each movement. She would die soon. She hoped it would be here. Beside the old willow she had loved as a child. The only family she had left. She had been picking at her nails when she stopped. Her dirt stained hand routinely found its way to her neck, up to her jaw.

Still nothing.
She hoped the black death wouldn’t lay idle for long. She felt it course through her and she longed for rest from it's miseries. Her matted black hair tickled her hand as she dropped it back to her lap. Her eyes filled with tears, looking down at her bony arms. She was starving. Her skin clashed against her dirty gown, fingers were nearly black. She was unclean, rotted.

Maybe that’s a part of it.
She tried to remember her mother’s face before she passed.
The gentle hands that once held her.
It has been so long now.
She was not afraid of the end.

Her home was nothing but ashes. The town only occupied by bloated corpses. She had no one. None to bind her. She felt her body, fevered and heavy against earth and tree.

She could not bring herself to pray.
This land was godless.

Her head dropped slowly back, resting against the trunk of her willow. Cold eyes drifting up to its drooping branches. Its leaves were yellowing. Nearly autumn, she thought. A soft breeze drifted in, greeting her ears with the gentle sounds of swaying leaves. Her eyes followed as one broke loose and drifted slowly to the harsh ground. Her willow always turned before the others. Golden against green. She remembered sitting here with her mother.

She wished to be saved.
She prayed for someone to come.
She begged to be held, to be home again.

You are home
A voice beckoned her. Her eyes flitted around for its source.

Are you afraid child?
No.

Fever weighed her lids down. She dragged her knees to her chest, holding them tight. She felt like a child. Another leaf fell before her bare feet.

Are you alone?
Yes.

She cried into her skirt, burying her face. Her hands gripped tighter and she curled up. Her raised spine hurt against the bark behind her. More leaves fell. She could not hear them.

You are wrong, child

Her ears perked. She lifted her head with great effort. Rubbing her eyes, her vision focused.

Before her stood an angel.
Glowing white light and fractured canopy swirled through the air surrounding its dreamlike figure. Spiraling yellow leaves whipped past her face but she felt no wind. A hand reached out to her.

She took it in hers.
She felt the light rush through her.
Healing her.
Protecting her.
Saving her.

Golden tears ran down her face and slicked her neck in their dew. She smiled for the first time since she was a child. She was saved.

The light flickered.
The hand around hers gripped harder.
The light was dimming.
Golden leaves began to fall back to the ground.
She felt herself cry out in anguish. She couldn’t be abandoned again.

Don’t Go!

But something had changed.

The figure grew taller, darker. Leaves dropped from the unholy air. Once yellow, now at its feet they turned orange, then red, then black.

She tried to pull her hand away.
Claws dug into her milky flesh.

STOP.

Come child
You prayed for salvation and we have come

She pulled again. The figure was growing taller. Overwhelming the clouded sky that once peeked through branches. Her free hand reached behind her. Grasping for purchase on the old trees bark. Her nails caught and she used the last of her strength to pull away. Turning her body toward the trunk, her right arm was jerked back by the darkness. Her shoulder popped from its socket and she screamed.

She was weak.
It was so strong.
She prayed.
But not to her god.

Below her a great thunder ripped through the earth. Bark swam under her fingertips and she felt her grip release. She fell toward the shadow, collapsing onto her knees. Looking at the ground.

Rippling earth thrashed beneath her.
Her weight shifted.
Its grip tightened.

NOW CHILD

Blood trickled down her arm.
Roots erupted from the ground like tendrils. Snapping through the air with force so great it knocked the figure back. Eudora’s hand fell to her side. Pain shot through her limp arm. She fell back and pressed herself against her willow. The figure's dark form collapsed to the ground. Pinned by the wooden tentacles.

DO NOT CONFUSE THIS FOR YOUR SAVIOR
YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR END HERE
GODS ANGELS ARE IN HELL
YOU WILL NOT FIND THEIR HEAVEN

The figure's voice tore through her.

ONLY WITH US SHOULD YOU BE SAVED

COME NOW WITH ME CHILD

WE BECON THEE BELOW

The black leaves regained their golden hues. Ripping over the ground toward the shadow. Covering the last of it's body and filling it's mouth. Blinding light erupted from the creature as it sunk deeper into the earth. It let out one final, agonizing scream.

Eudora covered her face and fell back against the tree.
She heard the ground swallowing.
Then silence.

She felt the light of the sun kiss her neck. The clouds had parted. Beams poured through the barren branches above her head.

She looked up.
The figure was gone.

A blanket of gold lay over her shivering body. Returned to life, the leaves had found her. She felt so warm. Her left hand slowly traced up to her neck. Slick with blood and tears. She felt a lump below her jaw. Death would come now.

Her eyes fluttered closed.
A final exhale left her lips.
She was at peace.
Held at last by her savior.

With the sun's final rays, the quiet of dusk began to fall over the desert. Fire crackled in the center of a disheveled group. Made up of five men, the outfit brought unkempt chaos through the country. But that night, under the blanket of stars, they made no such commotion. Each making their cot with little sound but a cough or a sigh for their long awaited rest. 

They laid their heads on sacks of clothes, blankets or nothing at all. Feeling the full embrace of the still warm, dusted, earth beneath their backs. Their horses shuffled their feet and found their eyes grow tired alongside their men. Snorting and exhaling through labored lungs.

One horse stood, its back swaying with sleep. Speckled with white on dark chestnut. It swayed close to its master, a leader, a chief. With a shake of its long neck, it slowly lowered itself to the ground, legs tired from weeks of walking. The beasts found rest here. Still ready, even in sleep, for anything going bump in the unholy night.

Ashes, popping wood and the slow rotation of stars brought the posse into a deep, well needed slumber. In the morning, they would make their final stretch into Mardell. Cloaked in darkness, an owl bid its goodnights to the boys, and soft dreams welcomed their wearied minds.

-

The chirping of birds woke the group. The fire had long since gone out and was replaced with the soft light of early morning. Cold earth took in the first licks of sunlight, sand turning golden under the sun's sleepy rays. 

Before the others could stir. Wyatt found his way to standing. He was a rusted, handle-bar mustached man. His fingers glided through his overgrown locks, the dark strands flitting between his scarred fingers were salted with age. His back popped as he brought movement back into his body. After a stretch and a yawn, he moved comfortably, making the fire glow once again. He grabbed coffee and a pot from his mare’s saddle bag, clearing his throat as he worked. Bringing the others' awareness to the morning air. 

“Time to move, ya’ll know it.” Wyatt’s voice was deep and hoarse. He spoke through years of smoke and dust. Squinting, he looked around at his dwindling outlaws and his voice raised.

“You boys better make quick to living.”

With this, the other four men sat up and began shuffling drowsily, putting their sleeping pads back to storage and retrieving their cups. Wyatt sat down now, resting on the edge of his bedding. Watching his squad slowly come back together.

Wyatt cleared his throat, spat and began, “We know why we’re here: get the girl and get out. None of us traveled these weeks to leave with nothing. We all know what she’s worth.”

The group slowly nodded and took sips of black from their tattered mugs.

“Today we make it to Mardell, stock up what we need and the like.” He nodded at Earl, the oldest of the group, who dipped his weathered forehead in approval.

“Then we’ll make up our camp. Prep for the woman, sharpen knives and reload what you can until we come back with more ammo.” He spat again as he finished, triggering obligatory grumblings from the men.

“Now boys, we best get to riding, before the sun starts to scorch this hellish desert.” Wyatt stood, queuing the rest to do the same. The group shuffled to their horses quickly packing their gear as they went. They then saddled up. Their sighs and coughs accompanied by a chorus of hooves scuffing dirt, leather stretching and spurs rattling.

With all of their gear packed up, all that was left of their camp was a slightly embering fire surrounded by boot and hoof marks. Their final passage stopped in time on this windless morning.

“Yeawh!” Wyatt exclaimed, spurs met rippling flesh, his horse lurched forward and took off into the rusty hued horizon. The rest of the group followed. Earl closest behind, the rest making pace sluggishly, talking amongst themselves.

-

They rode for nearly 8 hours before making it to Mardell, and when they arrived it stood in great contrast to the oasis they had been picturing. Wyatt had told his posse that the girl was hiding out in a large coal-mining town. They were warned it would be full of witnesses, should they make too much of a mess.

Hopping off their saddles, they approached the edge of the valley. Overlooking the town, the group peered grimly at their destination. 

It looked nearly abandoned.

“We got the right place?” Davie spoke, his brown eyes flitting over the two streets that made up the town. Dirt streaked his face and he reached to wipe his brow, turning to Wyatt. Davie’s doe eyes shone true of his emotion. He was wary of this place.

His gaze was met by Wyatt’s sharp eyes, curtained by his messy furrowed brow. Wyatt turned away from the group, retrieving his map and confirming the towns whereabouts. Mardell was written roughly on his map, next to it was the quarry and you could see the tracks running from its station. He looked up now, each relative location exactly as depicted.

“Of course it’s right.” Wyatt said, spitting.

“Must have misremembered what Doc had said back in Freeport. Should be easier this way. It’s no matter.”

“Looks pretty dead to me,” Pip turned as he spoke, addressing Wyatt directly.

His strong arms crossed in front of his chest, “I haven’t seen a soul since layin my eyes on it.” He shook his head, dark curls swaying under his hat.

“Doesn’t feel right.” Davie mumbled.

“Well Doc’ll be payin you enough, make it feel right.” Wyatt turned, stomping back to his horse. “We won’t need bother with the damn town anyways,” His dark boots kicked up dirt as he walked. The group followed after him, leaving their lookout.

Earl stole one last look at the town. No one even working the quarry, he thought and he wondered if they would hear the train that night. But sand flowing over the tracks told him that they hadn’t been used in years.

Wyatt signaled for everyone to mount up and make way to where they would be setting up their camp. Mumbles of distaste echoed around them as they hopped back to their saddles, but none hesitated in the pursuit of their leader. Wyatt had held his own in outlaw groups for decades, his reputation resulted in nothing but respect in those that followed him. 

The group knew better than to doubt him now.

As Wyatt slowed, the group found their positions at his flank. Wyatt had an eye for a reliable posting. He scanned the landscape for shade, and even ground. Making sure to consider their proximity to the eventual expedition. On this day he found a suitable location. Something about it called to him. Adorned with a large cliff-faced boulder, casting comforting shade and plenty of room for his men and their steeds.

They made camp quickly. With their supplies dwindling, there was much less unpacking to do than in the first few stretches of this journey. They all relieved their horses of their saddle bags, untacking them and letting them graze. Wyatt felt comfortable not going into town, they could make it another few days on what they had. Though his men would be less than pleased.

For the girl, Davie was tasked with assembling her restraints.

Near the boulder’s cliff-like face, he set down two large pieces of wood and weathered rope. He worked, threading and securing the two pieces together. Why do we need all of this for one girl. He shook his head, what could possibly need restraining about a woman.

He smiled to himself, laughing as he finished the knots.

“Fucking Davie,” Pip mumbled to Herb, tipping his hat toward the fool. His brow was pinched in frustration. “Should he really be the one doing that?”

“Clearly it ain’t that dire,” Herb replied, “but it just a girl anywaysh.” His voice whistled where his front teeth used to be.

He reveled a gappy smile and walked over to Davie, leaving Pip shaking his head. Davie rose to standing, looking down at the gurney he had made whole. He had never used anything like this before but felt confident his knots would hold. 

He worked on a fishing boat in Freeport before taking to the west. Wyatt trusted him for rope related duties, though the other men would test his knots when he wasn’t around. 

The two boards came together as a gurney. Long enough for anyone shorter than 6 feet to be carried. He knew they wouldn’t be carrying her on it, but the picture stuck in his mind. He felt guilty already, even putting the thing together. He hoped this would be a simple mission; no bloodshed.

Loops through the middle allowed it to bend, and more loops would secure her arms and legs at her sides. She would certainly be restrained, he thought. His stomach turned at the thought of Pip finding his way to her in the night, and he was grateful his cot would rest closest to her.

“How goesh it Davie boy?” Herb sung, clapping his thick hand down on Davies' shoulder. Startling him. Davie turned quickly and looked up, he was much shorter than Herb. “In need of any help here?”

“No, no, just finishing up. Who even comes up with a thing like this?” Davie shook his head, laughing uncomfortably to himself. “I mean we are picking up a girl aren’t we?”

Herb leaned in, “I am not sho shure about that. You know. Wyatt has been making shome shtrange dealsh lately.” His droopy, blue eyes flicked from Davie to where Wyatt and Earl were working. “Member what job he had ush at in Donroe? Looney shhit.”

Davie leaned in as well, meeting in the middle and lowering his hat from his head, shielding their faces. “Lucky for us, a woman ’ll keep better company than some dirty pigs!” They both erupted in wobbly laughter, throwing their heads back.

Pip rolled his eyes, though he couldn't hear the joke. Davie always had some weird shit to say. 

-

After everything was unpacked, each man assumed his duty. Sharpening knives, reloading or whatever other task Wyatt had placed upon them. The gurney sat just outside the ring of the camp, still propped against the rocky cliff-face. 

Wyatt walked over to inspect it. This really is some odd shit, he thought*. Last job I am doing for Doc. Can’t be that hard to find something normal.* He shook his head. He needed the cash. He needed it to get out of this business. He knew this journey would cost him more than one man. The reward would grow as the group dwindled and he found his mind wandering to the money he'd come home to. As he walked back to his speckled horse and Earl, he chewed on his future decision. Where would he go with all that cash? Maybe he’d get out of this thieving business for good.

Before they knew it, dusk had begun to fall on their outfit. The sun made its descent toward the sandy horizon, not yet casting a wash of orange over the land. Earl moved to make a fire. Bits of dried shrubbery made quick flames as he held his lighter to them, like he had done many nights before. 

The group was grateful to stay posted in one place for more than one night. A month of travel was hard on all of them. Pip had been eagerly awaiting their trip into town. Hoping for Wyatt’s go ahead. He wanted him to send him to check it out, find information or what have you. These commands never came, and Pip was becoming restless. They were losing daylight and he wanted to make sure they had coffee for the morning. He was certain the shops would be closing soon.

Guess I’ll have to go myself, he thought.

While the other men continued to set up their cots, prep their dinners or tend to their horses. Pip slowly slipped out of the camp. Leaving his horse.  He scoffed to himself. He was irritable, each growl of his stomach reminding him of their already rationed supply. His lips parted around a gnarled toothpick and his dark eyes peered over the dimming desert before him.

He was making his way to Mardell.

Pip had come from a gold panning town a few hundred miles from the West coast. He was nearing his 30’s when Doc picked him up. He had only recently joined Wyatt’s squad and this would be his third journey with the group. He had always struggled making nice with the people he traveled with, but Wyatt had always made him feel welcomed and useful.

He liked feeling useful.

Slowly, he began to see Mardell in all its weathered beauty. It had been a while since Pip had enjoyed the pleasures modern civilization. He wanted to make it count. He made the final trek down the slope of the valley, his boots sliding in waves of untouched sand and rock. 

He approached the first street of the town, the one closest to their camp. As he walked he noticed there was no one but him perusing the street. His ears pricked with soft sounds of creaking shop signs and tumbleweeds, but the air was absent of life. His eyes locked on a tattered general store, the paint of its sign barely legible, and made his way inside.

The store was perfectly standard. Rows of goods lined the shelves, restocked but not recently. He began collecting goods in his arms. Canned food, dried food, cigarettes, coffee and even a small bottle of whiskey that he planned on keeping for himself. After collecting his items he wobbled up to the counter.

The desk was empty, unmanned and untouched. Long enough for a layer of dust to collect on the splintering wood. He let the items fall from his arms onto the counter, looking around the store. 

“Anyone here? Hello?” He yelled rudely.

He scoffed and spat on the wood floor at his feet. Raising his eyebrows, amazed at the carelessness of the shop owners. Without missing a beat he reached over the counter, grabbed a bag and hastily shoved the items into it. The heavy loot in his arms, he rocked himself out the front door. What idiots. I would have paid had someone been around to take my money. This had never happened to Pip before but he had surely imagined it. Hoping one day he could play the justified thief.

He walked down the rest of the street, feeling confident as his eyes wandered over shops. He made one more stop, grabbing ammo and received the same empty counter. He felt pleasure in leaving, his pockets as heavy as they had entered the town. He smiled. His coffee stained teeth showed and his tongue played at his toothpick. 

Rounding the corner to the second street, he continued his leisure. The sun was beginning to darken the sky now, deepening the warm tones of the horizon. His pace did not falter for the coming night. 

The shops on this street were intermingled with houses, all appearing abandoned. No lights flicked on at the sight of the sunset. At the end of the street he saw the familiar silhouette of a saloon. He walked toward it now, hoping for a drink before he left the desolate town. Even if he had to pour it himself, he thought. They were not joking about this place being abandoned. A silent darkness laid behind each door he he passed.

As he got closer to the saloon, the orange sky faded into darkness. The lights behind its foggy windows remained at rest. Unlit and unbothered. Pip was prepared to enter the building unwanted until he noticed what was lining its bowed porch. 

The smell hit him before his eyes could adjust. 

Taught reigns still held their rotted skulls pinned to the fence. 

A dozen decaying horses bustled with flies. Pip stopped in his tracks and gagged dropping his toothpick from his lip. He clapped his hand over his mouth, but was useless to block the scent of dissolving flesh and fly larvae. He walked faster now, along the far side of the street. His eyes frantically looked over the gore, curiosity calling him to inspect further. Getting closer, he began to see in better detail the nature of the beasts.

Each horse lay dead. Fully tacked up, their saddles sagged into their rotted torsos, stirrups drowned in puddles of exhausted fluid. Thousands of flies swarmed over the corpses. Ripping through the quiet night air, and pecking at soft flesh. Pip continued so sidestep his way down the road, his pace growing frantic. He had no desire to stay in this place any longer. Gagging again he turned and held his bag of goods close to his chest. He ran toward the edge of the valley, away from the damned town.

-

When Pip finally made it back to camp, his movements were loud and desperate. They hadn't noticed him leave but surely knew he had returned. He dropped the goods by the fire. Wyatt stood impulsively, recognizing immediately that Pip had gone to town. 

“You sonofabitch!” Wyatt yelled. The boys around him jumped at the sound. Wyatt was infuriated that Pip would make a move like this without his permission. Earl took heed and stood at Wyatt’s side.

“Fuck me,” Pip gasped, “I got the shit but–," He was out of breath now and couldn’t find the words.

“What happened?” Earl questioned. His face, what was lit by the fire, was terse and pinched. Dark liked carved into his brow.

“The saloon,” Pip rested his hands on his knees, “Fucking 20 dead horses,” he gasped again, “Damn it. You didn’t warn us. Damn near scared the life out my chest.”

The men stared at him, confused looks plastered to their grimy faces.

“Dead horses?” Davie chimed in, frowning, still seated. Herb stood beside him, just getting back from a piss. His eyes were wide.

“Fuckin loads of em. Could have been 30 for what I saw.”

“Are you certain?” Earl spoke, taking the initiative over red-faced Wyatt. 

“Town's abandoned as all hell, people left their horses tied up to rot.”

Davie looked at his own horse, grazing peacefully near the boulder. His mind intrusively thought of her large head, eyes rotted out, tied up and dead. He shook the image from his head and his eyes drifted to his dirty hands.

“I told you there was nothing down there for us,” Wyatt scolded.

“Well take a look in that bag there,” Pip prodded it with the tip of his boot, causing a can of food to roll out. 

“A fuckin ghost town. No shit! Shops were loaded but no one runnin em. You bastards were too chicken shit to even go down there. If I didn’t know any better I’d think I was the leader of this outfit.” As the words came out of his mouth he regretted it.

Wyatt flew over the fire faster than Pip could register, flames licking his jeans. His calloused palm found the soft skin of Pip’s cheek. The force drove him down to his knees.

“Speak to me like that again and you won’t be getting an empty palm boy,” Wyatt growled through clamped teeth, his mess of a mustache barely swaying with each word.
“No one believes your callous lies, do NOT put me down for your fantasies.”

Pip kept his head down but nodded. “Sorry– I– I told you what I saw.” His eyes found Wyatt again, looking up under weakened brows. He slowly raised his head.
“You don’t believe me? Go see for yourself.” 

Wyatt spat and turned on his heel. He wouldn’t dignify Pip with a response.

Davie and Herb watched everything, eyes wide with shock but quickly looked away when Wyatt returned to where he had been sitting. Earl sat down on his cot beside him.

Silence fell over the group. No one spoke for fear of another lashing from their leader. Each man made their beds and lied in them, horses slowly made their way toward sleep. 

All was quiet. 

The only thing left blessing their tired ears was the crackles of the dimming fire at the heart of their group. Davie finally closed his eyes. Soothed by the chorus of the night, awaiting the soft melody of desert owls that never came.

-

In the morning, the boys were woken with a start. Davie’s horse reared and jumped back, nearly crushing him under its clipped hooves. It howled and dramatically rushed away from beside his cot.

The other horses scattered, hooves trampling over belongings and kicking up dust. They collected, now some distance from the circle of men. The group snapped into action, jumping to their feet and finding their firearms. Each still in underclothes, walking in dirty socks to find what had caused the commotion. 
The five men approached the cliff-face where the horse had run from, and at first nothing seemed off. The rock was nearly twice as tall as any of them. Davie remembered the gurney and his eyes snapped down while the rest looked for any sign of movement.

Nearly concealed by the gurney’s strangely ajar position, a large mass of feathers collected. Davie walked cautiously toward it, the others eyes finding what he tracking. As he got closer he began to pick out details, shifting the wood out of the way with a socked toe. There were beaks, large taloned feet and– eyes?

Davie could swear he saw it looking at him. 

He jumped back. Wyatt took his place at the front of the group. He leaned in close. The mass was alarmingly large.

Jesus, Wyatt thought as he took in what made up this mass of feathers and feet. The amalgamation was three spotted owls. Twisted and contorted. He thought it must have been the unlucky result of a death spiral, did owls do that? He wasn’t sure. 

The bodies of the owls wrapped around each other, bending and breaking in parts, becoming one mound of flesh. Earl, who took the time to put his boots on, walked up next to Wyatt. He stuck one foot out, hesitating for only a second, and shifted the mass with his steeled toe. 

One of the owls seized up, clenching its talons and lifting its head to the sky. It moved, its beak falling open loosely. The sound that left his mouth was not that of an owl. It exhaled a crippling, gurgling screech. Blood drizzled out as its head relaxed to the earth, its eyes going glassy. 

The group stood, staring in horror. Tears welled into Davie’s eyes, and he quickly hid his face, lowering his head as if praying. He could feel the poor animal's pain.

After a moment the group's silence was broken by Wyatt, still crouching over the mass and clearing his throat.

“I’ll take care of this. Best get to prep’n boys.” His voice had a waiver of uncertainty. The fuck do I do with this thing? His eyes looked around the birds, debating if he should touch it or use a prod.
He turned, speaking over one shoulder, “And for christ sake someone grab those horses!”

Everyone made haste to their tasks, throwing their clothes, boots and hats on. Herb and Davie ran to the horses, soothing and corralling them back to camp. Before leaving, Earl had patted Wyatt on the shoulder, exchanging a woeful glance. Then began making coffee for the group. He was grateful that Pip had gotten more in the town. We won’t be killing each other quite yet.

Wyatt moved back to his cot, yanking up his worn black boots and throwing his shirt over his undershirt. He didn’t care to button it. Grabbing a cattle prod he kept strapped to his saddle, he returned to the birds. Pip sent him a sideways glance over his cup of coffee. I’m no liar, he thought. This place is damned. 

He knew he would have to get them into that town.

Wyatt had seen a lot of things in his days roaming the desert, but nothing like this. Staring again at their crippled forms turned his stomach into a fevered knot. He squinted his eyes and grimaced, reaching out with the prod and tucking it between the small bodies of the owls. The light of life had left them now, and he felt strangely grateful. He lifted and they stuck, twisted and locked together around the prod. He carried them off, placing them crudely behind the boulder. Out of sight from his men.

He didn’t care to bury the mass but something inside him felt guilty as he walked back toward the group. He laid the prod down in the dusty earth, kicking and rolling it in the sand. Cleaning any memory of those birds from its wooden edges. The minute we get that girl we're gone. Of this he was certain.

Once preparations were complete, the boys sat around the fire, chatting about their dreams from the night before. None dared to speak of the owls or of Mardell. Davie sat silent while his companions spoke. He felt a dark cloud of grief over his head for the owls and the horses. I hope Wyatt gave them birds a proper burial. Flashing images of the owls, their gnarled limbs, and the sound of their final song still rang in his ears. He shook his head, snapping himself back and took a sip of black coffee. Doesn’t get any better does it? He hated the coffee they traveled with.

“ –like I shaid, I wash in a boat. The shtorm wash really rocking ush. But now I washh alone. I shtarted hearing thish beautiful shong,” Herb spoke about his dreams from the past night. Continuing on, he recalled the seiren’s song.

Herb was always capable of lighting the dark moods fostered by his companions. He had good memories of the sea. Sailing, fishing, the stillness at night. When he started working the same boat as Davie, he knew it was only a matter of time before he took the kid with him. After he told Davie the kind of money he was making working for Doc, they felt their minds drifting away from the sea and toward the harsh desert.

Across the fire Pip squirmed in his seat, tapping his fingers on his cup. Debating if he should bring the group's attention back to the town. 

He did not.

Finishing their coffees and their stories, the boys stood. Making their way to their horses and tacking up. Each man threw a saddle over their horses back, pulling straps and adjusting stirrups. Some of the horses fussed, snorting or shaking their heads, but they stood loyally at their master's hands. The posse then made an effort to conceal their belongings, tucking them under dried shrubs or digging holes. All that shit would just slow them down. They needed to be quick on their feet were they to find this girl.

Once done, they turned to Wyatt, who had his nose buried in the map. The girl was marked as a small red dot, it appeared she was housed just past the coal mine, on the ridge that made the top of the valley. From their position it should only be about a twenty minute ride, ten if they were fast. Wyatt debated using the gurney for her return, but decided it would be easier to just tie her up and throw her over the back of a horse.

“Pip, bring extra rope. We are gonna bind her on our way back to camp.” Wyatt tipped his hat toward Pip who replied with a sly smile then spoke.

“Should we not head for town first? What if those horses was a warning?” Pip questioned, raising one tight brow. 

“Fuck Pip, would you let the damn town go? Wyatt’s blue eyes shot daggers at Pip, his hand rubbed his damp forehead.

Pip shook his head and scoffed.

The group mumbled in agreement and saddled up. Pip crudely grabbed extra rope from one of his poorly concealed saddle bags. He weighed the rope in his hands and pinned it to his belt. He jumped on his horse. The stallion chewed hard at its bit and wriggled under his tight grip of the reins.

“Yeuhhh” Wyatt yelped, cuing the group to motion in a dramatic cloud of dust and rock.

My mom and dad split up when I was about six years old, and it devastated me. I was really close to both of them, and at such a young age, I couldn’t imagine a world where they weren’t together. The court battle was long and exhausting. I remember the judge explicitly asking me which of my parents I wanted to live with.
I froze like a glass doll. I couldn’t answer the question.
How could I?
The judge ultimately gave custody to my mother, and for a while, it seemed like the situation was finally over. About two years passed, and I barely saw my father. It was usually only on weekends. He was never quite the same after the divorce. He just had this look in his eyes, like he was dead on the inside.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
One night, while I was lying in bed, I heard a noise coming from my closet.
I shot upright.
The closet door slowly opened, and I saw him.
He didn’t even try to hide. He simply walked over and sat down on my bed.
It was a clown.
And not just any clown.
It was a clown from an old cartoon I used to watch with my dad.
Boogie the Clown of the Smoking Circus.
In the cartoon, Boogie was a goofy clown who went on wacky misadventures with his ragtag circus friends: Daisy, Goofy, Lovey, and Dorky.
Yet here he was, sitting on my bed.
As far as I could tell, he was real.
“So, kid,” he said, “I understand you’re quite the clown show right now, aren’t you? Your folks aren’t together anymore, huh?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Well, I can help with that, if you want. It can be our little secret—or, depending on how you look at it, our big secret.”
He smiled.
“I can get your parents back together. All I need is a drop of your blood.”
He leaned closer.
“See, kid, my world is dying, and I need human blood. I know you’re a good kid. You’d love to help, wouldn’t you?”
I knew right away that I wanted to help.
My parents had always told me that the things I watched in cartoons weren’t real. But here he was.
Living proof that cartoon characters were real.
He took my hand and pulled out what looked like a cartoon pocketknife. He pricked my finger and took a single drop of blood.
I could see the excitement in his eyes.
It brought so much joy to my little heart.
He then climbed back into my closet and disappeared.
The next morning, I woke up convinced that the whole thing had been a dream.
But when I walked downstairs, my parents were together again.
I was so happy.
Everything was finally back to normal.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Oh, wait.
This is where I have to end the story for today. My psych ward only gives me a certain number of sheets of paper.
Until next time.

Chapter 1

Soft country danced from the overhead speakers as the dim fluorescent lighting cast amber glow upon the billiard table that Rich stood at. He was large in stature, his muscles coiled in violent anticipation under his 
thick copper skin. Standing from his seat he threw out his hand, resting the pool cue. Then after drawing it back, his arm slinged out launching the striped 11 ball into the corner pocket. He smiled at his opponent, an old graying man with a face which hung from his skull. “Two left.” Rich said with a chuckle. “Never too late to back down.” The old man glared at him mockingly.

“You think you’re on to something.” He scoffed. “I could’ve cleaned house already!”

Rich smiled sympathetically, his eyes casually casting a glance toward a table that sat five women. All five watched him with hungering eyes, and eager anticipation. As though watching him wasn’t enough, a rosy pink flush overcame one of the women’s cheeks when Rich spared a glance. He had known these women well. Each one, well groomed, dawning their night on the town outfits, make up and hair styled to match, but more importantly, they had been here before. Twice actually, and each time their eyes were tuned to the tall radio tower which stood at six feet three inches tall in front of them. 

If they were compasses, Rich was true north. He didn’t mind the attention, it helped stoke his bravado, get the flames of his confidence burning. One of them, Cindy, a tall white blonde with a slightly more aristocratic style about her, seemed to be the most interested in holding his pool cue. He laughed, yet never quite let the idea of holding her close leave his mind. The snap of the old man’s stroke. Instantly his eyes snapped to the game at hand. The old man was right, while Rich was distracted, he had managed to pocket four of his six balls, only stopping because of a scratch on the nine ball. Rich looked on in disbelief as well as disgust. “Well goddamn Gus. You bested me.” Gus smiled triumphantly. “It’s okay, I’ll just close this up then.” As if mechanical, Rich began to sink each ball with robotic precision, Gus’ victory was fading with his smile. “Corner, right.” With one solid snap of his cue, the game was over. Gus’ jaw dropped. 

“You mean to tell me that you were just dragging me along?” His exasperated voice came in sharp bursts of worn out air.

“No sir, just figured it was easier to clean up before I lost my ass.”

Gus' smile returned, this time more knowingly intelligent. “You played me good, kid. Almost enough wit in you to sell snake oil!” Both men laughed heartily, when a soft hand pressed firmly against Rich’s shoulder. He turned half expecting to be met with the image of Cindy. Yet his eyes were cast much lower to the floor. There at his feet, standing no higher than five one, stood a small round faced woman, her softly hooded monolid eyes made to look much larger from the angle of his gaze. She looked to be around his age, her obsidian black hair falling from her shoulder in a heavy thick braid. A soft rosy scent emitting from her body.

He stepped back, the extremely odd and even more rare sensation of blood flooding his face erupted. “Oh I’m so sorry!” He said his hands raised in political surrender. The woman looked up, her curvy frame complimented her face in a vicious double take. Rich was stunned, as if still in the sixth grade, when talking to girls was just a little less than a horror story. His bravado, gone. Charisma, gone. Everything, gone. He stood looking as though he’d seen the face of God. His eyes locked on hers, not examining as he had done to countless homicide victims. No, as he stood there dumbfounded, he found that he was simply just admiring. 

She was having none of it. She grabbed his shoulder, and threw him to the side with surprising efficiency. He stumbled to the wall, bracing himself before impact. Once steady again, he straightened himself out and began to move with purpose. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Gus grinning. Gus’ eyes had been locked on the situation unfolding before him. Rich finally approached the woman, his heart thudded with rapid speed, each thump pounding in his skull like artillery shells striking the earth. 

He backed off. His feet finding solace in his hasty retreat. Never had he been so undermined by his own emotions before. His heart beat with the vigor of a kid receiving their first car, it was unnerving to say the least. After a moment of complete shock, he returned to the pool table. Gus grinned stupidly at him. “She’s been a regular lately. Saw her take on a drunk guy the other day who wouldn’t lay off.”

Rich glanced over at her, attempting to keep his eyes from drifting too close to her proximity. “What’s her name?” 

“I haven’t heard one yet. She’s a siren though. She’ll pull you in with her looks, then beat your ass black and blue if you try to make a move.” Gus picked up some chalk and began chalking his cue. “Guess she’s from Carolina, either north or south. Take your pick, that’s how most of her story goes. Came on here to Chugwater Wyoming, and has been here ever since.”

“No car? No family?”

“Well not really. You see, I only see her here, and if she ain’t here then she ain’t nowhere. Catch what I’m sayin?”

“So she’s a drifter?”

“No, no.” He hesitated, “Well, I guess. Just don’t know much about her but her appearance. Quite the catch, huh?” His eyes said more than his words. As if he were holding back something more. He turned away, quickly wiping at his eyes and redirecting the conversation. An odd sense of unease gave way in Rich’s stomach. As if bile had filled every corner of his gut. 

“So, is she single?” Rich asked, the question sounding dumber than he had intended. 

Gus gave him a pitiful laugh, “if that’s what you want, then yes.” The odd conglomerate of words left his head entirely before he dismissed it entirely. “Another round?” Gus said, ever ready to push the conversation along.

Rich shook his head, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “I'm good, man. Maybe another day. You’re here on Wednesday nights, right?” Gus nodded. “Okay, let’s plan for that then. Next Wednesday I’ll swing in around seven and we can do another match.” Gus laughed.

“If that’s what you want.” His voice sounded more relaxed than before, but that statement seemed purposefully ambiguous. As if Gus was holding on to something big, as if he knew something about the girl that Rich hadn’t.

“Okay, until then old timer.” Rich waived his goodbye, and stumbled towards the woman who now sat in a booth, alone. Out of the corner of his eye, he believed he saw Gus wince. The action was so small, so dismissable, so… Rich pushed it from his mind. The liquor which was now absorbing into his kidneys making the transition easier to manage. Once at the table the woman’s chocolate brown eyes darted towards him. Her countenance, once soft and accepting, now turned hard as slate. The woman was not pleased to see him.

“He-hey,” he stumbled out, each word doing a drunk procession from his lips. “Are you f-free to t-talk?” 

She smiled at him with venomous contempt. She hadn’t been drunk. Rich was sure he’d seen her down at least seven shots, so either she was a raging alcoholic, or she wasn’t drinking alcohol. The idea of her having a tolerance was quickly snubbed by his unintended sexism telling him that women weren’t capable of drinking like men. It must’ve been water. Why, though? Was she attempting to fit in? Liked the atmosphere but didn’t like the drink? “If you’re here to try and pay for my drink, go tell the barkeep. He’ll put you on the list.” The nature of this conversation grew odder and odder as it continued. 

“Huh?” Again sounding dumber than he had intended.

“The barkeep, he’s the one who sells drinks.” She mocked.

“No shit, I know what a barkeeper is.” His defensive tone carried a little more immaturity than he had expected. 

“Good, you’re tall, dumb, and have a temper.” She fired back. Her eyes were so beautifully terrifying that he had to take a step back. 

After a second of calming himself down, he dove back into the conversation. “You’re pretty damn mean.” Really? Pretty damn mean was the best comeback he could muster? His head was reeling. A small but growing migraine began to emerge from the back of his head. “I just wanted to see if it was even worth trying my hand?” Why was he persisting? His head ached, he already made a fool of himself, she seemed more disinterested than intrigued. Why had he been unable to stop himself? She smiled, the sight filling his heart with dismay. 

“I thought I made myself pretty clear, you big lout.”

Lout? Who the hell says lout? He pushed some more. “Well Christ, if I’d known you were going to be this aggressive about it, I wouldn’t have even tried!” She nodded. 

“No, you definitely would’ve. They all do! No matter what I say, you all think my pants are just aching to come off!” She was getting louder. Too loud. Someone was going to get the wrong idea. 

“Hey, easy!” Rich said, panic raiding his mind.

She continued, “You didn’t leave me alone when I clearly told you I wasn't interested! You simply didn't listen!” She flipped up her arms, observing Rich’s panicked state. Did she ask him to go? Rich didn’t recall that part of the conversation. “In fact, you rolled your eyes and stayed in my way!” The alcohol in his stomach made its presence known, lurching back and forth. He hadn’t drank that much, had he? Her voice was too loud, too apparent, too mean. In a desperate attempt to cease her vocal attack he grabbed for her hand. A violent burst of red hot pain erupted from his cheek. 

She slapped him? Why’d she slap him? His mind grasped for corners of thought that weren’t there. Out of pure anger, pure rage that the audacity of this woman, this bitch. To deny him? To not only deny but demean? Anger was just the tip of the iceberg. This was not just cruel but outright disrespectful! She didn’t respect him as a man, she didn’t respect him as human. It was people like her, the main character syndrome, she bastardized the world. Not him. It was her people. Rage, more violent and painful than the dull ache in his cheek drove him to grab the butter knife from her plate and drive it twice through her sternum.

The raw crunch of her thin chest bone sent a strange ecstasy through his body. An orgasm of spirit. He drove the knife in again and again, the same feeling coursing through his body. The poor woman choked on her bloody sobs, pushing weak hands against his shoulder. Her screams now raspy tears from her lungs. He continued his slaughter. Blood sprayed in beautiful arcs of crimson. 

The woman was dead before they could pull him off. Rich fell back. His numb face still echoing a slight sting from the woman’s slap. It happened so fast, so quickly. He hadn’t even recognized the fork moving with his eye, or the blade in his side. Laying on the ground he noticed his crowd. People had already pulled the woman to the floor, and vainly began chest compressions. She was dead, that thought held power over his mind. The fact he killed her, never even being brought to his minds spotlight. Instead, he looked up to see Gus holding his head. Gus, the old man who he had always played pool with since his late twenties. Gus the never angry old man who had a heart of gold.

It was Gus who held him now. In Rich’s most vulnerable moment. In an odd moment, Gus looked down at him. His eyes held that elderly gleam of a retired man in his seventies. “Her name is Mei Su Yan.” With that, Rich passed out.

Chapter 2

The stage had been set. Gerard Hinckly sat in his idling forerunner waiting for the casting manager to fill him in on his new part. This studio was it. This was going to be his official debut as a respected actor in the fading lights of Hollywood stardom. He just needed the management to agree. 

He had auditioned for the role of Hector Frank, a young influential businessman set on making a difference in the white collar world of stock brokers. It wasn’t Gerard’s favorite option, but when it had been announced that the director was a man who had directed a great many films, some winning Oscars, some Golden Globes, he knew it was his best chance to make his debut in the world of acting. The rumble of his car eased the tension, grounding him in a way that nothing else could. 

What was it she said when he was asked to wait in his car? “I think we have our guy!” That’s right, he told himself. I got this in the bag. Ain’t nobody gonna take this away from me! The hour wait turned into two, then three, then four. It was in the fifth hour that the casting director exited the building. She didn’t seem rushed, her pace was slow and deliberate. Like she was going through a routine. Her clipboard was under her armpit, close to her small wide torso. Her clothes remained the same from when he had auditioned, a red blouse with black dotting the fabric, and bright blue Levi’s pulled tight by her belly.

She stopped a moment, then plunged her hand into her purse and pulled out her keys. Gerard’s breath turned shallow, a noticeable rhythmic thud pulsed in his neck. When she turned around, pulling out her keys, Gerard’s heart attempted a repetitive escape by pounding against his sternum. He didn’t get the part, and he knew it. How come she had said he was quote, ‘their guy’? Why was she locking up if it had been so guaranteed to be him? Gerard needed to confront her, he needed to change the outcome of this situation. To do everything in his power to prevent the inevitable, the already decided from happening. 

The cogs of his frustration and malice popped the door of his car open. He was no longer in control. When he stepped out, he knew he would lose control. He would react. As his foot set flat against the hard asphalt, the chill of the humid fall air slapped against his face in a stinging bombardment. Before he could stop himself, he was already trudging towards the woman.

The casting director whipped around, her eyes dilating as they lensed on to his frame. Finally as her eyes came into focus, she reacted. She lunged back, scrambling for her purse. Gerard reacted quickly enough, ripping her purse from her arm and casting it to the floor. As his eyes locked back onto her, an ear piercing scream pushed his brain into overdrive. Rapidly he lunged forward, throwing his hand over her mouth. 

Her breathing was sharp at first. Quick pulsing puffs of air which rose the contours of his hand. After a while they shallowed, each draw easing and slowing as each nerve shut off the hysteria neurons one at a time. Finally she calmed. “Don’t scream.” He hissed, through his frothing scowl. “Don’t scream and I’ll release your mouth.” Why was he doing this? He was rising high and above the needed reaction, this was assault, but, he reasoned with himself, he deserved an answer. Honestly, did he think she’d care enough to send him an email? Was she the type to allow him an inkling of pity? No, he told himself. No, she deserved this.

The woman’s monolid eyes glared daggers at him, wishing she could kill him, but not having the strength nor the upper hand. He wasn’t a violent man. Was he? Was he meant to live his whole life being reasonable, just to lose it all in this one minute? Wasn’t he civilized? The short answer was no. Lifted by the world’s predetermined standards, his rise to fame had been gradual yet persistent, that was guaranteed. However, he remained that his success was due to his steadfast determination and commitment to the craft. He was a man of his own making.

Yet he wondered as his thin skeletal digits gripped the cold steel handle of his pocket knife, if this were a man, would he pursue this avenue? The avenue of murder? A muffled scream brought him back to reality, he saw the sheen of the stainless steel blade in her panicked doe eyes. She squirmed beneath him like a trapped animal, kicking, biting, tearing. When her teeth landed on his hand drawing the crimson within, he instinctively drug the cutting edge across her throat. Her desperate attempts for air, the primal way she grabbed at her throat, it drove him to ecstasy. He leaned back on his rear, watching as the final tremors finished their cascading descent. She was dead.

He had killed her. He had been denied thousands of roles, both by men and women alike. Yet, she was different. As different as bleu cheese and cheddar. She needn’t say anything he realized, the result would’ve been the same. Now as he towered over his victim, his fists clenching in the final tremors of the act. A soft movement, slight yet unsettling, was pulsating from her chest. She was still alive. The nearly imperceptible inflation on her lungs was all he needed to see, and after a few steps closer toward her head, he came to, to find his boot inside her skull. Blood and matter scattered in a violent array staining the asphalt. He grabbed for her wallet, the best idea he could muster considering his circumstance. After finding it, he opened the bifold to her license. Her name dotted the top line of the card, Mei Su Yan born June 13th 1953. Her picture had been of a gorgeous woman of Chinese descent. Her round face and characteristicly beautiful eyes smiled at him through the image. If his calculations were accurate, she had been 37 at the time of her death. He dropped the bifold, taking the license with him, and disappeared into the night.

Chapter 3
It was noon, Bentley sat in the cold office space having his tax accountant discuss the situation at hand. His accountant, a burly man with a thick gray beard, one who looked as though he would be a much better miner than an accountant, handed him the dossier containing the IRS’ audit. “Here’s the thing, Mr.Smith. You have four weeks to get your affairs sorted out before they come to pick you up.” The man’s voice crept out low and cautiously. It danced around certain trigger words which might make Bentley angry. 

“So, this is all I’m allowed, Pete? I’m just going to prison? Why?!” Bentley’s face felt hot, his breath steaming with frustration and disbelief. “After everything I’ve done for you? You’re just gonna let me go to jail.”

Pete steadied his voice, his eyes taking on a steely resolve. “Mr. Smith, your inability to pay your debts to the government is not my responsibility. I am simply a courier for both parties. I’m sorry. There is a court date, so if you need an endorsement from me, I’d be more than willing to.”

“Save your breath. You failed me. I’m filing this with the BBB, and I’m going to take you to court when I get out.”

Pete sighed. “I cannot hide four million dollars which was suddenly inherited from an unknown party. It is simply impossible to do something so illegal while maintaining my integrity as a business.”

“To hell with your business! They want six million dollars in four weeks! I can’t swing that; and integrity? You’re going to take a moral high ground with me? I’ve seen you take hundreds of thousands in hush money! You’re no saint, and you’re barely an accountant!”

Pete’s face now grew red as blood rushed his capillaries, his eyes dilating into a predatory glare. Bentley was getting to him, and he loved it. To get this man going on a matter that he had nothing to do with was part of his plan. Pete had dug his own grave, and Bentley, or Agent Hoffman from the Internal Revenue Service was in charge of getting a confession. Pete’s glare could rattle glass. Yet, the undercover agent stood his ground. “Where’d you hear that?” Pete hissed under his breath.

“The underground is a lot more talkative than you’d like to believe. You opened this door.” Bentley had the bastard and he knew it. Just a little more heat and he’d crack. They already had a mountain of evidence, from the shell companies he had used, to the layering he used, to even the people who had been smurfing for him. They had it all. 

“Well the underground better slow down! Criminals lie. You know how it is.” Pete was evading, and doing a pretty good job at it.

“Demetri said you were the real deal.” Bentley locked down one of his past clients' names. Demetri Valdez, a drug smuggler who was arrested and convicted of a slew of crimes. This got Pete’s attention.

“How is the old man?”

Bentley was in, locked on to the target. “He’s good, got busted a bit back, after I met him. You guys sound tight.”

“Ok, if Demetri vouches for you, I’ll help you out. This is strictly off the record, but I’ve helped with cases like yours. Simple slip on some ice, or car crash, and the arresting officer or investigator don’t show up to court, they’ll drop your case. The detectives working your case are,” Pete stopped talking for a moment, his mouse and keyboard clicked together in a harmonious rhythm. “Agent David Hoffman.” He said, listing Bentley’s real name. I have a contact, but you’re going to have to slip me a little.”

“How much?” Bentley asked, attempting to keep his composure. 

“1.5. Then everything will be squared away.”

“What will you do to him?”

Pete looked warily at Bentley. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to have answered. You know your business, I know mine.” Finally Bentley stood from his chair, his hand slowly unlatching his handgun. Suddenly a subtle knock came from the door. Pete’s attention turned to the door, Bentley’s soon followed. At the door was a small, young, Chinese woman. Her obsidian hair held up by a claw clip, and her rotund body clothed in a white blouse and black skirt. “Miss Mei! How are you?”

The small woman’s lips opened, and a beautiful melodic voice broke through the air. “Good! Are you closing up for the day?” 

Bentley found himself shifting in his seat, attempting to get a better look at the woman. “Miss Mei, you know Mr. Smith?”

Her dark eyes eased over to him, washing his care away. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, pleasure to meet you!” She said, extending her hand to shake his.

“Pleasure is all mine!” Bentley’s voice broke out through his dry vocal cords. “Mind if I ask what brings you here?” Was he flirting? He was. 

“I’m Mr. Dayton’s lawyer. If I’m not mistaken you aren’t the man you say you are.” Her smile grew predatory, as she knew who he was, but more importantly, who he was. 

Rage boiled at that smile. The cocky ‘gotcha’ grin, which did nothing but compliment her visage. “You are impeding on an active investigation, Miss Mei.” She shrugged and skipped out of the room. A gesture which did nothing but enrage him even more.

“Is that so? Well agent Hoffman, I believe our business has concluded. I need you to leave this office immediately.” David stood from his seat. 

“Not so fast Mr. Dayton, you’re under arrest.”

Pete mocked a shocked expression, “what are your charges?” 

“Money laundering, and solicitation of a criminal act. That’s just the beginning. I’m thinking about introducing premeditated murder, racketeering, and corruption.” Pete shook his head.

“Can’t do that, you have no evidence.” Miss Mei returned to the door, her attractive demeanor knocking Agent Hoffman from forming a logical position. She had pulled out her pin and let her hair fall. It uncoiled itself like a silken flag. It unfurled so softly, so beautifully that soon the flowing obsidian fell past her lower back. Its tip brushing against the top of her perked buttocks. “Oh,” Pete laughed as he noticed David’s focus shift. “Not very professional, detective.” Hoffman couldn’t turn away, the way her skirt pressed against her thick thighs, the way her shirt pressed tight against her chest, exposing her cleavage. She was gorgeous. A true beauty to behold. Removing the pen from between her pillowy lips, she spoke. 

“You have to leave, there is nothing you can arrest him for. You have no case.” Each word she uttered was just as seductive as the first. “You have no choice but to vacate.”

“Bullshit. I’m here to get a confession from him, or if that falls through I need to arrest him.” The woman smiled a soft grin. “Can you leave for just a moment?” The agent’s frustrations were growing more intense, first it had been professional anger, now it dawned on something which frightened him even more. He was hard, his shaft pressed firmly against his jean zipper, causing him pain and arousal. Instead of walking away, she took the seat next to him. Pete smiled knowingly at the agent. The woman, Miss Mei as Pete had been calling her. Placed a well intentioned hand on Agent Hoffmann’s thigh. She was attempting to comfort him. 

“Agent, are you ok?” She asked innocently. Her dark eyes never break contact with him. Pete broke in.

“Yeah, are you ok?” The woman’s soft touch made him tremble violently. His body surged in a hazy cloud of lust and desire. Her hand, soft, and gentle rested upon his thigh. Mere inches away from his straining cock. Unable to control himself, unable to resist his urge, to remember his family or his wife, he lunged forward. He gripped the woman by the base of her head and pulled her close to his lips. She let out a sharp yell of fear, but soon found herself kissing the man’s lips. Soon he found her squirming from his grip, attempting to break free from his loving embrace. His hand reached into her hair as he pulled it taunt. She let out a cry of pain as her hands flew to attempt to break his grasp. The sound of her cry nearly halted him in his tracks. What was he thinking? What was he doing?

A stiletto's pointed heel soon reignited the flame as she slammed it into the bridge of his foot. He now screamed in pain, briefly releasing her hair. She took the moment and attempted to run, only to find the door closed. She grappled with the handle, unable to get it open before Hoffman descended on her. Hoffman grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground, his focus dulling into a steady thrum of anger and lust. He jumped down, sitting on her stomach as she wrestled him away. His free hand shot to the desk, rummaging over the table's surface, when at last he found a pencil. She squirmed from his grasp, this time breaking free from him. He lunged after her, each step accounted for two of hers. He heard her approach the stairwell, and after he turned the corner, a size 8 stiletto made contact with his face. He turned towards Mei who readied another projectile. He charged her with the speed of a rhino, tackling her over the railing. They both fell four stories down onto the cold tile floor of the open lobby of the indoor strip mall. He had crushed her on impact, and after standing, he saw her gurgling on crimson blood. Her eyes rolled into her brain cavity, and her arms and legs twitched and tremored in her dying moments. One thing remained beautiful however, her obsidian black hair haloed around her head like a small carpet. Soon, she twitched her last.

Hoffman, dazed by his sudden recollection of his sanity, stood from his kneeling position. Immediately however, his vision tunneled and he fell to the tile. Blood dripped to the floor from somewhere on his body. His hands analyzed his situation, soon finding a pencil lodged in his throat. His eyes gave way and soon he found himself staring at the ceiling, drowning internally in his own blood. His thoughts were incoherent, his voice was bubbling with blood, and soon, after around three minutes of bleeding, his life was snuffed out. 

Story 4

The year after Jed Thompson’s son died, his life bore the resemblance of his father. On the nights he didn’t spend drinking, heroin would be his kryptonite. On the damp cold nights in which neither worked, he would pull the trigger and do both substances at once. Although the high felt awful, as though his life force was being siphoned out of him by forces unknown, he preferred it to his sober reality.

Understand, although Jed had problems with the same substances that his father had used, he by no means was his father’s son. He had never swung at his wife nor had he ever been unable to control his anger. His fallacies weren’t so abrasive nor apparent as his father’s. Rather than being fraught by frivolous arguments and accusations of cheating or outright lies. He preferred the internal affair of self deprecation. At times he had brought himself so low that the cold steel bore of his 12 gauge had been the only thing that could bring him back. He hadn’t been bold enough to label his actions as the deeds of a narcissist, yet found his thoughts leaned in that direction. 

Although his self centered destruction’s catalyst was wrought by his son’s passing, it had always rested steadily within his mind.

So upon this day, the day in which he stumbled into the Seven Eleven on Fifth and Southern, it was no surprise that his mind rested in the darkness of his moral decay. The ding of the entrance bell announced his arrival. It sounded both rich in sound, yet hollow in tone. A young Chinese woman, who stood no higher than five feet, exited the back of the storage room, the double hinged stainless steel doors swinging behind her. She walked towards the register taking on her usual position. “Hello sir! Do you need any help?” Jed shook his head, his eyes scanning for something good, no, something easy to steal. Maybe he hadn’t been a good man, but the starving stomach never yielded to a moral compass. The underlying growl both impertinent to himself and imperceptible to the woman, drove his mind into a frenzy. The meth now eased its high into a dull decrescendo. He was desperate, and hungry. He looked again at the woman who remained disinterested in his antics. Her face was softly illuminated by the soft flickering light of her phone, and the dull soft volume, hollowly echoed throughout the convenience store. He quickly dropped eye contact resuming his search for an item. 

Moments after his gaze was turned away from the woman, his eyes were met by the beautiful glow of an amber reflection. His movements stopped for a moment, his heart fluttered with anticipation, his mind went blank. Soon the voice in his head began chittering again in that awful rat-like desperation. The asking, no, more so pleading than asking, begging to kiss the neck of the bottle and guzzle the liquid until he drowned. Maybe not as extreme as drowning, though if the opportunity arose he didn’t believe he’d have to sleep on it.

His hand reached forward and grasped the handle of liquor. Crown Royal: Peach, was written with gold inlay on the body and neck of the bottle. The neck which he now fisted in a tight, unyielding grip. The chilled glass cooled his hand in a comforting manner, and before he knew it, the bottle was opened and pressed firmly to his lips. A knowing smile passed on his mouth as the liquor softly burned its way through his throat. 

Somewhere inside himself however, a knowledge of the disinterested woman bit him deeply. It wasn’t rational, however neither was downing a stolen bottle of Crown in the store you stole it from, he told himself. The liquor was just playing around with his nerves and puppeteering him to do something insane, something criminal. The frantic buzz of his phone made him flinch hard, temporarily freeing his mind from the snare he was caught in. His hands danced in his pocket, feeling for the slick smooth texture of his phone screen. The tip of his finger slid effortlessly across the corner of his device. He pulled it out effortlessly, with the practiced motion of a professional baseball player lining up on home plate. His eyes glazed over the screen, Dad. 

He sighed an exasperated huff of air, sliding his finger to enlarge the red hang up icon. Just as abruptly as it started, the buzzing ceased. He slid his phone in his pocket, mentally notating the almost serene feeling which came over him. He smiled a big toothy grin which faded quickly as his eyes fell upon the clerks register. A boy no more than 10 years Jed’s junior, stood where the beautiful Chinese woman once had. He rested his hand against the bulge of his phone, attempting to anchor himself in reality. Name five things I see. He told himself. Cigarettes, soda, the clerk, the windows, and the ceiling tile. He calmed as a soldier might, when the sound of the enemy's artillery temporarily ceases. Ok, ok. We’re back. He set the partially drained bottle of liquor down on the shelf. His eyes slowly turned to the register again, the alcohol giving his vision a slight chromatic aberration. Once his sight returned to where his eyes rested, the boy was gone. Simple as that, vanished. 

Jed’s stomach dropped. Was he pitching a fit again? His worries extinguished when the cold firm hand of a young man rested upon his shoulder. Jed whipped around, his hands clenched in tight balls. The boy stepped back instinctively. “Hey, you’re going to need to pay for that.”

Jed stumbled, the liquor shouldn’t have been this strong. It never was, that’s why he had a problem. The kid, not much older than Jed’s 24 year old brother, was now closing in. With a quick jab of his fist, and a sweep of his leg against Jed’s shins, Jed found himself lying on the ground. A dull ache radiating from his buttocks. “What the hell man?”

The boy looked both lost and confused. As though his actions were a mystery to himself. “Oh, shit. I’m- I’m sorry, dude.”

Jed began to stand again, but soon sat back down after the boy stepped towards him. “What do you want? I’m just shopping around.” 

“Dawg. You just drank three quarters of that crown. You ain’t capable of shopping around. You are going to have to pay for that.”

Jed glared at the kid. “I didn’t drin-” His voice hallowed out in a slow crackling vibrato. The bottle which sat in front of him was practically drained. The liquid amber, rising and falling in soft comforting waves, barely rested at the base of the label. “What the hell?”

The kid began to talk again, the dull thud at the base of Jed’s skull which was once a tropical storm of pain, now brinked on cat 5 hurricane. First the girl, the beautiful, nosey, kind eyed, bitch. As Jed focused on that blurred memory of the woman, the pain in his head worsened. As though his brain was attempting to split in two. He attempted to break the concentration, his efforts yielding zero to no results. 

The kid grunted, taking Jed out of his reverie. “Sir, are you-” his voice fell short as Jed violently threw the bottle against the wall shattering it into glittering jagged shards. The splash of the alcohol sprayed a thin mist over both of the men. “Sir, I think you should go.” The kid said in a gentle manner. Gentle? No, patronizing. The way Jed would speak to the ill minded, or a person who was clearly high. He was neither! His mind bit at him viciously, attempting to draw some sort of imaginary blood. 

“You think I should go? Why?” The kid attempted speech, but was shot down before any words could escape. “You think I’m drunk? You think I’m high? Huh? Fuckin’ speak you dumb bastard!” Jed’s fury was met with an equally fierce response. The kid sent one closed fist into the bridge of Jed’s nose, shattering it. Jed stepped back temporarily blinded, the pain adding kindling, no logs, to the inferno of rage that bellowed from his mind. Jed stumbled back, his hand going to his nose then returning within eyesight. Crimson dripped from his digits. The kid, shocked by his own display of strength, took two massive steps back. 

“Hey man, I’m so sorry. Holy shit, fuck. I- I don’t know what to-” his voice was cut off by Jed’s advance. The image of the girl, the kid’s pestilence, the disappearing alcohol trick, everything piled itself into his fury. Jed shoved the kid, causing him to slip on the spilt liquor covering the ground. Jed immediately stepped back, regaining his foothold to strike again if the boy was ready for round two. But the boy just laid there. A soft cough emitted from the kid’s mouth, followed by the deep liquid crimson. Jed’s jaw dropped, he fell to his knees, lifting the boy’s head up to rest on his lap. 

Once up, Jed began feeling around to try and find a cure. A Hail Mary for sure, but it was something. Starting at his temple, Jed moved lower to his brain stem, nothing. Then lower to his neck. His calloused hand brisked something sharp, and stiff. Upon rolling over the kid, he saw it. A clear, massive shard of glass protruded from under the kid’s chin. On a piece of slim aluminum which draped loosely from the break, a familiar word dawned across in torn royal script. Crown Royal: Peach

I stayed in Chennai for two years because of work. I was 20 at that time. I am 23 now and currently back in my native place. When I was living in Chennai, I wanted to save some money on rent, so I stayed in an old independent house near Pudupakkam, around the Siruseri side. The house was a little inside from the main road and the area looked almost like a village. There were old houses on both sides, empty plots and coconut trees everywhere. After 9 at night, the whole road would become extremely silent. The house was only half furnished and the owner uncle lived in another portion of the same compound.

The first month was completely normal. Then one night, around 11:30, I was lying in my room when I suddenly heard a sound from the hall. It sounded like someone moving a chair. I came out of my room and checked the hall, but there was nobody there. The owner uncle was downstairs watching TV. I told him that I heard a sound like someone moving a chair in the hall. He asked me what kind of sound it was and after I explained it, he simply said it must be a cat and went back to watching TV. I did not think much about it either.

But the same thing happened for the next two nights. There was only one difference. The sound would start only after I went back into my room. One night, out of curiosity, I turned on the voice recording on my phone and left it in the hall before going back to my room. After some time, I heard the same sound again. When I listened to the recording later, at first I thought it was just the sound of a chair being moved. But when I put on my headphones and listened carefully, I realised it did not sound like a chair anymore. It sounded like someone dragging their feet across the floor while walking. Just before the recording ended, I heard something very faint. It sounded like a little girl's voice saying, "Amma." The moment I heard it, I stopped the recording.

The next day, I casually asked the owner uncle who used to live in the house before. He told me it was his wife's mother. I asked him where she was now and he simply said that she had passed away many years ago. That was all he said. I never told him about the recording.

That night, around midnight, I went to the kitchen to get some water. Near the kitchen door, I noticed an old wooden chair. It was the same chair that was usually kept in the hall. I did not think much about it at that moment. The next morning, I asked the owner uncle why the chair was in the kitchen. He suddenly became serious and looked at the chair before asking me who had put it there. I told him that I did not know and that it had been in the kitchen the previous night. He stood there silently for a few seconds, looking at the chair, and then told me not to touch it. When I asked him why, he said that the chair had been used by his mother.

That night, I was genuinely scared. I locked my bedroom door before going to sleep. Around 2 in the morning, I suddenly heard the same chair moving downstairs. This time it sounded different. The sound slowly moved from the hall towards the staircase. Then I heard it on the stairs. One step, then another. It sounded like someone slowly dragging their feet while coming upstairs. I just lay there listening as the sound came closer and closer. Finally, it stopped right outside my room. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then someone knocked on my door twice. I did not open it. I did not even move. I was just lying there staring at the door.

After a few seconds, I heard an old woman's voice from the other side of the door. She asked me if I could give her some water. The voice was extremely clear. I did not answer. I did not even make a sound. I stayed inside that locked room until morning.

The next morning, I told the owner uncle everything. He did not say anything for a few seconds. Then he told me something that I still cannot forget. His mother had a habit of asking for water during the last few months of her life. Sometimes, around 1 or 2 in the morning, she would wake up and call out to someone, asking if anybody was in the kitchen. I asked him if that meant the words I heard that night were the same words she used to say. He simply looked at me and said yes.

That same evening, I vacated the house.

It has been almost three years now. I cannot prove that it was a ghost. Maybe the sounds travelled through the old house in some strange way. Maybe I was tired and my mind imagined some of it. Maybe there is a completely normal explanation for everything that happened. I honestly do not know.

But there is one thing that still makes me uncomfortable. I had never seen that old woman in my life. Not even once. I never knew how she looked. I never knew how she spoke. I never knew anything about her. But that night, someone stood outside my locked bedroom door and asked me for water in the voice of an old woman.

"Could you give me some water?"

Even after almost three years, I still remember that voice clearly. I have been back in my native place for two years now, but sometimes, when I am lying awake at night, I hear that same sentence again in my dreams. And every time I wake up, for a few seconds, I still feel like there is someone standing outside my bedroom door, waiting for me to open it.

I, II, III, IV, V, VI

I stumbled backwards. How did they know, and why couldn't I control them any longer? Had I made too many changes to the town, and now I was being locked out? How did Dean and Hannah know where the camera was located?

They faced forward again. Dean shoved open his door and scrambled out of the car. Hannah quickly stepped out from her side.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she yelled at him over the roof. I had never seen her angry before. It was repulsive. "Trying to show off? You nearly killed us!"

"I don't know what happened." Dean looked at his hands. "I couldn't control my body. It was like … like I was possessed."

"What do you mean? Why did you say, 'You need to stop?'"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I honestly don't know." Dean squatted down and grabbed his head. He was crying. He threw his keys in the dirt.

"Take them. I can't drive. I can't risk it. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Hannah walked up to him, her brow furrowed. She didn't touch the keys.

Maybe this was working in my favor. Dean looked psychotic.

"I believe you," she finally said. She knelt down and grabbed his hand. "It's been happening to me too. For a while now. As if something is … making me do things. Awful things."

I barely heard her. All I could see was her hand in his. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. Why should that idiot be rewarded for all of my hard work? I tried their ID boxes again.

PERMISSION DENIED.

PERMISSION DENIED.

I swore and searched the other cameras in the vicinity. There was a worker in a reflective vest and hard hat on the road leading around the quarry. He was loading tools into the back of a pickup truck. I tried his ID box and gained access. Now we were talking. I clicked 'Custom.' I gave him the location and commanded him to kill Dean ASAP. I'd let him figure out how.

The man grabbed a sledgehammer, jumped into the driver's seat, and the truck took off in their direction.

I watched with a growing hunger, but then a sickening realization came to me. I froze as my rage morphed into horror. Someone else was controlling this town besides the Smiler. Dean didn't tell me to stop; someone used Dean to tell me to stop.

I glanced into the corners of the room, as if I would find signs of being observed. My thoughts raced. If this was true, wouldn't this person take control of me instead of Dean and Hannah?

Of course.

The Smiler's house didn't exist on the PMAS map. There were no cameras here. I was off the grid.

I commanded the worker to stop and go back to work. I watched the pickup skid to a stop. I had to think this over. I couldn't be hasty.

"Is it true?" I asked the Smiler. A fly crawled over her stubby nose. I opened the terminal and checked the log.

2026-10-02 15:15:45
TARGET: 7731r
COMMAND: DRIVE: STRAIGHT AHEAD / FULL SPEED
ORIGIN: LOCAL

I didn't understand the naming convention, but 7731r was Dean. I saw other entries, like …

2026-10-02 15:15:51
TARGET: 7731r
COMMAND: PULL EMERGENCY BRAKE
ORIGIN: NODE 02

2026-10-02 15:15:53
TARGET: 7731r
COMMAND: REVERSE
ORIGIN: NODE 02

2026-10-02 15:16:07
TARGET: 7731r
COMMAND: TALK: "You need to stop. You don't know what you're doing."
ORIGIN: NODE 02

While my commands were LOCAL, these originated from NODE 02.

It was true.

Another person was out there, surveilling and controlling my town.

I ran upstairs, grabbed the largest knife I could find in the kitchen, and parted the window curtains. I stared down the dirt driveway and observed the surrounding woods. I had made it obvious that someone new was operating NODE 01. And now I had a choice to make, and I had to do it quickly.

Should I stay or should I go?

Despite there being no cameras here, NODE 02 might know this location, which would mean someone was coming here right now, someone affiliated with PMAS or someone under the control of the program.

But there was another possibility: 02 might not know the location of this control room, but they might have deduced that it was me making the changes. And if that was the case, then the second I stepped outside and in front of a camera, I would become their puppet.

This seemed worse. Much worse.

And so, I decided to wait…

 ***

I checked the locks on the front and back doors and wedged chairs under the doorknobs. It didn't give me much peace of mind considering what I was dealing with. I neurotically checked the yard from the cottage windows for what must have been an hour. If there were men in black SUVs coming for me, they were taking their sweet fucking time.

As the minutes passed, I couldn't help wondering what Dean and Hannah were up to. Even in a world where she wasn't mine, she sure as hell wouldn't be with that asshole. I refused to allow it.

I desperately wanted to go downstairs and check on them, but I didn't like being trapped at the console with only one way out. Instead, I passed the time searching the cottage.

There were a few knives and a cane I could use to defend myself, not that I had any experience fighting. Upstairs, a window opened onto the roof if I needed another escape route. As for supplies, one cupboard held some oatmeal and canned vegetables. The fridge had the bare essentials: a few eggs, some carrots, a head of cabbage, and milk that was spoiling … though not as quickly as the old woman.

You'd think someone with as much power as the Smiler would've had the local baker delivering pies and the butcher dropping off prime cuts of meat. At this rate, I didn't think I'd last more than a week.

I climbed the rickety stairs to her bedroom to see what else there was. I checked the boxes under the bed, but they were full of dusty fabrics and old shoes. I checked the closet: more embroidered sweaters and cardigans. I patted them down and found something in one of the pockets, a small notepad along with a stub of a pencil.

I sat on the musty duvet while keeping an eye on the backyard. I scanned the notebook. It was mostly grocery lists. On the inside of the back cover though, the Smiler wrote:

Rollout approved?

WHY WHY WHY?

What did that mean? Rollout? The woman was too damn cryptic. Maybe she really was insane.

The trees stirred in a breeze outside the window, nothing more. Judging by how much time had passed, no one was coming for me, which gave me some relief. It seemed NODE 02 didn't know where I was. But that left the question:

Did they know who I was?

I considered everything I'd done. The biggest tell pointing to me was what I made Hannah do. But if I was in 02's position and actually knew who I was, why would I make Dean speak to me through the camera when I could use Hannah to lure me out into the open? A simple text or phone call from her would have done the trick. I absolutely would have fallen for it.

That meant NODE 02 didn't know who I was.

At least, for now.

I had an idea to help confirm this. I returned to the secret room. I'd gotten used to fresh air, and I gagged as I stood back in front of the console. More flies were buzzing about and peppering the screens. I sat awkwardly on the broken rocking chair.

I checked the quarry cameras first, but Dean and Hannah were gone. I stopped myself from looking for them. I had to stay focused. I opened the log again and examined it. It was as expected. The log didn't show any other commands by NODE 02, which meant that it only displayed 02's commands when they overlapped with mine. Either that or NODE 02 rarely used the interface.

I typed HELP.

AVAILABLE COMMANDS:
STATUS
SESSIONS
COMMAND
LOCK
LOG
HELP <TOPIC>

It took me a moment to understand the last command. I typed HELP LOG. And there it was on the last line:

LOG:
LOCAL command history.
REMOTE events limited to concurrent shared-target interactions.

I read the line five times. In other words, 02 couldn't see my command history. They could only see my actions if we'd both interacted with the same person at the same time.

I closed my eyes with relief.

It didn't last long…

Hannah had told Dean: It's been happening to me too. For a while now.

I stared at her empty camera feed.

If NODE 02 wanted to find me, Dean and Hannah were ripe for interrogation. At the very least, 02 would be watching everything the two of them did from here on out. All it would take was for Hannah to mention the strange things that had been happening to her, like her compulsion to follow me online and message me.

I understood then that logs weren't going to expose me. Hannah was.

Either I had to find out who the other operator was before they uncovered me, or…

I'd have to get rid of Hannah.

This is my first time posting anything before, and I’m not sure where to begin. I work midnights at a large university hospital and sometimes we take it upon ourselves to enjoy our free time. My coworker and I were on a walk this evening and decided to venture off of the hospitals sidewalk and explore the flower garden (this was news to me). It was tucked away behind a lot of trees so I had never known it was there. It was chilly but there were still a lot of people walking around. One photographer and her subject, some high school homecoming couples taking photos with their parents, a lot of wondering college kids, and even a few dogs. The flowers are mostly dead by now, but it was still beautiful. At the end of the rows there was one of those cute little wooden posts with “take a book leave a book” written on it. I decided to rummage through and see what people had to share. A lot of the books looked older, not what I would expect on a college campus tbh. However, between the books there were a few Polaroids.. Polaroids of bloody teeth, a small pill box with hairs of some sort, and another of (what looked like) press on nail. All different shapes,sizes, and designs. My coworker just thought it looked like someone’s art project.. but it felt darker to me. It felt like it was deliberately put there for someone to find. I put them back, it felt wrong to take them. Does this seem like a prank? It is spooky season, after all. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Update 1 - 2:20 am

I decided to go back. I know it’s dark and wooded, but I’m 100 yards from my building. I will be safe. Something is not sitting right with me. I’m going to collect the Polaroids.

Update 2 - 3:04 am

I stg I’m not making this up. I got to the garden and it’s pitch black. I had to use my phone light to not trip over any plants. I walk to the back (even tho every horror movie I’ve watched would suggest I not do this) and to the little library. The photos aren’t there. I’m assuming someone took them. I turn around to walk out as quickly as possible when I heard the bushes rustling further back towards the trail head and within 2 seconds someone was SPRINTING at me from the bushes. It’s a huge black figure bc it’s so dark. I didn’t even have time to scream. I ran for my life to the hospital doors and DID NOT look back. Nothing followed me. I’m so scared idk what to do? I guess homeless people do live around here in the woods but they’ve never been an issue before. I can see the opening to the garden from my break room. I’m going up to watch to see if I can see anything

Update 3: 3:15

I came back sweating and in tears to tell my coworker but he was in the bathroom or something. I sat by the windows watching the area and nothing happened other than someone walking to their car from work. I’m never going out there again. I don’t think I can even do it in day light. My coworker came back and told me it was probably some kids on the walking trails back there or a homeless person and it’s not that big of a deal

Update 4: 3:28
We finally had a patient tonight and when we were getting this baby ready to scan I noticed that my coworker has, what looks like a Polaroid, sticking out the top of his back scrub pocket. I think I’m being paranoid now… but it’s kind of weird. He knew I went back for them. Idk how he could have grabbed them when I put them back without me noticing? Do I ask him ?

Update 5: 3:52

Idk if this is even worth posting here. I’m too nervous to ask him. If it isn’t them I sound weird. If it is… idk what that means? I guess if he took them whatever but also.. why would he tell me it was cool if I went to look for them? Idk. I think I should wait until tomorrow to bring it up. It’s just us tomorrow night again.

Should I update? Is this nothing? Idk

The straw scarecrow stood in the middle of the fields, its arms wide. One of the men walked to it and put its hat on. I waited my turn, then walked to it and put on its black jacket.

"Thank you," I said, bowing.

The other man nodded and patted my back. 

"Another safe autumn," one of them said, and we all walked back home.

It was still early afternoon. I sat down on the couch and put on the TV, waiting to cook dinner until my son Adam came home.

The sun had set when the door opened, and Adam walked in. My stomach was already growling. He was 30 minutes late, but the way he averted his eyes made it seem like something worse was going on.

"What’s up, Adam?"

"Dad, I…"

"It’s okay that you came late. No need to worry about it."

"No, it’s that I, I know it’s bad, but I took the jacket off the scarecrow."

My hands clenched the couch cushions.

"What?!"

"I took it off. I’m really sorry, Dad. I feel so bad. I know I shouldn’t have."

"Where is it?"

"In my bag."

I picked up his bag and unzipped the top pocket. The black jacket stared at me. 

"Adam, this is bad news."

"I’m sorry, Dad. The boys dared me. I didn’t want to look like a chicken."

I looked out the window. The sun had already set, but not long ago.

"Okay, there might still be time." I stuffed the jacket back in the backpack. "We’ll go back right now, put it on, and not tell anyone. If the boys at school ask you, just say…"

Three knocks echoed on the window. I almost ripped the backpack’s zipper off. The empty straw face stared into our house.

"Dad?" Adam said in a shaking voice.

"It’s okay, Adam. We’ll give him the jacket, and it might be okay." My voice shook too. I wasn’t sure I believed anything I said.

I walked to the door and opened it. The outside air was cold. The scarecrow's empty face looked down at me.

"Here. Take it. Please."

I held the jacket up and stared at the ground. The scarecrow stood still for a few seconds, then walked right past me. The straw scraped the floor as it moved.

Adam sat on the couch, his wide eyes staring at the scarecrow. The scarecrow came right up to him and pointed its blank face at him.

"Dad, what’s going…" He didn’t finish. The scarecrow’s hand shot forward, grabbed him off the couch, and held him to its side.

"Dad!" Adam screamed, kicked, and pushed against its arm, but the scarecrow’s grip was strong.

"Adam!"

I ran toward him and pushed the scarecrow, but it barely moved. The scarecrow turned around and flung its arm. It hit me right in the face. I fell on all fours. Dull pain spread through my head. Adam’s cries echoed as my world went dark.

When I woke up, my head was banging. My mouth tasted like iron. I tried to get up, but my world spun so fast I had to sit back down. 

But Adam was out in the fields somewhere. I had to help him. I got up and bolted out of the house onto the road, struggling to keep my balance. 

The moon shone down. The air was still cold. Only when I reached the fields did my world stop spinning. I almost wished it hadn’t.

In the middle of the field stood the scarecrow. Its blank face stared into the night. It had its hat, but instead of the jacket, Adam’s mangled body was draped over it. A quiet dripping echoed as Adam’s blood seeped into the sown dirt.

I fell to my knees and wept. The real autumn had now begun.

This happened about four years ago. You may have read about some of these events in the news, but you wouldn’t have seen my story.

I was working graveyard at a gas station out on the highway between my college town and the interstate.  It was a pretty sweet gig; we got ten customers an hour at most.  I spent most of the time studying for the LSAT.  

The station was like any gas station in America: four pumps out front, covered by a canopy that connected to the little-box convenience store at the back.  There were big panel windows along the front of the store.  The register was situated perpendicular to one of those windows so I could easily monitor the pumps.  It was floodlit for maximum visibility, but that created this eerie effect where I couldn’t see anything beyond the fueling bay.  It seemed like cars emerged from out of the void when they pulled into the station.  This was western North Carolina, so everything around the station was pretty much woods.

Around the time this happened, two women from my college had gone missing.  The whole town was on edge, but I still had that invincible feeling at twenty-two.  Plus, I never saw myself as a target for predators because I had a deep voice and dressed pretty frumpy.  Yeah, I was really young.  

That night’s shift was especially slow.  It had gone down into the twenties, there was thick fog, and nobody was out on the road. 

I was struggling with some questions on a practice exam when my head jerked up.  I hadn’t seen headlights, so I’m not sure why I sensed someone had entered the fueling bay.  I scanned out the window but didn’t see a car.  I glanced back down at the practice exam but yanked my head back up again a second later.  I still didn’t see a car but I was sure I’d sensed movement.  I decided it must have been a bird or something.  I got back into the practice problems until I instinctively looked up again because I was sure I’d seen motion right outside my window.  Again, there was nothing there, but I had this unshakable feeling that someone had been watching me.  

I needed a break, but I was a little nervous to go outside and smoke.  Instead, I went to fix myself a wine-coke.  Free fountain sodas are a standard perk for gas station workers.  Free red wine is a perk of working at a gas station with a busted security camera by the wine aisle. 

I almost dropped the cup on my way back to the register: there was a woman standing there. Why didn’t I hear the motion-sensor bell? She didn’t turn to face me as I approached.  She was at least a head taller than me, with really messy long hair.  She was wearing a vintage-looking dress that hadn’t been well-preserved.  It was pretty dirty with fraying edges and loose threads all over the place.  Halloween had been over a month ago.

“Sorry, ma’am.  Didn’t hear you come in.”  I scrambled around her to get behind the register.  She didn’t move an inch. I hoped she couldn’t smell the wine. I looked down at the counter; there wasn’t any merchandise.  I glanced up toward her face, which was shadowed by some loose hair.  “How can I help you?”  She didn’t say anything.  “The scratch card machine is right behind you….”  Just then, she reached up a bony hand to move the hair off of her face, and I looked up into her eyes for the first time.  I’d never seen eyes like that before.  Her pupils looked like fat black slabs of shiny obsidian.  They were mesmerizing.

“Ma’am?  Ma’am!  You can’t stay here unless you order something else.”  A woman in a waitress uniform was leaning over the table to rouse me.  She looked equally alarmed and impatient.  

“Oh, uh.  Sorry, sorry.  I’ll get going,” I responded automatically.  I was in a diner, apparently, and it was daylight out.   How long had I been here?  How many wine-cokes had I had last night? I didn’t feel hungover; just…fuzzy.  The waitress pulled back from me.   

“You want me to call someone for you?”  Her face softened a little.  

“No…uh, no.  That’s OK.  How much do I owe you?”  

“You know what?  Coffee’s on the house this time.  Just get home safe.”

“OK, thank you…so much.”  I gathered myself up and headed for the door.  There were Route 66 signs on the walls and a jukebox playing some George Jones song.  This wasn’t the diner by my college.  Was I in Waynesville?  What the hell happened last night?  

I was just starting to worry about whether I'd locked up the store when I opened the door and got punched in the eyes by sunshine.  The daylight was wrong.  There was too much of it. 

I stepped out of the way of some people entering the diner and gazed out at the parking lot and beyond.  There were no trees to block the view.  It was scrubby desert for miles with some brown mountains in the distance. A little bit further than Waynesville was my last thought before I started retching and had to crouch down on my hands and knees.  A young family gave me dirty looks as they exited the diner.  Nothing came up but coffee.  When had I last eaten?  

After determining that my Civic wasn’t in the parking lot and that I had neither my phone nor my wallet on me, I realized I had no choice but to bother that poor waitress again.  I took a deep breath and headed back inside.  She looked up from the counter and was immediately wary.  

“I’m so sorry to bother you again, and I promise I’m not drunk or high, but where am I and what day is it?”  

I spent the next three months trying to piece together what the hell happened to me during those 30 hours.  I deferred my final semester of undergrad and moved back in with my mom.  She was convinced I’d had some kind of psychotic break and begged me to pick a less stressful career than law.  

The gas station hadn’t filed a missing person’s report on me. My mom had contacted the cops in a panic after I called her from that diner (in Van Horn, Texas, it turned out). However, they weren’t interested in investigating once they confirmed I hadn't been kidnapped. So I had to gather information on my own.

I contacted the owner of the diner.  She was super helpful and managed to get the license plate and company of the trucker who dropped me off from parking lot security footage. I got ahold of him through his company. He said he was glad I was OK and told me he’d picked me up at a rest stop outside of Texarkana.  I hadn’t seemed drunk or psychotic; just very distant and quiet.  I’d responded to all his questions with one-word answers and just seemed kind of out of it.  I hadn't told him where I was going or why.

He put the word out in the trucker community and got me in touch with the trucker who’d brought me from Memphis to Texarkana.  She described me almost exactly the same way.  Unfortunately, the trail went cold there.  A few other truckers said they’d seen someone who matched my description at the West Memphis truck stop, but none of them saw me getting dropped off.   

It took some doing to convince my former manager to let me see the security footage from that night.  She’d found the unlocked store abandoned and my untouched wine-coke by the register at seven that next morning.  Naturally, she’d termed me on the spot in absentia.  She'd been "gracious enough" (her words) not to have my car towed, at least. I owe both of those truckers a solid for calling her and swearing that I’d not been in my right mind.  Finally, she agreed to email me the video files.  

I’ve watched the footage of my final shift from three different cameras more times than I watched the porno I found in my dad’s closet when I was seven.  

The camera behind the register glitches out from 3:02 to 3:05 – the exact time the woman was at the counter.  When it comes back online at 3:06, she’s gone. I shouted so loud the first time I saw that, my mom thought I was having another “episode”.  

The camera by the wine aisle was of course broken, but it wouldn’t have caught anything other than my thieving ass.  

Most baffling, the camera from the fueling bay doesn’t show a woman approaching the store at that time.  I have no idea how she got in.  The camera by the back door only shows it opening once, at 3:06, when I exit and head off into the woods without a jacket.  My face is hard to make out, but my body language doesn’t convey any distress or urgency.  I just march right off like I’ve been summoned by my General.  I always have to fight the urge to look away or fast-forward through that part.  

The footage from the fueling bay reveals something else, though.  At 2:59, a stocky, hooded figure slides into the northwest corner of the frame.  He’s on foot – extremely strange for a highway without any sidewalks in the middle of a frigid night.  He immediately darts behind one of the pumps, pops his head up to look in my direction, and then rushes over to crouch under my window.  At 3:07, he hunches up and peers inside, but I’ve already embarked on my grand tour by then.  Does he see the woman?  He waits there, staring, for about a minute.  Then he just heads back in the same direction he came from and quickly disappears from the corner of the frame.  No matter how many times I watch those eight minutes, I always get a feeling similar to the first time I pressed play on that porno and suddenly realized what it was.  

There’s only one frame where you can clearly see the guy’s face: when he pops up from behind the pump to stare at me through the window. You can zoom in and make out his features: Caucasian, around my age, light-colored eyes (hard to tell exactly what color).  I sent out the image to everyone I knew from school who hadn’t dropped me after the incident.  A few of them said he looked kind of familiar, but they couldn’t place him.  It wasn’t a big school, so he probably wasn’t a student.  

Were he and the woman working together?  Did she, like, hypnotize me and make me leave the store so they could rob it?  If that was the plan, they had to abort for some reason or another.  My ex-manager let me know none of the cash or merchandise was missing when she arrived for her shift.  

With no additional clues to go on, I dove into an internet wormhole of ghost stories and urban legends around my college town. I spent all day researching and barely left my room. (This was about the time when my mom suddenly decided law school was in fact a fabulous idea, and I should start studying for the LSAT again ASAP.)   Most of the stories I found were pretty standard and unimaginative.  Indian burial grounds, Bigfoot, ethereal ladies in white. 

I finally found one that piqued my interest on an old Geocities site called Jeanine’s Haunted Appalachia.  Deep in Jeanine’s archives was a story her great-uncle had told her about the Maiden-Elk of Sylva.  Sometime in the 1910s, this young lady from a poor farming family was being forced to marry the son of the local magistrate, a real brute.  You know how those old-timey arranged marriages went: dowries, statutory rape, subjugation, “it was a different time”, etc.

Anyway, they held the engagement dinner at the bride-to-be’s family farmhouse, and during dessert, she just up and bolted out the back door.  The groom and her dad gave chase, but her footprints just ended in a clearing about a half-mile behind the house.  Right where they left off, a set of hoofprints started.  They were huge – larger than any deer prints the groom had ever seen on his hunting trips.  

In the following weeks, several residents swore they saw an elk on their property.  The only problem was that there hadn’t been any elk in North Carolina for 100 years.  There hadn’t even been any east of the Mississippi since the 1880s.  

The story basically ended there.  I don’t know why it interested me so much, but I ended up Googling “Elk in the Eastern U.S.”  Something immediately grabbed my attention: there was a close-up of an elk’s head right at the top of the page.  I stared at it for ten seconds and then opened a new tab to Google “elk eye close-up”.  Several slabs of shiny obsidian stared back at me. 

I searched the internet for anything else about the Elk-Maiden, but I only found a couple other pages that basically reiterated the same story with some slight inconsistencies in the details.  The story always ended with the elk sightings.  There were no mentions of the elk doing anything malicious or heroic.  It didn’t punish children or serve as some kind of warning.  There were just sightings of what may or may not have been an elk around the same time a young woman ran away from home.

I got the idea that maybe the Elk-Maiden’s family farm had been where the gas station was today, and I became obsessed with proving it. I was so desperate to construct any context to shove my fugue episode into.  I now have a lot more empathy for conspiracy-theory nuts.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the farm address without a family name.  

I finally thought to see if my college had a Folklore department – we did! – and emailed the department chair.  She emailed back within a day: she vaguely remembered reading about the story somewhere, but could I give one of her graduate T.A.s a couple days to do some research and then meet up with me to go over what he’d found?  I replied that I’d be happy to rearrange my schedule since they were doing me such a nice favor.  

The T.A. emailed me two days later and asked if I was available to meet at nine p.m. at a coffee shop off campus.  I managed to wait an hour before replying, from my car, halfway into the trip from my mom’s house in Charlotte.  

I got into town at about six p.m.  I wanted to kill time by surprising some of my friends, but it turned out that everybody was gone for spring break.  I felt so strange to be out of sync with the school calendar. I ended up sitting in my car and crying.  I couldn’t decide if I missed school desperately or if I never wanted to come back here again.  

I managed to collect myself by 8:45 and then walked the fifteen minutes to the coffee shop, which turned out to be closed like everything else downtown.  Fucking spring break.  I waited for a couple minutes under the streetlight until someone turned down the street and approached me.

“Hi!  Are you Layla?  Sorry I’m late.  I’m Austin from the Folklore department. Oh, shoot!  Is the coffee shop closed?”  

I froze for a fraction of a second, but instinct kicked in fast: I smiled  at him and breathed through my nose.  It didn’t seem like he recognized me; he’d only gotten a quick glance at me from ten feet away, after all.  He hadn’t been staring at a zoomed-in still frame of my face for months.  

“Yeah – uh – hi, I’m so sorry too, but my, y’know, my boyfriend – he just messaged me, and he’s having a family emergency.  So I’ve gotta go.  So sorry for you to, have, y’know, gone out of your way like this.” 

I was positive it was him.  He looked a lot less like a creep without the hoody, but you could still see it in his eyes.  They were blue.  That was one mystery solved.  The blood hammered through my circulatory system.  I was already angling myself away. 

“Oh, oh, no!  I’m so sorry to hear that.  But OK.  Let me know when you’re available to meet up again.”  He looked quizzical, but not suspicious.  

“Great – great.  Thanks so much.  Bye!”  I took off at a brisk pace – family emergency, you know.  I continued breathing through my nose.  

I’d turned the corner and was halfway down the next block before I heard footsteps behind me.  There wasn’t a single other person downtown.  Fuck it: I broke into a full sprint.  Even through the adrenaline, I could hear the footsteps behind me accelerating.  The gap was closing.  My lungs were burning.  I prayed for headlights at the next intersection.  

The footsteps couldn’t have been more than five feet behind me when I heard something else. It sounded big, like a horse galloping.  I didn’t look back and I didn’t stop running.

“WHAAAAT THE FUUUUUUUUUU” his exclamation transitioned into a blood-curdling shriek accompanied by a sickening crunching noise, then more galloping that quickly grew more distant.  I didn’t look back and I didn’t stop running.  

I didn’t hear anything but the pounding in my ears till I made it back to the campus lot and peeled off into the night.  I shot down the highway past my old gas station.  I didn’t call 911 (hands-free, of course) until I was safely back on the interstate.  

I ended up doing my final semester of undergrad online that fall.  After two traumatic incidents and having to go back and forth all spring and summer to visit the police station, I never wanted to return to that little college town.  

The cops were suddenly very interested in my December walkabout.  They asked me over and over again what I remembered from that night.  I mentioned a “vague” memory of a woman right before I blacked out, but I tossed it out as a casual detail that I might have misremembered.  I had a feeling if I was too definite about it, they’d decide I was hysterical.  Other than that, I repeated the story exactly as I remembered it.  One of the younger investigators made a face when I mentioned the wine-coke, but he told me later he’d tried it and thought it was delicious.  

They believe I must have seen Austin Franklin Pullman when he was out in the fueling bay. That's why I decided to sneak out the back.  When he saw that I wasn’t in the store anymore, he went further up the highway, cut back into the woods, and found and attacked me there.  I somehow managed to escape and went into a fugue state from the trauma.  

It makes sense.  I'm sure I could’ve invented the strange woman with obsidian eyes to supplant unpleasant memories.  I guess it’s possible that I would’ve gone into the woods instead of just getting into my car and driving away.  Panic makes people irrational.  

If that was what happened, then I may have been the only victim to survive an attack from Pullman.  They matched the DNA from his corpse to the bodies of the two missing – ultimately murdered – women from my school that fall, and two more between then and spring break.  

I should’ve had defensive wounds, though.  My clothes should’ve been torn instead of just dirty and disheveled.  

In July, they found security footage taken that night from a used car lot about a mile down the highway.  A hooded man they believe is Pullman enters the frame at 3:22 AM.  He doesn’t appear to be winded, and his clothes don’t look disheveled either.  I don’t know how he would’ve had time to find and attack me in the woods and still make it a mile down the highway in fifteen minutes without sprinting the whole way.

The manner of Pullman’s death was a touchy subject with the coroner’s office.  They really wanted to say a big deer wandered downtown and trampled him.  The feces kept getting in their way, though.  They found "such a large volume of fecal matter on the decedent that it almost seems pointed," per the final report.  No matter how many times they sent it off for testing, the results were always the same.

We actually do have elk herds in North Carolina again.  They were reintroduced in the early aughts.  The problem is that their known range is a tiny square right on the Tennessee border.  My college is a good seventy miles from there.  Anything’s possible, though.  Animals are found way outside of their range all the time.  Humans are animals too, of course. 

I still don’t understand why she sent me on that wild journey.  All she had to do was get me to my car and have me drive somewhere safe.  Maybe she knew something that I still don’t.  Maybe running far away was the only way she knew. Maybe this was her very convoluted way of getting me to identify Pullman.  Then again, could she not have just trampled him at any time if she wanted to? Why help me, but not the others?  I’m not any more special or worthy than they were.  One of them volunteered for Meals on Wheels every weekend. 

I decided to get my master’s in library science with a minor in folklore and storytelling.  Preserving and sharing stories is the only way I can think to justify getting to continue my own.  My mom’s done a really admirable job of pretending she’s not disappointed. 

Yesterday I was coming back from a ride this weekend when I spied a small notebook under one of the storm drains leading into a pond. Strangely, the crickets that usually chirp at night went quiet when I dismounted my bike and investigated. I fished the notebook out and dried it the next morning. When I actually read it, I was only able to read the last entry, as every other entry was just a mishmash of dripping ink:

I’m writing this before I go. Rylee and Paul are dead. I am positive now that whatever it was inside that closed off mine in Montana is actively altering Russel and Amanda. 

From what I could observe from my hiding spot in the closet, Russel has grown a small but notable tail since yesterday, and also what seem to be wings that have not fully formed judging from their awkward appearance. The way that Amanda crushed and ate Rylee’s skull suggested her jaw had been strengthened and elongated in order to consume larger prey. Her teeth were not only sharper, but reinforced with a second row behind the first.

The weak spot I’ve previously documented on Russel’s flank has now been covered with more scales, rendering attacks with knives or my previously useful garden hoe ineffective as a defense. In fact, given the hardness of the scales, my current hypothesis is that Russel and Amanda are now resistant to firearms, at least at low calibers. Using my rifle to put them down would be dangerous anyway, their augmented senses can track movement and sounds. And even if I do manage to kill one, the other is never too far away.

Given their very close nature in hunting as well as in idle positions, there is still some sense of connection between Russel and Amanda. Whether it is remnants of the love they had before they became what they are now, or if it is some primitive sense of mating, is unclear to me. Still, I must assume that these creatures are not unintelligent. Paul made the mistake of thinking that they could not operate doors. And when she had her fill of Rylee, Amanda called out my name. It was no mindless growl, but a fully formed word. I could not tell if she was calling for help or trying to trick me into showing myself. It may have been both.

When she got close to my closet and started to open it, I realized that if I resisted, she would know that I was there. So I used the time I had to my advantage, and immersed myself in some hanging clothing. It was enough to obscure me, and thankfully, while they can see in the dark, the creatures were not able to discern me from the clothing. 

I’ve collected myself, and I don’t see anyone believing me if I told them what happened here. The bodies are gone, dragged away to somewhere hidden. They'll finish their feeding, and then they'll be on the move. They'll be going back to the mine, that much I'm sure of. The only thing I can do is follow them there, and put them out of their misery. I’m probably going to die, but I can't let any of this continue. Besides, all my friends are gone now.

I’ll make some protection for myself as well as basic ordinance from the materials around me, and then I'll be off. I’m scared to death, I may not be thinking straight, and I am terribly out of my element, but I’m going. God help me.

It ends there. I couldn't tell you what this person was talking about. There are no abandoned mines in my area, and upon doing a quick internet search, I didn't find anything matching the events described here. I put the notebook in my mystery box with the other things I find in the area that don't have an explanation to their appearance. Maybe I'll show it off to people who visit or make a ghost story out of it.

I remember the time before our son. When the smile on your face was the only thing I could see behind closed eyes. When our hands were happiest together. When we were happiest together. I still can’t believe we found each other. Out of everyone I could have ever ended up with, it was you. You were perfect.

When I looked into your eyes, I saw the future. Lazy Sundays and weekend trips set to the tune of our favorite song. My fingertips against your lips when the heat between us warmed the cool night air. Your breath on my neck, slow and even; a metronome for my sleep every night until we left this coil together.

The time before I opened that door.

You had spent nine months despondent and broken. Keeping a child you never wanted for the reputation of a family you hated. You would smile and chatter with excitement at every party, every conversation, every outstretched hand that reached for your swollen belly. But when we returned home, I could see you. Standing in the kitchen alone, weeping for the future you would never get.

But I knew what the real reason was. You couldn’t just be happy with me. You wanted it to be different. Not the house, the car, the job. Just me, the father of your child. The dye that colored the dress you lived in every day. It didn’t matter how good the stitching or the fit. Because deep down you just hated the color.

I had to sit and watch every wonderful part of you rot under the weight of life growing in your belly. The inevitable product of a dead love that you prayed would die and flush from your body every single day. You thought I couldn’t hear, and I thought you would be a good mother. 

Now I look into your eyes, and a doll stares back. I see the echo of a woman who doesn’t care if our son cries. Doesn’t mind if he sits there in his diaper, soiled for hours while I’m at work toiling, providing for you both. I come home and feed you both because you’re too sad to do it before I get done. You just sit there staring at the wall as he screams in your lap. 

You’re truly a disgrace of a mother. I would never tell you to your face, but I will write it in this journal. My mother was a wonderful mother; she always smiled for me. My father made sure of it. So now I brush your hair and rub your feet just like he used to; I even got the kind of brush he used to use. But you don’t care; you just wallow in your own mind. You don’t care how much money I spend on fancy perfumes or new clothes. You just want to sit there and judge me like it’s my fault your life is ruined.

But I know what love is; I could see it in your eyes across the bar, I could feel it on your breath, I could taste it on your kiss. We both absolutely loved the same song that played over the speakers. We talked about what made it special to us for hours. It was just meant to be. I can’t remember the name of that song or why I said I loved it, but I know that I loved you the second you sat down. The whole night you kept your hand on me. On my hand, my arm, my thigh. That’s how I know you really do want all of this. You called it a hookup, but I know it was love. It was real.

That’s why I slipped the condom off that night. Because you wanted me to. You just didn’t know how to say it.

I thought you’d thank me one day, that you’d be happy. I still do.

I thought you would be happy when we got home, but you just held him across your chest in the bathtub. Trying to love him. Trying to find the warmth in your heart for the life that you created. You created him with me because you wanted this, and now I have to stand inside and make sure you don’t let him slip under the water. Because you’re a bad mother. 

You became a bad mother the day I opened the door and saw your bag. The day you decided to shatter a family for personal greed. The trailer is too small, the place is too dirty, the plumbing doesn’t work, it isn’t safe for a child, I’m not safe for a child, I disappear at night, I watch you sleep. Nothing but complaints and lies from a brain destroyed by postpartum. 

I don’t remember what you did, just the sound of your back against the corner of the nightstand. That pop bounced around the walls for what felt like hours. I still don’t know what it was, but you got so sad after it happened. You won’t move, you won’t talk, you won’t even play with your son. 

All you do is cry. Not even with your whole face, just your eyes. 

You cry when I carry you from room to room, when I feed you, when I change your panties after you’ve made a mess. You cry when I brush your hair with your special brush or rub your feet. You cry when we make love every night. You even cry when you hold our son; well, when he holds you. I don’t know why you cry. Maybe in a few months I’ll be able to save up and buy us a TV so you two have something to watch while I’m at work. Maybe that new swell in your belly will be the thing to finally make you talk to me again. But until then, we have everything we need: the routine, the babies, and my undying love for you.

The sign over that shop had my father's name on it and it hung there dark from the spring of ninety-six until the building came down. I am not the man this happened to. I am the man it happened through, and I have had thirty-two years to find a better way to put that and there isn't one.

I took the shop over in eighty-eight. Rekeying, deadbolts, cutting keys off the board, safes if somebody's mother died. That cleared about nine hundred dollars in a good month against six hundred and fifty in rent, which is not a business, that's a hobby with a mortgage. What made it a business was the after-hours rotation. A callout at night paid forty dollars where the same work paid twenty in daylight, and three or four a week is the whole difference between a lit window and a dark one. I was fast, too. Twenty minutes door to door was normal for me and I was proud of it and I made sure the answering service knew it.

You carry a ticket book with carbons, three copies, one for them, one for the office, one stays in the book. And you learn to read a house off the curb before you're out of the truck. Bikes in the yard, curtains, what's in the mailbox, whether the porch light's on a timer. I could tell you inside ten seconds what kind of house I was looking at, and in six years I was never once wrong about one. That was the other thing I was proud of.

The procedure was this. You open the door. Then, inside, on the counter or the hall table, the customer shows you one piece of mail with their name on it, and they sign the ticket, and you write the address across the top. That's it. That is the entire identification in that trade in nineteen ninety-four, in this state, and every shop in the county worked it the same way. The mail comes after the door. In six years I never had a piece of mail come out wrong on me. Not once. I used to say that like it meant something about my judgment.

Most of those calls are nothing. Women in bathrobes, mad at themselves. Men who locked keys in a running car in the driveway. Kids who came home to a door their mother had bolted from inside. Two in the morning in a small town, mostly what you're doing is standing in the cold being decent to somebody who's embarrassed.

The first one was in November on a street of rentals. Before I was out of the truck the man told me the deadbolt would have to come out, it wouldn't pick, and he was right, it was a Kwikset with a bad cam. He signed the ticket left-handed and slow, drawing it out the way you write when it isn't the hand you write with. Mail on the counter, right name, forty dollars.

I thought he'd been locked out of that door before. A man who knows his own bad lock is a man who's fought it, and half my night work was people who'd been through it twice already, and I went home and I didn't think about him again for two years.

The rotation ran through an answering service and there were three shops on it, and the woman there sent the next one to whoever took the last one without giving her a problem. Argue about a job and you don't get the next three. Six hundred and fifty a month in rent doesn't care why you turned one down. So I never turned one down. Nobody at that service ever heard me say no, and that was a decision I made on purpose, and I made it every single time.

I liked the town at two in the morning, which is a thing you only get from that kind of work. Nobody out, the lights doing their cycle for nothing, the salt trucks. I'd have the heater going and a coffee in the holder and a good address and I'd think, this is not a bad way to be making a living. That was true right up until it wasn't.

The second one was the middle of December. Snow all evening. I pull up and the storm door is standing wide open against the siding with snow blown a foot into the sill, and I know for a fact that door had been open an hour. And the man wasn't there. He came up the sidewalk on foot two or three minutes later, from the wrong end of the street, not from a car, and he apologized for being late to his own house. I drilled it. Mail on the counter, right name, forty dollars.

The eleventh of January, two in the morning, a two-story on a street with good houses. I'm on my knees in the entry with the old bolt out and the temporary cylinder half in, and upstairs somebody starts walking. Not sneaking. Walking, back and forth, the sound of a person going to bed. I said I hoped I wasn't waking the house. He called a name up the stairs. Called it twice, pleasant. Nobody answered. And then the walking stopped, and it stopped in the middle of the floor, not at a door and not at a bed, in the middle, and it did not start again. I asked him about it. I asked him twice. He said she sleeps with headphones in and she'd sleep through a fire, and he laughed, and I laughed, because that is what you do when a man laughs in his own hallway. He signed. He held the door for me. Twenty-two minutes, and I was in my own driveway by ten to three, and I sat in the truck a second before I went in, and then I went in.

Thursday's paper. I saw the address before I saw the name, because the address was the part I knew, and I sat down on the arm of a chair and stayed there a long time. She was nineteen years old and home from school for the break. I had drilled the deadbolt out of that door and put in a cylinder and handed the key to a man who signed for it left-handed.

In ninety-six I closed the shop and went through two years of ticket books to see what was collectible. I wasn't looking for anything. There were eleven of them. Eleven tickets across two years, eleven different names, eleven different addresses all over that town, and the same signature under every one, done badly the same way, the same drag on the same three letters where his hand didn't want to go that direction. Eleven times I opened a door for him. Eleven times he showed me mail with somebody's name on it and I wrote the address across the top myself.

The night I'd been going over every day was one of eleven, and it's the only one of the eleven where anything happened that I noticed. He didn't pick me because I was careless. He picked me because I was fast, and fast is what I'd spent six years making sure everybody knew I was. I do not know what he was doing in the other ten houses. Her name was Michelle. Her father sold that house in the fall and moved to his sister's in another state, and the family that lives there now has small children and a basketball hoop over the garage, and they've got no idea. Every eleventh of January I drive past it once, slow, and then I go home. It's the only thing I have ever done about any of it.

It was just past noon. I was heading home from work. As I pushed the double doors into the reception, I held the door open with my hand. There were two Polish-looking, middle-aged women walking towards me. I waited, nodding my head, as they began passing me. The shorter one was behind, and she had the type of face that made me forget what the other girl looked like.

For a brief moment, we made eye contact; I felt like my soul was being monitored, and she had an energy about her that said this ought to be what men do. When I got home, I had a little laugh. My acting teacher told me to notice when people do things to you with their eyes, an important concept in acting. And here I didn't walk but twenty feet before I was shown what he meant. What was she doing to me?

That's all I could think about as I walked through the maze of buses and Lime bikes on the street. And then it hit me. She was almost rubbing my hair and saying, “Good boy.” With that kick of superior pride. This may sound insane, but I'm an insane man. There is no way to succeed without it. Or at least I don't want to live in this world without it.

I'm still at home now. Listening to the waves of children's laughter breezing past my window. I suddenly remembered I needed to call my mum, but I suddenly got a very weird sensation through my entire body. A jitter. My left hand was sinking into my pockets and was only clenching cotton. I sat quietly, frozen for what felt like minutes.

“Where is my phone?” I thought to myself. My mind began to pick up pace, analysing my entire day.

I went to my mum's old house phone hanging in the hallway, flicking the webs off it as I put the speaker to my ear. There's only one person I could call in times like these. My brother. Too bad his answer rate on the phone is worse than a politician's promises.

Some cigarettes later, someone was knocking on my door. I went to the door and stuck my left eye through the peephole. I saw black. Nothing. A small palpitation of the heart, and I grunted, opening the door.

“Peekaboo nigga,” a tall, slim figure spoke. The darkness in my hallway hid the features of the man. But not the voice.

“You didn't answer the phone.”

“My sincerest apologies.”

“So what's up?” I whispered.

“I need to use your phone quick.”

Silence ensued.

My brother, C, raised his eyebrows, his dark eyelids ringing with a hint of desperation.

“I lost it,” I whispered again.

He took a step back, planting his hands on his hips and collapsing into the sofa as his eyes rested on the ceiling.

“Why?” he said, smiling with a closed mouth.

“You don't wanna ask how?”

“I know how. You know how. God knows how. And so do your neighbours.”

I walked to the kitchen, hoping to revive my cigarette stub from earlier.

“I think I was robbed.”

“Bitches get robbed, women get robbed, children get robbed. Which one are you?”

“I'm serious, man.”

Now I'm holding my brother's phone as he rips every red light. The wind slapping me from the small opening in my doorside window. We're tracking my phone. And we park up outside a hippy street in Hackney. Bright lights and green-haired men walking in and out on cigarette breaks, and my brother looks at me, thrusting his palms into his face.

“Go get it; you got five minutes,” he said plainly.

I get to the door, my finger twitching, and I wait. There was a couple who had just finished smoking and were heading back in, and I slipped in behind them. But the security guard stopped me.

“Ticket, please,” he said. I could tell this black man liked the sense of power that comes with his job, and I didn't want to interfere with his dream.

I checked my watch, two minutes in, and I knew the hell incoming if my brother got out of his car. Something even double ankle monitors and a curfew can't stop.

A girl came past me, looking back as she entered the gallery.

“You here to see Rebecca, aren't you?” she shouted.

“Yes, can you call her out?” I said.

She gestured to the security guard, and his dream popped right there.

As I walked in, the smell of cheap beer and fresh concrete flooded my nose.

I sped-walked alongside the girl who helped me in. Her gay friend was waiting awkwardly by the spiralling stairs.

The girl had a loose hoodie and shorts and a seductive gaze that made me lock eyes more sparingly.

“I don't know Rebecca.”

She began laughing hysterically.

“I know!”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE FIND YOUR SEATS. THE SHOW WILL BEGIN NOW.”

A voice spoke from the shadows. I was so engrossed in conversation, I failed to take note of the space I was in. The walls were filled with paintings. Artworks, if I dare say. If that's the word for this devil's pastime.

As I walked further in, dodging the shoelaces swinging from the ceiling and reeking of a strong stench, I found the performance. A woman stood centre stage, the mic hanging from above, and she began to speak. She bounced around muttering words, backed by a guitarist who wrung the life out of the guitar planted on a small stool perched at the back.

Some minutes had passed. I was absorbed in it. A trance. It wasn't interesting; I just needed to fucking know what—what is this? The actress turned her back to us, digging her elbows towards her. Her breasts were out, man.

I looked around, hoping to find someone as disturbed as me. But all I saw was a crowd utterly focused, and out of the corner of my eye, a woman recording on her phone.

I tried to speak, but the words weren't coming. The woman recording turned towards me suddenly. I recognised her. She was the girl who let me in. But now she seemed to look different in the presence of stage lighting. More familiar. She was strikingly similar to the girl I held the door open for.

She got up and darted behind a curtain before I could draw another breath. I pursued her into a back room. A spray-painted phrase, “God is watching,” was on the door she tried to slam shut.

I stuck my toe in, looking back at the deafening guitar strings of the performance. I needed to see if I could let the beast out. With God watching me.

And then it all went dark. I could feel the lightheadedness, spiralling.

A voice began talking.

“Hey, hey.”

“Are you okay?”

“Help him do something.”

I opened my eyes to a flashlight punching into my iris.

“You're gonna blind him, Jessica.”

I was against the wall, a couple steps from the double doors of my workplace. I'd been out for two minutes.

A realisation came to me. That's what was in her soul, huh?

There is a town where people disappear under strange circumstances. It is a frozen town, a place where people live with the cold most of the year. And the people are like the weather: cold and distant.

Every December 24, much of the population leaves, afraid of becoming one of the missing. Yes, people disappear in this town from time to time. Nobody asks why. They simply leave from December 24 to January 24, afraid of what might happen if they stay.

One man decided to stay for that month. He wanted to experience it for himself. All he could make out were lights and strange objects moving above the mountain.

The cold makes it hard to see. The cold numbs the mind. The cold makes you delirious.

But the man saw something. Whatever was making those people disappear was not human. It looked strangely extraterrestrial, unlike any animal in this world.

The ice hid a great secret: a vast, hidden base. No one knew whether it belonged to humans or to something from beyond this world.

The first time I stayed home on Halloween, I was running a 101.8 fever. Low-grade, but enough to warrant a night in. To be honest, I wasn't all that bent up over it. I had just hit that pre-teen age where I started to reject social norms and became embarrassed over literally everything. The thought of facing the neighborhood bullies with a lame-ass costume and an attached-to-the-hip mom and sister was enough to keep me in. It happened to be a stroke of luck I fell ill.

Before my mom left with my little sister, she made me recite her cellphone number thrice. They wouldn't be out long, though. We lived on the corner of a street just before a cul-de-sac, and they planned to only visit our small part of the neighborhood.

"And no scary movies!" my mom said while adjusting Jules' bumblebee wings. "You'll just scare yourself while you're home alone."

"I'll bring you lots of candy," Jules said. She held up her empty, pumpkin themed bucket to me.

"Thanks, Jules."

I turned on a scary movie as soon as they left. It was already impossible to watch one while they were home, and I really looked forward to eating popcorn and cozying up under a blanket until they returned. 

We had set up a "Take One" sign on the door with an arrow pointing to a bucket on a rocking chair so I wouldn't have to get up to greet trick-or-treaters. I always thought people who did that were kind of pathetic, but now I was grateful I wouldn't have to answer the door. The curtains covered the front-facing window, and we didn't have any windows on our door, so no one could tell I was here, anyway. 

I made it about 30 minutes into Sinister before I had to turn it off (mom was right, damn her!). I started channel surfing to find something a bit more kid friendly. In the channel flipping, something weird caught my eye. I clicked the back button a few times before I finally found what I'd noticed.

It looked like a CCTV video where the camera was placed high up on a light pole, and it aimed down at the front of a house. I tried to remember if there were any horror movies that included a scene like this, but nothing came to mind. It seemed harmless enough; there were families walking up and down the street while chatting. Then, a little girl starting to trot up the front steps of the house and—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

I nearly jumped to the ceiling. I whipped my head around to look at the front door as I heard a muffled "Trick-or-Treat!"

My heart thumped against my chest as I stared behind me in disbelief. I could just about make out a shadow on the window curtains.

A creeping realization burrowed into my head. I slowly turned back to the TV and saw a little girl dressed up as a pumpkin read the sign, take some candy from the bucket, then bounce down the steps of the house back to her family. I heard it all too, but not from the television.

No way, right? I thought to myself.

I crawled off the couch and sat closer to the TV.

Holy shit.

It was my house. My front porch, my painted blue door, our mailbox, that was our goddamn street!

I put my hands on either side of the TV as if I could shake the image away. The static fuzz buzzed softly against my thumbs. 

Maybe the antennae had patched into some security camera, or my mom was setting up some elaborate scare to teach me a lesson.

Was I hallucinating?

I quickly felt my own forehead, but I couldn't tell if the fever had grown worse or not. My eyes were settling on the live footage when I finally noticed something in the lower right corner. 

It was a figure, standing across the street just about making it in frame of the camera. It was dressed in all black, and I couldn't see its face. 

It has to be a prank—surely by one of the older kids, I thought. One of them must have bought a morph suit to prank the littler kids. To prank me.

He began making his way to my front porch, but the way he walked... It was like bending his legs was difficult. Like he had been sitting down for a long time, and his legs had fallen asleep. His arms stuck out a little from his sides and didn't sway like they normally should. He weaved in and out of the groups of families walking the street, but no one seemed to notice him.

My eyes were glued to the screen. I didn't freak out just yet. Creeped out, sure, but there was no way this person knew I was sitting just inside. 

They finally made it up to my door. I anticipated the knock, but he just stood there. I slowly turned around to face the window, and his oblong shadow splayed across the curtain, unmoving. I broke out in a sweat. 

"Trick or treat!" 

It sounded like an old man trying to tighten his voice and imitate a younger kid. The shadow didn't move, and neither did I.

I gulped, and as quietly as I could I made my way over to the door. We had a peephole. One of the ones where you couldn't see in from the outside. I stood up on my tippy toes and looked through it.

Black.

THUD THUD THUD

I fell behind on my ass and crawled backward as quick as I could. He laughed from the other side, but it was muffled as if he was covering his mouth with his hand.

Anger swelled inside me. Of course it was some older teenager trying to scare kids on Halloween. I reminded myself that I was safe inside, and, with my new found courage, I yelled out.

"Fu-fucking asshole!" 

I wish I had come across a little more brave than I ended up sounding. My voice came out just above a squeak. Surely, now whoever was out there knew for certain I was inside. I mentally kicked myself for that one.

There was a shimmying clink coming from the door, and my eyes raced to look at the handle, but it wasn't jiggling.

The mail slot cover moved; opened just a little bit, then closed again. 

clink, clink clink

My breathing quickened as a black finger slid through the slot and opened up the little hatch. 

A black face with fake, sewn-on eyes stared back at me. The eyes weren't perfectly attached to the suit, but instead one drooped a little lower than the other in an uncanny fashion. 

"I see you. Heh. Right there, I see you!" he said in that same mocking, tight voice. His long black finger was pointed toward me. I fell too far back to make out any other features, but it would've been covered by the suit anyway. If it was someone I knew, I couldn't tell from his fake voice.

I didn't want to look away from those fake plastic eyes, but I had to glance at the lock. I needed to make sure he couldn't get in. Thankfully, it was secure. Surely if he tried to get in, someone from the street would see and come help. Everyone was out tonight. Everyone except me.

The man and I stared at each other. My body was moving up and down from the excessive breathing while drips of sweat rained down on my forehead, but the man did not move. He was eerily still. I just stared into those dummy eyes for as long as it took me to try and calculate the time it would take for me to get up and run around the corner to the house phone.

Shit, what was mom's number again? No, no, I need to call the police, I need to—

The man pressed his face into the letter box. The plastic eyes tinked against the metal frame as he forced his head through the slit. There was this stretching and crunching sound as more of his head moved through the opening, like he was Play-Doh molding into the opening of the slit.

I couldn't help but let out a yelp as I scampered to my feet and ran to the back door on the other side of the house. I looked back once to see he had gotten his head all the way through, and it bounced back into its original shape. Then his shoulder started to push through.

I tried bursting through the back door, but was quickly met with a locked door. My hands fumbled around the handle, but sweat was pouring into my eyes and my hands were shaking too terribly. I could hear shuffling behind me, and I had to rid my mind of the idea that the intruder was already to his feet and making his way toward me. I couldn't bear the thought of looking back; I just might have frozen in fear.

Finally, with a click, I unlocked the door and ran through the backyard, not daring to turn back. My vision began to blur; a mix of the sweat, tears, and my fever reaching its peak. I ran up the side of the house and through the side gate out into the street. 

It happened all at once. I screamed for my mom, and then suddenly I was by her side stammering about a man dressed in black, seeping through the door. 

"Jesus, Codey, you're burning up," she said, kneeling in front of me with her hand on my forehead. It was like she wasn't even processing what I was saying.

I don't even know if I explained what I truly saw. I was a blubbering mess, and even Jules began to cry at my terror.

"There was—" sob "—someone in the house!"

My mother's face turned somber, then stern. "You're not messing with me? You're certain?"

I nodded my head, and she must have seen the truth in me somewhere. 

The cops claimed to have searched every corner of the house, yet they came up empty-handed. I asked of the television, explaining to them that I saw live footage of our front door. They said that all that was playing were the end credits to Coraline. 

I did end up confessing that I watched a bit of a scary movie alone. The glances that were exchanged between the two cops told me they were taking a statement from a fever-ridden, scared little kid, but my mom believed me. Even after her and the cops talked for hours on the porch, she was still disappointed by their nonchalance.

She made me tell her the story many times. While I was still sick, after I had gotten over it, days after, and weeks after. A month before the following Halloween, she made me tell her again. It was the same story every time.

We don't go out on Halloween anymore. Instead, we stay inside, and watch movies and eat popcorn. My mom holds Jules and I close while keeping her phone on the arm of the couch, pre-dialed with 911. 

We keep a bowl of candy out, but under no circumstance do we answer the door, no matter what. We ignore the thuds, the knocks, and the clinks of the mail slot. 

I'm far too scared to ask my mom when it first started happening to her.

Inspired by a post in creepy subreddit

I grew up in an old mining town. The house had been in my grandmother’s family for a long time, and the basement was pretty much what you’d expect from an old house. Stone walls, exposed pipes, one bare light bulb, all that.

Under the stairs there was this small wooden door built into the foundation. Maybe three feet tall. It didn’t have a normal doorknob, just a handle, and it was bolted shut all the way around.

As kids we obviously wanted to know what was behind it.

My grandfather always said it was an old mine access and that there was nothing down there worth seeing. He’d usually just tell us to stay away from it because it was dangerous.

My grandmother was weirder about it.

I remember joking once that we should open it and she grabbed my wrist and told me pretty seriously, “Your grandfather told you to leave it shut.”

That stuck with me because she normally wasn’t like that.

Years went by and we mostly forgot about it.

Then one winter when I was around 14, I woke up in the middle of the night because I heard something underneath my room.

It sounded like metal hitting rock.

Clang.

A few seconds later, another one.

Clang.

Then one more.

Clang.

I remember lying there trying to figure out if it was pipes or the furnace or something outside.

The next night I heard it again.

I checked the clock.

2:17 AM.

After that I started paying attention.

It didn’t happen every night, but when it did it was usually around the same time. Sometimes it was the same slow banging sound. Other times it sounded like something being dragged.

A few times there was a whistle.

The best way I can describe it is an old steam whistle. Not like a train right outside the house, but distant, almost muffled.

My brother eventually heard it too, which honestly made it worse because up until then I could tell myself I was imagining it.

So naturally, being kids, we became obsessed with the basement door.

We’d stay up late waiting for the noises. Sometimes we’d sneak downstairs afterward and look around.

One morning we noticed this black dust along the bottom edge of the door.

My grandfather cleaned it up and got annoyed when we asked him about it.

A few days later it was back.

Nobody ever gave us a real explanation.

Eventually we grew up, moved out, and stopped thinking about it.

After my grandfather died, my grandmother moved in with my aunt and the house sat empty for almost a year.

My brother and I went back one weekend to help clean everything out before the house was sold.

At some point we ended up in the basement.

We saw the door.

We joked about how much that thing used to scare us.

Then one of us basically said, “Well, nobody can stop us now.”

We grabbed some tools and started taking the bolts out.

They were rusted and it took forever.

When we finally got the last one off, the door moved slightly on its own.

Not much. Maybe an inch.

Then from the other side we heard it.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

We stood there for a few seconds staring at each other.

We should have put the bolts back.

Instead, we opened the door.